1059: Trump's Epstein Doodle Grosser than Expected

20:54He's like, but we're not we're not talking about excessive force right here. And Noah Feldman points out in Bloomberg, too, that it is rightly seen as this is going to allow racial profiling in Los Angeles and all over the country. But he said also the way that the ruling is written, it means that they can do this to anyone. Anyone. They can make up any kind of category of people that the government, because reasonable suspicion is a very low standard. And so, you know, he was like, and it's weird that we're, he's like, we're talking about it because it's immigrants. And so we're like, oh, well, if you speak Spanish and if you're, you know, your last name, whatever he goes, but it would be plainfully unlawful for the government to stop all young black men in high crime neighborhoods.

21:30Or for that matter, all Patagonia clad white guys on Wall Street in a suite for insider training. But that is now what the Supreme Court has set out. So anyone walking around, they can stop you and be like, well, we have reasonable suspicion based on blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And that's it. And then until you prove that you're a citizen, not until they check it, but until you prove it, then you can be held.

21:49Jon Favreau:And they often won't let people provide proof of citizenship. Right. There's an example in one of the, I think it was the AP story today, where the guy gave his ID to these cops or the ICE agents. They held onto it for 20 minutes before letting him go and then kept his ID. Yeah. Yeah. And even before you get to like broader ways in which this could be abused, what is the advice? Is the advice everyone needs to carry their papers? Are we at the phase of the Trump government takeover where like you have to carry papers with you? a classic sign of an authoritarian state that you need to have a piece, you have your documentation with you because at any time you could be stopped.

22:27And if you don't have your papers, if you can't prove you're a citizen or have valid immigration status, you could be held for hours or days. Do you know your parents' number? Do you know your sister's number? Do you know your friend's number to go into your apartment and go find the documentation? Because if you don't, and it's the weekend, you may be here for a while. Yeah, it's fucking outrageous. One of the more surprising immigration stories over the last few days was the federal raid on a Hyundai battery plant in Georgia, where agents detained 475 people, the majority of whom are workers from South Korea.

22:56Trump was asked about this on Sunday. Here's the really detailed cogent explanation he gave. If you don't have people in this country right now that know about batteries, maybe we should help them along and let some people come in and train our people. But it's going to be very interesting what comes out. I think we may have learned something because when they come here and there's nobody that can do what they're supposed to be doing and they bring people, those people can also teach our people. You know, it's complicated stuff. And something very interesting could come out of that. He's such a fucking idiot.

23:31So you're saying other people who aren't Americans may have skills that could be useful to Americans and America? And maybe we should bring them here for a bit?

23:39Jon Favreau:The reason we're not bringing them here is because your administration has a cap on H-1B visas that are used for this kind of specialized work and training. That's what those people, these Koreans didn't have, which is why they were arrested for misusing a visa and are now being deported. Which you told the doofuses at the All In podcast that you were 100 % for. I just, it's like, it's so infuriating. I mean, yeah. Tommy, you were saying this morning that this is now like a full-fledged international incident. Yeah, it's a huge thing. First of all, just roll back the tape. Like under Biden and then Trump, South Korea was asked to invest hundreds of billions of dollars in the U.S.

24:11Jon Favreau:And they did so. This battery plant in Georgia is part of that. And it's supposed to be exactly what Trump wants. It's the way you buy yourself out of some, you know, 40 percent tariff or whatever. And then these arrests happened. And these like they don't just arrest these people and like quietly send them home. They shackled them hand to waist to toe and released a like hype video of it. And that video just exploded across Korea. and the media and the opposition political parties went insane, understandably, because it's a huge insult to these individuals, to the country, to this like U.S.-South Korea alliance that's supposed to be rock solid.

24:44Jon Favreau:And all of these companies and political leaders are wondering, like, what is the deal we cut with this guy, right? I thought we were supposed to invest and get not a favor, but like get treated decently. And so what was it last month? I think the Korean president was in the Oval Office talking to Trump. And now it's just viewed as this gigantic betrayal. And I think this kind of thing, like, it doesn't go away. So, like, this will bear out over time and really harm the U.S.-Korean relationship. Did you see one of the politicians in South Korea said they should start looking at Americans who were teaching on visas over in South Korea and, like, maybe, you know, send them back home?

25:23It's like, I get that. I mean, we have 28 ,500 troops sitting in South Korea.

25:27Jon Favreau:There's a lot of reasons not to be dickheads. Yeah, the shackling of these people as if there were like some sort of danger. They're there working in a battery plant. We sought these deals, these partnerships to have these battery facilities. Some American companies were part of them in part because it allowed them to hire people outside of their unions, right? That's how some of these people come in to do these jobs. The other part of this too is when Trump is speaking here, it's just one of those moments where you see him remembering a meeting he was in, where he was explained some complication of this, right?

26:00Like, because he's aware that this is an international incident and he's aware that they want these plans to succeed and that this looks bad, right? So he's like trying to make some reference to how we really need these jobs. Like, we're not trying to shut down these plans. This is important. This is good. We got to get other people. But like, he has no familiarity with the context or H1BVs. He can't retain any of this information. So it was a good example of that.

26:19Jon Favreau:He has like a new industry, right? This is new like EV battery industry. It's specialized work. Of course, you need people to come in and train you into how to create the factory that will then employ all these people. But like his administration is the one making it harder for these companies to do that. And he just doesn't seem to understand anything. No substance. Or the idea that maybe this is not zero sum. Maybe the bringing in South Koreans to help teach Americans how to make batteries and then giving them the privilege of living here as well can benefit Americans and South Koreans and our whole economy.

26:48And it's always the workers too who are the ones who get shackled and carted off, right? Like at the meatpacking plants or all these other places. It's amazing how it's a crime being inflicted on the companies.

27:24therapy goals. A short questionnaire helps identify your needs and preferences, and their 10 plus years of experience in industry-leading match fulfillment rate means they typically get it right the first time. If you aren't happy with your match, switch to a different therapist at any time from their tailored recommendations. BetterHelp is fully online, and you can pause your subscription whenever you need to and switch therapists anytime at no extra cost. With over 30 ,000 therapists, BetterHelp is the world's largest online therapy platform, having served over 5 million people globally. It's convenient too.

27:53You can join a session with a therapist at the click of a button, helping you fit therapy into your busy life. Therapy's great. You could use it. You might not think you could use it. That's probably most people. But once you go, once you give it a whirl, you're like, oh, this is cool. I get to talk to someone about my problems and they're paid to listen. And if you feel like, I don't want to get out of my house and go meet someone at an office, this is what BetterHelp is for. You can just do it online. As the largest online therapy provider in the world, BetterHelp can provide access to mental health professionals with a diverse variety of expertise.

28:25Find the one with BetterHelp. Our listeners get 10 % off their first month at BetterHelp.com. That's BetterHelp.com.

28:34Jon Favreau:Hey, it's Tommy from Pod Save America and Pod Save the World. Last year, 2 ,500 people joined us at Crooked Con for conversations with some of the smartest organizers, least annoying politicians, and most interesting voices in politics to talk about how to fix this mess. Even President Obama made a surprise appearance. We're doing it all again, November 5th to 7th in Washington, D.C., with even more podcasts, panels, and workshops. Plus, there'll be drinks, which we'll need after the midterms, no matter which way they go. Get tickets at CrookedCon.com. If you're a friend of the pod, you get a discount, too.

29:04Jon Favreau:See you there.

29:08So let's talk about the peace president's new Department of War, which is what the Defense Department used to be called prior to 1949. Trump signed an executive order on Friday to rename the department, which he can't actually do without an act of Congress. So the EO just says it's a, quote, secondary title. This did not stop Pete Hegseth from changing his Twitter handle from atsecdef to atsecwar. He also shot a video of the nameplate being changed on his office door. Defense.gov now takes you to war.gov, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. What do we think of the rebrand, guys? I don't care. I find myself not caring.

29:45I see people being like, well, I can't believe he's doing this. I find it all pretty confusing because even as he lectured and talked down to that reporter, he doesn't want to be a war president. He constantly talks about how he's ending wars, but yet war seems tougher than defense. The whole thing is garbled and nonsense. It's really fundamentally not the name of the Department of Defense, which it continues to be. It is a nickname. So he can call it whatever he wants. Like, I have trouble getting spun up about this.

30:11Jon Favreau:Yeah. I mean, the National Security Act of 1947 and the amendment in 49 that changed the name, that was not just a rebrand. That was like a fundamental restructuring of the way we do defense in national security. It put the Army and the Navy and the Air Force under the SECDF, and then it created the NSC, the National Security Council, and it created the CIA. So that was a substantial change in our history. This is just, you're right, it's just a nickname. They don't really even change the name to Department of Defense. So I'm with you. Like, I don't give a shit. I do find it just confusing, though.

30:38Jon Favreau:It's like he is going for this peace mantle. He is sending the U.S. military into American cities. Why do this rename now? I guess they just think it sounds cool. I wonder if he started from the war on Chicago meme and then worked backwards to make that work by saying now you know what the Department of War is all about. Clearly they love calling it the Department of War because they want to be bellicose and tough. And the whole thing about peace is just that the way that you get to peace is by being big and strong and tough and kicking the shit out of everyone else and being able to bomb everyone else into submission.

31:15Jon Favreau:Do they think Vietnam went well for us? Do you think he's seen Apocalypse Now? Does he know that it's an anti-war movie? Yeah, no. They would say, well, that was because that was because of the department name change right that things worked better when it was a department of women right right right uh so the trump administration did decide to take the pentagon's new name out for a spin by deploying eight warships to the caribbean and then killing 11 people on a speedboat who were suspected of trafficking drugs from venezuela to trinidad the administration didn't bother to provide any kind of legal rationale for the killing though jd vance did get into a twitter fight with a krassenstein brother over the whole thing uh the vice president tweeted that quote killing cartel members who poison our fellow citizens is the highest and best use of our military.

31:56To which the Krasenstein brother, not sure which one, responded that killing another country's civilians without due process is called a war crime. To which Vance replied, I don't give a shit what you call it. And then I guess he took the rest of the Saturday off. Here's what Trump said about whether he's planning more military strikes against a country we haven't declared war against. Are you considering attacking the cartels inside of Venezuela? You attacked? What are you going to find out? You're going to find out. I'll tell you what. Whenever he says you're going to find out, That's a yes.

32:24Yeah, for sure. Thoughts on a preemptive war of choice against Venezuela, Tom?

32:28Jon Favreau:I mean, it is. When you look at the hardware they're sending down to the Caribbean, it's eight Navy destroyers. Apparently, a nuclear sub is on the way. What? I've read that in, I think, Newsweek or CNN. Ten F-35 fighter jets were just moved to Puerto Rico as part of whatever this new war is. And again, you don't need a sub. You don't need an F-35 stealth fighter jet, fifth generation fighter jet to take out a boat full of drugs. Like this would be something you would do with a helicopter or a drone. It's unnerving. And so I find it unnerving. Nicolas Maduro, the president of Venezuela, it's quite unnerving.

33:03Jon Favreau:He thinks it's the threat of an invasion. He's talking about deploying this kind of hybrid militia. He's constructed, I think, 4.5 million people all over the country in case they are invaded. And other leaders in the Caribbean are all freaked out, too. They're kind of like, you know, what's happening here? Trump, you know, remember he was we were threatening to retake the Panama Canal like two weeks ago. Right. So this is not this is odd for them. Look, I have felt since the campaign that there was a lot of momentum towards militarizing the war on drugs. Remember, they talked about it all the time on the campaign trail.

33:34Jon Favreau:The polling is surprisingly good for some pieces of this plan. And I fear that Trump is going to love looking decisive in the press coverage and releasing these snuff videos of boats blowing up. And before long, we're going to be hitting sites in Mexico or Venezuela or Ecuador, not just international waters. And, you know, a lot of sources told CNN that the strike was the beginning of an effort that could include regime change. So it's pretty scary stuff. And like, look, none of this is going to reduce the demand for drugs in the U.S. it seems unlikely to me that blowing up drug boats is going to do more to stop the flow of drugs than interdicting them would.

34:10Jon Favreau:But I guess we'll see. But right now, we're just doing summary executions of drug runners now. That's what we're doing. Also, what do you think is going to happen with destabilized regimes and people who are desperate? Where are they going to go? Is that going to reduce the push towards our border? A nice regime channel and toppling of the government in Venezuela. Yeah, that will send a lot of people north. They've offered no explanation for why they couldn't just interdict the boat, right? Why couldn't they just interdict the boat? Men with guns jump on the boat, say, give me all your drugs and you're all coming with me, arrest them.

34:43Yeah, because we were aware of where the boat was. That's how we killed everyone on board. And look, like we just like to your point about the war on terror earlier, like we just watch this language come to me in whatever they want. And you just describe the people on this boat as narco terrorists. I don't know what that term means. I know what it means in the context of like the the brutality of living amongst drug cartels in in Mexico or South American country. I don't know what it means in this context, because I I don't I don't think it's the fucking kingpins on the speedboat. No running the drugs between between countries.

35:18It's and so you're you're blowing up people that are part of a of a serious crime that we have a huge problem in trying to address. But but like these are the people that deserve to die. And they just say, well, they're narco-terrorists. So yeah, they can die. We can kill them. We can kill them from above. Why not?

35:35Jon Favreau:And they lay this process where we get to designate you a terrorist if you're part of Trondayaragua. Then we do a secret directive that says the military can kill these terrorists who are part of these gangs. Maduro is connected to the gang. So you create this daisy chain of legal justification or authority in air quotes, and then you just start killing people? Yeah, no, it's as simple as we think this person's bad. They did something horrible that you think is horrible because you think drug trafficking is bad and bad people are bad. And so we killed them. And so if you think that it's bad that we killed them, then you must love drug traffickers.

36:06Right. And we can't believe a word that they say. Right. You know, at first, when The New York Times wrote about this, there was an we talked about this on the last episode. There was an official who used to work on sort of in the government, in our government, on narco trafficking and said, like, that doesn't seem right. that usually that's probably a boat full of migrants and maybe not. And then there was actual reporting from the town in Venezuela where it left. And it's like, no, this is probably a drug boat. But it's like they already designated Andre Romero Hernandez as Trendy Aragua and shipped him off to Seacott to be tortured, even though he was clearly not Trendy Aragua.

36:43So how are we supposed to believe our government now when they tell us who's a narco-terrorist that they just murdered?

36:47Jon Favreau:This is the Rodrigo Duterte Philippines model of death penalty for drug dealers, which Trump has long pined after and talked about. Loved. Often talked about. Did you see what I think it was Rand Paul posted in response? I thought it was like kind of heartfelt and from his libertarian side that I thought was like exactly right. Yeah. This is the highest use of our military? Extra judicial killings? JD, I don't give a shit. Vance says killing people he accuses of a crime is the highest and best use of the military. Then he goes, did he ever read To Kill a Mockingbird? Yeah. Jump to Harper Lee so fast.

37:20Jon Favreau:But he's right. Like, did you ever wonder what might happen And if the accused were immediately executed without trial of representation, like, yeah, it seems like a problem. And I forgot what the White House tweeted to Rand, but it was something like, you pussy. I didn't see their response. Like, as usual, oh, yeah, they just, they went nuclear on Rand Paul. Well, Rand Paul did recently create an entire media cycle about getting disinvited from a picnic. Do you remember that? Yeah, that is, Joe. He's told he couldn't come to a congressional picnic. It's a fair point. He's a complicated guy. Complicated guy.

37:46Jon Favreau:Good points sometimes. What happened with that Leaf thing? Remember when he got in a fight over leaves? Yeah, I'm not kidding about that. I don't know if you're never found out what happened. No one ever knows. It's been bad. All right. It's been a while since we've talked about Congress. Once known as a co-equal branch. A word that never made sense. Yeah, that is. That co-did nothing. They're back in the news. They're back in the news only because they must soon fulfill one of their only remaining duties. Funding the federal government. Money runs out on October 1st, which means a shutdown is officially looming.

38:19The shutdown is looming. We got a loomer. We got a loomer. The question is, will Chuck Schumer's Senate Democrats provide enough votes to fund the government like they did back in March? Or will they use their leverage to demand concessions from Trump and the Republicans? Stay tuned. Ezra Klein wrote an essay in the New York Times over the weekend where he said this, quote, I'm not going to tell you I am absolutely sure Democrats should shut the government down. I'm not. At the same time, joining Republicans to fund this government is worse than failing at opposition. It's complicity. Democratic leaders have had six months to come up with a plan.

38:48if there's a better plan than a shutdown great but if the plan is still nothing then democrats

38:53Jon Favreau:need new leaders thoughts if you shut down the government it's really hard to um insider trade and make money off the stock market i i thought he had a serious joke face gone how are you gonna high frequency trade if you shut down the government no i like i've read ezra's piece i'm like i read ezra's piece i'm 100 with him on the description of the problem Yeah. Description of the moment. The idea that we can't do business as usual, that we can't legitimize this lawless administration. Then it's like, what's the plan? You know what I mean? Like, we're going to break out of prison. What's the plan?

39:28Jon Favreau:Because like, what is our demand? What is the end game? What do we want? What's the political plan to work backwards from there? I truly have no idea. And like, I just, part of what he says, he's like, I think the shutdown would focus the attention of the media on kind of like the merits of what's happening. I don't have a lot of faith in that having been through some shutdowns like I think they tend to report on it as a fight I also don't think we have great messengers who would be leading that fight I'm not like if we're doing a UFC match on the White House lawn and Chuck Schumer versus Trump in terms of You know getting the media's attention.

39:59Jon Favreau:I don't think we're winning that one So like I'm with them, but I still think we have some work to do Yeah, like I get to the end of the the argument and I think man This is a great argument for having a time machine and going back six months and figuring out an argument we'd slowly be making up until this moment for why we should walk away. Chris Murphy's been out there. And this was in the original reporting about him being the kind of lone vote against compromise in the committee. And I went and pulled it because it stuck with me at the time. And he said, every single day, there's new evidence that our democracy is failing.

40:30Every time that we go along with these appropriation bills, we're putting a bipartisan veneer on the endorsement of an illegal process that ultimately is part of a campaign to destroy our democracy. That is true. It's a good point. It's a true statement. It's a good point. And, you know, we went through this debate. Sometimes I wonder if, like, that's all you need. Yeah, it could be. That's the only explanation. And I find that, like, I get to the end of this and I feel the same uncertainty and I worry, too, about the people that are meant to be our leaders through any kind of shutdown. And I think, okay, that makes the right decision uncertain from a strategic standpoint.

41:03But the moral argument is simple and clear. And if we don't know the right strategy, we're not positive of what the right thing to do is from a tactical standpoint, shouldn't we rest on what is obviously the truth about the circumstance? Yeah. So I find myself agreeing with everything you said, Tommy, about the challenges with this. Of course, we don't have better messengers, unfortunately. I don't think there's a good plan to do something that we could declare victory over. I don't know how you get out of it once you get into it. And I do think it's, as Ezra puts it, an attentional event. I don't think it's – I think you're right that, like, it's attentional for a while.

41:46Like a week. And then who knows? Now, when parks are closed and people aren't getting their checks, then maybe the detention comes and who knows if it's good or bad. And that depends on the messengers, right? Then I'm trying to play out, like, another step after that. So like, what are the, what are the downsides of the shutdown? Right. So, uh, the democratic party has the lowest approval rating and since we've all been alive. And so I don't know how much lower we can get. Um, we, uh, we'll show you what, yeah, I was going to say, it's sort of like what Trump always likes to say, what do you got to lose?

42:16Right. Um, macrons at 15%. Right. And so, uh, we, uh, briefly, um, contributed to a government shutdown in 2018, which as were not he doesn't talk about us but he talks about the 2018 shutdown over a week over the dreamers remember we had the waffle house we had all the same those of you who've been with us all this time you'll remember it um and uh it didn't work it was a failure government shut down and then it was embarrassing the democrats did usual thing which is like yeah we'll kind of shut it down but now we're nervous so we'll open it back up and um you know it was a loss for the democrats but we kicked ass in the midterms it was fine and that was closer to the midterms than this one is Right.

42:52So I'm trying to figure out what it's like we have not taken a lot of risks as a party in the second Trump term. And we have not done any big moves. And I'm not sure how to get out of this one. And I'm not sure that we could declare victory. But I do wonder if now is the time to start throwing a few more things at the wall to see if they stick. I don't know. But I feel the same. Like, I don't envy like it. Like I don't feel like spitting fire at the people that would disagree there. And part of the problem is what the Democratic message should be. And in a shutdown, right, what are we going for?

43:24What are we fighting for? Where do we think there's any chance of us eking out a claim of victory for the shutdown? Actual practical results? I'm not sure. But part of the problem is that it's not just that we don't think our leaders are going to be up for that fight on the White House law. And part of it is that like our leadership doesn't have the same kind of like constituency that Donald Trump has. And I really have like keep coming back to this, which is like I think of all the people that don't just like Donald Trump, but love Donald Trump. And that are really kind of just enthusiastic, engaged supporters of Donald Trump and his project.

43:57And then I think of Democrats. I think of how few Democrats have any kind of base of support like that. I know AOC does, I know Bernie Sanders does, I know Barack Obama did. I know Mamdani is building that, right? But then I look at the leadership of the party and I know there are people that support them. I know there are people that are frustrated by any kind of criticism of them. We hear about from them all the time, right? But is there a sizable group of people that love and are ready to fight for Chuck Schumer and Akeem Jeffries and the leadership of the Democratic Party? No, no. And that's partially their fault.

44:26It's not all their fault. It's a collective failure to build a kind of collective story that gets people excited to be those kinds of messengers, which you need, especially online, in any kind of a shutdown.

44:35Jon Favreau:Even just even shy of love them or support them, like have faith in them that they understand the moment. Because remember the last time we all got very mad at Chuck Schumer about this. He did like a New York Times interview with and I think he sort of like was again doing that thing where they talked about how the fever was going to break among Republicans. And you don't know what I say to my colleagues behind the scenes. And you hear that stuff and you just like, no, man, I don't think that's going to happen. And also to your risk averse point. I mean, I do think like you are sending a signal to the Democratic base when Zoran Mamdani wins the Democratic primary in New York for the mayoral race and you will not endorse him.

45:14Jon Favreau:Why? Because your donors are telling you not to? What's happening here? What possible reason could there be for? Because we're holding out hope for Andrew Cuomo. For Andrew Cuomo. Right. And it's like, yeah, man. So you're right. There are reasons that are unfair that people don't have faith in them or aren't excited about them. And there's some reasons that are quite fair that people do not have faith and are not excited by. I think I think most of the reasons are quite fair. And by the way, with that, too, it's like I don't even know that it's as logical as, oh, I'm hearing from my donors. I think it is a fear of some segment of their of the of the people that elect him in New York.

45:44Right. It's like a kind of an instinct against anyone who's outside of like a core Democratic center left message that they just feel unsure about and are afraid of the consequences of getting by. We have talked before about how one of the big problems is that Democrats sometimes act like this is an emergency and Trump's a dictator's consolidating authoritarian power. And then sometimes it's like everything's fine today and whatever. Dan just wrote a message box about this, I think, last week, which was like the dividing line is with Democrats is do you believe we're an emergency or not? if they're all in for this, the one thing that's saying we're not going to fund this government because this is what he's doing.

46:26And, you know, he's placed an illegal tax on every American with a tariff. He's using our tax dollars to occupy our cities with our own military. He's using our tax dollars to create a secret police force that's rounding people up, right? And you could say that and be like, we're not funded. Like basically what Murphy said, we're not doing this and this is an emergency and we're going to start acting and we're going to not start, but we're going to act like it's an emergency, you know? And I could see that. The challenge there is all 47 Senate Democrats and all however many in the House have to go along with that and every governor.

47:00And you can't have some being like, yeah, well. Now, I want to know what you guys think about this. One of the suggestions is, and you can see the Democrats, some Democratic strategists, pollsters, senators coalescing around this is, all right, let's make, let's shut it down, But let's make the fight about extending the ACA subsidies because health care is the best issue, the best polling issue. And if we have a fight about, yeah, the reason we're shutting the government down is because they're going to if they get their way, everyone's premiums are going to go up. Now, for sure, great polling issue.

47:32I'm sure we're on the right side of that. Is that what do you guys think about that as the reason to shut down the government?

47:38Jon Favreau:I think on the merits, we're doing a good thing for the American people on the political hackish political view of it. We're bailing him out. We're helping him avoid something bad that would happen that he probably would have gotten blamed for. Oh, you're saying like if we win on that, it's really, yeah. Yeah, it has the feeling of, you know, we found our best testing message is we don't, Americans don't want troops in our streets. Americans want more affordable health care, right? And that line polls well. But haven't we, have we not like learned anything from a decade of losing while having the winning argument and the best message and the right policies and the and the winning polling story over and over and over and over again?

48:19Isn't there something missing here? And this one is a kind of an edge, more of an edge case, because that's a great thing to fight for. That's a great thing that we should fight for. And it's actually something where we could win. I see. In fact, if we do the shutdown, I think that should be part of the message. Of course. But should it be the only message? I worry about it, too. I do. It just feels It feels inauthentic. It feels fake. It just feels like you looked for something that felt safe that everybody could get behind. I said this to someone this morning, but I can see the end of this now.

48:47Chuck Schumer and Hakeem Jeffries declaring victory at a press conference for getting an 18-month extension on ACA subsidies that are smaller than they were before and means tested. While in the background, ICE is just throwing more people into a van.

49:03Jon Favreau:That sounds right. Yeah. And there's the troops, too. The troops are in the background, too. and they're like, we did it. There's a picture and Trump posts AI of himself having Schumer on a leash like the Gimp in Pulp Fiction. But you know what? But you know what? Then we get the message chesting out and everyone's like, boom, Democrats won on this one, guys. Republicans are now 30 points underwater on healthcare. So march off to the midterms. It's bleak, it's bleak. I know, and I hate, like, yes, it's popular. I get it. And you are right. It is the actual right thing to do for people to fight for ACA subsidies.

49:36But there's a lot of other risks out there. And this government, if we think it's an illegal government and it's authoritarian takeover and all that stuff, then fucking act like it.

49:43Jon Favreau:We're not going to get credit from the people we need to get credit from. It's like, yeah. I know. I know. It's tough.

49:58Pod Save America is brought to you by Armra. Why are elite athletes, business moguls, and high performers using Armra Colostrum? Armour Colostrum is nature's first whole food with over 400 bioactive nutrients working at the cellular level to build lean muscle, accelerate recovery, and fuel performance, all without artificial stimulants or synthetic junk. Whether you're running a business training hard or just want an edge, Armour optimizes your body for peak output. Probiotics and other supplements are touted as a gut health solution, but most products on the market are dead before they even reach your gut.

50:29Armour Colostrum naturally fortifies your entire gut wall system and optimizes your whole body microbiome, which helps guard against irritants that can trigger digestive issues and compromise your immune system. Research has shown that colostrum also helps to enhance nutrient absorption. Let Armour Colostrum help you reach your goals by promoting lean muscle building and fueling better performance and faster recovery. Colostrum bioactives have also been shown to reactivate hair follicle stem cells and activate collagen production, promoting hair growth and enhancing skin radiance. We've worked out a special offer for our audience.

50:59Receive 30 % off your first subscription order. Go to armra.com slash crooked or enter crooked to get 30 % off your first subscription order. That's A-R-M-R-A dot com slash crooked.

51:13One thing we could shut the government down over, the Epstein files. Okay, good pivot. Because as we know, this is all a distraction from the Epstein files. On Monday, not long before we got into the studio, the House Oversight Committee Democrats said, they'd gotten a hold. See, who said Democrats can't do anything? They got a hold of the famed Epstein birthday book and other files from the Epstein estate. Shortly after that, they posted the image of FBI informant Donald Trump's now famous letter to Epstein with the figure of the naked woman drawn over it. Deputy White House Chief of Staff Taylor Budwich immediately tweeted that the signature shown in the letter isn't Trump's, even though it looks nearly identical to all the other times he signed personal notes with just his first name.

51:57Separately, Epstein survivor Lisa Phillips told our What A Day newsletter that the Epstein list that she and her fellow survivors are compiling will include 30 to 50 names of Epstein associates, though she stressed that in a bunch of cases, they don't know whether the people they're naming knew about the abuse going on or whether they were just billionaires who hung around a lot. What do you guys make of the infamous doodle and the chances that Trump can just make the scandal go away by saying that it's just a hoax, just fake? That's it. It's a gross doodle.

52:25Jon Favreau:It looks like an underage. Let's not call it a woman. It looks like an underage girl. There's no arms also. There's a debate about whether the signature is intended to be pubic hair or not. That's gross. The fact that we're having this conversation is gross. Also, I don't know if you guys saw this. The Wall Street Journal also now has a photo of someone holding up a poster board size check for$22 ,500, which has been mocked up to appear that it was sent from Trump to Epstein. beneath it there's a handwritten caption that says jeffrey showing early talents with money plus women sells fully depreciated name of a person that's been redacted to donald trump for 22 500 so yeah there's that was a funny joke but mocked up check of trump selling him a woman i haven't what more do we need to see i'm learning that from you now it is disgusting yeah they also they also the journal also compared the handwriting of course to other letters that he signed and it's including Hillary Clinton.

53:19And all the fucking asshole MAGA influencers and media types and everyone on Fox probably now in the White House, they're all showing signatures of Donald Trump with his full first name and last name, which of course look different than letters that he signs with just his first name and say, we got him, we got him. This is so asinine that the idea that they're going to claim that the signature doesn't match and therefore it's a forgery. So you're saying that the Wall Street Journal in cahoots with God knows who went into this giant scheme to pretend Donald Trump wrote the letter for a decade and a half.

53:50No, no, they're saying that 20 years ago, someone planted this in the birthday book thinking that maybe someday Donald Trump would become president and this would become a problem for him. And so this extraordinary act of sabotage, which has been going on for so long, that no one involved in this scheme had the wherewithal to go look up the way Donald Trump signs his name in personal letters. So they did everything except that last tiny little step. I do appreciate that the Wall Street Journal is really trolling Trump by showing that the way he signed his name personally to Hillary Clinton, Epstein and George Conway, which I fucking love.

54:27Jon Favreau:Beautifully done. Chef's kiss. I'll tell you what's on the media, the MAGA media front, though, what's happening here is the MAGA influencers for hire, the ones you can buy and sell, the Charlie Kirks, the Benny Johnsons, they are going along with this spin. Right. Right. The more extreme, the most extreme MAGA media people are not buying it. The Candace Owens is the Nick Fuentes is they are saying this is bullshit, guys. This is crazy. They think you're stupid. You're idiots. And MAGA is over. Let's move on to the next thing. And that there is going to be second and third order effects to that, too, because those like neo-Nazi anti-Semitic voices are going to be seen as credible or more credible than the kind of even more mainstream MAGA types.

55:11Benny Johnson, before, back when Mike Johnson, for a brief day, decided to tell everyone that Donald Trump was actually an FBI informant on the whole Epstein affair before he sort of, you know, cleaned that up today. Benny Johnson said, you know what? What Mike Johnson said, it's just proving that the real hero in this whole story is Donald Trump.

55:33Jon Favreau:He's the undisputed hero in the Epstein saga. Thank you. Undisputed hero. He's the undisputed hero. We've all been saying it. Yeah. What is it like to say something like that and then turn the computer off and go live a part of your day and maybe lay down at night and stare up at the ceiling? What is that like? I hope that he at least turns to everyone in his close circle and laughs and was like, did you think they bought that? I hope that he's at least aware of it. I think he's living a very inauthentic life in many ways, unfortunately. Yeah, well, that was a good one. So I don't know. I mean, for a while I was like, is the Epstein thing going to go away?

56:07But like we've got after the Survivors press conference and after this, the birthday letter has come back and the oversight committee, Jim Comer has been like sort of going along with some of this. Like, I don't know. I think he's. I also think sometimes Republicans underestimate how much how much Democrats care about other Democrats, because I feel like one of the looming threats is that they're going to like, well, they're going to bring in Bill Clinton. and I don't think anyone gives a fuck. Nope, do it. And they're right. They're going to like, oh no, you're not, not our precious billionaires.

56:42Like they're going to go after the people they're going to go after. Like great. If you were involved in fucking Epstein shaginess, fuck you. If you were abusing children, yeah, go to jail. Who cares? Go to jail. And so I guess the threat is that they're going to be like going after Democrats too in these hearings. Because that's how they think about politics and polarization, right? It's our team. We must defend our team. And by the way, speaking of the Epstein list, one of the things, I don't know if you guys talked about this last week, but Thomas Massey talked about the list that Lisa Phillips and these survivors might generate and saying that because they might be afraid to release it because they could be sued, that Massey and Marla Taylor Greene, both of whom we always liked.

57:13She spoke at that press conference too. Yeah, could potentially just read the names on the House floor because they're protected. Yeah, yeah, yeah, we talked about that. And Thomas Massey, he doesn't give a fuck. No, no.

57:24Jon Favreau:Well, you got a bunch of MAGA billionaires raising like I think$2 million at this point for super PACs to run against him. And he's like, I don't care, whatever. Yeah, no, I do think there's an open question of how much attention will this get? Because Fox News is never going to touch it, right? The Benny Johnson of the world, the Charlie Kirks, they've all shown that they're now on Team Trump. They don't care what's said. I think there will be these fringe people that are out there talking about it. There'll also be like the comedian space, like Tim Dillon, right? We'll be hammering this. He's kind of like a Trump-friendly comedy, kind of hard to pin down views guy.

57:52Jon Favreau:I wonder if Rogan will pick this up. Hopefully for a few of them, they'll be like, the scales have fallen off my eyes. Donald Trump is a liar. he was absolutely 100 % a part of whatever Epstein was doing. We know this now. Can I just do one more thing before we move off this? Everyone on the internet is dunking on J.D. Vance's tweet. Oh, yeah. Well-deserved. When the Wall Street Journal first broke the story about the letter, the birthday wish, whatever you're fucking calling it, he wrote, Forgive my language, but this story is complete and utter bullshit. The Wall Street Journal should be ashamed for publishing it.

58:24Where is this letter? Would you be shocked to learn they never showed it to us before publishing it? Does anyone honestly believe this sounds like Donald Trump? It's so... He's such a... He's so fucking smug and condescending, even when he is so wrong all the time. It's really also the, like, would you believe that they didn't show us the letter? Like, it's smug and also just he does play on... He just has so little respect for the people that support Donald Trump, right? Because, no, a journalist doesn't provide you... I'm sure they got a detailed readout of the letter, all the details you could ever need to comment, of course.

59:02But he's saying they didn't show us the letter. But then there's the part of it where it's so fucking stupid. Like we talked, we did a video about this earlier. And it's like, do you not believe that the future will be as real as the past? Like we're going to move forward through time, JD. And eventually this will come to pass that, of course, the Wall Street Journal owned by Rupert Murdoch is not making it up. He's learned from Trump that you only have to get through the day, but he doesn't have Trump's skill at doing it. Correct. He's just not as skilled as fucking tech. He's a doof.

59:28Jon Favreau:I also like, look, they are trying to sell him as the MAGA heir apparent and that he will be the next up for the president. Right. And there was all this reporting early on. Like, is he a uniquely influential vice president? He's going and giving these speeches, trolling all of Europe. He's doing this. And now we know that Donald Trump does not respect him. They're like, you're going to be my human shield in the press on this Epstein thing. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I didn't do it. It's a fake fucking letter. Yeah. Go say whatever. Yeah. Gets gunned down on Twitter all day today. Trump has no respect for him.

59:57Jon Favreau:You don't have him lie for him. They didn't give a shit. You go do your long tweet threads to all of your former friends in the establishment that you used to hang out with. Give me 800 words to Curtis Yarvin. See if you can piss them off with your long tweets. Good luck, JD. Have fun at Disneyland. All right. Let's talk about Democrats in the midterms. I got to run to the bathroom so badly I'm going to die. One or two. Wow. Two, two, two. He says one, everybody. John and I are just going to vamp and see how this goes. Oh, my gosh. He just broke the combo of whiskey. Lovett's broken the Kamala whiskey, everyone.

1:00:30Jon Favreau:Ooh, that's a bad... Well, it can't get worse. Maybe it was number two. I wonder if he'd been taking creatine. He whipped the door open to... A little loud laugh down the hall. We got a bedlam here at Crooked Media HQ. Oh, it's the fucking clock. Oh, Lovett broke a clock. Oh, Lovett broke the clock. I'm assuming we're recording all this and I'm going to release it later. Yeah, yeah, no, of course. This is going in the episode. Lovett had to shit so bad that he ran from the office like I've never seen him run that fast ever. 4.05 p.m. Shattered a clock. Shattered a clock in the studio. I suppose we could do the red zone part without him.

1:01:11Jon Favreau:He's not going to contribute to that. Yeah, that's true.

1:01:16That's cool. He's got two sections to go. You know, you got to go. You got to go. I do. We've all been there. I've been there for sure.

1:01:22Jon Favreau:I have breaking news. We have a second J.D. Vance Epstein tweet has hit the timeline. The Democrats don't care about Epstein. They don't even care about his victims. That's why they were silent about it for years. The only thing they care about is concocting another fake scandal like Russiagate to smear President Trump with lies. No one is falling for this BS. That's J.D. Vance quote tweeting Caroline Levitt trying to pretend that the Wall Street Journal birthday card story was false. So rather than admit he is a shameless liar, J.D. Vance is digging in. Love it. How was your dump? So it was just a fantastic number one.

1:01:58Thank you, Tommy. Great. I'm not ashamed of, listen, everybody poops. Sometimes you gotta go. You all gotta go. What'd I do? You smashed the clock. How did that happen? You whipped open the door so hard. You've been lifting too many weights, man.

1:02:09Jon Favreau:Lay off the creatine. For two reasons.

1:02:14I just, I can't believe this was painted as a shit. There's no way to not defensively say I didn't take a shit just now. I hope it wasn't painted as a shit in the bathroom. Do you remember when we got that all staff email that said, FYI, they've closed the men rooms because they have to jet clean the whole plumbing system? That's tough. That's tough. Should we do the rest of the show? Yeah, let's do it. We're recording. All right. Let's talk about Democrats in the midterms. Annie Carney at the Times had an interesting roundup of the blue collar candidates running in some of the most competitive districts and how they're resonating with voters by talking about how much Republicans are screwing over working class people like them.

1:02:53Right on cue, Michigan Senate candidate Mallory McMorrow got some social media buzz over the weekend with a video that railed about corporate greed, pegged to week one of the NFL season. Football is back.

1:03:02Jon Favreau:And seven hours of commercial-free football is not. This is just the latest example of corporate greed ruining the things we love. Because it's not just commercials on TV. It's also your grocery store run. Or chicken wings are going to cost you 19 bucks. Do you think ad-supported NFL Red Zone is the new Cracker Barrel rebrand? What do you think? I like it. I like that ad. Also, Graham Plattner, Senate candidate from Maine, tweeted about Red Zone. For those that don't know, Red Zone is supposed to be seven hours of commercial-free football. That is the promise of Red Zone. Now, ESPN, they acquire the property, and they're jamming in what they claim will be a few minutes of commercials, but we should not believe them.

1:03:43Jon Favreau:But also, it's a station you pay for. Imagine if all of a sudden Game of Thrones had commercials. I'm trying to connect. I mean, you don't. It's probably coming. The whole enterprise is failing. You pay for it and you get ads? You pay for a premium and then all of a sudden you get ads. Red Zone is like not cheap. No, it's expensive. It's very expensive. And so I think her talking about Red Zone and making this anti-corporate message with it as the news peg is really, really smart. Yeah, I didn't understand that. I was confused about the whole football thing because I saw that, oh no, no more seven hours of football.

1:04:10And I was like, you people have been getting seven hours commercial free of football? God, what a society they've built for the people that like sports.

1:04:16Jon Favreau:You've got to pay for the Red Zone. It's almost too much. It's too frenetic. yeah yeah i think it was i think it was a good ad i think that there's like i mean here's the thing it doesn't we're setting a low bar here with the democratic candidates and mallory mcmorrow has always been great at just speaking like a normal human um our buddy abdul who's also running that race also his all his stuff looks just like it doesn't look as polished as your typical ad that drives you nuts because you've heard a million times before uh he's doing a good job of that. A bunch of other, Graham Plattner is doing a good job of that.

1:04:48A lot of candidates running. I think the, it's been shorthanded as working class, but it's also just like being a normal human being, you know? And I think there's some Democratic candidates who maybe are not the choice of the DSEC or the DCCC who are maybe out of necessity, maybe out of just the fact that because they're normal human beings who haven't been in politics that long are figuring this out this time so i think it's a great thing graham plattner sounds like the name a s'more would take if it became a person and needed to come up with a name super quick okay i like the ad uh i do like the ad i do like i i sometimes think like when we we're our bar is so low and we're so desperate for people just that sound like people and then they do and it sounds like a person like talking about something that might bother some people and like okay great but then you think like okay corporate greed that's the problem and then i think what is the democrats view collectively Like, what's our party's position on how we're going to take on corporate greed?

1:05:44And like, I just like I'm sure we have there's a bunch of like interesting policy proposals and and white papers out there. But like the other side of it to me is the like, I don't know, like the like fighting the enemy and making more clear who the enemy is and what you're going to and what and what and why corporations need to be afraid of us.

1:06:01Jon Favreau:Yeah, I think that's fair. I think it's fair to say there's not like a clear white paper on sort of like how you deal with the oligarchy. But I do think what's happening in this cycle is you've got this deliberate effort to run candidates who are mechanics or veterans or oyster farmers. And they look and they sound and they are working class people. And I just think your average voter learns two minutes worth of information about someone before they vote for them. And if you look credible and look like you will fight for them and they believe it, they believe it from your bio, you're more likely to get their vote than a lawyer or a rich guy.

1:06:34Yeah, a lot of lawyers. And, you know, I'm sure a lot of good lawyers out there.

1:06:38Jon Favreau:A lot of good lawyers are going to be good candidates. But we've got a lot of lawyers at the Democratic Party. Yes. Too many. Too many. Also, James Tallarico, who I believe you interviewed, love it. That's right. Up and coming Texas state rep is expected to announce on Tuesday that he's jumping into the Senate primary. So it's him and Colin Allred, who's just here as well. What do you guys think is his theory of the case against a more established guy like Colin Allred? I have no idea. I'm waiting to find out. I really do. I was like, huh, that's interesting. Got a taste of that national press going up there to Illinois.

1:07:10Want another hit?

1:07:12Jon Favreau:Yeah, I'm not really sure either. I mean, like, I think, you know, he did well on Rogan. People were, it was interesting to hear a Democrat talk about faith in that way. It felt sort of unique. Although, you know, we've heard Democrats do that before, just not in a little while. But I don't know. I mean, I think in some recent polling, it looks like maybe he's behind already, although it's not clear who did that polling, if it's credible, right? has like 500 voters in Texas, which is a lot of people in it. So who knows? I think it's an interesting test case in attentional strategy, which is like, like Texas is, you know, a huge fucking state to run statewide in.

1:07:46And, you know, he, Colin Allred has run statewide before. James Tallarico has not. And so I'm sure his name ID is not quite as high. Now he did Rogan, huge audience. He's getting national attention. So does the, can he get the attention necessary to run in a state like texas and get known in a state like texas against someone like all red who has already run once in texas and has who presumably has been running for a little while and has a larger fundraising network i don't know it's going to be interesting to to see right and attention towards what end like why do you why why are you so all red's running why are you so why are you so uh uh pulled into the race what what needs does he not meet that you do like you know you can imagine him he'll try to run more of an an outsider uh strategy than all red and maybe like take on the i'm gonna fight more take on the system more because all red is more um you know and this is true when he was in congress too is more of like a work with the other side kind of guy um but we'll see we'll see all right before we get to tommy's mikey sharl interview we do have to talk about the trump cabinet secretary most likely to beat the ever-living shit out of one of his colleagues.

1:09:00I'm of course talking about Scott Besant. What a surprise. Yeah. But that pink-housed fairy is going to be the one that - I was going to say, are you a homophobe? Is that why? That's what you think? That's why? Yes. You're surprised? Yes. We're a sensitive bunch. He's a big guy. He's a big guy.

1:09:14Jon Favreau:Okay. I would only be surprised because he's like 63 and an economist. But a cursory Google search suggests that Besant is between 6 '2 and 6 '3. Big guy. And that Pulte is only 5 '8. but also inexplicably 37, although he looks, if you told me he was 50, I would have believed. Wait, I'm sorry. Like the fact that it was just fucking 37? Stephen Miller's, what, 38th birthday too was the other day? Like these people look so fucking old. That's just amazing. Yeah. Also, the New York Post, did you see they did a story that was sort of a poll, an informal poll of White House staffers to see who they'd want to win in a fight between the two of them?

1:09:48Oh, we should, I didn't even set, we didn't even set up that it was Bill Pulte. Sorry. I'm just saying people are listening and they, unless you read political playbook and everything Rachel Bade writes. But anyway, so there's a story about Besson nearly coming to blows with White House chief mortgage fraud investigator Bill Pulte at a dinner last week. Rachel Bade sets up the story in a way that will make you want to scream into a pillow. The Wednesday evening event was supposed to be one -

1:10:12Jon Favreau:We're talking about a fist of cups. Just a quick one. Yeah. The Wednesday evening event was supposed to be one of celebration. It was both the much-anticipated inaugural dinner at Executive Branch, the ultra-exclusive Georgetown Club created by and for Trump World's Uber Rich. Boo-hoo. And a birthday party for MAGA-friendly podcaster Chamath Palapitaya. It's the worst. It's like the worst couple of sentences I've read in a long time. Your punishment for being a part of this crowd is hanging out with this crowd. What if that's your Russian doll night? You know what I mean? It fucking sucks. Keep Hardy at Executive Branch.

1:10:50All right. During cocktail hour, Besant accused Pulte of bad-mouthing him to Trump, He then told Pulte he was going to, quote, punch him in his fucking face. Then, after the club's owner intervened, Besant told Pulte he wanted to take things outside so he could, quote, fucking beat his ass. Again, fisticuffs. Again, fisticuffs. Right. Yeah, no. Those kind of fisticuffs. Anyway, incredibly, this isn't the first time that Besant has gotten in a fight with another administration official. If you guys remember, back in April, Axios' Marc Caputo reported that Besson and Elon Musk got into a, quote, heated shouting match at the White House.

1:11:27I think we had more details that it got even worse than that. Yeah, no, there was a shoving. But I think it was Elon shoved Besson, and then that's when Elon had to leave. But Besson, now maybe he made another threat where he said, I'm going to fucking beat your ass or whatever. Sure. What do you guys think about this?

1:11:42Jon Favreau:Well, so the New York Post asked White House staffers who they'd want to win. Here's a quote from the story that I think was representative. The general consensus in the White House is that Scott would have beat that little midget's ass and everyone would have paid big money to watch it happen. One person close to the president's inner circle told me. So apparently that person work at Treasury. They are. I sound like. Honestly, I sound like Steve Bannon. Another official said that Besson actually has a surprisingly big cock.

1:12:12But he's not braggy about it. Just gives him a confidence.

1:12:16Jon Favreau:yeah he's a grower not a shirt I think Bannon's a Pulte guy I don't know oh I don't know either it's a good question the other thing too is this dinner I was trying to I'm making this the dinner took place at a table for I think it said 30 like it was a very long a very long table and I was thinking about how to call this the night of the long tables yeah you've been workshopping that one and I never cracked it since our night name call never cracked it and you know what since our night name call you only had a good seven hours well I had a I had to find out about what was going on with that a lot of news a lot of real news you get a soft luncheon and a call with five people and then if it doesn't work there you just go for the full audience yeah that's right that's right good the the uh uh i was gonna say just in defense of scott bessins uh being a gay guy that wants to fight people there are two paths for the for the gay boy uh and one of them is to become uh soft and meek and hide in theater right but there is the path of the tough gay guy right who's like I'll you know I'll take on any of you you know I'm Scott Besson damn it yeah Bill Pulte I think it's also possible so the the piece goes on they've been fighting these two for quite a while now uh it's it's over you know Bill Pulte when he's not uh you know investigating the president's enemies for mortgage fraud that his own family has committed as well he is trying to like reorganize Fannie and Freddie and he's the you know he's the federal housing guy and there's some like turf battles over this and also he wants jerome he wants he was the one who sent the letter to trump um saying that he should fire jerome powell and drafted the letter for him and besant's like that's fucking crazy it's gonna screw up the markets everyone's gonna go nuts and so they've fought about this before i think that like besant probably has learned how to uh really appeal to trump how to work trump and the best way is to look like you're a fucking tough guy and he knows like i'm gay cabinet secretary and for trump i need to play against type and be as tough as possible I wouldn't be surprised if, like, Besant was very happy leaking this whole story.

1:14:12That's a good point. It does make you wonder if third term

1:14:15Jon Favreau:he's just slapping the shit out of people in the Oval Office. Yeah. You don't get far in Trump role by being sub-dom, you know? No, that's right. That's right. Fannie or Freddie. Maybe he's going to be at the UFC fight on the White House lawn that Trump's organizing. I saw someone... What's it? Undercard. He'll be the Undercard. Oh, that's a good point. He'll beat the shit out of Bill Pulte and the Undercard. Do you guys remember when there were, like, a week or two of news cycles about Elon Musk threatening to fight Mark Zuckerberg? Remember when we did that? Oh, yeah. And they were like, in the Coliseum.

1:14:42Jon Favreau:Simpler times. And didn't Zuckerberg say yes? Yeah, he was really leaning into it because he had been like doing karate training. Yeah. Thought it was cool. And it is cool. He'd be doing karate training in his bunker. And it is cool. He had a little brown belt. Some yellow belt. Making statues of his wife on the lawn. Well, you know, he does the karate and then everybody gets a little juice and a little crustless peanut butter and jelly. And then back to coding. and he dresses up as Benson Boone and sings to his wife. Bring me my stylist. I need more streetwear. Yeah, then he burns the report on how meta sex bots are targeting teens or whatever.

1:15:18Jon Favreau:Unbelievable. You know what? I'm really happy we transitioned the Besant fight into just shit on Mark Zuckerberg for a little while. It's well deserved. Maybe Besant will go beat his ass, you know? Did you see the clip from last week where Trump's like, Mark, how much are you going to invest in the US? And Zuckerberg is like, 600 billion. and then he's what do you want me to say hot mic he said this and then he said I don't know what number you want me to say sure was that the right number sure was that it's like hot mic it's so it's the worst this is it this is this is our empire that's who's dining at the executive club with Chamath Chamath happy birthday Chamath yeah just want to make sure he had a great birthday what was the tweet about his penis Chamath remember that one you judge a lot about it you judge a person by their you judge a person by their friends amen that's what I say amen alright when we come back you'll hear Tommy's conversation with Congresswoman Mikey Sherrill but her campaign for governor again I'm sure right now she's thinking great choice another seamless transition did you ask her about the pizza like I asked you I didn't know how to pivot to that because I'd never eaten it I did ask her about filling up her own gas tank in New Jersey and why we can't do that because you're going to get hurt you're going to get hurt in New Jersey one quick thing before we get to that interview you guys have all heard us talking about how excited we are for Crooked Con in November Remember, crookedcon.com?

1:16:33I can say it now. It's going to be a day to join some of the smartest organizers and least annoying politicians in America to strategize, debate, and commiserate about where we go from here. They'll also be drinking. We'll be kicking off the event on Thursday, November 6th with a live Pod Save America show at the Warner Theater. Then on Friday, November 7th, we'll be hosting a full day of conversations, panels, workshops, and live pods at the Wharf with all of our favorite National Guard members. Have you guys thought about that at all? I only thought about it when a couple of our when I did an AMA on the Discord and a couple of people were like are you guys how are you guys feeling about the security there and doing it in DC and I was like I haven't really thought about that it's gonna be fine marketing's gonna make us cut this

1:17:13Jon Favreau:but the wharf turns into the largest ice detention facility in the East Coast KUKCON once you enter you cannot exit leave it in Jordan anyway the announcement that I'm supposed to be reading is that we're really excited to share the lineup of folks joining us. Who you'll be locked up with. Yeah, this is who you get to. Endless Q as an A's. This is who you're going to Seacott with. Ready? Hassan Piker. No surprise there. Fad Shakur. Sarah Longwell. Brian Tyler Cohen. Jessica Tarloff. Senator Ruben Gallego. Governor Andy Beshear. Representative Sarah McBride. Representative Janelle Bynum. Ben Wickler.

1:17:49And lots more. It's exciting. Great group. More names to come. More names to come, guys. Very exciting. We'll be there too, of course, along with Dan and Ben Rhodes and Aaron and Alyssa from Hysteria and we'll close out the day with strict scrutiny live. And by popular demand, we just added more tickets because you guys just kept buying the tickets so fast. Now we're adding more tickets, especially with that lineup. And who knows, whoever's coming next, you know? It's funny that just like, shout out to our marketing team that puts Hassan Piker first on virtually every day. Of course, of course.

1:18:21Of course. And, you know, great. he's like it's like the senators and governors the 2020 is coming the 2028 hopefuls they go at the end of the list yeah that's right we got hassan piker first anyway see the full lineup and buy your tickets before they sell out at crooked dot crooked con dot you fucked up tommy you want to try all right you're out Jesus you're out yeah crooked con.com that's right cricketcon.com

1:18:59Pod Save America is brought to you by ZipRecruiter hiring boy it's tough a lot of resumes takes time takes time you're going through all the resumes like you know I don't have time to just look at all these resumes it would be great if there was someone who could do it for us

1:19:12Jon Favreau:I want to find a diamond in that rough that's right you know who can help you do that ZipRecruiter the future of hiring looks much brighter because ZipRecruiter's latest tools and features help speed up finding the right people for your roles, so you save valuable time. And now you can try ZipRecruiter for free at ziprecruiter.com slash crooked. With ZipRecruiter's new advances, you can easily find and connect with qualified candidates in minutes. See a candidate you're really interested in. You can unlock their contact info instantly. Over 320 ,000 new resumes are added to ZipRecruiter monthly, which means you can reach more potential hires and fill roles sooner.

1:19:45No wonder ZipRecruiter is the number one rated hiring site based on G2. Use ZipRecruiter and save time hiring. Four out of five employers who post on ZipRecruiter get a quality candidate within the first day. And if you go to ZipRecruiter.com slash crooked right now, you can try it for free. Again, that's ZipRecruiter.com slash crooked. ZipRecruiter is the smartest way to hire. Third Love makes bras that actually fit. So they know this. If your bra feels uncomfortable, the problem isn't your body. It's your bra. Third Love designs for comfort first. Soft fabrics, support that doesn't dig, pinch, or slip, bras that feel good and look good under everything you wear.

1:20:19Shop Third Love and explore over 60 sizes, including AA through H, and half cup sizes you won't find anywhere else. Get$15 off your first purchase at thirdlove.com with code PODCAST15.

1:20:34Jon Favreau:Joining me today in studio is New Jersey gubernatorial candidate Mikey Sherrill. Congressman, great to see you. Welcome to the pod. Yeah. Well, this is fantastic. I'm a longtime listener. Uh-oh. First time. Yeah, person on the pod. I know. The listeners can hold me accountable for all the wrong takes, all the bad language, all the things we get wrong here. Oh, I'm from New Jersey. I'm going to hold you so accountable for bad language. You're good with that. Well, we did just spend 10 minutes talking about potty training. So, you know, our headspace is right. I have a two-year-old who's doing potty training right now.

1:21:03Jon Favreau:So a lot of folks are watching the New Jersey gubernatorial race because it's important, but it's also a bellwether. On the one hand, you know, the party out of power tends to do well in an off year or midterm elections. On the other hand, New Jersey Democrats have held the governor's seat for two terms and Trump gained a lot of ground in 2024. Why do you think Trump's margins improved so much from 2020 to 2024? What does that say about the Democratic Party and what we were getting wrong? And how are you guys feeling about the state of your race? So I think we just see election after election after election being a change election.

1:21:40And I would say that's because voters want to be heard and they're not feeling heard in any way. And so I think the 10 point swing to the right in New Jersey is largely because as people in New Jersey were saying, I can't afford anything. My costs are bad. Inflation is bad. Home prices are bad. groceries are expensive, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera, the response from Democrats in many cases was largely the economy's good. We had a soft landing. I don't know what the flip of soft landing is, but, you know, right? And so, yeah, and it's hard. Look, I have served this country almost my entire life.

1:22:24Like you, I got into public service young. I was 18 when I went to the Naval Academy and then served for almost 10 years. So I cared deeply about democracy. It's central to so much of what I do. But if I'm coming at you with democracy and you're coming at me with, I'm about to lose my house and I'm not sure how I'm feeding my kids, that's not going to go well. And we, shame on us, really.

1:22:48Jon Favreau:Yeah, I was a little disconnected from the reality. Over the weekend, President Trump posted this image on social media. I'm sure you saw it. It It was him as Colonel Kilgore from Apocalypse Now. There's helicopters flying over Chicago. There's text that says, Chicago about to find out why it's called Department of War. And I love the smell of deportations in the morning. Obviously, he posted this to get a reaction from Democrats, outraged liberals on social media, et cetera. But at the same time, I think threatening to wage war in an American city with the U.S. military is a big deal. What was your reaction to like Apocalypse Dawn and his post over the weekend?

1:23:26Jon Favreau:And how do you think Democrats should handle these threats to deploy the National Guard to U.S. cities in the name of fighting crime? Well, my first thought was that guy never served. And so good old Corporal Bonespurs should probably not be, you know, acting as if he's a tough guy when he had I don't know how many deferments. and I also agree with you you know as countries across the world are holding major meetings and symposiums without the United States and looking to work around the United States and we're losing power daily and so instead of making sure that we have a full-throated response to how we move forward on so many of the key issues whether it's AI or energy prices or trade Instead, he's looking to wage war on one of his own cities.

1:24:20That's really beyond the pale. But kind of par for the course on how destructive this administration is. And I think you're right. A lot of it is very dire, but a lot of it's also performative to sort of be saying, like, look over here. I'm going to put these troops on the streets. It's don't pay attention to the fact that my tariff program is driving up costs everywhere and that this bill I forced Congress to pass. And look, I'm not crying a river for Republicans in Congress who lacked courage, but, you know, force this bill through that is going to raise costs on everyone. Don't pay any attention to that.

1:24:59So as I'm running and it's really, as you sort of laid out, a kind of extraordinary race in New Jersey right now. This is the only race that's really been going on super competitively for almost a year now. We had a really competitive primary, and now we're into the competitive general. And I'll tell you what I think is – what I can tell you from listening to thousands and thousands of people across New Jersey is people are really upset about the cost of living. and they are upset now with Trump because he promised to drive costs down. We've already talked about why they're upset with Democrats.

1:25:40And so it's oddly the least partisan race I've run. I started running in 2018. So I usually go to diners and especially if I'm in a red area of the state, I'll go, oh, I'm Mikey Sherrill. I'm running for previously Congress, now governor. And people say, oh, I support Trump or I'm a Republican, kind of get away. now they look at me and they say, how are you going to lower my cost? And I think it's because at this time, they're looking for leadership on the issues that are key to them. And I think this presents a real opportunity for Democrats right now.

1:26:13Jon Favreau:So what you're saying is all you're hearing, despite all these kind of national stories and trends, are just cost of living, cost of living, cost of living. I mean, similar to the Momdani race in New York, where the media narrative was kind of like, acted as if he was trying to get elected prime minister of Israel. but it was really like he was focusing on housing costs, free bus, et cetera. You're sort of hearing the same sort of things. It's both. It's, you know, there's been a lot of people saying, oh, well, this bill that he passed that's going to raise health care costs and energy costs and higher education costs, et cetera.

1:26:47Are people really aware that that's coming? And A, yes, but B, it almost doesn't matter because these tariffs are hitting people hard. And so to give you a sense of that, because maybe some people, you know, you hear from economists, oh, this is about to happen. And you kind of think, well, it's happened months ago. What's going on? So what I always find interesting is if the economists are saying something and then people on the ground are saying the same thing, if you have that connection. And so economists are saying, oh, this is about to hit in the holiday season. And now I'm going, you know, I was talking to a coffee store owner, this guy Chuck, who was telling me, look, I used to buy this huge burlap sack of coffee beans for$2.50.

1:27:30Now, because, and this is sort of how he put it, because Trump got in some fight with that guy in Brazil, now I have to pay$6.50 to$7. I didn't change my prices because reprinting menus was expensive, reprinting the signs was expensive. But I think it's here to stay. So I just emailed all my customers and costs are going to go up.

1:27:51Jon Favreau:So you're just going to have to eat it. Yeah. And the fight with the guy in Brazil is over the Brazilian government wanting to prosecute someone who did his own January 6th and tried to stage a coup that included killing senior political leaders and a judge. So that's why we're tariffing Brazil. And just to add insult to injury, the only place we go grow coffee beans is Hawaii, and that's not nearly enough for the market. So it's not as if there's some industry here that we're somehow protecting. It's horrible that he's punishing the nation for that. And it's horrible that he's just raising costs on everyone at a time when they're already feeling the stress of it.

1:28:35Jon Favreau:Yeah, including health care premiums are about to go up. The other thing we're seeing, though, is in addition to like these National Guard deployments and threats, were seeing major ICE and CBP deployments to especially cities and states run by Democrats. I know that the Department of Defense gave immigration agencies the approval to use a New Jersey military base to detain between, I think, 1 ,000 to 3 ,000 migrants. I think it would make it the largest immigrant detention hub on the East Coast. And then Newark Mayor Ross Baraka was arrested outside an immigration detention facility back in May, I believe.

1:29:06Jon Favreau:What was your reaction to this growing ICE presence in your state and DOD signing off on the use of military assets for immigration detention operations like that? So as I mentioned, I'm a Navy veteran. I now sit on the House Armed Services Committee. And I can tell you, I've been incredibly opposed to this for so many reasons, not the least of which is it's moving resources away from our troops to support a mission that we should not have on our bases and the military should not be involved in this. And I even, you know, I heard from one military member who said, I'm about to deploy. And I said to him, oh, I'm sorry, because I know he has some young kids.

1:29:46He goes, I'm kind of relieved because I don't want to run concentration camps here at home. Right? I mean, that's horrible. And so we're seeing this push to really undermine a lot of the rules here. And it's really chilling to me because as I mentioned with my background, I watched in Trump's first administration as he tried to again and again and again co-opt a private militia for himself. And he tried initially during the Black Lives Matter protest to utilize the U.S. military. Remember, and he was always calling generals my generals as if they were solely serving him, not the Constitution. And constantly trying to undermine the military.

1:30:30And I thought it was odd at the time because the worst time for his numbers was when he was attacking John McCain. I thought that was an odd thing to do. But in hindsight, I think he was again and again trying to undermine the prestige of the military because it was the one organization that people trusted and that stood against him. And so if you recall, the troops got all the way to Fort Belvoir, but they stayed out under pressure from General Milley. And I think Mark Esper was sect deaf at the time and really pushing back. and so then he had troops all over the mall guarding the monuments and we didn't know they were in camis but they had no insignia they had masks on it was during covet and they wouldn't say where they came from they wouldn't answer any questions and we think maybe doc department of corrections but it was a little bit unclear so again and again trying to co-opt these militias and then finally january 6th his private militia so he still had to leave office I would say unwillingly and then came back into office and one of the very first things he does is start to fire admirals and generals.

1:31:33He fired CQ Brown who was the chairman of the Joint Chiefs. He fired Lisa Frank Keddie who is the chief of naval operations. When I said to Pete Higgs, I think he did it because he was black and she was a woman. He didn't deny it. I think it's pretty clear. Very specifically.

1:31:49Jon Favreau:CQ Brown filmed one video about being a black man in America after Black Lives Matter. And I think that led him to being fired. He fired the head of special ops. And part of the understanding was that that's because he suggested that women, if they could compete, should be able to be Navy SEALs. We've had multiple three-star admirals fired who are women and then others across the board who express anything. I've heard from DHS officials that there is a loyalty test. I've heard some people quitting because they aren't going to do a loyalty to Trump instead of the Constitution. So again and again, you see him trying to both weaken the U.S.

1:32:33military and then strengthen ICE. And now we're putting more money into immigration enforcement than we are into the United States Marine Corps. And you're seeing the commercials. A lot of people around my way out in New Jersey see them on the football games. There's a lot of ICE recruiting commercials. and they're very aggressive. And so you're seeing him really try to have this. I think it's really dangerous, which is why governors need to really stand in the breach and demand accountability and understand who these people are on the streets. And that's why in Congress, I'm on legislation to make sure that you have to identify yourself, that you can't go around masked with no insignia, unmarked cars.

1:33:12And then on the streets, I think the courts are where some of the battle is, But you also have to be very careful with your own state police force. So I was talking to someone who said he was a former police officer. He said he was just chatting with one of his friends who's currently a police officer who spoke to an ICE agent. The guy came up to him and demanded something. He goes, show me a badge. I don't know who you are. And he goes, I don't have to show you who I am. I'm with ICE. And he said, yeah, you do. And he goes, well, I'm taking you to jail. And the guy goes, well, I'm taking you to jail and we'll sort it out there.

1:33:47But, I mean, this is the kind of lawlessness that's going on. And it really – and a lot of our police officers are coming forward saying this is making our streets less safe. Yeah. And this is not our mission.

1:34:00Jon Favreau:That's tough in Jersey. You have to watch a Jets game and see an ICE ad. That's like a double whammy. You know what I mean? Yeah. Sorry, I love the issues. All right. This interview is over. My team sucks. Another issue I saw in New Jersey is last week I saw there's another measles case popped up in New Jersey. I think it brings the state's total to 10 this year. This is happening as the HHS secretary, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., he's gutting the CDC. Florida, I think, is doing away with all vaccine mandates. I don't know if you saw this interview. The Florida Health Administrator, whatever his name was, did with Jake Tapper over the weekend on CNN.

1:34:34Jon Favreau:Clearly, they had done absolutely no research or modeling about the impact of these changes before they put them in place. How worried are you about a potential measles outbreak in New Jersey? And as governor, how would you manage this erosion of trust we've seen in public health since COVID, basically? I'm incredibly concerned, not the least of which because I have four kids and I'm a mom. But also because New Jersey is the most densely populated state in the nation because we're about to go into the winter months where all of the diseases become much more transmitted because of being indoors.

1:35:11And so it is a really dangerous scenario, especially for our state, really unique in the country, our state with winter and a densely populated, you know, a dense population, a very international population. We have the airport. We have 95 going through. I mean, we have train stations. We have everyone in and out. And so without vaccines, our state could become very dangerous, especially for kids and for seniors. And so when you look back at the numbers of kids who died of what are now preventable diseases before vaccination, you should look at two, three million kids. When you look at the babies who've already died from whooping cough, which totally, if you have herd immunity, preventable.

1:35:59Babies can't get the vaccine, which is why we make sure others have it to protect them. So across the country, we are seeing this threat coming back. I mean, you know, I'm almost just waiting to hear about cases here of polio and stuff because of this movement going on and this surge in listening to RFK Jr., who seems to get a lot of his information. And I wish this was just a snarky comment, but I think this is true on TikTok and with influencers online. I was talking to one doctor who said he was saying all this weird mitochondria stuff, and she's like, what the heck is this? I don't even think he knows what mitochondria is.

1:36:43Jon Favreau:Because only he could diagnose people by looking at them. They were showing some mitochondria damage on their faces. Of course, we've all spotted that in the wild. We've all noticed. We've noticed. We've noticed. We've done that a lot, yeah. So I just to think that that's the person then who's not just the head of HHS, but actually making these huge decisions that could impact the nation, which is why governors, again, are so important because actually there are coalitions now. And in the Northeast, we have some of the best research and development into health and medicine. And so working in the Northeast, you know, New Jersey has been called the medicine chest of the world.

1:37:25So really working as governor to make sure that we're still putting out credible information, that we're still getting vaccines to people, still manufacturing those vaccines is something that I'm going to work with other governors in the Northeast, like Maura Healy, who's doing just that right now, to make sure that citizens in New Jersey are safe. As you see, I mean, just real nitwits across the country making decisions based off of zero information or at best something they saw online.

1:37:53Jon Favreau:Yeah, the Instagram comments. Yeah, I don't know if – look, I have a one-year-old and two-year-old. When I see reports of like a measles outbreak, I start to think to myself, do I have to move up my own kid's vaccine schedule, right? Like this is – these are the conversations we're having in our own houses. It's terrifying. Well, there's breakthrough cases. So you want to get to 95-plus percent vaccines, I think, for herd immunity. If I remember correctly, I am not a doctor, so I don't – I use medical experts to discuss these things with. But I think it's north of 95 percent for herd immunity so that you don't – so that you can keep people safe.

1:38:29Because even with vaccines, you have some breakthrough cases and stuff like that, putting everyone in danger, which is why we traditionally have demanded. If you're going into schools with little kids, you have vaccines so everyone doesn't get sick and die. And I don't think that's too much for the community to demand, that your kid's safe going to school.

1:38:49Jon Favreau:Did you watch his hearing in the Senate last week? I did not. In addition to just the horrible words coming out of his mouth, he was wheezing in this very unhealthy-seeming way. He had a very Jersey Shore vibe, like Snooki JWoww, like the super intense spray tan and juice head. Take a look. There's some good clips on Twitter. You'll enjoy it. Another Jersey question. Alina Habba, Trump's former personal attorney, she was briefly appointed to the acting U.S. attorney in New Jersey before a judge ruled her appointment unlawful. You were a federal prosecutor. What did you make of that mess and what impact it could have on the integrity of federal prosecutions in your state?

1:39:29That's my old office. And I have to tell you, I worked there for several years. I knew a lot of the different lawyers and the head of the public corruption office, who I'd worked with quite a few years, you know, we'd eat lunch together occasionally, or I'd zoom out. The minute I started running for office would not even talk to me.

1:39:49Jon Favreau:Just out of fear that there was an association? No, because he prosecuted public officials. And so he was like, look, I don't want impropriety. I don't want the appearance of impropriety. I don't want anyone to think that I have some relationship with you and that that is impairing my judgment. I mean, that is what a high ethical standard he held. Like I would walk into a room at some U.S. attorney gathering and he would walk out of the room or he would like see me and start, you know, marching the other way. But that's kind of the level of integrity that many people in that office demanded of themselves and certainly others.

1:40:23And so to think now that not only is that certainly not happening, but she says that she is going to use the office to turn New Jersey red, I think was the comment, that she is actually blatantly political. She has now said she's going to prosecute the governor, the attorney general of New Jersey. She's prosecuting a sitting member of Congress who is doing her oversight duty. She actually had the mayor arrested and said she was going to charge him until the tapes came out, which she had, and showed that he was innocent. And so she couldn't. So then she went after the congresswoman. And at every turn, she's making these threats.

1:41:02And it's, you know, it's a very Trumpian move. He was in Atlantic City going bankrupt all the time and leaving everyone holding the bag and threatening court cases and stuff because it's very expensive to go to court and hire lawyers. So it's not as if, oh, you're just innocent. So you go to court and you're like, I'm innocent. So leave me alone. And you're like, OK. No, it's tons of money to hire lawyers and to do this. And then you're living under this, especially in these times when you don't think things are fair. So several defendants have brought cases saying, look, you can't even prosecute me because she's not even there legally.

1:41:36So that's going through the court system. But it is, again, I think this total co-opting of power at every level as quickly as possible that Trump's trying to do and taking all these levers of power to quell dissent, to punish anyone who speaks out against this and find any means you can to shut down any ability to create a different path forward. Yeah.

1:42:04Jon Favreau:I'm kind of waiting on Bob Menendez to go full Rob Blagojevich and kind of go for that pardon. Should we? I think he's already made suggestions. You know, like you said, Trump is right. Yes. So, yes. Yeah. No gold bars in your closet house anywhere? Oh, God, no. No? Okay. We can't even keep water. After Superstorm Sandy, like we had like these things of water and my kids just drink them all. So, yeah, gold bars would be really beyond us. Speaking of corruption, do you agree with President Trump that we should reopen the Bridgegate investigation into Chris Christie? He tweeted this the other day.

1:42:38No, we've already had that investigation. I mean, we've, you know, it's, I, I, I deeply believe in investigations into wrongdoing. But to use investigations to go after people that you don't like or that have said things you don't like is really, really troubling to me. And to use the criminal justice system like that, I think, is, again, a way that you quell dissent. And in these times, it's really dangerous.

1:43:12Jon Favreau:Yeah, basically, I think he was mad about an ABC News interview, Christie did, in this case. Was that, which one? Trump was mad. He was tweeting about John Carl's bad haircut and something Chris Christie said. And then he said, let's reopen the investigation. That's how we got there. So was it the CDC stuff or something different? I don't even know what it was anymore. It was just Trump watching TV and tweeting. Like we do at the NFL games. He just sort of foils away. So you were a helicopter pilot, right, in the U.S. Navy? Was it the H3C King? Is that right? Yes, it was. Yes, it was. Some helicopter questions.

1:43:48Jon Favreau:Is it harder to learn to fly a helicopter than to fly a plane? First question. Depends on the weather conditions. Helicopters are, I think, much more susceptible to high winds and changes in humidity, and it changes the power dynamics of it. What's the timeline for learning the process for getting approved to fly on your own? Now you're testing my memory. So everybody in the Navy, not in the Army, but everyone in the Navy learns to fly fixed wing. And so you go through pre-flight school and then you go through flight school primary. I think that takes about six months. And then you go through helicopter school, which is maybe another four to six months.

1:44:34And then you go off into the replacement air group, the reg, and your squadron. And you do that. That's a lot shorter. And then you kind of go right into your squadron. And my reg was kind of co-located with the squadron.

1:44:48Jon Favreau:So it's like a couple-year process? Yeah. Yeah. You could probably speed it up if you were churning people out a lot more quickly. But at the time I did it, it was probably about one and a half, two years. Okay. That's less than I would have thought. So if I were sitting in a Sea King at the Styx, right, there's a meteor coming at Los Angeles. Could you talk me through how to get that thing off the ground or am I dead? Oh, if it was running, I could get it off the ground. Really? Yeah. You just like press this button, do that? Well, there's a checklist. So we'd get all the, we'd have to get all the circuit breakers in the right place and stuff like that.

1:45:25But flying it itself, like lifting up and flying it.

1:45:27Jon Favreau:It looks really hard. I've seen my primary experience watching this happen. If you were doing it, I would be riding the controls to protect my own safety here. Smart. Yes, but I could. Because we used to watch the Navy men and women like take off and land on the South Lawn. And that was just some high stakes shit, I guess. Because you're like coming in on the South Lawn and you're turning and you're doing it in front of the President of the United States and all these assembled people. And it just looked, it was very cool. Yeah. Very impressive. And that was the helicopter I flew. Oh, really? So Marine One is the H3.

1:45:56Okay. Yeah. So that's the model. And they were always stealing our parts. Why? Stuff would break. Yeah. Well, because it was an older helicopter. So there weren't as many parts through the supply chain. And so they had the top priority, as you can imagine. So we were constantly, you know, getting parts grabbed from the supply chain.

1:46:16Jon Favreau:Is that like a jet engine? It's so loud. Because Donald Trump likes to do his press avails in front of the helicopter while it's on. I'm sure you've noticed this. And it's like insanely loud. It's insanely loud. So it's a great, great helicopter. And one of my favorite things about it is it has a boat hull. So when you're in the military, you have to, if you're flying over water, which if you're in the Navy, you're flying over water. So you have to go through the helicopter dunker, which is this like total torture hazing situation where you strap yourself into this thing, get blindfolded by the fourth round, get dropped into a tank of water, flipped upside down, and then you have to swim out.

1:46:57Yes. And I mean, I've been a swimmer my entire life, but it is just I hated it. I hated it. I bet. So then after that traumatic experience, I never wanted to go down over water in a helicopter, as you can imagine. No, for a lot of reasons, yeah. But at least I always took comfort in the fact that my helicopter had a boat hole, so you could actually land on the water. I don't know.

1:47:16Jon Favreau:Would it float? Yeah. Yeah. That's cool. Yeah, I thought so. There's something new here. That's good to know. Last question for you. If you're elected governor, will I be able to pump my own gas in the state of New Jersey, or is that just going to still be a thing you guys do? That is really, you know, that is a fight right now going on, but that is something that is beloved by New Jerseyans. Why? So, well, because if you have like four kids and they're all having a huge fight and you just need gas really quickly and you don't want to get out of the car because you don't know what's going to happen.

1:47:51You just like to pull up and be like gas and you can just be in the piece of your car, you know, with the doors and windows closed yelling at your kids.

1:48:00Jon Favreau:What if you desperately need to escape your kids for just 30 seconds? Then you might want to pump your own gas. Yeah, you might want to cross the line. Just drive to Pennsylvania. Yeah, exactly. Okay. Okay. Congressman Mikey Sherrill, thank you so much for being here. I appreciate it, and good luck in your race. And how can people help you out if they want to get involved? Thank you for asking. I was told by my team I could not come home. I could hear them sighing behind me. Please go to www.mikiesherrill.com slash volunteer. We can use all the support we can get. This is a huge race, and it is one of only two statewide races going on in the nation right now, New Jersey and Virginia.

1:48:34I think this will set the table for all of next year's races as we, as I think we really develop the engagement that we need to see on the ground. Right now, it's been hard. People are feeling exhausted. If we build events, they'll come, but we have to build them. And that takes a lot of money and people on the ground and effort. So please donate, please come knock on doors or get involved on the phones and the texting. So thanks so much.

1:49:01Jon Favreau:It's a big race. Very, very important, not just for the people of New Jersey, but also to send a message that we're still in this. Democrats, we're fighting. We're trying. And we can win in the midterms as well. So please get involved if you can. I really, really appreciate it. Thanks so much. Thank you for being here. Thanks.

1:49:21That's our show for today. Dan and I will be back with a new show on Friday. Talk to everybody then.

1:49:28if 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 crooked pod save america is a crooked media production our producers are david toledo emma illick frank and saul rubin our associate producer is farah 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.

1:50:00Jordan 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. Our production staff is proudly unionized with the Writers Guild of America East.

1:50:22Thank you.