1061: Trump Promises Free Speech Crackdown

22:44Yeah, I'm sorry, but you had the point where just people posting quotes out of context. Right. The out of context quotes now, we're going to go after people? And then it just got in, it sort of veered in. It was making me angry. And then at some point in the last 48 hours, 72 hours, I had to laugh. So it was veering into the absurd. And fortunately, the chairman of the Oakland County Republican Party in Michigan, he did it for me. He made me laugh. He decided to drive around all weekend and post pictures of private businesses with flagpoles demanding that they lower the flag, even though President Trump's order to lower the flag is for federal buildings only.

23:21And so you get tweets like this from this guy. Hey, Chase Bank, why isn't your Barclays Circle branch in Rochester Hills complying with federal and state orders to lower the flag in honor of Charlie Kirk you've had since Wednesday?

23:37Jon Favreau:You think the... I know you're mad, man, but there's got to be a better way to spend your time. You think the bigwigs at Chase HQ are going to come down heavy on the Barclays Circle branch? It's such an... You know, people have been pointing out that after Kennedy was killed, there were reports about people celebrating it and leading people to say, hey, it's not social media. But I don't doubt that there's this part of us that has a schadenfreude and kind of a lack of care for political opposition that can get pretty vile and that it's always been there. But like there is, it's just so obvious that being exposed to so much of it and exposing ourselves to so much social media leads people to really like it.

24:17Like I felt it myself just this weekend kind of reading about this stuff. Like I felt myself like getting this sort of like anger and then you feel it and there's nowhere to put it, right? Because you're just reading things on the internet. And so you want to like, you have to do something with it. And so he's going to point it at that Chase branch. Like there's so many people I disagree with and they're all out there saying these things all the time. And like people don't know what to do with that energy and it's just so fucking toxic. Yeah. And that's not even like I disagree with the Chase branch.

24:45That's like the Chase branch probably not even crossing the manager's mind that they should lower the flag. I mean, come on. So here's what we know about the alleged killer as of Monday afternoon when we're recording this. We may know more by the time you're hearing it. The suspect is 22-year-old Utah native Tyler Robinson who agreed to turn himself in after his father recognized photos released by the authorities. Robinson comes from a family of Republicans, but Utah Governor Spencer Cox said over the weekend that Robinson himself held a, quote, leftist ideology. Six sources familiar with the investigation also told Axios that Robinson was in a romantic relationship with his transgender roommate, who they said is being, quote, extremely cooperative with the investigation.

25:27And Kash Patel and Dan Bongino, the podcasters running the FBI, fucking all dream I said on Monday that Robinson had a quote obsession with Kirk that he sent text messages before the shooting saying he had a quote opportunity to go after the conservative activist and that he was going to quote take it and Robinson had been linked to DNA evidence found at the scene speaking of cash Fox News reports that his job may be in jeopardy in a story sourced to 10 sources in the Trump administration apparently Pam Bondi and Todd Blanche have quote no confidence in cash and quote, Pam in particular can't stand him.

26:02Live tweeting incomplete information about the investigation from Reyes in Manhattan didn't exactly help. Reyes? Reyes. You got it.

26:11Jon Favreau:I don't know. I'd never heard of it until I read about it. Reyes. Reyes. It's Reyes. It's 100 % Reyes. Cash is going to face a Senate hearing on Tuesday. I'm sure that will be fun, but until then he's been doing the rounds on Fox to defend himself to the network's most important viewer. Let's listen. Could I have worded it a little better in the heat of the moment? Sure. But do I regret putting it out Absolutely not. I was telling the world what the FBI was doing as we were doing, and I'm continuing to do that. If you go back and look at historical cases like Luigi Mangione and the Boston bombing, how long did it take the Bureau to release information to the public?

26:42We're not doing that. Those two manhunts took five days, and they happened in downtown major metropolises. We apprehended our suspect in 33 hours because we were transparent and open. So anyone that thinks that the FBI is not on top of its game and that me and the deputy and everybody in leadership and our Salt Lake City field office in Quantico is doing anything politically, I'm not having it. And if you've heard anything else about it, they are lying to you.

27:07Jon Favreau:Not having it. For those watching on the YouTube, you'll notice that he's doing something you just cannot do if you're doing TV, which he's looking at the monitor above his camera at himself constantly, which just makes you look so shifty. What I was doing was telling you all what the FBI was doing as it was doing it, which is what every FBI director is famously supposed to do, right? When law enforcement is conducting a law enforcement operation, an investigation, you're supposed to just keep people abreast of every detail. Yeah, Bob Mueller used to tweet, got one, just getting clear. He says something in, maybe it was this interview about the DNA evidence that they collected from the crime scene.

27:42And it's like, why? Towel. Do you understand why you share information, right? Like, is it to help? It's to help people either to protect their communities or maybe to find somebody. No, it wasn't like you like, I'm gonna overrule you guys. I think we should put the guy's picture out there.

27:56Jon Favreau:Dude, he was saying that though. He was talking about how he gave a TikTok of the key events. And one of the key events was what time he and Dan Bongino landed on the ground in Utah. And they decided to release the photo. And it's like, do you think that that was the first time the FBI has released a photo of a suspect? That doesn't make any sense. It was crazy. He's like, we apprehended the... The father turned him in. What did you do? What the fuck did you do? Yeah, he tweeted, this is what happens when you let cops be cops. The dad turned him in. You were there to receive the information from the dad?

28:27Jon Favreau:Yeah. Also, he said like, he's like, would I word it differently? Sure. Buddy, you tweeted misinformation about your own investigation. Yeah. There's also like, there was an Axios story and it wasn't that remarkable, but it was, it said that there about, it was about the transgender roommate and how it might lead to motive. And there were quotes by Cox in there, but Cox, who, by the way, seems to just be behaving honorably and responsibly throughout this. But at the end of that story, it said somebody just hadn't seen in this kind of tone before. It said it's pretty clear that Robinson's roommate knew a lot and didn't say anything after the killing.

29:01So they're a person of interest officially in cooperating. A second official said, we want to keep it that way. That is a really strange story to come out of law enforcement to Axios. So weird. Especially since, yeah, one of the sources said the person was extremely cooperative and made it sound like they're really happy to have that cooperation, which is why they didn't release the name or identity of the person. And then that official at the end, I thought that was weird. And so I don't know. I don't know who this official is. Maybe it's a career person and maybe just a strange quote. But throughout this entire couple of days, we had the Wall Street Journal reporting incorrectly about the bullets.

29:39We had a Guardian story that had some incorrect information that they had to withdraw. And then you have these kinds of stories. And because we have someone like Kash Patel, who's a mix of kind of partisan loyalists to Trump, plus also a deeply strange incompetent, you don't know what the balance is and you don't know where these quotes are coming from. Like, is this a story that's because they're just trying to prove they know stuff and get stuff out there in a kind of unhelpful and kind of ham fisted way? Is it because they're actually like wanting to put it out there into the world that there's this transgender person connected to it?

30:09As you have Elon Musk saying there's like a transgender terror cell operating, despite the fact that there's that Cox has said this roommate is cooperative. So I just found myself reading this and saying, oh, I'll never know. It's hard to know because we have a couple of partisan hacks that aren't prepared running this department.

30:26Jon Favreau:Caputel is grossly unqualified for the job. He was a low level prosecutor at DOJ. Then he was an aide to Devin Nunes before he got into Trump world where he was like a low level NSC guy before getting some garbage time gig at the DOD. And now for me. So no like law enforcement experience. He's talking about how he walked the crime scene in Utah. It's like, buddy, I'm sorry, did you learn about that on Capitol Hill? Like, what value did you add? What training allowed you to walk the crime scene? Did you put in a pair of black light glasses? Kind of like, what are you talking about? Someone on Twitter tweeted that Patel permanently has the facial expression of someone walking through Dubai customs with a brick of cocaine.

31:01Jon Favreau:So funny. Tim Dillon said, a comedian said he wouldn't trust Cash Patel to investigate a dispute with DoorDash to get him a$10 credit. So like that Fox story is sort of hopeful, right? According to Fox, the White House, the AG, the deputy AG all have lost confidence in Kash Patel. I would bet big money that the rest of the bureau doesn't like him either because of the way he's politicized the place and pushed out people. So the one interesting thing is the White House just installed a new second deputy director, because he always has a backup deputy director, who a lot of people think is in place, so that in 90 days he can take over, because under the Federal Vacancies Reform Act of 1998, you can fill in for the director if you've been in the job for 90 days.

31:45Jon Favreau:This is like that Missouri attorney general, I think, that they grabbed. So someone said he'll get Billy Longed, which is the IRS commissioner who is now the U.S. ambassador to Iceland. A story we didn't even talk about because it's just one of 20 things that happened that week. Speaking of that, I know you talked about this last week, but Cash is also being sued by some former agents for firing them. Yeah, three career agents say they were wrongfully terminated. Like the one story that just blew my mind. So there's a guy named Brian Driscoll. He was a career agent. Like when you read his bio, it's like absolutely incredible.

32:18Jon Favreau:Like he like kicked down the door, took out some ISIS guy himself, saved the five-year-old. You're like, holy shit, this guy's a hero. So during his vetting, he's asked questions like these are verbatim from a 29 year old White House liaison. Who did you vote for? When did you start supporting President Trump? And have you voted for a Democrat in the last five elections? Kash Patel told him as long as you haven't given to Kamala or posted on social media, you'll be fine. So that's how seriously they're taking this. So Driscoll was supposed to be installed as the deputy acting director, basically like keep the trains running until Kash Patel is nominated or confirmed.

32:48Jon Favreau:But the White House made like a clerical error in the press release and they announced him as director. And when they called over to be like, yo, do you want to fix this? They're like, no, we're good. The White House refused to fix the error. They didn't want to admit their mistake. And what's wild about this is if you go back to the original story about Driscoll in the Times when he was kind of, there was a moment because he had a funny, he has a funny picture. His picture. That mustache. Mustache. And he kind of has like a weird smirk and everybody thought it was like, it was like the hipster FBI guy.

33:13In that story, they joked about how him being acting director felt like some kind of mistake. It actually was. It actually was. It was a mistake. Yeah.

33:19Jon Favreau:It was a mistake. Incredible. uh also something steven miller's like really running the show no surprise but which at doj at fbi at uh dhs at ice everywhere busy busy just one thing like that story about like driscoll like there was a part of the end of it where cash patel fires a seasoned veteran of the fbi while his wife is dying of cancer for not being sufficiently loyal and it like i do think it's It's like, as we talk about some like abstract and imaginary version of what a crackdown could look like, it's both like, I don't know if it's a mix of kind of, I don't know, like hopeful, terrifying, that people as incompetent and cruel as this are gonna be running it.

34:01Because like, Kash Patel has alienated a ton of people. It's probably why they need to have somebody in the wings to replace it. But it is like worth remembering, like these are not, some crackdown, like it's gonna be run by, it's not gonna be run by other people. It's gonna be Pam Bondi and Dan Bongino and Kash Patel trying to figure out how to go after people. And these guys are fucking bozos. I wish Stephen Miller was too but he is not so Trump's taken off for a working visit to the UK on Tuesday I was going to get a whole welcome by King Charles sorry and Camilla but he's going to be back in the states for Kirk's funeral and memorial on Sunday if the Queen was there they'd be rolling out all the stuff any sense of what's on the agenda for the UK trip Tommy?

34:41Jon Favreau:yeah he meets with the king and the royal family they do like a carriage procession and the state banquet at Windsor Castle and then And yeah, Ian Keir Starmer will hang out over at Checkers, one of the countryside residences. What I think is interesting about this trip is how much Jeffrey Epstein is in the background of all of it because - Not literally everyone. The British - I thought it was Andrew's plus one to the dinner. Well, that's exactly right. The British ambassador to the UK, this guy Peter Mendelsohn, just had to resign because this cache of Epstein's, like his Yahoo inbox became public and Bloomberg News got a hold of them.

35:13Jon Favreau:and there's hundreds of emails back and forth between Epstein and Mendelsohn, including long after he had been prosecuted. Peter Mendelsohn's like staying at his house. He's a very senior person under Tony Blair and now the ambassador to the US. And then obviously, as you mentioned, like Prince Andrew was a big Epstein buddy and a creep. So that's always kind of lurking in the background. So I wonder how much this will kind of blow up over there. Those Mendelsohn emails are like bananas. It's not just that they take place after. Like he's like, oh God, I can't believe they're doing this to you.

35:41I can't believe this is happening to you. He's watching his house. It's crazy. I'm sure though, I'm sure all of the Brits, however they feel about the assassination will be tripping over themselves to offer Donald Trump condolences and doing moments of silence and all that. It's very, I mean, not to make Tucker's point, but like the international sort of shows of solidarity among sort of global right-wing populists all over the world has been interesting to note.

36:08Jon Favreau:Yeah, but even like, I think it was like the European Parliament had a moment of silence. I mean, I think they're taking their cues from Trump about sort of how serious and important this is. Obviously, it is very serious and important. It's a scary moment in the U.S. and in the political climate. But, yeah, I think this will be a big topic of conversation out there. There's also just it's coming at a time when the Labor Party is a disaster. Like Keir Starmer keeps tripping all over himself. He just had to fire his deputy prime minister into this huge cabinet reshuffle. And Nigel Farage's party is leading in the polls.

36:39Jon Favreau:So like things are not looking good for a lot of the kind of progressive left internationally.

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38:59in the wake of the assassination Governor Cox of Utah called social media a cancer there's been a lot of discussion about the role of these platforms in both radicalizing people and just making us the worst version of ourselves well the Trump administration is responding with a big announcement TikTok is saved nice the deadline for ByteDance selling the app is Wednesday but after multiple extra legal extensions by the White House in violation of both the law and the Supreme Court Order but whatever uh but then whatever whatever right trump posted on monday morning that quote a deal was also reached on a certain company that young people in our country very much wanted to save they will be very happy i will be speaking to president xi on friday scott besant basically confirmed this news saying that the two sides had agreed on a framework of a deal that would transfer ownership of the app to the u.s he also said quote we are not going to talk about the commercial terms of the deal it's between two private parties but the commercial terms have been agreed upon uh so i assume our america first president uh would never cut a deal that leaves tiktok users vulnerable to any kind of influence or or data collection by the chinese communist party right and we just yeah i don't think he gives a fuck but i think we have no idea right we just have no idea what's about to happen like whether or not the the deal is that that china will still be kind of in control of the algorithm or not we just don't know do we know it seems like it seems like the um the chinese side of the uh negotiations did mention something about licensing the algorithm which was something that was first floated um i think by the white house back in april on this so basically the chinese continue to have control of the algorithm license it out to whoever buys it in the u.s and it's so so the the privacy data collection concerns are somewhat ameliorated i guess supposedly but the uh you know chinese communist party in control of the algorithm and turn it on and off for the propaganda purposes.

40:52That does not seem like it is fixed by that kind of arrangement, if that's what the arrangement may be. Okay, good, because I don't want to stop seeing those cool Chinese folk songs sung by all kinds of people. I love them.

41:04Jon Favreau:Yeah, so the data privacy thing, it makes me worry, but also there was this giant hack called Salt Typhoon, which apparently means the Chinese have had a decade of access to all of our communications. So I think ships kind of sailed on that one. Them licensing out and get you a good deal on an algorithm, in that world. Chinese Communist Party just turning up and down the dial on like how we all feel about the world. 170 million Americans using this thing a month. Also, what do you want to bet that either the government, U.S. government has a stake in TikTok now. A hundred percent. Oh, yeah. Or and like a bunch of Trump close allies.

41:38There was some kind of a deal there about the, I mean, who the fuck knows what they said.

41:43Jon Favreau:It is either going to like a giant billionaire Trump fan, like a Larry Ellison type or like someone backed by 1789 or whatever the hell Don Jr.'s VC thing is called. It's going to be a political ally of Trump, which I think we just have to step back and be like, okay, so that means Trump will have a huge say over TikTok. Elon Musk owns Twitter. Mark Zuckerberg will do or say anything Trump wants to avoid regulations. So see you later, Facebook and Instagram. I guess we can fight it out on LinkedIn, guys. We got a rump state over on Blue Sky where we can, if we end the Civil War there, we can maybe, you know, mount a counter-offensive.

42:17Jon Favreau:Not a place you want to go. Everybody from BlueSide is about to get fired for their posts about Charlie Kirk, so I don't really know. The whole thing, yeah. I feel like there's a lot of concern about the algorithm and the data. Then I look and it's like, I don't know. The Twitter algorithm is wholly owned by a capitalist and it's a fucking nightmare. Instagram's a nightmare. These places are already a nightmare. I can get worse. I can get a lot worse. Well, we're going to talk about the legacy media organization that TikTok and other platforms are rapidly replacing. Outlook continues to be pretty bad there as well.

42:52You'll remember that in July, CBS's parent company agreed to settle Trump's absurdly meritless lawsuit over 60 Minutes to the tune of$16 million so that the administration would approve its merger with Skydance, which is owned by the son of Trump ally Larry Ellison. The merger closed in early August After the head of CBS News resigned The executive producer of 60 Minutes resigned CBS canceled Stephen Colbert's show And Paramount's general counsel pledged to hire An ombudsman to monitor CBS News coverage For any hints of political bias And a surprise to absolutely no one They selected Kenneth Weinstein A Trump donor who he originally nominated Back in his first term To serve as ambassador to Japan This comes as rumors

43:31Jon Favreau:There's no news experience, by the way No, of course not Why would he have a news experience? conservative think tank guy. Hey, listen, it's time we say sayonara to woke. Jesus. He didn't actually serve as ambassador to Japan. Didn't go through, but anyway. This all comes as rumors swirl that Ellison is close to appointing conservative media commentator Barry Weiss in a leadership role at CBS News as part of a broader deal to absorb her startup, the free press. And as Trump continues to toy with the idea of revoking the broadcast licenses of CBS's historical rivals, NBC and ABC. What do you think, guys?

44:04I would give our new corporate media overlords. I think it's worth noting that Disney paid a settlement to for a frivolous lawsuit by George Stephanopoulos in the same way that CBS did. They seem to have gotten no credit for it. They didn't really seem to get very much for that George Stephanopoulos payout. If now they're coming after their license anyway. And I had actually thought that that I'm like not surprised would not be the word. But I thought that that Trump understood that he needed to demonstrate that there was some value at first to these kinds of capitulations so that he could get some more of them.

44:35But that seems to be out the window now. So, you know, he says he goes after Columbia. Columbia strikes a deal. Then all of a sudden they're going to be coming after them again. ABC thought they could get out of the barrel. They're still in the barrel. And so any capitulation really doesn't get you very much at all.

44:49Jon Favreau:I mean, the New York Times said they want to make Barry Weiss editor in chief or co-president of the network. So that's a big gig with along with his ombudsman. And the free press, in its founding documents, built. Yeah, right. It's right. Yeah. I think they're written by Publius. It built itself as this bastion of like heterodox opinion, truth telling. But they're just the establishment at this point. And their primary focus is attacking anyone critical of the war in Gaza or anyone who like wonders aloud if it's a good idea for the United States to keep funneling arms to BB Netanyahu. Who is it?

45:22Jon Favreau:You know, they can indiscriminately massacre civilians or periodically starve the population of Gaza. And so, you know, that includes like repeatedly downplaying the famine in Gaza. There was an article in May that was headlined the Gaza famine myth, subtle. There was a video from the free press suggesting that it was unfair. They do this big piece about how there had been images in the news of starving kids and that news publications were bad because they didn't mention that some of those kids, I think most of those kids in the story had preexisting conditions. And then they made a video kind of responding to their reaction to that piece.

45:56Jon Favreau:And it was tweeted out by no other than Bibi Netanyahu himself. So again, we're just sort of like helping out the powerful here. And, you know, I think what's so weird about it is what Barry Weiss has built at the Free Press, I think, is the opposite of what CBS wants to be, which is down the middle, nonpartisan, to the point of feeling tortured at times, kind of old school, just the facts, ma 'am, boring ass reporting. and she is a partisan actor whose primary skill seems to be ingratiating herself with the most elite billionaires who are like really mad at the left and want to fund this kind of stuff and like i had a little dust up with the you know they called ben rhodes hamas because he was critical of their piece the other day which is nice and then i had my own little dust up with um uh the free press the other day because i i tweeted on the day charlie kirk was assassinated I tweeted that it was sickening that that video of his assassination was getting pushed into our feeds all day long over and over again.

46:51Jon Favreau:And the reason that bothered me was because there was clearly an algorithmic incentive for Elon Musk to make this snuff film go around. And also there are influencers on Twitter who get paid per view, right? So you have something inflammatory or horrifying that could scar his friends or family or anyone or kids who were on Twitter that day. It's disgusting that Twitter is just like pumping that shit. And Barry's partner, Nellie Bowles, wrote this piece attacking me, among others, and saying, well, it's far more ghoulish to slaughter a polite conservative than, you know, to talk about the algorithm, like suggesting that I hadn't criticized the assassination itself.

47:27Jon Favreau:and she goes funny to see where their outrage goes like she had ignored that my previous tweet was saying what happened to charlie was horrific and indefensible and condemning political violence right so it's just like it is that kind of partisan hackery bullshit that cbs is acquiring for 200 million dollars and making the the sort of editorial lens for the network they also they they clearly think of themselves not as partisan hacks but like center-right thinkers you know like Tyler Cohen had a piece there today about how the cancel culture on the right is just as bad as when they complained about it on the left.

48:04But like that requires Barry Weiss and company to constantly be attacking the straw man of the left that they have in their mind and that maybe was, you know, justified for some people at some time. And so everyone, you know, the left always has to be a liberal for the free press to continue. And so that's what I think is going to be like the the real CBS thing, right? It's like, I'm going to pick out crazy things that Trump does here and there so we can continue to report on that. But then the left, just look at all the things they're doing. And if there's a nurse in Colorado somewhere who didn't properly, you know, mourn Charlie Kirk, they're going to go after.

48:41Yeah. It's also like it's sort of an outsider, insider thing. Like the free press, like we're going to tell you the truth, right? Like they have done an amazing job of building a brand. Even the name is excellent. Right. And like, I just they have built a kind of like parasocial relationship with their fans in part because like hey if you support us if you're here it's because you're a truth teller and you're not afraid of of a truth no matter where it comes from like you can handle it and the left doesn't think you handle it and even some people on the right don't think you handle it but we know you can but like that is a definition about being on the outside right but you but if you're about to take hold of like a storied mainstream giant media institution by the way one on decline as is every other mainstream institution, right?

49:21Like, I don't know what exactly you're kind of like hoping to build in the kind of slowly - Enjoy rolling over the ashes. Right, but then it's like, okay. Sorry. You're in charge now. You're not covering, you're not like, you're not covering how CBS should be doing the news. You're doing the news. And in reality, the news is kind of boring. The kind of news that CBS does for the most part doesn't actually get a lot of attention. Maybe she'll spice it up. Well, sure, but like, it doesn't get a lot of like, the stuff that you don't talk about is just the day-to-day coverage that you have to provide.

49:48And like, I don't know how different that looks. How different is your storm coverage? You know? I don't want to know. Well, let's find out. I don't want to know. I'm excited to find out.

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51:16All right. Before we get to Lovett's conversation with Chris Murphy, we just want to mention another Democratic senator who seems to understand the gravity of the moment. Chris Van Hollen, who talked to Tommy for the show last week. Van Hollen spoke at the annual Polk County Steak Fry in Iowa over the weekend. And during his remarks, he said that the hesitancy of New York Democrats like Chuck Schumer and Hakeem Jeffries to endorse Mamdani is spineless and said they need to, quote, get behind him and get behind him now. On Sunday, after the New York Times covered Van Hollen's remarks, New York Governor Kathy Hochul endorsed Mamdani in a Times op-ed, leaving Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, and Senator Kirsten Gillibrand among the prominent New York Dems that have yet to endorse.

51:53A Jeffries spokesperson then weirdly told the Times, quote, Leader Hakeem Jeffries will have more to say about the general election well in advance of November 4th. Meanwhile, confused New Yorkers are asking themselves the question, Chris Van who? After Hochul's endorsement, Trump again posted to Truth Social about the need to beat Mamdani and in his mob boss way seemed to float pulling federal funding from New York. What do we think? So. Chris Van who? Chris Van who? So I saw that over the weekend and it really annoyed me in part because it's like, okay, Chris Van Halen has criticized you. They also served in the House together.

52:33He's quite familiar with Chris Van Halen. You're not responding to the actual substance of what he's saying. You're saying you're going to have something to say about this in the coming weeks. But you're going to come back with like a dig that feels like it's from another era of political media where it's like, ha ha, got him. But it's like, you know, who's seeing this? This is for no one, this comment. It's for no one, right? Like people who want you to endorse Maldani. It's not an argument. You're not making an argument to anybody. You're not making an actual point. You're kind of treating people like they're stupid.

53:00And then you think, okay, you're going to get to this in a couple of weeks. What's going to happen in a couple of weeks? Maldani is not going to fundamentally change his views on anything. If you're not going to endorse, that's a huge fucking problem. If you are, why are you going to be dragged to it? Being dragged to it doesn't help anybody. First of all, it's embarrassing for you. It makes people feel like you're not doing it for any other reason than political expediency. You're not actually helping him because you're making it look like it's reluctant. And by the way, you're still going to get the same blowback from Trump and every other person.

53:25So just bad politics to me. And then you look at like and then Hochul comes out and she does it. Great. I don't know if she was pushed by the Van Hollen thing or not. But then it's really a long and kind of empty op-ed that really has nothing to say other than what every Democrat who wants to endorse Bumdani but is a little nervous about it is going to say, which is we don't agree on everything. We don't see eye to everything. But I think he's going to do a good job in affordability and Cuomo's worse, which is not that hard to fucking say. So just say it.

53:47Jon Favreau:Yeah, like, look, I don't blame Hakeem Jeffries spokesperson. and you're doing their job, you're pushing back, right? Like defending the boss. But it was a bad quote. And I also think like Chris Van Hollen has shown a lot of political courage this year. Like he went down to El Salvador to get his constituent back from a foreign gulag. He's been just got back from Israel where he was on the show where he talked about what's happening there and called it Gaza ethnic cleansing, right? So he's like saying and doing some gutsy things. And I think that he is absolutely right that it is cowardice to not endorse Pumdani.

54:18Jon Favreau:And it's, you're right. what's the point of waiting a couple weeks what's going to happen in a couple weeks and like i've heard from people who are sort of inside this world that um in private meetings you know you'll leadership will say as well we have a lot of donors who are concerned about mom donnie and it's like that's kind of what this smells like it's uh it's such stupid politics i mean it's just i just don't understand it right and like if if you were gonna not endorse him and you're gonna make them and that's your final decision then should have articulated why earlier you know the fact that we're dragging out the song you're right you get no credit for endorsing uh you still get all the criticism that you got rightly so i think and so what was the purpose that like later when someone attacks you for the endorsement you could say like well i didn't do it until the very end and everyone knows i was dragged kicking and screaming into it i also by the way that's gonna help you yeah i also don't love that it's like oh well you know what it is it's those donors which just like, okay, like you're a coward.

55:13So let's blame the fucking Jews. Like that's, that's sort of what it boils down to. That's not what they said.

55:21Jon Favreau:Religion of these donors. Okay. I don't know. I know you're not saying that I'm saying that like this idea that like, oh, they're hearing from the donors. They're hearing from the donors. And this is New York politics. I know what that means. And it's like, okay. So you think if you, if you endorse mom, Donnie, you're gonna have a big fundraising problem. Once you endorse mom, Donnie, I have a feeling you're not going to say that. So I'm not I'm not suggesting that you're saying that at all. Of course not. I'm saying that, like, I feel like that's like the implication. Well, it's like there's a lot of Jews that are pretty concerned about Mamdani.

55:47Meanwhile, he's doing well with Jewish Democrats. He's like done everything he can to address concerns about that. And the other thing that's interesting about Mamdani is like he keeps having these meetings with business leaders and others that are like kind of instinctively opposed to him. And he's kind of like charming the fuck out of them because he listens and he's curious and he's actually receptive. So I don't know what these conversations that are going on behind the scenes with people like Jeffries and Schumer. But if it's going to result in an endorsement two days before the election, fucking do it.

56:13Meanwhile, there was a local TV news reporter in New York today that reported that according to two sources, Adams is probably going to drop out by the end of the week. So we shall see if that comes to pass. But that was the report today.

56:29Jon Favreau:Your choices are Cuomo or Mumdani. Pick. Yeah. Pick soon. What about Curtis Lewis? So, well, I'm guessing that Hakeem Jeffries and Chuck Schumer are not going to vote for him. But Katz and Gracie Manchin? No. Okay. When we get back from the break, you'll hear Lovett's conversation with Senator Chris Murphy, who's been sounding the alarm about just how bad the Trump crackdown on the left might actually be. Two quick things before we do that. We want to hear from you. We're asking all of you loyal listeners and friends of the pod what you want out of Cricket's Friend of the Pod subscription. Do you want more exclusive content?

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59:08Senator Chris Murphy, welcome back to the pod. Thanks for being here. So I want to talk to you, obviously, about the murder of Charlie Kirk and the reaction to it coming from the right. You talked about this on social media over the weekend, about the ways in which this could lead Americans to unite to confront political violence, but that we're seeing something else that's really worrying from the right. Can you talk a little bit about what you're worried about?

59:35Chris Murphy:This awful, tragic assassination could have been this moment where Democrats, Republicans, the right and the left come together and decide that we're going to do a set of things communally to draw a line in the sand on political violence specifically and mass violence, public violence writ large. Obviously, we're all shaken by the fact that more and more political figures are the targets of attack. And there's a system of radicalization that exists online, some of it political, some of it, frankly, non-political, that puts us all at risk. But predictably, Donald Trump is doing the opposite. He has been likely looking for a pretext all year in order to supersize his efforts to try to use the legal system in this country, which he now controls out of the White House in order to destroy his political opposition.

1:00:30Chris Murphy:And, you know, we now have growing confirmation that that's the conversation that's happening inside of the White House, that they are, you know, going to just create this mythical world in which the only threat of violence comes from the left, which is not true. There's radicalization in both the right and the left. But if you really want to do the counting, there's far more violent radicalization happening on the right than on the left. They're going to tell this false story in order to empower the DOJ and the FBI to shut down Democratic organizations, to harass and lock up more Democratic political officials.

1:01:09Chris Murphy:And what has already been a pretty dark year could get a lot darker. And I just think we have to name what they are talking about doing now so that when it happens, they have a lower likelihood of getting away with the stated reason versus what is the actual reason, which is their political agenda to try to seize power and allow Trump and his family to rule forever. Yeah. So J.D. Vance guest hosted the Charlie Kirk podcast, and he focused on this article in The Nation that was very critical of Charlie Kirk and from there extrapolated out to a need to go after a lot of left-wing institutions. But there are two parts of it that jumped out at me.

1:01:56One is at first I only saw clips of it. And when I saw clips of it, I saw clips of J.D. Vance saying that the left is statistically more likely to be lunatics and that he's going to go after left-wing institutions. But what I didn't see in anything shared on social media was in that speech, J.D. Vance makes a point of saying that he heard from Democratic former Senate colleagues and Democratic friends who want to unite against political violence. And he says that he thanks God that the vast majority of Democrats do not contone political violence. And it struck me that even in this set of remarks about the need to take on political violence, we are all kind of subject to like the algorithmic feed and how it radicalizes us against one another.

1:02:43And I wonder if even this kind of debate about the proportion of which direction the political violence comes from is almost beside the point. Like, okay, we claim it's further to the right. Vance claims that the left has lost its mind and is celebrating a killing. But like, is there any hope to collectively talking about this as a cultural and Internet driven phenomenon?

1:03:06Chris Murphy:Of course there is. But it does require leadership from the top. And you're right that there's going to be a tendency to cherry pick anything that the vice president says or anything that the president says. But, you know, there is also confirmation today that there is an effort underway right now in the administration to name and target and prepare plans to shut down and disrupt only political organizations on the left. So, yeah, I appreciate the section of the vice president's speech in which he says what we all know, which is that, you know, inside the sort of broad political mainstream, there is no tolerance for political violence, whether it comes from the right or the left or targeting the right or the left.

1:03:57Chris Murphy:But that kind of talk may be masking the plans that he is actively engaged in, which is an effort to try to, you know, go after somebody like George Soros, right, who probably is the most notable funder of kind of generic political opposition to the president in this country, has zero connection to violence. In fact, has dedicated his entire life to fighting violence, condemning violence, but has been named by Donald Trump as someone who might face criminal charges. And that likelihood that mainstream Democratic figures and funders get targeted has probably greatly increased, notwithstanding some of the pieces of Vance's speech that didn't get covered?

1:04:42So there are obviously Republicans that are saying the right things here. Governor Spencer Cox has been a model of trying to demonstrate responsible leadership in this moment. I saw your colleague, Senator Langford, saying what looked to me to be far more responsible than what I've heard from President Trump, obviously. In the Senate, in Congress, everyone is aware that the number of threats has gone up dramatically against Democrats and Republicans. That's like, that's not a Twitter thing. That's a real thing, right? Is there any hope that because of the actual reality of this confronting both Republicans and Democrats, that without someone like Donald Trump doing what's right here and showing wisdom, which is obviously impossible to imagine, that there will be voices outside of those that could have some purchase?

1:05:31Chris Murphy:I mean, listen, I wish I could be the bearer of good news here. You are right that there are responsible, thoughtful Republican voices, but they tend to be the same ones over and over again. This is not the first time that Spencer Cox has said something full of all sorts of thought and common sense. James Lankford continually steps up and tries to make the Senate a more functional place. But by and large, there has been no willingness to stand up to the boss, to President Trump when he does exactly the opposite, when he lionizes and endorses violence, when it happens on the right, and when he invents a world in which the only threat of violence comes from the left.

1:06:10Chris Murphy:Now, we have an opportunity to do something right now. We're going to confront the budget for the coming year. And, you know, the president has made it clear that he wants to turn the DOJ, even more so than it exists today, into an operation to hunt his political opponents. We could put constraints on the DOJ in that budget. We could require it to have a level of independence that it historically has had. But I just don't think, aside from the few Republicans you named, there will be enough that will actually try to, through law, put constraints on the president's instinct, which is to use the assassination of Charlie Kirk for political ends.

1:06:53So what are the constraints? What are the levers to slow or stop that project? You know, Kash Patel has not exactly shrouded himself in glory in the last couple of days, which actually, to me, kind of, you know, the imagination of what a kind of unchecked Republican administration that's hellbent on cracking down on its opposition would look like is far worse than what you're kind of seeing in practice. America is a pretty big and complicated, fractious place with a First Amendment. Like, it's a hard project to crack down on dissent in this country, isn't it?

1:07:27Chris Murphy:It is a hard project, but you don't need to be universally successful. And this is, I think, the reminder that I'm constantly giving folks. You know, if you go to countries that are today very illiberal democracies, places like Hungary or Turkey, you will still see dissent. There are still elections. The opposition party can win, but they can never win at the national level. There's never allowed to be enough dissent and enough support for the political opposition that they are able to win at the highest levels in contests for the president and for parliament. And so I don't want our sort of measure for success in this country to be that dissent has not been completely eradicated.

1:08:11Chris Murphy:What we have to look to are, you know, the places where the political opposition gets its main oxygen. Are donations being curtailed? Are they trying to consolidate control of the media in a way that only the regime's story is being told? Are they targeting just enough people with the criminal justice system to convince a lot of would-be volunteers or activists to stay indoors? I think we are reaching that point where they've done just enough to frustrate dissent, not to eliminate it, that they are going to be able to keep the Democratic Party so weak that we'll be able to compete but not win in elections.

1:08:53Chris Murphy:Which is why this to me is a really decisive moment when they're contemplating ratcheting up their attacks. We need to show that it's not working. We need to actually see in the coming weeks and months there being bigger protests. There being more people signing up for activist and mobilization efforts than ever. And if we do that, then you will sort of prove to folks who may be thinking of sitting on the sidelines now that the times are getting darker, that there's safety, that there's sort of safe space to still remain involved in our democracy. So I'm almost reluctant to raise this in part because I do see such an asymmetry.

1:09:31I see like this Manichean language about a killer be killed civil war that's from like the highest echelons of Republican politics, whether it's an elected leader or very powerful people, Elon Musk, others. Right. It's a very those are these are people in positions of power. And that is often set against random people on the Internet spouting off. Right. Performatively indifferent or justifying or celebrating a murder. And I view that as depraved. I really do. But at the same time, there's value in being confident in the truth. And there is a strain of that on the left, isn't there? And is it giving in to the argument from Trump and Vance to talk about that?

1:10:12Or is it worth confronting it as real to demonstrate our actual democratic values?

1:10:20Chris Murphy:No, I think it's absolutely worth acknowledging it and confronting it. Of course, it's different when it's, you know, just run-of-the-mill political voices lionizing and endorsing violence on the left versus the president of the United States of America doing it. But that doesn't mean that we don't have an obligation to try to shut it down and keep it as fringe. Absolutely, we need to call this phenomenon out when it happens on the left. there are people who are celebrating these acts of violence. We saw that with the assassination of the health insurance CEO, that there were, frankly, a lot of people online who were making the case that the system was so badly rigged that their only recourse was to resort to violence.

1:11:09Chris Murphy:That is simply not true. There is no justification for violence. the energy should be put into fixing a broken system. And the system is absolutely not so broken. Our democracy is not so badly rigged that it cannot be fixed. And so when you see this endorsement or excuse of violence happening on the right or on the left, I think it's just kind of a job requirement for all of us to call it out. Part of this, too, is what people are exposed to, right, what they're seeing. And there is a kind of way in which social media feeds a cynicism and a sense of powerlessness, as well as like this idea of forget celebrating violence, but like kind of performing indifference to the death of Charlie Kirk or justifying the death of Brian Thompson.

1:11:55It speaks to a kind of a depravity that flows from being exposed to content that points to Republicans as an enemy, as someone that's coming after you, that is targeting you. And there is some truth to the fact that Republicans are in power and there are people that feel as though they're coming after marginalized groups. But there is something really toxic that has kind of creeped in in both directions. And I just don't know how we get to understanding and tackling it when it is so politicized, especially when it's coming from Vance and Trump.

1:12:29Chris Murphy:So I hear what you were saying, right? We live in this world in which each side believes the other is an existential threat to the survival of the nation. And when you believe something like that, then you start to believe that any means are necessary in order for your side to prevail. I mean, I will caveat what I'm about to say with this. For a lot of Americans, this administration is an existential threat to their survival. I mean, they're about to throw 17 million people off of their health care. People are going to die because of that. The way in which they are targeting the immigrant community is deeply immoral.

1:13:05Chris Murphy:But that does not mean that any of the sort of non-conventional, non-violent means are justified. Here's, John, what I think one of the most important projects we need to be involved in is, is to convince people that the lines that are perceived to divide us right now, black and white, good and bad, true versus evil, are kind of not the only lines that matter. So yes, we are divided on, you know, issues of taxation and guns and climate and choice. But we're not divided on many other issues, like the way in which our economy works only for corporations and not for regular people, like the way that our local communities have become so unhealthy, like the way that our internet perverts our family's conversation, our kids' existence.

1:13:56Chris Murphy:There's a realignment that could happen in this country where we decide to actually unite social conservatives and social progressives around a project to dismantle consolidated corporate power, to hold tech companies accountable for their crimes. But we're so addicted to the way that we divide politics today along these kind of static lines of division on mainly social and cultural and other hot button issues that we can't find that other realignment. So I just think that project of kind of finding that hidden realignment that exists is probably more important, especially in the wake of this political violence than ever before.

1:14:34Yeah, I saw a video going around of Charlie Kirk denouncing brain rot caused by Nick Fuentes. And that was brain rot that radicalizes people against the Jews. And I do, I feel like there are these two ideas that have to be held in our mind at the same time, which is there is a really dangerous right-wing project that is coming after core American values and is trying to change this country in a way that is really dangerous, while at the same time, like we have a collective fight against the ways in which we have rotted our own brains and hardened ourselves to each other, even when some of our concerns and justifications are real.

1:15:14Chris Murphy:Let me say just one more word on the topic we're just closing out, because I think it is important. There is an ability to unite a lot of elements of the right and left around a revitalization of the idea of the common good in America. People are really sick and tired of an economy that is driven by a cult of profit in which we sort of don't value anything else other than making a dime. This is sort of a virtuous economy, a virtuous society anymore. Trump has exploited that erosion of the common good, that erosion of communitarianism, but there is an ability to sort of reunite the country around that conversation in which we say, what are the six or seven things we can do to incentivize us to care about our neighbors again?

1:16:01Chris Murphy:And I think you'll find strange bedfellows if you sort of start with a conversation of why we have been kind of torn away from each other, from our neighbors in a way that feels very unfamiliar. Before I let you go, Donald Trump just posted about the continuing resolution, the CR, this is about the funding of the government. You've been outspoken, you've been often a lone voice even in committee about why Democrats should not be going along with Republicans on the funding fight. What's the status of that? What's happening right now? Where are your colleagues? Yeah, on the specifics of this shutdown, this is going to be a hard fight because I just don't believe that the Democratic Party has an obligation to fund the destruction of our democracy.

1:16:47Chris Murphy:and if we're going to lend our votes to a witch hunt operation against progressive organizations or colleges and universities or our fellow citizens who are undocumented, I think that ultimately becomes a real moral stain on our movement. So I know we always have this instinct as the minority party to be responsible, but we need to start drawing lines in the sand about what kind of government we're willing to fund and what kind of government we're not willing to fund. And to me, that means trying to stop the healthcare disaster that's about to be visited on our communities and building some protections into this budget that make it harder for Trump to get away with his lawlessness.

1:17:32Chris Murphy:I think this is a a moral moment for the party. And I think the country is going to be looking to see what the price for Democrats is of putting our imprimatur on a budget that could potentially fund the death blow to our democracy if we're not careful. So I agree. I agree. It's the moral moment. But then all of a sudden, the government shut down and everybody's trying to figure out what it looks like to get it reopened. And is what you're saying is you think that there are winnable fights if we hold the line on Obamacare funding plus some other protections that you believe if Democrats held together, they could win that fight and get a vote that includes them and forces them into the budget?

1:18:16Chris Murphy:Well, I think my vote is really easy to get because all I want is for the president to obey the law, implement the budget we write, and for premiums to not go up by 75 % later this year. I don't need some big new social program. I'm not looking for Obamacare, too. I just want premiums to not go up and for the president to obey the law. And, you know, you ask a common question, which is like, can you win those fights? Well, that's that's a question of whether Republicans are going to be reasonable or not. I mean, they're in charge. They know that in order to pass a budget, they need Democratic votes.

1:18:50And what we're asking for is not the moon.

1:18:52Chris Murphy:and if their belief is that unless Donald Trump can act lawlessly, we're going to shut down the government, I'll take that case to the people. Yeah, it's two things, right? It's whether Republicans will be reasonable, but also it's what Democrats are going to hold together, have a clear line, make that case to the country. That's not up to Republicans, that's up to you. And do you feel like you and your colleagues are ready to make that fight, draw that line of the sand and hold to it? Well, listen, I can only speak for myself, And I think I can win that fight. I think I can say to the American public that Republicans were so committed to the president being able to act illegally, and they were so committed to raising your premiums by 75 % that they decided to shut down the government, that that's all we asked, and that we have an obligation, a moral, ethical, and representational obligation to ask for those simple things, and they wouldn't do it.

1:19:43Chris Murphy:And thus, as the party in charge, they decided to shut down the government. I think we can win that argument. Senator Chris Murphy, thank you so much Appreciate it

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