1062: Trump Cancels Kimmel

18:28Jon Favreau:Well, Brandon Carr was on, I can't believe I'm about to say this, but was on Scott Jennings' radio show today. And the thing they got into, which I think is the next step here, is under the equal opportunity provision where basically you have to give both sides opportunity on broadcast television. There is a carve-out for what are called bonafide news programs. So basically the idea is if every news show had to give every candidate equal time, you couldn't really run the news. So news programs don't have to do it. If CBS interview or 60 Minutes interviews Kamala Harris, they don't have to, by law, interview Donald Trump too, especially if Donald Trump's going to quit in the middle of the interview.

19:06Jon Favreau:But they've also carved out late-night comedy shows, daytime talk shows, So it's basically anyone that is in the news entertainment space has been carved out. This was specifically mentioned as a way in which the FCC could go after the view. And so I think this is the next place they're going to – they want to put us – they understand. Yeah, they've been mentioning – yeah, so Carr talked about the view. Yeah, they understand. Carr understands, Trump understands, that these media entities are at their weakest point since the invention of the printing press, right? The economics of the old media model are falling out the bottom rapidly.

19:39Jon Favreau:and so they can put tremendous pressure on them and they will give in part because the only way that a lot of these companies can save themselves is through mergers. They are trying to get bought, right? It's why Warner Brothers Discovery is spinning out their cable entities like CNN. It's why NBC, Comcast did the same thing with MSNBC because they want to get bought. And if you're going to get bought, you need either FCC or if you're a cable network, FTC approval. And so Trump has all the leverage here.

20:08Dan Pfeiffer:I just got back from Hungary a couple months ago. And I remember thinking, is this premature really looking to Hungary as a roadmap for what's going to happen to America? And it turns out no, because what Orban did, which is exactly what's happening here, although perhaps even less artfully, is he effectively either shut down major news outlets, newspapers, or he got his oligarch friends to buy them, and then they became mouthpieces for the state. And what you are seeing right now is a consolidation. You're seeing, you know, whether the marketplace does it or whether it's the FCC, you are seeing companies that are either not going to survive or they're going to get bought out by people who are allies of Trump or explicitly have told the White House they will be allies of Trump.

20:52Dan Pfeiffer:And as a result, you know, in Hungary, I believe it's like 80 % of the free press is effectively state media. And so what's left are a hodgepodge of really essential actual news groups. Some of them are digital. Some of them are podcasting. It's basically left to sort of the grassroots to be the place for information and analysis and, you know, real facts. And that's terrifying. But I don't, I mean, I think that that's our future. I don't say this to be self-serving. I wish we didn't have to say it, but like, yeah, we don't. He's not coming after podcasts. You don't have a deal with the NFL? No, we don't have a deal with the NFL.

21:30Not yet. I mean, they'll find ways to come after anyone, I'm sure. But like, there's no FCC relationship. Yes, but don't open the door.

21:39Dan Pfeiffer:Don't pay attention to what's happening here. But it is a good time to support independent media. Absolutely. And to come subscribe to Kirkwood and come hang with us because we have lots. I will say that it also, they don't have to carry through on all the threats to the point about The View. The View today did not mention Kimmel. Wow. Did not mention it. Yeah, right. Part of it is just the chilling effect. And now, it could be because of a chilling effect. I'm also wondering, though, because I saw Dylan Byers at Puck reported last night briefly that Disney leadership said that they are trying to work something out to get Jimmy back on the air eventually.

22:14Do you think that there's a chance that—

22:16Jon Favreau:work something out, they just have to say, put him back on the air. Right. And that's... You're like, what is the... What is the... What's... Like, are we settling with Brendan Carr over this? Like, what the fuck are we doing? You're in charge. It's your company. It's a free country.

22:27Dan Pfeiffer:Well, but will Jimmy want to go back? I mean, that's a question. For sure. Like, if you can't say what he said, you're a comedian. The whole point is you can speak in... Without using four-letter words, you're speaking uncensored to make, you know, light of, parody, or otherwise stick it to people in power. And if he can't do that, and if he feels like he's under a microscope, I don't know how you do the same show. No, in fact, if he came back, he would have to, in the most factual way possible, kick the shit out of Donald Trump. Yeah. And show people that he's not afraid. That's like the only way you can come back at this point.

23:00Thoughts on the best way for Democrats, maybe in Congress, elected Democrats, and really all free speech lovers to respond to this? I know that Democrats are going to subpoena Carr and launch an investigation. I think Eric Swalwell said, you know, we're going to get the House back in a year. And so I would tell everyone at the FCC and Brendan Carr to keep all your documents and get ready to. And so I like his optimism. I like Eric Swalwell's optimism. But what do you think? Is that all we can do? We have limited actual power here, right?

23:35Jon Favreau:The Senate Dems sent a letter demanding all documents, but it is not even worth the paper it's printed on. We've seen the Trump administration simply ignore subpoenas before. It's not going to ignore that. The idea that we're going to pass legislation in a world we don't have the House or the Senate is also impossible. What we have to do is speak out. We're going to talk about this later in the pod too, but right here you have big government colluding with big business to try to stifle dissent in this country, to take away the freedom of speech of people. And you should call that out. That is the exact kind of corruption that drives people insane.

24:09Jon Favreau:And we should be willing to say that. We should say it clearly. We should say it compellingly. And we should do that. And then ultimately, I think, you know, you mentioned supporting independent media. We also shouldn't be looking to our elected leaders to do this, right? Like this is, we all have the capacity. We have, our attention is our most valuable asset in this media environment. And we should use that and direct it to places that are actually going to hold Trump accountable. And if entities are not going to do that, then they shouldn't get our support. They shouldn't get our dollars and they shouldn't get our eyeballs.

24:39Dan Pfeiffer:I've learned something from the Jeffrey Epstein saga, which isn't over, I'll say that. I think what really resonates with this White House is when you can pull at least a couple of people over from the manosphere or wherever who still see the import of all this, whether it's Joe Rogan or Megyn Kelly, but I think it's not about bipartisanship, but it's about exacting some kind of cost among people that this administration cares about. And I do think somewhere out there are people who are on the hard right, who are in the conservative movement, who are free speech defenders, who understand, who see this for what it is.

25:21Dan Pfeiffer:And also, by the way, Like, maybe there's a Democrat in power one day. You don't want that Democratic president pulling what Trump is pulling. I mean, you just have to paint a scenario that is compelling enough to get, I mean, the hope is a few people that matter aligned on this. And maybe that makes a difference next time they try and do something like this. But I do think, you know, the reason the Epstein thing was so potent was because Trump felt like it was costing him. And until it feels like it costs them with people who matter, they'll just keep doing it with impunity. Speaking of Epstein.

25:52Oh. Did you guys, there is one fire tweet from a Democrat in power that came across my screen just before we started recording. Mr. Chuck Schumer. All caps. Are you ready for it? Is Epstein the real reason Trump had Kimmel canceled? Exclamation, question mark.

26:10Dan Pfeiffer:Hitting him where it hurts. I'm glad that Alex hadn't seen it, so I get your first reaction. I had to read the tweet three times and look at the account to make sure it wasn't a parody. so that's what we're working with I think your point your point is well taken bringing it back home Chuck bringing it back home I saw you know Mike Birbiglia comedian who is friend of the show been on the show yes been on the show many times one of the funnier comedians I've ever known you know he posted last night he was like I have stood up for a lot of other comedians in public and in private who people were saying should be cancelled or told a joke that people found offensive He's like, and now I want to see all those comedians and everyone else standing up for free speech.

26:55And sure enough today, I've seen a lot of comedians like Andrew Schultz, the Flagrant Podcast, like Tim Dillon. A lot of these guys came out and were like, all right, we're going to complain about this. I also think, I don't know, the entertainment industry, right? Like they have some power here. The people, the actors, artists, the staff. I mean because also it's not just like Jimmy Kimmel potentially losing his job here. Like Jimmy Kimmel will probably be fine. but there's a lot of people on that show a lot of staff on that show people work on that show and you do that plus the colbert show you do that plus any other kind of show that they're targeting like i think that you know i'm interested to see what happens in hollywood and los angeles in this town where the entertainment industry is is um such a critical part of the economy like i could see i've already heard rumblings of this artists actors celebrities like saying you know we're gonna i mean damon lindelof already posted and he's a he's a writer director uh in hollywood

27:50Dan Pfeiffer:Remember from Lost. From Lost, exactly. Said that he will not be working with ABC or Disney until they bring back Jimmy or do something. And I would love to see other entertainers do the same thing. It has to be talent-driven because it's not going to come from the production company. It's not going to come from the networks themselves. It has to be from the people they rely on to make great content. 100%. 100%.

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29:56Incredibly, Kimmel was not Trump's only attempt to silence the media this week. He's also suing the New York Times for a cool$15 billion because I guess they didn't adequately praise his business acumen. And the editorial board endorsed Kamala Harris. Those were just two of the many complaints. I don't know if you've read the whole lawsuit. I did not. I skimmed it. No, I read the highlights. You read the highlights? It seems like he knows this is frivolous, but he's just enjoying it. What do you guys think? What's the purpose of this?

30:25Jon Favreau:I mean, the best part of it is one of the central arguments is that in a book written by New York Times employees, they say that Mark Burnett discovered Trump. And Trump's argument, which is then laid out with a lot of facts and footnotes, is that he was actually a celebrity before Mark Burnett discovered him. So because he was a celebrity, he could not be discovered. Ergo, you owe me$15 million. Billion. Oh, billion. Excuse me. I was trying to settle. It's billion with a B. Yes. It seems like that's not going anywhere, although they did file it in Tampa.

30:54Dan Pfeiffer:I mean, hoping for Aileen. Yeah, exactly. Is that what they're hoping? Come on, Aileen. I just, the peevishness, the, like, the juvenile, it's just the ego stroking is so, I'm waiting for him to appear in the street in an invisible cloak that everybody has to praise, you know? Like, it's so pathetic and it's such a waste of time, but I guess it makes him happy to throw these numbers around. He's not going to win. I do worry about the fact that you know this is also onerous and it's all these newspapers when they publish these accounts or books as Suzanne Craig did lucky loser go buy it they fact check the shit out of it they have a lot of legal they have the receipts they're ready this is just going to make more work on that back end and it makes it harder to do deep investigative reporting and that I think is the most meaningful effect of all of this because you know you're going to get sued and then you have to you know just make sure everything is watertight because it's the era of Trump.

31:56I mean, sued the Wall Street Journal over the Epstein birthday letter, book. Then they produced the book, produced the letter with his signature, and they're like, no, still fake.

32:08Dan Pfeiffer:Not his signature.

32:09Jon Favreau:I mean, he did sue the Des Moines Register because of a poll that had him winning Iowa insufficiently. Just fucking real. Well, we talked about maybe the digital platforms will save us. President's also moving to exert more control over those. When Trump and Scott Besson said earlier in the week that they'd reach a deal to transfer ownership of TikTok to an American company, we had a hunch that the lucky winners would be Trump friends. And sure enough, looks like a consortium of investors led by Trump allies, donors Larry Ellison and Marc Andreessen will be getting an 80 % stake. Trump was asked on Thursday morning who would control the algorithm, and he didn't answer.

32:48I'm guessing because the answer is still China.

32:52Jon Favreau:Or he doesn't know what an algorithm is, which I think is highly likely. That is a very good point. Very good point.

32:57Dan Pfeiffer:Or he doesn't actually know what the deal is. I mean, he just doesn't know any of it. He's not in the weeds on this kind of stuff. Thoughts about the TikTok of it all?

33:03Jon Favreau:So I think this is a gigantic deal. Like, based on the reporting that we've seen, we actually don't—they may not know who's going to control the algorithm. But if China controls the algorithm, then it entirely defeats the purpose of the original legislation, which was that they were very concerned about China, a company with ties the Chinese government putting their thumb on the scale about what content Americans get. Well, remember, there's two concerns. There's one that's a data privacy concern. And you can solve that problem without the algorithm. The algorithm is a bigger problem. Yes. It's a much more mass problem for everyone to deal with.

33:34Jon Favreau:And so let's assume that they're either going to license it to the U.S. and the U.S. consortium is going to have some control over it. There is almost nothing more powerful that someone can have in media in the world today than control of the TikTok algorithm, right? It is a - What a world. It is a leading, it is a rapidly growing source of news for all Americans, particularly younger Americans. It is incredibly addictive. It is incredibly powerful. It doesn't just set news, but it sets culture in this country in a very powerful way. And if you want to know how dangerous it is to get an algorithm in the wrong person's hands, look at what Elon Musk did to Twitter when he got control of the algorithm.

34:14Jon Favreau:So we're living in a world, and I'm sure they'll say this would never happen, but where a bunch of pro-Trump billionaires, including Mark Andreessen, who is very avowedly pro-MAGA, can put their thumb on the scale to make TikTok be as pro-MAGA as Elon has made Twitter. And that is a very, very dangerous thing because that is the, you know, you now have pro-Trump billionaires controlling, if this deal goes through, TikTok, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp. Yeah. Maybe we are depending on... LinkedIn and Pinterest are going to save us. Well, Pinterest will save us. That is the distribution pipes of news and information in this country.

35:00Jon Favreau:The vast majority of them... Oh, you forgot Blue Sky. I forgot Blue Sky. I mean, the one outstanding one... I just get myself in trouble.

35:06Dan Pfeiffer:I was just going to say, you're out of it.

35:08Jon Favreau:Obviously, the biggest platform, most powerful one is YouTube, which is owned by Google, not controlled by a pro-trump millionaire. Also, if you've been on YouTube recently, not exactly a fountain of progressive pro-democracy thought. Subscribe to us on YouTube. Don't change that. There you go. Austin's happy. We did that because Elijah's in the office today. But I think it's a huge, huge deal.

35:30Dan Pfeiffer:And I think it's also happening. I mean, these are profound seismic changes in terms of the way we get information. And I do think it's happening largely because it's a business concern. And, you know, Kimmel getting canceled is very clear to the American public. Okay, that looks like censorship. That looks like a curbing of free speech. That looks like a First Amendment concern. This feels like, okay, it can happen and it could be ultimately much more influential. The impact of it could be much more impactful. And there is not the same level of awareness or outcry about what's going on here. And that seems insanely dangerous.

36:07Especially because the impact is one that a lot of people just won't recognize. Right, exactly. This has been our problem with social media the whole time, right? It's like, I'm just looking at my TikTok. It's great. Right, exactly. Like, no one's like, oh, I'm being brainwashed. Yeah. Okay, so the government's crackdown on free expression is unfortunately reaching well beyond media outlets. The White House is planning to launch investigations and take other actions against a broad network of left-leaning nonprofits and other organizations. Details are still unclear. They said it could take a while.

36:35But Trump and other officials have talked about racketeering charges using the RICO law and taking away tax-exempt status from nonprofits, which would effectively bankrupt many of those organizations. They've mentioned George Soros' Open Society Foundation and the Ford Foundation, among others. And they are trying to argue that it's not about censoring speech but punishing groups that fund or incite violence, especially, quote, foreign malign actors. On Wednesday night, Trump announced that he's designating Antifa as a major terrorist organization, a move he tried to take during the George Floyd protests in 2020.

37:11Somewhat complicated by the fact that Antifa isn't actually an organization, and there isn't actually a law that allows the president to designate domestic groups as terrorists. Other than that, good to go. Here's what he had to say to Fox's Martha McCallum about all this during a UK sit down early on Thursday.

37:29Dan Pfeiffer:Do you believe that there is a vast terrorist movement in the United States that people need to be aware of? And is it responsible for Charlie Kirk's killing, for the attempts on your life, for these CEOs that we saw in New York City? Is there something people need to understand?

37:47Jon Favreau:You never know, and we'll find out, maybe.

37:49Dan Pfeiffer:But in the meantime, we're going to do a big thing with respect to Antifa. It's a sick group, a very, very sick group. We have a lot of things. They love burning the American flag. I think it's terrible that they burned the American flag. Who's behind it? Do you have a gut feeling?

38:03Jon Favreau:You know, you hear Soros. I don't know. We're going to find out if he's behind it.

38:07Dan Pfeiffer:Do you have concerns about, you know, some people look at this and your critics will say, well, this crackdown is a crackdown on free speech.

38:16Jon Favreau:It is interesting. I watch your show and I watch others and I see people saying things. They're crazy. These people are crazed lunatics, even the way they'll answer.

38:24Dan Pfeiffer:You know, it's like you'll see them and the things they say are really bad. But they look crazy. Didn't really answer the question about, is it a crackdown on free speech? Also, Antifa HQ must be, the switchboards must be lighting up over there. Well, because we were watching this interview in our office, and always have Fox on anyway because we love the Five, the way that they're debating against on Five is, the Democrats are saying that Antifa doesn't exist. Do you think Antifa exists, Harold Ford? Who said yes, he thought it existed. Of course. Yes. Where is their address? Where are they headquartered?

38:59The point, of course, is there's not an organization with a website and an address called Antifa. There's an Antifa secretary.

39:08Dan Pfeiffer:There's someone that answers the phone. They have not filed papers, right? There's just a bunch of— It's an ideology. Yeah, people run around and they say they're Antifa or they're Black Block or whatever the fuck is. Surprise, surprise. The organization that's against centralized power doesn't have a centralized fucking operation. so that's happening what do you make of these threats the sort of like what they're trying to do here because it does it's a little murky to me still um how much of it is we're going to try to scare everyone how much of it is they can actually do some of this stuff what do you think i listen i get that right because it's like the levers aren't immediately obvious revoke tax exempt status harass threat whatever but given the landscape that we're in like did Did you ever think that Brendan Kerr would be like, we can do this the hard way or we can do this the easy way?

40:00Dan Pfeiffer:You're out, Jimmy. Like, all bets are off. I don't know. I think they can make it difficult. I think, you know, everything is fungible in Trump's universe. Like, what does it mean to be a bad actor? What does it mean to, I mean, their definition of what is threatening or malign behavior or somehow terrorizing the American public could be completely divorced from reality. But I don't know. I mean, he's the president of the United States, has the full force of the federal government behind him, has the business community largely bending the knee. I mean, I do worry about what that means. And then you see self-designated, you know, truth seekers and like patriot keepers like Enrique Tarrio coming out and saying, I'll find him on the Internet.

40:40Dan Pfeiffer:We'll figure out who the bad actors are. And Stuart Rhodes is like, let's reconstitute the oath keepers and protect this country. And, you know, this is the Kirk assassination has been a catalytic moment. And I don't think we know what comes next. And I think that already the sort of iterations of like punishment are beyond what I imagined a week after he was killed.

41:05Jon Favreau:Yeah. Dan? I think these are very unserious people that we should take deadly seriously. Like it's not, it's actually, yes, the Antifa thing is fake. It's almost feel like they gave Trump a ball of yarn to play with here because it's an entirely fake thing. but using the IRS to go after the tax-exempt status of nonprofits is a very easy thing to do. It's not easy to take it away. No, but if you start the process. Start the process, then they go, this is like, you know, Harvard's in court right now. Exactly. And even though Harvard clearly has the upper hand in this case, we've all seen the reports about people inside Harvard being like, we know we can win, but this is bad, and this is draining us of resources and all that kind of shit.

41:42Jon Favreau:Right, you can, I mean, remember earlier this year, the FTC sued Media Matters, right? You can go after these organizations. Obviously, some of them have a ton of money, like Harvard, and they would have the capacity to fight back. Many don't. You can go after individuals. There is a governmental equivalent of what Trump is doing with these lawsuits, which is I am suing. I'm going to make you spend money on attorneys and document collection and all of the above, and I'm going to drain your resources. I'm going to make it really hard. And what it does is – so, yes, some individual people, some individual organizations will absolutely be affected, and that will be very bad.

42:13Jon Favreau:but the bigger effect is it scares the shit of everyone else and if anyone if you talk to anyone who's been out trying to raise money for progressive pro-democracy causes right now for many of the people who have funded the anti-trump resistance for the last decade many of them do not want to stick their head up right now because the last thing they want is to end up in trump's crosshairs legally from a regulatory perspective from a public perspective and so and it is draining like it is very like democrats are struggling to raise money for in part because people are afraid of Trump? The domestic terrorist thing that they just keep bringing up, Trump, Vance, Stephen Miller, they have started to say, use that phrase, foreign malign actors too, because there is no way that a president can try to designate a domestic group as a domestic terrorist organization.

42:58You can't prosecute someone for any law that they're a domestic terrorist organization, right? You can use like terrorism enhancement on a sentence if you're already prosecuting something, but like it doesn't really exist what he's trying to do, which is why when he did it in 2020 with antifa it's not just because it's not an organization because it wasn't really a thing but you can designate of course foreign organizations as terrorist groups and i think the foreign malign actors thing is they now are going to try to look for potentially domestic organizations that have some connection to foreign funding like it seems like that's the nexus or

43:27Dan Pfeiffer:have like a foreign person working for them i just feel like they're going to stretch the bounds of whatever the definition is for sure uh pam bondy uh who seems like she's just playing attorney general on TV, went into the lion's den this week and sat through on the usual confrontational grilling from former White House senior advisor turned podcaster Katie Miller. Here she is showing off her knowledge of the First Amendment. There's free speech and then there's hate speech. And there is no place, especially now, especially after what happened to Charlie in our society. We will absolutely target you, go after you if you are targeting anyone with hate speech, anything.

44:10Dan Pfeiffer:And that's across the aisle. Well, that's reassuring. Now, to their credit, conservatives like your Brit Humes, even Brendan Carr himself slapped this idea down. But I think the most satisfying right wing rebuttal came from none other than Tucker Carlson. Let's listen. This is the attorney general of the United States, the chief law enforcement officer of the United States, telling you that there is this other category called hate speech. And of course, the implication is that's a crime.

44:38Jon Favreau:There's no sentence that Charlie Kirk would have objected to more than that. You hope that a year from now, the turmoil we're seeing in the aftermath of his murder won't be leveraged to bring hate speech laws to this country.

44:51Dan Pfeiffer:And trust me, if it is, if that does happen, there is never a more justified moment for civil disobedience than that ever. and there never will be. Bondi dust up, now the Kimmel move. They don't seem to be sitting well with some mega media types and right-leaning free speech enthusiasts, I'll call them. How much do you guys think that matters? I think it matters a lot. I mean, this is what I'm saying. I think you have Tucker out there who very much matters to this White House calling them out. I think that was recorded before the Kimmel firing? I think so. I think so, yes. Yeah, because I think that was a reaction to the Bondi thing.

45:30Dan Pfeiffer:Yes, and so I'm eager to know what Tucker, the Wizard of Oz, has to say about this one. Tucker will save us. I mean, my lord, if that's where we're at, stop this train I want to get off. But I mean, the end of that clip actually, in the way that only Tucker can, is him intoning, you're taking away man's humanity if you take away his right to speech. But respect, right? Yeah. This is not insignificant. I am shocked, I will say, at the level of vitriol directed at Pam Bondi. And you heard some of that from Megyn Kelly. It's clear that Pam Bondi is not beloved in certain conservative circles. I am hoping, though, that that is not the catalyst for these folks speaking out and that it legitimately is a sort of revulsion at the idea that the conservative movement headed by Trump is now curbing free speech.

46:22Dan Pfeiffer:and that this can, like, obviously this is Trump's new, you know, his new raison d 'etre is going after the libs on speech. And it should engender some passions on the right because it's the thing they've been talking about and outraged about for the last five years. It seems to me like in this administration, you don't criticize Dear Leader if you have a problem with something that Dear Leader has said. You can criticize one of your colleagues. Yes. So it's happened to Pam Bondi. It's happened to Kash Patel. It's happened to... Alex Azar. Yeah, it's happened to RFK Jr., right? And so everyone's like, oh, they try to keep Trump just like an arm's length from all these decisions.

47:00Like, I can't tell. Who's at fault here? Who's going on? But it's like they're able to criticize. The people in the larger movement are able to criticize various cabinet officials that are there as lackeys, but they just can't actually criticize Donald Trump.

47:12Jon Favreau:Yeah, it's performative independence. Yeah.

47:14Dan Pfeiffer:Oh, he's so succinct. Why could we just shut up and let Dan stop? Performative. I love that. Performative independence.

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48:40Jon Favreau:That's squarespace.com slash crooked.

48:49Democrats are trying their best to respond to all this. We're back to the Democrats again. Members of Congress, governors, even Barack Obama talked about, he was tweeting out this morning. Schumer put out a statement calling... Epstein files. I guess Democrats are introducing the NOPE Act, which is short for, can anyone? No. Something.

49:13Jon Favreau:never mind no political enemies act oh so it's that's tricky because the o is sort of doing the o is doing it can either be an acronym or not it can't be nope so i'm i don't know i i'm assuming the legislation will sail through congress because obviously republicans are also concerned with the weaponization of government and crackdown on free speech they'll join with the democrats on this legislation and pass it and then it'll get to the president's desk. And he also set up a whole committee on the weaponization of government. So I'm sure he'll sign it. Nope.

49:46Dan Pfeiffer:This would be called performative... Performative... Performative resistance. Performative resistance. Yeah, performative. I mean... I don't want to give the Democrats too much shit. They are, like, look, every Democrat we want to be outraged is out there being outraged. No. I don't know what I'd be telling them to do otherwise. I do think, like, we haven't, you know, we're not going to talk about this, but like heading for the government shutdown? I wouldn't be funding this government that's cracking down on free speech. Well, and I think that's the thing. It's like, that's actually where you have some power, so maybe it's time to use it.

50:18Jon Favreau:Which is a, it's a longer, more interesting debate about how you wrap in this sort of stuff into the argument around a shutdown. They seem - Because you know they're going to be saying like, oh, the Democrats want to shut down the government over Jimmy Kimmel and foreign aid. Right. And the, from what we can tell as of right now, and what I'm sure is a very clear and long articulated plan, And the Democrats seem to be focusing on the subsidies for Obamacare as the primary reason for the shutdown. Because I saw Schumer, a clip of Schumer today doing an interview with Punchbowl, where he said the two things – it seemed like what he was implying is, one, their process was entirely partisan, which has been known to get people on the street before.

50:56Jon Favreau:But the other one is making health care more expensive, which is actually a very, very compelling argument. It feels, this is one I've struggled with a lot in how I think about the shutdown, is that is certainly a very real thing that matters to a lot of people and does poll really well. It feels a little removed from what's actually happening. You think? But not to the people whose health care is going up. No. No, it's, again, it is the, if we were just dealing in substance and rational world, it is the absolutely right thing to fight for. Forget about the polls, just substantively. like if you can stop healthcare premiums from going up by like 75 % on a lot of people which is going to happen then yeah you go do that but that's none of the things they're proposing are going to happen I saw one Huss Democrat of course on background so only get a only get half credit on this profile of courage and honesty but said like look we should shut this government down and we may not win this and we might not have a plan to get out of this and they might not cave at all but we should just do it anyway and I'm like well

51:58Dan Pfeiffer:Well. Credit to just. Do something. I mean. That's why. The alternative seems. It's unsustainable. How could you abide that? Especially in this climate. Like, how could you abide that? I mean, I don't actually know if they could not shut down the government.

52:14Jon Favreau:It gets, like, complicated in the sense that, like, the matter before them is a, like, 45-day clean extension. Right? So it's like, we must shut. This is why these things are always hard, which is you've got to draw the line somewhere. Otherwise, they can just 45-day it until the end of time. And so this goes to November 21st. So do you say, we haven't really figured it out, so we're going to vote for this and then fight on November 21st? But why would anyone believe you that you'll fight on November 21st if you won't fight on September 30th? Yeah.

52:45Dan Pfeiffer:Also, get it away from the midterms as much as possible, maybe. I don't know. I was trying to think, too, about the partisanship thing. So the Republicans have not reached out at all to the Democrats. to even try to fund the government on anything. And I think if you want to make that argument, just be like, look, they didn't ask us for our help, so they're not getting our votes. You run it. And you run this government, and it is lawless, and you are violating the Constitution, and you are cracking down on people's speech, and you are raising their prices and their costs, and we do not want anything to do with this.

53:17And if you actually want partners in government, then we can come to the table, but that's not what you want, so you are not getting our votes.

53:23Jon Favreau:Then you better give us a temporary means test extension of the Affordable Care Act subsidies. That's why you don't do it over. That's what I'm saying. You don't ask for it now. You're just like, no, fuck you. You don't get any votes.

53:35Dan Pfeiffer:But you got to reiterate.

53:36Jon Favreau:You do need, like having been on the other side of a couple of these, you do need an ask. Right? You need a specific thing because eventually what you want to get. And it's Kimmel back on the air. Yeah. We are not voting for this until Kimmel's on the air. Uncensored. And the view is safe. I need a statement from Brendan Carter. I want Joy Behar. I want to make sure she's okay. Whoopi, blink twice. I think we got that handled. Let me cheer you guys up with some updates on how the government is making America healthy again. Great. Former CDC Director Susan Menares testified before the Senate Health Committee on Wednesday about why she was abruptly fired just weeks into the job.

54:14She told the committee that RFK Jr. pushed her out for refusing to, quote, pre-approve his preferred vaccine guidance and for protecting career CDC scientists from being purged. Let's listen.

54:24Dan Pfeiffer:He directed me to commit in advance to approving every ACIP recommendation, regardless of the scientific evidence. He also directed me to dismiss career officials responsible for vaccine policy without cause.

54:43Jon Favreau:Did he cite any data or science as relates to the potential ACIP recommendations to persuade you to support them?

54:54Dan Pfeiffer:He did not have any data or science to point to.

54:57Jon Favreau:Did he ever suggest that the president was that he was speaking for the president?

55:02Dan Pfeiffer:In that morning meeting, he did say that he had spoken to the president. He spoke to the president every day about changing the childhood vaccine schedule. I could have kept the office, the title, but I would have lost the one thing that cannot be replaced, my integrity. So the ACIP panel is meeting as we record this today and tomorrow, but there was just some breaking news as we've been talking. The panel approved limiting the availability of a combined shot for measles, mumps, rubella, and varicella, which is the virus that causes chickenpox. The 12-member panel also appeared poised to do away with the recommendation that all newborns receive the hepatitis B vaccine, but delayed a vote until Friday.

55:47That was from Axios.

55:48Jon Favreau:What's the limit on the MMR? The panel voted 8-3 with one abstention to recommend against giving the MMR vaccine to children before the age of four. Wow. Because now you get one right away and then just a booster at four. Yeah. It makes sense to do this at a time when measles is spreading rapidly across the country for the first time in decades. Right, yeah. I mean, no one has a stronger immune system than children age zero to four. Especially as we head into the winter.

56:14Dan Pfeiffer:Can I just say the polling on this is like, I don't get this at all. It's like, I think 73 % of Trump voters think vaccines save lives. And then you break down vaccines by MMR, shingles, hepatitis B, and it's like 70 % of Trump voters

56:30Jon Favreau:think they are important. Right, COVID opened the door.

56:33Dan Pfeiffer:But I mean, this is not a political winner for them at all. And, oh, by the way, it's going to kill children and adults. I mean, it is, as someone who has young children who just, I mean, all of us, right? Like, I remember getting them after the, first of all, they hate taking the shots. I mean, they fucking hate the shots. But I always felt like, thank God. Me too. Good. We're good. We're good for a little, you know. The terrifying thing in all of this, and this is something we can't, I think, wrap our heads around living in, largely places where vaccinations are still, you know, the order of the day and where we have governors who are working in concert with other, you know, parts of the region to make sure that people have access to vaccines, is the way in which this anti-vax culture is now on the upswing.

57:21Dan Pfeiffer:Like in Texas, there's an article in the New York Times talking about families that finally feel like they're being heard. The communities around them are growing. There are churches that, you know, support the anti-vax lifestyle. There are networks of people. I mean, it is metastasizing. That is dangerous shit. This is not just sort of the fringe having its moment. This is how you poison entire communities and then societies. The idea that we are eroding not just Americans' belief in the efficacy and the safety of the COVID-19 vaccine, but shingles, chicken pox, measles, mumps, rubella, I mean, hepatitis B, that will reshape public health in a really meaningful way in a not long period of time.

58:03Dan Pfeiffer:Terrifying. These are long-settled questions. There is no, I mean, these people are introducing doubt where doubt did not exist. Yeah. And there were liaisons that they had at the panel to try to argue otherwise. Amy Middleman is the liaison for the Society of Adolescent Health and Medicine. And she said to the panel, what problem exists in the current schedule that has prompted this entire discussion? We all know, I think, there are always some risks and benefits, and we vet those risks and benefits and compare them. We have an immunization schedule for hepatitis B that's been incredibly successful.

58:36I'm trying to figure out what the question was that really prompted this. Obviously, we all know. It's from fucking kook, RFK Jr.

58:44Dan Pfeiffer:The crank. What's the point of a confirmation process? What's the point of, like, asking people questions? I mean, he said literally he would not change the vaccine schedules. I mean, from Supreme Court justices to cabinet officials, they just go and lie. I mean, some good news is that we've said this once before. California and a coalition of West Coast states announced that they would issue their own vaccine recommendations, as did New York and a coalition of states in the Northeast. Even health insurers have stepped in. AHIP, which is the major health insurance trade group, announced that their member plans, which include Aetna, Humana, Kaiser Permanente, and a dozen blue plans, would continue to cover flu and COVID-19 vaccines through the end of 2026, even if the CDC changes their recommendations.

59:23We should also note that the CDC has to, the CDC, the organization has to vote on the recommendations from the CDC panel, the kooks in the panel. But, you know, it's not like there's anyone running the CDC right now either.

59:36Dan Pfeiffer:Can I say one thing? And this was comforting, I guess, because I live in one of those states that has one of these, but there's a network of doctors and clinicians and sort of people in science who have been corresponding and communicating for decades now, and are now sort of the Cracker Jack Avengers team that are responsible for helping these states figure out what their policies are. So there does exist a network. The problem is that it's isolated to, I don't know, blue states in large part or coastal states. And what you can't have in the name of public health is a patchwork of solutions because we're all in it together.

1:00:08Dan Pfeiffer:Newsflash. This is one where like people need to organize groups of parents and kids and doctors and like go to Washington and sit in Congress and sit outside the White House. And like this, if there was ever time for peaceful protest, you know, like Donald Trump can target Jimmy Kimmel and he can try to target NGOs here and there. How about kids who want vaccines? Parents who wants their kid to have vaccines. Want to be safe in school. Right. You'll be hearing from some of them on my forthcoming podcast, I'm sure. Look at that. Stories from the Ground. Love that. Organic plug. I do think that the, like, I don't know.

1:00:42I'm not trying to be optimistic here, believe me. But like. You can be.

1:00:45Jon Favreau:It's a safe space. I would say this is a lot to sustain for the Trump administration. Yeah, right. Between the Kimmel stuff and the larger crackdown on free speech and now the vaccines and health insurance premiums are going to go up for people. And we're looking down at a government shutdown. And we didn't even talk about Lisa Cook, who gets to keep her seat for now. But then Trump just asked the Supreme Court to try to kick her off. We got one rate cut, but he wants more. We don't know what's happening with the economy, right?

1:01:15Dan Pfeiffer:The VAX stuff and the money stuff really hits home.

1:01:17Jon Favreau:And I think the Kimmel stuff does too. For a couple reasons. I think that Trump is now at risk of being optimistic. How dare we do that in this period? We're going to have something. But Trump is at, this is classic overreach in a lot of ways. Trump was elected for two reasons. And he was elected by people who don't really like Trump. They just thought he would probably do a better job of lowering their costs and securing the border. And put the border aside. But on immigration, he's gone further than most people want. And he has not lowered their costs. He's raised them. And instead, he's spending his time on a lot of things that are not solving that particularly economic problem.

1:01:51Jon Favreau:And some of those things, like, we obsess about, we think about all the time, we talk about, but they don't break through to real people. The vaccine stuff breaks through to real people. It absolutely does. It is something that blows up parent group chats for school and WhatsApp groups. It's happening as people are going back to school and filling out the vaccine certification so their kids can go to school. It is happening as everyone is now making decisions about flu vaccines. and this is the period of time for our fourth year where we would be getting our COVID vaccine. And the Kimmel-Charlie Kirk stuff, I think, really does break through.

1:02:23Jon Favreau:The Charlie Kirk assassination has broken through almost nothing else this year, even more in the Epstein files. I track this on the What's Resonating substack where they go through all the social traffic and internet traffic and stuff. The Kirk stuff blows everything out of the water. And Kimmel is attached to that. And that gets through to people. I just can't tell you how many nonpolitical people in my life have asked me about the Charlie Kirk stuff. And so like on two big things that break through to real people, he is focused on things that are not what they elected him to do. And that is where when you get in trouble as a president, particularly as you head into a midterm.

1:02:54So there's some optimism. And I would say that's true for any president. White Houses tend to be insular and you're in a foxhole. And so it's hard to like get a good handle on public opinion beyond just the polls. I think in authoritarian regimes that is a particular problem because they have completely shut out the rest of public opinion and all Trump is Trump is just surrounded by people telling him you are doing the best job you're the greatest person that we've ever had in this job and we're so excited and blah blah blah and then he turns on the TV and all the people on Fox are singing his praises and everyone's wonderful so like to the extent that there's going to be a backlash against him in the country he's not going to really

1:03:31Jon Favreau:detect it now and the people around him on either this is the fundamental shift in the Trump era from when we were in Washington is when we were in Washington, everyone watched, all the Republicans watched Fox, but they also watched everything else. And they kind of winked and nodded at Fox that it was sort of a ridiculous thing. They were kind of in on the joke, but they also watched all the regular news. They watched CNN. They read the newspapers. Now everyone in the MAGA movement has self-selected into a right-wing media bubble. And so they are not exposed to dissenting opinions in any way.

1:03:58Jon Favreau:And I really think they turn on that TV when Fox is on, and they think it's a window into the world when it's really just a mirror. And so that's why the policies are addressing. There is this circular logic where Fox runs something. The White House sees this as a problem. They try to solve it. That's how you end up with the National Guard in D.C., right? That's why even though crime is down in lots of places around the country, that they've made their central focus be urban crime because urban crime has been one of Fox's favorite stories for very obvious racially coded reasons for decades now.

1:04:31Jon Favreau:And so they're solving problems that Fox News producers or other right-wing media people think gets engagement from other MAGA media consumers.

1:04:40Dan Pfeiffer:Can I say one thing on the vaccines, though? I'm glad that you played that moment between Menara's and Cassidy because she says that RFK is talking daily with Trump about changing the vaccine schedule. You know, it is really hard. First of all, I think Ivanka and Don Jr. and Eric probably all got their MMR vaccines. You know, like this does not seem like the hill that Trump wants to die on.

1:05:05Jon Favreau:Trump got his COVID vaccine.

1:05:06Dan Pfeiffer:Yeah. But I mean, I just think the concern about, you know, this is all, these are confections created by Robert F. Kennedy Jr. And so I do wonder whether there's more hope that he will move away from this insanity before he is forced to just because it's not his thing. Like this is not his thing. And if he starts paying a price. He knows that. Like it's very hard for me to imagine that RFK is going into the Oval Office and being like, we're finally changing the B schedule. And Trump is like, well, thank God. You know, like it's kind of like do whatever you're going to do. I know this is your bailiwick.

1:05:41Dan Pfeiffer:Do this. But the minute it starts costing him, I wonder whether he can be moved to go back to reality and safety. He did get that question the other week in the Oval about the attempt in Florida to do away with the vaccine mandates for kids. And he was like, vaccines work. Vaccines work.

1:05:58Jon Favreau:But it's like, did he say that because he's pro-vaccine or because he's anti-DeSantis? Like, I couldn't really figure that out. That's a good question. Well, however we can get it done.

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1:08:05All right. With all this End of the Republic stuff happening, we haven't gotten the chance yet to talk about Kamala Harris's new book, 107 Days. It's out Tuesday. More excerpts are making the rounds, including one where, so the New York Times has both a book review and a piece that sort of like gives some of the highlights, some of the excerpt highlights. and we can just get into some of the fun ones. Here's one that I think we all, this is the one we all gravitated to here in the office. This is from the New York Times. Minutes before she was to step on stage at a presidential debate in September of 2024, she received a call from Mr.

1:08:41Biden. He relayed that his brother told him that Kamala Harris was bad-mouthing him and that several, quote, power brokers in Philadelphia were threatening not to support her because of it. Mr. Biden went on to insist that his own disastrous debate performance had not hurt him with voters and that he had actually beaten Mr. Trump. And then this is what Harris writes, quote, I just couldn't understand why he would call me right now and make it all about himself, distracting me with worry about hostile power brokers in the biggest city of the most important swing state right before she was about to go on stage for a debate with Donald Trump.

1:09:19Dan Pfeiffer:Dad, I cannot talk to you about this right now. I do not have the time. I mean. What? What? Man. Wait, but just so many things. I know. Right? Like, what's the worst part? That, first of all, dude is insisting that he won the debate. I mean, tells you everything. Right? Or, I mean, I guess obviously it's that he's calling her right before these incredibly important debates on 107 days. You don't have a lot of time to go and do that. But to me, that honestly speaks more to senility than cruelty or, you know, trying to undermine her. It's like it makes no sense. No part of it makes sense. Honestly, I don't think you have to choose.

1:10:01Dan Pfeiffer:Well, that's.

1:10:03Jon Favreau:Yeah, I'm trying to like, how does that happen? I guess because the president doesn't dial a phone himself. Right. Right. Someone, he picks up the phone and says, put me through to Kamala Harris. And so I assume the person who connected the call was like, obviously, he's calling to wish her good luck. And maybe that was the original intent of the call. And it just went off the rails. I don't know. It's not great. Her fraught relationship with Biden forms the undercurrent of the book. My feelings for him were grounded in warmth and loyalty, but they had become complicated over time with hurt and disappointment.

1:10:32And that is basically the sort of the theme of the book. I will just say, and I got an advanced copy of the book. I'm not going to break any embargo, but I read it as well. And the Biden defenders out there, the people who are still out there, still fighting the fight, just telling you guys, I don't know, put those swords down.

1:10:52Dan Pfeiffer:Lay down your arms. Because you know what? You can go after Jake Tapper and Alex Thompson and everyone on Twitter and all the pundits that you don't like. This was the nominee of the party. She was there. She's got phone calls that she's written stuff down. Like it is Joe Biden was not in the right here. Do you think it changes – I mean, she – Tim Alberta was making this point. I mean, she was the vice president of the United States. It's not like she was some random, like, you know, assistant to an assistant. Do you think it changes the way administrations work in terms of, like, decision making?

1:11:30Dan Pfeiffer:Because here it's like – I understand it was incredibly challenging to say, wait a second, don't do this. but look I mean look look what fucking happened yeah and now everyone's coming out and you see this sort of how fraught it was how wrenching it all was and I just wonder if it makes people feel differently the next time there's something very questionable that's happening inside or whether I mean I guess I wonder what is the end game of a book like this coming out like what is the net net? What effect does this actually have?

1:12:05Jon Favreau:I think it's very unique to the president themselves.

1:12:08Dan Pfeiffer:Yeah.

1:12:09Jon Favreau:Right. Like just based on I don't think this is necessarily true of when he was vice president. We worked with him, but based on the accounts, I have not read this book, but in some of the other accounts that we've read about Biden, he was the opposite of Obama. Right. Obama would seek out contrary opinions at all time and contrary opinions were not welcome in a lot of Biden's meetings, either by the president or his senior advisors. Particularly as it got towards the end. Particularly as it got towards the end. You know, you could look like every administration, like look at the Bush administration, you just had the vice president like running the country just by getting the president to sign memos during their weekly lunch that he wasn't sure what was in them.

1:12:45Jon Favreau:So I think there are all kinds of challenges. Like look at the current administration where the president has delegated Twitter and podcasts to the vice president. This is primary spurious responsibility. I also think the portrait you get out of this book along with Jake and Alex's book, along with all the other reporting that's happened and everything that we've experienced ourselves, is it would be easier to figure this all out if it had been some grand conspiracy where everyone was like, he's got dementia and we've got to cover it up, right? And that was clearly not what happened. What happened was it was a collective action problem where a lot of people were like, ooh, I had a weird interaction with him, but then other people told me he's fine and he has good days and bad days and maybe this is okay.

1:13:25and he was really smart in that meeting and he made a great decision and I don't think he should run but like really, who else is going to run and no one else is stepping up and whatever you have.

1:13:34Dan Pfeiffer:So much equivocating. Exactly. Which is, inertia. It's an unsatisfying truth and it seems like that is the truth. It feels like that holds true today. Yeah. We see bad shit happening and everyone's like, ugh. Which is, which by, I mean, the reason I sometimes keep harping on this is there is a lesson, even though that is a very specific circumstance that happened in 2024, for, there was a lesson going forward, which is like, don't just expect that every someone else is going to take care of it and that it's going to be fine and that someone in charge is going to be, you know, like if you see something, say something.

1:14:07Dan Pfeiffer:It's Kitty Genovese. Don't go do something if you hear a scream. Yeah. And if you're in, if you're in these organizations, right. And if you're in this stuff, because I think there's a lot of people who, and to be completely fair, there's a lot of people who just weren't around Biden a lot. So they didn't know they were working for them. But like, you know, if you have doubts, the thing to do is not just put your head down and just tough it through and think everything's going to be fine. Not just a backpack on the floor of the subway. That is right. If you see something, say something. That's an East Coast reference for you West Coasters.

1:14:37Dan Pfeiffer:Remember that in Boston? What is it, DL?

1:14:39Jon Favreau:We're all native East Coasters.

1:14:40Dan Pfeiffer:The T. So much defense. The T. The L, Chicago. Whatever. Anyway. Second city. All right. So that was fun. Thanks for joining us, Alex. Oh, my God. Thank you so much. Welcome to the family. Thank you. I'm going to go eat some more RX bars. Love that. Love seeing you in person, Dan. Let's make a habit of it. All right. I'll come down more often now. That's a lie. Have a good weekend, everyone. We'll be back in your feeds on Sunday with a special Sunday, Pod Save America. Bye, everyone. Bye. If you want to listen to Pod Save America ad-free and get access to exclusive podcasts, go to crooked.com slash friends to subscribe on Supercast, Substack, YouTube, or Apple Podcasts.

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