1064: Kimmel Wins, Tylenol Loses

20:18Jon Favreau:Yeah. It is like, I was like half getting it is shocking and old school. Cause it's like cash in a, I assume brown paper bag. Cause it's shitty ass Kava. But like, you know, then you get, you read the New York times and the report is like, uh, clearly the Trump administration cut a quid pro quo with United Arab Emirates where the UAE bought$2 billion worth of Trump family crypto. And in exchange, we give them advanced AI chips. Yeah. It's like 50 grand. You fucking fag. You call that money? That's nothing. Can you just talk about like the, again, this is sort of like Trump being out in the open about wanting to prosecute enemies.

20:51The reaction to this from Republican Magalworld. Can we, Like Megan Kelly, who is purportedly a lawyer and purportedly a journalist, her first reaction to the news. We do not care. Don't bother Tom Homan. He's a national treasure.

21:07Jon Favreau:We're just fully tribal. I just thought that was a crazy response. And at some point in one of her one of her long missives about this, she said, oh, there's like no credible evidence, according to, I guess, Trump's own now law enforcement. So she used that as to justify why she said we don't care. I also like this. Who is the we you're speaking for? we you're a lot of we's this i mean this we're talking about the the kirk memorial service too but everything in the last two weeks has become they a lot of they's and they's in us can i read you something from uh an insufferable woke uh lib who wrote about this they issue no charlie kirk wasn't killed by them they didn't pull the trigger one person did apparently young man driven by impulse and a terrible hate if they were involved law enforcement would find them and the justice system would hold them accountable.

21:53Jon Favreau:Karl Rove. I mean, it happened when, you know, Tim Miller, like responded to Megyn Kelly's crazy thing about like, we don't care. And, and she, and she wrote back to him, we don't trust you. We don't trust the work of your president's DOJ. One of yours killed Charlie. And then you laughed at our pain and then it went on and on and on forever. But it's just like, really just dangerous. It's like brain rot. Again, like you look at like the, the poll, like brain rot is the enemy of the Republic. It comes for all of us. It comes for people that, that, that, that, that are, uh, uh, like in politics, it comes for politicians, big, big famous media personalities like brain rot.

22:33Uh, it does not care what, it doesn't care how much, how much money you have, how much power you've had, how much, how much you've, how much power you've gained in politics. Uh, and it's like, really, it's like really disturbing.

22:43Jon Favreau:Can I just say for my money, the best corruption scandal narrative has been, uh, Tiffany Trump's father-in-law. What's his name? Masoud Bolas or something. So there's a story about him just making up that he's a billionaire apparently. And then there was the one over the other day where Tiffany Trump and her husband were on a mega yacht owned by a foreign billionaire oil trader. It's just a great little subplot. I just the Hohman thing gets me so it's just brazen. Especially like how they're treating people that are detained in this country. Detaining US citizens. Detaining legal residents, shipping them off to horrific fucking detention centers, inhumane conditions.

23:23And then this guy's like,$50 ,000. Great. I'll take it.

23:28Jon Favreau:Release the home in vials. $50 ,000 to do a contract that was probably like build an ICE detention center that is just essentially dog cages. We should say that there is audio tape of this. There is security cameras that saw this, according to the story. So it's going to be a hard one to cover up because someone somewhere. You know, we had footage of Jeffrey Epstein getting offed. At least we saw the foot. At least we saw the foot. We had to find out that the Kava's second angle was down and the person behind the register had fallen asleep. And there's no mysterious Homan-like shape moving with a brick of cash.

24:03It should be one that Congress should be able to subpoena if Democrats get the house back.

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25:49They're working smarter inside better systems. Superhuman Go from the makers of Grammarly is the AI chat that works inside every tool you already use. Always ready and already aware of what you're working on. It's a teammate whose only job is to help you be better at yours. With Go working with you, you can show off what you do best. See what Superhuman Go can do at superhuman.com. That's superhuman.com. So Trump took his all-consuming obsession with revenge to a funeral over the weekend when he spoke at Charlie Kirk's memorial service in Phoenix. About 90 ,000 people were in attendance, including Trump's cabinet, tons of Republican electeds, right-wing media stars, Elon Musk, who was seen chatting with Trump for the first time since the breakup.

26:34The service had the feel of an evangelical megachurch at times with speakers like J.D. Vance calling Kirk, quote, a martyr for the Christian faith. Kirk's widow, Erica, who will now run Turning Point USA, gave a speech where she actually forgave her husband's killer and said that the answer to hate is not hate, a message that didn't really land with the event's headliner, Donald Trump. Let's listen to those two clips. My husband, Charlie, he wanted to save young men just like the one who took his life. That young man.

27:15I forgive him. he did not hate his opponents he wanted the best for them that's where i disagreed with charlie i hate my opponent and i don't want the best for them i'm sorry i am sorry erica lovely just lovely it kind of landed like a joke in the room but it's not funny yeah i think he was trying to be trying to be glib and funny in the moment saying i'm not like I'm a worst person. Context cues, sir. But he does. But it's sort of like, then it's like, well, but don't you? It's weird to run into your ex at a memorial service, you know? It's one of the, yeah. But that's why you're a good place to be cordial.

27:56It's where you're cordial, you know? It's your dress well. There are jokes that aren't really jokes. Yeah, this is a joke. All of his jokes aren't really jokes. That's what I'm saying. It's like, Al Franken used to call it. I'm a little past the mented as a joke stuff with him anymore. Well, Al Franken had this term. It was called kidding on the square. He tried to get that to take off. that that's what that is, kidding on the square. Yeah, it's also like... It's a joke, but he means it. We had an assassination. The country is like on the brink and the president of the United States goes to the memorial service and is like, I hate my opponents.

28:25It's pretty...

28:26Jon Favreau:Yeah, no, I don't disagree at all. I'm saying how it landed in the room. They all laughed at it, which is like kind of a surprising reaction to me. I bet it was kind of the nervous titter laugh. What did you say? Like, what is happening? what did you guys make of the event I watched a bunch of it today it was really two parts it was part like genuine like religious service like mega church band praise music etc and then there was this whole Trump rally basically and the Erica Kirk speech was entirely about the personal their marriage Charlie's faith that was a genuinely powerful moment like forgiving her husband's killer just was in the the Emanuel AME church shooting in 2015 when the families of the victims forgave the murderer.

29:09Jon Favreau:But again, I counted nine Trump family staff or cabinet speakers. So we had Sergio Gore, real headliner, Stephen Miller, Tulsi Gabbard, Marco Rubio, Hegseth, RFK, Don Jr., J.D. Vance, Trump. Then there were like media people like Tucker Carlson. There were placards like you'd see at an RNC. There was giant like sparkler firework type things. There was TPSA branding everywhere. And like, I'm a wasp from New England, as you guys know. So I find that kind of melding of religion and politics. Very uncomfortable, but it didn't seem to bother anybody in that room. And I know it's kind of standard in Republican politics at this point.

29:44Jon Favreau:So it's just an odd event. I mean, one interesting takeaway just from watching it is a lot of the speakers, like the overtly political messaging was almost secondary. The hard emphasis was on like, get married, have a family, follow Christ. It was more like existential stuff, speaking to meaning and purpose. And I just, I'm not saying we should make those arguments specifically, but it was kind of notable that there's all these young people who feel like disconnected and disaffected and avoid in their life and a lack of purpose. And they were speaking to that first. And we do need to find a way to co-op some of that.

30:18Jon Favreau:Because I do think like Charlie Kirk was very good at talking about populist economic stuff, but I haven't heard a lot of Democrats, maybe James Talrico is one of them, talking about kind of like the void people are feeling in young people, young men in particular. Yeah, it's funny. I had the same note. First of all, the Erica Kirk speech, as just a speech, I thought was just excellent. It was, I think, very well written. She had a point she wanted to make. And you can take issue with how she describes her deceased husband's politics, but as just a way of conveying a story she was trying to tell, I thought it was beautifully done.

31:01And the part that does jump out is that part. And I was thinking about him watching this sort of like kind of revival-like event where so many people had turned out. And, you know, Van says, oh, he was martyred for the Christian faith. I don't know about that. But these people are turning out because Charlie Kirk was martyred. He was killed for his views by this person who was radicalized against him. And we need to get more details. But he was martyred. And it did bring a lot of people out. And it does give people the opportunity to tell the story they want to tell about him. That's what happens.

31:33That's part of what political violence can do. But in watching it, you see that like, you know, what is right wing politics offering right now, this version of it? And it is, yes, this is the Trump piece of it, like revenge on your enemies. And yes, it's like it's order, right? Promising you in an uncertain, dangerous world that there can be control and there can be safety. And that feeling of uncertainty you have, like there's an answer and we're the answer. But there is the third part of it, which is meaning. which is like we will help tell a story not just of the country but of you and where you fit into this time if you don't feel like your life has that connection.

32:12And so many decades of message testing and consulting-driven language on the left has drained so much of the moral language out of democratic politics, which is another way of saying we have drained the meaning out of democratic politics. And I had the same reaction as you to watching this, which is yes, like it's not that we have to have our version of this idea about like have a family, whatever. Like we don't need to figure out like the exact -

32:39Jon Favreau:Or overtly religious. Right. Or overtly religious. But like we have taken morality out of a lot of our political language, you know, and I do think it leaves us in moments, especially like this, especially on the left, there's a sort of kind of like tinniness to how we respond to things. And I do think that in some ways flows from the fact that like we don't have an answer for this third piece of it. Yeah, there's a moral language, even to politics, even if you're not religious, that I think we seed by saying, okay, religion is a thing for the right. And I think you mentioned Tallarico. I also think, I mean, Pope Francis did this, Pope Leo is doing this to some extent as well, particularly around issues of poverty, war, immigration, social justice.

33:25and I do think that is, you know, it has been somewhat mocked, I think, for a while in parts of the left. And this is like, if you're not religious, you're not religious, that's fine. There's a big room for secular people in this country too. And religiosity is declining and has declined over the last several decades for plenty of reasons that are the fault of organized religions themselves. Yeah, but then people, you know, walk around with crystals in their pockets. So they're looking for it somewhere. They are looking for it. Yeah, right. Absolutely. or they're like you know they're trying to buy labubus or whatever yeah sure yeah you know everyone's got their own everyone's got their own kind of religion but i do think you know it was interesting hearing uh erica kirk talk like forgive the killer i was like now that is a truly christian sentiment because there's a lot of sentiments purported to be christian that we hear from a lot of the folks on the right and then i think i think it does a disservice to christianity by being like because then people who aren't religious are like if that's christianity fuck that i don't want that you know and i think that's why it's so important for folks on the left who are religious if you happen to be and again if you're not no big deal but if you happen to be then like talk about what those morals are to you right and talk about what religion means to you talk about how it means caring for the stranger and the immigrant and and your neighbor and all that kind of stuff so i totally i noticed that too yeah i mean look a hundred thousand people

34:45Jon Favreau:were in that room or whatever the total number was because they were looking for something deeper than just policy white papers and for meaning beyond politics. I mean, I think being part of MAGA for them makes them feel like you're part of something greater than yourself. And then there's the religious piece, but yeah, they're not all in there for public-private partnerships or whatever. Well, otherwise you also, if you leave it to them, you get the, and you get this a lot from the right, you get the worst of the Old Testament, which is just like fire and brimstone and war. And it's not New Testament Jesus at all.

35:16Stephen Miller's speech, the day that Charlie died, the angels wept, but those tears have been turned into fire in our hearts and that fire burns with a righteous fury that our enemies cannot comprehend or understand.

35:27Jon Favreau:I wrote down that sentence too because the metaphor makes no sense. What are you doing? Why are the tears burning? Okay, you like it when Adele said she turned fire into the rain or whatever? Well, he can't sing like Adele. That's true. You also, again, we're old enough to remember when Paul Wellstone died. For those who don't know, he's just an unbelievable, heroic U.S. senator from Minnesota died tragically in a plane accident right before the election in 2002, I think. Accident. So they got to Tommy too. Oh my God. And there was a big memorial service for him that included one of his friends, a former staffer, who said lines like, we are begging you to help us win this Senate election for Paul Wellstone.

36:06Jon Favreau:And that was treated by Republicans who attended and the political press like it was an outrageous, out of bounds, unforgivable breach of decorum or something. Truly insane. It was an insane overreaction at the time. It was. And then you look at something like this. Although I saw some people getting mad that they were signing up people and organizing it at Kirk's Memorial Service. That's what he would have wanted. Yeah. Someone offs me, please sign people up. Clipboards. Sign people up. Let's raise some money for the fucking Senate fund or whatever. And we'll go dark for like a week. That's all.

36:37That's all.

36:37Jon Favreau:Best of. Just do a clip show. Just. just clip show i just want you just just help me out and just look through my mentions online just fight with my fight with my enemies fight with my online honestly like genuinely too soon let's keep going

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38:04We did get some good news on Monday. How about that? Disney says Jimmy Kimmel is returning to the air on Tuesday evening. In a statement, the company said they had merely paused Kimmel to, quote, avoid... Here's a statement that I'm sure was poured over by a lot of lawyers and workshops and a few different drafts. To, quote, avoid further inflaming a tense situation at an emotional moment for our country. And that, quote, after thoughtful conversations with Jimmy, they're ready for the show to return. Just before the announcement, FCC Chair Brendan Carr said during an event in New York that Kimmel had been suspended due to, quote, ratings, not because of anything that's happened at the federal government level, which, of course, is only true if you pretend he never said to Disney, quote, we can do this the easy way or the hard way.

38:47And that if they didn't censor Kimmel, quote, there's going to be additional work for the FCC ahead. Carr's threats got quite a bit of pushback, even from Republicans, even from Trump supporters and officials. Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard used her appearance at the Kirk Memorial to call for the protection of free speech, joining the likes of Ted Cruz and a few members of the right-leaning Manosphere. Here's Gabbard followed by Cruz. I may not agree with what you say, but I will fight to defend to the death with my very life your right to speak. Free speech is the foundation of our democratic republic.

39:23We must protect it at all costs, because without it, we'll be lost.

39:29Jon Favreau:Look, look, I like Brandon Carr. He's a good guy. He's the chairman of the FCC. I work closely with him. But what he said there is dangerous as hell. He says, we can do this the easy way, or we can do this the hard way. Oh, no. And I got to say, that's right out of Goodfellas. Is it? That's right out of a mafioso coming into a bar going, it's where this bar you have here. It'd be a shame if something happened to it. What? Jesus Christ. What accent is this? I want to play the last part of that. Nice bar you have here. Hey. Nice bar you have here. What was that accent? Can we, oh, Austin, yeah, let's do it one more time.

40:09That's right out of a mafioso coming into a bar going, nice bar you have here. It'd be a shame if something happened to it. Nice bar you have here. It's like a, it's like a bar. Also, there's like a Boston accent in there. Almost, yeah. It really reminds me of when Christopher Guest is doing a British accent and waiting for Guffman. I'll R-U. Because you drop H. I'll R-U. Shout out, Ted. Thanks for saying the right thing. I know. Good job, Ted Cruz. Good job, Ted Cruz. You know what? That was our bias. That's us having a gut reaction to you. And we made fun of you doing the right thing. We will defend your right to do that terrible fucking accent.

40:52To be that lame. No matter how, you can do it everywhere. We will defend your right to say it. Even if the Knights of Columbus come after you for it. The Knights of Columbus. You know. Hey. So we're recording this sort of right after the news that he's coming back. So by the time you're hearing it, maybe we'll have more reporting of what actually happened. But before we get that reporting, what do you think happened? What's your guess? So first of all, there was a bunch of people at the memorial that talked about free speech. Even Trump talked about it. And Erica Kirk talked about it. And it's funny that just because this event happened in the wake of Brendan Carr saying what he said and the government jawboning major companies into canceling specific shows, it seems like a rebuke.

41:35I don't know that she meant it as a rebuke necessarily, but the Ted Cruz part of it and a few others were pretty clear. I don't think we know yet. There have been some people talking about this. I think it was, what's his name? G. Elliot Morris was making this point that searches for cancel Disney Plus like went through the roof and that like everyone overestimates Trump's popularity, his ability to persuade people, especially the corporations and other entities that have kind of bent to him. And my hope is this is in part a response to the scale of the reaction, which maybe they didn't expect.

42:11and that's both public facing, but also like, I do think internal politics still matters. And I don't know what happened inside of Disney, but this is a big company for a lot of people that are liberal, that didn't get that, that like maybe don't bring their politics to work every day, but don't want to feel like they're part of a government crackdown on free speech. And by the way, these are companies that need to make things with a lot of talented people that are not going to feel excited about working with Disney if Disney is willing to go along with the Trump administration if they bring the hammer down like this.

42:45So I think we'll find out more. And I don't want to like overstate the importance of them restoring Jimmy Kimmel because Brendan Carr said what he said. And my fear is the only lesson he'll draw from it is that he can't say it in public. But I do think it tells us that Donald Trump is not as powerful as he would like us to believe.

43:02Jon Favreau:Trump would have to lock me up to get Hannah to cancel Disney Plus. I'll tell you that much. I know, I started going, I'm like, oh, bluey. If we're not lapping Moana or Frozen in my house, we're getting like shit's going down. It would have been tough. I guess you guys don't care about democracy. That's right. Correct. I do. I mean, I bet like ABC Brass and Bob Iger are getting a lot of calls from talented people they work with being like, hey, this is really bad. And I guess my question is, do we think this is going to lead people to think, all right, everybody, keep your head down. Like just everyone chill out a little bit for a little while.

43:31Jon Favreau:We can get through this. Or are people going to feel emboldened and think maybe it's time to fight. We can win a round. I suspect like the corporations will say, keep your head down. Some of the artists will want to fight a little more and stand up for things. I guess we'll find out. I hope people stand up. I hope people are not. I hope people are emboldened. I mean, I have a couple of questions about. So one option is that Iger made the move thinking that it wouldn't get the blowback that it did, not just from the public, but from all the people he knows in Hollywood and many of his friends, right?

44:02Well, then I'm saying then the blowback happened and then he was like, OK, I'm going to back up. then there's another scenario where from the beginning Iger wanted to bring him back on the air but you also have now all the affiliates owned by Nexstar and all the affiliates owned by Sinclair saying that they're not going to air the show I don't know what it looks like to have that to have Jimmy Kimmel on the air nationally but then have most of the ABC affiliates across the country or at least a pretty good portion of them not air it and I don't know what that means financially I I don't know what that means.

44:35Like, so I'm kind of interested in, like, it could have been too that they were trying to figure out how to get all the affiliates back on board. But again, it's speculation. Right, and I do think that like, given that it was short, if what the decision was is, the affiliates are going along with what Brendan Carr is saying here, and some of them are conservative themselves. If like, we haven't heard from Jimmy Kimmel. He hasn't said a word, right? Like, I do feel like there's a little bit of, if it does get back on, this is conversations behind the scene that's about solving the problem quickly when you're not just dealing with Brendan Carr but you're dealing with the affiliates.

45:10So yeah, I think that's totally possible too. Speaking of Jimmy talking about this, what do you guys think the monologue should be?

45:18Jon Favreau:Just a series of jokes about how Brendan Carr looks like he's aged 75 years in the job. Maybe something like that. It is funny. I was gonna suggest just a lot of Brendan Carr specific jokes, right? Like you say something about the Charlie Kirk stuff very quickly move off move off that we don't but like really go in on brendan carr probably trump too yeah you kind of have to you have to you have to yeah i mean i guess the question is like what what we don't know like all we've had is like characterizations of what kimmel was gonna say uh on wednesday and now we have some this statement that says oh they've kind of reached a kind of whatever they've had a good conversation about it and it'll appear on the show so we just don't no but i i assume you think he does the ted cruz accent yeah i am i walking here i mean do you like they've sort of famously had a rivalry right then they played one-on-one basketball ted cruz actually beat jimmy in one-on-one basketball so they have this relationship and i you you figure he's gonna have to reference this in some way i mean ted cruz actually did stand up for him when no one else did yeah it's not nothing it's not nothing we made fun of the accent but that was the wrong thing to focus on shame on us shame on us what the band do you think that the reaction from crews and others on the right means that there is like a there's a real viable opposition to uh like limits on free speech that trump's not going to go beyond or is this just or is this just a lucky happenstance because you could argue that had brendan carr not been so fucking stupid to make the threat on a podcast then they could have done it quietly and we would have never have known.

46:53Jon Favreau:I think that the Trump administration touched the stove on free speech a couple of times in the last week in ways that were meaningful. The worst of the two was Pam Bondi talking about criminalizing hate speech because that got people like Tucker Carlson and Megyn Kelly to be like, whoa, whoa, whoa, hard red line. Like I support civil disobedience if this happens. As you saw in that Megyn Kelly tweet you're reading earlier, a lot of the MAGA folks pretended that Kimmel was pulled off the air because of ratings or bullshit when we all, We like it was not it was not a subtle comment and it was made to a TPUSA staffer named Benny Johnson.

47:27Jon Favreau:Right. So the context was all there. Again, I do respect Ted Cruz for speaking up. I respect a lot of kind of Trump curious comedians or conservative voices for speaking up. I do think Brendan Carr made it very easy for them. And the fact that it wasn't just Brendan Carr doing this this threatening riff on Benny Johnson show. there was a clear merger before the FCC about all these affiliate stations that showed you the financial incentives involved here for punishing Jimmy Kimmel. Yeah, but you play it out, right? Let's say Brennan Carr doesn't do that interview and doesn't post fucking GIFs in response to Brian Stelter and all the rest.

48:05And all that happens is there's this outcry about what Jimmy Kimmel said that gets drummed up on the right. There's this debate that takes us online. Then Nextar makes this announcement. then Sinclair makes this announcement and then he's pulled, right? Like, is there the same level of First Amendment concern? Probably not. Republicans are united in saying that this was a business decision not led by the government, even if Brendan Carr is saying different things behind the scene. Does that mean Jimmy Kimmel comes back or not? We have no idea. We don't live in that world. But I do think that to me is unfortunately gonna be one of the lessons they take, which is, hey, Brendan, shut the fuck up.

48:41Shut the fuck up. Gotta start being a little quieter.

48:43Jon Favreau:Ironically. We're all knocking Brendan Carr here, but Trump too was like, yeah, we got one, another scalp, NBC, you're next. That's right. That's true. That's important too. That is true. Yeah. But there would be this, then like, imagine like two weeks from now, right? This all plays out. And then two weeks from now, we get a note that you get a reported story in the Times that like Brendan Carr actually called the, you know, like all the stuff that's playing out behind the scenes. And it's another kind of nobody, why doesn't anybody care about that? You know, like you could just see, they could do this in a smarter way and it'd be more effective at curtailing speech, which makes me really - Yeah, it is true.

49:11Like you can have idiots like Brendan Carr and Pam Bondi, but like, no matter how buttoned up the administration is, you're always going to have Trump just admitting the thing. We got him. You know, which is, which is, I was just thinking, this is why J.D. Vance is also very dangerous as a nominee because J.D. Vance goes out there and he's like, there's just bad ratings and he wasn't funny. You know, that's all. And then he just leaves it at that. Like he's, this is the consequence of trying to like intellectualize everything and make some kind of an argument that's not just, oh no, no, I hate free speech for people that I don't like.

49:43I like it for me. Which is basically Trump's argument. So, you know, he's got a war on free speech. He's also making big gains in his war on science and children's health. Trump teased a big policy announcement on autism during Charlie Kirk's memorial service, which is, you guys, I don't know if everyone knows this, but that's what presidents often do when they go speak at memorial services. There was a whole accomplishments section. There was an accomplishment. Yeah, I think we got to the 20, I think we did a 2020 election riff.

50:10Jon Favreau:We did. There was a, we solved crime in D.C. You can go out to restaurants now. Yeah, no, this is exactly what you do during a eulogy. And so the announcement was on Monday. And here's the lead of the AP story about the event Trump held at the White House on this autism announcement. Quote, Trump uses platform of presidency to promote unproven ties between Tylenol, vaccines and autism without new evidence. That's it. That's the story. But you really have to hear it to believe it. So let's listen to Trump. By the way, I think I can say that there are certain groups of people that don't take vaccines and don't take any pills that have no autism.

50:49Is that a correct statement, by the way?

50:52Jon Favreau:There are some studies with the Amish, for example. The Amish. Yeah. Virtually. I heard none. See, Bobby wants to be very careful with what he says and he should, but I'm not so careful with what I say. I think it's very bad. They're pumping, it looks like they're pumping into a horse. You have a little child, little fragile child, and you get a vat of 80 different vaccines, I guess. The MMR, I think, should be taken separately. This is based on what I feel. Ideally, a woman won't take Tylenol. But if you can't tough it out, if you can't do it, that's what you're going to have to do. you'll take a Tylenol, but it'll be very sparingly.

51:39I said, well, let's see how we say that. Acetaminophen. Acetaminophen. Got it. He got it. Is that okay? Yeah, it was okay. It was okay. This is the guy I want to take my medical advice from.

51:54Jon Favreau:Next to America's Healthiest Man, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Do we not remember 2020? Remember the fucking, the bleach? Remember the ivermectin? like what so just to you know i look i don't you know there is a autism among the amish it's not not that's not true there's no difference in incidents there's just a difference in reporting because they're the amish and so people have looked into this and there's yeah it's the they have just as much autism among the amish as everywhere else yeah the problem is that amish parents can't google hey why does my kid like train so much that's we can't yes we can Yes, we can.

52:35Jon Favreau:I just can't get past Bobby Kennedy's face looking like it was the game ball from Super Bowl III. You know, he's just like, he's like such a specific letter. Oh, yeah. It's just, that guy kills me, man. Ugh. So it was like, don't take it, but ask your doctor, but take it low dose, tough it out. By the way, Tylenol is like the only thing that pregnant women can take for pain, right? And so now you're going to tell them to tough it out if they have a fever or pain or whatever else because no studies link. That's large scale studies have not found any reliable evidence that acetaminophen causes autism and medical experts consider it safe when used appropriately.

53:17Jon Favreau:Look, I saw a stat that said each week, a quarter of U.S. adults use a medicine that contains acetaminophen. So this is a widely used drug. As you said, yeah, it was like the only thing women can take to bring down a fever or deal with pain relief when they are pregnant. The problem is there are some studies with, you know, I said there was one study in Sweden that analyzed the health records of 2.5 million children. Initially, it found a small positive association between women who used acetaminophen and incidence of autism, ADHD, and other challenges. But that link went away when they did some subsequent analysis that incorporated genetics into the passing down of those traits.

53:55Jon Favreau:So there's a lot of data out there. And I think people are looking for reasons or an explanation for why there has been this rise in autism. A lot of people say it's because we're better at diagnosing it now or we're diagnosing things now that we didn't used to. But the challenge in this case is you can't do pharmaceutical research on pregnant women for obvious reasons because it would be completely unethical. So it's really hard to pin down the exact causes of problems. And when Trump goes up there and just riffs and is like, did I get that right? Did I nail that stat? It's like, buddy, you are giving guidance about vaccine intakes, use of medicine for pregnant women that people are going to follow.

54:31Jon Favreau:Like half the country is going to treat his gospel. And you're just winging it based on how he feels. He just admitted it. That's how I feel. Well, he also feel he also you can. every once in a while when he's reading something or saying something and he kind of realizes there's a logical conclusion that he hasn't thought of before. And so he just says it out loud. Like when he said that there should be some sort of punishment for women, he was just sort of following the train of thought. That's like, well, that seems to be where it would go. Not realize he'd stepped into like a political morass.

54:56And here he's like, says here Tylenol may lead to autism, but if women have a high fever, they should take it. So I guess that means if they just can't tough it out anymore, I guess you have to take it. Like you saw him like figure it out in real time. Like, wait a second, what is this advice exactly? Then you look at what that's, what he's actually saying, which is that like, if you're pregnant and you're sick, you don't feel well, you have a terrible headache, you feel bad generally, you now have the president in your ear being like, do you care about your baby enough to not take this medicine?

55:29Or are you going to tough it out? Based on just like a completely uncertain medical, just like evidence that would not be presented in this way by - From a kook. from a fucking kook. This is not like, this is not like after careful study. This is not like, this is from an environmental lawyer, uh, and dilettante. Yeah. And you know why he's doing it? Because, uh, we're going to hear in, I don't know, a month from now, maybe even less, he's going to be like, and then, you know, I stopped the Tylenol for the autism. And now I saw, I just saw the other day, someone printed out something for me. There's no more autism.

56:04Have you seen this? because I fixed it. I cured autism. Next year, it'll be he cured autism and he'll be wondering why he didn't get the Nobel Prize for that.

56:11Jon Favreau:Well, yeah, also in last week, you know, the advisory committee on immunization practices, the ACIP, they changed around the way children under four are going to get the MMRV vaccine. And they're just like, it's not worth getting into all the details, but they're going to stretch it out over multiple shots. They're going to make it more painful for the kids. They're going to make it more time consuming. They're going to make it harder for parents to get in to see a doctor and create more friction in the process. that means more people just won't get their kids vaccinated. And this is like RFK and these activists who don't have the right medical background, like figuring out ways to slowly push their anti-vax agenda that isn't fully just like banning the use of vaccines.

56:50I was gonna say, it's really, it's dipping their toes into it, right? Because what they're doing with MMRV is, you know, you have your MMR and the V is the chickenpox vaccine. And so they're saying now under four, instead of combining them all, which they have for some time. Now they're going to separate them again. So you give them the MMR and then you give them the chickenpox vaccine later. All that's going to, like the people who are wealthier, who have health insurance, who can go to their doctors and just, most of those doctors are going to be like, no, we're still going to give them to you all at once.

57:20But for poorer families, from people who rely on like, like going to like a public health clinic, whatever, you're right. It's just going to be, it's going to be more inconvenient to get vaccines. And so there's just going to be fewer parents who remember to go back and get the chickenpox vaccine.

57:34Jon Favreau:And then there he also talked about like shrinking down the dosage size and giving you more of them. So you're like four of them, he said, maybe he was like kind of winging it again. The other part of this, too, is it's like just stepping back. Like he said that in his remarks, something like, what's the downside? What's the downside? What's the downside? And it's like, it's the doctors and experts who have like worked on vaccine policy and thought about this deeply are trying to protect kids on a vast scale as best as they can. And it's like, why is this the schedule? It's not because they want to load up kids all at once because they're what, like fucking sadists because they don't want what's best for the kids.

58:10No, they've looked at the data and they've looked at what happens when kids don't get vaccine. They look at just the time as you spread out those vaccines across a whole country. That's a whole bunch more people that aren't vaccinated. And yes, it's unlikely in that whatever few months, right? Like for one child that something goes wrong, but you look at a population on a whole, the end result is more sick kids, right? Like that's what this is about. It's like it's this sort of like conspiratorial mindset so infused into everything that they're doing. Like the people that made these recommendations want what's best for the kids and that's all it ever was.

58:44Jon Favreau:But the core of Bobby Kennedy's messaging is that the CDC and FDA and all these medical oversight organizations are just bought and sold by the pharmaceutical industry. And that is what they're telling them is they're evil, basically. Yeah. And the experts are bad because the experts are liberals and liberals are bad. And so you can't trust them. And so we've got to do just something counter to what they've recommended. This is a fileless one under damage that will play out over decades to our country. You might not see an immediate challenge from these types of announcements, but we will. Measles are already up.

59:16Well, we tried to give you some good. Again, Jimmy Kimmel is going to be back on the air. We'll get that, yeah. We got one. Chalk that up. One dose of that. And a great day at Adel HQ.

59:28Buying that crypto paid off for those honchos at Bayer. Someone find out what Trump administration officials started trading, started dumping their Tylenol stock before. Absolutely. The Ashton people putting 50 grand in a kava bag to fork on over to Dr. Oz. When we get back from the break, you'll hear Levitt's conversation with Senator Elizabeth Warren. But before we let him get to the serious stuff, I hear there's a brand new Lover Leave It taping this Thursday, September 25th. Oh, yeah, we got Paul Scheer. We got Hero of the Resistance, Eric Swalwell. That's right. And more. And more. And more.

1:00:05Lovett are you aware that the housekeeping copy asked me to refer to you as the new king of late night by default by default it also said hey you were already crying a little bit so why not make those tears tears of laughter I think there's like we're all crying because of politics I think that was just

1:00:21Jon Favreau:a note to you I'm just kidding it's very weird it says it in italic just read the fucking copy

1:00:30anger John so check out Lover or Leave It's please do upcoming shows and guests and grab tickets, head to cricket.com slash events. And if you can't come in person, there's a fresh pod for you every Saturday, no matter what the FCC has to say about it. Yay. So subscribe to Love It or Leave It Now wherever you get... It's good stuff. See, it's not my joke. So subscribe to Love It or Leave It Now wherever you get your podcasts or watch on YouTube.

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1:02:14Senator Warren, welcome back to Pond Save America. Good to see you. Thank you. It is always good to be at the pod. Great to have you. We got a lot to get through. We're in shutdown mode. It's looming. Looming mode. Senate Republicans rejected the Democratic proposal on Friday that would have reversed a bunch of health care cuts and extended Obamacare health insurance subsidies, which are set to lapse on January 1st, will cost people thousands of dollars. They passed that through the big, beautiful bill. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer demanded to meet with President Trump. Then President Trump said he's happy to meet.

1:02:46Where are we at? What's next here? So let me back up just a tiny little bit about where we are for families all across this country. Last spring, the Republicans passed that or into summer. Big, beautiful bill. It will take away health care from 15 million Americans, Medicaid, and also some ACA, Affordable Care Act, subsidies. But it will affect the cost of health care for everybody in America. And in fact, some of that is starting to click in right now. because when hospitals have to deal with uncompensated care, and they do, they've got to raise their prices overall. So health insurance companies know they're going to be paying more for people who have insurance.

1:03:31So there are folks who are listening to this right now who are getting their letters from their health insurance companies saying things like, oh, you used to pay$700 a month, which I think is wow, But now you're going to have to be paying$1 ,600,$2 ,100,$2 ,700. The numbers are coming through. And these are huge increases for some people, all because Trump and the Republicans are trying to cut back on the spending, the federal spending on health care. So what's happened is, as you know, we're about to head into, you got to pass a new budget by September 30th if the government runs out of money and we'll shut down.

1:04:16So the Republicans can't do that without Democratic votes in the Senate. They've got to have us because they've got to get to 60. And they've only got 53 if they have everybody on their side, which they might not. So they've got to pick up seven or more on our side. And what the Democrats have said is, look, we're happy to talk, but here's our ask. We want you to roll back some of those health care cuts. We want you to roll back the part of the health care cuts where you're going to take away health care from brand new babies and their mamas, where you're going to push seniors out of nursing homes and out onto the street, where you're going to take away the wheelchair and the home health aid from our neighbor who needs some assistance to live independently.

1:05:03We want you to roll some of this back. We're not asking you to spend more money than you were before. We're not asking to advance some huge new health care policy, but by damn, roll back some of these cuts before people start dying. And so far, Donald Trump and the Republicans have said, nope. Right. Nope. That's been it. Not, well, how about this? And could you do that? Nope. Just saying nope. And so Democrats are in the fight. We're out there slugging it right now. OK. But so the Republicans are—but we're on the other side of them saying no. Right. The House has gone—Republicans went home in an act of bluster.

1:05:48Yeah. they control the House. They have the majority in the Senate. They control the White House. They're saying, hey, you're doing what Republicans used to do. You don't have the power. You're trying to gum up the works. Let's plan it. We're going to pass a clean bill. And if you want to take credit for a shutdown, you'll pay a political price for it. So what's the response to that? The response to that is help a few million people get their health care back. Don't raise prices for everybody who's got private insurance. Don't take a bite out of Medicare, which this bill ultimately will because of other provisions and the fact that it's going to drive up the national debt.

1:06:24Just don't do that. We're saying Democrats are willing to fight, and what we're willing to fight for right now is you've got to do better on health care for people across this country. So just play this out. Sure. Democrats have now decided this is the fight we want to fight on. This is our ask. It is clear. It is concise. People can understand it. Republicans say no. We enter in a shutdown. They're forcing vote after vote after vote. Are Democrats united around holding the line on this issue of health care? And is the idea that ultimately you believe the Republicans will blink and Trump will sign a bill that undoes these cuts?

1:07:06So, yes, the Democrats are together. We know what we're doing. This is a righteous fight. I mean, this is the fight to have. It's a fight that people can understand, and it's a fight that touches every single person in this country. And can I just do a little side here? Do you remember what was happening exactly a year ago right now? I don't remember what was happening yesterday. Okay. Well, that's fair. But Donald Trump was standing up saying over and over and over that people should vote for him because on day one, he would lower costs for American families. Remember that? He used the phrase over and over on day one.

1:07:42And those were his words. Well, now we're on day 240, 50, something like that. And the price of groceries is up. The price of utilities is up. The price of housing is up. The price of back-to-school shoes is up and backpacks and baby strollers up, up, up, up, up. Price of health care is up. And thanks to Trump and the Republicans and their one piece of legislation, it's about to go up a whole lot more. However, this matters to American families. They are telling us that what they want is somebody on their side to help reduce costs. Donald Trump not only has done nothing, he's seen the costs go up.

1:08:25He and the Republicans have raised the costs. I think this is the place to throw down and have that fight. So there's people making the opposite argument, which just says, you're right about all that. He is failing to achieve what he promised. He is in the toilet in his numbers on all of these issues. Right. He has not been able to deliver. Democrats are united on that score. Republicans look bad on that score. And then we're going to go into a shutdown in which the politics are far murkier and in a pure, practical, hard nose political calculation that that to some people seems like a stupid idea.

1:08:59So I've got to say, I'm not sure why anybody thinks it's murkier. Now, look, it's not for me about the politics. Well, I hope it should be. Why not? Let me say it slightly differently. It is about getting people the health care they need. And that is a goal we not only can keep in mind, it is a goal we should keep in mind. I think the politics here are very straightforward. forward. We stand up and tell the American people every single day what Donald Trump promised and what they are doing right now and that all the Democrats are asking for is to roll that back so that millions of people don't lose health care.

1:09:41I think that's a pretty strong place to fight from. And damn, if Democrats aren't willing to fight for that, then we got a lot bigger problems. So I want to come at it from the other side. And I want to stand this just because I do think it's a genuine like Democrats are in a very tough position. I just want to be clear about this. And I don't think there's a lot of obviously clearly great paths. We are not in power. That is a deep frustration. But the other side of the argument is this is I agree with everything you're saying about health care. Donald Trump is consolidating his power over the federal government.

1:10:11We are fun. We would be funding something that would be used to go after political enemies, to gut agencies without congressional approval, to allow him to continue doing corrupt deals that enrich him and his family personally, that any imprimatur of democratic support for funding this government is a kind of normal politics when we need to shut this thing down by any congressional means that we have. And yes, health care is a uniting issue, but it's also, in some sense, one in a constellation of really unprecedented assaults on the checks and balances of our society, of the Constitution. Kimmel's back today, terrific, but trying to abuse the FCC to go after his political enemies.

1:11:01And that this is maybe politically the right fight, healthcare, but it's not the truest danger in our society right now. So I think of this as nothing succeeds like success. Yes. You've got to get some wins. You've got to show that you can stand together, you can stand up when the going gets tough, that you can still all push hard because that's how we're going to have to take this fight on. I think that, for example, today with Kimmel, yeah, you're right. Kimmel's back and yay, that's wonderful. So what's going to be the takeaway? Did it fix everything? No. Should we still be beside ourselves over a president who so openly has made it clear that he wants to control the media, the stories about him, and destroy the First Amendment?

1:11:58And my view on that is no, we should not relax over any part of this. But there's another part to the takeaway, and that is your voice actually matters. Enough people stood up. Enough people went into the streets, found it different ways. Enough comics stood up. Enough people hung out flags. Enough people said, whoa, wait a minute. What happened? That's not right. And yes, it's a small piece of a big, big problem. But it's a toehold on reminding ourselves of our own power. And I think that's what's coming up at the end of the week on this question about health care. We get more people energized, more people mobilized, and we push back.

1:12:48Two good things could come out of this. One is a few million people could get health care coverage who otherwise wouldn't. And some rural hospitals wouldn't close. and some cancer research would be restarted. Those would all be good things all by themselves, no matter whatever else happens. But the second is we'd all say, oh, fighting pays off. And look, I'm willing to fight. That's who I am. Yeah, yeah. But we win when we've got a lot of us fighting. We've got a lot of us committed. We've got a lot of people who've seen how dark and scary it can get in the middle of a fight and who still realize that it is worthwhile to stick together and stay in the fight.

1:13:32So I think we should do it. I think we will do it. And I think the consequences of doing it, it doesn't win everything everywhere all at once. But it gets us on a winning path. And damn, we need that. And you feel like there's 43 of your colleagues that aren't going to squish? I do. I do. All right. So in other news, TikTok legally banned since January, but in a completely lawless way. It's still been chugging along. We now have more details on the New Deal via Axios that Trump may announce this week. The algorithm would be leased to a new company owned by billionaire Trump allies. So problem solved.

1:14:12Oh, totally.

1:14:16Look, this is the ultimate about the price we pay for corruption. and it's Donald Trump trying to seize media and every possible vehicle. So yes, getting his buddy Ellison in there and they run it and it all, guess what? Every algorithm says Donald Trump is the guy, right? But it's bigger than that. It's how this country has shifted so dramatically. And I don't want to go from the country was perfect and now the country is terrible. It's the country had a lot of problems and now, man, you thought those were problems. They have just magnified. And it's the corruption element. You see it by, what does it mean to build an oligarchy?

1:15:02You know, Vladimir Putin puts his buddies in to run things that will make his buddies billionaires, but also means the buddies will use the power and energy of the things they run to support Vladimir Putin. That's the deal. And Donald Trump, you know, big admirer of Vladimir Putin, wants to control. Yes, he wants to control the media, but he wants to control everything, right? He's cutting deals with NVIDIA on their chips, right? He wants a piece of the action. He wants to control, control, control, because he wants to get something back from these guys. He wants money personally. You want to do the crypto play here.

1:15:49But he wants all of these billionaires, all of these tech CEOs, all of these CEOs, come in and bend the knee to Donald Trump, offer Donald Trump a, what did they used to call it in Roman times, a tribute? Wants to get his bequette, let's say. That's right. wants to dip his beak, isn't that the phrase, and give Donald Trump something. And then, lo and behold, your giant purchase gets approved, your merger gets approved. If you're a foreign country, your tariff gets approved. If you're just a giant international company, your tariff exception gets approved, right? Your license, your broadcast license remains viable.

1:16:36So Donald Trump is trading the things that are valuable to our nation off to a handful of individual corporate actors for the purpose of increasing Donald Trump's political power and his personal finances. So there's two sides to this. One is Donald Trump, through a lot of bluster, has convinced corporations to give him power he couldn't take. We've seen that with Disney. We've seen that with others. But the other side of it is that these corporations, universities, media outlets, law firms, they're not afraid of repercussions from people that believe in democracy, right? There was no actual organized campaign to boycott Disney.

1:17:27It seems to have happened naturally as people took in the news and maybe Disney was hopefully caught off guard by that. But Colombia wasn't afraid of its alumni when it went into a deal with Trump. Are we doing enough, those of us that believe in democracy, to lay out the ways in which we will hold companies and institutions accountable for capitulating to Donald Trump? And are there things we should be talking about more? Yeah. No, we're not doing enough. And yes, there are things we should be talking about a whole lot more. And let me just tie it back. That's why I see the Jimmy Kimmel. It's just a tiny little spot of light.

1:18:05I don't want to oversell. But it is some light and should remind a whole lot of people, wait, our voices matter here. And it's the same thing about this upcoming showdown over shutting down the government. Look, this is the moment. I say this to everybody in the country right now. This is the moment. If you can't think of somebody whose health care you're willing to fight for, your own, your cousins, your neighbors, if you can't do that, just think about Donald Trump's power overall and the Republicans' power overall. How they could agree among themselves with no Democrats with them to take away health care from 15 million Americans, shut down these hospitals, drive up costs for everybody else.

1:18:53Why? So they could hand out a trillion dollars in tax breaks to a handful of billionaires and billionaire corporations. Get your blood boiling over this. We have a moment. And sometimes you need those moments. You need those moments where people will speak up. You know, in fact, I want to give you a little piece of this. I get it. It's not always that we, okay, the rally starts, you know, at 10 o 'clock on Saturday. I love it. I love the protests. I love the rallies. But it's lots and lots of ways. You know where I've spent the last week has been with podcasters who are in the health care space.

1:19:32They're not politicians. But, man, they care about access to health care. They care about access to health care for little babies and they care about it for people in nursing homes. This is a moment where we have a chance to unite. And, yeah, we're using different modes than we used before. This is the subject matter in front of us is health care. But it's about power, our power versus their power. We got a chance here. But when you got a chance, you better take it. So former Vice President Kamala Harris has a book coming out. She describes being deferential to the Bidens and whether he should seek a second term given the liability agent become as reckless.

1:20:14You know, I know you've talked about this, but do you agree with how the vice president characterizes that moment? And do you believe that that would apply to other leaders as well? Was the leadership of the Democratic Party reckless? So, look, I haven't read her book, so I shouldn't be speaking about, you know, a summary of a summary of what she said. But I put it this way right now. I think that public service is an honor and a great responsibility. And you get up every day and just try to do your best. And you try to do your best, not so you can get reelected, but you try to do your best so you can actually make something happen that's good.

1:21:05And that connects to this point by way of saying, as Democrats, we didn't, obviously, we did badly in 2024. For me, the way I see it, the little plot of land I stand on, is the way we did badly, is that we let the billionaire wannabe, tyrant wannabe, stand out there and be the guy who talked about the economics of American families in a way that they heard. we let him be the guy who said I hear how it's not working for you and I'm going to fix that I'm going to make that a key part of my whole presidency and some other stuff but this was this was the thing after he gets elected he says when he's first interviewed why do you think you one.

1:22:07And he said, because I talked every day about lowering costs on day one. And so when you put it, you look backwards, you say, we really screwed up on that. So for me, the lesson I take away from that is I am not screwing up on that one again. And if I can help it, I'm not letting Democrats screw up on that one again. We got to stay focused on this question of what's happening to millions of American families? Why are they loading up on debt? Why are car repossessions on the rise? Why is it that their description of this economy is the lowest it's been in half a century? And what are the things we can do about it?

1:22:49And by the way, that's why the healthcare fight is the right fight to have, but there is more that we need to do there. Yeah. I mean, the reason I bring it up is not, I know everyone is sick of looking backwards, It's nobody more than me. But I ask because I think I look at this moment. I say, all right, the Democratic brand is in the toilet. People don't trust Democrats. They don't believe Democrats. And I think, well, how did we get here? And part of it was people couldn't feel the effects of economic policies where they had been passed. And we were just the bully pulpit was empty. Joe Biden was a terrible communicator.

1:23:18And we even people that were defending his ability to do the job, I don't think we're even honest with themselves enough about how much of a price we're paying for that lack of communication. And then I look at a moment where there are Democratic leaders who aren't endorsing someone like Mamdani, who's inspired a lot of people. And I look at this shutdown fight and I think, am I going to look back on this and say, I wasn't admitting to myself that I thought we didn't have the leaders in place who maybe they're great at organizing. Maybe they're great at communicating on the Hill. Maybe they're great internally.

1:23:47But like, are these the galvanizing leaders who can go toe to toe with Donald Trump right now? You know, I guess I see this part of it slightly differently. You're here. You've got a damn big microphone. Don't tell me about the leaders of the Democratic Party. You know what the fight is. You can describe this fight in a whole sentence. Okay, you're right. So get in the fight. No, but I'm serious about this. You know, people say to me, who's the leader of the Democratic Party? And my answer to that is we've got 47 people in the United States Senate who are out there in this fight. And you know what we need right now?

1:24:2447 people in the United States Senate. That is the thing we need the most. We need all 47 of them absolutely at full pedal to the metal on these fights. And we need to get them into these fights. And right now, spending our time shooting at each other, I just don't think that is the place to go. I think the place to go is get in this fight and give it everything you've got. TikTok, We are running out of time. I hear that. And I want to be there with you on that. But I'm in an odd numbered year still. And I feel like it's an odd numbered year. So I get to have these kinds of conversations. We're getting into the fall of next year.

1:25:06I want to get together. But I think sometimes, look, this was one of the arguments to say, stop talking about Joe Biden's age in the run of shit. No, but I'm not I'm not saying you're doing that. I'm just. Part of this is, yes, everybody has to pull together. We have a job to do. We shouldn't be turning the microphones against each other to continue the analogy. But at the same time, I look at the Democratic Party and it's yes, it's about message and yes, it's about a plan. But it's also about a base of people that authentically believe in the people that are speaking to them and for them. And I know that I've watched you campaign.

1:25:45I know that people know what you stand for and have an authentic connection and that you've been fighting for it since you were a writer and professor. I look at AOC, Bernie, Barack Obama, even Bill Clinton. It's not ideological. And I say, all right, these are people who I understand their worldview. And that gives me confidence when they tell me that they're going to do something hard or they're going to compromise, whatever it may be. And I have to go pretty far down the list of leaders of the Democratic Party before I get to people that have that authentic connection to the people they want to lead.

1:26:16And that does make me worried about a shutdown. And I do think it's worth having this fight now rather than looking back next year and saying, wow, we really didn't have people at the microphones that were the right people to lead us. I see it right now, this minute, as we know what the fight is in front of us. I don't need somebody to tell me this. I don't need somebody to say, oh, well, I have this title within the Democratic Party, so I'm going to tell you what to get out there and talk about. I'm the one who decided to come here today. And I hope that's happening with 46 other folks on my side in the Senate and 200 plus on the House side.

1:26:57because the substance of the fight matters right now. A win matters right now. This is what we're into. And we can't, there is no one voice anywhere who will win this fight by themselves. It is instead we are a party that is still tied to people and the fight that we are having. If we had held Donald Trump to tell the truth a year ago, if we had just a little bit of here's what we want to do and here's what we are doing for hardworking people. Here's how much we understand about what's broken and here's what we're willing to do to fight for it. a winning fight matters and it has knock-on effects that I think matter here.

1:28:00And this is why I understand. They're very sophisticated people who say there's a lot broken and it's not just health care. Can I tell you a quick story? Of course. Okay. When I was a little girl, I was studying Franklin Delano Roosevelt. I was just like some fifth grade, you know, thing where you got to copy out some words about. And I'm sitting on the floor back in Oklahoma where I'd grown up. And I look up at my grandmother who's in her 90s. And she had lived through the Great Depression. And I just say to anyone who doesn't know, the Great Depression in Oklahoma was the one-two punch of economic catastrophe in a dust bowl unlike the world had ever seen.

1:28:46and my mamaw and papaw got wiped out in the great depression bank failed lost all the money that they had put away for their retirement basically had to start over and so i'm sitting there while i'm working on this report and i looked up and i said mamaw do you know who who franklin roosevelt it was. And she smiles at me. She says, of course. And I said, what did he do? And my mamaw, who had an eighth grade education, read the newspaper every day, she looks up and she said, well, he made it safe to put money in banks and a lot of other good stuff. I think of it this way you fight very real fights that people can see that touch their lives and sure we all have the rest of the fights too god bless there's a lot that was broken there was a lot that was broken creation of the SEC right all the things that we did following the great depression that we saw was broken that we needed but the key part is that you've got to reach as many people as you can across this country with the story of what you're fighting for and that we're all trying on our side to support that, to make sure people don't die, to make sure they don't lose their health care, and that if we can make that clear and get enough pushback that some number of people actually do get their health care restored or their cancer research restored and the Democrats get a win, I think that's a step in the right direction for us.

1:30:41So speaking of health care, before we let you go, right before we were recording this, there was a bizarre press conference with Donald Trump and RFK Jr., head of health and human services. Trump was speaking. This is a pretty dubious announcement about the connection between acetaminophen and autism with a recommendation that pregnant women no longer take Tylenol or acetaminophen. This follows the RFK's panel voting against the combined MMR and chickenpox vaccine for kids under four. What's your reaction to that? And And what happens when the president starts rambling? He can't even pronounce acetaminophen, by the way, about health care in such an evidence-free way.

1:31:33So I have a couple of responses. The first one is it just feels like every day we turn on the news and it's the next episode in the Donald Trump show. and he got stirred up about one thing or a different thing or another thing and we're all off and running uh and today it's uh uh this one but that real people get hurt and that's the scariest part about this when rfk jr had been nominated to be the head of health and Human Services, there were a lot of folks, not just Democrats, who said, whoa, that guy's been trafficking in anti-vaccine conspiracies. I mean, for a long time, yick on this stuff.

1:32:30And it's not just yick, that could be dangerous to have somebody in that place if he started using his tools to get rid of vaccines. In fact, he'd been making money off suing vaccine companies and bringing in more plaintiffs and stirring people up to sue vaccine companies. So, several of us asked him a lot of hard questions during the nomination process. And he gave the, I want to describe it as the right-ish answers, right? They were directionally right. Occasionally he'd say other things that you'd think, wait, what did he just say? But over and over and over, he said, I will not take away vaccines from anybody.

1:33:15And now he turns around eight months later and yeah, let's face it, he has taken them away. The criteria under which you used to be able to get these vaccines has changed and certain vaccines will not be available or will not be available to certain groups, or you'll have to pay lots of money for them. You'll have to do an off-label use, all of the above. Lots of speed bumps in the way, and in fact, some absolutely can't do this. So I think of this as a moment where we measure one more time how many checks have been lost on this administration. That it's no longer, yeah, but if all of the vaccine experts and the doctors and scientific evidence and around the world, all the experts and people who study this all the time all say, oh, that makes no sense at all, that it just doesn't matter.

1:34:18Because RFK is off spinning in his own world. And as long as it's an audience of one, as long as he can keep Donald Trump happy, that is all that matters. Do you think your colleague, Bill Cassidy, like, you know, he is a doctor. He claimed to have gotten all these reassurances from RFK Jr. Have you talked to him about it? Like, you know, I can't tell. It's hard to tell if he was willfully, Like, was he snowed or did he allow himself to be snowed? I can't tell. Look, I don't know. I wasn't in the room. I'm not in his head. But I do know that this business around the vaccines, that good people who've worked in this field, including Dr.

1:35:08Senator Cassidy, have expressed over and over their deep concerns if Americans are not getting vaccines. So I just look at what he says is a problem and then try to figure out not so much the backwards, where did the wheels come off the bus, but the forward. So what are we going to do about that? Where do we find the place to be able to get these vaccines back to a place, A, where they're available, but B, where more people get a truthful answer about the risks of having unvaccinated children? And it does seem like with all things, it comes back to win the House. Yeah. And. Can we also win the Senate?

1:36:05Great to win the Senate too, but either way, build a bipartisan support for. Absolutely. Vaccines, given that it remains a deeply bipartisan issue. Last question. Sure. What are you streaming? What are you watching? What are you consuming? You know, the baller. I can't even bring up the baller thing again. It's been years now, but it still shocks the conscience. So what do you like? The pit. Oh, the pit. And hacks. Have I seen the two best shows ever, ever, ever? I love them both. The Pit was fabulous. Have you watched Andor? No. You're not a Star Wars person. You've got to watch Andor, although it's on Disney+.

1:36:38Now that Kimmel's back, are we allowed to have it? No, I think you're still not. Uh-huh. You've got to punish them for a while. All right. Well, once they've come back, once they've bent the knee to us, once the mouse has come and begged for our forgiveness. I'm ready. You've got to watch Andor. Okay. I put it on my list. All right. Senator Warren, thank you so much for joining us. Good to see you. Thank you so much for having me here. It's always good to see you. And thanks for staying in the fight. Where else would we be, you know? Yep. Well, as I always say, better to be in the fight than on the sidelines.

1:37:12That's our show for today. Thanks to Elizabeth Warren for joining. Dan and I will be back with a new show on Friday.

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1:38:21Thank you.