1065: Trump Has James Comey Indicted

24:58but because the times I guess they think that's cheap and they can't swear they just have to write this whole story and they just write that he called you profanity but they don't say what the profanity is there's no hint to it there's no like D ampersand B and so like unless you were like I imagine we are like very nerdy readers of journalism you understand exactly why they were in the story otherwise it seems fucking bizarre to the average person because they had to bury the lead because the actual news nugget was something that they thought was beneath them. Anyway, the most important point here is that the White House - It's not this.

25:35It's not this. Believe me, it's not this. Is that the White House is once again exploiting a horrific act of political violence to silence dissent and crush their opposition because right after J.D. Vance finished his Twitter fight with me, he went on to speak at a event in North Carolina where he blamed the shooting on the left, on Democrats, on people who've criticized ICE agents for wearing masks, and on people who've called his administration authoritarian. He singled out Gavin Newsom. Trump posted something similar, and he also wrote, quote, the continuing violence from radical left terrorists in the aftermath of Charlie Kirk's assassination must be stopped.

26:15I will be signing an executive order this week to dismantle these domestic terrorism networks. I believe he signed that this afternoon when he signed the TikTok deal. Wonderful. And here's what Trump said about this in the Oval Office on Thursday. The radical left is causing this problem, not the right, the radical left. And it's going to get worse. And ultimately, it's going to go back on them. I mean, bad things happen when they play these games. And I'll give you a little clue. The right is a lot tougher than the left. And they better not get them energized because it won't be good for

26:49Jon Favreau:the left. I'll give you a little clue. The right is a lot tougher than the left. What do you think he means by that, Dan? I think it's not something we should pay a lot of attention to. It's just the president of the United States threatening violence from allied militia groups. I mean, gee, wouldn't it be a shame if you got these crazy right wingers? I mean, I don't know them, right? Nothing to do with me, but they're pretty tough. They're pretty tough. You don't want to see what they can do. You mean people like the Proud Boys or the Oath Keepers, people who, upon the president's order after the election, then marched on the Capitol, many carrying weapons as they stormed the Capitol of the United States to try to stop the certification election, those people?

27:30Again, I just want to, this is all, we have, it was a lone wolf shooter that assassinated Charlie Kirk, and now we have another lone wolf shooter who shot at an ICE facility that is two people there are not riots all over the country there are not things on fire vandalism antifa roaming around like the whole fucking left-wing violence thing the way that trump and vance and the white house are talking about it is fucking fiction yeah that is not to say that there is not like incidents of violence with people who are radicalized with some at least some left-wing views like like but individual cases now that we've seen a couple in a in the last couple weeks But like he sounds like it's this fucking epidemic.

28:15It's crazy. And it's going to make people think that, you know, which is how every authoritarian in world history has seized power by creating a mostly fake internal or external threat to get people to willingly hand over their freedoms in exchange for security from this made up threat. Yeah, exactly. How do you think Democrats and activists and organizers should talk about all this? Because, you know, basically what they're they're trying to play this game now where if you say authoritarian, right, if you call them authoritarian or fascist, then that's inciting violence. if you now it's if you complain about ice wearing masks or you call you know ice is a secret police or the fact that they're fucking throwing throwing people into vans and and keeping them without due process and you know detaining people in horrible conditions that all this is inciting violence against ice and so now criticism itself and rhetoric is seen as inciting violence and so they're just going to keep pushing the envelope here until any kind of comment or criticism of the regime is seen as being left-wing inciting of violence?

29:29How do Democrats handle that? We can debate the efficacy of using the words Nazi or Gestapo or those things to describe various people. But the bigger and more important point here is that Democrats should not shy away from calling it like it is. Like, this is authoritarian. When they do fascist things, like, oh, I don't know, have the chairman of the FCC threaten companies in order to get them to take the committee of the president like off the air. When they do things like that, we have to call it out. I have seen no evidence that shows that the American people believe that the things that Democrats or Trump critics have said have contributed to this.

30:08Like, they are trying to create this impression. We do not have to buy into it. I think every politician should think about their words and we should try not to dehumanize people. We should obviously shy as far away as we possibly can from anything that promotes violence or anything like that. But there aren't, Democrats aren't doing that. That's not a thing that's happening. But Trump is seizing power. He's abusing power. He's doing the things that authoritarians do. There are fascistic tendencies in what his government is doing. And we should call that out. And doing so is not something that is out of bounds in American politics.

30:40What's out of bounds are the things that Trump is doing, not us talking about the things he's doing. And so I just do not be cowed by this, right? Do not let either the bad faith folks on the right or the civility police in the middle try to keep Democrats from actually using words to describe what's happening here. Yeah, I think merely describing what the Trump administration is doing. That's enough. You don't have to put too much mustard on the hot dog here. Exactly. This is exactly right. And I think that is that that both prevents some of their bullshit criticism from landing with people who are not paying close attention to this.

31:18And it also has the virtue of just, you know, factual descriptions are more persuasive than using all kinds of adjectives and names and trying to figure out whether something is fascist or not fascist or whatever. You know, like you just don't need it. Right. It's not like you shouldn't say it. It's just like you have to think to yourself, is it useful? Is it useful to persuade the vast majority of people in this country who are not political junkies that something serious is amiss? Or could you just describe what is happening? Right. So I think that is a really important point to keep in mind.

31:53I also think it's not just like, you know, we don't support violence, but this is scary. We somehow have to make, and I've been trying to press this point, but we have to make nonviolent resistance like part of our brand. that like as we oppose this administration that is acting authoritarian and we can point out all the ways they're acting authoritarian, the most effective response to an authoritarian regime is nonviolent resistance. And that has been the case throughout history. And it is certainly the case now. And so I think those things can work. Like we can be as tough as we want in describing the abuses of power in this administration.

32:30And we should be. We should also lead with the fact and not be defensive about it. The way that we're going to do that is through nonviolent resistance. And I think sometimes we get caught in the like, you know, I don't want to say this, but, you shouldn't be cowed. You should also be proud that our strategy is nonviolent resistance because that's not a soft strategy. It's not a weak strategy. It's actually very strong and effective. And that is what history shows. And then you actually have to have nonviolent resistance, right? Right. Well, I mean, like, and I say that, like we're coming up on another No King's Day, like protests coming up in a few weeks here.

33:05We saw entrepreneurs run out there, but it has to be something more than just posting, right? It has to be actual, like, and this is a part where I think Democrats at all levels should think outside the box a little bit about ways in which you can demonstrate opposition to Trump that is not through the traditional, typical means of doing it, where we're just going to complain about, we're going to press conference about it. It can be sit-ins, it can be protests, It could be a day general strike. But we have to widen the aperture of the tools available to us because we continue as a party. And I struggle with this myself.

33:40We struggle as a party to confront an absolutely extraordinary threat with the tools of ordinary politics. And that's a mistake. And, you know, sometimes nonviolent resistance is it's responded to with violence, right? You've seen people calmly film ICE agents. taking people away from their families, throwing them into vans, and then the ICE agents rough them up. And that's something that if you're engaged in nonviolent resistance, you have to be prepared for that. And that's what the civil rights activists did. Sometimes it entails civil disobedience. I think about our old friend Adi Barkin and everyone in that healthcare fight protecting the ACA.

34:26And when they did sit-ins in congressional offices in the halls of Congress, oftentimes they were arrested. And so nonviolent resistance doesn't mean that you don't ever get arrested, right? Like that's part of protest. The key is when violence is visited upon you or police haul you away, you respond to that with nonviolence and you don't respond to it with violence or with destruction or anything like that because you don't want to maintain the higher ground just to make yourself feel good. You want to maintain the higher ground so that you can persuade most of the people who are watching and who are paying attention that the nonviolent resistance is where they want to join, is the team they want to join and not the state violence and the state repression that they're seeing on their TV screens and on their phone screens.

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37:14Okay, so right after Vance spoke at that event in North Carolina, he took a question from a reporter about government censorship and Jimmy Kimmel. Here's his answer.

37:23Jon Favreau:I'm pretty sure that Jimmy Kimmel was back on the air last night. And to the extent that he's not back on the air, it's because he's not funny and has terrible ratings. The FCC commissioner making a joke on social media. What is the government action that trump administration has engaged in to kick jimmy kimmel or anybody off else off the air zero what government pressure have we brought to bear to tell people that they're not allowed to speak their mind zero yeah i'm a dipshit yeah like it's so it is so his style of dishonesty which is like i'm gonna try to say something that is in the most narrow narrow sense technically true and but it is completely dishonest first of all it was not a joke on social media brandon carr said we can do this the easy way we can do this the hard way and if we do it the hard way that means the fcc has more work to do that was directed towards abc that was directed towards the affiliates that were at least in one case requiring a merger approval from the fcc that then decided after Brendan Carr said that to pull Jimmy Kimmel off the air.

38:33So yes, did Brendan Carr go to Nextar and say, I'm ordering you to not air Jimmy Kimmel's show? No, he technically did not say that, but he certainly threatened it. It is just a, like his entire persona is so fucking grating because it is - Smug, smarmy. It is so smug. It is so arrogant. And it is just this, like he just exudes the idea that he is smarter than everyone else. And he's like figured out the way to sell this like right wing fascistic bullshit that he theoretically did not believe in. And I would say, speaking of people using language, he did compare Trump to Hitler at one point in his life.

39:13Sure did. But in like, you're exactly right. He just mows down, he builds up straw man arguments and then mows them down every time. And because he doesn't, it's infuriating. And we're going to have to deal with this for a number of years because he, like, I do look forward to some Democrat, I don't know who that Democrat is right now, kicking the shit out of him on the debate stage in 2028. He's so great. Also, we just talked about the actions that Carr took and things that he said. J.D. Vance gave that answer a day after, maybe two days after. Was it yesterday? It was yesterday. Who knows? He gave it a day after his boss, Donald Trump, whose posts I know that J.D.

39:57Vance reads because he posts them on Twitter all the time. Donald Trump said, oh, Jimmy Kimmel's back on the air. They told us the show was canceled. I'm going to have to take legal action against him because he's giving an in-kind contribution to the Democratic Party. and I think that's some fucking campaign finance violation, whatever the fuck he said, bullshit. And Donald Trump, in a post, threatened to take action, legal action, against Jimmy Kimmel. And then J.D. Vance gets up there and he says, what action have we taken? Zero. Oh no, your boss just fucking threatened it to the whole country, in front of the whole country, the night 24 hours before.

40:39Yeah. So that's bullshit. Let's talk about Kimmel's return on Tuesday night, which averaged over 6 million viewers on traditional television, despite being blocked by Sinclair and Nextstar affiliates that reach roughly a quarter of all households. That's the show's highest rated planned episode in at least a decade. And that's before you add the so far 20 million YouTube views, it's racked up so far. Jimmy's monologue I thought was funny, emotional, and most importantly pulled no punches whatsoever. Here's some of it now.

41:12Jon Favreau:The president of the United States made it very clear he wants to see me and the hundreds of people who work here fired from our jobs. Our leader celebrates Americans losing their livelihoods because he can't take a joke. They want to pick and choose what the news is. I know that's not as interesting as muzzling a comedian, but it's so important to have a free press. And it is nuts that we aren't paying more attention to it. This show is not important. What is important is that we get to live in a country that allows us to have a show like this. What'd you think? He nailed it. I mean, Jimmy is such a smart and thoughtful guy.

41:52And he just, and he spoke in this moment, honestly, authentically from the heart. You're right. He pulled no punches. He made it clear that he was not back on the air because he agreed to soft pedals, criticism of Trump or Brendan Carr or anyone else. and honestly like i'm not one of those people who's saying like we got to put our a few like the future of our society depend our future of democracy depends on a comedian of some kind but we do need more people in our politics who can speak that authentically and that honestly i i had that same thought um emily and i watched it the the night that he did it not live obviously you obviously watched it when someone posted it from the east coast there's not a fucking chance you're staying up till 11 30.

42:32Fuck no. Fuck no. As you know, our, our good friend Jen Psaki was like, are you guys going to be up? You want to come on? Does someone want to come on the show and react? And we're like, poor Jen. She's up at midnight and we're like 9 PM. We're in bed. Yeah. Sorry. But anyway, I was in bed and we watched it on YouTube right after it aired. And like, I was moved in a way that surprised me and that I hadn't realized how much I needed to hear something like that. And I've been thinking about the last couple of days. And I think it's because it's like what you just said, like since January, we just haven't had many moments or leaders where someone stands up and speaks to a very big audience in defense of our rights, our values, our ideals as a country in a way that is like not partisan, intended for a politically minded, but maybe non-political audience as well.

43:30Most of the country, right? That's what, that's who Jimmy's speaking to. And he didn't do it in a partisan way. He didn't make it all about Trump. There weren't a lot of cheap shots. It was just a sort of calm, forceful, powerful defense of free speech and American values. And I was like, God, I wish that Democratic politicians would just be like, all right, take myself out of Washington, out of like all the language that I hear all the time from all my colleagues and strategists and staffers and everyone else. And it's like, what if I just had to speak to people who didn't necessarily pay close attention to politics, but also not speak to them like they're fucking idiots?

44:15and that's what Jimmy Kimmel did, you know? And again, I'm not saying like, Jimmy Kimmel 2028 though, who knows? But I am saying that we just, our leaders need to take a page out of Jimmy's playbook there in that monologue. Particularly, I'm not the jokes, not the jokes, don't try the jokes if you're not funny, but particularly the serious parts of that monologue because I think it was pitch perfect. I think from a like messaging perspective, I would say he nailed it. I'm sure that would have tested well if he did it. And he doesn't have pollsters to test it. That we know of. Not yet. Right. But he didn't write it thinking like, okay, I need to have this line and this test well and this test well.

44:58But I bet it did because he was speaking to an audience that he was trying to persuade that he knew might not always be with him. Well, he did something that is just very absent in American politics. He spoke to everyone. Yes. Right. He was speaking to any person who could possibly see his show, whether they voted for Trump, they voted for Harris, most likely don't vote at all, and was trying to reach all of them, persuade all of them. And that's just not how politics has worked in the last decade, where everyone is trying to speak to their group and their group alone. We have sliced and diced the electorate in so many ways.

45:30We have message tested us into the ground where we know the exact words to reach this group. And he just gave a broad-based message to a broad audience, and we could use more of that in politics. I kind of think that this whole attempt to silence him backfired spectacularly on Carr and Trump because, well, first of all, just the ratings alone. Second of all, he has like it gave Jimmy the chance to deliver that monologue. I believe his audience has it's not as big as the night of the monologue, but it has remained elevated last night. and by the time you hear this, there'll be another night that he'll have done it as well.

46:11And I also think it's gotten people's attention in a way that probably a lot of other things haven't. I don't know, what do you think? Yeah, I read about this in my newsletter last week. I think if the goal was to silence Jimmy Kimmel, it is a massive epic failure because more people have thought about Jimmy Kimmel, listen to Jimmy Kimmel, watch Jimmy Kimmel in the last 48 hours than have done in a very long time. And that's because Trump and Brendan Carr clumsily tried to silence one person, and he may turn into a national cause. And this is one of those things that broke through, right? Like I always track which stories are getting the most attention on social media.

46:49The Charlie Kirk story is one of the biggest stories that we've had. Of course. Probably the biggest story since Trump has been elected. But Kimmel is adjacent to that story. It's right behind that story. It broke through to people. And it caused all these problems for Trump because it led to intraparty conflicts, which never happens with Trump. So that gets more attention. You have Ted Cruz criticizing the Trump administration. You never get that. And then it led to people like Joe Rogan, Andrew Schultz, others with large platforms who are an important gateway to an important audience of young men for Trump who have just been shitting on him for the last few days for it.

47:26And that hurts him in the moment. And it hurts the ability for Republicans and J.D. Vance in the future to have that relationship with those media personalities, those influencers going forward. So this was, in terms of political impact, both on Jimmy Kimmel and for the Republican Party and Trump, I think just a complete and total disaster. Do you think that the administration will be smarter and more surgical in how they go after free speech from here on out? Because obviously the threat is not gone, clearly. but I you know Nextar still isn't airing Jimmy Kimmel as of this recording nor Sinclair but Nextar is the one that's got a merger they got to get approved so I kind of wonder where this goes from here well I think the threat to free speech is as great today as it has been since the Red Scare right it is we are in a very serious moment because I think they were they're going to be smarter uh Brendan Carr is not going to go on right-wing podcast and do his best Goodfellas impersonation anymore, but they have a playbook now, right?

48:27So now they want Jimmy Kimmel not on large parts of the country. Next, it's The View. Maybe it's CBS News or Meet the Press after that, or they think that WNBA is too woke. And so all of a sudden, you now have these either local television affiliates owned by right-wing billionaires like Sinclair or people who have business before the Trump administration who are going to take their orders, who are going to start censoring the program that comes on the air to appeal to what the state wants. And that is very, very, very dangerous. And that is where we are. And there is a playbook now. And that was impossible to imagine 96 hours ago.

49:08And here we are right now. And I would say that, you know, and Kimmel at one point in the monologue, you know, he talks about sort of other threats to the press. and he talked about Pete Hegseth's rule that he was going to pull press credentials from any reporter who published unauthorized information, not necessarily just classified information, just unauthorized information, which is what reporters do. And so Kimmel, and I like that he did that because I think, we've talked about this before, it is important to stand up for anyone they come after because solidarity is important here. There is strength in numbers.

49:43And I do think another benefit of what Kimmel did is he was unafraid. And I think that courage, you know, I think that kind of thing gives other people courage to stand up. And I think that's the lesson that everyone should take from Kimmel, which is they're going to keep going after people and we got to call it out. We got to stand with those people, however you feel about them and, you know, whatever you've thought about them before, because, you know, it's, they come for one of us, they come for all of us. And the thing that's important about Kimmel's stand-up is Kimmel's been talking about retiring for a long time.

50:16Now he's been doing this show for a long time. He could have easily just walked off the air and said, fuck this. Disney betrayed me. Bob Iger betrayed me. I'm not going to do it. Walk away, not deal with this. He's made plenty of money, I imagine, in his life. He could still come back and host award shows or do whatever he wants. Or he could go to YouTube. He could do lots of things. But he's one of the few people who has power and money who decided to fight back. And that's important for these reporters because it's easy for these reporters and individual reporters certainly don't have that. They are fighting for their jobs in a decaying media industry.

50:48A lot of these media outlets are barely hanging on anyway. And so this has been the problem is that the most powerful elite people have been the least willing to fight Trump over the last nine months. And so embodied by Disney's decision to take Kimmel off the air to begin with, kudos to them for putting him back. But we need more people who have money and power to be willing to stand up to Trump because that when they do that, it makes it a little bit easier for the other people like them and the other people much further down the ladder to do so. Because some of the people for the ladder don't have the ability to do it in the same way.

51:22Yeah. All right. Let's talk about a government shutdown that's no longer just looming, but something that Washington is barreling towards. We're barreling now. We're barreling. What are we going to be doing on Monday? On the brink. Are we on the precipice? Yeah. Yeah. Something like that. Here's where things stand. Hakeem Jeffries and Chuck Schumer demanded a meeting with Trump. Trump agreed and he backed out with a post where he said, quote, after reviewing the unserious and ridiculous demands being made by the minority radical left Democrats in return for their votes to keep our thriving country open.

51:53I've decided that no meeting with their congressional leaders could possibly be productive. Democrats are now demanding that any funding bill include an extension of Obamacare subsidies and a reversal of Trump's Medicaid cuts. While the White House is making new threats, they sent a memo ordering federal agencies to begin preparing for mass firings in the event of a shutdown. Not furloughs, which is temporarily layoffs while the government's closed, but firings. They're also lying about what Democrats are asking for. Quote J.D. Vance's Twitter feed, again. Quote, Democrats are about to shut down the government because they demand we fund health care for illegal aliens.

52:30Not true. Not true at all. Not true. How are you feeling about the shutdown and how Democrats are approaching it? I said this on this podcast a couple of weeks ago, but I believe strongly that Democrats cannot simply rubber stamp funding for Trump's authoritarian government. You absolutely cannot do it. If you believe what you're saying about the threat that Trump poses, the abuse of power, the politically motivated prosecutions, the threat to free speech, you can't just pretend like it's regular order and just like, well, vote for the continuing resolution and keep the government open. You cannot do that.

53:03And so I agree with the approach they're taking. I do want to try to approach my analysis of this from not from like, it's very easy to have the hot take that they're fucking this up or they're not doing it the right way or they suck. And I think it's important. And if this is not how I would have done it, like I, if it had been me, just Dan Pfeiffer in charge, I would have made the whole thing about affordability. I would have made it about the Obamacare premiums and the tariffs. And the tariffs are very useful because they are an abuse of power. This is Trump being a king, and it goes right to what Trump's weakest spot politically is cost of living, inflation, high prices, and you could focus it around that.

53:43But I do recognize I've seen this from the other side. I worked in the White House during a shutdown. I loomed and barreled a lot over my time in the White House, and even sometimes in Congress I loomed and barreled. And the one thing that is true is that the most important thing the leadership can do, because it only works if they do this, is to have unity in their caucus. And so you have to have a message, a strategy, and a set of demands that in the House goes from Jared Golden to AOC, and the Senate goes from institutionalists like, I don't know, Patty Murray or whoever to Bernie Sanders or Alyssa Slotkin and Bernie Sanders, however you want to do your spectrum of people.

54:25And so that does sometimes lead you to lowest common denominator asks, which is what's the one thing that unites Democrats, right? It's healthcare. And it's the Medicaid cuts and it's the Obamacare premiums. And I think they're picking the Obamacare premiums because it's the one thing they have the best chance of getting. because there was a bunch of Republicans very uncomfortable about this. They think they, they don't want to just do a permanent extension. They maybe don't want to do it up, but they, there were discussions before this about some sort of agreement before this expired at the end of the year, because Republicans know they're on the ballot next year.

54:59Donald Trump is not, and they don't want to have jacked up everyone's premiums. So that's how they got here. And so it's just like it's hard. It's easy. It is easy. The thing that I think is the value add that we bring to this analysis is that we've actually worked in these spots before. We've sat through these things. And so just recognizing that there's a lot of factors, a lot of equities that the leadership has to work through that may not be as obvious to people on the surface. right? Like, like, why aren't we making it about mass license agents? Well, you can't, like, you're not going to get members to do that.

55:37Do I wish we could? Yeah, sure. But that's just not the reality that we live in. And they do have to operate in that reality. It's a tough reality. Here's the, so I hosted one of our, these debates that we've been trying out here. You know, Tommy did one on Gaza and Lovett did one on housing. Lovett did a couple, I think. and so I did one on government shutdown with Matt Glassman who thinks that it is a very bad idea for Democrats to do a shutdown he's in the New York Times and on his sub stack about that and then Fad Shakir our friend who was Bernie Sanders campaign manager and had worked with Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi at one time and Nancy Pelosi so he's been through a couple shutdowns and he took the pro shutdown side of the case so you can all check that out on the Pod Save America breaking news feed if you want to listen to the pod or you can go right on our YouTube channel and it's right there.

56:27Pod Save America YouTube channel. Go subscribe. It was a great debate. And I will say I left thinking both Faz and Matt made some very good points. It is not an easy one. And I say that not because, like, should we stick it to the Republicans? Of course. But because of what you just mentioned, it's like, okay, why are Democrats shutting down the government now? Well, first of all, Schumer and Jeffries are saying we're not shutting down the government. Donald Trump shutting down the government by not having the meeting. So you're not really shutting down the government. But then it's also like, well, Donald Trump is engaged in an unprecedented abuse of power.

57:04And he's acting like a king. OK, so then what are you asking for? Health care subsidies. And so it's like it before we even begin, the messaging is complicated. And I don't know. I don't know how long you can sort of hold on once the government shuts down. under these, with the different complications the Democrats are facing in terms of messaging, in terms of asks, and in terms of just the power that they have. And it's hard because the House is not, it's a free vote for the House, right? Yeah. They all vote against, Republicans got it through. In the Senate, you got to hold, you can't allow seven Democrats to bolt.

57:47You've already lost John Fetterman. Right. So now you got to hold six. And so I listened to the debate. I also read Matt's substack. Here's my take on it, is Matt makes a very compelling case. But I think he, and it fazed me at this point in your debate, which I think that compelling case is based on a pre-Trumpian old view of politics. And like, yeah, it's true. I guess this is the simplest way to put it, is Democrats can either choose not to fight, which I think comes with a severe set of political consequences. severe and opportunity cost. Or we could fight and very possibly lose. And I think fighting and possibly losing or even likely losing is better than simply not fighting at all.

58:36I've tried to make this point multiple times here in many forums, privately and publicly, is that we are a long shot right now across the board. Democrat, our approval rating is shit. Trump has all the power. The American people do not like us. They do not like our brand. And we can't play it safe. Playing it safe is a guaranteed loss. We are a huge underdog, right? Maybe we are not an underdog for the immediate midterms, but over the medium term in American politics, we got a lot of work to do. And so you have to take on high variance strategies. You have to say, yes, we could lose this. If you don't fight, you know the amount of pain you'll take.

59:14And I think it's significant, it, but you know what it is. If you fight, you could win, but the loss could be even worse. And I think you have to be open to strategies that have higher ceilings, but lower floors. And to me, it feels like the right thing to do. If you think things are really this bad, and this is your one moment, you have to fight. And your approval ratings could go to shit. We could absolutely lose this. Do I think we're trotting out our best messengers? Absolutely not. Do I think we have a great message? No. Are we at a massive media disadvantage? Yes. But it is a moment, it is a moment to possibly maybe grab the nation's attention, grab people by the lapels, and tell them what is happening in this country.

59:51And if you can do that, that's worth the shot. And it comes with great risk. It absolutely comes with great risk. Politically, it comes with great risk substantively. Because Trump may fire these people. And federal workers are getting fucked everywhere by this administration. And will a court probably reinstate them at some point three weeks down the line? Probably, maybe. But so there is risk here. And I understand that. And I understand that this is, it's not a obvious, clear case, but I just think fighting and possibly losing is better than not fighting at all. Yeah, I come down on like, let's do it.

1:00:27But I really think making the message bigger and the fight bigger is going to be key here. And by that, I don't mean throw everything in that Trump has done badly as part of the message. But I mean, to your point about, and Faz makes this point as well, like make it about something bigger, like affordability costs, right? And then like tell a whole story about how since January, Trump has been getting as rich as fuck and making sure all of his friends and family and allies are getting rich as fuck while everyone else is getting screwed. And he's doing the screwing. He's slapped a fucking tariff on all of us on everything we purchase and everything's prices are up and we're losing jobs.

1:01:07And now premiums are going to go up because he's not helping with the ACA stuff. And now people are going to lose their health care coverage and set up what the world would look like if Democrats were in charge, which I thought was a very compelling point from FAS is that it's not just Trump is bad. But if we're going to draw attention to this and if we're going to take this risk, make sure that when people hear Democrats talking, they know what a Democratic run Washington would look like. and then it sets up the midterm fight. And I think the important point you're making here is don't confuse the tactics with the message.

1:01:43The strategy, here are the things we're asking for is not the message. The message is what Donald Trump is doing wrong and what we would do differently. And then you have a set of things that you're gonna bring up in the meeting that might possibly be points of agreement at one point to get the government open again. Those are two separate things and don't confuse them. Yeah. All right, two things before we get to Tommy's conversation with John Ossoff. First up, escalator gate. As you may have heard, Trump's appearance at the UN General Assembly this week led to an international incident that could mean the end of the United Nations.

1:02:13It all started when the President and First Lady attempted a routine ascent of an escalator that inexplicably froze as they were about to step onto the bottom stair. This catastrophe forced the first couple to improvise, or in Trump's case, stand still for a few seconds looking confused, before putting one foot in front of the other to climb the stairs to the top. Trump later complained about the escalator's temporary malfunction during his speech. And the U.N., after launching an internal investigation, said that the escalator likely froze because Trump's own videographer accidentally hit the stop button.

1:02:50Likely fucking story, U.N. We are not buying that. Unfortunately for you, MAGA Media is on the case and they know exactly what you did.

1:03:01Jon Favreau:Well, there better be accountability for those people. And I will personally see to it, Jesse. And, you know, the president being frozen there in one place makes him vulnerable. And thankfully, the first lady and the president had their hands on the rails. Why are we paying for a building that's just trying to injure the first lady? What we need to do is either leave the U.N. or we need to bomb it.

1:03:29there's a few more great tweets Mike Flynn it's time to turn the current UN into a hotel Representative Tim Burchett Burchett who cares don't even we're not even gonna try to care that we know his house defund the UN Will Chamberlain who's you know he's one of these Article 3 project right wingers his name is Will Chamberlain Will no Wilt just Will I was like Will Chamberlain's tweeting about the escalator from the grave? What's happening? Believe me, very different. Remarkably dangerous. Trump should demolish the UN building and put fragments of the rubble on the resolute desk. Seize the property.

1:04:08Turn it into a new Trump hotel. And then Trump himself has said that the Secret Service are investigating and has called this triple sabotage because of the teleprompter. And I guess there was a third thing that happened. The audio. I think there's something about the audio. The audio. triple sabotage. I know this because I watched the Caroline Leavitt interview on just Jesse Waters where she cited Katie Pavlich of Town Hall who told her about the audio. There's so many things wrong with this. Do you want to take a cut? Yeah, I just have a lot of thoughts that are not really coherent. One, it's a flight of stairs.

1:04:45It's just one flight of stairs. And if one flight of stairs is such a threat to our elderly, out of shape president. Maybe we should have some more discussions about the gerontocracy, one. Two, Caroline Levitt says on Just The Orders that she will personally hold those responsible accountable. Ooh. I don't know. Like, press secretary is a cool job. Like, C.J. Craig made it look cool. Like, you're very famous. You can end up, many of them end up on TV afterwards. But you don't have the authority to hold anyone accountable. I mean, talk about petty dictatorship. It's like, oh, no, his majesty had to stand still for a couple seconds.

1:05:28And in his fragile physical and mental state, we must not ever let him be inconvenienced for just a few seconds. also the day it's so dangerous he was just he was like a sitting duck he was just this is what they're all saying i'm like so he can't stand still in public anymore he's got to keep moving that's inside it's inside a fully secure look yeah we're gonna put him in a fucking hermetically sealed bubble should he be in a fucking popemobile from now on yeah like obviously he's had two assassination attempts against him but there are probably few places safer on the planet than the united nations during the united nations general assembly with almost every world leader on the planet there.

1:06:06But again, safety or not, standing at the bottom of a stairwell is not more dangerous than not standing at the stairwell. Yeah, I mean, it's not like you're moving so fast up the escalator. I mean, it's just... There's something... You could really write a paper about the incentives of MAGA media in this moment, where Donald Trump obviously was embarrassed and very upset to walk this flight of stairs, so he complained. so then everyone has to one up each other about what has to happen so first it's like are they sabotaging we will hold the individual person accountable and like seven minutes later we're bombing the u.n we're bombing the u.n we're seizing the u.n we're gonna put the rubble on donald trump's desk it's just like like i'm sure someone right now is tweeting about nuking the u.n it's just it well it's also every and everything is pretextual right which is like none of them like the UN.

1:07:02They've all hated the UN for a long time. Because of the faulty escalators. That's always been the main critique. Like if it happened at a fucking wrestling match, you know, or ultimate fight, a UFC match, you don't think anyone's going to be complaining about that. No one's going to be like, oh, Dana White, we're going to fucking bomb the UFC. You know, like that's not happening. I mean, look, you and I lived in DC. We took the Metro home sometimes earlier in our career and wait till you get to the bottom of the DuPont circle metro i was yeah that's and that escalator was broken 90 of the time and that is like a that's a mile up i would hold someone accountable for that yes for sure yeah for sure i'd pull a caroline levitt um also we're never going to hear about this again because they need an excuse to be aggrieved every single day every hour of every day right they just need and then now that they got the uh the dallas ice thing and then tomorrow it'll be something else and they can go back after Antifa and the Democrats, whatever else, the escalator thing will just fade into memory.

1:08:03They just needed something to get them through the rest of the day to feel like they are victims and aggrieved. Wait till Jim Jordan opens the September 23rd commission report in Congress to investigate what happened here.

1:08:20Lastly, in a right-wing media crossover episode for the ages, podcaster and White House spouse katie miller appeared on jesse water's fox news show and the result was pure magic you are married to steven miller so you are uh the envy of all women what is that like a sexual matador right what is it like being married to such a sexual matador he is an incredibly inspiring man who gets me going in the morning with his speeches being like let's start the day i am going to defeat the left and we are going to win uh so i want to know which part of the miller's domestic life you relate to the most well john how it's going to kill me for saying this but a lot of times i'll just pull up a recent message box and i'll read it to her so i get i get what's going on here

1:09:17you know what Emily wants when she wakes up in the morning on the weekday she wants me to hand her her venti latte from Starbucks that you have woken up hours earlier to bring to her yes I'm sorry the London fog it's a London fog and sometimes I say good morning and she goes could you bring the coffee up and I say sure and she does not ask me to recite a speech or to talk about how I'm going to defeat the right that day. She does plead with me not to get in Twitter fights with high-ranking Trump officials. Yes. I mean, my wife finds your fights with high-ranking Twitter officials to be uncomfortable.

1:10:00Like as if I could be collateral damage when they come out. Like I could just be in the studio with you when they storm. But Katie Miller, Katie Miller, that kind of shit, that gets her going. That gets her going. I mean... I don't want to spend a lot of time parsing this, but did she, I don't, let's not even get into it really. It's, it's a lot, but their mornings are different than ours. Like we're really just trying to get the kid. We're trying like, we're waking up. Do the kids have to listen to the speech too? I hope not. It depends on what she, it's yeah. Anyway, whatever floats your boat, Miller.

1:10:30We don't kink shame here. We don't kink.

1:10:35We should say sexual matador too. That, that was, that was an inside joke because Jesse Waters, had previously called Stephen Miller a sexual matador as a joke to him. You've got to know all the Jesse Water sayings and inside jokes if you're an avid Fox viewer like I am. Like you, yeah, I did not know it. So it was out of context for me. Yeah, so that one did not get me as much as the, this is what gets me going in the morning. Anyway, I don't know. It's been a long week, Dan. Yeah. All right, when we come back, you'll hear Tommy's conversation with Senator John Ossoff, who's pushing back on Trump's corruption and gearing up to defend his seat in the Senate.

1:11:13One quick thing before we get to that. We've talked a lot about freedom of speech in this episode and others and the importance of independent media in a world where a lot of corporate media, a lot of the people who run corporate media are just bowing down to Trump or capitulating. And if you want to support independent media, may we suggest Crooked Media. Because, you know, you're listening to us now. We have some great content. And if you want ad-free episodes and you want all the great stuff that's behind the paywall, like Dan's Polar Coaster Show and Terminally Online, which is very fun, all kinds of other great stuff.

1:11:49And again, ad-free episodes of Pod Save America, Pod Save the World. Love it or leave it offline. Join us. Become a subscriber at Cricut Media. You can head to crooked.com slash friends and subscribe on the platform that makes the most sense for you. So come join us. We're building something fun over here.

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1:13:10Jon Favreau:I'm very excited to welcome Senator John Ossoff from Georgia to LA to our studio here. It's great to see you. Great to be here. Thank you for having me. Thank you. You know, slow news year. It's good to have you in the studio. Okay, so let's just get into it. So earlier this week, MSNBC reported that the Justice Department is planning to indict former FBI Director Jim Comey for allegedly lying to Congress. This announcement came a couple days after Trump fired the U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia and installed his own personal attorney, someone named Lindsay Haligan, who I believe ABC News reported was presented with a memo recommending she declined to bring charges, but it sounds like she's going to pursue them anyway.

1:13:48Jon Favreau:She has no prosecutorial experience. Kind of tells you everything you need to know, I think. What's your reaction to these reports and what they tell us about rule of law in this country? Well, that the rule of law is hanging by a thread in the United States right now. And we have public enemies lists, uh, DOJ drawing up orders to us attorneys to investigate political targets. It makes me think of, there's a, an expression I think attributed to like a Stalinist official in the USSR, which was something like, bring me the man and I'll find you the crime. Um, it is such a perversion of justice and it's, It's also just another piece of proof that the thing about Trump is that every accusation that he makes is actually like a deep confession of his true intent.

1:14:44And he is weaponizing the Department of Justice and the entire federal government as a political instrument. Um, this effort to crush the opposition, destroy the pillars of authority that might oppose or criticize him, stifle dissent, um, make examples of his enemies and adversaries using the force of law is so deeply un-American. and I think one of the most significant threats to the basic fabric of our republic in well over a century.

1:15:22Jon Favreau:In other legal news, Trump accused United Nations employees of sabotaging his UN visit because someone briefly turned off an escalator. His surrogates are suggesting this was a grave assault on the president and first lady, and Trump himself tweeted, the people that did it should be arrested, end quote. To the best of your knowledge, is it a crime to turn off an escalator? It is like I'm sure that all the folks in Georgia who are, you know, losing access to labor and delivery services or maybe to an ICU because of these Medicaid cuts or whose groceries have gone up 8 % in a year will be relieved that the president's investigating escalator failures in New York City.

1:16:02Jon Favreau:Would you consider passing a law to make escalator sabotage a felony? I'll have to give that some consideration. Okay, we can double back on this one. So we appear to be close to a government shutdown. On Thursday, Trump's Office of Management and Budget sent a memo to agencies telling them to identify programs and projects and activities that can be permanently eliminated in the event of a shutdown as opposed to just a temporary furlough. In other words, they're sort of signaling that they think the shutdown could expedite the doge efforts that we've all talked about so much. Do you think that we're going to shut down the government?

1:16:32Jon Favreau:And do you think that's the right thing to do? As of our taping this, I think it's too soon to tell, but it doesn't bode well that the president is refusing even to meet with opposition leaders in Congress. I do think this is a big mistake from OMB and the White House and Russ Vogt. you know, the mass firings and the Doge effort were hugely destructive and hugely unpopular. I mean, there's a reason that they kicked Elon to the curb, at least publicly, you know, like in Georgia, a quarter of CDC employees have been pushed out or they've tried to push them out. The American public doesn't like mass firings, you know, and I know that it sparks joy in Trump's West wing to fire hundreds of thousands of public servants.

1:17:21Um, but if, if what they plan to do is to refuse to talk in refusing to talk, force a shutdown and then sort of rampage, um, you know, the public's going to turn pretty quickly against that. So I think it's, it's seriously overplaying his hand for, for the budget director.

1:17:43Jon Favreau:So, I mean, this, this shutdown talk kind of brings me to bigger anxiety I hear from Democrats, which is they feel like Trump poses this existential threat to the fabric of our country, but that the current leaders of the Democratic Party are not necessarily meeting the moment. The criticism is like they aren't using the leadership isn't using the little power they have to block enough stuff that Trump is doing. They feel like leadership is terrible at communicating and that Trump is running circles around us in terms of messaging. What would you say to those Democrats who are anxious and who frankly want to see younger senators, the next generation of elected officials like yourself in leadership roles?

1:18:22Yeah, I mean, first of all, I would say I get all that and I completely understand the apprehension, the fear that people feel right now, the frustration. You know, I also think just to level with folks, you know, there is no magic button that senators aren't pushing. Right. They would have pushed it on on day one. And we do have to wield the powers that we have as the minority in the opposition to limit the damage and try to contain this out of control executive. Um, but as I look ahead to the midterm elections and think about the generational obligation that we have to win, right? Like I think that we as citizens right now have an obligation to deliver a landslide victory in these midterms.

1:19:13That is as profound as any moral obligation. Any group of citizens has had throughout our country's history. We have to win these elections. And there are two things that worry me because we have the wind in our sails. I'm holding rallies across Georgia that I barely promote that thousands of people are coming to. You all remember, I ran in the first big U.S. House race after Trump was elected the first time. than those double header, double overtime Senate runoffs for the Senate majority in 2021. So like I have run at the most dramatic moments of the Trump era. No pressure in those races. And I've never seen opposition energy and determination like I'm seeing right now.

1:19:59And even all of the angst that's directed at the Democratic Party is actually a good sign in that it shows the passion that people feel to oppose this and to right the ship. What worries me is that we're a little too in our own heads. In what sense? In the sense that a loss of faith, a loss of confidence in our ability as citizens to use the rights we have as citizens to shape this country's future because we're doom scrolling in the fetal position, right? Or waiting for some charismatic savior to ride in as a national figure who will fix all this. Like we have a president who is completely out of control, a crook engaged in unprecedented brazen personal corruption, who is passing one of the most unpopular agendas in American history.

1:20:54The public is turning against him. The opposition is motivated. We can win and we have to win. but we don't have the luxury of despair or, or self pity or kind of wallowing in doubt. So I just want folks to focus on what we can control. And yes, uh, you know, we in Congress have obligations to rise to this moment and all of us have obligations to work like hell, to win these midterm elections and to restore some checks and balances to Washington. All right.

1:21:24Jon Favreau:I'll take that as a pump up speech. I'll stop scrolling for that. That works for me. Just cut the doom scrolling in half. Yeah, that's honestly a good note. You mentioned the corruption of this whole thing. I think it's the most undercovered story of the administration is the corruption that's happening in plain sight. I mean, some of it's not in plain sight. We heard about Tom Homan getting the border czar, getting a kava bag with like 50 grand in it. Who among us? You never just like done one of these? Apparently he was going to get 50 grand in exchange for government contracts. Then every time Trump goes on a foreign trip, Don Jr.

1:22:00Jon Favreau:or Eric follows behind, right? And they announce a billion dollar real estate deal. We got a golf course in Vietnam. We got a tower in Dubai, whatever. And then for me, it's like the crypto is the main event. There was this big New York Times story the other day that alleged basically a quid pro quo between the Trump organization, the Trump family and the United Arab Emirates, in which this Emirati linked investment company put$2 billion into Trump's crypto company. And then shortly after the administration agreed to sell the Emiratis very advanced AI chips, like a huge national security consideration was at play.

1:22:35Jon Favreau:How do you think we can get people to notice and care about this stuff? because I feel like when I try to tell people in my life who are not, who are just kind of like normie voters, they're like, ah, you know, all politicians are corrupt. They all do this kind of thing. They throw some Hunter Biden in line at me. Um, and then what can Congress do about it if we actually win the midterms? So a few thoughts on the corruption. First of all, I think we have to absolutely hammer away at it and make sure that the public sees it and understands it because it is, it is like the most shocking brazen and overt abuse of power in presidential history by degrees of magnitude.

1:23:13We're talking about billions of dollars, a lot of it through cryptocurrency vehicles directly to the first family. And he's got his personal envoy, right? Like his, his, his, his sort of roving diplomat, Steve Wyckoff. who, by the way, the wars that they promised to end are still raging, whose son is doing business with the Trump boys in this World Liberty financial vehicle that foreign sovereign wealth funds are pouring billions of dollars into. There is good reason to believe that they are shaping American grand strategy around the personal financial interests of the first family. and the hypocrisy is stunning.

1:24:05Like one of the things I said at a rally a few months ago was like Hunter Biden should have been more ambitious. Like, you know, this is an insane level of corruption and self enrichment. But I think there's a deeper story here about corruption in American politics, which is something the Democratic Party needs to focus on, which is that Trump, in my view, is a symptom of the deeper corruption in our politics. Like how is it that we have a demagogue who promises to tear it all down, elected twice to the presidency? It's in part because much of the American public has lost faith in our political system.

1:24:49Totally agree. And with just cause. Since Citizens United, this political system has been corruption on steroids. And that is a big part of why policy doesn't serve ordinary people. So as Trump poses this sort of radical threat to the rule of law and the constitution, things that we have to protect, we can't just become mere guardians of the status quo. We have to be about change and reform. And money in politics is like the root of all of this. We have to focus on that. You know, the vast sums of corporate and billionaire money in our political system, with or without Trump, are why ordinary people are so ill served by elected officials and by Congress.

1:25:40We need to take up that mantle and run with it. And if we don't solve this problem, even once we put Trump back in the box in the midterms and once he's gone, the country will still be in deep trouble.

1:25:52Jon Favreau:So, look, I totally agree with you. I worked for Barack Obama in the Senate in 2006, and there was this big scandal for the old heads out there. You might remember Jack Abramoff, who was this sketchy lobbyist who was giving people boxes at football games and stuff. It was a deep, corrupt scandal. And so Democrats ran hard on a reform agenda in the 2006 midterms and did incredibly well, and Barack Obama was kind of out in front of that. And so I totally agree with you. I've seen both the necessity of it, right? I agree the money is kind of the original sin for a lot of our political problems, but also the political upside of it.

1:26:27Jon Favreau:I guess the question is, what does that reform agenda look like? Is it no PAC money, no lobbyist money? Are we talking about stock trading from members of Congress? Like, how are you thinking about what that? Yeah, all of these things and more. I mean, you know, I have been championing legislation to ban members of Congress from trading stock. My campaigns have not taken contributions from corporate PACs or from federal lobbyists. I've introduced a bill to ban corporate PACs. You know, the American people understand that the system really is rigged, but Trump is not unrigging it. He's re-rigging it for himself and his personal financial interest and his family's financial interest.

1:27:08So, you know, we have to be about change and recognize that the public's complaints are legit. This isn't working for people and we have better solutions. And it's so hard, right?

1:27:26Jon Favreau:Because some of this is like a, it feels like a financial arms race. You know, like we need to make sure we're raising as much as they are. Now, every candidate has a super PAC. We're spending billions in presidential elections. and i think there's a concern you see with redistricting too right like trump's doing this mid-year redistricting in texas so democrats are fighting fire with fire in california i think that's the right thing to do but i do worry it kind of muddies up our efforts at being the reform party yeah i hear that concern i mean i think that what we have to acknowledge is that the corruption is bipartisan right the the whole congress is captured by big money and people want to hear that we recognize that because it's true right and so and obvious and obvious and you know like you take something like um okay uh taxes on the ultra rich it's like it's almost like an 80 20 issue in public opinion right um but everyone knows that the reason that it never happens is because of the financial power and therefore the political power of super wealthy people, regardless of who's in charge.

1:28:48So, you know, we're, we're, we have to focus on not exclusively, but we have to make sure people are aware that Donald Trump, his administration are engaged in some of the most brazen and overt corruption. It's happening like in the world right now, right? I mean, they're, they're operating like, like some of the most shameless foreign leaders who mix state business with family wealth and personal business. but we also have to get at the underlying corruption in American politics.

1:29:18Jon Favreau:Yeah, it's like autocrats and their princelings and their oligarchs. It's all just a mess. Switching gears a little bit, I want to talk about freedom of speech in this country at this moment. Listeners have probably followed the saga of Jimmy Kimmel. Kimmel was pulled off the air after he made a joke about Trump's reaction to the assassination of Charlie Kirk. Then earlier this week, Kimmel was put back on the air. That enraged Trump. Trump called the show an illegal campaign contribution and suggested he'd once again be suing ABC, noting, quote, last time I went after them, they gave me$16 million.

1:29:52Jon Favreau:This one sounds even more lucrative, end quote. How concerned are you or at all about the FCC's actions in this case? And then just sort of like the totality of the threats to free speech we've seen since January of this year. Yeah, we should all be extremely concerned by this. I mean, you got the president standing on Air Force One threatening to take news broadcasters off the air because he thinks their coverage is too negative, right? This is North Korea. I mean, it is so beyond the pale. And before I was a candidate for any office, I ran a business that produced investigative journalism for international news media.

1:30:35We held power to account. We exposed war crimes, human rights abuses, undercover investigations of official corruption. Once you chill and stifle and destroy the free press, you know, that is how authoritarianism really entrenches. And I think that their agenda is very clear and extremely dangerous. And actually, you know, So I got to give at least like I know the bar is very low, but there were a couple of Republican elected officials who spoke out on it. For sure. We have to reach out to folks on the other side and try to make sure this does not become a partisan issue. And again, the public is with us, right?

1:31:16I mean, getting back to reasons for us to feel optimistic about our prospects to win next year, just like the country is against defunding hospitals and nursing homes to cut taxes for the rich, the American people are against official censorship. And this is a deep betrayal of some of what they proclaimed to their followers animated their campaign, right? The sort of railing against the excesses of cancel culture. And you've seen among some of their supporters that they're shaken by this betrayal of those supposed principles.

1:31:48Jon Favreau:Yeah, I agree. And also, look, I think people also have to understand the context of that kind of a threat to free speech or news gathering or investigative journalism like you are working on. When that's coming from the U.S. government, that is terrifying because it's also there's like spyware for hire everywhere these days. There's groups like the NSO group that are buying this, you know, hacking software like Pegasus. Yeah, I just opened a contract with them. Did they really with the NSO group? Yeah. Oh, that's great. I think it's the successor. It's like Paragon, I think it's called. Oh, yes.

1:32:19Jon Favreau:Oh, good. Yeah. So, I mean, I'm just saying that these journalists are under threat from every direction, financially, from rogue states, from spyware for hire, and now from the FCC. It's like, it's pretty scary stuff. I think the other piece of this that it's like more complicated but potentially equally dangerous is the use of official power to bully tech companies into how they run the algorithm that delivers content to people. right like threatening to take nbc off the air because you think that their coverage is too negative is obviously like a brazen unconstitutional un-american attempt at a sort of classic form of censorship but you know if they go to uh meta or they go to musk or this group of allies who may now be running tick tock and they say turn the dial turn the dial um you know that is a more subtle but in this world that we're living in potentially more powerful way for them to control the information that gets to the public yeah it's insidious um you know you mentioned some of the republicans saying the right thing about free speech someone like ted cruz for example came out and said the FCC chairman was acting like a mob boss out of Goodfellas and like good for Ted Cruz for saying that.

1:33:46Jon Favreau:I think if he were sitting at this table and we were kind of, you know, pointing the finger at him and what the FCC was doing, he would respond along the lines that you just did. Well, during the Biden administration, the White House was going to tech companies and telling them to censor speech around COVID or, you know, social issues, et cetera. Do you think that we, the Democrats or the Biden administration overreached at that point in ways that in hindsight, or maybe showed less of a commitment to free speech than we should have been showing? I think probably yes, in some cases, but I think that the what aboutism is like pretty limited in its validity because we're talking about things that are vastly different, Right.

1:34:31And I think federal courts rebuked the Biden administration for some of the way that the tech companies were being talked to about information about public health that was coming out during the covid pandemic. Right. And that was probably overreach. but it's nothing like the president saying i'm going to take broadcasters off the air because their coverage is too negative so you know we should not um yeah we obviously need to practice what we preach and acknowledge where there may have been mistakes but let's not for a moment indulge the lie that these are equivalent in any way. Yeah. You mentioned ICE buying the Pegasus-like software, working with the NSO groups,

1:35:18Jon Favreau:whatever their new corporate name is. I know your office has been investigating ICE and human rights abuses in U.S. immigration detention facilities. Can you just talk to us about what you guys have found? Yeah, well, I've been investigating not just Homeland Security facilities, but federal prisons, state and local prisons in jail since I was elected. I mean, and, and, you know, that has been sort of the continuity of effort for me having left investigative journalism and entering office. The, the oversight muscles in Congress are so atrophied, right? Like most of the oversight is partisan oversight and very little of it is just pure public interest oversight.

1:35:59Jon Favreau:Can you tell the, explain the distinction in your mind? Yeah. So most of the oversight in Congress is like one party investigating the other party's efforts. And there's a role for that in ensuring that there's accountability, right? Like you have to have that kind of hostile exchange in order to ensure that things are brought into the public light and debated no matter who's in power. But what doesn't what gets neglected is oversight that's essential for principled moral reasons, human rights reasons, but for which there's no obvious political reward. You know, like there's not there's not a lot of political upside to investigating the abuse of federal inmates.

1:36:41And so we have this federal prison system where there's this ongoing multi-decade human rights crisis that gets very little attention from Congress. You know, so I've led investigations of corruption and civil rights abuses in federal prisons, of uncounted deaths in state and local prisons and jails. One investigation from two or three years ago, it was a bipartisan investigation where the ranking member on the subcommittee was Senator Ron Johnson of Wisconsin. Not exactly a fellow traveler. no ideologically right but but you know i got him to work with me on an investigation into an ice detention facility in georgia where we found and it was a bipartisan finding that multiple female immigration detainees at this facility had been subjected to unnecessary invasive and in some cases non-consensual gynecological surgical procedures while in surgical procedures.

1:37:44So I say all that to say that my efforts to investigate human rights abuses in prisons, jails, and detention facilities is not new. This year, I opened a new inquiry anticipating that there would be an even higher level of brutality by this administration in these facilities. And what we had found through July was more than 500 credible reports of human rights abuses in DHS detention facilities, including of pregnant women, children, some of whom were US citizens. And the last thing I'll just say about this, because I think it just speaks to the character of this administration, is I released that report.

1:38:29Within 90 minutes, the administration just issued a blanket denial and basically said, everything is fine in all of our facilities, and this is all lies.

1:38:36Jon Favreau:I read their response. It literally didn't seem to engage on the substance of any of the specifics in your report. No, I mean, it's just deny, deny, deny. They do not care. And it really saddens me to say it, but I think that there are some folks in this administration and at this White House who relish the brutality of the system they're creating. Yeah, clearly they do. I'm gonna jump around a little bit. because we're getting to the end. So, you know, speaking of gross human rights violations, a few minutes ago, right before we started recording, Trump told reporters, quote, I will not allow Israel to annex the West Bank.

1:39:16Jon Favreau:Nope, I won't allow it. It's not going to happen. And then speaking about the war, he said, there's been enough. It's time to stop now. Do you believe him? Do you get any, do you see any evidence that the administration is exerting pressure on the Israeli government, either to stop the war in Gaza or prevent annexation in the West Bank? No, there is to date zero pressure. And the reality is that the slow motion annexation of the West Bank has been the Likud and Netanyahu policy ongoing now for many, many years. I mean, it is like a work in progress. So I suppose that is a welcome statement, but I am pretty skeptical that it'll be met with any, any kind of policy.

1:40:10One thing I do want to say about this while we're on the subject, and since we've been talking about, uh, the role of the press is, you know, international media have been launching yet another push to call for access for journalists to Gaza. Uh, and I just want to lend my voice and support to that effort. Um, you know, I've, I've seen personally through the work, but I've helped lead and produce how essential it is to have independent journalism in places where there's armed conflict, uh, to hold warring parties to account where there are serious human rights abuses. And, uh, the continued exclusion of journalists from Gaza, uh, is completely unacceptable.

1:40:57And I want to state unequivocally my support for that call and once again, call on the Israeli government to permit journalists to access that area.

1:41:06Jon Favreau:It really is amazing. It's been nearly two years, no press access. I mean, there's some incredibly brave Palestinian journalists on the ground providing vital reporting, video evidence, and doing so at great risk for themselves. I mean, hundreds of journalists in Gaza have been killed throughout the conflict by Palestinian airstrikes or God knows what else. But yeah, I think it's a really important and not widely understood fact, frankly, about the war. Yeah. Former Vice President Kamala Harris, she got a book out. You may have heard it's ruffling some feathers in the Democratic Party. One piece in particular, she wrote that Joe Biden's decision to run for reelection was reckless.

1:41:45Jon Favreau:Do you agree with that characterization?

1:41:51conversation? Well, I think that events have proven it to be the wrong decision. I mean, I was not in the room, but I think it's clear that he wasn't up for it. And by the time the decision was made to make a change, it was very, very late in the game.

1:42:09Jon Favreau:Do you think that's like a one-off situational challenge. I look, I think back to that time and I felt in my, my heart that I knew Joe Biden was too old. Um, but I kind of wondered like what value there was. I mean, after the debate, it was obvious, right. And people were like, he's got to go, he's got to, you know, step down. But I think when he ran, we all thought he was going to be a bridge, you know maybe just a four-year for one-term president and then hand the reins over to somebody else for a contested primary do you think that there was something preventing uh i don't know a more honest conversation about his prospects within democratic party because like the data was there voters were telling us he was too old focus groups they were telling us he was too old we just didn't listen to the mounds and mounds of data that was out there i think that like the The most brutally honest answer to that question is, you know, when you're facing the specter of Donald Trump potentially being reelected to the presidency and you have in the sitting president, the presumptive nominee, it's understandable that you're not going to be inclined to do or say things that might weaken that presumptive nominee against Trump.

1:43:30Right. Given the threat that he posed and poses. But, you know, I think that, look, I think the other piece of this, and one of the reasons that I think, you know, Democrats across the country, you mentioned, you know, they have this, and I hear this everywhere, right? Like this longing for public leadership, right? And for folks to follow and for a clear voice and a clear rallying cry. And I say this with all due respect to the former president. And I think he achieved some pretty extraordinary things while he was in office, things that certainly helped Georgia on insulin prices and clean energy manufacturing.

1:44:08But we did not have a powerful voice communicating and leading for much of the latter half of that term. And that certainly contributed to the defeat in the election. um but you know what what i think what we need that we haven't had in a long time is you know a a a deep and compelling story and vision about where the country is and where the country needs to go um and you know so the the lack of a strong presidential voice for an extended period there uh took a toll no doubt yeah definitely did uh you have a big re-election

1:44:48Jon Favreau:coming up. I saw outside groups are already announcing how many millions they're going to spend against you. How are you guys feeling about the state of the race? What do folks need to know and how can they, how can they help you out? Yeah, look, this will be the biggest Senate race of, uh, of the midterms. And I, I, I just, I keep happening to run in these, you know, huge consequential, uh, elections, but I'm the only Democrat running for reelection in the state that Donald Trump won. So I'm their number one target. They want the seat and what, you know, a couple of Republican colleagues have told me privately is they also, the GOP wants me gone, right?

1:45:23For all the reasons that we've just discussed, like they don't want fresh voices, young, you know, young blood in the opposition, right? That sometimes I joke to people, no disrespect to anyone out there, but you know, it's like I work in the most powerful and prestigious senior center in America. And so they have a lot of motivation to defeat me. They spent$310 million or so to try to fend me off the first time. So much money for a second. I expect that they will spend like half a billion dollars to try to beat me this time. And so my message to folks, and I say it like just to be very, very real is please help, right?

1:46:04Go to electjohn.com, support the campaign, do what you can,$10,$15. Just we don't have the luxury of despair right now. We cannot spend the next 15 months wringing our hands and in worry and depression. We have to win these elections. We need to win in a landslide. We need to be in a winning mindset. We need to recognize that we're facing an unpopular president doing immense damage to the country. We have the wind at our backs. And as long as we don't defeat ourselves, we're going to win. But it is going to take resources. So please support my campaign. It's a great pitch.

1:46:40Jon Favreau:uh you don't think the villages is a more distinguished retirement last question so you have a three-year-old and a four-month-old yeah um so between that's about the same age as your kids right yeah i've got two-year-old and one-year-old so i guess between that parenting and the re-election you sleep sometime in 2030 is that the goal i um god bless my wife i love you alicia uh you know it's it is the you know like world's tiniest violin and everything but it is sort of the the the toughest part obviously is the time away from kids because you know you've got you've got kids this age like it's like physically painful and and like when they're so young every week it's like a whole new you know so many new discoveries new personalities so um but it also motivates me you know um to understand the stakes for the next generation but uh yeah i mean my wife's a practicing physician she's an ob doctor in georgia and we're blessed to have these these beautiful children and my god you guys are a busy house busy but you know people ask me how i'm doing it's like as long as as long as our children are healthy yeah you know that's the most important thing yeah do you guys um do you have a i don't know if you do screen time do you have a favorite show like miss rachel house bluey dandel tiger so eva who's the three-year-old she she watches a lot of ballet okay she watches a lot of winnie the pooh by the way a lot like we limit the screen time but you know when when um she just got into this i don't know if i should be like plugging tv shows on the show but she just started watching i think it's like an irish show called puff and rock which is very cute about little animals living on so if you're looking for writing that for safe nurturing content you know i recommend it my daughter is now doing ballet um yeah so is eva Okay.

1:48:28Jon Favreau:But did she do it in the, like the tap shoes, the old school kind? I, she's got little, like, she's just in like pink socks. Okay. Yeah. Lizzie's got little tap shoes and they're fun until she jumps on her brother's foot and then we got problems. Um, do you have a preferred duty? Are you like, uh, uh, given bottles, diapers, general tidying? I do it all. Yeah. I mean, and I really relish it. Like my, my team, if they had their way, you know, much love to my team, but my team, if they had their way would have me, you know, all day, every day, every weekend. Um, when I, when I first got to the Senate, I sat down with like a, I mentioned that, you know, it is a, a body of very mature states people.

1:49:07Um, I sat down with a very, very, very senior member and sort of asked for some advice. And what this Senator told me was he was like, John, I, I don't remember a single fish fry chicken dinner, you know, a county fair or whatever that, that I felt like I had to go to, but I missed, but I re, but I remember every ballet recital, soccer game, birthday party that I miss, like, don't be like me. So I have just walled off time. Some cat Stevens, cats in the cradle shit right there. I have just like walled off time and I'm just, I don't want to have the regret of having missed their, their childhood.

1:49:47No, that's tough.

1:49:49Jon Favreau:Well, listen, it sounds like a, sounds like it's good, Good life balance there. Senator Ossoff, thank you so much for doing the show. Everyone, what's that website again? It's electjohn.com. Hey, just one more note. Like I know it, it, it is really tough and it's bleak and okay, but it's not, it's not Jim Crow. Okay. Like Americans have been through a lot and gotten through a lot and built a better, more beautiful, more just country. So this is our challenge. This is our moment. Let's just rise to it and win. Yeah. I mean, 1963 was pretty scary. Yeah. You know, JFK getting shot. Jim Crow. Wise words.

1:50:27Jon Favreau:Senator, thank you. Thank you.

1:50:33That's our show for today. Thanks to John Ossoff for coming by. Love it. Tommy and I will be back with a new show on Tuesday. Bye, everyone. If you want to listen to Pod Save America ad-free and get access to exclusive podcasts, go to crooked.com slash friends to subscribe on Supercast, Substack, YouTube, or Apple Podcasts. Also, please consider leaving us a review. That helps boost this episode and everything we do here at Crooked. Pod Save America is a Crooked Media production. Our producers are David Toledo, Emma Illick Frank, and Saul Rubin. Our associate producer is Farrah Safari. Austin Fisher is our senior producer.

1:51:06Reed Churlin is our executive editor. Adrian Hill is our head of news and politics. The show is mixed and edited by Andrew Chadwick. Jordan Cantor is our sound engineer with audio support from Kyle Seglin and Charlotte Landis Matt DeGroat is our head of production Naomi Sengel is our executive assistant thanks to our digital team Elijah Cohn, Haley Jones, Ben Hefcoat, Mia Kelman Carol Pellaviv, David Tolles and Ryan Young our production staff is proudly unionized with the Writers Guild of America East

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