1106: 2026's Biggest Questions

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25:47Well, that's a good segue to my next question, which is how far will Stephen Miller take his domestic war against people who don't look like him or believe what he believes? Do you think I will be a resident of the United States of America by the end of the year? I mean, I certainly don't look the way he thinks Americans should look. Did you catch the Atlantic profile on Stephen Miller? I caught the first two paragraphs of it, John. Brutal. Steve Bannon calls him this prime minister, which I think is the prime minister of the government, which I think is apt. Yeah. There was a an anecdote from 2024 debate prep.

26:26And I've heard that I've heard the Trump side of this before. I hadn't heard the Miller side of this one before. I don't know if it's new or not, but Miller was going back and forth with someone who was a little more moderate on immigration with him during debate prep. And Trump was frustrated and interrupted the two men and said, Stephen, if you had it your way, everyone would look exactly like you. Someone familiar with the exchange told The Atlantic. And then Miller responded, that's correct, before turning back to continue sparring. So I do wonder, we are, you know, again, we have seen this week sort of the chaos of Miller's vision becoming realized of a mass deportation force rounding people up.

27:05And I wonder what the country looks like if they've come very close to defying the courts. In fact, you could say they have defied the courts here and there, but outright defiance of a Supreme Court. You know, you've made your decision. John Roberts now enforce it kind of thing. We haven't seen that yet. Yeah. Will we? Yeah. Birthright citizenship. Speaking of Supreme Court decisions is out there. Trump said to The New York Times this week that they he confirmed that they're taking steps to strip Americans of citizenship. Denaturalization. He said Somali of Somali descent. But he said others, if they deserve it.

27:43Yeah. Well, if you get it on his wrong side, fuck you. You have to get out of here. Now, denaturalization is a difficult standard to meet legally. You have to basically have lied or committed fraud on your citizenship application process. Right. Talk to Tish James about how much fraud you actually need to commit to be found in the crosshairs of Trump's. I heard Tom Emmer a couple weeks ago be like, oh, all these Somali Americans who committed, who were caught in the fraud ring, they should be denaturalized. That's not what the law says, that if you are a naturalized citizen and you commit a crime, then you can be denaturalized.

28:24That's not what it – but if you lied somehow. But like, you know, they asked for – I believe Stephen Miller and DHS have asked for like 100 to – like they asked for a certain minimum number of denaturalization cases every month. That should send a chill down everybody's spine. And actually, my question five was how many migrants have been, well, killed and how many American citizens deported by the end of the year because that's the collateral damage of all of this. You, everybody, like the problem with the Trump administration, it's like it is the frog boiling slowly. Remember when he was just going to get the criminals out?

28:58And now it's everybody's accepted that if you came here without papers, you're a criminal and therefore subject to deportation. Like that was not the litmus test. Even like I'm old enough to remember last year, I should say, like in 2024, when that wasn't going to be the criteria by which these dragnets were going to operate. You're going to have to be a violent criminal, not supposed to be here. And then they were going to take you out. Not that I agreed with that. But all of a sudden the standard is just if you came here and you didn't have your papers, then we're going to tear you from your family even if you are in court to try and follow the process.

29:29We are going to find you. We may take family members who are here legally and also deport them. I mean, and so when the Trump administration or when the law says you have to have committed some crime or fraud, like everything is fungible. Everything is movable. The goalposts are not stationary on any of this. And so while denaturalization may be legally complicated, it's a fool's errand to believe in the adverb legally with this administration, right? They change the game all the time. And if they decide they want to take naturalized citizens and rip their fucking passports and their papers away from them, then they will.

30:05And like the courts be damned. I will also say this court has been a gross enabler of the worst, most racist impulses of this court, right? The Kavanaugh stops. You can now just stop someone on the street because they're brown. Like that's the world in which we live. And it is very difficult for me to imagine at the end of 2026, I almost forgot what year it is, that this is not a whiter country than it is as we sit here today in early January. A whiter country and I worry just more state-sponsored violence. Totally. And chaos in the streets, because I do think there is a and, you know, this this is the issue that I fear the most is what keeps me up at night.

30:46But there is a temptation. I felt the temptation over the last couple of months before this week where it's like, OK, the the Chicago, the Midway Blitz wound down the the ice raids here in Los Angeles sort of it went like city by city for a while. And then we saw that they lost on the National Guard in court. And so they announced they were taking the National Guard out of a lot of these cities. But they're still like, you know, then they sent them to Minneapolis. And now we're dealing with this in Minneapolis. And now they're going to go to other cities. And what they want is a reaction. Yep.

31:21They absolutely want a reaction. They want to provoke reaction. Yep. You hear J.D. Vance in an interview this week saying like, oh, well, we got to – J.D. Vance and Stephen Miller think they have done poorly on deportations. They think that they are getting heat. They're not listening to the people who are upset about this. on the left or the center. No, they're listening to people on the right. Or the center right. They're listening to the far, far right who's like, you have not deported enough people. You have not rounded up enough people. And there are too many people who still have citizenship who shouldn't have citizenship here.

31:48And J.D. Vance is like, well, once now we get the system in place and the money's coming from the funding and the big, beautiful bill for ICE, now we're going to start going door to door, he said on Fox. And I think I worry a lot about this for this year because there's no reason for the administration to stop doing it because they don't give a shit what the courts say. They don't give a shit about public opinion on it. Public opinion has turned hard against them on deportations. They enjoy the violence and the cruelty. Yes. Right? That's why you see when they kill an American citizen on videotape, the reaction is not even let's let the investigation play out.

32:29The reaction is let's smear her memory, let's degrade her humanity, and let's suggest that her death was warranted. I mean, whoa, right? Like that's where we're at. I will just say by the numbers, according to the DHS in December of last year, in President Trump's first year back in office, more than 2.5 million illegal aliens, their term, not mine, have left the US, including an estimated 1.9 million self-deportations and 622 ,000 deportations. I would love to - Hard to trust those numbers. Very hard to trust those numbers, But also that's not – Especially in the self-deportations. Exactly. Is that people that like went to go see family and then just couldn't get back in the country?

33:09It's hard to know what that actually means. Also, 622 ,000 deportations is a fuckton of deportations. How many of them were actually people who had papers to be here? But also that's not the number that they wanted. Yeah. So like that should send it – they are very interested in meeting their targeted numbers and they will stop at nothing to reach them. So the fact that 622 ,000 isn't even close to what they wanted should scare us all. And the other shoe that hasn't really dropped yet is, if you remember after Charlie Kirk's assassination, there was like we're going to go after Antifa and all the left wing groups and really cracked down on opposition.

33:44Yeah. And it was a lot of like sound and furor and not much came of it. And now this week we've seen, you know, it's like kicking back up again because after they have decided to kill an unarmed American citizen. And, you know, J.D. Vance at the White House briefing today was like, we're going to find the people who fund this. And, you know, I still don't know how much of it is bullshit to scare people or how much of it is like suddenly subpoenas are going out and, you know, people are getting sued and dragged to court. And that worries me, too. Well, yeah, and I didn't put this in as a question, but they are all doing everything in their power to, you know, consolidate the media landscape and the information landscape to suit their own ends, right?

34:30That's going to be my next question. Okay, you go. Take it away, boss. I didn't put it on. I didn't know I was going to put it on my list. Our segues are so natural now, so we don't even have to go like next question. It's like we work at the same office. It was like what kind of impact will the Trump MAGA war on independent objective media have? And that, you know, there's a couple of dimensions to that, right? That now, again, to the boiling frog thing, like after a year, they – so TikTok is back, right? You know, the Chinese gave us TikTok and now there's some consortium, right? So there's some Trump allies that are in there.

35:09Elon's still got X. Yeah, and Grok. Right, and Grok. And the AI overlords have kissed Donald Trump's ass. You know what happens when you kiss ass, John. You just get ass. You guys have to listen to, who don't know that reference, you have to listen to Runaway Country. It's a deep cut. Yeah, it's a deep cut. So they are, he's got them on the team. He's got the Ellisons who now have CBS and are looking to also take Warner Brothers and CNN or maybe just CNN. Who knows? And right wing propaganda network. That's bigger than ever. And I guess my question is, like it's happening. How much of an impact does it have this year?

35:56And when does it start? When do you start, and maybe we'll never know, but when do you start seeing it having an influence on public opinion? Yeah. I mean, I think the CBS stuff is a great test case for that, right? Because that's the most insidious right there. You have Legacy Brand. You have someone installed, Barry Weiss, who is clearly doing the handiwork of the Trump administration. And in the most, I suppose we can call it skillful because Barry Weiss is smart. She's very articulate. You know, she ran a very successful independent news organization, not as successful as the money they paid her for it.

36:32But, you know, she's not she ain't Sean Spicer. Right. And so in that way, it's much more malignant, I think. And Tony DiCoppo is not a malignant actor necessarily. But the language he's using, the stories he's covering, the favor he's currying with the administration is incredibly detrimental. Marco Rubio, we salute you. I know. I mean, right. I mean, I actually I'm giving it. Yeah. This has surprised me and like you can call me naive. It wasn't necessarily as naive, but I'm just like Barry Weiss, whatever. Like first of all, is it really going to be that blatant? What's going to happen? The Tony DeCobble stuff in this last week is like, are you fucking kidding me?

37:12The Margaret Rubio stuff is so – I mean it's just – I don't think that's effective first of all, but I also think it's just like so embarrassing. It's so embarrassing. I think the great hope is that, and I say this as someone who worked at CBS and, you know, took pride in working at CBS for a while, that the evening news has become so utterly irrelevant that they can't actually change. It's more of kind of watching a car slowly crash. That's sort of where my lack of intense concern was coming from. Not that I didn't think they would try, but I was like, who's really watching the evening news? Well, I just – Enough people.

37:39I don't think it's bad that it gets poisoned on the way down, though. You know, like that. I don't think it's bad to have news gathering organizations, you know, and the poisoning of it, the irrelevance of it. It's just all fucking bad for information health in our democracy. And that part is really distressing to me. You know, destroying CBS, even if it doesn't have an immediate and practical impact on the, you know, the sort of citizenry. It's just not a good thing for democracy. And to get away with it is, you know, that's just another way of destroying the fourth estate is to just make it so fucking unwatchable and so gross that it doesn't matter anymore.

38:20And that's a model for, you know, linear cable, which is increasingly irrelevant. Just like map that on to CNN, right? And then like destroy that shit and you're done. Like it's what happened in Hungary. They chose to close these newsrooms, right, which is more aggressive than what the Trump administration is doing. But by installing talentless hacks that nobody believes in and in a medium that's increasingly irrelevant, well, then you get rid of like institutional media in a pretty adept way. Yeah, I mean, there's the question of, you know, the sort of right-wing media conglomerate propaganda network out there versus opinion that is more left-leaning, analysis that's more left-leaning.

39:00And we obviously think about that a lot here. But my big question is, how many people are out there paying for news gathering? Totally. How much news gathering is going on and how much of it will be able to continue that is not tainted by fear of Trump or just, you know, opinionated to sort of match MAGA preferences. Totally. And, you know, we're sitting here in the week that I think the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette is closing down. Shuttering because two psychopaths who own it are trying to own the libs that work for the paper, basically. And I do wonder, like, just from a news gathering perspective, if we're going to be all takes and opinion and then AI slop and, you know, creators who, God bless them, but like are people getting, you know, like I just, I worry about actual news gathering.

39:56Where does that leave us? And who's going to pay? It's just me interviewing some people on Runaway Country. That's not new to the guy. That's just me interviewing people.

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42:38All right, Ken, well, I mean, speaking of the health of our democracy, I do wonder if we still have our representative democracy by the end of this year. I hate to go back to the Supreme Court, but I do think Louisiana versus Calais, where they're looking at Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, which is like probably the end of the Voting Rights Act as we know it, something that Chief Justice John Roberts has wanted to make real since he was a staffer in Ed Meese's Department of Justice under Ronald Reagan. The conservatives have hated the Voting Rights Act for a long time. And now you have a bunch of white people basically suing and saying it's reverse racism to have districts that prioritize minority voices and voters and give them representation in Congress.

43:21That's where we're at. And I just think you do away with that. And well, first of all, the South is gone. And one of the most important sort of reparative mechanisms for our long and checkered institutional racism disappears. And at this moment, when we no longer have affirmative action, we have like an administration that says that any kind of civil rights gains are wokeism that need to be reversed, whether they happened in World War II or yesterday. It's a dangerous time. It's a dangerous time for people of color. It's a dangerous time for people who believe in a more inclusive society. And I think the Supreme Court decision could have profoundly traumatic after effects on American society.

44:09Yes. And I don't think it will go well. And I mean, from oral arguments, at least. And I do think the only optimistic part is that I think it's going to be tough for whatever decision they make to be implemented before these midterms. Yes. But that's cold comfort for, you know, generations to come. I also think, and we've seen that this year with redistricting, that what's going to happen then is sort of a gerrymandering race to the bottom where if we lose another 10, 15, whatever seats in the South because of this decision, then the blue states again are going to go back and be like, all right, we're going to just wipe out all the Republicans in our district.

44:55And then you're going to just have this country that is. Completely split. Yeah. Bad. What could go wrong? Yeah. All right. I have, will a challenger emerge who seriously threatens J.D. Vance's chance at the Republican nomination in 2028? Oh, I love this question. It's so juicy. Isn't it Viceroy Rubio that's going to be the challenger? Or is he the running mate? I think he's the running mate. I think he's the running mate. Wait, say more. Okay, who else do you think could be that person? So I think one of the reasons that J.D. Vance is just the biggest asshole you've ever seen in public. That's saying something.

45:37Right. That's saying something. I think his running theory is no enemies to your right because that's where the challenge would come from. Right. Got it. And he is not as charismatic as his boss, Donald Trump. He is not as charismatic as many of the figures on the right. He can't order donuts, John. Right. He's like the least charismatic human being in America. But like he needs to, you know, Tucker Carlson, Candace Owens, right? Like all of the, and I'm not even saying they're, who knows, maybe. But like he needs those people to like him. To not just like him, but to love him. Or at the very least, not to challenge him or not to find challengers for him.

46:14And so you have a J.D. Vance who is, in some ways, his political fortunes are tethered to Donald Trump as are Marco Rubio's. And so if, you know, Trump's popular or middling, then like maybe they're fine. But if Trump gets even worse, it gets even less popular than than J.D. Vance's ambitions are fucked and he can't break from Donald Trump. Right. And so he has to be as extreme as possible. And I think he happens to believe most of it, too. But even if he didn't, he would have to be if he wants to be president. and I think that someone on the right could say if the Trump administration, if Donald Trump's sitting at like in the 30s by the end of the year, by the end of next year, there's gonna be people on the right who are like, that's J.D.

46:58Vance that is saddled with that. Not me. Not me. And he's a fucking pud who is,

47:09can't excite a crowd, awkward. He is no, I mean, here, say this about Trump. Many things can be said. He is incredibly authentic. And J.D. Vance does not have an authentic bone in his body. The other thing we're discounting is the sickness of Trump. He is going to enjoy the sort of hunger games of the inheritance, much like he does with his children, very succession vibes. He will love playing Rubio and Vance off of each other. And I would guess if there is a challenger from the right, he will entertain that person at Mar-a-Lago just to make J.D. Vance and Marco Rubio beg and scrape that much harder.

47:45I mean, they will be sick and twisted. Delicious. Lovett and I did John Heileman's podcast right before. I was going to say, you did a show with him or two. Yeah. Right before the break. and he was down on Vance as a nominee, but was like, what about, he thinks like Don Jr. What do you think about Don Jr.? I, maybe, I think they kind, it's interesting, right? I think that's tough too. I think they like making money. I mean, like, I really think they like being rich, right? I really think they like being rich. Although he seems a little drunk on power. I would not be surprised. It will be Sophie's choice for Donald Trump because I don't think he actually likes his children, you know?

48:25And I think that's a, I think it's a, I think the Vance Don Jr. thing is hard to like tease out because I don't think Trump Jr. goes after Vance. And I don't think Trump sort of allows that kind of thing. I really do think it if there's a challenger to Vance, which I think is very possible, it is an outsider. It is a Tucker. It is a. TC? Megan. No. Let me tell you. No way. She likes that podcasting studio. They all like it. But wouldn't you like a, you know. She likes being Charlie of Charlie's Angels. She likes being the voice in the box. I can't see that. T.C. T.C. from the barn to the barnstorm.

48:59I can see it. I can see that. Austin just held up a picture of Marjorie Taylor Greene. MTG. Flash in the pan. I feel like she's going to come back to me at the end of the year when she's a fucking nominee. I just feel like she can't get. She's done the thing. She's come out too early against Trump. I just think that that's just a very hard road to hoe. And I saw her yesterday on TV. Not in real life. And I made that show. I was just talking to her yesterday. She's like, eh, I'm not into it. Nicola of Ultras, the local bar. And she just, she's already, I feel like a discomfort there that is going to get even more pronounced the more real her bid becomes.

49:34But you know what? I should shut the fuck up because I also didn't think Donald Trump was necessarily going to win in 2015. What do you got? I got one that is just a complete fucking downer, but it's real relevant. Will medication abortion still be legal by the end of the year? Oh, gosh. Sorry, I know. We were talking MTG, but this is fucking so real because this is a week in which psychopath bear killer, like, creatine monster Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has changed the sort of vaccine recommendations for children, getting rid of—what did he get rid of? Flu, RSV, rotavirus, hepatitis A, and meningitis.

50:08Who needs to be vaccinated against those things? He has done everything he said he wouldn't do in his Senate confirmation. and he never said he wouldn't get rid of Mifepristone. And under the head of the FDA, Marty Makari, they have, you know, they pledged to conduct a full review of Mifepristone's safety. This is a gimme to the hard right. Kennedy has proven himself absolutely fucking shameless when pandering to the political right and has totally politicized the FDA and HHS and the CDC. And I could absolutely see a world in which they get rid of mifepristone, which is the drug used in most medication abortions, which account for, as of 2023, 63 % of all abortions.

50:54We don't talk about abortion. And I think there are a lot of reasons for that, not least among them, because it didn't win Democrats 2024. But that doesn't mean the issue isn't insanely urgent. And it is a matter of national health concern. And it is just as urgent as vaccine schedules and mRNA research and everything else he's doing to fuck with American bodies over at his cabinet agency. So I'm curious to know whether that's something that, you know, people can choose by the end of the year. You know, as you started that answer, I thought, okay, I could see it happening. If I were to bet, I would bet against it only because Donald Trump has seemed skittish and going too hard right on that issue for purely political reasons and a bunch of republicans in more competitive areas feel the same way for either real reasons or political reasons um but to our whatever question we asked a couple before this on the uh the gerrymandering race to the bottom as the country gets more polarized and there are and it's like oh there are a bunch of republicans in blue states that we're worried about now?

52:04Probably less. Certainly less. And you start to worry that like wouldn't the right who have now outlawed abortion in most red states love to stick it to the blue states. You can't get pregnant and have a miscarriage in a red state. Right. Right? Like that's where we're at. So the idea that they would make it, if not illegal, very difficult to access medication abortion seems very possible. It would be a stupid fucking thing to do in a midterm year. Yes. I will say. It could happen in, you know, December. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Or in early January. Yeah. I bet Susie Wiles and Trump himself are like, hey, we want to win the midterms.

52:42Let's cool it. Simmer down. Let's wait. Let's just make sure kids can die of polio. Right. Yeah. That we're OK with. Yeah. Cool. But who knows? Who knows?

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54:06Is Gavin Newsom still the front runner at this time next year? That's a big question. How was his podcast? You were just up there. I was just up there. You didn't tell me about this. How was it? He gave me a full tour of the Governor's Mansion. For people who are art, people who like street art, there is a rotating series of art exhibits in the Governor's Mansion, including a collection of Barry McGee surfboards. If you know who Barry McGee, a.k.a. Twist, is a former graffiti writer who now is part of the collection at LACMA, he's amazing. And I walked in and I was like, this is fucking awesome.

54:37And he was like, you know who Barry McGee is? And I was like, you know who Barry McGee is? And then I was like, you are never going to get elected president. Like, you cannot know who Barry McGee is and get elected president. That's too fucking street smart. Gavin Newsom is a delightful interviewer. I will say we had a great time. He's really good at it. He is very good. Surprisingly good because most people who are politicians are completely self-involved. And he, I think, surprisingly, like deeply curious. And he's a chatter, you know. I think he has a lot of passion for the job. I think there's going to be just a massive question about the California of it all, right?

55:16It's the biggest one for me. It's the biggest one. I have long thought that you need someone that is as memeable as Donald or can drive the meme machine the way that Trump does and has the Zero Fox, Yosemite Sam style arsenal. And he's that dude. He's establishing himself early as by far the most joyful warrior in the pack. I just wonder if it is off-putting to the very earnest Democratic Party that looks at the stakes and it's just like – it's hard to know. I mean it's very hard for me to understand how he plays to a party that right now is largely oriented against Trump and has definitely not declared what it is for and how it wants to be for those things.

55:58Do you know? Yes. So I'm not answering your question. No, but I mean – But I mean – I've been thinking about this for a while because I, again, the more I watch Gavin Newsom, get to know Gavin Newsom, like talk to, you know, interview him, be interviewed on his, the more I like him. Yeah. And I really appreciate like what he has been doing to fight not just in California, but nationally. Yeah. For the party. As we get closer to an actual Democratic primary. Yeah. I do. There's part of me that always thinks like, oh, this is a California governor. Yeah. This California. Yeah. So California. And it's not about him necessarily.

56:32It's just about like. Although I did think like should I suggest he wears hair differently? Like if he wants a better shot. That's something. That is something. Cut it shorter? But like did you read the Atlantic profile on him? I did. I started to. But I was literally going to meet the man and I just had like a heavy dose of Gavin Newsom that day. And I much respect Governor. I just was a lot of you. It's just there's a couple of things. They talked about the California of it all. And they were like you know another reason for hesitation might be that California has other laws that must have the makers of Republican attack ads salivating with anticipation.

57:03In 2020, the state passed SB 132, allowing male criminals to self-identify into women's prisons. One of those transferred, Tremaine Carroll, is awaiting trial on charges of raping two female inmates. It's like, okay. There you go. Again, this is just like when I first— This is Kamala Harris. I know. And again, when I first heard that story, I was like, well, that seems— and you look it up and you're like, okay, well, there's a law and you get it. And you're like, OK, well, if you're going to provide everyone medical care and then you're going to say that transition care is medical, you know, like one thing leads to another and it makes sense in context.

57:39But then when you see it, you're like, oh, OK, that's going to be a challenge. Yeah. And he's just very like he's he's very California. Yeah. Like he fits the bill of a you know, it was like they talked about his wedding to to his his his current wife. and it was like, you know, the ceremony was conducted by Carol Simone, a modern day mystic, whose website describes her as a medium and astrology. Just like, it was just the most California shit ever. Right, and like we elected a serial philanderer and like he has been married a trillion times and had affairs with porn stars. And yet we're like, don't you dare get married by a mystic.

58:16Donald Trump is a good code switcher in that like he is, you know, Manhattan. He's not Manhattan. He's out of rural and he's rich, but he's sort of like he's got a chip on his shoulder about being rich. So he's sort of, you know, so there's he's got that Barack Obama had his feet in 10 different worlds. Yeah. Like Bill Clinton, Oxford, Arkansas. Right. Like the Joe Biden. Right. Like the people who succeed in politics nationally can identify with the other part of the country, if not by resume and identity, then by just some experience in their life. some feel. Yeah. And maybe he has that. Maybe he can do that.

58:59Well, you know, we haven't seen, I mean, we haven't seen this sort of talking tour yet. He is going to have a memoir come out in February. Yeah. He will be on tour for that and it will be an interesting case study in his, what is it, press the flesh skills. Yeah. But who else? Who else do you think for the book? Listen, I had a conversation with, you know, Big Dem over the break and she was saying J.B. Pritzker is who she liked. Okay. Okay. She thought she had been taking regular doses of Mount Jaro in preparation for that. Oof. Her word's not mine. Okay. I think they're going to see some governors.

59:34Josh Piro's going to be up in the mix. Maybe Gretchen Whitmer raises her hand. I think Wes Moore is absolutely going to be on people's dance cards. Yeah. I mean, it's a – I think it's going to – Maybe Gallego is out there. Maybe. Maybe. Maybe. I mean, I think it's going to be a pretty big field. Hopefully not, like, so big as to be unwieldy. but listen no one's no one's no one's popping out for me ahead of the pack right now well I mean that's why it's just Gavin Newsom and his tote bags with Kid Rock and the laying of the hands I think that that is the greatest meme I've ever fucking seen it's really funny if you're listening to us Gavin Newsom's social media team please make that into a tote bag people will buy it alright I got my is this my sixth?

1:00:15yeah I don't even know which number I was on I'm gonna this is my well this is my sixth but I can continue to ask questions What will the White House actually look like? Okay, so here's the news. Here's the news, John, today. Actually, this is news of the week, but there's always news about the White House. The ballroom is going to be now as tall as the main mansion itself. Oh, yes. Which means we also have to add on to the West Wing. Well, exactly. So they're considering a one-story addition to the West Wing's colonnade in an effort to create symmetry with the two-story colonnade that would lead from the White House to the ballroom.

1:00:51And then there's going to be maybe an office suite for the first lady, which would be nice since they destroyed any office she once had in a reconstructed White House movie theater. Well, thank God they can screen more Sly Stallone films, I guess, in full 4K HD or whatever the fuck it is. Point is, he is completely rebuilding the White House. Yeah. It is not going to resemble itself by whatever, whenever construction is complete. It's shocking. It's going to look like another Trump Tower. and I would not be surprised if he just puts the fucking name. Trump and gold. I made this joke to Dan on Thursday's Friday's podcast.

1:01:30Recycle it, it's okay. Yeah, it's the, we did this for the 2011 Correspondents' Dinner. We had a big slide up, big picture of, oh God, if Donald Trump did run for president, this is what the White House would look like. And it's, we should put it up on the screen. Cassandra, you were Cassandra. It looks very close to - You were in the predictions business. Yeah, right. to what it's, where it's headed. Well, he's got to remember who lives there, right? Isn't that what they're saying is the reason that everything's labeled right now in the White House with this hideous gold lettering that really looks like the kind of lettering you'd see on a restroom door is because he's so addled and so forgetful and his brain isn't working right that he needs reminders about like, this is the Oval Office, this is the Situation Room, and this is the White House where Trump lives.

1:02:14This is where you live, sir. But the, you know, I mean, it's no surprise that architects keep resigning from this project. It's so fucking controversial. And without being like the worst downer in America, it's also symbolic of the work it's going to take to rebuild our fucking country after this person is out of office. Right. Like he is fundamentally changing institutions. He's he's rebuilding our democracy. I don't want to say rebuilding because he's destroying the democracy, but he's rebuilding American society in a very. In his image. In his image. And it's going to take time, just like undoing his hideous renovation of the White House is going to take, I don't know, how long is that going to take?

1:02:50Who's going to do that and who's going to do it with what money? You know, it's a metaphor for everything else he's doing. So I'm curious to see what it looks like in December. Well, it made me think, too, sort of my last, it was like a smaller question, but I started the episode by mentioning this, like the 250th birthday for America. and I do wonder how much the birthday, the anniversary is going to matter in 2026 because they are going to go all out for that. And I think that in an election year and in a year where people are starting to think about 2028, there is, and this happens in America when there are centennials, bicentennials, like there is going to be a debate over the meaning of America, the meaning of what it is to celebrate America's 250th anniversary.

1:03:37Donald Trump is going to be in control of that, unfortunately. He's got the White House thing. They're going to do fireworks. Military parade. This is going to be a big thing. Jingoism run amok. It's going to be a big thing in the summer. And they're going to want to bait, you know, they're going to, you know, America hating libs. And they talk down. And so we're going to have to have a good response to that about the America that we love. Well, and also nobody owns the flag. Nobody owns the flag. Yeah. Nobody owned the White House either. Well, I know. I don't see how that went. You know, I wonder if there's a drug that will induce a Rip Van Winkle-like state for all of us so we can just fucking wake up at the end of the year instead of living through all of it.

1:04:14Like, if this is the first week, stop this train. I want to get off. I look forward to our end-of-the-year Pod Save America episode where you're going to have to come for that. And we can talk about you and I doing these questions. We need to run it back. We're going to have plenty of clips. MTG will be running the official nominee. We're going to have so many clips to play. Oh, fuck. If we miss any good questions also and you're listening, let us know. Please. I mean, if we, we definitely, definitely miss any good questions. There was one that I wanted to, not to freak everyone out, but I mean, maybe it won't.

1:04:43You'll know that the Republicans are legitimately worried about losing the Senate and not just the House. Yeah. If we start getting retirement announcement from our friends Sam Alito and or Clarence Thomas. Oh, fuck. They are definitely going to do that. They are definitely going to – let me just say they are going to – at the end of this term, there will be two vacancies in the Supreme Court. No question. I think that's almost without question. But it's interesting because if they lose the Senate, they can't do it. But if they announce their retirements in June, they can get confirmation started in September.

1:05:17And you know. But it's a gauge a little bit of how confident they are that they'll keep the Senate. I think they're – I think they're – Because they could do it in the lame duck even if they lose the Senate. but that's also imagine Sam Alito and or and or Thomas announcing their retirement in like November and then they suddenly get I guess they could yeah I think they're gonna do it at the end of the term the problem is like will the conservative zygote that is going to replace them be fully hatched because they're gonna nominate someone in utero it's just gonna be like an AI chatbot like a right wing AI chatbot that's been like trained on fucking Alex Jones live forever that's it live forever anyway on that note happy 2022 2026.

1:05:56Oh, boy. Alex, this was fun. Was it? Thanks. I had a good time. I did. I did. I did. Thank you for having me, buddy. Thanks, everyone, for listening. We'll be back in your feed with a new episode of Pod Save America on Tuesday. 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 Krugged Media production. Our producers are David Toledo, Emma Illich Frank, and Saul Rubin.

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