1114: Minneapolis is a Turning Point

28:27Like, you know, the Charlie Kirk assassination has been brought up a bunch over the last couple weeks from, you know, idiot right-wingers, Mago B, like, oh, the Democrats never condemned Charlie Kirk or felt bad. It's like, no, we all, I mean, you know, we took some shit for this. I watched the Charlie Kirk thing and felt genuinely bad and horrified because it's a human being with a family and he was murdered. And that's how I feel about people on the left being murdered and the right and the center and people with no politics and kids. You either have universal principles and empathy for other human beings or you don't.

29:08And like you don't draw the line at only having that for people who are on your side. And I thought that's like the most fucking basic thing, the basic set of values. But like, I don't know. I wish people would find it. I wish I because I don't want to just like I hope they find those values. I hope they do. I know your anger and it's very apparent to me where your anger is focused and I share it. But this is the result of a decade of cultural rot of Donald Trump at the top of our politics. Yeah. Yeah. And, you know, not to, like, blame social media, but, like, it is not seeing people as humans.

29:50It is exactly what Stella Carlson said, which is, like, they treated it like a video game, which she talks about those agents treating his body like that. But that is how some of these people whose brains are so fucking broken by the Internet and and whatever they do for their jobs, which is just like, oh, it's just another person. Whatever. Ding, ding, ding. Someone died. Whatever. We got to win the fight. We got to make sure that we own the libs. Got to come out stronger than them. And I didn't have to see them. I don't know them. They're not in my life. So people die all the time. Oh, well.

30:20And like that's the dehumanization that leads to truly horrific outcomes.

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33:12So Anderson also asked Stella Carlson whether she'd been contacted by anyone investigating the shooting in the federal government. She said no. Possible that's changed by now, but it does seem like there still isn't much of an investigation to speak of. Glenn Thrush and Alan Fuhrer at The New York Times published a story on Thursday about how Pam Bondi and Todd Blanche have declined to authorize the standard federal investigation into the shooting of Renee Good and haven't made up their minds yet on the Alex Preddy shooting. This is apparently causing major tension among federal prosecutors in Minnesota.

33:46Glad to hear that. Who were instead being asked to investigate protesters and Democratic politicians. According to the story, prosecutors confronted their boss, U.S. Attorney Daniel Rosen, a Trump appointee, and said they were considering quitting in protest as six others did two weeks ago around the Renee Good shooting. Like, what do you think Blanche and Bondi are, like, we're just not gonna do a, we're not gonna do a criminal federal investigation? We're just not gonna do that now? I think Blanche and Bondi are two people who are not loyal to the Constitution, the country, principle of justice, but they're loyal to one man.

34:25And that man is Stephen Miller. And look, this is, like, it is, you know, I think we thought it to be at the outset of Trump 2.0 that the Department of Justice would be bad, quite bad, but it would still be the Department of Justice. It would be filled with career prosecutors who would do what career prosecutors have always done. And that all of the political vengeance, let's get James Comey and Letitia James and everyone else was sort of like a side quest right yeah but this when you get to a situation where the department of justice does not investigate the person who shot people and killed them but the people who got shot and killed then it's proof that the whole thing is fundamentally rotten to its core and nothing they can do can be trusted in any way shape or form yeah i think what i hadn't fully grasped is that like, I always knew that they would, you know, they would try to go after their enemies because that was the advertisement and they have done that.

35:32And they've, they've stumbled in that so far. They haven't had a lot of wins on that, uh, thanks to the courts and their own incompetence and the fact that they didn't, haven't really had anything on them. So they've stumbled on that, but the willingness to, um, just not go after anyone who commits any crimes on their side and the danger there, and of course it started with the pardon of the January 6th rioters, and now we're seeing it here too, that is potentially even more dangerous than the trying to use the law to go after his political enemies. The federal government is covering up two murders.

36:10That is what is happening here. You know, I was thinking this, Dan. I was like, we spent all summer on the Epstein files and covering up the Epstein files. And like, they're now covering up two murders. That just happened. Murders. They're just not going to federally investigate. They're just sweeping that under the rug. So if you were pissed about the fucking Epstein files not coming out, like this to me is murdered Americans, government murdered American citizens, federal agents murdered American citizens. And they're like, no, no criminal investigation here. We're going to do an internal investigation led by the agency where the federal agents worked.

36:47And we're just going to look at use of force policies and that's it. I don't think we have fully interpreted what the response to these killings by the federal government means for just day-to-day life in America. I've said this before, but you have these two killings that happen on video in broad daylight in front of lots of people, and they lie through their teeth about it in the most obvious and ham-handed ways, which raises the question about... What's happening on the things that aren't caught on video? What's happening in the detention centers? But even beyond immigration enforcement, people are like, one of the questions is, are they just going to take pages out of the Epstein files because they're bad for Donald Trump or bad for someone else in the administration?

37:35People are like, oh, you guys are crazy. Why would that be crazy? That's not crazy. Why would we trust a single thing that was said about the boats that were blown up or what happened in Venezuela or whether your tax information is safe, whether your social security information is safe? If any single thing happens in the government, like they, if they can lie about things that are caught on video, like literally nothing they say can be trusted. And the presumption, like, I think we have this view where it's like Donald Trump lies all the time, but it's sort of like dumb lies about bills he didn't pass or economic statistics that don't exist.

38:11But like the whole thing is corrupt at every level. And that the presumption from everyone interpreting that information from the media to the public to analysts, everyone else, is that nothing they say can be trusted on anything, right? That all the data could be completely rigged and in some way, shape, or form. That is all on the table based on what we've seen out of Minnesota in the last couple weeks here. you know and we haven't even talked about this but someone at an event attacks ilhan omar and i'm pleasantly surprised that the fbi and the government that he's been charged this guy because i was like are they going to charge him are they not going to charge him because basically the message because donald trump's response to it was well she probably staged it who cares are the capital police the people responsible there they have jurisdiction I saw that the FBI actually brought, like the FBI got involved.

39:08But now I'm waiting for the shoe to drop and like, you know, we'll probably find out in like a week or two where it's like, oh, the FBI agents that charged the guy or the prosecutor that charged the guy, they just got fired by Pam Bondi. Like I'm surprised they were able to do it. Like that is the other risk is that crazy people who want to hurt other people, even if they're not crazy, people who just want to hurt other people will be like, well, if I do it in Donald Trump's name. if I do it to one of his enemies, then I'm going to be okay. I'll get a pardon. If I get prosecuted, I'll get a pardon.

39:38Right, right. Well, on the brighter side, we should talk about the public reaction to these killings, which have really broken through, I think, the political bubble to the rest of the country in a way I haven't seen anything break through since Trump took office again. There's been a bunch of polling that shows around 75 % of Americans have seen at least some of the video of Freddie's killing. A new YouGov poll has only 18 % of people saying the killing was justified. Obviously, 18 is too high. But honestly, in this country at this moment, I'm like, OK, I'll take 18. A new Fox poll finds about 60 % of voters saying ICE is being too aggressive.

40:15Drew Harwell at The Post also had a really great story looking at all these different apolitical online spaces where this is suddenly a major topic. and influencers who never comment about politics or who rarely get involved or stay quiet because they don't want to. They're worried about their friends. They're all speaking out. And this is from like gaming forums to, you know, golf influencers. He even mentioned a subreddit where people play their cats like bongos and didn't know that exists. But the person who's running that subreddit spoke out, even if the people were pissed on the subreddit.

40:47You know, a lot of the previously Trump supporting or at least Trump curious podcasters who broke with him over the Epstein files are also speaking out. But here's what it sounded like if you tuned into the most recent episode of the flagrant podcast with Andrew Schultz. I murdered an American citizen in cold blood. And then the Trump administration called him a domestic terrorist. Yeah, that's it. Yeah. Like plain and simple. Yeah. I see the administration trying to spin it. And it's fucking disgusting. I think it's important to speak up because I've spoken to a lot of people who are seeing it and they think it's abhorrent.

41:21and they go, I just, I don't know if I feel comfortable talking about it. I don't know if they feel like exposure to Trump or whatever like that. I think those are the moments where you got to speak up, especially. I'm just talking about regular people that were sympathetic to, you know, some of the immigration reform that Trump was talking about. And then realizing, no, this is not what they wanted at all. And now they're just kind of quiet because they're worried about like getting licks or getting public lashings or criticism on the internet. Yes, you do. Get it. Get it. Good for Andrew. so question is does this last is the is the political damage lasting is the awareness of what's happening does that last um i've been thinking a lot in the last week about january 6th and how after january 6th it just felt like as as horrific as it was you also felt like okay finally, everyone sees this and this, people don't like it.

42:22Republicans speaking out, saying it's horrible. So like, maybe, maybe this is going to be a turning point and then look where we are today on January 6th. So I don't know. What do you, what do you think? So I think this is the moment that is broken through, not just more than anything in Trump's term. I think the only two things that are comparable from a political perspective are the assassination attempt on Trump in Butler, Pennsylvania, and maybe the Biden debate performance in January 6th. Nothing else has broken through like that. And George Floyd. Yeah, I was going to say since January 6th, right?

43:01Since Trump left office. But obviously George Floyd. And a lot of things, and for a lot of reasons in how politics and media have changed in Trump 1.0 would break through all the time. But this is a rare monocultural moment. And I think we can't expect – I think our mentality in Trump's first term through January 6th was none of these Republicans really like him. They're just pretending to go along because he was thrust upon them. This is a temporary affliction. And when he's gone, they're going to – not necessarily return to normal or not be good, but Trumpism was an aberration. We learned after January 6th that that's not the case, right?

43:41That this is, that Trumpism was here to stay. And as long as Trump was on the scene, he was going to be the leader of Trumpism or magism. I think the way to think about this from a political perspective, and I'm going to put on my optimist hat here, is I think these are, there's two fundamental things that are happening here. I don't think Republicans are all going to ditch him. I don't think people are going to take off their mega hats and start listening to Pod Save America or, you know, MS Now or whatever. But I think the two things have happened is one, there is a fundamental cultural vibe shift here where, and this is what you got to, which is people decided after 2024 to either stay silent out of fear or out of apathy, that nothing mattered.

44:21And a lot of people, not just famous people, not just influencers, not celebrities, not athletes, but also just people in your lives who went to protests in 2017, went to the Women's March, were constantly posting on Facebook or Twitter about politics, thought it was over when Trump lost in 2020, frustrated with Biden, then Trump came back to stop giving a shit. You've seen more from people who checked out of politics over the last couple of weeks here than at any point in the last five years. A hundred percent. Yeah. And I think this creates a permission structure for more people to speak out.

44:52Because one of the reasons why Trump has been so successful in destroying our democracy over the last year is because there has been silent acquiescence from so many people in American society. Business, celebrities, athletes, academia, law firms, all of that. And so I think that cultural shift is real, and I hope it's lasting. Because I think once people see the emperor has no clothes and that it's okay to speak out, it's hard to undo that fact. The second thing, and this is more my pedantic political hack hat, is immigration has been Trump's superpower for a decade. His immigration approval has always been six to seven points above his job approval.

45:32Even people who did not like Trump thought he was very strong in immigration. And it gave him this political strength that if he could make politics be about immigration, like he did in 2016, like he did in 2024, he could succeed. That has changed. His immigration approval and his job approval are about the same now. He's underwater. And it's even bigger than just immigration, the shift here is he ran as a strong man who would end the chaos, right? End the chaos of the border. He said it all the time. Biden was too old, wasn't strong enough. I'm going to end the chaos. He took the chaos from the border and brought it into the interior of American life.

46:10And that is the complete undoing of the core premise of his political power. And so, you know, is his approval number is going to stay at 37 like they are in the Pew poll today? Maybe they'll probably go back up some as the elections get closer. But he is a weaker politician because immigration is no longer the weapon in his political arsenal that it once was. And that's a real important shift. He's just a weaker, less potent political figure than at any point. Yeah, because, you know, even if you're, you know, most voters still, their top issue is probably affordability. And price of groceries is still high.

46:47Price of housing is still high. And so what are you supposed to say if you like Trump? It's like, well, you know, he didn't do anything about costs and inflation like I thought he would. But at least there are public executions in the street. You know, obviously there's the hardcores who are there no matter what. But like for the people who took a flyer on Trump in 2024 for maybe the first time, like you got to look around and they're like, what are you still here for? And many of them aren't. That's why his numbers are what they are. That's why his approval rating was 47 heading into the election.

47:24And it's 37 in Pew today or 41 in his average. Like the people who did like Trump and took a bet on him have walked away. And this is a big reason. I also think to your point about the cultural shift, like I think there was an overcorrection, right? Jesus, yes. Well, I'm saying just from prominent people, right? Yeah, yeah. have big because and you know they will say because i've heard it too it's like oh people don't want fucking celebrities speaking out about politics like that's what got us into this you know like that doesn't work and the right mocks that and stuff like that it's like i don't think that prominent people speaking out now is going to solve our problems but the lack of speaking out is it like you said it is acquiescence and it allows trump to do what he does like and and And speaking out, I think, is not a cure-all, but it's friction.

48:15It creates friction. And also, you know, prominent people do what they say. That does send messages to other people. And I think it's different than, like, a Democrat saying, like, oh, I'm going to win if I have Beyonce come out at my rally in an election where there's just two people who are running for president. And everyone knows that they're voting for one of the two people. And so whoever Beyonce is for is not necessarily who you're going to be for if you weren't already for them, right? Like, but this isn't like that. This isn't about an endorsement of a candidate. This is about something happening in the country.

48:48And when you speak out about that, it does let other people feel more comfortable saying something as well. It's also attention. It's so hard to get people to pay attention to things. And one thing that people with large platforms have is the ability to get people's attention, right? Ariana Grande tweeting about a general strike on this or LeBron James posting the Bruce Springsteen song or Bruce Springsteen writing a song. And we had celebrities out the wazoo in 2024. Trump also had celebrities. He just had people with a more modern sense of cultural cachet who were better actually at attention hijacking because they were native to the platforms where you reach the people who don't follow the news.

49:36But it's just like people are in their algorithmic bubble all the time, and they're not seeing a lot of the stuff that's happening. and then all of a sudden the people they've invited into their algorithmic bubble like an Alex Earle or an Andrew Schultz or someone like that because they've curated a non-political algorithmic bubble will start to organically see some information about things happening and they'll say, oh, that's notable, right? Like I saw the video, I thought it was fucked up. It's good to know that other people think it's fucked up as well. Yeah, it's a sign that it's signaling, it's important.

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53:17So you can already see the pressure this is all putting on Republicans. Susan Collins put out a statement on Thursday saying she had spoken to Christy Noem, quote, to get ICE to reconsider its approach to immigration enforcement in the state and made an announcement that ICE has ended its surge in Maine. So that's good. Question now is whether Collins and enough other Republicans will actually work with Democrats to rein in ICE as part of the government funding negotiations. When we talked about this on Tuesday's show, the state of play was that Republican leadership wasn't going to grant Democrats' request to separate out the Department of Homeland Security funding bill and actually work on ICE reforms before passing it.

53:58Now, apparently, the White House has said that they should. The latest as of this recording on Thursday afternoon is that the Senate will vote later tonight on a provision that would freeze DHS funding for the short term, a continuing resolution, while both parties negotiate ICE reforms, which would then allow the rest of the government to stay open. What do you think about this? I know right now they're negotiating whether it's a CR for DHS that's like one week, two weeks, four weeks, five weeks. I think they might have, I hear rumors they might have landed on two weeks. But what do you think?

54:33I think there's two things here. One, the fact that Senate Democrats stood firm here to at least push the issue and to try to get time to negotiate something is a credit to all the people who put pressure on them to do that. because this thing was on a glide path to passage. And then it passed the House, and seven Democrats voted for it, and they felt the rage of a thousand suns for doing it, and it put real pressure in Democrats. And I think there were Democrats who were legitimately, even absent pressure, the pressure mattered, but were legitimately more moved to this position. Like Mark Warner had been on our podcast a few days earlier saying he was probably going to vote for it, and he laid out the reasons why that you and I talked about, about how this wouldn't actually stop ICE from doing what they're doing.

55:18And so I think it's a sign that we always have to keep putting pressure on people. And we don't know how this is going to end up. We don't know what they're going to get. So it's too early to say whether this is a win or anything else. I just think it's also really, really notable that Trump and the Republicans do not want this fight right now. Yeah. Imagine you just said to yourself two weeks ago, a week ago, Democrats are going to put on the table shutting down the Department of Homeland Security, to shut down the government over ICE 10 months before the election. And that Republicans, like our assumption would be Republicans would leap at that.

55:53This would be like Trump's dream. And they didn't want the fight, which shows how the politics of immigration have changed. It shows the deeply - Last time there was a shutdown, fucking crazy people like me were the only ones. Yeah, it was right. Shut a down over ICE. Never wrong, always early. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, that was insane back then. But right now that makes sense. But it's just, it's like the fact that they don't want this fight says, well, the politics have changed and showed, I think, the legitimate discomfort within the Republican Senate caucus over what ICE is doing. It's probably more optics and politics than morality there, but maybe it's some of the former too.

56:30Apparently, Trump does put out a truth saying he supports the funding deal. It's just this temporary deal because he doesn't want the government to shut down. Well, the House has to come back and pass this thing on one day, And that is quite challenging. And then I think the question is like, what do Democrats get in the negotiations here and how much they push forward? Because I do think so. Obviously, they're not going to get we're defunding ICE. Even if you permanently shut Department of Homeland Security down because you don't agree to any of the reforms because they're not big enough. Again, ICE has, you know, plenty of money from the big, beautiful bill to go continue their operations.

57:08Right. So it's just. sometimes i worry that um because democratic politicians are concerned that there will be such backlash from the base about them not fighting hard enough and asking for enough or getting enough that they like don't tell you what's possible and like we should know right now that it is like it is not possible to defund uh ice in this negotiation it is possible to try to push for some like fucking basic reforms that should have been in place anyway, like following the law, most of them. But like it is possible to do that. But this is a, you know, this again, we have to win the midterms and we have to win the fucking presidency.

57:52Yeah, I think people should have right size expectations here. As inferiority as I'm sure that is, we have such little power here compared to what we will have if we have the House and the Senate in 2027. Right. So like anything we get is a plus. We should push for as much as we realistically can. The ideas that are out there about warrants, masks, federal use of force policies applying to ICE and CPP, all I think would be huge improvements. If you get those enshrined in law, that would be a huge deal. You still have to get it through a house full of fucking lunatics who are demanding in exchange for their vote just to keep the government open.

58:34They want to add the SAVE Act, which is an insane election conspiracy theory bill to it. So we're not dealing with rational people here. Speaking of election conspiracies. Perfect segue. Yeah, you nailed it. Trump's FBI spent Wednesdays searching the elections headquarters in Fulton County, Georgia, where they somehow got a warrant to apparently look for evidence about the 2020 election being stolen. They left with as many as 700 boxes of ballots from 2020. Even more alarming, Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard was spotted at the scene. Totally normal. Here's what Georgia Senator John Ossoff had to say about the raid.

59:11This should have people across the country absolutely shook. This is a huge deal. So much of the big lie that led to the January 6th sacking of the United States Capitol originated in his lies about the state of Georgia. This is a shot across the bow at the midterm elections. So if you remember at Davos last week, Trump was ranting at one point about the 2020 election being stolen from him. And he said, quote, people will soon be prosecuted for what they did. That's probably breaking news. and then he had a posting spree on Wednesday night and this morning where he shared a bunch of absolutely fucking crazy content appearing to accuse Barack Obama of working with the CIA on some kind of election plot 2020 election so I know he's already he's already accused Barack Obama of treason on the 2016 election even though he won that election but now somehow Obama's involved in the 2020 which was an impressive feat considering didn't have any power then yeah so how fucking nuts is this can we talk about how tulsi has been deputized the director of national intelligence to go re-litigate uh donald trump's already proven false a billion times by a million lawsuits claims about the 2020 election this is i guess this is a tribute to the late great rob reiner but this is the equivalent of tulsi gabbard standing outside of donald trump's house holding a boombox in the air, where she's trying to win back his favor since she has been cut out of absolutely everything.

1:00:43Look, this is bananas. The fact that she's there incognito in a baseball cap. The fact that the director of national intelligence can't go to the scene of an operation without being photographed by the news media is maybe a sign that she's not in the right position. Got to work on her spy craft. That's right. For being the nation's top spy. She did have so much experience in spycraft before this, so she was supposed to be a perfect fit for the job. I think the way to think about this is how dangerous it is when the entire federal law enforcement apparatus is at the behest of a deranged despot.

1:01:24All right. So let's just think – let's project for – like think about 2019 when Trump is on the phone. begging Zelensky to open an investigation into Hunter Biden so he can then accuse Biden of being corrupt. Because back then, he couldn't get his Department of Justice to just open an investigation into Hunter Biden. So now we flash backwards. Let's flash forward to it is 2028. Pick your Democratic nominee of choice in your mind, Gavin Newsom, Kamala Harris, AOC, whoever else. They're running against J.D. Vance, FBI raids their home three weeks before the election, or they get indicted or a story appears that they are being investigated for fraud, conspiracy, any sort of crime to try to tip the election.

1:02:18It's fucking I don't know what Like, it's also there's all this like now they have the ballots from 2020 and we don't know the chain of custody that those ballots have followed. We don't know who has those ballots down the federal government. And as we've been saying throughout the show, you can't trust a fucking word the federal government tells you now or the people in it. So who knows what they're going to do with these ballots? Who knows what they're going to cook up and try to tell us happened in 2020 or what kind of, you know, criminal charges they're going to try to. I'm like shocked by the way that a fucking magistrate judge signed off on this search warrant, but yeah, I was trying to, I would like this a little more legal analysis of how they did this.

1:03:01I think there wasn't one of the statutes. The strict scrutiny. Yeah, that's right. Wasn't one of the statutes that they, that they basis on ballot falsification. Yes, I think so. Yeah. Again, all of the, remember there was a recount in Georgia. There were multiple recounts, multiple recounts, multiple lawsuits. This has all been, I mean, whatever. Yeah. Okay. Last thing before we get to my conversation with Joe Scarborough and the Only Friends preview. The biggest movie of the year, possibly the film event of the decade, has finally arrived, courtesy of Mr. Jeff Bezos and alleged sex abuser Brett Ratner.

1:03:32It's Melania. Melania, the documentary. The first lady made a promotional appearance for the film on Fox's The Five. Of course. Let's listen. There's no question that the country needs a lot of unifying at this moment. Yes, it does. But I think he's unifier. He stopped many wars. Here in the United States, it's a lot of opposition. And that's the problem. People not agreeing with everything that he does. And, you know, they just need to come on the same page. Did the president get involved in any of the production or editing? Not at all. No, he saw the movie first day on, what, Saturday. And he loved it.

1:04:18Loved it. Just need to come on the same page. There's a lot of opposition. That's the problem. It's kind of actually a nice summary of this administration's general M.O. Her husband, the president, posted the tickets to the premier's, quote, quote, selling out fast, which you can tell from all the viral screenshots of empty theater seating charts all over the country. There's also at least one report that Republican operatives are buying out theaters and trying to give away the tickets. When are you going? I'm going to wait for streaming. You're going to wait for... I asked this today. It's not yet.

1:04:58Oh, it's not yet. So it's not the same night. This is a theatrical run. I don't know what the window is followed by there is a theatrical run of Melania which is fascinating insane that there is one Amazon shelled out 40 million dollars for the rights to the movie 35 million dollars another 35 million just for the marketing which the Times says is 10 times what some other high profile documentaries have received I don't know if you know about documentary funding but 40 million and then 35 million on marketing not usually not usually the budget no for a doc no No, not at all. Marketing included commercials during NFL games, billboards.

1:05:37There's also a promotional popcorn bucket you're going to want to get your hands on. I can't believe Amazon just really believes in the project, right? Yeah, it's, you know, when you have, when you find a gem like this, how could you not do it, right? It could be their Oscar film next year. We don't know. Do you think the 16 ,000 people that Jeff Bezos is laying off at Amazon and all the reporters who are losing their jobs at the Washington Post. You think they're psyched to see the$75 million that he spent on Melania the Doc? Okay, let's just call it what it is. This is a bribe. It's an insanely stupid bribe because these are idiots.

1:06:18The way this went was this was making the rounds. No one in Hollywood wanted to work with Brett Ratner for all the obvious reasons. And the film executives at Amazon passed on it. But reportedly, Jeff Bezos was having dinner at Mar-a-Lago with at least Trump and Melania as well when Trump brought this up. He agreed to buy it. He agreed to pay this exorbitant amount of money, most of which went to Melania in a licensing fee for something like$28 million. So he's literally just put money in the Trump family pocket to do this movie. But here's the dumb part, which is, you know, no one's going to go see this movie.

1:06:54No. And you know that every single person who goes on to Fandango or a movie website can look at the theater and see how empty it is. So it's very easy to tweet the screenshots out. Like this is why Apple, when they see movies like that George Clooney, Brad Pitt movie that they thought no one would see, they pull it out of the theater at the last minute since it's an app to them. but they did it anyway and they spent this money they doing it while they are laying off people at amazon while they are gutting uh the post in every way shape or form turning into just a shell of itself and and sending like closing the international bureaus and all those other things they're supposedly about to happen there all to bribe trump like it would have been just easier and less embarrassing for everyone if he just cut him a check buy some crypto yeah yeah this is just a dumb and humiliating way, publicly humiliating way to do it.

1:07:44Especially for Bezos, yes. Yeah, well, good. When we come back, my interview with MS Now's Joe Scarborough.

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1:09:26Joe Scarborough, welcome. Hey, it's great to be here. Good to have you here in studio. Yeah, this is fantastic. You escaped the East Coast for a little West Coast? I escaped the East Coast. Going to do a couple of shows out here. and it's kind of perfect timing. It's cold from Florida up to New York, so it's good. So we're a year into Trump's second term. What is your level of alarm in relation to what you expected? I mean, you know, one of the reasons we kept saying that he was using fascist rhetoric was because he was using fascist rhetoric. So I still don't really understand these comedian turned like left wing comedians turned like bro casters that are just shocked from a guy that said he was going to shoot Liz Cheney.

1:10:20Wanted to see Liz Cheney shot nine times in the face with a firing squad that said that there were not only going to be mass deportations, but they were going to be bloody. This is not surprising to anybody. I think my surprise has been more just how completely missing Congress and the Supreme Court's been. Now, Congress, I sort of expected that because they were scared during the first term. I will say I'm a bit more surprised with the Roberts court. What do you think that's about?

1:10:54I follow it pretty closely. And I will say I was really proud of what they did during the 2000 challenge. You know, 63 and 0, it's pretty good for the federal courts. But I don't really understand because, you know, a lot of Trump appointees, a lot of George W. Bush appointees, The guy in Minnesota who is a rock star. Like there, it seems to me a lot of these federal judges are some of the only conservatives from my time when I was in the Republican Party that haven't lost their bearings. Yeah. But I don't understand about the Roberts court. I don't understand why it's taken them so long to make a ruling on tariffs.

1:11:42That is really black and white. Yes. The president is using his emergency powers improperly and illegally. Also, first-year law students could tell you if you send Marines to Los Angeles, that is against the law. That is unconstitutional if you have the guy that's sending them out saying, I'm sending them out to do policing, to do domestic. That is so clear-cut. So why it took until the last day of 2025 for the Supreme Court to even issue a temporary ruling on that, I don't understand. And I'm going to say one other thing, too, and I do obsess over this because it's so anti-American. It's so un-American.

1:12:27When Brett Kavanaugh writes in September of 2025 that agents can stop people based on their race, based on their accent, based on where they were, that's extraordinarily unconstitutional. I think that's Dred Scott level, like disappointing. I will say it took three months. He finally cleaned that up at the end of the year. But I don't understand. How did that happen? So I guess I'm not shocked by what Donald Trump has done. I'm shocked by what Congress has done, what the court has not done, what tech bros have done, what the corporations have done, what media, large media companies have done. I mean, that's been the shocking part to me.

1:13:20Do you still talk to folks in the White House? Yeah. What's the mood there right now? Not good right now. They understand. They completely understand after the second execution, if I can say that. It's like the Gary Larson, and I'm making no light of this, but it's like Gary Larson. You had a witch that was like, I better not get into this. I'll stop right there. I'll tell you the Gary Larson thing later. But yeah, by the second execution, they figured out this was not a good political move. They don't. And they don't. I say it's not a good political move because it took that for Republicans, some Republicans, to finally say enough.

1:14:11A guy was executed in the streets of America. Yeah. It's absolutely savage. It's shocking. And also as like a guy who grew up a, quote, small government conservative. Where are these so-called conservative libertarians in the Republican Party? We literally have mass troops going through our cities and shooting people because of the first event. I mean, because they're exercising the first event rights. What I can't tell is clearly there's people in that White House who can read polls, can watch the coverage, hear from Republicans once in a while. This is what disturbs me. Keep going. Because this is what disturbs me.

1:14:56They should know better. They do know better. They do know better. And then they're realizing this is a political problem for them. Right. But, you know, arguably the most powerful official in the White House, Stephen Miller. Right. Like, this is his brainchild. This is his life's work. I think he is very smart. He has figured out the four years that they weren't in the White House. He took to figure out like, you know, how he could advance his agenda next time. And he can also read polls. I think the difference is he doesn't really give a shit that it's unpopular. Right. And he just wants to push it through.

1:15:29And so my fear is that this is, you know, they're backtracking. They want to do some window dressing. They want to fix the PR problem. But then when attention moves on to the next outrage and the next thing, Miller is still, you know, just he's going to find quieter ways that are just as damaging to carry out this agenda. I think that's a very reasonable thing to assume is going to happen. I will say this past week there has been, I think, more of an understanding inside the White House that going back to what they thought they were going to be able to do is not a viable option. And I think at this point, Donald Trump's focus now has to be on the polls.

1:16:18He's already said, if Democrats take control, I'm going to be impeached several times again. He's already told the media, I don't even think we should have elections in 2026. You saw what happened yesterday in Georgia. You saw Pam Bondi going, you know, we may draw down if you turn over your voter rolls. I think this is the new obsession. And they understand they can't have a repeat of Minneapolis between now and election time because there was such an overwhelming reaction. But, you know, Maggie Haberman, who's been covering him actually even longer than I have. Maggie knows Donald Trump. And, you know, what she's always said about him when people ask, why does he do this?

1:16:59She's like, because he can. And this year, nobody has stopped him. Republicans haven't stopped him in Congress. The Supreme Court hasn't stopped him. this is the first the people of minnesota stopped him just like actually you know some leaders in europe stopping the week before i heard you uh on jimmy kimmel's show say that you last time you spoke to trump was right after uh minnesota right after after the call after the yeah after the call asked him about that with walls with walls um what was what was his mood like did he seem like this was like he understood the gravity of the situation or was this like a I'm dealing with it and that's that yeah no I I think he again it's it's so hard to to read him uh just because he'll say one thing one day and then the next you'll you'll get something completely different but he said it needed to be done that he's like yeah it needed to be done it even there's been this is just too much they've gone to for, you know, the killings are terrible.

1:18:09And then, of course, he says, Rene Good's killing is actually probably worse. Right, because big Trump fans. Because, yeah, they're big Trump fans. Thank you. Yeah, just a different level there. I don't even understand it. But I do think there is an understanding that things got so out of control that it was damaging them politically. You know, internal polls showing that Trump support has dropped as precipitously as Biden's did after Afghanistan, the messy withdrawal from Afghanistan. You mentioned like what he's focused on. From the outside, someone who's just like watched this for too long now, it does seem like in this term, so he's worried about the poll numbers because he's worried about the midterms, but it seems like most of his focus now is like interior decorating right uh the renovations putting his name on shit um trying to get prizes getting people to come suck up to him like he's just he's a host right right and he's just like having a good time in the white house and then you have miller vance some of the people just like driving a pretty extreme agenda right that trump agrees with mostly, but is not getting into the details on it.

1:19:31That's what it seems. I don't know if that's like... You know, we've noticed on the show, he's been strangely disconnected from the most important issues for Republicans in the House and the Senate, you know, during the government shutdown. I just don't think you ever saw it coming. And it seems like every morning we were talking about the government shutdown. We were talking about skyrocketing health care costs. We're talking about how Republicans are just crushing working Americans, middle class Americans. You know, there'd be a picture of Donald Trump. You know, we'd be saying, meanwhile, Donald Trump on his Asian tour.

1:20:06And I had to say, glad he's there. He needs to be in Asia. He needs presidents need to do this. That said, these are just savage pictures for House Republicans because, you know, he's gone from the Middle East to Asia to all over the world. obsessing over Denmark, obsessing over Venezuela. It's the last thing. I mean, as a former politician, and you know, obviously, inside the White House, the last thing you want is Americans to think you're more obsessed with what's going on over there than over here. And that's the impression that he's given. So, yeah, weirdly disconnected from that, the horrid, big, beautiful bill, whatever they called it, he never went out and campaigned on that.

1:20:52Republicans, that's so upside out for good reason. I mean, it's the worst bill that's, and I say this as a former Republican, I consider the worst bill I think that's ever been like put together, but he didn't campaign on that. He hasn't campaigned on affordability. They try to get him out on the campaign trail and he says affordability is a hoax. I mean, I tell Mika who rightfully, she catastrophizes, But this is a difference between sort of conservative temperaments and progressive temperaments, at least those that I have seen up close. She catastrophizes and I just get angry. And but I was like, you know, it's it's going to be OK because I said, this is all so disturbing every day and it seems so damaging to our republic.

1:21:47But I suspect somebody that had a little more emotional distance on this, maybe wasn't American, would be saying it is really awful. But that guy is doing more to destroy the Republican Party long term than anybody else could do. And I think he is. For sure. For sure. The catastrophizing thing is interesting because I deal with this, I think, like all the time. And I think when we talk on this pod and talk about stuff, I don't love catastrophizing. I don't want to ever unnecessary alarm people, partly because I don't think that's good for everyone's system. And I also think that if everything is in an 11, then you can't differentiate what's really, you know, what's the worst.

1:22:32Everything's 11, nothing's in 11. Exactly. But at the same time, you look over the last decade and all of the craziest predictions of what Donald Trump might do. I don't know if they match, you know, like I don't think anyone was saying, oh, and then he's going to try to invade Greenland. And then there's going to be federal agents shooting Americans in the street and they're going to try to cover it up. And so it's like constantly the concerns and catastrophizing of whether it's the center left, never Trump Republicans, whoever it may be, end up coming true. And I try to figure out like how to deal with that tension.

1:23:12How do you think about that as someone who talks to people about the news every day? The way I think about it is when my wife says, how bad is it going to get? I go, oh, it's going to get really bad. But when people ask me, how do I handle this? We got to do it a day at a time. Let's take what's in front of us and let's separate the signal from the ground noise. When I was first in Congress, I'd get angry, wave my arms. I gave a speech in Pensacola and an old general, old admiral who was in charge of naval aviation and training came up to me. You go, son, you got to learn to separate the signal from the ground noise.

1:23:55And I will say over Trump's first term and during the campaign, I didn't do that. And so if you're calling a candidate a fascist every day, and like you said, if it's at an 11 every day, then, you know, if everything's 11, nothing's 11. So we've tried to separate the signal from the ground noise. when he said, I'm going to seek a third term. I'm like, no, he's not. He's just trying to piss you off because Donald Trump's political superpower is getting people like us to overreact or to react to what he does. And then he feeds off of that. He points at us, goes, look, they've got Trump derangements and look how crazy they are.

1:24:41Look, they said I was going to do this. I remember. So that's the first part of it is, first of all, take more of an approach to Gavin Newsom sort of taking now, poking at him. But the second thing is, and again, I'll keep saying this because I do think there's sort of this temperamental difference with a lot of conservatives, how they approach politics and progressives. The exception being Barack Obama, guy you worked with. Barack Obama raised a lot of money. What did he do with that money? Organized on the ground in Iowa. Organized on the ground. And so when I see people in marches, the Republican in me is like, don't march.

1:25:26Go knock on people's doors. Get their cell phone numbers. Get a phone bank going. And of course, I don't denigrate marchers. I'm not doing that. I promise. I'm not. But that's just sort of the mindset. And that's what Barack Obama, I remember Barack Obama when he first came on the scene. I was like, oh, you know, these old white guys are like, you know, oh my God, you know, they're reliving the civil rights movement. I go, he's not going to beat the Clinton campaign. There's no way. Right. And so then he gets a lot of fundraising. Okay, it's a lot of old white liberals who are trying to relive 1968, 69.

1:26:07This is our Bobby Kennedy. This is our Kennedy, which, yes, I love Chris Matthews, but every night, yes, this is our Bobby Kennedy. It's like Bobby's here again. But I will say that what made Barack Obama so different is when I read a New York Times story in the summer of 07 and said he's piling all of his money into organization, I go, this guy's going to win because that's what you have to do. So my answer is, what do you do about it? Like get upset. Fear of the worst is going to happen and then figure out what you do to stop it, to short circuit it and to organize. Because I think the organization, the remarkable organization that Barack Obama had and the focus on that is something that's been missing from the Democratic Party since he left.

1:26:57It has. I think you need someone and some set of values and vision to organize around to get people excited. I think that's part of it. It's not like you can't just pour money into it. But it was interesting. I talked to Lydia Paul Green last week. She's from Minnesota and she wrote a piece in the Times about what's going on there. and we were talking about the people on the ground and she said protesters. And she's like, actually, I don't even like saying protesters because it's more organizing than it is just protesting. You see some of the protesting. She's like, but it is people going to their neighbor's house, bringing them food, making sure that their kids have a ride to school.

1:27:35And they're getting to know strangers who are their neighbors and sort of forming a tighter community that way. And to me, that is even more politically powerful than one show of force in the streets, which I do think is sometimes necessary. But I do think that what's lasting is the organizing muscles that are getting built right now. That is so powerful. When I first ran in 94, nobody knew who I was. I knocked on 10 ,000 doors. I built up volunteers. We had phone banks. We called people so much that they would scream, if you call me again, I will never vote. for him. And they go, what did you do?

1:28:15I go, call him again. Just keep calling him. And we organized and we're going up against people that had more money and everything else. And that is the key because you're right. You build this community. And it is the small things, like you said, going to your neighbor's house who you maybe have never met, ask them if they need anything. And that's what has to be done, especially in these days. When I ran in 94, I was struck that you couldn't organize around neighborhoods because I grew up, you know, in the 60s and 70s. I was born in the 60s. But I grew up – neighborhoods were still sort of a good thing to organize around.

1:28:56Nobody was home. Like I'd go knock on doors. Nobody was home in the afternoon. So you had to go to different organizations. Now with social media, it's even worse. But you've still got to do that. That's one of the things in 2020. Yes. Democrats weren't knocking on doors, right? Yeah. And I think that's - And I just sat there going, oh my God, this is horrible because there were a lot of people that came to Florida pre-COVID. They were organizing. They were going to make a difference. And I said, well, so what did you do once COVID? They left. They just left. And I remember hearing AOC saying right before the campaign, we had to knock on doors.

1:29:35I put on a mask if you want to wear a mask, but we, and that's the only way to do it. Yeah. Yeah. And I actually say, I got to say, progressives seem to understand that. I'm talking a lot about the catastrophizing. The great thing about progressives, a couple of great things about, first, they're very patient. And I thought during Biden's term, I thought they were extraordinarily pragmatic, really impressive time and time again. And I know Nancy had a lot to do with that because she, a once in a lifetime talent, but progressives were very disciplined there. But the second thing is they know how to organize.

1:30:12And people like AOC and Bernie, they understand you can't just put something on Instagram and, you know, think that shit's going to happen because it doesn't. It happens when they go out, knock on doors. And again, like you said, you know, give people a message that they can believe in. I mean, I always, you know, I think the image of the left that's sometimes reflected in the media, And this is the same with center left Democrats, center right Democrats. The biggest difference is between the people that you see on social media who are only spending their time doing politics on social media. And then people who've actually had to talk to voters and organize communities, whether they are far left, center right, whatever it may be.

1:30:58Because if you've ever had to actually go talk to someone and persuade them, you are going to approach politics more strategically and effectively than if you're just a keyboard warrior all the time. And what did AOC do? And the reason I'm going back to AOC is because she does a lot of things right. What did AOC do after Donald Trump won? she sought out voters in her district that voted for donald trump yeah that's right and mom donnie did that right that's how he started his campaign right exactly so what did you vote for donald trump how could you vote and aoc asked why how could you vote for donald trump and me explain that to me that's that's what democrats need to do yeah figure out okay how do we pull them back on our side and and by the way i'm not being critical of the democratic party because hey i like plenty of I like democracy.

1:31:45That's warranted. Let me tell you. You know, this is like, I figure this is like a war cabinet. If I'm, you know, if I'm Clement Attlee, I will hang with Winston Churchill. We got to beat the Nazis. I'm talking, of course, of World War II. Right, yeah, no, I know. Not the Nazis now. No Nazis now. Exactly, exactly. Everybody's wonderful. If you're a Republican member of Congress right now and you're running for re-election in this environment with this president, in this version of the GOP. Like, what is your strategy from now until November? I wouldn't run. I've told people that are Republicans that call me up, I go, don't run.

1:32:24You can't run. Because if you run. Because you can't break from Donald Trump. You can't break from Donald Trump. Because then he'll crush you. Right. But then if you just go along with it, I mean, obviously it's horrifically morally, but you're also just going to, you could get crushed. You get crushed, but also why would you want to spend your life every day saying Donald Trump said this today? How do you justify it? Oh, I didn't see that. Oh, I can't imagine. I don't know how many Republicans in Congress you still talk to, but like why? Why are they like – is the job that great? Are they worried that the next job they're not going to get because he's going to – like what is it?

1:33:05I can't understand it. I can't understand a lot of it because I held the job and I like the job, but the job wasn't worth putting up with bullshit. Yeah. And these people are doing it. I will say when I see Tom Tillis, who now is speaking out, but when I saw Tom Tillis at Davos still kissing up to Donald Trump. I've been I've talked about this on the pod with Tillis because I'm like appreciate that he's saying a few things here and there. But he's still like, oh, it's he's getting bad advice. It's not. And his the president's wonderful legacy will be tarnished. I'm like, what do you got to lose?

1:33:41Well, so this goes to my other theory, which is Joni Ernst was sort of open secret that one of the reasons Joni Ernst voted for Hegseth is she let people on the Hill know that she and her family were threatened. She was scared not to vote for Hegseth. So when I see Tom Tillis, who has nothing to lose, still saying what he's saying, I've just got to think that he's not intimidated by Donald Trump because Donald Trump can't hurt anymore. He must be worried about his safety. I don't know. It's a scary place to be. Because it doesn't make any sense. But again, the bigger point is the congressional pin's not worth it.

1:34:27It's just not. I will say what I would love to do if I were 30, 31, 32 years old, I would love to run this year as a Democrat. It would be so fun. It would be – you could savage. I would call for 30 debates. And I would just – I would take an old-fashioned up. And I would just I could go in drunk and I'm not even a drinker. But there are so many opportunities for the Democrats to do it. But Minneapolis is heinous. It's horrible. But, man, I would I would just talk economics. I've talked about Minneapolis and obviously the threats to American democracy. But as far as as far as seizing sort of the middle back from Republicans.

1:35:23a family i think i saw in the wall street journal a family that makes like 120 000 a year their premiums are 45 000 for health insurance you've got big insurance companies that that first of all you know skyrocketing premiums a doctor will say you need this for your health or your child's health or whatever. And then big insurance companies will deny it. And then you get home from the doctor and you get all these bills that have hidden costs. Yeah. And so between health care, between housing, the fact that I saw a poll yesterday that something like three out of four uh young americans people from like 18 to 29 don't think the american dream is possible don't think they'll ever be able to put us when i was uh when i was younger i'm from a very middle class family i got my first house at 26 wasn't really that much of a stretch now you know people i say kids because i'm so old you know people in their 20s aren't getting houses And their 30s aren't getting houses.

1:36:39The great divide now is between people that buy and people who rent. And rent is getting more and more out of reach. So between groceries still going up, rent, health care, the fact that billionaires got the biggest tax cuts ever, multinational corporations got the biggest tax cuts ever, monopolies. I called – I'll use his name. I called Ari Emanuel like during, you know, before COVID. I said, hey, Ari, I just – I never invest in stocks. I don't trust Wall Street. But I know you do. And I go, what should I invest in if I invest? He goes, invest in the monopolies. And I'm sitting there quiet for the – I go, the – what are you talking – the monopolies.

1:37:33Amazon. Apple. And he went down the list. Microsoft. He goes, they're monopolies. You can't lose my. And, you know, but that's the first time I thought about it. One of the reasons I'm such a huge Lena Kahn fan. Yeah. Because there are monopolies that need to be broken into a billion tiny pieces. Let me ask you that because, like, you were a conservative Republican congressman. Right. Over the years, how much have you changed your political views versus the world has changed? I think – And the party has changed. So, you know, I always was a populist, sort of conservative populist. So I always was talking about taxing multinational corporations.

1:38:24On that side. And we had something called the Mexican bell out that I was against because it wasn't a Mexican bell out. it was a bell out of Goldman Sachs. So that part's very natural to me. So I'm one of those guys, we talked about Bernie before. When I hear Bernie talk, I'm like, yeah, I said about half of that stuff from the conservative side. So James, I think the biggest change is because the political world's changed so much. I used to have more of a sort of hands-off approach. My belief was that what the local government could do, the local government should do. And everybody else should stay out of the way.

1:38:56What the state should do, what the federal government should, So on social issues, whether it was abortion or whether it was marriage equality, I'd be like, you know, seriously, do we, you know, I'm not going to tell people in Vermont what they need to do. You know, when I was at a town hall meeting, you know, one of my first, it's like, abolish the Department of Energy, abolish it. You know, and everybody's cheering, cheering. And, you know, they asked me something. What about abolish the Department of Education and send all the money back? And then somebody stood up and they go, what about those gay people in Vermont?

1:39:32You know, because they had just passed common law marriage, which was radical at the time. And I just stopped. I was like, why do you care what gay people in Vermont are doing? I said, why don't we have an agreement? We're not going to tell them what to do with their lives. And they don't tell us what to do with our lives in Northwest Florida. And then, of course, I'm like, you know, turn that frown upside down. down. But that's what's changed the most. I used to have this sort of federalism approach, sort of a 10th Amendment post-civil rights federalism approach where let's let the states do what the states do.

1:40:11But when I felt that way, you know, George Voinovich was governor in Ohio, Jeb Bush was governor in Florida, Mitt Romney was governor in Utah, and then John Huntsman. And these were people that I felt, you know, kind of like Spencer Cox, who has been, I think, fairly compassionate on the trans issue. A conservative, but still compassionate. Come on, guys. Said some great stuff about social media. Yeah, said some good, really great stuff about social media. So, but that's how I saw Republican governors back in the 1990s. I can't feel that way anymore. I can't trust what Greg Abbott's going to do.

1:40:46I can't trust what's going to happen in a lot of deep red states as far as on issues involving people's rights, their livelihoods. What is it like a post-Trump version of the Republican Party look like to you that is healthy and viable and like – and that you can see it actually happening? Not like fantasy camp Republican Party. Now, you know, I don't think it can happen because I've gotten past being shocked and stunned and deeply saddened by what Donald Trump does. Yeah. And now I'm shocked and stunned and deeply saddened that an overwhelming majority of Americans are perfectly fine with – Republicans are perfectly fine with what ICE is doing.

1:41:29And you sit there and you go, how the hell could a majority of Republicans think what's going on is OK. They do right now. So I don't know how there's this base. I mean, I've always been a big believer that when Ronald Reagan comes along in 1980, the party becomes what Ronald Reagan is because he's such a big force. Same thing with Barack Obama. Barack Obama comes along. The Democratic Party is Barack Obama. Same thing with Donald Trump. I've always believed when Donald Trump leaves, you know, just like the Obama magic, the Reagan magic, it's not transferable. Yeah. Even Bill Clinton being able to get away with everything, not even transferable to Hillary.

1:42:13Nope. Like he's Bill Clinton. He gets away with everything. You know? So these are not like fungible commodities. So it depends on who the leader of the Republican Party is coming up. Would you bet Vance is the nominee if you had to pick right now? I don't think so. I think somebody – I know this is shocking. Yeah. I think it might be somebody worse. Worse than Vance. Worse than Vance. That's what I think too. And by the way, Vance – I think either Vance by default because no one else could get it together. But if it's not Vance, like I don't think it's Rubio. I think it's like a Tucker Carlson type.

1:42:48That's exactly what I'm thinking. If Tucker Carlson doesn't decide to run, which I don't know if he would or not, but somebody from that wing of the movement. I don't think I even want to say party right now. And you look at what's happening in the Republican Party and right now the great divide, sort of the Nick Fuentes divide. And then they have – That's where the energy is. They have the event, the turning point event and Ben Shapiro gets up and the Jew gets up and say, maybe we shouldn't attack Jews. and then the rest of the event, people are attacking the Jew that says we shouldn't attack Jews.

1:43:38And they're all like hammering Ben Shapiro and you sit there going, you know, this is going to get a lot darker before it gets better. So I really don't think that there's, I think the Republicans are going to have to lose quite a few times before they either, they either reform themselves or move into a new party. Who do you think the strongest Dems are for 28?

1:44:04I don't know. Yeah. I really don't. It's like, you know, I just don't know how Gavin Newsom plays in New Hampshire. Yeah. I really wanted Josh Shapiro to be the VP because I don't know. I like the idea of putting Pennsylvania in your camp and then going, okay, now I only have to worry about winning Michigan and Wisconsin. And then I win, right? But I don't know. I mean, I don't know if – I don't know how Josh Shapiro will be when he goes, whether it's New Hampshire or it's South Carolina. You know, those are two guys who are going to have to do well in black churches in South Carolina. I know.

1:44:47People forget Democratic primary and Democratic presidents who win. You got to be broadly acceptable to the base and inspire the base and excite the base. and broadly acceptable to the rest of the country. And you can't pick one. You got to do both. And it's really two different skill sets, which, of course, Barack Obama had both of them. Bill Clinton had both of them. So you can do it. You've got to be able to appeal to white progressives in New Hampshire. And then you got to go down to the churches in South Carolina and in Atlanta and across the South. You can't be saying different shit either, especially in this environment.

1:45:24You got to be you in both of those places. You've got to be you. And the one thing I found is that it was so fascinating that Elijah Cummings was a good friend of ours, married Mika and me. We went to the funeral. And I won't mention too many Democrats, but national Democratic figures would go up and they all gave their eulogy. And it's just like especially this happens, especially in a black church. You walk in, man, and you know who has the crowd and who doesn't have the crowd. And there are a couple of national politicians who've run for president that walked up and it's just like, they were from Mars.

1:46:09And then Bill Clinton fighting Parkinson's walks up and he's like, Elijah coming. And I just sat there and I was like, whoa. Well, this is why Bill Clinton did what Bill Clinton did and Barack Obama did what Barack Obama did. It's a lost art. It is a lost art. They can appeal to – they can walk into people's living rooms in Nashua or in a gym and connect with those people. And then they can walk into a church in Greenville, South Carolina and do the same thing. it's it's just yeah you either have it or you don't and so that's the thing who who i let me ask you you know better than me who who sort of has the feel no one yet no one yet and i i'm done pretending that someone does yeah and uh you know like you have a whole campaign you uh you can grow into the role right so like i'm fully open to the fact that someone who we're all talking about now emerges as just a much stronger candidate than anyone thought.

1:47:18But as of now, I think there's a lot of good, solid Democratic politicians who, in their current role, I'm really proud that they're in that role, and I like them, but no one that I think is at that next level. And I think that because of the political environment right now and the urgency of the moment, the bar is just higher for Democratic politicians. It is higher. It's also it's higher for the type of candidate that Democrats need because everybody's nervous and looking over their shoulder. And you've got to know who you are. You've got to not, you know, you've got to not play a part or play a role because you think this time requires it of you.

1:48:06Right. And I think to Joe Biden's credit in 20, I think one of the reasons he won is because Joe Biden did know who he was, was comfortable in his own skin. I do remember at the time, though, everyone's like, you know, after four years of Donald Trump, we don't need anyone exciting. We don't need anyone who's going to give these big, inspire a lot of people. We just need someone to just return to normal. See that. Right. I don't agree with that. And I didn't agree with it then. And I really don't agree with it now because I'm not saying you have to govern like from ideological standpoint that's far left or center left or whatever it be.

1:48:40But I think you have to inspire people and connect with people in a way that is different than just and the madness of Trump. Just vote for this. Just vote for this Democrat. Yeah, I think I think in 26 something beats or nothing beats something. Yes. I think this year Democrats can win that way. I think in 28, I don't think that's the case. And I think there's an extraordinary opportunity for Democrats to step forward and look again just what's happened since I left Congress. Whether you want to look at the – we went from balancing the budget four years in a row to having like a$38,$39 trillion debt brought to you in large part by Donald Trump and George W.

1:49:17Bush. And so you can look at that crisis. You can look at the AI crisis. We saw what sort of the tech revolution did to post-industrial America. It just absolutely gutted it. Then AI is going to just be savage. It's going to be even worse. It's going to do for white-collar workers. As the AI founders are telling us. Yeah, yeah, exactly. It's going to do to blue collar and – well, actually, it's sort of a double gut punch. White collar workers are going to be just absolutely devastated by AI. And a lot of blue collar jobs are going to go away because robotics. And they are obsessed. I mean, you know, people that run industry and corporations, they're obsessed with getting ahead by doing that.

1:50:11And a lot of people are just not going to get jobs by attrition. So that's got to be approached in the right way. I think that's critical. And then this affordability crisis. We are losing the middle class. We're losing the American dream. And we're losing it because for the past 30 years, you've had Democratic administrations and Republican administrations being a lot more sort of focused on Wall Street and focused on, you know, the bottom line for corporations than worried about, again, the rest of the country. Yeah. Joe Scarborough, thanks for stopping by Pod Save America. And you got a new newsletter.

1:51:01Not really new now, but I know you're a newsletter writer now. It's kind of new, yeah. The tea spilled. The tea. The tea. It's the tea, baby. So everyone should subscribe to the tea. Everybody should subscribe. Everyone knows Morning Joe. Check out Morning Joe. Thanks for stopping by. Greatly appreciate it.

1:51:20All right. Last thing before we go. When we ask our subscribers and potential subscribers what you'd want to see from a Friend of the Pod subscription, the most popular answer is always... More Dan. More Dan. That's right. That's actually, that was number one. That is a fact. More Pod Save America. Well, you got it. More Pod Save America. On Thursday, we launched Pod Save America Only Friends. It's a bi-weekly show. We've got a rotating cast of PSA hosts, some other hosts from Crooked. It's a chance for us to get some of the stories and takes that don't make it into the Tuesday and Friday pods.

1:51:52So all four of us, Pod Save America hosts, got together for the first episode and you're going to hear a few minutes of that now if you like it uh we hope you'll sign up at crooked.com slash friends welcome to potty of america only friends the new crooked subscription show that is basically potty of america probably a little looser uh for subscribers only and then there's a subtle suggestion that one episode in the future might have full frontal yeah that's it's up to dan nudity and we're still working we're still working out that provision there's some serious negotiations going on with my contract yeah like the yeah because i'm the intimacy coordinator.

1:52:27So that's sort of confusing because I'm a conflicted, you know. I guess it depends on how badly we need the subs. So we're all here for this inaugural episode. Going forward, the show is going to be a rotating collection of Pod Save America hosts, some special guests. I'm in the sticks today because I guess I was up early. It's really what happened here. Bless you. Here's another example of just how out of control ICE has gotten in the Twin Cities. So this is a video of an ICE agent trying to force his way into an Ecuadorian diplomatic facility. Let's watch.

1:53:12So if you couldn't hear it, this ICE agent's trying to rush into the facility. The embassy employee goes to the door and the agent tells the employee, if you touch me, I will grab you. Not sure what that means. And the employee replies, you cannot enter here. This is a consul of this, say, foreign government property. It's like, boss, boss, I found this building. It's filled with Ecuadorian nationals. They're just sitting there. They're acting like they're a few. They're acting like the laws here don't apply to them. Sitting ducks. Yeah. Honestly, some right-wingers on Twitter after this were posting like, this is unbelievable.

1:53:43We got to have Trump shut the Ecuadorian embassy down. They're impeding investigations. They're impeding law enforcement operations. It's like, are you fucking, you just, you don't get it, huh? You just don't get it. For those who don't, the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations says... Fuck a pussy. Oh, yeah, this guy. Oh, no, international law. Call the Hague. Go on. Back and John up. U.S. agents can't enter an embassy without consent from the head of mission. Like, you can't execute a search warrant. You can't seize property. The protection for consulates are a little smaller, so that's probably a consulate.

1:54:14But basically, it's like... Like, you can't just bust into the buildings or threatening the staff and threatening to detain them. If to speak in the language of... that maybe the ICE people would understand. Lethal Weapon 3. They have diplomatic immunity. They're on the grounds of the consulate. That's right. Also, it's odd that they were trying the consulate because I've been reliably told by Tricia McLaughlin and others that ICE only conducts targeted enforcement operations. That they're not just going around grabbing people. That everything is targeted. So, I don't know. Well, it's a wide list of targets.

1:54:47Yeah, right. It's nice now that diplomatic staff from foreign countries in the United States have to treat the border, the fence line to U.S. soil as like the DMZ, where if you kind of go across, you have to have someone holding your back in case you're grabbed from the outside. Really, really, really great society. Can I go back to the Stephen Miller gnome sort of cover up, the blame game thing? Just to check the rules. Just to talk about one more thing. And I promise it's kind of fun and petty. So I thought that would be good for us. I mean, if Tommy will allow us to go. Will you allow it? Yes.

1:55:21Will you yield the floor? for the first time. So, Katie Miller, wife of Stephen Miller, podcast host extraordinaire. We have the same job, yeah. Yeah, exactly. We have the same job. And what she did is she was posting the Axio story that you were reading from just to sort of defend her husband. And Ileana Garcia, who was the co-founder of Latinos for Trump, and she's quoted in a New York Times piece this week saying that Trump's going to lose the midterms because of Stephen Miller. And so then Katie Miller, Her next tweet was, she decided to say that Ileana was fired from DHS in the first term because she didn't show up to work.

1:55:58And then Ileana, quote, tweets Katie Miller and says, invite me to your podcast so we can have a candid discussion about what truly transpired and how you labeled your then boyfriend a racist when you were upset that he treated you poorly and me as a mere token Hispanic for the administration. let's discuss who was responsible for the leaks in the White House and how you helped carve the floor out from under then-Secretary Kirsten Nielsen. Wow. That sounded, I have to say that, that's very specific. That's very specific. The then-boyfriend of Stephen Miller, right? Yes. The then-boyfriend of Stephen Miller.

1:56:32Not a previous boyfriend. Maybe she had too. Katie Miller also didn't know what liberal democracy meant. I saw that. That was cool. Or leftist. That was cool. Not the brightest bull. Invite her on. Go on. Go on the show, Aliana. Or you could come on this show and talk about it. Anytime. Back to the Ecuador incident. So there was an incident like this back during the George H.W. Bush administration. It did lead to a big diplomatic row. A row? Are you Jack Blanchard? A row, I would say. Is it a row or is it a row? Buckle up, guys. Diplomatic community.

1:57:06This is a great moment.

1:57:12it's just been revoked now yeah danny glover now i do think it's worth taking a moment to appreciate that most of the the the premise of of basically every movie from 1980 to 2010 is the rules should not the heroes don't follow the rules right he summarily executes South African diplomat. South African diplomat. Now, in the film, we know he's done terrible things. He's a bad guy. Murders. Murders supporting the apartheid regime. But still, it's a sort of heroic moment at the end where he's just summarily executing the man. And you do cheer and you do root for Danny Glover. And he does hesitate.

1:57:52He does hesitate, feeling the two wolves inside of him. Yeah, we're kind of on the side of ice here by accident. It's a little ice, yeah. I like the way he said, diplomatic immunity. diplomatic immunity. That was enjoyable. That's why I wanted to play the clip. Okay, so Donald Trump wants to be talking about anything else besides ICE in Minnesota. On Wednesday, Trump threatened to bomb Iran again. So that's cool. The armada's coming. Armada's there. What's the quote? It's like... It's like big and powerful. Large and like purposeful. It was like very phallic. And filled with semen. It's a submarine.

1:58:26It's coming ashore. And then he was joined by Nicki Minaj at an event to announce this new savings program for kids. Here's humble soybean farmer and Treasury Secretary Scott Besson talking about this new plan. To all the moms and dads out there watching right now, they should sign up now, right, for Trump accounts during this tax season? We've already had, just in the past few days, 500 ,000 families sign up. We believe there are about 25 million who are eligible. So go on the IRS website. It's Form 4547, and everyone should do it. And it's a great way because you can also, if relatives, rather than giving a toy for a birthday, for a holiday, they can contribute to these accounts.

1:59:12I think we're going to see a substantial drop in people playing the lottery because you've won the lottery. You've got$1 ,000 and the power of compound interest, families can add to that. So this is really a new kind of philanthropy. It is direct to children. What child doesn't want? The S &P index funds, right? Sometimes kids walk around chanting compound interest. Yeah, that's right. Well, let's wait. So what is he doing? What's happening here? Baby bonds is that you can invest on behalf of your cousin or some shit. But he's saying instead of getting him a toy, you get him the donation. Baby bonds was like the, you know, high neolib 90s ideas.

1:59:55Cory Booker's pushed baby bonds for a long time. I mean, like, you can barely find coverage of this today. Which is sort of amazing. He did the event with Nicki Minaj. I was going to say. But also, it's like the Nicki Minaj angle is her being like, I'm Trump's number one fan. God is protecting him and those pictures. And then the soundbite they got from it was that doofus talking about maybe maybe there's less toys. The Nicki Minaj thing is funny because she goes up and she's like, I'm his number one fan. Even though everyone hates him and attacks me for liking him, I still do it anyway. I was like, oh, that's not a really nice endorsement.

2:00:30Yeah, I was thinking about that because you don't sort Nicki Minaj instinctively into the same category as the people who, like the tech bros for whom like social media destroyed, like rotted their brains. You do feel a little bit like the Democrats were the people that were attacking her over the years for various statements that she's made, COVID stuff, all the other stuff. And like that's a little, because if you really believed in something. How did we? Who lost Nicki Minaj? I don't know. We lost Nicki Minaj, John. We lost Nicki Minaj and Joe Rogan. It's a long list. But you have to imagine that like, if you really loved something and believed in it, you wouldn't say like, I love this.

2:01:06And that's not changing. You would just never say that. You wouldn't be defensive about it. Yeah, I just love it. The affordability push is going well. Did you guys hear when Trump was giving a speech in Iowa, some lady in the audience interrupted him when he started talking about how gas is only$1.95,$1.85 in Iowa. And some woman shouts from the crowd, no, it's not, it's$2.63. Yeah, and it was$2.69 at the venue. It's like, hey, you make me upset that your gas is more expensive. But, you know, on the other hand, they are killing Americans in the streets. So it's just... The argument has a new pullout that find that like 24 % of white Trump voters were abandoning him over prices.

2:01:46And just this moment of watching the news and it's horrible. and like the attack on the rule of law and death in the streets. And did that undo Trump? It certainly was bad for Trump, but really it was the price of gas and his failure to attack affordability. And that will have been the thing. Real quick, one more little clip of Bezant. We want to watch here. In case you don't know it, I'm actually a soybean farmer. So I have felt the pain too. He's never not funny. Negative charisma. Again, that was a preview of Pod Save America only, friends. Sign up to become a friend of the pod at crooked.com slash friends to get OnlyFriends and lots, lots more.

2:02:22That's our show for today. Thanks to Joe Scarborough for coming by. Lovett's going to be back in the feed with a new show on Sunday. Talk to everybody then. 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 Illich Frank, and Saul Rubin. Our associate producer is Farrah Safari.

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