1122: Fascist Mile High Club

26:18Only one photo exists of him trying to keep the rabbit at bay. All right, now... Bad Bunny. Bad Bunny. Nice. All right. John Dan Tommy, the Harold Holt Memorial Swimming Center, is a pool in Melbourne, Australia. It is named in honor of Prime Minister Harold Holt after he unexpectedly passed in 1967. How did he die? Was he A. Bitten by the deadly Sydney funnel web spider while on a bushwalk? Was it B. A heart attack while traveling from Canberra to Tasmania? Was it C. Drowned while swimming in rough surf off Cheviot Beach in Victoria? Or D. Stung by the Urukandji jellyfish inadvertently added to marine aquarium at the opening of the since-demolished Manly Sea Life Sanctuary?

27:16C It is C

27:22You people Named a swimming pool After a prime minister Who drowned That's awesome Follow up There has long been a conspiracy theory That Harold Holt did not die in the water that day What is the most prominent alternate theory? Is it A, he was abducted by aliens B, he faked his own death to start a new life in America C, he actually died in a motel with a prostitute Or D, he was grabbed by the Chinese C C C C No, it's D The Chinese got him? The Chinese got him? The theory is that he was in fact a Chinese spy Who escaped Australia on a Chinese submarine How many people here believe that? Wow, a lot of hands.

28:15That's why you need AUKUS. That's why you need AUKUS. You've got to defend yourselves. You don't want those French diesel submarines. Now, his widow, Zara Holt, had to refute this allegation. What did she say to deny that her husband was a Chinese spy?

28:39Someone called it up. She scoffed and said her husband didn't even like Chinese food. All right, let's come up here. Who here would like to answer a question? Hi, what's your name? Margaret. Margaret, that's a thick... Where are you from? I'll give you the accent. Where are you from? I'm from Bexley North. How far is that from here? That's half an hour's drive. Because my understanding is the further you get from here, the thicker the accent. Is that about right? Okay. Depends which direction. I guess out to sea it gets less. In 1992, President George H.W. Bush attended a state dinner hosted by the Japanese prime minister.

29:21What went wrong? Do you know? I can give you clues. Was it A, he fell asleep during the prime minister's toast? Was it B, he accidentally insulted the emperor? Was it C, he tried to open a ceremonial urn that was in fact 3 ,000 years old, cracking it in several places? or D, did he vomit into the prime minister's lap and faint? What do you think? He vomited into the prime minister's lap and fainted. That's correct. Nailed it. Yep. George Bush had a chunder. How's that? Okay. That picture is so bad. It really is. What is Barbara doing? I'll tell you what Barbara Bush is doing. She's being a first lady because she did not care if he lived or died.

30:09She was going to hide his face. She looks like he's trying to snuff him out. Yeah, she really... She jumped... If you watch the video, everybody... She jumps in. She jumps in. She dives in front of a bullet for George... Well, in a sense. That's cool. It's cool. Wow. All right. John, Dan, Tommy. Former Australian Prime Minister Bob Hawke held a Guinness World Record before entering politics. What was it for? Was it A, most sausages eaten at a cricket match? B, longest continuous speech on the floor of parliament? C, fastest consumption of a yard of beer? Or D, longest distance swum in open water, not including Holt?

30:58What do you think, Dan? What do you think? speech I have no clue don't look at me do you want to weigh in here John

31:13hey stop helping them look how handsome they are they've already been so blessed what do you think pounding beer that's correct the fastest consumption of a yard of ale 2.5 pints he did it in about 11 seconds a record he set while studying in Oxford. Hawk later said, this feat was to endear me to some of my fellow Australians more than anything else I ever achieved. Here we have a video of him later.

31:54That's amazing. He gets, look at that. Look at that. gets that whole thing down.

32:06Look at this guy. There's a torso. American politicians take note. I know, really. Follow up. All right. Future Prime Minister Paul Keating was Hawk's treasurer. He recalled arriving for a meeting with the PM in a full suit, sweating to find Hawk in what condition? how did they find it was a hot summer day passed out nope naked naked yep naked by the pool he was naked for their meeting i feel like that one probably feels less endearing over time right speaking of seeing members in unexpected places who in the audience would like to go next i'm gonna i'll come up there someone raise your hand Someone raised their hand.

32:55I'm coming over here. Hi, hi, what's your name? Elizabeth. Elizabeth. In 2007, Republican Senator Larry Craig of Idaho was arrested for lewd conduct in a men's bathroom at the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport, accused of soliciting sex from an undercover officer in the next stall. He pleaded guilty to disorderly conduct, then tried to withdraw the plea. D, what was his public defense? Was it A, he was reaching under the stall divider to pick up a fallen piece of paper? He was tapping his foot, B, to the music on his headphones? C, he just has a wide stance? Or D, he thought the person in the next stall was having a medical emergency?

33:46No, you got it wrong. It was C He had a wide stance Here he is at the press conferences With his poor sad wife Do you guys remember that? Yeah That didn't make it to Australia Do you guys know about this? Wow It was bleak It was pretty bleak There had been a reporter That had been traveling around Trying to find evidence That Larry Craig had done this At other places throughout D.C.

34:21Did he get off? I'm not sure.

34:27I mean, not that day. Follow-up, what happened after he announced his intention to resign? He just didn't. He just never left. Just stayed till the end of his term. All right, for John, Dan, and Tommy, on the 30th of November of 2022, the Australian House voted to censure former Prime Minister Scott Morrison. Why they don't... Boo! Why was he censured? A. For secretly holding multiple ministerial positions while serving as Prime Minister. B. For his handling of the AUKUS submarine deal with the United States. C. For his missteps during the COVID vaccine rollout. Or D. For vacationing in Hawaii during the country's catastrophic bushfires.

35:14All of them? I thought it was for shitting his pants At a McDonald's drive-thru There it is We thought it was for shitting his pants At the McDonald's What do you think? Was it all of them? Actually it could have been But it wasn't technically

35:35They're all true But only one was the reason he was censured Hawaii? No it actually wasn't It was for secretly holding multiple ministerial positions. How many extra jobs did he secretly have? It was five. He was the health minister, the finance minister, the resources minister, the home affairs minister, and the treasurer. Now, I have a question for the crowd. Okay, you censored Scott Morrison. Why did your governor general not get any fucking shit? for secretly signing off on this. Why do you never come for the king's representative? Why didn't you? Where's the censure for that guy? He's been on this the whole trip.

36:26He hates this governor general. I hate this governor general thing. You're a proud people here in Australia. Get rid of the fucking crown.

36:37It's outrageous. One of the greatest cities in the fucking world. Look what you're building all around you. You still check with the king to make sure it's okay? Some thick-fingered inbred freak in London?

36:56Finish your revolution, please. Hey, hey, Donald Trump's our president. You know? Yeah. I know. It makes me so sad. All right. Follow-up, John, Dan, Tommy. Scott Morrison did face a massive scandal for vacationing during the black summer bushfires and that killed 33 people directly, hundreds more indirectly as a result of smoke. What were some of the criticisms he faced? A, his office did not notify the public who was acting prime minister. B, his office initially denied he was on holiday in Hawaii. C, for saying, thankfully, we've had no loss of life while visiting Kangaroo Island where two people had died.

37:35Or D, for saying before he'd even made it back to Australia from his trip, quote, I I don't hold a hose, mate, and I don't sit in a control room. This feels like an all of the above situation. All of the above. You got it. Yeah. All right. Who over here, who wants to answer a question about America? You're pointing at people. All right. Where's that Australian confidence? All right. Hi, what's your name? Rachel. Rachel. Texas Republican. Where are you from? Kangaroo Valley. Woo! Oh. You guys have a local cheer? Yeah. How far is that from here? Like two hours if you go fast.

38:21By kangaroo. By kangaroo. There's Americans, you know, we really kind of, the kangaroo looms large in the child's mind for an American. And I think every American child becomes an adult when we find out that the pouches are gross. What do you think about that? Yeah, they're gross. We know more about wombats. Do you know that wombats poop are cubes? Yeah, of course. Yeah. Cool. They don't know why? No one knows why it's a cube. That woman thinks she knows. All right. She doesn't know. She's a fucking liar. All right. Texas Republican Ted Cruz faced his own vacation scandal for flying to Cancun during winter storm Yuri which knocked out power for millions of Texans and killed an estimated 246 people he initially blamed his daughters saying he was shampooing them on a trip they'd asked for but that was later shown to be false how was it proven to be false was it a his daughters did an Instagram live to refute the allegation was it be their neighbors leaked the group chat was it see he actually forgot his daughters at home home alone style or D Ted Cruz emailed the proposed itinerary to Jeffrey Epstein.

39:38That's incorrect. It was the group chat. Yeah, it's always the group chat. It's always the group chat. The leaked group chat showed that Heidi Cruz had organized the trip, inviting others to join them at the Ritz. When asked about the leaked text, Ted Cruz called his neighbors assholes. All right, John, Dan, Tommy, Johnny. Oh, there he is. There's Ted. There is Ted. Nice mask. Nice mask. Johnny Depp and his then wife Amber Heard brought their two Yorkshire terrors into Australia without a quarantine declaration. Agriculture Minister Barnaby Joyce issued a public threat. What was that threat? Was it A, a$100 ,000 fine per dog?

40:21B, Depp had to film a public apology video or face prosecution? C, leave or I kill the dogs? or D, Depp was banned from entering Australia for five years. Oh, what do you think? What did Barnaby Joyce threaten? Johnny Depp, pre-cancellation, Johnny Depp. I remember this because there was like helicopter footage of the house where they were staying. It was like a big deal. It was a big deal. It was a big deal. Those Yorkies. You think it's the jail or the ban? Kill the dogs? Correct. Wow. Good job. The dogs would be euthanized within 72 hours if Depp didn't take them out of the country. Mr. Depp has to either take his dogs back to California or we're going to have to euthanize them.

41:08The dogs were flown out. Depp later insulted Joyce by saying he looked like he was inbred with what vegetable?

41:18You guys remember? Shout it. Tomato. Look at him. I think we read in that. That's fair. I think we read in that artificial age. Is that wrong? I think that's fair. Yeah, point to Johnny Depp on that one. Yeah, Johnny Depp got him. You're all good.

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44:23America. Our cars are as generous as our asses, and our roads, like our hearts, are enormous and clogged.

44:32According to a recent study in an American medical journal that somehow is still operating, in both the U.S. and Australia, we now get more than half of our calories from ultra-processed foods. Now, it wasn't that long ago that Michelle Obama led a campaign to encourage Americans to eat healthier foods and get more exercise. At the time, Republicans said you could pry the cheese doodles from their cold, dead, weak, bloated hands. But all that has changed because now we're making America healthy again, as only the Trump administration knows how, by fucking it up completely. And so it's time for OK Stop.

45:07We'll start with a man, a donut, and a surprise special appearance by an infamous athlete.

45:19What do you think he's doing? Process who kills. Remember that. Okay, stop. That is what is happening in America. War on donuts. He looks so genuinely pissed. Like, that slap does not seem like a stage slap. Do you guys know who Mike Tyson is? He's the scariest motherfucker to walk this planet in whenever it was that he was at his prime. And not one of our most upstanding Americans. I mean, I guess when he... Technically, Evander Holyfield's ear is not processed. No, that's true. That is true, yes. That's farm to table, baby. There's no joy in that look he's giving us right now. Well, he fucking hates donuts.

46:06He hates donuts. It is just wild that they have declared war on donuts. Because can you imagine if... Well, Michelle Obama tried to tell people to eat healthy, and she was roundly criticized by the Republican Party. Yeah, imagine the outcry if some bisexual female soccer player did a press conference and knocked a donut out of AOC's hand and said, we're not eating these anymore. It would just lead Fox News for the rest of our fucking lives. Lives, yeah, yeah. This just came and went one day. People barely registered. It was on the Super Bowl. Well, yeah, the other one was, yeah. Also, if you're let's say you're just taking this generous like you're just taking this at face value like what you don't know if you're like who is being persuaded to not eat a donut by this advertisement no one like fear of physical violence that man will come to your house next up milk you know from cows trump can tell you all about it specifically whole milk and We'll let him explain.

47:12I open a refrigerator and say milk with rice and milk with water and milk with everything. And I say, what kind of milk is it? That's what I like right there. It's actually a legal definition, whole milk. And it's whole with a W for those of you that have a problem. Most of the media will talk about it. Okay, stop. What is the problem? What problem would they have with the milk with an H? With a W? I think this is the first time he discovered that. I genuinely do. I think today was the day he learned that whole, meaning the entirety of the item, is not the same as whole in the ground. Yeah. Also, he opens the fridge and sees milk, and he doesn't think that would go well with a delicious cookie or some cereal.

47:57He thinks it pairs with rice. No, no. What I think is he is just discovering alternative milks, and he doesn't know what they are. Oh. So it's like oat milk, almond milk, soy milk. Milk with rice. Rice milk? Yeah, I think he thinks it's rice milk. Yeah, I just think he's confused. what yeah because then he goes because this is the one i like right here and he points at the jug of milk that is off camera i like i realized while watching this video like trump is so disconnected from normal life like forget not driving a car or going to a supermarket does he open fridges like does he know what happened like does he ever like maybe other than a drink fridge like a compact drink fridge filled with diet no someone He brings him a Diet Coke.

48:40Yeah, no one's... He presses a button. He's not doing that himself. So he doesn't open a fridge and look for food to eat. He presses the Diet Coke button. Right. So I don't think he's thinking... I think he thinks in fridges is rice. I also think he probably has not had milk in any form in 70 years. Yeah. Yeah, that's true. No cereal, no glass of milk, no milk in your coffee. I don't think he drinks coffee. He washes down the cookies with Diet Coke for sure. Yeah. I think that part's cool. I mean, this also is worth, is that this was the executive order to allow people to drink raw milk. Right.

49:15Which has cow shit in it, as far as I can tell. Yeah, just the natural selection will kick in, presumably at some point, drinking raw milk straight from the udder. He's not drinking it. No. That's for sure. Of course, with Trump, as always, best do as he says, but not as he does, because as RFK Jr. has observed, he eats like there's no tomorrow. Who has the most unhinged eating habits? The president. He eats really bad food, which is McDonald's, and then, you know, candy and Diet Coke. But he drinks the Diet Coke all the time. He has the constitution of a deity. I don't know how he's alive. If you travel with him, you get this idea that he's just pumping himself of poison all day long.

50:06From your mouth to God's ears. What I like about this, though, is like, is there no part of this that causes RFK Jr. to question his priors? Because there is Donald Trump in his late 70s, like boundless energy, eating nothing but French fries and burnt ground beef all day, every day. Nothing but aspartame, Diet Coke. And he's like running a mile a minute around this guy. Meanwhile, RFK Jr. never doesn't seem like he's on the verge of collapse. having nothing but like kimchi and raw milk yeah he's ferments he affirms yeah kimchi among other ferments yes pumping himself full of poison all day long like the i mean it's also just worth just mentioning like what this is all about right like this the donut thing rfk jr here the raw milk is the make america healthy again movement which has taken over large parts of our politics and is probably the fact that all of these wellness people ended up as republicans is like a massive failure of the democratic party big time yeah well just like the person who is the primary like the number one food influencer in america this woman named food babe that's her she she was sat behind rfk jr at his confirmation hearings she was an obama delegate in 2008 2012 12 oh wow and just we even though like we have led on this stuff we just like stopped talking to these people and yeah we wouldn't give them we wouldn't give them raw milk we wouldn't well they the people like rfk jr pushed him into the like like the algorithm will take you on a journey from like vaccine skepticism is where i think yeah it takes you there we want measles well it starts it starts with like how do i get like chemical free sunscreen for my kids or how do i you know how to feed my kids healthy and the algorithm takes you and then you're at vaccine skepticism you're at raw milk then you're supporting Donald Trump and the thing that's crazy is like the is that all of this like eating not eating processed foods that's a good thing right donuts are kind of delicious but that's not the point but is that doesn't do you any good if you have an administration just lets chemical companies pollute your air and water yeah like as we've seen in a like this is a to me a good example too like there was a long running failure of the establishment to address like legitimate concerns about the chemicals in our foods and the the proliferation of processed foods there were no consequences for switching to skim milk like look there's good reasons for people to not be drinking whole milk every fucking day uh but like we cut fat from all kinds of foods that america gained a trillion pounds and like we we're paying a huge price for it now and this now like this there is real reason for people to be like wait a second why didn't we address some of these things why didn't we pull some of these chemicals out of course these people are also going after like what is a threat to our society it's like it's not an occasional donut people should have a fucking measles it's measles It's measles.

53:14But even on the chemicals in the food, they have done absolutely nothing on the regulatory. They've made it worse. They've made it worse. And so it's all just about personal responsibility. Yeah, you have a public service message from Mike Tyson. Telling you to get the donut out of your mouth. Right. Well, it's just forever chemicals all the way down. And you have the president not leading by example. Which is cool. And yes, who better to take health advice from than RFK Jr., a man who always looks, sounds, and acts like he's the sole survivor of a cruise ship sinking and was just rescued from a life raft found on the open seas.

53:49I'm not scared of a germ. You know, I used to snort cocaine off the toilet seats. Okay, stop. Again, I just, I want to know the situation where he was snorting the cocaine off the toilet seats. We're presuming he spilled cocaine on the toilet seat. That was what I've been saying. I think that he spilled it on the toilet seat. He says plural. And he was, yeah, well, maybe it happened a couple times. He needed a flat surface in the Studio 54 bathroom? So many other flat surfaces besides the toilet seat. The floor, the tank, his keys. Maybe he likes to cut his cocaine with butt. Maybe there's something thrilling about it, something dangerous and exciting about snorting cocaine off a toilet seat.

54:34Don't knock until you try it, Dan. Sorry, what was that?

54:44Anyway, this is the person in charge of public health A man who doesn't really worry about germs Because of the places he used to do cocaine The donut will kill you though Yeah, watch out for the donut Watch out for a little sugar and frosting A little treat at the end of the day Go fuck yourself And that's okay, stop

55:13All right, so there's no shortage of Democratic leaders sounding off about what the party should be doing right now. Our old boss, Barack Obama, just sat down for an interview with our good friend, Brian Tyler Cohen, which is making waves mostly for this exchange. Are aliens real? they're real but I haven't seen them and they're not being kept in what is it Area 51 there's no underground facility unless there's this enormous conspiracy and they hid it from the President of the United States what was the first question you wanted answered when you became President where are the aliens where are the aliens so

56:05So for some reason that we can talk about, Obama after this took the rare step of clarifying what he meant there in a follow-up post. I can't remember him ever doing this. For a minute. Where he said that he was, quote, just trying to stick with the spirit of the speed round. Which has always been a passion of his. Yes. and all he meant was that, quote, statistically the universe is so vast that the odds are good there's life out there, but that, quote, I saw no evidence during my presidency that extraterrestrials had made contact with us, period, really, period. That should clear things out, I think.

56:51Tommy, you've been privy to more highly classified government secrets than the rest of us. What do you think's going on here? You buying his answer? Did someone get to him? I'm wondering that, too. I mean, look, I don't want to disappoint the kind of X-Files, ancient alien stans out there. That's what I expect you to say. Yeah, right. Yeah, look, I do not think that Barack Obama was just sort of like casually confirming the existence of aliens in the 44th minute of a 47-minute YouTube interview in the speed round, right? Like, I love Brian. He's like an actual dear friend of mine. I don't think Obama gave him the scoop of the century in the speed round of the interview.

57:30I think what he's referencing there is, Lovett can get into this too, the Drake equation. The universe is very large. There's a lot of stars. There's even more planets. Many of them may be habitable. You do a little math, dipsy-doo, probably some life out there. Maybe they're too far away to contact them. Maybe they came and went and we're all in different eras. We don't know. Now, maybe I'm an unwitting tool of the deep state. Maybe you want us to think that. The deep state is deeper than we ever could have imagined. But mostly what I learned in government is I believed less and less in conspiracy theories like this because people can't keep a secret and shit leaks constantly.

58:14And if Donald Trump knew that aliens existed, he would have monetized it by now. They would never tell him. Yeah, they would never tell him. There's three possibilities. There are aliens and they didn't tell Barack Obama. There are aliens and they didn't tell Barack Obama. Or there are aliens and they did tell Barack Obama, but they didn't tell Donald Trump. yeah donald trump would not have been able to keep it secret yeah i i actually it wasn't until he put out the clarifying statement that i was convinced in my bones that there are aliens and barack obama knows about them 100 percent of all the things to clarify have you ever in a decade seen him clarify something like this i know exactly what happened here he went from having an entire White House comms office to one guy who was like, I'm so sick of dealing with the incoming calls on this shit.

59:12Let's just get an Instagram up and like do it. Spokesman for the deep state, Tommy Vitor. It was a fast clarification. Yeah. We're like 24 hours out of that interview. When I said yes, what I actually meant was I actually read something about Fermi's paradox and...

59:33Anyway, Obama also had some thoughts on the more earthly challenges that we're facing, particularly what the Democratic Party is facing, and he talked a lot about that in this interview. At some point, you age out. You're not connected directly to the immediate struggles that folks are going through. Democrats do well when we have candidates who are plugged into the moment, to the zeitgeist, to the times, and the particular struggles that folks are thinking about as they look towards the future rather than look backward toward the past. Voters are not going to agree with us 100 % on everything.

1:00:20And so it is not a sellout, it's not a betrayal to say that we're going to shape our agenda and our message in a way that allows us to build a working majority to get stuff done. And I think particularly around social issues, sometimes we get confused around this. Our long-term goals have to be driven by our values and our core beliefs and our ethics and our morals in the sense that every person counts. And short-term, we've got to win elections. They are doing such crazy stuff that it shouldn't be hard for our side to coalesce around the areas where we agree on and focus on that. That is going to happen if we are effective in winning the midterms.

1:01:07if we then have a robust primary for who's going to be the next democratic president i i we shouldn't be afraid of having a robust debate so

1:01:26dan at the beginning there uh he was talking about um democrats uh needing younger candidates and he said he didn't have a hard and fast rule, but that perhaps the party should look to younger candidates. Perhaps. He was trying to be as polite as possible there, but that's what he was referencing. What did you think about his answer there? Well, it's obviously true, right? I mean, you can trace almost all of the problems the Democratic Party and frankly the country have had over the last decade by the fact that the Democratic Party has been led by establishment politicians in their 70s, right?

1:02:06It just is, and that comes in two forms. One, three forms actually. The first one Obama makes is a really important point, which is the longer you've been in politics, the more detached you are from the everyday struggles of people. Obama used to tell us in 2008 that if he had lost that election, he would not really be able to run again four years later because he would have been so removed from what gave him real power was that he and Michelle had just finished paying off their student loans at that point. It had only been a couple of years earlier, they were struggling to make their mortgage.

1:02:33Like he knew what it was like to struggle. And if you've been in politics for 20, 30, 40, 50 years, you just don't know that, right? Second, you know, we say all the time that politics is downstream from culture. And that's kind of a trite saying, but it is true in that you need candidates who can, who are connected to the cultural zeitgeist, who can understand, who can relate to people, who can communicate about things other than just policy issues that relate to people. Obama was great at that. Our last couple of nominees have not been great at that. And then the third thing is you need someone, a younger person is inherently going to be better at communicating in the modern way, right?

1:03:13Someone who knows how to communicate and how people communicate now, right? Two, they understand TikTok, Instagram, YouTube, they understand memes. They just can do it in a way that if you've been in politics for 30, 40 years, you cannot Joe Biden did not understand one single bit of how people communicate it now, and that was a huge detriment. Now, I think there's one thing important here, which is young people are more likely to do those things. They're certainly more likely to be culturally connected, to be maybe even cool, but it's not a guarantee that all younger people are. J.D. Vance is very young, and he is a fucking goober.

1:03:46Good point. Yeah.

1:03:50it is though it is a function of not just age but the amount of time you've been in Washington I do think that is a really good point because when you spend your life in Congress or you spend your life in Washington like you just you have a different lifestyle than most people in the country and even if you got there knowing exactly how people in your district or where you're from are living like you just lose touch with that after a while and you see that with people in Congress. That's the one exception. He is the exception. I've said this because of Bernie, actually. Bernie's lifestyle, when he goes back to Vermont, is very much the same.

1:04:27He's still very much connected with the life that he had before. I don't think it's impossible to be in public service for a long time and lose touch completely, but you still have to work at it. I think Bernie proves like the exception to the rule right there.

1:04:49Lovett, do you agree with Obama on the value of the intraparty fighting and the robust debate, as he said? Yes. It is absolutely true that I think the Democratic Party that emerged from the primaries in 2007, 2008 was a stronger Democratic Party. party. I think both the party writ large and also the Obama campaign benefited from the fact that Barack Obama campaigned across the country, including through a lot of swing states and built a big organization. I do think, first of all, the differences in policy between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama were much smaller, especially in domestic policy.

1:05:27They just were. But at the same time, those debates got pretty fucking messy at the end. And party had to be stitched back together. Everybody did that. That worked. That's great. I think we have to be honest about the ways in which intraparty fights play out now. And they can be really, really cutting, really enervating. And that's okay. I just don't want to pretend that that's not the situation. And so to me, okay, that's what social media will do. We can say that's not real life, but it becomes real life. What does a politician do to address that? And I think it becomes incumbent on anyone who's going to be part of a Democratic primary in 2028 and 2027, obviously, to beginning, middle and end, be talking about the fact that at the end of this process, we will be stitching this movement together, that we're all on the same side.

1:06:18I think we have to overcorrect for that in a certain way. And I actually think that often becomes a cudgel used to go after the left to say, like, you need to unify, you need to unify, you need to unify. I think they do. And I think that's a fine argument to make. But at the same time, I think more center-left politicians should become more comfortable speaking with, talking to parts of the party that are not going to be part of their coalition and maybe kind of hostile to them. But even if they get hostility toward them, speak about them as if they're part of their coalition and that their voices matter and are valued.

1:06:50I think that has to be kind of overcorrection that people do because I am worried about what happens in a kind of brutal, long primary in which everyone is extremely anxious, extremely upset about what's happening to the country, extremely worried about our ability to win. And so that to me is part of what the leader of the party will have to do. I mean, I worry about it from the other side, too, from the left. Like, yeah, well, because I mean, it's just it's different arguments, right? The center left, if it's a center left politician and they will say like, oh, well, the left, the left of politician, the more progressive politician can't win.

1:07:26This is hopeless now. Why are we nominating this person? this is bad we're going to lose they're not electable and so like they have to think about that on the left you get like this person's a sellout they're no better than the republican candidate like so it goes both ways no i told and i like i i am confident like it is not the leaders like elected leaders on the left that are making those arguments like no that's true and i and like there's nobody that fought harder for joe biden even i think a little too long than like then aoc and Bernie, which is like to their credit. And so like, we can't make every activist or every person do the right thing in either direction.

1:08:03There's plenty of people that are, you know, that have loud platforms that are not going to be responsible. That's just part of it. I'm talking about what the elected leaders do. And I actually think they can do a good job of kind of at least modeling the kind of behavior we need. In fact, I think the two elected leaders that did the best job of modeling that were Biden and Bernie in 2020. Like they both did a lot of work. Tommy, what do you think? yeah i mean the intra-party fights are always the worst and the most vicious and that's true for the right and the left and in part because it's just you care what those critics say like when ben shapiro calls me like a teyron tommy on twitter i don't give a shit because i think he's a moron and he's annoying but when like did he do that all the time but when people on the left criticize you you're like oh that hurts like i respect those people that kind of that stings a bit i do though think like i think the biggest mistake of all is when the kind of dc class decides that they're going to anoint someone.

1:08:55And I think that the reason, part of the reason some of the 2016 fights feel like they will never end is one, if we had won, all is forgiven, but we lost. You guys remember that? But two, there is a feeling that is, I don't think, fully accurate, but not totally unfounded on the left, that the primary process was unfair and rigged against Bernie Sanders. And that has let this perception linger. So ultimately, I think we need messy primaries. I think you can read all the polls you want, but the rubber meets the road when people vote. And that's when we really learn what people care about and what politicians are good.

1:09:32And the 2008 primary stripped a decade off our lives collectively, but it was great for Barack Obama. It made him a better candidate. It made him a better president. I just, I grew up with Love saying like the thing we have to avoid or just call out is the suggestion that you are immoral or a bad person or it's a character attack if you disagree on policy. That stuff is bullshit. Yeah. I agree with the contours around the debate we should have, but we should be brutally honest. The Democratic Party is in a state of crisis, right? We currently have no path to this kind of governing majority we would need to actually defeat MAGA.

1:10:11We have a Senate cap of 53 seats maybe. In 2032, the Electoral College is going to move 15 to 20 votes in the Republican direction. like our current electoral coalition even if it has improved since trump lost is not sufficient to actually build a governing majority we have to have a giant debate our party leadership is out of touch and sclerotic and we don't have the infrastructure we need we have to have a big giant messy debate about who we are what we stand for and who should be in charge of this party because if we don't we are we may win we literally we really could win in 2028 simply because donald Trump sucks and J.D.

1:10:47Vance sucks even more. But that is just what happened in 2020, which is we won one presidency. We didn't solve any of our problems and we were right back where we were before. So we need to think big and we're only going to think big. We have a big, messy primary and we are open to out of the box ideas, candidates who may not seem electable right away. We just have to have a lot of humility and openness to a real, messy, important debate. Yeah, I agree with that. But a messy debate is we can't have the future you want without a messy debate. But a messy debate is no guarantee that people show up to the table with what we need.

1:11:25That's right. And so that like to me. Yeah. Well, I think Obama's point there that I found very important is when he said we have to realize that, you know, not 100 percent of voters are going to agree with everything we said, which seems like an obvious point. But I think that wherever you stand in the Democratic Party from your vantage point, you think that like, oh, yeah, my position is actually the position that is most popular in the party and that can carry the whole party. And it's just and the other politicians don't actually realize that because they're at fault. And the truth is, like, it's a very demographically, politically diverse coalition.

1:12:00And it has become more demographically and politically diverse, partly because it has to be so broad to beat Donald Trump's coalition right now. Like, we are just a much more diverse coalition than Donald Trump's coalition politically, identity-wise, geographically, all of it. And so because of that, there's going to be a lot more argument, a lot of different positions. and whether you're on the left, whether you're on the center left, wherever you are, you're just going to have to realize that like most people in the party aren't necessarily going to agree with all your positions. And that doesn't mean to like sand down all your positions so that you can be like the lowest common denominator politician and like have everyone agree with you.

1:12:38But it does mean that like, you know, you have to realize that you're not going to please everyone all the time and you're going to take some positions that piss people off. I mean, you're 100 % right. We have like, we have to recognize that we need to, we need to build a majority and we have to appeal to people who just grew up on lots of things. My just like operating principle going into this primary is I want to think bigger than just who can win in 2028. Because I think if all we do is win in 2028 and then lose after that, we are fucked. And so you really have to think big about who is the can do, who has the potential to change the electoral coalition in the way that Obama did in 2008.

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1:14:42Over the next year, we have to focus on winning our midterm elections. We can't get sucked into the horse race for an election that is two full years from now, is what we normally say. But not tonight. And so in this hat, we have the names of many of 2028's rumored hopefuls and hopeless. We will each choose a candidate, and we will each make our case for that candidate, and then we will duke it out. This is real. We are choosing at random, and we will fight for our candidate. At the end, you will vote on who you believe should be the nominee from this field. Okay? In a segment we're calling Playing the Field.

1:15:19And also, for everyone listening at home, for everyone who clips this, we are playing a game. We are each playing a role for our candidate. These are called straw man arguments. It does not reflect what each of us actually believe about the candidates. We're just making arguments. I swear to fucking God. And so I will start, and my candidate is J.B. Pritzker. My candidate is Pete Buttigieg.

1:15:56My candidate is Rahm Emanuel. Cheer for me! My candidate is AOC. Wow. Wow. Okay. All right. We're going to try to, John, take it away for 30 seconds. Okay. I think the case for J.B. Pritzker is that he is an incredibly successful governor of one of the largest states in the country. He has been one of the loudest, fiercest voices against Donald Trump. So he knows how to fight, but he also knows how to govern. He has raised the minimum wage in Illinois. He has also reduced the budget deficit in Illinois. He's passed criminal justice reform. He's protected abortion rights. And so on issue after issue, he has shown that you can actually govern progressively if you have the opportunity.

1:16:45He has executive experience. He also has he is very, very rich, which means that he can fund this campaign and he's not going to be beholden to corporate special interests, which is pretty good. So he's not and we've had a we just, you know, he class traders are some of the most committed, committed converts. And so I think J.B. Pritzker, the reason that he's been getting so much attention is because he's out there. He is not afraid to fight Donald Trump. He's not afraid to punch Republicans in the face. And he also has shown in his state that he can protect the people of Illinois from authoritarians like Donald Trump.

1:17:22And that he can also govern in a progressive way that actually has improved people's lives in Illinois.

1:17:33Pete Buttigieg.

1:17:38Two things I think we all would, I think, agree about people to judge. One, no one has done a better job taking the argument to conservative spaces than Pete Buttigieg. We just we just went through an election where some of the most important conversations were not five minutes or seven minutes, but they were hour long, hour and a half long conversations. People who have not just a soundbite, but have the ability to actually make a deep and well thought out arguments that can appeal to people beyond our base. We know that Pete can do that. That brings my second reason. Why do we know that Pete can do that?

1:18:13Because I think we all instinctively view Pete Buttigieg as the smartest, one of the smartest people in democratic politics. If there's anybody. Now, do I think Pete Buttigieg right now has all the answers for how Democrats win in places we haven't won since Ben Nelson left his his seat in Nebraska? No, I don't think Pete Buttigieg has all the answers. But do I think Pete Buttigieg has the same concern that Dan has and is thinking about it when he's lying awake at night next to a sweet and sleeping Chaston? I do. I think Pete is completely aware of this challenge and is thinking about it. And I think knowing that we have a president that has the capacity to think about these long-term challenges and how to address them and how to connect it to the policy and the politics of the moment would be quite a reassuring thing for us to have.

1:19:04Rahm Emanuel is the most qualified candidate in the field by far. He was White House Chief of Staff. He was a member of Congress. He was the mayor of a city of 2.75 million people. He was the U.S. ambassador to Japan. The man is ready to do the job on day one. He has seen the nuclear codes. Have you guys seen the nuclear codes? No. None of these clowns have seen the nuclear codes. Also, he's a winner. In 2006, Rahm Emanuel led the DCCC. Democrats won 30 seats. Bill Clinton won the presidency two times. Rahm Emanuel was the intellectual firepower behind those campaigns. On top of that, he's a fighter.

1:19:51He's tough. People always say, oh, the Democrats are too nice. Not my Rahm. Not my Rahm. That's why we need him. on that ticket.

1:20:08How do you guys feel about AOC?

1:20:12Now, here's what some Washington elites are going to tell you. They're going to say she can't win. Do you know who else? Whatever is right. Do you know who else they said that about? Barack Obama. They said he couldn't win. You got anything else? Here. I'm going to give you... You know what? Let me make my case, okay? I just asked. Who'd you have again? I don't even remember. Here's the thing. I think the way in which the Democratic Party can regain the majority in this country, how we can return to our roots, is we need a politics that comes from the outside, that is reform, and that is based on working class people and ideas.

1:20:56And we need a candidate who can actually communicate in this environment. who can go toe-to-toe with a right-wing media machine. And there is no better communicator and no better messenger in the Democratic Party than AOC. Does she have hurdles? Yes, she absolutely does. But I believe she has the talent, the background. She is someone who is a true outsider in American politics. Her time as a bartender's away in which you can relate to working-class people. She can appeal to young people and Latinos, the two groups who abandoned the Democrats in 2024, which is the difference between the big Obama era coalition we had back in 2008, 2012, and the ones in which we barely won in 2020 and we lost in 2024.

1:21:36And it is a big bet, right? Because she is an untested candidate compared to some of these other people like Rahm Emanuel. You're goddamn right. But it is a bet I'd be willing to make because I think she is the highest ceiling of any candidate in this field. The one candidate we've even talked about is the possibility to truly alter American politics in a way that can defeat MAGA.

1:22:01Now, it's the question round. We'll start with J.B. Pritzker. Now, John, J.B. Pritzker is a billionaire. His wealth comes from the Hyatt Hotel chain. He has been wealthy his entire life from the day that he was born. How will he relate to the struggles of working people? I want to know which one of your candidates passed a$15 minimum wage that affected one of the biggest states in the country. Rob Emanuel did. Yeah, Rom didn't. AOC definitely hasn't. And Pete, I don't know if he did it in South Bend. So that's a great accomplishment. really glad that J.B. Pritzker did it. And it's weird because he's so rich, but he still did it.

1:22:55Hey, John, how is he going to campaign when he's so busy playing poker all the time? All he does is play poker. I have a question. That's interesting because I think John Lovett wants to hang out with J.B. Pritzker more than any other candidate. Is that what you said? Yeah. That is right. Does he mean he was hanging out with him at the White House? It's something called the beer test, right? Who would you want to have a beer with? And I believe you have chosen J.B. Pritzker on that. And as the median American voter, a gay podcast host from Los Angeles, California. No, but seriously, I agree that J.B.

1:23:26Pritzker has great accomplishments, but sincerely address the question of how will J.B. Pritzker, someone who has never had to worry about money for a day in his life, who's been wealthy since the day he was born, how does he relate to people and their regular everyday struggles? No, it's a great question. How does a billionaire relate to a country of working class Americans and get elected by those Americans? I don't know how that happens. Well, I don't think Trump is good. Right, because... I think he's bad. But is that because he got elected, or is that because he didn't pursue policies to improve the economic lives of most people, which J.B.

1:24:04Pritzker has in Illinois? John, can I ask you another question? Sure. I understand your talking points here, but J.B. Pritzker is the governor of one of the most democratic states in the country. Yeah. What is the evidence that he could actually go into a swing state and win? Like the Bronx, right? Well, I'll make... Right, like the Bronx. I'm hearing a lot of attacks. Like the Bronx or Chicago or South Bend. Answer the question. When it's your time, you can ask me that question. Because I have a fucking answer. I guess the transportation department, that was a tough one. I guess the answer for how J.B.

1:24:35Pritzker is going to appeal to the working class is by attacking every other person on the debate stage. I think we need a fighter. Don't we want a fighter? Don't we want someone who's going to hit back? All right, J.B. There was a two-term president from the same state that J.B. Pritzker is governor of. I think his name is Barack Obama. Many people say, yeah, the white Obama. Does anyone else have a question? I don't know. I'm still waiting for a good, no? I got a question for Pete. So, Pete, I'm not a Pete. I am arguing for Pete. We are still ourselves. Tonight, you're Pete. In this, we are ourselves, arguing for someone.

1:25:12Love it on the streets, Pete in the sheets. So you were part of the cover-up of Joe Biden's mental decline. Won't that be a problem on the campaign trail? So that's a pretty salacious allegation for someone that was pretty focused on making sure the planes landed and took off, which they almost all did. I had a lot on my plate. He had a lot on his plate. Fuck. He was working on making sure that we had, you know, rail and trains going where they're supposed to go. And by the way, look, here's the thing. Pete Buttigieg wasn't really like... Wasn't there a big train crash in Ohio? Which he could not stop.

1:26:02Right. Yeah. Look, obviously... So we get most of the planes in the air and most of the trains on the rails. Obviously, in hindsight, Joe Biden was very old.

1:26:15Yeah. What did Pete say after the debate? Did Pete say anything about him after the debate? He said, Great job, boss. We have got to make sure these planes are good. I am focused on the planes. The planes are also old. Again, not Pete's fault, but he's going to make sure they land safely. Pete's focus was on getting our aging, decrepit infrastructure to work as best as it could from the White House to the fucking Amtrak. Yeah, it's weird, though. So he was like, why was he? He was so focused on the trains, but I thought you said he was one of the best communicators in the party. He can go into all the other spaces and talk about politics, but it was just didn't do that with Biden.

1:26:53Right. So I did the plane. And just remind me, when did J.B. Pritzker turn against Joe Biden? Was it before the debate or long after? Definitely before Pete. Well, Pete's in the administration. And again, planes, trains, automobiles. OK, a couple of questions. So one of the things that was the downfall of Kamala Harris was she was in the 2020 primary. and she stood on stage, she felt a lot of questionnaires, she stood on stage and raised her hands for a lot of very, so a lot of issues that were quite unpopular. Pete raised his hand at every single one when Kamala Harris did. What, how worried are you, how worried is Pete about having adopted all these positions in 2020 that were so effectively weaponized against Kamala Harris?

1:27:31So I think it's a really important question and look, I think the two biggest liabilities Pete Buttigieg will have is A, he is connected to the Biden administration and B, he was part of the 2020 primary in which every hand is going up. And I do think sometimes that is taken as a, the fact that that was such a liability for Kamala Harris that she could not address, it is therefore a liability others could not address. Kamala had a bigger problem, which was she was unable, to be honest, to articulate a deeper worldview. And she struggled with that in her 107 days. I think she would have continued to struggle with that.

1:28:03Yes, Pete will have to address that. But I think whatever the tag Pete will have for his being tied to the administration, which is legitimate and will be a huge problem for him, I think we all would say that Pete Buttigieg has a larger worldview that he is going to put forward. He will have to address him. I don't know that it was Bidenism. I think it is a center-left kind of technocratic but forward-looking, probably abundance-style agenda. And whatever that's worth, I think that would be what he would put forward. But yes, he will have to answer for these things. That will be hard for him to do.

1:28:37It will not be as hard for him to do. Kamala made it look harder than I think it would be for someone like Pete Buttigieg. One area where, in fairness, Pete is very different from Joe Biden is that Joe biden was very popular with black voters and experienced and and i think you would agree that you there's no winning the democratic primary at all without black voters or the white house or the white house and so i'm wondering um after the his first run where he didn't uh get almost any black votes um and in the polls now down at zero and one percent so what's the what do you think about that nowhere to go but up john here's the thing here's the thing you ever have a jar of pickles and you can open it you can open it you can open it but but you're loosening it you know and one day boom black votes

1:29:34arguments like that are why donald trump's run and train our democracy uh you know who didn't run in 2020? Rahm Emanuel. Blank slate. Fresh face. Okay. Rahm, I have some questions for you. Sure. Talk to me about how you're going to talk. How is Rahm Emanuel going to talk to the country about... Aggressively. Profanely. About Rahm's integral role in doing the following things. Passing NAFTA. Passing the Clinton crime bill. Adding China to the WTO. Okay, nerd. I would just add to that list his being tied to police abuses during his time as mayor that have led many people to view him as a fundamentally unacceptable choice for the Democratic Party.

1:30:20It's Rahm Emanuel, not Machiavelli. First of all, people don't like crime, thus that bill. Okay. Second, NAFTA is half of mostly Canada, and we should be nicer to them, so stop being a dick. but also chief of staff, member of Congress, ambassador to Japan. He's ready for the job. Here's the thing. I'm being dead serious, sir, because I was there to see it. Rom was, he was a very effective chief of staff for Barack Obama. Very effective. He, Obama's probably most famous accomplishment is the passage of the Affordable Care Act. Rom famously, and I was in the meeting where he did it, argued that we should abandon it and take a smaller bill.

1:31:02So like how is he, he can't even, how is he, what is his argument when he can't even take credit for Obama's top accomplishment. Because what he wanted to do was march down to Wall Street, grab a banker, put him on a spit, and roast him like a hog on C-SPAN, and Obama wouldn't let him do it. Oh, wow. Wow. Oh, I'm sorry, the facts offend you. I assume you have documentation of this. So Rahm Emanuel, the tribune of the working class in the White House, was stymied by the neolib shill Barack Obama. That's your claim. Who believes in aliens now? That's a possible argument we'll make. Yeah. Okay. Should we go to Dan?

1:31:43I want to say about Pete Buttigieg and black voters. No, keep going. What do you guys got? So, Dan. This is being recorded, you know. Yeah, no, I know. I know. I know what your single advantage is. Never seen someone so cocky pushing on an open door. So of all these candidates, I think that the one with the highest name identification is probably yours, correct? I would say it's probably Kamala Harris. Of the ones that are on the stage right now? Yes, that's true. Close call with Pete. I think Pete might have higher name identity, but it's close. It's close. Okay. And who has the worst net approval rating in the country?

1:32:20Ramicide. Who has the highest? Let me ask you this question. Who has the highest approval rating with young voters? Oh, is just young voters voting now in the American election? Well, it would be nice if they voted for us. Oh, is Wisconsin and Pennsylvania and Michigan just young voters? No, that's amazing. All right. Slow down there, okay, billionaire boy? Here's the thing. Sorry, socialists. Go ahead. I will stipulate at the beginning. We love socialists in America. AOC has a high hurdle to prove electability. And I think that one of the tests of electability, and she's going to have to carry that argument in the primaries, in the debates, and I have great confidence that she has the communication skills to do that.

1:32:59You know, everyone loves her. Well, you're making the argument. What would you make the argument for in electability? How would she win an Obama-Trump voter in Wisconsin? No one on this stage right now has won a Republican state or district. No, I'm just asking how AOC would. But I would make the point that there was a large swatting with 17, 20 % of people who voted for Donald Trump and AOC in her last election. And there's a higher percentage of people, I would say, in her district who voted for Obama in Trump than for J.B. Prisker in Trump. When's the last time a progressive has ever won a purple district?

1:33:35Can you name a progressive, a leftist, who's ever won a purple district anywhere? Bernie Sanders? Bernie Sanders? Which one is that? What do you mean by that? In a general election. When is the last time a lefty, DSA, progressive politician has won a purple state statewide or a district, even a house district? There's no question that AOC's relationship with DSA is something she's going to have to navigate this. There's no question about that. And the way you do that is you prove it. In 2008, everyone would say, when could a black politician win a majority white state? And Barack Obama won Iowa, and he proved to people he could do it.

1:34:16The only way that AOC can win the nomination is she has to go whatever the first state is, which is going to most likely be like a Michigan or a Georgia or New Hampshire, whatever it is, he's going to have to go in and win it. If Rahm Emanuel went to the Munich security conference and got asked about Taiwan, he would hit that over the chucker. Is that a thing in cricket now? No. Something else? Yes. He would knock it out of the park. There's no question. What I'm saying is that people should believe in ways. People should go with their hearts. But so, no, John, to your point, though, I agree that right now, we would say it's an uphill climb for someone on the left as AOC to win a national race.

1:35:03But you would say that she would be a good president, right? Are you now just arguing for AOC so the fucking audience can? No, no, no. I'm saying that this is the problem, right? That if what we're talking about is electability, electability can't simply be a snapshot of how people view politicians before the primary has begun. Electability is sitting right here. No, for sure it is. But you would have to then be saying, not only is she seen as someone who is divisive or to the left in a way that's not appealing to enough people, but that she does not have the capacity to change that. And don't we think, like if we are going if we if things are as dire as dan is saying in our politics wouldn't it be worth it to take a chance on the possibility that we can reshape our politics around someone that we all would view as somebody who i guess i guess kind of politics i guess here's the thing here's the thing i'll say it is a there's no question it's a big risk but there's no one on the stage who's not a big risk right come on i thought he's too big a risk for sure he's ram emmanuel whatever um i agree that ram emmanuel would be a pretty big fucking risk J.B.

1:36:06Pritzker is an untested proposition who's never won Republican voters. What I believe is that the way that Democrats have to move is we need a politics based on working class people, working class ideas. And the person in the Democratic Party on this list, in this hat, best able to do that is AOC. Based on? Based on the fact that... Based on what? Based on the fact that she has done it. Where? Where? Barack Obama won Illinois and then he won the country. Do you think Barack Obama's positions when he ran were to the left or to the right of AOCs right now? Well, I think everyone is... The politics have changed, but he was the most left candidate in that field and he won.

1:36:49Because of his position on the Iraq War, right? What else? He was more liberal on the biggest issue of the time. And he mogged. And he did mog. He was good looking. And she mogged too. And I would love to get a beer with J.B. Pritzker. And I think Pete's brilliant Alright This is the final debate stage Based on the arguments You have heard tonight Are you voting for J.B. Pritzker No Are you voting for Sweet Pete Buttigieg Are you voting for Rahm Emanuel Wow Pretty good And that was it right and AOC wow too close to call the swing district of Sydney listen let's see how she does in Brisbane honestly she did pretty well and that's playing the field that's our show Sydney thank you so much

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1:39:12Hey, Carriere, why are you so... Ohne Seele, ohne Wärme, ohne Gemeinschaft, ohne Vertrauen, ohne Halt? Carriere, how would it be? With a feeling, after March, Carriere, new to discover the work of the Carriere. If you guys like Pod Save America, please consider subscribing to our Friends of the Pod program. So Friends of the Pod get lots of stuff. You get more Pod Save America. That includes our new show, which is called Pod Save America Only Friends. It's where Dan gets naked. Where Dan gets full frontal nudity, but mostly it's a bi-weekly subscription exclusive podcast that is basically Pod Save America, but behind a paywall.

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