1123: Trump: "I've Won Affordability"

26:13And tariffs is always a giant thing in the middle. And he talks about tariffs more than tariffs are actually in place now. Yeah. And so what he's done, which is really impressive, which he has made his tariffs the reason for all high prices in people's minds. Yeah. Yeah. Which is really impressive. And even American-made goods, people that have their higher prices. People think it's because of the tariffs because he keeps saying, tariff, tariff, tariff is my favorite word. He says it all the time. I mean, it's just really, I have to say it's honestly impressively stupid. So just to, you know, we're having too much fun here, too optimistic.

26:50So just to rain on our parade a little bit. One thing I noticed while we were gone last week is that the most recent economic data has been better than expected. Job growth in January was twice as high as expected. The inflation reading was better. Inflation slowed down a bit. We're not seeing any evidence yet that voters are feeling any differently about the cost of living than they have been. But what do you think about the recent economic news and what do you think Democrats should be planning for? There's not much you can plan here for. And the economic news has been a little bit all over the map.

27:24You sort of get a good jobs number and then you get a bad jobs number and then some revision downward revisions of the previous number. So it's hard to say what is actually happening. And inflation is down a little bit, but we still have inflation. And that is the problem for Trump. And the ultimate problem is he cannot look at the economy gets better on the margins. It probably helps them. But the fundamental problem is Donald Trump didn't promise to slow inflation, which is what this report indicated. What Donald Trump promised to do was to lower your prices, which he has not done, cannot do, and actually made worse with his tariffs.

28:02And so there is not a world unless we hit a deflationary cycle, which would be quite bad for the economy. Unless the economy goes into recession and we have a collapse, but voters are not going to see lower prices for food, housing, goods. They may just see a slower rate of increase. And that's not something I expect Republicans to be rewarded for come November. Yeah, I think Trump making things worse is the key there because, you know, there's a debate like, oh, when the economy is bad, does the president get too much blame more than the president deserves when the economy is good? Does the president get more credit than the president deserves?

28:40Like how much is just the president presiding over the economy? How much does that really matter? And this is a different situation where the guy literally gave a trillion dollar tax cut to billionaires paid for by health care cuts that made your premiums increase and then put tariffs on all the shit that you buy, which has made it more expensive. And that doesn't change, right? Like, even if the economy slightly improves, like the fact that he made life more expensive so that rich people could get a break is just the facts of his first several years in office. And the thing that is different than with previous presidents is a majority of voters only a year into his term blamed Trump for the current state of the economy.

29:30As they should, because he took all the credit for the tariffs. But normally presidents get years when they inherit it. Like Obama – people were still blaming Bush more than Obama for the state of the economy in 2012 when running for re-election. They understood what happened. People believe correctly that Trump has made problems much, much worse through action in the tariffs and inaction because he's focused on so many things other than actual the economy and affordability. And that is the problem for him, which is why marginal improvements in the economy would not help him as much as they would help another president who was not being specifically blamed for things being bad.

30:06Well, I mean, like think of Obama's first couple of years. We know that with the Affordable Care Act, taxes were only increased on the wealthiest Americans and that through the Recovery Act, everyone else got tax cuts. Right. And still Obama shouldered the blame for the job loss that came from the Great Recession and just people's economic well-being, which was not very good. Now imagine Obama actually raised taxes on everyone and raised their health care costs all in the first two years as the economy was already bad. That's basically what you have with Donald Trump. Yeah. Relatedly, Axios had a story on Thursday about how Republican strategists are starting to get nervous about Democrats bigger than expected wins in special elections over the past few months.

30:55One anonymous Republican strategist said, quote, the pattern is clear that there is at least a current 10 point Democratic overperformance from Trump 2024. And it's built on a fired up Democratic base and a sleepy Republican base. A 10 point Democratic overperformance. Are you as bullish as that Republican is nervous? Yeah, I'm a pretty superstitious guy, John. I got a long way to the election. I'm not cocky about this in any way, shape, or form. And I do believe that that gap is going to narrow some. Democrats are going to stay fired up. I'm very confident about that. Republicans will get more fired up as we get close to the election.

31:34This happens every cycle. and if we're being sort of brutally honest about it, Democrats had a 13-point overperformance in 2025. It's been 10%. Here, some of that has to do with the races that have happened in this short period of time this year, but it's obviously going to narrow. And just to put that in perspective, the final Democratic popular vote margin in the 2018 House races was 8.6%. And we picked up 41 seats in that one. Now, the map is different. There's not really, Democrats are not picking up 41 seats at an eight. 0.6 % popular vote margin. But at 10 points, certainly the House is very much in good hands and the Senate is in play.

32:13The things that are keeping the Republican base deflated aren't really going to change a ton. I think their core voters are going to turn out more just because it's an actual midterm, not a special, and our voters are more trained to turn out specials. But the base is divided, right? There is in polling 15 % of Trump voters who regret or have concerns about their vote in 2024. You have in the races we've had before, 7 % to 10 % of Trump voters coming over to vote for Democrats. There are a quarter, a fifth to a quarter of Trump voters who are unhappy with what ISIS is doing. You have large swaths of Trump voters who are unhappy with what Trump's on the economy.

32:57And so those sort of structural problems are not going to change in any dramatic way in the next nine months, I wouldn't imagine. Yeah. What I keep looking at is Trump's approval rating in Ohio, Iowa, Alaska, Texas, which sure, you know, we'd need two of those four states to take back the Senate. Because I think that, like, if Trump's under 50 in those states, Republican candidate in this polarized era, probably not going to get much higher than Trump's approval rating in those states. And so, you know, if Trump's sitting at 48 or 49 even in Iowa, in Texas, in Ohio, like, I think those candidates, especially like Sherrod Brown in Ohio, I think they were pretty good good chance but i don't know what do you think is that they they do they just have to it has to be a candidate who can win over trump voters because there will be people who are unhappy with trump but think the democrat is too far to the left or whatever else and so right like the environment is i would put it this way the environment is suggestive of a path to democratic victory if trump's under 50 it's going to depend on how the campaign is waged and also who the republican candidate is as well

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36:43Speaking of the midterms, one midterm race that's been getting a ton of national attention lately is the Texas Senate race, particularly the Democratic primary between Jasmine Crockett and James Tallarico, whose appearance on Stephen Colbert's show this week caused quite a stir. In case you haven't followed this story, here's what happened. On Monday, Colbert told his audience that, quote, We were told in no uncertain terms by our network's lawyers who called us directly that we could not have Tallarico on the broadcast. Apparently, CBS's lawyers were concerned that having Telerico on might prompt legal action from the FCC based on new guidance that Chairman Brendan Carr issued in January about the commission's longstanding equal time rule, which requires broadcast television and radio shows to give candidates equal time if they have their opponent on as a guest.

37:39Now, there has always been an exemption, at least as far back, I believe, since 2006, for talk shows like Colbert's. Daytime talk shows, late night talk shows. But in this guidance in January, Carr said that he was considering getting rid of that exemption. And sure enough, the FCC recently launched an enforcement action against ABC and The View for exactly that. The View had Tallarico on without also having Jasmine Crockett on or their primary opponent on or Ken Paxton or John Cornyn. Colbert interviewed Tallarico anyway, put the segment on YouTube and told his CBS audience what happened. CBS then put out a statement on Tuesday denying Colbert's version of events, saying the late show was not, quote, prohibited from airing the interview, only, quote, provided legal guidance.

38:33Here's how Colbert responded on his show on Tuesday night and the tough questions Carr got from Laura Ingraham on Fox News on Wednesday. Between the monologue I did last night and before I did the second act talking about this issue, I had to go backstage. I got called backstage to get more notes from these lawyers, something that had never, ever happened before. And they told us the language they wanted me to use to describe that equal time exception. and I used that language. So I don't know what this is about. I'm just so surprised that this giant global corporation would not stand up to these bullies.

39:15I don't even know what to do with this crap. Oh, hold on.

39:25Would you have gone after them for violating the equal time rule, as Colbert said? What we've said is we've been very clear is that broadcasters have a unique right and privilege, a license. And one thing they have to do is comply with the equal time rules. But complying with equal time would have meant more. When has that been enforced? When's the last time that's been enforced? In case you're just listening, the audience cheered when Colbert decided to crumble up the statement from his company's own lawyers and put it in a dog poop bag. Dan, what do you make of all this? So what's interesting is how the FCC got onto this, because it's been a well-established principle for a very long time that while news shows are exempt from equal time laws, like if you want to have to interview a candidate or put a president on, that you're not then forced to give exact equal time to their opponent.

40:17And they then for a long time had exemptions for interview shows like the talk shows, The View, Colbert. The reason why Brendan Carr has taken this on is – and I had forgotten this, I think, because my brain was protecting me from trauma. But in 2024, Trump got very mad that Kamala Harris went on The View and he did not. So his campaign filed a complaint with the FCC. The FCC chair was a Biden nominee. She obviously did not act on this. So Brennan Carr, in his never-ending quest to appease Trump and be a hero of the MAGA right, has decided to take on The View and now Colbert. And this really does have – I mean, it's ridiculous.

40:57It's absurd. It's pretty stupid. it has real implications just for how the 2028 campaign is going to be covered like no democratic if this is the rule no democratic candidate will go will be able to go on any broadcast talk show in that campaign because no talk show is going to agree to air to do equal interviews with all 27 democratic candidates or whatever and right and by the way republican candidates yes because Because I saw a lot of people be like, well, this isn't really about like a Republican Democratic thing because it was about he needed to give equal time to Jasmine Crockett as well.

41:33Well, yes, on Crockett, but also Paxton and Cornyn and Wesley Hunt in the other side of the primary, because if you look at the actual law, it just says all of the candidates running for that given office. So it's not just a like primary. It's a lot of candidates that you would have to have on. And the rule is so arbitrary and stupid in its application that John Ossoff, who is running for re-election in Georgia, was on Colbert the next night, but he has not officially filed a statement of candidacy. So he's not officially a candidate yet. So therefore, CBS's attorneys, the Paramount attorneys, did not think it triggered the law.

42:18This is an idiotic – this is also so stupid. because in this day and age, most of what happens in media is outside of the FCC's purview because the FCC is only in charge of what happens on the actual broadcast networks. Like we think of The View as a cable show, but it airs on ABC in a lot of markets. So therefore the FCC has regulation. But anything that happens on podcasts, YouTube shows, cable TV is outside of the purview of the FCC for these purposes. And by the way, Carr has been asked before whether he feels the same way about right-wing talk radio and said that right-wing talk radio is not a target of the equal time new guidance that he has issued.

42:56Yes, it was the changing, like all of right-wing radio, all of right-wing radio rose up because of a very specific change made by Ronald Reagan's FCC to allow there to be right-wing radio and not enforce the equal time on radio stations. It is also just like, my first instinct was, well, the people who screwed Colbert the most were his own lawyers because like they should have just fought it because who knows if like Brendan Carr would have done anything anyway. Clearly he would have, as he told Laura Ingram. Clearly he did or is doing is investigating the view for the exact same thing. So the lawyers did have good reason to believe that Carr would act.

43:39Now, if it was if they were lawyers at a company that wasn't hoping the administration wouldn't get involved in, say, a purchase they wanted to make of, say, Warner Brothers Discovery, which they're still trying to buy at Paramount Plus, then perhaps the lawyers would have said, fuck Brendan Carr, we'll fight this. Yeah. I mean, we have no evidence, explicit evidence that the Paramount lawyers did this as part, as an effort to curry favor with Trump. What we do know is the larger patterning practice with Paramount and David Ellison, who runs Paramount Skydance in particular, is to do things to win favor with Trump, to kiss up to him.

44:26And there are numerous examples. There is the$16 million that Paramount paid to settle a ridiculous lawsuit around 60 minutes. There is the putting of Barry Weiss over at CBS. Yes, there is David Ellison telling Trump reportedly, according to several reports, that if he were to get his hands on CNN, which is owned by Warner Brothers Discovery, which Paramount is trying to buy, he would make major changes there with the implication of being Trump would like those changes. And so when something is the entire relationship between Paramount, Ellison, and the Trump administration is one that reeks of corruption, and therefore the burden of proof on whether this was done out of legal caution or out of a way to avoid pissing off Trump while you were trying – well, one of the selling points that Paramount is making to the Warner Brothers Discovery shareholders is that they, because of David Ellison and Larry Ellison, who's a big Trump donor and one of the richest men in the world, one of their close relationships with Trump and the Trump administration means they are more likely to get regulatory approval for the purchase of Warner Brothers Discovery than Netflix, which is run by people who have donated to Democrats in the past.

45:37And as for the dispute between Colbert and CBS, Paramount, the lawyers over what they actually said to Colbert, because they released a statement basically saying, no, we just gave guidance. We didn't tell him not to air it. Colbert did make the point that the lawyers, as they always do, read every single word of the script and approved it before he said it. And what he said that night was that they told him in no uncertain terms that he could not air the Tallarico interview. So in case you're wondering if anyone's not telling the truth here, who's not telling the truth. So Colbert's interview with Tallarico drew millions of views on YouTube.

46:14The whole thing backfired as it did with Kimmel, as it always does. Millions of views on YouTube. It also helped James Tallarico quite a bit, netted his campaign over$2 million of fundraising in 24 hours. Understandably, Jasmine Crockett isn't thrilled about any of this, though Colbert did note on Tuesday that she has been a guest on the Late Show twice. I think the last time was like May of 2025, I looked, so not since the race has heated up, but she has been on twice. This has been and is getting to be more of a very messy and negative primary between Tallarico and Crockett. The press conference where Crockett responded to the Colbert thing sounded mostly like this.

46:52You know, we've all seen the attack ads that have come on behalf of my primary opponent supposedly wants to get rid of superfacts, yet doesn't have anything to say about the negative ads, the ads that are darkening my skin and this continual kind of, if she wins, we lose. It's not even undertones right now. It is straight up racist. Early voting is now underway. The primary is March 3rd. Where do you think the race stands right now? The polls have been a little bit all over the map. There have been polls. And not many of them, I feel like. There have not been a ton of them. The most recent ones have had Crockett up a little bit on Tallarico, but there have also been some polls show in Tallarico.

47:30A lot of the polls we've seen are either from groups affiliated with one of the two candidates, either their super PACs or their campaigns, or from less well-known polling outlets. We have not yet gotten a New York Times CNN poll or a Wall Street Journal poll or a CNN poll, kind of the polls that we can judge. They're likely from local Texas polls, so it's hard to say. Early voting is through the roof. Over the first couple of days of early voting, There have been twice as many votes cast as there were over the same period in 2022. And a quarter of all the early votes cast in 2022 have been cast in the first two days of early voting.

48:08Wow. It seems to be up everywhere. It does also seem to be up particularly high in parts of Jasmine Crockett's district, which may be a positive sign for her, but hard to say in this early stage. So it's anyone's guess who's going to win this primary. There's not enough to tell us how it exactly stands. What do you think about how contentious it's gotten as a race? It makes my stomach hurt. It really makes my stomach hurt when I think about the 2028 Democratic presidential primary in this context. I know. I was thinking that too. That, you know, this is – it doesn't have to be this negative. It's been this negative.

48:42The Tallarico Super PAC started the negativity by, say, running a very explicit ad saying that if Crockett wins the primary, we lose the general election. And electability is hanging over this, which is what's going to hang over the 2028 primary. We can talk maybe a little bit about that in a second here. But that conversation is always heated and freighted with a lot of racial and gender tropes and a lot of myths about politics and everything. And so it's quite messy. It's counterproductive. And we'll see what happens in some of these other primaries like Michigan, Illinois, Minnesota, in Maine, whether they get heated like this as they get closer.

49:23Because all those primaries have a fairly long distance before people actually start voting. This is the first one we're down to the wire, and it's gotten nasty quickly. We've obviously had both candidates on the show, even though the FCC can't make us. And so it's tough, right? Their policy positions are very similar, almost identical. And I think there hasn't been a ton of polling in the race, and even if there were, I think we both know that figuring out which candidate gives Democrats a better chance of flipping Texas is like, electability is always going to be at least somewhat of a subjective exercise, right?

50:04But what do you think about it in this context of this race? Well, so electability is purely theoretical. The only way to prove electability is to win. It's also a very fair question to ask here. We kind of need to win this Senate race. And when you have two candidates who are both very well liked by Democrats who have her ideologically very similar profiles, I don't blame voters for saying I like them both. Which one is more likely to win? That's what I care about. And since electability is so theoretical, perhaps the only data point you can bring to bear in such a conversation, and it's a very imperfect one, is does this candidate have a history of winning tough races, winning Republican voters, winning over swing voters?

50:49You know, like Andy Beshear can come to voters and say, look at all these Republicans and whatever. Josh Shapiro and Gretchen Whitmer can say, or Ruben Gallego and John Ossoff can say, look at these swing states that I have a history of winning. Does that translate to a presidential? Maybe, maybe not. But it's an argument to make. In this situation, neither candidate has a particularly long documented history of winning over Republican or swing voters or dramatically outperforming how a typical Democrat or typical Republican would do. Tallarico's first race was in a pretty purple district. He won narrowly.

51:20It was a Trump district, right, that he flipped. Barely Trump district. But then it's become – since then, it's been a Democratic district and how it's been redrawn. He's won easily. Crockett has represented a very, very Democratic district. She's performed as you would expect a Democrat to do there. And so you can't make that point. So the only thing you can evaluate here is what is their stated strategies for winning the race. And I will stipulate that both of these strategies are overly simplistic because you kind of have to do both. But it's where they put their emphasis. Tallarico has said he is focused on trying to win over Republican voters, that he can appeal to folks who voted for Trump disenchanted with Trump Republican voters.

52:06Crockett has taken a different approach. She has said that her path to victory comes from her ability to excite the Democratic base, to turn out people in Texas who are not typical participants in the political process, that she can mobilize voters. Like I said, neither of them have a record of doing either of those things per se. I mean, they have anecdotal examples, but it's not like manifest in their histories. If you ask me which strategy on its face is more likely to succeed, I would tell you Tallarico's strategy. Now, whether he can implement that strategy better than Crockett can implement hers, I don't know the answer to that, and I don't think anyone does.

52:47But this is a state that Donald Trump won by double digits. There is no path to victory without winning over a significant slice of people who voted for Trump and traditionally vote for Republicans. That is just the math of winning in Texas. And he is emphasizing that. And Crockett is emphasizing the opposite. And I think there is not a lot of history that mobilization in and of itself would be sufficient to win in a state like Texas. And that is just the fact of the matter. Now, I think both of them are being oversimplistic in their approach. I can't imagine that if either of them becomes the nominee, they will not then try to do both.

53:23Because if you win over 6 % of Republicans, but you don't turn out the full – the Democratic base at a high level, you're not going to win. And if you turn out the Democratic base, like it's never been turned out before, but you can't win over 6%, 6 % to 7 % or 8 % of Republicans, then you're also going to lose. But I had a long conversation with Caroline about this on Polar Coaster, which you can listen to if you subscribe to Crooked.com. And I'm going to write about this in MessageBox, I think, the next couple of days for a more deeper analysis of it. But that's sort of my initial takeaway is if you want to come at this from the perspective of electability, look, if you like Tallarico or you like Jasmine Crockett, just go vote for that person, right?

53:58If that's who you like more. But if you are bringing an electability lens to it, then that's sort of how I would frame the analysis of it. I also think you and I have talked about this in the context of, I don't know, every election since we've been doing this, which is this idea that a person who doesn't vote or who has voted in the past but decides not to vote in some election is so much different in their politics and political beliefs than someone who sometimes votes for Democrats and sometimes votes for Republicans. It doesn't really play out like that. Like there is this view, there's this traditional view that I think we had prior to the Trump era that the voter who stays on the couch, the voter who stays home is like a liberal or progressive and just hasn't been activated by a Democratic candidate who's exciting enough or progressive enough or liberal enough.

54:54and that someone who has voted Democrat in the past or hasn't even voted in the past, but then votes for Donald Trump and votes for Republican is just a conservative voter. And that's it, and we've lost them. And the truth is, after an election, when you go interview these voters or even during an election, you go talk to them in focus groups, you realize that a lot of these voters who either switch parties or sometimes stay home altogether just have very complicated views. You could call them maybe moderate, But on some issues, they're quite liberal. On some issues, they could be quite conservative.

55:27And they just have this real mix of political beliefs. And so it really hasn't panned out that the that the non voter is just like a liberal sitting home waiting to be activated by an exciting candidate. And I do think what keeps people from voting and keeps people from unless obviously voter suppression keeps people from voting. But if you are making up your mind about whether to vote or not and making up your mind about whether to vote for a Democrat or Republican, what's keeping people from doing so from casting that ballot is just cynicism in this system. and a belief that politics isn't going to really make a difference in their lives and a belief that both parties are too similar and that once everyone gets to Washington, all they do is just yell at each other and nothing gets done and the whole thing is hopeless and everyone's corrupt.

56:14If there is a typical belief of someone who switches parties or switches between voting and non-voting, it's that political profile. And so I do think that's one thing for people to keep in mind as you think about who you like, not just in this primary, but in other primaries. I will just say for me personally, I have been impressed with James Tallarico like long before he was ever a Senate candidate. And I like that he is running a populist campaign. I like that he doesn't take corporate PAC money. I like that he says the real divide in the country isn't between left and right, but between top and bottom.

56:50I think that you and I I've talked about this as well, that like a Democrat who can both sort of run against a corrupt system and corrupt special interests and the billionaire class and someone who could also reach out to voters who were disillusioned with the political system is probably like the best kind of Democrat and one that we think would have a good chance. And I think that that's Tallarico. I also like that he he is not making this campaign about himself or about Jasmine Crockett or about Ken Paxton or John Cornyn or even Donald Trump. He's like trying to make it in some ways bigger than politics itself.

57:27He talks about how the most important thing is to love your neighbor. And yes, that very much comes from his faith. But this idea that you should reach out and love your neighbor no matter what they look like, where they come from, what they believe, how they pray. I think that's a pretty good political philosophy for someone who wants to be in government, regardless of where you come from and what race you're running in. And so I do think that Tallarico sort of not only will appeal to more people with that philosophy, but it's just a really good philosophy and a public servant. So I have really you and I talked about this a little bit in the many, many hours we spent together last week.

58:05And I've really wrestled with this because I do find the conversations about electability to be exhausting and complicated and freighted with all kinds of racial and gender tropes. And, you know, we dealt with like this was such an overhang in 2020 and there was a tax on candidates of color and women candidates in that race. that really affected the entire debate. And also like James Tallarico, he, I'm not saying he's a message box subscriber, but he's a message box candidate. Like he is, he is on like, like that is what I like advocate for and how he's running his campaign. So I obviously like that a lot.

58:47I also honestly have really liked Jasmine Crockett. Cause she's like the other end of the message box candidate is the candidate who's out there, like knows how to get attention is out there doing things. things. I really enjoyed interviewing her in DC. And if the net result of this is she's not in Congress, I think that's a loss for the Democratic caucus because we just have so few people who can communicate in a modern fashion. So that's why I sort of default to the strategy question, like what strategy is the one, which approach for winning that I think is more likely to succeed on its face.

59:17We know whether the candidate is the right, can actually execute on that in what is a very hard state to begin with. I don't know, but it's how like Tallarico strategy in terms of voter outreach makes more sense to me as a strategy that can win Texas. But I'll say I've been wrong many times before, so this wouldn't be the first. Yeah, no, I feel bad for being so positive about James Tallerito because that probably means he's not going to win. But I will say, I think it is unfortunate. Maybe we should just I'll endorse Crockett right now, so at least we'll pick one. We'll get one of us. Who's that third candidate who also wants to get Uncle Bear?

59:50Yeah, good question. I think it is unfortunate that maybe inevitable, but unfortunate that race and identity has become such a big issue, at least in the online conversation. And now I guess in the campaign itself, judging by the ads and the candidate statements, or at least listening to Crockett right there. And one of the reasons I think it's unfortunate is because when I think of what is appealing to me about Tallarico's message and strategy and the way he's approaching the campaign, It reminds me of Barack Obama. It reminds me of AOC. It reminds me of Stacey Abrams in Georgia when she came close to unseating Kemp.

1:00:26It reminds me of Ruben Gallego in Arizona. So I don't think that this is, to me at least, what is appealing about Tallarico has anything to do with identity. And so I just I think that to have this sort of populist style where you're also trying to reach out to bring in voters who haven't always been with the Democratic Party. I don't think that is endemic to any specific identity or area or geography. Right. Like I think that anyone can do it. And I think that people and people of different races in different parts of the country have done it in the past to great success. I think two things about this is one, it would be great if people could lower the temperature over the last two weeks.

1:01:11And obviously, I looked to see if I could find any reporting or comment from the Tallarga Super PAC about the accusation about darkening skin. Obviously, if that's true, that is horrendous and that should be disavowed immediately. Of course. But I think the two things that would help lower the temperature would be the idea that Jasmine Crockett cannot win, I think, is an unfair accusation. You can argue that Tallarico may be more likely to win, but we're offering a little more humility to – Yeah, we shouldn't be throwing out can't wins for anyone. Yeah. So that's one. And two, and this isn't coming – I haven't heard Crockett or her campaign say this.

1:01:49We hear this from a lot of online supporters, this idea that because Tallarico wants to reach out to Republicans, that he is some sort of Fetterman. You heard this about Plattner too, that he's going to be like Fetterman is going to get to the Senate and he's going to become a Republican and a Democrat name only and side with the Republicans and everything. There is no evidence to suggest that. He has been a very down the line. If you don't get Republican votes, we're never winning the presidency again. We're never winning the Senate again. It's just fucking math, people. Come on. Yeah. And so if we could just stop with those two accusations and just try to have a good final two weeks here.

1:02:22Because if Tallarico wins the primary, he's going to need Crockett's support to win the general. And if Crockett wins the primary, she's going to need Tallarico's support to win the general. And so we've got to run a primary where we can put this back together again in two weeks. Totally agree.

1:02:46One last thing before we go. On Tuesday, it was widely reported that Trisha McLaughlin, the Department of Homeland Security's top spokesperson, is leaving the Trump administration. McLaughlin was one of the Trump administration's most consistent and ineffective liars, which is quite a feat in that administration. Her accomplishments include justifying the torture of the innocent people our government sent to a torture prison in El Salvador, slandering the two Americans our government killed as, quote, domestic terrorists, and initially blaming an infant's parents for ICE nearly killing their baby with tear gas.

1:03:17This was in Chicago. Her husband, a Republican strategist, was also the beneficiary of a$200 million no-bid contract from the agency she works at for an anti-immigration ad campaign. Dan, is it too much to hope that her potential future employers may not want to hire someone who's not just a liar, but an ineffective one at that? immigration has gone from Trump's best issue to now one of his worst issues. Most Americans don't believe a word, the Department of Homeland Security says, or the government. I think ICE has a 20, 30 % approval rating at this point. Or is she going to end up a Fox pundit or the next White House press secretary?

1:03:58Well, two things. One, there's a lot of failing up in Republican politics, so it's very possible she will end up on Fox or what is basically big on Fox, which is White House press secretary. But I kind of want to clear out here because you have been yelling about, podcasting about, tweeting about Trisha McLaughlin for a year now. I can't remember, were you on the plane? Was it during your day off in Sydney from the beach, were you tweeting about this or was it on the plane? I cannot remember, but I saw the news and I was shocked to get like a extensive Twitter thread from you celebrating her departure and documenting some of her lies from Australia.

1:04:32I have to be honest, I wasn't even celebrating because, first of all, she might have started planning. It's not like she got fired. She may have started planning to leave in December, apparently, so she's just leaving. A likely story from a liar, John. Yeah, that is true. That is true. She did tell the Cincinnati Inquirer where she's from. I think she's moving back to Cincinnati with her family. And she did say that she can't rule out. I know, I know. Your wife's hometown. I know. And she said that she can't rule out running for office in the future, which, if you're running against her, sign me up.

1:05:04um but mostly mostly it just like it just it got me angrier it because and look it's it is her because she is the face of the administration but it's like you know my my anger and rage towards christy gnome cory lewandowski uh fucking greg bovino steven miller as you know jd vance right obviously trump but like all of them over what they have done and what they are continuing to do on immigration is just, it is so intense. Like, did you find, I skipped reading this for a while because I knew it would get me both angry and sad, but did you end up reading the ProPublica story about all the kids in the Dilley detention center?

1:05:47I did. And I just want you to know, John, I did not put it in our many group chats together for this specific purpose that I felt like you should find it organically and I shouldn't whatever you were doing at the moment I shouldn't ruin your day with it well I had found it but I was like okay to what end am I going to read this and just be like so angry and everyone's tweeting about it like I don't need to tweet about it too there's been enough tweets but then I was I like caught it like today um is it just preparing for the pod because there was a story pulled out of it that was in a Miami paper about um this nine-year-old girl, Maria Antonia Guerra.

1:06:27And so wild story, right? She lives in Columbia with her grandmother and her mother lives in New York, I believe. And her mother had overstayed her visa, but then married a U.S. citizen and is applying for a green card. So like in the application process, everything legal and they had they had met right the the daughter and the mother um in florida to go to disney world and so they went to disney world once in the summer i think and they had so much fun at disney world they're like let's go back in october for halloween and we'll meet there and so the nine-year-old flies from columbia where she lives with the grandmother to miami to meet the mother who's there with her.

1:07:16And when she meets up with the mother, instead of like leaving the airport and going to Disney World, going back to Disney World, they're detained by immigration. Don't tell them why they're detained. Don't tell them why that either of them shouldn't legally be in the country. They are detained in the airport for 42 hours straight. And then they are sent to Dilley in Texas where they were held for four fucking months. this girl was like everyone's oh well then deport him deport like she lives in columbia she is a citizen of columbia and they still we just held her in jail for four months and the reporter who wrote the pro publica story which everyone should go read she like got all these letters she asked for letters from a lot of the the kids who were held in these detention centers and she writes of this letter she said in one letter decorated with small hand-drawn hearts rainbows and sad faces alongside a sketch of Maria and her mother in government issued sweatsuits.

1:08:13The girl wrote that she felt like, quote, being here was my fault. I only want it to be on vacation like a normal family. I'm in jail and I am sad and I fainted two times here inside. When I arrived every night, I cried and now I don't sleep well. I don't eat well. There's no good education and I miss my best friend, Julieta, and my grandmother and my school. I just really want my house. And it's like, you read that and then you read the statement from the department of homeland security about dilly and the conditions at dilly and it just is this fucking anodyne statement that says all detainees are being provided with proper medical care and all are provided with three meals a day clean water clothing bedding showers soap and toiletries and that they have certified dieticians evaluate the meals and everything is great so it's like you know what that's your legacy, Tricia McLaughlin.

1:09:03Whatever other job you want, that's your legacy. Christine Ohm's, Stephen Miller's, J.D. Vance's, all the rest of them. They are keeping these children locked up in a detention center in horrible conditions who are getting sick and who are going to have fucking trauma for the rest of their lives for what? For absolutely fucking nothing. It just requires you to be such an empty, soulless human to encounter a child in distress and not do everything you possibly can to help that child be in a better situation. Yep. To err on the side of detention, not on the side of what is best for the child, whether this is Liam from Minnesota, whether it is this girl, it's all the kids in that story.

1:09:46I don't even understand how, as a human being, you could approach this situation that way. And they will say, and I know J.D. Vance said this about Liam, he's like, what are we supposed to do? So if people who are eligible for deportation have children, are you never supposed to deport the child with the parent? I thought we didn't want family separation. I am not saying, I don't think any of us are saying that there are not going to ever be situations where like a horrible thing happens. And because a family was here illegally and has to be deported, that the children of that family are also have to be deported and they have to spend some time.

1:10:23We're not saying that like, like exceptions like that, bad things happen. and it is not the fault of children, but sometimes they pay the price. Like this happens in the world. We're not fucking naive to that. But there is a law in place, right? Or at least the court's interpretation of the law, the Flores Act, which says that children are not supposed to spend more than 20 days in detention. The Trump administration has decided that that no longer applies, but they don't care about the fucking Flores declaration. If they can just have kids in there for months at a time under these horrific conditions.

1:10:58So no, this is not just, oh, we can't deport anyone who has children. This is like you are locking up children and ruining the lives of children for nothing because you couldn't get your fucking act together because you wanted to perform cruelty, whatever the reason is. I mean, the Liam example is a perfect one, which is there was a different option, which was send him home to his mother. Yeah. But they would rather not admit, They'd rather keep a small child in a de facto prison camp than admit they are wrong or do something that suggests weakness. But it's not like being kind to children is not weakness.

1:11:35That's just being a basic fucking human. Proven by the fact that in this case, too, with Maria, after four months, suddenly one day they opened up Dilley and they let out 200 people, including her. Just let her out. And like, how long are these children going to be traumatized? how like how many of them have had to go through just fucking hell for nothing but it took them 200 days to hold them in a jail that's a more than a like almost a year of a child's life in like critical developmental phases it's fuck i fuck these people man fuck these people anyway that's why i'm not goodbye trisha mclaughlin yeah i was like not not celebrating i want it i want it to be a a fun lighthearted thing when i said it but then i read that story I'm like, no, I'm just angry.

1:12:16I would say in the, in the, uh, outline, this was referred to as dessert. It's not. No, no, no, no. It's not dessert. No. Look, we could have done RFK and, uh, who did he do the exercises? Kid rock. Yeah. We could have done shirtless RFK and kid rock. Didn't do that. Well, we couldn't, there are no words in it. It doesn't work in a podcast. That was the problem. We've, we've looked very seriously at it, but it's just, it's just music. And there's poop in the water in DC. That's another one, but I don't know. Is poop in the water ever funny, John? No, I don't think so. you have small children who take baths it's never funny oh god don't don't jinx it anyway dan uh hopefully next time we meet you and i will be less jet lagged we will be together on tuesday oh my god oh oh talk about yes all right everyone yeah tuesday's gonna be the state of the union but even before that love it's gonna be back in the feed with a new show on Sunday.

1:13:10Lucky him. And lucky you. Lucky you. Bye, everyone. Have a good weekend. 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 producer is Saul Rubin. Our associate producer is Farrah Safari.

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