1125: Will Trump Bomb State of the Union/Iran?

12:41Tommy Vietor:There was a line in the Times story that the Ayatollah has instructed senior leaders to make sure the assassination attempts don't work. It's like, yeah, man. Smart move. Yeah, that's a good idea. Make sure they don't work for you. That's right.

12:55Symone Sanders:Not that we can ever know what's going on in Donald Trump's adult mind but I genuinely don't have any idea why he's doing this because like Venezuela, sort of kooky but you could kind of see like, okay it was a Stephen Miller thing. It was a Rubio thing. He likes getting the oil, right? You think Greenland, even that, you know, it looks big on the map. He wants to take that. Like the Iran thing now at this moment with this much firepower in the region is just baffling to me because it's like, I don't know, like Lindsey Graham's pushing him to do it, right? But like who else is really jonesing for a war with Iran in his orbit?

13:34Tommy Vietor:Lindsey Graham's like a pagan Shiite.

13:38Jon Favreau:I think I can imagine a couple arguments. One is another oil based argument, right? Suddenly the U.S. controls like all the energy in the world if we're controlling the Iranian oil infrastructure somehow and Venezuela and our own. It doesn't totally make sense, but sure. There's an argument that's like Trump no longer cares about politics. He just wants to be viewed as a historic figure. And he's got Lindsey Graham in his ear being like, sir, if you take up Maduro and the Supreme leader, you are like, you know, the greatest president in history. And maybe he's listening to that. I like pure appeal to vanity.

14:08Jon Favreau:Yeah. And like, look, there's a lot of long-term risks doing that too. We're genuinely low on munitions, especially like air interceptor missiles for the Patriot missile batteries, things like that. The Israelis are too after the 12 day war. And so like the, the Chinese are sitting there watching this being like, yes, fucking unload the clip. Have at it boys. Like, you know, we'll just sit here quietly and see what happens. It's, it's nuts, but politically it's crazy.

14:29Tommy Vietor:Yeah. The only other part of it to make sense of it is he wants to undo anything Obama did and do better than anything Obama did. And so he is applying pressure in order to get some kind of a deal. Like the timing only makes sense, the aggressive timing in the context of trying to get some kind of a deal, whatever that would be. And he wants to go out there and say, Obama sold out the country. I got the real deal. I fixed it. And I stopped yet another war, right? Like that to me is like, honestly, it's a hopeful direction.

15:01Symone Sanders:Yeah. Well, I do think that, you know, Venezuela, like we know that it was a pretty close call for the special forces. Like he has sort of danced through the raindrops with a lot of these military strikes.

15:14Tommy Vietor:And one would say he's done that his entire fucking life. Right. Of course.

15:17Symone Sanders:But it's like at some point, you know, Americans get killed in this. These things can go south really fast.

15:23Jon Favreau:No one was killed in the Venezuela operation, but a guy got shot in the leg, one of the helicopter pilots, and then nearly went down. And that was in part because clearly the U.S., we know this from leaks that we had someone on the inside that, you know, turned on Maduro and set him up to get taken. And I do think there is this sense that the post-Afghanistan and Iraq conflicts have been largely cost-free and that we can just bomb stuff with drones or B-2 bombers and call it a day. Like, you know, the Cosm Solomani operation in the first term when Trump assassinated the then head of the IRGC, they responded with a ballistic missile barrage.

15:53Jon Favreau:Only by the grace of God was no one killed. Like 100 service members got traumatic brain injuries. And that sort of ended the escalation. But if, you know, one guy dies there, it's up and up and up. Yep.

16:02Symone Sanders:So you mentioned the politics. here's the way a University of Maryland poll from a few weeks ago asked the question, do you favor or oppose the United States initiating an attack on Iran under the current circumstances? Oppose 49%, don't know 30%, and support gets 21%. And yet the War Powers resolution from Ro Khanna and Thomas Massey, which would simply require Congress to authorize any kind of military action against Iran, as it is laid out in the Constitution and the War Powers Act itself, doesn't have the votes to pass, at least as of this moment. Why do you think that is?

16:37Tommy Vietor:Well, look, the Venezuela resolution failed in the House 215 to 215. That was with democratic unanimity. We've already lost Josh Gottheimer and Jared Moskowitz, who not only said they're opposed, but put out a ridiculous statement claiming it was the Ayatollah Enabler Act. Protection Act. Protection Act, which is just pretty insulting to your colleagues and like such a kind of like glib minimization of the role of Congress in approving military force. But losing those means that even if you had basically every Democrat in favor of a war powers vote, you would still lose because Marjorie Taylor Greene is now gone and Thomas Massey is not very persuasive with his caucus.

17:20Symone Sanders:I think it's so embarrassing for any Democrat, really Republican too. I mean, I just don't expect as much from them to it's not to just say like, yes, I think we should let's debate it. And I think Congress should vote to give the president authorization to like just give up your own power before there's even a debate. Just get to Donald Trump of all people like Josh Gottham or Jared Moskowitz. You trust Donald Trump. That's that's that's who you're deciding to give your power that the Constitution has authorized you with a way to to Donald Trump because you trust him to do war the right way.

17:55Tommy Vietor:it's crazy they're not they're not proposing an actual vote to authorize the use of military force they're just standing in the way yes that's what i'm saying of having a vote and then the

18:03Symone Sanders:excuses uh when you get further into that crazy statement this resolution would restrict the flexibility needed to respond to real and evolving threats and risks signaling weakness at a dangerous moment that is such fucking also like george w bush era republican bullshit that was it that was

18:19Tommy Vietor:that was a lot of the justification people used for voting in favor of the iraq war uh author autorization because they claimed it was merely to give George W. Bush leverage to prevent the war in the first place, which obviously is not what came to pass.

18:33Jon Favreau:Yeah, I just I feel like the the debate is even worse than 2003 somehow. Yeah. At least then there was there was a conversation about the underlying reason why we may or may not go to war, which is this false claim of WMDs that literally isn't happening. It's just like, hey, look, we've amassed a ton of military assets in the region and what's Trump going to decide? Like, here's some leaks about the menu of options before him. Is he going to just have an appetizer? Is he going to go with the full, like, you know, it's just like a fucking video game. It's crazy. And like, meanwhile, like there, there's like a real human cost here.

19:04Jon Favreau:Like the USS Gerald Ford has now one of the aircraft carriers. They've had their deployment extended twice. So they've been out for eight months. They will possibly be out for 11 months. These are sailors with, you know, families, little kids, wives, husbands. They can only have sporadic contact with their family for OPSEC reasons. like they'll go into quote unquote ghost mode for weeks at a time where you just like can't contact people and also the fucking toilets are broken on the ship. I saw that. And like to fix them full you have to dock so there's 45 minute lines for a toilet on an aircraft carrier.

19:32Jon Favreau:Like imagine the nightmare for these guys.

19:34Tommy Vietor:It's like right before we record the pod.

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22:24Symone Sanders:It's also yet another issue splitting MAGA world for various reasons. We just saw the debate play out during Tucker Carlson's recent interview with U.S. Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee, which produced this viral clip about Israel's role in the Middle East that the administration has also been trying to walk back. Let's listen. I just read Genesis 15, as I have many times. And that land, I think it says from the Nile to the Euphrates, which is once again, basically the entire Middle East. So God gave that land to his people, the Jews, or he didn't. You're saying he did. What does that mean? Does Israel have the right to that land?

23:02Symone Sanders:Because you're appealing to Genesis. You're saying that's the original deed. it would be fine if they took it all but i don't think that's what we're talking about here today what would be fine what's exactly what we're talking about today but here's what i i don't think you think it would be fine if the state of israel took over all i don't want to take it over they're not asking to take it over that's true i will say uh beyond those comments huckabee's case for war with iran it seemed to have quite a few holes in it uh then what did you guys make of uh of that interview and the in the broader intra-maga uh debate over around uh

23:39Tommy Vietor:first of all huckabee just does such a terrible job in this interview it's really sort of hard to watch tucker just ask some hard questions and just he can't defend the position he just can't defend the position he can't defend the civilian casualties in gaza uh he can't defend israel's conduct of the war uh and tucker really makes a meal of it at the same time tucker uh is somebody who has had sort of a slavish conversation with Nick Fuentes. He's had Holocaust deniers on. And so like you see Tucker give Huckabee a really hard time. And he is a Tucker is a very smart, very sophisticated interviewer.

24:20Tommy Vietor:And it is, I think, notable that he turns it on in this conversation, but doesn't turn it on in some of those other interactions. Right. And so it's hard. You watch you're like, yeah, I'm glad to see Huckabee face these tough questions in this sort of very sort of tense way. But then you think this is sort of Tucker with an agenda of his own. And Tucker actually starts, he watched the beginning where he talks like 20 minutes about the circumstances of the interview in a kind of vaguely conspiratorial way and the ways in which it was clear Huckabee really didn't want to have the debate and they wouldn't let them leave the airport.

24:50Tommy Vietor:The whole thing was very strange. So I came away like kind of glad to see Huckabee put on the spot, but then like a little bit uncomfortable with the kind of the fact that it had to come from Tucker Carlson of all places.

25:03Jon Favreau:Yeah, I mean, Tucker's got some questionable motives, I think it's fair to say. That's right. Just in terms of like pure performance, like taking out the two individuals. I mean, it's a fascinating interview because Tucker comes in with a plan and he lays a trap, which is he knows he wants to ask, why does Israel have a right to exist and do all countries have a right? This is a universal principle. And he knows that Huckabee will cite both international law and theology. theology, right? He'll say that, as he said there, that the divine right that comes from Genesis 15. And Tucker is pushing on this because he knows that those two arguments are fundamentally irreconcilable.

25:34Jon Favreau:And it culminates in Huckabee saying, yes, a literal reading would say Israel should control the entire Middle East and quote, it would be fine if they took it all, which is absolutely crazy thing for him to say. Obviously, like it was not his intention, right? But it led to this massive backlash. There were statements from Oman, Qatar, Pakistan, Turkey, the UAE, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Egypt, OIC, the League of Arab States, like every country in the region. You don't think they like that? They were not thrilled.

26:02Tommy Vietor:It simply would not be fine if they took it off. It would not be fine. It would be a real problem.

26:05Jon Favreau:But they're not asking for it, so.

26:07Tommy Vietor:It would be fine if they did. Yeah. But that's not what they want. That's not what they want.

26:10Jon Favreau:Yes. And it highlights actually like how much of an extremist Huckabee is on all the policy areas he oversees because he says he opposed a two-state solution. He supports Israel annexing the West Bank. He says there is no West Bank. There's only Judea and Samaria. He says there's no such thing as a Palestinian. And so like Tucker is being a troll. We question his motives. But there's also like, I think, from the countries that responded, again, a lot of reasons they lash out at Israel. Some of it's anti-Semitism, some of it's bias. But some of it is genuine anger about Israel's territorial expansion, and that dates back to 1967 and the Six-Day War.

26:46Jon Favreau:But also like settlement construction, the slow motion annexation of the West Bank. Israel has taken territory in Syria and Lebanon recently since October 7th. So it was a riveting interview between two pretty flawed people.

27:00Symone Sanders:Yeah, I also think it, you know, the situation with Iran sort of combines the anti-war strain in the MAGA world with the anti-Israel, especially anti-Israeli government strain in MAGA world too. And at one point, you know, Tucker goes in on, well, you know, Bibi Netanyahu has been to the White House seven times. He's like, what other foreign leader has had a meeting with Trump seven times in the last year? And where has the debate been with the American people over whether we launch another war? And you could see a lot of like the anti-war stuff that Tucker's doing. You could see like gain a lot of traction, not just with because it is how most Americans feel about war, especially war with Iran, that no one has told us why we're waging or may wage.

27:45Symone Sanders:but with Republicans.

27:46Tommy Vietor:He also does this dual loyalty stuff with Tucker and Huckabee. He does kind of, he goes into sort of DNA and who has the right to the land. And then he does sort of America being sort of controlled by Israel and making decisions on behalf of Israel. And so, yeah, there is this, I would say like the alignment is between sort of anti-war, America first types and some of the sort of the virulent anti-Semitism, anti-Israel. Oh, that's the other thing he does. He had to apologize. He actually apologized for it, but he made reference to the president of Israel, Herzog, being in the Epstein files. And Herzog sent up a long letter basically saying like, this is false and like complete fabrication.

28:28Tommy Vietor:And Tucker clearly, I guess, in a way that sounds like someone who's worried about defamation kind of came out and said, I didn't know anything beyond what I read. I don't have any reason to believe it is true. If you defame, if you malign somebody, you should correct it. So he corrects it. But clearly like he is swimming in the kind of like conspiratorial waters.

28:44Symone Sanders:He goes off on the Epstein files too. And Huckabee's like, well, I'm the ambassador to Israel. So I don't, you know. And he's like, you haven't read the Epstein files? He's like, you don't know what's going on in the Epstein files? You're trying to tell me. It's so funny. Like Tucker really does the, I'm so confused. I'm not mad. I'm just confused.

28:59Tommy Vietor:Yes, I don't understand. I don't understand. This sort of like babe in the woods thing.

29:03Jon Favreau:Yes. The interview starts quite hot. It's Jonathan Pollard, who is a guy who spied on the US on behalf of Israel. who Huckabee met with for some reason at the embassy. Then I think it's into Epstein, or then it goes into some Israeli official who is accused of blessing kids. It's just kind of weird stuff. But on the kind of inter-MAGA Iran split, there are some genuine Iran splits. It is very hard to deduplicate at times the anti-Israel, anti-Semitism from the anti-war stuff. And that is a troubling piece of this. I do think I would divide it into elite opinion into voter opinion. on the elites.

29:41Jon Favreau:I still think when you're talking about electeds and media types, the hawkish traditional neocons are still like the majority. It's like the Wall Street Journal, editorial page, Lindsey Graham. Like those are the people I think in Trump's ear the most, although Tucker, I think the Murdoch empire. Yeah. Tucker was at the white house today, right? Wasn't there a tweet about that? Um, but unlike Iraq in 2003, you now have this far right faction of people like Tucker or Nick Fuentes, similar, like Candace overlap, Candace. Um, And then some folks who are very hardcore anti-war. And then there's some folks in, I think, like the podcaster, Manosphere ecosystem who are more just kind of like, why are we doing this?

30:15Jon Favreau:And then you have the people in the traditional kind of more MAGA suck-uppy space who are just like, Trump hasn't made the case yet. They're like where we are right now. It's just like, why? Why does he want us to do that? And then there's voters who are like, what the fuck are you doing? Like, I care about tariffs. I care about inflation or whatever. And I think ultimately some of these arguments are a good faith, like, hey, Iraq was bad. Why are we doing this again? Shouldn't we spend money elsewhere? Some of it's kind of weird. I think ultimately if Trump does like another, what, one or two day bombing raid like he did last time, like they just won't care and they'll move on.

30:50Tommy Vietor:That's what he's counting on too. Yeah.

30:51Jon Favreau:But if it's protracted, like it's a whole different story, especially if, you know, the Iranians like blow something up in the Strait of Hormuz and oil prices go through the roof and then there's real economic fallout.

31:01Symone Sanders:Yeah. Yeah, well, the one thing about wars, you can always predict what's going to happen. Yeah, and they end fast. Now, I know everyone's accusing Trump of not focusing enough on the struggles of everyday Americans, but that's clearly not true. He's passionate about making them worse by raising taxes again. After the Supreme Court declared his tariffs illegal on Friday in a 6-3 decision, Trump almost immediately announced a new 10 % tariff on all foreign goods, which he then quickly raised to 15 % on Saturday. Outbid himself. The president has been bitching about the court since Friday. this morning he posted that from now on he'll be spelling supreme court with lowercase letters based on a complete lack of respect got him got him i thought i thought me too i'm gonna be doing

31:41Tommy Vietor:the same thing because he had been reading a lot of ee cummings i also have a lack of respect

31:45Symone Sanders:the supreme court so i'm gonna do that give him the lowercase letter treatment i love those sort

31:49Tommy Vietor:of like the news over the last like a couple of days it's like in a historic blow to trump's agenda the supreme court has removed his tariffs the tariffs are back

31:59Symone Sanders:Trump officials are also out there expressing confidence that they'll be able to use other authorities to keep most of the tariff rates where they were before the Supreme Court decision. And they won't be taking any action to refund the illegal taxes we've all been paying since Liberation Day. According to Politico, this commitment to fighting for tax hikes in an election year has Democrats, quote, frothing at the mouth. For starters, Senate Democrats released a refund proposal on Monday. Governor J.B. Pritzker trolled the administration by sending a letter publicly demanding a refund check for every Illinois family.

32:30Symone Sanders:Newsom said pretty much the same thing on CNN over the weekend. Let's play a clip. He needs to return that money, he needs to refund that money with interest. He can do that in a nanosecond. The problem is, for families, it's been about$1 ,701 a year. That's a different requirement than I think he has to pay the American people back. I saw Besant out there, almost gleeful. He was gleeful that, no, we won't be doing it. This is dumb and dumber, Trump and Bessie.

32:56Tommy Vietor:What? Is he doing this in a gallery? Isn't that Gustav Klimt behind him? Was that the kiss? I couldn't tell if that was...

33:02Symone Sanders:Oh, he was in Nashville. So he was somewhere in Nashville for his book event. Oh, okay. I only know that because I think Dana Bash said I talked to him in Nashville. Got it. So I assume that's the only... That was weird.

33:10Tommy Vietor:Has postmodernism reached Nashville? Okay. I love saying he could do that in a nanosecond. Nanoseconds, very fast. It was very fast.

33:19Symone Sanders:And also it's like they're all one-upping each other. It's like, with interest. J.B. Pritzker says refund. I'm saying refund with interest. So we've talked about the Supreme Court decision a bunch from Friday over the weekend. Everyone should check out our YouTube for that. But what do you guys make of Trump doubling down? And are your mouths as frothy as other Democrats?

33:38Tommy Vietor:I love the refund proposal. I think we should just be hammering the refund proposal. Everybody's entitled to$1 ,700. Where's my$1 ,700? Get me my$1 ,700. I think that that is great. The other part of this is the leverage Trump clearly is afraid he's losing because of this ruling because he's posting these unhinged things about how I have license to destroy other countries be careful what you wish for And so he's sort of like I think worried about what this will mean for his sort of effort to kind of continuously have news cycle after news cycle about how he's sort of pummeling our Trading partners around the world which he views this are good for him.

34:10Tommy Vietor:I don't know. Yes I think we should be hammering this all the time He's fighting to keep taxes high and cost high for Americans and by the way, he's keeping your money It feels like a no brainer to me.

34:19Jon Favreau:Yeah, I'm frothing. I'm a walking bubble bath over here. I'm a cappuccino. This just occurred to me though. I was going to go more with the rabies. Rabies, your rabid raccoon. So I feel like, you know, at one point I was worried that he would give everyone like a tariff stipend. Me too. Right, like a tariff stimulus. Shh, don't tell him. Now, if we, are we not worried that that would, this just occurred to me, like what if he did write everyone a$1 ,700 check as J.B. Pritzker said, would framing it as a refund, I guess defang the political values at the hope or the hope is that he would just never do it because you feel like it would be under duress.

34:52Symone Sanders:I know. I didn't think about that. And then I heard Jesse Waters be like, Democrats have stepped into a trap. Now he's going to do a refund right before the election. But I was like, I mean, that would be the smart political thing to do, but it doesn't seem like, first of all, I mean, they would, he would have to just do it illegally. Like he does everything else. Cause it would never pass Congress because they don't want to, this is, they keep floating this in Congress and Republicans keep knocking it down. Thune, all of them, They're just like, no, we're not doing a refund check. We have a deficit and everything's too expensive and blah, blah, blah.

35:19Symone Sanders:So there's that. But they also they also don't have the money. I mean, I guess I guess they could do it, but they feel like that's maybe giving up. Maybe that's maybe I don't know. Well, I think I would because I think this is I'm also frothing. I think this is this is incredible that they that he is just going forward with this.

35:36Tommy Vietor:I think there's no there's no downside for Democrats saying every American deserves a check from the illegally. this is basically money that was stolen from you, from our country, we pay the tariffs, we're educating people about it as we go. Like you're all paying these fucking tariffs. Look, we're educating you. But like, but it means they were having to do it. We're like people will come. No, I agree. And you will get, and if you don't get the money, it's because Trump pocketed your money. He cut taxes for corporations. He's cut taxes for his wealthy friends. He, but they can't afford to give you the$1 ,700 they took from you illegally.

36:07Tommy Vietor:And then if he does it, great. Trump caves to Democrats and gives Americans money. I think we could make that argument or he doesn't. And that's something we can keep running on and hammering through November. So I don't see the downside to pushing really hard.

36:18Jon Favreau:You know, I agree on the messaging. I just wonder, like, what happens if we catch the car? It would be an interesting situation. And like, but before I mean, before this ruling, Fox News had a poll where they found 63 percent of registered voters disapproved of Trump's handling of the tariff. So basically, he's just drawing more attention to a wildly unpopular policy to begin with. It looks weak. He looks angry. It looks chaotic. Like and voters are just like it's not going to solve the problem, which is voters are mad about costs and nothing he's doing is going to fix it. It's going to make it worse.

36:45Symone Sanders:No more illegal taxes to pay for the president's illegal wars. Just run around saying that for the next nine months and the illegal taxes. They used to just be taxes. Now they're illegal taxes. When is the last time either party has proudly run on raising taxes on like most middle class Americans, working class Americans, poor Americans like that? Like, not try to say we're not actually raising taxes, even though it might be true or this. No, just out there being like, no, no, no. We are fighting hard to keep this tax increase in effect. And by the way. We want to keep your taxes high. And what are we using it for?

37:23Symone Sanders:Vote for Republicans.

37:23Tommy Vietor:And what are we using it for? We're going to use it to buy a plane. We're going to use it to send Kash Patel on a whirlwind vacation.

37:31Symone Sanders:Noam and Lewandowski are getting their fuck cabin in the back of the.

37:34Tommy Vietor:They're in the Mile High Club. And by the way, a bunch of wars never approved by Congress, never voted on, never debated. Terrific.

37:44Symone Sanders:Oh, and we're terrorizing various American communities that didn't vote for the president by rounding people up and throwing them in jail and sometimes killing them.

37:52Tommy Vietor:Money's gone to that, too.

37:53Symone Sanders:Yeah. So it doesn't seem popular. It doesn't seem popular, but we'll see.

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40:39Symone Sanders:You may be upset that Trump's taxes on all the shit you buy aren't going away, but at least that money is going to a good cause, which is flying the FBI director to Milan so he could pound beers in the locker room with the U.S. men's hockey team. By now, you've probably seen the leaked video of Kash Patel partying with the gold medalists, who he calls his good friends in a way that's totally believable. I'm sure they're buddies. You may also have seen the vigorous denials from Patel's spokesperson that the point of Patel's trip was to go to the Olympics. He obviously had mission critical official FBI meetings that just happened to be in Milan at the exact same time as the gold medal game, which unfortunately had to take the FBI director away from lesser duties like keeping Americans safe or figuring out how another guy with a gun got past the security perimeter at Mar-a-Lago.

41:20Symone Sanders:So Tommy and I ranted about this on YouTube on Monday. Love it. Did you happen to have any thoughts on this one?

41:25Tommy Vietor:Yeah, two points I'd want to make. One, I think the most pathetic part of the whole thing is how often cash patel refers to the hockey team as the boys the boys he calls

41:33Jon Favreau:them the boys it's a very hockey thing to they're his they're his friends they're they're oh i'm

41:37Tommy Vietor:hanging with the boys uh you're you're not one of the boys you've never been i think your whole life is a story of a man desperate to be one of the boys will never be one of the boys you look out of place in every every every there's never been an outfit cash patel is worn that doesn't look like it doesn't belong on him he just always looks out of place and uncomfortable They're all a little too big. Too big, too small, too stiff, whatever it is. So the embarrassing thing of desperately trying to hang with the boys was interesting. And the other is a lot of pressing work in the Dolomites. A lot of important investigations going on in the mountainous region of the Italian Alps for the FBI director.

42:20Tommy Vietor:Look, we've all, look, everybody out there who's traveled for work knows that you can play some games and have a work trip that also is fun. We just went to Melbourne, Sydney, and Auckland. You know, we can, but we're not the FBI director. Brisbane Erasure. And Brisbane, of course.

42:37Symone Sanders:We don't have quite the same remit as Cash Patil.

42:39Tommy Vietor:Of course, but the idea that like, you think people can't see through this, that you created some silly cover meetings to justify calling it a work trip. Nobody - It's a fucking joke.

42:50Symone Sanders:Well, and again, it's like if you're if you're in the administration, obviously everyone's jockeying to see who gets to go to the Winter Olympics. And there's always a delegation that they send. And so you're like, oh, maybe Marco wants to go or maybe J.D. Vance wants to go. Who when or whatever else. But it's like on rare occasions, meaning never, is the FBI director one of the people jockeying for that.

43:12Jon Favreau:They should have shit to do.

43:13Tommy Vietor:And they're not and they're not they're not part of this. Like we in our system. Diplomats, ambassadors. The head of state and the head of our government is the same function. And so a lot of them have to perform that function. And we can say it's silly and maybe not worth their time and not worth the money. But we send.

43:29Symone Sanders:Jamie Vance doesn't have anything better to do. Good for him for going.

43:32Tommy Vietor:Dignitaries. That guy doesn't have a job. And by the way, like it is the Olympics and they do represent America. And these people are our elected leaders and I don't care for it. But that you can make sense of that. That's fine. But like he is the head of the FBI. He is a law enforcement official. Right now. But he's pounding beers in the fucking locker room. It's all so embarrassing.

43:49Jon Favreau:At least$75 ,000 on our tab, at least. It's way more. I guarantee it's more. Because the FBI director is required by law to fly on a Gulfstream G550 airplane. It's a private jet because they need security and secure comms. So the cost of just the gas alone has got to be like$5 ,000,$10 ,000 an hour. It's an 18-hour trip. Then there's the staff. So I got to steal the oil from Venezuela. They got to steal the oil. There's security. There's accommodations. There's God knows what else. And so Patel, like, he'll pay back a fraction of that. But someone in Congress just, I know we can't, but like, it would be so great to subpoena the actual cost of this because I bet it's a lot of money.

44:20Jon Favreau:Great thing to promise for when we win the House. Yes. But it also, it misses the bigger opportunity cost of having this industrial strength douchebag as their FBI director. More industrial strength. Not doing serious stuff. He's not qualified for the job and he doesn't spend any of his time actually doing it. He's been to ultimate fighting events in Miami and Las Vegas. He went to a hockey game with Wayne Gretzky in New York. I'd love to do that, but he should have better shit to do. During the manhunt for Charlie Kirk's killer, Cash Mattel was tweeting out inaccurate information from some exclusive restaurant in New York City.

44:51Jon Favreau:He goes on trips to visit his girlfriend. He went to see her sing the national anthem at a low rent wrestling match at Penn State. He took the FBI PJ to Scotland for a golf weekend with the boys. The boys again. He took it to a weekend vacation at a place called, I shit you not, the Boondoggle Ranch owned by a big Republican donor. Like, again, this guy is a fucking clown and he's making a mockery of everyone who voted for him.

45:14Tommy Vietor:Apparently there's a lot of like outrage inside the FBI about this. I mean, that's why we've gotten all these leaks, the leaks of him sort of putting on his little coat and doing a performance of FBI director. So much of what he thinks the job is, it's just sort of a performance. It's what's public facing. It's the headlines. It's the stories.

45:31Symone Sanders:Tweet out information mid-investigation that turns out not to be true. Loves to do that. You can do that anywhere, you know.

45:37Jon Favreau:We got him. JK. Yeah, I who knows what Trump will do or like if he'll fire him, he doesn't fire anyone. He probably doesn't want to go through another confirmation process. I guarantee you he's seen these stories. I guarantee you he is pissed about it. We know there's been reporting that he was pissed about the travel and the PJ to visit the girlfriend. This will get onto his radar screen and in part because it's not just libs like us. They're talking about this. It is right winger. There's this guy, Kyle Serafin, who's a former FBI guy who's on Infowars all the time, who goes after Kash Patel all day, every day.

46:08Jon Favreau:his tweet about this stuff had millions of views last night like this will get to trump this is the kind of thing that if you're suzy wiles the chief of staff and you're watching this cabinet full of morons create bad headlines for you this will piss you off and you will be like rain it the fuck in

46:22Symone Sanders:not one of them has made trump look better like not like the cabinet is doing such a bad job even if you're like yeah maybe doug he's like on the better end of this and on a fucking labor

46:33Tommy Vietor:secretary she's got shit going on with the husband i thought you know what junior they're like they're

46:39Symone Sanders:like they're they're shaking up they're shaking up hhs uh they're they're taking away rfk staffers because they're like hey we're done with we're done with the anti-vaccine stuff let's just have them go talk about uh raw milk and being healthy or whatever and by the way on their like the white

46:52Tommy Vietor:house had to uh get the get uh uh rfk junior to reverse a decision about a moderna vaccine that they weren't even going to allow uh luttnick's on epstein island gnomes fucking in the back of the plane tell you sean duppy former real work contestant he's the best fucking one he really

47:07Jon Favreau:is he's doing fine he's the remember the planes were crashing at the beginning though yeah they

47:10Tommy Vietor:were yeah the planes were touching and that was a huge problem in this a lot of the planes are

47:14Symone Sanders:touching they were going fast and touching they were touching bad for planes they're not supposed

47:18Tommy Vietor:to touch but he can't it's not his fault they still use floppy disks scott besson's out there

47:22Jon Favreau:like fucking richie rich just yeah he's just getting so mean to him he's just you know farming and soybeans.

47:29Symone Sanders:Hank says fucking drunks blowing up boats. It just be.

47:33Jon Favreau:Really? He's just posting photos of himself benching.

47:35Tommy Vietor:Benching. The benching. The benching photo. Was it, they claimed it was like 315 pounds or something like that? No. That seems like a lot. It's a solid max. And what is benching, what does that prove, do you think?

47:47Symone Sanders:That you have male pectorals

47:49Tommy Vietor:and triceps. Strong pecs for the other boys. Yeah, yeah.

47:51Symone Sanders:You know what? He could strangle the mullahs with his bare hands. I'll tell you something. I'll tell you something.

47:55Tommy Vietor:Men bench press for other men. Men do Pilates. for women. That's what I'll tell you. Okay. That's what I'll say.

48:02Symone Sanders:Okay. Sure. Anyway, where were we? All right. Before we get to Lovett's interview with Simone and Eugene, let's talk a little bit more about the State of the Union. You know, President, the expectation setting for him has been just on point, telling us it's going to be very long, which is what America craves. Democrats are preparing to respond in all different kinds of ways, as we are wont to do. If you're looking for a more traditional reaction, you can tune in to watch Virginia Governor Abigail Spanberger give the official Democratic response. If you're in the market for something a bit more ideological, Congresswoman Summer Lee is giving the progressive response.

48:39Symone Sanders:If you want to watch what's going to make Megyn Kelly angry, you can catch the Spanish language response from Senator Alex Padilla. I thought you were going to say all of the above. There's a State of the Union pre-bottle from Congresswoman LaMonica MacIver and a post-speech rally on the National Mall called the People State of the Union. Some Democrats intend to skip the speech. Others have said they plan to go. And still others have said they plan to defy Hakeem Jeffrey's instructions to avoid disrupting the speech. What do you think? Anything else we're missing? Anything else they should throw in here?

49:09Tommy Vietor:The one thing I would just add is just that the guess that they're bringing is that Schumer and others are bringing victims or people that have been impacted by Epstein. I think that is an interesting way to respond to kind of put that in Trump's space. They're bringing Trump.

49:24Symone Sanders:He's already going to be there. Well, yeah, well, right.

49:25Tommy Vietor:For sure. But like, I think that at least is using the moment to kind of force Trump to confront something, or at least the image will force Trump to confront something or not confront something, which I think is interesting. I would just say, if I were a member of Congress and you told me I could patriotically skip the State of the Union, it would be a me-shaped hole in the side of that fucking Capitol. Oh, you mean for my country, I can skip this fucking long speech? Okay, I'll do it for America.

49:48Jon Favreau:Yeah, what about you? Yeah, on the pre-bottle things, like if a so-toe pre-buttals streamed on the mall, does it even make a sound? I don't care. The idea of an official response was always kind of dumb. It never worked and never got covered. I think in this media age, it's even sillier. And so it's fine that there's 25 of them. Who cares? There's no coordinating message. Everyone's just out there doing their thing. I think I would skip two. What's the upside for going?

50:16Symone Sanders:The upside for going - You show respect. Or the upside for going is to, I mean, everything is a game for attention, right? All of these are going to compete for attention in a way that is probably most are not going to be successful. Because like you said, you know, maybe people who still have the TV on catch the official response after the State of the Union is done. If they get up to go to the bathroom and they haven't shut the city, you know, like so there's maybe some of that. But like the people who are going to tune into the people State of the Union or to the pre-bottle or this or that, it's basically like your own audience, right?

50:50Symone Sanders:Like if you if you tend to follow those people, then you're going to follow them on this maybe. So it's not like you're breaking through. And so the only other option is to try to create attention in some way at the State of the Union. So if you're going to go and either disrupt the speech, you know, try to turn it into question time, have a guest that somehow Trump notices or the media notices and ask questions about. And then that becomes a little story. So it's just like the only case for going is to somehow create an attentional moment. Yeah. Otherwise, like, why bother?

51:19Tommy Vietor:I just think where we're at now, and I talked about this bit with Eugene and Simone, but like the idea that we should, that it, yes, it does seem disjointed, but that's fine, who cares? And really, yes, most people will be performing for their own audiences, but you take that many shots on goal, you will end up with something, hopefully that can get beyond the bubble and like some clips are -

51:39Symone Sanders:Something that you can celebrate with cash.

51:41Tommy Vietor:Right, exactly, yeah. Afterwards, with beer. Yeah, on the flight home, perhaps. But yeah, like I just think you can get like some viral moments that come out of this. I don't know who knows what they are, but like that I think, I don't know. Well, because like, Al Green stood up last time and you couldn't quite understand him in the, like he stood up and he was saying something and kind of found out later what it was. Let's just say guys,

52:04Symone Sanders:did anyone remember that Al Green was escorted out last time until you read about it today? Because I didn't.

52:10Jon Favreau:I did not remember until I was reminded of it today for sure. I remembered it just now with my memory. I didn't research this part very much because I think it's fine. What was he yelling? You're like, you have no mandate to cut social security or something like that. It was something along those lines. Who's to know? Look, there is a huge incentive to be disruptive, get carried out in some way, make that all about the speech. And you could make an argument that I wouldn't really agree with, that it's beneficial. It's kind of, I don't know. I think people, who cares?

52:38Symone Sanders:They could all paint a different letter of release the files on their chests. They could all put a mask on. They could put a mask on. They could -

52:45Tommy Vietor:Non-COVID edition.

52:47Symone Sanders:It just says ice.

52:49Tommy Vietor:We're anti-mask, mask protests, not pro-mask, mass protests, just to be clear. In this case.

52:55Symone Sanders:It's also hard whenever, whatever party is facing the president giving a speech, it's like asymmetric warfare, right? Like the president's got a, he's got the microphone. The people in the chamber do not have the microphone. So they're all gonna sound, you're always gonna sound like you're yelling and you're interrupting. The president's gonna be able to just like do what he wants there, right? So there's a little.

53:14Tommy Vietor:The other side of it though, is this is a president uniquely disposed towards reacting in ways that rebound poorly for him, right? Like he has the ability, like if you can interrupt him and get into some kind of a, if he gets mad, all of a sudden he's sort of, he's, you know, he'll break restraints and he'll start saying all the crazy shit. Like he's on a, he's going into this thing on a hair trigger anyway.

53:40Symone Sanders:I mean, the other side of that is at, you know, 35, 39 % approval, he's going to ruin the speech himself. Exactly. Yeah. Like he could give that speech and not a single Democrat could be heard from for the rest of the night and people would still be like, that sucked. Yeah.

53:55Jon Favreau:If we were doing like a Super Bowl party squares kind of betting thing, I think like the odds on thing to happen are that he denounces the Supreme Court justices in a way that maybe gets some like scattered murmurs and boos, right? And like leads to some like civility freak out. There is another version of it where he uses a speech to announce that like on my order, Tonight we have commenced the bombing of Iran and like goes for the big dramatic thing. And I could see him doing that again for, just cause he like is a drama queen and like likes attention, but it would be the least popular thing you could possibly do with the biggest megaphone.

54:29Symone Sanders:You don't think that was a stop in the affordability tour?

54:32Tommy Vietor:He's just, he's gonna, he's gonna, there's some line in there that's meant to assuage him. That's gonna be something about like the shameful decision on tariffs. And then it's, it is shameful. It was very, you know, he's gonna start talking. Like he just, the, you know, the fence around him is fragile when he's up there.

54:51Symone Sanders:If I had to bet it would be just lots of stories of dead Americans killed by immigrants, just hauling all that out again. Yeah, Lincoln Riley Act. They like to do a lot of stories of like very sympathetic Americans who were somehow, I mean, they're, I don't want to say they're good at that, but they are at least adept at trying to find those stories. I'm sure Stephen Miller's all over that. Those are going to be all the guests. They're going to have random fucking people who are helped by Trump's policies because you can't really find them in the polls anywhere. So they'll bring him to the State of the Union.

55:19Tommy Vietor:He's already done the longest day of the Union history, right? Was that him? I'm sure. Hour 40. It sounds like he wants to beat it. And I think he's going to want to beat it. So it's going to be a long night. Fuck.

55:28Symone Sanders:Well, we'll be doing the crooked media official response.

55:31Tommy Vietor:We will.

55:32Symone Sanders:Yeah.

55:32Tommy Vietor:We'll be doing, we'll have a pod out about it after. And we're going to be on Jimmy Kimmel. We're going to be on Jimmy Kimmel.

55:37Symone Sanders:That's three of us and Dan. It's going to be late. It's going to be late. Yeah, so anyway. When we come back, you'll hear Lovett's interview with Simone Sanders Townsend and Eugene Daniels about State of the Union and much more.

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57:08Tommy Vietor:Joining me today is MS Now's Simone Sanders Townsend and Eugene Daniels, who are the hosts of the brand new podcast, Clock It. Simone, Eugene, welcome back to the pod. Greetings. Thanks for having us. So, hi to you both. What are we clocking today?

57:24Jon Lovett:Well, there's a long list. You want to talk about the BAFTAs and the N-word? You want to talk about the disrespect? Tony Gonzalez. Can I? Okay. Or do you just want to go with the State of the Union? I mean, we can go.

57:35Tommy Vietor:I let's not forget to touch on the BAFTAs before we leave, because I actually you brought it up and I am interested in the topic of the BAFTAs. I saw a Stead Herndon, a journalist, was saying it feels like a test on some kind of woke exam. So, all right, but we got it. Let's focus on the news. State of the Union is tonight for our dear listeners. Trump says the speech will be very long. Are you excited about that? And what are you both going to be watching for? Simone, why don't you kick it off?

58:07Jon Lovett:Well, I guess I'm excited about the length because Eugene and I will be watching the State of the Union on YouTube, on MS.Now's YouTube channel, along with everybody else who wants to tune in with us. So if it's long, the longer we'll sit there and watch and have our commentary. What I am watching for is actually how many times the president veers off script, okay? because obviously he is known to not stick to the teleprompter. His last address to Congress went, I think it was over about an hour and 39 minutes. That was the longest ever. Maybe he's trying to beat his own record. You know, he loves a fake trophy child.

58:42Jon Lovett:So I'll be watching for how long he goes. And then the lies he tells about the economy. I don't have to caveat it. They're going to be lies. He's going to say everything is great. Meanwhile, it's like Hunger Games in the grocery store. I want to know how far he's going to go tonight.

58:56Tommy Vietor:Eugene, what about you?

58:58Jon Lovett:All of those things. But also, I think the Supreme Court just struck down his tariffs and they're going to be standing sitting right in front of him. Everybody, but probably Alito, who stopped going years ago. So how does he engage with them? Right. He last time he shook their hands and thanked Justice Roberts, which was very awkward for everybody, how he's going to talk about the economy. Like Simone says about the lies. But in his last joint address to Congress, what he said was basically telling people, like, give us some time. It's going to be painful. So, like, is that the message you want going into midterms?

59:33Jon Lovett:Is that what they're going to go with? Because that's what they've been going with so far. But I think how he interacts and talks about the tariffs, because it is the center point of how he thinks about the economy and his economic agenda. And so how he engages with them is really interesting to me.

59:49Tommy Vietor:Yeah, it's worth worth noting that the reason Alito stopped going is because of a very mild comment about Citizens United by President Barack Obama. Did you write that? I don't think I did.

1:00:00Jon Lovett:Are you the reason Alito no longer attends the State of the Union?

1:00:03Tommy Vietor:Man, but it's like Alito, if you keep talking like this, I, Samuel Alito, will stop coming to your events. It's like you're threatening us with a good time here. But it is I am interested in what Trump is going to say directly to them. He's already in the past week said he's he's said more vicious things about the Supreme Court than any president in living memory. Now on to there's another group of people that will be there. They're called Democrats. They plan to respond in a lot of different ways. Some are attending in what Hakeem Jeffries calls silent defiance. Democrats have also invited victims of Jeffrey Epstein to the State of the Union as guests.

1:00:42Tommy Vietor:Other Democrats will be boycotting and attending competing events. If I were a member of Congress and I could skip because I'm a patriot, I probably would. But what do you think?

1:00:52Jon Lovett:Look, I have a piece up on MS.NOW right now about this very thing. I understand leadership's position. I want to note that. The leadership of the Democratic caucus, particularly in the House, Hakeem Jeffries has said, we're not going to Trump's house. Trump is coming to our house and you don't let somebody run you off your block, which is like, okay, I'm feeling the Brooklynness of it all. I get it. I get it. You know, I'm not mad about that. And I don't think that leadership should be encouraging, like, you know, people to rush the podium. Right. That's not leadership's position. But I don't think that the leadership of the Democratic caucus writ large, not just Jeffrey's, like the entirety of the leadership and even the former leadership.

1:01:29Jon Lovett:OK, clock that should tamp down the ability for this for protest or disruption or understanding the moment. I know that when Congressman Al Green stood up in the middle of Trump's last address to Congress, he was not it was not taken well, frankly, by Democrats in Washington. He was censured. There were members of his own Democratic caucus that voted to censure him. But you know who understood the moment and who appreciated what happened? the people outside of Washington, D.C., outside of the Beltway, that moment broke through. And that moment preceded many more inflection points of civil disobedience and people coming together in groups and protesting.

1:02:11Jon Lovett:And so I think, you know, never let a good crisis go to waste. Don't tamp down a good disruption is what I think should be happening. And if I was a member of Congress, I would not be attending. I would be on one of the live streams. I would be coming to watch it with Eugene and I on YouTube.

1:02:25Tommy Vietor:Oh, yeah. Members of Congress for live stream, they'll skip the State of the Union to do the live stream. I support that. I support that. Yeah, Eugene, I think part of the challenge here is it's always hard to figure out how to compete with the State of the Union. It's a classic dilemma long before Trump. You have the national stage. You have the podium. You have the pomp and circumstance. The responses are often they often feel flat in comparison. protests can they can get attention my problem if i remember when when al green stood up it wasn't totally clear what he was protesting about i think we had to find that out then we have to find that out later so there's like there are challenges uh in trying to kind of take the microphone from trump but but what do you make of the decision to to bring uh people connected to affected by jeffrey epstein to the state of the union i think that's a great move right like i think it is

1:03:19Jon Lovett:something substantive that they have Democrats have been fighting for making sure that there is a real release of the Epstein file something that Republicans used to be leading on they don't anymore shocker but it is it is also like part of when you're talking about that the the pompous circumstance of the State of the Union and what do you do to counter that this is one of those things right because we're going to be we as journalists are going to be trying to interview those women before. We're definitely going to interview them after. Now the White House and the administration have to figure out, Donald Trump have to figure out, how do we, or if at all, engage with these women?

1:03:58Jon Lovett:Do we talk about Epstein? Do we say anything about the women in there? He's probably not, you guys, just to be very clear. He's going to say he's been exonerated. Correct. He's up and through them files all over the place. He's probably not going to say anything, but it helps to create a dilemma. And I think when you are on the outside looking in, as Democrats hats are when it comes to power in D.C., trying to force people to make a move and getting them off the game is very interesting. Like, you know, Donald Trump watches a lot of TV, so it's very possible he has seen, you know, Jess Michaels, for example, before.

1:04:29Jon Lovett:So locking guys with her, what does that do? It could create something. And if it doesn't, there's a substantive aspect of this where the DOJ has been holding back files. They redacted more than members of Congress are comfortable with. And so it gives them a lot to talk about. I will add just to folks not going, I was talking with someone this weekend and they said that what they should do is be there and be silent. I don't know if that's helpful, but all the Democrats be there and be silent and then talk about it after. Because you could appear looking disjointed doing all these different things.

1:05:06Jon Lovett:And this is one of the things the Hakeem Drafts was so worried about, because now you have this, you know, this, I think it was like the We the People State of the Union rally that's happening with Chris Van Hollen and et al. And then you have the people that are going to go there, the people that are just going to skip completely. So it's kind of all over the place. So it could appear to the American people as disjointed when they want a Democratic Party that feels more unified. Can I just say one other point about that? Because in talking to some folks in leadership, people out of leadership and some strategists, one of the things that they have all said is that, look, we are on offense here.

1:05:38Jon Lovett:Republicans are on defense. And so we don't want to do anything that will potentially knock us off our own game. And and we want they said Donald Trump is going to lie. And we want people to hear the lies, not talk about something else that could be a distraction. And and I just think that that like the American people are smart. We can Donald Trump lies every day sitting in the chamber silently while he lies about the economy and then hoping to get a cable news hit afterwards or going live on your Instagram. I just I don't think that that that meets the moment. Now, I don't think I think that some people going and some people not.

1:06:11Jon Lovett:It will seem to spare it. I will also know there's a weather issue here in the northeastern part of the United States, the DMV area. So some people might just not be there because the flight won't make it, child.

1:06:21Tommy Vietor:And has anyone let the District of Columbia know about the technology of snow plows? Or is that something that is still are still. No, we're still trying to figure that one out. We're waiting until we're a state to be able to do that.

1:06:33Jon Lovett:Has seen the remnants of the last situation. And, you know, my street was quite clear today. So kudos.

1:06:39Tommy Vietor:Axios reported today that this hidden autopsy report that the DNC has done, that one of the lessons, one of the findings is that Gaza and the administration's position on Israel and Gaza cost Kamala Harris votes in 2024. What did you make of that news? And why is this better?

1:07:08Jon Lovett:Welcome, welcome, welcome. Did they need a freaking autopsy? Welcome.

1:07:12Tommy Vietor:Is it better to get the information? Why don't they just release the fucking report? It's silly.

1:07:17Jon Lovett:This part is very silly. Do y 'all want the tea? Yeah, sure. Yes, they do. The tea is the report is not being released allegedly, according to people familiar that I have talked to. And I want to caveat with this. I have not seen the report myself, but I have heard all about it. It's not being released because they believe that it will be a distraction. And it's a distraction that is not wanted by folks on the house side, the Senate side, Democrats writ large across the country in terms of like the, the alphabet committees, as I like to say, the D triple C, the DNC, the DSCC. They don't want that out before the midterms.

1:07:49Jon Lovett:I think that we will see the autopsy, but we'll see the autopsy in like December of 2026. But I, because I think more eyes have started to get on it. That's how some of these things are are leaking out. One could argue you should have just ripped a bandaid off this summer. And we were last summer, like last fall, frankly, and we wouldn't even be talking about it later. But that's how the ball bounces. I don't necessarily agree, but I'm just telling you that's the tea.

1:08:16Tommy Vietor:It's still February of 2026, still eight months until the midterm elections. I just find it hard to believe that what's inside of this document is so controversial that it'll be felt in an election eight months from now. Especially when we're getting the outcome of it. We're getting the information.

1:08:33Jon Lovett:I mean, the same reason why Democrats are like, Hakeem Jeffries is like, either stay home or go and sit silently is the same reason why they're not releasing this autopsy. Democrats feel like they're on offense and they do not want unforced errors. And they feel like releasing this will be an unforced error. I think not releasing it is an unforced error. And I think we probably all agree because you have, one, they promised to release it. So that's what's most important is that when you were running, right? Ken Martin, who's now the chair of the DNC, said he was going to release it. Of course he would release it.

1:09:02Jon Lovett:Then they made a different decision. So that just reiterates to voters within the Democratic Party that people who are elected, whether they are actually in office or whether that one of these alphabet committees, they don't follow through with what they say they're going to do when they actually get the job. So that is one concern. two is that we are going to find out what's in here right like holly otter by the axios is not the only reporter sniffing around we all are and so she found this one someone else will find another thing we'll find out you know race we'll find out gender we'll find out you know what was the ground game what was the digital game like all of it is going to come out and so the ripping off the band-aid should have happened because at this point it's just going to be like drip drip drip drip and then in October maybe something huge happens and now you're really embarrassed before voters go and vote in November and so I think at the end of the day the the party may have made a misstep here and there are a lot of people especially the younger folks that work within the party apparatus who are frustrated with this that I've talked to who are like we should have just released it we would have forgotten about it of course all the things that Donald Trump are is doing every day like if we release it and then we would have bombed Iran and then everybody would have moved on, right?

1:10:15Jon Lovett:Like, it's like, that is how you have to think nowadays. And I don't know why. I know they want to be on offense, but, you know, I played college sports. I know that's confusing for people, but I played college football. You have to play offense and defense. You have to do both to win the game. Did you have a heated rivalry? I wish. I really wish. I really wish. That's like my only regret. Because there were a couple moments where I feel like I could have, but I was too scared. Yeah. My biggest regret.

1:10:44Tommy Vietor:Yeah, on the autopsy, it's like, first of all, I want to know what we got for buying that sphere. And then the other part of it is, what did we get for the sphere? It's a waste of money.

1:10:54Jon Lovett:I'm sorry, but you can't have, as people would say during that time, more money than God, because that's what people in the campaign would say they had. And you're advertising on the sphere, but organizers in Phoenix and Nevada, specifically Las Vegas, can't get money to do their GOTV outreach efforts. There's a disconnect. And I just think I agree with y 'all ripped a bandaid off. I mean, to be very clear, the voters in the streets that are going to decide who the next Democratic nominee is, they actually don't necessarily care much about the autopsy. I think we care about the autopsy, understandably so, for various reasons.

1:11:29Jon Lovett:And and we're not going to stop caring about the autopsy. So release the tapes.

1:11:34Tommy Vietor:Yeah. I would say, like, you know, release the Martin files. But the the sorry, I don't know if that's now.

1:11:41Jon Lovett:Can I just say, I have heard that it is not Ken Martin himself that is independently saying, I'm not releasing it. There are lots of people that don't want to release. But Ken Martin, I mean, he's the DNC chair, so he's the face of it.

1:11:53Tommy Vietor:I understand why what I just said is terribly unfair in a variety of ways. But the other, it's also like it is being released. We're going to get the information. Just you're not releasing it on your terms. You're putting it in the hands of feckless reporters. sort of, you know, people like Eugene. People like Eugene trying to get their hands on it. Who only want this. Dirty, grimy little hands. They don't give a fuck what happens. They want the scoop. Correct.

1:12:17Jon Lovett:Yeah, release the information to the people. This just feels so, so nasty. It is. Like, what is this? Nasty it is. It's very sinister. It's me getting the tapes. I love how we made them tapes. They are. It is probably a word document. They're papers. They are papers, yes. It's a PDF. Yeah.

1:12:34Tommy Vietor:So Gavin Newsom, I want to cover him.

1:12:38Jon Lovett:Eugene has thoughts. I do have thoughts.

1:12:41Tommy Vietor:He had these comments over the weekend about his son not wanting him to run for president, but obviously he's running. He's sort of the front runner to be the front runner right now. He's been trying to kind of, I think people have been impressed by his kind of ability to kind of break through and get attention and going after Trump. Eugene, what do you think?

1:13:01Jon Lovett:No, I think that's right. I think people are like, especially the online people. And this is where the you have to live in like Twitter is not real life. But like the folks online who are watching him, they're they're excited about seeing someone fight back. Right. That's what Democratic voters want. They want someone who's caught fighting. And that's something he's done. He's done it in court. He's done it on TV. He's done it in this book. He's on this tour now. But I also think that when you're a politician, you got to be careful about how you're talking about things. He was up there in Atlanta talking to the mayor, and he's doing his interview about his book.

1:13:36Jon Lovett:And he's trying to explain that he's just like one of the folks. But what he's saying, what he ends up saying, yeah, I'm just like you. I get what he's saying. And I think a lot of people understand what he's saying. But you're trying to run for president, like being like, I have a 960 SAT. I can't read. Just like you. and it's like, wait a damn second, sir. We can read, right? So it's like, it's about being careful. It's important to note that he said it before. He said it in the interview he did with Charlie Kirk on his podcast. But in that room that he was in with Andre Dickens, the mayor of Atlanta, okay?

1:14:12Jon Lovett:In that black room he was in, it didn't land well, okay? Even the mayor, if you just watched the clip, the mayor didn't laugh at first. He was kind of like, ah, ah, ah. Like, it didn't land well. And I just think it's those kind of things that we're going to see a lot more of from a lot of different people because this is going to be 2020 on steroids. Everybody and their mama wants to be the Democratic nominee.

1:14:32Tommy Vietor:There's a there's sort of like and the response has been blown up by kind of right wing Republicans and right wing accounts. And I don't know how to there needs to be some sort of a name for it, which is Republicans doing the kind of doing their impression, their kind of trolly impression of circa 2020 Democrats to try to kind of like troll Democrats because they're the ones that really care about racism. and then and then I saw I also saw Tim Scott post it in this sort of like sort of uh like how dare you kind of a way when like he just had two weeks ago to say the the the monkey video was the most

1:15:14Jon Lovett:racist thing he's seen out of the White House which means he's seen other racist things out of the White House so I don't know the first racist this is the only racist this is the most racist thing yet okay so let's be very clear let's serve like this is not this does not touch what you've seen come out of the White House. But they're going after him because they do see, I mean, just think about it. I just want to, I mean, you work for Obama. Do I even need to tell you this? Like, at this time prior to the 2008 election, people didn't think it was Barack Obama. They thought it was Secretary Clinton.

1:15:44Jon Lovett:They were like, she's the front runner, da-da-da-da-da. There were other people that maybe also wanted to be president. Joe Biden was about to be on his second run for president yet again. Like, maybe that was his third, I can't recall. So he, there were lots of people, But no one would have said at this point in time prior to the 2008 election that Barack Obama was definitely going to be the Democratic nominee, that he was the frontrunner. And so they're attacking who they, quote unquote, think is the frontrunner. But I will just tell people the things that are going to make the difference or who actually shakes out to the top in this Democratic primary when it finally gets underway.

1:16:16Jon Lovett:And to be clear, we're in the early, early, as Lovett said, we're in the early days. But post midterms, baby, we are kicking off. It's going to be the map. What is the map? how does the map shake out for the primary because the map is going to tell a lot okay the map can take some people out or it can bore you some people till the end and it's going to be the the reliable black voters choose the democratic nominee in this party but you know what black voters do not make their do not make their decision in a vacuum they want to know what some of the white voters are going to do they want to know what some of the latino voters are going to do they might say damn these white voters these latino voters this is what the black voters want the map though helps color that the primaries help color that how people stand up in the bright lights how they fail on the debate stage um let's be clear vice president Kamala Harris then Senator Harris she did very well on the Senate um confirmations in the judiciary hearings when she got on the debate stage you know it was a little bit of a different story in that 2020 primary so the things that we see out here in the wild don't always translate when the primary gets underway.

1:17:20Jon Lovett:So watch this space, as Rachel Maddow was saying.

1:17:23Tommy Vietor:What do you think of Biden? There's a story in Axios that South Carolina is enlisting Joe Biden to try to keep South Carolina early in the process. I'm not sure what that even means. I understand why.

1:17:36Jon Lovett:Yes, because I understand why they would ask him because, you know, he has no current dog in the fight. He just he loves South Carolina. South Carolina kept him afloat. I mean, the map mattered for him. So I understand why. I believe and know for sure he's not the only person that they have enlisted. I don't think South Carolina is losing its place in the top first five contests, I would say. But I highly doubt that they'll end up being first. I will say this. I think the idea, Joe Biden is a good choice to help push South Carolina across the finish line. I get having that idea. Y 'all some haters.

1:18:13Jon Lovett:No, I just think The current setup of the Democratic Party is like, that's not going to be the push to keep South Carolina. I think that obviously, and I imagine, Mr. Clyburn is one of those folks that is at the top of that list, who actually does have some still pull and lots of respect within the Democratic Party and the Democratic Party apparatus, most importantly, to get that done. I think that people are still raw about, to say the least, about Simone's former boss. which one well the first one the old white man which one the second old white man to be clear and so I think the folks want they desperately want that pull to still be there that Joe Biden had I think he doesn't have there's still a lot of respect within the party but I think like give it a give it some time I will just say this as a former DNC member I think the respect within the actual party apparatus is what matters.

1:19:15Jon Lovett:It is the people within the party apparatus that are going to make the decision about the map. Given the recent events of the death of Reverend Jesse Jackson, the changes that Reverend Jackson pushed for to make sure that black people had viable chances, frankly, within the party to even become the nominee. Those kind of changes, the proportional representation, the map, those came out of 1988 Jesse Jackson, child. So if you think black people are about to let their cachet slip away within the Democratic Party apparatus, you got another thing coming. DEI might be out, but out everywhere else. At Target.

1:19:52Jon Lovett:DEI might be out at Target, child. But what black and Latino and women and AAPI Pacific Islander and everybody that's not a straight white man want and need, that is very much so in inside the Democratic Party apparatus.

1:20:05Tommy Vietor:Sometimes I do think, though, that like I agree how early things come have been important. But I remember from 2008 that once we got into the primary, it was less about the sequence and more about the kind of the makeup of the state's electorate. Like there was the momentum was less important than the fundamental qualities of what was happening in the state because we were bouncing back and forth. You know, Hillary was winning in the places she was expected to win. And that was happening deep into the process.

1:20:31Jon Lovett:To be clear, had Barack Obama not done well in Iowa, we would not be having a conversation. So the demographics of the state did, in fact, matter. No, no. Sequencing of the state's mad.

1:20:41Tommy Vietor:I think both really are important. But then with Joe Biden, right, he he you know, people are telling him to drop out, but he's saying wait for South Carolina. And he was right about that. So it was, you know, I think it's like it's a absolute, absolutely, absolutely. And I was going to I was going to say doesn't have a dog in the fight because the Kristi Noem killed that dog. But so.

1:21:00Jon Lovett:Oh, doesn't even make sense.

1:21:03Tommy Vietor:I want to I want to land on the back. I do want to ask about what's happening in Texas. Just last last sort of serious question, which is. We have this battle between Jasmine Crockett and James Tallarico. You know, it seems to be about what it means to be electable in 2026 in Texas. And I'm curious what you make of the back and forth between the campaigns.

1:21:27Jon Lovett:The fight is less ideological in the Democratic Party now. And it is about do you fight and how you fight? And I think like those two people show you kind of the different ways in which folks are going to be doing that throughout the year. Right. As we head through the primary season. I think that the when certain people say electability, it is a dog whistle and it's very clear what they mean. Right. Like we know we all know what that actually means. We know what it meant when people said that about Barack Obama. We know what it means when they said it about Kamala Harris. We know what it means when they said it about Jasmine Crockett.

1:22:06Jon Lovett:But in Texas, and it's very unclear how this is going to shake out, but if you look at both of them were in Lubbock, Texas, I think, over the weekend. And if you look at their crowds, the crowds are vastly different in the same city. And you have her crowd, which is super diverse, younger people, older people, lots of black and brown people. His not so much. Now, Texas is a very diverse state. I don't know if that bodes well for him. Who knows? We'll see. But I do not think the Stephen Colbert of it all is going to change a lot of voters' minds. I don't think that there are a lot of Texas voters who are like, oh, he didn't get to do his interview, didn't get to air on Stephen Colbert.

1:22:49Jon Lovett:So then I got to vote for him. Like, I don't think that's how voters are thinking. And as a as a person who graduated high school in Texas, I don't think I have a Texas tattoo. It's very crazy. It's really insane. It is. We don't want to ask a follow up question about. No, don't do that.

1:23:04Tommy Vietor:Everything's bigger in Texas, they say. It's true.

1:23:08Jon Lovett:I do not want to address that comment. What I will say, what I will say is this. I think that at the end of the, I agree with what Eugene said about electability. Like basically, are they electable in Texas? We're asking, will white people vote for Jasmine Crockett, right? Right. Will, will, will, will black voters vote for James Salarico? But the question is, will black, will white people vote for Jasmine Crockett? Will Latinos vote for Jasmine Crockett? Given some of the things that she has, in a general election, giving some of the things she has said about Latino, Hispanic voters, literally in print and on national television.

1:23:38Jon Lovett:It's insane. That being said, the way you win a primary is still a ground game. Early vote in Texas is happening right now. If you talk to folks within the Texas Democratic Party, they will tell you they are encouraged by the numbers that they're seeing. Early vote is, by Democrats, it's outpacing Republicans. There is energy in this race. We don't know who those voters are, though. And I think that the people that don't like the electability conversation, that feel like it's a, they're trying to hang an elbow, they're trying to put a, I don't want to use that term, but they're trying to weigh Jasmine Crockett down and trying to take her out of the race with the electability conversation, maybe who might not have really felt strongly about her initially, but like feel strongly about the fact that they're trying to take her out.

1:24:21Jon Lovett:So like, now we're going to vote for her. Maybe there are enough of those voters, but I just think the kind of campaign that has been run, she didn't run a traditional campaign. So if she is able to eke out in this Democratic primary, It won't be because she ran a stellar campaign. I want to be really clear. It'll be because I believe that she had great name ID. She had a good message and she was the kind of fighter that Democrats in Texas want to go into their general election. Not because the ground game was just so great. And that's that's OK to say because it's the truth.

1:24:52Tommy Vietor:And it's also I think we're saying that that Tal Rico has not been, I think, attacking Jasmine Crockett on the stump that he has been saying. he's been sort of I think above board right you agree with that?

1:25:04Jon Lovett:I think he's been overly above board

1:25:06Tommy Vietor:yes agree

1:25:07Jon Lovett:the former operative in me is like I'm not saying you gotta attack her and I wouldn't have advised that of him but I mean he has been practically out there saying and to be clear if she wins I'm gonna support her even at his fundraisers he's like and I think you all should too I'm gonna campaign fire just shut up you wanna win or not just shut up and when they ask you on a debate stage about the racism then you defend her. But Jesus Christ, win the race. But, you know, I think this overly nice, these niceties, the Democrats are still scarred from like their, you know, Democrats don't actually like infighting unless it's a presidential primary situation.

1:25:42Jon Lovett:But Democratic voters, they really don't like that. Like they really just, they don't want people attacking people. They just want to talk about the issues until they don't. So, I think Toleroy has done the right situation.

1:25:52Tommy Vietor:But that's to get at the moderates you would need, the kind of less partisans that you would need that the argument would be, Crockett will have a tougher time with, right? Like that, That would be why he's sort of running it in this sort of positive way.

1:26:02Jon Lovett:I think that, but I also think it's what he believes, to be very clear. And I think it's what he thinks will work for him. I think if you, I've asked Jasmine Crocker, we had her on our show like two weeks ago, and I asked her straight up, like, you know, do you think white people will vote for you, essentially? And Michael Steele asked as well. And she said that she has Republicans in her phone right now who have told her that if she wins, they will support her. So this idea that she can't win, Republicans won't vote for her isn't right, which was also a tone shift for Jasmine Crockett, who started her election talking about, we don't need the Reds.

1:26:34Jon Lovett:We just need all the blues. And I think, as my colleague Michael Steele would say, the former RNC chairman, which is crazy because now Democrats are like, we need Michael to run the party. I'm like, Michael is the reason we are here. Y 'all just, this man has been branded well. Pay attention. Y 'all need to clock that, okay? Y 'all need to read that bio. He said, you know what campaigns reveal? that they reveal candidates go on a journey in a campaign. And what he said when he heard those comments from Congressman McCrockett, he said she has obviously been on a journey in this campaign and has arrived to the place where she needs to be to try to win.

1:27:08Tommy Vietor:Well, we have to leave. I promise people the BAFTAs, but I don't... We're going to talk about the BAFTAs on our... You're talking on your show.

1:27:18Jon Lovett:It's insane. We're talking about it on ours. It's insane. I want to redo a Black History Month is what I damn want. Too much. it's too much every Black History Month they trying us Eugene every Black History Month and it's just 28 damn days can we just get 28 days he did not go to the mat to get Negro History Week it turned into Black History Month for us to talk about this disrespect and racism during Black History Month not today it's too bad

1:27:42Tommy Vietor:Eugene Daniels Simone Sanders Townsend what a joy new podcast Clock It they were doing a live stream during the State of the Union you know join us join them

1:27:59Symone Sanders:That's our show for today. Thanks to Simone and Eugene for coming on. We'll be back in your feed tomorrow morning with a bonus episode reacting to the State of the Union. Everybody hang in there. 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.

1:28:52Symone Sanders:Cheryl Pellaviv, David Toles, and Ryan Young. Our production staff is proudly unionized with the Writers Guild of America East.