1126: The State of the Union Is Long

11:35Jon Lovett:paid for in part with legal taxes, the tariffs that the Supreme Court have now invalidated, that are also helping pay for, I don't know, at least, I don't know if it's illegal, but at least a lawless paramilitary force that is rampaging through the streets, has killed two Americans, didn't hear anything about that, and has like locked up hundreds of people in basically internment camps. Like this is, and meanwhile, the president's like getting rich the whole time and tried to arrest several of the people sitting in that chamber. Right. Just for, you know, and it is a weird thing to cover this, to talk about this, to analyze this just as a speech.

12:12Tommy Vietor:Yeah, it pulls you towards a normalcy that should be very uncomfortable in this moment. Like we were watching on CNN and they're doing this. They were covering the exact same way they covered Obama's speeches, Biden's speeches, George W. Bush's speeches. It was like, who's high five the president? Who's getting a selfie with the president? Look at this person who's in a tough election talking to the president. And it's just like I understand. Like, I don't know what else. we're doing a little bit right now.

12:35Jon Lovett:I mean, this is goes back to the, this is why I thought about with the hockey team too, because it's like, you're just, you make a decision in the moment you go and like, we cover it and we do it and people talk about it on the panel and it's like, we're all just living through this. that we're living in. By the same token,

12:47Abigail Spanberger:the conservatives were critical of Americans who were abroad in the part of the Olympics saying that they felt shame or embarrassment while being proud to be American. And of course, why are the Republicans saying that? They're saying that because they want everyone to treat this like normal. Of course. Because they don't want to feel the shame and guilt that on their hearts they know they should feel for being part of this, right? Like this is the, watching this all unfold, I think part of what you're getting at is Republicans right now are like uniquely unsuited to like speak to the actual harm that he's doing, the actual pain that people are feeling, A, because Donald Trump simply cannot admit fault, and B, you feel a bunch of people that are all in a bubble of information, right?

13:23Abigail Spanberger:Trump is in a bubble. These Republicans are in a bubble. They're all applauding each other, celebrating each other. These are people that have inoculated themselves against reality, in part because it is necessary in order to support someone like Donald Trump.

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17:32Jon Lovett:So, you know, the most important political task that if you want to call it a political that was to tell the American people that he does know the economy isn't improving quickly enough to lay out exactly how he plans to bring down costs. Here's what that sounded like.

17:46Dan Pfeiffer:The roaring economy is roaring like never before. Now, the same people in this chamber who voted for those disasters suddenly use the word affordability. a word. They just used it. Somebody gave it to them. They knew their statements were a lie. They knew it. They knew their statements were a dirty, rotten lie. Their policies created the high prices. Our policies are rapidly ending them. We are doing really well. Those prices are plummeting downward. We want homes for people, not for corporations. Corporations are doing just fine. And Ray Sal, thank you very much. Good luck with your home. You'll get one soon.

18:28Jon Lovett:Good luck with your home. You'll get one soon. So I noted that he talked about economic accomplishments, made up a bunch of statistics, lies about the economy, all that kind of stuff. The first time he mentioned any kind of economic policy proposal, any action he was going to take or policy he wanted turned into a law was at 9.50 p.m. What do you think? Did he move the needle there on the econ stuff, Dan?

18:54Tommy Vietor:No, I mean, he moved it backwards, right? I hate to harp on it, but this is the perspective I look at is that he's a president with a party controlling both houses of Congress in a midterm where the economy is the number one issue. And he did the exact opposite thing anyone on the ballot would want. You just cannot – like we saw this when we worked for Obama. If you go up there and you tell people the economy is great when they know it's not, you are sticking a thumb in their eye. It is why his approval rating sucks right now.

19:24Abigail Spanberger:Yeah, I will say like he does then, the speech is just a matter of craftsmanship, just terrible. Meanders incredibly long for its own sake. It takes a minute 50 to get to these proposals. But if you do like, I do think like, I imagine when you look at the dials, you will see that the populist economic policies is actually put forward, not letting corporations buy houses so that people can buy them, the Trump accounts, like no tax on tips, no tax on overtime. Those are all things that I think a more disciplined administration, administration that really did try to do the actual economic populism that we were afraid Trump would do from the beginning, that didn't do the big, beautiful bill that cut taxes for the wealthy and sort of gave everybody else mostly nothing.

20:08Abigail Spanberger:That is the worrying version of Trump to me. But I just think the fact that he can't get there till minute 50 and will not now spend the next two weeks hammering it will go do various events in which he talks about the random things on his mind while posting true socials about Adam Schiff is why it ultimately doesn't matter. I think in this case, they made the same classic mistake that bad political operatives make with pulling information on time was they tested these.

20:32Tommy Vietor:They tested these numbers, these policies, these policies all tested to the roof. I guarantee it. Democrats, Republicans.

20:36Jon Lovett:People want something to do on and we should just go through something on housing that you mentioned. And people want him to do something on prescription drugs. So he's made up a bunch of shit that he's done on prescription drugs that isn't really true and that he isn't going to do. He also talked about he got agreements from AI companies to maybe defray some of the costs of the data centers. Like pay for their own power. To pay for the electricity. Like, yeah. Good luck. Good luck waiting for your electricity bill to go down on that one. But so, yeah, I'm sure those are the things that I'll pull.

21:04Tommy Vietor:But this is that you policies don't happen in a vacuum. Policies are connected to the person who proposes the policies. And the person who proposes the policy tells you that this is the greatest economy in history. And all your prices have come down. When you know none of those things are true, you're not going to believe he's going to do those things.

21:19Jon Lovett:Yeah. Tommy, our friends at Politico, you know what the big headline is? No. The blaring headline across the top of the page. Don't trigger me right now. It's late. It's Trump sticks to the script. Republicans needed the president to sell their message to kick off the midterms. They're breathing a sigh of relief. Get the fuck out of here. That can't be real. That cannot be real. And then the headline underneath it, Trump allies relieved he's sticking to the script, but do see warning signs. One Republican strategist that got on background said, I wish we had more detailed steps to take. Yes, because there are no steps to take.

21:51Tommy Vietor:Also, sticking to a shitty script is not something you proud of. That is what it is.

21:55Jon Lovett:He stuck to the script, guys. Who are the authors of that piece? You know what? No one put their name on it. Well, the political lie of no one put their name on, but the actual piece, it's a Dasher Burns. It's a Dasher Burns joint.

22:07Abigail Spanberger:I just think we're at the point where it's a good night for Republicans when the president doesn't call for the public execution of members of the Supreme Court who are in his presence. Like, that's where the bar is.

22:17Jon Favreau:Honestly, I had the same reaction watching. I was like, oh, he was surprisingly disciplined in that he didn't, like, try to kill Amy Coney Barrett or whatever. Didn't throw his feces at John Roberts. If you walk up there and you read the script to, like, Battlefield Earth or something, I don't think it's a win.

22:29Abigail Spanberger:It's also a script where he says the only way Democrats can win elections is if they cheat. Where he points it, by the way, off script, he points it like, these people are crazy. They ruin the country. They're destroying the country.

22:39Jon Lovett:Yeah, we'll get to that. So on the econ stuff, he's suddenly on board with the stock trading ban and called out Nancy Pelosi. And what I thought, I assume they all thought was a really clever move. We do remember when Donald Trump was against the stock trading ban, when when Josh Hawley was on board with it and was going to vote with the Democrats. And then Trump posted that that Hawley was just being a pawn for the Democrats and he was being used by them and he came out against it. but now he's - Is that on the stock trading ban? Yeah, he always.

23:09Abigail Spanberger:Wow. And you know what? Trump was smart. He got Holley to not do it. Then Trump becomes the most corrupt president history, makes more money than they could ever imagine. Now he's gonna fuck all these Congress people over who are trying to get their beaks wet and he'll get the credit. Great move by him actually.

23:21Jon Favreau:They should ban stock trading. They should ban buying and selling crypto or owning crypto companies. They should ban Kalshi as a service or like betting on Kalshi if you work in the US government in any capacity. Like, great, do it. like we've been talking about this for decades now also trump has control of the house and the

23:38Jon Lovett:senate right do what are we waiting for yeah it's not nancy pelosi's fault i'm sure all these yeah i'm sure all these like testable but like nothing's going to happen and then what's going to happen when uh the midterms roll around and none of the stuff that trump talked about tonight actually uh goes into law or actually happens or makes anyone lives and make anyone's lives better um on the tariffs because you know he did he mentioned that he said it was a disappointing decision i said disappointing a couple times you could tell he was you tell he was close to maybe losing it, but he did. He held it together.

24:06Jon Lovett:It is interesting, I think, on the tariffs that he just, you know, he's going full steam on a tax increase. It's insane. It's insane. And in the midterm, as we always know, when you're running in a midterm year and people are upset about the economy and they think the costs are too high, you run on a large tax increase.

24:21Abigail Spanberger:Yeah, I think the fact that they landed on the word unfortunate, which he like hammers, it's unfortunate, it is unfortunate, it's unfortunate. I feel like that was a victory inside of a room where people were trying to get him to be as mild as possible. I wonder part of this too is he's also convinced himself in the interim that they actually couldn't stop him and he's using tariffs like he did before and it's not like he feels like he was able to put the tariffs back on. Anyway, again, like Republicans being willing to cheer this stuff, although they cheered tariffs less when he's just saying how we're going to make these other countries pay when I think people feel like it is affecting, making people, it's incredibly unpopular because people know the costs are going to them.

24:59Abigail Spanberger:We now have evidence from these tariffs that's 96 % of the costs go to Americans. That is all information people have. So yeah, he's not, he's going down with the tariffship for sure.

25:08Jon Lovett:I also think there's, he had a choice to make because he was initially acting like the Supreme Court decision is going to destroy the country and the world and it was the worst thing that ever happened, but that also he still has all the authority to do all the exact same tariffs and they're going to be even better than before. Yeah, now they're in stronger legal funding. So look, you can't really do both of those things. That's what I mean, he's chosen that. He decided to pick the strength over the weakness, right? because he realized it was fun to bitch about the Supreme Court, but that's not where he wanted to land.

25:34Abigail Spanberger:I did enjoy the side-by-side shot with Amy Coney Barrett, kind of looking at that sort of frozen face, and Trump continuing to go on about how much stronger his legal authority will be.

25:42Jon Lovett:Yeah, I'm sure she practiced that. Trump did spend a lot of tonight talking about immigration, which he still thinks is a winning issue for him. There was a lot of secure border talk, a lot of detailed, gruesome accounts of Americans who've been killed by immigrants, and then it got even darker.

25:56Dan Pfeiffer:We'll balance our budget. The Somali pirates who ransacked Minnesota remind us that there are large parts of the world where bribery, corruption, and lawlessness are the norm, not the exception. Importing these cultures through unrestricted immigration and open borders brings those problems right here to the USA. and it is the American people who pay the price and higher medical bills, car insurance rates, rent, taxes, and perhaps most importantly, crime. We will take care of this problem. We're going to take care of this problem. We are not playing games.

26:33Jon Lovett:So, Tommy, it's obviously gross and dishonest, but do you think that even works for him?

26:37Jon Favreau:Yeah, I mean, like, it has become standard issue that there is always a section where he, like, narrates a series of grisly crimes and then they cut to some poor person whose life was just decimated by these actions. And I guess I have TDS, but it's grotesque to me. I also found the unbelievably racist attacks in the Somali community to be grotesque and dehumanizing. And just like you were saying, not meeting the moment of the things people are worried about. He starts the immigration section by saying not a single undocumented person has gotten into the country. So why are you still focused on it?

27:12Jon Favreau:We're all mad about the economy, not this.

27:14Abigail Spanberger:yeah also um pirates operate on on the water well a little throwback you know right but sort of can't be not really a pirate i think he saw the movie i i do think dan that he um the way they

27:30Jon Lovett:constructed this speech was they knew that um to the extent that anyone outside of trump fans and trump supporters were watching the speech they're watching the beginning they're watching like the first 30 minutes, maybe the first hour. And so the first 30 minutes is like the award show where it's hard to at least disagree with him. He's not going to say anything too partisan. He's going to tell a lot of lies, but he's not going to say anything too partisan. Then as it got into like later in the speech, that's when he started the dark immigration stuff, the Democrats. This is like juice in the base, you know, who's the people who are still hanging on at our.

28:03Tommy Vietor:Yeah, I think that presupposes a little more strategy than they brought to the table here, but you are correct in how it was structured and you will. Everyone always starts with the economy. That is the standard way of doing it. Normally, you get to it in minute five, not minute 55, but to each their own. I think one thing from a political perspective is Trump is living in a 2024 reality, not a 2026 reality. He's talking about the border. He's talking about it as if people trust him on immigration and are deathly worried about immigration and crime. Now those things are true anymore. His immigration approval is now as bad is approval on the economy, which is quite bad.

28:39Tommy Vietor:People think ICE is a threat to American citizens and legal residents. People think ICE has gone too far. And so once again, I know Trump is chemically and psychologically incapable of this, but there is a way to do this that is pretty simple to acknowledge that you don't even have to admit any fault, but that we are, like he could have mentioned the body cams thing, which was their proposal that they did.

29:00Jon Lovett:Did you guys hear him mention ICE at all?

29:02Tommy Vietor:I don't see, I think he said the word, did he? I don't think he said the word. Yeah, I don't think so either. Which is wild.

29:06Jon Lovett:because, I mean, it's certainly an acknowledgement of how unpopular they are, but like you'd think that the way the Trump administration is with everything else, it would have been like the men and women of ICE or, you know, trying to keep us, protect us and they've faced all kinds of assaults and stuff like that.

29:22Abigail Spanberger:Did he hit it at all when he was talking about the funding fight and wanting to make sure? No. Talking about the homeland security.

29:28Jon Favreau:Just homeland security wider. He focused on like, you know, rescue stories and like brave people who are no longer funded because of Dems and DHS.

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32:11Jon Lovett:Closing in on the hour mark, Trump really started to get nasty towards the Democrats in the room who mostly sat quietly and refused to clap for him. Take a listen.

32:18Dan Pfeiffer:These people are crazy, I'm telling you. They're crazy. Democrats are destroying our country, but we've stopped it just in the nick of time, didn't we? If you agree with this statement, then stand up and show your support. The first duty of the American government is to protect American citizens, not illegal aliens. Isn't that a shame? You should be ashamed of yourself not standing up. You should be ashamed of yourself. They're blocking the removal of these people out of our country, and you should be ashamed of yourself.

32:59Jon Lovett:They are Republicans, MAGA, so excited about that moment. It was clearly planned. It was a setup. They are very proud of themselves. You know, Scott Jennings called it a moment of the night. Stephen Miller tweeted, Democrats declared to the world their searing disdain for and profound disloyalty to the actual citizens of the United States. They refused. It was a moment that chills to the bone, which will live for a thousand years.

33:23Abigail Spanberger:Live for a thousand years is so funny. A thousand years from now? That was like the second one too.

33:30Jon Lovett:He did another one that was like long and involved. It was crazy. They really think that's like the big, they really got that.

33:36Abigail Spanberger:They think they set a trap, an incredible trap. So clever. A masterclass.

33:41Jon Lovett:Who's ever done that? Delivered a line that you only assume that one side will stand for, even though you know that like most people, come on.

33:49Abigail Spanberger:Preemptively saying, everyone will stand for this unless they're insane.

33:56Tommy Vietor:I mean, this is once again, like a little bit of the like bizarre surreal normalcy of it, which is back when we would do this there, you try to find moments and then you would try to use whatever platform you had to make that be the moment you just tell the report. This is the moment. This is the, this is the moment. This is the moment of the speech. It's the moment you should show. So they try to do that here. Also, this is an idea that it was not originally my idea, but I pitched Obama on two separate state of the unions was to do this for raising taxes on the wealthy. Not about the, not about the immigrants.

34:24Tommy Vietor:No, but to make the Republicans not stand up. We didn't do that? I don't think we ever, I think we should have done that. George W.

34:30Abigail Spanberger:Bush's move during this, his move was always to say something kind of partisan and then end with something everybody would have to applaud for. So he'd say like, we're going to deregulate. We're going to let you cut down some of the trees that we don't need anymore. We're going to get rid of some of this onerous taxation because America is going to have the strongest economy in the world that everybody's like, ah, fuck.

34:49Jon Lovett:Stephen Miller also said, this was the most shocking image in the history of the U.S. Congress.

34:54Jon Favreau:He's such a fucking loser. I mean, if you watch the speech or even if you watch clips, it's just so obvious that Trump is trying to goad Democrats into this dumb childish fight. He was not subtle on that. Yeah, and also, like, it's just no longer interesting. Like, the shock value of, like, them screaming back and forth is gone. I don't think anyone really benefits from clips of the president screaming back and forth. Like, I bet Ilhan Omar will benefit in her community. The people she represents will probably like that she's fighting on their behalf given like what he's done in minnesota but most voters will watch that and think like this is what

35:24Abigail Spanberger:i don't like about washington yeah we're saying that she was shouting that as he's making this sort of attack on democrats for not keeping citizens safe that her district two people

35:34Jon Lovett:were killed by ice yeah yeah um also like everyone's watching those speech they know that the democrats haven't been applauding to anything else like they don't think it's a fucking theater. So in the alternate universe where our politics never got this stupid, the State of the Union would have largely been about, or at least significantly about, Iran and explaining to the American people what exactly we plan to do with the gigantic fighting force we have amassed in the Middle East. Trump did get to it quite late, pretty briefly. Here's what he said.

36:04Dan Pfeiffer:They've already developed missiles that can threaten Europe and our bases overseas, and they're working to build missiles that will soon reach the United States of America. We are in negotiations with them. They want to make a deal, but we haven't heard those secret words. We will never have a nuclear weapon.

36:23Jon Favreau:Tommy, what was new there? Anything? I mean, that line that they're working on missiles that will soon reach the United States of America jumped out at me. It sounded like bullshit. I got checked out with some experts who have had intel access much more recently than I have, and they said it was wildly implausible, though obviously we don't know what we don't know, but I think it's just him trying to create a pretext for going to war. Like Iran, it does that. They have a large, diverse array of ballistic and cruise missiles. They can hit a lot of bases in the region. They can hit Europe. They can hit Israel, for example, and that's why an attack could lead to a scary response.

36:56Jon Favreau:But the idea that they're going to hit the continental U.S. is nonsense. The other thing you said that was a lie, though, was this claim that, what is it, the secret word? The secret word. The secret word, no nukes. The preamble of the JCPOA, the Iran nuclear deal, that Obama negotiated with Iran and that Trump pulled out of says, quote, Iran reaffirms that under no circumstance will Iran ever seek, develop, or acquire any nuclear weapons. That was in the JCPOA that both sides agreed to. Obviously, we don't trust them. That's why there was all this verification that went along with that deal. But Trump just pretends that didn't happen.

37:27Jon Favreau:And he's, you know, the source of all this problem. The really remarkable thing to me is, like, we're on the cusp of war. He made no case for it. I realize that's because it's wildly unpopular, but that problem doesn't go away if you just start the war without making the case.

37:42Jon Lovett:I mean, I guess it does. I guess. It doesn't change the popularity. We're sleepwalking towards a conflict that nobody wants. Yeah, it solves his problem that people don't want the war that he's about to launch. All right, so after the speech, Virginia Governor Abigail Spanberger gave the Democratic response because we were in the studio with Kimmel while it was happening. We heard good things, which is rare for one of these things. We haven't had the chance to listen yet, So we thought we'd just react to it here for the first time. Do you guys have the clip?

38:10Dan Pfeiffer:The president is planning for new tariffs, another massive tax hike on you and your family. They have ripped nursing mothers away from their babies. They have sent children, a little boy in a blue bunny hat, children to far off detention centers. And they have killed American citizens in our streets. Our broken immigration system is something to be fixed, not an excuse for unaccountable agents to terrorize our communities. He's enriching himself, his family, his friends. The scale of the corruption is unprecedented. There's the cover-up of the Epstein files, the crypto scams, cozying up to foreign princes for airplanes and billionaires for ballrooms.

38:58So I'll ask again, is the president working for you?

39:03Dan Pfeiffer:We all know the answer is no.

39:06Jon Lovett:That was great. I was depressed. It was good to hear something. It was good to hear a return to reality. This is what's happening in the country.

39:13Abigail Spanberger:Yeah, and just also just some good old-fashioned speech writing. You know, just sort of some cogent sentences, that kind of thing. Like the old days. What did you think, Tommy?

39:22Jon Favreau:I mean, you know, hearing my initial reaction was hearing like a moderate, like Abigail Spanberger go that hard at ICE funding really tells you how far the politics have shifted on the issue generally. It was like the kind of thing you would imagine she'd be advised not to touch and now she's just laying into it there. Yeah.

39:37Jon Lovett:I like that she did it in front of a crowd. Yeah. That's good. Yeah. I think responses should only be in front of crowds.

39:43Abigail Spanberger:Yeah, I think that's right.

39:44Jon Lovett:He's got the crowd. I mean, he's in a great crowd because half the crowd didn't stand up. The other half, a bunch of people just didn't show up at the speech either. But it is nice to have a little energy behind you than to have the like straight direct to camera kind of.

39:55Tommy Vietor:Also, they didn't complicate the simple. She just gave a speech at a podium with flags behind her instead of trying to put her in a weird room or a factory floor or all the other dumb things we've done over the years.

40:04Jon Lovett:That is true. Who was it that walked down the steps?

40:07Tommy Vietor:Bobby Jindal. Bobby Jindal.

40:08Jon Lovett:And it was like a weird... Remember Rubio reaching across for the water? That was incredible, man. Now he's Secretary of State, could be the next president. Looks like he got the last laugh, huh? President of Venezuela.

40:19Abigail Spanberger:There's still time for laughing.

40:21Tommy Vietor:He's got like three jobs and was the archivist for a while. He's not doing that awesome.

40:24Jon Lovett:I got fired from that. All right, before we go, any kind of closing thoughts? We got an insta-poll from CNN. Uh-huh. Apparently, the percentage who felt very positive about the speech was like the lowest in the last 10 years, I guess. Woo-hoo. So that's something. Of course, those insta-polls, they're always more Republican or more— I mean, people watch the speech tend to be people who are already supportive of the president. So if it's like a Democratic president, this poll's more Democratic. If the Republican president—

40:54Tommy Vietor:I think it was a CBS poll that came out today that said that only 18 % of Democrats were planning on watching the speech.

40:58Jon Lovett:Yeah, it was wild.

40:59Tommy Vietor:I think there are a lot of them. That's the time when Democrats lie to the pollsters.

41:02Jon Lovett:I think I heard the CNN poll was like 13 or 14 points more Republican than a typical poll, which is like fine. But still, 38%.

41:09Tommy Vietor:And the question is, does any of this matter anymore?

41:11Jon Lovett:No, probably not. I don't think it does at all. I think that by the time you finish listening to this podcast, you'll never think of the speech again. Stealth bombers could be headed to Tehran right now.

41:20Abigail Spanberger:The great shame of our nation, a historical atrocity that he is in office, his approval rating will continue to hover at 38%.

41:27Jon Lovett:Yeah, but I do not. But unlike what someone told Politico, I do not think that he that sticking to the script gives the Republicans what they need for the midterms. I don't think they got what they needed.

41:37Tommy Vietor:That was that's an insane stupid.

41:39Abigail Spanberger:They need a genie and a lamp that they can rub and ask three wishes to at this point.

41:45Jon Lovett:Yeah, I don't think. And that's it. That's his biggest audience until the midterms. it's just so crazy we have president the bar is so low that's like he read the words everybody

41:53Tommy Vietor:you read the words they were bad words they made no sense they didn't they really didn't make

41:57Jon Lovett:anything better but he read them look mostly great work look look they've changed the headline now what trump avoided in the state of the union could haunt him in november but then i know but then the subhead is like jazz the president's state of the union was notable for something his second term has largely lacked restraint oh my you know we'll just when you started screaming the Democrats are crazy. I guess that's for super.

42:19Abigail Spanberger:I would love to just like show this speech to a mid like kind of a typical Republican in 1996. They'd be like, what happened? Was the president injured? Like what's going on?

42:30Jon Lovett:There were mistakes he avoided making. Trump did not attack the Supreme Court. He did not blitz members of his own party who have criticized him. He avoided rambling, angry digressions from the script. But then he was, you know, he avoided no new ideas on housing or health care to defining issues in the midterm campaign. Yeah. Meme in no mention of the Jeffrey Epstein scandals. I mean, in fairness, yeah, I don't think he was going to go on a stemwinder on Epstein. Yeah, good thing to skip over.

42:53Tommy Vietor:I've got some of these files in my pocket. Let me unredact them on live TV.

42:58Abigail Spanberger:Now that's what a showman would do. Take out the files. Take off the black tape.

43:03Jon Favreau:He didn't blitz members of his own party. Is he the free safety, like, tackling Speaker Johnson? You know what he did?

43:10Jon Lovett:It was for better or worse. See, someone else read this one. Oh, there's a to be sure paragraph. This is, this is, this is, uh, Eli Stokos wrote this one. Uh, they changed it. They changed the whole thing. Uh, uh, but it was, it's unlikely to change the political trajectory of Trump's second term. In some ways it was nearly indistinguishable from Trump's daily pattern in the Oval Office. Yes, that is correct. That's correct. Good job, Politico. Well, I mean, it is, it is also an accurate description of what happened tonight.

43:36Abigail Spanberger:Bum, bum, ba-dum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum. It's 1030 at night.

43:41Jon Lovett:We gotta go to bed.

43:41Abigail Spanberger:Bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum.

43:43Jon Lovett:All right. Bye, everyone. Good night, everyone. If you want to listen to Pod Save America ad-free and get access to exclusive podcasts, go to crooked.com slash friends to subscribe on Supercast, Substack, YouTube, or Apple Podcasts. Also, please consider leaving us a review. That helps boost this episode and everything we do here at Crooked. Pod Save America is a Crooked Media production. Our producer is Saul Rubin. Our associate producer is Farah Safari. Austin Fisher is our senior producer. Reed Churlin is our executive editor. Adrian Hill is our head of news and politics. The show is mixed and edited by Andrew Chadwick.

44:16Jon Lovett:Jordan Cantor is our sound engineer with audio support from Kyle Seglin and Charlotte Landis. Matt DeGroat is our head of production. Naomi Sengel is our executive assistant. Thanks to our digital team, Elijah Cohn, Haley Jones, Ben Hefcoat, Mia Kelman, Carol Pellaviv, David Tolles, and Ryan Young. Our production staff is proudly unionized with the Writers Guild of America East.

44:43You