Always Test Your Hopium

26:07But this is a state that wants Democrats to be in charge of the Senate by 11 points. Yeah. And those two things at some point. 12 % of Maine voters who want Democrats, who told the New York Times they want Democrats to control the Senate, said that they will vote for Susan Collins in this in this poll. And again, it's like you said, it's not to say that the poll is wrong. No, no, no. I'm not saying it at all. But if you're the Jackson campaign and you're reading this poll and maybe your private polling also has it, maybe not a three-point deficit, but you're close. What do you do differently? You have to go at the point you just made.

26:42Regardless of how you feel about Susan Collins, regardless of how you have voted for Susan Collins in the past, if you think that Donald Trump should no longer be in charge of the Senate, if you think that there should be some sort of check on Donald Trump, you have to vote for Troy Jackson. That is exactly what it is. You're maybe a Democrat. You voted for Collins in 2020. Maybe you voted for Collins before that. Maybe you think Collins is different than these other Republicans. But if you care about who controls the Senate, if you're angry about what's happening in this country, the way to express that anger is a vote for George Jackson.

27:12I wonder, and now, again, I don't know what's going on in the state of Maine because we're not on the ground there. But from where we sit, I can say that that race has not been nationalized in any way. We don't hear much about that race since Blattner dropped out. And it's interesting to me to compare it with Michigan, where obviously Abdul has gotten a ton of attention. That race has gotten a ton of attention. There's obviously like a very divisive primary there. And, you know, if you asked a national audience, a national audience of political junkies who talk about this all the time, they might tell you, well, Abdul's pretty polarizing.

27:54And maybe it was tough after the primary to get Democrats on board with him. And maybe he still needs more Democrats. And who knows? And Mike Rogers is kind of boring and seems like an old school Republican. And maybe he'll do well. And like in that poll, and we can talk more about it in a second, but like Abdul's got 95 % of Democrats. He's got a better favorability rating than Jackson for sure. Even after he's been beat up on Fox News and elsewhere all the time. And it does make you wonder, like, does someone who is more unknown nationally or even in their state, and Abdul is somewhat known in his state, but also Troy Jackson was like Senate minority leader there for a while.

28:32I'm not sure that's worth it. Right. But like, do you need to be out there everywhere all the time, either doing events or doing press, that it's going to reach a lot more voters who don't pay close attention to politics to sort of get your name ID up there? You might. You absolutely might. Right. I think this race was about Graham Plattner, not about Susan Collins for a long time. And then it sort of became about neither. Yeah. And maybe a little bit more about Troy Jackson than Susan Collins, or at least 50-50. And you got to make it more about Susan Collins. You know, you have to be the kind of candidate that you can be.

29:04And I don't know Troy Jackson. Maybe I'm not. Abdul is obviously a very specific type of candidate who can and will and wants to go on every single podcast in the world and be everywhere. And, you know, and Assov's a certain candidate who is on MSNBC every night. That may not be Troy Jackson, but I think he has to do, you know, it's actually interesting because it's not even that this poll suggests that people don't know who he is since we need to be out there more. They don't like him. It's that, I just don't buy that. I just do not, like, I could be wrong. You know, Nate Cohn wrote in his, because I really, the thing I appreciate about Nate Cohn is when his polls don't match what everyone else thinks, he doesn't hurt his polls, right?

29:39He doesn't. And then he will explore and take on the idea that maybe it's an outlier. In fact, Nate Cohn, in the column he wrote about the poll raised the question, is it an outlier or an omen? So he may be telling us what's coming. But as we sit here today, I am very skeptical of this idea that Democrats do not like Troy Jackson. Yeah. Well, we'll see.

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32:56One caveat on that main poll, almost all of it was conducted before a fairly explosive ProPublica story alleging that the FBI was investigating whether a major Susan Collins donor, former Navitech CEO Martin Kau, defense contractor, had essentially participated in a pay-to-play scheme, campaign money in exchange for Collins helping secure federal defense contracts, and that the investigation was still active when Trump's purge of FBI and Justice Department officials ended it in 2025. Particularly notable piece of evidence in the piece, and they have these emails. In 2019, Kyle met with Scott Reed, who ran a Susan Collins super PAC, then told him via email that he was writing a$150 ,000 donation through a shell company, put it in writing, and then seven days after the money was deposited, Collins asked for Kyle's number so she could thank him.

33:54Here's Collins pretty angrily denying the whole thing.

33:57Jon Favreau:It is so offensive. Legally false. And it is so offensive. It really offends me. And I'm offended for my staff, too. Code red. We have gone from concerned to offended. Multiple times offended. So offended. That's like as exercised as Susan Collins gets. What's your read on the story and its potential impact? We should also say, by the way, that all the denials afterwards from Susan Collins and her staff, ProPublica ran another story the next night that some of those were just lies. She was like, oh, well, the Biden administration investigated this. They found no wrongdoing. It was closed. She was talking about like an earlier investigation into Kau.

34:42And then there was a later investigation. And that's where she and her super PAC and, you know, her staff and her office, whatever they were part of. So she wasn't they're not telling the truth even in their denials already. which is easily proven. But so who knows? But anyway, what do you think? You generally do not want your candidate's name, donor, FBI investigation in the same sentence ever. Shell company donation. Yeah, all that. Just a ton of words you don't want. Yeah. How much is it going to matter? I don't know the answer to that. It, you know, there has been a lot of advertising spent trying to tell main voters that Susan Collins is corrupt.

35:20There's a Democratic super PAC ad that's up right now from the, I think it's the arm of the Senate majority pack that, you know, talking about donations from Epstein donors and votes about the Epstein files and all of that. Obviously, there are a lot of smart people working on this race. We're looking at a lot of data. I just have remained skeptical that you're going to convince Maine voters after all these years and all these years of voting for Susan Collins that she is corrupt. I just I did a lot of work my pre-podcasting days in very small states like South Dakota where everyone has a relationship with their politician and they have you know this was Joe Biden in Delaware before he was vice president same thing I think it's just very hard to convince people that she's corrupt and that that's the reason Do you think it's easier to convince people that Susan Collins is just MAGA and is going to mean that she's just going to let Trump do what he wants?

36:22I think you have a better chance of that considering the track record. That's like, we're going to finish this podcast. It's going to come out tomorrow morning and I'm going to get probably a lot of texts from people working in this effort who are going to show me data that says otherwise. No, I genuinely, I'm asking the question because I genuinely don't know. Because the point is not she's MAGA. Like that's also not credible. It has to be a real thing, which is. You have to tell, this is a good exercise. You have to tell a story. What is the story of Susan Collins where she was an independent voice.

36:49You're from Maine. Yeah. And you maybe don't like her or maybe you're a Democrat or you're maybe, you know, but you have voted for Susan Collins in the past. Maybe you didn't last time. Maybe you're undecided. And you do think that she's someone, as you can see in this poll, who has delivered for Maine and she breaks with Donald Trump and other Republicans once in a while. What's the story you tell that voter? I think the story is that she has voted with Donald Trump, whatever it is 92 % of the time. She has supported him when Trump has needed her. We have incredibly high stakes decisions, including Supreme Court justices that are going to come up over the next few years.

37:26And do you want someone who agrees with the people of Maine or someone who's going to vote with Donald Trump? Yeah, I might, I've been thinking about this. I might, it's a little more subtle, but I think you can run an ad campaign around this, which is like, she's been there forever. And she has been in Washington too long. And the longer she's been in Washington, the more she's gotten like Washington. And she went there. And at one point, maybe she was an independent voice who delivered for Maine. Look at the cost of living in Maine. Home heating oil just hit its highest price ever in Maine. Like for all that she's delivered for Maine, has she done that much for your life right now?

37:58And now she's got this lobbyist issue and she's now voting for Donald, voting with Donald Trump 95 % of the time. Like what happened to Susan Collins? Don't we want to change right now? I mean, which combines a few of those things, but I - Oftentimes when, and I've been on the losing end of this when I worked for Tom Dashiell in South Dakota, oftentimes the way you beat a well-liked politician with a long history in a state is you tell a story about how they've changed. It's usually how they've gone Washington. I think that what you're hitting on the right way, I just am not, and I can be convinced, people with internal polling data, I can be convinced you don't reach me.

38:31But I am not, but as of yet, prior to that point, I'm not convinced that the way that the change is, she's corrupt. Right? You can go Washington. Like the way they took Dashiell down a whole bunch of other ways was that he became more liberal than the state. Yeah. And the proxy for that in this case, and he was, is the voting with Trump 90 % of the time. And that he had gone Washington and he lived in Washington and he had a Washington lifestyle. I think in this one, I think it's more, she goes along to get along in the Republican Party. And that is the real consequences remain. And she has done that throughout the Trump era.

39:06Yeah. All right. Let's talk about the two less psychologically destabilizing times polls. Michigan and New Hampshire. On one hand, we love a five-point lead, especially where the Dem candidates are at 49 % in the case of Abdul and 50 % in the case of Pappas. On the other, both Abdul and Pappas are underperforming the generic ballot in their respective states. What do you make of these polls and these two states? I think the explanation for the Michigan result is easier than the New Hampshire result. Yeah. When you look at the polls, you can see it, which is, as you point out, to Abdul's credit, and frankly to the credit of Haley Stevens and Gretchen Whitmer and just almost everyone in Michigan.

39:51Team players all around. They got aboard and they have united the Democratic Party. The damage to Abdul has lingered among independents. In a world where Trump has absolutely putrid approval rating with independents, it's essentially a tie among independents between Abdul and Mike Rodgers, which is why this race is five points, not ten points. Although, 8 % of Trump voters back Abdul, which is more than back Troy Jackson or Chris Patzels. Which we're going to have a regular conversation about the horseshoe effect, if that happens in the end. The other reason why Abdul is winning by five, not more.

40:26And this is hard because they did not include the governance race in here. Yeah. So there was not a, you don't have this other baseline. Like in previous polls, we've talked about this race. We've showed the delta between what Jocelyn Benson was getting of the gubernatorial ballot and what Abdul is getting in the Senate race. And that gives you a sense of whether he's underperforming the state. Is on the question of who's more extreme, there's by 14 points, voters see Abdul is more extreme than Mike Rogers. And that is what, that is bleeding into the independent numbers, I think, which is why it's five points, not seven points, eight points, nine points, or 10 points.

41:01Now, I'll take a one point win. I don't give a shit, right? Same. But we will have this discussion afterwards about how he does, because this is going to matter so much to this battle of narratives heading into 2028 about the currency of a candidate with Abdul's progressive values and positions. And not just a battleground state like Michigan, but also a top tier primary state now. Yeah. And the other thing is, of all these three states, Michigan is the swingiest state. Yeah. The more conservative state. So he is doing the best of the three polls. That is the best poll. Yeah. Which you might not have guessed heading into it.

41:39He also is the only Democrat of the three who beats his Republican candidate on cost of living. That is also deeply concerning. Plus nine, Abdul, well, for the other two. Yeah, exactly. But yeah, Abdul's plus nine on who do you trust more on cost of living, plus 24 on health care, which again, I think speaks. I think all three of these polls like scramble a lot of narratives on all sides of the Democratic discourse. But the idea that, you know, Abdul's cost-of-living economic populist message is earning him more trust among voters on the most important issues for voters than the other two candidates is notable.

42:17And that he has not paid a price for Medicare for All. Right. Now, the Republicans have not litigated Medicare for All because they're afraid to do so. Right, right. So what's going on in New Hampshire? I will say, you know, I'll start off. Kamala did win by six, right? It was 48-42, I think. In New Hampshire? Yeah. She won by 2.8 points. Oh, it was less? Yeah. Okay. Someone should correct me, but I'm pretty sure that's right. Okay, so it's better than she did in New Hampshire, but what's going on? It's once again below the generic ballot, which is like 11 in New Hampshire. I think this is really about the two candidates.

42:49When you dig in the polling, it doesn't make a ton of sense. Pappas is doing better with independents than Sununu. There is less enthusiasm among Democrats for Pappas, although he's mostly consolidated the party. The thing really is, is that John Sununu is part of a, and you and I talked about this with Alex last week, is part of a well-known, well-liked political dynasty in New Hampshire that is associated with being anti-Trump. You remember his governor brother. And moderate politics. And moderate politics, and always has been, right? His father was chief of staff in the White House for Reagan.

43:23But Chris Sununu, who was the governor for many terms, very, very popular, and was the Republicans' top choice to run for the seat was a very, very outspoken, aggressive Trump critic. Remember, he went to the mattresses for Nikki Haley until Trump became the nominee, and then he just backed Trump. But he has that credibility. So this is a case where Pappas is not a bad candidate in any way, shape, or form. We think he's sort of a generic Democrat in this case. And Sununu is a Republican-plus candidate. That is one where I can see, because it was a very late primary, the closer we get, like if the Times polls this again or there's a bunch of other polls in New Hampshire, I could see him doing better, like actually improving.

44:06I mean, I think that's true. He's also at 50. Right. So it's like there's not that much room to grow there. You were right on the money. It was 2.8. Yeah. 2.8. And Kamala won in 2024. Zooming out from all these polls, what's your overall take on the political environment right now? Too good to be true for Democrats? it's too early to tell or, you know, throw the Times-Siena polls in the average and keep on huffing the hopium. Well, I think you throw them all in the average always and that's honestly the real answer about Maine. If you throw it in the average, the average still shows a slight advantage for Jackson, which, as I said, is basically a toss-up race.

44:45I think when you look at that. Like, do we all sit here and worry about a systemic polling error like 2016, 2020? Yes. Of course. We absolutely do. Now, Can I give you what what Nate Silver's doom scenario is on that? It's going to happen. I know what it is. Yeah, I know. Well, I feel like we should tell everyone. Because one of the things that Nate describes, both Nates describe this, is a possibility, is in a lot of these polls, it's the red states where Democrats are doing best in these polls. And specifically among demographic groups like younger voters, Latino voters, and now working class voters, right?

45:24who obviously were more Trump in 2024. And so the swing is biggest among those groups. And so when you get to states with older populations, with whiter populations like Maine, then you don't see as much of a swing, right? And maybe that explains, there was a New York poll out this week that showed Kathy Hochul only up nine in New York. There was a couple of Minnesota polls we talked about a while back that has Peggy Flanagan shows her in a tighter race. So it's like, what's with these sort of northern bluish states that are not as good for Democrats? It's like Kansas may be in play and some other red states.

46:02So maybe there's like a geographic thing going on. And then Nate Silver said, now those same voters, working class voters, Latinos, voters in red states, are also some of the groups where polls have tended to overestimate Democrats in recent elections. um so are we looking at like maybe all those good polls in the red states that are showing those swings are a mirage and it's a polling error and that these blues these bluer states that are showing it tighter are the real polls now that's the scary that's the scary so i think let's take that let's take that apart in a couple different ways one like it is possible there's a systemic polling error right and as you say that polling error would be disproportionately taking place in the states you mentioned the ones where that we are most excited about right now the reasons why that may not be happening.

46:48Yeah. And look, if the polls are off by two points or two, three points, that's not a polling error. That is a historically normal poll. One, the polls have been accurate in the midterms. No one ever believes the polls are accurate in 2022, but they quite very much were. It's just the vibes were wrong. Right. At least in the Trump era, at least. Also, this time, we have other data points that point towards a blue wave, right? You have special election performance, which in and of itself is not super predictive but it's much more and this is some research Amy Walter has done the Kirk Political Report excuse me the special election results are much more predictive in midterms than presidential years for all the obvious reasons they let us down in 24 but well it's just because the larger the greater the proportion of electorate that is first time or less engaged less frequent voters the greater the distance between the special election electorate and the actual electorate that gap is less in midterms And we also have primary voting data where Democrats have been outvoting Republicans, even in red states.

47:49So just the total number of Democrats participating in primaries is way up. It's down for Republicans. And so those all contribute here. And you can see that in what we were with the Latino numbers. But in actual precinct results, both in New Jersey and Virginia in 2025, and then in the special election we've seen, particularly in Texas, in that special Senate election that we saw many months ago. So you're seeing dramatic, more than 20-point shifts among Latinos in Latino-heavy precincts. So all of that indicates that I don't think this is, like, 2020 was a systemic era where everything, the polls painted a picture of the world that did not exist.

48:26Now, maybe these polls are not painting, maybe the blue wave is not as big as the polls suggest for all the reasons you mentioned. But there are all these other data points that would support the idea that this is a very good Democrat here. And then say you don't want to believe any of the polls, the price of gas, the price of groceries, the fact that mortgages hit seven, mortgage rates at 7 % today. All of that are things that historically are very, very bad for the incumbent party. Now, I got a lot of theories about, you know, I've, I got, I got bull cases. I got bear cases. I got things in the middle.

48:55And there are a couple, I think the red state thing is really interesting. Like, why are we doing better in red states than blue states? I think there are a couple of, there's the potential polling error. So that's obviously very real. Another one is in the Senate races, we have better candidates in the red states. Like I'm just, Tallarico, Sherrod, Paltola, Turek, these are all truly excellent candidates. Cooper. Rory Cooper, John Ossoff, for examples. Abdul's a very talented candidate, but there's real reasons to believe he could underperform the environment there. Troy Jackson is attested. Chris Pappas, sort of not a particularly well-known candidate.

49:34The other one, which is the flip side of the polling error, is we have squeezed every bit of blood from the stone of college-educated states. Yeah. And where there's just aren't that many people, you know, there's that much more, there's not that much swing left or swing remaining in like a New Hampshire. And, you know, if you look at Trump's approval rating with, so Trump won white non-college-educated voters, which are disproportionate in these red states we're talking about, by 34 points current exit polls. in the New York Times poll, he's only plus eight with them nationally in the one from September.

50:10So if those non-college voters, non-college white women, are moving towards Democrats, that's going to have a much bigger effect. It's the inverse of what happened in 2016. Right. And that's the question. That's what we're really going to have to see. The only other doomer scenario is... I got another one too. Yeah, well, this is, and this is what the main result would show, which is Trump ends up being quite unpopular. And we see an exit poll on the night of the election. It's like Trump's approval was 38%, 40%, right? That would be very low comparison. But all these Republican candidates were just able to convince people that they're different than Trump and that you're a Republican and you don't like Trump or you're an independent, you don't like Trump, but you can still vote for Republican Congress and then you can just, you know, just be mad at Trump and he's not going to be president anymore in a couple of years anyway.

51:08Okay. And so somehow we've started to depolarize the electorate. Well, I think that there's, I know that it's depolarizing. The way to think about it is, and this is the difference between 2018, why 2018 was great for Democrats and 2022 was not great for Republicans. Yeah, right, right. And this is Ron Brownstein's thing that he talks about all the time, which is our success will be dictated by the percent of people who disapprove of Trump who vote for a Democrat. we got, you know, high 80s, in some cases, 90 % of those people in 2020, in 2018. In 2022, Republicans got much fewer. And so that's why we were able to win in Pennsylvania, Georgia, places like that.

51:46Now, you know, it's obviously, these are small sample sizes, but we also had bad, Republicans had bad candidates in 2022, which may be why that is. Yeah. And then the other thing to think about here is, because I was struck by this Cook political battleground report where they, poll I think we talked about last week where they did 37 districts that are the all the toss up lean Democrat lean Republican districts in their ratings that has those districts all together have a Trump plus five Trump won them by five points. The generic ballot has in that poll has Democrats won them by two, which is seven points but it's the bottom half, you know, it's the floor of the range we're seeing in the polls like you see a seven point generic poll that are kind of like not that great.

52:26We're used to these 11s and 12s and one possibility there. But in battlegrounds. Well, right. But the reason why it could be more, the battlegrounds would be more at the floor than the ceiling is, or under the national average, is because the campaign is being waged there. So if you are just in a non-competitive state, non-competitive district, all you're getting is Trump bad news. And so you look at then 2024, the swing in the battleground states. Oh yeah, this is like the Kamala. The Kamala argument is I think it was like two point something and the national swing was 4.8. So where there's, you're actually voters.

53:04She did surprisingly worse in blue states in 24. And the campaign made the argument afterwards that no one cared about because she lost that like actually where they waged the campaign and spent a whole bunch of money, she did better than she did nationally. And so like that does, in a nationality, that does you no good in a, like losing by less in a battleground state gets you no extra electoral. points, but narrowing the margins there is going to take some of these districts, you know, that could be like plus 12, plus 10, get a lot harder if it is actually the case. If we actually see that Republicans spending money where politics is a focus, you know, can narrow that, what the generic ballot is nationally.

53:48Anyway, the upshot of this is Democratic candidates need money because we're being outspent and they need help. So. And how can they get help, John? then go to votesaveamerica.com and we can, we'll send you out to a state. We'll give volunteering shifts and you can donate to the Senate fund or the House fund and we'll split it up between the most competitive races. I do feel like before we move on here to our very important last topic that I want to just, I just want to say this because I know I have this brand as a doomer, as someone who wades through silver felsing for dark linings, but even my worst case scenario here that I'm laying out, other than the systemic polling area where everything is fucked is consistent with Democrats winning the House and potentially winning the Senate too.

54:34These are questions of margins. Right. But like the worst case scenario, the worst real realistic bear scenario is so optimistic compared to what we thought it would possibly be. That's true. That is true. We do have one more Senate race to talk about before we get to our final. That's right. Well, I think this is an important topic too. Which is the New York Times report on Mary Peltola's campaign in Alaska. For those who didn't read it, the Times described Peltola's political operation during the campaign and in Congress as being chaotic and not a great place to work and gave a few examples, including, quote, angry and profane outbursts from the candidate who allegedly at one time shoved an aide in frustration, which Peltola's campaign said was being mischaracterized.

55:17Times also wrote that one of Peltola's demands was, quote, requiring aides to feed live crickets to her family's pet chameleon, Meatball, the campaign pushed back on the story and cited Peltola's grief over her mother and husband's deaths over a few months in 2023 as being partially responsible for any outbursts. What did you make of the story? It gave me no political concern for Mary Peltola. Like, this is clearly an attempt to sort of do to her what happened to Katie Porter. Yes. And sort of have this, or that was done to Amy Klobuchar in the 2020 Democratic primary. I look at this and I cannot see a world in which this story makes it less likely that she wins the Senate race in Alaska?

56:00Yeah, I don't either. I mean, I will say this. Like, I feel like I have been spoiled in my life in politics because we worked for a boss who was unbelievably nice to us. Did not yell at us. And always patient. And I do not have a lot of patience for bosses in politics or elsewhere who are mean. And if one of them was mean to me or bullying, I would fucking get out of there. Like, I just can't. But I don't have an experience with that, and I have no idea what it's like to work for Mary Peltola or Katie Porter or any of these people that there's been stories about. I will say it is hard to imagine that even if I have had a horrible experience with a boss in politics, especially in politics or on a campaign, that I would leave, and then a month before an election for a seat that could determine control of the United States Senate would ring up the New York Times and complain about it.

56:59I just can't get there. And I'm like, who knows? I could not put myself in the shoes of someone who would do that. Not at least - I mean, I can put myself in the shoes and I wouldn't do it. I think it's fucking nuts. I have, I've worked for great bosses. Absolutely great bosses. Brock Obama was one of them. I've also been very first on that. I also worked for Senate leadership. So I've been yelled at by lots of senators that I didn't even work for all the time. It's not pleasant. You still get yelled at by senators. Yes, I still, Every once in a while, that still happens. And, you know, that is, it is terrible.

57:28And there are some really shitty bosses on Capitol Hill and in life. Like, that is absolutely true. There are some contacts to some of this, which was right after Mary Paltola had lost her mother and her husband. And was dealing with grief. And some things are, like, there are definitely cases where bosses do ask things of their employees. And this is a very true members of Congress. that are not appropriate in the sense that go beyond just duties like, you know, pick up the dry cleaning, babysitting our kids. Like you hear those stories and that is bad. I don't think feeding the pet while you're thousands of miles away or running for reelection is, that's probably annoying.

58:10And I think kind of gross to a lot of people to feed live crickets to an animal. Like my wife would not like that at all. Yeah. Which is why we'll never fulfill my son Jack's dream of having a pet tarantula. Oh, boy. That's what he really wants. Okay.

58:27But it's also not something you think like, you know what? That is so bad. And it's got like some texts from her too where she like, you know, has a few. They're bad. The R word, the F word. They're bad. They're bad. But it's like also the idea that, again, that a former staff member would be like, hey, New York Times, here are the texts from my boss when she was really angry and said something awful. Thank you. I think if you, like that stuff was quite inappropriate, but you sort of have to, and like we shouldn't, that stuff should not be tolerated, but you have to weigh that against the consequences of Republican Senate that confirms a Supreme Court justice in 2027.

59:08Or like the rest of her career and personality. Like people have bad fucking moments. That's the other thing, you know? It's like, I just can't, I can't deal with the like, the one thing that comes out about you. We're going to use it to like, and you know, fuck off. Yeah, like I don't know her, so I have no context. Some of these other politicians you hear this about, we have met before. Right, right, right. I have no idea. Yeah, I've never met her. Anyway, yeah, but I think from a political perspective, like I don't see this as hurting her at all. She's very, very well liked in Alaska. Yeah.

59:37Okay, one last thing before Tommy's interview with Colin Kaepernick. According to Alabama Senator Tommy Tuberville, I have a new reason to be worried when I get on the plane this afternoon. Let's watch. We're excited.

59:52many airline pilots, flight attendants, and air traffic controllers are part of the furry community. When you walk onto a commercial flight, it's possible that the pilot flying your plane could have a deranged fetish of dressing up like an animal. Also, transgenderism is a mental disease, blown-up emoji next to him on an easel. So like, I don't even want to know what the rest of the speech was about. I think it's best we don't. Yeah. So a bit of context there because clearly that needs context. That came from Tuberville's, it's a 20-minute floor speech on Tuesday where he warned about the dangers of gender confusion.

1:00:34There you go. He did gender confusion. That was probably the first section of the speech. Then he moved into the furry section. As one does, yes. Tuberville's currently squaring off against Doug Jones in the race for governor of Alabama. On Thursday, Tuberville tweeted a link to a recent furry migration convention, which he said featured an aviation furs meetup before posing the question, would you be comfortable with a mentally ill furry being your pilot? I mean, well, now you're saying mentally ill furry. Yes. Like, I don't want a person who's mentally ill as a pilot, no. But I don't know if they're, whatever they do when they're not safely flying me to my destination, I'm fine with.

1:01:18I know you are. And look, you and I have gone on many flights together over the years. And I've honestly, ever since we watched this clip this morning in our editorial meeting, never seen you more excited to get on a plane. Like, we're doing this podcast early so you can get to the airport early. And I'm like, can I get, look, I'm not, I'm not, I'm getting off this plane unless I am assured that our pilots, at least one of them, could be the co-pilot. Is a furry. Is a furry. Do you think there's some sort of… Flying the furry skies. Is that what we're… Do we have a pod title? Is that what that is?

1:01:47whoo Tommy's that guy is has to be the dumbest motherfucker in the senate for sure right i mean that yeah i would not say congress because yeah you just don't know check out the house yes senate i can buy that i think senate yeah he's he's it he's the dumbest one anyway he'll but god it would be nice if uh if alabama was a different state and doug jones could win that maybe he will maybe he will maybe this is it maybe there's a giant pro furry vote that we don't know about. Mary Paltola, that story does not matter. The furry story takes down Tuberville. That's what I'm going with. When we come back, Tommy's interview with Colin Kaepernick.

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1:05:01Jon Favreau:My guest today played six seasons for the San San Francisco 49ers. He's the co-founder of the Know Your Rights Campaign and the author of the new book, The Perilous Fight, Colin Kaepernick. Great to meet you. Great to meet you too. Excited for the conversation. Thank you for coming in. It's amazing to have watched you played and to have read about you for so long, but then to read the book and to get to hear you tell these stories in your own voice and correct the record in a lot of places, I think is really important. So it's a great book. Congratulations on getting it done. Oh, thank you. It was a lot of correcting the record.

1:05:33a lot of process in there. But I'm excited it's out in the world and hopefully people are able to take that, run with it. Hopefully it gives them some new insights, some new perspective and gives us a pathway to be able to discuss how we move forward. Yeah.

1:05:49Jon Favreau:So I bet a lot of listeners, look, my shows, my audience is like, they're obsessed about politics, probably not so much sports. Yeah. So they probably heard your name around 2016 and are aware of kind of the quote-unquote controversy, but they don't know how much success you had on the football field before that. Like, can you just tell folks about the 2012 season? Because that story alone could be a book. It was just like this incredible, right, moment. Yeah. So, the 2012 season, this is my second year in the NFL. At that point in time, I'm a backup quarterback behind Alex Smith. Alex gets hurt I've been training preparing waiting for this moment to step on the field take over for him my first start was a Monday night football game against the Chicago Bears went out played really well and during that time period Jim Harbaugh who was our head coach made the decision we're going to stick with you and Alex was playing incredibly well so the change wasn't hey he's playing bad or anything but on the back of that then became we're going to the playoffs my first playoff game against the the Green Bay Packers we go up we go out we put up I think it was 45 points crazy set an NFL record 181 yards rushing my first playoff game and then ultimately went to the Super Bowl that year and 263 passing right yes You were a busy man in that game.

1:07:27We were busy. It was a good one for us.

1:07:30Jon Favreau:It's crazy. Yeah, you made it all the way to the Super Bowl, the first season you started. I mean, that's like, for folks listening, that doesn't happen very often. It's like you and Tom Brady and like a couple of folks. And it was, the Super Bowl was my 10th NFL start. It's crazy. So it wasn't even a full season, jumped in in the Super Bowl. And then the following year, went back to the NFC Championship. so like it's not only that you were one of 32 you know starting nfl quarterbacks like you were playing at the highest possible level which i think is just relevant when we get into the conversation about the nfl blackballing you later yes um so let's fast forward to 2016 there's this like a series of very high profile horrific cases of black men being essentially executed by police yeah um freddie gray in baltimore alton sterling in louisiana philando Castile, I'll just name a few.

1:08:22Jon Favreau:Can you describe how those stories impacted you and kind of like built on what you've been reading and studying throughout your life? Yeah, so those killings directly impacted me and directly impacted the protest. But prior to that, I've been reading, I've been researching a lot of the material and insights and history that I wasn't given growing up in school. And that what kicked that off was the autobiography of Malcolm X that my wife Nessa gave me. And that then took me down a path of reading Fanon, reading Huey Newton, and Angela Davis, and Steve Biko, and Garvey, and all of these black revolutionary leaders that have looked at systems and why are these systems producing these outcomes and how do we actually work to be able to address the systems.

1:09:18So, have been doing that. Also, in advance of this, we've seen Mike Brown be killed and the Ferguson uprising. We've seen Tamir Rice. We've seen Eric Garner. So, this has been going on for years, and there's a whole history behind it. And a lot of the conversation that was happening in 2016 in the groups that I was talking with are, well we have to do something and we have to do something significant to address this and that ultimately led to the protest um at the beginning of the nfl season and it's also important context this is a little bit of a new era for us where social media is much more prominent right um as we have these police killings happening they're traveling right and We're traveling across the country.

1:10:15We're all watching it. I think the direct comparison here is, I mean, when we look at Rodney King being beaten by the police, there were riots. We're at a place now where we see black people being killed with such consistency that we're being desensitized to it. It's being so normalized that it becomes like, oh man, another one. and then people go about their day as opposed to we have to take action to stop this. And we need to do it urgently and we need to do it definitively.

1:10:52Jon Favreau:And so you decide to protest. You sit during the anthem for a couple games. Finally, a reporter notices, I think his name is Steve Weish. You tell him, quote, I'm not going to stand up to show pride in a flag for a country that oppresses black people and people of color. To me, this is bigger than football and it would be selfish on my part to look the other way. There are bodies in the street and people getting paid to leave and getting away with murder. I think you mentioned this conversation to your partner, Nessa. She says, how hard do you go? You said four out of 10. Turns out a Colin four is like a massive global story.

1:11:28Jon Favreau:Breaks containment from sports media. Everyone's got an opinion on it. I'm like Fox News and shit. Did it surprise you how much the story sort of blew up right away? It did. Um, now I, I had an expectation of, I thought there would be a certain response and in particular from white people. Um, now that statement I thought was just pretty straightforward, um, and factual. So I didn't think it was something that would, would blow up into the story that it was. That's why in my mind, I was like, that was a four. Right. There's a whole lot of other things that I could have said that go a lot further than that.

1:12:11But I think what it got to the crux of is how fragile this persona or facade of justice and liberty and freedom. And when you actually poke at that and is this actually being applied to everyone? Is everyone actually in a space where they're able to have safety? They're able to walk the streets and not be targeted. and the response on the other side of that was so aggressive um and so loud to me it was in many ways it was curious as to why it was so controversial to say police shouldn't kill black people um i think that was very very revealing um and i'll also say in response to it, there was also overwhelming support as well.

1:13:09So I want to make sure that both of those are covered because what we really saw was two sides of America in that response. And some of that being significant pushback and some of that being, no, we're seeing this every day in our communities. We have to address this now.

1:13:26Jon Favreau:Yeah. And so there's this like massive debate. I mean, you're right. There definitely were supporters and then people like loudly criticizing you it was like it was hard to read that your family wasn't initially very supportive of you they they were like we know cops you're kind of embarrassing us i mean that must have sucked and tough yeah not not the response uh you want or i expect it yeah um and it's again i i've gotten to a place that whatever people's responses are, that's what it's going to be. But to me, I want to stay focused on the issue. And I have to keep moving towards addressing that.

1:14:10And in that moment, as much as that was like shocking to me, it also, in many ways, it validated a lot of the experiences that I had prior. And also was very similar to the responses that we're seeing across the country. So I think the parallels there, not that it made it better, but it made it less shocking in that regard. But obviously not the response that you want to get.

1:14:43Jon Favreau:Debates about free speech in America always seem to get hung up on how someone is protesting and not what they are protesting. that is very stupid but just to like kind of let's entertain that debate for a minute like when you look back at I was just trying to think about it when I look back at your protests you're not trying to distract from the anthem you're not trying to call attention to yourself you're like a big you're 6 '4 you're physically making yourself smaller in the moment right by like sitting or kneeling in every other context kneeling is respectful right if a guy gets hurt on the football field everyone takes a knee when you go to church you pray you get on your knees right Like, so, but the debate becomes, this is disrespectful to our troops or some shit.

1:15:28Jon Favreau:Or like, no one's talking about police brutality. And it's just like, it feels like that was, I don't know, was that incredibly frustrating? Did you expect that? Oh, it was very frustrating. but there was a realization that all of the conversation was used as a distraction or deterrent to actually addressing the issue. It was the form of protest. It was the flag. It was the military. Then it became the conversation with the NFL. all of the conversation and where a lot of the media ran with it was to spaces other than the actual issue of police killing black folks and for us we tried to approach it from a space of well anytime we're asked we're just going to bring it back to this this issue but you you can't control the whole media landscape.

1:16:32And it's also interesting. We're also in a new media landscape where views and clicks in the business models are changing during this time period. So it becomes what we need eyeballs. And what's the thing that's going to get us more eyeballs becomes part of that conversation as well. in addition to some of the, I would say some of the reporters or outlets that may be taking a little more nefarious approach to try to redirect the conversation to gain political points or try to rally people around political parties.

1:17:13Jon Favreau:Right. And so, you know, the NFL, again, to fast forward a little bit, they collude to blackball you and prevent you from playing again. You file a legal action against the league for collusion. you eventually settle with them. I hadn't realized until I read the book how much politics influenced the outcome of the legal process and frankly, like the options available to you. Can you explain that to listeners and how the Supreme Court in particular factored into your thinking? Yeah. Well, first, within the grievance process with the NFL, we tried to avoid going down that process. We reached out to the NFL in advance.

1:17:54tried to ask to have a conversation, and they were like, no, file it. Good luck. Really? Wow. So it was a surprising response to me. That's crazy. So, and this is on the back of NFL coaches saying like, oh, he's a starter in this league. So it was very obvious what was happening. And we're like, look, just like, let's just cut this out and get back to what we should be doing. But that ultimately led to the grievance process. Now, the jurisdiction that we have to operate within is the arbitration process that's in the collective bargaining agreement. So that's laid out. Now, as part of that, we did look at options of can we get outside of that jurisdiction?

1:18:41And if so, how do we go about that? And as we did that analysis, part of it became if we go to a federal judge and try to go to federal court, they're going to kick it back to the jurisdiction of the CBA. The other part that became a factor is because Donald Trump had aligned himself and the NFL owners had aligned themselves with each other and had shared interests here. We see as Donald Trump is nominating Supreme Court justices, Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh. We also see NFL owners and organizations backing these candidates. So Michael Bidwell from the Arizona Cardinals, John Elway of the Denver Broncos backing these candidates in the process.

1:19:32The Supreme Court flips. It's now 6-3 Republican. And we're in a space where at this point in time, it's very, very much a loyalty to Donald Trump. and the analysis is even if we get to the Supreme Court and we have the best case and it is obvious and they explicitly state it it didn't seem like there was a scenario where they would ever rule in our favor the business interests just weren't there and I think at that point in time the conversation was also is the Supreme Court actually going to operate in the way that was intended to. And we see some of that playing out.

1:20:20Jon Favreau:Yeah. My game. Your hesitation was well-founded, it turns out. Yeah. So, and that was early stages of this, but we have since seen that play out. So, that led us into the traditional grievance process. We had to go through a special arbitrator on the back end of that. If you win there, then you can go to an appeal, which is a three-person arbitration board. But the structure is, if any one of those arbitrators makes a decision the NFL doesn't like, they can fire them and replace them. This process is rigged. So they've aligned their incentives to be like, well, you're going to rule in our favor.

1:21:01Yeah. And we see this play out. And it's very rare that the NFL even gets to a place of settling a case. So the evidence there was overwhelming. But it is a process that you have to navigate, to your point. It is very much rigged. It's set up in the NFL's favor. And the NFLPA, the players' union, isn't strong. So they haven't put the right safeguards in place for players and protections in place for players. And that's a whole other conversation.

1:21:40Jon Favreau:Yeah. And also like the politics of this. I mean, the issue got picked up by Trump so quickly. I mean, he called protesting players sons of bitches in a speech in September of 2017 in Alabama. Very subtle venue for that. I mean, how did his involvement in the conversation kind of change your experience of it? well we his involvement um put much more of a political spotlight on it um more than it already was and then we see the nfl owners aligned to that as well when we say when we see him say get the son of bitch sons of bitches off the field we see the nfl owners follow suit um we see bob Kraft, who's the owner of the New England Patriots, on Air Force One with him.

1:22:33We see Donald Trump calling Jerry Jones, saying, this is a winning issue for me. Fall in line. We see Jerry fall in line. Woody Johnson became his ambassador to the UK. Exactly. So, and this is in addition to NFL owners donating millions of dollars to him, his inauguration. We see Stephen Ross, the owner of the Miami Dolphins, hosting a fundraiser, raising millions of dollars for him. So the alignment of their interests, we see become so closely connected that essentially they're operating as one in the same.

1:23:12Jon Favreau:Speaking of NFL collusion, Macklemore was just pulled off of Ed Sheeran's tour. It happened because of Bob Kraft, though to the Patriots you just mentioned. By the way, I'm a Patriots fan. I don't feel great about it in this conversation, but I should just to be honest. Bob Kraft calls Ed Shearer and he says he's going to cancel your concert at Gillette Stadium in New England if Macklemore isn't dropped. According to the Wall Street Journal, Kraft was in touch with other team and stadium owners who were also going to cancel concerts if Macklemore wasn't dropped. Kraft was offended by comments Macklemore made in support of the Palestinian people and about Gaza.

1:23:47Jon Favreau:The collusion there sounds very similar to your case, but I wondered what your reaction to reading about all this was. they're just openly colluding now. To me, we have gotten to a place where in 2017, when we filed the collusion case, it was, no, we're not doing this. That's not what's happening. They're trying to deny it. All the facts and evidence says otherwise. But as we sit here today and we're talking about McLemore, we're seeing them do it openly. We're seeing them do it publicly. And brag about it to the Wall Street Journal. They're bragging about it. And they also know or have a high degree of confidence.

1:24:36There's no repercussions. There's no accountability to them or for them. So I think for me, it gets me to a space of we collectively have to decide, are we okay? with this type of collusion? Are we okay with this oligarchy operating in this way where they're able to attack and target individual citizens? And also, what does that mean for everyone else that follows? So I think there should be very definitive action that people are taking to make sure that this doesn't happen again.

1:25:15Jon Favreau:Yeah, I mean, look, Bob Craft, he's got free speech too. He can be offended by whatever offends him. He's entitled to his opinion. I guess he's entitled to, I guess, who gets to play at his venue. I watched the Macklemore speech. I thought it was entirely inoffensive. I know that Macklemore did wear a costume in 2014 that was really bad, and he apologized for that. It was sort of like this anti-Semitic kind of like mask. But I also, I went back and I looked at some acts that recently played at Gillette Stadium. And I think it's interesting to think about which artists get canceled or dropped and which don't.

1:25:49Jon Favreau:so morgan wallen did a show at gillette in 2025 in 2020 he was arrested for smashing a bunch of stuff in a bar uh when he was asked to leave in 2024 he was arrested for throwing a chair off the roof of a bar in nashville which landed right next to a bunch of cops and then in 2021 he was filmed screaming racial slurs and then last month chris brown played at gillette um in 2009 he pleaded guilty to felony assault charges for beating up Rihanna. 2013, he punched Frank Ocean over a parking spot. I didn't even know about that. It's crazy, right? Later that year, he was involved in Hit and Run, another assault, another assault in 2016.

1:26:29Jon Favreau:He was arrested in 2018, 2025. I'll stop belaboring this, but I'm not calling on Bob Kraft to cancel their shows or cancel them big picture. But again, in your case, like it's like in your case, like physical violence, including assaulting women was not a deal breaker for Bob Kraft, but speech was. I think that's interesting and worth noting. Well, we we see that across the NFL as well. We see players that have legal issues and they they're welcome back in. And I think in part, I look at those as it gives them it gives them leverage in many ways. the NFL owners and organizations. Because then in helping navigate a legal situation, it's almost a sense of you are now indebted to us and you're going to take the actions that we want you to take.

1:27:24And we'll have requests that come along with that. Now, I think the threat to the NFL owners are the people who are willing to use their voice and also are not bought and paid. If they can't control you, that becomes a threat to them. If you're advocating for people that they view as counter to their interests, then it becomes a threat to them and they will do everything they can to try to squash that and tamp that out. So I think there's a major issue there in the power that is wielded. I think, again, collectively as people, we have to look at this and say, well, are we okay with this or are we going to take action to try to make sure that this doesn't happen?

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1:30:48Jon Favreau:I think interestingly too, Macklemore, my understanding is I think he owns all his own music and is independent from any label. So he's not facing the kind of control that you were just mentioning that players deal with. Yeah. So fast forward to 2020, uh george floyd is murdered in front of our eyes um it explodes the conversation that you've been having for years now uh this time the nfl is forced to respond roger goodell posts a video where he says quote we the national football league condemn racism and the systematic oppression of black people we the national football league admit we were wrong for not listening to nfl players earlier and encourage all to speak out and peacefully protest he doesn't mention your name which is pathetic.

1:31:27Jon Favreau:But did that feel like vindication? Because it sure sounds like vindication. No. Because the only reason he did that video was because there was a video put out by some of the star players in the NFL calling him out and calling the NFL out for not doing anything over the last four years, but then also specifically in this moment in the wake of George Floyd being killed by police. and if you go if you go back and look at the video from the players and you look at the video from roger goodell he says everything verbatim in that video with the exception of he changes um i think the players video said we apologize to the protesting players um for not for not supporting them or something of that nature.

1:32:23And he says, well, we should have listened earlier. Even in this moment of national protests, international protests, the position is always to protect their own interests. And there's legal ramifications for them. If he's saying we apologize, admitting wrongdoing, which is why there's the kind of sleight of hand there. But again, they are always going to look out for their interests and they will only take actions if it is in a space that they are forced to. They're never going to be proactive and say, oh, you know what? We know this is an issue. We're going to go out and address it. They will always be looking at, well, what's most profitable for us and how can we keep control and keep things out of the way.

1:33:17Jon Favreau:And like, I bet our listeners don't know how much money Roger Goodell makes. I think it's like$64 million,$65 million at the kind of tail end of his contract. Yeah. That's crazy. He's making an insane amount of money. To do what? To fly in a private jet to games? Like a lot of people would love that job, Roger. I mean, to protect the owners and make them as much money as humanly possible. Well, that's the thing. protecting the owners and being the shield for the owners is the number one responsibility there. Right, and not the players. No, it has nothing to do with the players. Like, that's not where his allegiance is.

1:33:52That's not where his responsibility is. And again, when we look at when we look at contracts and agreements with executives like this, typically it is in the framework of you have a fiduciary responsibility. So they're always going to be looking out for their own financial interests. Now, to me, the part that becomes interesting in my case is the financial interests actually say otherwise. Because my jersey went to number one, we have the campaign that we did with Nike in 2018. We see a jump of$6 billion in their valuation during that time period. So this also becomes one of the moments that we see them working counter to the business interests of the NFL and more so are focused on power and control than just the financials.

1:34:46Jon Favreau:Yeah, they wanted to show that they could silence you to silence future critics of the league or about whatever, I guess. Exactly. And all of the ripple effects that come with that. Right. Power of players, stronger union, if players organized, guaranteed contracts. So on the tail end of that, that could have financial implications for them. And a lot of those actions are, we're going to try to protect this now and protect the power and control that we have to make sure this doesn't ever happen. It's crazy the NFL of all leagues, like the most violent sport on the planet does not have guaranteed money or guaranteed contracts for players.

1:35:24Jon Favreau:People always read the headline number that some agent leaks, but it's all bullshit. Like the guaranteed money is so low. And if you blow out your knee, you're just, you're done, right? They cut you and you don't get paid. Yep. It is. We've seen one, two instances of fully guaranteed contracts. Extremely rare. And we've seen the NFL owners also be very critical and try to push on each other to make sure that doesn't happen. but NFL contracts or NFL lifespan is typically three and a half years on average so you have a very short window to try to earn as much as you can the NFL before you're going to be out that also this is where the union has to be stronger most of your long-term benefits as a player don't kick in until after year four or at least that was the case while I was playing.

1:36:25So you see the interest of the NFL show up in ways of that nature where they will try to maximize the profitability and their retention of dollars to the expense of the players. Right. College sports have changed.

1:36:42Jon Favreau:It's an entirely new scenario. I mean, they've changed it completely since you were at the University of Nevada. Back then, a college player could get like tuition, room, board, books. Now athletes can get paid for their name, image, and likeness. It's easier to transfer. Some schools are paying athletes directly. Do you think, what do you think of the evolution that we've seen? I think the evolution is needed. We've seen college sports for generations now exploiting athletes and exploiting their talents and not paying them for the labor. and positioning it as student athletes so they aren't employees, so they don't have to go down this path of paying players.

1:37:27I think NIL helped open that door for players to get paid. I also think there should be more work done to be able to get them directly paid from the universities across the board for the players. Now, some of the new legislation that is coming out. Ted Cruz's bill. That is essentially trying to recreate structures that professional organizations have, limiting players' ability to earn, creating non-competitive environments for teams. where it's fascinating to me in a capitalist society where the position is, well, it should be meritocracy and the best person wins. And hey, if you have the best product and the best thing and you can pay for it, like you have to, everybody else just has to compete with that.

1:38:23And what we see in these organizations, professional organizations and at the college level is more so a collective that is built around socialism. We want to share our resources and we want to make sure we're doing revenue sharing. Right. And we all get an equal portion that, hey, if we're the Cleveland Browns, we're not making as much as like the New York teams or LA. So like we need to balance this out to make sure there's some equity within this. Then when you get to the player side, it's like, well, no, no, no. This just has to be pure competition. We're also going to cap. Right. Right. We're going to cap how much you can make because we need to protect our interests to make sure that we're making as much as we can.

1:39:09Right. And to me, it just becomes insidious in the sense of why not just be open with what you're trying to accomplish and say it and let people address, hey, we agree with this or we don't. and the reality is the overwhelming majority of people don't agree with the approaches that they're taking and want people to be able to go out and earn as much as they can

1:39:34Jon Favreau:yeah I mean it's cartel right like you and I you and I couldn't go start we can start a business we can start a juice stand we couldn't start a new NFL team it's scarcity the values go up but yeah and the owners make out like bandits but the players aren't getting paid exactly and they also have to become an NFL owner the structures around that are to be able to make sure that that stays the good old boys club. I believe a significant portion of the purchase of an NFL team has to be in cash. I believe it's a 75 % majority vote that you have to have to get approval. So they have created structures to be able to insulate themselves to make sure.

1:40:22are you actually politically aligned with all of us? And there aren't going to be any mavericks out here. There aren't going to be any people that go rogue on us because we're going to make sure that we ensure that every person that walks through this door to become an owner of an NFL team actually is aligned with our interests and is going to take similar actions.

1:40:42Jon Favreau:That's crazy. In the book, you write about your approach to politics and voting and how it evolved over time. And just talk about how your thinking changed and what changed it. Yeah. So going back to 2016, a lot of what I had seen in politics and also looking at some of the historical perspectives around politics was politics hadn't changed a lot for the black community. There are pockets where you see this show up, but largely see people's needs being unmet. and also getting into a space of constantly talking about, like, what are the lesser of two evils? And that's a very typical conversation.

1:41:28And in 2016, I was like, well, I don't want to throw my support behind people that I don't believe in fully. And so 2016, I didn't vote. I've since changed that perspective and look at voting as a tool for us to be able to use. but that shouldn't be the only lever that we're utilizing. And part of this understanding was also the work that we were doing directly in communities, understanding the policy impact and how that affected that work, but also looking at the long-term impact and implications of this. We had not, or at least in my lifetime or in my memory, seen a president like Donald come in who is willing to just throw rule of law out the window.

1:42:21Any practices, processes, decency out the window and just try to do whatever he wants. So I think the extreme came out of 2016. The other part is being able to see and understand the generational impact that has been had. So just looking at the judge's side as we were looking at the Supreme Court, also getting more insight on all of the federal judge appointments that were happening. I believe at that point in time when I was looking at the numbers, it was like 46 out of the 54 federal judges that were appointed had come out of the Federalist Society. which just to be able to have an organization essentially train and breed judges to their politics and have all of those appointments become lifetime appointments.

1:43:17It then becomes a space of, oh, the impact and significance here is well beyond just who is on the ticket, but all of the areas of influence underneath that. And that was the area that I had to grow in politically. I didn't have that understanding in 2016. Again, post-voting, I think there's still a ton of work that we have to be doing, and we have to be leaning on politicians aggressively to actually pass policies that support communities. But that's been some of the evolution of understanding and has now led me to take a different approach.

1:43:52Jon Favreau:Are there any candidates out there running now, maybe just in office, that you're excited about? Yeah, the ones that have been interesting to me, I mean, obviously, Momdani in New York. He is one that has been very interesting to me. Abdullah El Saeed in Michigan. He's a buddy of ours. We used to do a show with him here. Oh, really? Yeah. I didn't realize that. Yeah, I'll give you his number. He's great. I really like the approaches that they're taking because they're staying very focused on the needs of the people. at least thus far it doesn't seem like they are they're able to be to be bought or swayed within those conversations I think that's incredibly important I also think that how they have been able to navigate the attacks that have come their way and be able to redirect that and stay the course that has been impressive to me so I'm excited about where we're headed with some of the candidates that are out there.

1:44:56I also think this is representative of what we've seen over the last 10 years and people being fed up just with the establishment. We need something different. We need people that are actually going to come in and serve our needs

1:45:10Jon Favreau:and get things done. And I think this new wave of candidates is exciting. We'll see how this plays out over time. But I think this is I think it's refreshing to be able to see candidates take the positions that they've taken and move the way they have. Yeah. I mean, look, Zoran's campaign was like your 2012 season. You know, he just like blew up, you know, took it all away. Abdul is amazing because he is, he's a brilliant guy, like Rhodes Scholar, public health expert, but also is just a great communicator. And is like, I was out in Detroit two weeks ago. I went to a town hall and I watched him just like interacting with people.

1:45:48Jon Favreau:And it's like, he's giving people some hope and inspiration at a time when not a lot of that running around. So it's been great to watch. Last question for you. So you write in the book that you no longer watch the NFL and that quote, whether to watch the NFL or not as a personal decision for each football fan. I understand that, but it also immediately tells me a good amount about the character of the person I'm engaging with. I winced when I read that because I love the NFL. I watch football. My team's the fucking Patriots. Bob Kraft is the owner. I felt like the interpretation is maybe you think I'm a shitty person, but I don't want to speak for you.

1:46:21No, I think if we are, if we're going down the path of we want to live our principles, we want to live our practices, we have to take the best practices and the best approaches possible to support the things that actually support us. And the things that don't align with our values, I don't think we should be supporting those. now there's there's always nuance and within that because I mean if you go across corporations there's there's always going to be something in there and people aren't perfect people so like there is nuance within that but overall I think the position that I've seen is hey I'm I'm supporting and I want to I want to do the things I can and at the same time we'll take actions that may be counter to that.

1:47:13And my hope is that people will take more consistent actions because on the other side of that is actually accountability to those organizations. In the collusion, whether it is me, whether it is Macklemore, whether it is Donald targeting private citizens, all of these are spaces that we have the opportunity to be able to show up and say, no we don't we don't believe in what you're doing and we're going to take actions to show you as such to make sure on the other side of that we can create change whether that's policy whether that's processes um but those become opportunities for us collectively to have influence on those

1:47:54Jon Favreau:institutions yeah i mean look i i i struggle with this like the concussions and stuff you read about cte like it makes it hard to watch the game bob craft as we discussed is a big trump fan like that That makes it suck on a bunch of levels. But I also have these issues with a lot of things I do in life. I don't love Amazon's labor practices. Do I use Prime every day? You know what I mean? And so, I don't know. I think it's a challenge to wrestle with our own hypocrisies and where we're falling short on this stuff. To know actually what's effective. People who really believe in climate change and want to take steps to combat it always have shit thrown back in their face.

1:48:31Jon Favreau:Being like, well, you flew on an airplane. and it's like, you know what? Me not flying on an airplane is not going to do shit. You know? And it's like, I do wonder, if I don't watch the NFL, does that hurt the owners? Does that hurt the players? Does it just not matter? I don't know. Well, I think these have to become targeted. And we have to be intentional when those show up. We know boycotts are extremely effective. We're seeing this with Target right now. They've rolled back their DEI practices to be in alignment with Trump and capitulate. We've seen the black community collectively boycott them.

1:49:07Their bottom line has been hit. And now they're having to rethink their approach around this. So I think it is hard to say, hey, we're going to do everything all at once. And that's not an effective approach. But in the moments that we have the opportunity to say, no, here's a clear example. We're going to rally around this and behind this, those targeted actions become extremely valuable because it also sends a message to every other corporation, in the NFL's case, every other owner. That becomes an effective way for us to be able to put pressure and apply pressure and have influence on their practices and ultimately making them change where you might not be another executive sitting at the same table with them, but that collective power of our dollars, that is very valuable.

1:49:57Jon Favreau:Yeah, money talks. I mean, I think you pulled your book from Target, right? Yes. Yeah. Book is not in Target. Children's books aren't in Target. We have pulled everything out. Yeah. Well, look, everyone should buy The Perilous Fight. It's a great read. It's super interesting. There's a million stories in there that we did not touch on today. So I'm really grateful for your time. Thanks for coming in. It was great to meet you. Oh, thank you. It's been a pleasure and big fan of your work. And please continue. you. We'll try. Until we're all arrested by Trump. See how that goes. That's our show for today.

1:50:29Thanks to Colin Kaepernick for coming on. We'll be back in the feed on Sunday with a special episode of Pod Save America live from the Texas Tribune Festival. Bye, everyone. Pod Save America is a Crooked Media production. Our show is produced by Austin Fisher, Saul Rubin, McKenna Roberts, and Farrah Safari with Reed Cherlin, Elijah Cohn, and Adrian Hill. Our team includes Matt DeGroat, Ben Hethko, Jordan Cantor, Charlotte Landis, David Tolles, Mia Kelman, Ryan Young, and Naomi Single. Our staff is proudly unionized with the Writers Guild of America East.

1:51:21Jon Favreau:6 p.m. Pacific.

1:51:51Jon Favreau:We'll be right back. 94 till verse Romero. Watch it live only on the zone. Sign up now at the zone.com. This January bare knuckle fighting championship takes over the ocean. The inaugural bruise cruise sales from Miami to the Bahamas aboard the Norwegian jewel three straight days with pool deck, bare knuckle fights in the Caribbean, massive parties, beach events, DJs, cigars, tequila tastings, and nonstop action. The lineup reveals coming soon. Cabins are disappearing fast and the prices won't, stay this low. Reserve your spot with just$200 down at BKFSEA.com