Impeach Pete Hegseth?

29 Sep 2026 · 58 min · 22 chapters

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In short

The hosts discuss Trump’s last-ditch election messaging on cost of living (gas/diesel prices, consumer sentiment), a Republican push to make data centers pay for electricity, AI safety incidents and the lack of regulation, and whether Democrats should pursue impeachment of Pentagon/war advocate Pete Hegseth over Iran-war funding and alleged secrecy. They also cover Trump’s reported dinner with Anthropic’s Dario Amodei and a claim that Trump offered arms sales to China.

Guests

No named guests appear in the transcript; the episode is hosted by Jon Favreau, Jon Lovett, and Tommy Guitard.

Key claims

  • Trump’s “best economy ever” claims don’t match consumer sentiment and diesel prices; gimmicks won’t fix inflation-driven anger.
  • The “data center electricity cost” bill is mostly a messaging stunt; a tougher alternative would require large-load customers to pay.
  • AI companies are investigating “rogue” incidents; Republicans oppose AI regulation, relying on “engineering” fixes.
  • Hegseth impeachment is framed as a way to force subpoenas/documents about Iran war justifications and costs.

Notable examples

  • Diesel around $6.58 in Iowa; export-ban proposal discussed as short-term supply vs long-term risk.
  • Senate data-center bill backed by Ohio’s John Husted; House passed 417-3; Schumer calls it a fraud.
  • OpenAI/Anthropic investigating tens of thousands of guardrail-escape/hacking attempts (including Australian/Federal sites).
  • NBC report: eight Marines wounded by an Iranian missile strike; administration allegedly didn’t tell anyone.
  • Trump reportedly told Xi he could buy U.S. arms; hosts call it baffling/possibly illegal.

Written by AI. May contain mistakes. Listen to the episode to check what was said.

Chapters

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Economic Impact of Diesel Prices

1:02 to 1:15

Discussion on rising diesel prices and their impact on the economy and elections.

“And when you order, please write in Pod Save America in the How Did You Hear About Us survey to let them know we sent you.”

Economic Impact of Diesel Prices

2:58 to 6:44

Discussion on rising diesel prices and their impact on the economy and elections.

“Alright guys, we are five weeks out from election day.”

Trump's Promises and Iowa Economy

6:44 to 8:08

Analysis of Trump's messaging and its effects on Iowa's economy, especially diesel prices.

“said he gave her one of his famous out-of-touch sayings for the record books, best economy ever, as she's running in a tight race against Josh Turek in Iowa.”

Political Strategies and Gimmicks

8:08 to 10:00

Examination of political strategies regarding diesel prices and the upcoming elections.

“Maybe it'll work and drop prices a little bit.”

Data Centers and Republican Strategies

10:00 to 11:28

Discussion on the implications of a new bill regarding data centers and energy costs.

“But I mean, a lot of people listening are like, why do I care about diesel?”

Public Perception and Data Centers

11:28 to 14:01

Exploration of public sentiment regarding data centers and their impact on local communities.

“has said is an, quote, anchor hanging around Husted's neck.”

Debate Over Husted Bill and Ohio Politics

14:01 to 17:35

The hosts discuss the implications of a controversial bill in Ohio and the political maneuvering surrounding it.

“Many of them were championing, you know, data centers for years now and offering all kinds of tax breaks and incentives.”

Debate Over Husted Bill and Ohio Politics

17:41 to 18:42

The hosts discuss the implications of a controversial bill in Ohio and the political maneuvering surrounding it.

“Ocean harvested sodium plus 87 ionic trace minerals.”

Debate Over Husted Bill and Ohio Politics

19:08 to 20:23

The hosts discuss the implications of a controversial bill in Ohio and the political maneuvering surrounding it.

“but it's still much more difficult to obtain than it should be.”

Concerns About AI Regulation and Responsibility

20:28 to 28:00

The hosts delve into the dangers of AI, discussing the responsibilities of tech companies and the implications of rapid AI development.

“Both companies have now said that they've paused either the development or training of their latest models.”
Show all 22 chapters

The Recklessness of Tech Companies

28:00 to 30:58

Explore the consequences of technology companies prioritizing profit over safety.

“It is taking the teachers hours to figure out just what's real and what's not.”

The Recklessness of Tech Companies

32:55 to 33:07

Explore the consequences of technology companies prioritizing profit over safety.

“A lighter thing before we move off this.”

Impeachment Discussion on Pete Hegseth

33:07 to 40:00

Delve into the arguments for and against the impeachment of Pete Hegseth.

“apparently Trump had dinner with Dario Amadei at the head of Anthropic Sunday night, which first of all is very funny because he got off the plane, Trump, very late.”

Trump's China Diplomacy and Military Strategy

40:00 to 42:09

Examine the implications of Trump's remarks about arms sales to China.

“So, you know, it is now for Republicans were so mad.”

Trump's Weapon Offers and Taiwan

42:09 to 43:27

Discussion on Trump's controversial statements regarding weapon offers to China and their implications for Taiwan.

“The Chinese are hacking into all of our networks and all of our classified networks.”

Trump's Weapon Offers and Taiwan

44:35 to 45:06

Discussion on Trump's controversial statements regarding weapon offers to China and their implications for Taiwan.

“That's zbiotics.com slash crooked, code crooked.”

Trump's Campaign Strategies and Taxpayer Dollars

45:07 to 46:29

Analysis of Trump's campaign activities and the use of taxpayer dollars for advertising.

“Let's talk about what's happening on the campaign trail.”

Republicans Respond to Trump Criticism

46:30 to 48:54

Exploration of Republican responses to Trump's actions, particularly from Congresswoman Salazar.

“He's sitting on, what,$400 million that he won't spend except on ads that kind of puff himself up.”

Immigration and Trump's Policies

48:55 to 52:00

Discussion on Trump's immigration policies and the reactions from other Republican figures.

“One of the few Republicans who has, Florida Congresswoman Maria Elvira Salazar.”

AI, Social Media, and Image Management

52:01 to 55:46

Analysis of the AI-generated videos from the White House and their implications on public perception.

“that usually vote in those elections that have voted for Trump in the past and John Husted wins.”

Quality of Life Issues Under Zoran

55:47 to 56:00

Discussion about the quality of life issues in Zoran, focusing on overlooked aspects related to sex work.

“Well, he started arming the communists, which was, again, a surprise.”

Discussion on AI and Political Imagery

56:00 to 59:04

Explore how AI-generated images reflect on Trump's public persona and societal perceptions.

“Of course, you know, we're sharing the technology.”
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Transcript

Automatic transcript. May contain errors.

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2:35Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Jon Favreau. I'm Jon Lovett. Tommy Guitard. On today's show, we'll talk about Trump's last-ditch effort to convince voters Republicans care about the cost of living, Democrats' big decision on a Republican data center bill, Pete Hegseth facing GOP critics and a possible impeachment over the Iran war. And the White House spending your tax dollars on Trump campaign ads. Alright guys, we are five weeks out from election day. And the numbers that may end up being more predictive than any poll are these. $4.50 a gallon for gas. $6.50 for diesel. And consumer sentiment now at its second lowest level in history.

3:16lower even than the height of the pandemic or the 2008 financial crisis. And it isn't just Democrats, Republican consumer sentiment is now down 20 % since January, which does raise questions about whether this kind of messaging from Donald Trump is moving the needle. We have the best economy we've ever had. I've reduced the prices, but they like to say affordability, but they're the ones that cause the affordability problem. I don't have to know anything about you. Your 401k has doubled in a short period of time. It's doubled. You're twice as wealthy as you were a short time ago, every one of you.

3:55And that's because of me. Have a good time, everybody. You're twice as wealthy, and that's because of me. Have a good time. That's it. That's the closing argument. So the White House is trying to limit the damage of what they've done in the last couple of years with an assortment of gimmicks now. Trump's reportedly still weighing an export ban on diesel. And in that appearance on Monday in the Oval, that was an announcement that a Minnesota company will spend$15 billion to build a new steel plant in Iowa that could create 1 ,700 jobs when it opens in 2030. You think that'll do it? We'll have the midterms in 2030 maybe.

4:39Jon Favreau:I think it's a smart idea in the short term in Iowa. I mean, I was talking to a friend in Iowa today who said like the Democratic reaction is, do you guys remember when Trump brought the CEO of Foxconn to the White House and announced they would open a plant for like 13, to make 13 ,000 new jobs in Wisconsin in 2017? They're going to make like LCD screens or something. Shocker. A decade later. Didn't pan out. Didn't really pan out. It's more like I think Microsoft now owns the land and it's just data centers. So it's kind of exactly what you'd expect. But my buddy in Iowa said that this was getting a lot of press, making headlines, like the public statements from people like Rob Sand or like, it's a promising idea.

5:16Jon Favreau:I want more details, stuff like that. So they're kind of welcoming it. But ultimately, I think the price of diesel is what people in Iowa are really focused on right now. It's like$6.58. It's about double what it was this time last year. They're about to go into planting season. So Iowa farmers are really, really pissed about that. I don't think an announcement of one potential factory by 2030 is going to deal with that. Yeah, there's a poll about how many people believed they were going to get the$5 ,000 check. It turns out not many. Not many, right? So you've got to assume. People aren't really idiots.

5:51Right. People can look and be like, hey, it's really cool that we're going to have a new steel plant in Iowa. What a great idea. But it's not until 2030. And also, why do I think that that's something I should thank Trump for? Right. I think people don't believe Donald Trump anymore. Even people that we would say, oh, like we wish they'd been credulous for far less time. Like it is happening. And such as like you can say that like that's like the floor, right? Like how many people are going to believe his promises at this point? It's just sort of vanishingly few. So I'm sure people would appreciate a new steel plant, but it's a kind of believe it when I see it situation.

6:25It certainly doesn't change the fundamental economic conditions, which are not just, by the way, like precede this election. Like Donald Trump promised not just to kind of not have diesel prices go through the roof, but to address like, you know, decades of decline and years of rising prices. He's done the opposite. it. How excited do you think Ashley Hinson was to be standing right behind Donald Trump for when he said he gave her one of his famous out-of-touch sayings for the record books, best economy ever, as she's running in a tight race against Josh Turek in Iowa. Now she gets a video of her in the oval behind him where he said, best economy ever, you're all richer.

7:02Jon Favreau:I think she said something funny too, like, we support your agenda, sir. Thank you for your agenda, sir, or something like that. He also promised, I think, to go to Iowa to campaign for her, which she was like, white-knuckling it. He's going out. Yeah, he's like, hey, everyone, this is Ashley. She's in a tough race. She's awesome. Best economy ever. I'm going to go out and tell everyone in Iowa that when I campaign with her. Donald Trump giving rally speeches at this point is the equivalent of when a dog brings you a bird. You know, it's like for these Republicans, he's like, look, look, I'm here with that bird you want.

7:33He's like, fuck, I don't want that bird. Get out of the house. you know um what about this diesel ban pros cons uh and does it have any impact uh political

7:45Jon Favreau:impact do you think before the midterm maybe short term i mean it sounds like they're preparing or proposing a 90-day export ban which would in the short term would mean there's more supply uh which presumably would bring down prices in the short term in the u.s but long term um it creates a bunch of challenges that could increase prices permanently or not permanently for the long run. So I don't know. I think most of the industry hates it. People think it's kind of bullshitty. Maybe it'll work and drop prices a little bit. But again, like I was about to go into a month long harvest season with diesel prices at$6.58 a gallon in Sioux City, Iowa.

8:24Jon Favreau:Like if they're going to do this, why didn't they do it a month ago? Five weeks we got until the election. Five weeks. And like, I don't know if I'm an expert enough to know what the like short term effects of a diesel export ban would be. But why are we in this mess? Well, because the president is a capricious buffoon who has introduced incredible instability in trade, in the Middle East, in the supply of oil, just adding one more layer of unpredictable market forces, long-term help. Of course not. What it does in the short term, who knows? But it's all being swamped by the fact that there is an ongoing war in the Middle East he can't get us out of.

9:04So whatever gimmicks he tries to pull in the next five weeks, I can't imagine it making that much of a difference. Yeah. I think – I mean, look, we've all been there. You're trying to solve a problem that people don't perceive that you've succeeded in fixing the economy or that you're fixing it fast enough. And so you go to the policy people and you're like, what can we do to sort of move the needle here? Perhaps with a phone and a pen. They throw in a bunch of stuff. Well, yeah, ideally you'd start these things a year in advance of the election. And you'd also do something that maybe actually made a difference.

9:40And at the very least, you do stuff where you're like the way that you frame it is, you know, and we're not there yet, but we're fighting hard to bring down costs. We're going to take on these companies, their price, whatever you say. This message is so inconsistent that it's like we're going to do this thing. We're a diesel ban and we're going to open up this thing. But also it's the best economy ever and you're all rich. It doesn't really make a lot of sense.

10:00Jon Favreau:Yeah, he's always selling. He's always marketing. But I mean, a lot of people listening are like, why do I care about diesel? Like diesel increases the price of everything. It's trucking. It's freight trains. It's ships, meaning like small boats. It's farming and tractors and construction. It's home heating prices in the Northeast. It's military vehicles. Like this is touching all these different parts of our economy. And we export like 1.25 million barrels a day. So you could, I guess, stop doing that. But it's not going to increase supply that much. No. Speaking of fuel, you know what powers Crooked Media?

10:34What powers Crooked Media, John? Our subscribers. Oh, yeah. Yeah, which is a good reason to head on to crooked.com slash friends to become a subscriber today. You get ad-free episodes of all your favorite podcasts and you help support independent pro-democracy media, of which we are one of the few outlets left. And that engagement, it's a renewable resource. Republicans in Congress are also hard at work at pretending they suddenly care about the cost of living. This week, the Senate will vote on a bill that would direct states to, quote, consider requiring data centers to pay for their own energy costs.

11:13Just think about it, you know, ponder whether you might be willing to gently nudge AI companies to maybe possibly pay for the vast amount of electricity that they consume. That's what this bill does. It's brought to you by Ohio Republican John Husted, who has been getting hammered by Sherrod Brown for giving$2.5 billion in tax breaks to data centers in Ohio alone, which the Republican Senate Campaign Committee has said is an, quote, anchor hanging around Husted's neck. They said it's the biggest threat to his reelection in a very close campaign. Would love to hear what they think about this new data center soundbite we just got from the Republican Speaker of the House.

11:54Let's listen.

11:54Jon Favreau:I've had several tech executives and lawmakers, to be clear, say that the information against data centers, that pushback against data centers, that is coming from China. Yes, it is a Chinese psyop. I really believe that. It's not a conspiracy theory. I think they're pushing those ideas. It's not a conspiracy theory. How, like, someone unpack this for me. If he sincerely believes that, what is, like, one of the pieces of evidence that this is a Chinese lab? Where is this coming? Where do they think this is coming from? This is just a guess. But I think what they would say is, so there's some people who are upset by data centers.

12:25But then, you know, the Chinese are pushing, like, fake accounts, sock puppet accounts. They're, like, making things go viral. I don't know. Maybe they're— It's crazy. Like, bot farms, I guess. I guess there's like, the word psyop, like we just got to, everyone stopped using it. It's become just sort of like, the things you don't like are all psyops now, fine, whatever. I think people got bored using the word conspiracy and they just said it was psyop. Right, yeah. Sounds cooler, I guess. Greg Abbott has shifted on this. We were just in Texas talking about this. A lot of Republicans realize that there's headwinds against it.

13:00Maybe it's true, right? In the same way that Russia didn't invent American political dysfunction but took advantage of it by fanning the flames of it, maybe China does see advantage in kind of drumming up antipathy towards AI in the United States. It wouldn't change the fact that these companies have gone about this in the most ham-fisted and kind of arrogant way that dismissed the concerns of people and that they've tried to buy and sell politicians to get around persuading people that they might want these data centers in their communities. The objections are very real from people who, A, don't want these things in their backyard, and B, have come to expect that the benefits that accrue to the largest and most profitable corporations in the world do not kind of redound to the benefit of the broader community.

13:48And that is not something China can convince us of, whatever he is seeing or claiming to see or wanting to believe is true. So Republicans, they have recognized that they have a data center problem. Many of them were championing, you know, data centers for years now and offering all kinds of tax breaks and incentives. Also, to be honest, some Democrats too. And now everyone realizes there's a problem because all the polling has come back and it's unbelievably unpopular. And so they're deciding they're trying to do something belatedly. So the House passed a version of this Husted Bill, and it passed almost unanimously, 417 to 3.

14:31But the Senate Democrats then blocked John Thune's effort to pass it by unanimous consent. And Chuck Schumer called the bill a fraud, though as of now, we're recording Monday, the caucus still seems to be mulling over whether to try to deny Husted the points and open themselves up to being labeled obstructionists. So what do you guys think of this? What are the Senate Democrats do here? So first of all, it's not clear that this would do anything for Ohio. Ohio has a different set of rules that already go beyond what these voluntary rules would be. So he's just trying to do a stunt messaging win that he can go campaign on.

15:09And I don't see why you would you would help a Republican fighting for his life in the final home stretch before an election, get a fake victory that he can go run around the state pretending proves that he's some advocate. So that's where I would start if that's about trying to have an alternative bill, about just voting this thing down and trying to tell the story. Actually, I don't know what the right thing to do is, but it is clear that the idea that you should – whatever the vote in the House, because this bill doesn't do much, so it's an easy yes, whatever. The question is what you do right now.

15:41And it certainly wouldn't be helpful to Sherrod Brown, so I don't know why we do Husted's politics for him.

15:45Jon Favreau:I just find it hilarious that like the Husted campaign thinks that voters are ever going to learn about a procedural vote on a bill that does nothing in the Senate about a data center. It just feels like such a dated view of politics when you could really actually inform people about these issues or votes and make it salient. I think people are really mad about the economy. They're really mad about data centers. They're pissed at the people in charge for allowing them to get there. And they know that some bullshit vote in Congress is probably not going to help them one way or the other. I think you're right.

16:15Jon Favreau:Democrats should not give him a win here. But it feels like a bit of a Hail Mary. Yeah, I guess the argument would be if they pass it through the Senate, then Trump signs the bill. And then Trump does a big signing ceremony thing. And they all pretend that they did something, even though, again, it's requiring states to consider doing this. I think the Democrats should. So there is an alternative bill. Martin Heinrich of New Mexico, centered from New Mexico, has a competing bill that would create actual federal requirements for large load customers to bear the cost of infrastructure necessary to connect them to the grid.

16:52So it actually make them pay for the electricity they use. And when Heinrich tried to pass his tougher bill by also unanimous consent, the person who blocked it was Bernie Moreno, also of Ohio. So I would just, I mean, I don't know how all the procedures work here, but Schumer should just, I assume at some point they'll get to try to put an amendment on the bill. And they should just amend the bill to be like, oh, no, no, no, instead of consider, you must require. And then when they say no to that, say, well, Republicans voted against requiring data centers to pay for their electricity. And then it seems like the whole thing blows up in their faces, but I don't know.

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20:27Reminder that the reason AI companies keep racing to put data centers all over the place is so they can continue developing new AI models that, according to the AI companies themselves, may lead to human extinction. Real win-win type situation there. Axios reported over the weekend that OpenAI and Anthropic are now investigating tens of thousands of incidents where their AI models went rogue, bypassing guardrails, escaping sandboxes, and attempting to hack websites, including now we know the Australian government's websites, and they tried to tamper with federal government websites in the United States.

21:03Both companies have now said that they've paused either the development or training of their latest models. And on Monday, Florida's Republican Attorney General asked a state court to force OpenAI to pause development. But Trump and most other Republicans are still against any kind of AI regulation whatsoever. Same with AI leaders like NVIDIA's Jensen Wong, who had this to say about dealing with runaway AI on Monday.

21:31Jon Favreau:We hope it's an engineering problem. I believe it's an engineering problem. I know it's an engineering problem. And we all need to hope that it's an engineering problem. If it's not an engineering problem, it's not solvable. Oh, okay. Hope, need, I know. Pick a side there, buddy. Did you guys hear him on Ezra's podcast? I have not listened yet. I am going to listen to it. It's troubling, frankly. It's really – he's like – he tries to be like the sunny optimist, but you're just like, wow, you're really out to lunch on this shit. Or you're just trying to fool us all. He yada yada yada's around a lot of important factual points.

Read the full transcript

22:02Jon Favreau:He's like, well, if I were an open AI CEO, I would simply not deploy into the world unsafe technology. It's like, well, actually, the hugging face incident happened to the testing phase dickhead. That's the problem. Dude, they're all doing this. Like, this is what the all-in guys all do this too. They're like, just don't ship it. Don't ship it. Don't ship unsafe technology. But they hadn't shipped it. The big takeaway for me from the hugging face and this endless series of announcements about new hacks and websites and government is that OpenAI is a totally irresponsible and reckless company. And this is the kind of shit you'd expect from a couple of research assistants at a university messing around as grad students.

22:37Jon Favreau:Not the most valuable company in the world creating a technology they tell will fundamentally reshape life as we know it. So like hopefully that this current pause is actually going to be a real one and not two weeks like last time was supposed to be. Right. Do we know how long they paused around hugging face? I think it was two weeks. Yeah. And we don't even know. Like, look, they keep putting out these announcements. We're pausing testing. We're pausing development. But all of this is just taking their fucking word for it, which is not what we should be doing. And the Jensen Wong comments there, like they get a pretty fundamental debate about AI.

23:09Jon Favreau:I was talking to Jason Goldman, who we used to work with at the White House, a tech advisor to Obama. It's like, is AI a normal technology or is it something new and different? If it's a normal technology, you can use current skills to manage it and put guardrails around it, like even if it's transformational like electricity was. If it's not, we need new science and new scientific advances. And until we have those, it's not going to be safe. And for what it's worth, like Dean Ball, a staffer at OpenAI who worked for Trump, tweeted, I think it's primarily a science problem and that it's possible to make progress in that science.

23:42Jon Favreau:But no, while there is engineering we can do today to improve AI safety, it is not fundamentally an engineering problem. So there's a lot of like – sometimes we treat it like a normal product. Sometimes we treat it like an abnormal product, as you're saying. And if you just like put a box around it and just like call it – They've been trying to do that and they can't. Right. But like forget how it does what it does, that it's a large language model, that it's this new and genuinely novel innovative technology. and just like think of it as just a tool or a utility that's been developed that like, look, I don't know how software works when it's normal software.

24:18It just does stuff, right? And you found out that this company made this software and it is doing all of these crazy things. You'd say, well, that's irresponsible. You are responsible for what your software is doing. You've made this software. You clearly don't understand its risks and you're allowing it to do all of these dangerous things. And then that quickly goes into the ways in which it's abnormal, which is, well, it's agentic. And is it conscious? Is it its own thing? Who is responsible? You are responsible, right? Like we're not going to resolve the definition of consciousness and certainly this idea of alignment.

24:47Like I wish everyone was a little bit less confident about their opinions about like the nature of consciousness and what it means to be aligned with humanity. That doesn't even matter. That's my point. It has no bearing on this whole debate. Just like you are responsible for what you are programming. It is programming. It is code, whatever else goes into it that makes it novel. You are responsible for it. You are aware of the risk. And what happens now? You are culpable in the same way that if you were shipping nuclear material across the country and slowly but true, you're like, oh, yeah, a little fell out in Detroit.

25:17Actually, it's been dropping off on all of Route 66 all the way across the country. Whoopsie daisy. We're going to take a two week break from shipping nuclear material.

25:25Jon Favreau:But I think it's even a little more complicated because like whether or not it's like conscious or alive or as feelings, that whole debate, there is like the critics of AI called a stochastic parent, which means it just like repeats back stuff we said, but in a randomized way. And like that has been proven wrong. It's a very – That hasn't been true for years. It's a very powerful stochastic parrot, but it's stochastic in that it involves like unpredictability and random variables and chance and probability. In other words, they create a thing. They create the large language model and they don't really know how it works and they don't know what the outputs are going to be and all the weird things it's going to do.

25:59Jon Favreau:And so if that is kind of the threshold situation, like how do you create safeguards for something that is so inherently unpredictable and that you don't really understand? This is why – and look, you get this from the right and you get this from some people on the left, which is like these people should just be more careful and we have liability laws on the books and we should just be holding them responsible and they shouldn't ship the product and all that kind of stuff. It's like, no, no, no. First of all, it's not about shipping the product yet. They were trying to test these models and what they thought was a sandbox and they thought they were doing it right and they fucked up.

26:37And clearly, like even when they have the sandbox right, it still got out of the sandbox because some people were like, oh, well, they didn't set up the sandbox correctly. It's like, no, no, no. On Hugging Face, they did set up the fucking sandbox correctly and it still fucking got out. So they don't. The problem is they think they're being careful and then they do a test and then they have the rogue agents that escape everywhere and then it's mayhem. So like, what do you do about that? You can't just have companies be like, well, I'm going to try to do better next time. That's why you have independent regulators.

27:07You have people in the companies watching them, watching the testing. You slow it down even more like and but you have to have everyone slow it down at the same time because you can't just have a couple of companies saying like, well, we're going to slow it down because we've said it voluntary voluntarily. But like Mark Zuckerberg is going to do whatever the fuck he wants and Elon Musk is going to do whatever the fuck he wants. Like you can't have a situation like that either. like yeah well it's also like why is all this happening well because they're balancing safety against their aggressive need to win and clearly they're that that is that is uh you know too heavy on the scale and by the way like put aside the frontier models and and what happened with hugging face and all of this that's what's happening with the actual deployment of the models for customers they're having terrible consequences you you guys talked about this last week that that a model was helping somebody plan a mass shooting.

27:55You have teachers like high school teachers across the country, like kids are turning in slop. It is taking the teachers hours to figure out just what's real and what's not. It's like having these terrible downstream consequences, which they will claim to care about. But the reason they don't have they're pushing these models out anyways, because they're trying to make money. They're trying to prove that this is a viable business. So they're all weighing their own sort of corporate goals against the reckless and dangerous consequences of moving too quickly. And they are choosing to do this too quickly and assuming that because the technology is novel, because they can claim it's agentic, because it's stochastic, whatever they want to claim about it, that somehow they're not responsible.

28:38and we just have to like assert from the beginning that they are responsible for the consequences of the software that they are putting into the world regardless of the philosophical rhetoric they put around it. Right, but it's, I've heard this a couple of times, they're like, well, you know, airlines wouldn't just put planes in the sky that they know are gonna fall out of the sky because that wouldn't be economically advantageous for them. It's like, right, it won't be economically advantageous for them if their planes fall out of the sky, But then the planes will have already fallen out of the sky and the people will be dead So like you can say you must be responsible for your things like that's yes Of course, it's important to have liability laws in place But like that doesn't leave you from leave the alleviate the rest of us from trying to regulate it on the fucking front end It's also like you must be responsible for your model like yeah Okay, but that's why we have regulations because we don't trust them to be responsible and also plane crashes aren't catching Right, you know like the the nuclear comparison and whatever.

29:36It was like the idea that like, whatever the benefits that they, like there is a serious and real small risk of something quite catastrophic. We all agree, like whether people want to be confident about denying it or confident about saying it will happen, it obviously exists. Whatever share you claim it exists, it exists. And the goal is to push that, to get away from that risk. And they are just not serious enough about what that requires and not honest enough about why some of these other analogies don't apply because we don't get to go back and fix it if we cross some threshold we didn't realize we crossed.

30:10Jon Favreau:The companies aren't filled with perfectly rational economic actors. They're human beings that screw stuff up and make mistakes and are like venal and dishonest sometimes. I think what drives me a little crazy about all of this is just it feels like we're going too fast for no good reason. Yeah. What is the downside to waiting six months? There's not some cancer cure right here that we're about to pull down. If only we can get to AGI. It is the gerbil gerbil China bullshit. And then, you know, it's like, okay, so they beat us. They have a slightly better clause. No one even knows what they're beating us to.

30:46It just, it makes me crazy. Because no one can actually define what AGI is or super intelligent. Like, so it's just crazy, you know.

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33:06A lighter thing before we move off this. apparently Trump had dinner with Dario Amadei at the head of Anthropic Sunday night, which first of all is very funny because he got off the plane, Trump, very late. And so he was having dinner with Dario starting at 10 p.m. Oh, buddy. So Dario... You can't get me out of the house after six. 10 o 'clock dinner, you're an old man. I eat dinner after eight. I feel weird for three days. But beyond that, don't you guys just... Wouldn't you kill to be like a fly on the wall for this dinner with Dario, the biggest fucking nerd computer guy, right? And he's sitting there with Donald Trump at 10 o 'clock at night having dinner at the White House.

33:44What did they talk about?

33:46Jon Favreau:The same garbage you hear at a rally. I'm sure he was doing the weave ranting at this poor guy, just sitting there in silence. Apparently it works because now there's like an AI meeting at the White House this week, and Dario finally got invited even though he's like been pursuing non grata there. I think, yeah, there's a lunch with all the tech CEOs on Tuesday. I think you probably couldn't invite Amadei to the China state dinner because there's a scheduling. Well, no, they also oppose. They're in favor of all these export controls and stuff to China. So the Chinese would probably hate him. Like, I think it's probably good that they're talking.

34:14Jon Favreau:Oh, yeah. There's not this like Cold War. It's also from Trump's point of view. It's an indication that the government really likes Anthropic and uses their code across the national security space and are probably pretty hooked on it. So it does seem like the Cold War maybe is ending between those two. Yeah, I will say, like, what is China going to beat us to? Like, I do like, no, we don't want a Chinese authoritarian government to have the most advanced surveillance technology to kind of surpass us in these technologies and kind of hit some kind of threshold of growth that we can't catch up to.

34:49Like, I get that. Going to steal ours anyway. But then it's like, I don't know. I've been thinking like more like, OK, there's actually we're competing against two countries. One of them is China and the other is the artificial intelligence country that doesn't yet exist. And we're just trying to win against both of these countries. Speaking of philosophical arguments. Yeah. That's how I think about it. So anyway, good luck to us. One thing the Senate's not voting on this week is the Pentagon funding that Pete Hegseth keeps pushing. He wants a budget increase of more than 40 percent, plus another$88 billion to cover the Iran war so far.

35:23It's no longer just Democrats who are opposed to this funding. Here's the latest semaphore headline, quote, Republicans fuming at Hegseth as war costs build. They're also pissed at how Hegseth's handling the war. NBC News broke the story on Sunday evening that eight Marines on an American ship were wounded by an Iranian missile strike earlier this month. that the administration just didn't bother to tell anyone about. The anger at Hegseth is so intense. The Democratic senators are now thinking that if their House counterparts want to impeach Hegseth, a reminder that Thomas Massey is already forcing a vote on this, that the Democratic Senate will not stand in the way.

36:00Who's up for a Hegseth impeachment, huh? Good use or bad use of a congressional majority? I'd say, first of all, worth reading the Massey impeachment recommendations because, boy, are they persuasive. He makes a really good argument. I think there's a really – it is the smartest to me version of an impeachment case to basically start with Hegseth. First of all, he has been one of the biggest advocates for the war in Iran. He is like the face of whether it's the extraditional killings or this sort of idea of take no mercy and sort of violate the rules of war in Iran. I do think the war is incredibly popular and to make him the avatar for it is a good idea.

36:45Like I'm open to arguments against it, but I was like, fuck yeah, peach this asshole.

36:50Jon Favreau:Yeah. I mean, asking for$1.5 trillion for the Pentagon is wildly unpopular. I think 60 % of the country thinks that's too much money in recent polls. So I'd like to highlight that. Nate Silver's polling average has the Iran war at 58 % opposed, 33 % are in support of it. but even that I don't think gets to the extent of how unpopular the war is because of the way it's driven up gas prices and diesel prices and like inflation everywhere so I hope Democrats do a ton of oversight hearings about the Iran war to drive attention to it because I think they're lying about the casualty count I think the Pentagon is lying about the cost I think they're lying about or at least covering up the amount of damage to like bases in the region theoretically impeachment is a better way to get like documents and subpoenas and stuff in practice they'll just resist them every request.

37:39Jon Favreau:So I don't know. I don't know whether that's better than impeachment is better than just a straight kind of set of oversight hearings, but it's something. They should absolutely do something. It should be top of the list. Yeah. I guess the question is, so what's the ultimate goal? Ultimate goal is to end the war. And so say Democrats win the election, take back Congress. And now Trump does what he also said. There was reports over the weekend And today, I think, too, that, you know, Trump has been telling people like, oh, maybe after after the election, he'll resume the war in Iran. Right. He's been saying by the way, he's been saying that repeatedly and saying that he's going to get a deal with Iran after.

38:17Right. Yeah. So he's going to keep bombing and get a deal. Yeah. But so say Democrats win. And so then what are the options to try to end the war? Well, the first the low hanging fruit will be to all do the war powers resolution again. And then they'll they'll still, you know, they'll pass the war powers resolution. and then Trump will say, fuck you, I don't care. I'm not going to abide by that. He'll veto it, yeah. So then I guess the question is, can you do something with funding, cut the funding off for the war, or you have the Higgs-Eff impeachment? I guess those are your two options. And ideally, you'd want to, you know, sort of cut funding off if you could, but like that's probably a hard vote too.

38:50But, you know, one of those two things I think the Democrats should probably pursue. Because if you run on, we should end this war, then, you know, people are going to expect that you at least do everything within your power to try to end it, even though they will know that Trump is still president and, you know, you don't have full control over it. Yeah, not to mention, I think one of the reasons, one part of the Massey impeachment document is the fact that we went to war without congressional authorization and what these funding measures are are authorizations after the fact. So, like, you have to interrogate that.

39:20And part of that is, yes, put the Secretary of Defense on trial to find out what was going on behind the scenes with these extraditional killings, What was going on when they decided to launch this war? Why did the justifications change so much? All of this is a tool to unlock a lot of the kind of information that, to Tommy's point, we just haven't had access to, including their deliberations and the fucking 15 reasons they used to justify the war in the opening days and since. I was thinking about how 2006, obviously the last midterm, the Republicans got absolutely crushed because of Iraq and George W.

39:56Bush's war in Iraq. And then after that election, Don Rumsfeld was out. That was that weekend after. So, you know, it is now for Republicans were so mad.

40:07Jon Favreau:They were like, you couldn't have done this six weeks ago. Yeah. Now, for Trump, it's like, you know, it's Pete Hegseth. That's his boy. All right. It's not like a not like a Kristi Noem situation or a Pam Bondi situation. But you would think that'd be the that'd be the easiest move for him. Right. Well, yeah. But the other part of this is get Hegseth in front of a Senate committee. he's going to think he's such hot shit. He's going to be so cocky and arrogant about it. And it is going to be so revealing. And he's going to be such a bad witness. Yeah, I think impeaching him probably does galvanize NAGA support for Hegseth and probably emboldens him to run for president.

40:42Jon Favreau:So, you know, that's the political world we live in. But I agree. Cut off funding, end the war. Do everything you possibly can to end the war. If it's impeachment, do it. If it's funding votes, do it. Whatever it takes. It's a disaster. On the subject of Trump's mastery of foreign policy, his ambassador to China, David Perdue, made this eye-opening claim over the weekend. But President Trump continues to say, hey, we sell arms to other people around the world. He actually asked President Xi, would he like to buy some at one point? I'm sorry, what? What? Seems like a big deal, Tommy. Trump basically was like, oh, I haven't heard about that when he was asked about it in the Oval today.

41:18Jon Favreau:Which made it all even weirder. When I first saw the headline, I thought, that's weird and crazy, but it has to be a joke, right? Like maybe he was kidding around. But then you figure out the source is Purdue who's in the meeting and the ambassador. And he doesn't talk about it like he was kidding. And then Trump, when he was asked, he wasn't like, oh, I was messing around or like saying to the Chinese, well, if you abide by the world, the international order, maybe one day we could be partners on things. He just was like, no, maybe he thought I meant Taiwan. And like the context is the Chinese are sorry, the Iranians are using Chinese satellite imagery to blow up our bases in the Gulf.

41:57Jon Favreau:They're keeping these articles about the Chinese intercepting and stealing F-35 component parts to, you know, figure out how to use like the stealth technology or whatever. Like don't steal it. Just ask nicely. I'll give it to you. The Chinese are hacking into all of our networks and all of our classified networks. I guess she's probably thinking like, buddy, I got your weapons for free. Don't worry. We're good. But it was a baffling thing to say. It's also – so it's illegal, right? The State Department said it's illegal. That can't happen. That we're not – Yeah, we're not going to give them weapons to invade Taiwan.

42:28Even if we wanted to. It's crazy. Meanwhile, we're like – you know, the Trump administration is still like holding up weapon shipments to Taiwan. Yes. So imagine that signal. It's like he's offering weapons to Xi, but he's not even sending weapons to Taiwan. Poor Taiwanese are like, what? Man, they cannot believe their luck with Trump. that's if you're you're you're heading back to you're heading back to china you're on that plane you're like i have all the things that could have gone right for us this fucking guy i cannot you know it's like we have a thousand year plan and in these four years we're getting so much fucking business done you're unbelievable it's like also that granite was beautiful you're debriefing your

43:04Jon Favreau:staff and the staff was like sir i just i think you misspoke you said that he offered to sell you american weapons you almost you almost you gotta assume that they're on the plane be like are we getting snowed? Is he that stupid? Are we missing something here? I don't know what's going on with this. Amazing. Amazing stuff.

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45:16Let's talk about what's happening on the campaign trail. Trump's schedule remains a bit of a head-scratcher for this late in the cycle. It is, let's see, it's Monday, September 28th we're recording this. That is late. We are almost in October. And this week, Trump will be in the well-known swing states of Oklahoma and Alabama before heading to Ohio on Saturday for an event with John Husted. This is after a weekend when he traveled to Tennessee for college football and Illinois for a golf tournament, while also using our tax dollars to broadcast these, quote unquote, public service announcements all across the country.

45:51This is the final battle. With you at my side, we will demolish the deep state. We will expel the warmongers from our government. We will drive out the globalists. We will cast out the communists, Marxists and fascists.

46:04Jon Favreau:We will throw off the sick political class that hates our country. We will rout the fake news media and we will liberate America from these villains once and for all. So that appears to be an exact copy of a spot the Trump campaign ran in 2024. The only thing that changed is the disclaimer at the end, which now reads paid for by the U.S. government. uh white house put out a statement saying that these are quote clearly not campaign ads but quote a reminder for americans to love their country thoughts if you're gonna steal my money and use that on an illegal campaign ad could at least be like a good spot you know that's not that's not an effective ad you know now that you say that old man walking down the hallway if you're gonna take my money go ahead put it behind that that's what i'm saying uh i'm gonna kick out the communists and the marxists is like well you've had a couple years what have you been doing buddy Yeah, they're not particularly helpful campaign ads, so go for it.

47:04He's sitting on, what,$400 million that he won't spend except on ads that kind of puff himself up. This is what he's using tax dollars for illegally. Nobody willing to say no to him on that so that he gets to see it on television, I assume, while he's watching. Government spent already more than$300 ,000 just on this version. There's a couple of these floating around, according to Ad Impact. and that one aired on during SNL, Fox News Sunday, in college and NFL games. Did you guys see it on the plane when we were on our way back from Boston? It was on all the football games. I didn't see it, I didn't see it.

47:36Yeah, and that's, yeah, like I said, that's on top of the earlier Trump, the government-funded Trump ads. It's just very illegal.

47:43Jon Favreau:I'm just quite confused as to how they think they can get it. I mean, I guess because Republicans don't care, but it's just sort of a shocking decision. It is a shocking decision. I guess I should be focused on the illegality of it. It's also just wild to me that they think that putting paid for by the U.S. government on that ad is going to do anything at all to help Republicans. It's just like go ahead. Air that everywhere and then put paid for by they should just put paid for by you, the taxpayer. Yeah, it's actually pretty baffling. Right. Because not an ad is going to move the needle. They have a huge financial advantage.

48:17They don't need to do this. It just seems brazen and cheap now. Right. Yeah, just trying to save a few dollars on ads. You're going to end the election with hundreds of millions of dollars unspent. You're not running for anything. By charging the rest of us for an ad by saying that you're going to kick out the Marxists and the communists from government and that's it? That's all it says? It just seems like a little, I don't know, just a little small petulant act of dominance just to stick it to us. It's just strange. It's nuts. So we've wondered aloud why more Republicans in tough races, which is a list that's growing by the day, haven't done anything to criticize this historically unpopular president who may cost them their jobs.

48:57One of the few Republicans who has, Florida Congresswoman Maria Elvira Salazar. We talked about this before. She cut an ad gently, I would say, criticizing Trump's deportation campaign. She found herself over the weekend on the wrong end of about a dozen truth social reposts from Donald Trump himself. This was on Saturday night. This is what he was doing on Saturday night. He also had additional posts talking about Morning Joe's ratings. He was complaining about that as well. But one of his reposts on Salazar read, quote, we need a new Republican to replace Salazar. Again, the election is in five weeks.

49:36That's not how elections work. She is a frontline Republican. You guys think Salazar and her campaign expected that kind of response from Trump? And how much do you think they care?

49:46Jon Favreau:They had to have expected it. I mean, you just can't cross him. He doesn't care about you. He doesn't care about his majority. He just cares about himself and his own ego. So they must have known this was coming. Maybe they think it's helpful. A little brushback. Maybe he thinks it's helpful, by the way. I stood up to the president. It's hard to tell. Because his ad, her ad is so like, you know, look in the list of Republicans willing to criticize Trump. It stands out because they're such like feckless little weenies. But the ad itself is very much like if only someone would tell Donald Trump that he's being let down by his viziers.

50:18You know, it's like he could do such a, he's so amazing and yet he's failing in this one small way. We better let him know. So it's very, very neutered. And so, yes, like he can go off on her. Maybe it helps her politics. a little bit to get in a fight with Donald Trump. Maybe he's aware of that. I don't know. Well, here's the interesting thing I was thinking about. Maybe he didn't do it because he thinks it helps her. Maybe he did it because he's just a pissy asshole. Mike Rogers, Ashley Henson, a couple other Republicans have broken with him on the war now. Mike Rogers has also said, oh, we should have AI safety regulations, which is funny because he's never been for those before.

50:54broke with the president on that and he hasn't done anything to brush back or to attack Hinson Rogers anyone else who's broken with them kind of wonder if it just like because this is around immigration and that's his pet issue or maybe like Stephen Miller got him going on this one

51:10Jon Favreau:maybe that's what I don't know you could always break with a bunch of foreign policy in the first term even Lindsey Graham would like constantly fight with him about like keeping troops in Syria or whatever it was and he just you just tell he didn't care you know he's like invade here invade there whatever it's glinty like do what you want to do but yeah immigration like that's his passion project the interesting about houston is that houston was one of the few republicans willing to go to that midterm convention he's now having trump come to ohio so whatever they're seeing they are clearly desperate to try to get the whatever harm it does to have to be associated with trump they're clearly very worried about just getting the base to turn out for for john houston yeah i mean and it makes sense right like share in 2018 it's a midterm electorate sherrod wins in 24.

51:54It's a presidential electorate, Sherrod loses. And so you get more voters in Ohio, which is now a redder state. You get more voters out that usually vote in those elections that have voted for Trump in the past and John Husted wins. You don't, then Sherrod wins. So they probably think they could, I'm sure he's in a like ex-urban rural area that he's going to sort of get people going there. All right. There was another White House video making the rounds that wasn't paid for with our tax dollars, as far as we know anyway. Let's play the clip. This is from the deputy chief of staff of the White House, Dan Scavino.

52:34And his former golf caddy, Dan Scavino, now the deputy chief of staff of the White House. That's an AI-generated video of Scavino, his wife, Eric and Lara Trump, riding a gold luggage cart through the White House while popping champagne. a little Trump cameo at the very end there. What do you guys think?

52:54Jon Favreau:Was that like the Pitbull, like 2000s club song? Feels like. Yeah, it's very, very cool, very topical. There's a loneliness to it. About like, oh, this is what life is. This is the life I'm imagining. Look at how good things are when we're on our carts, popping our bottles. Just an incredible closing argument. It's just, my question with all these things is why? you wake up it's september 26 you post a weird ai video of yourself with like two of the trump wives and eric pushing you on a cart well also you don't just post it like i assume someone had to create that with ai right we're not quite at the moment where you just speak to the ai and be like hey i want a cool you're spraying your famous teetotaler boss with champagne is that what you do at work dan scavino you hose down donald trump why are you on the luggage car did you just win the Stanley Cup?

53:46Jon Favreau:What are we doing here? What are we possibly celebrating? It is sort of this dreamlike AI fantasy. Like there's something, it's like, you know, popping champagne is a celebratory image. It's ultimately an unpleasant act, right? You know, you're like, you know, at key moments, you know, you're celebrating with your boys at the, at the, at the Olympics, whatever you spray fine. But like in daily life, you drink the champagne and have a nice time, I would say. It's just sort of this strange, like kind of, I don't know what, there's a, Such a sadness and underneath the evil of what it is to be part of this organization that's always popping through.

54:19That's how I take it. I wonder if he's thinking like, this will get the base going, right? This will troll those libs and then our people will get excited. It's like, do you think your people will get excited? Do you think people are laughing at this anymore when they're like paying fucking, you know,$5 for gas?

54:36Jon Favreau:You're paying like five bucks for gas and you wake up and you see a video of the golf caddy hosing down Donald Trump with champagne with your tax dollars. Like this is the kind of stuff that if it happened in real life would like lead to the guillotines getting constructed on the South Lawn. You know, like this is some real Marie Antoinette. French Revolution started for less than this. Let them eat cake stuff. Yeah, you guys won. You're in power. You're in charge. You're the establishment. You're supposed to be working on kicking out the communists and the Marxists in the deep state. That's what the ad just said, the other ad.

55:03Jon Favreau:It's very short. It's very stupid. but it's so tone deaf that you just have to wonder why and how did this happen i'm gonna retweet it every day it's gonna make a mental very defensive about it is he well he tweeted some other one some other like they did like a um the hangover style oh great like all these dumb things that happened at the a the she stayed dinner that includes keg stands and like pulling out marco rubio's teeth it's supposed to be like a shot for shot ripoff of the hangover but again it's like no one wants their president doing these things at a state dinner. I mean, maybe it's just for yucks, but people are mostly pissed in this country.

55:39I thought from that other ad that we're kicking out the communists, but instead we're just partying with them at the state dinner. Yeah, we're just getting wasted with them. And potentially arming them. And offering them weapons. Yeah, potentially arming. What did Trump do? Well, he started arming the communists, which was, again, a surprise. He rolled out the red carpet for them, offered them some guns, showed them his granite. Yeah, showed them the granite, the new kind of granite. And then they popped champagne, and then they posted an AI-generated video about them, which, Of course, you know, we're sharing the technology.

56:04Jon Favreau:And like one of these, one of the images in this other video that like someone posted in Scavino also reposted is like Trump and she looking hungover with their tuxes undone at like the Lincoln Memorial. And it just, maybe people would think that's funny, but Donald Trump famously does not drink and does not think it's funny or cool if you drink. Remember when he yelled at Kash Patel for chugging beers at the Olympics? I just think if you're using AI to prove how good of a time you're having. Right. Maybe you're not having a lot of time. You know, yeah. Are we having fun yet? Kind of a thing. OK.

56:36Oh, actually, one last clip. This is some breaking news from our friends over at the five. An important story. The Chiron, for those who are just listening, is sex workers thriving under Zoran.

56:47Jon Favreau:With the prostitution. Well, it's something that it's something that a lot of people aren't talking about in terms of quality of life issue. And I don't know if we have photos of what's going on in that area, but how overweight the hookers have become. Have you noticed that? It's insane. It's like, I worry. I worry. I mean, I'm not a big fan of the sex trade, but it does seem that if you're going to sell your body, you should make it appealing for the customer. You don't understand the capitalistic tendency. I mean, come on. It's something to look into. I find it, you know, kind of sad. If I lived in that neighborhood, I wanted to look as nice as possible.

57:27Jon Favreau:Sounds like you have looked into it, Craig. Yeah, it seems like he was backpedaling a little. That was a little too much there. You went deep on this issue. Are you guys all noticing this? No, my friend. We are not. Seems like you've gone pretty deep on this one. He's like, I'm not a fan of the sex trade, but I'm just, it's something I'm noticing and I've heard from people. What a bizarre. Jesse jumped in there. He was like, I have. And then he wisely was just like, now I'm not going to say anything more. It's like Gutfeld lives in this space between comedy and angry guy. That's just really hard to suss out.

58:02Yeah. Doesn't land with me. And he also, well, it's like all of his, his bits on the five are all very prepared. Yes. He's so scripted. Like to the last word of it, you know, and he's like trying to, he's like doing the whole thing. And then he's working out his material for the later episode. I assume, which I respect, which I respect. Got to try some stuff out. Forget there's just Gutfeld. Yeah, no, that's, that's, yeah, that's what's anyway at their late night show man they're a little they're they're they're struggling for topics over there because trump is unpopular jesse even jesse is sick of doing the culture war stuff he's bored of it he can't get his his dander up anymore for for uh trans

58:42Jon Favreau:swimmers anymore he's sick of that all right well and these guys are charged with going after zoran but then every time donald trump gets within like five miles of the guy he tries to bang him so like They're confused about their marching orders, right? Trump's a Gracie Manson. Man's sex work. Yeah. Speaking of overweight prostitutes, our president. Perfect. Well, that's all we got for today, guys. That's our show. Dan and I will be back with a new show on Friday. Everyone have a good week. Pod Save America is a Crooked Media production. Our show is produced by Austin Fisher, Saul Rubin, McKenna Roberts, and Faris Safari with Ree Cherlin, Elijah Cohn, and Adrian Hill.

59:18Our team includes Matt DeGroat, Ben Hefcoat, 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.

59:48Jon Favreau:tequila tastings and non-stop 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.

From the publisher

Senate Democrats signal they may be open to impeaching Pete Hegseth after the election if the House has the votes for it. 

Jon, Tommy, and Lovett discuss why that trial would be a great use of a new Democratic Senate majority, Trump saying that the American economy is "the best in the world" despite record-setting diesel prices and stunningly low consumer sentiment, and Mike Johnson's new claim that opposition to new data centers is "a Chinese psy-op." 

Plus, AI labs pause development of their most advanced models (over the president's objections), Ambassador to China David Perdue admits that Trump tried to sell weapons to Xi Jinping, the White House keeps running political ads with taxpayer money, and Fox News's Greg Gutfeld sounds off — on overweight sex workers.

Hate listening to ads? Become a Friends of the Pod subscriber for ad-free episodes of Pod Save America, Pod Save the World, Lovett or Leave It, Runaway Country, Offline with Jon Favreau, and more—plus exclusive content, including bonus episodes of Pod Save America. Subscribe now at crooked.com/friends, on Apple Podcasts, or through the Pod Save America YouTube channel.

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