TACO Tuesday in Tehran

19:51Jon Favreau:Oh, yeah. And by the way, two weeks ago, Megyn Kelly was saying Lindsey Graham is a homicidal maniac with a bloodlust that is insatiable. That's before that interview. Yeah, it doesn't seem like it's been satiated at all. Not satiated. Shout out to representation, though. Look at this administration. Scott Besson out there. Lindsey Graham out there. Huh? Yeah. Marsha P. Johnson threw that brick. And here we are all these years later. It's a beautiful thing. Why do you think why this brings up a good question? Why do they only have Besson? Like you said, the Treasury secretaries out there on the Sunday shows.

20:25Jon Favreau:They got Graham out there. They have Hegseth doing his briefings. They're all selling the war. Like, you know, is the White House really sending their best? Where's Marco? Where's J.D.? No, I mean, I do think Besson is out there purely to talk to the markets because they were freaking out. And it's just like his lack of answers is just a sign of how poorly they plan. Like I read over the weekend that the Strategic Petroleum Reserve was only 60 percent full at the start of the war. Like they clearly all thought this was going to be quick and over by now. But I heard from somebody over the weekend that Trump is basically the only one who likes Pete Hexeth anymore.

20:59Jon Favreau:And everyone else thinks he's a clown and an idiot and that he sucks on TV and that he's doing badly at the job. So they're like happy to throw him to the wolves. That's awesome. And have him just kind of own this policy. And it sounds like Trump's kind of there too, right? You heard him Monday of the policy. He was like, Pete, you're the one who told me to do this war. Pete, I think you were the first one to speak up and you said, let's do it. That's right. Pete was sitting next to him in Tennessee today at an event. Yeah, I have to say there was, That's actually, to me, the most revealing and chilling thing I've learned in quite some time about the way this decision was made.

21:27So the first person to chime in to say we should do this is Pete Hegseth. And we were off to the races from there. Yeah.

21:35Jon Favreau:Well, I mean, if you're counting like U.S. officials, I'm sure it was who'd be. I think we got B.B. Well, probably inside the administration is Hegseth. And then you got Lindsey Graham. And then you got Netanyahu. It seems like those are the big warmongers. I think over the course of the first four years and then the first, you know, 100 days of the Trump administration 2.0, a lot of people try to talk Trump into going to war with Iran and he waved them off or he got waved off it. And then he saw the Midnight Hammer operation and then he saw Venezuela and was like, we're invincible. We can do anything.

22:02Jon Favreau:And here we are. And so, look, I've watched all these Hegseth briefings. Like, he's actively harmful. He's like reading war crime limericks. And then poor Dan Cain, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs, is like, let me like try to be a fucking adult here. Admiral Cooper from the CENTCOM is pretty good. But Rubio and Vance are in witness protection. Remember Marco Rubio after Venezuela? He did Meet the Press. He was doing press conferences. He was everywhere. Have you guys seen him on TV? He popped up to say Israel made us do it. And then we haven't heard from him since. And then J.D. Vance just sort of runs around trying to talk about anything else.

22:37Jon Favreau:And then when anyone asked him about the war, he was like, I'd go to jail if I told you about the classified info, the advice that I gave the president about this war. There is one more person I saw reported over the weekend that convinced Trump this was a good idea. Rupert Murdoch. Bloomberg reported. That tracks with what's on Fox. Yeah, it totally tracks that you've got Netanyahu, Murdoch, Lindsey Graham, and Pete Hegseth. That seems like the right crew for this. Speaking of Anson Rubio, this is sort of a non sequitur, but I just thought you guys would like this. You see the St. Anselm poll from New Hampshire that just came out?

23:09Jon Favreau:They started doing 28 primaries on the Republican side. So they did their last one in October. Since then, Vance is at 46, but he's down 11 from October. Faves? No, no. This is the horse race on the Republican side. 46? 46%. He's down 11 because you know who is at 27, Marco Rubio, up 18 points. That makes me happy. And then DeSantis is at five. Fight it out, boy. DeSantis. Down two from the October poll and everyone else is in single digits. But that is interesting that the Vance and Rubio have switched a little bit. Trump also said on Monday he still wants Congress to send him another 200 billion dollars of our tax dollars to fund this war.

23:46Jon Favreau:We've talked about why this should be an easy no vote for Democrats. Now it seems like some Republicans are also balking at the price tag. Senator John Kennedy says he won't vote for any amount of funding until Congress holds hearings on the war. Tom Tillis said that a 200 billion dollar request would need to pass the Senate with 60 votes. and over in the House, Lauren Boebert said last week, she's already a no on any additional war funding. So Trump and, you know, various pundits keep saying that Republican voters are fully behind this war. You think these Republicans in Congress are finally reading some of the same polling we are?

24:23I just, I was struck by the Boebert statement because she said, I will not vote for a war supplemental. No, I am a no. I have already told leadership I am a no on any war supplementals. I am so tired of spending money elsewhere. I'm tired of the industrial war complex getting all of our hard-earned tax dollars. And I was like seeing that, I was like, wow, that is better than a lot of Democrats have been able to come out with and say clearly that there are no any supplements. All these Democrats seem to be playing -

24:49Jon Favreau:Gotta hand it to her. Got it, but all these Democrats that are talking themselves into believing that this is a nuanced situation or it's complicated or that you're not supporting the troops. Lauren Boebert managed to find her way to a statement that I agree with. I'm wondering why it's so hard for some of these other Democrats to do the same. But I didn't mean to take your question about Republicans and turn it to Democrats, but it was what was on my mind. It sounded like authentic and emotional and real. It was a good answer. Why don't we just drop it in right here? I will not vote for a war supplemental.

25:16No, I am a no. I've already told leadership I am a no on any war supplementals. I am so tired of spending money elsewhere. I am tired of the industrial war complex getting all of our hard-earned tax dollars. I have folks in Colorado who can't afford to live. We need America first policies right now. And that I'm not doing that.

25:38Jon Favreau:But yeah, I mean, look, this funding request went from like a rumored possibility to Politico had a leak of 50 billion. Now it's up to 200 billion. And I was very worried from the very beginning, the Democrats have viewed this through that kind of like a rock war lens about supporting the troops. And you heard Jake Tapper literally say that to Chris Murphy, won't you be accused of not supporting the troops? But now we've gotten to the point where I think the war is going so badly. The number is so high that I think this is a political opportunity for Democrats and that we should not only loudly oppose it, but we should make it a big thing.

26:05Jon Favreau:Because voters do not want to spend$200 billion to drop bombs on Iran. There was some recent polling about funding. 56 % of voters oppose more funding for the war. 41 % strongly oppose versus only 15 % who strongly support. 61 % of independents oppose more funding. And then CBS in their poll, like 60 % disapprove of the Iran war. 67 % of Americans say we should not be willing to pay more for gas during the Iran war. So like people are not feeling the time for collective sacrifice message. Also that CBS poll, like, you know, they had recently polled on March 3rd, so just a couple weeks ago, war approval was 44-56 then, now it's 40-60.

26:46Jon Favreau:Also it mirrors Trump's approval and disapproval now. Trump's drop approval in that poll was 40, disapproval of 60. The argument just also released a poll as well that has very similar numbers to the CBS poll and all the other polls, but they also did a generic ballot test for the midterm and they have Democrats leading 54-46. And if you do probably definitely vote, likely voters, 55-45. That's 10 points. That would be larger than the vote in 2018. The Pentagon budget's already over a trillion dollars. Stories recently about at the end of the last fiscal year, they were racing to spend what money they had because there was more than they knew what to do with, including buying grand pianos and Herman Miller chairs for people.

27:27You also have Sean Duffy out there. We're going to talk about what's happening at security at the airports. He had a collision at LaGuardia of FAA problems all across the country. Got Sean Duffy walking around begging for another 20 billion to pick the FAA, to modernize air traffic control, recruiting of air traffic controllers. Can't get that money through Congress, but Trump's gonna get$200 billion to pay for his war, basically to legalize it and authorize it after the fact. What are we doing here?

27:54Jon Favreau:Yeah, there are already, I was thinking they would do this last week, and I think Besson started it over the weekend, And then Trump today was talking about it, too, which is like, oh, you know, we need the 200 billion to sort of backfill for all the munitions that we've already used and for future threats. And we always need the money for our defense. And they're going to try to decouple this 200 billion dollar war funding request from the war that they're asking. The idea that that that this several weeks requires a basically upping the Pentagon budget by 20 percent. It's outrageous. It's outrageous.

28:28Jon Favreau:Yeah. And the thing you mentioned a minute ago that the administration will try to argue that this funding request vote is de facto congressional authorization of the war. And everyone should just know that that is how your vote will be viewed by history. You will be like all these Democrats after 2004, 2003, trying to explain how, oh, actually, we just voted to authorize George W. Bush to go to the U.N. to put more pressure on the Iraqis. No, you will be seen as voting for the war and for the funding. Fucking vote against it. I will say hearing Lauren Boebert say that, knowing that there are other Republicans who are going to be no's on this, like I now feel more confident that Democrats are going to vote the right way, even if some of them at the very beginning of this process were thinking of maybe supporting it.

29:12Jon Favreau:Like, I don't know. I mean, explaining your vote is tough enough for like a$200 billion war funding request for a war that's not going well that no one asked for. But like supporting that when Lauren Boebert voted no and a couple other Republicans, like, you know, I just don't see it. I hope so.

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32:15Jon Favreau:If you're traveling in America anytime soon, here are a few fun developments you should probably be aware of. One, flights are much more expensive because the war in Iran has spiked fuel prices to obscene levels. So your ticket's going to cost a lot more. Number two, you might end up waiting in the airport security line for more than four hours because Trump is now refusing to pay TSA agents unless Congress passes a bill that would require showing a passport or birth certificate to register to vote. And three, while waiting in that security line, you may see armed ICE agents in full tactical gear milling about the airport, looking for something to do or someone to arrest.

32:51Jon Favreau:This last stroke of genius came from the president himself, who couldn't stop bragging about it to reporters on Monday. Mine, that was mine. That was like the paper clip. You know the story of the paper clip? 182 years ago, a man discovered the paper clip. It was so simple. And everybody that looked at it say, why didn't I think of that? ICE was my idea. They're able to now arrest illegals as they come into the country. That's very fertile territory. Now, you know, I'm a big believer that they should be able to wear a mask when they go and hunt down, you know, murderous criminals and others. But for purposes of the airport, I've requested that they take off the mask.

33:32I don't like it for the airport. We wear masks, not at the airport, but they need to do it when they're out in the country. The people coming into the airport, typically speaking, aren't murderers, killers, drug dealers, etc. There may be a few of them, but there are many.

33:46Jon Favreau:But they are coming in illegally because that is that is the the easiest way for people to come in illegally to the country is to just book a plane ticket, show up at the airport. Well, I think he is in his brain in there is some sort of a fact about how this one criticism of his border policy is that a lot of people who come in through the country are legal or people who overstay their visas after coming through flying illegally. Right, right. You have to stay a while. Skipping the overstaying part. For sure. No, I'm not. I'm not saying it's a smart point that he's making. So backstory here is that Democrats have been trying to fully fund TSA and all non-immigration parts of DHS for a week now, over a week now.

34:26Jon Favreau:Senate Republicans initially said no. They were blocking these bills. But then over the weekend, John Thune reportedly called Trump and said, you know, Republicans are ready to join Democrats and like funding everything except for ICE. And then Thune said maybe that just Republicans would try to fund ICE with like a party line reconciliation vote or something. You know, let's end this crisis. The airport lines are getting long, whatever. Trump says no to John Thune. He says that he will keep TSA and all of DHS closed unless Democrats pass the SAVE Act and that he's deploying ICE agents to the airports.

35:02Jon Favreau:This seems like both a terrible idea and terrible politics. What do you guys think? Did you guys hear the the backstory, the CNN report on the backstory of the ICE agents thing? Apparently it was it was literally a random woman, a radio caller named Linda from Arizona, pitched the idea to Clay Travis on his radio show Friday. Then Clay went on Fox News to talk about it. Trump must have seen that because he then announced his plan the next day. So that's inventing the paperclip. And now we have ICE agents just milling about the airport. The lines today are still just as long as they were. Why? Because they're not trained to be TSA agents.

35:40Jon Favreau:And so they're just walking. You see these AP photos of them just like sitting there looking with like nothing to do. Yeah, they're just there. preventing the floors from flying up and hitting the ceilings. This is sort of like we're at this place where, oh, no, no, no, don't do that. It's too stupid. That's too stupid of a thing to think would help. They are not trained. They're not going to be able to do anything at the airport. They don't know how to use the machines. They haven't taken the training to scan what's in the documents. They don't even know how to read, do the ID machine. Those machines seem complicated to me.

36:09They probably have to learn something for a while. They're just going to end up standing there. So we shouldn't do that. That's too stupid. But nobody is going to tell this guy, no. No, it's like, oh, great idea, sir. Great idea, Mr. President. They're on their way. You say it's Sunday. We'll have them out there at the airports by Monday doing what? It doesn't matter. It's what you wanted. And it's an image of the ICE agents there. And that's cool. You're doing something.

36:29Jon Favreau:It's to own the libs, basically. Trump said it drives Democrats crazy. That's what Jim Comer said, Republican in the House on the Sunday shows, too. This is like a line that we're hearing now that it's driving the Democrats crazy, having the ICE agents there. I'd rather they be in airports than terrorizing communities. There's not going to be no harm. Let's get them doing all kinds of tasks unrelated to their duties. Road cleanup, whatever you want. So Democrats have been demanding to take ICE agents off the streets and to take their masks off. And that's what you did. Dude, we're getting Starbucks at LaGuardia now?

37:04Yeah, it's like, do a donut run for the TSA, guys. Great, stand there. Fucking, what are we doing here? We're in this purely symbolic fight, too. because what was, before Trump added on top of it, and we got to do Save Act and the trans people can't do sports if I'm not going to reopen the government. What was happening?

37:20Jon Favreau:Mutalization. What was actually happening? The DHS was shut down, right? But the reason Trump can deploy ICE is because ICE has this other pool of funding, a 75 to$80 billion pool of funding that they're just going to run off of, right? So this is a symbolic effort to say we're not sending any more money to ICE. That's why the government is shutting down. Then the negotiations are, we'll open everything up but ICE, right? Even that will have no impact actually on ICE. Democrats came out in favor of that. Republicans in favor that. Trump doesn't want to do that. He wants to add all these things on top of it.

37:50Ironically, any resolution that would have a positive impact on what ICE is able to do or not to would be the result of even more concessions on both sides over a negotiation of actually funding ICE. The only way to actually limit what ICE will do in the next few years is through a negotiation that's not about not funding ICE. That's actually about getting to funding ICE, which is so far from where we're at. right now because we're having this sort of purely symbolic conversation about ICE in the airports and whether or not we'll let TSA agents get paid.

38:20Jon Favreau:Well, now it's just I mean, now Trump has just decided to own the whole thing. He's just decided to torpedo any chance of blaming anything on Democrats because he's like, you know, John Thune. Ted Cruz was out there saying he would just fund TSA. Like I love to travel. Exactly. Ted Cruz out there. And then Trump's like, no, you got to pass the SAVE Act, which the Republicans, John Thune, in response, told a reporter it's just not real. He's like, look, we all like the SAVE Act because they're all supposed to say that, even though some of them probably don't want to pass the SAVE Act because, again, it would probably prevent a lot of Republican voters from registering to vote.

38:53Jon Favreau:But he said it's not realistic to tie the SAVE Act to this funding battle. And you're actually seeing a couple, like I saw one of the Ohio senators say this. Ted Cruz is saying it. So like I'm actually surprised pleasantly so that some Republicans are like, OK, this idea from Trump, a little crazy. But I don't know. I don't know if it goes anywhere. I just keep thinking back to the Politico story from January about how Donald Trump's going to travel the country weekly ahead of the midterms touting for the message. Now we're like debating whether or not like we're going to co-own the Strait of Hormuz with the Iranians and have ICE agents in the airport.

39:29Jon Favreau:Like, they were so—

39:59It was just terrible. Tommy prefers an ad hoc blowjob as opposed to the more ritualistic and official time. He likes it off the books blowjob. It's a ritual. That's the whole deal.

40:11Jon Favreau:Trump also said that the Senate should kill the filibuster to pass the SAVE Act. They should cancel their Easter recess if necessary because this one's for Jesus to pass the SAVE Act. Have you heard the good news? This one's for Jesus. Pass the SAVE Act. This filibuster is for you, Jesus. Did he actually say this one's for Jesus? Yeah, he said do it for Jesus. do it for Jesus Jesus would want you to present your passport or birth certificate to your local election office in order to register to vote by these midterms which again is something that would probably disenfranchise not just Democratic voters but plenty of Republican voters which is probably why most Republicans in Congress don't really care that much about passing it so that's where we are I don't know how, Trump's just going to have to back down on this one because there's going to be pressure at the airports the lines are going to be crazy he doesn't have this Republicans in the Senate with him.

40:59I think he caves. Like, he'll find a way to cave. Like, look, like... IRGC guys are doing TSA security work. Yeah, look, I was talking to the Ayatollah. They got some great ideas for what we can do to get these airports running more smoothly.

41:13Jon Favreau:There's some security guys they can loan us. Un-fucking-believable. Well... Raining revolutionary guys. Honestly, I think we'd all make sure there's no liquids in our backpacks. Yeah, I would do what they said. I would not. The welcome message goes from Kristi Noem at the airports to the new the speaker of the Iranian parliament. Yeah. Hot option. Funded or not, speaking of DHS, appears that they're going to have a new secretary in place shortly. Rand Paul's the only Republican voting against Mark Wayne Mullen and two Democrats are voting for him. We talked about John Fetterman voting yes. And as of Sunday, Martin Heinrich of New Mexico said he's voting yes.

41:52Jon Favreau:He said Mullen is a friend and will stand up to bullying by Stephen Miller. Heinrich also noted that in Mullen's confirmation hearing, he, quote, recognized the necessity of judicial warrants, which also supports reporting from The New York Times over the weekend that before his nomination, Mullen had been working behind the scenes with Democratic Congressman Josh Gottheimer to hash out a compromise on reopening DHS that included requiring judicial warrants in most cases. I'm wondering what you guys make of Mullen's relatively easy path to confirmation. Not just the yes votes from Fetterman and Heinrich, but just not a lot of intense opposition from the Democrats.

42:29Jon Favreau:Seems to be based partly on a belief that DHS will be slightly less chaotic and more humane under Mullen's leadership than it was under Noam and Lewandowski. What do you guys think? Yeah, the Heinrich statement has a real kind of bros before hoes energy to it. So you got to assume, right, Mullen's getting through with Republican votes because Rand Paul was the only no. His vote mattered on the committee. Fetterman helped him get out of the committee, but he would have had the votes to get through. So I suppose the argument would be giving him a yes creates a relationship in which you have kind of a better opportunity to put pressure on and have real conversations with someone you've worked with closely.

43:09But that also I think -

43:10Jon Favreau:Works so well with Rubio. I was about to say, it depends on sort of ignoring what the actual reality is of the Trump administration and what happens once people are in there and the pressure they're under, because whatever relationship you had before, they become, no matter what they're saying behind the scenes, beholden to Stephen Miller and Donald Trump, the inability to be publicly critical of them, the inability to defy them and all the consequences. After that, and so you have people that have expressed their regrets about voting for Nome, and you have people that have expressed their regrets about voting for Rubio, yet not learning that lesson from their colleagues when they decide they're gonna vote for this guy.

43:45So I think not holding the line against these people is always something people regret.

43:51Jon Favreau:Yeah, the consensus is that Christy Nome was a disaster, And I think there's kind of an anybody but her vibe, even with Republicans. Also, senators tend to kind of coast through in these settings. So we'll see. I mean, I do think it's part policy, part personal. Like he does. Mark Wayne Mullen does sound like he was genuinely willing to be more moderate than the Trump administration on judicial warrants. And also, it sounds like he has some genuinely good relationships, which is surprising because he did try to beat up the guy from the Teamsters at a hearing one time. But now that guy from the Teamsters is sitting behind him at his confirmation hearing because they're boys.

44:22Jon Favreau:Also, you know who else was there? Josh Gottheimer. Yeah. Democrat from New Jersey. And so this sounds ridiculous, but he runs a popular workout group. He does? For members of Congress and senators. Yeah. He's teaching a Pilates class. I've heard members talk about this and that it's really good. Exhale through the dry face. Through the dry face. That's a reference. That's a, don't even worry about it. Just for the three of us. Literally no one else. That's right. Christy W. And so there's some personal politics here. You're right, though. He's going to be a disaster. Yeah, he's going to be a disaster, but he's spotted them.

44:59He's helped them really kind of crush their lats and their delts.

45:02Jon Favreau:It's not even a personality thing why he could be a disaster. Like, when he's a DHS, there's one way to lose his job, and it's by pissing off Stephen Miller and Donald Trump. And the senators can't hurt him anymore once he's a DHS. Right now, they can. They can cost him the nomination, right? But once he gets there, it doesn't really matter. So but look, I think if you wanted to make a the the better argument for why you don't put up a fight is you can only fight so many things. He has the Republican votes anyway. And so, like, what are you going to do? You're going to do big. You know, it seemed impossible to strike down this nomination.

45:34Jon Favreau:I do think what you can do the most the more important thing is in these negotiations to reopen DHS. And as Mullen's getting confirmed, you you try to codify the rules about a judicial warrant or all this other stuff, which is the reason that the Democrats tried to use DHS funding as leverage in the first place. As you mentioned, now we've come so far afield that we've got ICE agents running around the airports. Speaking of Lewandowski, Dan and I briefly mentioned the NBC story about him openly demanding bribes from a private prison company. On Saturday, the Times also published a big investigation into Lewandowski's time at the department that is just full of enraging details.

46:12Jon Favreau:on Monday, Democrats on the House Oversight Committee launched an investigation into the bribery allegations. What do you guys think? Good use of time and energy if Dems get the House back? Yes. It's a shocking, brazen corruption scheme where people are either obliquely or directly suggesting that if you want a government contract, Corey Lewandowski has to get his beak wet. They all deny it, but they have a lot of sources, including sources at the White House, that are validating this story. I don't remember if it was NBC or in the Times, but I thought one telling point was people inside the White House or inside the administration considering whether or not to do an investigation or take some kind of action are worried that if they do, Trump will publicly come out in defense of Lewandowski.

46:55Jon Favreau:This was my concern that I expressed on Friday's pod. It's crazy. You know, I was like, let's not, maybe let's not talk about it until after Trump Lee's office if we're going to go after Lewandowski. Maybe everyone should just quiet down until he can't pardon him anymore. Right. The pardons loom over the whole thing. And then there's the fact that Lewandowski seemed to be getting the presidential daily brief. That is absolutely nuts. That blew my mind. He's basically a volunteer government employee getting the PDB. He's not a full-time employee and he's getting the PDB and he's holding meetings in Kristi Noem's office when she's not around.

47:27Jon Favreau:In other places. Doing a lot of things in her office when she's around um i think go after him like whether or not we're able to prosecute this guy i don't know maybe there'll be a state charge we can go after but like put a fucking head on the pike man like do some oversight try to scare some other people out of doing this shit because like we've talked about a lot of newfangled corruption here there's the emiratis buying your uh barely existing you know crypto company or like selling some melania shit going to somebody for the katari is giving you a jet the jet didn't didn't get the return on that investment no no they did not they could use that jet to evacuate.

48:02Jon Favreau:Use the jet. Make sure everything goes our way. Yeah. Heads up, by the way. Hope it's bulletproof. Yeah. We'll send some caulk over to fix the fucking Rosewood Qatar. Can we get a fucking refund on that now? I got some good guys for countertops to fix the Fairmont. Unbelievable. The Lewandowski stuff, it's such old school corruption. Like I need a kickback. I need to be a special advisor on the contract for this. Fuck that. You know when Trump White House officials are going on background to NBC and being like, this was brazen and crazy. We didn't like this. For sure. And even Trump is apparently annoyed with Lewandowski.

48:39Jon Favreau:Which maybe he won't give him the pardon. That's why. It's like, let's not assume he's going to pardon everybody. Like, maybe he will, maybe he won't. But, like, make him do it. Oh, yeah. I don't know. I think you're right. Like, if he does pardon him, he pardons him. But we got to just, we have to live. That's a concession to him before we've even begun. You got to go into it. Get the documents.

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49:50With over 30 ,000 therapists, BetterHelp is the world's largest online therapy platform, having served over 6 million people globally. And it works with an average rating of 4.9 out of 5 for a live session. based on over 1.7 million client reviews. When life feels overwhelming, therapy can help. Sign up and get 10 % off at betterhelp.com slash PSA. That's better, H-E-L-P.com slash PSA. The country feels like it's falling apart right before our eyes and the people inside it are being silenced. So we're going to East 26th Street and Nicolette Avenue, which is where Alex Preddy was executed by ICE and Border Patrol.

50:31That is not a headline. That is a human life. And it is all happening right now. Do you worry about your own safety being involved in all this? Yes, but it doesn't really feel like there's another option, you know? And of course they use a five-year-old child as bait. And of course they're doing all these horrible, bad things because they don't know what they're doing. They've been told that they're going to get rid of the worst of the worst. Then they have absolute immunity. And they've been told that nothing they do will they ever be held accountable for. On my show, Runaway Country, we go where the headlines hit home.

51:11From communities under threat to the people fighting to be hurt. New episodes of Runaway Country drop every Thursday. Subscribe wherever you get your podcasts or watch on YouTube.

51:27Jon Favreau:On the topic of democratic strategy, Wall Street Journal has a big story about a possible revolt brewing against Chuck Schumer from within the Senate Democratic caucus. It leads with an anecdote about Chris Murphy musing over a dinner about the number of senators who want new leadership. It goes on to say that Murphy, Tina Smith and Elizabeth Warren are part of a group known as Fight Club who complain about Schumer on a signal group chat, particularly his strategy of favoring more centrist candidates in the midterm primaries. What do you guys think of this piece? So Murphy then says, actually, that's misremembering what the conversation was.

52:03In fact, what I was simply saying is while there are people that are frustrated, Schumer has supported the caucus and I support Schumer. There's something. Elizabeth Warren was less so. Less so. No, for sure.

52:14Jon Favreau:She was like, I'm not going to say whether I support him or not. I'm not a fan. Here's what I got to the end of it. Right. And I think the idea that he's supporting more centrist candidates, I do think, is like a new line of criticism or newer than some of the others. But the rest go back to the shutdown and his ability to communicate. And what I can tell is, according to people that have a problem with Chuck Schumer, would a different leader produce different outcomes or would a different leader be a better communicator about the same outcomes? And I think the inability to like kind of clearly answer that question is why whatever friction there is or desire for a new leader culminates in just people bitching in a signal group chat.

52:52Jon Favreau:Yeah, there's like the inside game and the outside game, right? Like the inside stuff we don't really see. It's like how he keeps members on sides and organizes things and deals with the caucus. Like there are Democrats, there are senators who we like and respect who will call you after this episode properly and say Chuck's really good at that stuff. The outside stuff, like we see, the media, the candidate recruitment, the fundraising, clearly Chuck Schumer is not the best messenger. I think he would concede that. And he's tried to put forward other younger leaders. But that kind of leads to the question, well, why not just have one of them be the leader, right?

53:24Jon Favreau:The fundraising is clearly off. I think that the candidate recruitment is a thing that's bothered a lot of people because it feels like he's thumbing the scale in ways in states that is unnecessary, if not antagonistic to voters. Like let those voters in those states decide. And it makes you wonder if this is about who can really win in these states or who will endorse Chuck Schumer as leader in these states if they win. Because a lot of the new members are not doing that. And so there's also the basic like gerontocracy issues. Like the guy's really old and like he was able to recognize that with Joe Biden.

53:59Jon Favreau:Chuck Schumer famously, right, drove to Delaware, told Joe Biden to drop out. H was the reason behind that. But he's not willing to look in the mirror there. And like, I do think you're right, though. The counter argument is people are really mad about Donald Trump. They want someone to blame. So you blame the leaders we have, but that doesn't necessarily take into account their actual capacity to stop Donald Trump when he has a trifecta. Could someone do more with the same cards? I don't know. To me, this boils down to one question, which is like, I do not expect anyone to oust Chuck Schumer between now and November, nor do I think ousting Chuck Schumer between now and November would lead to any kind of appreciable difference in any of the outcomes for Democrats.

54:42Jon Favreau:I do think and I remember having this conversation with Dan on some pod probably many times like if you know if the Democrats don't take back the Senate then you almost expect Democrats to have a new leader right between 20 what 6 and 28. But he was like, Dan said, oh, but if we win, if Democrats somehow win the Senate, then maybe like Schumer stays on and is majority leader one last time until he potentially retires in 28 or something else. That, I think, is worth a serious conversation about even if Senate Democrats, even if Democrats win the Senate, is Chuck Schumer really the guy that you want to be leader between the midterms and the presidential?

55:27Jon Favreau:because like I think that is a perfect time for a new leader and you don't have to and you don't have to go back and you know debate whether you could have had this outcome or that outcome based on the various shutdown things and all that all I have to say is like look we are heading towards 28 is the most important thing to elect a democratic president we need our best messengers out there as leaders and Chuck Schumer is getting up there and do we really need and more two more years let alone six more years of Chuck Schumer is democratic leader at that point yeah I think it's like a no brainer.

55:56We do not want to go into the most important presidential election since the last one with a leader that represents, like we need to be representing change. He will not represent change. Ironically though, I think it's Senate, Democratic Senate candidates in at least 13 states have either come out against Chuck Schumer or refused to endorse Schumer. The more successful we are in these midterms, the more people that will be in the Senate that have either explicitly said they will not support him or even under pressure, knowing that they want Schumer support people like Tal Rico have refused to say they would endorse him now I think at a certain point you want people that are willing to say no I'm not gonna be for Chuck Schumer we need somebody different just because that's the kind of like I don't know what people that are already worrying about how to kind of keep everybody on side but at the very least he has a huge problem in success or failure and look I think that the complaints about the

56:45Jon Favreau:recruitment you know it goes both ways like I think Chuck Schumer getting Roy Cooper to run in North Carolina when maybe he didn't want to at first was like a big win getting mary peltolla in alaska to run great now if he wanted to recruit haley stevens in michigan and janet mills in maine like that's fine it's not the recruitment necessarily it's the putting your thumb on the scales which he may not be explicitly but kind of he couldn't certainly for certainly for mills he is janet mills like like yeah i think actually recruiting janet mills is great and a coup for him and credit to him but yeah they formed a joint fundraising committee with the DSCC.

57:22Jon Favreau:And Haley Stevens is similar. Like, I think there's a lot of good candidates in that field. It is not clear to me that she is the strongest candidate by any means, but I'm almost positive that there have been like DSCC or party events and fundraisers that have included her or her campaign. And you just have to wonder why. And I will say that this is not, I mean, Chuck Schumer, it gets a lot of the blame for this, but you know, you, you wade into the online wars. And there's a lot of Democratic strategists out there who just were just assuming, assuming that Mills and Stevens are the most electable candidates and the strongest candidates in those races.

57:59Jon Favreau:And it's like not even a question to them. And I'm like, really, are you that sure? Yeah. And that's my take. Like, everyone's gonna be like, oh, you guys are, you know, endorsing Graham Platter. No, like we're saying, let the voters of Maine vote. Let people in Michigan vote. That will help us determine who the strongest candidate is. If you can't win the primary, you're probably not the strongest candidate. Just have a just just a dose of humility after you've worked on several of the presidential campaigns over the last decade that have come up a little short, is what I would say. Speaking of giving Democratic leadership a glow up, Lauren Egan at the Bulwark is out with a piece headlined thirst traps over think tanks.

58:34Jon Favreau:Dems want hotter candidates on the ballot. She has a bunch of Democrats musing to her about how we need more lookers. I didn't know. We need hotter candidates like John Ossoff and AOC on the ballot. Tommy, you recently referred to Ossoff as a piece of ass on the show. Agree with Lauren? I stand by that. I'll say it again. He's a piece of ass. Look, the man's way taller in person than I expected. He's got a jawline that you could use as a ruler. Great hair. Great demeanor. Great hair. Legs that go all the way up. Legs that go all the way up. Is the key to winning a quote, run more hot people like the article says?

59:16Jon Favreau:Maybe. There's like a counterpoint. Donald Trump. I know, I know. Not hot. Not hot. Look, I think there's a big space between someone between say a Hollywood 10 and a Delaware 86. You know what I'm saying? And the problem, right? Like there's like - Talk about Dan like that. There's a strange, there's a strange like, like the way like hotness and ideology, like they're like the the the like bernie uh beloved figure right i'd say he's look you know I don't think you would call him traditionally hot right now. Where he's at now, maybe he's a young man. Still handsome. He's handsome. Yeah, he's seen some of those pictures.

59:56He's handsome. He's handsome. But Pete Hegseth would be traditionally considered to be good looking, one would say. I don't find him particularly hot. He's not hot to me.

1:00:04Jon Favreau:I think it's like one asset out of many, right? It's nice to have. Clearly, you can win the presidency without being hot, Donald Trump. But I do think... Yeah, because he's so fucking charming. You know, I think Lauren cites in her piece. there's like political science around this that attractiveness does help candidates. Yeah. You know who is hot? Saddam Hussein. Wow. Look at Google young Saddam. He could get it. Castro, famously hot. Yeah. It can help you get. As is his son in Canada. Elected. Oh, yeah. Now with Katy Perry. Take the coup. But maybe you're a bad leader. There is some truth to this, right?

1:00:40Jon Favreau:I mean, like how many times have you had friends in your life or just normies who would be like, oh, yeah, Gavin Newsom, he's the good looking one or whatever. Many have said that about Gavin Newsom. Barack Obama clearly benefited from being perceived as young and good-looking and cool, and that was part of the appeal. Bill Clinton as well. John Ossoff clearly has had a glow-up over the last several years. It is funny that no one in the story would go on the record saying that AOC is hot. There's a sort of a reverse gender thing. People are so worried about it. Clearly, she is beautiful. Yes. And I don't know why it's weird for people to say that.

1:01:10Jon Favreau:It's just a compliment. I get that people don't want to objectify her and there's gender. but like she's, yeah, she's beautiful. I'll objectify John Ossoff and I have no problem with that. What does that say about me? Right. I think it's sort of in the context of our conversation, but I think if you don't know what the article is and someone's like, uh, talk about it. Hey, hi, I'm a journalist from the Bulwark. Talk about AOC's appearance. Oh, no, thank you. Uh, let me know how the piece goes. That is a really funny press called again. Like we could, yeah, we could talk about it here because we're giving ourselves the context of saying all the guys are hot.

1:01:36Until it gets clipped. The guys are hot. All the guys are just, look at all these eminently fuckable guys.

1:01:43Jon Favreau:Bernie's best ass, I did. How did you feel sitting across from Josh Shapiro? What? Look, I'll just say, you know, I asked him about this. I think there's a lot of Jewish mothers that would love to have their daughters bring home a guy like Josh. Handsome. Knows how to dribble a basketball. Does he? Yeah. Okay. Did you guys play hoops? No, it's obviously. Play a quick game of horse? Obviously, it came up in the book. did not come up in the actual experience. It would have been the interview though. When I was on the fourth grade basketball team, I didn't have the arm strength. I could get the ball high enough to hit the hoop.

1:02:18I can obviously pitch it forward, but I couldn't get that parabola going. Right. Probably because you were thinking you needed to get a parabola going.

1:02:25Jon Favreau:And that's our March Madness coverage. Did you guys see that J.B. Pritzker spoke at the Gridiron dinner? And he's on the shot. I got it. Did you hear his joke? That he puts the gov in Wigovie. Yeah, he puts the gov in Wigovie. Good for him. Good joke. Good for him. Here's the thing. Every time I read an article about the gridiron and it's like, and then the journalist did something, something set to the something from Chicago. I'm like, how is this a thing that still exists in the world? The sketches part of that event is insane. It's crazy. A bunch of journalists get together with politicians and they make up skits and songs and they perform them.

1:03:02It's like, what the fuck is happening?

1:03:03Jon Favreau:It's also, it's white tie. White, what is white tie even? It just means tails, I guess, right? What is tails? It's the most. It's a longer coat with tails. Never. You're supposed to have a different kind of shoe. You can't just wear tux. It's not a tux. It's not a tux. That's a dinner jacket. You would have to drug me to go to that event. You'd have to Maduro me to go there. Yeah, you just wake up in white tails and a tux. You're like, what's going on? You have to Maduro me. How did I get here? You guys kicked on your door and all of a sudden you're in the gridiron. Here, put this on. Yeah, watching.

1:03:36Jon Favreau:You're fucking John's hogtied. You're going to watch Lin Sweet sing. Worst of all, we're a pro-Lin Sweet podcast. Everyone loves Lin Sweet. She's the first person who came to mind. The gridiron queen. A lot of these traditions began before television. Yeah. And it used to be at night. It just got dark in your house. And maybe you'd read a book. And so people went out more. Yeah. You know? The gridiron. Okay. I'm going to get yelled at. My segue to this next section was ruined by our conversation. So I'm just going to say on the subject of the midterms. Great. Perfect. If, hey, if we can't, if we can't find hot candidates, this is not to say that we don't have plenty of hot candidates running in the midterms.

1:04:15Jon Favreau:It's a good time to remind everyone about Project 218, which is Vote Save America's big push to help take the House back again with candidates who are hot, not hot, anywhere in between. To recap, we're asking you to get five people, you know, to sign up for VSA so that they can get the best info about how to make the biggest difference. we've had more than 3 ,000 signups so far but we need more head to votesaveamerica.com to learn more and while you're at it one more plug here do you know the next No Kings Day is this Saturday, March 28th there are thousands of events to attend and as we've seen it's very very important to show up and be counted and be heard so head to nokings.org to find an event near you make a plan to go bring friends post some pictures send us some pictures I told you so that'll be a sign good sign we'll see some of that I have told you.

1:05:01Regime change begins at home.

1:05:03Jon Favreau:If you've kept your sign from 2004 about Bush and the Iraq war, you can dust it off and bring regime change begins at home. I think, I still think it's like a bumper sticker. I think that my in-laws have it. It's a sad, but very true statement. Yeah, it's been around for a long time. All right, one last thing before we get to Levitt's conversation with Leah. We got to talk about Donald Trump dancing on Robert Mueller's grave. We do. After the news on Saturday that the former FBI director and special counsel died at 81 after a fight with Parkinson's disease, Trump and his White House posted the following statement.

1:05:37Jon Favreau:Good. I'm glad he's dead. He can no longer hurt innocent people. Incredibly, that wasn't the only depraved comment Trump made involving death and one of his perceived enemies. When he was asked Monday morning about the resignation of his former counterterrorism chief, Joe Kent, the president said, quote, I'm not a fan of the guy. His wife was killed. He remarried fairly quickly. I feel like Trump might not be a good person. What do you think? Have we all just grown numb to this now? Just real quick, Joe Kent's wife was killed while serving the U.S. military in Syria by a suicide bomber. So that's the context in which he made that comment.

1:06:14Jon Favreau:Got married too quickly, just like he said that about Thomas Massey. This is from a guy who would bring a date to Melania's funeral. Oh, yeah. Gladly, yeah, for sure. 100%. Yeah, walk her by the golf course grave of his previous wife. that's where i put that one i just i i saw i saw trump's comment and i was like my first reaction was you know bob muller died and now like all of the stories about his death have to include the president united states issuing this jackass fucking comment so his family and friends have to all deal with that number two and now everyone's gonna do like the charlie of course we all lived through the charlie kirk thing and jd vance just told people to fire you know people who work for them and who, you know, said celebrated Charlie Kirk's death.

1:07:02Jon Favreau:And, you know, there was a whole government wide effort to hunt down people and cost them their jobs over potentially celebrating or not grieving properly for Charlie Kirk. And now we're doing this again. Yeah. Can I and I feel like it's actually been quite helpful to be consistent through all of this, which is not celebrating any deaths. Right. And and by the way, like not not celebrating death is not an act of civility. I'm not saying I feel happy when my enemies die, but I pretend not to as a means of projecting the morals I think we should have. Like I'm not judging people for what they're actually feeling.

1:07:36What I'm, my feeling, what I see when people kind of celebrate someone's death is actually like when someone dies and they did bad things. I'm not talking about people that are actively in the midst of doing horrible things. Their death relieves people of pain and abuse and tyrants, whatever. But like to celebrate someone you don't like dying is to act as if dying is a kind of justice, that they're getting justice. But that can't be true because everybody dies. And what you're really doing when you celebrate the death of your enemies, you're actually just avoiding facing the injustice that happened when they were alive.

1:08:11You're coping with the fact that you don't believe they faced what they deserved when they walked among the living. And so I think about what happens when Donald Trump will inevitably die. And there will be a crazy debate befitting Donald Trump in which our whole country is caught up in this very kind of notion of it's okay that people are happy that he's dead and celebrating in the streets.

1:08:29Jon Favreau:I feel like that Bob Mueller tweet from Trump will be back in the rotation when this happens. But the truth is, I think a lot of what people will be feeling that kind of like will be a kind of a grief about all the damage that was done and our failure to stop it and to get justice when somebody was walking around. And so like to celebrate death is to act as if it won't come for all of us. and that's just bad for the soul and it's bad for the world. And so I just want no part of it, whoever dies. That's my take on this. And they might express that feeling with like a party hat and one of those like, you know, but like that's what they're thinking.

1:09:05Yeah, I'm not, look, I'm not gonna say I'm gonna go out.

1:09:09Jon Favreau:Look, you've been consistent on this. Like you took a day off when the Ayatollah was killed. You didn't come in that day. And I think that's, you know, that's commendable. Yeah, look, I - You were grieving. I laid, Yeah, I'm stopping myself. I'm stopping. You see those tweets go through, and you're just like, you just know the cycle we're all going to go through. I know. It's so exhausting. It's exhausting. You know what? I'm at this point where I'm like, say what you want to say, I guess. He's the biggest, he's the worst person in the world. He happens to be our president. He's dancing on the grave of a Purple Heart winning American citizen who served as FBI director.

1:09:45Jon Favreau:That's self-evidently terrible. The hypocrisy is exhausting. like, you know, Fox News did a month of coverage of Charlie Kirk insults. And yet Fox, as far as I can tell, like did not air a single story about Donald Trump's tweet. And then, you know, the Daily Wire today unironically had up a story with the headline Red Hen Deja Vu. Sarah Sanders kicked out of Arkansas restaurant, flipped off by staff. For those who aren't as terminally online as we are in 2018, a restaurant called the Red Hen asked Sarah Huckabee Sanders to leave the restaurant because there were a bunch of, I think, LGBT employees who didn't want to serve her.

1:10:22Jon Favreau:And this became a huge thing, right? So like the civility police come out whenever Democrats do anything to Republicans and they're silent when Republicans do things to Democrats. And it's just like, it's so exhausting and frustrating to even have to call out hypocrisy. And I just, I don't know. The thing that I thought was interesting about this one, and this is all similar to one about Rob Reiner is it is so indefensible. So what you end up with is a lot of anger and outrage at Trump's direction and all these people deflecting. But I saw like Brit Hume said something, which was like, this is what makes people not just oppose Trump, but hate Trump.

1:10:56And I think that's true. It is true. But even that is kind of like, this is bad strategy. This is bad politics. And it's actually what this also does is prove all the people that oppose him and hate him, that they're right. And that really you've done something terrible by embracing someone so obviously morally unfit, so kind of broken in his soul. God, I've forgotten about the Rob Reiner thing. Jesus, there's so many examples like this.

1:11:18Jon Favreau:And it's also, it's like, it is, I think it is tempting for those people to be like, oh, he says things and he's an asshole, but like, no, no, no. The same thing in Trump that makes him post that about Bob Mueller or about Rob Reiner is the thing that makes him talk about war right now in Iran as like, we like sinking the ships. The Navy loves, it's fun to sink the ships and maybe we'll bomb the moor and it's funny and we're going to kill another one. And like when you, someone who devalues human life, like Trump obviously does, who has the power that Trump has, who has his finger on the fucking button.

1:11:52Jon Favreau:Yeah, that's, it's all connected guys. Can't separate it. How many of you have quoted Margaret Thatcher saying character is destiny? I stupidly internalize that. I've come to believe that there's truth in that. That character is destiny, that over time your character reveals something important about you and becomes what your life amounts to. I actually stupidly thought you agreed. Quoting the Iron Lady. For some reason, the thing that got me even angrier was to see Scott Besson getting asked about it on Meet the Press. Oh, incredible. Oh my God. Welker asked him about it and he's like, well, I think people have to understand what Bob Mueller put Donald Trump through.

1:12:28Jon Favreau:And she's like, I'm sorry, but do you agree with the statement? He's like, I think that people just need to. All he could say is he put through Trump a lot. Like the fact that you're like a fucking grown man who had a real like this is what you're reduced to sitting on Meet the Press and like just just dismissing this. The Trump administration made Bob Mueller the special counsel. You guys selected him. It's just, you know, look what what Trump said about Bob Mueller, what he said about Joe Kent. It's sort of like equally despicable. And the common thread is those were people who opposed Donald Trump in some way.

1:13:00Jon Favreau:And Joe Kent, as of like five days ago, was Donald Trump's employee. And just like, you know, it doesn't matter what Bob Mueller did to Donald Trump over the course of several years of an investigation. It's binary. It's like you're with me or you're against me. I got a little excited. Maybe I shouldn't. Thinking about someone, some journalist sitting down with J.D. Vance and starting the question by reminding him of what he said after Charlie Kirk died and what he said about people who were celebrating and then asking him about Trump and Bob Mueller. and seeing what J.D. Vance says, see how he gets out of this one.

1:13:32Jon Favreau:He'll just be a slippery prick. He'll start scolding. Yeah. This is what you want to talk about with everything else that's going on. It can't just be a shouted question because he'll just, you know, I want like a good sit down with someone where he's like stuck for 20 minutes with the interviewer. It's just like, you're right that it kind of needs almost like you, maybe it does at this point need to be actually explained why rooting for people's death is bad. Maybe we do need collectively to actually talk about it. No, I'm with you. I think it's bad too. No, I know you do. Again, that's what, yeah, we were all there for Charlie Kirk and we got plenty of shit for - But it's almost like, I actually want the conversation.

1:14:02I want someone to talk to J.D. Vance about like the worth of a human soul and like what happens after we die and what we root for, like what is the purpose of being alive and like who gets to be celebrated and what lives are worthy. It's just that we're at like a kind of first principles thing because the president of the United States is a moral fucking monster.

1:14:19Jon Favreau:Yeah. Blah. A whole bunch of people are working for him. All right. When we come back from the break, strict scrutinies, Leah Littman.

1:14:58Jon Favreau:We'll see you next time. ziprecruiter.com slash crooked. ZipRecruiter's powerful matching technology finds qualified candidates fast. You can easily add ZipRecruiter's screening questions to your job post so you get the highest quality applicants. Want to see who's recently active? ZipRecruiter's filters can show you. No wonder ZipRecruiter is the number one rated hiring site based on G2. Let ZipRecruiter help you find amazing candidates with the skills you seek. Four out of five employers who post on ZipRecruiter get a quality candidate within the first day. And now you can try it for free at ziprecruiter.com slash crooked.

1:15:29Jon Favreau:That's ZipRecruiter.com slash crooked. Meet your match on ZipRecruiter. The country feels like it's falling apart right before our eyes and the people inside it are being silenced. So we're going to East 26th Street and Nicolette Avenue, which is where Alex Preddy was executed by ICE and Border Patrol. That is not a headline. That is a human life. And it is all happening right now. Do you worry about your own safety being involved in all this? Yes, but it doesn't really feel like there's another option, you know. And of course they use a five-year-old child as bait. And of course they're doing all these horrible, bad things because they don't know what they're doing.

1:16:18They've been told that they're going to get rid of the worst of the worst. Then they have absolute immunity. and they've been told that nothing they do will they ever be held accountable for. On my show, Runaway Country, we go where the headlines hit home, from communities under threat to the people fighting to be heard. New episodes of Runaway Country drop every Thursday. Subscribe wherever you get your podcasts or watch on YouTube.

1:16:48Joining me now to discuss today's Supreme Court hearing on mail-in voting is strict scrutiny's Leah Lippman. And Leah, welcome back to the pod. Thanks for having me. So the Supreme Court heard oral arguments today for Watson v. RNC. It's an elections case where the Republican National Committee is arguing that federal law prohibits ballots received after Election Day from being counted, even if they're postmarked before or on Election Day. Can you tell us a bit about how this case reached the court and what the RNC is arguing? Sure. So the RNC brought this case challenging a Mississippi statute that allows the state to count ballots that are cast, i.e.

1:17:26postmarked, on or by Election Day, so long as they're received within five days of Election Day. A lower court trial judge said, get the fuck out of here. Right. That argument is ludicrous. It would literally call into question early voting, election law practices for the last 200 years, etc. And then the geniuses on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, three of Donald Trump's Court of Appeals appointees, said, you know what? Actually, federal law does make it illegal to count absentee ballots that are received after Election Day. That theory would destabilize election laws in more than half the states, I think 29 some states.

1:18:05And so because their ruling had such sweeping implications, the Supreme Court basically had to take this case. And that's how it got up here. The argument is federal law that just says the Tuesday next after the first Monday of November is established as the day for the election. Their theory is that federal law makes it illegal for states to count ballots that are cast by Election Day but not received until a few days after. And part of this is grappling with whether or not that would also mean votes cast before Election Day would be counted. Also, it's not clear if Election Day is the day, if you can count votes, say, after midnight, if you turn into a gremlin, if you count votes after midnight.

1:18:49I mean, they are gremlins, so I think that's kind of non-unique, but sure. Now, are the officials in Mississippi defending this case not also Republicans? They are. And part of what is so striking is that you have the prospect that both the federal government and I think at least three justices, three Republican appointees, if not more, are more anti-voting rights than the state of Mississippi. That is the state of our union. So there was some dissensus between the conservative justices. What was the kind of arguments you were hearing from, say, Alito and Thomas versus what you were hearing from, say, Kavanaugh and Barrett?

1:19:31So Alito, Thomas, and Gorsuch seemed to be totally magapilled, like their brains had just been marinating in Fox News and were regurgitating anti-absentee ballot talking points. So Justice Alito referred to the confidence you can have once you turn your ballot over to the Postal Service and whatnot. Honestly, Justice Kavanaugh sounded like he was more in that camp than in the middle. So he was throwing out concerns about if the apparent winner the morning after the election ends up losing due to late arriving ballots, won't that undermine confidence? And shouldn't we fashion a rule based on that?

1:20:08Again, eating up the kind of talking points from the 2020 presidential election. And then you had Justices Barrett and the chief saying some of that, but then also saying, well, federal government, RNC, wouldn't your theory also call into question the ability of people to cast early ballots, early in-person voting? Wouldn't it also call into question why states can even continue to count ballots after Election Day, even if they were received on or before Election Day? Like, why does it have to be that receipt happens on or before Election Day, but nothing else has to happen then? Like, that's just nonsensical.

1:20:50So they seem to be the ones that are going to dictate the outcome in that case. And I will breathe a sigh of relief if they end up rejecting the federal government and the RNC's theory. But it is just so scary that we are living in a world where it is possible that the Supreme Court at the end of June is going to announce this decision that could again nullify voting laws and practices just a few months before the midterms in over half of the election and craft a rule that would have disenfranchised almost a million voters in the 2024 election. Didn't Kavanaugh, though, question whether doing that would be feasible?

1:21:29Didn't he raise some concerns about that? Or am I being too optimistic? Tell me. I think your interpretation is very generous. I think what Kavanaugh was doing was a tell me why I'm right. Tell me why this isn't a concern question. Because what he asked the lawyer for the RNC was, would there be a problem under the so-called Purcell principle if we announced this decision for the upcoming midterms? The Purcell principle is this idea that the court has selectively invoked that suggests courts shouldn't change the rules too close to an election, lest they risk voter confusion and whatnot. But the advocate for the RNC said, no, no problem, right?

1:22:09Just like hand out this bad boy at the end of June and upend election rules for an election that's going to happen in November. No big deal. And Justice Kavanaugh didn't push back on that. And the reality is this court has really selectively invoked that principle. So it has invoked Purcell when courts try to protect voting rights. Basically, it's always too close to an election to do something that protects voting rights, but it's never too close to an election to do something that would help Republicans. You know, they allowed the 11th Circuit to change the voting rules in Florida almost a week, you know, before that state's primary.

1:22:42They have allowed, you know, other, you know, decisions to go into effect that, again, were likely to benefit Republicans, but not decisions that actually improved multiracial democracy or made it easier to cast a ballot. So it's hard for me to think that he's actually going to apply that principle in a more even-handed way. So I agree that when California takes forever to count ballots and during that process, suddenly you go from a Republican winning to a Democrat winning, that that creates an impression that leads people to question whether things are fair, even if they are entirely fair and there is no evidence to suggest they aren't fair.

1:23:18But presumably it's a bad policy. It's a bad policy. But presumably the Supreme Court doesn't believe federal law should be made to assuage false concerns. They're trying to interpret what the law says. Are they suggesting that the elections we've been running have all been a foul of federal election law? Or are they just ignoring this all together? John, you sweet, sweet summer child. I am a summer child. I'm going to spring out in LA here. So, yes, I mean, this theory would suggest that many elections over the last 200 years have been conducted in illegal ways. And, you know, you express surprise at the idea that they would indulge the suggestion that these false claims or false notions of voter fraud could actually alter the election rules.

1:24:05When the reality is they've actually embraced that idea before, you know, in a decision from seven years ago about the Voting Rights Act. Justice Alito, writing for all of the Republican appointees, said states have an interest in protecting the appearance of legitimacy in an election, even if there's zero actual evidence of fraud. And that was the same idea that you had Justices Kavanaugh and Alito reverting back to a bunch during this argument about absentee ballots. Well, isn't it fair for the state to basically adopt rules or the federal government to adopt rules in order to combat the appearance of impropriety, even, again, if that's not rooted in reality?

1:24:48But, you know, that's not how you usually interpret federal statutes. Under our constitutional system, states are supposed to be able to be the primary rule setters on elections, and they seemed willing to kind of abandon federalism, to abandon textualism, in favor of something like whataboutism. Right. Well, because if the state has an interest in making their elections fair, the state would be the one trying to protect their electoral interests. Perhaps one way they're trying to make sure the elections are fair is by counting votes carefully. Allowing people to vote. Right. And that would be their—that would be—right.

1:25:20This is about usurping the state's prerogative to oversee the elections. But you basically what you saw today leads you to think that this is right now on the edge, but there could be five votes to protect the counting of absentee ballots. And the fact that it's close is incredibly terrifying. That's what I heard. I think that's what other Supreme Court watchers also heard. And just to pick up on one thing you said, of course, the fact that states take so long to count ballots, that's not a good thing. But the reality is invalidating these state rules that allow the counting of absentee ballots, that's not going to fix the problem because it still takes states a lot of time to count ballots that are received on or before Election Day.

1:26:05We need to be able to invest more resources in order to give states the ability to process the counting of ballots. Some states don't even allow officials to begin counting ballots until a certain point. And so this decision is not going to address all of the bogeyman and the fears they're trotting out. It is just straight up voter suppression. Speaking of straight up voter suppression, the president's on a tear here. He's trying to get the Congress to pass the SAVE Act, a restrictive voter ID bill to require Americans to provide proof of citizenship. At the moment, it seems unlikely that the bill can pass Congress.

1:26:42Even as of today, Trump was trying to get some of the funding measures tied to the SAVE Act, trying to get everything all together. The Senate leaders are throwing cold water on that because there aren't the votes to pass this. One part of the contention has been around what this would do to, I believe it's pronounced women, women who are married. Now, on one side, they say, well, Democrats are spreading misinformation about this. On the other, it's truly not clear what happens to women whose birth certificates and legal name are not the same because they got married. What actually happens if this becomes law and what would be the odds that it would face a lot of legal hurdles to actually going into effect?

1:27:25Yeah, I mean, happy Women's History Month, ladies. You might not be able to vote very soon. But yes, so various provisions of the law require you to be able to present an identification that matches your name when you go to vote. And so married women who change their names, you know, when they get married might have an identification where their birth certificate or their passport, you know, doesn't align with their married name. And so they would be prevented from voting under the SAVE Act. But it's not just married women. You know, a lot of people change their names for a variety of reasons.

1:28:04Same-sex couples, you know, they change their names when they get married. Individuals, you know, change their names for family, personal reasons. And this law just threatens to disenfranchise large swaths of the population. And that seems to be the goal. You know, I'm glad you put the SAVE Act together with this case, because I think we should understand this as really all a coordinated effort to suppress voter turnout, make it more difficult to vote. this is part of their mid-cycle redistricting, write a set of rules that allows them to retain power. The SAVE Act is part of that. Suing for voter data and potentially deploying ICE agents, right?

1:28:40Those are also voter suppression tactics. The pending case about the future of the Voting Rights Act, that's another voter suppression measure. And so they are trying to throw everything they can at the wall in order to hold onto power because they recognize that nobody fucking likes them. Yeah. Yeah. Speaking of people who are not being liked, I wanted to talk to you about this story. So last week, and you talked about this a bit on strict scrutiny, a federal judge, Biden appointee absolutely tore into some DOJ attorneys in New Jersey in a courtroom, basically had a Trump lawyer removed from court, threatened to have him dragged out of the court, then gave that that that lawyer a second opportunity to leave on his own volition, an opportunity he took.

1:29:37What happened and is it now resolved because of what took place today? I cannot begin to convey the insanity of what has been happening in the U.S. attorney's office for New Jersey. Imagine GTL, but like on ketamine, and it's like the legal version of that. So, you know, they appointed - Jim Tan lawyer. Exactly. Yeah. Jim Tan lawyer. They appointed Alina Habba, US attorney. Federal judges said, no, that's illegal. Then they created this new leadership structure that they referred to as the trifecta or the triumvirate, where three individuals were supposedly running the office. Another federal judge said, no, no, no, know, that's illegal.

1:30:17And the problem with making all of these illegal appointments is if you have an illegally appointed prosecutor, then the cases that they bring have to be thrown out. And so it was jeopardizing public safety, law enforcement, law and order. And so all of these judges were like, guys, just fucking get your act together and accept, you know, the lawfully appointed U.S. attorney, because under federal law, the judges basically have the power to select a U.S. attorney for a district after a certain period of time, and that was what the Trump administration was resisting. So in this particular case, it involved a defendant who had been indicted for a child pornography offense.

1:30:54And because the U.S. Attorney's Office is just not functioning, apparently the U.S. Attorney's Office entered into a plea deal with this defendant without actually searching the defendant's phone. They agreed to a sentence before actually looking at all of the defendant's phone. And once they looked, it had even more child sexual abuse material on it. But because they had entered this plea agreement, they were kind of stuck to it. And this judge was pissed off. He was like, what are you doing? And also, why are you insisting on imposing a sentence when you are running a U.S. attorney's office that might not even be lawfully structured?

1:31:33So this transcript was basically my ASMR. I would strongly recommend to people reading it for themselves. You know, at the end of the transcript, the judge basically says, in a single year, you have squandered all of the credibility that the Department of Justice has built up over decades. And it does seem to have been resolved in the sense that the U.S. Attorney's Office in New Jersey is now being run by the individual that was selected according to the statutory procedures by these federal judges. And so what that would mean is now there's a lawful appointment structure in place. And so all of these plea agreements, all these criminal cases aren't going to be called into question as to whether the individuals who stayed at the U.S.

1:32:18attorney's office, including some individuals who came in under Trump, can dot their I's and cross their T's and do law remains to be seen. But this does actually solve some of the problems at least. Yeah. Just so people understand, basically, if the role of U.S. attorney is vacant, because it's a confirmable Senate, confirmable position, the law says that if it's open, there can only be a temporary appointment by the administration for so long before the judges appoint someone in their stead, because there are real powers that are associated with job and they have to go somewhere. And you have to know who that person is.

1:32:55And Trump was trying to get around this by kind of continuously appointing temporary people. And the fear would be that those prosecutions not only was usurping Congress and the role of the courts and what they've what they've what Congress has assigned to the courts, but it would mean that these prosecutions could ultimately be in jeopardy. They were fighting and fighting and fighting. It seems like they've, as of today, as of this recording, basically given up the fight. It does seem like a genuine victory for the federal courts over the Trump administration. It really does. And this is an area where the federal courts held the line and basically refused to back down.

1:33:31And, you know, in a game of chicken, the chicken always loses and the Trump administration lost, as they should have. And so hopefully they actually stick to this and are willing to accept, you know, the statutory procedures and other U.S. attorneys' offices as well. Leah, before we go, one last question. Donald Trump over the weekend said that he was happy that Robert Mueller had died. He said, good. Oh, my God. Because he didn't like him. Do you ever allow yourself to root for the death of people that you don't like? Or do you know how bad that is for the human soul? Where are you at? You know, I have some sense that that is bad for the human soul because basically when I saw that tweet, I forced myself to think about, okay, when Donald Trump inevitably dies, like, what will you say and what will you think?

1:34:20And nothing remotely like the truth he posted about Robert Mueller remotely entered into my lexicon, even though this is someone whose policies and behavior have affected vast suffering, right, untold deaths, human consequences. and still like I just don't think that is a normal human reaction. It's sociopathic. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Death isn't justice. We all die. You know, that's how I feel about it. It comes for everybody. So how do you celebrate it? You just all stand on the same train tracks, you know? But while we walk among the living, subscribe to strict scrutiny because these cases are coming down.

1:35:05They are huge cases that will affect the elections. It will affect all of us. And if you want to know what's happening, if you want to be prepared, if you want to understand and do it in a way that is entertaining, even joyful at times, even in these dark moments, please, please, please subscribe to Strict Scrutiny. Leah Lippman, thank you so much. Good to see you. Thank you for having me.

1:35:31Jon Favreau:That's our show for today. thanks to Leah for coming on. Dan and I will be back with a new show on Friday.

1:35:40Jon Favreau:If you want to listen to Pod Save America ad-free and get access to exclusive podcasts, go to crooked.com slash friends to subscribe on Supercast, Substack, YouTube, or Apple Podcasts. Also, please consider leaving us a review. That helps boost this episode and everything we do here at Crooked. Pod Save America is a Crooked Media production. Our producer is Saul Rubin. Our associate producer is Farrah Safari. Austin Fisher is our senior producer. Reed Churlin is our executive editor. Adrian Hill is our head of news and politics. The show is mixed and edited by Andrew Chadwick. Jordan Cantor is our sound engineer, with audio support from Kyle Seglin and Charlotte Landis.

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1:36:41The country feels like it's falling apart right before our eyes and the people inside it are being silenced. So we're going to East 26th Street and Nicolette Avenue, which is where Alex Preddy was executed by ICE and Border Patrol. That is not a headline. That is a human life. And it is all happening right now. Do you worry about your own safety being involved in all this? Yes, but it doesn't really feel like there's another option, you know. And of course, they use a five-year-old child as bait. And of course, they're doing all these horrible, bad things because they don't know what they're doing.

1:37:22They've been told that they're going to get rid of the worst of the worst. then they have absolute immunity and they've been told that nothing they do will they ever be held accountable for. On my show, Runaway Country, we go where the headlines hit home, from communities under threat to the people fighting to be heard. New episodes of Runaway Country drop every Thursday. Subscribe wherever you get your podcasts or watch on YouTube.