Trump and Pod Save America Agree: JD Is Lame

24:49Yeah, he should endorse Walls. Tommy, you interviewed both Turek and Walls on the show. For people just catching up, what are each of them bringing to the table? What were your general impressions? Yeah. I mean, so Josh Turk is a, he's a state rep in Western Iowa and council bluffs. He was born with spina bifida uses a wheelchair. He's a two time Paralympic gold medal winner in wheelchair basketball. And he's just like his life story is just like incredibly gritty, um, determined guy. Like he got cut from the men's team six times before he actually won the gold medal. He just kept coming back and come back and competing.

25:20And like, there's videos of him. He literally like climbs out of his wheelchair, climbs up the stairs with his hand, drags a wheelchair up after him, and then knocks on doors. Like that's how he goes door to door. So like gritty dude, clearly benefiting from being Schumer's pick and an associated$9 million vote vets ad buy that has drastically increased his name ID because no one knew who any of these guys were. And then Zach is a member, Zach Wall is a member of the Iowa State Senate. He's from Iowa City. He was Senate Minority Leader for a couple of years. Our listeners probably saw him speak in 2011, even though they don't remember it or knew it was him at the time.

25:53He was a 19 year old. He delivered a speech asking Iowa legislators not to pass a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage and civil unions that went super viral back in what 2011 and it was a great speech really powerful speech like supercharged his career so I interviewed him both I liked him both a lot everyone seems to think that Josh is likely to win a lot of people I know who work in Iowa politics think he is more electable because he's won in more conservative parts of the state but we're just going to take on congresswoman Ashley Hinton for Joni Ernst because she's resigning and no matter who wins Iowa is like ground zero for politics this next cycle because you got Rob Sand who could be the next governor.

26:28You have this open Senate seat. And then there's like three competitive house races, a bunch of other statewide things. So like Iowa is absolutely crucial. So this was one we're going to be watching going forward. I will say that I've been impressed by both of them, by both Josh Turk and Zach Walls. And I know some of these Senate primary fights are particularly intense. And I know this one is too. I do know like I was kind of joking about Josh Turk, probably wishing that Schumer didn't spend some PAC money on him or necessarily recruit him. But like, I think that I understand why Walls is, you know, Walls has tried to make this a race about sort of an outsider versus the establishment as Turek is the establishment.

27:07I kind of think that like, you know, Turek being picked by Chuck Schumer is not quite the same as Turek being part of the establishment or the establishment spending money on him. Like a lot of the money that's spent on him is vote vets. So it's like, it's not, at least for me, it doesn't worry me that he's some establishment pick necessarily i feel like the case for that isn't as strong as in some of these other cases but i also like you know zach walls was in here too i thought he was very compelling as well so i like both of them love it anything no i think look there's some races where being seen as like the schumer guy the dc guy i think has been a real uh cross to bear i think that was that happened in nane which we'll talk about in a second I just don't think it's been that in Iowa as much this time, in part because this vote that's by has been so big and so significant in helping push Josh forward.

27:56Also, he's a known quantity in Western Iowa. I think he's never been worked in D.C. Yeah, so I think it's harder to lay that on him, but we'll see. We should also say that for people wondering, the reason that Vote Vets is spending money on him is not because he's a veteran, but his father was in Vietnam and potentially exposed to Agent Orange. And that's why they think Josh has spined a bit. But also I think Von Vets is seen as doing Schumer's political bidding here. Also true. Also true. All right. Let's turn to California. The big race, of course, is the jungle primary for governor. We have covered the campaign a lot.

28:28And between us, we've interviewed Tom Steyer, Katie Porter, and Matt Mahan. We also reached out over a dozen times to the apparent frontrunner, Javier Becerra. And even though they expressed interest, they unfortunately wouldn't commit to a time. Okay. Same question for each of you. Who'd you end up supporting and why? And who else did you like? If this were ranked choice voting, who might you support after that? Well, my ballot still hasn't been filled down. So I'm still gettable. I'm still gettable. I am going to vote for Tom Steyer because I would like to see if Becerra, if the polls are to be believed and they've been pretty consistent, Becerra is going to move on.

29:08One other will. There's a chance Tom Steyer can be that second person. I would much rather have two Democrats battling it out for the future of the Democratic Party in this state than I would have Becerra versus a Republican who has not passed the threshold question of opposing Donald Trump's election lines. Like that to me is a threshold question. You could be frustrated with Democrats in this state. You can believe that Democrats have fucked up in California. But if you can't say that Donald Trump lost that election, if you can't stand up to him, then that is so fucking dangerous. And he is a nut for that.

29:38So that's where I'm at. I also really liked my conversation with Tom Steyer. I think he had good answers for some of the questions about where Democrats have gone wrong in California and some of the criticisms. I also really like Katie Porter, but she just hasn't risen to the top of the polls. Like she was she kind of slowly fell behind. And I think it's it sucks because I really like her. But I'm trying to be pragmatic with my vote. Yeah. If I could wave a magic wand and make some governor, it would be Katie Porter. But she is down in the polls and I'm having the same. I have the same rationale.

30:10I want to vote strategically because I think Steyer and Becerra going to a runoff would be great. It would kind of be annoying if we had to deal with, you know, running in Steve Hilton, who's a random British short king who's like deep in the tech community. I don't think his height's a problem. But the - I do love that that triggers you of all the criticism. But I also love that Steve Hilton and Chad Bianco are calling on each other to drop out still, even though Hilton is like crushing Bianco and Trump has endorsed Hilton. But that's where I was. Yeah, I would if I were doing rank choice, I would be Katie number one.

30:41No question because that that's that's who that's what I vote for. But that's not the world we live in. I I had a real hard time with this and I voted a couple days ago. I I California is a big state with a it's hard to govern a lot of problems. I don't really feel I thought about Becerra, but like I don't feel confident giving the top job to someone who's had. he's had 35 years in elected office to to prove himself but has received um mainly bad reviews from his colleagues um and the one exec especially in the one executive job that he's had which was hhs secretary under biden um and you know just an exhibit like i think his housing policy which was also like he's very late to introduce any kind of housing policy whatsoever until after ballots dropped and then even then it was like more nimby than styer or porter or anything else and now like I hope I'm wrong.

31:34And if he wins, then like, great, maybe he'll be a great governor. But I was like, I just it prevented me from from voting Becerra. Steyer, like, I'm more confident in Steyer. But even then, like on the experience question, there is just something for me, it was like the combination of he's never had any experience in elected office or governing anything, and is a billionaire who basically like, you know, ran for president first, flamed out there than spent just the GDP of a small country on this race. And like, I think he had, like, I like his positions better than Becerra and a lot of the other candidates, but I'm just like, there's just something a little icky to me about it.

32:18And I am not as worried if it's Steve Hilton versus Becerra or Steyer because the state's registration is going to take care of itself. And there's just, I just, it's not a concern I have that Steve Hilton is going to become governor. So I just voted for Katie Porter because I like her. And it's like, I realized that she has, it is the least strategic thing I could do. But Katie to me is like, I've known her a while. The temperament with her staff stuff is obviously, like, it bothered me a lot because like, we've known her forever. And I actually didn't know that until those stories came up. And I also don't think she's going to win at this point.

32:50But I'm like, who do I want to be governor? She's thought about the job a lot. She has like a really well thought out policy platform. She's actually worked on passing legislation and getting things done when she was in Congress And I feel like she's just like done the work for the job more than anyone else But if you would rather tom's I feel the same way Yeah, but I would rather like as of right now and I want to talk to javier becerra if he's willing now Like I think javier becerra has said he wants to come on the show But he's hoping that he and hilton get through the other side, right? And then of course we're doing an interview about a democrat versus a republican Which is very different than a conversation about a democrat versus a democrat But but as of right now, I think tom steyer has answered some of the harder questions better than javier becerra And if it's Becerra, I'm voting for him.

33:29And if I'm trying to get the best, because I believe you, I don't think Hilton's going to be the governor of the state. I want the best person to be the governor of California. And right now, if there's, I want to see, and maybe also Becerra having to beat Tom Steyer would make him a stronger candidate too. So that's my kind of hope that we can get Tom Steyer through this thing so that we have a better debate on how Becerra has to be put through his paces if he is going to win. Yeah. I do feel like, you know, as sort of blah as this race has been for governor, I am very open and hopeful that both like that either Steyer or Becerra will like prove me wrong and become a great governor.

34:03And you're right. Maybe if it's Becerra and Steyer in a runoff, then there's even more time for them to duke it out and and show their show that they're ready for the job. We also got a mayoral race going on here in L.A. Love it. Interviewed challenger Nithya Raman for the show, who we all know. And I supported Nithya, donated to her, known her a long time. We also reached out to Karen Bass, who has come on the show before, but she opted not to come on before the primary. Nithya and Bass are in a close race with reality TV personality turned mayoral candidate Spencer Pratt, a registered Republican quasi endorsed by Trump, who said, I like him.

34:39I hear he's MAGA. I like him. And Pratt was in New York over the weekend closing the campaign like this. That even testing your drugs on a dog is the least of the worst of what these demons are doing to these poor animals. They're lighting them on fire. They're raping these dogs. They're abusing them. They're breeding them to the point that they die because they've been so overbred. Sir, this is a Wendy's. Yeah, I don't doubt that there's horrible things happening to animals in some of these places. But it's very weird that he decided to go to New York for several days. I think dropped$34 ,000 on his hotel rooms and left the state the week before the election.

35:17Yeah, there's billboards all around or at least I saw I think I saw these two in downtown LA of him saying if you're you know dogs vote for Spencer Pratt So he's trying to make this like the closing thing The whatever reason they think this is something that's gonna break through for them. I don't know The guys think of this race. What do you think of that? Apparently Spencer Pratt's already sold the rights to do a reality show if he if he becomes the mayor Here's my here's I think this applies to both the governor's race and to the LA mayor's race which is when you watch the debates, there is a, like Steve Hilton, Bianca, Pat Pratt, they are capturing what is a very real frustration with democratic governance in this state, with mismanagement, with a kind of fecklessness and lack of emotion and passion for good government and making shit work, work better, work faster, answer people's concerns.

36:08I don't think the answers that these Republicans are offering or that Spencer Pratt are offering are what we need. But the fact that there's an opening speaks to the failure of Democrats, both on policy, but also just as candidates to rise to meet what is real and deep frustration with people in Los Angeles. These are all Democratic voters, almost all Democratic voters. And they have real anger about what they feel is the decline in Los Angeles. Now, I think Nithya cares deeply about the city. I think that she is thinking hard about how to actually address these issues. I think what has been a challenge in both in that debate, I think with her on the campaign trail is, you know, when I talked to her, she made this point, which really resonated with me, that there's this feeling when you talk about Karen Bass, like, where's the energy?

36:55Where's the hunger? Where's like the speed? Where's the sense of urgency, right? That's been, that was about the fires, but everything else. And I wanted to see more of that from Nithya. And to be honest, I feel So like as a candidate, she hasn't shown the same kind of spirit that she's promising to bring if she becomes mayor. But I do think that she has thought a lot about how to address her housing issues. She's thought a lot about what has allowed production to leave Los Angeles. I am voting for Nithya, and my hope is that Bass and Nithya make it out of the primary so that the two of them can go head to head.

37:27And then I think that'll be like a great contest. Yeah, so full disclosure, I'm a Nithya donor, mostly because your wife asked me to be. But I voted for Nithya, too. The reason I'm mad about the status quo, too, like I share a lot of Spencer's rage about the fires, especially the communications issues after the fires or during the fires. I don't think he's the answer to those problems, but I share his anger at the frustration. And the problem, it wasn't just that Mayor Bass was out of the country when the fire started, although that was extremely bad and kind of, in my view, was hard to forgive.

37:53But it's, I think, hard to overstate how bad the communication was from the city during that period and how scary it was to live here when the sun would go down and the winds would pick up and you'd lie in bed being like, am I endangering my children by sticking around the city? You know, like that's where people's heads were. And there was just like the communication wasn't just bad. Remember that night when there was like four mistaken, like fake Amber alerts telling people to evacuate when they didn't need to write like that shit is unforgivable. So that is why I voted for change. But if we were being honest, like I do think Nithya has struggled in this race.

38:23She's struggled to articulate like clearly what she would do. She seems to struggle to connect with voters on the campaign trail. And then the debate was quite bad. Like Spencer Pratt, I think, defined her as like a co-incumbent at the debate. And she didn't seem like a challenger. And so if she makes the runoff, and I really hope she does, she's got a lot of work to do to get things back on track and to, you know, run a lot harder against whoever her opponent is. And take back that kind of like insurgent, like I'm not the status quo message. It has seemed to me like in this race, we've ended up with three archetypes of candidates that we see across the country and have for the last like decade now, which in Bass, you have someone who is very much establishment along with all of the lack of energy that comes with that.

39:14and she's kind of just, you know, running around bragging that like we've reduced homelessness by 17 % and everyone's like walking around and you can see that you're like 17 % which doesn't look like 17 % and is that a big number? And has also been more nimby on housing, has sort of gutted a lot of the housing reforms or hasn't pursued them, hasn't been a great communicator and, you know, is just kind of in the job and doesn't communicate well or a lot. And then in Nithia, you have someone who is like, this is like what I was just saying about Katie Porter, right, who has really thought about these issues, who I think is a wonderful public servant and I think could be a really good public servant, but like has not met the sort of performance related requirements of a candidate.

40:02And it is unfortunate that you can't just be ready to be good at the job and be really smart and into the policy and stuff like that and that you also need to perform. But we've said this a million times on the show forever. Like, that's what you need. And we also have like a lot of Democrats like that across the country. And then in Pratt, you have someone who, when there is democratic governance and a person in power does not fix the problems that an area is facing, it is fairly easy for a right-wing populist who's good at getting attention and no one's better at getting attention than a reality TV star to come in and tell everyone, yes, you are pissed.

40:33I'm pissed too. And if you elect me, then you can stick it to the people in charge, even though his plans are not just cruel, they're just stupid and that he can't do them. They're against the law. Like he doesn't have the power to do a lot of the shit he's talking about. He's just making a bunch of fucking, you know, empty promises that he's not going to be able to fulfill if he wins. But no one cares about that. People care about like, OK, he's angry and I'm angry and that's enough. It was so cool when Nithya just like, you know what? Fuck it. And drove down and said, I'm going to run for mayor.

41:01And that was it was so exciting because it was like, you know what? She's nobody else is stepping up. People know when everyone is frustrated with Karen Bass. There's a collective judgment that Karen Bass just didn't bring the energy and direction that the city needs. And she's going to jump in and be the one to do it. And I've wanted that same energy in the campaign, but it just hasn't been there. With Bass, when I talked to her on Love It or Leave It, it was right before she came out. She ran claiming she was not going to be an NIMBY. She put out some housing policies that were pretty good, but then they got watered down through consensus.

41:35Also sounds like what Becerra did. Right. And then you and then she comes out against SB 79 because that's what the city council is doing. Took her years to put to put in charge somebody to make someone the czar of filming and in L.A. Right. Like she's just no deputy mayor for housing. And so like that that to me and, you know, part of why I think the campaigning does matter and why we I think I want to see Nithya be a stronger candidate and stronger campaigner is because in this moment in like in in our in politics today, how you campaign showing that you can do it. That's a big part of what it is to be a mayor, like someone who's going to be out there every day, like hitting the message.

42:12Someone's going to be like making news all the time, showing people what you're doing, showing people what matters. Right. Like like it's not just about the kind of performance, not just a show. Yeah. Now, I will say there's been a ton of, you know, commentary on this race and analysis, people talking about it. I have no fucking idea what's going to happen because I know what this electorate looks like. I know it's just for people who don't know L.A., it is 15 percent registered Republican. And so even if Spencer Pratt and some of these polls is getting like 20%, anywhere between 20 and even as high as 30%, that's still nowhere what you'd need to win a general election, certainly, and maybe not even to advance in the primary.

42:50Also, the way LA is set up, Santa Monica has its own. If you're in Santa Monica or West Hollywood or Beverly Hills or Pasadena, you're not voting for mayor of LA. A lot of people think they're Pratt voters, and then they're going to get to the polls and figure out that they're not eligible. Exactly. It's going to be very funny. Because they're in L.A. county. Because they're in L.A. county. It could end up, so he could either surprise us and do really well, or it could be this election where just a bunch of people who don't pay attention to politics at all in other parts of L.A. just like dutifully vote for Karen Bass or Nithya.

43:19Like, I just, I don't know. So pretending that I know what's going to happen is just crazy. It is an interesting window into just sort of the zeitgeist of the electorate. I mean, there is an anti-incumbent rage across the country right now, but we're in California, a state where there's all Democratic governance. And so Spencer Pratt is sort of channeling that in a different direction. It's interesting to see. It's also interesting the way he's kind of exposing the incoherence of the MAGA and the Maha agenda. Like, I remember when they were very mad about the COVID vaccine. And now Spencer Pratt is like, I will take all the drug addicts and I will lock them up for five days or whatever and force them into treatment.

43:54It's like, oh, OK, well, that's different than the freedom agenda that we were talking about under Robert F. Kennedy. But OK. Well, they don't. Well, the way it works, it's a freedom for me. Not for them. Not for them. I don't know if you guys are excited or looking into any other races in California, but Michael Tubbs for lieutenant governor. Remember, crooked contributor and former crooked guest is running for lieutenant governor. I love Michael. And our buddy Jake Levine is running against Brad Sherman, Congressman Brad Sherman, in the California 32nd, which is Palisades and upwards towards Encino in that area.

44:25So Jake's giving him a good challenge. And the hope there, right, is that he can keep Sherman, because Sherman is well known in that district and is expected to sort of lead at the polls. and old, he's old. But if Jay can get it to keep him under 50, and then they can go on to a runoff. Oh, one other thing for people watching the returns. A lot of Democrats, including John Lovett here, have held on to their ballots till the very end. And California is always notoriously late in counting ballots. And so it's a high probability that this will have a red mirage in the voting as the returns come in, especially this year.

45:04Someone did a party breakdown. I think it was Galen Druk. That in 2022, the final party breakdown was 50 % D, 29.5 % R, 19.9 % other. Right now, the party breakdown and the ballots that have come in, and this is like election day, basically, 45.9%, 33.5%, 20.6%. So that so it's already like it's off. And so the first ballots that are going to be counted are the ones that are already in. And so now the electorate could also be more red. But I am I am already worried about the Spencer Pratt and who knows Donald Trump could jump into and be like, we won. And then suddenly we're being overtaken as the ballots are counted later in the week.

45:45So everyone should prepare for that. One possibility I think is like pretty high on the list of possibilities is on election night. You have Becerra one, Hilton two. and then actually a couple of days, it goes Becerra, Steyer, and then all of a sudden Hilton is saying, I was locked out by the Democratic machine. The good news is, yeah, that message I think will resonate nationally. I think California voters are pretty well conditioned to how stupid and long it takes us to count ballots. I wish it was faster. But see, this is like the whole thing. It's like, that's how it is in California. We do it the stupidest way fucking possible.

46:16Why? Why? Every other state can count ballots in a couple of days. Why does it take here to weeks? It's fucking stupid. I think it's all the mail, right? Because if you can drop it in a mailbox on June 2nd, on the day of the primary, then it takes at least a couple days for the mail to get it. Yes, but then that is not the... There's still long. It still keeps going. But there's some built-in just because of the mail. Of course, of course. That's why you got to get rid of those mail-in ballots, like Trump says. Thank God we have mail-in ballots. Our ballot is very long. It's complicated. There's lots of things you need to research.

46:44There's lots of positions you've never heard of. It's very... Thank God for the mail-in ballot.

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48:24We also had more news over the weekend in the main Senate race, where Graham Plattner is likely to win the nomination in next week's primary. Stories in the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal reported that as his campaign began last year, Plattner's wife, Amy Gertner, told a campaign staffer that Plattner had exchanged sexual messages with several women. And this was after Plattner and Gertner were married in late 2023, but that they had stopped before the campaign began and Plattner and Gertner had gone through therapy. The entire situation is very messy. The staffer that Plattner's wife told, Genevieve McDonald, has since left the campaign.

48:59And she was the one who originally talked to the Wall Street Journal. And she's talked to the New York Times. And she's become a public critic of Plattner. Plattner said that at least some of what McDonald told the New York Times wasn't true. But both he and his wife, Amy Gertner, and the campaign have all confirmed the existence of the messages. and then Janet Mills who suspended her campaign in April said in an interview on Sunday that actually she's still on the ballot and she also just posted the first tweet from her campaign account since the tweet where she suspended her campaign and it was a happy pride month tweet.

49:35Well, that's a sort of neither here nor there. Just try or don't. Yeah, you can't half run for office. Come on. What are we doing here? Well, you could make the argument that she kind of half ran in the first place. Continuation of the status quo. All right, what do you guys think about this latest development and how it might impact the race? I mean, I think the main risk for Platiner is the cumulative impact of these stories and scandals along with the Reddit stuff. Because I think main voters were, have shown to be quite willing to give them the benefit of the doubt for the past Reddit posts and accept his explanation that I was in a bad place.

50:09This happened in the past. I've grown, I've changed and moved on. You know, I think voters are like, okay we get that uh this latest what are we calling it sexting scandal like this stuff was very recent we're talking like 2023 and so um i think these days uh sexual allegations of where it's just infidelity or infidelity adjacent like don't tend to be campaign ending especially when amy gertner said this is a private matter we worked through it i love him i have a great marriage etc but i do worry that the cumulative nature of this stuff might make voters think one like is this guy a good guy and two um what else do we not know about him and so i think platter's campaign can weather this they will likely weather this i would recommend less criticism of the media for covering the story i think it's a valid story to cover um and the new york times and wall street journal ultimately got the story right right and i would just say you know i think you have to own it.

51:08You have to own that this was shitty behavior. It was a mistake that we've moved, that the two of them have worked through privately. And then in a few days from now, that's when you sort of pivot to the message about getting back to issues. Because that's right. That is what voters want to talk about. But there's going to be a period of time where folks talk about this because it just broke. And I think you can't scold the press for covering a thing that was valid enough that your spouse brought it forward to your campaign staff to talk to them So, you know, it's fair game, obviously. If Susan Collins was slinging nudes on Snapchat, we'd be talking about it.

51:39You know what I'm saying? By the fall, we might be. Sorry. All that said, I do think what Plattner... She's got that hammer and sickle tattoo, too. What Genevieve McDonald, the former Plattner staffer, did here is really shitty on a human level. It's unethical. If I were Amy Gertner, I would be furious. and so that part of it's pretty gross. Yeah, like if a candidate just had the Reddit story, so like I was going through a really tough time in my life and I posted some heinous shit, it was like, and I regret it, but I've been through a lot of therapy, it had to do with my PTSD and I'm on the other side of it.

52:20You'd be like, okay, like people grow and they change. The tattoo, you'd say, this was a stupid tattoo, I didn't understand what it meant at the time, I'm covering it up. Like, okay. okay, early in my marriage, I was in a really shitty place and I was having these, I don't know what he was doing, sexting, whatever. But my wife and I have worked through it and it's a private matter. We're together because we love each other and that's all that should really count. You'd say, okay. I feel like you add them all up together and then there's all these insinuations that there's more coming, more coming, more coming.

52:55You see why people would be concerned. And what I find like sort of hard to wrap my mind around this is that like, why do we care about red flags, right? Like all of these are not, what kind of center is he going to be? Is he a good person? Does he have our values? Does he have a good character at root? Or is he a flawed person who's made terrible mistakes, who's trying to become a better person? Or is the insinuation that all of this adds up to evidence that he will be a bad senator who's actually not going to do the things he is claiming he's going to do, that he's going to be a Fetterman, right?

53:27That he's going to disappoint us in some way, that he has like fundamental flaws. And I don't know the answer to that. What I'm amazed by is how many kind of active, hyper engaged Democrats online who do shape how we talk about these things claim to know with such certainty about this, right? Like they know, they know, and they're so shocked that other people don't agree with them. And I look, I'm not a main voter, but a lot of this is, do you think he's a bad person? Do you think that he's going to lose because of these stories, which is just another way of saying you think the voters of Maine will think he's a person of bad character?

53:59I don't know, but I just, I find that it's a lot of people kind of fighting over not whether or not Graham Plattner is going to do the things he says he's going to do and is the person he claims to be now, more kind of relitigating their arguments and anger at the factions of the party that they're always in dispute with. Yeah. In thinking about this, I was trying to separate out like my personal feelings about this with like my political analysis of what it means. And personally, it's like, you know, I think infidelity is a mistake and it shows poor judgment. I also, for me, it's like, it's not a deal breaker if a candidate with past infidelity issues has worked through those with their spouse to their spouse's satisfaction, which is the case here.

54:46It's like still not great, but it's not a deal breaker. If it's a deal breaker for other people, I don't judge that either. Like you make your own determinations. I think in terms of like the timeline when everything happened, it is very clear to me. I think it's probably clear to everyone now that Graham Plattner did not think he was going to be a candidate for office up until the minute he was a candidate for office and lived his life accordingly. And probably, you know, other people will say, well, I didn't make mistakes like he did and I didn't get that kind of tattoos. Correct. Right. Like he he lived his life not thinking he would ever be a candidate for public office.

55:18and then he ran for office and then they were like, all right, what's in the past? And all the stuff's coming out, including at the time he decided to run for office, these messages, which his wife brought up to the campaign. So again, all of the accusations and all the stories about Plattner have been from about behavior and things he did before he started running for office. Right. And so for me, I think, okay, the whole, like I've changed and I've grown, it's not about like I was a kid and did crazy things. It was, I was never going to run for office and now I'm running for office and I'm trying to be your senator.

55:49So what kind of senator are you going to be? Right. Politically, my analysis of this is you're right that like these things start stacking on top of each other. And I think that the larger issue for people becomes trust. Right. Because and this is where the is more going to come out or why didn't the campaign like, first of all, some people like, why didn't the campaign tell us this if they knew this? I don't think campaigns are necessarily in the business of dumping all of the opposition research they do on their own candidates. Incredibly personal, painful stuff. Right, into the public. Like that doesn't usually happen.

56:20Absolutely not on this one. She came, hey, just so you know, this is something that happened in our past, but we're good. It's not an issue. We're together. We're happy. That is never, of course they don't come up. That's a private matter. Right. But I think that, look, Andrew Kaczynski on the tattoo story, like who's reporting I trust a lot and is a very good reporter, has the, you know, the story that maybe Plattner knew what the tattoo signified sometime after he got up, but before he ran and Plattner's been a little sort of sketchy on explaining that. And now this one, it was like, well, I think that she lied to the Times and the Times story wasn't right, but it was.

56:59So there is this, what I worry about and what I think about if I was them is like, there is a trust issue now that could become a bigger trust issue. And I do think that the campaign and Plattner might think these issues don't matter or they're private or whatever, But he has to now work to build people's trust and keep people's trust between now and November because people, even people who like him, are going to start to question, well, is he telling the full truth about everything? Is there more? Are they transparent? You know, like, and that to me does bear on what kind of senator you are. So I think the most important thing for them is to, like, go and do the work and, like, earn people's trust and take all the tough questions and give all the explanations you need until people are bored asking the questions.

57:41Yeah, I think you got to probably be a little more transparent on this one. I also, you know, I hear what you're saying on how you sort of think about this. I don't think most people, though, draw a line when you decided to run to office for kind of like when they judge your decision making or the morality of this. I think if the tattoo is a bridge too far to you, I understand that. I'm not going to tell you otherwise. I mean, when I talked to him about this, when they showed us the video, the thing that always stuck with me was he took his shirt off and sang that song at his, was it brother's wedding?

58:15And his sister-in-law is Jewish. So you have to be a real asshole to do that and display that tattoo, kind of knowing full well and being fully cognizant of what it meant at that wedding. That to me was a convincing explanation, but I've read Andrew's reporting too, that maybe there's some questions about the timeline. I think that's a fully, a totally reasonable thing to wonder about. I think the threshold question is, are there other things in this guy's past that suggest he ascribes to Nazi or fascist ideology? And that's where the Reddit archive is actually quite useful. Yes. Because what it shows is the exact opposite.

58:44I know. Right? And then that's where I think people kind of refuse to kind of engage with this broader body of factual information that we have when we want to assess what this man believes. And I will say, this is why I personally, and people have seen me do this online, but this is why I get more frustrated with people being upset at the tattoo thing. More than if you're upset with all the old Reddit stuff and you feel like he's apologized for that, but the apology not accepted, then that's your decision. And I understand that. If you're upset about the sexting scandal, then I understand that.

59:22but you're right the tattoo thing the guy just posted on reddit again like he was never running for office anonymously has all these things that he said that he's now regretting that are some are offensive whatever else none of them even hinted that he has a subscribes to any of this kind of ideology sounds like a commie and everyone's like nazi i saw it when we yeah when we were when you were about to interview him tommy and we saw the video i was like uh what's the problem it's a skull and crossbones now everyone now can be like you didn't know it was a fucking blah blah blah Tone and cough.

59:49No. We knew it was a tone and cough. It was a skull and crossbones. And I'm sure maybe if Andrew's story is correct, then at some point, someone said to Plattner, hey, that skull and crossbones you've got, did you know that's a Nazi tattoo? And he's probably like, well, I've been screened for the army twice. And they screened tattoos for this. And no one ever said anything. And I have a Jewish family. No one ever said anything. So maybe he then Googled it and was like, oh, yeah, it is. But again, was probably like, well, what do I like? I'm going to go cover it up. I'm not. And then he did. Clearly, something changed in their thinking between when I talked to him and a couple days later.

1:00:17because when I talked to him, he was like, no, I did this. This is the deal. It was a stupid tattoo. I was an infantryman. I was in Croatia. I was a dumb kid, whatever. And a couple of days later, he got it covered up, right? So like something occurred to him that, oh, actually, this is a real problem that I should fix. But this is where people just sort of call him a Nazi. And it's like, and then it's like you say, well, hold on a second. Like no one, you don't have to listen to anyone. You don't have to believe anyone. You don't have to take more information in. You don't have to have a nuanced view.

1:00:42You can just call somebody a Nazi if you want. The reason symbols matter is because they're supposed to symbolize something. Right. Like we battle about symbols on social media because it's that's what the medium is for. It's for taking little tokens of something and drawing a conclusion about it. It's very small space. So we do it with symbols. But the symbol has to mean something. It has to be a red flag of something. Like, do you think he's a Nazi? Of course you don't. Of course you don't. You think maybe he's a stupid tattoo. Maybe he didn't care enough about it being a Nazi tattoo. That's a fair argument.

1:01:10Maybe he was pointed out and take it seriously enough. That's OK. All of it's like just but like we just have an honest conversation about it rather than like it's a no for me because of the tattoo. It's like, OK, that you're free to do that. We're just going to we're just going to have the rest of the conversation, even if you don't want to have it. Also, the other thing, and I think ultimately here, this is up to the people of Maine and this is up to the voters of Maine. And if this whole time he was going down and down and down and down in the polls and people and people are not buying this.

1:01:39I mean, like, OK, then then he shouldn't be the nominee. or at the end and like even even mill stayed in the race because she wanted to fight it out well so even even mills now saying like i'm technically still in the race or whatever like that's fine if she wants to campaign for the last week and and if she's on the ballot we're going to be talking about this race on june 9th if the people of maine now decide that they want janet mills instead of graham platner because of this last scandal and everything else then like they should do that and then then the national party should get behind janet mills and we'll be off to november probably she quit right because she saw the writing on the wall because because she because she didn't want to go down in her last race which is fine but if platter gets a ton of votes in the primary and still does really well then like that's what the people of maine wanted and they met him and they didn't you know it wasn't just online discourse like they met him so we gotta we gotta kind of take the lead of the people in maine yeah so there's a lot of like a i know we're all used to losing and being fucking losers and we have a loser mentality and like a loser mentality is like, this is bad.

1:02:37We have to do something else. I'm scared. I don't like this. This is bad. I'm done with this. We can't do this. We have to do something else. And it's like, guys, if there was someone else running, you could have a debate and maybe vote for somebody else. He's right now the only person that's kind of putting up a fight for this race. If you want to say that Janet Miller should get back in, if you want to say that he should drop out, whatever, say what you want. But really what you're saying is, I'm worried he's going to lose. Well, people are also comparing it to like that. Well, people pushed Biden out when they thought that Biden did something.

1:03:01But I'm like, but that was the opposite. it because in that scenario, the whole country didn't want Biden and Biden and his campaign were saying, yes, yes, you will get him no matter what. Well, that was this is a this is a this is a flip thing where we're the voters of Maine are like, no, no, we like him. And then other people are worried about it. You know, it's just a different the Biden thing is. So it could come to that when people change their minds when nobody was challenging Biden and Biden was the nominee and it still seemed like there was a chance he could win. That was actually when we when we were talking about how we were concerned he wasn't addressing his age issues, but he's going to be the person.

1:03:33So we've got to do everything we can to help him win because he's the only person that we're going to have. Then he eats shit in that debate. Joe Biden thought he was having a stroke. Didn't tell us at the time. Okay, babe. But then it was now clear that he could not win. And so it was time to do something in an emergency because it was pragmatic. It was crazy. It was risky, but it was actually pragmatic because it was the only hope of winning the election. Nobody can make that argument right now based on the polls around grand planter they just can't yeah All right. So that's that. I'm sure we won't talk about that anymore between now and November.

1:04:04One more thing we couldn't resist. Over the weekend, the New York Times published a brutal and hilarious report titled, Is J.D. Vance the 2028 Frontrunner? Trump has questions. According to the Times, Trump is, quote, not so sure about Vance. Trump has pointed out that Vance's political success has largely depended on Trump's support, that Vance takes too many vacations, that Vance opposed the war in Iran, and that Vance, frankly, sometimes doesn't look or act very presidential. We, of course, didn't want to be unfair to JD, so we thought we'd check the tape of some of the moments in question.

1:04:33Let's play. JD buds into conversations. I want to have that for at least a couple of days, okay, JD?

1:04:44Okay, yeah, it's American Vice President. Let's see if you're here. Okay. My wife has the right to skydive, but she doesn't jump out of an airplane because she and I have an agreement that she's not going to do that because I don't want my wife jumping out of an airplane. Well, they say it's racist to do anything. I had a Diet Mountain Dew yesterday and one today. I'm sure they're going to call that racist too. But what is this? What is... Zach, you're going to have to help me out with her name here. I lost my page here. Okay. All right. Now, you can't move me. I'm the Vice President of the United States.

1:05:16It's Couch Bunker. Get a fucking couch buddy. Go fuck it. That's shady, man. Go fuck it. I was just again. Great. Oh, my God. That's so funny. What did you guys think of the story? I love the story so much. J.D. Vance is just the gimp from Pulp Fiction. Trump wheels him out, that little box humiliates him, puts him back in. The details are so funny. Like, the man who spends one-third of his time at Mar-a-Lago thinks J.D. Vance takes too many vacations. Delicious. I love that Trump thought the trophy incident that we just watched there twice was as embarrassing as we all did. and that it just exposed JD.

1:05:54It's just like a phony non-sports fan loser. I love that Susie Wiles took away JD's phone privileges and made him stop texting or tweeting. Like her teenage son got in trouble. That clip of Trump scolding JD for talking in meetings and not acting like some CCP commissar is beautiful. They set him up. They went through his failure tour. It was the Iran talks, the Viktor Orban campaign stop. Indiana. Indiana Republicans trying to jawbone them into redistricting. Failure, failure, failure. He killed Pope Francis. People forget about that. But J.D. Vance was so annoying to Pope Francis. Got us an American pope, though.

1:06:33Yeah, he did get us a better pope. Which, who he then accused him. Now he attacks him. Don't be careful. Shut up and dribble. Yeah, shut up, Pope. Ultimately, this is a win-win for Trump, right? Because if whoever comes next, if it's J.D. or Rubio or whoever, if they win, Trump will say, that's because of me. if they lose, he'll say, can't win without Trump, right? So he's pumped no matter what, but it is so fun watching him just fuck with these guys. One other thing that jumped out to is, the article just states it as a fact that I didn't really, wouldn't have it occurred to me as a fact that Trump is just spending more time with Rubio than he is with J.D.

1:07:09Vance because Rubio is, of course, not just Secretary of State. He's war buddy. He's National Security Advisor. And J.D. Vance can't ride on the plane with Trump because he's vice president. vice president can't go on air force one with the president just doesn't happen uh and so he's a little bit outside of things i will say that that like the jd vance's whole life just having fomo the the yeah the the vance probably has more power in the trump administration than kamala harris did in the biden administration i would say uh he is more actively involved he's in the room for big decisions i think i think they've given him almost as annoying jobs though for sure for sure but i I think they actually listen when he says stuff.

1:07:44Not on Iran. That's true. Well, yeah, fair enough. But I mean, even though he was, by the end, Vance was saying he was in favor of doing, if we're going to do it, go big or go home. So even he tried to stay on the right side of that. But anyway, I think like what Trump sees is what we see. It's like Vance can't help but reveal his nature. He can't help it. He can't help it. He can't go into a donut shop and be normal. He doesn't know how to talk to people because he's putting on a show. But they're like that like ambitious little nerd that kind of like that that thing inside of him it just can't stop from coming out and it makes everyone including trump uncomfortable and i love it i just i just want to um zoom in again on the the social media part with my my twitter pen pal jd vance this is what the time says in meetings mr vance frequently scrolls his phone and he uses social media to fight with his critics the president frequently posts to truth social but he does not spend time replying to people online as mr vance does i just love that they have separated out the kind of poster yeah like reply guy trump's out there he's posting like 30 times a night in the middle of the night yeah he's a yeah he's he's a producer really he's just putting it out and mr vance is there just replying to people online how dare you sir suzy wiles and the other staff have all gotten together to tell him to have an intervention and say that uh that the fighting was beneath his office the idea that anyone in that fucking building is going to tell anyone what's beneath the office and yet they do and yet i believe it i know i absolutely believe it but they made him say it was for lent yeah i know it's like such a cover he's like i liked it so much i just kept it off my phone uh-huh giving up for lent sure i love that i love that i took it off my phone finally you did this weekend i'm proud of you yeah it was the planner stuff that did it i was like yeah that discourse is real i started i saw it starting blowing up it's like i'm just gonna i was like i'm gonna save my thoughts for monday i was like i can't have uh a grand platter thing and then and then two fights going on uh dave portnoy tweets at me and then nira with like five tweets i was like i'm done yeah you need like a it's like the quadrennial the quadrennial phone quadrennial tweet review where like you can't be fight you have to be able to hold one front and also win on another front at the same time i've said this before i was like the jd vance thing yeah i'll fight with jd vance i'm like no not that this is the what i did this week it was not good okay not good yeah it's not fun.

1:10:00Nice to admit that. When we come back, New Jersey Senator Andy Kim will talk to me about the conditions at an ICE detention center in Newark, where he was also pepper sprayed by federal agents.

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1:11:35Senator Andy Kim, welcome back to Pod Save America. Yeah, thanks for having me back. So for anyone who hasn't been following the story, there's a privately run ICE detention center in Newark called Delaney Hall. Around 300 people are being held inside. Some have started a hunger strike over the conditions. You tried to visit last Sunday, were turned away, got in on Monday, Memorial Day. And then by the end of the day, you got pepper sprayed by federal agents. Can you just walk us through that whole experience and what you saw? Yeah, absolutely. Well, thanks for shining a light on this, because this is a problem not just for us in New Jersey, but all over this country.

1:12:12This is a facility that has about 800 right now, several hundred of them participating in hunger strike and the broader protests. But I was been able to go there a couple times and look, Some of the things that I've heard most recently, these are people that are, for instance, a man telling me that he's got stage three lung cancer, doesn't want to be there anymore, willing to go back to his home country, but not being allowed to do so, not getting the medical care that he needs. There's a pregnant woman there telling me that she's not getting the medical care that she needs as she's gearing up to have a baby.

1:12:47And she's literally looking me in the eye and she's saying, do I need to be prepared to have a baby here in Delaney Hall? You know, she has no movement on her case, you know, no understanding what's happened next on the court. You know, the woman that was translating this for me, you know, turned out to be an 18-year-old high school senior who's in there by herself. I actually talked to her mom outside of Delaney Hall, and she was worried sick. You can imagine, you know, having your daughter, an 18-year-old high school senior, in a detention facility by herself. you know this is a young woman who was telling me all she wanted to do is go to the prom and graduate from high school this year and so like when trump's telling you these are the worst of the worst telling you that he's going after the the violent criminals you know i wanted the people across this country to just hear what i'm hearing inside that facility and sure they're they're complaining and and raising the concerns about the medical care or the lack of medical care about the horrible problems what they're having with food.

1:13:50Like one man ran up to me with a milk carton and showed me what was inside and it was just congealed solid on the inside. I mean, it's disgusting. And they're raising concerns about the extreme heat that they're feeling. And I felt it too as I'm sweating there in their room. And it wasn't even a particularly hot day. But what they were also flagging is just like the lack of any movement on their cases. I mean, some of them in there for eight months, some of them for over a year, not having any movement forward in any credible way. One man ran to the hallway and grabbed a piece of paper off the bulletin board and showed it to me.

1:14:27And it showed me that on one day, when the courts came back into session after the Memorial Day weekend, on one day, on that Tuesday, this one judge had 74 cases before her in just one day. And I did the back of the napkin mat. That's like about five minutes per case. I mean, it's a farce of a legal process that's just, you know, keeping them there while, you know, while these conditions are terrible, not moving anything forward. And who's paying the bill? It's us. It's the taxpayer dollars that are paying, you know, GeoGroup, you know, millions and millions of dollars to run these facilities.

1:15:05So that's, you know, that's at least what I saw inside. First of all, that is just horrific. And it seems like the delay in hearing these cases is both a function of how many people they are detaining. Clearly not the worst of the worst, but a whole bunch of other immigrants, some of whom I imagine could be here legally, as well as just the sort of failure to properly resource the immigration courts with enough judges and to properly resource these facilities. Is that what you took away from it as well? Yeah, absolutely. I mean, like, look, you know, some of this is absolutely just a lack of investment.

1:15:48I mean, as they're surging up ICE and CBP through the reconciliation bill, and I'm down here at the Capitol now because they're about to try to push another$60,$70 billion towards the enforcement side. But where's the energy towards the courts? We already had millions of cases of backlog that was going to take a decade or so just to be able to get through. We all know that we need to invest in the courts, that we can have a judicial process that can hopefully take on these cases in a matter of days and weeks rather than years or even longer. And that backlog is what is putting so much strain on our system and is costing us so much.

1:16:31So that's part of it. But look, you can't help but think through. I mean, like this is GeoGroup, you know, for those that don't, you know, may not be following this, GeoGroup's a for-profit company that runs this facility, runs 19 other facilities, about 20 facilities around this country in charge of detaining over 20 ,000 people for ICE. You know, this is a group that, you know, is just making money off of this all. They're just printing money off of this all. You know, they're getting paid by the bed, by the day, you know, so they're not certainly complaining about this process. and like when you you can't help but think like look when tom homan comes from geo group into the white house they run this process when they just chose actually today is the first day of the new head of ice that they just uh picked and it came again straight from geo group you know like you can't help but think like this revolving door uh of just profiting off of this you know human misery you can't help but think like this is the point that they are trying to make things so bad for the detainees there that detainees just give up and sign whatever papers that they want or whatnot.

1:17:41And, you know, and I felt it there. Like there was just so little accountability. Like, as you said, I tried to get into the facility on Monday, early in the day, I tried to get in. I actually even let them know ahead of time and got approval to be able to go into the facility that day. I show up at the gates and the geo group guards are just like, nope, You're not allowed in. And you're like, I'm a U.S. senator and I've had authorization to do this. I have authorization by law as well as the permission to come. I literally had to call Secretary Mark Wayne Mullin. I talked to him and told him, let me inside.

1:18:17I have a right to be inside. And so finally, they let me inside and I go inside. And I talked to the head of geo group in the facility. I told him, by the way, your guards just told me that I can't come inside. And he just looked at me and he said, you're a liar. He just literally to my face called me a liar. I mean, I give you that not because it was insulting to me, but I give you that because I want you to understand the kinds of dynamics that there are. Like that situation was very indicative to me of the lack of, just a lack of care about any accountability or transparency. Like they don't feel, GeoGroup doesn't feel beholden to the American people, certainly doesn't feel beholden to Congress.

1:19:02and that is because of just this dynamic between ICE and groups like GeoGroup and CoreCivic and these other companies. They're just in a world and a league of their own. They're just operating off on their own and because Speaker Johnson and others are just giving them that kind of carte blanche. So they were just in some world of their own and feel nothing. And then when I came out from that facility, and was alerted by my team and the people on the ground that there was now like a standoff of people outside so not only is there chaos inside delaney all but now i come out and emerge outside and see that there's a standoff between ice agents you know they have a row of ice agents that are armed uh they have an armored vehicle uh they and they're you know just in a standoff with the the protesters there i mean look you know like uh my immediate concern was like Like, this cannot become Minnesota.

1:20:04We saw what happened to Renee Good and Alex Preti. I was terrified that we're going to see that type of violence and potentially bloodshed in the streets. So I was trying to figure out, like, is there any way to be able to off-ramp this? Is there any way we can be able to lower the temperature? And I was talking to the head of ICE outside there. And at some point he just told me, like, look, we're going to just drive these vehicles, our vehicles out. And I looked across the field there and I said, like, you cannot just simply plow your vehicles through a crowd of civilians. Like, you have to try to figure out, you know, how we can try to do this without the violence.

1:20:50And look, I was trying to see if there's any arrangement. But, like, again, like, it shouldn't be just on me. Like, when it comes to de-escalation, like, what role are their officers supposed to play? like and that's what i think was so alarming john is like there was just like at some point just a feeling of inevitable violence and i it was just so jarring to me like the ease with which ice just went out and drove their vehicles literally through a crowd just not even like not even putting effort to try to avoid that circumstance it shouldn't be that easy to have violence in the streets of America.

1:21:31It shouldn't be that easy for federal agents that are supposed to swear the same oath that I swear about protecting and defending the Constitution and supporting the American people to find themselves in a circumstance. I saw this unfold and immediately my instinct was to run into it and try to put myself between the ICE agents and the crowd. I was trying to keep that physical separation because that is where we saw so much of the violence escalate in Minnesota. If I could at least keep them physically separated, perhaps we could avoid the worst. But it was so jarring. It was really scary just to see that type of violence in my state, frankly, anywhere in the country.

1:22:19and to know that this is still could very well be a problem that we see continue in my state and elsewhere. And so because you put your body in between the protesters and the ICE agents, the federal agents, eventually they started shooting pepper balls. I believe that there was one that struck by your feet and, you know, you inhaled it as well. Secretary Mullen and DHS are saying just a number of things that don't seem to be true and certainly are not your account, that there is no hunger strike, that the complaints are about certain inmates not getting or certain people that are being held by the facility not getting their ethnic food of choice, that the conditions aren't bad, that nobody was directly struck by pepper balls, which is about you.

1:23:16What do you make of just what they're saying about all of this? Well, first of all, just again, like I saw what I saw. Like I talked to the people that there is a hunger strike going on inside and a larger protest. And there are certainly people that are not getting basic care. Again, they're not asking for the moon. They're asking for just a certain baseline of human dignity, especially as we're, again, keeping them there for indefinite amounts of time. I mean, I was in the medical isolation area, and there was a man there in a wheelchair. He hadn't left that room in four months because that facility is just not meant to handle someone with a wheelchair.

1:24:04So they're like, you're stuck in this room now. Like, you know, and like not able to go and leave. He was like, can I at least be at a hospital? And frankly, look, there was actually someone who was sent to a hospital, a woman that was sent to a hospital for quite a number of days. By the time I got there, it was like day 12 or 14. The family didn't even know where this woman was. Because ICE wouldn't tell her what hospital that she was at because of security concerns. So you can't tell them where you're. hospital, which hospital you're at. They couldn't tell them the nature of the, you know, the severity of the problem that she had to be at a hospital.

1:24:40I mean, she was there for like 12 to 14 days. That's a significant amount of time in a hospital. And the family has no idea. They can't visit them. And so I asked like, what can the family do to learn about this? And literally, like it breaks my brain thinking about this. Like Ice looked me in the eye and said, oh, the family can FOIA this information. I mean, just like thinking to myself, like, what? Like their family member could be in some life-threatening situation at a hospital and you want them to FOIA this information about their loved one? Like, that's like the, just the craziness of it.

1:25:15So like when, you know, when Secretary Mullen or others say this, you know, they're just in like damage control mode. They saw what happened in Minnesota when the American people actually saw what was happening. And the American people, they're smart about this. They understand that there are just lines that should not be crossed. And whether that's for American citizens or anybody in this country. And frankly, look, a lot of the people I met with at Delaney Hall, they are married to American citizens and parents of kids that are American citizens. You know, that's what I think they're afraid of.

1:25:52They're afraid that the American people will understand and learn the truth about what is happening in our name, with our money, but without our say and without our approval. And that's just wrong. And that's what needs to be changed here. We have the capacity to do so. It's just a matter of political will that this administration refuses to put towards this. I know that Governor Sherrill sent in state police to help set up protest zones and sort of asked demonstrators to lower the temperature. Some of the activists outside Delaney heard that as her policing them instead of the feds. Where do you come down on some of the tension between trying to conduct oversight, give people a safe space to protest while also trying to maintain safety in the general area?

1:26:47Yeah, I mean, first of all, look, I mean, this is chaos that is inherited from ICE, that they have been fomenting. And then look, they've been threatening to bring many, many more ICE agents to New Jersey, basically threatening a surge similar to Minnesota. So I understand, look, we're going to try to avoid that scenario. But look, there are legitimate concerns at Delaney Hall. And as a result, there are legitimate legitimate reasons to be able to protest that. And I want to make sure that we are trying to address that. We are allowing that kind of space. I get it. We can't have this unrest continue on.

1:27:25In fact, I'm hearing it from the families of the detainees saying that it's been preventing them from being able to visit their loved ones, that the attorneys are not able to get access because some of the roads have been shut down and other things. So look, Look, like we want to make sure we're not getting in the way and losing sight of what we're really trying to address, which is the detainees and their conditions. But like there's got to be a way that we can do this, you know, while we are also making sure that, you know, people have the rights afforded to them in the Constitution, especially for free speech.

1:28:02So like I'm trying to work on this, trying to address this. I talked with not only the governor's team, but also Mayor Baraka from Newark to try to think through what other steps, what other ways can we do this that isn't going to just further inflame what is already this horrible situation that ICE has thrown our state into. But it is difficult, but I'm trying my best to be able to push forward in a way that is going to make sure that, again, we're keeping the needs and the plight of the detainees front and center here. As you mentioned, you know, one opportunity to sort of make some change here is, you know, the Senate's scheduled to consider this$72 billion budget bill funding for ICE that would fund ICE through the end of Trump's term.

1:28:48obviously it doesn't seem like Democrats have the votes to stop it in the Senate because it's it would only require 51 votes but are you um and or other Democrats planning to offer any amendments that you think might actually be able to pass with some Republican support that might rein in some of the abuses we're talking about um or or you know make any kind of corrections to some of the things that you saw well look here's what I'll lay out lay out for you. I mean, there are a whole slew of problems that are facing Delaney. And I want people to know, like, it's not that Delaney, Delaney is not some bad apple that is just, you know, we just have to address that.

1:29:29This is a system wide failure. Yeah. And problem. As I said, you know, GeoGroup's got 19 other facilities, you know, CoreCivic and other, I mean, like, and then now, you know, ICE is trying to build these warehouse detention facilities, and hopefully we can push back and stop this. But there's a broader problem, systemic, not just in the culture, but just in the broader process. And that's what I'm trying to expose. And so there's three things in particular I'm trying to push towards, both through the legislation as through other means. First, let's surge some medical support to Delaney and these other facilities.

1:30:06There are clearly people who are not getting the care that they need. And Secretary Mullin can dispute that. But again, it's not what I'm hearing. It's not what I'm seeing. And I just don't see why anyone's going to stand in the way and say, look, let's just try to see. I mean, the DHS has a medical unit. We can be able to surge up there in that kind of capacity right away. Like right now, they have one doctor, one full-time doctor for about 800 detainees. that many of them have significant medical concerns. So that's what I'm trying to do initially. Let's surge up there. Let's have, number two, let's have a real investigation into these different claims that are about there, whether it's about the food or the other conditions.

1:30:54And number three, the detainees were very clear with me that it's not just about the conditions. It's about having that movement forward on their cases. So I'm trying to, again, take what I'm hearing and figure out how to put it in action. You know, I've been talking to Secretary Mullen this week, telling him what I'm hearing on the ground, trying to see what we can move forward because they can do this on their own if they wanted to right now. You know, they could demand, you know, additional doctors. They could demand, you know, efforts to be able to surge this. And that's what I hope people understand.

1:31:26Like, GeoGroup got a nearly billion dollar contract for Delaney Hall. So they could hire more doctors tomorrow, today, but that's going to be less profit for them, right? Like they could have better quality food or fix the extreme heat that I'm hearing. But then again, that's cutting into their profits, right? So we can change that. So I have been and will continue to be pushing for amendments along these lines of just saying, let's have a baseline of medical resources available. I hope we can all agree that regardless of the circumstances that someone's in there, We want to make sure that they're getting some semblance of medical care for key needs.

1:32:08I'm trying to push forward on something that is about de-escalation trade. I literally submitted that amendment before I even went back to Delaney Hall about how we can ensure that there's de-escalation trading for ICE and CBP after what we saw in Minnesota. And every single Republican on the Homeland Security Committee voted against my amendment. And then I went back to Delaney and saw and experienced what I did. So I'm pushing for it. But again, this is something where we really need the American people to kind of come behind us on this. The only times we've seen this administration back down or pull back has been when there is wide public outrage.

1:32:51We saw that with Minnesota. We see that actually just today. It looks like we're seeing it when the Trump administration seems to be backing off that$1.8 billion slush fund for January 6th rioters. I hope that's true, that they're backing off of that. but like you know that's what we really need is is for us to say like you know this cannot be what is happening in our country and to be able to try to stop it and i know you know reconciliation and voteramas in the senate this is not like must watch tv like this is not something that's gonna necessarily like uh you know have people tuning in at whatever god out god awful hour in the middle the night that the Republicans forced us to vote on these.

1:33:37But I ask people, please, for my state, for our country, please tune in to what is happening because what they're trying to do is give upwards of$70 billion more for ICE and CBP. Not only is there no reforms and accountability in there, like what Americans have been demanding since Minnesota, but there's not a dollar in there for you to help you with your health care. There's not a dollar in there for you to help you with your groceries or for the rising gas prices. There's nothing in it for you. It's just more money that's going straight into GeoGroup's pockets to just continue this lawlessness that we see.

1:34:18This cannot stand. And this is something that we have to do everything we can to let people know and try to push back against this in Congress. Senator, I know you have to run because you're working on this issue but i just wanted to um say thank you for joining us and thank you for everything you're doing um to highlight this issue and including literally putting your your body in the way um uh at at delaney so um please uh please let us know how we can help and um and thank you again yeah thanks so much for shining a light on this it's so important

1:34:57Thanks to Andy Kim for coming on. Alex Wagner and I will be back with a new show on Friday.

1:35:05Pod Save America is a Crooked Media production. Our show is produced by Austin Fisher, Saul Rubin, McKenna Roberts, and Farrah Safari, with Reed Gerlin, Elijah Cohn, and Adrian Hill. Our team includes Matt DeGroat, Ben Hethcote, Jordan Cantor, Charlotte Landis, Kirill Pellaviv, David Toles, Mia Kelman, Ryan Young, and Naomi Sengel. Our staff is proudly unionized with the Writers Guild of America East.

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