Trump Bans Crooked Media

22:40But like who appoints them?

22:42Jon Favreau:Ellison stuff. What power do they have? like what happens if they have an issue with the cover? The devil's in the details here. It also, it doesn't take a lot to distort coverage. Like you fire a few people there, you hire a couple over here, it's an entirely new network. Yeah, it's like, so the Ellisons, their board gets to appoint the board. And I guess no more than two on the board may be affiliated with the same political party. So there's that. But you're right, there's zero word on what authority they actually possess, whether the Ellisons can ultimately override them if they find something.

23:16Jon Favreau:What are they looking at? What are they finding? Like, it seems kind of bullshit. Even the, like, just digging into the settlement, I noticed Reuters reported on this point, but Paramount itself is already projecting about 28 movies this year. So getting to 30 isn't exactly forcing David Ellison to reopen the back lot and hire, like, a bunch of screenwriters. So, yeah, I don't know that, I think Bonta just didn't have the, And the AGs just didn't have the leverage. He's kind of stuck. One reminder before we move on, the impending Ellison takeover of CNN is a perfect time to support one of the last independent pro-democracy outlets left in America, Crooked Media.

23:52Jon Favreau:We promise we'll never sell to the Ellisons. Never. Never. And if you subscribe today, we will thank you by giving you ad-free episodes of all your favorite Crooked shows, subscriber-only bonus shows, and all of our sub-stack newsletters. Join today. Keep independent media growing. Crooked.com slash friends. So the place where American television networks won't be covering Trump this week is New York for the UN General Assembly, just in time for the Iran war to expand to even more countries. Iran's Houthi proxies in Yemen have been attacking Saudi Arabia, including the capital of Riyadh, over the weekend.

24:23Jon Favreau:Apparently, the Saudi crown prince begged Trump to launch strikes against the Houthis, which Trump reportedly went back and forth on before ultimately deciding to hold off for now. On a completely related note, U.S. diesel prices have now climbed above$6 a gallon. I think we're at$6.50. We're in record territory for fuel that basically touches every part of the economy, trucking, farming, construction, shipping. How big of a deal is the Saudi-Houthi conflict and us potentially getting involved? I know we've done strikes before there. Yeah, it's a big deal. I mean, the Saudi-Houthi conflict is a good example of how when you have a war that just kind of drags on like this, they tend to metastasize and expand and spread and reignite old conflicts in ways that make everything worse and harder to and ultimately.

25:05Jon Favreau:And so we have talked on the show now for months about the Strait of Hormuz and the way the Iranians have restricted oil flows through the Strait of Hormuz. That's the choke point in and out of the Persian Gulf. Now the Houthi rebels have taken all this territory in the western coast of Yemen along the Red Sea, and they've seized control of the Bab al-Mandeb Strait, which is the even narrower choke point in and out of the Red Sea. And in normal times, that waterway, I think roughly one third of the world's seaborne oil trade goes through those two waterways. So that's a lot of oil and gas going through there.

25:36Jon Favreau:And so - I love doing shows about this and hearing you pronounce - Babamandab. Yeah, that's good. It's a lot of fun straits. Otherwise, I wouldn't have known. There's a little island in the middle of the Babamandab Strait, and they grabbed that. So now they can just attack everyone from all these sides. It's also, it's only 20 miles from our base in Djibouti. That's the part of this that's crazy. They could fire drones and missiles at us if they want. Anyway, so then on top of that, there are these Iranian-linked Shia groups in Iraq, that it fired at the Saudi pipeline that they've been using to export oil west across the country to get around the Strait of Hormuz.

26:06Jon Favreau:I think it's 4 % of global oil supply per day goes through this pipeline, which is offline for weeks now. So long story short, the war has huge implications for global energy supplies. And then there's the humanitarian and geopolitical implications for the Saudis and other Gulf leaders. Just like very quick backstory on this. 2014, right after the Arab Spring, the Houthis take control of Sana 'a, the capital of Yemen. In 2015, the Saudis launched this offensive with the Emiratis to try to take it back. It's a disaster. The U.S. participates at first. Then Obama pulls off support, but then Trump goes back and gives more support.

26:41Jon Favreau:Long story short, it's like hundreds of thousands of people die. The Houthis are not fully displaced, and it just ends in this kind of ceasefire in 2022 that freezes the conflict in place. But because of the re-ignition of the conflict with Iran, the Saudis bombed this Houthi-controlled Airport in July and things spiraled ever since. And now the Saudis are just like stuck. They can't, they know they can't win the war without us, but they can't get Trump to help them because he doesn't want to get sucked back in wisely. So just again, imagine like, I don't have a lot of sympathy for Mohammed bin Salman, the Saudi crown prince, but imagine you're him.

27:18Jon Favreau:You bribe Trump and his kids with the golf courses and the hotels. You bribe Jared Kushner with all the money to the investment fund. He comes to the US. He promises to invest like$1 trillion,$2 trillion,$10 ,000 trillion in the United States economy. Then Trump starts this war he doesn't want with Iran. His country gets bombed over and over again. Now the Houthis are going after them. He calls Trump for support and Trump's like, nah, maybe. Trump's like, well, apparently at one point he was like, yeah, I'm in. No, I'm not in. Yeah, I'm in. I'm a drama queen. But like, I guess the Houthis, The Houthis are only targeting Saudi-linked ships and said they wouldn't go after U.S.

27:54Jon Favreau:interests. So Trump's like, well, they're nice to me. It also shows, because I know there's been other reports that the U.S. is succeeding at getting more oil through Hormuz. But it's like you get one win over here and then it's not going to stop the war, right? Like the Iranians and the Houthis, they're not just going to put their arms down because why would they at this point? Did you see Alex Ward just posted a story with Wall Street Journal that Trump wants to invest$5 billion in a new fund to help Middle Eastern countries rebuild energy infrastructure that was damaged during the war that he started?

28:28Jon Favreau:Yeah, no, this is all great. This is a good use of money and a good use of time. Think back to like the campaigns we used to work on in like the early 2000s. And now the president of the United States is actually like building. It used to be like, you know, let's not be dependent on Middle Eastern oil. Let's like create energy here. Now it's we're literally going to rebuild with our money energy infrastructure in the Middle East because we started a war that was so fucking stupid. Meanwhile, gas diesel prices are like through the roof here. Also, we're rebuilding the energy infrastructure. The war is not over.

29:02Jon Favreau:So it's like what are we rebuilding so we can get bombed again? I think what it demonstrates is the very long term concern about oil and gas flows. I mean, what that is planning for is a future where the Iranians continue to control the Strait of Hormuz. You need an end run around them somehow. And that's a lot of money. And also, we're also going to have to be planning for a future where we're probably pushed out of a lot of our bases in the Middle East, both militarily, like the military bases are all damaged. There was a Pentagon IG report that said buildings and other infrastructure were damaged or destroyed at U.S.

29:36Jon Favreau:bases in Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, UAE, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Oman, and Jordan. And there was$184 million of damage to diplomatic facilities in Iraq, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE as well. And that was only through the period through June 30th. Like all the shit we don't know about is crazy. I was going to say, can you imagine what the next president is going to walk into if it's a Democratic president and like just the shit that hasn't been reported yet? And the Washington Post had a piece last week that said the Pentagon was basically hiding the true death toll. I saw that. From the Iran war.

30:07Jon Favreau:Yeah. Yeah. And all Hexeth could say was that it was fake news. Fake news, right. explaining why. The other big international story this week is talks between the U.S. and China, especially around the existential risks from AI. After meeting with China's vice premier, Scott Besson, announced that the U.S. and China are discussing a, quote, incident line. It's like basically an AI version of the nuclear hotline. So the two countries can communicate if there's some kind of dangerous AI event. Good luck on that line. Is this really China or is this the AI agent pretending to be? Besson also said the two sides are planning another meeting about AI in Shenzhen in about two months.

30:44Jon Favreau:Not sure what the incident line is really for, though, since Trump assured us again over the weekend that concerns about AI safety are, just like climate change and Russian interference in our elections, a democratic hoax. He did, however, announce the creation of an AI force modeled after Space Force. And he also said he's going to appoint a new AI czar. No word on what either of these things would actually do. But per usual, the president is focused mainly on the branding of AI. He thinks that's the issue. He posted a poll asking people whether we should change the name of artificial intelligence to, here are your choices, superior intelligence, extreme intelligence, or supreme intelligence.

31:25Jon Favreau:There was a follow-up about 12 hours after he posted the poll. Supreme intelligence is out. It was losing. Trump attributed that to everyone hating the Supreme Court because the Supreme Court's been ruling against Donald Trump. And so now we're down to superior intelligence, extreme intelligence. By the time you guys are listening to this, he may have already picked, but I don't know what your favorite is. Extreme intelligence kind of sounds just like X Games. Like it's like sponsored by Mountain Dew. I'm surprised he didn't go with like Trump intelligence. Yeah. Just T.I. I guess that exists.

31:57Jon Favreau:Seems like he's taking this pretty seriously. Are you at all hopeful about the Besson announcement? No. I mean, it's very funny. It's not funny at all, but it's terrible. It's like all the AI experts are like, please God regulate us and do it immediately. And Trump is like, well, what we could do is set up a new branch of the military. We just need 18 months to hammer out the legal framework and a couple of years to cobble together all the resources. And all the AI people are like, well, now the recursive self-improvement is happening now and we could achieve artificial general intelligence by, I don't know, next year.

32:29Jon Favreau:And by the way, these things are already breaking the law and lying to us and hacking its companies and maybe creating biological weapons. But yeah, name a czar, some sort of industry stooge who's probably a donor. The czar's job is apparently going to be to spearhead the AI rebranding effort. Oh, it's only a rebranding czar. It's a rebranding effort because Trump wants everyone to think that it is just economically beneficial for everyone. Also, there's this huge New York Times story over the weekend that basically reported exactly what you said last week, which is the only reason that Trump is like, let it rip, is because he is afraid that any kind of regulation will hurt the economy.

33:09Jon Favreau:There's just no clearer example of this administration being out of ideas than floating an AI force like Space Force. It said it caught all of his advisors by surprise. I bet. the AI force so no one knows what it is. They haven't been able to answer any questions about what it is or what it does, which is why we're not explaining more to you. Again, like you said, it's like it's so incoherent. Like if all these concerns are a hoax, why do we need a czar and then another branch of the military, I guess, to deal with that? I wonder which random donor floated this idea because there are a lot of the AI kind of maximalists, the people who have the most money invested, all just think it's a branding problem.

33:46Jon Favreau:Yes. It's not. But David Sachs, who was the president's AI advisor, still is unofficially. He left the White House. This is who's being replaced. He said that basically the reason the polls are like they are about AI is because the media has bought into the Doomer narrative. The Doomer narrative has been seeded by some combination of the CCP and the effective altruists. Oh, yeah, yeah. And so they've funded this narrative. The media has bought onto it. And then now people are just watching the fake news. And that's the only reason people could be concerned about AI. Yeah, that or the fact that the models are hacking into companies and stealing stuff.

34:22Jon Favreau:That seems to be an issue as well. Look, I hope the incident line works. I hope that they have more productive meetings with China, but they're going to have to take some kind of a real step on this. Yeah, I would love for them to figure out a landline connected between the two. And they're going to need a code word. I was going to say, it's going to have to be kind of old school, maybe like two cans and a string. You don't want to do this as VOIP if we're talking about AI. On the China piece, so Xi Jinping is coming to the US this week. I was talking to our old friend and former colleague, Danny Russell, who's a top Asia expert.

34:55Jon Favreau:He's pretty skeptical that there's going to be a big focus on AI because - Trump doesn't know what the fuck he's talking about. Trump thinks it's a hoax and doesn't care. I think Trump is likely to get Xi to stop supporting Iran in some way. The Chinese buy, I think, 80 % to 90 % of the Iranian oil exports. So maybe he'll get them to try to curtail that or some sort of sanctions thing. But like, I don't think the Iranians are going to go along with that because they don't care. And then Xi will try to get Trump to stop supporting Taiwan, which he's proven to be pretty effective at kind of chipping away in that resolve.

35:28Jon Favreau:The focus will be the pageantry. I think Trump is meeting him at the airport. Yeah. There's going to also Melania just announced like there's going to be a flyover. OK. Be a love flyover. You'd love a flyover. Maybe Trump will shine his shoes or something. Carry his bag. I bet what they will certainly do is make a bunch of economic announcements that they've already made and that never came to fruition the first time. It'll be like soybeans and Boeing jets. And then – Trump will exaggerate them and say they promised a trillion dollars and to give us the best deal possible and they're going to create a billion jobs.

36:01Jon Favreau:A gazillion, trillion Boeing jets. And then the win will be announcing an extension of the trade war truce that we never needed to start. And then maybe like a summit on, you know, was she at APEC or like another AI thing? The other AI challenge with China is, and I talked to Helen Toner, who was on the board of OpenAI. And she's an AI expert, also a China expert when I was on offline this weekend. But she said the problem, too, is that in China, like she and the rest of the government there, they're just behind us. not only on the technology, but because they're behind on the technology, they're also behind on worrying about the existential risks because they're not seeing them in their labs yet because their models aren't quite as advanced as ours.

36:43Jon Favreau:And so they don't know if it's just like, you know, propaganda from us or whatever else. And so they're not quite there yet. So it's like pretty nerve wracking that that's where we are right now. Yeah, they're also not big on freedom of expression or thought, really. So they're not going to let their models do anything. They don't tell them what to do. So the Chinese are also more focused on kind of practical implications of AI, like the robotics piece for manufacturing and stuff that they can use in their economy. Although their economic problems are high youth unemployment and housing bubble and a bunch of other stuff that will not be solved by AI.

37:15Jon Favreau:So both leaders have some big problems. Yeah. I don't know that they're going to solve them this week.

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39:58Jon Favreau:All right, let's check in on the midterms where Trump finally seems to be entering the Perhaps the polls aren't fake after all phase. The Washington Post reports that Trump has recently become much more willing to at least privately acknowledge that, according to one advisor, quote, he's unpopular and things aren't looking great for the midterms. The Wall Street Journal has a similar story detailing the president's frustration with his political headwinds, including the recent mail-in ballot loss at the Supreme Court and his handpicked Federal Reserve chair's decision to increase rates. But according to one administration official, what has Trump upset the most is that no one in Washington has, quote, publicly thanked him for trying to overhaul the Kennedy Center.

40:38Jon Favreau:Can we pause on that part for a minute? Yes. Why would anyone be happy about him potentially demolishing the Kennedy Center? He thinks it's just dilapidated and he's going to try to rebuild it. And he doesn't understand why people aren't like, thank you, Mr. Trump, for rebuilding the Kennedy Center. Did you read the story about how I guess there was some bad weather and like a big chunk of something fell from the ceiling? And it landed on the ground. Instead of just like cleaning it up, they left it there for days and days and photographed it. Oh, I did not. And did like chalk outlines like it was like a crime scene to just, I don't know, show to the world how terrible this place was.

41:15Jon Favreau:Yeah, if you don't maintain it, the Kennedy Center will turn into a mess. It is telling that that is what he's most upset about, though. I mean, I'm wondering, like, you know, we've talked before about do you think Trump knows the polls are bad? Do you think he's just like in a bubble? And I wonder if like reality finally piercing his bubble is going to change his behavior at all. Or does he just not give a shit if Republicans lose? What do you think? My assumption has been that he just genuinely doesn't care. I think I'm there, too. It would not surprise me if he's been getting bad information for months and months and months.

41:47Jon Favreau:And now something has gotten in front of him that is a surprise. I mean, we talked about Natalie Harp earlier. Her job, she's the human printer. She follows him around and gives him news that he likes. But I guess ultimately, like, if Republicans, he doesn't have a legislative agenda to begin with, really. Right. He'll probably like a tax cut. But, like, if Democrats take the Senate or the House, the oversight stuff will annoy him. But what his team will do is obstruct and refuse requests and then know that Trump doesn't have to worry because he has immunity thanks to the Supreme Court. And he can issue pardons to whomever he wants and everyone will be fine.

42:25Jon Favreau:I guess the X factor is he's got a$400 million super PAC. I think he's reserved, what,$130 million you said? Yeah, he could double that. The thing that's changing, I guess, is he's starting to spend from that. We talked about how he didn't want to touch it for a while. So he's starting to spend and he is, you know, committed to campaigning. I don't know if that's a plus, though, for all these Republicans that Trump is going to go campaign with them. I think the real plus would be him not doing crazy shit every day, like, you know, complaining about the Kennedy Center and threatening to tear it down and threatening to and banning press from the White House.

42:59Jon Favreau:Like probably what would help is, you know, him trying to end the war and actually focus on bringing people's costs down. The smartest thing he could do would be just to cut a deal to end the war in Iran, at least through the midterms. Yes. And call off the trade war. Yes. But all he can do is today his his his idea of helping everyone out was a big announcement today that he said. Well, he said an announcement's coming on Potash, which I guess we're going to buy it from Belarus now, a Russian satellite state. And so because we're paying too much for to Canada and it's really going to help farmers, which it does in the United States.

43:31Jon Favreau:It's important to farmers. But like we were buying it from Canada. And now because we've pissed them off, he's going to announce a deal with Belarus for Potash. And I think initially we used to get it from the Russians, but that that supply got cut off after the full scale invasion of Ukraine. So then we turned to Canada. But then we started a trade war with Canada. So right now we're back to basically buying it from the Russians. It's all kind of full circle. It's a fertilizer, by the way, for people saying, what is a Potash? And Republicans are starting to break with him on the campaign trail.

44:01Jon Favreau:Tom Tiffany, he started the year by saying, you know, make Wisconsin great again, 2020 election denier. He's recently criticized Trump on renaming Lake Ontario data centers, beef import policy in Iowa. Ashley Hinson skipped J.D. Vance's event. I love that. Today she called for an end to the war. Mike Rogers is calling for an end to the war now and AI guardrails. Real quick on Ashley Hinson. Yeah, yeah. Today she called for an end to the war with Iran, but I think a couple of days ago she voted against a war powers resolution. that would have actually ended the war. So come on, Ashley. Also like, yeah, Mike Rogers.

44:34Jon Favreau:Yeah, that's the guy for AI guardrails who was fucking, you know, like responsible for the Patriot Act. Johnny Deep State. Loves the surveillance state more than anyone else running. Yeah, he's too deep state for Tucker Carlson. That guy is of the establishment. Things are so bleak for Republicans that they're starting to act like Democrats and anonymously voice their concerns to any reporter who'll listen. So we're getting one Republican described the president as kryptonite for GOP candidates. Love it. And the journal has strategists warning that the enthusiasm gap could put both Iowa, as we just talked about, and Kansas in play for Democrats this year if the Republican nominees in those races don't begin to distance themselves from Trump.

45:15Jon Favreau:Republicans do have one thing going for them, though, a fuckload of money. Republican super PACs spent around$204 million. This is just in the first half of September. That is two weeks. And Trump's super PAC alone has now reserved more than$130 million in additional advertising. As you mentioned, Elon Musk's America PAC has quietly spent$3 million in the Texas Senate race. He's trying to stay under the radar for obvious reasons. Fair Shake, the pro-crypto PAC, which spent over$40 million against Sherrod Brown in 2024, is up with a new$30 million spend against Sherrod in the Ohio race. And all that spending combined with the RNC's major cash advantage has Democrats now warning that they don't have enough money to keep up and they're worried that it could result in a smaller majority or maybe losing the Senate or not flipping the Senate.

46:05Jon Favreau:Let's start with the cash advantage. Like how worried are you about Democrats being outspent? Very, very, very. I mean, things we are going to get outspent. We are going to get drastically outspent. I mean, the crypto stuff is so gross. Like, first of all, what has your industry built or created since we all started to hear about this hype cycle that has done anything to create jobs or help this country besides like - John Jr. and Hunter got some. Yeah, make a couple Winklevai rich, you know, the Winklevoss twins. I don't know. They'll probably cite some made up figure at us, but I just don't believe it.

46:37Jon Favreau:I'm sure you like I am starting to get lots of calls and texts from people on campaigns who are like, hey, our internals have us up a little or within the margin of error. But our greatest fear is getting outspent drastically in the closing days. and so like there are some candidates out there who are able to raise money at such a clip that hopefully they're going to like kind of battle to even like john ossoff is a great fundraiser he's got some cash on hand his opponent sucks he'll probably still get outspent but i was talking to someone working on the governor's race in wisconsin today it's a democratic candidate david crowley young exciting candidate who got in really late as we all remember and uh won this surprise upset in the primary his team thinks he could win he thinks they could even get a trifecta in the Wisconsin legislature if they're successful, but they're getting outspent almost everywhere.

47:24Jon Favreau:And part of the problem is that Tom Tiffany, the Republican, is getting millions of dollars from literally three people. It's like three billionaire Republican megadonors, like the Uline family, and then the Hendricks. Diana Hendricks is the other one, who have put in well over half of their money. So there's all this late cash coming in. Elon Musk's money will come in late, and they're just going to dump horrible attack ads on the heads of all these Democrats. And I guess we will see if those ads are effective in an environment where everyone is just furious about the price of gas. But that is the real risk, plus gerrymandering.

47:59Jon Favreau:Yeah, I mean, to look for the upside here, you know, they've been spending, some of these candidates have been outspent like 30 to one over the last several months. And, you know, their polling has held up. Was there one you mentioned in Texas, Gina Inajosa, who's running against Greg Abbott, and has not been, had the polling that Telerico has, but is getting closer. She's been outspent 39 to three. Jesus Christ. And her polling is closing. Like she's doing better. So like there, you know, I think there is a, I talked to Sarah Longwell about this when she was on the pod. Like I have this theory that there's like a diminishing utility to just a ton and ton of money on ads because people are just like, I don't, it's too much.

48:44Jon Favreau:I don't want to see them anymore, especially like this late. I will say in some races, though, like if you are a lesser known Democrat, if you have not run for office before, people don't know you. Like that's when I worry about the spending because then you get defined without everyone. Like a Troy Jackson in Maine. I worry about people like that who are just trying to get known. Or David Crowley, like you said, in Wisconsin, who is well known in Milwaukee, but not maybe through the whole state. So that kind of worries me. But, you know, on the other side, too, I just saw that one Republican super PAC is pulling out of North Carolina.

49:17Jon Favreau:Yeah. And the Senate Leadership Fund, which is the big Republican Senate PAC, is now warning donors that they could lose Iowa. So they are worried about Josh Turek in Iowa, which is good. But I do – for anyone who wants to contribute and can contribute, like, and you're wondering, like, where you should contribute, Vote Save America, if you guys just go to votesaveamerica.org, like, we have a Senate fund and a House fund. And what the VSA team does is they put like the races that need the most money that are most competitive in each fund. And then like your donation just gets split between all the races.

49:49Jon Favreau:And we continue to like update the list every once in a while. So someone has enough money or the race is no longer competitive. It drops off the list just so like your money is not being wasted. So it is a really good time now if you can contribute to like go and donate to these candidates. Yeah, I think you're right. I think there is a diminishing marginal return to an attack ad. Like when you're sitting at home and you're watching LSU, Old Miss, and you see the same attack ad for the 20th time, it just annoys you by the end. Although that probably means it's like seeped into your brain. It's like, are you even watching at that point?

50:18Jon Favreau:Are you like, I'm going to the bathroom and getting a beard? Some candidates by now will have name ID and people who have some sense of who they are. Someone like a James Tallarico in Texas, right? It's been a bit of a national figure, has gotten press, has been able to run ads. But Shane Goldmacher at The New York Times reported that Republicans are outspending Democrats in Texas Senate this week,$25.9 million to$1.1 million. That is a massive margin. So it's going to be just a real uphill battle for a lot of these candidates. And then, yeah, the lesser known ones when it's low information voters who are deciding in the last two weeks and they go into the polls.

50:52Jon Favreau:And the only guy they've heard of is the one who had some horrible attack ad run against him or her for the last couple weeks. That's not a good setup. What do you make of the Kansas? I don't know what to make of Kansas. I have not put enough time and attention into it. I do think that we have a really, really good chance in Iowa, and that is very real. I think Rob Sand is winning, if not by a comfortable margin at this point. He could very well win. I think that Josh Turek has a real shot at winning that race. And then down ballot, there's a lots of targeted house races and other statewide races we can win.

51:31Jon Favreau:And presumably if you could win in Iowa, you could win in Kansas. I just don't know the demographic lay down as well. Yeah. And again, I think like for people listening, the distinction is like you can watch the Kansas race unfold and be like really hopeful when you see a poll. And like, wow, would it be great if, you know, we could pull that one out. But if you have, you know,$100 to give and right thinking about like where's my money going to go the furthest and have the maximum impact, like I'd probably go to an Iowa before I went to a Kansas, you know, because we'll probably have a better shot at that.

52:02Jon Favreau:If we're winning Kansas, then we've won. We've probably won Iowa and Ohio and Alaska and all of them, you know. All right. One last thing before Dan's interview with Kate Conley. If you thought D.C. has been in need of more national monuments that double as military installations and weapons depots, you're in luck. Trump just announced that the giant arch he plans to build near Arlington National Cemetery will now be transformed into a, quote, top grade military complex that will, quote, house, store and have the rapid ability to use large numbers of drones plus snipers on both the roof and plaza areas.

52:37Jon Favreau:What the fuck? He went on to say the military requested this, which seems extremely believable, right? Yeah, I think that we should put a bunch of weapons and explosive devices in a gigantic, very tall, very easy to spot and target monument. The more, you know, the more recognizable from the air, the more easy to hit with a drone yourself, I think, the better. The Pentagon is almost literally next door. You can see it. You can see it. This is in highly controlled airspace near Reagan National Airport. Apparently, the FAA asked the arch designers to put a torch on it so that planes would more easily see it as they're taken off and landing from DCA.

53:18Jon Favreau:Yeah, I saw this. I was like, you are so fucking brain dead and stupid if you believe this or if you report uncritically on this claim. Absolutely no one in the military is asking him to store drones in the arch. Why would you need snipers on the arch? Who are they aiming their guns at? It's not near the White House. The people who are visiting the tomb of the unknown soldier? Yeah, are we firing at Arlington National Assembly? What are you talking about? Also, why are we storing ammo inside a tourist monument? People are going to come take pictures and there's just going to be a whole bunch of fucking missiles inside.

53:51Jon Favreau:What are we doing? It's the dumbest, most made-up thing ever. Clearly what happened is he started to build the ballroom because he wanted a place to have parties. And then someone told him that the national security arguments were polling better. so we started highlighting the fact that like you know there's a pentagon blessed bunker deep in the bottom of it or whatever it is and i was trying to apply that same rationale to the arch but it just doesn't make any sense just going ahead with the arch going ahead with the ken it is like if we don't win in this fucking environment we're never winning do you see the people who who surrounded the kennedy center and created like a human shield to prevent the demolition like shout out to them it is pretty it is pretty good there was a good uh yeah like Like, it's hard for me to get worked up about the cultural stuff.

54:33Jon Favreau:But then you read about the Kennedy Center. And like, I think it was actually Eisenhower's idea. They pitched it to Kennedy as just an American cultural center. The Kennedy family championed it. Then Kennedy was assassinated. So they named it the Kennedy Center. It's just like living monument to an American president who was gunned down. And Trump is like, let's bulldoze that thing. Yeah, it's one of those things that you see the headline and you're like, well, this is silly. Like, it's bad, but it's. And then it doesn't like not caring about it doesn't really survive one read of a story where you read that it's like people's jobs, performances, the business.

55:09Jon Favreau:Like it's a cultural monument in D.C. And then you start getting really mad about it. It's just it's so strange of a thing to focus on. Like I'd love to know at what point in Trump 2.0 he got pointed in that direction. I bet someone, maybe Natalie Hart, maybe Rick Grinnell, started showing him clips or headlines that came out of Kennedy Center performances by artists that didn't like him or something. Yeah. And he, like, decided to blame the building that housed them. I also think Ossoff kind of nailed him on this when he was like, he's building all these monuments because no one will do it when he dies.

55:42Jon Favreau:Trump agreed. And then Trump's like, yeah, that's exactly what I'm doing. Like, I think that's really why he's like, this is going to be my legacy. He's facing the end of his life. He knows this is it. And he's like he wants to be able to tell himself and then have a bunch of shit named after him. And like that's going to be his legacy. Yeah. He wants like he wants tangible things to point to, not like, you know, and then I had this accomplishment that helped people. Right. No, he doesn't care about helping people. Yeah. He cares only about himself and his how he's remembered. I'm sure you've noticed that some of our friends over at the Bulwark, they've had a long conversation.

56:19Jon Favreau:JVL is very focused. He's basically a single issue voters on who the Democrats running in 2028 will bulldoze the ballroom. And I'll be honest, like when I hear that conversation, I find myself kind of indifferent to that. And but also aware of what the politics will probably be like in that primary and that we'll have, you know, a debate stage full of Democrats trying to outdo each other in the ways they will firebomb or otherwise take down the Trump ballroom. But then you think, well, Trump's totally fine with bulldozing a Kennedy ballroom, a Kennedy event space. No, my I just had this idea during our last pod with when I with Dan and Alex on Friday.

56:56Jon Favreau:And I think my view of this is, you know, next president, Democratic president. Day one, you have your affordability agenda. You're talking about cost of living like relentlessly, like you're like you're Zoran Mamdani. Right. For like the first month. But quietly, there's just a special office set up in the White House. and that person's job is to remove Trump's name from everything. Yeah. All over America, every government office, every official, just we're going to erase Trump from history as much as we can. We're going to rename all the shit that he built. We're going to knock down what we can.

57:30Jon Favreau:And we're not going to talk about it or brag about it because people are going to be like, why are you focused on this and not focused on me? It's just going to happen in the background. Yeah, I think that Xi Jinping did this to Hu Jintao. He just quietly erased him from the Communist Party history. That's what we're doing. All in favor of that. Although, honestly, if I'm the next president and that ballroom is built, I'm using that thing. Yeah. And we're going to name it the one there with the Barack H. Obama ballroom. Yeah, the DEI. Perfect. All right. Workspace. When we come back, Dan talks to the Democratic nominee in New York's 17th district, Kate Conley.

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1:00:29Jon Favreau:Joining me now is a Democratic nominee in New York's 17th District, Kate Connolly. Kate, welcome to Positive America. Thanks so much for having me, and thanks for all you guys are doing to bring these conversations to light. We've got one hell of a fight ahead of us. No, as we just said, 47, 40, 40, 40, less than 50 days to go is where we are. 47 or so. All right. Okay, Kate, you've done a lot of very serious and dangerous things in your life. You've been a military police officer. You've been a special operator. You've deployed to combat zones six times. You've hunted down terrorists. Let me ask this question.

1:00:58Jon Favreau:Why the hell are you running for Congress? So there is a saying in the special ops world, run to the sound of the guns. And what that means is when there is a fight out there, that's where you belong. Like that's where you're needed. Go to where you can help. Go to where you can solve problems. and right now for this country, for my family, for the Hudson Valley, this is the fight that I know means the most and makes the most difference for the future. When I was doing research for this interview, I learned that you and I actually have something in common. We have both been permanently banned from Russia.

1:01:37Get it.

1:01:39Jon Favreau:So what did you do to piss off Vladimir Putin? I don't think I can talk about it. But you did serve the Biden administration, right? It is a badge I proudly wear going back to – I started my military career after 9-11 with West Point and then spent the majority of my military career, 16 years. Started off as an MP officer, military police, but then in the special ops world. And so a lot of counterterrorism, a lot of going after and hunting down truly the world's most dangerous terror groups that were trying to kill Americans all over the world. And then we did some strategic competition work too.

1:02:13But yeah, it just goes back to, look, 21st century, there's some very real threats that our adversaries pose. And Russia is certainly one of them.

1:02:20Jon Favreau:I know you can't talk about it, which is even more evidence that whatever you did is much cooler than what I did, which was— What did you do? I want to know what you did. So I was in the Obama administration at the time, and I happened to be scheduled to go and meet the press right after Russia invaded Ukraine the first time. Crimea the first time, yeah. the first time. And I read the very aggressive talking points written for me by Ben Rhodes in the NSC. And I angered some people. And so I ended up on the list when they did the first sanctions. And I checked before I came here. Still permanently banned.

1:02:49I mean, listen, I would say you should be very proud of the work you've done. And if only our federal government would continue to call out Russia for the wrong it is doing.

1:02:59Jon Favreau:I always joke with my wife that if she ever says she's interested in visiting Russia, I know we have some real problems. Okay. So we talk, we make a lot of fun of Mike Lawler around here. He is on Vote Save America. As you should. As we do. Crooked Dozen. Yours is perhaps the most competitive race in the country. It is an incredibly important one. It is one that we need to get the majority. And so I thought that maybe the best way to sort of show the core contrast in the race would play one of your ads and one of Lawler's ads back to back. Let's take a look and I'll get your reaction. In the special ops community, there's a saying, run to the sound of the guns.

1:03:33That's what I've done my entire life. Joining the army after 9-11, combat zones like Iraq and Afghanistan, hunting down brutal terrorists. Protecting what makes this country great is why I'm running now. Because the politicians who created this mess are not going to be the ones who fix it. How do you tolerate what's being done to our country? To New York. The answer is you don't. I fought for my country. Fought to protect our democracy. And now I'm ready to fight for New Yorkers. Let's f***ing go.

1:04:00Jon Favreau:I'll do whatever it takes. to get things done. I stood up to both sides to get salt back and make things more affordable. I had to take on the left and the right. I call him Mr. Salt. He didn't stop. This guy was a pain of the... Kate Conley opposed increasing salt, jacking up our taxes$4 ,000 a year. Yeah, I'm not going to let that happen. I'm Mike Lawler, and I approve this message. I will let you get your response to the actual accusation this ad in a second, but I want to begin by pointing out that whoever dressed Mike Lawler that morning hates him with the passion of a thousand suns. Like, I don't know what is up with those pants and that shirt, but it's not a good fit.

1:04:43Jon Favreau:I will say that so you don't have to. But the other thing I was going to ask you is, in Michigan, Abdul El-Sayed is repeatedly challenging Mike Rogers to line up and play some football. Yeah. I imagine you would probably enjoy a pull-up or a push-up competition with Mike Lawler, Lawler? I would get so much joy from that. So much joy any day. Do you want to respond to the to what Lawler says about Salksland is a big issue in your district? So just going back to the biggest difference between me and Mike Lawler. We are about the same age group, like 30 miles apart. We are fundamentally different people.

1:05:18He is a lifelong political operative and politician who has found every way possible to profit off of democracy while I was And you see that in the values he demonstrates or lack thereof, where his biggest argument this cycle is about a lie. So when we look at SALT, right, the federal income tax was created in 1913. For 104 years, we never had a cap on state and local tax deductions. Donald Trump, to punish blue states like New York, like California, in 2017 implemented the first ever cap on state and local tax deductions to deliberately double tax Democratic states. In his own tax bill, that was ending.

1:06:03The cap was ending entirely in 2025. The best thing Mike Lawler could have done last year is absolutely nothing for SALT, and it would have ended. But instead, Republicans, to continue to punish blue states, reinstated the SALT cap and this time made it permanent. And this temporary bump up that he talks about from 10 to 40K goes away in five years when he's off running for governor or Senate or whatever the heck he's going to do next. And what he fails to talk about is how his decisions, his votes on so many things like the tariffs eight times, Iran war six times, have jacked up the cost of living for families in the Hudson Valley so much that anything he's trying to claim is so grossly inadequate to the cost they're paying because of Trump and Mike Lawler and their incompetence.

1:06:48Jon Favreau:In this ad, you can see that Lawler is trying to position himself as a Republican who works with Democrats, who stands up to Trump periodically. And he has, you know, found some moments to show a little difference, like he voted for the ACA subsidies to be extended. But can you talk a little bit about how Lawler and his relationship with Trump are hurting your district? Yeah, and even those subsidy extensions, that was after he voted to end them with the one big ugly bill. So this is the con artist that he truly is, where he shows up, he does like this, this big act to pretend like he's standing up for the people of the Hudson Valley.

1:07:23But really, his actions themselves show you that he doesn't care. He's inflicting harm. And so this goes back to his voting record with Donald Trump is actually 100 percent. He was the deciding vote in the one big ugly bill that kicked nearly half a million New Yorkers off of their health insurance. And when you look at who Mike Lawler is, honestly, Dan, it's just follow the money. It is loyalty to Trump and then his own political ambition. That's how he votes. And he was going to run for governor until Trump twisted his arm to have him run for re-election in his seat again, right? Yeah. When Trump told him to sit down and instead go home, I would have paid to have watched his face.

1:08:05But that goes back to representing New York 17 isn't what Mike Lohan wants to do. It's his consolation prize. And we've seen it in his conduct where he is jacked up. His literal votes have increased the cost of living in our district on families that are just struggling to make ends meet in a way that's unforgivable.

1:08:22Jon Favreau:Another big issue in your race, and frankly, races all around this country, is data centers. You have said that you are open to data centers if they are more of a net positive, net negative for communities. There's a massive data center in the Hudson Valley. There are more. There's an expansion of that that's coming. Can you talk a little bit about your policy on data centers and how it differs from that of Mike Lawler and Donald Trump? So on Mike Lawler's watch, there were five data centers built in his home county of Rockland County, mostly benefiting financial services companies from which he took tens of thousands of dollars.

1:08:56There's three more that are scheduled to be built also in the same county. When you look at how Mike Loller has voted on this issue, last year going back to when this issue actually came up, he voted to reduce restrictions on data center construction, to give data center companies $80 billion in tax breaks as big tech has pumped hundreds of thousands of dollars into his campaign. And now what we're seeing with Elon Musk and Donald Trump is tens of millions in dark money. My position on data centers is very simple. If they're going to be built, they need to be a net positive for the communities they are built in.

1:09:37That means they're not exploiting them. They're not exploiting their infrastructure. They're not jacking up energy rates or water bills. Do it responsibly. Do it the right way. And this is where I do believe government has a role to ensure that's what's happening. Because what we're seeing from these corporations is they're not choosing the right way for people, for communities. And so government needs to ensure that they do. And that's where I support Kathy Hochul's current moratorium. Let's take a pause and figure out how to make sure these companies are doing it right.

1:10:04Jon Favreau:The broader conversation about AI has really sort of jumped really into the public sphere in the last week or so with Dario Amadei and the heads of the Frontier Labs warning about risk and warning additional regulation. The anthropic researcher who resigned and said that he thought that AI could kill all humans within 10 years, which was not what I wanted to hear. And so now there's a big debate in Washington that's going to lead to nothing because Mike Lallover and the Republicans have gone home to offer the election. Yeah, God forbid they do their job, right? Exactly. Actually looking out for this country.

1:10:35Jon Favreau:But have you thought about the kind of AI regulation bills that you would support if you're in Congress next year? 100%. And I talk a lot about my military career, but my last two years in federal service was actually at the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, or CISA, where we were already doing work on how do we help build guardrails and regulate AI when it comes to our critical infrastructure to make sure that we are protecting the American public's security and safety and ensuring that these systems that are so critical are done the right way, properly tested, properly vetted, ensuring that they can't do physical harm to people.

1:11:11And it's that kind of approach that government should be taking and ensuring, again, that these companies, where we have seen over the years how tech companies are not putting public safety and security first, right? Look at software. We have to constantly update our systems because features and speed to market's always been the priority. Look at social media and the harm that it's done to our country, to our kids. And so for us to think that suddenly AI companies are going to do the right thing is beyond naive. We have a responsibility to go in and set guardrails to make sure, again, that this technology is being harnessed for net good and public safety and security is built in.

1:11:46And for people who try to say that that's mutually exclusive from, you know, being the world leader or regulating, I push back wholeheartedly. We're America. We can do hard things. We can be the world leader in AI and also regulate responsibly to make sure that we are doing this the right way.

1:12:05Jon Favreau:Given your time serving in uniform, I really want to talk to you about Pete Higsteth and what he has done at the Pentagon. on. But let's start with where you think things in the Iran war and the execution of that war by this president and his cabinet. Just saying his name makes my neck veins a little bit. This guy is such a disgrace to the office and should never have been confirmed. And I do believe should be impeached. Every day, every decision he's making is making America less safe. And our brave men and women in uniform deserve a hell of a lot better than this guy. So what do we do? You know, this administration got us into a reckless war of choice in Iran, pursuing the worst course of action imaginable.

1:12:50This goes back to like this plan, this course of action that they executed. It wasn't new. Like this option was on the table for prior administrations, Democratic and Republican. And it was never chosen because in every war game and tabletop exercise, it never ended well then. Yeah. Never.

1:13:06Jon Favreau:And then it like this, right? Exactly. It's like, not good. Yes. And so this just goes back to the irresponsibility of this administration and the fact that Pete Hegseth is sitting there lying about the real conditions on the ground, the real impacts of national security. We are degrading the readiness of our force. You know, we were talking about the USS Lincoln that was redirected from the Pacific theater to the Middle East in deplorable conditions. We're not even talking about the damage that's been sustained to our forward operating bases in the region and what that means for long-term national security.

1:13:36It is so screwed up. It is so incompetent. The American people should be outraged. We're not any safer because of this. And on top of it, now we're watching gas prices and diesel skyrocket, where I literally have families in my district having to decide between do I fill up the gas tank to get to work or the grocery cart.

1:13:54Jon Favreau:In addition to the execution of the war, the Hacks of the Committee made a whole bunch of changes to sort of the physical requirements to serve. There was a report in the Wall Street Journal this week that he is just demanding, I think, and I'm using a quote from one of his most impeccable grooming standards for people who serve in the military. What do you make of all of those changes, what they're about and what impact they may have on our readiness and the men and women who serve? What he has done, removing some of the best leaders in our generation from the military, you know, the best commander, the best boss I ever served under, General Donahue, was just forced into early retirement.

1:14:33What we are seeing play out where the American people deserve the best military in the world, right? That means the best talent. And this administration led by Pete Hegseth, enabled by Congress because I don't think Congress is getting enough accountability here either. They're letting this play out. They are literally firing anyone who stands up to do the right thing. And this goes back to being in the military. I swore an oath to the Constitution. you go out there and you stand shoulder to shoulder with men and women every day putting your life on the line to serve a country it's never never about politics right it's you put country over party over any person and those are the ethical standards that we should be expecting and this administration because of its insecurity because of its corruption is literally firing our best leaders who demonstrate that that's so fundamentally wrong it's fundamentally un-american You know?

1:15:28Jon Favreau:On a less serious note, I was texting with someone who knows you and works with you. And I was like, what are some interesting things about Kate Conley other than her very, very interesting and fascinating bio? And this person told me, and I quote, that you recently discovered ice cream. How is that possible? It is true. On the trail, as you can imagine, my normal eating standards and workout standards have not been met. And so it has really been a matter of whenever possible, eat what you can. It honestly reminds me of deployments. Like there's like these rules on deployments where it's like always go to the bathroom when you see a bathroom.

1:16:05Always eat when you can eat. Always sleep when you can sleep, right? Campaigning is the same way.

1:16:10Jon Favreau:That's the exact same rules when you're on the campaign trail. It's real. And so now, look, I used to be more disciplined where I wouldn't let myself, you know, eat a lot of these things. And now I'm kind of an addict when it comes to ice cream. Yeah. Yeah, can't we wait all this time in your life to discover ice cream? I will say it has been a game changer. I got to do a little more cardio to level it out now. When Barack Obama used to campaign, he is also a very assiduous eater, you know, with he of the apocryphal seven almonds story. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But he used, you know, that's the thing you do on the campaign tour.

1:16:42Jon Favreau:You visit restaurants. You know, you order the local stuff. And he would often, and he would have a sweet tooth sometimes. But if he didn't want to eat it, he would have two bites, bring it into the car, and hand it to a staffer. You're like, here you go, guys. It's really good. That's right. Enjoy. It's just not my kind of game. It's good. That is too funny. When you and I were talking before this began, you were saying that your race is now seeing a massive influx of super PAC money being spent against you to support Mike Lawler. Talk a little bit about that. And then also for people who are listening to this interview who are compelled by you, understand the stakes of your race, where can they go to help?

1:17:22Yeah. So as a reward for Mike Lawler's loyalty, Donald Trump and his buddies are hooking him up. Mike Lawler's voted with Donald Trump 100 % of the time, like we talked about earlier, six times the Iran war we were just talking about doing nothing to rein them in. He also went over to Dallas last week and was a keynote speaker.

1:17:43Jon Favreau:I was very struck by that. It is surprising to me. It speaks to your point about his ambitions is that in the money is that a lot of people in battleground states and districts stayed as far away from Dallas as they possibly could. And here is someone who's in a district that Kamala Harris won, albeit narrowly, but still going to Dallas. This race is really, I think, the embodiment of what is fundamentally wrong in our politics where if this was just really about me and Mike Lawler and giving voters the options of who we are, I would crush him. Absolutely crush him. But what you see happening – and this goes back to like ending Citizens United.

1:18:19I've promised to not take corporate PAC money while he's taking millions. Like we've got to get this money out of politics. But our race is a great example of the only path Mike Lawler has to winning in November, to beating me, is by having Donald Trump save him and Elon Musk and pour all this money in. In 2024, Mike Lawler was the number one recipient in the House of Elon Musk's dark funds. And so we're seeing that again this cycle. They're pouring it in to try to save Mike Lawler, their little puppet. But we're not going to let it work. And so that goes back to, like, this really is a fight.

1:18:54I do believe not just about right versus left, but right versus wrong. And what is happening right now in this country is wrong. This isn't what I fought for. This is what I lost friends for. And so we got to fix it. But with that, it's a fight that I know I can win. But given what we are seeing, I can't win alone. And so certainly need all the help we can get to fight back, to make sure we send Lawler packing and off to his next career and get him the hell out of Congress. So please check us out. It's KateConnelly.com. We would love to have you on the team.

1:19:27Jon Favreau:Kate Connelly, thanks so much for joining us. Good luck in the selection. Thanks so much. Looking forward to kicking his ass.

1:19:39Jon Favreau:That's our show for today. Thanks to Kate Connelly for stopping by the studio. Dan and I will be back in your feed with a new show on Friday. Pod Save America is a Crooked Media production. Our show is produced by Austin Fisher, Saul Rubin, McKenna Roberts, and Farrah Safari with Ree Cherlin, Elijah Cohn, and Adrian Hill. Our team includes Matt DeGroat, Ben Hefcoat, Jordan Cantor, Charlotte Landis, David Tolles, Mia Kelman, Ryan Young, and Naomi Single. Our staff is proudly unionized with the Writers Guild of America East.

1:20:06Jon Favreau:If you missed some of your favorite Crooked Pods this week, don't worry, you can now catch up on the week's best moments on MS Now on Saturday nights. MS Now is streaming an episode of highlights from your favorite Crooked Pods, packing as much analysis, funny moments, and 100 % correct opinions into 40 minutes as humanly possible. Crooked on MS Now airs every Saturday at 9 p.m. Eastern, 6 p.m. Pacific.

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