TRUMP CURSES KNICKS

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23:07That's J-O-I-N-B-I-L-T dot com slash crooked. Make sure you use our URL so they know we sent you. All right. So the most viral moment from Trump's Meet the Press interview was when the president ripped off his mic and stormed off set. Did he stomp on the mic? A lot of people were saying that he threw on the ground and stomp. We can all watch it. It's unclear. It started with some tough questions from Kristen Welker about the insurrectionist slush fund, which led to Trump repeating his favorite conspiracies about January 6th in the 2020 election. And then things just devolved from there. The whole sequence lasted about six minutes, which we won't play in full, but here are the highlights.

23:46I don't know what's going to happen with the weaponization fund. I love the idea. They sent people to jail who did nothing wrong. Just to be very clear, there's no evidence of what you're saying. But there's a lot of evidence. The election was rigged. It was a dirty election. And it's happening again right now in California. You've never presented evidence that the 2020 election was rigged. Right now, look at what's happening in California. Where's the evidence to that? It's four days, and they aren't even close to coming up with it. That's how they cap the votes in California. You know why they're doing that?

24:17Because they're cheating on the election. Do you have evidence to support that? All I have to do is look. You're either crooked or you're stupid. You play right into their hands with this rap. Your elections are crooked and you're crooked and Mr. President's crooked and so is ABC and CBS and CNN. But Mr. President. Your one-sided crooked networks. Let's call it quits because I've had enough. Thank you, darling. Have a good time. Mr. President, please, I traveled all the way to Wisconsin. I've sat in the rain with you. I know. I've sat in the rain with you for an hour. On and off in the rain. And I've given you enough time.

24:52You ought to straighten out your press because you know what? A country can never be great with a dishonest. Listen, we traveled all the way to Wisconsin for this interview. I can't tell if he did it on purpose. I think he accidentally crunched it. Okay. Reminds me of when... Everything else was on purpose but that. But when I went to Michigan and interviewed Bernie, and then about 12 minutes in, he's like this. That was a tough... Remember that, Austin? Wrap it up. That was a gut punch. That was a gut punch. You're either crooked or you're stupid. Actually, that's a great slogan for our subscriber push from now on.

25:25please consider subscribing in front of the pod because you're either crooked or you're stupid crooked.com slash friends um that was uh he was very mad there he really wrote like you're crooked he was he was like the part of the i'm gonna put the whole goddamn system on trial you're crooked they're crooked cnn nbc abc is there anyone else left schwarzenegger was worse at the apprentice than i was he yells at kristen welker like she's the election yeah she does my elections but did When they came back, I watched the Meet the Press version. And when Welker comes back after the interview, she said, I spoke to the president again.

25:57And he said he'd happily come on again in the future. So he called her. So it's just it's all it's all a show. He loves her.

26:03Jon Favreau:Also, like, she's such a nice, calm, measured person. The idea that you would flip out on Kristen Welker like that is so funny. You know why? He's such a baby. He flipped out because she said, do you have the evidence? Where's the evidence? It's like, no. And his mind is just like, well, that's what my people told me. And I saw it on the TV and I saw it in the truth that I reposted, that I retruthed. And so he has no fucking ideas. All you have to do is look. If everyone would just look at what I looked at, you'd know that it was crooked. I think you're asking for evidence. You know, I don't have that.

26:32Fuck you. I'm making it up on television. You know that.

26:35Jon Favreau:So mad about the rain as if she's making it rain. He also did the, because it was too long. We didn't play it. But he did the whole thing again on where on January 6th, the FBI agents, It's the crooked FBI was standing outside, sending people in to the to the Capitol. It's like you were fucking president, dog. They only pleaded guilty because they were threatened with jail. What are you talking about? They're on video beating up cops. Yeah. Everyone has knocked down this dumb conspiracy that the FBI somehow set up the January 6th rioters. The FBI that was under the control of Donald Trump on the slush fund.

27:09We'll start there. Then we can get to the fraud in California. We talked last episode about Todd Blanch telling Congress that the administration would not be moving forward with the idea, even though Trump says still he loves it. And then Senate Republicans blocked the bipartisan attempts to actually ban the slush fund just in case Trump changes his mind. Now the House is going to give it a go. Democrat Tom Swasey and Republican Brian Fitzpatrick will launch a discharge petition this week to force a vote on their bill to ban the slush fund. Two questions. You think the vulnerable Republicans who voted to kill the fund have successfully neutralized their political risk?

27:47I think that was Collins, Husted and Dan Sullivan all up for reelection. And then but then they voted for the final bill. And do you think Trump will actually just let this thing die or is this not the last we've heard of it? So he also says to Welker at some point, he still likes the fund, but you have to get it approved. And if it didn't get approved, I'd be disappointed. So that's where he's at. Now, approved, he didn't claim to need it approved in the first place. So now he's hiding behind the idea of it being approved in some way. So he's sort of leaving his options open, I think, to let it go or do it in some other fashion.

28:24I think it's very clear that they did not appreciate how big of a political problem it would be to launch this thing. like Todd Blanche clearly thought he was doing what he Trump wanted, got him the nomination to be attorney general. And then it just the whole thing blew up.

28:40Jon Favreau:Yeah, to me, he sounds like a man who is not ashamed by the fund or worried about the politics. It sounds like he thinks he's owed this, genuinely thinks he is owed this money. He deserves this money, just like he is owed the money from CBS because of that lawsuit or the bribes from the tech companies to build his ballroom and God damn it, he's going to get it. And that's why to me, the political risk for all the vulnerable members does not go away because I don't think he's going to drop it. And I think it's going to be an ongoing issue. And just like to be to be having this conversation is so politically damaging.

29:13Jon Favreau:Like this man is trying to extort us taxpayers for one point eight billion dollars to pay off people who beat up cops. That is crazy. This is the the taxpayer funded transition surgery for prisoners issue from 2024 in the 2026 midterms. Like, I have not seen a poll yet about this, but like throw in a poll$1.8 billion from the taxpayers to pay out people who were convicted criminals on camera trying to murder cops. That's what we're doing. That's where taxpayer money is going at a time of inflation and high gas prices. But it's like, I can't. And also for like Susan Collins and John Husted and Dan Sullivan, they voted for the bill.

29:59They voted for the, like they tried to, you know, vote for the provision that would block it. But then when that failed, they gave the green light to the whole bill that went forward and they didn't do anything to stop it. They could have voted against, because you know who did vote against the final bill? Lisa Murkowski. And she's the only Republican who did. And the rest of them just said, fuck it, I'm just going to vote for the bill anyway. It is the sort of like even on the merits, like this is the core of the problem of someone like Susan Collins or these Republicans who try to once in a while stake out an anti-Trump view, but for the most part vote with the caucus, which is they are part of enabling Donald Trump.

30:29And the only reason we got to the point where this fund could be proposed is because Donald Trump believes that he has a Republican caucus in his pocket and he is right. And for all their kind of hemming and hawing, all the concerns Susan Collins has shown, she is one of the 50 enablers of Donald Trump time and time again. And you can go to your go to the podium and give these statements. But at the end of the day, you support a Senate majority in the Senate. You support Donald Trump being able to do whatever he wants without any kind of accountability. So let's talk about the fraud claims from Trump in that Meet the Press interview, which, again, started with his usual bullshit about 2020, but also included some fresh material on last week's California primaries.

31:07where the votes are still being counted. A reminder that everyone here in California gets a ballot in the mail, which you can return by mail or drop off in person. And as long as you get it postmarked by election day and it arrives within seven days, it does get counted. That process means the count is very slow and big changes can happen late, especially in an election like this, where a lot of voters, especially Democrats, were undecided until the very end. And that is, of course, what is happening right now in the L.A. mayor's race. Nithya Raman has now overtaken Spencer Pratt in the count, and it appears she will make the runoff and face Karen Bass in November.

31:44That's what some organizations are projecting. AP hasn't gone with it yet, but it's definitely trending that way. This led to many Trump posts, the most recent as of this recording being, quote, not possible for Spencer Pratt to have lost the L.A. runoffs after the big lead he had. Third world nation rigged elections. Now they'll be working on a great guy, Steve Hilton. Hilton is the Trump endorsed Republican in the governor's race who's currently sitting in the second general election slot, though Tom Steyer is gaining on him. Unclear if Steyer will actually catch him. And plenty of mega dipshits are following Trump's lead on this.

32:20Here's just a sample. I'm not saying it's rigged. I'm saying it stinks to high heaven. And everybody knows that California is playing around with this. But what evidence is there to prove that there was this rigged? Some of these efforts are so diabolical and so far upstream, it is impossible to prove. But I think everybody knows instinctively something is wrong here.

32:38Jon Favreau:So people can just dig through garbage cans, find ballots and send them in apparently forever after an election is over. It's not OK. It's got to come to an end. Smart guy. He acts dumb. He's smart. That's what Randy Fine looks like? Randy Fine. Randy Fine. Harvard. He went to Harvard? Twice. What? Let me check it. I'm going to check the facts. Check the facts. I like you just threw in twice there. Randy Fine. Randy Fine. Harvard. Undergrad and grad. What was his? I want to know what his graduate degree is. Harvard, Harvard University, BA, MBA. Wow. MBA. It was the business school. There you go.

33:14There you go. B-school sounds like a good time. Yeah. I mean, look, a lot of people get into Harvard, but he's a smart guy. A lot of people don't get in. So that's the cool thing about Harvard. So before we even get to the fraud part, thoughts on Nithya overtaking Pratt? It's a bad day for Karen Bass. They thought they could have a nice little runoff where basically she got to run against Rick Caruso with a head injury. And instead, instead, instead, instead, she's going to face somebody that has a hot that actually, you know, Karen Bass is unpopular. Nithya, I think a lot of people don't know Nithya, but she has a positive approval rating among people who do know her.

33:55It doesn't surprise me that a lot of a lot of the kind of hyper engaged L.A. voter who didn't want to vote for the governor's race to the last possible minute were a bunch of Nithya Raman voters that were paying really close attention. But I do think it's very good for Los Angeles because it means we now get a runoff where with real stakes about what kind of Democratic leadership we want, as opposed to what we would have had, which is six months of fear mongering on Spencer Pratt.

34:19Jon Favreau:Yeah, just to be clear, establishment Democrats in California are rigging the election to make it harder for the incumbent mayor to win the mayoral here in Los Angeles, but also rigging it so the statewide race will include a Republican so that Steve Hilton has a chance to become governor. It's because we know what's up here in Los Angeles. That makes sense. That makes sense. You get to love his point. You know, head injuries is whacked by a big crystal in the head. Like now it's a real race. Like Karen Bass is a weak incumbent because of her handling of the fires, homelessness, cost of living, like anger at incumbents generally.

34:51Jon Favreau:And Spencer Pratt was dominating the battle for attention for super online people. If you're a Twitter power user, if you're super politically engaged, Spencer Pratt was everywhere because our algorithms were feeding us his AI slop crap and, you know, just felt like he was all over. And that's a small slice of the electorate, it turns out, because the L.A. Times did a poll right before the election where they modeled the actual electorate. And that poll looks like it was pretty much spot on at this point. And so what actually happened is what I think that political professionals always assumed would happen, which is the MAGA adjacent candidate, Spencer Pratt, was never going to do very well in Los Angeles in a county where 15 percent of registered voters are Republican and Trump is 55 points underwater.

35:38Jon Favreau:And Pratt was aligned with Trump like that. Of course, that was what's going to happen here. In fact, Spencer Pratt's campaign was nothing special at all. And, you know, I think you could look at the media tactics and say there's things for other candidates to learn about how to grab attention. But, yeah, the LA Times poll that you mentioned, Tommy, it was May 28th, so, like, a couple weeks before the election. And it was Bass 26, Ramen 25, Pratt 22. Didn't get as much attention because it sort of went against the prevailing narrative of, like, the super online set, which is journalists and all of us and people like that.

36:16Yeah, all of us, for sure. And then but today it's right now it's Bass 34, Raman 27, Pratt 26. And, you know, you could see sort of Pratt going even lower and maybe Bass going a little bit lower as the as the final vote comes in. But we'll see. And it turns out that Spencer Pratt is probably going to finish almost where Donald Trump finished in 2024 in this city. And now that's a bigger electorate. So like you can't it's not exactly apples to apples. But he also he did much worse than Caruso did. Caruso spent more money, but also Spencer Pratt raised more than Karen Bass or Nithya spent more, had crazy amount of attention and basically performed like a standard issue Republican in Los Angeles.

37:02Absolutely no better at all. Imagine if like Joe Biden had given an interview saying that like Amy McGrath's loss is because of fraud in Kentucky, because everybody loves Amy McGrath and Amy McGrath is doing incredible stuff out there. uh look there are people that like you know they they are they're captivating to the kind of people that are watching really closely that are hyper partisan but then voters in a light who i think are really frustrated with karen bass really frustrated with democrats they would and and for all we know like we don't know right if nithya raman weren't in the race like how many anti-incumbent votes might have gone to spencer pratt like i i think it's a i think it's a little bit more than just the kind of he got the kind of standard republican vote you know we don't know how many votes for Rahman are Democrats who are just anti incumbent and maybe they could have been Spencer Pratt voters, right?

37:50Because they just did not want to vote for Karen Bass. But regardless, as much as people in this city are really frustrated with Democratic leadership, they're not going to vote for someone aligned with Trump who was going around saying crazy shit about about the city. He ran a horrible campaign and he actually became more MAGA the closer it got to election day like he's i think we talked about this maybe off mic uh or on mic i can't remember anymore but he spent the weekend before the election in new york on fox and friends he's on gutfeld too calling for uh nithia and karen bass to be jailed and then talking about how people were raping dogs in skid row like that's how he that's how he ended the race he became more of like a megalomaniac at the end or at least openly he didn't try at all to distance himself from Republicans at all.

38:40Like Rick Caruso ran a race where he was at least like, I'm going to listen to both sides. Like he tried to be as nonpartisan as possible, which is probably why he ended up doing better than Spencer Pratt. But Spencer Pratt actually got more magazineing the closer he got to election day. So anyone who was like, oh, it was a brilliant campaign, this and that's like, no, it wasn't. He had the possibility of maybe running a campaign where he had this like angry populist message and he sort of tapped into the frustration with the government, but he just fucking blew it as the race got closer. Yeah, and I should say, like, obviously, I've been very insulting to Spencer Pratt.

39:13And there's a, like, he lost his house. There's a lot of anger about the way the fires were managed, but he just didn't run that campaign. And I do think there's, like, a kind of insular conversation that happened. If you look at the map of where Spencer Pratt vote came from, there's this kind of ring of, like, wealthier places around the city that, like, are people that are very online. I think very kind of, like, Bill Maher, Barry Weiss world kind of coded, at least, like, like, just sort of tapped into that world who are really frustrated with Democrats, who think the Democrats have gone crazy and moved too far left, right?

39:45And there's just not that, that's, that is a big pool of people on the internet, right? And it's a big pool of people who, yeah, on the internet and just who have, like, outsized influence and louder megaphones than other people, because it wasn't, I will say, it wasn't purely an online phenomenon in that, like, we all know people and we were in circles where someone's like, oh, I've talked to some Democrats who are voting for Spencer Pratt. And now I would always ask them, like, are you, Are they Democrats who voted for Karen Bass last time, or are they Caruso voters who are now Pratt voters?

40:12And you didn't find too many Bass-Pratt voters out there. Right.

40:16Jon Favreau:There was a genuine frustration with Karen Bass. I personally felt it. We talked about this on the show. Her management of the city around the fires, I thought, was really, really bad. And I think for Spencer Pratt having his house burned down, understandably, he was channeling some legitimate and righteous rage about all things L.A. and the fires. um if rick caruso had won again i think there's a very good chance he could have done well and made the runoff maybe one outright yeah because he had a track record he was like i built the grove and and uh special parts like i coined the term spidey and maybe leaked a sex tape about lc yeah it's for me like he's a self-evidently not qualified for the job so i mean like that this is what was so frustrating i think about the boomlet about the guy was it was just like kind of like tmg adjacent twitter algorithm pumped bullshit and hype yeah backed by nothing well and to your point love it about the map it's um it's analogous to for those of you listening from dc or who've been to dc like how um people in northwest dc and northwest dc think like that's the whole city and there's actually three other quadrants in dc where a ton of fucking people live yeah um they're just not as loud or as privileged as everyone in the northwest and that I think is what happened in LA too.

41:27It was like, this is a big, big city. And all those places that voted for Bass, especially in Southern and Eastern LA and Nithya as well, like they're just not, Nithya's areas are definitely wealthier for sure. But there's just, it's just an outsized influence and loudness you get from people in the West side that doesn't actually represent most of LA. So on the fraud allegations, how seriously do you guys take those allegations from Trump and other Republicans as a potential harbinger of things to come in November or future elections, I guess?

42:04Jon Favreau:I mean, Trump's going to say that any election he or Republicans did not win was stolen, right? It's a heads I win, tails you lose setup. I think this was kind of the perfect storm. He's got this Spencer boomlet, this expectation that just built and built and built that he was some great candidate and going to win. Then there's the California voting process and how slow it is. We'll talk about that in a second. And then, you know, this just, it wasn't like a big election night with a lot of other things to talk about. It was a lot of people focusing on this and the slow counting. And so I think what I found personally so annoying about this is how much information you can find about the process if you try to find it.

42:39Jon Favreau:Like I got in a little exchange with Meghan McCain about this on Sunday. I was bored on a flight. She's an unpleasant person who doesn't apparently want to educate herself. But like you could go reporters. The counting process is live streamed. Reporters can and do go to the processing center. The general public can and do go to observe the counting if you want to. There are representatives from the campaigns observing the counting like the problems are well documented. L.A. County is the largest election jurisdiction in the country. There more registered voters in this county than 41 states have statewide.

43:16I know 10 million people in LA County. People don't understand this. It's really big people. It's really big here, everyone

43:21Jon Favreau:come visit. And in California, most of us vote by mail. It's like 80 or 90 % of California voters use the ballot that gets mailed to your house compared to 15 % in Texas. And I love that because our ballot is really long and complicated. And there's a lot of stuff you got to Google and it takes hours. And like, I'm glad I could do that at home. And so like, like you mentioned, vote by mail ballots, if they're postmarked on election day, received within seven days, they get counted. The signature matching process can take a lot of time. Again, that's a thing Republicans like. I was going to say, yeah, I think you guys like the signature matching process.

43:52Jon Favreau:That's called voter verification. And if there's an issue with your signature, there's time to cure it and fix it. That can take time, takes time to open the ballots, check the signatures. Like what we should do is put more money, more time, more resources, more people, more machines, throw it at this problem, try to speed it up a little bit. That would be helpful. But like we have a lot of people here. This is how we vote. Yeah. I mean, we have a lot of people, but the scale shouldn't be a factor in how quickly we count the ballots, right? Like Texas can count them faster for other reasons. I'm saying that there, I think there's, there are ways in which we can keep postmarked by election day.

44:25We keep all the kind of pro voter policies we have, and it could be done. It should be faster. It'd be much faster. Now I do think one part of this is a lot of people held their ballots because they were waiting. They're being strategic about the governor's race, or maybe they just weren't and just actually didn't feel inspired by their choices, whatever. people really held onto their ballots. I think that two things should happen. One, going into November in California, I think we all really need to view it as kind of a civic responsibility to get our ballots in sooner, right? Like I think we can all help by having more ballots in.

44:53And then two, so California now, counties have to count most of the votes within 13 days, or they have to notify their provisional ballots and exceptions, but they have to count within 13 days. But with some more resources, it should be possible that on election night, they've counted all the ballots they've already received and can put those numbers up. And then kind of the counts can be happening quicker. And that is a resource question. You have counties where they're still taking, you know, it's days and days and days after they're getting ballots that they can ultimately get to counting them.

45:26They have limited hours, they have limited space, like all of this could be resolved. And, you know, Governor Newsom, Gavin Newsom has talked about this, about wanting the ballots to be faster. I just don't appreciate when the Secretary of State of California is like, Like we want to be, it's accuracy, not speed. I wish there was more acknowledgement that the process could be faster, what the resources would be required because it's a huge problem. And look, there's nothing you can do to account for the fact that these people are going to accuse us of fraud. But I do think we should be able to count our ballots faster, even at this size, right?

45:52Jon Favreau:I agree. Look, that's why I said more time, more money, more resources. Like we should count faster. It sucks. It's frustrating. It's embarrassing. What I just have no time for is the people who don't spend one second trying to find good information. They spread the meme that they got forwarded by their aunt on Facebook. And like they're like like people kicking up the quote from Trump. It's like he doesn't know a goddamn thing about what's happening. Also, let's let's be clear here. The the reason we all want it counted faster is because we know that if it's not being counted fast enough, then Republicans now cry fraud in the election.

46:27There's no there's no civic governmental reason for it to be counted faster. It would be nice. we're all fucking impatient people and just want results really fast. But like now look to your point, Lovett, there are other states with mostly mail-in ballots where you can postmark by election day, Washington state, Colorado, et cetera. And they're all faster than us. Now they are smaller states. I do think the biggest problem with California is we leave it to the counties still. And so like Los Angeles, actually, Los Angeles County was still posting updates over the weekend. A lot of counties just no one works on the weekend to count the ballots.

47:02They don't have enough staff. They don't post anything on the weekends and there's just not enough machinery. So I think there is no excuse for the state legislature, which is controlled by Democrats and there's a Democratic governor to pass more funding for staff or resources for a faster signature verification process, which you could probably do as well. You could probably limit the window for curing your ballot if the signature doesn't match because it's very it's you have like 20 days, I think, to cure your ballot at this point, which is it's pretty long. Right. So So there's definitely things you can do on the margin to make it faster by making it a whole state thing instead of county by county.

47:39Yeah, and yes, it is to answer totally bullshit allegations of fraud, but also we're the fourth, fifth largest economy on earth. Why are we having so much trouble doing something that other places can do faster than us? Like I do think that that is like, it's about good government too. Yeah.

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50:41All right. So Alex and I talked on Friday about the mess at 60 Minutes and Scott Pelley's decision to sound the alarm about what he says is conservative bias at CBS News under Barry Weiss, which led to Pelley's firing. He then sat down with the New York Times for a conversation with Lulu Garcia Navarro at the interview, which published over the weekend, where he elaborated on his claims for the first time. Let's take a listen.

51:04Jon Favreau:About four hours after our deadline, Barry Weiss sends an email to my boss, Tanya Simon. Two of the things in the email include can we make the protesters look more violent now I'm paraphrasing I don't have the quote but that's what was communicated to me and the other thing was Renee Good's car you need to describe her as driving toward the officer there was a thumb on the scale for the president's version of events that i felt was a level of political influence that i had never seen in 37 years at cbs news did you guys listen to the whole interview and what do you think yeah i i watched the whole thing the thing that jumped out to me was pelly makes he talks about the the bias uh and sort of pushing on these stories and and And CBS gave a comment to the Times basically saying, like, there was a back and forth, not everything that was requested ended up in the final piece, whatever.

52:24So they're saying, look, we had a back and forth about it. But let's assume that there is some bias. The point that Pelly makes is just what I take from his broader interview and the story here is that it's not just about the bias, it's about the incompetence of the whole operation, that they just have not communicated well. Now, I think some of this has been motivated reasoning, right? Because then he then also refuses to meet. It sounds like he did refuse to meet with them for a time as well. So tempers were clearly high. But you do get the sense, he makes the point that Nick Bilton, who is a friend of mine, was reading from his phone in one of the meetings.

52:59And clearly that was making Pelley get mad in the moment. And so some of this is just people that have been accused of being brought in to be pro-Trump, to have bias, to help Ellison get deals done. and then like sort of ham-fissedly firing people, trying to kind of have editorial opinions, it confirming people's worst expectations and it kind of spiraling out of control.

53:23Jon Favreau:Yeah, but look, I thought what we just watched there were some pretty damning allegations that Barry Weiss is just interfering with segments, not just in a political way, but like in a way that was not factual. Like make it look like Rene Goodes driving at the cops pretty clearly was not with your own eyes. I also was taken by just how incompetent he described the new team as being like entire episodes of 60 Minutes almost didn't make air. That seems bad. They couldn't get Tony Ducoppo a visa to cover the president's trip to China. Also pretty big deal. Pretty bad. Pelley also overtly uses the words, he accuses CBS of paying a multi-billion dollar bribe to President Trump when they settled the lawsuit around the 60 Minutes edit of Kamala Harris's interview.

54:06Jon Favreau:And so look, like, you know, I don't know, Barry Weiss, Some people say she's lovely and charming. Some people think she's, you know, the devil. Like, right, the truth is obviously somewhere in between. I've met Nick Bilton before. He seems like a nice guy, good author, smart screenwriter. Neither of them has any TV experience and seemingly have no business overseeing the most successful TV news show at this network. I mean, Barry Weiss is the editor-in-chief of CBS News. news. But Nick Bilton's never worked in TV and he's getting put in charge of 60 minutes, which is by every measure a success.

54:41Jon Favreau:The ratings are up 9%. They make nearly$70 million in ad revenue in 2025. It's not a thing that's broken, needs fixing, which is a lot of Pelly's point. And I think ultimately, Weiss and Bilton were brought in as part of a corrupt project to change CBS News to make it okay for President Trump in some way to grease the Paramount Skydance merger or whatever merger they want to do in the future. That's what I think Peli thinks happened here. And there were times in this interview where it can seem a little pompous and sound like self-righteous and it's very emotional, right? Like Peli seems to compare himself to like veterans in combat at one point, which is a little odd.

55:21Refers to 60 Minutes as his spouse being murdered.

55:24Jon Favreau:Yeah, so it's very emotional, but like clearly this guy who loves his job, never wanted to do anything else, never wanted to leave, seemingly didn't think he'd get fired even when he like lit his new boss on fire in front of the entire group. But it's worth the listen, I think. He also, I think, gets most emotional when he's talking about Tanya Simon and some of the other people who've been fired and who have been treated poorly, which I think is telling. I actually think that if you took Trump out of the equation, I think Barry Weiss still would have sent that email, those emails about Renee Good because this could be happening.

55:58She might not think to herself, I am doing Donald Trump's bidding. but the if anyone has experienced the free press read the free press or trafficked in any of the circles of the anti-anti-Trump Republicans who are always making excuses for Trump but they think that they're more like moral and and normal and sane it's the only people who haven't lost their minds that's like sorry to me it's the only people that haven't gone crazy right like if that was like and we saw this split in the conservative movement between the Renee Good killing and the Alex Preddy killing and that some of them who were who tried to you know push this narrative that Renee Good was driving at the cops and stuff like that they kind of broke off when it was Alex Preddy and it was even more obvious and they were like okay this one is bad you know so it actually made sense to me that Barry Weiss would do this because and I think this is probably indicative of what happened at CBS and why 60 Minutes and the people at 60 Minutes were so angry is I think Barry Weiss came in and I'm and I having seen Nick Bilton's tweets and commentary here and there I think he's someone who's like, OK, the libs have gone crazy, too.

57:01They both get in there and they're thinking like this is another evidence of liberal media that we got to fix. And I'm sure the staff at 60 Minutes and the reporters there are like, you know what? We take our jobs very fucking seriously and do really good reporting and fact check it a lot. And we don't consider ourselves like part of like the liberal media and bias. And so I think there was that probably that clash between ideologies. There's I think like a revealing point where at some point Barry Weiss says some version, if you're not biased, why does the country? Why does the country think you're biased, right?

57:30Which is an article of faith. They're like, well, what's the evidence for that, right? And so, look, like Scott Pelley in that clip is paraphrasing an email he didn't see, right? Like that is like, I don't know what the exact text of it is. I don't know how they're, I am sure it was trying to push it sort of more kind of in a way that was sort of like more favorable to the Trump version of events, but the non-liberal version of events. Yeah, it was the entire right-wing media ecosystem version of events. But the other thing that's strange about this interview, right, is like he, I mean, he wants Barry Weiss fired, right?

58:02He, but he also has a lot of like nice words to say about Ellison, which is really strange, right? And, and what I took from this interview is like, he's like, oh, we were excited when Ellison came to the newsroom. He greeted us. He called me, sir. Right? Like there's this way in which what I was wondering when I was watching the interview, is this somebody who was trying to get Barry Weiss shit canned and then someone who can go back to CBS and he's saying to, he's saying to Ellison, then, hey, I'm not a problem if Barry Weiss isn't there, right? You're good. Barry Weiss is, I'm not your problem.

58:32Barry Weiss is your problem because now I'm talking about how great you were when you came and she's the one that's got to go. So I thought that was sort of like, because if Barry Weiss is part of some Ellison project to kind of grease the skids for a deal, right? It would be Ellison at fault too, but that's not how Pelley talks about it.

58:50Jon Favreau:What he says about David Ellison is this, Like he's pissed at Sherry Redstone for cutting the deal with Trump and paying the bribe to make the lawsuit go away. The lawsuit was obviously bullshit. And I think he views that as unforgivable than it permanently damaged 60 minutes. And so he's like, look, a new guy came in, had some money, had some political SWAT. Like, we're all good there. Like, if you want to support our project here and you've got the balls to stand up to people, I'm there with you. It did, you know, it could be strategic. And then he's trying to divide the two of them. but like you know i i found that interesting too and pretty notable and maybe believable but but also it's it's a like he's not dealing with david ellison he's dealing with barry weiss you know like you can be nice to the boss's boss who uh when they greet you is like hi sir nice to meet you and then like barry weiss is the one who's murdering 60 minutes right right ellison and then also nick bilton who she just sent in with and didn't even go to the meeting herself and just made him deal with it all.

59:47Yeah, look, I stand by with Nick. Look, you go to that first meeting and think, all right, I'm gonna kiss everybody's ass and get her back on side. You're like, oh, fuck. This guy is mad. Could you imagine? I'm just like trying to imagine too, like you're at your first day at work and Scott Pelley, one of the most famous journalists in the world is like, you're murdering the most beautiful thing that any of us has ever seen. Round of applause. Do you think someone's holding up the tick, tick, tick, tick, tick in the background? Yeah, it's unbelievable. It's unbelievable. I don't think that like, how can you expect anything else when you have obviously been following along what Barry Weiss has been doing and the firings just happened, right?

1:00:23Yes, of course. Like, it's not like he got to the meeting and all of a sudden someone's like, excuse me, Nick Bilden. They just fired a bunch of the staff.

1:00:30Jon Favreau:Again, like I met Nick a couple of times. He's always seemed nice. But he did a series of interviews with media journalists where he just could not have sounded more pompous and insulting. And like, I know this is going to be easy. I know everything. you know ain't like i'm gonna be the one like uploading the video to the satellite truck is like okay buddy well like it's the barry weiss free press salon party circuit it's the exact kind of language it's it's all there's just a whole set of them yeah look the point that pelly made in that conversation is like how could you take a job like this given the circumstances right and that does mean whoever is going to run 60 minutes if he wants to prove something to these journalist has a lot of work to do, right?

1:01:08And like the fact I'm like, Leslie Stahl and some of the other people are staying, right? And like, I don't know what the future of this thing looks like, but I do think that a world where 60 minutes gets to kind of continue to exist. And there's, and maybe this continues to like boil over into the public. And that's, I don't know. Like if you're taking the job, right? And you've never had TV experience, you're doing it after all these firings and you walk in expecting to be given the benefit of it. It's just like not what's going to happen. Right. And like Barry Weiss doesn't have TV experience.

1:01:41Nick doesn't have TV experience. You're taking over like one of the most important jobs in all of television. They're not qualified for the job.

1:01:46Jon Favreau:They're just not. And it's not mean or insulting to say that. Like you never worked in TV. You are not qualified for this job and taking it is ridiculous. And what do you think is going to happen? It's just give me a break. The last 10 years have been just a rash of people who are like wealthy and powerful and influential thinking that because they're good at one thing, they can be good at other things. It's a real fucking problem that we have in this country right now. Just talk to any of the tech pros. Or Donald Trump. Exactly. Or Donald Trump. One last new story to get to here. We are recording on Monday afternoon, California time.

1:02:16Shortly after we leave the studio, Trump will depart his golf club in New Jersey from Midtown Manhattan, where he will attend game three of the NBA finals at Madison Square Garden, which will bring traffic to a standstill, require ticket holders to arrive hours early for security checks and forced the cancellation of the watch party outside MSG for people who don't have tickets, which is just about everyone. So how are people feeling about the decision? Quote, of all the selfish, narcissistic things Trump has done, attending MSG to see the Knicks play in person Monday night is the absolute worst.

1:02:45These are the sentiments of none other than Ann Coulter. But the feeling also seems pretty widespread. Let's listen. Since when Trump be at Knicks games. Now all of a sudden we're winning, he wanna be here. If the Knicks lose tonight, I blame Trump.

1:02:59Jon Favreau:I don't want Trump at the game. I don't want no new people at the game. It's coming to game three of the finals and I don't want him there. It has everything to do with him. If you're disrupting and contributing at the same time to the chaos, if it causes the New York Knicks to win, to lose tonight, I'm blaming him. I'm blaming the President of the United States. Of course, everyone probably recognizes Stephen A. there. Before Stephen A. was Mace. That was Mace. Stephen A. guest on this show. I list Stephen A. in a bright pink suit, in a bright pink tie, ranting about Donald Trump going to a Knicks game.

1:03:36Jon Favreau:That's what I want out of sports media. That is perfection. You know, Trump is expected to be booed, to be booed probably. They better boo this shit. Also, there's going to be an unfavorable split screen with actual Knicks fan, Zoran Mamdani, who coughed up a thousand bucks for a standing room only ticket. So that's going to be an interesting thing. Mamdani also decided to throw free watch parties in Bryant Park and I think two other locations as well because the area around MSG is closed down. Why do you guys think Trump's doing this? I mean he knows the power of live professional sports and that's the only like kind of monocultural events we really have left.

1:04:13Jon Favreau:That's why he goes to a lot of games. Usually it's the NFL. He went to the Super Bowl. Do you think the SEC championship? He went to a college football championship. Did he go to NASCAR? Yeah, I think he's been to NASCAR. You know, so usually he's more welcome in those, you know, sort of southern NFL spaces. I don't think he will be here. I mean he's also buddies with James Dolan, I think, the owner of the Knicks, who's a terrible guy. who like surveils people who like are mean to him at games. Always pals with the owners. Yeah. Not a real player guy. Yeah, no, but like Roger Bennett and I talk about this in the interview.

1:04:45Jon Favreau:I mean, guys remember last year, Trump went to the FIFA Club Championship in the US and he was supposed to walk up with Gianni Impatino, the head of FIFA, hand the trophy to the Chelsea players and then walk off the stage so they could celebrate. And he just stood there and jumped with them and like celebrate with them. So he makes it about himself because he loves the limelight. He loves every spotlight and he will attempt to co-opt this one too. Yeah, he doesn't give a shit about anyone by himself. Like, we know this. When you have to decide whether the President of the United States is going to attend an event like that, the biggest consideration, well, first of all, you talk to service and be like, okay, what does the security have to look like?

1:05:24And you need to listen to Secret Service and especially Donald Trump. He's survived multiple assassination attempts now, right? But then when the service tells you what it's going to require security wise and they tell you that, well, as a consequence, it's going to, you know, inconvenience quite a few Americans. Then sometimes the president's like, well, do I really want to piss off that many people by doing this? Is it really that important if my going means a whole bunch of other? And then you say, well, maybe not. Maybe it's not that important for me to go. Trump would never say that. Yeah, I think he wants to go to the game.

1:05:55He doesn't give a fuck. He wants to go to the game. He wants to sit there. He wants to be booed by New Yorkers. he wants to he wants to like be the center of attention and he doesn't care to be two hour waits outside that a barricade whole parts of of midtown manhattan to make this possible to cancel the watch doesn't give a fuck i mean arguably worse is when he always wants to like if there's a natural disaster somewhere and he's got to go be on the scene immediately even when local officials are like please we're trying to clean up the disaster here and we can't have a presidential visit because it's too much mess and security right now and just come later he's like i don't

1:06:26Jon Favreau:give a fuck he also he thinks he's a new yorker and that new york likes him and they do not well he's because he's also like shit all over it when he left yeah he's like fuck new york fuck that i'm it's become trash now yeah i don't think he's gonna love the split screen i i hope whoever's on the ones and twos it's just go mondani cheers like crazy trump booze go back and forth give us a couple back and forth and because mondani's so talented he's gonna be he's gonna be so nice about it too like he's not going to try to you know jab trump at all no they're gonna they're gonna have they're gonna have a shot of donald trump being booed while mom donnie's like gonna be nice it's gonna be i hope we get that there's also get only that a bunch of cool celebrities who always go to games like timothy chalamet and tracy morgan and ben stiller who will be like on the wood with the people like join the game and trump will be up hiding in a luxury box like kind of lurking from behind hoping he doesn't get booed we can't sit courtside no it would be great if He tried.

1:07:22Jon Favreau:Walked down there. People were retweeting some old tweets from Josh Hart today, Knicks player, just like shitting all over Trump. Like he's not a, I don't think he's beloved by the Knicks. No, we also remember like, Trump very specifically, I think yelled at, or was mean to LeBron James. Did he tell me to shut up and dribble? He's all a shut up and dribble guy. It's also like basketball, it's so much smaller. It's so much closer. They're just like right there. Like it's going to be part of the game that Trump is at this game. Yeah, I mean, look, Fox News and Trump, they love to tell athletes, especially black athletes, to not have political opinions.

1:07:52Jon Favreau:But if you like Trump, then you are allowed to have a political opinion. You can come to the White House. Maybe you can participate in an ultimate fighting championship event on the South Lawn, right? That's how this works. Yeah. Sadly, no John at that one. Yeah, Fabra didn't make the cut. It's a real bummer. So close. So close. It would have been very funny. It would have been very funny. I think what would have happened is you would have shown up at the place where you get the van to go to the thing and someone would like clock your face and be like, oh no, that's not the one. I had thought that, but like 4 ,000 people on the South Lawn.

1:08:20It's a lot of people to really be like doing the face sheet because it's not, if it was inside the White House, I'd be like, yeah, no way. But I don't know. I think there was, I think once you're at that point, nobody knows. Random people, like celebrities are showing up all the time. You never know. Part of some Trump drug deal. Suddenly I'm walking, I'm taking my seat right next to Vince Vaughn and hey, buddy. He's like, what are you doing? Loved you in the swingers.

1:08:40Jon Favreau:Loved you in the swingers. It's going to be so hot and so miserable out there. I was looking at the weather for this because there's like a chance of thunderstorms now too and it's 91 and maybe thunderstorms. 91 degrees, like humid, bugs everywhere, awful people all around you. Imagine having to fight in that. Yeah. And then they get it. Dana White said too. He was like, it's not the ideal, it's not the ideal environment to have a UFC fight. Imagine they're like, we got to pull it down because of lightning. They don't want to pull it down because of lightning and all of a sudden you have basically a biblical event.

1:09:12It hits that. Just a metal thing. Listen, all things are possible. Can't wait to check it out. All right. When we come back, Tommy's conversation with Roger Bennett of Men in Blazers.

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1:10:51Jon Favreau:my guest today is the co-creator and longtime host of the smash hit men in blazers podcast the men in blazers media network really he's a new york times best-selling author whose most recent book is called we are the world cup buy it now it's also an international man of mystery and a sex symbol roger bennett how you doing buddy it was good until you just said that tommy it's so lovely to see you there you look amazing man you too long time no see i i'm thrilled to talk to you now uh because boy there's a lot going on there's a lot of football a lot of soccer in the world for anyone who wants to learn more about the world cup you still have time and i cannot recommend enough we are the world cup you'll learn about the highs the lows the agony the more agony through roger's eyes right i mean we i wrote the book if you have had the memories of the World Cup, it will reignite them.

1:11:42I hope you can relive them again as powerfully as you did the first time. And if you're a newcomer planning to watch the World Cup, it will give you the depths, the nuances to understand and feel all of it. Eduardo Galeano, the Uruguayan poet, once wrote, football is a pleasure that hurts. And we're about to experience all of it.

1:12:04Jon Favreau:Weeks and weeks of it. And I literally cannot wait. I love the World Cup. This is going to be so much fun. And so before we ruin this conversation with a little bit of politics at the end, let's just talk soccer. So starting with Team USA, I know they are hardly favorites to win the tournament. But, you know, interest has gone up. Expectations go up every year for Team USA. Who should we be watching? And what's a good result, do you think, for Team USA this year? Oh, winning it, Tommy. I know I sound to many of your new listeners that I'm from England, but I love America so profoundly in like a way I like to believe slips me somewhere between Bruce Springsteen and Kenny Powers.

1:12:45So I adore this team. I first came over here in 1994 ahead of the last time the Men's World Cup was here. It was meant to turn America immediately into a football loving nation. it's taken a lot longer uh but the united states and the economist was just found to have soccer be the third most popular sport in the world which is mind-blowing amazing because i write in my book that before the 94 world cup told me um a similar study found out soccer was 67th most favorite sport and tractor pulling i crap you not was 66 where are you now tractor pulling so to some degree the winner of the world cup from a u.s perspective will be the massive fan base that it leaves behind.

1:13:26We've always joked on our show, soccer is America's sport of the future as it has been since 1972. Like it's perpetually the next big thing. I think this World Cup will cement it, normalize football in our sporting reality. But from an actual competitive POV, this is the most talented group of individuals we've ever had. But the crazy thing is, you know, our women kick ass, take names, win things. are men in the whole history of our nation, going right back to George Washington, who I like to believe would have loved the football. We've won one knockout game in World Cup history, which is shocking for a nation like ours that invented animal-style burgers in and out and the cronut put human beings on the moon, democracy, all those things.

1:14:16So I'd say if we can win two knockout games, which we stand a good chance of having this very bloated, big gulp, massive World Cup, it would be an incredible result. This World Cup is going to be big, whether the US do well or not, but the US boys will write their narrative into it, which is critical.

1:14:33Jon Favreau:Is Christian Pulisic the one we're watching most, or what other names should we be looking at? Christian Pulisic is, if you're a football fan, you'll know he's jokingly called the LeBron James of soccer. He's from Hershey, Pennsylvania. He was the prince that was promised. He broke through into this team when he was 17. He is probably the most talented outfield player we've ever had in terms of his accomplishments in European football. He's a very sensitive human being. He needs to love and be loved. I just went on first take with Stephen A. Smith and compared him to Trey Young as a player that can do unbelievable things if he feels great.

1:15:11Stephen A. Smith slapped me down, went mad. That's a terrible comparison, he said, and then went off on Trey Young for a long, long period of time. but I'll stand by it and then there's so many remarkable human beings I really do root for this team as individuals as a beautiful man Chris Richards, son of Alabama Birmingham, Alabama, SEC country Roll Tide who must have been a big fish on every playing field he was in in Alabama then went over as a teen to one of the greatest teams in the world by Munich suddenly became a tiny fish in an enormous trout farm kind of lost all of his confidence, got complete cultural dislocation, but has been able tenaciously to resummon his presence as a defender, kind of like a lockdown cornerback now in the Premier League.

1:16:00He's won things, still a sweet, soft, soulful, wonderful human being. I mean, there's many, many players like him that I root for. One touch, one goal, one moment. The commercial upside for this World Cup to become the face of this team, to have a TikTok that goes viral because of something beautiful that you do. It's a diverse team. I think they're a great face of our nation. They're led by a manager, an Argentinian, Mauricio Pochettino, who's like a globally revered manager. He's either going to lift us up, like a basketball coach going to Iona State and taking them. What's that guy? Rick Pitino?

1:16:42Yeah, yeah. He'll have a Pitino take us up to his standard or we'll build Belichick it and just suddenly be chasing after floundering on the floor at North Carolina. Dump us for a 20-year-old in Serie A or something like that.

1:16:56Jon Favreau:Is that the plan? Go to Milan? Yeah, that's exactly right. You can't wait to leave in many ways. But we will go as he goes. If he does his thing and raises us up, joy can be ours. We could be just lolloping around on the floor chasing after a cheeseburger in Hasselhoffian fashion it could be it could be great it could be darkness we do not know we only have until uh you know three days to find out yeah well all hope ahead of us all right let's talk about the big dogs uh some of the best teams some of the best players that you're watching I've heard France Spain uh UK mentioned a lot like any sleepers the UK or London London England well that would be amazing Tommy can you imagine if it was cities oh my god that would be cool the World Cup for Cities that's actually for the future then they can get far more than 48 teams in it it would be amazing come on Sarajevo England Scotland they're also in it God bless they're coming over here with a very different goal than everybody else their goal is to just drink Boston and Miami Dry in the first two weeks of the tournament and I think they'll probably do it the Tartan Army I think America one of the joys of this tournament who we get to talk about is the world coming to terms with the United States.

1:18:15You're seeing it now all over social media. German fans going to a Waffle House for the first time, having their mind blown. You know, going to eat lemon pepper wet. What is this? And also American sports fans seeing global football culture. Many of them for the first time seeing 60, 70, you know, seeing thousands of Dutch fans march down the streets of Kansas City before a game in their orange-clad shirt, bouncing to the left and the right behind a large bus. No one quite knows why. It's just what they do. It's going to be quite ecstatic. So Scotland, England are... I mean, England are fascinating.

1:18:52I mean, they used to have an empire. Then they lost that. They used to have a monarchy not doing so well nowadays. They had Downton Abbey no longer on the air. So what they have is football. And they invented it. so they think they should win. They've won once, 1966, which is like 1066 in the English school kid's imagination. And since then, they've always believed with great surety they're going to win. Very quickly crapping the bed, shattering a nation's heart. They're like Charlie Brown running at a football with Lucy Holding. Apart from this time round, they're pretty bloody good, Tommy. So it is quite fascinating to think of England winning the World Cup in America when it's the 250th anniversary of independence is mind-melding.

1:19:41Jon Favreau:So we think we're going to say bye to some great players this tournament. Lionel Messi, we assume it's his last tournament, although people said that in 2018 and 2022. Cristiano Ronaldo, we'll say goodbye to him, bye to all of his abs. Maybe, although I think he's the football player most likely to go like Ted Williams and putting his head in the cryogenic chamber. Just freeze it up. Freeze those abs. Save them for later. Yeah, yeah. Is there a next up? So those two, they're not just the biggest stars in soccer. They are some of the biggest celebrities on the planet, the most famous people on the planet.

1:20:16Jon Favreau:Is there anyone you're watching that can fill their shoes? Any stars that are going to transcend this tournament, we hope? The stars, young stars. And it is that there's this aged, I mean, deeply aged. We're talking about like footballing LeBron age. I mean, Ronaldo is, I mean, it's like 41. Lionel Messi, late 30s. This is, or should be, their last dance. And then there's a slew of teens coming through. Nature abhors a vacuum, so does football. A Spanish wonder child, 18 years old, Lamin Amal, who's already won massive tournaments. you know he's almost if he wins the World Cup with Spain having won what he's won already he'll be like Alexander the Great you know tearing up because there is no more world left to conquer so the Erling Haaland a young Norwegian who is other than Shaquille O 'Neal entering the NBA and just breaking backboards shattering them you know gaming game out I've never seen anyone score goals.

1:21:25It's like as if Dolph Lundgren was a football player if AI created just some kind of Norse demigod. He's bringing Norway over. So there is that battle. And again, because it's here Tommy, in the United States, this commercial hotbed of sports, all of these footballers and we're speaking to a slew of the great footballers in the world, they're all looking at the United States market knowing one deep run, one set of ecstatic moments, the financial payoff for this World Cup commercially to kind of be what Pele was to previous generation, the face of the game in the United States. There's the sporting competition, but there's also the commercial competition to be that footballer.

1:22:09They all think they can, you know, be the next Pele. They don't quite know that David Beckham's already won the World Cup. That man is in almost every single commercial and is not giving up his hold on our imagination anytime soon. But there are also incredible stories that will fill the World Cup up, like Haiti, this tiny team for whom, you know, just qualifying is everything. The political chaos that's unspooled over there, which has impacted football, you know, the football stadium. Their training center was set fire to by insurgent gangs in Port-au-Prince. The fact that they've even qualified is remarkable.

1:22:50They had to play all their games on neighboring Curacao. Their footballers are brought from all over in the Haitian diaspora. Just taking the field for them is going to be just a joyous geopolitical moment where the word Haiti is seen in a joyous spotlight, a wonderful spotlight so desperately needed. And it could be one of the most powerful storylines in the opening round.

1:23:15Jon Favreau:Yeah, that's exciting to watch. So, you know, you touched on this, Raj. The scale of this tournament is just unlike anything we've seen before. It's happening in three different countries. I think there's 16 host cities. There's 48 teams. I think at some point in the tournament, there's going to be six games a day. How the hell are you going to pace yourself here, buddy? What are you going to do to get through this? Yeah, I mean, I feel like I was laughing with you. I already feel like I'm halfway through, but it's not kicked off yet. It is epic in scope. Three nations hosting for the first time.

1:23:48Canada, the United States, Mexico. When it was given, 2018, it was talked about as a unified, almost the NAFTA World Cup. Obviously, the realities have changed. It feels almost like three parallel track World Cups. But what drives me in any World Cup is the narrative, is the story, is the human wonder. The scale of it is epic. I think it's projected to revenue-wise reported$80 billion will be made, which apparently is the GDP of Belarus. But I'm sure you knew that, Tommy. That's really the first thing that went into your head. It's the eye of Belarus, yeah. You know, it's really a human ecstasy.

1:24:35200 million people watch the Super Bowl. We think of that as the ultimate in the United States. It's 5 billion people watch the World Cup. What is the World Cup? And this is what I wrote in my book. It's like a global eclipse that emanates from the game, sweeps the entire world instantaneously and holds it in its thrall for 39 straight days. And so that's the magic of it, the energizing magic. What keeps me going is a sense that when these games go on, We're watching human beings live out under the crucible of pressure, you know, human decision-making. What separates good players from the truly greatest decisions they make under those pressures?

1:25:18There's going to be heroes whose names we don't even know who are going to reveal themselves. And within seconds of some kind of Kung Fu fighting-esque goal, their name is going to be blared out by millions of children in schoolyards across the globe. there's going to be heroes who will fall in tragicomic ways. We're going to watch the greatest telenovela and the thing I'm most excited about, Tommy, is I don't know if you've noticed, it's a very dark world. We're living in a time of challenge. I hope, I hope when this kicks off, when Lionel Messi takes the field, all of the darkness kind of is smothered.

1:25:59It's almost like the rational is replaced by the emotional. and it's that sense of global unity, obviously an illusion, obviously fleeting, but knowing that you're making memories, profound memories. It's like the theory of my book. I'd say 87 % of my most important memories are located in World Cups, the cross-generational memories with my dad, my mom, my grandpa, my children. It's the same for millions around the world. That conscious act of memory making that you're sharing with the planet is really what drives me onwards.

1:26:29Jon Favreau:I think we've all earned that release, that reprieve from reality and that moment just come together and enjoy it. Just to ruin this whole thing with politics, though, I mean, President Trump understands the scale of the stage, right? He's got this preternatural understanding for the role that sports plays and culture. As we talk today, I think he's preparing to fly up to New York for the next game. Do we know, like, does he deliver remarks at any of these events? Is he going to attend games? Like, what do we know about his participation? Not a lot yet, but football is. I mean, I talked about the number of people watching it is the last um global megaphone that is audible across the entire planet uh there's nothing like it there's nothing like a world cup even salt bay inserted himself into the final season that's how massive it is that's my favorite yeah god bless i mean still got me talking about it four years later um and so you know ultimately politicians of all stripes are drawn to football and have been since the very beginning.

1:27:301934, Second World Cup was held in Italy by Mussolini, who wanted to present Italy to the world, subsidize foreign travel to Italy for the tournament. The detail I love most about this story is that he made sure the tickets were intricate paper cuts so that fans would go home afterwards. I crap you not, Tommy, and be like, these are the tickets in Italy. Look what an advanced country it is. So from the very beginning, the roots of the tournament have always had a geopolitical reality when two teams take the field their nation's history their nation's politics, their nation's culture takes the field alongside them, that's what gives it its epic power everything matters it's not, you know, I love American sports, when my Chicago Bears play, you know the LA Rams, it's a big game it's exciting I know the narrative but when Germany plays England the levels of history I think was it Emerson who said it contains multitudes the World Cup contains multitudes and every politician knows that and President Trump has embraced football there was a tournament here last almost a dry run called the Club World Cup he presented the trophy right at the end.

1:28:56The ritual of trophy presenting in football is that whoever gives it, it's often ahead of state, will hand the trophy over to the sweaty footballers on a podium and then step out of the way so that they can lift it up and smoke comes off and confetti blows up and then the footballers bounce up and down waving their arms like this, which is the standard football guy dance. Chelsea Football Club won. He hands the trophy over and then stands in the midst of them. And the footballers are confused. They don't quite know what to do. There's a standard way of doing this. And then in the end, they just like sod it.

1:29:35They did it with him in the midst of it. It's a remarkable image. The smoke goes off, the confetti blows up. Some of them are dancing. Some of them are looking at the president. He knew exactly what he was doing. He knew that was the photo moment that would go around the world and that he'd become front and center. so the world cup contains that power times a million um you know 2018 uh putin uh ran the world cup and was very front and center 2022 it was in qatar first game you and i watched they had the qatar leader sitting right by the saudi arabian um mohammed bin salman i believe this is your expertise not mine but the two of them had had frosty relations before that to see them unite was deeply um symbol uh like a symbol i think one was even wearing the scarf for the other country um so there's a story on the field there's always the story off it and the optics the soft power the hard power um is written all over this tournament every time it occurs you know

1:30:39Jon Favreau:president trump is is both head of state and also um famously won the fifa peace prize so maybe he could invite the new iranian supreme leader to the u.s to sit next to him at a game and we could have another moment like the one you just described i'm just pitching ideas yeah i mean while we're pitching ideas i think this should be a fifa um music award like a grammy for like kid rock or uh vanilla ice i i um i would say you will watch this world cup uh with a split lens and who is invited and where they sit is for you and pod save the world um is a is going to be you know I'd say a sport in itself but it's not a sport that gives it a sense of a lack of meaning but that narrative will be enormous in in macro ways and in micro ways we just had Vagnamora the Oscar nominated actor Pablo Escobar from Narcos come on our show he's football mad and he talked with an amazing passion about how Brazil Brazil wears a yellow shirt it's iconic you know it's synonymous with a beautiful style of football that kind of coincides with the advent of color television and he talked about how when Bolsonaro was president he co-opted the Brazilian shirt and that shirt became a symbol of his regime and Vagnamore talked about how this World Cup in the post-Bolsonaro realm is a chance to reclaim it.

1:32:12So the narratives within this thing, if you're a football fan, it's the Ronaldo, the Messi, the Portugal, the France, the Spain. But if you're a pod save the world fan, the World Cup is all of that and more.

1:32:27Jon Favreau:Yeah. So there's always sort of issues and anxieties going into these World Cups. Sometimes it's political, sometimes it's security or logistics. This year, people were talking about potential ice presence at games uh there are questions about travel restrictions or visas more recently you know there's a lot of discussion about ticket prices um has any of that deterred attendance as far as you can tell is the world still coming to the u.s for these games in canada yeah the narrative of any world cup is decided afterwards um and uh this one in the run-up has been about safety fears, but not just in the United States, in Mexico, the drug cartel violence, the global tensions, the travel restrictions.

1:33:12One of the reasons I love football is that more than any other sport, it holds up a mirror to the world that surrounds it. I've always loved that. It's always one of my definitive moments in life, not just in football, is 1986, England played Argentina. Diego Maradona, his Argentina, one of the greatest to ever play the game, just a street urchin turned kid of gold. they called him Pibet del Oro in the shadow of the Falklands War and England, they were our heroes and Argentina destroyed them. One goal, Tiny Essel Diego punched it in in the era before video referees. He punched it in over a six foot two goalkeeper, used his hand and immediately went asked, did you punch that in?

1:34:12He came up brilliantly with his own marketing. He said it was a little bit the head of Diego and a little bit the hand of God. And then when we were reeling in agony as an English nation, he picked the ball up deep in his own half and then just ran through the entire team single-handedly. Every hero, he eviscerated all of them and then just rolled the ball home, which kind of echoed the first goal. I did that cheated because I could, but I also could have destroyed you single-handedly if I wanted to. And I just did. That goal was an agony. and as an English human being it kind of put us all in our place showed us where we were in the global food chain but now it's actually the poster that a photograph I have in my office on my wall signed by him it makes you feel things it makes you feel alive that agony is like one of my proudest agonies it's an honour to have that agony so everything is always geopolitical the run up to any World Cup in the modern period is always a human darkness at the South African World Cup 2010 the whole reporting going in was how everybody was going to be you know carjacked there was an epidemic just the violence was going to destroy the thing the electricity belt was not enough to power the state it was a disaster why is Africa hosting this it turned out to be one of the most significant World Cups of my lifetime, Nelson Mandela, Africa presenting it to the world in majestic fashion.

1:35:40Same with Brazil, 2014, the violence, rioting, social unrest in 2013. The people rose up around games, marched on the stadia. Every stadium I was in, there were riots, demonstrations for social justice, for education, not football. It was meant to be a disaster. And then once a ball is kicked, Tommy cognitive dissonance kicks in I'm not sure this is a good thing or a bad thing to be honest but it's what happens once Lionel Messi takes the field you know all the storyline just falls away and we kind of become mesmerized by that global eclipse thing so it is a lot of global tension it is a mirror to the world the world is understandably challenging but again once that opening whistle goes the past world cups everyone has gone from fear and darkness and catastrophizing to um a sense of albeit fleeting sense of wonder yeah well i cannot wait for it to

1:36:40Jon Favreau:start but again the book is we are the world cup so pick up a copy now and then raj if listeners want to just hear more from you throughout the world cup where should they look where can they we're headed to you tomorrow we're going to la we have a bus um in the style of john madden a big orange bus we're driving it across country can't tell if this is the greatest idea we've ever had or the worst. We'll find out. Starting in LA, we're going up to Seattle, coming back to LA. We're doing, and then going across the country through Texas to Atlanta. We're going to be doing college game days before the biggest game, starting with the United States.

1:37:16We're going to be on Santa Monica Pier on that first US game on the 12th with Rob Mack. And then we're going up to Seattle where we've got John Green, the greatest novelist. I think everyone would agree. Old Skittles, your man um the greatest seahawk of all time is going to be joining us um and more and then back to la and then we're going across and i will say as we go across um this is a wild time tommy um in many sports fans in america will be turned on to football for the first time um america loves the circus they love an excuse to daytime drink they love you know mass desire to cut work which is approved for 39 days but i will say seeing these fans and there will be thousands of fans coming in there have been travel bans um you know do it there are um some teams who have no fans able to get visas because of the modern reality they've been caught up in um in that issue so like haiti iran senegal ivory coast but there are thousands and thousands of fans coming And this moment for 39 days for the world to shine a spotlight on not just LA, San Francisco, Seattle, but cities like Houston, which are about to be beloved.

1:38:41when the world finds lemon pepper wet in Atlanta, when there's 20 ,000 Argentinians running around Kansas City tasting Arthur Bryant slaps and going, oh my God, we've been doing barbecue all wrong all this time. That to me is a hope how America can be a winner for 39 days, showing a face of ourselves, which is meaningful and warm and welcoming and filled with a kind of joy I once saw from afar from Liverpool.

1:39:13Jon Favreau:Oh, it's going to be beautiful. I can't wait for a bunch of Europeans to try Dunkin' Donuts when they get to Boston for the first time. Raj, great to see you. Great to talk with you. Good luck with this tournament, buddy. I'm excited to watch through your eyes. I'll see you in LA, beautiful. I'm really, really excited to be with you. Courage. That's our show for today. Thanks to Roger Bennett for coming on. Alex and I will be back with a new show on Friday. Bye, everyone. Pod Save America is a Crooked Media production. Our show is produced by Austin Fisher, Saul Rubin, McKenna Roberts, and Farrah Safari with Ree Cherlin, Elijah Cohn, and Adrian Hill.

1:39:43Our team includes Matt DeGroat, Ben Hethcote, Jordan Cantor, Charlotte Landis, Kirill Pellaviv, David Tolles, Mia Kelman, Ryan Young, and Naomi Singel. Our staff is proudly unionized with the Writers Guild of America East.