Trump Works the FIFA Refs

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24:39Plattner then told a private meeting of anxious Democratic senators that despite the rumors, there were no other shoes to drop. Then on June 4th, five days before the primary, the New York Times published a story in which women who had dated Plattner talked about a bunch of troubling incidents and dynamics. Plattner then won the primary handily. Then on Monday, shortly before we sat down to record this, Politico published a story in which one of the women in that Times story, Jenny Rassikoff, a Democrat, gave more details about her experiences with Plattner. She said that in 2021, he showed up at her house drunk without being invited, went in, forced her to have sex with him against her will.

25:13She told Politico that she withheld those details because she did not want to be known as a rape victim. Moments after the story published, the Plattner campaign posted a response video. Here is what Plattner said. I wanted to directly address the troubling, serious, and false allegations against me. Any accusation of non-consensual behavior is categorically false. Regardless of the inaccuracy of the reporting, but mindful of the political reality it will inflict, we are taking the time to reflect on the best path forward for the state that I love, the people that I love, the movement I belong to, and the goal of defeating Susan Collins.

25:51So just so people know, if he withdraws by July 13th, he can be replaced on the ballot. Tommy, what was your reaction to the story? the allegations in the story are really bad and troubling they seem credible they're backed up by documentation and so obviously the impact politically is not just what's in the story it's this cumulative impact of a series of articles and allegations about him and the feeling that he's just has not been fully transparent and honest about some of the allegations like you mentioned I mean there was this meeting in Washington a while ago where these questions were put to him directly and the answer I think sounds like it was just no and now there's all this reporting.

26:30So I think my takeaway from that video was that he's going to drop out of the race. I think he has to drop out of the race. Like you said, if he drops by the 13th, the main Democratic Party will choose a replacement by July 27th. I have no idea who they're going to choose. I'm very worried now about the prospect of winning this seat. If the party can get its act together, we ultimately could be in a stronger place politically than we would be with Plattner and all this baggage if these stories had come out later. I think the challenge is going to be you had all these voters who turned out and voted for Graham Plattner despite the Reddit posts, despite the tattoos in the story and all the other scandals.

27:11They were turning out to signal that they wanted something different and that they were angry at the establishment. And I don't know who in Maine can speak to that anger, but also has been vetted by the party and has been through the political process. because like, look, as much as Janet Mills's supporters deserve to be angry and deserve the, I told you so's they're saying today, the problem was that main voters were not supporting her. They didn't want to vote for her. And so this wasn't like some online vibes issue. It was like what the electorate was saying in the state where it matters. So I think I don't know where they go from here.

27:49And she suspended her campaign before any votes were cast. Right. So there wasn't an alternative in the primary. Yeah, he has to end the campaign so that we have a chance of defeating Susan Collins. I think the story is horrible. I find it, you know, starting from when you interviewed him about the tattoo, he has not always been transparent about it. That has become increasingly true that his denials have just not been backed up by what came next, even here in the story, which is deeply reported, backed up by contemporaneous evidence and previous conversations. It comports with what he said, which is that he was drinking a lot.

28:29And the story describes him as being drunk, potentially not remembering it the next day. And so then we have a video of him categorically denying something, which it doesn't seem he's really in a position to deny. So he has to withdraw to give us a chance. And what I took away from watching this video, from reading this story, is it is clear that this is somebody that has not maybe even been honest with himself about what was going on in the dark phases of his life. Yeah. But that is not for us to deal with in a Senate race that will determine the control of his Senate. Yeah. Look, obviously a big lesson here is that vetting is really important.

29:07And some of the vetting gets done by campaigns themselves. And then ultimately it will be done by the media if the campaigns don't figure that part out. But like, we should be clear about what kind of stuff comes up in vetting, like the Reddit posts should come up in vetting, like online accounts that should come up in vetting. I've never heard of a campaign like kind of calling exes to sort of suss out stories like this, right? I mean, I think what happens is campaigns have conversations with the candidate, they ask them a series of questions. If the candidate is not candid back to them, then they're in a very difficult position.

29:41And like when I interviewed Plattner about his Reddit posts and the tattoo, like I was not aware of any of these allegations. None of this was public yet, just for the record, because I would have asked. I still don't think there's evidence that he intended to get a Nazi tattoo on purpose or that he had like Nazi leanings. In fact, I think the Reddit archive like shows the opposite. But like you just said, like I have come to believe over time and over learning more information that he just wasn't being honest about when he learned that what what the tattoo was or what it looked like. And I don't know if he was being honest with himself or the campaign about it.

30:16And so I think like the question is, like, what do you do with that information? What's the lesson here? I hope it's not that we don't try to run people from outside of politics, because I think like that's a good thing. I want people who weren't just like raised in a political system to run for office. I think it's good to have new perspectives. also there have clearly been vetting problems within the party too like eric swalwell was in congress for a decade there were horrifying allegations that came out about him he was in leadership he was like close with pelosi right so like he was an establishment favorite who had some um horrible allegations in his past but uh yeah i mean like it's it's horrible it's awful it's really sad a lot of people uh believed in him believed in this campaign i know they're going to feel devastated by this a lot of people would be really angry there's gonna be a lot of anxiety about our ability to win this seat.

31:04And, you know, hopefully that Maine Democrats can pick someone good to replace him quickly and get this righted. Yeah, there's gonna be a lot of, I think, people sort of doing their kind of factional kind of point scoring about it too. And fine, people can have at it. There are people who felt like this was not a person that should have been trusted with a Senate nomination because of the Reddit post, because of the tattoo that this was enough to say we should be looking in another direction. that has turned out to be true. But what has consistently been, I think, the way in which people talk past each other in these sort of inter-party debates is you view Graham Plattner as unacceptable.

31:43Voters seem to find the establishment candidates even less acceptable. And there was a way to defeat Graham Plattner with a viable alternative, and that wasn't presented during the race. And that doesn't mean criticism of Graham Plattner wasn't completely and totally justified. That doesn't mean there's anything wrong with supporting Janet Mills. But now we have to figure out how to find that person who can represent the party in the Senate race, because the stakes remain controlled. Yeah. And look, I think ultimately, I just don't get the sense that Janet Mills really wanted to run. And she was like pushed and pushed and kind of dragged into it and it came through you know and like she didn't seem like she wanted the campaign i understand that there was also this insurgent candidacy happening and she just yeah it's just the whole situation is just terrible even after the june 4th story she said i am still technically on the ballot but didn't reactivate the campaign so uh you know it's a terrible situation and uh the story is horrible and my thoughts go to like i think of that person who finally felt like they They didn't get their story out the first time the story ran.

32:50They felt they had to come forward and tell it in even more gruesome detail. And that is terrible and a brave thing to do. And I still hope we win that fucking seat. Yeah.

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35:14All right. In other campaign news over the weekend, Michigan State Senator Mallory McMorrow ended her primary campaign for U.S. Senate, creating a two-way race between Abdul El-Sayed and Congresswoman Haley Stevens. McMorrow is seen as a rising star in the party, but she failed to gain traction in the race and had been stuck in single digits in recent polling. Stevens has the backing of Chuck Schumer, the DSCC, and AIPAC is positioning herself as the electable moderate. To date, though, she's running behind El-Sayed, a progressive and former crooked host and a friend of ours who's generating big crowds and enthusiasm by running against the establishment, supporting Medicare for all and opposing military aid to Israel.

35:51Mallory was trying to position herself between Haley Stevens and Abdul. Why do you think that didn't ultimately work? Yeah, I just to be clear, I also I'm biased. Like Abdul's a friend. He did a show on her network. I'm a donor to his campaign. So I just want to put that all out there. I think Mallory started as a long shot. Like she was known online because of like viral speeches a few years ago, but I think statewide she had very low name ID and that's a real challenge. And I think you also had Abdul as the like very clear Bernie Sanders endorsed progressive favorite. And then you had Haley Stevens with the Schumer support, the institutional support and the tens of millions of dollars in outside money that comes with it.

36:32I think 32 million has been spent on her behalf so far. And then Mallory was left trying to figure out like, what is my middle path where I cobble off some votes from the more progressives by being more electable and some from the establishment and it just it never quite worked and then i think she made sort of what turned out to be a fatal error by attack attacking abdul for campaigning with this on piker which made progressives think um that she was not credible or viable and then i think it got abdul more attention than he had gotten in a very long time and it just sort of like started this slow um attrition and support and so i think so also lumped her in with haley Yeah, it made her seem more like the establishment, which was sort of played into the Abdul message.

37:18So I just think like she ultimately never could really find a clear lane. Yeah, there was some also I would just say like a fair amount of hostility towards Mallory McMorrow online. And it reminded me a little about of when it was Bernie versus Elizabeth Warren toward the end of that primary. And it was like, oh, you know, we have our person. And so you're a threat to our candidate. And it was sort of pretty hostile towards McMorrow. Uh, so yeah, the, now, uh, the question is, I think what happens to, there weren't that many McMorrow voters by the end, but there are still a lot of undecided people.

37:53Um, and Haley is going to be making a, an electability argument against Abdul. Some of that will be around him being on the left. I think some of it will be subtly or not so subtly about him, uh, his identity. Uh, what do you think? Yeah, look, I think there's, there's sort of this assumption that Mallory's votes are just going to go to Haley. I think that's wrong. Like I've heard from people who've seen a lot of polling that Mallory's votes are very much split. It's not an obvious boon to Haley Stevens. We'll probably see another poll soon. We'll have a better sense. But like the old theory of politics was the progressive lane was like 35, maybe 40 percent.

38:30You know, that was sort of the ceiling. And then the rest of the votes would go to more established, kind of moderate normie dims. This cycle, though, we're seeing the total rejection of the establishment on the left and on the right. We're also seeing progressive candidates all over the country, New York, Colorado, lots of places do really, really well. And that would seem to benefit Abdul. There are questions about Haley's abilities as a messenger. There are, you know, foreign policy and support for Israel and AIPAC has been more of an animating issue than we've seen in a very, very long time.

39:03And I think that speaks to an Abdul strength. So those would be all arguments for why he could benefit or do well coming out of this move for Mallory. But we don't know. I mean, like there's a ton of money getting spent for Haley. She's a better known quantity in the state. And then, as you said, I think there will be a lot of talk about electability, fear of losing this seat, the strength of their opponent. And you're right. Like a lot of that will be code for Abdul is a Muslim guy. But we'll just see what message resonates with voters. I mean, this primary is in August. I bet a lot of folks still aren't paying attention.

39:41So there is time. But it's going to be seen as like a huge proxy for a lot of the issues in the party about left, right, Israel, Gaza that we'll talk about in a second. Yeah, we've been saying for a while now that there is this realignment on Israel. And it seems to be happening very quickly during this primary. John and Dan talked on the show Friday about Kamala Harris reaching out to Zoran and AOC and the leaders of the uncommitted movement in Michigan as she prepares her potential 2028 run. On Wednesday, another potential 2028 candidate, Rahm Emanuel, the son of an Israeli independence fighter and a career moderate, will give a speech in Tel Aviv essentially threatening an end to American support for Israel unless there are major changes.

40:22Here's how Abdul talked about the issue recently. This is a moral Rorschach test. Like if you can't identify the systematic murder of tens of thousands of kids as a genocide, and then you want to say that you're a fighter for human rights and dignity, that's just hypocrisy. So I just think that if you can't call the most heinous violation of human rights what it is, it's hard for me to believe that you're going to go and fight the Trump administration or fight the pharma CEOs or fight the health insurance CEOs who are making my life unlivable. I do think he's describing like the actual dynamic of a sort of a lot of Democratic voters that this issue has become a kind of shibboleth for a willingness to take on the establishment, the willing to take hard political positions.

41:09But at the same time, it's his choice of words there is interesting, right? Because a Rorschach test is something in which you see what reflects your view of it. Good point. Yeah. In order that and that the thing itself is is a way of eliciting what your view might be. And I do think that's happening here, too. It's partly why I'm interested in what Rahm ultimately says, because I think what I think Abdul is describing the reality of how this debate is unfolding. But that is in part because Joe Biden and Kamala Harris left such a massive hole, both in terms of the policy and any kind of larger framework or message or story about what a progressive defense of support for Israel might be.

41:57Yeah, I mean, I think that for a lot of progressive voters in the in the US, especially young people, it's kind of just like a threshold question about your credibility. If you can't look at what's happening in Gaza and say that's wrong and say we shouldn't be funding a genocide or sending more weapon systems with a blank check over to Israel, then they don't believe you on anything else. I think the Rom speech is particularly interesting to me. I'm going to talk to him next week on Pod Save the World because Netanyahu has an election in October at the latest. I think he's going over there in part to kind of stir some shit up and signal to voters in advance of that election.

42:36Like, hey, it's time to move on from Netanyahu. This guy is bad news. He does not. He's not serving interests. He's not going to help you in Washington anymore. We'll see if that works. I do think like looking, thinking back to the Biden kind of era Gaza fights, I think there was a suggestion for a while that the campus activists were performative. You know, the people out protesting like they just that was their thing of the month. Right. And I didn't think that was true then. And I don't think it's true now. And I think that your views, again, Gaza, have just become like a proxy for this much bigger threshold question about whether people believe you.

43:13And frankly, things have gotten worse since then because we had the war with Iran and all that Trump has, you know, done to make things worse there. And so, you know, that's where it's like all getting swept up. And so I do think this is going to continue to be a huge issue in Democratic primaries in this cycle, but also in 28. Yeah, this is where I do think like the ways in which I think pro-Israel Democrats or historically pro-Israel Democrats have been, I think, really caught flat-footed and surprised by the level of intensity and importance that this issue has now taken. And you have seen a lot of those Democrats shift, right?

43:51You had Bernie and Chris Murphy putting out, putting up resolutions about cutting off military, offensive military aid to Israel and the number of Democrats being willing to support that ticking up. But in the absence, I think, of a clear articulation of a view on Israel that is reflective of, concedes the substance of the, I think, valid moral critique of U.S. support for Israel, of military support for Israel and its conduct of the war in Gaza. but that talks about a position on settlements that talks about a position on the future of Gaza two-state solution whether or not that is still something that is plausible what it looks like to actually fight for something like that what it looks like to hold Israel accountable right like it is true what Abdul says in that video that if you can't call is what Israel has done in Gaza a genocide then you are failing this moral test but there are no politicians right now saying something like I believe Israel's conduct of the war is horrific I think that they've committed ethnic cleansing.

44:47There are genocidal members of the administration. I will leave the definition of genocide to others, but I'll tell you, we will make sure that the West Bank is safe for Palestinians and we will remove settlements as part of any deal. We will hold off any funding for Israel until it has withdrawn to the borders, right? Like there is a full-throated pro-Palestinian position that acknowledges Israel's right to exist and defend itself that I think could reflect the values Abdul's talking about. But right now, it just doesn't exist. There's no one really espousing that position that I'm hearing. Yeah, I think what is broken recently is for a long time, there were kind of like political and policy orthodoxies that were just kind of abided by in Washington.

45:28You know, it's like there was seen as most politicians did not stray much beyond, you know, sort of like the 40-yard lines of this debate. And then when Gaza started, like a bunch of people just started asking why. Why are we giving, you know, to their credit, like places like J Street and other groups were asking these questions earlier, but like people just sort of wondering, why are we giving this country 3.3 billion a year in military support and then a bunch of additional funding after that? Why are we partnering with Bibi Netanyahu to launch this crazy war with Iran when it doesn't seem to serve our interests?

45:59Why are we, why does the US Congress welcome in ICC indicted war criminals like Netanyahu and other, you know, Israeli political and military leaders. And yet we're having this big, dumb fucking fight for a month about Hassan Piker's, you know, Twitter, the Twitch stream. And why, why is a democratic administration, two of them, uh, supporting, uh, a government in which their leader comes to the U.S. and insults us and basically does politics for the Republican party. And you have AIPAC as an organization that has become completely sort of politicized, uh, uh, and sort of attacking, Democrats who don't hue exactly to their line.

46:39Yeah. I mean, AIPAC primarily has started sort of intervening in Democratic primaries, attacking the more progressive candidate about issues that have nothing to do with Israel. And that's rubbing people the wrong way. And I think there's a broader sort of waking up to the fact that at this moment, the two state solution is just not realistic in any way. And I think a lot of times when politicians talk about, well, we need peace talks and two states living side by side and blah, blah. Like, it's just a way of like punting the question and having anything to say that they all know is complete bullshit, because the West Bank is getting chopped up every single day by more settlement construction.

47:16And, you know, after October 7, neither side has any faith in the process, nor do they necessarily support a two state solution anymore. That's all true and real. I think where, what the, what, like my only advice to like the more progressive candidates and people on the left is I do think one thing that has gotten lost from the conversation is like any sense of empathy in a lot of these answers about the trauma that Israelis felt on October 7th or that Jews in America feel and fear they feel about anti-Semitism. And I think we just need that needs to be more a part of the conversation as we recalibrate these much harder policy issues.

47:56Yeah. Well, So I would say acknowledging that is not a concession to, is not admitting to something, right? Like compassion towards Israelis is not to take anything away from Benjamin Netanyahu's evil conduct of the war. And as much as a two-state solution seems like something you just say to get out of the question, it's not like a one-state solution is very appealing. Not great answer. Either. So it really is like a, you know, it's been a morass for a very, very long time. Like, you have to do both. Like, of course, I have enormous empathy for people in Gaza, the suffering, the Palestinian people, like having empathy for the Israelis who were hurt or or killed or kidnapped that day or the people who are scared by the events of October 7th.

48:40Like, they're not mutually exclusive. We can do both. And I think it just it's gotten a little bit lost from the debate. And I'll just also say, too, from the other side of it, you can go back to Rabin describing the importance of a peace process, in part because you would get to the point we're at now, where people would stop being willing to accept a two-state solution and start demanding a one-state solution. That, you know, when people criticize Mamdani, right, because he gets the question, like, do you support the right of a Jewish state to exist? And I support a state for equal rights to exist.

49:08Those circles can be squared. There can be a state with equal rights that has a Jewish majority, but that requires a Palestinian state, which requires a U.S. that is willing to put an extraordinary amount of pressure on Israel to remove settlements from the West Bank and make a two-state solution possible. because the alternative, which is increasingly what people are demanding, is one in which there is no longer a Jewish state in a region in which there are a lot of Muslim states. Or, you know, a state that is a de facto apartheid state with different laws for different people, different religions.

49:39Which is also unacceptable.

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51:21Speaking of shifting and amorphous borders, we haven't discussed on the show, but Mitch McConnell has been absent from the Senate since he was hospitalized in mid-June. His staff and others have tried to downplay it. On July 1st, according to Dispatch Audio, reviewed by ABC News and other outlets, a person at Mitch McConnell's address was discovered unconscious in a cardiac arrest and EMTs performed CPR. This has led to rampant speculation that McConnell is somewhere in the twilight realm between life and death where he will be held. And this is what the I think the conspiracy is where he will be held until August 3rd, because after August 3rd, the November election would would be for the next term as opposed to for the remainder of McConnell's term.

52:05And Thomas Massey, who is obviously a free agent, could run for the Senate. So goes the conspiracy conspiracy theory. Would you care to recklessly speculate? Man, I don't know. oh, this wasn't really on my radar screen until today. But, you know, then I'm seeing there was a reporter named Desiree Townsend who was, quote, tweeting Laura Loomer. So Laura Loomer, for folks who don't know, is this crazy far-right activist who, back in the day, once chained herself to the offices of the Twitter building in New York because they, like, got rid of her account or something. Or, I don't know, I think a gay guy was there.

52:47I don't know. Yeah, something like that. So she was like a fringe lunatic, but now she is very close to Donald Trump. There's all these reports about how she'll walk into the Oval Office with a list of names of administration officials and get them all fired, including like high level people. I think she got like the head of the NSA fired. Right. So Laura Loomer is someone who has a lot of access at the White House. She tweeted a couple hours ago today. High level source close to the White House tells me Mitch McConnell is officially brain dead. he's not coming back. Now, that is obviously crass phrasing.

53:21But I don't normally believe her, but I do believe that someone close to the White House would tell her that. And then a journalist who apparently had reported out or broke the story of Mitch McConnell's initial cardiac issues confirmed what she said. So there's just all this churn. And it's not coming from the kind of resistance left. It's coming from the far right spaces about McConnell's health. And there's just no transparency. And then his wife is in China for some reason. Yeah, she was on a trip very soon after this had happened, which was a little bit strange. So yeah. But I will say, as far as ways for Mitch McConnell to go out, holding on to power, even in the face of grim death, even in the face of the ultimate end itself as he shuffles off this mortal coil it's the way to do it it's how he's the way it's how it is it is how he'd want to go he'd want to go in some sort of nefarious plot in which he has kept alive to fuck thomas massey yeah i think that's exactly what he would want and as much as i i i don't approve of it um i approve of it he died what he loves yeah he died with his boots on yeah we don't know is the answer we don't know we don't know if he's alive or dead Can I tell you something?

54:35When I worked for Hillary Clinton, when speaking of the issue we're previously talking about, Ariel Sharon had fallen into a coma. Remember, he was a prime minister, a hawkish prime minister of Israel. He fell into a coma. And I had to write this statement announcing that he had passed because we thought he was going to die at any moment. And it was going to be a statement from Bill and Hillary Clinton together. And we went back and forth. And then it went up, went over to Bill Clinton's office. And it came back. And the line of it the last line of it said and ariel sharon died with his boots on not a phrase i would have used just what he wanted to because he was still serving as in right when he fell into the coma he's working and then ariel sharon was in a coma for weeks months maybe longer was it years he was in a coma for a very very long time and we would have this internal debate being like how long after you've fallen into a coma are you no longer dying with your boots on oh yeah i'm saying you just leave the boots on the whole time right because like he didn't die with his boots on because that was, he may have fell down.

55:31He got into a coma with his boots on, but we can't keep this sentence in. This was weeks. Yeah, you'd probably be more comfortable with the boots off. The boots are off. Yeah. The boots are made for walking. Speaking of being old, America turned 250 this week and Trump got to hold his big Freedom 250 rally, the culmination of months of meticulous planning. There was dangerous heat, lightning, pandemonium, enough smoke to cause a code red air quality alert. And then on the morning of the 4th of July, a white nationalist group called Patriot Front featuring around 400 masked men carrying Confederate flags and chanting, Reclaim America, march to the Capitol.

56:06Good news, they decided to be climate conscious and take public transit. Bad news, these Uber mentioned should have taken Uber because the master race couldn't master the metro. Here's how it went. Just give it a minute and try again. Get out of line. Get out of the line. Go back. Get out of the car from the center. Right there. Yeah, who needs a car? Right there. Yeah, there's a great photo circulating of these guys in their masks on the train. And this woman just sitting there being like, what the fuck is going on here? So these guys, they couldn't figure out how to use the metro? I think that they were trying to use, one person was trying to swipe them in.

56:38But I wonder if they got a bit flummoxed by the fact that you have to, I think, tap in and tap out. I don't know if that's still the case in D.C. I believe it is. I think that must have been confused by the tap in, tap out situation. That's the Ubermensch right there. So that was Trump's July 4th, a fireworks display that seemed like the Capitol was being nuked and that filled the entire region with smoke. Gave a pretty uninspired speech. There was a lot of people fishing out detritus from the sad reflecting pool, which has, I think, been through enough. Yeah, it really has. And I think that closes the chapter on the 250th birthday America deserved for putting this man in charge.

57:19Yeah, it was just the whole thing was just such a sloppy mess and a bummer. Yeah, people passing out. You got like, I mean, again, Trump couldn't have predicted the weather. It's not his fault that it was 105 degrees. But what is dangerously hot outside? The thing you do is you cancel your speech. Yes. You don't have your supporters line up for hours and hours and hours. And then you don't put Secret Service in the situation where they're clearing out the National Mall because of dangerous thunder and lightning. And the supporters are like accusing them of, you know, some sort of conspiracy theory to steal from his big day.

57:53And the whole thing was just selfish and stupid and sloppy and half-assed. And it could have been really cool. And it's just a bummer. It is. Now, various Democrats had their own July 4th counter-programming, including Zoran Mamdani, who gave a great speech just before the holiday that caused a bunch of conservatives to lose their mind. And here's a few moments from the speech, which Mamdani delivered from a desk used by George Washington and with naturalized U.S. citizens all around him. Ours is a nation working each day towards the perfection in which it was conceived. A nation striving each day to better itself.

58:31Therein lies the work of America. The striving, the bettering, the reaching towards perfection. What a privilege each of us has to live in a nation that every one of its inhabitants can shape. What a responsibility each of us possesses to prove ourselves worthy of all those who came before. What power each of us holds to bring America ever closer to the greatness so many have seen when they looked upon these shores. The greatness that for 250 years has been America. What a commie fuck. So I saw the reaction before I saw the speech. What did you think? You're like, oh God, what do you say? And you watch it and you're like, oh, that's incredibly patriotic.

59:13It was a very Obama message. So no surprise that I liked it, like being patriotic and optimistic, talking about America's flaws, but in a hopeful way. I mean, it's a very, it's a tough needle to thread for a politician, especially if you're brown or black. And you saw it in the reaction where you had all these people accusing Zora Mamdani of attacking his country or, you know, being critical of it. It's like, guys, Trump literally says, we were a dead country until I came back. You know, his view of America is unless he's in charge, it's dead, it's irredeemable. It's American carnage. We're making America great again.

59:50So it's just like this very frustrating, endless, stupid conversation about what it means to be patriotic. But I think like, I thought it was a great speech. It was interesting that he decided to step up and do it because they had to know that this was going to be the reaction. But I imagine that it was just very important to him in this moment where Trump is trying to repeal uh birthright citizenship and all these kind of like pillars of what makes us a country uh that is great um that he wanted to be like to voice the alternative view yeah like when i saw i was like oh that's so interesting he makes interesting he's gonna do something he's gonna make a news where news a news making speech around july 4th and he's doing it because the podium's open when the podium's up he's taking it yeah like it's just it's open exactly and i thought like i was like there was a, I think it was Bill Ackman, and a bunch of people were saying, oh, he's even sitting at the desk wrong, right?

1:00:44Yeah, what was that all about? Because the desk has drawers on both sides. And so they saw him sitting on the side where, and they said, oh, this dummy doesn't know how to sit at a desk. And it really like captured to me, like just the, first of all, the assumption that everyone but them is stupid. And that there were so many conservatives jumping in to say that this speech was dark and hateful, that like, how dare this person, But some of them saying, how dare this immigrant who's only been a citizen for eight years criticize my country? Fuck you. But they didn't want to listen, right? Because it's a beautiful and patriotic speech.

1:01:18And he's very like, you know, he did the same thing with that speech around the Knicks winning where he's just, you know what? Like, I'm going to, there's a moment. My job as a leader is to make the most of moments as they come. And he's just so good at that. I think it drives him a little bit crazy. Yeah, especially people like Bill Ackman, where he's making an economic argument and going right at people like Bill Ackman. I think the line was like, the powerful thing, America is an arena of supremacy, and the rest of us should be grateful for being allowed to visit. And he said how small they are, how weak.

1:01:52and I saw a tweet from Elon Musk from over the last couple of days where someone was telling him that he essentially saying you should oppose universal suffrage and Elon said, I have wised up. So we've got this trillionaire oligarch suddenly coming out against all of our having the right to vote. So it felt important and timely because basically he was trying to say the powerful to try to divide us and turn us against each other and we can't let them do that. We need to come together and like fight for the working class and acknowledge America's flaws, but then continue to talk about how to make it great and greater.

1:02:29So it was nice to hear. Yeah. And I enjoyed the freak out over it, especially from people that, I don't think they consumed it. I don't think, I think they just started going at it and assumed it was something that they wouldn't like. And like Fox News calls, it was a dark and anti-American, unpatriotic, and have at it, guys. It's just a sort of a slop for the audience that you know won't see it either. Exactly. But not us. This is a slop for people who read the articles. And you can support pro-democracy media by becoming a friend of the pod. Go to crooked.com slash friends. You help us build independent media that gets good information in front of more people.

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