Breaking News from Pod Save America - Unhinged Trump FLOPS In AWKWARD Speech Overseas (feat. Brian Tyler Cohen)

Episode Date: October 28, 2025

Dan Pfeiffer and Brian Tyler Cohen break down this week’s wildest political videos — from Trump’s awkward overseas moment to a Reagan throwback and Zohran Mamdani’s latest ad. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Everything that was said in that ad is correct. That's why they're so upset about it because they don't like when objective reality seeps through. Welcome to Political Activites React. I'm Dan Fyfer. Joining me today, Brian Tyler Cohen, content creator, media superstar, all around smart guy, previous multi-time guest of Political Experts React. That's right.

Brian, good to see you, buddy. Dan, thanks for having me. Let's do this thing. All right, we are going to start with the ad that is going to make everyone's Thanksgiving more expensive. This is the ad that Canadians ran that got Trump very upset. And then we're going to watch a quick clip of Trump's insane response that will react to us. When someone says, let's impose tariffs on foreign imports, it looks like they're doing the patriotic thing by protecting American products and jobs.

And sometimes for a short while it works, but only for a short time. But over the long run, such trade barriers hurt every American worker and consumer. High tariffs inevitably lead to retaliation by foreign countries and the triggering of fierce trade wars. Then the worst happens. Markets shrink and collapse, businesses and industry shut down, and millions of people lose their jobs. Throughout the world, there's a growing realization that the weight of prosperity for all nations is rejecting protectionist legislation and promoting fair and free competition. America's jobs and growth are at stake.

They cheated on a commercial. Ronald Reagan loved tariffs, and they said he didn't. And I guess it was AI. They cheated badly. All right, Brian, let's start with the ad, and then we'll get to Trump's belief that this was AI and that they quote, cheated. But what did you think of the ad?

Do you think this is an effective approach here? Yeah, well, look, my first reaction, first and foremost, is, you know, thank God that we have a man at the helm and not some emotional woman, right? Like, thank God we have someone who is level-headed to protect us from the impulsiveness of a female in office. That's my first reaction to all of this. The second reaction is I'm so confused over the pearl clutching, over using Ronald Reagan's words, like as if Ronald Reagan is still some sacrosanct figure in the Republican Party.

If Ronald Reagan was running for president today, he would get dragged out of the army. by his ears for being too liberal and would would pull somewhere between like jeb bush and Rance prebis. You know, so like it's the fainting spell over the sacrosanctity of using Ronald Reagan's words is so bizarre. But then then finally, I think the reason that there's so much protest over this ad is because because it's right. I mean, it's like we're living it right now.

We're watching Costco up right now. We're watching Americans have to pay for this consumption tax that's being put forward. by virtue of these tariffs, and everything that was said in that ad is correct. That's why they're so upset about it because they don't like when objective reality seeps through. And so I think that, you know, we've seen numerous instances where this administration tries to push back on any inkling of dissent, but dissent that actually holds merit. That's why Trump is trying so hard to silence comedians.

That's why he's trying so hard to quell dissent from these law firms and universities and tech CEOs and media outlets especially, it's because he doesn't like when there is an accurate portrayal of the reality surrounding us that he's ushered in being put forward. Yeah, like the man can't stand to mirror, right? Right. He cannot stand to look in the mirror and see what really reflects back then. That's what's happening here. I think this ad is fine, right?

Like it doesn't, it is a very coherent, clever way to argue against tariffs, like on a intellectual global trade sense, right? It's like, it's necessarily it's Ronald Reagan, the free trader make the argument as terrorists. If you're really trying to hurt Trump politically, you would focus a lot on how these terrorists have raised costs. I guess there's a question of whether this ad works or not, because there is this whole genre of ads designed to trigger Trump, right? This was sort of what the Lincoln Project did a lot in his first term, and the goal is to get him to freak out, to tweet something, to make him behave erratically, which could theoretically hurt him politically. And definitely raising tariffs 10% on Canadian goods because your feelings were hurt over an ad is a way to make Trump act erratically ways that will probably hurt him politically.

Like cost of living is his biggest weakness. Now, from the perspective of the folks in Canada who ran the ad, I'm not sure it's a smart idea to have him raise your tariffs 10% when the goal of the ad is to force him politically to get rid of the tariffs. But it is interesting. And then the other part on Reagan is it's so funny because, you know, every other Republican Trump trashes, right? The Bush is, right? Everyone who came before him, Paul Ryan, Mitt Romney, all these people. Reagan, who disagrees with him on just about every single issue, right, who signed the largest amnesty bill in American history is the one person who, like, Trump, I guess, thinks of himself as. I was like, that was a very bizarre reaction to him. And it's like it says something about his deep psychosis and insecurity that he would, the criticism

of Reagan would have caused him to react so aggressively. I think it's, I think it's in large part because Reagan is popular. Trump just wants to be liked. Like he is deeply, deeply insecure. And so he views himself in line with some big historical figures. That's why he keeps putting forward this idea that the best presidents in this country are him and Abraham Lincoln. And yet he's still so insecure that he has to be listed first.

But he's like highly, highly cognizant of the fact that he wants to be a popular figure in American history. He wants to be one of the people that everybody talks about when he's gone. That's why he's so focused on putting himself on Mount Rushmore and getting a ballroom that really cements his legacy in. You know, you had mentioned something that kind of stood out to me, and that was this idea that Canada is not campaigning against Trump in the midterms. But in large part, I think Canada has really big vested interest in making sure that they campaign against Trump. in the midterms and take away the tools that he has at his disposal. Like, sure, Canada is not, is not, is not, is not, is not, is not running against Trump. There's, they, they have no, no clear vested interest in that sense, but, but they have

every vested interest in the world and making sure that he, that his power is curbed to some degree, um, so that he doesn't have carte blanche to be able to, to, to commit these actions against them that he's committing right now. He knows that in large part, Trump feels, uh, completely unburdened and unaccountable because, because, he has a completely supplicant, obsequious Republican Party behind him that will allow him to do his bidding. And so if he can make sure that there is some check in the U.S. government against these actions, then that will only benefit them. So in a way, I'm curious what your thoughts are on this, but I think in a way, is posting an ad that's just going to get a rise out of Trump

and make him increase tariffs a good strategy if you want tariffs to be low? No, but like, what do you think about the longer-term play of them, you know, putting on full display his erratic behavior and his erratic nature that might have, you know, implications as we head toward midterms? The best thing would happen for the American people for companies in the United States that import goods from foreign countries, from foreign countries who have trading relationships to the United States is for the midterms to be a referendum on the high price of goods generally and terror specifically. For Republicans, like a huge beating.

And then Trump to grab. some last straw of reality and change his approach. Now, Trump generally doubles, doubles, and one triples down in those situations, but like that that's what you would ultimately want. Because unless the Supreme Court limits the unilateral tariff power, Democrats taking the House only provides some check on this specific power. Now, this is interesting because for Trump to use the unilateral tariff power, it has to have a national security implication.

It has to be some sort of crisis he's responding to. And to truth out and then say publicly that his feelings, essentially that his feelings were hurt, and that's why he's doing this tariffs, would theoretically undermine the case in the lawsuit, at least on these specific tariffs. They could be troubling for Trump. The next clip we're going to watch is from a truly bananas speech that Trump gave this morning in Japan in front of U.S. troops. Here, guys, campaigning, you know, we won the second election by a lot.

so we had to just prove it by winning the third by too big to rig, I called it. It was too big to rig. And it was an amazing, it was an amazing victory. And thank goodness we won because we were in big trouble. We were in big, big trouble. But the new... The speech goes on and on and on, as does any sort of jet-lagged Trump appearance. What is notable to me as someone who worked in the White House is, like the one thing you know is

that, and President's speaking in front of you, like it's not unusual Trump is speaking to troops, oftentimes when you travel to countries and you land at the Air Force Base or the military base, you will then address the troops. You're there. You're the current. It's the right thing to do. But when you're there, the one thing you do not do is politics. And so I wanted to get your reaction to this nakedly political speech in front of American troops.

My first reaction is he literally cannot help himself. He cannot not do the political schick in front of whoever is standing in front of him. He is physically incapable of restraining himself or controlling. himself in any way. I mean, these are supposed to be the most nonpartisan folks that he's ever going to speak in front of. When all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail, right? He only has, he's a one-trick pony. He can only do the angry political, like, I'm a victim. I'm a victim. This poor billionaire president of the United States who got away with like 34 felonies and four indictments. You know, he is, he is the perpetual victim. So that's one thing.

But the second is I think that even in instances where we see no response, like in this clip, no response from the troops. And we saw the same thing when Pete Hegseth called in all of the leadership, all of the generals and admirals from the military as well. And they wanted this big, like, hoorah, everyone's whooping and cheering for them as they just evolve into political mockery and the regular stump speech stuff. Even in instances where we do get silence, I think that they are still doing. doing irreparable harm by normalizing this idea that you can treat the U.S. military as some partisan tool. Our troops are not instruments for a political party. And there is so much danger in having troops that become normalized or accustomed to this idea that they can be used as as a cudgel for one political party over the other. I mean, there are some really dangerous

implications down the line, you know, if we end up in a situation where Trump tries to use the military to seize voting machines in Georgia, like he did in 2020, for example, or even worse, that he tries to use the military to suppress voting at certain voting sites or, you know, declare martial law or whatever it may be, you know, obviously the possibilities are endless, and that's a whole other episode unto itself. But to be able to normalize the U.S. military to this idea that they are just partisan instruments is just, I think, beyond the pale. By the way, Republicans would know that if Barack Obama or Joe Biden or any Democrat tried to do one, one thousandth of what Trump is doing right now.

It would be an outcry that you would hear from the heavens if one single line from a Democratic president in front of the troops. There's two parts about Trump politicizing the troops that are notable. One is it just says that he just has no appreciation for what came before and what comes after. for the importance of a military that serves the Constitution and the government, not the person. You just have to have zero understanding of American history, world history, the founding principles of this country, to just think about the military as yours, right? That they serve you. That's just like a very telling and scary sign of his mentality.

Not that we need another reminder, but just it is another reminder. And the second piece is it's just these are people who are serving our country, right? They are putting everything on the line for us. And you're making them stand there like props awkwardly. It's just like the lack of decency, empathy, compassion, or appreciation for their service comes through when you put them in that. Like if you're, you have to know you're putting them in this a terrible awkward position because some of them support you.

Maybe even a majority of them support you, right? But many of them don't. And so you're putting, they're forced to stand there and feel awkward about this. The ones who support you can't clap. the ones who don't support you or force to stand there and maybe like be worried that their silence equals assent. To put people in that position and not give a shit, it's just telling him about what an empty, vacuous person he is. What you said about him having no appreciation for what comes before and what comes after is also on full display, right? I mean, this isn't the only, this isn't

an isolated incident. Yeah, it's the White House, right. He's, you know, just demolish the entire East Wing of the White House. Like, this is not his house. This is the people's house. And so, but he has no, he has no concern for, you know, any of the history of this country. It is just a completely egocentric view of everything that's happening in government. He is the state. He is the most important thing in his mind. The country revolves around him. And so if he wants to, you know, demolish the entire East Wing of the White House and build a trying to himself, the Donald J. Trump ballroom, then, then clearly that he has no qualms about doing exactly that. If you like this video and you like Potsie of America, I promise you you'll love my newsletter

of the message box where I go deep on what's happening in politics. politics, give you actual, actionable advice about how you can fight back against Maga Politics and Trump. I put the link in the show description. Sign up now. The last clip we're going to watch is from an ad from the Mamdani campaign. The election is one week from today. Hey, I'm the actuals or our momdani.

Not the guy they talk about on this channel. My radical agenda? Turn the page on the billionaire-backed politics of Andrew Cuomo. Make the city affordable. Tackle government waste. to keep New York safe and deliver on our promises, with universal childcare, rent that you can afford, and a property tax system that actually makes sense.

So don't be fooled by the noise. This is who I am, and you're who I'm fighting for. Paid for by Zoron for NYC. What do you think of this spot? I think it's really effective. I was on Pierce Morgan show yesterday, and at one point, Pierce said that the progressive left is too obsessed with woke,

that all they want to talk about is woke. And if you think about the three most famous progressives in the country right now, it's Bernie Sanders, AOC, and Zorn Mamdani. And all three have a relentless, relentless focus on issues that are impacting regular Americans, issues especially focused on affordability. And in fact, you learn after that that it's the right that has an obsessive focus, a relentless focus on woke because that's the issue that they can use as a way, as a cudgel to divide. the left and the right. But Bernie Sanders, you know, has been, has been talking about income inequality forever. AOC is doing the same thing. And Mamdani's run this whole campaign, especially a campaign that feels like some proxy war between the war in the Middle East. He has run this whole campaign with an obsessive focus on affordability. And I think that's so effective, especially on

Fox News, because Fox likes to create caricatures of the Democrats that they portray on their channel, knowing full well that they're not going to, that they're likely not going to have these people on, or if they do, it's going to be some fleeting instance, but it'll be replaced by, you know, a hundred times more coverage of that person as the caricature. And so for him to be able to speak directly to these people and show that his focus is not on whatever crazy issues that they're putting forward, that they're, that they're imposing onto him, but rather that his focus is on making sure that New York City is safe and that New York City is affordable. I mean, those are issues that Republicans usually capitalize on. Safety and affordability

are issues that Republicans won the last election on. And so not only is this showing that the Democrat in this case is co-opting the issue that Republicans usually give to themselves, but it's putting on full display the extent to which Fox is just manipulating its own viewers for partisan gain. So I think the opportunity for him to be able to speak directly to these audiences and show that he's not some dangerous caricature that Fox has made him out to be, you know, using his own words, I think is as effective as you can get. It's interesting because the ad ran on Fox. The ads about Fox, but the audience is not really Fox viewers, I don't think.

Because look, for being honest, it's a New York City mayor-roll election. I'm sure Zoran would take every single Fox voter he could get, but he doesn't need very many of them to win. Yeah. Right? And so what he's doing is he's using, he's taking the ads levied against. them by former Democratic governor Andrew Cuomo, the ads being run in Super PACs funded by big tech companies and folks like Bill Ackman. And he's painting those as part of the Fox News

right-wing smear campaign in a very clever way. Right. And he's using it to very say like everyone's saying I'm radical because that's the subtext and everything. Every ad is that he's radical. They're taking things he said out of context. They are, you know, just they're running the same sort of, you know, incredibly racist comments. There's, you know, Andrew Cuomo chuckling when a right-wing radio host says that Mandani would be cheering if we had another 9-11. And so they're trying to say he's too radical to be mayor. And so taking that at all the attacks, put it in a bucket and saying, no, I'm not radical. My agenda's common sense.

And he's saying, and these people who are saying I'm radical, they're like those people on Fox News. Right. Because his audience here, he just needs Democrats, right? He needs Democrats and Democratic leaning independence. He doesn't need Republicans to win this race. Like the folks he's focused on are the Democrats who are don't like Cuomo, but are skeptical of Mandi. He's not trying to get the 11% of Slewa voters or whatever it is. And so it's a very clever ad.

He, and his, he, I'm not comparing him to Barack Obama. That's an unfair comparison for any politician. But his personal demeanor is very, is the opposite of radical, right? He comes off as friendly, open, smart, willing to engage me would disagree with. And so when you see the attacks of calling a radical, then you just see him speaking, talking about how his ideas are common sense, that is that really, does New Year, what you're trying to do when you're a candidate, particularly candidate of color, is to defang the caricature, right? And that's what the Sanchez very effectively.

I'm curious what your thoughts are on this idea of him specifically calling out a couple of issues that the 2024 election had become a referendum on, which are, you know, safety and affordability. Do you think that Democrats are learning some lesson more broadly about, you know, making sure that there is a relentless focus on issues that really drove voters to the polls in this last election, I mean, this is a much bigger question. I don't think, I mean, the debate, I don't know if we've learned that lesson yet, right? If you look at the sort of the bulk of the messaging of the party, I wouldn't say it's incredibly, it's incredibly, it's, I wouldn't say it's, it is uniquely affordability focus right now. Now, we're in the middle of the shutdown. That shutdown is

essentially around an affordability issue with the doubling of premiums coming because of the Republicans refused to extend the Obamacare tax credits. It's tough because Trump's also, doing political prosecutions, trying to take over the government, demolishing the White House. Those are not affordability issues per se. They also can't go unchecked. You can't just say we're, you know, the president runs the bold over the White House, and then we hold a press conference saying we should get rid of tariffs. Like, that's not a reasonable response from an opposition party.

So this is a bigger question. I think there is a larger debate around, and I would also say he's running in New York City. And like, cost of living and public safety issues are always the two big issues in New York City. And in most big cities. And so he's right to focus on those. you know, whether, you know, I hope the part, what I hope the party can take from Zoron's campaign is that if you come up with policies that are in ideas that are big enough and frankly, controversial enough to engender conversation and conflict around affordability issues,

you can make politics about affordability and not all the other sort of identity issues that do define politics these days. Like that, if you just come up with yet another, like take Kamala Harris's housing tax credit you did. I'm sure those. Those are great ideas. They would make people's lives easier. You put them out in one day and no one ever talks about them again because they don't generate real conflict. Free buses, that generates conflict.

And voters are smart enough to know that it's just not like, oh, where everyone's going to, I don't want, I'm not doing this because I want free buses. The fact that he wants free, that he's fighting for free buses tells me that he gets what's going on in my life, right? The grocery source is the same thing. There's something radical about, you know, five city-run grocery stories, like the people who tried ideas like that around the country. But the fact that he wants that is, one, it gets people all fired up and people fight back.

And so there's conflict of pressures around it. But also, it's evocative. It is essentially what we need. And I hate saying this because it makes it feel gross. We need our versions of Trump's wall. Right. Trump's wall. Voters did not think that Mexico was really going to pay for the wall.

They didn't even think Trump was really going to build it. It sent a message that he understood how big an problem immigration was to those voters, right? That he would fight instead of brothers. We need ideas like that. like they're all my friends, kick the walks out of the room, come up with the ideas that generate controversy. Then we can work around how to make them work. But campaigning, like we need emotional engagement and not intellectual appeasement in our policy ideas. It's kind of interesting because in that sense, it's kind of just like a better understanding of the media environment as

opposed to the economics of the actual policy that you want to put forward. Last question on this. and how do you bridge that gap? How do Democratic candidates bridge that gap between issues of democracy and issues of affordability? And I get that this is in large part a rehash of the 2024 election, where the issues of democracy were front and center for someone like me, and I'm sure someone like you

and people who are super plugged into politics, issues of democracy knowing that they're foundational should be enough. Like if somebody is a threat to democracy, that's enough for me to head to the polls. I don't have to worry about. all of the other issues because because the issues of democracy supersede everything else. But clearly we learn the lesson that for a lot of people, that's not enough to point toward

A, protecting institutions that in large part people don't like and don't benefit from. And B, it's just too nebulous to get people to really care when there are broader issues at play. And we know that for a lot of Americans right now, they're in a worse financial position than they were, even in the lead up to 2024. And so that's even more reason not to lean solely on democracy. And so with that said, though, you can't just ignore the fact that Trump is deploying the troops into our cities, that he's trying to tread up the Constitution by ending birthright citizenship, that he's, you know, day in and day out, there's another assault on the

foundation of this country. And so how do you tow that line between these two, you know, very important issues? Yeah, I think the problem we're doing with for Democrats right now is we're doing whackamol, right? So today it's the White House. Tomorrow, you know, last week it was the troops. You know, who knows what it's going to be by lunchtime today. And we're handling each of these things in a somewhat siloed fashion. The thing in our party, we've lost the capacity and the understanding to do is storytelling.

Right. There is one story that unites all these things. Donald Trump came in promising to change the corrupt, broken political system. Instead, he's now using that corrupt, broken political system to acquire power for himself, to enrich himself, to help his. powerful friends and you are paying the price, right? Literally, right? Your health care prices are going up. Your housing prices are growing up. Your grocery prices are going up. The only people getting rich in this economy are Trump and his friends. And all of those things are in, that we mentioned

here are in line with what he's doing. This is to benefit him, not you. And the question for Democrats is, can we prove the people that we are strong enough, tough enough, smart enough to be the ones that people believe will fight for them? And that's the question. And there are no easy answers. that. Yeah, but I think every, you're exactly right in the sense that like, you know, what we're seeing from a $350 million ballroom being built, that's Trump's priority. His priority is, is making sure that Christy Noem has $172 million worth of Gulfstream jets to be able to zip across the country. It's, it's adorning his Oval Office with gold leafing. It's making sure that he's surrounded by opulence. It's hosting crypto dinners so that he can double his net worth. All the while,

you have farmers that are getting screwed right now. You have Medicaid recipients who are getting screwed right now. You've got folks who rely on the ACA for their health care who are getting screwed right now. And so he's putting on full display where his priorities are because when he wants to get something done, he gets it done. He's not going to let the court stand in his way. He's not going to let prosecutors or laws or the Constitution stand in his way. Like, he will barrel through and get what he wants done. Demolish the White House because he wanted to get that done. So where there's a will, there's a way for Donald Trump. The fact that he is leaving everybody twisting in the wind who relies on health care who relies on on food stamps, who relies on, you know, Medicaid and ACA subsidies,

these farmers who rely on making sure that there are markets available to them, and all of those folks who just believed him when he said that costs were going to go down because they couldn't afford their rent and their housing and their groceries and the price of eggs. All of those people are getting screwed because the person who has the power to get something done when he wants to is instead just choosing not to and to focus on himself. That's a great place in it. Brian, thanks you for joining us. Everyone, go subscribe to Brian's YouTube page. Follow him everywhere where he is.

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