Pod Save America - 1127: Trump's Dangerous War Games

Episode Date: February 27, 2026

The White House debates going to extreme lengths to get the American public to stomach a war with Iran, while Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth tries to force Anthropic into letting him use their AI model to operate autonomous murder drones. Jon and Dan react with horror and then discuss the rest of the news, including the administration's new fraud-focused message, the draft executive order that the administration may use to declare a national emergency before the midterms, and a new report that Trump's Justice Department removed some documents from the Epstein files that accused the President of sexually abusing a minor. Then, Tommy talks to an organizer in Arizona about Vote Save America's effort to recruit people like you to run in down-ballot races in the Grand Canyon State and all over the country.For a closed-captioned version of this episode, click here. For a transcript of this episode, please email [e-mail] and include the name of the podcast.

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We'll also talk about the huge news that the Justice Department made a few Epstein files disappear that included allegations of sexual abuse against Donald Trump. And we'll get into why Pete Hegseth is threatening an AI company unless they let the government use their products for unmanned weapons and mass surveillance. Then, as Democrats get some good midterm news, Tommy talks to Shelley Jackson, an organizer with Instituto, one of the organizations that Vote Save America is partnering with to recruit people just like you to run endowment. ballot races in Arizona. Not just like you, Dan, because you don't live in Arizona. Yeah, I would be a bad Arizona.

I would be a bad candidate generally, but particularly at a state, which I don't have eligibility. It's not what Chris Coons thinks. He's worried. Reminder, before we start, if you want even more Pod Save America, more politics, more laughs with all your favorite crooked hosts, please consider becoming a friend of the pod subscriber. You'll get our new extra episode of Pod Save America called Pod Save America Only Friends, I believe Love It and Tommy helmed. Only Friends This Week.

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But more on that later, yes. Yeah, right as we started recording, we found out the news that Netflix has given up because Paramount made a bigger offer. And so now Warner Brothers Discovery is going to be owned by Paramount. The Ellison's got another one. Which means, which means Barry Weiss is in the situation room. But it also means that you should subscribe to be a friend of the pod subscriber, cricket.com slash friends to our pro-democracy, independent media company, not owned by David Ellison and not run by Barry. and not under the thumb of Donald Trump. All right, let's get to the news.

We're all still tired from Trump's nearly two-hour state of the union address. And the president must be too, since the White House sent out their newly minted fraud czar, J.D. Vance, to amplify the speech instead of Trump. The VP announced on Wednesday that the federal government would unilaterally cut off $259 million in Medicaid funding for the people of Minnesota as collective punishment for some, individuals supposedly committing fraud. Vance then traveled to Wisconsin on Thursday to keep pushing the fraud message. Well, charming voters with his signature charisma. Let's take a listen. When you go to the polls in November, I don't want you to just think about all the great things that we've accomplished, all the great things that we've talked about. I don't want you just

to think about no taxes on tips and lower gas prices. I want you to think, who is going to protect my money from fraudsters? The job of your government is not to open. your borders and allow fraudsters to come in and take advantage of you, the job of your government is to shut the border and shut off the fraud. Kelly said that I'm the coolest vice president in American history, and I said, Kelly, that is a low standard. That is a very low bar, but I do think that I clear that bar. No, no, you did not, not even close. Did not clear the bar. I have a lot to say. I don't have to say it today. But at some point about, about, why J.D. Vance is an absolutely miserable presidential candidate, and the Democrats

should spend the next two years making sure that everyone understands what a fucking gooper he is. I mean, I don't think we have to work too hard at that. I don't think anyone needs a message memo or anything like that. I think we just need to make sure everyone sees him. Right, but we have JD Vance. We, that's right. We have to, we have to show people J.D. Vance. We have to, like, he don't even really have to memeify him because he is a walking meme. Like the, the, the, J.D. Vance meme is actually cooler than the J.D. Vance himself. But it's just, it is, like, he makes Ron DeSantis look smooth. Also, leading with his chin a bit there on, you want to think about who let the, who let the fraudsters in? I don't know, there's a couple in the White House. One or two? There's some, the president has actually

been convicted of fraud. Many, many times, yes. He's been convicted of fraud. He has been accused of fraud. many fraudsters in the administration. Yeah. He's pardoned the bunch of frauds. He's pardoned the bunch of fraud. J.D. Vance himself is also a fraud. Donald Trump is actually just stealing taxpayer money himself, just suing his own government and then deciding in favor of himself,

both in the, he's going to try this with the IRS. He's trying this with the DOJ. So he's stealing some money. He's pardoning some fraudsters. Lots of people who've bilked a lot of Americans out of a lot of money. Now we'll not have to pay restitution because they got a pardon from Donald Trump because they paid for. it. Fraudsters. It does seem like they are gearing up to make this whole election about fraud.

What do you make of that? What do you make of that? Are we just, are we taking this too lightly? I don't really know, John. I would say, in preparation of this pop, which I was to take deadly seriously, I went back and read the state of the union because I couldn't watch it again. It is less coherent in written form by far. And the fraud section is particularly incoherent. It starts with Somalia, goes to Minnesota, quick pivot to a tragic story about a car accident, then a new policy proposal on commercial licenses for undocumented people. And that's the whole thing. That's the narrative.

That's the message. Well, it does show that they are, they're really trying hard to combine the anti-immigrant agenda with, or conflate, not combined, with fraud, right? And so they know that people don't like their tax dollars being wasted, particularly on government programs that aren't going to people who actually deserve them. And who deserves them less than murderous immigrants who are here illegally? Yeah, I mean, I guess I kind of sort of understand what might possibly resemble a strategy here, which is to basically take Ronald Reagan's welfare queen strategy of the 80s and then marry it

with immigration. but it's not to mean down in a particularly coherent way. And it's not, most people don't really know what they're talking about. Those are things that are not necessarily connected to each other. It's more sort of like, and you can really see this when you read the speech. It is just a series of comments on viral stories in the right wing media stitched into a speech masquerading as something of a message. And this is one of them right. They're fascinated by it.

Nick Shirley was at the state of the union, I believe. The guy who originally had the report. the reporting, and I'm doing air quotes for the audio listeners about this. And so I don't, it, this is, I get, they don't have a particularly strong hand to play. I don't think this is better than the other things they're doing. But I think this is probably something that J.D. Vance wants. I think that's why Trump gave it to him. I think that's why he's here.

I don't think he, maybe he thinks it's good for the Republicans, but I think he thinks it's probably good for himself because the, like, the Minnesota fraud, immigrant fraud, like bullshit narrative if they spin is a thing that. excites the right-wing media people and the far-right podcasters and magot types that D.D. Vance is trying to persuade to be on his side in presidential race. So I think that's kind of how we got here. Yeah, because I was going to say, I think the fatal flaw in their plan is they're forgetting that they're the ones in power that control the White House in Congress. And so if there are people who are worried that they are, their tax dollars are being wasted, and that's why

they can't afford anything, instead of just making speeches about. it, um, ostensibly, they would have the power to, um, make sure that people's tax dollars, um, are actually being used properly and that people can afford things. I mean, theoretically, I guess. It's not, it's not Joe Biden in the White House anymore than I'm running against him. It's that they are the ones who there. They've had a year now. Later, J.D. Vance said to the pool, like, uh, I think he said something like some of the stuff, some of these economic policy, it just takes a while to work through the system. I heard him say, somewhat was it, someone said the other day, some Republican, that

once the plants are built and the people start working, then we'll see the golden age. Once the plants are built, what are they building? I don't know. He said, JD Van said to the bull, some of this is that the policies we've already put in place take a little bit of time to work their way through the system. Is the car in the ditch,

John? Don't start with the car in the ditch. That was our midterm message in 2010. Did not work. We lost 63 seats. Did not work. You know, I never liked a car in the ditch, and I didn't know that Obama didn't know that I didn't like it. But then he wrote in his book that I looked at him like I hated it.

And I was like, I guess I did not have a good poker face on that one. But also, it was terrible. And it got longer with every speech because it was a very elaborate metaphor, which with every speech, there would be a new element of how the car got in the ditch, how the car was getting in the ditch, how dirty the ditch was. By the way, in case you guys missed this part back in 2010, the Republicans are the ones who drove the car into the ditch. And now, and we're trying to get the car out of the ditch. It's not out yet because our policy is taking time. Right, but we want to put the car in drive to get out of the ditch,

and the Republicans want to put it in the R to go back into the ditch. That was, like, I could, that was where he lost me, because that was a Tom Dashel, Evan Buy classic, too, the DNR. That's a, that's been said by one million Democratic politicians at Jefferson Jackson and dinners for 50 years. Not our, not our greatest moment. You should probably end up this part out of the podcast, honestly. No, no, I think we should keep it in. I think, well, J.D. Vance had something similar today, which is he's like, Democrats talking about affordability is like, you know, the arsonist talking, the arsonist complaining who burned down the house or something like some dumb shit like that.

So, anyway, bad cliches, bipartisan. Why do you think they're having Vance out there doing this instead of Trump? this is really a great question because normally the president goes out the day after the State of the Union does a bunch of events. You know, we'll often travel for the whole week of the State of the Union back in, you know, in a different media age, they travel for two weeks. It's just Donald Trump loves attention. Like I'm sort of mystified by this.

He loves attention. You are guaranteed to get attention the day after the State of the Union. My only guess is he's tired. Tired and busy planning war, maybe. Yeah, either we are, we are undertaking. at least one and maybe two wars in the coming days. Yeah, could be that. But I don't think that's it.

Because I don't think he would. Some of the bigger war mongers in the administration are like happy to get J.D. Vance out of there because J.D. Vance in some instances doesn't, isn't as quick to go to war. You think they sent him to Milwaukee so that they can bomb around faster? That's a good thing. Who knows? Crazier things have happened. No, no, I'm not.

I'm not saying you're wrong. But he's, you know he's in a signal chat. So he could, he could respond. That's true. That's true. Well, it's not like he's making the decision in those signal chats anyway. He is, he speaks until. He speaks until Stephen Miller tells him to stop speaking.

Yeah, I don't know. Maybe he's tired. Maybe he just doesn't give a shit. Or maybe that speech was so long. Even Donald Trump is sick of hearing Donald Trump talk. I mean, that would be something. That would be something. As for the State of the Union itself, we don't have final numbers yet, but it looks

like ratings were down from last year, about 12%. Regardless, the White House and some Republicans are excitedly telling reporters the speech was a home run that will reverberate through November. Here's two representative headlines, one from Politico, the so-to moment that Republicans hope saves the midterms. Wow. And this is one from the Washington Post. Republicans think they laid an immigration trap ahead of the midterms. These headlines are referring, of course, to this moment now captured in a Republican Super PAC ad.

If you agree with this statement, then stand up and show your support. The first duty of the American government is to be. protect American citizens, not illegal aliens. These people are crazy. You got us. And with the old Republicans are for you. Democrats are for them. They're reprising the 2024 message that, you know.

So we were, I know I was, I rather cavalier about this moment when we did our post-state of the Union response pod. were we two cavalier? Is this the magic bullet that's going to save the midterms for the Republicans? I'm actually more cavalier today than I was on Tuesday night. More cavalier. More cavalier. After having seen that ad, it shows why the idea that this is some moment that is going to shape the midterms is idiotic. It is pure stenography from reporters talking to Republican operatives. It doesn't translate into an ad. That ad sucks. It's not really clear what's happening. No one knows the context for it. And even if they,

did, it would not matter that much because this is not Donald Trump of 2024. This is Donald Trump of 2026 when his immigration approval rating is 12 to 15 points underwater. He is not the efficacy of a message is intrinsically tied to the credibility of the messenger and Trump and the Republicans no longer have credibility on immigration. Democrats don't either. Like now we're almost basically tied between with Trump on who you trust in immigration. But that's a gigantic win for us compared to previous years. And so this is not going to matter in any way, shape, or form. I don't care.

It is a dumb person's idea of a clever idea. And it is just like it's not, it's really not a thing. Yeah, I was trying to think about it just to sort of. I really tried for your. I did too. Well, and a few people, like, oh, was it smart? Ask me genuinely. Like, was it smart that he did that?

Or was it weird that the Democrats didn't stand up? And again, it's like, like you said, maybe. it makes people, some people, I guess, think, well, what are Democrats up to? I don't know about that. It does not help Donald Trump at all. It does not, because that's not what people, people are angry about ICE. Again, he did not say ICE once during the whole speech. It wasn't a stand up and show your support for ICE. That's for sure. I also think that most people see, I think you can see through the obvious setup here. I mean, even the, if you agree with this statement, stand up and show your support. Like, yeah, so, you know, Democratic president could have been like, if you agree with this statement, stand up and show your support. The first duty of the American government is to protect American citizens, not Jeffrey Epstein and Donald Trump.

Oh, Republicans didn't stand. I mean, that actually, you know, Republicans. That would have been a good idea. I'm scared. You know Republicans wouldn't stand for it. They wouldn't be able to stand, right? No, I mean. And then what would we be led to believe that they want to protect pedophiles?

I mean, wait until you put it in a mediocre ad. Also, it's like, of course the Democrats didn't stand. Of course they weren't going to stand for a bunch of shit. He tried to arrest several of them in the audience. What are we doing? This is not a normal state of the union. You're not going to stand for this shit. It's the whole thing.

The conversation around it is stupid. It really is Republicans desperately trying to spin something, spin a fine day win in this really incoherent speech that was terrible politics. never other way she'd perform. And some credulous reporters kind of like giving them a place to air their last hopes and dreams for the midterms. Of course the government's first priority

is to protect American citizens. Obviously it's the highest priority of the American government. Obviously we know that. This government hasn't even done that. It killed two Americans citizens. Exactly. In the service of trying to go after undocumented people,

it killed the sort of quasi the service of trying to do that. It shot and killed two Americans in the street and then lied about it. It is illegally detained, the government has illegally detained, at least 170 American citizens. Those are just the ones we know about. And that was as of October of 2025. And so that was before Minnesota.

It's probably a lot more now. So they have locked up American citizens in jail illegally for weeks at a time and horrifying conditions, killed to American citizens. Yeah, I don't think their priority is protecting American citizens. I don't think you wouldn't believe it either. Here's another related headline that I want to ask you about, Dan, from The Daily Beast. Stephen Miller melts down an eight-hour Twitter beef with John Favaro. My question to you is, do you feel pride, shame, or pity? I want to talk to you about this.

I want to talk to about this. I think I don't want this to come across as an intervention because it's not yet. I don't want it to come across as me being critical of you because I'm not. I'm genuinely inquisitive. I just want to say that the photo of me and the piece, the caption is John Favro got embroiled in an eight-hour social media spat with Stephen Miller. Not a great look for the host of Offline. No, I would, as I try to tell you, you need to start telling people that Offline's title is ironic at this point. Always has been. Always has been.

It didn't start that way. you were genuinely concerned about people being online and the product of doing that podcast for years was being more online. But here's the thing. We were in the White House. I once told Barack Obama that you had the most common sense of anyone on his team.

And that if we brought an idea to you, because sometimes, like, an idea would form in meetings. And the end execution of that is always a speech. And then, like, me or Axelrod or David Plyde go to your office and we would say, John, here's the idea. And you would always be mad that someone that's signed a speech about it, which was a very fair

point on your part. But if you thought the idea was crazy, I would really question whether, like, I was like, oh, that's a good, that's like a good check. And I generally think you have excellent judgment. So what is going on here? I feel great about this one. I'm not just in general.

Let's like, you are, you wake up in the morning and you're on a mission for Twitter fights with certain people. And I know you are because you're tagging them. Like, you don't have to tag them. No. Okay. Sometimes I do. I did not tag him at all on this. You quote tweeted him in this case. Yeah, quote tweeted him. It was about the topic that we're discussing now. And specifically because he tweeted, and this was he tweeted on the night of the state of the union. An insane tweet. That the seat of Democrats and the the operative line here is it was a moment that chills to the bone which will live for a thousand years.

Yeah, I mean, that's an insane. So it's like, okay, if you're good. So I, as we all heard that night, thought that the whole thing is a little bit ridiculous. And so I quote tweeted that and said, I think it's genuinely funny how hard they're all trying to make this a thing. And like I just used Miller

because he was the most ridiculous one. And then, you know, then he replied to me Wednesday in the afternoon and said, you know, Democrats leapt, clapped hollered, And hollered and cheered for raising taxes, but their legs, hands, and voices, frozen, icy contempt as they glowered at the parents of slain children. So that's what he said back to me. Then it just, you know, when he tweets back, what do you think I'm just going to leave it there?

No, no, I understand. The most powerful government official, more powerful than any of the cabinet members, tweets at me. What am I supposed to just sit there? And he's also the most repulsive. if he was out there running, if he was the face of the midterms, I think we would all be quite happy. Is that your strategy to make him the face of the midterms?

To use your Twitter account to do it? Have I not said on this podcast that if Donald Trump loses the midterms, that it's going to be the fault of Stephen Miller? Which was such a great point that you then made it a message box. I credit you for it. You know, you did.

I know you did. But so, yeah, that was, that is my strategy. And look, I think when, I think when I told him I found him, He thought that I found the whole thing funny, and I told him I found him hilarious. And then he told me that I was a textbook sociopath, which is, you know, again, leading with the chin. And then he asked if I have, if I have any, if I, if I grieve. It's it, you agree.

He asked if you grieve for the families and you said, I grieve for your family. He said, John, one more time, do you grieve for these families? And I told him I certainly have sympathy for his. Yeah. I just, how did you feel like in general? at the end of these Twitter battles, do you feel fulfilled, happy? Do you feel like you accomplished a goal? Like, because I think you have a goal here.

Yeah, my goal was to, well, he didn't, he has not responded because I asked him. I, I said, I, I, I grieve for anyone who's lost anyone. Like, of course I do, because I'm not a fucking textbook sociopath. And why hasn't the president called the families of Alex? It was a great tweet. Or Renee Good. We were in a meeting together. I was sitting in the meeting.

you were on your phone typing a tweet. I was on my phone looking at Twitter and I saw your tweet. Sorry, Pratside America Production Team. But let me ask this other question because many people have asked me this. Because people bring up your Twitter fights to me a lot. Sure, sure.

How does your wife feel about this? Not as great. Yeah, that was the question. That was the question. Because my wife is not married to you, but likes you a lot. She does not feel great about it either. No, Emily thought it was,

I got home. I sent her the whole exchange ahead of time before I got in the car to go home. And then when I got home, she's like, first of all, a little nervous again, another fight with Stephen Miller. I don't know if I liked this that much. She's like, but I did laugh pretty hard at the sympathy for his family. She's like so good. There are some that I like, whatever, I forget what we were fighting over. I fought with Megan Kelly about something a couple months ago. Several times you brought Megan Kelly. And I left that when I'm just like, what was the use of that? Because it's like, like, who cares?

It's Megan Kelly. So that kind of shit, I'm like, yeah. Any fight that I've ever gotten in with J.D. Vancer, Stephen Miller, feel great afterwards. Okay. Look, if you were finding personal fulfillment here and you end this happier, because, like, time is not a renewable resource. Other right-wing influencers, you should stop me. Not so much, not great. High-ranking White House officials.

As long as you feel fulfilled, then I am okay with this. Because everyone needs a hobby, and if this is your hobby. I wouldn't say it was as fulfilling as, like, then going home and hanging out with my fans. family. Of course not. Finally going to bed early for one night. You know, those things were much more fulfilling. Generally, you do these Twitter fights on work hours.

I don't like, you're not doing it from the zoo with your children. So I think that's a positive. If that starts, we should have another, we'll have another on-camera intervention here. Anyway, still waiting for Stevens' response. When is the president going to call? Because I thought he grieves for American citizens. And I thought that the government's first role is to protect American citizens. but apparently it is not.

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Yeah, what is that? It's war. It's war, Dan. Real estate bozos, Steve Whitkoff and Jared Kushner met with Iranian officials in Geneva on Thursday to Naguob. a new nuclear deal and possibly stave off military intervention. Spoiler alert didn't go well. No agreement was reached after the first day of negotiations. This comes after Politico reported that the administration is toying with the idea of having

Israel, not the U.S. military, launched the first strike against Iran. Why? Here's what a source familiar with the discussions told Politico. Quote, there's thinking in and around the administration that the politics are a lot better if the Israelis go first and alone, and the Iranians retaliate against us and give us more reason to take action. I don't know. What do you make of the White House wanting to use American lives as bait to sell the rest of the country on a war with Iran? It seems like it should be a gigantic scandal that they would like to do this.

It seems like it should be a big deal. It's not. There's a lot happening today. It's not to even make the A block of this podcast. It came, I literally came after an online feud you had. About the state of the union. It was an offshoot. Yeah, I understand.

There was a reason it fell out of the way it did in the lineup. But it does speak to how impossible this war is to sell to the American people, that they cannot do it in any sort of normal way. It's why they're not even trying to do it. So that they're so desperate for a rationale for a war that the neocons of which are, Trump is not one of them, apparently, have wanted for decades and decades and decades. They're so desperate for that to create a pretext for this war that they are, that they are, one of the ideas on the whiteboard is let's get, let's get it some Americans killed so that Americans will be mad and want to go to war with Iran. Seems bad. Let's, yeah, I mean,

let's let Israel go first. So, because again, the Israeli government, very popular here. Let's let's let the Israeli government go first. And then Iran will retaliate and what? Maybe hit an American military base, I guess. And, you know, we're hoping that our defenses will hold and no one will get hurt. But, you know, who knows? Because maybe if an American service member is killed or wounded, then American people will be like, well, Iran attacked us and killed Americans. And so now we have to attack Iran.

And, like, honestly, the worst part of it is I could see it working. I don't think it would work. I really don't. I think that the Trump people think the American people are much, are stupid and they're not. If Israel attacks Iran and then Iran attacks an American base, I do not think the American people are then one to sign up for a protracted war in the Middle East. I certainly hope not. I was, I talked to about this earlier, but I think I can't remember which podcast I said this on, but, you know, the polling was at like 20% of American support any kind of action. against Iran. We talked about this in an actual private conversation that wasn't recorded. There we go. It's warm, wild. But then the CBS poll that dropped the day of the State of the Union asked it with, would you support military action in Iran to prevent them from getting a nuclear weapon?

And when you add a nuclear weapon, then it was 47% approve, 53% disapprove. So you can start, basically you can just start seeing their house of lies that they're building this case on. you know, ballistic missiles that may reach the United States soon. And, oh, now what if Iran attacks America as a retaliation for Israel? Oh, now, what if there's a nuclear weapon and they're a week away? Like, they're just, you know, it's all the greatest hits from Iraq without any of the effort, really. But, you know, everything's gotten dumber since then somehow. And the information environment's gotten a lot more awful. So. But the American people have gotten a lot more skeptical of foreign interventions.

And that question in the CBS poll, I think in people's minds is a military strike like Midnight Hammer, whatever we call it the other thing, not an actual protracted conflict that could cost American lives, could lead to attacks on the homeland or on Americans abroad,

could likely lead to a giant spike in oil prices and just general chaos in the world. And just remember, this is a president at 38% approval who is underwater on every single issue, including national security and foreign policy, who may launch United States into a war. He has not explained to a single person why it's happening. And so I just think there's people do not want to go to war and they really don't want Donald Trump to take him to war. Yeah, that's true. All right, I'm holding out hope.

Holding out hope. Although, I mean, I guess hope for public opinion. I mean, by the time you're listening to this. By the time you listen to this, it is quite possible that the strike happened because the gating issue was they were going to get through these talks on Thursday. We're recording this on Thursday. The talks are over. So at any point, something could happen. I would not be surprised if it happened over the weekend or overnight. We don't know. Yeah. So House Democrats are also planning to hold a war powers resolution vote next week that would force the president to seek

congressional authorization before carrying out any military strikes in Iran. Democrats already have the support of Thomas Massey, who sponsored the bill with Rokana. And on Thursday morning, Representative Warren Davidson, a Republican from Ohio, threatened to support the resolution if the White House didn't brief Congress on its justification for the war. The White House, unsurprisingly, is already whipping votes to defeat the resolution. And I think we, Democrats have already lost at least Josh Gottheimer and Jared Moskowitz, I think, on this one. So, you know, I don't think we have the votes currently, but I don't What do you think? Do you think Democrats, there's a chance that Democrats can get enough votes to pass this thing?

I don't know. I think it's hard for Republicans to vote to him in the president on a national security issue. So we'll say, I do, you guys got to rant about this on Tuesday. I would like a, I like to reclaim my time for a second. Please. Yes, go. What Jared Moskowitz and Josh Godheimer are doing here is disgusting. Even if you believe against all evidence that Iran, is an imminent threat to the United States that demands military action, the idea that you would let this president, this corrupt tin pot dictator surrounded by Yahoo's, including a military commanded by a Fox news host, who's drunk, who's with a reported drinking problem, maybe, wage war in Iran without going to Congress that you would give up your responsibility,

your power to try to influence how that war would take. place because you want to show yourself to be tough on Iran or friendly with Israel or whatever else is just, it is immoral, it's unpatriotic. It is truly, truly disgusting. Like, we can disagree about the merits of military action in Iran. You cannot credibly argue that Donald Trump, without Congress on his own, should unilaterally launch a war with Iran. That is an insane position for a Democrat. Like, I think striking Iran and a war is insane. Yes.

But like, let's say that you just genuinely believe it's the right thing to do, right? Well, then, like, what are you afraid of taking it to Congress where you work where you have been elected to represent people and having the debate there and making a decision as a Congress as the Constitution intended? Yeah. All that war power's resolution is doing is saying Donald Trump has to come to Congress first. There is not, there is not an imminent threat here. And if there was, then the president has the power to act. But there is not one. We know this because Donald Trump told us quite recently that they obliterated the nuclear program in Iran.

And you can, I mean, you know, I yelled about this before, but you can tell that it's bullshit from the line in Godheimer's statement that it's like, you know, this, doing this would show, show weakness. What are we in fucking 2003 here? Yes. I mean, it's also like, Josh, you were there. You were, you were there. We went through this. He was on the Kerry campaign with me. We went through John Kerry voting for the fucking war in Iraq. Everyone gave President Bush the authorization for the same reasons. We don't want to, we don't want to him and the president. We want to give him the authorization for war. I mean, they, this isn't even that. This is like. If you want to vote to authorize the war, I think that is an insane position. But that is a vote. That is you putting your name in and saying, I support this. I, I'm giving my power from a co-equal branch to authorize this.

military conflict, to try to block the vote from ever happening to somehow burnish your national security bona fides is disgusting. It's insane. I do not understand it. Well, Dan, good news. Sometime in the near future, our government's wars of choice may not require humans to fight them. I talked about this on offline last week, but the Department of Defense is threatening Anthropic because the AI company won't let the government use Claude, their AI model, for mass surveillance on Americans or for firing weapons without human involvement. Axios reported on Wednesday that the Pentagon has taken its first steps toward designating Anthropic a, quote, supply chain risk, which would mean that no company that works with

the Department of Defense could also work with Anthropic. The Pentagon typically reserves the supply chain risk penalty for companies that are based in countries that are U.S. adversaries like China's Huawei. Even more alarming. Elon Musk's XAI signed to deal with the Department of the Defense this week that agreed to the standard Anthropic rejected. So the government's murderous surveillance drones may someday run on grok. And Anthropic in a statement, right, as we were starting to record, said that they are in good conscience cannot agree to this. And so they're holding strong. Dan, is this what people voted for for, uh,

murderous surveillance drones that can run on the rock. To be commanded by Pete Higseth? No, I don't think as people voted for. I mean, this should be honestly one of the biggest stories in the country because it tells us two things. One, it speaks to all of the massive ethical and policy dilemmas that come with the very rapid emergence of AI. It also reveals that the Department of Defense, because I will call it that, not the Department of War, under Donald Trump, would like the power to do mass domestic surveillance. And then just on top of that, at the same time this story that comes out, that what they want, they want, like the Department of Defense argues, we want Anthropic to let us do everything

we're legally allowed to do. There are only two rules from Anthropic here. No mass domestic surveillance and no autonomous weapons that don't involve humans actually mean the ones to make decisions. The latter is technically legal, although quite a question. irresponsible and I'll get to why it's even more dangerous at a second. But mass domestic surveillance, not legal. And like, why do they want that? Like, there should be some follow-up questions on that. Well, well, I'm sure. I'm sure it's only going to be mass domestic surveillance

if they, you know, go to the FISA courts and they get Article III courts and they get the warrants, like, properly because that's how they've been doing things in the Trump administration and then also that's also not mass. Right. Those are individual, individual things. Although, obviously the Bush administration did do it with metadata. a very high, high level, and that continued for many years after that. But the other thing is, there's this study that came out the other day where they were having all of the AI models play war games against each other. And the big takeaway was AI models are very quick to use tackler nuclear weapons in war games. Yeah, I mean, because they're not hindered by the moral

qualms of it. And it is a way, like it is the fastest way to domination. And this is like the big takeaway is that this is what they do. And now we want to give them the keys to the arsenal. Like it just, it is insane. Also, just on this, it's not just Pete Hexad is such a fucking moron in the meeting with the CEO of Anthropics the other day. He threatened him with two things when they refused. One was what you mentioned, blacklist and the supply list.

The other one is that they would use the Defense Production Act who sees control of Anthropics the AI model. Now, those things are in complete conflict with each other. If you are subject to a Defense Production Authorization Act acquisition, it's because what you have is so essential national security, the government needs it right now. And the other one in the blacklisting is that you're so dangerous that no one who does business that you can be in contact with the government. Yeah. Yeah, I don't know that consistency is what they're going for. But this is just a, like, this is the future we are living in. And like, I don't think any of these AI companies are covered in glory.

You know, Anthropic to their, I would say, limited, to their credit in this instance. But Anthropic exists. And I just read an incredible book about this called Emperor of AI. Anthropics, which is about Open AI. But Anthropics exist because the CEO and the heads of Anthropic and that team left Open AI because they thought Sam Altman was abanding the original mission. of Open AI, which was to guard against risk. Now, they have also commercialized and running a $380 billion company right now,

but there are a lot of other people who are going to do, like Elon fucking Musk who are going to do the things the Anthropic will not do. I know, and we were talking about this. Like, you could, I mean, Anthropic could be the best actors ever, right? Just in a pretend scenario, that they're only out there, they don't even care as much about making money

and they're only there for good. The people who gave them $380 billion, dollars probably hope they care about making money. But I'm saying like just for the sake of argument, the problem is like we're in a very competitive environment and a free market system and there's going to be other companies and there's good and like whether they're U.S. companies or bad actors overseas and foreign whatever they may be, someone's going to figure out a way to do this, which is why you can't just fucking make a bet on a company being made up of good people. You have to fucking regulate

it, which this administration is not doing. Like there is there is no scenario here where it is not absolutely necessary to regulate artificial intelligence. There's just no scenario. And with statutority, with statutes, with legislation. Like, yes, the administration whose current philosophy is no regulations at all, and they're trying to ban regulations at the state level. But Congress needs to get involved here. And that is dangerous because most of them are still using their AOL accounts. But like, it just, you need, like, the fact that AI cannot do mass surveillance and automated weapons should be in law. Like, that's something that should be in law and written in a way that prevents it. So it's not up to the goodwill of CEOs of billion, multi-billion

dollar companies to hold the line against this. And the only, the only sliver of good news here is that they, they can't, they can't automatically fire the weapons yet. They're not, that is, they don't have that capability yet. I think they don't have the mass surveillance capability yet either, but they're, you know, they're all pretty close. But they are using AI to go through intelligence and do decision-making matrixes. God knows when Elon Musk get the X AI on there, but, you know, I'm sure that could be greenlit by Donald Trump any day now. Yeah, well, it's too busy making sure that AI can undress images of random people online.

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Sign up to get 10% off at betterhelp.com slash PSA. That's better, h-elp.com slash PSA. All right. We should also talk about the latest developments in the Epstein's case. Man, what a pod this is. Honestly, now I'm sort of regretting spending 7-8 minutes on your Twitter habits. Apologies to listeners. which is in the news today because the House Oversight Committee took a field trip to Chappaqua, New York for a closed-door deposition with Hillary Clinton.

Bills is scheduled for Friday. Hillary said she had no memory of meeting Epstein, no knowledge of his crimes, and briefly paused the deposition at one point after Lauren Bobert snapped a pick and leaked it to Benny Johnson because, of course, Hillary later came out and told the press the same thing that she said in her statement. but that also towards the end of the deposition, they started asking her about UFOs and Pizza Gate. So that's how the Republicans were using their time in Chappaqua. Stay tuned tomorrow for part two with Bill Clinton. But the much bigger Epstein news this week is that Trump's Justice Department appears to have removed FBI notes from three interviews

that agents conducted in 2019 with a woman who accused Jeffrey Epstein and Donald Trump of sexually abusing her in 1983 when she was just 13 years old. We know this because the DOJ did release the FBI's initial interview with the woman, where she only accused Epstein of abusing her in that initial interview, and because they released a summary of the allegations against Trump that just happened to be in an FBI presentation about the Epstein files from last summer, allegations that were also referenced in an evidence list the prosecutors provided to Galane Maxwell's attorneys, which was also released on the DOJ website.

So the existence of those two documents reveals that there were these three interviews that the FBI conducted with the woman where she had made allegations against Donald Trump. But the notes for those three interviews have disappeared from the website. This was first reported by the journalist Roger Sullenberger and then confirmed by NPR and other outlets. On Wednesday, the Justice Department said it would take another look to say, see if any documents were improperly tagged and will release anything they find that falls under the requirements of the law. On Thursday, Oversight Chairman James Comer said the committee would be looking into it as well. What do you think, Dan? It's just pretty stunning. What are the odds that the documents would be mislabeled would be the ones that included allegations about Donald

Trump? Just like what are the odds? What are the odds? What are the odds? Also, what are the odds that they are still incompetent enough to leave a couple documents in there that reveal the existence of these allegations. We are dealing with criminals. We are not dealing with criminal geniuses. Yeah. It is like this is the thing that people said about the EFSIN files, which is, you know, it's very possible or real that Pambani, Cash Patel, some other person who works for Trump could go in there and take out the Trump stuff. And people kind of said, that you, that's crazy. That's conspiracy theory. It was like, this is, these guys, and cheat in every way, shape, or form, and they did it here. They're just really bad at it.

But if they were slightly better, if they had, like, third grade competency and criminality, then, like, no one would ever know this happened. Yeah. And it's, the documents are currently not, we don't know where they are. And I think, uh, the oversight ranking member, Congressman Garcia went to go find him, hasn't, hasn't seen them yet. Um, like, have they been destroyed? Like, these are fair questions to ask. Yeah. It also seems like this one is, uh, not going. going away because you assume that the victim is out there, the person who made the allegations. She also made allegations against Jeffrey Epstein. They're more substantiated than the allegations against Donald Trump. We should say, of course, they're unsubstantiated so far. But like,

you have to imagine she's out there. Her lawyers are out there. People who know her out there. People who conducted the interviews are out there. People who, yeah, the FBI agents are probably out there. Right. So it's like, I don't think this is, I don't think it's the last we've heard of this one. Like, this is just, it speaks to the volume of insane news in Trump's presidency that we have talked about a war with Iran. We have talked about a Fox News host defense secretary trying to use killer robots. And now we are talking about a potential, like the Department of Justice going illegally. This is illegal what they did if this was done intentionally. Illegal.

It violates the law that was passed requiring disclosure. of the records, went in to illegally hide, steal, or destroy records that implicate Donald Trump in a child sex trafficking ring. Like, that is what it is. Like, whether those allegations are real or not, we don't know. But the cover up, the attempt to protect him from those allegations is a massive, massive scandal. Also one that, like, this was known. The NPR story hit the day of the State of the Union.

because we first talked about this on Jimmy Killal Live. Yeah. Because there was a question about the Epstein files. And so we brought it up there too. But like, it's wild. And then the whole state of the union happens and we're just like, okay. That's so true of like so many other things. Like, I mean, there's just a different world with a different president of the different

media environment where this is all we've talked about for a year and a half now, every single day. Yeah. I mean, it is wild that, I mean, it's still in the news. I mean, it is a gigantic scandal, like you said. It is one of the few stories that has sustained itself for all these months. This all kicked off last summer, really. Yeah, for sure. So I know we've talked about Trump's plans to steal the midterms quite a bit recently,

but there's a new development on that front we should also mention. The Washington Post reports that, quote, pro-Trump activists who say they are in coordination with the White House are circulating a 17-page draft executive order that claims China interfered in the 2020 election as a basis to declare a national emergency that would unlock extraordinary presidential power over voting. So that's fun. One lawyer who's pushing the EO told the post it would empower Trump to ban mail ballots and voting machines, among other things. So they're going to use this a fake finding that China interfered in 2020 to justify a national emergency to justify taking the power to run elections away from the states, which is, of course, constitutionally mandated.

How real do you think this is? And what's your gun? on how the court might respond? There are definitely lunatics outside the White House working on this. There are definitely lunatics inside the White House who are helping them do this. Whether Trump signs it or not, or actually comes out, open question. I really struggle to see what the legal basis for any of this is, right? As you mentioned, it's in the Constitution. They are, ironically enough, relying on the same statute that the tariffs were used for.

the emergency power statute, which has no specific discussion of elections or any of these things. There is no statutory power the president has, even in an emergency over elections. And there is no evidence of foreign involvement. This is based entirely on an intelligence report that Beijing considered but then decided not to get involved in the 2020 election. that's it. And also, the remedy for Beijing considering but deciding not to get involved in the 2020 election is to ban the mail ballots and voting machines. And the 2026 election.

There is some weird thing about how they were like a, like one of the conspiracy theories is they were going to make driver's licenses, fraudulent driver's licenses for people to vote by mail. But the point is, it makes no sense. I can't imagine like, you know, I don't put a ton of faith in the judiciary and the Supreme Court. but this seems quite like if you thought their interpretation of the law on the terrorists was absurd, this is like 10,000 times more absurd than that.

I agree with you. And if I were a conspiracy minded myself, I might say that one of the reasons that Trump flew off the fucking handle with that Supreme Court decision, why he was so angry at the Supreme Court and said such crazy shit, like they've betrayed their families and they're disloyal and other shit is because someone told them that that 6-3 majority in that case is probably what you'd get in a case where he tried to declare a national emergency and take over the elections. Yeah, that seems possible. If I was conspiracy-minded, I would also think about that. But you're right that like even if that wasn't going through

Trump's mind, I do think that the reasoning, if you look at that case, the reasoning that Roberts and Barrett and the liberals signed on to and Gorsuch and the liberals all signed on to is like it's like you can do major questions doctrine,

you can use president. Like there's there's just you can't, you can't usurp Congress's power that is prescribed explicitly in the Constitution with a fucking executive order just because you say there's a national emergency. Like that's why It's literally the exact same thing, right?

It's the same reason. Power to administer elections. In this case, states, you're taking power from the states, which is explicitly designated in the Constitution. You can't do that. You couldn't do it with the law. You can't do it with an executive order, just like the tariffs. Like, I think this is, like, what is more disturbing about this is the mentality and the

lengths to which this administration is willing to consider to try to avoid the, what they believe to be a significant ass whipping coming in November. Yeah, you can see why it's, yeah, you can see. why rigging the election feels important to them because here's Mike Johnson on Tuesday, threatening us with a good time. If we lost the midterms, heaven forbid. If we lost the majority in the House, it would be the end of the Trump presidency in a real effect. So we've got to keep it.

Hell yeah, it would be. If that is not in a D-Triple C fundraising video right now. I mean. And do not text me with it. Do not text me with it. If I get a fucking text, I'm going to say stop. So do not text me with a D-T-R-C. But if you put it in a YouTube.

Pre-roll, that's pretty good. How to fucking Republicans pitch every dumb reporter in D.C. That the moment of the Democrats sitting in the state of the union, it's going to save the midterms. And then they got the ad out already. And they got all the stories about the bullshit ad that's terrible anyway. And like, Mike Johnson says that. And we can't make something of that? Yeah.

Yeah. I mean, huh. Anyway, we also have a new Washington Post ABC News. Ipsos poll that found a 14. point enthusiasm gap working in Democrats' favor for the midterms. 79% of Democrats said they were certain they would vote in the midterms. Only 65% of Republicans said the same thing. That said, the generic ballot in this one is only a two-point Democratic lead.

Didn't love that part. But what do you think is going on here? Or do I have to wait till the next episode of Polar Coaster, because I am a subscriber, which you can be, too, at cricket.com.com slash friends. Actually, Jen, I hate to do this to you, which you have to wait to the next message box to come out, which you can be subscriber to at crooked.com slash yes, we did. There we go. Look, I think I'm not worried about the generic ballot in here. The generic ballot average is about six or seven, depending on which site you look at. But this is a, the post reveals what is obvious in the electoral data we've seen so far this year. Democrats are incredibly fired up. Republicans are depressed and swing voters are looking for Democrats. Like that, that is what we saw in that special election in Texas. And if you don't want to believe a post ABC Ipsos poll, just look at what's happening in Texas right now in the early vote. So there's a day or two left in early voting.

As of Wednesday night, in the Democratic primary, they have early votes cast are 163% of what they were in the 2022 election, Democratic primary. Now, you may say to yourself, I don't remember a particularly competitive Democratic election in 2020 in Texas. I don't either. But here's what I will tell you. There is an incredibly contested Republican primary happening right now, which has had tens of millions of dollars spent in the air. I think there's been, there might have been $100 million spent in that race already. And Democrats have cast, in Texas, a state Donald Trump won by almost 14 points. Democrats have cast 140,000 more early votes than Republicans as of Wednesday.

Do you think some of that is just behavior, like Democrats vote early in Republicans down there? Maybe. But the Republicans are also trailing their pace from, so you can look at this two age. The comparison of 2020 is instructed, right? Right. Right. So you can compare now to 2022, Democrats are doing well, their Republicans are not. Or you can compare Democrats to Republicans right now and Democrats are doing better. But even Democrats do better, it's a state with more Republicans. So they should be doing better and they are not. So Democrats are fired up. Like, we know Republicans are more same-day voters, all of that. But there is plenty of evidence that Democrats are very, very fired up. And that is good news.

Too big to rig. That's what we got to do. Just got to have more people, more people voting. So it's too hard to declare national emergency and take the voting machines. Sure. Yeah, that makes sense. You submit, oh, that's right. I forgot you said this. We need the voting machines to be so full of ballots that little Cash Patel can't carry them out of the Fulton County. Yeah, we did say that. Yes, that's right. Again, I forget what I say off mic and on. All right. Speaking of the midterms, when we come back from the break, you'll hear Tommy's conversation with Shelley Jackson about why we need to feel the Democrat in every down-ballot race, especially in states like Arizona, where we need to build more electoral power. We'll be right back. Pod Save America is brought you by Uplift Desk. John Tommy and I have uplift desks in our office, and we genuinely love them.

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this thing, it'll send you up into the ceiling panels if you're not careful. That's how quickly we're rising these desks these days. I don't know what they've done between V2 and V3. I guess I have V2. I think it's great. Yeah. It's like an AI model. It's just exploding in progress. Yeah, a lot of extra tokens now. Redesign feet and steel reinforces make this the most stable standing desk yet. Assemble in minutes, no stress, no mess. The new flex mount cable manager comes in every desk to keep cords hidden and tidy. Upgrade everything, speed, stability, ergonomics, and design. Ultimate customization options with the most extensive range of desktop styles and accessories in the industry.

We genuinely do have them and love them. They've totally made working at our desk better, like, all the time. I would say that we all sit after lunch. You got to be low after lunch. But then you get back up. You got to move. You got to change your vibe. You sound like Joe Biden there.

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For this exclusive offer, it's only available through our link, upliftdesk.com slash PSA. My guest today is doing absolutely essential work in Arizona, recruiting and supporting candidates for office. Shelly Jackson, welcome to Potta, America. Thank you so much for having me. I'm so grateful to be here. we are grateful to you for the work you're doing. So you have a lot to talk about. You ran for school board and you flipped a seat when you were 24. We need more people like you. Now you run an organization called Instituto, which is doing recruiting, training, ongoing support for people who want to run for office or who organize around really important issues. Instituto is also a key partner, I should say, for our friends over at Vote Save America, who launched this first of its kind candidate recruitment pilot program to get candidates to run for down-ballot races in Arizona, North Carolina. in Texas. Now, the filing deadlines in Texas and North Carolina have already passed, but in Arizona, I believe you have until March 23rd, if you want to run for office. So go to vote saveamerica.com slash run if you want to learn more. Also, I think the filing deadline is not yet passed in

about half of the country. So if you're listening and you're inspired to take the plunge, check out your deadline in your state. But let's start with Instituto. What are the gaps that you guys are filling to help candidates run for office and then more importantly to be successful? once they win. Yeah, I love this question. And yes, also shout out to the Vote Safe America team and the Pipeline Fund has been so incredible to have this partnership. Here in Arizona, a lot of the times when candidates are running for office and probably all across the country as well, they're doing it with very little support. They're going in, maybe excited to help their community, but don't know where to start and end up missing a lot of

gaps along the way. But aside from like the logistical pieces of running for office, for women, for people of color, there's also these pieces around funding, right? Having a support system that are also super essential to making sure a candidate can win and that they also have the morale they need to move things along the way. And so at Institute, though, we do a couple of things. We help identify candidates, so we are always on the search and we're always looking to find new people who want to get involved. And sometimes just tapping people on the shoulder is needed. A lot of the times people don't even see themselves as someone who can make change and even for myself, let me tell you, I did not have on my bingo card that I was going to run for office. Someone

asked me, and then they asked me again and again. And so being able to have someone actually tap you on the shoulder is super essential. So that's one of the things that we do is we just straight up ask people. And then after that, we are supporting them with training, making sure they have the skills needed to run, making sure that we're also talking through with them, how are you thinking about your finances? If you're running for school board, you don't get paid. If you're running for the state legislator, I believe the most they make is about 27,000. And that's a really hard job, right? So we have the conversations and we provide the resources for people to make informed decisions. And then once they get into office, we also have a co-governance fellowship.

And this really helps support the now elected thinking through what does it look like to govern, what does it look like to do this job well, and what does it look like to do it with community to make sure that we're also not moving on our own and being harmful once we get into office. That's great. I mean, so Turning Point USA is also based in Arizona. Folks probably heard of it. It's, you know, the organization started by Charlie Kirk. It funds a ton of grassroots youth activism to bring people into the MAGA movement. Now, obviously, I disagree politically with them on like everything, but I am very impressed by the work they have done. What kind of support do you think Turning Point is providing on the Republican side? that Democrats are missing on the progressive side.

Ooh, I love this question. Also, cringing at the fact that they started in Arizona. Don't love that. Yep, yep. But you know what? One thing I think that they are doing that we can think about more on our side is creating low barriers of entry. I think a lot of the times on our side, we start to do purity tests.

We start to create this really high bars just for people to get involved. And sometimes we just end up pushing people away instead of inviting them in. And I do think at Turning Point, they are on campuses. They are all over. And they're welcoming any and everyone. And then once they get into the door, I think they push them. I think they share this ideology and this narrative that they have. And the more people are there, the more they start to adopt it.

But I think sometimes on our side, we forget about that or we expect people to be at a certain place right away. and that's just not where most people are. That is such a good point about the barrier to entry, because in a lot of ways, the barrier to entry for a turning point event is like going to a big event that feels like a party where everyone is welcome and they bring you in this giant funnel

and then eventually they can try to get you to run for office or be an activist or whatever it might be. Now, Arizona is a really important swing state in like every single election. One would like to think that, you know, national Democrats, the National Democratic Party, maybe big donors are just chucking resources is that you guys, is that happening? Do you hear from like the DNC, Super PACs, anybody?

You know what? This year is actually really interesting in Arizona when it comes to the funds because this would be the first year, I think, in about 14 years that we haven't had, we won't have a Senate race, right? So for the last few cycles, we've had a really big top of the ticket race that has been helpful to garnering support. We know that when we get big funds like that, it really helps other candidates that are down ballot as well. But this year we don't have a Senate race or anything like that. So I think we are already starting to see some differences. The money is not flowing in the way that it has in the past. I'm still trying to hold out hope that it is coming and it is on its way because, as you know, we have other races that are still

important here in our state. Yeah, absolutely. So back to you. You ran when you were 24, you ran for school board. You flipped a seat. You said like, you know, you had to be asked and asked and asked and that's again, I mean, what made you want to run for office? And what did you learn from that experience that might inspire or just, you know, like inform listeners who are thinking about doing the same thing? Yeah. So you know what? I'm someone who never thought I was going to be in politics, in social justice. So I definitely never thought I was going to run for office. So we can just start there. I never saw myself like that. I grew up thinking I was going to be a nurse because my grandma was a nurse. I wanted to be just like her. And I got to my senior year of high school and

realize that I like taking care of her. I don't think I would actually like taking care of other people. Yeah, that's fair. Yeah. I get that. So I was in this crossroads, but I had a dance teacher who was like, look, Shelly, you've danced your entire life. Why don't you become a dance teacher? And I said, sounds like a plan. So I went to school for dance and dance education. And during that time, I actually had the opportunity to teach dance all over Arizona, working with an organization. And that was really eye-opening for me and was my entry point to really critically thinking about systems and resources. And I started to wonder why when I'm in Scottsdale or when I'm in Chandler, like these students get X, Y, and Z. But when I'm on the south side in the neighborhood I grew up in, we actually

don't have as much as many access as to after school programs or the arts or these other essential pieces that I was seeing in other places. And so that had already kind of like opened up my mind. And that's how I started to get into organizing. I was really lucky that a former teacher of mine at the time was now a state representative. And he had posted on Facebook one day, I'm looking for young black organizers to get involved. And I was like, I don't know what that means, but I'm there. And I started organizing on all the things. And so to fast forward, 2020 comes around.

It's the pandemic. Candidates all over are struggling to get on the ballot, right? Because in order to get on the ballot, you have to get signatures. A lot of the times people get signatures. People get signatures by standing outside of a grocery store, right? Asking, can you sign this thing or knocking on someone's door? But people didn't have the ability to do that because everyone was staying inside. So then we end up getting to a place in my district in Roosevelt where we had three open seats,

but only one person had actually made it on the ballot, which was just wild. So in that situation, people can now start to run as a ride in. And we, I didn't think anything of it. I was watching what was happening and I was hoping for the best. But what ended up happening was MAGA folks in our neighborhood said, hey, this is an easy way for us to be on this district. So they started running as writing candidates. And at the time, they were the only ones.

So we were going to end up in a place where we now had a majority MAGA district. And people started calling me. And I was ignoring their calls because I had a feeling. I had a feeling what they were going to ask. And then I started to answer. And folks kept saying, hey, we're in this moment. We need you. You're from here.

You taught in the district, right? You have an education background. And I said no. And I said no for a couple of weeks. And it really got to a point where I was like, am I going to be okay with whatever happens if I'm not there? Am I going to be okay with students missing out on more resources? Am I going to be okay with this ideology being pushed that's also going to show

are black and brown students that they don't belong in their own neighborhoods. And then I said, no, I'm not okay with that. And I finally ended up saying yes. So I'm really grateful that people kept pushing me. And we were able to do really great things. Two years in, I became the board president. So I spent my last two years actually leading the district and working on the ground with really great people. But it was hard to see myself in that position because I had never thought of it for myself. To your point, I was also 24 years old. And I did hear a lot of rhetoric around, well, young people can't do this, right? Or we need more qualified people. But I'm lucky that I had finally got to a place of, no, me being young is exactly why I am

qualified, right? These are actually things that make me ready. They're not barriers to doing the work. That's an amazing story. I mean, yeah, I'm sure you've noticed that a lot of the elected Democrats are super old. They, a lot of them pay lip service to the idea of this next generation of leaders, but it's not clear they're doing much about it. What kind of things? What kind of things? do you think are keeping young people from running and like what do they need to get over those hurdles and take the plunge like you did? Yeah, you know what? I think that a lot of it is apathy. I think if you're a young person and you're looking at what's happening, you're kind of like, well, this is just how things are and this is how things have been in a really long time. And so

that may be a reason why folks don't even want to get involved, let alone running for office. I think something that young folks should remember is that if we see that we see, see things as they are as not working, it's because we're not at the table. Because the people who have been in office are the ones continuing to make the rules. And the conditions show that it's not changing material conditions for everyday people. The conditions show that cost of living continues to rise and that they need fresh voices, fresh people who are ready to provide a different perspective and like really shake things up. What I hope is that young people start to see their apathy as like a superpower. I don't think apathy actually has to mean we do nothing,

right? I don't think apathy means that we kind of just sit and watch things go. I think it's actually a nudge towards like I'm not feeling it. And in order to be able to have a different outcome, I actually have to do something and investigate what is that something? Is it running for office? Is it organizing? You know, is it joining a protest? That's great. I love it. Last question for you. So, you've done all this work, sort of finding these candidates, recruiting them, training them, helping them succeed when they get there. Are there any, like, stories or people you've met that really inspired you or that, you know, I don't know, maybe open your eyes that, like, about how different someone could be for running or, like, just like the range of places people are coming

from to run for office because of your organization. Yeah, so many amazing people that are coming up. One person that I want to highlight, that's not from this season, if you will, but has just won a city council seat. Her name is honor. I love it, this season. This season on running for office. Exactly. Exactly. I think a lot about Anna Hernandez.

She is someone who first ran for a state sentencing. It's a very Democratic district, but she had an incumbent who had been there for a really long time. But he was very status quo. He wasn't getting things done. He wasn't holding the line on different issues. And she came in. And everyone said that she had no chance of winning. And she won.

And she won by a lot. And while she was there, she led the charge against the abortion fight that we were having in the state of Arizona and was able to make a ton of different change. And now she's at the city council fighting. And she is someone who is loud. She's like super authentic. She brings her family everywhere. And I think it is just so beautiful to see. And I think so against status quo.

So I mentioned her a lot. But someone I actually want to highlight who's from the VSA program. She came through the pipeline. She heard you all on the podcast. podcast. And she said, oh, I'm interested. Her name is Caitlin. And she is from New York, now living in Arizona and has an education background and was watching what was seeing across the country on authoritarianism and the attacks on democracy, heard the podcast and was like, well, maybe I can do something about it. She reached out to our team. We had several conversations with her. And she shared

with us more about the district she was living in. She's in a school district where they have appointed a lot of seats. So that's a fun fact, right? People don't know that when there's not a seat, like let's say a seat goes uncontested or someone steps down from the seat, then someone else appoints that seat. And Arizona, specifically in Maricopa County, we have a county superintendent. Her name is Shelly Bogg's. I don't claim her. A different Shelly. It's spelled with the point. Okay. Not a fan. Yeah. Mind is spelled with the EY. But Shelly Boggs has been appointing Maga folks to school boards all across. the state. And so now she's in a district that's actually very blue, but a good chunk of her

school board members representing her are Maga Red. And so once she heard the podcast and talked to us, she actually decided, yeah, I can do this and I can change my district and I can put students first. And now she's running for office and we're really excited about her. God, I love that story. That is such a great story. And it's in your point about them appointing people to these seats if no one runs is why we have to run people everywhere in every election all the time, especially this year when Fingers crossed, things might go well. So again, if you're in Arizona, you still have until March 23rd. If you want to register, go to Votesaveamerica.com slash run.

Shelly, where can people learn more about Instituto or Chippen and help you guys out? Oh, that's a great question. So folks can go to instituteo.io to both donate and learn more about our trainings. Everything is on that website. And from there, let's talk. Let's figure out how we can get you running and support you along the way. Well, Shelly, thank you for the work you're doing. Thanks for doing the show.

and I hope to talk to you again soon. Thank you so much. I appreciate it. That's our show for today. Thanks to Shelley Jackson for coming on. If you're interested in running in Arizona, head to vote saveamerica.com slash run to get more info. I'll be back in the feed on Sunday with a conversation with Maine Senate candidate, Graham Platner.

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