Pod Save America - “A Picture Says a Thousand Crimes.”

Episode Date: September 1, 2022

The Department of Justice reveals more evidence against Donald Trump, Republicans try to run from their extreme abortion positions, Joe Biden caps off a big few weeks with a primetime speech, White House Infrastructure Czar Mitch Landrieu talks about the President’s infrastructure roll out, and Dan and Jon play another round of Take Appreciator. 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.

Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Jon Favreau. I'm Dan Pfeiffer. On today's show, the Department of Justice reveals more evidence against Donald Trump. Republicans try to run from their extreme abortion positions. Joe Biden caps off a big few weeks with a primetime speech. And former New Orleans mayor turned White House infrastructure czar Mitch Landrieu stops by to talk about how the president's infrastructure law is being felt in cities all across the country. Then, Dan and I brace ourselves for another round of Take Appreciator.

I was so ready for this. Me too, me too. But first, midterms are coming up, so we're drinking a ton of coffee. I don't know why I need the midterms for that. I'm drinking coffee all the time anyway. But with Crooked Coffee Your daily cup can fuel both you And your democracy

See how we did that Dan? See how we did that? You did something there, that's for sure Yeah, it's something Love it wrote it A portion of the proceeds from every order of Crooked Coffee Go to register her to register and activate Millions of women across the country to vote

We get a dark roast and a medium roast It it's delicious hot or cold in fact we just launched the cold brewer which is a fun and easy way to make great cold brew at home and it's sold out in two weeks because you guys are loving it you're loving the cold brew sold out can't get it but you can sign up to be the first to know when it's restocked at crooked.com slash coffee and while you're there you can grab a bag of coffee or two sign up for a monthly subscription to save 25% off your coffee delivery every month. Also, check out this week's America dissected where Abdul speaks with Atlantic staff writer Amanda Mull about which

sunscreens are truly protecting your skin, and why Americans have fewer good safe sunscreen solutions compared to people in other countries. I did not know that. You can learn more about this and listen to new episodes of America Dissected each Tuesday, wherever you get your podcasts. All right, let's get to the news. Dan, you've talked about how Donald Trump's legal strategy has been to flood the zone with shit,

and now Donald Trump is drowning in it. and now Donald Trump is drowning in it. The 2024 GOP frontrunner thought he could delay the Mar-a-Lago investigation by finding a Trump judge who would grant an independent review of the classified secrets he stole from the government. But his request triggered an incredibly damning 36-page response from the Department of Justice that laid out even more evidence of criminality. He's such an idiot. All right, so Trump apparently had three classified documents in his desk and more than 100 in his residence, some at the most highly classified levels.

And that was twice as many documents as Trump's lawyers turned over when they swore an oath that he didn't have anymore. The government also has evidence that documents were likely concealed and removed from the Mar-a-Lago storage room after the Justice Department had subpoenaed them and wrote in the filing that, quote, efforts were likely taken to obstruct the government's investigation. Even Fox and Friends' own Walter Cronkite has some questions about this. Let's listen. Well, ultimately, it comes down to why did he have all that secret stuff at Mar-a-Lago? You know, I know his team has said that they declassified it,

but that's news to the agencies that those documents belong to. And Governor, he had apparently three classified documents in his desk. And then the stuff, as Brian detailed on the floor, it shows five yellow folders marked top secret and another one with that says secret SCI, which means sensitive compartmentalized information. Those are the biggest secrets in the world. Why would he, and apparently the president, former president, went through them in January. Why wouldn't he say, oh, you know what? I really need to turn that back over.

Why'd he have all that stuff at Mar-a-Lago? Never said this before, but good question, Steve Doocy. He was interviewing Governor Kristi Noem of South Dakota, but you don't hear her answer because she just ran away from the studio. I mean, if you actually watch the video of it, she is trying hard not to laugh. It's so uncomfortable. She has this weird, shit-eating grin on her face because she knows this is a ridiculous question to which she can only give a ridiculous answer. But that is part of her job as a Republican governor is to answer, give ridiculous answers to ridiculous questions about Donald Trump. That's the gig. That is the gig. So what did you think of all this? What were

your reactions to the DOJ's latest court filing? Donald Trump and his lawyers are just walking through a field looking for rakes to step on. This entire special master thing is stupid and fake. It could potentially delay the investigation or charges, but ultimately it has nothing to do with the underlying, already proven multiple times charge that he took classified documents and then hid them from the government. Not only proven at this point,

Dan, admitted. He's out there truthing up a storm about how he had the documents. Yeah. This was so unnecessary. And it's like, he doesn't have real attorneys. His real attorneys are not trying to win a legal case. They are trying to take press releases, truths, and put them into legal motions. And then you have real skilled lawyers on the other side making a case. And this was such an unforced error from Trump's team because Trump was having, I would say, a modicum of success in the public arena, just spreading disinformation, flooding the zone with shit, as we would say, about all the various reasons that what he did was not illegal or it was a raid or all these other things.

And then by following this unnecessary, not particularly important special master motion, what happened was it gave the government an opportunity to lay out in explicit detail exactly what trump did wrong and he it makes it very clear that he is as you would as you said very vividly i think drowning in shit right now yeah it's a it's a it's a he flood the zone with shit and he is the flood victim at this point i I also, I mean, like, we learned a couple things from, it's so funny. Every time Trump tries to make one of these moves, we just learn more damning evidence from DOJ. personnel from opening or looking inside any of the boxes that remained in the storage room, giving no opportunity for the government to confirm that no documents with classification markings remained. So there goes his whole argument, one of many stupid arguments,

that they were cooperating the entire time. It's pretty clear that they were not cooperating. Not only were they not cooperating, but they were lying to the government and hiding things and attesting things that were false in written affidavits or in written statements that now is going to not only get Trump in trouble, but it sounds like his two lawyers. I feel like the TV lawyers who swore to the feds that there weren't any more classified documents might be in some trouble, huh? I am shocked that the former OAN anchor who was on television spreading dangerous and malicious conspiracy theories turned out to be the same person who would lie to the FBI on behalf of Donald Trump. I am shocked because usually you would trust the

integrity of these OAN anchors to stand by the truth because that's why they got into journalism to begin with is the truth. I mean, this does what I think this is another thing that, another question that appears to be answered by this filing is, I think you and I have speculated, Melissa and I speculated a little bit last week, is did these attorneys lie to the FBI, or did Donald Trump lie to his attorneys? And it appears from what the FBI is saying that they believe, based not just on what they found, but also what they may have seen on the surveillance tapes or from other witnesses, is that the attorneys seem to have known that Donald Trump was not turning over all of the documents. Which it was a major tell that they were like, don't look in this box. Hey, I'm looking for classified documents. The president owes us classified documents.

Can you please give us the classified documents? Yeah, look anywhere you want except right there in the box. Do not look. Do not look under my back. Secret stuff in here. I see Trump's still truthing that this is all fine because he's saying he declassified the secret documents that he lied about hiding in his basement. He's still going with this. You think that's any more likely to work now?

This is pretty interesting, I think, because this has been his core defense, but it could not be more flimsy. First, he is a president who was served by a staff known for their fealty to Trump and their willingness to lie for him. And not a single one of them has come out to even tell that lie publicly, even just in the court of public, just in the public arena. Second, in the photo that was included in the filing, all of the classified cover pages are still on the documents. All of the classified cover pages are still on the documents. Had they been declassified, it's likely they would no longer have the pages that said, don't read past this page if you do not have the qualifications for it. Third, in none of Trump's legal filings has any of his attorneys ever made that assertion because to do so would be a crime because it is not true. And then finally,

and I think most interestingly and most humorously in Trump's response filing last night to the one we were just referring to, his team said that the special master would need to have top secret clearance to read the documents. It's just the best part. it is the best part not only in the fight in the response to the filing did they not say the declassification defense which you of course would if you believed it to be true but you wouldn't want to if you're a lawyer putting it in a legal document because you could face consequences as a lawyer but yeah they said the special master would need a high classification, which is so funny.

Which is like, if the Trump judge at this point grants a special master, then like, yeah, they're going to have to have the highest clearance. And then fine, it'll delay it, but it's not going to help them at all, because they're going to find the same thing that the fucking government just found. The other really funny thing is, you talked about the picture. So yeah, so there's the picture of all the classified documents, the highly classified documents, and then the Department of Justice has the picture and has them all laying out on a floor. And Trump truth to response that he really thought that he got them on this one. But he also, he talked about this in an interview that he did earlier this

morning. Let's take a listen. A lot in an interview that he did earlier this morning. Let's take a listen. A lot of people think that when you walk into my office, I have confidential documents or whatever it may be, all declassified. But I had confidential documents spread out all over my far floor. And like a slob, like I'm sitting there reading these documents all day long or somebody else would be. It's so it's so dishonest when you look at it. And so people were concerned because they said, gee, you know, that's a strange scene. You look at the floor and you see documents, right? They have cover sheets of documents.

No, they put them there, John. You can accuse me of stealing state secrets. You can accuse me of hiding them in my beach house. You can accuse me of lying to the federal government and obstructing investigation, but don't you dare accuse me of being a slob. Not a person thought that. No one has even ever asserted in all of this that one of the reasons why he wanted them was because he was so interested in the substance. Trump was taking notes. I was like, I don't think there, I don't think there's a danger that Trump has taken any notes about anything. The guy doesn't read. He's not taking notes.

He knows how to use his fucking DVR. That's about it. To the extent there is writing in Donald Trump's hand on those pages. It is just like hearts to himself. It's like one of those notes to Jeanine Pirro. Do you love me? Like, I'm like very weird shit. But the other thing that is funny is like when you boil down that truth slash that interview, his argument is the FBI took the documents, the highly secret classified documents out of my unlocked desk drawer and

put them on the floor. To make me look bad. It's like, dude, that's not what's making you look bad. Stealing the secrets is what's making you look bad. No one's out there being like, if the guy had only had those in cartons, in boxes, it would be fine. But he's just, he's, it's really, I was actually sort of disappointed be fine. But he's just he's it's really I was actually sort of disappointed by his response because he's just it's very lazy right now. He's not even mounting a good a good defense. I think the other thing this does, by the way, is like the more the more the Justice Department releases of their evidence here and why they think that Trump may have committed a crime, I think the more difficult it is for them to not bring charges, honestly.

I mean, how do you decide at this point that this is what he has done is not criminal or does not warrant an indictment? I know we're not lawyers, but it's pretty cut and dry at this point. What is interesting, I'm going to put on my fake lawyer hat for a second here. Thank God. Thank God. Cause I left mine in the other room. You know what? Send that idea to the merch department. They go right next to the fueling our democracy coffee shirts. So is one way in which if, you know – and you and Tommy talked about this. Melissa and I talked about it as well.

Like was the FBI just trying to get the documents back because they thought it was a danger that these documents were in this unsecured place? I mean we just had this report of a foreign national pretending to be a member of the Rothschild family and just wandering endlessly through Mar-a-Lago. Or is there a possible criminal case here? And the Presidential Records Act is a law. It is a law that Trump has clearly violated. That is obvious. Presidential Records Act, for reasons I can't really explain, does not have an enforcement mechanism in it. Right. So I think it's like the Hatch Act. You just get a stern letter from an unnamed government bureaucrat. I don't know. But the DOJ has never in a single filing cited the Presidential Records Act as a reason that they needed the search warrant.

They wanted to get the documents as the basis of the investigation. It has always been the Espionage Act. This is – A law that does have criminal penalties. And this is what I think a lot of the Trump people, a lot of other people are just missing. And Charlie Savage at the New York Times, who's a fantastic reporter on all these issues, laid this out many weeks ago, which is like the whole classification debate Act is a law passed by Congress that says that you cannot be holding national defense secrets, whether they're classified or not. If there are if the government has these national defense secrets and you are mishandling them, that is breaking the law. So that doesn't have to do with the Presidential Records Act. That doesn't have to do with whether you're president.

You can classify some shit. doesn't have to do with the presidential records act that doesn't have to do with whether you're president you can declassify some shit that is a law passed by congress which is why it appeared in the search warrant also he obstructed there's an obstruction charge there and i don't know how they get around not not bringing the obstruction charge when it's when they keep saying in all these filings yeah we have evidence that there was obstruction unless it's just like the lawyers just get charged with obstruction and trump gets off i don don't know. I don't know. It's pretty, it's wild. I know we're doing take appreciators in a bit, but I just wanted to check back in and take your temperature on David Brooks's take from a few weeks ago that we talked about titled,

did the FBI just reelect Donald Trump? How are we feeling about that one? So we feel pretty good about our original take on that take? Well, I have a question for you to help us get to the answer to this. Sure. Do federal penitentiaries have a student government-like system? Like, could Trump run for president of the B block? Like, is that possible? He can run for president from jail. He can run for president of the United States from jail.

I looked this up months ago. It was terrifying. That is such a funny sentence. Some legal nerd, a couple legal nerds wrote about this somewhere because we've talked about this. It was like a year ago maybe at this point. He can even probably run for president from jail. I would actually like to talk to a legal expert about that. Luckily we have think you have to- Luckily, we have three of them on a Crooked podcast.

It's like a huge missed opportunity. They have a very popular podcast. Since I co-hosted this podcast with one of them last week, is I think in some states, like in New Hampshire, you might have to file for president in person. Yeah. Oh, that's interesting. Yeah. I don't know whether you can just get a proxy, but- Yeah. All kinds of legal questions. Melissa, Kate, Leah, we would love to hear your take on this sometime soon.

Just going to talk to you through this podcast. Okay, so, yeah, I don't think that Brooks' take was, I don't think it was right on the money there. I don't think this is helping Trump in any way. I don't think this is helping Trump in any way. But are you seeing any signs that this investigation is causing Republican politicians to rethink their undying loyalty to a twice impeached one term president who's the target of multiple criminal investigations? No, but it is. And this is a very enjoyable circumstance, making their defenses of him much more uncomfortable. making their defenses of him much more uncomfortable. It gets hard. It's like every day Trump through some sort of truth or, you know,

message communicated through his sock puppets, like Sean Hannity puts these Republicans out on a very thin branch. And then the department of justice and the reality just saw it off. Right. It is, it keeps happening. And again, so it gets harder.

And I think they're going to try to, I imagine that other than like the most fatuous MAGA fabulists, this would be most are going to try to avoid talking about this as much as humanly possible. Yeah. You don't think they're going to be hitting the campaign trail with this as a message? Yeah. It doesn't seem like the idea that the quote unquote raid has is going to be the rallying cry for the MAGA base. I don't think that's going to be what people are going to take to the voters this fall. In fact, you know, not only is Donald Trump a big problem for the Republican Party right now, their extreme position on abortion isn't sitting so well with voters either. So Republican politicians are doing what they do best, which is lying about it.

voters either. So Republican politicians are doing what they do best, which is lying about it. At least nine Republican candidates have removed or watered down references to Donald Trump or abortion from their campaign sites. So we're already seeing them. They're walking a little away from Donald Trump. They're not touting their embrace of Donald Trump on their campaign sites. And also they're trying to remove some of their extreme positions on abortion. Blake Masters, who called abortion demonic, removed language that he's 100% pro-life and supports a federal fetal personhood law. And he has walked back his call for a national abortion ban. Dr. Oz, the TV doctor who apparently doesn't know how TV works, has tried to waffle on abortion, but leaked audio from a campaign event in May has complicated that strategy. Let's listen.

I do believe life starts at conception. And I've said that multiple times. The heart starts beating at around nine weeks. So I was concerned that if legislators pick a time frame that's not medically accurate, it would invalidate the law. But also, if life starts at conception, abortion is murder under any circumstances that's what dr ross thinks even though he is now trying to waffle on that position. So do you think this strategy could work? And how can Democrats make sure it doesn't? to take away protections for people with pre-existing conditions. Some of those people lost, but a lot of them won. And it absolutely can work. We know that disinformation works. We know we live in a world where 70% of Republicans believe that the election was stolen. And the way we can fight back against it is we have to keep the pressure on.

Ultimately, politics is a battle for attention. It's a battle for garnering attention, but it's also a battle for focusing attention. Politics is a battle for attention. It's a battle for garnering attention, but it's also a battle for focusing attention. And right now, the public's mind is focused on abortion, Republican extremism embodied by the Supreme Court taking away constitutional right, and then the Republicans pushing these extreme positions. That could fade to the background over the course of the next 80-some days or whatever we have left unless we keep the heat on.

So I've been very, I think, pleasantly surprised at how intense Democratic messaging and advertising efforts have been on abortion. I looked at some of those ads with Melissa Murray for an episode of Campaign Experts React this week. They're spending a ton of money on the number one issue in all Democratic advertising, but we have to keep that up because if abortion fades to the background, the ability to flood the zone with shit, the real theme of this episode, could be more successful than it is right now. Yeah. And I do think the way to make sure that strategy works is like Blake Masters scrubbing his website like, hey, man, you know how the internet works? I mean, look, he's not really familiar with Silicon Valley or Internet, doesn't really know anyone who might be bankrolling his campaign who's Mark Zuckerberg's mentor. So it's understandable that Blake Masters wouldn't know.

Here was the website when he was running in the primary. And here's the website now. And he scrubbed it and it changed. And he's trying to run away from his position. And here's a recording of him calling abortion demonic. And here's the recording of Dr. Oz calling abortion murder. Like, I think some of them can try to run away from it. But the people who have said things in the past where you can see the writing on their websites in past versions, if you put enough money behind those ads and you put that in front

of voters, that's going to be really hard to walk away from. And then they're not just extremists, they're lying extremists, which is, you know, the truth. Yeah, I think one part of this that's important, and it's like a minor nuance to the messaging is focus more on the extremism than the lying or the hypocrisy. Because people expect politicians to be liars anyway yes exactly and just like that's it it doesn't like oh he tried to trick us well like no shit he tried to trick us he's kind of a disgusting human being but the point is what was he trying to trick us about yeah it's sort of like our uh tendency to to to go after hypocrisy arguments like yes oh you're saying this about us but you said this that that doesn't work you voted against the inflation reduction act and you went to a ribbon cutting out of congress we all yeah

we all tried that we're all fans of that on twitter but guess because voters think that politicians of of all parties are all sort of cynical lying assholes is the problem um but they don't like extremists that's's for sure. All right, so, one person who's been having a pretty good couple weeks is President Joe Biden. We haven't been able to say that in a while. Fucking love it.

His approval ratings have climbed from the high 30s to the low to mid 40s. So, you know, whatever. We'll take it. We'll take it. Swing state Democrats are starting to campaign

with him again. Like to see that. And tonight, Thursday night, he will be delivering a primetime speech in Philadelphia that the White House says will focus on the continued battle for the soul of the nation. So this is the latest in a string of speeches and remarks from Biden over the last few weeks, including a fundraiser where he called Trumpism semi-fascism, which caused some pearl

clutching among various supporters of the guy who just demanded that he be reinstated as president. So most of our listeners will probably hear this episode after Biden's speech, but talk about what you think the White House hopes to get out of this and what they're thinking is on this soul of the nation message, which of course was Biden's message in his presidential campaign and appears to be the message they want to have in the midterms as well. I think there's been a lot of obsession in the run-up to this speech about the term soul of the nation. What is he going to talk about? And I think we have to think, we have to kind of not focus on those words so much, right? The amount of times that you and I

had conversations over the years where you were working on this big speech, but we have to go pitch it to people and we have to come up with some sort of quasi interesting, but not particularly revealing, uh, paragraph to put out there, which drove you insane. Always drove me so bad. It drove me insane. I'm sorry for all the times I got mad at you when you asked me to do that. And that, I think that's what's happening here, right? I imagine the speech is not done. I think they know what they want to say. But battle for the soul of the nation is shorthand for Biden's larger argument. And what we've seen is a transition in that argument since 2020, particularly the last few months here, which is in the early days, it was largely about unity. And now I think it's transitioned to a focus on the fact that unity

is impossible when we have a faction that is trying to divide America for partisan and political gain. And so focusing on that part of it, what I want to hope the White House, I think what they want to do is frame the midterms, sort of send up a bat signal to the entire party of this is a message we can all run on, whether you are running in a super liberal district or a purple district, you will alter it to fit your district or your state, but this is the larger story we should be telling as a party and to build the momentum that he has had in recent weeks. So I think doing this and doing it in prime time is good because we're talking about it, right? If it's just a speech at a rally at three o'clock on a Tuesday, it wouldn't get this sort of attention. We're talking about it, right? If it's just a speech at a rally at three

o'clock on a Tuesday, it wouldn't get this sort of attention. We might talk about it, but the rest of the press probably wouldn't. But this has been the subject of a lot of conversation. And it is yet another sign, I think, that we've seen a lot from the Biden White House over the summer that they are really sort of upping their game in terms of grabbing sort of the microphone and using it to communicate to the public and to drown out a sort of the microphone and using it to communicate to the public and to drown out a lot of the bullshit and conversation that's been out there. I have one more thought on the sort of unity piece around the soul of the nation that I've been thinking about. And then I think the Biden White House has been really smart on this. We

talked about sort of the ultra MAGA branding or the extreme MAGA branding that the White House unveiled a couple months ago. And some people were making fun of it. Some people weren't sure, but it was the result of a lot of polling, a lot of research, a lot of testing. And so Biden the other day, obviously the semi-fascism comments got all the attention. But in that same speech, he said, MAGA Republicans refuse to accept the will of the people, embrace political violence, and don't believe in democracy. And then in like the next sentence, he reached out to Democrats, independents, and mainstream Republicans. mainstream Republicans. So, you know, we get a piece in the New York Times today, of course, the preview piece of this speech by Michael Scheer that starts,

President Biden likes to say there is nothing America cannot do if the country is united and its rival parties are willing to work together. But with just two months until the midterm elections, Mr. Biden is purposely spending less time hailing the virtues of compromise and more time calling out dangers to democracy, using some of the sharpest and most combative language of his presidency. Obviously designed to trigger us as most as most New York Times analysis pieces are. Joe Biden calling out the extremism of MAGA Republicans and Joe Biden also saying, I want to bring Democrats, independents and mainstream Republicans together in this country. And I actually think that is the smart and right message. I think, again, you hear Joe Biden calling out to Republicans on Twitter and saying, you know, come vote for us and trying to appeal to Republicans, normal Republicans. And on Twitter, everyone gets annoyed about that, right? Why is he trying to reach out to Republicans? But I think trying to

cleave extreme MAGA Republicans from mainstream Republican voters who we know have been leaving the party over the last several elections, people who maybe voted for Mitt Romney and then decided to vote for Hillary Clinton, or then people who voted for Trump the first time and then voted for Joe Biden in 2020. Like we know there is a group of people out there, mostly college educated voters in a lot of suburban places who are like, I might have been part of the Republican Party once, but they have become too extreme and I'm done with them. I'm done with them. And I think it's smart for Joe Biden to try to reach out to those voters while also making it very clear that MAGA Republicans, supporters of Donald Trump, Donald Trump, and especially Republican politicians that are supportive of Donald Trump, which is like 95% of Republican politicians in this country, are a threat to democracy. Don't believe in holding up election results, right? Like I said, I don't,

they're going to try to, the press. Oh, gotcha, gotcha Joe Biden. Yeah, the press and Republicans are going to try to do this gotcha shit and going to try to say, you know, he's talking about unity, but he's attacking Republicans in this language. And similarly, I think there's some liberals who are going to be like, why is Joe Biden reaching out to Republicans? But I think this is the right strategy.

If you want to create a pro-democracy coalition in this country that can beat Donald Trump and MAGA Republicans. If you want to heal the soul of the nation, you have to cut out the cancer. And this Republican Party is a dangerous, rapidly metastasizing cancer on the body politic. I think you have to separate Republican politicians and the extreme MAGA supporters that show up at the rallies and that have embraced violence from other people who sometimes vote Republican and sometimes don't and are thinking about leaving the party or have left the party or haven't voted Republican in a while. You just have to do that because it's not just because it's the right thing to do, because it's fucking math. Like we cannot win without those voters. In 2020, it was the biggest turnout in history on both sides. And we still only won by like, you know, 40,000 votes. So we actually need all of those voters just as much as we need our base voters as well. I mean, there has always been a right-wing extremist faction in this country. The John Birchers, the right-wing militias of the 90s, they've always been there. And at times,

they've gained enough power that the Republican establishment has felt the need to accommodate them in some ways. The Tea Party is an example of the precursor to the MAGA movement. What is different now is that because we are in this very dangerous moment where the structural biases of the Electoral College and the Senate give that right-wing extremist minority a massively disproportionate share of the power. And then when you amplify that with a right-wing media apparatus like Fox News and a social media platform like Facebook, which communicates that message, that right-wing message at hyperspeed, at scale, the right-wing faction is now not

just a faction to be accommodated. It is the establishment of the public party. That is the leadership. They're the ones in charge. And what is interesting and notable about this moment, I think, is what Biden has tried to do and he's going to try to do tonight, is recognize that while this minority is growing in power, it is not growing in numbers. We actually are living in a world where that extremist minority is shrinking as percentage of the population. There is a pro-democracy, pro-truth, anti-MAGA majority in this country.

And the way to defeat fascism or semi-fascism is to appeal to the majority who disagree with that. And that's going to include Republicans. It's going to include independents. And as you know, it's going to really focus on people who don't engage in our political process. And I do think one key to this speech – Who are, by the way, targets for either side. Yes. The people who don't engage in political process.

They are – the MAGA movement is reaching out to them too. So they are up for grabs. They may actually in some cases profile as people who could end up being Republicans geographically and demographically. And we have to be very aware of that. But I think one thing that's important here is to explain to the public the real world specific dangers of this extremist minority. And this is where the Supreme Court's decision in Dobbs, the banning of books, the promises to ban marriage – to outlaw marriage equality, to stop people from getting access to IVF or contraception, all those things. stop people from getting access to IVF or contraception, all those things, is that this is where the war on freedom matters. Because it's not a war on a political system that has never worked for large portions of this country. It is a war on people's lives. And this is what the danger is. And whenever these moments have failed, whether it's the Tea Party or the Reagan

Revolution in the 90s, it is when the real world consequences to the majority of the opinions of this minority become manifestly clear. And I would add to that, too, in the embrace of political violence, right? Which I think, you know, I think when a lot of people look at January 6th, you know, we've talked a lot about like the fake electors and the plot to overturn the election, which is fucking horrible. But like most Americans look at that and they're like, yeah, there's a right wing in this country that has now embraced political violence. And I don't like that. That's a real problem. OK, when we come back, I will talk to former mayor of New Orleans, Mitch Landrieu, about implementing Joe Biden's infrastructure plan. joining us now the former mayor of new orleans currently a special advisor to president biden who's in charge of implementing the infrastructure law mitch lander welcome back to the pod oh it's

great to be here i miss you guys i know last time we saw you i think was in new orleans which is a yeah the offingham theater it was it was a throwdown yeah much more much more fun location than this interview. I told, who was it I told? I said, don't mention the Saints. And they mentioned them. It was Lovett. It was Lovett.

And he was almost. I told Lovett, I said, don't do it. Don't do it. He said, you don't know what you're talking about. I said, okay, well, just go ahead then. He was almost mobbed on the spot. That was almost the end of Lovett. He just started dogging out the Saints. And he almost didn't make it out of the city.

I know. And none of us were defending him. We almost just left him to the mouse. I love that. I love it. All right, so the money from the infrastructure law is starting to flow now. It's really starting to flow now. There are over 5,300 projects getting underway all over the country. What do you want people to know about these projects,

especially people whose eyes might glaze over the second they hear the word infrastructure? Well, you don't use that word. It's about fixing roads. Everybody knows potholes are a pain in the butt. Everybody knows that traffic really stinks. Everybody knows what it's like to not be able to pick their kids up or to get to work on time or to get to wherever you're going. So when we're thinking about rebuilding the roads and bridges and airports and ports and the waterways, when we're talking about making sure everybody has access to high speed Internet, we're talking about clean air, safe water, which is a major problem that we're having right now in Jackson, Mississippi. Just to make the case that I know that we'll talk about in a minute, or to build a whole new clean energy economy, which essentially means that we're really rushing

into a new way of traveling and the things that we do. People can kind of see it in their real lives. It's a little bit hard because it's a long-term piece, but when this stuff starts coming out of the ground and you start seeing it, you go like, oh man, that's crazy. I mean, things are changing pretty fast and for the better. Yeah, I wanted to talk about that because a few weeks ago, I did a focus group of black voters in Atlanta for another podcast I'm working on. And when I asked which issues are most important to them, a lot of people voluntarily brought up as one of the top issues, roads are all broken, too many potholes, no good public transportation around here. And then they said, you know, we heard Joe Biden was going to do something to fix this, but nothing seems fixed. And they felt let down. Obviously, like, how do

you wrap your arms around the communication challenge of talking about projects that will, in some cases, take years to complete? Yeah, you know, that's a real challenge. There's no way to get around that. These are long-term projects. I mean, it's not like with American Rescue Plan funds or the Recovery Act where you're just putting money in people's pocketbook that they see the next day. You're actually building something, and it takes a while to build something. There's a consequence. It takes a while to see the consequences of it. So impatience is an expected proposition on this particular thing. is an expected proposition on this particular thing. However, you know, when it finally starts coming out of the ground and you go, man, okay, that's what they were talking about. You'll know that. I don't, I think it's really kind of an unrealistic expectation that nine months after the bill was passed, that a bridge was going to be built, but we live in a political world,

right? And so when Putin is invading the Ukraine and we're having all this other stuff going on, people are thinking about that. And they're not necessarily invading the Ukraine and we're having all this other stuff going on, people are thinking about that. And they're not necessarily thinking about the road that's getting fixed. But you will you will begin to see if you haven't already with 5300 projects coming out of the ground, the real consequence. On top of that, let me give you just an example of real life stuff. Ten million people have been connected to the Internet that haven't been connected before through the Affordable Connectivity Program. So this stuff will move out over time. Now, in political years, everybody's got to do something next month. But infrastructure is not in political years. It's about laying a foundation for the

future that I think is going to yield great benefit. And the president is completely comfortable with doing what is right and making sure that we go fast, but we also build a foundation that actually brings a country together in the future. When I was in the Obama administration, I always thought we should have been more explicit in taking credit for the Recovery Act infrastructure project. That's true. We had signs up, but I always said that they should have had a big picture of Obama, like get the Shepard Fairey poster up there. But I'm not sure what the legal constraints are. What are you guys doing about that? Yeah, well, first of all, you know, we hear this all the time about who did what wrong and how everybody could have done it better.

Right, right. All this stuff. And I think even President Obama would say, look, we probably could have tagged that a little bit more. I'm a mayor. If you build a project in the city where you are, there's a construction sign that goes up and says brought to you by the following administration. There's a construction sign that goes up and says brought to you by the following administration. You'll actually see that on these projects. It will say brought to you by the bipartisan infrastructure law, President Joseph R. Biden or something like that. So the public can see it. But be that as it may. This is really not not so much about taking credit, although it's important for the country to know how this got done so that they want to do it again. They can replicate actually what happened. That's why it's important.

It's also important for accountability purposes. And on top of that, I'm sure, although, you know, people who are running for or against this will talk about it during the campaign. So it'll get a little bit higher visibility, you know, as it breaks through some of these other critical day-to-day issues people are concerned about. And as bridges start coming up and new rail cars start, you know, showing themselves, people will go, oh, wow, that's what they were talking about. But there'll be some frustration because it takes time to build stuff. So it's just part of the game. You mentioned Jackson, Mississippi, which is front page news right now, community of 150,000 people, 80% are black. They're without running water right now in a 90 plus degree heat. Storm wiped out their water treatment pumps last week. How is the Biden administration helping right now and also helping to fix their infrastructure long term? Well, first of all, this is a perfect example of why the infrastructure law was needed.

We have massive amounts of deferred maintenance across the country in city properties, state properties, and federal properties, which is one of the reasons why the president thought it was important to pass this bill. So that is just a long-term project. As it relates to Jackson, which is not unlike situations in my city, like New Orleans, or in Flint, Michigan, or other places that have challenged water systems, especially in predominantly Black cities, you have these kinds of events that are catastrophic in nature. The president has spoken to the mayor. He's spoken to the congressman from that district. Our administration has been in touch with the governor's office. FEMA director's heading down there tomorrow. We expect to have a team of people working hand in glove every day with the mayor and the governor for the short-term, medium, medium and long term. The most important thing right now is to make sure

that safety measures are taking, that people have access to water. And we're working with the mayor's office and the congressman to make sure that we can do our part in that. Remember, though, that money has been sent to the state and to the city and that this has been a challenge, not just this past weekend, but for some time. And this is one of the reasons why the infrastructure bill is so critically important, so that we, at least from the federal level, have the resources necessary to partner with the city, partner with the state to make sure that everybody has access to safe drinking water. Your job is to obviously work with governors and elected officials of both parties on these

projects. And I know there's been some tension with Republican governors wanting to use the money to build more highways or do other things that don't align with the administration's environmental and climate change goals. How are you handling that? Yeah, a couple of things. First of all, the president said to me, you know, when I was vice president, I was pretty good at running the Recovery Act. And I said, yes, sir, you are. And he said, I want you to stay in touch with the mayors and the governors. So I have called every governor in the country and spoken either to them or their chief of staff. I've asked them on the behalf of the president to appoint an infrastructure coordinator, which all of them have done, including the heads of all the territories.

I've talked to hundreds of mayors, and we are, I am clear about this on behalf of the president, that you can't do this without the federal government, the stateors, and we are, I am clear about this on behalf of the president, that you can't do this without the federal government, the state government, and the local governments working together. Now, we live in a political world, and there's going to be some tension. Not everybody's going to agree on everything, but I haven't been part of any disagreement that has really troubled me. I mean, that's outside of the bounds. For example, you know, the governor of North Dakota or South Dakota may say, listen, you know, what works in New York City or works in Atlanta may not work here. So let's work together. And by the way, you can't tell me exactly what to do. I'm the governor. I have some

rules. And we go, yeah. And we, for the most part, have worked it out. I haven't really come across a situation where it's become impenetrable yet. And one of the reasons is that we're constantly staying in touch. Now, listen, I'm not naive. We live in a political world. But for the most part, everybody likes investment in infrastructure. And guess what? Every Republican that voted against this, as the speaker said, they voted no, but they want the dough. And so when you're in the execution mode of this thing, it becomes very nonpolitical. And you just got to get the street built. You got to get the pothole filled.

As I like to say, there's no Republican or Democratic way to fill a pothole. Just fill the damn pothole. So we want to go fast. But here's the thing. We also want to build well. So it's critically important that we think about equity, that we think about inclusion, that we're not building highways that split historically African-American, you know, communities apart. As a matter of fact, we use money to reconnect them, that when we're thinking about water, that we actually don't just go to certain parts of the

country, go to everywhere. I was in Lowndes County, Alabama the other day, and it may, you know, surprise people in this country that not every American citizen has indoor plumbing, that there's actually raw sewage that are running out of millions of homes. Catherine Flowers, who's been leading this effort in Lowndes County, along with Congressmen and women have been talking about this. So there's investments to make sure that people just have access to clean water, the investment in lead pipes in African American communities to clean out lead pipes so that kids are not drinking dirty water. There's billions of dollars to replace those as well. And there's a lot of money on the environmental cleanup side of cleaning up brownfield sites, cleaning up orphan wells, cleaning up abandoned mine lands, cleaning up

superfund sites, and then investing in the restoration of Great Lakes all across the country. It's a massive investment in improving the lives of Americans. And then finally, across the country. It's a massive investment in improving the lives of Americans. And then finally, just on this clean energy economy piece, they're going to blow the roof off right now. And you see the private sector starting to respond in a really dramatic way to the market signals that we're sending about how we're going to electrify the economy. So fortifying the energy grid, making sure that we have new sources of energy. And all of a sudden, you've got Ford, GM, Siemens, Tritium. Today, there's an announcement, another $2 billion announcement of bringing manufacturing back to the United States of America, producing high-paying union jobs, and rebuilding communities across the country. So we're well on our way. This is a long slog.

We're pushing a rock uphill right now, but we're absolutely going to get there there and the country is going to be better for it. You're working with these Republican governors. This was a bipartisan bill. As you said, infrastructure is an issue where both parties can come together. Everyone likes roads and bridges in their state and district. The president has also given a speech tonight. It's going to echo a lot of what he said the last few weeks, which is that the ultra-mega Republicans are a threat to our democracy. What do you think about that? Well, I think what the first of all, I don't want to get ahead of the president's speech tonight, but I have heard him speak on this many times. And what he what I what I believe he's going to try to communicate to the country is that America is a very unique and exceptional place. And we're the only

place that has lasted this long based on a simple idea that you all come to the table of democracy as equals. And that we are democratic in the sense that everybody gets a choice, everybody gets a chance to say what they need to say. And when we disagree, we try to do it in agreeable fashion, even though we can be passionate about it. But you got to stay within the bounds of the Constitution. And historically, there have been a small number of Americans that have fallen outside of those bounds. And I think it's his impression that there is a good group of people that now call themselves MAGA Republicans that are outside of that. Now, he's not talking about all Republicans. He's not talking about all independents. He's talking about the idea of what makes America strong and what makes America

great. And he's calling us back into focus on that. And so it's critically important that he reminds the nation of why we're here, what we're supposed to be doing, and who we are. And this can be a lot of disagreement within those bounds. But there can't be any disagreement about the peaceful transition of power. There can't be any disagreement about whether insurrection is a good thing or a bad thing. There can't be any disagreement about whether or not you ought to threaten violence against the FBI or against the police. That's outside of the bounds. And I think that one of the discussions that we have to have in this country is how we bring it back in. We can be passionate. Look, I'm from a big family. I got eight brothers and sisters. We don't all think alike. We have a lot of really tough discussions at the kitchen table, but you know

what? At the end of it, we're still family, and we figure out a way to live together in a peaceful way. And I think the president wants to speak to that issue tonight and call us back into the center of what it means to really be the great country that we all profess that we want to be. I mean, you've spoken about this yourself. You gave one of my favorite speeches about your decision to remove four Confederate monuments when you were mayor of New Orleans. Racism and right-wing extremism have only gotten worse since then. Looking around the political landscape today, how do you think we heal some of these wounds, get back to that table together,

and really keep a multiracial democracy alive? Yeah, well, I think that's one of the things the president wants to speak to. This doesn't mean that we shouldn't have arguments. It shouldn't mean that we shouldn't be passionate, but it does mean that we have to recommit ourselves to the notion that we all belong here and that we all have a voice. But we also have to set parameters and say that we're not in favor of violence. We're not in favor of autocracy.

We're not in favor of the kinds of things that unfortunately we have started to see. Now, it's my personal opinion. I'm not speaking on behalf of the president here, but on my 30 years of experience growing up in the South. personal opinion, I'm not speaking on behalf of the president here, but on my 30 years of experience growing up in the South, this is stuff that's been around a long time down here. It just got into a megaphone that's been bigger, and other folks have said, well, look, let's start saying it out loud. So if you go listen to the remnants of George Wallace or Bull Connor, you know, or other folks, this rhetoric, even David Duke, this rhetoric is very, very, very familiar. That's coming from a very small section of the country, which is really kind of starting to push themselves into what some folks used to think was mainstream stuff. And I think that you got to

say, look, that's just out of bounds. And that's not who we are. I think Liz Cheney, you know, I can't think of a thing that I agree with her on, quite frankly, except that she believes, as do I, that there are some guardrails in democracy that once we get out of, we just can't have a country again. And so I think there are plenty of people that are much more conservative than me, much more conservative than the president, that would fall well within that boundary. But what we can't lose is a very simple idea that we come to the table of democracy as equals, that we have peaceful transitions of power, that people ought to have access to the polls, that we ought to be self-determining as a country.

And that, quite frankly, when we don't do that, we miss an incredible opportunity to do what the president says is big things, which is why I'm really excited about infrastructure, because I think it's the proof point. First of all, we're physically building bridges, but we're also, you know, spiritually in a way, finding a way to use infrastructure to connect people by demonstrating that if you put down your ideology, you can actually literally build a big thing, like connecting everybody to the internet. And just think about this for a minute. If you've got a little kid sitting on the stoop in the lower ninth board, or you got a little kid sitting on the porch in the hollers of Kentucky, in Dogpatch, Kentucky, or you got somebody sitting up in a tribal community in Alaska,

and they're little kids, and they don't have access to the internet, they're stuck. But if they have access to the internet, and're stuck. But if they have access to the internet and they have access to knowledge, which is the great leveler, you may be looking at the kid that's actually going to take us to Mars. You may be looking at the next doctor that's going to find the next great cure to think it unleashes a huge amount of potential. And if people have an easy way to get to and from, that's even better. And if public transportation is available in a clean energy way, all of a sudden, the United States of America is looking at everybody else in the world in their rearview mirror. And we're not beholden to anybody. And we're standing on our own two feet and we're producing jobs that make sense. Now, if we can get past the very, very difficult issue of race and we can get past this issue of white nationalism, extremism, there's really nothing that holds America back. We got to figure out how to do

that. And we can do that within the parameters of the constitutional framework that we've all experienced in a long period of time, which is at risk right now, which is why the president says, we're at a moment of crisis, it's an existential threat, and we have to make a choice in this country. It really isn't about Republican versus Democrat. It's an existential threat. And we have to make a choice in this country. It really isn't about Republican versus Democrat. It's about freedom versus autocracy. And freedom will always win. Mitchell Andrew, thank you so much for coming on Pod Save America. And good luck fixing all those potholes. All right, my brother. Another day of potholes. Take care. Bye-bye. See you later. Bye-bye. Are you needing a safe space to learn how you can get your mind right?

Yes. Well, Tommy, you should tune into Imani State of Mind, a weekly podcast hosted by psychiatrist and TV personality Dr. Imani Walker and co-host comedian Meg Scoop Thomas, two smart and successful women and mothers sharing their personal and professional experiences to help normalize conversations about mental health. This isn't your average mental health show. Each week they break down what's happening in news pop culture and their very own experiences managing mental health. Together you'll laugh, keep it real, and create a safe space where everyone can get help with their issues. Nothing's off the table. Dr. Armani Walker and Meg Scoop Thomas discuss everything from relationships with yourself, your spouse, your parents, to the realities of postpartum depression and anxiety. Don't forget to take a deep breath, find your calm, and get into Armani's state of mind with new episodes dropping

every Friday wherever you get your podcasts. okay before we go it is time for another round of take appreciator with our chief take officer elijah cone elijah i know that you have been just building up takes for a while now because we haven't we haven't done this in a little bit and i know that you're just bursting at the seam with takes yes i certainly am uh our cop runneth over with horrible takes and uh it was really hard to narrow it down but i feel like we have a nice array of takes for you for you gentlemen today oh good a good spread good spread of takes like like like like a like a crudite platter of takes another idea for the merch department yes exactly a exactly. A cup, a coffee mug that says my, my take cup runneth over or,

or, or are these, uh, steamy hot takes inside all kinds of options here. Yeah. Wow. All of our, all of our suggestions today to other people in the cricket network are just

coming through the pods since I'm too busy to send emails. Well, I guess we'll find out what the merch department listens. Won't we? Yeah. Hey, if you guys are listening, store.cricket.com, I said it. You you're welcome jordan okay okay here we go let me i'll explain

for the audience who may not have heard how the game works uh i'm going to share some takes with you both the producers have seen these takes john and dana have not john dan will react and then rate them on a scale of one to four politicos with four being the worst. Are you guys ready? As I'll ever be. All right. So let's start with one that has been talked about a lot at Crooked this week. It's a quote tweet. The original tweet poses the question, when did the GOP become the party of jerks? That led to this take. If I had to pinpoint a moment that the GOP became a party of jerks, it's when Mitt Romney spent his entire campaign being accused of killing Big Bird, building binders full of women,

torturing the family dog, etc, etc. Guys, who said it? Unfortunately, fortunately, we know that Fox News contributor slash Twitter person who I I don't know where she came from, Bethany Mandel, tweeted it. And look, it really hits home for me and Dan having been on the 2012 campaign. I am so sorry. I'm so sorry that Barack Obama dared to run against Mitt Romney. He should have just given up after his first term and let Mitt Romney win. And the fact that he called him an out-of-touch plutocrat

is just unforgivable. Unforgivable. The fact that he wanted to defund PBS. Did he not put the family dog on the car? Did that not happen? I think on the car? Did that not happen? I think that happened. I think that happened. Dan?

Look, as we all know, I respect Mitt Romney for doing everything he could to save democracy right now from Donald Trump and voting to impeach the guy. That's great. Maybe he's learned and grown as a person since he put his dog on the car roof. Look, I, too, give Mitt Romney credit for doing the bare fucking minimum. Congratulations. And you know what? In a party where no one else would do the bare minimum, when you do, you can be a hero. Right?

The profiles in Courage are graded on a curve. And you got one, Mitt Romney. But let's just take a – let's hop in the old time machine and go back to 2012. All right? Let's talk about that campaign. Because Mitt Romney was not the pro-democracy, moral conscience of the Republican Party back then. He is someone who basically got on his proverbial knees to beg Donald Trump for his endorsement, begged him, went to Trump Tower to seek that endorsement.

And when he got it, he celebrated. He viewed it as a way to win. When Rick Perry, the recent Dancing with the Stars contestant, then Republican governor, got in the race and seemed as a real threat to Mitt Romney's attempt to beat a bunch of yahoos like Michelle Bachman. What did he do? He went far to the right on immigration and ran an immigration platform as right wing as Donald Trump's. His solution to immigration was self-deportation. He wanted to cut Social Security and Medicare. with self-deportation. He wanted to cut social security and Medicare. He had campaign surrogates who made incredibly racist comments about Barack Obama. Newt Gingrich calling Barack Obama the food stamp president, which is about as subtle as fuck, I don't know what. So let's not pretend

that he was running on this. He went all in on the Benghazi conspiracy? Yes. On the night after, within like 12 hours of Americans dying in Benghazi, he held a press conference to try to use it as political ammunition to save his failing campaign. In that first debate where he did oh so fucking well, he lied his ass off the entire time. And Barack Obama's failure was that he did not respond to those lies aggressively. He was actually blown away that a human being who claimed to be such an honest, straightforward Boy Scout would just lie to the nation that much. So let's not pretend that anything was out of bounds. Barack Obama's beating Mitt Romney did not pave

the way for Trumpism. The sort of campaign Mitt Romney ran made it easier for Donald Trump to have the nomination four years later. So I'm sorry. Stop blaming Barack Obama for Donald Trump. It's your fault, Republicans. You did this. Yep. Yep. 500 fucking politicos. And I just want to say,

I genuinely admire Mitt Romney for what he's done the last several years. I don't even think it was that. I think he showed genuine political courage over these last few years and also have zero regrets about the campaign we ran against him in 2012. Zero. A million politicos. Same with Dan. All the politicos. How dare we attack him for wanting to cut taxes for the rich by raising them on the middle class, which was his plan.

I mean, powerful stuff, guys. I didn't tell him to murder Big Bird. He just wanted to do it on his own. Like this isn't the point. But also just a little cherry on top of this take is that she said if I had to pinpoint a moment and then list like five moments, that's just a little extra syntax thing that drives me crazy about that take. As if we needed anything else. We didn't tell him to sing who let the dogs out like that and then put one on the roof of his car. We didn't tell him to do that. I will say after that,

and I want to thank Elijah for giving me this opportunity, I feel exhausted but unburdened. Good. This is going to go viral. Elijah's thinking – Elijah's now doing his – he's not only take appreciator here, he's also Elijah social video master, and he's thinking about how to clip this and send this into the internet. Look for this clip on Twitter with Bethany Mandel quote quote tweeted okay well dan let's see i'm glad you're feeling better but i'm gonna pull you back down with uh this next one um so this is one that i actually have been bursting at the seams out i've been sitting on it for a while i'm glad i haven't exposed it in a public channel on slack it's a week or two old. It's from the Wall Street Journal.

It's a piece titled, But Her Emails, A Defense of Whataboutism. Oh my God. Oh my God. This piece is obviously about the FBI raid on Mar-a-Lago. Here's a quote from it.

Hillary Clinton's treatment of the emails and server were wrong even if they didn't constitute a crime. Mr. Trump's removal of possibly classified and server were wrong, even if they didn't constitute a crime. Mr. Trump's removal of possibly classified information might be wrong, too, until Mr. Garland fully and specifically answers the hard questions about what appears to be unequal application of rules and practices. What about her emails will be a pertinent question? Guys, the author really puts a serve at the top. Who wrote it?

This is in the Wall Street Journal? Yes. It's a contributor. I don't think this person is a regular. Jim Comey? It's not Jim Comey. Because I was going to say Kim Strassel, but that doesn't... It sounded very Matt Lewis-esque to me

until you said the Wall Street Journal. Is it Eli Lake? It's not. Would you like a hint? Yeah. Larry David hates this person. Oh, the Dersh. Yes, it is Alan Dershowitz.

Yet another clam bake that the Dersh was disinvited to. Just walking around Martha's Vineyard with the Scarlet letter on him yeah um okay i i don't even know where to go like what what is that what does he even mean by america like fucking jim comey decided to come out right before an election and give a fucking press conference about charges that were never brought everything that merrick garland says has said so far about donald trump has been a result of donald trump's own fucking idiocy if donald trump had just shut the fuck up we probably wouldn't know about any of this right now 1.3 politicos wow yeah yeah yeah dirsh is uh he's uh he's losing his fastball there i don't

know if we ever had one okay we can move on pretty quickly from that one it just struck me so much the uh what about her emails the defense of what about her emails the most annoying talking point well when it turned out at the end that there was like uh some like you know, classified markings here and there that probably shouldn't have been on there. And it was like a low classification. Meanwhile, Trump's got like the highest level classified documents that he stole and hid in his basement. Yeah, it's a little different. Yeah. And Hillary Clinton cooperated with the investigation. And he is famously not cooperating and not just not not cooperating is like pleading the fifth hiding the documents and lying to the fbi is obstruction so it's a little different a little

different but it's okay it's okay all right so low politico rating we'll go to the last one i have so many but this will be the last one i was for i was texting andy for listeners like andy is the lead producer on the show about all the takes, and she's normally so polite and reserved, but something about this week's takes just brought out this inner hater. Oh, from Andy?

Yeah. Oh, this has got to be big then. That takes a lot for Andy to get that upset. I think it was just the weight of all of them together. But this one is from the Washington Post. It was a heavily ratioed piece when it came out. It's titled

What Biden Could Gain from Pardoning Trump. Here's a quote from it. It isn't clear that pardoning Trump would hurt Biden politically. On the contrary, making such a startling move could put the weary president back in the center of the political universe, scramble political alignments, and make his former rival, if he accepts the humbling offer, appear small and weak. He could have a unique opportunity to exploit his position to the country's advantage and his own guys who wrote it

the ghost of gerald ford a dumb person i don't know what kind of a is is i just want to ask about this take because i haven't read this piece is the is the conclusion here that like uh there's some kind of a deal where joe bardons Donald Trump if Donald Trump agrees never to run for president again? Or is it literally just he should pardon him and that's that? No, it's pure punditry. It'd be good for Biden. He can grab the spotlight. That's it.

Yeah. Yeah. It's not. It's just pure punditry. Did this person. Is this a some questions here? Is this a regular columnist for the Washington Post or a contributor? It appears that they're a regular columnist, but they have a legal column, not an opinion column.

So that may make it a little harder. Is it Henry Olson? It's not, but Henry Olson is the fourth, you know, that didn't make the cut here. He's had a lot of interviews recently. I was going to guess before you said that, that it was part of Bill Clinton's polling duo of Mark. I thought that shown. Yeah. I was thinking that too.

I had that thought. A legal contributor. Ginny Thomas. No. You guys just want to hear it. Yeah. Just tell us. It's his name is Jason Willick.

Not a, not a real person. That's a, that is, that is a fake thing. As I said, heavily ratioed piece, i'm gonna say embrace debate i actually kind of like this take just so you guys know you're you're you like this take yeah i like that i think it's a bold move yeah and he can grab the narrative pack i actually was like well maybe i was at a i was at a wedding last weekend and a friend of the pod came up to me and started talking about all this.

And she had asked what I was just thinking the conclusion might be, which is like, what if Biden pardoned Trump if there's some agreement that Trump never runs for president again? And that agreement, I was like, hmm, that's not terrible. That's not terrible. That's a bad idea. Joe Biden is not going to pardon Trump. I know we don't do political predictions, but the amount of like – There's also no – there's no deal. That's not terrible that's that's a bad idea joe biden is not going to hurt trump i'm not i know we don't do political predictions but the amount of like there's also no there's no deal that's not a real thing i don't think you can make that kind of a deal what is he going to sign a document we're gonna we're gonna trust his trust his signature on the document you know man

of his word donald trump who would like take the deal which you then can't undo and then just file for president the next day you know what that deal would have been if fucking Republicans voted to impeach him after the insurrection? That's what it would have been. Then he wouldn't have been able to fucking run for president again if we had finally just convicted him. That was the whole purpose of the second impeachment. They didn't do that. So here we are. Now he gets indicted.

That's a dumb take. That gets one from me. 2.8. Okay. I like that we're only the point system now. We used to do halves. Now we're into 0.8, 0.3. We work with a person in the Obama White House who told me once that they always made their predictions based on – they were an economist – based on very specific percentages.

Because they were an economist, the more specific the percentages because, because they were an economist, every if the more specific the prediction, the more people thought it was very serious. So like, that's like a 30% chance is like kind of dismissed, but like 33.8% chance people seem like, Oh, you must've done a math problem to get there.

Was it Jason Furman? No, no. Yeah. It's been a bad day for the, the point system. I mean, the first one went to like millions or hundreds of politicos.

There was a big range. There was a big range. I have two thoughts on this, and then we're going to wrap up. One is I think we need to expand the number of politicos available. Because I feel like we've run into what I call the Glenn Kessler problem, which is when you only have a scale of one to four. The big lie is treated the same as Joe Biden misstating the number of people who got vaccinated on a Thursday. Right. So it's like four Pinocchios is the greatest lie ever told and sort of an egregious misstatement. So we might need like I didn't feel like the four playbooks was sufficient to give Bethany Mandel the credit.

We need to be able to have some distinction there. So just that's one thing to put, to think about for the future. And I also feel like there's been a lot of really horrible takes, but that are just, they're pretty dumb. I feel like the person wasn't trying that hard. First, I feel like the person doesn't really know how to play take appreciator. trying that hard. First, I feel like the person doesn't really know how to play take appreciator, you know, like doesn't understand that what they're supposed to do is to be as trollish as possible and trigger us in a way that Bethany Mandel clearly achieved. I think we, I'm interested in some more of those takes. Maybe they're not there because maybe those people, maybe the,

maybe the trolls just aren't on their game lately, but I'd like to hear some of those. And the other idea I want to just throw out there, because we're doing a lot of internal planning on this external platform today. Why not, right? Tweet us your own ideas for the crooked staff. So I listened to the Rigorous Fantasy Football podcast. They do this great game called Two Jargons and a Lie, where they do like very specific football jargons and they make one completely up.

And then the whole, the other two of us have to pick it. So we, there's a world in which it's two real takes and a fake take. Dan, that we just came up with the game. Well, I just literally stole.

We did a meeting. We did a meeting at the end of a pod. Yeah. I just, I just control F control control, what is it? Control F, control V. Is that what you speechwriters do? C, control C.

No, no, it's find and replace, right? I just took an idea and just took football out and put politics in. We're like, look what we came up with. Look, as every great media company does. All right, we're going to call it for today. That's our Take Appreciator. Thank you, Elijah, as always, for

giving us your worst takes. Thank you to Mitch Landrieu for joining the pod. Everyone have a great weekend, and we'll talk to you next week. Bye, everyone. Pod Save America is a Crooked Media production. The executive producer is Michael Martinez. Our senior producer is Andy Gardner-Bernstein. Our producers are Olivia Martinez and Hayley Muse.

It's mixed and edited by Andrew Chadwick. Kyle Seglin and Charlotte Landis sound engineer the show. Thanks to Tanya Sominator, Sandy Gerard, Hallie Kiefer, Ari Schwartz, Andy Taft, and Justine Howe for production support. And to our digital team, Elijah Cohn, Phoebe Bradford, Milo Kim, and Justine Howe for production support. And to our digital team, Elijah Cohn, Phoebe Bradford, Milo Kim, and Amelia Montouf. Our episodes are uploaded as videos at youtube.com slash crooked media.