Pod Save America - "Am I The Masshole?" (Live from Boston)

Episode Date: April 17, 2022

Guest host Jane Coaston joins Jon, Jon, Tommy, and Dan live in Boston! Donald Trump tests his strength in the Republican party by endorsing a slate of extreme primary candidates. The internet cringes as Elon Musk tries to buy Twitter. Massachusetts Senator Ed Markey and Boston Mayor Michelle Wu join to discuss the local and national initiatives they're pushing to fight climate change. Then Markey stays for a game that asks the ultimate question. 

What's up, Boston? Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Jon Favreau. I'm Jane Koston, host of The Argument at The New York Times. I'm Jon Lovett. I'm Tommy Vitor. I'm Dan Pfeiffer. Also joining us tonight, your mayor, Michelle Wu. And the junior senator from Massachusetts, Ed Markey.

Gen Z's Ed Markey is here. All right, let's get to the news. The 2022 midterm primaries are in full swing. You may be surprised to learn that the Republican Party is not sending their best. It's a slate of candidates that include a Russian roulette-playing spousal abuser, a quack TV doctor who peddled fake COVID treatments, a right-wing news anchor who wants to jail journalists, and a slew of QAnon supporters, insurrection attendees, and election deniers

who've been battling it out to win the endorsement of the twice-impeached, two-time popular vote loser, former Apprentice host, Donald Trump. Yeah, yeah, he's still around. So Trump has been on a bit of an endorsement spree this week. In Georgia, he just spent $500,000 to help David Perdue defeat Governor Brian Kemp, who refused to steal the 2020 election for Trump in Georgia. In Pennsylvania, he shocked some of his own supporters by picking TV's Dr. Oz over MAGA hedge fund millionaire David McCormick.

And in Ohio, just hours ago, Trump endorsed a hillbilly elegy author turned Peter Thiel puppet J.D. Vance over a crowded field of various Republican goobers. And of course, Trump's endorsements all across the country are based on the only qualification that truly matters to him, support for his attempt to overturn the last election, and if necessary, a willingness to help him steal the next one. Jane, we've now had the conversation many times on this show about whether Trump's grip on the Republican Party is still as strong as it used to be and how much his endorsement still matters. And I realize that those are both two different questions. But where do you come down on this, on Trump's strength in the party

at this point? I think he is less strong in the party because he doesn't need to be as strong in the party because the whole party is like him now. So if you can get Trump, but not Trump, it's like if you could get a sequel. It's like if Speed 2 had been good. Everybody's just going for like, what if we could get Speed 2, but Keanu had agreed to do it and it didn't involve a cruise ship and it didn't destroy a town. That's very specific Speed to talk i'm very sorry but yeah like you're seeing that i mean of course he picked dr oz you've heard of dr oz ergo trump has heard of dr oz all he does is watch tv and so i think though that what you're seeing you're

seeing republicans being horrified by this and i'm like but this is who trump was the whole time he is powered by watching a lot of television and by spite because he's like many elderly people, you know. And so I think that like what you're going to see, though, is that, you know, in Georgia, that doesn't seem to be helping his endorsement, especially because, again, his endorsement seems to have nothing to do with what conservatives want him to do and everything to do with what Trump wants to do, which has been the story of his entire life. So I would say that it matters less, but actually he matters less because the party is more like him now. Dan, what do you think? Is he still as strong?

I think it's stronger than it's ever been. I mean, you think about it this way, which is he has been largely absent from the world he's off of twitter he you know most people who unless you watch like fox at weird hours at night do not see donald trump and yet the entire party is abiding by the big lie and i I think the question is, I'm not sure how important his endorsement is, but what you don't want is Trump actively campaigning against you. And that'll be the test in Georgia with Brian Kemp. But the whole primary,

whether Trump is endorsed or not endorsed, in all of these states, is spinning around the big lie and how Trumpy a candidate can be, which is very good news for Democrats because in a really suboptimal political environment, big lie and what and how trumpy a candidate can be which is very good news for democrats because in a really suboptimal political environment you want the trumpiest candidate you can find and whether it is in arizona where you have another peter teal puppet in blake masters who

was running you have a guy named jim layman who was running who ran an ad whose entire message was let's go, Brandon. And that ad is viewed as having helped him in the primary, which tells you everything you know about the Republican Party. Or you mentioned Pennsylvania, where you have a primary between a candidate endorsed by Trump and Dr. Oz and a candidate advised by Stephen Miller and David McCormick. You have Hershel Walker in Georgia. You have Adam Laxalt in Nevada, who is basically sort of the Conor Roy of this big Nevada political dynasty, who is running on the big lie. He was the chair of it. I mean, there is the best thing that can happen for Democrats is a bunch of the candidates that Trump wants to win, win that nomination.

can happen for Democrats is a bunch of the candidates that Trump wants to win, win that nomination. Lovett, would you be surprised to know that Trump's favorability rating, his favorability, unfavorability is as high as it's ever been? It's chilling. Well, here's what I'd say. You ever have a job and you worked with somebody you couldn't fucking stand? Oh, yeah. Somebody who never shut up, always came into your office, used your mess privileges because their office was another building and couldn't get the apples with peanut butter on their own account, so they put it on your account? Too specific? Very specific.

Very specific. Very specific. The point I'm making is, when you're dealing with someone you hate, and you have to deal with them every day, you hate them even more. And then they leave, because they got a new job,

or their coup failed. And then you see them at the other side of a restaurant a couple years later. And obviously you remember that they're the worst person you ever worked with and maybe the worst person you'll ever work with in your life. But that same vitriol that you felt from seeing them every single day, you just can't muster it. You just can't find it. Analogy complete.

You just can't find it. Analogy complete. Look, George W. Bush's approval rating has rebounded. It is hard to maintain all the intricacies of failure and horror that go on for the previous two Republican presidents that happen to also be the worst two presidents in 100 years. How do you like that. Yeah, sure. See, I don't know what that's like because I'm mad at historical figures who died many years ago. Like, I'm still really mad at Woodrow Wilson.

So I think more people need to get on my level and just carry on spite as long as physically possible. Listen, he was bad. Listen. Trash. No one likes a grudge he was bad. Listen. Trash. No one likes a grudge more than me. I'm with you. I love a grudge. I'm still mad at Joe Lieberman. Well, I did not

plan for the Woodrow Wilson detour here, but Mitch McConnell enough about Trump for a second. Not a lot of Mitch McConnell fans here. Weird. I thought it was a different crowd so mitch mcconnell said in an interview this week that he uh he feels pretty good about his party's chances of taking back the senate but he was also unusually honest for mitch mcconnell um and said that it's possible for republicans to screw it all up by nominating candidates who are unacceptable to a general electorate.

Dan, how much do you think the relative extremism of the candidate matters versus just the general political environment? And what are some of the primaries to watch? It's important to note that Mitch McConnell is only honest when it serves his cynical ways. And so he's trying to send a message to the party, which is do not fuck this up. And they can do it by nominating some of these terrible candidates. Like in Arizona's mentioned, if they nominate either of the two candidates competing for Trump's endorsement over Mark Brnovich, who's the attorney general, who is also terrible. Don't get me wrong. Yeah.

He just he is. No one thinks we have any heroes here. Yeah, they're just I don't want to make sure that no one here is pro Mark Brnovich, but like this and people in mark bornavich teachers just walked out And but like Mitch McConnell's been through this in 2010 when the Republicans won 63 House seats the Democrats held the Senate because Republicans nominated terrible candidates in Nevada and Delaware. In 2012, they had another shot to take the Senate. They blew it again because they nominated terrible candidates, two of whom endorsed rape on the campaign trail. And so he's trying to send a

message to these people not to do it. The problem for Mitch McConnell is Republicans hate him as much as we do, right? The fact that he doesn't like these candidates is good for those candidates. They're going to use that in ads about how Mitch McConnell hates us. It's like the one weird trick to get me elected is to say that Mitch McConnell hates me. I mean, Mitch McConnell probably does hate me personally. I think he hates all of us.

But that's for different reasons. Tommy, Trump's endorsements of Dr. Oz in Pennsylvania and J.D. Vance in Ohio surprised a lot of Republicans, even surprised a lot of people in Trump's inner circle who endorsed some of their primary opponents. Why do you think he backed those two candidates? And what should people know about Dr. Oz and J.D. Vance? They're great. I mean, so there's some reporting, some reporting says that Melania likes Dr. Oz. I found that interesting. I think it's more likely that Trump can,

he could smell a snake oil salesman, you know? He likes guys who are famous and rich from TV. So that's where Dr. Oz comes in. What was funny about Trump's endorsement of Dr. Oz is he cited a medical examination he gave Trump on TV, but then also the fact that he went to Harvard and had a bunch of New York Times bestselling books, which is a weird way to appeal

to Pennsylvania Republican primary voters. You know? They're always looking at that New York Times bestselling list. Those aren't like, they're like kind of a Rajasthani. Dr. Oz was, you know, sloppy seconds here because the first guy Trump endorsed dropped out of the race for spousal abuse allegations. So again, you know, some truly horrible people here. J.D. Vance, I think, got endorsed because the other super

Trumpy candidate is a guy named Josh Mandel, and he is just really horrendous. There was a report in the Daily Beast that said Trump called Josh Mandel a charisma-free weirdo and a dork. It's a tough Passover for Josh Mandel. It's a tough Passover for Josh Mandel. Tough sitting at the Seder tonight. J.D. Vance also... I was setting up your joke.

I know, it was beautiful. I love it. I know, we set up the joke. I can't make that joke. You can do it. He was passed over twice. He was passed over twice. Oh.

It's your joke. Sorry to interrupt. I thought Why is this night different than every other night Josh Vandell you fucking loser. You're a loser tonight.

You were a loser yesterday. You'll be a loser tomorrow. It's the only good thing that comes out of this. Fucking asshole. Enjoy the maror. Josh Mandel tried to beat up a senior citizen at a U.S. Senate debate like three weeks ago. Yeah. He also tweeted about how all you'd need

was God, the Bible, and Bitcoin, which like... Come on, man. Also, I'm just... This is all... I'm from Ohio. We're not supposed to be like this. No.

We're not weird. No, we're weird, but we push down the weirdness and then we explode at the age of 45 like normal people. Yeah. J.D. Vance, though, J.D. Vance at one point called Trump cultural heroine. Yeah.

Now he's got a bunch of Peter Thiel money. So Trump's like, all right. And then he's like, oh, wow, people really love this heroine. I should start dealing some in Ohio. Yeah. They'll say anything. Love it. Yeah, they'll say anything. Lovett, in all of these races, your only chance of even having a shot at Trump's endorsement

is supporting all past and future coup attempts. Can you talk about the... We've been talking about the Senate races. Can you talk about the consequences of that dynamic on other races beyond just the ones we've mentioned and also talk about sort of what democrats should do about all this between now and in november yes so i'll say first of all fascism is like a red sock in the whites

careful it'll get on it'll get on everything you know you you can't contain it the whole thing comes out just a little bit fascist the point, the point is he's endorsing up and down the ballot and all across the country, there are these local races now where there are these Trumpy figures running. And I know we're going to, the national media, everyone is going to focus on the House and the Senate, some of these bigger races, but there are local races all across the country for roles that are really important in how we run elections. And the people in those jobs can make the difference between a Trumpist who doesn't believe in democracy and only thinks a Republican can win and a person who legitimately believes in free and fair elections.

And the more people we can turn out and make understand the stakes for those elections up and down the ballot locally, the better we will do in November. So we have launched midterm Madness as part of Vote Save America. We are asking everybody to sign up for a region. I will be the coach of the East. I got the West.

We're in Boston. I don't know why they gave me the West. Yeah, I got the Midwest. I'm not proud of it. I have the South. Is that the first draft pick? It's because Dan the West. Yeah, I got the Midwest. I'm proud of it. I have the South. Is that the first draft pick? It's because Dan loves Florida. Yeah, I love Stacey Abrams. I'm here for Wisconsin. And look, I don't know what their coaching philosophy is.

My coaching philosophy is that of a very sweet dad of a very small kid. Everyone gets to play, and it doesn't matter how good you are, you get to be in the infield. I would have guessed that your philosophy was King Richard-esque.

Okay. The point is we're trying to get 10,000 sign-ups in each region. We're trying to get 40,000 people to sign up in the next month so that we have people on the ground doing what they need to do. We know that these midterms are going to be a goddamn slog. All right. But we're going to put on our fucking gloves.

All right. Why do we get in the mud? What should I say in a sports analogy? What are we gloves for? So we're going to put on our baseball mitts and our pads. Fuck. And our helmets. And we're going to get our brooms,

because it's also the broom one. Quidditch? Curling? No, no, no, with the sweeping. It's curling, depending on where you are. The point is, the point is, go Celtics, go Sox. Yes.

And go to votesaveamerica.com slash midterms and sign up for region right fucking now. Look, we know that politics has not been as exciting as it once was for good or for ill. 2016 through 2020, there were a lot of ones and twos

and nines and tens. We are living in fours, fives, and sixes these days. But we still got to do it. We're the ones that do it no matter what. And then we get the people in our lives to do it too. So go to votesaveamerica.com slash midterms. Boston, we feasted on your sumptuous beans, sipped your finest Dunkin' and took in the gorgeous luggage carousels in your beautiful airport. Now we give you something in exchange. It's time for OK

Stop. And boy do we have a doozy. Let me paint you a word picture. During an appearance at Yale, a student asks Ted Cruz and conservative commentator Michael Knowles a very important, potentially world-changing question. You know how this goes. We will watch a video, and when we have something to say, we'll say, okay, stop, let's roll the clip. My name is Evan. Assuming that would end global hunger,

would you fillet another man? Okay, stop. First of all, first of all, it never does. New season of Fear Factor just dropped boy and have you been an ad all right let's we can keep rolling

dare I ask him to repeat I do have an answer to this. Okay, stop. Okay, stop. I just would like this to be known that all three of these people are being asked a question

about whether or not they would fillate someone to end world hunger. Do you see these three people? They're in hell. This is what hell is like for them. And honestly, I wish this moment would last forever. I wish they would be forced to sit here in this moment, thinking about it forever.

Okay, we can keep going. I actually think it is better that the Yale-y answer this. Okay, stop. It's a Yale thing? I didn't know that that was a Yale thing. Let's keep rolling. There's a line in American Psycho about that Yale thing. I think that's what our questioner is alluding to.

Like a typical left-wing undergraduate, you are engaging in consequentialist ethics. You are attempting to justify flagrantly immoral behavior to achieve a good end. And I tell you, my friend, the ends do not justify the means. Okay, stop. Ew. Ew. I have a philosophical objection to this. I feel like freshman year you learn about how consequentialism doesn't make sense. Then you study philosophy for a while longer and then you learn like senior year, actually

it's the only thing that does make sense. You know what I mean? I feel like it comes full circle in the end. You know what happens when you come full circle? You solve world hunger. You do. And another thing that's not discussed in this video at all is it really does

matter who the guy is. Because, look, if it's Pennywise the clown, you still have to do it, but you need some time to wrap your head around it. Ted Cruz's face says, I would fillet anyone to end this conversation. Let's move on here. Or be president. Let's continue.

Absolutely not. Absolutely not. I am curious with that young fellow, if it would solve world hunger, would you vote for Donald Trump? Okay, stop. I just want to point out here, Ted Cruz does not answer the question.

The Fox News headline would be, Ted Cruz refuses to rule out filleting another man. I also like that he makes voting for Donald Trump and flating a man equivalent, which I'm just like, I mean... I mean, in a sense, he's...

I mean, look, yeah. I mean, Ted Cruz has been the last five years sucking Donald Trump's dick, so... So, yeah, we know what Ted Cruz will do. All right. He'll suck a lot of dick before it comes to ending world hunger.

Oh, my God. He'll do it for a speaking slot at the Republican convention. I'll just also make one other point, which is at this current moment in time. Right now, as we sit here in the Wang Center. Ironically, here in the Wang. Ironically Here in the wang We have elected officials back I can't stop thinking about it

We used to Somebody don't let Ed Markey Don't let the mayor and Ed Markey leave Lock the doors At this moment in time Ted Cruz is more open to sucking a penis than Joe Manchin is to passing Build Back Better. Dan, you've been noticeably quiet during this segment.

Any final points? No, I think you've nailed it. I think you got them all. And that's OK Stop. No, I think you've nailed it. I think you got them all. And that's okay, stop. Oh, man.

That clip seemed better in theory than anyway. That was hard to get through. Speaking of, you know what I mean? All right, let's talk more news. This week, we learned that the world's richest man is attempting a hostile takeover of Twitter, where he is currently one of the platform's biggest trolls. Elon Musk explained his $40 billion bid for the company by saying that taking Twitter private

would allow him to change the platform's content moderation policies so that more people are able to, quote, speak freely within the bounds of the law, the platform's content moderation policies so that more people are able to, quote, speak freely within the bounds of the law, calling it extremely important to the future of civilization. It isn't. It is not. It is not. I agree.

It wasn't. It wasn't. It isn't. Twitter was not too thrilled with Musk's offer, and today they responded with what's known as a poison pill strategy that will make it harder for Elon to just take over the company without directly negotiating with the board, which he now is going to have to do. Dan, let's start with this. Can Elon Musk actually pull this off? And why does it matter if he owns Twitter? I would like to know that I got this question because I told John this morning that I listened to a 35-minute podcast on the topic.

Yeah, your fault. Hey, Dan. You deserve this. When we launder Ezra Klein and the weeds to our audience, that's something we do in private. That's not something we explain. All right? We just do it. It was what a day?

Poison pill us, Dan. So the answer to the question is he can. He may not be able to because what the poison pill provision means is that Twitter can basically keep issuing stock to dilute Musk's stake. So they can just give cheap stock to chosen people so he can never get to a number sufficient to take over the company. It's something they put in there to avoid a hostile takeover. But Musk actually has all the leverage here because the stock was at like $39 when he announced his stake. It went to $49 the day he

did it. And now he's trying to buy it for $54. So if you're a Twitter shareholder, Musk wants to buy your stock for more money than that stock has been in a very long time, and more money than it will likely be for a very long time. And so whether he's going to end up buying the company or not, that's an open question, but he's going to be able to, what this Poison Bill version will do, allow them to negotiate. If you force a negotiation where he can implement, maybe able to implement the policies he wants or take a larger stake or end up getting the whole thing. So whatever else I think happens here is that the Twitter is going to look more like Elon Musk wants Twitter to look like before

this is over. And why, you know, for the average Twitter addict like myself, why does it matter? Twitter addict like myself. Why does it matter? Well, have you missed Steve Bannon? Have you missed Donald Trump on Twitter? So there's two things that Twitter has done in the last couple of years that have changed the experience for people, we would argue, for the better. They put a bunch of content moderation policies in place to try, I don't think they have been nearly as successful as need to be, but to try to stem abuse. And they have removed, started removing people for violating the rules. And that includes just random Twitter users who use hate speech, but also prominent people like Marjorie Taylor Greene and Donald Trump and Steve Bannon, all these other people. And what Musk wants to do is bring those people back. He wants it to be a quote-unquote free speech platform.

What that shows is for as smart as Elon Musk may be, he doesn't understand what free speech is because the freedoms to speak is not the freedom to be able to be on Twitter. Yeah, he hasn't thought about this for one second. He did a TED Talk today where he was asked about what he thought about content moderation and free speech, and he had not a single thing to say. I mean his first act when he bought the stake of the company was to tweet a Twitter poll about whether they should close the Twitter headquarters and turn it into a homeless shelter

because people aren't going to work there enough. Yeah he accused a random cave diver in Thailand of being a pedophile. I mean that's his idea of free speech. Yeah also he's the same person who when asked about like the there's this famous like oh you can't shout fire in a crowded theater that's actually a reference to a supreme court case that had to do with curtailing speech specifically anti-war speech during the first world war and he was like yeah obviously and i'm like it's when there are certain people who talk about free speech platforms in a way that tells me that they don't go outside enough. And maybe some people should go outside more often. Well, so there were some fairly overdramatic reactions

to Elon's bid on where else but Twitter. One journalism professor tweeted, quote, today on Twitter feels like the last evening in a Berlin nightclub at the twilight of Weimar, Germany. Sir, go outside, rub your hands on some fucking grass.

You go outside and you feel the grass between your little fingers and your pale skin, and you remind yourself that there are birds and there is blue sky up there. Go on, John. There was a journalism professor. Jane is a journalist.

What's your level of alarm as someone who uses Twitter quite a bit? Well, I mean, I think that there are a couple of levels here. I should not use Twitter a lot. Journalists should not use Twitter a lot. I got on Twitter at the beginning to talk about sports. Sports Twitter was nice. Then politics Twitter became like sports Twitter, but from hell. Because politics

matter, but sports don't matter, but they do matter in a different way. And so I think that the way that people get so hyped up within the silo of Twitter into believing that they are important and what they are saying is important is what leads you to comparing Elon Musk owning Twitter to the Nazi takeover of Germany, which is a little

different. Fucking stupid. A little different. It's ridiculous. And I think that, again, it's worth mentioning that when you look at the statistics, most Americans aren't on Twitter. Most Americans who are on Twitter don't tweet that much, and many of them don't talk about politics at all. And so the people who are the most anxious about this or the most excited about it are all the people who need to go outside and touch the grass and look at the birds. Because have you ever, if you are on Twitter and you're on Twitter a lot, have you ever tried to explain a Twitter thing to someone who isn't on Twitter? Yeah, they look at you like you're on Twitter a lot, have you ever tried to explain a Twitter thing to someone who isn't on Twitter? Yeah, they look at you like you're fucking crazy. Oh, yeah, being dead.

Like, any Twitter-based event, like, I try to tell my mom about it, and I'm just like, oh, this is why she doesn't think I have a real job? So, no. Like, my alarm is at how people are responding to this, plus how people, what people think free speech is when Twitter is a private platform. And it could just be, Twitter could be an entity where it's just like,

only Jane Koston can talk, and they could do that. It would be a weird platform. But, like, they could do it. My alarm is not that. Yeah, no, I mean, my opinion on this is if Elon buys Twitter and shuts the whole thing down, I'd be like, oh, probably saves me some time. Right.

I do think, like, it's so often this conversation about free speech. You see Joe Rogan and Bill Maher going back and forth about cancel culture. So much Barry Weiss, all these people. It's like, hey, you're not talking about the world you're talking about twitter yeah a platform of what 200 million people very few of whom actually use it every single day or actually obsessive users that kind of fill the site right it's a small percentage of that 210 million they're actually actively producing the conversation that that is twitter and i think there is a big cultural society challenge that we have where,

okay, we've created these new digital spaces and they are privatized. They have some kind of a public role. A lot of journalists are on them. A lot of people are on them. Those conversations do ultimately matter. And I think so much of our struggle is around how we analogize what those spaces are, right? Elon Musk, I think because he is a creature of the internet and bored, sees it as the public square. Of course, it's not. Is it a chat room? Is it a bulletin board at a coffee shop? Like how we analogize it, the story we tell about what Twitter actually is, what all of these digital spaces is, is actually a really big and hard conversation because it's not intuitive. And those analogies do a lot of work. That intuition kind of skips a lot of steps,

causes you to make certain assumptions. I mean, Twitter's user base is tiny compared to most other social media platforms. The reason that we talk about Twitter, aside from us being on it, is because every journalist in the world is on Twitter and now like every elected official and politician is on Twitter. And so Twitter becomes, even though it's not used by a lot of most people out there, it becomes the assignment desk for most of the media. And so that people who don't use Twitter get news about the world that's filtered through the Twitter bubble, because that's where all the journalists are. That's why we talk about this. Just to put some numbers on this, basically 8 in 10 Americans are not on Twitter.

7 in 10 Americans are on Facebook. 13% of Americans get their news from Twitter. Nearly half of Americans say they get some of their news from Facebook. 90% of tweets come from 10% of users. So it is a bubble within a bubble, that conversation. And we all live in that bubble. And it has importance. But I think that importance is so dramatically overstated. And it's hard to actually find real world indications that it's important. Just look at the conversation we were having about Trump. He has been off of Twitter for two years.

We all thought Twitter was his secret weapon, how he slayed the Bush family and Ted Cruz, who was obviously preoccupied with something. And, but now here he is. He's on Twitter

and his control of the Republican Party is stronger than it was when he was on Twitter. Even before he was kicked off Twitter, I remember writing something about how Trump's entire issue

in 2020 was that he was extremely online. And by that, I mean, he would do speaking events where he'd be like, did you hear about Nellie Orr? And he would be talking about things where it just is like, I wrote an article about Bruce Orr, and I don't even know what you're talking about. And he would do stump speeches about like, we got to repeal section 230. And he'd be doing this in front of like, mine workers in Ohio, who I'm sure were like, we got to repeal Section 230. And he'd be doing this in front of like mine workers in Ohio, who I'm sure were like, now I care a lot about the Communications Decency Act of 1996, but I'm not really sure like other people need to.

And it's like being extremely online is sometimes really fun. But if you start believing your own hype about being online, that's really bad for our politics. And the thing that's so funny about Trump being online is that all the things he tweeted about, some other person went online, printed it out on a piece of paper and gave it to him. Elon, ironically, though, is the greatest advertisement for not using the company he wants to buy. The man invented an electric car industry. He created a spaceship industry. but we all find him annoying because he's a stupid troll and he tweets a lot yeah and if you don't follow him out if you don't

know about him on twitter you're like oh that's a really interesting person if you do know about him on twitter you're like oh that guy's very that guy's tedious well let me let me ask a political question here about trump because a lot of the fear now is that if Elon buys Twitter, takes Twitter private, that he will allow Trump back on Twitter. Lovett, how concerned are you about that possibility? And do you think it will affect his potential 2024 bid? I refer you back to my answer from segment A. Trump is never less popular than when his flaws are in our face he his lowest points have come when he was when we gave him his full our full

attention when he was trying to repeal health care uh when when uh um that whole thing came the access hollywood tape came out right the only reason hillary clinton didn't become president is because james comey decided he was too tall to live in a democracy. So my view on this is simple. I've said it many times. I think what Vice President Kamala Harris did to get Trump off of Twitter was a huge, huge fucking mistake. Oh, man. Wow.

Nothing. Speaking of Twitter, you better not go on. Listen, Kay Hive. All right. We have a fragile piece. You just shattered that fragile peace. I can hear them buzzing. I'm so fucked.

On Twitter, no less. There's a red dot on your forehead. The point is, I do not think we have been well served by Trump getting to be mostly a memory while building support and the machinery to run again in 2024. I think being regularly reminded of what a repulsive human being he is is not disadvantageous to us get him back on twitter right now we absolutely need him on twitter it's not a popular opinion but we need no i agree he

need right now on that i think because here's god it's so look at us look what's happened to us no because like here's the thing. You can't wish him away because if he's not on Twitter, he's still strong in the Republican Party. They're still going to have a Republican primary for president. It doesn't matter that he's not on Twitter. It doesn't matter that we're not...

We do this all the time and people are like, why are you talking about Trump? If we don't talk... People think if you don't talk about Trump, he's just going to go away. He's not going to go away because there's a fucking Republican primary.

He's not Beetlejuice. Republican voters get Republican primary. He's not Beetlejuice. Republican voters get to pick. He's not Beetlejuice. He's the Babadook. He doesn't appear when you call him. He appears when you're sad and scared. I also think there's that whole thing of people who are like, oh, Twitter elected Trump. It was the meme magic.

And I'm like, no. It was a lot of people who were like oh like twitter elected trump it was the meme magic and i'm like no it was a lot of people not voting that that's what did it about like 75 000 people not voting yeah like the idea there's something about like believing that the thing you happen to like is very very important and it happens to be important because you like it that I think is very infectious in our society. And I think that Trump being back on Twitter and then it turning out that like, yeah, he's still the jag off he always was. Has anyone ever said jag off on this podcast? Probably.

No one else has talked about Ted Cruz and world hunger. It's a big day for this podcast. I just want to make just one little note. Like, obviously I know that Vice President Kamala Harris isn't the person who had Trump removed. There was a little bit of a debate between me and the K-Hive when she called for that in a debate with Elizabeth Warren. They were a little bit

disgruntled with the tone that I took about the topic. I didn't think it was necessarily worthy of a presidential debate. I did never apologize. In fact, I doubled down. That hissing tells me you remember. And the point I'm only making, just in a kind of jocular way, is kind of ultimately, I think, in the end, removing him from Twitter didn't necessarily redound to our advantage, but actually it has nothing to do with Kamala Harris. And please don't come for me. I live a

happy life. I want to be left alone. Thank you. Love it. It's too late for you, buddy. Using the podcast to do some personal business. All right. When we come back, if she's still here, Boston Mayor Michelle. If she's still here, Boston Mayor Michelle Wu. All right. Without further ado, joining us now is the newly elected mayor of Boston. In November, she made history as the first woman and person of color to be elected this city's mayor. Michelle Wu, welcome to the pod. Please tell me you have not heard the last 15 minutes of this show.

Well, the doors are actually locked. Oh, good. Yeah, you couldn't leave? Good, good, good. Sorry about all the other stuff. We are, A, so happy to have you here. And also as a Bostonian, so great to have you. Well, I'm from Dedham, technically, but it's so wonderful to have you elected. Welcome home. So question for you. So we talk a lot about climate change and it can feel very depressing. You know, Joe Biden's doing what he can at the executive level. Congress is kind of stuck, but the weather reports, the things you read to get worse and worse and worse. The thing that made me hopeful was the other day I was

listening to a conversation that my co-host Ben Rhodes had with Sadiq Khan, the mayor of London, who was talking about all the things cities can do to really leave the charge and move the needle on reducing carbon emissions. I know this is something you've talked a lot about in your campaign and that you're working on right now. Can you tell us, like, how can Boston lead the way and kind of fill the gap that's left by, you know, Congress being gridlocked? Yeah, it's, first of all, it's really exciting to be here with you all. Thank you for having me. And I'm most excited to be here with our federal partner here. The senator and I sometimes will do a little Green New Deal roadshow around announcing different policies. And we need that kind of partnership across all levels of government.

So we're still waiting. We're fingers crossed. We're putting every federal recovery dollar, ARPA dollar to good use on a Boston Green New Deal. We're waiting for more. We're getting ready. But the reality is that cities are where you can actually move fast. You can innovate. You can prove what works. Once you can see something, once people experience that in their lives, you really can shift what's possible in people's imagination. Do you also think that because Boston is a coastal city, you are seeing some of the first manifestations of climate change when you're looking at flooding? That's the same thing that we're seeing in Florida and elsewhere. Has that changed your perspective on the need to act now? New England in general and the Boston area in particular have had some of the highest

temperature changes measured already in sort of in a climate pattern way and that's meant that in the summers the number of high heat days over 90 degrees we are already experiencing a significant jump in that and then in the intensity of storms it's not rare now to have the bomb-o-geddon, bomb cyclone winter storms that line up with high tide that then mean flooding that has taken out infrastructure like T stations for months at a time. So when I think of like, you know, climate action, I think of like cap and trade

or major tax credits for new industries or solar panels. Like what does it look like for a city like Boston to really prioritize emissions reductions or set like an ambitious target? Like I know you have for, I think, what is it, 2030? You're looking at 100 percent renewables. So the beauty of doing things at the local level is that you can really show how interconnected all of our issues actually are. And so when we say Boston Green New Deal, we mean, of course, climate resiliency. But it's also housing that's affordable and energy efficient so that people don't have to pay utilities inside. It's also closing our racial wealth gap with small businesses and the green jobs that this will bring. And so

just in the last, I've been in office almost 150 days now, we have signed legislation to divest Boston's funding, the sort of free cash as a city from fossil fuels and other harmful industries. We have introduced three fare-free bus routes that now are proving public good, public chance it should be a public good. We just announced we're making a major purchase of electric buses that will help not only clean the air, move off of our diesel buses that we're still using, but ensure that we have vehicle-to-grid technology that can be deployed in times of power outages. And we're also training our high school students to be able to service and maintain these electric vehicles as well. So just to follow up on the, to follow up on the fare-free bus routes you mentioned, I was wondering, one, I know you ran on that.

It's something you promised and you put into place early on in your administration. Why did you decide to run on making these bus routes fare-free? And then also just like stepping back, I mean, I'm not a mayor. But like if I were a mayor trying to incentivize the use of public transportation, I might think, what if all public transportation was free so people weren't driving in, so that the poorest people weren't paying fare? Obviously, you'd have to pay for that infrastructure in some other way, maybe through taxation. But I'm wondering how you're thinking about that. It's really important to connect the day-to-day experiences of so many of our residents. And one big part of why I have been so adamant that we need to do better on public transportation is that I know what it's like to

be a mom pushing a big double stroller with two kids in it to try to get to daycare drop-off and to work on time and what it means when the train doesn't come often enough or the bus is too crowded or the disparities that you see because of the pricing schedule, it ends up compounding so many of the other challenges that our families are facing. And the other big thing to remember is that this is really part of Boston's legacy. We are home here to the nation's first public school, the first public park, the first public library, the first subway tunnel anywhere in the country. And we often talk about that as just kind of old stuff, right? You walk on the red brick freedom trail and you see all

these historic markers. But in fact, these were times when we recognized that we, if we stepped out first to invest in the common good, the common wealth, our public good, our shared future, that actually we changed the course of history in doing so. Public transportation is the same way. If we want to meet our climate goals, if we want to close the racial wealth gap, if we want to fix some of the traffic and congestion and air quality issues, the best thing that we can do is get more people

on buses and trains and out of fossil fuel-powered cars. I wanted to ask, I wanted to go a little bit back to, you were talking about housing and affordable housing. And I think something that we're seeing in cities across the country is that you are seeing skyrocketing housing prices and this really very ugly back and forth about what building new housing could mean, whether that's building new affordable housing is good or building new affordable housing is bad because it could cause more waste or something like that.

How do you think about that? And how do you think about, I mean, I think Boston's been doing a really good job on trying to answer the problems of homelessness and the many different types of homelessness. But I'm curious how you're thinking about housing, especially, you know, I just took a quick glance at some of the recent realty charts in Boston. And I mean, I live in D.C., but woof. So I'm just curious how you're thinking about that. Out of the pool of funds that we have for our ARPA dollars, our federal recovery dollars, we've said we need these to not be 10,000 photo ops, but focused on transformational change,

things that will leave a lasting impact. And for our residents, the challenges that existed before the pandemic, exacerbated by the pandemic, housing is that foundation. So the majority of our funds, the biggest chunk of that will go to housing stability in creating new affordable housing, preserving existing public housing

that is badly dilapidated because we haven't had support and funding from the federal government for a long time in boosting homeownership so that people are in control of their housing costs and we close a racial wealth gap. What we need to do is have a regional approach to that. mayors across Metro Boston have come together and we're picking up sort of where we left off before the pandemic of tying together our goals and understanding how housing is intimately connected to transportation access, to climate justice and everything else our families need. Absolutely. We just had a long, whiny conversation about Elon Musk, maybe buying Twitter, but i i noticed you

know the boston globe wrote up a big piece about how you clearly are the person actually tweeting when you tweet i know this more extremely online than i should be i can confirm this because i dm'd you trying to get a friend a job and you wrote me back right away and you were so nice but um it's been really fun seeing did i get them the job the job? I don't think I did. You were great. She went back to school. It's been really fun watching you get elected and then you're like a normal person and you take the T and you ride the train and ride the bus. And I saw you tweeted it.

You tweeted at the MBTA like, hey, we're getting double charged. We had to double pay that day. They were double charging people who got like kicked off a train and had to get on a bus and they get recharged. Are you drunk with power with this? I've always been like that on the T. And I actually met the two lovely people who run the T's Twitter handle a few years back. And I was like, I'm so sorry.

They are incredible human beings. You know, I'm glad I wasn't part of the Twitter conversation because I have way too much to say about where the line is between where we are as a society right now with free speech and incredibly powerful ability for any individual to have access to a platform that can reach tens of thousands, millions of people, but also in the context of such normalization of hate and harassment and politics

being really connected to that over, especially in most recent years. And so, you know, for me, I'm kind of been thinking about Twitter a lot lately right because now it's it used to be a platform where I knew people reaching out I could check it and see constituents and respond issues in real time and feel like I was being available and accessible and seeing things that were happening that wouldn't make it to that hearing at City Hall right but when it becomes flooded with such hate when you're kind of targeted by right-wing news sources and that whole stuff descends on a city or on an individual, it just crowds out a lot of the direct human-to-human interaction. Yeah. Last question for you. So you said 150 days you've

been doing this job. Best part? Worst part so far? Anything really surprise you? Any upside that we didn't know about? I have a, I keep a count, I actually don't know what the exact number off the top of my head now, something in the like 1360 range of how many days left until the end of the term, because every single day has to count. And in city government, that is the pace that we have to move at the urgency of our families and communities and not at the usual speed of bureaucracy. And we can do that at the local level where everything's very tangible. I think the worst part is that we are so affected sometimes by the national currents of what this moment in politics looks like across the country and across the world. I really believe that local government is obviously I'm a little

biased but I believe that this is where we can earn trust back, where we can show that it makes a difference when you reach out and connect and get involved in politics and your local government, where you can see people face-to-face. And so we're trying to be a model here in Boston of what that means when we throw the doors wide open, get City Hall out of City Hall, into our neighborhoods,

and just keep our eyes focused on how we keep moving forward. All right. Well, I can say personally that your election was very exciting and inspiring to us, and thank you so much for being here. Mayor Wu, thank you again, and coming up next will be Senator Ed Markey. So stick around. He is a champion for two of my favorite and equally important policies, the Green New Deal and permanent daylight saving time. Please welcome Senator Ed Markey.

Thank you, Senator. How are you doing? You know, I'm doing great. You have unleashed the spirit of Boston here tonight. Just absolutely incredible. Unleashing the spirit of Boston here tonight. Just absolutely incredible. Unleashing the spirit of Boston is exciting and terrifying as a rule. So let's start with the most important issue, daylight saving time. So we got it. So this is to make daylight saving time permanent, no more early sunsets.

We got it through the Senate on what's called unanimous consent. That's where nobody objects to it, so it passes. And then a few senators were like, wait, hold on a second. I didn't agree. I screwed up a little. I would have objected. So it's kind of stuck right now. Is that right? We got it through the Senate, and now it's over in the House of Representatives. And my philosophy is this, that I like birds. I just don't want them chirping at 5 a.m. in the morning outside of my window. And I'd rather have the hour of sun in the evening when I can use it for other purposes. And I also believe that when the sun is out in the evening,

it actually makes the corners of people's mouths turn upwards. And they're kind of walking on sunshine for that extra hour in the evening, and it just makes people feel good. I agree. However, Massachusetts makes sense. In standard time winters the sun here sets at about 2 in the afternoon

you people are trudging kids are coming home from preschool midday in the pitch black dark it's Anchorage here's my compromise to get this through to not lose some of these people that are a bit more skeptical

here's my compromise basically we amend the uniform time act to not lose some of these people that are a bit more skeptical. Here's my compromise, all right? Basically, we amend the Uniform Time Act of 1966, and instead of making everybody choose permanent daylight saving time, we just say, if you want to switch to permanent daylight saving time as a state, you can. If you want to be on standard time, you can. If you want to keep switching, you go for it. Just give permission to all the states that have already voted in their legislatures to adopt permanent daylight saving time to do so if that's what they've approved.

And then all that will happen is we'll have a new time zone map, and states that switch will switch. States that don't won't. Some will be standard. Some will be permanent. And everybody wins. Are you in? Are you in on the Lovett proposal?

Can we get your support tonight? So the Lovett proposal is why you wouldn't want it for other issues. You're kind of like a states rights guy for daylight savings time. You know what? Yes. Yes, I am. On this one thing. On this one thing.

Well, here's where I am. So with Marco Rubio. I don't know who that is. I hear you. I've literally never heard the name. Well, what we were able to do was the Republican conservative senator from the Sunshine State partnered with the liberal Democratic senator from the brain state. And we partnered to get it passed in the Senate.

And now I have to deal with the House of Representatives. And so, you know, I don't know, maybe I could just commission you to be on my staff for the next couple of months to cut this. I won't do any security forms and I won't do a background check, but I'll help. All right. I'll help on the outside. I'm not I'm not signing anything. Well, I'll tell you what, I am 100 percent committed to year round daylight savings time. If a compromise is needed, I think we have to put your ideas on the table in order to find a way to President Biden's desk. Because everyone deserves to have sunshine, a little bit of sunshine in their life every single day. Completely agree.

So I wanted to ask you about this because it actually broke today and I was actually surprised by it. CNN has reported that these texts from one of your colleagues, Senator Mike Lee of Utah, that he was actively trying to overturn the election, that he was texting Mark Meadows saying, we've got to

figure out a way to get these legislatures to overturn the election. He was more involved and more active than previously known. What was your reaction to that? Were you surprised by just how involved Senator Lee was in this effort to overturn the election? Well, I'm not surprised in a Republican Party, which is a wholly owned subsidiary of Donald Trump, which is really a party of the invasion of the body snatchers, where Donald Trump now controls the agenda. And I'm also not surprised that perhaps at some moment that there was some reservations that they had about how far they were going. But I don't think we can give out gold medals for just protecting the Constitution

for a brief moment in people's careers, because even a broken clock is right twice a day. But the reality is that this is a party that has lost its way. And from my perspective, for what Donald Trump did on January 6th, I believe that he belongs in jail. I believe that what he did was a crime against our Constitution. Disagree. I don't know. Now let's talk about the Green New Deal. The Green New Deal.

You know, we're in this moment where we're feeling the effects of these high gas prices because of what's happening around the world. On the one hand, there is this push now to say, this is why we need clean energy. This is why we need to make ourselves, to unyoke ourselves from this, from fossil fuels. On the other hand, the Biden administration announced today they're going to auction leases on 145,000 acres of public lands in nine states. What do you think about that, their decision to begin these leases again? We cannot drill our way out of this problem.

Our federal lands should be protected. And right now, by the way, the oil and gas industry already has 9,000 permits on public lands in the United States to drill on, and they're not. They have 4,000 permits off our coastline on federal land to drill on. They are not. They also have 4,000 leases, permits on their own private land, and they're not drilling on it. And why is that? Because they don't have a stake in reducing gasoline prices. They're actually drilling for wealth in their own stocks, taking their war profits over the last years and pouring it into their own wealth and not into new wells. So we don't need to give them any more of the public lands of our country. What we need is

a clean energy revolution. We need wind and solar, all electric vehicles, battery storage technologies. And the truth is that for every 15 million all-electric vehicles that we deploy in the United States, we back out all of the Russian oil. The next 15 million all-electric vehicles, that would back out all of the Saudi oil, etc., etc. The power is in our own technological genius that has to be unleashed, and then we will solve this problem without having to have oil and gas companies have any more of the precious federal lands in our country. Where are you, last question on this, where are you on this deal where basically we'll lend to some short-term oil and gas drilling to get this

longer-term green energy investment that's far bigger? Even some progressives in the House have come out for it to try to get Joe Manchin. Get Joe Manchin to this yes that he's buried 500 feet underground that we've been digging to find for the last two fucking years.

Well, here's where we are. First of all, it's so great to be here with our great new mayor, Michelle Wu. She ran on a Green New Deal. And we have a Green New Deal mayor in Boston. And I introduced the Green New Deal with Alexandria Ocasio Green New Deal mayor in Boston. And I introduced the Green New Deal with Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez just three years ago. And that has created a revolution. And we are the revolutionary state. And we can feel it. And the mayor is, we already have one green monster over at Fenway Park. She's going to turn the whole city into one big green monster.

And I'm just so proud of her. And my feeling is this, very simply, that when we look at what Putin has done, when we look at this invasion of Ukraine, when we look at the dramatic spike in the price of oil, the response has to be in Europe and in the United States that we are going to destroy the business model of Russia and of Saudi Arabia. And we're going to just stop this crazy dependence on imported oil. It is a catalyst for conflict. It's the Green New Deal which is the pathway to peace.

And the only way to do it is not to have more drilling. It's rather to unleash this incredible young generation, the Green New Deal revolution, that will, in fact, make it possible for us to look into the rearview mirror to think that there ever was such an era that we were so dependent of on imported oil and gas. So we got a bill. It says we'll do the clean energy provisions of Build Back Better, but to get Manchin, we're going to do a short-term oil and gas. How do you feel about it? I think that, first of all, there are no Republicans in the room. We'll just start right there. So let's just stipulate that it's a party without a conscience in terms of climate change. So we have to negotiate with Senator Manchin. And my own belief is, because I've been working on this for decades,

we've never been closer to getting a bill that passes that will put us on a pathway by 2030 and 2035 to be able to really say that we have done what is necessary and we won't need any of that oil or gas. We put 70% of all the oil we consume into gasoline tanks. If we're producing 40% of all of our new vehicles are electric by 2030, that the business model of the oil and gas companies will be on the pathway to oblivion. They can have all the leases they want. We won't need their oil. So we just have to get all of those tax breaks in place. They call it socialism, Fox News. You know what I say? A hundred years of tax breaks for oil, gas, and coal. Give us some of that socialism for wind and solar and all electric vehicles, and we will solve

that problem. All right. I think we, all right. All right. Thank you so much for being here. But before we let you go, we couldn't leave Boston without exploring what makes this city unique. And here to help us do that, please welcome back to the stage your hometown heroes, John and Tommy. Beautiful. Hi, guys. All right. Center. Happy pay-per-view day again.

All right, you guys go here. Go, go, go. Boston. You're cut from your own cloth, and that cloth is a jersey you wore to a too-nice restaurant. The concierge at our hotel was wearing a Celtics t-shirt. I've never seen that before. He is your key, he is your drink voucher.

Go Sox. Is that okay? You could work on that. What do you think? John, do it. How did he say it? How was that Boston accent, Senator? Do you want

it from Southie or do you want it from Beverly Farms? We have multiple accents. We actually grow up bilingual. We have the accent out on the street and then the accent your mother wants you to use. So it can be they's or va's

depending upon where you are. Perfect. That's all. It's in the departed. It was Leonardo DiCaprio. You speak both languages. Winchester and Celtic. Remember that great scene? I was born in Winchester. The point is...

Oh my god. I feel like I'm going to get beat up in the town, you know? The point is, Bostonians are known for a subset of interesting behaviors. The good, the bad, the screaming out of your window because I'm driving the wrong way down a one-way street. And we wanted to see just how pervasive these local customs are in a game we're calling, Am I the Mass Hall? customs are in a game we're calling, am I the Masshole?

And I want everyone here to know that when I said the word Masshole backstage to a senator, his eyes went, but he's a good sport and thank you for staying for this ridiculous event. Here's how it works. I'm going to ask if you have indulged in these charming local customs. If you have, raise your hand or call out the answer. And at the end, we will decide who the biggest mass hole is. Senator, are you ready? I'm ready to go.

All right. Please raise your hand or shout out if this is you. You have driven the wrong way down a one-way street. Wow, we have a yes from John. All three of them. Wow. It's hard to tell. You've used furniture from your kitchen to save a parking spot.

Senator, he's never done it. He's never done it. It's a Southie thing. Okay, I think no answers there. Have you ever gotten out of your car? On my street, everyone knows who dug out that hole. No one wants to find out what happens if you park there. You really don't have to put a piece of furniture out there. You know the consequences already.

It's norms, not laws on Ed Markey's block still. Have you ever gotten out of your car to yell at another driver? I'm so brave when I'm mad. Just me. Have you ever said, I would go gay for Tom Brady

even if no one asked? John and Tommy say yes. It's a tough question. Senator Markey refusing to say he'd go gay for Tom Brady. I see you, Ted Cruz. Tom Brady for World Hunger? Yes. You've met a guy who knew a guy who knew a guy who knew Whitey Bulger. Yes! We got a yes from Senator Ed Markey. Many guys. Shout it out if you know the correct name for a water fountain.

Bubbler. Bubbler. All of them got it. You've watched Candlepin Bowling on TV. Everybody. Candlepins for cash. People don't do that all the time on Saturdays? Weird.

You've driven to New Hampshire to buy alcohol on a Sunday. John and Tommy, yes. You've unironically been to Wahlburgers. Wow, wow. At the airport, no? At the airport. It's fine. Please tell me if you can name the official dessert of Massachusetts born at the Omni Parker House Hotel.

Boston cream pie. I heard it though. Here's one of my many problems with this place called Boston. It's a fucking cake. It's not a pie. It's just a cake. Right? Am I crazy?

It's a fucking cake. Right? Tell me it's not a fucking cake. a fucking cake, right? Tell me it's not a fucking cake. Like a donut filled with cream? I don't know. It's got a layer of cake. It's got a layer of cream. It's got a layer of cake. It's got frosting on the top. What are we doing here, Boston?

Have you ever worn a Bruins jersey to church? No, Senator, he wouldn't do that. You pronounce car keys like it's a type of pant. Cackies. Cackies. Cackies. Next question.

It's a test. Sweet Caroline. The audience got it. Obviously. The audience got it. The audience got it. Final question. All right, Senator. In your heart of hearts, you believe Boston is better than New York City,

which is a dump town for fools, covered in rats, barely even freezes in the winter, and the pizza's overrated, too. covered in rats, barely even freezes in the winter, and the pizza's overrated too. Woo! Your thoughts, Senator?

In Boston, in Boston, you were born a Democrat and a Red Sox fan and not baptized for seven more days. So the answer is yes. The New York Yankees are

the evil empire. Yes. Well, I think it's pretty clear. Senator, you've won the game. It's not even close. This guy puts you to shame. His accent, you guys have lost it. You guys have lost it.

Thank you so much to Senator Ed Markey for being here. Thank you. That was so fun. So appreciate it. That was so great. That's our show for tonight. Thank you to Ed Markey.

Thank you to Mayor Michelle Wu. Thanks to Jane Cosen for being here. VoteSaveAmerica.com. Sign up. We'll see you later, guys. Thank you. Bye, everybody. Podsave America is a Crooked Media production.

The executive producer is Michael Martinez. Our senior producer is Andy Gardner-Bernstein. Our producer is Haley News, and Olivia Martinez is our associate producer. It's mixed and edited by Andrew Chadwick. Kyle Seglin and Charlotte Landis sound engineer the show. Thanks to Tanya Sominator, Sandy Gerrard, Hallie Kiefer, Ari Schwartz, Andy Taft, and Justine Howe for production support. And to our digital team, Elijah Cohn, Phoebe Bradford, Milo Kim, and Amelia Montu. Our episodes are uploaded as videos at youtube.com slash crookedmedia. you