Pod Save America - Biden’s in His Jacked-Up Joe Era

Episode Date: March 12, 2024

President Biden’s re-election effort kicks into high gear, including a 30 million dollar ad buy and a run of campaign stops in battleground states. Meanwhile, Donald Trump launches his campaign by mocking Joe Biden’s stutter, hosting a concert for Viktor Orban, and floating cuts to Medicare and Social Security. Alabama Senator Katie Britt and Republicans are still dealing with the fallout from what may have been the worst-ever State of the Union response. And later, producer Elijah Cone joins the pod for a 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. Subscribe for pre-sale access: crooked.com/friendsTour dates & cities: crooked.com/events

Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Jon Favreau. I'm Jon Levitt. I'm Tommy Dittor. On today's show, Donald Trump kicks off the general election by mocking Joe Biden's stutter, hosting a concert for Victor Orban, and floating cuts to Medicare and Social Security. Alabama Senator Katie Britt and Republicans are still dealing with the fallout from what may have been the worst ever State of the Union response. We'll talk about it. We'll talk about it.

And later, Take Appreciator is back. And so is Elijah. But first, the man Sean Hannity now calls jacked up Joe has kicked his reelection effort into high gear. Team Biden raised $10 million in the first 24 hours after the State of the Union. That's the most they've raised all cycle and one 24 hour period. Since then, the president has been on a campaign swing that includes Pennsylvania, Georgia, New Hampshire, Michigan, and Wisconsin. Biden's out there talking about his second term economic agenda, a newly released 2025 budget that's focused on lowering costs and taxing the rich. And the campaign has launched a $30 million ad buy in the battleground states that begins with

this new ad. Let's listen. Look, I'm not a young guy. That's no secret. But here's the deal. I understand how to get things done for the American people. I led the country through the COVID crisis. Today, we have the strongest economy in the world. I passed a law that lowers prescription drug prices, capsizes are $35 a month for seniors. For four years, Donald Trump tried to pass an infrastructure law, and he failed. I got it done. Now we're rebuilding America. I passed the biggest law in history to combat climate change, because our future depends on it.

Donald Trump took away the freedom of women to choose. I'm determined to make Roe v. Wade the law of the land again. Donald Trump believes the job of the president is to take care of Donald Trump. I believe the job of the president is to fight for you, the American people. And that's what I'm doing. I'm Joe Biden, and I approve this message. Can we do one more take? Look, I'm very young, energetic, and handsome.

What the hell am I doing this for? Funny. It was great. I liked it. Also, he somehow looks younger in the ad it's yeah he looked great he looks great everyone's a while everyone's a while they he gets k middleton yeah he gets sand he gets sandblasted and tanner and he looks awesome also like the little score it's great classic uh lifting classic opening campaign uh ad score right there it feels like the campaign's

begun what'd you guys think overall of the ad and sort of the overall post-SoToot rollout? That's how, I was thinking about the, that I just had this sense of relief that like, oh, the campaign.

You and Ezra Klein. Ezra's back. Ezra's back. Got Ezra back. Got Ezra back. That's a relief. Can't have him out there giving us ideas.

Worried. Giving us ideas. Called himself a weak-k knee pundit. Did he? Oh yeah. I haven't caught up on the vicissitudes of Ezra's Biden. Sorry, I cut you off.

Go ahead. No, that's how I felt. It was like, you know, we've been saying it. A lot of people have been saying it. Like we want to see Biden out there. The Biden campaign has been saying he will be. The campaign is about to begin and now it has. And the past like 72 hours, you've seen a ton of back and forth between Trump and Biden on his affinity for dictators, on Trump's being open to cutting Medicare and Social Security.

I feel like these are all really good fights. And I think four days of stories about how energetic and on top of this shit Biden seemed was a very, very good couple of days. Yeah, if your opponents go from calling you too old to saying you're using drugs, that's probably good. Hey, for sure. Jacked up Joe, I'd make t-shirts. Yeah, I would too. I like jacked up Joe. Also most people won't think that's a bad thing. Right. It sounds like you've been lifting weights. I liked that it took the age. I liked that his ad took the age issue head on and it was funny. I think they walked through his accomplishments in a way that was not defensive, but talked about some of the bills they passed, but also contrasted Trump like, oh, he tried to get infrastructure done.

I did. The real value, I think, will come from these swing state visits. I imagine the White House wasn't totally thrilled with what spun out of the MSNBC interview with Jonathan Capehart, which we can get into. But other than that, pretty good. Yeah, no, I'm always interested in how they decide what to put in these ads. Right. Because making that is extremely difficult. 30 seconds or in this case, it was 60 seconds. I found it interesting that they chose infrastructure. And I think they did that as a point proof point around effectiveness, not just because, you know, it's popular that he passed an infrastructure bill that's creating a lot of jobs, but Biden got it done. Trump didn't. I do think they're trying to sort of litigate the here's what Trump did as president. Here's what I did, which is good. And I think it's good for now because memories need to be refreshed. I do hope that like soon they'll pivot to what I'll do versus what he'll do. But I think at the beginning of the campaign,

you've got to remind people both what Trump did and also what the year 2020 was like since Trump continues to want us to remember what life was like four years ago. And four years ago today, everything was shutting down around the country. Yeah.

Yeah, that was my sort of on the ad that it goes at age directly. Then it does a little bit of record, but use it for contrast. And then it lands on, I'm out for you trump's out for himself and i'm hot and i'm hot and i'm hot as hell super hot and i'm funny yeah i'm funny funny and fuckable joe biden 2024 another good t-shirt let's get this in the crooked store before

the biden campaign no bad ideas in a brainstorm uh i also uh you know the budget came out today it's uh never gonna pass but everyone puts a budget out as their their ideal. Right. And especially important in a reelection campaign because it's going to it's basically takes the place of what basically doubles as Biden's second term agenda. great. Housing is the biggest cost people face. It comes up in every single focus group across every demographic. And yet it's not a big part of the national political debate. And so it's great to see Biden talking about housing costs in this campaign. He's talking about giving mortgage relief to people, saving people thousands of dollars. So I thought that was that was great as well. Tommy mentioned the MSNBC interview. He sat down with Jonathan Capehart. In that interview, he doubled down on his criticism of the Supreme Court's Dobbs decision. He said he wished he used a different word other than illegals to describe undocumented immigrants in his State of the Union speech. And he answered plenty of questions about

Gaza. Here's what he said. What is your red line with Prime Minister Netanyahu? Do you have a red line? For instance, would invasion of Rafah, which you have urged him not to do, would that be a red line? It is a red line, but I'm never going to leave Israel. The defense of Israel is still critical. So there's no red line. I'm going to cut off all weapons so they don't have the Iron Dome to protect them. They don't have. But there's red lines that if he crosses and they cannot have 30,000 more Palestinians dead as a consequence of going after. There's other ways to deal, to get to, to deal with the with with the trauma caused by Hamas. He has a right to defend Israel, a right to continue to pursue Hamas.

But he must he must he must pay more attention to the innocent lives being lost as a consequence of the actions taken. He's hurting, in my view, he's hurting Israel more than helping Israel by making the rest of the world, it's contrary to what Israel stands for. So in response, Bibi told Politico, as one does, that he still intends to move into Rafah. He thinks Biden is wrong and rejects any attempt to, quote, ram down our throats, a Palestinian state. So what now, Tommy, where does that where does that leave Biden? I mean, it leaves the U.S. and Israel in totally different places, both in terms of near term military strategy and long term political goals. And it's very bad. I mean, they're just couldn't be further apart.

And I think, you know, any leader that faced an attack like October 7th would have responded with a military response. Rockets were still being fired. There were hostages being held. But five months later, even Bibi Netanyahu in that Politico interview admits that at least 26,000 people have been killed and at least half of them are civilians. Now, I suspect the number is much higher. The number of civilians killed is much higher. I don't think we have any idea how many people are trapped in rubble. But it's this catastrophic humanitarian situation. And now Netanyahu is threatening to go into Rafah where 1.4 million people are sheltering. But that's also where all the aid crosses into Gaza. So you have people starving to death because the Israeli government

will not allow insufficient aid. If the rest of the trucks that are getting in, like the 100 trucks a day that are getting in are blocked because of some big military campaign, you'll see mass starvation. Airdrops cannot solve that. This new seaport that Biden talked about is months away from being created. So that's the near-term challenge. Longer term, even the Israeli military thinks that Hamas survives this war. They're going to be a guerrilla group or terrorist organization. You also cannot kill the idea of Hamas, the resistance to occupation. And that won't go away until there's a Palestinian state. So Netanyahu's ruling out talks. He's ruling out a two-state solution. That means people are going to look to armed groups like

Hamas. So they're just not aligned on anything. And I think that will continue to be the case unless the Biden administration says there will be consequences if you do these things that we don't want you to do, like invade Rafah, like reject a two-state solution. But thus far, Biden has been very hesitant to do that. Yeah. And I saw there's a Politico story just before we started recording that the Biden administration has a couple senior officials on background saying that Biden will consider conditioning aid if Bibi goes ahead and moves into Rafah. Which is too late. Right. I was going to say that. Way too late.

Yeah. And then it said that like then an Israeli military sources said, oh, it's not the moving into raf and stuff like that but i i don't know man it's all it's also just there's a there's a strange sort of um not complacency but sort of like uh uh like the tone of an observer of this situation it's. And just as, look, the announcement in the State of the Union that we are going to begin the building of a pier off of Gaza, as someone who has no, like I'm not in any way expert in any of the logistics or realities of what it is like to try to get aid into this place. But the idea that we have so few levers to gain access to this place, that we are forced to build something in the

waters off the coast as if we are dealing with the Soviet Union in the height of the Cold War, or dropping it from the sky as if we are not trying to get around, not an enemy, but supposedly one of our great allies to try to help these people who are, by the way, committing atrocities with weapons we supplied. I just, it makes us look weak. It makes Biden look weak. And forget, you know, on top of the fact that he says in this interview, my red line is another 30,000 dead, which to me, like sounds cavalier and then the fact that you then hear reports that that he's saying oh he's gonna have that that oh uh quietly he says you know caught off mike oh we're gonna have a come to jesus moment when when the time for the

time to come to jesus uh was weeks ago was months ago yeah he was just asked again uh just now about uh have you scheduled to come to jesus meeting And he, he said, no, which I mean, you were saying that it obviously too late to condition aid after they move into Rafa. What's the ideal outcome? Like right from what Biden said right now, if Biden suddenly was like, you know what? No, I'm done. This is bad. I'm going to actually do something and not just be an observer. I mean, I think what you want to get to is a negotiated ceasefire that is probably going to end up being longer than six weeks, which is what the Israelis want. The Israelis want a shorter ceasefire in exchange for 40 hostages and sort of a phased process. I think what President

Biden should demand is a permanent ceasefire, a full hostage release, and then you go from there. Netanyahu, the challenge here is that Netanyahu knows that he is clinging to power for as long as this military conflict is happening. He is deeply unpopular. He is facing prosecution for all kinds of corruption schemes and alleged crimes. And he knows that his coalition could fall apart at any moment and then he'll be out of power. He's very unlikely to get reelected in that case. And then we'll just have to face legal accountability for all these things he's done. So he has an incentive to prolong this war, to drag this out, and to keep this sort of like emergency coalition going that is leading the war effort. And he also wants Donald Trump to be president. Yeah. Let's just be honest about it.

Right. And Donald Trump, who said, you got to let them finish the job in Gaza. I can make one more point about this, too, which is very clearly there is Joe Biden personally views his responsibility as what he is going to try to get done behind the scenes versus what he says publicly. Even if you accept that, which Tommy doesn't, I don't. There is still space to be, I think, more like at least rhetorically in defense of the rights of Palestinian people. When Bibi says we will not have a Palestinian state shoved down our throat, even if you're not willing to draw red lines publicly, even if you're not willing to push Bibi harder publicly, I would like to see an American president say a Palestinian state is not something that is bestowed by the prime minister of Israel because we believe in the inalienable rights of these people. And that having a state, having self-determination isn't

something granted by others. It is something that belongs to them, regardless of who is standing in the way or the obstacles that stand in the way. Yeah. And it's longstanding US policy that we should have a negotiated solution that leads to a two different Palestinian state. And I like your point about the rhetoric use and the emphasis again, like Kamala Harris gave a speech a couple of weeks ago now where she talked about a ceasefire and made it sound like a demand and it was commanding and authoritative. And she's, you know, centers the humanity of the Palestinian people and it lands differently. You know, she got cheered at this event where she was getting booed, cheered and cheered policy, right? The same policy cheered for just laying out the moral stakes of the same policy and what they're trying to get

done. We know Biden can get feisty and angry. We've seen it. We've heard it. And so it would be really great to see that with Bibi. And Bibi Netanyahu is a great person to get feisty at. I was going to say this is not, yeah, we're not, yeah. Because he's a corrupt, racist, terrible leader who's harming his country and he's built a coalition off of people who are extremists. And you're drawing And Biden draws a distinction in that interview between what he views as the interest of Israel and what Benjamin Netanyahu

is doing. And he should be drawing more of a distinction between the prerogatives of one terrible leader and what he believes in the best interest of that state

for everybody who believes in the right of Israel to exist. So Trump also campaigned in Georgia over the weekend where he attacked Biden's State of the Union as an angry, dark, hate-filled rant before delivering one of his own. Here's what you missed. Two nights ago, we all heard Crooked Joe's angry, dark, hate-filled rant of a State of the Union address. Wasn't it? Didn't it bring us together? Remember, he said, I'm going to bring the country together. I'm going to bring it together. They're conquering our country. These people are conquering our country.

Joe Biden went on television and apologized for calling Lakin's murderer an illegal. He didn't want to call him illegal. He's apologizing. It's so interesting. I watched these criminals back there, the press. Look at how many of them. And we did nothing wrong. Perfect phone call.

Other than we challenged the honesty of this election. This election was rigged you know the polls are all rigged of course lately they haven't been rigged because i'm winning by so much i would say disregard that statement i love the polls very much telling lots to unpack there from the guy whose uh aides told nbc a few weeks ago they'll they'll be pivoting to less grievance and more policy awful yeah i have one hot take here which is i hope trump keeps talking about biden stutter because biden's going to be a lot better off if people think that his verbal gaffes know that his verbal gaffes are related to his stutter and not his age like yeah and he sounds like a vicious mean person he does he does well that's pretty

much baked in with trump at this point but it is like it's also a realization from trump that he's not going to be able to get as much mileage out of the age thing as maybe he had hoped after the State of the Union. And so now he's got to go to the stutter. But anyway, I'm not sure to you guys. Yeah, I'm not sure. I was thinking about that. I can tell if it's Trump reacting to how strong Biden seemed. And so he doesn't think the age attack is as salient or if he should just take Trump at his word from this speech, which is he views the press's focus on Biden's age as an indirect attack on him. He takes it personally because he says in the speech, they're only calling Biden old because they're trying to say I'm old. I'm actually four years

younger, by the way. And there's a lot of great 80 year olds. There's a lot of great 90 year olds is about incompetence. So I felt like some of it was not strategic so much as he doesn't like the fact that he's 78 years old and he doesn't like talking about it. It's like thinking about it. He's trying to make it about stutter and he's trying to make it about incompetence. Yeah, they're trying to make it about incompetence. I mean, clearly the core message they're trying to drive is about Lake and Riley and about immigration. If you folks don't know the story, it's this horrible incident in Georgia where a 22-year-old woman went jogging. She was murdered by a man from Venezuela who had unlawfully crossed into the country, into the U.S. and was allowed to stay. So Trump invited Lake and

Riley's family to the event. Marjorie Taylor Greene was passing out Lake and Riley buttons at the State of the Union that led to that exchange. There were posters printed. So Trump spends a lot of time at every event talking about immigration policy. But then he also, you know, sort of in real time got this information about the Jonathan Capehart interview and said that Biden apologized to Lake and Riley's killer for calling the killer illegal, which did not happen in any way. So clearly that's their message. It's demagoguing immigration. But it was also like two hours long. It was a great hits album. It's getting really just wind about every case in detail. He's still pretending he didn't misspeak

when he keeps saying Obama's president. He continues to say that he will defund any school with a vaccine or mask mandate and never says COVID. So, again, if you like polio, if you like measles, if you like diseases recently eradicated from the United States, I got a candidate for you. And this isn't like a hypothetical. We're seeing cases of measles pop up in places where they haven't been in decades. 45 of them this year. There were 58 total in 2023. Yeah. Yeah.

No, I mean, it's also an indication that Biden picking fights with Trump throws him off his game and gets him to go off message. Not that he's like disciplined and on message, but, you know, we have seen him in recent months. Every once in a while, the campaign gets them to be a little bit more on message. And, you know, he was clearly I think he was thrown off a little bit by the State of the Union. And so we got the we got the two hour crazy fest. I have speaking of throwing Trump off a little bit.

What do you think about this pitch? It's a stupid pitch. Here's my pitch. I think Joe Biden should come out to proud to be American. Oh, I think he should come out to Trump's song. Oh, that's that song. Yeah. Proud to be an American. I think Joe Biden should come out to Proud to be American Oh he's taking a song? I think he should come out to Trump's song Oh is that Trump's song now? Yeah Proud to be an American There's so many

But that's the one he loves the most That's the one he comes out to Proud to be an American He loves it He walks around He hears the whole song We're proud to be American He'd be so pissed

He'd be so pissed I like that idea I'd love to watch Joe Biden come out to that song I think he should come out to the QAnon music Oh that's beautiful J6 Choir We're taking back Yeah yeah J6 Choir Little QAnon music. Oh, that's beautiful. The J6 choir. We're taking back. Yeah, yeah.

J6 choir, a little QAnon. Laura Trump's won't back down version. Oh, yeah. There we go. There we go. Trump did compliment Biden, though. Do you guys catch that? He said Biden probably did well enough that they're not going to replace him on the ballot

on the State of the Union. He said that was good news because he wants to run against Biden. He also attacked E. Jean Carroll again, prompting yet another threat of a defamation suit from her lawyer. Yeah. Yeah, I said she was a liar. What an asshole. He called her Mrs. Bergdorf Goodman, whatever the department store was called. Not really learning his lesson as he had to do the bond on Friday.

Yeah, no, not learning his lesson at all. Trump's also back to doing phone interviews with all his favorite cable shows. Here's what he said to conservative Squawk Box host Joe Kernan about his plans for Medicare and Social Security. Have you changed your outlook on how to handle entitlements, Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid? Mr. President, it seems like something has to be done or else we're going to be stuck at 120 percent of debt to GDP forever. So first of of all there is a lot you can do in terms of entitlements in terms of cutting and in terms of also uh... the theft and the the bad management of entitlements tremendous bad management

of entitlements is tremendous events of things and numbers of things you can do i don't you know necessarily agree with the statement. I know that they're going to end up weakening Social Security because the country is weak. I mean, take a look at outside of the stock market are what we're going through. Hell, people are going through hell. So Biden pounced on that as did his campaign. Biden said, not on my watch. He spoke about it at his event today. There's a digital ad that's out now from the Biden campaign that's going to be part of that $30 million buy.

Trump campaign said he was just talking about cutting waste. Waste, fraud, and abuse. Waste, fraud, and abuse. Though Trump did propose budgets every year of his presidency that would cut Medicare and Social Security and Medicaid. It does seem notable to me that the Trump folks want to avoid this conversation. But what do you guys think that's a just ran against nikki haley by accusing her of messing with social security yeah what also what i what i thought was they got to stop letting trump do these phoners with these cnbc guys because he's too he's not he's not in his he's like kind of old trump he's sort of just like kind of just shooting the shit let it go trumpy trump i'm all

for it let joe be joe and let trumpy trump yeah i mean the chip let the chips fall he also like loves talking about cutting entitlements on cnbc it was at january of 2020 that he was talking to cnbc from davos of all places uh and said that at the right time he'd take a look at cutting social security and medicare he knows the audience he's thinking he's thinking about the audience of that channel. It's funny. I was triggered by the phoners, the TV phone interview in the opposite direction. It just made me think of 2015 and 16,

all these news outlets not learning their lesson because none of them, he never answers their question. Even like Andrew Ross Sorkin, progressive, super smart journalist, tried to ask some good questions and Trump just doesn't even come close to responding evades the question you can't interrupt them because he's just ranting away

they're terrible yeah let him talk word salad it makes mistakes says stuff that's damaging yeah no for sure for sure unlearn all your lessons i don't care at this point i was like looking at his record on social security and medicare i didn't i forgot about this story from the Trump years because there were too many to keep track of. Do you know Mick Mulvaney, who ended up like a very Freedom Caucus conservative Republican congressman who ended up becoming Trump's chief of staff, one of the many chiefs of staff? And he bragged at one point about tricking Trump into proposing cuts to Social Security disability insurance. So he went into the Oval right after Trump won in 16. He said, all right, let's talk about cutting Social Security insurance. Like, I can't do that.

I just said I wouldn't do it. Talk about let's cut Medicare. I don't think I can do that either. I just campaigned on it. And he goes, well, what about disability insurance? We can cut that. Trump goes, yeah, great, great. Let's cut that.

Let's cut that. Didn't realize that it was part of a Social Security program.'t realize that it would affect medicare and cut medicare as well it just goes to show that like even on these issues where trump feels like he has to be more of a populist or go against the republic party he's so stupid you can trick him into anything like it goes back to the conversation about like the project 2025 the christian nationalism like all these people trump gets back in the white house and he's not going to have to face reelection again. And he's going to be surrounded by all these right wing kooks. They're going to be able to get him to do anything they want, anything they want.

Well, he tells everyone what he thinks they want to hear. Yes. He's telling a bunch of people watching financial TV that he cares about the debt and deficit and thus will manage entitlement somehow. But he doesn't get specific. So I think there's some truth to it. And well, I mean, look, he goes to Michigan, pretends he's a union guy and his NLRB would got union protections. His judges will be the judges. If this happens, that will got the ability of people to organize. Like, you know, he, he doesn't go, he doesn't care about the details. So he just says yes to whatever list they put in front of him.

That's who ended up on the Supreme Court. That's Mitch McConnell's list. That's the right wing establishment's list. It's not Trump. Let's give a fuck. Yeah, I think it's important because part of the fear of Trump or part of what the right tends to say is like an overblown fear of Trump is that he's some, you know, dictator and waiting with an ideology.

And it's like, well, that's it doesn't have to be that. He's just he's just a useful idiot to a lot of people on the right who are very dangerous. Yeah. And and like long before we were dealing with with Trump threatening to overturn elections, the logical conclusion of what Republicans wanted was the end of the EPA. It was the end of a ton of just basic consumer protections, the end of Roe, the end of organizing, the end of the National Labor Relations Board, the end of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. This is the conclusion that they want. They just never had somebody who was so willing to just sign off on these ideas,

even though they're extremely unpopular. Here's another totally normal thing for a presidential candidate to do. Trump threw a party in Mar-a-Lago over the weekend for right-wing Hungarian autocrat Viktor Orban, who later said that Trump told him he wouldn't send a penny to Ukraine if he becomes president. Here's Trump praising Orban at the concert, which featured Beatles and Rolling Stones tribute bands, along with the Palm Beach Orchestra. Truly a fucking hell on earth. Tommy, every once in a while, I feel like we need a refresher on why Victor Orban is not someone a potential U.S. president should model himself after? Can you help us out? Sure. So he's a dictator. He has all but killed off democracy in Hungary. The issues that he ran on will sound very familiar to you guys. He said that Hungary was getting invaded by migrants, that they had to build a wall, demagogued refugees, Muslims in particular.

He ran a bunch of ads attacking George Soros in blatantly anti-Semitic ways. And then while in power, Orban slowly destroyed the institutions at the heart of the democracy in Hungary. He cracked down on the media. He ran outlets out of business that he didn't like, or he forced them to be sold to his friends. He rewrote the constitution, expanded the courts, then he packed the courts, then he forced old judges off of the courts so he could pack them even further, gerrymandered parliamentary districts. His political party would create fake political parties to run against, so they would split the opposition vote and just use the powers of the state to destroy his opponents and route

money to his little kind of oligarch buddies. So if you want to be rich in Hungary, you have to be on Orban's good side and Republicans see him and they love the guy. Like Steve Bannon is openly talks about how, uh, Orban is the kind of leader we should emulate. There's CPACs in Hungary. Tucker Carlson goes over there, you know, records a show for a week from Budapest. So this is the model. This is who they want to be. Yeah, it was good to see Biden included this in his speech over the weekend as well. Sort of attacked Trump for praising Orban, which, you know, is maybe a lot of voters don't know who Victor Orban is.

But all you need to know is it's a, it's a, it's a guy who's an autocrat who said he doesn't like democracy. Yeah. It's a story worth telling. Also, did you guys just notice how hard they tried to make it look like a state visit? Like they had the motorcade roll up. They had the flags. He was a greeting committee. Like it's so thirsty to, to want to be president. Yeah. Everything is play pretend president now. It's like everyone on the right and Fox now also they call him President Trump. They don't say former President Trump. He he just had a video out where the video was this like weird fantasy where Joe Biden is

delivering the State of the Union. But then they cut to Donald Trump walking into the chamber from when he was at the State of the Union. And it's like him replacing Joe Biden. Joe Biden walks off the stage and it's like Trump's tweeting this video all the time. Like what is so weird? It really is a shame that we that like the media environment is so attenuated that that really is only going to reach the people that either hate it like us and are already on board or absolutely fucking love it. Because like the shit that Trump does that normies don't know would weird people out. did you see him playing with snapchat filters and yeah he's very bored in biden colors it's like it's just so childish so this victor orban story uh this the big bash at mar-a-lago uh it happened a fortuitous moment uh at cnn jim shudo is uh he's got a book out this week

and he talks to a lot of former trump staff about sort of like what drove trump uh he had a conversation with uh john kelly who was one of trump's uh chief another one of the another chief of staff for trump and and kelly recounted this conversation between uh he and trump about hitler and trump said well but hitler did some good things oh no and kelly said what what and trump said well hitler rebuilt the economy and then trump also expressed admiration for hitler's hold on senior nazi officers but was dismayed when kelly told him that actually those german generals tried to assassinate hitler a few times and then trump's like oh i didn't know that show valkyrie show valkyrie there's a movie no spoiler alert they don't succeed yeah but still it is that is he

definitely it is such an autocrat impulse he's like and you heard him in the clip with orba he makes the rules he says what goes no one says you know no one crosses him no yeah that's it that's the order he just he just wants to do what he wants and he doesn't want to be recountable to anyone else that's his whole fucking story yeah and and biden hit it in that ad right is that trump wants to be president for himself i want to be president for america that's it that's the message there there's this little kind of crew of right-wing leaders that they all like the the republicans of the u. There's this little kind of crew of right wing leaders that they all like the Republicans of the US openly like invite them to events. Like if you watch CPAC, you'll see Victor Orban, you'll see Bolsonaro from Brazil, you'll see Liz Truss, the former prime minister of the UK,

you'll see Nigel Farage, you'll see Nayib Bukele, who's this like Bitcoin bro dictator down in El Salvador. And it's very weird how they all work together and they gather at events and they trade notes. It's very scary. You also see the kind of the like the the the gradient that leads from kind of the like the Republican talking points that like Democrats buy voters votes with their programs and their social programs. And once you give people an entitlement, you can't take it back. Mitt Romney saying the 47% thing that slowly leads them towards like this place

at which they just believe democracy is inherently illegitimate. And the only way you can rule is without having to deal with the frustrations that come along with a democratic process. Orvon calls it Christian democracy. Right. Well, it's a very old story,

old playbook from autocrats for decades and decades right not centuries and that's the thing about these populists like you don't need to be smart and savvy or coherent even there's a lot of buffoonish dictators who gain a lot of power like a mussolini for example yeah uh speaking of mar-a-lago we're still waiting to hear whether trump will stand trial before the election for refusing to give back the classified information he hid in his beach club but But already Politico has reported that Intel officials are preparing to brief Trump on national security matters once he officially becomes the Republican nominee for president. Adam Schiff was on Meet the Press over the weekend,

said that he hopes the Intel community will, quote, dumb down the briefings for Trump. I think they already were doing that for many years. I was going to say. Lots of photos. Can they do that, Tommy? And can they refuse to give him intel briefings at all since he's facing criminal charges on the issue i know they do that for every nominee of a major party for a long time but i do think it's worth just pausing and saying i can't believe this is happening i know i i did have yeah like how is this possible how i mean, I think nominee. He shouldn't have a security basically a coin flip away from being president. Yeah, I think so. The briefings that the candidates get are already a lot less detailed than what a president gets. I think they just get like high level assessments of things like the threat from ISIS. you know, Russia's nuclear arsenal, how it's going in Ukraine, and it's derived from classified information. When you're the president, you get the highly compartmented, the so-called code word

level stuff that tells you how we got that information. Like, oh, we paid off the top intel guy in X country for the following information. Or we have a source deep within the Russian military that told us X about their plan to invade Ukraine. So he won't get any of that. Maybe they'll dumb it down even further. I hope he just gets, sir, it's sunny in Kiev today. They'll just get the clips. Just get a New York Times.

BB Netanyahu this morning had breakfast. We're not sure what's going on with Middleton. The photo was hinky. That's it. That's all they're giving him. All right. Finally, it turns out the biggest problem with Katie Britt's State of the Union response wasn't the bizarrely overdramatic delivery. It's that she was full of shit.

Here's Scarlett Johansson alluding to the mishap when she played Britt on the SNL cold open. First and foremost, I'm a mom. And like any mom, I'm going to do a pivot out of nowhere into a shockingly violent story about sex trafficking. And rest assured, every detail about it is real, except the year, where it took place, and who was president when it happened. Four Pinocchios, says the Washington Post for Katie Bray. Can't come back from that that's it for

you as as scarlett johansson said the woman's story didn't take place in joe biden's america it took place in mexico when george w bush was president it's just completely full of shit from beginning to end you know the katie britts uh people maintains that it was like technically truthful because she just like she she said the story and she wedged it in between saying and joe joe biden's policies are bad also here's a story about this woman who was sex trafficked in a woman who felt like fuck these people i know it was a horrible a woman a horrible story a woman went through a fucking horrific ordeal went public with it and then is exploited in this way. Like, fuck you for pretending this had any business being in that speech. It is disgusting. It is disgusting in a kitchen with your cross

pretending you're a good person. Fucking gross. So would you say this was the worst State of the Union response ever? No. Why? Oh, because I went and looked and I was thinking, well, this this is surely up there. First of all, you forget how bad Bobby Jindal was. Mm hmm. So much worse bad Bobby Jindal was. So much worse than Bobby Jindal. I agree. But then I went digging further. And in the early 1980s,

Let's go. In the early 1980s, Democrats decided they were no longer going to do a standard State of the Union speech. They were going to do focus group infomercials. It is opportunity, but it's really a freedom. It's a freedom to be able to express. It's a freedom to be able to compete. It's a freedom to be able to compete. It's a freedom to be able to fail. And it's a freedom that allows us this ability to dream. I think that's the thing that the Democratic Party can offer.

It can offer hope. Is that a bunch of them together? Is that Bill Richardson? Yes. Here's what they did. They had governors fan out across the country doing focus groups in which people talked about why they didn't like Democrats across the country doing focus groups in which people talked about why they didn't like democrats and then bill clinton stood in front of this map in the past few weeks democratic leaders have gone all across america talking to all kinds of people they spoke with people in what are called focus groups back then it was it was all the rage you know it was pretty you know pretty bad i don't know i mean that's not great. Still, still. All right, I'm back on board.

Worst ever. That's so interesting. I was looking at this list of who had delivered the response every year to see if there are any good ones. There's a few. But yeah, there's sometimes where there's like 10 people listed and that explains why. Yes, in the early 80s, in the early 80s, they did these strange infomercials that were very poorly received.

God, that's weird. I thought the reigning champion before this was Rubio in the water. god that's weird i thought i thought the reigning champion before this was rubio in the water yeah but uh when you go back and look at that one it's still it's fun to watch because it's pretty awful but um this was just the delivery the made-up story the made-up story really just puts it brings it to another level i have questioned every political opinion i've had about this country since 2016 or so so i was watching and being like, this is terrible, right? Like, this is crazy to go from that high to that low, to go from, you know, like kind of smiley friendly face of fascism to telling this lurid story about this incident in Mexico. Like, but then for that, for that story, which for the purposes of her rebuttal speech was

totally unnecessary. Yeah. You know, like if she wanted to talk about sort of some sort of crime that was associated with migration, there's a lot of examples out there. The Lake and Riley story, for example. I was just going to say, why didn't she go? But for her to have included that and for it to just be so unbelievably false

and misleading. And the fact that it was Jonathan Katz, a former AP reporter reporter who dug it up and got it out there via a tiktok video first of all credit to him but boy did everybody else fall down on the job also it wasn't like she had this speech uh looked at just by like her small senate staff from alabama like when you give the the response like the RNC had to be involved. Yeah, everyone had to have looked at that. And no one in the party gave a shit about that.

If you watch her TV ads from her campaign, she does a similar delivery style of like performing the hell out of it. Some media consultant fucking sucks. I can't believe someone didn't tell her this is super off-putting. The reaction to right-wing pundits watching watching it was fantastic megan kelly a few others just like went ham on this thing um good stuff yeah all right before we go to break a big announcement pod save america and love it or leave it are going on tour the pod save america democracy or else tour will be heading to brook Madison, Phoenix, Philadelphia, and more. Love It or Leave It will also be on tour heading to cities like Austin, Charlotte, Asheville, Chicago, and more.

Friends of the Pod subscribers get early access to pre-sale tickets. The pre-sale starts today at 10 a.m. local and ends Friday the 15th at 9 a.m. local. To get access to the best tickets, subscribe at crooked.com slash friends, and we will send you the pre-sale code, see all the tour dates, and learn more at crooked.com slash friends and we will send you the pre-sale code. See all the tour dates and learn more at crooked.com slash events. Okay, when we come back, Take Appreciator is back and so is Elijah right after this.

All right, we're back with our chief take officer officer elijah cone elijah take it away hey guys welcome back to the take appreciators i'm gonna be sharing some takes with you all the producers have seen these takes john john and tommy have not they will react and then rate them on a scale of one to four politicos with four politicos being the worst. Are you guys ready? Sure am. Yeah, we're ready. Hell yeah. All right.

Let's stick with Katie Britt. I thought you guys were spot on, but apparently y'all just don't get it. Here's an alternative take from a pundit you must always fade, Clay Travis, quote, Katie Britt is killing it. Her speech isn't for dudes. They're all already voting for trump it's for suburban women the kind of people who buy into the idea that republicans are all old rich white guys i don't get the pyramid scheme facial cream party scene either but it's real what do you guys think

wow that was just swerved off at the end there the facial cream party scene what is that is that like mlm stuff yes talking about that was that was like a tommy tuberville's reaction which was um she was picked because she was a suburban housewife trump did something really strange in his speech where he like called out these women that have been traveling around the country and he's like their husband their husband their husbands can't be excited that they're out of the house he's like what the fuck clay is an idiot uh as a general matter clay travis he seems to be doing what he says he hates there which is identity politics and suggesting that because katie britt's a women all women who are watching must have liked it uh i think that is undercut by reality and like the 2016 election i'd be like

this it's a nonsensical take by mr travis suburban women are like uh they're really into these lurid stories about uh sex trafficked women in mexico lies and overacting just just weird oh that gets a four from me that's a full that's a four all right unanimous four across the board i'll hit them with a three i think it's i think it's a three from me. That's a four. All right. Unanimous four across the board? I'll hit him with a three. I think it's a three because I think it's just sort of like a... Yeah, I'm on a three. All right. So Clay Travis, we'll say a three and a half.

All right. Moving on. Take number two. Let's do some presidential primary cleanup. This is a little old. It's a deep cut, though, that we have to look at. It's from billionaire and terminally online person Bill Ackman. Of course.

Here he is talking about Dean Phillips' chances to take off after the Michigan primary. Biden in Michigan. Biden's doing very poorly in Michigan. His polls are terrible. The Muslim community is not happy with him. And he really has spent no time there. And so if he's embarrassed in Michigan, it could be a catalyst for him withdrawing. Then Dean will get funding. He's viable. He's the only choice we have. He'll attract from the center. He'll attract from people, Republicans who won't vote for Trump, which they're a big percentage, could be 60% or more. It could be 70% won't vote for Trump and also from the Democrats. So I think he's a really interesting candidate, but we've got to get the word out. 400. The reason that one is so great

is because Bill Ackman, just an insufferable billionaire, not only came out and endorsed Dean Phillips, but he gave him $1 million. A million dollars? A million dollars. He gave him a million dollars? Dean Phillips got 20,605 votes in Michigan, less than Marianne Williamson. Oh my God. And Uncommitted and Joe Biden.

Stick to playing around with money. If you go back and look at every prediction, political prediction or political analysis from Elon Musk or Bill Ackman or the all-in pod, they are just so incredibly wrong about everything. It just, nothing pans out for them. None of their predictions pan out. You love to see it.

Vivek Ramaswamy, Ron DeSantis, Dean Phillips, just RFK over and over again. They just keep getting it wrong. All talking to each other. Also, 70% of Republicans might not vote for Trump. What are you talking about? That was a good one in there, too, that he just sort of sandwiched in that terrible take.

There are layers to that one. So what do you guys want to rate it? What's the max? Off the charts. Four, yeah. It's just not a good take. A billion. 4,000, yeah.

A million dollars to Dean Phillips. Yeah. Even Dean Phillips was like, are you sure? Yeah. What are you doing, man? I don't think that's a good idea. At least if you set it on fire, you might keep somebody warm for a bit. All right. think that's a good idea i just said you said at least if you set it on fire you might keep somebody warm for a bit all right so that's rare that's that's the worst take of the

primary let's move on to the last take sunday night was the oscars here's a take on the host from donald trump it's a long one get ready has there ever been a worse host than jimmy kimmel at the oscars his opening was that of a less than average person trying too hard to be something which he is not and can never be get rid of kimmel and perhaps replace him with another washed up but cheap abc talent george slopinopolis he would make everybody he would make everybody on stage look bigger, stronger, and more glamorous. Also a really bad, politically correct show tonight, and for years, disjointed, boring, and very unfair. Why don't they just give the Oscars to those that deserve them?

Maybe that way their audience and TV ratings will come back from the depths. Make America great again. Kimmel responded to the Republican nominee live on stage, and I believe we have that clip here. Well, thank you, President Trump. Thank you for watching. I'm surprised you're still watching. Isn't it past your jail time? Good for Jimmy.

Also, what is Donald Trump doing? That truth reveals so much knowledge of everything that happened on Sunday online at the Oscars. The Stephanopoulos thing was because of the Nancy Mace interview on Stephanopoulos' show. So he knows about that controversy, which we didn't even talk about. Is Slopinopoulos new material? I haven't heard Slopinopoulos. I haven't either. But he had to hit George for the Nancy Mace thing. And then he was watching the Oscars. It's the nancy mace thing and then he was clear he was

watching the oscars it's the guy running for president what's he doing he's got he's got he's he's he's got trials coming up he's running for president what's he doing what was his best picture pick was it what oppenheimer is too woke i did i didn't think you think he thinks oppenheimer's too woke well i just i didn't what what did he prefer was he more of a past lives guy what was he who think who does he think got robbed? The holdovers? Like, what are we doing here? Anatomy of a fall? Yeah.

He does not like a movie about, no, I don't think he likes a movie about wives killing their husbands. I don't think that that's his favorite topic. That's a biopic. Yeah. So I, first of all, also the Oscars were great. The Oscars were, it was a great, great show. It was like my favorite, it was my favorite award show, my favorite version of the Oscars were great. The Oscars were, it was a great, great show. It was like my favorite.

It was my favorite, uh, award show. My favorite version of the Oscars in like a very, in like a living memory. I did not watch any of it. The jokes were good. It was tight.

There were funny moments. The production looked great. I just moved, moved, the thing moved. Shout out Josh Holloway and Louis Vertel. Yeah. There's a CBS this morning piece on the Oscars and Louis and Josh, Josh who

wrote our book with us, were both on the show. Love that. They did a great job. Yeah, Donald Trump, he's just go touch grass, man. He can't help himself watching these events that he despises, wishing that the people in that room liked him and then tweeting mean things at them.

Also, he can't love that an event that was watched by that many people that everyone's laughing at him jimmy does the joke and then the whole crowd's laughing and then he knows that millions of people are watching that's uh probably not what he intended it was awesome it was jimmy reading that making a joke at his house was fucking awesome it was great it was a great little coda to the whole thing and uh i think that um trump has not seen a movie in a long time yeah he can't have the attendance man for that so i would give that a i'll give that a four but uh slopinopolis is funny

yeah slopinopolis is good that's good i mean i love george stefanopolis but also there's just a funny funny name every once in a while we get some humor from him but yeah that's three and a half maybe and uh you know ge, George Stephanopoulos, a short king. And he can take it, you know. He can take being deprecated for being small. Stephanopolish those jokes up? I'm trying to think. Is there anything better we could do here?

Stephanopoulos. Stephanopoulos. It's just so bad. Slopinopoulos. Except you say it and you fucking laugh. You like it? It's fun to say. We can't intellectually defend it, you say slop and all you say slop and opelous there's a smile on your face because there's a feral genius to it just like now when you just like when you say desanctus or yeah he actually it's funny he at the event in georgia he said

like he said ron desanctimonious and he was like like, oh, I don't say that anymore. I just say Ron DeSanctus. No, he said, he said, uh, Ron DeSanctimonious. Sorry, sorry, that's insulting. Ron DeSanctus. It was like he came back in to fucking punch him twice. It was awesome. Awesome. Great job, Ron.

Great job. Great job standing up for yourself. Unbelievable. Anyway, that's our show for today. Is that it? That's it. We will, uh, we'll have another, uh, Pod Save America for you on Wednesday afternoon.

Until then, have a good one. Maybe Trump likes Zone of Interest. But he doesn't get it. I meant Zone of Interest and I said Anatomy of the Fall. Yeah, yeah. Not your fault. Two German films. Bye, everyone. If you want to get ad-free episodes, exclusive content

and more, consider joining our Friends of the Pod subscription community at crooked.com slash friends. And if you're already doom-scrolling, don't forget to follow us at Pod Save America on Instagram, Twitter, and YouTube for access to full episodes, bonus content, and more. Plus, if you're as opinionated as we are, consider dropping us a review. Pod Save America is a Crooked Media production. Our show is produced by Olivia Martinez and David Toledo. Our associate producers are Saul Rubin and Farah Safari. Kira Joaquim is our senior producer. Reid Cherlin is our executive producer. The show is mixed and edited by Andrew Chadwick. Jordan Cantor is our sound engineer with audio support from Kyle

Seglin and Charlotte Landis. Writing support by Hallie Kiefer. Madeline Herringer is our head of news and programming. Matt DeGroat is our head of production. Andy Taft is our executive assistant. Thanks to our digital team, Elijah Cohn, Haley Jones, Mia Kelman, David Tolles, Kiril Pallaviv, and Molly Lobel.