Pod Save America - “Biden’s Lawless Raid on Biden.”

Episode Date: January 24, 2023

Joe Biden says goodbye to his chief of staff and hello to more FBI agents. Donald Trump plots his Twitter comeback and struggles to get endorsements. Rep. Ruben Gallego enters the 2024 Arizona Senate race. House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries stops by Crooked HQ to talk about the upcoming year in Congress. And the guys play a new game called Take Take Don’t Tell Me. For a closed-captioned version of this episode, click here. For a transcript of this episode, please email [e-mail] and include the name of the podcast.

Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Jon Favreau. I'm Tommy Vitor. Jon Lovett just didn't show up today. That's so mean. He's not feeling well. He's not feeling well. He's under the weather. Yeah. He's okay, but he's just, uh, he wasn't ready for a pod today.

Yep. He's, uh... He's a little hoarse. A little hoarse. Yeah, you probably couldn't understand him. On today's show, Joe Biden says goodbye to his chief of staff and hello to more FBI agents. Donald Trump plots his Twitter comeback and struggles to get endorsements. Ruben Gallego will run for Kyrsten Sinema's seat. We recorded an interview with Democratic House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries

here in the studio on Friday that we'll be running today as well. Still smells like power in here. Yeah, I mean, it's a big deal. Yeah. Big deal having Hakeem Jeffries here. Yeah, I mean, it's a big deal. Yeah. Big deal having Hakeem Jeffries here. And later, Elijah tests our skills with a new game called Take Take Don't Tell Me. I'm excited for a new

game. But first, if you haven't tried Crooked Coffee yet, now's the time to do it. It's very good. It's very good. Every order supports Vote Save America's Every Last Vote fund to make sure every voice can be heard uh head over to crooked.com slash coffee give it a try today all right let's get to the news uh president biden

celebrated the two-year anniversary of his inauguration by welcoming federal agents from the justice department to his home in delaware uh where they recovered you make them take their shoes off he wasn't there he was in right so he yeah who knows who knows he said you guys walk in whatever you need bring your own snacks you can use the bathrooms he's very gracious anyway they recovered six additional sets of records that contained an unspecified number of classified documents uh so that's fun new polling shows that about two-thirds of americans are both aware of and troubled by biden's actions but most voters don't believe he should face charges thankfully voters don't bring charges but it's good to know they don't

think he should face them it's just a movie bad and more people do believe that trump's case is more serious which is good because it is right nevertheless democrats in congress continue to ding biden on the issue senator dick durbin said on sunday it diminishes biden's stature uh while joe mansion said that the president should have a lot of regrets uh republicans are of course having a field day here's the mansions less annoying there. Yeah, I know. Stature. What is that?

Anyway, Republicans, unsurprisingly, are having a field day. Here's a sampling from Sunday show interviews with representatives Mike Turner, Nancy Mace and James Comer. Clearly, he's become a serial classified document hoarder. Why did he have these? Who did he show them to? I mean, the only reason you can think of as to why anyone would take classified documents out of a classified space at home is to show them to somebody. No, there's very little information about Biden. I mean, these documents were hidden for five years. We have very little information. Whereas with the former president, everybody knows that those documents existed. They knew where they were. They knew where they

were located. There was information that was presented we didn't know where they were located for example it did take us they defied a subpoena it took the search warrant they didn't know yeah we need to know now who had access to those documents because our national security could be at risk well i this is is this treason i mean i just want to applaud our our editing team there for those cuts like yeah it's hilarious i mean to argue that was nancy mace by the way she is not like super maga and to argue that she was trying to argue that donald trump's is actually better than joe biden's situation because we all knew he was hiding the classified documents in his beach house. And we knew that because he refused to give them back, which is why FBI agents

raided his house. Today, we learned that a former Philadelphia mob boss was at Donald Trump's like beach club and he took a picture with the president. So I think it's safe to say that those documents were less secure than the stuff at Biden's house. And by the way, I am glad that the team ended the cut at Maria Bartiromo asking, is this treason? What happened after that was even James Comer, who is the head of the Oversight Committee, Republican head of the Oversight Committee, was speechless after Bartiromo's question. He couldn't even bring himself to say yes it's true yeah she is nuts few chardonnays away from being uh judge pierrot unfortunately so tommy um biden said last week to reporters about this there's no there there i know you guys covered this last week on pod save the world but as someone who has dealt with uh a lot of classified

information never at my house. I know that it's scattered across your multiple residences. You were over there. What do you think of this most recent discovery? And how serious is the situation? We'll get to the politics in a second. Just from a national security standpoint. I think you mean the 13-hour unconstitutional raid by jackbooted feds.

Merrick Garland's thugs. FBI stoppo. That didn't quite work. Which I'm sure, by the way, have you heard that they probably planted documents at Biden's house? They gave them time to plant five more pages over the weekend. Those takes were for my Tucker Carlson reel. So what we know, right, is that the White House said that DOJ found some classified records from Biden's time as vice president and from his time in the U.S. Senate. So, if we're talking about this from a national security perspective, I mean, like a big chunk of classified material is supposed to be automatically declassified after 25 years. Oh, we're getting there. So, not like a ton of risk. There was some like pre-Iraq war documents sitting around the house, right?

Can I ask you something? I would imagine that Biden would have had access to classified documents while he was in the Senate because he was chair of the Foreign Relations Committee for a while. Do other senators? Everyone has a clearance. I think that if you're on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, you probably get access to more stuff. Although they all look at it in a skiff in some office down there, the intelligence committee, people have access to much more, uh, highly sensitive stuff, the compartmented covert action programs, CIA budget, et cetera, et cetera. So I don't really know what was found. Um, on the previous tranches, I think I read that one document was top secret. The rest were secret level. So I'm not ready to say there's no there there quite yet it seems like there was some there some over there a little more multiple there's a little bit multiple there's yeah but um

secret level papers from 2006 are not as risky as what we know was in donald trump's house which were hundreds of documents special access programs programs, human intelligence, like really sensitive stuff at this club full of grifters. Foreign intelligence agents have been arrested at Mar-a-Lago. We got the Philly mob boss guy. So I look, I'm not trying to both side this, but it is, it is very distinct set of facts. And I'm more concerned about the papers at Donald Trump's club, his golf club. Although I do agree with all the sort of critics in Washington who are saying the way that these reports have dripped out about more and more documents in Biden's residence has muddied up everything. Yeah. And apparently one

of the reasons why this is sort of just dribbled out over the course of several weeks now uh charlie savage had a piece in the new york times about this biden's lawyers initially told the department of justice in november they had no reason to believe that official records um from biden's time as vice president or for that matter when he was in the senate ended up anywhere else but the penn biden center right so therefore they wouldn't have checked everywhere else because the lawyers were like, oh, no, no, that all the records were shipped right to the Penn Biden Center. And so that's it. Now, it turns out then, of course, there were.

But and there was also some reporting in The Washington Post that maybe the Department of Justice said, hey, stop your searching. Like, we're going to take this from here. And the Biden lawyers tried to comply and do everything by the book. And that, in the end, I think probably screwed them a little bit. And, you know, I mean, to Mike Turner's question, why else would you take classified documents out of a classified space other than to show someone like, yeah, so Biden's plan was to take classified documents, show a bunch of people that he wasn't supposed to show and then his lawyer and then have have his lawyers voluntarily let people know that he had classified documents that was the whole scheme it doesn't make a lot that was the treasonous scheme i suspect it was just mistakes poor record keeping poor organization more than anything else was probably staff level work if we're being honest

i'm not trying to point fingers anybody none of it's good none of it's how you want to uh to run a railroad but again the reason that the fbi agents descended upon Mar-a-Lago without an invitation, unlike the invitation they got from Joe Biden to come to his house in Wilmington, was because the National Archives and the Department of Justice said, hey, Donald Trump, looks like you have some classified documents. And he said, fuck you, they're mine. Well, first he said, no, I don't. Then he said, they're mine. Then he said, you can't get them. Then he said, I'm moving them.

And then he said, I mentally declassified all of them, which again is another avenue Joe Biden could go down since he's currently president. If he wanted to be a complete idiot like Donald Trump, he could be like, I magically declassify all of this, but he would never do that because that's making a joke of the system. Yeah, and I realize the media keeps harping on the fact

that like, well, most Americans won't know the difference. Well, okay, well, let's tell them the difference because it seems like there's a big one. Yeah, I think I hate when they yada yada yada over the difference, although I think the media has done a pretty good job of that. The one other thing that I think is really unfair in a lot of this reporting is people who are pointing fingers at the White House press office and the press secretary and saying, look at the way their answers have shifted. Look at the way they didn't answer questions at the White House briefing. You know, Ben and my advice on Pod Save the World when we talked about this was stop cutting out the communications people, stop keeping things close hold, try to get everything you can together and get it out as fast as you can and just like read everybody on your team in who needs to be read into this stuff. I mean,

it's so hard when you're dealing with an ongoing investigation or discussion of classified information because you're so constrained about what you can and can't say. But I mean, it's so hard when you're dealing with an ongoing investigation or discussion of classified information because you're so constrained about what you can and can't say. Yeah. But I mean, that's the clear mistake here is, you know, things dribbling out piecemeal. I mean, hearing Bartiromo say maybe this is treason, hearing him say, like, obviously he did this to show them to people who donated to the Penn biden center who visited all do you think there's a little danger of republicans overreaching here or is just this what they do to try to gin up a scandal and and go down a whole bunch of investigative rabbit holes i mean it seems like there's a pretty obvious rejoinder to a republican member of congress who says the only

reason you would take classified documents to your house is to show someone it's like well then that must apply to don Trump, too. That's true. That's true. That's not a tough pushback from a Sunday show host. But I mean, look, that's why I think even when it came to Trump, I've been pretty reticent to buy into those conspiracy theories that he was taking them to like sell them to somebody. Or, yeah, I just think he's an asshole who wanted to keep a bunch of stuff that was his and is completely reckless. who wanted to keep a bunch of stuff that was his and is completely reckless.

Well, and at least with him, nothing would surprise me with Donald Trump, which I think his history shows us. So any of those theories could be true. With Joe Biden, it's a more limited set of circumstances. Yeah, we know him a lot better. Right. I do think the who did he show them to is clearly an attempt to make their Hunter Biden obsession more legitimate? Yeah, I like the free beacon or one of those conservative publications found some old picture of Hunter Biden in Joe Biden's Corvette, which is allegedly parked in the garage where the classified documents were in Wilmington and suggested that that was some sort of aha, gotcha, which is one of the most embarrassing pieces of investigative journalism I've ever heard. I mean, they have this oversight committee now. They have a special

committee on the weaponization of the federal government, whatever. Right. And they can't figure out a topic. Right. There's like, we're going to look at the origins of COVID. We're going to look at Hunter Biden's laptop. We're going to look at the origins of COVID. We're going to look at Hunter Biden's laptop. We're going to look at Chinese connections and business dealings. And now I feel like at least they have something, which is these classified documents, that they're now going to hang all of their other conspiracy theories on. I don't think they'll be very adept at this, but, you know, it'll be grist for the right wing media for the next however many months. Yeah, it could become the Christmas tree upon which they hang all their little mega ornaments. I think the minute that the Republicans won the House, we knew that oversight was going to become a big problem

in sort of digging for whatever they can find, whatever dirt they can find for any investigation. This definitely, as you said, I think provides the Republicans a path that at least seems interesting and newsworthy to the press and feels new as opposed to just like, I don't know, yelling the same things about the border. Although I think at the end of the day, for most voters, like an issue like immigration and the failure to fix our, you know, the border or immigration policy is probably like a more salient topic than any of the stuff we're talking about. And that goes for Donald Trump too.

I agree with that as well. So in other Biden news, we learned over the weekend that White House Chief of Staff Ron Klain will be leaving sometime after the State of the Union, and that he'll be replaced by our old colleague, Jeff Zients, who ran the Office of Management and Budget in the National Economic Council in the Obama White House in the second term, and most recently ran the Biden administration's COVID response. What do you think about Ron leaving and Biden naming Jeff as his replacement? I mean, I think Ron Klain, I think about this a lot. You and I worked for two or three White House chief of staff. I think Ron broadened and changed the job more than anyone else I can think

of in that role. And that's because I think historically I've thought of a chief of staff as someone that's kind of mysterious, that breathes rarefied air. You're behind the scenes, you know what I mean? You're like negotiating thing with senators. Ron did that, but then also found time to like get in the weeds. I mean, he was pushing White House messages on Twitter. He was hosting progressives, doing cable hits, like painting mansions houseboat when necessary, whatever it took to pass that agenda. And like, you could DM Ron on Twitter and get a response. And I literally don't know how he had the time. I remember thinking, like, this guy is burning the candle at both ends. This feels unsustainable, but he managed to do it. Shockingly responsive. Shockingly responsible. And I think he deserves a ton of credit for managing that team, managing the government and getting a ton of stuff passed legislatively. It really is remarkable.

And also like you and I are both, this jumped out at both of us in our prep we were doing for today. Ron started working for Joe Biden when he was 28. 28! He knows that guy inside and out. You know, that's an amazing tool to have at your disposal as chief of staff. I will say, as, I mean, I've always liked Ron. I got to work with him closely during debate prep for when Obama prepped for the reelect debates. And I was, like, super impressed with how he ran that and ran debate prep and have been impressed with him ever since. But like I think as chief of staff, like he really combined. He's got excellent political instincts, excellent communication skills, and also like really fantastic people skills. And like combining those three things, it's like a really hard thing to do. And I don't know that there's been a more influential, successful, beloved chief of staff than Ron Klain, as long as I can remember, combining all those things.

I was thinking that, too. And listen, that's not to say I didn't love and really like working for all the people we work for. But, you know, I think of someone like Jim Baker, sort of larger than life, you know, sort of huge impact. I think Jeff comes in with a different role shaped both by who he is and by circumstances. They know now that there's nothing, nothing's coming out of the Republican House of Representatives. And there's no legislative agenda now. So I think your focus is make sure you're one, effectively managing oversight requests from Congress. That then frees him up to just kind of to run the government.

And part of running the government, I think people don't get is, you know, you have laws that were already passed. You have to make sure they're implemented properly, right? So when you pass the IRA, the big climate change bill that they eventually got passed, that's not the end of it. The executive branch needs to make countless decisions and create all these regulatory frameworks to make it workable, right? You need to determine what kinds of cars are eligible for the tax credit that you can get in the next couple months if you buy an EV. So I think he'll focus on that. He's a management expert. You mentioned his time at OMB. He's a crisis fixer, right? He came in and fixed the botched rule out of healthcare.gov. There's the criticism from progressives are saying Jeff is too close to the business community.

He made money in healthcare and the private sector. You know, they're concerned about that focus. I think those are very fair things to raise and to point out. But I also know that when we worked with him, he fought for increases in minimum wage, overtime pay. And I also think that Jeff will think that his job is to implement the Biden agenda. You know, he's not coming in there with some determination to advance some, you know, corporate interests that is more important to him. No, he's there to serve Joe Biden. pro-corporate decisions, then the criticism is well warranted. I generally have a problem with criticism that is only about someone's past and resume and not about the actual decisions and policies they have implemented during their time in government. I think those should be a subject of criticism. And in terms of Jeff, not only did he oversee the NEC during some of Obama's most progressive economic policies, the push for some of the most progressive economic policies, he ran the Biden transition

and helped hire some of the more progressive people in the Biden administration. Pramila Jayapal, who runs the Congressional Progressive Caucus, she talked to Semaphore about this. She said, we really appreciated Jeff's collaboration on COVID policies, on the American Rescue Plan, which both included bold and progressive policies. So you see the actual progressives in Congress are feeling pretty good about them. You know, you get some lefty activists and media types who are upset, but that's, you know, to be expected. Listen, I think it's good, you know, like voice these things now and then hold them accountable. I also, you know, the job will also change in that there will be people in the White House who are really focused

full time on politics and on the reelect in the same way when Rahm Emanuel left as Barack Obama's first chief of staff, Jack Lew comes in, Jack's really focused on managing the government, but then you have David Plouffe coming in to run the reelect essentially from the West Wing. Yeah. Okay. Let's talk about the man who, as of right now, is still Biden's most likely challenger in 2024, our old friend Donald Trump. NBC reports that he's officially petitioned Facebook to unblock his account

and that he'll be returning to Twitter soon. His advisors have apparently been workshopping ideas for his first tweet. I love it. So that's exciting. Trump is also set to hold his first post-announcement campaign event in South Carolina this Saturday, though he's having trouble getting endorsements from the state's Republican officials

who were looking at potential rivals like Nikki Haley and Tim Scott, among others. He's also having some trouble with evangelical leaders who were annoyed that Trump recently blamed Republicans' midterm performance on their abortion stance and then called them disloyal for not supporting him yet. Speaking of loyalty, here's a clip of Trump eulogizing Diamond of Diamond and Silk this weekend right after Silk says that Trump treated them like family. Let's take a listen. For President Trump, I just want to say thank you so much for believing in Diamond and Silk. He treated us just like Laura.

He treated us just like the other children, Eric, Don Jr., Tiffany. He treated us just like when we came around, when Diamond and Silk silk came around it was like we was part of the family you know the world has lost one of its brightest stars real star but i see that we have another star who is equal to but she stepped up and she is different i'm serious i thought i knew them both i didn't i knew i knew diamond but i didn't know silk at all i just learned about silk you're fantastic and finners that is treating her like he treats Tiffany. Well played. Well played.

I mean, can you imagine? He also complained about the length of the ceremony several times. Imagine going to a funeral, speaking, complaining about the duration. Yeah, he was like, we probably should use that clip too, but he was like, yeah, they told me 15, 20 minutes, but I got to be back in Palm Beach. He's like, the Bengals-Bills game is unbelievable. Anyway, just had to play that clip because it was so much fun. Do you think that Trump being back on Twitter and maybe Facebook, they should make a decision any day now, I guess, will help him in the Republican primary? And do you have any good ideas for a first tweet? Well, start with the second question first yeah yeah yeah i wrote i got a couple for

you i want to see what you think of it i was thinking um they peg it out here it was an all-time great uh tweet by reverend solomon missouri maybe for a small audience but i'm one of those people yeah one of the of the best Twitter. Actually, I guess the problem was that was a long Twitter thread in defense of marriage and monogamy. Oh. So maybe not. That's maybe not, yeah.

Another great one was just Ed Balls. When the former member of UK Parliament named Ed Balls thought he was searching for himself. Not involved in human trafficking t-shirt. Experiment on that. Ray Allen had some doozies. There's a good one. In 2013, a woman named Patricia Lockwood tweeted,

at Paris Review, so is Paris good or not? And I thought that was a very funny one. I think he should just start attacking Elon Musk. I think he should just go to war with Elon on Twitter just to sort of kick up some, just to really sort of split the- Like when you go to jail, you got to shank the toughest guy. Yeah. Kind of like Alpha Dog on Twitter just to sort of kick up some really sort of split the like when you go to jail

you got to shank the toughest guy yeah kind of like alpha dog on Twitter which I could see him doing alpha troll that's what I'm hoping for

that's really good I don't know do you think it'll help him in the primary I asked Sarah Longwell this on the last on our last episode she's smarter than me

so what was her take I mean I'll tell you another Kenyan college grad that's right that's right I mean I think I think getting mine first. Another Kenyon College grad. That's right. That's right. I mean, I think getting back on Twitter will greatly improve his ability to shape media narratives, but that Facebook is ultimately more important in terms of reaching that base.

Just because, look, the guy truths up a storm, and they're very funny and weird, and I never hear about them. Like, there's a bunch in the research we were doing for today that I just couldn't believe that they were real. I texted you when you're like, is that real? Like it's in our research. I can't believe that's actually real. He technically has more Twitter followers than Facebook friends by a long shot, 88 million to 34 million on Facebook. But I bet way over half those Twitter followers are bots or dead accounts or just garbage.

Yeah. But I think he's just not getting the attention he craves from Truth Social. His interviews aren't even going as far. Like, I do think the power of Twitter in general in an Elon Musk world is sort of ebbing a little bit in terms of like the media's assignment editor. You know, I think we could do a whole other episode on that. It's not working as well. But I think that for him, he needs attention right now. And if he's on Twitter and he's tweeting all the time by this spring, the Republican primary will be in full gear.

And then, you know, I think he'll get a little bit more attention. It'll probably help. I don't think it'll help him in the general. Yeah. If he gets that far. But I do think in the primary, it'll help him get it. Yeah. I just think it helps him drive the narrative, make the conversation him uh and his opponents are still these mealy-mouthed idiots

like mike pompeo who's pulling at one percent who will tweet things like character and leadership are the same thing and think that that's some sort of like subtweet that's going to help them and it's just it's not we've talked about this we've talked about desantis a lot but like the non-desantis other potential republican challengers in 24 are really a pathetic bunch they're very lame like i don't know what they're thinking i so i watch nikki haley clips on hannity from the weekend i just saw them on twitter pop up and she just sounds like it was very like Jeb Bush, like 2015 kind of here's my talking points and my prepared lines that my consultants gave me that I'm going to drop right now. Like she's like, you know, like what you know what they say, may the best woman win kind of thing. And then she's like Republicans lost seven of the last eight presidential election popular votes, which I thought was interesting.

But she just it just I'm like, what do you where's the Nikki Haley base of support? I think Trump proved to everyone that he I think in the in the 2016 2015 primary prompt proved to the base that he was the one who would own the libs the most by doing it all the time. He would attack everybody as hard as he could from the very beginning. He would punch his opponents in the mouth on debates. When normally in politics, you kind of like baby step your way into really going after your opponents. He's like, no, I'm just going to go at them as hard as I can. And no one else really threw a punch back at him until the very end.

And it feels like they're all kind of walking into that same strategic mistake again. I think like if someone wants to beat Donald Trump, you've got to fight him and go at him and go hard and be relentless and no one's doing it. Yeah. I mean, what do you make of his challenges with evangelical leaders and South Carolina officials? You think it's indicative of a broader problem or do you think these folks will just come around if the base stays with Trump? I just think that these so-called faith leaders worship at the altar of power, and they might say they're sitting it out for now, but once they see some momentum gathering behind somebody, any candidate, that's where they will go. And I'm sure they all think Trump is a bad person, but they only care if he advances their agenda of white Christian nationalism and banning abortion, targeting LGBTQ people and yelling

about gay M&Ms or whatever, like culture war thing is on Hannity tonight. Yeah, I'm just not going to be looking too closely at the endorsement primary on the Republican side. I'll be looking at sort of the polls of Republican voters. Trump is in the rare position of being a former president who will probably not have the support of his party's establishment. But remember, last time he didn't need it. No, he beat them. He just needed it. And if I was, you know, if I were Trump, I'd probably embrace being the outsider again

and attack the Republican establishment that's maybe coalescing behind Ron DeSantis or whoever else it does, you know, and be the outsider. Yeah. The only person he seems to be worried about is Ron DeSantis. If it's Mike Pence, Mike Pompeo, Tim Scott, Nikki Haley, they're just tepid candidates. And again, like they're not running hard. And I just think that all these evangelicals, all the faith community, they all rally behind Trump. I mean, look at what the right wing is doing for Matt Schlapp, the head of the American conservative union. I haven't even talked about Matt Schlapp. He's a right wing creep. They put on CPAC. He runs this organization. This man was accused of

grabbing the genitalia of a male campaign staffer on Herschel Walker's campaign staff. This was like a few weeks ago. And the Republican establishment is completely rallied around him. They don't care at all. Yeah. He was down at Mar-a-Lago with Trump for an event after this whole thing, bro. But to the, speaking of evangelical values, the National Pro-Life Summit happened, took place and DeSantis won. They took a straw poll. DeSantis won 54% of the vote to Trump's 19%. Now, it's only 2,000 votes. So it's not, it's more than a couple officials, but it's still not big.

But it's very interesting, though, that DeSantis won by that much. Yeah, it is interesting. Although Trump had just recently told that specific group of people that they were at fault for losing in 2022. You're at fault. And then because you didn't endorse me, that's dislo's that was his one-two punch yeah it wasn't great politics um all right so finally some 2024 senate news democratic congressman ruben gallego of phoenix announced monday that he'll be running for kirsten cinema's senate seat the newly independent cinema hasn't yet announced whether she'll seek re-election.

And Republicans Carrie Lake and Blake Masters are both considering running as well. They're back. Here's a clip from Gallego's announcement video. The rich and the powerful, they don't need more advocates. It's the people that are still trying to decide between groceries and utilities that needs a fighter for them. There is no lobbyist for working families. We could argue different ways about how to do it, but at the core, if you're more likely to be meeting with the powerful than the powerless, you're doing this job incorrectly. What did you think of the announcement

and Gallego's chances in general? Great. I love the score on the video. It really came through in the audio only version. I didn't notice it when I was watching the video. Great video. I've been reading his book, Gallego's book, because I'm a...

Do you read 10 books? I'm a DC Insider, John. You're a new parent. What's your reading schedule? I didn't say I've finished this book. I've been reading his book because I'm an incredibly well- You're a new parent. How many, what, what's your reading schedule? I didn't say I've finished this book. I've been reading his book because I'm a, it's embarrassing. Incredibly well-sourced DC insider.

You know, this announcement was coming, uh, like everybody else. He's an incredible story. I mean, he grew up dirt poor, single mother with four kids,

not only absent, but an abusive father. The guy just like willed his way into harvard somehow yeah uh didn't fit in culturally because it was too many kushners and basically kind of like it asked to leave for a semester signed up for the marine corps served in iraq served in a unit that saw unbelievable casualties and just horrific combat and has come out you know the book leads with him talking about like going to find a friend who's really struggling with mental health disorders he's dealing with ptsd i mean it's an amazing bio i think the thing i like a lot about ruben gallego is he talks like a human being yeah i was gonna

it's a regular person for better for worse politically i'm not saying it's like you know he seems like a very cool guy it would be fun to get a beer with which was the old test um in the contrast of that video and who ruben Gallego is with Kyrsten Sinema like strutting around Davos with the mooch or whatever doing whatever they do there or you know Carrie Lake still on her weird I didn't lose campaign Blake Masters being the single most repugnant human being ever focus grouped i mean i i like his chances what about you yeah i i like it look i think that if it's a three-way race right and we don't know about cinema if she's gonna run yet uh but if it's three-way race the math is unforgiving for either cinema or gallego not impossible but really tough but there was a public policy poll uh from december that gallego's uh campaign

and waiting at that point put out and um it had lake carry like at 41 gallego at 40 cinema at 13 and they argued i think persuasively in that memo that the spoiler here would be cinema if she runs for sure she has no path to and i i think that is true i think if there's a three-way race uh and it's gallego i mean i don't think another democrat's going to run in the primary at least a serious challenger but if it's gallego is the democratic nominee cinema is the independent and the republican like i don't think there's a path for cinema in in that situation i think it's either the republican or gallego yeah well yeah i hope you're right i mean i think clearly gallego is going early because he wants to clear the field and raise a ton of money. That primary is in August of 2024. Oh, is it?

Yes, it's so far from now. That's a long time. It's smoked by Geico in a primary. So I think there's some questions like, what does the DSCC do here? Are they forced to help her in some way or at least not get involved to keep her from completely leaving the party, not coxing with the party so we lose our majority? It's tough because, and I think they asked Durbin this when he was on the Sunday shows talking about Joe Biden's stature. He was like, oh, it's too early and blah, blah, blah. But if it's in August of 24, then the like, I don't know how many other Democrats will run in the Democratic primary. But you could see the DS being like, okay, we're going to hold on

because we don't want to get in the middle of a primary. But if it's just Gallego and he clears the field on the Democratic side, I don't know if I was the DS, I'd be like, yeah, we're the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee. We are here to support Democrats. Kyrsten Sinema. Well, it's nice that she caucuses with the Democrats. Nothing against her. She's just not a Democrat. And so we're going to support the Democratic candidate in the race.

Now, I think that will also depend on other polls if they if they come in similar to the PPP poll and how much money Guy Yaga races. Now, I would I'm going to go on a limb here and say he's going to raise plenty of money. She has a ton of money right now. She gets it from all the hedge fund people that love her. But I think that he will have no problem raising money because I think progressives, not just in Arizona, but all across the country will want to donate to this game. Absolutely.

And I'm right there with them. I just want to like sit down with her and just be like, hey, what do you want to do in life? What gets you fired up in the morning? I think we saw what she wants to do in life at Davos. I think like hanging around rich people and opining on like deficits and debt is that's what she likes. I really think that's what she wants to do, which makes me think that i think there's an outside chance that she doesn't run i mean it

doesn't seem very fun i don't think she's held a town hall in the state in like two years um it doesn't seem like she likes the job i wouldn't like the job either if i was getting criticized by everybody all the time but some people just i guess want to be in elected office there's always been something like obviously her and mansion have been pains in our ass uh are being the democratic party for the last couple years but like there's always something about mansion where i'm like you know what it's it's very possible that this is just like it's who joe mansion is it's what he believes he's representing west virginia he's a conservative democrat that's it you know and I don't have to like

that. I don't, but that's, I think that is who Joe Manchin might be with, with Kyrsten Sinema. Like she was a green party person. She, she's gone back and forth so many different times. Like I really do think she's more in it for Kyrsten Sinema than she is for any kind of, like, I don't know that her beliefs are really, I'm confused by them. That's very confused. Uh. Certainly confused why you'd be a Democrat if you don't want to help working people with, you know, lower prescription drugs or I don't know, raising taxes on super, super rich hedge fund people. I mean, look, if I were to sum up the number of times that Manchin and Sinema turned me into like a red faced, rage filled monster, i think mansion wins in a landslide but to your point i get his politics he's in a trump plus 39 state he's in a trump plus 39 state and i don't know why i'm going on a like a joe mansion appreciation you love the guy yeah but um

the guy is now one of the least popular senators in the country he's facing re-election 24 and then helped joe biden he cast the vote for the biggest climate change legislation in decades so i'm just saying it's weird okay the shiva staff left to become an oil right yeah exactly so it's all weird it all kind of makes sense but back to back to gallego you were just talking about why you know cinema's embrace of of the wealthy i do think every time you read a story about gago he's, it's like, oh, he's a progressive challenger to Kyrsten Sinema. I think he doesn't want this to be an ideological race. And you can tell because that whole video and the part we played was all about she's standing up for wealthy interests and I'm standing up for people.

And it's going to be very, you know, and our friend Rebecca Katz, who worked for John Fetterman, is on this campaign as well. and Rebecca Katz, who worked for John Fetterman, is on this campaign as well. It's going to remind us of the way that Fetterman ran against Dr. Oz, which is not in an ideological way, but much more in a economically populist way. And I think Gallego is very good at that. Yes. And with a ton of bio to sort of show, you know, sort of credential those values. Like, this is who I am. This is where I'm from. That's why I believe these things. And I think that's the strongest message you can have. And like you said, he talks like a normal person. When he was on, I remember when we interviewed him

on Pod Save America in like 2017, he finished the interview with me and Dan. And I was like, he could be like a fifth Pod Save America host. That's how he talks. And he's going to come back on the pod this Thursday. He's going to be on, we're going to interview him this Thursday. Dan's going to grill him.

Fingers crossed. We'll see. So Sherrod Brown and Tim Kaine both said they're running for re-election. Debbie Stabenow of Michigan has said she's retiring. And then Manchin and Jon Tester still haven't decided. Knowing all this, plus the Gallego news, how are you feeling about the Senate map in 24? I mean, it's hard, right, John? I mean, it's never great. Again, we have to defend an R plus 39 state and an R Trump plus 16 state, which is Montana. Now,

luckily, John Tester is wildly popular. Yeah, that same poll that I said mentioned is very unpopular now. Tester, 60% approval, 30% disapprove. That's wild for being a Montana senator, Democrat. I think 538 had the stat. Only five senators out of 100 occupy seats that the other party's presidential candidate won in 2020. Three of those are red state Democrats who are up in 2024, Ohio, Montana, and West Virginia. So numerically, it's a very difficult year for us because we're defending, Democrats are defending 23 seats. Republicans are defending nine seats. The only thing that really counts as a pickup opportunity for Democrats is Ted Cruz again in Texas. Now, hope springs eternal with that asshole. Or Rick Scott in Florida, who is just a singularly repellent human being. So again, you know, Florida's tough. There's a tough story at the Washington Post over the weekend

about the utter lack of organizing infrastructure in Florida. That was so tough that I skimmed it. Cruz is, yeah, Cruz is also underwater, as he has been for a while. That crew, like, I'm actually most worried about Manchin keeping that seat. Or Manchin even, I mean, Manchin might not even run again. He, you know, Chuck Todd asked him about that over the weekend and he um he's he ruled out running for governor he did not rule out running for senate again or running for president potentially which is interesting well he gives you one then he takes one away right yeah but you could see if he does run for president or

he just doesn't run at all it's because he look he's going to look at that he's at 40 approval 53 disapproval in west virginia uh governor jim justice might run who's very popular there so i think that'd be a really tough race for him sherrod is a fantastic candidate obviously like we were all disappointed when tim ryan didn't win and you know fact, lost by a similar amount than to Biden did in 2020. But Sherrod Brown is an incumbent and Sherrod Brown is a survivor and has like won many times in that state before when it has still been a reddening state. Look, and Tim Ryan, he ran a great race. He deserves a lot of credit. He outperformed what I think a lot of pundits, myself included, thought he could

do. Yeah. He did a few points better than Biden, I should say. That said, I think Sherrod Brown has proven to be like a singularly talented politician in terms of forging and keeping a connection with working class union voters in Ohio. And I don't know, he seems like he's been able to fend off some of the culture war focused fights that Republicans draw other candidates into. Now, it's a tough state. Trump carried it by eight, I believe. So it'd be very hard. But, you know, it's sort of like putting one of your best fighters out there. And for all of these races, it depends on who the Republicans nominate, as we've seen, and as we just saw in 22, in addition to Ohio Republicans, perhaps

nominating another very extreme candidate. The other two Democratic senators with tough relics, Tammy Baldwin in Wisconsin, Bob Casey in Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania haven't exactly been putting up mainstream Republicans in recent times. And again, two incredibly good candidates there. Bob Casey, I know, is dealing with some health issues, but I think Pennsylvania is also trending in a better direction. Nevada, Jackie Rosen will be up. Oh, yeah. I'm sorry. I forgot about Jackie Rosen in Nevada. She is excellent, though.

God, there's just so many races that are tough. Because you don't have to worry about her for a second because she's that good. Remember, we ran into her on our way Yeah, on our way out of Nevada. We were leaving Nevada. We went to grab some food. We ordered every single tater tot or tater tot adjacent menu item. And then we ran into US Center. Yeah, she's fantastic.

And Debbie Sabino, there should be some really good Democrats in Michigan that could run there. And again, Michiganigan republican party also a fucking mess so they might nominate someone pretty extreme as well hopefully okay when we come back we will have our interview with democratic house minority leader hakeem jeffries joining us now is the minority leader of the House of Representatives, New York Congressman Hakeem Jeffries. Leader Jeffries, welcome to Pod Save America. Good morning. Great to be here. So minority party in the House doesn't usually have that much power. This majority can barely find common ground with each other, let alone Democrats. Their plan seems to be, you know,

common ground with each other, let alone Democrats. Their plan seems to be, you know, launching investigations and creating crises. What's on your to-do list for the next two years? And what do you think you can accomplish in an environment like this? Well, you know, we're committed to trying to find common ground whenever and wherever possible with the other side of the aisle to make progress, right, for the American people. That's why we were sent to Washington, not as Democrats and Republicans, as Americans fundamentally, to do a job for the American people. So, you know, we continue to extend the hand of partnership to the other side of the aisle to do reasonable things to advance the ball for the American people. And we can get into the specifics about what that could look like. But we will combat extremism whenever and wherever it's found.

And I think the first issue that's going to be in front of us is to make sure we don't default on our nation's debt for the first time in American history. And we know that there are Republicans who want to essentially hijack the debt ceiling issue in order to extract painful cuts to Social Security and Medicare, we're going to draw a line in the sand. Social Security is not negotiable. Medicare is not negotiable. And we are not going to negotiate with hostage takers. So that has to be done. We hit the debt ceiling yesterday. And so we need to deal with this issue quickly and efficiently, and then we can get on to doing other things in pursuit of common ground with the other side of the aisle.

Have you or your team had any discussions with some of the more moderate Republicans in the House who are maybe sitting in Biden districts about a discharge petition? We haven't had those specific discussions yet. Although, as you point out about a discharge petition? We haven't had those specific discussions yet. Although, as you point out, a discharge petition is one possible avenue. I think the most important thing that can be done is that Kevin McCarthy should just bring a straight, clean debt ceiling bill to the floor of the House of Representatives, confident that every single member of the House Democratic Caucus would support it. But we would need five, six handful of reasonable Republicans to do what has consistently been done for approximately 100 years in terms of dealing with the debt ceiling issue. It's been done on the Republican presidents,

whether that was Reagan, Bush, the father, Bush, the son, Trump, two or three times. I believe Democrats helped do it. And this relates to debts that the country has already incurred, has nothing to do with future spending issues. Let's have that debate. But we're not going to allow that debate to unfold with a gun being held to the head of the American people. I mean, Kevin McCarthy kind of seems like a guy who drove off a cliff and he's still like turning the wheel like it's going to help. Does it help that Trump is out there this morning saying, Republicans should not cut Medicare, Republicans should not cut Social Security as part of the debt ceiling hostage taking. Do you think that will influence House Republicans?

It's possible. I think the most important thing is that the American people have earned Social Security and Medicare, paid into it their entire lives, worked to get to a point where they can retire with grace and dignity. And there's just no circumstance where we should be even having a discussion, particularly as it relates to the full faith and credit of the United States of America. Specifically to your question, I do think that as it relates to some of the extremists on the other side of the aisle, perhaps what Trump has to say on this issue could be meaningful. Although, as we saw, you know, during the opening week of the 118th Congress, even Trump's perspective as it relates to McCarthy

didn't fully sink in until after 15 votes. And they wouldn't take his call. Well, so, didn't we just go through a whole fight where Kevin McCarthy promised he will never do what he should do? You just said, this is what Kevin McCarthy should do. He never does what he should do. And he just promised this is what Kevin McCarthy should do. He never does what he should do. And he just promised he won't do it. So what happens then? I mean, he said he won't do it. So then

where do we go? Well, Kevin McCarthy says a lot of things and then does something else. That's a good point. So, you know, the reality is on this issue, I, perhaps the business community has consistently weighed in and suggested that a default on our debt would be catastrophic, highly problematic, unprecedented, and could collapse the economy, send it into a tailspin, a deep recession, if not worse, not just the U.S. economy, but across the world. My suggestion is he's not necessarily going to do the right thing, perhaps, as it relates to preserving Social Security and Medicare, but there are other reasons why people come to a conclusion, and perhaps in this instance, the business community can prevail upon my friends on the other side of the aisle. Didn't those friends ever come up to you kind of quietly and be like, I'm really sorry about these freaks.

Like, I just, I can't believe it. I just, this is not what I ever wanted. I can't say it publicly, but man, these are freaks. I haven't heard the word freaks being used, but I understand why you might characterize some folks using that type of colorful language. They certainly, you know, in my view, are extreme.

And I think the American people have seen that over and over again. And we've been very clear on a variety of issues. We believe in a woman's freedom to make her own reproductive health care decisions. They're extreme on abortion care. They want to criminalize abortion, impose a nationwide ban. We believe in Social Security and Medicare. They're extreme on it. They want to criminalize abortion, impose a nationwide ban. We believe in Social Security and Medicare. They're extreme on it. They want to blow it up. We believe in democracy. Apparently, many of them don't. They coddle insurrectionists, perpetrate the big lie.

Oh, we're going towards the alphabet. I'm going to go through the alphabet. But the reality is, I think, in my view, what best captures the moment that we're in is a level of extremism that the vast majority of the American people are not comfortable with. And our job moving forward is to continue to contrast that with who we are as Democrats, people who are committed actually to making a difference in the lives of everyday Americans on issue after issue after issue. So you've said no negotiating over the debt ceiling. Biden has said that. Schumer has said that. A lot of Democrats have said that. Some of the Republicans who have said we can't breach the debt ceiling, Congressman Fitzpatrick, he's saying he still doesn't want a clean increase, right? Even though he thinks we shouldn't. He also said the other day that he has been in discussions with Josh Gottheimer, representative who's in your caucus,

about a possible bipartisan deal. What do you think about what Gottheimer is doing there? And I do think one way you guys could get pulled into negotiations is with people in the Democratic Party, like Manchin's been saying this in Davos and Godheimer could be like pulling you guys into negotiations. What do you think about that? all of the members of the House Democratic Caucus, that you cannot have a legitimate negotiation with hostage takers, people who are trying to leverage a moment that could result in catastrophic consequences for the American people, a default on our nations that for the first time in our 247 year history as a country, can't have a negotiation about anything in that context if you don't have responsible people on the other side of the aisle. I think at the end of the day, Kevin McCarthy probably understands, as Mitch McConnell understands, that we can't go down

this road. But I think what the Republicans are working through is that they've got a very small majority, as we've seen, with some very unruly, extreme individuals who are intent on sort of driving their own ideological perspective, even if that means the American people, the economy, or other things that we care about being tossed over a cliff. So Kevin McCarthy, we know he cut a bunch of deals, some public, some private, to get the job. The White House is calling on him to come clean about them, to release this secret three-page memo that apparently exists. Do you think this memo exists? Do you think we know the full extent

of what he promised? We definitely don't know the full extent of what has been promised, but I do think that that will begin to come to light. Many of Kevin McCarthy's own members have expressed an interest in trying to figure out what was promised to some of the more extreme elements. Now, you know, I think at the end of the day, the reality is we can either figure out a way to find a reasonable group of Republicans interested in governing, not burning down the house so that we can advance the ball for the American people. And hopefully, Kevin McCarthy will be able to corral his folks to try to find that kind of common ground. But that remains to be seen because of the extreme nature of so many folks on the other side of the aisle. Jamal Bowman, your colleague, has suggested that

maybe Democrats could use some of the things Kevin McCarthy gave away to get the job, like the motion to vacate, which allows any member of Congress to force a vote on basically firing him as speaker. Do you think, is that the kind of good trouble that the Democrats want to get into, like putting forward the motion to vacate? Well, you know, the motion to vacate issue, we had a very different process that was in place. Once the House elects a Speaker, the House should elect a Speaker for that term. That's kind of my view of it. But different decisions were made in terms of the motion to vacate, and we'll see how that all plays itself out. I do think that there are areas of the rules

package that perhaps will provide some of our members an opportunity to advance issues that could be debated on the floor of the House of Representatives in an open way. For instance, I think Speaker McCarthy has suggested that there will be legislative Wednesdays from time to time where bills that have been voted favorably out of a committee would automatically be brought to the floor for a vote. Not necessarily just Republican bills, but Democratic bills, that actually is an area where there could be opportunity, even though we find ourselves temporarily in the minority for our members to advance priorities, similar to some of the things that Representative Bowman may be talking about. So speaking of Bowman, there's been a lot of questions about some of the decisions being made by Democrats in New York.

The governor's judge just got rejected by a Senate committee. There's been a lot of anger about what happened with redistricting. In fact, a lot of people think that some dumb decisions by New York Democrats are the reason you're leader instead of speaker right now. Are you frustrated? Are you frustrated by what's been happening with New York Democrats? Right now, I think both the DTRIP, DCCC is looking at the New York situation, as well as the state Democratic Party. What happened? Why did it happen? What went wrong?

What needs to occur to put ourselves in a much stronger position in 2024? Speaker Pelosi, who's been an amazing, giant, heroic, iconic legislative leader, has always said, don't agonize, organize. And at the end of the day, my view is we, which was much closer than many of us have expected. And the closest governor's race, I think, since 2002 and had some challenges in suburban Long Island and in the Hudson Valley, there were consequences for our candidates. And that may be a starting place to figure out how we can improve upon our performance. And like someone like say George Santos was probably beatable. Probably could have figured out a way to come up with an argument against George fucking Santos. Which version? Yeah. Just one last question about this. So it's been this strange fight over this judge. You have Hochul basically going up against unions now.

A lot of progressives being angry about having this fight. You got drawn into this fight. Can't imagine you're happy about it. Is it time to move on? Is it time to just put a new judge up here? Or should we keep this fight going, you think? Yeah, well, hopefully back at home, they're going to be able to work this out. Both the Senate Democratic Conference in partnership with Governor Hochul.

conference in partnership with Governor Hochul. Part of the challenge, I think, is that it's a convoluted process by which Governor Hochul can actually choose and nominate someone to be a chief judge. She can't just figure out who's the best person and put that name forward. There is a committee. Most of the membership of that committee was controlled, as I understand it, by the prior chief judge and the prior governor. And then they recommend, I think, seven names. And then Governor Hochul has to choose from that group of people. And she chose a judge, in my view, was, all right, he should have a full and fair hearing, which has just occurred, and then an up or down vote on the floor of the New York State Senate. And it's going to be what it's going to be. And at that point, he either is voted favorably by the body or he's rejected by the body. And then we can move on your a to z speech where you handed uh the speakership to kevin mccarthy he's gotten quite a bit of attention two questions on it uh

how long did you take to come up with the word xenial and can you use it in a sentence well um xenial was the toughest word i was good going to... Yeah. The whole time I was waiting for it, I'm like, what's he going to do with X? That was the only option that seemed available to me. Xerox. Xerox. That's all I got. Xerox.

Xylophones in schools. Oh, yeah. But, you know, I mean, I think we as a country should adopt a Xenial approach... There we go. There we go. ...to welcoming people

in pursuit of the great american dream nailed it it's all up here just i don't have quality of life issues with that good either i like that one you can run it by love it next time for edits best piece of advice nancy pelosi gave you about this job take it day by day you know decision by decision have a plan always be prepared to make a decision but have a plan and then go out and execute it. Is Schumer texting you? Is Schumer calling you a lot? He doesn't text. He doesn't text. Is he calling you all the time already? We speak a lot.

Is it frustrating? No, it's not frustrating. Well, you know, Leader Schumer has always been a very active senator, even back at home in his capacity as, you know, initially the junior senator and most recently the senior senator. So I'm used to regular communication. This is now a different level because of the implications of what we both are navigating. Pelosi wanted to try to get him to text. She said in an interview with him, like, if you texted, we wouldn't have to talk so much. He still rocks with a flip phone. Right. And so I respect that. Right.

You got to respect that. You're a very powerful guy. You know a lot of powerful people. Can you talk to someone about these email and text fundraising ads from the Democratic Party? It's always the end of a quarter. They're always trying to scare me. There's got to be a better way, right? Well, I mean, I do think that there's an urgency that we've all been dealing with. And so,

you know, we can have a discussion about, you know, the appropriate level of communication in terms of trying to raise the dollars necessary in the moment that we're in. And I understand why you would raise that. But the reality of our journey in this country is this is a next level situation that we're confronting. I mean, just the last few years, the Trump presidency, Trumpism, longest government shutdown in American history, two impeachments, an insurrection, a once in a century pandemic, a shutdown of the economy. And then, of course, Democrats being able to come together to actually deliver for the American people in a big way, American Rescue Plan, Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act,

Chips and Science Act. He's not stopping these texts. No, he's really nice to these fundraising people, these fundraising consultants. Gun safety legislation, first time in 30 years, Inflation Reduction Act. My only point is a lot's going on. There's a lot to talk about. There's a lot to communicate on uh and there's an urgency to the moment me i would donate more just to get fewer to get less yeah yeah there should be there should be yeah you should be a humor option it's like ad free hulu it's like there should be democrat plus and then they never fucking talk to you i'll give you whatever you want just leave me alone um quick question no wrong answer do you have any classified documents

in your house no okay cool good stuff speaking. Good stuff. Speaking of fundraising, George Santos, your colleague in New York, we recently learned that he stole money from a veteran raising it to pay for care for a dying dog. Is there anything we can do about this guy, George Santos, who made up an entire life, career, everything to get into Congress? Yeah, I mean, George Santos is clearly not fit to serve in the United States Congress. He's a complete and total fraud. Now, we're constrained to some degree by the constitutional requirements. One, basically, someone has to be seated if they meet the age requirement, the residency requirement, and a citizenship requirement. Remains to be seen whether he's actually a citizen or not. I mean, I think his whole life actually is under exploration and examination right now because

he's basically lied about everything. But there are multiple investigations. Federal government appears to be investigating U.S. attorney from the Eastern District of New York, Nassau County District Attorney, Queens County District Attorney, Ethics Committee. Brazil wants in. Brazil wants in. He may be on Drag Race next season. And so a lot of people want him. And so we'll, you know, I mean, I think we'll be through this Santos situation sooner rather than later, but we've got to let these investigations play themselves out. They'll follow the facts, apply the law and let the chips fall where they may. Fair enough. Leader Jeffries, thank you so much for joining Podsafe America. Come back again.

Thank you. It was great. All right. Before we go, Chief Take Officer Elijah Cohn is here. And he's got another take-inspired game that we're calling take take don't tell me great show yes uh when I was describing this game to my wife today she said I guess I'll say hi first I'm all over the place today hi hi guys leave it I was

describing this game to my wife today she said how is this different than take appreciators and I said I was just saying to my wife today, she said, how is this different than take appreciators? And I said, there are five instead of three. But you know what? I mean, but there's a ranking system. Go ahead, use material difference. Explain the whole, explain the game. There's a ranking system.

There's a twist. Okay, so there's a ranking system. I'm going to read you guys five news stories, five takes. You have to rank them from best to worst, with the worst being number one. You can use our political scale as an aid here. Here's the catch. You guys don't know the takes that are coming. So you need to be careful not to fill that number one slot too early. And listen, I'm going to be

responsive here. I have like an order that I'm going to read them. But if you're like clearly going like five, four, three, two, one, like I i'm gonna mix it up and throw in the spicier ones so so i think i'm ready i have to think so so the the the worst take is one the best worst take is five least offensive least offensive take is yes okay got it that's a tough okay so and i can't repeat there can't be three twos no that's that's the whole that's the whole trick of it yeah then at the end we'll how we did, see if we want to reevaluate. Okay. We're going to grade our ranking. Yeah.

Okay. Let's start here with NBC News. Not normally an offender in our take pieces here. This is a piece from Jeffrey Bellin, who wrote a book about mass incarceration. The headline is, The Road to End Mass Incarceration Could Begin With Mercy for Some January 6 Rioters. This piece argues that Biden should pardon thousands of prisoners, including some of the January 6 rioters, because it could jumpstart an era of mass decarceration.

Among these arguments includes, Biden would push his primary critic, Donald Trump, into a corner. Trump vowed to pardon all the January 6th defendants by commuting sentences for at least some of those who didn't interfere with police. Biden would force Trump, who claims to back the blue, to either endorse his action or narrow his talking points to pushing for pardons for prisoners who assaulted police. What do we think? That's just a convoluted one. I'm going to give that a four because I think I'd love to see President Biden do more pardons and commutations. I think that our prison system, our justice system

is terrible and needlessly throws way too many people in prison for way too long and uh pardons are good but so we have to uh both agree on yes you guys need to come to consensus and i would say uh don't you agree honestly you made a persuasive case i think i'm there with you for four. No, because I think it's a terrible idea. I think the political idea behind it too, the political strategy behind it, that you're probably going to like outflank Trump.

It's ludicrous. It is very silly. Assuming there's logic. Yeah. I don't know that pardoning a bunch of violent rioters is somehow going to kickstart the era of mass decarceration no i don't see how that's going one leads to another um i think these things should be evaluated on the individual merits if each individual rioter like makes a case that they should get a pardon that's one thing but i and some is doing a lot of work here i assume it's

some smaller proportion of a rather large number. I think there's probably some people that are just straight-up stone-cold morons who wandered in there and are getting, like, 30 days in jail or something, and maybe you let those folks go. Right. I think, yeah, I use the term violent,

so I think the ones who were... There's some, obviously, who were committed greater offenses than others in the rioters. Okay. Tommy Vitor thinks January 6th rioters should be free. Got it. Right there.

God damn it. This is his plan the whole time. All right. So this is four. So we have a, all right. So we have, we have one. One, two, three, five. We have room for one more that can be not as, that can be even less offensive than that.

And then they all have to be worse. Okay. All right. Well, let's see about this one. This one's a little bit of a curve ball. This next one, it's attacking Donald Trump from the right. We were talking about Trump earlier and how you do in a Republican primary. This is a piece from Town Hall, extremely right-wing website called Trump's COVID Vaccine Blind Spot. Here's a quote from the piece. Pride is a hell of a thing. It's making Trump run for a third time.

Trump's pride has unfortunately extended to another point, Operation Warp Speed, a Trump-initiated endeavor that began early on in the pandemic and ended up with big pharma delivering several under-tested COVID vaccines to market. These vaccines, as we all know now, turned out to

not only fail to do their primary thing, which is stop the spread of the disease, but they also arguably hurt and even killed far more people than they saved. Ugh. I mean, it's got, yeah, this is... The question is if we leave room for worse. I know.

I feel like Elijah's gonna, he's... He's got something up his sleeve. He's got something up his sleeve. His, uh... I think we should two it. Yeah. I think it's pretty bad, though. First of all... Killed more people than they saved.

It's madness. It's just fucking nuts. That's not true. Please look at China where they don't have all the vaccines. I'm also very sick of the, like, they were supposed to stop the transmission. Like, yeah, when it was the original Wuhan variant, they did stop the transmission when it fucking mutated to omicron they couldn't do it that's not the fault of the people that's the

fault of the fucking virus what do you guys make of uh what trump has to deal with here in his re-election that this is his base here oh oh yeah yeah. No, I think that I think that cynical folks like Ron DeSantis are going to purposely try to run to Trump's right on this issue because they think that's the. Well, he already is. Right. I mean, he won't say if he got boosted, I think, or he wouldn't put out footage of his vaccination. I'm still sticking with two because I think you got one more nastier take up your your your browniewny man yeah sleeve there but i like any take that vaccines uh killed people or were under tested or bad is just a ridiculous foolish it's got to be jared kushner did nothing wrong okay yeah oh off to a hot start here uh let's

let's uh mark the halfway point with a clip we have a clip teed up uh wow i will go ahead and set this up here tucker carlson has been on a heater in defense of heaters recently uh this is a clip from the fox news host last week defending big tobacco and big nicotine have a listen why do they hate tobacco and it's not because it causes cancer. They don't care about your health. They closed the gyms during covid. Anyone who closed a gym during a pandemic that killed people who were fat clearly doesn't care about your health at all. They hate nicotine. They love THC. They're promoting weed to your children, but they're not letting you use tobacco or even non-tobacco nicotine delivery devices which don't cause cancer why they hate nicotine

because nicotine frees your mind and thc makes you compliant and passive that's why they hate it it's a real threat to them this guy's just out of his mind just it's a very tucker way of doing it you know, because he's like, the nicotine does it. You know, it's the smoke causes lung cancer, not the nicotine. And it's just, it's elitism. I'm actually comfortable with it being a three. Yeah, look, I could make it a three or I could make it a one. one i think convincing another generation of people to smoke cigarettes and die from cancer in service of your culture war moment is one of the most disgusting cynical things you could ever

do um and i hope tucker carlson never gets cancer and dies but uh having watched someone do it it makes me very very mad yeah on a deep level i mean i i have to listen to it again to be sure but i think it was a very typical slimy tucker way of talking about it and that he he noticed he didn't just come out and say that like smoking doesn't cause cancer or smoking is safe. He sort of... It frees your mind. It frees your mind. Well, the nicotine frees your mind. What about the smokeless products?

And then he started saying, they don't care about your health because they closed gyms during COVID. He doesn't directly say it, which is why I'm kind of... He's such a schmuck. Have you ever seen the picture of Sean Hannity

jeweling between commercial breaks no it's very funny that's cool yeah um all right let's let's let's three it although now we're really gonna need a bad oh yeah you guys are you got a one and five left here uh all right that's a tough place to be all right buddy bring it all right hold on i'm just gonna recap the list real quick because i'm writing it down uh and number two we have trump vaccines kill people number three nicotine frees your mind number four january 6th rioters should be freed you know what i'm okay with that so far so far so good all right here we go number four a piece from yahoo noobs why'd you say it like i

don't know what i liked it i'll tell you why I said it like that after I read it. Okay. The piece's headline is, Senator Kyrsten Sinema dressed as a sheep at Davos and made everyone else look like fools. This piece describes Davos as, as you guys just said earlier, this piece describes Davos,

which is an economic forum of the super rich, as a colorless throng of left-wing conformity. I said Yahoo News like that because I didn't expect this much of a right-wing take to be on Yahoo News. It notes that Kyrsten Sinema contrasted the rest of Davos by wearing white when they were wearing black suits. Here's a quote. Sinema represents the old left that once celebrated originality and nonconformity. For it, she was censured by her own party and then driven out because she did one of the most radical things you can do in American politics today. She reached across the aisle. I hate this person.

I know. I hate him about this it's a this is a tough this is a tough call because you could argue it as a five because while absurd and stupid it's not quite as offensive as some of the other takes that we've ranked or you could argue for one just because it's so fucking ridiculous it was this take defending or criticizing davos that's an institution that's sort of what i couldn't yeah it was criticizing davos for being like too left like it represents the conformist left it's it's the it's the it's the the right wing populist critique of sure right bunch of globalist elites i mean okay yeah sure davos a place where you know you can host a uh a panel on press freedom with

muhammad bin zayed or some gulf autocrat but sure tell me more i don't know man five or one i could go either way on this much like uh sort of the leftist horseshoe theory yeah far right i don't know what to do with this one what do we think do you think he's you think he's saving the heat for the end heater by the all right let's do five let end. All right, let's do a five. Let's do five. Davos. Give us our number one. Okay. I'll do Cinema at Davos at five. All right, your last one.

I think you're going to be happy that you waited for this one. So I stopped at sleep that you kept that one spot open. This is by far the most requested take I've ever gotten in doing any segment about takes for the show. Wow. It's a tweet from Steve Malloy, a Fox News contributor. He was responding to a piece in the New York Times from Ezra Klein, who was writing about clean energy. And then he was refuting using clean energy with these two

points. Quote, I was gonna say, so far this seems pretty banal. Random contributor hitting back at Ezra Klein over clean energy. Let's hear it. His counter arguments, he's got two. Quote. Number one, wind power made the transatlantic slave trade possible. Number two, modern clean energy has been a disaster. It's really for that number one. Modern Glee Headed has been a disaster.

It's really for that number one. Oh, my God. That, yep. You know what? We did it. That's number one. We succeeded. I'm glad we waited. Holy shit.

I'm glad we waited. That is. That is. Well, like any good Elijah game, you know, you come for the laughs and you leave disturbed. I'm really proud of our list. All right. I think we nailed the rankings. Let's look back at that. you come for the laughs and you leave disturbed. I'm really proud of our list. All right. I think we nailed the rankings.

Let's look back at that. I mean, in defense of Stephen Boyce, spot the lie. Those ships are powered by wind. That guy is a terrible person, whoever he is. All right, our final list here. Number one, wind powered the slave trade. Number two, Trump vaccines kill people. Number three, nicotine frees your mind.

Number four, January 6thth Rioters should be freed Number five Cinema's Eradical at Davos I like that Honestly Fantastic There we go

How do we think This segment works Perfect I loved it So far so good I'm excited to To bring Lovett in next time Because I think he's

Going to have some Some thoughts Some opinions Some opinions Some strong opinions Elijah Chief take officer You did it again With another great take game Because I think he's going to have some thoughts. Some opinions. Some opinions. Some strong opinions. Elijah, chief take officer, you did it again with another great take game. Oh, it was a great time.

I can add it to the pantheon. Hakeem Jeffries, thank you so much for joining us. And we'll talk to you on Thursday. Bye, everyone. Pod Save America is a Crooked Media production. The executive producer is Michael Martinez. Our senior producer is Andy Gardner Bernstein. Our producers are Haley Muse and Olivia Martinez.

It's mixed and edited by Andrew Chadwick. Kyle Seglin and Charlotte Landis sound engineered the show. Thanks to Hallie Kiefer, Ari Schwartz, Sandy Gerard, 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 Pod Save America.