Pod Save America - "Body temperature takes." (500th episode special!!)

Episode Date: May 31, 2021

Pod Save America is celebrating 500 episodes! Jon, Jon, Tommy, and Dan answer listener questions, quiz their memories, and reminisce about the last few years.For a closed-captioned version of this episode, please visit crooked.com/podsaveamerica. 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 Jon Levitt. I'm Tommy Vitor. I'm Dan Pfeiffer. We're all here because on today's pod we're celebrating the 500th episode of Pod Save America. Can you believe it, guys? 500 hours of Lukewarm takes. Yeah, I can too.

Yeah, it feels about right. It feels like it's been about 500. I would say there were between warm and hot yeah like more than lukewarm but less than less than spicy temperature takes body temperature all right to celebrate the 500th episode um we asked all of you to send us questions uh that you haven't heard answered yet here on pod Save America. And you guys all really delivered. We do not have enough time to go through them all, but we're going to try our best to answer as many as possible. So here goes.

We're going to just dive right into the mailbag. Our first question is from Richard, who asks, what lessons have you learned about how political media operates and needs to change in the future based on your experience so far? What has been the most surprising lesson you've learned in the last few years at Pod Save America and Crooked? Love it. Why don't you start us off? Yeah, I saw this question and I think the rest of you will have richer, deeper thoughts. But my my first reaction to the question

was just... Set the bar low. We spent a lot of time talking about partisan divides, but I think one of the lessons that I've taken away from the last five years really is that the deeper divide is between people who pay attention and people who don't, and people who pay attention... Love it. This was my take to this question too. Great. Well, we've to this question too. Great. Well, we've been doing this together a while. Too long.

But I think one of the things that I still feel, actually, I was thinking about this most recently, even just watching the mayoral candidates in New York having a debate and which ones I thought sounded like politicians and which ones sounded like regular human beings. And I think sometimes the language we use in politics is for people who pay attention to politics. And it's really hard to get out of that. It's just really hard to break that. Yeah, I mean, I'll just add on to that since I kind of had the same point. Like, I think what's most surprised me is trust in traditional media is at an all time low this year, hit another low. It hits new lows every year. And part of this is like

right wing attacks on fake news. You know, only 18% of Republicans trust traditional media now, but 57% of Democrats trust traditional media, which is also an all-time low for Democrats. And having done a lot of wilderness stuff where you like talk to swing voters, the first thing they say, swing voters who aren't reliable partisans, is how much they hate the media. And it's not just because of for partisan and ideological reasons. They don't like Fox. They don't like CNN. They don't like the nightly news. They don't trust social media anymore. don't pay a lot of attention to politics. And all of us who do pay a lot of attention to politics in the media and who work in politics in the media,

we have a pretty good idea of what sort of the opposite partisan believes about politics. Like we know how MAGA people think. We know what Trumpy people think. And we know how liberals think. But we don't know a lot about what most of the country thinks about politics

because a lot of them aren't paying that much attention to the news. And I think it's a huge divide in this country. Dan, Tommy, you guys got anything to add on this? John, I think you nailed it. Yeah, it's perfect. Perfect. Perfect.

I know Dan thinks about this. Well, I would just say that the one in a deeply divided nation, both on Republican and Democratic divides and the divide, I think the more important divide that I've pointed out, the one thing that unites people is a distaste of media and political media in particular. And that's something that should that is it's a gigantic problem for democracy and something that should elicit at least some measures of self-reflection from the purveyors of that media. Yeah, OK. Sure. Yeah.

Keep waiting for that self-reflection. I mean, also, it just brings a challenge, which is like, you know, we all spend so many years in politics. You know, you work with your opposition research team and your press team trying to think about like the perfect oppo story to lay down on your opponents, blow up their news cycle and drive voters away. And now we're just in this reality where we are so backed into our respective quarters that you are almost more likely to be mad at the person or the outlet making the attack than you ever are to blame the candidate you like for doing something terrible. And that's troubling to me. Like when you see Matt Gaetz running around, you know, beating his chest despite all the allegations against him, it's not good. It's not good. It's not good. Daniel asks, why does the Democratic Party as a whole struggle so much with messaging? The RNC has been very successful pushing usually false narratives Daniel asks, what do you think? This is a question I feel like I get. I have gotten for years doing Pod Save

America, not doing Pod Save America from friends and family, from strangers in the street. That's a very common question. So let's stipulate the Democrats could be better at messaging. Our talking points could be tighter. The messengers that we have in party leadership or on cable news could be better. But let me try to, I think we have to understand that the problem here is much bigger than strategy. It's structure. So imagine two armies who get up and fight each other every day. One of them is fighting with pocket knives.

The other one has stealth bombers and tanks. And then when the latter army wins every time, everyone then turns to the pocket knife army and says, why aren't you guys better at fighting? Right? We have to understand the Republicans have this massive media firepower advantage with Fox News, with Facebook. Our problem is not what words we have. It is the distribution mechanisms by where we get it out. It's why you guys started this company. It's why this podcast exists. But we still are so far behind there. And I think we have to figure out that problem. And then we can worry about which member of Congress gets booked on Lawrence O'Donnell that

night. The other thing I think people don't always get, it's not just that like Fox News is a propaganda tool that blasts away all day, every day. We were all just reviewing some research for a later segment about the dumbest Obama scandals. And what you notice is when Fox News talks about some dumb scandal like the tan suit for five days, all of a sudden it's on CNN, it's on MSNBC, it's on the nightly news on NBC and the networks, right? Everything they do bleeds into the mainstream media coverage. The mainstream media often gets led around by the right wing propaganda press. And that's just, that's a reckoning the mainstream media reporters need to

have with themselves. But I again, I'm not all that all that hopeful. I'll just have I have one thing to add that's more about the message itself than the media part of this, which I completely agree with you guys about. We are trying to come up with a message that's appealing to an incredibly diverse coalition, diverse by race, class, gender, education, identity, geography, you name it. And what's even harder, that message is fundamentally about believing that people from different walks of life can come together and sacrifice for the common good through government. The other side is a bunch of mostly non-college educated white people who are being

told that they need to fight off the powerful forces that are intruding on their way of life so they can be left alone to live in peace. That is just, I think there is a mismatch in the messages themselves. It is an easier message to scare people into thinking like all these people are coming for you. They're coming for your way of life. And we're just going to try to leave you alone. Our project is like try to get 300 million super diverse people together rowing in the same direction through government. It's just a harder, it's a harder task. And also because no one is actually coming for anyone's way of life,

they're always succeeding at preventing it, right? It's always on the verge of happening. Right. Yeah. OK. Max asks, one thing I've wondered in the post-Trump era going forward, how does crooked media see its role in intradem party debates? Is it to elevate specifically progressive candidates and issues, elevate what's best for the party, even if it means supporting moderates in purple areas, et cetera? Tommy, what do you got? Max, this is the hardest part of the job. I think there's no consensus, crooked media opinion on politics. We're not a monolith. I think we're just a bunch of people who disagree on stuff at times. So we mostly view the job as surfacing the most important policy positions and differences between candidates and giving you

guys the information you need to make a decision. There are definitely times when we put our thumbs on the scale, right? Like Favreau is wearing an anti-filibuster suicide vest at all times. Ben and I pressured all the 2020 candidates that we got to talk to on certain foreign policy issues. So we have biases, but I think we try to wear them on our sleeves. But then also, you know, the lesson from 2016 was approach these questions with some humility and don't think that you know who is the most quote unquote electable candidate, right? Just like talk about the things that matter as much as you can. So, you know, that's the ideal we strive for. We will fall short, but that's the thinking.

Love it. What about you? Yeah, I think everything that Tommy said is right. And I think we should be a home to everybody who's part of this coalition. Like we've had Joe Manchin on, we've had AOC, and we think they should all be welcome, even as we are, I think, pretty direct about our views about certain positions Joe Manchin has held and will held. But the only real debate, the only intellectually honest, sincere policy debate that exists in this country

exists on the left. There is no other place for it. The right has fully abandoned policymaking in virtually all respects. There's a, you know, a tiny group of right wing pundits who are like desperately trying to like, hold on to some idea of conservatism in their mind that is not Trumpism. But meanwhile, you know, every big important debate happens inside of the Democratic Party and the broader progressive movement. And we want to be a place where that conversation can happen. Dan, what about you? I know you're a DSA member who often pulls your punches on this stuff. Look, I think that's right. You guys have done a great job with Crooked Media and we try to do with Pod Save America to have a place where you can have all views are within the Democratic Party are welcome. We have that debate. We're going to have specific

policy views, specific views on political strategy, but that doesn't mean we don't want to hear from people who don't have those opinions. I have a real, like, we report, you decide philosophy on this one. I think it's partly because I think it's partly because I'm someone who, like, personally, I John just runs around the office yelling media cliches. I was like, if it bleeds, it leads. Where's my lunch? I don't know. Like, I would say that because, you know, personally, I believe deeply in progressive policy. I also am cognizant of electoral reality. So like, I'm not always sure, you know, it's not it's not like when you guys hear us on the pod, we are absolutely sure of an opinion. And we're just sort of like pulling our punches because we're trying to, you know,

hide this or that. A lot of times we're wrestling with these debates just like you are. And so I think rather than us try to say this is the way to do it, we know best. It's here's all the best information we have. Here's an analysis based on our experience in politics. And you guys be the judge. Yeah, it's funny. It's but I would I would hope I think this is true everywhere except Twitter. Like. I definitely feel it's probably a combination of just getting a little bit older, but also just the surprises and roller coaster of the last really 10 years in American politics that I feel like I have a better sense of my values, and I have a less confident sense in what those values dictate in terms of what policy outcomes,

political realities. Like, I think I feel like I come to things with a bit more humility than I did even before. And I think that's probably good. And I am very skeptical of certainty. And certainty is obviously the token of Twitter. So that's all. Yeah. More certain about my values, less certain about my takes. Yeah. Right. But we're not going to let that stop us, that's all. Yeah. More certain about my values, less certain about my takes.

Yeah. Right. Right. We're not going to let that stop us. That's age. Um, yeah. No, no, we won't. Spitting those takes. Uh, Tom asks when you were in the white house, how influenced were you by democratic pundits or opinion writers? Did they have any effect in shaping policy or dealing with criticism in that same vein? Do you think the current Biden White House staff listened to and are at all influenced by what you guys say on the pod? This is a question going right to Dan Pfeiffer, because I want to hear him talk all about being in the White House and being influenced by. What you may not know is that although John Pfeiffer worked for Barack Obama, the person he really worked for, his direct supervisor, was David Brooks. David Brooks, yes. Deputy White House Chief of Staff, David Brooks. Whose fault was that? Whose fault was that? Who would email us David Brooks columns,

huh? I think that in general, you do not want to listen to the strategic advice of pundits who give their advice publicly. Right? I think, and that will get you in a lot of trouble. Conventional wisdom is almost always wrong. That's what makes it conventional wisdom. But when you were in the White House, particularly when you were trying to pass legislation, you have to recognize that the people who vote on the legislation listen to those pundits. And you have to spend a lot of time trying to shape that public opinion, whether that is bringing in columnists or pundits to meet with the president or the white house chief of staff or others. We want to say it does not matter, but stakeholders help make your presidency run and you need to manage that.

It is incredibly annoying. It is a huge problem. A lot of times there would be a legitimate level of panic during the health care debate because Ezra Klein had a negative post on the Washington Post blog. And you would get a call – like the alleged affairs staff would call with like pants on fire because we just bled like three blue dogs because of an Ezra Klein column. And so that like that stuff does matter. And I'm sure it drives the Biden folks as it drove us insane.

And they have to deal with that. We didn't really have to deal for at least in the early years of the presidency with Twitter as much. It was really what was honestly in the paper or on cable news. And now any number of people can ruin their morning before they even get to work. Tommy, what do you think? You dealt with a lot of the pundits on the foreign policy side. Yeah. I mean, I assume this question came in from Tom Donnell and my former boss, the former national security advisor. And, you know, look, if like the general rule, right, is it's just like Twitter. You can be praised 99 times for something, but you're going to remember and react to

the one piece of criticism. So, you know, if David Rothkopf or Fareed Zakaria, Tom Friedman are taking a shot at the Obama foreign policy, you better believe they were strolling into Tom's office a couple days later for a lunch or something like that. I think it's good to listen to people. It's good to take critics seriously. But it's also important to remember that, you that David Plouffe and David Axelrod and some of the people we worked with were so goddamn smart is because they had access to more data than anyone else

on the planet by a factor of 100. We had nightly tracking polls and focus groups. So those folks could see opinions changing in real time the way the rest of the sort of D.C. pundit class can't. Everyone else is catching up. And so that's why I think like trusting – well, one, trusting your gut on things when you're Obama and like the sort of values that drive your decisions is important. And then two, just like trusting the people that are really evaluating like public sentiment on a real-time basis and not just kind of what they overheard at some salon in Georgetown is important. I think people, pundits who took the time to make really tough but persuasive criticism, like we listened to and affected us more. People who were assholes didn't really affect us at all. We yelled about them, but they didn't shape opinion.

And, you know, and people on the left and people on television who are part of, you know, neither ideological side, too. It's just that's just advice to you as you're for all of you as you're trying to persuade people in your life, reach the Biden administration, whatever it may be. Like when you're an asshole, people don't listen. And that doesn't mean you can't be tough in your criticism. It just means you have to be, you know, sensible and perspective. There's sort of like a couple of different kinds of people here. When you sort of like we sort of complete all of them. There are opinion makers in media who could be across all the ideological spectrum.

People who are generally on your side of the ideological spectrum are much more influential in your White House and to the overall success of your presidency. There are professional critics. Most of them are on the right. There's some on the left who wake up every day and sort of their shtick is to attack Biden or attack Obama when he was there. And then there are people who have opinions on politics that you respect. And those are the ones that you listen to either as validation or as cause for introspection if they think you're doing something wrong or missing the ball on it. And the people who do that best are the ones who do it with a measure of humility and in some understanding of the complicated circumstances that anyone balancing all of the challenges of being in the White House have to deal with.

All right. So three questions that Tommy picked out are all kind of similar. I want to take them all at once. Eric asks, what Democrats can do to get Manchin in line and suggest we remove him from committees or threaten to primary him because, quote, losing his vote changes almost nothing. John asks what the chances are of passing any legislation outside of reconciliation and says he's feeling powerless, frustrated and burnt out after working his ass off in Georgia. And Jim says, quote, even if we win, we lose. Why? And why does it seem impossible for us to do anything about it? The answer cannot always be to protest on the streets or log massive volunteer hours or phone in campaigns. Isn't that why we voted in a trifecta in 2020 to actually solve these problems?

Tommy, you want to try to take all these? Yeah, I'll do. I'll do. I'll do short versions. Eric, there might be nothing we can do to get Joe Manchin to listen to us. And that sucks. And I'm trying to come to terms with it emotionally. And I just can't help you here. OK, I need to sort out my own shit before I can be there for you. And I think you're being a touch needy. John, for what it's worth, the Senate just passed like a $35 billion bill that does something

to update water infrastructure. That's not really sexy stuff, but I think it will probably be meaningful. It's like a little mini stimulus. Dan, don't furrow your brow at me. Water matters. And then Jim, I hear your frustration, but we have won some stuff. I don't think we'd be in a good place on vaccinations if Trump was still president. The combination of Biden winning and the Senate seats in Georgia resulted in over a trillion additional dollars in stimulus going out the door. There's lots more to do, but it's still pretty early.

So we just got to keep working. But look, we Democrats, we're sometimes a little half glass empty. We got to be half glass full. For those of you who are just listening and not watching, Tommy did hold up a glass half full of water on the video. Just wanted to narrate that. Lovett, what do you think?

You know, like I've seen a little bit of discourse around like, oh, we're not playing hardball with Joe Manchin. Like it's just a practical question. Like, will that work? Is he receptive to traditional political pressure? And it's just not clear that the answer is yes, because it's not even clear if he's running for reelection. And it's not clear that he views his relationships with Democrats in Washington as essential to his political success. In fact, in a lot of ways, like over the years, he has tried to create moments of real division between him and the

Democratic Party to seem independent to West Virginia. Like, you know, it's really it's really tough because we don't just need Joe Manchin on voting rights. We need Joe Manchin on everything, on everything. And Joe Manchin was there in 2017 to protect Obamacare. He voted for the stimulus. He is in favor of a big infrastructure package, even though he is pretending that that can somehow be done with Republicans. So it is really, really hard and super frustrating.

It's just not clear that there's a better answer. Anybody disagree with that? I know Eric said, you know, losing his vote changes almost nothing. I completely disagree with that. Like, I realize that he drives me fucking crazy. I say this every day, so I don't need to keep saying that. But like, as Tommy pointed out, it's a trillion dollars worth of spending. There are people who have health care today who have jobs, who there are children out of poverty because of the American Rescue Plan. No Joe Manchin, no American Rescue Plan. We're going to put judges on the court. We're starting to put judges on the court that will serve for life. No Joe Manchin, no judges. and so if all we get is a bunch of judges and a bunch of reconciliation packages that are a couple trillion dollars each that's still a lot it sucks we didn't do all the other things we wanted to do because of joe manchin but that doesn't mean that he's still the reason we did all that other good

stuff it is um and you know jim saying the answer cannot always be to protest on the streets or volunteer stuff like that i'm sorry but that's but that is always going to be the answer. That's been the answer for the last few hundred years in this country. That's the answer in every single democracy around the world. Again, we have 300 million people in this country. They're free to say whatever they want, lie, do crazy shit. That's what America is. And so our job is to figure out a way to persuade people to agree with us.

And we have to do that constantly, every single day, every single year. That's politics. My name is Elijah Cohn. I have been working on the video side of Pod Save America since August of 2017. The first office that Crooked Media had was in the attic above a comedy club called The Largo in West Hollywood, Los Angeles. It was across the street from a strip club on one corner and a lingerie store on the other corner. And it was above a bong shop. It was so small and it didn't have adequate air conditioning or heat. So it got quite hot and quite cold. There were like four rooms in it.

And we started out with maybe five people there and ended up with 20 by the end. And there was only one bathroom. The bathroom was right in the middle of the office. It was like a square little room centered in the middle of the office in between the other four rooms. And so that meant that when we were recording a podcast, which was, you know, often because we're a podcast company, it meant you couldn't flush the toilet or it would get into the recording. So there was a very awkward rule for like hours at a time during the day, you just wouldn't be able to use that bathroom in that office. We've come a long way since then. Tommy, I know you were doing some research, so you were just ready. I'm loaded for bear.

And I'm hoping we can just kind of wallow in and luxuriate in this section for a while because it's unbelievable. So we're going to have fun with this. I do want to just point out that so many of these scandals, when you look back at them, are just fundamentally racist. These are racist news outlets reporting on Obama in racist ways. For example, this was new to me. The Daily Caller wrote up an article when the Obamas got their second dog, Sunny, and they said it ended with the Obamas do not have any white dogs. Somehow that was a problem. Dogs have races. They literally wrote that. When Obama put his feet up on his desk, the Washington Times said it was a,

they reported that it sent shockwaves around the world. Uh, the daily caller also reported, uh, when the Obama's left the white house, that their new residents would be close to the Islamic center of Washington, DC. So again, just like horrible people, a little too close, a little too close. It sounds like, I think we should make Dan, I don't see the problem there. Fox news called a fist bump, the terrorist fist jab. I think we should make Dan tell the Churchill bust story because he had to eat. Dan had to eat so much shit on that. I just do want to say two things before I shut up. One, the tan suit wasn't fucking tan.

It was gray. I don't understand how it's been called the tan suit all these years. It's definitely not tan. Tommy, I was there. It was definitely a tan suit and it definitely did not fit well. Dan, you're lying. It was gray. I was there. It was definitely a tan suit and it definitely did not fit well. Dan, you're lying. It was gray. Obama was mocked for putting Dijon mustard on everything. And I just want to say that when I just started working for him in 2004, we got like dinner somewhere at some downstate place and I put ketchup on my plate and he literally looked at me and like sneered and was like, ketchup is disgusting. So he deserves that one. But Dan, why did you hide the Churchill

bust? It's a child's condiment. It's delicious. There was a very strange controversy in the Obama White House because Barack Obama took the bust of Winston Churchill out of the Oval Office and he replaced it with a bust of Martin Luther King Jr. This was seen by everyone on the right as Obama disrespecting the special relationship between, and that's a very important term, special relationship between the United States and the United Kingdom. It is, ironically enough, all the people who complained about that did not care when Donald Trump attacked the Queen, attacked Theresa May,

and did everything else. It was a completely, entirely absurd scandal. I can't even get into all the details of it because it is very confusing involving the chain of custody of an alternative Winston Churchill bus that required me to

apologize to Charles Krauthammer in public. And it was truly terrible. That's the best part is Dan got a bum steer on this story and had to eat shit. And I think that was probably my fault, but I'm not really sure. You know, there's something that like,

this happened with Meghan Markle too, which is that like American right-wing pundits are so instinctively racist and aggrieved that at any moment, a British person just becomes a stand-in for like an American white conservative. If the person on the other side of the issue is a black American, like it's wild. I have a few as I was just going through the research. There was the latte salute. The president held a latte as he was saluting the Marines. That was a problem. At one point, a Marine held an umbrella over Barack Obama's head as he was giving a press conference out in the rain, as well as a foreign

leader. That was a huge problem. Tommy, you talked about the terrorist fist bump. Remember the Obama's date night in New York? The Obamas went to New York for the weekend to have a date. And that was a huge scandal because that I don't know why. President Obama bowing to the Saudis. Remember when we went to Saudi Arabia and he bowed? That was a huge problem. By the way, the Dijon mustard incident, the Fox chyron that day was President Poupon. That's good. That's just good. The selfie stick. Remember when Barack Obama held a selfie stick and it was a huge scandal? CNN's John King said, people are wondering, is he demeaning the office?

That was from CNN. That wasn't from Fox. That was from CNN. I'm trying to remember because wasn't there also an issue where he smiled at a funeral? Like, wasn't that an issue? There was a selfie.

There was a selfie. No, he took a selfie at the Mandela funeral. At Mandela's memorial. Yeah, yeah. He took a selfie at Mandela's funeral. At Mandela's memorial. Yeah, yeah. A selfie at Mandela's funeral. Look, when you put it that way, love it, it sounds bad. It doesn't sound great. Okay, we found a real scandal.

It wasn't like in front of the casket. Yeah, the reason it was controversial, it was with the villain from Lethal Weapon 2. So that was, I think, really inappropriate. Do you remember when the White House just tweeted the picture Barack Obama took with Cody Keenan dressed as a pirate? Yeah. But they happened to have tweeted it on the day that Benjamin Netanyahu was in D.C.

And they said he was too busy to meet with Benjamin Netanyahu because he was meeting with a pirate. None of which was true. Also, the pirate photo was like three years old at that point. Three years old. And again, lest you think this is all like, you know, fake scandals

in the conservative media ecosystem. When President Obama did not wear a jacket in the Oval Office, the chyron on the NBC nightly news with Brian Williams was Jacket Gate. That one? Jacket Gate. I remember watching this in real time.

NBC nightly news. And Andy Card, the former Bush White House chief of staff, was attacking all of us. I'm like, I'm sorry, man. Yeah. Sorry we didn't invade fucking Iraq with our coats on, like our back. Yeah. I remember that. I remember that the Bush people. Invade the wrong country, but make sure you're all buttoned up. Yeah. Yeah. I remember that. I remember

that the Bush people. But make sure you're all buttoned up. Yeah. The Bush people were like jeans in the Oval Office. That's no way to run a preemptive war. You absolute sickos. God damn it. That is the Bush administration in a nutshell. Like, yeah, yeah. Obviously, we started the worst foreign policy blunder in our history, but we had a of decorum not like these trump people we look sharp doing it taylor asks when are you going back to the office soon taylor july we're going back in july we're starting to go back in july we'll be recording pod save america again in july in the office we're very excited in the studio as excited i can't wait i mean i'm in the studio currently I'm just kind of wondering why you guys aren't here, but, you know. You're just there by yourself, yeah.

Spooky, spooky. Daniel will have to come down again. We haven't seen Dan in person in over a year. I literally cannot wait to come to your office. Like a year and a half. Who's going in and watering that plant behind Tommy? Oh, it's plastic. But it was funny you should ask, Dan.

Tanya watered it for about two years, not realizing it was plastic. asked in uh tanya watered it for about two years not realizing great great at content not a card thing um okay neil asks is there a timeline for potentially doing live shows again the people want to know and we also got would you want to do another tour outside the u.s one day like you did when you went to europe if so where would you want to go um yeah the timeline for doing live shows is uh when we can start booking live shows again but we are i think 22 i will speak for everyone on this zoom we're all pretty excited to get back on the road right yeah you bet i think you'll uh i think you'll start seeing some some some action maybe this fall maybe this fall be nice yeah tell us tell us where you want to go

reach it reach out tell us we'll we'll go there um what about a tour outside the u.s i've been thinking about this i still i've never been to australia and i would love to go to australia yeah me too i want to go to australia that'd be cool roads and i've been kicking around a little uh well canada option i don't want to get too crazy on you guys but we're thinking about oh you know we thinking about popping north. We have real listeners in Canada. I've been watching Handmaid's Tale and you just said Canada and I was like, oh, yeah,

we should go to Canada. Build some ties. Just in case. Just in case. Just in case. Christopher asks, whose parent, family member, significant other is the most dedicated listener who is the least let's cause some problem i would say yeah i mean it's a tie for

at least well so i was gonna say i think the competition for least dedicated listener is going to be fierce uh among our respective significant others actually howley is like a nice lovely person who often sends nice notes about like good interviews and stuff but But I do think there's a way we could make this a competition, right? Which is to say the clock starts now. So Emily, Hannah, Ronan, if you hear this segment, let us know. Now the problem is- Be the first, yeah. The segment could go on infinity, right? Because none of them ever listen. So no snitch tagging. Let's let the chips fall where they weigh. But, you know, I guess if they talk about this on Keep It, Hannah will probably win.

But if that doesn't happen, you know, I think I'm losing. There is zero chance Ronan will ever hear this conversation. It is an impossibility. We might as well not even be recording it. Emily does listen whenever I mention that she doesn't listen and then she feels guilty so i will not i will make sure not to mention it just so the game we can keep the game uh you know going i will say on on most dedicated listener my dad my dad will mark favreau will text when the pod is out but has not been up on youtube yet because now he used to listen

and now he and my mom watch on on their television screen on the youtube and 40 years old right oh the youtube where's the tiktok but he he watches he comments he has uh ideas he has suggestions he'll text you guys directly sometimes when something happens. A lot of good pitches. He has business advice. He was like, why don't you guys have ads on your YouTube, on the YouTube show yet? You should really get ads up there. Mark's got all kinds of ideas.

And he's a very, very dedicated fan. So that's mine. What about you guys? Who's most dedicated in your life? My mom. She's the best. A lot of long drives in her day, too. And your mom's always,

your mom's very active on Twitter, too, Tommy. She's tweeting all of us. Yeah, that's a thing that we should talk to them all about, which is to say, don't do that.

I think we've all talked about this before. I don't know that I would like me just based off the Twitter version. I think we all kind of suck two to three times more

on that platform. And so, you know, her watching me behave that way is probably not a good thing. Yeah, Fran's an avid listener. Hallie is an avid listener who leverages my access to the PSA production Slack channel to know when the pod is coming out. Oh, smart. Smart, smart, smart. That's cool. That's cool.

How are all your dogs doing? Have they missed each other? Have they gotten really attached to you guys and your partners in the past year of being at home how have they helped you get through things leo's leo's fantastic i will say something very embarrassing so uh i do think pundit is more attached to us. I do think we're more attached to pundit. We've become that that that kind of over the top gay couple parents to a dog. That's like really hard to hard to watch unfold to the point where before we go to sleep each night, we say family time and then pundit runs between us and rolls over and gets, you know, a good night belly rub and then goes to her spot at the end of the bed, which is like, I don't even know why I'm sharing it. It's not even like funny, embarrassing. It's embarrassing. I don't think it's embarrassing at all. I would not have. I would not have survived quarantine without Luca. She was far and away my best friend. I love you too, Tommy. I would not have survived quarantine without Luca. She was far and away my best friend.

I love you too, Hannah. It's weird she doesn't listen to the pod. I mean, you know, like... Luca listens. Yeah, Luca listens. I think my separation anxiety is probably worse than hers at this point, but we're both learning to live again. Leo's always been incredibly attached to us hates anytime we

leave the house so this last year the pandemic for leo was probably like the best year of his life because we never left the house and he was home all the time so um but yeah no i feel the same way about him they haven't really missed well they've all seen each other now we've uh pundit and leo have reunited luca and leo have seen each other a bunch so yeah they're all they get to play soon dan matthew asks as someone living in delaware when is dan running for senate or governor here we go let's do it should we announce now or should we save that for a special bonus episode i know what he says primary bonus episode just called the announcement i i think it's important that we uh set up dan's run here because dan is both a carrot and a stick

he is a he is dan is a threat to those senators from delaware who might not understand that the time has come to uh put the filibuster a racist relic of our past in the past where it belongs but he's also a carrot and that he'd be a great senator for the people of Delaware. And so just something to keep in mind that he may not do it. Dan may not do it. All right. He's not he's has no plans to run, but he cares about this country. He cares about the love.

Are you are you pitching yourself to voice the first bio? Those are good. Those are good remarks. I thought it was pretty good. And I just think, you know, people who are around Chris Coons and people who are around. The other guy. Carper. Carper.

Tom Carper. Well, how do you remember Tom Carper when you got a rock star like Chris Coons in it? Carper, Coons, just be aware. Dan Pfeiffer, he's like a shark. If you stop swimming, he dies. End of pitch. Look, who wouldn't want to dedicate themselves as a friend of the pod has encouraged me to be more politically active. And most importantly, it's made me really excited to vote for the first time next year in the 2022 midterms. My name is Erin. And because of this podcast, I stepped out

of my comfort zone and became a moderator for Team Florida for Vote Save America and set an example for my daughters that one person can work really hard and make a difference. Thank you! Hey guys, Jessica and Madison here. Pod saved my sanity. Pod gave me the tools to be a better citizen and fucking do something. Pod made sweet-ass merch. Pod came to Madison first, and I got to meet you.

Pod taught me how to advocate for progressive priorities and show my five-year-old twins their voices fucking matter. Pod saved me. Thank you so much. Wendy asks, Love it. I kind of miss Mia's house, but love the room you are speaking from. Your decor or Ronan's?

Not Ronan's. Mine. I did this. Alright. I just this, all right? I just want everyone to know, Lovett picked this question. You bet I did. You bet I did. Also, two days ago, you told us that those books behind you were left there by some drifter

who was in your home. It looked like this was all some purposeful thing. That's how you make, that's decorating, you know? You just find things. You put them together. You make something happen. You're picking C-class?

What are you talking about? Look, I have a much gayer aesthetic in my choices than Ronan. Like, Ronan wants to live in, like, a 17th century hunting lodge for some reason. I, like, this, I need a gay space. That's why. That's how it goes i could totally see that tish asks what is everyone's creative outlet of choice art craft instrument etc uh edibles is that an answer i play the piano once in a while tom you play guitar i was playing all the

time for a while and then i think anyone who's played an instrument knows the thing that happens to you which is you sort of plateau at sort of some sort of mediocre level where you are playing parts of the same songs over and over again and not learning anything new and not entirely what i always have a struggle with is like figuring out how to practice well so then i just put the thing down like six weeks ago and i haven't touched it since and i kind of feel shame about it yeah in fact we have plateaued at a level where now tommy and i along with our friends shameek and mike o'neill are in a wedding band we play at weddings once in a while so that's our that's that's the highest that we go now we just play away love it you play the drums remember i do play the drums yet never seem to get it we're all gonna be in a band and you were never and

you're somehow you're gonna play the drums somehow my Somehow my audition for Taj and the Mahals, which is the name of the band, never comes. Shomik named it. Love it. Remember in Oslo when there was a platform that literally raised up into the air with the drum kit on it and Love It was on just like fucking rocking away and they got you like six feet off the floor? Yes, I do remember that. And I remember there were these nice Swedish people being like,

these are the people we invited to speak at our event. They seem like American losers. They are going to speak about politics. This one, this little chubby gay one seems to make no sense. Didn't you insult the monarch or something? It was Norway. It was Norway. Oh, fucking now I'm dead.

Looks like we're not getting invited back there. This will surprise. No, they were very nice. They were very nice. This will surprise literally no one, but I have no creative outlet. No drawing. You have two kids.

Yes. But even for three kids. You've written two books. You've written two books. Dan, I'm about to ask you a question that speaks directly to your creative outlet. Forrester asks, would Dan rather be on the below deck crew hosting the GOP leadership or be on The Amazing Race with Paul Ryan?

Well, a couple of things. One, I've never seen The Amazing Race, but I think I get the gist. And so if I were to boil this question down, it is comes this question boils down to you're going to have to hang out with at least one asshole. Do you want to do it on a super yacht or do you

want to do it stuck in a small car traveling around the country? So I would pick the super yacht with Kevin McCarthy and Steve Scalise and Elise Stefanik as opposed to

the amazing race with Paul Ryan. I knew you wouldn't pick Paul Ryan. I knew it. I knew it. Dan, can I offer a hot take about Paul Ryan? We always want Republicans to speak out about Trump and Trumpism and sort of make the counter argument. I believe that if you are going to do so in a fashion that is as pathetic and weak as the way Paul Ryan did it by like not naming Trump or naming him once or sort of like these oblique references

that you actually are doing net harm to your cause because you look like such a weenie and then Trump and Jason Miller come out and just blast you as of course they will. That's my theory. I thought you were going to defend Paul Ryan so we could have some real back and forth here. No.

Dan, we don't i'm not wait is this is this crossfire that was paul ryan giving a speech in which he did not mention trump except for one time to praise him for his economic performance pre-pandemic right was a just something perfectly designed to annoy me because obviously paul ryan annoys me and the weird tactic that a lot of politicians use where you will criticize you will do an entire speech about a politician, but then not mention their name for reasons that make no sense at the same time was just incredibly annoying. And I will say I've never I've never praised Jason Miller before, but Jason Miller responding to The New York Times by saying, who's Paul Ryan, was a pretty good response to that. It's good. That was good. That was good.

That was good. I have to say, though, Tommy, I do think that that's like that is an interesting take to me because we've always thought of it as useless. But I do actually think you're making a good point. It is worse than useless. It is counterproductive to do the weenie semi hit because they look bad and it doesn't work. You just look weak. You just look weak as hell. You're so weak, Paul Ryan.

Weak. Chris asks, why does John F. have canadian accent if he's from massachusetts where does this come from i picked this question i don't know and i don't so here's the best answer i can think of my father's whole family they're french canadian they settled in new hampshire maybe some of that rubbed up on me but if you listen to my dad and my mom they both have pretty thick boston accents yeah i can't tell if it's like i've i lost my boston accent when i was in college and i don't i don't know if maybe i didn't completely lose it and so what's resulted is i say some john what do you put a what do you put a knife in what do you put a knife in in the kitchen a draw you haven't lost that's

that's not that's not that's not can haven't lost that's that's not that's not that's not canadian that's that's that's just i say room i say room i say room too trash american i say room i think maybe like what we're learning here is that your american accent is almost as bad as kate winslet's pennsylvania accent um that's pretty bad and maybe you're actually um a british actor i hate to tell you this. As someone who grew up within that 30-mile radius of Easttown, that that's actually not that bad. It's pretty – Oh, wow. Yeah.

Wow. Whoa. Seriously, Dan, I'm not saying it's that bad, but it comes and it goes. And it's on – there's a specific word that she trained pretty hard to get like a specific vowel sound. Water. Water. It's – John like a specific vowel. Water. Water. It's. I would.

John's a crisis. I also just want to note, John, that you were like, I don't know where this crazy question come from. Let me give you just a very esoteric theory. My dad's family's from Canada. Like that probably answers it. Yeah. But it's not like direct.

It's like, like my grandfather, you know, came. I mean, it's not like my dad lived in canada they're from manchester um okay this is a very important question taylor asks on a scale of one to ten how much does love it hate aaron sorkin 20 i didn't pick that question i have nothing but um i have nothing but cherished memories of my experience making season three of the newsroom i learned a lot and made wonderful friends. That 9-11 scene you wrote was amazing. No, it was the Bin Laden.

It was when we caught Bin Laden on the plane. That was just a brilliant scene from Love It. When you had him salute the captain. I thought that was so, it was such great writing. People criticize that, but I'm going to defend Love It. I'll say,

I'll say one thing that I did say in the writer's room, which I think that he did not. It came back around to bite me later and I won't talk about that. But I will say there was one moment where we were there was some debate about some like particularly dramatic moment about, you know, making this news broadcast for atlantis cable news uh basically a version of msnbc and i just remember thinking like everyone here is being so dramatic but like can we just all keep in mind like like the best case scenario is they make a rachel maddow how'd that go not like that very funny very funny um great episode of rachel maddow but i don't know we need the strings speaking of rachel maddow our last question our last question is from rachel we're gonna end on a a, reflective note. How do you maintain optimism or sanity when talking about the topic of politics and the future of America? Love it. Why don't you start?

Edibles. Yeah, that's a good question. Yes, edibles. I do think that like I try to remember that the amount you're paying attention is not a stand in for how much you care or how much good you can do. And that your attention is the most valuable commodity in this media environment, in this political environment. And so I think that obviously we're in a special situation.

We read about the news, we cover the news, we have to stay informed. But I do think for most people, like treating their attention as a valuable thing, as basically their time, as your time, and to treat it as precious and to only deploy it when necessary. Dan wrote a great piece in Messagebox about basically, don't retweet Ted Cruz. Don't give Ted Cruz the retweets because they're of value. But I think that that's a small example of a larger issue, which is don't give your attention away

without being thoughtful about it because you only have so much of it. And protecting your attention is I think another way of protecting your well-being during this time and not just getting sucked into the endless loop of frustrations that just sort of have no bottom.

You know? What about you, Tommy? You know, I'm not sure that I do maintain optimism per se. I mean, I think like, you know, I was lucky enough to work for Barack Obama. And I think his sort of like big picture long-term outlook and the way he talked about about that in a way informed all the things we did is sort of what i've borrowed from uh at times when i've when i've struggled but i i think you know sometimes you're allowed to be pissed and sad and and harness those feelings too if we're being totally honest like i'm not sure i feel all that optimistic about redistricting and voter

suppression laws and all this stuff. But like, you kind of just don't have an option, right? You got to keep going. Yeah. Dan? I think it's easy to get frustrated by Joe Manchin, the things that haven't gotten done yet, and like never ending ongoing infrastructure talks and all that. But I think we can't lose the thread about what happened in 2020. Like the entire fucking enterprise was on the line in the middle of a pandemic. And millions of people, a lot of whom we got a chance to meet back when we could leave our homes and travel, many of them listeners of this podcast and Crooked Media podcast

and people who support Vote Safe America, got together, found a way in the middle of a pandemic to find time to make phone calls, text bank, donate money they may not have known they were going to have, and they saved the fucking country, right? Is all the work done? No. But imagine what would have happened if we had lost that election. Imagine what would have happened if we hadn't won in Georgia. That's because people stepped up. And it's easy, and we do it all the time, get sort of very focused on the things that have not been fixed yet or the continuing, the way the deck has continued to be stacked against Democrats. And we should push Joe Manchin and everyone else to unstack that deck and to not miss this opportunity to do that.

But even with, under the hardest circumstances possible, running against an incumbent with all of the advantages that a Republican has in our political system, Democrats stepped up and won. And we would be so absolutely fucked if that had not happened as a democracy, as a country in the middle of a pandemic. And people did it. I think that is something to be optimistic for because it was a truly heroic thing that like the most important election in history, a bunch of people stepped up in the hardest times potentially in their lives and delivered. And the reason that I remain optimistic, you know, in light of what you just said, Dan, is I think politics is fundamentally about persuading people to change their minds. And that's either like changing the party that they vote for or changing their status from non-voter to voter. You're always trying to persuade people. And if you persuade enough people to change their minds, you change politics and you change the country.

And I've seen that happen like too many times in life to believe that it can't. You mentioned this, Tommy, but like, you know, the formative political experience of my life was helping to elect a black state senator named Barack Hussein Obama president. And if that's possible, then anything's possible. If you can persuade people to do that, and I've seen it in 2006, 2008, 2012, 2018, and again in 2020. And, you know, as dark as it seems, this is just about person to person trying to change people's minds. And as long as you can keep doing that, then you should still have optimism. that, then you should still have optimism. Hello, my name is Caitlin. I first started listening my junior year of high school. I have listened to every episode since. Because of the pod, I decided to be a political science major. And this year, I was an intern for the campaign

of the first black female mayor of St. Louis. Thank you so much for inspiring me to get involved. Hey there, this is Marshall Schaefer. I've been a listener since playing politics, even before keeping it 1600. John and Dan in particular are really responsible for making it click into place that I'm a Democrat and every door I knocked, voter I canvassed, call I made, text I sent is because this team converted me

and inspired me to live a life and own a political identity that actually matches the values that I hold. All right. Love it. I heard you had a game for us. And now it's time for a game. What is the present?

We live our entire lives in it. It is the only place we can live. And yet deep down, we know it doesn't really exist. No matter how close you zoom in on time itself, you cannot find a space between the past and the future. They are always touching. But in defiance of this contradiction, this paradox, there is impossibly Twitter, which manages to separate the past and future, to hold the two apart with the strength of takes

alone and scream from the chasm between right now is all that matters. The present is real and vast and all-consuming. Anyway, now it's time for a game we call First Pod Gets the Fave 500th Episode Edition. Here's how it works. I'm going to share a comment made on Twitter or Pod Save America by a host or a guest, and you'll have to figure out who said it.

Okay. Are you ready, boys? Yes. This is tough. Dan, I'll start with you. Which guest said the following on Podonce of America in June of 2017? We couldn't get one Republican to vote for it back in 2010. The Republicans have doubled down and made it even worse.

They haven't even put up the appearance that they want it to be bipartisan. June of 2017. That was before the pandemic, right? Trump was president. 2017, early on, early days. Was it Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer? Incorrect. Anybody want the steal? It was Joe. It was Joe Manchin. Oh, Pond Save America. Roll the clip. So good. But then still yet, we couldn't get one Republican to vote for it back in 2010. The Republicans have doubled down, made it even worse to where they haven't even asked the Democrats.

They haven't even put the appearance up that they wanted to be bipartisan. John, over to you. In May of 2017, Witch Pond Save America host tweeted the following. Again, this is May of 2017. Quote, if I was a Republican up for reelection and staring down the barrel of another 18 months of this, impeachment wouldn't sound so bad to me. Me? It was Dan Pfeiffer. Dan Pfeiffer. Dan Pfeiffer. And it was, always tweets are devoid of their context. And I don't know what was going on that the this was meant to capture,

but I assume it has to do with something with like Scaramucci and Ryan Supribus. Tommy, in July of 2017, this Pod Save America host said, and I quote, I'm starting to really like Susan Collins. Oh, no. Favreau. No. It was. It was John Favreau. It was because she had been caught on a hot mic torching Representative Blake Farenthold of Texas.

A male senator said to collins you could beat the shit out of him and collins replied he's so unattractive it's unbelievable oh i remember that is like the funniest thing she's ever said anyway you're canceled john yeah that was you canceled dan which united states senator said this in December of 2017? Your podcast nurtures, nourishes, energizes, fires me up as well as informs me. Chuck Schumer. Incorrect. Tommy for the steal.

Cory Booker. It was Cory Booker. Sadly, it was about the daily. That was a good choppo, yeah daily roll the clip your podcast nurtures nourishes energizes uh fires me up as well as informs me it's so um you're so extra thank you senator booker for listening i'm gonna say was that when john when you and i interviewed him in his office and like, yes, we asked some sort of like super mundane question about like Jeff Sessions and DOJ.

And he turned it into an attack on us. Like, as if we didn't realize that like DOJ had always been doing, it was very, it was very odd. It's a very odd interview. I really like Cory Booker. Weird interview.

John. Weird interview. John is a two-part question. A certain Ponce of America host held up a picture of a now United States senator and said, I'm sorry we ever doubted you. Who was the host and who was the senator? The host was you? No. The host was you mm-mm

the host was Tommy it was it was Tommy but who was the senator now senator she is currently a senator was not a senator when he held up the photo I held up a photo mm-hmm Dan you have any guesses

what do you when was what date was this did you have a year? What date was this? Did you have a year? This was in November of 2018. That's a hint. It is Tommy's favorite senator, the person he would work for if he left this podcast, Kyrsten Sinema.

That's exactly right. It was actually because you were saying that you doubted her victory, but you held up a picture that says, I'm sorry we ever doubted you because we had made the same mistake. hadn't we had we were like fucking trump being like ah she lost and then the votes came in yeah and of course she had won yeah we didn't we totally are bad every media organization did this but our bad for like poor kirsten's end of his

staff was like uh we think we won this what are y'all talking about like when the voters paid us back every day since yeah that's all we paid for that mistaken blood that's on me over to tommy in september of 2020 a guest on pond save america said you're a bad boy who was the guest and who was the bad boy joe biden uh you're the bad boy? Joe Biden. You're a bad boy. It's surprising. It's surprising. There's a lot of danger, even in guessing.

So who called? I'll give you I'll tell you. I'll tell you that the bad Fav favro is the bad boy i kind of remember this oh was it elizabeth warren was it was it schumer it was schumer it was schumer roll the clip so i know this is like asking you to pick between all of your children but do you have a favorite under this radar senate race that where you're feeling good about the Democrats' chances. You're a bad boy. What a weird thing to say. In November of 2018, this host tweeted,

this is November of 2018, we not only have to win, we have to run up the margins in 2020 or he won't accept the results. He may not anyway. I think I know this. Is it Jon Favreau? No, it was me me it was the only good he said that all the time

it's the only good prediction but I actually while we were recording I did want to pull another one this is from October of 2016 oh god this pod saved a fucking monster.

Tim Kaine is running for vice president in 2016. Mike Pence is running for president in 2020. Who said it? Dan. It sounds like some stupid thing, I would say. Sounds like a Dan take. Wow, that's really hurtful to Dan. It was my terrible tweet,

because I couldn't just give my one tweet an excellent take. Oh, I tweeted some effusive over the top thing when Tim Kaine was named and he gave like a very good announcement speech because I was hearing from tons of ex-staffers. And yeah, I don't know that I nailed that one. And finally, this last question, anybody can take it, jump ball, as they know, I think I don't know that I nailed that one. And finally, this this last question, anybody can take it.

Jump ball, as they say, I guess. Which early guest said, and I quote, I cannot believe people actually listen to you. Barack Obama. You got it. You got it. And that's the game. That's the game. You're all winners in my book.

You're all winners in my book. Well done, guys. That's a great game. Great game. That's the fave. That all winners in my book. You're all winners in my book. Well done. Guys, that was a great game. Great game. That was fun. That was great. This is Travis Helwig, former head writer of Crooked Media,

resident bad boy. I just wanted to say congratulations on 500 episodes. I miss you guys so much. My favorite backstage memory was the night of the 2018 midterm elections. We had a live stream that Priyanka and I were just going to do like maybe five minutes between you guys talking. But at the beginning of the night, we got some numbers out of Florida that looked terrible. We got some numbers out of Florida that looked terrible. And John, John, Tommy and Dan all panicked and hid in their office, I believe in tears, leaving me and Priyanka to vamp about an election we were confident we were losing and doing everything we could to try to not show that behind the scenes, there was true panic. And over the course of the night, we learned that we won the house and it wasn't nearly as bad of a evening as it looked at first. But it was very fun

to be on the air knowing literally nothing about politics while the adults in the room were sobbing in an office. And honestly, that one might make you look bad. But the real favorite memory that I have is driving around the country with you guys on tour and getting to see the country and meet a bunch of people that were just as inspiring and knowledgeable as the four of you. And it really meant a lot. And I had a lot of fun, and it was some of the most fun I've ever had at a job. So I just wanted to say thank you. Congrats. My name is Jordan, and I was an associate producer on Pods of America.

Thank you. Congrats. My name is Jordan and I was an associate producer on Pods of America. Lovett is finally letting me share a joke that he asked to be left on the cutting room floor at the end of 2019 when we asked all of the presidential candidates to share their New Year's resolutions. And then John John and Tommy reacted to the recordings. Mayor Pete said that he wanted to do more yoga, to which Tommy responded, why yoga is just standing in a room while other people fart. To which Tommy responded, Why? Yoga is just standing in a room while other people fart.

And Lovett said, I feel like Mayor Pete has been holding in one long fart his entire life. But then he made us cut it because he was worried Mayor Pete would win the nomination and we would be the podcast that had made fart jokes about the president. So that's it. That's our show for today. That's our 500th episode. To everyone who submitted a question, thanks for sending that in. We always enjoy hearing from you. And thanks for sticking with us for the last couple years.

It's been fun. And the reason this job is fun and doing this podcast is fun is because of all of you, because you all engage with us, because you show up at shows, because you lob in criticism, have ideas, and because all of you worked so hard to volunteer in 2018 and 2020 and really stepped up when the country needed you. Thanks, guys, and we're excited for

500 more. 500 more? Are we ready for 500 more? Yeah, yeah, 500 more. It's fine. Daily show. All right, good. There we go. Have a good one, everyone. Bye. Bye, everybody. Bye, everybody. Pod Save America is a Crooked Media production.

The executive producer is Michael Martinez. Our senior producer is Flavia Casas. Our associate producers are Jazzy Marine and Olivia Martinez. It's mixed and edited by Andrew Chadwick. Kyle Seglin is our sound engineer. Thanks to Tanya Sominator, Katie Long, Roman Papadimitriou, Caroline Rustin, and Justine Howe for production support. And to our digital team, Elijah Cohn, Narmal Konian, Yale Freed, and Milo Kim,

who film and upload these episodes as videos every week.