Pod Save America - Can Dems Put Woke to Bed?

Episode Date: August 11, 2026

Republicans amp up the fear-mongering on "communism" as Democrats try to move past some of their nominees' most controversial past statements. In the words of Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez: "Woke 1 was crazy." Jon and Lovett discuss how Democrats can pivot, today's Democratic primaries in Wisconsin and Minnesota, Trump's desperation to end the war he started, and his newest executive order on vaccines. They also react to the Senate Republicans' YOLO caucus surrendering on Todd Blanche's confirmation, Jesse Watters's disdain for the WNBA, and Hunter Biden's appearance on Tucker Carlson's show. Then, Lovett is joined by Montana congressional candidate and smokejumper Sam Forstag to discuss why he's running for office, the impact of the DOGE cuts, the housing crisis in his state, and more.Hate listening to ads? Become a Friends of the Pod subscriber for ad-free episodes of Pod Save America, Pod Save the World, Lovett or Leave It, Runaway Country, Offline with Jon Favreau, and more—plus exclusive content, including bonus episodes of Pod Save America. Subscribe now at crooked.com/friends, on Apple Podcasts, or through the Pod Save America YouTube channel.You can request a transcript by emailing [e-mail]. Include the podcast name, episode title, and air date. Please allow 48 hours for delivery.

Today's presenting sponsors, Simply Safe Home Security. It's August peak vacation season. You're sitting on a beach trying to completely forget about the news cycle for five minutes, but you can't actually relax if you're staring at your phone, wondering if your house is secure. Unlike traditional security systems that only alert you after a break-in is already underway, SimpliSafe is designed to help stop intruders before they get inside. Smart AI-powered outdoor cameras detect suspicious activity at the perimeter

and alert live U.S.-based agents to step in. Simpliceaf agents assess the threat intervened through the outdoor camera to scare off trespassers and call for 911 dispatch. Our CEO recently installed SimplySafe in her home, and she says it worked great. She heard that you had done it all those years ago. I did. And now she's feeling great with SimplySafe protecting her house.

SimpliSafe has been protecting your world for 20 years. Celebrate their anniversary with us and save 60% on your new SimpliSafe system. It's Simplysafe.com slash crooked. that's 60% off at simplysafe.com slash crooked. Plus, when you order, write in our show name in the How Did You Hear About Us survey to let them know we sent you. Don't forget, there's no safe like SimpliSafe. Welcome to Pod Save America.

I'm John Favro. I'm John Lovett. Tommy's off today. On today's show, the White House tries again to limit the number of vaccines for kids based on unproven conspiracies about autism. Todd Blanche officially becomes the Attorney General, thanks to the Republican Senate. AOC says Woke One was crazy.

as Wisconsin and Minnesota Democrats head to the polls. Jesse Waters does not want to talk about women's sports, and Hunter Biden sits down with Tucker Carlson. Then Montana House candidate Sam Forstag, a former smoke jumper, stops by the studio to talk to Love it about his candidacy and the politics of his state. He's really interesting. I really recommend listening to that conversation.

This is a person who decided to run for office. He literally is jumping out of planes to, put out wildfires and then spending the rest of his year like organizing and doing union work and he's just a really interesting person. A firefighter. My kids would love this. Yeah. Speaking into firefighters right now. Well, they're going to listen. I think a lot of our listeners are going to be big into firefighters after this conversation. Got it up. Excellent. All right. All right. But first, let's check in on how the president's war in the Middle East is going. NPR. There's a headline from NPR. Haunted by Hoover.

Trump searches for an end game in Iran. CNN decided to go with. Trump has a Carter-style Iran problem as the economy drags before the midterms. We got a Hoover, we got a Carter. What else? Nixon for the trifecta. Yeah, no, he's definitely doing, yeah,

he's definitely doing Nixon. Nixon at the Department of Justice, Carter in the Middle East, Hoover, Hoover on the breadlines. I mean, it is really all of them. And in fairness, the comparison to Carter is even more apt than that, because the Strait of Hormuz is a hostage. That's the context for lots of reporting over the weekend

that the president is desperately looking for a way to accept defeat in Iran after the regime made it clear they're not giving up control of the Strait of Hormuz. Trump is also weighing dropping his demand for a nuclear deal. It told Axios that he is, quote, low-keying it with Iran and only semi-negotiating at this point. And then on Monday, he responded to Iran's demand for reparations by demanding reparations from Iran.

Take that. A lot of neocons losing their semis. Sorry. Tommy's down here. They were never, they were never semis. Yeah, no, that's right. What are you talking about? Meanwhile, the Guardian reports that the Iranian regime is intentionally dragging the war out

so that Trump loses the midterms, probably because they're watching clips just like this. You said in June that this was, quote, the strongest job market in your lifetime. By what metric? The bottom line is that if you look at the overall economy, then things are really, really booming. Trump administration has only added 548,000 net jobs so far, which is considered very slow growth. It's growth, but very slow. Two million jobs were created in the last 18 months of Biden's presidency. Are you really arguing that your numbers are better than that? Well, I disagree with your number. We'll have to follow up on email. I know you don't negotiate with the Iranians,

but you do talk about the economy and you said you're bullish is going to be a heck a lot of traffic moving through every single day. There is traffic moving. Right. Right. I wouldn't call it a heck of a lot. How do voters feel about the president's work on jobs? You know, these are the types of numbers that will make a lot of Republican members of Congress lose their jobs come November. You can see it right here. I mean, just look at this trend line.

Trump's not approval rating on jobs. He is now 22 points underwater. Swimming with the fishes. Swimming with the fishes. That was like, what kind of code switching was Harry doing at the end there? It's like extra New York. How does old Donnie wriggle his way out of this one, love it? If from the beginning they hadn't said they were going for unconditional surrender,

that they were going to prevent Iran from being able to project power in the Middle East, that they were going to fundamentally reorder the power in this critical part of the world. And what he had done, not unlike what he had done when he had a midnight hammer in the past or killed Soleimani, like done a series of strikes and then claimed that the, nuclear program was set back in a way Barack Obama could have never dreamed through his deal. Maybe they could call, you know, bombing the nuclear sites and sort of incapacitating a large percentage of Iran's military as some kind of victory if they reopen the straight. But now Iran has proven that the U.S. military, despite all its might combined with Israel,

cannot stop it from controlling this vital waterway. Trump looks weak. The country is not behind it. There's all these reports about our depleting military capacity. And now at the end of it, the best he's going to accept is we're back to where we started. Now, to be clear, I hope that happens. I would rather us get back to the straight being open and not having this on again, off again war in the Middle East and all the instability and danger and chaos that that entails. But it's still a total capacity. situation by Trump. And I don't think the straight is going to be open because Iran has recognized correctly

that this is their sole point of leverage now. And that's why, you know, there was all this reporting last week that Iran and Oman were like heading towards a deal and I guess they have negotiated it, but Iran's basically like, yeah, we negotiated this with Oman, but we're not opening the straight until the U.S. ends the blockade, U.S. forces out of the region, compensation. for the war, sanctions relief. They're asking for all of it because they don't really want the deal because they actually want to lord it over Trump.

And from Trump's perspective, he does it, like, he keeps going, you know, they talk about exit ramps. He keeps going past different exits on the highway. Each time he goes past one, the next exit is worse than the last one. Because now, what can he actually do? He can't, he doesn't want, he's not talking about a military. I remember he was talking about horrible, the worst military strike since World War II, and we're going to destroy them as early as last week.

We were just talking about that. And today he was asked, and he's like, you'll see, you'll see. But we don't have the munitions. We're running out of munitions. There's no intelligence that said that any further U.S. strikes would bring them to the negotiating table or do anything or cause them to change their behavior in any way. So basically what he wants is for the straight to reopen. and then say a nuclear deal will happen some other time.

But he can't even do that because they're not going to open the street. And they're not cooperative rhetorically, right? Like he really, really what he wants is for this all to just go the fuck away. Right. Like everyone just shut up about Iran. I don't want to talk about it anymore. I want to think about it anymore. We won.

I'm done. It's over. Everyone stopped complaining. Yeah. And so he does these threats to say they're coming back to the table. They don't cooperate and say we are back to the table. They have this annoying way of not helping him with his PR. problem. Right, because they can read the news and watch clips like we just did. The Guardian says

that there's two factions in Iran arguing about their strategy on this. One thinks that if Trump is weaker after losing the midterms, he'll have less reason to deal. The other things that losing Congress will force Trump to negotiate. What do you think? My instinct on this is that it is no easier for Iranian political factions to predict Trump's conduct that it is for us to predict Trump's conduct. I think that there's a third door, which is, and this is, by the way, something that some of the neocons have been wishcasting for, which is Trump is a little bit constrained by the politics right now because all of these Republicans he's dealing with do not want to be saddled with an ongoing war in the midterms and the cost of gas and the anger from the part

of Trump's base that were convinced that they were voting against foreign wars. So they want all this to stay pretty quiet. Whether he wins the midterms or loses the midterms, There are those who believe that will give him the flexibility to finally do the escalation that they're desperate for him to do. He won't be running again. Other Republicans can criticize. They can be a debate about it in the in the 2027, 2028 Republican primaries. But there's a version of this where losing the midterm may weaken him politically, but might put him in a position to do something drastic and quite terrible. Yeah, I was thinking about it the other way and that like, because I don't know that escalation does anything at this.

point because I don't know that they can he can bomb them into submissions since they've hit all the targets. I do think he could give them more. He could capitulate more. And you could see him doing that again after the midterms just to get it off his plate and to go around saying that he ended the war and he's a peace president and like it's a terrible deal and everyone tells him it's a terrible deal but he doesn't care because he just lies. Yes. And then he gets you know he's he's doing his big kind of president at the end of his term, yes, doing his sort of like big diplomatic achievements that he can kind of put in his museum tower. Part of this is a wish that the elections are somehow a hinge on which there could be some change in the dynamic. The other argument is the

Trump we have today is the Trump will have six months from now. He doesn't give a fuck what happens these Republicans for the most part other than how it affects him. He's already said that in many interviews. What's driving him is what will drive him then, which is how his ego is right. reflected in the embarrassment of losing a war, being able to claim that he got a better deal than Obama, what have you. That's the case in January as it is today. One person who seems less afraid of pissing off Trump these days is Bibi Netanyahu. He just rejected the U.S.-backed peace plan for Gaza saying that the IDF won't withdraw any forces until Hamas completely disarms and that they're not afraid to, quote, stand up to the U.S. That would be Israel. What did you

think that's all about? Yes. He also said again, that as long as he's prime minister, there will be no Palestinian state, neither in Gaza nor in Judea and Samaria is what he says, but the West Bank. And that's regardless of whether Hamas is in charge. So they can negotiate and deal with what it means for Hamas to be disarmed. And there may be legitimate disagreements inside of that, even though Benjamin Netanyahu is not a good faith actor. And there is no disarmament that would be acceptable to him, obviously. But there is an actual policy question and what it looks like for Hamas to be disarmed when you're sort of leaving those weapons inside of Gaza. Fine. But if he's saying there will never be a Palestinian state,

he's been saying for what? Yes. But he's saying even now, after they've leveled Gaza, even as Hamas has agreed to the terms of this deal, which means handing over power, even in a deal in which there will be an international force, like all of these steps, the steps that would have to happen and that should be what determined. the creation of a Palestinian state that Israel recognizes, he is saying that that cannot happen on his watch. So you have Trump now saying, you know, on the bad, the Trump administration kind of quietly saying he's got an election in October. He's trying to protect his right flank. Let's wait till after the election, which, by the way, is a large as he does not afford people

like John Cornyn and Cassidy and the rest. But, okay, he gets, let's say they, they, then Yahoo manages to stay in power. He gets the other side of this election. Then what? He is saying he will never agree to a plan in which the Palestinians have a state, which means he will never agree to a plan in which Israel is not the sovereign in Gaza and the West Bank. Right, which means that they will, he'll never agree to a plan where Palestinians and people who are living in the West Bank and Gaza are anything but second class citizens with fewer rights than Israelis, which is if people, you know, people who are pro-Israel get upset when you call it an occupation or that it can act like an apartheid state. But when you're talking about the West Bank and Gaza, like, what do you call it if there's never going to be a Palestinian state? Israel is just going to control both areas the entire time. Are they going to make them full citizens of Israel? And it doesn't sound like it. And you have Israel taking more and more of Gaza for the security perimeter. They no longer even really recognize the original border of Gaza is where a Palestinian state would begin.

You have settlement expansion going on at a pace. they are doing everything they can to make any kind of a Palestinian state, both politically and practically impossible. Meanwhile, you have those who, I think, are rightly, incredibly disgusted and critical of Israel, saying that a two-state solution is now a ridiculous and stale and dead talking point because of what's happened. They want a one-state solution in which Palestinians have equal rights, those that are pro-Israel, that is anathema to them. because they believe in a Jewish state. If you believe in a Jewish state,

and you find it repellent at the idea of Israel being an apartheid state, then the answer is a state in which Arab Israelis and Jewish Israelis have equal rights, but there is a Jewish majority that requires a Palestinian state in which they can govern themselves and live in freedom and autonomy.

And that is the reality. And Benjamin Nanyahu is the obstacle to that possibility and everything else. You can blame all the rhetoric you don't like. There's tons of anti-Semitism, but it is this Israeli government and the Israeli people backing it that are now making Israel this pariah nation around the world.

Yeah, and I don't know that an election, even that get rid of Netanyahu is going to fundamentally change too much about that scenario that you just described. So let's see. But by the way, I just think we should just keep arguing. I think we keep arguing about social media and accuse each other of all kinds of things.

Yeah, no, no. I'm pretty very close to the solution there. Very close. Pod Save America is brought to you by Zbiotics. We love Zbiotics. I'm going to have a couple of drinks. I always have Zbiotics first. That's why I'm so happy.

It's called pre-alcohol. Zibiotics, pre-alcohol, probiotic drink is the world's first genetically engineered probiotic. He was invented by PhD scientists to tackle rough mornings after drinking. How it works. When you drink, alcohol gets converted into a toxic byproduct in the gut. It's a buildup of this byproduct, not dehydration. That's to blame for rough days after drinking.

Pre-alcohol produces an enzyme to break this byproduct down. Just remember to make pre-alcohol to our first drink of the night. Drink responsibly and you'll feel your best tomorrow. Use it all the time. Huge fan. We had a bunch of it at my wedding. People loved it there. So give it a shot.

Mondays don't move for anyone. Pre-alcohol works overnight so you can have a real weekend and still show up. Sharp. Go to zeobiotics.com slash crooked. Code crooked for 15% off. That's zbiotics.com slash crooked code crooked. This podcast is sponsored by Squarespace. Squarespace is the all-in-one website platform designed to elevate your online presence

and drive your success. Squarespace provides all the tools you need to promote and get paid for your services in one platform. Whether you are for consultations, events, or other experiences, Squarespace can help you grow your business. Squarespace offers a complete library of professionally designed and award-winning website templates with options for every use and category. No matter where you start, your website is flexible to what you need,

with intuitive drag-and-drop editing, beautiful styling options, and unrivaled visual design effects, and more ways to list what you offer. No experience required. Every dream needs a domain. Squarespace domains makes it easy to find the best name for your business at one fair, all-inclusive price, no hidden fees or add-ons required. Every Squarespace domain comes with advanced privacy and security tools included to ensure your domain remains online and protected. Plus, Squarespace provides everything you need to bring more of your dream to life, whether that means building a website or adding a professional email service. Don't wait to claim your name, invest in your dream domain today.

Head to Squarespace.com for a free trial, and when you're ready to launch, go to squarespace.com slash cricket to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain. That's Squarespace.com slash crooked. One surprise addition to the White House schedule on Monday, an executive order on childhood vaccines. The order changes the federal government's official guidance

about which vaccines kids should get and how soon. On the completely unproven theory that combining different vaccines into single, doses and administering several vaccines in a single doctor visit, which has happened for decades, might cause autism. Specifically, the EO calls for the measles mumps and rebella vaccine called the MMR to be given as three different shots, even though they're not available separately. It asks states to revisit vaccine mandates, which is their choice. And it pairs down the group of vaccines that should be recommended for all kids, taking HEPA and B vaccines, the flu vaccine,

and the COVID vaccine off that list of recommended vaccines. Somehow, though, what Trump, RFK Jr. and noted health expert Stephen Miller said about vaccines in the Oval on Monday was even worse than the EO itself. Large amounts of, like, vats of vaccine are currently pumped into your child's body. But, you know, there are some groups that have virtually no problem with autism. And they, you know, I have to say this, they're, uh, we're. groups that aren't big into the world of vaccines.

And nothing bad can happen from what we're doing. Nothing bad can happen. It's possible. It doesn't work. I don't think that's much of a possibility, frankly. We're going to learn a lot. The U.S. passed all of 2025's measles total by July so far of this year. 2,371 cases, 37 new outbreaks versus 2,000 for all of last year, a little over 2,000 for all of last year.

MMR coverage among kindergartners has fallen from 95.2% in 2019, 2020 to 92.5%. So good job, everyone. And now we're going to be telling kids and families to split the shots up somehow, which will mean more missed visits. Yeah, I mean, what do you think happens if you tell everybody they have to go to the doctor three times instead of one time? You can answer the question. The countries that have done this, I think Japan split up the MMR vaccine. And what do you end up with? end up with outbreaks of mumps and rebella. Like, that's just what happens. This is all. And, you know, we'll talk about Bill Cassidy and his capitulation on Blanche. This is somebody who is in a position of power.

He is a doctor. He believes in vaccines. He had a moment where he could have stood up to this. And he took the ridiculous false assurances from RFK Jr. at face value because he wanted to be convinced by RFK Jr. So he could avoid the hard vote and voted RFK Jr. out of committee. And now we have as destructive a health secretary as you could imagine in this job. Being alive is already challenging.

We don't need to put it on hard mode. Like that is what this is. Like vaccines are a miracle. This is all based on false science. Like even like this idea too like, oh, you know, So we give our kids 72 jabs or whatever number of jabs. That is a number based on giving kids the flu shot and that they are not counting the shots. The other countries also give their kids just not real.

And then on top of that, because they think of vaccines as somehow harmful, even though there's no evidence that they are harmful, in fact, they are one of the great miracles of modern life. They have changed the world. They've made being a parent a very different experience than what it would have been a hundred years ago. when other countries don't give kids vaccines, they react by saying, can you believe it? We're giving our kids more vaccines. Yes, that's cool.

They're not willing to spend on some of those vaccines. They're not willing to add them to the schedule. They're rationing fucking health care over there in Europe. The Danes are rationing the health care. We're giving more vaccines than they are. And part of the reason we have to do that is because our health system is so much fucking worse that we don't catch a bunch of stuff that they might catch in a universal. system. And so when you remove some of these vaccines and say, what could happen? Well, what's going to happen is there's going to be a bunch of kids that get hep B. There's going to be a bunch of kids that don't get vaccinated for rotavirus or what have you. And they're going to get sick in that window because the doctors that recommend these vaccines and recommend them happening when kids are early on are not fucking malicious. They're not looking to harm kids. They're not sadists. They know that if you increase the window, if you cause more delays, if people don't show up to the doctor, inside of that group of kids are people that don't get hurt, maybe permanently injured, maybe die.

That is what's going to happen. I'm bummed about it. Wow. I'm really mad. I'm going to need a hearing check. Makes me really sad. It's the CDC, in their own website still says that there's no published evidence of any benefit from separating MMR. It's just, and the way these things get like sort of seep out into the public consciousness,

We're getting another example of it. We got one just today because they have, they're still, you know, trying to do a number on Fauci. And so they got his phone, his government phone, and they released all the texts. Yeah. And there's one text where he's like, oh, one thing we should we should look at as we're developing these COVID vaccines is, you know, if there's any effect on miscarriages, right? Because there's like throwing out a hypothesis, like that's something that we should look. These are new vaccines, a new vaccine, it is a new technology. Like, let's make sure that if it causes some kind of response by the body, that there isn't a higher incidence of miscarriage. We need to

know that about this vaccine. A completely reasonable question for Fauci to ask. So it was January 2021. He said that the second dose of the COVID shot theoretically could be associated with miscarriage in the first trimester. So that's something to think about. Then they tested it. Of course, it was like, by the time it was widely available, like it was fine and they had all the right recommendations. They withheld approval, by the way, for pregnant women for a while. For a while, just for this reason. Yes.

So they did like everything they were supposed to do. Now everyone is like, Megan McCain is like, put him in jail. I'm serious. Lock him up. And then now they're recirculating this debunked theory where there's this study that apparently shows that. I mean, I know what you don't, they are numerically illiterate. Katie Pavlach The mandated and doctor recommended COVID-19 shot for pregnant women

was effectively an abortion shot According to new documents just released by Senators Johnson and Paul The authors of this study claimed a miscarriage rate of 12.6% But the raw data revealed an 82% miscarriage rate Is that what happened? An 82% miscarriage rate No, they read the study wrong, they read the numbers wrong They're all fucking idiots in every single right wing

not every single one, but all these right wing accounts now are putting out that there's an 82% miscarriage rate for the COVID shot. So completely irresponsible and fucking dumb. It's also we all live in the world. A lot of pregnant women got the COVID shot. If there was some 80% chance of miscarriage because of the COVID shot, that would be one of the worst health catastrophes that would be it would be like fucking children of men out there. and they're just, first of all, to get to, they're just misreading the number, even that 12% of which might, that might sound like a lot, right? If you're just, if you're just casually consuming this information, the point, like a lot of first trimester pregnancies end in miscarriage. That's why people don't tell their family until they're through the first trimester.

What they found is when you looked at all the data, there wasn't a spike. It didn't go above, there wasn't a statistically significant increase in miscarriages. That's all that, and they look at it. They do the best they can. They weigh the data against the safety that the COVID vaccine provides. And these are scientists and doctors doing their best to try to protect pregnant women, to protect children, to protect people from all kinds of viruses. And because of the conspiracy addled minds of the people in that room, they can make. None of them doctors.

None of them with medical degrees. And forget even the recommendations. Like forget like the. So maybe that J guy, the seat one, whoever, J. Bacher, whatever his name is. But like, okay, these are these are recommendations that would harm people 100%. Just the way they talk about that that's a vaccine, injecting the little ones, the jabs, the 70s, it's all meant to, it's all meant to make people question, be afraid of these vaccines. Meanwhile, the vaccines we give today are so different than the ones that were given even 20 or 30 years ago.

They have much less of the antigens in them. They're much more precise. We've learned a lot about vaccines because science is amazing. And so the dozen or so vaccines that kids will get in early childhood today actually have less, far less, like a tenth as much of the kind of antigens that was in one pertussis shot 30 years ago. We have figured out how to do this in a way because the people doing this research care so much because they didn't become, you know, they're not researchers in vaccines because

they're what, like power mad COVID mask people. no, they're doctors trying to provide us do the best care, do the research for the reasons they got involved in medicine in the first place. And these people are like decided it's a fucking conspiracy to give kids autism. Meanwhile, I don't know, given the state of our fucking our education system, our healthcare system, our infrastructure, maybe we could use a little more autism, get people on these fucking spreadsheets figuring this stuff out. Don't laugh at that.

Don't laugh at that staff. God forbid we have more people in this country that. Don't like that like staying inside and doing fucking math. It seems like a little bit of a self-interested. I got every vaccine and look at me. I know how to make eye contact. It's not that hard. Look at it John right now right in the eyes.

He can't look at me. Who has autism now? Neither of us. Well, one lighthearted moment in this whole thing was someone, one of the reporters, asked Trump afterwards. You're a proud father. Would you have vaccinated your children differently? And this man with like straight face, doesn't even skip a beat.

Just as I did. I did. I took my children for five different vaccinations. I went with my wife and we took each of them for it. We separated out all the vaccines. Do you think that man has ever taken any of his children to a doctor's appointment ever? Do you think he knows that they, do you think he ever? knew who their pediatrician was.

Can you imagine Donald Trump in the same room as one of those toys where you move the little things along the wires? Imagine him sitting against the wall and there's just like a kind of big red stripe behind him, you know? And he's walking into his suit and tie to he's got to take work off because he's got to take Don Jr. to get a vaccine. Come on, buddy. You'll get a lollipop at the end.

It's me, Donald Trump, taking my son. He and Ivana were just going together to the doctor's office. I would have loved someone to follow up on that question, be like, oh, when did you, when did you do that? What pediatrician? Where did they go? Famous hypochondriac, Donald Trump, sitting in a waiting room with a bunch of coughing children. Inconceivable. Inconceivable. He just missed his son's wedding. What are we talking about?

Anyway, right before the vaccine event, Todd Blanche was sworn in as the next attorney general in a private ceremony in the Oval Office. On Saturday, the Senate voted to confirm Blanche, and the only knows were Lisa Murkowski and Susan Collins. But three yeses from the three members of the so-called Yolo caucus of Republicans, John Cornyn, Tom Tillis, and Bill Cassidy, who had this to say. And on giving his family protection from IRS probes? That's totally wrong. Totally wrong. And so I will go back. This is not a black or white decision. That is wrong.

And no American should be targeted by the law, but no American. should be above the law, and that, frankly, almost weighed to vote no. Wow. Actually, it's a, it's quite a black and white decision. There's a yes vote and there's a no vote. He's either, he's either confirmed or he's not confirmed. I will say that in the, in that oval, the vaccine event, some reporter was like, so was the weaponization fund dead? And he said, well, that's up to the attorney general now. Just like we thought. Yeah. The effectlessness. of Cassidy and Cornyn and Tillis, three people that Trumps personally ruined their careers. He got involved to get them out of office. He successfully did it. He has now put forward as

his Attorney General nomination, someone who oversaw the politicization of the Justice Department, unlike anything before in American history, which is a tough category. RFK was the Attorney General, who personally met with Galane Maxwell, oversaw her transfer to a cushier, has overseen a justice department in which they've gone after Lisa Cook and James Comey and fucking the the sandwich thrower all the way up and down in any like so beyond the pale so obviously unfit so clearly a moment to just stand up and say no as you could ever imagine in the Senate and then this guy has the audacity to then claim it was a hard decision he talks about tearing up in this interview, given the incredible amount of responsibility on his shoulders to have stood in

those hallowed halls and been responsible for such big decisions, much like he always imagined it could be to be in that storied Senate chamber. And he is saying it as someone who completely failed his moral responsibility, that he completely gave up that power to Donald Trump in a way that is pathetic. And that defines him. His whole life is defined by his decision. to be a tool for Donald Trump, a stooge for Donald Trump. And he's giving interviews about how weepy he was, having had the opportunity. I mean, look at it this way. Sometimes we say these people do this for Donald Trump because all they want is their job and their title and they're afraid.

Honestly, it was none of those things. He lost his job, lost his title. He doesn't have anything to fear anymore. He just thought, okay, sure. Todd Blanche. It's a kind of laziness. He said something about like, well, it wasn't about like the perfect Attorney General, which like maybe another one would be worse.

What? What are you talking about? I really think they've sorted Todd Blanche into that serious guy who talks honestly behind closed doors and that's what they've convinced themselves. But this is where... This is how they all like love Rubio still, right? In their mind, Rubio's like the adult in the Rome, even though he is like capitulated on just about everything that Donald Trump has asked him to do.

Right. And says crazy things in public. Now, same way they can see Doug Bergam as a serious and reasonable person, even though he's out there saying that the reflecting pool. was destroyed by vandals. The other part of this, too, is they're acting so powerless. They had so much power. Cassidy Collins, Murkowski, Tillis, Cornyn, they could have come together and said, we want

to ban by law any kind of insurrectionist fund. We want a public assurance from Todd Blanche that he won't consult with Donald Trump about ongoing cases. They could have in law, they could have passed a law that said no settlement, with with the IRS could carry forward into the future that it can only be provided. There's all kinds of things that they could have done with their actual power. That was not impossible. It just required some work.

Like actually getting together and figuring it out and caring enough to do something without acting like every vote that happens to you is the like there's no forward planning to it. It's like, well, that's the vote today. Nothing I could do. He's acting. So it doesn't fucking matter. It's really wild. I would love someone to really, I mean, this is, no, I wouldn't because what's going to happen is Todd Blanche. will continue to do horrible things, and then someone will ask them, you know, what did you think about Blanche

doing that? And maybe they'll say, oh, I'm so disappointed that he did that. I never thought he would do that. I was reassured. You know, he gave me his assurance. Yeah. And boy, am I, it's like, you know, it's like how Susan Collins talks about Brett Kavanaugh and Dobbs, you know. Yeah, that is the, and like Susan Collins now gets to have this vote no. And as the everyone, the point people have made again and again is that she only votes against Trump when it doesn't have a consequence. This is what's happening here. But I do think there's like an alarm that's not going off. A dog. that never barks with Susan Collins, which is what kind of fucking non-leader is she? She has all this power in the Senate.

Yeah, she had of the appropriations committee. She could have gotten some out of us. There's so much she could have done with this group of people. She still could. They could do it right fucking now. They never will. He is desperate. It is a close Senate.

Mitch McConnell is quote unquote recuperating at home. You know, his doctor, Jonas Salk, says he's getting better. Clara Barton says he's doing quite well. So there's that. He's working from home. Some kind of home. All right, so that's it. Todd Blanche. Todd Blanche is our new attorney general.

He was the old attorney general. We're not going to notice much of a difference. He's just going to continue doing whatever Donald Trump tells him to do. Personal lawyer, now the attorney general, but still the personal lawyer. All right, let's get to the midterms. On Monday, Speaker Mike Johnson launched an exciting new messaging effort called the contrast for America. inspired by Newt Gingrich's famous contract with America, which most of the people alive don't remember anymore,

aiming to reframe the election as a fight against actual communism. That's not a joke. If you go to the website, which I don't encourage you to try, but if you go there, it shows the history of communism in different milestones and different communist takeovers. And then it compares Democrats wanting to raise taxes to cause that communism now. That's now, that's communism, raising taxes. Republicans are betting that their only chance to win the midterms now is to capitalize on the Democratic infighting over a few DSA candidates and also more progressive Democrats like Abdul winning their primaries this cycle.

Here's AOC giving her theory of the case to ABC's John Carl on Sunday in response to questions about Wisconsin frontrunner Francesca Hong and Abdul doing his best to pivot to a general election message. What do you make of those controversial statements? I'm sure you've seen. I mean, she's, you know, the Thanksgiving dust up. She says she doesn't, you know, still believe that. But, you know, abolished prisons, abolished police. My understanding is that Francesca Hong has made clear her present stances to her electorate. Yeah, she's moved away from a lot of that.

Right, she's moved away from it. And I have a local city councilman that has this saying, woke one was crazy. And I think that we all share in the goals of having as low a crime rate as possible. I think that, you know, during lockdown, of course, rhetoric in that time is not rhetoric that we would use today. When asked about Hassan Pikers comments on 9-11, Senator Bernie Sanders called it a dumb statement. Do you agree? Do you disavow those comments that America deserve 9-11? Of course. Of course, it was a dumb statement. And of course, it was a dumb statement. And of course, I think Hassan himself would say that was a dumb statement. He disavouted. I want to be held

accountable for what I say and what I do. Look, I'm less concerned now with who I'm campaigning with, a lot more concerned about who I'm campaigning too. So Republicans are hoping that Democratic, quote unquote, extremism will be for this midterm cycle, what the Dobbs decision was for 2022, sort of a way to change the subject away from a deeply unpopular incumbent. What do you think? Do you think it could work? I don't. because one is a fear-mongering message about Democrats trying to make every Democrat sound like the craziest thing people saw on the internet.

The other is a real decision, having real negative consequences on people's lives that the Republicans actually did. I also think it is part of, you know, they can't, there's no campaigning that they can do to diffuse the fact that they overturned Roe. They did that, they wanted it. And in fact, a lot of the people who were very,

happy to see Roe Virgin, also supported abortion bans at the six-week mark or with no exceptions for rape or incest or the life of the mother. So they were saddled with their actual position. This is fearmongering about Democrats to make people think that they can't have, I don't know, universal health care and a tax code that was as high as they were in the communist days of America in 1993. I don't think it could work. I mean, it could work, but I think that it'd be, one thing if Republican candidates in an alternate universe were out there being like, you know, Donald Trump, we break from him sometimes because he can be extreme and these Democrats are extreme too. We're the only thing holding the line between crazy Donald Trump and crazy Democrats.

Of course, that's not what they're going to do. They're all in for Donald Trump. So I think that I think it's be tough. And also it depends on like most people when you are, I mean, we saw this in the New York Times, Santa Poles of the Senate battlegrounds from. last month, which is you'll get a majority of voters in that poll in the Senate battlegrounds at least said Democrats are too far to the left. They think the Democratic Party is too far to the left. But when you ask about the Democratic Senate candidate running in their state, they don't necessarily

think that that Democratic Senate candidate is too far to the left. And so in midterm, this goes race by race. And if you're a Democrat running that race and they try to tag you as a DSA can, candidate or they try to say you want to abolish prisons. Like you just say, no, that's not what I believe. Yeah. This is what I believe. I have this agenda. That is not my agenda. And so, you know, they'll, I mean, on the margins for, you know, voters who aren't paying attention until they go cast a ballot, could this work? Maybe. I don't know. But I think in a midterm for most voters, it's probably going to be tricky when you get down to the individual race level. Yeah. I guess will it work? Well, yeah, it's going to work on some people. This is there.

trying to make Democrats, their job fundamentally. What is American politics today? It is, from the right, is an effort to make extreme Republicans seem reasonable and reasonable Democrats seem extreme. And to pretend that politics is ultimately not about what the tax rates are and who gets health care and who doesn't. That's what everything, that's why they got a fucking, former MBA guy trying to get into the WMBA. It's like, it's all part of one big thing. I was thinking about Francesca Hong, because I joked about it, love it or leave it, and I went through the tweets, and they are quite silly. And this is the moment where we're going to talk about these things, because the primary is wrapping up. We're having an intra-party debate right now.

This is the moment where Abdul pivots to the general where there's the most sore and hurt feelings, where we're trying to figure out what worked and what didn't. You're trying to reconcile all these things. In Wisconsin, whatever happens in the election, let's say Francesca Hong is the winner. Maybe she is, maybe she's not. Either way, Tom Tiffany, right? Like, oh, my God, I can't believe she tweeted that about Thanksgiving. Tom Tiffany objected to Wisconsin's electors. He signed on to the Ken Paxton lawsuit to try to overturn the election. He continues to say that there were hundreds of thousands of fraudulent votes in Wisconsin. He said that Trump should cut off funding to Madison, that Wisconsin, the state he's trying to lead, should get less money because it is not going along with Trump. immigration policies. He did not, he refused to say that Trump shouldn't invoke the

Insurrection Act. He is, he, he, he, uh, sponsored a resolution in Congress, uh, to support Trump for sending people to fucking Sakat in El Salvador. He's an extreme and radical person. And if you ask people, do you want a governor who, uh, was in a bad mood in Christmas in 2020 or somebody who believes in, uh, deporting people to a foreign gulag and supports sending more money to ICE and cutting taxes for billionaires, like, where do you actually come down on this? I think people, if given the choice faithfully, would choose somebody who maybe said some kooky stuff in the past. And that's our job. It's to like, get back to that. I don't think there's voters who are going to be like, well, her Thanksgiving tweet was crazy.

Of course not. It's going to be, they're going to think, oh, she wants to abolish police or she wants to, and I'm afraid about crime. And so she's going to have to do, if she's the nominee, reassurance of people, that she cares about public safety and do it. it in a way that is convincing. I also, this is my own, maybe this makes me a bit of a neolib shill, but there was a time when Democrats really enjoyed hating communists and like really kind of got into it about how stupid and deadly and dumb and ideology is that like there was a kind of consensus that fascism and communism were programs for morons and losers that were deadly and stupid. And we should fight them with everything we've got because we believe in a democratic and liberal order

in which we protect people from the worst kinds of destitution and have a safety net and give everybody opportunity, but also support the freedom to say what you want and pray how you want, but also start a business and create products and try to build things and innovate. That was sort of what we all used to believe. And one way to deal with the communism crap is to have Democrats out there who are willing to say, like, I believe in free markets as long as they're fair and give everybody a chance, which is something a lot of Democrats used to be a little bit more comfortable talking about because they were less afraid of being attacked by people. people on Twitter. Well, I mean, I think Abdul, even in the primary, towards the end, was talking

about like, because he would be asked, oh, aren't you DSA too? And he was like, no, I'm, I believe in free markets. I like free markets. Yeah. You know, and look, Francesca Hong, in fairness, she's like, she's been saying, like, well, I'm a, I was a small business owner, you know, the challenge is like, when you call yourself a socialist, it's like, well, what does socialism mean. And this is the whole thing with, you know, well, defund was actually just a slogan. And abolish is just an aspirational. Abolish police and abolish persons. That's just an aspirational thing. That's not real. Well, then don't use the fucking slogan. No, it's just an extremely unhelpful way of achieving my vision.

Right. It's like, it's like then you're, then you're upset that people don't understand that you actually have a nuanced view of public safety because you embrace the slogan, abolish police. Like, of course they're not going to understand that you have a nuanced view if you use that slogan or you just say you're socialist. That's what you probably shouldn't call yourself a socialist. Right, because I think there are plenty of people that are Democratic socialist, too are socialists, but a lot of people ascribe to it because they think being a Democrat is correctly cringe. The word liberal was actually maligned by Republicans for a long time. And they're really social Democrats, right? That's what they are. They are social Democrats,

which, and I really do think there's a lot of people that have convinced themselves that Democrats are just sort of incremental socialists, right? In both directions. I think there's socialists that believe that about Democrats. And I think there's, there are people, uh, uh, that there's a kind of, and there are lefty Democrats who believe that about that. Somehow we are, that really to be a liberal is just to be afraid to say what you really want, as opposed to having a framework for viewing the world in which government helps to address inequities and solve problems, but fundamentally you do believe in in all kinds of freedoms, including the freedoms that go along with a free market.

Yeah, it's just if you believe in Medicare for All and wealth tax on billionaires or abolishing ice or whatever it is, just say you believe in those things and just talk about those policies. Like the labeling doesn't seem like it's helpful in any way, shape, or form, but I don't know. That's just me. Pod Save America is brought to you by Hymns. is more common than guys talk about. The good news, getting real treatment is simple, and through HIMS, it's 100% online. HIMS connects to you with a licensed health care provider, giving you simple access to legitimate ED treatment options from home, no awkward appointments, no pharmacy lines, just complete

a simple online intake, and a provider will review your information to determine if treatment is right for you. If prescribed your treatment ships directly to your door, this includes Sildenafil, also known as generic for Viagra, available through HIMS at up to 95% less than the brand name version. And if that option isn't right for you, there are additional treatment options available. So you can find what works best for your body. It's straightforward, transparent, and designed to make getting care feel easy. To get simple online access to personalized, affordable care for ED and more, visit hymns.com slash crooked.

That's himms.com slash crooked. Hems.com slash crooked. Not available in all 50 states. Prescription required. See website for details, restrictions, and important safety information. Sildenafil is the generic version of Viagra. Viagra is a registered trademark of Vietra's specialty LLC. Hymns is not affiliated with or endorsed by Vietris.

The What Today podcast you know and love is shaking things up. You already know that five days a week, I, Jane Koston, bring you the need-to-know news and expert analysis on the big stories shaping today and tomorrow. Stories like how social media warps our perception of the world and the strange reality of who is signing up to work for ice. All in less time than it takes to roast a chicken. And now, What Today episodes will be hitting your YouTube and podcast feeds in the afternoons.

You'll get the breaking news even faster. Check out Whataday. Now dropping in the PM on YouTube and wherever you get your podcasts. How do you feel about Woke One was crazy as a way to explain the excesses of, I guess it's just 20, maybe 21, whatever that time period was? First of all, I think it has the benefit of just being kind of true. And I saw a few people talking about this, which is, okay, we're now saying kind of more publicly what we were all saying. saying to each other in private, like, boy, we've lost our minds a little bit, haven't we? And to me, what's interesting about it is, like, whenever I care less about what people

were saying on the internet and more about what our candidates were doing. And I think about everyone raising their hand about decriminalizing the border or kind of taking kind of more lefty positions. It's what saddled Kamala with the sort of the, that's, you know, that, that, that, that questionnaire is from the height of this moment of woke 1.0. And images like the, you know, probably the, you know, Pelosi kneeling with the kentie cloth was maybe, maybe that was a little much. And but what, but what, but what was happening then was, first of all, there was, we were dealing with a once in a century pandemic. We were having a genuine and important conversation nationally about systemic racism and policing.

It did lead to a lot of important conversations about reform. But I do think that a lot of people felt. like they were performing something they didn't totally understand or believed, and they would leave the criticism to others because they just weren't going to take on that work, right? And so everybody kind of went along with certain parts of it that they weren't totally sold on, right? Or maybe they didn't say it themselves, right, but they didn't want to get in the muck. They certainly weren't going to go out there and saying, I actually don't believe in defunding the police. There wasn't a lot of equity. There was a lot of value in poking your head up above the trench line there. Yeah, well,

I mean, when you think back to like, what was woke one, right? Because now we're just saying, Oh, it was all crazy. And you're right. People like, at least people on the left kind of instinctively know what that means. Yeah. But it's like worth talking about what it is, what it was. And I do think it's like three different things we're talking about here. There's policies, right?

And so there was defund the police, it was the big one. But there was also abolish the police, abolish prisons, which I don't even, I didn't even remember from then. But now we're seeing all the tweets from back then. Abolish borders or open borders or decriminalize all. that. So there was that. Then there was language that was used. And there was like, there were words that no one actually uses in, in real life that were chosen to replace words that had been deemed offensive, but weren't always offensive. Well, even in your interview with Francesca Hong, she talked about justice impacted individuals. Right, which is a funny thing because I remember

when I interviewed Andy Bashir. And he, and I was like, what did Democrats do wrong or whatever? I asked some question about Democrats and what he would change. And he's like, well, we use language that, you know, people that's, I don't know if he said faculty lounges, but it's that kind of idea. And he said, you know, like, justice impacted individuals. I remember when he said that to me, I'm like, is he just saying that phrase to like pick out something to mock? Because I'd never heard that.

I was like, what is he talking about? And then she said it to me. And I was like, oh, oh, I guess that is something. Justice impacted individuals. So there's a whole bunch of language that made the left and Democrats seem. like completely out of touch and that they don't speak the language that most people speak, right?

Then there was the public shaming. I won't say cancel culture, but public shaming, right? Which is there was a tendency, and this was mostly on the internet, though it bled into the primary a little bit in 2020, responding to like someone's statement

or position that you disagree with by trying to yell at the person, label them bad, shame them instead of, persuading them that they're wrong or calling their idea bad or their statement bad like they were bad you know like that's and it's like also the difference between like that statement seems a little racist versus like you are a racist yeah for making that statement um or sexist or whatever it may be

and so there was a little there was as we were discussing real problems to be solved systemic racism police violence um a a brutal way of treating immigrants whatever whatever it may be, there was this belief that if you yelled loud enough or took a strong enough stance and called out the people who were taking the opposite stance loudly enough that that would be the way that you fight it. And I think that since then people have learned that maybe the most effective way is to try to bring people along to persuade them. And then, you know, if you can't, vote against them or organize against them.

Right? But it's just there was a there was like a substitution for real politics because the discussions were happening online and people were just doing a lot of yelling and name calling. Yeah. It also like there was it followed. So so Trump wins in 2016. The Me Too happens in 2017. You have a series of terrible killings by the police that follow and then into the end into the pandemic and then the death of George Floyd. And. It was this moment of saying, look at what we've tolerated, right? Look at how much injustice was sort of baked into all of these systems. Look at how much we were ignoring that was in plain sight all around us. Now is the moment we're going to tear these things down. We're going to tear these systems down. And that was exciting.

And it was exhilarating, I think, for people, especially for activists who suddenly found that there were millions of people in their homes, were seeing their messages. They weren't out at bars. They weren't in an office. They weren't living. They weren't at a park. They were home watching their screen. And all of us collectively worked out of taking in a lot more of this and more receptive

to it. I mean, we were, you know, I remember we were doing pods from our homes. And you just knew that you put, everyone was seeing it all at once, right? There's a lot of people going out to do jobs that they had to do. But as a site, our culture was being made by people fully paying attention all the time from their couches. And all of that was, it meant that everything was heightened. and you lack the feedback loop of being in the world, right?

You lack the feedback loop of talking to someone face to face and trying things out. And also, by the way, stepping away for a little bit. Right. Well, there was also a thing, too, where, so, you know, George Floyd's murder and a very important discussion afterwards about reform, reform policing, systemic racism. And then, you know, there would be some vandalism and, you know, you know, windows being broken and, you know, people spray painting ACAB. All cops are bad.

And then some people will be like, well, that's not great, you know, to do that kind of stuff. And then the response you get is, how can you care about that when there are these bigger issues? And the truth is it's the reason you care about that is because the rest of the country is watching as well. and there's a most people, a majority of people who think police brutality and police killing is a problem and very bad, but also they like police in general as a concept. You know what I'm saying? And so like for those people, if you tell them, no, no, no, it's also okay looting in vandalism and saying that all cops are bad, like that's okay too.

Like they're just not going to agree with you. Well, I also, I do think that there was an impulse. And especially in like a kind of a political show like this or political debate more generally, there was a, I don't remember what the book was called, but the thesis was something like looting, A-OK. I work for a major news organization. And my book is called looting. Yes.

It's terrific. You know, it was like sort of, but it's sort of written in some academic speak like looting in the praxis of freedom or something. And I remember feeling this at the time because it was so heightened and the internet was such an intense place that you would, you would say it. hold on a second. These things are counterproductive, right? Like this leads to backlash. We're trying to avoid that backlash because the cause is so just, right? Like because the cause of accountability for violence against people by the police is so important because.

So it's like, yes, but because the cause is so just and important, that's why you have to be careful. That's why you have to be extra, extra, like think harder about persuading people. Well, and so then you say that's. And so therefore, because the looting or the damage will be taken out of context, even if the vast majority of people are peaceful, it will be, it will cause a backlash. But even in that moment, there was a kind of social pressure against simply saying because looting is wrong, because that business being destroyed hurts the people that work there, the people that own that business, even if it is a big company, by the way, but it hurts the people

that work there that aren't for a big company whose jobs depend on it, but a lot of them are going to be small businesses. And that is just simply morally wrong, even if the ultimate cause for the anger, what led to the protest itself is just. It is just wrong, even if it weren't counterproductive. And there was very little space for that. But here we are years later. And actually, the failure for more politicians and people in authority to remember those lines and assert those lines, in the same way, by the way, a Bill Cassidy or a John Cornyn are afraid to draw those lines, they are paying because they went along with a kind of style that the country has now looked back on with a lot of disdain. I will say on the other hand, after AOC made those comments, I saw a lot of center-left folks who sort of always thought that the woke one was a little crazy, just not being very thrilled that she was just laughing it off.

And they want a more serious explanation about what actually was crazy and what progressives have learned and sort of like, more of a mea culp a on this. And I understand that, but also it's like political leaders on the left moving away from some of the fringier unpopular positions that they took in the past is a good thing. And like one way to incentivize people changing their minds like that is to welcome it when it happens and not complain about it because I think changing your mind is good. Apologies are good. recognizing that that past positions weren't the best is good.

Like, you sort of want to, it's almost like in a different way. It's when a Trump voter is like, oh gosh, I didn't think the deportations were coming to my town. And instead of being like, well, you're an idiot. You know, that the response should actually be like, great, well, then welcome. Welcome to our movement. Well, look, the term woke was stolen and turned into a pejorative. But one of the ways it was used at the time was it doesn't matter when you got woke that you are, right? Like it's just like that that you've woken up to what's happening in our society and that's a good thing.

Like to me, the other part of the woke one is crazy is part of the problem is, okay, fine. Time is flattened on the internet and in political ads. The fact that now people are walking away from certain styles of rhetoric or positions that were more extreme than they want to take right now. Good. Those old clips are still coming out. Kamala paid in blood for what she said in 2020. We all are for what we are all paying in blood for what Kamala said in 2020. So part of this. And it wasn't just her to be fair. Of course not. Most of them that ran. Of course it wasn't just her. It was everybody. It was every. It was a it was a it was a a cultural kind of like whatever, a cute cultural moment of people kind of kind of kind of in the sort of

But regardless, one way to get past it, it's not just disavowing it. Like, I appreciate Abdul now saying that was dumb, but people can smell when someone wants to say something. And like, there's a difference between saying, and Hong did this well, there's a between saying, like, what I'm running on is what I'm saying right now, and these are my current views. And I've said things in the past. And I don't stand by all of them and people evolve versus just being like, look, I said

some stupid fucking shit in the past. And, like, looking back on it, I don't really think that anymore. And you can trust that I love, that as a governor of this state, that I will support the police. I believe in policing the people that the people, some of the most vulnerable communities in our society depend on having good, responsible community policing that they can trust. That's what I want to build. I don't want to abolish the police. I think that that's dumb. And I regret embracing it as a slogan because it doesn't actually capture what I think.

Like, there is a way of talking about this that it's can honor your values that doesn't just, you're not just going to get past it. No one's just going to get past it. You can't do the robot. Like, these are my positions now. I will never talk about what they were before. And by the way, like AOC notes that, of course. Like, AOC is like that. Oh, she, I think she, I liked it.

No, I agree. Yeah, I thought it was great. But no, but I think she's trying to signal showing like this. There is a way to talk about this in a kind of honest and authentic way that helps people see past something you may have said a few years ago. Yeah. You know where people are going to be able to hear a lot more about the best path forward for Democrats?

And maybe we'll even have a conversation about whether woke one was crazy or not. Where, John? CrookedCon. It's happening in DC, the weekend following the midterms. And we've said this before. There's a special rate for Friends of the Pod subscribers, but those tickets, they're running out. Running out of those special front of the pod tickets. So you've got to head on over to CricketCon.com to grab your tickets.

And if you haven't subscribed already, become a subscriber. Get ad-free episodes of all of your favorite pods and support independent media. And a bunch of episodes you can only get on our subscription feed. All kinds of secret episodes you're missing out. episodes you're missing out on. All your friends are talking about them. That's right. So before we move off this, it's election day as you're listening to this, both in Wisconsin,

where Hong has been in a commanding position for a while now and in Minnesota, where the Democratic primary for the open Senate seat that Tina Smith is vacating is happening between Lieutenant Governor Peggy Flanagan. She's been on the show and Congresswoman Angie Craig. We tried to get her on the show. And it's tightening more than people expected. Any final observations on either the Wisconsin gubernatorial race or before we move on to Minnesota? I did notice there was one last state navigate poll that has Hong at 44, Crowley at 22, he gained seven from their last poll, undecided at nine, Keldaroys at 11, Brennan, five, and Barnes is still at six in that poll.

Yeah, we'll see. I mean, I do think, like, the fact that the Republicans have gone behind Tom Tiffany has meant they haven't had any kind of fractious primary on their side. We've had one on ours. I do not think we have shrouded ourselves in glory in this primary. I don't think it looks particularly. You have the lieutenant governor dropping out because of some sort of alleged campaign malfeasance by the campaign manager. It didn't reflect very well, especially in a state that's been dealing with a scandal around fraud and Medicaid. You have Crowley who got out and got back in at the behest of Tony Evers. The governor who could have run again, people thought he would, then he decided not to. And so the end result is people feel like, oh, no, we ended up with somebody that has these kind of crazy old posts and has sort of been mired in this sort of right-wing scandal for a few days. And all of that, I do think, has obscured the stakes in this election. The next Wisconsin governor may oversee the presidential contest that could be close.

that person will be responsible for certifying the election, Tom Tiffany is an election denier. And I, Democrats, we have these big emotional, anxious debates about our candidates. We worry about them saying the wrong thing. We worried about them having extreme positions that are out of step with the voters. The Republicans are not doing that. Tom Tiffany, the voters of Wisconsin do not want an election denier. They believe that they believe in free and fair elections and they believe in a society in which when you lose an election, that's okay.

You live to fight another day. you don't claim Donald Trump won and try to tell a bunch of your fellow citizens that their vote doesn't count. They don't believe in using the Insurrection Act. They don't believe in deporting people to foreign gulags. They don't believe in this mass deportation scheme in which our cities are overrun by ICE agents. And so we have to remind our – we have to focus on painting the extremism of Tom Tiffany as the real threat to Wisconsin. And after this primary, we have to like get our heads in the fucking game. We haven't talked a lot about Minnesota.

Angie Craig, I would say, is the more moderate candidate. She has been, Peggy Flanagan has been sort of attacking her on her vote for the Lake and Riley Act, which Craig first defended and then backtracked on. Craig is more pro-Israel. She's called off or she said she doesn't want A-PAC money, even though A-PAC was still doing some fundraising and some spending for her. She also won't commit to not voting for Schumer. Peggy Flanagan is committing to not vote for Schumer as leader.

Peggy Flanagan said she would have supported that vote to cut off military and financial aid to Israel that they took. Angie Craig didn't vote for that. And Peggy Flanagan has wanted to, you know, reform ICE. She has not gone as far to say abolish ICE. So it's what we've seen in some of these primaries, but not, I would say the differences aren't as stark as they maybe were in Michigan or some the other ones. What do you think about this race? The polling sort of all over the place. We don't know. It reminds me a little like the old saying about like, you know, why, why is the fight so contentious? Well, because the stakes are so low. I'm not saying the stakes, the stakes are low.

They're actually quite high. There are big differences between them. But I think in part because people think we can win in Minnesota and because I think Peggy Flanagan is not sort of a DSA city councilperson. She's a, right. Lieutenant Governor that a lot of people really respect. Whereas Angie or Craig is maybe a little to her right, or more, you could say a lot to her right, whatever, it feels a little bit less, it's gotten a little less, certainly national attention. And honestly, a little less tension for me. I've had Peggy Flanagan on the show. I really like her.

I really like her. No knock on Angie Craig, but I just, Peggy Flanagan is just a really inspiring person to me. She also be the first woman, Native American, to be elected to the Senate, and just a really dynamic and interesting person. I think it is because, like you said, whoever wins, I don't know that it changes, like the race rating. I don't think it makes it more of a toss-up if Flanagan wins versus Craig or vice versa. The other reason it might have gotten close is Angie Craig's been going after Flanagan for her connections to the state's fraud crisis that Walls has been dealing with, that the Republicans have been all over.

Remember, it's what originally led Trump to send in ICE to Minnesota and all that. So she's been trying to tag her with that. So that might be and basically saying, making an electability argument saying that if Flanagan wins, that Republicans will spend the whole race tying her to the fraud crisis as well. Now, you could argue that they'll probably do the same to Angie Craig, even though she's not the lieutenant governor, because they'll just say any politician in Minnesota is part of the fraud crisis. But, you know, that's one argument they're having there.

All right. Speaking of the Minnesota primary, I don't know if you saw the story about Royce White over on the Republican side. He is a former NBA player who has run before for federal office and is now trying to get in on the discourse about the WNBA and trans rights by declaring that he's entering the WNBA draft. Annes Cantor Freedom has also made this.

Another NBA player has also, our former NBA player, has also made this announcement as well. White even put on a wig in interviews with Alex Jones and Benny Johnson, because that's what we're doing now. most folks on the right are eating this up. It's also causing some conflict because it's forcing them to talk about women's sports.

Here's our boy Jesse Waters struggling with this very problem. Yeah, this is week three of the five covering the WNBA. And I have to say, I am done. I hate the WNBA. I mean, I don't mind women's basketball. My girls play basketball, but I don't want to cover women's basketball. I don't want to be a WNBA analyst. We get paid to have an opinion about everything.

And this is something I don't care about. Every time I open up the rundown and see the WMBA in it, I feel like Jessica must feel every day. We have to do this again, really? This again. I don't know. A father of daughters. A father of daughters.

You know, as you know, John, I'm a season ticket holder to Angel City. That's the women's soccer team here in Los Angeles. That is because I am married to someone who used to basically be a lesbian, and they just kept the women's sports when they transitioned. So we'd go to the games, and we have a great time. And there was a little dust-up about this. A couple months ago, a player wrote an op-ed about this and believing that people that were born as biologically male

shouldn't play in women's sports and that there should be a regime of testing. And this led to a, you know, the debate we've had ad nauseum about, well, if you have a regime of testing, that just punishes women who are forced to be examined when this ends up putting more power in the hands of the men. And it really kind of creates a situation in which women have to prove that they're women. And all of this debate is happening. And do you know how many trans athletes there were in the National Women's Soccer League at that time? Zero. Zero. Same as WM.A right now.

It's zero. And so they really like talking about this. They really like talking about women's sports. And I suppose that they can keep doing it. And if these guys, and there are people who believe that if you've gone through a transition that doesn't give you any advantage or others who simply say if you went through male puberty, you have an advantage. It doesn't matter what happens.

And I'll leave that other up to experts to decide. However, if they would like to play in the WMBA, they better. fucking transition. Let's get them on some fucking hormones. Let's get let's let's let's get them in the let's for a couple of years. Let's see it, boys. I mean, not to get into it, but they, they seem to think that all you, it's just based on self-identification that if you just say, I identify as a woman that you are eligible for the WNBA draft and nothing in the rules says that. The, the league is going to have to figure out what the rules do say or like or what the qualifications are because it says you have to be a women, but like, what does that mean if someone ever wanted to who has transitioned or someone

ever wanted to play in the WNBA? That they're not dealing with that. They're dealing with a couple of men who have not transitioned and they're just saying that they're women and putting on wigs, which is a very different thing. But, yeah, that's that's what we're doing right now. Just two men who really want to get attention is where we're at. And even Jesse Waters doesn't want to give it to them. Even Jesse Waters is bored by this.

Yeah, I don't. that's what's happening. That's what's happening. Good luck, fellas. Well, they're getting some attention. All right. Last thing before we get to love its interview with Sam Forstag, Tucker Carlson's new coalition includes Marjorie Taylor Green, Thomas Massey, and maybe Hunter Biden. On Monday, Carlson released a highly anticipated, I guess. Two-hour interview with Hunter Biden, who he is just making the rounds, Hunter Biden. Here's a clip. Here's how it went. I'm supposed to hate Tucker Carlson because he's an anti-Semite and he's this, I know you're not, you're not an anti-Semite. I mean, 100% know that you're not interested in that. No.

No, that's what my point being is that. I would just say so. My point being is, is that like, if it's anti-Semitic to point out that Bibi Netanyahu is evil incarnate, then you know what? I don't know what to say to people anymore. What do you think? What do you think about all this? he started by talking about how much

how much he loves Candace Owens because he did Candace's show too. You know, it's like he's got like all of Joe Biden's ego but like none of the civic-mindedness is how it always feels to me. Well, it was very, it's, um,

he's just doing like a pander thing, right? Which is a like, it's a little Biden-y where he like wants to be sort of nice and gracious to the person he's sitting down with but he does it in a way by being like, Oh, yeah, everything you say is amazing and great. Oh, I have disagreements with you, disagreements with you. But, like, I don't think you're an anti-Semite, blah, blah, blah.

And it's like also going after BB Netanyahu like that, too. And I'm like, where's your dad on this one? Well, it's also, it's so fun to only argue with the dumbest version of your opponents. That's true when you put a wig on and try to join the WMBA. It's also true when you say it's anti-Semitic to say that BB Netanyahu is evil. What are we doing it? Well, actually, I'd say, why don't you have a maybe, maybe, sort of interrogate a less stupid version of this and see how far you get there.

Like Tucker Carlson has had Holocaust deniers on his show. He has embraced a whole host of anti-Semitic conspiracy theories. He has been flirting with all kinds of anti-Semitism. He has accused so many people of having dual loyalties. Like he has engaged in a ton of like anti-Semitic tropes. He has used anti-Semitism in how he makes his arguments. whether you want to sit there and sort of be the arbiter of whether or not Tucker's an anti-Semite, for whatever reason, white people tend to be circumspect about saying to other white people,

you're not a racist, right? But somehow when it comes to anti-Semitism, there's a lot of people that aren't Jewish that are a lot to be like, I've checked, and you're not. And I said, well, okay, buddy, great. Thanks for letting us know. We were waiting for the Hunter Biden imprimatur on Tucker Carlson to let us know whether Tucker Carlson is an anti-Semitic or not. And now there's one last thing to worry about. Here's my thing about the whole Hunter Biden media tour on all of the various right-wing hosts and all the different places he's going.

I'm not like this is not a debate for me about like the platforming and you can't go on someone's show that you think is awful or whatever. It's like if you're going to do that, have a discussion that is about the places where you disagree, have a little debate about it. you don't have to be screaming at each other if you don't want. But like, if you're just going to go there to be like, oh, you're actually awesome. And then like wait for Tucker or Candace or whoever to be like, and I'm sorry that I went after you so hard, Hunter when, you know, your dad was president. Like, what is the point of that? Who gains from that other than you? is my question. Like, what kind of good are you doing? Are you introducing Tucker's audience to Hunter Biden's views on the situation that are different than what Tucker Carlson believes in? Because if that's the case, that's one thing.

But that's not what he did there. That's not what he's doing with Candace Owens. It's not somebody who fucking sat with Nick Fuentes. Like, what are you doing, man? Yeah, so like to what end is all of this? Exactly. You know, to what end? To what end aside from like your own attention?

Yes, right. That's the thing. And then, like, again, I don't want to assign motivations because maybe there is some other motivation, but I don't know, I don't know what the intention is other than sort of just, because all he keeps doing is just going in these shows and pandering to the host. It also is like, there's a certain kind of sort of broken brain person on social media that's been just really eating up the Hunter Biden tour. Yeah.

They love it. They love it. It's like he's some sort of world-weary truth teller, you know, like he's trying, like he's traveling around kind of telling these sort of forbidden truths, like the forbidden truths being that like, I guess Mike Johnson's gay and Tucker Carlson loves Jews. Like that's... I forgot about the Mike Johnson. Yeah, I forgot about all these Republicans are in the closet thing.

And that the closetocracy he called it is like the is actually the bigger threat than oligarchy, which is like, okay, man. And just it's this weird... But I guarantee if he sat down in one of those interviews with one of the Republicans that he had accused of being in the closet, he would be like, oh, not you. I think you're great. No, I think you love pussy. We did... No, no. We definitely, we disagree on a lot, but you're amazing.

You're amazing. It's just, it's just very predictable what's going to happen every time he sits down. And like, you know, I agree. Like, actually like, boy, politics sure seems not like no fun when you talk about hard issues and get into the nuance of things and question Tucker Carlson about his views and actually sort of interrogate some of these difficult and thorny issues that we're facing or why the right has become so radical and. inspirational and extreme or what actually drives politics to not work for people when you're not saying it's because Josh Hawley is secretly gay and and actually anti-Semitism isn't isn't isn't connected to what's happening on the right whatever you want to say like yeah it gets it's almost like becomes like work you have to really focus on it and spend a lot of time on it and it sucks

I agree anyway come on Pod Save America anytime. All right when we come back Montana House candidate Sam Forstag Pod Save America is brought to by Built. Here's a question. Are you getting rewarded for paying your rent or mortgage right now? If the answer is no, you need to check out Built. Becoming a Built member means earning points on every housing payment no matter where you live. Built points can be redeemed for flights, hotels, lift rides, Amazon.com purchases, future housing payments, and more.

Some other things that you can redeem built points for. Parking with Metropolis, gift cards at over 120 brands. There's some restaurants, student loan balances. fitness classes at SoulCycle or Barry's. I've heard of it. Love Barry's. Built's new AI Neighborhood Concierge doesn't just answer questions. It executes tasks.

From paying your rent and hailing a lift to booking dinner reservations across 50,000 plus partners, it handles your to-do list while automatically applying your member benefits. First, download the built app. Second, link any credit or debit card to the app, so purchases at your local spots become even more rewarding. And third, ask the neighborhood concierge in the app pretty much anything, and it'll alert you,

about exclusive member benefits near your home. Download the built app and join the membership for where you live at joinbilt.com slash crooked. That's j-o-in-b-l-t.com slash crooked. Use our link so they know we sent you. The What Today podcast you know and love is shaking things up. You already know that five days a week, I, Jane Koston, bring you the need-to-know news

and expert analysis on the big stories shaping today and tomorrow. Stories like how social media warps our perception of the world and the strange reality of who is signing up to work for ice. All in less time than it takes to roast a chicken. And now, What Today episodes will be hitting your YouTube and podcast feeds in the afternoons. You'll get the breaking news even faster. Check out Whataday, now dropping in the PM on YouTube and wherever you get your podcasts. Sam Forsag, welcome to the pod.

Thank you so much for having me, John. So, first of all, let's just give people some background on who you are and what led you to run for Congress. You're a smoke jumper, and this is your first time running for office. Just tell me about yourself. Yeah, it's my first time running for anything higher than vice president of my union local. Until seven months ago, I worked as a smoke jumper for the U.S. Forest Service. So in the short version of that is we parachuting to remote wildfires to put them out while they're still small.

And I was a leader in my union's local when all the dose cuts began. And what that looked like in Montana is in large part, you know, they said it was all about government efficiency, but the people we lost for the lowest paid workers we've got in our agency. I mean, when they have fired 360 Montanaans just in the Forest Service just on Valentine's Day two years ago, 85% of them were GS-6s or below, making a 17-an-hour or less. In my agency, it was the people, the people who swing the tools and conduct the science to maintain our public lands. And when I reached out to Ryan Zanke, the Republican in the seat, who should be the person you can reach out to? When your members' lives are being turned upside down, I got crickets. So I decided if he's going to

take my co-workers' jobs. I'm going to come take his. people understand like how just to get when doge comes in and makes cuts to save money sure what happens when you're trying to say put out a fire quickly before it gets bigger like walk people through what happens if say the equipment you used to rely on is no longer available like day to day what did it mean for them to try to make government more efficient yeah I mean I think it's pretty clear none of this was about efficiency it's about power and consolidating that power in the hands of a select few, including the richest man in the world who happened to be at the helm of this thing. But on the ground, what it looked like even last year.

And I know it's worse right now is public safety was hampered. I mean, I jumped a fire in early July last year, a time when usually you are not in a state of resource scarcity. Resources being the manpower and the people you need to help fight a fire if you don't catch it with those first eight jumpers on the ground. And I'm setting up a task force. And I get told, hey, I know you're requesting three hotshot crews. They're none available in the region. And so we're going to order six contract hand crews instead because they don't have the same capabilities. So we're going to need more people.

And that's the only way we get any help to you in the next few days. What it means on the ground is we all pay so much more for so much less. And it takes longer to fight those fires. And those stories are endless. And so you're making, I know you've been doing this for about seven years and you're making $19, $19, $19.75 an hour seven years in. And because of these cuts, they have to bring in contractors and private companies that are going to make much more money. and cost a lot more than what the trained people would have done. Yeah, yeah.

I mean, the real goal here was cuts and privatization to turn it into another source of profit. You know, another story is last year I jumped a fire outside of steamboat springs in Colorado. And, you know, as jumpers, most fires we catch with the first, you know, four, eight, 12 smoke jumpers on the ground. But when you don't, you step back and you set up a large incident to make sure that you can save houses. We had hundreds of houses at risk in the immediate vicinity. this fire we ended up catching at around 500 acres. And on the second day, I put in an order for pumps and hoses, which is a pretty basic firefighting implement just to get water to the line. And they tell me, well, we used to have a gear cash here in Steamboat last year, but they cut that, they shut that down with the cuts.

So you're not going to get those pumps and hoses until the end of next shift because we have to overnight airmail the pump and hose kit from Denver to Steamboat and we got to drive it up to the line, and then we got to get it up to you. So you're not getting it until the end of the day tomorrow. So not only is our firefighting hampered, I mean, I can, not imagine a more expensive way to deliver hundreds of pounds of water pumps than that. So you're a smoke jumper and just that basically you're going to the places where cars can't reach, vehicles can't get to, to try to solve problems before they get bigger. What does that look like if there's a smoke jumper in Congress?

What do you see as the problem you're trying to surge to that you view as failing to get enough attention right now. Really smoke jumping like a lot of firefighting, right? We're not so different from hotshot crews or engine crews. You're training crisis management. And whether it is the housing crisis that we're dealing with in western Montana where we have the least affordable housing market in the country, that's a surprise to a lot of people. Yeah, I think that. Yeah, I didn't realize that until learning about this. It's, you know, you're making $19, say $19 an hour in a area that we think of as rural, so it must be cheaper, but the average house is what? Like $500,000. Nowadays in Missoula, it's just shy of 600K.

You go to Bozeman, it's around $900,000 in a place where a decade ago is probably closer to $200,000. The Flathead Valley in northwest Montana, not so different. So the, I mean, the crises are, you know, it's in housing, it's in healthcare. It's in childcare where, again, median wage is $60,000 in Montana. The average cost of childcare is just shy at 19K if you can make it through a waiting list. And these are all crises that so many people have felt like our elected leaders at the federal level aren't dealing with, any sense of urgency with. I mean, we had leadership nationally not so long ago telling us the economy is better than

you think it is. You know, meanwhile, yeah, me and a whole lot of my coworkers, well, at the end of four years of Democratic control, I'm running as a Democrat, well, yeah, we're making $19 an hour. And you're in a community where you'd be lucky to find a home for less than $500,000. And life did not get better if you're in a situation like that over the proceeding four years. And people felt like the folks in power at the national level are not listening to us quite clearly. I mean, what better articulation of a disconnect than to tell people things are better than you think it is while homelessness just doubled or tripled in every major city in Montana over the

preceding five years. What's interesting is when you say we've had leaders saying the economy is better than you think it is, I genuinely don't know if you're talking about Joe Biden or Donald Trump. One thing you said recently is that the National Party did everything they could to make it hard for a Democrat to win in places like Western Montana. What do you mean by that? What I mean is we had people at the national level who quite literally were not listening to us. And we have people who are dealing with a housing crisis 20 miles away from what you and I were talking about earlier, places like the Yellowstone Club where you got to be a multi-millionaire just to be considered for membership. And you go 20 miles up the canyon, you're in Bozeman. Well, we have homelessness

that's doubled or tripled. You have people living in the back of their cars or trailers and people who felt like rightfully their problems were not being solved at the national level. And when that's the case. When things are that bad, process is not an adequate excuse for not dealing with those things. And I want to note, I would offer the National Party did all they could to make it hard for a Democrat to win. The Democrat did just win the seat I'm running for. It's Montana's first congressional district. John Tester won Western Montana while he lost the state last year by just shy up a point, even in a tough environment like that. So we know we can win this thing. And the project here is to win in a meaningful way and rebuild the coalition we used to have when we could win statewide and

when Democrats could conceive of ever having a meaningful majority in the U.S. Senate. You know, you've seen people talking about like abolishing the Senate. It seems like for a lot of people, it's easier for them to wrap their minds around fundamentally changing the Constitution than winning in places like Montana statewide again, even though John Tester represented Montana in the Senate, Max Bacchus. what do you think right now is like if if i went to montana and asked a bunch of people when uh when you think of a democrat you think of blank like what do they what do they think when they hear about a democrat i think right now people think about john tester who was our senator until a year and a half ago and not so long ago democrats had serious power in place like montana i mean 2009 we had a 50-50 split in our state senate we used to have in 2016 we had a democratic

a governor, Steve Bullock, who was reelected on the same ticket as Donald Trump. 2018, John Tester, reelected again in our state. Democrats have found a win in Montana to win even when Donald Trump is gaining power. I mean, 18,000 Montana has voted for Donald Trump and John Tester in 2024. Those are the people who deserve a candidate who's actually going to speak to our experience and talk about how government needs to be a thing that can make your life materially better when the market is not meeting that need. And government has also been failing on that job for a long. time. And I think clearly you look at what's happening around the country or even in our race,

right, where I started this primary, nobody knew who the heck I was in December of last year. And we had a crowded competitive primary that included a candidate who was the Democratic nominee for governor last year, people who had been running for a year. And what we saw is that people are really hungry for candidates or for just anybody who can actually reflect our experience and say, like, it's not just your problem, the fact that people can't afford a house. It's not just your problem that when your car makes a funny noise, well, that might mean you can't afford rent next month because I've lived it too. It is our problem. And of course people are going to address problems with more urgency if you've lived them. How much do you think the way Democrats, obviously there's a huge problem with like the Democratic brand? How much of that do you ascribe to say like right wing media, sort of hammering people, kind of pulling the most extreme versions of a Democrat? And then how much do you actually laid at the feet of the Democrats themselves? John, I would say we hold these truths to be self-evident. The Democratic Party messed up pretty damn bad, and they got us into this situation.

We had four years of power. Yeah. People were facing massive issues. I mean, between fire seasons, I helped put together the Montana Coalition to solve homelessness. We pulled a dozen homeless shelters together from around the state, and we ended up getting some legislation passed in a Republican super majority. The first one in state history, and the reason that was able to happen is because the problems were so damn bad.

I mean, quite literally, I'm not exaggerating. We have tripled the number of unhoused people in a place like Montana. We're in the northern Rockies. It is not a hospitable place to be living on the streets. People die every year. And, I mean, if you were working two or three jobs at a time like I was the entire time, I was going to college and still graduating with that. And you look up and people are telling you the institutions, they just need tweaked a little bit. That does not inspire faith.

Yeah. And that doesn't give anyone a reason to be hopeful or to engage with politics. And so what happened? A lot of young people did not engage with politics last year. They did not turn out and vote. And we are now quite literally not the party of working people. Most working people, most folks making under 100K just voted for Republicans. Or shoot, unions, right? I come from a union background. We have the Gibraltar of unionism in Montana. It's Butte. Most incredible town you can go to Western Montana. Well, half a union members voted for Republicans last year. And a lot of young people didn't turn out. Those are all the people that are the base of the Democratic Party I want to be a part of. And if we can't give those people a reason to actually engage and we can't show them that there's a place in this party for them, not just for the people who are rich enough to make it through these processes that we create for federal candidates. Well, then we don't deserve their support. So let's win it back. So Joe Biden, he's this, I think, longtime centrist figure. He wins in 2020, and he actually tries to bring in Bernie. He brings in Elizabeth Warren. He puts in a trust buster at the FTC.

He governs much further to the left than anybody would have expected Joe Biden to govern. or still not as far as some people would have wanted him to go, has some success. And Democrats are largely punished in part because of all the obstacles, like the filibuster in the Senate, the Supreme Court, like Democrats are in some ways punished because he's unable to fully achieve his agenda. And then they, and then who wins, the Republicans who then immediately deregulate, past massive tax cuts to the rich overturn, put on judges to overturn. row and environmental and union regulations.

I got it all. And so, so look, when you're talking to people sort of in your union that voted for Zinke or voted for Trump, like, how do you talk about this? Like, what, what's your argument? My argument is that I understand why a lot of people like my coworkers and union members, some of them voted for the slubs who were tearing all this down all around us. And man, does it piss me off as somebody who spent a year and a half working with members, who, I mean, I remember Kara who lost her job in one day with no cause and no notice

15 years under her federal service because she just happened to have taken a lateral transfer that year to do more remote work during chemotherapy. You know, members who are getting texts in line at the airport to go to their grandmother's funeral saying they lost their job. They were only making $16 an hour in the first place. But you know what? I also work with a lot of people who, well, if you're making $16 bucks an hour and you're working for the federal government and housing costs have just doubled or tripled in your

community and you can't conceive of ever owning a home. well, your life just got worse. And as far as I'm concerned, there are two primary roles for the federal government. First and foremost, it's to protect your constitutional freedoms, right? A lot of those in the bill of rights are freedoms from the government. Second, it's to make sure you can meet your basic material needs when the market is not meeting them. And the market was meeting them even worse after four years of Democratic control. And you know what?

If you are working two or three jobs at a time, or if you're working a thousand hours of overtime, I'm like I had to just to scrimp by through a winter on my mortgage for a 980 square foot home, you might not have the time to follow the intricacies of policymaking or politics. You shouldn't have to to be able to judge the people in power on what sort of results they delivered for you. And so I would just say, like, the people we need to win back are a lot of the people who got these folks elected. It's a lot of working people. There's a lot of union members. And it's folks who you don't start a conversation with by telling them that they're wrong.

because it frustrates me so much to hear people's what I hear often to say like, well, do they see, like, why are people voting outside of their own self-interest, their own material self-interest? It's not more in your interest to vote for somebody who's going to make your life worse a little slower than the other guy. Yeah, also don't tell people what their interests are, presumably. So there's also been a part of this debate about sort of how did the Democratic Party lose the men, what happened to the men and the working class? And a lot of people tend to... What better place to address than a podcast studio is two white guys are saying? Two guys in a podcast studio. This is where we're supposed to solve it all. But, you know, I think Tester has talked about, wokeness as being part of this. You said something interesting the other day,

which is just that basically, if you have a member of Congress who's worth millions of dollars trying to be a tribune for the working class, that person may feel a little bit more afraid to, say, push back on trans issues or have a position that might not have a majority, but actually they want to be supportive of trans people. How do you think about this? Like what like do you think that the social issues are part of Democrats problems? Like Bernie has because he's such a kind of people understand what Bernie stands for, he's had on the other hand more room to say, you know what, I don't think we should defund the police or we do need to have a strong border. I think a lot of it comes back to credibility. And I had this fascinating split screen for the last eight years of my life

where I'm doing wildland fire in the summer six to nine months out of the year. And then I was doing organizing and advocacy. in the winters between that. I worked for the coalition of homeless shelters I mentioned for the State Library Association, even for the ACLU. And when I, well, when I would be in the middle of fire season, there's not a lot of other jumpers to go do policy work. And so you bet your tell. Everybody wants to ask me about whatever they might have seen on the news. Maybe it was on Fox News. And if we got time in between digging line or cut in line, you know, I'd tell them, you know, that story will hear the people that I know in the winters who were just trying to live their life with dignity without government

telling them how to do it. And I think that that's a piece that has been lost. And I'll tell them what else I saw when I'm at the state legislature is, well, we just saw in 2017 deep cuts and a dismantling of our mental health services in the state when we had a budget shortfall. And over the following eight years when we had surpluses, did they reinvest in all those basic public health care services that they cut? No, they invested in tax cuts to cut the top income tax bracket year after year after year. And that's the same thing we see at the federal level. And what it is is it is Big Brother not watching you because they don't need to now, even though they can. They're singing and dancing. Well, they pick all of our pockets as working people. And by the end of that conversation,

a lot of my coworkers are pretty pissed and they weren't pissed about what they saw in the news, they were pissed about the fact that that is why I am poorer. And that is why I am poorer in a world where we just minted the first human trillionaire. That's something that should make us angry. And that's the sort of grievance of all the festering misdirected grievances, that kind of economic grievance is what government's supposed to be here to help address. So let's talk about your opponent. Zinky won this race most recently by eight. You said John Tester won, won more votes there, even as he wasn't able to eke out a victory. It's very, very close right now. What is the case you're trying to make in the closing days to try to get more people to understand

why your opponent just sort of a Trump back talk radio host is not exactly what Montana needs? Yeah, the contrast here could not be any better, if you ask me. I mean, yeah, the fellow I'm running against, he was the handpicked successor for Ryan Zink. You dropped out of this race about four months ago in good riddance. And he dropped out because he saw that it wasn't going to be easy for him after a whole year spent gutting basic public services that people like me might have depended on as a kid, someone whose belly was full thanks to food stamps sometimes, gutting our public lands where if there's a consensus issue in Montana, it's our public lands. And so what did he do? He dropped out with 48 hours until a filing deadline and immediately endorsed this fellow

in Flint, who was a far-right talk radio host. He spent the last 10 years in an air-conditioned recording studio, spewing hate and hot air, nothing against air-conditioned. What's wrong with it? I don't think I think you're sort of losing me a little bit. There's nothing wrong. You do a lot of good work in an air condition recording studio. Sorry, continue. Well, and we got, the guy is a political pundit. And we have plenty of pundits and political puppets in Washington right now. I would offer, there's no dearth of those. We got enough of them. What we do have a lack of is working people who know what it's like to be working three jobs at a time and still paying your rent on a credit card. I know what that's like. People who actually know what it's like to have your belly full because of food stamps or thanks to food stamps when your parent falls on a hard time. And like, People who don't have that perspective are going to perhaps fight with a little bit less urgency when SNAP benefits get used as leverage during a government shutdown, like they did this last time around, when half of my members were furloughed at the end of those six weeks. And a lot of them are showing up at local food banks that are also having to curtail food benefits because some of that comes from SNAP. It just feels like across the board there has truly been a lack of urgency. When we had the political will to pass really big important legislation like you mentioned, like the IRA, right? Well, a whole lot of that money never actually got out the door.

And people are hurting right now. I mean, if you were on the edge of not having your home like Kathy, whose house I was at, Kathy lives a mile from my house. She's now one of 4,000 mobile home lots that are owned by out-of-state private equity firms in the state of Montana. And Kathy's lot rent has gone from $370 a month to over $800. Kathy doesn't have 10 years to wait for all of these resources to propagate through the system and for half of them to go to large corporations.

so that maybe her life gets better. Like, Kathy needs help right now. And it feels like we did not deliver that help to people who really desperately needed it. And what happens? The party out of power gets elected, and it turns into something really scary and dangerous. There's also a big fight in Montana now over data centers. There's a lot of outside money. They see Montana, it's cool.

It's a lot of land. You can build a lot of big facilities. Yeah. Where are you on building data centers in Montana? and how does that contrast with the Republicans? Yeah, well, my opponent got the better part of a million dollars from American Mission, one of Open AIs, super PACs just in the month of May,

to get him through his primary, even though they tried to make sure no one could run against the guy. So what we're up against is a pretty terrifying amount of money that this industry is planning to leverage in this election. I think 150 million. They're planning to drop on elections just this year. For us, well, we have a proposed center that is, in theory,

going to use more electricity than every residential home in the state of Montana. And our power rates have already gone up 30 or 40% in the last three years. So what I would offer is we need to pass a damn law at the federal level saying they can't build these things until unless they show that they're going to provide all their own power. It doesn't have to be on site. Offsite's even better. Put power on the grid. We need it.

Ideally, carbon neutral power. Making sure that they're not going to dirty our air and water. I mean, you see these terrifying videos of dirtied water. Well, there are more water efficient cooling systems. They cost a little bit more. but this industry, they can afford it. They're planning to spend $4 trillion on data center development in the next seven years. Right now we have none of that.

All we have is an executive order trying to preempt state regulations on AI. And where I am too, I'm coming at this. I'm also a relatively young candidate. I think that this technology is perhaps the biggest existential threat that we've got as a country. I mean, we've read the sci-fi novel before. We're all living in it right now. If their promises are true, well, this is a technology that could cure cancer. or it could kill all of humanity.

And we in the last- That's a big delta, too. It's a big difference, yeah. And right now it seems like we're only using it for all the bad stuff. And what, in the last two weeks, you're probably tracking. We had two instances of these models breaking out of the system and hacking into other outfits. And they're under a full-scale cyber attack from an AI system and nobody knows. There's no oversight or regulation of this right now, functionally speaking.

And if we can't get our arms around it and have real federal oversight and make it so we're ready to pull the plug on this thing, if it poses a threat to, threat to the future of our children in our country. Like, we're going to be in a tough spot. One other issue that's been roiling in Montana is because, in part, for all the reasons you're saying, the Democratic brand can be pretty toxic, you have an independent that has a lot of backing from... This is the first I've heard about this. First you've heard of it.

So for people that don't know about it, basically, there is an independent that's running with the backing of a lot of Democratic politicians. There's also a Democratic candidate on the ballot. Today, as we're recording this, is the last day for that Democratic candidate to drop out so that everyone can coalesce around the independent candidate. Do you believe that Bankman should drop out? Right now, yeah, today's the deadline. I think they just had a press conference in the last couple hours. I think it was the third or fourth in the last week between the two of them.

Yeah. Each one announcing, I'm still running. I'm still running. Yeah, they're both still running. They're both still here. Yeah, it's an interesting like game theory problem because they're like, there's been a brinkmanship. But what do you want to have it's what do you want to have happened before midnight today? What I want is to make sure Kurt Almaty, who's the Republican running in that race, is not our next senator.

And I will be entirely honest. I am so deeply frustrated with the entirety of how this thing is played out. Yeah. I mean, the probably North $8 million has been sent to spent to manufacture this situation we're in right now where neither candidate's going to have a chance of winning against the Republican as long as they're both in this race. That's obscene. Yeah. Like that is actually disgusting. We have all, whichever angle you're looking at this from, we've all swallowed a spider to kill a fly.

And, I mean, $8 million, again, that is pearls before swine in a state where people are being pushed out onto the streets because they can't afford the basics. At this point, a coin flip would be better than what they got going right now. What I've been telling the both of them is that I really hope that they will both sit down in person in a room and sort this out because a lot of how we got here as a country is a lot of our national leaders were putting their own ego before the good of the country. and it feels like nothing changes. And well, the reality is nothing changes unless we go change it ourselves. Yeah, it seems like, God, a coin flip would work. Can we just do that? I mean, like, basically, that's what you're, we want one candidate to go up against the

Republican and one of them would have to drop out, but neither one of them wants to do it. It's basically where we're at. That's right. And so it sounds like you would, you'd, you'd just want one of them to drop out. And by the end of the day. Yeah, that would be better than the situation we're in this, this standoff. But I will tell you, too. that Senate race, you know, I have faith in them to sort this out and to do the, you know, exercise the basic skills that my dad is the kindergarten teacher is teaching his students, right?

Oh, sit down, look at each other, have a conversation. But if they, whether or not they do that, Western Montana, Montana's first is where we have a chance to win. Yeah. This is the place a Democrat just won by just by almost 1%. And I think there's a real temptation to just spend all your time talking about whatever. Yeah. If it bleeds, it reads, you know, wherever the controversy is. But this is a place where we just had turnout in the Democratic primary up 17%.

It was down four on the Republican side. I think this is a place where we can have a foothold in a place like Western Montana or the Rocky Mountain West or rural America, something that Democrats don't really have right now. So, yeah, we're spending all our time talking about that. And whichever way that race goes, I think both of those are very different kinds of candidates. Yeah. And whatever happens by the end of the day, that's what will have happened. And then we have to focus on doing whatever we can to win.

seat and and the Senate race. And people can go to Sam for Montana.com if they want to help out. They can go to Sam for Montana if they want to help out. And you're going to have a lot of money coming up against you. And in a state like Montana, like, you know, a million dollars dropped in that race can have a huge, huge impact. What are people that, what do Democrats not understand about Montana? Like, forget even just the politics, just as a place, what people care about.

I think there's a lot of kind of assumptions people make about. like rural voters, how they view the environment, how they view public lands, like what do people miss? I mean, our public lands are a way of life. Truly, I mean, you're protecting your gun rights and protecting your public lands. Those are the two consensus issues in a place like Montana because, well, that's what people depend on to keep your freezer full. If you go to your public lands and use them for hunting, that is how people find sustenance. That's what people depend on if you can squeeze in a Sunday afternoon between your three shifts just to go hike and or skiing. Like, what makes it worth living. And that is not a Democrat or a Republican issue. I mean, part of

what pushed me into this race in November when I was thinking about is it worth leaving behind smoke jumping, which is the only retirement, the only health care I had, the only career I really had to run for this office because whatever the administration tells you the Hatch Act exists and you cannot run for public office, a federal employee. I got a mailer from Ryan Zinke saying that he's the Teddy Roosevelt of Public Lands. A year into all of these cuts where my members' lives are being turned upside down where we're down 20%. We've lost 2,000 red-carded firefighters. We're all seeing what the consequences of those are right now.

We've got smoke choked skies in Montana and less people to fight all those fires. And he's sending out a mailer with his little Teddy Roosevelt hat on and his Boy Scout outfit. Everybody claims they're for public lands, but it's a lot like these other issues. Like public lands aren't just lines on a map. There are a lot of people. Most of them not making a lot of money who work their tails off to make sure you can make it up a road to the trailhead or up a trail to access your forest. And a lot of those people are core to the rural economies. If you go down to Hamilton, well, you got Rocky Mountain Labs, who's lost 30 or 40 employees so far.

You have forest service outposts. These are a core part of our community and our economy. And we all just got gutted. And so people are pissed and they should be pissed, but being pissed is not enough. And when people say, well, are your friends who might have voted for these guys ready to see they were wrong? That's not what it is. I think right now people are just angry at both parties because you're paying $420. a gallon at the pump for unleaded and we're in another war that this guy started this time that

none of us wanted and we're spending billions overseas and all of our lives are worse. So we got to move past being pissed and being angry and talk about reimagining a lot of the programs that Montanaans helped pass. Like Mike Mansfield was the leader of the U.S. Senate from Montana who ushered through the great society and help create Medicare and Medicaid and NPR and PBS and these are all the things that are under attack. They're all the things we're called on to reimagine and expand so people can meet their basic needs and have time for the kind of empathy and compassion that your neighbor deserves. Sam, I am 43. I'm about to turn 44. Your skin looks great. I skin, fantastic. Thank you for saying that. Could I be a smoke jumper? How, how athleticism, how much is required

am I past my prime? Is it possible? You know, a fellow rookie at 47. Wow. I'm looking at you. I mean, you look pretty darn fit just from across the microphone. But no, what's required is it's a six-week Ricky training program. Most people have got five or six years, five to ten years of fire experience before you get picked up and about 40% of people make it through. So it's six weeks of getting the hell beat out of you and PT and learning how to pilot a parachute. I want to know what a parachute. No, I can't do it. I forgot about the jumping part. I want to know what the physical, I would like to know what is like the physical requirements that I would like to do a smoke jumper training. Yeah. And maybe I don't think I can jump out of a plane. I actually struggle from a high diving board to jump into

a pool. So I think that's like probably not for me, but maybe I could do the training. Sam Forzac. Thank you so much. I keep forgetting the website. What's the website again? The website is SamforMontana.com or you can find us on socials. It's just at Sam Forsteg across platforms. And I need all the help I can get it. It is a rare thing to see a working person in the halls of power. And if everyone pulls together and helps out, well, we can actually make this happen and we can start changing our country for the better. Thank you so much. Thank you, John. That's our show for today. Thanks to Sam Forsy for coming on. Dan and I will be back with a new show. on Friday. Pots of America is a crooked media production. Our show is produced by

Austin Fisher, Saul Rubin, McKenna Roberts, and Ferris Safari with Reed Jirlin, Elijah Cohn, and Adrian Hill. Our team includes Matt DeGroote, Ben Hethcote, Jordan Cantor, Charlotte Landis, Carol Pelleve, David Tolls, Mia Kellman, Ryan Young, and Naomi Single. Our staff is proudly unionized with the Writers Guild of America East. The What a Day podcast you know and love is shaking things up. You already know that five days a week, I, Jane Koston, bring you the need-to-know news and expert analysis on the big stories shaping today and tomorrow. like how social media warps our perception of the world and the strange reality of who is signing up to work for ice. All in less time than it takes to roast a chicken. And now, What Today episodes

will be hitting your YouTube and podcast feeds in the afternoons. You'll get the breaking news even faster. Check out Water Day. Now dropping in the PM on YouTube and wherever you get your podcasts.