Pod Save America - "Cold War, Hot Mic."

Episode Date: January 25, 2022

Vladimir Putin inches closer to a war in Ukraine that could have global repercussions, White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki talks about the Biden Administration’s new strategy for 2022, and Jon, Jon, and Tommy assess their level of concern over the latest headlines about creeping authoritarianism in a new segment called Democracy Doomscroll.Pod Save America is vaxxed, boosted, and headed back on the road! Join Jon, Jon, Tommy and Dan on the road for Pod Save America (A)live And On Tour. Get tickets & learn more: crooked.com/events.Listener presales: January 25 at 10 am local time through January 27 (code CROOKED)General onsale: January 28 at 10 am local time

Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Jon Favreau. I'm Jon Lovett. I'm Tommy Vitor. On today's show, Vladimir Putin... What? Keep going. Get him right into it. I'm Jon Favreau. I'm Jon Lovett. I'm Tommy Vitor. On today's show, Vladimir Putin inches closer to a war in Ukraine that could have global repercussions. White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki is here to talk about the Biden administration's new strategy for 2022. And we assess our level of concern over the latest headlines about creeping authoritarianism in a new segment we're calling democracy doom scroll but first some news some news we're going back on tour we're in the road tomorrow no just kidding the only wave you'll see is our hands because we're in the road pod save america is going back on tour this spring the first shows start in april love it or leave it is going on tour yeah this spring. The first shows start in April.

Love It or Leave It is going on tour. Yeah, exactly. Both. Our listener pre-sale is happening now through Thursday before tickets go on sale to the general public. Don't wait for that. Don't wait for those public. You're listening. Do the pre-sale with the code CROOKED

or you may run into some trouble. The pre-sale code is CROOKED. For the full list of dates and for more information, visit crooked.com slash events. Also, we tweeted this, but more cities to come. More cities to come. If your city's not on there,

more cities to come. And we're trying to... We still got a whole fall to go. Want to hit as many cities that we had to cancel in 2020 as we can. So if you were in a 2020 city that got canceled,

we know. Remember debating that? Remember debating in March of 2020? I still think we should have. I should have had it. Should have gone to Seattle. Honestly, Fauci over here. Probably would have just gotten rid of COVID early and just had those natural immunity. Oh no. Here comes Aaron Rodgers.

Here comes to play the Steve Bannon theme song. Do you watch the games over the weekend? Ronan and I actually told this to White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki, but Ronan and I tried to get an outdoor meal on Sunday, and we went to a neighborhood restaurant that is also apparently some sort of sports establishment, and they said, sorry, we're not seating outside because of the big game. And Ronan said, what kind of game?

Oh, my God. That's awesome. Wow. I did too. I didn't know what game it was. Like Settlers of Catan. Scrabble. I was like, what are we looking at here?

What sport? Google Jimmy Garoppolo, and maybe you'll become a niners fan what was that supposed to mean he's super hot oh you just say that that's what that's why you google image jimmy g there's a lot of jimmy g googling happening in my house over the weekend oh that's who that was got it okay yeah you're welcome speaking of all that let's get to the news um which this week will be dominated by the escalating conflict speaking there's no there's no joke but it's we're gonna cut this jimmy grappolo is hot right into russia ukraine speaking of uh speaking of invading a hostile territory listen sorry cut it cut it no just really cut it we should start again leave it in leave whatever Speaking of invading a hostile territory. Sorry. Cut it. Cut it. No, just really cut it.

We should start again. Leave it in. Leave whatever just happened in. It might have gotten cut. Savannah Guthrie does transitions like this in her sleep. I know she does. That's why she's in the Today Show and we're just fucking doing a podcast. Yeah, we sit alone in a room by ourselves.

That's the difference between us and Savannah Guthrie. We don't know how to go to Ukraine from fashion tips for spring on a budget, you know? All right, let's get to the news. It is being dominated this week by the escalating conflict between Russia and Ukraine. President Biden said at last week's news conference that if Vladimir Putin invades the former Soviet state, he would increase the U.S. troop presence in bordering European countries like Poland and Romania,

which are also NATO members. Sure enough, the New York Times reports that Pentagon officials have presented Biden with an option to send 1,000 to 5,000 troops to Eastern European countries, with the potential to increase that number tenfold if things deteriorate. State Department has also ordered all family members of U.S. embassy employees to leave Ukraine immediately and authorized some employees to depart as well. Here's Pentagon spokesman John Kirby at Monday's briefing. Secretary Austin has placed a range of units in the United States on a heightened preparedness to deploy,

which increases our readiness to provide forces if NATO should activate the NRF. The number of forces that the secretary has placed on heightened alert comes up to about 8,500 personnel. Tommy, for people who have not been paying close attention to this news because maybe they were watching football all weekend, why does Vladimir Putin have his sights set on Ukraine? And why are the U.S. and our NATO allies so concerned? I'm asking for our audience and for me.

I know, but I want to hear if Tommy knows. You can take those one at a time. John Kirby, I went to Haiti if Tommy knows. You can take those one at a time. John Kirby. I went to Haiti with John Kirby back in 2010. He slept on the floor of an embassy after the earthquake and tried to help. Stuff down there.

That's cool. Any more names you want to drop? Alyssa Mastromonaco was there. We all hung out. Ate MREs and did stuff. Anyway. Okay, so I don't know why Putin has his eyes set on Crimea,

but I can offer you guys some theories. Does that interest you? Yeah, maybe. And just some historic context. What if no one paid attention to Crimea in 2014? You have to go way back. Well, okay. The long view is that Putin gave the speech in 2005, where he called the breakup of the Soviet Union a catastrophe, the greatest catastrophe of the century or some sort of hyperbolic thing like that. And he also said that the net effect of the breakup was that Russian citizens were no longer living in Russian territory. And he also said that the net effect of the breakup was that Russian citizens were

no longer living in Russian territory. And everyone interprets that as him thinking essentially that these former Soviet republics are still Russian. He wants to kind of bring them back into the fold. He's been jonesing for some reunification for a long time. There's a bunch of people in Ukraine who speak Russian, who sort of feel some affinity for Russia. Russian, who sort of feels some affinity for Russia. He wants to bring Ukraine's orientation back towards Russia. He wants it to be a buffer between Russia and Europe and give him some sort of space between Russia and NATO. That's one theory. The sort of associated theory is there's been all these protest movements lately in Belarus, in Kazakhstan, that are right on the border of Russia. Those are. Also former Soviet states.

Yeah, those are Russia's. Putin's very close with those leaders. Some would call them his stooges. And a protest movement in Ukraine, like the ones we just saw in Kazakhstan and Belarus, is what set off the invasion of Crimea in 2014. Because at the time, a pro-Russian leader of Ukraine was jettisoned by the protesters and then Putin rolled in the tanks. So a lot of people think he's desperately afraid of these color revolutions, doesn't want them to spread, doesn't want them to oust him.

He's an authoritarian. Associated with that, people think that maybe NATO expansion went too far. Over time, the alliance grew. It pushed further east. It got onto Putin's doorstep. He views that as a threat. I think it's a bit of a leap to suggest that NATO expansion is to blame for what's happening, but I think it's sort of part of the mix. And Ukraine is not a NATO state, but in the past, there had been some thought that maybe it would be at some point. The Bush administration nominated Georgia, the country, and Ukraine for NATO membership in 2008. They have to fill out what's called a NATO action plan. They have a membership action plan. They have not finished that yet. And it's not predestined that it would happen. But it's sort of a worst case scenario for Ukraine right now because they were nominated to join NATO, but they don't have its protection.

So they're sort of like in this NATO limbo. Didn't mean that, but you get it. And then the last thing is like politics, right? Putin wants to wring some concessions out of the West by flexing. He likes to distract from domestic problems by lashing out abroad. So that's another piece of the puzzle. I don't know what the answer is. It's not good.

There's 100,000 troops on the border. So why are the U.S. and NATO, our NATO allies so concerned? Why don't they just say, oh, well, if he wants to take Ukraine, he takes Ukraine. You know, because there's sort of a, we believe in democracy.

We believe in countries should choose their own leaders. That you should not just be able to invade a country at whim. There's a bit of hypocrisy there given the Iraq war and some of the past, but that's sort of the principle we're standing up for. Is there a fear or how much of a fear is there that it's not just former Soviet states that are under threat here, but NATO allies like Poland, Romania, other Eastern European countries? Is that something people are concerned about as well?

Yeah, I mean, if you're Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, you're kind of right on the border there. This is probably making you quite nervous. If you're a member of NATO, you have something called Article 5. There's the Article 5 Treaty, which says an attack upon one member is an attack upon all. So the rest of the NATO alliance has the obligation to come to your defense. So you're feeling a little more secure, but it's still unnerving. What does the

potential of sending troops to countries that aren't Ukraine meant to do to dissuade action in Ukraine? Do you want to get into the sort of Biden responses? Yeah, sure. That's a piece of the puzzle. So the point Biden's trying to make here, like, so when he says send one to 5,000 troops to Eastern European countries, I don't like this little tenfold anecdotal

that can increase tenfold, just getting slipped in there. I used the quote from the New York Times at the end of the sentence. I almost didn't even put it in then i was like well that's just a sort of a a clause that we're just as an aside here yeah at the end of a sentence hey we might increase that number tenfold if things deteriorate right it's a lot it's a lot of people what what they're trying to say there is okay vlad you don't like nat on your doorstep. You feel threatened by NATO military hardware, by the growth of NATO, by its expansion eastward. Okay, you invade Ukraine, you're going to get

exactly what you don't want. You're going to get more US and NATO military hardware in these countries right along your border. So the idea is like kind of tell him that he's going to create the opposite effect of what he's hoping for by pushing NATO back. The Russian demands are they want NATO to pledge to halt further eastward expansion, and they want them to pledge to not admit Ukraine. There's some more specific things, like removing NATO military hardware in certain Eastern European states. But what Biden is trying to say here is you're going to get the opposite of what you want in your negotiating demands if you invade Ukraine. So we're talking about Biden actions now that could potentially deter Russian action. If Putin does invade, what do we know about the various

options that the Biden administration is considering? What have they said about sanctions? What have they said about potential military options? Yeah, I mean, it doesn't sound like, you know, it doesn't sound like a direct U.S. military response is on the table, but they have been very vocal in saying that if Russia invades, the U.S. will basically arm and support a Ukrainian insurgency.

And that's kind of scary. It's surprising to me to hear them just saying that out loud. The thing that has not worked well for us in the past well when we've been on the receiving end yeah receiving end the the thing that's sort of striking in the coverage is i do think that like there's this kind of i was thinking about syria there's a bias toward um there's a bias towards assuming that because authoritarians have kind of a strong grip over policy making that they have some kind of inherent strategic

acumen, that they're somehow, because they're in control, that they're very smart and sophisticated in what they're trying to do. But there's also another side of this, which is that there's a lot of ways in which Vladimir Putin is striking out because he's weak, right? Because he, because, I mean, and that stretching yourself thin, invading another country, as we have learned quite recently, it may seem very masculine, you know, it may seem like a lot of very tough and bellicose, but doesn't redound to the benefit of your country. Yeah, I know you could make that argument. You can make the argument that, you know, his his guy in Belarus looks weakened. His guy in Kazakhstan looks weakened, that he's now stretching himself even more thin by sending hundreds of thousands of troops

to the border of Ukraine, that their primary exports are commodities like fossil fuels, and that they're looking down the road and seeing a challenging economic environment. And so they lash out and do things like this to, you know, sort of distract from at home. I mean, you could spin this either way. I think in the near term, it's just sort of an incredibly scary destabilizing potential action to come down the pike and you know on top of you know this insurgency arming that we talked about that biden is saying he will do if they invade uh they're talking about economic sanctions they're talking about banning certain kinds of technologies like semiconductors and these other microchips and other things so like pretty serious disruptions um

to just sort of like the global flow of commerce and goods and well i was gonna say i'm trying to think of from the perspective of your average american who's reading the news thinking as they tend to do what does this mean for me what could what could this mean you know what could this change sounds like the biden administration has so far ruled out like sending u.s troops to fight alongside ukrainians but but not arming Ukrainians potentially if there's an invasion. If we went ahead with sanctions, economic sanctions as an option, it seems like the effect of those sanctions would not just be limited to economic fallout in Russia, but they could have an impact on the entire global economy

and the U.S. economy as well. I know that like Europe, for example, like imports 40% of their natural gas from russia okay so on the on the energy yes specific on the energy point that is a very serious concern like what it depends on what the global impact will be like who knows in terms of what the sanctions are it's been for our reaching they are it depends on the response in terms of more narrowly uh yeah a lot of europe's really dependent on russian natural gas uh A lot of it transits through Ukraine. And there's a real concern that as a weapon of war, they could decide to essentially cut off the export of natural gas. I guess the point I'm trying to make is it doesn't seem like of all the options that Biden has to

respond, none of them are without potential cost to the U.S. No, none of them are good. This is not like a free like, oh, we'll just send in some help here and that'll be fine and we don't have to worry about anything. Whether it's military, whether it's economic sanctions, there's all of them come with a potential cost directly to the United States. Yeah, no, it's incredibly destabilizing. Energy prices could spike. I mean, remember back in 2014, that Malaysian Airlines flight was shot down over Ukraine by accident, by separatists and not by accident. I don't know. But like, certainly they were not part of the war ever, right? It was an innocent passenger flight and a bunch of innocent people were killed. Like horrible things can happen

when there's suddenly an even more active war zone. But the truth is the Ukrainians have been in like a low grade state of conflict with Russians since 2014. Yeah. I mean, part of the reason I bring that up is because, you know, turning to the politics of all this, many Republican politicians are unsurprisingly using the crisis to attack Biden for showing what they call weakness towards Russia and other countries. Nikki Haley's tweet summed up the argument, quote, he was weak when the Taliban took Afghanistan. He's once again showing weakness as Russia looks to take Ukraine. And if he continues to be weak, there's no telling what China will do with Taiwan. Meanwhile, some of the MAGA extremists like Congressman Paul Gosar and Thomas Massey are saying that America first means that the United

States should just let Russia do whatever it wants with Ukraine. Democratic Congressman Tom Malinowski tweeted that his office is actually getting calls from Tucker Carlson viewers who are, quote, upset that we're not siding with Russia's, quote, reasonable positions towards Ukraine. First of all, let's start with the weakness attack. Do you think attacking Biden for weakness on foreign policy is an effective argument, guys? I worry that those attacks do work. I mean, it doesn't matter how hypocritical you are. I saw Mike Pompeo's out there attacking Biden. I almost gave you a Mike Pompeo quote. Nikki Haley summed it up better, but I wanted to give you the Mike Pompeo. out there attacking Biden. I almost gave you a Mike Pompeo quote. Nikki Haley summed it up better, but I wanted to give you the Mike Pompeo. I feel bad. It's just amazing. You know, it's like,

hey, Mike, you know, maybe if your boss hadn't been so busy trying to extort the new president of Ukraine for dirt on Joe Biden, you could have done a better job preparing for this outcome. But yeah, no, I mean, I do think that these arguments work. You always hear neocons saying, like, we can't withdraw from Iraq because it will show weakness to Iran. The concepts of strong and weak are easy to explain. The more complicated story is more complicated to explain. So yeah, I'm worried.

Yeah, I mean, I think there's, I think there are people like Nikki Haley and others that see an opportunity in attacking Joe Biden. And then there are people on the right that are actually a little bit more pro-Putin than they are anti-B people on the right that are actually a little bit more pro-Putin than they are anti-Biden right now, that they're a little bit more pro-authoritarian than they are willing to kind of use this

to kind of tell a story. But I do think a lot of, I think a lot of the, in politics, in the press, I think storytelling about foreign policy and like narratives around foreign policy kind of take over and become more important than what's actually in our interest what's actually going on on the ground you know this idea that oh because uh domestically there's a republicans telling a story that weaves

afghanistan which is a completely different situation uh uh with ukraine which is completely different situation than taiwan which is yet another different situation as just sort of a a place to talk about weakness and as if the idea that like the U.S. doesn't have a distinct sets of interest in those places. And then over time, the best thing we can do for our country is what's in our interest in each of these situations that, oh, therefore, in order to avoid a display of weakness, we must remain in Afghanistan forever. And that somehow makes us a better, more stable ally for a place like taiwan i think is like kind of absurd the russians fought a long bloody war in afghanistan lost and

got driven out and it nearly bled them to death but let them dry i don't think they think we would have been smart to stay in afghanistan any longer it's like such a stupid specious washington argument well it's the tell in all of these arguments about weakness. You're right. It can be effective because it's a very simple, simplistic, almost stupid kind of attack, right?

And that there is chaos in the world and if you cannot fix the chaos single-handedly, you are weak. And in order to try to fix the chaos, you must use military might and then you are weak. And in order to try to fix the chaos, you must use military might and then you are strong. That is sort of the binary thought process there. And it's just ridiculous because along with all of these attacks about Biden being weak, very few of these Republicans,

at least in Russia, have ideas or proposals of what he should do, right? Like some of them are saying, slap the sanctions on them right now, even though that sort of defeats the purpose of deterrence. But then if they do invade and then we impose sanctions, like what else do the Republicans want us to do? Do they want Joe Biden to send in troops to Ukraine? Some Republicans clearly don't. I think what's what's sort of frustrating about this is you will have people with a straight face say Putin's invading Ukraine because you were the Biden looked weak in Afghanistan and they'll blame America for, you know, Vladimir Putin doing something he's wanted to do. okay, are there things the West has done that have exacerbated the problem? Like NATO expansion, they accuse you of blaming America. And it just leads to a very stupid, very stilted conversation about these matters. And then the most cynical thing that you're seeing are the people, a lot of Republicans, even some Ukrainian officials criticizing the State Department for getting

the families of State Department officials out of Ukraine. They saw Alyssa Farah, former Trump official, tweeting about that. Yeah, who's normally like not a fire-breathing person. But it's like, hey, did you guys all forget what happened in Afghanistan this summer when a bunch of Americans got trapped there? Did we not fight about the security of diplomats in Benghazi for like the better part of a decade? Why don't we not fucking politicize this? Why don't we tell the kids and spouses of diplomats to get out as soon as possible so that they're safe well this is a this again this is the danger in responding to charges of weakness because if you respond to these phony charges of weakness by showing strength or what they consider strength that's

how escalation starts and things get you know like if you feel like you always need to respond to a charge of weakness with, well, I'm now going to show you that I'm tough. That's when we, that's when wars start. But just these, these arguments are so powerful. If you look back, it fights over the Panama Canal and whether or not the US would give back control of the Panama Canal to Panama.

I like drove American politics in the Carter administration. Reagan demagogued it to the White House. These are going to be very simple, powerful arguments you can make and drives us to do crazy things. That's how we end up in really bad conflicts. It is also because I think the Republicans criticizing this kind of stuff who aren't in power, they know that no one is going to make them follow their ideas to their logical conclusions. Like, OK, you think it sends the wrong signal that we want to get people out, especially young people, if they're going to be in danger?

OK, then you want to defend those places? Do you want to send in troops? Do you want those troops to be there in case of some sort of a conflict? Do you want those troops to fight Russian troops? Do you want to have a war with Russia? What value does a spouse of a diplomat what how is that sending a signal about anything it's getting like the russians just got the spouses of their diplomats out like two or three weeks ago right acknowledging the reality of the situation yeah it's dangerous but i do wonder and

love it you mentioned it about this sort of divide among republicans where there are some like your tucker carlson's and your paul gosars who are basically like we are isolationists you know america first to us means america does not get involved anywhere else we have no business um in ukraine or from tucker you get more like putin's totally reasonable there's like a mix of pro-putinism and traditional isolationism, which has always been a wing of the Republican. Right. I think I think you could say that you have like you have neocons, you have paleocons and then you have fascicons. Right. And there's like there's like really is like three groups now. And you have the neocons that want to like they want to defend democracy.

They want to they want American foreign policy to be more bellicose. They want to kind of be as aggressive as humanly possible. You have isolationists. And then I think you do have right-wingers led by people like Tucker Carlson, who's I think in Hungary as we speak, who have absorbed a lot of kind of pro-authoritarian and pro-Putin propaganda about he is this vanguard,

a defense of conservative values, of traditional values. It's part and parcel of him being anti-gay. It's part of traditional gender roles and all the rest. Yeah, sort of like a white authoritarian religious amalgamation that he likes in people like Putin or Viktor Orban or others. And yeah, I mean, Tucker's trying to claim, Tucker does this sort of whataboutism false equivalency thing where he says, if China controlled the government of Mexico, we'd be upset by that. It's like, yes, of course. But saying that Ukraine has the right to join NATO if they want is not the same as saying they're controlled by NATO. Far, far, far from it. I don't know this for sure because we haven't seen enough polling on it yet.

But if I were to bet, I would bet that the Republican base would be more with Tucker and the Paul Gosar position than it would be with the warmongers. I think most Americans

are in the isolationist camp. Yeah, me too. Well, which is why all the conversation that we've had and you guys have on Positively the World about the blob, like the blob does not actually represent

most popular opinion in this country no the blob is very much of the mindset that we have to be strong and getting a tough ghanistan show that we are weak and how dare you talk about nato expansion as a problem right that that is a very dc thing and i think trump really um hastened the the you know sentiment of the Republican Party into the sort of like push them into this isolationist corner where Tucker is anyway. incursion remark from the press conference saying like oh he invited them in he gave him the green light which of course smart trump right he's going to do that but then he also said they're talking about sanctions if you want to stop these guys you have to talk about more than sanctions which does make him a little different than the tucker carlson uh view and i wonder how he'll how he'll come down on this i don't think it's a he has to be against anything that biden will do because he's going to call anything biden a failure. Right. Yeah. Yeah. He'll try to split the salami like he did in Afghanistan,

which is say, I negotiated us getting out of Afghanistan. So I was right and it was right to get out, but I would have taken all the equipment and it was bad to leave the equipment and we were humiliated in how we do it. I think what he'll probably say about Ukraine was Obama gave them blankets and non-lethal aid. I gave them the Javelin anti-tank missile. So I was tough on Ukraine, even though you guys impeached me over all this stuff. Biden's just weak generally. And Putin wouldn't have done this to me, yada, yada, yada. And he didn't in the years that I was there.

Yeah. And that might work. Yeah. Fun times ahead on that one. When we come back, Lovett grills Jen yeah with a tone that would make peter ducey blush it's been one year since president joe biden was inaugurated and the classic gift to mark a one year anniversary is of course an unyielding river of shit joining us now she is the white house press secretary and friend of the pod j Jen Psaki. Jen, welcome back.

Thank you. That was quite an introduction. I don't know how to follow that now, but now you're going to ask me a question about the river of S, bleep, bleep, bleep, you just phrased. I was creating a space so that you didn't have to acknowledge it. So how was President Biden's come down after the two-hour press and how soon into the two hour press conference did the post did the post it that said, what are Republicans for fall off? the dust settled from the press conference and the record-breaking nature of it was that he's ready to draw some contrast with the Republicans and make clear what we're for and what our plan is and how we're going to make people's lives better and how they have no plan. The cupboard is bare, as some might say. So he did make that point several times, but it was a two-hour press conference. Did he accidentally take an Adderall that Don Jr. left behind? Like what?

About 90 minutes in, were you surprised by how long it was going? I was in the back and I was thinking, do I cut this off? He seems to be having a good time. He's calling on nearly everyone in the room. So yes, I did have that go through my mind. But what I see here every day, which is so funny because there's been so much focus on when will he have a press conference and we need a formal press conference, which I don't think people in their homes are really thinking about every single day, but he takes questions nearly every day, sometimes multiple times a day. I remember the first or second time I traveled with him, he did three avails on the trip. And I thought, am I going to be fired?

Is this, is this, but I, he enjoys that back and forth. And I think what people saw was some of that for a long time. So I want to talk about the kinds of questions he gets kind of questions you get. I watched your briefing today and I have to come back to this juicy kid. So here's my question. He always he always puts out a gotcha question. Like today, he basically asked two. One was, does President Biden think parents should be under the boot of nameless bureaucrats when it comes to their children's education? And the other was, does President Biden think crime is good? You do not fall for any of this bait, to your credit, though I think someone much worse at your job

would also not fall for these questions. Are you worried that he's not adjusting, that there's not a new strategy to try to catch you in some kind of a gotcha question? You know, I am not here to work for Peter Doocy or Fox, but I will say that, you know, if you look at how it's portrayed and how my answers are portrayed, even when I say, no, we don't think crime is good. And here's all the things we've done, including the thing that makes I think makes Republicans crazy, just anecdotally by the hate hate tweets I get on Twitter when I say this, is that they voted against funding for local cops programs because the American rescue plan also that Biden has supported $300 billion more in funding. And at the same time, he also thinks we need police reform. It's like, they don't know what to do with that. But every time we say that it makes them crazy. I, you know, I think it speaks to, if you look at Fox on a daily basis, I mean, do you remember the four boxes that you had that we had on all the TVs?

Right. Which is on my TV right now. So right now, just to give you a sense. So CNN, Pentagon, as many as 8500 U.S. troops on heightened alert. OK, true. Same on MSNBC. CNBC is doing their own thing about the market. And then on Fox is Jeanine Pirro talking about soft on crime consequences. I mean, what does that even mean? Right. So there's an alternate universe on some coverage. What's scary about it is a lot of people watch that and they think that the president isn't doing anything to address people's safety in New York. And that couldn't be farther than the truth for other places. Yeah, there's I was thinking about this during that press conference. I was thinking

about it during your briefings, which is there is this distinction, right? Trump could go out there and he can just take credit for anything good, cast blame for anything bad. But the big difference is Trump cares most about media that wants him to succeed. And I think Democrats, we care most about media that doesn't really care if And I think Democrats, we care most about media that doesn't really care if we succeed or fail, but is sort of biased towards negativity, negativity for Democrats, negativity for Republicans. The president talked in that press conference about hitting the road. I think implicit in that is that it's kind of hard to get the message out through the normal challenges, channels available to you. How are you thinking about that now as we

head into 2022? Yeah, so true. Everything you said. Look, I think there's a reality of this. There's like a passion for panic. I don't even know what to call it out there. And, you know, you look at some of the things. Are there challenges and things that have not gone well? Yes, I will acknowledge that. I'm not suggesting otherwise, but there are things like nothing on the shelves. You cannot find anything on the shelves when statistically 88% or 89% of shelves are stocked, right? So that's a little, you know, there are things like that, that there's always a little element of panic that people are looking for, or, you know, nobody's vaccinated. It's a disaster. Nobody will get vaccinated. 87% of the country has gotten at least one dose. A lot of those people don't like the president or me or

you or, you know, anyone we know. So those are some, there's a pursuit of that, which is a reality that, that is challenging, but we're not going to solve on our own. So what we're trying to do is really think about how to get the president. You engage, of course, the White House press corps is hugely important. It's not that. But figure out how to get him outside of the box of Washington, right? It's interesting when you have him engaging. And this is not only for him. This is what's true of our former boss, former President Obama as well, and others. And you get them out in a town hall meeting, right? Or you get them out and they have a conversation at a grocery store or at an ice cream shop. The conversation is more likely about things

that are actually impacting people's lives. The same as of local media interviews, local media is still one of the most trusted sources of information. There's also, and it's so funny, because I remember when we did some of this, it was so controversial. Like we weren't, you know, back in the Obama days where we were just like not respecting the sanctity of the presidency. We're doing something like a podcast

or Pod Save America, right? Or doing engagements with digital figures with something so outlandish and kind of out of the ordinary. But also let's be real, more people listening, more people viewing, more people consuming that information about what's actually happening in their lives than is necessarily in every cable chyron every day. And so it's trying to, you know, kind of move outside of that and get him out, get him out in the country more, which, again, we're not the first White House to think about that and talk about that. But it's something he loves.

He lights up. You know, I think he could spend every day on the road if that was possible in his schedule. I remember there was the there was a selfie stick fiasco and then there was also a YouTuber and there was like a bathtub. It was so. Yes, it was a big was like a bathtub. It was so controversial. It was a big deal at the time. It was a big deal at the time. But yeah, you have to do all of it. I mean, that's the thing. And also our job is not, our jobs here is to reach the American public. It's not to do it through specific forums and you have to do it through lots of forums. So obviously there's this there's this

bias towards controversy, this bias towards negativity in the press. But on the other hand, it does seem as though a lot of our listeners, I think, feel pretty discouraged right now. They see some dismal polling. They're waiting on tests in the mail during this Omicron wave. They see two Democrats stalling the president's agenda. They see foreign policy crises. And they're worried because not because they they think Joe Biden is magical, but because they's agenda. They see foreign policy crises and they're worried because not because they they think Joe Biden is magical, but because they believed you. They believed us when we said that democracy depends on President Biden and Democrats delivering. What do you say to those listeners? I mean, I say a couple of things. We feel your frustration and understand it. And

and we sit in it, too, sometimes. Right. We're frustrated that voting rights didn't get passed. I mean, how is that even pop? Why would anyone be opposed to protecting vote? It doesn't even make sense. Right. You have these 16 Republican senators who have supported it in the past and now all of a sudden they don't. I mean, Mitch McConnell wrote about it in his book. He was so proud of his support for voting rights. Right. So some of it also doesn't make sense. I don't know. I'm not saying that's the only driver of it, but it's like it feels like how could anyone oppose these things that seem so common sense? What I would say is that things are going to get better. And on covid, which we know is the root frustration for everybody for good reason. which we know is the root frustration for everybody for good reason.

You know, if you look at it and you're a scientist, there's that, but also just as a human being, you want to go out to restaurants. You want to go to concerts. You want to not wear a mask everywhere. Everybody's sick and tired of this. I am with you. We are all with you. And the good, the good news, if we can just look for a little bit of good news is that we're seeing peaks of Omicron in lots of parts of the country, not everywhere. And it's starting to come down. Also, in this period of time, as much as we know we should have done more on tests earlier, we are going to be at a point, and we're almost there, where people should be able to get tests in their pharmacies.

They should be able to get reimbursed for them. They can order tests online. They can go to testing centers, and they should be more available. Same with masks. We also just ordered a massive supply of antivirals, which is this pill that is a game changer. And it's going to take some time to get a huge enough dose available, but we're going to have all these ways of treating it. So we're not going to live like this forever.

And I think, and we think, and the polls, I think show us that this is a huge driver of people's psychology, right? I'm the child of therapists. So maybe I'm going to go there for a second, but it impacts your mental health, right? Even if you feel like, oh, I don't, it's not, it's impacting everybody. And that's a reality too. I'd also say, and you know, you and I've lived through this too,. And the many uses of the the arc of more I'm going to butcher this this thing. You know what I'm trying to say? The moral moral arc of the universe. The moral arc.

It's long. It bends towards justice. Right. OK, you're the speech writer. So I'm going to just tap into your it's like a long time ago. It's a phone a friend. But that's also true. Right.

And we can't I mean, voting rights is such a good example. This is not now that we just give up. This is now when we figure out what's next and what the next path is. The last thing I would say is it is frustrating. We can't get our agenda past all of it. We've gotten a lot past, even with the majority. The majority is so narrow. And we knew that would be a challenge from the beginning. But this in some ways is a tough, I mean, in many ways, it's a really tough experience, right? Because we feel like we have Democrats, why can't we push this through? And because we need every single one of them. That's how Congress was designed, how that branch of government was

designed. So this should also be a motivational tool for having more people that we can lean on as another thing. So I guess I'm an optimist by nature, but it's going to get better. It's freezing cold here, and we're still fighting a pandemic. And meat is still too expensive in the grocery store. But we're moving in a better direction. And I think that often, hopefully, will be the driver of people feeling like there's good days ahead. Yeah. I do think about how much just the different, the middle of last year,

just done, just passed a massive relief bill. It was before Delta and we were heading into this fight over Build Back Better. The only question was how big it would be. And I think there was some assumption. I think it was something shared by a lot of people that there's a version that will get Manchin and Sinema to yes. And we don't know what that version is, but we have to negotiate and push and make our put our best foot forward. And at the end of the day, they will come to a yes on something. And right now, we still haven't gotten that. Yes. Today, there was a meeting on an electoral count act reform. there was a meeting on an electoral count act reform. There's been some question about what exactly Joe Manchin is for in terms of the chunk that he would get behind. What happens now? A big chunk. Do we now just say to Joe Manchin,

like, you write the fucking bill. What happens? I wouldn't say that myself exactly in those words as much as I had my statement from a few weeks ago. I think a lot of this is, you know, you heard the president say last week in the press conference that he doesn't want to be the legislator in chief. Right. And he doesn't. And what that means is he's not going to spend his time behind closed doors for hours at end in the Oval Office meeting and negotiating with senators. They legislate themselves. That's what the branch of government does. We have a very experienced legislative staff. They'll work with them when they need to. So ultimately, it's never going to be a bill that's just by one senator, whether it's Joe Manchin or not. But they will have to work out what they can get agreement on. Now, here's the good news. I'm just going to go to the place of light every now and then for you.

There's agreement about some basic overarching themes, right? That we have to do something on climate. Agreed, right? We had a historic investment in there. There's agreement on cutting the cost of childcare, universal pre-K, that's hugely important part of that. Not that we would be satisfied with that alone, but creating universal pre-K program would be a historic thing to happen, even on its own. And there's agreement about negotiating the price of prescription drugs. There's more beyond that, that there's lots of

support for, and there'll be discussion about. But there are some key components that across the board and for raising taxes on the highest income. So that's a good baseline, right? Something beyond that, something about that. But they have to figure out what we have 50 votes for. And then we have to get it across the finish line. But we're working on that. We're not giving up.

We're still working on it. Yeah, I mean, like you, I know from our time working for President Obama that the State of the Union isn't just a deadline for the public. It's an internal deadline, too. It's a kind of and especially in a midterm election. This is one of, if not the last chance for a president to have an audience of the entire country to make a case. Is there is there some sense that that is a deadline for getting pieces of Build Back Better through the Senate or at least to have a plan or something? Something we could say like this is what our this is what we will be bragging about when we start traveling the country this summer. You know, I think we see it more as kind of a kickoff than an end, right? I'm not saying we're not

going to talk about Build Back Better and the components between now and then. There'll be lots of conversation about it. But the thing about the State of the Union, that even with all of the changing dynamics of media and how people consume information, is it's one of the only times every year that, as you said, people are listening to the president. So it's kind of laying out to the public where you are, but also where are you going from here? Kind of who are we and what are we fighting for? And you're giving direction to your party and to Congress as well. So, you know, I don't think we look at it as a deadline or the end of anything, right? We'll see. There's obviously a lot that needs to happen in terms of funding the government, you know, over the next several weeks. Also,

there's this bill you see got very poorly named, but the most important thing about it is got a lot of funding for chips for cars to make them less expensive. Those are a lot of things that will happen. And we're going to see what's possible in these conversations, but I wouldn't, we don't think of it as a deadline or the end. We think of it as kind of like a launch. So, yeah, people will hear like where we go from here. So I want to ask about Ukraine in part because I do think that like this has been a year defined by crises and the press and Republicans laying them at the feet of President Biden and then the Biden administration demonstrating agency where possible, whether it's around inflation or COVID foreign policy crisis.

A lot of people see reports about a potential invasion. It looks frightening. It looks dangerous. But a lot of times the press skips a step about why it's important, what it means for the U.S., why this is of such great interest to our foreign policy. Can you talk a little bit about that? Yes. Thank you for asking that question. Look, I think that we are not talking about sending U.S. troops to the border of Ukraine and Russia. So it's not as people think about

our engagement in a war like they would in other scenarios. And that's an important thing for people to understand. But to your point, there is a basic values proposition here, right? And the president has talked a lot about democracies versus autocracies. There also is a value that the United States has long been a subscriber and advocate, a leader on, that you can't just go and invade and take another country's territory, right? That's not how it should work. And so the challenge here, which is honestly challenging to communicate, is that we know that President Putin and the Russians are going to make a decision about which path, which choose your own adventure they're going to take, right? And that what we can do is lay out what the consequences

will be. But the reason we've been so strongly out there on this is because this is about sending a clear message with partners around the world about who we are and what we should stand for. And we don't stand for other countries invading one country, invading other countries, or trying to steal their territory. And we don't stand for what they've also been doing, which is pushing what we call false flag operations, where they are spreading misinformation to lay the predicate for them to do exactly that. So it is about something bigger than that, even though we know that it's really ultimately up to President Putin to decide what step he takes. I started by referring to a certain kind of river,

obviously, as a joke, but also like presidents are expected to have agency over all things in the press, in the public. And when a presidency is confronted by so many big crises at once, an economic crisis, a COVID, foreign policy crises, a crisis in our democracy, there is an expectation, especially on the part of the press, that any problem is a problem the president owns and any failure to make things better is something they're responsible for. Obviously, that's not always true. And you have to push back and say, here's where our power is, here's where it isn't. Here's what the Fed can do about inflation. Here's what the president can do. But then there's a risk in that of seeming like an

observer, of seeming like a passenger to events. How do you think about that? How do you make sure you're conveying like, here's where the actual authority is, right? This isn't an all, we don't have a dictator. Here's where it isn't without seeming like you're kind of giving into events. Right. Or without over explaining. I mean, you and I both know there's nothing, any elected official I've ever worked for, and maybe this is an endearing quality that they have, they want to explain everything, right? Which I admire. But there's also a reality that the pace is never going to be the pace that

is going to meet the demands of the press corps, but also meet the demand and sometimes of the public, right? If you look at inflation, the Federal Reserve, as you mentioned, it's under their purview. They're predicting it's going to moderate this year. That's a good thing. They have tools they can use. They're independent. They do their own thing. We don't control that, right? There are things, and it's kind of the thing that's been, I think, frustrating or maybe we could all do better at, including how people cover this, is when we talk about inflation, what do we mean? We're talking about how costs impact people, the public, right? It's not all because of one issue. There are lots of different issues that impact. So this is where I get into the explaining, but I'm going to do a very shorthand

version of this. This is an example. The supply chain, right? One issue, big issue. We never talked about this for years. Now it's become such a big issue, which the supply chain is overall good because overall it lowers our costs. But COVID has a huge impact because if a manufacturing place shuts down in Malaysia or China, and they're not making a piece of a pencil, then we're not going to get those pencils, right? And also people are buying tons of goods. So we've had to do a lot to ease that. That's that's working. That's moving in a better direction. That's good. That is why we're getting shelves stocked and why things are getting better. But there are two other big issues. One is the competition. So meat is my favorite example of this. If you're going to go make chili because it's cold here, although you live in a warm climate, so maybe you're making hamburgers.

I don't know. No, it's freezing here. It's almost 60. Oh, my God. Stop. I'm sad right now. I'm wearing Uggs under my desk. That is about meat companies taking advantage of people thinking prices are higher and raising their prices.

You know, that is a different issue, right? So, and then the third thing is cars. And that accounts for about one third of inflationary pressures. And it's expensive to buy a car these days, right? But that's because we don't have enough manufacturing chips in the country, which is something we have to solve longer term and why we got to pass this bill. So we have more chips so we can sell more cars, meaning it's kind of complicated in some ways to explain, but the more we can tell people, okay, cars, they're expensive. Here's because of what competition they're taking advantage of this. And there are some bad actors that are taking

advantage of everybody thinking prices are high. They're terrible. And some of it is inflationary pressure, but you know, that's a challenge and that doesn't always fit into a tweet or kind of a, a short, I don't know, 30 seconds soundbite, which is part of the challenge. How annoying was that pushback from economists on the, on it may be going too far to talk about competition when it comes to high prices? I'm like, no, there's, There are some days where you just think that's not. Don't die on that hill. So I think that was not advice I took, I'll just say. I think the meat example is one people can completely relate to, right?

Because you know if you do grocery shopping for your family, for your couple, whatever, your life, your roommates, you know that they're more expensive. And this is why. It's not because of some mysterious inflationary thing out there. Last question. End of the day, what are you streaming to fall asleep? Can I also ask you for recommendations, too? Because, oh, streaming to fall asleep. Or just to stay asleep. Can I also ask you for recommendations too? Because, oh, streaming

to fall asleep. Or just to, or to stay awake, whatever you, whatever you're using streaming to do. That's good. That's allowed. So, um, I just, I watched dope sick on Hulu over Christmas. It's very good. It's a little dark. I couldn't sleep some nights. It's not helping me sleep. Just to chill out? Was not helping me sleep. Okay, fair. I also just finished Emily in Paris. Tommy's favorite show. I love Emily. Fair. Okay. I also love, I've been watching Queer Eye. I need a little shows that I cry every Queer Eye episode, which I don't know what that says about me. I just love the journey that they're on. But I've also watched a lot of football lately,

which surprises me a little bit. But it's a good sports is an exciting escape. And I'll be watching like everything in the Olympics. What about you? What are you streaming now? I need recommendations. Yesterday, it was Sunday afternoon, and Ronan and I went to eat lunch at a restaurant outside. And when we got there, they said, I'm sorry, we're not doing any outside seating right now because of the game. The big game is on. And Ronan said, what kind of game? Which I thought was very, we don't know. We don't know about the games. I'm in a drag race place. That's what's happening. We're watching season after season of drag race.

I have caught up to season 14, which is currently airing. We're about to finish. 14 seasons. Now, this is the kind of thing I need, you know? Listen, here's what I would say. I would say you can. I would recommend starting with season three and just cruise three, four, five, six, seven. That is just a murderer's row of drag race seasons.

Then we'll talk about all stars. If you get to that point, we can talk about all stars. But I would not recommend all stars until you've gotten into the heart of the original. You know what I mean? Well, I have a lot of streaming to do. The good news is that it's 20 degrees here and I have two small children.

So I can stream things. That's great. And I like the idea and I have two small children. So I constrain things. That's great. And I like the idea. I take my homework seriously. I think exposing kids to queer culture as early as possible is very important. So as long as they're in the vicinity, if they can hear it, that'd be very exciting too.

Okay, done. Jen Psaki, everybody. Thank you so much for coming on. Thank you. All right. Before we go, there have obviously been quite a few headlines lately that don't instill a lot of confidence about the future of democracy. But which story should you really worry about? Which ones should you sort of worry about?

And which ones can you safely avoid clicking altogether? We will help you figure it all out in a new segment we're calling Democracy Doom Scroll. I'll tee up the headline and the three of us will rate it on the following scale. One, keep scrolling. Two, wouldn't lose sleep over it. Three, would lose sleep over it. Four, experiment with a new drug. Five, have you considered Canada? Have you considered? Just consider it. You guys ready? Sure. All right. First headline

is from USA Today and it reads, Newt Gingrich, January 6th committee investigators may face jail. That's right. During a Fox News interview on Sunday, the former speaker and presidential candidate actually said that if Republicans take control of Congress in the midterms, the members of the January 6th select committee could face jail time. Take a listen. You're going to have a Republican majority in the House and a Republican majority in the Senate. And all these people who've been so tough and so mean and so nasty are going to be delivered subpoenas for every document, every conversation, every tweet, every email. And I think when you have a Republican Congress, this is all going to come crashing down and the wolves are going to find out that they're now sheep. And they're the ones who are in fact going to, I think, face a real risk of jail for the kind of laws they're breaking. Newt thinks you need to subpoena tweets feels like there's a there's a faster way

to i didn't even think about that get at those i didn't think about that part you know um happy 30th anniversary to newt gingrich uh launching a campaign to become speaker of the house uh in 1994 it is 30 years ago bill clinton wins 20 yeah now we're in the, this is the cycle. This is when he was getting ready for the cycle. Would they win 54 House seats, nine Senate seats? And I was thinking as I saw Newt, I was like, wow, he really did usher in this horrible era. He really did. He credits to Newt. I think you can pinpoint it.

You can pinpoint it with Newt. Remember when he was sitting on a couch with Nancy Pelosi talking about climate change, I believe? Yeah, lots changed in 2005. That was wild. He's bad. Remember when he was sitting on a couch with Nancy Pelosi talking about climate change, I believe? Yeah, lots changed in 2005. Those were the days. It's wild. Yeah, they were climate change. The Voting Rights Act was passed unanimously. Immigration reform was bipartisan.

It was really a... He was an almost successful presidential candidate in 2012. Yeah, but that's because he wasn't crazy enough. I'm not losing sleep over this. No. Because I'm not an investigator on the hill i also like adam schiff adam schiff we might bump you up to woodloo sleep yeah you might might go to three i mean like i do i do think it's clear that they view politics is just

about reprisal and punishing the guys who went after you trump says it all the time too this doesn't surprise me at all yeah i was gonna say the only reason i wouldn't do a keep scrolling is because like look it's never good when uh you know a prominent person in one party is uh saying that people in the other party uh could probably face jail time i don't think that's good but like what he's saying there is just like yeah so if they take control they're gonna subpoena all the people on the committee which i'm sure if the people on the committee get that subpoena they will comply because that's usually what people do who aren't like right-wing crazies um and then they'll comply and then that'll be it and they won't go to jail i wouldn't leave lose sleep over newt sucking i would lose sleep and

have or the fact that it would probably be a huge applause line and if our adam schiff i would experiment with a new drug and that drug would be just ground chuck wait this was sort of adjacent to a lot of the rhetoric you saw out of the like insane anti-vax lollapalooza over the weekend in washington dc where there were just like constant uh uh speeches about punishing locking up we should have there would have been a good story to do for this that one i would have given i would have maybe given that one experiment with a new drug right well you'd robert f kennedy twice you would have robert f kennedy jr saying at least in world war ii you could hide like anne frank apparently not knowing how that ended didn't read the end of the book didn't finish didn't jfk jr must be turning over in his bed seeing what his nephew is up to and then then you had other guys,

other speakers. Because he's alive. Other speakers talking about executing their enemies, including the press. So yeah, there's a real scary streak in these folks. That was worse than the Gingrich thing.

They're not talking about just being anti-vaccine and not having vaccine mandates. They want to punish the people who believe in those things. And it's a lot of people. And there are a lot of people that Trump is going to want their votes so yeah good luck everybody the second headline is from politico read the never issued trump order that would have

seized voting machines by the way happy 15th to politico i know they were celebrating themselves over the weekend so so many times so much celebration so funny to have like six big pieces by politico about politico about how great politico was you know what as we approach our five-year anniversary crooked i support anything you do to blow out an anniversary shame on the two of you for for going after a fellow uh fellow journalists i can't even continue it i can't continue it so here's the story by the way way. It was a good story. Politico does good reporting.

Sometimes. Apparently, the January 6th committee has obtained a never-released draft executive order that would have directed the defense secretary to seize voting machines and appoint a special counsel to investigate the 2020 election, a move that could have kept Trump in power until at least mid-February. Seize voting machines. and power until at least mid-February. Seize voting machines! It's not clear who wrote it, but Politico notes that it's consistent with proposals that Sidney Powell made to Trump after the election. The memo also included references

to two classified documents, which meant the author had access to that information. Sounds like a doozy. What do you guys think? Yeah, that's Canada. That's a full-on... That's what happens in places like Egypt, where they a state of the emergency and the military takes to the streets and clears out the protesters and then you're in a dictatorship. Didn't happen.

It didn't happen. I'm going to say, just for the purposes of our conversation, I'm going to say, might lose sleep over it, might experiment with a new drug. Which one? Well, let's work on finding a new drug yeah come up with a list of new drugs we'll see what we'll see what's on there um what was i gonna say something for restless legs yeah sure yeah um hydroxychloroquine uh the the uh what was it oh um here's what i was gonna say you want one now what i was gonna say no i'm not i'm not it's four of 30 monday hey it's it's 2 a.m somewhere the uh yeah uh what i was gonna say is only that it reads like the ramblings of a very bad lawyer because you send that to the defense department they're like it's a it's a i i think that like the memo represents a grave crisis and

a sure consider canada situation but the actual memo itself kind of points to the intersection of the the evil and the incompetence that went into this whole damn operation because it's like okay i i don't have people that can do that. I'm the secretary of defense. I work at the Pentagon. I'm going to have to do what it's like. The idea of this defense secretary acting on this crazy memo is probably a reason it's a draft and not something that happened. That's no cause for comfort, but I'm just, just taking the other side. You know, I understand. I mean, I think I'm somewhere between, uh, experimenting with the new drug and canada maybe i'm maybe this maybe i'm going to experiment with a new drug in canada um i because i think

like putin the reason the reason it didn't happen the reason nothing worse happened is because the trump administration was staffed with like a bunch of really crazy trump loyalists and some just like regular people right like we don't have to they're not heroes whatever they're right there and here's the thing they're not heroes and there were enough people like for example mike pence deciding not to try to overturn the election right yeah break pence isn't a hero but we caught a break there so there are enough people that would prevent that prevented trump from doing the unthinkable um the next trump administration if there is one you could imagine being staffed with just the fucking crazies yes pure crazy defense department

state department ag's office all of them and someone writes that memo and he actually does it next time well that's the mission that's the worry that's like the ban and mission right now is just to purge all the normals. Purge the normals. You might say it like this. Election officials, et cetera. The Trump administration went from people who thought Mike Pence was a bad hang to people who thought he was a good hang. You know what I mean? Yes, I do.

That's a good joke. Wow. That's it. We're done with that one. We can't improve upon that. It's pretty good. The last headline is from CNN, and it reads, DeSantis' proposed election police force alarms voting rights advocates.

I don't know why I think that's funny. It's just like, oh, does it? Yeah. Oh, no shit, really? Like, what year are we? DeSantis' proposed election police force. So the story is about how the Florida governor has asked the Florida legislature for $5.7 million to create a new Office of Election Crimes and Security, a 52-member team including 20 police officers

that would report to DeSantis himself and have the power to, quote, investigate, detect, apprehend, and arrest anyone for an alleged violation of election laws. How fun is that? Great idea, right? What do you guys think? I can see it going either way.

Here's my thinking. I'll tell you, I'm of two minds. On the one hand, I think to myself, hey, this is all shadowboxing. There is no massive electoral fraud problem in any part of this country. And if you want to go ahead and create a police force designed to go after the incredibly rare event of election fraud, that's a better use of their kind of

political capital than what they're doing to restrict the right to vote, right? Like, if that's what you think is a way to assuage the kind of Trump wing of your base, Ron DeSantis, on your epic quest to become the next Trump, okay, I'm not as worried about that as I am about other things. But then I also, obviously, I worry about what happens if these kinds of forces are stacked with the kinds of people

that'd be very interested in getting assigned a right-wing anti-voting task force. And I worry what those people would do with authority. And I worry what it would be if it's taken to its logical extreme. That's all. Yeah, so what are these people doing all day?

20 cops, like 30 investigators kind of yeah 30 people who've had uh who are experienced but use that term loosely in uh election law and then 20 police officers here there's like 20 million people in florida well i was gonna say so stretch the touch also also you read through the story and towards the end of the story it notes that every police officer in florida or anywhere else at this point already has the authority of course to investigate and prosecute of course so it really has it's a task force right let's focus on that yeah it is something to you know burnish desantis's credibility with the base even more these wants to run for president so it's a

complete stunt now is it a good thing to have like you said 52 extra people in florida paid by the state whose job it is to just sit every day and make up fucking election fraud no that's not a good thing but is is he like is this like ron desantis raising an army to go arrest voters like and i will say one of the one other thing i'll say too is i think the reason for it to be really trash it's trash the reason for it to be concerning is one thing that we have seen is because of the kind of vim and vigor with which these people have embraced like misinformation, that there are some grand schemes against grand voters fraud schemes going on across the country is what inevitably happens is somebody who's on parole person of color screws up. they get the fucking book thrown at them. They're people that are rotting in jail because they made a mistake and voted in violation of a rule they didn't understand. And all of a sudden they're targeted

and pointed as an example of the wretched voter fraud that stole the election. And then you have these, this basically this group of this task force led by the governor kind of looking for examples, people that they can make examples of. And that is really worrying too. Yeah, I mean, the thing that's so awful in Florida is, you know, in 2018, you have like

65% of the state voting to approve an amendment that would have restored voting rights to one and a half million Floridians, something like that, who had had felony convictions and who completed their terms. And then DeSantis basically puts all these hurdles in place. You have to pay off all these fines. They create this Kafka system where you can't even figure out how much you owe. And they basically just completely blocked the will of the people and left these folks fully disenfranchised. That to me is an absolute travesty of justice and is the thing that would be, that's my

move to Canada in terms of Florida. Well, I was going to say, do you know, the thing that would be, that's my move to Canada in terms of Florida. Well, I was going to say, do you know what else would have re-enfranchised all those formerly incarcerated Americans in Florida and everywhere else? The Freedom to Vote Act. Yeah. Or beating Ron DeSantis. Or beating Ron DeSantis.

I'm going to, I'm going to, I'm going to give it, I'm going to experiment with a new drug. I'm going to say, wouldn't lose sleep over it. But I got my eye on it. We got our eye on it. We got to keep an eye on it. Watching it. And look, if you are concerned about We got our eye on it. We got to keep an eye on it. Watching it. And look, if you are concerned

about any of these stories, the best thing you can do, if you want to experiment with a new drug, that's on you. I would stay here and not really go to Canada. And I would go

to votesaveamerica.com and see how you can help win elections in 2022 because that's how you're actually going to stop all these things from happening. You can do both.

You do some ayahuasca and then you start rolling cause and you're like, is marjorie smith there are you aware that they're all horses all of our opponents are horses now here's a question i know the answer to did you read uh matthew mcconaughey's book i did not i missed it i'm pretty sure there's a story in there of him taking ayahuasca going on like a spiritual journey walking up a mountain walking down

and climbing into a cage with like a tiger or a mountain lion and just hanging out and like feeling their energy doesn't surprise me at all seems like a good time

doesn't surprise me at all but didn't I'm surprised I can't believe the guy didn't run for governor that's the only surprise this close I wonder what

kept him he's got a great hair guy great well he got a great Matthew McConaughey went to a great hair guy I don't know who that hair guy was but he was a great hair guy great well he got a great matthew mcconaughey went to a great hair guy fun i don't know who that hair guy was but good hair guy wait like barber or something nope yeah no no no harder are you talking like elon musk paypal yes elon musk you bet i am okay i get it i know this is sounding like the very end of the pod but before

we actually hit the end of the pod all kinds of shit we have a clip that you all need to hear that maybe you all have heard at this point you're listening to it sometime on tuesday 100 chance they've heard it but if not here it is this is hopefully you got through the ukraine at the end of a uh press availability on monday afternoon uh and and the the question you hear shouted at him comes from one peter ducey of fox news let's play the clip that's a great asset more inflation what a stupid son of a bitch so so peter ducey asked him i don't know if you heard the beginning peter ducey did ask him mr president is the inflation a political liability and joe biden standing up there looking like he was giving prepared remarks into the microphone.

Yeah, it keeps being described as a hot mic. I mean, normally that is like a lav that, you know, Billy Bush left on and walked to the bathroom or something like he was speaking. You're in a hot mic right now, Tommy. Yeah, I'm I'm I'm hot micing right now as I'm speaking into the mic that is on. It's funny because I asked Jen if Ducey needed to adjust his strategy because he's always asking these gotcha questions and nobody takes the bait. And I guess all he needed was patience. Yeah.

And there's a lot of reactions to this, shockingly. This is one of those easy things where everyone will have a take and it'll probably be on cable news for several days. Too long. Fox News, two weeks

because they love to be about themselves. is there a better way to speak to the needs of americans concerned about inflation sure oh no was this a serious question about inflation no everyone wins here joe biden vents we all get to laugh peter ducey gets more airtime everybody peter ducey was pretty inflated after that yes well here's the not peter doozy went from 6 p.m to to midnight oh my god oh wow sorry is that a get him the greek reference to you i think so to take to take the criticism seriously just for a second that this was somehow biden belittling people's concerns about inflation that's not what it was that's not what his answer was like if it was a hot mic moment where he was like fucking inflation who cares you're like that's one thing what he said was like what he said was inflation yeah that's a real asset which is him basically saying like

yeah inflation's up like that's a real political fucking benefit for me of course it's not a benefit it's bad it's bad for everyone like he's recognizing the problem of inflation no the argument being made by actual normal biden fan josh barrow is like you don't want to give yeah fox or conservatives any material to make it seem like you don't care about the thing or being flippant about the thing that they care about i don't think it should be in biden's prepared remarks next time do you think it was i'm not gonna i'm not gonna argue for that but like come on once in a while if i think a lot of our problems would have been solved earlier if somebody had been calling peter

ducy a son of a bitch a little bit more frequently all along the way peter ducy i've never met him he might be a nice person he just he he looks like the legacy admissions bad guy in a college movie you know you know and you know because you see that in the mirror every fucking day oh yeah tommy what is that like no it's funny i guys have played the same frat yeah we probably did because you were interviewing jen today and we were talking about ukraine i watched jen's briefing today and i watched peter and i was like god bless jen because i do not know how she handles these questions every day without throwing the podium they're awesome like his questions it is they're they're awesome questions they're they're so they're like they're i this is

what i said to jen about i was like they're like they're such they're so transparently ganja questions they're like so joe biden he thinks crime doesn't matter right yes or no so so are you telling parents that they can never ever take a mask off their child ever do you think school bureaucrats should have a boot on the neck of parents i i so when you walk in the briefing room right the press secretary goes up to the podium there's a bunch of seats on the side for like the low level press schmucks like I was to sit. I sat through like a year, year and a half of themselves on camera asking the question like it's not a serious it's mostly an exercise in keeping your cool which is actually why jen is exceptionally good at it 99.99 of the time because she is you know a light touch in in terms of just like the conservative media uh doocy's on like the good end of that oh yeah they got newsmax in

there they got oan in there like i was looking at some of the rt people the questions that biden was getting at the end of that press conference when they started calling on all the right-wing media people i'm like i'm trying to imagine all the crooked media hosts sitting in a trump presser and everyone getting a question i mean if trump is re-elected we're getting into that brief we are getting january 6th i mean i think we owe him some questions we should what they all did to biden yeah the newsmax guy is like sir uh can you draw a clock for me like it was like that level of insulting i want to see roads ask a question i would see ira ask a question aaron i would the whole crew of the whole crew asking questions ira would get pretty spicy that's what i'm saying i think it would be good that's what we're looking that's the that's the only silver

lining if there's ever if there's ever a republican administration again which of course there will be i just like the idea it's like uh it's aida sitting next to jim acosta and be like you better defend me what i'm about to do why are you such a bitch you were on the same team defend me you're a little fucking bitch i had a sentence she fires off like three tweets about pegging yeah follow up on that all right i think we've reached the end of the podcast now yeah you're right uh thank you to jen sake for for joining us today after you braved peter ducey you brave john love it you know who's glad he said no to this invite for today ron claim ron was like a hard no scheduling mix-up yeah like stacy abrams and You brave John Lovett. I appreciate that. You know who's glad he said no to this invite? For today, Ron Klain.

Ron was like, hard no. Ron Klain had a scheduling mix-up, like Stacey Abrams and the Biden speech. All right, everyone. We'll talk to you later. Pod Save America is a Crooked Media production. The executive producer is Michael Martinez. Our senior producer is Andy Gardner-Bernstein. Our producer is Haley Muse, and Olivia Martinez is our associate producer.

It's mixed and edited by Andrew Chadwick. Kyle Seglin is our sound engineer. Thanks to Tanya Sominator, Sandy Gerard, Hallie Kiefer, Madison Hallman, and Justine Howe for production support. And to our digital team, Elijah Cohn, Phoebe Bradford, Milo Kim, and Amelia Montuth. Our episodes are uploaded as videos at youtube.com slash crookedmedia.