Pod Save America - Did a Worm Really Eat RFK Jr.'s Brain?

Episode Date: May 10, 2024

Dan and Alyssa Mastromonaco discuss Stormy Daniels's latest round of testimony in Donald Trump's hush money trial. Trump insults Jewish voters and prepares a huge giveaway to Big Oil. President Biden announces he won't send offensive weapons to Israel if the IDF invades Rafah. RFK Jr. says doctors found a dead worm in his brain, and Marjorie Taylor Greene's effort to ditch Mike Johnson goes down in a humiliating landslide. Then, Federal Trade Commission Chair Lina Khan talks with Lovett about all the big moves she's made on antitrust and worker protections. For a closed-captioned version of this episode, click here. For a transcript of this episode, please email [e-mail] and include the name of the podcast.

Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Dan Pfeiffer. And I'm Alyssa Mastromonaco. On today's show, Stormy Daniels takes a stand again in Trump's hush money trial. Trump prepares a huge giveaway to Big Oil. President Biden says he won't send offensive weapons to Israel if the IDF invades Rafah. RFK Jr. says a war made his brain. Joe Biden may be getting results on his abortion messaging.

And Marjorie Taylor Greene's effort to ditch Mike Johnson goes down in a humiliating landslide. Later, Federal Trade Commission Chair Lena Kahn stops by to talk with Lovett about all the big moves she's made on antitrust and worker protections. But first, here with me is the one and only Alyssa Mastromonaco, host of our excellent podcast, Hysteria, former White House Deputy Chief of Staff, my coworker, longtime friend for almost 20 years now. 20 years, yeah. I don't know why I did this. You need no introduction to this audience. Welcome to the pod, and friend for almost 20 years now. 20 years, yeah. I don't know why I did this. You need no introduction to this audience. Welcome to the pod, and thanks for doing this. Buddy, I'm just glad to be here with you.

I'm excited to have you. I learned that you were doing this podcast yesterday. Yeah, I know. I was like, I've been looking forward to this for a month. Well, I knew we were doing it, but I wouldn't say I was reading the spreadsheet very carefully. Fair enough. So it was a wonderful surprise. So here we are.

Okay. Today was Stormy Day. It was his second day on the stand. I will leave it to the very smart legal experts that I follow on Twitter to assess just how effective she was. But I will say we learned a lot. And almost certainly more than we needed to know about Trump. She told us about spanking him with a rolled up magazine, what position they had sex in, and that he called her, quote unquote, honey bunch after they were done. Frankly, this

is the first time that I was glad the trial was not televised. Now, John and Rebecca Katz talked about this some on Wednesday, but Alyssa, I and our audience would love to know just what you think about what Stormy had to say on the stand. Okay, so one, I feel less smart. I am definitely less smart for having been tracking all this. I am troubled. I guess troubled's not the word. I was overly interested in the fact that Trump was interested in whether Stormy got residuals and whether she was unionized as a sex worker. I'm like, was he just figuring out how much money she made? Or was he like thinking about getting in on the action? Like, does he think that he should get something from it?

I mean, today was truly other level, extraordinary. We heard Stormy talk about, or we heard reports of Stormy talking about whether her house was haunted with paranormal activity and came to find out that it was in fact just a possum. I don't know. Frankly, I don't know what's worse, a ghost or a possum. I don't know what's worse. And then the other thing is we watched an entire, again, I keep saying watched. What I did was watch Jake Tapper talk about what he watched.

A whole defense strategy that's literally just meant to keep Donald Trump from rage tweeting. You mean the fact that they used it, Trump's attorneys, instead of trying to deal with the actual crime at hand, tried to call her a liar for this multiply corroborated set of events. Right. Because Trump's like, you better show her up. You better embarrass her. You better make me believe that you're working for me so that I don't take to Twitter to say what I really think or X, truth, whatever he does. You better give me something that I can take to Melania when this is over. Exactly. Right. Because you can't just cop to what actually happened. Like that, even though that this is, whether he had sex with her or not, is actually not relevant to the legal case here. But it had obviously something his attorneys were set to try to, and very awkwardly and

clumsily and pretty ineffectively disprove. So it was, yeah, not a great performance from his mid-tier attorneys. No. A few weeks ago, I spoke to a smart Democratic strategist who was concerned that weeks of testimony about Trump having sex with a porn star would make him seem younger and more virile. What do you think? Did Stormy's testimony actually make Trump seem vigorous or like a giant pervy weirdo?

I mean, that's a layup of a question if I ever. I, look, I want your honest opinion. I'm not trying to lead the witness here. So here's what I'm going to say. A man who we hear about in his boxer shorts and undershirt, not even a t-shirt. Use of the word undershirt is so extreme. It was giving me Rodney Dangerfield vibes every time they were talking about him. And then also, he just kept falling asleep during the trial.

So no, my takeaway from the past week has not been that Trump is virile and ready to go. Look, I am a petty man. And Donald Trump being forced to sit there while gagged to confront his sexual inadequacy and general awkwardness is something that I personally enjoy. And I think that that is a sign that there is a sense of justice in the universe. I'm kind of skeptical that this part of the trial matters in any way, one way or the other. It's just, one, we sort of know people aren't paying a ton of attention to just the fact that the trial is even happening, let alone what's reading the reports on social media of what Stormy Daniels said on trial or watching midday cable television

about what she said on trial. This might be different if this was televised and people could see her say this and the camera pans and Trump is like half sleeping, half fuming, like that could matter. But here- Right. Like you and I, you and I were what, like sophomores in college when the OJ trial was on TV? Yeah. I mean, we were freshmen and sophomores. It was on TV. Freshmen and sophomores. And the verdict was our sophomore year. Yeah. And that was, and I mean, you've got to love it. We're old enough that I will cop to the fact that

when that verdict came out, it was on a loudspeaker across campus because there was no email back then. But it might be different if we could watch it. It might be more riveting. But when you get the readout of this very boring, gross trial, it's like, move on. I mean, it is wild that only a few years after the Rodney King riots, and while people were preparing for riots in the wake of the OJ verdict, however it went, that the natural inclination of America's educational institutions were that if you were in high school, we were going to wheel in a TV so the kids could watch it, or in college, announce the verdict on the loudspeaker. Nothing bad happened, at least where I was, but it's just a wild situation. I don't think that's how the Donald Trump hush money trial verdict will be handled at America's high schools. I don't think you're going to get to watch the jury, or watch, I guess in this case, Jake Tapper tell us what the jury said. But I think there are real political consequences for Trump, or potential political consequences if he is convicted.

All the stuff in the middle is pretty not that big a deal. Yeah. I wouldn't say a nothing burger. It's embarrassing to Trump. And it has these knock-on effects of the more embarrassed he is, the more insecure he becomes, the more he acts like a lunatic. And that has impacts. That's very true.

That's very true. But the testimony itself, no one thought Donald Trump was not a giant pervy weirdo. Like that's really part of his brand. He wears it on his sleeve, right? It might as well be on his hat right under MAGA. So it's not like new information is going to change voters' opinions. But still, like, great. I'm glad we, you know, I don't feel better knowing it, but I'm glad he had to, I'm glad

he has to live in a world where we all know it. And that he has to sit there and watch it all go down. Yeah. And just mutter to himself, you know. And I do think one thing that is clear is that- The muttering is a real thing. Yeah. He muttered bullshit today, I guess.

He, I mean, and we know he cares about this because after the test, the witnesses were done today, his attorneys went back and asked Judge Marchand to amend the gag order to allow him to respond specifically to what Stormy Daniels said, because some of her associates had been on cable TV corroborating the events, and he feels like he has an obligation to talk about it. And that request was denied because, as Judge Marchand said, he couldn't really take Trump's attorneys at their word that it would be a quote-unquote low-key response. So he will not be, I mean, he will probably violate those gag orders, maybe end up in jail for a night,

which would be fun and make for great content on this podcast, at least. You know, I would love that. Yeah, we will. If he goes in prison, we'll have you back. Thank you so much. Okay. On Thursday at the courthouse, Trump also went to speak to reporters, recall the case of sham, but he also attacked President Biden and Jewish voters. Let's take a listen. where he called the case a sham, but he also attacked President Biden and Jewish voters.

Let's take a listen. Biden is doing with respect to Israel is disgraceful. If any Jewish person voted for Joe Biden, they should be ashamed of themselves. He's totally abandoned Israel and nobody can believe it. What Trump was referring to was comments Biden made in an interview with CNN's Aaron Burnett on Wednesday, announcing that he would stop sending certain weapons to Israel if they invade Rafah. Trump also posted a truth accusing Biden of signing with Hamas and funding what he called the, quote, radical mobs taking over our college campuses.

All very subtle stuff, both on Pod Save America earlier this week and then on Pod Save the World. There's been a lot of conversation about the policy implications of President Biden's decision. But Alyssa, I wanted to ask you about Trump's response. Republicans painting Democrats as anti-Israel is nothing new. But what was your take on Trump's attack on Jewish people who voted for Biden? Well, Dan, in 2017, we watched a mob of white supremacist neo-Nazis march with torches and swastikas and guns, chanting, Jews will not replace us and white lives matter, while they were marching to save a Confederate statue of Robert E. Lee.

The end result of this mayhem was that one of their neo-Nazis drove his car into counter-protesters killing a woman. Trump's response to that was there are very fine people on both sides. And so to say that I don't care what Trump's advice to Jewish people, Democrats, et cetera, is an understatement. Yeah, I don't want to delve back into the media criticism that caused me to sort of stumble into a feud with the executive of the New York Times this week. But this is a great example of the double standard that bedevils coverage of Biden and Trump. If Joe Biden had said anything like this, it would be a seven-day story. Every Democrat on Capitol Hill would be asked to disavow his comments, to comment on his comments. Some Democrats would feel politically

compelled to offer a resolution on the House floor condemning Joe Biden for it. And there will be nothing on the Trump side for this. We'll just kind of hear it and move on. Biden will take more shit and be under more pressure to denounce the anti-Semitic signs held by people protesting him than a single elected Republican will be to denounce something that the person that they are supporting for president of the United States said. And so, and I think you, the point you make about Charlottesville is very important here because this is not an isolated incidence. This is not Donald Trump just saying something off the cuff in his wacky way. He has a long history of anti-Semitic tropes. He has shared anti-Semitic memes about his opponents saying

that they're controlled by Jews and money. He has dined with anti-Semites and neo-Nazis like Nick Fuentes and Kanye West. He has reportedly said that Hitler did some good things. Over and over and over again, he does this. And there is less of a reaction from everyone, not just the media, but also Democrats and everyone else. We are in the very tired metaphor of the Trump era. We are the frogs being slowly boiled in the pot. And it is a big deal.

And it is why a lot of the people who marched with him on January 6th, who raided the Capitol, came from organizations with histories of ties to neo-Nazis, with anti-Semitism. It is a part of the movement, a very dangerous part of the movement that he has built in this country. And it shouldn't be ignored. Okay, this got overshadowed by the Israel news, but Biden also used the CNN interview to drive the economic message in some pretty sharp ways. Let's take a listen. Why should people here believe that you will succeed at creating jobs where Trump failed? He's never succeeded in creating jobs, and I've never failed. I've created over 15 million jobs since I've been president.

So we have a very different view. I look at it from physician, not being facetious, from a Scranton perspective. He looks at it from a Mar-a-Lago perspective. He wants to give more significant tax cuts to the super wealthy. We've already turned it around. Look, you look at the Michigan survey.

For 65% of American people think they're in good shape economically. They think the nation's not in good shape, but they're personally in good shape. The polling data has been wrong all along. It's pretty clear why the president is doing this. A new poll from Politico shows he has work to do. According to that poll, of all of Biden's accomplishments, the Inflation Reduction Act is the only one that a majority of poll respondents had heard much about. The election is now, and this kind of pains me to say this, less than six months from now. Listen, as you know better than anyone else, time is a campaign's most limited resource. Do you think it's smart for Biden to spend time reminding people of his accomplishments,

or should he be spending his time talking about his plans for the future, how he's going to improve people's lives, et cetera? Dan, is this where I say both and we move on? No, I mean, no, you have to explain yourself. I'm just kidding. You know, I often, when I write these questions, I will say A, B, or C, and C is always both, but I took the both out for you. No, of course. One, of course it's both,

but Donald Trump has such an easier job here because it's so much easier to sell grievance than it is to get gratitude, you know, which is like kind of what Biden is after. And I was reading something, former Lieutenant Governor of Wisconsin, Mandela Barnes said, which is that so many people in America still remember getting that $1,500 check that Trump demanded to sign himself, right? And so I think now Biden has to, my opinion, and you know, I can be very, look, I'm not saying I'm always right, but I would say that for me, I think

he needs to, Biden does need to do both, but I, in selling the accomplishments, would get as granular as possible. You know, when he talks about creating the jobs, when he talks about, you know, like the big sweeping things he's done, I think that goes over people's heads. You know, people get their paycheck now, they pay their bills and they don't have that much left over and that's what they know.

And so I think that if I were Biden on this in terms of his accomplishments, I would go hyper, hyper local. Pfeiffer, 82% of Americans listen to AM FM radio every week. That cannot be true. I refuse to believe that. It is true. It's 100% true. Source that stat. I don't even know a person who listens to AM FM radio. I do. Of course, of course you do. I'm sorry, Pfeiffer. This is where I have to sit and talk to you about how I'm a normal person and you are an elite. You're an elite.

I'm just a rural girl who listens to her AM FM radio. While making your jam. I know. Yes. Okay. I'm sorry that I took a different route after we left the White House. Okay. But back to my point is that I would get all the surrogates with the list of hyperlocal

accomplishments that he has had, whether it's talking about the fact that he has capped insulin for seniors at $35 a month, whether seniors will not have to pay more than $2,000 out of pocket, which that's a big deal. The fact that they are getting broadband to people. I mean, Pfeiffer, even when we do this podcast every week, I have a landline for God's sake, and it's still, oh, touch and go. But when they told me that we were getting our new ONT boxes because Joe Biden paid for them, you know, and now I have good internet speed. What's an ONT box?

Listen, I can't explain how cable works, how Wi-Fi and cable work to you. But it's faster. Joe Biden gave you faster internet. He did. And so I think that in addition to talking about all the things he's going to do, he does have to deeply explain. Here's something and you might remember this a little bit better than i do but our equivalent of the inflation act when we were in the white house was probably the recovery act right yeah you could go infrastructure like but but in terms of yes the yes yes yes yes that so to me also all of the roads and bridges and ports that he's fixing, all the lead pipe that they're getting rid of so people have clean drinking water. I mean, they need signs up.

We had signs. That's what I remember. I remember the signs. Remember when you go over- You know what they mostly meant to people? This traffic jam brought to you by President Barack Obama when you were stuck on the freeway. Maybe. But that was before the bridges really started collapsing. So people might have a different point of view now. But anyway,

that's sort of my point. I do think that people need to be reminded. But when you speak in sort of lofty general sweeping terms, people just think it's rhetoric. And so I just think it needs to be more granular. I mean, it's all really hard because something like less than a fifth of the money from all of Biden's big accomplishments, CHIPS Act, infrastructure bill, American Rescue Plan, Inflation Reduction Act is out the door. And they're moving at record speeds. They have very smart people on it. Just it takes a long time to get these projects approved, get people to apply for them, get them approved, get shovels in the ground and all of that. And so the idea that people would feel the real world benefits of these things, that have one of the jobs that were created, have one of the businesses that were allowed

to flourish because of the new bridge or the new runway or whatever else, that that would have happened in two years or three years. That's just not how the world works. And so that's very challenging. But you can see, like in Wisconsin where the president was on Wednesday, you can see the place where this new plant is going to be built and can know these things are going to happen. And then you even see this in ads. Biden has this healthcare ad that John and Rebecca talked about on Wednesday. It's a great ad, but it's like saving you $800 a year in healthcare costs. And for some seniors, that is absolutely happening. But for most Americans, you hear that and you're like, if I save you $800, I would know it, right? And so it has to be believable.

And I think his tone in this interview was pretty good. I think most of what they have been doing since the State of the Union is very good. The president gets – the jobs numbers are a sign of success, but they're not the sign of success that people are looking for. It's just all the polling shows that people are viewing this through the prism of cost of living, right? And primarily gas groceries and healthcare and housing are the four things. And primarily gas, groceries, and healthcare and housing are the four things. And the place where I think the accomplishments can be helpful is they're credentialing you as someone who can do something again in the future. And that's where insulin and lower prescription drug costs are very helpful because that's a cost issue.

You got it done despite a brutal political environment. And that's evidence that you can do it again, right? As opposed to, because elections are not about gratitude. They're absolutely not. No, I know. You know, they do not. And that sometimes it feels like Democrats want that, right? There was, we eventually pivot away from this after Dobbs, but much of the messaging that a lot of House Democrats wanted in 2022 was Dems deliver. Right.

Right. We gave you all these things. And it's just not, people, elections always have to be forward-looking, not backward-looking. But the things that you have done in the past and the present can help people understand what you would do in the future.

And so that's sort of how, that's the mix here. I was going to say, even just the progress he has made incrementally, but is still big on student debt relief, right? For sure, yeah. To me, that is a great, but at the same time, you almost wish that Democrats were as,

I don't even know the word, but it's like, I wish that when people got their debt, I have, my veterinarian had her debt forgiven. Get her in an ad. Also, she said that she just woke up one day and she had no more debt. And I was like, didn't you get a letter signed by Joe Biden? Do you know what I mean? I feel like Democrats do everything on the up and up and we're campaigning against somebody who did things just for the appearances.

Well, I mean, very infamously, Obama was presented with the choice in 2009 in the Stimulus Act to give people a massive payroll tax cut that would just appear in their taxes or to send them a check. And the better economic policy, because it puts money – people tend to save checks and then – and we needed people to spend money in the economy. And so we made the better policy decision, but no one knew they got that payroll tax cut. To this day, if 1% of Americans were quizzed on what was at the time the largest tax cut for working class people in American history, no one would pass it. So you are correct in terms of this is always the choice you make. And it's where Democrats are sometimes bedeviled by what our old boss used to call the responsibility gene, right?

We want to do it the right way. It's not even about ethics, right? It's like what is better policy? What's better for the economy? But sometimes what's good policy does not necessarily overlap with the good politics part of the Venn diagram. The Washington Post reported today that at a meeting at Mar-a-Lago last month, Trump has big oil executives to raise him a billion dollars. Yes, that is a billion with a B. And in exchange, he promised it'll be worth it for them because they'll cancel Biden's electric vehicle and renewable energy policies if he wins. I imagine that as we are recording this, the Biden campaign is working on an ad or some other way to

attack Donald Trump about this. But how would you do it? Would you make it about bad environmental policy or make it about Trump being a shill for big corporations? So once again, I would do both. You're going to go both? I'm going to go both. Here's why. Goddammit, I phrased this question so incorrectly. No, but I'm sorry. I'm giving you the breadth of my knowledge. I want it all, yes. No, so one, this was literally just reported days ago. It was the hottest April in history.

Every month since June 2023 has been the hottest month on the planet since we started recording these things in the late 1800s. So what does that mean, Pfeiffer? What does that mean? What that means is that people are going to pay more in their electric bills because they're going to have to use air conditioning. It means produce is going to be more expensive because there are going to be droughts. And basically, I think that it needs to be positioned such that Trump is doing something. He's telling these guys to raise him a billion dollars, some of which is probably going to go to pay his legal fees. For sure.

Right? In addition to his campaign. And who's going to pay the price ultimately for what he's doing? It's going to be the people whose vote he is seeking. So that's my point. It has to be both. Yeah. I mean, the answer is always both, right?

This is always the Goldilocks theory of how you get things done in the world, which is you offer people three choices, right? There's one too hot, one too cold, and then one just right. Right. And C is always just right. But I think that the question gets at an important way to think about politics that I think is Trump has sort of scrambled our brain. Like we, like Trump is this, like here he is, right? He is saying anti-Semitic things. He's on trial right now for a crime. There is someone on the stand telling us lurid and embarrassing details about his sex life. He is going to do a thousand other insane things between when we finish recording this podcast and it posts tomorrow morning.

But maybe politics is not that complicated. Maybe we've overcomplicated that. And someone being a shill for big corporations has been the best message in American politics for decades. decades, and we've sometimes lost it with Trump because we are so concerned about democracy and his authoritarian bent and his racism and his misogyny and his corruption and his criminality that we sort of lose the forest for the trees. And here you have – this is the same thing that happened a few weeks ago where Trump had this – he was doing this fundraiser with all these millionaires and billionaires. And while he was asking them to write, in some cases, up to nearly a million dollars in contributions to him and the RNC, he was promising them a tax cut.

Right? Nothing would send a persuadable voter up in flames faster than something like that. Here you have big oil, right? At a time of high gas prices in this country, Trump is promising big oil executives – he's promising them a bunch of policies in a quid pro quo for a billion dollars in campaign donations. Like that's just a great message. It doesn't matter if the guy who said it is Mitt Romney or John McCain or Sarah Palin or Nikki Haley or Ron DeSantis or someone as extraordinary a threat to the country as Donald Trump, that's just a great message. And we should just sometimes get back to basics and hammer him for that. And there's evidence in polling that people, for all the things they think about Trump, and he has some populist, and when I say populist, I kind of mean nationalist credentials that other Republicans certainly don't have. But his signature accomplishment, and by signature, I mean kind of his only accomplishment

when he was in the White House was a massive tax cut for corporations and the very wealthy. And then by the end of next year, he is going to have to renew that tax cut, which he has pledged he would do and maybe even further lower corporate tax rates for these people who he's soliciting donations from.

And that could add, according to a recent report from the Center for American Progress, $4 trillion to the deficit. Like that seems like just sometimes just like stick to the simple stuff, right? And this seems like a very clear and obvious message here that doesn't have to get sort of pushed through our post-Trump filter. We can just do it like we always did it and drive that message against him. I'm into that. Good, good. I like it. Okay. In some better news, the Biden campaign continues to hammer Trump on abortion, releasing a new ad this week targeted at Latinas. And a poll

from our friends at Navigator Research shows that the number of Americans that believe Trump opposes abortion access is up seven points, and a majority believes he would sign a national abortion ban. This is one of the most hopeful polls I've seen in a long time. I went deep on the numbers in Thursday's Message Box, a newsletter that I'm sure everyone listening to is definitely subscribed to at messagebox.subject.com. I do. I have multiple, multiple subscriptions. And you are one of my favorite and most loyal readers, Alyssa, and I appreciate that. But, Alyssa, I would love to know what you think about this poll and what it says about how the Biden campaign and Democrats should wage the campaign to come. I was heartened by today's message box when I saw it at 6 a.m.

Because that's not often the reaction from people, right? No, I was. No, I was heartened because here's the thing, Fife. The GOP and conservatives try to peddle this like pastel, phyllish, laughly bullshit version of what overturning Roe was going to be. Right. They're like, no, we're just going to save the world from the Samantha's on sex in the city

who are clearly walking around contemplating abortions in the eighth month of pregnancy. Right. abortions in the eighth month of pregnancy, right? And what the entire country has seen is that this is some actual handmaid's tale bullshit. And that what Trump promised was that he would appoint judges that would overturn Roe, or justices rather, that would overturn Roe, and they did. And what has happened since then? It's not just this like, I don't know if people who supported this, who aren't part of the Susan B. Anthony Foundation, thought that this was going to be simple or easy or not as gruesome as it actually is,

but it is. And what he has done has created gynecological deserts across the country where women have to drive hundreds of miles to see an OBGYN. What this overturning, that was his goal, his stated goal of overturning Roe, so he cannot run away from this. No one should let him run away from it. That's why I was so happy to see this poll because I do think it's starting to sink in, I was so happy to see this poll because I do think it's starting to sink in, is that he has now given way, overturning Roe has given way to some of the most psychotic ballot initiatives across the country when people want to stand up and say, oh, but we,

there are exceptions for the life of the mother. Well, let's talk about how that's played out for a second. What has happened is that exceptions for the life of the mother or for rape or incest, right? Okay. Well, in most of these states where this has taken effect, you have to go to the police. You have to report your rapist, which most people, most women, when they're raped, it's not the first thing on their mind. And in terms of the life of the mother exception, well, so many of these laws are so

fucking restrictive that the doctors want no part of this. That's why we have gynecological deserts because OBGYNs are fleeing states with these laws. Because here's the question. Here's the question, Pfeiffer. If you're a doctor, how close to death does a woman have to be? How far into her sepsis does she have to be for a doctor to say, you know what? She is so close to dying. I can't be sued by any of these sort of vigilante laws or any of these other laws that have taken effect. So I am glad it is, you know, the poll to me reflects kind of what we have been seeing in states that have tried to codify abortion into their state constitutions.

So not only do we see, you know, petitioners getting hundreds of thousands of signatures, but we're seeing them in states that have had votes passed by well over 50%. So I think for Democrats, this is a good issue. I am glad that the messaging has taken hold. I mean, even in a lot of the polling among Republicans, they're like, we think it should be legal. This is getting a little out of hand. And so I was happy to see it all.

I felt I was happy, Pfeiffer. Good, good. That was the intended goal, I felt I was, I was happy, Pfeiffer. Good, good. That's, that was the intended goal when I put pen to proverbial paper. I think one of the reasons why I think it's just important to mention this is this race has felt stuck in mud for a very long time. Like all these huge things keep happening. And, you know, maybe Biden's picked up a point here, maybe he's picked up a point there, but it's still the same. And this is particularly true on the issue of abortion, where, you know, of abortion, where this is commonly believed and fully understood as to be why Democrats won in 2022. In 2023, we've succeeded in these ballot initiatives all across the country

that have happened since then, Kansas, Ohio, Michigan, et cetera. And there have been these huge moments that have really broken through in the last few months, right? The Alabama IVF decision, the Florida abortion ban going into effect, the 1864 Arizona law that banned abortion based on a law that was created, a law written before women had the right to vote or Arizona was even a state. Just Donald Trump announcing his position that he's for, he's like, all these things happened and it felt like it was stuck in mud. But polling at this stage of the race is a lot like a duck on water, right? It's very calm up top and very frenetic underneath. And this poll shows that underneath, even if the horse race

hasn't shifted yet, even if Donald Trump hasn't taken a huge hit in his approval rating, which has taken a huge hit in his favorable rating, which is down a little bit, that things are shifting underneath and that voters are coming to see Donald Trump as a real threat to abortion access in a way that they had not before. Even though he is the person most singularly responsible for Roe being overturned, he doesn't seem like your traditional crusading, Phyllis Schlafly, to use your example there, anti-abortion crusader. He's a guy right now on stage in his hometown of Manhattan, New York, on trial for crimes emanating from an affair with an adult film star. He doesn't code in a way in which voters commonly think about the people

who are going to come take their rights and freedoms. But the Biden campaign hammering it, other Democrats hammering it, the press doing a good job of reporting on the consequences of these bans that are in place or being proposed has made a difference. And one of the things that's really interesting in this poll that I get into in the message box is you've seen real movement with Democrats and Biden 2020 voters, or the groups who make up the Biden 2020 coalition. I think that's the right way to say it. But is independence have not really moved yet. And there's a huge swath of independence that we still can go convince about Donald Trump. And so there's like, it's not just that we've made gains, that there's still a lot of potential

upside there to go get over the next six months. So we've made real progress in there. You can see a path to Trump taking on even more water on this issue. And so I think that is very encouraging. And it feels like, as we sit here today, less than six months before the election, that a little encouragement can go a long way. I agree with that. Okay. A couple of quick things before Lovett's interview with Lena Kahn. First, Marjorie Taylor Greene's effort to oust Speaker Mike Johnson came to an embarrassingly quick conclusion. On Wednesday afternoon, she finally called up her long-promised motion to vacate. Here's how excited people were in the room. For what purpose does a gentlewoman

from Georgia seek recognition? I seek recognition to give notice of my intent to raise a question of the privileges of the House. The form of the resolution is as follows. Declaring the office of Speaker of the House Representatives to be vacant. This is the Uniparty for the American people watching. Gentlelady will suspend. The American people watching. Gentlelady will suspend. The Uniparty, aka members of the House with an even remote interest in governing,

voted to kill the resolution 359 to 43, and only 10 Republicans voted with Greene. Alyssa, how much did you enjoy Marjorie Taylor Greene face-planting for all the world to see? I, okay, so there's a lot to enjoy here. First, when the Republicans, I think it was Mike Lawler and a couple others went out to do a little press avail after that whole mishigas on the floor of the house and they called her Moscow Marge. You just love that.

Like when they start name calling each other, I am here for it. And you know, Fife, you know, when she went home last night, she was like rage lifting. She was like, that P90X was, she's sore this morning. That's all I have to say. She is humiliated. The blood vessels were like bulging out of her face. I enjoyed it.

Yeah. I mean, look, anytime something embarrassing happens to Marjorie Taylor Greene, that's a victory for democracy. Anytime. Most of these Republicans spend most of the time pretending like she is a member of the Republican Party in good standing.

They're largely scared of her, of what influence she has. They help her raise money. Because of the rage lifting. Yes. I mean, yeah. I mean, and so to see them turn on her, what influence she has. They help her raise money. They do events with her. Because of the rage lifting. Yes. I mean, yeah. I mean, and so to see them turn on her is enjoyable. It's delightful. I will say, I will say it's just, it is really interesting that Donald Trump not only truthed about this, but he also cut some sort of weird video from somewhere today.

What? Talking about how much he loved her and how she was going to be a big part of the Republican Party and the MAGA movement for a long time, but he did not think they should be going down this path. So I don't know what the deal is there. Maybe it's because, but Trump is sticking with her on this

in a way in which he does not stick with other people. He did not want her to do this. He made his wishes very clear. She did it anyway. And instead of doing what he normally does, which is just turn on that person and possibly send a violent mob to attack them, he went out of his way to praise her.

And it's just a very interesting dynamic about what it is, how he finds her useful, what it is he is afraid of from her. But there's just a very interesting part of that relationship that I think could use a little more scrutiny. There's, you know what it reminds me of? There was like this scene from the movie, How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days, when Kate Hudson's like, I love you, but I don't like you right now. And I felt like that's Trump with Marjorie Taylor Greene. Yes, I think that's right. But to make it very clear that I love you.

Yeah. Trump is not someone who feels a need often to say nice things about people, especially when they've done him wrong. And he does it for her. It's notable, I'd say. I agree. Okay. Finally, independent candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. disclosed that he believes that in 2010, a worm entered his skull and ate a portion of his brain. Yes, you heard that right.

The anti-vaccine conspiracy theory peddling candidate claims to have had a literal brain worm. Frankly, a plot twist we all should have seen coming in this campaign. And in case you doubt this story, RFK Jr. went on Ari Melber's show on MSNBC to put to rest any and all doubts that he is in fact operating on a diminished brain. Here he is talking about pardoning January 6th rioters. President Trump said he was going to end that war. Right, but the question is about those pardons. Would you be open to that or not? What do you mean?

I'm not—listen, I'm an attorney. I was a prosecutor. You were, I think, a legal aid attorney. I was a prosecutor. You were, I think, a legal aid attorney. I was a prosecutor. I would never say in advance, running for political office, who I'm going to pardon and who I'm not. But that's what he's doing, and you're running against him. And I'm asking you as a journalist where you stand on that. I'm not going to do that.

So that will sound to people like you're leaving that door open. You don't need to. Do you want to leave that door open? I'm surprised. I'm not going to leave it open or close. I'm not answering until I look at people's cases. Alyssa, I'm not even really sure what to ask about this, but does the brain worm story kind of explain everything you needed to know about RFK Jr.? It's not just the brain worm. There was more to the story that I feel is not being adequately covered. May I read from the New York Times? Please, please, please. Okay. Quote, about the same time he learned of the parasite, he said, he also was diagnosed with

mercury poisoning, most likely from ingesting too much fish containing the dangerous heavy metal, which can cause serious neurological issues. Dan, he had a brain worm and mercury poisoning. And according to doctors who have treated parasitic infections and mercury poisoning, said both conditions can sometimes permanently damage brain function. So the thing I'd like to point out here, Dan. Please, no. I waited with bated breath to see what comes next here. Thank you. In around 2010, sometime between 2010, 2014, there was a study done. Harvard Business Review got into it. And it was about how when there is a job and qualifications are listed,

When there is a job and qualifications are listed, men will look at the job qualifications and be like, if they hit 50, 60%, they're like, okay, I'm good. Women take qualifications as actual qualifications and want to hit 100% before they throw their hat in the ring. Dan? This I believe. It all checks out. I'm waiting to see how this ties to the brain worms. Sheryl Sandberg got into it with Lean In. All of these publications have written about it.

Dan, only a man with a brain worm would be like, you know what? I have a brain worm. And I think the next best thing for me to do is run for president of the United States. Dan, how many states has he made it on the ballot? Like five? That's a good question. There's a bunch of states where he claims to have reached the requisite numbers of signatures, but those signatures have not been through the full process yet. So I don't know the exact number, but I am operating under the assumption. Either way, He's on some ballots. Yeah. We should operate on the assumption that he is going to be on the ballot

in all of the major swing states. So I just wanted to use this moment of brain worms and mercury poisoning to tell women, please run for office. You're good. to tell women, please run for office. You're good. I mean, I just, when we talk about the fate of democracy and the fragility of our political system, it really does come down to the fact that the future of our country, the future of democracy, the balance of world power is going to really boil down to the number of votes received by a guy with a famous last name who had a brain worm and believes every conspiracy under the sun.

Yeah, that. Right? That's where we are. Mm-hmm. Right. Yeah. Just what a- And who, if he had been president during COVID, would not have gotten a vaccination approved for us.

Yeah, Donald Trump actually today has been truthing. And I think also, I don't fully know what was the format for all these video clips I keep seeing of Donald Trump standing in front of a podium just saying a bunch of random things, but he attacked RFK Jr. today, not on the brainworm, but he called him a fake anti-vaxxerer because I think Trump is becoming concerned with perhaps some good reason that RFK Jr. may be cutting into both with his brain worm and his anti-vax views into Trump's base. I really had to break that down. I was like, fake anti-vaxxer. What does that mean? Oh, OK.

I get it now. He's not anti-vaxxer enough. Yes. He's lying about his anti-vax views. I think that's what he's saying. But there's a lot of double negatives in there. Okay, one quick thing before we go to break. If you're listening to this,

you already know the stakes of the 2024 election, and I know you want to make a difference. Vote Save America's Organize or Else campaign is here. If you remember our programs from 2020 and 2022, we divided into teams, first by state, then by region. This year, we're taking it up a notch. It's the classic rap battle of East versus West. Alyssa, have you picked a team?

East! East! Come on! You joined with me and Tommy on the East team? I have to be East. Okay, perfect. Well, welcome. You chose the right side. Organize or else will connect you with opportunities that work for you and your preferences and schedule. We're going to help race this up and down the ballot.

VSA will track each team's calls, texts, door knocks, shifts. And at the end, the highest achieving team could win the biggest prize of all. Yes. They want me to say this. Continuing democracy. Continuing democracy. You know what? I have to tell you, the losing team will also get that.

We may have failed to game up by this. It's a win-win. It's a win-win for you, for democracy, for everyone. Go to www.votesaveamerica.com slash 2024 to get started. This message has been paid for by Vote Save America. You can learn more at votesaveamerica.com. This ad has not been authorized by any candidate or candidates committee. When we come back, F chair of the U.S. Federal Trade Commission, taking on corporate

monopolies and anti-consumer practices, making a bunch of enemies and friends along the way. Lina Khan, welcome to the pod. Great to be here. along the way. Lina Khan, welcome to the pod. Great to be here. So you've led an FTC that has been far more willing to go after corporate consolidation, anti-competitive practices, brought dozens of actions against mergers. It's also brought you relentless criticism from old school pro-business, anti-regulation conservatives. Literally moments ago, another piece in The Wall Street Journal described your leadership as FTC's failed experiment. Yet among some Republicans, especially those who have embraced kind of Trumpy populism, you've been getting a lot of praise.

Matt Gaetz, whose endorsement Anyone Would Covet likes what you're doing. Senator J.D. Vance said you're one of the few people in the Biden administration doing a pretty good job. How do you explain that divide amongst conservatives? It's a great question. And it really goes back to the origins of anti-monopoly law and the anti-monopoly tradition, which really emerged around the founding. And there was a clear recognition that in the same ways that concentration of political power threatens core liberties and is anathema to the idea of a democracy, that you similarly needed checks and balances against economic power and economic

concentration. Because a society in which people are getting coerced and bullied in their economic transactions is one where people are not going to feel free in a fundamental way. And there has long been recognition across the political aisle on both sides that monopoly power threatens these core liberties. I think for conservatives, there's a tradition of recognizing how overarching state power can threaten liberty. And again, they are recalling how, in some instances, when you concentrate corporate power, it can too threaten liberties. And so that's where we see some of those core alignments. So one of the things you've been going up against, you've had several big wins when you've brought suit against mergers, but you've also had some defeats, is you're taking on a conception of how antitrust law is supposed to work that has held sway for a number of decades, kind of a conservative theory about when it's appropriate to go after a monopoly. Can you talk just a little bit about what you're trying to do with, say, a case like Activision Blizzard and what you're seeing that you don't think the courts are seeing? Happy to. And, you know, it's important just to step back and recall how we got

here. So at the end of President Obama's term, we began to see a growing concern about concentrated power and a lack of competition in the economy. And President Obama actually issued an executive order late in his tenure that was directing agencies to identify ways to promote competition. And it didn't get a lot of notice at the time, but it was a really important precursor to the historic executive order on competition that President Biden then issued the summer after he took office. And that executive order basically acknowledged that for the last 40 years, the way we've been doing antitrust and the way we've been doing competition policy really got it wrong.

And as a result, we see consolidation across our economy, across sectors in ways that is really hurting the American public, right? Consumers are paying too much. All too often, they don't have enough choice. Workers' wages have been declining and haven't kept up. Small businesses and entrepreneurs have been getting locked out of the market. And so President Biden issued a very clear directive to turn the page. And the shift we've been seeing in antitrust is part and parcel of a broader

reorientation across economic policymaking, where this administration has been shutting the door on a failed approach of trickle-down economics. And the shift we're seeing in antitrust is part and parcel of that. It's really motivated by in responding to just the basic reality. The competition has not kept up. We've instead seen more and more consolidation. And as a result of that, people are hurting. It means that people are having to drive hundreds of miles to go to the nearest hospital as opposed to tens of miles because after hospitals merge, they oftentimes close local facilities. All too often, people can't afford life-saving medicines

because of all sorts of patent tricks the big pharma companies are undertaking. And just sector after sector, you see the same basic dynamic. And so that's where both the public will for this shift is coming from. But so this is what I'm trying to understand. So, you know, what you just described is a mix of all kinds of ways in which these kind of mergers can hurt people, right? That business, you know, there's efficiencies, what they would call, right? And so they close a hospital here and they run a much bigger hospital here. Some of these hurt individuals, right? They hurt consumers. So what I'm trying to understand is, are there cases where you believe this conservative idea that all that matters is consumer prices is not being applied fairly? Or are you saying, is it that like the law needs to be applied in a different way that like how it

impacts an individual consumer, how their prices are affected, isn't the only thing that should be looked at? So the law that Congress passed says we need to protect competition and we need to prevent undermining of competition or undermining of fair methods of competition. And there's a basic question about how do you measure competition? Companies can compete over price, right? They can try to lower the price and provide you a better deal. But that's not the only dimension on which companies compete, right? And especially as we see markets evolve, as digital services have come online, there are additional dimensions of competition

that we need to take into account, including, for example, privacy, right? Oftentimes people are not paying with dollars for a lot of these services. They're paying with their data. And so competing on privacy is an important dimension that we need to take into account. Companies also compete on dimensions like innovation, which oftentimes is something that happens over the long term rather than short-term price effects. And look, the ironic thing is that even over the last 40 years, if you want to say that the focus was on short-term price effects, there is a wealth of evidence and scholarship that shows that even on those metrics, antitrust has not kept up.

The prices in all of these areas have much higher than they should have been without some of these mergers going through. And so you could say this paradigm has failed on its own terms, and that the shift we're doing is now just responding to the realities that you see in the marketplace. Yeah, that's sort of what I was getting at, because you've recently brought an action against this merger between Albertsons and Kroger. And as it seems to be the case every time, the two companies trying to merge say this will be a huge benefit to consumers. And the FTC says, no, when these companies merge, the consolidation will mean they get efficiencies, but they won't pass the savings on to customers.

They'll reap more profits and even could be in a position to raise prices. How do you litigate that question when it's all in the future? It's one of the hardest parts of the antitrust regime where you're having to predict what's going to happen when mergers go through. And it's why Congress said the agencies don't have to predict that with entire certainty, but it's really based on a whole set of different types of evidence. This case in particular is still being litigated, so I'm limited in what I can say about it. But the complaint lays out how there's been decades of consolidation in the grocery sector

that consumers have lost out. And our complaint alleges that in this instance, workers would also lose out if this deal goes through. And so you look at, you know, what are the company's documents telling you? And at the end of the day, what incentivizes companies to pass on benefits to consumers is if they're actually having to jostle with one another, right? If they're afraid that if they don't deliver you those is if they're actually having to jostle with one another, right? If they're afraid that if they don't deliver you those benefits, they're actually going to lose business to their rival. If you allow them to buy that rival up, there isn't going to be that same incentive to give

you the better deal. There are also a ton of examples where companies that want to merge, in particular because their executives will reap an enormous personal benefit from a merger. They make all kinds of claims about how it's going to benefit consumers. Those benefits never materialize. Do you believe the government should be more active after a merger has potentially gone through to make sure that they're honoring their commitments that they made when they were trying to get the merger approved. Absolutely. I mean, if firms are making certain commitments or promises about why they're merging and the benefits that are going to be delivered,

and then they go through with the merger and actually then to do the exact opposite, which unfortunately is something we see all too often, be it commitments about how they're going to be hiring more people only for them to go ahead and, be it commitments about how they're going to be hiring more people only for them to go ahead and fire people, commitments about how they're going to be honoring people's privacy only for them to go ahead and then renege on privacy commitments. That's absolutely a problem. And that's actually why under the Biden administration, the FTC has been much more skeptical of some of these types of promises and settlements. Because if you are structurally allowing a merger to eliminate competition in a

way that will allow that company to harm people, them just signing a piece of paper that says, we promise not to harm people is not really enough if they're not going to have the incentives in the market to make sure people are still getting a better deal. Are there examples, and I would doubt you could say what they are, but are there examples that you see without naming them where you think it might be valuable for the government to go back and say, to look at those mergers and say, wait, these were approved under false presenses and potentially should be unwound? Absolutely. There are a whole bunch of examples where in hindsight, certain mergers that were allowed to go through

seem to have been a mistake in terms of the merger ended up resulting in consumers getting a worse deal, workers being worse off, and the market as a whole being much more consolidated and much more closed off so that entrepreneurs and small businesses can't enter. Just to give an example, we hear a lot of concerns in the ticketing industry. This is one that's in the Justice Department's wheelhouse, not ours. You hear concerns from consumers, right? Anybody who's tried to buy a ticket online has experienced just how infuriating that experience can be where the company can seem like it's too big to care. You've also heard a lot of concerns from artists

and from concert venues about how they sometimes are getting bullied or coerced in the marketplace because now you have a single dominant entity that's able to dictate terms. So we see concerns there, but we see concerns in the airline industry and the telecom industry across the healthcare sector, where all too often after you see, you know, dominant firms grow through consolidation, they don't have to work as hard to get people's business. But legally, could the government come back and say, we are going to take a look at this and see if it should be unwound? Or is that is once it's done, it's done? Absolutely. The government has the ability filed actually during the tail end of the

Trump administration alleges that Facebook's acquisitions of Instagram and WhatsApp were actually illegal, and they allowed Facebook to illegally maintain its monopoly rather than have to compete. And the remedy that's being sought includes divestiture, which would mean they'd have to sell those entities off. Right. But those companies then, after a merger is complete, very quickly get to trying to get things pretty entangled so that they have an argument that it can't be undone, right? Sometimes they make those arguments, and that's ultimately for a court to decide. So one thing that came up recently is the FTC banning non-compete agreements. Look, I am somebody relying on producers to make this podcast every day.

And I don't think they should be able to work anywhere else. What are we going to do about that? You've really made our jobs harder. We're really trying to lock them in. Unfortunately, too many employers have had that attitude, right? I mean, non-compete started off in the boardroom, but they've proliferated across our economy. So you have janitors, security guards, fast food workers, but also doctors, healthcare workers across the board, engineers, tech workers that all too often are governed by

a non-compete, which means that they cannot easily switch jobs. They can't easily start their own business if it involves competing with their former employer. And after the FTC put out this proposal last year, we got over 26,000 comments. 25,000 of those were in support of the proposal. And we heard just devastating stories about how non-competes had forced people to stay locked into abusive jobs, had forced people to uproot their lives and their families. We heard from doctors who had been serving rural America about how a non-compete means that if you want to switch employers, you have to leave the state entirely

and abandon your patients, which can be contributing to a lack of healthcare being available in parts of the country. And so these are systemic problems that we've seen. And we were really pleased to recently be able to finalize a rule that would end non-competes in employment contracts. This is about people, about competition. And in the FTC's press release, make a lot of arguments around how many new businesses it could produce, how much increased earnings it could result in. You also spoke recently about what happened after the NVIDIA ARM merger was called off, in part because FTC tried to block it. There is this idea that an active FTC or that an aggressive FTC that's trying to protect competition is anti-business. Can you talk a little bit about just about why that's wrong? Yeah, that couldn't be further from the truth, right? I mean, the FTC's mandate

is to promote open, fair, and competitive markets where people can get a fair shake. And that includes consumers, it includes workers, but it also includes businesses, right? I mean, if you're a business, if you're an entrepreneur, and you have a good idea, you're able to get financing for that idea, what you want is to be able to enter the market and really compete and be able to get a foothold. And unfortunately, all too often we hear that startups and entrepreneurs and small businesses are not able to get a fair shake. And they're actually being squeezed out of the market, not because customers don't like them, but because they're being muscled out by one of the existing monopolists. And so we hear a lot of concern from

everyone ranging from independent pharmacists and independent grocers who all too often are being squeezed their business is not a function of how popular their service is, but instead is a function of the whims of one of the existing giants that is controlling access to who can reach customers and who can get through the market. And so these are fundamentally issues that hurt all businesses, except unless you're one of the monopolists that is benefiting from your status and incumbent and you can lock out everybody else. Speaking of incumbents, you were on The Daily Show. John Stewart mentioned that Apple told him not to interview you for his podcast, The Problem with John Stewart. Were you surprised by that? Do you have any theory about why that might be? You know, I think historically we've seen that when companies amass a lot of power,

and especially when they amass a lot of power over who gets to be heard, who gets to be seen, who gets to speak in the kind of, you know, marketplace of ideas, that they can use that power in abusive ways, that they can use that power to kind of pick winners and losers, and that that doesn't serve our democratic society, right? I mean, if we believe in the First Amendment, if we believe in a healthy marketplace of ideas, a clear precondition of that is making sure that you have a marketplace where many voices can get heard. And so the concentration of power can be really hostile to those basic ideals. So I was thinking about your case against Amazon and your effort to take on these

gigantic companies that have amassed so much power in our society. And I was trying to understand what, to your mind, success looks like. That is success simply attacking the most egregious examples of corporate consolidation? Or do you believe it's possible for us to actually kind of build something that has much more competition, much fewer industries controlled by two, three, four firms, if you're lucky? Or is the best we can do at this point trying to mitigate the damage done by 40 years of monopolistic and anti-consumer practices? It's an important question. And I think there's a short-term component of this, but also a long-term. And over the long-term, there's no doubt that we have to be aiming for ensuring that our markets are open and fair and competitive.

But I think just to step back, a deeper issue that we see right now is the government reasserting itself on behalf of working families and making very clear that the government will stick up for working families, including when they're being pushed around or abused by law-breaking corporations. corporations. And I think that at a very basic level is so essential because all too often we see that people can get disillusioned with government if they feel that in their day-to-day lives, they're not able to afford their medicines, they're not able to easily switch jobs, and that their fate ultimately is controlled by these distant giants. And it really contributes to people feeling a lack of power and a lack of autonomy over their lives. And so the government coming in and saying, this is not an inevitability, right? We can actually fight back against these law-breaking corporations and make sure that our

economy is one that's actually serving the American people is an incredibly important shift. And it's one that we're seeing across the administration right now. And so I hope, you know, we want to win the cases we're bringing. We're really pleased with the wins we've already had, including, you know, our actions resulting in inhaler manufacturers dropping the price that Americans will have to pay from hundreds of dollars down to just $35. But at a deeper level, it's really important that the public see what it means for government to be fighting for them. Alina Khan, thank you so much for your time. Thanks for having me.

Thanks, Alina Khan. Thanks to Alyssa for co-hosting with me today. We'll talk to you all on Tuesday. Bye, everyone. Thanks to Alyssa for co-hosting with me today. We'll talk to you all on Tuesday. Bye, everyone. bonus content and more. Plus, if you're as opinionated as we are, consider dropping us a review. Pod Save America is a Crooked Media production.

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