Pod Save America - Donald vs. Ronald

Episode Date: January 31, 2023

Donald Trump hits the campaign trail and his potential rivals. Democrats revive their calls for police reform after the murder of Tyre Nichols. State Department Counselor Derek Chollet talks to Tommy about the latest in Ukraine. Then later, the guys try to decipher the latest Fox News rants in a new game called “What Are They Mad About?” For a closed-captioned version of this episode, click here. For a transcript of this episode, please email [e-mail] and include the name of the podcast. 

Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Jon Favreau. I'm Jon Lovett. I'm Tommy Vitor. On today's show, Donald Trump hits the campaign trail and his potential rivals. Democrats revive their calls for police reform after the murder of Tyree Nichols. State Department Counselor Derek Chalet talks to Tommy about the latest in Ukraine. And later, we try to decipher some Fox News rants in a new game called What Are They Mad About? What are they mad about? What are they mad about this time? We're going to find out. We're going to find out.

All right, let's get to the news. The 2024 Republican primary has begun and it already feels like 2015 again. Donald Trump, the twice impeached loser of the 2020 election, who's under investigation for multiple crimes that include an attempted coup and a violent insurrection,

kicked off his third presidential bid over the weekend with a pair of small, low energy events in New Hampshire and South Carolina, where he announced some endorsements, talked about his potential rivals and played the hits during his hour long rambling speeches. And we need a president who is ready to hit the ground running on day one. And I hear, boy, am I hitting the ground. to hit the ground running on day one and I hear boy am I hitting the ground. They said he's not doing rallies. He's not campaigning. Maybe he's lost that step. We didn't. I'm more angry now and I'm more committed now than I ever was. And have a lot of competition. We had no competition and I don't think we have competition this time either to be honest. You know they're very good fighters the Taliban but they never fight at night because they don't have binoculars. They want mandatory stoves and people that are cooks i'm not much of a cook but the cooks are saying gas is better bing bing boom i wanted to

see whether or not i could award myself as president the congressional medal of honor i think of the united states every day is april fool's day investigation investigation i've been going through for seven years oh what was bing, bing, boom? I don't know. I watched that speech. I don't remember it. He's back, guys. He's back.

Yeah, he is. He is back. Now, in fairness to Mr. Trump, the part where he says he deserved the Congressional Medal of Honor, he was joking. He was joking, yeah. He was saying that for being brave when Air Force One landed in Iraq. He was joking that he had been brave. Man, not a lot has changed. Could you guys detect any sort of message or strategy in either of these speeches? Or is this just the same shit we've been hearing for the last eight years?

I would say it was 90% a greatest hits album. Donald Trump legend. You got to play that. You go to a Trump, legend. You got to play that. You go to a Donald Trump show, you got to hear that. You got to hear, yeah, you got to hear all the best. He does incorporate every stupid culture war fight. So the gas stove bit, as we heard. Yeah. New culture war just dropped. He had to get that in there.

There was a rant about electric vehicles and how everyone's going to run out of power on the highway and get stuck on the freeway. He was very funny. He was like, you're on the highway, you're looking for a plug. Which is like, really is like, just like, he is just sort of tapping into boomer anxiety. Just he'd-

Yeah, sure. For sure. He's just a cable news fan. And the thing Lovett was talking about, the Congressional Medal of Honor, that story was like 10 minutes long. It was about landing in Iraq or something. And then it ended with some rant

about leaving the equipment in Afghanistan. So again, back to the hits. Yeah, it was mostly greatest hits. The parts where there was, I think, strategy to it. One, he was trying to kind of come onto DeSantis' turf with the school policy stuff and going after the swimmers and going after critical race theory. Two, there was a kind of like, it's so strange for this to be something Trump is doing. And it

is from, I think, a defensive position, like a place of weakness. But he was really trying to prove to Republican elites that he had the backing, a lot of important figures in the state. Both of the events were really much more about like local Republican officials and kind of displaying. Do you think that's why he started with, because I was wondering why he started with these two very small events as opposed to rallies, which he is known for? Yeah, I do think, I do think that's why I do not. I think these were events very much aimed at signaling to Republicans to either hold off on making endorsements or to jump in and make endorsements of him. Because he really did line both stages with local officials and talk about how good he

was to them and how good they were to him. And then the third point I'd make was actually made by Lindsey Graham about the message he was trying to convey. And it was the most direct and honest thing anyone said, which is after Trump spoke in South Carolina, Lindsey Graham gets up there and says, now there are a lot of people saying, oh, I really like Trump and I really like Trump policies, but I'd love Trump policies with somebody new. And then Lindsey Graham did a bit, a line by line, a list of achievements for Trump saying you couldn't have gotten these Trump policies without Trump trump trump is what makes them possible this is just the world's saddest simp i had i wrote a note about that it's like i don't think that's true i think i saw john we know it's of course

not true yeah it struck me as like a really shitty argument from lindsey graham like you actually can have trump policies without trump you can have some like whatever Republican candidate do all the same shit Trump did without being as fucking crazy. But that I think is what was that. I mean, we would all hate that. Obviously, it'd be horrible for the country, but you could conceivably do that. But I do think that that's like the debate. If there's a debate that Trump is trying to make happen, I think other than the greatest hits and other than trying to kind of crowd DeSantis on some of the issues that DeSantis would run on, this to me was like the core of what Trump was trying to do in these speeches, which was basically the very long aside about landing in Iraq was part of a larger section about making deals, getting the military to kind of do what the military does best, despite thehington generals negotiating with the taliban negotiating with mexico negotiating with china and he was basically telling these ridiculous made-up stories about how you know i called him up and i said

you're gonna give me three billion dollars and they're like we're never gonna give you three billion dollars and i got the three billion dollars i told mexico they are taking all the immigrants they said we're not taking them i said oh yeah you're gonna take them you're gonna take them kept calling the Taliban leadership Abdul. So it is this like sort of fan fiction presidency thing. Yeah. And I do think that was the argument. The New Hampshire speech was the state Republican party's annual meeting.

So like, yes, it was a small audience, but that's a good audience to speak to. It's a bunch of activists and elected officials. And the outgoing state party chair is now joining his campaign. They announced that at the end. I'm sure they could have like, it was in Salem, I think not not the biggest not the best town in new hampshire i guess they could have cruised up to canterbury lake park manchester or something and like rented out a hockey rink but like you're not doing a big outdoor rally new hampshire in january that's that's not a good idea south carolina was in the state house right next to a statue of john c calhoun

an ardent racist and defender of slavery so that was also not subtle but again like elite opinion i don't know maybe you could have done a rally in south carolina but i don't know he didn't want to yeah i just think it's uh it's it's weird that this time around he's going for like establishment support which is also ironic because he is the party establishment at this point but like trump and 16 was like the great outsider didn't give a shit about republican elected officials anywhere and the people that loved him were the base of the party that often didn't even participate in elections and didn't vote um and now it's like he's doing this insider thing which i thought

was interesting i also thought to your pointett, he did a lot of reciting his policy accomplishments, because I think, look, if the 2016 campaign was a restoration of a time that never really existed in America, this is sort of remember the days of the Trump presidency and how wonderful they were, right? Like he wants to kind of paint this picture. And it was funny, we played that clip, but we need a president who's ready to hit the ground running on day one. I'm like, is he leaning on experience like he's fucking Hillary Clinton? Is he going to tell us strength plus experience equals change? And look, John, look, as somebody who's on that campaign, I've always said that strength plus experience equals change.

And as I've often always said, obviously also change minus strength equals experience. Yeah, that's the right equation you got it and then he tried this was the other line biden running makes every day seem like april fool's day donald come on buddy are we running for class president there's a whole riff where he just he would do a line and then he'd say it's april fool's day it's april it's january it was it was also like it clearly thought about on the golf course then he kind of tested it out at the buffet and people seemed to like it and it was just like hey man clearly thought about it on the golf course, then he kind of tested it out at the buffet and people seemed to like it. And it was just like, hey man, hey man, look, keep that in your pocket.

It's late January. You're so close. Keep that good stuff for April. February is short. Late March. That's a great, you can do that. You can do that in April. It's a great joke. He will. He'll come back. You mentioned his education stuff.

His biggest applause line was his proposal to cut federal funding for any school that teaches critical race theory or gender ideology, which is part of his education policy plan that also includes, quote, opening civil rights investigations into any school that discriminates against Asian American students and promises to and he also promised to keep men out of women's sports. So it does seem to me like those policies are coming from a place of weakness because he is like following DeSantis on this kind of stuff. When back in, I think, 2015, when he was running, you could argue that like he was the candidate most in touch with the base's grievances. And he was like out front on extreme immigration policies. Well, there's also there's something about that that too, that does also just, it does speak to how much has changed because you go through each of those, right? Those are obviously things that test really well with Republican voters, but that specific part about Asian Americans, that is a inside Republican sort of conversation about trying

to peel off Asian Americans by using Affirmative action as a wedge issue and so it's like and then there was another part later in the speech where he says something about I think I think it's in this sports section And then maybe in the way he started talking about the wall and he said, you know These aren't Democrat or Republican. These things are just common sense It was like the most like wrote kind of but clearly a message tested line There was a lot of message tested pieces of this speech. Yeah, Look, it's just bigotry with the slightest of dog whistle, but you're right. I mean, DeSantis is out ahead of him banning what AP black history courses. He's putting Christopher Ruffo, the guy who created the hysteria around critical race theory

in charge of gutting some Florida colleges curriculum. So yes, he's following DeSantis there. Yeah. I mean, it's going to be a competition if DeSantis gets in of who can be the ultimate culture warrior here. That's what this round is going to be about. So it could get pretty ugly and even more bigoted as we continue to go on because they're going to try to appeal to the most extreme parts of the party. Yeah. I do think that the way that Trump's language evolved in this speech and it's something that's going to be, I think, pretty menacing and awful is, you know, these people hate America. The way he waves the wave waves away the entire the entirety of his opposition is the Marxist, the racist and the perverts. So that's going to be, I think,

the yeah, those are the three. Those are the three, the three horsemen. He also took a direct shot at DeSantis, who The Washington Post reported over the weekend has been holding meetings about 2024 and has already identified multiple potential hires in early primary states. Trump said DeSantis has been trying to rewrite history over his response to the pandemic, accused him of promoting the vaccine as much as anyone and criticized him. These are criticisms and criticized him. These are criticisms and criticized him for closing some beaches and businesses in some parts of Florida. Do you guys think this fight over the pandemic will matter to Republican primary voters? I think so. I mean, hating Fauci, thinking he's evil is now like Republican canon. It's a core belief. I think the anti-vax movement is pretty firmly embedded in the Republican base. Trump is right about DeSantis flip-flopping on this. Back in 2021, he was

telling people to get vaccinated. He was saying vaccines protect you. A year later, he's hosting anti-vaccine news conferences. He put together a committee and called for an investigation of the wrongdoing in Florida with respect to COVID-19 vaccines. So yeah, I think DeSantis will argue he fought the woke left and the lockdowns and the vaccine mandates while Trump caved to them and hired Fauci or didn't fire. Yeah, I mean, they both have done a couple of switches on the vaccines. DeSantis' whole point during the vaccine rollout was, look how good I am at rolling this out. I'm the best at rolling this thing out. Trump was like joking on stage about how like, oh my God, this vaccine's a boo.

You're booing the vaccine. All right, I guess. I think you should get it. You know, he felt it changing for him in real time. I think as an issue, I don't know how important it will be, but it really is sort of, you know, so much of the fight is going to be like, who's sticking it to the fucking squares harder, you know? Which one of us is going to be like who's sticking it to the to the fucking

squares harder you know which one of us going to stick to the to the nerds and the fucking jews the hardest really it's all in a little bit in there that was love it that was john love it send your comments stick it to them who's gonna really stick it to those those up you know those those new yorkers but vaccine skepticism is increased and you're also seeing it among like elite opinion makers remember there's the you know the guy david sacks insufferable venture capitalist douchebag who's brought into twitter by elon musk he's a podcast with the guy who said i don't care about genocide they did an episode the other day where they're all bragging about how they're not gonna uh get the booster anymore right like this is a growing i figured you might swerve to hit them on that yeah well they

are they're insufferable uh horrendous people who yap a lot i think on one hand i think it is hard to make a primary fight about a two-year-old issue that has little bearing on the future on the other hand primaries are historically about really dumb things yeah um and it's and it's also like unclear what else they're going to fight over because what other policy differences do they have or like differences in like what issue positions they've taken etc so like you look for like the tiniest difference between you and your primary opponent and you make it into a big deal that happens in primaries all the time i have to say i'm a little worried it could get personal but i think you're right it is it is a stand-in for like who's more establishment and who's the bigger outsider yeah yeah right that's that's going to be the fight

between who will tell the the woke lefts who you know want to boss you around no and also like if you have the audio like one of the biggest applause lines was in this part where he kind of ran through all the people he was going to keep taking on. Andy, can you play that clip? We need a fighter who can stand up to the left, who can stand up to the swamp, stand up to the media, stand up to the deep state. Am I allowed to say stand up to the rhinos, too? I think I can say that. It was one of the biggest applause lines he got in both speeches and i do think that that's like you know it's only a matter of time before desantis is a rhino and he's like

speaking of rhinos lindsey graham the thing about it too is it's like it's like oh you're taking on the rhinos like the rhino is extinct you know there's like one rhino left in a fucking zoo somewhere it's a moving target yeah um i i do think it is a setup for, you know, DeSantis is probably going to have the support of more of the Republican establishment. The Mitch McConnells of the world, even if McConnell doesn't actually endorse. But that type of person who's not a rhino, but Trump would call them a rhino. For sure. And so Trump is setting it up so that when DeSantis gets all this Republican support and gets more of these Republican officials, he can say, ah, they're all this. They're just as bad as the Democrats.

And I'm the real outsider. Yeah. You know, so that's probably what he's doing there. So when Trump was asked about DeSantis, he said, when I hear that he might run, I think it's very disloyal. I got him elected. I'm the one that chose him. But when he was asked about Nikki Haley and other Trump officials potentially running like Mike Pence, Nikki Haley, Mike Pompeo, like half his cabinet is running against him. But when he was asked about Nikki Haley and other Trump officials potentially running, like Mike Pence, Nikki Haley, Mike Pompeo, like half his cabinet is running against him. He said, my attitude is if they want to do it, they should do it. I have good relationships

with all of them. So what do you think? What's with the different answers? So it's so transparent. It's so great. It's like, well, DeSantis could beat me, but not if all these other people run. So I hope they do do it because then they can all be divided as the anti-Trump person and I can do the same thing I did in 2016. Yeah, that's the smart explanation. I think the feral, dumb explanation is that's just very sad for Nikki Haley. It's like in sports rivalries when one team hates the other and the other team just never thinks about them. It's like Chicago Bears fans who hate the green bay packers and aaron rogers is like i forgot you guys were still in the nfl you have been beating me in so long you're so bad that i forgot that you existed and that's kind of how i think of a nicky haley

candidacy yeah and it's also dan and i were talking about this on thursday but he had that nice uh truth about mike pence after the mike pence classified documents you leave mike pence alone that was that sarcastic no i think it's the same thing he's like he's not smart he's not threatened by mike pence if he was threatened by mike pence he'd be calling for his hanging again i think trump's i think i think trump's narcissism uh can be big enough to envelop humans in the vicinity of it and so he he like i think he genuinely thinks it is funny how much of a rule follower mike pence is i think he's appreciated that as a person you're thinking mike pence broke the rules he's

not like me i stuffed some documents in my basin of mar-a-lago if it's pence you know it's he wouldn't even make me president again right but we i tried to fucking hang him and he's still like cool with me this guy's awesome do you guys know have we talked about what desantis's book that's coming out i think in february is called? Oh, The Courage to be Free? Courage to be Free. You nailed it, both of you. Wow. Well, because I pre-ordered, obviously.

That's a good one. The Courage to be Free. Of course. Yeah, well, the free state of Florida. So Dan Balls of the Washington Post wrote a piece where he said, the best analogy for this Republican primary is the 2008 primary between Obama and Hillary. The best analogy for this Republican primary is the 2008 primary between Obama and Hillary. Republican pollster Frank Luntz also said that DeSantis is so far ahead of where Barack Obama was against Hillary Clinton at this point.

Do you guys think that's a good analogy? And what do you think is similar to 2008 and what's different? Time for your answer. balls writing a piece saying that trump is the hillary of 2024 combined with pence trump and biden having classified documents in their home is a real strategy uh to have hillary clinton do a kind of full breakdown on like an airplane or something i thought it was absolutely like it's like saying beetlejuice three times she's really she's gonna go she's going to go full Joker. She's going to absolutely, this is like ridiculous. This is ridiculous. Yeah, that's mean to her.

I mean, I don't know. I've said it before. I'll say it again. Frank Luntz nailed this one. All right, I got the climate change clip that was up there. This is, that's tough. I RT'd that hard. I see Elijah taking notes. Great.

DeSantis is in a way better position than Obama was at this point. With the caveat that it's probably harder to run against a former president, we don't really know. DeSantis is up by 12 points in a New Hampshire poll. There was an Iowa poll that had DeSantis beating Trump with Iowa caucus goers. He raised like $100 million for his governor's race. Obviously, you fundraise differently for a federal race than a state race. But like, I don't know, if Trump wasn't Trump, DeSantis would be the clear front runner. Yeah, you're right. It's interesting.

You can it's sort of like it really what what the analogy says is that it depends on who wins, because you could just as easily make it the other you You may go the other way and say DeSantis is the other than the fact that Trump, I think, I think probably defensively in a way that he'll end up having to run away from is sort of doing this establishment campaign early on. DeSantis is going to have the establishment support. DeSantis is in the lead. He is a sitting governor. Trump does his absolute best, most fiendish work as an outsider. He's not necessarily. It's it's similar to the Obama Hillary thing where DeSantis is not necessarily in the lead nationally. I think if you took an average of all the polls, Trump's still winning. But you're right. And like in New Hampshire and Iowa, he is ahead in some of these early polls. In the South Carolina poll, he is not, which is interesting.

I think that the similarity is he's taking on an establishment frontrunner who's leading in the national polls, likely with a message that's more about generational change than policy change. I think what's different is he's not going to have the problem Obama did with lack of experience because he's the governor of Florida who just won a second term by a member of Congress for that right. A member of Congress for that. But we also don't know. It doesn't seem like he quite has a barack obama's um oratorical talent inspirational figure yeah it's like like the one like maybe to them he is maybe to the republican base he's like that i don't know yeah come on i mean like like the the everyone kind of always kind of just sort of jumps over the once in a generation political talent part of it that barack obama brought to that campaign.

And this is something I think Dan said a couple weeks ago. It's like, no one's heard Ron DeSantis' fucking voice. You know? It's just like, you barely see him. You barely hear from him. No, I know. He's not like... He doesn't have his 2004 convention speech.

Yeah, the full Klieg lights of Trump's evil charisma has not been directed at him on a stage. Things change quickly. That's because the Courage to be Free rollout tour has yet to begin. It's coming out in February. It's much like the Audacity of Hope tour. Make sure you pre-order. They're going to go, and they're going to do their little...

Have the courage to pre-order, everyone. It doesn't mean... The pandemic fight could be like Iraq for 2008. Our brains are just stuck in there. It hurts. It's like the one position it becomes a judgment thing you know that the one of them had the judgment one of them didn't so it's a it's a what a like like like just the two of them just arguing like who did a better job of

fucking killing the elderly for a year and a half that's why it's the complete mirror image you know it's unbelievable it's debated the villages so the other big difference is just the difference between the democratic primaries and the republican primaries. And we've talked about this before, but it's winner take all versus winner take some. I also think Obama developed a base of voters that was closely matched to Hillary. So you had he had college educated whites and black voters, and lot of these college educated Republicans and Republican leaning independents who dislike Trump and are more concerned with electability who pay closer attention to politics. I just don't know if they're enough of the Republican electorate. Right. So much of the Republican electorate is non-college whites. And those are such Trump people like Trump voters were not people attending the New Hampshire event, the South Carolina event. They probably don't know as much about DeSantis. They're low information voters. Those are the people that surprise you at the polls. Yeah. I also do think one thing that Democratic primary voters and Republican primary voters have in common is the first question is electability and who do they think can win? Who do they think is the best person to send up against the Democrat? And there hasn't been that electability conversation yet. I think that there's this assumption. I think that the Republicans, I think, have internalized the idea that Joe Biden is very

weak. But I wonder what happens when, you know, there's one, you know, Dan Balls makes this point when he compares Donald Trump to Hillary Clinton in a way that, I don't know if you've seen this, but most of Chappaqua is gone it's just a big crater now she saw the post and that was that sad a lot of good people there but it's gone they'll have to reroute the fucking metro north now

but they'll fix it they'll fix it there's money in the infrastructure but I'll stop but the point that the fucking Donald Trump saying oh you're gonna go with this guy. I will destroy every person on this stage, whether I win or lose. I will never stop.

That's his electability argument. It's coming. He's got to start signaling it. Like, I'm not going to. Oh, I think it's coming. I didn't think that you could use that as sort of an electability argument. Yeah. Because I think Donald Trump has a very shitty electability argument.

Of course. It's implicit. I'll run as a third party. That was his don't impeach me argument. I think it starts to get more, the more under fire he gets, the more explicit. It was interesting though

that DeSantis, although he has been very quiet, he did decide to weigh in on the Republican National Committee race and come out finally and say that Ronna McDaniel shouldn't get the job again, which obviously she's terrible.

And they've had a horrible couple of election cycles in a row. It didn't matter. She won. But it was just interesting that he picked a side in that. Yeah. Even with the Kevin McCarthy stuff, it's like he dips his toe in, he puts out a kind of lukewarm endorsement. Then when it starts going his way, he chimes in and says he's the orchestrator of it. He's always afraid to kind of put himself too far out there. Yeah. Look, I go back and forth, like gut instinct on this. I'm like, is Trump going to do it again? Could DeSantis do out there yeah i don't look even i go back and forth like gut instinct on this i'm like is trump gonna do it again could desantis i just don't know i don't

know it's too early it's too early here's the time we'll tell time we'll tell time we'll tell there you go there's our analysis all right the other big story this week is the fallout from the tragic and infuriating murder of tyree nichols by five memphis police officers who beat the unarmed 29 year old so severely during a traffic stop that he died in the hospital three days later. In the police body camera footage, which was released on Friday, Nichols could be heard crying out for his mother and didn't appear to ever strike back, despite what the police officers had said. The officers have been fired and charged with multiple crimes, including second-degree murder, and the Memphis Police

Department has disbanded the undercover unit they were part of, which had been criticized for aggressive policing. So there were protests in Memphis and other cities over the weekend. The big question now is whether Tyree's murder will revive the national push for policing reform and actually lead to action this time. Cory Booker is expected to reintroduce the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act sometime this week, which died last year after his negotiations with Republican Senator Tim Scott fell apart. Maybe we should start by walking people through why those negotiations fell apart and what the sticking points were. Tommy? Yeah, I mean, the sticking point was an issue called qualified immunity, which shields police officers from civil lawsuits. The Democrats wanted to get rid of qualified

immunity, that protection for police. Republicans wanted to preserve it. I think you have to get rid of qualified immunity as part of any reform because it so thoroughly tilts the scales in favor of the police and protects them from accountability that it was criticized by both justices Sonia Sotomayor and Clarence Thomas. So if those people can agree on something, I think Congress should be able to. But police unions are very against getting rid of qualified immunity protections and have lobbied hard to preserve them federally and in a whole bunch of states. Yeah. And I think that the bill didn't even fully eliminate it. It reformed it. It got rid of a lot

of it. And then there were compromises floated back then. At some point, Tim Scott, during an interview, had said he was open to the idea that you would reform qualifying immunity so that you could sue police departments or municipalities, but not necessarily individual officers. Lindsey Graham, by the way, just over the weekend floated that as a potential compromise as well. But that never really went anywhere, that potential compromise, I think because Tim Scott just walked it back or just decided that he wasn't going to embrace it or couldn't find enough Republicans to embrace it. Right. Well, they were so far apart. They were part on that issue. But also the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act was much broader in a few other ways

than the Republican bill. So they were always very far apart. They remain far apart. But it does seem like this. I mean, will this conversation be revived? It has been revived, right? We have Scott talking about it. We have Cory Booker talking about it. We have Lindsey Graham talking about it. Jim Jordan saying it's not necessary tells you where a lot of Republicans in the House will be. But I don't, you know, this happens to be, I think, an issue where the fact that we went from a narrow Democratic majority to a narrow Republican majority in the House, I don't think makes it may make it harder and it may make the bill more of a compromise. But I don't think it's less likely. You think it's possible? I think it's possible. I think it remains as possible because I think the same problem, like if it can pass, if it can pass by bipartisan way in the Senate, I think it is possible for someone like Kevin McCarthy to bring

it to the floor. I think the challenge was like, so qualified immunity becomes the sticking point that, you know, all the pieces in the aftermath of the negotiations talk about as one of the big sticking points. But Scott's statement and what he said in interviews afterwards was he started making these claims that, you know, the Democrats, I couldn't reach a compromise with them because Democrats wanted to defund the police. Right. Which he said that if you tied grant money to reforms, that was defunding the police, which is nonsense. Well, it's especially nonsense because that provision, right, which would, it was, it would give law enforcement agencies grants only after they met these certain standards and bias training, no knock warrants, use of force, et cetera. This was codifying an executive order from Donald Trump in July of 2020.

Heard of him. And that's what that provision was doing. So for, I mean, Scott at the very, the very least was being somewhat dishonest in how he described that, uh, that provision. But if he's not going to go there and embrace that, I think that tells you that, like, yeah, there were never 10 Republicans in the Senate who were going to embrace even a compromise version of the George Floyd justice and policing act. But I think so. I think the only hope then becomes that the debate has shifted. First of all, we are just outside of an election where we went through kind of a huge period of debate and conversation about this in 2020 that led to Republicans using it as a cudgel and using defund in a big way as a cudgel that led to have some kind of a compromise that would obviously not go nearly far enough and not go nearly as far enough as what Democrats would want to do. But that to me is why you can, you see all the reasons why it's gotten harder,

but there are a couple of ways in which it's gotten easier. I also just would worry a little bit about what Trump will do or say about this. It's not the same issue, sort of a related issue was the passage of the first step act, issue, sort of a related issue was the passage of the First Step Act, which was a criminal justice reform that was very narrow that Trump passed and initially sort of celebrated that Jared Kushner pushed really hard. And a couple of years later, Trump talked about it like he was embarrassed that it happened and regretted it. And so I bring that up just to say like where Trump is looking for ways to outflank other Republicans by being more, you know, pro-cop, pro-law and order, whatever you want to call it. I could imagine him being incredibly

chaotic and unhelpful here. So in addition to Booker reintroducing the bill, Biden will be meeting with the Congressional Black Caucus this week to talk about reform. They've also invited Tyree Nichols' parents to the state of the union which means president biden will be focused presumably we'll be talking about this in the state of the union i do to your point about how the politics have changed love it i think that obviously there was this sort of political debate around defund especially in washington and for people paying close attention and then there were like you know crime rates uh didn't necessarily rise but violent crime

rates in a lot of cities did. And I think you have this dynamic in the country where an overwhelming majority of Americans, including black Americans, like want police to protect them from violent crime. And they also want to be protected from violent police. And I think that like, there's not a simple set of policy solutions to do both right like it it's not just about like more funding or less funding you can't just like throw money at the problem or take money away and fix the problem right there's like a lot of solutions that have been tried in cities and states that improve this on the margins but I do think there's it sort of starts with the way our political leaders address it like last time Biden gave a state of the union

you know he said we shouldn't defund police. We should fund, fund, fund police. Right. And like, I get why he said that. But I do think there is a more nuanced way to talk about it that I hope he talks about in the State of the Union, which is like people want to be protected from violent crime. They also deserve to be protected from violent police. And we shouldn't have violent police. Not only should we have them on the force, but we shouldn't hire them in the first place. But this is why I think on the politics, there was this incredible national focus and a shift in public opinion on this issue that was very dramatic and opened up a lot of new avenues for reform, made a lot of changes possible that hadn't led to a lot of local

bills being passed, led to this national debate. But then the conversation around defund put Republicans, was exploited by Republicans, even though it was a position held by activists, which activists are always going to push for the most progressive policies can, but used as a cudgel against Democrats, which then I think in order to get to a place where you can, I think that is why you see someone like Joe Biden feeling the need to say that because they need to kind of make a break from that debate about the fund, which I think ultimately makes more, more reforms

possible. Yeah. I would suggest that everyone read, um, Radley Balco's New York times piece about this. Like it would just sort of proves the point of how difficult this is, you know, in Memphis, uh, the police department says like we've done de-escalation training and other reforms. They had body cameras, obviously. But these elite police teams, this unit, this elite police unit. Scorpion unit, as they're called. So, yeah, and they have these in cities all across the country. They operate in high crime areas with less oversight than other police units.

with less oversight than other police units. And in Memphis, the reporting says that they tended to hire younger and more inexperienced officers with a propensity for aggression. The training for this unit consisted of three days of PowerPoint presentations and one day at a firing range. And like these units are, they're like militarized. They treat civilians like enemies. And for years, the Department of Defense has been giving local police departments like leftover gear from Iraq, like basically tanks and things. It's a completely back ass word way to think about how you keep people safe. In Detroit, this kind of unit was disbanded after they raided an apartment with sheriff's deputies in it and killed one yeah cops killing other cops

so i've seen this debate about these sort of elite units and i hope like people see it like this conversation about like sort of this the way it was sort of like concentrates some of the most like dangerous uh issues in policing right they give them these sort of video game names they give them these identities they give them this give them these identities. They give them this power. They remove this oversight. I do think it's important. It's worth disbanding these things. It's so clear that they're dangerous.

It is so clear that it engenders the worst instincts of people. But you can see it as a stand-in for some of the cultural issues that have been exposed because of body cam footage, that have been exposed because of this push to attention on the issue of police violence, but clearly has been there for decades and decades and decades, if not forever. And the, like, you know, body cams may mean, may be the reason and cameras may be the reason that these guys are all indicted. But even with body cam, the culture that led these guys to be so callous, to be so violent, that led them to sit this kid up and then sit there and then have the medical help come and not address him.

Like that culture that dehumanizes the people they are meant to protect. Like that is such deep rot that has been there for such a long time. And it's going to take such a long time to untangle and get rid of it. But like how we focus on that, the kind of the way in which the people that go into the police and once into police are trained to kind of lose that connection with the community is so bad. And it is the core of so much of this, that all of these reforms are about trying to protect against like all of these forms, body cams, qualified immunity, all of it is about trying to figure out how to make up for the way in which becoming part of this police force dehumanizes people and leads them to dehumanize

the people they're meant to serve. But it's also like the why these units are created in the first place is part of why this is such a difficult issue, right? Because these units are created in the first place because they're like, all right, we're going to send the special unit into this high crime area and we're going to give them more leeway and we're going to give them less oversight than other police units because we feel like the violent crime

is the important crime to stop. And so if we just send a bunch of police in there and just let them do their thing and let them do pretextual stops and all this, it's going to work. And guess what in some of these units they do take away more guns right they do make more arrests but they're also killing a lot more people and they're killing a lot more innocent people and that's the the key point there

is this is a unit that's supposed to deal with violent crime and they pulled someone over allegedly for erratic driving right now there's no evidence right that he was driving what was going on and they gave him 71 commands in 13 minutes to do various different things that were all contradictory while pepper spraying him. And for the, you know, sometimes you'll see people reply to stories like this.

Like, well, if you don't resist, you're not going to get in trouble. The getting pepper sprayed in the face or beaten up, like you're going to run away. You know, like it's a human instinct. So that's a ridiculous straw man. I do think, though, the good news is I am less hopeful than you are about what a Kevin McCarthy-led House of Representatives means for the fate of police reform. But a lot of good has happened in states. There have been some 300 policing bills passed in 45 states over the last couple of years. Some of them govern use of force. Some have created programs to send civilian teams to respond to mental health crises instead of cops who are armed because that leads to bad outcomes. Some cities have banned these kinds of police stops for low level traffic offenses because as we just saw, they lead to violence

and police shootings. A number of states have tried to get rid of qualified immunity. Those efforts are mostly killed by unions. And again, I do think that's critical. And then other cities and states have banned no-knock warrants, chokeholds, including Memphis. So there's been a lot of progress at the state level. I'm not saying there's anywhere close to enough, and I think it'll take some time to really measure the efficacy of what's been done. But it just means that Washington isn't the only answer here. Yeah. And I do think that the best hope nationally is, you know, work on another bill again, work on another compromise. And I agree with you, Tommy. I don't

think the Republican House will ever take it up at all. But should we get it to a point where if we take the House back and reelect-elect a democratic president in 2024 then hopefully we can uh we can pass and make the argument like we we let's be honest democrats gave up making the argument because uh they felt like the politics changed because the violent crime statistics went up because it seemed politically disadvantageous i think you lose every argument you don't make so start doing that, and I think that now I think what happened is Democrats overcorrected. Right. And so there was a genuine concern about violent crime that wasn't just made up by the news or by Republicans that were happening in cities. And instead of saying, well, we can have reform where people are protected from crime, but also protected from violent cops. It went too far in the direction of like, no, we're funding the police, more police, great police. We love the police. You know, there is a message somewhere

that's between those two poles that someone that I think could be affected. Yeah. And to be clear, obviously, I think it is very unlikely that something gets to a Republican led house. But in the same way, when we were talking with Hakeem Jeffries about the importance of putting Kevin McCarthy on the spot to get him to try and introduce a clean debt limit bill, even though obviously nobody expects him to do the right thing. I think when we just start by saying, oh, the Republican House will never do anything, I think we should be pushing them and act as if we can get some kind of a negotiation to the point where he'll have to bring something to the floor. Just one other point about all this too, which is I do think that there's a parallel between the way

in which the national attention focuses on police brutality and then reform in the wake of like just these sort of monstrous unequivocal kind of sort of conscience shocking events uh in the same way that the kind of national attention focuses after mass shootings. just how much we've already given up and how much we've already lost and how much sort of daily mayhem and sort of abuse and injustice we sort of tolerate and expect and like kind of that we're all generally inured to. And like, there's no real great answer for that. But we live in a violent country. And one consequence of having a violent country is looking the other way for a lot of police violence and police brutality. And I think we do that on a sort of constant basis and figuring out a way to not just wait for shocks of the conscience to get a national debate on these issues is really important.

And one way to do that is to, I think, making sure that we don't sort of lose sight of these topics in between the most heinous and despicable examples. between the most heinous and despicable examples. All right. When we come back, Tommy talks to State Department Counselor Derek Chollet about the latest in Ukraine. I am very excited to welcome to the podcast my friend Derek Chollet. He is the counselor at the U.S. State Department. He serves at the rank of undersecretary. That's a big deal for those not familiar with State Department protocol. He's a senior policy advisor to the Secretary of State, Tony Blinken. Derek, it's great to see you.

Great to see you, Tommy. It's so fun to bring a little world of content to the Paz of America audience here. And I think it's really well-timed because it's about to have been a year since Russia invaded Ukraine. Yeah. And I was hoping we could start there, a horrible year, by the way. Yeah. And just get an overview from you of what the United States has done to date to support Ukraine and their efforts to defend their country.

And then your sort of sense of, I don't know, the state of the war itself, like where we are. Yeah, it really is mind blowing. It's been less than a year still that a little over 11 months since Russia invaded Ukraine. A year ago, if we were sitting here talking, I'd of course be saying about talking about the intelligence we were seeing build up of Russia's intent. But there are a lot of people who just couldn't believe it just because it seems so outrageous, self-defeating and terrible. And of course, everything we've seen transpired has just confirmed kind of everything we knew about Putin, but it's also confirmed everything we knew about the Ukrainians. And I think, first of all, all credit goes to them for their incredible courage,

resilience, toughness, and they've been really taking the fight to the Russians. And, you know, our policy hasn't changed really much at all, Tommy, since the beginning, which was, you know, the kind of North Stars were punish and isolate Russia, working with our allies and partners and working with our allies and partners, doing everything we can to support Ukraine. And what we've seen do politically, economically, but probably most importantly, in terms of security assistance, providing Ukraine with weapons over the last year, it's remarkable. I mean, we've really not seen anything like it since the early 1940s and the way the US came to the UK's support in the early days of World War II.

It's really remarkable. Yeah. It's rare to see Europe this united as well. Yeah. So speaking of that, so last week, President Biden and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz decided to send these heavy tanks to Ukraine. They've been sending armed infantry vehicles and lighter tanks have gone before that, but not heavy tanks. So initially the defense department had said, frankly, it was just sort of impractical to send these modern US tanks, the Abrams tank, the heavy duty latest US model. It requires tons of training to use. It uses, I think, hard to acquire jet fuel and a lot of it. Hard to maintain. Yeah, hard to maintain. Can you help us understand what changed

and what you might say to critics who say, hey, the US, you get to the right place with decisions like the tanks or the HIMARS, but it takes too long. Well, look, again, it's important to keep perspective here. We're not even a year into this war. The U.S. has provided itself nearly $30 billion in security assistance. And just to put that in perspective for folks, Ukraine's defense budget, its entire defense budget in 2021 was about $6 billion. So just what the U.S. has done is given them about five times the equivalent of their defense budget from before the war. And that's just what the U.S. is doing. We've got around 50 countries that are contributing in some way to Ukraine's defense. It was all about Stinger missiles, the shoulder-fired anti-aircraft missiles.

Then it became Javelin anti-tank missiles, special missiles that the U.S. makes, which are great at killing tanks. Then it became howitzers and air defense and Bradley fighting vehicles, which is an armored vehicle that looks a lot like a tank, but it's not a tank. And now we're talking about tanks. And look, a lot of our allies in Europe have the kinds of tanks that can be used more quickly by the Ukrainians because they're easier to use. They're not quite as sophisticated. They're still very effective, but quite a sophisticated. The leopard tanks. The leopard tanks. The challenger tanks, which is what the UK is giving. So we can get those to them or they can get those to the Ukrainians sooner.

The M1A1, the Abrams tank, is a very sophisticated tank. And we're going to start training the Ukrain give them advice of what they need, but then also to try to meet their needs. And so this has been an ongoing conversation about the tanks for the last several months, really. And we came to a really important decision last week. And they're not just getting one tank. They're getting 31 M1A1 Abrams tanks. But then they're getting hopefully up to anywhere 60 to 90 of these other kinds of tanks, the Challengers or the Leopards that are made by others. And again, I think that's just really important for listeners of the pod to keep in mind is that obviously we focus a lot on what the US is doing and the US is doing more than

anyone else, but this really truly is a collective effort. And you have countries that are spending a large chunk of their defense budget on helping Ukraine. For the US, we've spent roughly 4% of our defense budget total, I mean, equal to our defense budget on supporting Ukraine. Given what Ukraine's doing to the Russian military, it's a pretty good investment in terms of our security interests. But some other countries are doing much more as a percentage of their budget. And we just need to acknowledge that contribution that they're making. doing much more as a percentage of their budget. And we just need to acknowledge that contribution that they're making. Yeah. And I think those 31 M1A1 tanks will basically make up a Ukrainian battalion, right? So they'll have a full-fledged US-equipped battalion.

Significant capability. Yeah, absolutely. So, Derek, as I know well, as you know, the fun part of working in government is you get attacked from both sides of every issue. So let's do that to you now. And that's usually a sign when I'm doing something right, is when both sides are attacking me. Potentially, yes. Potentially. Well, let's see what you think after I ask the question. So the Ukrainian government is now asking for moderate F-16s. There's reports that President Biden is considering that ask as well. Curious what the latest is there. And then what do you say, again, to people, myself included, frankly, who hear about these announcements, the M1A1s, the HIMARS, now maybe F-16s, who feel like there is this sort of inexorable push towards escalation, more weapons from the West, Russia's drafting more men into service, et cetera, et cetera.

And that just kind of, I don't have anything specific to say on the F-16s other than as the Ukrainians' requests continue and as their needs evolve, our ability to provide them certain kinds of equipment are going to evolve. ongoing conversation we're having with them. I mean, this is something that wasn't in place a year ago, but now say the last year we put in place a really robust, it's a great government word, robust, robust set of system to like, to sort through what they need and how we can best get stuff through them and what they can use most quickly. Look, they're in a war. So I fully understand from their perspective, like this is existential for them. Their country's survival is at stake. So I understand that every time they get something, it's thank you and we need more. Thank you. And we need more. Now, our job is to, A, try to make sure we're being as effective as we can as partners, getting them what they need. But then also, and this is kind of our overall objective here, like what we're trying to achieve is a Ukraine that is independent, that is sovereign, that is democratic, that can defend its territory, that's clean, meaning a Ukraine that is freer from corruption, that has plagued that country for too long. And I believe President Zelensky and his team are very committed to fighting corruption, by the way.

What fired like five people or five top officials resigned. They are well aware and they're well aware that the world is being generous with them. And they have to be good stewards of all of this assistance they're getting. And look, my view is we don't want Ukraine just to survive. We want it to come out of this stronger, more democratic, closer to Europe, closer to the United States. But Ukraine has to survive first. I mean, again, it's important for people to remember this was not a war that was provoked by anybody. This was a country that violated the most basic principle of international politics, crossing a border to gobble up parts of another country. And that's what Ukraine's dealing with. So it feels, it seems to me that it's important for Ukraine's future. It's important

for our broader interests that Russia not succeed. I don't think Russia is succeeding. I think they've already suffered a profound defeat strategically, given the assistance we've been giving Ukraine, given the humbling that its military is taking on the battlefield, given the fact we have Finland and Sweden coming into NATO. That was not something, again, if we were talking here a year ago, I would say that's not on our to-do list for 2022 is to have Finland and Sweden come into NATO. Are you worried that Turkey is going to block Sweden's entry into NATO? It seems like Erdogan's really making some noise about that. This has been tough. A lot of tough

discussions with the Swedes and the Finns, with the Turks. I'm optimistic we're going to get across the finish line. We've got a Turkish election coming up in May. That's going to be a factor here, clearly. But I think we're going to get there. And what's important, again, not the first time NATO's enlarged in its history. This has been a record setting time already, even with this delay. So it's just important to keep that in mind as well. And some capable militaries that would be added to the- Yeah, absolutely. And the thing, again, viewers and listeners- Both. Both, both may not be aware, but Finland and Sweden have already been great NATO partners. I mean, they've been,

they're very capable militaries. They're very strong democracies. They're the kinds of countries we already do a lot with. And so having them in the alliance will make us all stronger. Yeah. There's been a lot of pressure, understandably, from parts of Washington, more from progressives, to push President Biden to sit down for talks with President Putin. to push President Biden to sit down for talks with President Putin. Just curious if there's any, you know, like U.S. diplomatic contacts at any level with the Russian government and whether you guys feel like Putin is willing or able to have real talks, you know, not just sort of like sit down as a way to stall for time. Yeah. I mean, look, I'm sitting here in the State Department. Diplomacies are how we make a living. So we never rule out talks. And of course, again, a year ago, we were engaged. Secretary Blinken was engaged with an intensive set of conversations with the Russians to try to find, is there a way we can prevent this war from happening? It was pretty clear in those conversations. And frankly, I have not seen anything in the last year to suggest that Putin is willing to contemplate anything other than his own maximalist objectives, which is he wants to own Ukraine.

Right, right. Full stop. And look, Zelensky has said he's open to diplomacy. You know, Let's talk. But Putin's made certain terms for preconditions, as they call them, for talking, which are impossible for Zelensky to accept, including the fact that Zelensky would have to acknowledge and recognize the territory that Russia's gained by force. I mean, that's just a non-starter. So I haven't seen any evidence that Putin is serious at all about negotiations. Putin is serious at all about negotiations. Yeah. Unless anyone think that your point there just about territory. I mean, we know that there have been Russian war crimes committed against civilians in those occupied territories. You know, it's untenable for anyone. Hundreds if not thousands. Yeah, absolutely. It could be that what you're lacking is some strategic creative genius. Here's an idea. Former President Trump says that if he's reelected, he will build, quote, an impenetrable dome over the United States to protect us from Russian nuclear missile attacks.

I know you don't do politics, but you did work at the Defense Department in a previous life. What do you make of the feasibility of building said impenetrable missile defense dome over the U.S. the, uh, Israeli iron dome system? Uh, technically probably not feasible kind of back to the future. They're reminiscent of early 1980s and star Wars. What if we call it star Wars space lasers? So we've been, we've been there. We've been there. Yeah. This is an old idea. Yeah. It's too bad. Okay. Uh, moving forward, uh, speaking of Israel. So, you know, there were reports over the weekend that Israel struck some military sites in Iran over the weekend. I know Tony Blinken is over in Israel now for meetings. There were some suggestions on Twitter. So consider the source that the Israeli government might have done this to help Ukraine. maybe, you know, they've refused, the Israelis have refused to offer Ukraine weapons or assistance, but Iran has been a key source of drones for Russia, for example, that they've used against Ukrainian military or the Ukrainian targets, I should say. The New York Times later reported

that the strike was unconnected to Iran's support for Russia. I'm just curious if you know anything about this strike in Iran or anything we can talk about publicly. Yeah, nothing I can talk about publicly. You wouldn't be surprised to hear that. As you said, Secretary Blinken is in Israel right now, today. He'll be there tomorrow as well. Intensive talks with the new government there, a new old government in many ways, the Prime Minister Netanyahu is well-known to all of us here,

as well as members of his senior team. Iran was first and foremost on the issues they discussed. And we share with the Israelis our determination to prevent Iran from getting a nuclear weapon, but also to take steps to try to address Iran's behavior that the nuclear talks have nothing to do with, like Iran's proliferation of drones to places like Russia. And I think that's a dimension, frankly, going back to Ukraine, of the Ukraine war, that is quite concerning, which is the deepening of the cooperation between Russia and Iran, the willingness of Iran to provide Russia with sophisticated

drones that are being used to kill civilians in Ukraine. It's something we should all take notice of. And it's important, you know, you're kind of defined by your friends and you look where Russia turns for support. It's turning to the likes of North Korea and Iran. And that's a big problem. That's a big problem for us. Big problem for Ukraine. It's a big problem for Israel as well. Yeah. Understandable. I think calling the Israeli coalition old old but new is perfect. I mean, it's Bibi Netanyahu, who we've all had the great pleasure of getting to observe and work with at times. But his new coalition is this hyper-nationalist, ultra-orthodox group of individuals that includes former ex-convicts, open racists in ministerial positions.

ex-convicts, open racists in ministerial positions. And there is concern from people like Ehud Barak, the former Israeli prime minister, that Netanyahu is pushing forward policy proposals that he said, Barak said would, quote, collapse Israeli democracy. Wondering if that kind of is on the conversation, if there's any concern from the State Department about the trajectory of this new governing coalition and some of the things they're pushing for? Yeah, well, obviously, it's something we're watching closely. Secretary Blinken has been very clear that we're going to be focused on policies, not personalities. And he was in Israel today. The reason why he wanted to go so early, uh, since this new government, uh, has taken office was to talk about some of the policies and look, and this is not just about this moment. It's kind of taking a step back, which brought the U S and Israel, uh, so close

over the last 75 years is the fact that we have shared values. Uh, we're thriving democracies. Uh, we've seen the, the vibrant Israeli civil society in action over the last several weeks. And, you know, we want to always try to stay true to those principles and remember that's what fundamentally what brings us together. And the other point we've made is that, look, we believe that Israel's normalizing of relations with some of its Arab neighbors, that's happened over the last few years. And there was a big step taken in the previous administration. And I give credit to the previous administration for that because I think it was the most positive thing to happen in the Middle East in quite some time. And what I'm talking about is Israel's normalization with the United Arab Emirates and Morocco and Bahrain.

And that's a bottom-up piece that's not just governments doing it it's businesses private sector tourism people to people education sports all that well look it's hard to see that uh that getting that circle getting wider if uh israel's you know backyards on fire right and so that's something that that to me is self-evident. We want to do big things with the Israelis. Prime Minister Netanyahu has got big ambitions for Israel and the region. We share those ambitions and, you know, we want to work together to try to achieve those, but it is hard to see how that happens if, you know, Israel's mired in a, in a, in a major crisis right in its backyard. Yeah. I mean, is there any concern that, you know, potentially U.S. military aid or, you know, funding for systems like the Iron Dome system might be supporting, I don't know,

IDF military units that appear to be providing cover for settler violence? Or I don't know if there's potential annexation of the West Bank. Is that the kind of thing that's getting talked about? I mean, we've, look, been very clear with the Israelis that President Biden, for his entire career, support the two-state solution. We want to continue to uphold that. We're also continuing to urge both sides to take steps to achieve that. An important part of Blinken's trip to Israel, well, he'll be going to the West Bank. And so he'll be in the West Bank on Tuesday of this week for talks with the Palestinian leadership, which is under tremendous stress right now as well. So look, as always, the Middle East puts a lot on your plate. And that's why it was important for Blinken as the nation's chief diplomat to get out

there sooner rather than later to begin getting to work with these guys. Yeah. Well, I'm glad Tony's there. I mean, there's a really scary cycle of violence. There's this horrible attack on people in a synagogue over the weekend. There's been repliable attacks on Palestinians, civilians that are once being harmed. Last question for you, just to turn to China, just to grab bag of the hardest issues I could think to ask you. So a four-star Air Force general named Michael Minahan sent a memo to his command warning that he believes the US will go to war with China in 2025. The House Foreign Affairs Committee Chair, Michael McCaul, agreed with that assessment on one of the many Sunday shows this weekend. I'm sure that you and Biden's national security team were thrilled to read about an Air Force general kind of riffing on war with China.

That's always a fun day. Always a fun Saturday morning reading the newspaper on that one. In the press office. Yeah. But, you know, Derek, this talk is like we can, you know, suggest that he shouldn't have put that in a memo or that McCall's statements are irresponsible. But this is kind of the talk you always hear about China, right? It's this Thucydides trap. Great powers are always going to get into a conflict talk like war is treated as inevitable.

What do you say to listeners who hear that all the time out of Washington and think, boy, that doesn't sound good. I would prefer to avoid a war with China. And can you tell us about anything that the diplomats at the State Department are doing to try to relieve some steam here? Sure. No, no, absolutely. I mean, we want to avoid a war as well. I mean, China is the most complex and consequential relationship that we have right now. And I'm sure the United States is not alone in feeling that way. Many countries around the world feel that way. And in foreign policy, there's often a desire or drive, particularly among the chattering classes, to come up with a bumper sticker, like what is a containment or what do you call it? Well, if you wanted to try to sum up our China policy, you would need a really long bumper

because it's hard to boil down into one word because there's elements of the relationship that are competitive and we're not afraid of competing with China as long as we're playing by the same rules. There's an element of the relationship, and I concede it's a small element right now that's cooperative. I mean, we've got to cooperate with China on an issue like climate change. I mean, the US is responsible for 15% of global emissions. We got to work with others to get the 85% under control, and China is a big chunk of that. So there are elements we hope to be cooperative. And there are elements of the relationship that are conflictual. They're not doesn't mean it's a conflict, but we have fundamental differences and we need to push back hard where necessary and try to change China's mind and working with our allies and partners alongside us here in this.

So, look, we have an intensive amount of diplomacy with China. President Biden and President Xi have had multiple conversations, including one in person late last year on the margins of a meeting in Indonesia. Secretary Blinken in short order, we'll be visiting China to follow up on, on President Biden's meetings with President Xi and find a way that we can put a floor on things.

Like we do not, we, we believe that this relationship matters greatly to US interests in both positively but negatively as well. And we need to work with them to prevent things from spiraling out of control and becoming into a conflict that I think we and they would want to avoid. Yeah. And Secretary Yellen, I think was just there, the Treasury Secretary. That's a big deal, right? Because I mean, with China's COVID restrictions, that's a big deal, right? Because I mean, with COVID, with China's COVID restrictions,

I believe only John Huntsman, the US ambassador to China was maybe the only person having meetings with Chinese officials at a senior level for like, sorry, Nick Burns. John Huntsman was Obama's ambassador in 2009. Jesus Christ, man. My brain is. Yeah, that's all right. We're leaving it in. Nick Burns was the only one who had meetings with Chinese officials for like a couple of years, right? Well, in China. In China. We would meet with Chinese officials outside of China. Secretary Blinken's had multiple interactions with his counterpart. And now he's got a new – they just had a shakeup.

So he's got a new counterpart as well. But, yeah, right. Burns was the only one meeting with them in China. So now China's, I mean, it's interesting also to think about, I mean, we had a huge challenge with COVID. China's even had a bigger challenge with COVID. As you know, in the last few weeks, they've been hit with waves of COVID that we dealt with a year ago or more. So now, I mean, this will be Secretary Blinken's first trip to China as Secretary of State. So over two years in the job, he's finally getting there.

Yeah, that's remarkable. Derek, thank you for this tour of the region. I really appreciate your time and all the good work you're doing. Thanks, Tommy. Appreciate it. All right, we're back. Before we go, the great Hallie Kiefer is here. Thank you for having me back.

Of course. Of course. I work here, I guess. What would the other option be? I just wouldn't come. It would be insane. You can know, Cheryl. Anyway, you've got a game for us.

I do. Gentlemen, we have a new game. It's called What's He Bad At? We've got basically the premise of it. We play you a clip from Fox News. A few selected words will be bleeped out, but you'll notice the screen has sort of a familiar cant, if you will, because all Fox rants follow sort of the same formula,

sort of a deranged mad lib, if you will. This is, of course, what we call propaganda. So we're having fun, but we're also examining how the right manipulates its listeners by tapping into their fear and rage on an emotional level. Yeah.

Yeah, we don't need the familiar patterns. No subtext. No, no, no. Let's see the dweebs over on Jeopardy do all that, okay? Anywho,

so we'll be bleeping out the specific thing each particular he is mad about, and you'll need to rely on context clues to guess what the topic is about. It is choice don't worry because a lot of these sound pretty similar also i was kidding earlier i love jeopardy i'm kidding again i think it's fine lewis vertel is going to be upset i will fight him are you all ready yeah we're ready let us

play the first clip this is bigger than any of us. This is about freedom. It's about America. It's about the right to have. It's what we do. And now to take that away because a particular company or a particular political party has so much power. I mean, this is what happens in authoritarian regimes. It doesn't happen in America. So we've got to fight this. that could be anything yeah exactly the particular company that makes me think it's

about a social media ban that makes me think it's about a social media ban what's he mad about here here your options we got some options oh yeah a the rumor that the biden administration is going to get rid of gas stoves um how his beloved Newsmax is losing its contract with DirecTV. The release of the so-called Twitter files, or the time an Olive Garden waitress refused to say Merry Christmas back to him. Sure, it was the middle of January, but that's how this works. First, liberals limit

Christmas to a single month, and then we, I mean they, abolish it entirely. Gentlemen, what's he mad about? I think it's Newsmax. That's what I think it's Newsmax. I thought it was going to be like Closing Splash Mountain or something Disney related. I think it's Newsmax too. What was the first one again? We have the rumor, gas stoves.

Newsmax losing contact with DirecTV. Twitter files, I'm not saying Merry Christmas in January. I'm going to zag where they zig and go Twitter files. Okay. Again, Tommy couldn't be more wrong. It's actually me. It is Newsmax getting dumped by the satellite provider, DirecTV. And then just to give you a little context at home, in case you, again, there's so much going on.

Congressman Van Drew and other Republicans feared the loss of Newsmax would rob Americans of the right-wing viewpoint. But don't worry. of the right-wing viewpoint, but don't worry. DirecTV immediately replaced Newsmax with a new right-wing cable news channel called The First, which, of course, has given Bill O'Reilly a television show yet again. I haven't heard this. I didn't even know that.

Wow. Thanks for educating us about that. You know, it's like when... I gotta tune in. It's like when my local poison store closed, you know, and I was worried, but luckily a big, beautiful beautiful gigantic poison emporium opened right down the street across from the target saved by the bell to get your poison

absolutely you thought you might be able to get your poison but now you can get more poison than ever more poison than ever pick your poison poison now featuring bill o'reilly let's play the second clip compassion which is at the core of the American spirit, the care for other people. It takes that care and it twists it to dark ends. You're seeing some of the nicest people in Washington make some of the dumbest statements because they've been infected by this brain virus. So members of Congress are now trying to spend your money on a... This is crazy. Let's hope we pull back. Wow, again.

This is so good. Could be anything. That's basically how Tucker... That is Tucker Matlib right there. It's incredible. Also, the bleep-it makes it sound way cooler. They're actually talking about something filthy. It's like, I wish.

That'd be more fun. Yeah, you're not crazy. The world is crazy. It's something to do with Congress. Okay, let's hear the options. A, more federal funding for the Ukrainian army. Okay. B, more federal funding for refugees at the border.

C, a monument at the Capitol for Ukrainian President Zelensky. D, a new laptop for Hunter Biden, because you know that guy's going to lose it. Okay, he's going to put it on a park bench in Delaware. Interestingly, were you all aware that Delaware's state bird is Hunter Biden's laptop? Actually, it's not, but what if it was?

Your thoughts? No, it'd be cool if it was. Dan was here. He would love this. Delaware content. He's going to run on that platform when he runs for Senate. Changing the state bird. Takes on establishment figure Chris Coons. Giving him the bird.

Wait, what were the options again? A, more federal funding for the Ukrainian army. B, more federal funding for refugees at the border. C, a monument at the capital for Ukrainian President Zelensky. And a new laptop for Hunter Biden. That's what you should run on. You get a free laptop if Hunter Biden is elected president, but you got to find it somewhere. It's just loose in Delaware.

I think it's A. I think it's Ukraine. I think it's A too. Levin? Are you going to zig? Are you going to zag? Or zig, whatever it is. I think the fact that there were two Ukrainian options is why I think it's A. So you're all going A?

I also don't think we've done any more border funding. Anyway, go ahead. It is C, actually, a bronze statue of President Zelensky. Republican Congressman Joe Wilson asked the House Fine Arts Board to obtain a bust of the Ukrainian president and find, quote, a suitable permanent location for it at the U.S. Capitol. Tucker's not having it, but I personally, I will fund it entirely myself, and I will fund anything that specifically makes Tucker Carlson enraged. As this segment implies, that's good for my pocketbook because he's mad at a lot of stuff.

What do you guys think about that? Tucker's right. We do not need a bust of President Zelensky in the Capitol. What are we doing here, people? We're going to put a bust of a comedian in the Capitol. It's going to be you. Can we Bill Maher? Can we just get like a bobblehead or a votive candle?

What about a picture? A plaque. What about a big nice framed picture? Print out an AP photo. I'll get a bobblehead right next to like a bobblehead or a votive candle? What about a picture? What about a big nice framed picture? Printed on an AP photo. I'll get a bobblehead right next to my Mueller bobblehead. If you get the high resolution, what is it? Right next to my Fauci one. It's for commercial use.

The three wise men. Fauci, Zelensky. The three wise men of the resistance. Fauci, Mueller, Zelensky. Listen, I got some scar tissue from... Zelensky doesn't deserve that. Neither does Fauci. From poorly located prime minister bus.

It's a bad idea. I do think, yeah, you should be, listen, I don't think your district is out of problems. I think you should focus on those. Joe Wilson of all people. Joe Wilson said you lie. He's the guy that shouted you lie. You lie. If we could play the next clip.

First gas stoves, then your coffee. Now you're gunning for my. Isn't it crazy, though? Like when we were kids, you were a rebel if you had like a leather jacket and a pack of cigarettes. I mean, it's crazy what they're doing, but we understand what this is. They're trying to recruit your kids into at an earlier age. Yeah, I didn't think of that. You're right. They're going after the children. Of course they are. I know I don't. Don this. I'm not going to say a word. I just. I'm going to get it with the multiple choice. Gentlemen, America's children are being lured into wokeism again. What is the culprit this time?

A, woke Pop-Tarts is inspired actually by a Pride Month product, the neon pink block party lemonade flavor. Okay. B, woke video game console, specifically the Xbox. C, woke Disney for closing Splash Mountain. And then finally, woke Easy Bake Ovens, inspired by a recent ad that threatens the masculinity of Americans used by depicting a little boy making brownies. That little brownie-loving boy is clearly gay. You could just tell. Kids shouldn't be exposed to that.

What do you think the answer is? It's going to be the Xbox. I do think, though, in fairness to the Republicans, I think it is weird that the Pride Pop-Tart is cum-flavored. Wow! And I didn't notice when I had one. I'll be honest. I'm like, I guess that's what Pink Lemonade never had it.

What show is this? Positive America. Positive America After Dark. So John said Xbox. what show is this positive america uh after dark so john said xbox yeah okay xbox are we all going xbox i know that it is xbox it is xbox of course in case you missed it uh listener in the deluge of shit that is every week in the news xbox has released a software update that allows its devices to save electricity by going into sleep mode when it's not being used. Fox saying the new woke Xbox is both

ruining the fun of video games and making kids think about the environment much too early. And we can all agree the best time for children to think about climate change is when the salt water from the rising sea levels just destroys their Xbox entirely and not a moment before. That is so stupid.

It's stupid on such another level because the actual Xbox update is they just changed how the power saving mode works to save a little more power. Right, yeah, that's it. It's very simple. All it is is just like, hey guys, it's called power saving mode.

We're not doing sleep mode anymore. It takes nothing away from you. It's nothing from anyone. Even the little bit of inconvenience. It's nothing. It's nothing nothing away from you. It's nothing from anyone. Even the little bit of inconvenience. It's nothing. It's nothing. It's nothing. It's just...

Wow. Wow. And finally, we got one more. Oh. And we got one for the ladies. Let's play the clip. Were the dads here? I mean, why doesn't anyone put a stop?

Because again, just to be completely clear, is a crime, and it's certainly a moral crime and I'm just amazed that people sit back and let it happen. I'm glad you mentioned the dads, Tucker. Yes. A lot of the people that ****** are single mothers. I don't know if there's a pattern there or what.

What? No, I think this is important because he said it's a crime and then has to correct himself and say it's a moral crime because it is of course not actually a crime. What he's talking about. He's just thrown out the word crime. But he is trying to incite his viewers to hurt people. Absolutely.

That's great. Yeah. Are they are these single mothers taking their children to a Christmas themed drag show? B, helping their young daughters seek abortions out of state. C, bringing their kids to quote unquote Antifa protests. Or D, forcing their children to beat each other up at an underground toddler fight club while onlookers watch and place tiny bets.

Cute little tiny bets. Toddler-sized bets. I think D was in the Game of Thrones spinoff. Wasn't it in the last season? Toddler fight club? It was like a little kid fight club in a show I watched recently. You dreamt it.

House of Dragon, yeah. I think it'd be cool if we gaslit Tommy to thinking that he never saw that. Wait, what were the first ones? What were A, B, and C again? Taking their kids to a Christmas-themed all-ages drag show, helping their young daughters seek abortions out of state, bringing their kids to quote-unquote Antifa

protests, and of course Toddler Fight Club. I mean, A feels the most likely. It does. It does. But I feel like they're trying to get us with this. I remember him saying this, this thing about basically how are people just letting this happen? And I do remember,

I feel like it was about drags. I actually thought it was about, yeah, I think it's about Drag Story Hour. That's what I think.'s what i think i think it's a yeah me too tell me how you feeling i'm thinking a too all right you are correct it is a yeah taking their kids to drag shows tugger was interviewing right-wing troll and self-described drag phobe tyler henson who recorded an all-ages christmas drag show in san antonio texas which he claimed was inappropriate the venue then had to cancel all of its drag shows for the rest of the years out of safety concerns. This is just one of the many examples of drag performers being targeted by the right wing. According to the ACLU,

Republican state houses introduced 315 anti-LGBTQ bills in 2022. Thankfully, only 29 passed the law, but that's 29 too many. But Tucker's not entirely wrong, because as a woman who doesn't have a man to physically control me, I do go to drag shows a lot. And if anyone needs me to record one, I'm happy to do so. But I could tell you right now what you're going to see me having a, the goddamn time of my life.

Gentlemen, that's our game. Thank you so much. Thanks for having me back. I work here. I have to be here. Thank you for hosting another fantastic game. Thank you to a state department counselor,

Derek Shillay for joining us today. And we'll talk to you later this week. Bye, guys. Pod Save America is a Crooked Media production. The executive producer is Michael Martinez. Our senior producer is Andy Gardner Bernstein. Our producers are Haley Muse and Olivia Martinez. It's mixed and edited by Andrew Chadwick.

Kyle Seglin and Charlotte Landis sound engineered the show. Thanks to Hallie Kiefer, Ari Schwartz, Sandy Gerrard, Andy Taft, and Justine Howe for production support. And to our digital team, Elijah Cohn, Phoebe Bradford, Milo Kim, and Amelia Montu. Our episodes are uploaded as videos at youtube.com slash podsaveamerica.