Pod Save America - Don't Poo — Vote!

Episode Date: November 4, 2025

Barack Obama hits the campaign trail—and discusses Trump's sh*tposting—as voters head to the polls. Donald Trump sits down for a lengthy interview with 60 Minutes—the same program he sued in 2024—to discuss immigration raids, his new fascination with nuclear weapons, and his surprising pardon of a Chinese crypto tycoon. Jon, Lovett, and Tommy discuss the interview's most shocking moments, share their final thoughts on the 2025 elections, and react to the garish Gatsby-themed party the President threw at Mar-a-Largo as SNAP benefits expired for more than 40 million Americans on Halloween night. Then, George Retes, the combat veteran and American citizen who was detained by immigration agents with no explanation while driving to work, stops by the studio and shares his harrowing story.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. Get tickets to CROOKED CON November 6-7 in Washington, D.C at http://crookedcon.com Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Today's presenting sponsor is Simply Safe Home Security. Are you feeling particularly anxious? Mm-hmm. Unsettled? Yeah. One small thing you can do right now to at least provide a sense of safety when you're at home is to get Simply Safe home security. Traditional security systems respond after someone breaks in.

Simply Safe is different because it can stop crimes before they happen with its active guard outdoor protection. High-tech cameras detect threats while they're still outside and alert real security agents. This is the game changer. The agent takes action while the intruder is outside, which is where you want them. that's the sweet spot they confront the intruder letting them know they're being watched on camera and the police are on the way but even sounding a loud siren and triggering a spotlight if needed it's like oh my in la it's like finally my moment is how you stop crime before it starts i would say a crime is probably already started in a sense other systems have cameras that you talk to intruders but they require you to see the alert yourself simply save some monitoring agents have your back and talk to intruders even if you aren't there there's no long-term content contracts or hidden fees. You can cancel anytime. Name best home security systems by US News and World Report for five years running 60 day money back guarantee so you can try it and see

the difference yourself. I've set up a simply safe system. It's very easy to do. Works right out of the box. You can customize it for your home and then the app is really reliable. The customer support really reliable. I recommend it. Don't miss out on SimplySafe's biggest sale of the year. 60% off right now. Our listeners can save 60% off a simply safe home security system at simply safe.com slash crooked. That's simply safe.com slash crooked. There's no safe. Like simply safe. Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm John Fabro. I'm John Lovett. I'm Tommy D.Tor. Love it. You're in New York. Are you doing some last minute canvassing for

No, I'm doing, it's more like a hurricane or war reporting as I watch the people escape the city before the socialists take over, a lot of BMWX-5s with their stuff loaded on the roof like their Okies. Pretty exciting time here. Just trying to stuff all the means of production you can in your pockets before you take off. It's my last time visiting New York City as a business owner. Excited to be here part of a commune of some kind in the future. but for now I'm here as a management. Bill Ackman's just throwing all the words into his bucket for his long, long tweets. Oh, the character limits.

That's right. Enjoy the grocery stores while you can. On today's show, we'll talk about Trump's lengthy 60 Minutes interview from Mar-a-Lago that was recorded just hours before hosting a great Gatsby-themed Halloween party. In the midst of a government shutdown, he refuses to do anything about. We'll also cover the newsiest moments from that interview, which includes Trump's new urge to test nuclear weapons. potential ground wars in Venezuela and Nigeria, and his push to end the filibuster.

There you go. We'll also talk about the intramaga battle over Tucker Carlson and white nationalist Nick Fuentes, as well as all the last-minute activity in the big elections wrapping up today. Then I'll be talking to George Redis, the combat veteran and American citizen who was detained by ICE while driving to work

and put in solitary confinement for three days with absolutely no due process whatsoever. Wild stories. and raging story. But let's start with Trump's big interview with 60 Minutes Nora O'Donnell. His first sit down with the show since CBS and Paramount chose to pay him a $16 million settlement over their decision to not air one part of one answer that Kamala Harris gave during her 60 Minutes interview during the 2024 campaign. It was also Trump's first interview since David Ellison, son of Trump donor and close ally Larry Ellison, took over CBS

and installed Barry Weiss as the news division's editor-in-chief. Trump, of course, brought up the settlement during the interview, as well as all the good things he's heard about Weiss. But he also faced some tough, newsy questions from Nora on a range of topics that we'll go through. But let's start with deportations and military deployments. Americans have been watching videos of ICE tackling a young mother, tear gas being used in a Chicago residential neighborhood, and the smashing of car windows. Have some of these raids gone too far? No, I think they haven't gone far enough. You're okay with those tactics.

Yeah, because you have to get the people there. Well, you promised in your campaign that you were going to deport the worst of the worst, violent criminals, rapists. But a lot of the people that your administration has arrested and deported aren't violent criminals. Landscapers, nannies, construction workers, farm workers. You said, if we need more than the National Guard, we'll send more than the National Guard. What does that mean, send more than the National Guard? Well, if you had to send in the Army or if you had to send in the Marines, I'd do that in a heartbeat. So you're going to send the military into American cities?

Well, if I wanted to, I could, if I wanted to use the Insurrection Act. The Insurrection Act has been used routinely by presidents. And if I needed it, that would mean I could bring in the Army, the Marines. I could bring in whoever I want. But I haven't chosen to use it. I hope you give me credit for that. So those answers both sent to me like Stephen Miller, very much still running the show and maybe Trump's information diet.

But what did you guys make of those answers, Tommy? I tend to take Trump at his word that he doesn't think it's gone far enough. I mean, it would have been very easy. Obviously, he didn't have the benefit of the video of some of those worst excesses, but it would be very easy to rhetorically distance yourself from, like, abuses or harming American citizens. And there's real political risk, I think, for Trump, if people begin to think that the raids have gone too far and, like, stories about Americans getting beat up, George Redis' story, the priest we've talked about who got shot in the head with a pepper ball, raids at Home Depot's,

like, you know, your sort of feature stories about someone who's lived here for 30 years and is now getting deported despite not having done anything. Like, those are bad. People don't like that. And I think it's telling that he doesn't distance himself there. And also the policy itself has gotten more extreme. And, you know, like that's happening with personnel too. Like Tom Homan seemingly wasn't extreme enough for these guys.

They've elevated this nut, Greg Bovino, who is behind a lot of the worst stuff happening in Chicago, for example, like the tear gassing of kids trick-or-treating. They made up a new title for him. He's not the commander at large. He reports directly to Christy Nome. So Stephen Miller is clearly a huge driver of the policy. I agree with you. But Trump seemed to think he seems to like it.

Love it. You've been going back and forth on the Insurrection Act and the potential invocation of the Insurrection Act. I thought it was interesting that he, like, wants credit for not doing it yet. Right. Yeah. So part of this I do think he will never, when asked by a mainstream journalist, are you going too far?

He will never, ever say yes. But if he's called by his, say, agriculture secretary about raids at meatpacking plants causing a problem for business, all of a sudden he'll pop off about how, yeah, we've got to deport people, but we also need people to do the farming and do the growing and do the jobs and the landscaping. So, like, I don't know if this represents any kind of actual shift or, like, kind of new insight into what he actually thinks, but he will not give an inch on any of this when he's going to talk to a mainstream journalist because he wants to do his sort of tough guy performance. I wonder if he's asked about people who support his policies on immigration broadly or voted for him because they thought he would crack down on the border that view his success at the border is something that they appreciate but worry about this, what he would say if it's framed more towards the people who actually kind of are allied with him.

But beyond that, you know, he is going down this dark path and does not seem at least rhetorically interested in stopping. Yeah, I sort of wonder if what he would have said if he was asked about like the pro-publica story that sort of detailed all of the American citizens who'd been detained. I imagine he would just be like, well, I don't know anything about that. Yeah. And they're just sort of like, they were bad. They wave it off. To your point on me, though, new NBC news poll that came out over the weekend, you know, By 55 to 44% people do not think the current deployments of National Guard troops are justified.

ICE is viewed positively by only 39% of Americans and 50% view ICE negatively, including two-thirds of black and Hispanic voters view ICE negatively. And those negative views, apparently of ICE, that's like a new high. It's doubled since 2020. And obviously, they weren't too loved in 2020 either. So that is interesting. And also just, there's also been a bunch of reporting about division. the administration between ICE and the Border Patrol, about those that believe ICE is being

tagged for some of the worst excesses of the Border Patrol, people inside of those agencies that believe they're going too far in a way that is, like, redounding to, like, negative perceptions of the agency and are not sort of contributing to the goals they set out to achieve at the beginning. So I do think beneath this, there is still that actual political problem. He's just not going to answer it in a question that's about, like, are you tough enough, sir? I will say just broadly, watching the 60 Minutes interview, it really, it stands out how long it's been since he sat down for a full interview with a real journalist. Because I think Nora did a good job. She also just had so many things to get through that even on something like that, you can't really follow up more than once or twice because you really have to talk about a whole bunch of shit.

And he gave her 90 minutes. I mean, this is a long interview. Like, again, the one thing this guy does is he makes himself available. Usually it's Marjorie Taylor's Green's boyfriend more than anybody else, but, you know, 90 minutes. Trump was also asked about his recent pardon of Binance founder, CZ, who was serving time for failing to stop terrorist money laundering on his platform. The pardon came after CZ publicly asked for a pardon, and after Binance made sure that Trump's family crypto coin was used to facilitate a $2 billion investment, complete coincidence, of course. Here's the 60 Minutes Exchange. Why did you pardon him?

Okay, are you ready? I don't know who he is. I know he got a four-month sentence or something like that, and I heard it was a Biden witch hunt. His crypto exchange, Binance, helped facilitate a $2 billion purchase of World Liberty Financial's staple coin. And then you pardoned CZ. How do you address the appearance of pay-for-play?

Well, here's the thing. I know nothing about it because I'm too busy doing the other. But he got a pardon? But he got a pardon? No, I can only tell you this. I do, look, Nora, like, had good, tough questions on this. I do wonder if that's a moment where you throw away your script and you're like, you don't know the guy you pardoned that you've gotten a bunch of tough questions about,

like the really corrupt guy, the money laundering, you don't know who that is? You just pardoned him? Are you not very upset right now that Joe Biden, apparently, didn't really pardon any of the people he pardoned, but used an auto pen? Yeah. Isn't that one of your big, you want an investigation over that, but you don't know the people you're pardoning? It's crazy.

There's an auto pen hanging. He hung the auto pen in the White House because he's mad that Joe Biden didn't know who he's pardoning. It's outrageous. You'll never believe this, guys, but the rest of that Trump answer, where she asked him, is he concerned at all? And he says, I can't say because I can't say I'm not concerned. I don't. I'd rather not have you ask the question. That part was omitted from the extended version of the interview on YouTube.

So can we all sue for $15 million? Yeah, congrats in the new gig, Barry Weiss. I didn't realize that. Because I know that I saw that they had cut it from the what had aired, and I saw the transcript of it. It doesn't even, it's not even in that extended cut on you. They just don't even have the video of it. That's what Austin told us, not even on the extent. That's wild.

It is just for folks I've been following this. I mean, CZ did four months in jail. Binance paid $4.3 billion in fines. It was the largest settlement in U.S. history. And again, they willfully fail to report financial transactions with al-Qaeda, ISIS, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, Hamas. There was money going to Iran and other sanctioned companies. There was money going to websites selling. child sex abuse material. And the willful piece is so important, like the New Yorker quoted

Binance's chief compliance officer saying, I assume it's like a slack message or something, saying, like, come on, they are here for crime. They knew what their customers were doing. And so, but Trump, like, he pardons this guy, obviously because Binance, they wrote the code to USD1, which is the Trump family stable coin. They facilitated this investment into Binance by this Emirati backed firm. And Binance asked that it be done in USD1. which was barely on the map. It had been launched in March. Now it's the sixth largest stable coin in the world,

and the Trump family will make an estimated $80 million per year in interest alone off of that investment. That's how we got to... He knows nothing about it. He knows nothing about it. I don't know. Ready? I don't know this guy. He was like proud of the answer, too. Ready?

Ready? I have no idea who he is. Ready? Worked on this one. Yeah, it's like, like you think you've got me in some kind of gotcha? Guess what? I don't know. I don't have a fucking clue of this guy is. Am I doing this? wasn't corruption. It's pure incompetence. The other part of this, too, like all these pardons, like Santos, CZ, the insurrectionist, there, like right now, there are people inside

the Department of Justice, the FBI prosecutors looking at whether or not to investigate Republicans or other allies of Trump. Like, I don't know how you would like bring yourself to put the energy and hard work into what it takes to do one of these. prosecutions to do one of these investigations when you know that you're going to have the legs cut out from under you the second anybody gets a call into Trump because he is pardoning anybody he's basically made it so that Republicans or his closest allies cannot be can not be held accountable for federal crimes I don't think those people should worry because I don't think they're going to get assigned to any more of these cases while Donald Trump is president I don't

think that's going to be a priority for the department by the way did George Santos get hired to do something with DOJ he posted this photo of himself now that he's out and you He's like, I'm doing something working with DOJ in some way, but it wasn't clear what he's talking about. I mean, I'm sure. Sky's the limit. Deputy Attorney General. What does he want? Yeah, give me a gig.

He's going to go talk to school kids about, you know, like staying clean, that kind of thing. Staying clean. So on CZ, Trump's going with no idea who he is. But on Sunday, when he was asked about Prince Andrew being banished from the British royal family over his involvement in the Epstein scandal, Trump said, quote, that's been a tragic situation. and it's too bad. I mean, I feel badly for the family. Not exactly a characteristic show of empathy from Donald Trump, is it?

Not the families of the victims. He feels bad for the royal family. I mean, again, remember, so this book came out by an Epstein victim named Virginia Jufre. She died by suicide in February. In that book, she says she was forced to have sex with Prince Andrew after being trafficked by Epstein

and that Prince Andrew said to her that his daughters were, quote, just a little younger than you on the evening of their first alleged sexual encounter when she was 17. So this guy is a total scumbag. It has been known at the time. He did this disastrous 2019 interview with the BBC where he said he had no recollection of meeting, Joufrey, but then he settles a lawsuit with her for like tens of millions of dollars. So it's gross. He lied about cutting ties with Epstein. There's emails that prove it. But yeah, but Trump's empathy is with the royal family. I just don't get like love it. It's like he could have so easily given an answer

there that's like, no, you know what? Good. He's a creep. Just like Jeffrey Epstein's a creep. And that's why I kicked him out of my club. And I don't want to have any, I don't have anything to do with these people. What is the purpose? Who is this helping aside from Prince Andrew? I have, for no fucking idea. It's actually like strange. He's, he's shown a great deal of empathy in the past couple of weeks for, uh, uh, Argentinian beef producers and Prince Andrew. Like, that's sort of where his heart, uh, goes. I don't know if it's because he is, thinking about Prince Charles and trying to like, you know,

be sympathetic to Prince Charles in some way because he's a king and he likes kings. It's just fucking bizarre. Or is it just that Andrew knows shit? That, I mean, you got to go to that. Remember Elaine Maxwell. First, it was, I wish her well back during the campaign.

Now she's in a minimum security. Now she was transferred to a nice prison. Who knows if she'll get the pardon herself? Maybe Andrew will live in a compound on Marlago. He needs housing. He's getting kicked out of his palace. Maybe he'll get, maybe he'll be at the next Gatsby party.

Oh, yeah. He'll be at the, yeah, the roaring 20s events. They're doing a series this year at Mar-a-Lago. Yeah, it does seem like if anyone even tangentially related to this situation, he has nothing but warm words until they die in prison, then he can call them creeps. It is true. Like, the one constant for Trump, though, is sympathy for other rich and powerful creeps. Like, he does.

Yeah. He always has lots of sympathy for them. Pod Save America is brought you by ZipRecruiter. What if you could consistently find whatever it is you're looking for right away? We're talking everything from parking spots to holiday gifts to jackets or jeans that fit perfectly. Imagine how much time you'd save. While you may never instantly find these things, if you're hiring, you can find qualified candidates right away, time and time again, with ZipRecruiter. Some people say that the hardest thing to find is yourself, John.

Mmm. And happiness. Wherever you go, there you are. And today you can try it for free, not happiness, but ZipRecruiter.com slash Crooked. ZipRecruiter's powerful matching technology works fast to find top talent. With ZipRecruiter's advanced resume database, you can unlock top candidates' contact info instantly. No wonder ZipRecruiter is the number one rated hiring site based on G2. We love ZipRecruiter.

We've used it here at Cricket. We've got a lot of resumes, and you have to sort through them. It's a real pain in the ass. ZipRecruiter helps you do it. It's great technology. Makes your life easier. Want to know right away how many qualified candidates are in your area? Look no further than ZipRecruiter.

Four out of five employers who post on ZipRecruiter get a quality candidate within the first day. And right now you can try it for free at ziprecruiter.com slash crooked. Again, that's ziprecruiter.com slash crooked. ZipRecruiter is the smartest way to hire. President of Peace also got a few questions about the military buildup and illegal executions. He's ordered in the Caribbean, specifically the threats his administration keeps making against Venezuelan dictator Nicholas Maduro. Here's that exchange. Are we going to war against Venezuela? I doubt it. I don't think so. But they've been treating us very. very badly. Not only in drugs, they've dumped hundreds of thousands of people into our country

that we didn't want. People from prison, they emptied their mental institutions and their insane asylumism. Are Maduro's days as president numbered? I would say, yeah. I think so, yeah. And this issue of potential land strikes in Venezuela, is that true? I don't tell you that. I mean, I'm not saying it's true or untrue, but I, you know, I wouldn't, I wouldn't be inclined to say that I would do that. But because I don't talk to a reporter about whether or not I'm going to Tommy, does that sound like a guy who's just saber rattling to you? Fair point at the end there. So the last time we talked about this issue, I think I cited a stat from this think tank CSIS that said about 10% of all deployed U.S. naval assets were in the Caribbean.

Since then, Trump has announced they're sending the USS Gerald Ford, which is an aircraft carrier. So that means when that bad boy gets there, it comes with a couple guided missile destroyers. There will be another 4,000 additional troops. I think it gets at like 16,000 U.S. troops and sailors in the Caribbean total. and that comes on top of all the other stuff like a nuclear-powered sub and amphibious assault ship, B-52 bombers, B-1 bombers, F-35s, people spotted these like specialized attack helicopters off the coast of Venezuela training. And so silver lining, more troops in the Caribbean means fewer troops available for the cities. That's true. That is true. But the interesting thing about this is as the Caribbean buildup grows, they are increasingly hitting boats that are alleged narco-traffickers in the, Pacific Ocean on the other side of the continent, right? So none of this makes any sense. You've

all these troops, 16,000 U.S. troops in the Caribbean were killing people in the Pacific Ocean. And so there were reports last week that I think Nora was getting at the U.S. had already picked targets in Venezuela, on Venezuela and soiled ahead. This whole operation is reportedly being run by Marco Rubio, who wants a regime change operation to topple the Maduro government, in part because he thinks you take down the Cuban government by taking out Maduro first. So it's completely insane. He's also doing this. while demanding the Nobel Peace Prize, which is annoying and calling. But, yeah, I mean, it feels like there's a lot of momentum behind this.

We'll see if he actually does it. You see that NBC News just reported to that they've already started planning. The Defense Department has already, sorry, Department of War, has already started planning for strikes in Mexico to get the cartels there. And we should know that the strikes aren't imminent, and according to NBC News is reporting, but the planning has already begun. I mean, at least that's where, like, fentanyl trafficking actually happens. There's no fentanyl in Venezuela.

Yet they keep claiming that these ships are loaded up with with fentanyl. If anything, it's cocaine, but it's probably not even going to the U.S. How many countries in Central and South America can we go to war with? What is going on here? Let me Google how many there are. It's just so sad that all this is happening while John Bolton is unavailing. I know. What a bummer for him, because, I mean, this is it.

It's bittersweet, would you call it? Yeah, like, he sees all this, the amassing of U.S. military assets off the coast, and he's just like, God, damn it, I can't even get off on this, right? I'm so fucking, because I'm so anxious, because I'm so anxious, because my trials and my crimes fuck this sucks that's what he thinks this whole thing is so 80s though it's like very trumpian in that sense it's like the worst excesses of like the regan era noriega the CIA toppling governments i mean it's just a throwback coke is back yeah cooking is back i did see in some of the um some of the polling over the weekend like we've

previously seen polling that shows you know strikes are unfortunately on the boats quite quite popular strikes in the boats even like strikes you know lobin a few strikes to Venezuela or whatever if there's narco traffickers. But then someone finally asked the question, I think it was a Ugove poll, about like military action in Venezuela. It's very unpopular. Yeah. And this is where Trump is living, right? Which is he knows that wars, people don't like wars. They don't like troops. They don't like, you know, the potential loss of American life or spending billions of dollars on former wars. They don't like any of that. But they do like, if he can just pretend that the whole thing is just a few quick strikes taking out boats, then then he's

got the public with them. Yeah, I think, like, you know, he'll win a couple rounds of PR wars and headlines. But ultimately, fentanyl goes from chemicals in China that get sent to Mexico where they're put together in traffic to the United States. If you're worried about cocaine, the problem is much more coming from Ecuador and Colombia. But blowing up a bunch of boats, you know, in the Pacific or off the coast of Venezuela and the Caribbean, it's just not going to solve any problems. I mean, again, it might like Pete Heggseth likes it. He likes to tweet it out and show these snuff films, but you're not going to fix anything. Yeah, I also do. I also think it does matter, too, that you have Republicans coming out of these closed-door hearing being like, we're not satisfied with these answers.

You have Ram Paul saying these are the definition of version of these are the definition of extrajudicial killings. Reports that they don't even know the names of who they're killing, the idea that they're, oh, there are three hops or some, or to some, you know, three degrees from, like, direct observation of the traffickers themselves, which is sort of like, absolutely shocking. So I do think the public debate will matter. Yeah, it's like your, your neighbors with the. a cousin of a drug trafficker. You can be blown up in these strikes under like a three hop intelligence scenario. It's insane. Which of course is there's no legal basis for that. It's fucking made up three hop but bullshit. Again, this is another place where people will go to jail, I think, someday based on this policy if Trump doesn't stick around in office forever. And this is

just extrajudicial murder. Seems like Trump now wants to start wars on as many continents as possible. He also threatened to attack Nigeria over the weekend based on what he says is the country's failure to protect Christians. Trump said he ordered the Department of War to prepare for possible action to wipe out Islamic terrorists, and that, quote, if we attack, it will be fast, vicious, and sweet, just like the terrorist thugs attack our cherished Christians. Tommy, what's this all about? Um, unclear. So there are real extremist groups and real extremist group problems in, in Nigeria. Um, there's a group called Boko Haram. They operate mostly in northeastern, uh, Nigeria, there is no evidence that their attacks or focus on Christians. In fact, like,

Boko Haram just indiscriminately murder civilians. They attack churches, mosques, anyone, but they operate in areas that are predominantly Muslim. So the idea that, like, Boko Haram is doing this is, it doesn't make any sense. There's also, I mean, complicating this is there's a, there's a problem in central Nigeria where you've got these like semi-nomadic cattle herders attacking Christian farmers, but that's fighting over scarce land and water resources. And so, Those clashes really have killed a bunch of Christian farmers, but those are not Boko Haram groups. Those are just like people who need land. So the Nigerian government is just like confused, I think.

They want U.S. support. They want to help battling Boko Haram and other extremist groups. But making this like a Muslim versus Christian thing is really unhelpful. And the Nigerian president, this guy, Bola Tanubu, he's married to a Christian minister. He's a Muslim man. So I think it's like hard to argue that he's turning a blind eye to attacks on Christians, or at least there's no evidence of that. I think it's just more like it's really hard to battle these extremist groups.

And Nigeria is situated in a part of Africa that is just south of all these countries where there's a really bad extremism problem. And there have been a bunch of coups. And that has led to the U.S. and French counterterrorism forces getting pushed out. The Russians coming in, the Wagner group and these other mercenaries. And so it's not clear to me what Trump is doing. Like I think there's a bunch of right-wing Christian groups who have been lobbying Congress and stuff.

And I think that probably got to him. Yeah. I was like if I had to guess it would be like something started in a right wing fever swamp online somewhere, but maybe it's the direct lobbying that suddenly got to him somehow through all of his crazy channels. Yeah. People who are now running the government and he was and that's someone he ran into at an event or at Mara Lago or whatever. I mean, ultimately this will probably result in the U.S. selling a bunch more weapons to Nigeria. But like it's just particularly strange. And one, it's the second time he's like claimed genocide against a group that's not being genocided. Like remember the white. farmers in South Africa. And two, there is an actual genocide happening in Sudan as we speak, where the RSF, this militia group, has taken over all of Darfur and are just massacring civilians. But he's tweeting about Christians in Nigeria. It's just like very divorced from reality. Fucking weird. Dan and I talked last episode about Trump's announcement that the US will resume nuclear testing, quote, on an equal basis. That's Trump's words. And Trump's seeming confusion between testing that involves detonating actual nuclear war.

heads, which no country but North Korea has done since 1992, and even North Korea has done it since 2017. The difference between that and testing nuclear delivery devices, which Russia has recently done, Trump's energy secretary, Chris Wright, who would be responsible for testing nukes, clarified over the weekend that the tests will not be nuclear explosions, but Trump still seemed a bit confused on 60 minutes. Why do we need to test our nuclear weapons? Well, because you have to see how they work. We're the only country that doesn't test. And I want to be, I don't want to be the only country that doesn't test. The only country that's testing nuclear weapons is North Korea.

China and Russia's testing nuclear weapons. My understanding. And China's testing them too. You just don't know about it. That would be certainly very newsworthy. I love it. That was like a great moment for Nora. I, you know, look, there have been a moment.

Like, it's an impossible conversation to have with Donald Trump. He's all over the place. You've got every issue under the sun. You got, you got Barry Weiss in the rafters above the fucking studio. waiting to pounce down if you go too hard, like really like a delicate balance. But man, just incredibly stupid shit. It is funny listening to Nora try to be like, well, it's my understanding, meaning like the facts are, Mr. President, because once again, I have to tell you something that's real since you're in fucking la la la land. Yes.

Tommy, should we rest easier after Chris Wright's comments or no? I hope so. I mean, like you said, I mean, the Russians, basically like whenever it seems like NATO's going to have some balls and maybe some long range web. weapons to Ukraine. Putin does something to sort of rattle the nuclear saber. And this time it was again talking about this nuclear cruise missile, which he claims to have tested, which they rolled out in 2018, by the way. So this one wasn't new. And then they say they have this other like a super torpedo that can get to the east coast or the west coast and detonate and cause a tsunami, which a lot of people question would ever work. But also neither, neither weapon like changes the strategic

calculus of nuclear warfare, which is if you start it, like mutually assured destruction, happen in any of these cases, right? So these are not like game-changing weapons. And so what what Trump is talking about, I mean, it makes no sense. Like you said, we stopped nuclear testing in 1992. There's the comprehensive test ban treaty was put into place in 1996. The U.S. doesn't need to test more nuclear weapons because we've tested more nuclear weapons than anybody. We've done like a thousand tests since World War II. The Russians did around 700. The Chinese did 45. Nice trying, guys. And like, we have more nuclear testing data than anybody. And, and, like, we have more nuclear testing data than anybody. And if we get rid of the restrictions on testing, what will happen?

The Chinese will test a ton of nuclear weapons as they raced to build a stockpile that's equivalent to ours before they'll enter into any like nonproliferation treaties. So it's a terrible strategic idea. Where are you going to do it? Like are we going to go back to Nevada? I think what the energy secretary is getting at is the nuclear testing site has been refurbished to be to do other things. You take like a year to three years to like get that back to a place. where you could actually test nuclear weapons. It's mostly focused on sports betting now. Just the Kalshi and dragons.

It's a lot of servers for those apps. Like, people into that would go nuts if all of a sudden we were detonating nukes in the continental U.S. again. So anyway, it's just crazy, but there's parts of the conservative movement that actually do want to do this. Like, it was part of Project 2025, yeah.

They talked about essentially, like they said, we should ditch the CTBT and be postured to begin testing nukes again because some people really believe that the way you win a nuclear war is just by creating more nukes, which is like kind of an idea

abandoned by Ronald Reagan in the 80s, but I don't know, these people are nuts. It's funny. It's funny. It's probably 2025, at course, like, oh, yeah, there's a nuclear section. It's also, it's like, their whole philosophy in that thing was like, no good ideas in a brainstorm.

Just like, if you've thought of something that would make the world a more dangerous and scary place, we want it in here because this is our fucking shot. Did you see that when he started talking about Taiwan that he said, now it was similar to what he said about Maduro, He said, I'm not going to tell you.

You're a journalist. But he said, Xi knows what I would do if he were to invade Taiwan, but I'm not telling you. That's stupid. Right. Because you know what the answer is? Nothing. Right.

Exactly. But like, just follow it out. It's like, if you've told him, you can tell us. If you haven't told him, I get maybe why you might not want to tell us. But it seems like you've said you've told him. So you can tell us. You take Taiwan. We get access to the chips that we need from them.

That's our deal. You buy a little crypto. That's my, without knowing much, that's just probably what's in Trump's head. I also don't believe for a second. Beans for chips. I got so many for a second that Taiwan didn't come up at the Xi Jinping meeting. And like there was all this reporting going into it that she thinks he can get Trump to reduce our commitment to Taiwan and basically say that we will not intervene if he moves to invade and just trade that away for some sort of economic deal. I'm sure that is on the table and is likely to happen.

Yeah, but Trump, they're not going to tell anyone. I'm only going to tell my buddy she. So Trump also waited on the other nuclear option in the 60 Minutes interview, getting rid of the filibuster once and for all. Here's Nora O'Donnell asking Trump about the ongoing government shutdown. Sounds like it's not going to get solved, the shutdown. It's going to get solved, yeah. Oh, it's going to get solved.

How? We'll get us up. Eventually, they're going to have to vote. And if they don't vote, that's their problem. Now, I happen to agree to something else. I think we should do the nuclear option. This is a totally different nuclear, by the way. it's called ending the filibuster.

I like John Thorne. I think he's terrific. But I disagree with him on this point. He said today he wasn't going to do it. Well, that's too bad. First time he learned that information. That's too bad. Should we send Donald Trump

and abolish the filibuster t-shirt from the crooked merch store? Because we're selling them at one point. Welcome to the club. A red hat. Yeah, well, yeah, great. Donald Trump, welcome to the rich. resistance. What do you guys make of that? There's basically three ways this thing ends now. Dem's

cave. There's a deal on the Affordable Care Act subsidies somehow, which means the Republicans in Trump cave, or they get rid of the filibuster, which John Thune is saying no still, but Donald Trump is now all in, which I'm sure did not make John Thune and other Senate Republicans too happy. Love it. What do you think? Yeah. So it's not just noon. A bunch of them are pretty firm in saying no on the filibuster. And even Mike Johnson made the point that if they get rid of the filibuster, it will make it easier for Dems to do a bunch of stuff that he doesn't think Congress should do. So like right now, it's just they don't, they do not have 50 votes to get rid of the filibuster full stop. Even if you take John Thune out of it, there's a bunch of other people, Collins, Tillis, a few others that are all just no. And so, you know, maybe that breaks or maybe they find some rhetorical way around it. I mean, they've already, you know, the filibuster has been slowly chipped away at. in so many different ways, but it seems like that's going to hold at least for the short term. Yeah. I can't tell like why they're so, maybe I know they don't have the votes, but I do think that in terms of public pressure, you can see during this whole answer, you can see Trump wrestling with this because he's like, you know, Nora sort of gives him the, well, you're the, you're the guy that makes the deals that can end this kind of stuff. And he's very much like, well, yeah, I'm going to get it done. I'm going to get it. How? Well, the Democrats are going to cave.

Well, what if they don't cave? Or you're not going to get it done then? And then he's like, so he knows that then he goes to the filibuster. Yeah. So because he understands that the public pressure over people paying more for health care or losing their food benefits or all that kind of stuff. At some point, someone's going to say, the public is going to be like, hey, Donald Trump, why don't you do something? You're the president of United States. And that time should have been several weeks ago because he has been completely absent.

Completely. Doing nothing. Congress is not in session. He's not doing anything. He's not making calls. Like, what's going on here? But if I was Senate Democrat watching that interview. view, that would have been, that would have bucked me up a little bit in terms of not wanting

to cave on this one. Plus, what? Climax Control, if prescribed. Hymns offers access to ED treatment options raging from trusted generics that cost 95% less than brand names to hard mince, if prescribed. You shouldn't have to go out of your way to feel like yourself. Hymns brings expert care straight to you with 100% online access to personalized treatment plans that put your goals. First, feeling like yourself confidence, these are, I feel, euphemisms for having an erection bond. And there are plenty of people who probably don't. don't feel like themselves and have no confidence,

but are able to get erections. But there are people that need help to do it. And I don't think we should be bashful about that. That's okay to talk them out. I think it's fine. The point is, this isn't one size fits all care that forgets you in the waiting room. It's your health and goals put first with real medical providers, making sure you get what you need to get results.

And those results are erections. Think of hymns as your digital front door that gets you back to that back door with 100% online access to trusted treatments for ED and more all in one place. It's not a one-size-fits-all approach to on. There it is. Because it isn't.

To get simple, online access to personalize affordable care for ED, weight loss and more visit Hymns.com slash crooked. That's Hymns.com slash crooked for your free online visit. Hems.com slash cricket. Actual price will depend on product and subscription plan. Featured products include compounded drug products

which the FDA does not approve or verify for safety effect and disquality. Descriptions required, see website for details, restrictions, and important safety information. So on Monday, just a bit before we recorded this, the Trump administration made a partial concession in its campaign to use struggling Americans' food benefits as leverage against Democrats. The administration had previously said they wouldn't use emergency funding to make sure 42 million Americans still received snap benefits after the money ran out on November 1st. But thanks to multiple courts ordering the administration to dip into the emergency. funding. The government now says they'll use the $4.6 billion in the emergency fund, though they claim it's only enough to fund about half of the usual monthly benefit

for the one and eight Americans who receive food assistance. It's not clear what will happen next month, but the White House doesn't seem too concerned. On Friday, Trump hosted a Halloween party at Mar-a-Lago. The White House told reporters that the official theme was the Great Gatsby and quote, a little party never killed anybody. Just right on the nose. that kills anybody is strikes against boats that's what they're doing in starvation if you don't have right yes also that uh trump was seen at a candlelit table next to mark or rubio it's just the who looked miserable just the wears waldo of this administration in these pictures like find someone looking like they want to die there's there is uh and dc u.s attorney jeanne piero in a flapper

dress and headband uh she was right next to them too there were also dancers in feathered headdresses working the crowd trump also announced last week that he's completed a gut renovation of the bathroom off the famous Lincoln bedroom covering it in black and white marble and gold fixtures the white house won't say how much it cost or who paid for it trump for his part called the new look totally in keeping with the civil war era um it is so it is so fucking funny it is so funny to claim like this is pretty much what Abraham Lincoln would have done uh if he did a bathroom runo uh which i and then it's just this marble clad fucking contractor flip house marble monstrosity i fucking love it it's like the the like whatever the optics

of it were in the middle of a shutdowns because of moral reasons to find this gross it is so like uh offensive looking and then to be like this is uh i did it in abe's name this is what he would have wanted uh he's just like an old guy who uh is like uh you know used to do real estate and now he's like fucking bored and so he just keeps renovating things in his house and showing them off to people like oh did you see what i did the bathroom america honestly it's it's very great gatsby coded to be honest it's like the funny thing about this it's like hey guys what do you think the great gatsby was about what do you what do you think about how fun the parties were is that did i mean like i you think tom and daisy were the heroes yeah like what do you what do you think

did you did you understand what understand what what happens when you stare at the green light You remember? No, nothing. You didn't get to the end? Right. This is not who. No. Our side of the side that knows what's in the Great Gatsby and then can't win a fucking election. But, uh... Did you guys see Caroline Levitt's tweet about this? She's tweeted when I first learned a toilet like that existed inside the White House. I was horrified. That's what horrified. The toilet. The toilet in the Lincoln bedroom. Okay. So now she can rest easy. Also, why are we in there? Well, maybe she found out from true social like everyone else. Yeah, sometimes you get, listen, you got to, you got it. When you got to go, you got to go. Right. It's emergency. Do you guys think the ballroom plus the party, plus the bathroom, plus all the other blatant corruption? I mean, it feels like we're, we got a narrative here. We got a lot here, man.

And maybe this is going to help define the shutdown in the minds of people who are paying attention to all this, or is this just wishful thinking? Like, one would think, I mean, Trump is clearly in the YOLO period of his presidency. The corruption, like, he's normally very politically savvy, but the total disregard for optics or the politics of their decision making is genuinely shocking to be. I do think this is where Democrats paid dearly for not having media infrastructure. Like if a Democrat did this, Fox News would be crucifying them all day, every day, until the shutdown was over. I'd worry that this stuff is just not reaching people. I did sort of wonder, like, would it be smart for somebody? It could be the DNC.

It could be someone who wants to run for president, like a Gavin Newsom or some type, to start running a series of digital ads on the corruption, on the sort of optics of the ballroom, the CZ pardon, the toilet, like all of it. And just get it on, you know, do a huge digital buy, like a long-term, like, low-boil one. Because I think we got to get these stories in front of people. I think Democrats would be excited about it and would promote it on social media. Like, I'd donate to somebody that was running ads on this that might actually reach voters who are undecided somehow. I mean, like, let's just get this message out there. Well, and also this is, this is perfect fodder for a genuinely creative, funny ad campaign. Yes, for sure.

Right. Like it just, you put out some 30, 60 seconds ads about this. Don't talk to me. They're not going anywhere. Typical narrator voice. I don't, yeah, I don't want to hear that shit. Like a guitar riff. You could do like a mini movie. Like it's very, there's just so many opportunities here. Gatsby movie. I mean, yeah. Love it. Yeah. S&L did. You working on something? Yeah, sure. I'm going. Well, SNL did property brothers about the ballroom. And it was great. I do think by the way. I do think that like the ballroom, I don't know if the, I mean, the bathroom is sort of, I think still making. and it's only through the algorithms. But I do think the ballroom broke through. Big time, yeah.

I also do think it fits into a narrative that is already pretty strongly held across the board, right? Like the vast majority of Americans believe Donald Trump's not focused on the issue as he was elected to resolve on prices. And then he is building a brand new ballroom. He's tearing down the East Wing. He is redoing bathrooms. He is having gala's and flapper and Rour 20-style parties.

Like, if we can't make that something, I would say, like we don't deserve to have a party, but I would say, like, we even less deserve to have one. Yeah. I will say that the NBC poll that came out over the weekend, CNN poll, I think like the last batch of polling that's just been the last week has been quite bad for Trump. Like, it's getting, it's getting a little worse. He was in the sort of mid to low 40s. Now he's like, low, you know, NBC was 43, 55.

The generic ballot is now 50, 42 Democrats. 70% said that they want their vote in the midterms to be to send a message about a opposing the president, and that is the highest number in NBC polling dating back 30 years. And it's got to be that because in the same poll, the Democratic Party's approval rating is still sitting at 28%. Right. So they're up by eight in the generic ballot, which means it's all about Trump, you know? Right.

But a lot of those are Democrats who will vote against Trump no matter what and vote against Republicans in the midterms, but just don't like how Democrats, they don't view them as fighting hard enough. I will say we're hitting the number that Chuck Schumer said was the number we needed to get to for Republicans to crack. Remember when he did that? He was before the previous moment where they didn't do the shutdown. It was that like he needed to get Trump into the 30s. Then all of a sudden, Republicans in Congress would start playing ball. So we're here.

We're here. We did it. I do love that like Trump holds a party in Mar-a-Lago that is 1920s themed. Janine Piro is dressed like a flapper, which I believe was like a modern hip woman who is like, excited about new social freedoms, and yet she's at this event surrounded by trad wives and some of the worst excesses of plastic surgery in Boca history. It is. Yeah, a lot of contradictions.

One of their big conversation point in the political world that we haven't had the chance to talk about here. Last week, Tucker Carlson sat down to interview white nationalist influencer Nick Fuentes for more than two hours. You might remember Fuentes as Trump's other dinner companion, aside from Kanye West at Maralago in 2022. Fuentes has said that, quote, Hitler is awesome and, quote, the Holocaust didn't happen. He's also called J.D. Vance, quote, a fat gay race traitor. In the interview with Tucker, Fuentes attempted to sound slightly more mainstream, though he did accuse Jews of disloyalty to America

and basically said they're part of a global conspiracy. Here's a taste. For the international Jewish community, they're extremely organized. And many of them are critical of Israel or Israel's current government or the project of Israel. But I guess what they have in common is that they have this international community across borders, extremely organized, that is putting the interests of themselves before the interests of their home country. So Carlson really didn't push back in any substantive ways. And this has set off a bit of a mega civil war. Ben Shapiro went hard at after Tucker on Monday, calling him, quote, an intellectual coward, a dishonest interlocutor, and a terrible friend. On the other hand, Kevin Roberts, president of the Heritage Foundation, and one of the guys behind Project

2025, released a video where he criticized everyone who was criticizing Carlson for having Fuentes on. He said that while he, quote, abhors some things that Fuentes has said, Fuentes shouldn't be canceled, and that Heritage will be keeping up its close association with Carlson, saying, quote, the Heritage Foundation didn't become the intellectual backbone of the conservative movement by canceling our own people or policing the consciences of Christians, and we won't start doing that now. Coming under immediate withering fire, he put out a second post, listing and condemning lots of horrid things, Fuentes said about Jews and others and appealed to young conservatives not to fall under his sway. Oh, lots of justified outrage from everywhere about this. What do you guys think? Love it.

So I do think it's important. And it's been interesting, right, because Kevin Roberts puts out this statement and says, like, we shouldn't cancel Nick Fuentes. I don't know what this word means anymore, but yeah, you should. That's somebody to cancel. Whatever cancellation means, if it means anything, it should mean you cancel Nick Fuentes. And he approaches ideas like, oh, we're not going to punch to the right. We're not going to criticize people on the right. I'll tell you, like, I've been, I think it's like seeing the amount of kind of outrage about this, I think has been genuinely good.

But I think part of this has been the ways in which a lot of people have turned a blind eye to how sort of anti-Semites, pure. unalloyed anti-Semites have found more and more quarter inside of the MAGA movement. And then you have people like Ben Shapiro now calling it out. You have people like Ted Cruz and others speaking to Republican Jewish organizations to call it out. But in general, this is a consequence of just how much flirtation there has been with some of the most heinous and reactionary and fanatical far-right creatures of social media and the internet. Tommy? Yeah, I think Nick Pointes is really dangerous. And he has been for a while. And his, um, his stature is growing. His show is getting more streams. Like,

more people are paying attention to him. And it's, this is a big deal. I think it's kind of like a seminal moment for the right. Um, because like the backstory in the Tucker interview was Tucker had Candice Owens on a show and he picked a fight with Nick Fuentes. I think he called him like a weird little gay kid in his parents basement or something. And then he suggested that Fuentes was a like a paid government plant. And that was a bad idea because like Nick Fuentes has nothing better to do than to go back at him. And Fuentes went hard and he talked about Tucker's dad being in the CIA and talked about hypocrisy and inconsistency. And I think was largely seen as like getting the better of that exchange. And Tucker saw Nick Fuentes as a threat to his stature as kind of a kingmaker

on the Republican Party and decided to stop fighting him and just have him on. And Tucker wasn't the only one. Like I think Glenn Greenwald had him on. This guy, Patrick David Bet had him on his podcast as well. But like you said, it wasn't just having him on the show. It's like just how soft the interview was. And there's been a lot of focus on Nick Fuentes' anti-Semitism. And rightly so. This guy says like Hitler is cool, stuff like that. I mean, it's not subtle.

He questions the scale of death and the Holocaust. He did it via an analogy about how many cookies you could be. I heard that. It's fucking disgusting. It's disgusting. But he's also a vile racist. Like he says the N-word all the time on the show. He criticizes people for race mixing, including J.D.

Vance. And he's also a misogynist in the most literal sense of the world. He wants to repeal the 19th Amendment. So like this dude is a very scary figure, someone who I think is trying to step into the void left after Charlie Kirk's assassination and continue to pull young Republican men to the right. And I think like is having considerable success. And he's and he knows that he needs to mainstream himself. And he's smart enough to figure out how to do that when he like I'm only you know I started listening to the Tucker interview and you know he frames his whole political view political beliefs as like well you know it's really about the government of Israel you know he starts there and he doesn't it's it's it's not quite like the clips you see

from his show that go around once in a while yeah the clips of the show are just him speaking alone in a room like to a camera just ranting for 45 minutes about stuff and and like the thing to know about him is he can be quite funny um he can come off as reasonable because like when the Epstein stuff happened. He was like, Trump's covering this up. Maga's over. This is ridiculous. Like he'll like state the obvious at times. But I think that then gives him credibility to launder in these views that like organized jury, I think is the word, the terminology he used are controlling all the world's events and have started all the wars. And it's just like your very classic textbook, uh, anti-Semitism. I also think it's very notable that you have,

you know, glad that Ben Shapiro said something today. I think Ted Cruz has been out there. attacking Fuentes and Carlson, nothing from the White House, nothing from, I mean, you don't expect Trump to be in the weeds on this kind of stuff. But certainly J.D. Vance has been following this back and forth and has yet to say anything. And by the way, J.D. Vance, who defended people for having, for just being kids joking around, for doing sort of a bunch of Holocaust jokes. I don't think it's like, you know, Tucker Carlson has been doing this kind of just asking questions stuff, right? Like he had Candace Owens on, Candice Owens. has made all kinds of anti-Semitic comments.

Tucker had a just-asking questions interview with someone saying, well, maybe Churchill was responsible for World War II when you think about it. And so Tucker has been flirting with kind of the kind of vile recesses of like anti-Semitic ideology. And part of it too, like more broadly is, you know, there's this like, you know, all the establishment is bad in every way possible. And so that means the vaccines are bad. Like, the stories we were told, they're all lies. All the stories are lies, right? The story about the of COVID is a lie.

And the story about vaccines generally are a lie. The story about climate is a lie. And you start going further and further. And eventually, it's like, is the story of World War II lie? Is the story of a Holocaust a lie? What else are they lying to us about? What other, what are there, what are there, what other, what other, like, kind of cultural chivalets can we, can we interrogate?

And I think, like, it leads to this, like, really fucking dark place. Yeah, again, just like, this, Fortis is attacking. J.D. Vance's wife. He's going after his kids. He called him a fake Marine. He's just like going after him in the most vicious way as possible. You're right. We haven't heard anything from J.D. Vance. And the Heritage Foundation, not only did they defend and stand by Tucker, but he said it was like only a globalist class that was being critical and like basically said explicitly. I forgot the exact language. I deleted wherever I had written it down. That was like the faction of people within the GOP, they were like vile or something like that, like the ones criticizing Tucker

for having Fuentes on. So he like made it about like, it's this like a maximalist view that, uh, thou shalt not attack another Republican no matter what under any circumstances. And like Leavitt says, like, there's never a time, man, it's when you're interviewing a neo-Nazi, like it's maybe you're trying to rethink who your friends are. Yeah, no shit. Yeah, one other point about this too is like I, the amount of just pure like Naziism and anti-Semitism on Twitter is just has like been growing like it is just unleashed I like look it used to be

something you would see now like I like I see it in my comments all the time like I just there is so much vile unrestrained anti-Semitism on social media by the way you're seeing it with people being like unabashed and even like it's stupid but like even in their Halloween costumes being proud about like dressing as Nazis and doing blackface there's a kind of like joyful like embrace of of like full like you know mask off bigotry and it's just very, very dangerous and you need people like J.D. Vance to call it out as much as I wish it weren't true. It matters whether or not he does. All right. By the time we're listening to this, it'll be election day. We got Prop 50 here in California, governor's races in New Jersey and Virginia, the mayor's race in New York City,

public service commission in Georgia and the state Supreme Court in Pennsylvania. These last few days are usually when the final big endorsements happen and the most high-profile surrogates hit the trail. But interestingly, Trump did not appear in person anywhere. He's doing teller rallies instead. Still don't really know what those are. I don't hear. In Virginia and New Jersey. And also, to Zoran Mamdani's delight, Trump endorsed Andrew Cuomo in the 60 Minutes interview.

One top Democratic surrogate was out there over the weekend. Here's Barack Obama rallying with Abigail Spanberger on Saturday. The president, he has been focused on critical issues like paving over the Rose Garden so folks don't get mud on their shoes and gold-plating the Oval Office and building a $300 million ballroom. So, Virginia, here's the good news. If you can't visit a doctor, don't worry, he will save you a dance. The over-the-top rhetoric, the fabricated conspiracy. the weird videos of a U.S. President with a crown on his head flying a fighter jet and dumping poop on protesting citizens, all of that is designed to distract you from the fact that your situation has not gotten better. Don't poo, vote.

there's it there's our title there it's our episode tell um you know what i love about that is you think oh Barack Obama he's he's he's sort of out of the game he's not paying attention he's following it all he's he's he's online he's he saw the poop video thing um he was also like after he talked about the um that they'll save you a dance he's like you can watch all the beautiful people partying and mara lago on truth social i was like now that is very specific as well yeah yeah He also had a good line. He was like, you got a flat tire? D.E.I.

White matter of year? D.E.I. I know. A very Obama ruff. Very Obama riff. So final thoughts on these races, how they're all closing. We got Trump nowhere to be found. Barack Obama's out there.

He was with Mikey Sherrill as well in Jersey. The folks behind Prop 50 are feeling good. I don't know. What do you guys think? Any final thoughts? Love it. I saw kind of a shirtless, yelling man holding a giant

cross saying the end is nigh but it was just Bill Ackman so I don't think it was anything to worry about you know like there's been all this sort of like I don't know like pre-coverage about like Mom Donnie and the future of the Democratic Party

but then you have like Mikey Cheryl who's a veteran you got Spamberger who's like in the CIA and it's like I hope they all win because it'll do a great job to, I prefer that I'll win, to scramble any kind of easy conclusions that people would love to draw to address their priors. That's all. Yeah, I mean, you know, Jonathan Martin had a great

piece over the weekend about how weird it is, how Trump has either given up or made things worse. You know, like, like, maybe Trump doesn't care about the Virginia governor's race, maybe doesn't care about New Jersey. Maybe he knows that his mere presence would make things worse for his candidate, so he's doing whatever a town hall is. But Prop 50 directly impacts Trump and his agenda. If California can send five more Democrats to Congress, it makes it a lot easier for us to take the House and then subpoena the shit out of him and figure out all the corrupt deals that he's doing. And again, even if Trump didn't want a campaign in California, he could have made five phone calls and raised $100 million for ads. But Republicans are basically off the air fighting against

Prop 50 at this point because they just got out gunned. And like it looks like it looks like a big loss to Gavin Newsome. Like his primary antagonist in the Democratic Party is likely going to look like he kicked his ass. And like maybe just doesn't care. It doesn't matter. But bother me. I think when Trump feels like he's going to lose, his his idea is just like maybe don't say anything about it at all. And maybe just kind of like play cool because if he went all in and then still loss, which I think that probably would have happened. Like, I don't think, I don't think Donald Trump helps a ballot measure out here. Just call Peter Thiel and be like, give me $20 million.

Yeah. But Newsom was like, oh, we didn't need to raise any more money. At the very least, you could have had to force Democrats to spend more money in in California. You've gotten some money dropped in here. I'm sort of, I'm interested in the margin in Jersey to see if it, how it is compared to both 2024 when obviously Trump made up a lot of ground in New Jersey and and also the last governor's race when phil murphy was uh the incumbent and and jack chitorelli had run again

and then same thing with with virginia both basically like how does it compare to comla's margin in virginia although i would say that spanberger has pretty much a a worse opponent than charl does for sure definitely at least popular opponent so um anyway it'll be interesting and then of course mom dani um we'll be uh i know i know we'll see if we'll see how many curtis leeway voters uh there are and whether Cuomo can make up any of that large gap. I think Mamdani's ahead by like anywhere from 10 to 15 points in the polls right now. All right.

On that note, please go vote and get everyone you know to vote. In Virginia and Georgia, polls are open until 7 p.m. local. In New Jersey, California and Pennsylvania, it's 8 p.m. local and in New York City, it's 9 p.m. No excuses. Go vote. VoteSaveamerica.com. If you need more information.

Also, one final push before we get to my conversation with George Redis. This is your last chance to get tickets to CrookedCon and D.C. there are only about 50 tickets left. Our lineup includes Jen Saki, Tim Miller, Maurice Mitchell, Mark Elias, Representative Pramilla Jayaepaul,

Governor Andy Bashir, Senator Brian Shots, Lena Khan, a strict scrutiny live show, and so much more. If you aren't able to make it, you can listen and watch the content afterward on our YouTube channels,

our podcast feeds, and on CricketCon.com. We'll also be live posting throughout the day on the at Cricket Media socials. Make sure to head to crookedcon.com to snag tickets before the last few sell out. When we come back,

George Redis. This episode is sponsored by BetterHelp, as seasons change and days grow darker sooner. It can be a tough time for many. This November, BetterHelp is encouraging everyone to reach out, check in on friends, reconnect with loved ones, and remind the people in your life that you're there. Just as it can take a little courage to send that message or grab coffee with someone you haven't seen in a while, reaching out for therapy can feel difficult too, but it's worth it. It almost always leaves people wondering, why didn't I do this sooner?

Better Help therapists work according to a strict code of conduct and are fully licensed in the U.S. BetterHelp does the initial matching work for you so you can focus on your therapy goals. A short questionnaire helps identify your needs and preferences and their 12 plus years of experience and industry leading match fulfillment rate means they typically get it right the first time. If you aren't happy with your match, switch to a different therapist at any time from their tailored wrecks. With over 30,000 therapists, BetterHelp is one of the world's largest online therapy platforms. having served over 5 million people globally, and it works with an average rating of 4.9 out of 5 for a live session based on over 1.7 million client reviews.

This month, don't wait to reach out, whether you're checking in on a friend or reaching out to a therapist yourself. BetterHelp makes it easier to take that first step. Our listeners get 10% off their first month at BetterHelp.com slash PSA. That's BetterHELP.com slash PSA. Joining me in studio today is George Redis. He's a venture, California native, and a U.S. Army. veteran who was taken by ICE and detained for three days without charges. He's now suing the federal government for the illegal detention. George, thanks for coming on. Thank you for having me. It really

means a lot. I mean, I am so sorry this happened to you. And I have been so angry on your behalf. And I'm also just like so grateful for all the ways you've served this country, including speaking out right now. So thank you. I've been thinking about your story a lot. I've been talking about your story a lot. But for people who aren't familiar, maybe you can start by talking a little bit about your life before your detention last summer. Yeah. I was born and raised in Venturi, California. I was basically a single mother. My dad was in and out of prison. So to a single mother, have two older siblings. I now have three younger. And so big family. And so big family. family. And so just at 18, I mean, I just graduated high school. I went straight into college.

I went for photography. I'm just trying to figure out life at that time. I didn't know what I was doing. I was, I was just, I don't know, I guess making wrong decisions just, just hanging with the wrong crowd. Not really hanging with the wrong crowd. I wouldn't say that. I was just making bad decisions myself. And just, I don't know, I felt like I was trapped just in a circle of just like not doing anything and I just felt like I wasn't doing anything with my life I just felt like there was no purpose I felt like I had no purpose and so I just wanted to do something bigger I just felt like this wasn't meant for me like just doing nothing is not what I'm here to do and so I felt like there was just something more for me to do and so an easier option to do something

bigger and contribute to like the bigger world is easy path is the military like no matter how small the difference like the military was a like perfect way to start and so when I was 18 I joined the army I ended up going infantry and all the recruiters they were infantry so they convinced me to go infantry and so I ended up going to basic training Fort Benning Georgia I went there for basic training from there I went to Fort Wainwright Alaska and from Alaska I ended up deploying to Iraq for 10 months from 2019 to 2020 and after that, I went back to Alaska for a little while, and then I ended up coming down on orders to go to Fort Hood, Texas.

And so I ended up finishing the rest of my contract down there. I got out honorably. I was really on the fence on, like, reenlisting or not, if I'm being honest with you. It was just, like, at the time, the military was all I knew. I mean, I was only 22 getting out, and, like, after going through all that, I don't know. I felt like I was done a lot. more stuff than like kids in my age or like people my age and so I don't know the military was all

I knew at that time and just for me the biggest reason I got out was for my kids like not having to be in the field every other week for two weeks at a time or not having to deploy at like any second so I got out and that was kind of a hard decision for me just because I didn't know what I wanted to do and so I got out and I stayed home for a little bit just enjoyed time with my family and I got I got tired of that. Not of the kids, but just of being at home all the time. And so I ended up going to school, just trying to figure out what was the right path. So I went and got my license to drive semi-trucks.

And then after that, I started a job, didn't like it. I was like, this isn't me. I ended up going to dental assistant school and just was like, yeah, this isn't me either. But I got my license for that. And I was like, okay, cool. and just something else. And eventually I was just, I got my guard card in Texas and then I got my guard card in California.

It was just easy for me. I mean, it's all I did in the military, so I figured just might go something natural. And so I got my guard card. And the beginning of this year, I ended up moving back to California. And I got a job working security for a security company called Securitas.

And so I got a job with them and Glasshouse Farms where the whole incident takes place, ended up contracting out that security company. And so that's where my security company put me. And so for seven months since the beginning of this year, I was working at Glasshouse Farms. And so that's how I ended up being there

when the entire situation took place. So if you wouldn't mind just explaining, like, what happened when you got close to work that day in July and saw all the ice agents? You said your car had a, disabled veteran plate and sticker showing your service. You told agency you were a U.S. citizen and Iraq veteran. Did any of that seem to matter in the moment to them?

What happened? No. I mean, I'll start from the beginning. Yeah, sure. Just make it easier. So that day, July 10th, I was going to work as normal. I was pulling up to the main road that my work is on and there's just cars piled up. Like bumper to bumper, people weren't even in their color.

It was just literally crazy. It was chaos like all over the place. And so I'm making my way through all this. I mean, even though all that's happening, work never called me saying don't show up today. Like, don't go in. And so I make my way through all this because even though this is happening, I still got to go to work. And so I make my way through. And eventually I get to the front of where everything is happening. And so there's a line of agents lined up across the road, all in gas masks. And they're, uh, and they're, uh, gear and just lined up across the road, stopping anyone from going. And so there's a car in the right lane, and I don't know if there was anyone in there, but I ended up pulling into the left lane right beside the car. I'm a good distance away. I put my car in park. I get out, close my door, and I stand right beside my car. I don't approach them.

I'm not getting in their face. And so, like, the first thing I say when I get out of my car is, like, I tell them I'm a U.S. citizen. Like, I'm just trying to get to work. I'm not here to protest. Like, I'm not part of the protest. I'm not here to get in your guys' face. I'm literally just trying to get to work. And they were just completely hostile.

Are we able to cast on here? Yes. Okay. Absolutely. Just had to confirm that before. They were just telling me to get the fuck out of there. They were telling me to pull over to the side. They were telling me to get in my car.

They were telling me that work is closed, that I'm not going to be going to work today. and so they were just all being hostile for no reason. And so I ended up asking for a badge number just to let note work know. Like, I tried to go into work and I wasn't able to. And so I asked for a badge number. And so after asking that, for some reason, one of the agents got super upset over that. And that's when he tries to like step forward to try to approach me.

And it takes another agent to step forward and like hold him back from approaching. And I see that and just I wasn't there to escalate. Like I'm not trying to escalate things further. And so I turn around and get back into my car. And simultaneously as I'm getting back into my car, the line of agents starts walking towards me. And they surround my car. And so I'm sitting in my car. I have agents on my driver's side, on my passenger side, pulling on my door handle, being in my window, telling me to get out.

I have agents in the front of my car and telling me to reverse. I have an agent behind my car, like in my rearview mirror, telling me to reverse, like trying to show me to reverse. And so just all of them yelling at me to do different things. And so I'm sitting there just trying to figure out the situation. And eventually they end up reversing me into like an angle sort of. And they reverse me back into the right lane. And once they put my car into the right lane,

They end up throwing tear gas into the protesters, and they throw tear gas behind my car, and it just engulfs my car in tear gas. And so tear gas gets in my car, and I'm just trapped in the right lane, and my car just trapped with tear gas, trying to hold out as long as I can. And at that point, they left my car alone, and the entire time I'm trapped in my car with tear gas, their vehicles are passing by on the left-hand side, their trucks, their buses are passing by on the left-hand side. And so I'm just trapped in my car with the tear gas, eyes watery, trying to catch my breath. I couldn't see.

And once all their vehicles finished passing by, I don't know what reason they had or why they did it, but for some reason, they re-approached my car. And so they re-approached my car and they surrounded again. Agents on my driver's side, agents on my passenger side, pulling my door handle, being on the windows telling me to get out. The agents in front of my car are telling me to reverse, telling me to pull over to the side, and I'm just in there coughing. I'm pleading with them. Like, I'm trying to leave. Like, I can't see there's a cloud of smoke behind me. Like, you could obviously put the entire situation together.

Like, there's smoke behind me. There's protesters behind me. I, like, I can't see. I'm literally, I'm trying to catch my breath. My eyes are watery, and I'm just pleading with them. Like, I can't see. I'm trying to leave. and just eventually my driver's side ended up giving in.

And it shattered, a glass flew into my leg, immediately following it, shattering, no questions, no nothing. Another agent sticks his arm through, and pepper sprays me in the face. They end up dragging me out of the car. They throw me down, and I'm basically like a rag doll letting them do whatever, not fighting, just letting them do whatever. And so even though I'm letting them do whatever, when they throw me on the ground, an agent comes and he nails on my back. And then another one comes and he nails on my neck. And the entire time they're like that, I'm telling them, like, I can't breathe. Like, I'm just pleading with them.

I can't breathe. You guys, like, you could put the entire situation together. I was just trapped in my car with tear gas trying to catch my breath. You guys just pepper sprayed me in the face. And now you guys are kneeling on my neck and back. Like, I'm telling you guys, I can't breathe. And, I mean, they didn't care. I couldn't tell you how long I was like that for.

Just eventually, they zipped at my hands, and they picked me up. And they ended up walking me back to the farm where I worked. And the entire time, they're walking me back. They're just asking each other, like, who's taking responsibility for him? Like, who's he going with? Like, who's taking responsibility for what happened? And they're just all asking each other this as they're walking me back. And so they ended up walking me back to the farm.

Are you talking to them at this point? Like, are you asking them like, hey, I'm a citizen. What are we doing? At that point, I'm telling, like, I'm a citizen. Like, I don't know what's wrong. Like, I'm a citizen. And I was just telling them that the entire way back. They didn't care.

They didn't care. Took me back to the farm and they sat me down right there in the dirt with my hands zip tied behind my back for about four hours or so. And throughout that time, they only asked me for my ID once. And I tell them it's in my car. like I'd be more than happy to show you like I have my ID like I could prove I'm a citizen like on my car it says like I have DV plates for disabled veteran like I have a Iraq combat veteran sticker on my windshield like I told them I was a veteran and that was it that's the only time they asked me for my ID and that was it after the time there they ended up putting me back they put me in an unmarked car and they drove me into like a convoy kind of like basically a convoy um to a Navy base in Port Wainimi, and they took us onto the base and took us to this giant open field on the base, and every federal agency you could think of as their FBI, Homeland Security,

ICBP, people from the Navy, National Guard, and they take me there, and there they do my fingerprints, they swab my mouth for DNA, they take my picture, they end up reading me my rights there, but saying that they were only investigating what had happened. that I was charged with anything. They never said I was being arrested. They just said that they were investigating what had happened and why I was there, and that was it. And so I literally told them the entire situation exactly how I'm telling you. And that was it. They asked me the questions, and then they put me back in the car. And from there, they took me to the Metropolitan Detention Center in downtown LA, and we got there around 10.30 at night, and I would

assume they improcessed me like a normal prisoner. They strip searched me. And at that, time I asked them like can I like when would I be able to call a lawyer like could I call my family and they just ignored me completely and so while I'm their strip searching me I would tell them like my skin is burning like they would spread me with tear gas and or they spread like I was trapped in my car with tear gas and they sprayed me with pepper spray like my skin is burning and I tell them that and they tell me like I'll get over it the effects will wear off that it'll pass and so that was it they end up doing my fingerprints and they took my mug shot. And after that, they took me upstairs and they put me in a cell with one other person,

the professor who was also a rest of that day. And so that entire first Thursday night, I'm in the cell and my body's just burning my hands, my face, my skin, just my entire body is on fire. No other way to put it, just an extreme heat that just would not go away. It wouldn't let you wash your hands, shower, wash your face. So they ended up giving me, giving us dinner in sandwiches in a sandwich bag. And so I took the sandwiches out and I felled up the sandwich bag with water from the sink. And so that entire night I was alternating my hands in this bag of water just trying to relieve the heat. And I don't know if it helped or if it made it worse, but it just would not go away.

And so that entire first Thursday night, I'm just burning that, just like that, the entire first Thursday night, I don't sleep. And so Friday ends up coming around, and they finished doing my in-processing. They let me talk to a medical, and it's just basically about our past life and how we are now. And after that, they let me talk to a psychiatric nurse. And after the question she asked and the way I answered them, she felt like it was best to put me on. suicide watch. And so that Friday morning, they ended up putting me on suicide watch. And suicide watch is just this yellow concrete room, a concrete block in the corner with a thin mattress on top. There's a tiny little rectangle window. It's a glass door and an officer

sits up there 24-7. A psychiatric nurse comes and checks on me once a day to make sure I don't kill myself. The light, they leave the light on 24-7. I'm in there naked. in a hospital address and I'm like that from Friday morning to Sunday afternoon to literally the point I'm released and so Sunday morning close to afternoonish comes around and an officer comes up to the cell he walks up and he just says I'm off suicide watch and I'm going to get released and walks away and so even though he says I'm off suicide watch I'm there still in those conditions and I mean I don't want to get my hopes up I mean I'm still there and so I'm there for a couple more hours and eventually another officer comes up and they open the door they walk me

downstairs they give me back my clothes and I signed for my phone my watch and my piercings and stuff and that was it he they said that I was free to go that all the charges on me had been dropped and that I was free to go and so that wasn't good enough for me and I asked them So I was locked up in here and I missed my daughter's birthday for no fucking reason. And it was just the loudest silence ever. Literally the loudest silence ever. No explanation, no nothing. They let me call for a ride.

They walked me out and that was it. I was free to go. Never heard anything back from them. Never nothing until I wrote an op-ed in the San Francisco Chronicle. And then they came out. with a tweet or whatever saying that assaulted agents and that stories like mine demonize ice agents and it was just crazy to hear because after all that after just being released no charges after even on the paperwork it says that I was only detained pursuant detained pursuant

to arrest basically I was arrested for being arrested that's the only information it says on the paperwork is that I was arrested for being arrested basically and so without being the only explanation in them tweeting this it was really crazy to hear it was insane that this is really the stance that they're willing to go behind and die on that i'm just like this crazy person and like they just try to paint me out this villain and like i'm this bad guy um when that's not the truth at all um i mean there's so much evidence out there there's helicopter footage and so it's just like why i was going to say i've seen the footage yeah on the local news and it was there's a lot of footage of you like the whole story you tell about when you get out of

the car and then when you back up like that's all on film yes exactly exactly exactly what was going through your mind in those three days that you were in jail like what um did you think that did you think that you were getting out did you think they were going to send you somewhere else were you like how am i going to get on the phone with a lawyer or my family um honestly the only thing on my mind were my kids like like when like i mean the last thing i told them was like i'll see you later and like later never came and so how old your kids my daughter had just turned three that saturday and my son is eight so you finally get out of this nightmare you go back home and then you decide to file a lawsuit against the federal government for seemingly violating multiple

constitutional rights that you have as an American. What are you hoping for out of the lawsuit? What do you want them to do? So what I want out of the lawsuit is obviously accountability. I mean, you don't just go around and take away people's rights and like get to treat people that any way you want. I mean, like, it's just crazy, like, to have no accountability and just to take no responsibility and no explanation for me for what happened. It's just crazy. And so for myself, I want that accountability of just, like, take ownership of what you did to me. Take ownership of what you did.

And don't lie. Like, just tell everyone the truth. And I guess the bigger picture for a bigger change is for them to amend 1983 to add five words in it, which would include federal officers, which would allow people to sue federal officers, basically because right now it's basically they're untouchable. I mean, if a state officer had done what they did to me, I would be able to go to court right now. and file a lawsuit for everything that happened. But it's the fact that because they're federal officers,

I show up to the courthouse and they tell me basically, like, unfortunately for you, like, yeah, your civil rights were violated, but unfortunately for you, they're federal officers, and there's no clear path for you to file a lawsuit. So they shut the door in my face. And not only my face, but for everyone that's filing a lawsuit currently, they're going to be met with the same endeavor that I am, just a door shut in your face.

And so my bigger goal is to amend that statue, make it where to every single person could get accountability and justice for what happens to them. For a federal officer, any federal officer, FBI, ATF, ICE, IRS, it doesn't matter. Any officer that violates their rights, it gives them accountability and justice. And so that's the bigger goal and that's my bigger message for everyone. I became aware of the way that the law is reading that the New York Times did a story I think the other week where they wrote about Trump suing his own Justice Department now for coming for the charges and the investigations against him before he became president for the second time and he will now settle his own lawsuit against his own government. for something like over $200 million, won't even go to court. He'll just, obviously, the federal government will settle with Donald Trump. And then they contrasted, I'm sure you've seen this, they contrasted that with you.

Yes, I saw that. And people like you who've been detained. And I had not realized that if you are deprived of your constitutional rights as an American citizen by federal officers, it becomes very, very challenging to win that lawsuit. Like, you can still, I guess you can still file it, but that these. these federal agents have almost total immunity here. Yes, basically. And so it's just crazy. Like, you would think that if anyone violates your rights, no matter who, you would be able to get justice for what happened to you.

And it's just crazy to think and just to realize, like, that's not the way it works. And you would think, like, a clear path would just be to, okay, let's amend the statue and let's fix this problem, this crack in the law for everyone. Like, it just doesn't affect the left or right. affects everyone. Like, they could violate anyone's rights. And so that's scary. It's scary that there's no justice for anyone. And so it's a very concerning hole in the law.

And so what, I know you went to Washington last week or the other week. Yes. Tell me about your trip to Washington. So my trip to Washington, it was fun. It was my first time in Washington. The weather was nice. Everyone told me it's not normally like that. It's true.

So, I mean, Washington was fun. I spoke to lawmakers, I spoke to senators, and basically told them my story in person, gave them the solution, basically like I'm telling you, in 1983, and just basically what I told you.

And so I literally gave them that explanation to everyone I spoke with. And the biggest, like, confront I got out of it was there's nothing wrong with it, is just politics the bigger there's nothing around with the law there's nothing there's nothing law with amending that law but unfortunately oh because of politics they politics won't is the trouble with amending it you got congressman raskin and johnson too they're they're going to try to push for

it um but yeah clearly uh republican congress is not going to pass it yeah a democratic congress and a democratic president may hopefully yeah but we are not there yet i mean that's also a big reason why people, it's a big reason for people to speak out and to call, to call their people in charge for everyone to make their voice hurt. I mean, it's all our responsibility. So I don't know if you saw Christine O'm the Department of Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security. She was asked at a press conference yesterday about American citizens like you being arrested and detained for no reason. It's happening more and more. And she said, quote, no American citizens have been arrested or detained. We focus on those who are here illegally. And anything you would hear or report

that would be different that is simply not true and false reporting. Any response to that? I mean, I don't really, I don't feel like I need to respond when I mean, I mean, it's all over the news. It's all over social media. Like, I'm not blind. Like, I obviously see what's going on in the world. People see what's going on in the world. Like, just because they say something doesn't make it true or doesn't mean people believe them. And so, I mean, They could say whatever they want. I mean, the facts are out there. People are able to film and, like, take pictures and record.

So, I mean, everyone gets to see the truth. I mean, so just because you send out a tweet or just because you make a comment doesn't make it true. And so, I mean, I don't really need to say anything. I mean, hopefully my case goes to court or whatever. And, I mean, the truth gets to be presented in everyone, like, in front of everyone and in front of the world. how did you make the choice to speak up at a time when a lot of very rich and powerful people who know this is wrong have decided to stay quiet like were you at all scared to do this um uh no i was not scared one bit like i mean i don't scare it easily um but like i mean you don't just

i'm not the type of person to just let something happen to them and like walk away Like, I'm definitely not that type of person to see something wrong and turn the other cheek. And so, I mean, you don't just get to do this to not only me, but everyone else, and just not take accountability. And so for me, once this happened to me, like, I mean, I never had a voice before. Like, I never had a platform or been on the news to, like, make my voice heard or anything. So, I mean, now that being given the opportunity. I mean, I always talked about wanting to make a change in the world. I mean, I did before the Army.

And so, like, I ask for all this food on my plate. And when it's finally on my plate, like, I can't turn it away now. Like, what am I going to do? Like, just let this keep happening. No, I mean, I understand people. Some people have their reasons for not wanting to. I mean, maybe family, maybe other reasons. They're just scared of retaliation.

But, I mean, that's not me whatsoever. I'll take this head on. I'll take the weight of the world again. to me and I'll see this through. I'm not problem. I mean, the truth is out there and I'll keep saying it and I'll keep letting it be known. What do you think about what's happening in the country right now? I think it's crazy and I think it's absolutely wrong. You don't just get a mask up and cover your face and just go around questioning people, asking them if they're here at illegal or not. You don't just get a nail on people's back.

You don't just get to break cars. You don't get to violate people's rights in general and just do all these things. It's completely wrong and it's crazy. And so that's another reason why I'm doing this. Hopefully doing this and allowing people to take accountability for agents violating civil rights, make them think twice before they even think about doing something. And so I'm hoping that it fixes them doing this, fixes the overall picture and fixes the problem with the way agents act. Yeah. And because it's just crazy. There's no way. There's no way this is like the right type of truth. There's no way.

Like it's complete and utter insanity with the way they act and the way they treat people. It's just completely wrong. Like it's crazy. Yeah, it is. How are your kids handling this? I keep them away from this as much as possible. I mean, there's no reason for them to hear it. I mean, when they get older, I mean, if they want to look into it, I mean, that's on them. But, I mean, I just keep them away from it. Well, I'm glad you're back home with them. Thank you.

I appreciate it. They're going to be really proud of their dad someday. Thank you. I really do appreciate it. They really are. Because what you're doing is, I think it's brave. I think it's hard. And like I said, it is a fuck of a lot more than a lot of people who have a lot

more protections and a lot more power are doing right now. So, like, you know, you've served the country bravely even before this incident and you're continuing to do so now. And I'm really grateful for that. And I'm grateful that you stop by and told your story. So thanks. Thank you for having me. I really do appreciate it. I mean, I can't share my story without people like you. And so, I mean, it's just as meaningful as me telling my story. And so together we're making change. We will keep sharing it and we'll keep pushing until we get that law passed. Thank you so much. Thank you.

That's our show for today. Thanks to George Redis for coming on and for fighting back. We'll be back in your feed with our reactions to election night, and then we'll be headed to D.C. for our live show and CrookedCon. Talk to everybody then. If you want to listen to Pod Save America, ad-free, and get access to exclusive podcasts, go to crooked.com slash friends to subscribe on Supercast, substack, YouTube, or Apple Podcast.

Also, please consider leaving. us a review that helps boost this episode and everything we do here at Cricket. Pod Save America is a Cricket Media production. Our producers are David Toledo, Emma Ilic Frank, and Saul Rubin. Our associate producer is Farah Safari. Austin Fisher is our senior producer. Reed Churlin is our executive editor. Adrian Hill is our head of news and politics.

The show is mixed and edited by Andrew Chadwick. Jordan Cantor is our sound engineer with audio support from Kyle Seiglin and Charlotte Landis. Matt DeGroote is our head of production. Naomi Sengel is our executive assistant. Thanks to our digital team, Elijah Cohn, Haley Jones, Ben Hefcoat, Mia Kelman, Carol Pellevieve, David Tolls, and Ryan Young. Our production staff is proudly unionized with the Writers Guild of America East.