Pod Save America - "Fox Trucks Canada."

Episode Date: February 15, 2022

Democrats need a better plan to fight inflation anxiety, Republicans get bolder about defying Donald Trump, and guest host Erin Ryan joins to talk about Fox News' Valentine’s crush on Canadian truckers.For a closed-captioned version of this episode, click here. For a transcript of this episode, please email [e-mail] and include the name of the podcast.

Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Jon Favreau. I'm Jon Lovett. And filling in for Tommy today, we're lucky to have with us in studio, Hysteria's Erin Ryan. Thank you so much for having me. I'm delighted to be here, and it feels so weird to be back here. I know. It's like time has passed, but also has not passed. Erin, I think the last time you and I were in the studio together was when you and Dan and I covered the Kavanaugh

hearings. Oh, yeah. And I was on the verge of tears. 50 years ago. My voice shaking with rage. Yeah, I remember that. Things have been going great since then. Yeah, things have been great. On today's show, Democrats need a better plan to fight inflation anxiety, Republicans get bolder about defying Donald Trump, and Fox News has a Valentine's crush on Canadian truckers. But first, check out this week's Offline, where I talk to YouTuber Hank Green about how he inspires curiosity online, why he believes the internet can still be a force for good,

and what happens to candle wax when it burns. New episodes of Offline drop every Sunday right here on the Pod Save America feed. Also, check out the latest episode of Take Line to hear Jason and Renee recap the Super Bowl. New episodes of Take Line drop every Tuesday wherever you get your podcasts. All right, let's get to the news. On the heels of last week's Labor Department report that inflation grew at its fastest rate in four decades,

a new CBS poll says that nearly 60% of Americans rate the condition of the economy as bad despite low unemployment and rising wages, mainly because the vast majority of voters say that their rating is based on the price of food, gas and other services. President Biden was asked about inflation during a pre-Super Bowl interview with NBC's Lester Holt. Here's what he said. I think it was back in July you said inflation was going to be temporary. I think a lot of Americans are wondering what your definition of temporary is. Well, you're being a wise guy with me a little bit.

I understand that's your job. But look, at the time, what happened was the let's look at the reasons for the inflation. The reason for the inflation is the supply chains were cut off, meaning that the products, for example, automobiles, the lack of computer chips to be able to build those automobiles so they could function, they need those computer chips. They were not available. So what happens? With the number of cars that were reduced, the new cars reduced, it made up at one point

one third the cost of inflation because the price of automobiles were up. So what I did when I went out and made sure we started to make those domestically, we've got Intel to come in and provide $20 billion to build a facility. A number of organizations are doing the same kinds of things. When can Americans expect some relief from this soaring inflation? According to Nobel laureates, 14 of them that contacted me and a number of corporate leaders, it ought to be able to start to taper off as we go through this year. Woof.

Aaron, what did you think of Biden's answer there? And how should the president Democrats be talking about this issue? Well, it wasn't a good answer. It wasn't a good answer at all. It's sort of I don't know. I don't when he's deploying the like noir slang like, hey, wise guy over here. Wiseacre. Yeah, yeah.

Giving me raspberries. Now say, what's the big idea? When he starts dropping that stuff, you know that it's not going to be really in touch with what people are going through now. But the Nobel laureates part was, I think that he was answering it as though he were speaking to an insider rather than speaking to the American people who are the ones who are the ones who are in a lurch here. Here's the thing, though. I don't want to downplay inflation because it does affect people's lives and it sucks and it's hard. And it's one of the economic indicators that you actually feel every day if you're a regular person. Like most regular people don't really experience a stock market drop unless they, like me, Google sad stockbrokers on those days

to get pictures of them looking really, really sad on the floor of the exchange. That's just fun for you. That's just some fun for me. It's like also Aaron Rodgers after the Packers lost pictures. That's sort of a vibe. Famous anti-vaxxer. Exactly. Exactly.

So, you know, he deserved it in a way. The thing is, inflation is a story, but it's not the entire story. It's only a piece of the story. And what Biden missed the opportunity to do was point out the fact that economic relief was a huge part of his Build Back Better agenda, and that agenda was blocked by Republicans and two wacky Democrats. And it's immediate to people who experienced the temporary provisions of the Build Back Better agenda, like the child tax credit, for example. The child tax credit every month was putting money in people's pockets. And research into what they were doing with that money showed that they were spending it on their kids. They were using it exactly the way they were supposed to use it.

It was lifting children out of poverty. It was doing what it was supposed to do. So I think the inflation thing is not part of anybody's agenda because it's something that cyclically happens from time to time and you can make reactive choices to mitigate it. But the real story here is that inflation is hitting people harder because Biden wasn't able to get Build Back Better passed because Congress is completely dysfunctional. Yeah, love it. I mean, look, he's asked a question. Inflation is the question. The framing of it doesn't matter. How Lester Hull framed it doesn't matter. He starts, at the time, what happened was, let's look at the reason. According to Nobel laureates, according to corporate leaders,

it's a man on a train looking out at America passing by and there's no agency in it. He tries to get at things he's kind of doing to sort of address it in the middle but it's all a bit muddled and there's a kind of i feel like clean message i'm gonna give me let's set a timer for 60 seconds okay i'd like to set a timer for 60 seconds all right and i'm gonna do here i'm gonna and i want to be clear my phone here take out a timer for 60 seconds and i'm gonna do to do a 60-second inflation message. Let me just set it for a minute because it was set for 15 minutes for my COVID test. Negative.

Negative. Same. And this is going to be, and I believe that this brings together the Alpha and Omega of Pod Save America, David Axelrod's advice, and Dan Pfeiffer's advice. Oh, wow. Here we go. Okay, here we go. Start.

This inflation is unacceptable. We've got giant corporations with record profits taking advantage of this once-in-a-century pandemic. They've never been doing better, but they see a chance to squeeze people because they've gobbled up all their competitors. They're padding the prices and hoping we just take it. So we're taking them on.

We're going to manufacture more products in America so we have more jobs in America and less dependence on delicate international supply chains. When one boat gets stuck in a canal in Egypt and all hell breaks loose, we're going to fight these mega-merchers that make a few executives rich but raise prices for the rest of us. And we face a lot of opposition from my Republican friends, getting to Aaron's point, but we passed a big relief bill to put more money in your pockets. Right now, Republicans in the Senate are stopping us from

doing more to tackle higher prices, to help with child care, to extend the child tax credit. But I'm still fighting. We're beating the pandemic. We're creating jobs faster than anyone predicted. Now we have to make sure folks don't feel like they're taking a pay cut because the price of gas or meat is up because you work too hard to see all your money go not as far at the gas station or the grocery store and that's what i wake up thinking about and that's what i go to sleep thinking about and it's no malarkey eight seconds to go eight seconds to spare i feel like something like that is in the ballpark yeah yeah. Yeah. How about something active? Well, I think the important thing there was it is active and it goes to Aaron's point as well, which is especially look this. And I don't want to just pick only on Joe Biden here.

This happens to presidents. This happens to senators and members of Congress in both parties when you've been in government for a while. both parties, when you've been in government for a while, and particularly when you're in the foxhole and you've been criticized for stuff, what you want to do is be on the defensive and explain your way out of something. Always a bad idea. Terrible. Your job is not to narrate what's going on in the country necessarily. Your job is to say that you're going to fix what's going on in the country, or at least say that you're going to fight as hard as you can to fix it. And not only Joe Biden, but every single Democrat in the country needs to start thinking about every time you get a question, how to draw the contrast with Republicans. Here's what we're going to do. Here's what they're doing. Or here's what we're

going to do. Here's what they're blocking. Right. Like that. That's the whole and feel people's pain. Well, that's why you're doing it, too. And don't tell them that. Like, don't worry, the Nobel laureates told me that it's going to be fine later. And you can talk to them on your text chain with the Nobel laureates. I'm in touch with the Nobel laureates told me that it's going to be fine later. And you can talk to them on your text chain with the Nobel laureates. Let me tell you, I'm in touch with the Nobel laureates. I wouldn't worry too bad. It's the Nobel laureates think it's only be a couple more months. But the other thing about it's so frustrating because like there are actual, I think, reasonable times to be even to be more like you're talking to insiders right there.

There are interviews that Joe Biden will give their moments at a press conference where it might make sense to give a kind of more insidery answer just to give his actual perspective, something a little bit less on message. The Super Bowl pre interview is not the place for computer chips. And here's what happened last year. It's like, right, you get it. You understand why it's important. You feel that that you relate to the people going through the pain. And here's what we're doing to fix it. Like just a super simple kind of, and he knows how to do that. It just was a kind of. Yeah, I think that Democrats do better when more people are paying attention. And right now, like if you take a look at the numbers of like CNN,

nobody's really paying attention because politics is kind of back to being a little bit boring compared to what it was when Trump was in the White House and everyone was afraid every single day that something terrible was going to happen. This was an opportunity for Biden to get people to pay attention to him and to pay attention to what he's doing. I think a lot of people are just kind of sleepwalking through this administration because they're busy taking care of their own lives and it's not fireworks all the time. And he missed an opportunity to,

and I hate, I sound, I hate this, but he missed an opportunity to go a little bit viral. If he would have done what you did, he, I mean, maybe not talk so fast, he could have taken more than a minute because he wouldn't have had like a timer. I felt the timer. Yeah. Yeah, you had like a micro machines guy cadence kind of. It's my nature. But, you know, if he would have taken that opportunity to just be like, I'm going's in this moment, that's actually what he needs is to talk, is to like really identify with the struggles of working people in this country. I mean, the New York Times did a focus group, Margie O'Meara, who's a Democratic pollster, conducted it and it was 12 Democrats and

independents. And they were asked about the state of the economy. And, you know, the words they used, they asked for like one word to talk about the economy, scared, sad, ripped off, annoyed. Everyone complained about prices. When they were asked about the federal government, they said that politicians in both parties are all talk and no action on this issue. Now, obviously you hear this a lot from voters,

but I think sometimes we forget that all the stuff we're talking about, the insidery conversation, sort of misses that most people in this country, most voters in this country, most Democratic voters in this country are just thinking about how to get by. And if prices are high and their wages might have risen, but most of that increase is eaten away by inflation, that's tough. And that's what they're thinking about all the time. Yeah.

And I do that. People should read that that piece in the Times, because I also I think that there's this sort of I think some people who spend all their time on Twitter or who are just more steeped in politics generally, I think sometimes they underestimate and overestimate people at the same time, because it's not saying that, oh, you know, Biden needs to dumb it down, say something simpler. Like there are really kind of sophisticated conversations about what's happening, what's not, how vaccine mandates could help versus how they could hurt. Like there's a really great conversation in there.

But like there's also there's a feeling that politicians are disconnected from their daily lives. And there is one woman, Jenny, in the focus group that said something that really stuck with me. She said, everything feels so unpredictable. It's like ever since March of 2020, I don't feel certain of anything anymore. It's economics, politics, relationships. I'm single. I date. And it seems like even dating is different now. How we treat each other is different. What we prioritize these days is different. And Biden became... Yeah, that stuck out at me too. Biden is president of the United States right now because he was able to be the right person at the right time to both speak to the limitations and dangers of Trump, while also being a candidate

who understood intimately the nature of grief and loss and real pain. And I do think that that first principle of why Joe Biden is president has not gone away. Like that the country is still in crisis. The country is still reeling. And whatever the the larger economic indicators, whatever the contribution of inflation might be like, this is a country that is saying things feel bad, both because of substantive, practical, measurable economic reasons, and also because we have been through a trauma and we are still

inside of it. And the trauma drove us online more, which made an entire group of people extremely online. Fox News viewers are the most extremely like it is incomprehensible to me to what the fuck is this story? It's a meme that became a story that got responded to. And it's just so far away from reality because it's so digital. And I feel like the trauma that we went through also was a trauma that was particularly cruel because it made us all worse, to Jenny's point. By being, I mean, partly by being online all the time.

Being online all the time. And treating each other like how we treat each other online. Shines a light on our worst impulses. Totally. Love it. You mentioned this in your answer. And Dan Pfeiffer had some advice on this in his latest message box, which is the Democrats should point out that, quote, while American families are struggling to make ends meet, corporations are reaping record profits. But Politico points out that one reason Biden might not be embracing this message is because a number of liberal economists don't believe that corporate greed is causing inflation and say they would call democrats out if they say that aaron what do you what did you think about

that that is a talk about an insidery conversation like holy shit i pulled i pulled up i was i googled highest paid ceos as i was prepping for the show and i came up with a website on the afl cio's website. Like, this is a way that unions recruit by being like, look at how fucking much money these people are making. Hundreds of millions of dollars to run companies I've never heard of. RH. What is RH? I don't know, but Gary Friedman is getting paid $178 million to run it. Sounds like he's pretty good at it. He's not $178 million. Nobody's $178 million good at anything. I feel like,

you know, to borrow a Mitt Romney quote, corporations are people, my friend, at least at the top of the corporation. That's a person who is making a fuckload of money and who is answering to shareholders instead of their employees. You know, they're cutting the quality of life for people that work for them in order to pad their own pockets and in order to enrich shareholders. And that's a message that, I mean, look, I think I'm pretty regular, but as a regular person gets me pretty fucking mad. As it would most people. Like, look, you don't have to go out there and say 90% of inflation is caused by corporate greed and consolidation,

if that's not true. No one's saying to say that, okay? But like, this happened a month ago. There was like a couple days where people on Twitter spent a couple days yelling at the New York Times for writing about some guy who complained that he was spending too much on a Chipotle burrito. And it's like, you know, maybe like the guy was a small business owner and so he was wealthy enough that he shouldn't have been complaining about the burrito. Who the fuck cares? But it's like, why wouldn't they just yell at Chipotle for raising prices, even though its CEO got 137% pay raise after a year of record profits? Like, I get that Chipotle can't do much about higher beef prices internationally, but like they don't have to give raises to their executives when they're charging working class customers more for food.

And the only politician I saw point that out was Bernie Sanders. That's it. Like everyone should be talking about that. Yeah. MSNBC compiled. Basically, I think what's happened in stepping back is that inflation has been sorted as a political problem and anything in this country sorted by the mainstream press. The political problem is something where either Republicans win or Democrats lose. Those are the kind of two options. And so it is the problem for Democrats to sort out.

MSNBC gathered these sort of quotes from financial executives at companies, and they said things like this. We've been very comfortable with our ability to pass on the increases that we've seen at this point. That's from Kroger. And we would expect that to continue to be the case. What we're very good at is pricing. That's Colgate-Palmolive's CEO. We have found ways over time to recover that in our margin line, and that is certainly the focus right now as a business. Kellogg, very, very strong performance, mostly driven by price.

So all of these companies are being very explicit. Whatever's going on in the market, they are passing on higher prices, whatever they are reaping. They are keeping their profits incredibly high by passing 100% of the costs onto consumers. Whether or not you can point to corporate consolidation is absolutely true that one trend we have seen over many years is that when corporations gobble up their competitors, they are able to work people on price and maybe take advantage of an opportunity like this where there aren't as much there is as much competition. They know they can blame the supply chain. They

know there's no one else that's going to force them to keep their prices low. So whatever the kind of, some people are so smart, they get stupid and it's like, come on. One other option for Democrats on the economy is to do more to help workers organize. Employees at the Amazon warehouse in Bessemer, Alabama will soon hold a second vote as to whether to form that company's first union. Workers at a few Starbucks locations have recently voted to unionize. There's even a push to organize Capitol Hill staffers. And the White House released a plan last week that detailed several steps to facilitate union growth within the federal government and in the private sector. What do you guys think? Are Democrats giving the labor movement enough attention? What else should

they be doing? Are there any downsides to going all in on this issue? do you think um well first of all i think if starbucks unionizes they should change their name to our books just to reflect wow thanks thanks erin for being here so mad at me um you know i was at i was part of the union drive at a at gawker media okay um and i remember when it first started, it was like Hamilton, Nolan, and a couple other people who worked there really worked their asses off to get everybody excited about the union.

But even at a place like a New York media place, it was tough to get everybody on board because the corporate line is always like, they always tell you, oh, it's better if you don't. Like we don't, you already have everything you need. Aren't we generous enough? Blah, blah, blah, blah. And ultimately after a long drawn out process, we successfully unionized. And since then there have been a ton of digital newsrooms that have unionized in New York to the betterment of the

employees at those newsrooms. It's been, it's so much better to be secure enough that if something happened to your job, like there is a procedure in place that must be followed. There is a set of steps that must be taken in order for you to be let go. And if you are let go, there's a certain amount of compensation you get. It used to be that you could just kind of like get let go and that's it. You get like one week pay per year that you've worked there and it's digital media. So everyone's only worked there for like six years or whatever. But, you know, it's now like it's so much better to work at a shop that's unionized. I can just say that as someone who was in a place that wasn't unionized and then was.

I think that the thing that is standing between an average workplace and a union is corporate rhetoric, that it's not a good idea. It's also a ton of work. I'm not trying to downplay the value of joining a union, but it is a lot of meetings. It is a lot of meetings, a lot of really long, boring meetings, a lot of meetings where you have to sit down with your boss and your boss tells you a bunch of stuff that you don't know if it's true or not. And it leaves a really bad taste in some people's mouths. I know Alyssa had to sit on the corporate side, Alyssa Mastromonaco, during the vice union negotiations. And she said the whole thing made her feel real icky inside. So, you know, it's an

uncomfortable process. But on the other side of it, it's really great compared to what it was before. I think the politics have shifted as well. Like, you know, only 10% of American workers currently belong to a union, but a whopping 68% of Americans approve of labor unions, which is the highest measure that Gallup has tested since 1965. And 48% of workers say they join a union if given the opportunity. So even that delta between only 10% are part of a union, 48% said they would join a union is, you know, and I think the Democrats should be out in front of this issue more. And to the Biden administration's great credit, it has been. I mean, even the Biden administration

issuing a statement about the Bessemer organizing process was unusual for a president to do. Yeah. I mean, look, I think you draw a direct connection with the decline of unions and the decline of power workers have in their workplaces. And I think those fed on each other. I think Republicans have for

40 years led a concerted effort to attack unions, right to work, other kinds of attacks on the ability of workers to organize. And as we look at ways in which corporate power is accumulated, companies have consolidated, it has taken power away from consumers and it has taken power away from workers. And unions are a way that people can get that power back. Yeah. I think we've also seen in recent years a lot of examples of people losing a coveted union or having a coveted union weakened, like in public sector workers in Wisconsin, for example. Yes. When Scott Walker became governor, that's one of the first things he did.

And after working with the protection of a union for a really long time and then having that weakened, like that was a loss to teachers. That was a loss to people who were working in public sector in Wisconsin. And I think that there are just really recent examples of people being like, wait a minute, I want that back. So private sector workers wanting to unionize maybe is a sort of like funhouse mirror reflection of what Republicans were trying to do in states where they just kind of took the reins of the democracy lab. OK, let's talk about what's going on in the Republican Party, where the battle is on between old crow Mitch McConnell and old lunatic Donald Trump. Old Crow Mitch McConnell and Old Lunatic Donald Trump. New reporting in the New York Times and the Washington Post suggests that, actually, Trump may be losing his grip on the party, or at least some Republican leaders think he is.

Jonathan Martin says that McConnell has been telling potential Senate candidates that, quote, Mr. Trump is losing political altitude and need not be feared in a primary. As the Senate leaders' lieutenants share polling data, they argue proves it. And Michael Shearer and Josh Dossey at The Post say that, quote, the former president's power within the party and his continued focus on personal grievances is increasingly questioned behind closed doors at Republican gatherings, according to interviews with more than a dozen prominent Republicans in Washington and across the country, including some Trump advisers. What do you guys think?

Who wants to make the case that this is wishful thinking on the part of old crow and his pals? Trump's power is waning, they said, skulking behind closed doors, hoping no one catches them. Okay. Yeah, sure. All right. Wait. You don't believe it. Maybe it's true. Maybe it's not. These stories are not proved to me that Trump's power is waning. These stories are proved to me that there is a small, very limited, very weak group of people who hope they can take advantage of the possibility that his power may be waning, but they don't know for sure. Yeah, Kat's power is waning, say mice scurrying beneath floorboards like unidentified mice who would not come out from the floor. Like unidentified mice who would not come out from the floor. I also take issue with characterizing Mitch McConnell as an old crow.

Because crows are really, really intelligent and cool. I think McConnell's intelligent and cool. He's not. You're right. Okay, you're right. Crows apparently recognize people's faces. They hold grudges. Which is awesome.

That's very Mitch McConnell. Yeah, they recognize. But they bring you presents if they like you. They bring you like. Really? Yeah. That's nice. Anyway, I don't want a present very Mitch McConnell. Yeah, they recognize, but they bring you presents if they like you. They bring you like. Really? Yeah. Wow, that's nice. Anyway, I don't think Mitch, I don't want a present from Mitch McConnell. But I do think that some of this, this is like kind of media insidery,

but I think some of the like Republican sources talking like, you know, off record with reporters is a way to like source grease. Like, look, I'm not crazy. Like here, here you have a story. I'm not crazy. You can like, don't report mean things on me because I'm behind closed doors saying these things about the crazy ones in the party.

And so I take all of this with a grain of salt because A, I think that Donald, there was evidence that Donald Trump was never quite the kingmaker that headlines made him out to be in the first place. Otherwise, why did, you know, two Georgia Senate seats go blue after he was really harping on that? That's just one example of him going all in for somebody and it just not panning out. What was the child molester in Alabama? That was another one.

Oh, yeah. Roy Moore. So I don't think he was ever really like a political kingmaker. He was good at making himself, but he was really inconsistent at spreading that around to other people. He could make media stars, but he couldn't really make like political, like, you know, campaign winners. That is true. Look, I am someone who, even though we're out of the prediction business, I have felt since 2020 quite confident that it is Trump's nomination if he wants it for 2024. Reading these two pieces, maybe over the last couple of weeks, is the first time I've started thinking, OK, I'll look at the other side of this story that maybe he's losing his grip on the party And maybe there is some evidence of this. I mean, I think that as Republicans feel more confident that they may win the House and the Senate because of everything we've talked about, they may start thinking that they don't necessarily need Donald Trump. Right. That like you need.

What do these people care about? They care about they don't like some of them don't love donald trump they just care about winning and if winning requires pretending to love donald trump they're all for that right so whatever gets them to win and i think that like you know if they start feeling more confident that they don't need him they might start thinking well we know that trump still turns off a lot of independent voters right there was a poll in in Michigan just a week ago that showed that his popularity was like 31%. It was his lowest ever in a swing state of Michigan. So if you're a Republican or Republican strategist, you're running for office, you're thinking, okay,

how do I get the base? If I can get the base and I can beat a Democrat in a competitive race because of the economy, because of the pandemic, whatever it may be. And I don't have to turn off some voters by embracing Donald Trump. I'll take that. And the question is, can you can you do that all the way through 2024 and maybe excise Trump from the party? Now, I think you're I think you're right. And that's very different when he's running on his own versus when he's endorsing someone. But that's the other case that it's maybe possible. I don't know if I buy it, but it's the other Schrodinger's fascist. Like I both am with Trump and am not with Trump, but you know, at the same time, right. Yeah. You know, is the difference, right. The distinction is what we're talking about endorsements inside of these

Senate races, but, but in terms of a Republican primary in 2024, Trump is already in many ways, one, the propaganda apparatus, the Republican base that is is all kind of created the dynamics in which, you know, whatever dough goes into the pasta maker, Trump ravioli is what comes out. That is what this machine now throws out. Ron DeSantis, Josh Hawley, Ted Cruz, you name it. Any Republican that might consider running for president at some point is figuring out just how to be their version of Trump, a smarter version, a more sophisticated version, a more accomplished version, whatever it might be, a more staid version. But they're all going to be some version of Trump. And it's going to look like a bunch of Trumps out there. And sometimes it's

going to look like seven small Trumps, sometimes going to look like one big Trump, like zebras. I mean, I do think it's interesting, at least in the New York Times story, they show that basically McConnell's plan isn't working as well as he'd like it to be because he didn't get Larry Hogan, who's a more moderate Republican governor of Maryland, to run for Senate in Maryland. And we don't know yet, but it's looking like Doug Ducey, the governor of Arizona, who Donald Trump does not like because he refused to say that the election was stolen from him, it's going to be hard to get Doug Ducey to run for Senate. Now, as a Democrat, I'm thinking like there's some real wacko Republicans in Arizona. And if Doug Ducey is running against Mark Kelly,

I am more nervous than if some of these other wackadoodles are running against Mark Kelly. Yes. I mean, I think McConnell's strategy is, is right here. I just don't know if it's gonna be successful. Yeah. I mean, I think, you know, Trump is on the sidelines, like kind of whipping shit at people. Right. And the thing about whipping shit at people is it's hard to get somebody to do something, but it can stop you from doing something right. Like I think Trump has kind of anti-power in these races. Uh, he can scare people away from running, uh, more than I think McConnell can convince somebody to do something very hard, which is deciding to enter

a statewide political race. And that's the power I think he has right now, which is like, you have to decide. He just raises the stakes. Like, am I going to get into this and decide to spend the next six months of my life dealing with just an endless river of bullshit? And that's powerful. And potentially threats

to me and my family. Yeah. I think about like the Cindy McCain of it all. Like she is still pretty beloved in Arizona politics. And so, you know, you have two shit whippers here. You have, she would probably, I mean, yeah, she whipped shit too. But they both are whipping shit at different candidates, you know. And so I don't know enough about Arizona politics to go much further than that. Only to say that I think Doug Ducey is the most recognized name in Republican Arizona politics because he's the governor.

But I don't think, I can't think of another Arizona Republican off the top of my head who could match him in name recognition. Yeah. I mean, you have people like Kelly Ward, right? Who's just like, woof. Absolutely bad shit. Absolutely bad shit. And I do think, look, there's this sort of like independent centrist streak in Arizona. Like I remember for the wilderness, I did a focus group there in Phoenix and people, everyone in the group was, they're all sort of swing voters. And they're like, oh, we wish we could have more politicians like John McCain and Kyrsten Sinema. I know. But they're like, you know, it's too Donald Trump is too extreme for us. We hate Donald Trump. And some of the Democrats are too far to the left. But this is who we like. So there is like that sort of feeling

there a little bit. But but yeah, I don't know if McConnell's going to get all his candidates. I mean, maybe McConnell wasn't a genius after all. All he does is stop things like a rock that lands in the middle of a highway isn't a genius for stopping traffic. An obstructionist doesn't take genius to pull off. It just takes being an asshole. Senate majority leaders always look dumber than Senate minority leaders because the Senate sucks.

But it's funny too. It's like, again, is his grip waning? The amount of concerted effort, like Elaine Chao's calling you on the phone, you got George W. Bush. She was calling Larry Hogan's wife to try to pressure her to pressure him.

George W. Bush is laying on that famous charm of his. And meanwhile, Trump just tweets, this guy thinks the election was a fraud, so I like him. That's it. That's his strategy. It's like the amount of effort that goes into fighting back against such a fucking buffoonish Trump operation.

Just a reminder of how much more power there is in the in the base that he has versus the dwindling support that people like Mitch McConnell. Yeah. I also wanted to add you were talking about social media and that reminded me that Trump's suspension from Facebook is going to like come to be revisited, I think, this summer. Oh, is it? So yeah, it might be, you know, that might be a reason that people are a little bit like hesitant to take him on because who knows how he's going to take advantage of his newfound access to the Facebook reigns if he's allowed. So that's another question mark. No, I thought that was interesting in the stories, too, is that they said Trump has

felt like frustrated by the fact that he's not getting the coverage that he once did. And maybe that's partly why is his, his, his grip is loosening to continue to use that metaphor. Um, but that's only whether he gets Twitter back, whether he gets Facebook back, if the guy is running for president in the Republican primary, he's going to get more coverage again. That's just going to be because he's running for president of the United States. And if he clears out the field, or even if it's just him and Ron DeSantis or whoever, he's going to get a lot of coverage.

He also gets coverage because he's exciting. I mean, exciting like how being in a car that's on fire going off a cliff is exciting. You know, like you're very agitated when you're dealing with him. But also, in terms of a corporate media, desperate for ratings, gets good ratings when they cover Donald Trump. And so if he does run, that'll be it'll be in corporate media's best interest to cover him, not America's best interest, but it would be in corporate media's best interest. And

that sucks because I don't think I can take another year of wall-to-wall Trump that I can't do it. Well, so I do think that it sort of remains to be seen.

If he runs, it's going to be different and then these stories will be looked at in a different light, I think. All right. Before we go, we want to celebrate Valentine's Day by talking about the cross-border love affair

between Fox News hosts and Canadian anti-vax truckers, who've now spent three weeks protesting the life-saving inoculations by blocking major roadways and bridges across the country, wreaking havoc on the lives of other Canadians, their economy, and the global supply chain. On Monday, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau invoked emergency powers to quell the protests, and at one of the sites in Alberta, police arrested 11 people with guns, body armor, and a large quantity of ammunition. There have also been sightings of swastikas and Confederate flags, but none of this has stopped American right-wing media from praising what the chair of Ottawa's police board is calling, quote, a nationwide insurrection. According to Media Matters,

Fox News has devoted nearly 15 hours of coverage to the story over the last few weeks. Here's a clip. The Canadian trucker convoy is the single most successful human rights protest in a generation. The Canadian truckers are heroes. They are patriots and they are marching for your freedom and for my freedom. Out of touch provincial governments drunk on their own power thought that they could keep Canadians subdued with these COVID rules forever. But they were wrong. You know what's going to happen? hell will break loose that will be the government starting a fight people may die what we want is what god gave us freedom that's what this is all about and god bless those truckers for standing firm what do you think's going on here why uh why is fox

so excited about these protests love it first of all it is amazing how they can just with no information just be like these out of touchof-touch provincial bureaucrats. You don't know a fucking anything about Canada. Name two provinces. Unbelievable. Name the bureaucrats. It reminds me a lot of what happened when they decided that,

like, Fox News just decided to sort Queen Elizabeth and Prince Philip as Republicans and Meghan Markle and Harry as Democrats because Meghan Markle is black. That's it. They're Democrats. Those are Republicans. We're on the Queen side. The other ones are old. They're old and white. They're us. Meghan Markle's

them. Let's go. Yeah, it's just... Harry's a redhead. That counts. Just out of control. No, look, they're just uh you know same thing we were talking about earlier it's a little boring down here so i don't know let's uh fan the flames of hatred and outsource and let's uh let's um export some of our worst qualities to canada let's let's get americans all all riled up let's get americans donating to this caravan

up there in in in canada and let's just make some entertaining, hate-filled nonsense for our aging American audience. Yeah. I say this with love because I do love Canadians. I think they're great. Canada's a beautiful country. But you know how, if you heard the phrase, it's America's hat. And we've got head lice. You know?

Like, it's America's hat and our hair is full of lice. And it is. Look. Anyway. And we've got head lice, you know, like it's America's hat and our hair is full of lice. And it is. Look, anyway, it is. I don't think they appreciate it whatsoever. Canadians overall tend to be a little bit more compassionate, I think, than a lot of Americans. The thing that really gets to me about this is just the strange bedfellows of these pencil-necked Dartmouth College Republicans trying to get in bed with these, like, truckers. Like, we've got Tucker, or should I call him Trucker Carlson. Trucker. Way to go. Selling.

That was worth the segment right there. trucker carlson trying to profit um off of the protest by selling t-shirts i believe or hats on his on his website for 35 dollars let's say i heart truckers for 35 dollars i will teach you how to iron on decals onto a t-shirt and then you can you know teach amanda fish he'll eat for life erin's milking a cow during this segment she's just on the farm in in wisconsin no the backup it's like oh it's it's annoying to everybody who lives in michigan it's just on the farm in Wisconsin. No, the backup, it's like, it's annoying to everybody who lives in Michigan. It's just, it's terrible. But, you know, Tucker Carlson is, I cannot imagine him. I just imagine that his hands feel like Play-Doh that just came out of the can.

Unused Play-Doh. Soft hands. Soft, soft-handed people being like, yes, we are with you, truckers. We understand. people being like, yes, we are with you, truckers. We understand. And another thing about this whole bizarre, extremely strange media storm on the right about this is the truckers are doing something that is obviously, obviously about the vaccine mandates. It's obviously about this one thing. And then you have people on Fox News being like, it's about freedom. They're like following behind them

and like rewriting what they did. They're like redoing their homework for them and turning it in. Yeah, they're intellectualizing it for sure. They have to make it more sophisticated because basically it's a, there's been a massive propaganda effort to make these people afraid of a vaccine

that is safer than fucking Tylenol. And then they bought it. And now they're turning that into a movement against having against for a tiny, tiny subset of people that are refusing to get the vaccine, even though 90 percent of Canadian truckers are apparently vaccinated. More than the general population. So, you know, and so it basically, you know, it's the propaganda gets them all riled up and now the propaganda keeps it going.

And it's sort of very simple, but it's it's simple and quite, you know, it's not a righteous cause. You know, it's a very Fox thing to do, which is it fits neatly into their larger narrative about this working class revolution against the elites, right? Only 32% of Canadians have expressed any kind of support for these protests. any kind of support for these protests. It is not, the idea that it's this movement of working class protesters against these like remote affluent elites is sort of belied by the fact that like, I don't know, the people of Ottawa and Alberta

and everywhere where these protests are, working people's lives are being disrupted. There's factory shutdowns that are happening because of these protests. Canadian auto workers are suffering from this. So working class Canadians are suffering as a result of these protests. Again, like you said, not for some like high ideal, but just because they refuse to take a life-saving vaccine. Well, in that way, the way that this is organized is kind of evil genius,

because what they're doing is having, they're sending their dogs to go shit in someone else's yard. If those truckers were blocking major American cities, everybody in America who is watching Fox News is in favor of the truckers inconveniencing them over there. But if it were happening in their cities, it wouldn't be as popular. I think they want it, though. I think they want it. All they want is another problem for Joe Biden. That is what this is. This is an effort to drum up enough nonsense and noise to get this to start happening

in the U.S. And the next thing you know, Joe Biden has to deal with America's trucker problem and the open revolt that they are continuing to spread. And what's what's it's it's look, it's it's all so simple that it's like it feels frustrating to even have to talk about it. But like, we are, we are liberal people. We believe in, you know, civic protest, nonviolent resistance, but we read, but like the way it is, the, the, the level of the disruption is meant to match the righteousness of the cause. And Fox News has spent years demonizing any kind of protest, Black Lives Matter protest, that is a far more righteous and noble cause, which we all know that has caused far less disruption. But they treat it like it's anarchy.

They back laws that allow you to hit protesters with your car. Yeah. But because these are conservative, because these are anti-vax, because these are white protesters for the most part, they are treated like protagonists as opposed to antagonists. Yeah, you should. You should. In Minnesota, there have been some Black Lives Matter protests that block it, block off the Mall of America or disrupt the light rail between the airport and the mall. It's usually the Mall of America. It's usually around a big shopping holiday and uh fox news isn't doesn't think that's noble at all yeah well they also like disperse after like look if a couple hundred people want to a couple hundred anti-vax truckers want to protest outside the just stand outside the canadian parliament and protest fine great move your fucking trucks yeah we're trying to have a society here

i mean that's the thing i think we all like the undercurrent whenever i talk about it with anybody is just like annoyance it's just so tedious and it's not really it's not convincing anybody to be on their side it's just convincing people that they will take extreme measures when they don't get their way which is not a great way to win hearts and minds. Yeah. But I do think that what Fox is really hoping for, and some Republican politicians as well, is that these protests come to the United States.

I think Rand Paul was quoted as saying like, oh yeah, I hope it disrupts the Super Bowl. Nobody wants it in their city. Rand Paul wants it to be in L.A. Yeah, of course. In liberal blue cities, that's what they want. Right, exactly. It's like, dude, have you ever been to L.A.?

We already, you can't make the traffic any worse. traffic anywhere i think the truckers have been protesting a couple years they're protesting they're all on the 10 you know los angeles huh hollywood what's your dream the uh take fountain you know okay that's now we're now we're. No, see, but you don't know that that's a famous Betty Davis quote. Okay, I don't. Any advice for people getting into show business? Take Fountain. Oh, my goodness.

Oh, that's insider. But yeah, no, I do think they think that this is going to be like the next Tea Party thing. Yeah. You know. Which, you know, it's something to watch. Certainly something to watch here. I'm just thinking about the people Which, you know, it's something to watch. Certainly something to watch here. I'm just thinking about the people who, you know, this is, we're hypotheticals on top of hypotheticals here.

Right. But, you know, just thinking about the people that Donald Trump turned off enough to lose the presidency in 2020. And I'm trying to imagine the white suburban moms being cool with having trucks making it so they can't get to the preschool to drop their kids off, you know, or or blockading supplies so that if they, you know, are going shopping for the family, they don't have like what they're looking for. You know, I just know. Yeah, I totally I think the reasonable people it'll it'll rile up a certain demographic of people. It'll get them real fired up. It'll get them to fork over $35 for a shirt that says, I heart truckers. Hipster gold in five years, that one. Yeah. And I would just say one, I think, lesson from just what we've

been seeing from across the border that we should take to heart is, and Brian Boyler, I think, wrote a great piece in Big Tent about this. I think a lot of Democrats, sometimes we like to wish away the scale of right-wing menace in this country, or we're afraid to really tackle it, or afraid that if we're honest about it or confronted with the full force of what the law actually says, we'll face even greater blowback, that somehow we should be, we have to cower or not take these, or not apply the law fairly to right-wing vigilantes. And I hope there's a lesson in the fact that like this doesn't end on its own. Right. You have to actually make clear what you what you stand for and not be cowed by right wing menace. Yeah. I mean, they tried to kidnap the governor of Michigan. They stormed the Capitol. This is not they're playing around here. And I do think

like to your point, Aaron, we've talked before about how they're sort of people are exhausted by pandemic restrictions, stuff like that. That exhaustion does not extend to now. I'm happy to have my city locked up, blockaded by a bunch of like there's a difference between people be like, I hope my kid gets back to school soon. And yes, I love a bunch of trucks in my city blocking all the roads. back to school soon. And yes, I love a bunch of trucks in my city blocking all the roads. Yeah. And the thing is, the trucks are promoting circumstances under which it'll take even longer for the kid to get back to school. Of course.

Like, just on Friday, the CDC and Pfizer announced that it's not going to be, the shot isn't going to be available to kids. Oh, I'm so mad. I know. I know. Not going to be available to kids until at least April, which is horrible for parents. Take your time. No rush.

And just on that, and I get it. There's a lot of very smart people on Twitter who I trust, medical professionals saying it just means that they're being careful and they want the science to be right and they want it to be safe. I get all that. The communication around it has been a disaster. Yeah, it's been pretty bad. The expectations raising and then dashing has just been awful. Right. Nobody wants a shot rolled out if we haven't proved that it's safe and effective, especially for little kids.

Of course. But these parents are so desperate for it to be the case that it's safe, available, and ready for their kid. And then meanwhile, we have these people protesting the fact that they have to take the shot. Erin and I are going to go take some trucks and park them outside the FDA. And then I'm going to

yell at Barbara Ferrer's house. I'm not sure which way I'm going to go either. Were you one of those people? I may be pro-mask or anti-mask. Honestly, it changes by the day, but either way, I'm fucking furious.

And Barb's, I'm coming to your house. Were you one of those people? No mask and mask. I used to live right over there. And I thought I recognized one of those shouting voices. It was you. It could have been me. It could have been me.

Well, that's all the time we have for today. Erin Ryan, thank you for joining Pod Save America. This has been fun. Always a pleasure. Thank you. Pod Save America is a Crooked Media production. The executive producer is Michael Martinez. Our senior producer is Andy Gardner-Bernstein. Our producer is Haley Muse, and Olivia Martinez is our associate producer.

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