Pod Save America - “Insurrection: Season Finale.” (Live from Seattle!)

Episode Date: July 22, 2022

Fake the Nation host Negin Farsad joins Jon, Tommy and Dan live in Seattle! The January 6th committee wraps up this season of “Insurrection” with a primetime blockbuster focusing on the 187 minutes where Donald Trump sat back watching his favorite TV shows cover the attack on the US Capitol that he incited. Then Washington Governor Jay Inslee joins to talk about saving the planet and protecting abortion, contraceptive and LGBTQ+ rights. 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. 

Thank you. What's up, Seattle? Hello! Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Jon Favreau. I'm Nagin Farsad. I'm Tommy Vitor. I'm Dan Pfeiffer. Unfortunately, Jon Lovett is not here. Because Joe Biden gave him COVID.

Are we sure it's not the other way around? It might have been. It was just a fist bump. I didn't know that it would be. I thought that was supposed to avoid that. We are very lucky to have the hilarious Nagin Farsad with us

on this swing. If you have not already been listening to her podcast, Fake the Nation, please go subscribe. It is hilarious. And we are also lucky to have with us tonight your governor, Jay Inslee. All right.

All right, let's get to the news. The January 6th committee just wrapped up the season finale of Insurrection, a primetime blockbuster that focused on the 187 minutes where Donald Trump sat back and watched his favorite TV shows cover the violent attack on the U.S. Capitol that he incited and then celebrated. The hearing featured in-person testimony from Trump's former Deputy National Security Advisor and Deputy Press Secretary,

who both resigned on January 6th as a result of the president's actions. Video testimony from White House counsel Patsy Baloney and others. It also featured some very intense testimony from a former Trump security official whose image and voice was covered up for their protection, who told a harrowing story of what Mike Pence's staff was doing when they learned that the mob was coming for them. Let's listen. A lot of very personal calls over the radio. So it was disturbing. I don't like talking about it. But there were calls to say goodbye to family members, so on and so forth. It was getting, for whatever the reason was on the ground,

the VP detail thought that this was about to get very ugly. Lovely, Lovely stuff. Nagin, I would love to hear where you think tonight's hearing ranks in the pantheon of series finales. But also, in addition to this being the finale, it was also only the second primetime hearing. Why do you think the committee wanted to broadcast this specific hearing and what they said in this hearing and the testimony of this hearing to such a big audience? Well, I mean, first let me just say that these hearings have been my Gilmore Girls.

It's the Liz Cheney, Adam Kinzinger, like Lorelai, Rory Banter. Will they, won't they? Well, they're daughter and mother. Okay, I haven't watched that series. Tommy and Abby, if you were. I'm so embarrassed that you didn't already know that. Who is Luke in this scenario? No.

But no, Liz Cheney is the daughter um and i actually meant to show up in my liz cheney cosplay and i my my wig got covid so i couldn't buy it in but um i uh no this has been so great so many cliffhangers i mean in general i feel like they've done a terrific job now i do want to stress that it's a season finale and not a series finale, John. Yes, thank you. That was my, I misspoke. Yeah. That was my bad.

Because what, you know, I think you're setting people up for being like, oh, that was like Journeys Don't Stop Believing. Is Tony Soprano dead or not? Oh, right? And it was not a series finale. So we don't have to have that conversation. But I do think in terms of like setting up a cliffhanger for Saison D'os, I feel like they did a terrific job. And in terms of like taking over primetime, love that. You know, I'm still the kind of person that'll flip through channels. I'm from the 1920s.

But I think that's great. I would love for the committee to develop some sort of technology to, like, interrupt everyone watching Stranger Things. Oh, yeah. Because that, I think, will be more effective. I think that's right. I think that's right. What did people think was the most compelling or surprising moments from this particular hearing? Tommy? I want to keep the good times rolling before we get to the serious stuff. The most memorable, greatest thing out of this two hours of television was Josh Hawley running. Josh Hawley running. The thing I love about the committee,

I think it's a lot of Liz, I think it's a lot of Adam Kinzinger, is they are vindictive. And they are settling some scores. And they're mad at the Republicans that have pushed them out of the party and forced them to seek retribution. So maybe we could watch a little of that? You want to shoot someone in the face,

you send a Cheney. Send a Cheney. That's what we've been saying. That's right, Josh. And that is what they did to Josh Hawley tonight. For those of you who were outside and didn't get to see it, they showed footage of Josh Hawley, of course, doing his stupid fucking fist bump where he tried to inspire the rioters.

There it is. And then they showed never-before-seen footage of Josh Hawley fleeing from those same rioters. Let's play it. There he goes. There he goes. There he goes. Get out of there. Now, you were all laughing so you didn't hear it,

but in the committee room, there was laughter. They were laughing. This very serious hearing about violence and horrible laughter. Laughing their asses off. He basically was forest gumping out of the building. I think Josh Hawley is still running somewhere in America. It was track and field insurrection edition with Josh Hawley is still running somewhere in America. It was track and field insurrection edition with Josh Hawley. That clip has now been set to every song known to man on the internet

over just the last half hour. Benny Hill. If you think America is hopeless divided, just know Republicans, Democrats, MAGA, Resistance, Twitter twitter all think josh holly is a fucking doofus hate the guy ted hate the guy cruz is like breathing a sigh of relief finally someone else is the most hated person in america they would have had to speed up the video of ted cruz running all right so there was the josh holly moment yeah which was like there was no other purpose for that than just a fuck you to Josh Hawley from the committee, which, like, I applaud.

I applaud. Dan, did you have anything that you want to? I think another moment was the committee showed outtakes of Trump's speech. Bloopers. Bloopers, if you will. The Trump blooper reel was pretty good. And Trump in there really stumbled over the word yesterday. I think we have a clip of that as well.

I would like to begin by addressing the heinous attack yesterday. Yesterday is a hard word for me. Just take it out. The heinous attack. Ah, good. Take the word yesterday because it doesn't work with The heinous attack. Ah, good. Take the word yes to that, because it doesn't work with the heinous attack on our country. Say on our country. My only goal was to ensure the integrity of the vote.

My only goal was to ensure the integrity of the vote. The hand motions. Yikes. It was like community theater. He is like a... What was the flip down? What does that mean? Why did he do that?

Every president wonders what their etched in stone quote is going to be. Yeah. And I think we just heard Donald Trump's yesterday is a hard word for me. He did also say in those outtakes, less amusingly, more alarmingly, that he refused to say the words the election is over.

And still, two years later, has not said them. He apparently also didn't want to say stay peaceful in one of the few tweets he sent on the day of apparently you know this group of trump aides was sent into the uh little dining room next to the oval office where trump was sitting all throughout all this watching the insurrection on tv and they said sir we really want you to tweet you know get out of there stay peaceful and he resisted that according to kaylee mcinerney which is weird as a longtime well-known proponent of civil disobedience. It's strange. Yeah, it's true. Yeah. But I mean, I do think that the point of this finale was, and they said this many times, every single staffer in the White House with Trump

during the insurrection told him at some point, him urged him pleaded with him to make a statement to tell the rioters to go home and he refused they also did a really good job i think of of making clear how much the rioters were listening to him in real time i mean you were joking as we were watching like it's pretty remarkable that these these rioters were like bashing cops with one hand and reading Twitter with the other. They were so good at refreshing Twitter while trying to take down democracy, which I thought was more of a two-hand sport. But apparently...

But once he finally put out the video, there were videos of the QAnon shaman saying, hey guys, Trump said we should go home, time to get out of here. So they actually listened to him, and I think the committee wanted to drill that home. They also, there was a moment where Trump had a tweet earlier where he said, don't, don't hurt our great police, our Capitol Police, or something like that. And there's a clip of the rioter saying, Trump said, don't hurt the Capitol Police, but he didn't say anything about the members of Congress. So let's go get them. And so clearly they were listening to every single word that he said. I also think that, uh, I think that this hearing did more damage, political damage to other Republicans, other members of Congress than almost any of the other hearings. Obviously the

Hawley thing, uh, Kevin McCarthy did not come out very well in this hearing or any other venue. very well in this hearing or any other venue honestly he's found it did include the only relatable warm moment of kevin mccarthy's fucking life when he is reported to have called trump to try to get him to make a statement so we would go home and he says his staff is running for their lives at the moment and they show video of it. And then you have to watch video and know that only weeks later, Kevin McCarthy would throw himself at Trump's knees and beg for forgiveness and then become one of his leading proponents in Congress. Yeah. What did you guys think of the two witnesses, Sarah Matthews and Matthew Pottinger? I thought they were compelling. I mean, Matthew Pottinger, you know, he started out as the Asia expert on the NSC. He was promoted to the Deputy National Security Advisor, which is an incredibly

important, powerful position. And he decided, you know, he's sort of a bit of an establishment conservative foreign policy guy, but also was clearly full MAGA for four years, and then did the right thing on January 6th and resigned. But then, you know, they were talking to him about, well, did you resign that evening? He's like, well, no, because my boss was traveling overseas. So I was literally the most senior national security official in the entire White House. So I slept in my office that night until my boss got back. And that to me was just a reminder of the stakes. Also, just from a former NSC nerd perspective, I mean, to see like Chuck Schumer and Mitch McConnell and Nancy Pelosi on the phone with the Secretary of Defense

sort of ordering around the U.S. military and then the vice president calling General Milley and others and sort of telling DOD what to do and knowing that Trump did not call the Defense Department one time or lift a finger was just, it's really a staggering fact to acknowledge given the way the system is

supposed to work. Can I also say something weird, which is that I also felt about these witnesses and a lot of the witnesses over the time that like every time that we, over those four years, heard from someone in the Trump administration, they were sort of like dum-dums or meanie pants dum-dums, like one or the other. And these witnesses were like eloquent, thoughtful. And so you're sort of like, oh, some of you were there. They just never allowed you to talk out loud. And there was a little bit of like,

glad you resigned on January 6th as they were storming the Capitol. But you clearly knew for a while, like Sarah Matthews at one point was just like, look, I traveled all around the country with Trump and I went to all these rallies, so I know the power of his words. And I'm like, yeah, you did. And it took you this fucking long? That is my reaction every time. It's like, yes, it is good that these people are testifying now.

And testifying publicly is going to come at great cost to them professionally. Their position in the Republican Party is going to be damaged. I'm sure they're going to get threats. Cassie Hutchinson had to get security after her testimony. But I also would be like, what did you think was going to happen? This was so predictable. The Sarah Matthews case is like, I traveled with him.

So you were fine with figurative calls to violence. But when the calls to violence got literal, that was your breaking point. It's yeah. The man he was on January 6th is the man he has always been. I mean, Sarah Matthews. Interestingly,

Sarah Matthews now works in Congress. She works in the House on the Republican side of the Select Committee on Climate Change, which makes me think she has a lot of free time. But the House Oversight Committee, which is controlled by Elise Stefanik, sort of who's gone full MAGA from once being sort of a moderate congresswoman, was attacking her by Yeah. By name. During the hearing. During the hearing.

They actually deleted the tweet, but I thought that was remarkable. One other thing that jumped out at me, though, was the committee really wanted to highlight a quote from, I think, Eric Eastman about how the staff was really drained at like 4 p.m. on January 6th, and they all went home early. Yeah, they were drained. It was a tough day. Tough day at the White House. Tough day for the staffers.

Watching the attack on the Capitol. Stepping back to just talk about all of the hearings now that the season is over with more to come. With all the usual disclaimers about the polls, Tommy, what does the data at this moment tell us about what kind of political effect these hearings are having. I mean, I think that there's a growing consensus that the hearings are breaking through and are having an impact. I think there was some polling today that showed 60% of Americans overwhelmingly support the hearings happening. A similar percentage supports DOJ filing criminal charges. There's a woman named Sarah Longwell who works at the Bulwark who does lots of focus groups with Republican voters. And she said recently, more and more and more of her groups, she's hearing from the people in the room, the Republicans in

the room, that they don't want Trump to run. They're sick of hearing about January 6th. They're sick of hearing about him and all the problems they're causing. And they're like, anybody else, Ron DeSantis, like give us someone new. So, you know, oh, come on, you don't like Ron. So they're, they're clearly like the Trump exhaustion is coming back. Will that, will that stick? We don't know. I mean, Dan, for now, these hearings are over, like with about a hundred days left to the midterms, like to what extent should Democratic candidates and Democratic campaigns incorporate what we've learned from these hearings into their midterm message? Or is it more important to move on to other issues? I think the risk of these

hearings for Democrats in the short term politically is that they are, by design, incredibly focused on Donald Trump and the past. And what that ignores and potentially obscures is the very real, ongoing, active conspiracy to steal the next election, not through some sort of riot at the Capitol, not through some sort of fake thing with the vice president, but by taking control of the electoral apparatus in this country to be in charge of who counts the votes, who picks the electors, and who sends those electors to Congress. And that, I think, what Democrats have to do is not look backwards, not look at Trump, look at the fact that what the entire party is doing, what MAG Republicans are doing,

and to tie the effort of this extreme authoritarian insurrectionist minority, their efforts to seize political power at all costs, through election suppression, election, through insurrection, through violence if need be, to implement this extremist, out-of-touch, unpopular agenda, which includes everything from, and you can pick off a large menu of unpopular, terrible policies for your race, but from banning abortion, banning gay marriage, banning books, tax cuts for corporations, getting rid of the Affordable Care Act, cutting Social Security and Medicare. These are things that could never become law if the majority of this country, the growing, progressive, diversifying majority, had power. So this extremist minority is trying to seize it. And I think you can tell that entire story without ever saying the words Donald or Trump. Yeah. Nagin, do you think, is there a moment or a piece of evidence or someone's testimony that you think will stay

with people and not just people who are like political junkies, but people who may have just like casually tuned into these hearings over the last month? Well, one thing that Liz Cheney said at the very end is she pointed out that the witnesses have made a series of confessions. And I thought that was really, because you have wondered over the last couple of years, like, what were these people thinking when that was going down? And now we know because they have just confessed to all of it. because they have just confessed to all of it. And that was really powerful to me. Like, yeah, we have literally just been watching all of these hardcore Trump supporters confess

to everything that went down. So that's something that has really stuck with me. The actual people on the ground that were witnesses talking about how his words riled them up, that really spoke to me. Some of their 3D maps of the White House. They love those maps. Just, they love a map.

And I was really impressed by just the general map and PowerPoint game that we saw in these hearings. I mean, well done, guys. Big week for cartographers. I agree with you. Huge, huge. It was interesting that Cheney drew a distinction at the end. She's like, please notice that there are these young women putting their lives and careers on the line to testify today,

and then 60-year-old men hiding behind executive privilege. Yeah, yeah. That was... The one thing that I think is notable, as we look back at all these hearings, is you almost never heard Democrats speak. The bulk of the... All the witnesses we heard from

were supporters of Trump, staff of Trump, the vast majority of the people speaking in the committee were Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger. Every once in a while, they let a Democrat narrate a video periodically. But that's by design, because if we are trying to convince people who were either supportive of Trump in 2020, who are skeptical about the integrity of the election, you have to use Republicans to do it. There's a study from Stanford University where they took a panel of 2,000 people. They showed some of them videos of Republicans named, identified Republicans, saying the election was legitimate and there was no fraud.

They showed some people from Democrats and news media people and some people no information at all. And the people who heard from Republicans were 5% more likely to believe that the election was legitimate. And so this is a very clear and I think effective strategy with that sort of narrow margin of people that we are trying to persuade here. One more thing before we go. A stated goal of these hearings has always been to pass a series of reforms to prevent the next coup from happening.

Liz Cheney and Zoe Lofgren, members of the committee, released a statement this week saying they're working on those reforms. But a bipartisan group of senators led by Susan Collins and Joe Manchin just introduced legislation that would... I honestly, I was like, I got to say these names fast. Because we're going to get this. Understandable. It's okay. I wonder which would have gotten booed more if you sort of spaced it out.

Yeah, that's, yeah. Not clear to me. Anyway, they just introduced legislation that would clarify, that they say would clarify the vice president, that the vice president can't overturn the election, make it harder for Congress to overturn the election, and make it harder for states to send competing slates of electors. Dan, what do you think about this bill?

What's good? What's less good? Should Democrats support it? Well, this bill will, I think, address one of the great threats to democracy, the prospect of Kamala Harris stealing the election in 2024. I mean, look, in all seriousness, I think this bill is fine. It does a couple things. One, it establishes that the vice president's role in the certification election is ministerial to get rid of this insane conspiracy theory that nobody believed then, before, now, or the future about the role of the vice president. Second, it makes it harder to challenge the results. Instead of just one single member of Congress, you now need a fifth of either body to do it. Now, the Republicans had like three times that in 2020, so it doesn't really solve the problem there.

It also puts in some safeguards that make it harder for states to appoint new electors after the election. Now, a lot of lawyers that we know and have worked with and respect, like Mark Elias and Norm Eisen, some of whom worked in the White House, have pointed out there are some loopholes in this bill that would allow very malicious actors in states to call fake voter fraud a quote-unquote catastrophic event and then theoretically appoint new electors after that. There is a looming court case that the court agreed to hear, they're going to hear this fall, called Moore v. Harper, which involves this completely insane theory about independent state legislatures, which would potentially, in this situation, allow state legislatures to ignore the laws, ignore the veto of their governor, and appoint electors on their own. So you could have a state like Wisconsin or Michigan, where we have Democratic governors,

and hopefully still have them in 2024. And the Republican legislatures in those states, which are in place because of extreme partisan gerrymandering the Supreme Court also won't do anything about, could theoretically appoint electors. So this will be good. I would say, I guess my final analysis would be that it increases the degree of difficulty for insurrections,

but it doesn't get rid of them. Yeah, I mean, I do think the danger right now is that some Republican governor or some Republican state legislature just decides to send their own slate of electors, and a Republican Congress decides to accept those competing slate of electors, and then an election is overturned. What this does is this sets up a judicial review. Now, people may rightly say, oh no, the judiciary is stacked with right-wing crazies, so like why are we putting it in the hands of the judiciary? But I do think that like at some point there has to be somebody that in some institution that protects our elections, and you'd probably rather have a judicial review and put it

in the hands of judges than you would a republican governor republican state legislature or republican congress so like you said it does raise the level of difficulty on this so it's probably good now they still don't have 10 republicans in the senate on this so who knows but i mean they have nine they have nine yeah we're one short so we're one short can Can I also just say that we all know Joe Manchin sponsored this bill, which is why it has that just like fine feeling that you talked about. But the one thing I realized about Joe Manchin is that, you know, when I got a new puppy years ago,

he was always squirming and then peeing everywhere, where he wasn't supposed to pee which is a lot like Joe Manchin but then sometimes he would pee in the right place and that is what this bill is I think

gotta give him a cookie that is well said I think we should leave it there You've got to give them a cookie. That is well said. That is one flip. I think we should leave it there. Okay, we will be back with more news in a bit. But first, it's time for a game that we call OK Stop. You all know how this works. We'll play a video.

I'll call the first stop. After that, it's everyone for themselves. Feel free to descend on the video like wolves. Ask yourself, what would love it do? And then dial it back like just a few notches. Just to set up this clip a little bit, lawyer Alan Dershowitz, not a lot of fans. He's so hot. to set up this clip a little bit. Lawyer Alan Dershowitz.

Not a lot of fans. He's so hot. America's uncle, who it finally stopped inviting to Thanksgiving, is once again complaining that his friends in Martha's Vineyard do not want to hang out with him. Presumably due to his defense of Donald Trump and the former president's first impeachment trial. Also his defense of Jeffrey Epstein. Also his defense of Donald Trump and the former president's first impeachment trial. Also his defense of Jeffrey Epstein. Also his defense of Harvey Weinstein.

Anyway, in light of the news that Dershowitz confirmed the rumor that Larry David called him, quote, disgusting in public, that no one likes him anymore, and that the entire island of Martha's Vineyard has canceled him, our first thought, of course, was let's hear his side of things. Are you all ready? All right, let's do it. Somebody on the beach was reading one of my books, and a guy came over to him and said,

are you reading a book by Dershowitz? And he said yes, and he punched him in the mouth. Okay, stop. I'm sorry, I'm sorry. I'm sorry. This story lost me at reading Alan Dershowitz's book on the beach. If you are reading Alan Dershowitz's book on the beach,

you should punch yourself in the face. You should not wait for someone to come do it. Oh, it's so categorized as a beach read, though. All of his works. Also, that man reading his book on the beach was Jeffrey Epstein. Yeah, he didn't say which beach it was. Was it a per se on an island? Oh.

By the way, Dershowitz is known to frequent Martha's Vineyard's nude beaches. Oh, Tommy. Marinate on that out there. As aforementioned, he's hot. Let's keep rolling. I'm going to be posting it on Twitter. Recently, there was an event in Martha's Vineyard of Jewish Democratic leaders. Who is the most Jewish, well-known Democrat on Martha's Vineyard?

Me. I didn't get invited. Okay, stop. It's so weird that a group of Democrats did not invite Donald Trump's lawyer to their event. Wait, my main feeling here is, like, they have nothing else to put on this channel. And so my question is, Newsmax, are you okay? Yeah, like don't they have others? This is really, they're scraping at the barrel

if this is what's happening on that channel. This is a trap. This is an attempt to get us to debate who is the most Jewish man on Martha's Vineyard. And Alan Dershowitz is the pie in the bear trap, or in this case, a kugel, which is a joke that Lovett told me I could say. I did not say the other one he told me I could say. Because I know better. You think it was a trap.

That too was a trap. All right. Friends have refused to invite me to concerts and events because they say if you're invited, no one will show up. Okay, stop. I had to see Lizzo alone.

It's just good planning. That's all that is. Maybe it's natural politics. Maybe you're just a pompous asshole. It's just so funny that it's not that Alan Dershowitz isn't going. It's that he's denying these poor people. They don't get to hear Alan

Dershowitz speak anymore. All these Martha's Vineyard people, they took a long trip. They went to Martha's Vineyard. They paid for their vacation. They expected to hear Alan Dershowitz speak anymore. All these Martha's Vineyard people, they took a long trip, they went to Martha's Vineyard, they paid for their vacation, they expected to hear Alan Dershowitz, and now nothing. You go, you want beaches, lobster, Dershowitz. I just picture him

arranging his little porcelain doll collection, and then giving them speeches. Okay, roll it. Some very prominent politicians, some very prominent people who are part of this cancel culture. And they canceled me because I defended the constitutional right of President Trump, something I'm very proud of having done. I didn't vote for President Trump, but I defended his constitutional right and I'm cancelled as a result. Also,

stop reminding people how shitty you are on television. I believe that wealthy white men should never face consequences why I'm here! To complain about myself! It's so weird people don't want to hang out with this guy. Like, why?

He's canceled. No one can listen to him. He has no platform anymore. To be fair, Newsmax is not. That's only like two shades off of canceled. That is true. That is true. I feel like the host is not sold.

He doesn't care. I don't think he's sold on this. Even he's like, what the fuck am I doing here? He's tendering his resignation in his mind right now. He could be. Anyway, we wish Alan Dershowitz the best. Best of luck. That's OK, stop.

All right, let's get back to the news. This week in deep blue Maryland, the winner of the Republican primary for governor was Dan Cox, Donald Trump's hand-picked candidate who has called Mike Pence a traitor for not overturning the election and arranged insurrection transportation on January 6th. What makes this result notable is that Cox prevailed over the more moderate Republican with the help of the Democratic Party, which ran ads to remind people that Cox was endorsed by Trump under the theory that the more extreme candidate would be easier to defeat in November. Democrats have also employed this strategy into varying degrees in governors' races

in Illinois, Arizona, and Pennsylvania, which has set off quite a debate about whether this is a shrewd strategy to elevate the weakest Republican or a risky gambit that could ultimately help put more MAGA maniacs in power. All right, everyone. What do you think? Smart or dangerous? Who wants to take the first cut?

Come on, Dan. Before anyone says anything, I feel like we should warn the audience that someone may use the term Overton window. That's just like a trigger warning for everybody. Okay, go ahead. Use the term. Thank you for that.

I need some time to revise my notes. Well, John, I'm glad you brought this up because I very much want to talk about it because I want to talk about why up because I very much want to talk about it. Because I want to talk about why it's so stupid that we're talking about it. Oh, yes. A debate about the debate. I love it. We live at that meta level, my friend.

So I think if you are someone who thinks that the prominence of MAGA politicians as Republican nominees is somehow due to Democratic ads, you are too fucking stupid to talk about politics, period. Like, it's just, it's idiotic. I'm revising my notes. Jesus Christ, Dan. This is going to be a short segment, people. Tommy, this is why we had Dan go first on this one. I mean, Doug

Mascherano won by 23 points. Do we really think $800,000 of Democratic ads? Have you seen Democratic ads? Is why Doug Mascherano won by 23 points? Of course not. Look, I think I do not love this strategy. Not because it bothers me morally. Like, politics isn't beanbag. I don't care. Republicans are trying to steal elections. If we want to try to influence the electorate on which candidate we run against, we should do that. You want to run against the candidate who is more beatable. And there's no question that this guy in Maryland is more beatable than the protege of the incredibly popular Republican governor who was reelected by a huge margin four years ago. No question about that. The problem with the strategy is twofold. One, there's obviously a risk that you are going to nominate someone who may win, who is more

dangerous. But in my view, the real danger to democracy is not one individual lunatic, it's Republicans being in control, period. Right? If that person, I don't care if you are a moderate, if you are MAGA, if you are going to vote for Mitch McConnell and Kevin McCarthy as leader, you are a danger to democracy, and we have to beat those people. Second, the real risk of the strategy is if you shoot and miss, you make it a lot harder to win in the fall because you have just spent money you don't have a ton of to convince voters that the guy who actually won, the person who actually won is a moderate. And that happened in Colorado. The Democrats spent a ton of money to try to pick their opponent.

They lost. And now Michael Bennett's going to have a race that is much tougher because we define the other guy as a moderate. The problem for me with this strategy is really that the juice isn't worth the squeeze. We have so much to do. Why are we wasting money on this shit? Why aren't we spending money to expand our electorate, to persuade people? Just do the blocking and tackling first, and then you can try to do it.

But it's just the impact of this is so dramatically overstated that I think it is overshadowing the very real threats. Tommy, do you want some time to revise your notes or are you? Jesus Christ. You know, look, truthfully, I think that we all think that there's these brilliant strategists behind the curtain pulling strings, and that's not really the truth. I think there's a very good chance that these midterm elections are decided by kind of macro trends and forces. And, you know, as our old boss campaign manager, David Plouffe, used to say, I mean, elections are decided by like, you know, 500 votes in Florida or whatever. And if you win,

you're a genius. And if you lose, you're an idiot. And I think the way we will judge this strategy will be entirely dependent on the results. So we don't really know right now. I'm with you, Dan. It's sort of like, feels a little too cute by half. Like I'd love to spend a couple million dollars doing long-term organizing in communities where turnout has been low or where we've been losing voters. But yeah, I do think it's sort of, you know, it's sort of a Politico playbook narrative enticing all of us. But also if you look at a campaign like Herschel Walker,

the GOP is already doing our strategy of promoting the weirdest guys. So like we don't need to do it. Well, that's sort of where I land on Dan's point too, which is like by doing this, we're going to get all these stories. And of course all these reporters are going to write these stories like, oh, now Democrats say they're afraid of, you know, Republicans stealing democracy, but there they are promoting the candidates. And it's like, it's not, the strategy is not effective enough to deal with those stories. Because like you said, Republicans are doing this

on their own, you know? I also think that like, look, there is not all meddling is created equal and not all the races are the same. I think if you are in deep blue Maryland, right, where there is just a Republican governor, if a moderate Republican becomes the nominee, there's a very good chance that there's another Republican governor of Maryland. If there's an extreme right wing Republican as the nominee and we have a Democrat running, the Democrats probably going to win in Maryland. And the same thing is true in Illinois. So I really don't worry about it in the states of Illinois and Maryland. In Arizona and Pennsylvania, it's a little trickier. You're playing with fire a little bit more there. Doug Mastriano could win that race.

Kerry Lake could win in Arizona. Now, but when I say not all meddling is the same too, in Arizona, the Democrats have not spent money to boost Kerry Lake. One person in the Arizona Democratic Party put out a press release saying that Carrie Lake's Republican opponent once contributed to Democrats. Stupid one quote.

That's really not going to do anything anyway. If the Democrats put a bunch of money in that race into boosting Carrie Lake and hitting her opponent, I'd be a little more worried. If only we were good at influencing voters. If a couple million dollars and hitting her opponent, I'd be a little more worried. If only we were good at influencing voters. I mean. Like you said, like, yeah, if a couple million dollars in Democratic ads could have that big of an effect,

politics would be a lot different right now. That'd be awesome. The main thing for me about the strategy is it is just kind of gross, you know? It's just kind of gross, like, right, it just gives me, it doesn't make me feel good. Like, we should be focusing on the issues that people care about, which I know everyone's

all the time, but it's true. And we should also, honestly, we should make our rallies fun. We should be making a Democrat fun. We should take that money and put bouncy houses and pizza at rallies instead of that strategy. I like that.

Great. That's a good idea. You sort of nailed the downside of strategies. It just ends up being this talking point. But that's the point that it's so dumb. And it's a talking point for two reasons. One, political consultants love to tell people how smart they are. That's absolutely loved it. We are so clever.

Look at how we did this thing. I mean, I say that as someone who has been in the past and maybe even in the future. Well, maybe not after I just said that. Whoa, breaking news. Political consulting. Breaking news, Dan. But the other reason is reporters love to call Democrats out for hypocrisy. So there were a gazillion tweets yesterday from reporters like, Democrats say these people are threats to democracy.

That's why they, but then they gave them money or they ran ads. It's like, that's not the real threat to democracy, people. You are missing the forest for the trees, right? Like that is, it's just, it's like unnecessary, like weight that we don't need, but it ultimately in the long, like if we win this election, lose the election, it's not going to be because of this strategy. Yeah. Crooked Media's editor-in-chief, Brian Boitler had an op-ed in the New York Times about this. And Brian thinks this strategy is very dumb, but he had a really good idea towards the end of the op-ed. He said, what Democrats should be doing

is spending their time attacking, and you were saying this, Dan, attacking the entire Republican field in all of these races because they're all threats to democracy, you know? And you don't necessarily have to single out one opponent. Anyway, if you want to do something productive and you want to help Democrats win, and you want to help defeat Republicans who are a threat to democracy, you should go to votesaveamerica.com.

And you should sign up for Midterm Madness, and we will give you plenty to do. We will help you volunteer. We'll help you organize. You can donate to races. We're not going to have you just donate so we lift up one Republican. We're not going to do that strategy. We're just going to have you just donate so we lift up one Republican. We're not going to do that strategy. We're just going to help Democrats win. We are going to help Liz Cheney win her primary.

That's it. All your money goes to Herschel Walker. That is the plug that the team wanted me to do, so I've done it. Okay, so before we bring out the governor, during this tour, yeah, get excited. We can get excited. He's coming out soon.

But before we bring him out, during this tour we've been recognizing local activists for all their inspiring work. Here in Seattle, we wanted to highlight an organization that's working hard to protect the planet. We're so lucky to have a group called Seattle 350 here tonight. Please welcome their Executive Director, Nicole Grant.

What's up, Seattle family? My name is Nicole Grant, and I'm the executive director at 350 Seattle, a climate activist organization. You may be wondering, 350, why? That is the amount of carbon that can be in our atmosphere without triggering a climate catastrophe. So guess what it is now, the actual number? That's right, it's 420. And if we were 420 Seattle, we'd be getting more web traffic. But we're not trying to sell out like that. All right, let's talk about what climate change means in our lives in Seattle. Because it didn't used to be hot here, you know.

Because it didn't used to be hot here, you know. This heat wave that's going to happen next week, people are going to die in their homes like dogs in a car. Do you remember last year when the heat dome came and it was so hot that the asphalt melted and you couldn't cross a bridge? We got to do something. There's some stuff. There's some stuff we can do.

For instance, if your money is in a big bank, your credit card, your checking account, they're basically using your money to fund Arctic drilling and gas pipelines. Put your money in a credit union and you're funding your neighbors and co-workers messy lives. And I think that's a better deal. What's something else you can do? Well, right here in Seattle, we have a parks levy coming up. You could say something to city council about making it so our parks are places we go during a heat wave that have air conditioning, that filter the air from smoke,

that have solar panels to keep the power on so we can refrigerate our medicines and charge our cell phones. So make that call. Get down with 350 Seattle. Always be fighting climate change. And maybe donate to us. Maybe bust out your cell phone and donate to us at 350seattle.org.

Because literally, 20 bucks from you is about the equivalent of what a fossil fuel baron spends on a game of golf that's like our whole budget for the whole year so you giving us a little bit of money is like when a fossil fuel boss gives joe mansion a lot of money. Nicole Grant, Seattle 350. Thank you so much. When we come back, your governor, Jay Inslee. Please welcome to the stage your governor and the man with the coolest glasses in politics, Jay Inslee.

You're very popular here. I have a very big family. So, before we get started, a little bit of history. The very first Pod Save America live show in the history of our podcast was here in Seattle. And our very first guest was Governor Jay Inslee. And we had no idea what we were doing. We did an interview with him. We forgot to let him leave before the Q&A. And he spent 45 minutes on stage answering

questions about light rail from all of you. So we are very glad to be back. We're very glad to be in person with the governor again. And these are obviously very serious times. There's a lot happening. We have a Congress that's gridlocked. We have a Supreme Court that's sending every single policy back to the states, most notably abortion.

This is something that you have been working with the governors in other Western states to try to create a sanctuary for people all across the country to come to if they need abortion services. Can you tell us a little bit about what you're doing and how you're preparing for the influx of people here? Yes, well, thank you. You have left out one other apocalyptic issue, though, that the most important person in America today has COVID, and of course,

I'm referring to John Lovett. I told him not to go to that meeting with Joe Biden, and he did. Yeah, you got to be careful of those presidents. I hope the president's going to be okay. I hope the president's going to be okay. Look, when I think of what makes Washington State particularly a wonderful place to live is that we respect people who may think differently than we do. And those who intend to have government force women to carry pregnancy. You know, it's interesting.

The Republicans have, for guns, it's can carry, and for women, it's must carry. That is not acceptable in the state of Washington. And so, but it's not. And so I do believe, I do believe we have a duty to take care of our sisters all over the country. And so we are now, we always have been, and we always will be a sanctuary state for any American woman who wants to have this right. And they can come to Washington State.

And we're going to make sure that's the case. So what we're doing, we're doing a variety of things. First off, I have ordered the Washington State Patrol not to cooperate in any law investigation involving this from any other state. That's number one. Number two, we'll seek legislation in January making that apply to all law enforcement agencies in the state of Washington. We are making sure that our data firms that have all this incredibly private data are not going to share it with other entities. And importantly, we're making sure that the service providers have resources that are necessary to get this job done.

So we've now appropriated $8 million that are available to Planned Parenthood and others to make sure that we welcome people here. But we are exploring other avenues, legal avenues, to make sure that we clarify the law so that women and providers have confidence they can do this without the fear of criminal investigation from other states. And I just want to mention something that I think President Biden can help us on, is that the Food and Drug Administration is the one who decides what's a safe pharmaceutical product. And that is primacy over any other state. Legally, we have federal priority on that. And the FDA has said this is a safe product, a product that allows women

an abortion where appropriate. We need to make darn sure that every woman in America has access through the mail of this pharmaceutical so they don't have to get on an airplane to come to Seattle. And to do that,

to do that, to do that, we need the administration to explore litigation, to tee that up and make sure that that's clear so that we have confidence to move forward. So we're doing everything we can,

extremely important, and this is very close. By the way, we're proud of Washington, first state in the United States that voted for a woman's right of choice in the history of the United States, right here.

As you guys are planning for what this looks like, do you have a sense of what the influx would look like? How many people could come here? What do you have to do to have the resource to take care of it? Well, there has been some research by an institute that would suggest a 300% increase in service demands in the state of Washington. But I got to tell you, whatever it takes, by any means necessary, no matter what the appropriation is, we will make sure that those services are available. The demands have already gone up. By the way, if I can riff just a little bit on this subject too.

a little bit on this subject too. Always. This has just started. This assault on the values of this millennium, the values of choice, the values of freedom to marry who would you like to marry, the access to contraceptives, the Republican attack has just started. And here's what I mean by this. Last night in the House of Representatives, there was a simple bill that simply would have codified the expectations of the vast majority of our citizens. And that's the right you have access to contraceptive. Every single Republican in the House of Representatives for that simple statement except eight voted against it. They are coming for contraceptive services in this country, and they will do the same thing in Washington state the moment they get a majority. The moment the Republican Party got a majority in my legislature, they would strip women of the

right of choice, and it wouldn't surprise me if they came from contraception. Let's make sure we don't give them that chance. And I hope that we will. You have made climate a centerpiece of your governorship. Climate was a centerpiece of your presidential campaign. You're a leading voice on the issue in the Democratic Party. Thanks to one Democratic senator and 50 Republican senators, it appears quite likely that there will be no federal legislative action on climate change this year. And it is possible if the elections do not go our way. It may be years, if not a decade, before we have the opportunity to do something. As someone who has thought about this issue so much, how screwed are we if Congress can't act? More than we should be, okay? What do we put be, okay? This is pretty, what do we put it on the graph? Listen,

I'm gonna, I'm not gonna, I'm gonna not answer that question, and I'll tell you why. I think this is an important point. You know I can follow up, right? You gotta follow up. No, but a serious question. So Joseph Kennedy said, don't get mad, get even. I think right now we need to not get mad. We need to get active. And kind of sitting around, moping around on how tough this is and how life is really unfair and mentioning the Republicans and blah, blah, blah. We kind of don't have the luxury of getting our chins down in the dirt right now. We've got to turn this anger, this disappointment, this despair into action.

And so I'm going to defer answering that question. Obviously, this is a severe blow to not have Congress do what we'd like them to do. There's no question about that and that the president wanted to have action on. Let's not forget, though, that it's 50 Republicans who are involved in this, just not one Democrat, okay? And the good news, look, there's good news, two more Democratic senators from Georgia, Pennsylvania, somebody else, we're back in the saddle, and we pass climate legislation, okay? So get out there and help elect a couple more senators. But look, there's still two things really good news here.

Number one, the president has still very considerable executive authority in this. He can move against coal plants by using nitrous oxide and coal ash regulations. He has all kinds of wrenches and screwdrivers available to him from a regulatory standpoint, and not even the Supreme Court, I don't think, can upset that. He can move forward to allow us to electrify our cars so that California and Washington and 15 other states can move to zero emission vehicles as fast as we can. And he might be able to free up dollars using emergency declaration to be able to help Americans get access so they can afford some of this whiz-bang technology. So he still has a lot of things we can

do at the executive branch. And my second thing and the most important, I don't care who's in the U.S. Congress. I don't care who's in the White House. Washington, D.C. cannot stop Washington State from moving forward on a clean energy economy. They cannot stop us, okay? So we're, you know. I'm going to come back to my question you didn't answer, but I will reframe it. By the way, you asked how screwed we are. Really? Well, there you go. Perfect. In terms of the executive action, there's reporting that the President Biden was planning on declaring a climate emergency. He has held off on that. How important is declaring an emergency and how much confidence do you have that he is going to use the vast majority of the tools you just mentioned to attack this through executive action?

Well, important question, but I want to start with, I believe, actually... You're doing this again? I'll be back to you. It is important, but I actually believe 70 or 80 percent of what we can accomplish through executive action does not require an emergency declaration. today through his existing clean air authority, his existing ability to reduce nitrous oxide, his existing authority to help move forward on the electrification of our transportation. So this is pre-existing. This situation can't be challenged. Maybe 15 or 20 percent on top of that, the cherry on the sundae, would be freeing up some money now in FEMA that could be used for people to buy electric cars and charging stations and the like. But that's actually a smaller part of it. So I hope he does

it because everything helps. But one way or another, we're counting on him. I think he's going to come through and we need his help. So this was my follow-up to the question you kind of sort of answered, but I want to talk to you about what states can do, right? You have worked with 23 other states to form the United States Climate Alliance that has achieved incredible results. Tell me about that partnership, what you guys have done, and what it looks like in the future, and how impactful can it be in this world of varying degrees of screwedness? Coming back to my favorite word, it can be really effective, and it is being really effective.

Look, I started after Trump did his malafinist, trying to cut us out of the Paris Agreement. Governor Brown and I, we started the U.S. Climate Alliance. It today has 24 states, and this group represents 60% of the entire United States economy. That is a powerful entity. If we were our own country, I think we'd be the eighth largest nation in the world. So it's a big group doing big things.

And that, in those states, every one of those states is taking something that fits their economy to build a clean energy economy. And, you know, most of these are Democratic, obviously. I think there's two Republicans, I think, governors who are part of this. But every single one of them have done something productive. And so this is a powerful entity, and it does give us hope, And so this is a powerful entity, and it does give us hope because literally the federal government can't stop me from passing the best cap and invest program in the United States. They couldn't stop us. They couldn't stop us from passing a bill that guarantees zero fossil fuel-based electrical grid by 2050.

They couldn't stop us from providing a low carbon fuel standard, which is going to give our people lower carbon fuels. They couldn't stop us from adopting the light rail that we've got, which now prevents... We've come a long way on that light rail in five years, yes. So the point is,

they couldn't stop us on any of these things. So the fact that this they couldn't stop us on any of these things. So the fact that this is a republic and that we still have states, in this case, the framers had a good idea. Because it allows people that have half a brain on climate change who understand that when you fight climate change, you make jobs. I was just at an event with Governor Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan, who is in Seattle tonight. She brought a giant battery manufacturing plant to Michigan to put in electric cars. And the auto industry now understands that the future of transportation is in electricity.

industry now understands that the future of transportation is in electricity, and she is demonstrating in an industrial state that obviously has had real hard economic times because of the collapse of steel and automobiles, she's demonstrating something the Republicans don't understand. This is the greatest economic opportunity since the steam engine. And she's demonstrating that. So, and we're demonstrating right here And before I leave let's make clear who has the best Climate change suite of policies in the United States state of Washington. I do want to make that clear There there's always sort of an ongoing Debate in the Democratic Party and the climate movement

about how to talk about climate in the most effective way. Sometimes it is focus on the economic impact. Sometimes it's scare the living shit out of people, apocalyptic, nihilism, optimism. How do you think we should be telling this story, given everything that's happening around the world in terms of weather events, what's happening in the United States, about the best way to explain to people the challenges and opportunity of climate change? You know, if I had a magic wand or crystal ball to tell the exact, I've been in this business for 20 years, and I still don't have the magic about this.

I think that you talk to people about where they live, what is important to them. First off, if you're talking to a person about this, you kind of have to know what's important to them, right? You know, most people, their relationship with their children and their grandchildren is important to them. They feel some moral obligation to the next generations. It is a strong thing that binds most people in their family relationships. is a strong thing that binds most people in their family relationships. So if I was going to pick one thing that is most effective is to ask people how they feel about their children and their grandchildren and their nieces and their nephews and their neighbors' kids.

How do you feel about them? What kind of world do you want them to live in? What's your vision that you would like to see? And try to get them to think about that. I think that's actually the most powerful thing you can do. Now, on occasion, you'll work for people that, you know, that doesn't really work. But the second most effective is have a vision of economic growth. What do you think that's going to be?

You know you'd like a better job. You'd like more income. You'd like your neighbors to be, you know, not live in homelessness. How are we going to do that? And make the economic argument. I think those are the two things that are most effective. And then the visual evidence of this is so compelling right now. If you go, I just looked at CNN or something tonight, looking at the fires in France and Spain, the visual evidence is extremely important in convincing people what's really going on. So whenever you can use a visual evidence, that's a lot better than a half hour speech. And those three things should work.

By the way, this is working. I know this is extremely frustrating to us all, but the vast majority of Americans believe climate change is happening and believe we should do something about it. The polling demonstrates that. The problem is that we have a political system that is frankly broken, that does not answer to the needs of the American people. system. That toxic stew that is our current system, which is one part gerrymandering, one part voter suppression, one part electoral college, one part the filibuster, and one part the Senate that just protects rural large states, has stopped the public sentiment from being effectuated. So you gotta understand, I do think we have to understand the American people are with us on this. We just need to break through this stranglehold of the oil and gas industry over the political infrastructure of the

United States. And that gives me hope that we're gonna get this job done. I think it's a really important point that addressing climate change, health care, minimum wage, etc. is all tied to political reform at the end of the day. Okay we got some really tough questions here at the end for you. How many do I have to answer? Well I I mean, you're not shackled into that seat. So you're in your third term now. You are a basketball guy. You played basketball with President Obama back in the day, if I remember correctly. I know you care a lot about the sport.

I know you care a lot about the sport. Will you consider your time as governor successful if there is not a replacement for the Seattle Supersonics by the time you leave? I'm just saying, Kevin Durant's looking for a new team. Look, I think we need to throw that question to the people. And I got a great ovation when I walked in. That ought to be worth something, okay? So that ought to be something. Hey, listen, good news, folks.

I am convinced the NBA wants to come to Seattle. I'm very convinced of this. And all we've got to do is to get one more door to open. If that door opens, I'm very convinced there is every reason to believe that we're going to get the Seattle Superhawks back to Seattle. We've got the best arena,

which is the first net zero arena in world history. Right here. Okay. We've got rabid fans, and we've got a governor who's a hoopaholic. So we'll be in good shape. Perfect. All right. Last question before we let you go, I'm going to try to get you to weigh in on an incredibly hot button controversial issue here in the state of Washington. This week, the state liquor control board is allowing axe throwing businesses to begin serving alcohol

what is your message to those people who think that may be a bad idea well i'll just tell you where i come from on this issue which i want to hear it which will explain my position uh you know we have a lot of virtues in Washington. We're very proud of our state, as I've indicated. Best economy in the United States. Been listed several years as the best place to live, best place to be a business, and best place to work in the United States.

So we're very proud. We're very proud of our state. But the thing we're proudest about is how humble we are. And so I don't want to contravene that trait, but I have to tell you, in the 2020 Democratic Governors Association meeting in Las Vegas, we had an axe-throwing contest. Was there booze involved? There was at a local place where there was beer.

We threw these small axes. We throw big axes. We threw spears too, right? And, and so I have to say the honest truth, which is Washington state's governor won the championship of the DJI. Okay? And so... So... I'm a little bit of a risk taker, so I'm with the board here. Throw the axe! Washington State's new motto, live free

and die. Please give it up for Governor Inslee. Thank you so much, Governor. When we come back, we'll play a game. You guys ready to play a game? And away we go. Governors. In America, they run the gamut.

Some, like Governor Inslee, believe that climate change is real and that glasses make you look hot. like Governor Inslee, believe that climate change is real and that glasses make you look hot. Others believe that math textbooks have gotten too gay and American history is like a buffet at the Sizzler. Carefully crafted not to offend middle-aged white people. So tonight, it's time for a game we call Governors. To the extreme, I rock your state like a vandal, lie to the press, fabricate, make a scandal. Thank you for being late millennials.

Consider this a public service. We're educating you about the absolute mayhem that is happening in the highest office of the land in many of these United States, because some of these these governors are very bad and some of the gubernatorial candidates, they are a lot worse. So I'm going to emcee, which means we need an audience member from the crowd. Could you please raise your hand if you want to volunteer, but also

you have signed up for Vote Save America's Midterm Madness. Olivia is going to pick. We are trusting you to be honest, the integrity of this. We will pick. We are trusting you to be honest. The integrity of this. We will verify. We will know if you're lying. The integrity of this very low stakes game is in your hands.

Come on up. We won't bite. It's all in good fun. What's your name? Michael. We got Michael. Michael, great to meet you. All right.

All right, Michael. Michael, you are on a team with Jon Favreau. You'll be playing against Nagin and Dan. Are we going to be axe throwing, or? I'm not ruling it out. You just got to wait and see. Hey, Michael. Hey. Nice to meet you. Nice to meet you. Teammate. All right, let's do this. So I'm going to ask these to both teams unless otherwise directed. Just shout at me. It's all going to be fine. Okay. During a Facebook live stream, two hours after the Highland Park shooting,

Republican gubernatorial candidate Darren Bailey advised Illinois residents to do what? This is multiple choice. A, mark themselves safe on Facebook. B, put politics aside and come together. C, move on. D, peep my SoundCloud. Who's this? Peep. Go, go, go, go. Peep my SoundCloud. Who's this?

Peep. Go. Go. Go. Peep my SoundCloud. Did I say B? B. Yeah. Me too. You were all wrong. He advised them to move on. Wow. Wow. Worse than I thought.

The exact quote was move on and celebrate the independence of this nation because nothing is more American than stifling your grief and fear and carrying on like nothing happened. I meant that sarcastically, but it didn't play that way. Speaking of Darren Bailey, at a 2019 fundraising event, Bailey put the AR in NRA by raffling off what deadly prize to the highest bidder? This is open. What could it be? What could it be? What could it be? Is it an AR-15? I was like, AR-15? Yeah, AR-15. You are all right. It was a Smith & Wesson AR-15. It is truly insane that

in America you can raffle off lunch with the church deacon and a fucking assault rifle. What are we doing? Wow. After writing a Facebook post that nothing can compare to the atrocity of the Holocaust, Pennsylvania Republican Doug Mastriano shot his mouth off with an almost uncontrollably bad Facebook meme comparing the Holocaust to what climate change the meme is still up he really stuck to his guns on this one uh january 6th gun control let's see the meme which is still on the internets there we go oh no uh in fact, despite Doug's claims on Facebook, he compares a lot of things to the Holocaust all the time. It's his kink. It's his hobby. Which of the following topics has Mastroianno not compared

to the Holocaust, Nazis, or World War II-era Germany? This is multiple choice. A, abortion. B, election fraud. C, cancel culture. D, COVID vaccine mandates. Question for the host. Is none of the above an option? Trick question, Dan. You nailed it. I knew it. All of the above.

All of the above. In a tweet last month, Michigan gubernatorial candidate Tutor Dixon, that's a real name, declared, when I am governor, schools will answer to local parents, not who? This is multiple choice. Did the tweet say, not ISIS caravan drivers? That's A. B, trans supremacists. C, Obama-Biden woke judges. D, scientists and experts. Trans supremacists. D. The answer is B. The full quote was actually progressive

activists, drag queens, and trans supremacists. Wow. A word we're pretty sure she made up, but we declined to check, I think, for obvious reasons. Can I just make one point? Yeah. This is not the Republican gubernatorial candidate who got arrested in his home by the FBI for being at the Capitol on January 6th, correct? I don't know. It's another

one. I was not ready to answer questions. There are two. Look, we accept D as well, because frankly, it was implied. Another Michigan gubernatorial hopeful, Ryan Kelly, once told attendees at a campaign event in reference to voting machines, quote, if you see something happening that you don't like with the machines, do what special trick? This is open. Fire away. Shout it out. Wait, sorry. If you see something happening that you don't like with the machines, the voting machines, what do you do? Say something. With the machines, the voting machines, what do you do? Say something. Pee on it.

Pee on it. Like a jellyfish thing. Grab a gun. Can I try again? Uh-huh. Plug it, unplug it, and plug it back in. Unplug it from the wall. To take control of the narrative, Dan. Little note, he used to work at the Apple Genius Bar.

It's like you predicted the future. Thank God Kelly did not know about the Genius Bar. Speaking of absolute psychopaths running for Michigan governor, another candidate, Kevin Rinke, is being sued by four former employees alleging sexual and racist harassment. According to the lawsuit, Rinke allegedly told one of his female employees that women should not be allowed to do what? This is multiple choice. A, wear tight pants. B, drive cars while pregnant. C, work in public.

D, sing the national anthem at baseball games because, quote, it gets everyone too hot and bothered and then there's still that whole ball game to get through. I'm going to do wear tight pants. John says A. Was comfortably exist one of them? No. Again, it was implied, but no.

The answer was C. They should not be allowed to work in public, adding that they are ignorant and stupid. What? Just calling bad candidates out there. Calling half the electorate stupid. We've got to make sure these people don't win.'s like that that rinky political magic these candidates are not

good guys and yet there's more another republican running for governor garrett soldano grasping desperately for a tiny bit of relevance joked that his pronouns are what two Republican buzzwords? This is multiple choice. A, Maga Brandon. B, Hunter Biden. C, Socialism woke. D, Conservative Patriot. Hunter Biden. Michael wants to go with Hunter Biden. Okay.

Go, go, go. I was going to say conservative patriarch. D, his pronouns are conservative, patriot, like he's like a 22-year-old comedian at his first and final open mic night. Terrible joke. This ad is on the queue for

Put a Collectress to React, so I've seen this. Oh, good. It's a real winner, let me tell you. Fancy. I would have also accepted Schumer Groomer. Right? That works. Which of these quotes, these are tough, which of these quotes is not an actual thing Maine's Republican Governor Paul LePage said out loud in public? A, bring the guillotine back. We could have public executions. B, I want to find the Press Herald building and blow it up. C, what I'm trying to say is the Holocaust was a horrific crime against humanity.

Maybe the IRS is not quite as bad yet. Dot, dot, dot. D, let me tell you something. Black people come up the highway and they kill men. Jesus fucking Christ, these people. Your answers. I feel like he said all of this. All of the above.

Yeah. Definitely. Sure. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's right. If these people were not allowed to make Holocaust comparisons, they would literally never speak. That one. Sure. Yeah, that's right. If these people were not allowed to make Holocaust comparisons, they would literally never speak. That one.

Okay. Last October, Arizona governor, candidate for governor, Kerry Lake tweeted, the nation needs more of what social media scourge? A hint. It's something that Lovett has been receiving all week after sharing his thoughts about the LA mask mandate. And then you know what happens next.

Kerry Lake said that we needed this to toughen Americans up. This is an open question. Social media scourge. Is there anyone on this stage who hosts a podcast about the internet? Are you saying we have an expert? Oh, troll? Like trolls? Just trolls. about the internet are you saying we have an expert at the oh troll like trolls just trolls do you have an answer your answer is refer to john ratios mean tweets added like the left in the government want us weak why the weaker we are the easier we are to control because of course nothing makes you mentally stronger like comments on your Instagram like, yo, you're fucking ugly.

We all know how that works. Your mean tweets. Great ideas all around. Republican Dan Cox, who is now the nominee for Maryland governor, opposed a bill in the Maryland legislature last April. Comparing it to, you guessed it, the Holocaust.

That should never be a call and response. Ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever. Said Cox, one of the things that was interesting and very sad in the Nuremberg trials was the fact that medical professionals interfered with parental rights. This is like 10 times more Holocaust content that I'm comfortable with. What law was Cox opposing? These are multiple choice. A, a law allowing teens 15 and up to get

birth control without their parents' permission. B, a law that permits minors to get vaccinations without sign-off by a guardian. C, a law confirming teens 16 and over have the right to confidentiality with a medical professional. D, a law allowing kids 12 and up to consent to their own mental health care. Vaccine. What do you think? To consent. To get a vaccine.

Okay. What was it? A parental consent for? Contraception. Contraception. Sure, that one. The answer was D, a law to allow kids 12 and up to consent

to their own mental health care, which they are going to need if these monsters... They're always, always, always even worse than we think. With their fucking hostile tweets and their crazy Holocaust references come to power.

That's it for our game. Wow. That was much darker than expected. Those people should not be in office. Mike, back to you, John. I feel like I need a shower after that game. Let's hear it again for Jay Inslee, a great governor. Thank you, Jay Inslee. Thank you,

Nagin Farsad. Thank you, Michael. Thank you, Nicole Stewart. Thank you, Seattle. Go to votesaveamerica.com. Sign up for Mid-Term Madness. Hot Save America is a Crooked Media production. The executive producer is Michael Martinez. Our senior producer is Andy Gardner Bernstein. Our producer is Haley News, and Olivia Martinez is our associate producer.

It's mixed and edited by Andrew Chadwick. Kyle Seglin and Charlotte Landis sound engineer the show. Thanks to Tanya Sominator, Sandy Gerard, Hallie Kiefer, Ari Schwartz, Andy Taft, and Justine Howe for production support. And to our digital team, Elijah Cohn, Phoebe Bradford, Milo Kim, and Justine Howe for production support. And to our digital team, Elijah Cohn, Phoebe Bradford, Milo Kim, and Amelia Montu. Our episodes are uploaded as videos at youtube.com slash perfect media. you