Pod Save America - Is Trump Really Up 10?

Episode Date: September 26, 2023

Trump goes on a crazy spree and demands a shutdown, suggests that America’s top general deserves to be executed, and promises to investigate media outlets if he wins. Meanwhile, his GOP opponents who trail him by more than 40 points prepare to duke it out on the debate stage for the second time. The Washington Post releases an outlier poll that triggers a freakout. House Republicans turn on each other as they bring the government closer to a shutdown. New Jersey Senator Bob Menendez gets indicted for bribery and corruption. And later, Tommy talks to Kal Penn about the youth vote and Hollywood writer’s strike. 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 Tommy Vitor. Love It is off today, but we do have a great interview for you all a little later with our old friend and White House colleague, Cal Penn. Love It's atoning. Love It is atoning. Did you get a call? What's that? Did you get a call? Repent?

No. He has a lot to repent. Yeah, voicemail, yeah. On today's show, we get a big week in politics, Tommy. Joe Biden will become the first president in a century to join a picket line when he visits Detroit in support of the UAW. On Wednesday, the second Republican debate is here in California. On Thursday, House Republicans will hold their first Biden impeachment hearing. And on Saturday, there's a high probability that they'll shut down the federal government. But first at the center of all these events, per usual, is Donald Trump. He'll be skipping the debate again and instead will also speak to auto workers in Detroit. He's pressuring House Republicans to impeach Biden and demanded again on Truth Social this weekend that they shut down the government unless they can somehow force the Justice Department to drop their cases against him, which they can't.

Just a few other notable posts from Trump in the last 72 hours. He suggested that America's top general, outgoing chairman of the Joint Chiefs, Mark Milley, deserves to be executed. He called on all Senate Democrats to resign because New Jersey Senator Bob Menendez was indicted. He promised that if he wins, he'll order investigations into media outlets like NBC that have criticized him. And then he held a rally in South Carolina. He was really on one. He's having a good time out there. Let's listen. The beauty was when I came here, everyone thought Bush was going to win. And then they took a poll and they found out Trump was up by about 50 points. Everyone said,

what's going on right here? They thought Bush because Bush supposedly was a military person. Great. You know what? He was a military. He got us into the Middle East. How did that work out? I didn't know seen before. The windmills are driving them crazy. They're driving the whales, I think, a little batty. I didn't know that Jeb did rock. Jeb did rock. Yeah. And the windmills are driving the whales a little batty. Those are the headlines from the South Carolina rally. The whale thing,

it's like a big right-wing lie now. Is it? I didn't know there was a backstory to it. There's been an increased number of whale deaths over the last seven years. And a bunch of people are trying to say

it's because of offshore wind farms, but there's no evidence of that. Most of the dead whales were hit by boats or caught in nets or something. But why not blame windmills if you're Donald Trump? The man is deteriorating, Tommy.

He's really... The Jeb thing is now the set. Remember we played a couple weeks ago, I think, the clip where he confused Obama and Biden and Hillary. He had them all mixed up. Now he's got Jeb and George W. mixed up. It's sad to see him like this. It's sad to see him like this.

So, you know, and then there's his truths. He's saying that Milley should have been executed. In another time, he would have been executed for treason. And he was saying this because Mark Milley called the Chinese government after January 6th to let them know that everything was okay. He was just trying to prevent a war. Trying to prevent a war. Right. war. Right. And then, of course, he said on the NBC thing, I say up front openly and proudly that when I win the presidency, they and others of the lamestream media will be thoroughly scrutinized

for their knowingly dishonest and corrupt coverage. They are a true threat to democracy, and they should pay a big price for what they've done. You know, there have been many times in my life where I did want to punish Comcast. It was not often for MSNBC, though. I mean, somehow none of this is leading the news. And we are at a moment right now where Trump's political standing is arguably stronger than ever. What do you think is going on? Should Democrats and Biden be focusing more on Trump? What's the best way to respond to all this lunacy that I just mentioned? It's just like all our new problems are the old ones, right? I mean, obviously, they're like unacceptable

and scary and in normal times blockbuster news, but I think kind of par for the course in the modern Republican Party. You see, Paul Gosar said, quote, in a better society, quizlings like the strange sodomy promoting General Milley would be hung. This is members of Congress

tweeting things like this. That was in his taxpayer-funded newsletter to constituents, Paul Gosar. And of course, that did come after, of course, Trump's truth. So just in case no one was sure if any lunatics would take their cues from Trump's post, that's happened. We got one dentist out in Arizona. I think if you're the Biden campaign, it would be a good time to have your military surrogates talking to press about the disrespect to Milley and the military. The other thing in that Milley piece is that General Milley talks about a event he did with Trump and wounded veterans where Trump said, basically, no one

wants to see people who are grievously wounded like that. Keep them away from me in the future. That came out at the time, I think, but hearing it come from Milley is, again, shocking all over. it come from Milley. It was, again, shocking all over. But I do think we learned in 2016 and 2020 that chasing the Trump outrage of the day is not a message, it's not an effective message. And I think that's even harder now for Biden as president. So he's got this dual track job, right? Like you got to do the things you have to do. You have to solve inflation, keep the government open, deal with climate change, whatever. But also, I think fold what Trump is saying into a broader narrative about the extremism of the Republican Party that also includes our next topic, which is this government shutdown that will probably happen. I think that

it is time for Joe Biden and the Democratic Party to start painting a very clear vision of what a second Trump term could look like and i think that has to include the threats of extremism and violence that trump is once again voicing you're totally right that like outrage of the day trump says something crazy whatever it's fun to he's confusing jeb and talking about fucking whales right that's all fun yeah but like new york times had a story today, too, over the weekend. Trump supporters are threatening the lives and families of the judges overseeing the cases. The prosecutors are now requiring around the clock protection. The FBI has created a special unit just to deal with the increased threats increased by 300 percent against FBI agents. in atlanta uh they were doxxed we've talked about this like a couple months ago and it happened but there was the guy charged with storming the capitol who was then arrested with two guns and 400 rounds of ammo trying to get to obama's house because trump fucking re retruthed a post that

supposedly had obama's home address so i do think that like we've talked about this before biden has to walk this line he can't comment on the prosecutions right and all that kind of stuff but i know he's gonna he's supposed to give a speech, I think, in Arizona about democracy somewhat soon, Biden is. And I do think he has to paint a picture of what Trump wants to do in a second term, right? Which is clear out the federal bureaucracy, have all loyalists there, make the Justice Department not independent at all, order prosecutions of all his enemies it's pretty scary it is scary and you know leah when you say it like that it's it's it's not good yeah i just think we're not doing enough you know and i get i get when you poll and it's like we got to talk about the economy and people worry about inflation like i'm'm always on that for sure. But there's a lot

of scary shit that Trump wants to do. And he's basically promising retribution and revenge. And he's going to have nothing to lose if he wins again. I hear you. And I agree with you on some level. The sort of political strategist part of my brain sometimes thinks everyone watched January 6th happen and everyone has memory hold it. None of the things he's tweeting or truthing or posting or saying at these speeches is going to impact people more than that. So I wonder how effective it will be as a political argument. But I do think there is, I mean, clearly the White House has settled on the kind of ultra MAGA extremism narrative as being the thing they're running against. I think that's good. And it certainly encompasses the actual overt threats to people's lives and security that you're referencing, but also the extreme policy views, shutting down the government, six week abortion bans,

all the things they're trying to do. And, you know, it's, it's a, it's a little complicated, but it's important. The memory hole issue is a real problem. And I just go back to, you know, I was worried that the argument about democracy would work in 2022. And then the January 6th hearings happened. They were prime time. And Joe Biden made a lot of speeches about democracy. And you know what? That did have an effect, not because it convinced people who weren't convinced before, but it reminded people of how scary it was. And I think reminding people about Trump and what he's going to do and what could happen and not just that he's saying bad things,

but that it will lead to actions that could tangibly impact our lives, I think is going to be really important. So the rest of the Republican field will debate on Wednesday. They're all polling further behind Trump than ever before, both nationally and in the early states. Ron DeSantis has probably lost the most ground with candidates like Nikki Haley and Vivek Ramaswamy nipping at his heels in some polls, but none of them are even close to Trump at this point. Tommy, you're heading up to the debate on Wednesday. I'm excited.

What are you going to be watching for there? What are you going to be doing up there? I've always wanted to go to the Reagan Library. I've heard there's an exhibit, there's an Oval Office up there. No, we're going to go to the Reagan Library. I've heard there's an exhibit, there's an Oval Office up there. No, we're going to go see what kind of crowds they got. Maybe talk to some supporters. I get to go into the spin room, I hope. Fun. Maybe some of the candidates will be in there, get to talk to them. You're going to talk to your friend Jeff Rowe?

That would be interesting. Maybe Jason Miller from the Trump campaign? Look, sometimes in the one-on-one general election debates, usually it's surrogates that go into the spin room. In the primary debates, sometimes the candidates go in. Oh, yeah. But who knows? I mean, Vivek is so thirsty. I'm sure that guy will go in.

But it will be fun to tell people unironically that I'm from the crooked media. I think that's something I'm looking forward to. I think as anyone with eyeballs knows, my face screams Republican. And I want to see if I can infiltrate, you know, get them to tell me their secrets. I want to see what Gavin Newsom's up to. He's apparently going to be up there. I hear he's got a debate set with Ron DeSantis for November 30th, live on Fox. In Georgia, right? I didn't know it was in Georgia. Yeah, I guess. I think that's what they were talking about. Yeah. Ask him about that. You're going to have to have a question ready for Vivek because you're right. He's thirsty and he'll talk to anyone and might think that you're a

Republican. So that's pretty good. Yeah. I mean, odds are. But, you know, look, I think in terms of strategy, they, all these candidates who are debating, which is folks not named Trump, need to decide, are we trying to win or are we trying to get a job in Trump's cabinet? And it's not clear to me where everybody stands on this question. If you're trying to win, you're going to have to run against Donald Trump and make an argument against him that peels away voters. For a long time, I thought that was an electability argument. Some of the polls you referenced earlier that shows him doing better head to head against Biden is going to make that electability argument very hard. Maybe they missed their window. But I mean, these guys, these other

candidates aren't really trying. They're running against each other, not against Trump. It is hard for me to get myself to believe that this debate matters at all. Doesn't. Because I do think the window has, mean look so if you're take a couple of the candidates right if you're nikki haley you can probably still make an electability case against trump because she's got a bunch of polls the nbc poll shows her doing better than any other candidate against joe biden she's a couple of polls like that now she could probably make that case she's got some donor money coming she's got some donor money she had a little momentum if i were her but but again if she doesn't spend the whole

time making a case against donald trump forget it you know right well then you ask yourself is she going for vp or secretary of state right they're both great jobs yeah best of luck to you but although yeah now i wonder if she's screwed herself on that because now she's criticized trump just enough that she might have pissed him off i don't know what you do if you're Ron DeSantis because he can't make the electability argument anymore. He's cratered in a lot of polls. Like, I don't know what he does in this debate. He's at the point where you start to wonder if he's going to be told by people around him, advisors, donors, friends, that he's harming himself by staying in and that he might need to drop out and refocus on Florida and think about

running some other time. Yeah, no, I think I think we could get pretty close to that. If I were Chris Christie, like, look, I don't think Chris Christie's going anywhere in this primary thing. But I would turn every single answer into an opportunity to make the case why Donald Trump is, you know, horrible for the country, a threat to democracy. And not only that case, I'd go after the other people on that stage for not saying that. What else does he got to lose? He's not winning at this point. And he didn't take all those opportunities in the last debate. Yeah, no. Did you see the Wall Street Journal editorial gave them all an argument to use about Donald Trump?

A couple days ago, they had an editorial that said, why is Mr. Trump afraid to confront other Republicans without the aid of a teleprompter? Is he worried he'd look his age at 77 next to younger candidates? That's good. I like that. Well, you know, Trump was so enthused about skipping the first and second debate that he's now going to skip the third. So I don't know that they're doing a good job baiting him into these things. Yeah. I mean, they just the name of the game here is like someone's got to get attention for themselves if they go up there and they just talk about how bad joe biden is and how bad the democrats are and take a glancing shot at trump about like you know adding to the dead or this or that like it's just not it's not going to work yeah and they're all going to get drawn into the news of the day they're going to get

pulled into conversations about the government shutdown and things that might not necessarily create the headlines they want so it'll be tough um it'll be fun to see how pissed mike pence gets at forgot about mike pence yeah so did a lot of people um yeah who else is gonna be up there tim scott's telling people that um it's important to start drawing contrast with the other candidates so maybe tim scott's learned that he's gonna have to get a little feisty girlfriend in the spin room that's what i would do if i were him you He just pulls off a sheet and is like, ta-da! Just a Zoom. All right, well, have fun up there.

Thank you. I'm excited to go. You can also join us live in the Discord. Sign up to be a friend of the pod. You can sign up at kirka.com slash friends. We'll be having live reaction. And then right after the debate, Lovett and Dan and I will be right here in studio and we'll be recording the pod right after the debate.

And then we'll talk to you and find out what you're what you're seeing up at the debate. I'll call in from the Vakes tour bus or whatever. Love that. So Trump's opponents, as we said, have been trying to argue that they're more electable against Joe Biden. But unfortunately for them and us, the polls are telling a different story. The averages show that a Trump and Biden rematch would basically be tied if the election were held today, though there is a new Washington Post-ABC poll that has Trump leading Biden by 52 to 42. Now, even the Post's own story about the poll strongly suggests it's an outlier. I actually have never seen a major media outlet be that honest in their write-up that their own poll is an outlier. It's pretty unusual.

But there's also a new NBC News poll that also came out the same day as the Post poll that shows the race tied at 46-46, which is still pretty close for comfort. I've seen a lot of good arguments that the Post poll is an outlier. I believe them. But I've also heard from a lot of people who are pretty freaked out. I'm sure you have too. What are your thoughts on this poll and the NBC poll? I mean, the like kind of obvious and condescending point is that no one should worry about any poll over a year from election, right? But like, you know, we all do worry about the trajectory and what it means about political standing. And I do think that the outlier arguments that were convincing to me were that I don't think any other poll has

shown Trump winning by that wide of a margin and getting over 50%. Two elections have shown he hasn't gotten. Even the election he actually won in 2016, he didn't break 47%. And the other piece of it was the poll at Trump leading Biden with young voters by 20 points. And I'm certainly, you know, we've talked about it on the show. There's been great write-ups by, you know, Nate Cohn at the New York Times about challenges Biden is having with young voters. But I've never seen Trump winning by 20 points. Have you? No, no, no. I think it's clear it's an outlier. And I also think it's it is a good argument that polls a year from the election, especially polls when there's a heated Republican primary going on and there's an incumbent

president who's had a middling approval ratings, uh, to say the least are not going to be very predictive. Right. That said, we know this is going to be a close election. Like Trump's not going to win by 10. Biden's not going to win by 10. It's going to be close and it is going to be a close election like yes trump's not going to win by 10 biden's not going to win by 10 it's going to be close and it's going to be in it's going to be within the margin in a lot of these swing states right now there's some arguments that i don't necessarily love when polls like this come out one argument is you know people try to unskew them right or they say that like it's the media trying to make a close race or something like that.

And there's all this like conspiracy around it. I don't love that. I don't love the, oh, they all told us there were, all the polls were wrong in 2022 and it said there were red wave coming. The polls were not wrong, not that wrong in 2022.

In fact, they were more accurate in 2022 than in any election since 1998. The punditry was off in 2022, got a little ahead of itself talking about the red wave, but the polls were pretty good. Well, ABC had a really bad Wisconsin poll. ABC had, yeah. Which is, again, one huge outlier. One outlier, one outlet. It's interesting that it's the same one. Yeah. I mean, look,

we should also point out that a lot of Republicans don't seem to believe this poll. So it's not just a bunch of liberals unskewing the polls. Also, you know, look, there's margin of error on survey data and it could be plus or minus four points for both the Biden number and the Trump margin. So that could result in an outcome like this. I wonder what you thought about this though. Dan Pfeiffer was hard on ABC for releasing the poll and then criticizing it. And I didn't agree with that because imagine a scenario where ABC and The Post do a poll. It's really favorable for Trump. They don't trust the data, so they don't release it, and that somehow leaks.

That, to me, leads to the kind of conspiracy theory, mega fever dream stuff. Yeah, then they're getting subpoenaed by Jim Jordan and hauled before Congress like they're fucking Twitter or something. For suppressing the votes. No, I don't. Look, I mean, Dan's not here to defend himself, but I didn't. We'll see what he says on the Thursday pod. Ask him on Thursday.

But I didn't quite agree with that either. Or he said publish it, but then stand by it. I think they're standing by it. They're just saying, like, here are our results. We're standing by them. But by the way, they're not in line with most of the other polls and most of the media outlets, which I think is a responsible thing to do. Yeah, I thought it was responsible too. I think part of Dan's critique was they called it an outlier, but I think the last ABC Washington Post survey had Trump up six.

So it was not that much of an outlier, which frankly is more cause for concern. Yeah. Well, there could be something interesting in the methodology there, right? You pointed out, I guess that Wisconsin uh was not 2022 that was 2020 right because that was biden up by like a million points in wisconsin yes so there is something a little goofy about the abc washington post polls even though they're you know they're rated an a pollster but the a pollsters have problems right i do think it's interesting i wonder what you think about um so all these national polls are really tight the i think the real clear politics average which also isn't't perfect, has like Trump up 1.8 on average.

The state polls, especially like swing state polls, are so far like better for Biden than the national polls, which is interesting. Like there was a CNN poll of New Hampshire last week that has Biden up 52-40 on Trump in New Hampshire. Biden won New Hampshire by seven points in 2020. So that would be a better result for Biden. And that's obviously a state where a lot of people pay close attention, especially because there's a primary going on. So I do wonder why the state polls are somewhat better.

Yeah, that was very surprising. You'd expect New Hampshire to be hearing a lot of anti-Biden messages right now. And for that maybe to do a number on its approval rating. I just think the last thing people need to understand is you don't do a poll, get the data back, and the results are the results. Every pollster weights it in certain ways based on what they think the actual electorate will look like at the time of the election. So that's how you see a large variance. The one thing I wonder about with New Hampshire and the electorate there is it is

more college educated than the nation as a whole. is more college educated than the nation as a whole. It's whiter than the nation as a whole. And we know that college educated white voters are giving Democrats and Joe Biden much bigger margins than ever before. And they are turning out much more than ever before. That's why we're doing so well in a lot of these special elections, which just happen to be in areas where there are a lot of college educated white voters disproportionately. And I noticed this from the NBC poll write up, which is it says a greater share of Republican voters than Democratic voters have high interest in the upcoming election, while key parts of the Democratic base, younger voters, black voters and Latino voters have lower interest than at this same point in past election cycles. So even if you have the Washington Post as an outlier and some of these other polls, you could start to see a pattern where sort of lower interest voters, people who aren't consuming the news as much, which tend to be younger, disproportionately Black and Latino, are either not participating in polls, are less interested in the election, are less enthusiastic about Joe Biden. And either way, it does seem like this is a group of voters that you're really going to want to focus on if you're the Biden campaign to make sure that they are engaged in turnout.

Absolutely. Yeah. I also just wonder why do a bunch of national polls this far out? Why not just do a bunch of state based stuff? If I was running a media organization with enough money to do a really high quality poll, I would absolutely start doing state polls. I would not waste my money on a state poll. I would need a bunch of data out of Texas and California. I would love to. I was looking before we did this and I was like, there hasn't been a high quality Georgia poll in a long, long time.

Arizona. There was a couple Pennsylvania and Michigan ones, again, where Biden was actually winning in those polls a couple of weeks ago. So, you know, I'd love to see more state polls. In the NBC poll, 60 percent of Democrats said that they want someone else to run. Democratic Congressman Dean Phillips from Minnesota just said in an interview this week that he's still thinking about mounting a primary challenge against Joe Biden. What do you think? Good idea, bad idea, doesn't really matter? I pay a lot of attention to politics. I don't know who Dean Phillips is. Three-term congressman Dean Phillips from Minnesota? Is he here? Couldn't pick him out of lineup. Yeah, that's why I'm less worried about this one. If it were some well-known governor or

a senator or someone with a name ID to primary Biden, that might make me worried, right? The example you always hear is about Ted Kennedy, his primary challenge to Jimmy Carter in 1980. The context there was though that, you know, the bottom had fallen out for Jimmy Carter. I think pre, before Kennedy decided to run, he was beating Carter like two to one in polls. And then they went through this brutal primary. Carter beat Kennedy and Kennedy didn't, he didn't really, it was acrimonious all the way to the convention. Yeah. And Kennedy gave this famous speech and kind of ripped the party apart.

And so I think a lot of Biden staff worked for Carter. They're very sensitive to this. But Dean Phillips ain't Ted Kennedy. You know, like I've thought about this a lot because I don't I don't want it to appear that we think like, oh, everyone get in line behind Joe Biden. It's going to be easy. And he's obviously the strongest candidate and he's going to win. But like we're all scared. Right. We're pretty anxious about this. But like here's here's the reality of the situation. Biden has had plenty of people tell him to step aside. You know, one of his favorite columnists, David Ignatius in The Washington Post, was doing it right. That one probably cut deep. He has had no shortage of people telling him to step aside. He has refused. Plenty of Democrats

could have launched a primary campaign against him over the last year. They have all refused. And if any of them decided to change their minds, right, Gavin Newsom, Gretchen Whitmer, Josh Shapiro of tomorrow, they just woke up and decided they wanted to challenge Biden. They'd have four months to put together a presidential campaign, raise money, hire staff, get on TV, get well known, and then somehow make an argument to anxious Democrats that actually they are the best candidate to beat Donald Trump instead of a sitting Democratic president who is the only person who beat him last time. Yeah. It's just like you can have your anxieties over the Biden situation, but then you have to go to, all right, what's the alternative? Yeah. And I think the alternative requires someone with a chance of winning running against Biden in a primary.

And no one has decided to do that. And listen, yeah, to your point, I am just as worried about some of the polling you talked about sort of under the hood in this NBC poll and the ABC one, some of the concerns about age, some of the frustration about the economy, despite the fact that there's all these economic indicators that make us think that the economy is actually getting better, but people aren't feeling it. So there's a lot to be worried about. But Dean Phillips is not on my list. And you just like I said, you really have to play it out in your head. Like it's it's either, you know, Joe Biden on his primary stage with Gavin Newsom and Josh Shapiro and Gretchen Whitmer and Raphael Warnock or whoever you have up there.

And they're all debating and fighting it over the next three months, four months before we get to South Carolina, or Biden steps aside. Now you're picturing Kamala Harris up on stage with Newsom and Shapiro and all of these same people that I just mentioned. And like, really think if that's going to make you sleep easier. And then also like, none of these people want to do it. Someone's got to step up and run, you know? Yeah, I'm very much in the camp of I don't know, I worry. I don't think primaries are bad. I sometimes think a vigorous debate about policy and getting our message out all over the place can be a good thing. Sometimes it pulls a bunch of candidates to the far left or to the far right and hurts in the general election.

Generally, I think you can deal with that and candidates all end up tacking back to the middle and whatever. It's a 50-50 country. That's how these races end up. If there were some sort of Democratic primary happening, maybe it would help Joe Biden emerge stronger if he defeated them. However, we still are at this point where whether or not pundits and donors and voters want an alternative, someone has to step up and run. Yeah, and like, if someone stepped up a year ago,

it would be a different story. Again, it's really hard to do that four months out from the first primary. And your message would likely just be, I like almost everything that Biden has done. Substantively, I just think he's too old. Maybe that's a potent message. Yeah. But someone. Again, no one's done it except our boy, Dean Phillips, who we could not recognize.

Not sure that's a real person. Let's talk about the impending government shutdown since our last show. Here are some words used to describe Kevin McCarthy's leadership of the House Republicans. Chaos, a total shit show, dysfunctional, and can't count. Those were all quotes from different Republican members of Congress. And here's a few more. This is not conservative Republicanism. This is stupidity. It's a clown show. You keep running lunatics, you're going to be in this position. There are one or two like Congressman Getz, who I think is frankly deranged. That last one was, of course, the pioneer of government shutdowns, Newt Gingrich.

So the White House is using some of this criticism in a new memo. They're starting to warn people about the real world consequences of a shutdown, which, again, seems more and more likely with each passing day. How do you think Biden and the Democrats can win this fight or at the very least, make sure that Republicans get the blame that they deserve? I mean, I think Republicans are doing a very good job of making sure they get the blame they deserve in terms of the shutdown. There's also just the other fact that Biden and McCarthy cut a spending deal around the debt ceiling, and then McCarthy's just completely violated it. And that's the reason we're in this problem. So I do think the White House is doing the right things. They're highlighting all the quotes from

Republicans criticizing Republican handling in the House. They're highlighting programs that would get cut or get stopped if there was a government shutdown and the ways people would get harmed. I think the bigger risk for Biden, though, is less the short-term shutdown debate than just the long-term harm to the economy. Because if there's a long UAW strike, if there's a government shutdown, these people in Congress, they're arsonsonists you know i mean matt gates like they want to shut down the government and hurt the economy to hurt joe biden long term to help donald trump like that's their plan and that what you just said is probably the best argument for biden and the democrats to make now explicitly which i think they're doing yeah you know the white house and a lot of democratic surrogates today are out there talking about how uh seven

million women and children who rely on food assistance could be turned away at a grocery store pretty soon if the government shut down because they depend on food assistance. People in the military could go without paychecks. There'd be a lot of air travel delays and cancellations. There wouldn't be food inspections. Disaster relief would suffer. You were talking about border security last week. You're trying to cut that and some of the spending bills. Kevin McCarthy said that today because Donald Trump, again, is saying like, if you don't get everything you want, they should shut it down. Kevin McCarthy's like, well, I think our military should get paid and that our border patrol agent should get paid because they wouldn't, Kevin. So you and I were talking about this last week,

but did you see Data for Progress did some polling on this? Like they tested the most effective messages around a shutdown. Sure enough, this is what the White House was using. But the most effective messages are messages about how this would hurt our economy. Like you just said, all the things that I just mentioned that would be real world effects on people. And also saying that this kind of extremism and petty politics is exactly why people hate Washington. Because there's a bunch of fucking arsonists in the Congress, like you just said. And then the least effective are arguments about how they're holding the government hostage to defund the Trump prosecutions and impeach Joe Biden that people

actually don't give a shit about that. That makes sense. I wouldn't give a shit about that either. If I were just trying to live my life. I also think you can tie it all back to Trump because he is the maestro here. He's like the offensive coordinator, like truthing out the next play to the base, to McCarthy, to everybody saying, you know, shut it down. Yeah. They care about themselves. They care about their own political futures and they don't give a shit about you. And people are going to be hurt as a result just because they're playing games. Yeah.

All right. All right, finally, Joe Biden's weaponized Justice Department is at it again with yet another politicized indictment of the Democratic chair of the Foreign Relations Committee. New Jersey Senator Bob Menendez has been accused of bribery and corruption, specifically abusing his power to influence arms sales to Egypt. The FBI searched the senator's home and found $100,000 worth of gold bars and $480,000 in cash that was stuffed in envelopes and jacket pockets. They also got text, phone calls, shell company payments, lots of evidence in this indictment. Multiple Democrats in New Jersey and elsewhere have called on Menendez to resign. But at a press conference Monday, he said he's not going anywhere. Let's listen. I recognize this will be the biggest fight yet. But as I have stated throughout this whole process, I firmly believe that when all the facts

are presented, not only will I be exonerated, but I still will be the New Jersey's senior senator. Now, this may seem old fashioned, but these were monies drawn from my personal savings account based on the income that I have lawfully derived over those 30 years. Tom, is that what you do? Do you just take money every once in a while out of your savings account? It's just cash, stuff it in envelopes, stuff it in your jacket pockets, and then also buy some gold? You got some gold under your bed? The gold bars. It's really amazing. Then he Googled price kilo gold. I should just say, I want to say at the top, full disclosure, I thought Bob Menendez was a terrible United States Senator for a long time before this indictment, before the previous indictment. He was indicted in 2015 for similar things, for using his office to help out donors and friends. But I think he's-

Hung jury, so he escaped that one. Yeah. And, you know, frankly, that was a much harder case to prosecute, I think, because he had a preexisting relationship. This one is going to be trouble for him. But, you know, look, I, I, Menendez thinks that, you know, another decade or four of sanctions on Cuba will change the government there. I think that's stupid. He was opposed to the Iran deal. So he's just sort of hawkish. And I think he's bad on policy, but that I just want to get that out of the way and get off my chest. But yeah, I mean, he is in big trouble here. It seems I highly recommend folks read the full indictment. Read the indictment. Or if you don't want to read the 39 page indictment, New York Times has some great stories about it. The details are shocking. It's very blatant.

It's multiple parts. It's multiple parts. It's Menendez and his wife and a businessman that they knew that has a lot of business in Egypt. And so it was like Menendez taking all these actions and pressuring all these people as part of his role on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and then just getting money. Yeah. So there's a couple different parts. First of all, he used his position as U.S. Senator and the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee to help push for US assistance to Egypt. This was at a time when there were a lot of real serious human rights considerations when it came to Egypt. Egypt is the second biggest recipient of military aid from the US after Israel. I think they get about a billion dollars a year in foreign military financing

funds. And Menendez could put a hold on that funding if he wanted or help push it through if he did not. So the allegation is that he got money to help push that money through. He also allegedly did favors to help a business associated with one of the individuals who was bribing him. Basically, that guy had a monopoly on uh the export of halal meats to egypt from the u.s and he pushed biden to nominate a u.s attorney in new jersey that menendez felt he could control to prevent some of his buddies from getting prosecuted so there are really fucking mobster stuff real mob stuff multiple strands uh super brazen um and a lot of this seemingly was going through his girlfriend's now wife and who was texting about it she was sending a lot of texts that were not helpful so outside of new

jersey so you get a lot of new jersey democrats have called on him to resign phil murphy the governor a lot of the congressional delegation a lot of like county chairs and stuff like that. Outside of New Jersey, we got John Fetterman was the first senator to call on him to resign. Sherrod Brown just called on him today. Why haven't more Democrats, do you think, called're all deserve the presumption of innocence until proven guilty, but you don't deserve to be a US Senator. You don't deserve to be the chair of a committee. And again, Menendez, he ghost wrote a letter for the Egyptians that was then sent to his colleagues about the need to push for a military aid. Menendez had a private meeting with some Egyptian official. And then one of these businessmen that was allegedly bribing him bought 22 one ounce gold bars. They had serial numbers on them. One was then found at his house. These guys were renting cars or purchasing cars for Menendez's wife. And, you know, after the feds approached Menendez, he wrote his wife a check for $23,000. She then wrote a check back to one of the guys who allegedly has been bribing him

all this time. And the memo section said personal loans. So it seems like they got him dead to rights. There's all these evidence that Menendez knows he was busted and is trying to sort of clean up after himself. And so I guess my question is whether they're just worried that Menendez is vindictive enough to basically screw over the whole Democratic Party to do something that might take away the Democratic majority. Like, I'm not sure what they think he's threatening that would, you know, lead them to treat him with kid gloves here. Look, I get that if someone is indicted who you serve serve with right that if if the indictment is vague right you want you like let the legal process you you don't want to set a rule that every indictment automatically disqualifies you right because prosecutors can get things wrong people can be

innocent like like you said there's a presumption of innocence you read this indictment you read the stories or you read what they already have as evidence. Again, you know, let the legal process go forward. But like, he doesn't have to be fucking a Democratic senator from New Jersey anymore. No. Andy Kim, who's one of the Democratic members of Congress has already announced that he's going to run against Menendez in the primary. Menendez is up, by the way, in 2024. We should have that. That's important context. There may be other Democratic members of Congress who run in that race as well. We'll see what happens. I bet it gets pretty crowded. For sure. And look, I guess from the Biden administration's perspective, I sort of get it because if Joe Biden's standard for both

the Trump prosecution and now the prosecution of his own son is going to be like, it's my Justice Department. I'm going to let the process play out. I'm not going to say anything like I get that right now. Obviously, Joe Biden should not endorse Bob Menendez for real election. But for the other senators, like, come on. I know. I don't get it. I don't know if it's a lot of people called on Al Franken to resign just based on some news stories. Right. There's no indictment. I don't know if it's a collegial thing. I don't know if they're friends. I don't know if these are, you know, a bunch of people who are too used to being in these jobs. It's weird. But again, you know, Menendez did a favor for someone, tried to interfere in the prosecution of one of these guys who was bribing him. Menendez then called the guy from

his Senate office who he just helped out. And then they had a celebratory dinner a few days later and a champagne toast and they took photos of it. Like this is how brazen it was. And the other element of this is, you know, this isn't just like Bob Menendez helping out a corrupt businessman in New Jersey. He's providing information to the government of Egypt about foreign military sales from the United States. Yeah. He passed along to his girlfriend information about the number of American employees and locally based Egyptian employees at the U S embassy in Cairo. I don't know why you would do that. That's a very, it's, it's weird information to want. I was wondering if it was like to get them to get

so that they could lobby them directly. I don't know if it's lobbying them. I don't know if it's looking for people to extract intelligence from. It's very strange. It was a shocking piece of this puzzle to me. And of course, it goes without saying that the Republican likely nominee has been charged with 91 felony counts. And part of our argument against him is like, hey, no one is above the fucking law. And this guy's got a bunch of criminal charges. And again, Donald Trump enjoys the presumption of innocence as well but donald trump should absolutely not be serving as president again and should not hold any public office again

and we what i would like to see is um i'd love for dana perino who is moderating the debate on wednesday to ask these republican candidates what they think about bob menendez yeah i'm I'm sure everybody's practicing that answer. Yeah, they're all going to say that, yeah, of course, Bob Menendez should resign, but Donald Trump, he's okay. Yeah, and look, what Menendez will say is, look, I was just doing what any U.S. senator does. You know, you lobby for businesses in your state, you help out constituents, et cetera, et cetera. But, you know, normally constituents don't lease your wife a Mercedes for 60 grand. No, that's like you do some constituent services, you get some gold bars. That's always what happens.

It's just, you know, the guy's in a privileged position. He has access to a lot of information. He will no longer be chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. He's already stepped down from that role. But I don't look, I don't get why some Democrat didn't primary him a long time ago. You know who's defending him? Who? George Santos. Okay, good.

George Santos said he shouldn't resign. We should tell you everything he needs to know. Okay, before we go to break, quick housekeeping note. This week is apparently banned book week because that's where we are as a country right now. It's a good reminder to go to votesaveamerica.com where you can find all kinds of ways to help fight book bans across the country. And we also have some fun merch in the Crooked store. There's a Free the Books merch. There's Are You Afraid of the Books t-shirts that are well-timed for Halloween.

And there are kids' tees and onesies that say, Read Me a Banned Book. Check it all out at Crooked.com slash store. When we come back, Tommy talks to our friend and former White House colleague, Cal Penn, about the tentative deal to end the writer's strike, youth outreach in the 2024 campaign, and much more. Our guest today is an actor. He's a former White House staffer during the Obama administration. And most importantly, he's my good friend, Cal Penn. It's great to see you. Good to see you, man. How are you?

I'm great. I saw a bunch of Iowa folks over the weekend, which made me think of you because you weren't based in Iowa, but you might as well have been given the number of times the Obama campaign asked you to go there to uh to turn out the vote to travel around the state to talk about climate what else were you doing a million things as well yeah mostly youth outreach with uh with team iowa um and then a little bit of arts policy committee work but that that was uh man it feels like so long ago but also 50 years into the future just in terms of the the wholesomeness and the lack of vitriol. I know. I know.

I know. Yeah. It's a different time. But you know what? That's part of the best part. I was able to come out there because that was the last time the screenwriters went on strike. So I wasn't able to shoot the TV show House, which is why I was able to join the campaign. Oh, that's right.

Well, we're going to talk about strikes in a minute. Let's talk about it right now because we booked this interview a few weeks ago because we were thinking it would be important to check in on the ongoing strikes in Hollywood. On Sunday night, there was some good news about a potential breakthrough in negotiations between the Writers Guild and the studios. that a lot of folks have outside of the bargaining committee. But it sounds like the writers got more compensation for streaming content, some rules around a baseline for the number of writers in a room, some sort of protections when it comes to artificial intelligence. So that's great. In the coming days, the writers will vote on whether or not to accept that deal.

But the WGA leadership is excited about it, which is telling. So fingers crossed there. But there is another actually considerably larger union representing actors and TV and radio artists that is still on strike. I don't believe those negotiations have been happening recently, but I want to check in with you on that. So this is the SAG-AFTRA union. What are they hoping to get out of the strike? What are the demands they're looking for? So in some senses, I'm full disclosure, I'm a member of both unions, but I've been a SAG-AFTRA member for two decades. I think both

unions wanted things that are pretty common in labor disputes, wanting to make sure that wages for workers reflect everything from inflation to a fair reflection of profits if the industry was particularly profitable. But then one of the newer pieces is related to AI in both unions. And I know your listeners probably know a lot about this, but the kind of thing that I would underscore, you hear this happening a lot with discussions about labor in general. But it's kind of a decision point and a point of reflection within the industry, predominantly in television, because what you used to have was you would have things called residuals. So for writers and actors, it's money that you would get every time something airs on television, for example. And a lot of that structure is really archaic because it was set up when everything was on these big four networks, right?

And so if your show, the Nielsen rating said 24 million people watched it last night, the ad space, Ford would spend a ton on your show. And so essentially that's how they could track what was fair in terms of compensation. that's how they could track what was fair in terms of compensation. Since almost everything is streaming now, those algorithms are proprietary, understandably, right, by these platforms. But because they're hiding who's watching how much, and even though ads are part of, you know, you can get Hulu, for example, with ads, there isn't a good way for labor to kind of track what's fairly owed to us so that's a big point of contention that i think you're hearing a lot about and then ai is is you know kind of the other piece of it you know this morning we were texting back and forth and you were telling

me how you just you checked in on some of your old uh residuals you were looking up the very harold and kumar 3d christ, which, how much was that again? It was, I shit you not, $4.20. Come on, how is that possible? It's, you know, those movies, and you know, that's actually, it's a good segue. First of all, it seemed like a joke, right? You and I had spoken and I just logged onto the app to make sure that my memory was correct and I wasn't somehow making a ton of money off of residuals from that movie.

But that movie, man, we signed on to it in 2004, right? It was obviously a very competitive, really long audition process. But I had done a movie called Van Wilder with Ryan Reynolds. That was the only real big thing that I had done. John Cho, who plays Harold, had heard of him. American Pie and I think a couple other things. But basically, they offer us this deal and they're like, look, take it or leave it. It's X amount of money. What I would tell you is it was a decent sort of middle class salary was what that reflection was, which is wonderful when you're just starting out. And it was a three-picture option, which is also very common. And so, you know, nobody was making tons of money.

And there also weren't things in the contract that are common called box office bumps or bumps. So meaning if your movie makes, you know, $20 million, you get a check for however much you get it. So we didn't have any of that stuff. So the movie comes out and actually it tanked at the box office everybody forgets this it tanked initially and then it did really bonkers numbers on dvd um and and i guess now streaming um but we didn't get a share of that right we didn't get a proportional share of that because we had sort of signed this this three picture option and that was the fair contract that we'd signed, right? I knew exactly what I was signing. The hope there, which turned out to be true, was if your movie does well, it'll hopefully launch your

career and you're fairly compensated down the line. But what's kind of crazy when I talk to friends about this is you see that, okay, on DVD, that first movie initially made $50 million. And everyone's like, dude, so you got a sweet check, right? Like, no, not really. My salary for that movie lasted me a couple of months after agent manager commissions and taxes, which just to be clear, is fantastic for an actor. I just want to make clear that I'm not whining about this. That's the dream. The dream is to put a roof over your head, pay your rent from your acting. But I think when, you know, obviously in just saying, you know, the 420 screenshot, although it's accurate, but one of the real things that I think when you see an industry like this get restructured in this way, you know, for Screen Actors Guild, as an actor, you have to make $26,500 a year minimum to qualify for your health insurance. And more than 80% of our union members

don't make that money acting. And so they either don't have health insurance or they have to get it through other means. So when you're hearing about things, I totally understand why celebrities and people like myself are kind of becoming the face of this on TV. But the reality is the vast majority of our union brothers and sisters are working class folks working their hearts out for a dream that they have. They're working very, very hard. And they don't often you know, the difference between a $4 and 20 cent residuals check could literally be the difference between whether they hit that cap for their health insurance or not. Now, I think that's such an important point because look, even when I met you back in 2007,

I remember all of us being like, whoa, that guy's a movie star. There's another one on the way. There's a third one. Like he must be loaded. I wonder if he came out here on a private jet and you're like, I have a one bedroom. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Kind of, that I can kind of afford. Then you guys came out to LA and you saw me driving my mom's car and you're like, oh, okay. But like, you know, I think the title of actor gets flattened, right? And you think of Tom Cruise and you think of Penelope Cruz,

all the Cruises. And you think that everyone with the title of actor is rich, but I think it's important to understand that you can be wildly successful in the industry. You can be a part of a three-part franchise that made, made what a quarter of a billion dollars. But a lot of the actors don't receive anything near what they deserve for that work. or working in middle-class folks. But, but the point you raise is a good one. Like if, if you made somebody that kind of money, there's nothing wrong with wanting what you're fairly entitled to, you know? Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. So Cal, the, the, the AI part

of these negotiations is so fascinating and complicated. It's hard for me to wrap my head around what the technology is new. It's also evolving so quickly, but what are the general principles that you think we could say artists writ large, I mean, writers, actors, whomever you want to fold into this should ask for to be protected from what we know about AI? Yeah. So I think, like you said, the Writers Guild hasn't released the fine print yet, because I think they're still mulling it over. But my presumption is that they got some guarantees that AI wouldn't be used, meaning, you know, no inputs of work that was written by human writers can go into this algorithm

to spit out something that would, that would make us obsolete. I think from the, from the acting perspective, we already have, you know, you do a TV show, a movie commercial with special effects, and you're already your face, your body, your voice is being scanned. And in some of the early Netflix language, there was stuff in there that allowed them to use modifications of your voice without your consent, without additional compensation. far-fetched at all, especially if the precedent of these companies means anything, is that you don't want to participate in these scans and then find out that someone's making a movie with your name, likeness, voice, all of that stuff that they have and that they own without your say and without any additional compensation. And it's really not far-fetched. It happens already. And it's in these contracts already. So I think having those protections in there is really critical for both the actors and the writers.

Yeah, I know someone like I think Sarah Silverman, for example, is suing some of these companies and saying basically, hey, somebody uploaded a bunch of my books, a bunch of my jokes. They scraped my identity essentially. And now they're plagiarizing that to recreate stuff in my own voice. Like, of course that doesn't seem fair. No, it's not fair. And also, you know, let's just be clear. Like the, I know there's a lot of bad blood right now because there's a double strike, but you know, the executives and the folks who run these companies as, uh, as, as much as I look forward to working with them again, you know, they're, they're not writers, they're not creative talent, right? And so to basically underscore,

like you need that human element or at least you wanna have that human element. Audiences have sort of said time and again, they like the idea of the human element remaining. I remember, if you look back to, okay, when TV started, people said radio is gonna die. When DVD came out, like, oh, people aren't gonna go to the theater. People still love being together. They love seeing plays.

They like going for those big blockbuster movies. So I think hanging onto that culturally is something that's relevant, but really pushing those companies on making sure that they do the right thing is important. The other thing that I think makes sense to bring up is, you know, these are unique challenges right now for actors and writers, but there are things that are going to affect other labor unions and other industries. You're already seeing it come up in conversations about lawyers, for example. Obviously, they're not unionized, so their power is not sort of what it is in a singular union. I can't believe that Andrew Yang was the only dude talking about UBI a couple of years ago, but the idea that the technology has changed that quickly and that people's jobs are at risk in a very real way is like, look, we're

going to have to start talking about what that means down the line, because not all of these professions have unions that are strong enough and concentrated enough. So it begs the larger question of what kind of world do we want to live in? Yeah. And that's an important point as part of these negotiations generally. I mean, I'm sure you can put in near-term language to, I think, sort of mitigate some of the risk from AI. But I think what you'll hear from people on the executive side, people who, you know, friends of mine who are writers, friends who are showrunners, is that a lot of people believe that, you know, it's impossible to stop technological progress,

that, you know, these new tools will get incorporated into the writing process, the show creation process in some way, and that, you know, fighting it is to some extent a losing battle. And the question becomes just like, how much can you mitigate that risk, right? Yeah, there was an older New York Times article from May, so when the writer started out about AI, and it mentioned in there, you know, their unions generally had not been successful in fighting technological changes. So if what we assume is in the Writers Guild contract is in fact in there, it's obviously a huge win for writers and talent, but also arguably a huge win for any working professional whose job

is impacted by any technological change. And that's kind of the generational question to ask ourselves. I also would argue that asking for fair regulation, compensation, and a framework doesn't mean that you're against the technology, right? There are obviously uses for all of these technologies that could benefit humankind. Just the idea that it's a zero-sum game to me is very silly. And going back to that question of what does it mean for the sake of humanity that we actually put checks and balances on these things, I don't think it's impossible.

I think it's impossible if you have a bunch of 63-year-olds running the Senate who don't understand how their life – Isn't that the average? Those are the young people. Yeah, I know. Exactly. I don't know. But you know, like in the, in, in, um, in the house, for example, Don Byer is doing a master's in AI. So like, we need more people like that. We're willing to kind of go in and, and, and study up on this stuff. Yeah. Some intellectually curious people. Also I I'm look, I, I, I don't, I don't think people are good at making predictions. I've been reading the Walter Isaacson, Elon Musk book, which is a hagiography in a lot of

ways. But, you know, I was reading about how one of the mistakes he made at Tesla is they automated as many things as they could in their, in their assembly line, built it, and then realized that a lot of the automation they had created actually was slowing things down and that people were faster and better at it and more cost efficient. So they de-automated, ripped out a bunch of machines and threw them out of the back and hired people. So, you know, I think even guys like Elon get this stuff wrong. So Cal, you know, in addition to being an actor and a writer, you worked in politics for a long time. And as we were saying at the top, you've done a ton of work reaching out to young voters, trying to get them fired up to care, to realize, you know, that this matters. When you're talking to, say, 18 to 30 year olds about things that are on their minds, what they want to see in a leader, what are you hearing these days?

I'm hearing that I'm old. I'm like the old guy. I'm like the old guy. There was a, I can't remember who it was, but there was a college student at one of the guest lectures I did who was like, you know, on the walk back to the car or whatever, he was like, hey, you know, I noticed you were saying, you were saying, you know, my live in a vibrant democracy. There are checks and balances. The shit doesn't happen as quickly as sending like a nasty tweet, which obviously feels very good, but doesn't necessarily accomplish anything. So I just think like, you know, your generation needs to understand analog a little bit. And he goes, so just out of curiosity, like, so I get it, right? You grew up in an analog world and you're young enough to know how digital stuff works. I grew up in this and he pulls out his phone. He's like, this is my whole reality, right? Like ever since I was born, I could get all the information I wanted immediately on my phone. And it's always going to be like that. So why am I the one who should have patience instead of the other way around? I was like,

okay, fuck, fine, fine. I feel old, right? I feel old that you're right. But I think to answer your question, Tommy, that interaction then kind of made me feel like, yeah, the system should adapt a little more. Obviously, it's still talking about a lot, especially with something like, so for example, the IRA, right? Inflation Reduction Act has this insane, insane climate stuff in there that we would protest outside the gates of the White House while we were having fucking meetings on climate, because they just wanted to push the president that much harder to do that much more. And it's now, what, 12 years later after some of those meetings, and now they're getting it, and they're getting more than what they had asked for in the IRA under Biden. But those people who were 18 at the time are no longer considered part of the youth vote block, right? And the kids who are young are, for obvious reasons, not feeling any sense of reward for work that they're putting in to climate. So this idea that like, you know, a lot of the stuff we realize it works because we're feeling good about the work that we

put in and seeing the results of that work. And my worry is that you've got this bold climate action and people aren't celebrating it the way that they should. Like this stuff really is happening because of all the, I interviewed the president when I was guest hosting the daily show a couple of months ago. And I asked him that question, you know, what led to all this aggressive climate stuff? And he said, it's young people. It was two decades of youth advocacy on climate that created the political space for him to act on that. And so I just think like, you know, I, I get that we live in sort of a cynical world, but to, to not focus on the things that we've won is such a mistake. And I think it lets the other side win a

lot. Yeah. I mean, climate's the hardest one. Cause I think that, um, the younger you are, the more of a stake you have in the future of the planet personally. I mean, look, I now have a 10 month old daughter, so I feel an enormous sense of responsibility to her, but also the things that have happened, as you note in the IRA are monumental, but the implementation of that law is taking some time, probably longer than we all want. And the impact is really about mitigating the effects of climate change rather than stopping it or reversing it yet. So I, so I both I hear you and that people should be proud of how much their work and blood, sweat and tears and fighting for climate policy have moved the

needle. But also I get why people are frustrated about the lack of additional progress. I mean, is that the number one thing you're hearing, though, when you're talking to young voters about what they want out of a president or what they want to see Biden do? I mean, I think, look, I think I'm hearing the same thing that everybody else is hearing, which is like, I think people think generally, maybe an audience like yours, the president's doing a good job, they wish he would do more, which is pretty standard for a left-leaning bloc. I think the stuff that I'm hearing that they care a lot about, understandably, is how we're treating migrants. A lot of that is on the state level and places like, or even city level, places like New York City where I live. But I think they're hoping that

there's a little more federal action on things like that. Climate's a big one. A lot of it's the same stuff that keeps coming up jobs cost of education um you know those are those are all things that that i'm still hearing so it none of it is from the like i'm washing my hands i will say the part that's a little harder to push back on and i'll bring this back to the strike because this has come up so much especially with young writers and younger actors people have taken notice of the fact that most of these studio heads and people who have forced the labor unions into a strike are big democratic donors themselves. Right. These are people who love to use social media to talk about equity. But when it comes time to actually paying their teams and their artists and their labor, they don't want to do it.

to do it. They went and hired, the AMPTP hired this woman named Molly Levinson in DC, who's this PR powerhouse who the US Women's National Team hired for pay equity. And she did a wonderful job with them, right? Yeah. And it was really shocking that she and her team would then go and take a client that wanted to break labor unions. And I think a lot of young people are recognizing that even on the supposed left, you have this hierarchy that's more based on money and power than it is on the equity that these people supposedly talk about or tweet about. And that it seems like at the root cause, it's just, well, with enough money and greed at stake, we'll say or do anything to keep people

down. You're talking about a generation that is increasingly in more debt. The housing market right now at least isn't perfect for them. You have a lot of people living at home. Not that there's anything wrong with that, but the idea that it's less of a choice to live at home to save money and more of a necessity. So I think the thing that does worry me is not that we're somehow outraged that, oh, look at republicans doing this shit like of course you expect that but the idea that people in your own party are doing it um is something that that is really unsettling i think to me and to a lot of young people i talked to yeah and i'm sure you know biden tried to take this massive step to um uh wipe away student debt and it was blocked by the courts and i think you know that just must

be unbelievably frustrating for someone who you know on that check as going towards rent in the future or paying down some other credit card bill or whatever else. Another piece of this that I hear about that I worry about is kind of cultural. Like in the, let's say the 60s through fairly recently, being liberal, being progressive felt counter-cultural. It was anti-war, recently being liberal, being progressive felt counter-cultural. It was anti-war, you know, anti-establishment. Uh, and I think that was that manifested in activism, voting patterns, music, movies, right. Art. And today there seems to be this strand of young conservatives or young men, mostly who feel, uh, put upon by progressives. They feel they were, they talk about being canceled. They're, they're really focused on that all the time or told, you know, I feel like they're being told

what they can think or say. And that somehow Trump has become counter-cultural or anti-establishment despite the fact that he was the president of the United States, because he's the one kind of raging about that piece of the status quo. Have you encountered that kind of young voter at your events? Are there arguments that have worked for you to kind of reach them, kind of like the barstool sports kind of Republican generation? I got to say, I just got to give a shout out to where it's due. The Barstool Bros love the Harold and Kumar movies. So we do have some commonality there.

They're great movies. Thank you. Thank you. I'm confused by this, to be honest. Like, you know, I don't know, to me, I see that and like, Oh, what are you aggrieved about? To me, the conversation comes up a lot with me in the realm of comedy. So I'll hear from, um, from people, you know, you just, I can't, uh, I can't make jokes the way I used to, you know, do you think you could make another Harold and Kumar movie today? You probably couldn't. You'd probably get canceled.

This sucks. I was going to go into this career, but I can't do it because you just can't say the thing you used to be able to say. And I'm sort of like, well, bro, what's the word that you wanted to say that you couldn't say? Go ahead, say it. Say the word. Go ahead. Go ahead. What are you worried about?

Say the word. Go ahead. Go ahead. What are you worried about? Say the word. Are you worried that you're going to get supposedly, quote unquote, canceled? Or are you recognizing that the free market is going to take care of something that they no longer like? And I think there's a big difference there, right? If we're pretending that the only reason that you used to be able to say and do anything you wanted and people would tolerate it is because it was the right thing. And that was freedom. I think we're confusing that with the fact that especially in the comedy space, my job is to make people laugh. I don't want to make jokes that I made 20 years ago. That shit's boring to me. I want to continue to build on an audience and a marketplace that's demanding us to be better and

better and more dynamic. So that's always been my approach to this. And it confuses me a little bit when I hear what you sort of outlined, but then I kind of get it, right? If you've always had this immense privilege and have never felt what it feels like to have to kind of account for what equity actually is, meaning that everybody has to work really hard to get a seat at the table. Nothing is promised or owed to you. I think that if it, if a shift like that is happening culturally, you know, I'm a little empathetic to what that might be like for somebody. Yeah, it is, it is weird. You know, in the comedy space, it is often the most successful, rich, famous comedians who are complaining about being

canceled all the time and you're just like you seem to be doing fine joe rogan or dave chapelle or whoever it is yeah also it's like you know make make the jokes you want to make like i i'll defend till the day i die the right of somebody to say and do whatever they want to do but the consequence of that is that we live in 2023 and the audience might be demanding more and might have loved your old shit and might not like that you're making jokes about something that they don't feel the need to litigate even through comedy because it's just a dumb joke to them. It goes back to feeling like we're getting older, right? It's like I'm the old man now sometimes. So I just need to account for that. Yeah.

Well, just stay funny, comedians. That's all you need to do. Well, listen, Cal cal thanks so much for helping us understand uh what's going on with these strikes in hollywood hopefully uh the the sag strike will be resolved soon in a favorable way uh and the wga leadership will uh will like this plan and they'll vote on it and uh folks will get to go back to work because i know you're all you're gonna go back to work um and it's you know been really hard on the people who have been picketing every day and not getting paid. And so, but listen, buddy, great to talk to you.

Nice to talk to you. And we'll talk soon. Yeah. All right. Thanks again to Cal for joining us today. And we will talk to you guys after the debate on the Thursday Morning Pod. by Andrew Chadwick. Jordan Cantor is our sound engineer with audio support from Kyle Seglin and Charlotte Landis. Madeline Herringer is our head of news and programming. Matt DeGroat is our head of production.

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