Pod Save America - Judge May Shush Trump….in America??

Episode Date: August 8, 2023

Donald Trump threatens witnesses and attacks Jack Smith while his lawyer tests out some novel defense arguments on all five Sunday shows. Mike Pence says he’s open to testifying against Trump. Ron DeSantis finally admits that Joe Biden won the election. Then, Desiree Tims from Innovation Ohio joins to talk about the crucial abortion rights vote happening on Tuesday. And later, Elijah is back for another round of Take Appreciators. 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 not under any gag order. I'm Tommy Vitor. Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Jon Favreau. I'm not under any gag order. I'm Tommy Vitor. On today's pod, Donald Trump's lawyer tests out some novel defense arguments on all five Sunday shows. Mike Pence says he's open to testifying against Trump.

And Ron DeSantis finally admits that Joe Biden won the election. Then Desiree Timms from Innovation Ohio joins to talk about the crucial abortion rights vote happening there today. And fresh off another weekend of sheer insanity, Elijah's back for another round of Take Appreciators. But first, just 24 hours after Donald Trump swore during his third arraignment that he wouldn't intimidate witnesses, he posted this all caps message on Truth Social. If you come after me, I'm coming after you. In subsequent posts over the weekend, Trump also lashed out at star witness Mike Pence, the judge who's been assigned to his case, the city where his case will be tried, Nancy Pelosi, who he called a sick and demented psycho who will someday live in hell, and the U.S. women's soccer team whose World Cup defeat is

one reason he believes, quote, the USA is going to hell. A lot of hell. Jack Smith's prosecutors alerted Judge Tanya Chitkin of the coming after you threat as part of their request for a protective order that would prevent Trump from speaking publicly about the evidence the government shares with him. Trump didn't seem phased by any of this during his rally in South Carolina on Saturday, where he went after Jack Smith and Joe Biden. The man that's doing it, I really believe he's mentally ill. And it is an outrageous criminalization of political speech. They're trying to make it illegal to question the results of an election. So they rigged the presidential election of 2020. And we're not going to allow them to rig the presidential election of 2024 because our

country is not going to survive. Off to a strong start in this case. Let's start with Jack Smith's request for protective order. Tommy, why does the government want one? And why do they include Trump's threat in their filing? So it's the Smith team wants the judge to prevent Trump from making public evidence that was handed over to his lawyers in the discovery process. That evidence in their filing. So it's the Smith team wants the judge to prevent Trump from making public evidence that was handed over to his lawyers in the discovery process. That evidence will likely contain personal identifying information about witnesses that Trump could then use to harass them on Twitter, dox them, have his supporters dox them, otherwise intimidate them. So it seems like that's what's driving a lot of this as evidenced by the inclusion of the truth.

It seems like doxing would be one of the nicer things his supporters would do. And of course, aside from their own safety, which is important to protect, if he publicly threatened people on the witness list, perhaps they wouldn't want to testify, which is another issue. Yeah. I mean, I feel we're all reading a little too much into this. Presumably Joe Biden came after Donald Trump and Donald Trump plans to defeat Joe Biden and come after Joe Biden. Oh, like literally as president. He came. It's just a statement. Oh, I can't believe I can't believe Laura didn't use that one.

Oh, you know, he he's he's the best lawyer Trump's ever had. But that's not saying much. And of course, this would still Trump saying that this is restricting my First Amendment rights. Trump would still see all the evidence against him. He just wouldn't be able to get his own copy, share it around or post it on Truth Social. So Trump's lawyers filed their opposition to the productive order. They argue that it's overly broad, a restriction on his First Amendment rights. And they also accused Joe Biden of, quote, capitalizing on Trump's indictment because he posted a tweet where he drinks from a dark Brandon mug that they're selling in his merch store. Yeah, it's well, they're there.

You know, this is no Rudy Giuliani. He's like a more serious lawyer. And so he's they're making an argument that bars low, as we've said. But and he's not part of it anymore. Not yet. Right. Not yet. But but I'll save that. Leave it in. Leave it in. But they're trying to argue that he has to be able to that that that these legal proceedings are part of the political process. We need to be able to talk about them publicly. Of course, it's like all of this is shadowboxing because Jack Smith is saying, hey, we want to protect sensitive information. What is the sensitive information that they're referring to right now?

Well, none. They're referring to the fact that Donald Trump is already issuing vague and ominous threats. And so he was specifically told not to by the magistrate judge when he was arraigned. And he said, yes, sure. Well, by the way, he's been through this rigmarole in several of the other legal proceedings that have already taken place. And that in I don't remember if it's the civil fraud trial affecting the E. Jean Carroll trial, the E. Jean Carroll trial affecting the civil fraud trial. But in one of those, the way in which he was publicly trying to influence the case led the other judge to decide that some of this information needs to be protected because of the way he was going after prosecutors. And I believe maybe a third case.

There was one instance where he posted on Truth Social that death and destruction could follow if he were charged. And I think that led to him being admonished. Oh, yeah. I forgot about that. Man, what a journey. and I think that led to him being admonished. Oh, yeah, I forgot about that one. I forgot about that. Man, what a journey.

The other part of this, too, is Trump's lawyer, they kind of redlined the order to try to kind of make it about sensitive stuff, which would free Trump. Redline is they just commented on it. Didn't you like that? It was like a standard contract.

Well, it was sort of like, normal Trump lawyers try to fuck Borat's aide and then get drunk on Newsmax. They don't usually open up a document and make edits. That's a kind of a twist. But they're trying to create the space for Trump to talk about some of the political implications publicly, as if no matter what the barriers are, Trump isn't going to blow through them anyway. Again, he didn't send accidentally post a document that had a witness's address. He's began threatening people for being involved in the trial vaguely, but still it's a blanket threat. Yeah. Just a loose general over, over umbrella threat. And look, one of the reasons he's on trial is he famously did this with his vice president. Yeah. I mean, there are unique First Amendment implications in this trial because he is running for president.

I do think they have a bit of a case that to not be able to talk about anything in discovery would be challenging. But I think there is a real risk of Trump, you know, browbeating a witness out of testifying or otherwise intimidating prosecutors. I mean, he's calling Jack Smith the deranged psycho at events.

So, yeah. Yeah. This is why it's sort of like we're dancing on the head of a pin. It's like, oh, you can redline any fucking document all you want. Oh, I'll only talk about the non sensitive ones. This is Donald Trump on the toilet on a Sunday. There's no controlling him. Yeah, I do think on the witness list, like if the judge agrees to the red line, he would then have freedom to disclose witness interviews, recordings and other evidence from outside the grand jury proceedings that they basically the Trump lawyers stipulated that whatever happened in the grand jury should should remain secret, but that outside the witness. So you could imagine there was a few witnesses who would like would be scared off by this.

You could tweet GPS coordinates for Mark Meadows is exact location. Exactly. Send the horde. Yeah. Well, you keep saying like, well, he's going to blow through all these red lines. Like, what can the judge do if Trump keeps making threats? Can she can she throw him in jail? It brings me no pleasure to say that she could. It's obviously all it's like it's it's hard to this is also unprecedented. So it feels ridiculous and very resistancy and online to be like the judge could revoke bail and and lock him up until the trial. Straightforward from here. But all of this is unprecedented.

And I was remembering an example of a federal defendant who had their bail revoked because they were, it turns out, accused of committing crimes while on bail. It was Michael Avenatti. Remember that? Michael Avenatti. There are plenty of examples of federal in federal cases of judge saying i'm revoking bail two of the proud boys had their bail revoked uh because it turns out there was more evidence showing that they were

more deeply involved in threatening to lawmakers so like it all we're all we're in this uncharted place where it seems inconceivable that a judge would revoke the bail of a former president because he's such a menace to the public and have him fucking frog marched until his trial. But all of this is unprecedented. Tommy, do you think that the special counsel filing to request a pretrial detention would just say, lock him up? That would be good. I mean, they could baby step up to lock him up the judge could impose additional conditions uh in the least restrictive way possible that will make sure he shows up at trial and not put other people at

risk so prohibiting contact with witnesses is one option that she could uh go down but yeah i mean ultimately you get to revoking bond which would lead to litigation and probably delay the trial but wow it feels like she would would probably give him a warning first. Like this is the last time. Or make him explain himself. Yeah, for sure. And then I do think that beyond the, you know, pretrial detention option, which does seem like the most extreme option in this case, she could, I mean, like if he continues to

piss off the judge, the judge has a lot of power here. She has a lot of leeway. She can like rule against his request for recusal which she'd probably do anyway because he's he said these he has a very powerful case for her recusing herself even though his lawyer is like we're not sure he's like we're not sure if we're gonna call for recusal yet uh she could rule against his venue change uh request which again she probably will anyway because uh he wants to go to he wants to go to a more more politically diverse west virginia where he won by 60 points instead of washington dc

where he committed the crime yeah like you want to try you want a jury in west virginia commit a crime in west virginia go do that don't don't don't come don't give any ideas well guys i decided to do a little pro bono work here for, uh, for hair Trump and see if this argument would, would fly. There is some precedent that he could cite one, Timothy McVeigh, uh, the Oklahoma city bomber who, uh,

his lawyers got, uh, judge in Oklahoma to move the trial to Denver because the entire state of Oklahoma was prejudiced against them for conducting what was then the worst terrorist attack on a U S soil ever. So, so I guess they can move it to fucking Antarctica. That's an argument you can go for.

Well, and also I would say this. Who on the planet doesn't have an opinion of this guy? I would also think about what Timothy McVeigh would say about whether or not it worked. And I don't think it's very much. No, it didn't. It was good. Just so people understand, he was executed. Didn't go good.

Didn't go well. And the other thing she could do, of course, is his biggest play here is to delay delay delay delay and she gets pissed off enough she's just going to rule against all of his attempts to delay yeah i mean yeah just but like stepping back from like yes obviously this judge is well aware of the public attention to this and is going to go to great pains to avoid detaining the former president united states before States before the trial. That said, Donald- Which if you want, by the way, if you want some fun reading, there's a Washington Post story from last week about like, could he go to jail? What happens with the Secret Service protection? It's a real fun read. What if he detained him in Iowa? But like everything about what Trump is doing, the reason he feels so safe sitting in his house

saying threatening things about every lawyer and prosecutor is because he is counting on the fact that he is not treated like everybody else. And at a certain point, he is going to push this either to the point of being threatened by the judge one last time or actually at some point potentially being detained or just as close as he could possibly get to it. That's it. That's what's going to happen. I wonder what do you think would be worse for him being detained? Like like i could see her maybe like as a house arrest kind of thing or just saying you're not allowed to have a phone punishment taken away his posting ability i think spf sam bank free just got sent to jail because

he had been making hundreds of phone calls to journalists and talking to oh really yeah you get in trouble so you know there are ways around. Why do you think Trump seems intent on trying this case in the court of public opinion, which has been what's happened since all of the indictments? I just, I think that this is the only way his brain works. He only thinks in terms of publicity. And it's certainly true now that he's a politician running for reelection. But, like, he tries to win every battle on a minute-by-minute basis, even if it hurts his long term prospects.

And, you know, in this case, also, he is the added benefit of maybe influencing the jury pool that's out there because he knows that, like, you need one person on your side to get a hung jury. Even the act of showing restraint and discipline in the hopes of actually helping his own defense and his own ability to operate in the legal system feels like a capitulation that normal people have to do, but that does not apply to him. And so, of course, he's going to say whatever the fuck he wants because he's Donald Trump and he can do whatever he wants whenever he wants. And there's not much more logic to it than that. I think his audience is not the jurors or potential jurors. I think it's the electorate.

If he wins the election, he is a free man. He'll either make the DOJ drop the case. He will pardon himself if he had already been sentenced by then, which is unlikely because of the time constraint, but he might. He will commute his sentence. Everything he's doing is about persuading, I think, the only jury that that matters which is an electorate that put made him president in 2016 almost made him president in 2020 and now he wants to do it again in 24 it's it's pretty scary and wild but that's that's where we are yeah sure he wins i think he'd like to win the cases as well you know i mean i think i think it's a both and here yeah but i think it i mean but if he, the only thing that matters to him, I think, is if he, yeah,

obviously he doesn't want to be convicted, but if he's convicted, all he's going to say is like, I was convicted by an unfair jury in DC and blah, blah, blah. And they were out to get me. And now I'm going to win. And if I win the election, then I win. The odds of winning the election when you're sitting in jail, go down a little bit, probably.

And also, I don't think he's doing the thing, like sending off a menacing tweet about the judge is not the way it's not obviously it's not the best way to persuade the american people doesn't show like he's like trying his best to win in the court of public opinion he's just spouting off because he's furious in his mind this is his argument right that i'm being persecuted that they're all coming after me yeah and that's i mean this i think this the whole race is going to be about this. Like there's going to be all the other issues,

like all the economic stuff, everything else we're talking about. Like if Donald Trump is the nominee, from his standpoint, all he's going to talk about is this case, is 2020 again, is how they're coming after him, are the indictments, just the way that this calendar is going to play out. And to your point, before he can run in the general election, he's got to win the nomination. And all of this is about keeping attention on him and focus on him. And that is that and it is popular.

Oh, yes. Yes, certainly for the primary. This is a great argument for him. So John Loro, Trump's defense lawyer, made the case for his client on all five Sunday shows where he again tried to argue that Trump's attempted coup was merely an exercise in free speech and that he truly believed in his heart of hearts that he won. Loro also tested out a few other novel defenses during his interviews. Let's listen. What President Trump did not do is direct Vice President Pence to do anything. He asked him in an aspirational way.

If he had proof he won the state, why did he threaten the secretary of state with a criminal with with a with a criminal charge? That wasn't a threat at all. What he was asking for is is for Raffensperger to get to the truth. That was an aspir. Hold on one second. That was an aspirational ask. He said the president asked him to violate the Constitution, which is another way of saying he asked him to break the law. He never said. No, that's wrong. That's wrong. A technical violation of the Constitution is not a violation of criminal law. What do we think about John Loro, guys? And where'd he come from? Where'd Trump get this guy? Do you guys remember? guys remember yeah tampa he was uh one of the stories talks about how he was one of tampa's most decorated defense

lawyers i'm so glad you said that line i laughed so hard when i read that i wanted to like put that up on he defended the manager of the pink pony gentleman's club so he's got good at going for him you guys remember when liz trust became the prime minister of england and the tabloid put up a live stream of liz trust versus a rotting head of lettuce? Yeah. That's what I think about every time Trump gets a new lawyer. Didn't the lettuce win? The lettuce won.

Okay. So I think you're underestimating my man, John Laro, who I love. He wasn't bad on the Sunday show. One of Tampa's most decorated defense lawyers. Let me tell you something. This is not some Yahoo. This guy went to Georgetown. This is when I fell in love with this man.

So did Donald Trump Jr., right? This is, yeah. I'm sorry, Penn, Penn. This is when I fell in love with this man. So did Donald Trump Jr., right? This is, yeah. I'm sorry, Penn, Penn. This is when I fell in love with this man. Okay. A guy named Ralph Paul went to an Italian restaurant in the Tampa area. He ordered a dish called shrimp and scallop verdura. He ate all the shrimp and scallops.

Not enough. Not enough. Right up your alley. Then sent it back and said, take it off the bill. scallops. Not enough. Not enough. Right up your alley. Then sent it back and said, take it off the bill. This was a pasta dish. Are you sure this wasn't your dad? He's a hero to dads everywhere.

So wait, then he refuses to pay, walks out on a $46 bill, goes to trial. Okay. And John Lohr represents this guy. This guy gets on the stand and he says as a veteran I do not just sit and take unfair treatment then John Laro said what I think is most amazing sentence I've ever heard this is about again a shrimp and scallop pasta he says verdura in Italian means true you know who won you know who won John fucking laura yeah that's right do not underestimate this man eric trump went to georgia my bad he did run circles around the sunday house

yeah it's okay keep your head on a swivel speaking of low bars this isn't this isn't rudy and then that guy that guy at the impeachment who said philadelphia yeah yeah who i still think about all the time he also will do the deposition at my office in Philadelphia. Who talks like that? It rules. He also defended the ref, NBA ref, who was betting on games he officiated. Yeah, and I didn't know there was a whole Netflix documentary about that. That's pretty good.

And Laura says in the Netflix doc, this is all from that great Washington Post story that we got all this from. He says, my strategy always coming into a case instinctually is to fight. I don't like cooperating. I like fighting. I mean, Trump must have saw that documentary and was like, get me that guy.

But that same story also was like, well, you know, he actually, you know, got into the business by doing low profile cases and working things out behind the scenes. And then he, you know, did this famous case and fought in public. So I don't know, I guess he's decided that he likes these bruising PR battle cases now. Would you call the shrimp verdura case a low profile? I think it's pretty, that's pretty big time. Yeah. Okay. It's just below impeachment. We talked a little bit about the free speech defense on Thursday's pod, though Laura seems to be expanding on that argument to say that these were all just aspirational asks

and political disagreements over thorny constitutional issues. What do you guys make of that argument? Look, you can stand outside a bank and say all the money inside is yours, but you can't do a heist even if you find a dumbass lawyer who will write a brief saying that you know they're all his diamonds. I mean, I think the broader point is, you know, you can say whatever you want and you can pursue all legal avenues to make your case, which Trump did in all the courts subjecting to various counts and rule changes, et cetera. But when you create a slate of fraudulent electors, that's no longer a constitutional dispute.

That's a conspiracy to commit fraud. Yeah. So I love it. To your point. So you're talking about the advice of counsel defense, which I think is a, which they're definitely, they're definitely, they seem to be going for, though, as a couple of lawyers have pointed out now, that would require him to, including Bill Barr, that would require Trump to take the stand, which seems like a mistake for John Lauer. The John Lauer we know would not put Trump on the stand. Seems like a bad idea there, yeah. I'll tell you that has worried me a little bit is and Trump has made this argument himself on Truth Social a few times,

is that like I wonder if their ultimate plan here is to argue that the Electoral Count Act was vague enough about the vice president's role and about what happens with dual slates of electors, et cetera, et cetera, that, you know, there was some advice from counsel, but also how was anyone to know exactly what the law said? And you know, it was vague because Congress last year just decided to clarify the role of the vice president by changing the legislation. You know, I'm just and I don't think that's necessarily a good argument for jurors, because I think that you can like Jack Smith can bring a strong enough case. I start to worry then about the Supreme Court and how the Supreme Court treats fraud definitions and how they throw out the Bob McDonald corruption scandal and all that kind of stuff. That was just one thing that I thought

about. Yeah. You know, sometimes it reminds me of like true crime documentaries where they get somebody basically red handed trying to plot the murder of a spouse or something and then but but they never actually say kill my spouse they say like hey uh would you uh consider disposing of this issue because they watch mob movies and they think you can like that like that works and then they just show the video the jury and be like when he said dispose of the issue he was talking about his wife's body and then jury's like guilty and so a little bit of a lot of this is like you can like you know posit all these theories and say he was just aspirational. They're gonna have to present this to a group of people. And there's and what the indictment

makes clear is, there is so much evidence that no reasonable person could, could interpret to mean that Trump believed any of this horseshit. So they're gonna just have to make this ridiculous argument not to Newsmax and not to Fox News, but to actual human beings. And you're right, maybe the Supreme Court saves him, but none of this is plausible. John Eastman even said he thought his argument would be rejected by the Supreme Court. So that I think makes your approach harder. I mean, Jamie Raskin pointed out that you have people currently in jail for counterfeiting one vote in an election. The idea that it's okay to counterfeit an entire slate of electors or steal an entire election from an entire electorate,

that's okay. It's just irrational. Well, as you say, my argument to my concern, it would be that like the real dummies here are Congress for thinking that they needed to pass legislation to clarify the vice president's role. Because if you really think that our whole constitution was set up so that we can have all these elections, but if you happen to be the president and you have a vice president of the same party, that that vice president can just throw out all the votes and that's okay. Like, I don't think anyone believes, I don't know if anyone believes that. I don't think there was, there was vagueness in the law about that. And I remember we talked about this at the time, that you can try to reform your way out of a coup

in all the ways you think you should to strengthen the law and sure have at it, but in the end, this was about power and they were going to justify it any way they could. But I could tell from his whole violation of the Constitution and not the law thing, I was wondering why he was doing that. I do think that's part of the reason

he's trying to say, well, this was a constitutional dispute and maybe it was a violation, but that's handled by the Supreme Court. They just want to make it all political speech, which is protected under the First Amendment. Political speech and political argument. They're going to end up being like, this is not a crime. This is politics. This is what happens in politics. So Mike Pence said over the weekend, again, that Trump didn't just ask him to pause the certification of the election, which is what the lawyers are arguing. He specifically demanded that he overturn the election. Pence also said he'll testify if asked. Loro responded by saying Pence will be the defense's best witness.

Tommy, why do you think he said that? Because he has no better argument. So what they're trying to say is they they're saying trump his ultimate ask was to delay the vote not to throw out the vote that might be true but that came after mike pence repeatedly rejected his request to throw out the votes so they're just trying to they're really kind of hanging this one on a technicality here my ultimate ask really slicing this was just delay the vote and mike pence is like yeah that's not at all true. That's not what happens. It's only true if the word ultimate means final ask. Right. And but also there's other strange like throughout. Right. There's one moment in the indictment where the other they were like, oh, actually, you can forget overturning it. Just say you're sending them back to the states. That was another request that they made that they like. There were so many different ways they were trying to get Pence to not certify the election. And every single time Pence said that he didn't

have. Yeah. And Pence got asked on CBS. He goes, quote, was that's not what happened. It's pretty clear. I think the other thing they want to do with Pence is have him on the stand and have and say to him, you have said before that what Trump did is a violation of his oath of office, but you don't think it was criminal. Why don't you think it was criminal? Because remember, Pence wasn't sure about the indictment at first, and he has all those quotes. And Pence was out there after the election floating a whole bunch of theories that, yeah, maybe there was voter fraud in the state. So they're going to say, even you believed there was voter fraud in the state. Yeah. I do believe that you can't ask a witness in a trial to say whether or not you think the

jury should convict them. So there's some they have to just ask about what happened. But, yeah, I do think it's like clearly Loro is trying to, you know, there's a kind of whatever bravado thing about saying, like, Pence would be our best witness, not our worst, not the guy that could confirm all the crimes in exactly his state of mind. Yeah. But it does totally go to the like this was just a political disagreement between two men, you know, and Donald Trump could have been right or it could have been wrong. But it wasn't criminal. You're going to criminalize those in America? Right. Cross-examination too.

Yeah, exactly. Mike Pence popping up on the Sunday shows was a reminder that other Republicans are still running for president, though the reaction that Pence got in New Hampshire to his potential turn as a star witness against Trump wasn't exactly positive. There's the sellout right there. Pence, how are you doing? Hey, guys. You sold out the people. Why are you doing? Why'd you sell out the people? Why'd you sell out the people? Why'd you sell out the people?

Why didn't you stand? Why didn't you uphold the Constitution? Why didn't you stand? Why didn't you uphold the Constitution? Why didn't you sell the people out? Why didn't you sell all these people out? We couldn't see it, but there was just a guy holding uh holding his duncans going thank you for asking i do love conquered

and then he went ha ha ha oh my god what is he doing meanwhile chris christie went to ukraine and uh barely anyone noticed uh ron desantis was uh mocked by the trump campaign and others for his small crowds in iowa and uh while he hasn't gone as far as pence or christie he did finally acknowledge that at least some of trump's election fraud conspiracies weren't true let's listen yes or no question do you think the 2020 election was stolen i've said many times uh the election is what it is all those theories that were put out did not prove to be true. But what I've also said is the way you conduct a good election that people have confidence in, you don't change the rules in the middle of the game. So you recently said the election is what it is.

So can we just put this to bed so you don't have to be asked about this a million more times? Yes or no. Did Donald Trump lose the 2020 election? Whoever puts their hand on the Bible on January 20th every four years is the winner. After the election, they were talking about Maduro stealing votes on the voting machines or whatever, and none of those theories proved to be true. But at the end of the day, you know, Donald Trump helped facilitate that whole set of circumstances. Okay, but respectfully you did not clearly answer that question and if you can't give a yes or no on whether or not trump lost then how can of course no of course he lost trump lost the 2020 election of course

joe biden's the president i love that ron disantis' plan is to just give like extremely basic civics lessons and like basic facts like the person who gets inaugurated is the president. Joe Biden is the president. It's it's incredible. It is incredible. The like the contortions this person is doing just like as if he's three points ahead. He's running. He's running like he's ahead. Like he's just trying to protect his lead by being super careful and not giving the base anything they don't want to hear.

Also, the argument was that Dominion Voting Systems had ties to Hugo Chavez, who died in 2013. I was wondering about where the Maduro came from. Get it right. Look, I get what we talked in our last pod about this, that in the New York Times poll, right, there's the 37 percent of the MAGA base. There's the persuadables and there's the 25 percent that are, you know, never Trumpers. And clearly DeSantis is looking at the persuadables and the never Trumpers and is like the never Trumpers believe that Joe Biden won and the persuadables believe that Donald Trump won. So I'm going to have to straddle both. And his idea for straddling both is being like, so Joe Biden definitely won, but there was some mischief for that election.

But he won. But we didn't fight hard enough. But I'm going to go to Washington. We're going to storm. He said somewhere else. We're going to storm Washington on January 20th. We're going to slit the throats of the bureaucrats. You hear that?

Yeah, yeah. Slit the throats of the bureaucrats. You hear that? Yeah, yeah. Slip the throats of the bureaucrats. You know, the Venn diagram you need, though, is the people who want a president who doesn't look like a weak loser, who can answer a question directly. Like, oh, I think potentially. And like, she's such a petulant, whiny little fucking baby about it, too. Like, oh, you're annoyed you're getting asked this question? Well, that's because you walked into this trap that Donald Trump laid two years ago

and got you all to walk down this path where you question the results of the elections and now you've lost the ability to call this guy a loser you knew you're gonna run for president lay the groundwork and call him a fucking loser it's so meatball it's so fucking dumb it's also just like which he looks like a meatball it's um that was the best nickname it's it's also like oh i can't stand up being distracted by this major liability for my opponent. Let's get back to talking about my failing campaign. Let's get back to attacking Bud Light in the Florida pension programs or whatever nonsense you're talking about that day. If we're so focused on Trump's indictment, we don't have time for your many questions about why I'm unappealing to any person I meet.

Now, now, now, wait. He did get some shit for his crowds. Maybe his answer wasn't great. But he got some less horrible news from the New York Times Iowa poll. He's losing to Trump 44-20 in that poll compared to 54-17 in the national poll. Tommy, what do you make of that? and Tim Miller single-handedly created a terrible narrative for Ron DeSantis by posting a photo where he sort of went to the top of the steps at Spanky's Livestock Auction House and took a photo of how empty the crowd was. Now, in Ron's defense, Tama, Iowa is like 3,000 people. It's in the middle of nowhere, and he had other events that day. And none of them showed up. But it did suggest that your campaign staff thought that more people would be arriving when you pick a venue that big. It's like number, rule number one of advance. But I do think that poll shows, hope is the wrong word, but it does show that he's doing better in Iowa

than he is nationally. And it suggests that they might be getting a little traction in Iowa where they've been running ads and actually campaigning and out there. It could be that Iowa conservatives just don't like Trump and never have. But DeSantis has a 77 percent approval rating. He's seen as more moral than Trump, more likable than Trump. Which is wild. Yeah. 47 percent of Trump supporters in Iowa said they would consider other candidates. So it shows there's a little more room to maneuver in Iowa. We'll see. And then 40 percent say in Iowa say DeSantis is the best candidate to beat Joe Biden. And just under 50 percent say that for Trump. But nationally, Trump beats him by 30 points on that measure of who's the best to go against Biden. I was just trying to look in the in the crosstabs of that poll for any details that, you know, months from now when Ron DeSantis is suddenly the GOP nominee.

And we look back at all of our old pods of America. so we're making fun of them if we'll be wrong i still don't think we will be but it's there's a few things in there which what happens in iowa right where like if you're there all the time and you're on the ground like we've seen it you know and i was i just also think this is less about ronda santos showing strength and more there's a little bit more weakness for trump and i do think that like if we do look back on these pods, and I hope we do, and I hope we just come back and share a memory. Like we listen to all the primary ones in 2020.

Yeah, 2016. In 2016. Game of 1600. This is every single pod, the second you hear it, just think of it as a brown banana. It's now or never. That's it.

Once it's over, it's over. Don't come back. Never go back. You can make some good banana bread with the brown ones though yeah sure okay uh but uh or a smoothie i do like if you were if you're trying to like come up with or a smoothie or a smoothie or a smoothie but de santa's saying yeah trump lost the first time he's asked as opposed to the fifth time i don't know it's going to really like move the needle for him or for like the overall Republican race. But maybe there is some logic to kind of if what you're seeing is, hey, maybe there's softness there that's happening because of the events of Trump being charged by for multiple felonies and

facing six months of endless trials and scrutiny. Like, let's hang back, let him hang himself without me pissing off the people I need to win. I don't think it's a good idea. I don't think it's right. But so I mean, the hopeful sign here is ostensibly Iowa voters are the ones who've been paying more attention, getting courted, seeing ads, seeing candidates in person. So getting a little traction there is a good thing. I don't think I'm not ready to count DeSantis out. I think what I've learned about him is he is a less talented politician than the hype machine set him up to be, but he's still sitting on a ton of money. He has quite possibly the most flawed

opponent in political history and like stranger things have happened. I mean, it's only August 7th. I mean, we're, yes, we're getting later, but the first debate hasn't happened yet. The first, you know, like as you guys remember, things get crazy in December in Iowa, but I just do quickly want to give Trump's team a shout out for one of the better quotes I've seen this cycle about that DeSantis photo of him in this livestock auction venue, which is tiny crowd for Ron DeSantis in a livestock auction venue. Nobody is buying what that heifer is selling. I mean, also stop wearing clothes with your fucking name on them, Ron.

Why does everything say Ron DeSantis on it? Do you think people don't know who you are? I think when people just wear their own merch all the time, it's... Sorry, it's just really driving me crazy. Awful. I also, in the New York Times write-up of their poll, they interviewed some of the poll respondents, and one of them said, you know, I'm with DeSantis now,

but every indictment makes me lean more towards Trump, which is just so, like, it's like two on the nose, but I'm just like, okay. The other weird thing- Our house is on fire. Quick, all the valuables inside. The other thing I didn't get from the poll is, I don't know, it's just the way they ask questions.

This is why you can't pay too close attention to polls. So yeah, you said, Tommy, 47% of Trump supporters said they'd consider other candidates. In the same poll, 97% of Trump supporters say they support him strongly, which is just, I guess that's just like, I'm considering other people, but I'll always love Donald Trump. Maybe that's it. Sure. I also think like this, you know, we've talked about like polls that show like, oh, they'll never support this person. 43% say they'll never support that person. And people are very bad at knowing what the will or won't do. I remember like Bill Clinton famously had a poll where the majority of

Democratic voters said they would never support him. And then the next thing we knew he was the nominee. Not us, we were children, but the people at the time. I think that there could be a kind of critical mass of fears about what happens if Trump becomes the nominee. And then they're going into a bunch of trials that make him completely unelectable to the public. And then all of a sudden, there's this chaotic, but if not him, who? And they're all kind of standing there. Democrat like panic. Yes, absolutely. Absolutely. I mean, what you need is a few polls.

It could change slowly and all of a sudden. You need like that New York Times poll or a few polls of that caliber to suddenly... Actually, no, you'd need it to break through the right-wing media ecosystem. You can't... If it's just a New York Times poll, that's not going to work. But let's pretend, just for the sake of it, that suddenly there's a Fox News poll out that shows that suddenly DeSantis is tied with Biden or beating Biden, but Trump is now down five, 10 points on Biden.

And now he's at 25%. Now we're seeing him in the courtroom and all the Republicans running for president because they're petrified at this point that they're going to lose and they're wasted all their time are at the next debate. And all they're doing is just throwing haymakers at Trump and saying he can't win, he can't win, he can't win. And suddenly he can't win becomes this echo throughout the right wing media echo chamber and then they all do that i still don't think that's gonna happen but that would that would be the it's sort of like yeah it's possible it's possible and it's not gonna happen then all of a sudden it could and then there's this just these just a scramble up a greasy poll by these like

six people who are also greasy also pretty greasy they come with their own grease these guys what you're describing is basically what happened on the democratic side in 2020 right like the iowa caucuses were a null result thanks to the counting thanks to the shadow app which we designed yeah uh bernie wins new hampshire there's a big electability freak out and then joe biden wins south carolina and we're off to the races with the pandemic. The only difference is Joe Biden didn't clown himself as Mike Rogers did for nine months. He absolutely did not. But the campaign struggled for a long time. Yeah, it struggled.

The difference is it struggled kind of quietly. The other thing, too, is if you – so Trump's at 44. Sanders is at 20. If you think back to 2016 in Iowa, there were nine candidates. Ted Cruz wins with 27.6 percent trump comes in second with 24.3 rubio with 23.1 and then everyone else is in single digits now there's eight candidates and trump's already at 44 so it does like he could he could lose a bunch and still well it just has to be like they're just waiting around there has to be a

like a surprise like a monumental yes but but it could happen and on on their side like iowa has not historically picked the ultimate candidate on for republicans new hampshire it's like you can have this crossover uh voting from democrats so it's taken a little less seriously then you get south carolina it's like all right now some real conservatives are going to vote kids like get out of the way john mccain get out of the way well there was there's also there's a there's something in common between ted cruz and and ron osantis which is which is you know ted picking issues that no one cares about yeah but also like ted cruz wins in iowa and new hampshire's like oh yuck and like no thank you we're not doing what

they did that's some fucking midwest shit no way ew it's like dipping everything in ranch yeah no thank you um deep fried nonsense speaking of uh speaking of future front runners i just want to do a quick world segment here tommy did chris christie end the war in ukraine i don't think he did uh you know it's uh interesting strategy to make a high profile visit to a foreign country to talk about a policy that's deeply unpopular within the Republican primary electorate. But look, I give him credit for it. Do you think Lovett gave him that advice? I don't know that he did.

You know, but he did the whole like train from Poland thing to get to Kiev. And he went to Bucha where there were horrible, you know, war crimes and atrocities committed. And I don't know. Look, support for Ukraine is is dropping pretty quickly in the u.s so chris christie going out there and waving that flag is i think there's some value didn't he didn't he gift zelensky something yeah what did he bring he brought like a copy of written lyrics lyrics uh it's my life by von jovi and honestly i can't make fun of it i think it's the sweetest thing he's like i brought you something it's from my favorite person in america and it's about it's of it. I think it's the sweetest thing. He's like, I brought you something. It's from my favorite person in America.

And it's about living your life. The backstory was like, there was a video of some town in Ukraine where people were sandbagging, preparing for the invasion, listening to that song. And so that got in his head. And then he went to Jon Bon Jovi and he told him he was going over. And Jon Bon Jovi hadexed him like handwritten lyrics or something it's a very nice story it's just super corny and when christy and when dan's out he's co-hosting with you chris christy what is that happening he's our fifth host uh all right john bunn he's gonna host uh in another example of how far these candidates will go to get some

attention uh who aren't donald trump DeSantis has tentatively agreed to debate Gavin Newsom on Fox News with Sean Hannity as the moderator. They're currently arguing over the rules. I honestly haven't been able to follow the back and forth on Twitter. But it's supposed to take place this November, I guess. So there will be one big event this November.

Newsom proposed two dates. DeSantis proposed four. Yes. So basically, Newsom said, I'll debate you. hannity can be the moderator no audience four minute open statements mano y mano and then de santis comes back and says i want an audience and i don't want opening statements i want two minute videos that fox the hype videos videos and so this was newsom's statement he said de santis's counter proposal is littered with crutches to hide his insecurity and ineptitude, swapping opening statements with a hype video, cutting down the time need he needs to be

on stage, adding cheat notes and a cheering section. Ron should be able to stand at his own two feet. It's no wonder Trump is kicking his ass. That is awesome. At that moment, I was like, fucking, you know what, Gavin? Debate him. Let's go. Let's fucking go.

I'm in. I think this is a win-win. I was hoping one of you would take the other side because debate. You know who I bet would take the other side who we need here right now? Dan Pfeiffer. Oh no, I don't like disagreeing with Dan. Famously anti-Fox. Well, we're all pro-Fox. Yeah, no, we're

three big Fox fans. We all tried out for Tucker's slot. Here's my pitch. DeSantis has to do something drastic to break through. This is something different. He has to look like a fighter. This might help. Look, this thing is completely stacked in Ron DeSantis' favor with Sean Hannity as the moderator. Right?

So, I don't know. Like, if you have to take a week off the trail to prep, yes, that would suck. But maybe you just fold this into debate prep. And then for Gavin, like, Gavin, there's nothing in the world that he wants to do more than physically fight Ron DeSantis. And this is the closest he can get. Well, also, there's a little bit in which there's sort of no losing for Gavin Newsom because he's walking into a debate where everyone knows being moderated by fucking Sean Hannity. So it's like that does OK. That's amazing.

He gets bullied. He gets like he gets like tag team by Hannity and DeSantis. It's like he went on enemy turf. It's sort of like a win-win for him, too. I think, yeah, I cannot argue against it being a great move for Gavin Newsom. I think he has nothing to lose. The expectations are going to be low. He did great with Hannity when he was one-on-one with Hannity. And his whole brand, you know, if he's going to run for president at some point, is this like Democrats need to fight back, right?

We need to take the fight right to Republicans. And leave our safe spaces. And I'm going to be the guy who's not afraid to fight with Republicans. And within a primary context in the Democratic Party, where negative partisanship is a powerful motivator, if not the most powerful motivator, that's going to help him. I could argue that it's not the greatest idea for DeSantis. It will get him attention.

It does show the Basem fight. But like, he's not running a fantasy campaign against Gavin Newsom. He's running in a primary that he is losing very badly. Like, he should go try to win the primary. It's like, what are you debating this random California governor? Get back on the fucking trail. But like, Trump's beating you by 40 points. Short of beating up the sketch artist in Trump's courtroom.

Like, I don't know how he's going to get covered. Yeah, no. That's not a bad idea. That might be a better idea. Write that one down. Right. Yeah, he should just be in the background of the sketches. With DeSantis on his vest.

You know who loses this? Gavin's staff. They are going to be doing so much prep to prepare him for this. Because you know that Gavin is going to go into this thinking, too, that, like, I'm going to beat doing so much prep to prepare them for this because you know that gavin is going to go into this thinking too that like it's a i'm gonna i'm gonna beat him on the policy details and that's not gonna that's not what's gonna be righteous facts yeah all right we've talked about this a bit in the context of the republican primary but we are headed into a 2024 campaign where the likely republican nominee could be facing seven trials,

four criminal, three civil, that he is already making a central part of his message. Politico, just this morning, called it the courtroom campaign. I loved it. They said if 2020 was the Zoom campaign, which, like, was it? I don't remember that being the Zoom campaign. I don't remember anything about 2020. Same. And this is the courtroom campaign.

How do you navigate that if you are Joe Biden's campaign? Can I first of all just say that I just want to be honest and say that I lost track of one of the civil trials. I actually thought it was six and I actually forgot one of the two federal civil trials. So there's one that's divided into two. There's E. Jean Carroll one. E. Jean Carroll the sequel. Are we counting? Maybe. And then there's the fraud one. And then there's the business Carroll one. E. Jean Carroll the sequel. Are we counting? Maybe. And then there's the fraud one.

And then there's the business fraud one. Okay. I feel like there's one other fraud. I think there is. There might be. Oh, is it the truth social fraud one? Are we counting that? I think there's another fraud in there.

There might be the pyramid. Yeah, anyway. I don't know. And then the four criminal, of course, the three that already happened and we're all waiting on Georgia. Great. Anyway, you're sitting in Wilmington, Delaware, which is where the campaign is. Right. Or maybe you're in the White House.

What are you doing about all this? This is hard. I mean, I think that Trump is going to say that Joe Biden is weaponizing DOJ against me. This is all political persecution. I don't think you want to help him with that. I think everyone in the country is going to hear about these cases. with that. I think everyone in the country is going to hear about these cases. You know, I don't think Joe Biden's the best messenger for delivering criticisms along these lines. So I don't know. I think you probably you criticize Trump on about everything else and you focus on

your positive message. And I don't know. But like, it's not a very satisfying answer. Yeah. There's a poll that came out today. What that like 71 percent of people have heard little to nothing about the Inflation Reduction Act. So he's going to go out on the campaign trail. Anytime he says anything that touches on any of this, that will be news. But he's going to be trying to counter program these trials with some kind of a positive message and trying to find a way to connect the positive story to the Trump negative story. And I think there's a kind of message in there about like, I'm delivering for you. He's focused on himself

and finding ways to like make news that ties you to Trump while getting some of the positive economic and policy stories into it. I don't know what else to do. I mean, you can even make a character argument against Trump or a culture argument against Trump that isn't based on these trials too, right? I mean, you can even make a character argument against Trump that or a culture argument against Trump that isn't these based on these trials, too.

Right. I mean, you can do the whole thing. It's just it's really hard to talk about what your DOJ is doing. There's never been a there's this is an unprecedented situation. So they're, you know, it's yes, for sure. I think you absolutely cannot comment on the trials or the indictments. Right. I do think I've thought about this for a while. or the indictments, right? I do think, I've thought about this for a while.

I think that like he has to just say what he has said in the past about this, which is that like Trump is a threat to democracy and this election is about whether democracy survives or not, just like he said it in the midterms. And then when they say,

and of course Trump is going to say he politicized this and he's, they just said today and they're filing, right? That Joe Biden capitalized on the indictment just because of the fucking dark brand thing. So they're going to say it anyway, no matter what. They're also, by the way, going to be out there saying Joe Biden's a criminal, his family's criminal and he should be impeached. So you can have one side saying Joe Biden's a criminal and Joe Biden can't say Trump's a criminal, but he certainly can say what he has said before about his being a threat to democracy.

What he did on January 6th, what he did trying to steal the election. And I can imagine there's going to be a lot of debates in the White House about this. I'm sure the lawyers are going to be nervous about it, right? Because like how close you're going to get to commenting on the trial. I'm sure there's going to be some political folks. And look, I think on paid advertising, the paid advertising is going to be like healthcare, economics, IRA, trying to break through. Joe Biden is not going to break through with any of that shit in the press because this is going to be about Trump all the time. It's always about Trump when he runs. Now that he's going to be facing all these criminal trials, it's going to be even more about Trump. So when Joe

Biden's out there, like he's going to get covered when he talks about Donald Trump and your message about Donald Trump then becomes super important. And I think you have to get to the core of what will honestly happen if Donald Trump wins this election, having faced all of these indictments. Like, what does that say? What is he going to do? What is that going to mean?

Like, I think you have to be honest about that. Yeah, I don't know. I don't know. It's tough. It's really tough. I don't think voters care about that. That's why it's like, I don't know. I feel like you're trying to tough. It's really tough. I'm not sure that's the thing voters care about. That's why it's like, I don't know.

I don't know if that's what voters care about. I feel like you're trying to figure out what the con, like you're saying like, oh, that's what the contrast should be. And like, maybe that's right. Or maybe you just trust that the coverage of Donald Trump being on trial is going to be so awful and so ever present that it's not your job to kind of layer on top of it. Like I think of the moment when Joe Biden got so much coverage when there was that split screen. He's in Kentucky with Mitch McConnell talking about bridges. He didn't have to say a word about Donald Trump for that to be the story. You know, Donald Trump is pulling out him selling a dark Brandon mug. But like, there have been a lot of moments where Joe Biden, just by being in the split screen,

has made an argument without him having to say Donald Trump is a threat to democracy. I don't know. And this whole debate is going to be so frustrating because you have a conversation happening that's getting picked up by all the press about whether a judge in Washington, D.C. can rule on this case fairly because it's a liberal venue. And then you have another case in Florida where the judge presiding over it was literally appointed by Donald Trump. And it's like, oh, what? Right. How are we having this debate right now? I do think, you know, I'm very worried about what you said earlier, John, about the effort to both sides.

This that's happening in Congress right now and the degree to which in conservative media and the sort of like Joe Rogan stratosphere, the Hunter Biden allegations are breaking through. Like I saw a clip of Rogan the other day talking on the show about how he actually thinks the Biden family is more corrupt. And, you know, he might be a lost cause at this point and he might be, you know, demographically, you know, kind of like an old rich white guy from Texas, like probably not going to get him, but it's a big audience that's going to hear this kind of stuff. And I think it's pretty easy to convince people that actually all politicians are corrupt and bad. So kind of who cares? Which is where I think you ultimately want to make an argument about who's going to help you

the most. I mean, I went through a whole midterm election and had done all those focus groups. And I will tell you that like the voters will sit there and if you ask them what matters, they're not going to say this trial matters. They're not going to say all this shit matters. They're going to say economic concerns matter to them for sure. But having made that argument through the midterms and then watch Joe Biden make democracy very much an issue and made January 6th an issue and made all this an issue and then seeing the results of the election and seeing how election deniers uniformly did poorly, did worse than other Republicans and And seeing that that actually got like a lot, it wasn't just a base turnout thing. It was a persuasion thing that there was a lot of sort of swing voters who were like, they just needed to be reminded. And I sort of worry that the coverage in the mainstream media to your both sides issues will not do our job for us on this or do the Biden campaign's job for them. I was surprised to see like last week, the New York Times, and it was a very good piece. But the headline was like,

free speech versus election fraud and the trial, free speech on trial. Like that argument is going to get into the mainstream press. I just, I think Joe Biden has to obviously make an argument about how Donald Trump is a threat to democracy. I'm just trying to think about how Joe Biden can make a positive case for his accomplishments and what he wants to do in a second term that will be interesting enough to break through. It may be impossible. Maybe there's no way to do it. But I think there've been moments where Joe Biden's been able to do it in the past. And he does it by pointing out that while he's fighting and passing and legislating and and doing executive orders and and making actual

positive changes this is what donald trump is focused on right like there's something there's some value to doing it yeah it's just a couple more chips act events it's gonna be complicated again i i pitched this i pitched this in our company slack i think we gotta start um getting stuff in the background of old episodes of suits everyone's watching apparently the whole country has just decided they're watching fucking Suits. If you're not watching Suits, be careful. Someone's going to knock on your door and say, hey, you love this country? Because you don't seem to be watching Suits.

And you don't have to watch Suits. This is America. But it makes us worry about you that you're not watching Suits because we're all watching Suits. Old episodes of Suits. I have an idea. Ooh. Joe Biden and the cast of Suits sit down and they do a retrospective. That's a good idea.

I love that. Like a rewatchables kind of thing. That's great. Especially their most prominent cast member. It is very fun. Nearly toppled the monarchy. Yeah. That's the power of Suits.

That's what I'm saying. Suits has already... One authoritarian down. One to go. The Suits run Hollywood. Yeah. Let's get get suits on this I honestly

I don't know what suits is I just know what they wear is it lawyers it's one of those shows where I've seen the pilot three times now and one of them is a lawyer one of them is not a lawyer but one of them says they're a lawyer but they're wearing suits

it is fun that all these people like Jason Miller and Susie Wiles and all these Trump staffers who are part of the indictment are going to have to be on the campaign and comment on it. That's even more complicated. And they're going to testify. And then they're going to have and then Trump's going to see that they testified because he's going to see the transcripts and then he's going to be on the campaign plane with them. And he's going to throw them out of the plane. Not enough ketchup in the world. Also, I like that Mike Pence was at. all these guys are so afraid to just answer a question mike pence was asked like will you testify will you testify and he said i have no plans to testify

it's not a party yeah you're not like you're not hosting an event yeah it's not a baby shower yeah you know of course you don't have a plan it's not a planned thing you haven't been asked to testify yet i like when he also got asked about whether he kept the journal and how many notes he was taking He's like I would on occasion write things in my calendar. It's like oh, did you Mike? I think it's a little more comprehensive than that. Remember when that um, remember there was that senator Nelson not Bill Nelson the other Nelson. Oh, no, no, you're thinking of Bob Graham. I'm thinking of Bob Graham Yes, he ran for president. Yes, he ran for president. Wrote down everything. He wrote down everything, and it had these endless journals with tiny little notes of every single thing he'd ever done.

And guess what? He did not do well in the primary. Did not work for him. Ran for president. The intense, detailed journaling did not work for Bob Graham. You know what the twist is that's kind of interesting to me? So one of the, Mike Pence was asked about what would happen if he testified or what happened and he and he says that like i you know i i will i will tell the truth and uphold my oath to the constitution and almighty god yeah he's crossing

the delaware a lot in these statements he absolutely is but i just like thinking that after all these years of mike pence using religion to justify every fucking heinous thing there's a little part of them it's like i can't lie in the stand god will see and i think that's cool yeah no he he believes it i love it yeah whether i think that's cool that's his thing um anyway we're gonna talk more about this i'm sure because we're gonna have seven trials to go through or maybe there's six who knows okay two quick housekeeping items before we head to break if you haven't yet subscribed to our friends of the pod community here's another reason you can help all of us at crooked media build a progressive counterweight to the right-wing propaganda machine.

And if you sign up for the Best Friends tier, $10 of your subscription will go to support Vote Save America's grassroots organizing efforts that made a huge difference in the last few elections and will be incredibly important as we head into 2024. Head to crooked.com slash friends to join today. Also, if you live in Los Angeles, cancel your Thursday night plans and thank us later. The Love It or Leave It Errors Tour is back at Dynasty Typewriter this Thursday at 7.30 p.m. It's an incredible lineup. Wow. Do you know who's in it? I know.

Maria Bamford, Ike Barinholtz, Ian Harvey, and Bridger Winnegar. That's right. Who's great. Tell your hinge date you have to work late and head to crooked.com slash events to get your tickets now nice just read what's in front of me when we come back tommy talks with desiree tims the founder and ceo of innovation ohio about the big abortion rights vote democracy is playing out today in Ohio, where people are voting on a ballot measure called Issue 1. Joining us today to explain

this hugely consequential fight is Desiree Timms, the president and CEO of Innovation Ohio. Desiree, thanks for doing the show. Thanks so much for having me. I'm thrilled to be here. So let's just start with the basics. What are folks in Ohio voting on this week? So Republicans in Ohio have pulled off the, what I call the ultimate scam, that is this special election, which is today, August 8thth. Now a few weeks ago, meaning weeks because we have not had a ton of time to prepare for this election, we had roughly 85 to 90 days but we knew that this was coming, Republicans decided to push for an August special election to increase the threshold for passing constitutional amendments in Ohio from a simple

majority, 50 plus one, like the way democracy has always worked in this country, to 60%. And they did that because they watched what happened in other states as they took up abortion ballot measures, and they saw 57%, 58%, 55. And Republicans thought, aha, let's make our requirements 60 percent. That way we can make sure that we continue to ban abortion here in Ohio. That's what we're up against right now. So I guess the Republican position on abortion rights is that it's an issue for the states, but only in states where uh proponents of abortion access can get a super majority so that's what we're saying now that's exactly right and they have

a pro-life movement and air quotes on pro-life right uh funding this campaign and so they tried to change the rules uh offer a very last minute election. We don't even have enough poll workers in every area of the state because it was such a last minute effort to pull off this special election for a very special scam. But we are emboldened and fighting back and really thrilled with some of the early vote numbers that we have coming in. Well, I want to ask you about the funding question, because it's a lot of money coming from out of state, it seems like from conservatives. But in addition to raising the threshold from 50% of simple majorities, you said to 60%, issue one would also require

petitioners to get a certain number of signatures from every single county in Ohio. So there's 88 counties in Ohio. Currently, you have to hit this signature threshold, and I believe only 44 counties. What would that change mean for grassroots organizations like yours? So I want to be very clear to all the listeners, it is already hard to change the Constitution. Do you know how hard it is to track grandma and Annie and Johnny down in the parking lot to sign a petition, right? It is already hard work. So what they are trying to do now is say, hey, right now you can get 44 counties to collect petitions to turn into change and make a constitutional amendment.

What the Republicans have also done with this is say, look, we're going to require all 88 counties. So that means that one county, one county can stop the entire state. That means everyone who lives in a Governor DeWine Republican has in his budget that 85 percent of all Ohioans live in metropolitan areas. percent of all Ohioans live in metropolitan areas. Eighty five percent. So that means one county can literally, let's say it's a rural county or a small county, can upend the progress, the opportunity, the needs and the wants and advancements of 85 percent of Ohioans. Yeah, it's like a horrible little like mini electoral college for just Ohio. You mentioned that there's some amazing early turnout numbers, almost 600,000 people have already voted. That's way above turnout for the recent Senate primary.

It's below sort of a general election level for governor or president. How are you guys feeling about what that early vote number means for you and your prospects? So we feel really good about the early vote number. We have been holding rallies in many town halls in every corner of the state and not just big cities, small cities and rural areas. And what we know from the early vote data is that a lot of the folks who have requested ballots, who turned in ballots, who voted early are registered Democrats. And so we hope and pray that those folks have voted no. But I'm also personally optimistic about some of the Republicans because we know that this issue is not just about abortion, it's about so much more.

And so folks who care about school levies and bonds, like all of that has to go on the ballot. And so everything is at stake. And so I think our coalition, which is very broad, includes labor and a lot of different folks in small businesses who are also saying vote no on this very, very important ballot. And I hope and I think that we're going to surprise a lot of folks once the official data comes out to see not just Democrats are voting no, but folks all across the political spectrum.

Yeah, it's interesting. You see Republicans whining about the 2020 election when Democrats tried to make it easier for folks to vote in the middle of a pandemic. And they're complaining that that's changing the rules in the middle of the game. Meanwhile, in Ohio, Republicans are trying to make it much harder for people to vote in the middle of an election, which would also, as you mentioned, it wouldn't just apply to this effort to enshrine abortion rights into the Constitution. If you are a Republican who wants fair congressional maps and nonpartisan sort of anti-gerrymandering language put forward, this could stop those

efforts too, right? That's exactly right. This is a very important issue. And I also want to add that we have the strictest voter ID law in the country. You have to have a photo ID in order to vote. So not only have they wrote out this election during the middle of the summer, you also have to have voter ID, an ID that matches your address, or you cannot vote, you will be turned away. And we have so much at stake with all of the rules changes, because that's what Republicans do when they don't win the game. They change the rules and they rig the process.

That is what we're up against right now. And this is the precursor to what we have coming forward, not just in 2024, but in a few months in November. We have abortion on the ballot, and we also have marijuana on the ballot. We have abortion on the ballot, and we also have marijuana on the ballot. So I saw that one of the biggest donors or spenders on the Yes campaign, which is the folks we're fighting against here, is an Illinois conservative mega donor named Richard Uline. He contributed $4 million to the Protect Our Constitution PAC. His contribution made up 82.5% of the Yes campaign's funding, I believe, as according to the Washington Post.

Why do you think this out-of-state multi-hundred millionaire, billionaire, I don't know what he is, is spending so much money on this race? That is something that perplexes all of us. Why is this guy from Illinois with no ties to Ohio so invested in ruining our lives? We deserve to have good things. We like nice things too. And you would think after everyone in the country and around the world heard the story about the nine-year-old girl in Ohio who was raped and had to travel to Indiana to have an abortion, that people would think and see this is a bad thing. This is not something that is smart in terms of policy. This impacts people's lives. But no, this guy decided, hey, I want to chip in as much money as I possibly can to continue to trample reproductive rights and healthcare for people in Ohio. So that's what

we are up against. But we have received donations from people all across the state, $5, $10, $20 at a time. We were on air before the Yes campaign. We were on air longer, and we've been fighting back tooth and nail, dollar for dollar. And so I feel really confident about our campaign and our movement because we organized right away. Yeah. in our movement because we organize right away. Yeah.

So obviously abortion access will be a huge part of the 2024 campaign across the board. Are there things that you guys have learned from your organizing, from the work you've done, from, I don't know how, like what messages work on the doors that the Biden campaign or other candidates can learn and steal from? Absolutely. I think when we are talking to young voters and communities of color and people who

don't pay attention to politics as much as us, it is very important to make sure that the voter is the hero. It is not about what XYZ politician has done for you and how they make your life better. It's about, hey, because you voted in the last election, we were able to cap insulin at $35. It is because you voted in the last election, student loans were able to stay on hold for so long and the Biden administration fought to make sure that we could have access to have our student loans canceled, fought to make sure that we could have access to have our student loans canceled, even though the Supreme Court struck it down, that fight happened because you showed up. And when we center our politics and our policy wins around the voter, making the voter the hero, they feel empowered to vote. Because with so much gerrymandering and the voter IDs and the Republicans rigging the

rules, people are turned off. And so how do you turn people back on? How do you make them feel a part of the process? You have to censor them and make it about them. And that's what we're doing on the doors. We're talking about what issue one will mean for all of Ohioans and what it means for them to show up and vote this August. I love that. Make the voter the hero. Give them some agency, make them feel like they accomplished something. Last question for you. So no matter what happens, your team is going to be fighting for abortion rights and access in November. How can listeners get involved and help out? rights and access in November. How can listeners get involved and help out? Yes. So what listeners can do is visit innovationohio.org and chip in. We also launched the Ohio Voter Guide. You can share that link, ohiovoterguide.org, to every single Ohioan you know and make sure that they have the information they need to make an educated and informed decision to hopefully vote no on August 8th. But we will also use Ohio Voter Guide again in November and the

following election after that. So share that link out. It helps people access all the information they need in terms of registering to vote, finding their polling location and finding out who and what is on their ballot. And that's Ohio voter guide.org. Excellent. Well, Desiree Timms, thank you for the work you're doing. Thanks for doing the show. And you know, I think, I think we're going to win. I feel good about this one. I feel good too. I'm fired up. Yeah. Yeah. This is like, I don't think anyone wants the rules to be changed.

I don't think everyone wants the government making it harder for citizens to have their voices heard. So fingers crossed here. But thank you again. Thanks. All right. Before we go, Elijah's back with the things he holds nearest and dearest in life, his takes. How's it going, Elijah? It's going great, John. Great to be with you again doing the Take Appreciators.

Let's just jump right into it because we're on a tight schedule. I'm going to share some takes with you all. The producers have seen all of them. John, John and Tommy have not. They'll rate them on a scale of one to four politicos with four being the worst. Thanks to our subscribers who sent these takes in today. You can sign up for friends of the pod, our subscription service at crooked.com slash friends. You guys ready? Ready? All right. Let's start with a piece from the Washington Post. It's by Henry Olson, and it's titled Republicans Save Democracy in 2020. This piece makes the argument that it is Republicans like Mike Pence, Brad Raffensperger, and some of Trump appointed judges who made all the difference when Trump tried to overturn the 2020 election. Here's a quote. If you love our democracy thank republicans for the fact that we still have

it oh my gosh i guess think that's very triggering um somewhere where's the lie uh where's the fucking lie rusty bowers which is uh yeah no one example look i will definitely thank a few individual Republicans for not joining the conspiracy that Trump is now being tried for. Congrats, you didn't do a coup. Thank you for not. Thank you. No, that was very good of them.

They didn't. But the Republican Party as a whole is, of course, why we're in this mess, because it is controlled by Donald Trump and his supporters. Well, that's obviously an issue as well. Look, I think the headline is the most triggering thing, so I feel like that gets... I'll give that a three.

How many? What are the numbers again? One through four. It's just one through four. It's been a while. That's a one and a half for me. Okay, I'll give it a three. Okay. I'm sorry, it's been a while.

We never play Take Appreciators anymore. What happened? Sorry, man. You okay? Do you want to have a side meeting about this? Elijah with his head down, walking a little radio flyer. Yeah. Babe, why don't we play Take Appreciators anymore?

Let's move on to a post from Truth Social from the thrice indicted former President Donald Trump. You referenced it at the top of the show. Quote, The shocking and totally unexpected

loss from the U.S. women's national team to Sweden is fully emblematic of what's happening to our once great nation under crooked Joe Biden. Many of our players were openly hostile to America.

No other country behaves in such a manner or even close. Woke equals failure. Nice shot, Megan. The USA is going to America. No other country behaves in such a manner or even close. Woke equals failure. Nice shot, Megan. The USA is going to hell, three exclamation points. MAGA. Jesus Christ. There is like, there were so many people

on the internet yesterday rooting against the United States because they don't like the political views of some of the players on one of the teams. What is wrong with you? You know, it's broken brain people on the planet. Sick stuff. Sick stuff.

Also, what a just... USA is going to hell. Nice shot, Megan. The USA is going to hell is quite a sentence. Because we lost to Sweden? From the man who wants to lead our nation. Full playbook. Full playbook.

Full playbook. Yeah. Ugh. I really do hate the rooting against our... It really gets me. It really gets me. I was trying to think to myself, like, was there a time

when the U.S. team won something and you really disliked a player for being some kind of, like, right-wing nutter? I can't think of an example on the other side. I really can't. Remember when there was

that baseball player who then was on Survivor who said that he didn't want to ride on the 7 train because of some homophobic and racist things? John Rocker. Yeah. Did he ever do the Olympics? I don't think so.

He might have. That's the only person I could think of. That was probably an era when pros weren't allowed on the Olympic team. I mean, Curt Schilling's a big Trumper, but I still love the 2004 Olympics. Yeah, I will always appreciate what he did for me. If you guys couldn't root for assholes,

you'd never be able to watch sports. Yeah. It's a compromise we all make. Like America's team, the Patriots. Yeah. No assholes on that team. It's right in the title. You're welcome.

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. All right, so we're at a full playbook for that truth? Sure are. Yeah. Great. All right, let's end with something that we don't normally do,

a letter to the editor. There are lots of takes out there that say Biden should pardon Donald Trump, but here's something from Gary to the Salt Lake Tribune. And I have to say, I think Gary is cooking. Fucking deep, deep reach. Letter to the editor. Hey, Gary. You know what we call those today?

They're called the Xs. Yeah. Okay, get ready to have your world rock, Gary, because Pod Save America is coming. Who the fuck is writing a letter to the editor anymore? Just go, you fucking post something. I love what Gary is cooking up here as an intellectual exercise. It's titled,

For Strategic Reasons, Biden Should Get Into the Self-Pardon Game. Here's a quote. I don't think Biden has committed any crimes, but doing a pardon would test whether it's constitutional, And if it is, it would protect him from retribution by a potential President Trump in 2024. This would put Biden's opponents in a position that if they complain or try to block the pardon, it would apply to Trump as well. Is Gary cooking? Gary, I'm for it. I'm for it. He should definitely self-pardon.

Yeah. Gary, you- Hey, Gary, i like what you're cooking i got a bowl right here serve it i'm in yeah i think after the election i think it should be pardons for him pardons for uh for barack obama hillary clinton maybe us i don't know honestly i i sleep a little i'd sleep better little prophylactic pardoning going on pardoning an ambien i was like a fucking baby i think that's what I've been missing. Joe Biden needs to issue an executive order that says Gary can't read political news for at least two years. I think that is, that is, you're thinking your D's in your chest are too high. Too many D's in your chest.

D's? 4D, 3D, 5D chest. Oh, oh, oh, chest. I thought you said chest. I was like, what? D's on his chest? What the fuck? I don't even know. What have you been up to? I don't know. Not, not as, nothing. I thought you said chest. I was like, what? You got Ds on his chest? What the fuck? I don't even know.

What have you been up to? I don't know. Not as nothing. I've been up to nothing. Where was Gary's letter printed? It was in Salt Lake. It was in Salt Lake. Oh, you're looking at the Salt Lake.

Wow. How did you find that, Elijah? Here's the thing. But that tells me something about Gary. Gary. I think the subs sent it to him. Gary. Not the doms.

Gary. Gary. Fuck. Gary is in fucking Salt Lake with a candle, you know, in a red state, just out there fighting for Joe Biden every goddamn day, thinking ahead. But he's a Romney Biden voter. Yeah. Gary's being slandered. Sorry, Gary.

They try to overthrow the government. I don't think a little rhetorical, you know, flair is going to convince them otherwise. It's a constitutional argument. Politico rating for Gary? One. I think Gary did a great job. Yeah, do your best. Yeah, maybe zero.

Zero. Gary's great. Nice. Get a sub stack, Gary. You know what? No bad ideas in a brainstorm, Gary. He's just trying to save democracy. Yeah, you're right.

Fun idea, Gary. Turns out it was Gary Busey. It's interesting to picture that. You didn't picture Gary Busey. Did not see that coming. Elijah Cohn, thanks for a great take, appreciators. We'll try to have you on more frequently. Thanks also to Desiree

Timms for joining us. Hope everyone in Ohio voted today. It's the day of the election, so if you're listening early, get out there. Get out there. Maybe if it's first thing Tuesday morning, get out there.

If you're still online, stay online. Stay online, that's right. And otherwise, we'll talk to you on Thursday. Pod Save America is a Crooked Media production. The executive producer

is Michael Martinez. Our producers are Andy Gardner-Bernstein and Olivia Martinez. It's mixed and edited by Andrew Chadwick. Jordan Cantor is our sound engineer, with audio support from Kyle Seglin and Charlotte Landis. Thanks to Hallie Kiefer, Madeline Herringer, Ari Schwartz, Andy Taft, and Justine Howe for production support. And to our digital team, Elijah Cohn, Phoebe Bradford, Mia Kelman, Ben Hefko, and David Tolles.

Subscribe to Pod Save America on YouTube to catch full episodes, exclusive content, and other community events. Find us at youtube.com slash at Pod Save America. I want to tell you about a new podcast you might enjoy. It's called Search Engine. Each episode, reporter PJ Vogt tries to answer every question he has about the world. No question too big, No question too small.

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