Pod Save America - "Keep My Wife's Name Out Your Evidence."

Episode Date: March 29, 2022

Joe Biden says Vladimir Putin cannot remain in power, Donald Trump is back to saying Vladimir Putin is smart, Clarence Thomas’s wife was part of the plot to overturn the last election, SEIU President Mary Kay Henry joins to talk about the latest attempt by Amazon workers to unionize, and it’s time again to find out which Republican will take the top prize in the 2nd annual March Badness tournament.For a closed-captioned version of this episode, click here. For a transcript of this episode, please email [e-mail] and include the name of the podcast.

Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Jon Favreau. I'm Jon Lovett. I'm Tommy Vitor. Kind of a great, kind of staid tone. Jon? I can tell he's feeling the gravity of the moment. On today's show, Joe Biden says Vladimir Putin cannot remain in power.

Donald Trump is back to saying Vladimir Putin is smart. Clarence Thomas' wife was part of the plot to overturn the last election. SEIU President Mary Kay Henry joins to talk about the latest attempt by Amazon workers to unionize. And it's time again to find out which Republican will take the top prize in our second annual March Badness Tournament. Second annual. Wow. It's been a year. But before we start, check out Hysteria's new 90s-themed choice merch collection at crooked.com. We'll be donating a portion of every order to the Lilith Fund, which is an organization working to support reproductive rights in Texas.

Shop the Choice tees, sweatshirts, and more at crooked.com. Did you say 90s-themed? It is 90s-themed. That speaks to me. There you go. Child of the 90s. Cool. A little Pearl Jam, maybe? You know, there's, there you go. Child of the 90s. Cool. A little Pearl Jam, maybe? You know, there's all kinds of great stuff in that store right now.

Great. All right, let's get to the news. We have quite a bit to cover, so let's start with what everyone's talking about. Joe Biden's speech in Warsaw. The president denounced Vladimir Putin's invasion of Ukraine and cast the war as part of a global struggle between democracy and autocracy after a three-day European trip where he met with NATO allies, Ukrainian officials, and Ukrainian refugees shortly after announcing that the U.S. would welcome 100,000 and donate $1 billion to help Europe grapple with this humanitarian crisis. But it was Biden's nine ad-libbed words at the very end of an otherwise powerful address that got the most attention. Here they are. For God's sake, this man cannot remain in power. The White House immediately walked back the comment saying the president wasn't calling for regime change in Russia. And Biden himself addressed the issue

at a briefing on Monday afternoon. I want to make it clear I wasn't then nor am I now articulating a policy change. I was expressing the moral outrage that I feel and I make no apologies for. Personal feelings, sir. Your personal feelings? My personal feelings. Tommy, what was your reaction to the speech and specifically to the ad lib at the end? I'm going to divide this in half. Okay, let's start with the speech. I watched the speech live. I thought it was one of the best speeches I've seen Biden give as president. You can tell he really cares about these issues. He's been thinking about these issues for a very long time. The fact that he was in Warsaw, I think sent a good message of solidarity and unity with NATO. You can also

feel the gravity, I think, in a moment like that i mean he was at yalta well there there was literally a split screen on cnn of levive getting bombed you know an hour before so the magnitude was clear um i thought he did a good job telling this bigger story about the struggle between autocracy and democracy he talked about universal rights like freedom of speech and rule of law he talked about meeting these kids that little kids little little children who'd recently become refugees because of the invasion. It was very moving. It was powerful. I also liked the little dig at Putin when he called him not a student of history. You know, the best insults are just really like sly and cutting like that because- Sick burn.

Yeah. Putin sort of fancies himself. A student of history? Well, a historian. He likes to contort history to fit his own means. So it was nicely undercutting. It's worth noting the Ukrainians weren't thrilled with the speech. They don't want words. They want a no-fly zone. They want more weapons, et cetera.

The ad-lib. I think we have to be honest that in the pantheon of ad-libs or gaffes or whatever you want to call it, riffing about regime change, it's up there. It's not ideal. I prefer his gaffes when he becomes in favor of gay marriage. That was a really good gap. Yeah. You know, I like that when he, when he speaks from the heart and then has to kind of deal

with the consequence. That was a great gap. Well, I think this is a kind of the same thing. I think morally he's thinking to himself, this man is a tyrant. He's bombing civilians. He can't stay in power, but you can't just riff on that stuff. They clarified the comments immediately. The actions to date, I think, have shown that Biden has actually been incredibly cautious about not escalating the conflict. Putin has been accusing the US

and Obama and Biden and the West of trying to overthrow him for decades. We shouldn't let him manipulate these nine words to justify his actions, but this is some high stakes stuff. And, um, to say the least, I mean, it's, it sucks that this is what we're talking about, but this has been the press focus like 72 hours later, they're still kind of having to clean it up. What did you think of it? I think all that's true. I think obviously, um, he can say that he was expressing his moral outrage. The words were very clear. That is not how you would signal a policy change of that magnitude. So obviously he wasn't. Slip it in as an ad lib at the end of a speech.

Of course not. And I think what was frustrating to me just in watching the coverage even carrying over all the way to today is should he have, uh, uh, winged it after a, after a very kind of well thought out and well received speech? Obviously not. It was corrected immediately because this team has been just so excellent on the messaging around this issue. Everyone knew why they walked it back. Everyone knew why he said it. Everyone knew what was going on here. And then there's this effort for kind of two or three days to kind of

keep it going. The questions being like, well what if putin uses this as an excuse for escalation well that question kind of answers itself he'd be using it as an excuse for escalation and there's this little aspect of it where it's like kind of this urge i think on the mainstream press to kind of have a normal gaffe and have a normal ability to deal with it it's like almost like a sexual desperation to like get back to like, well, just sort of like this urge to like, you said the wrong words

and now we're going to correct you. You know? They do pretend you never cleaned up the initial statement in their analysis and that's annoying. Because it's just the only way to make it have any real significance

this many days later. Do you riff on these things in most speeches? I was thinking a lot about the speechwriters, of course, as I said that. No, you told me it was one of the best speeches of his presidency, you thought. And so the bar was high for me when I finally watched it.

And then I watched it and I agree. He was strong, powerful, energetic. It was a really well-written speech. He delivered it really well, obviously, until the end. Look, you can tell he made that comment. He had just visited those Ukrainian refugees. He was pissed. He was outraged. It's all understandable. I also think he gets credit for walking an incredibly difficult tightrope during this war so far, where he's had to condemn Putin's invasion and support Ukraine without saying or doing anything that would escalate the conflict and potentially lead to nuclear war. Like that's what you're playing

with here. That's as hard as it gets. That's as hard as it gets. So obviously, you know, I'm sure he wishes he hadn't done that. But like, I also noticed, like, I saw an argument from some of the more hawkish types right after the speech that Biden's comment was good and that the White House shouldn't have walked it back. They should have just let it stand. What do you think about that? I mean, like, we don't have, the United States does not have the capacity to push Putin out. We're not going to invade militarily. We can't force the Russian people or some like political rival to the extent they even exist to topple him, nor should we if we had that capacity. We tried that in the past. It doesn't

end very well. The sanctions that Biden has in place are devastating. And you could argue that they're sort of regime change-like sanctions. But the deal there is if you pull your troops out, Vladimir Putin, the sanctions come off. Otherwise, what's the incentive to ever leave? So my response to those hawks is, no, we shouldn't say things that Joe Biden doesn't believe or that is not the policy of the United States, but also that the lesson of the Obama administration was give yourself some flexibility. the UAE, kind of welcoming them back into the fold and having these conversations. It's righteous sounding. It feels good to say Putin must leave. He cannot be the leader.

But we don't want to make this about America. We want the Russians to be worried about their brothers and sisters in Ukraine and the impact on them and not on a kind of Cold War redux Putin nationalistic fervor framework. I think that benefits him if it's the U.S. versus Russia versus Russia versus Ukraine. Yeah. You don't want him being able to use that statement as propaganda for the Russian people and saying, see, I was right. West is trying to destroy Russia. It's not about Ukraine. It's also just a like moral clarity feels good. And I understand that. And there are I've saw people making arguments that, oh, people criticize Reagan for what he said during the Cold War, calling them an evil empire. Well, one thing that we know about the Cold War is that it ended without a nuclear holocaust. And

that makes some of the moral clarity less worrisome in hindsight, right? Like saying things that escalate, that raise tensions when those tensions didn't result in calamity are easier in the past than in the future. You know, it's also a thing that Obama tried to do in speeches like this would be to kind of reflect the reality that in the Cold War, yes, it was a struggle versus democracy versus these autocrats. But at the same time, that didn't mean that every action we took was righteous. The US did a lot of shitty things in an effort to fight back communism, including toppling governments, supporting right-wing death squads, all kinds of really truly heinous things. And I think nodding to those mistakes in that

history gives you more credibility to proceed, but our politics doesn't let you do that. I mean, look, there's just, there's sometimes moments where someone is speaking, someone is speaking, and even though it may be wrong, you to take action to come up on stage and kind of make that person stop speaking right even if people will tell you that violence is not justified i didn't see it coming i didn't see it coming well neither did this right um it is one of those things like everyone knew what he meant right which is like that's it he's like vladimir putin is a murderous dictator with nuclear weapons who can't remain in power but because he's a murderous dictator with nuclear weapons it's too risky to try to remove him from part from power

yeah like that's what he meant right you know but it's not you can't just you can't just have yeah i mean you can't you can't lindsey graham sent those tweets off and it's like yeah i mean sure well i mean right the last time we were doing like a word count controversy was the 16 words in Bush's State of the Union where he beat the drums to go to war in Iraq. You know, look how that turned out. Yes. Right. So that's another alternative path that some of these hawks want that I would recommend we avoid. Joe Biden's opponent in the 2020 and potentially 2024 elections had his own astute take on Putin's invasion of Ukraine during a relatively poorly attended rally in Georgia on Saturday. This is Georgia, the state. Here are some speech highlights from the most popular Republican in the country, Donald Trump. Saakashvili.

But they asked me, is Putin smart? Yes, Putin was smart. And I actually thought he was going to be negotiating. I said, that's a hell of a way to negotiate. Put 200,000 soldiers on the border. It should have never happened. The ocean will rise one hundredth of one percent over the next 300 fucking years. I remember sleepy eyes. Chuck Todd, did you ever hear of him? He's a sleepy son of a bitch. Joe Biden should recuse himself from anything having to do with Ukraine because they've gotten so much money from Ukraine

because energy is so expensive today. Gallons. You take a look at your forget about it. The pump. You take a look at a barrel. Now it'll be two dollars dollars it could be people are saying it's going to go up to if think of this people are saying take a look at a gallon forget about it the pump oh a barrel a pump a gallon two dollars uh more a lot more have that guy fucking draw a clock. I mean, what? We're surprised you love it with the fucking ocean. What is going on? That made no news. Here's my take.

There's no way Hillary can lose this thing. It's a lock. I feel like I'm in a time warp listening to that. He now sounds more like the impression of him on SNL. Who's the SNL actor? He doesn't have a name yet. But they haven't given him a name yet. Once they give him a name, we'll know it. Sleepy son of a bitch.

What a weird insult. Hey, man, listen. I don't know if you're paying much attention, but broadcast news isn't what it once was. People aren't watching the Sunday shows. They're not keeping up like you are. It's just you and Matt Negrin. I hope Matt's listening.

A few of the Georgia reporters who covered the rally said it was the smallest crowd they've ever seen for Trump and that the people were walking out halfway through his remarks. You guys think he needs

to punch up his material? What's going on there? I think he's a little off his game. I think he's a little off his game. He's out of practice. Stakes are kind of low right now.

He's looking at this. Because part of it, though, is he's not really fighting for himself right now. He's doing this for other people. And that doesn't move him. His heart is not in that. Doesn't move him. Doesn't move him. His heart is not in that.

I don't want to do wish casting because, obviously, the guy still polls really well. But I've watched a couple of these rallies lately, and they have felt low energy. And maybe it's just a time when we're not focused on these things. But this is a county. I think I read that Trump won 89% of this county. So this is like blood red MAGA country. And it just felt tired. It just felt redundant.

I mean, the punch ups were there, right? It was the F-bomb talking about climate change that got their attention. Is that how you reach a bunch of right-wing conservatives? I don't know. Swearing in front of their families and children? Probably not. They don't care. The other joke he keeps making that's new is he keeps talking about Russia's nuclear weapons

by saying, Putin is saying the N-word, which is really weird because the joke is that he just lets it hang and sort of gets the crowd to think that he's going to... Which is very possible. Very uncomfortable, possible for him in very bad. The local press though, was saying what you were saying, love it. They were speculating that this slate of people he's endorsed in Georgia is just a bunch of duds. And that makes the kind of like grievance Royal rumble a bit of a harder sell. Yeah. David Perdue, who's running against Brian Kemp, uh, in the primary for governor is, is down by 10 points, got Trump's endorsement. David Perdue decided to suddenly go from being like a regular Republican conservative to like an extreme right wing MAGA guy who's like campaigning with Marjorie Taylor Greene. And now he's got Trump's endorsement. He's got a bunch of ads out there, but he's 10 points behind Brian Kemp. So Trump's endorsements aren't going well either. Look, I feel the same way as you tell me. I don't want to wish-cast here, because my prediction, even though we're out of the prediction business,

is that Donald Trump, you've heard it before, is that I think Donald Trump is like a lock for the nomination if he wants it. I will say in the last couple weeks, it's felt like it's felt like he's losing a little steam. Tim Kaine's going to lock this thing up.

Yeah, look, they're all a little bit I do think part of it too is like he's losing a little steam. Tim Kaine's going to lock this thing up. Yeah, look, they're all a little bit... I do think part of it, too, is like there's... It was true in the Katonji Brown-Jackson hearings. It has been true since the Ukraine crisis started. They're not, like, organized around even, like, a narrow set of grievance issues right now like they had schools going into uh the virginia election marjorie taylor green's getting out there and being like we got to keep chastin budaj out of the ladies room like dude you understand how gay works

you dumb fuck we don't want to that's the least what are you talking about uh they're all and he's gonna walk your bicycle cr ctr ctr critical race theory is calling it ctr i gotta look i know that that's fundamental i herschel walker scares me to death as a candidate he's famous he speaks there with super religious language he's not a good candidate he's he's like a badass i that guy worries me one other dude do you see the guy who took his jacket off and he said he had donald Trump armor on his back and he showed Trump some like weird patch

he put on the back of his shirt? What is going on? I don't know. The endorsements are not going well. You guys talked about Mo Brooks. I think you and Dan in Alabama,

how he got unendorsed for being a loser. I still think we got to see Trump in a Republican primary, you know, and watch all these people who want to run against him

to see if they actually can throw a punch, if they can take a punch. We're not going to know anything. Yeah, he needs a... We're not going to know. Brian Kemp isn't the villain Donald Trump needs. He needs... Trump just put out a statement today, by the way, not about the Oscars, not about Ukraine, not about any of the issues we just discussed. He's confirming that he did, in fact,

get a hole-in-one while golfing with Ernie Els the other day. That's cool, though. Wow. I think that's cool. I think that's a cool statement. It was in the seventh hole at West Palm. I can't believe we didn't get a comment on the Oscars from him. I know. Shout out.

Look, obviously, we've given Vice President Kamala Harris shit for kind of hurting our chances of keeping the White House because she helped get Donald Trump off of Twitter. Oh, my God. Wow. However, however. It was a five iron into a slight win.

Thank goodness. Thank goodness we didn't take any fucking slap takes on Twitter from this guy. Right? That's just something we got to skip. He might have united everyone though. He was the one thing

uniting so many people in the country. Now we're, look at us. Now everyone's a Frenchman. Close your eyes. Close your eyes. Imagine it was Elon Musk slapping Jeff Bezosos oh no now what do

you know we didn't we woke up this morning we said we wouldn't do this i'm not doing anything i'm introducing nonsense anyways i'm providing no content here trump and his band of goons are still under investigation for their attempt to overturn the last election on monday a federal judge ruled in favor of the january 6th committee by ordering the release of more than 100 emails from trump advisor john eastman saying that quote this was the judge in his ruling. He said, quote, based on the evidence, the court finds it is more likely than not that the former president committed crimes by trying to obstruct Congress from certifying the election. The committee is also looking to interview right wing activist Ginny Thomas, wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, after a report last week

that they have 29 text messages that show her urging, in the most annoying ways possible, former White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows to overturn the election while floating insane conspiracy theories that had been spread by QAnon, including her belief that Joe Biden and his family will, quote, be living in barges off Gitmo to face military tribunals for sedition. That was my favorite text. Let's take these one by one, though. Can we start with Eastman? Yeah.

It's right here. That's what I'm going to start with. So did this judge in California, did he get to review the 100 emails that will now be turned over to the committee? I think it's 110 or 111. Something like that. 100 plus, yeah. I think this has been the headline is that the president is likely committed crimes. But I think it's just as important that I think he said 100 said that only 10 of the 110 or 111 were protected by privilege and the rest are admissible.

So because you cannot protect under attorney client privilege communications that are part of an effort to commit a crime or cover up a crime. You can't do you can't do crimes in the same up a crime. Yeah, you can't do crimes. You and your lawyer can't do crimes together and then try to hide it. In the same way that executive privilege doesn't protect you from doing crimes. There's no crime secret. I'm a naughty gonna fly. Oh.

That didn't really work. I mean, it's a big deal because I think, so there was a question of whether the criminal charge of obstructing Congress would be too difficult for the committee to prove. It is a very, like, who's tried to, what cases have been about obstructing Congress, right? But now we got at least one federal judge saying Trump is probably guilty of it. So who knows what will happen?

But again, this is going to fall, ultimately fall in Merrick Garland's lap. And Merrick Garland... Because the 1-6 Committee can make a referral, a criminal referral to the Justice Department that Donald Trump is guilty of obstructing Congress or that Donald Trump obstructed Congress, but only DOJ can decide whether to bring the charges. Merrick Garland is a measure-twice-cut-once sort of fellow. Yeah, seems that way. He is a patient, patient, patient man.

This is what you told patient, patient man. This is what you told us about Bob Mueller. Yeah, your fucking bobblehead dolls. He's got his bobblehead doll with Mueller, and then he's got his Fauci bobblehead doll. Yeah, running out of counter space for all these fucking bobblehead guys that haven't saved us.

It's like that scene in Dark Knight where they're on the ship, and one of them, they're like, to save our ship, we've got to blow up the other ship. And nobody wants to be the one to press the button. No. I guess in that movie, you're not supposed to press the button. No.

So it's not a good analogy. It's like a trolley. It's a little bit. It's like nobody, it's like, hey, I don't know what happened with Bragg in New York. I don't know what's happening with Garland in DC. But like, there's a red crime button that everyone seems to be a little bit afraid to push. Yeah, I hear that. How big of a deal are Ginny Thomas' texts?

I mean. It's so funny. She's a chill lady. Everyone kind of like smooths it over for her in Washington. They call her a conservative activist. She is a wacky far-right conspiracy theorist. QAnon. She's a QAnon person. Yeah, she is willing toy yeah far-right conspiracy q anon she's a q anon person she is willing to use

her access to lobby on behalf of these fringe views to the highest possible levels of government do you know how fucked up and shitty you have to be to make mark meadows sympathetic in a text chain about overturning our democracy because mark meadows who goes full bananas in the text as well and says though the king of kings, Jesus, will fix everything. He's capitalizing things, like he's telling stories in the Bible. It's like a whole. Yeah, it's the gospel of Mark. But the moments where Ginny Thomas is clearly just haranguing Mark Meadows,

who has to reply and keep Ginny Thomas happy because her husband is a Supreme Court justice. We've all been there. We've all been there where you want to ignore the crazy outside advisor, but you can't because they're important and they're friends of the candidate. And so you have to talk to them. Only this one is saying, hey, also overthrow democracy. You know where he screwed up, though?

Listen, I used to be very opposed to reaction emojis and text. You were. But then I recently learned that they're just a great way to react without saying anything and really end a conversation. He could have used a few ha-has. Yes. Maybe an exclamation point here and there. Would have been over. Whoa, the exclamation point.

I love the one where at one point she texted him and she's like, hey, sorry to wake you. I'm like, what time did that text get sent to Mark Meadows? Sorry to wake you, but we really need to overthrow the government. Also, just so disconnected from reality, one of my favorite messages, and not even the most damning, is she said, I just saw Rudy's press conference. This is the press conference where he leaked from the head and basically lost the country forever, lost his credibility. Probably the moment he put himself on track to lose his ability to practice law became a pariah and she's like a fucking fucking finally i've been waiting to see that moment my whole life she said tears are flowing it's the it's the equivalent of

she is like the one person who liked the finale of game of thrones she's like that worked for me she liked the just doesn't make any sense release the kraken listen to rush mark stein bongino clita i mean the she's name checking the craziest people she's doing her research on youtube never a good idea and like again she and clarence pretend they don't talk about politics but she refers to having a conversation with my best friend who they in other interviews refer to each other as their best friend. So we got to figure it out. Let's talk about him. What to do about Clarence Thomas. Democrats in Congress have called on Clarence Thomas to recuse himself from any cases related to the 2020 election. Of course, he has already ruled on some, including one where at

stake was releasing White House communications related to overturning the election. It was eight to one. He was the only one who voted to keep their guess. Now, a lot of legal scholars and reporters believe that Ginny's texts were not in that tranche, but he didn't know whether they were or not. We still don't know for sure if they weren't or not. Don't we think that, aren't we? Well, because they're private texts with Mark Meadows, they're not, what they ruled on was

communications between, was like official Trump communication, privilege communication. But we don't know what else is a part of it. But don't we know that these were part of the tranche Mark Meadows voluntarily gave over? Yes. So we don't know. The Ginny Thomas text. The Ginny Thomas text.

Correct. Mark Meadows. Boy, did he cause himself some problems by handing over those texts. Wow. Yeah, he did. So dumb. What have you learned over the last five years to teach you to respect the rule of law, you fucker? You can't hand over first and then obstruct second.

Okay, so back to Clarence Thomas. Okay, Clarence. Back to Clarence Thomas. So first of all, okay, let's get to the recusal in a second. First, there's a lot of like, just let's go right to impeaching Clarence Thomas. Oh, yeah, this is Twitter. Twitter is... Which I'm just like, I don't...

Sure. I mean, you and whose army are just going to impeach Clarence Thomas? The dumbest take on the internet is uh democrats need to demand that they impeach clarence thomas and that he resign and because absolutely nothing will happen if they all do that it's just a performative step and make everyone and make all your other twitter followers very happy for the crime of having a fucking shitty spouse i don't even know what that voice is that's sort of german i like i can't do it i can't do the french but again it's like all right so let's let's go through this process i still don't know exactly

precisely precisely what we're impeaching him for but uh he was you know he he knew all about it knew the effort to overthrow the election whatever let's say that happened the house impeaches him uh then it goes to the senate that what uh declined twice to convict Donald Trump himself. But they're going to be like, oh, yeah, Clarence Thomas, he's out. I feel like impeachment is now like the no-fly zone of American politics. It's like a bunch of people advocating for it, not really fully wrapping their heads around the consequences. American people hated it the last couple of times. We don't like Clarence Thomas.

Clarence Thomas should recuse himself. There should be an investigation into Clarence Thomas. Clarence Thomas should recuse himself. There should be an investigation into Clarence Thomas, either whether it's part of January 6th or part of a separate investigation. We should look at conflicts of interest between Ginny Thomas and Clarence Thomas that go beyond just her advocacy for the end of democracy, but all of her nefarious dealings. Why not do that and set the expectation around the truth as opposed to an impeachment, which we will not succeed in and we'll get the same amount of information, but just leads us down a path in which we've kind of blown this up and set an unrealizable goal. That's how I feel about it right now. I can be persuaded. That's how I feel right now. He should. I mean, the refusal is clear at this point. Jane Mayer wrote about this in The New Yorker, and she noted that, you know, Supreme Court justices aren't bound by the judicial code of contact that applies to all other federal judges,

which mandates that they recuse themselves from participating in any cases in which personal entanglements could cause a fair-minded member of the public to doubt their impartiality. But Supreme Court justices are subject to a federal law that prohibits them from hearing cases in which their spouses have, quote, an interest that could be substantially affected by the outcome of the proceeding. Yeah, that's it. That's that's Ginny Thomas. We are also constantly told about how much John Roberts cares about the integrity of the court. So to me, this is a bit of an inside game. You create a drumbeat of pressure and coverage and concern in Roberts head and among other conservatives on the court that they go to Clarence Thomas and they say, hey, buddy, this is bad. It's bad that the best friend here, if that's you, that's bad. Ginny is talking about threats to Justice Amy Coney Barrett.

What information is that based off? Who gave that to her? What is with the gap in correspondence? What is with these reporting that your wife was talking with Caroline Wren and playing peacemaker for the Stop the Steal rally people? What happened there? Like what, what is with her use of title case in text messages? Yeah. There's a lot of things. What about her claim that she left the rally early because she got chilly? You know? Yeah. That's not a good reason to leave an insurrection. No. It's also the other thing too, Clarence, baby, don't worry. You can recuse yourself. Another judge can recuse himself. You're still going to fucking win.

So don't worry. Don't worry. The court is corrupt down to its fucking foundations. You being there doesn't even matter. John Roberts should force him to recuse himself. You're right, Tommy. And the pressure from the outside has to come from the impeachment eagle. Although I think Biden was asked about this today and was like this is up to both uh the supreme court and uh

and the justice department and i was like okay well that's sure but i do think that uh the recusal is obvious here not a lot of avenues to force him to do that you're right it's not gonna mean it's got to be john roberts and his and his colleagues because i mean these supreme court justices are just like you know merrick garland removing a quill from ink, delicately calligraphy each letter of an indictment, slowly figuring out each perfect little word until he's ready to uphold the law. Send the impeachment eagle. And then soaring over Washington, the impeachment eagle. Clarence Thomas has been impeached.

On the shoulder of the Marshal of the Supreme Court. It's full circle. Together, they go get him. Alright, when we come back, I will talk... Brings us no pleasure to report. When we come back, I will talk to the President of the Service Employees International Union, Mary Kay Henry. This week, thousands of workers at Amazon warehouses in Bessemer, Alabama and Staten Island, New York,

are holding a vote on whether to form a union for better pay and working conditions. A win would mark the first ever successful organizing effort at Amazon and comes at a time when Starbucks baristas, teachers, grocery workers, professors, and even Capitol Hill staffers are organizing across the country. Here to talk about this new momentum for the labor movement, the president of the Service Employees International Union, Mary Kay Henry. Thanks for joining. Glad to be with you. So the National Labor Relations Board ordered the second election at Bessemer

after Amazon was found to have violated the law in the first election, where two-thirds of the employees voted against the union. What lessons do you think organizers have learned since that first loss? And how has the strategy changed since then? And organizers inside that warehouse understood that when Amazon added a thousand workers just before the first election, that they didn't have the time to form the relationships that are required for people to trust each other enough to take the leap to join together in the union in the face of the barrage of anti-union information that they were getting from their supervisors. And so I think the biggest lesson is kind of the art of organizing, which is connecting with workers, whether they're new or veteran, on the issues that they care about addressing and helping paint a picture of how joining together will improve the job and change people's lives.

I'd love to drill down a little more on that because I've always been curious, what are some of the most common anti-union tactics and messaging that companies like Amazon use? And then what are some messages and strategies that organizers use to get around those? that organizers use to get around those? Changing people's shifts, making it clear that the supervisor's relationship to the individual worker is going to change or threatening Amazon. They actually took it to a new level

and helped change people's assignments so they broke up work teams, which makes it harder on workers to think together about how to confront the anti-campaign. The workers were marched into captive audience meetings where the administrator of the warehouse and an outside consultant come in and talk about all the ways in which unions are bad. in and talk about all the ways in which unions are bad. And so there's lots of information that you have to get into for the leaders of the union to understand so they can quiet their co-workers' fears. You've said that no matter what the results are, this will be a victory of sorts for the labor movement. Why do you think that? I think the Bessemer workers and Staten Island workers have totally changed the conversation about who gets to join a union and that anybody in any zip code of any race should have the right to join together and bargain a better life. And I think we're seeing public support that we haven't seen since the 1960s for workers being able to join unions.

And those two warehouses are just the beginning of an uprising that's happening with Starbucks workers, airport workers, home care workers, nursing home workers, and hospital workers who understand, you know, enough is enough. We just sacrificed our lives and the lives of our families throughout this pandemic. We aren't paid living wages. A lot of those workers don't get paid sick days, for God's sake. And so that's what I think the Amazon workers have contributed to all of us. Yeah, I was just going to say, like, zooming out from these specific unionization efforts, you know, polls show that support for unions are higher than it's been in decades. And yet the percentage of Americans

who belong to a union is at an all-time low. What do you think that's all about? That there's been a concerted attack by government and management to destroy unions over the last 40 years. Scott Walker kicked a half a million people out of unions in Wisconsin through two legislative acts

that he led in Wisconsin 10 years ago. That's just the tip of the spear. And then there's been these very creative anti-campaigns by companies like Amazon and Starbucks that are having less and less effect because workers have decided, I'm not going to believe a company that calls me a partner, but then treats me like I'm an enemy when I decide to join together with my coworkers. Something's wrong with that picture. And that's why we need unions all across the economy. I'm always interested in sort of like persuasive arguments.

And I wonder, obviously, there's union activists, there's management trying to crush unions. What is sort of the most persuasive argument to a worker who may be on the fence, who may think, you know, I want better wages and better living conditions, but I'm a little worried about what this union is going to mean for me? What are sort of some of the arguments that tend to push workers over the edge? Well, I have to tell you, that was a concern pre-pandemic. But post-pandemic, if you think about the great resignation where workers have been quitting their jobs, I believe that has shifted to a great reckoning where workers are deciding to stay on their job and join together and make it a better job. And so the biggest argument is, what are you and I going to do together that's going to deal with this sinking feeling we have in our gut every day as we leave about why am I having to return to this job tomorrow? And too many workers all across the economy have that feeling.

And I think that's why this uprising is impacting workers from home care to nursing homes, to hospitals, to teachers, as you said at the very beginning. What else do you think President Biden and the Democratic Congress can realistically do to support workers' rights between now and the midterms? for workers who have the guts and courage to walk through an anti-campaign, be fired, have their shift changed, be reassigned to a different store or location in the warehouse, all the ways in which workers are being harassed and intimidated by management to discourage them for voting for the union. So continuing to publicly support unions is a key thing that President Biden and all elected officials should be doing. The second thing is they can allow for the rules to get rewritten so that workers don't have to walk through fire in order to join a union. for employers who are running these anti-campaigns, especially if they're getting federal dollars. We could tie federal dollars and investment to letting workers decide for themselves whether

or not they want to join a union. And then the third thing is we could allow for innovation in the states. We have fast food workers in California that are trying to legislate a table that gets set between the franchise owners, the workers, and the state government to deal with heat stroke that's happening in the stores and because they get burns on their arms from the grease in the fryers. And so there's so many ways in which government can back workers being able to join together in unions as we see more and more strikes and militant action happening by workers who want to change their lives. Last question for you. Poll after poll shows that a majority of Americans rank the economy, inflation, living standards, wages as their top issues. Polls also show majority support for higher

minimum wage, more affordable health care and child care and elder care. But it's still rare to see kitchen table economic issues really break through the media coverage or the national political debate, even among some Democratic activists and politicians. Why do you think that is and how do we change that? I think the workers that are uprising are changing it. I think the minimum wage debate changed in this country because of the fearlessness and courage of fast food workers who had the audacious demand of 15, 10 years ago. And now we're talking about 15 being too low and that there needs to be a higher standard. And now we're talking about 15 being too low and that there needs to be a higher standard. And I think likewise on workers being able to join unions and deal with those kitchen table issues, worker organizing is going to inject that into the political debate like no other time in history. Excellent. Mary Kay Henry, thank you so much for joining us. Take care, and thanks for all your good work.

Thank you. All right, before we go, if your NCAA bracket is already busted, rest assured, we have a new bracket for you. Tommy, take it away. Welcome back to our second annual March Badness bracket. Guys, this is a totally original, wildly

innovative concept where we take an NCAA tournament bracket, we insert Republicans instead of basketball teams, and we have them compete. How do we come up with this stuff? How do we come up with it? I don't know. Okay, couple notes. This is just a joke. Don't take it seriously or yell at us on Twitter. But when we're done, go to the Pod Save America Twitter feed if you want to vote yourself and show us why we're wrong.

Can we take it seriously with each other and yell at each other? Yes, please. Okay. Here's how March badness works. I've selected eight teams for you guys to choose from, the awful eight. You will debate amongst yourselves and choose the winner of a matchup between two teams in each of the four regions, West, East, South, and Midwest. In some cases, I'll tell you the results of a play-in game

and how we got to the awful eight because again, we're just having fun here. But last year, I forgot. I'm so worried that some people are going to take this out of context. Does it affect your congressional bid? Have you ever... What are you worried about?

What do you think is going to happen? Have you been on the internet? worried about? What do you think's gonna happen? Have you been on the internet? Yeah, it sucks. Last year, I forgot to come up with the tie-breaking mechanism. This year, I'm just gonna cast a vote if you guys are split. Perfect.

Oh, great. I like that. Or we could do rock, scissors, paper. We can do that, too. We're gonna start out in the West, okay? So with our sixth seed, we have a man who has ties to every kind of extremist group.

A man who is so toxic, so extreme, that six of his siblings cut a campaign ad against him. I'm talking about America's creepiest fascist dentist, Paul Gosar. Wow, good one. Real like little shop of horrors. Yeah, he's out there. He's out there. He's one of the worst for sure.

Timely reference. Terrible personality. Five Seat has been described by a local newspaper as the flat earth society of local politics. They were trying to get early voting declared unconstitutional in a state where 90% of voters use it. I am talking about the Arizona Republican Party.

Oh, man. With an interstate rivalry here. One of the worst ones of all the states. So guys, what do you think? Some people think that Paul Gosar is an asset on the court because he'll do anything to stop this deal. John. Or will you advance the Arizona GOP, who are best known for paying the cyber ninjas $6

million to tweak the over under in the vote total? I have a strong feeling about this. It's interesting. Let me think. I want to hear your strong feeling. But here's what I'm thinking. First of all, the Arizona Republican Party actually helped prove that Joe Biden won by a few more votes than they had originally intended. So they've done some good work.

The question I think here is, do you hate the player or do you hate the game? You know what I mean? Is that the question? It is. It is. It is. Paul Gosar, just recently, we spoke about it right here on this program. Was it a Thursday episode?

No, I don't believe so. I think you were here. Cool. I think you were here. Spoke at a white nationalist rally with Nick Fuentes. Marjorie Taylor Greene was the focus because she was there physically, but he zoomed in. He zoomed into the rally. It's a white astronaut.

They were cheering Putin, cheering the invasion, cheering Russia. Who do you think was in that crowd? You don't think members of the Arizona Republican Party were in that crowd? Yeah, but as you said, they actually did help make it clear that Joe Biden won the election. It's time to vote. I'll go with Paul Gosar. I'm going to go with Gosar. Double Gosar.

Okay. We got Gosar. Our matchup in the East pits old versus new. So our three seed is a dual threat to democracy. She storms the Capitol. He shreds the constitution and they both pretend that they don't talk about it i'm of course talking about justin's clearance thomas and his wife stop the steel ginny uh i know a fun fact about jenny thomas her maiden name is

lamp what uh we got an old school old school power couple traditional style offense with lots of back door cuts right into the capital uh tremendous backcourt you know they distribute the conspiracy theories he finishes them you get it so there was a play-in game to get us to the eighth seed so out of the far east we had vladimir putin you guys know his pedigree story program blue blood but putin got beat up by an undersized opponent in the conference tournament and ended up losing to Dr. Mehmet Oz. What? I know this is surprising, but step back and think about it, guys.

In America, Putin is basically a moderate Republican. A miracle on the ice. He's kind of a rhino. Meanwhile, Dr. Oz is peddling shady supplements, and he embraced the anti-vax community while Putin tried to make his own vaccine. Big time no-no. Wait, I thought we were pink when i'm a genie that's a playing game motherfucker so who do we choose out of the east the thomases a power couple a political dynasty or a media darling named dr oz who's been profiting

off of his name image and likeness for decades i don't think this is hard i don't think it's hard genie thomas they're so hot right now they're so hot right now this is a content this is a game come on there's more content out of the thomas i love it I love it no squeeze out of us no upsets yet okay about to quit Janine Clarence are what do you what are the ones with uh with Bonnie and Clyde they're Bonnie and Clyde I love it coming out of the south this coming out of the south we got a creepy old guy who just won't go away weird Weird hair dye. Authoritarian vibes. He's demanding one last ride, even though everyone wishes he would just retire. I am not talking about Coach K.

I'm talking about Donald Trump. He's our one seed. You'll get these jokes eventually. We got a tough matchup for him. No, no Coach K? You didn't get it? Okay. Wow, that's tough.

I just damn well need him. Okay. With the four seed out of the South, we have got the rest of florida dead-eyed ronda santas gutless marco rubio human spray tan matt gates rick scott the don't say gay bill this crew they can spread out they play his own defense and they smother you with bullshit you know what so who we got here is the og see he's selfish old man who thinks it's all about him or his disciples who are out there doing the work.

They're crashing the school boards. They're getting dunked on on and off Twitter, despite some lingering concerns about underage recruiting and diaper dandies, if you know what I'm talking about. But what do you think? I think I know where John's head is at. And I will just say, give a country a Trump. You'll have a Trump for four years. Teach a country to Trump. you'll have Trumps forever. So I vote for Florida.

I vote for Florida too. I knew you would. Also, it's like, what's a NCAA tournament without a big upset early on? It's good. These Florida Republicans. Huge upset. Trump goes down in the first round. The Duke of this thing is out.

It's 2022. How about that? How about that? They deny the existence of COVID. They'll deny you at the rim. They cut down basketball nets and social safety nets. Wait, you know what I'm realizing? Tommy's just spitting out all of these lines he's worked on all day,

and we're just talking over it. I can't do the interview, John. I got work to do. John, you got to take the interview about unionization. I got to focus on this. I got bits. I got lines. I'm busy.

I'm a busy man. Okay. Last section here. Midwest. I want just to warn you guys. This bracket is just soul-crushingly awful. The dregs of humanity down here in the Midwest. So it was an all-Ohio play-in game to get us to our two seats.

Oh, you love this. You love the Ohio primary. Yale alum, venture capitalist turned populist J.D. Vance faced off against stone cold idiot, Josh Mandel. Now JD, shameless liar, tweets are insufferable, whines about tech companies, takes Peter Thiel's money. But Mandel got the win after he tried to beat up a senior citizen at a US Senate debate. And in this tournament, it's about who wants it more. So he will face off. Mandel will face off against our seventh seat this person is absolutely insufferable we're talking about tyler hansborough meets wojo all in one you don't know

anyone slaps the court fist bumps insurrectionist i would describe him as slightly more tolerable than ted cruz so interested in talking about josh holly. Holly, he handily defeated the Michigan kidnappers to get here mostly because I'm pretty sure I can't joke about them. So we got Josh Mandel. He's a bruiser in the paint, handles on the court, but a tenuous grip on reality, or Josh Holly, because if you think about it,

the insurrection was the ultimate buzzer beater. Jesus. Good job. You know what good job glad i took the interview and you really worked hard on this hey hey guys it was a long a block too i just want you to know it was a blast what do we got i i feel holly i feel holly too i think i think i think mandel because i don't think we have enough uh in like true insurrectionists in the final actually i got gosar so that's gonna be interesting yeah well it's just sort of like holly got to be an insurrectionist because he had chops mandel doesn't yeah we don't even know if mandel's getting out of that primary yeah yeah zuri called um josh holly the doofus whisperer which i thought was really funny so uh your fascist four is Paul Gosar,

the Thomas family, the rest of the Florida GOP, and Josh Hawley. This is a good four. Good form. Solid four. And also it captures a range, I think. Now, don't forget to vote on your own fascist four on the Pod Save America Twitter feed.

But also the serious part of this is that Vote Save America is officially launching Midterm Madness, our plan to help you find the best ways to volunteer, organize, and donate as we head into the fall. In 2020, we launched Adopt the State. In 2022, we're asking you to sign up for a region like the bracket. Get it? It's a theme. Here's how it works.

Go to votesaveamerica.com slash midtermmadness. Pick a region, east, south, midwest, and west. And Vote Save America will send targeted actions every week along with updates on what's happening on the ground. Go sign up. Pick a region. Sign the fuck up.

Pick a region. Come on. VoteSaveAmerica.com slash midtermregions. We're all picking regions. We're all picking regions. What are you going to go with? I haven't figured out yet. This is the first time I've thought about it.

You know, it's like ancestral home. Right, or like stuff you can do in person. Oh yeah, that's also true. New home, ancestral home. Yeah, it's tough. We'll figure it out. The three of us and Dan will have to split it up. Yeah, we'll figure it out. Okay. All right. Well, thank you for that in person. Oh yeah, that's also true. New home, ancestral home. Yeah, it's tough. We'll figure it out. The three of us and Dan will have to split it up.

Yeah, we'll figure it out. Okay. All right. Well, thank you for that, Tommy. That was fantastic. Thank you to Mary Kay Henry of SEIU for joining us to talk about unionization efforts.

And thanks to everybody for praying for Clarence Thomas. We got him out of there. Thanks to the Thomases and thanks to everyone who offered takes about the Oscars. Yep, yep.

You did it. Decline comments. Yep, yep. You did it. Decline comments. Bye, everyone. Hot Save America is a Crooked Media production. The executive producer is Michael Martinez. Our senior producer is Andy Gardner Bernstein. Our producer is Haley Muse, and Olivia Martinez is our associate producer.

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