Pod Save America - Let Them Eat Cheesecake

Episode Date: October 27, 2026

Campaigning in Michigan, Barack Obama says Donald Trump's White House renovations look like "Saddam Hussein opened a Cheesecake Factory" — touching off many rounds of fake conservative outrage. Jon, Tommy, and Lovett discuss Trump's reaction to the comparison and other news from the campaign trail, including Trump's public praise for Nicki Minaj's ass, Obama's response the anti-Muslim rhetoric targeting Abdul El-Sayed, and Mike Rogers's evasive performance on Meet the Press. Then the guys turn to the Department of Justice's preemptive attempt to invalidate the results of the Alaska Senate race, Democrats making the midterm election a referendum on the administration's handling of the Epstein files, and Trump's record-breaking Truth Social post — a 1,300-word tirade against Bill Maher.Hate listening to ads? Become a Friends of the Pod subscriber for ad-free episodes of Pod Save America, Pod Save the World, Lovett or Leave It, Runaway Country, Offline with Jon Favreau, and more—plus exclusive content, including bonus episodes of Pod Save America. Subscribe now at crooked.com/friends, on Apple Podcasts, or through the Pod Save America YouTube channel.You can request a transcript by emailing [e-mail]. Include the podcast name, episode title, and air date. Please allow 48 hours for delivery.

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that's simplysafe.com slash crooked. And when you order, please enter Podsafe America in the checkout survey. It lets them know we sent you and it really helps support the show. Simply Safe, ahead of crime in real time. Welcome to Podsafe America. I'm John Favra. I'm John Lovett. I'm Tommy Vitor.

On today's show, we got Barack Obama hitting the trail for Democrats. Cheesecake Factory discourse. More ass play from Trump. More anti-Muslim bigotry from Trump. More election meddling from Trump, this time in Alaska. The return of Jeffrey Epstein as a political issue. issue and the president's longest truth social post ever. Was it?

About his breakup with Bill Maher. Was it really the longest ever? CNN counted, according to CNN. Now, they are fake news. I mean, I wouldn't. I was with Daniel Dale on this one. So we got lots to talk about today, but first, cricket cons coming up right after the midterms, November 5th through 7th.

You're going to want to be there because everyone else is going, and you just don't want to miss out on what happens. It's going to be a lot going on. Our Potsave America Live show is sold out, but there are still a few tickets left for, love it or leave it and strict scrutiny on Friday night. We also just published the official schedule for Saturday, November 7th, at crookedcon.com. There are more than 25 different conversations planned. I'm hosting one on the future of the Democratic brand that includes

Chris Van Hollen, Sarah McBride, and Milak Kuros. What about you guys? So I'm doing two panels. I'm doing one with Jerusalem Demsus and Derek Thompson and Fas Shakir. We're going to talk about why liberalism has become cringe, whether or not it can be saved, whether the challenge from the left means it should be replaced. And we're going to live out. We're going to pivot left. It's going to be a fun time. Cool. And I'm going to do a panel with a bunch of strategists who are on the 2026 campaigns right now about what worked, what did it work, what was exciting in those races, what annoyed the fuck out of them in those races. It's going to be great. Nice. Ben and I are going to do a little positive world action. Get ready for that with a focus on what Democrats should do

in terms of oversight if we win back Congress, knock on wood, everyone knock on wood. And then I'm going to host a debate about U.S. policy towards Israel, specifically what the Democrats should be saying and doing. Something light. No trip wires there, guys. Yeah. I'm sure everyone will walk away from that one, happy.

We also added to our list of attendees who are coming, Wes Moore and Mark Kelly. So we're adding names every day. So check it out cricketcon.com. Get your tickets today. And we will see you in D.C. All right. Let's get to the news.

The midterms are just. Seven days away, around 30 million ballots have already been cast. How about that? And the campaigns are in full, get out the vote mode, which means it's time for rallies with the best closer you've got. For the Democrats, that's this guy. We have never seen a president excel in straight up grifton on your dime like this. As Abdul mentioned, the guys become billions of dollars wealthier in.

office nobody disputes this how do you do that when you're supposed to be looking out for you i don't know if you've noticed but he is very focused on home renovation and then there is just gold everywhere what's what's up with the gold i mean he's got the way i was looking like saddam hussein opened the cheesecake factory i'll tell you when i saw that line i loved it i like i thought that was great. Just instantly reposed it. That is great. It didn't even occur to me that there would be a backlash or a fake bash laugh. It didn't occur to me. It didn't occur to me. You know, in the back of my mind, I kind of, I was like, there will be a few. I didn't think it would go as far as it did. I thought it would be, like now, so for those who don't know what we're talking about, because you

don't spend all your life on Twitter, the Cheesecake Factory line there ignited a discourse on Elon Musk's platform. It started with just a handful of like some of the most insufferable megatypes. You're Scott Jennings, Megan Kelly's producer, and they tried to argue that Obama was being elitist and condescending to real Americans who apparently believe that the White House should match the aesthetic of their favorite chain restaurant if it were designed by the deceased Iraqi dictator. And of course then because of the algorithm and it just snowballs and Now it's on Fox News. And then, of course, Donald Trump got a question about it today on Monday afternoon.

Let's hear what he said. For you to say it's a cheesecake factory, that just shows why you were a lousy president. I love that. I'm talking directly to Obama in the camera. Well, it really hurt his feelings. It did. It did. He got to pause.

That pause. He was really hurt. That was a response. It's like, why I'm surprised. Why didn't he take it as a compliment that it was compared to? the Cheesecake Factory because I thought that's what real, that's the top aesthetic for from real Americans. I'll tell you why it didn't occur to me that it would become one of these because I don't,

you know, a lot of these like the MAGA people are saying like, oh, it's an insult to real Americans in the rest of the country and the heartland that love Cheesecake Factory. But I have associated since my childhood, the Cheesecake Factory as the fanciest chain restaurant in the fanciest mall in town. Yes, always. It's the fancy one. Burlington Mall. That's where I'd go to the Cheesecake Factory.

Justin Hill. It's an event. You get your buzzer and you walk around the mall till your buzzer buzzes. And I get the bang, bang, chicken and shrimp since I was in high school. Krusted Chicken Romano, extra sauce. Pasta's a little dry otherwise. Can I tell you guys something? What?

As a surprise, I wanted to order Cheesecake Factory to have a bunch of apps here. Come on. I did it on DoorDash. And then it's right outside the fucking delivery zone, which is crazy because it's at the grove, which is not that far from us. Again, fancy mall. Yes, Rick Caruso's The Grove. That's where, that's the closest Jesus factory to me.

Yeah, that's Maga Flyover Country. It's the Grove of the Americana. It's close enough to my house, but when I made the delivery zone in the office, I know, so pissed. And now I really, now I need to go because we've been talking about it for two days. I know, I know. And then we were posting about it. And I was, I made a joke at my own expense that sort of hurt my own feelings,

which I referred to. I know. I was going to respond with the new joke. I'm like, he made the joke about himself. I said that my, my, I was going to order a cheesy factory to my home, which looks like a gay Saddam Hussein designed. designed a Soilhouse. And I was like, oh my God.

I really, I genuinely wrote that. And I was like, oh, John. I thought the Soil House thing was worse. That's mean. I was really mean to myself. I was like, Jesus, you worked hard to make this place look nice. Do you see they said Scott Bessent to cheesecake today for Obama? You're your 100 millionaire, hedge fund manager, like, pissy cadaver treasury secretary.

Is the least relatable guy on earth? Did you see the clip? because the tweet from Bessent says, oh, Barack Obama, I recommend the cheeseburger spring rolls. But in the answer, Scott Bessent doesn't say anything about any of the food at the cheesecake factory

because clearly, Scott Besson has never been to the fucking cheesecake factory. And his staff was like, oh, that's what we're going to put in the tweet because he didn't say it in the answer. True heroes of the cheesecake factory know that you order the egg roll sampler and you don't know which one is which

and you never find out. And there's four sauces and there's four spring rolls and you dip with wild abandon. Also, the buffalo bites so good. Like, I'm surprised they ran this play because they seem like such humorless scolds. It's just really lame. And like, everyone knows Trump has shifted the Overton window when it comes to politics and when it comes to what you can say at events. We're going to talk about another version of it in a minute.

But like Trump literally said affordability is a hoax perpetrated by the Democrats. They had a great Gatsby themed costume party at Mara Lago during the government shutdown. I think on the day snap benefits were suspended. Like the list goes on and on and on. But it's like you don't even have to get past the fact that it's like he wasn't, he specifically wasn't making fun of the cheesecake factory, let alone people who go to the cheesecake factory. He was saying that the aesthetic of the cheesecake factory, which as those who go to the cheesecake factory know, and the people who've designed the cheesecake factory have said in interviews, is purposely over the top and Gotti.

That's the whole joke. That's why I didn't understand. And the idea that most people who love the cheesecake factory would then say, I want my White House to look like that. I want the people, I want the president to spend time making the White House look like that if Saddam Hussein decided to design it. When you go to the Cheesecake Factory, and I pointed this out on social media, I am a member of Cheesecake Rewards. I'm a part of the family. When you go to Cheesecake Factory, one of the things you do is you sit down and you look around and you go, boy, this place is fucking nuts. look how crazy it is. Look how big these stupid columns are. It's like you're inside of an Egyptian

cake. That's the whole point. It's awesome. That's the aesthetic. I love Las Vegas. I like going to casinos. I like the aesthetics of casinos. I like casinos. Don't pretend there are anything other than what they are. There's no irony in the design of a casino. But I don't want the White House to look like a casino. I want the White House to look like a nice place where foreign leaders will come and Boy Scouts and so on. Did you see that Byron Tao is a reporter now at ProPublica said that his first job in D.C. was a waiter at Cheesecake. and he said he used to see Sasha and Malia Obama there all the time in the Chevy Chase one. I mean, it's...

By the way, if I'm going to a mall, I'm getting Pantexpress. You get those little meats on a stick, it's way better. Or Bertucci's, if you're in Boston. Bertucci. Jesus. I think going bankrupt. Now, that's fancy.

When I was in roles, too. There was a line that my father once said when we were driving by the Bertucci's on the island, which I've actually come to mind many times in my life. He said, no one ever goes to Bertucci's. There's always a line. You know? Yeah.

I think about that with Helm Price is, like, you know. My favorite thing about this is just like, clearly none of these fucking, like, rich pundits on the coast know what the fuck they're talking about or have been to a cheesecake factory. Like, Martha McCallum was on Fox. She, like, she couldn't even put her heart. She didn't even know what she was talking about.

She's like, and one thing about the cheesecake factory thing, it's another clinging to guns and religion moment. And this is why they lost the working class. Enough about this basket of deplorables. How about this basket of shrimp? All these same Fox host are. at least like Godi Mara Lugo parties every weekend. Like Sean Hannity's wedding was just there.

Like, it's ridiculous. There's no cheesecake vector in the island of Manhattan, and it shows. I didn't know that. Yeah. Right before we started recording, I noticed a tweet from, I'm just going to read what the person said about Barack Obama in the speech. I wouldn't dismiss what Barack Obama is doing there. Barack Obama may be the most effective Democrat politician of our lifetime.

His ability to communicate is really powerful and really dangerous. If we didn't have the 22nd Amendment, it wouldn't surprise me if Obama spent the rest of his life in the White House. Wait, wait, wait. Oh, hmm. I want to say it's someone in the Tucker world or like a Marjorie Taylor Green type. Ted Cruz. Whoa.

His podcast today. Huh? Yeah. What? Wild? Why? I know. I was like, is this right?

I like to have to listen to the whole thing. I don't know. Ted Cruz. This is a weird day in politics, I guess. It's a very weird day. It's because Ted is starting to figure out how to run against Vance. And so he's starting to find his way. Well, he says he's like, in Obama previewed in that speech, what the Democrats are going to do, what the plays they're going to run.

in 2028, corruption, not Cheescake Factory, but like corruption and all this kind of stuff. And so he's really like studying it. Well, yeah, Ted. We are. Yeah. You mean the most obvious case against the worst president history? Yeah, like the billions in crypto. In the land of the blind, you know?

Yeah. Right. It's not just the Cheesk. Woke jail for you. Oh, yeah. I'm just going to say. Come at me. Come at me. It's not just the Cheesecake Factory litmus test where Trump is proving he's a man of the people. He's barnstorming battleground states like Mississippi, Texas, Iowa,

Ohio in Florida this week. That's it. That's the final week with his famed I'm One of You message. Here's how it went over this last weekend. We're making hundreds and hundreds of billions, trillions of dollars. But my people said, please don't mention that, sir, because people are paying a little higher. We're making money like this country has never made before. So I said, let me say it very gingerly, very softly.

You just see the fake headlines. President Trump is talking about all the money they're making money. While people are suffering at the pump, that'll be the headline. But I said, I don't give a damn I'm going to say it. We'll make it a freaking fortune. By the way, I looked at one hell of a beautiful ass before, Nikki Minaj. I've been living with this whole thing about the ass. And believe me, it's of no interest in me.

Other than to say John Houston is one hell of an athlete, okay? So I'm willing to sacrifice. I'd say that about your ass too, Mike, if it gets you a guaranteed. I've been living with this whole thing about the ass. Honestly. One of his best lines. It's the, the funny thing,

like, have you seen J.D. trying to riff on ass now? He's been, he's been doing, he's been like, I won't talk about John Hustead's ass. I won't talk about it.

Not like Trump will. He can't pull it off. In the same way that Trump, look, I don't think Trump should be talking about Nikki Minaj's ass. But could you imagine if J.D. Vance said a word about Nikki Minaj's ass. I think he would walk out.

Yeah. Also, his voice, who sounds like kind of like a Fats Domino doing Blueberry Hill thing there. I liked it. But look, the risk of being on my fainting couch, I think we're all used to Trump being a little politically incorrect. I think that's kind of the appeal for a lot of people.

Him saying, this one surprised me a little bit, I think, him saying to Nikki Minaj, by the way, I looked at one hell of a beautiful ass before, that's hard to miss. And then get up, Nikki.

That's a weird thing to do. Well, I mean, there's reports now that she may be the next way. House Press Secretary, that's a real rumor. And so if, I mean, if you're going to have your White House Press Secretary, you've got to check out their ass before. Yeah, you don't become White House President Secretary in this administration without walking to the Oval and doing 360. Yeah, you can't be, you can't be getting that job without having your ass inspected by the president. Well, John Hustadt's going to need a job, too.

I will, that's funny. I will say that I will say he did set himself up if there was ever going to be a time that Donald Trump could say, Nikki Minaj, I enjoy looking at your butt. Boy, he's done all the legwork. It's as if it was all... You know what I mean? Right. It was the long play.

It's actually, well, he has been talking. It's like, you step back, you're like, I mean, it's strange to see a president just outright complimenting a celebrity's ass and asking her to show the ass to the arena. But then again, it's kind of what he's been doing with all the men. Yeah, in a way, it was misogynist to not be mentioning a woman. Right. That's fair. He's only talking about men's asses the whole time? Building to a pretty epic no homo there.

With Houston, it's all the way of being like, and this guy played football and he was good, and he thinks that's like good politics and manly and like kind of effective in Ohio. And Trump's whole like version of politics is like strength versus weakness, right? He's always doing things strongly, like using it as an adverb or it doesn't make sense.

It's really like fascist aesthetic kind of thing. Calling very strongly to my counterpart, that kind of stuff. Anyway. On the gas prices thing, Trump's obviously been saying shit like this for months. I don't give a damn we're making a freaking fortune. Does seem like the worst version to be closing with. Though maybe the political damage from high gas prices can't get any worse for Trump at this point.

All baked in. What do you think? Yeah, I think that's the gas prices versus him claiming we're making a fortune on Venezuela and oil. But also then you're like, well, he's also personally making money. Right. Like he's talking about the country. He's clearly in that moment talking about the country making money, of course. And there was a separate story.

Today we didn't say that Trump's, his stocks in oil and gas have been making quite a bit of money. Oh, good for him. So, you know, I chalk it up to, I think it's a pretty braised, like nobody's feeling like the country's making lots of money. But I just chalk it up to Trump usual kind of bragging about the economy. I think it's more of the part where he goes, oh, the gas prices are up just a little when it's actually like hurting a lot of people, including, you know, one of these events you'll see like truckers for Trump back there. And like, those are the people just absolutely getting fucking reamed because of this. Well, also, just the way he's doing it in like a mocking voice there. Yeah, that's the problem.

Oh, struggling at the pump. Which, of course, they're not offended by because they're so upset that the White House doesn't, that Barack Obama thinks that the White House shouldn't look like the cheesecake factory, that they're not even thinking about the price of gas. Yeah, the price of gas issue is probably pretty baked in. But I do think, like, when you're two weeks out, I think things that happen are like exponentially more important than things that happen two months out. And so there will be people who are late deciders who will hear this and be like, what the

fuck, man, this sucks. Or there will be candidates. We'll be doing local TV interviews and they'll get asked about those comments. They'll have to do the Trump dance and kind of like half defend what he said, but not offend their voters. So like it's not, it's not a helpful closing message. I'd be really pissed if I was the person campaigning with him. Right. Like I presumably, they've now picked a fight over whether or not the White House has been turned into a cheesecake factory and whether or not the country's making a lot of money, even though gas prices are high. I would say Donald Trump being a corrupt, distracted buffoon and the fact that the economy is hurting are probably like the two things they should be talking about, the least if I were to pick

the two things. Maybe the Iran war one more one more notch up. Remember that there was a thought like a couple months ago that maybe gas prices would like inch down by the election. I mean, we're a week away now. That's it. It's not happening. People are voting. All the moves, all the things he did, all the, you know, releasing the oil reserves, the Venezuela stuff, the Russian diesel deal, none of it. The big, interestingly, the main reason prices didn't spike more than they did was the Chinese drastically cut back their purchases of oil. No one really knows why.

Probably because they didn't want the global economy to collapse because they export all their stuff. But then they stopped doing that. They started importing more oil. And I think, frankly, I think the Iranians and the Houthis kind of made a play to spike oil prices before the midterms. Well, my guess. They nailed it.

Like Brent crude, is it like 115 today? Well, and I wonder if part of that is getting remit. Brent. Friken Brent. And Netanyahu is like apparently in a giant fight with the chief of staff of the IDF over whether not to bomb the Iranians again. And they're all, everyone assumes it's going to happen after the election. Yeah, I was sort of wondering if that's what was causing Brett to spike again.

Yeah. Pod Save America is brought you by Zbiotics. Fall brings cooler weather, busier calendars, and endless reasons to celebrate. From tailgate season to holiday parties, staying at your best means preparing for the morning after. Take Zbiotics, pre-alcohol before your first drink and wake up ready to tackle tomorrow. Zbiotics, pre-alcohol, probiotic drink is the world's first genetically engineered probiotic. It was engineered by PhD microbiologist to break down acetaldehyde, unwanted by product of alcohol metabolism. Make pre-alcohol your first drink at the night drink responsibly

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That Zbiotics.com slash crooked code crooked. Potsave America is brought to you by Helix. It is cozy season, which means everyone is staying in bed just a little longer these days. And for many of us, the longer nights and occasional sick days are making you realize that your mattress could use an upgrade. And if you're looking for an upgraded mattress, we recommend Helix. It is a great place to read in bed, watch movies, hang out, do other stuff, or just go to sleep. That's another thing you can do in your bed. They're super comfortable. They show up really fast to your house. It's affordable. We have a helix mattress at my house. Every time someone stays on it, they say, wow, it's really comfortable

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there's a darker note than more war after the midterms, Trump's also decided to ramp up the anti-Muslim bigotry in the home stretch in a way that's just stunningly grotesque, even for him. In the middle of his Michigan event for Mike Rogers, Trump invited to the stage the father of someone who died on 9-11, one of the people who was on Flight 93, and this guy then compared the election

to the horrific terrorist attack on 9-11. He said, quote, what's different this time is the enemy has not come from abroad. The enemy is right here among us, local terrorists. And then he said, Mike Rogers is an American. Abdul has a birth certificate. A birth certificate doesn't make you an American. Trump decided to be even less subtle about this in his remarks. I'm here to keep a jihadist Muslim brotherhood member from becoming a United States senator.

Any Jewish person that support this guy should be. be ashamed of themselves. I'll tell you what. If Abdul and the Democrats win, they will open the floodgates and invite hordes of jihadists to our shores, creating a nightmare of violence and terror until you cannot even have a Christmas. Anyone with that record of support for jihadists would be screened and unable to get a seat on an airplane. He would be the only senator that will have to go through a metal detector before he's allowed to go into the Senate. I want him to have a metal detector. Jesus.

Mike Rogers was, said nothing at the rally, of course, but was finally forced to answer for this on Meet the Press this weekend. Here's what he said. Do you agree with calling him a violent terrorist? He said, the guy said, are you going to answer the question? Hold on. Will you disavow? He said, yeah, absolutely.

Do you agree with calling him a violent terrorist? Is that up to your standard? No, I don't. I've never called him a terrorist. I've never called him a terrorist. This election is about me versus Abdul. That's a lie, by the way. Dave Portnoy tweeted a clip of Abdul making a joke about Michigan football and said,

this guy really is a terrorist. And Mike Rogers quote tweeted it and said, Portnoy is exactly right. Oh, yeah. That is calling him a terrorist, buddy. Like, you can't deny that. Like, what Trump is doing there, it's racist, it's big a day. But I also think it's like genuinely putting Abdul's safety and life at risk.

Yes. Because he calls him an enemy. He calls him a jihadist. He does an event with Todd Beamer, right? He was the hero of 9-11. But the suggestion is that Abdul is, like, like a 9-11 hijacker, that Abdul's al-Qaeda. And Trump said 25 years later, Michigan needs to stand up and fight just like Todd did

to stop a jihadist. So kill them. And like, it's an overt call for violence. And U.S. presidents, they kill enemies. U.S. presidents kill jihadists. Nothing about that is acceptable or backed up by the facts. And like all the Republicans who blamed the Democratic Party in the rhetoric from Democrats after the assassination attempts on Trump and who blamed Democrats.

for Charlie Kirk's assassination are silent on this. Just silent. So Donald Trump says there that any Jew would be ashamed to vote for Abdul, and there's a debate among Jews in Michigan about whether to vote for Abdul. I just want to be very clear. Jews in Michigan have a moral obligation to support Abdul. They should do it to protect themselves from anti-Semitism and rising hatred in America. And if that sounds confusing to you at all, you should imagine two futures, one in which

there is a debate inside the Democratic Party about America's relationship to Israel, military aid for Israel, and anti-Semitism on the left, which is real. That is a big and important debate we could have to try to find places of agreement, a grace, a places of consensus. There can be persuasion and argument and hard feelings, but there can be democracy. On the other, you have this kind of politics on the right, where it is about dominance and hatreds and othering of people. It starts with Muslims.

He does it for trans people. He does it for immigrants. He does it for Haitians, eating the dogs and the cats. If you think that that doesn't end with Jews, you are out of your fucking minds. A country where this kind of politics is rewarded is a country where Jews are less safe. And anyone who has allowed their own concerns and legitimate concerns about Abdul to cloud that ultimate larger point is missing the big picture here. Jews in America are safety. is based around the idea that there's a society in which we can have arguments and disagreements,

but we respect those differences. Trump does not believe in that. And we need to have a check on Donald Trump in a Democratic Senate. And maybe Abdul is not your cup of tea. Maybe Abdul is going to be a reliable vote against Israel. Fine. We can handle that, but we cannot handle a continued slide to this hateful authoritarian right. It will be dangerous for us.

Yeah. I would just add that like, you know, people say, well, it's not because he's Muslim. It's because of all these ties to the Muslim Brotherhood, blah, blah, blah. The latest thing is like, apparently Abdul signed this open letter to the new Egyptian president. This is after the Arab Spring, after Hosni Mubarak was overthrown, the dictator there. And this is somehow now evidence, according to Mike Rogers, not Donald Trump, because Donald Trump doesn't know anything. He's just like, he's a terrorist. But Mike Rogers is trying to do the whole connection thing.

And this is what people are hanging. I've heard this from a few people. Like, what about, what about this letter? What about the mother? I hear that he won't answer questions about the Muslim Brotherhood. Like, I've heard this from people who are, you know, very engaged, smart people who are just, like, asking questions about this. Yeah, and I don't know if we're going to play that clip, but Mike Rogers gets asked about

comments he made about the Muslim Brotherhood, which is basically about trying to find moderating forces within the Muslim Brotherhood that the U.S. could work with, which, again, like, ironically, like, neither Abdul nor Rogers are saying things that are all that radical at the time. because the chronology, as you said, it's like, we're at the beginning of the Arab Spring. Mubarak gets tossed in February 2011. There's parliamentary elections, the mother brotherhood is really well. And then the presidential election is in 2012.

Mohamed Morsi is the democratically elected president of Egypt. It's a big deal. Interestingly, he's an engineer who went to USC for a bit and then taught at Cal State Northbridge for a few years. So the West is like, okay, maybe we could work with this guy. He brokers, he, Morsie helped broker a ceasefire in Gaza in 2012. I don't remember that. So he was like immediately seen as this helpful actor on the world stage, but then he made this big power grab, the economy collapsed.

He's deposed in a brutal coup, and the military has been in charge ever since. So the letter of Abdul signed was like purge the media, purged the police of the Mubarak regime loyalists because everyone thought that they were going to stage a coup. And that ultimately is what happened. And the quote that Rogers gets read by Welker that he said in like 2012 is again trying to find someone in Morsi's government to work with to kind of maintain the U.S. Egypt relationship. So both of them are being like eminently reasonable given the context and the politics of the time. I think Rogers is ultimately probably thrilled to see a military coup happened because then the people of Egypt have no say in their political future anymore. And all the intel and security officials, you know, that the intel community knew are back in charge.

It's all just like, it's very specious. It's all guilt by association. And then there's Abdul's mom who may or may not have been in the MB at one point, but like they didn't really have a relationship. No, and was doing like charity work for orphans when she was part of this organization, you know, back in Missouri. And again, he never like lived. It's just the idea that we are like family members that Abdul didn't live with that aren't Abdul.

We're now like, he has to like answer for everything they've ever done or said, every tweet they've ever done, every letter he's ever signed. even though it says the same thing that most members of Congress were saying at the time as well, Democrats and Republicans, it's so fucking absurd. And it is designed just to be like, if you're someone who wants an excuse and someone's like, don't be anti-Muslim, an anti-Muslim bigot, don't be Islamophobic. And you say, well, no, no, I'm not, it's not because he's Muslim. It's because he's tied to this organization. And so you throw out little crumbs, right, of like, well, there is this connection. And then you just hope that people aren't don't know about the history or aren't going to research it, that they just say, I don't know. He seems extreme. Yeah, that's it. That's what the whole thing is based on. Yeah, and and all Italians are mobbed up and all Catholics have dual loyalties. Like this is all very old that that Jews can't be trusted. They're not really Americans, right? This idea that, oh, sure, Abdul has a birth certificate, but he's not a real American. Like that is the exact same kind of shit that has been directed

at Jews and other minority groups for a very, very long time. And people really need to wake up Whatever your concerns are with Abdul, you can talk about them, you can debate them, you can try to persuade him, you can accept or not accept the apologies given for statements that I think were wrong and stupid and bad. But to pretend that what this is isn't the greater threat is, I think, to have your head in the sand and to allow your bad feeling and to become a kind of privilege. In that same interview, Amit the press, Rogers also had to defend an association that might end up being a lot more politically damaging. than any ties to the Muslim Brotherhood. Let's listen. Do you consider yourself to be a MAGA Republican? Listen, I'm going to tell you this is, I get you guys on the national press,

but this is a little bit disgusting to me. Congressman, can you answer my question? No, your campaign. Are you a MAGAR Republican? I've already answered the question, Kristen. That's just what I want to know. Do you consider yourself to be a MAGAR Republican? Kristen, let me, I'm going to go right back through this.

Is a vote for you a vote for the Trump agenda? I'm apologizing. I'm having some difficulty in my earpiece, but is a vote for you. I'm not sure. I'll tell you what a vote for me is. It's a great day for the state of Michigan. The question I heard is Abdul and the Muslim Brotherhood. Great question, Kristen. It's so easy to answer that and not be like a petulant baby. Like I'm a Mike Rogers Republican. So easy. I mean. Like, are you going to vote for the agenda that's going to help the people of Michigan? Like, you don't have to be a petulant little baby. Yeah, but here's the thing. Like, he's having Trump. He needs. needs the MAGA people to show up and think he's part of the team. He really is in a bind. Yeah, but they're not watching Meet the Press. Just like the clip will go viral.

Don't get a baby about it. Yeah, well, he doesn't want Mr. Trump to hear. Yeah, right. Bad for Mr. Trump to hear. Bad for the clip to go around. Pod Save America is brought you by Nutraful. Sometimes upgrading your wellness routine doesn't require a full overhaul. It's just about narrowing it to one thing you can gradually and sustainably improve.

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$15 off your first month subscription and free shipping when you visit Nutraful.com and enter promo code Crooked. That's Nutraful.com, spell, N-U-T-R-A-F-O-L.com promo code Crooked for $15 off. Be sure to use our code to support our show. On election night, we will all be feeling a lot of feelings. Do not spend it alone. Spend it with me, Alex Wagner for Crooked Media presents live election results.

We're going to have John Favre, John Lovett, Tommy Vitor, Stacey Abrams, Dan Pfeiffer, Aaron Ryan, and many more special guests. to be announced, and they're all going to help us make sense of what's happening as the election results roll in. So here's what you need to do. Subscribe to Pod Save America on YouTube and tune in on Tuesday, November 3rd at 9 p.m. Eastern, 6 p.m. Pacific for hot takes, catharsis, and as many results as we can possibly analyze. So Abdul and his campaign have been obviously pushing back on these anti-Muslim attacks for most of the campaign. He did get some help from Obama during the event in Michigan. Let's listen.

We have seen this movie before. I starred in it. I've got a long-form birth certificate to prove it. This stuff didn't work on me, not in Michigan. It's not going to work on Abdul. Imagine the power duo of Abdul and Alyssa. You've got a Muslim man. You've got a Jewish woman fighting for you in the United States Senate.

That's something Michigan you can be proud of. So I thought that was a good way of handling it from Obama. Like, Abdul's campaign, this is the challenge here. Like, obviously they want to focus closing message on cost of living issues. Rogers being tied to, you know, Donald Trump, MAGA, who's going to be Trump's vote in the Senate. To what extent do you think they also have to deal with these attacks? Because this is the tension every day in the campaign. You're like, we don't want to have another day on this, but also they're hearing things from, you know, it's like.

You've got to take it out on. I think you can't just do this as a distraction. I think you sound like you're ducking. And I think we learned this the hard way with Obama. I mean, there was a period of time when the birther stuff, the questions about whether or not he'd been born in the United States was like email forwards and seen as the subterranean smear campaign. And we had to take it head on. We like built a, it seems sort of hokey now, but built a website, stop the smears.com to like fully take on these charges. And I think Abdul has to speak directly to these attacks.

I think Republicans have made the election about Abdul. He would rather it be about Trump and the mega-john. agenda and Mike Rogers being a rubber stamp for that. But voters in Michigan are getting inundated with ads and articles and, you know, clips about, you know, mother's motherhood or whatever it might be. And he used to speak to it because the late deciders are getting this information now and they're paying attention now. And so it's unfair and it's bigoted, but I think that was an effective way to push back from Obama. I think part of it is a duel like broying out and talking about football and talking about going to Michigan. But Obama is saying they tried this shit on me,

you know, they're going to try to do it to him, but there's nothing radical about, you know, universal health care. Like, it's a good pivot. Yeah. Yeah, clearly, like, Obama spent a lot of that speech trying to do the consolidation work, right? He's trying to make an argument to get whatever is that subset of black voters in Michigan, some Haley Stevens voters, some Jewish voters, whoever, that just don't feel totally comfortable yet with Abdul to come on board and to make the best, to tell the best story about why they should and why they should see themselves as people that should be excited to be part of that, even if right now they're not. And I think what Rogers is doing, right, this fearmongering does two things for him. One, it is about trying to get some maybe disaffected

or unenthusiastic Republicans to show up and to keep some of those Democrats or potential Democratic voters to stay home. So he gets to do one thing. And that one thing does both of the things that he needs to do. And so Abdul has a bit of a harder job because it requires kind of making two different cases. Yeah. And I think, you know, I saw there was an ad from Abdul over the last couple of weeks where it's just an ad about his faith. And it's a little broader than like answering the specific charges. But I think you're right, Tommy, like they just, in the final week when people are looking for information, as they're about to go into the voting booth, you kind of need to knock down the specific stuff's breaking through. I mean, you've got to speak to it. You just can't let it go.

Yeah. One more thing on Michigan, you know, a ton of state Democrats are out there campaigning for Abdul, but there are some notable exceptions. Here's his primary opponent, Haley Stevens, on CNN this weekend. You're still fully behind, Abdul Al-Sahed? Look, I'm on the Democratic ticket. You know, I can't say that I agree with everything that's gone on. I'm not looking to be front and center right now. I'm looking to be on the team to support, you know, my next governor, Jocelyn Benson. And frankly, these great Democrats who are working their tails off, who are going to make Hakeem Jeffries the first black Speaker of the House. You didn't mention Abdul Ossahed in that last answer.

Well, look, I would just say you had asked me if I'm still on the team. I'm on the team. So Stevens did endorse Abdul, of course, as soon as the prime, like right as the primary ended. She said at the time, you know, the time for the disunity is over. She made a strong case against Mike Rogers. I remember, like, we were all saying right after that primary was over, like, wow, very gracious of Haley Stevens. That's like exactly, you know, really like stepping up there. this was kind of a confusing shift in tone from her.

Like I didn't quite get it. What did you guys make of it? Yeah, it's strange, right? Because she's already endorsed. So a statement like this doesn't make you less for him. It just makes you less helpful, right? Like, okay, you're on the team, but you're just not interested in being very good as a teammate, right? You're just, you're, I'm on the team, but I'm not like super committed to helping my team win or anything.

Right? So I like find it strange because if she thinks that's going to, like, if she, if she, if there's some specific thing she wants from Abdul in order to become a better endorser. The time for that has long since passed, right? So there's no strategic benefit to doing this in the week before the campaign. Like she's registering some dissatisfaction with some specific things she'd like him to do differently. Instead, it's just kind of feeding this idea that there's democratic disunity. And no matter what happens, she will still in the future be very much tagged with being associated with Abdul if that's her concern.

So it's of no value and only harm to me. Yeah, I just don't understand why, like, if you don't have, if you knew that if you don't want to be out there saying, of course, I support Abdul. And just because I'm out on the campaign trail doesn't mean I don't support him 100%. Don't do interviews. Right. Do you want to lose? Because if you're going to do an interview. Can you get asked?

Unless that was the intention to knowing that you were going to be asked to say that, in which case, that's not great. Do you want to seem like you want him to win, but actually you want him to lose? She was on CBS and she was asked, are you going to campaign side by side with a duel? And she said, whatever he wants me to do. It's like, did something, I wonder if something changed? Yeah, that's what I. Was there some falling out? Did they not do their politics well enough on the outside campaign?

I don't know. It was odd. Yeah. But I would, like, you know. Does seem like the worst of all worlds for him politically. Yeah. And to echo what you said, love it. Like, we're in the final week here.

And it's like, you know, whatever reservations people have about Abdul, I think we just, if you're a Democrat or an independent or anyone who finds what Trump said, they're odious and what Rogers has been doing, doing odious, then like, you know, I would, I would urge you to lock in just for the final week and help because I think that whatever reservations you may have, what they're doing is far, far worse. And I'll be cynical for one second. I don't think what I was saying before were cynical. I sincerely believe it.

Let's be cynical. You want to either help him lose or not be needed to help him win? Great. That's helpful. Yeah. I think there's also some people who are like, well, I think we could win the Senate and just lose Michigan, you know? That's, no, no, no.

Like, it is very, all the possible outcomes, there's a very possible outcome where we come one Michigan Senate seat short of losing the Senate. And then will you feel like happy that you left it blank for Senate, you know, that you didn't vote for Rogers, but you left it blank because you had, like, I don't think you'll feel good about that when we're like, you know, nominating a replacement for when Trump is nominating a replacement for fucking Sam Alino in the spring. Have your Senate to eat it too, huh? All right. As we get closer to election day, Trump is also trying to use. every lever of power at his disposal to screw with the outcome. Just before we recorded this on Monday afternoon, Trump posted that he's offering a $1 million reward for anybody reporting voter fraud in the past elections or the upcoming 2026 midterm election payable when the person behind the fraud is convicted.

First of all, does anyone think they're getting that money? What's the process for submitting these claims do you think? So now we're doing citizens arrests? What are we doing? Do you email Todd Blanche directly? Who's going to vet these things? How do I get paid out? How do you know?

Because I'm going to start submitting some ideas. This is like vigilantee shit. We're just asking neighbors to go, like, report on your neighbor who you don't like. Send a tip in to the DOJ that they might be an illegal voter. Can I tell you? I've had a theory about this, which I'll share here. So there was a point during the rise of fascism in Germany where at some point the- point the...

Okay. Yep. It's an analogy. Just everybody fucking deal with it. We're all adults, all right? where the Gestapo had to tell people, hey, we're getting way too many reports on our neighbors. We can't follow up on all these leads. You all hate all your neighbors.

They're all being disloyal. Can you please be more discerning because you're all ratting on each other a little too much? And we just don't have the bandwidth to follow up on all these fucking reports. And I was thinking about just, like, clearly there is this, they really want people to be reporting on undocumented people, on reporting on their neighbors. And maybe it's happening more than it's being reported. But so far, they just haven't had that kind of groundswell, right? We're just not seeing that as driving deportations.

It's not a big part of the story, right? And I sometimes wonder if the kind of social media policing of each other, tattletailing, video each other at fucking sweet greens and pink berries. And they were mean to me at the airport, all this filming. It's a strange little release valve for whatever that impulse is in our society right now, whatever that feeling is that things are so unfair and I must have justice all the time and report on people on the only one following the rules. And so they try to find this sort of energy, but it's actually being spent with what they would call cancel culture or kind of like each other policing each other with our phones. And so they don't get the, they don't get the juice from it.

That's just my little theory about it. It's so weird. I mean, maybe, or they could just be trying to, it's just voter suppression. They want people who think they might be seen as, you know, fraudulently elected because they're a person of color or recent immigrant or whatever. just to stay home and not risk it because no one wants to get sent to, you know, sea cot or whatever. Yeah. And I'll tell you that from the, you can't really tell a lot about the early vote in terms of

like who's voting for who, but the Latino turnout is breaking some records in Texas already. So I do not think this is necessarily working so far. They also just came out with a bunch of people that they're charging for voting illegally as non-citizens, right? They're also just looking for the, even if it's just a few, it's examples that proves their point that there's rampant fraud. Yeah. Positive America is brought to you by the

Stateside Podcast from The Guardian. Listeners of the show know by now that we're headed to the second annual CrookedCon November 5th through 7th at Washington, D.C. We have lots of amazing talent joining us, including folks from The Guardian, like Kai Wright and Carter Sherman, will be telling us about their new podcast

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On election night, we will all be feeling a lot of feelings. Do not spend it alone. Spend it with me, Alex Wagner, for Crooked Media Presents Live Election Results. We're going to have John Favreau, John Lovett, Tommy Vitor, Stacey Abrams, Dan Pfeiffer, Aaron Ryan, and many more special guests to be announced. And they're all going to help us make sense of what's happening

as the election results roll in. So here's what you need to do. Subscribe to Pod Save America on YouTube and tune in on Tuesday, November 3rd at 9 p.m. Eastern, 6 p.m. Pacific for hot takes, catharsis, and as many results as we can possibly analyze. Another thing they're doing is in Alaska.

The Justice Department has filed a lawsuit there to prevent the election from being certified if, and I'm quoting from the lawsuit here, one, Senator Dan Sullivan does not win the election, and two, had all votes cast for Daniel J. Sullivan been cast instead for Senator Sullivan, and Alaska's ranked choice process played out accordingly, Senator Sullivan would have won the election. So, just to catch everyone up who needs it on this, someone with Senator Dan Sullivan's name, named Daniel J. Sullivan,

will be on the ballot as one of the top four primary vote getters, along with Democrat Mary Poltola. DOJ is arguing that if Senator Dan Sullivan loses because of the votes that may mistakenly go to other Dan Sullivan, the election should not be certified. And if you're wondering whether the lawsuit is the result of elections experts at DOJ, simply following the facts as they see them, here's your answer. And he's off of the Alaska lawsuit with the challenge. Well, I'm the one that said do it. At least let him use the name Senator Dan Sullivan as opposed to incumbent because a lot of people

don't know what incumbent means. I know you say it's not fair with his name being. on the ballot, but how is it illegal? I think it's illegal because it's unfair. If it's unfair, you don't, you want fairness in voting. Honestly, so insightful from him. It is how he thinks.

Well, things that I think are unfair, of course, illegal. And if I think it's fair, it's legal. That's it. There's no laws. I'll make a deal right now. If they can say that votes for the wrong Dan Sullivan don't count, then we get to go back and count all those fucking Pat Buchanan

votes from 2000, by those old Jews from the Alda caccas in Palm Beach. And we get to install Al Gore immediately. That's right. We reverse all of us. We all get to go back. We go back. Yeah, I'm not, I don't think this is, I don't think this is the best legal work of the Trump administration.

We're going to cancel the votes of the Dan Sullivan we don't like without it being able to know who voted for who and for what reason after the fact because we don't like the outcome. If they would like to get Dan's their wrong, their wrong, Dan Sullivan removed, they had their chance to do that. It didn't work. Yeah. I think that's the legal challenge that they face here is that state litigation already addressed the second L. Sullivan's eligibility. And the ballot, as Trump referenced, does identify Dan Sullivan as the incumbent and Daniel J. Sullivan is not the incumbent. Which is a word a lot of people know. More and more these days, I think, know what that word means.

So as many who know that the dumb is spelled D-U-M-B. Yeah. Yeah, the Alaska Supreme Court did rule that he could be on the ballot. It's funny, too, because he could just be kind of out there saying, don't forget to vote for the right Dan Sullivan. This is Donald Trump reminding you to vote for the right Dan Sullivan. And I guess this is in a way going to get that out there a little bit. But what do you call when it bounces off the backboard?

Ritchie? Backboard? Bank shot? Bank shot. Nice. It's a bank shot. That's what that is. Yeah.

Big shot. Hell yeah. Some good news, bad news for the Comey family today. Good news. Thorns and Roses. Uh-huh. Good news. The court found that Maureen Comey's termination, James Comey's daughter, was unlawful from the

termination from the DOJ, and it violated her rights under the Civil Service Reform Act, and they granted reinstatement and back pay. I'm sure she wants to take that job. The bad news, James Comey facing. indictment in D.C. for alleged disclosure of classified information. That is not a repeat headline. You were not hearing an old episode. This is now the third time, apparently. They have tried to, they're indicting James Comey. That's just, it's so fucked up. So fucked up. Is it the same underlying substance? Or are they saying you disclosed something else that was also classified? Well, no, the first one was perjury in the, was false statements during the testimony or whatever.

The second one was the seashell threat. Oh, I'm sorry. You're right. forgot about the big C-Shelter. Yeah, John Bolton was the classified info, right? Yeah, sorry. And then this now one, now they finally got him on classified info apparently. Because they're claiming he corrected a journalist or they like reached out in some way and kind of conveyed something which may have been classified information. Unfucking believable.

Yeah, and again, I obviously think this is wrong and pernicious and, you know, terrible to have the politicization of the Justice Department. But I also think James Comey should die in prison. so. I don't. That's just my feeling. I think people should only go to prison if they've broken laws.

I usually agree with that. Then they should serve the exact sentence. Yeah, no, I know. That is commensurate with their... No, I know that that's right. I'm telling you, I know that's what your mind says. But in your heart, in your heart, I don't mean it.

I don't mean it. I think it's wrong. I'm just kidding. I think what's happening to James Comey is horrible and what he deserves. I'm just, I don't... Our producers are laughing. I can hear it.

through the walls, yeah. I can hear Austin laughing. Speaking of... Think about James Comey lying in that cell. His feet dangling off the edge of the cot. He's so tall. A cell for him is worse than it is for the rest of us. Because he's so big and tall.

Disavow. Disavow. Disavow. Speaking of DOJ, funny business. The department's sloppy cover-up of the Epstein-file debacle has returned as a mid-term issue in the final week. Democrats on the House Judiciary Committee released an unsigned staff report on Monday that, quote, demonstrates that Trump was a, quote, active participant in Epstein's abuse in the 90s, including new details on a rape allegation. And they also called for a special counsel to investigate

Trump's Epstein connection. They also called for a special counsel to investigate Trump's Epstein connection. According to analysis pieces in both the Washington Post and Politico, Democrats have also spent north of $30 million on Epstein-related ads in battleground states. Kind of a sleeper there, because I knew there was a few Epstein ads here and there, but there's I think it's a lot of mentions, though. A lot of mentions? Yeah. I don't know.

Like the details in that congressional reporter very troubling should be run down and investigated. I think calling the Epsine election is a touch overstated is my guess. That's what Playbook. I should say that's what Playbook called it. Yeah, yeah. I mean, the Epstein, I think it's mentioning Jeffrey Epstein is useful because it's shorthand for how rig the system is and how elites get protected in Donald Trump's America. It is also shorthand for Trump breaking his promises.

It's responsible for a huge rupture between Trump or Republicans and also the kind of of Joe Rogan podcast cohort. So Democrats should keep mentioning it. We should keep doing these oversight hearings. But also, I think, like, Trump promised to get to the bottom of what happened and punish the abusers. He lied. Like, this would be a good opportunity for Democrats to deliver on a promise to really follow

up on this one. I think it's important. Daily had a good episode on this today. Well, they had an episode on just ads, all the ads that were being run. And Shane Goldmarker was on. And it's interesting that a lot of these Epstein ads are running in red states. with in some of these like yeah very trumpier districts as a way to kind of depress turnout a little bit just to like if you're not going to vote for democrat at least like aren't you upset with the broken

promises of Republicans who promised they would clean up corruption promise they would do something about Jeffrey Epstein's uh the Epstein files and then absolutely broke that promise yeah it's it's as if he's methodically it's as if he like had a board that had the different coalitions than he assembled to become president and wanted to go through and cross them off right like the the America first crowd he got with the Iran war, the people genuinely concerned about prices he got with sort of tariffs and the gas prices and failing to address this. I mean, the one group of people he's kept are the kind of old school Paul Ryan's type conservatives because he did do a fair amount of deregulation and tax cutting.

He's managed to keep them. And with Epstein, there's this sort of conspiratorial part of the right that was relying on him to kind of expose the deep state. I don't, like, it is one of many conspiracy theories that are important in that world. I think RFK Jr. is a part of it too, like kind of an amorphous group of people that believe the government is lying to them all the time and he was going to expose it. And he just played them for fools. That's why Dan Bungino was like in this difficult position of having been someone who said that the conspiracy theories were real and then couldn't justify it once

he was inside the government. So I don't know how much of a difference maker it is, but I think it is one of the reasons he lost people in a way that makes it hard to get them back. Last thing before we go, on Sunday night, when most of us were savoring the last few moments of the weekend, Donald Trump posted a dense 1,300-word essay to truth social. Again, record-breaking on a subject of vital importance to all of us, talk show host Bill Maher. Trump trashed Mar and his show said Marr's visits to the White House, which he called a, quote, very seductive and beautiful place, were no fun and that Marr was stoned and drunk, and he defended Caroline Levitt's performance on Mar's show last week, which I'm guessing is where this all came from. Has to be right. Among many other tangents. Trump added at the end, Bill, don't call anymore.

That was my favorite part. Bill, don't call anymore. Or were your favorite parts, guys? That was wild. Do you think he dictated it to Natalie? Did she have to write down all of that as he sort of read it aloud? I mean, I'll just, I'm not going to read the whole thing, but can I just read a sentence? Because I don't know how Natalie could have faithfully just written this down or typed this out.

This was all one sentence. CNN did another poll at who was the most. popular person in the history of the Republican Party, and I won that too with me being at 53 percent, Ronald Reagan being at 18 percent, and Abraham Lincoln being at 8 percent, and these are CNN polls people not exactly in love with me. So Bill Maher lied, but he lies about everything. And I believe he lied to me when I asked him with all the applause and laughter he gets after almost everything he says about things that aren't funny or even any good. What laughter machine does he use? That was the line that jumped out of me, the laughter machine. He said it again later.

He said it again later. Turn your laugh machine off. It's a joke when they laugh at controllably, even when you say nothing funny. So he's watching Marr every Friday now? He looks like hell this time. Bill was drunk and had alcohol in his hand as he walked through the White House. Overall, I thought it was a good meeting. It didn't last four hours.

It lasted two hours, maybe less. Everybody was happy. We have the timestamps. I learned nothing. I learned nothing. I learned nothing. After the first dinner, Bill Maher was friendly. I guess everyone walked away, please.

He gave me a good first show with lots of laughing machine laughter, which is a real term, but it is what it is and then reverted back to his former self in his old ways. It's translation. I had the dinner. He was nice to meet for one episode.

then he was mean again and I'm going to complain about it. But like, you're like, Natalie could not have done. I mean, there was no proofreading. You would have cleaned it up a little bit. I don't think she cleans it up,

man. I think she wants to say true as well. Pure uncut. Yeah, I think that's what she thinks the gig is. Certainly no one's going to accuse AI of writing his stuff. No, absolutely not. This is not a hundred percent.

Hunter Biden Chronicles. This is raw, uncut, real typing. 1,300 words. Yeah. And it was like, when I first heard about this,

I'm like, oh, how much do you have that, that much to say about Bill Mar? But really, Bill Maher is just like the delivery vehicle for this. Like, he's tangentially part of it, but most of it is just a long ramp. There's a thing about The Apprentice and why it was a great show and how we would have won anyway even without The Apprentice. It sounds like dictation.

It does sound like dictation. It sounds like saying something out loud that someone else is typing. He's not typing all this. It sounds like. It sounds like. Yeah. It's good stuff. It's great stuff.

It's a great closing message. Put it in an ad. The end of one of one of. In Abdul's speech, he talked about Trump bragging about the neurology test, which was great, just like, you know, he was bragging about taking this test. You only give these people, the test when people, he's a doctor, they only give tests when people are in trouble and something's wrong, and they've given it to him multiple times. And then he'd saying, well, Mike Rogers knows that this is ridiculous, and he stands by the guy,

which was the first time I heard somebody tied directly the fact that he's doing the cognitive test, with the fact that everyone's pretending he's not losing his mind. Yeah, and he's proud of identifying the giraffe, which is a tough one to identify, I guess. Is it? Maybe the least challenging animal to identify I think it's a big horse What did you think it was?

Yeah A long neck gives it away I'm just Long-necked horse Like that SBA administrator I'm no genius Who's that SBA person What's her name?

What's her name? Kelly Loughler Yeah She ran in Georgia That's right That's right Because Kelly Lofler and giraffes They actually evolved separately

You see those TikTok memes It's what her And Susan Dell And then the other woman Barbara Thornhill. Barbara Thornhill. Barbara, Barbara, misspelled Thornhill. They're AI and they're doing some TikTok.

It's great. It's great. Anyway, that's our show for today. If you're itching for updates during this election week, reminder, it's a great time to follow us on YouTube. Or you can just search Breaking News from Potsave America on Apple Podcasts or Spotify, where we post the audio version of these quick conversations between shows. We're doing all kinds of reactions to the news in between these shows.

You've got to check them out on YouTube. We got a lot of content coming this last week. before the election, so check it out. And of course, Dan and I will be back with a new show on Friday. Pod Save America is a Crooked Media production. Our show is produced by Austin Fisher, Saul Rubin, McKenna Roberts,

and Michael Goldsmith, with Reed Jirlin, Elijah Cohn, and Adrian Hill. Our team includes Matt DeGroote, Ben Heffcote, Jordan Cantor, Charlotte Landis, Kenny Moffat, Adam Lippert, Joseph Dutra, Desmond, Taylor, Dan Farrow, David Tolls, Mia Kelman,

Ryan Young, and Naomi Single. Our staff is proudly unionized with the Writers Guild of America East. On election night, we will all be feeling a lot of feelings. Do not spend it alone. Send it with me, Alex Wagner, for Crooked Media Presents live election results. We're going to have John Favreau, John Lovett, Tommy Vitor, Stacey Abrams, Dan Pfeiffer, Aaron Ryan, and many more special guests to be announced.

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