Pod Save America - "Let them eat crudité."

Episode Date: August 18, 2022

The Inflation Reduction Act is law, Liz Cheney is defeated, Donald Trump is still under investigation, and Dr. Oz is still looking for crudité. Then, filmmaker Alex Holder stops by the studio to talk about his documentary on Trump’s final days in office that was subpoenaed by the January 6th Committee. 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 Dan Pfeiffer. On today's show, the Inflation Reduction Act is law. Liz Cheney is defeated. Donald Trump is still under investigation. And Dr. Oz is still looking for crudite. Then I chat with filmmaker Alex Holder, whose documentary about Trump's final days in office

was subpoenaed by the January 6th committee. So that's fun. But first, Crooked's new podcast, Dare We Say, is officially here. In the first episode, out now, best friends Josie Tota, Alicia Pasqual-Pena, and Yasmin Hamidi give you 10 hilarious tips on how to celebrate your birthday. Don't miss it. It's a fantastic show. New episodes of Dare We Say drop every Thursday, wherever you get your podcasts. Also, we got another announcement, Dan. You already know, all of us, that we're huge fans of Kari Yuma shoes. I wear them all the time. Been wearing them for years and years and years. The only shoes that I wear.

Now, we are excited to announce that Crooked and Kari Yuma have collaborated on two awesome pairs of shoes that listeners of Pod Save America will love. You can order your pairs today in the Crooked store. And as always, a portion of the proceeds from these shoes and any item you buy in our store goes to Vote Riders, the leading organization focused on voter ID. So one design features an I voted sticker that's all over the shoe. And one is a sleek white pair that says no steps back on the side

that I am wearing right now. I wore it in Nashville. I wore these shoes in Nashville. I wore them in Tennessee. They're fantastic. Check them out. Claim your pair at crooked.com slash kicks. Dan, have you gotten your pair yet?

No, I check the mail every day. It doesn't arrive. Someone send Dan a pair of carry humans? I would wear them and I would actually prove it by showing them on camera unlike you who could be wearing i mean i can't get my well you're you're over 40 now it's it's flexibility is the first thing to go i skipped leg day um okay they panned out to see if they could get your shoes no such luck no such luck at the table anyway i, I'm wearing them, I promise. All right, let's get to the news.

Hours after Joe Biden signed a bill that will lower the cost of healthcare and prescription drugs, crack down on billionaire tax cheats, and do more to fight climate change than any government has in history. Here was a headline in the New York Times. Even on Biden's big day, he's still in trump's long shadow subhead for the sitting president even a triumphant ceremony to sign major domestic

legislation can hardly break through the non-stop attention on his predecessor dan just took a deep breath i don't know if the sigh came through in the audio but there's a deep breath dan you want to give a uh a quick take appreciator rating before we dive in? The scale does not go high enough for this. I mean, when you saw the headline, we knew who the author was, right? We knew who the writer was. It was a Peter Baker special. Yes.

Look, Peter Baker is a very, very smart guy. He is probably, if not one of the most respected reporters in Washington. He's been around for a very long time. He stars in the documentary that I'm about to interview Alex Holder about. He's in Alex's documentary. Did he storm the Capitol? Surprise! to interview Alex Holder about. He's in Alex's documentary. Did he storm the Capitol? He did. Surprise!

No, no. He's one of the people interviewed. He comes up quite a bit, yeah. But anywho, the only way that I think someone as smart as Peter Baker could write a story that's obviously stupid is two possibilities. One, his brain briefly left his body. That could happen. Two, this was a very specific and devious plot to murder me specifically by setting my blood pressure

skyrocketing through the moon i told dan that dan had this somewhere in the outline and i was like i think we should just start with this and dan said that um he was he there's there was not enough coffee to get himself ready there's the ready for this to start with this take. Yes. I am on a one coffee a day regimen these days, and I went up to one and a half coffee just to be fully prepared for this moment. So be prepared. go down a rabbit hole here, but I just want to say that nothing makes me more crazy than the media passively covering the things the media has control over. This is a story about Donald Trump overshadowing Joe Biden written by the people who are covering

Donald Trump and forcing him to overshadow Joe Biden. And they are proving the point of the article by writing a story about Trump overshadowing Joe Biden, therefore overshadowing Joe Biden on his big day on that day. Like you people have agency here. He doesn't have to overshadow him. That's a choice you made. It'd be like if Peter Baker went out and sprayed graffiti on the White House and then wrote a story about vandalism afflicting the Biden administration. It's like, you did it. You're responsible for this. So I want to come to the defense

of my friend and colleague, Peter Baker. I'm a serious journalist. No, but in all seriousness, I want to start with the actual challenge here for the Biden administration, because while it pains me deeply to admit that Peter Baker has a point, the news, the story, that particular story, of course, ridiculous, of course. Right. But but going forward, the news tends to cover what's new. There won't be many more developments in the Inflation Reduction Act story. It will no longer be new.

We've got the passage. We've got the signing ceremony, maybe a celebration here and there. Then it's over. There are constant developments in the Trump did crime story. We are going to cover them next. We're not covering them first because we have agency, Dan. We're going to talk about the Inflation Reduction Act first. agency, Dan. We're going to talk about the Inflation Reduction Act first. But how do Democrats in the White House make sure people know what's in this bill and keep this story alive, even though the

media will not be covering it for much longer? Yeah, you are correct that there is a kernel, there is a reality at the core of this Peter Baker story, which is Donald Trump is omnipresent. To date, Biden has had trouble breaking through. Those two things are true. Like I said, just a little self-examination would have really benefited that story. But there is a challenge for the White House. And so the question is, this was a huge accomplishment. the White House. And so the question is, this was a huge accomplishment. How do you let people know about your huge accomplishment in time to have them vote with that accomplishment in mind in

November? And so Jenna Malley Dillon, who was Biden's campaign manager, the White House Deputy Chief of Staff, and Anita Dunn, who's their senior advisor and sort of like messaging guru, wrote this memo to Ron Klain that found its way, I'm sure not by accident at all, into Politico. And they list a whole bunch of things they're doing. It's a well thought out plan. I have written many of those memos over the years. Everything in their memo, I would do. I think it's the right thing to do. These days, you call them message box. Now they're public. Yes. Instead of just leaking them to, I cut out the middleman, right? Instead of giving it, slipping it to Ryan Lizza, I just, I sent it out to the world,

right? Call me Mr. The Most Transparent Memo Writer in History. Anyhow, like I said, I'm over-caffeinated. There's like, I think to the extent I have any advice on how Democrats should deal with this, and I think it's not just the Biden White House, it's every Democrat on the ballot everywhere. House, Senate, governor, dog catcher, whatever, is a couple of things. One, when we think about our media strategy about how to get people to know about this, we have to work backwards from the audience. How do the people we need to reach get the information? We have to work backwards from the audience. How do the people we need to reach get the information?

And the people we need to reach are people who are largely deciding whether they're going to vote or not, right? And I think one core group here is young people who we know care passionately about climate. We also know they are the group that has moved most dramatically against Biden since 2020 in terms of approval rating. And so here you have this huge accomplishment. How do you make sure they know? So you've got to work backwards based on where they get their information, what media outlets, what platforms, what influencers, all of that. Because what we

know is that traditional, no amount of like Rose Garden ceremonies, to ohio to you know unveil some grant that was uh you know that's covered by the local news is going to reach those people so how do you reach them related to that imperative number two is come on pots of america like that is true i mean it is i mean that that is the answer to all things and i'm hey. Hey, Joe. Come on. I'm somewhat kidding. I'm somewhat kidding, but not really, which is in a world in which where you say the media won't cover new things, you have to over-index your media strategy on outlets who will give you the opportunity to tell your story on your terms to your people. So whether that's Podsafe America, other progressive outlets, you have to do that.

Next is have to recognize that if the media won't cover what happened in the past, what their true bias is, the thing they thirst for is conflict. Yeah, I was going to say that. Don't talk about what you did, but spend just as much time talking about what Republicans tried to stop you from doing or what they voted against. And so lean into it. And there is this report I read somewhere, or I made up in my head, I'm not entirely sure which, and I'm sure someone with Google can figure it out, that Biden's going to give a big speech in a couple weeks that is going to sort of lay out the contrast for the midterm. So that's good. And the last thing is, like Peter Baker, we have agency. We can go tell people about it. We don't have to wait for the

New York Times. We can decide whether Biden gets overshadowed by Trump by sharing with our friends, posting on social, et cetera. And I think it's key to figure out what the most popular parts of the bill are, how to talk about the bill, right? Like I've struggled with this too. It's the biggest investment in climate change in history. But when you look at, you know, the Navigator research has been pulling out this morning on the most popular parts of the bill. And it's very simple and not very sexy. Lowering health care costs, lowering prescription drug costs, lowering energy bills, lowering families energy bills by $1,800, which is what the bill will do, is more popular and more effective than talking about sweeping climate action.

Now, sweeping climate action and the biggest climate investment ever, you know, that could be more effective with some of the younger voters that you were just talking about. But I do think for most people in the country hearing that these investments in clean energy are actually going to lower their energy bills because clean energy is cheaper than dirty energy at this point, is going to make a big difference with people. But look, I think it's a huge challenge. All the focus groups I did for the wilderness were before the Inflation Reduction Act passed, except for the last one I just did in Atlanta. I stayed in Atlanta to do one after our show. And we got some work to do with those voters. It was nine voters around a table, and they were complaining

that Joe Biden and the Democrats hadn't done anything. These people do not like Republicans at all. They think they're extreme. There's no chance they'll vote for Brian Kemp or any Republicans, but they were very unhappy with Joe Biden and the Democrats. And I said, well, have you heard about the bill that Congress just passed that President Biden's about to sign tomorrow? And one person in the group had heard about it. And everyone else was surprised by that. That person started saying, I think it's something about health care and climate. And they're like, what?

He did something on climate? Finally? I didn't know that. No one knew. And this is while it was in the news. Yeah. I mean, this is ultimately the huge challenge is if you were communicating through traditional press, you're reaching no

one who has not already decided about whether they're going to vote and who they're going to vote for. And like those people are not, they're not watching CNN. They're not reading the New York Times. They're not on Twitter. And that's where we have to think more creatively. This is really hard, right? It's absolutely really hard. It's really hard. I think that the Biden administration has been doing this, or maybe I'm just imagining it. But calculators about what it means for you, how much money you're going to save on either with ACA subsidies, with prescription drugs, on energy bills. I think just having done all these focus groups, people are most interested in like, of course, what's going to make a difference in my life? How is this going to change my life? Because I did get some comments over the course of the focus groups like, oh, there was this big

infrastructure bill that passed, but all the roads in my state are still broken. And although there's too many potholes still, and why don't I see anything from the infrastructure bill has changed anything? I heard it was going to do stuff and why don't I see anything from the infrastructure bill has changed anything? I heard it was going to do stuff and it hasn't done anything. And I do think there's this hunger out there for government to do something that's going to improve their lives in some measurable way. Now, the challenge with this bill is a lot of the provisions that are going to make a difference for people aren't going to take effect for a while.

But letting people know what's coming to them and what's going to happen, you know, I think that's going to be really important for the Biden administration to get out there. And every Democrat, like you said, and all of us, we all have agency here. All right. So now we did that. Now we can go to the Trump did crime story. Because Joe Biden is overshadowing Trump's criminality. Is that a problem for Democrats? Two day next week in the New York Times.

So there are quite a few new developments worth talking about. In the Mar-a-Lago investigation, we learned that the Justice Department is still investigating Trump's decision to hide nuclear secrets in his beach house. They said that they're still interviewing witnesses, including former White House counsel Patsy Bologna and his deputy. There's a report about that. We also learned that one reason the FBI finally got a search warrant is that they saw something alarming on the Mar-a-Lago surveillance footage that they subpoenaed. In Georgia, we learned that Trump's former attorney, Mr. Rudolph Giuliani, has been told that he's a target of the criminal investigation into the attempt to overturn the last election. He sat with the grand jury yesterday. They finally got Rudy to testify.

We also learned that his buddy, Lindsey Graham, has been ordered by a federal judge to testify. Graham is appealing that because he doesn't want to testify. And in New York, we learned that Allen Weisselberg, Trump's longtime chief financial officer, just pled guilty to all 15 felonies he's been charged with related to the tax scheme he ran for Trump's business. A lot of potential crimes there. And real crimes. In the case of Allen Weisselberg. Dan, we also learned that Trump is apparently having a hard time finding a lawyer who's willing to represent him in all this mess. Which I thought was funny because on one hand, Trump is having a hard time finding a lawyer who's willing to represent him.

On the other hand, we found out that Shane Goldmarker at the New York Times reported that there were two days over the last couple of weeks since the FBI search warrant where he raised a million dollars from donors on each day, which are like the two best days he's had in a long, long time in fundraising. So having a real hard time getting a lawyer to represent him for his legal troubles, but on the political side, his Republican support and the money that's coming in from Republicans has never been better. What's going on there? Well, I think you could probably break it down like this, is that no Republican elected official or party official

who has backed Donald Trump through any of his crimes, dating back five, six years now, has paid a real political price for having done so. The people who pay the price, as we will talk about in the next segment, are the people who oppose Trump. Now, for attorneys, that is something different. You mentioned Rudy Giuliani is a target of a criminal investigation. How did he find himself in that position? By being Donald Trump's attorney. And it is not because Donald Trump is likely guilty. We should be very clear about that. Guilty people deserve representation, of course. And rich, guilty, particularly rich,

guilty white men never have trouble getting attorneys, right? That happens all the time. What is unique about Trump is I think he is such a terribly dangerous client that he keeps getting – if speculating here, Trump told his attorneys that they had all been returned. So his attorney put their name on a legally binding document saying that. And so in general, most lawyers don't want to end up on the other side. They don't have to go hire their own attorney from doing this. And so I think Trump is a uniquely dangerous client.

Now, obviously, John Eastman's been in trouble. He's a crime super spreader. Yeah, that's right. That's right. You get near him, you get the crime on you. Yeah. It's, I mean, I thought that the,

in the Mar-a-Lago investigation, so the government, the DOJ basically said they do not want to unseal the affidavit which is basically the evidence that led the judge to uh issue the search warrant to the fbi which uh trump and the press both asked for them to unseal the affidavit and the reason is they said disclosure of the government's affidavit at this stage would also likely chill future cooperation by witnesses whose assistance may be sought as this investigation progresses. And it could also harm, quote, other high-profile investigations as well.

I thought that was pretty interesting because there was this thought at the beginning after the search was conducted, OK, maybe DOJ is just interested in getting, and DOD and the federal federal government in general just interested in getting all of their classified information back. And once they have it back, leave Trump alone. And that's that. It seems that either if they're continuing the investigation, either there's a potential they may bring charges or there's more. They believe there's more classified information they still don't have back. Or, like they just said, hinted there, there are other investigations somehow connected to the Mar-a-Lago investigation that are all wrapped up together that they don't want to tip their hand on. What did you think? It's very intriguing, John, and I'm excited to see what happens. I'll tell you that. I mean, who knows, right? It is like – I think it at least says that Trump's legal jeopardy did not end at the rate that there is – he is – like obviously he's got legal jeopardy in multiple jurisdictions, for multiple crimes in multiple places. But in this specific crime that is currently overshadowing Joe Biden's tremendous record of success, he is not out of the woods yet.

I think that is interesting and notable and problematic for Trump. There's reports that he wants to release the surveillance tape, the surveillance footage of the FBI conducting the search at Mar-a-Lago. Apparently, the FBI, when they started conducting the search, Trump and his family was watching from New York. They were watching the surveillance footage, and the FBI told them to shut it off. And they said they decided not to shut it off. And they just watched the search anyway. And now Trump wants to release that footage. Why do you think he wants to release that footage? I can't imagine there's anything interesting there. But some of the reporting around this has said that the reason that Trump

allies want to do this is they think it will further excite and inflame the Trump base. Because you would see, you know, FBI agents, whatever terrible Nazi or jackbooted thug analogy these right wing lunatics are using, you know, roaming around his beach house. I don't know why that that would be interesting, but I think they think it's just like more content that makes it seem like ultimately what Trump wants to be is a martyr. He wants to be a victim. He wants grievance. And this would be a piece of evidence that would dominate right-wing media. It would rally people to his defense. Some of the people who came out there right away, who have since backed away as it turns out that every single thing he said from the day of the raid was a lie, will come back out because this will be a moment to express support for Trump. So it's not going to help his legal case.

I don't think it's necessarily going to help his larger political case, but I think it will likely mean more $1 million days in online donations for his scam pack that he uses to pay for his legal defense. I don't think it's going to help his political case with the with the general electorate by any means. But clearly, he's just running a Republican primary here. And he wants to, like you said, he wants to be the victim, because if he's the victim, then Republicans will feel forced to rally around him. Like, I went through, I've thought that from the beginning that like, Trump is going to run and he's going to be the nominee again. Then there was like a period where I briefly flirted with the idea that maybe Ron DeSantis could take this guy down. And I was waiting for the moment that Trump announced for president and to see how Ron

DeSantis would react to that. But a similar moment came where the FBI searches Mar-a-Lago and Ronon desantis is just like there's no daylight between him and trump he just goes right out like he i thought he had a chance to separate himself just a little bit on this and no one did no one in the republican party except for the you know the usuals that we're about to talk about separated themselves from trump no matter how bad the facts get for him around this which leads me now to think like, I don't know. I don't think anyone can take this guy down. I don't think any of them are willing to do it. That may be. That absolutely may be. Ron DeSantis has a complicated political calculus right now,

which is, although he is favored, he is up for reelection in a few months. And were he to separate himself from Donald Trump on an FBI raid taking place in Ron DeSantis' state and Donald Trump were to actively turn against him, then I think that – he's still favored. But that – like I understand why he did not do that. The question will be what happens the minute after the votes are counted if he wins re-election? How does he navigate Trump then? But so I don't, he's still obviously a huge favorite to win the nomination

were he to run again. But I don't know that what happened this past week tells us a ton about at least how Ron DeSantis would run against him.

Well, one Republican who separated himself from Trump this week is our boy Mike Pence of hang Mike Pence fame. Dan put that in the outline. It made me laugh. Pence is back in the news for,

gave a speech, told Republicans to stop attacking the FBI, and also said that he would consider an invitation to testify before the January 6th committee when asked by a reporter what he would do if they reached out. What do you think's going on there? I mean, the Occam's razor explanation for all things involving Mike Pence is that he's one of the dumbest people in American public life. Like there's not a lot of strategy happening there. I mean, you know, let's just presume

for a second that he is less dumb than everyone knows he to be. Were Trump to run, his chances of winning a nomination against Trump are minuscule. They are zero if he doesn't do something to differentiate himself from Trump, right? He has to make a case against Trump. He would still lose most likely, but it's his only shot. And so I think his, like the acceptance of Mike Pence as something other than a national joke comes from the fact that Trump tried to murder him and failed. Yeah. have come around on Mike Pence in part because of what happened on January 6th and that he stood strong that day and with the heroic task of not committing treason that was doomed to fail. So I think that he's probably sort of like riding that a little bit, what that actually,

he's definitely not testifying in a live hearing. He's not about to be Cassidy Hutchinson or- Yeah, he and Liz Cheney are going to team up together in the next January. Cheney Pence. I mean, it's just it's such a small constituency as we're about to talk about with with with Cheney for Republicans. Like Pence's case is basically I'm everything you loved about the Trump administration without all the character flaws. Or the charisma. Right. But that's what that's my point. Right. It's charisma, right, exactly, but that's my point,

right? It's like, no, no, no, people aren't, people aren't supporting Trump. The MAGA base doesn't love

the accomplishments of the fucking Trump administration. They don't know that they're like singing the praises about the Abraham Accords. Tommy doesn't even know you said that, but somewhere

his head just exploded. I know, I know. That's not, that's not why they're there they're there for the character flaws they're there because he's an asshole and he's like stirring up grievance and anger and resentment that's what they love it's crazy pence might have some new competition though in the race to be the anti-trump republican in 2024 our queen liz cheney said on wednesday that she's thinking about running for president.

This is after Cheney lost her Wyoming primary against Republican lawyer Harriet Hageman on Tuesday by 66 to 29 percent. That's a lot. That's a big loss. But the next day, Cheney hinted that she's not done with politics during an interview with Savannah Guthrie on The Today Show. Let's listen. I will be doing whatever it takes to keep Donald Trump out of the Oval Office. Well, I know you didn't say yes or no, and that's fine if you're thinking about it. But are you thinking about it? Are you thinking about running for president? That's a decision that I'm going to make in the coming months, Savannah. I'm not going to make any announcements here this morning, but it is something that I'm thinking about,

and I'll make a decision in the coming months. Dan, are you heading to Cheyenne to run this thing or what? I presume we're all going together, right? We're getting the gang back together again. Maybe, you know, Jackson Hole's nice. Set up camp there. That's exactly what a bunch of resistance liberals would do, where they would put the shady headquarters. Don't even. the little blue dot in my yes we need to be where can we get a chai latte we need to be within one mile of chai latte assuming that liz cheney is both smart which i think she is and genuinely wants to stop trump from becoming president again which which I think she does. How would this work? Is this a good idea?

What could she be thinking here? It wouldn't work, John. No, I mean, look, I think this whole thing is a very fascinating intellectual exercise, which is probably where it tops out in terms of significance. But here are the various scenarios where this happens. One is Trump runs, DeSantis runs, a bunch of Republicans run, and she joins that field. In a large multi-candidate field, are there enough hardcore conservative Bush-Cheney anti-Trump Republicans?

Absolutely not. No, there's absolutely not. I mean, she got 29% in a state where her family are political royalty. So it's going to be very different in Iowa or South Carolina or somewhere like that. The Cheneys have been political royalty in that state for half a century. Another world is Trump doesn't run. Then there's no lane for her, right. Her lane is anti-Trump, end of J.W. DeRogge, stopping big lies maybe there's some other like third tier or fourth tier yahoos, but those are the two people. In that case, I don't think there would be a single RNC debate. I think the RNC would not hold the debate if the only two significant candidates were Trump and Cheney. I think they, I think- Or I heard that they're flirting with requiring every candidate who participates in the debate to sign a loyalty pledge that they will ultimately support the

nominee, in which case they think that Liz Cheney would not sign that pledge because she will not ultimately support Trump. Yeah. And I think that the party would probably pass a resolution saying she was not a Republican. Yeah, they just, they're not going to fuck around with this. They're just going to go like this. No Liz Cheney allowed. The decision to hold primaries are in most cases decided by the party. So they could, I think there's a legitimate chance South Carolina would cancel its primary if it was Cheney-Trump. is talking about running for president, she is going to have a platform once she's out of Congress, once the January 6th hearing committee is over, at least her participation is over, to make a large public case about Trump. Pretending to run for president or contemplating

running for president will give her access to the media, give her a place to make the case. If she wants to make the case to Republicans, independents, Biden Republicans, et cetera, that returning to Donald Trump is deeply dangerous, she will have the ability to do that. I think this is a decision to have a platform, not to be president. What about the possibility of a third party run? Can you talk about that one? That would be one way. Third party runs are always very hard. She'd have to join probably an existing party that has ballot access, like the Libertarian Party. Yeah, so she runs on the Libertarian ticket.

I think that it – Or she gets on the ballots because fucking no labels has raised a bunch of money for ballot access. Manchin Cheney? Cheney Manchin? Cheney Yang? Will she be on the Forward Party ticket? I think there'd be real risk there.

We don't know enough about the political environment. It all depends on if Biden's running, what his approval rating is for the Democrats. There's real risk that an anti-Trump conservative could suck just enough voters in these battleground states that are more Republican than the national average

and tip them. I mean, who's a potential- No, she would drop out in that scenario. Like this is not a Howard Schultz sort of situation. This is the danger of her on the ballot everywhere as a third party candidate is that she, like, who is a Liz Cheney voter? It's either, like you said, a conservative Republican, probably college educated from the Bush Cheney era who just was sick of Trump. Those people are few and far between. A lot of

them have already just crossed over to vote for Joe Biden in the last election, if not in 2016 and 2020. So the number of them that are still Republican are few. Or again, it's people who now have been voting Democrat, who for the last several elections who were like, well, I'm kind of sick of Democrats and I don't like Trump. But Liz Cheney and that that would pull votes away from Biden. I'd be particularly worried in states with, you know, a lot more college educated voters that are turning bluer like an Arizona, like a Georgia. I think Liz Cheney on the ticket as a third party in those states could really spoil the election for the Democrats. as a third party in those states could really spoil the election for the Democrats. The question is, are there red states where she just gets on the ballot in some red states that a Democrat would never win anyway, and she's on the ballot, so she spoils, so she

makes sure that Trump can't win that state, or she just takes enough votes away from Trump in a redder state to spoil the election for him and then helps helps the Democrat. That's that's the there's like some math there that could work in a redder state. It's hard because I could probably only identify two states off the top of my head where that is possible. Well, you actually I take three. That's a good one. Utah is one interesting one just because it's a very unique electorate, but it would probably be North Carolina and Texas because Democrats tend to win state. The battleground states that we won in 2020 and we need to win in 2024 were all incredibly close. The states we lost, we lost

by pretty large margins. So you would have to really suck up a huge swath of voters. I mean, the math in the South is really interesting where you have a very, very large Black population that makes up a huge percentage of Democrats. But you would have to get to like Ross Perot-like numbers to go back to 1992 to drive someone's win number into the low 40s, which is what Ross Perot did that created the math environment where Bill Clinton could become president with a pretty overwhelming electoral college margin without coming anywhere near getting 50% of the vote nationally. Yeah, no, I think it's I think it's pretty tough. Do you think Liz Cheney's primary law says anything about the Republican Party that we didn't already know? No, I don't. No, I looked at that question on the outline for a long time. And I was very curious if you had any thoughts on it. But it is the I think the one thing you if you look at the all of the primaries that have happened today, because we're getting kind of to the end here, is that you can win a Republican primary if Trump is against you, but you cannot win a Republican primary if you are against Trump.

And that is a relatively important. That's why Brian Kemp won and Liz Cheney lost. And she lost by a lot. I just think the constituency out there in the Republican Party for candidates who want to run specifically against Trump, like you said, it's just it's too small. It's too small. And you know, like you said, in a state where the Cheneys are political royalty. All right. When we come back, filmmaker Alex Holder talks about his new documentary on the final days of Trump's presidency.

Welcome back. We're joined today in studio by Alex Holder, a filmmaker whose new documentary about Trump's final days in office, Unprecedented, was subpoenaed by the January 6th committee because of how much access to the Trump family he had. Alex, welcome to the pod. So nice to be here. It's nice to have you. So Trump, Ivanka, Don Jr., Eric, Jared, all sat down for multiple interviews with you

between sort of like the final months of the campaign and a couple months after Trump left office. And they did so knowing that they had no control over the project at all. How did you get them to agree to that? over the project at all. How did you get them to agree to that? So I think when we first started, they were pretty convinced they were going to win the election.

And some of them still think that they won. Famously so. Exactly. But this was going to be a repeat of the 2016 election all over again. The pollsters were all wrong. And Don Jr.'s favorite line during during the campaign was let's make liberals cry again which i always thought was pretty cruel and not that funny no but a lot of watching the

documentary a lot of his jokes are just terrible yeah yeah really bad really bad um and he sort of i think he he laughs a lot his own jokes yeah so and then people then laugh because he's laughing i think because yeah he's just a bit of a moron but um i mean yeah so they thought that they were going to win and also i was somebody that wasn't part of the mainstream media i guess right like i'm a british guy foreign didn't really have any political skin in the game so why not have this sort of random british dude film us win the election? And I think the third was actually the British accent. I mean, Trump is obsessed with the Queen.

That's right. He's absolutely obsessed. I mean, almost on every occasion I met him, he would always bring the Queen up. And I wonder whether or not there's, you know, he feels like the Trump family are like a quasi i'm sure you know like royal dynastic you know family perhaps but i'm sure also like the simplicity of his brain is just like guy with british accent bring up queen exactly that's it that's all he's got yeah i mean with eric actually it was guy with british accent have you been to the golf course in scotland i always got business on his mind so you first first sat down with Trump in December 2020 after he lost.

What was his state of mind at that point? And do you think he actually believed he won or did he seem like he was full of shit? I mean, he's certainly full of shit, but he also believes that he won. I mean, which I think is actually really important because, you know, to be so delusional and still be the president of the United States of America, the incumbent, the commander-in-chief, I mean, the guy with the fucking nuclear football was literally standing behind me

in the diplomatic reception room whilst he is literally reading out of how to be a totalitarian you know dictator you know we need to find brave judges that agree with my position right so you know he convinced himself of the lie but i mean just that interview in its own right was extraordinary i mean i didn't think it was going to happen i mean this is a month after the election he wasn't giving interviews to anybody and we're outside the white house you know the secret service doing all the checks and everything we go inside and i still didn't think he was going to come and then at the

the moment i knew he was on his way was when the secret service all sort of moving around and then i heard them say mogul on the move yeah and at that point it was like oh really this is actually happening and he sits down and yeah it was just an extraordinary experience in the sense of oh this is the white house he's the the incumbent president of the united states of america and there's that very famous george washington painting looking down at him and he is literally undermining democracy and it was just when i said this on the Seth Meyers show, after the interview, I sort of held onto a wall

because I was so taken aback by what had actually happened. Because there's a big difference between him doing his, the rhetoric at a campaign rally to actually sitting in the White House and saying the bullshit that he was saying. Well, I was going to ask because, you know, there's like a very famous anonymous quote that was given to the Washington Post in the weeks after the election where some senior

Republican official said, like, just let him have his fun. What do you think he's going to? He's not going to leave. He's going to leave eventually. He's it's fine. Just let him burn himself out, whatever. And famously, that almost didn't happen. At what point while you were making this documentary, did you start thinking to yourself, oh, shit, this could go really badly and maybe he's going to try not to leave and things could things could could go south pretty fast?

Honestly, after that interview, I mean, that interview really was quite extraordinary because he just wouldn't stop talking about how the election was won by him. And he wasn't just saying why he thought he won it. He was actually coming up with remedies to show how it was stolen from him. So he was talking about how the Georgia officials need to reopen the votes to compare the signatures. And he was saying that the secretary of state and the governor of georgia were stupid people because they weren't agreeing with his position and actually we need to open this up and move it to the you know to the state legislature because they agree with him and he was saying that we need to find the right judges etc so it was it

there was no way that that this wasn't going to get more and more serious as time moved on that was at least that's what i was thinking so you you interviewed him for a second time at mar-a-lago a few months after he left office what was he like then it was a very different personality he was much more depressed he was he was angry and depressed when i met him in the white house he was sort of angry but quite assertive whereas in mar-a-lago he was angry and depressed and the reason he was depressed i found out one of his aides told me before he came in he was in a really bad mood because he was going through withdrawal from not being able to use twitter like actual withdrawal literally that was the words that she used that he was going through a withdrawal so um and he had put on weights and i mean he's a big guy anyway but he had really sort

of put on weight and he was very down and um so he said it was so fun he walks into mar-a-lago and there's this hideous painting of of him from like you know 30 about 30 years ago like an oil painting of him and and i wanted to include that in the shot but i wasn't sure whether or not they would be embarrassed of us including that in the shot but we did it anyway and it was so happy that we included it in the shot anyway he walks in and i'm like hello mr president and he completely ignores me and he starts talking about like isn't this the most beautiful floor you've ever seen i mean it's just it's a very i mean mar-a-lago is stunning but the flaw i mean it was just it just needs constant constant positive feedback about anything exactly you know he sits down empty hole and then we know we're doing literally i mean we're doing the uh

the small talk and i said last time we spoke was at the white house and he's like oh but this is much more beautiful than the white house yeah i mean and he believes that absolutely did it did mar-a-lago seem like a safe place to keep nuclear secrets i mean it's a member's club that he played golf i mean it's probably the worst place you would ever keep uh uh secrets what is the security like there i mean obviously there's a secret service security but it's much less than when he's at the white house but and that's just around him really I mean, I was able to walk around the place totally. We were sort of left to our own devices. So, I mean, it was not at all secure.

And at one point in the interview, we were interrupted because the members of the public that are at this club were making a noise and Trump was like, tell them to shut up. I mean, it is just, but it's so typical Trump to believe that these documents belong to him, right? I mean, he's just... I gonna say, do you have a theory having spent so much time with him? Do you have a theory as to why he would take classified info with him to Mar-a-Lago and not just take it with them like, oh, by accident, but then be asked for it back by the government by federal agents and refused to give it all back. Yeah, I mean, it's because his name's on it, and he thinks it's his.

I mean, you know, he's just as simple as that. The thing with Trump is that he really is just a very simple, quite strange, dumb guy. I mean, with all due respect. Occam's razor on this kind of stuff. Yeah, exactly. And a good sense of how to entertain people, and a good sense of television, and a good sense of how to rile people up. But I think beyond that, there's not a lot.

Oh, there's no substance at all. I mean, there's no substance even when he's doing the things that he's quite good at, I would say. As in, like, he's just a very, he's very basic. But, I mean, he kept talking about Kim Jong-un all the way through all these interviews. And those are the letters that he had between the two of them. In his mind, they are his letters. And had between the two of them. In his mind, they are his letters. And so obviously they should be in his house.

You testified before the January 6th committee. You did a deposition. They had subpoenaed some footage. What was the focus of the committee's questions? I think they were obviously surprised about the fact that we had this access and no one knew about it. I mean, the Trumps knew about it and the people around them and they claim they didn't know about it, which is obviously ridiculous because we were always there and very present. But I think they were surprised by the access. I think they were interested in the footage that we captured on January 6th, which wasn't with the family. were just we were in dc and and you know that was a horrific day and we captured this moment of one of trump's own

supporters essentially being crushed to death on the steps of the capitol i mean he's totally obviously responsible for that in every single way and so i think they were very you know interested in that footage and and also just what people were doing at various times as well in the lead up to it and the people around them as well so they were interested in a lot of sort of the behind the scenes of what was going on whilst we were interviewing the president and others was there footage that they were looking for that didn't make it into the final documentary because i watched the documentary last night and by the way very compelling well done though I kept looking for something that was going to be like a revelation in terms of what the January 6th commission is investigating and I didn't maybe I'm very in the

weeds on everything but I didn't notice anything and I was wondering if there was a bunch of footage that didn't make it in that the committee found interesting so there's a bunch there is a lot of footage that didn't make it in I imagine yeah, yeah. So I'll leave it at that. I mean, I think they have their own sort of narrative and agenda that they want to sort of look at. And they have everything and they'll probably pick the pieces that they think they need. lines of inquiry from the committee that surprised you or where they were heading or areas they were looking for that we all haven't seen on in prime time over the last several months no no i think it was all i mean they were very straightforward and i think that it was very they were very direct with their questions and very engaged and and i it was very clear how important this was i mean for me at least when i go in there and you know sitting down

and i'm now talking to probably the most consequential political investigations in watergate and i'm just like what the fuck is going on you know so it was uh it was they definitely showed the importance of what they were doing and how this is, this isn't a circus, right? Like this is actually really, I mean, the guy fractured the foundations of democracy in America. And this is an important investigation to prevent that from ever happening again and to find out how. So I think that was really the key. And that's what they're into finding out. You mentioned Georgia.

You're also expected to testify in the case that the Fulton County DA is bringing the criminal investigation. I keep getting these subpoenas the whole time. Not something you had expected when you started a documentary. Although I guess if you're doing a documentary about the Trump family, yeah, maybe you do expect some subpoenas. What parts of your footage do you think will be important to the grand jury in the Georgia investigation? I know, I know there was a small part in the documentary that mentioned that you've replayed the doc but there's there's quite a bit where he is referring to georgia and try and i think what's interesting is that the phone call actually took place almost exactly a month after that interview so you can sort of see this wasn't just like a spur of the moment thing i mean he was really convinced that you know they

needed to find these 11 000000 votes a month earlier. So he'd been plotting that for a while. It seems like that's the case. That's okay. You know, I think you probably, it seems from the documentary that you set out to do a documentary about the Trump family dynamics with the children. You know, we've all come to know Trump's children as like caricatures. Does the caricatures that we all have of the Trump children, do they hold up in real life?

Absolutely. I mean, I think, you know, Eric just sort of wants, this is obviously my take on all this, right? But like Eric just wants us all to stop, I think. He just wants that. My take on your, how you portrayed Eric is like, you tried to give him a story. He doesn't have much of a story.

Literally. Which is what everyone thinks. He's always just like, yeah, he's sort of interested in business, and now he's in politics, and he's just Eric. Nothing else. And my dad's my best friend. And then you've got Don Jr., who just, I found him so hilarious. I mean, dangerous, but also very hilarious.

I mean, his political awakening is having gone to, back then, Czechoslovakia to be with his grandparents. And he was complaining about how he couldn't wear his American flag, you know, jean jacket. And he was so scared that that could happen in America. So that's why he is now this, you know, staunch right-wing Republican to prevent, you know, the idea of, you know, communist. I mean, it's just so ridiculous when they say these things, you have to try and not laugh. And then obviously when he talks about how, you know, the state of journalism is so bad that he wrote a book that he was very proud of. So. I found the Don Jr. stuff very interesting, somewhat frightening, because I do think he's

sort of the biggest political threat in the family in the future. And I hadn't realized the whole backstory there until I watched the doc that, you know, Ivanka has always been the favorite child. Trump's always proud of her because she's polished and successful and everything he wants the Trump brand to be. And he was always a little bit embarrassed by Don Jr. because Don Jr. was what we now think of as Trumpier. He's closer to the base. He loved guns, loved shooting, was more MAGA than any of the other children. And so Don Jr. then uses that during the campaign to sort of outmaneuver Ivanka to try to be the new favorite kid.

And is arguably closer to the MAGA base than his father or any of the children absolutely I mean it's hilarious how they at the end of the day all they want is their father's attention right I mean it's clear yeah and you know and America suffered because of that right I mean that's basically what it was right it was a family-run business where the three elders children were all trying to outmaneuver each other and Yeah, I mean and they're running the country for all intents and purposes I mean, it's extraordinary and I don't think you know at best they just didn't understand what the fuck they were doing I mean at worst they did and we'll find out right? Yeah, it was just it's just incompetence and not understanding how dangerous the rhetoric is when you have such a large platform,

including the children, right? They just didn't understand what they were doing, or if they did understand what they were doing, they were obviously very bad people. Yeah. We all have a particular loathing for Jared Kushner here at Crooked. He's got a new book out. Fantastic review in the New York Times.

He hasn't read it yet. What was your take on Jared? I mean, Jared is, it was actually so interesting because he came across as somebody who genuinely believed that he had a right to be in the position that he was in. And I just found that so fascinating.

I mean, of all the things to come across as, right? To come across as somebody who has the audacity to think that he deserved to be in that position that he was in. And I mean, the fact, like the only reason he's there is because his wife's dad won the election. I mean, that's literally- No other planet would you hire jared

kushner for something right so so like i mean that you wanted to succeed in yeah so you know that that for me was pretty uh pretty extraordinary so yeah i mean other than that he's very i mean i always say he's really i mean he looked he's a nice dude i mean i you know you know he shook my hand and says thanks but like he was just sort of impressively unimpressive. Yeah, no, a set of dimples without a demographic was the description in the New York Times that really got me. I cannot imagine a scenario where Donald Trump doesn't run again, even if he is indicted. I mean, I don't think that might make him more likely to run again. Can you imagine a scenario where he doesn't run again?

So I think he's definitely going to announce that he's going to run. I just don't think he will end up running. You don't? No, I mean, there's a few reasons. One is that the guy lives on a diet of basically Diet Coke and burgers, and he's sort of not the healthiest guy in the world. And two is that Trump doesn't normally or ever really in his life do the same thing again when he fails.

He pivots to something else. So when businesses fail, casinos, et cetera, he'll move to something else. So I think here it's a similar situation. Also, the first time around, he didn't think he was going to win, right? And it was all part of his whole little game of just getting media attention, et cetera. But he won. The idea of being able to maintain that the election was stolen a second time, I don't think even he thinks is potentially. I don't know. I think if he

believes the lie and he's made himself believe the lie that he doesn't he doesn't think he failed in 2020. And so then this is revenge. Sure. But at the same time, I think that he believes a lie that they could do it again. Right. And also, look, Trump doesn't understand why people don't like him unless he doesn't like them first. Right. So in his mind, and that's the same with everything. So he doesn't understand why people don't agree with him with respect to the election. So I think he would potentially be nervous that the same thing could happen again. I mean, it's totally ludicrous.

It's just extraordinary. I mean, the guy, I think we all in some ways assume that he is a rational player. And we sort of then sort of rank him to that, right? Like we sort of assume that we can actually. Sort of ascribe strategy. Exactly. Like he really, he's in a different, he's in a different dimension. I mean, he does not exist in this,

in this reality whatsoever. My last question on this is just, you know, you spent so much time, not only with Trump and the family, but at events with all of these Trump fans, voters, did you come away with a better understanding of the appeal of donald trump to the you know however many million americans voted for him at the end sure i mean at the end of the day he's the guy that stands up on the stage and says i'm going to give you everything you want i mean it's no it's the simplest way of getting people i mean he's the populist right he's the demagogue so you know you have x problem i'm going to fix fix it for you. And the fact that it's not possible to fix it or he doesn't understand all the issues is irrelevant.

Like, I have a problem, I'm your guy to fix it. And people bought into that. And he's good. I mean, when he speaks, it's totally incoherent, right? But actually, what he's doing is he's moving from you know one aspect to another aspect based on the reactions of the crowd it's very interesting to see so yeah if he's talking about say in kansas and he'll be doing a rally there and he'll start mentioning i don't know how he moved the israeli embassy from tel aviv to jerusalem and there isn't much of a reaction so immediately you know move

from that to like we built the biggest wall ever right like there's no like connection whatsoever but people but he he's very good at knowing what the crowd want and he sort of feeds the crowd the the rhetoric that they applaud and that's what that that's his cocaine essentially yeah and shamelessness i guess is a powerful absolutely powerful weapon in politics i mean he he was so brilliant at using the apparatus of the presidency i mean there were moments actually and it was it's interesting how it wasn't picked up like he was so brilliant at using the apparatus of the presidency. I mean, there were moments actually, and it's interesting how it wasn't picked up, but he was actually like Kim Jong-un in the sense of they all run after him. When Kim Jong-un is in the car, they all run after him. There was this rally we were at, and the two presidential cars, the beast, right?

So you've got these two cars that will basically say the air force one lands and and the cars basically were like moving really slowly whilst he's walking to the stage on either side and i mean it was just and then all the secret service around him and everything and then the best is that he would time the takeoff of air Force One to the crescendo of Nessun Dorma. I shit you not. What? Literally, at the end of rallies, he would not allow Air Force One to take off until it reached the crescendo of Nessun Dorma.

So basically, you've got the end of the song, and then suddenly Air Force One zooms up into the sky. I mean, it's extraordinary. He's a TV guy. He's a TV guy. He's a TV guy. Alex Holder TV guy. He's a TV guy. Alex Holder, thank you so much.

The documentary is unprecedented. Check it out. It's on Discovery Plus, I believe. Yep. Thanks for stopping by Pod Save America.

This was fun. This was really fun. Thanks so much. All right. Before we go, we have to talk about the most important and explosive story of the week. A video of Dr. Oz shopping in the produce aisle of Wegmans grocery store that was created and released by his own campaign. Let's take a listen. Thought I'd do some grocery shopping. I'm at Wegner's and my wife wants some vegetables for crudite, right? So here's a broccoli. That's two bucks, not a ton of broccoli there. Here's some asparagus. That's $4. Yep. Carrots. That's four more dollars. That's $10 of vegetables there. And then

we need some guacamole. That's $4 more. And she loves salsa. Yeah, salsa there. $6 must be a shortage of salsa. Guys, that's $20 for crouton. This doesn't include the tequila. I mean, that's outrageous.

And we got Joe Biden to thank for this. Alright. Elijah, are you there? I mean, it's outrageous. We got Joe Biden to thank for this. All right. Elijah, are you there? We have to tell the story of how this became a story. Hi, guys. I am here. Hi, Elijah. So what everyone has to know before we dive into this is this video was not new this week.

This video was first released april 4th 2022 it is now august i am told i forget which month it is elijah what how did this how did this come to be yeah so we were in atlanta doing our live show and we had a little bit of downtime before you know in between soundcheck and actually going on stage. And I came back to say what's up to you guys and y'all's backstage room. And I saw there was a veggie platter there. And I said something like, I can't see one of these now without thinking about asparagus. And you guys were like, what the hell are you talking about? I couldn't believe that you hadn't seen the video.

So I showed it to you and love it. Then you guys showed it to Dan and Tommy. And then Tommy liked it so much that he tweeted it. And then that got traction. A bunch of libs on Twitter started tweeting it. And then the Fetterman campaign picked it up. And then they've raised like half a million dollars this week, just off of this awkward crudite video.

That was, that's the, that's how it became viral. Tommy lifted it up again on Twitter after Elijah couldn't believe we hadn't seen it yet, which I hadn't. And it turns out most of the country hadn't yet either. is the 52nd seat in the Senate. Like he, I mean, just voting rights, more climate. Like he might've saved the planet. That's one version of the story.

The other version of the story is that I have been walking around this, on this earth for five months without knowing about this video. And I am fucking pissed about it. And here's the thing. Like how much more do we need to pay? How much closer do we need to pay attention to politics? It a sickness we are on our fucking twitter all the time we talk about this for hours every week how did we not see this video john i do a youtube show once every two

weeks about crazy republican videos that is produced by elijah how have I not seen it? I have definitely sent you this video. Do we need to get another? You have never. Do we need to get another Slack channel? How many more Slack channels do we need in this company? Maybe that's the problem. Maybe we have too many Slack channels. There's some like fucking French snack channel we're unaware of.

That video is stuck in my mind because we were doing research for political experts react, shout out our YouTube, go subscribe. Uh, so you never miss an episode, but I feel like I must've sent it to you because that's how I came across it.

If you can prove it through email or Slack or text, I will apologize on next week's pod to you. But up until then you were on probation as far as I'm concerned. Fair. Anyway, the video, the substance of the video let's talk about why it has become such a thing and john federman has raised half a million dollars off this video i mean my my initial reaction just if i'm being honest was like who the hell is dipping their asparagus in salsa or their broccoli and guacamole that is not

a that is not a crudite platter i mean there's also there's calling it crudite versus veggie tray but for me that whatever i've you know i've been known to call it crudite myself once in a while um the the the collection of shit that he got to put on that platter and then he throws tequila in there also, it's Wegmans is the grocery store. No, it is Wegmans. Yes, he has merged Wegmans and Reveners, two regional grocery stores in the Pennsylvania area, into one called Wegmans, which does not exist. Wegners. Wegners, yes.

Wegners. He did the Wegners, yes. And the other part of this is he like, he wasn't caught on tape. This was not a caught on, this was not a, like, I caught you on video moment. This is, we produced this video. He says Wegener's. He grabs all this shit in the grocery store. He says it.

They put it in a video. They cut the video. They edit the video. They have him saying Wegener's. And they tweet it out. They tweet out the video. They put it out from the campaign. What a campaign. They have him saying Wegener's and they tweet it out. They tweet out the video. They put it out from the campaign. What a campaign.

They are great. What a fantastic set of advisors he's got. I mean, what a world where as a campaign you get together and you create the most devastating negative ad in recent memory, but it turns out it's about your own candidate. It got so bad for Dr. Oz that he was interviewed on Newsmax, Newsmax, about this crudité gaffe. And here's what happened. Here's what he said. And I mean to fixate on it, but just for those watching in Pennsylvania, you know how particular many people are about their groceries. What happened with Wegmans and Wegners? Can you explain that to them? Yeah, I was exhausted when you're campaigning 18

hours a day. I've gotten my kids' names wrong as well. I don't think that's a measure of someone's ability to lead the Commonwealth. I mean, can we invoke a slaughter rule here what this how bad is this gonna get i mean you're you're getting grilled on newsmax about your the grocery store video that your campaign put out and you're like sometimes i forget my kids names i mean it truly is like he seems like he has never been in a grocery store before like he's like an alien from another planet who all they learned about human civilization was from watching Bravo. Like I don't even understand. I mean, it's just, it's, I love it. It is so great.

If Doggerog wins this campaign, people are going to have a great time looking back on listening to this episode and all of our tweets. But then at that point, like I guess politics is completely broken and nothing nothing matters anymore look can he still win this race absolutely of course he can we have to say that just so that we can put this version of the clip out after everyone dunks on what happened the previous five minutes of course of course he can win he He can. Will he? Who knows? Is he running one of the worst campaigns I have seen in all my years in politics? Absolutely.

Yes. Yes. He is definitely running a terrible campaign. He is a weird, weird man. It's very possible his campaign hates him like there may be moles there may be moles in that campaign he got in a twitter fight just last night wednesday night with john fetterman over over how many um homes he owns and someone said that he owns 10 homes and and dr ross gets on twitter and he goes no no no two homes 10 properties And so I did some research. Dude, you tweeted that.

You tweeted it. You put it in a tweet, you hit the tweet button and it went out. Now everyone knows you have 10 properties. He probably didn't tweet that. That was not Dr. Oz

because this was a designed attempt to punch back because he quote tweeted John Fetterman. He also attacked Fetterman for living with his parents for a while because if you're not

an out-of-state millionaire, you're somehow a failure, which is not a particularly good message in any state. John Fetterman living with his parents while he was mayor of a small town and having a very low salary, so his parents helped him out. He was in public service. Yeah, that was what he was doing. So that tweet was, I'm sure, written by, signed off on by a wide array of people who probably make a lot of money as political consultants and social media types. But the thing that's awesome is I was like, nine properties. Is he like an investor in some shopping mall somewhere? No.

He owns 10 homes. He just only lives in two of them and it's really an open question if one of the two he's referring to is actually the apartment in pennsylvania in the town whose name he keeps forgetting because he's never really been there elijah could you do us a favor and if we ever um film a video like that could you and the video team and the social media team just not not put it out oh god we'll we will lie we'll say the file got corrupted we're not doing our jobs uh if we let that kind of thing get out i think that dan's right i think that there are people on his campaign that might actually hate him that's true there it could have been infiltrated by some democrats maybe it's like a reverse project veritas kind of thing

anyway i thought you'd all enjoy that that was fun that was fun uh thank you elijah for um you know helping the federman campaign and potentially saving the country uh and and tommy for tweeting it thanks alex holder for joining the pod today for talking about his documentary everyone go check it out unprecedented and uh everyone have a great weekend enjoy your and we will uh we'll talk to you next week. Bye everyone. Pod Save America is a Crooked Media production. The executive producer is Michael Martinez. Our senior producer is Andy Gardner Bernstein.

Our producers are Olivia Martinez and Haley Muse. 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 crookedmedia.