Pod Save America - “Little Ronny Pudding Fingers.”

Episode Date: April 18, 2023

Little Ronny Pudding Fingers finally responds to Trump’s attacks and quietly signs a 6 week abortion ban in Florida. Kevin McCarthy has a new debt ceiling plan that’s probably dead on arrival. The Democrats’ Dianne Feinstein problem is not going away and neither are Clarence Thomas’ ethics scandals. Then Crooked’s own Max Fisher stops by to talk about the epic defamation case that’s set to begin this week between Dominion Voting Systems and Fox News. For a closed-captioned version of this episode, click here. For a transcript of this episode, please email [e-mail] and include the name of the podcast.

Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Jon Favreau. I'm Jon Lovett. I'm Tommy Vitor. On today's show, little Ronnie Pudding Fingers finally responds to Trump's attacks and quietly signs a six-week abortion ban in Florida. Kevin McCarthy has a new debt-sailing plan that's probably dead on arrival. You know, he may not have wanted to sign it, but his fingerprints were all over it. Pudding. Oh, boy. Pudding Fingers. The proof.

The Democrats' Dianne Feinstein problem is not going away and neither are clarence thomas's ethics scandals then we talked to crooked zone max fisher about the epic defamation case that's set to begin this week between fox news and dominion voting systems all right let's get to the news the republican presidential primary starting to give off some 2016 vibes donald trump has been attacking Ron DeSantis as a grandma-killing establishment rhino pedophile for weeks now. That tracks, yeah. But it was this MAGA Super PAC ad

that finally prompted DeSantis' ironically named Never Back Down Super PAC to respond. Ron DeSantis loves sticking his fingers where they don't belong. And we're not just talking about pudding desantis has his dirty fingers all over senior entitlements tell ron desantis to keep his pudding fingers off our money here's the response from uh desantis world donald trump is being attacked by a democrat prosecutor in new York. So why is he spending millions attacking the Republican governor of Florida?

Trump's stealing pages from the Biden-Pelosi playbook, repeating lies about Social Security. Trump should fight Democrats, not lie about Governor DeSantis. What happened to Donald Trump? The Super PAC also ran this online only ad about Trump that was targeted at Republicans who attended the NRA convention in Indianapolis over the weekend, where Trump spoke, but DeSantis did not. Trump promised NRA members he'd have their back. But when Second Amendment rights came under attack, Trump abandoned us. You guys, half of you are so afraid of the NRA. I like taking the guns early. Take the guns first. Trump cut and run like a coward. Trump, gun grabber doesn't deserve a second chance.

All right. What do you guys think of these ads? Take on the strategy behind them, and do you think they're effective? Tommy? The pudding thing worked. It's weird and gross and funny and memorable, and it's getting covered in mainstream media,

on social media, and it's Trojan horsing in this message about cutting Social Security. It was well done. It's a very good and it's Trojan horsing in this message about cutting Social Security. It was well done. It's a very good point about the Trojan horsing. I think the horse was pretty open. No, but I get it because it's like, if you just did another Social Security Medicare hit,

who's going to cover that? You get some fun pudding stuff in there? We got some weird pudding pops. And then you got a really effective message about Social Security Medicare in there. A plus ad. It's an A plus ad. And we were talking about this when it first came out.

It's a shockingly normal political ad. It feels like it could be made by any normal for a Democrat or a Republican. It's just a traditional professional ad. The first thing I thought of was I'm like, David Plouffe probably loves this ad. I can see him. This is like a Barack Obama versus John McCain ad, a Barack Obama versus Mitt Romney ad. And there's a Santa's response. Like when you whine about tactics, that to me always says you are losing.

If you are, you're saying, how dare Donald Trump attack a Republican? Are you just meeting Donald Trump? Did you not watch the primary? That's all he does. No Trump voters are upset that Trump is attacking another Republican. Also, so also, first of all, I do think it gives you a little bit, there's a little bit of a hint of where they want to go, which is like, there's a little bit like he's creepy. He's, he's, there's just, yes, there's a little bit of that. Like, you know, he's a weirdo. He's a weirdo. He's a creep. They want to get those photos with the,

with the, with the teenagers back out there. So that's under there a little bit. The DeSantis response, I think, gives itself away when it ends with what happened to Donald Trump, which is kind of like saying like, oh, because even the DeSantis ad says he used to be fucking awesome. You know, you don't want your own ad to say like god i miss that donald trump guy that even the nra ad like maybe there are some hardcore nra fans and gun supporters that are upset by that ad but most of the ad was trump looking tough and talking about fighting the nra a powerful interest group like are you kidding me it really was like um it was an the gun one was much worse i think for desandis first of all the gun ad maybe who knows how it plays for the wackadoos attending an NRA convention. But it showed him negotiating for modest gun reforms with Democrats and Republicans. And we're seven years into this fucking Trump fiasco. And you still think you get points by showing Trump not caring what interest groups think.

It's wild. To me, it speaks. Their theory of the case here is so flawed. Yeah. Like Republican voters who are considering ditching Donald Trump are not doing so because they think he's not conservative enough on issues like guns or abortion, or because, like Tommy said, they think he's too mean to other Republicans. If they are considering ditching Donald Trump, it's because they are worried that he has now lost them several elections. And for some insane reason, DeSantis isn't making an electability

argument. But by the way, Trump is. Trump knows that's a vulnerability. And what he's trying to say is, hey, all you Republican voters who are maybe thinking about DeSantis, he's going to be a weak general election candidate because he wants to cut Medicare and Social Security. And because he's also a little weird, a little establishment, a little too rhino, but like really vulnerable in a general election against Joe Biden. You sure you want to put Ron DeSantis up against Joe Biden? That's what Trump's trying to say. It's smart. You sure you want to put Ron DeSantis up against Joe Biden? That's what Trump's trying to say. It's smart. There's a lot of things I think you can get the Republican base to believe about Donald Trump, but you're never going to get them to believe he's not on their side.

Like, first of all, everyone's tried that. It has never stuck. No. Aside from immigration, I would argue that Republican voters did not back Donald Trump in 2016 in the first place because of any specific policy position. Immigration was a bit. it was, it's vibes. He owns the list of artists. He's an asshole. And it's also like, the guy is, doesn't sound like a regular fucking politician. And guess what?

DeSantis does now. And this is when DeSantis was doing well, when he was fighting Disney and yelling at, you know, woke corporations. Which he's back at again. He's trying to do it again. Yeah. Yeah. And there's that, that line from Mad Men that I'll paraphrase, which is, it's what I think of whenever I see DeSantis and Trump going at it, which is DeSantis is trying to make Republicans feel as if their needs are met, but Donald Trump makes them feel as if they have no needs.

And it's just over and over again, DeSantis gets himself wrapped around the axle because he's trying to win on points. And there's this underlying kind of inherent qualities that these two guys have. He's not able to get past. Electability is the only thing. Yeah. And you hear all these Trump people, even the ones that they're interviewing now, who are like thinking about both candidates. And they'll say, you know, what about Donald Trump? You know, I wish he wouldn't tweet as much.

And sometimes what he says gets some trouble. But I like that he says what's on his mind. I trust that. And with DeSantis, they don't trust that. Yeah. It's like, you want the fun dad that's going to take you on the roller coaster or not no one's going on any roller coasters now yeah it's like drive disney world go up the roller coaster you can see the state prison he's putting in there putting dad yeah he did make a joke that he was going to maybe uh put a prison in uh near disney world just to punish them more

desantis is also trying to get to the right of Trump on the issue of abortion. He signed legislation late Thursday night that would ban abortion in the state of Florida after six weeks, which is essentially a full ban since most abortions occur after six weeks. And many people don't even know they're pregnant by six weeks. DeSantis didn't say a word about the new law at the multiple events he held around the country, which tells you how much of a winner he thinks the ban is. One of DeSantis' billionaire donors, Thomas Pederphy, sounds like a perfect billionaire donor, told the Financial Times that he and a bunch of his friends are now, quote, holding our powder dry because of the governor's stance on abortion and book banning. From a political standpoint, why do we think Ron DeSantis did this? He had a 15-week ban.

This seems like a political suicide. The numbers are not even close. The University of Florida did a poll in February that found that 75% of Florida residents opposed a six-week ban, including 61% of Republicans. This is an insane idea. It will have huge ramifications outside of Florida because Florida was unfortunately a place a lot of women had to go to get abortion services because other states around it had even more draconian bans. The only reason the Florida legislature could pass this is because the state is so gerrymandered. But this just seems like an insane decision, like sort of a kamikaze political decision to try to win a primary that will have huge ramifications for DeSantis

and the party in any general election. Somebody close to DeSantis said this to the Washington Post. Abortion is not an issue that motivates him. I can tell you that. But it's one of those, what choice do we have? And it's like he clearly had hoped that the 15 week ban would get him to the other side of this issue without having to pick a fight with the evangelical base that wants a total ban. But he couldn't come out against this. Clearly didn't want to do a six week ban, but felt dragged to it by the right wing members in the Florida legislature. And now he has tied himself to this evil fucking thing. And he can he can sign it behind closed doors all he wants.

It is going to follow him for the rest of this campaign. Clearly, like you guys said, the motivation is to try to win this primary and general election will worry about that later. I don't even know if it really is going to help him in this primary, partly because of what we were just talking about with the NRA ad

too. It's like this theory that the evangelical base, they just, they really just care about abortion and that's it. Like maybe at one point they used to, it's all vibes now. They're not backing Donald Trump, the guy who's probably paid for multiple abortions himself, who's been married multiple times because they think, you know, he's a he's a righteous person. But also, like, what are we doing here? Take it from the other side. Take it from the other side. Donald Trump on the on the issue of abortion. Donald Trump is the most successful Republican president in in a in a half century.

He stacked the court with right wing judges who are who are anti-abortion. He delivered them the majority that got rid of Roe v. Wade. You can't you can try to get to the right in this politically stupid way, but you're not going to win on that issue. It's it's it's it's really baffling. There are reports that Trump's been telling anti-abortion activists that Republicans risk losing big on this issue unless they soften the messaging. And Trump wants to be emphasizing exceptions to bans. And he thinks to be emphasizing exceptions to bans. And he thinks that all of these total bans are are bad now, which, by the way, for Trump is very silly because it's like like you just said, he's the guy that literally his judges are the reason

that Dobbs. Well, he's basically look, guys, we got to lie a little bit. Come on, work with me here. He's been saying this for years. He's been saying this for years. He was when he was first before he was before he even got the majority to do it. He was worried about the political implications of this and kind of has always kind of joked about the evangelicals being kind of weird to him. He's never got them. They're not they don't resonate on the same frequency. I mean, how long until Donald Trump starts openly attacking DeSantis for the six week ban? You can see it. I mean, it's going to be hypocritical, obviously, but I can he's going to be too extreme. He's not going to win the general Medicare and Social Security position,

his abortion position. This guy's a weirdo. It's the pudding and the pedophilia. The one the one piece of this is I can imagine DeSantis thinking like I if I I'm just trying to get this get past this issue. Right. If he fights this thing that the majority of the caucus wants in the legislature, he's now in a fight over abortion that makes it more salient. He signed this law and now he kind of moved past it, even though the politics will trail him. That's the only kind of cynical political argument you can say. I think you can't move past it because he's going to own the ramifications. It's going to be story after story after story of the horrific consequences of this law. I think it is crazy to me. I've really tried to think of it from his

point of view, like just from pure hard politics. I remember thinking he was smart for not doing this and just sort of standing behind a 15 week ban, the more palatable politically, at least. And there was the Republican Senate majority leader, who is someone who is less conservative on this issue uh was asked why she was getting behind this and she's like asked ronda santos she basically was like looking at him to help me get out of this this is not like the legislature just like handed him something that he's oh now i have to sign it or not sign it like he runs that legislature they're there to do it he had a choice to make whether he wanted to have the fight or not yes uh believe it or not there

are other republicans in this race uh though the potential field shrank by one over the weekend. As Never Give an Inch author Mike Pompeo did, in fact, give several inches when he announced that he won't be running for president, a political earthquake that upended the GOP primary. Other 2024 hopefuls seem to have a higher tolerance for embarrassment. Mike Pence was booed at the NRA convention in his home state where he once served as governor. Nikki Haley's campaign was caught lying about their fundraising totals. They inflated them by about $3 million because they were double counting a bunch of money. Oops. It's just getting through a new cycle, right? At a big GOP donor retreat in Nashville over the weekend, governors Chris Sununu and Brian Kemp offered some gentle criticism of

Trump. And then Trump got up there and mocked every single candidate's single digit polling. He was like, Chris Christie, 1%. Wow. Phenomenal. Nikki Haley, she's working hard. 4%. Working hard. Now, before we get to the rest of the field, Tommy, is this Mike Pompeo announcement a huge blow to worldos everywhere? Thank you, John, for asking. This was a tough weekend for me and tens of others. Actually. Oh. I prepared something. Oh, God.

He's got a, he folded something up in his pocket. I just wanted that. Why would it be, why would it be separate than his laptop? Andy and Olivia do have their hands over their mouths. I don't understand why you'd have to print something. He has his laptop. It's an important moment. It's just drama.

We gather here today to mourn the death of Michael Richard Pompeo's presidential ambitions. I know that some of you traveled from as far away as Santa Monica to be here, and I just wanted to say thank you, and that it means a lot to me. As Neil Young once wrote, Oh my God.

My, my, hey, hey, parens, out of the blue, close parens. It's better to burn out than it is to rust. The king is gone, but he's not forgotten. There's not a spot of rust on you, Mike. Once described in The New Yorker as a heat-seeking missile for Trump's ass, Mike Pompeo soared to intercontinental political heights. Born in Orange, California to Dorothy and Wayne Pompeo, Mike met his real daddies, the Koch brothers,

after moving to Kansas in the mid-90s. From there, he took on Congress, the deep state, the State Department, and the world. It's hard to quantify what his absence will mean, John. As John Steinbeck said, according to Brainy Quotes, it's so much darker when a light goes out than it would have been if it had never shown Mike Pompeo, the calf pack from tweets with no engagement to tier two Sunday shows to

sparsely attended Iowa events. You lit the way for dozens and we will miss you. Oh, beautiful performance. He really captured, he captured the tone. Um, uh, okay. I, miss you oh it's a beautiful performance he really captured he captured the tone um uh okay oh there it is again you should just we need the um we should also layer on the ozempic jingle i thought yeah also um just saying i what did he do that with discipline wasn't he like the

first person and maybe only person to blurb his own book too? Oh yeah, he did his own book. There was one part at the end. Thank you, Tommy, by the way. Thank you for giving me this moment. So Mike Benpeo, whose whole public persona is about how sort of unstoppable he is, doesn't give an inch, decides to give an inch. Decides to give all the inches and step out.

And he releases a full page statement on Twitter about why he's doing it. But the end of the statement to me captured everything that makes Mike Pompeo someone with just the absolute worst personality in public life. And he ended the statement by saying this. To those of you this announcement

disappoints, my apologies. And to those of you this thrilled, know that I'm 59 years old there remain many more opportunities for which the timing might be more fitting as presidential leadership becomes even more necessary even more necessary the problem with that is that is an incredible statement be like like uh it's it's very much like i'm sorry i can't meet you at the flagpole after school today i have violin practice but oh next couple of days we're gonna find a time and boy are we gonna fight at that flagpole he is really embarrassing don't threaten us with a good time mikey it's like but also even the end of that statement like so you're

saying that now is not the time for presidential leadership but but in the future it might be it's a it's an it's it's just so arrogant and stupid god yeah may his memory be a blessing i mean i miss him already raises a question we're not going to do uh predictions here we're not gonna that's gonna feel like a little 27 oh you know do you so far do you think any of these fucking yahoos are showing what it takes not even to beat trump but to like be the new Ron DeSantis if for some reason Ron DeSantis continues to shit the bed. It's pretty, you know, you could you would say like, all right, obviously none of these other fucking jokers. But like you look at someone like Tim Scott and say, OK, maybe. And then he gets the most obvious question that you could possibly be asked about abortion and gives an absolute just a word salad in response.

Though it actually captures, I think, the problem that has nothing to do with each one of those individuals. There was a sort of a column looking at like the politics of what Tim Scott is supposed to say. And he's supposed to find a place in the Venn diagram that will please the evangelical base without pissing off the vast majority of Americans who are pro-choice.

And they don't overlap. They just don't overlap. Nor does the Republican base in being hopeful. Yeah. That's not and they don't overlap. They just don't overlap. Nor does nor does the Republican base and being hopeful. Yeah, that's not what they're looking for. It seems like the plan right now is once again to hope that Donald Trump will implode on his own, even though they all chose to defend him over the indictment that might have led to that implosion. Yeah. So even when things come up that might hurt Donald Trump, no one is going to take advantage of it or hasn't so far. No one wants to exploit it.

Like if you do not go after Donald Trump directly and do so, and again, I get that most of the base and most of the voters you need loves Donald Trump. So you have to be careful on how you do it. But the electability argument is that is what's on Republican voters minds. They are willing to hear a case about that. Just fucking go do it. It's it's a bunch of people throwing buckets of water on a house fire, hoping that the house burns down. How about that? OK, I like that. I like that. just came to me let's talk about congress which is uh back in session this week they're back baby didn't even know they were gone yeah kevin mccarthy is still trying to pass a budget through the republican house that raises the debt ceiling his latest plan is a one-year

extension of the debt ceiling to may of 2024 right right in the middle of campaign. That should be fun. Good idea. And this plan would gut all non-defense, non-entitlement spending, repeal student loan forgiveness, repeal clean energy tax credits that were in the IRA, increase fossil fuel production, and institute work requirements for Medicaid and food assistance. What's the thinking behind this plan? What are the chances it actually passes? Lovett? It's funny to say what's the thinking behind the plan. It's Kevin McCarthy.

You know, he is the political equivalent of checking your watch while holding a coffee. And, you know, as a rule, when Kevin McCarthy does something, you could ask, if you don't really understand it, it's like, is he smart or is he stuck? And the speakership. So he needs to go through the motions of putting forward these kind of draconian cuts to show that this can't pass ultimately on the road to what can pass, which is a clean increase that is mostly passed with Democrats in the House with some Republicans who jump on board. You would like to think that that is what you're heading towards, but more likely he is just putting one foot in front of the other trying to get through a day. Beyond that, I don't know. He's just trying to figure out. He has to put something forward so he can blame Biden for refusing to negotiate.

And they haven't released a budget yet. I think still, even after the speech. The thing that bumped me was doing this speech at the stock market was an interesting choice. Yeah. He went to Wall Street today and spoke at the stock market. Yeah. A bit like an Al Qaeda member doing a press conference on an airplane. You know what I mean?

Like, check out this thing I'm about to crash. I don't know. I see. I guarantee you that these CEOs care a hell of a lot more about their stock price than deficit spending. Look, I don't know what the guy's doing. I mean, it's what you said, Tommy. He wants to – all he's thinking about is I got to get something through the House. Right. And so I got to find a majority of House. I've got to find basically all of his House Republicans to vote for this plan.

And that means he needs the Freedom Caucus wackos. He needs the problem solvers. Right. He needs everyone. He's most of the caucus. And then if he can pass it, he can say, OK, Joe Biden, you told me you'd sit down and negotiate. If I had a plan, I passed a plan. If you don't like it, that's fine. But at least sit down and negotiate. So then he gets Biden to the negotiating table. The question is, can he even get this past the House? Because the way this plan is now, it's not the draconian balanced budget in 10 years, which they've all given up on or cutting Medicare and Social Security, which they seem to have given up on as well. But the cuts are deep enough that some moderate Republicans are already starting to balk at the plant. Yeah, I just, it all is heading to the same place, whether it's whether it gets killed by some House Republicans, or it makes it to the Senate and gets killed by

Republicans there. We're heading to a place where at some point, this will be the question will become will Kevin McCarthy say, sorry guys, I tried. And that is where this has to head, but it doesn't seem like he's going to acknowledge that. I just think he's trying to keep the speakership as long as he possibly can. But I mean, creating work requirements

to receive Medicaid and food stamps. So if you have cancer, you have to go out and get a job and then you can get chemotherapy. That's what we're doing here. And then Reuters found that most of the spending cuts McCarthy wants will hurt states Trump won in 2020 more than blue states. No. Yeah. The both the the cuts to domestic spending on education and transportation would hurt those states and instituting work requirements would also hurt

those states because the vast majority of people who are on Medicaid and food assistance are in those states. Yeah. I just you sort of step back from all this. It's like, no, this, this ridiculous, these ridiculous cuts are never going to become law. There's not what there's probably not 40 votes in the Senate. They're dead. Um, and so, okay, well, where are we heading? And it's just, we're, we're whatever shenanigans McCarthy pulled over the next few months. Is he going to bring to the floor something that would pass with majority democratic votes? And, and then lose the speakership. And then lose the speakership.

But I do think if it, um, if this fails in the house, this plan, if you can't even get it through the house, ironically, we might get a, a better outcome sooner because he will continue to fucking drag this along. If he gets it through the House, he's going to claim it's a big win. We're going to know it's not. The press is probably going to be, oh, McCarthy got it passed. Time for Joe to negotiate. We're going to get a round of time for Joe to negotiate. Or it's like now it falls to McConnell.

There's just going to be, yes, sure. It is going to be a bring McCarthy. Why don't you bring McCarthy to the White House and just sit down and talk about the plan? You don't have to accept the plan. You just have to negotiate. And Biden's going to have to say, no, I don't want to negotiate. It's got to be a clean debt ceiling. And this is what McCarthy is telling to the members that are like, don't make me vote for this

fucking thing. That's right. But if McCarthy fails now, then I think it's right to then McConnell and Schumer have to get together and just start figuring something out. And then force a jam through the House. But someone has to call it for a vote on the floor. We have an update on 89-year-old Dianne Feinstein, who Lovett's been trying to shove out of the Senate. Excuse me.

There's no shoving. It's light. Gentle. An invitation. A push. An invitation. An invitation. Just sort of a prodding.

Prodding. Cattle. Chuck Schumer said he spoke to the senator who said she hopes to return soon, but he still wants to appoint a temporary replacement on the Judiciary Committee. Ain't happening. First, they thought maybe unanimous consent. Then Tom Cotton was like, no, not unanimous consent. And then like, OK, well, you could do it with 60 votes if maybe Mitch McConnell will help us out. And then all these Republican senators over the course of the day are like, what?

Why would we help Democrats and judges? Absolutely not. Which, of course, if the shoe was on the other foot and this was a old Republican senator that they were trying to replace, the day are like, what? Why would we help Democrats and firm judges? Absolutely not. Of course, if the shoe was on the other foot and this was an old Republican senator that they were trying to replace, would we be like, oh yeah, Democratic senator, help out Mitch McConnell, help them pass those judges. Of course not. Are you crazy?

And so, yeah, the idea that there would be these 10 Republican votes, like everyone from the furthest right, like Codden, all the way to like Susan Collins, are like, I'm sorry, what are you asking me? Absolutely not. So what other options are there now? Love it. There's really two options.

Option number one is that Senator Feinstein returns to the Senate to participate in her vital work as a representative of the most populous state and a member of the Judiciary Committee, or she resigns. And although you and I were talking about this before the pot, if she resigns, it still might be hard to replace her. It still might be hard to replace her on the

committee. So basically everyone is, there's been a lot of kind of, I think, um, now this, this will happen on Twitter. And if you notice it, people just saying things like Schumer can replace, no, uh, in fact, Schumer does not have the ability to put anyone on a committee that requires the Senate to vote. Now, normally that happens without incident at the beginning of the Senate. It's very, you know, it's very decorous. Everybody gets along. But it requires 60 votes or unanimous consent, which is ultimately the same thing. And that have basically Republicans get together, decide who's on their committees.

Democrats get together and then they all kind of agree. Although, if you remember, there was a moment at the beginning of the last Senate where Mitch McConnell held up the vote with a filibuster for a while. I remember we were like this. The committees can't meet. It's going to be really important. We've all forgotten about it, but it did happen. But Cornyn today told reporters that the temporary replacement thing is out of the question. But there's a precedent for a senator resigning and there being an opening in the normal course of business that they would allow someone to fill the seat. Now, my concern could be assholes if they want it. Well, my concern is that we've now had like a two week news cycle that began with Dick Durbin saying, hey, I can't confirm judges that is now basically

made this not about a routine filling of an open opening, but a question of will Democrats get to confirm more judges? So I worry that that is planted, but a question of will Democrats get to confirm more judges? So I worry that that has planted a seed that is growing in the minds of, the fertile minds of your Tom's Cotton and so forth. If only you hadn't started this news cycle. Dick Durbin started this news cycle. I just helped it along.

Don't blame Durbin. You always blame Durbin for everything. I don't know what to do with his power, guys. I've never felt so powerful. I'm eating raw meat and thinking about what other old people I can push out of their jobs. How about Karen Thomas? That's a good idea. Perfect segue, Tommy.

That's a good idea. Oh, wait. I do want to make one more point, though, about- We were flying into the next- What else you got? What else you got? How powerful are you? Yeah, I was ranked as fucking-

I just want to make one more point about this, all right? Because this could happen quickly between pods, and I just need to make one more point about this. All right. Which is because this could happen quickly between pods. And I just need to have said this. Which is this. You don't want Dan to take this point. Yeah. Which is this. That's how it usually goes.

Given. I'm going to say it before it ends up in the message box. His lips to God's ears. It usually goes the other way. It usually goes message box through me to the pod. You know. I basically chat GPT for ad jokes to message box. But but basically, you know, if if it if Senator Feinstein can't return soon and there's and she and she does decide to, as the L.A.

Times said, heroically step aside, which I think is a nice thing to do, then it would be it would be Newsom's job to fill the seat. nice term. Then it would be it would be Newsom's job to fill the seat. Newsom promised to Joy Reid in March of 2021 that he would replace Dianne Feinstein with a black woman. Barbara Lee is obviously a black woman who is running for the seat. That would mean that both of if he were to appoint Barbara Lee, that would mean both Senate seats were filled by appointment. And now I don't think given that the campaign's already started, I don't think that means we don't have a race between Adam Schiff and Katie Porter and Barbara Lee. But I do think if we're all, everyone who's paying attention to this, I think we all should really hope that Gavin Newsom appoints. He said when he told Joy Reid, there are many people on his list. He should appoint someone. If this seat opens up, that is not going to run for the seat so that Democrats get

the Democrats so that we have a chance to vote for a senator so that both of our senators have not come from the from an appointment, but that one of our senators has been chosen by us in an election. Look, I just want to thank you very much for making that point that we discussed extensively on Thursday's pod. Yeah, but I didn't discuss it. And that now when is that whole conversation? Did you exactly that? Did they really leave it in? It's all offensively on Thursday's pod. Yeah, but I didn't discuss it. Just a whole conversation. Exactly that. Did they really? Leave it in.

It's all staying in. How much of it? The sausage has been eaten. Wait, what do you mean? Wait, Andy. So you just cut it then? No, we're leaving it in. No, now we're leaving it in.

I gotta listen to the Thursday pod? Yeah. I'm making a show Thursday. Check it for me. Let's see if we can tighten this up. We'll get you a reader. Clarence Thomas, the right wing justice now plans to amend his financial disclosure forms after ProPublica on a roll reported that he failed to include a real estate deal with

sugar daddy Harlan Crowe, where the Nazi memorabilia buff bought three properties from Thomas, including a home where the justice's mother still lives rent free. The Washington Post then reported that Thomas has also erroneously claimed income from a defunct real estate firm for the last several years, though that one may be more of a bookkeeping error, but you know, not great. So Dick Durbin, who's coming up all the time these days, people are talking more and more about him these days. Yeah, he's being recognized more and more. He said that they'll hold a hearing about Supreme Court ethics on the Judiciary Committee, but some activists are calling on Congress to subpoena Thomas to testify. Can they? Should they? What do we think? Tommy? for a minute because Harlan Crowe, they buy the house that Clarence Thomas's mother still lives in. Someone did the math on how much rent she hasn't paid. And they say business insider suggest that saved her 150 grand. So that's interesting. He also bought like the whole neighborhood. He's

gentrifying the whole neighborhood and he's, he's refurbishing this house that Clarence Thomas's mother lives in while also saying he wants to turn it into a museum, which is a weird- Oh, I missed the museum part. Oh yeah, no, it's all about a museum. Which is a weird thing- For more Nazi memorabilia? No, no, no, for Clarence Thomas. Yeah, like a Clarence Thomas museum.

But if you're gonna turn, if they're gonna be like, this is his childhood home. I brought it up places to keep all my Nazi memorabilia. If you're gonna like turn a childhood home into a museum, you probably don't like gut the place and refurbish it. Right. So it's also not the first time he's made some sort of bookkeeping error. He also, Thomas failed to disclose his wife's income from the Heritage Foundation for years.

She made $686,000 between 2003 to 2007. And he kept clicking like the box that said no on whether she had any non-investment income you know it's just it's just things keep happening to him he didn't but doesn't think these are rules matter that they're important or that that he should be held to any kind of standard to your question john uh can they subpoena him and should they they can and they should yeah that's it they can and they should and there's gonna be a lot they can if uh if diane feinstein comes back we're gonna need every vote we're gonna need every vote and i don't want to be a shingles issue voter but i do think it's really important oh my god can't believe you saved that till now i forgot i typed it actually i forgot to say it earlier

it's that's prepped just in case if i if i if i'm called if i'm canceled for it just know that i it was premeditated that's good uh sheldon whitehouse is pushing the attorney general merrick garland to investigate thomas as well yeah i think oh yeah we'll be dead by then yeah merrick garland wandering in the justice department with his candle and his nightgown slowly moving through the old house but look there's been a lot of senators saying how there's all these kinds there's so many different people that should be doing uh oversight well they should do it too they should give it a shot yeah look i realize i realize there's not going to be an extremely satisfying outcome to this likely but um just from a pure political perspective like

what's going to happen there's this all this corruption surrounding this judge he he doesn't have a high approval ratings nor does the institution on which he serves at this point. You drag him before the Senate to ask him a bunch of questions. Yeah, it's a bad news cycle for two days and maybe doesn't go. But what's the harm? Even Mitt Romney today. What are they going to do? He said that this story stinks.

They're going to retaliate. He did. So then you were. Now they're going to call justices all the time to testify. Great. Great. Drag Elena Kagan before the Republican Senate. They did. So then you were, oh, now they're going to call justices all the time to testify. Great. Great. Drag Elena Kagan before the Republican Senate Judiciary Committee someday. Yeah, she'll flap circles around you, you fucking dummies.

Sonia Sotomayor, what are they going to do? They're going to give great answers. Yeah, remember when they were like, we're going to get Hillary Clinton to testify all day about Benghazi. She made you look like dopes. It was the best day of the campaign for her. Yeah. That's not retribution that I'm really worried about.

Okay. Counterpoint. She did say, this is from the Wall Street Journal opinion piece defending Clarence Thomas. Oh. Quote, one may be tempted to think that of all people, a judge should know what the law says, but that's a nonsensical standard. A judge's job isn't to memorize statute books. It's to discern laws meaning and their application to the facts and cases that litigants bring

before him. How are we not doing Take Appreciator today? That's a full playbook. I stoleator today? That's a full playbook. I stole a lot of stuff under there. That is a full playbook. James Toronto? Oh, he's awful. I think I muted or blocked him.

You know, when we were in Wisconsin for the Supreme Court race, it was this incredibly refreshing thing that everybody was just campaigning, not on some imaginary concept of what a judge does with calls, mauls, balls and strikes i'm going to be the most impartial person you've ever seen but it was like hey this is an ideological context there are real stakes we have real views abortion is on the line democracy on the line

we should just be doing everything we can to like pull the supreme court like down from this mountaintop it's been on they are they are doing a pretty good job themselves yeah they are but like they're lawyers in drag six of them are freaks at least one's a criminal like let's let's let's do it every and let's do everything we can to have accountability just like it's it's the right thing to do when is john roberts doing another public event because someone needs to say to him hey man you whine all the time about political attacks and the legitimacy of the court and don't attack it, blah, blah, blah. You're doing more harm to the court's reputation than anyone else by letting this flagrant corruption go and not saying a word, not doing anything.

I bet his schedule is pretty clear right now. I bet he's not, well, I don't think he wants to appear at a public event and get that question. These dorks are always talking at some law school about something. This is the problem is they're so insulated from any kind of reality. This is why if you can't subpoena him, it's a good thing to subpoena him. There's going to be a whole like just idiotic news cycle. People throw in terms like separation of powers and overreach. And it's already being described as a showdown.

Just fucking do it. Just asking you to come answer some questions. described as a showdown just fucking do it some questions it's but the idea that like the idea that that uh like the laws that thomas is accused of breaking are made by congress if he is to be impeached it's going to be impeached by congress he has got that seat because he was confirmed by the senate it's not a violation of the separation of powers to have a supreme court justice testify for congress look we're also we're doing here is we're building support, in my mind at least, for term limits. That's what I want. Expanding the court, that's a little bit of a fantasy right now.

That's like thinking we're going to get rid of the Electoral College. It's far, far, far away. You're probably not on that PJ after six years. That's like a 12-year kind of. Well, he famously said he's been on the court for 30. He's like, I've been friends with Harlan Crowe for 25 years let's let's start with some let's start by trying to get some term limits on the supreme court that's my that's my new thought let's see if we can get we're all gonna yell about expanding the court and we we're so far from that we're so far from

being able to do that having the votes but i bet term limits is probably easier and i still think it would be pretty effective yeah i think a lot of these octogenarian uh senators gonna be big fans of term limits what else you guys talk about on thursday just senator senators think a lot of these octogenarian senators are going to be big fans of term limits. What else do you guys talk about on Thursday? A lot of senators just looking at that wet bathroom floor thinking, there but for the grace of God go I. All right, when we come back, Tommy and I will talk to... Do not DMCA this. It's just YouTube. When we come back, Tommy and I will talk to Crooked contributor Max Fisher about the Fox vs. Dominion trial. The defamation case between Fox News and Dominion voting systems is scheduled to kick off this week.

Though as of right now, we're recording this on Monday afternoon, a last minute settlement is still possible, guys. Could be in the offing. Could be in the offing. Here to talk about the strength of Dominion's lawsuit and the many implications of this case is Crooked's newest contributor, Max Fisher. Hey, Max. Hey, pals.

What's going on? Thanks for having me. Why aren't you in Wilmington? That's where all the cool kids are. I am. I'm hologramming in from Wilmington. Oh, right. That's what that is.

It is wild down here. It is popping off. Some very fired up media reporters. Hanging out in Delaware. In Wilmington for no trials. The case of the century. It's a glamorous field. What can I say?

So there's been reporting that Fox has wanted to settle this case for a while now, but so far Dominion has refused. What do you think might get them to change their minds at this late stage? So we don't know why Dominion has declined to settle. It stands to reason that Fox News wants to because they've already settled one separate case over 2020 election lies. There are two kind of most plausible reasons in my mind, although we don't know for sure. One is just that Dominion and Fox News might just have very different reads on the likelihood of the suit succeeding because successful lawsuits, defamation lawsuits against big media companies are really rare because the standard is so high for them, which I know we're going to talk about. So it might just be like there's not a lot of precedent to look through to see the likely outcomes.

precedent to look through to see the likely outcomes. Another that I find a little bit more persuasive, but it's speculative, is that Dominion has a bunch of defamation cases out right now related to this specific set of lies around the 2020 election. And this might partly be about signaling resolve to those other defendants that we are really willing to go to trial, like watch us. So therefore, we're not going to be pushovers when it comes to settlement. That's interesting. I hadn't thought about that. I've been reading about this and what struck me is that Dominion seems to have a pretty strong case on the liability front, on the fact that Fox is liable for this, but less of a strong case on the amount of damages that they asked for, which is 1.6 billion. And I think the company was valued at like $80 million.

Right. Yeah. Some of these numbers are a little like pulled from thin air. So perhaps if this is less about a cause for Dominion and more about like, just it's a company and it wants financial rewards here from Fox, they just want to settle and get as much money as they can. Though for all of us, we'd rather go to trial. We like the show. We like the show. Or like a very public apology from Fox.

Right. The whole thing is a little weird because like the reason that we care about it and that like people should care about it is that it is a test for how far can you go in lying about elections and inciting insurrection, but the terms that the case will be decided on are like you're saying, it's like, how do you count up corporate damages? that is coming through a lot of this is there's a little bit of a mismatch between the significance of the trial and the actual like facts of it on the face. I mean, it's also possible like, you know, they make voting systems. Maybe they care about the sanctity of democracy. What? I know, I know. These are lawyers we're talking about. So it's possible I'm overly optimistic there. Well, so Max, I mean, you sort of alluded to this. I mean, you're seeing a lot of coverage of this case where it's described as like the trial of the century for press freedom.

The First Amendment seems important as far as amendments go. Is that fair? I'd rank it number one. I'd rank it number one. Freedom of speech, freedom of the press are sort of derived from this. But when it comes to libel law, I know a lot of liberals, us included, are rooting against Fox because they lied and they did it egregiously. And that is bad. And we want them punished here. But the landmark case that protects all of us from liability was brought by a racist Alabama guy who oversaw the police during the civil rights potential new precedent that could govern or curtail press freedom? Right. So the like the premise of that is, of course, that the standard set in that 1964 Supreme Court trial is famously incredibly high for proving defamation against a media organization. It's always really set the United States apart and is considered part of its press freedoms that it is so, so hard to prove defamation by a media organization because you have to prove that they internally

in their own minds knew they were lying when they did it, which is incredibly hard to prove. The actual malice standard. The actual malice standard. Yeah, exactly. And so because of that, there are very, very few successful defamation suits against the media, even when they get it wrong. And that's seen as an important part of the protections for like, you can get

something wrong and it's not going to blow up your entire news agency. I think that there is a view among a lot of first amendment lawyers and maybe a lot of journalists that that standard is a little bit out of sync with how much our world has changed in the last 65 years and even just the last five or 10 years where extreme polarization are so high because we've seen that it can lead to insurrection and coups that maybe there is a need to effectively soften those standards a little bit. Now, the people bringing these cases aren't saying we want to overturn that standard. They're all saying we meet that standard set in 1964. of these cases, because Dominion is bringing a bunch, Smartmatic, another voting machine company is bringing a bunch. If a good number of these cases succeed because it's set by a Supreme Court precedent, not by law, it will move that standard a little bit in practice. And maybe that is necessary in an age where our democracy is at imminent risk from disinformation. And I think there's also a case for it on journalism grounds that like, if you

are concerned about the future of journalism in this country and faith in journalism as an institution, maybe you want some harder guardrails to come up in the form of higher threats of liability. Because, you know, I don't like the fact that people think of the media as a monolith and think of journalism as a monolith, but they do. And their perception of whether journalism as a concept works and can be trusted is tied up in how they perceive some of the largest actors in the media. So you may be one, if you care about journalism, people to see their consequences for deliberately lying. But at the same time, I do have this reservation that cuts a little bit the other way where there's this specific scenario that I wouldn't say keeps me up at night, but I do worry about in a world where a good number of these cases succeed and that standard for bringing a defamation suit gets a little fuzzier, which is that it would become, I think, a little bit easier for companies with big pockets to try to bully or coerce news agencies into not running or into watering down stories that they don't want to see run. Even if everybody knows the story, it's true because this

thing that big companies will do, and they've done it to me many times, is when you go to them with a story that they don't like, they will try to extract as much information from you as they possibly can about what's going to be in the story. And journalistically, you're compelled to like, at least take that seriously because you're supposed to give them an opportunity to comment, to respond to things. They will go to your editors and try to get as much information as they can about the story. They'll go to your boss's bosses and try to get as much information as they can about the story. They'll go to your boss's bosses and try to get information. And then they will create a paper trail of giving you lots of emails and things in writing saying that thing that you're going to report,

that is not true, that's false. And the thing you learn very quickly is that- So then they trap you into deliberately lying, which would be the actual malice. Exactly. In London, this is a big problem, right? You have Russian oligarchs bringing completely frivolous lawsuits against journalists and basically, you know, putting them out of business with fees for attorneys, etc. Right, right.

And the fear is if you're the New York Times, the Washington Post, and a big company is creating this paper trail and saying, you know, all of these things you're going to report are not true. Even if you know they're lying, if you make some innocent mistake along the way, right, then they can hold the threat over you of are they going to bankrupt your news agency over this one mistake. There's been a lot of talk about this very high standard of actual malice, which is, you know, either the outlet knows the information they aired was false or did so with, quote, reckless disregard for the truth. That's the description of the standard. But in this case, it does seem like Dominion might be able to meet that very high standard. Like we might not even need to move the standard at all just because and you

see a lot of First Amendment lawyers, a lot of media lawyers who've like represented media companies in these cases before. Just saying that, like, I mean, the sheer amount of texts, emails, testimony that we've already seen in the pretrial period suggests that, yeah, Fox did deliberately know they were wrong. Like, you don't even have to go with the reckless disregard for the truth standard, which is just the easier one. I mean, they clearly knew this. What do we know at this stage about the strengths and weaknesses of Dominion's case? So there's not a like email from Rupert Murdoch saying we're going to do the big lie now and lie about Dominion voting systems. But it's it's pretty close. It's pretty close. You have to do

like a little bit of connecting the dots. It's not like a 1 million percent slam dunk. But basically what you have is after the election, you have a bunch of internal emails and text messages within Fox News, which we have now because they came out in discovery in the course of this lawsuit saying, we know that this dominion conspiracy theory that's out there and Trump's election denial generally is false. Because initially they said, we don't want to follow him on it. I said we don't want to go there. And they were talking about how the like Sidney Powell, who's Trump's lawyer, was pushing the Dominion conspiracy about how she's crazy and she doesn't have any evidence. And then you see that their ratings start to drop and then they start making, it's not exactly they say let's do this Dominion conspiracy after all to get viewers back.

But you see them kind of allow themselves to be pulled in to making this choice because they have a couple anchors who are a little bit rogue and errant. And at first they're concerned about that. And then they're saying, well, actually, this has a lot of ratings. And then they're saying, well, actually, we need to bring our viewers back. And so I think that it is it's clearly pretty strong, which is why it's going to trial in the first place. Whether they can prove, you know, each step along the way adds up to an intentional lie that is responsible for that level of damages is going to turn a lot on. Not just were they lying, because, of course, they were in the judges basically come out and said, I think that they're lying. But whether they can prove that the executives at the company were involved in the lie. Well, and that's key because I've seen that

now they want to go with the defense that Lou Dobbs and Maria Bartiromo actually believed this. And so it wasn't deliberately spreading misinformation. So they really believe this and they're just crazy. So we're going to throw them under the bus. But I think the judge said at one point in the pretrial period, like it's not about who said it. It's about the choice to publish and air these lies. And that rests with the executives. They can't push it off on the guests because initially they were saying we're just reporting what the president and his allies are saying. These are just guests on our show. We're not responsible for the lies they tell. And I think what Judge Davies was saying is that, no, you chose to air that and you knew it was a lie when you chose to air it. So that is not that you're responsible for that. The question is whether Fox will be able to, as you say, to portray Lou Dobbs and Maria Bartiromo as rogue

actors. And we know now that they actually tried to coerce one of the assistants on Maria Bartiromo's show into giving false testimony that would portray Bartiromo. It seems bad. Right. Yeah. It seems bad. And it also seems bad for Fox's case that that assistant then came out and sued the network. And it does seem like she was also pretty complicit in that lie coming out. So she's not the most sympathetic figure. But there is a lot of documentation that the executives were at the very least aware that it was happening and aware that it was false and chose not to intervene or pushed it to happen. Yeah.

I want to push you on this sort of question of democracy, play a little devil's advocate here, because you do hear a lot of people say like, well, with the big lie, this is bigger. This is about a threat to our democracy, right? But I think a lot of academics in particular would argue that press freedom is core to democracy right now. And in India, for example, ostensibly the world's largest democracy, the leader of the biggest opposition party, the Congress party, was just sentenced to two years in prison for defamation of Prime Minister Modi. Actually, of like three dudes named Modi for reasons I'll set aside. That seems to be the biggest threat to India's democracy, using defamation law to throw an opposition leader

in jail. What do you make of the argument that this case could do more harm than good to our democracy if it in any way curtails press freedom? I think we are balancing through these trials, although no one in the trial is doing this deliberately. We are balancing a really tough set of questions about our democracy, about how we balance the absolute standards of press freedom that we have right now against the rising threat of deliberate disinformation that clearly subsumed Fox News, even against the wills of its own hosts and executives, that they felt compelled to tell these lies that they knew were going to these extremes. How do you balance those things? How do you balance the freedom to get

things wrong in the media against the clearly rising intentionality of lies. And just the fact that we are in such a rapidly changing political environment where we have so many political actors now who are leading the media rather than the other way around and trying to pull them towards election denialism that has clearly real gravity and real weight with the audience. I mean, it's an irony that these big weighty questions of trade-offs are being litigated through a question of corporate damages for a profit company,

which like welcome to the United States of America. Like that's where the priorities are. It's not like if you tell lies that lead to an insurrection, like we're not going to sue you over that. But you lose some profits for a company that's bad. It's just like, what do you define as journalism? You know, we've talked about Fox a lot on this program, and they like to think of themselves as a media outlet. I think there was a time when other journalists would think of them as a media outlet that was just conservative.

I think that time has passed for a lot of people who aren't Fox fans or mag people. So then, like, are you able to get away with just lying intentionally because you call yourself a media outlet? Right. You know, and I think that's one of the things to balance as well. Yeah. And it's degrees, too. what's fascinating about the disclosures that we saw of Fox News's internal emails and text messages is you actually see them wrestling with this question in real time because they have reporters, they do have, they're obviously a diminishing part of the network, but they do

have reporters who do re-reporting. And they had a reporter who fact-checked, I think, one of Sidney Powell's press conferences and was getting just dragged internally within the network because people saw the host saw the executive saw that that was playing into hurting their ratings now at the same time i think hannity and maybe tucker carlson said we need to fire her like right away right right they claimed that she was hurting the stock price which i might actually be true right oh yeah sure it was hopefully and you know you saw that saw Rupert Murdoch initially after the election saying, we're not going to go down election misinformation. We're not going to go around down election denial because I think this is bad for the country. And then he changed his mind. are going to make the right choice because of ethical reasons.

But I think there is a question of what are the financial incentives that are going to push them to do the right thing. And maybe ultimately the question of what right-wing media in this country looks like will come down to are the financial penalties of lying to the extent that Fox and others lied going to exceed the financial penalties of telling the truth, which means that you're going to lose viewers to YouTube channels. I mean, what do you think it says about Fox and the larger right wing media ecosystem that they felt the need to chase these online conspiracies because they were afraid of losing viewers? So it's so fascinating because it didn't look like what I thought it was going to

look like. You know, I really thought that watching like Fox News arrive at this place in real time in 2020, that it was, you know, they love Trump. They want to keep Republicans in power. So they're making a deliberate top down choice to broadcast these conspiracies. And what we know now is that they did it basically out of fear and they did it out of this realization that they had. I mean, you can pinpoint it almost exactly to like November 12th, if you look or like November 10th, 12th, if you look at the emails and the text messages where they initially said, we're not going to do election denial. And they thought that that decision was going to be enough to shape the narrative because for 25 years, Fox News has been in charge of what the right thinks. And they've had an iron grip on what are the narratives,

what are the facts, who's right, who's wrong, what are the good policies, bad policies. And you see them realize that that's not true anymore. And they no longer have the power to set that narrative because they can tell people that Trump lost the election and then they're just going to go someplace else. And they are realizing that they now live in a world where there is always going to be someone, some social media, some crazy network, Trump himself, who will serve the kind of most base extreme QAnon parts of the party. And they made the wrong choice in deciding what to do about that. But I think it's a big question about what choice are they going to make going forward? And I mean, hopefully facing at least the threat of financial penalties will guide them on a better direction. Well, and to Tommy's questions about sort of the balance between protecting press freedom

and stopping the spread of disinformation, the fact that Fox now chases these conspiracies that are mainly developed online that then get fed to places like OAN and Newsmax makes that question even more complicated. Because, again, what is a media outlet if it starts in some 4chan forum and it spreads around and YouTube? I would argue, though, they've been doing that for a long time. I mean, what was the birther conspiracy, if not for like an online thing that hopped to Fox and to other? So, look, I mean, I think like this is, the courts are catching up with Fox's practice for a while here. I think the internet was always a,

where at least for the last 20 years, however long we've been doing this, I think the internet was always a source. Right. But the power, their power to set the narrative and change it and cut it off, that has diminished. Oh, absolutely. It feels like it's flipped almost.

Like, you know, I think the big moment was when they sent Megyn Kelly out to ask Trump a bunch of tough questions at a debate. He attacked her in the most vile ways imaginable. They backed her for a couple of days and then eventually showed her the door. You know, what's funny is when you just said Megyn Kelly, I thought you were going to talk about the 2012 election night remember when carl rove and all the romney people were like that was incredible no obama didn't win yet this is fine whatever and they were because they forgot that um uh that black

people voted in milwaukee um and then megan kelly went over and was like no that's wrong he you know and so like that was the reverse and fox was able to right they did have that power stop the crazies but they've they've long lost that power right i think you're right though that the 2016 election was like another big version of this moment or it's like it's like it's what you see with the republican establishment like 2016 they hated trump tried to stop him failed and then we're like i guess we'll just embrace him no matter where it takes us. Get in front of this parade. Yeah. Train. Train is called a parade, yeah.

It is clear that there are not a lot of tools to fight disinformation right now. And the legal one that we're going to be witnessing this week and in the coming weeks is definitely a different one that we've talked about over the last several years. And it's not perfect. The standards are not perfect. But we'll see what happens it does feel like it it in my mind it's very of a piece with the trump stormy daniels indictment and the many other indictments where it's like it's a sideways way into what i think is like the biggest question facing this country right now which is is there going to be accountability for trying to do a coup and overturn american democracy two years ago?

Because the guy who did it is, you know, a coin flip away from becoming president again. Yeah. Although maybe president from a jail cell. That's true. Either way. Max Fisher, thanks for joining us in this. And I know you're going to be following the trial for these next couple weeks, if there is a trial.

Yeah. Unless we wake up and there's a settlement. Are you guys coming down to Wilmington with me? Yes, we'll be there. Yeah, Joe says it's fun there's things to do crash in his house i don't know does amtrak go there from la it's gotta i think there's gotta be an answer wilmington on the way to new york right that sounds right that would be my only point of reference train through country is that a thing fly over country give him a second term and we'll have those we'll have those trains out there.

Dan's going to yell at us now for making fun of Delaware. Running for Senate there. All right, Max,

thanks for stopping by and we'll check in with you as the trial continues. Great. Thanks to Max Fisher for joining

and we will talk to you on Thursday. Love it. You want to join the pod? Sounds like he doesn't. I'm not going to. Pod Save America is a Crooked Media production. The executive producer is Michael Martinez.

Our senior producer is Andy Gardner Bernstein. Our producers are Haley Muse and Olivia Martinez. It's mixed and edited by Andrew Chadwick. Kyle Seglin and Charlotte Landis sound engineered the show. Thanks to Hallie Kiefer, Ari Schwartz, Sandy Gerard, 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 pod save America.