Pod Save America - Mar-a-Lago's Funniest Home Videos

Episode Date: August 1, 2023

Donald Trump is still waiting to get indicted for his attempted coup but got a few more charges in the meantime. The Republican presidential primary contenders wake up to the fact that they’re running against a criminal defendant who is still nearly 40 points ahead of them. Sam Alito flips off Congress in the Wall Street Journal while a House Republican screams at some kids. Kevin McCarthy almost comes to blows with Eric Swalwell and Congress investigates if aliens might exist. And later, Tommy talks with Lydia Kiesling about her new novel Mobility, the very first book from Crooked Media Reads. 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 the alien Mussolini found, Jon Lovett. I'm Tommy Vitor. On today's show, Donald Trump's primary opponents wake up to the fact they're running against a criminal defendant who's still nearly 40 points ahead of him. Sam Alito flips off Congress in the Wall Street Journal. A House Republican screams at some kids. Kevin McCarthy almost comes to blows with Eric Swalwell.

Aliens might exist. And later, Tommy talks with Lydia Kiesling about her new novel, Mobility, our very first book from Crooked Reads. But first, we are still waiting for Donald Trump to get indicted over his attempted coup. Any minute now. Maybe by the time you've heard this. I think I even said that before. But Jack Smith has given us a few more crimes to tide us over. On Friday,

he filed what's known as a superseding indictment in the classified documents case that charges Trump with two additional counts of conspiring to destroy surveillance footage at Mar-a-Lago after it was subpoenaed and one additional count of violating the Espionage Act for illegally retaining the classified war plans that he's on tape talking about with Mark Meadows' biographers. Trump also has a new co-defendant, a Mar-a-Lago property manager named Carlos de Oliveira, who, along with Trump and his valet, Walt Nauta, was charged with trying to delete those security cameras. Altogether, the GOP frontrunner now faces 74 felony counts, with more on the way,

which made his entrance music at the Lincoln Dinner in Des Moines this weekend a bit too on the nose. I mean, that's the election right there. It's perfect. Could end up going to prison. Could end up being president. That's it. That's what we got. All right. What did you guys find most notable or damning in the superseding indictment?

So a couple of things. I hadn't seen. This came out when we were in New York doing and I'd like seen some read some news about it. I hadn't actually seen the document. First of all, you were a low information voter who's now become a high information. Yes, absolutely. And so first of all, there's incredible. First of all, Jack, again, thank you. Great job. Great writing. Scab. A couple of things. One, Trump spoke to Daily Bear for 24 minutes. That is a long conversation. Yeah. To kick off the whole thing. To kick off the whole thing. That's 24 minutes. What were they talking about for 24 long minutes? The person that wasn't about what? Like the grass isn't where I need it to be.

The pool isn't good. We got to do the gutters. Here's what I can't figure out. How do you think they got that conversation how do you think they know that was 24 minutes between trump and oliver because he's not cooperating any cell phone record you just so we don't whip the contents of the call we're guessing or you don't know you just know the metadata of like start stop we just know yeah we have that and then the other the other um the other thing that really jumps out is the lengths to which Nauta was going to keep his involvement. I mean, obviously idiotically, but like the shush emoji, that's hilarious.

But one thing that must clearly come from security camera footage is the fact that when Nauta meets with De Oliveira, Nauta comes through the bushes, grabs old De Oliveira and Nauda comes through the bushes, grabs old De Oliveira and says, come with me. And they go through the bushes

to some adjacent property, talk for a minute, and then De Oliveira comes back. So Nauda didn't want people who worked at Mar-a-Lago to know he was there that day. And so he's scurrying around, but clearly getting caught

on the footage that their mandate was apparently to destroy, which is a little bit confusing. I love that. I love coming in and out of the bushes. That's my favorite part, too. Doing this sort of cloak and dagger nonsense and getting caught on the security camera

footage that you were trying to delete. It's perfect. Well, they're getting caught on the footage they're trying to delete. There's clearly the other side of the text messages have now been given over to the special counsel because we have the shush emoji. messages have now been given over to the special counsel so because we have the shush emoji so between the first indictment and this indictment he he was his lawyer he had the same lawyer as all these guys he clearly this indictment comes out and he's like oh no thank you you have a target letter yeah and he does not he's like i don't want to be a part of this at all no he got

a target letter from the fbi saying you're a target of this investigation that's when he clearly started talking because the fbi knew he wasn't being forthcoming about what he knew in some way. Yes. So then they switched lawyers. So then he switches lawyers, and then he's in this document being like, I don't know.

I don't think this is right, which I love. Yeah. You're usually convinced by a target letter when someone tells you you're the target of the investigation to maybe change your mind on something that you might not have said before right and so what he must have provided to the fbi that we've learned in the superseding indictment is the detail of this conversation in the audio closet which do you guys know what is an audio closet does anyone

it's the podcast studio we in a i think we're in an audio currently where we are so we're all located it's where you have like some speakers set up i don't know that's where they had this conversation but like everything about this superseding indictment makes sense to me because from the very beginning, the problem wasn't necessarily the original crime of taking these documents. It was all the moronic ways Trump tried to cover it up. And here we are again, like telling Walt Nauta to go fix it and get the IT guy to delete all this footage and all this cloak and dagger nonsense. It's created this open and shut obstruction case.

Here's the thing that I also don't understand, which is this is all taking place in June, but the famous flooding is until October. Yeah. Interesting. We still don't know about the flooding and how that's involved. We know that it's the- I'm just desperate for it to be involved.

I know, I know, we all are. But it does seem like Tavares, the IT guy, also gave them the signal chat or multiple signal chats where Nauta, Trump's co-defendant valet, asked an employee whether de Oliveira would remain loyal to Trump. And then they have Trump calling de Oliveira again, promising to get him a lawyer, which this is the of that move this is going on get everyone a lawyer

and then suddenly when they don't have the lawyer that was paid for by the trump organization of the trump super PAC suddenly uh they have other things strategy changes yeah just this is what happened with Cassidy Hutchinson uh during the January 6th hearings that's when she got a new lawyer and suddenly she was talking more so So this seems to be a pattern. I also think so much of the focus of this last superseding indictment has been on destroying the security footage. But the charge of willfully retaining the Iran war plans seems pretty open and shut because they clearly now have the document. Seems pretty open and shut because they clearly now have the document and they have Trump on tape not only talking about the document, but talking about how he's not supposed to have it. And now they have Trump also going out there and lying and saying, oh, it sounds like I was just showing them plans.

I was showing them building plans the whole time. What you heard on that tape wasn't true. It's like, well, no, no no they have the fucking documents yeah and they also have uh carlos uh de olivera lying about knowledge of the boxes getting sent to mar-a-lago in the first place and the question now becomes do does de olivera or walt nauda do they freak out and flip and give testimony because they're in even bigger trouble than they were before yeah the that was the other thing that I took away from this, which is like, like, Nauta has been around Trump for a long time. This guy, De Oliveira, he just works at Mar-a-Lago. And he just got roped into this.

And you read the transcript of the moment where DOJ is now saying that De Oliveira was lying. And he's asked the question, do you, were you, do you ever even, do you even know, like, if you were even there or where that boxes were? And before the question is even done, he's like,'s like no like all this stuff was being moved in never saw anything never never saw nothing and it just reads like somebody just completely in a situation they had never no didn't plan to be in way out of legal guidance before that i do not recall would have gotten him a lot further and he is and he is having this conversation he is it put in this position because he is sharing he is his lawyer is the same as now his lawyer he is in the same boat as all these other guys and it's i guess today he uh he didn't actually uh make a plea because he didn't have a local lawyer um but you have to wonder if people in

this person's life isn't saying like hey man you got to save yourself trump does not give a fuck what happens he was destroying your life if he chose to cooperate or for some reason now to choose to cooperate undoubtedly it strengthens the case but i will say jack smith so far from what we've seen in these indictments from what we've heard from him seems pretty damn thorough yeah like he has he has locked up this case. So if Dale Avery decides not to cooperate, if now decides not to cooperate, they decide to stay loyal to Trump. Like it's still like this guy's got a lot of evidence. Only that's just what we've what we've seen so far and read in the indictment. There's a whole bunch of stuff that we probably don't even know. And the other part of this, too, is all these questions around Eileen Cannon and how much she's going to be in the tank for Trump.

Like Jack Smith is making her life so much harder if what she wants to do is be friendly to Trump. First of all, you had this motion where Trump is like, hey, can I look at classified documents in Mar-a-Lago? And they're like, no, you fucking idiot. That's what this is all about in the first place. And so it's just like, you know, he he is being he's not putting he's not putting this trump judge in a position to be able to help him because this is so fucking embarrassing

and damaged he has to he has to his lawyers has to discuss them in mar-a-lago and bedminster like you know so maybe not necessarily see that have the documents there but discuss the documents in some place that's not a skiff and again that is the whole point of why we're here it's because mar-a-lago was never a skiff nor was bedminster you're also reminded in all this like trump tries to operate like a mob boss he doesn't email he doesn't put things in text message he only does in-person meetings but all the morons around him put everything in writing they talk on the phone they're sloppy they're ham-handed they crawl through the bushes to have a meeting that's being taped in real time it's just just... So Trump's response to this superseding indictment has been to say that actually the tapes weren't deleted and he never told anyone

to delete them. Yeah. I think his lawyers wrote that one. You think that was unadvisive counsel? Yes. Well, that's the thing. The evidence that Trump was directly involved is in the conversations that Nauta and De Oliveira had with all these other people. Right. There's no actual text from Trump. There's no words. It's all took place in phone calls. I mean, it's all obviously clearly what happened. But so his defense is going to be that that Walt Nauta and Carlos de Oliveira and the I.T. guy, they all just made this shit up. They made up the whole thing. They cared about me so much. Obviously, I was concerned about these about what was happening. But these people, they were trying to protect me. they didn't delete any surveillance footage but they thought that maybe they should for some reason yeah that's that's his defense well that's the thing it goes

even further than that which is in this document the doj sent a draft subpoena all of this takes place after doj yeah that's why he was charged. But that like, it's so- You can delete your own surveillance footage if you don't get a subpoena for the footage. But no, but like, he gets the draft subpoena and the next day, all of this is spun up. No time to waste. Very sloppy, yeah.

No time to waste. The feds are coming. This is out of nothing, but whatever. All these damning transcripts, the footage of all these guys running around with boxes, trying to figure out how to delete server videos, which they don't know how to do and can't figure out. And then they go and they talk to DOJ.

They go and talk to the grand jury, and they're like, I didn't see anything, I didn't do anything, I didn't see any boxes. And I know this is, can we just roll the quote from Hogan's Heroes, please? Oh, you went too far. I must report this. It would be worth my life if I do not report this. It's only until tomorrow and then he's going to

take it off again. After he steals the tank. Oh? From the Panzer Division. Oh? He brings it here into the brother. Oh, I see nothing.

I was not here. I did not even get up this morning. Thank you. That was from Hogan's Heroes. 1965. Timely topical reference. You guys from Hogan's Heroes. 1965. Timely topical reference. You guys love Hogan's Heroes, right?

I don't know. I don't know that reference. A little queer-coded, huh? He's a little gay. He's a little like, ooh, I do nothing. I see nothing. Well, Nazi-coded. Also that. Yeah, no, I think I saw some of the MAG idiots who hadn't got the memo yet on what the talking points were supposed to be.

They were like, what? In America, you can't be deleting your own surveillance footage? It's like, no. When the FBI sends you a subpoena for something, if they try to say, hey, we're going to collect your phone, you don't go, ah, and then throw the phone away. You can't do that. The thing I don't quite understand, so clearly there was some effort to delete the footage. DOJ at some point thought they weren't getting all the footage. There's some question of like, did the footage come from Mar-a-Lago?

Did it come from the company that was providing the surveillance technology? There's more to come. So we're talking about how everyone got lawyered up thanks to Trump. Washington Post and the New York Times reported over the weekend that Trump's Save America super pack. Save America. Not to be confused with. We got to figure out. We can sue them for taking our name.

Because we were first. We were first on that one. Anyway, Save America is hurting for cash because they have already spent 40 million dollars on legal fees just this year for Trump and his goons. I believe they started the year with $18 million cash on hand. And then after this first quarter, they have reported spending $40 million on legal fees. What do you think about alleged billionaire Donald Trump asking his mostly working class supporters to pay his legal bills? It's so perfect. They also reportedly spent another $16 million in the previous to pay his legal bills. It's so perfect. They also reportedly spent another $16 million in the previous two years on legal fees.

So that's quite a price tag. I mean, this is going to hurt him politically, not just because of the facts of the case, but the Save America PAC requested that a $60 million donation they made to another super PAC supporting Donald Trump be returned. They're asking for money back. That's how dire the straits are here. So they had, I think they raised a hundred million dollars after losing the 2020 race. Like you said, they had 18 on hand. Trump is now splitting online contributions. 90% go to his campaign, 10% go to the PAC, i.e. legal fees.

When I saw that, because it was actually, it was originally 99 cents were going to the campaign, then one cent. And the Times published that the ratio had been switched. And I saw that, because it was actually, it was originally 99 cents were going to the campaign, then one cent. And the Times published that the ratio had been switched. And I was like, oh, I wonder what it's going to be. 90-10. That's a lot of restraint for my boy Trump. Yeah. Expected it to be worse. I thought the same thing, to be honest.

But still, burning money. So I think most of his fans don't give a shit that they're giving money to his legal defense fund. They'd probably happily give Donald Trump their firstborn child. But I do think that the strongest argument against Trump has always been to a general electorate and to skeptical Republicans that he's only in this for himself, right? That it's only Trump does not care about you. He cares about Donald Trump and only Donald Trump. And I think running a whole campaign where you are trying to stay out of prison, that's why, and you are raising money for your own legal defense fund and not for nothing else. I don't know. I think it's a pretty good argument for someone to make.

Well, that's not an argument Chris Christie was making. I heard Chris Christie make that one. But the rest of them, not so much. We'll get to it. You see the shady shit Levitt's got Tim Scott's doing in terms of campaign finance? What is Tim Scott up to? He paid $5.3 million to two shadowy entities, as the New York Times described, the newly formed limited liability companies with no online presence,

no record of other federal election work that were basically just created for him to pay money out from his campaign to hide how it's being spent. What do we think he's doing there? Well, I'm sure he has reasons. He's hiding his campaign expenditure. I don't have it. It's just really like truly pushing the boundaries of campaign finance. So like we said, we're still waiting for this, the D.C. grand jury to act here.

Here's what we know. They sat for seven hours on Friday. Sounds uncomfortable. They reportedly heard from no witnesses. And it was the same day that Trump's team met with the Department of Justice and Jack Smith's team. So all the legal analysts, they think that Tuesday is the next meeting of the grand jury. So they think all signs are pointing to Tuesday as the day they vote on the indictment, because it's not like there was a whole bunch of extra witnesses or evidence or something like

that on Friday, because they would have seen witnesses going in and the fact that they had the meeting means it's probably getting pretty close uh we also saw on friday on georgia they were putting up barricades in front of the fulton county courtroom uh and the district attorney there fannie willis said in an interview that they are ready to go uh they have done the work and at the very latest she has promised that indictment or their decisions would be brought before september 1st and then i think alvin bragg did an interview uh where he said that uh if necessary he would move the hush money case if jack smith really needs to hold his trial on the january 6th stuff before the election what a gentleman alvin bragg although just because my indictment was first doesn't mean my trial has to be first thank you although he also said he's

not in control of moving the dates. The judge would be sort of like, oh, yeah, I don't know how this works. And there's just so many. How this works is no one has five trials at the same time for different issues. Nobody. So no. So what he says is that what he what Bragg said is like it would actually be up to the judge and the judges would have to confirm.

Yeah. And also in Georgia, there's an August 10th hearing where Trump's team is going to try to disqualify Willis and also toss out a bunch of the evidence she collected and remove another Fulton County judge from the case. So I wonder if she's going to let that hearing happen first before laying out her stuff or wait until after. Did you see there was one, there was an attempt to disqualify her, another attempt to disqualify her that was just rejected by a judge today.

Yeah, that judge rejected that, rejected. Yeah, it's sort of like, well, we're going to direct this batch of ridiculous claims about why you can't be tried today, and we're going to do it, and you're going to lose again, but not till August 10th. It's hard to keep track. So Trump's primary opponents had more to say than usual about his latest felony charges. Ron DeSantis told a reporter that, quote, if the election becomes a referendum on what document was left by the toilet at Mar-a-Lago, we are not going to win. His campaign also hit Trump on the Super PAC story,

accusing Trump of spending people's money on his own legal fees instead of defeating Joe Biden. Nikki Haley was on CBS this weekend. She said the party needs to move beyond Trump or else, quote, we will have a general election that's doing nothing but dealing with lawsuits. And here's former Congressman Will Hurd. Forgot he's running for president, didn't you? He's running for the Republican nomination. He's barely hit one percent in most polls, but he went after Trump at that same Iowa dinner over the weekend that we just heard. Let's listen. Donald Trump is running to stay out of prison. And if we elect, I know, I know, I know, I know, I know. Listen, I know the truth. The truth is hard. But if we elect Donald Trump,

we are willingly giving Joe Biden four more years in the White House, and America can't handle that. God bless you, and God bless America. I mean, except for the last part, everything he said was true. Truth was poorly perceived. You're that one person clapping. It was a Wilhurt staffer. It was the one Wilhurt staffer. Yeah, maybe it was his wife.

It just kills me watching, like, what a moment you could make out of being booed. There's so many jokes. There's so many things you could do with that. These guys just don't have the, they don't have the stuff. I will say,

this is probably more covers than Will Hurd has gotten on any other day combined. Every other day combined, I should say. Except for the first day he announced. So I don't know

that this is going to help him win the nomination, but it's certainly getting covered. I also don't know if it will help him win the nomination. I mean, listen, like, I don't think you're going to make that argument and people are going to be like, oh, you know what? He's right. But I think over time, if you make it repeatedly over and

over again, the doubts creep into these voters head and the electability argument is the only thing I think that's going to reach the persuadable voters here. There might not be in that room, but I totally agree. I am like, good for him for making it. That's a party fundraiser. That's like a hardcore Republican audience. Yeah, you're not getting a lot of applause there. Why do you think it took felony counts 73 and 74, 72 through 74, for these people to finally say something, aside from Will Hurd? I was surprised by Ron DeSantis suddenly being like, oh, wait a minute, wait a minute. He's not as electable if we have a criminal defendant as the nominee.

Yeah, both Haley and DeSantis, like the other half of what they said is so cynical and so pathetic and speaks to the hole they've dug for themselves because they both make this point of saying, look, you talk about the charge. I mean, they both, it was all word salad, but both of them make this argument that like, look, do I think there's prosecutorial overreach? Do I think it's unfair? Sure. But that's the reality we're living in. And despite the fact that Donald Trump doesn't deserve any of what is happening to him, the reality is if these chargers are what people are talking about, that's going to hurt us. So the sin is not overthrowing the government or trying to put in some fake electors or obstruction of justice or deleting footage or whatever it is. It's the sin of putting in a supposition to not win in November. So they're willing to go that far, but it's in this embarrassingly obsequious way.

Yeah. And the reason why is, you know, Tommy made the point. It is like that is that is a crowd of sort of the most hardcore Republican activists. But almost every poll of Republican voters, including the one we're about to talk about from The New York Times, shows that like upwards of 70 percent of the Republican electorate doesn't think Donald Trump committed any crimes at all. So, you know, when you say he's running to stay out of prison, most people don't agree with that. And there are Republican voters. So let's talk about The New York Times poll from today. Weighed in with its first survey of the Republican primary in 2024. Trump, 54%. DeSantis, 17%. And no one else broke 3%.

National poll. We pay attention to the New York Times poll, A-plus rated. It's basically now up there with Ann Seltzer's Des Moines Register poll as the gold standard. It had a lot of influence on their uh democratic primary in 2020 as poor elizabeth warren knows what were you guys's takeaways from the polls any uh specific findings jump out at you i got a bunch but you guys go first this was fascinating yes first of all a terrible poll for anyone not named trump there's no really good news anywhere

in it for any other candidate here's the things that I thought were most interesting. One, 17% said that Trump committed serious federal crimes. But of those 17%, 22% of those voters still prefer Trump to DeSantis. Voters who are woke focused, right? Presumably a group of people DeSantis has been trying to gather. This is the whole premise of his campaign and of how's governed. Break for Trump 61 to 36. So it's a very pro Trump poll. But this was this to me, like above all was like the most interesting above the 43 percent who had a very favorable opinion of Trump. They vote for Trump 92 to seven. So if you have a strong, if you like Trump, you're with Trump of the 25% who had a very favorable view of DeSantis, presumably the biggest DeSantis fans out there, the best he's doing, the people he's reached, they split 50, 50 of the 25% that are the most favorable DeSantis. Those are still people breaking 50, 50 to for Trump. And that was just, it has to be so

demoralizing. That has to be so demoralizing. Yeah. I mean, I think the big picture takeaway is a third of the electorate is the MAGA base. Another third is persuadable. A quarter of them do not want to vote for Trump, including some who say they will not vote for him in a general election. So yeah, this is a terrible poll for everyone not named Donald Trump, but there's opportunity there if someone can consolidate the 37% persuadable and 25% never Trump. Now, the MAGA base, this is my favorite stat, not one of the 319 respondents in the MAGA base section said Trump had committed serious federal crimes. 2% said he did something wrong in the handling of the classified documents. But in the not open to Trump primary, it is more educated, more affluent,

more moderate. So the challenge that all of these never Trump folks or not Trump folks are going to have is that's not a very Iowa electorate. And so the sequential nature of the nominating process is going to make it hard for them to get momentum early, I think. So the other I'm glad you brought up the like the three different segments of the electorate, which is basically that was the basis of the piece that nate cone wrote a piece off this as well and so you've got you've got the 37 that are the mega diehards and this is the same as what you were just saying right like the people who are very very favorable towards trump this is not just polling stuff this is like we see this in elections these are like the people who support him in early 2016 these are the people who are still with him after january 6th this is his base forget about them right and then you got the persuadables what he calls the persuadables which are the 37 and then the not open to trump

and the 25 the challenge for any other candidate even if you don't have the uh amazing political skills of ron desantis is the persuadables and the people who are not open to Trump completely disagree on issues. And so funding for Ukraine, comprehensive and support for Ukraine in general, comprehensive immigration reform, six week abortion ban, those two groups of voters are on opposite sides of those. So if you want to try to get the persuadables who like Trump but are open to someone else and you're a more moderate candidate

like a Chris Christie, you're not going to get those people. And similarly, if you're someone like Ron DeSantis who has taken some of those positions, it's going to be hard to get the never-Trumper vote because they don't agree with you. They're not as conservative as you are in those positions. Yeah, and even the group of people that are maybe the most amenable to an alternative

college educated Republicans are still only breaking are still breaking to Trump by 12 points. Well, and in this poll and Nate and the Times does the poll matching the voter file, I looked, they're only 36 percent of the Republican electorate. That's the problem. So, like, even if you consolidated all the college educated Republicans, which is hard to do, like you're still, you still have an uphill battle. I do think the electability thing is the only option.

This is an actual quote from a voter in the New York times story. Actual quote. He might say mean things and make all the men cry because all the men are wearing your wife's underpants and you can't be a man anymore. David green, 69, a retail manager in Somersworth, New Hampshire said to Trump, of course he's from hampshire you've got to be a little sissy

and cry about everything but the end of the day you want results donald trump's my guy he proved it on a national level i don't think anyone has ever articulated why donald trump gets so much support better david green well it's just like david green from david green just think of like summersworth new hampshire i didn't even know that was a town in New Hampshire. The media that that person, that guy's consuming is just like, Newsmax. Of course these guys

can't break through. Of course nobody believes the charges. Of course they're having trouble making an argument against Trump. Like all this guy is consuming day in and day out says that Trump is the best

and he's being railroaded. They did some attributes too. Which of these attributes better describes Trump? Which describes Ron DeSantis? Trump crushing DeSantis on strong leader, 69 to 22. This is what Tommy made this point at the very beginning of this whole primary. Get things done, 67 to 22, which was like DeSantis' whole thing is getting things done in Florida.

Electable, 58 to 28 again. And then the number, the split that matched the actual top line poll result fun yeah 54 think trump is fun 16 uh desantis and the only thing that trump loses on is likable slightly to desantis which is sort of funny and moral a lot yeah the likable is more about trump than i think about i think you i think there's a lot of people who think trump is who like trump and want to vote for him like him but think he's an asshole yeah you know they think he's a fun there's a lot of people who think Trump is, who like Trump and want to vote for him, like him, but think he's an asshole.

Yeah, they mean he's an asshole. They think he's a fun asshole. He's a fun asshole. He's a fun asshole. He's a fun asshole. That's what they're in this for. You know, we've talked about why this primary

isn't being fought on policy, but this is the point that times, this is the point that the poll makes. In a head-to-head matchup, Trump was ahead of DeSantis among Republicans who accept transgender people

as the gender they identify with and among those who don't, among those who want to fight corporations that promise woke ideology and among those who prefer to stay out of business, among those who want to send more military to Ukraine and among those who don't among those who want to fight corporations that promise woke ideology and among those who prefer to stay out of business among those who want to send more military to ukraine among those who do not among those who want to keep social security and medicare benefits among those who want to take steps to reduce the budget

deficit he just he is crushing it's so broad it's not about issues well no but well just he yes it's not about it's almost it's almost as if if it's a it's a cult of personality. They just assume they do better on all the things. I mean, it's just better. It's the one interesting thing, because, you know, we have spent so much time making fun of Ron DeSantis for his horrible campaign and will continue to right after this section. But the favorability ratings are still 76 percent for Trump and 66 percent for DeSantis. for Trump and 66% for DeSantis. And the way the Times writes it up, they have interviews with voters other than that fantastic quote that Tommy read, where people are like, I like him plenty. I like Ron DeSantis. And next time he's the one, right? But he's just, Trump's accomplished stuff

on a national level. He's only done Florida. He's just not ready yet. So these are people who actually do like Ron DeSantis, but they're just like, no, no, no, Trump's our guy. It's the same. It's just the same trend from like, since the very beginning, DeSantis makes them feel like their needs are met and Trump makes them feel like they have no needs. And it has been the same from this entire primary. You mentioned the woke, the people who think woke is a big deal. There was another question in the poll. Which of these two Republicans would you be more likely to support for president? A candidate who promises to fight corporations that promote woke left ideology or a candidate who says the government should stay out of deciding what corporations can support. The latter wins 52 to 38.

So even when you don't put Trump and DeSantis, just the idea that there is an appetite, even in the Republican Party, for someone who's going to go after corporations because they're too woke. It doesn't, it's not real. As this guy is announcing another lawsuit against Bud Light or an investigation into Bud Light because their stock went down because people like Ron DeSantis criticized Bud Light for being nice to one transgender person. I think that shows how so online DeSantis is and the DeSantis, Ben Shipley, that whole group, that doesn't actually have, the support for Trump on the Republican Party is not about that. Yeah. And you can also there's a question about woke versus like borders and law and order. Like it's still the immigration shit, the law and order shit like the that's all the reason that they like Trump to the extent that it's about any policies. And if there's any connection at all between DeSantis' inability to have a human interaction with anyone on the campaign trail

and this, it's that like, he's just trying to pander, but he doesn't get the people he's trying to pander well enough to make a mark. Like, you know, he did this economic rollout and he's like,

I'm going to fight. I'm going to take, I'm going to end Joe Biden's war on crypto. He's interviewed about RFK Jr. And he's like, he'd make a great head of the fucking CDC. Like, who is that a pander for?

Well, he just stepped on a rake so hard. He was like, yeah, I'm going to piss off all these libs by saying I would make RFK Jr. CDC director. And Mike Pence, of all people, like not the most deft politician, is like immediate press release. Yeah, this guy wants to name a pro-choice individual to lead the CDC. Like, absolutely hurts himself every time he tries to do something. High pundit.

Well, I mean, speaking of DeSantis' interactions with voters, their new strategy of letting Ron be Ron already seems to be paying dividends. Let's listen. Oh, what is that? An icy? Yeah, that's probably a lot of sugar, huh? Want to have a beer with us, as always? Well, I'm here.

I don't know if the other one's on. I'm just kidding. I'm not proud. Okay, all right. It's good. It's good. All right. We'll say hi to everybody. Yeah, the first one was Ron DeSantis trying to tell a little girl to put her icy down.

It's so funny. The fun comment is so telling. I mean, for a lot of people, we all despise Donald Trump if he's a horrible person, he does bad things to the country, but a lot of his voters love watching his rallies. They travel across the country to go to them.

It's like a carnival for them. And I can't imagine anything less enjoyable than watching Ron DeSantis talk about almost literally anything. Or imagine meeting a kid anything less enjoyable than watching ron desantis talk about almost literally anything or like imagine meeting a uh meeting a kid who's uh who's got an icy and being like a lot of sugar on that you're at a fair that's where you eat sugar you moron i got funnel cake and shut up i gotta tell you ron desantis is growing on me if i see one more interaction with this guy having absolutely

no ability to interact with anyone i'm just falling in love look at this poor foot this guy so broken the hole in his bucket he's got to fill it with with politics he can't make it work he can't appeal to normal people what a curse this guy's living i love it get him a one shirt or one jacket or vest that doesn't have his name on it you don't have to have your name on all your clothing are you a camp are you gonna lose something what's happening he's terrible yeah it's really i mean i don't have anything else to say i just we're just we're now at the point we've done all the ron de santos analysis we can do we're just playing clips now like there's nothing else to do i i just i love what let him cook the second clip was just somewhat

he was like some woman's she's got a beer he He's got a beer. She's like, here you are drinking beer. We have a beer. And he's like, ha ha, I'm drinking beer. Ha ha. It really does. Having fun on the campaign trail, you really can feel the difference when a candidate is having fun. There were times when Barack Obama hated every minute of his day. Like the first year. He didn't want to be there. First year of the campaign.

Most of his time in New Hampshire. Look, here's the thing. I want to see a candidate go to a pie shop, have a charming interaction with some shop owner, say, I'll have an apple and a blueberry, have a huge smile on their face, get in the car, and just throw them in the garbage. That's what I'm looking for. That's what you want in a president. You know who seems like he's mostly having a good time when he's campaigning?

Joe Biden. I will say that about him. Even your guy, Chris Christie, like, you know what? He didn't agree with you on a lot of stuff, but he was like fun mixing it up fighting back talking shit you know he just like he has a nor he has this he's a charismatic normal person yeah like tim just tim scott nicky haley like they smile they smile naturally ronda sanders smiles like he stepped on a lego he's just like it's too big it's too big his laugh is too big everything about it it's just there's a lot of other stuff there's time he has money but my god man you can't fix that though that's the thing that's talent that's what that's why that's

why i like him now you can't fix that i will say um echelon insights finally just did a poll uh that just came out today doing head-to-head matchups with trump and other candidates besides desantis because so far they've only done it doesn't get any better for any of the other ones it's like it's like 70 20 tim Tim Scott, 70-20 Nikki Haley. Now, again, it's all early, but we're not talking like 20 points. We're not talking 30 points. We're talking 50 points. Was that a national poll?

Yeah. The name ID is probably like so low for Tim Scott. The point Nate Cohn made, I believe, is that it's not early anymore. It's five and a half months. And no candidate that's been up by 20 at this point in these polls has lost the nomination and he's up by more than double yeah and so does that mean this can't change no this may this is a unique primary we've never had a candidate uh who's a former president charged with multiple felonies before let's see how that shakes out but right

now man yeah tough sled and you got to be again i think the idea that donald trump is vulnerable politically vulnerable even within the republican party is one that I buy, but you still have to beat. You can't beat something with nothing. And so far we have a lot of nothing. And there's a, and there's a, you know, there's a Ron quick roundup of some other headlines. Justice Sam Alito is once again whining in the pages of the Wall Street Journal about how his branch of government should be able to get away with whatever it wants. In an interview that ran last week, he said, I know this is a controversial view, but I'm willing to say it.

No provision in the Constitution gives them the authority to regulate the Supreme Court, period. He was commenting on recent efforts by Senate Democrats to impose ethics reform on the court. And of course, one of the authors of the piece that features the interview with Alito is a lawyer who has business before the court next term. Look, there is nothing in the Constitution that says a dog can't be Speaker of the piece that features the interview with Alito, is a lawyer who has business before the court next term. Look, there's nothing there is nothing in the Constitution that says a dog can't be speaker in the House. That is the level. That is the level that we're at.

Guys literally think they're above the law. I mean, I don't know what happens now. So the Senate Democrats are moving this legislation. It's going to get blocked by Republicans. There was some talk early, like maybe there'd be bipartisan ethics reform like that was never going to get blocked by Republicans. There was some talk early, like maybe there'd be bipartisan ethics reform, like that was never going to pass the House. Now it doesn't look it's going to pass the Senate either. John Roberts refuses to do anything. So I guess we're just waiting for Alito or Thomas to retire. Yeah, I mean, I think like that, that core problem with the court is that there's this big conservative majority, and that is not going to change until someone retires. I do think there's a medium term problem, which is that these guys think they're above the law, and they say things like what Alito said in this interview. The takeaway for me from all of the

most recent rounds of whining from various Supreme Court justices is they really, really hate scrutiny. They hate media scrutiny. They're offended by ProPublica's existence. And I hope that shames legacy outlets into doing a little less access journalism and a little more digging into these people because they are far too comfortable in these like big donor right wing ideological circles with Leonard Leo and the Federalist Society. And it is, I think, changing the way they vote on stuff. And it would be helpful to have some sort of ethics reform. It is remarkable even how far Alito, who's always been one of, if not the most right wing judge, has how far he's come in terms of his willingness to just sort of defy tradition and speak publicly in his confirmation hearing is very clear.

You know, judges shouldn't be coming out there and, you know, basically just sort of improv-ing about issues that could come before the court. He's out there. Not only is he saying that he thinks the Supreme Court can't be regulated by Congress, he's asked, do the other justices agree? He says, I don't know that any of my colleagues have spoken about it publicly, so I don't think I should say, but I think it is something we have all thought about. And as our friend, the strict scrutiny pointed out, this is basically like kind of like some version of an advisory opinion saying, if you pass a law like this, we'll, we'll, we'll overturn it. opinion saying if you pass a law like this, we'll overturn it. Strix Frutini did a great job on this. I highly recommend it. So go check it out. No, I mean, here's what we can do. Go donate some money and help out Sherrod Brown and John Tester in some of these really close Senate races and then flip the House.

Then, you know, in that sense, we can maybe get some ethics reform. But the Senate's even more important because one of these guys retires.'re going to need a democratic president a democratic senate to uh get a new justice in there or else uh we're going to get more of this here's a story we can do something about uh punch bowl news reported last week that republican congressman derrick van orden was giving a tour of the capitol when he came across a group of teenage senate pages these are uh these are a type of interns for people who don't know they help out in the capitol they're around 17 years old uh and they were lying on the ground in the capitol rotunda taking photos which a lot of people do but a lot

of people do and here is what the congressman said to them wake the fuck up you little shits what the fuck are you all doing get the fuck out out of here. You are defiling the spaces, you piece of shit. I don't give a fuck who you are. I'm a congressman. Van Orden was at the Stop the Steal rally on January 6th and represents a very flippable district in Wisconsin. We should probably replace him with someone else, huh? Yeah, that'd be good.

He was apparently drinking in his office before this. And also, he's a former Navy SEAL. So this isn't some bookish nerd screaming in the faces of a 16 year old that they're a little shit and they're defiling the capital it's a big intimidating veteran who also yelled at a bunch of librarians back in the day because he was very mad about a pride flag in uh in a library somewhere in wisconsin i think we need more people yell teens do you think they're just getting too big for their britches yeah you get a bunch of teens he does get points for novel um defense of himself he said something about how the capital rotunda was once a field hospital during the civil war what was that get out of here this was once a field hospital during the civil war

you can't take pictures anyway we heard about this story we uh of course reached out to ben wickler chair of the wisconsin democratic party and we put together a uh a link uh that you can donate to uh van orden's eventual opponent because we don't have a democratic nominee yet for that seat but uh we will eventually so we'll tweet out again uh from all of our accounts if you want to give i just have to say so this got like bipartisan condemnation it's one of those rare things all the senate yeah except except you see what kevin mccarthy said yeah kevin mccarthy said this uh it wasn't first of all he said it wasn't the norm for that congressman which is as tommy just suggested is

not true think about all the times he gets drunk and doesn't yell at teens. Well, then he said this. I guess the interns have some ritual of laying down or something like that. I think it's a misunderstanding of all sides. This is what happens when you need literally every vote to stay speed. I love it. You defend everything. He is just...

Pathetic. Well, we have more to say about Kevin McCarthy. The Daily Beast has a story that about a month ago, while Republicans were voting to censure Adam Schiff, California Democrat Eric Swalwell yelled, you're weak at Kevin McCarthy. The next day, Swalwell was on his way to the bathroom when McCarthy got in his face and said, quote,

call me a pussy again and I'll kick your ass. To which Swalwell responded responded you are a pussy that cadence is that cadence is documented in the daily to which mccarthy responded by walking away this story is sourced to two house members who declined to give their names do you guys think one of them was eric swalwell yeah it's uh i i love it i i love the whole thing i like that i like that also we're just sort of like there's just that part of us it's like haha kevin mccarthy didn't physically fight eric swalwell therefore he sucks well it is funny though like he goes you're weak and then he comes out and he's like don't call me a pussy so weird i also like that

this didn't just happen on an average Thursday when they're voting on like renaming a post office. This was right before the prime minister of India addressed a joint session of Congress. So these guys almost threw down before like the eyes of the world were on the U S Congress. My only take on this is I think more members of Congress should just fight. Well, we didn't even, I don't. Have we talked about the ongoing Marjorie Taylor Greene, Lauren Boebert, will they, won't they fight each other?

There's been like multiple accounts, I think many of them from the Daily Beast, of those two on the floor almost getting into blows as well. Or they're in the bathroom, they're on the floor. Look, here's the thing.

Everyone needs to come, everyone needs to, they should go on, get them on vacation, get them out of that place. The slow erosion of every civic virtue in this society has been just really frustrating and hard to experience. But if it does result in physical confrontations between the Speaker of the House and a Democrat, or between Lauren Boebert and Marjorie Taylor Greene, I don't know, okay. or between Lauren Boebert and Marjorie Taylor Greene? I don't know.

Okay. See, I'm not with you there. I think this isn't an erosion. I think this is a throwback to the old school ways of doing stuff in Congress when we used to cane each other and do other things. Also, like, Swallow's a pretty big guy. I think he played soccer in Maryland. So, I don't know.

I like our odds here. Yeah, I do too. I think we should bring back the canings. I want to see Kevin McCarthy's hold me back guy. Is it like a Chip Roy? It's toxic masculinity all over the place. Absolutely. That's what this is.

We're coded in toxic masculinity. I told the story about the Eric Swalwell thing in New York. And this progressive audience, they were like, he called him a pussy and he didn't fight. They freaked out. They loved it so much. We're all just a bunch of apes running around wearing suits. The other Republican leader on the Hill has had a tough week. Mitch McConnell was in the middle of giving a statement at a press conference when he froze up and apparently lost the ability to speak.

It's a pretty scary thing to watch. McConnell was hospitalized back in March for a bad fall that kept him out of the Senate for six weeks and reportedly has had another fall since then. Of course, President Biden called him immediately after the press conference to see how he was doing. And here's what Donald Trump said to Breitbart about the episode. That was a sad thing to see. He had a bad fall, I guess, and probably an after effect of that. But it was also sad that he gave trillions and trillions and trillions of dollars to the democrats to waste on the green new deal destroying our oceans and destroying our great beautiful vistas and plains all over our country with windmills that are very expensive energy so that's a very sad thing also at the same time i hope he's well honestly honestly for him not bad mostly mostly okay

like got into windmills how did we get he hates the windmills he does hate the wind really you get from like what do you think of mitch mcconnell's episode to windmills mitch mcconnell didn't give the democrats any money for that he didn't support the ira it wasn't the green new deal he's i think he was referencing the ira mitch mcconnell tried to stop that he didn't it was a bunch of reconciliation thing. It's very confusing. Yeah, I think it was John Oliver, who several years ago did a piece where they had some other third party, just a random person,

do a reading, not dramatic or otherwise, just a reading of a section of a Trump speech. And it is just incoherent gibberish, top to bottom. And I think this is a great example. In that Breitbart interview, he also, Trump was bragging about his endorsements. And this I enjoyed.

He said, Ron DeSantis is one. Take a look at Ron DeSantis. He had no choice until I endorsed him. He wouldn't be, he could be right now at a law firm or working at a pizza place. So that was his take on DeSantis. I do not think he has the personality to be in a customer service position. No, no, no. He cannot.

He cannot interface with the customer. Maybe he could be in the back of the kitchen. He could flip the pies. No, he can't. He does not have that human touch. He cannot be delivering those pizzas. He's trying to, he's basically trying to deliver pizzas now without the pizzas. He could flip the pies. No, he can't. He does not have that human touch. He cannot be delivering those pizzas. He's basically trying to deliver pizzas now without the pizzas.

Talking on doors, it's not going well. It's not going well. No one wants it. No one wants your pizza, sir. Maybe he should bring some pizzas. All right. Finally, in case you missed it, Air Force Major David Grush,

Grush? Grush? Made some explosive claims at a congressional hearing last week about UFOs, or if you're real smart, UAPs. What's wrong with you? Unidentified flying objects was good. It wasn't broken. Why are we fixing it? UAP is Unidentified Aerial Phenomena. All right.

I know. That's if you're, yeah, you think you're great. Here's a clip of his exchange with Congresswoman Nancy Mace. You say that the government is in possession of potentially non-human spacecraft. Based on your experience and extensive conversations with experts, do you believe our government has made contact with intelligent extraterrestrials? Something I can't discuss in public setting. Okay, I can't ask when you think this occurred. If you believe we have crashed craft, stated earlier, do we have the bodies of the pilots who piloted this craft?

As I've stated publicly already in my News Nation interview, biologics came with some of these recoveries, yeah. Were they, I guess, human or non-human biologics came with some of these recoveries. Yeah. Were they, I guess, human or non-human biologics? Non-human, and that was the assessment of people with direct knowledge on the program I talked to that are currently still on the program. And was this documentary evidence, video, photos, eyewitness?

Like, how would that be determined? The specific documentation, I would have to talk to you in a skiff about. Gotcha. Non-human biologics. What do you guys think? Oh, that I want this to be good and true. The kookiness of this guy who's also claimed that Mussolini found an alien craft

and through the Pope contacted the U u.s government to be part of the original cover-up there's not there's no evidence um he doesn't have any evidence to provide uh apparently he did go to the u.s he was cleared to say these things in other words that they're not secrets so he's not divulging any government secrets. I just, I think this is a lot of people having fun in a hearing and nobody being the adult who's going to say none of them, like no one's willing to say like, this is, this isn't it. Yeah. I think even the people chairing the hearing were like, welcome to the most popular subcommittee hearing in history.

Like they're just in on the fun and the press coverage. Also, way to name drop the News Nation there yeah sorry pal as i said in my news nation interview which you apparently miss don't want you to repeat yourself there i guess you were too busy having premarital sex nancy mace to watch my phenomenal news nation interview we might have to offer some context there in a second oh yeah no so sorry so she said at a prayer breakfast that she uh couldn't fuck because she had to go to the prayer breakfast and then she got in some trouble for that and then she said she was kidding and the republicans like we don't like when women joke about sex we like what tim scott does nothing nothing he's a ken doll down there and that's

what we want anyway aliens aliens too much i mean no i think it's just enough i'm open to aliens existing i believe these two navy pilots are at the hearing and said they keep seeing weird stuff that accelerate in ways they can't explain. Like they have no reason to lie. But this guy, he also said that the program is above congressional oversight and paid for by misappropriation of funds. And that would create some sort of paper trail that I feel like someone could find. He says he knows that people have been harmed or injured by efforts to cover up what happened, maybe even killed. Those people would have families. armed or injured by efforts to cover up what happened, maybe even killed.

Those people would have families. I think the government is really bad at keeping secrets and holding together conspiracies. That's why they don't often happen. There's one guy who was pretty high up in the government who is famously bad at keeping secrets or handling classified information. And if there was something out there we would have heard it from him or brock obama it is brock obama or donald trump would have told someone else or he would have leaked it somewhere the other thing is this guy this guy basically admits he has no firsthand knowledge told by of these purported programs he hasn't seen any craft or he hasn't he hasn't seen any alien dead pilots.

He said he's repeating what other people have told him. So it's hearsay. And, you know, he has approached along with others, the New York Times, the Post, the Politico, were all offered the story. None of them wanted to run it because they ran it down and they didn't find it as credible enough to run. Yeah, and there's been, I think, questions too in the years since the Times ran that story

about the provenance of that Times story that was like the first big story and i think they feel burned yeah yeah um i think dean was like oh cool uh but uh yeah like i i agree like like yes there have been kind of unexplainable videos that actual pilots and actual members of the military have seen. They can't explain them. The leap then to there's a government bunker with alien ships, I also believe is plausible. Yeah. He said, we've likely been aware of non-human activity since the 1930s. So again, it's just a very long time to keep a secret through various administrations, lots of people that would have knowledge of this, unless it was so secret that whatever they were working on or studying was kept away from all uh presidents and political hires or anybody that would touch this stuff i just i find it

a little hard to believe i'm just waiting for an rfk jr policy speech about this he seems like he'd be right in on this that's a good rfk jr elon musk i think the all-in guys there's like a nexus of people that i could totally see jumping on. Yeah, yeah. Hiding it with Bitcoin. There's also, there's also just such a, like,

like, human-centric view of all of this. There's such a, like, what's the word? Like, chauvinism about being a person that, like,

the assumption is that, like, oh, there must be a craft with a pilot. What? Oh, because that's how we do it. Yeah. You know, it's just, and the fact that all of the like, if you look at the map of reports of UFOs,

they're very heavily concentrated in the English speaking world because thinking that there are UFOs is a very big phenomenon in English speaking countries. Yeah. And we also recently learned that the Chinese have been flying gigantic spy balloons over our country at 60 000 feet like there's lots of weird stuff going on up there there's lots of weather balloons there's lots of unexplained phenomenon there's lots of weird new weather patterns like who knows so tommy can you tell us i know i wish i did uh your wife asked me uh every time she drinks is that what she asked you? I was going to say,

and unfortunately, times when she doesn't drink also. I'm like, listen, I wish I knew about the moon landing, but no one would have told me for obvious reasons. Anyway, no aliens. Well, hold on.

As far as we know. Hold on a second. Hold on a second. It's a big universe out there. At least this hearing has not proved, this hearing did not prove that there are aliens. Proves that this guy wants to write up,

wants to make some cash money. and i support that because it's america and george sanders in congress and and you get yours all right before we get to the interview two quick housekeeping notes on tuesday august 8th abortion rights are on the ballot in ohio there will be a ballot measure in that state this november to pass a constitutional amendment guaranteeing abortion access but since the the Republicans who control the state legislature do not want that to happen, they created another ballot measure for August 8th that would raise the threshold for passing constitutional amendments from a simple majority to 60%. So if you want to help stop that measure from passing in a few weeks, we have volunteer

opportunities to help get out the vote all week. Head to votesaveamerica.com slash Ohio to learn more. Last but not least, Lydia Kiesling's Mobility, the first novel from Crooked Reads, is finally out. You can get your copy at crooked.com slash mobility or wherever books are sold. Here's some advanced praise, a beautifully written and stunningly smart novel, a cautionary tale for our times. Tommy, you had a great conversation with Lydia at an event here in LA on Thursday that we're about to hear a portion of. What should people know about Lydia in this book? First of all, I love Lydia. We did this event last week, Dynasty Typewriter, The House that John Lovett Built. It was in my time slot.

A bunch of folks came out. We talked about the book, about writing in general. It's fiction. It's a novel. It's a really fun novel that follows the main character, Bunny, from her time as a teenager, as a foreign service brat in Azerbaijan, to her adulthood working in the energy industry. And it's a human story, but it's also about the lies we tell ourselves when we know we're not doing something that is right, the sprawling nature of the energy business. And I don't know, just really great. She's incredibly smart. And I think you'll all love it. Where do they come down on windmills?

I think the pro windmills. Just want to make sure. But I'll double check with Lydia. Anyway, you are all after the break about to hear a portion of the conversation between Tommy and Lydia. Everyone go buy Mobility, crooked.com slash mobility or wherever books are sold. Check it out now. When we come back, Lydia Kiesling. Thank you so much, Tommy. And thank you to zando and crooked media um who have worked so so hard on this um and yeah i'm just so happy to be here and thanks to all of you for coming out and to uh

dynasty typewriter the book is deeply researched to bunny's deeply researched at this point um both the industry but also the scenes feel so real. And you were telling me that you did some pseudo detective work to kind of make those scenes come to life. Can you tell us a bit about that process? Yes. So I, you know, a lot of the book was written, I wrote part of the book before COVID started. And then it kind of ground to a halt when the pandemic began. And then I went back to it, but obviously, you know, there was no like going anywhere during those time periods for research. And also, you know, when you're writing a novel, you have no idea

whether anyone will ever like pay you money for it usually. So I couldn't really justify like an expenditure, you know, of going to like travel. So I sort of said I had to try and sell it and then I would go and kind of see some things in person. And the timing worked such that right after I sold it, um, I got, uh, I subscribed to like all these horrible email lists from the oil and gas industry. And I saw that there was going to be a luncheon to honor women in energy in Houston, you know, the next month. So, and you could buy a ticket as a member of the press. So I went to that. And I feel, I feel kind of bad because I was sitting at a table with like one of the honorees and I was like, I was, they put the honorees like at all the tables and I was the press and they're

like, so what, what do you write for? And like, I've written for, you know, some big outlets. So I was like, you know, the New York times, I didn't misrepresent myself that I just didn't, I didn't say more. Um, but you know, so like some impressions may have been left. Um, and I, and I just kind of listened and it was really fascinating because first of all, like, apparently some like sexist thing had happened like the night before with among like the organizers. And so like the people at the table were talking about this and I was like, wow, even the fucking women and energy, like awards luncheon are still subjected to this. Um, and yeah, there was like a keynote by, um, someone who had been in the FBI and there was just a just a lot like it was and it was sponsored by like Deloitte and Schlumberger and like all the big oil and gas companies. And yeah, that was like my first subterfuge. Oh, I also told the Petroleum Club of Houston that I was interested in holding my wedding there. How'd that go? I was like, I'm only in town for this one day like to see my dream wedding venue

and i mean it was it was kind of like once i got up there i was like i could have just asked to see it just because i wanted to but it was way more fun to be like my reception is going to be amazing in the aramco room um with the view of the city i mean mean, it is, you know, it's got amazing views. So yeah, there's a little, a little subterfuge, some light. And then I just drove through like a lot of kind of refinery infrastructure. I like, I wasn't going to really try and sneak into like the works, but Offshore rig. Yeah. I just like go out in a canoe. No, it didn't, it didn't extend that far. That's so funny. You said it was your wedding.

They're like, how do you do a cake tasting in the back? You're like, I'm just going to take you guys down, for being honest. The other parts of the book that felt so real to me were when Bunny's in Baku. She's living at the embassy. You nailed the kind of shitty intergovernmental relationships between the State Department people and the CIA staffers who all kind of don't like each other, but have to coexist. And then I learned you grew up in a Foreign Service family. So this is something you sort of witnessed yourself over the years? Yeah, I did grow up in the Foreign Service. We were not posted to Baku, but we had a number of

overseas postings. And yeah, I mean, a lot of writing this book I think is, was the process of sort of like unlearning the, the attitudes, I would call it sort of like American supremacy that you just imbibe when that's how you grow up. It doesn't, I think anyone who's sort of living overseas in some sort of government capacity like that, you know, whether it's military or foreign service, like that's, that's sort of how you think of things. So I was like, writing the book was like sort of a nostalgia for that time, but also kind of like working out of my system to be like, that's, I, you know, I, I no longer like feel that America is like a beacon in the world as I might once have felt. You're not projecting American power by virtue of your posting in Greece or whatever. Yeah, no, I get that. So your father, you were telling me your father quit,

resigned from the State Department in protest in advance of the Iraq war. Was that hard for you guys? I mean, I was in college when it happened. So my life was hard for you guys? I mean, I was in college when it happened, so my, my life was hard for other reasons. I was just, yeah. I mean, that was just a, a strange time for, for everyone involved. I mean, I think, yeah, I mean, he's like, yeah, I think that's all I have to say. I mean, it, it, I remember. Look, we were talking about this backstage. I was 23 at the time.

The drumbeat for war in Washington where I was living was so intense. People who objected were silenced so quickly and so harshly. The gears of government were expected to ramp up and all just be in support of this thing. And to be one of those lonely voices that stood up at the time when there was the maximum pressure and be like, I'm not going to go along with this.

It's incredibly brave. And I imagine quite difficult, but like, I don't know, people, the bummer about these brave stans is I don't think that people get the credit they deserve in hindsight when they were right. Like look at Sinead O'Connor. We're just now being like, oh yeah, she had a point about the Pope. Well, yeah. I mean, I think there's a lot of people now who are like, well, of course the Iraq war was a disaster. And it's like the same people who were like, this seems like a great idea. I mean, there's been, I mean, for that whole era of, you know, American politics and sort of media coverage, there's no accountability for, I mean, the war on terror is just, which is, you know, ongoing. There's not, yeah. I mean, we were talking about this, like, that's one of the sort of sub themes in the book. I read a lot about the war on terror years and not all of it made its way into the book, but I was sort of thinking of it similarly to working in oil and gas above a certain level.

working in oil and gas above a certain level. It's just, there's certain kind of like mistakes and like crimes that are so big that they are, they're never acknowledged because acknowledging them would mean like accountability. And that's people are very eager to avoid that. Especially if you look at oil and gas companies, they're all like, we're now green tech companies. Nothing's wrong. We're fine. We're the energy transition. We're beyond petroleum. Yes. And you hear it's literally the name. So did you go into the book intending to use fiction and novel and these characters in the story as a vehicle to educate people about the energy industry? Or did that just kind of happen along the way? That definitely happened on the I, I was interested in writing about that kind of upbringing and that sort of like, because I think I obviously can't speak for like other people who have lived overseas or, you know, in kind definitely, you grow up being told like, oh, this is such an enriching experience that you're having. And you, you know, you have so much like insight now because

of this experience, but then you realize it's like, no, you're just being an American in like another location. It doesn't, you know, there's still like a huge amount of insularity to that experience. And so I was wanting to kind of play with that and think about it. And also I'm just interested in teenage girls. And I wanted to talk about a teenage girl who was familiar to me. But as I was, you know, for a while, it's like, you know, Bunny was there, but I had no kind of justification for her other than that. I was just kind of like clowning this teenage girl for no reason. And, and, and sort of the, that kind of like foreign service, like embassy lifestyle. But then as I was reading, because my family had been posted to Yerevan, Armenia in 1997. And so I was, you know, I didn't want to write necessarily like directly about that, but I wanted to stay kind of in the zone. And I was, I read a book called The Oil and the Glory by the former Wall Street Journal journalist, Steve Levine. And that was, it's an amazing book. And it's about basically like the rush for

Caspian oil reserves after the collapse of the Soviet Union and like specifically Chevron and BP kind of like duking it out. And so when I read that, I was like, oh my God, I want to write about this. And I went kind of too far in that direction for a while, just like writing all these like random weird oil men. And then I realized I needed to like take it back to my teenage girl and figure out a way to kind of weave it in. And then it sort of went from there. Then I suddenly had like a justification for Bunny as a, you know, main character of a story. So you have this sort of spectrum of interesting views of characters in the book. Like there's literal like oil and gas executives. There's kind of like sort of the parody of sort of the,

the super liberal critique of the industry. And there's Bunny who's sort of this naive person who brings us through all the years of the story. Why did you decide to have her at the center of everything? So actually when I, when my first book came out after in the like year or two after I had a couple of occasions when I was driving to LA for some sort of book thing and driving there and back from San Francisco when we lived there.

And I started listening to the audio book of the novel oil by Upton Sinclair. They later made, that's what There Will Be Blood is based on, although they have like almost nothing in common. It's like, I think he used like the first 30 pages and then just like threw away the rest of the book. High option, that's kind of expensive. I mean, you know, I'm sure he had, they're both, you know, it was like a generative work of art. They created another work of art, but they have no bearing on each other. Um, and, but so the, the main character of oil, the novel, um, is named bunny. He's a boy.

Um, and he starts out as like a young, like a tween or a teenager. And he's like a little oil scion and he follows his father around and watches as he like buys up oil leases. And, and then he meets like a noble socialist, um, who kind of teaches him about, you know, workers and the oil fields and, and it just sort of follows him for like hundreds of pages. And so then I realized like, he he's kind of, I think useful idiot actually has like a literal meaning that I might not be like correctly using, but, but he's kind of a blank slate. Like he just is our guide, um, through, uh, cause Upton Sinclair had like big messages that he was trying to get through and he really wanted to educate the reader about all of these different systems. So I think that helped

me a lot because I, I was like, well, what if funny, but a teenage girl and, you know, in the kind of, in the neoliberal era and, you know, with a teenage girl's like painful insecurity and powers of observation, which the bunny of Sinclair's novel, like didn't have to quite the same extent. And so I had, it was a balancing act to kind of keep her like in that state of naivete so that we could learn with her and from her, which sometimes I think kind of strains credulity that she could be so, actually, no, it doesn't. Cause I meet people all the time who are like exactly like her, but, and, and myself have been, have been like her, but yes, she, I needed her to, I needed her to be a vehicle in that way. She's very fun to follow. I mean, the challenge that we've had,

like talking about climate change, it can be really hard, right? Because it's such a big problem. It's hard to feel hopeful about it. It's hard to feel some sort of agency or help people feel like they still have some agency when things are getting kind of dire. How did you wrestle with those challenges in the book? And the desire to

educate people about this thing happening around us that we still have some time to impact, but is not going great. Well, I think I really gave up on the... I don't think fiction is... Although I just said all that about Upton Sinclair, like educating people through his novel, I don't ultimately think that, I think of fiction more as like a, as a documentation project rather than necessarily like a didactic or like educational one. I mean, I think, you know, people talk a lot about like fiction as a vehicle for empathy and like, yes, that in some cases like is true, but I don't think that empathy necessarily like spurs action usually just more is like cathartic um and so I wasn't really like there were some moments where I'm kind of like people need to know you know like that these

oil companies are they're all connected man um but I I really like pretty early was like this isn't gonna be a novel that's like, because I mean, it's functionally erasing the many people who aren't like Bunny. I mean, there are a lot of people who, you know, gestures with some of the characters who are thinking differently than Bunny and actively like resisting the state of affairs.

But what I felt like I could bring to the page was my knowledge of like, you know, elite white spaces and sort of white millennial woman, um, head in the sand vibes. And, you know, that it felt like that was something that I could like document, um, in a meaningful way. And that's not necessarily like educational. Um, I mean, um, because I don't, you know, I struggled with like, uh, I don't want to, you know, write a novel that's like, it's, it's doomed, but you know, the way oil and gas companies are behaving and the way we are allowing them to behave, like it is, I mean, for people who have already died, like that the future is

like foreclosed upon them already, you know? So I think it's appropriate to be like, to acknowledge that and, and say, sometimes things like don't have to be hopeful. I, my, the way I kind of justified it to myself sometimes, because I was like, well, this, there's some like bleak, there's some really like sort of bleak currents in the book is that, you know, you can do like doom on the sheets of paper, but like action in the streets, you know, you can put that on your tote bag.

I love that. Yeah, that should absolutely, we'll go to brunch and talk about that. What are you reading? Anything you like? So I just read a wonderful novel called Enter Ghost by Isabella Hamad. And it's about doing a performance of Hamlet in Palestine and in the West Bank. And it's a beautiful novel. She also wrote a novel called The Parisian, which is a wonderful novel. I also want, I think these people are in the audience, but my book comes out on August 1st and so does Eden Lepucky. Her novel is called Time's Mouth and it's amazing. And Carrie Howley wrote a book, who is a genius, wrote a book called Bottoms Up and the Devil Laughs about the security state and reality winner that came out a few months ago. And that is a really like haunting work of narrative nonfiction. And then about, you know, I did like, I read so many books for this book and some books that really kind of made me

think a lot. And I, you know, I'm not like many people have read them already, but this changes everything by Naomi Klein is a wonderful book. And a book called Revolutionary Power by Shalonda Baker, who I think now holds a position in the Department of Energy, was really like instructive for thinking about how the energy transition might just end up like allowing the same people to kind of profit

if we don't fundamentally like change and sort of dismantle the systems that we have. Those were really useful books for me. Thank you all for coming out. Really appreciate it. Thank you. Please buy a book, buy two, buy one for a friend. And thanks again.

All right. Thanks, everyone. We will talk to you later this week. Have a good one. Bye, Mobility. You'll love it. Pod Save America is a Crooked Media production. The executive producer is Michael Martinez. Our producers are Andy Gardner Bernstein and Olivia Martinez. It's mixed and edited by Andrew Chadwick. Jordan Cantor is our sound engineer with audio support from Kyle Seglin and Charlotte Landis. Thanks to Hallie Kiefer, Madeline Herringer, Ari Schwartz, Andy Taft, and Justine Howe for production support.

And to our digital team, Elijah Cohn, Phoebe Bradford, Mia Kelman, Ben Hefko, and David Tolles. Subscribe to Pod Save America on YouTube to catch full episodes, exclusive content, and other community events. Find us at youtube.com slash at Pod Save America.