Pod Save America - “McCarthy’s Malarkey.”

Episode Date: February 2, 2023

President Biden and Kevin McCarthy meet on the debt ceiling. George Santos steps down from his House committees. Wisconsin gears up for the most important election of 2023. New polling shows Ron Santis trouncing Donald Trump in the Republican primary, even in a crowded field. Then later, the guys play another round of Take Appreciator. For a closed-captioned version of this episode, click here. For a transcript of this episode, please email [e-mail] and include the name of the podcast.

Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Jon Favreau. I'm Dan Pfeiffer. Here in LA. In studio. Dan Pfeiffer appearance. We love it. We love it. And we have Elijah here. We have Dan and Elijah in person, which means we're going to play Take Appreciator later. And it could get heated. President Biden gets no starbursts from Speaker McCarthy during their first White House meeting. That's the headline. George Santos steps down from his committees. Wisconsin gears up for America's most important election of 2023. And new polling shows Ron DeSantis trouncing Donald Trump even in a crowded field. Exciting.

Just going to do this every day for a lot of episodes in 2023 about this primary. Before we start, exciting news. We just posted the first episode of our new political game show, Liberal Tears. Tears is spelled T-I-E-R-S. You can't see that because this is a podcast. On the Pod Save America YouTube, in this episode, our very own Tommy Vitor and Brian Tyler Cohen draft the lies of George Santos from the absurd to the morally depraved as the lies about his past mount. Head over to the Pod Save America YouTube channel to see who wins this political draft. Liberal tears, Dan.

Great title, but I will say this, Tommy Vitor. I know what you're doing. I see you on my corner. Dan is the biggest YouTube star at Crooked Media and now Tommy's coming for him. So we'll see what happens. Smash that subscribe button. Go check it out. Pretty smart to bring YouTube star Brian Tyler Cohen for the first episode.

Yeah, he brought in a ringer for that one. Clever. Something Dan has never done. Not for the first episode. I had to build that thing from the ground up. Just you and me, Elijah, and you betrayed me for Tommy, your boss. All right, let's get to the news. On Wednesday, President Biden and Speaker McCarthy held their first meeting on the debt ceiling.

The White House said the president would ask our Kevin. He's our Kevin now. Two questions. One, does he agree with leaders Schumer, Jeffries and McConnell that the United States should never default on its debt? And when will House Republicans release their budget? McCarthy responded through punch bowl, as one does, saying that he does believe the debt ceiling needs to be lifted, though not without cutting spending, and that Republicans will be releasing a budget about a month after Biden. Meanwhile, McCarthy's goal was to get Biden to agree that he'd pay an unspecified ransom to House Republicans if they'll stop holding the entire economy hostage.

The president did not take him up on that offer. And McCarthy refused once again to specify the ransom when he spoke to reporters outside the White House after the meeting. Here's a clip. Where should those budget cuts come from right now? Medicare and Social Security, the White House insists Republicans want to cut. What cuts do you want? Well, let me be clear about that. And I've been clear many times. No, we're not talking about that. And to really be able to do this right, I'm not going to

negotiate this in the press, right? I respect the conversation we had together and we will continue that. So from everything we've heard from the meeting, anything surprise you? From everything we've heard from the meeting, anything surprise you? Like you, I was disappointed that Kevin McCarthy did not arrive with some curated candies for President Biden, as he would do for Donald Trump. I know. Even if he just gave him the yellows. Are the yellows good? Do you like the yellows? No, they're terrible.

You hate the lemons? Yeah. I'm not a lemon fan, nor am I an orange fan. Pink and red. I guess I'm like Donald Trump. In so many ways, my friend. In so many ways. I don't know. Elijah's going to clip that. Shit. I was surprised it was a 90-minute meeting.

Oh, I didn't notice that. Yeah. It was a long meeting where very little was discussed and nothing was decided. I'm sure Joe Biden told him a lot of stories. That's the one thing they did say happened. McCarthy and Biden said that a lot of stories were shared in the meeting. I'm sure it was very congenial. Absolutely. That's the only kind of meeting Joe Biden has. He's a congenial guy. Well, also, if you're going to sit with someone for 90 minutes with no deadline coming up, I don't see why, you know. I mean, if you added up all of the meetings that Barack Obama and Mitch McConnell had over the course of eight years, I don't think it got to 90 minutes combined.

Yeah, well, that's why during the Correspondents' Dinner when he said, you have a drink with Mitch McConnell, it wasn't just a joke. It was just real. So, yeah, McCarthy, after the meeting, said, good first meeting, no agreements, no promises. We'll continue the conversation. conversation. He also did dismiss the proposal floated by some, like Joe Manchin, for a commission to recommend cuts to punt the whole thing, which doesn't seem like a good sign. Yeah. It seems like McCarthy's first instinct in all cases is to paint himself into a corner. In all seriousness, in a high stakes negotiation like this, McCarthy needs to leave himself an off ramp because the White House is not going to give him what he wants. The Senate is not going to give him what he wants. And if he wants to keep his job, he has to maintain some sort of fig leaf or fully capitulate. And a toothless commission is a fig leaf. It's barely a fig leaf. It's an exit ramp. He just drove right past it. Burned that bridge behind him. Why do you think the White House released a memo on Tuesday that

said Biden would ask those questions? What were they trying to achieve? These meetings are always this absurd PR exercise where the leaders go in, the president, the congressional leaders go in the room. Maybe there's staff. Maybe there's not. As soon as it's over, everyone races. Like you've been here. The staff waits outside the Oval Office for the second Kevin McCarthy's gone. I'm sure the White House staff ran in there. They got the download from Biden. They're on the phone with reporters trying to spin what happened on background.

Kevin McCarthy just goes directly to the frost to his Nixon, Jakeake sherman and tells me exactly what happened so i don't even mean that as an insult i don't even know what it really means but but that is how he speaks to america is through jake sherman um and at least he's talking to someone yeah and so what the white house was really doing and it is it makes it warms my heart as a geriatric former communications professional that the memo trick still works. You put out a memo, you set the stakes for the meeting, and everyone writes about it. And it gives you your chance to frame the meeting before you go in, and then you frame it coming out. So it worked.

It was smart. I'm sure he asked those two questions. We know that McCarthy did not answer them and forced McCarthy to have to answer those questions when he did the stakeout afterwards. I'll be to Jake Sherman. Yes, to Jake Sherman and to the White House press corps. And then to the stakeout, yeah. Yeah, no, it seems like the Republican message is, why won't the president negotiate? And the president's message is, why are you willing to plunge the country into recession

unless you get to gut health care, retirement, all the other things? And I think the White House in that memo is also using McConnell, Trump, other Republicans, saying that we should never default to try to isolate House Republicans, which is why you saw Mitch today giving Kevin the, oh, we got you back. I mean, it's also worth remembering that House Republicans, Kevin McCarthy included, voted to give Donald Trump a clean debt ceiling three times as deficits were going up. Debt was going up. This is I mean, it's very nakedly partisan. Not that we should be surprised by that, but that's the reality. And I think the White House also wanted to make sure everyone

knows that Republicans are playing this game where they they're not specifying what they want to cut because they know that reducing debt and deficits is popular in the abstract. But as soon as you detail what you want to cut, it's usually not that popular. Well, they also can't agree on anything. Yeah, well, there's that. There's that. We're going to get to that in a second. You wrote a message box about how Biden is right to not negotiate on the debt ceiling,

though you made the point that there's going to be a lot of political pressure to do so, including from some Democrats, already has been Joe Manchin. Kyrsten Sinema is having dinner tonight, Wednesday night with Kevin McCarthy. Nothing good can come from that, I'm sure. So all this political pressure on Biden to negotiate is going to be tough for the guy whose brand, as you wrote, is unity and working with Republicans. How does he handle that? It's, you know, you can see him handling it now as we get closer to the deadline. You could see a lot of pearl clutching in D.C. People are there. There will be tremendous pressure on Biden, in part because the green rooms will be up in arms. But it's not just that Biden's brand is being able to work with people. He's very proud of the bipartisan accomplishments he had in his first two years. But it's also that everyone knows that he is the adult. He is a serious person who cares

about the country. Kevin McCarthy is not a serious person. Nope, we're not really positive what he cares about other than his own job. And so when people start panicking, they're going to turn to Biden and say, you got to do something because we cannot let the fate of the economy be in these people's hands. And so there's going to be the pressure on Biden. So here's what I think Biden should do. And the way they've handled this meeting suggests is exactly what they're going to do, which is make the point that you are more than happy to negotiate with Republicans over the 2023 budget, over the funding of the government. We're going to have to pass a bill in September to fund the government. That is where these budget negotiations traditionally happen. That is what the country said they wanted when they gave Republicans this narrow majority, was there going to be some conversation between the Republican House, Democratic Senate, Democratic president, how you fund the government. But you will not have those conversations with a gun pointed to the head of the US.S. economy. Pass the debt limit.

Do your job. And you're going to have to do it early in the summer. And then we will sit down. We will have meetings. We'll have as many meetings as you want. Negotiate anytime, anywhere. Willing to compromise. Willing to listen, talk.

Yeah, all that stuff. And then the second part of this is that what Biden is going to have to do, and the State of the Union next week is the first best opportunity to do that, is remind the country and educate the country about what the debt limit is. That it has nothing to do with spending to come. This is a former speechwriter. I just had to chill down my spine. You had to do this in two State of the Unions. Thinking about Corvin I in the section where you get to educate the public about something. But this, I mean, it's not even really the public. You also have to remind the people talking about politics, people writing about politics. You have to fill, this is going to be, these budget battles, these debt limit battles,

these government shutdown battles are PR battles. They're information warfare. And you're going to have to fill the space. And you're going to have the biggest stage of anyone on Tuesday. I think you've got to use that. And I also think that, you know, eventually when the Republicans put out a budget, like once they detail the cuts, then the conversation and the debate is about the cuts, not necessarily the abstract principle of negotiation. We'll get back to the negotiation as we get closer to the debt limit, but having the budget out there,

having the Republican budget out there, I think is going to help the whole thing too. I mean, there is another point here that I don't know that Biden should make this point himself, but people around Biden can make it is. Who are you negotiating with and about what? Like, as we said, they have no idea what they want. They can't agree on what they want. And even if we were to stipulate for a second. That Kevin McCarthy is a serious, substantive person with ideological principles and policy preferences.

Which you have made clear you do not subscribe to. I do not believe that. And I don't think anyone believes that. Even if you could cut a deal with Biden, if Biden McCarthy could come together and cut a deal, there is zero chance McCarthy could deliver that deal. He does not have the power to do it. There is the Venn diagram of something that Joe Biden is

going to sign off on and the Freedom Caucus is going to agree with are two circles that will never touch. And I think the White House smartly wants to make sure America knows that. Yes. Because I think what McCarthy's trying to do is if McCarthy can get some kind of a deal with Biden, then he doesn't need all the crazy freedom caucus members to get on board with the deal he can get a deal with democrats and republicans and everyone agrees stuff like that so he of course he wants to deal with biden yeah but that's his only out he hasn't he hasn't i want to i don't want to this is going to be alarming to you oh he has not thought this through because he does that then he loses yeah chip roy or any of the freedom caucus will say he violated

their deal and can do a motion to vacate and he loses his job. Well, let's talk about the, like, getting agreement within the Republican caucus then. Like, what can actually pass the House? Nothing. What kind of a budget could at least all the members or, you know, enough members to have a majority in the House of the Republican caucus agree on? What is the plan? I mean, McCarthy told Punchbowl that he basically wants to cap spending at 2022 levels. Doesn't seem like that. Well, and Biden, first of all, wouldn't agree to that. A, because he's not negotiating over the debt ceiling, but B, that would be a drastic cut in a lot of programs.

But I don't think that that cut would not be nearly enough for the Freedom Caucus. Yeah. And it's too much for the members of the Republican Caucus because that's also a cut in military spending. And the chairs of the Armed Services Committee and the Appropriations Committee that fund the military do not want that. They, in fact, think we should increase military spending. The Senate Republicans think we should increase military spending. There is nothing Republicans could agree on that could pass. That is the problem. It does seem, though, with the crazy right-wingers in the Republican caucus these days, what they care most about is, like, you know, cutting all the funding for wokeism. As we made a joke about. more than they care about like really cutting the budget down to the bone that I do wonder if some of these like crazy right-wing yahoos will sort of you know take a spending cut and and be okay

with it at the end of the day I wonder if it'll make the negotiation easier as well well hopefully there will not be a negotiation right well whatever I mean there's gonna be a negotiation there's gonna be like you said there's got to be a negotiation. There's going to be, like you said, there's got to be some kind of, pick your metaphor, fig leaf, exit ramp, whatever. No, there wasn't.

Fake thing. There wasn't in 2013. They just folded. And that is the ultimate test here is, can you make them capitulate? And if Kevin McCarthy capitulates, he probably loses his job. And that is why this is quite dangerous.

And in previous times, what eventually happened was people started to freak out. The markets tanked. The big businesses that fund the Republican Party go to Mitch McConnell and they say, fix this. And then Mitch McConnell gets in a room with Chuck Schumer. And when he was vice president, vice president of Biden, someone with the White House, and they cut a deal on something that is essentially a clean debt limit. Then they go home. They pass it and they go home. And they throw that hot potato at Kevin McCarthy and say, you pass it. And this is the one positive sign we have now that we did not have in previous ones, is that Kevin McCarthy's majority is so small that if he is willing to let that hit the floor, it is very easy to get the votes for it because you get all the Democrats, you only need

a small handful of Republicans. In 2011, if you remember, we thought we were going to default because the House majority was sizable enough that we didn't think John Boehner could deliver the 30 votes we needed to go with the Democrats to get to 218. Here, you can easily, I think, find the six that you're going to need to get there, but it requires him to put it on the floor and putting on the floor could cause him to lose his job. So the real question is not what, probably not what Kevin McCarthy can get done, but what Mitch McConnell can pass. Yeah. And McConnell's situation is more complicated now than it's been in the past. He has more. Because there was 24 Republican senators who basically

said they're not raising the debt ceiling. They wrote a letter, a clean debt ceiling. And then they also asked for cuts equal to the amount you raise the debt ceiling, which is crazy. That's the Boehner rule from 2011. Dollar of cuts for dollar of debt limit raising. Which would just be way too much. So I don't know what's going to happen there, but I guess McConnell can try to get some kind of portion of his caucus to go. Here's the thing I would say, that if I were speaking to the ad sales department at Crooked, I would start calling some gold companies. Well, okay. We'll be right back. So Kevin's had a lot of problems managing the five seat majority that he made himself too weak to lead. There's the debt limit. They've only been able to pass half of the nearly dozen pointless message bills that they said they'd pass

in the first two weeks. They can't even get an agreement on message bills to pass. It looks like they'll just eke out a win on voters' top priority of kicking Ilhan Omar off the House Foreign Relations Committee. They almost didn't get that done, though that comes just after one of their own members lost his committee assignments because he may go down as the um biggest pathological liar ever to serve in a place that was built on bullshit um george santos resigned from his committees after a meeting where um our kevin reportedly leaned on him to do so what do you think changed since mccarthy defended his decision to put Santos on these committees? I think Kevin McCarthy was having a really hard time explaining to his members why they had to vote to kick Ilhan Omar off her committee while George Santos got to be on his.

It's a very uncomfortable conversation that is really hard to defend publicly. And no one cares who's on what. Kevin McCarthy doesn't need his vote to get something through the small business subcommittee. He needs George Santos' vote to stay speaker. So as long as he gets to stay in the House, then Kevin McCarthy is happy. He's also like now under more investigations than days he spent in Congress. I mean, these people are all backing Donald Trump for president. He's under more investigations than George Santos in more jurisdictions, at least.

Yeah, that is true. Well, today we learned that FBI agents are investigating the GoFundMe scheme, where he allegedly stole money from a disabled veteran who was trying to raise money to help his dying service dog. So that's the latest investigation. One prosecutor told Politico that that could be a way to bring a quick indictment, because that's an easy one. You don't want to be stealing money from a disabled veteran who's trying to save his dying dog um and so maybe they indict him with that while they investigate the bigger crimes but you were saying but before you think maybe if he's indicted he that he still stays in congress no there were at least one and i think two members of congress republican members of

congress who were indicted and then re-ed in 2018. And then eventually left Congress in 2019 when they were convicted of crimes. Dark shit. I do not think the indictment would affect, would, he has to decide to resign. Why would he? He's getting a salary from Congress right now from paid by us. Right. Just because he's indicted. Why would he?

Yeah. What is it? Was he worried about his reputation? That's right. I mean, he's got to keep buying those fake glasses to wear. Does he have a moral core? And the and Kevin McCarthy can't force him out because Republicans, Democrats would almost certainly win the special election for George Sanchez's seat. And then reducing the majority by one or.

Yeah. So you got to go with Santos. All right. Let's talk about the most important race of 2023 that you all might not know about. It's a state Supreme Court race in Wisconsin that will determine whether abortion is outlawed and whether Republicans are allowed to maintain a gerrymander that has essentially turned Wisconsin into a one-party state where even the Democratic governor, Tony Evers, has very little power. But now, the conservative chief justice on the court is retiring, and if a progressive wins the race to replace her,

the court will finally have a progressive majority that will likely rule abortion is legal and that the maps are not. The actual thing, you know, there's a there's a very old law outlawing abortion that now has gone into effect because Roe went down. And then, of course, the gerrymandered maps are just awful. What else is at stake in this race? Anything else? And maybe you can talk about some of the unique challenges facing the progressive candidates in this race. can talk about some of the unique challenges facing the progressive candidates in this race. I don't want to overstate the importance of a state Supreme Court special election, but the future of democracy could be on the line. The state Supreme Court will hear

in the 2024 election, a series of challenges to voting procedures, to whether where drop boxes can be, to attempted voter purges and all these things. And the Wisconsin Supreme Court under its conservative leadership in past elections has been very favorable to voter suppression laws and legal efforts to keep people from voting or make it harder to vote. So having a progressive court majority who believes in the right to vote would make a gigantic difference in 2024. Who knows what is going to happen in terms of challenges to contest the election in Wisconsin, alternate states of electors, all sorts of things could happen. Those things are all going to be handled by the state Supreme Court. We should not overstate the importance of the maps.

Wisconsin say the Democrats won in 2022, 2020, 2018, a Senate race in 2016. Every other election, Republicans have like 68% of the House seats in what is clearly a 50-50 state. I mean, it is wild what would happen there. And it would affect the writing new maps would change, would create more seats potentially for Democrats to have a shot in, both in the state legislature and in congressional. It would be a huge difference. This is incredibly important. What is challenging about it is it's a special election.

Republicans have been very good at special elections in Wisconsin over the course of history. They defended the recall against Scott Walker back in 2011, I think that was, or early 2012. And this is a nonpartisan primary. So you have in it two progressives.

Janet Protasewicz and Everett Mitchell. And two conservatives. Dan Kelly is a far-right activist who says Clarence Thomas is his hero. And Jennifer Dorough, who called the Supreme Court ruling that struck down laws criminalizing sex between men as a quote prime example of judicial activism at its worst so two fantastic and jennifer jennifer doro is relatively famous in the state because she was the presiding judge on a very high profile uh murder case involving six deaths from a christmas event uh last year and because this is what you would what is often called a jungle primary top to

make it to the general, to the special election. So you could be in a world where you have one progressive and one conservative, or you could be in a world where you have two conservatives. Right. And so it is very- Or two progressives. You could have two progressives. You absolutely could. But the danger for progressives is getting shut out in one of these because the vote splits or something like that. And so it is absolutely like, it's like I said, it's maybe the future of democracy was a slight bit of hyperbole on my part, but not really. But this is an incredibly important race. It's not often that you get a chance to, with one election, have such a dramatic impact on so many people's lives. Also, forget about the rest of the country, just abortion access for millions of people

who live in Wisconsin, and also democracy in Wisconsin. Because right now, again, Tony Evers, Democratic governor, just won his second term. Because there's a near supermajority, a Republican supermajority in the legislature, not only can he not get a lot of shit done,

he can't even, he's trying to appoint people. They're not letting him appoint people. They've pulled all kinds of shenanigans to basically like make him a governor who can do very little on his own i mean not even staff his administration wisconsin along with north carolina are the models of republican authoritarianism it is the playbook as soon as tony evers won in, the then outgoing governor and the legislature took a bunch of his powers away. They did the same thing in North Carolina under Roy Cooper. And if you want to be able to get those back to allow the people, Tony Evers to do for the people of Wisconsin what they elected him to do twice, we have to win this race. And if we don't win this

race, the next chance to tip the balance of the court is until 2026. So this is- These are 10 year terms, people. to tip the balance of the court is until 2026. So this is... These are 10-year terms, people. Yeah, yeah. So the primary is February 21st, and then the special is April 4th. So those are the dates.

If you want to help, if you want to donate... So the Wisconsin Democratic Party, we should say, is not taking sides between the two progressive candidates, but you can donate to help turn out the vote in Wisconsin. Because I imagine, you know, this is going to be an incredibly expensive race. I mean, a lot of money on both sides of this race, but the right's going to pour in a ton of money. And getting people to care and to turn out in an off-year election, it's also an off month election in April. Like that's tough. So if you go to votesave.us slash Wisconsin, votesave.us slash Wisconsin and donate, that'll go a long way.

And we will continue to update you here at Crooked about how you can help in this election. Okay. One follow-up to our conversation on Tuesday's show about Don versus Ron, Battle of the Florida Men. Our friends at the Bulwark conducted a Republican primary poll with Republican pollster Whit Ayers, who described the findings of their poll this way, quote, Donald Trump has slipped to his lowest point since he emerged on the political scene almost eight years ago. He remains a formidable force to be sure with a lock on approximately 30% of the likely Republican primary and caucus voters nationally. But a majority of the GOP is ready to move on.

The poll shows DeSantis beating Trump in a head-to-head matchup by 52 to 30. But also, in a 10-candidate field, DeSantis beats Trump 39%, Trump gets 28%, and everyone else is in single digits. Now, what do you think this poll shows? Does it show that Trump remains a formidable force with a lock on only 30% of the vote when he still can't lead a 10-candidate field? Or what? What do you think? To answer that question, it's important for people to understand how Republican primaries work. To answer that question, it's important for people to understand how Republican primaries work. As we all remember from when we talked about this incessantly in 2020, you get the nomination of your party by reaching a certain number of delegates, the majority of delegates awarded.

In the Democratic primary process, delegates are awarded proportionally by congressional districts. So if you have 30% of the vote in a primary, essentially the most delegates you can win is 30%. Oftentimes you get less because of how your vote is geographically dispersed among congressional districts. Republican primary contests are mostly winner take all or winner take most. So in most cases, if Donald Trump gets 30% of the vote, and that's more than anyone else got, he will get 100% of the delegates. That is exactly how he won in 2016. And I think what is confusing to people here is, well, he has only 30%. He's even losing in a 10-candidate field. Because you guys talked a lot on Tuesday about how the more people get in the race, the easier it is for Trump to win because probably the polling right now suggests he would lose pretty easily a one-on-one to DeSantis and maybe a one-on-three. But what I think the mistake we're making with this poll is what is clear from this poll, whether it's the one-on-one, whether it's the Trump's approval rating, whether it's the one-on-nine other candidates, is there is a very strong majority of Republican

voters who would prefer a generic Republican over Trump. And in this poll, all the other nine people are pretty close to generic Republicans. And that changes as voters learn more about them. Ron DeSantis, he is the generic non-Trump Trump. They know enough about him to know he's Trump without the baggage. Like that's, I think, if you did like a word recall with a lot of Republican voters,

that's what they would say. Even if they know nothing else about him. And how are people going to feel when that ninth slot is not just a random Republican you know nothing about? It's Mike Pompeo. Would you prefer Mike Pompeo or Donald Trump?

Maybe you prefer Donald Trump. You don't really know. And so I think that this poll tells us what I think you and I talked about a couple of weeks ago, which is that Donald Trump remains a vulnerable front runner for the Republican nomination. Yeah. There's a lot of comparisons to what happened in 2016, where obviously the field sort of split the vote and then Trump won with you know around 30 percent in some of these early primaries at least before he got to nevada but there was no one like ron desantis in 2016 in the other candidates no one was as strong as he is right now uh not not jeb not all these other i mean in I think on a number of, in a number of areas, right? There's

polling, there's state polling, there's money, there's like relationship with the right-wing media, right? There's like all of, and all of these different factors, I think Ron DeSantis has strengths are, and again, we have not seen him on the national stage. We've not seen him in a debate with Trump take a punch. So for sure, all of these big caveats here. But I think that I would argue that DeSantis on a number of fronts is well ahead of anyone else that anyone else was in 2015 running against Donald Trump. I think that is correct, in part because in 2015, Donald Trump was running in one primary and all the other camps were running a different one. Donald Trump won because he was running the primary the voters were in. The other ones were,

I don't know what primary they were in, but I think it was taking place at CNN. So everyone knows the deal now. They know what the voters want. They know they want a lot of what Trump has to offer and they are competing on his territory. And the other thing, it's not just that they split the vote in 2016, it's that they all made a calculation that Trump would fall under his own weight. So the goal was to become the only other person in the race besides Trump. And so they didn't attack Trump. They attacked each other. Jeb Bush tried to take out Marco Rubio. Chris Christie tried to take out Marco Rubio. Marco Rubio tried to take out himself. And I would imagine they have somewhat learned some lessons from that. So if they're going to do this, they're going to have to try to take Trump on. Maybe DeSantis won't do that for all the reasons you suggest. He has a little bit of, he's not going to need to do that as early as others, but the strategies are going to impact this as well. Like what slice of the electorate are they going for? Are they going to try to separate Trump from some voters? What states are they going to prioritize?

Trump from some voters. What states are they going to prioritize? It also depends on how they take on Trump. This poll also shows that there is plenty of goodwill for Trump to the extent that these voters don't want Trump. It's not because they were upset about the insurrection. It's because they don't think he can win. Right. And so it's electability. And I think that if and you are I mean, DeSantis the other day sort of hit back at Trump, but in a very oblique sort of way, which is, I think, what you'll see from him going forward for a couple months at least, where he said, well, I won re-election. And when you win re-election by as much as I did, and he's going to keep talking about how he won re-election. And guess who didn't win re-election? I mean, it is just so, like, sure sure that's probably the right thing to do right now since he's not an announced candidate for president doesn't have the infrastructure to fight back

necessarily but it's just so funny that trump basically just walks the back of his lane trust reporter goes ron desantis is a disloyal loser who lied about covid and then desantis is like well i won reelection but the way that the media writes this up is like DeSantis hits back at Trump. Like a little goes a long way as we know, right? Like you, you make sort of an indirect attack at a candidate in the press, a tax candidate trades barbs,

you know? So you don't need to do much to sort of get your message across. But I also think like, I get why DeSantis doesn't have much of a choice because like I said, these voters like Trump, so he can't say Donald Trump's an asshole. He's going to have to just be like, do you want a winner or what? I'm a winner.

He's not. And at some point he'll go from just I'm a winner and like wink wink he's not to I'm a winner he's not. Yeah. I mean that will be interesting to see. We have a long way to go. I don't know exactly what the Republican primary calendar is going to be like and how the changes the democratic one theoretically could impact it but we're basically a year i think next tuesday necessarily probably the new hampshire primary about a year a year we're basically 12 to 13 months from the first contest a few other

things stood out at me in this poll um desantis's favorability is uh 73 11 that is a and and that's also the name id is very high for someone who is i mean you know he's governor of florida and being talked about but like that's a pretty it's pretty high name recognition there's a lot of people who like him the next highest favorability is trump at 68 and 29. And the next person after that is Mike Pence of hang Mike Pence fame, 61, 29. As it turns out, the part of the Republican party wants to murder Mike Pence smaller than we

thought. Yeah. About 29%. And then everyone else they tested the Nikki Haley's the Mike, all the whole, I don't think they even tested Mike Pompeo, but Nikki Haley, Yunk and others,

they were all under 50% favorability. Which is all name ID. Name ID. And most of them didn't have the name ID, which is, again, what DeSantis has and a lot of the rest of them don't. I also thought it was interesting that they asked people, do you support, they gave people an option, do you support Trump's policy goals and behavior? Do you support his policy goals but not his behavior? And then do you support neither? And then supporting the policy goals and his behavior was only 24% policy goals, but not his behavior, 69%.

Nice. And then anything else stand out to you? Well, there was this big, a lot of attention was paid to this in the bulwark right up of it, which is that 28%, I think it is, the 28% of Republican voters, they are trump before party and that they said they would support trump if he were to run as a third party candidate wow that that how likely do you think uh either outcome is that many people will go that he'll run as a third party candidate if he loses or that he uh or that that many republicans go for him. I'm not going to make a prediction here, John. I will not do that. I almost got you.

I almost did. I almost did. I almost tricked you. But I just find it highly unlikely that if Trump were to lose, that he would then turn around and say, you know what, I'm into more work. So I'm going to spend more of my money. I'm going to focus on ballot access

get some petitions signed it just didn't just to lose the travel with ron desantis to unity new hampshire and if his goal is to sink the republican nominee because he's pissed about it there are much more efficient ways for donald trump to do that than run for president oh you're saying all the work i think you meant the work of uh of endorsing no no no i think just running for president on a third party candidate is very hard it takes a lot of work i think he's gonna do that just burn it down in an easier way he can absolutely burn out and then just a couple phone calls i would say let's say he even did that i think there is close to zero chance that nearly 30 of republican voters are like you know what i'm out i'm out i'm gonna let's just know knowing that yeah joe b I'm out. Let's just reelect Joe Biden.

Knowing that, yeah, Joe Biden will win. But that's what they were, the 28% number. This is ultimately what kind of the implicit strongest argument Trump has is, which is if you don't give me the nomination, yeah, maybe it won't be 28%. Maybe it's 4%. If 4% of people stay home- It's taking hostages. Then you're toast. If 2% of people stay home, you are toast. Yeah. I mean, I'm sure he'll make that argument explicitly by the end of this primary.

Oh, absolutely. If not tomorrow. Someone get on Truth Social right now. Now, do you think this poll is worthless since it doesn't account for the surge in momentum that will surely follow Nikki Haley's announcement that she's running, which is supposed to happen February 15th?

I feel like this question is not on the level. I will say, I just, again, could be proven wrong. All of the other people not named Donald Trump and Ron DeSantis,

I don't, why are you in the race? Why are you in the race? It's not happening for you. I feel so sure about that. Is that a? That's a prediction. Oh man.

We've been doing this thing for six years? Like fucking Mike Pompeo and his angry inch book or whatever the fuck it's called i know tommy and ben covered this a lot but like what i don't know what that guy's doing you know what they're you know what i was i'm sorry like give me a glenn yunkin a brian kemp i still don't think they have much of a chance but i i can i could have that argument i could hear that argument nicky and n. Nikki Haley, I don't think so. I mean-

Mike Pence, hang Mike Pence? No. I mean, shockingly popular Mike Pence? Yeah, shockingly popular. The reason they're running is not to win. It's to be famous. It's honestly- Which is a good strategy.

That's how you be famous. And to get a deal. Podcast. What they want is a podcast. You run for president, you lose your podcast president we didn't have to run for president we got we got we got we got in early we got in early you want to see you want to launch a podcast in 2025 get your ass in new hampshire i'm sure some i'm sure they're also competing to be well we'll see how if any of them attack trump they want to be on the VP list. Yeah, maybe.

Sure. I mean, you know, maybe that's it too. But you're right. It's wanting to be famous. They're probably setting that, you know, he's going to die someday. So 2028,

like at some point, you know, they want to raise their national profile, sell more books. It's ridiculous. Okay. When we come back, Elijah will be here for another round of,

an in-person round of Take Appreciator. Okay, we're back. Elijah's here in person. Dan's here in person. What a day. What a day. So great to be here with you guys. It's great to have you hosting Take Appreciator here in Los Angeles.

Yeah. I mean, when I found out I was doing it today, the takes were, it seemed like they were going to be a little thin today, but the discourse always delivers. You dug deep. Yeah, you got to get deep. You got to go extra deep in the take mind. So what do you got for us? Before we get started i'll share the rules the producers have seen these takes john and dan have not they'll react and rate them on a scale of one to four politicos with four being the worst we got some audience feedback on the segment wow so before we uh you've been in your mentions yeah you know i know, I appreciate an engaged audience. They want us to guess the author after we talk about the take a little bit.

You know, we get sidetracked a little bit. That's fair. And we'll guess it before we do the Politico rating because, you know, that contributes. But today, it's not really about authors. I don't think you're going to know that. Well, I think that's a really, that's a good note because that means that the rating is based purely on the take and not about our preconceived notions about the person. Yes. I know I don't work in the ad sales department here, but another option, we're giving Politico all of this name ID for free.

Do you think we should go pitch Semaphore? Semaphore, sponsor this. One to four Semaphores. Pac, you want to up your numbers? Or it just be, it's one to Semaphore sponsor this you want to be one to four semaphores puck you want to up your numbers or just be it's one to uh semaphore yeah well i was thinking that maybe we could keep the politico rating but then semaphore sponsors the segment okay that works too yeah because we're shitting on we're shitting on their competitor you know anyway just a thought gc just a thought, GC, just a thought. Yeah, consider it. Thank you to the audience, as always, for the feedback. Let's jump in. We're going to start with a piece from the New York Times titled, DeSantis Takes on Education Establishment and

Builds His Brand. This is a piece about Ron DeSantis attacking education in Florida as governor. He's limiting teaching about LGTBQ and race issues, this piece specifically covers him mandating courses in Western civilization and eliminating diversity and equity programs. Now what makes this particular piece so bad and so rare for take appreciators is that it's not opinion, this is straight reporting here. Here's a quote. Governor Ron DeSantis of Florida, as he positions himself for a run for president next year, has become an increasingly vocal culture warrior, vowing to take on liberal orthodoxy and its champions,

whether they are Disney, on Martha's Vineyard, or in the state's public libraries. Guys, what do we think? You know, I will say this. Until you got to the phrase liberal orthodoxy, I was going to say it's a fair reading of what he is doing. But to call what he's going after in all of those institutions, liberal orthodoxy is, I would say, not correct. Did you stumble on this take as people were tweeting about it? Were they angry about this particular passage in the New York Times?

And especially the headline, building his brand. I mean, that's what he's doing. It is what he's doing. He's building his brand. I don't love it. Yeah. I take issue with the liberal orthodoxy so i'll give it i'll give it i'll give it a politico just one just one sam there you go i barely a one politico the uh the liberal orthodoxy on martha's vineyard

can't get it at 1.5 that's fair you guys want to take a guess at who wrote it again straight reporting so not our typical. It's a news article in the New York Times. Yes. Three authors, so you get credit for getting any one of them. We probably have an education reporter, a Florida reporter, and then whoever now sits at Jonathan Martin's desk. Oh, Reid Epstein? No, Reed Epstein.

Jeremy Peters. Nope. Ooh, those are two. Do you think we're going to have heard of any of these people? Let's see. Stephanie Saul, Patricia Motze, and Trip Gabriel. Oh, Trip Gabriel we should have known. Yeah.

But he's. Yeah, good reporter. Yeah. There you go. Well, you know, i feel like that's the exact kind of coverage that desantis wants so oh it is it is but uh but that's more a function of uh desantis um picking mean culture war fights yeah he's gonna pick him someone's gonna have to talk about him his brand will be built from them yeah his yeah not a good brand but it's a brand

certainly all right next up we have a piece from the Washington Post titled, Real People Don't Care About George Santos. This piece is incredibly short. I was ready to go with it just because of the title, but then I got into it. It simply cites Google search trend data, noting that Kevin McCarthy, Ron DeSantis, and Donald Trump all get more Google searches than George Santos. Here's a quote. Santos's ethical struggles do matter, but the daily airing of Santos's latest insane fabrication is mostly a diversion for political junkies in Washington. Guys, what do we think? Here's what makes me annoyed about this take is that um you know the real people that do care about santos are the people who um he's representing in his district 70 something

percent of whom 78 percent believe who believe he should resign um so those people care and those people are not uh the dc set so i don't know why you would write this piece. It seems like a silly piece to write, uh, uh, three politicos. This is just plug and play cut and paste. Lazy,

lazy punditry, lazy punditry. There's nothing easier to be like, look, I know I'm here in Washington, but I visited America once. I talked to the people and they told me they didn't care about what you care about. See you at Cafe Milano.

As we talked about today, if the Republicans had a 30-seat majority, that's one thing. They got a five-seat majority. George Santos leaves. There's only four seats. It matters. I do think we should use Google search data for more stuff. Yeah, no, I'm going to do it. It's good yeah are you serious yeah it's actually pretty interesting it is interesting it helps us with our youtube titles but i thought that was some weak shit i don't i mean look i

would prefer i mean like i was fucking polling covered in glory these days that's true yeah you guys want to guess it's over over here i don't think you guys are going to guess the author. Should I just tell you? Yeah. David Beiler? Yeah. Oh, I'm disappointed in David Beiler. He's really good. Oh, no.

Oh. Well, no one's safe from taking it. He's a political scientist. It's like when Lovett went off on a take and gave it like a full playbook. He's like, that person's awful. And it was Ashley Parker. The Biden Vogue wedding. Yeah, she was briefly canceled. Oh, yeah.

Yeah. Well, take appreciate her. it comes for everyone eventually all right should we move on i'm excited about this one okay it's a washington post bloomberg collaboration wow it's titled republican tax proposals aren't as bonkers as they sound so this is a piece about the Fair Tax Act, which Kevin McCarthy agreed to bring to the floor for a vote if he got the speakership. For those of you who aren't familiar, the bill would abolish the IRS and it would replace all existing federal taxes with a flat nationwide 30% sales tax on top of existing state and local rates. Here's a quote. Sure, the bill probably doesn't have much of a chance of passing,

but it has some merit and is a good starting point for a discussion about tax reform. I'm so excited to hear y'all's thoughts on this thing, the Fair Tax Act. What do we think? I mean, like Grover Norquist, of all people,

the guy who's famous for saying that we should shrink government down to the size where you can drown it in a bathtub like never met a tax cut he doesn't like he told i believe semaphore that this was a crazy idea and that this is a crazy republican so i'm trying to i'm trying to think of who is out there defending this is it a is it a secret democrat pretending to be a republican bloomberg guy writing on the washington post bloomberg guy writing on the washington post like a regular bloomberg columnist i'm not familiar with the regular bloomberg columnist nor am i but i thought i would at least try to i've wandered around this office for years looking for a terminal. Never found one in here.

Yeah, I think a 30% national sales tax is a bad idea. I think most people would agree with that from all parties all across the country. Look, I think if there's an opportunity to make our tax system more regressive and make it so that

people who have less money pay more in taxes. Seems like a great fucking idea. Yeah. I think this is a, I'm leaning towards a full playbook on this. Do we have any more takes or is this the last one? I have a bonus one about Tom Brady because it's so newsy. Okay. Oh boy.

All right. I'm going to give this three playbooks. Do you guys want to guess who wrote it? Now I don't want to. Michael Bloomberg. Carl Smith. Carl spelled with a K. That's not a real person. It's George Sanchez's campaign

manager. Who is Carl Smith? Just a columnist? Who is he? I couldn't tell you, honestly. But again, Take Appreciator comes for everyone, whether you know him or not. Carl Smith, David Beiler, a bunch of random New York Times reporters just co-bylining a story.

You know who I hear was just cut this piece out of the newspaper and was waving it around? Kevin McCarthy. Yeah. He brought it to the Biden meeting. He brought it to the Biden meeting. Yeah, he's trying to push his 30% sales tax. That's what I'm going with.

Look, I'm not a political analyst. I just know it takes, but it's just exciting to see Republicans come with an actual affirmative piece of policy that they are putting forward and just have it be completely insane. Something that even I can be like, that sounds crazy. Yeah. No, it's a good one. Hope they put it in the budget. Yeah, please do. I don't think they're going to have a budget. You don't think they're going to have a budget. You don't think they're going to have a budget? No.

Wow. Okay. There's no like, they don't have to formally release one. They're not going to pass a immigration. They give a date? They said they would do it a month after Biden? I mean, when have they?

Imagine them not keeping their word. That's weird. All right. This is the last one. Tom Brady retired yesterday morning. So in honor of that, we have this piece from Fox News titled, Tom Brady's Retirement Leaves a Gentleman Gap in the NFL.

Great headline. Here's a quote. In a world of tarnished idols, of gossip, of shamelessness, Brady stands out as a true role model. Not just because he won more Super Bowls and set more records than any other NFL athlete. Instead, it's because he does things the right way. Humility is a lost art in today's chest-pounding

follow-me-on-Snapchat world. Guys, what do we think? I wrote this tick. No notes. Yeah, no politicos. No politicos for me. I would like to declare myself as a Tom Brady centrist. I don't have strong,

strong feelings when we're the other, like when he was the underdog late, late round, what a fifth round, six round pick. That was great. Later Brady, when he was the greatest of all time,

rooting for the underdogs, don't care that much. Fuck Sarah Brady. Still. What? The one thing I would say is, I would that the last few years have not been colored in glory, either, to reuse that phrase.

And I think probably remaking himself as a crypto pitchman towards the end there was less ideal. This is all the short-termism. Years from now, no one's going to remember the end. The flake gate. Okay. Kissing no one's going to remember the end. The flake gate.

It's not, okay. Kissing his son. Oh, I'm sorry. He showed affection to his family. That's a lot of affection. For those who know. I was really torn because I thought

there was a real chance that... I'm going to see 80 for Brady this weekend for sure. Are you really? Yeah. That's going to be your return to the movie theater? The Boston guy.

I was torn because I thought if Brady did not retire, he would be a San Francisco 49er next year. Exciting for you. And I was raised as a Washington Commanders fan, which is a really...

It's not something I'm going to pass along to my children, so I thought if they wanted to become Niners fans, they could... Speaking of being covered in glory. Yeah, I mean,

just the absolute worst, but now that's not going to be any sort of, it would be harder, more complicated. I think if Brady was there, I don't have to worry about it. Yeah. You got a political rating for it?

Two. Two? I think it's a, there is a subtext there that I think is kind of gross. Which is? It's just that it is the older white guy, stereotypical, you know, he reminds a certain set of people of what they think NFL quarterbacks should be. And they very willfully ignore some other more complicated parts of his life, which he's more than welcome to have. He's a football player.

In order to make a point that is, it's a point about Brady, but it's really a point about the rest of the NFL that I think is unfair in a lot of ways. Thanks for calling my take on this problematic. Well, look, you're from Boston. You get a pass. Phantoms. I give this take to Politico. John's take, full playbook. Yeah.

Cleveland fans got behind Deshaun Watson. So, I mean, I guess you get a pass. All right. Great segment, Elijah. I think this segment went well. Oh, good. I know you're always wondering about that. I was wondering about it. think this segment went well. Oh, good. I know you're always wondering about that. I was wondering about it.

Get the side text afterwards. You guys think it's okay? Is it cool? Thanks for joining us today. Our one guest on today's show. Great to be here. It's great. Great to have you here.

Great to have you here, Dan. Everyone have a great weekend and we'll talk to you next week. Bye, everyone. Pod Save America is a Crooked Media production. The executive producer is Michael Martinez. Our senior producer is Andy Gardner-Bernstein. Our producers are

Hayley 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 Montuth. Our episodes are uploaded as videos at youtube.com slash podsaveamerica.