Pod Save America - "Mitch Better Have Their Money."

Episode Date: September 13, 2022

The Republicans get nervous about midterms. The Senate tries to pass same-sex marriage protections. Economic expert Lindsay Owens from The Groundwork Collective joins to talk about inflation. And the guys play a new game called Two Takes and A Fake. For a closed-captioned version of this episode, click here. For a transcript of this episode, please email [e-mail] and include the name of the podcast.   

Welcome to Pod Save America, I'm Jon Favreau. I'm Jon Lovett. I'm Tommy Vitor. I want you to know that somebody... Lovett, welcome back. It's great to be back. It's good to see you, buddy. I've been gone for about a fucking month. How's it going? Somebody tweeted that they sense tension between me and Tommy and that I haven't been on the pod. And I want you to know something. If there's ever tension between me and Tommy, Tommy's off the pod. I'm expelled. I thought you were going to say if there's ever tension between me and Tommy, you'll hear it on the pod. Did you guys decide in advance that I'm out? People, we're not talking. It's an alliance.

It's not. You guys have an alliance? It's a survivor thing. It's a survivor thing. You don't know where Dan's going to come down. Yeah. You can still get Dan. Dan's still gettable for you. He's still gettable.

It could be a tie. Are we vote counting? Yeah. What are we talking about today? What are we talking about? Today's show, Republicans get nervous about the midterms. The Senate tries to pass same-sex marriage protections. economic expert lindsey owens joins to talk about inflation then a new game we're calling two takes and a fake i think that's what we're calling it pioneered by

dan fiverr yeah yeah this is in conversation this was on the pod dan came up with this game just riffs um just does it in real time i was told there was no uh housekeeping today but i'm just going to abuse my position as host the wilderness is out it's not abusing anything john so sure you've been working very hard on i worked hard in a podcast did a bunch of focus groups talked to voters even sundays in uh in in las vegas every day in atlanta in pittsburgh in virginia in orange county uh these are all voters who they voted for joe biden in 2020 but they're not sure what they're doing in the midterms so i talked to everyone get very annoyed about that uh why just because it was funny i tweeted about this on twitter and

everyone's like what people don't know people haven't made up their minds yet what is wrong with everyone what is wrong with people how could you not make up your mind? Why are we wasting our time on these people? I'm like, well, because they're voters. They're Biden voters. Because that's how we win elections. They showed up in 2020 to vote for Joe Biden. So we kind of need them. Right.

If you are listening to this podcast, you are probably not a swing voter, but we need them. Yeah. And then the fun part was after the focus group in each city, I had a panel of experts. And we talked about what we heard in the focus group. So people that you've heard in the wilderness before. So you had campaign experts react? I had a campaign expert. To your focus group panels?

That's right. They did. They were campaign experts, and they did react. Interesting, Dan. I'm going to be on campaign experts. You're stealing a lot from Dan today. Guys, I got invited to be on campaign experts react. Hey, congrats.

Because of the wilderness. I know. It's been this long, and I haven't gotten invited yet. It's been a real show. Anyway, let's get to the wilderness. I know. It's been this long and I haven't gotten invited yet. It's been a real show. Anyway, let's get to the news. With less than 60 days to the midterms, we've got ourselves a narrative shift. Ooh. Hold on to your hats.

I love narrative shifts. Narrative shifts. Here's the Washington Post from this weekend. Republican leaders are scrambling to shore up their chances to win back both the House and Senate as inflation concerns fade democratic enthusiasm for protecting abortion rights surges and new fundraising challenges emerge in the crucial final months of the campaign it's funny i can't even get excited about leads like that because i imagine them about democrats and how annoyed i am and how over simple it is over simplifying it's over turk and you felt them

searching for a third one yep and they landed on fundraising which is a real concern but it's not as it's just not as high level as the other ones. We're going to talk about it. So the night the knives are out for Rick Scott, who Republicans are blaming for bad Senate candidates and money troubles. Parties also upset about falling gas prices and are starting to make their negative ads about crime instead. Good luck trying to take out Rick Scott. We don't even know where half the horcruxes are. Hey, I can make I mean, a Harry Potter reference. I'm back. There you Scott. We don't even know where half the horcruxes are. Hey, I made a Harry Potter reference.

I'm back. There you go. I don't even like Harry Potter. It's written by a transphobe about kids who are good at sports. You're required. You have to say that. Every time. You talk about Harry Potter.

I really feel it. I still haven't seen all the Harry Potters. It's fine. All right. An internal Republican polling is showing that some House races are getting tighter because of increased enthusiasm and approval for Democratic candidates. Guys, let's start with Rick Scott. Is he fucking up the Republican Senate chances or is he just an unfortunate looking scapegoat? How real are these money challenges? I mean, I think when you said he was to blame for bad candidates,

that's the one I think is completely unfair. I mean, Trump is to blame for most of the candidates, but my takeaway from... And Republican voters. Well, yes, of course. They're picking him. Of course. They're picking him. But I think Rick Scott is legitimately bad at his job.

I wrote down a few proof points. I would say releasing an economic plan that would raise taxes on half the country, bad idea. Even Mitch McConnell knew that. While sunsetting Medicare and Social Security. Right. And every other government program there is. I would say attacking Joe Biden for going on vacation in Delaware before getting on your private jet to a yacht in Italy. Bad idea. Also, it's very clear that the NRC has spent way too much on strategies, especially digital ads and sort of like hyper aggressive fundraising, digital tactics that are completely unethical

that have not paid dividends. I also think to your point, John, Rick Scott put himself and his plans in an ad against two of the most unappealing things I can think of in the same ad. And so also, I don't think it was a very smart idea for him to go nuclear in response to Mitch McConnell. I mean, like do that that after you win but don't declare now that your candidates are good he didn't just i thought originally when i heard that story that he just like some reporter asked him and he he wrote an op-ed he wrote an op-ed and uh saying that anyone who criticizes him is a traitor to the cause traitor uh he also said about mcconnell trash talking our republican candidates was an amazing act of cowardice they are not on they are not friendly no they don't like rick scott mitch mcconnell rick scott i also

love he's just he's like flying to iowa he's just this is like the rick scott show well it's also like it's not even like there's no competitor he's not he thinks well highly of himself yeah well it's always like like hey hey rick scott ask somebody about your personality you're not gonna be president my friend you're not gonna be president especially and also by the way like we don't do a lot of predictions i'm gonna predict rick scott's not gonna be president, my friend. You're not going to be president. Especially, and also, by the way. We don't do a lot of predictions. I'm going to predict Rick Scott's not going to be president. And an Iowa trip right before you don't win the Senate is also not a winning formula.

It does seem as though he's played a pretty good hand very poorly. What's going to happen to this tape when the Republicans win the Senate? They could absolutely win. No, but of course they could win the Senate. Rick Scott, genius. It doesn't make it. Look, it will not be Rick Scott's victory if Democrats manage to lose.

We've lost before Rick Scott and we'll lose again. The question on the money challenge is a tougher one to answer. I mean, clearly the NRSC is not raising as much as they'd hoped. They are spending more than they should. But like any billionaire can swoop in at any time and cut a big super PAC check and

Level the playing field and they talked about is the 200 like they're really struggling to raise Be from like those sort of the lower dollar donors And I don't know whose fault that is but I think it's sort of coming to for like we've been talking about these absolutely bananas conservative and Republican emails trying to kind of cattle prod their base into donating money. And it seems like maybe they've just, they've, they've, they've, they've kind of grown resistant. Yeah. Basically what they're doing is they'd send a text to their list and would say, Hey, do you think Joe Biden should resign? Uh, right. Yes. To donate. And then you,

then you text back. Yes. And it automatically donates your $25 without telling you where it's going. That's called stealing. That, that's not a great thing. That is the same thing as the text I literally just got from someone telling me to click this link because there's been suspicious activity on my Amazon. Oh, you're not supposed to click this? No, I did not.

Okay, thank you. By the end of July, the NRSC spent more than 95% of what it brought in. That is so, they spent so much money. It's too early. And all they have to show for it is all these like really bad candidates. Again, they could win.

It's not because of it, but spending 95% of what you brought in by the end of July, I don't think it's a good practice. Also, by the way, hopefully Dr. Oz loses. All right, that's Rick Scott's fault because they didn't nominate

the other godforsaken candidate who is just as unappealing. Come on. The finance bro from Connecticut? Give me a break. And that's a Trump thing. But again, Mitch McConnell is complaining because he wants Peter Thiel to swoop in and save Blake Masters and write him another big check in Arizona.

And it's just these guys talk about paying for Senate seats like we talk about splitting a tab at a restaurant. It is crazy. I do think it's interesting that Peter Thiel has so far decided not to put more money into that pack. There's a couple like another million and a half went into that pack, but it was from sources that weren't Peter Thiel, apparently. He's like a bang for your buck investor. You know, he wants to get in early in a primary where he can really, $15 million can really move the needle. It probably doesn't in the general. But if you're putting in millions of dollars into a primary and then sitting out the general, not a great use of money.

Yeah, I guess they're going to, the McConnell's fund is going to run ads in that race starting in october so they didn't get in early but they're gonna get in towards the end i do we like look it'll be gross we talked about these with the polls in arizona like kelly has this big lead it's arizona it's close i feel like that's these races are gonna close yes um so there are a few republican economists in this piece saying that inflation might not be the silver bullet Republicans thought it would be. What did you think about that? Personally, my favorite thing was how they're just replacing gas prices with crime in the ads. It's like, oh, you feeling pain at the pump?

You getting robbed at the pump? Let's put on the greatest hits. Yeah. the pump? Let's put on the greatest hits. Yeah. Again, it does feel all a bit like we should just be very careful to, first of all, trust Republican strategists to make us feel better about what's going to happen in the fall. But also, it's absolutely true that gas prices are coming down. I talked about this with Lindsay Owens. Inflation is still high year over year. It's not continued to rise. It might be as simple as gas prices have a huge impact on how people perceive the economy, and that's having a positive impact. But prices, it's still potent.

It's still a really big issue. Yeah, I think the issue in June when the average gas price was over $5 a gallon, it was everywhere in the media. It was everywhere on TikTok. It was on like everyone was talking about gas prices. Tell me if you've been checking out TikTok. Listen, I know where my, I'm with the kids. Prices have been falling every day since. We're now down to 380 a gallon is the national average, but that's still over a dollar a gallon higher than we were in January, 2021.

So the question is, so he thinks this is cap is better. Not necessarily is better. Good enough. If we're still talking about prices that are pretty high and food prices are also high hopefully gas prices will continue to go down but we'll see i mean if i'm a republican i'm still trying to blame high gas prices and high food prices on the democratic party you make that part of those crime ads that's still uh again that's our greatest hit well i think that's heartening about this sort of debate that they're having is how unclear they are on what they should, like they really are all over the place. They're all over the place on abortion.

One of the consultants said something that was like, I think very heartening to hear, which is like each of these individual candidates knows the race they wanna run. That's what you say when a race is nationalized and you think you're about to lose. They sound like losers. They're also going back to like Keystone pipeline attacks.

They're going back to immigration attacks. pipeline attacks they're going back to uh you know immigration attacks they're going all the hits there will be a caravan yeah they're trying to make that they're gonna try to make that happen and all that i just want to be clear that doesn't mean they're going to lose do you want to record both versions of that no no i'm just gonna put it here i'm leaving it here olivia mark it in the time the staff knows to only put the only put their correct predictions in. If you look at Biden's approval and gas prices over the last month, the relationship is quite correlated, depressingly so. I say depressingly so because there is very little that a president can do about gas prices.

And so you're just sort of, your approval rating is, you know, it's up or down based on the gas rate. And again, because this is like the media finding a narrative. It's like Joe Biden's approval rating skyrockets from 38 to 44. 44 is still not that great, people. It's under 50. It's a disapproval rating. It's not great. It's better than it was. It's better. It could get you through.

Look, it's less about Joe Biden right now. And it's more about these Democratic candidates. You got a Joe Biden sitting at 44, 45. You can plausibly outperform him. You got a Joe Biden sitting at 38, 39. Going to be really tough, even if you're the best candidate running against a really bad Republican. It's going to be tough to outperform him. What, if anything, should Democrats, let's talk about Democrats because we control that.

We don't control Republicans. What should Democrats do about lower inflation and gas prices brag about it she started saying oh we were look at joe biden fixed everything uh stop talking about the issue focus on abortion instead what do you think is there a third way love it whatever you guys you guys come up with whatever you want oh wait i wrote i wrote a line you're right it's a no labels okay love it here we go while democrats were fighting the war on inflation republicans were declaring war on women who's that for it's for whoever wants it out there in the world dnc now so okay do worse we can look we can work out that we can work out that i remember when economists and others were making fun of joe manchin on twitter for naming the

basically climate change bill the inflation Inflation Reduction Act. Notice we've been defending Joe Manchin since the beginning of time. I love, I'm glad he named it that. I think that's like, I think every Democrat, they should bundle up all the economic proposals they've already made and put them into a package that they call their like inflation plan or their gas prices plan and then talk about it on the stump. Maybe it's part of your ads, but you know, if Dobbs and abortion is the most important issue in your state, then you should run on that and focus on that, but just have this in your back pocket and then wrap the Rick Scott tax increase around your opponent's neck. That's what I would do. I would nonstop remind people that Republicans want to help rich assholes who are gouging consumers during inflation.

And when all the liberal economists whine about that, I would ignore them. Here are the things we're doing to make inflation better. Here are the things Rick Scott and the Republicans would do to make your life, your economic situation, your prices worse. We've been working hard with liberal hero Joe Manchin to lower your energy costs, lower your prescription drug costs, lower your health care costs. Well, Rick Scott was helping Jeff Bezos construct his mega yacht. Yeah, and make sure that he didn't have to pay

a single dime in taxes. It's not important, but it is. Like, Jeff Bezos coming down from his fucking cloud bunker to, like, tweet at random professors. Yeah. Being a billionaire, it really seems like it fucks you up.

It doesn't seem like he's that busy. Is he just bored? He's clearly looking through his menchies. Yeah. Yeah, get off those. All right. One reason for Democrats to stay terrified is the fact that no one's fixed the polling problems from 2020. Nate Cohn has a piece in the New York Times today about how Democratic Senate candidates are outrunning expectations in the same places, where the polls overestimated Biden in 20 and Clinton in 16, places like Wisconsin, Nevada, and Ohio. What do you guys think is going on here? Should we all cancel Nate Cohn for telling us this?

Yeah, the thing you do with information that you don't like is you attack the messenger on fiercely personal terms. So, Lava love you start like uh like uh i can't remember i don't know i don't know the house of dragons character his name yet but matt smith beating up the guy that told him that his brother was going to send troops you know that's what we want to do to nate cohen you did you just do you learn any lessons that's not a spoiler spoiling that's nothing first of all you called someone matt smith no one even knows matt smith i. I could say Prince Philip from the crown. Unbelievable. Oh, well, now we know who that is.

Yeah. What were we talking about? What do you think about the Nate Cohn piece? Oh, here's what I think. One of the three pieces you have to read today. Here's what I think. Here's what I think. We should all just assume all the polls are wrong.

The one thing that I sort of was stepping back and saying, well, we have something that's better than polls, which is elections. And we've had four special elections since Dobbs was handing down. And in all of them, Democrats have outperformed Biden's 2020 showing. Now, there's some question as to what kind of voters are in those districts. Maybe they look more like the college educated voters that will help us in those places, but will show us underperforming in some of the places where we have this sort of polling error that Nate's talking about. That's fine. I just the thing about polling errors is you don't know because we won't know until we run the election. I think determine resource allocation, especially millions and millions of dollars of TV ads are based on something a little more updated. So that's my concern. You don't think they are.

Public polls are fun for us and whatever. We can tell people to ignore them in their media polls and we can make fun of the media for not doing a good job in polls. But the problem in 20 was reflected in internal polling and it was also reflected in internal polling on both sides. So even these anonymous Republicans worrying about shit, their polls could be shit too. We just call that Trafalgar. Trafalgar. Yeah, he's the only one. He's the only one who knows.

Trafalgar. Trafalgar, thank you. The problem here is, or one of the theories here of what the problem is, is that it wasn't necessarily in 20 Trump voters lying to pollsters. It was Trump voters being less likely to talk to pollsters at all. Response bias. And Biden voters were sitting at home during the pandemic with their masks on inside, very excited to talk to pollsters about how much they hated Donald Trump. Every call, every pollster call, they got on the phone. They're talking about how excited they were. So that, so that's called, that's called non-response

bias, but it's, there's a concern that it's a more structural problem now, which is people who don't have as much faith in institutions, don't trust the media, don't trust politics at all, whether it's Trump voters, whether it's non-college voters that usually vote for Democrats are just not answering pollsters calls. And if that's the case, and it's non-college voters that usually vote for Democrats, are just not answering pollsters' calls. And if that's the case and there's too many college-educated voters getting into these polls, well, that's now going to help Democrats because we're now the party, even though we used to not be. Now we're the party overwhelmingly of college-educated voters. And so if we can't get non-college voters in there, it's going to be a problem. And I go back to my main concern here.

Who the fuck is answering their phones? I know. I know. Well, just don't trust text polling too that's how you're getting more you're getting better responses with text better responses online have my phone calls say potential spam i know i i don't understand what a warranty for a car i didn't buy in 93 i don't understand that i don't understand why it rings at all it It doesn't even say a number. Well, you can silence unknown callers. That's what I do on my iPhone. But if the phone knows it's potential spam and they don't even tell you who it

is anymore, you could just file it away for me. You don't need to make it ring. I'm okay. Here's the question. We'll take this to Mr. Jobs later. Presumably the bias would be relatively consistent over time, right? Like a six-month period, the bias would be relatively consistent over time right like a six-month period the bias would not change that much directionally so you would know you would have

a sense of how the polls are moving directionally right like if democrats are doing better or worse that would hopefully be because of actual responses not necessarily because the bias is here's changing over time here's the concern so dobbs happens and right bunch of college educated liberals are like fuck it i am i can i am energized i am mad i'm gonna go out and vote it's happening and so they they are more likely to answer pollsters calls and republican voters are like the media narrative is not good for us because people seem to be upset when they're uh when the right to an abortion is taken away. And they're like, I don't want to talk to a pollster. And then there is this mirage of a bounce that's not really there. That would be the theory.

Or that it's not at the size that we've seen. Because there is, of course, that enthusiasm is reflected in the outcomes we've seen. It's reflected in voter registration. It's affected in what we saw in Kansas. We've's it's we've seen it in the new york 19th part of the problem here is like the polls that happen in the run-up to an election are not a perfect are a snapshot in time days weeks before the actual election uh uh happens and so yeah these polls can be off and the average can be off even in the days leading up to an election but it's really hard to like even know what you're measuring what you're really comparing. Are you comparing that? Democratic enthusiasm was not as high as we thought it was or Republicans have built an incredible turnout machine right that turns people out in the final days of an election

Especially on Election Day. I don't know it's not the size of the margin of error It's the motion of the quotient people who judges in here. We don't we don't do that kind of innuendo It has a question. What's your denominator? You know, look, you made a very good point about the special elections. The only thing that keeps me up

about the special elections is special elections and primaries tend to attract voters who pay a lot of attention to politics. Voters who pay a lot of attention to politics tend to be college educated.

Therefore, again, it might be easier and special to get the kind of results that we're getting. Of course, it's true on both might it might be easier and a special to get the kind of results of course it's true on both sides right though it draws out and look one thing that also changes the way in which this midterm is going to be run in a new way where this is a midterm that's going to have an electorate that may look a lot more like a presidential we just have no fucking idea especially yeah i'm not trusting a single poll out of wisconsin nope i wouldn't i mean that was a big miss not wisconsin has not had a good track

record yeah just ask sarah just ask senator gideon about polling no then people in 18 polls were pretty right they were right you know tammy baldwin in 18 the polls were pretty close same with tony evers right right so you don't know all right so if republicans are actually polling worse um of course it'll be because of their extremism on issues like abortion and same sex marriage. This is the week we'll find out if there are at least 10 Republican senators who are willing to vote for a bill that would protect same sex marriage. After Clarence Thomas, of course, wrote in the Dobbs decision that Obergefell should be overturned. Nearly 50 Republicans voted for this bill when it passed the House. But so far, only Susan Collins, Rob Portman and Tom Tillis have said they'll definitely vote for it in the Senate. Some Republican senators are saying the bill is

unnecessary and others are trying to include religious exemptions to same sex marriage protections. You guys think Republicans enjoy being on the losing end of a 70-30 issue a few weeks out from the midterms? What do you think's going on here? Not just the 70-30 issue, an issue where 55% of Republicans support marriage equality. This issue is done. This is not a question. At the risk of being sent to the island with Nate Cohn, do we worry, do we wonder at all how many California and New York based respondents are in that 70-30 number and whether it's tighter in states. That would just be my question politically.

I think there's no doubt that this being against marriage equality is underwater in every state. But the question is how much. I think that's all you can say is that it's under in every state. Yeah. You know, or just about every state if it's a 70-30 issue nationwide. I think these guys are trapped between what the majority of the country wants and what the maga base wants which is you know pretty fervent bigotry yeah well and also i think the challenge here is or why this is happening with republicans is ron johnson is the is really the most endangered incumbent um i guess you can make a case for maybe marco rubio

too but um the rest of them don't have a race where they have to face a general electorate that would probably be favorable towards same-sex marriage. What they have is potentially a primary coming up in some race in the future where they're worried about the base. So they're all saying, fuck it. I also think something's happening where they all want to jump together. So you could end up getting a bunch more Republicans, but they don't want to say it now and make themselves a target.

So they're just going to wait for the actual vote. Which is why Schumer has said, we're doing a vote. Yes. And, you know, Johnson's in a, it is his, it is his Senate colleague that is leading the effort who is a lesbian woman. And she has been really smart. You know, we talked about it

when she was on Positive America. Obviously we're, you know, we're soulless political operatives who see an opportunity to kind of drive a wedge issue that we were finally on the right side of as Republicans have overextended itself on the culture war. Not our Senator Tammy Baldwin. This is an issue of the heart for her. She wants to enshrine marriage equality. And I think that that's righteous and good. But getting a bunch of Republicans on the record, refusing to support the equality of gay people in their states uh is a

helpful thing as we head into the fall an ancillary benefit of what's obviously a moral crusade and ron johnson's on mars like god knows what that guy's calculus is he's just a crazy person but what is going on with that he said um he originally said he saw no reason to oppose the bill and then a few weeks ago claimed he never said he'd support the bill and just made that earlier statement to quote get the press office back. He's genuine. Fairness to him. He's just not bright. He's genuinely stupid.

Yeah. Love it. Did you see that? So Ken Melman is leading this like letter with like former Republicans to support same sex marriage. And I'm like, I'm glad he's still atoning for his sins. Yeah, he should. Wow.

But Charlie Baker, governor of Massachusetts, wildly popular, right? I think he was running at like 70% approval is on the bill. But Dr. Oz, I think, has signed this letter um in support of marriage equality which was interesting that is very that i that i think does tell you something about what a genuine what the politics are in a genuine swing state it's to be for marriage quality which is why i think the ron johnson thing is a little weird yeah because i don't think wisconsin's that much different than pennsylvania on that on that issue i would you know yeah they're also just sort of unaccustomed to um uh giving into a democratic position that's wildly popular you know it's a sort of out of it

it's out of ron johnson's comfort zone yeah uh to do something right on this yeah and i do also wonder too it's like all right you know we talked about this a lot on this. Yeah. And I do also wonder too, it's like, all right, you know, we talked about this a lot on this show that like, we want Republicans, we believe that they've gone too far on the culture where they've overextended themselves. They've taken on freedom. They are, they are way over their skis. They're obviously have an incredibly unpopular position. They're trying to run away from on abortion, but that's also true on contraception. It's true on marriage equality. It's true on a host of other culture war issues. And we're saying, let's also true on contraception. It's true on marriage equality. It's true on a host of other culture war issues. And we're saying, let's get them on the record over and over and over again.

To a large extent, that is what this does. It has two purposes. Obviously, we want marriage equality protected in this country. But just as much, we want to use this. Oh, no, not just as much. Obviously, it's much more important to protect marriage equality. But as, again, a cynical operativeative might say if it fails because they can't get 10 fucking republicans to support the equality of gay people in this country on a 70 30 issue well that might be useful to us even as sad as we are that the bill doesn't pass useful in the sense

that it tells the american people yeah where the politicians they're voting for stand on a very important issue that they might not have known where they stood yeah that's why you do these things ruby it's like i'm glad chuck schumer's holding the vote. This is all the Democrats can do. They can't. What else are they going to do? They're going to go over and try to convince Marco Rubio to not be an asshole? Like Rubio has said everything he could possibly say to avoid saying what his actual position is on this issue. He's like, oh, this is unnecessary. It's a waste of time. Hey, man, yes votes and no votes take you the same amount of time. If it's a waste of time, why not just put people, we don't need this. There's no threat to marriage equality. Well, the leading conservative jurist

says that it's up next. Why not put your gay constituents at ease? The reason Marco Rubio isn't for this is because his position is unchanged. He is against marriage equality. He is for justices that oppose marriage equality. That is his position. He doesn't want to say it because he's a fucking weenie. He's in a race race and he's in a tough race tougher all the time we don't know how tough we don't trust the polls i would say and florida on this issue i would yeah of course he doesn't want this to be an issue in florida so that's uh that's where they are we got gays in miami there you go there you go and some other probably all over florida yeah everywhere and we're everywhere absolutely we're everywhere a gay person saw an alligator today a couple in florida in florida you're saying in florida i'm saying in florida i think some gay people saw alligators okay okay well near their homes your

thought are we done with this we're done when we come back i couldn't find a segue there's no segue from that i yeah when we come back love it talks talks to Lindsay Owens, an economic expert about inflation. How's that? How's that? How's that for a segue? Joining us now to talk about inflation and gas prices, I have a Tesla. It's the executive director of Groundwork Collaborative, Lindsay Owens. Thanks for coming on the pod. Thanks so much for having me. I'm a big fan of the show.

So last spring, thank you for saying that, by the way. It'd be great to have you even if you weren't. Last spring, gasoline was averaging $5 a gallon. Republicans were promising to destroy Democrats on inflation. Fast forward and Republican strategists are warning their candidates that they need to broaden their message. But even as gas prices have fallen, inflation as a whole has only really dipped. It's still near 40 year highs. What is the impact of inflation right now? How is it actually impacting people's lives? Yeah, so we are definitely not out of the woods yet on inflation, as you mentioned, you those 40-year highs in June. And then in July, started to see some cooling, right? So we got those gas prices down, which is a huge relief to families. And then we actually saw zero inflation in July. So on average, prices did

not increase at all. Going forward, we're actually anticipating a little bit of deflation. we're actually anticipating a little bit of deflation. So we may see in the August numbers, the price level cooling a little bit, negative 0.1, something small, but we'll still be in the 8% range year over year, which is a big change from years of low inflation. I think, how does this affect families? Of course, these high prices are really pinching families. Food prices are still up. That's hurting folks, particularly on fixed incomes, who really can't afford to prices to drop a touch in this next print. But I think, you know, overall, the outlook is starting to look good. It's very promising, although, of course, you know, still a lot of uncertainty in the in the months and weeks ahead. Can you talk a little bit about what it's been like trying to understand the economy in the wake of the pandemic? How do you know when to apply

quote-unquote normal rules? And how do you know when to sort of throw them out the window and say, we have no clue, it's a once-in-a-century pandemic? Yeah. I mean, so much about this moment has called into question the conventional wisdom, the sort of econ 101 wisdom that you learned in your freshman year in college. A lot of that has been out the window since the pandemic hit. The supply chain snarls that we've seen are really unprecedented. COVID zero policies in China. I mean, those are things that really haven't impacted us ever. We didn't have the same global trade system the last time we had a global pandemic 100 years ago, right? The shift

that we saw, the sort of historic shift we saw from spending in services to spending in goods, that was really unexpected. Although, again, kind of good news on that front. We're seeing some normalizing there. The fact actually that right now we're experiencing price declines alongside low unemployment, right? That's unexpected. It suggests we may not have to make that sort of hard choice, potentially that false choice between low prices and low unemployment. We may be headed to an economy where we could have both. So, so much about this moment is unexpected. And I think, you know, the president and the Biden administration is really an uncharted territory. And so far, it looks like they may be steering the ship through, you know, through these turbulent waters in a really great way.

Obviously, you know, the period of high inflation over the last year, really tough, but really great policies on the recovery. We had this really historic recovery. You know, on Friday, the Biden administration released their economic blueprint. And in that economic blueprint was this incredible chart that looks at the pace of recovering jobs in a recession. And what you see in that chart is that despite the fact that we lost the most jobs of any of the four recent recessions during this COVID recession, we actually recover the job losses the fastest of any of the recent recessions. So, you know, the COVID recession and Biden's response beats the, you know, jobless recovery of the Great Recession by a mile. But it also beats the dot-com bust in the 2000s. And then it also actually beats by just a hair the 1990s recession, even though the 1990s recession had significantly lower job losses. So really just an incredible achievement there, which is, to your point, way outside of the norm for recession recovery. And I think actually rate setting a new pace for what

Americans should expect from their president, from Congress, when we have a recession, when we have mass joblessness going forward. So you talk about the fact that there's been this inflation, but at the same time, this speedy recovery. There are certain economists that say, oh, those things are tied together. They're inextricably linked. You see some people saying, well, what would you rather have? Would you rather have people kind of immiserated and without jobs? Or would you rather have a situation where we got everybody back to work, but there are these rising costs? And that affects what happens next, because the debate has now turned to what do we do to get inflation under control? Is it necessary or good to try to control inflation if that causes some kind of a downturn?

Like, what do you think about that debate? Do you make that connection? Are you you know, are you one of the people that was marching on Larry Summers's house? What's happening right now? Yeah, well, fortunately for Larry, I don't know where he lives. So I have not marched on Larry's house. I have taken him to task on Twitter a couple of times. I guess that's the sort of modern version.

But yeah, I have a lot of thoughts on that debate. I think Americans should be incredibly, incredibly wary of folks selling unemployment as the cure for inflation, of folks selling mass unemployment and recession as the cure for inflation. That is a cure worse than the disease, plain and simple. And it's a false choice. We don't have to choose between low prices and low unemployment. We can have both. And the only thing worse than high inflation is high inflation and millions of people out of work, a la a Volcker shock. So 100%, I don't think we need to be in a world where we are dialing up, dialing up, dialing up interest rates to destroy demand to try to cool inflation. What we're seeing here is actually some normalizing of the forces underlying inflation, those supply chain shocks that we saw, some of the gas prices and the commodity shocks that we saw. Not yet are we seeing cooling on the corporate profiteering. The quarter two data came out and again, we're at 70-year highs on the profiteering. But the good news is there's a lot of room for

cooling without destroying demand if we just take on some of that profiteering. So I think there is a lot of room for inflation to cool and normalize even without... I want to understand what's happening with your ear pods. First of all, it seems as though several pairs have fallen out of your ears, and I don't really even understand how that's possible. It's the same pair. It's the same pair. And then I'm just catching them as they fall out and then reinserting them when I finish a sentence.

Okay. Okay. Yeah. So can you talk about the, I'm like interested on the question of how much corporations have been profiting from these high prices. Again, you see this debate about whether or not that's driving inflation, whether or not that's taking advantage of inflation. Can you just talk a little bit about the relationship between where inflation is at right now, people's expectations of prices and what they should be, and how corporations are using that either maliciously or just sort of practically to kind of make more money? Yeah. So at Groundwork Collaborative, which is the organization I run, we have spent the last year just pouring over corporate earnings calls.

So either listening in, listening to the recordings or, you know, usually reading through the transcripts a little faster. And what you saw, particularly in early, you know, mid 2021, when when inflation started to pick up, you know, what you saw is companies saw is companies, CEOs coming to their shareholders, coming to the market analysts on their quarterly earnings calls and saying things like, prices are ticking up a little bit and folks are kind of expecting it. And so we're taking advantage of that. We're raising our prices too. We're not sure how, we need to raise them a little bit, but we're raising them a little bit more. And that little bit more, that sort of gilding of the lily that was going on under the cover of inflation, right? They would say things like, you know, all of our competitors are raising prices. So like, you know, we feel really good

about raising prices too. Or, you know, we expect that, you know, consumers are getting used to this and we, you know, we think they're going to pay it. So we're going to go a little further. that consumers are getting used to this and we think they're going to pay it, so we're going to go a little further. What that did is A, drive up prices and accelerate the underlying inflation that we were already seeing, but B, it drove profit margins up. So if you're passing along rising input costs, but then going for more, you're really expanding your margins. And what we saw were these historic profit margins, 70-year highs we hit in 2021, and we're still there after Q2 of 2022. And so what that means, the good news is those sort of markups, which is the amount of money a company charges for a good above their input costs, those markups mean that there's room to drop prices without destroying demand.

And Lael Brainard at the Fed said just last week that she sees one of the real tailwinds for cooling prices to be the fact that there's actually quite a bit of room for prices to come down because of these historic markups we've seen over the last year. So this is a really important and, you know, often poorly understood aspect of the inflationary environment we're in. But it is a critical one to the long-term outlook. And it's one, I will say that, you know, President Biden and folks on the Hill understand. I mean, we saw, we've seen, you know, a half a dozen hearings in Congress on corporate profiteering and inflation. You know, folks are running campaign

ads on this all across the country. And President Biden has taken it on a number of times from the podium, you know, setting up things to go after meatpacking monopolies that are driving up prices, asking the Federal Trade Commission to take this on, and a number of other initiatives. asking the Federal Trade Commission to take this on, and a number of other initiatives. So I guess what I don't understand about it is like, so I understand why they say, oh, we can raise prices a little bit more than people expect. What I don't understand is why does it work? Why did that actually work in producing? Because it seems like self-fulfilling, right? Like the reason they think they can, this is what I found baffling. I don't know if other people listening found this baffling. It's like, oh, people expect prices to be higher for some

reason. These companies take advantage, raise their prices even higher. And then because people expect it, they pay it. What causes that kind of a mania to like, well, it's almost like feels like a collective delusion. Like prices are artificially high, even above and beyond what you'd expect based on supply chain issues and supply and demand. But that works because we're in a moment where people expect inflation. So it's not just the inflation expectations that are driving this sort of profiteering we're talking about. The other thing is market power, is pricing power. So if you only have two or three or four players in a space, like we have with the meatpackers, we've got the big four, they all can keep prices high

because they're not worried about undercutting each other. If you've got artificially high prices, you should have a competitor come in and drive down prices, offer a lower competitive price. You don't see that in places where you don't have a lot of market competition. And you also don't see that in a world in which, you know, folks are, you know, folks are just operating off some information asymmetries here, like you referenced. But so, okay, but like, I'm all aboard making this argument. But so I guess like what I want to understand is, so we've seen corporate consolidation in a ton of different industries. Right. And that's been happening over the last, let's say, 30, 40 years.

And then all of a sudden this pandemic happens. It causes a spike in inflation. Is it that they're like prices rose dramatically and quickly and dramatically faster than you would have expected? The consolidation didn't happen at that pace. The consolidation has been taking place slowly. like prices rose dramatically and quickly and dramatically faster than you would have expected. The consolidation didn't happen at that pace. The consolidation has been taking place slowly. Is it that there's an impact that basically consolidation now means we should come to understand that in moments of inflation or other kinds of economic crises, these companies can exert more power? Is it the two things connected to each other? Absolutely. I like to talk about means, motive, and opportunity.

The profit motive has not changed. The profit motive is secular. You know, I believe that corporations were out to make a buck before the pandemic and they're out to make a buck now. The consolidation was also there before, right? It was, you know, in some senses, the pricing power was latent, right? It was existent. It was there.

in some senses, the pricing power was latent, right? It was existent. It was there. In many cases, people were using their size and their market share to undercut competition. In a world in which supply is plentiful, you might want to pick up market share in part by driving down your price. In a world in which supply is scarce, you can't go build that second, third, fourth shop to pick up more market share. So instead you flip, you seize the opportunity, the means motive and the pandemic supply shortages being the opportunity to go for price, to drive margin up, to drive profit margins up by increasing prices. And so that's what we saw in this period. And I think, you know, you're 100% correct. This is not something that we saw in the inflation of the late 1970s. We didn't have the kind of consolidated, you know, market that we have today. And so this is, I think, in many ways, poorly understood in part because it's a relatively

new phenomenon. I think, you know, the research is starting to bear this out. There's new research by the Roosevelt Institute that finds a sizable role for market power, and there are other economists taking this on today. I think we'll be talking about this for the next decade, but it's a really important part of the constellation of causes that's driving that underlying inflation. It it is accelerating, not sort of primarily causing inflation. Yeah, because you see some economists who say, all right, I get that progressives would like to blame corporations rather than say, you know, inflationary monetary policy or inflationary fiscal policy, but corporations haven't gotten greedier. They've been greedy the whole time. So that's an explanation for why, even though consolidation has been happening over time,

this was a unique moment in which they could take advantage. Yeah. I mean, look, they've been running a pretty like aggressive straw man campaign where they're like greed, like these people think greed increased in like, you know, 2022. And it's like, you know, like I was a fricking Warren staffer for five years. Like, of course I think corporations were greedy in 2021. Right. Like that's not my, you know, that's not my mentality. And then the second one, as you mentioned, oh, well, consolidation hasn't increased. Well, you know, this is a dynamic system, right? You can have an interaction effect. Well, all of a sudden people look around and be like, let's try it. They literally say that in the earnings calls, they're like, they're like, we've never really increased prices before because like,

that's not really like what we did. Right. We, you know, we, we went with low, low prices and discounting and, and, you know, picked up market share and they're like, but we've been exploring this whole price increases thing. And it's like pretty great. Like people are paying. So like, you know, they'll say, so like, we're going to keep going. And, you know, I mean, they use euphemisms like, you know, further pricing actions should be expected in the next quarter or like full fulfillment or reach our full potential of pricing actions. But all of those are just euphemisms for like, we're just going to keep going until we fucking touch the stove. Right. until people stop buying. So one thing I wanted to ask you about because the Groundwork Collaborative is about figuring out sort of broad-based prosperity, prosperity that's shared. We talk a lot about economic inequality,

but one thing I wanted to get your thoughts on is geographic inequality and how growth has been distributed over the past several years and how this recovery has been distributing economic growth. You know, that we've seen a lot of the growth go to sort of major metropolitan areas, places that have been growing, the urban areas, places where rents are out of control, and then kind of a permanent recession in whole swaths of the country.

Has that trend continued in this recovery? Have you seen any signs that there's any kind of shift? Yeah, so we've seen some early indications of a shift there. So I would point to sort of two factors. The first is we did have some, you know, some movement out of the major metropolitan areas in part because of the opening up of remote work, right? So we're seeing some sort of newer metropolitan areas expand and new economic opportunities in some areas outside of your, you know, your coastal New Yorks and Californias. But the second thing I think that may, you know, accelerate that trend, and it's a little bit too early to tell,

you know, but the Biden administration's industrial policy is really targeted at rebuilding some of that lost manufacturing capacity that we offshored over the last few decades and that led us into this very precarious, brittle supply chain that lacked any resilience, right? Like the pandemic hits and we can't even make PPE or COVID tests because we can't make anything, right? Because we made this big bet on the high wage knowledge economy and the low wage service economy. And we're like, well, let other people make the things, right? And it turned out we needed to make some things. So I think, you know, the Biden administration's industrial policy is really targeted towards rebuilding some of that manufacturing capacity and in geographic locales that have been left behind. So, you know, rebuilding some of that lost manufacturing capacity in areas that have been left behind because of offshoring. One last question. So we just went through this whole congressional debate

about Build Back Better, which then became mostly a climate-focused bill with some health care and tax policy due to the vagaries of Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema's moods. As we look to next year, what are some of the policies either that fell out of Build Back Better or that were never in the first place, that make you excited either about what Joe Biden can do just on an executive level or what Democrats could do if we retain control of Congress? Yeah, I mean, it's the last month, there's just been an incredible reversal of fortune on the policy front. You know, what was a fairly, you know, grim 2022, right? We had this big moment at the beginning of

2021 with the American Rescue Plan, and then we're sort of waiting for the next moment to make a difference in people's lives. And just in the last couple of weeks, right, we've had the Inflation Reduction Act, had the Student Loan Forgiveness, student loan relief affecting millions and millions of families. But there's a lot of unfinished business. I think there's definitely more that can be done on the tax code. We got that book minimum tax, that 15% rate. We got the IRS enforcement, but we didn't get the corporate rate back to where it needs to be. There's a lot of unfinished business on the tax side. Obviously, we need Congress to do that. But there are a few tax expirations looming that are always nice opportunities for revisiting

tax policy. I don't think we did enough on the care economy. That piece of the Build Back Better agenda was completely jettisoned. We will not be at a full strength economy until we have affordable childcare full stop. So we've got to do something there in the next couple of years. And I think the other thing that was left out of Build Back Better, which folks aren't talking enough about is housing. The time to have built massive amounts of additional housing supply and particularly affordable housing supply was probably a decade

ago. But it's never too late. And we're going to have to move on housing. That's something that maybe has bipartisan appeal. So I think that's going to be critically important. And then, yeah, there's a ton on the regulatory side. There's just awesome leadership at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, at the Federal Trade Commission. I don't think Rohit Chopra and Lena Kahn are going to be slowing down anytime soon. There's sort of decades of work to do on both of those issues. And I think quite a bit to do on the labor front as well. There's a handful of things that can happen at the Department of Labor, including increasing the overtime wage, which is something, you know, that Obama made a run at at the very tail end of his

presidency and just, you know, wasn't able to get over the finish line. So I think they should absolutely take another run at overtime as well. Lindsay Owens, thank you so much for being here. It was really helpful. Really appreciate it. Yeah. Thanks, John. Thanks for having me. All right, before we go, we have our chief take officer, Elijah Cohn here. Not for take appreciative, for a new game.

A new game that Dan Pfeiffer came up with called Two Takes and a Fake. Elijah, tell us all about it. Yes, very excited, guys. Shiny new segment that we're going to try out right now. Welcome to Two Takes and a Fake. Listeners of the show will note, as John said, that Dan suggested that we try this.

It's our take on the classic game Two Truths and a Lie. Here's how it works. I'm going to read you guys three takes. The producers have seen these takes. John, John, and Tommy have not. Two of the takes are real. One of the takes is fake. You three must decide which one is fake. Then this game has three different rounds. There are three different topics. And the way we're going to gamify this a little bit more is you guys are going to be playing against each other. You don't have to come to a consensus. I suppose you can come to a consensus if you want, but no, you guys are competing. I want to beat them. Okay. Yeah.

All right. Are you guys ready to play? Does the winner get a prize? Wait a minute. I just got an idea. Does the loser, does the loser have to write a book report about Jared Kushner's new book? You know what? You know what? I want everyone to be home to understand what it's like trying to be creative at this place. Oh, yeah. You know what I mean? You throw out a new idea and you just get shit on. You know what, Elijah? We'll do it over at Pod Save the World. Tommy is like early 80s Steve Jobs.

He just thinks we should think different. We're automatons with our PCs Look I think I finally found a slot for that For that prize I'm about to throw a hammer to a TV Let's hear some takes Okay the first topic Is the queen

You guys may have heard Queen Elizabeth died last week Bringing her 70 year reign to a close Both mourners and takes Both mourners and takes have gathered in observance. That brings us to these takes. Two are real, one is a fake. Here's the first. I'm sorry, but I'm seeing thousands of people outside of Buckingham Palace

and millions of people sending condolences from all around the world. Twitter is not real, and you don't have to give in to the woke mob to be loved. That is number one. Oh, okay. Take number two. I always thought of Queen Elizabeth as an avatar of nepotism and colonialism, but as time went on and victimhood became fashion, I began having creeping admiration for her stoicism. And now, take number three.

Right now, we're seeing proof that monarchies have value because they last a long time instead of being subject to the crazed politicking of the day. All right, two takes and a fake. Let me know if you need to repeat any of those. So I am not going to say which. I recognize one of the takes.

I've seen it. I've experienced it. You want a fucking cookie? What does that do for anyone? What does that do for anyone listening? He's really upset from your previous comment. You really hurt him. Hurt people hurt people. You know what I mean? And that's what we're getting from Tommy.

To your vote. I am going to say... Well, we have to do it at the same time. Oh, yeah. How does this work, CTO? I think you guys just deliberate. Everyone brings their own. You can agree. You can disagree with each other. You don't have to make a decision. I go, I'm a one. Three. I own. You can agree. You can disagree with each other. You don't have to make a certain conclusion.

I go, I'm a one. Three. I was going to say two. Wow. Wow. That's good. Good take hunting. Yeah. All right. The winner is Favreau. Take number one is the fake. Of course it is. Of course it is. I knew it was one or two.

Two I knew. I recognized take two. Three is something you hear a lot. Can you give us who the... Is this part of the game? Are you going to give us who the take two from? Yeah, you want to guess for take number two? Or do you want to just tell us?

No. No, just tell us. Just tell us. It's Marine Dowd. Take number two is from Marine Dowd. Okay. Yeah. I could see that.

Where's take number three from? Dave Rubin over at The Blaze. Okay. Okay. Okay. Yeah. I could see that. Where's take number three from? Dave Rubin over at The Blaze. Okay. Okay. All right. Right on. One for me. Come on, America.

We don't like this. Royalty. It's bad. They should be marched to the town square. Their goods should be taken from them and given to the people. I see Charles. I'm surprised you weren't invited on the special bonus episode of Pod Save the World. I see Charles waving his little hand to get some member of his team to remove something

from in front of him. And it's like, who the fuck are you? You're just some guy with kind of oddly chubby fingers telling people what to do. You don't deserve it. You didn't do anything. He's got weird hands. He has some sausage fingers. Drink some water, Charles.

You look dehydrated. What an incredibly nuanced take, the likes of which you might find on Love It or Leave It. I think you can hate the monarchy and all that it stands for. And just have such admiration for this rich woman for the power with which she brought to doing nothing. She seemed like a nice enough person.

No one has ever done so little for their country. That's the weird accent. What is that? No one could ever have done so much by doing nothing. There are many who have fallen prey to doing something in their lives, but not our Queen Elizabeth II. How lucky we were that for 70 years she did absolutely fucking nothing. Olivia's notes are like, cut all of this.

No, leave this in. I don't care. It's hard. He kept looking at me the whole time. I'm looking at him the whole time. He's staring right at me. Take control. I couldn't look directly at him. Anyway, keep going uh speaking of the crown i did know

who matt smith was for the record love it thank you of course you did all right of course you did let's move on to round number two a new topic i thought other producers were going to do something nobody said yes it's just you no i tried and they were like, takes are your thing. Like, we don't have the sickness. Like, they were like, we don't have a sickness like you. And it was actually, I was like, you don't? Like, so there'll be more segments in the future. We want to expand the PSA universe, though.

Olivia and Halle did a great job working on this with me today. They're the best. All right. New topic. All right, great. Looks like enough. You derailed him, and then you yelled at him for being derailed? You'll see him at the holiday party. Chill the fuck out.

All right. Conflict works. The segment's going great. Topic number two, threats to democracy. So recently, Joe Biden has called out MAGA Republicans for trying to undermine democracy. Let's hear some takes about it. These are all headlines. They're short and sweet.

So headline number one, Joe Biden's speech was worse than simply being divisive. It was hypocritical. Headline number two, Democrats were the first election deniers. Headline number three, Joe Biden is disgracing the institution of the primetime presidential address. Which one is the one? Can you read? Can you give me one or two again? I know three. We all know three was read by Mark Thiessen. So what's one and two? Whoa, you just gave it away. I trust my boys. What's one and two? One, Joe Biden's speech was worse than simply being

divisive. It was hypocritical. Two, Democrats were the real first election deniers. But that's a true thing I've seen out there. I think number one is the fake take. I do too. I agree. I want you to just know that Mark Thiessen

likes to defend torture and write things that stupid and he's yet still employed by the Washington Post. Talk about torture. Read these columns. My predecessor. Team win.

You guys win as a team. There you go. Everyone's right. One was the fake one. I'm still in the lead. It's just important. I'm in the lead. It's true.

Yeah, John's in the lead. Any comments on the state of democracy right now the discourse out there that democrats are the real election deniers that no you're not you're not gonna bait me into that yeah that's a real fun twitter debate 2006 31 democrats and ohio legislature don't want to go down that rabbit hole i'll just only say that i think there's a lot of uh um uh a lot of people in a mindset of just like loving Queen Elizabeth and I think because there are a fair number of Americans who just wish to be fucking ruled

and that's something to consider okay that was a strong take all right before we move on to the last round just to recap Favreau's up two to one to one thank you Elijah thanks how do you guys think this is going so far new segment just to recap, Favreau's up two to one to one. Thank you,

Elijah. Thanks. How do you guys think this is going so far? New segment. Great. Really good. Really good. A little slow.

Whose fault is that? Try to bring a little pace here as we move on to topic. Number three should be a home game for Tommy. So yeah, war in Ukraine. Cause he's a world. world oh not because he's from ukraine yeah sure i'm russian actually yeah so a light topic for the final one great job keep going it was tough to either start out with you know choose to start out with a banger and uh with

with the queen but anyway war in ukraine this weekend ukrainians put on a stunning counter offensive they retook huge chunks of territory from the Russians and outperformed most expert expectations. Let's look at some takes about it. Take number one. Let's be clear. Joe Biden already lost the war for Western civilization. Putin didn't withdraw from Afghanistan. Putin isn't teaching critical race theory in Russian schools. Take number two. Jesus. Right now, things are going very, very badly, which is why the Ukrainians are so desperate. The Biden administration is trying to figure out how they retreat from their dumb position that they've taken.

And now take number three. As Russia wages war, the United States Army is training officers on gender identity, forcing soldiers to accept that one can choose their gender, creates frictions within an organization that is dependent on unity. Which one is the fake? Man, those all seem so real. There's versions of them out there. I feel one or two is the fake. I'm with you. Can you read the first two again? Yeah, feel one or two. I feel I am. I'm going to go. I'm with you. Can you can you read the first two again?

Yeah, read the first. Yeah, we need the phone a friend. Phone a friend. OK. Take number one. Let's be clear. Joe Biden has already lost the war for Western civilization. Putin didn't withdraw from Afghanistan.

Putin isn't teaching critical race theory in Russian schools. With that last part take number two right now things are going very very badly which is why the Ukrainians are so desperate the Biden administration is trying to figure out how they retreat from the dumb position that they've taken

two sounds like something Tucker Carlson said yeah two is colloquial I'm very impressed by the crafting of the fake take. I think I'm going to go one. I think I'm going to go one. I'm going to go two, I think. God, you know, I'm really torn.

I feel like I'm, oh, no. I just don't want, there's no, I'm going two just because it's the only way to come back. Wow, Favreau, strong win, two-point win. Yes! I felt it. I felt it. I felt it. Take number two is from Douglas McGregor,

who is a Ukraine war expert. He said that on Tucker Carlson show right at the start of the offense. I didn't even see it. I had it. I knew we had it. Should have gone with your gut, man. And then the third one is basically

Ted Cruz said something similar. Yeah, it's been all over. The third one is an op ed. Yeah, not bad. It's from the Washington Free Beacon. Yeah, I'm sure. I saw you know what? This was great. Yeah, the Russian army is not third one is it not bad yeah not bad that's from the washington free beacon yeah yeah sure you know what this was great yeah the russian army is not um showing how tough i love this game i'll play it all the time i like this game too i would also like to challenge anyone i'd like

to implore uh pro ukraine twitter that a successful ukrainian offensive is not a moment to retweet yourself from a few months ago to show how right you are. That's a weird way into this. Yeah, with your Twitter pic that's really self-absorbed. It's not a TV show. It's real people. It's just not a TV show. Also, people need to stop just constantly tweeting videos of soldiers

getting killed on either side. It's just throwing snuff footage. Gamified war is not a great development at all no long term it's horrible the internet is fucked up yeah uh anyway is that too serious to close sorry no that was my bad tomorrow so i guess i'm sure they'll talk about the counteroffensive there we go elijah thank you for our uh for our inaugural round of uh two takes and a fake. We'll have to play with Dan soon. Yeah.

And also, thanks to Lindsay Owens for joining us today. She's great. Thanks to all of you. And looks like you two will be writing a, get that book report about Jared Kushner's book soon. This game is rigged. Get the, any, do any day now. Bye.

Stop the steal, love it. Do any day now. We'll see. Bye. Stop the steal. Love it. Hot Save America is a Crooked Media production. The executive producer is Michael Martinez.

Our senior producer is Andy Gardner Bernstein. Our producers are Olivia Martinez and Hayley Muse. It's mixed and edited by Andrew Chadwick. Kyle Seglin and Charlotte Landis, sound engineer of the show. Thanks to Tanya Sominator, Sandy Gerard, Hallie Kiefer, Ari Schwartz, Andy Taft, and Justine Howe for production support. And to our digital team, Elijah Cohn, Phoebe Bradford, Milo Kim, and Amelia Montooth. Our episodes are uploaded as videos at youtube.com slash crooked media.