Pod Save America - “Monsters on the Hill.”

Episode Date: January 26, 2023

Mike Pence joins the classified hoarders club. The MAGA House grabs the third rail of politics. Donald Trump is on top of the polls and back on Facebook. Congressman Ruben Gallego stops by to talk about his run for Arizona Senate. And later, Jon and Dan test their knowledge of Trump’s posting habits with a new game called “Truth or False.” For a closed-captioned version of this episode, click here. For a transcript of this episode, please email [e-mail] and include the name of the podcast.

Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Jon Favreau. I'm Dan Pfeiffer. On today's show, Mike Pence joins the Classified Hoarders Club. The MAGA House grabs the third rail of American politics. Donald Trump is on top of the polls and back on Facebook. Congressman Ruben Gallego stops by to talk about his run for Arizona Senate. And later, we test our knowledge of Trump's posting habits with a new game called truth or false

fantastic how do we just how do we pass up on just two truths and a lie two truths oh we have two truths and a fake we have two takes in a fake two truths takes in a fake that's what it's two takes in a fake we have two truths in a lie either way it doesn't matter look it's all it's a narrow band that we're um ideating around good use of ideating as the tech as the tech bros say uh tldr it's the same game anyway uh grab some crooked coffee to start your day right. See, crooked coffee is actually in here. Our medium and dark roast blends are specialty grade, delicious, and ethically sourced, just like my Dunkin's is. Best part, every order supports Vote Save America's Every Last Vote Fund.

Dunkin' does not. You can't say that about Dunkin' Donuts. Not yet, at least. If you guys want to sponsor the Every Last Vote Fund, let us know. But anyway, right now you can get crooked you guys want to sponsor the Every Last Vote Fund let us know but anyway right now you can get Cricket Coffee which does sponsor the Every Last Vote Fund

and is delicious all you have to do is head over to cricket.com slash coffee to give it a try today do you think that's the endorsement

that the marketing team wanted I think they I think that it's very likely that Elijah's gonna spend this afternoon trying to black out the giant cup of Dunkin' Coffee

you've recorded that promo with. Pry it from my cold, dead hand. All right, let's get to the news. Former Vice President Mike Pence, of Hang Mike Pence fame, finally might be headed to the gallows after the FBI picked up a few classified documents from his home,

which is apparently where you stash all the state secrets that all the cool presidents and vice presidents are treating like White House souvenirs these days. Everyone's doing it. Pence initially said during an interview that he didn't take any classified documents. But after the interview, he got a lawyer to look around just in case. And sure enough, there they were. Like Biden and unlike Trump, Pence notified the authorities immediately and has promised full cooperation, though the whole situation has put his right wing pals in a tricky spot. Here's esteemed journalist Jesse Waters reacting to the news. I mean, Pence, seriously, we have this great thing going with

Joe. Yeah, and he just ruined it. He did. Come on, man. Well, what are we going to do? And then he confessed to it. He could have just destroyed it. We never would have known. And we have to be fair and balanced and show both sides. I know. Now we have to show both sides. Honestly, Elijah says

that that is one of the best. No, Elijah says the five is one of the best. That is the five. That's the five. That's the five. I thought Jesse Watter's show was different than the five. Well, John. The five is Greg Gutfeld, isn't it?

Let me explain to you how this works. We're going off on a tangent already. There is the Iron Man movie, the Thor movie, then they all get together for the Avengers. That is the five. Gutfeld has his own show. Jesse Watter's has his own show. But it's all the Avengers. That is the five. Gutfeld has his own show. Jesse Waters has his own show.

But it's all the five. Then they all come together for the five. It's all part of the Fox Cinematic Universe. Yes, and the five has now beats Tucker Carlson on a regular basis and is the most watched non-sports show on cable television. Well, I brought that up because, you know, A, points for honesty.

B, that's thoroughly entertaining. Thoroughly entertaining. You know, they're just admitting it, you know, A, points for honesty. B, just that's thoroughly entertaining. Thoroughly entertaining. You know, they're just admitting it, which I think is great. All right. What the hell is going on here, Dan? Why does everyone have classified documents? By the way, right before we started recording, there was breaking news. Oh, no.

The National Archives has now formally sent a letter to all the living presidents and vice presidents saying, formally sent a letter to all the living presidents and vice presidents saying, hey, could you recheck everything? Could you recheck your homes for any classified documents or any other presidential records you may not have returned? So now they all get a letter from the National Archives. It's like nine people send a group text. Yeah, like Dan Quayle woke up and got a letter this morning. That's probably the first time anyone remembered Dan Quayle.

Is Dan Quayle around? Yeah. I was doing a quick mental check. It's like he was trending on Twitter recently. Does that mean something dumb or is it a Murphy Brown anniversary or is he dead? I think he's alive. Okay. Apparently, representatives for the living presidents now have all already told CNN that they have returned all classified documents. I mean, of course, that's what they say.

Who knows? Their reasons make sense. Obama's. He's incredibly responsible and assiduous. George W. Bush. He doesn't read. There are all kinds of reasons. All right. I know you asked a question in there read. There are all kinds of reasons. All right.

I know you asked a question in there somewhere, and I think it was what's going on. What the hell's going on here? Why does everyone keep taking classified documents? The only reason I can come up with is our government is run by a secret cabal of document hoarders. That's the only thing I have no idea what is happening. I mean, I do think probably we're going to find out at some point down the road that over classification is a problem, which people have been saying for a long time. And perhaps some of these documents are not super top secret and do not contain the nuclear secrets, which trumps may. We still don't know. But as we learned with the great Hillary email fiasco,

the original classified document hoarder of 2016, as we learned from that, that some of her emails that were marked classified were like a newspaper article that the government decided to mark secret for some stupid reason. I mean, it's really, I guess everyone over learned the lessons of Hillary's problem, which is she puts her classified documents on a private server, gets in trouble. So they go, no, we're going to keep hard copies. And then they get in trouble. We're going to print them out and put them in our fucking garage. Just for the record, she did not keep classified documents on her personal server.

Just want to stipulate that. Yeah, that's because she used the bleach bit and the hammer to destroy it. Sorry. All right. So Donald Trump had a surprising reaction to the news, flip-flopping from his position that his former vice president deserves to be hung to his new position that, quote, Mike Pence is an innocent man. He never did anything knowingly dishonest in his life.

Leave him alone. Donald Trump goes with the leave Britney alone defense. What do you think that was all about? Not a clue. Honestly, not a clue. I think he reflexively defends fellow criminals. This is probably the first time he's ever felt a connection of any sort with Mike Pence. And it is pretty funny that he hears Mike Pence may have committed a

crime. So he rushes to his defense, but he endorses his hanging for refusing to commit a crime on January 6th. Yeah. Well, that's very on brand. I mean, I was going to say,

my guess is like the conspiracy that the deep state is after Trump and his MAGA crew is more valuable to him right now than picking a fight with Pence, who he sees as weak and not particularly a threat in the next election. If calling for Mike Pence's hanging was more valuable to Trump, he would do that. That's sort of my guess. And has. And has. And has. Yeah. And may again. Do you think the Pence revelation changes the politics of this issue for either Biden or Trump? Here's my lukewarm take. The politics of the document stuff is dramatically overstated for Biden and Trump. Yeah, that's sort of my lukewarm take as well.

I guess it's not really that. Do you want to do it? Do you tell you tell everyone why why you think that i think the two caveats to that lukewarm take are one if trump were to be indicted for his handling of the documents his obstruction of justice then the politics would matter someone moved it think think an indictment of a former president current uh front runner might move the needle only a little bit to be honest honest. And I think that it is possible that the way Trump handled it, the looming legal investigation could be an argument that someone can make against his electability in a Republican primary. But if you fast forward to the general election, it's just hard to imagine that this is an issue one way or the other. And a lot of the way people talk about the political problems for Biden is that it has nullified some advantage he has over Trump. insurrection, rigged the Supreme Court so it could overturn Roe v. Wade, that the issue

that would be the centerpiece of his campaign would be document management in the year 2022. I just don't think that was ever going to really be the issue. Yeah, when has that ever been in central? Well, I think that that is, I mean, the pushback to that that you're hinting at is, well, Hillary's emails were a problem for her. And I just think it's a very unique situation with a very different candidacy in a very different race. And Trump is a different candidate in 2024

than he was in 2016 in many, many ways. Yeah, I mean, I totally agree with this. Right now, most voters think that both Trump and Biden did something bad, even though that they think that most voters think that Trump Trump and Biden did something bad, even though that they think that most voters think that Trump did something worse than Biden, but they're not happy with either of them over this. And I don't think that surprises voters because voters tend to believe all politicians do bad things and don't have a lot of faith in politicians right now, unfortunately.

And I think Mike Pence to voters is probably just another politician who did a bad thing and not a politician that most voters think too much about ever since he escaped the gallows. Yeah, it may actually be good for Mike Pence because it just simply is an opportunity for people to be reminded that he exists. Yeah, no, Mike Pompeo is wishing he had some classified documents that he could turn over so he gets in the news. My case for why it might matter politically is like, you know, you can imagine a story about how both a Democrat and a Republican were found with classified documents, you know, alerted the authorities, pledged cooperation while Trump obstructed an investigation, lied, etc.

So, you know, you can make that case. I don't particularly think that case will stick with people, but I think you can make it. Yeah, sure. Why not? I mean, just to be fair to the takes that the document stuff matters, the one place where it matters to Biden is it's just a distraction. It's an opportunity cost. They have to deal with it in the White House. It sucks up oxygen you can use for other things.

But I think is that is what is happening now going to matter significantly when people actually are starting to make decisions about how they're going to vote in 2024? I find that unlikely. Yeah, likely at all. They all cancel each other out. And I totally agree with you that the advantage over Trump on this issue was never really much of an advantage anyway, because there's plenty of other things to prosecute Trump over during a campaign or in court. Yes, it's both. Yes. Prosecute is the operative word there. Yeah. OK, so here's some painfully predictable analysis of the document mess from The New York Times is Peter Baker. Quote, Even if nothing comes of the new special counsel investigation into Biden's team's mishandling of classified documents politically,

it has effectively let former President Donald Trump off the hook for hoarding secret papers. Agree or disagree, Dan? We think it may be letting him off the hook because we are writing that it's letting him off the hook. Political analysis of this sort is a self-fulfilling prophecy. Because I know Peter Baker, who you and I have worked with for many years and is a very smart, well-respected journalist, but they view themselves as passive observers of what happens. But they also, they influence what happens because they write in the most powerful media entity in the world that X is happening, therefore makes X more likely to happen. This is observer bias. You are, by saying something is happening, you're making it more likely to happen.

Yeah, I mean, even more simple, like, the only way to judge the political effect of this is to know what voters think, which is already an imprecise science. But to the extent that we have data about what voters think, it doesn't suggest that Peter Baker's analysis of the situation is correct it suggests that voters very much think donald trump did something bad and uh and and more voters than not believe that he should be criminally charged for it and what happens if he is criminally charged he's probably not so and i would say that peter doesn't even try to offer any data to support his assertion in the piece. So, it falls short to me.

Yes, I mean, this is just another example of why these political analysis columns that are supposed to be seen as objective should be on the opinion page. Because it's Peter Baker's opinion that that is what is going to happen. And you can have that opinion. Like, That is obviously a take you can take. But there's just this irreconcilable tension between this idea that we as political journalists are reporting on what happens without fear or favor, right? We're just telling you what's happening and the idea that we're also this incredibly powerful and important force for accountability. You can't have no impact over here and all the impact over there. So everything you write affects what's going to happen in politics. And so if you're offering analysis without facts, without proof, without

data, then you're offering opinion and you ought to just put it on the opinion page. Yep, exactly. So there's now an immediate consequence to this drama in terms of President Biden's ability to govern. Tom Cotton says he's blocking all Biden nominees until he gets access to the Trump Biden Pence documents, which the special counsels are currently withholding from Congress while the investigation is ongoing. Can anything be done about that?

Or is that just a, we just stuck with Tom Cotton being an asshole again? Well, I mean, we are perpetually stuck with Tom Cotton being an asshole again? Well, I mean, we are perpetually stuck with Tom Cotton being an asshole. As long as he walks this planet. Just the fact the existence of Tom Cotton, as long as he's alive on this planet, he's going to be an asshole. That's who he is. He cannot actually stop all of these people from getting jobs. He can't truly block them. You only need 50 votes to confirm an

executive branch nominee thanks to filibuster reform that happened over a decade ago. But what he can do is dramatically slow down the process where it becomes virtually impossible to get all the people through. Because now he won't give consent, which means they have to have 30 hours of debate here. And he can grind it to a halt on. And oftentimes you have to go through that whole process for high profile nominees. But this is for, you know, undersecretaries and deputy secretaries and things that normally can sort of fly through, sometimes in a big tranche of them at one time. And as long as he's doing this, that won't happen, which makes it harder to legislate, harder to govern. And it's just annoying as all get out,

which is very, as you would say, on brand for Tom Cotton. It's just annoying as all get out, which is very, as you would say, on brand for Tom Cotton. And he knows that Biden can't ask the special counsel to release the docs because it would be interfering in investigation into his own actions. So, like, it's not up to Biden to really do that. The special counsel is not going to do that. The DOJ is not going to do that. It's an ongoing investigation. You can't be just like giving all the information to Congress while the investigation is happening.

That's not how law enforcement works. So he's just using this as a way to stop Biden from staffing the government. That's it. Which is which is what Tom Cotton has been doing for many years now. Yeah. For many, many years. Many, many times. So when Republicans in Congress aren't busy launching investigations, they're using the debt ceiling to hold the economy hostage. Only problem is they can't seem to agree on what the ransom should be. The Republicans from Donald Trump to Kevin McCarthy to random Freedom Caucus yahoos say that they are against cutting Social Security and Medicare. But The Washington Post reported this week that House Republicans are weighing legislative proposals to do just that. What's going on here? Do these people not realize that legislative proposals have to become public eventually?

I think that they are really conflicted between, on one hand, their desire to remain in public office, and on the other hand, their desire to take money and healthcare away from working class people in this country. Yeah. How do you think that's going to resolve itself? I mean, it's all going to come around the debt ceiling because there is no, they could put up legislation to raise the retirement age

or privatize social security or privatize Medicare like they did when Paul Ryan was in the House. But they probably can't even get a majority of this House for that, let alone a Democratic Senate and a Democratic president. That can't happen. If they really want to do this, the one place where they have a chance to do it is on the debt ceiling. Are they going to say, agree to cuts to the Social Security Medicare guarantees, or will default? That's the one place where it's going to come to a head, and we don't yet know how that's going to play out. I mean, so they have promised,

what we do know is House Republicans have promised to release a balanced budget proposal in the next few weeks. So and again, they are saying it will not include cuts to Social Security or Medicare benefits for current beneficiaries, which we can get into why that's sort of a sneaky way of saying it. So let's say it doesn't include cuts to Medicare and Social Security. Some Republicans have also ruled out cuts to defense spending, particularly Republicans who are chairing the committees that would decide that. Yes. They have all ruled out tax increases. How do you balance the budget with all that stuff ruled out? You would have to cut all the other, well, two options.

One, you could do what Kevin McCarthy suggested, which is to eliminate all funding for wokeism in the government, which is his plan. Didn't realize that was a big line item. It's almost as big as foreign aid. That's how big it is. Or the other option is if you do- The rare foreign aid joke. Yes. Just standing on that- Well struck. Well struck. Yes. So just standing on that.

Well struck. Well struck. The other thing you can do is cut all other spending, education, health care, FEMA, homeland security by 85%. That's your choice. It's so funny that number. I remembered that number because I wrote that line many times in many an Obama speech speech in the uh in in the 2010 2011 era it's like uh time to get to that's the part of the speech where we get to how much you'd cut non-discretionary domestic spending by in order to balance the budget if you ever got it when a speech would circulate in the in that era and i didn't have time to go line by line through it, I would control F discretionary.

That's why I stopped saying it. I never put the fucking word discretionary in there. Our boss did. Yes, that was the point at which I did control F discretionary was that when it left your desk. So anyway, yes, this whole thing is a shell game.

The Republicans are and you wrote a great message box about this this morning. Like Republicans are terrified of people knowing that they want voters knowing that they want to cut Medicare and Social Security. And so they want to hide the ball on that. I don't think they can hide it forever. You know, when they say they don't want to cut benefits for Social Security and Medicare, you know what they could do is say, we're not cutting any benefits for current Social Security and Medicare beneficiaries, but we will raise the age for people who will retire someday, which is all another way of cutting Medicare, because if the providers have less money, they will raise costs and there will be fewer resources for Medicare beneficiaries. Or they could do a whole bunch of other things. So there's plenty of other cuts they can do to Social Security and Medicare that don't touch benefits. So that would still be a bullshit way of doing it.

And we'd rightly accuse them of cutting Social Security and Medicare if they do that, or if they truly don't touch either program, then yeah, then they have to massively cut spending everywhere else. And I think that, I mean, you talked about how cutting Social Security and Medicare is unpopular. I think massive, massive cuts to education, transportation, clean energy, border security, public health, scientific research, repealing the ACA, Medicaid, agriculture, student loans, law enforcement. I think that'd be pretty unpopular too. Yeah, it's incredibly unpopular. It's why Republicans always lose these budget battles over the funding of the government because their

position is deeply unpopular. Just to go a little bit deeper for the 95% of people currently listening to this who are not yet message box subscribers, the polling on Social Security and Medicare is mind boggling. In a CBS YouGov poll from earlier this year, seven in 10 voters think that protecting Social Security and Medicare should be a priority for this Congress. That is exceeded only by fighting inflation. And it well exceeds the number three item, which is reducing crime. But that's not something driven by independents and Democrats. Seven in 10 Trump voters think that, seven in 10 self-identified conservatives, and 78% of white, non-college educated voters, the core of the Republican Party base, want this Congress to

protect Social Security and Medicare. That number, the number of white, non-college educated voters, the core of the Republican Party base, want this Congress to protect Social Security and Medicare. That number, the number of white non-college educated voters who believe that exceeds the number of self-identified liberals who believe that protecting Social Security and Medicare should be a priority. The politics of this are deadly, which is why Democrats hold such a strong hand in this upcoming battle. No matter what they choose, they come to anywhere near grabbing, you know, what is referred to as the third rails of American politics, Social Security and Medicare. So obviously, we're not in the prediction business here. But I do want to entertain the possibility that for the reasons you just cited, Republicans do not propose cuts to Medicare and Social Security and tie those cuts to the debt ceiling, not out of the goodness of their heart, but for pure electoral self-preservation.

And because the people who really want to cut Social Security and Medicare just can't get a majority for it. Yeah. And not just a majority through like the regular order of governing here, but even a majority around the debt ceiling, using the debt ceiling as leverage here. And there was a roll call story yesterday that said that Republicans are considering now a short term extension of the debt ceiling that kicks it to the fall so that the debt ceiling deadline lines up with negotiations that will already be happening over passing the yearly budget and funding the government. And so that way they could sort of suck the Democrats into negotiating because Democrats are obviously going to negotiate

over the annual budget anyway. And perhaps then they get their cuts that way. And maybe McCarthy thinks that he can like shut the government down instead of holding the debt limit hostage. I don't know. I feel like and I also think that if they, you know, they want then they want to get the whole Republican caucus on board with what their proposed budget is. And if they can get the Social Security, Medicare stuff out of the way and maybe just kick it to some commission, then they can propose massive cuts to other government spending and perhaps believe that holding the government hostage to those cuts will be more popular than holding the debt ceiling hostage to Medicare and Social Security cuts. The good news about the fact that we, particularly I, are quite old is that none of this is new. We did this exact same play in 2013. This is exactly what the Republicans did. In 2011, the debt ceiling crisis that everyone keeps talking about was all about the debt ceiling, that we had already funded the government for the year at that point. We'd had a brief showdown. It hadn't shut down, but it went right up to basically past midnight. But it was resolved. So it was only the debt ceiling. And that kind of sort of

advantaged Republicans in that battle because the debt limit is esoteric. It's hard to explain to people. It's terribly named in the sense that it makes it seem like not lifting it is good for debts and deficit as opposed to the opposite. So that played itself out. But then 2013, not by choice by the Republicans, but they decided to shut down the government at the same time that the debt limit was coming up over the defund, because they said, we will not fund the Affordable Care Act. They tried to essentially repeal the Affordable Care Act a year after the country had reelected the president who passed the Affordable Care Act and that the bill was basically named after. And it really disadvantaged the Republicans in that fight because a government shutdown

is palpable and easy to understand. And you have visuals like there are signs at parks that say closed and signs in museums and the federal federal government employees are not just in Washington. They're all over the country. Every community in America has some federal employees, a FEMA office and a local IRS office, a military base, all these things where there are people who will lose their jobs and be furloughed, which will be fodder for local news, community conversation. And so I think that that is a strategic mistake on their part. If they really want to have a fight over the budget, they dispense with the debt limit and then have a fight over just the shutdown. Doing both at the same time I think makes their life a lot harder.

What it tells me what they want is, like you said, to somehow avoid the Social Security and Medicare fight. And I think what they want to try to get to is some sort of spending control plan along the lines of the deal that we struck with the Republicans in 2011 that we regretted at the time, we regret more to this day, that puts caps on growth in spending. So, you know, Nancy Mace was on the Sunday shows last weekend, and I think she was pressed on like, okay, what do you want to cut? She's like, not Social Security and Medicare. Or Medicaid. Or Medicaid. Security. Or Medicaid. She even said Medicaid, too. She even said Medicaid, right, which, by the way, is something that you could see them coming for, because if they don't want to touch retirement programs for everyone, they can always kick poor

people off their health care and think that that's a little bit more popular, right, at least with some of their voters. So then she was asked, okay, well, just name something that you want to cut. And she couldn't do it. She couldn't do it. And none of them have been able to do it because I think what they want to do is what you're saying, which is say, all right, we want to cut X billion dollars from the budget over the next 10 years. And then just leave that top line number, have it pass, and then make all the agencies actually make the hard cuts so that people don't see what the cuts are. So the only reason any of this matters, because who knows what's going to happen over the next several months, is for Democrats, Democrats should keep pressuring Republicans to detail what they want to cut every single day and pressure reporters to ask them what they want to cut every single day so that they don't get to just name a top line number and get away with not detailing the cuts. And yes, Social Security and Medicare would be very unpopular to cut. But I think we have to make the case that any of the cuts that they're envisioning would be incredibly unpopular across any of the issue areas that we just mentioned. And so I don't want to put all our eggs in the Social Security Medicare basket, because I do think Republicans could rig a lot of that and just decide that it's too unpopular

to do Social Security and Medicare. Who knows, though? They could be that stupid, I guess. Yeah. I mean, no one ever got rich betting against Republican stupidity. But this one, I mean, we're going to blow up the economy if you don't let us stick it to your grandparents. It's just too easy. It's too easy, man. You mean, we don't want to stick it to the only cohort of voters that we win in every election right yeah stick it to the fox news viewers um okay so i know we talked about uh trump's big south carolina kickoff on tuesday's

pod uh but since then there's been a few new developments worth talking about meta announced yesterday that they will reinstate Donald Trump's Facebook and Instagram accounts, arguing in a statement that, quote, the fact is people will always say all kinds of things on the internet. Actual line from the statement. Meanwhile, our fellow journalists at Axios took a look at three polls that show barely any movement in the Republican primary and concluded that Trump has, quote, fresh momentum heading into the weekend, calling him, quote, the Lazarus of presidential politics. Just when you think he's tapped out, he returns from the political dead. lead over DeSantis. And Politico reports that all the other potential candidates are so scared of Trump that they've talked about announcing at the same time because, quote, a group launch provides

them protection from Trump. Lesson not learned, man. Lesson not learned. Let's start with Meta letting Trump back on Facebook and Instagram. Are you at all surprised? And how big of a deal will this be for Trump? I am not surprised at all. This was basically inevitable when other platforms took Trump off after January 6th. They announced permanent bans. Facebook very pointedly and very vocally said it was a temporary suspension, that they were going to revisit over time. They revisited it for the first time back in, I think, 2021.

And now that he's an announced candidate for president, of course they were going to do it. You know, Charlie Worzel, who writes on technology and politics of the internet for Atlantic Ferry, had a great subhead on the story, which is Facebook finally adds a user. So funny. not the beginning of the show, is that since 2020, both Facebook and Trump have declined so much in cultural relevance that this doesn't seem like as big a deal as it would have a long time ago. And I think that's probably right with one big exception. It's right in the sense that when Trump wasn't on Facebook, there are a lot of pro-Trump accounts on Facebook. There was a lot of MAGA-ism on Facebook. That didn't really change the sort of people and voices that were dominant when Trump were there, were dominant when he wasn't there. It has not eroded his connection to his base, per se, to not be on Facebook. Where it does matter is now that he is allowed back on Facebook, he will have access to Facebook's advertising technology. And now, not to get too in the weeds about it, Facebook's ad technology is dramatically limited since Apple made it harder for Facebook to track you on other apps. But where it still

matters and would matter to Trump a lot is it's still very good at monetizing your existing audience. And so he can use Facebook ads to raise money, to get more email addresses, he can get more money on. And so that will help him keep his grassroots fundraising base available. So that is a big deal. That will matter. It's not the same persuasion tool it used to be necessarily in politics. But for a guy running in a primary who wants to raise as much money and spend as much money as possible, being back on Facebook is going to help him a lot. Unless you think that Meta is letting him back on with uh with no guidelines uh they have said that he is allowed to lie about the last election but no lying about the next election

that's where they're drawing the line at facebook i mean facebook is such everything corporate citizen yes everything facebook does is such a galaxy brain group think it's like aha we, we got them. I'm just excited for that first post and the first tweet, the first, the first, cause he's going to get back on Twitter too. He also,

you could tell he, he truthed and we're going to get to a lot of truths in our, in our, in our game later on, but he truth this week that, um, it was sort of like a farewell to truth. Social kind of tweet you know like he because he responded to the facebook news and he was like truth social you've been great

you've been wonderful i'm so i'm so i'm so grateful to you and like he's like leaving leave yeah get ready he's coming back he's coming back all right let's talk about the uh the axios piece about uh trump's fresh momentum uh written by by Axios Josh, formerly Hotline Josh. Do you agree that Trump has fresh momentum heading into South Carolina? Is the momentum fresh because of those three polls that show him 20 points over DeSantis? I feel like that was a leading question of sorts. I mean, I don't, I'm not. I can argue, yes.

I'll argue, I mean, whatever. Okay. I'll do both. Get me on any side of a tape. I don't want to pick on Josh, whoever you may be, Josh. Or, and this is going to be a bit of hyperbole, but this story does sort of embody everything that's wrong with political journalism. I knew you were going to say that.

Just only because we've been on this podcast for more than half a decade together. Yeah, 20 years, 30 years. The problem with political journalism is that the need for new narratives exceeds the speed at which politics changes. And so almost nothing has changed in the last month. Donald Trump was, around the holidays, a frontrunner with great vulnerabilities for the Republican nomination and a deeply flawed general election candidate. Front runner with great vulnerabilities for the Republican nomination and a deeply flawed general election candidate. Donald Trump today, whether before he gives a speech, after he gives a speech, whether Harry McMaster endorses him or not, is the same thing. A front runner with great vulnerabilities is a deeply flawed general election candidate.

Nothing has fundamentally changed. But you can't get clicks. You can't get attention. No one ever clicks on anything that says nothing's changed. That is not a story that is going to drive traffic or drive ad revenue. So we have to like squint at things with one eye to try to find a new take. And this is one of those examples. Yeah. The, the, um, the new take in this piece, the why, if you will, was, um, boy, did Joe Biden hand Donald Trump a political gift by having classified documents in his house? Because somehow Joe Biden's document issue made Trump more palatable to Republican primary voters who had been thinking about DeSantis, which is. Wow. Talk about your galaxy brain take, man. That is that is connecting a lot of dots that I do not think can be connected.

But I did look into those polls because I was like, hmm. And sure enough, all these polls that showed Trump with a 20-point lead on DeSantis, the last polls taken in the same set of polls had basically either the same margin between Trump or DeSantis or actually a worse margin. actually a worse margin so it's like the idea that trump is is doing better is just not uh it's just not it doesn't bear out in the facts yeah of the polls it's based on vibes it's based on vibes it's based on vibes i i continue to think we won't know until we won't have a hint until at least the first debate how vulnerable trump is as the front runner and whether how much of a threat to Santus or to a lesser extent to Brian Kemp or Youngkin or someone like that is to Donald Trump. I think we

just won't know until people announce it until we have a first debate sometime in the summer. Speaking of all the other candidates, what do you make of all these other potential Republican candidates waiting to announce? Brilliant strategy born of courage these people these people are neither uh clever nor courageous i mean i i in the spirit of getting on any side of a fun take i kind of understand what they're doing like it is they have a collective action problem where it is in all of their collective interest for someone to get out there and start running against Trump. It's just in no one's... They've had a collective action problem since 2015. Yes, exactly. It's just in no one's collective interest. We're in year eight, year eight of the collective action problem in the Republican Party. This is why it's hard to

run against someone who has a third of the party locked up. But it's in no one's individual interest to be the first one out there to have to take Trump on themselves. So they wait. But the problem is they wait, and they wait, and they wait. And then by the time they get in, it's too late. He's a nominee and we're once again, like 40,000 votes in four states away from fucking lunatic being president of the United States. I do think that the governors who might run against him all have an excuse, like they have spring legislative sessions where they're going to be trying to rack up some wins against woke as they're going to they're going to they're going to take to all the mega media fans on television to raise some cash get some primary

support so you know DeSantis, Youngkin they're they're they're waiting around but like what the fuck it's not getting any better for Mike Pompeo yeah it's right now i mean that that is that is a true statement for mike pompeo not to not to bar not to dip into worldo territory here yeah we're doing the prediction game but i'm kind of betting this is probably the high point of mike pompeo's presidential campaign right now all right one more fun trump story from the palm beach post so Trump truth to the other day that he won the senior club championship at Trump International Golf Club. Only issue is he didn't play the first round of the tournament because he was at Diamond's funeral giving a eulogy where he admitted that he didn't know who Silk was and complained about missing the tournament. So instead, instead, members showed up the second day of the tournament to see that Trump had just given himself a five-point lead over everyone else, which he told the tournament organizers he had done because he played a strong round in the course earlier that

week so he just decided to give himself a five-point lead heading into the second day of the tournament and then he won he said it was a great honor to win i don't think great honor to win it was evidence of his fitness for office that he could win golf tournaments i mean have you ever heard of a more perfect trump story than that? I think that's decades from now. If people want to understand Donald Trump, I'd be like, forget about the presidency, the campaigns, the impeachment, the insurrection. Just look at that story in the Palm Beach Post. That's all you need to know.

Yeah, it is no notes. Perfection embodies him exactly. Just love it. Just absolutely love every bit about it. I'm so glad it happened. That's just for all of you. You all deserve some fun for the weekend. All right.

When we come back, Dan talks to Arizona Congressman Ruben Gallego about his campaign for Kyrsten Sinema's Senate seat. Joining us now is the congressman from Phoenix, Arizona. He's just announced his run for Senate, Ruben Gallego. Congressman Gallego, welcome back to Pots of America. Thanks for having me, Dan. All right, let's get right into it. So you have just entered what could end up being an incredibly unique Senate race. You wouldn't just be running against Kerry Lake or Blake Masters or some other Republican. You could be running in a three-way race that includes Kyrsten Sinema, the woman you were trying to replace. What would you say to people who are concerned about Democrats' ability

to prevail in a three-way race that includes a Democrat, Republican, and a former Democrat? Well, number one, the only way for us to keep this race is actually for me to run. Kyrsten Sinema has killed herself so much in terms of her numbers with voters, especially Democrats and independently voters, that she is, you know, in like the the so low right now that she has very, very, very little support. I think she's down to family and consultants in terms of her polling number. And so it's a very dangerous territory and it's not coming back. support. I think she's down to family and consultants in terms of her polling number. And so it's a very dangerous territory and it's not coming back. As a matter of fact, her going independent probably only dropped her numbers even further. So our choice is either we run a strong Democrat and we keep this seat or we don't run a strong Democrat. And what happens is we end up splitting the vote and a Republican does get in. This is the only way we can keep this seat

on the candidate to do it. Whether it is Carrie Lake or Kyrsten Sinema or any other Republican, we can win it, but we're not going to be able to win it if we don't run a strong Democrat. And right now, it's it. I read a quote from you in Politico, where you took on the notion that you and Sinema would split the vote, and you thought that it might actually end up being Sinema and the Republicans splitting the vote. Could you say a little more about that to help maybe address some of the concerns people may have about this three-way race thing? Yeah. So already we've seen some polling where she is taking more from the Republicans. And I think once we actually

are running a full statewide campaign where Democrats know that we are the candidate and we're running a strong campaign, they're going to keep moving in our direction. She's already, her numbers are so low with Democrats, and we'll make sure they go even lower because, you know, a lot of her stances. And I think at the end of the day, that's going to continue moving in that direction. Also, the Republicans are going to be in a beat-up primary from now until August of 2024. And in that time period, a lot of moderate Republicans are going to swing over more towards Sinema. And then at the end of that crazy primary, the Republicans are basically going to be battling it out with Sinema and will be very happy with our coalition on the other side ready to win. So this is there is no real strategy for Sinema to even get out of second place.

for Sinema to even get out of second place. If she stays in, she is in third place no matter what, and it's going to really move voters away from the Republican column to her. For many, many years, Democrats did not win statewide in Arizona. We've had some success in the last three elections. There has been a little bit of a formula for how to do that. Kyrsten Sinema, 2018, was a moderate Democrat, very different than she was after that and certainly is now, to your point. Mark Kelly won in 2020 and 2022 with a moderate persona. Joe Biden, more moderate Democrat than some he ran against in the primary. You are a proud progressive. You've been a very vocal progressive.

You've been a very vocal progressive. How do you like what is your strategy for winning in a state where Republicans and independents actually outnumber registered Democrats? How are you thinking about building a coalition similar to the one that Mark Kelly had in 2022 to win? Well, you got to remember, a lot of those independents are Latinos. Right. And Arizona's been moving bluer and bluer for quite a while. So when we say, you know, Kyrsten Sinema won in 2018, that's true. But we also won two other statewides back in the day. And all these things about, you know, you're progressive to progressive. They say that about every Democrat that runs for office in Arizona.

It doesn't matter what you do. You are a communist and whatever they want to they call you nowadays. Right. That's what they said in 18. That's what they said in 20, that's what they said in 2022, right? So it's all about talking to the voters, making the voters understand that you are aligned with their values and you're there to work for them. If we do that well, we're going to get out that vote. We're going to get people to come and vote for us that maybe are Republican-leaning or they're truly independent? Lastly, what has not happened in forever is we're going to excite the Latino vote, right? We're going to get that vote out to the point where no one's ever seen it. About 5,000 Latinos turn 18 every month in Arizona. We're going to be talking to them as soon as they go. And we're going to talk to a lot of

Latinos that we've lost for the last couple of years, not to Republicans, just because they stopped voting because they haven't been communicated to. And then it's not, I don't think it's a coincidence, but every time I've ever ran, I've always overperformed the top of the ticket because I also bring a lot of Latino males back into the Democratic column because of my ability to culturally connect with them. The fact that I'm a veteran, the fact that I understand what it means to be working class and trying to figure out how to pay bills, how to pay a mortgage, how to start a business. All these kinds of things are skills that have not been brought to this campaign, to the state, I should say.

Yeah, I'm going to, this is going to be, basically, I'm throwing a softball right across the plate for you. But obviously, Kyrsten Sinema does things that have infuriated people in your state, infuriated progressives and Democrats in the country, infuriated myself, many of our listeners. But she votes most of the time with President Biden. She confirms most of his nominees. I'm going to give you a chance to talk a little bit about how a senator, and on some specific issues, how a Senator Ruben Gallego would be different from people of Arizona than a Senator Kyrsten Sinema. Well, look, let's just begin with where there are the problems, right? Senator Sinema doesn't speak to voters in Arizona anymore.

She hasn't had a public town hall where she sat there and took questions and asked people what they care about. And which is when she starts making some of these other actions, for example, negotiating for pharmaceuticals to make sure that they actually had more power to raise prices of drugs. She didn't go back to Arizona and talk to the seniors or ARP and say, well, you know, we could have had a better deal, but I decided to water down the deal. Why did you do that? We don't know. Right. Because she won't she won't talk to us. She won't talk to you unless you have a check in hand or it's a closed meeting and you're already probably a part of a very powerful group. Right. When, you know, they're getting into the closing day of the Inflation Reduction Act and, you know, private equity managers and hedge fund managers were going to have to pay more taxes for their not heavy labor, she went and negotiated a deal to make sure they were carved out.

Why did you do that, Kirsten? You never told anybody. You didn't talk to anybody beforehand. You didn't go back to Arizona to explain why you decided to use your time and effort to fight for the rich instead of for those that are looking for more help. to fight for the rich instead of for those that are looking for more help. This is the consistency is that when we need her the most, she is there the least, right? And if you look at, you know, some of the biggest times that we needed her, the Voting Rights Act, when Arizona has been consistently under attack, when Republicans are threatening to take away the access to, you know, for example, early voting and things of that nature. She did. She ran away. She used a filibuster to basically stop the John Lewis Voting Rights Act, who supposedly was her friend and mentor. Very good way, by the way, to treat a friend and mentor.

You know, I hate to see what she does to her enemies. Well, I guess we'll find out. That's right. You just may, yes. Yeah. Then, you know, and, you know, that's just like, you know, one of lists of so many, so many grievances. When we needed her on Build Back Better, it wasn't a constructive position she took. She basically destroyed a very good program. And we ended up having a very watered down version in the end. Even the infrastructure deal that we all love was extremely watered down to the point where it's good, but it could have been a lot better. And why did we water it down? Did we have 51 votes? We did have, we had 51 votes. We could have gotten a great deal that really would have revolutionized our economy, bring and renew green energy in many parts of the state. But

instead, she chose to have the ceremonial position of bipartisanship. We got six more votes, but we got billions and trillions of dollars less in infrastructure. And at the end of the day, again, where we needed her, she wasn't there. She's there for the easy stuff. It's where when it's there, when she's a hard stuff, where she's missing in action. So just to zone in on a couple of specifics. So I take it that you would vote to eliminate the filibuster if you were in the Senate, you would be part of a, an anti filibuster majority in the Senate. If we needed it to pass legislation. Exactly. At a minimum, we should be looking at reforming the filibuster. The filibuster is reformed tons and tons of times, right?

It's not just some secret law. You know, we need to, obviously it's being abused. It's actually being used all the time, abused all the time. And we need to figure out how to change it. Or if you can't change it to actually be able to functionally administer the Senate, then we can look at getting rid of it. When Katie Porter, your colleague in the House, was on this show right after announcing her campaign for Senate, she expressed some openness to the idea of adding Supreme Court justices

in terms of expanding the court. Where are you on that plan? I'm not there yet. I mean, I think we have to bring some more accountability to the court. They need to have an ethics, you know, some ethics standards. I think we need to bring more checks and balances to the court. They seem to think that they have a right to now legislate also. But, you know, that, you know, moving into an expansion of the court, I think, is a step too far for me for now. Now, if they continue to go down the road where they think that they are part of the legislative branch or can do their own legislation with their shadow dockets, then, yes, this is something we have to explore. I got to ask you, because you have a new neighbor on Capitol Hill, as I understand. Your office is on Capitol Hill. I don't know. I don't know who you live next.

Your office is next to George Santos's office. Have you guys hung out? Are you friends? Can you tell me if those glasses he's wearing are real? Have you had any contact with him at all? I have not had any contact with him. I don't know if those glasses are real. I don if those glasses he's wearing are real? Have you had any contact with him at all? I have not had any contact with him. I don't know if those glasses are real. I don't know if he's real. Like, this is, you know, there's a lot going on there. So I don't, I have not had that personal experience. Does it say anything to you about the state of the modern Republican Party that they are

willing to keep George Santos there in exchange for one vote? Oh, absolutely. I mean, look, this is, says a lot about Kevin McCarthy, too. You know, he's devoid of any type of values or, you know, I don't know, even real choices that he can make. I mean, he's he's trying to keep, you know, Marjorie Taylor Greene on, you know, on his side, trying to keep, you know, the Boeberts and Matt Gaetz from jumping ship. And he'd rather keep a con man around that's destroying the reputation of the Republican Party and really the institution of Congress enough so he can keep his watered down position as Speaker of the House.

And it just kind of tells you in general where the Republican Party is and their candidates. I mean, they all knew that he was a fraud. They all knew that he was lying about his background. And they just decided to keep going forward because number one, all they cared about was that he was a Republican. And it was a way to really stick it to the Democrats, right? They wanted nothing more than to have a gay Latino member of Congress so they could say, see, we have one of our own and screw you guys, even though he's a fraud on all fronts. On this show, we often talk about controversial takes. We scour the Internet. We look for tweets.

And 99% of the time they are from kind of Yahoo pundits, crazy MAGA Republicans, Fox News people. It's very rare that an elected Democrat in good standing has one of their takes bubble up to the top for us. OK, but I'm guessing which one. Yes, I bet you are. But we have a recent tweet of yours I need you to defend. In the last couple of weeks, you tweeted, hot take, keep the gas stove and get rid of the air fryer. Only urban elitists use air fryers.

I need you to explain what you meant there. And did you know you had an air fryer in your house when you tweeted that? I did. First of all, of course, I was trying to be humorous. Number two, I did not know I had an air fryer. You were just eating healthy, delicious food, and you had no idea where it came from? It looks like a crock pot to me.

I thought my wife was using a crock pot the whole time. And so when she corrected me on Twitter, I quickly realized I was wrong. So no, no, you're not an urban elitist if you use an air fryer. You're perfectly down to earth and you should be probably wearing plaid and wearing car heart gear if you're doing that.

All right, well, we will take humility and ability to admit mistakes as a very important quality in our leaders. And so we appreciate that. Congressman Ruben Gallego, thank you for joining us. Let our listeners know who may be interested in your campaign, where they can go to find out more. Please, if you can, go to gallegoforarizona.com. We appreciate every help we've had. We've had a great first day, first couple of days, and we need to keep this momentum going. This is a campaign that's going to reach out to all parts of Arizona, but it's going to take a lot of your individual support.

And we're fighting a big fight against a lot of big money people. So please help us out. Thanks for joining us. And we will talk to you soon. Thank you. All right, we're back. We got a new game called Truth or False, hosted by our Fugler's producer, Haley Muse.

Hi, guys. Hi. All right, so we've already gotten a little bit into the true social stuff, but I have been following Trump's truths for quite some time, and I figured now before he makes his return to Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram and is flooding all of your feeds, we could go through some of his greatest hits on true social with this aptly named game, Truth or False. So as the title depicts, you guys are going to hear three takes,

and you're going to decide which of those statements he actually said and which ones I made up. Wow. So. Is it two truths and one fake? We mix it up. We mix it up. We're keeping you on your toes.

Yeah. Oh, wow. I'll tell you beforehand how many you're looking for. Okay. That's good. All right. I'm going deep into the mind of Donald Trump right now. Deep in.

Okay. Okay, that's good. I'm going deep into the mind of Donald Trump right now. Yes, deep in. Okay, so we're going to start off with some statements about diamond and silk. As John referenced, we've talked about how Trump gave a beautiful eulogy this week for the late diamond. So of these three statements, which one did Trump actually truth about diamond and silk? Number one, our beautiful truth about Diamond and Silk? Number one. Our beautiful Diamond of Diamond and Silk has passed away. Silk was with her all the way and at her passing. There was no better team anywhere or at any time.

That's number one. Number two. Remembering all the great times I had with one of my greatest supporters, the late Diamond of Diamond and Silk, a dear friend who will be missed. Thank you, Diamond, for your support. Number three. The lamestream media is trying to say I was rude to Silk, another fake story to distract from Biden sharing secrets with China. Pay attention. So there's two real ones and one fake one? No, no. One real one, two fake ones. Okay.

Oh, two fake ones. Two fake ones. Okay. I know the answer. I think I do too. Okay. Yeah. The first one is the real one.

Yeah, that's what I think too. Okay. See, I was trying to trip you guys up because a few days later he eulogizes and says that he doesn't know Silk, but right right after diamond died he was just talking about the dream team so though i it was close though because i thought the second one when he thanks diamond for her support that does sound like trump that does sound like something he would he would truth i've been doing some method acting with these that's good he's uh these truths okay round two trump was actually very in a giving and loving spirit over the holidays.

So which of these passive aggressive holiday messages did he not truth? So two are real. One is fake. Number one. Happy New Year to all the radical left Democrats, Marxist lunatics, China loving Coco Chow and her obedient husband Mitch and clueless rhinos who are working so hard to destroy our once great country. More importantly, happy new year to the incredible, brave, and strong American patriots who built, love, and cherish America. God bless you all. All right, number one. Number two, Merry Christmas, everyone, including the radical left Marxists,

Shifty Shift and his sham investigation, the thugs and tyrants of the Democratic Party, and most of all, to my children and my beautiful wife, Melania. Peace on Earth. the radical left Marxists that are trying to destroy our country, the Federal Bureau of Investigation that is illegally coercing and paying social, and, of course, the Department of Injustice, which appointed a special prosecutor who, together with his wife and family, hates Trump more than any person on Earth. Love to all.

I got to go with the second one is fake because he would never actually wish his family a Merry Christmas. What do you think, Dan? Yeah, I agree with that. Damn. Okay. All right.

All right. Again, though, the first one I remember, Coco Chow and her obedient husband. But it was second and third were tough yeah tough choice between those two okay good all right well this one may be a little bit harder so um in addition to these beautiful words of wisdom from trump he on true social way more than twitter shares a lot of fan art slash propaganda um so we have some memes um to share with you and and one of his favorite artists is this gal, Andrea, who goes by the handle God underscore bless underscore Trump.

And so which of these three pictures with words, so memes, did Andrea not make and thus Trump did not retruth? OK, the first is a photo of Trump giving a thumbs up in a car with the words, get in, patriots. We're going to make America great again. That's pretty cool. Number one. Number two, a collage of photos showing Trump playing sports and holding various balls that reads, my president is the coolest. that reads, my president is the coolest. Number three, a photo of Trump posing with his golf clubs with a poem of sorts that reads,

Trump's best on the course. He's got a great swing. Everyone knows that he's the MAGA king, the goat on and off the course. Which of these is fake? I think I have, I think, I think the golf one is fake.

I think my present is the coolest. It's fake. Okay. Well, that was a trick question. They are all real. Elijah's going to text you guys a photo so you can just take in the beautiful artwork

of God bless Trump. The goat on and off the course is so funny. We need more of this in our party. Absolutely. I have to say, if Andrea doesn't pivot over to Twitter along with Trump, I'm going to be very upset. I'm a big, big fan. That is amazing. Okay.

All right. Next one. What random stream of consciousness did Trump not truth? So just a random sentence out of nowhere. Number one, late night shows are a waste of time and the hosts are not funny. Number two, whatever happened to global warming? Number three, true social is so hot. So one of these is fake, two are real.

Hmm, this is a tough one I think truth social is real I want to say that global warming is fake this is a tough one because when he was on twitter he used to tweet about the unfunnyness of late night hosts all the time

and he would often tweet when it was cold whatever happened to global warming so I'm just going to take a stab, although I think Haley is being tricky here in a very Elijah-like fashion. But I'm going to go with True Social is so hot. Oh. Alright, the one

that is fake is the late night shows. So the other two are real and I just want to note that the True Social is so hot has four O's. It is True Social is so hot. Yeah, I think I remember that one. Yeah. Should have gone with the late night show. You are deep into True Social.

I'm so deep, you guys. I mean, I could write these truths in my sleep, I have to tell you. Haley, has being this much on True Social changed you at all? Like, do you have questions about the election? Are you regretting your COVID shots? Like, what is happening?

If anything, I feel like I got an ego boost. I'm like kind of taking on the Trump mentality and just feeling good about myself. Oh, the goat in and out of the studio, Haley. Yeah, the goat in and out of the studio. Goat producer, you guys. We're going to start introducing you now as goat producer, Haley. Please do.

I love it. I love it. Okay, we're going to round this out now as goat producer Haley. Please do. I love it. I love it. Okay. We're going to round this out. This is the final one. Which of these pop lyrics did Trump truth about himself? Oh, no. One is real.

Two are fake. I'm simply the best. Better than all the rest. Of course, an ode to Tina Turner. What doesn't kill me makes me stronger. An ode to Kelly Clarkson. Or I'm everything I am because you loved me. An ode to Celine Dion.

So one is fake or two are fake? Two are fake. Oh, two are fake. Yeah. So one is real. What was the first one? I'm simply the best, better than all the rest. Number two is what doesn't kill me makes me stronger.

And number three is I'm everything I am because you love me. I would bet number two. Going with Kelly. Is real. Is real. I think number one is real.

I think it's a Tina Turner thing. It's Kelly Clarkson. Dan, you're right. Wow. Because I think that's a saying that's it's not like Kelly Clarkson invented that.

So I think he's just it's happenstance. It's a Kelly Clarkson song. I don't think he's just, it's happenstance. It's a Kelly Clarkson song. I don't think he was a huge fan of. I think he plays that Tina Turner song at his events. That is why I included it. And I included Celine because one of the most underrated stories of the month is that Trump DJ'd Celine Dion at his New Year's Mar-a-Lago party. I mean, yeah, I can see it.

And the reason that he truthed what doesn't kill me makes me stronger was in reference to the House January 6th committee's criminal referrals. Wow. He said, these folks don't get it that when they come after me, people who love freedom rally around me. It strengthens me. What doesn't kill me makes me stronger. Americans know that I pushed for 20,000 troops to prevent violence on January 6th and that I went on television and told everyone to go home. Yes, we did know that. Wait, so who won this? Did anyone keep score?

I think we all lost. I think we all lost. I won. You won? Yeah, we were the same. I got one right and we both got the last one wrong. I am now undefeated in this. Damn, undefeated in this specific game. Are we adding this to the take tally?

Yeah, I was going to say. It can be a separate tally. There are different skills. Dan's just undefeated? Yeah. All right, well, I'll keep this going as long as truth is up and running. Okay, that's great.

Whenever you guys want to do this. Yeah, that's a good idea. Haley, thank you for this wonderful game. You're very welcome. And before we go, speaking of lyrics, I just want you all to hear what happens when U.S. senators try to be funny. This is from yesterday's congressional hearing into the debacle around Ticketmaster's

handling of tickets to Taylor Swift's Heiress Tour, in which parent company Live Nation was rightly attacked for being a monopoly. Let's listen. You have to have competition. You can't have too much consolidation, something we know all too well. With Senator Klobuchar as chair, I had hoped to get the gavel back, but once again, she's chair captain and I'm on the bleachers. A purchaser of a ticket, being able to sell it to someone else. I think it's a nightmare dressed like a daydream. Karma's a relaxing thought. Aren't you envious that for you it's not? Ticketmaster ought to look in the mirror and say, I'm the problem. It's me. I don't know. OK, so here's the thing. That was Amy Klobuchar, Mike Lee of Utah.

And the last one was Dick Blumenthal of Connecticut, Democratic senator. So here's the thing on this. First of all, just bad, bad all around. So it's just a travesty. But here's the thing. Mike Lee, I appreciate how far he swerved out of the way with those lyrics. Like the karma lyric, the dress like the the you belong with me like none of those really made sense in context he really had to go out of his way and they were all sort of deep cuts uh i think klobuchar and blumenthal that was sort of low-hanging fruit and i will say there's nothing more embarrassing than watching dick blumenthal try to get that out because you can tell he has not heard taylor swift before do you think he knew what he was doing?

I think Lee's a real Swifty. And I think that Klobuchar is probably a real Swifty too. Or at least her daughter is. And so is Mike Lee's daughter. I mean, here's my take. Great job, everyone. Great job to the staff who wrote those. Great job to the members who read them.

Here's the thing. We do this show twice a week. We never talk about congressional hearings that don't involve violent insurrections. That's right. Here we are highlighting the problem of monopolies and ticket sales. Success. Attention is good. Great job,

people. Monsters on the hill. That's what I say. Thank you. Thank you to Ruben Gallego for joining today. Thank you to Haley for the game. Everyone have a great weekend and we will 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 Haley Muse and Olivia Martinez. It's mixed and edited by Andrew Chadwick. Kyle Seglin and Charlotte Landis sound engineered the show. Thanks to Hallie Kiefer, Ari Schwartz, Sandy Gerard, Andy Taft, and Justine Howe for production support.

And to our digital team, Elijah Cohn, Phoebe Bradford, Milo Kim, and Amelia Montu. Our episodes are uploaded as videos at youtube.com slash podsaveamerica. Pod Save America. you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you