Pod Save America - More Democrats Call for a Ceasefire

Episode Date: November 21, 2023

The President says a deal is close that would free hostages in Gaza, while more Democrats in Congress call for a ceasefire or conditions on military aid to Israel. Meanwhile, Biden celebrates his 81st birthday with more bad polling and anxious Democrats. Trump continues his run of bonkers campaign stops in Iowa and Fox News kicks off the holiday season with a meltdown over “woke” Christmas. Then, ProPublica and NPR reporter Andrea Bernstein joins the show to talk about the newly announced Supreme Court ethics code and her podcast about right-wing judicial activist Leonard Leo, “We Don’t Talk About Leonard”. Finally, we kick off a new Thanksgiving tradition and pardon our favorite political turkeys of 2023. 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 Pardon Turkey. Jon Lovett. I'm Tommy Vitor. That's pretty bad. Leave it in. On today's show, President Biden celebrates his birthday with more bad polling. Such a dickish way to say it. Sorry.

That's how he feels about it. I know, I'm just telling the truth. Trump tries to wrap up the primary in Iowa, and Fox News kicks off the holiday season with a war on woke Christmas. Then ProPublica's Andrea Bernstein joins to talk about Supreme Court ethics in her new podcast on right-wing judicial activist Leonard Leo. And later, we inaugurate a new Thanksgiving tradition. We're going to pardon some of our own turkeys. Yeah, that's right.

Yeah, All right. But first, President Biden said Monday a deal that would release hostages held by Hamas is close. And this comes as the number of House Democrats calling for a ceasefire has grown to 37, a group that now includes three Jewish Democrats, Becca Balint, Sarah Jacobs and Jamie Raskin. Over in the Senate, Jeff Merkley became the second senator to call for a ceasefire, and Bernie Sanders released a statement saying that, quote, not one penny should go to Israel until they stop the bombardment, allow displaced Gazans to return home, and pledge not to pursue a long-term blockade or reoccupation of Gaza. Other Senate Democrats, like John Ossoff, who's also Jewish, and Chris Van Hollen, have also started to talk about putting conditions on the $14 billion in aid secure a safe homeland for Jews. But I do not accept that the total deprivation of millions of innocent civilians

is necessary for Israel to secure its objectives or in the national interest of the United States. How Israel conducts this operation is important. And so many of us learned just a few weeks ago when one of the White House national security spokesperson was asked if the United States has any red lines. And the answer was no, which means anything goes. And that cannot be consistent with American interests and American values. So that's why we're asking these questions. It can't be consistent because that's not the policy for any other country

that the United States provides military aid to. That's right. Look, we have a policy of trying to make sure that our funds are used in a manner that advances our interests and our values. And if you look at what's happening right now in Gaza, the desperate humanitarian crisis. Clearly, there's more that could be done. So Biden wrote a Washington Post op-ed this weekend where he again rejected calls for a ceasefire at this time. And Punchbowl reported on Monday that the administration won't accept conditions on aid for Israel. Tommy, let's start with the calls for a ceasefire. What's your take on these ceasefire statements that have been coming out from Democrats? I know you just talked to

Congressman Raskin right before the show. Yeah. So just so folks know, I mean, the ceasefire deal that is reportedly being negotiated between the U.S., Israel and Hamas would have Hamas release at least 50 women and children being held hostage in exchange for maybe like a five-day ceasefire. There's a lot of details in there about sequencing and there's speculation that Israel would then release Palestinian women and children in Israeli prisons, but that's kind of what's being reported on. You're right though, that the calls in Congress for a ceasefire are definitely growing. And it's not just the most progressive Democrats who have been more willing to criticize Israel. It's more kind of normie Democrats. And Congressman Raskin's name jumped out at me because he's progressive,

he's Jewish, and he's also just an incredibly thoughtful guy. So we talked briefly this afternoon. I mean, he wanted to stress that he is in no way trying to micromanage the negotiations or the administrations. He basically said like the specifics of what they're talking about are up to Tony Blinken and the Biden team. But what he wanted to do was to speak out, to lay out some moral and political imperatives, and just move the conversation away from this kind of false binary that you're seeing of, of, you know, people declaring that you need to care for one side or the other, Palestinian or Israeli, he wanted to just focus on the common humanity. And so I personally, I'm not sure how you can not call for a ceasefire if your goal is getting back hostages and reducing

civilian deaths. I think the odds are that the way you'll get the most hostages home is going to be through some sort of negotiated deal. The way you'll protect the most civilians in Gaza is through getting more aid and reducing airstrikes., Congressman Raskin's coming from a place of he has constituents that have lost family members in Gaza. He's met with the families of hostages. And so he's just focusing on like the humanity of it all and valuing and protecting lives. What do you make of Biden writing that op-ed, rejecting calls for a ceasefire again? Do you think partly this is like he's in the middle of these negotiations over a potential temporary ceasefire in exchange for hostages?

Do you think that like what's the administration reasoning? What's the administration's reasoning for continuing to reject calls for a ceasefire or more public pressure on Bibi as this war continues? I don't know. It continues to frustrate me enormously. I mean, what Biden has said is he supports humanitarian pauses, which are sort of like brief cessations and hostilities to allow aid in or people out. But also we know that the Biden administration is trying to help broker the broader hostage exchange deal that I mentioned at the top. So obviously, aid in or people out. But also we know that the Biden administration is trying to help broker the broader hostage exchange deal that I mentioned at the top. So obviously they would be in support

of some sort of ceasefire deal that got out dozens of hostages. So maybe they're just trying not to get ahead of the Israelis. That has been kind of their approach to this situation from day one, just to kind of back everything Israel does in public, and then sort of push and prod them in private. But I agree with you. I mean, the op ed was a little bit muddled because it was about Ukraine and Israel. And I assumed they kind of mixed those threats together because we were going to build up to a point about the need to get Congress to pass more aid, but it didn't even really do that. So I'm, I'm a little bit confused

by the messaging there. Lovett, what was your reaction to seeing a number of Jewish Democrats in Congress call for either a ceasefire or conditioning aid to Israel? Well, first thing is that it does seem like when you use the term ceasefire, it gets a lot of coverage and attention, but people seem to use the term differently. Sometimes I believe there should be a ceasefire, the violence should stop immediately. It's a moral abomination, which it is. Other times, these are calls for a ceasefire conditioned on hostage release, conditioned on other changes on the ground. But regardless, what I appreciate both from Bernie's statement, from Ossoff's statements, from all of these statements is they do have a kind of moral clarity. And to the point Tommy made, are moving away from this binary. It's like very heartening to see, you know, in many ways,

I think sometimes like American politics puts America at the center of every debate, right? And like calling for a ceasefire is like a bank shot, right? Like it's US members of Congress calling on another country to heed their call or calling on Biden to do something. I do find the debate about conditioning aid to be really interesting and important. It was something that was sort of off the table for a really long time for political reasons. But I think it's a very good thing that it's a part of the conversation. Again, you know, this is not like the idea of telling a country to which we are giving billions of dollars of aid that we expect certain things in return for giving that aid, I don't think should be seen as some like lefty concept. It was something George H.W. Bush did when he made aid conditional on not expanding settlements. So it doesn't have to, first of all, it is something that has happened in the past. It is something that has worked in the past. And even just that one example makes clear, it's not like some far-fetched

lefty from the river to the sea thing. Like it can be an important way the U.S. helps achieve its goals. And look, I don't understand the the the like difficult, complex result of what it would mean to condition aid, how something like that would be implemented. But I think the fact that the politics are changing is important. And I think on just in a common sense way, providing this aid, I think, should mean we are in a position to make demands of what we view not only as Israel's interest, but our interest in the region. I mean, I also think that the debate that is coming up around the request for aid to Israel

is sort of like a key moment in this because say, you know, every Democrat in Congress or most Democrats in Congress started calling for a ceasefire. Say they were able to pass a resolution in the Senate because they probably wouldn't be able to in the House. Say then Joe Biden woke up. This is just imaginary. Say that Joe Biden woke up the next day and was like, I'm going to tell Bibi that it's time for a ceasefire. Netanyahu could say, no, I don't want. I'm going to do what I want to do.

But now that we're talking about sending aid to Israel, that's where we actually have some leverage. And I don't see how any Democrat could just vote for, or really any member of Congress, but I don't expect much from Republicans, could just vote to give Bibi Netanyahu, someone who does not even have majority support in his own country that has just been through this horrific terrorist attack, doesn't even have majority support in his own country that has just been

through this horrific terrorist attack doesn't even have majority support there a blank check to continue a war where he has not told us what his objectives are where he has not like proven that he's not that he's trying to avoid civilian casualties where he's as of this recording still hasn't brought back any of the hostages? Like, it just seems bizarre to me. And again, I don't like Tommy, how likely is it that you think Congress can actually impose conditions? And if they did, do you think that could force Israel to change its approach? I mean, at the moment, I think it's unlikely because Republicans will probably uniformly oppose this proposal, which kills it in the House.

And then even among Democrats, I'm not sure there's consensus opinion on what conditioning aid means. I agree with Lovett. I think it's a no-brainer. It's basically a diplomacy. It's like a carrot and a stick approach to get someone to do what you want to do. But Biden is asking for $14.3 billion in additional funding. The US already provides $3.8 billion in security assistance a year to Israel. It does, to me, seems incredibly reasonable to say this aid will only be provided if the IDF agrees to some basic standards to reduce civilian casualties, which the level of civilian casualties in Gaza right now is intolerable and indefensible. You could also argue these weapons must only go to uniformed members of the military, because recently there was this right-wing national security minister of Israel, this guy named Itmar Ben-Gavir. He posted a photo of himself handing out rifles to members of these civilian militia groups. You would want to make sure that these weapons, these rifles

aren't being used in the West Bank or given to extremist settlers. But back to the broader problem, like you mentioned at the top, John, I mean, Bernie wants this to go much further. He's saying the US should only give Israel more assistance if they rein in airstrikes, promise to allow displaced Gazans to return home, promise not to reoccupy Gaza, free settlement expansion. So these are conditions that go far beyond the current conflict and get to the core underlying tensions and challenges that you know, that are the driving sort of the tensions here. But, you know, again, to your point, like there's no guarantee that Netanyahu is going to listen, even if these bills are passed. is a major inflection point in US policy towards Israel that goes beyond frustration with this military campaign in Gaza. Because part of my frustration at times with President Biden's

messaging and policy towards Israel is I feel like it gets, the talking points don't evolve, right? We're still talking about Israel in the same way we were decades ago. But the reality is like this current government is super right wingwing, ultra-nationalist, ultra-orthodox. There's a lot of extremists in this coalition. And Congress seems to be updating its view to reflect that reality faster than the White House is. The two things that I took away from it were, one, I appreciate that what's happening in Congress, what Bernie is saying, what Asif is saying, what a lot of these members are saying. It has a moral clarity and it gives a place for progressives to go that somewhere between, I think, a more anti-Israel position and then some of the kind of strident right wing or kind of hyper pro-Israel positions that don't reflect the humanitarian crisis in Gaza. The other piece of this, and maybe this is glib, but it's very clear that like, whatever's going on behind the scenes, at one point, even Netanyahu referred to

the fact that Biden facing his own political pressures, and there is like a little bit of like, good cop, Zionist cop, you know, that like, political pressure from Democrats, including Democrats that support Israel, like that will carry a lot of weight. Well, yeah, I mean, I appreciated that Ossoff and others are making the argument that like, look, you can argue that a blank check to Bibi is not in the interest of a secure Israel or getting the hostages back or achieving any of the aims that like the Israeli people hope that they achieve as well, right? Like it's just not this idea because i saw

a couple members of i think i saw congressman gotheimer say like oh if you condition uh if you condition the aid at all that's just help you're helping hamas you're helping hamas and it's like well that's crazy yeah like i don't think that is not true yeah listen i just a lot of people probably listen to this and frustrated and being like why don't you call on hamas to release the hostages why don't you call on haas to release the hostages? Why don't you call on Hamas to renounce terrorism? I do all those things, right? They're a terrorist organization. They're evil. What happened on October 7th is indefensible. Where I'm coming from on this now, though, is I just firmly believe that if your priority is protecting civilian lives in Gaza and getting

hostages back, the way you do it is through diplomacy and a negotiated agreement. And I really, really worry the volume of airstrikes that the IDF has been conducting in the Gaza Strip is unprecedented. You're talking about like a year's worth of airstrikes on Afghanistan happening in a month in a place half the size of Manhattan. Like I worry that's going to kill the hostages as well as civilians in Gaza, which is why you want to hit pause on this, negotiate and see if you can get people back. And it's not going to end up creating a safer Israel or a safer Gaza or a safer Middle East, you know, like, and that's something that's in everyone's interest. And all of these Jewish Democrats and a lot of these other Democrats who put out the statements over the weekend specifically said, we agree with the goal of rooting out Hamas, of getting rid of

Hamas's leadership, of getting the hospital. Like we, we agree with all of that. This is the way we think we can do that. This is the better way to think we can do that. And look, we used to, I mean, again, we talked to, I know you guys have talked a lot about sort of the lessons we learned from 9-11, but like we went through all these arguments at post 9-11 and around the Iraq war, like where if you had a difference in strategy on the war and you didn't want to give a blank check, suddenly you were, you know, against the troops and for terrorism and all this bullshit. Yeah. Look, in the near term, you can degrade Hamas's military capabilities. You can take out its leadership. You can take out the tunnels. You can take out the rockets, but the long-term, like you can't bomb the idea of Hamas away. You cannot, you cannot bomb away like the underlying political challenges that led to the creation of Hamas that have led to this movement. Right. And

that's where I think you've seen people like Raskin and others talk about the need for the long-term negotiations to solve the underlying political challenges. And that is the only way in the long run, you will get to a peaceful Israel and Palestine living side by side. Yeah, you have, even in Raskin's statement, you're referring to just sort of the rebuilding effort that's going to have to take place in Gaza. And the one condition you didn't mention that Bernie also includes in what he would make conditional for aid is peace talks, like the broad peace talks that would have to begin. And like the idea that the U.S. would not make giving a country billions of dollars conditional on the talks that we believe and everyone believes are necessary for the lasting peace in the region. It just doesn't

make sense to me. I'll just make one more point on the aid package itself and the negotiations in Congress before we move on. Like, I don't know that this is going to get done because they want to package together Ukraine aid, aid for Israel and border security funding and potentially policy changes around the border. At least that's what Republicans are asking for all in the same supplemental bill that they want to pass around the holidays or at least right after the holidays. And if you separated out aid for Israel just on its own, and it was a clean $14 billion request that they debated, you could see it passing the House, because it's Republicans control the House, and then they get some

Democrats to especially more moderate conservative Democrats. And then you're right, like you could see it past the Senate as well. Because again, you have all the Republicans supporting it, you probably get enough Democrats that support it, even if a bunch of progressive Democrats said no. So you could probably pass Israel aid on its own, but you throw in Ukraine. Now you have a bunch of Republicans in both houses that don't want Ukraine aid. So if you lose those votes, plus you lose the votes of the Democrats who don't want to give a blank check to Israel, to Bibi Netanyahu, and then you throw in Republicans demanding border policy changes? Like, I just don't know that any of this is going to get done.

Let's just be honest. A bill that's $106 billion, some for the border, most for foreign countries, foreign militaries, is wildly unpopular. Wildly unpopular. I mean, it's just like if you pulled the side of a random voter and said, what do you think about spending $100 billion this way instead of any other way? Like they're probably not going to support this. So, yeah, I'm with you. It's challenging. Pod Save America is brought to you by Karayuma. Pod Save America is brought to you by Kari Yuma.

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That's crooked.com slash store. All right. In addition to all those challenges, Joe Biden also turned 81 on Monday. And what a birthday it was. For the first time since 2019, NBC's poll has the president trailing Donald Trump 46 to 44 percent. Only 40 percent of voters approve of Biden's job performance. 57 percent disapprove. It's the worst rating of his presidency, driven in part by a huge drop in his approval among 18 to 34 year olds, which is down from 46 percent in NBC's September poll to 31 percent now. Biden's also getting record low ratings on foreign policy, low ratings on handling

Gaza. Biden's age continues to be a concern to voters, though he did try to joke about that again on his birthday. Let's listen. And by the way, it's my birthday today and they can actually sign birthday cards. I just want you to know it's difficult turning 60. Difficult. He also, when he was doing the turkey pardon, said that the first one was 75 years ago and he said, don't worry, I wasn't there. That's funny.

But then he went on to confuse Taylor Swift and Britney Spears. So that's tough. So you win some, you lose some. Who hasn't done that? You win some, you lose some. Before we get to the age conversation, for the hundredth time, what did you guys think of the NPC poll in general? Love it?

It was a pretty dismal poll. I will say, though, we're pulling out the Biden age question. And I would like to just point out that more broadly, it's awful in a bunch of other ways, too. It's worth pointing out one number that really stuck out to me. Forty seven percent of registered voters say they prefer a Republican controlled Congress to 45 percent that prefer Democrat. And I think that is it. That to me, like, look, we can talk about Biden's 40 percent approval rating, not where you want it to be. Like, look, we can talk about Biden's 40% approval rating, not where you want it to be. But the fact that this right now, given what we have seen over the last year with this Congress, that right now in a poll, 47% to 45%, people basically flip a coin, don't give a fuck which party controls Congress, tells you, like, I think you step back and blur your eyes and you see a pissed off country that's not fully engaged on the substance of the issues and not keyed into exactly what kind of threat Republican control in Washington would pose. Yeah, I almost saw that as good news, oddly, because it's one of the first polls that has showed Republicans leading in the generic ballot. And it makes me wonder about the sample

and about look, we could we're not going to unskew polls here, but there's a lot, there's non-response bias is a thing. Non-response bias is when like one side is getting horrible media coverage. And then a lot of times those voters just don't, don't answer questions. And it doesn't mean that there's actual shift in support. It's just like who you're getting to answer the polls. And so I'm, I'm sort of wondering if something like that's going on with this poll. That number was not. That number is worse than it was before, but not by much. It's just sort of part of a slide down. Well, that's still just, I mean, you're going to get a divided country too. Like you're just like control of Congress, even if

Biden didn't have his age issues, even if Gaza wasn't happening, like you would still be like, it just took a 50-50 country when you get to the electorate, which is really tough. But yeah, no, it's not good. It's not good. Tommy, any thoughts on some of the numbers? I think you guys nailed it. I mean, you know, like you turn on the TV and all you see is horrifying images out of, you know, Ukraine and now Gaza. So of course, you know, I mean, Joe Biden, Joe Biden doesn't have like a magic fix it switch that he could flip if he wanted that he hasn't. But I think what it reflects is people are pissed off. They feel like the country's on the wrong track and things feel very unsettled around the world. And that's just that's the nature of the job. It's really hard.

Yeah. And just on Gaza, because they went pretty deep in this poll on Gaza, they asked about funding for Israel. Voters approved of sending aid to Israel, 55-41 in favor. They also approved of sending aid to Gaza, 58-36, but even more. But 49% of Democrats oppose sending aid to Israel. They asked, is Israel justified in what they're doing right now or have they gone too far? 47% of voters say justified, 30% say too far. But when you ask Democrats, 51% of Democrats think Israel has gone too far and only 27% say that it's justified. So it really is an issue that splits the Democratic Party, even if there's majority support in the country, which is particularly difficult for Democrats. And in terms of issue salience, they asked people, is there an issue that you feel so strongly about that you would vote for or against a candidate based on this issue? Number one is democracy.

19% chose democracy. Number two is abortion, 18%. Immigration, 14%. Don't think we're getting a lot of those. Guns, 9%. And then Gaza popped up as 5%. And just in case, they did approvals of different figures and organizations. They did poll Hamas. Hamas only has 1% approval in the electorate, 81% disapproved. So I guess that's good. We like that. But that's before Hamas got the Bin Laden bump. They, I'm sure that the, the Bin Laden

standing on tech talk was happening during this poll. So they didn't quite capture it yet. That's right. It takes a little, it takes a while for that kind of a message to really resonate and see it in the numbers. Yeah. We'll be testing it in a few weeks. Hamas is beating Chris Christie in Iowa is my takeaway. I i do i do wonder on the democracy numbers what percentage of those are democrats who are worried about trump uh destroying our democracy and trump supporters thinking that the election was stolen you never know it's probably a potpourri well we do know that though because there was polling that showed it that that uh that there was some huge percentage of people concerned about democracy but it was more

republicans and democrats that's right that's right so you know um not a great poll so and again why we keep going on about these polls because a lot of discussion after the new york times poll it's one poll blah blah blah blah blah all the polls all the polls are like this and again we also say polls are a snapshot in time but trends are important and the trends of these polls, especially the trend of the NBC poll, which back in August had Biden up on Trump by four points. I think it was forty nine, forty five. And then it was tied in September. And now it's this. So not a great trend, but, you know, year to go. Two more headlines from the weekend that I know the Biden folks must have been psyched to see in The Washington Post. Quote, Biden campaign works to ease Democratic anxiety over

reelection chances. Classic of the genre. And in Politico, quote, Biden campaign facing heat over plans to deal with age. Anything you guys think the campaign can actually do to ease those anxieties about age or anything else beyond what they're already doing, which is Biden's out there joking about his age. He's doing a lot. He's traveling a lot. He's, you know, he's communicating a lot. Like, what else? What's going on here?

One thing you could do is take one of these anonymous high-dollar donors, march them to the center of Lafayette Square, and cut their fucking heads off. Just send a message. Send a message to the donors. Oh my goodness, that's a tough one. It's a class warfare argument,

so it's a good message, and it will let all these anonymous donors that if they have feelings, I do not advocate violence against any supporters. If these anonymous donors, if these Devonis owners

have such really powerful feelings that they are feeling the anxiety and they're not getting the answer they want from mommy and daddy at the DNC, they don't need to go run

to Uncle Politico and say how mad they are at their parents. Because like, Biden's age, it is his biggest liability. It could cost us the White House and perhaps America. That's all true. That's absolutely true. But like these individual sort of paroxysms of anxiety do nothing to address or change the fundamental situation that we're in. Open positive pitches open to answers what i am sort of done reading is another donor saying they called a friend at the dnc and their concerns were dismissed because if you call somebody up that's working all day trying to figure out how to elect joe biden and you're just some rich asshole be like i'm worried about his age he's like yeah yeah us too call you call

you later you know what i mean i i would just like to to explain to people why we're in this situation, because I'm sure there's some people with anxiety who do not want my co-host to put them to death in Lafayette Park. No, no, no, not listeners. Some of them are probably thinking, well, I'm worried too. We're all worried. We're worried all the fucking time. I haven't had a solid shit in a month and a half. Okay, well, that doesn't seem like it's related to Biden. Plus I've been reading the news.

Jesus Christ. What, it's our last show for Thanksgiving. Gobble, gobble, bitches. Hey, I'm going to log off. I'll see you guys later. So, you know, we've said this a bunch before, but I think the time like there's either joe biden steps down or joe biden doesn't step down that's right in the joe biden doesn't step down

scenario you're gonna need a challenger we got one now dean phillips in this poll you know who's he was beating him by eight points in the democratic primary marianne williamson she's at 12 dean's at four so that one's not working out so well you want Gavin Newsom to run go talk to Gavin Newsom see if he's going to run you want highway fast you did fix the highway you want Gretchen Whitmer to run go talk to her you want Josh Shapiro to run go talk to her no one's going to run go run yourself that's I'm seriously there's just not there's only so many things you can do you need a candidate to run against Joe Biden first the Democratic Party is not uh preventing there's no magical dnc that's preventing these

candidates from running they're making their own choices if you want them to make another choice go talk to them then there's joe biden stepping down right joe biden stepping down again like he's not he's he's he's certainly not listening to all these uh newspapers yeah he sees the newspaper some of his very favorite columnists and TV hosts have been saying this. That's that's not working. David Altshuler went out there. He. Yeah. Yeah. Speaking of Lafayette Square. Yeah. He went out. There's a news cycle about that. And then where are we? Nothing. Nothing happened. Nothing really happened. So it's like, again, it's Joe Biden's going to make a decision. Again, a lot of the filing deadlines for primaries are have passed, more about to pass in the next coming week. So, again, unless Joe Biden wakes up tomorrow morning or next week or probably at the latest next month and says, I'm too worried about the polls, then he's running. And in that case, it's like, hey, all hands on deck because fucking Donald Trump could win the presidency. Poor David Axelrod's got to wake up in the morning, open his New York Times, start reading his Maureen Dowd column,

and it's like, David Axelrod is not a prick. It's like, oh, well, you know, that settles that. That's not an ideal sentence to read about yourself. And he's not. It's true, he's not a prick. He's absolutely not. But when you're not a prick, you definitely don't want to read about

how you're not a prick in the newspaper. Right, if it's a question that's being answered, something's gone wrong for you. Exactly. Max has all kinds of weaknesses. He'll be the first to admit. I'm sure the Biden people aren't too happy with him, but he's not a prick. One of the nicer guys I know. One of the nicer people. Not a prick. Maybe he's wrong about Biden. Maybe all the anxiety is for nothing.

But everyone, I think it's all coming from a good place. Everyone. Everyone's deeply concerned. Deeply concerned. And it's not just because it's like Democrats who want to win. Democrats, Republicans who are scared for the country that don't like Trump. Journalists that had two drinks. Yeah, journalists that had two drinks.

The whole country is on edge. We do not want Donald Trump to win again. So that's where all the anxiety is coming from. Meanwhile, Donald Trump, the leading contender for the presidency at this point, he sounded as presidential as ever at a rally in Iowa over the weekend that was short on substance and long on crazy. He was with four hookers. You think that was good that night to go up and tell my wife? It's not true, darling. I love you very much. It's not true darling i love you very much it's not true actually that one she didn't believe because she said he's a germaphobe he's not into that you know he's not into golden

showers as they say they call it he's not he's strong i know him very well president chi of china and he's standing there you know he's know, he's a fierce person. Now, the press doesn't like it when I say good things about him. But, you know, what can I say? He runs 1.4 billion people with an iron hand. Our leader is a stupid person. Our leader... Our leader can't get off this stage. You see this stage?

When he's finished with a speech by the time whatever it is he's taken wears off that's a just a spry sharp individual who could really write this ship and probably bring peace to the middle east right really unintentionally missed a revealing comment there when he was talking about the golden shower video when he said that one she didn't believe what were the other ones wow wow tommy good point clearly as a conversation they've had a few times yeah for sure she's believed several of the allegations the uh some of which judges have believed as well and juries yeah that's the other the uh when my when i saw when i saw this speech it was also like one of the criticisms you you know, jokes aside about murdering donors in public squares. The point that like, what are why aren't we doing more to make this about Trump and make this about Trump's age issues?

And I think like actually you're starting to see that. And I think that's very good. But it is just a reminder that like we do have to point out that like people are concerned about optics. You see all these stories about Joe Biden and people go to pains, I think, to truthfully say, I have been in meetings with him. He can hold his own. He is completely and totally mentally all there. He is a ferocious as like as an interrogator during briefings. He just seems old and he seems frail. So he is he is fit, but doesn't seem fit to people when they see him on television. Meanwhile, you have Trump. So it's a perception more. It's a perception.

And then you have Trump. Trump, who we all know, including a lot of his biggest supporters, that he is mentally and emotionally unfit to do the job. Biggest supporters and people who worked closely with him at the highest levels of the White House over and saw him every single day. That was a Washington Post headline that came out today. Most of Trump's former aides no longer support him. And yet he is, I think, more energetic on the stump. And so like he's got that crazy energy. He's got. Yes, he does. And by the way, he is. You know, we have no idea what's going on in the

fucking green room before he goes out there. But when he says things like, I wonder what what happens when what he's taking wears off. You know, there have been many reports over the years that Donald Trump is not afraid of, you know, a little pep in a step. Whatever he's using, let's give Joe some of that. Yeah, share. I will say the post headline about the speech was vulgarities, insults and baseless attacks, which is a completely accurate description of the rally, of Trump's speech, of the speeches that intro Trump, which were also batshit crazy. But the hell thing gives me some 2016 vibes in terms of what matters most to voters.

Tommy, I think you were talking about this a little last episode, too. It's just like I really keep wanting to separate out these are things that Trump is going to do to affect your life if he gets a second term versus, oh, could you believe he talked about the pee tapes for the hookers? Which, again, I found entertaining and crazy. But I don't think that's going to move the I don't think it's going to move the needle. Yeah, I don't think it's going to move the needle. I also think like it's kind of why those people are all there at these rallies, like their their body and their fun for them and their entertaining. their body and their fun for them and their entertaining. And like the golden shower little bit there, it was weird,

but it was pretty funny and everyone laughed in the room and like no one thought less of him seemingly that was a supporter of his to begin with. So yeah, I don't know that that's, that calling out his vulgarity is the path to winning. I do think like the Biden people are basically approaching the age issue in a couple of ways, which is to say like, hey, look at us going to war zones all the time, like we're on top of it. Two, Trump is old too. And he keeps saying loopy things like confusing who's president of the United States saying it's Obama all the time. And then three, like, but we have a better

record. You know, look at what we're doing. Let's make other issues more salient. I think it's an open question about whether you can convince people who have decided that you're too old that you're actually not. I do think you can probably make other things the more higher on their priority list in terms of when they're voting than age. But it's going to take some effort. Yeah. I think it's just like, I don't know that you can make Biden seem younger, but you can point out the ways Donald Trump seems quite old himself and then make it a referendum between, you know, good grandpa versus evil grandpa. Yeah. You know, there's both. I mean, like some of the stuff is just it doesn't sound like he is losing a step necessarily, though. I think he is Donald Trump. But like he in 2016, he was saying shit that made people be like, this guy can't lead the country.

What are you crazy? By the way, some osteopath put out a statement saying that Donald Trump is as spry and fit as ever. And he's losing weight because of diet and exercise uh excuse me uh from one from one of from one ozempic pro to another okay diet and exercise good luck just throwing out all kinds of that's my just just uh just an unfounded see what happens when you're not here in studio tommy this is like a a def a defamation potluck today. Trump also got some good and bad legal news. A state court judge in Colorado ruled that Trump did incite an insurrection on January 6th. You might be wondering, well, then what's the good news? Well, the judge rejected the argument that the 14th Amendment prohibits Trump from appearing on the ballot because he incited said insurrection.

She basically ruled that she wasn't sure the framers meant the provision applies to former presidents. Love it. You talk to law professor Larry Tribe about this. I don't know how long ago, some point on this show. Did you see this coming? What was that? Yeah, look, here's the thing. Just two top legal minds going back and forth, me and Lawrence Tribe. But like my take on this was like, look, the people at Crew, which is the organization doing this, like they're incredibly smart, progressive, caring people trying to figure out how you face a fascist menace, which I like completely respect.

But like my non-lawyer view, just looking at it from the outside was like, we're not going to get Trump on the fine print in the Constitution. Like the idea that like a judge is going to say, yeah, like it turns out we I can use my power to disenfranchise the millions of people who want to vote for Donald Trump in a kind of never before explored circumstance for the using of this clause of the 14th Amendment. But so, you know, this judge said, no, it could still go further. But of course, the place it will end is the Supreme Court. Regardless of the legal merits, which I am obviously not expert in, to me, like it always felt like a distraction because we can't decide what judges

are going to do with a case like this. We can't make them rule one way or another. And regardless of what happens in this one case, there is a rising fascistic, dangerous, extreme right wing movement that wants to disenfranchise millions of people and seize and control power at all costs. We have to beat that. We have to beat that. And like we got to we got and we have to beat that we have to beat that and like we gotta we gotta and we gotta persuade people to join us in voting to defeat them and there was a method of making sure that trump never ran for president again was disqualified and that was convicting him uh in the senate which mitch mcconnell decided that he was not going to whip enough republicans to do even though he wanted to.

So they blew that play. And now we have Trump running for president again. And we also have him being held accountable in courtrooms across the country. He's slowly being held more accountable than any person ever has before. He's going to go from never facing a fucking consequence to maybe all the consequences at once. And again, though, because this is a democracy and voters have the ultimate decision here, if he gets convicted of those crimes, then it's up to the voters to decide, do you want someone convicted of X, Y and Z crime to become president again? And then it goes from old grandpa versus evil grandpa to old grandpa versus imprisoned grandpa, you know, at least convicted. Yeah, right. At least convicted. old grandpa versus imprisoned grandpa. Or at least convicted. Yeah, right.

At least convicted. Out on bail grandpa. Awaiting sentencing grandpa. Because he is currently out on bail grandpa. Yeah. Finally, finally, the war on Christmas, it's back. It's back. At least according to our boy Jesse Waters,

who dedicated an entire segment on his Fox News show last Thursday to complain about all the woke Christmas items on sale at Target. Let's take a listen. Gay nutcracker. Complete with a rainbow hat, a trans flag. Full price, $12. But right now it's on sale for $8. Target also sells Santa ornaments. But Target's Santa is in a wheelchair and is black.

I think majority of people, parents especially, they can acknowledge that gay Nutcracker and black disabled Santa has gone way too far. Look, there's... What the fuck? There's so much that divides us. I think we can all agree. We can all agree that gay nutcrackers and black disabled santa has is going to first of all people what are you talking about the nutcracker listen i don't care what target selling the nutcracker's being gay from the beginning all right that's a gay

fucking musical or whatever it is i don't even remember what it is is it a musical it's a ballet okay yeah no it's but it's straight? Come on, Jesse Waters. You know what the fuck the Nutcracker is? If I don't know, you don't know. Wow. Should I jump in on that? I'm losing it.

Yeah, sure. Jump in, Tommy. I mean, what I think is pretty remarkable and downright admirable about Fox is if you were an NFL coach and you ran the same play every year for 20 years, you would probably get fired and be unsuccessful. Fox has been running the same play every Christmas for as long as I can remember for like four 8 p.m. hosts ago, right? It was back when we were

all laughing at Bill O'Reilly for mistaking a loofah for a sex toy or whatever it was back back before when we were all laughing at bill o'reilly for mistaking a loofah for a sex toy or whatever it was that came out in his court case and they're still doing this shit and it still works and it still gets clicks and people still believe there's a war on christmas somehow yeah i was wondering that that that was my question which is like is did they did they successfully open a new front in the war on christmas with this i think so it's it's getting a little boring like i even feel like their heart wasn't in it. I don't think people are really going to get all riled up over a black Santa in a wheelchair.

I just, I don't even know what the problem, it's still pro-Christmas. It's really just anti-black and anti-disabled people. Well, yeah, it always has been. I think that was the point of the segment. Well, originally before, it was like, we don't have Santa. We're only doing happy holidays.

Like, the war on Christmas was about how not. That's still a Christmas theme. Megan Kelly famously announced that Santa is white. It's the same play. It's the same shit. Rinse, repeat. New idiot saying it. No happy holidays.

No Santa. No inclusivity. Older, older white man. No inclusivity. Of any kind kind all the nutcrackers are straight yeah everyone's straight on every all the christmas characters are straight the nutcrackers they just they love they love hot chicks and lacrosse that's it they're these nutcrackers are so incredibly straight these nutcrackers are, they just, that's all they want. The holiday season is full of cishet white characters

as far as the eye can see. The Nutcrackers watch Yellowstone and that's it. That's it. Brown liquor only for fucking Nutcrackers. They won't even have a martini because it's a little bit faggy in those tall cups. Can we get a studio gag order?

What's the process on this what i can stop now i mean it's honestly tommy you're not here you can't tell it's fucking crushing in here i listen i i could tell i i everyone i'm at home because i have covid and i've been subjected to 45 minutes of this i feel better honestly. Lovett thinks it's killing it here. Everyone's got their masks on. I hear laughing. They're smiling with their eyes. Anyway, a few quick housekeeping notes before we go to break. This week, shop the Crooked Store's Black Friday deals from the comfort of your couch.

Everything is 20% off. Plus, you can look out for surprise flash sales all week long. Head to cricket.com slash store to shop and make sure you're signed up for the email list

to find out the moment each flash sale starts. Seems like a lot. Pod Save America has only two more live shows left in the year. You can catch us in El Cajon

on December 7th and San Jose on December 13th. Get your tickets at cricket.com slash events now. And when we come back, Tommy's interview with reporter Andrea Bernstein about Leonard Leo,

the Federalist Society, and all the ways they're influencing the U.S. court system. I am so excited to welcome to the show today Andrea Bernstein. She is a reporter for NPR and ProPublica, two of the best in the business, as well as the host of the We Don't Talk About Leonard podcast. Andrea, it's great to see you. It's great to see you and talk to you too. So I want to talk about your podcast in one second, but this interview is perfectly timed because the Supreme Court just rolled out a bunch of new ethics guidelines for themselves.

Folks might remember that judges like Clarence Thomas have been taking all kinds of lavishly paid vacations by rich donors, and it created a bit of a kerfuffle. The court is now saying, essentially, we're going to watchdog ourselves. We'll keep an eye on ourselves. What do you think of these new rules? And do you think they're enforceable? So probably not. The rules have been pretty widely panned by the legal community for a couple of reasons. I've heard the criticism that they say, unlike the federal judge rules, which say a federal judge shall not, they say a justice should not, which is sort of more conditional, that they expressly carve out some permissions for things like fundraising, which I think was understood prior to this set of rules that

justices should not do. However, all that said, I feel like it's a good thing that there are some rules out there. But that said, having a code, I think, means that two things. First of all, I think it means that the Supreme Court lives in the real world. There wouldn't be a code if there wasn't all of this outcry and all of this journalism. So that's a good thing. I think it means that the Supreme Court lives in the real world. There wouldn't be a code if there wasn't all of this outcry and all of this journalism. So that's a good thing. I think that the sort of the accountability to the extent there is some has to come from public opinion and public pressure and from the journalistic light that's shed on it. So it feels to me like the beginning of a conversation, like, no, this probably doesn't

mean that you can impeach a justice or do any of the things that people might think a code should provide the basis for. But I do think it creates an opportunity for a real discussion about what justices should and shouldn't do. And it's pretty detailed. I mean, I think that there's a lot of things in there about, you know, you shouldn't do, your wife shouldn't do, your spouse shouldn't do, that is really useful to have on paper. Don't storm the Capitol, nor shall your spouse. That's the thing, right? I mean, it's sort of like, I mean, I've covered so much, you know, Trump legal stuff forever. And I feel like, you know, a long time ago, like 2017, 2018, people were asking

Okay, is there a crime that he's committed now Trump is charged with 91 felonies But that hasn't solved the problem of Trump and I think that shows you you know What it means to rely too much on a written code versus on trying to sort of enforce norms and change the way people think Yeah, well, let's talk about enforce norms and change the way people think. Yeah. Well, let's talk about fundraising and big donors and institutions, because your podcast, We Don't Talk About Leonard, investigates a guy named Leonard Leo. He's a big Republican muckety-muck. He's a donor. He has been running the Federalist Society for many years. He's part of a bunch of legal advocacy groups. And frankly, like, look, I've been in politics a while. He was on my radar screen, but he was sort of

one of a handful of people of his ilk that I was aware of. And, you know, I knew they had influence. But then late last year, there were these jaw-dropping reports about a massive, massive donation to a new organization that Leonard Leo had created. Can you tell us a little bit about that? Well, there was the donation to this organization called the Marble Freedom Trust, which Leonard Leo exclusively controls for $1.6 billion at the time. Right, billion with a B. The largest political dark money contribution at the time in U.S. history. And here was Leonard Leo, was somebody that people barely knew. I mean, one of the things about doing this podcast is I would say, okay, we're doing a podcast about Leonard Leo.

And people would be like, who? And then I would say, oh, yeah, he was the guy who made the list for Trump of potential Supreme Court nominees. And people would say, oh, yeah, that guy. But that guy had $1.6 billion. And that was sort of the starting point of our research. Who is he? What has he done? And what does he want to do with all of this money? Can you tell listeners who maybe haven't heard of him, what has he accomplished at the federal level? Let's start with the Supreme Court. Clarence Thomas and Leonard Leo became friendly when Clarence Thomas was serving as a judge in the Federal Court of Appeals in Washington, D.C. Leonard Leo, just out of law school, went to work on Clarence Thomas's confirmation, and his job was doing

research. And for those of us who remember that, or those of us who've studied the history of that, Clarence Thomas's, one of the big part of his efforts was doing negative research on Professor Anita Hill when she came forward with her allegations of sexual Bush, he becomes the outside advisor for confirmations. He basically steers through the nominations of Justice Roberts, Justice Alito, which was contentious at the U.S. Supreme Court that he had helped to get there. But when Trump came along, Leonard Leo did a pretty bold thing, which is he offered Trump a list of justices that he thought were vetted by the conservative legal community. And Trump said, I will only pick from those lists. And Leonard Leo and Trump both made good on that promise. All of Trump's nominees, Gorsuch, Kavanaugh, and Barrett were suggested six justices to the U.S. Supreme Court, that wasn't just what Leonard Leo did. He built an entire machine to get the right opinions and cases up to the Supreme Court so that they could decide in a way that he favored and that his donors favored. Some right-wing ideologues might be content owning six Supreme Court justices, not our boy, Lenny. He has done a lot of work at the state level. Can you talk a bit about that? And in particular, I was kind of jaw-dropping discussion of the Missouri plan in the podcast.

So, you know, just 20 years ago, Leonard Leo said, I'm going to start working on state Supreme Courts. And he went right from Justice Alito and getting him on the U.S. Supreme Court to making a real run at state Supreme Courts. And he came out and he said, 90% of cases are decided in state Supreme Courts. They went for Missouri because Missouri has a nonpartisan selection system whereby a panel of lawyers and justices and gubernatorial appointees select the possible candidates for the next Supreme Court justice.

And conservatives didn't like this because they felt that it produced candidates that were too centrists or too left. So they decided to try to destroy the Missouri plan. And they got deeply involved in trying to derail the nomination of a justice, Patricia Breckinridge, who just resigned last month. And they and Leonard Leo went right to the chief of staff of the governor and said, if you select this judge, the fury of the conservative movement, the likes of which you have never seen, will will come down on you and the governor. And this was being involved on a really granular level on a state level. But that was just one part of it. We saw after that, Leo fundraising for

justices all over the country in states like Wisconsin, North Carolina, dark money groups that he sponsored, really pouring money into these elections. And I know that you and your listeners have talked a lot about the Wisconsin judicial race that just took place back in April. And the sort of outcome of that where there's all this discussion about, you know, maybe impeaching the judge, Judge Janet, Janet Perseus, who won. But that is the system that Leonard Leo and his allies have produced, because they were the ones that started pouring money into state Supreme Courts a decade and a half ago, with the desire to make a system that was more partisan and more conservative. And in some states like North Carolina, they really

succeeded. In Wisconsin, this time around, they didn't, but they broke the system. That's what justices of both political persuasions have told us, that you have a system where the future of the republic depends on the outcome of a single Supreme Court race in Wisconsin that costs, you know, I've heard estimates up to $80 million, $50 million officially. That is the place that we have been brought by the work that Leo and, you know, the people that he's sort of harnessed and worked with have brought to us. Yeah, they built like a baseball farm system that just didn't exist, it seems. you know, the people that he's sort of harnessed and worked with have brought to us. Yeah, they built like a baseball farm system that just didn't exist, it seems. So, I mean, these donors to the Federalist Society, to Leonard Leo, I'm guessing they're not doing this out of the goodness of their own hearts. You looked at whether judges put forward by Leo or the Federalist Society may have have been able to provide a financial benefit

through their rulings to some of these donors. Can you talk about that? So it's obviously impossible to say with certainty. But one of the things that we know, sort of Leonard Leo from all of our reporting and back to high school was fiercely anti-abortion and was a real moral conservative, but understood pretty early on that the moral conservatives and the economic conservatives had to work together. So he began working with donors like Paul Singer, the hedge fund magnate, like Harlan Crowe, the real estate magnate, like Robin Arkley, who is a very shorthanded California mortgage magnate. like Robin Arkley, who is a very shorthanded California mortgage magnate. And these are the people that he set up with these trips with the justices. So, for example, when Sam Alito went on a fishing trip in Alaska, he went on a fishing trip with Paul Singer and with Robin Arkley.

And it was Leonard Leo that brought all these people together. They didn't all know each other before this fishing trip. So here's Leonard Leo, and he sets up these trips, and it's tremendous access for these donors who then give to these sort of moral conservative causes that Leonard Leo cares about, and it's this machine. Samuel Alito has said there's no influence. Clarence Thomas has said there's no influence. But therece Thomas has said there's no influence. But there is a system where these very wealthy people through Leonard Leo can do something

like have a dinner or sit around a campfire or have a drink with a Supreme Court justice. And it sort of circles back to the ethics code that we were talking about. They have an access that most people don't. talking about. They have an access that most people don't. So you take the money of the economic conservatives and you harness it to the fervor of the moral conservatives. And that is how, from their perspective, they get what they want. And they've been so effective. Yeah. Well, and also for some of these big donors, be it a Paul Singer, be it a Harlan Crowe, some of these big donors, be it a Paul Singer, be it a Harlan Crowe. I mean, look, if you can do things to elect a bunch of Republicans, odds are down the road, they'll try to pass a big tax cut that will benefit you. But it also does seem like some of these donors had issues before the

court. Like, for example, Paul Singer, I think, was trying to make a ton of money off of Argentina, off their sovereign debt, right? And that case reached the Supreme Court as he was building a relationship with some of these justices. Am I summarizing that correctly? Yeah, I mean, that's exactly right. I mean, he went on this fishing trip with Justice Samuel Alito. And, you know, they became friendly as manifested by, you know, public speeches. I mean, there's this one dinner that we have at the Manhattan Institute, where Paul Singer has been on the board for many, many years as a conservative think tank. And he's introducing Justice Alito, and you can just sort of see the warmth and the friendship.

He had, not him personally, but his company had a stake in a case that went all the way up to the Supreme Court about Argentinian debt. And, you know, Alito's response has been, well, I didn't know it was Paul Singer, even though it was widely reported at the time. But, you know, that is what you have. I mean, it was a 7-2 decision. It wasn't like it was the deciding vote. But I think, you know, all of us who've sort of worked and covered and paid attention to politics for years understand the way it works, which is it's not nobody's, you know, going around saying, I'll give you this if you give me that. But by the closeness, you can, you know, convey a set about personal relationships. We're all human beings. If someone's mean to you, you won't like them. If they're nice to you, you will. I think all of these justices, for example, we all saw this firsthand at Brett Kavanaugh's hearing when he had a meltdown and talked about punishing his enemies, right? Like, these guys end up feeling like everyone is against them. There's this vast, you know, sort of left wing group of monsters like us who are trying to attack them. And then there's people like, you know, Paul Singer or Harlan Crowe or Leonard Leo who've

got their backs, right? And I think that's an incredibly meaningful feeling when you're making a ruling down the road. Yeah. And I mean, I think one of the things that's so interesting is, you know, from the beginning of Leonard Leo's career, you know, when he was very young, from the beginning of Leonard Leo's career, when he was very young, he felt aggrieved. He felt like the left is winning and we conservatives need to stand up for ourselves. And early on with the Federalist Society, there might have been some truth to that. So fascinating to me is that there's a speech that Leo gave just a year ago in Washington at the Catholic Information Center, where he talks about barbarians at the gates. And even though by then he has his $1.6 billion that he entirely controls, he has six members of the U.S. Supreme Court that he personally has been involved with.

And he has won something that was a huge goal of his, which was to overturn the constitutional right to an abortion. But even with all of that, he expresses aggrievement. And that is, you know, what, one of the reasons why we wanted this podcast, because he is somebody that clearly doesn't think his work is done. And it is very much ongoing. Yeah, there's a real apocalyptic tone to it all. So listen, listening to your series, talking to you now, it makes me think about an old Hillary Clinton line about a vast right wing conspiracy. You know, that these donors, the judges, the Federalist Society, they're all kind of bound together here. And then but the

opening scene to your series is at a party that really drove that home and made me think maybe there really is a conspiracy. Can you tell us a little bit about that party, where it was, who was there? Yeah. So Leonard Leo spent a lot of his life around, professional life around Washington, D.C., living in McLean, Virginia. But during the pandemic, he moved to Bar Harbor, Maine. And quite a few of his neighbors in Bar Harbor started paying attention to Leonard Leo. In June of 2022, the night before the Dobbs decision, they noticed a U.S. Coast Guard boat outside of Leonard Leo's house protecting a party, a party with a big white tent and, you know, lights. And we thought, huh, that's interesting. What were they celebrating?

So we did a lot of reporting. We scoured the internet. We filed freedom of information requests. We went to the U.S. Marshal Service, to the Coast Guard. What was that? And basically, what we found out at the end of the day was this was a party for some two dozen federal and state judges, very conservative judges, many of whom owed their careers or could owe career advancement to Leonard Leo. And they were having this lavish party with champagne and deconstructed seafood chowder and a tasting of American rare whiskeys. And they had come to Bar Harbor for a consortium that had been put on by George Mason University. But there was this party, this private party at Leonard Leo's house, where there were U.S. marshals wearing earpieces, Coast Guard. And to us, all of this was just showed the sort of power that Leo had drawn. And not only was he the host of this party, but he was there with three judges who were just one

level down from the US Supreme Court. But everybody at the party, according to people who described it to us, wanted to talk to Leonard Leo because they understood that he was the power person. And this is something that is widely understood among members of the judiciary. I mean, one of the things that surprised me was so many current and former state justices spoke to me, some, you know, of both parties. And there were many Republicans who said, you know, we were told, talk to Leonard Leo. If you want to advance your career, go to Federalist Society events. So this is something that judges and justices have come to understand. Again, remind me what news broke the day after this party. So the next morning, 10 a.m., it's official. The right to an abortion is overturned.

10 a.m., it's official. The right to an abortion is overturned. This is a lifelong goal of Leonard Leo's. His high school best friend told us that he had been working on this in high school and getting into raucous arguments with his classmates. So this group of conservative judges and justices has a party at Leonard Leo's house, and the next day, the right to abortion is withdrawn. On the eve of one of the most monumental Supreme Court decisions in decades, Leonard Leo has a party with a bunch of his most conservative judge buddies. Yeah. Interesting. You can hear all about it. It is, as you say, the opening to the podcast. And it's a symbol to us of

the machine that Leo has built. And honestly, you guys do such a great job of setting the scene. We learn about the sommelier, the wines that are being served. It's some damn good reporting on radio. Yes, we got the dinner, the menu, pursuant to a freedom of information request. That's so great. I love investigative reporters. They'll just fucking go and go and go until you got it all.

Okay, last question for you. I bet there's some people listening, feeling very sad and very depressed, knowing that there's this massive ecosystem and structure on the right to put forward all these judges. And they're wondering if there's anything equivalent on the left. Well, one of the things that we look at at the end of the podcast is the pushback. The race in Wisconsin that we were talking about, you know, certainly was a big, big, big mobilization. But, you know, I mean, when I talked to, you know, and there are some, there are two former Republican appointees on state Supreme Courts that are, you know, in the podcast that you can hear. And when I talked to them about

it, I mean, they're concerned, because I mean, you know, they don't want to sugarcoat it. They say the way that people look at the judiciary, beginning with the state Supreme Courts, is as super legislators, is as people to ratify the decisions of legislatures. And in states like Wisconsin and North Carolina, where the electorate, as you know, is roughly 50-50, but their state legislatures have these huge Republican majorities, because of gerrymandering, that Republican courts have backed up. So, you know, what has happened is there's this huge arms race, and the system is broken. And there is no easy fix. The fix isn't simply just pouring more money into it, because what ends up happening is that people don't trust judges. And the idea of the judiciary as an independent branch is slowly crumbling. Now, I mean, there's a lot of reasons for that. And, you know, the former president is a very big one. But it is not an encouraging trend to see the judiciaries and the state judiciaries being controlled in this way. Well, listen, I do think one part of the solution, frankly, is for a long time, coverage of the courts, especially the Supreme Court, was a little bit too chummy, a little bit too credulous, and needed to be a bit more adversarial. And so I want to say thank you to you. Thank you to the team at ProPublica

for doing unbelievable, long-term, brutally difficult investigative work to get some answers for all of us. And the podcast is We Don't Talk About Leonard. I cannot recommend it enough. If you want to understand how money in Washington works, if you want to understand how the right wing has packed the courts full of judges,

it's just incredibly well done. So Andrea Bernstein, thank you so much for joining the show. Thank you. It's really great to talk to you. Lovett, do you have something planned for us turkeys? Earlier today, President Biden issued pardons to two turkeys, Liberty and Bell, though he did refer to one as Kamala several times. In honor of this annual tradition, we'll be pardoning turkeys of our own. We each will draw a political turkey and make a case for why they should be pardoned. Pardoned legally, pardoned socially, pardoned by God, whatever you want. Could someone please bring me Brian's Babadook hat, which contains the names of said turkeys?

Thank you, Farrah. Thank you. Okay. All right. Since Tommy is remote, I will draw for you. John, why don't you kick us you. Okay. All right. Since Tommy is remote, I will draw for you. John, why don't you kick us off? Great. All right.

Mike Johnson. Oh, that's a good one. Oof. I just have to pardon him. You just have to, yeah, express some reason why he deserves pardon. Just pardon him. He deserves pardon because he has been very good all year as his Covenant Eyes app has told his son. Yeah.

He hasn't been looking at any porn all year because his son's been his accountability partner and he's been good so he gets a pardon. Not a jerk, you're saying. Not a jerk. Not a jerk. Yeah, there's no jerks around. thing not a jerk not a jerk yeah there's no jerks around unless he's got unless he's got a burner phone like a mobster which i wouldn't be surprised by given he also has no bank accounts stroke of genius tommy that's nice that was good we had the president on this show recently all right maybe for the last time tommy i'm drawing for you thank you lauren beetlejuice

groper bobert oh you know what she's just a human being going through a divorce doing the best she can she just absolutely deserves a pardon the media kind of comes down too hard on uh uh women in politics in particular and she deserves a reprieve wow okay actually coming down too hard is what got her into this mess in the first place. Hashtag, I'm with her over here. Yeah, look at this guy. Break that highest, hardest glass ceiling. If you look at all the terrible things members of Congress have done, that is just like the lowest one on my list.

Oh, yeah. Totally. Totally. Very entertaining. Except the, do you know who I am? That's the worst part. Yeah. The groping fine.

No heroes ever said, you know who I am. All right. part yeah no the groping fine no heroes ever said you know i am all right i'm choosing i'm choosing jim jordan yuck um here's what i'll say about jim jordan jim jordan is so unable to not be an asshole that a bunch of people wanted Jim Jordan kind of in a disguise who wasn't as loud and had good manners to be speaker of the house. And it literally created Mike Johnson from scratch. Like Jim Jordan being so shitty as a person being so unabashedly gross that he can't hide it. I respect that. I respect that way of being. Oh, you know, that went a few different, that went a few different directions. Well, I don't know how to defend Jim Jordan.

He sucks in every way. All right, John, you go again. Oh, boy. Chris Christie. Oh, come on. Hey, he gets a pardon because you know what? He turned over a new leaf this year. Yeah.

And decided to go after Donald Trump. Once. And he made it through an interview with John Lovett. Doesn't matter when you got woke. Pardon. You know? Right. Took him a while to wake up.

All right, let's do Tommy next. Open AI head Sam Altman. Does he deserve a pardon? I read a New Yorker profile of him from about five years ago where he talked about being uh this guy fucking tommy in the stacks looking at microfiche five years ago he talked about in this profile being a doomsday prepper because of his fear of ai and then he went on to start uh an ai non-profit which he converted into an ai for profit which

he got pushed out of then he went to microsoft so i guess i'm just sort of making the point that he's the biggest hypocrite in the history of the world and you know like sometimes the superlatives um get a break from us you know he's the number one hypocrite in my book oh yeah he gets a top guy okay you got it you got some of these answers are a little bit like uh from all of us uh he cares too much yeah cares too much about ai all right here we go i'm going the q anon shaman who is now running as a libertarian in arizona i think here's what i'll say look you can fight from the outside for as long as you want but if you want to kill mike pence sometimes change has to come from within

my god you gotta pass a fucking law you can't just do you can't do that as just a protester you gotta actually get in there and get into the nuts and bolts of changing laws because you can't you know he's working inside the system now. I think that's a good, what? I was going to say, the best case for his pardon is. He served his time. Recidivism. Now he wants rehabilitation.

Absolutely. I'm sure his platform is going to be very progressive. Why don't we just wait and see? Yeah, why don't we wait and see? Why don't we wait and see? All right. How many of these are we going to do? I don't know. You finish see yeah why don't we wait and see all right how many of these we're gonna do the last one you finish us up you finish it sam bankman freed okay great why does he get a pardon um i don't know 100 years seems like a long time yeah yeah it's 100 years yeah that's too long that seems like i mean i think that's it could

be up we haven't had sentencing yet, but. I got an easy one for you. He gave a lot of money to the Democratic Party. Yeah. What are we, Bob Menendez now? Yeah. So he gets a pardon. Gold bars.

That's how it works. It's cleared. We didn't know. It was, you know, we didn't know. We didn't know. I'll see if we'll see one another. Want to do one more for the road? One more for the road.

Will and or Jada Smith. Oh. Well, you know what? I pardon them. I hope they find whatever happiness they're looking for. And I hope they find it offline. Yes. I want them to be happy, and I want whatever psychosexual drama is unfolding inside of that house to stay inside.

Keep it inside. It seems important. You seem like you genuinely love and hate each other and i get that and so like keep that just keep that in there keep that in there you know keep it all in there all right well we need a break so so we will everyone have a wonderful thanks have a great thanksgiving boys. Thank you, Andrea Bernstein, for joining this pod. You couldn't have known what the rest of it would sound like, so that's tough for you. And we'll see you after Thanksgiving. Hey, thanks to you both.

I'm thankful for all of you. All of you in the studio, all of you on the Zoom. Every one of you listeners. All right, feel better, Tommy. Thanks, guys. Hot Save America is a Crooked Media production. Our producers are Olivia Martinez and David Toledo. Our associate producer is Farrah Safari.

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