Pod Save America - Printer? I Hardly Know Her!

Episode Date: August 18, 2026

Jon Ossoff attacks Trump for sidestepping his duties to "travel with Natalie," the White House aide known as Trump's "Human Printer," who has a suspiciously close relationship to the president. Jon, Tommy, and Lovett discuss the new line of attack and the president's response, the end of the 60-day cease-fire agreement with Iran, Trump's decision to scale back joint military exercises with South Korea, and his reaction to the horrible conditions aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln. Then, they check in on the fight to take back the Senate, Ken Paxton stealing a $1,000 pen, Mary Peltola rejecting Kamala Harris's endorsement, and a new poll in Michigan that has Abdul El-Sayed down four points to Mike Rogers. Then, Brian Poindexter, a union ironworker, talks to Tommy about his campaign to unseat disgraced congressman Max Miller of Ohio.Hate listening to ads? Become a Friends of the Pod subscriber for ad-free episodes of Pod Save America, Pod Save the World, Lovett or Leave It, Runaway Country, Offline with Jon Favreau, and more—plus exclusive content, including bonus episodes of Pod Save America. Subscribe now at crooked.com/friends, on Apple Podcasts, or through the Pod Save America YouTube channel.You can request a transcript by emailing [e-mail]. Include the podcast name, episode title, and air date. Please allow 48 hours for delivery.

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right in our show name in the How Did You Hear About a Survey to let them know we sent you, don't forget, there's no safe like Simply Safe. Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm John Fabra. I'm John Lovett. Tommy Vitor. On today's show, the Iran ceasefire officially expires just in time for Iran to potentially escalate the war. We'll talk about Trump's strategy of doing nothing, his decision to take out his frustration on South Korea, and his reaction to John Ossoff saying that all the president wants to do is, quote, travel with Natalie. We'll also check in on the Senate map,

specifically why Mary Paltola rejected Kamala Harris's endorsement, and whether a stolen pen might help flip Texas. Then Tommy talks to Brian Poindexter, the union iron worker taking on Max Miller in Ohio. Before we start, just a reminder, if you haven't subscribed already, please consider subscribing to become a friend of the pod. You get ad-free episodes of this show and all your favorite cricket shows. Ad-free.

Plus, you get a whole bunch of subscriber-only shows, like our secret extra episode of Pod Save America, called Only Friends and Polarcoaster with Dan Pfeiffer and terminally online. You get access to a bunch of great substack newsletters, and, you know, you get to support independent pro-democracy media. So, cricket.com slash friends. Go subscribe if you haven't already. Let's get to the news. August 17th is Love at's birthday. And the day that the MOU of Versailles officially died.

Happy 50th, man. Boy. Yes. It's a big one. You don't look at a day over 48. Oh, nice. Thank you guys. This lighthearted ribbing.

That's what friendship's all about here on my birthday. Now it's going to be in the history books. I ate a cupcake over the sink this morning for coming into work. Why did you do that? Because it's Monday. And it's your birthday. Why did you just bring it in? What? I put a candle in it. Okay. That's nice.

Was Ari there at least singing as well? Or just you? Did Pandic? Friends brought over your cupcakes yesterday. Okay. I just ate a leftover one on the sink in a shameful way to celebrate the day. That's all. Nothing wrong with that. Nothing wrong with that at all.

It sounds tasty. Okay. Well, happy birthday. Thank you. So the MOU died, but it never really lived. The 60-day ceasefire agreement between the U.S. and Iran wasn't much of a ceasefire. In fact, five Americans were killed during that time, and it led to zero diplomatic progress on opening the Strait of Hormuz, or the fate of Iran's nuclear program. The Wall Street Journal has a big story about how intercepted communications

show that Iran actually used the last two months to prepare for a bigger, longer war, including churning out more missiles and drones. Trump has used the period to pretend the war wasn't happening. And on Monday, he said that he's not in a hurry to end it, that Iran should raise, quote, the white flag of surrender. And he told Fox News that he's considering bombing the shit out of

Oman if they get in the way. He expanded on all this during a press of ale in the Oval on Monday. Last week, you said that you would soon declare the straight of four moves to be a territory of the United States. Could you elaborate? Well, I just think it's a great idea. Yeah. I mean, we control it. We control it with the block A.

We have a blockade. We control it with a blockade. And I like the idea of declaring it a territory. We have total control over the street. Now, they can be a nuisance. They can put a mine in the water and people don't like having mines hit their billion-dollar ships, you know, etc. This morning you said you would bomb the S out of Oman if they got in the way of reopening the Strait of Hormuz. Would you say you're out of patience with Oman, a strategic market? No, I don't think they behaved very well, but we'd handle them very easily, just like we'd do. Corrects me if I'm wrong here. Didn't the MOU sort of set out that Oman was going to help mediate talks with Iran about opening the straight? I think Qatar was the mediator, but Oman is who he's, the Iranians and Omanis have been negotiating a deal where they basically control the Strait of Hormuz and charge fees. So apparently that's why he's mad at them.

Weren't they, aren't we, aren't we allies with them in some ways? Yeah, we don't, we shouldn't be bombing them. That's what I was wondering. Yeah, no, we don't want to bomb them. Yeah, they're sort of, you know, Amman is like, ugh, we can't deal with these despotic, irrational, religious authoritarian zealots, so we'll have to just deal with Iran instead.

So I think most of us had forgotten that the MOU even existed. Seems like there's a pretty concerning gap between Iran's strategic thinking and what an Atlantic piece the other day called Trump's New Strategy of Nothing. Tell me, what do you think about where we are right now? That journal piece was interesting because it just got at the fact that the Iranians had a strategy. They had a plan for those two months.

They don't trust Trump. They don't trust them for good reason because he pulled out of the JCPOA and because the U.S. and Israel kept bombing them during talks. So they installed a bunch of hardliners, increased their military capacity, had conversation with proxy groups and prepared them for more fighting while we did fuck. all. So Trump just has no path forward. He knows if he restarts the war, it'll cost him politically. There's no way to bomb your way to victory here. He is completely stuck.

So he just does these press avails where they get increasingly ridiculous. Like now we're going to declare it a U.S. territory, like the Gulf of America, we're back to that kind of path forward. And as a way to pretend that we control it when we don't. It's also interesting that he always, he talks about the naval blockade as if that's what keeps, is keeping the straight open, even though the straight is not open and we don't control it, but he's somehow, he's somehow trying to confuse people by saying that the naval blockade that we have of Iran is what it means that we control the straight. He just doesn't want to deal with it.

He doesn't want to deal with it because he doesn't like, there's no, he doesn't like his options. He doesn't like the option of escalation. He doesn't like the option of accepting a deal that's worse than the Obama era deal, if that's even on the table at this point. So he just wants everyone to stop talking about it. And when it comes up, oh, that, we're in control of it and we won and it's good and they lost and they're crazy, but we'll see. And then on to the next topic. Like, there's no strategy. He just doesn't want to deal with it. He wants to focus on the ballroom. I thought the journal story was interesting too because I think we've been talking for a while about how this could just end up being like, you know, Iran just keeps controlling the straight

and we all just kind of muddle along and Trump doesn't know what to do. But it sounds like they, like they were talking about the various ways they could escalate the war and what they're thinking about, preemptive strikes, sabotage of undersea internet cables in the Gulf, stirring unrest in Kuwait and possibly ground operations in Kuwait. What the Iranians want to avoid is a scenario where every six to 12 months the U.S. or Israel bombs them, you know, whether it's regime change, decapitation strikes, you know, hitting their missile sites, hitting their oil and gas infrastructure. They want to increase the cost so that the U.S. and Israel think twice about doing this. And the strategy they've hit on for doing that has been pretty smart,

which is bombing all these U.S. military installations in countries like Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and increasing the cost not only for us, but for those other countries in the Gulf. And, you know, they've executed it pretty well, and it seems to have been pretty effective. And so you're seeing, like, the Emirates seem to be cutting side deals with the Iranians to create an off-ramp. And I think others are pretty soon going to be looking to do the same thing. because like they don't want to, they don't want to nonstop constant war. I mean, a Tehran defense analyst close to the government, the regime in Iran, told the journal that the main war in the Iranian view has not yet begun.

So that's something to look forward to, huh? The other part of it too is having U.S. bases, having the U.S. military present, was meant to be kind of a bulwark or defense. Like, look at how, look at the security provided by Americans being on our soil. but now it's been the opposite. It's trying all these attacks. And then, you know, oh, but the U.S. is our partner, but it's a completely unreliable partner, Oman.

We have trade agreement with, and we're threatening to bomb them off the face of the earth. For reasons we can't quite understand. Yeah, the only, I understand why Iran would want to signal that they'd be willing to escalate. But I can't imagine they're particularly unhappy with a status quo that looks like this either. Yeah, I mean, I think it's deterrence.

I think they're probably to prevent getting attacked together. But like, we just have to remember, the Iran-Iraq war lasted for eight years. And it was like grueling and, you know, millions of people died. And the Iranians, they live there. That's where their country is located. It's on the straight of four moves. Like, they know that Trump is going to give up and move on and get distracted and do something else. And they're not going to.

And so that's just, you know, they think they're playing for time. Well, here's one thing that's distracting him. the biggest news out of the Oval Office event was Trump confirming that he ordered the Pentagon to scale back joint military exercises with South Korea, which were scheduled to start on Monday. In a truth social post on Sunday, Trump said

he thought the exercises were too expensive and a danger to, quote, his very good relationship with Kim Jong-un. In the Oval on Monday, he hinted that he's spoken to Kim in the last couple of days and made it clear why he's really pissed at South Korea. When I called recently the president of South Korea, who I like,

I think he's very nice actually. But I called him, I said, would you like to give us a little hand? We don't need help with Iran. But if you'd like, give us a hand with Iran. He said, no thanks. And I said, where do we have? We have 39,000 soldiers over there guarding you from Kim Jong-un, your next-door neighbor. And you're not going to help us on a very easy military operation in Iran. We can't go around and protect all of these countries. especially when they're not there to help us. Tommy, can you explain what's going on with the joint exercises and whether this is a big deal? So we have a lot of troops on the Korean Peninsula is 28,500, and have had a mutual defense

treaty in place with the Korean since like the 1950s. And so we do these annual exercises. It's actually two, there's one in the spring and the one in the late summer. And they are basically drills to deal with the threat from North Korea. And they've been described to me by experts is actually pretty important because there's a lot of turnover, especially in the South Korean military. And so you need to have people like have some experience doing these things. And also battlefield tactics are constantly changing.

The North Koreans just set a bunch of troops to the front in Ukraine to fight on behalf of Russia. And so they're learning how to use drones and electronic warfare and all these sort of modern systems and tools that you need to just understand. So the North Koreans understandably, I think, hate these drills because they view it as a pretext to some sort of invasion of their country. And that's kind of been the status quo. And so something triggered Trump over the weekend. I don't know what it was because he tweeted a photo of himself with Kim Jong-un out of nowhere, as one does. And then the next day he said he put out this post about wanting to scale down the exercises, but put out the statement like as the exercises were about to start.

So to the extent you're scaling them down, I don't think you're saving a lot of money because like the military hardware is going to be in place. The message, as you said, was basically like, if you won't help us with our little non-proliferation problem, We won't help you with your little nuclear weapons problem on the Korean Peninsula. I don't think that is a particularly rational way forward, but it's, you know, Trump and it's filled with peak. He also said that the North Koreans had been respectful. They're unthreatening and respectful. This came a couple days after the North Koreans fired a ballistic missile off into the ocean. Couple times.

And they're like second test in under a week. Yeah, they've done like, I think, 11 or 16 of them this year. So it's, you know, not the most respectful move. and Kim Jong-un's position when it comes to resuming talks with the United States with Trump is that we first have to recognize them as a nuclear state. So that's a pretty strident position in my view. So again, I think it's like a combination of this old hobby horse where he doesn't know why we, you know, have troops in the Korean Peninsula. He doesn't think it's worth the cost.

Plus, he's bitchy that South Korea didn't help us with this stupid war with Iran. And now maybe it's an effort to get diplomacy going with the North Koreans, although I don't know why. He also said in that Oval that Kim had gotten back to him. Yeah. He implied it. No, he finally did outright say, I, yeah, yes. But he did one of these little teasing pauses first, right? Yeah, like, it's very, well, they won't they?

Talk about, like, you know, Iran has some kind of a strategy. Like, the U.S. is now involved itself in this newest quagmire in the Middle East, if the president were focused on the U.S. and its long-term strategic imperatives. And that was his main goal. And all that was on his mind was the good of the United States. the country over time and our allies, you might want to signal something like what is happening in the Middle East has absolutely no bearing on our ability to protect our allies in Asia, right? That we are able to wage whatever war we're waging against Iran while maintaining

protection for South Korea, while protecting Taiwan, while continuing to kind of perform the role that the U.S. performs as a kind of defense against. against sort of Chinese aggression. That would be something that a traditional foreign policy of either administration would signal, right? But instead, he's like, oh, because of the war in Iran, our relationship with South Korea is worse than ever. We are less likely to protect them, right?

And oh, because we got this ship out there for so long, we're going to take another ship that's in the Pacific and we're going to send that over to Iran because we actually are going to tie these two conflicts together that makes us weaker in both places. Terrific. I think that's great. Yeah, and that's... I don't want any more microchips from Taiwan anyway.

I'm all upset. So the poor Koreans are suffering because of the war in Iran because they get like 60, 70 percent of their oil through the Strait of Hormuz. So we're screwing over all these countries in Asia to begin with. It's also like, how could you not help us in this war that we decided to launch on our own? Without telling you. Without telling you for no good reason. And it has accomplished absolutely nothing but has hurt the rest of the world. Especially you.

And by the way, where I said even in this sentence, we don't need your help. It's like, it's like, you know, Korea's. coming over for dinner and like Trump's like you don't need to bring a thing where's the fucking wine. So as you mentioned, the Navy pulled its last carrier out of Asia to relieve the USS Abraham Lincoln, which he was also asked about in the Oval. This is the aircraft carrier that's been in the Middle East since November and the conditions have been so horrible.

There was also reports that at least two sailors tried to take their own lives by jumping overboard. when asked on Friday whether the deployment had gone on too long Trump said, no, no, no, not nearly long enough. Here's how we responded on Monday in the Oval. There are enough food on the USS Lincoln. Yeah, it is. That was a CNN fake report.

The Lincoln has been out there for a period of time, good period of time, but over the years we've had them out there much longer. I was at a group meeting in an ad. Fake news story. So Pete Hagsath said the situation had been completely misrepresented. In the commander of CENTCOM, Admiral Brad Cooper,

visited the ship over the weekend and wrote in the Wall Street Journal that the stories about shortages of food and water were old news and had been addressed. Which is a different statement. Very much so. So it seems pretty clear they're in damage control mode here. What do you guys think about this story? How bad is this for them? Love it.

Having a ship full of people. people slowly losing their mind because they're on one of the longest deployments ever. I think now maybe the longest deployment ever of a ship like this. They're going for the record set by the Gerald R. Ford in 326 days in Vietnam. So we're getting close. They're so close. So close, yeah, sort of a worthy record to beat. And it matters that it's not a war that was approved by Congress, that the majority of the country

wishes we weren't fighting, that has no real goal, that has no sign. of ending. One thing, if it was a grateful nation asking these service members to sacrifice on behalf of a cause that we all collectively endorsed, sort of a grave decision to send people there for months on end. But that's not what happened. And they know that, right? The people on the ship are aware of the fact that this is unpopular. They don't know why the fuck they're there. And it's awful. And then you have Heggseth caring more about the press and Trump pretending it's not happening. disgraceful and Trump has never had a lot of respect for people who serve in the military. Sometimes he pretends to, but he finds the whole thing a bit embarrassing and confusing.

I think he finds the idea of people sacrificing themselves and giving something of themselves without ego, showing discipline and a sense of purpose and mission, kind of embarrassing to him because he's never experienced those feelings. And it comes out over and over and over again. So the Lincoln's been at sea more than 250 days, but no port call. in 200 days, I think, because the Iranians hit the base they would have used in Bahrain, so they've had to just be out at sea. They've had two days off, I guess.

Two days they've been at call. Yeah, and so, and that was on the way out there. And they've had food shortages, the plumbing's all messed up. They're having mental health issues. And the jobs on that flight deck are incredibly dangerous. I mean, they've flown something like 10,000 sorties, I think, off of the deck of that ship. And, you know, imagine you're on the flight deck of an aircraft carrier. There's jets buzzing in.

There's airplanes. There's rotors, right? Like, you're doing this for weeks at a time with no days off. It's very risky. And, like, then you hear the Secretary of Defense lie and just say, nah, there's no issues on that boat. And then you go down to, like, wait in that 15-minute line, use the bathroom, and you see mold everywhere.

And then you hear President Trump say, no, no, the deployments aren't too long. They should be longer. They're not long enough. So, like, politically, this probably won't be all that damaging. like big picture, but it is one of the hidden costs of the war that people aren't talking about. And for the sailors on that ship and for their families and for the people who actually understand what's going on, to have your presidents, like, belittle your service like that, to have the

Secretary of Defense just lie about the conditions you're living in. It's really messed up, you know, and these guys can't even call home half the time for operational security reasons. There's isolated on the ship. And it is a lie that they're telling. And we know that because the sailors and Marines have, you know, anonymously because they don't want to get in trouble, have been complaining about this. And, you know, Tapper, Jake Tapper on CNN was talking to the wife of one of the service

members who had to listen to the president say that and listen to HECS say that. And she was like, they can't show some empathy at all for this. She's like, just take some accountability for what's going on with your military, your ships and your war. It's your war. It's infuriating. Care packages aren't getting there in time. They can't get toilet trees on the boat.

It's just like, it's inexcusable. And you're right. the lying is the worst part of all of it. Pod Save America is brought you by Act Blue if you're listening to this podcast. We don't have to tell you how high the stakes are in the midterms and in 2028. Act Blue is the platform that has powered Democratic campaigns for over two decades, giving candidates up and down the ballot. The tools they need to fundraise, organize, build an online presence and win.

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more on Sunday. And while the sailors on the Lincoln fight his war, while he fruitlessly drains our munitions and oil reserves, the president sleeps through his meetings. He golfs and trades stocks. See, he doesn't want to do the job. He wants to build his ballroom and travel with Natalie on their apparently defenseless flying palace gifted by the Emir of Qatar. So Natalie, of course, refers to White House aide Natalie Harp, known as the human printer, who was chosen over several cabinet officials to join Trump in the catering cart on the way to the secret flight home. for their book Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan also got their hands on quote raw emotional letters that harp had been leaving in Trump's private spaces including one that read quote

you are all that matters to me notes that reportedly alarmed the secret service according to Maggie who boy that's why they had to switch planes yeah so what do you guys think of oshaff mentioning her by name because it made news you know he's obviously like a alluding to the rumor that this is more than a president staffer relationship, there might be something romantic going on, that you might be having an affair. It made news, it went viral. I think there's a question of whether it might kick up media coverage of these allegations now in a way that is frustrating to the White House.

You can tell it really, really pissed off the White House staff because Stephen Schum, the communications director put out some unhinged statement. then the called him John Jackoff Got him Got him Then the rapid response

47 account Which is like The White House Rapid Response Account went after the journalist Who asked about the quote From CNN

So they are Attacking everybody At the moment This is what they They tweeted The White House rapid Response account At Kristen Holmes

Someday your children Will come across Your Disgusting And Humane Question They will be sickened and embarrassed To have a parent

Be so callous and vindictive. It's quite troubling. Boy, I just, I just, I just, I'm just sad to hear that she's going to allow her kids to have so much screen time. And also it's sort of a thrilling idea to imagine our kids having electricity. The, uh, there, I saw like Scott Jennings trying to care doing this suite of like, uh, what do you say to young women working in politics? Yeah, they're trying to, the, the, the mega people are trying to say it's sexist. Yeah. I mean, I just say, any young women thinking about politics, don't. fuck Donald Trump as a rule, but also, and in fairness, right, we have...

Not that we know that that's happening. Of course not. Of course not. And just in fairness, like, that's obviously the rumor that everyone's talking about. But nobody's suggesting that Trump is trying to have sex with Dan Skavino, who was also in the cart. Right? Was he? Oh, yeah.

Yes, Galda. Nauta, too of the old tools. Yeah. In the Mar-a-Lago paper. So, yeah, like, I don't, who knows? Or Pete Higgs-eth. Or, well, Pete Higgs-th wasn't in the cart. He was on the secret plane.

He was on the secret plane. And who knows what they're doing? Yeah. Look, the letters are like, whatever. People want to insinuate a romantic relationship. Like, the letters are embarrassing and gross enough. The fact that she is called the human printer because she just sort of takes this dictation,

the kind of worshipping praise she's heaped upon Donald Trump is really, I think, you know, is plenty beyond just the sort of the rumors. But I do think, like, the amount of shit that, like, the amount of, like, Scott Jennings says, What are you going to say to young women who want to work in politics in that press conference that we just had it on our office just a normal day It won't even be covered. It's so like normal and expected now He just sort of lit into a CNN reporter like stop yelling stop talking be quiet just like sort of directed at this woman like he is this endlessly Disgusting and sexist. So like oh what would I what would you say to young women because of this insinuation?

Like Donald Trump is a misogynist. He's a sexist. He's disgusting and that That will be the great shame of this era for any woman associated with him, any man associated with him. He led into that reporter in the most condescending sexist way in front of a 16-year-old lifeguard. Yeah. Who was his guest in the office? And then turned to the lifeguard. It was like, don't you agree? Yeah, don't get into it.

Can you believe these people? They get it. These lifeguards get it. This kid's like, I want to go home. This is the worst. No, yeah. He's drowning in there. You don't even have to do the, like, what about how bad he is to women either on this?

It's like there were, like, obviously we know. why Azov included the word Natalie there, but there were like a million ways he could have done that that could have been fairly characterized as like cheap, cheesy, resist lib, blue maga bullshit, you know? And the point he was making is that, first of all, anyone who watched the clip, it's not like you just get Asoff insinuating something. You get this image of Trump who like is a buffoon who like bungled his way into a war that we're all dealing with and paying for while he is. is corrupt as hell, not wanting to do his job, and just hang out, right? Right. And then Natalie gets inserted in that whole story. But, like, she wrote that letter that said, you mean you're all that matters to me.

The Secret Service is alarmed. Trump himself has said, according to Maggie and Jonathan in their book, that she will never leave me. After all of you will leave at some point and go on and make money, and she loves me as much as my wife and children and she will never leave me. When you have all that out there and he says, yeah, all he wants to do, was travel with Natalie, I think that's fair. Yeah, it's reasonable. That's all he said. It's not, not weird.

It's just the facts as we know of them. And Matt, again, apply all those facts to Barack Obama or Joe Biden or anyone else in the White House. Yeah, Joe Biden would kill to have someone that loyal. Yeah, no, I said it all leaking about how old he was. I'm sure Scott Jennings was very upset about allegations of infidelity about Bill Clinton or previous Democrat presidents. Right, yeah.

Yeah, you don't want to insinuate anything after she's leaving him notes in private spaces that say you're all that matters to me. By the way, like, maybe it is just, like, I have no one of us knows. And like, I don't, I don't even care that much. It's just creepy. In that case, he does just want to travel with Natalie. Yeah. Maybe he just likes having a sycophantic pretty young woman around him all the time who sends him

worshipful letters. Yeah. And he takes her on the catering cart with him. Yeah. Maybe she was hungry. Yep. There's a third plane where you just get to avoid the consequences of all your bad decisions. That's a catering card.

That's where we go. Start a war, go to plane number three. Yeah, honestly, the mistake in Oshoff's statement there was saying, all they want to do is fly on the defenseless plane gifted by the Emir of Qatar, because that wasn't the plane they went on either. You might say that a second plane has hit the Trump administration's scandals, in a sense. You know? And you think about it.

You may want to say that. You may want to say that. You may want to say that. Trump was actually asked about Oshoff's comments. in the Oval on Monday, and here's how we handled it. If you'd rather travel with your aid, Natalie Hart, and build the ballroom than do your job as president? What is your response, John Aza?

You mean Peewee Herman? Peewee Herman, look alike? No, I would much rather do other things. We're building a great facility here. We have President and she coming on September 24th or so. I think it's September 24th. And we'd love to have 2,000 people come to dinner and celebrating a nice evening, et cetera, et cetera, but we only have a room that's going

to hold 89 people, and 89 people is not appropriate. So maybe more importantly, it's totally secure with bulletproof windows, bulletproof sides, it's drone proof, it's missile, every at the top of the line. And we need it, and especially with what's happened, unfortunately, to the world, you could say. The people that are opposing the ballroom are people that, in my opinion, opinion, are very disloyal to our country, very, very disloyal to our country. You know, when I was in China, we went to the Great Hall of China. It was this big, beautiful building. And we don't have anything like that.

And we have to have that. It's very important. It just went on forever. It's just amazing. President, she's coming. What am I supposed to do? I need to make this place look nice and fit all the Chinese who come with him. And when I went there, they had this beautiful, everyone's saying wonderful things about him,

and they have this great building and everything. The handsome young senator says that you're focused too much on building a space for parties. And he's like, that guy, he reminds me of Pee-B-Herman. Now, let's talk about some of these parties I'm thinking about having. Also, it's like, let me pivot from Natalie Harp to my true love, the ballroom. Instruction. Honestly, if you don't love this ballroom, you don't love America. Not his best rejoinder.

No. That's also tough because that's like disapproval of the ballroom. Is it like... Pretty high. Pretty high. That's a lot of dislovering. loyal Americans. Let's pivot to something politically damaging. We haven't talked about the ballroom construction in a while. On Friday, the Trump administration petition the Supreme Court to allow

construction to continue after an appeals court upheld a ruling. The Trump exceeded his authority by building without congressional approval. Trump's solicitor general told the court that construction is already 65% complete. So this injunction takes effect on Friday. They've got an emergency appeal to the Supreme Court to save them. What do you guys make of this? What happens here if the court says he can't proceed? He's already got half of it built, more than half of it built. Doesn't really seem like a win for anybody, you know?

It's just going to get a hole in the wall, a hole in the ground now? Then you've got to go to Congress and get it through Congress to fund it. My pitch is you never finish it and you turn it into some kind of museum of American failure. Okay. And it's just like, it's like, it's like, failure museum is a good idea. It's a museum of reckless stupidity, and there'll be exhibits and different things. And you can go explore it, kind of like a sort of an avant-garde.

General Lee at Appomattoe. Yeah, it's a memorial. It's a memorial to our worst excesses. Yeah, for sure. The Nix, we have the Nixon. Vietnam. It could be like a Quibi-controo quadrant. No, for sure.

Yeah, wow. Quibi, could be catchy. Somewhere Jeffrey Katzenberg is like, I got a weird feeling. You're doing the audio of the tour with the Quibi, yeah. Very short. It's great about the Quibi sections. You get in and out, in and out, in and out of Quibi. But something like that, where you kind of never finish it and leave it as a kind of a warning to others.

Like, remember when they were... George O.R. Martin could do the audio book. This is where the seventh book of... Remember when there was this contest or this organization was trying to figure out, how would you mark nuclear waste sites? Because a thousand or many thousands of years from now, if humanity has fallen, you would need to have language and an architecture that would make people afraid,

even if they were more, kind of had gone backwards. Sure. And there was a quote, hold on, I want to find it. There was a line that was a, we could also market like an old nuclear site that we're trying to protect the future humanity from,

and it would just have some language that says, this place is a message and part of a system of messages, pay attention, this place is not a place of honor. No highly esteemed deed is commemorated here. Nothing valued is here. What is here was dangerous and repulsive to us. This message is a warning about danger.

And we just make that, what the whole vibe is of the kind of half-built ballroom. It's a very pithy message. Wow, free pitch for a Democratic candidate in one of those first primary debates. Who's going to take it? Who's going to take it? Nothing is honored here. I do find it interesting that the whole thing started as like, I want the ballroom.

That's what I want. I just want my nice pretty ballroom. And now, because there's legal consequences potentially, he's like, actually, it's all for the military. The military needed this space. And they are apparently like, look, the underground, there's a like World War II era presidential emergency operation center. And they are, I guess, rehabbing that. And now Trump's making it sound like it's basically building a fortress around the White House where there's going to be drones protecting the White House. And now all of D.C. and, like, couldn't the drone base be somewhere near the White House and protect it from distance?

It has to be on the roof. That's how drones work. He also said they drilled five stories underground, which probably something that the military didn't want him to say. I probably didn't want to say. Yeah, I probably didn't want to say. It's also like, boy, Trump sure does care about the military, said two sailors splitting a taco for lunch. It's unful. I'm very open to the idea that drone, advances in drone technology have made the White House more at risk than before.

And then maybe a, you know, a tent full of world leaders on the South Lawn has more risks to it than. we understand or acknowledge. But it does seem like he's sort of manufacturing all these security needs in real time. Yeah, just so he can get new drapes. I would just say also if we're at the point where we have to worry about a military-scale drone swarm tackling a state dinner at the White House, a lot of things have already gone wrong. Where's our drone port? Yeah.

Well, this was the UFC threat, right? That someone was going to hit the ultimate fighting event on the South Lawn with some sort of drone and the FBI broke it up. Yeah, but it's bad news. You guys see in related corruption news, the news on Friday that World Liberty Financial, the Trump family and Steve Wickoff's son's crypto venture got preliminary approval to act as a bank.

What do you guys think about that? It made me excited that one day our tax dollars would get to bail out that bank. That's exciting. Isn't that nice? Yeah. One day we can be a part of it. That's right.

It's just sort of, it's like, Kamala doesn't have a good answer on the view. 15 years later, we're bailing out world liberty financial. It's like, what the fucking? God damn it. Yes, Joy. I think there's many things I do differently. And then all of a sudden, whenever you're heard of World Liberty Financial. President Asoff is like, yes, world liberty financial is too big to fail.

Yeah. I'm not happy about it either. I didn't want to bail out the bank either. But the crypto, yeah. First president in history to approve, operate, and supervise his own bank. Another historic first for Mr. Trump. Pretty crazy because it's like it's one thing to launch a coin, but not everyone gets to have the federal government basically, you know,

stamp that with its, with national approval by giving it a charter. Because the OCC, which is the office that does this, that can give banks charters for the government, basically went years without receiving a single application between 2011 and 2012. So it's not like they give charters to anyone who wants to start a bank, but now they're giving one to the president's family, which will be regulated by the president's government. I don't see the problem with that. Yeah, it also just opens up the door to a lot more kinds of corruption from foreign sovereign wealth funds and all kinds of other ways in which this now allows Trump to find new and exciting ways to make money. So great job, everybody.

It also does seem like a pretty big official stamp of approval on the crypto business and industry at a time when Congress is supposed to be negotiating and writing laws to actually govern these things, which doesn't make me feel great. Yeah. And I think that timeline I mentioned to 2024 was because after 2024, suddenly all the crypto ventures and all the, you know, they wanted to get, they wanted to start banks too. But you know who's got approved? World Liberty Financial. Yeah. I mean, so my understanding of the reason you would want this if you're the Trump family is that. that currently their stable coin reserves are held with a third party. So now the Trump family can issue and redeem and then hold collateral themselves and not have to pay a third party. So if you have issued $4 billion worth of USD1, which is their stable coin, you have to hold $4 billion worth of collateral, probably in the form of treasuries, that gives you interest income and now you keep it all yourself rather than have to go through some third party.

Also, it's a competitive advantage with all the other stable coins, right? because now if you want to do business with some in crypto, why not go to the, use the stable coin that's backed by the U.S. government because that's what this is doing now. Yeah, there's definitely an imprimatur of the U.S. government on the Trump business now. Thank you. That's the word I was, I was grasping for earlier. Pod Save America is brought to you by Tommy John. Summer can be rough on the body.

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go to square space.com slash crooked to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain. That's squarespace.com slash crooked. Let's do a midterm update focused on control of the Senate. Dan and I talked on Friday's show about Nate Silver's new model.

He currently has the odds of the Democrats slipping the Senate at 56% as of right now. Over the weekend, the Silver Bulletin had a piece on the seven Senate races most likely to determine control. Texas, Michigan, Maine, Iowa, Ohio, Alaska, and North Carolina. Dems need five out of those seven.

And apparently they almost left North Carolina off that list because the model is quite confident that Roy Cooper will flip that state and even more confident that Asoff will win in Georgia, which is why it wasn't on the list. Wild. Wild, is that confident about Georgia? We're going to zero in on developments in Texas, Michigan, and Alaska today. But before we do, anything stand out to you guys

in the analysis of the other Senate races? The one thing just overall is how the models have to, like how scandals and other kind of individual factors of a race matter less as polarization and party line and the sort of partisan voting becomes more and more what defines kind of the outcomes because it tells you that as much as you're hoping that fundamentals kick in in some places, right? If they kick in too hard, say in Michigan to kind of get Abdul over, then you have to worry about what's happening. happening in Texas. You have to worry about what's happening in Alaska, right? And so that was sort of my takeaway from it. And the other was just, you know, you look across this, this, you know, oh, what's the pivot going to be? And you think about the difference between 2006 and 2018, both years where there was somewhere like an eight-ish swing towards Democrats or a point lead by Democrats. And because of the map and because of luck, we lose the Senate in 2018. Or we don't, we don't

gain the Senate in 2018, we lose seats. And then in 2006, we actually managed to eke out a victory in the Senate, not because we did so much better in a bunch of different races, but because in three or four races, Montana, Missouri, Virginia, we won by 10,000, 40,000, just a small, small margin. And because all of those happened to tip right at the end, just over the line, the whole direction of the country changes. That was what I was sort of panicking, getting anxious about as I was looking at the numbers. I mean, I was getting anxious looking at them because they are more bullish than I sort of feel emotionally. Like Nate has Democrats winning Ohio at a 62% probability. That's surprised to me. Very bullish on Ohio and Texas. Very bullish on Texas. He has Maine at 70%. Michigan at 68%. Now, look, I think we can pull out Michigan and it's a state we should win. But I do think it's going to be a battle. I guess I was just sort of surprised at how lopsided some of these numbers seem.

I was surprised on the flip side of that, how they are bearish, more bearish on Iowa and Alaska than I would have expected Iowa. They have 44% for Democrats to win in Alaska at 42%. So they were bigger underdogs, those two than I thought. And also, you know, I look at this lesson, I think, for everyone listening, like if you're looking for, you know, where do I donate and where do I want to volunteer and which race it should, you know, they go down the list at the end. end and they're like, well, there's a couple other races that are, you know, getting a lot of attention, but Florida, where, you know, Democrats are, according to the polls, like maybe up a couple points, but just the fundamentals and the model and everything else just make it seem like there's not a great chance in Florida.

Like, it's quite a long shot. And then even more of a long shot, Nebraska, which was sort of a surprising to me as well, and Kansas. People have been talking about Kansas recently. And then of course, like, you know, we've talked about races in Mississippi and South Carolina and stuff like that, and those just aren't on the radar at all. So, you know, if you want to pay attention and help out in a Senate race, those seven tend to be the big ones. So Texas is the most likely tipping point state in the model, meaning that it's the state most likely to determine control of the Senate. Right now, Silver has the odds of Tala Rica winning at 59%.

One big reason is that Ken Paxton is an awful candidate. And sure enough, Tal RICO is out with a new ad where he's endorsed by the guy whose $1,000 pen was once stolen by Ken Paxton. Let's watch. This is Ken Paxton. And this is Ken Paxton stealing someone's $1,000 pen. Here's what happened. The incident happened at the Collin County Courthouse, the same courthouse where Paxton would later be indicted for investment fraud. Paxton walked up to the trays next to the metal detectors, rummaged through them, and came

across someone else's expensive Montblanc pen. He decided to take it for himself. The pen belonged to Joe Joplin, a local attorney who'd accidentally left him behind. It was a special gift from his wife. When Joe realized it was missing, he contacted courthouse security. This is the footage they pulled.

Ken Paxton, on camera, stealing this man's pen. After the police got involved, Joe got his pen back. He could have pressed charges, but he decided against it, because Joe's a nice guy. He never takes someone else's pen, but he also hasn't forgotten who took his. Hi, I'm Joe Jocelyn, and I endorse James Talleyco for the United States Senate. Vote for James Talleyco. He won't steal your pen.

Paxon response ad, finders keepers. That transloving Jesus freak wouldn't steal a fucking thing. I would just note that I also think you should go to jail for having a $1,000 pen. I was going to say that's it. Yeah, you're not exactly. I noticed. just why they didn't put the cost of the pen in the ads, because it doesn't exactly help our friend Joe.

Maybe it writes beautifully. It's crazy. Maybe it made a beautiful feel. I've never written with a thousand dollar pen before. I think that's a great ad because obviously on the list of Paxson scandals, this one is the lowest in terms of the impact or the consequences, but it is a fun story that can go viral. I think they did a really good job telling it there.

Yeah. Yeah, I mean, midway through just reminding everybody that he was indicted for fraud. He is, so somebody was, I think maybe was like Josh Barrow someone made this point that it is shocking how in every aspect of his life he seems to be a prick or a sleaze just without exception His wife of many years is a state senator leaving him on biblical grounds because of this A fairy had that he his people that worked with him Were whistleblowers that they they believed he was taking bribes he was impeached in a bipartisan way But not removed he's only in this he's only gotten the nomination because

because Trump didn't like John Cornyn and sided with Ken's Paxton as a fuck you to John Cornyn, but even Republicans, Texas would obviously have preferred someone more electable. He also is just not a great fundraiser. He just seems like a shitty fucking guy that nobody likes and it puts Texas in play. Including Republicans. Including Republicans, including Republicans. Just seems like a fucking asshole. Well, in Nate's model, the fundamentals put Texas at R plus 3.4. So even with the huge shift towards Democrats, it's still more of a Republican-leaning state, but Tala RICO's ahead in the polls by

1.9 average right now, and the reason that they have it as they have it as a toss-up, but it's almost at Lean D, is just because Tala RICO's a good candidate, and also Paxon is such a bad candidate and has all these scandals, and also Talley has raised an ungodly amount of

money. Ken Paxson is not even, he's also not a prolific fundraiser. Tatarico has raised $65 million to Paxon's $9 billion. What I didn't realize until I read Nate's piece is that Betto O'Rourke had trailed in every single poll against Ted Cruz. What were we thinking? Tala Rico.

Beto's great. No, no, I know. I mean, like, we were also, I was excited. I thought he could win. The Tallarico is leading Paxton by us. You said 1.9% in the polling average. It's pretty good. I imagine all of these races are going to tighten

because they just always do when people pay attention. But, um, 2026 is a very blue year. And Paxton is a very bad candidate. Yeah. Ted Cruz was able to eke out a win against Beto. Not because Beto didn't get the votes he thought he was going to get, but they were surprised by the turnout of Republicans. And we don't like Ted Cruz, but Republicans like Ted Cruz.

And Ken Paxson is sort of just a different animal. It's a worse environment. It remains to be seen if it's a worse overall national political environment. But certainly in Texas, Ken Paxson is just not nearly as good a candidate as as beloved charismatic figure Ted Cruz. Yeah. And I also think Trump, I mean, Trump's approval was fairly bad in 2018 at the time. but you didn't have the economic approval as low as it is right now. So I think that is the tailwind that I think that Beto did not get in 2018, that the Tala Rica probably is.

We haven't really talked about Alaska, where Mary Peltola is trying to unseat Dan Sullivan. Last week, Kamala Harris signed a fundraising email for Peltola urging people to donate, and then Peltola's campaign basically rejected it, saying, quote, Mary isn't seeking endorsements from anyone from the lower 48. Her focus is and always will be Alaska. Adding to the intrigue, someone leaked to internet journalist Yashar Ali, presumably someone from Harris' camp, that actually it was Peltola's campaign that asked Harris's political operation to send a fundraising email. Peltola is pretty close to Sullivan in the polling, but still an underdog overall. Who do you guys believe here?

And what does it say that the Peltola campaign rejected Kamala's endorsement at least publicly? I mean, I think it shows that they just don't want to nationalize this race in any way, shape, or form. that the National Democratic Party brand is toxic. The entire debate about the Democratic ticket in 2024 is politically toxic and they want nothing to do with it, which makes me surprised that anyone on her campaign would ask Kamala Harris to send a fundraising email on her behalf, especially one where the funds were split 50-50 between Kamala's PAC and Peltolla's campaign. Now, I could be wrong. What do I know? But, you know, Paltoa is running an entirely Alaska-focused campaign where she's like talking about Samoa's.

and fishing and local stuff. I don't know. I think you would want to nationalize it. Yeah, who knows? I can see there being, like, you know, oh, this is an opportunity. Kamala Harris is going to get us, is going to raise money for us. Maybe one part of the campaign, not talking to another part of the campaign. Maybe people don't know.

That seems like the most. Right. Or, and also maybe like when you actually read the email, it's just like it wasn't meant to be something that was so clear like we were together splitting the money 50-50. So it ends up looking worse. Or maybe it was fully authorized. But then by the time it gets to the candidate, they realize it's a mistake, they want to denounce it. But to me, you look at this and it's like, all right, Mary

Paltola has clearly decided that this email and this connection is a liability, so we're going to deny it and say we don't want any endorsements for the lower 48. And whoever is inside Kamala's org, assuming that that's where that came from, cared more about kind of whatever, claiming it was authorized than doing what clearly the Alaska campaign thinks it's best for itself, which is to get out of this. It seems like it would be more benefit for Peltola for Kamala to say, I would never raise money for that woman. She's too moderate. Too much of a, too much.

She's too focused on jobs. Yeah, too much. She wants to bring people together too much. And you know what else? I hate fish. Yeah, that's exactly right. Yeah, it's a weird one. Also, like, Mary Poltolla didn't endorse Kamala in 2024.

Yeah. Because it's just like, it's a last. It's a last part of the uncommitted movement. Again, it's right. She has to, you know, she has to outrun, like, you know, Donald Trump won the state by, what, 13, 14 points. Like, it's a uphill climb, you know, so she has to really reject the national Democratic Party. America's got to be far away and quiet, you know. Yeah. And like she has run really successfully statewide in Alaska before. There's something called a split ticket war score, which sort of like

rates your candidate quality, your ability to outperform the ticket. And she was like D plus nine and D plus 22 in her house run. Monster. Yeah. So she was very successfully separated herself from the national party's struggles and won. Finally, we're in the middle of recording Friday's episode when Fox News dropped their Michigan poll, which has Mike Rogers ahead of Abdul El-Sahed by four points, 51-47. Same poll has Democrat Jocelyn Benson up five points in the Michigan governor's race. The Senate Democratic Super PAC then released an internal poll that shows Abdul ahead by six, but of course, that didn't exactly calm the waters.

What do you guys think about where the race is and what Abdul has to do over the next few months? So, first of all, probably get more votes, right? Yeah, you should probably get more votes. I mean, look, it's hard. What do they have to do? Yeah, it's hard to, you know, first of all, it's hard to trust any of these polls because we just saw an outcome in which Abdul won by a point and the polls had him up by much more overall. Like, it's hard. It's just hard to know.

The one thing that was interesting from, I think it was the Fox poll, is that there was just a bigger group of people that were voting for Mike Rogers for Senate. and the Democratic governor candidate, then the reverse. And so regardless of whether, you know, you think the poll is exaggerating and you put, what doesn't, like that to me, I think is sort of interesting and instructive about what he has to do, because it's clearly people that either because of what Abdul has said in the past, because the state was blanketed in tens of millions of dollars in anti-abdual advertising, whatever it may be, there's a lot of people that should be voting with the Democrats and would be if they hadn't been sort of exposed to so much.

Abdul messaging. And so what does he have to do to bring those people along? How does he address some of the things that Mike Rogers is going to be advertising, whether or not APEC puts more money into the state? There's going to be a lot that he has to go up against. And one thing I just noticed about sort of some of the ways in which he's responded to this is, you know, he's under so much incoming. You know, a bunch of different Democrats have been asked, like, well, how do you explain for

what you said in the past? And I think often the reaction is to kind of argue, with the person asking the question. And they all do, all the politicians do this. They sort of are like, well, I actually didn't mean to fund. I meant that we should look at where the money's going as a version of something Abdul said in the past and others have too. But you look at what sort of, I think, some of the more effective ways of answering that kind of question. Mom Dani had an incredible one, I think on Friday or early or late last week, where the question is, do you think woke one was crazy?

He basically just ignores that. And he says, we all change and we all grow. I have said things I don't agree with anymore, but I believe in supporting the police and having a good relationship with the police and we're getting crime down and we're addressing these issues. And like what was, to me, what he's doing and what makes him such a good politician is he's saying he's not answering the feeling underneath the question, which is what is the reassurance on this issue that gives me credibility across another, a range of issues, as opposed to constantly fighting to a draw by answering the previous critique or, just sort of trying to win on points, but rather saying something that is like a value statement that rejects the factual statement you said in the past, right? Just like a clean, moral thing that resets what he currently believes and stands for. I think Abdul's kind of core primary message is still the right one. It was get money out of politics, put money in your pocket, and pass

Medicare for all. That's a great general election message. You just have to stick to that. Obviously, the primary against Taley Stevens, became more about U.S. support for Israel. and APAC funding and dark money generally. And I think trying to move away from that would be beneficial. You know, Abdul, he's going to have to try to find some kind of like white working class independent voters that may be voted for Republicans in the past. He's going to have to turn out black voters and Democratic base voters they didn't necessarily get in the primary.

So he's got to do two different things at once reach a base community and reach these sort of more moderate swing voters. I think he's got the political skills to do that. He's an exciting dynamic guy. He's good on the stump. He can raise a lot of money. He's got like a lot of skills. And Mike Rogers is kind of like a washed up old Intel committee guy

who would rather be in Florida seemingly than in Michigan running this race. But I think we need to treat it as a 50-50 race. I just I think this is going to be a close one to the bitter end. Yeah. The poll doesn't surprise me that much only because I think $60 million of negative ads. against you. And then Mike Rogers has none of that. And people mostly remember him as a sort of old school establishment pre-Trump Republican. And obviously like Alyssa Slokin ran a great race against

him in 24. But I think the image of Mike Rogers they have in their head is like, okay, maybe I don't agree with him, but he doesn't seem threatening. And $60 million in negative ads making Abdul seem like a scary Muslim socialist extremist. who's gonna come, you know, kill your family is, you know, that's the kind of poll result you're gonna get. I also think that, you know, there's work he has to do with black voters, and you can see in this poll,

and then the voters that Tommy, you were just talking about. And, like, look, if he just goes to, he just goes to all these voters who say they're gonna vote for Jocelyn Benson, a Democrat, just has to convince those voters to like, hey, you're already voting for one Democrat, vote for another, you know? Yeah.

And I think that, like, some of his ads, and you see this online, like, he's had some, even in the primary, He had some sort of cringy, millennial cringe videos that I was like, oh, what is that? But it's, I think the point is to make him seem unthreatening to people, which they are going to try to make him seem as threatening as possible because of his name and religion, which they're already doing, and that's going to happen right up until election day. And so to try to address that just by, you know, showing up everywhere and being who he is

and seeming unthreatening is going to be helpful. I do think having made it through the primary, whether it all these attacks, come out ahead has also given him a lot of credibility. And by the same token that there are these crossover voters that show where a liability is, what a poll like this won't show is there are going to be people that are brought into, that are going to kind of decide to vote, maybe be excited and energized to participate because of Abdul. And then those are Democratic votes that are going to go down the ticket, right?

And those will be people he brought into the process that won't show up in the same kind of way. And so I do think he has that kind of credibility with the people that came along. And so like that does give him the space, I think, to kind of figure out how to kind of whatever, overcome that kind of scary Muslim thing that they're going to throw at him over the next time. He doesn't have to change his views on things, but he can he can certainly moderate rhetoric to sort of appeal to a broader audience. That's all, yeah. Like I don't, I don't, of course. I don't think it's any, it's not about changing what he view.

I think like that is, but there is like, I think, honestly, it's because if people, if he can just have that conversation, which is the Abdul we know, like, that will work. Like he is, even like the sort of, they're calling him a socialist, which they'll call anyone a socialist, but he pointedly in interviews. Like, I don't identify as a socialist. Like he believed, like, there's just, the version of him that existed in the ads is not the version of him that is real. And now we have three or four months for him to actually put that in place.

It's very funny that in the primary, they made these kind of cringy, blues, clues, goofy videos where Abdul just seemed silly and all this sort of like wince at them at the time. And then Republican accounts like lives of TikTok found them last week and started resurfacing them and be like, oh my God, have you seen this? How cringy. And it's like you could not do a better job if you tried to target these ads to the audience they're trying to reach. It's like Republicans and sort of like conservative audiences who now see this goofy silly side of Abdul as they are trying to paint him as this dangerous radical fringe candidate. It's very, very hilarious that they were this stupid about their tactics on the Republican side. The campaign also gets by that first add-out is of the grandparents. Yes. They just, they know, they understand this. All right. When we come back, Tommy talks to Ohio House candidate Brian Poindexter.

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You already know that five days a week, I, Jane Koston, bring you the need-to-know news and expert analysis on the big stories shaping today and tomorrow. Stories like how social media warps our perception of the world and the strange reality of who is signing up to work for ICE. All in less time than it takes to be. roasted chicken. And now, What Today episodes will be hitting your YouTube and podcast feeds in the afternoons. You'll get the breaking news even faster. Check out Whataday. Now dropping in the PM on YouTube and wherever you get your podcasts. My guest today is the Democratic Party's candidate for Ohio's

7th Congressional District. Brian Pointexter, welcome to the show. Thank you for having me, Tommy. I'm happy to be here and looking forward to answering your questions. All right. Well, glad to have you. So your opponent, Max Miller, has made a lot of news lately for the worst reasons. I'm going to ask you about him in a minute. But first, like, just tell the audience about yourself, your background and why you decide to get to this race. Well, yeah, I'm just a regular everyday average working guy. I've been a member of the Iron Workers Local 17 for the past 19 years where we've built some of the tall buildings and bridges and schools and hospitals in the Cleveland area. I've been a nine-year member of Brook Park City Council,

you know, where I showed up and fought for people at the local level, built a reputation of being somebody who shows up when they need me the most. But more importantly, I've been a father of two daughters, and I have a bonus daughter. I've been helping raise them up to be strong, independent, loving, caring women. And that's kind of where I got, that's the most prideful thing about about me is I'm a good, good family man and take care of my family

to the best of my ability. And yeah, that's me in a nutshell. Did you help build this new Brown Stadium? And do we feel okay about them moving out of downtown? Well, I actually worked a little bit on the old stadium. Oh, nice. In 2014, when we redid the scoreboards, I was on that.

That was a good job. It was like tailgating every day for work. That's awesome. Any Sunday job site visits? You just got to be there. Yeah, it was like Sunday every day because we were on seven days a week doing 12 to 14 hour days to get it done before the season started. So a lot of hard work went into it. But it was it was a little easier being that we were, you know, building the Brown Stadium.

Yeah, that's cool. The new stadium is underway now. It's just now getting started. They're still doing underground work and stuff like that. So I haven't, we haven't seen anything come out of the ground yet. Got it. Got it. Got it.

Got it. So your opponent, Max Miller, Congressman Max Miller, he's been a key. There's refused to some awful stuff, throwing scalding hot water at his ex-wife, holding a gun to her head, fracturing their two-year-old daughter's collarbone. But despite all of that, he's refused to get out of the race and he's instead decided to start attacking his father-in-law, Senator Bernie Moreno, Ohio Senator Bernie Marino, on social media. What's your reaction to these charges and the way Max Miller has responded to them? Well, yeah, they're very serious allegations. and I've said it since day one. If they prove to be true, he shouldn't be in Congress.

He should be in jail. And, you know, I stand by that statement. You know, the folks I talk to all across this district, whether it's knocking the doors, doing the town halls, you know, I get asked about it a lot. And, you know, one of the things that is most troubling is him withholding the blue bunny from his daughter. You know, that's personal to me because, you know, my youngest daughter, Ashley,

she had Bear Bear growing up. And I remember going on vacation one time. We had to turn back around and get Bear Bear Bear because she forgot Bear Bear at the house. So I had turned around, got Bear Bear, and then we were okay to go on vacation. But I just know how personal connections children make with their security blanket or their stuffed animal. And, you know, it just shows the kind of leverage Max Miller holds over people he loves. and if he does that to people he loves, imagine what he does

the people he don't really like or doesn't understand. Yeah. And that kind of behavior has no place in Congress. Yeah. My daughter has two little pink bunnies that she calls her lovies.

And one time, I thought I might have dropped one at the airport and lost it. And you would have thought, my reaction was basically like I had lost a child. It was like fucking DefCon 5 in our house. We were scrambling for this thing.

Thank God we finally found it like under a blanket or an pill or something. But you're right. I mean, it does show a level of vindictiveness that is shocking to me as a father. I would do literally anything to ensure my daughter felt comfortable, felt safe, had a good night's sleep. The idea that he would need to give the bunny over to only the court-appointed, like, minder guy that he wouldn't give it to someone else who he deemed a stranger. We know all this, by the way, because he released a text message where, you know, he had had this conversation with someone. I don't know if the Senator Bernie Moreno or like, you know, someone who had been dispatched by Senator Moreno to have this conversation with Max Miller.

But Max Miller thought that the text messages he released, like showed his side of the story, but really just showed him being a sociopath. Yeah, I mean, I'm no, I'm no therapist or, you know, psychologists. I wouldn't be able to diagnose him of that. But I know as a father, I would do whatever I had to do to make sure my baby had her bear bear. I don't care who I had to give it to to make sure she got it. Yeah, same. So I know that, you know, as you know, probably better than anybody, like the hardest thing about politics is most normal people just don't have time to read up on it, right? They're busy, like, getting the kids to school or going to work or doing whatever. They don't seek out political news.

So when you're trying to help, you know, voters understand kind of the stakes in an election or understand about a candidate, it takes a lot to kind of get something to break through. has this story about Max Miller, the allegations against him, has this broken through to voters in your district? I ask in part because there was like, I think a Washington Post story or something that suggested that most voters they talk to as they kind of walk the streets hadn't heard about it. Well, yeah, you know, a lot of people are tuned out from politics because, you know, politician having given them anything to pay attention to, especially when you consider the fact that most working people, especially the hardworking families of this district, are doing everything they can just to make ends meet. You know, they're working, you know, two or three jobs in some cases. They are working overtime just to get by. And, you know, workers used to work and live paycheck to paycheck. Now they're not even making it to the next paycheck.

So, yeah, it's understandable. I mean, I understand why people would tune out because they got more important things in their life to worry about. But what I hope they would do is lift their head up just for a second, pay attention to what's going on in this race, and, you know, support somebody like, me who understands what they're going through because I actually live what they're going through and put somebody in Washington who's going to fight to make sure that they can make that you know, make their next paycheck, ensure that they can start building a life and start realizing the American dream that politicians have taken from us. Yeah. I mean, I've seen a lot of

interviews you've done. I've read a lot of stuff you've, a lot of interviews you've given. I think you do a really admirable job of trying to like refocus the conversation on issues and the economy and the stuff that voters actually care about and that makes a difference in their lives. And I think that's important. I really do respect that. I do think, though, there's also a kind of a threshold question about character from our elected officials that's very important. And I'm wondering how you view that in this context. Like, is an allegation like those that Max Miller's facing, is that a place where we should draw a line as a country and just say, no, like, this guy should not serve in Congress?

Or how are you thinking about that? Well, yeah, I mean, we've seen politicians be accused of all sorts of things over the past, you know, a few years especially. It seems like it's ramped up with character issues with politicians. But I think it's really a test of the American public what we're willing to accept from our representatives. And to me, I think it should be a uniting factor. I think I think Democrats, Republicans, and independents can come together and set the bar of what we expect from politicians. you know, not saying that anybody has to be perfect, you know, certainly I'm not perfect.

I've had, you know, mistakes in my younger years and stuff like that, but, but what is the, what is the bar that, that we're going to set of what we can expect from our leaders? And I think this is an opportunity to unite people. That's what my goal as, my main goal in this run is to really unite our district through the party, divide through the political differences in political spectrum to get people to understand that we have more that unites us than divides us. And when we put aside some of the political differences

and come together, there's strength there. And that's what I hope to bring. And I hope people heed the call and say, hey, we cannot accept politicians who aren't going to live by at least a minimum standard of ethics. Yeah. And decent So back on the issues, I mean, Trump ran on the promise basically that he would get cost down and get inflation under control.

That was kind of the core promise of his campaign. Instead, gas prices are up. They've been up for a while. Tariffs are making things more expensive. And then I know in Ohio, you've got people leaving the state because they can't find good jobs. Trump won your district by 11 points in 2024, I think. Have you been able to talk to some of those Trump voters? And do you find them receptive to the argument that?

maybe they made a mistake by voting for him and that Trump has made things work and that, you know, they might be open to swat, voted for a Democrat this time to kind of correct that. Yeah, I'm not, I'm not afraid to talk to anybody. You know, I've talked to people who voted for Trump in the past, people who voted for Biden and everybody in between, you know, not afraid to have those conversations. You know, to me, it's not, it's not about a Republican and the Democrat issue. It's worker-to-worker issue. And Trump was able to capture the attention of, you know,

the worker. You know, this district is, is a very strong working class district. It's a journey manner district, but the one thing that unites the whole district is the fact that everyone works hard for a living. And, you know, Trump captured that message. He said, he's going to bring back manufacturing. He's going to usher in a gold in the age for workers. And what we got was a golden shower instead. You know, people are working harder and harder. We're getting less and less. And this district also, too, in 2018, like Sherrod Brown would have won this district, right, when he ran for send in 2018. And it's because Sherrod Brown has always run on the message of fighting for workers. Now, his record, fighting for workers backs it, it's backed up by real results.

You know, me as a member of Iron Workers Local 17, the legislation he brought forward actually saved our pension from default. And so along with the Teamsters and so many other things that he fought for, actually came to bring real value to workers' lives in Ohio. And that's what I'm running on. I'm running because working families haven't realized that golden age. And, you know, Wall Street, Wall Street's doing great. The billionaires are doing great. Corporations are doing great. But when does it trickle down to the rest of us? When do I get value for the labor that I'm putting in? And I'm putting in more and more and more value. And that's what everybody across the district's asking. That's what I'm hearing at the doors.

You know, people working, again, two or three or four jobs in a household just to make ends meet. And people are fed up on it. Yeah. You said that golden showers trickling down just forever. You've argued that I saw you in an interview talking about why Democrats have struggled so much with male voters winning over men. You argue that culture and not policy is kind of at the root of it. Can you expand on that and explain what you're thinking there? Yeah, well, like, I mean, the Democratic Party has always stood up for workers,

but over the past few cycles, especially, that message of fighting for work and families kind of got put on the back burner. And, you know, it was almost like they were more, you know, the Democratic Party is a big tent, right? We have a lot of different ideals and perspectives, which is good. That's, I think, the more people we bring in to the fold, more ideas get, we can find the right idea. but I think they were highlighting some of the issues that were kind of more fringe and more, you know, important issues that need to be discussed, but shouldn't be the forefront and core of the message. The forefront and core of the message should be the most expansive, the one that includes the most people. And I think, you know, I think workers issues, you know, that covers everybody.

You know, I don't care if what lifestyle you live, you have to work for a living, and that work should have value. That should be our core message. And if people, and the way I see it, if people are making progress in their personal lives, then they have the resources and energy they can use to fight for some of those other more, more fringe issues. You mentioned earlier in the interview and you've talked about it in the past, sort of having a what you called a rough and rowdy upbringing, some brushes with the law when you were younger in your early 20s. What happened? And like, what do you think, what did that experience teach you that has been valuable?

in later life. Yeah, I grew up on the west side of Cleveland. It was a pretty rough neighborhood. So, you know, I mean, it was nothing for a couple of dudes to get in a scrap at a basketball game or somebody who drive down the street looking at you're on, they hop out of the car, and next, you know, you're throwing down. It was a unique situation growing up. And then, you know, going into adulthood, that was my environment.

I brought that into adulthood. I learned quickly that that wasn't the way, you know, And I had some run-ins with the law. I made mistakes. I own the mistakes. I didn't blame somebody else or sue somebody in the silence over it. And then I paid my price for it. And I moved on and learned from it.

And, you know, I want to point out that this was very early in my adulthood, you know, from 18 to 22 years old. But and then I had a child. And that kind of changed everything. No longer was I, the rough and rowdy guy, just worried about me and myself. I had to worry about a family and I had to worry about, you know, building a life for my daughter. And then I had another daughter. And come full circle the past five years as an iron worker, I've been able to teach the new iron workers coming in and, you know, find those rough and rowdy ironworkers that were kind of

like me when I was that age, kind of helped them develop their skills as an ironworker, but also make good decisions so they weren't getting, you know, having the issues that I had when I was younger. Yeah. Well, listen, if you didn't want to beat up a Steelers fan at a game in your early 20s, like, were you even a fan? I mean, look, I'm as a Patriots fan. We've all been there, you know?

Was it a Yinzer? Yeah. Because, you know, they're tough. I wouldn't fuck around with those guys. I'm not proud of it, let's just say. I made some mistakes. Listen. You know, now when I go to a game, I just watch the game and mind my own business.

Yeah, no. I trust me, me too. I remember being at my first ever Red Sox game when I was like a kid. and there was a huge rumble in the outfield right next to us. And I was like, you know, 12 or 13. It looked like Hulk Hogan was getting in a fight with some other massive dude. I was like, all right, never. Not for me.

I would not fare well there. You know, I grew up in Cleveland. Don't Google 10-cent beer night. Yes. You'll see what I grew up with. Yeah, it gets wild in Cleveland. Speaking of Cleveland, who the Brown's going to start a quarterback this year? Is it going to be Deshaun, Shadour, maybe bring Joe Flacco back?

What are you thinking? I don't know what they're going to decide. If it were me, if I were making that decision, I would keep developing Shadur. I think he's got a bright future if he gets the reps. I think it gives our offense a little bit more fluidities as he played a little last year. But time will tell.

I'm not very hopeful for this season, but I hope he shocked me. Come on. Normally I'm like, this is our year of Super Bowl, but I don't have that feeling this year. You guys have Tampa Week 2. You got to see Baker Mayfield. field come out of that tunnel on the other side. That's got to be like seeing an ex who,

you know, lost a bunch of weight, got a tan, looking great, you know, made a lot of money somehow. That's rough. Yeah, I wish Baker would have never went anywhere personally. But, you know, I understand the business of the NFL. I'm proud that Baker Mayfield is doing well. But I really just hope our Browns do well and beat Baker Mayfield in week two. This time next year, do you think, you know, maybe we got Baker back on the team? Are we talking about developing Archmanning? How is this going to go? Man, this is a tougher interview than I thought. If you're asking me to, like, I got to solve the district seven problems and the Browns problems.

I'm going to hurt here. Yeah, you're qualified BGM. Last question. So we talked about earlier. I mean, the Browns are about to move to a new stadium with a dome. Does that make you sad at all? You lose those like late season, kind of lake-eary snow games? You know, I've been to a lot of snow games, like the last.

The last great one was, what was it, not last year or the year before last against Pittsburgh. We beat them. It was a blizzard. It was a Thursday night game. Yeah. Great time. But, like, no, I'm all about the stadium. You know, one, it's in Brook Park.

I'm a city councilman in Brook Park. So to bring the Bronx in Brook Park is huge for our area. I'm an iron worker, so building stadiums and buildings is kind of my thing. But really what I like about the dome more than the open lakefront stadium is, is like that lifelong fan who's like, you know, maybe 60s or 70s, can't sit out in the cold anymore. They'll be comfortable the whole game. Or that young family bring in their son or daughter for their first game.

You know, I took my daughters down on the lake, and I remember good games that they wanted to leave, you know, partway through the second quarter because they're freezing and they're cold and it's rainy. So I think it'll be good. It'll keep people in the stadium, even when the Browns are, you know, two and 13 or whatever. It'll keep them in the seats and keep, you know, keep, you know, somebody will still want to go

because it's a more comfortable experience. And, and, you know, let's keep in mind, too, fantasy football is kind of a real thing. And I hate when my receiver goes up in an ice bowl game and now he gets me three points. Yeah, no, I get that. Listen, I went to the Patriots Broncos game in Denver last year with that like snow whiteout game.

And it was one of the coolest experiences I've ever. ever had in terms of a sports fan, but it was so cold. And it's like a lot of layers to to keep us there. And I get, you know, once you guys have a dome, maybe you get the Super Bowl in Cleveland. You get all sorts of year-round opportunities for events and shit like that that's big economically. Brian Pointexter, thanks for joining the show. Where can folks find your campaign and help out if they want? Yeah. Thanks for having me. People can go to Pointexter for Congress.com. You can hear a little bit about my backstory. You can watch our videos and really get a sense of who I am.

I'm really just the guy next door who decided that I'm tired of watching my community have such a hard time. And I'm going to run and fight hard for working families. We appreciate you joining, and everyone check out of the campaign, and we'll talk to you soon. Thank you.

Thank you very much for having me, and great to be here. That's our show for today. Thanks to Brian Poindexter for coming on. Dan and I will be back with a new show on Friday. Pod Save America is a Crooked Media production. Our show is produced by Austin Fisher, Saul Rubin, McKenna Roberts and Ferris Safari with Reed-Earland, Elijah Cohn, and Adrian Hill.

Our team includes Matt De Groot, Ben Heathcote, Jordan Cantor, Charlotte Landis, Carol Pelaviv, David Tolls, Mia Kelman, Ryan Young, and Naomi Single. Our staff is proudly unionized with the Writers Guild of America East. The What a Day podcast you know and love is shaking things up. You already know that five days a week, I, Jane Koston, bring you the need-to-know news and expert analysis on the big stories shaping today and tomorrow. Stories like how social media warps our perception of the world and the strange reality of who is signing up to work for ice.

All in less time than it takes to roast a chicken. And now, What Today episodes will be hitting your YouTube and podcast feeds in the afternoons. You'll get the breaking news even faster. Check out Whataday, now dropping in the PM on YouTube and wherever you get your podcasts.