Pod Save America - "PSA Presents: The Pundies."

Episode Date: December 28, 2020

Jon, Jon, and Tommy go over the worst takes of 2020 (including their own) during Pod Save America’s first annual Pundies! Then, they reflect on their 2020 New Year’s resolutions and make some new ones for 2021.

Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Jon Favreau. I'm Jon Levitt. I'm Tommy Vitor. On today's pod, we'll talk about how we did with our 2020 New Year's resolutions and make some new ones for 2021. But before that, we're starting a new tradition here at Pod Save America where we take a look back at the worst takes of the year, including our own. Welcome to the first annual Pundies.

Accountability. It's coming back. It's back in style. The Pundies. a few quick notes before we get started a new episode of gaining ground the new georgia drops tuesday check out this episode wherever you get your podcast catch up on the whole series it's fantastic new episodes come out every tuesday go listen and speaking of georg, we are just days away from the January 5th runoff that will determine control of the Senate. If you're ready for a new year and a new Georgia, head over to votesaveamerica.com slash Georgia to find something you can do in the homestretch. There will be volunteer opportunities available right up until the polls close on January 5th. Sign up for a shift today.

Votesaveamerica.com slash Georgia. Okay, gentlemen, let's get to it. We are going to start with everyone else's bad takes, and then we're going to work our way to our own bad takes. If we have time. Tommy, if we have time. Yeah, who knows? We might be out of time before. It's a podcast. They only give us so much time on this thing. Tommy, you got a bad take? Well, look, you know, we learned the hard way that predictions are not the best idea in 2016. So we tried to steer clear of them this cycle.

That doesn't mean that others in the take industrial complex followed suit. So I just took some headlines, I think, that were about Joe Biden that are kind of worthy. I'm not going to name names necessarily because no reason to be that mean. But, you know, the Boston Globe had an op ed that said the new rules of electability mean Joe Biden can't win. That one felt a touch off. Safe candidates lose. Passionate crusaders win when you write your checks or vote in your primary. Go with your gut. Hey, I'm that last sentence. I'm all for it. But the first part, maybe not. USA Today, Joe Biden can't beat Donald Trump or restore decency.

You know, I guess jury's still out on half of that one, maybe. Was that the USA Today editorial board? No, it was an opinion contributor. Fuck that person. Okay, John. Politico article from March 13th. A never Biden movement vows not to vote for Joe on Tuesday night. Joe Biden's campaign was celebrating his latest primary night triumph by Wednesday morning.

Never Biden. Right. And Bernie Dem exit 2020 hashtags began trending on Twitter. Oh, no. Oh, no. Not trending. Not so much. Not so much. You know, there's a whole cottage industry of takes that Joe Biden was in cognitive decline. I feel like all of those people should feel quite bad about those takes. Basically, everything written by the Wall Street Journal editorial page about Tony Bobulinski and Hunter Biden didn't quite pan out. I don't know. I'll pause there. I mean, I have one more when we come back.

But, you know, your thoughts. I should say, by the way, to everyone, like, these aren't necessarily all the worst takes of the year. Because one group of people I imagine we're probably going to leave out, I am, are like Donald Trump, everyone associated with his campaign, and like Fox News and Newsmax. Like, obviously, all of their takes are the fucking worst. But, like, we've been saying that all year. So we're really trying to branch out with the other takes as Tommy has done with his. Love it. Love it. What do you think? So, you know, it's funny. I'm just also like obviously Joe Biden winning is was that was good for a variety of reasons.

I don't want to overstate. But one one thing you do see is that there are a lot of people who invested a lot of energy in the argument that he couldn't win for a variety of of reasons that were important to what they would be saying right now had he lost. And I'm really glad that those arguments are not around right now. I just I think it's a very good thing. Totally agree. It's a very good thing. Totally agree. If your role in politics is slowly polishing your take about why the person who isn't quite liberal enough for you and your party didn't win and why you were right, I have very little

time for you. Yeah. And I will say also, it's funny listening to those takes about why these, you know, there's never Biden hashtags, whatever. I always think about it's just like a fact that has stuck with me my whole life, which is that there was a poll that showed a majority of primary voters would never, ever support Bill Clinton as the Democratic nominee, like weeks before he became the Democratic nominee. And it's worth remembering for all of us that that even opinions we hold about politics that we think are immutable will change really,

really fast. Yeah. As Ted Lasso says, be a goldfish you know we just forget that's fine i'm gonna watch that watching that over the break delvin it's so good we can just play you one more guys i'm so glad you finally got into it uh so i just want so we're gonna throw to some audio because i think this might be the most accurate but also the worst take rolled into one and i just i want to enjoy it with you and watch your faces. I feel like this is us. I feel like this is us. Ladies and gentlemen, leaders and fighters for freedom and liberty and the American dream. The best is yet to come. That was Kim Guilfoyle. She was right. The best is yet to come. Joe Biden won the election.

Kim Guilfoyle gave a good take there. Well, in the middle was mass death, but yes. That's true. That's true. I filmed a little video of Pundit running around in the snow, and she was just like throwing her face into this like fresh white powder. Okay. It was an adorable it's an unrelated what i don't so it's a cute thing i saw pundits do takes yeah i have a bad take uh there were several times over the last year really over the last four years where um journalists and pundits had an insatiable urge to believe that 74-year-old Donald Trump had finally changed his ways. Let's take a listen. I think we have a clip.

He became president of the United States in that moment, period. 82% of people who saw the speech called Mr. Trump presidential, including a majority of Democrats. The president had a very steady tone. I didn't count a single insult. If Trump continues with this tone and temperament, if he continues with what he was doing before, who knows where Americans will be in the next few days or weeks.

The Donald Trump that we saw today here at the Times was a different tone. He sounded positive. He seemingly recognized the power of his office. President Trump seemed sobered by these first 40 days in office, didn't he? Then today, another speech and a starkly different tone. Striking a different tone. Dramatic change in tone. Strikingly different tone.

Tone was markedly different. Significantly changing his tone. Stunning change in tone from just last Friday. In his first White House coronavirus briefing in months, President Trump sharply changed his tone. Now we have a significant shift in tone. It was a totally different message and different tone. I do think this press conference will be remembered for the change in tone from the president.

I mean, also, first of all, thank you to Yale for putting that compilation together. Great library music. Great library music. Great music choice. Really important. I can't wait to share that on social media. Yeah, it's John's ringtone. There's a video component to all of that, so we'll put that out.

Also, I can recognize a lot of those voices. A lot of those people are very smart. I don't know how you get pulled into saying this shit. Four years. voices a lot of those people are very smart i don't know how you get pulled into saying this shit four years i think that i think the new tone stuff particularly around um covid will all we always get me the angriest although it's funny because at the time that this is how he became president around um striking syria or not striking syria was the um was the that was the old winner for making me the most mad about Newtown. But the COVID stuff really took the cake.

Remember after that first press conference and they were all like, oh, wow, he's very presidential now. He's really taking this seriously. Yeah, that panned out. Yeah, I mean, just, it does seem that there was like, I think that there are a mix of motivations.

Obviously, every person has different motivations. I think at times it was sort of fanciful thinking, like a desire for it to be true. At times it was a desire to just say something different. And then there was also this moment where there was this sort of idea that like if enough reporters start rewarding Trump for having a better tone, it would be reinforced and might have a positive result. But yeah, here we are from day one to the coup. Didn't work. Yeah, this hasn't worked.

Didn't work. Any other, you guys got any of there some outside bad takes? I will say this is a subtler bad take because I think that there have been some incredibly frustrating Nate Silver takes and some incredibly frustrating anti-Nate Silver takes. And here is where I have landed on all of this, which is- Both sides in this one. In fairness, I will. I will. Absolutely. In fairness to my mathy friends, to the modelers, I don't believe Nate Silver ever over-interprets the model that he has built. But what frustrates me is that there is a kind of,

there's the creation of these models, then there is an argument that says, don't over-interpret these models. Don't take these things too seriously. They can't say more than exactly what we say they can say. But you can't lament the fact that the model is being over-interpreted when the model exists and succeeds so that people who aren't as familiar with the statistics can over-interpret it. And so it's like at a certain point, the bad take is believing assigning a percentage to an election has value and can be interpreted broadly in a way that's helpful to anybody. That's my that's my model take after year election two of the models being frustrating, not that they were wrong.

Well, I just think like there's a there's a very helpful part of it where they're just sort of like compiling polls and like doing sort of like statistical analysis. But then they sort of jam in a bunch of factors that are kind of impossible to quantify, like press coverage or fundraising or things that it's like, how are you deciding how that's weighted? The thing that most frustrated me is, and we'll get to polls at one point, but like there's this there was a take after the polls were up this time that it's like, well, you know, the polls weren't so far off in a lot of places and they weren't so bad in comparison to history mobile it's like okay if the tipping point state is wisconsin and the wisconsin polls were off by just as much if not more than they were last time then that's a huge fucking problem for polls yeah i don't care if the

california polls were better you know like we don't care about other polls we care what happens in fucking wisconsin because that's the tipping point state totally but i also but like that also this to me is i think why i think some of the critics of the models are going too far that's not on the the people using the polling as best they can to create these models oh i totally agree i totally nate takes a lot of the heat and and the and the modelers and the and the pundits for people for the actual pollsters who got it wrong. Yeah. You know what it is? It's like, that's the thing.

I understand the frustration of people like Nate Silver because they're like attacked for all these reasons that aren't true. But it's like, how dare you attack me for my model, you mathematical morons. Now, carefully interpret this incredibly complicated model based on mathematical formulas and statistics that are far beyond anything I will explain. I would argue their Twitter tone does them no favors in this regard either. Here's a more cut and dry one.

On a North Dakota radio show, Eric Trump claimed his father literally saved Christianity. That's a quote. Wait, I got a few, and I just made up this game on the spot i'm gonna read the take and see if you guys can guess who i love this it's exciting okay just just on the spot i just thought about doing this i'm excited i'm gonna use a gayer voice for it this was an april column is the hint an april column and the title of the column was america shouldn't have to play by new

york rules and here maybe that might've given it away. And here's the, here's a quote from it. It is stunning to contemplate the extent to which the country's COVID-19 crisis is a New York crisis. No wonder so much of America has dwindling. Brett Stevens, Brett Stevens,

Brett Stevens, Brett Stevens. Yes. In April, Brett Stevens said that we should have no more lockdowns, no more restrictions because it's only New York that's hurting from COVID and the rest of the country is fine. Curves are flattening. Hospital systems haven't come close to being overwhelmed. Americans have adapted to new etiquettes of social distancing. That's Tommy's best friend, Brett Stevens from New York Times. From the mind that brought you Sink Iran's Navy. It'll be very simple to do that. No problem. you, Sink Iran's Navy. It'll be very simple to do that. No problem. This piece is from February after the virus just began to hit called Donald Trump, the luckiest man. Quote, Democrats are on

the defensive after Trump's impeachment acquittal in Iowa debacle. A Democratic socialist is surging in the race, and some economists think that post-coronavirus, the recovery wave will push an economic surge closer to the election. Trump is enjoying the same lucky breaks in politics that he enjoyed in birth and business. I have a guess. I have a guess. I have a guess. Is that Hugh Hewitt?

Kim Strassel? Nope, not Hugh Hewitt. Not Kim Strassel. Much more mainstream. Name names. I don't know. It is Axios' own Jim VandeHei. Wow. That is so bad. Oh Jim Vande Hei. Wow.

Man. That is so bad. Oh, my God. Yikes. Yikes. Wow. How about that one? He strassled himself.

How about that one? Jeez. That's not right. That was fun. That was fun. There was also a lot of Trump might dump Pence takes, which were, there was a whole cottage industry. I rode that tiger for a little bit.

I was pretty into that one for a little bit. That was fun. Some people were, you know, Trump might dump Pence curious, right? Here's a quote. This is not a prediction.

It's a certainty. On Thursday, July 16th, that's the date the Democrat gives his or her acceptance address. On that day, to interrupt the narrative, Donald Trump will call a press conference at Mar-a-Lago. He's going to dump Mike Pence and put Nikki Haley on the ticket to try to get those suburban moms. I got it. I got it. QAnon.

No? It was very smart Democratic strategist Paul Begala who just like, this is the trouble with being so certain in your predictions. Yeah, it's Twitter brain. This is the this is the trouble with being so certain in your predictions. Twitter brain. I would not look. Pundits have been known in the past to get a hot tip and then pass it off as a prediction. Maybe it was in the works.

Maybe it almost happened. I wouldn't look. Trump changes his mind a lot. And look, dumping Mike Pence. He couldn't have lost more, I guess. You know, it's there. I guess you know it's fair um one that we have to point out is um the re-elected senator from Maine Susan Collins after Trump's impeachment and she said I believe the president has learned from this case and will be much more cautious in the future yeah well you know what she laughed last on that one she she did she did she laughed last on that one. She did. She did.

She laughed last on that one. The people of Maine heard that and they said, you know what? Six more years. I will say, you know, on impeachment, there were takes in a variety of directions as to how important it would be. And they all turned out to not really be true. Like, it's hard to say that the election shifted at all in any direction because of impeachment. We barely remembered it happened by the time we got to November.

I feel like we all were kind of exactly on board with that one. Oh, I was. That was kind of my thing. I was really, I thought impeachment would have some kind of effect and it had no effect anywhere. Yeah, it was a waste of time. So, Tommy, this is your best friend. I think you'll see by June, a lot of the country should be back to normal and we'll be really rocking by July.

Oh, Jared. Rocking by July. Yep, there you go. Rocking by July as well. Got it. Rocking by July. What he meant was rocking super tight suits and VC vests like his boys.

Can I give you a- I mean, they did rock over the summer. They just were super spreader events. That his boys. Can I give you a- I mean, they did rock over the summer. They just were super spreader events. That's right. Can I give you a take genre that I think just has to be mentioned, which was shadow app conspiracy mongering. Remember around Iowa?

Oh, nice. And the Iowa caucus results didn't come in and it just exploded on the internet as if this was some like conspiracy theory to take down Pete or Bernie or everybody, Right. The Intercept had a piece about the headline was new details show how deeply Iowa caucus app developer was embedded in Democratic establishment as if this was some plan. People were accusing Mayor Pete of like paying for the shadow app as part of a plan to take down Bernie. One person tweeted, honestly, this is on Obama,

who spent more effort getting a rather incompetent Tom Perez to be the head of the DNC than on any other post-presidential political effort. Yes, Barack Obama coded the shadow app and he sold it to the Iowa Democratic Party. Just absolute madness. Madness. We were in it because we know Tara McGowan. We took a picture at a birthday party. And in the end, it was a incredibly sneaky effort by Mayor Pete to sabotage results he ultimately was the winner of, thereby denying him the momentum into future contests. I am very happy that that whole thing happened though because it led me to mute a ton of people that i have not thought about ever since yeah that's fair that's fair and my life is better um i'm trying to think of another

oh there's uh uh if it ends up that biden wins i guarantee you the week after the election suddenly all those democratic governors all those democratic mayors will say everything's magically better. Go back to school. That's wrong and it's cynical. Ted Cruz. Ted Cruz. Ted Cruz. That's wrong and it's cynical.

Shame on them. That is cynical, Ted. Tsk, tsk. That's fucking cynical. Tsk, tsk. Can I read you a take and you guys guess who it was? Okay, so this is a two-parter. I love games. In October, this person said,

why aren't they talking about deaths regarding COVID? Because the number is almost nothing. Because we've gotten control of this thing. Dot, dot, dot. Fast forward a month later, posted, apparently I got the Rona. Oh, shit. Some kind of a Trumper. Apparently.

It was absolutely a Trumper. Apparently. It was absolutely a Trumper. Apparently I've got the Rona. Think like Don Jr. Divorce Dad Energy. Yes. Yes. Don Jr. Yes.

Don Jr. Don Jr. Don Jr. Any other ones? Are we good? Is that it for Outside Takes? Let me give you one more. We're kind of just rolling around in the snow.

One more. March 13th. Has a hashtag coronavirus advice everyone should also ensure with an eye uh mouth and throat are moist never dry take a few sips of water every 15 minutes even if virus gets into your mouth drinking water other liquids will wash them down through your throat and into stomach where acid will kill virus. Oh, whoa. What? Who is that? Geraldo Rivera. He tweeted that.

What a, he's been special this year. One more. This goes to your first round of takes, Tommy. This will be decided in Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin. I know what will work there. Safe will not work. Biden, we will lose because Bideniden is hillary biden is hillary michael moore yes good one yes yes come on come on nailed that that was very that's a pull

i'm proud of that it's a great i'm proud of that well he also michael moore also told me on stage uh i it was a moment of there was a real moment of kind of i don't know of like good feeling about like how we were all collectively gonna fight and i said i asked him i thought i was like kind of teeing him up and i asked him about biden and i i thought i was like oh maybe he'll say and then he just said biden won't be the nominee it's like oh okay well i i i was there for a while too i didn't think it's gonna be yeah we will yeah no i mean i was gonna i was gonna say we're not in our own bad takes yet but if we want to talk about the biden thing we were we got pretty close pretty close well we didn't go there but we left we left ourselves a couple of um

exits you could pull a lever and get down a raft and get out, right? If you listen to the pods of us between him, specifically between him losing Iowa and winning South Carolina, we were fairly down on his chances. Listen, I think the Biden team over a couple of years would tell you that the Iowa results being a wash was a weird sort of X factor. No one anticipated it. Taking fifth in New Hampshire was certainly not the plan wash was a weird sort of X factor. No one anticipated it. Taking fifth in New Hampshire was certainly not the plan. And then that sort of that New Hampshire night event he did in South Carolina, it did not have a great feeling. And then they did an incredible job kicking ass in South Carolina, the Clyburn endorsement, and it changed everything. And then obviously COVID hit.

So, you know, it was complicated, as I think whatever one would admit to here. Yeah. Yeah. So, you know, it was complicated, is I think what everyone would admit to here. Yeah. Yeah. Anzalone, John Anzalone, who's their pollster,

was on Hacks, Hacks on Tap. And he was talking about this, and he said that they knew that Iowa wasn't going to go well, but they didn't know it was going to go that poorly. And then they said that they both go into South Carolina the night of New Hampshire, like you said, and their second place finish in Nevada, even though it wasn't super close to Bernie. It wasn't about Bernie.

It was the fact that they finished ahead of everyone finish in Nevada, even though it wasn't super close to Bernie. It wasn't about Bernie. It was the fact that they finished ahead of everyone else in Nevada. Set them up for South Carolina without much competition aside from Bernie. Yeah, yeah. And that was sort of what did it. For sure. All right. Let's do some of our own bad takes. I have this take. And I'll do the take first, and then we can assign it.

Do I think the Biden campaign will be actively competing and spending money in Georgia and Texas come October? No, I do not. It's probably wishful thinking. I think soon Texas and Georgia will be battlegrounds, but I don't think yet this cycle. Look, I'll cop to that one. I'd say I was 50% right there. Okay. And I also think you could argue that- Yeah, you were. You could argue that- The take is half full, Tommy.

The take is half full. Well, they did compete and spend money in Texas. Yeah, but barely. I mean, right? I think that we were focused on the traditional battleground states and then Georgia became the real, real stretch where we were actually sending the candidates, they were sending Barack Obama, They were sending big surrogates. So, look, once again, Stacey Abrams was right. We were wrong. It could have been in part of our Adopt-A-Stay program. It's not.

I'm going to spread this take around like a fine shit-smelling mulch all around crooked media. Like Barack Obama to a plumber. I'm mad at it, mate. Spreading the wealth around, remember? That was a, sorry. Joe the plumber, yeah. I take it back emotionally. Yeah, Joe the plumber i'm spreading the wealth remember that was a sorry joe the plumber yeah i take it back emotionally yeah joe the plumber i'm mad at myself for not pushing harder on georgia not that i thought it the whole time although later in that thing i made the case for georgia but only because

like i'm most at fault here because i sat down with stacy abrams for the wilderness and she made the pitch for me about georgia and it was a really good pitch and then i was just still like yeah it just seems like if we're at georgia we've already won north carolina or florida guess not right that's what's interesting like yeah like we did six what which state would we have swapped i guess we would have swapped out florida and north carolina for georgia if we knew but it's it was it's also hard to imagine not competing in Florida and North Carolina either. You've got to try. You've got to try.

They were still close. Yeah, that's right. Okay. I love it. You haven't told us. Do you want to do your own bad take? Because you haven't told us which bad take you want. I'll read number nine.

All of you privately in the office saying that Elizabeth Warren was going to be the nominee frown face. Now, I don't think I said that. I don't think I said that. i don't think she was going to be the i don't think so either we all liked elizabeth warren see that that was the i was certainly taken by the organization i was very impressed by her campaign yes jordan waller is in the chat now saying this is a lie jordan give us the you have receipts Did you record your bosses while we said this? No, you didn't. So then we don't believe you.

No, Mike's didn't happen. Instagram or it didn't happen. But this is why we were good on predictions because we were out of the predictions business. We came close on Warren, but I don't know that we definitely, we liked Warren. That's for sure.

Jordan said, I caught Lovett saying, vote for Warren from a pod at least three times. Okay, that's fair sure jordan said i cut love it saying vote for warren from a pod at least three times let's okay that's fair jordan that's fair i didn't say that i didn't say that either i'll let that in the world you all know we were listening we were in you know it's okay here's one um this is our staff really helpfully um i guess looked back through our internal office slacks and found this one for me i said public service announcement the polling bots that do flashback to 2016 drive me fucking insane state polls were not weighted by education in 2016 it was the main problem with the state polls they overestimated the number of college educated voters and underestimated the

number of non-college educated voters that voters. That's why they looked better for Hillary than they should have. Most high-quality pollsters have corrected this problem. Very confident. I was very confident that the polls had been fixed. They had not been fixed. It turns out that even though they changed the weighting so they had more non-college-educated white voters in the polls, those non-college-educated white voters that they got when they changed the weighting happened to be the 30% of non-college educated white voters in the polls, those non-college educated white voters that they got when they changed the weighting happened to be the 30% of non-college educated white voters who voted for Biden. So it didn't work. And we have a real fucking problem with polling going forward where it's just that people with low social trust who don't want to answer phones, who don't want to take surveys because they don't trust anything, don't trust any institutions,

also happen to be Trump voters. And that could be a real problem with the polling industry going forward. Yeah, it's not great. It's not it's not great, especially because these elections are all, you know, look, so many of them are so close. And it's like, let's find out after the election how accurate the polls are kind of does away with the value. Yeah, yeah. Travis suggested we should talk about Lovett insulting Schitt's Creek. How dare you? I love Schitt's Creek.

I love Schitt's. I love Schitt's Creek. I will cop to having a class critique of the family that I, there is a, I'm, that there is, they come into the town love it love it love it tommy and i are just sitting here quietly by the way he's dissembling there's a

i i will say here's my issue here's my issue they lose everything they're laid low they show up in the town pretty quickly they're running an apothecary. The other runs a hotel. They very quickly regain some of their status. They become bosses again. That's it. That's my critique. You know, hashtag Bernie or bust. One of our fantastic producers, Caroline Reston,

wanted to point out that Tommy compared the transitional clusterfuck to a Bravo show and that this is unfair to Bravo shows slash implies something negative. And she added a note. This does not have to be an anonymous addition. I'm happy to slap my name to this complaint. Yeah. So, Caroline, I'm not a I'm not a heavy Bravo watcher, but I feel like the core kernel of a lot of Bravo reality shows is they're just messy as hell. Am I not wrong? Are the Card of the Kardashians thoughtful?

That's why we love Bravo shows, right? I don't even get it. It's not an insult. It's just such a shame that this conversation about bravo is taking place with two straight guys and the only gay person at crooked media that doesn't watch them constantly oh god jordan jordan waller says the kardashians are not bravo whatever i stand by my take oh tough tough are they bravo ish is that yeah i think so uh bravo same same shit same exact shit e bravo whatever you know what i mean. We're going to do resolutions. We're going to start our resolutions from last year, see how we did.

And we actually have clips of these resolutions so we can hold ourselves accountable. Let's play my resolution here. I cannot spend all of my day and all of my night paying attention to politics, reading about politics, looking on Twitter, being on my phone. So I know everyone says things like, i want to read more i am setting a goal for myself of one book per month i think that i don't know if that's a lot or not because i haven't read in years and then i'm just so anxious all the time i think that i have to start like meditation i've never done any kind of meditating. That's amazing. I've done none of that. Zero meditate over.

No, so I probably read three books. So that's three. I am just as anxious. I spend just as much time paying attention to politics. And I am just getting through promised land now. Listen, John, I think hope springs eternal on the meditation front. And I am just getting through promised land now. Listen, John, I think, you know, hope springs eternal on the meditation front. We can do a guided one as a team, as a podcast.

Maybe we start every episode with a 10-minute guided meditation. I would appreciate that. As long as I can be on my phone. Let's hear Love It. I want to have a sustainable model for eating food such that I don't feel guilty about what I'm eating. And so for me, what has worked in the past is clean, good eating decisions most of the week. And then two absolutely fucked up balls to the wall. No holds barred. No rules.

No society. No cameras. No one watching dinners. I want to get the bad feelings away from the food. I want to be in work, in life. I just want to, these three things I want to always be thinking about. I want to be positive. I want to be generous and I want to be disciplined.

And I just, just a little more positivity, a little more generosity and a little more discipline will go a long way to making me someone other people will want to be around holding yourself to a positivity take is tough in a pandemic you know this was tough i i will say uh so i think you've been a little more disciplined i think you've been much more good job on that i've really i've really thank you for saying so i think i've tried on the food front. I didn't say anything about that. I failed so completely. I failed so spectacularly. We went to Vegas for the caucuses. I mean, I didn't know about the caucuses, but I found out my last trip out of California in 2020. Got to Vegas, found out about the caucuses. Good coincidence. But I ate I ate two buffets there which is

obscene it was there for a weekend i ate two buffets and in my mind it was a last hurrah well it was you were right well what i what i mean is i thought i would get back and have good eating habits and really try i have that never happened uh every i have felt a little guilty with every bite of food I have taken this year. Every healthy meal feels like a sop to failure. Every cheat feels like an undeserved calamity. And it is horrible because I eat a couple of times every day. So I have got, I have got to get this in check. Not just cause not just for health, not just for health, but because like, I like connecting food with these bad feelings all the time is so unhealthy and I need to stop. I need to stop. Jokes aside, like this is being recorded as well too, right? Yes. Noom will help with this, I think, right? For real. I think Noom has helped,

Noom will help. I also will say I, as long as we're, I think, right? For real. I think Noom has helped. Noom will help. I also will say, as long as I'm in an unhealthy body image place, I will say I saw the interview I did with Matto, and I look like a bloated, mummified corpse, and I realized I forgot to drink water in 2020. And I would lie to you and say that it's because I want to be healthier, but if I drink a glass of fucking water, I look 10 years younger. It's the found youth. Oh, okay.

That's great. That's easy. It's a good solution. So try Hydrant. Yeah. We're just dropping sponsors now. I just got to alternate water with Diet Coke and coffee. And this tumbler has the ice from my coffee

and I filled it with Diet Coke once it was empty. I've done that. It's okay. All right. Don've done that. It's okay. All right. Don't hurt yourself. Let's, um, let's hear Tommy's.

My first resolution is to not get upset when I don't follow through with any of my resolutions. You know, that little, um, notification that comes through on your phone on Sundays that says you've spent X number of hours on your phone this week. I need that guy to go down. Like what's yours at over four hours. I need that guy to go down. What's yours at? Over four hours.

I need that thing to go down. Yours is over four hours? Oh, I will not share mine. What is it? What is it? What is it? Come on. Definitely over four.

I want to, this came up today. I want to don't, if you're going to donate money to candidates, I want to do it earlier and I want to do it until it hurts a little bit. I want to go to more movies in the theater. Great. I pick. More I pick. to go to more movies in the theater. Great. I pick more. That's great. Movies in the theater.

Well, what a bummer. That is so sad. That last one is so sad. I did give the candidates earlier and it did hurt. I got in trouble with Hannah at one point. But yeah. The movies in the theater. And I talked about the I pick ipic boy do i miss the

me too man god people have been tweeting pictures from last year's tour shows uh i i and it made me very sad also um i believe our uh our tour shows for 2020 went up like mid-february like the promotion for all the shows went up like right before. What a bummer. What a bummer. All right, well, let's talk about resolutions for this year. Who's got some resolutions for 2021 they want to share? Tommy? Sure. I mean, I did my normal thing of like a bunch of little ones. So I'll give you my bucket of work ones. Turn off the camera during Zoom. I miss real meetings, but I hate that every call has been replaced by a Zoom. I want to end the tyranny

of the Zoom camera always being on because you end up looking at yourself and I hate it. One, short emails. I read one of those articles about how like effective people just like reply really quickly to stuff. I want to do that. No fluff. Oh, wow. Maybe that's, that would be so cool. Maybe that's not doable. And this sort of like ultra fraud. Let's all do it. Let's all do it. Right. You just get a reply, like just the facts. And then you guys, I know you guys feel the same way about this one. I want to fix my schedule. My, my, my work week structure for listeners back home is basically like be as anxious as humanly possible Sunday through Tuesday when we wrap pod save the world.

And then like Thursday, Friday, sometimes I'm like, what should I do today? And I got to figure out a way to be more efficient or spread this stuff out or else I'm just going to be a nightmare. Love it. Yeah, I mean, I so I need to get back into a routine i've said this every year for four years but it continues to be true because sometimes like i need to get up earlier even when i'm on the east coast i feel like i wake up behind you tommy john and dan are like air traffic controllers making sure every tweet in the sky is monitored.

They never miss a fucking shift. I wake up at 8 a.m. Eastern. Tommy's already yucking it up with Matt Negrin. It's like, and so I just always feel a little bit behind. So I want to wake up and work out because when I do that, my mood is better. My health is better. I'm more productive. I have to do that.

I have to do that. Ronan and I are prone to a late bedtime. We are gamers at heart. And it is very bad for the both of us. So we're going to work on that. And then also for next year, I want to, I obviously want to read more, but I actually just want to read more about issues that I care about. Like I want to, this is sound silly, but I want to read a book about why infrastructure in America costs so much. It's something I care about. And I don't feel like I know enough about it beyond the articles I read. You know what I mean? I want to go like

a little bit deeper. Like I care about corporate consolidation, but I feel like after, like, I feel like I've run out of thoughts about it because I haven't read enough about it lately. Cause we were so focused on the election and I want to make more things. I want to talk about star Wars in a podcast or something. I want to like create more and spend less time creating tweets. It's good. I'm going to just try to do baby steps on the like,

I'm going to tweet less and I'm going to read books. Like that's obviously not going to happen, folks. It's not going to happen for me. But this is good progress. This is good. Yeah, I know. I do want to just like lengthen my attention span. Let's try that.

So like if I'm reading about news and politics, just like read longer stories. Spend time doing something where I am focused only on that thing and that I'm not picking up my phone while doing that thing or talking to a bunch of other people. While doing that thing. Or talking to a bunch of other people. Like I just. So I want to. I want to lengthen my attention span. And focus more on what I'm doing. If I'm with family.

If I'm with friends. Whatever I'm with. Focus on that a little bit more. I am also. I am not turning down any invitations. To see people in 2021. Yes. Once the pandemic has gone down.

And people are vaccinated. I am going to everything. Me too. I am going to see everyone. And the other thing I want to do. Is like really spend the time. time catching up with friends and family that I have not been able to see or talk to that much in 2020 because of the pandemic. Because like, God, if there's ever a question whether I'm like an introvert or an extrovert, this pandemic has made me realize I

am an extrovert and I desperately need to see people and talk to people and have social interaction because this year is rough. And then the last thing for me is I just want to be more grateful because it has been a tough year and a real tough year for a lot of people. And I want to be, I want to remember to be grateful for, for what I have in the people in my life. So. Yeah. It's a, it's a funny thing about the pandemic, which is I'm surprised by how hard it is to stay in touch with people that I would have been in touch with during the pandemic. It's there's something about having less to talk about. And the things we do talk about are so depressing that like, yeah, we kind of don't have as many stories to tell each other. And it makes the catch ups like not as satisfying. And so like, I think everybody has given each other more space than even I would have expected. And like, I feel like even in this moment, like my circle has shrunk a bit,

not that I don't like love all the people that I will very much reach out to and want to spend as much time with as humanly possible next year. But I, I am, I do feel the same way. Like I also feel look, I, um, without my weekly dose of 150 people applauding at the improv, uh, I'm barely. I'm barely able to get out of bed. We were in a good place there for a minute, but yeah. So if we're going to more personal ones, if we're going to more personal ones, so I had one that's holding grudges. Holding grudges is bad for you.

The resentment, it just festers. It bothers you at a low boil. So 2021 is about finishing the job. I thought we were getting to something like, you know, when you hold a grudge, it's poison. You take yourself, you know, something like that. You don't squash it. You win it. That's what 21 is about when it comes to grudges. And then this one for all of us and for our listeners, we're going to tune out Trump. We got to move on from this guy. Like it needs to be a collective act. He will remain in control of the Republican Party, but it's going to take discipline from all

of us to not react and amplify the meaningless outrage of the day. He cannot be the country's national narrator of events for 2021, 22, 23, and 24. We got to remind ourselves that he is a shithead from New York who is now just a former president loser. Didn't need to hear some anti-New York bias in there slipping in at the end. Seems unnecessary. He's a shithead from South Florida.

Yeah, you're right. Thank you. Apologies. So at the risk of, I don't want to predict anything because this will be played back to me next year. But like I've gone back and forth on this for a while. I think like he has like a, I believe he has a tight grip on the Republican Party. And because he has such a tight grip on the Republican Party, he will be a factor in politics and news coverage for a while.

But like I've been thinking about it more the last week or so, especially since I've noticed it's even felt like in the last couple of days and like he hasn't been at the top of every headline. He hasn't been at the front of every news story. And I do wonder, like, if all he has is a big fucking Twitter feed, but he is not in the White House, he is not in Washington, he is not part of congressional negotiations. He is not part of, you know, foreign policy and foreign trips. Like if he's not part of all that stuff and all he has is his Twitter feed and his like calls to Fox and friends and he's always on Newsmax or OAN, like maybe he really won't be that much part of the conversation. Like there might actually be some hope for that. I have no faith in Jeff Zucker and a bunch of fucking executives who decide these things. But maybe, maybe. I think it's more like I think we have to actually internalize like Trump is important insofar as he is the leader of a dangerous right wing anti-democratic movement. And the more central he is to that

movement, which is a threat and is important, the more I think he'll be covered and the more I think he'll probably deserve some coverage. But I think there are going to be a lot of people vying to see where this mob is going so that they might lead them. Yep. All right. Anything else? Yeah. I mean, look, I want to dust off some classics. I just bought my first John Le Carre book. All right. i want to dust off some classics i just i just uh bought my first john le carre book all right i want to tell me he's got a lot i want to read them all right also you guys talked about your gym okay i was roundly mocked a couple years ago for saying i wanted to spend less time at the gym i succeeded so joke is on you shut them all down you conveniently ignored the other half of that uh resolution which was eat healthier so you don't have to go to the gym but that's okay not everyone is understood in their time. You know what I mean? But, you know, that's the real

point here is how do we get to parts like remember back in the day when exercising was fun, you played sports or you like screwed around with your friends. And like, I want to get to a place where you're doing fun stuff again that is that happens to be exercise, like playing tennis. I don't know, whatever. Tennis. Hey, Tommy, maybe it's time for you and I to play some tennis. I'd love to play. If you love it, if you want to sub in for me, because Tommy and Hannah and Emily are all great tennis players. I am not.

So maybe you can sub in for me. I'd love to. I'd love to. No, tennis. Tennis. When my friend Spencer suggested that he and i played tennis during the pandemic like i bought a tennis racket i was so excited to have a new thing like every new thing that comes along it's like the most exciting thing that could happen so yeah tennis tennis in 2021

i want to clean my clean my car i just wrote down a bunch of little ones oh you oh you got more you got more i don't want to stop you and you just paused for a second i just i have no more i haven't cleaned my car in over a year and it makes hannah very annoyed it looks like yeah it used to be black and now it's just sort of a gray and i think that she doesn't she doesn't love that uh last thing i have i uh i had a period during quarantine where i was playing a lot of guitar, like in playing almost every night. And I got so much better so quickly. And I want to figure out almost a curriculum for myself and sort of a reasonable schedule that's like three times a week.

You play for 20 minutes and just commit to that. And then I'll be happy. Even though we've been in quarantine for almost a year now, the last month I've started like really playing piano again. almost a year now, the last month I've started like really playing piano again. And it does feel like, wow, an activity, something new, something different, something to like have my mind work a different way. So I actually want to do the same thing with piano. I just on the car front. I'm hoping this is repaired by the time this episode has come out. So like every morning I've been borrowing Ronan's mom's car. So that's Mia Farrow's car. And driving to McDonald's, Dunkin' Donuts, or Starbucks to the drive-thru. And I get myself a coffee.

I get Ronan and Mia coffee. What a variety of places that you're attending. Well, it's Variety's The Spice of Life, John. And I transfer. What I do is I get the Dunkin' Donuts. I transfer it into a Tumblr. And then I Purell my hands. And then I can have it.

And it's like a routine. I put on my mask when I go to the drive-thru, though a lot of people don't. The problem is, so I fill the, I pour out the plastic cup. Then I close the plastic cup. Then I throw it into the bottom right. And when I say the well of Mia's car is filled with garbage. Just empty plastic cups, crumpled up breakfast sandwich containers. I hate that. I hate cars like that.

I hate people who do that with their cars. Literally, you couldn't get in. If you open that door, they will fall out the side. It's my dirty secret. Nobody knows but me. You remember when Lovett's car, I think it's the same car you have now. The side mirror was literally taped on and then he lost the key. So we had literally a clothes hanger inside the thing where you turn it on.

Is that still the case? Yeah. No, no, no. I had to. I got a new car, but I fixed, no, I still have that car, but I gave, I fixed that. I fixed that. And the other day. That was one of the reasons I wouldn't get in a car with him on the highway.

The other day, Mia asked where the keys were because she was going to go get the mail and drop off some books at Goodwill. And I was like, no, no, I'll do it. I'll do it. I'll take care of it. I'll take care of it for you. No, no, no. I'll do it. Because I don't want her to see what's going on in there.

Well, hopefully now this will fix it. her you're listening to this is good it's a dead good it's a good cleansing of uh cleansing of the takes cleansing of the resolutions cleansing of the car last one before we go then you know i said i want to be more grateful like i i am very very grateful and i know you guys are too for all of you, for our listeners, because grateful for you guys, not just listening, but, you know, telling us what you think, whether it's praise or criticism, tweeting at us, reaching out to us. And most importantly, you know, 300,000 of you adopted a state and did volunteering sometimes for the first time. adopted a state um and did volunteering sometimes for the first time you donated um you made calls you did text banks all during a pandemic when a lot of shit was going on and it was a really tough year um so many of you stepped up to work really really hard in this election and um i don't know

like the the best part of this job is having a community of people like like all of you who um are so engaged and so committed so we we love all of you guys thank you and and our amazing team here at koga media who who enables everything which is that we are able to do despite being uh like the little engine that could not not nearly enough folks to do all the things that we try to take on this year but everybody did it with uh just optimism, despite being all the fun parts of work and all the time we got to hang out, just being ripped away from us by this virus. Uh, you know, we're still just incredibly successful and, and just so grateful to them and to all the listeners and yeah. Yeah. I think about, um, I think about the fact that

this has been like a four year fight, you know? And I think if we had been able to be together more, celebrate more, not just, you know, a few gatherings outside in front of the White House, but like the joy of having been in this fight together for so long and been through something so hard and so awful and like the promise of something better. I feel like I do. I am sad of what we were denied by this pandemic and the

failed response, but I really do go into 2021 so hopeful, so excited about the possibility of a better year. It really is in front of us. And as hard as this has been, and as sad as I've been, and depressed as I have been, that light at the end of the tunnel has mattered. And I'm so glad we can say that we won this election because imagine how we'd feel if we hadn't. Oof, my God. Well, happy new year, everyone. Happy new year. We will see you in 2021.

And here is to a much better year. And spicy takes. Pod Save America is a Crooked Media production. The executive producer is Michael Martinez. Our associate producer is Jordan Waller. It's mixed and edited by Andrew Chadwick. Kyle Seglin is our sound engineer. Thanks to Tanya Sominator, Katie Long,

Roman Papadimitriou, Quinn Lewis, Caroline Rustin, and Justine Howe for production support. And to our digital team, Elijah Cohn, Narmal Konian, Yale Freed, and Milo Kim, who film and upload these episodes as videos every week.