Pod Save America - Supreme Court Refuses to Exonerate Trump for Jan. 6th

Episode Date: March 5, 2024

The Supreme Court issues a unanimous decision that Donald Trump cannot be kicked off the ballot by the state of Colorado. Nikki Haley wins the DC primary and won’t commit to endorsing Trump. Joe Biden gets another batch of bad polls and gives a long interview about his thinking on the presidential race. California gears up for a big Senate primary as part of the Super Tuesday contests. And later, Congressman Ro Khanna talks to Tommy about Gaza, the Democratic Party, and 2024. For a closed-captioned version of this episode, click here. For a transcript of this episode, please email [e-mail] and include the name of the podcast.

Welcome to Pod Save America, I'm Jon Favreau. I'm Jon Leavitt. I'm Tommy Vitor. On today's show, Nikki Haley wins the D.C. primary and won't commit to endorsing Trump. She did it. Great work, Nikki. Joe Biden gets another batch of fun polls and gives a long interview about his thinking on 2024. The Super Tuesday contests include a big Senate primary right here in California. And later, Congressman Ro Khanna talks to Tommy about Gaza, the Democratic Party, in 2024.

Is that about right? Is that what you covered? Sure. Sure. Talk crypto, too. Talk about the California Senate primary a little bit, too. That's cool. I like him a lot. All right.

But first, the Supreme Court issued a unanimous decision that Donald Trump cannot be kicked off the ballot in Colorado or any other state. All nine justices agreed that Section 3 of the 14th Amendment, which bans insurrectionists from holding office, cannot be enforced by individual states, which is what Colorado tried to do after a federal court found that Trump did engage in insurrection. But five justices went further, saying that only Congress can disqualify a candidate for insurrection, which Amy Coney Barrett and the court's three liberals disagreed with. Trump responded with remarks at Mar-a-Lago, where he celebrated the ruling and said he should be immune from prosecution for trying to overturn the election.

I don't want to be prosecuted. In that case, it worked out very well. There will be some things that perhaps don't work out so well, but I don't want to be prosecuted because I decided to do something that is very much for the good of the country and actually for the good of the world. It's for the good of the world. for the good of the country and actually for the good of the world. It's for the good of the world. For the good of the world. Usually they don't prosecute you if you don't want to be prosecuted. And also if you've done something, if overturning the election just happened to benefit the country and the world. I feel like he was trying to combine things there because I think what he's also saying there is,

he's referring to his foreign policy and he's saying, I wouldn't want, he's saying that his efforts to overturn ISIS went well, but if it went poorly he could be prosecuted the reason he's talking about it is because no of course of course that's just yeah uh what do you guys think about the ruling and the uh the different opinions anyone take the l set at the stable did you john i didn't someone someone wants to go back and talk about his uh hey litigate his what all i'm just saying is you know lar, Larry Tribe and I, just difference of opinion, and nine Supreme Court justices agreed with me unanimously and only zero agreed with him.

And that's just how it works in the legal world. There's just two legal scholars hashing it out. That's the beauty of it. Socratic method. What was that paper chase? All right, so here's what I thought the most interesting thing about this is they decided unanimously, except it had the vibe of a group of people that hate each other trying to keep it together at a restaurant. That's the best part. So you have, so, so basically, you know, you have this unanimous opinion and then you have the three liberal justices saying you, you guys went way further

than you need to. It's done in this very like kind of cheeky way where they're referring to, like, they quote Dobbs back at Roberts, Dobbs' concurrence back at Roberts, they quote, quote, Bush v. Gore. And then Amy Coney Barrett is like, I think the most important thing is that we mostly agree. And I don't think we need the tone, which is a new, which is I think a new and fun role for her. What do you think? Well, I mean, just so I think I understand it. All the justices say that states can't unilaterally disqualify a presidential candidate because that would lead to chaos. Kind of makes sense. But then the liberals are frustrated. The conservative majority went too far by saying that Congress alone through legislation may enforce section 3 the bar on insurrectionists holding office but that doesn't

make sense to everybody because the rest of the 14th amendment is supposed to be self-executing mean you don't need congressional action for it to be law but all of a sudden there's this special provision that applies to section 3 of the 14th amendment yeah basically the the five justices were saying okay if we're gonna uh prevent someone from running because they engage in insurrection congress has to pass a law right and the uh and the four justices were like we want to leave open the possibility that someone can be disqualified by other federal action, federal courts, right, or something else. And they didn't understand why.

And I don't really understand why either. You would have Congress pass a law when also in the provision, it says someone can be undisqualified from being an insurrectionist if Congress votes by two thirds to have them undisqualified. Requalified? Undisqualified? I don't know how you say that. The liberals think they did Trump a favor, basically. Well, it just seems like what they've done, like obviously this Congress is not passing any law

to bar Donald Trump and his fellow insurrectionists. Even though Jamie Raskin said he's reviving that law. He's like, the question is, will Mike Johnson put it on the floor? The answer is no. Yeah, it's like, okay. I mean, you know, you could also just sort of, I don't know, go for a walk or something.

But no, but I'm supportive. Do it, do it you know get it on the record get it on the record but uh yeah no just there's just no because there's no law they're just basically saying we don't want to deal with this again we're all set for a while yeah and again you know uh imagine the alabama supreme court the same one that gave us the ivF ruling, decide that some wacko court in Alabama that disqualified Joe Biden because they think he's an insurrectionist and now they're going to keep him off the ballot. I mean, like, you just can't.

It is, I get it. I get why one state can't do that. Yeah, like that part of it to me, look, I was always sort of really skeptical about how this would work in practice and the kind of chaos it would unleash. And it was just sort of like, yeah, like this would be like,

no, there's sort of a tone in the thing this would be like, no, you can't. There's sort of a tone in the thing. It was like, no, this is insane. Like, what are you crazy? Which I was always like. But the second part, yeah, it's like the whole like John Roberts is an institutionalist and he cares about the kind of the reputation and dignity and prestige of the court. You feel like, I don't know, you just feel in this document, like this place where nine of them agree on the top line issue like oh like that's this place is a snake pit

like these people fucking hate each other doesn't seem fun i think they were all probably the majority i think was worried about what happens if trump is convicted before the election and then suddenly they're like okay well it's not the colorado court anymore he was convicted in a federal court of election subversion and now can he be barred from actually serving even though he won the election and they didn't they didn't want that to happen and now and now so and then somebody somehow it comes before them it's after the election donald trump has won i think the other uh thing to keep in mind here, they pointedly declined to absolve Trump of having engaged in insurrection.

They didn't say a word about the Colorado court's finding, which Trump had wanted them to. And so they didn't touch it. They didn't touch it. And it's like, look, that would have been obviously a sticky wicket. But they could have if if the fix was really in all of the conservatives on the court could have said, okay,

we're also going to overturn the Colorado finding that he engaged in insurrection. They could have done it. The question that you guys are all wondering right now is we'll strict scrutiny, record an episode on this. And I want to let you know, they already have,

you've probably already listened to it. You're going to get something a lot better than what you just heard. Don't you worry. Hey, Hey, Hey, different, different.

Yeah. More fact-based. Go't you worry. Hey, hey, hey, hey, different, different. Yeah. More fact based. Go check it out. Trump also won the Missouri, Michigan and Idaho Republican caucuses over the weekend, sweeping all 125 delegates at stake. He then gave a speech at a rally in Virginia, one of the Super Tuesday states, where he bragged about purging the Republican Party of moderates and once again demonstrated his mental fitness for office. And they say always trying to demean. Well, MAGA really represents 48% of the Republican Party. No, it represents 96% and maybe 100%. We're getting rid of the Romneys of the world.

We want to get Romneys and those out. And Putin, you know, has so little respect for Obama that he's starting to throw around the nuclear word here. You heard that, nuclear. He's starting to talk nuclear. you have to see the chart they're like this and we're like boom this is me i i hear being i gotta put that chart up for people heard that saudi arabia and Russia will repeat your... I watched that last clip so many times. It's so funny when he just... What happened to him? Did he just glitch out?

I don't know. I have gotten a little... Okay, we get it. Every time Trump says one wrong word now, we're all like, see, he's senile. It's a little much. That one, he definitely...

That was a good one. That was is, he definitely, that was wild. So the Obama flub got more attention, but I feel like the comments about Republicans could be more damaging in the long run. I don't know. What do you guys think? I mean, traditionally in a campaign, you want to grow your coalition, not shrink it. And telling Mitt Romney that he's not allowed to be a Republican anymore is not the best way forward. I mean, also, there's a lot of data suggesting there are Republicans who are not going to vote for Trump. The AP VoteCast survey of the Republican primary and caucuses found two in 10 Iowa voters say they won't vote for Trump in the general election. 33% of New Hampshire voters, 25% of South Carolina voters, one in 10 early state voters who voted for Trump in the 2020 general election said they wouldn't do so again. So this is a political risk for him.

And he's just leaning right into it. Also, in most of these exit polls in these primaries, at least somewhere around half of the Republican primary voters are the people who participated in the Republican primary said that they didn't think of themselves as MAGA. Yeah. This is the Times poll that just came out. Among likely voters, 23 percent of Trump's vote is coming from moderates. 15 percent of people voting third party identify as Republicans far more than than Democrats are voting for third party. I'd certainly like to show that clip to as many Haley voters as possible. For sure. I didn't include this clip, but the you ever the vaccine comments to. Yeah. When he was in Virginia. What did he say? He said, I will yank federal funding from any school that has any vaccine mandates. Well, that's it.

That's all of them. And he said, you know, of course, he said, then he said, and mask mandates too. So he might have been referring to COVID, but the way he said it, and so far they haven't walked it back, was just any vaccine mandates at any school, cut federal funding. Yeah. I think I want my kid to get the polio vaccine and i want his friends to get that too we're seeing fucking measles outbreaks uh again thanks to the anti-vax movement in the republican party that gained steam under covid

trump's gonna do better in moran county that's true those sort of those dan what yeah poor dan so trump wasn't the only Republican winner over the weekend. Nikki Haley won her first primary in Washington, D.C. on Saturday, sweeping all 19 delegates with 63% of the vote and a whopping turnout of 2,000 voters. What? 2,000 voters. 2,000 voters. There was something like, I know, it's D.C. I didn't know it was that few. It's D.C. It's small. It's not was something like, I know, it's DC. I didn't know it was that few.

It's DC. It's small. It's not a very Republican town. No, it's not. I think there's like 11,000 registered Republicans in DC. It's a high school football game. A small one. 2,000 is not.

Not in Texas. That's a PSA show. It's like 2017. Trump's campaign graciously congratulated her on being named queen of the swamp. And their attempts to woo Haley and her voters are clearly working like a charm. Here's what Haley said to Kristen Welker about Trump on Meet the Press. You did sign a pledge, an RNC pledge, to support the eventual nominee. Do you still feel bound by that pledge?

I have always said that I have serious concerns about Donald Trump. I have even more concerns about Joe Biden. So is that a no? Are you bound by the RN that pledge? I have always said that I have serious concerns about Donald Trump. I have even more concerns about Joe Biden. So is that a no? Are you bound by the RNC pledge? The RNC pledge, I mean, at the time of the debate, we had to take it to where would you support the nominee and you had to in order to get on that debate stage, you said yes. The RNC is now not the same RNC. Now it's- So you're no longer bound by that pledge? No, I think I'll make what decision I wanna make, but that's not something I'm thinking about. Do you think Donald Trump would follow the Constitution if he were elected to a second

term? I don't know. I don't know. I mean, you always wanna think someone will, but i don't know you do always want to think someone will follow the constitution that's something that you want to think yeah you want to believe in the best in people uh is it happening so i really what's happening i i it seems like it be tough to endorse a guy after super tuesday if she drops out after super tuesday who she just said that about a couple days earlier. So I don't know.

I don't know either. I watched this whole thing. It's first of all, it's just like Nikki Haley was like the best alternative and she's still terrible. But the thing that's interesting about it is the way Welker pushes back right there. She actually is walking through the rationale she would use for endorsing Trump. Right. She says, I have concerns about Trump.

I have even greater concerns about Biden. Yeah, Which she's been saying the last couple of weeks, which is what you say when you're. So what I don't what is not clear to me in watching her interview is, is this somebody because she goes after Chris Christie at some point about the difference between her and Chris Christie. And she says Christie was running to to stop to stop Trump. I'm not just running to stop Trump. I'm running at the future of the public party, blah, blah, blah. And I can tell in watching her, is this someone who is leaving the space open to endorse Trump, even though she's being incredibly critical? Or is this just somebody who is not planning to endorse Trump, but is trying to bring in as many people that she is

seeing in the polls that are not anti-Trump, but still want an alternative, that she doesn't want to be seen as a never-Trump person. Queen of the Swamp's pretty good. Yeah. I like that. I was waiting for that. Shout out to them. I'm a little disappointed that Trump himself didn't go out there and say that.

Yeah, he could do a fun graphic, maybe. I also like that she's like, look, I would have lied. I would have said any lie to get it on the debate stage. By the way, last week her message was, I'm a woman of my word. Now she's like, no, obviously I lied because it was good for me in that moment. So duplicitous. They all were like, yeah, I'll take your stupid pledge. And Chris Christie was more direct about that when they asked him a long time ago.

He was like, yeah, I signed the pledge. Who cares? The pledge is stupid. It doesn't matter. If you guys said, all right, we're all betting today, will she endorse or not? My money's on endorsing. I mean, in 2016, she said, Trump's everything a governor doesn't want a president she said i will not stop until we fight a man that chooses not to disavow the kkk that is not our not a part of our party that's not who we are like nobody said mean

herself about trump than lindsey graham he signed up so i don't know i have no faith in these people not eventually kissing the ring unfortunately she's definitely pulling her punches right yeah she's not she's not going all the way in and i do think one reason is that uh she'll endorse him i i can't imagine the other reason is that she's trying to win over voters now like she's gotta know she cannot win no but it's not about winning i don't know what it's about but i there's a if you watch that interview there is a carefulness and a precision that she is still using that is somehow around trying to bring in as many people as possible, even though she can't win. No, I was going to say, I think it's possible that she's looking to 2028. And if Trump loses and she gets to say, oh, I told you all this was going to happen.

She doesn't want to go quite as far as Chris Christie becauseie because she knows chris christie will has no place in the republican party ever again and she might think that if she still is like trump was bad but he's not too bad you know like if she she's no i think that's wrong i don't think that's gonna help her when you talk to christy his view on why she's saying it is she's running in 2028 right like he was like definitive about it that might be the case but what she's really doing is making the base of the party hate her guts. So it's not the best strategy. The nuances are so strange because she's also saying he's unfit and either one of them should be... She's going in certain

places, she goes much further. There's places where she's careful that don't seem to reflect the way she's not as cautious elsewhere. I will say, put it in the time capsule, the very end of that interview where Welker asks do you think Trump would uphold the Constitution? The way she pauses before answering, it's a different version of her.

Yeah. And there was a seriousness to the way she answered that question that was different than any other part of that. I was going to say there is another option, which is that everything she said she genuinely believes. Yeah. Right now. Maybe so. Which is like she doesn't really know if he's gonna follow the constitution i mean she could be a conflicted person because she did work in his administration right like that she she likes trump she likes his policy she probably likes a lot of things about him she's not as anti-trump

as chris christie could be true you know and and and she might be wrestling with the decision still whether she's going to endorse him now she might not have made up her mind yet. Another undecided voter. We got four high quality national polls over the weekend. They all sucked. New York Times Sienna has the two way race at 4843 Trump. CBS News has it at 5248 Trump. Fox News is 4947 Trump and the Wall Street Journal is 4745 Trump. The overall national polling average has Trump up by around two points in line with most of those polls and and his margins uh a little more in most swing states

joe biden and his campaign say they aren't worried the president and his team talked to the new yorkers evan osnos for a 14 000 word piece could that have been like 5 000 words yeah give me a give me a give me a give me a dock and i'll control control shift e and fucking make some cuts let's turn some red let's get some red fucking cuts on this thing read that thing for like two hours this morning i got to the end it's like he is old these people in new york do they know the kids are on tiktok now they can be yeah jesus christ for more than 30 seconds anyway uh it was a great piece get ready with me while i read the evan osnos piece that's a good piece it's a good piece so it was good uh so in the piece biden was described as giving off a, quote, conviction that borders on serenity.

Senior aides say they doubt he's behind by as much as the polls suggest because, according to one of them, quote, polling is broken. And senior advisor Mike Donilon predicted by November, quote, the focus will become overwhelming on democracy and that, quote, the biggest images in people's minds are going to be of January 6th. All right. So we'll get to the piece in a bit. But as we all know, campaigns use polling not to predict what will happen, but to get a sense of where voters are right now and how to win them over. With that in mind, was there anything in these polls that stood out to you guys? Yes. I mean, so I'll take the Wall Street Journal poll that that survey made me very sympathetic to the White House's frustration about Biden's political standing and the challenges they're having of improving it for example 43 percent of voters think the economy has gotten better over the last two years that's

up 10 points from December 43 percent said their personal finances are headed in the right direction, up nine points from last year. But Biden's overall approval on the economy is only at 40%, which is only up 4% from December. So that could be a lagging indicator, right? It might take some time for your economic sentiment to filter into your feelings about Biden. Maybe your feelings about Biden are being driven by concerns about inflation that's still pretty high in this journal poll. Maybe it's age or other issues. But you can see their frustration where all the economic indicators are getting better. People's feelings about the economy are getting better, but Biden isn't getting credit for it. That drives you crazy in the White House. Yeah. Yeah. I feel like the question on what does the polling look

like on age is sort of asked and answered. And so I was looking at the economic numbers in the Times poll. The Times poll is, I think, a little less sanguine. Two thirds of the country feel the nation's head in the wrong direction. Trump is winning two thirds of them. Right. And then you dig into those numbers. Forty percent say Trump's policies help them personally compared to only 18 percent for Biden. And you've you run through the numbers. It's like, you know, women who favored Biden are now split, right? Like he's losing among all these groups.

If you go into the like, whose policies have helped you personally, it's not, there's no contingency right now where Biden is doing better, right? That Trump's policies, 40 to 18 have helped, but that's true for men. That's true for women. That's true for women. That's true for white voters. It's true for black voters. It's true for Hispanic voters. It's true

by age. And I do think that there's like this vicious circle, which is people worry that Biden's age make him ineffective. They are unaware of the actual policies that Joe Biden has put in place. And so when they look back in the last four years, they see rising prices as a signal of ineffectiveness. They are unaware of his achievements. And then they put those in the basket of age. And it does, if you look at this poll, kind of blur your eyes, you say, all right, there is a lot of work that needs to be done to let people know how much Biden was able to get done and the actual choice between Trump and Biden on the economy going forward. And it might be the case that you

don't actually address questions of Biden's age and ineffectiveness directly. You actually help people understand the choice and what he's actually gotten done. And then all of a sudden you see people, you see a way of addressing age and ineffectiveness by actually talking about the economy. Yeah. No, I think that's right because there's only so much, there's only so much that the white, that the Biden and the White House can do about the age question. We've talked it to death. It's there. It's an issue. But there's only so much you can do about it. You've got to focus on what you can control. subgroup, cross tabs, and a single poll. I don't think it's worth overanalyzing a single poll. I think it's worth analyzing the polling averages, overall trends, and then themes that keep coming up.

I think when you think about it that way, you get the sense that voters, first of all, they sort of forget the Trump presidency, and they basically have better feelings than we'd like them to about the Trump presidency, they basically have better feelings than we'd like them to about the Trump presidency, particularly around the economy. They tend to think that 2020 was awful, but that COVID was, you know, act of God. It happened everywhere. And so they don't blame Trump as much for COVID. In the journal, his approval is at 43%, but his approval of the job he did in the White House is at 48%. So he's got like plus five on you know people looking back at that period of time when he was in office yes and that um and then what lovett mentioned

about the policies and that's why people look back and more people say that trump's policies help them personally than people are saying that biden's policies help them personally as well so and the other the other big difference is trump's popularity hasn't really changed in four years it is the same he is very unpopular rock solid what's changed is b Trump's popularity hasn't really changed in four years. It is the same. He is very unpopular. Rock solid. What's changed is Biden's popularity, which has taken quite a tumble. So you can do two things about that. One is you've got to make Biden more popular and you've got to make people believe that his policies would actually improve their lives. And also that he's been fighting for policies that will improve their lives. So I think that it's, again, it's not just enough to do, to let people know what the accomplishments are. You've got to say, and this is what I intend to

do if you give me another four years. And then I think there's a bunch of people who don't like Trump, but don't necessarily think he is as dangerous as those of us who are paying close attention. And so I think that you've got a bunch of people who are like, I don't like Biden, I don't like Trump, but I don't know, the Trump economy seemed a little bit better, so I might be leaning towards Trump. And I think we've so you've got to raise the salience of how dangerous it is for Donald Trump to win again. And by and that's why you have to talk about what he's going to do and like the policies he's going to pass that are going to affect people's lives. And some of the ones that were very unpopular in the journal that is worth mentioning.

Fifty one percent oppose repealing the ACA Obamacare. So not going to like that. A majority oppose pardoning the January 6th insurrectionists. And this is my favorite. 82% oppose encouraging Russia to invade NATO allies that don't spend 2% on defense. So you can see why the White House has been hitting this one hard. I laughed at that because I took that note too. It's a hilarious question.

Oh, yeah. It's good to know that that many people don't want Russia to invade Europe. Well, actually, they were split on whether the U.S. should uphold Article 5 commitments under NATO if these countries don't meet their spending targets. Because no one likes sending U.S. troops places, which Trump knows very well. Yeah, the other, just like the way in which Trump has become a kind of gauzy memory, roughly like a fifth of Trump's vote in these polls are coming from people who believe he committed serious federal crimes. And that's like been repeated across all these polls. And I there is just this fundamental problem right now, which is we have the real and extant Joe Biden going up against the kind of soft memory and potential future that Donald

Trump represents. And, you know, the point that the Biden people make in that in that New Yorker piece is once people are reminded, once people once once Trump is back in their face, voters will come home. Voters want normal, not crazy. They they they they don't want Trump. But, you know, we see these polls and these polls are not good. And we have data on one hand and we have a theory on the other. And at some point, we need to see the data start reflecting the theory. There's a few other numbers from the CBS poll that I think could sort of give us guidance on message going forward. Vision, who has a vision for the country?

For Biden, it's 50-50 and for Trump, it's 63-37. So it's a dark vision, but you can see why people believe Trump has a vision for the country. And I do think that starting on Thursday with the State of the Union, Biden will be able to start outlining his vision. And Bill, that's what paid media is for. That's what a campaign is for. Abortion. And you see this in a bunch of polls. Only 33 percent blame Trump for Roe v. Wade being overturned.

That's a real problem. 48 percent say he doesn't deserve blame or credit for it now that's another like that's exactly what paid media is for that's what i thought it's for like the same you know you see like the the like the the split that like you know joe biden is no longer winning among women in this poll it's like all right that let's call that let's that better be fucking soft and let's assume that those are people that can be brought back once they understand the stakes. And I continue to think that that is it's not just relitigating or reminding people, oh, well, he put the justices on the court and then they overturned. It's national abortion ban is coming. Yep.

Reduced access to contraception is coming. Reduced access to IVF is coming if Trump wins. What was your take on how Biden and Donilon and the rest of the team are thinking about the race? I mean, it's an interesting story, the New Yorker piece. Look, the challenge with a long magazine profile like this is like, we don't have a transcript of the conversation. We just have what the reporter ended up running with. And there was a lot of confidence from Biden, from his team that he will win. He's the only guy who's beaten Trump. He can do it again. There wasn't a lot of that vision for what a second term will look like, which is what you're trying to sell to he will win. He's the only guy who's beaten Trump. He can do it again. There wasn't a lot of that

vision for what a second term will look like, which is what you're trying to sell to the American people. Now, I don't know if that's because they didn't talk about it. I don't know if there, it just wasn't the appropriate time to lay that all out. I'm sure we'll hear about more in the, um, in the state of the union, but I do think that piece is missing. Like, what are you running on? What are you fighting for? What's coming next? And again, it's early. I'm not criticizing the Biden White House, but, you know, just in terms of takeaways. Biden says in the piece that democracy is the central cause of his presidency. I read that Donilon quote about he thinks that January 6th will be on people's minds by the fall.

I am inclined to agree with Biden and Donilon on making democracy the central theme of the campaign for a couple reasons. One, Biden clearly believes it and is animated by it. It is real. It is not a poll thing. It is just like something that he gets up every morning. I think it's why he's running at 81 years old, again, because he thinks he's best positioned and he thinks that so much is at stake. I also think it's Trump's biggest weakness. And it's the greatest. It also happens to be the greatest danger of his reelection. Right. There's a lot of awful things that could happen. But ending democracy is the big one. That's the tail risk. it's it's easy to fit abortion into that frame and they've already done that they did that in the midterms but i think you really have to make room for an economic message too if you are gonna go all in on democracy which it sounds like they're going to and so it's not just you know freedom to vote and have those votes counted freedom to see a doctor freedom to know when to

start a family but it's like you know freedom to be able to make a living freedom to send your kids to college right like you've got to you've got to have some kind of economic message in there and show that Biden's fighting for working people because it's going to take some work to make the democracy message tangible for people. I don't think that's a reason to run away from it, but it does take some work to actually make it feel real to people. Yeah. I mean, that was sort of like, you know, it's sort of reading the piece after reading about all these polls. And you just you, you know, you step back from all this polling and you just really get a sense that that Biden as a messenger, that the age question has so kind of clouded people's ability to see and hear everything else that he's saying. And that in these polling, you see that like, oh, people have no idea what he's done. They have absolutely no idea of this, like of this record of a president that did more and got more done in four years than anybody predicted, that played his hand better than anyone could have predicted, that you really can't point, certainly not domestically, you can't point to a single place where you would say, oh, the reason that he didn't get this done is because

he's older, or the reason he didn't get this done is because he's lost his step, right? You cannot even find those moments. Domestic policy-wise, I really do believe he has an incredible record of achievement that people simply have no idea about. And so I read the piece and I feel like, okay, I'm with you. All right, let's make the argument about freedom. Let's tell that story. But to me, it's less about this sort of high level question about like the rhetoric about democracy. It's like, how are we going to get this in front of people? We've got a 14,000 word piece by Evan Osnos.

He skipped the Super Bowl. And I'm just sort of like, when is it? Where is it? I think I agree with you on the record of achievement. I just think like, we're sort of judging that from like an analysis of what's possible or what expectations were for what you could get done in Washington in 2022 or three or four. Right. Which is like a divided Senate and actually getting something done on a bipartisan basis.

I think the challenge on running on the record is going to be really getting people to feel like, OK, the infrastructure bill or the CHIPS Act or the IRA really helped me. Or capping infrastructure or canceling as much student debt as possible, et cetera, et cetera. Yeah, there's discrete pieces like capping the price of insulin. Those are the kinds of things you can really lift up and focus on. But that's where I do think you're missing that prospective economic piece, like give me another chance, give me another term. This is what I'll do. This is what I'm fighting for. And you do need an overall argument that you can say in a couple sentences, because I do think when Democrats have gotten into trouble losing campaigns, it tends to be here's the top 10 issues that poll really well. And so we what that means is all of us have to be messengers too, because it's like, how are you going to get this in front of people?

The Biden campaign will spend a lot of money and they will run a huge campaign on this. But like all of us have agency too. And I think that's precisely why we should be looking at the polls and knowing where the electorate is, because I think that helps us figure out what's the best, most effective message to persuade voters. And so there is this thing every time these polls come out where people are like, well, it's just, it's doom and it's prediction, but like, forget about the top line stuff. Like that's, that tells you like where the

race is right now. And it's, you know, it's probably not exactly accurate, but it's in the ballpark usually. But the important thing is like under the hood and like finding out where voters are in these issues, because then you find out what the best arguments are, what the most effective arguments are when you're talking to your friends, neighbors, colleagues, whoever about the election. Yeah. And by the way, like when I say like, like, where is it? How do we get in front of people? Like I'm not it's like I think sometimes it's like you we now lay at the feet of presidential campaigns like the challenges and like and sins of modernity it's like part of this yes this is on the biden campaign to do the best they can to get this message to people but it also just a grim reality that that it is very hard to inform people

now and and like yes the the fact that donald trump is in striking distance of the oval office if not more likely to win than not right now today is Is that because Biden is older? Yes. Is that because, you know, their criticism of the campaign? Sure. But it is also because we have a fucking broken media environment and we have a a right wing propaganda machine that makes it very, very difficult to to break through all of this noise. And there are places where that where we should be putting pressure on Joe Biden, but then there are also places where we should remember that it's kind of incumbent on all of us to do what John's saying. And if you want to just dig deeper into the crosshairs, which is exactly what I told people

not to do, but if you want to do it, like me, if you want to be like a real junkie, the best junkie there is, Dan Pfeiffer, is going to be breaking all these poles down on Polar Coaster Yes He's got a trench coat He's outside of school And you're gonna love What he's got to offer

What the fuck Like drugs Jesus Christ You said dealer Okay okay Didn't he Did I think it Dan in a trench coat

Anyway Leave it in It's called Polar Coaster You're gonna wanna You have to sign up It's subscription only Be a friend of the pod Crooked.com slash friends

You get to listen to Dan You get to listen to Terminally Online You get all kinds of Other. You get to listen to terminally online. You get all kinds of other fun content. It's great. All right.

Finally, biggest super Tuesday state is California, where we aren't just voting for a presidential nominee, but a nominee to succeed Dianne Feinstein in the

Senate. Uh, we have a system here where candidates from all parties run in the same primary and the top two finishers go on to compete against each

other in November. Haven't filled out my ballot. I haven't filled out my ballot either. Well, by the time you hear this, I should have. I did. I'm going to do it after we record. I'm going to do it after we record, too.

I did it over the weekend. Can I copy off yours? It's nice. Yeah, yeah. I got some. But I got to copy off somebody else's. Okay. All right.

Polling average has Adam Schiff at 25%, Republican Steve Garvey at 20%, Katie Porter at 18%, and Barbara Lee at 9 percent. Garvey's late rise in the polls coincides with Adam Schiff running ads that attack the Republican, but have also had the effect of boosting his name ID, which seems to be the point. No. Here's Katie Porter on that strategy. Seen from Representative Schiff is that his positive messaging isn't moving the needle. Schiff is that his positive messaging isn't moving the needle. And make no mistake, having Steve Darby on the ballot is a boon to Republicans, if not in the Senate race, certainly down ballot. They want to be able to trot out Steve Darby. He can sign a few baseballs and say he doesn't know

what he thinks about any policy position or what he'll do about any problem. And that's a boost for the Republican Party. That's not what Adam Schiff or any Democrat who wants to represent the state of California with our values should be doing at this point. What do you guys make of Katie Porter's argument there? I feel like she's basically, you know, she's delicately walking up to saying, hey, if we have two Democrats running for the Senate in November, that is going to drive, hopefully drive turnout and help us win some of these close House races in California. If we have a Schiff versus goofy Republican race, that might turn out some

Republicans, but and it's a seat we're going to win either way. And while it might mean we don't have to spend as much money on a Senate race in California, it does mean that we're gonna have to work that much harder to turn out the vote. So for Democrats in California, would you rather a choice in November between two Democrats you really, really like, or one Democrat you like and one Republican baseball goof? Yeah. Republican baseball goof. Yeah. No, I asked, um, I asked Ro Khan about this and he was kind of like, yeah, I don't like the strategy either, but like it's politics stuff happens all the time. And, you know, he's endorsed Barbara Leeara lee so he's you know self-interested

party here i either look i don't i can't tell how impactful these ads are or aren't like steve garvey was i think a 10-time all-star he played for the dodgers and the padres two california teams so like that was smart politically yeah so well He set himself up well for later for the center. They've been trying to get him to run for a long time. Yes, he's a pretty famous guy is all I'm saying. He's a very famous baseball player. He won a World Series. Maybe these ads helped and drove some folks his way.

Maybe they're just late deciders. I don't know. I think Schiff's calculus that it'll be a hell of a lot easier for him to beat Steve Garvey than Katie's calculus that it'll be a hell of a lot easier for him to beat steve garvey than katie porter and you know maybe it will be probably will correct i think i think it would be it's got a point look adam schiff has more money than god in the senate race and uh knows that if it's if it's garvey and him he wins and he's the next hit god hard so he so he obviously he's going to do that but i do think think that that Katie makes a good argument, especially around the like, look, if we were in the House races, we need to win in California. They're very competitive, very. We could flip the House just based on California. Right.

And so and you do want high Democratic turnout. And if not, every Republican wants to come out to vote between Katie Porter and Adam Schiff. Yeah, like I think that's too bad. I think everyone should vote all the time. Everybody, everybody should of course vote, but I'd rather them like, you know, they'll put on a baseball jersey and head out than to stay home and be like,

I don't care which one of those freaks wins, you know, that's the Republican speaking. And for Katie Porter, she knows that if it's Porter and Schiff, she has a very good chance of winning. And it's probably a toss up because the poll, they've,

a couple of these polls have just pulled if it was a shift porter race and it's like almost hot yeah it'll be interesting to see what it does or does not do to turn out i mean at the end of the day it is an election year mega people are pretty fired up they'll probably want to vote for trump no matter what but you know garvey might turn out some of those kind of softer republicans who you know romney republicans were no longer welcome in the party who might stay home i also just think like what you know hey democrats we're all going to be voting in the party who might stay home. I also just think like, what, you know,

Hey, Democrats, we're all going to be voting in the fall. Would you rather, would you rather for Democrats? It's, it's, it's much better to have Porter,

right? Yes, absolutely. You know, it's just, uh, the only, the only people that,

um, but some people were trying to make the argument that, well, then it's just going to be so much money spent on this California Senate race between Katie Porter and Adam Schiff when the money could be going to Ohio and Montana montana it's like then just don't spend money on it i'm not donating yeah don't give any money i'm sending my money to ohio montana it's sort of an opposite it's an alien v predator but opposite you know whoever wins we win so don't give don't have to give them any money send the money to the states where we need to take to keep to uh to hold the senate or some of these house races in california if you want to donate locally for sure who's the predator no there's no it's a good one

they're good okay it's good it's because the line from alien v predator was whoever wins we lose so it's like superman sure fine all right let's get out of this before it gets fine uh two quick things before we go to break we're only four months away from the release of our upcoming book democracy or else how to save america in 10 easy steps it's the perfect guide to get you through 2024 and cricket is donating the profits to support vote save america and other groups organizing for 2024 and if a book with a reasonable page count loaded with illustrations isn't your thing we've got you covered that's right we also recorded democracy or else as an audiobook head to cricket.com books and pre-order a copy for you and your friends now.

Also, the Crooked store has some brand new t-shirts. Yeah, it does. You want to talk about it? No, you got this. Okay. The No Trespassing Collection features four different designs, each inspired by a different state where abortion rights are under attack. Read them.

There's Stay Out of My Swamp for Florida. That's right. Stay Out of My Hole for Arizona. Because of the Grand Canyon. Yes. It's always good when you have to explain it. Stay Out of My Prickly swamp for Florida. That's right. Stay out of my hole for Arizona. Because of the Grand Canyon. Yes. It's always good when you have to explain it. Stay out of my prickly pear for Texas. Because that's the kind of cactus I got down there.

And stay out of my strip for Nevada. They're all metaphors for abortion. Yeah. Okay. A portion of proceeds will go to Vote Save America's Fuck Bans Fund, which currently is supporting abortion rights organizations across key states. Head to cricket.com slash store to shop. When we come back, Ro Khanna talks to Tommy about all kinds of fun stuff.

Congressman Ro Khanna represents California's 17th congressional district. And far more importantly, he was very kind to my daughter and my mom when I ran into him recently, walking my dog in my neighborhood, like two blocks from my house. Congressman, great to see you again. Great to see you. I feel like after eight years, I finally made it. Eight years in Congress, I'm on pod seven mark. And now I knew the key is to meet your mom and your daughter to get an invite. My mom was like, I love that guy. Get that guy on the show. Like, all right, man, you know, you say jump, I say how high. Well, we're

very excited to have you on. Let's start with Gaza, because I know you were recently in Michigan. You were meeting with members of the Arab American and Muslim American community who are frustrated about President Biden's Gaza policy. We've talked a lot on this show about the uncommitted movement and the potential political problems, but I thought it would be useful if you and I could talk about what the United States should be doing differently to actually solve the underlying problem. So let's start with this sort of acute need to get to a ceasefire, to get more aid into Gaza, to get the hostages back? What do you think the United States should be doing different policy-wise?

Well, first of all, Tommy, I appreciate us starting there, because if you talk to people in Dearborn, they will tell you this is a humanitarian issue. They'll talk about family members who've been killed, friends of theirs who've had generations killed. They're really not thinking about this politically. The first thing we need to do is call very clearly for a permanent ceasefire and a release of all hostages. And that's very different than just calling for a six-week ceasefire. As you know, Hamas has said they want a four-and-a-half-month ceasefire. As you know, Hamas has said they want a four and a half month ceasefire at the very least. We've managed to get Israel to six weeks. We need to say that the ceasefire needs to be permanent so we can have some room for negotiation in getting the deal, because the time length of the ceasefire is one of the key issues that's preventing the deal. The second thing we should do is make it clear to Netanyahu that we're no longer going to be protecting him at the United Nations. If we're not going to be

voting for the ceasefires at the United Nations, then at the very least, we should abstain from doing that. And that would add pressure. The third thing we should do is make it clear to Netanyahu that no more transfer of weapons bypassing Congress until there is a permanent ceasefire, conditional, of course, I mean, the release of all the hostages, which I do believe that we can get. And we should make it clear to Hamas that they need to live up to the release of all hostages and what they're proposing. Those would be a few places that I think could get us some movement. It seems like the Biden theory of the case has been to try to get this six-week ceasefire because they think once that happens, it will be very difficult for the Israeli military

to restart up the military conflict, at least at the same level after that six-week period. Are you saying that you don't necessarily agree with that theory of the case and that we should be reaching for a longer, more durable, more permanent ceasefire right now? I think there's something to be said for the case in terms of obviously, if we can get at least six weeks before Ramadan, that's a step. And I agree with your view, having talked to folks in the administration that they're hoping once we get a ceasefire, it can continue to be extended. I don't have enough faith in Netanyahu that that's what's going to happen. I think after six weeks, he's going to start again to have operations, partly because his own political survival depends on continuing the war. Partly,

I don't trust his motives. I don't think he wants the president reelected. I think he prefers Donald Trump, and it's in his interest to continue the conflict. But the second point is the six weeks is hard to get precisely because Hamas wants a longer duration. So at the very least, we need to be pushing for a longer duration to get a deal. And we would have probably gotten a deal weeks ago if we weren't stuck on just the six-week framework. Yeah. So bigger picture. I mean, it has felt for a while like things were going in the wrong direction in terms of resolving the underlying conflict, but U.S. policy doesn't seem to adjust, right? I mean, the negotiations over two-state solution have been dead for years.

The Palestinian Authority is corrupt and frankly distrusted by most Palestinians. The Israeli government, on the other hand, keeps getting more right-wing. It keeps getting more extremist and more nationalist. And the U.S. position is basically, let's urge both sides to negotiate, but there's never consequences if one side or the other does something to set back those talks. For example, settlement construction in the West Bank by the Israeli government. The Trump administration and now the Biden team, they seem to think that normalizing relations between Saudi Arabia and Israel is the skeleton key to sort of unlocking the broader Palestinian issue and getting to a Palestinian state. Do you agree with that approach? And if not, what generally do you think we could do to shake things up and kind

of break out of these U.S. government positions and talking points from, you know, frankly, the 80s, or at least when I was in the Obama administration? Yeah, well, the president, I thought President Obama tried with the new beginning speech in Cairo. So I try to give him some credit for that. But look, I'm a supporter of the Abraham Accords, but I don't think that that is going to get you a Palestinian state or a two-state solution, even if you have the normalization between the Saudis and Israel. And that doesn't just come from my own view.

If you talk to Ambassador Rima, she would tell you the same thing, that she is committed and Saudi Arabia is committed, as is UAE, to helping see a Palestinian state. They don't like Hamas. I mean, they recognize Hamas is tied to the Muslim Brotherhood, but they need for us to do a few things for that to be possible. What are those things? First, they need us to at least recognize the Palestinian state. I mean, we as a United States, we don't recognize them. Under the Obama administration, Palestine at least had observer status at the UN, though the US voted against it even then, but they're there.

But we should have come out and recognized clearly a Palestinian state and a Palestinian state at the U.N. The second thing is let's take the Gulf states up on their offer to have a summit in the Middle East, have Saudi there, have Egypt there, have UAE there, have Israel there, have folks from the Palestinian civil authority there. I mean, civic leaders, municipal leaders. Ben Rhodes has written extensively about this. I cite him only because he's met some of these leaders. And then have the Saudis and UAE put a tremendous amount of pressure, which they will, saying, look, we were willing to develop Gaza. We're willing to fund it, but we need to have a new generation of leadership. But we can't get there. I mean, people keep saying, let's not have Hamas. What is the strategy to get a new generation there? We can't do it without the Gulf allies. And Hamas,

ultimately, as Fareed Zakaria wrote, is an idea. It's an idea that armed resistance is the only way to end occupation. We need to provide an alternative. So it's going to require real U.S. leadership. Yeah. And the other challenge that's happened regionally since October 7th is there have been this drastic uptick in attacks by Iranian-linked proxy forces in the Gulf. And there's been a response by the U.S. government and in some cases, a coalition of countries against the Houthis in Yemen. You have criticized presidents at both parties for taking military action without congressional approval. Most recently, that

was in the form of a letter to President Biden arguing he needs congressional approval to target the Houthis in Yemen. So look, I come to this conversation with some humility because the Obama administration stretched the congressional authorization for the use of force against Al Qaeda beyond all recognition to justify a lot of counterterrorism activities. But can you describe to listeners how you think the process should work? And then also just, you know, kind of reflect in that answer the reality that there's a lot of people in Congress that are deeply unserious. And that doesn't mean they don't have the same role in the Constitution, but it creates a challenge, right? I mean, we have Marjorie Taylor Greene with essentially a veto in the House of Representatives. It does create a challenge. But, you know, Matt, as I said,

enlightened statesmen aren't always going to be at the helm. The process is supposed to protect against that, precisely because we may have people who are not well-informed in Congress or in the executive branch, and that's why you have checks and balances. But look, here's my view. If one of our Navy ships is struck and we're taking totally defensive action because we don't want another Navy ship to be struck or even a commercial vehicle, commercial ship to be struck. I think the United States has the right, the president has the right to take that defensive action. And that's what people cite the pirates case with Thomas Jefferson, that Thomas Jefferson

took some of the action to defend the ships back in the early 1800s. What they often don't cite is the second half of that story, where Jefferson then comes to the United States Congress, and he says, okay, I've taken this defensive action, but now I want to take more offensive action against the pirates, and I need Congress's authorization. And so when it becomes not just that we're protecting our ships, but we want to take offensive action against the Houthis or some other force, then they need to come to Congress. And the reality is, in most cases, they would get the authorization, especially if they asked for an authorization that was limited in scope and time.

But the process of coming to Congress would actually have a debate about the issues. And it's really unfortunate that that has been bypassed. I mean, I'm with you on the principle and I'm with you in theory, though, you know, the sort of infamous case of Obama not enforcing the red line happened in part because he decided that he wanted to go to Congress and get a vote on it. And it seemed like Congress was thrilled to not actually have to put their fingerprints on a very tough political issue and kind of walked away from the process.

Is that wrong? No, but I'm not saying I don't think that that was a mistake that the President Obama made. I give him a lot of credit for doing that. Look, Assad obviously gassed his own people. He used capital weapons. He's a brutal dictator. Does that mean that the United States should have been engaged in another Middle East war? Probably there was a lot of hesitation of that. And the President obviously had those considerations, but so did Congress. Congress said, look, we've just been in Iraq. We don't want to have some massive troop deployment into Syria. That didn't mean that

President Obama wasn't very clear-eyed in condemning Assad and understanding the awful things that Assad had done, but he was prudent in not getting us into another Middle East war. And I think Congress helped inform that prudence. So in my view, that was actually an example of the president following the process. Yeah. And in fact, within a few weeks after that process, there was a bunch of diplomatic efforts with the Russians that got all the chemical weapons out of Syria, a lot of the chemical weapons stockpiles out of Syria, but a story for another day that gets lost in the very simplistic version of the red line story. Stepping back a bit over the past few years, you've been part of this group that worked hard to build bridges between the Biden White House and the progressive community.

Those efforts were, I think, surprisingly effective in the first few years. They seem to have unraveled a bit more recently, especially if things have gotten worse in Gaza. more recently, especially as things have gotten worse in Gaza. Why did you end up taking on that role? And what do you think it will take to reconsolidate the Democratic Party voters who say, you know, they're not planning to vote or they're frustrated with politics or the Democratic Party at the moment? Well, I give the president credit for allowing some of us to play that role. for allowing some of us to play that role. I mean, the president, when he won, recognized that Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren and progressives had a big say in the party. And one of the president's great talents has been to find where the median of the Democratic Party is. Another one of the president's great talents is to reach out with humility to lawmakers. So he

made an effort and his team to build relationships, not just with me, but with Pramila, with AOC, with a number of key progressives in the Congress. And he took our idea seriously. It wasn't just lip service. The progressives had a big say in the American Rescue Plan, and that had massive increase in the child tax credit, in K-12 school funding, in checks to people. One of the side notes, things that drives me crazy, is when I talk to young voters of color and they say, Trump gave us checks. I said, President Biden did too. Those checks were the American Rescue Plan, I said, you know, President Biden did too. I mean, those checks were the American rescue plan.

And a lot of the idea for checks came from House Democrats. But the president did that. He listened to us on ideas on climate and made IRA all about climate. He listened about issues of the chips and science and bringing manufacturing back. So the alliance and coalition was based on his outreach and his willingness to embrace progressive goals. In some cases, he pushed for things that Manchin and Sinema didn't let through, like the $15 wage and expanding Medicare to dental and vision. Now the progressives said, maybe, Mr. President, you should have fought harder for it. and vision. Now, the progressives said, maybe, Mr. President, you should have fought harder for it.

And there was always some disagreement. But by and large, we were all rowing in a similar direction. And there was a view that the president really understood on domestic politics where we were going. And then most of us thought he did a masterful job, as did Tony Blinken, in standing up to Putin and in organizing a coalition with Ukraine. And there was a lot of support for the president on that issue. It's really been on Gaza that you see the first major disagreement with the progressive caucus. I mean, there were issues with student loans, but this is probably one of the big disagreements. And it goes to, I think, a view of America's role in the world and justice for people of all backgrounds. But this is one of the first times where you've had a very difficult issue. Yeah. So you sound hopeful, though,

we can get that coalition back together in time for the election. going to be, how important that was to Obama's victories, even in 2012, how important it was in 2020. And right now, he has a lot of young folks, a lot of voters of color, a lot of progressive voters, Arab and Muslim American voters whose trust he needs to build. But it's not just Gaza, it's also that he needs to offer some inspiring vision about the future, where he's going to take the country, their role in that country. And I think we have work to do on that front. Yeah. And some time. I want to ask you about your district. You represent Silicon Valley. You know a lot of the boldface names in tech. I was wondering if you could help us understand them a little bit. Because take, for example, someone like Mark Andreessen, who I think you

know. He is the co-founder of Andreessen Horowitz, one of the biggest and most successful venture capital funds in the country. He's got to be worth a couple billion dollars. Not that long ago, Marc Andreessen was kind of like a center left guy. He was buddies with Al Gore. He supported Obama in 2008. I think he decided Obama's rhetoric was too mean to big business and then endorsed Romney in 2012. But today he's part of this kind of crew of reactionary tech leaders that are super online that seemingly were like radicalized by, I don't know, COVID restrictions or feeling like cancel culture was targeting them. I don't know what it is. I was wondering if you could help us understand how there are so many of these leaders in

Silicon Valley, rich, powerful people like Marc Andreessen or Elon Musk, who feel like they're victims or act like they're victims despite having power that most people could only dream of. Well, you're right. As you know, I supported Bernie Sanders and I represent Silicon Valley. So the voters are different than some of the most high profile tech leaders. But Mark Andreessen, someone who has supported me, has gone on and off. I think he supported me. Then I supported Bernie. He stopped supporting me. Then he started supporting me. And, you know, there are places where he may be open to a vision of Democrats, which is he thinks we need to build things in America again. We need to have some kind of policy with government and the private sector on industrialization. So what Obama did, I mean, Elon Musk may not acknowledge it, but there would not be Tesla

if there was not President Obama. That was the Treasury loan that took place. And Andreessen understands that you need government collaboration with the private sector to spawn Silicon Valley. It was going to the moon that led to the semiconductor industry because NASA had to buy a lot of semiconductors. That's what spawned Silicon Valley. And that on times of let's build things, they're there. But the problem is that they have come to this view of libertarianism, that the obstacle isn't a lack of government financing or government investment

and workforce. The obstacle is just bureaucracy and government regulation and, in its worst case, DEI programs, and that if somehow the government just championed the entrepreneur, that America would be more a manufacturing superpower, an economic superpower. And I think that's a misread of history. I also disagree with it from a values perspective. But that is one strand of thinking in the valley. I hope these guys log off and find whatever they need, fill that void in their souls. Speaking of Mark Andreessen and going to the moon, I wanted to ask you about cryptocurrency because at the end of 2021, crypto was collapsing. Now it's surging again. I'm no expert on the industry, but it seems like a lot of this increase is coming on the

back of the SEC approving Bitcoin ETFs. Those are basically financial instruments that make it easier for people like you and me to buy little bits of cryptocurrency on the stock exchange and make it easier for retail investors to get involved. But a couple of years ago, these crypto companies were imploding left and right. There was FTX, Three Arrows Capital, which is a hedge fund, Celsius. There was a stable coin called Terra that imploded. If folks don't know all the specifics here, just know that these companies failed and a lot of regular people got hurt. Now, again, like I was saying, Bitcoin's back up to $60,000 a coin. The casino is back open, right? Can you help us understand what, if any, steps are

being taken to regulate these guys? Because I know that even the SEC was not happy about its own decision to approve Bitcoin ETFs in the first place. And I just worry we might repeat what happened at the end of 2021 and see retail investors get hurt. Well, we need more regulation. I mean, the one basic regulation is we need stable coins to be capitalized. And without going into all the details, just think of it as we have capital requirements on banks. A stable coin allows for monetary transactions overseas, and a lot of them are undercapitalized. So you could have capitalization requirements for them. There should be clear distinctions between cryptocurrencies that are speculative and that should be regulated by the SEC with investor

disclosures and understanding the risk. And then in some cases, Bitcoin, which is ubiquitous, being more of a commodity. Now, a lot of blockchain and crypto still has a use case to be made. I mean, what is it going to solve? I mean, some people say, well, is it going to make monetary transactions faster and cheaper? That's a debatable issue. Even if it's digital gold, maybe it's just a collector's item. But here's, I think, Tommy, what we're missing. A lot of folks, younger folks, have gotten crypto and blockchain, many people of color. And to me, it's almost a sad commentary that this is the closest they're going to get to having a part in modern economic wealth generation. I sit on a district that has $10 trillion of value, Apple, Google, Intel, Tesla. Yes, kids in my district are the optimistic amount of America. 90% of hands go up in most parts of the district, not all, but most parts of the district. And that's a sad commentary. I mean, what are we doing to expand the opportunities of the digital economy and modern economic

life across this country? That should be, in my view, the question that we're trying to answer. Yeah, that's a good question. Final question for you from me. So we're recording this on March 4th. The interview will come out March 5th, the day of the California primary. We have a big, important Senate race happening here. I know you've endorsed Barbara Lee, Congressman Adam Schiff, and Katie Porter are the other main candidates in the race. Congressman Schiff is

running ads that boost a guy named Steve Garvey, a Republican. The idea being, or strategy seeming to be, that the campaign thinks it will be easier for Schiff to beat Garvey in a runoff than to beat Katie Porter or Barbara Lee or other Democrats. Congresswoman Porter is not happy about this strategy. She's concerned that even having Garvey on the ballot in a runoff would help down ballot Republicans turn out voters. Do you agree with that criticism? Are you concerned about this elevation of Steve Garvey? I don't like this strategy, but look, it's politics. It's happened before in California races. It's not a surprise. I don't think it's going to have an effect on down-ballot races. I think we still have a great chance with Trump as the nominee to win four House races.

But I agree with Katie Porter that it's sort of a manipulation of a system. I mean, it's completely legal. Adam Schiff isn't doing anything that's illegal, but I don't love the tactic. Yeah. Well, we'll leave it there. Congressman Conner, thank you so much for joining the show. I appreciate it. Thank you. Thank you, Tommy. Thanks to Ro Khanna for joining us. And we will have another episode for you on Wednesday after

Super Tuesday. It's going to be all four of us. Dan's flying down. We got Dan. We got Dan. Gun to your head. You got to wear one of those four shirts we just talked about to a family dinner. Which one are you going with? Prickly pear. I think I'm going to prickly pear. Yeah, 100%. Prickly pear. I'm not wearing a shirt that says stay out of my hole at a family function.

Why? It's about the Grand Canyon. Yeah, it's about the Grand Canyon. I'm wearing one. My dad wears worse. Some of his hats. I don't know where those hats come from. Are we selling onesies for babies about this one?

I know we are going to sell. I, I checked with new moms about this one. Oh, you are going to sell a onesie and the onesie is going to say, finger on the pulse. The onesie is going to say, I hope you sold it.

I hope you all, I hope you sort out this whole abortion thing by the time I need one, which is fucking good. Onesies. Coming to a Jesse Waters piece near you. Great. Great. No such thing as that. That's good it on fox news bye everyone if you want to get ad-free episodes exclusive content and more

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