Pod Save America - That'll Leave a Denmark

Episode Date: January 20, 2026

Trump tells the Norwegian Prime Minister that he no longer feels an "obligation" to peace because he didn't receive the Nobel Prize and announces that he's imposing tariffs on a series of NATO allies until "a deal is reached for the complete and total purchase of Greenland." Jon, Lovett, and Tommy discuss these latest developments and Trump's billion-dollar entry fee for the Board of Peace. Then, they cover the latest from ICE's occupation of Minneapolis, including the Justice Department's investigations into Mayor Jacob Fry and Governor Tim Walz, and break down some positive polling about the Democrats chances in the 2026 midterm elections. Then, Tommy talks to Jason Zengerle about his new book, published by Crooked Media Reads, that explores the rise of Tucker Carlson — "Hated by All the Right People." Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

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crooked. Protect your home like it actually matters because it does. If there's no safe, like simply safe. Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm John Fabro. I'm John Lovett. I'm Tommy Vitor. On today's show, we will celebrate two of history's greatest advocates for peace, Martin Luther King Jr. and Donald Trump by talking about the latter's threat to invade Minnesota and Greenland. We'll also talk about Trump's new tariffs, his latest corrupt pardons and polling that shows he's dragging down his party's midterm chances. We'll also touch on the beef brewing between potential 2028 contenders on the Democratic side. And then Tommy talks to our pal Jason Zengarly about his new book published by Crooked Media

Reeds that explores the rise of Tucker Carlson. It's called Hated by All the Right People, and you can pre-order it right now. I both highly recommend folks to listen to the interview with Jason because he's really smart, it's been following Tucker forever, is known him forever. But also the book is incredible. It's like an amazing look at who Tucker Carlson is, the arc of his career from kind of like across the mainstream media. Do you guys remember Tucker Carlson had worked at MSNBC for a while?

Sure do. Yeah. Hard to remember that. Is it more of a hagiography? Yeah. But it sort of tracks his trajectory and what he has become and how that helps you understand the MAG of movement and the incentive structure in, you know, the media in 2026. It's just, it's truly excellent.

I'm very excited to read it. But first, we are now a year into Trump's second term. And as expected, the forces of freedom on both sides of the Atlantic. or rallying to stop the president from capturing Minneapolis and nuke, especially now that Caracas has fallen. Trump announced over the weekend that he'll be imposing a new 10% tariff on Denmark, Norway, Sweden, France, Germany, the UK, the Netherlands, and Finland, that he will raise to 25% by June if Denmark doesn't let the U.S. buy Greenland, a purchase that along with the tariffs would be paid for by us, the American taxpayer. here. Then in a wildly successful demonstration of his mental fitness, our octogenarian leader

texted Norway's prime minister, Jonas Garstor, that because Norway decided not to award Trump the Nobel Peace Prize, a decision that, again, the Norwegian government has nothing to do with, he, quote, no longer feels an obligation to think purely of peace, although it will always be predominant, but can now think about what is good and proper for the United States of America. Trump then questioned why Denmark has a right to Greenland anyway, writing, quote, there are no written documents, it's only that a boat landed there hundreds of years ago, but also we had boats landing there. The world is not secure, this is how he ends it, the world is not secure unless we have

complete and total control of Greenland. Thank you, President DJT. protests erupted in nuke Copenhagen and other European cities including an NBA game in London during the national anthem Let's listen America's hot right now

hottest country in the world Golden Age Good stuff So I guess Venezuelan opposition leader Maria Machado was a little too late in giving her Peace Prize to Trump so now we're going to war with Scandinavia.

Is that what's happening? It really was a, there was something about this weekend of being the one year mark and all these things overlapping kind of hit me at once. We're going to talk about it, but Greg Bevino

marching around Minneapolis, like gay generalissimo Franco and like the, the barely literate threats to fucking Norway over Greenland. Do you think there was any emojis in the text? Was it, So it was a text.

It's described as a letter in most important. Everyone's describing it as a letter, but the Times, which I, you know, trust the New York Times, it was a text. And then they, of course, retrofitted the text into a letter. And then that was what happened. Oh, man. A lot of texts give you anxiety. Imagine that one. I guess the Norwegian prime minister texted Trump first along.

And I think he had the Finnish prime minister on the text chain as well. It's a group chat. Yeah. That's a green bubble chat right there. You know it. And then. And then Trump responded in kind. Oh, my God.

Yeah, it's pretty bleak. And I was really thinking about what would it have been like one year ago the night before Donald Trump is inaugurated and you can't sleep. And so you go to social media and you say, here are some things I'm worried about. You would have been said to be a crazy person. Very much so. What are you talking about? Cooler heads will prevail. TDS. And here we are.

The invasion of Minneapolis, I might have, I might have been worried about. Sure, sure. Greenland did not see coming. No, that's a surprise. That is a surprise. I got to say, like, there's so much about this that's amazing to me. Like, the logic of, I'm not going to avoid killing people unless you give me a prize for it is just such, like, a sixth grader. Like, I'm not even going to do my, if you won't let me play Xbox, like, why even bother trying my homework? Also, yeah, as you mentioned, sitting members of parliament are not allowed to be on the Nobel Committee because they didn't want it to be seen as, like, a government award. I would also point out that

the argument that boats landing somewhere a few hundred years ago doesn't mean you own the place will come as a surprise to a lot of these kind of right-wing heritage Americans who think they were the first residents of North America and then like I just, it's worth, it's exhausting. I do want to just repeat that Trump has not solved eight wars.

Eight plus, yeah. Not even close. He says he ended a war between Egypt and Ethiopia that was never fought. Like I don't know how to say that differently. There was never one, they have a longstanding diplomatic dispute over a hydroelectric dam project, but there was never war. He also includes Israel and Iran in there.

You guys might recall the United States bombed Iran as part of that conflict, which doesn't feel very Nobel Peace Prize-y. And I just, I do want to quickly point out, I try not to do this often, but with respect to Iran, Trump is probably directly responsible for getting thousands of Iranian protesters killed because he tweeted that he would, quote, rescue them protesters if they go to the street, they should take to the streets, take over their government. Then there was a huge crackdown by the Iranian regime. And it seems like the regime saw that tweet, decided to massacre the protesters before Trump could actually make a decision. And then Trump had tweeted this without his, you know, team getting together to review options or without having an aircraft carrier in the region that could

actually facilitate some sort of operation. And then there was this massive crackdown and he'd since done nothing about it. So like, I just would love the press to give this a fraction of the coverage that gave the Syria redline with Obama, because it is essentially the same thing. But whatever. It seems like he put as much thought into that as he did the text. So Norway. Yes, here we are. Also, we did sign a treaty with Denmark in 1916 where we recognized their sovereignty over Greenland. We then signed a defense agreement in 2004, recognizing Greenland as an equal part of the kingdom of Denmark.

And the treaty that we signed way back when, that's when the Danes gave us the Virgin Islands for $25 million in gold. It was a good deal. It was a good deal back then, yeah. Because you're making some pretty good arguments. It's also fucking nuts. Yeah, it's going to say, it's like you're kind of used logic to persuade. to silverback gorilla to put that woman who fell into the to the to the to the to the to the time of herrombie down no I'm not talking about Harambe there's another

girl incident oh man based you think that's the first lot time a gorilla's ripped off somebody's face oh no grow up grow up okay guys they'll come for you Danish combat forces have arrived in Greenland just just just hours before this recording I was reading about some of those European deployments it was like 13 German troops those guys what are we doing here I think I think the day of up to today, which is good. This is my thing. Like, what?

We're all trying to do the like, yeah, he's wrong because of this, that, and the other thing. But like, so are the European leaders so far? Like, some of them are a little further out there and like, this is ridiculous. And then, you know, like, here Starmer's out there being like, wow, we don't want to, there's got to be some kind of a diplomatic solution to all this, right? Why don't they just put a bunch of fucking tanks in Greenland and be like, all right, go for it. You want to start a war within NATO? Go for it, Trump.

Trump's not going to do that. They don't have a lot of tanks. Yeah, whatever they have. What do they have? They're also, I choose. I think they're all kind of, they've sort of internalize a certain lesson of how you deal with Trump as well. Like this is like the root a lesson, which is you can disagree amicably. But if you start to do anything that challenges his ego, it gets worse.

And they're seeing if there's a way that they can agree themselves out of a war for the territory of Greenland. I've like told this before, but I do remember hearing kind of an historian of Denmark and Greenland talking about how hard it is to just sort of exist in Greenland, how unforgiving it is. And his joke was that if anyone ever tried to invade Greenland, Denmark would have no choice but to rescue them. So I do think some of the harsh nature of the terrain is part of it. Quite cold. See that NBC story too, that Trump has been, he's starting to complain about Canada's

vulnerability in the Arctic? The Arctic, I saw that. The northern border of Canada. I saw that. No conversations yet about sending any troops there or taken over Canada. I mean, we did do the 50-51 state thing a while back, but he's getting annoyed. So this is how it starts. Can I go full blue sky for a moment?

This place I'm not on, if you were to write down the list of the things a president would do to destroy America standing in the world and make a subriac nation and kind of destroy our long-term prospects as leading economies, is there anything that you'd be doing differently than what Trump is doing, or is this just the full list of things you would do to hand the world order over to China and Russia. Via a dispute over Greenland, which is the most absurd, funniest and stupidest and thus typically American way to do it with our TV host at the head of the government. So it is, and in some ways fitting.

And don't take John's word for it. The oligarch that, you know, the United States was negotiating with over the future of Gaza, in Ukraine, I mean, Demeter of Kirol or wherever the hell his name is, made exactly that joke on Twitter. He's mocking us, yeah. Yeah, that makes sense. The tariffs were also, we haven't even talked about the terrorists. like the because the text kind of took over the tariff story today.

Carol Dimitri, sorry, I got to know. But like we're now we're doing, we're going back into, we're levying tariffs on ourselves again, right? There's a new study out. 96% of the tariffs so far have been born by Americans, only 4% on foreign exporters. So now we're just charging Americans more for these tariffs because of Greenland. And then if we end up buying Greenland as opposed to taking it by force, where's that money coming from? I know he'll probably say, oh, it's coming from the oil or the sales. of the rare earth minerals, but that's just a lie.

So obviously it's going to come from the Treasury. So that's going to be more money from us, too. So that's great. Well, also. Good way to deal with costs. What is the logic of these tariffs exactly? The emergency authority he's been abusing to put these tariffs in place. He's creating the emergency.

He's the emergency. Greenland, the emergency is we must take Greenland and we must have tariffs until we have Greenland. Besson was asked about this on television. He basically kind of fumford and had no defense for the claim that the emergency is we want Greenland. What the fuck? is he talking about? So you said the emergency was preventing an emergency. Yes, that's right. The emergency is

preventing an emergency. Well, by the time you guys listen to this, the Supreme Court could have struck down the tariffs, but they're also ready. The trade representative says he's ready with new tariffs that somehow are going to be more legal than these. So they're all going to Davos. They're all going to, this is all going down to Davos this week. Trump's going there with the other European leaders. I just want to read you guys. This is sort of a sign of the times right now. This is a headline from Politico. A lead from Politico. The fear had been that Davos might be slipping into irrelevance no more.

U.S. President Donald Trump may be at odds with the rules-based consensus-led global leadership that World Economic Forum stole where it's espouse, but they owe him thanks this time. A record number of world leaders are attending only because he is. Are you kidding me? That is so stupid. Yeah. Yeah. That's what Politico sent.

That's something that's happening there. What does that even mean? Like, no one world leader benefits from Davos being a place people want to go to. The headline, it's political forecast, which is a new newsletter that I have been sent non-consensually by Politico. And it is the headline is Trump makes Davos matter again. Stop. Stop with that. I'm so discouraged. It's discouraging.

I also, we have a bipartisan delegation that is like meeting with the Danes. And you've got to think, like, what, how impotent Congress is that like now we send by part. We send codels abroad bipartisan delegations to be like they're trying to reassure NATO in the European allies that we're not actually going to take Greenland by force. But they can't do that because they're not actually going to they're not actually going to do anything. We talked about how around 75% of Americans oppose acquiring Greenland over 90% opposed acquiring Greenland by force, including most Republicans, which is why more Republicans in Congress are breaking with Trump on this than almost any other issue. Though you can already see some of them starting to get a bit more comfortable with Trump's imperialist ambitions. here's Ted Cruz over the weekend. I believe it is overwhelmingly in America's national interest to acquire Greenland.

Some folks in the press, they clutch their pearls and they say, well, what do you mean acquiring Greenland? How could that happen? Look, the whole history of America has been a history of acquiring new lands and new territories. Yeah, that's just the way it is. We just acquire things. I just thought, like, we kind of, we got to the Pacific Ocean. And yeah, some exceptions beyond that, but we felt like, that's, that's, that's the meat of it. Yeah, that's, you know, like there's Alaska and there is Hawaii, and we've had some, we had some, you know, a kind of a little empire going for a while.

There's some territory. You're like, oh, that's right, Guam, huh? I don't remember what that was about. I think somebody, did we go some new, blew up some nuclear bombs near there for a while when we were being the best country in the world. But, but, but we're good now, I thought. I felt we were kind of good. The sun, the sun must never set on the Mar-a-Lago Empire. I thought we're going to do, like, tech stuff. That was there going to be our new thing. Our empire was to be with tech stuff. I thought what was particularly notable about Cruz's comments there is that here he is in 2016 speaking to us from the future. I mean, we're liable to wake up one morning, and Donald, if he were president, would have nuked Denmark. That's not the temperament of a leader to keep this country safe.

Nailed it. Wow, Ted. How did he know? Now he's all four. Now he's like, let's do it. Lay off Heidi. I was when he was yelling about that. How are you guys feeling?

about whether the overwhelming resistance to Trump taking Greenland will stop him from doing it? I do wonder if Ted Cruz saw what happened to Bill Cassidy in Louisiana getting a Trump endorsed primary opponent and wondered if that could be me. But anyway, I mean, I think that in terms of stopping Trump, I fear that his preoccupation these days is more with legacy than any kind of political standing. And I think he thinks that adding Greenland to his resume, territorial expansion could be like his historical legacy item. In theory, I guess Congress could pass legislation to prevent hostilities. There could be like some sort of war powers act. There could be, you know, barring funding for a Greenland operation. But I think you'd need a veto-proof majority.

And then I think even if you got that, Trump would just be like, well, I don't care because under Article 2 of the Constitution, I'm going to do whatever I want. So then, you know, you kind of get out like, okay, what comes next? It's like massive protests, a general strike that shuts down the economy. Like I don't see Americans caring that much about Green. Greenland or NATO, but then internationally, to your point, I mean, it's like Europe needs to work together and decide they care enough to respond. And that means either enormous tariffs on the U.S. or the EU actually has a specific provision called the anti-coercion tool that is designed for this scenario. It's designed for us doing this or China doing something like this that could basically shut off access to the European market. It would create a trade war.

It would further eviscerate NATO. It would make you question, you know, whether the U.S. would back any of these countries if the Russians in they did them and all sorts of other problems. But it's just, you know, no one has figured out how to respond effectively. Yeah, I interviewed Senator Gallego on Friday's show and he said, he introduced a bipartisan legislation to stop the Greenland thing. He thinks he could get like a bunch of Republicans. But I don't, like you said, I don't know if you're going to get 60. And, and then does he even pay attention, you know, I mean, Democrats could, some, I just saw someone on Twitter be like, they should shut down the government over Greenland. Yes, we can shut down

the government of Greenland, ICE, health care. We could do it all again. Well, we can only shut down parts of the government because of the, you know, there'll be some other spending bills that Democrats will have already approved by the time we get to that. But, yeah, it's worth sort of taking a moment to say what should happen. And, of course, what should happen is he should be impeached to remove from office immediately. Yep. Yeah.

Just one of many things on that list just this week. It's like, oh, the fact that it's probably, you're probably right that Congress can't by law stop the president from conducting a lawless invasion of Greenland does point to sort of a deeper set of issues that we're not willing to grapple with. The tariffs that he's applying and he's doing with authorities lent to him by Congress that they could take back at any moment, but they are choosing not to. So they are going to allow Americans to pay, as you said, 96%. And that is, whatever their claims are, we are paying basically the entire cost of this tax. That is the evidence. That is from the Wall Street. That is the evidence. It's not, we are paying it. So he, that the

Republicans in Congress are cool with imposing a. massive tax on Americans because Trump wants Greenland, a topic none of them even knew was going to be a topic a year ago. I also like there's a lot of people who are like tweeting that national security strategy. And they're like, you don't see the word Greenland anywhere in this. And I'm like, oh, you got them. Oh, yeah. Yeah, I wrote a contract-driven guy.

Consistency is really the name of the game there. Yeah, we're in the end user license agreement phase. That'll do it. I did notice the S&P is like a half a percent off. It's all-time high. So I think the business world assumes this is just another taco scenario. And Trump will give up on this. But who knows?

We shall see. Now, in fairness, Trump did say that even though he no longer feels obligated to think purely of peace, it will still be predominant, which is probably why invites went out over the weekend to world leaders asking them to join Trump's Board of Peace, which, while originally discussed as an entity to help oversee the rebuilding of Gaza, no longer mentions Gaza in the draft charter that's been published and is now being talked about by the administration as an international peace building organization. Among the leaders who scored an invite is international war criminal Vladimir Putin.

No word on how many countries will pony up the $1 billion fee that Trump is charging to become a permanent member. You get the first three years free. It's a little like it's a Colombian. Sure. First three years free on the board. But then if you want a permanency, that's one bill. And it's ads free.

And you get a NATO country. if you do the full term. I have a few questions on this one. What happened at the Gaza part? Also, is Trump trying to start his own UN here? Is that what's going on? Well, if you're going to start a UN, you do need to put Vladimir Putin on the Peace Council.

That is the sort of the UN vibe. It's the first time it made me think they were like the UN. I can't wait to see he was on his human rights council. So, yeah, I'm pretty psyched. Yeah, so like what he announced is, I think, equal parts confusing and stupid. So we'll try to unpack it. Just on the Gaza piece, it's worth noting that there's a ceasefire in name only.

There's like air strikes constantly, hundreds of Palestinians have been killed since the ceasefire was announced. Hamas is not disarmed. They have been attacking. Israel occupies half the Gaza Strip. So it's just a fucking mess. So there's a bunch of things they announced. I'll try to unpack it just quickly. So the Times of Israel had the full text of the charter of the Board of Peace.

As you noted, it does not mention Gaza. It seems like the goal is to replace the United Nations, but without all that annoying input from the other 100 in 92 countries that are part of the UN. It's just like the U.S. decides. Unless they're rich. Well, the new one, it's as he says, Trump is basically in charge. He gets to pick who's on the board. He gets to veto decisions, even if they are approved by a majority of the board's members. It seems like the plan that's for him to personally serve on the board as the chairman in perpetuity and then name his successor. This is not like a slot for the president. I'm pretty sure it's like a for him thing. And in many ways, like the billion dollar fee is like the least of the problems with this thing.

Because there's also an executive board under the leader level board that is, Eric Kushner, Rubio, Tony Blair, random business dudes like Mark Rowan from Apollo global management. So there's a big crony capitalism piece here. But these are the people that are sort of like day-to-day running the things. And they're going to solve the Middle East first. And then there's another thing called the Gaza Executive Board. That runs reconstruction in Gaza. But the Israelis hate that because it has reps from Qatar and Turkey.

Then there's another thing called the National Committee for the administration of Gaza that's like Palestinian technocrats. It's supposed to be the Palestinian government. But just on the board of peace, like, as you said, I'm the first to admit, like, the UN is a mess. It's been broken for decades. Like, and the problem is, you know, the UN Security Council, like you get the U.S. Russia or China viewing whatever goes through it that matters. But this just replaces it with Trump running the show. There's the absurdity of inviting the Russians as they're waging war with Ukraine. There's the absurdity of doing this while we're threatening Greenland, which is why the French said no. I was told by someone the UK said no. So I just don't know what they're doing here. It's like a one pager to replace the UN. Trump calls it the greatest board ever. Greatest board ever. You think you're going to score an invite? Surfboard. I don't know what the kind of liabilities are

for being on that kind of a board. What are the fiduciary responsibilities? How does it meet? It's interesting to see what... At least once a year. At least once a year. I did see that some of the European leaders, again, this is like the sort of the Greenland stance as well.

They're like, well, this is obviously fucking crazy, but we don't want to piss them off more. So like, maybe do you have to say yes to the board? Piss them off. Jesus Christ. One of these people going to stand up and do something? Collective action, guys. Look at Jerome Powell's video.

Just do that. Why aren't more people being inspired by federal reserve chair Jerome Powell? You know what? The heroes come in the oddest forums these days. That's right. So if you can't afford Trump's billion dollar board of peace fee, don't worry. You can still buy a pardon for a few million bucks. Last week, Trump pardoned a Venezuelan banker charged with felony bribery after his daughter

donated $2.5 million to Trump's SuperPack. He pardoned another convicted fraudster for the second time. After Trump commuted her sentence in 2021, she committed fraud again. Guess she learned her lesson. She was convicted again in 2024. She did learn her lesson. I can get away with fraud.

And it's fine. And then Trump just pardoned her again. And then because the president cares so much about drug trafficking, he commuted the sentence of a guy who was convicted of dealing meth, just happened to be the son of a Trump-loving Republican congressman. So that's why that happened. I feel like those drug boats from Venezuela might have a better chance if they just carry some, a bunch of cash with them. Let all the drones in the sky know.

Like, we have money for you, Mr. Trump. Take this. Yeah. It's, you know, I know the name Mark Rich because it was defining scandal 25 years ago. It's 25 years later. We know the name Mark. Rich. Any one of these pardons is certainly these sort of, I donate your super PAC, then get a pardon, then get another, a commutation, then another pardon.

I mean, these are on the level, if not more. I mean, more clearly a quid pro quo. We'll forget these will move on in a couple days. Like, that's how far we've gone. And we focus on the Trump of it. What is making this possible? Senate Republicans are making this possible. It is, look, I, it is not surprising, I guess, at this point,

that they really will look past virtually everything. But taken in totality, they are responsible. They are the ones that are responsible for this. Because there's never going to be hearing about this. There's never going to be an investigation of this. the Department of Justice is fully and completely captured. It does not investigate the administration. It only investigates the administration's adversary.

So there's no hope there. Trump is being enabled by these people. And the pardon power, which, you know, it's sort of like you get the responsibilities you can handle. And we have now shown that this country cannot handle a pardon power. We've got to knock that thing off the next time we can start talking about a constitutional amendment. You know what that reminded me of, too, is have you seen these comments? from Tom Tillis over the last week, so he's like,

this Greenland thing is crazy, what is he doing? But he's still, this guy is retiring. He's safe now. He doesn't owe Trump anything. And he's out there like, you know,

I don't think Trump wants to do this Greenland thing. I think it's his advisors and those advisors, whoever's advising him on Greenland is going to sully his legacy. So dumb. It's just not what's happening. So clearly not the case.

This is like no one wants to look into this. No one wants to stand. They just don't fucking care. Yeah, his. advisor, it's like a sleep paralysis demon Roy Cohn. How are you going to get through to that guy? The ghost, the ghost of an 80s monster who visits him in the night. Yeah, I love it. I would add to your list, the Supreme Court, who basically give him just absolute immunity and the power to do these pardons. I was listening to an interview with Trump's former pardon attorney who was like kind of the first person

fired for questioning this process because she thought maybe it was a bad idea to give Mel Gibson his gun license back because he's like a serial domestic abuser and they tend to shoot people. So that was a canary in the cold mind. But yeah, the examples you read are just like so far beyond the pale. It's hard to know what to do with them. It's pure bribery. There's all these Trump connected officials that have started a business around this. Like they're getting fees of like up to a million dollars just to buy pardons.

And just on the specific drug specific pardons, we've talked about Juan Orlando Hernandez, the former president of Honduras, who got sentenced to 45 years for conspiring to traffic 400 tons of cocaine to the U.S. Then there was Ross Ulbricht, who founded the Silk Road, which is that online marketplace that prosecutors say facilitated roughly $1 billion in drug sales. He got a pardon. He was also accused of hiring a hitman to kill five different people, five. And there's just so many examples like this is the crypto CEOs who paid bribes for

pardons. But most people will just never hear about it. There's never going to be a hearing on Capitol Hill about it. Yeah, I mean, this is the people who are really at fault here. are the founders because in fairness to the court, the Constitution is pretty clear that the pardon power is basically just unlimited. Yeah, it's a botch for sure.

It's a botch. It's a botch. Big Whiff. And if we ever had the ability to sort of pass another constitutional amendment, that would be right for that. So, you know, it seems tricky. Pardon reform is a good issue for somebody. Yeah, but it has to be an amendment.

It's tough. In defense of the framers, I would say that there were a few guardrails that they probably would have thought would have kicked in before we got here. And also impeachment was supposed to be the punishment for abusing the pardon power. Right. It's the punishment for all the things that Trump has done.

And if Merrick Garland had been given a prescription for Vivance in 2021, maybe things could have moved a little faster. And this guy could have been in fucking jail by now. So there's a lot of things that happened that had a lot of things had to go wrong, cascade of failures that he could abuse the pardon power in this way. Mitch McConnell. It's Mitch McConnell. Had the chance after January 6th. Could have done it. Didn't do it.

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That's BetterHelphelp.com slash PSA. Let's talk about the other place Trump is threatening with military action. Minneapolis. Multiple outlets reported over the weekend that the Pentagon had ordered about 1,500 active duty U.S. Army paratroopers stationed in Alaska to prepare for possible deployment to Minnesota in the event that Trump invokes the Insurrection Act. The Department of Defense also alerted around 200 Texas National Guard.

guard troops about possible deployment to Minnesota, even though Governor Tim Walls has already mobilized the state's National Guard. Over 3,000 armed federal agents from ICE and other agencies are still terrorizing Minneapolis. They are arresting U.S. citizens and legal residents based on their accents or skin color or just cases of mistaken identity. They're assaulting, unarmed, peaceful residents, some who are protesting, others who are just in the wrong place at the wrong time. This is all despite a court ruling from a federal judge on Friday that prohibits ICE from using tear gas and other crowd dispersal tools against, quote, peaceful and unobstructive protesters and says they can't attain or arrest protesters who merely follow ICE at a safe

distance. Governor Waltz and Minneapolis's mayor, Jacob Fry, have urged ICE to leave and asked protesters to remain peaceful. And for that, the Trump administration has also launched a criminal investigation into both men for simply speaking. Kristy Nome, our wretched excuse for Homeland Security Secretary, was grilled on all of this by Margaret Brennan on CBS this weekend. Here's all the lies she told. In Minneapolis, this family was six children, with one as young as six months old, got kind of caught in the incident as they were driving to basketball practice. ICE released a canister of tear gas, and the mother described giving her infant CPR. We're showing that video there.

The family was caught up in that situation because of violent protesters that were impeding law enforcement operations. Are your agents going to comply with the White House has asked him to? Sorry, with the federal order on Friday to not use chemical agents. That federal order was a little ridiculous because that federal judge came down and told us we couldn't do what we already aren't doing. We are we just saw video of chemical agents being used. We only use those chemical agents when there's violence happening. What's the breakdown of the percentage of those who you have in custody who have actually committed a criminal offense versus just the civil infraction? Every single individual has committed a crime, but 70% of them have committed or have charges against them on violent crimes.

It's not 70%. Yes, it is. It absolutely is. 70% of everyone you have detained. You guys keep changing your percentage. You pick and choose what numbers you think work. Okay. Well, our reporting is that 47% based on your agency's own numbers. 47% have criminal convictions against them.

But let's talk about the other numbers. Which means you're wrong again. Absolutely. We'll get you the correct numbers so you can raise them in the future. Well, that's from your agency. Just they all lie. The whole administration lies. Department of Homeland Security lies.

They don't even try to come up with good lies anymore. Or even believable lies. or anything like that, they just casually say whatever comes to mind. Yeah, one thing also I just is, whatever the statistics, there's a lot of stuff that's not being measured right now that's, they're grabbing people and not technically arresting them and then letting them go. They're keeping them for hours, maybe longer, we don't really know. And we don't, are those things being documented?

Are they being written down anywhere? They're not technically arrest because these are people that can't be arrested. They haven't committed any crimes, but they're being harassed and grabbed and intimidated and then thrown out of a car a few hours later. Is that in their statistics for who they're picking up or no? I assume not because I don't know that anyone's writing it down and the people doing the grabbing or wearing masks and accountable to no one. Yeah, it's just total impunity. I mean, she will lie but anything.

She will deny reality. She will blame anyone but Trump. They don't care if a mom gets shot in the face three times. They don't care if a baby gets tear gassed. Chrissy Noam doesn't care about disgracing herself and humiliating herself on national television. It's like audience of one shit. And, you know, there's just, there's good stats on this. I mean, she's just wrong and lying.

Like MS now at a story where they said, of those arrested by ICE and held nice attention, the majority of no criminal convictions, more of no criminal convictions at all than have convictions or pending charges. 92% of increases in ICE arrests are people with no criminal history. And, you know, the budget for ICE went from $10 billion to $30 billion. We're just wasting so much of money on this. I got, I was so angry about this over the weekend. I sort of went deep on the story of the family that was driving back from the basketball game

because you're like, okay, well, how did this happen? And they're driving back from the basketball game. They run into a bunch of ICE agents and they're blocking their path. They immediately start screaming profanities at them. They've got an 11-year-old, 7-year-old, 4-year-old twins, 2-year-old, and the six-month-old baby in a van and the two parents. And they start screaming at them. They're like, get out of here. They're like, well, get out of our way.

We'll get out of here. And they're worried because the parents later said they're worried about Renee Good. What happened to her? So they're like freaking out. And then they feel an explosion under the car. The car lifts up off the ground, airbags release, the doors all lock. So now they're trapped in the car and the car's filling up with gas and all the kids are getting tear gas. Neighbors run out of the houses.

They pull the kids out of the car, of the van. And the last one they pull out of the van is the infant who's not breathing and not conscious. And the mother starts doing CPR on the baby but can't really breathe herself. And so she was like having trouble. finally begs the ice agents to let, ice agents are standing around, don't do anything, begging the ice agents to let the EMTs through, they won't.

Finally, a Minneapolis police officer gets through the ice agents, gets the baby, brings them to the hospital, and then the baby starts breathing again. And this family is like completely traumatized. The first tweet from the Department of Homeland Security is these parents are violent agitators who should not have brought their children to a protest. Then they delete it because they're liars.

Tricia McLaughlin's a fucking liar. Disgusting. She's the worst. The worst. And so then they start, now their new line is, well, it's the protesters' fault. Because since there were protesters nearby, the protesters forced the ice agents to explode a canister under a car that they knew was carrying six children because they had been talking to the people. This would turn me into John Wick.

I mean, that is like a radicalizing stuff. But this is one of it's like, is there no apology coming to this? Like, no apology, no like we will try to do better, no nothing. Like, Christine Nome just stands there, sits there, looks at Margaret Brennan and has, like, just no emotion about it whatsoever. Like, no fucking empathy for this family. She's a grandmother. She's a mother. Nothing.

Yeah. The, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, they had no information. Did they had no information. Did they just, they just lie. They just lie. She has no information. She lies all the time. And then they did feel compelled to delete it, right?

Which is something of a capitulation that they've done in a lot of other cases. It must be. She's probably why they don't. do it. Right. Well, it was so obvious. There was some reason about this case that was so obvious that they didn't feel like they could slime this family. But the fact that their first index was opposed to just complete falsehoods. And the fact that here, they're at least acknowledging they're doing the courtesy of this family of not blaming them for their own, for ICE attacking them. But they are just blaming the random protesters. If you read the, the ruling is wild too from the federal judge because there's all these instances. Everyone should go read the ruling. There's also just a New York Times story about it if you don't want to read the whole ruling. But like, there's, they go through and they have what DHS has claimed happened, and then they have what videos, evidence, witnesses actually show them what the judge ruled on. Like, one guy that they tackle to the ground and locked up and shackled for American citizen,

they were like, oh, he was leading a protest. And then the video show that he was actually pushing protesters away from the ICE agents and holding up a hand for everyone to get back. It's just like lie after lie after lie after lie. And he's in that ruling too where the judge, found that that these officers are deploying tear gas and kind of turning on these protesters, not because of any inciting incidents for the protesters, but they just hit their limit and get a bit annoyed.

Yeah. And they just sort of lash out. And the Wall Street Journal reported that, so they, when they make an arrest and then they let the person go because they're a citizen or because they got the wrong person, that arrest still counts towards their 3,000 arrest quota. Oh, interesting. And so they are now incentivized to arrest people who they don't even, they're not even going to charge with anything because it helps make Stephen Miller's quota. That's a good system.

So that's what's happening there. It does seem like Trump is just itching to invoke the Insurrection Act, though it's unclear what the paratroopers from the 11th Airborne Division will do in Minneapolis that the guard couldn't other than freak everyone the fuck out. I was surprised to see the paratroopers. You can just stick the bus. Is that just the unit or are they actually planning to have send these guys? out of a plane into Minneapolis. I can see Trump liking the drama of that. I do think it would be a pretty powerful message

to why this is terrible. I also don't want it to happen. So a little bit of attention there. I think it's probably just the unit, but yeah, they're probably highly trained. It's probably just the unit. I think of those people, too. These guys are like men and women

are like in Alaska waiting for like something real to happen. It's like, oh, you might have to go to Minnesota, by the way, to potentially fight like your fellow citizens. And they're like, oh, God damn it, we're in Alaska. Why the one of the fucking coldest ones? Can't they do a fucking lawless crackdown in Miami or something? I want to go to the LA Insurrection Act. I don't want to go to the fucking Minneapolis one.

That sucks. What do you guys say with the criminal investigation into Wells and Fry? It seems like complete fucking bullshit that would get laughed out of court, but it's still like crazy. Todd Blanche, the deputy attorney general, posted earlier like I think a Wednesday or Thursday, Minnesota insurrection as a direct result of a failed governor and a terrible mayor encouraging violence against law enforcement. It's disgusting. Walton Fry, I'm focused on stopping you from your terrorism by whatever means necessary. This is not a threat.

It's a promise. Which is, I know we're now a nerd to it. That's a shocking thing to hear from. The Department of Justice. The Deputy Attorney General is that's not a threat. It's a promise. You're terrorists. That is shocking.

But of course it's serious. Of course it's serious. Yeah, I think it's a big deal for them personally, too. I mean, yeah, it's obviously designed to threaten them. It's obviously, like, ridiculous. But they're trying to intimidate them. And we've seen DOJ do this before. I mean, LaMonica McIver, member of Congress is being prosecuted for trying to go to an ice facility in her own home state. And the FBI is using its records to go after Trump's enemies from impeachment or the January 6th, et cetera. So it's just a continuation of that process. And, you know, again, the hypocrisy makes you want to tear your hair out, right? Like Trump claims that this, you know, the governor and the mayor of estates, their comments, their words are criminal interference in law enforcement, but sicking a mob on the Capitol on January 6th is just, you know, giving a speech. Like, it makes you want to lose your mind, but that's part of the plan, I guess. Also, the two of them said, I should get out. They encourage people to film things that they're seeing, which is entirely legal, no matter what they say. You can go film ICE anywhere you want. It is not impeding

a fucking investigation. If you are staying away from them and not cause them trouble and staying back, you can film them anywhere you want. And then they're calling for, they've called for peace. They've called for like peaceful protests over and over again. So it's like, what, it's fucking protected speech. What are you talking about? The other violence, it's crazy. When I see Nome and I see Pam Bondi and like, you know, these were in some sense in the previous era, they were right wing and whatever, but they were ostensibly normal politicians. But there is Pam Bondi presiding over the complete and total political takeover of the Department of Justice in a way

that has just not been the case ever and doing it so brazenly there's not even a there's not even a kind of like tilt towards what it should look like or claiming it's independent they are just going after their enemies but that that Wall Street Journal story from last week tells you why

because he's Trump's going around calling Pam Bondi weak and ineffective and you can you hear the complaints from the far right and they're like oh she's too much of a lawyer she's too much too much buy the book stuff she's not breaking the you know and so what is so she's faced with that right she doesn't want to get fired because she doesn't want to get excommunicated from maga world because also she could get um it's not like she just loses her professional career but who knows if trump comes after her right so it's like you don't want to piss trump off you want to make sure you get your

pardon when he leaves so you're not prosecuted right so the more that like every incentive that all of these people have is to do literally anything Stephen Miller and Donald Trump told them to do. Right, but I... Because it's the only way you can protect yourself at some point. Not like excusing them, but like that is the whole system. That is the incentive structure. It's not, it's not to be like, I'm going to stand up and do the right thing.

Right. In a godless world. Right. That's... But like, I really like, we're the liberals are the godless. I thought we were the ones that didn't believe. Aren't you guys all keeping a... What about the ledger? Aren't I thought you had the ledger?

I like is there no ledger? Are you not worried at all? None of these people seem worried about the book. No. The big book. Well, they are worried about protesters interrupting a church, which is what they're all up in arms about. Oh, yeah. John Lemon's turn in the barrel.

Did you read the story about there was a bunch of federal prosecutors at the White House for like some photo op? And Trump's like, oh, yeah, bring it in Britain. He just berates them all for not going over his enemies fast enough. Like Tulsi Gabbard's a new example, right? Like she dares to say what the intelligence says about the Iran strikes. Trump cuts her legs out from under her. Fast forward six months, she's putting out tweets of herself doing yoga on the fucking beach

the day before the Venezuela operation, just like iced out of everything. A lot of big talk that she was going to get Barack Obama, right? Barack Obama was supposed to show up in handcuffs, and that never happened. And now she's quiet quitting. One story that drew a lot of attention over the weekend was about Jake Lane, a Nazi saluting influencer

and pardon January 6er, who tried to lead an anti-Somali pro-ice rally in Minneapolis on Saturday. great timing called the March Against Minnesota Fraud. Lang was chased off somewhat violently by a much larger counter-demonstration. Lange and allies posted about his injuries, but it's hard to know what's exaggerated and what isn't. He was also there, by the way, he told everyone he was going there to burn a Quran on the steps of City Hall. That always sounds well. Yeah. So what did you guys make of that story? And this guy's a scary Nazi lunatic who's clearly more emboldened than ever, and it makes you

wonder about what these freaks will do on January 6, 2.0 whenever that comes. There's also, there's a DC-based organization called Crew, that put together a report about all the pardoned January 6 people. Out of the 1600, 33 insurrectionists have been re-arrested charged or sentenced for other crimes. Those charges include aggravated kidnapping, child molestation, possession of child pornography, sexual assault. And a lot of these incidents are from before the pardons. But either way, like, this is Trump pardoned all these dangerous criminals, put them back on the street. And now, shocker, they're doing dangerous, scary stuff. Like, of course this is what's going to happen. Well, it's also, it's like, none of this is to

Hypocrisy. Hypocry requires you to have like certain principles. Start with universal principles to begin with. It's just if stuff's on, if people are on my side, good. Commit crimes, do whatever you want. If you're not on my side, you're fucked. Yeah, we all have the power. I can use it to protect my people and to screw your people. That's it. Not hypocrisy. We lamented about the hypocrisy for a long time, but hypocrisy is in some sense kind of a pretend you're at least acknowledging what the value should be. Once you leave that behind, you're like, God, I miss hypocrisy. At least we all had a pretend sense. of morals. You just didn't live up to them at all. You know, and I saw, I saw the videos of this guy kind of cornered on a window ledge and actually a protester kind of holding other people back. And I actually thought about the story you mentioned about the guy that got grabbed by ice because he was trying to stop things from escalating. And this is true of Trump. It's true of any kind of chaotic and violent circumstance. It's true of what happened with this, with ice shooting Renee Good, which is as situations become more chaotic and more dangerous, as people like this travel to Minnesota to rile people up,

all of a sudden, what we're talking about as a country, what matters is no longer in our collective hands. It's in the luck and happenstance and mindset of a few random people and how they interact in a street confrontation. And that is incredibly dangerous. If you look back at countries that have gone down this road and too much darker places from it, street confrontations, they are, they accelerate because the next time more of those guys show up and this time they're

armed and the other side feels like they've got to show up and protect themselves. And by the way, like, I have been like so moved by the people in Minnesota just showing up every fucking day and just being out there and standing up for that community and being willing to put their bodies there. That is fucking scary and it is getting scarier and good that they're doing that and good that they're doing but they're angry and it's tense and they're right to feel that. And then these fucking proud boys show up and these fucking Nazis show. up. It is a, it is a, it, even the most committed people in a big group, these guys are, are, are, are kind of pushing for that to turn into something ugly and more dangerous and more

violent. And they have been so peaceful and trying to try to, so most of them, obviously, have been trying to kind of just protect people and follow cars with whistles and trying to do what they can to send the message that Minnesota isn't for that. And there are going to be people that try to test that. And it's, unfortunately, it's not up to the vast majority of people in Minneapolis to collectively say they want peace because when you end up in these small moments, all of a sudden, things can escalate because of a one or two or three or five actors. And that is what makes it so dangerous. Which like law of averages, of course there's going to be those actors. Of course. And like, and the right wing media influencer infrastructure

is just waiting for the content, right? And they got they got some of it with Jake Lang, right? and then they got some of it with protesters who stupidly walked into a church during, during, you know, people worshipping in church, right? And so this is literally, of all the bad news that's out there for the Trump administration, all they're talking about today is this church thing. And now they're going to, you know, Don Lemon went into the church with the protesters and started interviewing them, also interviewed the people who worked out the church, the church officials and stuff like that. So he's just covering it. But now Don Lemon, they want to, they want to arrest Don Lemon because of this. But this is it. This is all that I can talk about

because they want to be like, see, the left is exactly what they said we are. And it's like, no, fuck you. You know what? When you do this kind of stuff, you put this kind of pressure on people, you are, yes, you are going to have some people. I'm shocked that there hasn't been more. And the other part of this, too, is this is where, like, oh, you think, like, you know, Trump is turning us into, training us to be kind of a more callous and cruel society. That's what he wants us to be.

But this is how violence begets violence. because when the federal government is a group of mass fucking thugs, you're standing on the street trying to protect people. And like, it is no longer about winning with reason and argument. It's, you're just trying to literally put yourself in the way because all that, because because the bodies matter because the number of people starts to matter. It's all part of what makes this so dangerous.

Did you see that the guy that actually saved Jake Lang from the crowd and pulled him away was black guy? And he was interviewed later and he was like, you know, He's like, we can't, he's like, my thing is showing love regardless of what someone else did to you. We can't, we can't treat hate with hate, you know? And it's just like, wow, that is a, like having that kind of attitude, that is, that's tough. But you're like, not everyone has that. No. And by the way, they're being trained not to, right?

Right. That a peaceful movement right now is being peaceful despite every message coming from the president. And good for them because that's what we need to do. That's what we should do. That's how we'll prevail. That's how we can, because you will, you lose enough. fight to out violence, fascists, you will not win. It is, but man.

Even on the right, Trump is contradicting. Like, Erica Kirk was like, I forgive Charlie's assassin. Oh, yeah. Remember that. I don't. I hate my enemies. Like, that is the, that's coming from the White House. Yeah.

So Axios just reported that Trump's team saw some bad private Republican polling on his immigration policies and the ice raids. And it's causing some of his advisors to start quietly talking about, quote, recalibrating their approach. A Trump advisor told Axios, he wants mass deport. What he doesn't want is what people are seeing. It looks bad, so he's expressed some discomfort in that. He also just posted something related to this.

He said there's too much media attention on ICE right now. What do you guys think? Is there a possibility they back off because of political pressure here that he doesn't like how it looks? I can imagine a situation where he's half paying attention because he is far more focused on foreign bribes and going to the Miami football game tonight and all the bullshit he does and wanting to. the Nobel Peace Prize and he kind of outsource his policy to Stephen Miller and then he wakes up and he reads the paper or he gets a call from a rich donor and he's like hey Stephen I don't like this reining in. I just I don't imagine him ever wanting to be perceived as caving in any way in Minnesota or

the left because he is like a strong weak like binary viewer of politics. I think that's probably true. What do you think? I have no fucking idea. I really don't. You know that all of this the sort of the the enjoyment of the cruelty, the fact that Stephen Miller has the reins. the fact that he can't capitulate. I agree with that. The fact that his personal news environment is so fucked up. Like I don't really know what he's seeing. So I genuinely don't know.

I can see a world in which he does not do. Like this winds down in some way and it doesn't go on to the next city in the same way. But do I think there's going to be some great turn that we're all going to know about? Like he could, there's a lot of things he could do right now to turn down the temperature. He could tell ice that they all have to take their mouth. ass off. Oh, yeah. He can do a lot. All it tells me is that the people making noise about this, sharing stories, filming this, sharing it. Like, it does make a difference because they will, they are going to feel the pressure and they are seeing it in the polling. And again, when you

talk to people in focus groups and the, and you ask them, like, this is the first thing that comes up now, right? Like, it is people worry about the cost of stuff and they are mad about the ice, the ice raids because they are seeing it everywhere. And it's covered on TikTok. It's covered on local news. It's covered everywhere people are getting their information these days. Now, you're right. Like whether that changes the behavior, who fuck knows. But I do think it's putting some pressure on them. Yeah. I also, like, we were talking about it before, but like, man, these guys are, they signed up for an idea of what this was going to be like. And now they're in these situations and all the anger and the kind of kind of, kind of twitchy reactions.

There's just this look of like, this has got to. to be a brutal thing to be dealing with. And like, they put, what, 3,000 people in Minnesota? That's a huge share of their force. It's crazy. Right? Like, and that is, that is, these guys, like, there's all kinds of stories of morale being low.

They have to seek volunteers to do this kind of shit. Like, they're gonna do a lot of bluster. But even with this new giant ice, like, this is still America. It is a big, rebellious, ungovernable place. And they just don't, they like- Proven that now. Yeah, yeah. And like, what are they gonna continue this?

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T8. Boots the house down. By visiting the serf.org, that's T-H-E-S-R-F.org. T-H-E-S-R-F-R-F dot org, the SRF. Speaking of polling, we're getting quite a bit right now since it's the

one-year anniversary of Trump taking office. The president's approval is stuck in the low 40s, much worse than Obama's or Bushes at this stage in their second terms. And he's also near record lows for his handling of the economy and now immigration. This is unsurprisingly dragging down his party's midterm chances.

Democrats have an average four to five point lead on the generic ballot, though CNN found that Democrats hold a whopping 16 point lead among those who say they're deeply motivated to vote. So that is something to keep an eye on. I've seen that in a few polls now. The Wall Street Journal poll shows a similar four-point Democratic lead in the generic ballot, despite voters saying that they trust Republicans more on immigration by 11 points in the economy and inflation by six points, though they say they trust Democrats. Dems more on health care by 15 points and by three points on looking out for the middle class

and caring about people like you. Anything else that's jumped out at you guys in the recent polling and is anything changing how you feel about the midterms? My general response to these polls is that they're bad for Trump and bad for Democrats. That was sort of my takeaway from looking at them. And you can try to blow your eyes and find the positive in them. But the fact that even facing all of this, there's like a four point lead in the Wall Street Journal poll for Democrats and the 58% of voters have an unfavorable view of the party, which is roughly the same disapproval that Trump has is pretty fucking bleak because this poll has people saying, by huge numbers, that Trump is going too far on deporting legal immigrants, on expanding the pardon power, on deploying ICE,

on threatening action against far as government. Like this is, like the country is taking this in and they don't like it, but they just don't see us as a viable alternative. That may mean we can overcome it, but if we win, it will be despite what the Democratic Party is to the American people and not because of it. Yeah, that might take away somewhere. It's like, this is a big, uh, splash of cold water on the face to every Democrat of things. We're just going to romp the midterms. And maybe we will do well. Maybe we're just, you know, it's just a turnout thing and more Dems to turn out the midterms. But, you know, border security, Republicans have a 28 point advantage. The economy six, like you said, inflation, rising prices, they have a six point advantage. Like, this is very bad. And what it says is

the Democratic Party's brand problem is just as big as it ever was, even in the face of a wildly unpopular president doing insane things. And we need to figure out a way to fix it and like talk about who we are, what we stand for, sell people on a newer, different version of the Democratic Party than the one they currently hate, just a little less than they hate from. I have a slightly different view, which I don't necessarily think is rosier, because I think that the image of the Democratic Party is as bad as these polls suggest. I also think that a lot of it's coming from Democrats. A lot of those numbers are coming from Democrats who don't like the party who are going to vote for Democrats, no matter what, and many of them will crawl over

glass to vote for Democrats in the midterms, even though they're not happy with the party. But I think that the Trump numbers versus sort of the Republican Party numbers, it's leading me to think that this, as most midterms are, it really is going to be a referendum. Like, do you like what's happening with Trump or not? And do you like the candidate, the Democratic, you might hate the party in Washington. You might be really sick of them. Do you like the candidate who is in the ads in your House district or your Senate district that you're seeing right now? And does that candidate effectively tie the Republican to Donald Trump? And I know certainly when we head to 27 and 28, it is like we need a positive case.

We need to talk about what we're for. And we should Democratic candidates should absolutely do that in the midterms. But I think at the end of the day, the choice that voters are going to make are like, Trump, thumbs up, thumbs down. How am I going to vote? Yeah. The other part of it to your point is in previous eras, the president would give tacit permission to his party. candidates like if you need to run against me that's that's fine you know run against me a little bit but

not this guy that's not this guy this guy and the last guy yeah well i do think part of this right like look i i don't want to go back to a pretty empty well but the like part of the democratic brand problem is you have you know joe biden is our is our candidate he is defined by wanting to defeat and remove trump in his first run and then incomprehensible in his second camela comes in and i do think is a cautionary tale for what happens when you try to run without a worldview. And every question becomes a hard question. Right now, we're having this sort of kind of, it's mostly like a super, kind of, I think, highly engaged debate about whether or not Democrats should be for abolishing ice. But it is something that the right wing is obviously picking up on because they like this kind of

dissension. And I think there's reasons to say it is kind of unhelpful to be to debating whether or not we should abolish ICE when we would have to go on a world historic winning streak for several years for that to be even on the table. But if you think that debate is unhelpful, I think it's worth thinking about what is the quiet around the question about whether or not to abolish ICE? And the quiet around the question is, what do Democrats stand for on immigration? What should immigration enforcement look like? What kind of legal immigration order combined with a rigorous but humane enforcement order are you in favor of? I have no fucking idea what Democrats believe, not even on the technical policy, but like on a philosophical matter, like what the like core democratic vision is

for the future. And across virtually every issue, that is just like white space. And you're right, we may not need it for the midterms. But when people start talking about who the leaders of the future of the party are going to be, that is the space. Well, and also no time like the president to start putting it out there. Of course. Of course. We haven't had a chance yet to talk about Mary Poltola entering the Senate race in Alaska, which now gives Democrats a real, if quite narrow path to the majority if she can pull out a win and we can also flip main north carolina and either ohio iowa or texas thoughts i hope we do yeah it's tough i mean you know iowa it's got open center primary there's like three or four contested house races a really strong

uh governor candidate and rob sand so there's a good shot there you know in ohio like look ohio's tough but sherr brown gives us the best chance we've got in ohio i think in texas we have a Democratic primary, but, you know, Cornyn is not the most popular, you know, Senator. So it's tough. It's tough. Yeah, we should try. It depends. Like, what you look at these polling and say, well, what has to happen for us to win all these races? Well, they all have to run really great campaigns, and there has to be a real wave and momentum. And if you look at these polling, you can actually tell yourself a story that we're heading towards that possibility, and you can also say, we're not heading, right? Like, the polling gives you both options. So I just don't think we know. So Matt

Glacius, who's been rather obsessed with, like, hey, if we don't figure out a way to actually win the Senate, nothing's going to matter because the Senate's always going to, like, everyone's like, oh, it's a tough Senate map, but it's always a tough Senate map. There are no more easy Senate maps if you start looking down the road at 28 and the rest. And so he sort of just looked at the congressional races, special elections from 25 and the overperformance. So the average of the generic ballot polling for all of these was plus four, which is about where we're sitting right now. It was seven and ten, see, nine in Arizona, eight in Virginia, 11 and eight in those two Florida specials. Now, you know, you're going to get a big larger turnout in the midterms, right? So that makes it slightly harder, though the turnout in Tennessee in that race was like midterm level turnout. It was actually the same as the midterm. So you get that kind of turn. So it was a pretty, you know, overperformance by seven in a place where both parties spent a ton of money and there was like midterm turnout. It's like a pretty good indicator.

And then when you look at the Senate races that we need to win, so Harris loses Ohio by 5.7, Iowa by 6.7, Alaska 6.8, Texas, 6.9. So, like, it's right on the – it's right there. Like, it is possible. And if you get the kind of overperformance that you had in 25 in some of these Senate races and you have good candidates in these races, then it is possible. It is possible. And also, like, Democrats need to make it possible. We just can't – I would just say, like, The fact that it is easier for us to imagine America as a permanent autocracy than it is to imagine Democrats having a 60 seat majority in the Senate. It tells you that there's something. 60. What are you talking about? I'm talking about 51. But like to a majority that we had when we were in politics, which we had a 60 seat majority in the Senate, not that long ago. Now it is less conceivable than total destruction of democracy. It's like, guess what? Iowa, Ohio, Texas. You can't look at those three states and be like, well, all of them are really tough.

One of them has to be not tough. One of them, and particularly Texas, if we're going to win presidential races again in the Electoral College, you know. And same thing with Alaska, right? Like, we're close in that state. Yeah, you might say that, you know, Democrats need to be able to win the country, you know, and sort of. Yeah. And in all, in various parts of it that we currently are not competing. That's why I'm kind of beating the Iowa drama.

Obviously, Rob Sand is a friend. I really like him. But also, like, there's so much bang for your buck there. Like, Texas is so expensive. But in Iowa, there's governor's race. There's several house seats we could pick up. There's a Senate seat. Like, we got to invest there early.

Yeah. Iowa's like the short term. We can't give up. Texas is the not even long term. Medium term. We have to do it. Also, she won, she lost Florida by six points. And I know, like, I just went through all of those margins.

Like, Camel Harris lost Florida by six points. And the fact that we just like now don't run any of, we like don't pay attention to it is probably not, probably not doable for the long term. And there's at least one more vote for a Democrat if my dad wants to come to my wedding. So something to think about. So we talked about 2026. One piece of 2028 news. We do want to touch on before we get to Tommy's interview with Jason Zengarly. Josh Shapiro's got a new book coming out this week.

And the newsiest parts are starting to leak. They include the news that Shapiro did explore launching a presidential bid right after Joe Biden dropped out. But it was quickly shut down by his wife. I guess she was in a Canadian, she said, I'm in a Canadian Walmart right now. I don't think we're ready. It's funny. Yeah, not a fair. Not a bad point.

There's also news that Trump cautioned him against running for president, given how dangerous the offices. This was after his home was attacked and an anti-Semitic attack. He also has an in-depth accounting of Kamala Harris's VP vetting process, which Shapiro apparently found to be quite contentious. He writes at the vetting team asked him at one point if he had ever, quote, communicated with an undercover agent of Israel or if he ever was himself an agent for Israel. That news comes after Harris wrote in 107 days that Shapiro was presumptive about being selected as the vice presidential nominee, saying that he wanted to, quote, be in the room for every decision and asked if the Smithsonian would lend Pennsylvania art to display in the vice president's residence. Shapiro has basically denied that account, calling it bullshit. No love lost between these two, huh? Yeah, it's a little surprising that they're airing it out like this.

Maybe it was unintention. Maybe reporters found the book and they just someone picked up on this so the rest focused on it. but I don't think it makes anyone look great here. I love it. Yeah, you like it. I mean, look, we want them to be more honest, so let rip, I guess. Yeah, when 107 days first came out, Tim Alberta asked Josh Shapiro about it. It's seemingly in real time.

And Josh Shapiro goes like, like, that's a blatant lie. And then he curses about it. He's talking to her ass. Bullshit, talking to her ass or something to that effect. And then he kind of catches himself, and he's like, I shouldn't have said it that way, you know? And it's like, why, man? Let it rip. If you think it's a blatant lie, say it's a blatant lie.

I think she's talking out of her ass, say she's talking out of her ass. We need to know if Josh Shapiro's in Mossad or not. It's a tough campaign. She wanted Pete Buttigieg, but he's gay, but not because she doesn't think the country's ready for a gay guy, but the country's not ready for a gay guy, but that's not what she thinks.

So that's why she doesn't choose Pete. Now she's got Josh Shapiro. He's the country ready for a Mossad agent. Yeah, he is in Mossad, right? We all know that because he's in it. And so she's got to get to the bottom of that. There's only 107 days. The direct quote was,

that's complete and utter bullshit. shit. He told Tim Alberta, this is Josh Shapiro. I can tell you that her accounts are just blatant lies. So, yeah, that was a, it was an honest, immediate reaction that was quite strong. What do we think about the vetting thing? Yeah. So look, let me just say, I get how fraught this question is how it must have felt for Shapiro in the moment, how offensive it could feel after dealing with like years of anti-Semitism, your house being attacked, et cetera. I think this does come largely from a misunderstanding about the standard vetting process. Like the question, are you a double agent for the Israeli government?

Have you ever talked with an agent of the Israeli government? Sure, it seems ridiculous, but that is like kind of standard. Like the SF 86. We got asked all that. The standard vetting form for national security asked, quote, have you ever been a member of an organization dedicated to terrorism or advocated for force violence to overthrow the U.S. government? The idea is not for you to admit it.

This isn't a few good men. It is to get you on the record in case they find something later and then can show that you lied. And we know now that Tim Walls was asked a similar question about. China because Tim Wall has traveled to China extensively. Shapiro had lived in Israel during high school. He once identified himself as a volunteer for the IDF. And then after college, he spent six months working for the Israeli embassy in D.C. If I had done those things, I would have gotten asked about them extensively on my security clearance and my background check. And you better believe that the fucking vice president of the United States potentially is going to get asked about it too.

Yeah, you get asked about everywhere you've traveled in the last decade, like outside the United States in detail. And then the FBI will come back. certain places that you travel and be like, what happened when you were there? Right. You talked to when you were there. Like, this happens when you're getting a security claim. Obviously, this was a political vetting more than anything else. Yeah.

And Gaza was a very hot button issue at the time. And it obviously erupted in the wrong way. And there were political considerations. But it was just like, like he just takes such umbrage at it. Like he says, it nagged at me that their questions weren't really about substance, he wrote. Rather, they were questioning my ideology, my approach and my world view. That stuck out of me to him like, substance?

Is that the whole point of the interview? Yeah. I thought it was a strange sentence too. That is substance. I know. That's the good stuff. I'm interested to see how that's in, what context that's in the book

because it was just like in the Atlanta piece, but I was like, that is a weird, I don't understand that. Of course it should be about your ideology or approach and your worldview. She's picking you for vice president. I thought it was strange when the person doing the vetting of Shapiro

kind of like push some ham towards him and then just said like, what are you going to do with that ham? You're going to eat it? Do you love his country or not? Eat the ham. Eat the ham, Josh. Eat the fucking ham, you Mossad agent.

No, of course you can't. Kamala's running mate. Of course not. You won't eat this ham. I love the fight. I'm so into it. But I think this started in fairness with like Kamala Harris in 107 days taking a shot at Newsom and then taking a shot at Shapiro. For no real reason. But you know what? Good for her too. Yeah. More, more, more. No, totally fine. But like that's what happens. For sure. It's so great. Well, also I do think, I will say the fact that in 107 days, it's like basically like has this basically insinuates that he was like measuring the drapes and decorating. it. I do, like, Josh Shapiro being like, what the fuck is that? That's bullshit. I kind of, like, it does sound like small talk being turned into something. Yeah, he's like, like, okay, if I was going to move

into a naval observatory and I was making small talk about it, I'd be like, I don't have that much stuff. What do you put in the thing? Do you get it from a museum? Like, small talk. I think you'd have to be a psychopath to be like, hey, in case she picks me after this interview that's maybe the most important of my life, what do we think about the art? He also says one of the articles, I was surprised by how much she seemed to dislike the role of vice president. And I was like, really? Have you spoken to a vice president before? Because they all seem to feel this way.

He also seemed offended that Dana Remus, the person doing the vetting, sort of flagged how expensive the job can be, like the price of entertaining. You have to pay for some of it yourself. Clothes for the first lady, hair and makeup for the first lady. She noted that they didn't have a lot of money. That seems like actually a really good thing to flag for someone before they get a job. It's like, hey, you're going to go into debt. If you take this job, that is reasonable and relevant.

I guess. Well, the way he takes that in the book is that basically, like, now they feel like, oh, now we're down the road with Josh Shapiro. We don't want the political problem of not choosing him. So like, you don't really want this job. You know, that's what he's, that's in the book. Yeah, but that's not Dana Remus's job to relay that. That's so weird to kind of be doing budgeting for him in the moment. I don't know. I found the whole, I found the whole thing strange. Aren't they all relieved that no one had to test it out? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. weren't they friends before this? And they have a preexisting relationship that makes all this. They were not only years. That was the whole thing. And I think they both met when they were in the Mossad. I love this.

And I just want to say, I hope more politicians do the real beef airing out in the books. It is better. It is more fun than the kind of bromides. And after over tea, we talked about our children

and realized that we had a lot of the same values, but this wasn't the right moment for us. Like, I am so much happier with this. And even if this new cycle is annoying. If only Pete and Amy had aired out their dirty laundry before the primary in 2020. Yeah, you want to see violence in the streets of Minnesota.

Let's get that one going. I'm excited. I'm excited about that. Let's go. Enough. Is the kind of political version of our disagreements working out for us as we debate whether or not we can ever win in Ohio again? Oh, boy.

One year, guys. It's been one year since Trump has inaugurated. Here we are. One down, three to go. Getting booed at NBA games in London. It's happening right now. All right. In a moment, we're going to jump to Tommy's interview with Jason Zengali about his new cricket media reads book about Tucker Carlson.

Another potential 2028 candidate. We talk about that, actually. Oh, gosh, there you go. Some housekeeping before we get there, just a reminder for our friends of the pod and anyone who wants even more Pod Save America. We just launched a new weekly newsletter, Pod Save America OpenTabs, which releases every Thursday morning. OpenTabs offers a behind the scenes look into how we put Pod Save America together. What's coming in the next episode and the stories rattling around in our heads before we get into the studio. Can I just say? Fantastic newsletter.

It's really well done. It's great. Our editor, Pod Save America, Reed Cherlin, is writing it. Reed is the best. It's such a great product. Check it out. But you got to be a subscriber. Got to be subscriber. And just by the way, if you really like Pod Save America, if you want to support what Hercad Media is doing,

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Like, you guys have all seen, you know, Nick Shirley, that YouTuber. You know, he uncovered all of that. He did the big investigation into the Smalley fraud that basically led to the deployment in Minnesota. We want to send Elijah out to some of these places to uncover some fraud. We're sending love it to the Mar-a-Lago daycare. That is the Trump White House.

Yeah, just me up with a little baby. Water, Goo-G-G-G-G-G-G-G-G-G-G-G-G-G-A-G-G-G-A. I like it a lot. GoogleGGGG-G-G-G-G-G. So, you know, subscribe, cricket.com slash friends. Goo-G-G-G-G-G-A-G-Beggerly. Pod Save America is brought to you by AG1. AG1 is the daily health drink that combines your multivitamin, pre-probiotic, superfoods,

and answer-reviews, antioxidants into one simple green scoop. It's one of the easiest things you can do to support your body every day. The New Year is often when we commit to building healthier habits or refocusing on improving our health. Age 1 can help you work toward those goals by supporting energy, digestive regularity, immune defense, and a healthy mood. Most resolutions are hard to maintain, but one scoop of age you one every morning is one of the easiest things you can do to add to your routine to keep you on track this new year. I'm starting a new routine this year was actually my resolution to have like a smoothie every morning and to have protein and to have greens like AG1.

and I'm trying to do it every single morning. Let me tell you, AG1 is a hell of a lot more efficient way to get all your greens than just like stuffing every vegetable in your fridge into that smoothie as you blend that thing. Yeah, totally. Visit drinkag1.com slash crooked and get three free AG1 travel packs and three free AGZ travel packs plus free vitamin D3 plus K2 and an AG1 welcome kit with your first AG1 subscription order. That's drinkag1.com slash crooked. Joining me now is the author of Crooked Media reads, newest book, hated by all the right people, Tucker Carlson and the unraveling of the conservative mind.

Jason Zangrily. Jason, great to see you. Welcome to the show. Thanks for having me on. It's good to be here. It is great to see you. We've known each other a long time. And this is an incredible book, which I have read.

And I highly, highly recommend everybody go pre-order a copy right now because Tucker is a fascinating character. And I think understanding his arc really does tell you the story. of the MAGA evolution, the way the world has changed, the way the media has changed over the last couple decades. So I just, I cannot recommend the book enough. So let's just start at the top. So the book's about Tucker Carlson and kind of like the arc of his career across the establishment media world, his time at Fox, his still very mysterious firing from Fox. And then there's this modern iteration where he is this massive force in independent media, but also like a confidant and advisor to Donald Trump in a lot of ways. So first question is like, why did you decide to follow Tucker

instead of some of the other big names in conservative media, right? Like a Bannon or, you know, Ben Shapiro. And then, I don't know, how do you think Tucker's story kind of tracks that evolution in American politics that we've seen? Well, so the original genesis for the book was I was talking to my agent not too long after January 6th and 2021. And we were talking about doing a book about, the coming Republican Civil War, because Donald Trump was clearly gone, right? He was never going to come back from that. And we were talking about, you know, how 2024 was going to play out the various factions within the Republican Party, who was going to, you know, sort of triumph in that.

And I was explaining to my agent that I thought, you know, all the people who were going to try to inherit Trump supporters, you know, the Ted Cruz's, Josh Hollies, all those guys, no matter how many positions, like Trump-like positions, they see. staked out. They were never going to get Trump's, you know, supporters of the MAGA base because, like, they weren't entertaining. They have no charisma. They're not able to kind of hold their attention. I mean, say what you will about Trump, but like that, that is one of his superpowers. He's a, you know, remarkably entertaining figure. And as just kind of an aside, I said to Chris, like, you know, the only guy who who can do that is Tucker Carlson. And we both kind of paused and we're like,

oh, wait a second. Like, that's the book. And, you know, the more I thought about Tucker, the more I just kind of recognize that his whole career is such a incredible window on the incentive structure that exists in conservative media and conservative politics because every step along the way, he's kind of tailored his own personality, tailored his own stances to that incentive structure. And what you see him doing today, you know, what he did at Fox, he's kind of responding to what the conservative base and conservative viewers want. And he's, he has a really, um, just well developed kind of radar for, for where, where the audience is.

And he's had that his entire career. I mean, sometimes it's, you know, failed him in certain instances. But I think for the last 10 years or so, it's been operating on, you know, kind of the highest level. And he's just a really good vehicle to kind of tell this much larger story about how we've gotten to this place where we've gotten. Okay. So you said a thousand things there that I want to follow up on. So I'll try to choose a few. And at the end, I want to ask you about whether Tucker himself might run for office. But let's put a pin in that one. So, you know, as you mentioned, like Tucker benefited, he's a great writer, right? He was a great magazine reporter. And he benefited from some very correct early political predictions. For example, you write about how he wrote this kind of scathing, iconic takedown of George W. Bush in 2000 that got at a lot of the personality traits that would

ultimately destroy the Bush presidency. And then Tucker was also one of the first people at Fox News who took Donald Trump seriously. How do you think Tucker kind of was able to judge those two correctly before others did? And then what was the impact, do you think, of that early symbiotic relationship with Trump on Tucker's career? Well, I think Tucker, when he was a magazine journalist especially, like, he had a really good bullshit detector. And he was also, like, pretty courageous. Like, he was not afraid to kind of cross, you know, the important conservative figures, not to not, not a afraid to go against a conventional wisdom. With Trump in 2015, 2016, I think one thing that happened

with Tucker, after his cable news career kind of flamed out, he developed a website called the Daily Caller. And his original vision for the Daily Caller was a fairly like, I don't want to say sober, but very fact-based website. He talked about, you know, had the New York Times was sort of a model in some ways because they cared about facts. Yeah. I remember that really playing out quite like that. That was the early pitch, wasn't it? That was the early pitch, and that was the first staff that he hired. I think he realized very quickly that there was not an audience for that. But, you know, in recognizing what the audience was, he was able to see that, you know,

conservative viewers, like, really wanted, you know, kind of like nativist content, you know, kind of racist content, you know, focus on like black on white crime and things like that. And he saw the gap that existed between the conservative base and the Republican of establishment, I think a lot earlier than, you know, most conservative pundits did, just because he had the, the traffic metrics in front of him. And he saw what readers wanted. So when Trump came along in 2016, you know, I mean, people don't remember this now, but like Fox was not a big booster of Trump in 2016. I mean, they tried to torpedo him in that first debate. And it created a problem for Fox that they needed, just to produce like a compelling television segment, they needed someone who was camera ready to go on the shows. And, and at least not bash Trump, at least sort of be, you know, open to the possibility of Trump. And Tucker, who was kind of on the third or fourth rung of the Fox Pundit roster at that point, he was willing to do that, I think, because he did believe it. And he started getting a lot more airtime.

And that was kind of how his star rose. I mean, he was not like a huge Trump supporter necessarily. And he, I think, had a lot of, you know, personal qualms about Trump. But he did see kind of how the issues that Trump was banging on might resonate. and that that gave him his break. And that was sort of his ticket out of, you know, the Fox kind of Netherland, another world of, you know, the weekend morning show. I mean, I guess God forbid.

That only described, yeah, your only secretary of defense these days. Yeah. So for a while, for a while, Tucker's like the great success, you know, getting from the morning. Now Hankseth, I guess, has surpassed him. But for a time, he was the biggest success. Yeah. Well, I think, well, Tucker was sober by then. So, you know, maybe that serious.

Yeah. The purpose hurt him from getting a job in the Trump administration. I want to ask you about, like, two moments or, sort of periods in Tucker's career and maybe how they impacted his career arc and then, you know, Tucker personally. The first is this now iconic moment in 2004 on the CNN show Crossfire. So for the kids out there who don't remember Crossfire, like, congrats. The gist is it was a cable news debate show that was essentially murdered on air by John Stewart who told the hosts that they were hurting America and the show was canceled like not long after. The second moment is,

Fast forward, July 2020. So Tucker Carlson is one of the hosts of Crossfire. I should have said that. The second moment is July of 2020, when Tucker Carlson tonight, Tucker's then Fox News show, becomes the highest rated TV program in U.S. cable news history. How do we get from here to there? You know what I mean? It's extraordinary when you think about it.

Yeah, there are a lot of steps along the way, you know, as I try to detail in the book. I do think, though, you can't consider what Tucker today without thinking about that that John Stewart appearance because I mean that he killed Stewart killed crossfire and he really killed Tucker's career. I mean, Tucker was let go from CNN not long after that. He washes up at MSNBC. People don't take him seriously. Stuart made fun of him for wearing his bow tie. You know, I think what do you say? Like you're 35 years old and you were a bow tie. Yeah. You called him a dick or something. He called him a dick. Yeah. And in front of a studio audience that is cheering Stewart on. I mean, it was, you know, and then.

And Paul Bagala, who was the host on the left, like, he's not saying anything. You know, he just, I think he kind of like, sort of, you know, he's like Homer Simpson kind of fading into the bushes. And like Tucker's the one sort of, you know, arguing with Stewart. And he just, he just got destroyed. And, you know, for Tucker, I mean, he had been really riding high before that. And, you know, he's the youngest host in CNN history. Crossfire. I mean, people might not know about it today.

But like, at the time, it was the preeminent political show. And being in the chair on the right. I mean, that was a, you know, that was a very prestigious thing. And it really, you know, it destroyed Tucker's career. And I think it sort of bred in him a lot of resentment because he was very much a part of, you know, the D.C. kind of political and media elite. And when he was, you know, ethered that way, like they didn't really come to his defense. I mean, you know, the way Paul Becala behaved on that set was the way a lot of people in that world behaved. And they didn't, they didn't rally to Tucker's defense.

And I think he was hurt by that. I think he was genuinely hurt. I think he started to question maybe who some of his friends were. And I think that kind of built in him a resentment. And, you know, over time, that resentment grew. And especially as, you know, he felt that, like, his talents were not being recognized or rewarded by, you know, network executives and the various gatekeepers. I think that that made him, like, in a weird way kind of, like, identify with and be receptive towards kind of the resentments that fueled so much of, you know, Trumpism and populism. And I think, you know, he, like, he, I mean, he does not sort of portray himself as, like, in every man or anything.

I think that's actually kind of what makes him so effective. I mean, he, you know, he, in some ways, like, he's kind of, like, up to his sort of waspiness. You know, he's always wearing the reptile. He's got his Rolex. You know, he sips Perrier, you know, he drinks, like, from a visible Perrier bottle. Like, he's playing the role of a class trader. And I think that in some ways, like, makes him more kind of, I don't know, credible in the eyes of, you know, his populist fans. It's not actually that different from what Trump does. He can sort of say, like, I've been in

these rooms. I've seen the way elites act. And let me tell you, they're just as bad as you think. And I think that, you know, he's comfortable kind of attacking these elites because I think in a way he personally feels that he was betrayed by them because they didn't, they didn't help him at his lowest moment. And I think, I think, you know, as I trying to show in the book, like, that's not really totally true. I mean, you know, he did get a job as MSNBC. You know, he was when he launched The Daily Caller, like, you know, the people who turned out to support that, you know, you sort of read the list of the people who were at the launch party and where the launch party was held. You know, it's like, it's, you know, it's Jake Tapper. It's Julianna Glover. It's Mike Allen. It's all these kind of like, you know, creatures of, you know, what he now, you know, refers to as legacy media and disparages. But they were all like rooting for Tucker. And, you know, I guess he's kind of sort of missed that a little bit or he kind of ignores it. But, but, you know, that that 2004 moment, I think definitely. kind of fed this resentment that led him, in addition to being able to kind of sort of intuit where the conservative base was. It made it easier for him to become a populist and,

you know, stick the knife in these people who had once, you know, been his friends and his, you know, his allies and his cheerleaders. Yeah. To a to a level of success that is almost unimaginable. I mean, like four million people a night were watching that show or something like that. I mean, it's unbelievable numbers and cable. Yeah. I mean, you know, and like, to his credit, it was a, it was a, was so different from the other Fox shows. I mean, you know, if you tuned, turned into Hannity or you tuned into Laura Ingram, like, you knew what you were going to get, right? Like, Tucker was, like, pretty unpredictable. And it wasn't as Trump focused and Trump obsessed as those shows were. I mean, he was, he obviously was, you know, supporting the administration for most part. But

he tried to maintain, like, a little bit of personal, I think, distance from Trump during that first term. And I think that made the show in some ways, like, more interesting. I mean, not just to, like, sort of regular viewers, but I think to, but it was always, you know, like, conservative intellectuals like that show. Like, you could actually, like, read, like, a raw stoutlet column about a Tucker Carlson monologue. Like, you would never get that about, you know, a Sean Hannity monologue or a Laura Ingraham monologue. Like, it was just, it was operating at, like, a higher level. Yeah, no, it certainly seemed like Tucker. I mean, he was personally investing maybe more of his time and energy into the writing, whereas for some of those other hosts, it just feels

like they're mailing it in, you know, you're 20 of some EP writing the same garbage script. Yeah, he cared about the writing in a way that, you know, I think very few others did. And, you know, and that was new. I mean, I think for a lot of his cable news career, after he left magazine journalism, I don't think he sort of spent a lot of time writing when he was at CNN, CNN, MSNBC. But he really treated that monologue like he would have like a magazine piece earlier. You know, even the way he talked about it. Like, you know, he would say, like, I'm filing it to like his producers. It just, it was just a different mentality. And I think that's a mentality that served others well. I mean, I think Rachel Maddo is very similar in her preparation for the show back in the day, which was she would, I think, go into the office and spend hours and hours and hours hammering out her opening monologue. And, you know, often they were 20 minutes long, so it would take a lot of time. But she was personally invested in that.

Yeah. Yeah. No. And I mean, that's not a coincidence. I mean, I think, like one, I mean, one of the things I like doing with this book was sort of introducing people to Tucker who maybe only know him since, you know, he had his Fox prime time show. the things about him that they probably were not aware of. You know, one of them is like, you know, he kind of discovered Rachel Maddow. Like, he was the one who brought her to MSNBC. Incredible. And he was on MSNBC. Like, he needed an intelligent debate partner. And he wanted, Mattow was, I think, an Air America host at that point.

He saw her audition tape. He wanted her to come on. The execs did not want her. They thought, you know, she was not TV ready. And he really fought for her and, you know, and brought her on the show. And, you know, as I understand it, like, they're still, they're still friendly. So another mystery about, Tucker is like no one seems to know why he was fired from Fox News. There's a lot of theories. There's some

people thinking, you know, kind of made the wrong, powerful person at the network across them, you know, pissed them off. I talked with someone recently who is personally close with Tucker, who insists that the firing was one of the terms of the lawsuit Fox News settled with Dominion voting systems. Yeah. That's the Tucker theory. Okay. So what's your, so that's coming from Tucker, you think. What's your theory? I don't know. I mean, I wish I could say I did. I wish I could say this book kind of tells all and reveals it. But honestly, like, none of the explanations I've ever heard, none of the theories, like, are fully sort of satisfying and add up. I mean, I do think it was probably a combination. I mean, Tucker's theory is that, you know,

Dominion wanted Rupert Murdoch to get to a billion dollars. That was like their line. And Murdoch would not cross that. He would not get to a billion. So he basically counterposed 700 million in Tucker Carlson's Skelp. Wow. And they took that. But I don't, but, you know, there's no proof of that. And Tucker has, you know, I think a lot of theories that, you know, are probably not, not necessarily grounded in reality. I mean, there's a theory that, that Murdoch himself became uncomfortable just with the amount of power that Tucker had amassed inside the network and this, and just in his world. I mean, there's this, there's this famous story that Tucker went out to Murdoch's estate in California not too long before.

he was fired to have, I guess, lunch or some meal with Rupert Murdoch and his then-fiancee. And his then-fiancee was a huge Tucker Carlson fan so much that she thought he was a messenger for God and told this to Tucker during the meal. And Murdoch was like so kind of weirded out by this

that the next day, like he broke off the engagement and then not much longer Tucker was fired. So that one seems not not implausible to me. That's a great theory. I love that. Okay, so nearly every profile book, article, conversation you have in D.C. about Tucker Carlson seems to struggle with a fundamental tension, which is that people who've known him personally, who've interacted with him personally, compared to like, in that experience, compared to what he says on his show,

which is like open racism, anti-Semitic guests, content that's just generally extremely paranoid sounding. I know you've known Tucker since, you know, 1997, you guys sort of first cross-pass. Even I have had personal interactions with Tucker where, you know, I came away confused by the disconnect between the things I see and hear from him on his show versus the conversation I had with a guy who could be at times, you know, charming and smart and funny and just, you just seem very normal. And it leads to the question, like, who is the real Tucker? Does he buy the shtick? Is it the, you know, D.C. lifer, you know, who's chummy with the people he demonizes or is it the persona we see on the show? Where have you landed on this sort of like fundamental? question. I think the guy you see on his show today is who he is. He's not chummy with D.C. people anymore, I don't think. You know, I think that he, during the first Trump presidency, he really, I think he realized that the place that he kind of held in, you know, in Washington society was no longer tenable because of Trump. I mean, he was always kind of the,

you know, like the invited skunk to the garden party, you know, like liberal D.C. People would have him for dinner parties and go out with him and be friends with him. And he would say outrageous things and they were just going, oh, that's Tucker, you know. But I think when Trump came into office, that was really no longer tenable. And it got to the point that he had to leave D.C. I mean, and, you know, when he left D.C., he really, he cut off all of his kind of contact with those people. And he now lives in a very kind of hermetically sealed world, you know, up in Maine and down

in Florida. Like on an island, literally in Maine. An island in Maine and an island in Florida. Same, you know, same deal. And his social circle, you know, he's kind of traded in like Bill Crystal for like Don Jr. I mean, his whole social world is completely, you know, it's all MAGA people. It's all, you know, podcasters and the like. It's not a horrible.

Conservative not, yeah, not conservative podcasters or, you know, like, Manistphere podcasters. Yeah, I don't know. Yes, he's, yeah. I've also heard, though, you know, there was some, there was one point right before Tucker left where a bunch of protesters went to his home, I think maybe banged on the door, frightened his Tucker's wife. when Tucker wasn't home. And I was told that that was an incredibly radicalizing experience for him. Yeah. Do you think that's right?

That was the final straw. Yeah. I mean, up until that point, like he had, you know, he was having a hard time. Like, you know, he'd go to like the dog park and people would curse him out. Like, he could no longer eat at the palm, which is favorite, which was his favorite restaurant. I know. I know. He had to go to the prime rib.

So these are, these are harsh. He was upset about this. But when the, the protesters came to his house, that really, I think that sort of was a line in the sand for him. I mean, but, you know, he's completely spun this story about how it was horrible protesters came to his house and frightened his wife, but he makes it sound like, you know, the DC sort of political class supported that. And actually is not the case. I mean, everybody denounced that. Like, even people that he was, you know, at war with, like, you know, Max Boot and people like that, you said, like, you shouldn't do this. But he's sort of allied at that and just kind of

lumps them all in together. Interesting. Similar to related question. So as Tucker's gone into independent media. He has pushed the envelope further and further to the right in terms of booking guests and talking about subjects that might otherwise have been seen as just like out of bounds, certainly out of bounds for Fox News. A couple examples are there was an extremely cushy interview with Vladimir Putin in 2024 that included like segments like praising, you know, a Russian supermarket and that kind of like Russian system. There was this open embrace of the great replacement theory, which is this anti-Semitic theory that suggests, you know, Democrats are trying to bring in new voters to replace others and the world is controlled by Jews.

And then, you know, most recently, like, there was Tucker's, again, very, very soft interview with this neo-Nazi named Nick Fuentes, who, again, like, you know, was known would touch the guy a year or two ago. And I think Tucker was seen as bringing him in to the more, you know, establishment in maga media world. I'm curious as to why you think Tucker does this stuff like, is. He just won't be told who he's allowed to interview. Is he genuinely interested? Does he share these opinions? Or is like, I don't know, is keeping up with the neo-Nazi fringe how you stay current

and relevant in this era? Like, I don't know. What's your view? I mean, when I talk about incentive structure, I do think that's, you know, that's an instance of this. I do think, you know, I think Tucker's calculating that is it. That is how you stay current. You know, he, in sort of creating this new media company that he has and this video

podcast. Like, he does not, he can't, he doesn't have Foxes built in audience anymore. And, you know, in the intention economy, which he's proven to be kind of a master of, like you need to generate outrage. And, and one of the ways you generate outrage is you have guests like, you know, Vladimir Putin or, you know, Andrew Tate or Alex Jones, you have these guys on because people are going to pay attention to that. They're going to tune in. So I do think that's part of his strategy. I mean, I also think, you know, at Fox, like, he, Roger Ales always had this, you know, sort of rule that no one was bigger than the network. Like Tucker, who, you know, came along after Rails was gone, he violated that rule. He did become bigger

than the network in a lot of ways. And there were a lot of lines that he crossed there. And then they just kept on moving the line to allow him to cross. That said, like, now there are no guardrails. And people talk about sort of the second Trump term and how there are no guardrails anymore. Like, I think that applies to Tucker, you know, just as much. Like, there's no one to tell him no. He doesn't, he doesn't have bosses. It's not a publicly traded company. There are no shareholders to worry about. And they actually bought back, you know, they paid off all the investors who were originally invested in the company, they bought it back from them. So, he truly has no bosses. But at the same time, like, he's very responsive to where he thinks

the audience is. And the Fuentes thing is like a really fascinating example because, you know, he was in this huge feud with Fuentes. He called him, he called him, he said he was a Fed, he called him gay. I mean, he was like attacking him on his show and then Fuentes fired back. And I think Tupper was losing. Like, I think he kind of saw like, you know, via social media that that Fuentes' fans were taking Fentes' side. And Tucker, Tucker realized that like, or at least he thinks that you can't be successful in that world unless you have, you know, the Groyper's and the neo-Nazes on your side. And so he had Fentz on his show and did this softball interview with him, I think,

is kind of like an olive branch to try to defuse the feud because he was worried that he was going to lose, he was going to lose these people. And, you know, I think that that's, I think a lot of that is what's driving him, is this this idea that this is where the audience is. And he's trying to sort of skate to where he thinks the puck is going to be. And he, you know, I think is making the calculus that it's going to be with these, you know, sort of more extreme people. And look, this is, again, why Tucker is so, I think, uniquely powerful in the mega media

world. I think a lot of people would argue uniquely dangerous to our political discourse. Because I don't know if you saw this, but over the weekend, there were a bunch of videos that Nick Fuentes and these other absolute loser, douchebag, like neo-Nazi, misogynist, like horrible people. They all went to a club in Miami and posted videos of themselves singing a song by Kanye West called Heil Hitler and doing Nazi salutes and, you know, like, and you know, these with the Tate brothers who are accused of rape.

I mean, vile people. And, you know, if Tucker is seen as like the biggest force in the Maga Media world and he is kind of bringing someone like Fuentes and those individuals. into the fold of the MAGA world, while also somehow maintaining a relationship with J.D. Vance, the current vice president who was attacked in the most racist terms possible by Nick Fuentes. It just, like, it feels like those two things shouldn't be able to be truid, but it's, it's quite dangerous to me. Yeah. No. Well, yeah, I did. I mean, I did see that video. It was sort of like the final straw for me. I've been like resisting having to learn who clavicular was. I know. I know.

And now like, I broke down this weekend and ran about him. So I'm sure he'll be guest on Tucker show soon. You know, and Vance is, Vance and Tucker, I think, are very similar. One, I mean, they actually are like genuine friends. I think they actually share a lot of the same kind of views and resentments. And the way Vance has responded to the Fuentes. I mean, Fuentes going on Tucker's show was, I mean, it's kind of crazy how that, that episode triggered this response and this kind of, you know, civil war within the

conservative movement. I mean, people like sort of forget that, like, Fuentes had dinner with Donald Trump in 2020. No one responded to that the way they're responding to Tucker hosting him on his podcast. But I think it's like really interesting. It's either, you know, people are kind of virtue signaling and they think it's easier to attack Tucker than it is to attack Trump or, and I think this is actually like a real view. I think there are a lot of people in the conservative movement, especially Jewish conservatives, who are more fearful of Tucker than and where Tucker is going than they are of Trump.

Like they don't, they think Trump at the end of the day will be with them. But they're worried is what's going to happen after Trump. and where Tucker is taking the Republican Party and the conservative movement. And I think in their view, taking J.D. Vance along with him, the Tucker Vance relationship, I think, is something that troubles a lot of conservatives. And it's different kind of trouble. Like some people like really like Vance. And they're like, why is he going along with Tucker? Tucker is going to really, like, lead him to the wrong place.

But I think Vance is going along pretty willingly. And I think the way Vance, who you're right, I mean, the things Fuentes said about Vance himself, much less about his wife. And J.D. Vance just, you know, he once back during the campaign, I think he said something kind of nasty. Or not even that nasty. He just said that, you know, Doug Fuentes was a loser. But now he will not take the bait, you know, at that turning point conference where Ben Shapiro showed up and kind of read the riot act to Tucker and, you know, Fuentes and all these people. When it was Vance's turn to speak, he completely wussed out. Yeah. You know, and he said, I'm not here to cancel anybody. And I think that's, he's made, I think, the calculus that Tucker's made that you can't succeed in conservative politics these days and in the Republican Party without the neo-Nazis on your side. That is scary and pathetic. And I won't, you know, make you go into all the foreign policy implications. But Tucker definitely has a very, very different view on U.S. support for Israel and, you know, whether the U.S. should be sending money and weapons to Israel than others than Republican Party. And so the stakes are quite. large there from a foreign policy perspective. But the final question for you, then the big picture is,

you know, I've wondered whether Tucker would run for office himself, especially a run for president. I kind of wondered if Trump hadn't run again. I was where you were when I assumed Tucker might. What do you think? I mean, do you think that's possibly in the cards? It's a very different life than what he's got going on currently. You can't do it from Maine? Ah, I don't know. Can you? I mean, seriously. I mean, I feel like the way our politics are going. I mean, you know, he, you don't have to be on the campaign trail every day. You can just, you know, sit in a studio and, you know, put out tweets and the like. I think, I think that I think it is possible to do it that way. I mean, you have to do some travel. But, you know, he did that. I mean, he had his arena tour in

24. But I mean, like, putting aside kind of like the logistics, I mean, I think that, look, he, I think it's important to think of him not as, like, media figure, but almost as a political operator. I mean, because that's kind of the way he runs his media operation. And he he doesn't just want to be a podcaster. And, you know, he, I think he really wants to change the country. And I think the question for him is going to be, can he do that without actually running for office from, you know, himself? And like right now, he has this very, you know, tight symbiotic relationship with J.D. Vance. And J.D. Vance is, you know, saying a lot of the things that Tucker says, you know, maybe like lowering the sort of the really kind of like nasty stuff a little bit, you know, toning it down a little bit. But still like very much in line with with, with, with, with, with, what. Tucker says and believes. And I think J.D. Vance worries a lot about what Tucker thinks and what Tucker's reaction is going to be to things. And I think, you know, if Tucker is confident that, one, J.D. Vance will stay allied with him and two, that he could get elected, yeah, he probably doesn't need to do it himself. But at a certain point, if he feels like Vance is maybe not going to follow the line that Tucker wants,

or I think even more sort of like plausibly is not a particularly good politician and can't get elected, then I, yeah, I could totally see Tucker doing it. And I think the. the way you would run for president now is so different than it was, you know, four years ago, eight years ago, 12 years ago that in a way, like, I mean, Trump is just, you, you're a media figure. Yeah. And that's the way, that's the way, that's the way Tupper could do it. I mean, he'd probably have to, you know, get out of his bubble a little bit, but not, not as much as maybe, you know, you might think.

Yeah, you'd have to, you'd have to hit the road. I mean, you're certainly right that having a built an audience, having a studio to broadcast from like that, that's a lot, you know, it's influencer piece. There are a bunch of, like, you know, security concerns. you know, lifestyle concerns, increased scrutiny that I'm sure no one would enjoy, but maybe it's worth it for power. Yeah, no, he wants power.

I mean, he, look, he believes what he's saying, I think. I think that's sort of one sort of takeaway from the book I hope people get is like, you need to, to, you can have the debate. Like, did he always believe it? Did he sort of, you know, do this out of cynicism? But he's been saying it long enough now and he's been, you know, successful in saying it that I think it's just sort of human nature to start to believe it. And, you know, you talk to enough people around him. Like, this is what he

believes. Like, these are his views about what he thinks the country should be doing, where it should be headed. And he, you know, he believes them in some ways, like, more deeply, I think, than, you know, a lot of people in Donald Trump's world do. He's not, you know, he's not sort of aligning himself with Trump to, you know, protect his bottom line or, you know, increase his company's, you know, shareholder value. Like, he, he wants these things that Trump says he wants in terms of, you know, the character of the country and the like. And I think he's not going to, he's, he's going to do what he has to do that he thinks he has to do to make that happen to achieve that goal. Well, I guess there will be a lot to watch in the future. There's so much more in the book

that we could have talked about. There's some understanding Tucker's mom and the way she essentially abandoned their family and how he blames liberalism for that. There's the relationship with Victor Orban in Hungary and basically, I mean, the title of the book, hated by all the right people, is a reference to, you know, I think a line Tucker Carlson said about Victor Orban, right? Yeah, and a toast to Victor Orban. Yeah, like he was, yeah, he was eating dinner with him and that was his toast to Victor Orban. You're truly hated by all the right people. And now Orban is like a darling on the right. And I think Tucker has a direct line in that. And again, so everyone should buy the book, hated by all the right people, Tucker Carlson and the unraveling of the

conservative mind. Pre-order it now. Get it well as hot. It's an incredible book. You will be fascinated but also learn a lot about Tucker and this political moment we're in. Jason Zengarly, great to see you. Thank you for writing it. Thanks a lot for helping me on. That's our show for today. Thanks to Jason for coming on. Remember, you can pre-order hated by all the right people at cricket.com slash books

or pick up the book wherever you shop when it releases on January 27th. Dan and I will be back in your feed on Friday. If you want to listen to Pod Save America ad-free and get access to exclusive podcasts, go to cricket.com slash friends. to subscribe on Supercast, Substack, YouTube, or Apple Podcasts. Also, please consider leaving us a review that helps boost this episode and everything we do here at Cricket. Pod Save America is a Cricket Media production. Our producers are David Toledo, Emma Ilik Frank, and Saul Rubin.

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