Pod Save America - “The 2024 Dry Ron.”

Episode Date: February 28, 2023

Ron DeSantis kicks off his presidential campaign-in-waiting with a nationwide book tour. The guys run through the week’s top stories in a new segment called “One Line with Cocaine Bear.” MSNBC��s Mehdi Hasan stops by to talk about how Democrats can win more arguments. And the guys decide who-gets-what in Marjorie Taylor Greene’s national divorce. For a closed-captioned version of this episode, click here. For a transcript of this episode, please email [e-mail] and include the name of the podcast. 

Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Jon Favreau. I'm Jon Lovett. I'm Tommy Vitor. On today's show, Ron DeSantis kicks off his presidential campaign in waiting with a nationwide book tour. We quickly run through the week's top stories in a new segment we're calling One Line with Cocaine Bear. Jesus. Okay, we're doing it there.

I love this. MSNBC's Mehdi Hassan stops by to talk about how Democrats can win more arguments, and we decide who gets what in Marjorie Taylor Greene's national divorce. But first, we are relaunching Vote Save America's No Off Years program for 2023, and it's starting with that

must-win Supreme Court seat that we've been talking about in Wisconsin. The election is April 4th, and you can help right now wherever you live by going to votesaveamerica.com. Sign up for no-off years. You can donate, make phone calls, volunteer, get involved. Votesaveamerica.com.

Get to it. Get to it. Hey, get to it. Before we get to the show, guys, I ran into a very important friend over the weekend who wanted to check in, see how everyone's doing, and just deliver a message to you guys. So here we go. Oh, boy. Hey, friends of the pod. It's Joe Biden. Look, I know you haven't heard from me in a while,

and there's rumblings that it's because of some lingering hard feelings from the primary. Here's the deal. This is good. Did Joe Biden like it when Lovett said he had a better chance of winning Powerball than I did of becoming president? I didn't say that. No, Joe did not. Joe didn't like it. Did Joe Biden find it funny when Favreau said my South Carolina event looked like a party at a discount funeral home?

No, Joe did not. Did Joe Biden chuckle in Nevada when Tommy said the last time he saw a socialist deliver a beating like that, it was a Sandinista? Today, I'm here to say that's all malarkey under the bridge. We've got to get serious, folks. 24 is coming quick. The soul of our nation is at stake. And I literally mean that literally.

If we want to build an economy from the bottom up in the middle out. Oh, no. From the nethermost to the tippy top, from the center along an orthogonal radii to the periphery of the Euclidean space we call the middle class, then we have to work together. So I'm here today to say, Biden will be back on Pod Save America this year.

That's not hyperbole, folks. Biden out. Good news. Great news. That was great. Pretty cool cool thanks for getting that note i just saw him at starbucks wow right in your phone wow that was obviously fake that was artificial intelligence before anyone gets before anyone game away there's people to be clipping that and sending it around no time great from a site called 11 labs i paid five dollars uh to make

it actually 22 because i blew through my limit before I got to a final text. But yeah, those jokes aren't real either. I mean, we made those up, I think. He's not agreed to come on the show, but boy, will this be dangerous in elections going forward. Apparently, there's, I think, someone on Twitter made an account and then a clip of one of the candidates in the Chicago mayoral race saying something completely wrong. And then it got sent around and then they had to take down the tweet and they took down the account eventually. So it's already starting. It's really going to be bad.

Before we move on, I think we can handle it. Before we move on to the act, the actual show, I actually did run into one other friend. Oh my God. Real quick. Hey fellas,

it's Barack. Oh no. I just heard the great news about landing the Biden interview. Congrats. Look, I was talking to Michelle about this, and she agrees. But we wanted to let you know that we, too, found the jokes Joe mentioned to be lacking. The arc of the moral universe is long, and it's got to bend towards better material than that. Yep.

What I have said is that it would serve you well to be funnier and to reject the notion that this is the best you can do. Fortunately, I am a much better speechwriter, podcaster, and joke writer than any of you. But, unfortunately, I will be unavailable to help out going forward. Regardless, congrats on all the success at Crooked Media. Vote Save America is the shit. Obama, out.

Tommy, were you an Obama speech writer for that? I don't know. That sounded a lot like him. I've got to say, it turns out, actually, just once he puts a spin on it, really anybody can do it. That's tough. Telling us our material is lacking

is pretty close. My stomach hurts. I got a little knot. Flashback to that immigration speech, huh? Hey, hey, hey hey hey hey hey hey now hey hey come on we're having fun here should we do the show yeah if i played with that website any longer over the weekend i was getting divorced yeah there was quite a few quite a few other ones anyway anyway all right uh let's start with the latest developments in the 2024

mess america pageant ronda sanctimonious a lot of clips today guys a lot of clips all right uh desantis is kicking off what appears to be a pre-presidential announcement maga media tour for his new book the courage to be free which the new y York Times is calling culture war mad libs with a dull coldness at its core that reads like a politician's memoir turned out by chat GPT. The theme today. Yeah.

DeSantis is scheduled to visit dozens of cities in the coming weeks after his political committee hosted a retreat last weekend at a Palm Beach Four Seasons just four miles from Mar-a-Lago. Wow. That included everyone from Tom Cotton and former Trump chief of staff Mick Mulvaney to the libs of TikTok lady and Laura Ingraham. But the other Florida man still presents a formidable challenge for DeSantis. Trump is still leading in most of the current polling, including a new one from Fox News that has the former president at 43%, DeSantis at 28%, Nikki Haley and Mike Pence of Hang Mike Pence fame at 7%, and everyone else at 2% or below, including your boy, Mike Pompeo.

I know, I love it. I love that he's on there. Let's start with what's sure to become the greatest political memoir of our generation. What jumped out at you guys from DeSantis' book reviews or interviews about his book in terms of his message or strategy for this primary? Love it. Well, first of all, these books aren't real books. I think people, these aren't, the book tour doesn't exist to promote the book. The book exists to promote the tour. The reason Mike Pompeo wrote a book uh wasn't really to sell books and good for him because he didn't well he bought them all his pack bought like 40 grand worth it's to create a reason to have press people reach out to book you

on shows and talk about the content of the book the content of the book being mike pompeo rules yeah yeah it's a cynical enterprise a little little book called audacity of hope that did pretty well well he's the exception he's the exception. He's the exception. Famously, famously the exception. I don't know that there was anything actually based on the reviews. I do think this book is like right in the fucking center of the target of exactly the kind of shit Ron DeSantis would would produce. I suppose maybe there's a little bit of like he doesn't really engage in the fight with Trump. He goes out of his way to say something kind of vaguely pleasant about him in the book. But I don't know that you would expect him to do anything else.

I didn't find I just so far there's nothing particularly surprising. He's taken on the woke mob. He's done a really good job in Florida. That's his message. Yeah, that I think that's exactly right. I have not and will not read the book. Absolutely not. Absolutely not.

Be clear about that. You're going to read it. Yeah, I'm going to have a book report. You're going to read all of it? Yeah, but I mean, what I've read about the book, Woke Ideology is Bad, Florida Good, generic biography. It was interesting that he didn't pick a fight with Trump. Obviously, a book's not the place you do that. He is doing this press tour. He recently went to New York, Pennsylvania, and Illinois to do law and order message events with cops. He's not going to see back. I thought that was interesting. So I think it's all building in anticipation

to when he decides to go to an early state. That's the book tour. I, from the reviews and the excerpts and everything, you really get why Donald Trump has nicknamed him Ron DeSanctimonious. Like the guy really does think of himself as, well, did you guys remember the video? Yes.

That was put out around the election. God created Rhonda Sanchez on the seventh day. We have a clip of this. And on the eighth day, God looked down on his planned paradise and said, I need a protector. So God made a fighter. God said, I need somebody willing to get up before dawn, kiss his family goodbye, travel thousands of miles for no other reason than to serve the people. To save their jobs, their livelihoods, their liberty, their happiness. I think that there's something important in the existence of this and in the sanctimoniousness you're describing, which is, I believe Ron DeSantis was married at Disney World.

This is true. And there is Disney adult energy inside of that sanctimonious horseshit. I couldn't believe that was their video that his wife tweeted. And it's like, I just can't believe he's that obvious about it. And on the ninth day, God sent a puker, me, to puke all over the place about that video. Yeah, yeah, or Disney World. Or Disney World. Here's the thing.

It's clear he wants to lean in hard to take on institutions, and not just government and academia and the media, which like all Republicans do, but also corporations, right? That was his fight with Disney and his rationale. He was trying to invent a rationale for it, which is, well, it's okay. I know that I'm supposed to be libertarian, but, and, and limited government and all that, but because all these institutions now are controlled by the left, it's okay for government to get involved. I think the danger for him in doing that, especially in a general election is he seems like a person who thinks he knows better than everyone else. So instead of all these institutions having the power now, Ron DeSantis has the power. Right. So it's like,

don't trust these institutions. Trust me, Ron DeSantis. I want to control what books you read, what your kids learn, how your company gets involved in politics. And I think that's a it's a bit of a weakness, not libertarian. Yeah. There's a, he, he, he does this dodge, right? Where he says, well, once these, uh, uh, corporations start acting very political, they kind of usurp the power of the democracy by doing things that they weren't elected to do, which is, I suppose, have opinions. It's all very, very murky. It's not very like, it's not, um, it's not cogent or anything, but he starts to say things like things like well if banks decide to not loan

money to to gun manufacturers that's it that's a way of the banks anti-democratically trying to restrict gun rights right and basically what it what it amounts to is if you disagree with me you're doing something anti-democratic yeah but i imagine he wouldn't say that if the insurance company refuses to cover a serious illness, that they're infringing on your right to live. Well, sure. These guys are also at the same time, the other side of their mouth, they're trying to ban ESG investing, which is when companies invest in companies that have environmentally sustainable portfolios, blah, blah, blah. So they're just using it as a vehicle to attack the left. There's no consistency. Well, there's no consistency. And I actually

do think underneath all of it is all the right wingers who want to get behind Ron DeSantis. They basically just assume, yeah, yeah, he's going to say this kind of shit, but he's not going to come after the money. You know, he's going to attack Disney, which is one company, and he's going to go after the schools and the trans kids and the gay kids and the teachers. He's not coming after the money. Well, we're here for the money.

And that's another big part of the book, which is there's a lot about the Florida economy and the Florida miracle and stuff like that, because he does want to reassure, it's partly a general election strategy and partly for the people you're talking about, all of the like Elon Musks of the world. Well, not even Elon Musk, sort of like the finance bros. It runs from the finance bros to the conservatives who have tolerated the evangelicals for 40 years because of the tax rates to the Jeb Bushes who all want to tell themselves that the stuff that Ron DeSantis does when he goes in front of a school and says, we're going to stop the wokeness and we're going to attack the critical race theory and all that that they kind of see that as a little song and dance he does to make the other stuff possible and as long as that's how it feels it's like trump i mean it's like every it's the republican playbook for the last 50 years and if he gets through the primary i imagine he will pivot hard to being that guy over the cultural yeah it'll be fewer schools more gas stations yeah uh that's what it'll be what'd you guys make make of the collection of MAGA goons at the Ron Curious Confab?

Or some of the early support DeSantis has been getting from donors, activists, and most importantly, Jeb. He's been a really effective governor. He's young. I think we're on the verge of a generational change in our politics. I kind of hope so. I think it's time for a more forward-leaning, future-oriented conversation in our politics? I kind of hope so. I think it's time for a more forward-leaning, future-oriented conversation in our politics as well. I liked how some of the reporting made it like this head-to-head battle. I was like,

can you believe DeSantis had a meeting in Florida? I was like, he's the governor. I mean, it's like, oh, four miles from Mar-a-Lago. I'm sorry. I didn't realize that Trump owned the state. I thought it was an impressive group, right? He had the governor of Tennessee, Oklahoma, Kim Reynolds. Loosely defined. Loosely, for him, right? Context, yeah. The governor of Iowa. He met with this guy, Bob Vander Plaats, who's this Iowa conservative group leader. You don't carve out an hour for that dude unless you're running for president, right? There were some less impressive people, Ron Johnson, Tom Cotton, Chip Roy, Mick Mulvaney, Laura Ingraham. It wasn't like some historic massive event for a governor, but I think it did communicate like I got a network,

I can raise some money. Jeb probably can unlock some of that big donor cash that helped him raise $100 million for his super PAC. He lit on fire. I think the Jeb endorsement is the kiss of death. I don't think Ron DeSantis will ever mention that again, but you know who was going to mention that every day from now until the primary? Donald Trump. And look, the topics of this thing were election integrity, border security,

and medical authoritarianism, right? He's described the Trump sort of message territory. What's interesting to me is that all of these people, it's not like 16, where there was a bunch of Republicans who didn't like Trump, and then they fell in line when Trump won the nomination. These are all people who have loved like Trump, and then they fell in line when Trump won the nomination. These are all people who have loved Donald Trump, and maybe still do love Donald Trump, and now they're all sitting there, not afraid of Donald Trump at all, by the way.

Now Donald Trump knows all these people who are at this Ron DeSantis thing, and they don't give a shit. They just win anyway. They win anyway. And Laura Ingraham, Benny Johnson, a lot of the MA mega media stars are there i think they get to i guess i think they can all claim to be ron curious and that they they love donald trump and they love ronda santos and it's a great big party with wonderful people and we're

gonna figure it out it's not how they've acted for the last several years sure obviously about donald trump like nothing more than when you come crawling back the thing about the thing about also doing it by mario lago you know in elden ring sometimes the way you take on the biggest of adversaries is you have to get right up next to sure you think you can you can think you can pull away no you gotta get real close and people don't know that did you guys know the trump super pack is called maga ink that is literally true it's just a it's called save america well there's one called maga ink that was talked about in this uh in these stories The Washington Post in particular as sort of the competing event that happened the same weekend as this big DeSantis thing. Interesting. So the Post story also has anonymous Republicans who've met with DeSantis saying that he, quote, remains stilted in one on one conversations and struggles to make small talk or appear enthusiastic.

Who among us? How much do you think that matters i mean listen this might come as a surprise to some listeners but i don't have a ton of connections into the santa's orbit you know i'm not like spending a lot of face time with the guy he does seem like a brooding kind of stilted weirdo at times uh he clearly seems to get his rocks out by being very mean to people especially kids but he also that's a plus in the primary he won won a lot of elections. He's raised a lot of money. Like, yes, I think in the early states, you have to glide glad hand and, you know, kiss ass and win over people in small settings. But I'm a little skeptical of this narrative, given his success. I don't know. We'll see. Trump is uniquely good at this element of politics, though. Right. He he calls people

all day long, every day. His events are just pure entertainment for a lot of people. So there's someone found a narrative about Ron DeSantis, and they're driving at it because it highlights something that Trump thinks he's good at. Yeah, I think it's a reminder that Ron DeSantis is really untested as a national figure. He hasn't done a lot of the kind of more social things that you're going to do when you become a presidential candidate. And he is going to ultimately have to become the Republican nominee by standing side by side with Donald Trump on a debate stage. He has not won because he's a great debater. There are some pretty weird clips going around from when Ron DeSantis went up against

Charlie Criss, for example. It didn't end up ultimately mattering, but it doesn't mean he won those debates. So I do think it's like, you know, we'll see. I mean, on the one hand, you know, Clinton, Bush, Obama, Trump, Biden, all really great retail politicians shaking hands one on one kind of thing. So it is a quality that a lot of the previous presidents have had on the other i wonder and i know you talked about this a lot in 2020 with in iowa like there's a i feel like there's a lot less retail politicking these days and it happens it just mattered less in 2020 matters less the national narrative mattered more for these democratic primary

candidates so who knows if that'll be the case and that's what i well that's what i wonder if that papers over some of desantisantis' weaknesses in this, because a lot more of the primary happens online with tweets, video clips, speeches, all that kind of stuff. Like, I don't know if like being a little aloof in person matters as much anymore. Yeah, I mean, one point DeSantis makes, which is that the reason he has been so relentless in doing these press conferences of kind of changing the story and kind of coming up with something to go up and go in front of a, you know, to do a COVID press conference, to do a school's press, whatever, is that

it keeps the story where he wants it. And he's been very, very, that's like, that is his medium. His medium is as governor standing up, making some fucking hellish announcement, getting progressives all spun up about it, getting national coverage about it. And when that coverage dies down, figuring out the next one, like, is that a recipe to run for president? Or is that a recipe to be a successful governor who looks like a great presidential candidate? I don't know. So what happens when he doesn't have that as a national figure? And there's a lot of, you know, maybe retail doesn't matter as much day to day, but now he's, there's a lot of, you know, maybe retail doesn't matter as much day to day, but now there's a video of him being a schmuck at a deli

and that's everywhere. I don't know. Yeah, yeah. So Trump has been previewing his argument against DeSantis on Truth Social saying, here's one truth, here's an example. Ron DeSanctimonious wants to cut your social security and Medicare and is an establishment globalist

who loves rhinos, Paul Ryan, Jeb Bush, and Karl Rove. What do you think of that hit and what do you do about it if you're DeSantis, Tommy? So Trump's 2020 budget cut Medicaid or proposed cutting Medicaid, Social Security and Medicare. So he can make this attack on DeSantis if he wants, but there's a pretty easy rejoinder there just sort of sitting. The rhino stuff is fine. I'm sure Trump will try it out. I'll see what sticks. But I think the threshold question is, do these voters think DeSantis is a Rhino? I kind of doubt that. He seems like their second favorite culture warrior. And DeSantis can also say, was I a Rhino when you endorsed me? Or he could say, maybe we shouldn't attack other Republicans because that's how we lose like we did in Georgia. So I think, I don't know. I mean, he's flailing a little bit.

I think the establishment cuck piece of that is going to be a bit stronger than the rhino piece of that. I think that like you're the, you're going to be the candidate of your Jebs and your Paul Ryan's is going to be the place where he can, where there's a bit of a softer, softer belly there. Well, so Sarah Longwell, who's been on the pod before she has this excellent podcast called the focus group. And she's been interviewing trump voters who are like open to alternatives but still like trump and for a while it's just like oh we love desantis we love desantis and then she said recently she's heard in these focus groups a lot of these voters being like desantis's record it's a little establishment i'm not sure like some of the establishment it's there we go i think

that's as but she also asked about the um the trump groomer attack and they were like i mean that's just ridiculous that sounds like something that trump always says about everyone like no one took it seriously and they were just like that's trump being trump but the establishment thing is i think it's a real danger and i think if trump can connect for. And I think if Trump can connect for DeSantis, I think if Trump can connect him to McConnell, he's going to use all of his votes in the House. He's going to, you know, I think it's a I think that is the danger. And then it turns the endorsements that that DeSantis will ultimately get from a lot of figures as a kind of turns it positive and positive into a negative. And I think I think Trump wants the race to be like populist outsider versus establishment he wants to santa to be the establishment desantis will try to prove his

populist outsider credentials by doing the like i'm attacking the woke mob and disney and the corporations and all that kind of stuff but i think he wants to make the race all about electability and generational change so he doesn't want he doesn't want to be in the frame of oh no no no trump's the establishment i'm the outsider like because i don't think you're going to win that against donald trump i think you are going to be able to win an electability generational change argument against donald trump so he's going to want to make that i think you just do the classic like i was a governor who was actually in charge of things and had to run a state and here's my record we grew this we did that like you can call me names if you want but here's my record

yeah and you're and you're a loser and you lost to joe biden that, but here's my record. Yeah. And you're a loser. And you lost to Joe Biden. That's the, that's, that's to him, that's, I think, his best attack. So, you know, Trump is, as always, a raptor testing the fences. He's seeing what works. He threw out the groomer thing, took it for a spin. Did it work right away? No.

Does that mean he's going to abandon it? Does that mean he's going to hit it again and again for a while until it's in the back of people's minds? I don't know. There was the, you know, there was the report that he started using meatball ron is he trying to see if there's just a little anti-italian prejudice just left right under the surface for some of those jews you know just like some of those south florida guys get just enough to make a difference he's trying it out he wants to test it out we'll see well none of trump's most effective or famous attacks are like purely about policy there's always some kind

of a character thing to this by the end we were all like did ted cruz's dad kill kennedy i thought he did so i do think that like he wants us to think of ronan sanchez as sort of like an aloof weirdo establishment he's gonna put all that together you know it's like yeah he you know what are you doing with this guy and there's and nothing will be able to stop Donald Trump from bringing up the teacher. Weird things happened. I don't know. I don't know. During a debate.

That's coming. We'll see. So one reason DeSantis hasn't formally announced yet is that he wants to leave his mark on the current Florida legislative session, which now includes, thanks to DeSantis, a bill to put state colleges under full control of DeSantis political appointees. And the bill would also ban all gender studies as well as all diversity, equity and inclusion programs in state colleges and universities. This will obviously endear him to the base in the primary. How do you think it plays with most people? Like, should Democrats be calling this out? Yes, I do think this is a similar dynamic to what played out in the midterms. This is something that plays for the base, but it is part of the kind of radicalism,

extremism. You know, there was that story out of Michigan about that focus group laughing when this question of bathrooms came up. It's not a concern people have. It's attacking something that people don't actually view as a real and serious problem in their lives. It just seems like right wing, weird behavior. And it seems extreme. It try hard i mean i you know it's funny john i i was thinking about this question i had this sort of a similar take that you had at the top which is desantis tries to define what he's doing here in the most sort of like unarguable way possible so

he says that state colleges and universities have to quote promote the values necessary to preserve the constitutional republic no one's going to fight with that yeah and they cannot define american history as quote contrary to the creation of a new nation based on universal principles stated in the declaration of independence. I don't even know what that means. I don't even know what that means either. But like, rather than sort of like engage on the specifics there, I would like to see someone test the message that is a little more libertarian, which is to say like Ron DeSantis is trying to put politicians fully in control of your kid's education. He is trying to handpick who gets to be a teacher and who doesn't.

And you might like that when Ron DeSantis is in charge, but what happens when it's AOC, right? Like that's kind of like the universal way to shoot at this. You don't like the gender studies classes? Don't take them. Yeah. You know, you don't like what this professor is doing or that professor thinks?

Don't take that professor. Right. Like that. That should be. And Ron DeSantis, he only wants his political appointees in charge of education. You don't want to pull it. Teachers decide what to teach, not politicians. Doctors decide how to do medicine, not politicians. Let the schools decide. Let parents decide. Like that is the place where we will, I think, appeal to the most people. And I do also think, too, like DeSantis has played this game over the past couple of years where he does one of these press conferences. He speaks about it in the most general terms possible. People look at the bill. They find out it's pretty heinous. Progressive activists and people engaged on social media go ballistic correctly. Either they outright lie about the bill or they amend the bill and they claim oh my

god ronda santos is once again being unfairly maligned look what he's done to his critics he's made his critics go wild i do think we have to watch out for that too yeah so uh there are quite a few other stories out there this week we figured we'd run through quickly uh with a short take for each and in honor of uh last weekend's box office smash. We're calling this segment One Line with Cocaine Bear. Jesus. Every time it is so loud. All right. So here's the,

each story is written down on a slip of paper that we will take turns pulling out of this trusty bear head that Tommy brought to the office. My friend from college, Carl, made this.

So thanks, Carl. Yeah. For those of you who are watching on YouTube and if you're just listening to the pod, you might want to get on YouTube and watch this because there's a big bear head on YouTube and if you're just listening to the pod you might want to get on YouTube and watch this

because there's a big bear head on the table I think he used to sell these to people going to like Coachella and stuff oh that's cool yeah

alright so we're all going to take one and then we're going to give a quick take each of us who wants to start who wants to start Tommy kick it off

kick it off buddy you know which one I want what do we got here I got the Nevada Democratic Party. Yes. So I don't have, I didn't prepare for that one.

Where's the prompt? Hold on. I was like, that story was too long. Too long. We're going to edit this. The Nevada Democratic Party is in turmoil

two years after supporters of Senator Bernie Sanders took over the machine built by Senator Harry Reid with both factions fighting each other and even Sanders himself reportedly expressing disappointment with the new leadership. That's a good summary. Thank you, John. My take on this is this is worrisome. We

had Jackie Rosen up in 2024, U.S. Senator from Nevada. It's a tough state. She needs an organization backing her. We don't know all the context, but it did make me worry if Bernie Sanders is frustrated with the current party chair. This is especially a big deal in Nevada, where the Harry Reid political machine has been critical to winning elections for decades and manages to deliver years after his death somehow. So yeah, this sucks. He delivers years after his death and some of the voters he delivers are years after their deaths. Coming to a conspiracy near you, John. All right, I'll go. Go for it.

Let's see what we got. Cocaine bear. They're not a sponsor. I don't know how that's possible. Fox News, Dominion and the MoveOn ad. Fox News host Howard Kurtz told his audience on Sunday that the network is not allowing him to cover Dominion's $1.8 billion defamation lawsuit against Fox. The network is also refusing to run a moveon.org ad that highlights text messages that prove Fox has lied to their audience about the 2020 election. Here's my take. That's just good business sense. You can't have people going, they're being sued for a billion dollars. The

whole business is at stake. You can't have people spouting off about this. Everybody shut the fuck up. Look at what talking did to us. Everybody on this network, we are not talking about this until the suit is done. That just makes sense to me. Yeah. Is that the wrong take? No, that's a great take. Rupert Murdoch, by the way, this was news broke right before we started recording, said in his deposition that he basically admitted that all the hosts were lying. Yeah.

And then he should have prevented it. Yeah. Seems then he should have prevented it. Yeah, it seems not great. I just want to add that Howard Kurtz is full of shit, and it didn't take a lawsuit to know that there were a bunch of liars on their air, and as a media critic, you could have chimed in any time, but sure, Howard.

Oh, yeah, like the people's ombudsman from fucking hell. Give me a break. I'm trying to bring the truth to the people at Fox News this time. But also, Tommy and I talked about this on our bonus episode about the Dominionion lawsuit like this just goes to show how fucking petrified fox news is about their audience finding out the truth of what happened they know that if a

bunch and some of you be like oh their audience isn't going to care well then fox would not be going to such great lengths to prevent them from knowing anything about this case. I don't like stifling Howie Kurtz's great lengths. You can tell that paid hack shut up for 15 minutes. The move on ad,

the Howie Kurtz thing, they know. What was the name of that person who worked for the NRA and lit the New York Times on fire? Dana Loesch. Yeah.

If you called Dana Loesch the most heinous right wing figure, fascist, all that stuff. Didn't care. Loved it, ate it up. But if you said you were a grifter, out for the money, that was where you would get the response. She gets so mad at me. It would always work.

Good for you. Got her. Where is she now? I don't know. I don't hear from her. Lighting papers and fire at home. Anyway, again, if you're going on fox news and you're not some trump supporter talk about bring up the lawsuit bring up the lawsuit whoever's the new

juan williams yeah i don't know i don't know what's going on over there all right oh god i got marion williamson all right uh self-help author marion williamson announced this weekend that she will run for president in 2024 will Williamson is the first Democratic candidate to challenge President Biden. Hey, everyone, let's just ignore this story. Marianne Williamson dropped out before the first votes were cast in 2020. And, you know, just made it to the debate stage. Had a few very memeable quotes. I had to do a lot of prep to actually interview her during the primary.

Did that happen? Yeah. Oh, it did? Yeah, no, I interviewed her. And she sent me one of her books. Cool. Signed, a couple signed copies of her books.

And yeah, I don't think anyone should be worrying about this. There will be no debates this time for a moment. Yeah, no, everyone hacked the system and figured out, oh, you just run for president, you got a lot of press.

She's going to try to do it twice. We don't have to let her. It's like, yeah, you did it last time. You didn't even make it to the taiwa you didn't get out of single digits in in any of the polls and you didn't make it to any of the votes so why should you do it this time well saturn's in a different part of the sky all right tommy dj donald trump uh okay that's a good one so So, page six reported that Donald Trump is officially DJing every Thursday night at Mar-a-Lago. And I just wanted to say that my take on this is that it is fakeness.

Donald Trump is not on the ones and twos. He's not scratching records. This man is playing with his iPad and queuing up Celine Dion while he eats dinner. This is just an old guy ruining dinner and this is not djing fakeness ruining around he also likes broadway tunes it says it's not just celine dion and it's not just any celine dion it's specifically um my heart will go on it's really yeah that titanic banger he just keeps imagine he's just sitting at the table and everyone's just like having a nice time and he's just that's like a dinner from hell it sounds

very very trump to me because it's like he's too lazy to get up on stage you know the only part yeah he's telling gotta be telling somebody else to just place yeah i don't even know if he knows how to work on that he's not touching uh greg craig electing the vp okay okay okay let's poke the bear in a new essay in the new york times former obama white house counsel g House counsel Greg Craig says because of President Biden's age and the greater chance he could pass away in office, he should let Democratic delegates pick his VP if he runs for reelection. I'm going to be honest. All right, K-Hive. Listen up.

It's his love at stake. I'm going to clip this. Yeah, I can hear the buzzing of the K-Hive even as I get close to this op-ed. I approached this op-ed with such incredible skepticism. It reminds me, I thought it was going to be in the category of America needs a purple party or like, why won't Joe Biden choose John McCain in his running mate? I thought it was going to be that kind of a thing. But as I read it, what I found to be interesting about it is it does try to solve this unsolvable problem, which on the one hand, the only argument that really people feel is the strongest argument against Joe Biden is one of age while kind of

recognizing that he's been so successful as a president and done as well with the hand he was dealt as any person could, while at the same time being worried that he's not going to fulfill the promise that he made, which is passing the torch to a new generation of leaders. And this is an idea that says, let's have an exciting campaign for who his VP will be. Obviously, that is tough for the person who is currently the VP to read, I assume. I assume it wasn't great to have that next to the morning coffee. Yeah. But the article says... I wonder if Greg could get a call. I will say, but people are being unfair because the article says it's not a bad thing for Kamala Harris. That's the article says... The article also argues that Biden, because basically the article says that this has happened once. Franklin Roosevelt did this in 1944.

I've never heard of him. Apparently Adlai Stevenson did something like this. Not familiar. Yeah, well, that turned out great. But Biden could say, I prefer Kamala Harris. I want you to pick my current vice president. It's a difference between giving someone a Kamala Harris gift card and giving someone $100 and say, check out Vice President Kamala Harris. I just want to note that Pundit sprinted to me for comfort as soon as you said the word K-Hive.

Now, I want to give Greg credit for drafting an op-ed that managed to infuriate both the president's office and the vice president's office equally. That's a rare feat. Really hard to do. Good for you. It's also the first original idea I've heard in a while. So, again, credit to him. The more I thought about it, though, the more I thought at the end of the day, I don't know that this solves the problem that it's claiming to solve, which is assuaging concerns about Biden's age. Because you sort of just highlight the concern about the age for months and months and months.

No, it is a problem. I'm not saying I'm persuaded. Can I highlight one other problem? Sure. Please. Let the people decide. The people or the DNC delegates? Right.

What they make is to have a primary. To have something like a primary. Do we want to entrust the future of the president with the DNC delegates? Joe Biden could just Twitter poll this thing like Elon. Yeah, right. I think the key thing, if you're worried about Joe Biden's age, is we keep sending him on more and more scary international trips and hope God is not paying attention until like 2029. He crushed that international trip. He absolutely did.

It's a long train ride. I just want to say that. I just want to say that. All right. Here I go. What am I going to get? Getting down there. Joe Manchin on Maria Bartiromo.

Okay, here we go on sunday senator joe mansion appeared on fox news with maria bartiromo and declined to describe himself as a democrat mansion said i identify as an american i'm an american through and through his transitions mansion also refused to say whether he'll run for re-election. Okay, here's my take on this. Let's hear it. I want to kind of, okay. I'm with Joe Manchin on this one. I actually, honestly,

that was what I thought I was going to say. Okay, because here's why. So first of all, I was worried, so Manchin has ruled out running for governor in West Virginia again, and he's ruled out

running for president. Remember, we thought he was flirting with that. So it's basically either he's going to run for reelection as senator or he's going to retire, right? If Joe Manchin runs for reelection in West Virginia and he thinks calling himself an

independent and leaving the party is the best way for him to get elected. And he is the guy who, you know, voted for Katonji Brown Jackson, all of Joe Biden's judges, the Inflation Reduction Act, the Joe Manchin Inflation Reduction Act. That's the biggest investment climate. The guy who voted for all those things if it's either him or some fucking republican which is basically every other scenario here a republican is going to win in west virginia a right wing one a right wing one if joe mansion doesn't run i don't see another democrat winning that race and so therefore we lose a seat so if joe if joe mansion thinks the best chance he has at winning

is calling himself an independent i don't care what the fuck he calls himself i i really don't i agree with that do we think greg craig um is still upset that kamala harris hit his dog with her car i mean just think about all the work that went into that outfit to make them so it's really detailed really it's so thoughtful and specific about an idea that i was like a chin like i was like one in a thousand chances of happening. How did Kamala Harris wrong Greg Craig? Yeah. When did that happen?

What did she do? I will say it was annoying that. Look, Joe Manchin's annoying. It was annoying to go on Maria Bartiromo's show right after we learned that she was, you know, just platforming Sidney Powell and all these election liars. But no one has to like Joe Manchin. All the baddest rumors is politics. His polling numbers go up in West Virginia when he attacks the Democratic Party and Joe Biden.

That's why he is currently picking a fight with the Biden administration about implementing the electric vehicle tax credit that his staff wrote into law. He's manufacturing fights wherever he can to create some space. Have at it, bud. Again, just want your vote, man. Look. Just want your vote. Joe Manchin. Don't care about your lifestyle. Don't care about your lifestyle.

Don't care about the crazy shit you say. Houseboat Weekly? Houseboat Weekly. Don't care about the weird shows you go on with the liars. Some of America's most progressive champions are Houseboat Americans. Just come into the Senate and cast your vote. He passed the inflation reduction act. He voted for the judges.

That's what I'm saying. A lot of people said that couldn't happen. And it did. Maybe some people on this program not familiar this one's for you I got I got the lab leak

he's been waiting for a lab leak do the lab leak you guys remember COVID right unresolved debate about its origins one theory is it jumped from infected animals to humans naturally most likely at a market in Wuhan. Two is that COVID spread because of mistake at a laboratory that was doing coronavirus research. So over the weekend, the Wall Street Journal ran a story with the headline, quote,

lab leak, most likely origin of COVID-19 pandemic, energy department says. Wow. Explosion on Twitter. Suck it, libs. Retweets, faves, libs. Arrest Fauci. I told you the vaccine doesn't work. How did you get there? So here's some context I want everyone to know. First, I'm sure people are wondering, what does the Department of Energy have to do with any of this? Great question. I had that question. The Energy Department oversees the national laboratories. They do biological research. And the Department of Energy updated their assessment

based on some new information that came to them in these labs as part of this classified assessment. But here's the key context. Energy, the Department of Energy was undecided on the origin of COVID before. Now they believe with low confidence that it came from a lab leak. Now, the low confidence, those words are very important because after Iraq and the WMD fiasco, the intelligence community started saying how strongly they feel about an assessment. So low confidence, shocker, is the lowest you can get. So while the lab leak proponents think, aha, case closed, libs have been owned, here's what you need to know. Two agencies now believe COVID came from a lab leak, the Department of Energy with low confidence, the FBI with moderate confidence, the National Intelligence Council and four agencies disagree. They assess with low confidence that COVID came

from natural transmission from an infected animal. Two agencies, including the CIA, so the people charged with spying on the Chinese government, they're undecided. And no one believes that this was some sort of Chinese biological weapons research run amok. That is actually a very popular take on the right. So the bottom line is we don't really know. It's still undecided. The government is split. In fact, they still lean in favor of natural transmission. So I think hopefully the DNI is going to release some sort of unclassified assessment of this. One question for you. Why are you going to such great length to defend the Chinese government? I don't know.

Yeah, what's going on? What's going on with Tommy? Did you send the balloon? Yeah, did you? Hey, Tommy, where were you when that balloon was in the air? Were you on the floor with a kind of remote, some kind of a, what are those things called?

Do you guys know that tonight, Tuesday night, the Republicans are holding their first oversight hearing on China in prime time? And what a coincidence that this leaked the weekend before. I was going to say, I'm sure this will come up. I don't understand. It's like, let's say it did come from the lab. That doesn't prove a lot of people wrong. It proves like five Twitter people wrong.

I don't like that. No one. No one except I guess certain people got over their skis a little bit and were like, if you say it's from a lab, your tech platforms were shutting down allegations that it was a lab leak as disinformation. And I think that was clearly an overreach. Probably shouldn't have done that. Yeah, they shouldn't have done that. I don't know.

Why am I in trouble? I don't know. I was always like, seems like it could be random bats. Seems like that lab is pretty close to where this started. Raises some questions. I never stopped thinking that. We don't know. Time for the Fauci perp walk.

Arrest Fauci. When we come back, Lovett talks to Mehdi Hassan about his brand new book, Win Every Argument. I co-wrote it. Joining us now, he is the host of The Mehdi Hassan Show and author of the new book, Win Every Argument, The Art of Debating, Persuading, and Public Speaking. Mehdi, our first debate topic, is it great to have you? It is great to have me. Why would it not be great to have me? You've put me on my heels. You start the book with a kind of platonic ideal.

A ship is standing by in the harbor with a letter. If the ship is dispatched, people live. If not, people die. Two interlocutors face off in Athens before an audience. The audience votes and decides who will live and who will die. But we're not in Athens anymore. And a lot of debates that play out on television, they're less about persuading the audience and more about entertainment or the acuity of the debater or performing for the side that's already persuaded. How do you find value in the art of debate in that kind of media environment? It's a great question. I think there is a lot of entertainment. There's a lot of performance that goes on and a lot of what passes for debates on television. I can't speak for other shows or other hosts.

I can only speak for my show and we try and do really interesting debates on our show in which I either moderate them as a neutral, as neutral as I can be, or debates in which I'm pushing a position I try and get someone else on who disagrees with me. I hate soggy consensus. It's funny, John, we're speaking on a day in which I've been absolutely trolled all day online by right-wingers obsessed over the media suppression of the lab leak theory. And I had to point out to some of these gentle folks that I actually hosted a debate on the lab leak theory between two scientists with different views back in 2021, because I was actually interested. I happen not to believe in the lab leak theory, but I hosted

a debate about it. So, you know, this whole idea of, oh, we were suppressed. No, a lot of us have been having debates in good faith. The problem we have, John, that you identify there implicitly is there's a lot of bad faith debating going on right now in America, on TV, in our media. And I'm interested in good faith debates, but I don't deny the fact that there are a lot of bad faith folks out there. I interview many of them on my show. Well, it's interesting, right? I feel like there's two big problems. There's bad faith debating.

And then there's, I think, I think when you talk about the lab leak, I think that there's a certain kind of, it's a good example because people really talk past one another and they really want to feel right and they want to seem right. And so this is, so what you see is a lot of people saying uh look it's now been proven it was a lab leak everyone lied except for me everyone was dishonest except for me anyone who said anything in the year 2020 is a liar except for me and then you have to step back and say well hold on a second you're you're cherry picking three or four dumb tweets from people who went too far or got just as far, just got too far with the data in the same way you did in the other direction. How do you enter a debate? Not necessarily people acting in pure bad faith, but people who are so desperate to prove their rightness, they kind of talk past one another. with that in the book in two ways. Number one, it depends what the goal of your debate is. I go into different arguments, debates, discussions, whether it's with my spouse, my kids, my employers, my

colleagues, people on TV that I'm debating, people I'm ideologically disagreeing with at a public forum. There's different goals. Not everything is the same. I would say two things in relation to your specific question. One is, are you trying to convince the other person or are you trying to convince a third person? I think sometimes we get too lost in trying you trying to convince the other person or are you trying to convince a third person? I think sometimes we get too lost in trying to debate and convince the other person. I'm often not trying to convince the other person. I'm a TV host. I have my own audience at home.

I want to persuade the neutral, independent-minded audience at home that the third party who is weighing the evidence. the third party who is weighing the evidence. And when I interviewed John Bolton on my show on the Iraq war, I wasn't trying to persuade John Bolton that the Iraq war was wrong. That would be madness. I was trying to point out to my viewers, years later, here's a person who still doesn't regret that he was wrong about the Iraq war. So sometimes we gear all our arguments in one direction when we really should be focused on the audience. And the opening chapter of my book is about winning an audience over because that is the number one goal. They are the judge and jury.

But in terms of your point about, let's say there is no audience, you're sitting down with someone in private or at a doorstep. If you're, you know, I know a lot of politicians listen to your show, John. If you're canvassing at a doorstep, how do you get that one recalcitrant person

who's not a bad person, but, you know, has maybe overloaded on Sean Hannity every night and doesn't quite get what needs to be gotten. And there's another chapter I talk about in the book, which is the importance of listening and empathy. And I think that is where if you really are trying to persuade someone, not just trying to rhetorically beat them down or dunk on them, not that there's anything wrong with that in certain scenarios. But if it's in the case that you're really trying to win someone

over who could be won over, it wasn't for the fact that you're talking past each other, just throwing facts and figures and stats is not going to work. You're going to have to find a way to identify with that person. You're going to have to find a common ground in terms of your feelings, emotions, thoughts. And the scientists have a word for this, which is perspective taking. The social science is strong on this, that if you can put yourself in the shoes of another, if you can get them to walk in your shoes, much more likely to find agreement. And I talk about that in the chapter on listening and empathetic listening. People think debating is all about speaking. I wish that were true. It's also about listening, something I'm really bad at. But I try and talk about in

the book the importance of listening. And I give the example of Bill Clinton. The most famous example in American presidential history is at the 1992 town hall, where a woman in the audience in Richmond, Virginia, asked the three candidates, because Ross Perot, yes, decided to force his in presidential history is at the 1992 town hall where a woman in the audience in richmond virginia asked the three candidates because ross perot yes i decided to force his way onto that stage and says how does the person how does the national debt affect you personally and george bush senior first looks at his watch because he wants to go home and then when he answers the question starts rambling on about interest rates and about his visit to a black church because the question was black uh but doesn't actually answer the question or even hear the question. What does Bill Clinton do? Gets off his stool,

walks towards the questioner, looks her in the eye. He says, how does the debt affect you? Immediately, bond domain. We have no idea whether that question was a Democrat, Republican before and who she'd been planning to vote for. But Clinton makes that immediate, instant emotional connection. So there are ways when people are talking past each other, there are methods that I try and outline in the book that can work. Now, are they silver bullets? No, we live in a very polarized, very heated environment. Yeah, you get something to about whether you're speak trying to convince someone or trying to convince someone who's listening. And I do think, thankfully, we live in a world where most people aren't cable news hosts. What a world that would be.

Present company accepted, you're supposed to ask. Of course, please. Obviously, it goes without saying. But I think a lot of people have, I think, we've all been trained by social media to be a host. Yeah. To act like we are kind of, you know, using our platform to convince the people who aren't in the debate, but are maybe watching the debate. Yeah.

What are some tips you might have for people who they're not trying to reach an audience? They are at that Thanksgiving dinner and they don't want to get into an argument with a loved one. They want to plant a seed, right? They just want to they just want to kind of get just open the door a little bit. What are what are some what have you learned about the best ways to do that? So I mentioned I talk about empathetic listening in the book and I mentioned that a moment ago, very important to people want to be heard. Uh, that's very important.

Um, did you mention listening? I wasn't paying attention. No, I mean, that's a joke about listening. That's hilarious. And, uh, we're sitting around the table at Thanksgiving table and I talk about that in the book and look, the number one issue, and it might sound obvious to some people, but you'd be amazed how many people don't do it, including members of the Democratic political party at a national and state level, which is appeal to people's hearts, not their heads, right? We think that if we turn up at the Thanksgiving table with 700 different statistics about the border crossings, that will get Uncle Jack or whoever uncle is at the table saying,

kick them all out, build the wall, that will win them over or whoever uncle is at the table saying, kick them all out, build the wall, that will win them over to the pro-immigration argument. That's not what will work. In fact, you've got to find other ways of appealing people. And the number, you know, Dale Carnegie said it years ago, decades before I wrote a book on the subject, that we're not dealing with rational creatures when we're dealing with human beings, we're dealing with emotional creatures. So if you want to get through to people, especially family members, especially on contentious issues, you've got to find that emotional bond. You've got to tell a story, a personal story. Make it personal, something that identifies to you and them. You've got to also be able to kind of show, not tell.

You've got to also have some passion. The number of people who present arguments in a kind of dispassionate, robotic way, because we're kind of all rational animals, we think that's the way to convince people. it's not. You gotta have some passion, you gotta have some emotion, you gotta have some energy in order to connect with people, because people make decisions instinctively with their gut, with their heart, not just with their heads. And I've said this for a while,

the reason why Democrats often get beaten up when it comes to the messaging game is because Republicans, like it or not, have found a way to rouse the emotions of their base, not in a way I approve of, in a kind of demagogic way, you know, anger, paranoia, resentment, victimhood, fear of the other, but it works. It gets people worked up. Against that, you can't turn up with a 16-point policy paper. We saw that in 2016. Donald Trump, very memorably, build the wall, ban Muslims, lock her up. Stuff that resonated, Donald Trump, very memorably, build the wall, ban Muslims, lock her up.

Stuff that resonated, memorable, emotive, provocative. And Hillary Clinton, bless her, great childcare plans, but not stuff that people are going to turn up in their droves in the crucial places where she needed them to turn up and vote for her. So I do think that's been a problem for a long time on the left. And I'm from the UK, as you know. The Labour Party in the UK has had the same problem, often seen as technocratic, bureaucratic, managerial, not enough heart. What do you think are the like? I think there's a challenge that we face.

That's it's not it's not just a matter of tactics or strategy. Republicans compete on hate. They compete on fear. They compete on these very powerful emotions. What what do you what are some examples or who are some politicians that you think are finding an emotional resonance from the left that isn't playing that kind of a game? I mean, the obvious answer would be Bernie Sanders. Bernie Sanders is out with a book now on capitalism.

He's a person who understands people are angry and you have to respond to that anger. You have to channel that anger. Whatever word you want to use, populism is a very loaded phrase, but he has a left populism to push back against the right populism. Yes, be angry, but don't be angry at the transgender kid. Don't be angry at the Mexican migrant. Don't be angry at the Muslim under the bed who's going to blow you up, you think. Be angry at the 0.1 percenters who have screwed you over and screwed over your 401ks

and screwed over your healthcare system. And I think that is important. I think showing, identifying that anger, you can't pretend that people aren't angry in this country. It's what you do about it. I would also say it's also not just about what you're saying, it's how you're saying it. I mean, I look, I've said this point many times, I'm just going to say it again. There have been six presidential elections in the 21st century. Democrats have lost three and won three. And the three they lost were Hillary Clinton, Al Gore and John Kerry. Smart people. Many people would say good people, decent human beings who wanted to improve the country would have done had they won. But not exactly the greatest emotional speakers, orators. And, you know, great respect to you, John. I know you worked on a couple of those campaigns.

But those are people who did not rouse people to get out to the polls. And you look at the people who won against someone you did work for Barack Obama twice, Joe Biden, people who don't sound like they're just throwing talking points at you. Don't just sound, despite all the Republican attack on Obama, don't just sound like they're reading from a teleprompter. Joe Biden is not a great orator, but when he speaks, it's authentic, or at least it's perceived as authentic. right kind of anger aimed in the right places. But if you talk about Bill Clinton, you talk about Barack Obama, you talk about Joe Biden, I think one thing that all three have in common is their campaigns very much were not rooted in anger. They tend to be optimistic figures, right? They tend to appeal to people with a more kind of hopeful, less combative tenor, right? That's been, I think,

a big part of the way which Democrats have won. And so I'm just, I'm actually, I'm genuinely unsure. I'm going to push back. I'm going to push back against you. On Barack Obama, for example, you know Obama better than I do, obviously. But I would say, if you go back to 2008, he didn't beat Hillary Clinton just with hope. I think that's slightly rewritten. He was pretty vicious in some of his campaign. You're likable enough. He went after rallies. He went after a with name. And I write a chapter in the book on ad hominem attacks. I don't think there's anything wrong with ad hominem attacks. You go after the credibility of your opponent, call them out. Barack Obama did that. When he went after Mitt Romney, he was vicious in his Bain attacks. He was so vicious in his Bain attacks that Cory Booker came out and tried to disown him because

we were being too mean to Bain. So I'm not quite sure. I get your point, but I'm not sure that's quite the summary of Barack Obama. Look, let's move away from Bernie Sanders. My point is not even about left or right. I don't care what you're selling. It's about a style, a tone of voice, an approach to rhetoric. So let me give you another example. Ruben Gallego is someone running for office now in Arizona. I thought his campaign ad where he launched his campaign was a fantastic ad in terms of, again again channeling some of that anger implicitly both at republicans and against kristin cinema there's a lot of eric swalwell no one would say eric swallwell i think eric swallwell described himself as a bernie lefty socialist but he's someone i often see just swinging punches rhetorical punches at the republicans both on social media and in some of his very nifty ads i would like to see more of

that yeah no i and i agree i'm actually not I don't mean it in an ideological sense. I actually just am trying to parse out there are times where it looks like, hey, the way you take on Trumpism or this kind of right wing populism is we need to have a kind of populism and we need to have a righteous fury of our own. But then there are also, I think, generally speaking, I hear you on the points about the various kinds of, I think, tough attacks that people like President Biden and President Obama and even President Clinton have made. But for the most part, viewing it as their job to create a kind of a hopeful. Yes. Alternative. I'm not disagreeing with you. I'm saying that, first of all, we're living in different times. Right. Bill Clinton was not facing the same political environment that a Democrat today is facing or a media environment.

So the anger is very different. But you're right. Of course, you need a hopeful, optimistic message. And I talk about that in the very final chapter of the book when I talk about how you bring your argument to a close, the grand finale. And I give the examples, I give other examples, for example, Winston Churchill, who was seen as someone who inspired people, despite having been a very poor orator himself as a younger man, he used to sit in the bathtub and practice out loud speaking. We remember him as the great World War II rhetorician. He was a very poor orator in his 20s and 30s. He had a stutter that he had to fight with. He had a hopeful message. It wasn't just his delivery, it was very unique. But of course, it was an optimistic message, one that we will defy the

odds, one that we will be victorious, one that we will see the post-war promised land. And I agree with you. You need some of that too. You do need to, as I come back to what we said earlier, you need to rouse people emotionally. Liberals and progressives have to decide which emotions they want to rouse. So for example, when I mentioned immigration, you're arguing with your uncle at the immigration table. The emotions that have been activated in him are fear and loathing, paranoia. They're coming to replace us, to borrow a Fox and Nazi phrase. And you need to push back with, actually, we're America. We're so much better than this. This is what this country was built on. This is what many of our own forefathers, maybe members of our family around the table who were immigrants

or children of immigrants. This is about building a common future through new blood and new energy and a common purpose. And I think, you know, that is a message that actually works. We've seen that in the polling, actually, in terms of some of the immigration numbers have turned around. So you mentioned the media environment. And that, of course, would be no place better than Fox to deliver that kind of paranoia directly to people's brains. President Biden, there was a bit of a kerfuffle around the Super Bowl as to whether or not he would go on a Fox-affiliated outfit. Putting that specific example aside, where do you fall on this question as to whether or not progressives and Democratic politicians should engage with Fox

News? On the one hand, it legitimizes the propaganda apparatus. On the other, if you don't go, nobody's speaking. And Pete Buttigieg, he kicks ass when he goes on Fox. No denying that. But I do believe it is a propaganda organization. I refuse to call it Fox News. We're speaking on a day where, you know, the latest Rupert Murdoch deposition in the Dominion trial has just been released and gotten out. And we're seeing what he said in private versus what he said in public. And it's exactly the same as Sean Hannity, Tucker Carlson, Laura Ingram with their text, which is they say completely the opposite in private. They're not interested in news. I think there's a line from Murdoch that we're not red or blue.

We're about green, which I thought was brutally honest in a private email. And I just think, what are you doing going on Fox, legitimizing an organization which pushes white supremacy evening after evening on shows like Tucker Carlson? As someone who is a brown immigrant with brown Muslim kids, I find it personally offensive for anyone who thinks that that is a news operation. And people say, well, there's a big audience. We've got to get the eyeballs. Well, Alex Jones has a big audience. Why not go on Infowars? Where'd you draw the line? Alex Jones has a huge audience, whether we like it or not. Why not go on there? If you want to get to new audiences, why not do the Stormfront website? That's an audience that others can't reach. I mean, I think it's a very slippery slope to go down and to say, well, that's where the eyeballs are. I think if you want to win those arguments, you want to win over those voters,

do it on the ground, do it the old fashioned way. Try and build up a political machine that can still canvas in left behind areas. Look at the East Palestine debacle. As cynical as the right wing attacks were, as dishonest as Donald Trump's visit was, the reality is he did show up and people did say, hey, I saw the quotes from uh people in in ohio in that place saying you came you didn't forget us now we know that's bullshit you and i know that's bullshit uh it's a vacuum that's filled on the ground so there are other ways of reaching conservative voters i don't believe that helping to prop up uh this figment of imagination that fox is a news organization how do people say well even if you don't go on that doesn't affect them actually it

does fox have obsessed with trying to get legitimacy and mainstream credibility. And I think you see that in the White House briefing room. I think you see that in their advertising. I think you see that in their guest selection. So you've recently had a bit of a revelation. You were very critical of President Biden when he was a candidate. But you've apparently you've seen the neolib light. All right. You gave an interview where you said, and this is exact quote, the most impressive president in your lifetime. He is virile and extremely charismatic in a sexual way. Now, exact quote was that? Wow. That most of that's exactly right.

I have a chapter on receipts in my book and you didn't bring any receipts just now. You did. You did say most impressive president in your lifetime. Now, you have this. You have a president who has exceeded expectations in virtually every way except one, which is that he has continued to get older. If the debate over Biden and whether or not he should run again, whether or not he should win again, redounds to this question of age. As our debate expert, what is the best way for Democrats to win that argument? It's a great question. Let me just say, if we were in a debate and I was trying to beat you up, which I'm not, of course, I would say that you only read part of the quote.

Even your made-up quote ended too early because I did go on to say he is the most impressive president of my lifetime. It's a very low bar, given George W. Bush, Donald Trump, etc, etc. But even compared to the Democratic gods, Bill Clinton and Barack Obama, I think Joe Biden has definitely achieved more legislatively. And even what you just mentioned a moment ago, refusing to go on Fox, Joe Biden did that. So look, I give him plaudits. That doesn't mean I'm a kind of fanboy. I think his immigration stuff has been awful. I think he's dropped the ball on COVID in recent months. There's many Israel, Palestine, he's as horrific as every previous president. So I've got a lot of criticism still. But you know, he's clearly made the case to be

the Democratic candidate again. Yes, you're right. There's no doubt that age is the biggest problem with him. What do you do about age? What is the argument you make for age? I think the argument, if I was him, and I'm not saying I support this argument, if you had to make the argument for age, I would just plaster my visit to Ukraine over every campaign ad and every answer. I would say, all right, yes, I'm old. But Mr. Interview, would you like to get on a 10-hour train journey in a secret flight and wander around a war zone as the first president in modern American history to do so without American military support in that war zone? I would play the Ukraine card, which was a pretty effective card that he played recently. Seems to be working. Some of his poll numbers look better. But look,

age is a real problem. I would also point out Donald Trump will be close to 80 or in his 80s if he were to run, win, and serve a second term um uh Nikki Haley's been playing the age card uh against Trump and Biden not sure how that's working out for a given Rhonda Sanders is younger than her so I think the age argument only goes so far um because don't forget some of us including myself and I'll hold my hands up here and concede this I have a chapter on concessions in the book I'm going to con. I was wrong about Biden's age in 2020. I thought he was too old in 2020. I was like, is he all there? Is he sunsetting? When he made some of the gaffes and debates about record players, I was one of the people going, is this really the guy you want going up? And like I said, he proved me wrong

on many issues. So I think if I was him, I would push Ukraine. I would push a successful record, and I would push, well, Donald Trump will be equally old. And I do everything in threes, as I point out in the book. I'm glad, and it works. I'm glad you referenced how we might have felt a little bit in 2020, because I'm of two minds of this too, because it's like, listen, this would be the oldest person to ever be sworn in as president. But at the same time, I felt like there was a certain kind of engaged progressive who was really paying attention, who was put off by stumbles, worried about his age. And then the critics would have such a much lower evaluation of Joe Biden's as a debater than the than the typical person watching. And what? So I actually think of like, how do we it's like, how do you how do you put yourselves in the shoes of the kind of person that maybe isn't paying as close enough attention or close as close

attention as we would? I actually think we're over focused on. I think actually matters who the Republican opponent is. If he's up against Trump, I think he has a good chance of winning again. Why not? If it ain't broke, don't fix it. If he's up against this, I do think it will be tough. I think if you're up against this and a different type of candidate, not that I'm one of these

people, these dissenters, I'm great, but I think he's a deeply overrated politician with a glass drawer. But dissenters will have advantages that Trump doesn't have, and will be able to play the youth against kind of old age card. And don't forget, I talk about this in the book, you've always got the Ronald Reagan card. I mean, Reagan was the person who dealt with this the most successful, memorable way in American history. In a debate, when it was the question was thrown at him about his age he made fun of walter mondale

and said i won't use his youth and inexperience against it was a great zinger i include it in the book in the chapter on zingers as much as i loathe reagan i love that line and i think people have done it before so i don't necessarily think that biden's age is going to be the deal breaker i think it will be a problem i think it will be a big problem against the Ron DeSantis, not against Donald Trump. But I don't think that's what's going to decide 2024. My worry about 2024 is how strong the fascists are going to be at a local and state level in terms of corrupting our election process and then starting an insurrection after the next election. Let's talk about the fascists for a second. So we're in the midst of this anti-trans backlash that's being fomented by a bunch of right-wing politicians who are trying to pass anti-trans laws.

But one step away from them, you have the J.K. Rowlings of the world who are offended by the term of transphobe while kind of pushing misinformation and kind of otherizing trans people. You have right-wing comedians, even people that wouldn wouldn't consider those conservatives embracing a kind of conservative aesthetic. You're Dave Chappelle's. You have journalistic figures who consider themselves objective, teaching the controversy, wondering if this whole gender thing has gone too far. You have all these different factions making noise and you have progressives, you have doctors, you have experts, you have trans people trying to take on all these factions at once. When do you try to debate to win these arguments on points? Or when do you feel like you have to accept that you're Lucy with the chocolates and the only way to win is not to play, to kind of stop trying to win these point by point arguments with people who don't care about the truth and go for the millions of people who are maybe just starting to understand this issue at all? It's a great question, and it's something I've struggled with for a long time. I am not

transgender, but I am Muslim. So I know what it's like to be a minority that's feared and loathed and becomes a political cudgel because for 20 years, that has been the Muslim community since 9-11, certainly. You saw Donald Trump get elected on the back of a Muslim ban. And the same question was persisting then. Do you debate this stuff or do you say my identity, my existence is not up for debate? And I think I would, you know, who am I? I'm not going to speak on behalf of transgender communities, but what I would say as a Muslim person who feels very worried about the hate-filled attacks on a certain community in our midst,

the way that they've been turned into political football, my advice would be is, again, to go back to the start of our conversation, separate this out. Are you going to go and debate Matt Walsh on The Daily Wire on transgender kids? No. No. There's just no point to that. And I keep telling interviewers this as I talk about my book. If I wrote the book again, if I wrote a sequel, I would add a chapter that I feel I missed, which is when to walk away from an argument, right? There's certain people you don't argue with because it's not a good faith argument because they're just trolls or they're just bigots. So yeah, I won't have Marjorie Taylor Green on my show, even if she wanted to come on and said, I'll give you great viral moments.

No, what would be achieved from that? Nothing. She's not a good faith actor. She's a fantasist and a grifter. So what's your goal? You want to go debate Matt Wolfe? No, don't debate Lucy and the football, as you said. But are there millions of Americans out there who want to understand more about gender affirming care, who want to understand more about whether their kids are going to be disadvantaged in school because of the rules on which gender can play which sports. Yeah, there are millions of Americans who have those concerns, including millions of Democrats, liberals, and self-proclaimed progressives. That's just a fact. This is new stuff for a lot of

people. So should you be going out there and persuading those people? Should you be engaged in good faith debate? If you can identify good faith people to debate with, yes. And again, to use the Muslim analogy, would I go on a show on Fox to debate the Muslim ban? No. But would I have a good faith discussion with someone on NPR about the terrorist threat from Muslim groups? And are Muslims doing enough to tackle terrorism in their midst was a question I was asked 7,000 times post 9-11. Yeah, I went and did those discussions on the BBC, on CNN, et cetera. So you've got to separate it out. What is the good faith part of the argument? Who are the convincibles and the persuadables? And who are

the bigots and the grifters and the attention seekers? Don't debate with them. Do debate with the others. That's as simply as I can put it from my own perspective as a minority journalist. Yeah. There's just the old expression, don't mud wrestle a pig, you'll get dirty and they'll like it. They'll enjoy it indeed. You've given us a lot of your time, but I would be remiss if I didn't end with a debate. Can we please put on the screen how a dog would wear pants? There are two ways here representing how a dog would wear pants uh uh there are two ways here representing how a dog would wear pants

yeah for those because it's an audio medium i'll say one of them is the dog the pants are halfway up the body covering all four legs or the pants are uh the back half of the body just covering the bod the back legs can you choose a side and make an argument and defeat me when i argue the alternative well you pick your side first and i'll just put, I'll argue the other. You go first. I'm going to, I'm going to, I'm going to go. I say in the book, sometimes you want to go first. Sometimes you want to go last. I want to go last. Okay. I am going to argue that a dog would wear pants as on the left, as in all four legs. I know, I know. I chose the hardest.

Okay. So would you like me to go first or would you like, should I? Here's my point. I understand that we live in a world where people confuse aesthetics and morals. I understand why aesthetically someone like Mehdi would assume that a dog would wear pants just on their hind legs. I agree. It looks more like the way pants should be worn, but that's not how I approach this problem. All right. I see a dog with four legs, and I believe for a dog to wear pants, all four legs should be in pants. If I was only wearing pants on half my legs, I would look ridiculous. But it is because you think it is more important that a dog look like a person than a dog wear pants the way a dog would wear pants inside of

a dog culture that you've adopted this ridiculous position? I think it's, I would just say one thing. This is a show. I mean, you've had more time to think about this argument, but let me just say in the few seconds that I have, that this is a show with liberal listeners. And I think liberals understand that it's deeply offensive to push an argument that is based on a separate but equal approach to life. I think separate but equal is something we put behind us. I think the dog wants to be equal with man. Dog is man's best friend.

The idea that you would put a dog in pants with his owner, but you would not allow the dog to wear pants in the style of his owner. And to say that that apartheid situation is something that I could endorse. I believe in equality. Look, values matter here. It's all about values.

I want equality. I don't want separate but equal, John. If that's what you want to push, if that's what the audience wants to go for, you take separate but equal. The next time I see you, I'm going to make two points, one with my left and one with my right.

And you'll fail because as I say in the book, you have to have three points always. I also held up the hands in the wrong order. I held up the hands in the wrong order. Mehdi Hassan, thank you so much for your time. The book is Win Every Argument, The Art of Debating, Persuading, and Public Speaking. Mehdi, I would say that, you know, for our first topic, was it great to have you? I think the answer was yes.

I think it was. I think you won that argument, too. I appreciate it, John. It's been a pleasure. And I won't say that your co-host told me to rhetorically beat you up because that would be true. Wow. Wow.

Well, you know what? I made it. I survived the debate. You were fantastic. I thoroughly enjoyed it. And it was very clear to me that you read the entire book and ran circles around me. Thanks. I almost, yeah, sure.

I could almost ask you the unprepared Charlie Rose question, which is your book, why now? I do book interviews for a living. Trust me, John, I've been on the other side of this. The number of times I'm wondering, are they going to ask me, have I read page 172 of the book? And I'm petrified of that moment. The rudest question you can ask a person is, have you read my book? It's an unacceptable question. I read every word. I'm not asking you. I read every goddamn word. You were so damn good today. It's a dog-eared copy by my bed. It got wet in the rain, you know? If it's by your bed, I have to put you to sleep

every night. Mehdi, thank you so much. This was great. Thanks, John. Okay, before we go, we've got some important legal wrangling to attend to. Love it. Since you have the best legal credentials here with your impressive LSAT score. Did you write this, Tom? Didn't.

Fuck, why am I reading this? We're going to let you take us through it. Go ahead. Last week, Marjorie Taylor Greene tweeted, we need a national divorce. We need to separate by red states and blue states and shrink the federal government. Everyone I talk to says this. From the sick and disgusting woke culture issues shoved down our throats to the Democrats' traitorous America last policies, we are done.

We can all agree that the left will gladly keep disgusting woke culture in the divorce but what about everything else john tommy and i have decided we are going to take the amicable route and fairly split things up with marjorie taylor green there's no need to get a judge or submarine involved we can settle this ourselves i'll run through a list of items and our job will be to find a way to amicably split them uh so that we can have a we can we can settle this without going without a kind of long and acrimonious joint custody. I think we're going to use that whiteboard.

Oh my gosh, there's a whiteboard involved? Katie Porter, here in spirit. Here's how it works. We are trying to amicably split. I'm going to give us things to split up. Obviously, we want to do well for ourselves as blue Americans, but we also are trying to be fair. Are we playing as blue Americans or are we playing as sort of our fair people?

Yeah, like judges. I think we're like the mainstream media. We're from the cities, but we're trying to pretend we're fair. Okay. You know? Good. That's good. That's a good answer.

Keep that in. Great answer. All right. Here we go perfect uh first up we have the chris's chris pine chris evans chris hemsworth chris pratt uh-huh um i think we obviously give them chris pratt yeah they get pratt they get pratt it's an easy one um uh i want evans i just i it's important to me that we get Evans. Okay. So now we've got Chris Prine, and we've got Chris Hemsworth. I don't have a strong opinion between those two. I think we want Hemsworth.

You think we want Hemsworth? Yeah. I think that's right. I think that's giving them a great Chris, too. Yeah. Hemsworth, and they're going to get Pine. Can we give them Army Hammer? He just feels like he goes in this bucket and would fit in over there.

Oh, I spelled Army wrong. Yeah, it's okay. I don't know how. He can't afford to learn anymore them Army Hammer? He just feels like he goes in this bucket and would fit in over there. Oh, I spelled Army wrong. Yes, it's okay. I don't know how. He can't afford to learn anymore. Army Hammer. Good. Thank you. Okay.

Now, Chili's, Friday's, Bucca di Beppo, and Cheesecake Factory. Okay. Okay. I have a pitch. Okay. Which is, I will do anything to keep Cheesecake Factory. I'm with you. Okay.

I would not deny that. How is the Outback Steakhouse not in that list? Okay, we can go on Outback. Can we keep it? How about this? I think we should give them Chili's, Friday's, and Bucca di Beppo. Because in a lot of these red states, that's going to be the best Italian food they can get. And then we get Outback and we get Cheesecake.

Yeah. The only problem is that Chili's and Tgi fridays both have the best honey mustard of any chain restaurant you're the most basic motherfucker i've ever i know i i'm a i'm a i'm a purple american tommy oh jesus all right i want an innovation he worships he worships an awesome god in the blue saints all right you. You know what? Fine. They get Fridays. Oh, yeah. Okay. We'll get Chili's. Yes.

I'm happy with this. I don't want Bucca di Beppo. They can have Bucca. Fine. They can have Bucca. Take it. And we're going to get Outback. Yeah.

But I do think because we're getting Cheesecake Factory, I'm just going to throw in Panera Bread. I think that's fair. Because it sucks. And that's right. Because it fucking sucks. Are we going to get the Olive Garden? Sure.

That's our Italian yeah we'll get Olive Garden unlimited bread because they don't want anywhere where you're family alright White Lotus and Yellowstone I feel like this is

a bit of a gimme yeah what was that come on well I just wanted an easy one and White Lotus everyone wants

on that one yeah that's great they don't watch White Lotus. Everyone wants on that one. Yeah, that's great. They don't watch White Lotus. McDonald's and Taco Bell. McDonald's and Taco Bell. I think they should... They're going to demand McDonald's. Yeah, they don't want Taco Bell.

It was feted state dinners. It's a win for them, but I'm going to agree. I'm not happy about it. I'm going to say we get Taco Bell. If they got Taco Bell, they would make racist jokes about it. Can we get the Yum brand triumvirate? Yeah, I think that's great. We can get the Pizza Hut.

You know what, though? They got to get the KFC. They got to get the KFC. They get the KFC? We're going to get Popeye's. Okay. We're going to get Popeye's. We're going to get Popeye's. We're going to get Popeyes we're gonna get Popeyes we're gonna get Popeyes

you know that's Louisiana done right that's an old white guy with a mustache so it checks out the feeling of having no emails in your inbox versus the feeling of having a fully charged cell phone and a dog that has peed and pooped

that's interesting. Okay. We'll never get to feel one of those again. I will never again have a fully out inbox. Yeah. I will never delete all my emails

or read them all. So they get in the inbox? We need the dog. Yeah. They're going to get inbox zero. Also my phone. I'm not going to charge my phone. Phone.

Have you heard about this podcast offline? Poop. Charged. Et cetera. that didn't make sense but you get the gist uh all right this is gonna be a tough one and i deputize you as being able to discuss this oh it seems to be gonna send a trouble well lgbt um we're we're just we're just gonna try to figure out we have that's a divorce it sucks nobody went that's why divorce is so horrible people end up in places they don't want to be and i have a i have to split it evenly no there's too many there's no no they're not

these no i'm here's my proposal okay they're just gonna get argue with they're getting the lesbians, and we're getting everything else. Q, I, A, two spirits, et cetera. This is because of trucks and living in South. So that's the choice they made. Pass. That's the choice they made. I'm getting a thumbs down from an l on the couch i'm getting an l from i'm getting a big getting a big thumbs down please direct all comments all right um that was a tough one all right message box playbook and punch bowl

we obviously get message box. Dan would not want to know what to do there. We got to get message box. Playbook. Did you major them reading message box? Red States get playbook. They can have playbook. They already have it.

They can have playbook. We get punch bowl. We're taking punch bowl. Substantive. We're taking punch bowl. I mean, punch bowl is like the Kevin McCarthy mouthpiece of choice. So I don't know. Yeah.

But at least they think about that. Yeah, but I like what he's thinking. Yeah, okay. That's good. All right. The Great Lakes and the Grand Canyon. I mean, I feel like there's more value to having the Great Lakes. Oh, yeah.

Water shortages. Just like a big thing that people stare in. All right, so we're going to take the Great Lakes. Is that what that is? There's five of them, right? Sure. Is that right? That's not bad.

Which one's Huron? Huron, Superior, Ontario, Erie. That's vaguely what they look like. Wow. Yeah, right? And then they're going to get the Grand Canyon. Try that. Very well done. Wow. All right. I feel pretty good about what we have yeah i think we did a good job i think let's see let's see how do we do the red states got chris pratt chris pine

army hammer who gets the awesome god um well we do worship an awesome god in the blue states um yeah you know so i think that we'll get we need to throw this over to the ben shapiro show and see if he thinks it's fair yeah that's fair buca di beppo they get panera bread they get yellowstone they love that they do get mcdonald's that's a huge win those are big that's a great great fries kfc they get inbox zero and they get lesbians so their furniture is gonna all work you know everything's gonna be nice and all the all the wood's gonna be well sanded you know unlike on our side, we're fucked. Gays crashing into each other.

A bunch of gay people crashing into a Taco Bell. Thanks to Mehdi. Thanks to the cocaine bear. We're reading message box on our phones. Thanks to Joe Biden and Barack Obama. Thanks to Joe Biden and Barack Obama. And thanks to lesbians for taking one for the team. Yep. Have a great one, everybody.

Bye. Pod Save America is a Crooked Media production. The executive producer is Michael Martinez. Our senior producer is Andy Gardner Bernstein. Our producers are Haley Muse and Olivia Martinez. It's mixed and edited by Andrew Chadwick. Kyle Seglin and Charlotte Landis sound engineered the show. Thanks to Hallie Kiefer, Ari Schwartz, Sandy Gerard, Andy Taft, and Justine Howe for production support.

And to our digital team, Elijah Cohn, Phoebe Bradford, Milo Kim, and Amelia Montuth. Our episodes are uploaded as videos at youtube.com slash podsaveamerica. Thank you.