Pod Save America - The 2025 Pundies: Highs & Lows from a Long Year

Episode Date: December 23, 2025

As the first year of Trump 2.0 limps to a close, it's time to celebrate 2025’s worst takes and funniest moments with The Pundies, Pod Save America's annual awards show! Jon, Lovett, Dan, and Tommy, joined by producer Elijah Cone, debate which political beef of 2024 was the most entertaining, which Trump administration official should be anointed "The Worst," whether this year's Democratic victories were enough to wash away all the pain, and lots more.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. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

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Use the code Crooked at checkout for 15% off. Welcome to Potsave America. I'm John Favarra. I'm John Lovett. I'm Dan Pfeiffer. I'm Tommy Vee's. And this is the Pundies, 2025, which means I'm going to throw it over to Elijah Cohn. Oh, thank you, John. Lovely Throw. Great to be with you guys again for another edition of the Pundies. A time to stop and celebrate the last 12 halacious months in America. For those listening, not watching, I want to make sure you know that Elijah is wearing a tuxedo and a bow tie. It's a clip on we've decided, but he looks fantastic. You should also subscribe to Pod Save America on YouTube so you can actually see his pretty face. Yeah, so you don't have to just imagine Elijah in a tuxedo. You say fantastic. I say it looks like if he pulls his arms up, there'll be two symbols attached to each hand.

Well, thank you, Tommy, Dan, and John. This is the biggest night of the year for me, a chance to celebrate the pundits. It's like we've been treading quicksand since January 20th, but only some of us were able to poke our sandy little lips out of the quagmire and speak into existence. A truly brain-melting take. You guys can tell which line's Halley Road. This year, we've had a breadth of horrors from the Trump administration, so we have more than just takes to present you. It's a comprehensive horror. horrifying look back show. But we're going to have fun, as horrifying as it is. We'll have fun.

We're using the dog show format again, and boy, what a bunch of dogs it is. We'll go through a bunch of categories, and at the end, we'll have one from that category, move on to a chance to win the best in show, Pundee of 2025. Now, look, I know what's coming, and I know we're going to have a process fight at some point in this episode. Do you just want to get it out of the way now or let it happen organically? Just remind us of the rules again? You go through, We're going to go through the categories and you will pick a winner from each category. Then they'll go to the best in show at the very end, our last thing for Pundee of the year. And then we have to come to a unanimous conclusion like the UN Security Council or are we voting?

What are we doing here? Yes, consensus. And last year, the best in show came from the polling category. It was Alan Lickman's 13 keys. Was a good one. I feel good about that. I would say, Elijah, that instead of shadowboxing, you're perceiving. critics. Why don't we just get into it? Okay. Well, I look forward to our process fight. And like Jeffrey

Epstein said to Bill's Clinton and Gates when his jacuzzi finally reached 100 degrees, are you guys ready to get into it? Yep. Amazing. Amazing joke. Great job. All right. Let's kick things off with a hot category. Start with a bang. This is the self-inflicted wound, political scandal. of the year. Nice. Our first nominee is SignalGate. Of course, this was

when Atlantic reporter Jeffrey Goldberg was added to a signal chat with several Trump officials discussing plans to bomb Yemen. Here's a dramatic reading of the text discussing Operation Rough Rider

performed by some of our Pod Save America producers. J.D. Vance. At Pete Hegeseth. If you think we should do it, let's go. I just hate bailing out Europe again. Let's just make sure

our messaging is tight here. And if there are things we can do up front to minimize risk to Saudi oil facilities, we should do it. Pete Hegseth, VP, I fully share your loathing of European freeloading. It's pathetic. But Mike is correct. We are the only ones on the planet on our side of the ledger who can do this. No one else is even close.

Michael Waltz. Fist emoji. American flag emoji. Fire emoji. Next up, we have Trump's ballroom gate. Seemingly out of nowhere, Trump announced that he was demolishing the east wing of the White House to build a massive ballroom. This one is ongoing.

and the latest update is that Trump has fired his original architect because that architect said the ballroom should be smaller than what Trump wanted and that the project is already over budget and behind schedule. Next up, we have Kimmelgate when the Trump administration pressured ABC and its affiliates to pull Jimmy Kimmel off the air. Here's FCC Chair Brennan Carr talking about this openly with Benny Johnson. I mean, look, we can do this the easy way or the hard way. These companies can find ways to change.

conduct to take action, frankly, on Kimmel, or, you know, there's going to be additional work for the FCC. Tough, tough talk. It's good you said Kimmel. I thought you said Camelgate at first. I was like, what was Camelgate? Little known. This, of course, had a huge blowback, and Kimmel is still on the air.

And last, of course, we have the Epstein files. The year started off with the administration inviting a bunch of influencers to the White House to pose with binders of the Epstein files. They promised a bigger release only to backtrack and say they were. we're going to release anything. Dan Bongino roided out and almost rage quit the FBI. The rest of the year has been a steady drip of emails and documents implicating Trump and his friends in the files, culminating an embarrassing vote to release them. Here's a dramatic reading of a note that Donald Trump wrote to Jeffrey Epstein. Voiceover, there must be more to life than having

everything. Donald. Yes, there is, but I won't tell you what it is. Oh, my God. What thought? will I since I We have certain things in common Jeffrey Yes we do Come to think of it Enigma's never age Have you noticed that?

As a matter of fact It was clear to me the last time I saw you That's like Tom's in the Room It's a wonderful thing Happy birthday Epstein is Voldemort I guess What is happening?

What is it happening? What is it fucking Smeagel? Why is it turning into Gollum and Lord of the Rings? Listen, I'm going to say this. I mean it. Hey, do not quit your day job. I like a big swing.

I like a big swing. Really appreciate that. Is that the full category? That's the full category. Self-inflicted and political scandal. So I feel like at the end of the day, this was not very competitive at all. Epstein. Yeah, we have a group chat that went awry in a year-long scandal involving the covering up of a sex trafficking ring.

Yeah, I'm going to go with the latter. All were bad scandals. But yeah, I agree. You got to hand it to Mr. Epstein. Speaking of ballroom, remember when manspreading was like a big issue that was always written about in like style pieces? How long have you had the ballroom, man spreading joke in your back talking? God, I didn't even understand it.

So we're still going to get random. Did you manspride someone once and get trouble for it on the line? Did I man spread someone? Yeah, I think so. Not that I remember. So I just want to zero in on who's responsible for the scandal here. You said Mr. Epsey. This is a Pambon.

This is Pam Bondi's scandal, right? This is not even Donald Trump's scandal. Because if she hadn't dropped the binder, the initial binder with all the fucking influencers, invited them to the White House, giving them a binder, it still would have been brought up, I'm sure, at some point. But don't you think that if they looked into it and realized, like, oh, there's not much more we can put out or Trump's and some of the stuff that, like, it might have gone differently for them? Yeah, there's several factual, but yeah, I've just started to figure about that.

J.D. Vance declaring on Theo Vaughn's podcast that all the files should come out, important part. Trump allowing people around him to keep calling for it all the way up and through the election. And then Pam Bondi deciding to release portions of without actually looking at what was in the files. But that was probably the most, the key moment that put us on this path. But she definitely, I was ready to say that up until I heard Epstein, of course, Brendan Carr would have been my next, my next nominee. I would have gone Signal Gate. Really? I would have said, but what's interesting

because I would have said ballroom only because Yeah, it kind of mattered a lot. The ongoing, the thing is that's going to continue and if he can't like build anything, it's like going to take longer than he thinks it's just going to be a kind of ongoing little kind of motif throughout the next year or two. I thought about Brennan Carr because it's like, again,

they could have potentially gotten what they wanted had he not been so fucking stupid to say that out loud on Benny Johnson's. Yeah, but nothing happened. Jim, we missed. Jim, we missed like three episodes of Jimmy Kimmel when we were back. Yeah. Right, but would they have?

I mean, just for the sheer stupidity of Signalgate, there were 300 million people in America, and the one person they accidentally add to the group chat about bombing Yemen is the editor of the Atlantic, who's written more stories with disclosures of Trump and national security than almost anyone else. Yeah, and I'm thinking, the guy who did the- Because we just focused on Hegseth, I forgot that Hegseth isn't the one who added him. Mike Wals got Frogmarked out of the White House, sent to New York. But Hegseth made it much worse by having that group chat.

having other group chats on his personal phone where he was sharing this sort of question. It's clear that like everyone in the government now is they're all on signal. Yeah, yeah. They're all doing this. Government. Yeah, that's long gone.

Foya's dead. Mungly Foyah. It's fucking dead. Dead anyway, man. Just stopping on the PRA. The PRA, that shit. All right, so how do we do this? How do we award it?

Well, Pam Bondi accepts on behalf of Jeff Epstein. We don't do posthumous awards here in the Pundies. And. Well, do we know? That's true. And now the abscine scandal moves on to the best in show category, which we will revisit at the end. So our next category.

An inappropriate release about a bunch of inappropriate releases. Let that breathe. Okay. Or don't. Let's move on to our next category, Fluffer of the Year for Worst Trump Administration Official. This is a... It was more of a motif on... Instead of choose your fighter, choose your fluffer.

to the cabinet meetings with a lavish praise, embarrassing, obsequious. Are we judging them on their obsequiousness? Well, I don't know. We'll find out. Okay, I guess that's a good point. You guys can choose style obsequiousness, negative impact on the country, so many great things. Okay, so we can sick.

First up, we have Pete Hegseth. He's weirdly obsessed with appearances, gave some weird speeches about our generals being fat, did signal gate already, and now he's allegedly committed several war crimes. Here's a recent tweet responding to that. those allegations. It's the children's character, Franklin the Turtle, shooting an RPG at a bunch of boats. Cool. Selfie. Cool, Pete. Next up is Christy Noam. There's so many clips we could play of Christy Noem. She took content in front of Seacod and awkwardly pointed a gun at a nice agent during a video she released, but I like this video. Welcome to the team recruits. I'm Christy Noam.

of Homeland Security. She seems nice. A few years ago, I had to put my puppy down by shooting it in the face because sometimes doing what's important means doing what's hard. We could just stop it. We don't have to watch the whole thing.

So much dog murder. It's so funny that that's the runner for her. Well, and South Park was really good this season. That was probably the funniest bit. Next up, we have Stephen Miller. the YouTube. He has amassed a ton of power in the administration. He plays significant roles in both DHS and DOJ and in crafting domestic policy. He's also awful on TV and spouts white nationalist talking points. Here's a clip of both. So you see with a lot of these immigrant groups, not only is

the first generation unsuccessful. Again, Somalia is a clear example here. Not only is the first generation unsuccessful, but you see persistent issues in every subsequent generation. So you see consistent high rates of welfare use, consistent high rates of criminal activity, consistent failures to assimilate. But this shouldn't be a surprise, Will. It's just common sense.

Will King is so fucking stupid, by the way. Also, if this is the way we're going to judge people, I think we should lock up your parents, Stephen Miller. Okay? If we're doing generational punishment. Yeah, because they committed generational punishment on the rest of us. Now we're all in deal with this.

Next up, we have JD Vance. Look, Vance sucks. We've talked about it ad nauseum. Here he is discussing fully employed adult Republican staffers celebrating Hitler and being super racist in private group chats as performed by a producer. Jady Vance voice, I really don't want us to grow up in a country

where a kid telling a stupid joke telling a very offensive stupid joke is caused to ruin their lives. That video exists. We don't need, it's like we're not. Why is he like a Pally Girl kind of And also, by the way, when you're reading a script,

you don't read the name every time. Everyone's reading the name and then the line. You just do the fucking lines. It's a scene. We were right up against it for recording these. Tough category. Yeah. We have one more, I think, that we should.

I'm going to skip Cash because Cash is so funny, but I don't think he's going to be the worst. And rounded out with RFK Jr., who has done unbelievable. damage at HHS. He's rolled back vaccine mandates and is done more damage just by disparaging them. Here's a weird-ass clip of him talking about Tylenol. There's also just, there's many, many other confirmation studies. There's two studies that show children who are circumcised early have double the rates. It's highly likely because they're given Tylenol. So, you know, none of this is this positive, but all of that is stuff that we should be

paying attention. I would say, I'd ever notice Doug Bergerman in that clip. He's like, he's like, I think, do you talk about baby penises? No one wanted to read RFK. Yeah, I was going to say, missed opportunity. Cowards. Cowards. Not in your repertoire, people?

Yeah, no. Just speak through a fan. Okay, so how do we judge this one? Like, in terms of aggregate deaths, I think RFK is going to be the winner. you know, long term. But is this a lifetime achievement award or is this a this year category? I will make...

I know what you're going to say. I'll make the case for Stephen Miller because he... Because his wife's podcast sucks. Yeah, right. That's number one. Because he controls everything because he has...

Where do you think the boat strikes idea came from? Stephen Miller in 2018. Where do you think everything bad that Christine Ome has been doing came from Stephen Miller? So like, he is the most powerful person in the administration

who is not Donald Trump. and is behind all the bad things. So that's my case for Stephen Miller. Yeah, I agree with that. Maybe RFK Jr. is doing his own thing. So I guess that could be an exception there. I think RFK is a kind of singular bad actor who didn't need to be as bad, right? You can imagine a bunch of other people having gotten that job.

Like, had the Olivia Nutsi's story broke, you know, a couple months. Like, there's just a whole bunch of paths, which we have someone slightly less terrible at HHS. American different, though. American? don't yeah those who those who canto teach but uh yeah but like noem you could swap out and some other fucking person will be in there executing what miller wants right like a lot of people could leave and the machine would still turn i think i agree it's it's miller yeah i think that's probably

right and jaddy vans has got many afternoons to win this award yeah well and also he just he's just a shit poster he doesn't have any real power i'm gonna zag and say cash pettel because his climate footprint from all those FBI plane uses has got to be through the roof. Well, then Taylor Swift is the worst part of the administration by that standard. I don't think that's fair.

We didn't even get to hear Cash Patel as a nominee. Yeah, you don't want to hear that voice. Yes, it was... I'm entitled to a personal life, just like my other agency counterparts with their partners. Do I support my girlfriend? Absolutely.

And do I take tricks with her? Absolutely. The fuck was that. That was Michael. That was Mike. Hey, by the way, you know what you know what everybody go go listen to that was performance that was somebody he didn't just read the lines good he brought something to it there was an there was a character

behind that that was excellent he inhabited cash Patel he did he did are we warming up to these intense performances do we think yeah we're loving it's warming up to the voiceover the audience is gonna just adore this yeah Mike I'm impressed the rest he's fucking so sounds like Stephen Miller's our a winner, huh? Yeah. Pod Save America is brought to by Rocket Money. Holiday gift giving can spiral out of control. It's hard to know how much is too much and easy to forget someone on your list.

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Rocketmoney.com slash crooked. Let's move on to the next category. Republican beef is just like a real hamburger. Bloody, Raw, and Marjorie Taylor Green is going to push Mike Johnson through a meat grinder to make it. Oh, my God. Here are the nominees for Best Political Beef. I'm talking about digging and zagging.

Best Political Beef of 2025. First up, God, I like this category. We have Elon Musk versus Donald Trump. Elon Musk crashed out at the White House. He got into a physical brawl with soybean farmers, Scott Bessent. Doge largely failed. He left and then went a bit of a PR spiral posting the following about Donald Trump. Time to drop the really.

big bomb at real Donald Trump is in the Epstein files. That is the real reason they have not been made public. Okay. Trump responded by threatening to having government contracts with musk companies. Next up, we have Scott Bessent versus Bill Pulte. At a fancy dinner hosted by Allent Chama, things got heated between Scott Besson and mortgage fraud fanatic, Bill Pulte. Here's a dramatic reading of an abbreviated version of the confrontation between Besson and Peltie. That would be real abbreviated. Why the fuck are you talking to the president about me?

Fuck you. I'm going to punch you in your fucking face. We could go outside. Pulte. To do what? To talk? Bessent. No, I'm going to fucking beat your ass.

The reading the name is... What was happening when you were reading? It's like they're in the room. Turn to camera. Exterior. It's like club. It's like Chuck Schumer with a Democratic messaging clan. Good stuff.

There are many more dramatic readings. So, I mean, oh, wow. Gird your loins, everyone. Next up we have Marjorie Taylor Green versus Donald Trump. Marjorie Taylor Green went against the president several times, culminating in her announcing her retirement from Congress at the end of the term. She felt sorry for the president or so she said. And he gave her a nickname.

Here is a dramatic reading of one of Trump's truths about her. Lightway Congresswoman Marjorie, Taylor Brown, green grass turns brown when it begins to rot, betrayed the entire Republican Party when she turned left, performed poorly on the pathetic view, and became the rhino that we all know she always was. Just another fake politician more different than Rand Paul Jr., Thomas Massey, who was caught again being a full-fledged Republican and name only,

Rhino, make America great again. That is you, Ryan, right? Yeah, of course. Okay, thank you. Well, I know you've been playing a couple people, so I just want to... Well, because I think in that one, it was one of the people he was playing.

It was Pennywise the clown. I heard some of that. I thought we got Alec Baldwin to do it. Some real 2017 SNL. Just setting a note. to myself for my notes for next year's Bundy's. Last, let's get some Democrats into the mix. Andrew Cuomo versus Zoran Mamdani.

This kind of went beyond the campaign when Cuomo decided to enter the general as an independent after he lost to Mom Dani in the primary. Cuomo ran all kind of racist, Islamophobic ads against Mom Dani. And here's how Mom Dani said goodbye to Cuomo after his victory. I wish Andrew Cuomo only the best in private life. But let tonight be the final time I utter his name. Ryan, good job with him, I'm done. That was great.

Your best one is not like him. Good job. Then he's like a big shit on Cuomo's dad, too, later, not speech. That was a good one. That rounds out the category. Who do you guys like for best beef? This is really hard. It's funny because the Scott Bessent versus Bill Pulte

was my favorite in terms of the humor of it. It's also like the most purely WWW. Yeah, he literally threatened to punch him. Also, Scott Besson getting multiple altercations, also with Elon. Yeah.

Yeah. Didn't see him as the fighter in this administration. Listen, you want to be a gay kid? Don't fuck with a farmer. Don't fuck with a gay guy from New Orleans. Having rehashed the Trump Elon beef, though,

that was a big one. Yeah, it was a big beef. And it did get pretty, like, Trump's in the episode. scene files turned out to be true yeah um that was a pretty big one but you're right that it's it's it's more i'm between besant palti in that one i feel like i feel like the mtg trump one was too civil but also probably the most significant yeah yeah yeah interesting i mean the breakup with elon's pretty significant i think but they're back together they're back together but like the first

three four or five months of the administration was defined by elan musk he was like a shadow president Doge was everything, and now he's just gone. All right, I'm with that. I'm with that. Okay, we can do it. We should do it long ago. Okay, great. Trump versus Elon.

Okay. Next category, we're up to our groins in beef this year. So we took some extra time in the kitchen to whip up a secondary beef category. Best Pod Save America host public fight with a Trump administration official or back of personality. Wonder who's going to be leading this category? Let's take a look at this diverse group of nominees. First up, John Favreau versus Elon Musk, in a dispute over USAID, Musk called John, quote, dollar store John Favro.

Next up, we have John versus all in Chimoth. In a dispute over the legality of Sikot, Chmoth called John, quote, probably not a total arsler who should brush up on his con law. Arsler. I'm not saying it on the pod. The word. The word. Oh, oh, our slur.

It's the thing that all those Republicans fought to be able to say. It was like Ars, like A-R-S-S-L-E-R-Sler. He's like a Scottish asshole. I don't remember that over here. Chamathlo's community noted for not knowing the Constitution. Next, we have John Fabro again versus Stephen Miller. Stephen called John's objections to his immigration policies, quote, shocking and heartless, because in their view,

John is on the side of murders, rapists, et cetera, et cetera. Well, he's right. True. Yeah, got you there. Got you there. Oh, John Favreau again versus Megan Kelly. In a dispute about Sydney's sweet,

Jean's ad, Megan pretended to not know who's John. That was a low moment for you. That was a low moment for you. The rest I'm on board with. That one made me a little sad. Okay, what's the next one? You'll never believe this is the last one. Never believe it's John Favro versus J.D. Vance.

In a dispute of Vance's, Fast and loose way of reporting information. Vance called John a dipshit. Oh, you won that one for... That was a great one. That was a great one. So you get a New York Times story out of it. Fatal.

Oh, yeah. And that's the goal. That's what we have. That's what we have. More media. More content. I'm glad you found your calling. As a poster.

Well, last year's news resolution was to post more. Yeah. Shockingly turned out to be free. Careful of what this, who knows what should I'm taking, I'm taking suggestions. Oh, my God. We do director in resolutions carefully. I think back to around like, 2018 we were on a flight somewhere

and we were red stees we all remember this one we were trying to we were like rush it we were rushing to get to our to get to our show when john stopped because he had to respond to someone called red stees and that was a little moment and then you backed away from the wars well I blocked red stees he wasn't he wasn't

also named Stephen Miller yeah yeah it's a different Stephen Miller yeah he's a tough name so I think it's Vance yeah it's a third yeah called you dipshit it was great the vice president I say it's called you a dipshit that's impressive Nice. I was ready to have him back. I don't know if it's a president something. Yeah, I'm pretty sure Joe Biden said about all of us behind closed doors. Yeah. There's some AOL. There's where he's doing it. And his son did it quite publicly. Yeah, yeah. All right. Next up we have, well, I got to read the jokes first. I'm so bad at this. Okay. Donald Trump is like the HBO series, The Last of Us, barely watchable after the first season. I haven't watched second season, but I like that joke. Also, he sees some sort of hideous fungus sprouting more and more.

more moments of moral decay across our political landscape, which of the following is 2025's most corrupt corrupt date? Stacked. First up, there's the Katari jet earlier this year. Trump accepted a massive plane from Qatar to be used alongside Air Force One. It could cost taxpayers over a billion dollars after it's re-outfitted. Here's Trump talking about the plane. I think it's a great gesture from Qatar. I appreciate it very much. I would, never be one to turn down that kind of an offer. I mean, I could be a stupid person say, no, we don't want a free, very expensive airplane. Not free. Again. Can we just go for a second? Just take me inside. What was the thinking in which live video to have a producer read in which

to use the live video? Most of the live videos we had, like we went with a live video and then some we couldn't find the live video at the time. So we were like, well, this would be a good producer read. And look, last year, the producer reads, they were just straight reads. They were great. Now we've veered into some theater. I'm not sure I'm comfortable with. Got it. Just throwing your colleagues under the bus right here live on the podcast.

We throw a live under the bus. What a safe space for drama. What a safe space for actors to bring their best selves. Do the next thing. Next up is Trump's World Liberty Financial Venture. This crypto venture that Trump's family runs, it's just a vehicle for corruption. One example this year is that a Chinese billionaire named Justin Sun bought $75 million worth of World Liberty financial tokens shortly after the SEC stopped investigating Sun's companies. So is this category all crypto, all world liberty?

No, no, no. We're going to jump to some other stuff now, which is corrupting the DOJ. No, I'm saying the last one, the World Liberty one. Is that all the Trump coin. Oh, gotcha, got you. Got it. Next up, we have corruption at the DOJ. Trump is using the DOJ to go after people he doesn't like, like Tish James and James Comey.

On the other side of that, he's pardoning a bunch of people who are loyal to him, like the January 6 writers for crimes they didn't even commit during January 6th, a crypto mogul and Binance founder, CZ, and the Crisleys, a reality show family. Here's Trump talking about pardoning CZ. CZ had caused significant harm to U.S. national security, essentially by allowing terrorist groups like Hamas to move millions of dollars around. Why did you pardon him? Okay, are you ready?

I don't know who he is. That would have been for a great clue. Really convincing. If we had Nora's voice, but then Ryan played a try. Can Ryan also do a good Nora? I've heard it. It's really strong. And last up is Ask Kissing and Knee bending.

We have ABC and CBS settling suits for millions of dollars, law firms and universities bending the knees. CEOs like Tim Cook. Give him weird little gifts with gold on them. And recently, FIFA created a peace prize and just gave it to Trump ahead of the 2026 World Cup. Here's a clip of that. We saved millions and millions of lives. India, Pakistan, so many different wars that were able to end, in some cases, a little bit before they started, just right before they started.

It was going to be late, but we got them done. We were able to end some wars before they started. it's just so triggering so which is the most corrupt I know some of them are specific instances some of them are more broad trends of corruption but right especially because the crypto corruption includes the pardon it's all one one in the same

hmm there's the crypto there's the pardons in some of the pardons there's crypto but like it's pardons right so it's pardon versus so it's pardons versus crypto versus what was the first one free jet the jet versus political prosecutions and non-prosecutions? Oh, and the folding. Oh, the folding.

The bending. Yeah. I don't think it should be the folding. No, I agree. Because that's really more like a Bob Iger or... It's not necessarily corruption. Sherry Redstone scandal. Right.

And that's a calculus based on the corruption that Trump has. You can disagree with the calculus and the mistake of it, but they're reacting to a very real thing. I kind of feel like it's crypto. Yeah, I mean, the Katari Jet is the current... I think biggest ticket item, but that we know of. But the crypto, I think, is the most systemic, ongoing avenue for corruption that includes, like, getting paid off by, you know, the Emirates in exchange for AI chips, like the truly buying and selling of U.S. national security.

I will say the most egregious example of corruption in terms of Donald Trump just stealing directly from taxpayers is the Justice Department lawsuit. Trump, Trump suing Trump, Trump suing the government and Trump in the government role deciding he's going to settle with himself and get a bunch of money. If he had done that, if he had actually done it. He hasn't gotten the money yet. So when he gets the money in 2026, put on the list of election. Honorable mention.

Yeah, I would say crypto otherwise. I don't agree. I think it is the DOJ. I think it's the corruption of the DOJ, the use of pardons, the political prosecutions because all these other things, they're all bad. They're all enabled by, like, it is not possible for him to be bribed without a DOJ that's not going to look into anything and without a Congress that's not going to look into anything. But the DOJ is the kind of core of the rot. If right now Pam Bondi was replaced by Eric Holder and he was in that role, it would, they would all be half, they would have to behave differently. I think it's the DOJ is the kind of, is the core of the rot. I'm persuaded. So we got to vote. So who votes crypto? No vote crypto. Who votes? What Lever-Levich just said?

D-O-J. D-O-J. I think I'm going to go Katari Jet. Oh. So you guys win. Well, should we go to a runoff? No, no, no.

We won. I think two to one-to-one. All right. All right. Always fresh. Single origin, olive oil. Everyone's pringing on the couch. The holidays, they're here.

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It was a real dune situation this year, but we squeezed out a few drops. open your mouths to wet your whistle for these for the most lib-outable moments of 2025. They're pretty few and far between, and a lot of them were Zora and Mamdani. But first up, we have Gavin Newsom starting to tweet like Donald Trump. It's been nearly a decade of people trying to figure this out, how to counter Trump on social media. Hats off to Gavin for kind of figuring it out. Here is a read of one of his tweets from a Ponce of America producer.

I'm going to blow my brains out before this episode. Fox hates that I'm America's favorite governor, ratings king, saving America. while Trump can't even conquer the big stairs on Air Force One anymore, Fox is losing it because when I type America now wins. Is Fred the one boombox? They're a very teeny tiny speaker. Austin's shouting. Well, the post is in all caps, to be fair.

Yeah. Got it. No, thank you. Pick that up. Austin, did Austin do high school theater? No. Okay. The answer was no.

Seems clear. Next. Next up is Zeron's primary win. Mom Dani completed one of the most innovative and interesting campaigns in recent memory. to defeat Andrew Cuomo and the Democratic primary for New York City Mayor. We have a clip of him kicking off his campaign by interviewing people on the street, but I don't think it's going to translate that well to audio, so let's skip it. We've all seen it.

It's a great clip. He ran a great campaign. That primary was cool. Next up is just Election Night 2025. We won everything. So we're on in New York, Spanberger and Cheryl in Virginia, New Jersey. We flipped those commission seats in Georgia. California got redistricting.

California got redistricting. That was awesome. We really needed it. And last, we had this nice little moment of Zoroamandhi visiting Trump at the White House. Here's a clip. He asked about your comment called the president of fascist. And your answer was, with President Trump and I, have been clear about our positions and our views. Are you affirming that you think President Trump is a fascist?

I've spoken about. That's okay. You can just say yes. It's easier. It's easier than explaining it. I don't mind. That wasn't living out. That was Trump's moment.

You know, as I was going to say, it's comforting to know that no matter how much the four of us may like Zoran Mamdani, our staff of Crooked is always going to glaze him just a little bit harder. Three of the four. I think you said glazing in four of the last nine podcasts. It's too much time with Elijah. I think it's the off year. It's a runaway. It's a runaway. For sure.

Run away. Best night of the year. Yeah. I mean, look, it was not a great year for living out. What other moments were there? Uh, CrookedCon. Jesus. It was cool.

Unbelievable. You know what? The Indiana redistricting, uh, redistricting loss. The Trump just was served. It was pretty big. Yeah, the Epstein Files Release vote. That was good. Yeah, I want to attack the whole premise of the year being halacious and not a moat.

Like, you know, Trump, right? Trump came in like a line, leaves like a lap. You know, it's like things, he's, he came in fast and hard and that caught us all off guard. But I feel like we end, we end the year a little bit. Speaking of the better place than how it started. What? What? Things better than how they started this year.

We'll get some most horrifying Trump moment of the year. And maybe we'll look at that statement. How many categories we have left? We can skip a bunch. Look. I'm just, no, no, I'm asking. We had a production meeting about like, hey, is 12 too many categories?

And you guys like, I'm not too judgment in my question. No need to be so defensive. You, there was something behind that question. Be honest. Okay. Most irritating. Discourse of the Year. A perennial favorite.

Let's start off strong with abundance and Ezra Klein in general. This year saw Ezra and Derek Thompson's book transform from a suggestion of some reforms into according to some, a straight-up embrace of eugenics. Did someone go for

Eugenies don't read that? Yeah, we won't. John did three tours in the abundance wars. I have a Purple heart. He threw it over the fence. Back at, he threw it over the fence at Cap, you know. Mira spit on me.

Next discourse. Next discourse. The main Senate primary. Obviously, Graham Platner is a polarizing guy. Give that to a bunch of. Platner bros? Yep, yep. Next, we're going to skip the Texas Senate primary

because that's bad discourse that's just getting started. It's not quite mature. No bad discourse there. Next, we have Sidney's Jeans ad. This was... Oh, that's a really good one. The kind of quintessential, woke is dead, woke is alive discourse of the year.

And at one point, Donald Trump himself weighed in saying that he loves Sidney's jeans are flying off the shelf. She has the hottest ad on the market. this went for months. Next up, we have that one clip about Joe Biden from CrookedCon and the Jake Tapper, Alex Thompson book, and all the continuing zombie discourse about Biden dropping out. Here's a clip of a pro-Biden influencer talking about CrookedCon. I just saw the most ludicrous thing I've seen in a long time, and that's that their main theme of their little event that they had over the weekend was that anybody wanting to run as a Democrat in 26 or 28 has to do.

distance themselves from the Biden years. Really? Is that Christy Jackson? Most Democrats think that Joe Biden was one hell of a president. And most historians agree with that, too. In fact, last year, he was ranked 14th best. 14th. That's Christy Jackson.

That's Christy Jackson. Oh, wow. I never seen that person. Often frequent Twitter. First time, long time. Yeah. And last up, we have Olivia Nuzzi and Ryan was basically it's, oh. We all know it.

Remind me what the category is? Most irritating discourse. For me personally, it's abundance because the stakes couldn't be lower. It's endless. Oh, someone doesn't care about housing stock. And it's just so fucking pedantic and boring. I could not care less. You think the stakes can be lower in a category that includes Ryan Lizza and Olivia Nunci?

I'm just saying the stakes of this argument, abundance versus anti-abundance. People mad at a book versus a book. The stakes couldn't be lower. It's like, who gives a fuck? Tommy cares about journalism, integrity, and the mass Ted Divinity Fair. Like, I'm not saying that Sidney-Sweeney-Gene discourse is higher stakes. I'm just like all of it is stupid. I agree with Tommy, not for the stakes thing, but just because it is the most annoying to me.

It's so stupid. It's the most annoying. And it's not the fault of Ezra and Derek at all. It is the fault of the left. Enjoy that. It's going to go. A little extra poke there. There you go.

Most of the criticisms have been completely insane and grounded in nothing. Yeah, I think that's certainly true. Yeah, I just think the Sydney Swinney. Anything was stupider. It was funny. And bigger. That's true. Bigger.

Yeah, but it was like, it's just sort of fun. I, for some reason, that was a little fun. The Sydney too many thing to me is like total k-fabe. It's manufactured. It's like, it's like plug and play culture war. The abundance thing was genuine and still going crazy and like so angry. I'm like, what are you nerds fighting about? Please stop.

Okay. I can go along with that. Sure. Cool. Abundance. Straight out of Arkham Asylum. It's Batman's Nemesis. If they were all tedious.

fuckable losers. That's right. It's the worst maga media figure of the year award. Nice. Wow. I like that joke. All right. First up, Katie Miller. She's Stephen Miller's wife and a horrible podcaster. He inserted a line that says in the Miller's line. Is that not coded language for therefore

we are Jewish? Come on, Pierce. Where are you? What? Where are you standing? God, you're so pathetic. Katie, Vigant. You better to check your citizenship application and all the pogromes. And all the pogromes were disgusting. Next up is Benny Johnson.

Benny Johnson was already featured in the self-inflicted wound segment, and he had an awful clip in front of Alligator Alcatraz, where he was talking about how awesome it was. Three, two, one. Welcome to Alligator Alcatraz. I'm getting swarmed my mosquitoes right now, and we saw at least 30 alligators on our way in driving. And there you go, ladies and gentlemen. As far as the eye can see, you go in, you don't. come out next up is tucker carlson tommy's bell he had an up and down year where he wrote

apart ted cruz and one of the most satisfying interviews ever showing that he's capable of doing that and then gave the softest gentle embrace of neo-nazi nick fuentes let's take a listen the main challenge to that a big challenge to that is organized jewelry in america it's the most popular self-evidently true idea you could have don't let foreign powers especially tiny ones far away way, control your country. Like, of course not. There's Nick Fuentes himself. He's a gross neo-Nazi, racist, anti-Semite misogynist, and he had a huge year, unfortunately. And if you dig into it a little bit, he's just a huge loser. Here's a rare interview where he didn't get sucked off the whole time by the interviewer.

Jesus. Just to clear up one of the many theories about you, I've no idea what the answer is and you haven't got to answer. But are you actually attracted to women? I am attracted to women. You're not gay. No. But I will say that women are very difficult to be around. Okay. So there's that. And do you think they should have the right to vote? I do not. No. Absolutely not. They should stay at home?

Well, yeah. Absolutely. See, basically, you're just a misogynist old dinosaur, aren't you? Have you ever had sex? No, absolutely not. Wow. Says the guy who's never got laid. And last is Candace Owens. He's currently at the center of the MAGA Media Civil War for pushing conspiracies about Charlie Kirk's death.

She's also getting sued by the president and First Lady of France for repeatedly claiming that the First Lady is a man. Here's a clip of Candace Owens with one of the Tate brothers. It's not a coincidence that Justin Trudeau is gay. Obama, gay. Zelensky, gay. Emmanuel Macron, gay and married to a trans man who molested him when he was a child.

And that despite the overwhelming evidence, For me, the litmus test now is like Brigitte McCrone. I'm like, if you want to figure out who is a fraud in media, there's no way to read that six-part series and go through it and come out of it being like, no, totally legit, like, these are just rumors. It's like one picture of yourself in your first 30 years of living place. Show me her brother. Where's your brother? Where is your? I'll show you my brother.

Wow. This is a tough category. So is it the worst? What is the category? Overall worst. Overall worst. Overall worst. Okay.

Okay. So if it's just like worst impact in the world, that's probably Nick Fuentes, right? Yeah, I would argue like Nick Fuentes being dragged into the mainstream sort of mega discourse or even Pierce Morgan is like one of the worst things that's happened in a long time. Yeah. It can't be Katie Miller. No. Having a bad podcast, it's not really the worst thing you can do. Benny's been a tool forever.

Tucker's been Tucker forever. Candice is, she genuinely lost her fucking mind. Yeah, but I think that like she's lost her mind so much that she's getting kind of cordoned. off. I think Fuentes has hasn't lost his mind, which is the problem. Yeah, I think it's between for me Tucker and Nick Fuentes because Tucker is also kind of acting as like kind of a gateway to this stuff.

And he has more, and I do think he still has more reach. So I might say Tucker, but I'm fine either way. I think Nick Fuentes. Fentes. Fentes wins. I got what you're saying. Love it. I was thinking Tucker needs to go in because he kind of is a big part of Fuentes' rise

this year. Pod Save America is brought to by UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency. Displacement at its highest level since World War II. More people have been forced to flee than at any time in recorded history. UNHCR can only reach half of those facing life-threatening emergencies due to funding cuts. Humanitarian aid cuts are forcing UNHCR to make impossible choices about who receives help. As wars escalate in Ukraine, Sudan, and elsewhere, the number of refugees is at a record high just as the help they need is vanishing. Sick children suffering from dehydration and

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Donate at UNrefugees.org slash pod to help save lives. Help families survive the deadly winter ahead. Donate at UNrefugees.org slash pod. All right, this is a downer one. Worst Trump moment of the year. Just going to whip through up there. There are so many bad ones. But like what was actually like his worst moment of the year? I'll try to just make it worse for the country.

Yeah. It may work for the world. But not like worse. Not for the ham. Yeah. Ambushing Zelensky at the White House, number one. Seacot and alligator Alcatraz in his prisons. Sending troops to American cities like D.C. and Chicago.

Doge and cutting USAID. and as we noted before, basically everything with vaccines, which we don't know how big that's going to be. This is tough. Huh. This is really hard. I don't think it's Zelensky.

No. And I don't think it... I mean, the USAID stuff has probably has led to the most death of destruction. I think it's a combination of it being the most destructive just on the kind of on the numbers, plus the kind of socializing us to like a lawless, administration that doesn't have to distribute the money Congress is spent and turning that into

like an actual debate and allowing Trump to use it as a cudgel in government shutdowns. I think all in all that has been the most dangerous thing he's done. Yeah, I just think it's it's tough though because the abuse and Seacott and Allegory Alcatraz and all that has been quite significant, but it's not deaf. None of these are good. None of them are good. Let's vote on. And he got turned back on the Seacot thing.

Yeah. USAID. They are out, yeah. USAID. Okay. USAID. The last category before we get to best and show, worst take by a Pod Save America host.

You guys have graciously offered to self-report yourselves after you guys got so defensive about your bad takes last year. They weren't bad. Are you ready? John, Favro, you're up first. Oh, well, this was hard because my takes are awesome. So I think my overall take that the government shut down should have been about... God, damn it.

No, I mean, did you... That was mine too. That it should have been about... You thought it should be about health care. No, no, no, no. I thought I've... You wrote an entire essay, so you deserve this category? It was more than a tweet.

You know, I thought it should not be about health care. I thought it should be about sort of like the... Whether... Something in the authoritarian category... You were kind of in everything bagel. The ICE detention, the... Mostly around immigration. I was hoping for something around.

immigration and um no that was bad i was going to do a corollary and it's more controversial but like i also think uh that they reopened the government at the right time oh interesting i think that i the criticism is that i think that if we had helped you're your really bad take is they opened it the wrong time or your bad take was that they didn't open the wrong time my bad day was the criticism of the time that like oh the democrats caved and this is the worst thing ever, blah, blah, it's like, I actually think that it was, if we were in a, I don't think they would have gotten anything else by waiting any longer. And I think right now the, the worst thing that has happened from the government shutdown and then reopening the

government is not getting what they wanted, what we wanted on health care, which I don't think that would have changed anyway. And I think politically, any argument that it was bad politically is just now proven to be wrong because Democrats have only done better and Republicans have only done worse since the shutdown. I think you can also, by the way, add this was going to be a subset for me. I think you can also add that we all were like, oh, and all you got was a vote on subsidies. And I actually do think the political value of getting that vote on subsidies turned out to be more than we thought, right? Everyone was like, oh, it's just a vote. What could it do? But it actually turned into a whole political moment in which they had to come up with an alternative

to put it against it. Like it ended up actually being a bigger deal to get that vote than I think people acknowledged at the time, myself included. Yeah. Who's up next? John Lovett. So I had a feeling we were going to be talking about the shutdown. And so I did, the healthcare being the right path for the shutdown, I think, was something I came too late, as in today. And, but what I was going to say is this was actually, I, like, I remember when Mom Dani announced, and I actually was having a, this is, I'm just earning points inside of my relationship where R was like, Mom Dani is going to do really well.

I really think he can win. And I remember feeling really nervous. He was like, oh, fuck, this is the person they're going to put up against Cuomo. Like, Cuomo sucks. Like, he's going to, like, that makes me really nervous that someone like Cuomo is going to be able to win. And I was too cynical.

Can I follow on that? Because mine is adjacent to that. Mine wasn't in, like, a tweet. It was in a meeting. I think we all talked about whether we should books or on Mamdani in a meeting. And I was like, no, because this guy's never going to win. There's a thousand people in that race.

And then we're going to have all of them on. No one wants to interview Andrew Cuomo. because he's a total piece of shit. And in hindsight, not the best take since, especially if, like, I've been paying attention to the race, I would have known that Andrew Cuomo

was doing zero interviews, and that wouldn't have been an issue. So, related. And Dan? So my original take was John's take was, I think I was, yours take was it should be on these things. And my take was that making it just about health care

was a mistake. And I disagree with that choice. Yeah, I guess I agree with you and. Yeah, it was more of the problem. Yeah. Like, I understood why they did it, but I thought that was a strategic error. I was sort of in the Chris Murphy camp there. Yeah, that's right.

And I, that was 100% wrong. They were, they were right. They were, they, Schumer and Jeffries were 100% right about that. And like all the data shows that they've made healthcare affordability a highly salient issue, which is a very, like, just changing the direction of the issue of conversation in America is almost impossible for party of the minority. And they did it. So, full kudos to them. So I think my other take is that I'm doing this on the fly here. where I was wrong earlier in this year is, like, I, you and I have the conversation,

this conversation many times on the pod, but being very sort of dismissive of the people who are saying, affordability, affordability, affordability. That, like, that had the set, like, the sort of the data nerd argument, message testing, that affordability is a thing. And my argument against it was, like, yes, obviously everyone cares about affordability, but it's sort of impossible to make affordability the central issue in politics because it's not a, it's not the sort of culture identity issue that drives discourse. And so that's why always the immigration stuff, the, you know, just the general authoritarian anti-democracy stuff, always trended more on social, got more coverage.

But like Mondani showed that you can, if you are smart and good, make affordability the signature issue. And the shutdown showed that if you are smart and good, you can make affordability the central issue. And that we have to, instead of being so dismissive of the idea that you can't sort of make. alter the political weather is we have to be more aggressive and think about how to actually alter the political weather and make the issues we care about front and center. I will say we've got a huge boost there from Donald Trump himself because had you not, if you did not have the insane Trump corruption, the tariffs, the big beautiful bill, and refusing to extend the Obamacare subsidies, I don't know that you could have made affordability in a national issue as big as, Mamdani, obviously,

could have in New York because it's a smaller race. Yeah, I mean, obviously you got, like, you have to operate. We had some real help. You have to operate in the political environment around you, but basically Democrats were able to make Trump change his message and just like step on a rake repeatedly talking about affordability for like a month now. And that's a pretty impressive thing. Yeah.

On September 14th, I tweeted, Drake May is good, but the Patriots are not. The Patriots are now 11 and 2, number one in the AFC East and tie for the best record in the AFC. Are you doing bad sports stakes? because I got a lot of us. I just brought another one. Levin and Tumig both did bad takes that are private. They didn't even go with public takes.

Well, I would say that like I... That was a good public take. I mean, that's fucking public now. That's what I'm saying. That's why I'm bad you did that. I figured we were going to end up talking about the shutdown. And I think like whatever though, like we wait, if you back and listen to, we thought through every single side.

I think we're like pretty kind of even handed about the whole thing. But I think fundamentally, we just underestimated that choosing health care could work as well as it did. Like we all did. I did. Everybody did. so here's it I don't this is a take I haven't really workshoped yet but maybe Chuck Schumer was right back in April

I don't know how we did it thing yeah yeah but like everything he said would happen did happen that Trump's approval would drop it would a lot Republicans would kill once he went below 40 well the shutdown helped kill the approval rating of Trump and then it dropped below 40s also that he's not going to give he's just going to lay off a bunch of people to a bunch of terrible things and yeah and you're not going to get what you want. So James Carvel's op-ed about running over and playing

But that wasn't right though because like the one other lesson too for me like and just in how this unfolded is we spend with like what's the Democratic message going to be? And like the message is obviously really important. But like you have to pick the right fights because the fight is the message vehicle. Like whatever the like the fight becomes the thing that gets the coverage and gets Trump to respond. And that's what people

pick up on. Like we've had people like to you know doing federalist papers on the Senate floor for like in the House floor for for months, but then you have a group of members film a video and they say, don't follow illegal orders, and then you kick up a real debate and that gets it more salient. So I think it's about the fight that they picked and they chose not to do that in April. Yeah, that is the argument and why I think Schumer was ultimately wrong was you had to have a fight. Like the, he was right about what the outcome would be if you went down that fight, but

the actual shutdown show that having the fight, even if you do not win the substantive thing you're going for, still has value. Like fighting is better, fighting and losing is almost always better than not fighting. So who's falling on the sword? Tommy's, Tommy's Patriots take is obviously the worst. Objectively the worst. Patriots are fucking awesome. Well, I mean, let's, should we?

Drake May is really, half my tweet is right. By the time this podcast comes out, they may have gotten, they may have lost like 56 and nothing to the bills on Sunday. Hmm. Hmm. I'm leaving it to you guys. I mean, I'm not sure. Tommy, you're obviously the most quantifiable. wrong and then you and love it are also you know you were also quantifiably wrong about mom

donnie so on aggregate yeah you know you i'll take it right there you go zoran zoran can't win patriots neither can the patriots brutal takes zorin the patriots suck as tom it was timmy's brutal brutal takes put that on a quote card for me i was going to say actually we could just say we are we were collectively wrong about the consumer strategy on the shutdown yeah i think that's the way to do it. All of you about Schumer? Okay. Send this right to him. Yeah. Okay. If the staff could do a dramatic reading of this part of it and send it to him, that'd be good. Yeah, someone do Chuck Schumer.

Yeah, just print out the transcode of this and just put it next to his bagel on Saturday. Okay. Greenblatt and the... Too much. I was going to say, the way the staff's... You said Greenblatt. The way the staff's been doing their impressions that ADL is going to come after whoever does that impression. You're next, pal. Very good point.

All right, it's time. The Best in Show Award for the Pundi of 2025. From the political scandal group, we have the Epstein scandal as our scandal of the year. From the Fluffer group, we have Stephen Miller. He's the worst Trump administration official. From the beef group, it's Trump versus Elon. From the best Pod Save America beef group. It's John versus J.D. Vance.

The most corrupt group, it's the corruption of the DOJ. The most lib-out moment of the year was the best. off-year elections, the most irritating discourse was abundance, magimedia figure was Fuentes, worst Trump move was USAID, and the worst PSA take is all of you about Chuck Schumer's strategy on the shutdown. What's the pundi of the year? This is like so, it's so hard to pick among these different categories. This is what our process thing was going to be. It worked better in the in the take version of this because it all takes. I know, I know. If I may, Have you worked on any criteria, Elijah?

If I may, it's just like, I listened back to last year's show, and an election really structures your year where you have these discrete moments, takes, results, that kind of thing. This was just a one-note year. It was kind of getting punched in the face over and over again until we had that off-year win. Elijah, professionals make content. They don't make excuses. Yeah. Honestly, like, just for pure comedy, the funniest thing we could do would be to create a graphic

about this and then have the winner out of this list just to be the abundance discourse. You know of all these things It's like Name that as the worst It's so stupid It's like You're like This is hard to pick about this

I don't even know if we're doing Worst best What are we even saying here Hey what is more Trump attacking the DOJ Abundance Or John tweeting a JD Or Chuck Schumer being right

There's no best There's no I think we should go Epstein What I could Sure Sure I don't even know what we're doing Yes

Clear favorite Yeah absolutely Clear favorite in the whatever the final category of the year. Pundee of the year. Epstein gets the Epstein. The Epstein didn't win himself. The defining political thing of 2025 was the Epstein scandal. Feels right. It feels right. Yeah. Thank you to the PSA team for with abundance coming in close second. Thanks, Halley, for writing those great jokes. That is interesting thing about it, though. Like, we can stop. But it's like, what was the most

defining story from that list of stories of 2025? Was it? Epstein was it the midterms what was like the what what define the year more I actually think that the off year I mean this is the living out thing but I think that the off year election probably has set that has changed more about the future than anything

that's what I do 2025 elections I do why not sure pundee of the year what gives you hope what gives you hope after elections it started the year the year ended better than it started as I fucking said Elijah through your shit eating fucking smirk he quickly moved past his bad take

It goes on the attack Is that not another lesson of the era? We'll tell that to every kid who has measles, but Okay Not saying it's all good Not saying we're not going to get our hair must a little bit Not saying there won't be some fucking setbacks Like the measles making a comeback

The Pundee of the year goes to Living Out over the 2025 elections Credit to the PSA team for your wonderful voiceover What else you expect from the pod, bros? That's beautiful. Beautiful. What gives you hope? All right, was one of you guys want to take us home?

2025, what gives you hope award? All right, who's going to close us out with a reading from abundance? No, we should do a reading from American conto. All right, that's all for the pundies. Thank you, Elijah. Thank you, our staff. for hopefully we can keep you all

and you're not going to leave to go join SAG and fortunately for us Hollywood's dying do some voiceovers yeah the consolidation will reduce the number opportunities

for some of these actors unfortunately we'll be back in your feed next week with a holiday mailbag and some New Year's resolutions we're going to do those too hell yeah

we'll see you that beautiful bye everyone if you want to listen to Pod Save America ad free and get access to exclusive podcast

go to cricket.com slash friends to subscribe on Supercast, substack, YouTube, or Apple Podcasts. Also, please consider leaving us a review that helps boost this episode and everything we do here at Cricket. Pod Save America is a Cricket Media production. Our producers are David Toledo, Emma Ilich Frank, and Saul Rubin.

Our associate producer is Farah Safari. Austin Fisher is our senior producer. Reed Churlin is our executive editor. Adrian Hill is our head of news and politics. The show is mixed and edited by Andrew Chadwick. Jordan Cantor is our sound engineer with audio support. from Kyle Seglan and Charlotte Landis.

Matt DeGroote is our head of production. Naomi Sengel is our executive assistant. Thanks to our digital team, Elijah Cone, Haley Jones, Ben Hefcoat, Mia Kelman, Carol Palaviv, David Tolls, and Ryan Young. Our production staff is proudly unionized with the Writers Guild of America East.