Pod Save America - The Bruised Hand in the Cookie Jar

Episode Date: May 19, 2026

Trump's DOJ launches a $1.7 billion fund to make payments to his allies, as Democrats revive the debate about whether to make Trump's declining fitness—even his increasingly discolored hands—a campaign issue. Jon, Lovett, and Tommy weigh the pros and cons and react the rest of the news, including Trump taking revenge on Bill Cassidy and Thomas Massie, his new plotting against Cuba and Greenland, and the latest on negotiations with Iran.

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There's a new show from The Guardian called Stateside with Kai and Carter. The idea is pretty simple. Slow things down. Focus on one story. Ask the questions. You're probably already yelling at your phone. And by the end, actually feel like you understand what's going on. They're digging into everything from authoritarianism to the rise of people dating AI chatbots to what's really behind the latest mission to the moon. No fluff, no pretending, everything is fine, just smart conversations and sharp reporting. The show pulls from the Guardian's global newsroom so you're getting coverage across politics, culture, climate, and more, plus conversations with big thinkers and newsmakers. Join Kai Wright and Carter Sherman three times a week as they try to make sense of all this. New episodes drop every Monday, Wednesday and Friday, starting May 13th. You can watch on YouTube or listen wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm John Favro.

I'm John Lovett. Tommy D. Tor. On today's show, we're going to break down the new gold standard New York Times poll that shows Democrats opening an 11-point lead in the midterms. Let's have that election today, huh? Please, hurry it up. We'll also talk about how Trump's revenge tour came for Louisiana's editor Bill Cassidy and is coming for Congressman Thomas Massey in Tuesday's Kentucky primary.

There's also some fresh new corruption to discuss. Trump's new taxpayer-funded $2 billion slush fund. He'll use to reward his favorite criminals. and revelations that he's basically been day trading in his spare time, 3,700 stock trades in just three months. That's so many trades. So many trades. Just bad advice.

Just put it in an index fund. Yeah, just kidding. Yeah. We also got a new Iran taco brewing and renewed interest in Cuba and Greenland, which is just one of the reasons we'll also dive into the latest debate over how much Democrats and commentators should be talking about old man Trump losing his marbles. It's big an old man. Check out four eyes over here.

He's going to sit here with this guy's got his fucking nerds got his glasses on I was waiting for you to do it. Sorry, I scratched my eye. That's don't don't get used to it everyone, hopefully. But first, before we start, tickets for CricketCon, 2026 are on sale now for everyone. Come hang with us November 5th through 7th in Washington, D.C. For live shows, panels and a big fun party to celebrate and or mourn the 2026 midterms. See?

I added mourn because Dan. Dan's so superstitious, you know. Cricket's Friends of the Pod get a subscriber-only price, so if you want a subscription loaded with exclusives and a discounted Cricket con ticket, be sure to join Friends of the Pod. There's all kinds of benefits that come with that. No more ads when you're listening to any of these,

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Go to crooked.com slash friends to subscribe to Friends of the Pod. And we can't wait to see you at CricketCon. All right. Donald Trump and the Republican Party have been shitting the bed in nearly every poll for the last few months. But now Nate Cohn and the New York Times have come down from the mountaintop with a stone tablet that confirms how screwed they are. Trump's approval is at 37% in their new poll. that is a record low for him for both terms in all New York Times Sienna polls.

And midterm voters also favored Democrats by 11 points, 50 to 39% over Republicans. The president's biggest liability in the poll remains his handling of the cost of living, which his political strategists keep hoping he'll pretend to care about, is evidenced by Monday's White House event on his discount drug website, Trump RX. Let's see how it went. I think outside of maybe a cure itself, it's the biggest thing to happen to health care and everything having to do with medical

in any way, shape, or form. There's never been anything like this. Really sold it, huh? What did that even mean? Really sold it. Trump RX is the biggest thing in medical. It's the biggest thing in medical. Biggest thing in medical.

You can tell because there's a doctor here. You can tell he didn't like the event because he cut it really short. Because it kind of looked like... Where were they? It looked like Ted X Toledo. or something. It was just like Joe Gebby in front of a giant screen. The whole thing was embarrassing. Mark Cuban was there. Trump RX, by the way, it's not a platform for buying

medications. Do you know that? It's just a, it's a facilitator. You go to the website, it directs you to the other websites to buy the drugs. And sometimes it gives you coupons. Just redirects you? Yeah, basically. And then Amazon and in Cubans thing, what's, what's his thing called? Cost plus drugs. Cost plus drugs. You know, they work with the federal government to have some discounts on some extra drugs, but also if you have insurance doesn't help you, meaning it's cheaper to buy the drugs if you have insurance because the insurance covers the drugs. So really it's for people who don't have insurance sometimes get some discounts on some drugs. So it's not a bad thing, but it's not a, it's not, it's certainly not the biggest thing since medical. No. Um, what stood out to you

guys in the New York Times poll? So whenever we're talking about a poll that looks good for Democrats, you got to go down and find the part where it's terrible for Democrats. And there's a, this was a new one, I think, they said, are you satisfied or dissatisfied with the Democratic Party? And I'm used to seeing that voters may be really unhappy with Republicans and planning to vote for Democrats, but then are ultimately not super satisfied with Democrats either. I was surprised to see that 70% of people say they are dissatisfied with the Democratic Party and only 5% are very satisfied, which is a third of the number of people that are very satisfied with Trump. And I get being, look, Republicans are in power. This is representing people that hate Democrats. It's represented by people that wish Democrats would fight more.

It's represented by Democrat. Everyone who has a criticism of the Democrats is represented in that number. But the fact that... Where would you be in that when someone asks you? I would be unsatisfied. I would be unsatisfied. I'm unsatisfied, baby. I'm unsatisfied. But then when they gave me the generic ballot thing, I'd be right there. I'd be right there. But just the fact that like right now, if this whole big, beautiful country of ours, there's only 5% of people that just love the Democratic Party. Like, We talk a lot about the base. It's like, we don't really have, you know, Trump has a base that is.

Who are those people, I think? Who are those 5%? I love everything they're doing. Can't wait to see them on tour. Like some of the staffers, maybe? I don't know. Some staffs. Relatives.

A couple of folks on blue sky. I don't know. So anyway, that's what stood out to you. That's set out to me. And then there was a number on AI that I thought was just interesting, that only 16% of people think AI is, more good than bad. The vast majority are either undecided or think it's more bad than good. It comes in a weekend where there's all these commencement addresses where students are booing

the mere mention of AI by the speakers. Which I love. You can tell there's something afoot there. Yes, there is. Tommy, what do you think? I liked that. I did. I liked that. I noticed that 64% in the Times poll said they think that going to war with Iran was the wrong decision, including 73% of independence. That is pretty clear cut. And it's not going to get better as this thing kind of drags out and the straightover moves remains closed and the price of gas goes up. 76% rate economic conditions today is only fair or poor. That is quite bad. And then, you know, the glass half full thing of the Democratic Party was 50% say they will vote Democrat, 39% say they will vote Republican in the midterms. So it's one of the better numbers of that nature, I think we've

seen in a while. We've been saying Trump bad for so long now that when there's a poll this bad, it's sort of hard it's almost like there's a there's a crying wolf thing yeah yeah um or like you know not trump i mean trump's always been bad but like this is it for trump things that the walls are closing in but nate cone points out in his write-up of the poll no president's approval rating has been under 38% for more than a few days in the last 17 years according to our average now we got don't trump and then he realized 17 years is george w bush which just makes us really old um but that is the last president to be this unpopular for this long. The fact that this is this is worse than January 6th now for him. Well, the economic indicators

are just so bad. I mean, 76% say they're concerned about their personal finances. It's the CBS poll. 67% say they're stressed. Like both of those have been ticked up at the last year. Only 29% in the CBS recent CBS poll said the economy is good. 77% say their income is not keeping up with inflation. So like gas prices are just killing everybody. Yeah. To me, like you look at it too, What's hidden is just how many people have just, they're done, right? You can look at this poll and it's basically almost half, not quite half the country. They don't approve on Iran. They don't approve on the economy.

They don't approve on cost of living. They don't approve on immigration. They are done. And the number of people who now say Trump has personally made their economic circumstances worse. 44% which has gone up by like eight points since the last time. So it's gone up from about the third of the country. It's rising up to nearly half. Or no longer saying, I don't just disapprove.

Like I'm feeling personally that he's not doing. what he said he was going to do. So that to me was, uh, uh, stood out. One of the other thing that said out just about, about what's happening with Iran that, you know, we got a lot of internet debates about, you know, the anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism and the Democrats position on Israel. Meanwhile, opposition to economic military support to Israel has gone from 38% to 57% over the last two and a half to three years. Support has gone from 54% to 37%. And so a lot of numbers, There's Trump's approval. And so a lot of hand-ring.

Support for Israel, financial aid, support for Israel is just about as popular as Donald Trump in this country. And so, look, this is not an argument that's being lost on the margins and it's not an argument that's being lost based on who gets platformed and who doesn't. There's a huge shift that has happened. I think you can lay that at the feet of Benjamin Nanyahu and Joe Biden and Donald Trump. But the sooner people make this less about the specific individuals they dislike, often with good reason and more about the deeper shift that is happening, I think the sooner people can actually

reckon with what is a real and lasting damage that has happened to America's relationship with Israel. Yeah, I mean, Axios wrote a story this morning about just the horrific anti-Semitism being directed towards members of Congress and voicemails and threats and all that. And it's horrible. And I would just say that like, I do think it's important to separate like virulent anti-Semitism. from people who are pro-Israel and making the case for supporting Israel. Like we, I think we talked about this last week, but like Josh Gottheimer's op-ed about anti-semitism and my party has a problem too. Like it starts with talking about actual anti-Semitism and then halfway through it suddenly

veers into, oh and also Democrats are voting against funding, you know, military aid to Israel. Which is now a majority position. That should not be in the same op-ed. Well, Nanyahu says that he wants to wean off military support for Israel. So, yeah. Right. say the only other thing that stood out to me is on the generic ballot, there's real movement just within the Times poll, right? Because every poll is a single poll, snapshot in time,

but you take a poll over time. And it was D plus two to D plus five for the beginning part of Trump's term, second term, in the Times Sienna polls. And now it's D plus 11. Like, it's a big shift. And then when they take it to only almost certain or very likely voters, it's D plus 14. So even that D plus 11 is like may not be what we ultimately see because, you know, the most motivated voters end up turning out in a midterm more so than in a general election. So that's, it's pretty big. And it's late May, you know, not a lot, not a ton of time left. Knock on wood. Yeah. Well, I mean, look, Trump still has time to become a different person. The bigger news from the White House on Monday was the announcement that President Trump's

Justice Department is settling Donald Trump's lawsuit against the IRS for 1.776. billion dollars. Get it. Get it. Get it. That is money that will be taken directly from taxpayers and funneled into a slush fund that apparently exists to pay Trump supporters who were investigated or indicted or convicted during the Biden administration or I guess none of those things because there's really no guardrails whatsoever. It seems like they did this so Trump wouldn't be attacked for directly pocketing taxpayer dollars, but I'm not sure this move is as clever as they think. What about you guys? This is a Trump's second term is a political smash and grab job where he and his family and the people around him and people do his bidding just take what they want and get rewarded. They take it from taxpayers.

They trade on polymarket. They front run the stock market. And I think the fact that Trump is doing this before the midterms just shows that he doesn't give a shit about politics anymore. It's all about money. It's all about building monuments to himself and ingratiating, you know, enriching himself. And they made an end run around the judge in this case and they just cut a deal. deal with another political and pointee that he had named to create the slush fund. And do you think they thought it was cute saying it was 1.776?

Doesn't that just make the whole thing feel like made up in arbitrary more than anything else? They think it's like, oh, we've got patriotism. And America's 250s coming up. And so if we call it a patriotic fund for patriots, then no one will get mad at us. Shouldn't a fund to pay out restitution to people harmed be based on like metrics and not like an anniversary? Where's the number coming? Just the calendar?

How much earnings did you lose? It's great. When you were at the Capitol on January 6th, when you were. I will say, Congress passed a law to give the Department of Justice basically an unlimited fund for restitution for anyone who sues the federal government. And so that's how they ended up doing this. So it's like it is one of those technically legal, but extremely corrupt things that we have because of a stupid law that was passed that no one thought to themselves, maybe they'll be

administration that just has the fund being unlimited because the president will sue himself, we'll sue its own government. Well, in fairness to the people that wrote that law, you would also assume that if it were to be so completely and obviously and brazenly abused by a president who's basically just going into the treasury and stuffing his pockets and leaving, that there might be a Congress that would care about that, which we don't have. Just like to Tommy's point, the judge was like, hey, before this lawsuit by Trump against his own administration, which is unprecedented, that's being administered by his

personal attorney, former personal attorney at the Department of Justice, I want you to come in and explain to me how you're actually parties in opposition, how you're not on the same side of this thing. And they're like... She's like, the deadline's May 20th. That's when now it's May 18th that we're recording this. And so, basically proving the point that the judge was worried about, they have decided to reach a deal beforehand. Now, the Justice Department, if it was actually advocating on behalf of taxpayers, the American people, which is what it's supposed to do, it would fight this thing to the bitter end, or at the very least, settle for zero dollars, which has happened in,

in not exactly similar, but cases that are akin to this in the past. But instead they're doing this. Ken Griffin. Yeah, doing this, exactly. Settled the same case. His taxpayer info was leaked, and he settled it for zero dollars. For zero dollars. He's got a public apology from the IRS.

Because he didn't pay any, you know, that is a, that is something that could have come of this, but it said, no, they are proving that they are in cahoots here by doing this kind of a settlement. We have, they're using a ridiculous justification based on something that happened, the Obama administration, which even conservative legal scholars have batted down because that had actual specific people who were harmed by an actual specific policy unlike this. My pitch is James Comey, Tish James, La Monica McIver, Lisa Cook, Jerome Powell, they should all be submitting when this thing comes out.

They should put their names in to get money from this fund. And if they do not receive a fair hearing, they should sue the federal government. There are people that are being politically prosecuted by the government. As far as we know publicly, nobody on that list would not be kind of at least potentially included in the people hurt that could receive from this 1776. My pitch is no one gets it. Give us the fucking money back. That's our money.

Oh, yeah. To be clear, I don't think James Comey should get money from the federal government. But I think we should put this thing through its pace. Yeah, well, they're not going to. I mean, Trump appoints the board. It's five people. He gets to hire and fire the board. It's just going to be five cronies, dishing out money.

They don't, like, this is, this thing doesn't even have to be like, oh, and here was my case and it was tried incorrectly. Like, someone's just can go to fucking whoever Todd Blanche puts on the commission and be like, hey, I want $10,000 because I donated to the president. And I'm mad that Joe Biden sent the FBI after me. Do you have proof of that? No, but I just know they were watching me. It's crazy. Like, that's what this is. I mean, like, this is, I mean, like, this is, it's just, it's just, they're at the point where they're just saying, we're going to take money from the treasury.

Give it to whoever we want. And we just don't care. Particularly people who are maybe criminals to let everyone else know that if you commit a crime on Trump's behalf, not only do you not go to jail, but perhaps you might get some compensation for it. Yeah, but he was asked at the press conference today. Could this potentially go to people who committed violence in January 6th? He said, oh, it's going to be up to the committee. Absolutely those people would be eligible. Could totally receive money from this fund. And he pretends he doesn't know about it. Okay. Also, it's a danger going forward, too, as we're heading into 2028 and Donald Trump and J.D. Vance, whoever the fuck it is, tries to stay in the White House after they lose an election. and a bunch of people do their bidding for them to help them out. What do you think they're going to think?

They're going to be like, well, if he stays in there and I help him out, I'm going to be okay. I'm going to get a pardon, might get paid. Great. You guys don't like my idea that James Come on. Yeah, I mean, I see you were saying. I think he should write out the amount he wants on the B.C. Shells.

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She was in jail for orchestrating a security breach of her county's voting system. Trump has been publicly and privately pressuring Polis to pardon her completely. They also tried to like transfer her from state prison to federal prison so that Trump could pardon her. Didn't do that. But now Polis has commuted her sentence. She was sentenced to nine years. He cut it to four and a half years with parole next month. I have to be honest.

I know this is not a great answer for the purposes of a talk show. I just couldn't give less of a shit. I know people are like outraged about this. I read JVL's long piece on this. I don't give a shit. I don't care. I have so much to be outraged or to worry about.

I just can't even get myself to engage with this person. I may even go a step further. I think Polis might have done the right thing. Like coming your sentence down. Wow. I got to go. Excuse me, boys.

If you need me, I'll be at the fucking bulwark. Where the real lips are now. Go on. I'm not, I don't feel strongly. I'm more in time. I'm closer to Tommy's camp, but like, Here's the thing. She was sentenced to nine years, right? She's a nonviolent first-time offender.

And three appellate judges who were appointed by a Democrat, they were Democratic judges. They all just ruled that they threw out the sentence, the nine-year sentence. So that was never going to happen. And the reason they threw it out is because they thought that the judge basically in giving her a nine-year sentence as opposed to a smaller sentence violated her free speech rights because the judge basically said the reason I'm making your sentence longer. is because you spouted election conspiracy theories, which is a horrible thing to do, spouting election conspiracy theories, but that is protected First Amendment speech. I thought we have to be consistent in our free speech.

But hold on, hold on. I appreciate that, but we understand that if someone were to say, hit somebody with their car, and then publicly say, that bitch deserved it. That is free speech. You have the right to say that,

but it does potentially inform the sentence. Does it? Of course it does. Of course we allow remorse in people's, motivations and feelings about the crimes they committed, what they've learned from it. That's the... Well, she was...

I mean, but the no remorse thing was already factored in because she didn't... She was not remorseful when she was sentenced. But that's... He didn't say you didn't show remorse. He said it's because you have these theories. I just saying that... I'm just saying that we take people's motivations and expressions.

I agree that people have the right to believe elections are stolen. I'm just saying it's a little bit more than just the first... Continue, sorry. I guess I'm saying if we believe that there... is an incarceration problem in this country and that people are incarcerated for too long and that prison is it is a deterrent and yes people should be jailed and they should be kept from society but that unusually long sentences are bad especially for first time nonviolent offenders like don't we have to extend that belief to people whose political beliefs we detest

so i would say the answer is we should allow a process to play out that she would have been resentenced why is why did this become a big public controversy it is because the president's States is publicly pressuring the governor of Colorado to commute Tina Peters sentence. Now, look, I'm sure Jared Polis would say that the pressure had nothing to do with it. Obviously, the fact that Donald Trump was threatening Colorado unless he did something, right, Donald Trump was saying this woman should be pardoned. He is saying it's some kind of pushback against Trump that it's only a commutation. I like she has kind of done the bare minimum of acknowledging that what she did was wrong.

But if you go to her Twitter feed, her allies were saying, as recently as I believe last week, I have to go look at the exact timing that if Trump, that if, that if, that if Tina Peters isn't released, uh, Trump should invade the state of Colorado. It is a nonviolent offense. Yeah. I mean, I don't think that should happen. Well, right, but it just, it goes to like the, the, the reason somebody who even commits a look, there are a lot of first time offenders who do something that are part of a, that are part of something

so dangerous that you have to say, wait a second. Yes, it's a nonviolent offense. but it goes to the core of what we are society, the safety of our democracy. And so he has given into that pressure from Trump rather than let the process play out. So that, I think, is like a huge problem. I don't know that we'd be having this conversation

if Donald Trump hadn't personally intervened to try to get the governor to do something. And then it seems as though he did it. After listening to this thoughtful debate, I still don't give a shit. I might care less, actually, then when we said, it's just kidding. I would say that it is interesting.

I would say that it's, yeah, it's more interesting to me and that, like, I think that, I think he might have been the right thing. I do think, I would like to hear Jared Polis answer the question, why don't you just wait for the resentencing of the three appellate judges? Like, what made you not want to just wait for their decision if they were going to throw out the sentence anyway? I would like to know that question. I'd also say, too, that the Republican prosecutor was against this and said that you should talk to the people that were impacted by Tina Peters schemes before you'd make this decision. It's also a prosecutor. Well, sure. That's how prosecutors are. But the...

There's also a defendant who pled guilty to almost the same charges in the Georgia Rico case and was sentenced no time and probation. Yeah, I mean, look, there's all kinds of unfairnesses and unequal application of sentences all across the country all the time. Like, if that were the case, you'd go and say, oh, well, there's somebody else who was given less. You can commute most sentences that way. But I think, look, in this And he commuted it. It wasn't just her. He commuted like, you know, it was like 35 or 50 commutations or something like that in the same day. I think he has to answer for whether or not he gave

into Trump's political pressure. And we are in a moment where like Donald Trump is, threatening elections again, like this is a grave threat to the republic. Why does our generosity, our sense of justice, our, our empathy turned for Tina Peters when there are so many others who have, who deserve it. That's all. Yeah. And I don't think it should. I don't think it should. I don't think we should be generous or empathetic at all. I think we should just be like, what is the, what is the standard? Like, is there a process to reach the decision and it didn't meet a standard? I do think that, like, criticizing polls for it is completely fine. Like, you can criticize them for it. You can say it's fine. Some people are, and people who I like in politics too and support

are, like, calling for his impeachment over this. And I'm like, I don't, I just, I do not think it rises to the level of it. Everybody's at a nine all the time these days. I can't get there. I can get there. I can get to, like, your criticism for sure. I can't get to, he should be impeached over this. I don't know if you guys saw that Trump's latest financial disclosures show that he and or his financial advisors made more than 3,700 stock trades in the first quarter of this year. Bought $1 million each in companies with business before his administration like Nvidia, Oracle, Microsoft, Boeing, and Palantir, which he bought right before he praised the company on Truth Social in a post that if you recall, even included the companies. ticker symbol. Now, I know this may look suspicious, but the White House did say that Trump's assets are in a

blind trust managed by his children. So there are, quote, no conflicts of interest. Seems fine, right? This is, did they really? I thought there was no blind trust. I thought they'd already previously said there wasn't a blind trust. Either way, managed by your children. They're saying it's a blind trust management.

Yeah, that doesn't mean, that's not what blinds are. Again, this is part of the political smash and grab job. I mean, they're making money everywhere. It's, this is crazy. Like, so Bloomberg reported. Trump had trades that involved Tesla, Nvidia, Apple, Meta, Visa, City, Boeing, Qualcomm, and GE. Top executives from all of those companies were on his trip to Beijing to meet with Chinese President Xi Jinping.

So you don't think he's getting insider information, having that access, talking to them, cutting deals with them. Some of the stock trades included up to 680 grand worth of Eli Lilly right as the administration was preparing policies that would benefit their GLP1 business. He took a couple huge positions in NVIDIA right before they announced major news. There was a one to five million dollar position a week before they announced a partnership with META. Then there was a half a million to a million dollar position a week before the Commerce Department announced some, you know, determinations to do with NVIDIA. They're buying and selling Intel stock, which the U.S. government took a 10% stake in the company.

This is insanity. This is such a coincidence. Paul Pelosi somewhere is like, what the fuck, man. I could have been doing this so much better. Like, we're sort of pat, every single, well, Jesus. I'm like Jim Kramer now. Do you see the clip of Jim Kramer? Yeah, he just glitched out for six to a week.

Can we drop it in here? Let's drop in the Jim Kramer clip. The president's been trading some Intel in the quarter. Yeah. Yeah. Got nothing to say about? But, yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Whoa. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, right. Don't worry.

We're not having technical. difficulties here everybody. What's funny about the Jim Kramer clip is that it's like, people are like, oh, wow, he's so, he's stammering because he can't figure out what to say about this. But when I was watching, it was like, is he stammering because he can't figure out to say about this or is he making a joke about how it's so beyond the pale, but he doesn't want to be critical of Trump in this moment. Like I didn't know what, what are we, what are we, what are we, why is he stammering? He knows what's going on. But we can't get in Jim Kramer's head. But we're just, no, no. Live and run free inside of Jim Kramer's head. But the, like,

the, like the, we're at a new level of braising corruption because it, every step. up along the way nobody has stopped him to get to this point, right? Like, he can't, the thing that I find stunning about all this is that there's no, like, the level of brazenness is going up, but the dollar amount isn't always. It's like, why are we doing 500 grand stock trades, billion dollar crypto theft and the watches. Like, why, like, you know what I mean? Like, like, it's just, it's just all at once. Some of it's like left over from the old world. Right. You had to just do corruption like the watches and the phone. Like, we're getting you the Trump phones, but they're not coming. Yeah, that part doesn't make sense.

But the aggregate stock trades was a range between $211 and $687 million. So that's a pretty good quarter. It's also like just the volume of trading. Bloomberg interviewed this guy, Eric Dighton, who's the president-manager director at the Wealth Alliance. And he said, I'm baffled. In the 40-plus years of my time on Wall Street, this is an unusual amount of trading by any standards.

We need to see the actual trades to try and understand why anyone would want to do that much trading. It's just like the practical, like the practical way in which this is being done. Like is there a team that is doing this? Is it sons through their, like, it feels like they've got like, like Christopher Maltesante trying to like push whibis. Like he's got like some fucking back office in New Jersey somewhere with computers. No, it's just Baron Trump in the outer oval with a shitload of Adderall.

I was going to say. Yeah, just like minority reporting it. Like I can see the future. I know what's going to happen at the commerce meeting next week. I know then I have the BLS data. That's just because he's got the briefing book. Yeah. But again, they took like seven transactions related to Boeing.

one was between one to five million dollars. Like the biggest deliverable of the China trip was to get the Chinese to buy a bunch of Boeing planes. And by the way, the announcement was so underwhelming that the stock went down because they did a shitty job. We still use as proof that C,

we see, it wasn't a good announcement. It's like, yeah, you thought it was. You tried to trade on inside information. It just turns out you suck at diplomacy. Like, that was the problem. You're good at the crimes. You're bad at diplomacy. Got to deliver on that shit.

All right, so Trump's also doing his best to drag their own. Republican Party down with him. On Saturday, he sent yet another message that dissent will not be tolerated when his chosen primary challenger, Congresswoman Julia Letlow, took out Louisiana Senator Bill Cassidy, whose sin was voting to convict Trump in the January 6th impeachment trial. Cassidy went down in flames. He got third in Louisiana's primary. The first time an incumbent senator has come in lower than second place since 1944. Trump's next target is Thomas Massey, who's trying to unseat in Tuesday's Kentucky primary. Massey has been the strongest and kind of the only Republican.

in the House breaking with Trump on Epstein, Iran, and the big beautiful bill. Trump has been posting about Massey nonstop. I think right before he recorded, he did like a video from the Oval, which is very legal and normal to just tell people to vote against Thomas Massey. We're going to run the midterms on the Hatch Act, I assume. Right. Yeah, that's, yeah, he says he's, is he's grabbing the two billion dollars for his slush fund and then trading on NVIDIA and Boeing. Yeah. Pete Hegseth was doing an event in Kentucky today. His personal capacity. And his personal capacity.

And then Trump announces that he's delayed an imminent military assault on Iran that was supposed to happen tomorrow. Yeah, what was Pete going to do? That seems like bad timing. It feels like you need him for that. Yeah. Maybe you don't. Maybe a doubt. Who's going to drink the boots?

Too early to say what will happen in the Massey race, but it certainly seems like Massey himself is staying loose. Here he is on Sunday doing his best Trump impression. Whenever I call him, I got to schedule a minute for the first thing he tells me every time I call him. Massey. you're a sharp cookie you went to m it you know my professor was my uncle was professor John G. Trump he was at MIT

41 years it's a record and you know I went to Wharton which is basically the hardest school of the world to get into it's terrible so I've got even better genetics than you I didn't realize how long they love I kind of want him to lose now

that was I was I was rude So I was rooting for him until just then. I'm going to listen. He's going for it, you know? You put that accent work on the Trump impression, you know? Don't do it unless you really feel good about it. There's just too many people doing it and it's too, it's too big a target. Anyway, anyone have thoughts on the primary?

Yeah, look, I mean, how big of a deal this is? On Bill Cassidy, like, fuck that guy. You know, like, he thought he could like appease MAGA by voting for a Robert of Kennedy Jr. And end up kind of like selling his soul and his credentials as a doctor and it being worst of all worlds and he knew better and we know it because he told us as much before he flip-flopped. And so would I rather have him in the Senate than his replacement? Yes, I would. But ultimately, I don't think it'll make a big difference. Thomas Massey is a different story. Like, he's the reason we have the Epstein files because he worked with Rokana to get him released.

He's a principal vote against wars and militarism and lots of other things. I don't agree with him on everything and on, you know, like you don't share the same worldview. I don't send out, you know, Christmas cards with me and my kids with machine guns like I think he did one time. But, yeah, you know, it would be a big loss. And I think it tells you everything you need to know about Donald Trump's political worldview that he will not lift the finger to help his party build, but he will take down anyone who criticizes him. It is all about punishing his own critics and the cult of personality and protecting

his personal power and not about the party or doing anything. Right. I think he's far more passionate about defeating his enemies than he is about helping his friends. Yeah, with Cassidy, you go back to that, to him approving. RFK Jr. and accepting his fake assurances in his private meetings, pretending that RFK didn't believe what he obviously believed. And like, no, you can't, you can't sell half your soul. He doesn't work like that. They're not divisible. They're not divisible in that way. And so these guys that end up being reluctantly for Trump, they don't, they're not better politicians.

They're just worse whores, you know. So are, you know, good riddens, I suppose. I will say this is, there's a lot being made because we had Indiana and then California. And then Massey. But this is sort of the last gasp of this forever. What do you expect is going to happen? This is Trump's last midterms. And do we think he's going to spend, he's going to be spending time in 28 going around doing primary challenges?

Maybe. But like, also does it lose its force at some point, right? Like that Trump's like a, he's already a lame duck. Like he clearly has the juice to do it now. But as we get to 28 and then beyond that, like, what is, this is. What did we learn from the? Yeah, that he's an indicted prick who only cares about himself and, you know, loyalty. And I think we also learned that, like, you know, nothing's breaking the fever in the Republican Party.

The party's broken. And you've just got to massively, you've just got to defeat them at every level because all the ones who are left are completely loyal to dear leader. And that's about that. And I do think also he might have, he might have fucked himself a little because now you got angry Cassidy, who's still got votes left to take between now and the end of the year. Massey too, Massey loses, Tillis has already been doing it. And so they can make his life more difficult. And I do wonder now, between now and November, if this makes it, like, harder for Republicans to break away from Trump, even though primaries are over because they're, they're, they worry

that they're going to get punished? I don't know. It's just, look, it remains sort of extraordinary, right? Bill Cassidy, like, could not persuade his own voters, people that have voted for him multiple times in the past to stick with him once Trump turned, right? Like it just tells you something about the voters showing up in these Republican primaries and what they want. And there was no, the fact that Cassidy was a vote for impeachment and that Trump had

fully turned against him, there was nothing he could do to convince them that he was worth saving. Nothing. Yeah. Potts of America is brought you by Hymns. ED is way more common than most guys think. Millions of guys deal with it at some point. That's exactly why Hymns offers a straightforward way to handle it.

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Trump posted that the U.S. quote, will not be doing the scheduled attack of Iran tomorrow, aka Tuesday, the day you're listening to this, because the leaders of Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE asked him to hold off due to serious negotiations that are now taking place. place. Trump did add that the U.S. is prepared to attack Iran, quote, on a moment's notice in the event that an acceptable deal is not reached. On Monday, it was also reported that Iran sent its latest peace proposal through Pakistan to the U.S.,

which the White House seems likely to reject, even as the Pentagon and Israel are, quote, engaged in intense preparations, the largest since the ceasefire took effect for the possible resumption of attacks against Iran, according to the New York Times. What do you make at the back and forth here, Tommy? Like, any chance that Trump's latest threat to destroy Iran got them closer to a deal? scare them into it? I don't think so, but can we just talk about these statements where he name checks a bunch of autocrats? They're so weird. You don't have to do that, but he's always like, on behalf of the great and highly

respected field marshal, Assam Munir, I've decided not to, like, exterminate Iran. You know, the delivery date for that plane was supposed to be the fourth, but he once moved up for his birthday. So he wants the Qataris to get that plane there fast. It's the same way that he does the, like, you know, personality stuff with. with G, like, he enjoys the idea that governing doesn't involve anyone except the people in the room. Right.

There's no people deciding, right? They're just great men making big decisions together at a collaboration and friendship. And so he's not doing it for the good of the country. He's doing it because he was, he has this great rapport with these leaders. The Pakistanis in particular, like, they cut a big crypto deal with the world liberty financial. So that's why he likes them. But like, you do five seconds of research into the great and respected field marshal and you find the UK authorities have charged him with torture and crime.

against humanity. That's the guy he's like name checking. But regardless, big picture. Of course. I don't think they're any closer to a deal. I don't know. I assume we're in the same place. Iran thinks they have a lot of leverage because they can close straight-over moves. They know Trump is weakened politically. They know that he wants out of this. He doesn't want to go back to war. And so they're going to wait for the United States to walk back some of the more maximalist positions or just get sick of the shit to move on. Just to imagine some sort of Iranian underling kind of going down the stairs into the, into the bunker where the, where the, the recuperating Ayatollah is like pointing at the Sienna numbers and saying, look, look, we got them.

We got them right where we want to. Yeah. And, you know, cross tabs. Iran, there's all these leaks still. Like, Iran reportedly has up to 75% of its missile stockpile, all of its, basically, almost all of its infrastructure along the street over moves is operational for them to shut it down. So I, they could always make things worse. Straight to Formuz also now has its own Twitter account.

Does it? Yeah. Like, uh, Carl, fog in San Francisco? No, yeah, they're calling it, you know, something more official, but it's like the Iranian government. Oh, it's the Iranian government doing it? Yeah, yeah. Are we doing it in Lego?

They've made, no, they just made an official Twitter account so we can get updates from the straight. Just personifying the straightings? Yeah. That's kind of cool. Like sort of red, green yellow. A lot of red. Like sort of when you get the like sig alerts in like California traffic, it's like,

oh my God, the straighter moves is red today. Fuck. I'm going to be late. Honey, I'm going to be late. You're going to have traffic helicopter. reporters over and reporting on the nines and fives uh NBC reported last week that the administration's considering changing the name of the war from operation epic fury to operation sledgehammer we have to get a little more phallic again or something else entirely in order to quote

effectively restart the clock with Congress is that how it works new operation name now they can't get you no now you can do whatever wars you want they like it's I love this idea that you know the war powers act is such a weak piece of legislation that you can just do like a bureaucratic tweak and get around it. I mean, it's just crazy. It's obviously the same conflict. Like changing the name doesn't matter. Every president since Nixon has claimed the War Powers Act is unconstitutional. They all hate it, but it was enacted over Nixon's veto in 1973. And so Congress has leverage here if they want to use it. Republicans refuse to use it. Maybe they'll man up now, but we'll see. Trump also wants us to know that he's not just focused on wars far away

from home. He's focused on wars right in our own backyard still. There have been a bunch of rumblings about the long-rumored regime change move in Cuba. Sources told the AP last week that the administration is looking to indict former Cuban President Raul Castro, brother of Fidel, even though he's no longer in power. Then over the weekend, Mark Caputo reported that, according to classified U.S. Intel, Cuba has over 300 drones and has recently considered launching them against U.S. military targets and even Key West Florida, which could serve as a handy pretext for an invasion. Cuba's current president, Miguel Diaz Canal, responded on social media on Monday,

writing the quote Cuba poses no threat, nor does it have aggressive plans or intentions against any country, including the U.S. and that a U.S. attack would, quote, trigger a bloodbath. What did you make of the Cuba stuff? It seems like he's, it seems like he's gearing up. You want to kick us off on Cuba? I don't think we should go to war with Cuba right now. In the Times poll, there was a question that was something like, when do you believe the U.S. should launch war against countries that have not attacked us? And I think it was like 70 percent or like, don't do that.

Never. Don't do that unless someone has attacked us. We didn't go to war. I don't think it's a good idea. Whatever Trump had come to believe about killing Soleimani, the getting Maduro out of Venezuela and how fun that was, he sees the polls showing how unpopular the war in Iran is. I hope that that has at the very least chasing them from their kind of idea that they could be regime topplers without it kind of consuming their politics.

But it's terrifying. It's terrifying to imagine that they were going to see what they're doing in the Middle East and decide that it needs to be brought closer to them. Yeah, I mean, look, I read the story. It was such an obvious pretext to me. But I mean, look, I don't doubt the Intel. Like, is Cuba acquiring drones? Well, it's 2026 in every military has or is acquiring drones. That would be like not getting rifles or, you know, machine guns in World War I. So it also says, like the intelligence suggests that Cubans would respond to a U.S. attack with drones, which again. I was going to say, this Axiastory, you have to get way down to reality check, which is three paragraphs, four paragraphs from the bottom. bottom till you find out that, oh, by the way, the intel is that it's retaliatory. This is not a preemptive strike on Miami. This is what they would do if we attacked them, because we all know if they did a preemptive strike on Miami, that would be suicidal because

you would fucking flatten the country. So I also just would like to think that if we are on the verge of going to war with another country, that the evidence would not be laundered through anonymous sources into a daily tip sheet that perhaps there'd be more information. Well, Judy Miller would like a word with you, pal. But that was the New York Times. Sorry, you're right, you're right. I do think, though, every, indicator light is flashing when it comes to possible regime change operations because there's this leak, which creates the pretext of this being an imminent threat. There was CIA director, John Ratcliffe, just went to Cuba and had this message from Trump. There is the indictment,

the rumored indictment of Raul Castro, which was a very important part of the case for why they had to do what they did against Maduro, which was extract him from Venezuela and bring him to New York for prosecution. There's been all these reports of a huge increase of intelligence overflights by the U.S. So I would be very worried if I were a Cuban official. And, Meanwhile, if you're a Cuban human being or citizen, like the United States has a blockade on that's allowed no oil and gas into your country, and people are starving to death. They have one to two hours of electricity a day. Hospitals can't operate.

What we are doing is criminal. It is absolutely evil. You're starving a population of people to death. And the most likely outcome is that the government collapses. And there is a mass exodus in migration crisis to the United States, which MAGA has told us they do not want to happen. I don't understand what these lunatics are fucking doing here, but it is just,

it is utterly immoral, just a horrific, horrific policy right now. I think that the insane thought running through Donald Trump's head is, his response to launching a disastrous war in Iran that is unpopular, that has cost us billions of dollars, that has spiked gas prices everywhere,

is, I got to launch a war that's more popular and easy. I got to go back to the Venezuela model because they all think that Venezuela was some big fucking success, right? It was like, that was an easy one. So I got to get my mojo back by going to invade Cuba now that Iran's a big fucking mess. Very possible.

Same. Did you see Rubio in his Maduro tracks? Yes. Like, it's all just a game. It's all just trolling. It's all content. I don't think it was that flattering. No, I think it was, I talked to this in lover to leave it, but I do think Maduro wore it better.

But I'm not even joking. Like, it just looked more comfortable. Like, Rubio looked like the suit was wearing him. But I was looking at that. I was like, why are you doing this? I forget, like. He was a little post. too. It wasn't like there was a lot pose, a lot posed. But but like I was looking at it. I was like, what, what are we supposed to? Okay, look, what is this meant? But boy, you're tough. You're wearing the same clothes. Like, who is what was the message? And I, I, I'm like, oh, was this about how how like what happened? We'll do this again. Like, we're going to do this. Is it a Cuba thing? Like, what the fuck was the outfit? What, what are my meant to take from this photo, Stephen Chung? Yeah, that's a good question. I agree with you. I do think Trump wants to change the channel and kind of get us onto a new topic that is in Iran. That is.

that makes him sound tough again. I do think, though, that Cuba falls in the Venezuela, Iran, Cuba, access of evil bucket of, like, geocons telling him, sir, you'll be a historic figure, sir, if you make big changes here. Right. And he's down and- He will gargle your balls. Well, I mean, you don't need to do something else to get that.

That's already happening. That's priced in. But, you know, he's also in Florida surrounded by a bunch of very, like, rich, hardline, you know, Miami-Cubans who, you know, have been waiting for this for a long time and, you know, want their real estate assets back on the island. So I hope I'm wrong. Maybe he'll fucking Cubano or like whatever Wall Street will make up a new term for it. That will be stupid.

But like it does seem like it's nerve-wracking. Well, if he doesn't do Cuba, then there's always Greenland. Remember the critical national security issue of Greenland? A quick refresher of the back in January after threatening to invade Trump did a did a taco. It announced to the quote, framework of a future deal with respect to Greenland and in fact the entire Arctic region. Well, the New York Times is now reporting that the negotiations around that framework have Greenlandic officials, quote, worried as U.S. proposals, quote, amount to a major imposition on Greenland's sovereignty. Yeah, I bet. Greenland's specifically concerned about Trump's June 14th birthday and July 4th is upcoming dates where Trump's attention could swing back around to them as he starts thinking about his legacy.

Unfucking real. What do you think? Are those concerns well-founded? What do you think about the Greenlandic concerns expressed in the New York Times piece? Let's just pause and sit in the idea that the Danes are concerned that Trump will get more bellicose around his birthday. That's where we're at. That's what we do. He's turning 80.

You never know. America's turning 250. They're not going to be content with just the fireworks. No, no. You're going to want to get some. No, they want Greenland. Somebody's got to give him a little. He wants it.

he wants a the great at the end of his name. He knows that when the, when the, when the, when the, when the, when the, when the, when the, when the, when the, when the, when the, when the, when the, we're just got to be the great. So we just got to find some fucking chunk of land somewhere. Get me Cuba. Get me Greenland. Just somewhere. Make Venezuela the 51st state. He's just something. We got to expand the map. I can't believe we're talking about this again. This sucks. It sucks. It's like that. Do you guys see the, the, the Tim Dillon bit? We said, we're not the high school bully anymore. We're the weird kid who may or may or may not have a gun. Yes. Yeah. We're not the quarterback. We're not the jock. We're the college kid who keeps going to high school parties. It might be a pedophile and has a gun.

That is us. That's a country. Good work, everybody. That is it. That is it. I think we made a mistake electing this guy. Yeah. Yeah, well.

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possibly because it would look cool on a map, it's probably a good time to mention that there's been a revival of the debate about Trump. age and fitness for the job and whether Democrats should be making a bigger deal about it. Lauren Egan at the Bullwork and Jonathan LeMeyer at the Atlantic are both out with big pieces, arguing that it's time for Democrats to make it a bigger issue. We get subscriber

questions about this a lot. We also see a lot of folks on social media making the argument that if you're not making as big of a deal about Trump's age as you worry about Biden's, you're being hypocritical. So in the spirit of open dialogue, I guess we're going to debate it. It's debate it. Austin.

Austin's bringing out a vote save America mug with three positions in it. So I'm not going to look to we all. Let's all open the same time. Pro, meaning it's something we should talk about more. Anti. You can guess what that means. And moderator. Okay, great.

I am the moderator. I am anti. Wow. I'm pro. Let's go, bitch. I'm about it gets fucking owned. Can I get a little. Amen.

Like NBC music? Tonight. All right. I'll be moderating this debate. John, you will be arguing that Democrats must make a greater issue out of Donald Trump's age. Tommy will take the con. You have the opening statement. You have 30 seconds.

Did Joe Biden lose the last election or have to drop out of the last election because he was too old? Yes. Was it the biggest concern of every voter everywhere because everyone made a big issue and Republicans made a big issue of his age? Yes. Yep. So Donald Trump's hands are falling off right now. He looks like it was like a fucking bad morgue job on his hands before he got in the casket. Sure.

He's basically melting before our eyes. He's got all kinds of bruises all over the place. Aaron Rupar's feeds full of it. It's just purple. Okay. And yet Democrats are out there just talking about affordability and not talking about the fact that the President of the United States is decomposing before our eyes. And Democrats won't talk about it even though these are the same Democrats that tried to push Joe Biden out of the race. Wow, a powerful argument. Tommy, your counter.

John, you ignorant slut. I don't want to get in between you and Aaron Rupar's feed and your little handjob issue there with the Trump. But Trump is not running again. So none of this matters. Democrats have zero credibility on this issue after spending years pretending that they couldn't see Joe Biden's physical decline as he was shuffling around

in sneakers and falling over sandbags. Every minute we spend talking about makeup on this decrepit old man's hands is a minute we are not spending talking about stock trades, the ballroom, Medicare cuts, things that actually matter to people. And yeah, the napping is weird, admittedly. It's also very funny when the White House says that he blinked for 10 seconds. Yeah, long blinks. These are long blinks. Admittedly, that's weird. But he still does a lot of events. He's out there all the time. He's doing rallies. He looks vibrant. He's a big. Looks vibrant.

What are you talking about? You can't even stand up. You can't make him a martyr. All right. So let me just throw some questions in each of your direction. I'll start with you, Tommy. You do notice that there's a significant decline in how he communicates from today to how he communicated even four or eight years ago.

That his cadence has changed, that he's not as clear. He is more meandering. He's posting all hours of the night. These are things that should be a liability. I think he's always done these things. I think he's always been kind of incoherent. I think he's always posted, he's never slept. But I'm curious how you would explain the difference, right?

Like, he is, yes, you're right. He has always been this way, but I think it's indisputable that it is all worse. Like, he is rambling more. He is, uh, it's the weave. It's the weave. But the weave is getting worse. Do you think it's getting, like he is changing. Depending on your perspective.

Um, I think I, I, like, jokes aside, I think I don't know that I notice him that much more rambly than he used to be. Because I think he's always been rambly. Like, he does look tired. He's legitimately falling asleep in events. It's noticeable. The hand stuff is weird. And by the way, they're clearly lying about the hand stuff because they initially said it was his handshaking hand. And then the other hand had the bruising too.

So he also keeps going to the dentist and no one. Dude, how many annual dentist trips are doing a lot of dentist trips? Yeah. He's doing a lot of physicals and things that no one's telling. No one's telling us why his health is the way it is. And there's no one's asking questions. And there's a doctor's office in the West Wing. So you would only go to Walter Reed or Bethesder or wherever he's going now to get like,

specialized equipment. There's also dental. There's also the dentist office in the White House. It's got to go to a special dentist. So, John, question to you, how would a Democrat who was somebody who defended Joe Biden's ability to run again make this argument without seeming like they're foolish shit? I was wrong about Joe Biden. And I should have said something earlier. And that's what I'm doing this time around because Donald Trump is in bad shape and he should not be leading the country. And any Republican that still supports him and that doesn't want to, you know, pressure the cabinet to invoke the 25th amendment, then they are just feeding into this cover cover up for Donald Trump's age and his dementia and he is just putting us all at risk and Republicans

won't do anything about it. And so even though he's not running again, when we go into the midterms, we know that Donald Trump's approval rating is highly correlated with how Republicans are going to do in the midterms. And by talking more about how he has dementia and he is losing his marbles, then we could get his approval even lower and that Democrats can then do better in the midterms. question for you, Tommy. Joe Biden's age and Joe Biden's disapproval on the economy became linked. The fact that the economy was bad was a sign he wasn't up for the job. The fact that he was up for the job made people doubt that he could fix the economy. We're trying to make an argument that Republicans, we have to win the House and the Senate and that Republicans refuse to tell the truth

about Donald Trump. Shouldn't the fact that Donald Trump is decomposing before our eyes, rambling at all hours, falling asleep in meetings, shouldn't we be saying these Republicans won't be honest about that, that who, why are they not telling the truth about this? What are we not knowing about this? Shouldn't we be making this one of the lines of argument that we use when we try to accuse Republicans of not holding Trump accountable? Yeah, so allow me to flip-flop on the issue to respond to your leading question. Clearly, they're covering up something, right? Like, the guys, the multiple annual doctor visits, like, this is crazy. It's all pretext. We should push for more information. There is muscle memory here, right? Like, I think if we get people to, like,

a critical mass of concern about this, they can, they will care. I also just like, I think trouble hate it. If we call him a sad, sick old man, he would hate that. So just working that in there. It could be fun. Now you argue the other side. Yeah, no, I'll argue the other side. Because I think Tommy's best point was he's not running again.

Like, and so what difference, as Hillary Clinton once said, what difference does it make? If he's, if he is decrepit, if they are covering something up, he's like, the reason this was a potent argument against Joe Biden is because Joe Biden was asking voters for four more years in office. Donald Trump will never ask voters for four more years in office. He might try to stay. No, he won't. He might try to stay in office, but he's not going to ask voters for four more years. I mean, he might run for a third term. That's not going to happen. He's going to try to just sit there and be like, I got the military. Just park?

Yeah, no one's going to let him run. But so he's not going to ask for you. So what is the purpose of, what is the, if we're trying to win a midterm, what is the story we're trying to tell about Donald Trump that is most true? And the story that is most true is what you said at the beginning of this episode, which is, this whole term is a smash and grab. He wants to make as much money as he can. He's a megalomaniac who thinks that now he needs this legacy in history where he like conquers half the globe.

And he doesn't give a shit about people. He doesn't give a shit about people. And he's never given a shit about people. And that's a consistent story through time. And whether he has dementia now or he's losing his marbles or not, like doesn't really matter. So I think the way that I would square this is, I think that's right. Because I'm more passionate about the end of the side. Democrats paid a political price for defending Joe Biden.

when people had concerns about his age, even after he dropped out, because it came to be evidence that Democrats couldn't be trusted more broadly. And my argument would only be, no, age should not be the central argument we make against Donald Trump. But if we can make the fact that Republicans refuse to be honest about not just Trump's corruption and unaccountability and brazen theft, but also just his rambling and crazy nonsense, and you make every time he does that part of a story about how he's unfit, including. because he's getting old, then that's part of why these Republicans can't be trusted.

That's the best I'm not. I know, I know. I know. But even that, as you say that, like, you kind of just like threw in corruption there. But it's like, so he's, he doesn't know what he's doing. He's crazy, but he's also smart enough to be out there stealing all the money he possibly can. I just think like the incoherence is priced in. Like the weave is a thing that's like a joke, but it's also not a joke.

You know what I mean? Like people know he's a goofball. He's all over a place. He says weird shit. But also like he's funny. He's big and imposing. He seems sharp at events a lot of times. times. And like the hand shit is very odd, but like, it's also weird. It's weird to make an argument

that he used to be sharp when we were all saying he's been fucking crazy since he came on the scene in 2016. Yeah. It's weird. It's weird for Democrats to be in the position and be like, you know what? He's just not up for the job. He used to be, but now he's not up for the job. I think, look, I think, I don't think anyone should make that that argument. I think you go back and look at, even about like the debates with Jeb Bush first the debate with Kamaharis. Like, there's been a crazy decline. But even putting that aside, here's the thing that I find very annoying about this, it's the same kind of practiced like obtuseness that some people on our side love to do. Like, how could you say this?

If you won't say the same exact thing about Trump that you said about Joe Biden, then then you're being a hypocrite. As if we can't see the difference between the way Joe Biden looked and the way Donald Trump looked. It's so boring too. That's so boring. It was disappearing from the public. Look, if you think Donald Trump is too old for the job, I'm, I'm sure.

Sure. I totally agree. He's too old. He's too selfish. He's too much of a fucking dictator for the job. He's also the most accessible president we have ever had. He is on camera every fucking day. He's answering questions every day.

And like he seems vital. Yeah, nuts loses the thread all the ways in which he's terrible and shouldn't be in office. He should be impeached and removed immediately. I'm not in charge of this. But like to act as if there isn't a big difference between the way Donald Trump is aging and the way Joe Biden is aging is to once again deny what we can see with their own fucking eyes. Yeah. But to me that is like all beside the point. Even if you can argue that back and forth, whoever thinks, you know, Joe Biden was worse or Trump was worse, whatever.

But it's, again, the question is, to what end? To what end? He is a second term president. If Donald Trump was sitting here saying, I'm going on for more years and we were trying to figure out how to defeat Donald Trump. The two-one-ed answer is you try to drive down his negatism or you make it an issue that other Republicans need to speak to. And like suddenly they're vouching for him not being senile or older or whatever. I think we're a long way from here to there. Yeah.

And it's also like if you had a choice between what Republicans need to answer for, would you rather it be their cover enough for Donald Trump being too old or they're saying nothing about the fact that he's literally stealing from taxpayers out of their pocket and launched a war that shot up gas prices. Hand makeup or theft. Think you'd rather do that one. And if he really did. Why not both? Okay, well, you only have so many things that you can say out of your mouth. And if it was so clear, right, like if he was real, like, look, I agree he's in decline. there's not some magic words that Democrats can use to make something more.

They can make it more of an issue, but they can't make it the issue. If Donald Trump was having the kind of muttering debate that Joe Biden had, I guarantee it would be a big political issue and it wouldn't be because Chuck Schumer decided it was on some given day. That's a calm, sad, sick old man. Yeah, calm. Let's go to town. Let's go to town.

Get a man. Just figure out if you got the right words. I won. Okay. Congress. Good for you. Congress to our winner, John Lovett. That's our show for today.

Dan and I will be back with the new show on Friday. Pots of America is a Cricket Media production. Our show is produced by Austin Fisher, Saul Rubin, McKenna Roberts, and Ferris Safari, with Reed Jarlane, Elijah Cohn, and Adrian Hill. Our team includes Matt DeGroat, Ben Heathcote, Jordan Cantor, Charlotte Landis, Carol Palaviv, David Tolls, Mia Kelman, Ryan Young, and Naomi Sengel. Our staff is proudly unionized with the Writers Guild of America East.