Pod Save America - “This Season On Insurrection.” (Live from LA!)

Episode Date: June 10, 2022

What a Day host Tre'vell Anderson joins Jon, Jon, Tommy, and Dan live in Los Angeles! The bipartisan House select committee concluded its first primetime hearing into the January 6th attack on the U.S. Capitol, California election results make it clear that progressives have some work to do, National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan joins from the Summit of the Americas, and the hosts battle it out in a game called Rainbows vs. Boat Shoes. 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.

Thank you. What's up, L.A.? Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Jon Favreau. I'm Travelle Anderson. How y'all doing? I'm Jon Lovett. I'm Tommy Vitor. I'm Dan Pfeiffer. And joining us tonight is White House National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan. And the hilarious guy Branham is here to help us ring in Pride Month with a game that pits gays against straights in a battle for the ages.

So it's a real reason to stick around. All right, let's get to the news. So this show is starting just after the bipartisan House Select Committee concluded its first primetime hearing into the January 6th attack on the... People are going to wonder why I laughed in the middle of that. It's very hot, though. For those at home, Travelle has whipped out a fan that says legendary on it. I mean...

I love it. I love it. I mean... I love it. I love it. I'm glad you didn't tell us about it in advance. All right. So where were we? All right, the hearing. So the first primetime hearing into the January 6th attack on the U.S. Capitol that was, of course, the culmination

of Donald Trump's plot to overturn the 2020 election. In the first hour, Democratic Chairman Bennie Thompson and Republican Vice Chair Liz Cheney gave us their opening arguments and a roadmap of what we can expect out of the six hearings, which are the product of an investigation that has conducted over 1,000 depositions and gathered more than 140,000 documents. In the second hour, we heard from two witnesses, Nick Quested, a documentary filmmaker who was embedded with the right-wing

extremist Proud Boys on the day of the attack and the weeks leading up to it. And Caroline Edwards, the first Capitol Police officer injured during the attack. Here's some of what we heard during the hearing. Aware of the rioters' chance to hang Mike Pence, the president responded with this sentiment, quote, maybe our supporters have the right idea. Mike Pence, quote, maybe our supporters have the right idea. Mike Pence, quote, deserves it. Many of President Trump's White House staff also recognized that the evidence did not support the claims President Trump was making. This is the president's daughter commenting on Bill Barr's statement that the department found no fraud sufficient to overturn the election.

How did that affect your perspective about the election when Attorney General Barr made that statement? It affected my perspective. I respect Attorney General Barr. So I accepted what he was saying. They were peaceful people. These were great people. The crowd was unbelievable. And I mentioned the word love, the love, the love in the air. I've never seen anything like it. What I saw was just a war scene. It was something like I had seen out of the movies. I couldn't believe my eyes. There were officers on the ground. They were bleeding. They were throwing up. I saw friends with blood all over their faces. I was slipping in people's blood. It was carnage.

It was chaos. I can't even describe what I saw. Never in my wildest dreams did I think that as a police officer, as a law enforcement officer, I would find myself in the middle of a battle. All right. Let's start with everyone's general reactions from the first hearing. Travelle, what did you think? I mean, I think I was most struck by the footage from the quested individual who was embedded in with the proud boys and the cutting of it was masterful um because it kind of puts you in in the environment um i was someone who didn't really look at the videos like i saw it happen on twitter i was like oh the white people

are going crazy no thank you um and so watching it today was my first time seeing footage. And then this footage had not been publicly released before. And so I think that was just maddening and enraging. But I'm stuck on the fact that we've got, what, five more of these two-hour specials to come. And I don't know how I feel about that. Because they could have fast-tracked some of that you know mr benny didn't need to you know do his whole prologue long opening um but that's all right we're gonna let them work let them you know they've been investigating and stuff um but yeah i'm Love it. A couple points.

First of all, I think it's cool that Ivanka set her Zoom filter to Madonna on TikTok. Just two eyes and two nostrils and nothing else. Not the most important thing. So we all watched it together, and there was a little too much blah, blah, blah, and then you start seeing these clips. You see Bill Barr calling it bullshit. You see Mark Milley, the general,

basically saying that the vice president is trying to protect the Capitol, and then he's hearing from Mark Meadows that they need to make sure the president is trying to protect the Capitol, and then he's hearing from Mark Meadows that they need to make sure the president looks like he's in charge, even though, by all accounts, he's completely abdicated his responsibility. And so I guess I had two, there was two responses. One was watching them methodically build a case about Donald Trump's knowledge, his awareness in real time that the election wasn't stolen,

that they knew their claims were false as part of an effort to demonstrate Trump's criminality, not just about what happened on January 6th, but in the overall effort, the criminality and the overall effort to overturn the election. That's, to me, what I'm watching most closely. If they can demonstrate that Donald Trump was complicit in the attack on the Capitol, that's important. If that's true, we should know it. But just as important to me is making the case for what Trump did to overturn the election, even if no one had ever breached the Capitol. The second thing was we were watching this together, and then all of a sudden,

they go to this footage, they show this footage and they did this masterful thing of intercutting between the people on the floor and what was happening outside. And all of a sudden I found myself sitting there with Travelle and my boys and just being like, I'm going to

cry in this hotel room. I'm emotional. We were all a little misty. Am I really overcome right now? I'm just trying to hold it back. And it was it really did put you back in that day and you're just overcome

with fury and sadness about how close we came. You remember how lucky we are. There was one person who said something like bring her out here or we're going in referring to Pelosi and you realize that like man We were so close to something far more deadly. We are lucky a lot more pizza miracle that more people weren't killed It's a miracle that there weren't lawmakers ripped apart strung up by this mob and

Again I think some of the zoom angles were pretty appalling as well in these depositions. Tommy? Yeah, I mean, I too was overcome with contempt for Jared Kushner, who's that sniveling little shit said that he thought that the white house attorneys who threatened to resign because they didn't want to participate in a coup were whining so that was what jared's um helpful take was but you know i mean you know trevelle said you like you opted

out of watching the footage until today like i feel like i've watched it a million times and it still didn't matter to me i mean, no matter how many times you watch that footage or hear the audio of the police over the radios calling for help, it's really harrowing. I thought the information we learned about the coordination between extremist groups, that particular research and presentation, was really compelling.

The back of my brain anxiety is that we keep hearing from the voters we need to convince that they don't want to relitigate the past. They don't want Washington infighting. They want to focus on the future. And I just hope that we spent a lot of time on the syllabus tonight, you know, walking through what the class is going to learn. I hope that we really turn hard into how this hearing instead of hearings is about preventing this from ever happening again. I had a couple of different reactions.

My first one was, if you're going to be involved in a violent attempt to overthrow the government, don't invite a stranger to film you while you do it. Because it seems like a bad idea. It's a good note. Second, I very much agree with Tommy that the very important, like, I think they did

the right thing here. They have to establish what happened that day using this very, using the interview clips and the very graphic footage as a way to capture the nation's attention. That's the most important thing they can do here to be able to have this space to make the rest of the argument. But we are living, to really deal with the future, you have to tell the story about the wide ranging criminal conspiracy to overturn the election, of which what happened in the Capitol on that day was a symptom of it. And we and we are living in a world where a Republican candidate for governor in a state that if there you end up with a Republican, could literally overturn the election by sending an alternate state of electors. The Republican governor, candidate for governor, was arrested

in their home today by the FBI for participating in the insurrection. They got the nominee in Pennsylvania as somebody who participated in the insurrection. And he ran on the platform of giving Pennsylvania's electoral votes to Donald Trump no matter what. That was what he ran on. his electoral votes to Donald Trump no matter what. That was what he ran on. And so, and my third reaction to this whole thing was, I was, like, we talk about January 6th all the time. It is something that comes up on the podcast. We've talked about these hearings a long time. And I was, in watching the footage of the violence on that day, struck by just how angry I was about it. It's just like, it is so bad and so dangerous and so violent. And Donald Trump is so deeply fucking irresponsible. And every Republican, like three of them have decided

they're going to throw in with Donald Trump and all those people storming the Capitol. And this could very well happen again. And these are people, and whether it's Mitch McConnell or Kevin McCarthy or all the rest of them are, they've decided to let it happen because they think that's what is good for them in the short term. And that is just so deeply dangerous and irresponsible. I mean, they should be drummed out of public life. It is treasonous. I came into this somewhat cynical, you know, Tommy was talking about this,

but I had just been in Pittsburgh. I did a focus group of voters for the wilderness, and these were all people who vote for Democrats, but they're going to vote in this election, but they're sort of sick of politics. They're very disengaged. They don't pay attention to politics that much. I asked, like, what are issues that the media

and politics are too focused on? Two people on their own brought up the January 6th hearings, the January 6th investigation, and then I asked, like, what are issues that the media and politics are too focused on? Two people on their own brought up the January 6th hearings, the January 6th investigation. And then I said, oh, is anyone going to watch the hearings this week? And they're like, there are hearings this week? What are you talking about? Why? So, like, they didn't know anything about it. I'm like, well, this is going to be hard to make this matter to people.

And then I watched it. And like everyone else, I was sort of overcome with emotion. And then my next feeling was rage. And all I could think of is just like, fuck every Republican member of Congress who did not vote to impeach Donald Trump when they had the chance. And I got a text from a friend

who's also like had been in politics before. She's very dispirited about politics, like very down, you know. And she said, I just watched that and I want to spend the rest of my life trying to defeat Republicans after seeing that. So I do think like, I think it's, I think it is going to be very hard,

let's be honest about the challenge here, it's going to be very hard to reach people, it's going to be very hard to like change a lot of minds, but I think a lot of people who are wondering whether politics matters or whether they should be involved, when you see that, when you watch that footage, when you see how close we came, when you see how the threat to democracy is still ongoing,

you think to yourself, I better get involved, I better do something about this. Tommy, what, if anything, was new or surprising about what you heard tonight? I mean, I think Ivanka selling out her dad because of a quote from Bill Barr is both new and glorious. That's got to be up there. Let's just let's let's let ourselves have some fun. Let's enjoy that. Let's enjoy Jared's little whining thing. I mean, I do think I'm really I was really seized with the parts about the Proud Boys and the Oath Keepers. These really

is right wing, you know, white supremacists, extremist groups. When Trump told the Proud Boys to stand back and stand by at the debate, they said that tripled their recruiting. That is a remarkable fact, that he was a terrorist recruiter, a white nationalist recruiter in this country. And then to Dan's point, I mean, these Proud Boys let this documentarian embed with them and let him document a secret meeting between the head of the Oath Keepers and the head of the Proud Boys the day before the insurrection

where they were clearly coordinating this violent assault on the Capitol because Trump was giving his speech and these white nationalists all started marching before he was even done. And then they were the first ones to attack the barricade. So I did think there was really some fascinating research and new information when it came to the coordination and role that these groups played in fomenting violence and turning it from not just a protest where people were a little heated, but to something that was truly violent and scary and seditious. Anyone else on new surprising info?

Love it. Were you going to say something? Well, what I was going to say is I feel like in watching these hearings, I feel like there's sort of three goals for them. And one of them is the one that I think is the most kind of, I don't know, requires some optimism verging on

naive thinking to think about. I could say that in a smarter way. I'm going to take it again. There are three things, there are three goals. Shut up, if you laugh, the edit is fucked. All about the edit. Look, there's a lot of people here. So many more people will hear it at home. So I can seem dumb for you as long as I seem slightly less dumb. Welcome to our world. Yeah, welcome. Now we can leave it in.

It's all fine. But no, but I feel like there's three goals out of these hearings. One, I think, is making this political argument about the importance of defending our democracy. Two is around reforms that we need to protect our democracy. And I think it is far more important to think about the efforts to overturn the election that were happening long before January 6th. Right. That like we know that they're going to secure the cap.

Like we will. I can only hope that there will be far more efforts to protect the Capitol in the future. But the third piece, which is the part I think we're all a little bit reluctant to think about or talk about, is the criminal case being made right now against the people that were involved, including Donald Trump. And what was striking in this hearing, to your point about what's new, is how much evidence they laid out about Donald Trump knowing in real time that their claims about election fraud are bullshit. That's the beginning of an argument about his criminal responsibility. And what I hope to see in the coming weeks, wherever they go, is I want to hear less words about, I want to hear less about tearing our democracy asunder, sedition, coup. I want to

hear words about like laws, you know, the federal laws, codes, rules, specific laws that were broken by these people, fraud committed by these people. Because I do think like, I know we're all burned and I know we're all kind of used to a world in which Donald Trump gets away with everything short of murder. But if they can lay out a case against him, it is a decision that someone will have to make as to whether or not to indict Donald Trump. And I think when we assume that that won't happen, I think we help make it true. Well, how do you think Cheney and Thompson did? Because I do think Cheney sort of laid out, Cheney said a couple times tonight what Donald Trump did was criminal.

Like she just said it. She sort of went right for the jugular. Benny Thompson kind of gave like a preamble opening statement. She just started like, here's what I'm laying out. Here's what he did. He knew the lie was a lie. Here's why. They had the Trump attorney, the attorney for the campaign being like, yeah, we told him we looked into all the possible voter fraud out there and there was nothing there. Bill Barr said the same thing. Like they started proving the case, which I thought was pretty good. Do you think Cheney, how do you think they did? Yeah, I think that's great. I think the next piece is, all right, now we know. He knew these claims were bullshit.

Now we need to lay out Donald Trump's culpability in the actual plan to overturn the election. What were his conversations like with Giuliani, with Eastman? What was his conversation like when he was calling down to Georgia to try to get this thing overturned? Like what are the specific steps and actions

Donald Trump personally was responsible for in trying to overturn the election? And then also, how does that connect with the threats of violence on January 6th, right? Like, the efforts to intimidate Mike Pence. Like, what was the outside game to, like, try to use the pressure from the people outside, the threat of violence as part of this campaign

to overturn the election? I think she did a good job, like, laying out sort of, like, what we'll find out in each hearing that's coming up. She did scenes at the end of the season premiere of this season on insurrection. She was like, in episode four, we'll learn this. It was pretty good. Travelle, how compelling did you find the two witnesses,

Nick Quested and Caroline Edwards, and why do you think the committee made the decision to launch the hearings in this first primetime hearing by focusing so much on the Proud Boys and the Oath Keepers? Well, I think they think that the broader American public is most interested in that aspect, right? Is most interested in the violence that happened at the insurrection and less perhaps interested in the specific things that Donald Trump knew or didn't know. They forecasted it. But I think they wanted to, I mean, they're doing six two-hour specials.

They want to pull you in at the beginning. That's right. And the way to do that is this footage that you have not seen from this dude who embedded himself and his team with the Proud Boys. And so I think that it's more his footage than he himself that was particularly compelling.

He didn't really say much. He complained about not being able to find a hotel. He did. It was like a weird place to go and also a weird thing to include. He's like, let me tell you about the real tragedy on January 6th. It was like a weird place to go and also a weird thing to include. He's like, let me tell you about the real tragedy on January 6th. That was his priority. I didn't get a Kempton. Benny Thompson's like, not even a Kempton?

And it wasn't a nice Kempton either. You know how Kemptons are. I mean, it's a real range. Here's the thing. It used to be you could count on a Kempton. You used to count on a Kempton. But now they've expanded. They put the Kempton shampoo in there and they're like, oh, it's a Kempton. They'll put a Kempton name on anything these days. You used to count on a Kimpton. But now they've expanded. Now they put the Kimpton shampoo in there and they're like, oh, it's a Kimpton. They'll put a Kimpton name on anything these days. They dump. And it was very compelling.

Thanks to our sponsor, Kimpton. But I do think a key part of their case is that the violence that we saw at the Capitol was not sporadic. Because I think that there's probably some American people that think that. It's just it could be a riot. The right has been pushing that for a while. And by focusing on the Proud Boys and the Oath Keepers, and obviously some Proud Boys have been charged with seditious conspiracy by the Department of Justice, they can say, look, the attack itself

was not just sporadic violence. It was a coordinated attack on the Capitol. So Republicans have been sort of split on how to respond to these hearings. They've been kind of all over the place. So Republicans have been sort of split on how to respond to these hearings. They've been kind of all over the place. Obviously, Trump and the House Republicans want to hit back hard. We've already seen some of that from the House Republicans. Senate Republicans are trying to just avoid talking about it altogether. They want to pretend it doesn't exist.

Fox News is the only primetime network that just chose not to cover the hearing at all tonight. In fact,ucker did his show without any commercial breaks um so that no one could change the channel but see that's also that's a that's turning a bug into a feature because they've all he's lost so many sponsors right so it's like they like actually have a lot like mostly it's just promo for fox business so they don't dan dan what do you make of the republican the various republican responses? I want to hit on the Fox News thing for one second. Sure, please. Because this is almost a moment of journalistic ethics from Fox because they have a massive conflict of interest here.

Like, I mean, in all seriousness, I mean, they are – January 6th does not happen without Fox News, right? They spread the big lie. I mean, so much so that they got sued that they had to stop talking about the Dominion thing. And then their hosts are in the evidence right though the text between mark matt knows between laura ingram who very famously said this looks bad for us right right sean hannity sean hannity's in there and so they like well how would they cover that right um but i think in terms of their broader strategy you know there was a story that sort of previewed

how the right wing was responsible for the Trumpist wing of the party and they had they were going to do two things the first was they were going to quote-unquote fire up their channels that's what they what Trump instructed the right wing to do and that is getting Tucker Carlson to put on this conspiracy theorist it is why Blake, who was Trump's chosen candidate in the Arizona Senate race, was caught on tape the other day saying that the FBI was involved in this. He said a third of the people outside of the Capitol were FBI agents. And which ties into, I think the best way to understand all Republican right-wing communication strategy is something Steve Bannon said about impeachment, which is their plan is we're going to flood the zone with shit. Our enemy is not the Democrats, it's the

media. They're going to throw as much stuff out there as they possibly can in the hopes that they will convince people to, they'll just confuse people. And the people in the hard part for us is the people we most need to reach are not the people who are watching this on MSNBC. They're not the people who are not watching it on Fox. It's the people who don't consume that much media. And they're just kind of hearing about these hearings that they're seeing on social media or they're hearing conversations about it.

And they're the people most naturally skeptical of politicians, the political process, and the press. And so that's what they're going to try to do. And I think it's going to be hard given how good the presentation has been to date, but they are going to try to do. And I think it's going to be hard given how good the presentation has been to date. But they are going to try to flood the zone with as much shit as possible no matter how stupid and fake that shit is. And at every other juncture since the day Trump walked down that escalator at Trump Tower, they have succeeded in that strategy. You know, we can't forget that in Trump's impeachment, they did this exact same strategy.

And over the course of the impeachment hearings, Trump's approval rating went up and support for impeachment went down. Yeah. And look, and you've made this point, Dan, but I think all of us have agency here, right? Like we all have the power to amplify this and all of the, like to tweet it, to post it,

to talk to friends about it. Like there's a lot of on the democratic side you know rightly where we've been talking about this like worrying that this isn't going to make a difference wondering how it's going to make a difference well we can make it make a difference by talking about it a lot like they do that's that's what's what they do on the right they amplify the shit all the time yeah i really would like to have fewer people uh talk about how they don't think something's going to matter it is so um uh it is such a waste of like self-fulfilling oh it's just like no one's going

to care about this well it's like sure if that's your attitude that guarantees it right there yeah i think john just you make a really important point because the re the right thinks about how they communicate with their audience so much differently than the left generally does, which is Tucker Carlson is having that person on his show, not just because he wants the four million people who are watching Tucker Carlson to know that fake conspiracy theory. He knows that those people are going to go out and share that conspiracy theory. And Democrats have to think that way. And I saw some, I don't know what the committee actually did, but I saw some people complaining to me on Twitter that they weren't putting clips out for people to share. Like, there should be, hopefully, and maybe it'll be tomorrow,

but some of, like, a short version of some of the clips or, like, the Bill Barr clip or any of those things that people, that all of us could share in posts on our channels and share with people who Did not get a chance to watch the hearing. That's right All right. We will be back in a bit with some more news We'd like to give a big shout out to everyone here in our live audience who missed the January 6th hearings, ventured out during the Summit of the Americas, and most grueling of all, braved parking downtown.

Calm down. To join us tonight as a thank you, we've got a very special California edition of OK Stop. You all know how this works. We're going to play a video. I'm going to stop the video. Everyone is going to shit talk this video, which features Jesse Waters

making water, water, waters, waters. What kind of A is it? I forget. It's waters. Waters. Waters. Waters. Watters? Watters? Watters World. kind of a is it i forget it's waters waters waters waters waters waters waters making this features this is a video that features jesse waters making what he even acknowledges is a terrible analogy which is like hunter biden saying he's got a terrible business idea

uh not ready yet we're just not gonna going to do it? That's fine. Let's roll the clip. I'm looking at California tonight because, my God, they have suffered such a brain drain over the last couple decades. Wealth has been walking away. Okay, stop. I would say that Jesse

Waters knows what it's like to live without having nearly enough brains. I don't think he's bright you know yeah these have been tough times for california what have we lost joe rogan and ben shapiro that's funny all right let's keep going that recall didn't stick and and this summer you're probably going to see brownouts, blackouts, $10 gas. You can only water your lawn every Tuesday. You can't even use, like, a gas grill or oven or something like that.

So they're far gone. Okay, stop. He kind of got us there. He did leave out all the wildfires. Yeah, yeah. Excuse me. We're also dealing with a lot of coyotes. So don't sleep on the coyotes.

Sometimes they'll eat the grass. Nobody tell them about June Gloom. Is that gas grill thing real? I'm not sure. We'll find out. I'm being influenced by misinformation. Megan Hamburger. What are they called? Reach codes?

What's that? What is it? Oh, okay. That seems good. I saw there was some misinformation out there about how this was going to be the end of Korean barbecue, which is why I voted for Rick Caruso. I didn't. I didn't. I don't think he would.

He doesn't have a plan on Korean barbecue, but push comes to shove. If there's one of them that would keep it, I figured it would be him, but I didn't do that. I'm joking. Because it turns out that wasn't true because the Korean barbecue can stay.

I confirm that. Oh, my God. Please roll it. Keep going. It's such a beautiful state with such sublime coastline. Permission to make a terrible analogy. And hold my hand. California is like a hot girl who's very, very dumb and very, very...

Okay, stop. It's just... Holding her hand makes it so much worse. Hey, but she's doing it. She's allowing. She's like, yeah. Why does she do that? Dana Perino.

She wants to kill him. Dana Perino, look at your life. Look at your choices. Look at what you've become. You have become a human shield in front of a man who has never had a platonic friendship with a woman. Go back to the good old days when you were selling us into the Iraq war. Yeah, you, come on, you took this country to war. Also, look at Tulsi Gabbard hanging out on stage there.

Yeah. Not saying anything. You know, I have some sort of a joke about, I can't stop myself. The point is it's for money. What? I was going to say, fun fact about Jesse Waters. What?

He admitted the other day that he let the air out of his now wife's tires when he was trying to get her to date him. That's right. That's not a joke. That's a true thing that he did. Well, she also worked. She worked at Fox News.

Intern? She worked for him, I believe. And he was like, oh, I let the air out of her tires so I had to give her a ride home. And he said, but it's okay because we're married now. People say romance is dead. Some psycho shit.

You straight people are weird. I just... You can't just hold a woman's hand and then say something misogynist. Right? Like, doesn't, what is, what is, what does Jesse Waters think holding Dana Perino's hand is doing? I don't know. Is that the end of the clip?

Yes. Let me explain. You stay with her because she's very beautiful, but she's also going to bankrupt you or probably get you hurt. And that's where Californians are right now. Yeah, somebody's going to get hurt, buddy. Let me explain. I'm horrible. It was a bad analogy. He was right about that. Yeah, it's a bad analogy. We don't like it. That was correct.

He spent his one fleeting moment of self-awareness on that. It's also funny to be like, California, ugh. It's like, people at some point in the clip clip he's like, everyone's always moving there. It's a big state with lots of people who are there. That restaurant's terrible, you can never get in. We should build a lot more houses, though. Yeah, well, we're about to talk about that now.

And that's OK Stop. We're about to talk about that now. And that's okay. Stop. Speaking of California, Tuesday was Election Day here in California. But the early results make it clear that even in the biggest, bluest cities in the country's biggest, bluest state, progressives have some work to do. So in San Francisco, just a couple of months after overwhelming majorities voted to recall three progressive school board members, 60% of voters chose to recall progressive prosecutor Chesa Bodine, who had put in place reforms like eliminating cash bail and reducing the

number of people sent to prison. And here in Los Angeles, the top two finishers in an extremely low turnout Democratic primary for mayor that was dominated by issues of crime and homelessness. Our ex-Republican billionaire Rick Caruso, who has 42% of the vote. Yeah, I know. 42% of the vote with more, it's about 60% of the vote counted at this point.

And Democratic Congresswoman Karen Bass, who has 30%. There we go. So now is the part of the show where one by one, we're going to see who here voted Caruso. I know you're in here. Somebody definitely did. So the two candidates now will face each other in a runoff this November,

a midterm election where control of the U.S. House could also come down to California once again, specifically Southern California. Cook Political Report rates three House races as lean Democratic, one as lean Republican, and three as pure toss-ups right here in California. So a lot of attention on the mayor's race, but we got some big House races here that we should pay attention to. But let's start with the recall of Chesa Boudin. So there's an argument that his defeat was the result of unique circumstances in this one race with this one candidate.

And there's an argument that it's indicative of a broader backlash against progressive criminal justice reformers. Tommy, former San Francisco resident, what do you think? Thanks. So, like, clearly concern about crime has increased across the country. I'm not arguing against that. I do think, though, that there is an argument that Chesa Boudin and the situation in San Francisco could be specific to him, specific to his race, versus, like, the canary in the coal mine that is going to take out all these progressive DAs. I left San Francisco in 2017, but even then, people were really concerned

about just sort of the open-air drug use. People were overdosing all the time. It was a really concerning thing in downtown San Francisco. San Francisco residents felt like crime was increasing and out of control, and whether or not statistically that was true, um san francisco residents felt like you know crime was increasing and out of control and whether or not statistically that was true they also felt like chase abudin in his office were not really speaking to their concerns and then i think the thing that hurt him the most in this

race was one specific case was a guy named troy mcallister who i might butcher some of these details but i think this guy had like eight felony convictions and then was still, was arrested again, was allowed to negotiate a plea, was released on bail, was arrested five more times, not charged, and then stole a car on New Year's Eve, hit two women going 60 miles an hour downtown in San Francisco and killed them both. And that, for understandable reasons, is like an absolutely devastating argument against this prosecutor. And, you know, there were a bunch of prosecutors who Chesa fired early on, others who resigned, who said that he had gone beyond just like a very admirable goal of reducing mass incarceration and was instead, you know, not prosecuting violent criminals. And I'm not here to like litigate what was or wasn't happening. I think that when you're a DA,

you get blamed for things that judges do, that cops don't do when they fail to arrest people or when they fail to close cases. But I do think the point is like the night that Chase Abudin lost the recall, progressive da's in nearby counties and in oakland won their races and larry krasner was recently re-elected in philadelphia another progressive da so my point is just like tbd if this is a signal that there is this broader trend happening and that progressive da's are in big trouble electorally but i also understand why people who woke up the other morning and read the New York Times,

and it took the Chase Laboudin race in San Francisco, and then Caruso taking first place in the primary here after outspending Karen Bass 10 to 1, and felt like this is not really a trend story as much as sandwiching two examples together and deciding that progressives are in big trouble, right? I mean, I think time will tell is really the answer. Dan, current Bay Area resident,

what's your take on what these results can and can't tell us? This is one of those situations that Twitter was not built for, which is nuance. I think it is definitely true that crime has gone up in some places in this country. It is true that concern about crime has gone up everywhere. Chesa Boudin lost. There are a lot of very specific reasons for that. Concern about crime in San Francisco is one of them. But Tommy makes this really important point, which is the idea that this is the end of progressive criminal justice reform

oriented prosecutors does not live up to the facts right here. Because as Tommy points out, in Alameda County, which is right across the bay from San Francisco, which has Oakland, whose murder rate is four times higher than San Francisco's this past year, Pamela Price is leading that primary. She's a civil rights attorney. She was running against a tough on crime, someone running on a tough-on-crime platform in Contra Costa County, which is next door to Alameda County. Amanda Becton, who is the district attorney

and who ran originally on a progressive criminal justice reform platform, she won her primary. She got over 50% and has been reelected. And so I'm not saying this to dismiss the importance of crime, both as a substantive issue and a political issue. It varies. so I'm not saying this to dismiss the importance of crime, both as a substantive issue and a political issue, it varies. But I think we're trying to connect two things, which is because people are concerned about crime, that means that all of these

progressive DAs are done and that we're just going to go back from the, like we're somehow going to turn the clock back to like tough on crime 90s bullshit. I don't think that is necessary or accurate. I don't think the election results say that well let's talk about what happened here in la uh trevell what are some of the reasons you think a city that in the 2020 primary voted for bernie sanders over joe biden uh just voted for an ex-republican billionaire over a black democratic congresswoman who's been a social justice activist for most of her life? Such a heavy question there. Well, first and foremost, I think that even though we live in this alleged liberal enclave, that our culture and our society hates black women. And I think that contributes to,

that's like some of the unspoken stuff that we don't talk about when it comes to like politics. And I think that has something to play with it here. But also, Rick Caruso ads was all over the place. Everywhere. Like everywhere. If I wasn't involved in What a day and whatnot i would have thought he was the only one running and i know who karen bass is right like he has ads you know

on youtube videos he has at like literally everywhere um and i think because he's able to um you know a lot of folks don't do the research that you all are so, you know, in depth in doing about him being an ex-Republican, about his record as relates to, you know, the right to choose. He's saying and exploiting people's fears, as you mentioned about um crime about homelessness um in our city um and that sounds good to people and then also you got you know kim kardashian endorsing him right and katie perry and snoop dogg for some odd reason um and i think all and so i should say also those were the only endorsements that i saw a lot of people endorsed, a lot of celebrities also endorsed Karen Bass. But the only one I saw was Ariana Grande, and she did that the day before.

Right? And so I think that all of that together creates kind of this uphill battle for Karen Bass. And, you know, homie got all this money, and he's spending it. And if you can't get in front of the people or in front of his ads, it's unfortunately fighting a losing game. And then I also think the people are tired. I don't think the reason why there's lower voter turnout is because people are tired. Every election that we have had since I've been voting has been the election of our lives. Okay? We've been battling for the soul

of our nation since 2008, y'all. Okay? And people tired. I'm tired. Okay? Also, you know, there were too many people on that goddamn ballot. And so you check the box of the person whose name

you heard before because there's 12 people 12 motherfuckers like what's going on a lot of people well that love it that brings up like okay let's talk about the runoff in november because now you know karen bass's name id is going to be much higher rick chris everyone knows there's two candidates how does karen Bass win this thing in November? Like, what is the best message about Caruso? What's the best message about herself? What do you think? Yeah, I think, like, stepping back, right,

I think it's absolutely true that Caruso blanketing the airways with ads mattered, but I think we also have to admit that, like, there was a soft target there. When I think about a city that voted for Bernie, then in a primary giving more than 40% to someone like Caruso, when I think of a city electing and then rejecting someone like Chesa Boudin, what I see is people who want progressive leadership. They do. They want it. They want progressive leadership. They want to believe in their progressive leaders. They want to believe in their capacity to address homelessness, address what people view as rising crime in a humane, progressive way that respects the humanity of the people that are desperately in need, that are in crisis.

But if there is a concern that those progressives aren't listening, then I think there's a lot of people, when faced with the choice between sticking with a progressive who they don't think is answering their concerns on the instability they see in their community, sitting at their dining room table in their voting booth, they make a less progressive decision. I think we just should be honest about that. And when we talked to Karen Bass on Ponce of America, I think she understands that, right? I think she has faced a lot of criticism for the left for kind of speaking to some of the concerns that Rick Caruso is trying to make a headway on. So I think we have to make sure people are listening and open to a progressive answer, but that means meeting people where they are. I see a lot of pundits who do kind of normative politics

instead of descriptive politics. They say, oh, the media is hyping crime. The crime concern is overblown. Oh, the media is conflating increases in homelessness and increases in the unhoused with crime, even though you can't necessarily see in the statistics that crime is rising.

But like, let's be descriptive. People are making that connection. You have to answer people who are making that connection, that when people see rising homelessness, they are, they see it as a fundamental failure, right? A failure of government, a failure of policing, a failure of our society, a failure of our economy, and we need to make sure that we're speaking to that concern so that people keep listening to us when we offer a progressive answer. I think that's why Karambas has faced some criticism from the left, but I think as long as we can say, hey, this guy, Rick Caruso, he thinks he wants you to shut off your brain. He wants you to say he can fix it. Well, guess what? LA has a weak fucking mayor, and oh, you don't know what the board of supervisors does.

And you don't know how all this is going to work together. And actually, you need somebody with experience and the ability to bring people together and sit down and talk about this as a hard problem. No, you can't just say in 300 days, you're going to solve this problem with magic. You have to build more housing. You have to get stakeholders together. There's a lot of hard, difficult, complicated work that has to be done with a community all together, not one billionaire who built the grove

and is looking for a hobby the grove is nice though and the grove is great we love the grove I disagree with this message of defunding the grove I don't support defunding the grove there's no listen, I'll get a Wetzel's pretzels and go shopping

Rick Caruso isn't wrong about the grove being great but the one last thing I'll get a Wetzel's pretzels and go shopping. I don't, that's not, Rick Caruso isn't wrong about the Grove being great. But the one last thing I'll say about all these celebrities, which is something that has bothered me for a very long time, I think because the Republican Party is so toxic and heinous and anti-gay and anti-trans and anti-woman, that there's a lot of homeless cosmopolitan conservatives. And it is remarkable how quickly so many people

who have donated to Democrats and claim to be Democrats just jumped right on board with an ex-Republican billionaire who basically says, like, I'll take care of it for you. You know, like a little kind of cause, just a twinge of like cosmopolitan authoritarianism. Just a little bit, a little bit, a little bit. That's all. I do think like that is the sort of the message about Caruso that seems to me the most effective here. Because, look, how many times have we criticized Terry McAuliffe for running a race against Glenn Youngkin, calling him, you know, Glenn Trumpkin and making him Trump? Like, I've seen a lot of people call. I think it's going to be very hard to sell Rick Caruso as Donald Trump, as some fascist. I think it is easier and probably more effective to sell Rick Caruso as a really fucking rich guy who was bored and wants a job that he actually can't do

really well. And like when you talk, because like that's the, you gotta, when you run against someone, you gotta think like what is true? What is true about this person? And what is true about Rick Caruso is clearly that he's a rich fucking bored guy, right? Like he's talking about like his qualifications to run for mayor and he's like, oh, guy, right? Like he's talking about like his qualifications to run for mayor and he's like, oh, I did the police commission and blah, blah, crime went down. He like missed half the meetings on the police commission.

He barely showed up. Like this is not a guy who has spent a lot of time thinking about how to fix LA. And like Karen Bass has to actually make that case. And the more that we exaggerate the threat of Rick Caruso, the less people are going to believe us. Yeah, and I think when you say, oh, Rick Caruso is...

There's a lot of stuff Rick Caruso is saying he can do that he simply can't do. It's just not within his power to do it. It is a weak mayorship. There's judicial rulings that make a lot of what he wants to do very, very difficult. He is over-promising and he will under-deliver. You need someone who actually understands how the government works, especially

in Los Angeles when we have a weak mayor. I think we should have a stronger mayor. I don't like this board of supervisors running amok just putting Barbara Ferrer in charge of this whole fucking city. It's out there. It's out there. My coalition is growing. Dan, I just want to ask just on the broader issue of

the concerns out there about crime and homelessness and gun violence now also. How do you think Democratic candidates should be running on these issues, talking about these issues in their races all across the country? that are sort of like specific to some of these city races, or are these issues that Democrats are going to find themselves talking about in all of these competitive races across the country? Crime is a very complex issue because there are people who are experiencing this increase in crime in very real ways, and a lot of them are Democrats. They live in cities that are primarily Democrat,

and so that is affecting them. But we also have to understand that this is not a debate that's happening on the level. Crime is a proxy for race in Republican messaging. Because there is very little evidence in polling about a relationship between the crime rate where you live and your concern about crime, right? This is what the Willie Horton ad was about. This is what calling immigrants, calling undocumented people rapists from Donald Trump. All of that is about scaring a mainly white Republican base into turning out. And so when you take that issue on, if you treat what the Republicans say on the level, you're playing their game.

And so I think you have to do it in a couple of ways. And one is you have to, like as Lovett said, you have to meet people where they are, but you don't have to immediately become Republican light or say we're tough on crime or just shout, fund the police at the top of your lungs. I think you have to hit the Republicans for exploiting an issue,

for trying to exploit the people's fears on this issue to keep America divided, and then not being willing to do anything about one of the biggest parts of crime, which is guns. And so you take it in that direction because if you just like, we are never, there has never been a Democrat in history or who has been able to out, out tough on crime or Republican because of what the issue really means to a lot of people. And so we got to find a way to take the issue and pivot it to where we're stronger. And of course, um, we don't want

to leave all the work to democratic candidates because because then where would we be? Plenty of work for all of us to do between now and November. As I mentioned earlier, control of the House could come down to a handful of seats here in Southern California. We also need to protect Senate seats in nearby Arizona and Nevada. If you're wondering how you can help your friends at Vote Save America have you covered, just go to votesaveamerica.com slash midterms to sign up we will connect you with opportunities to get involved in big races across the country

or right here where you live so please go to votesaveamerica.com slash midterms today hold on a second how many people just applauded that haven't signed up applaud if you haven't what are you doing? Yes, I hope other people help.

It's also true that voting is absolutely necessary, but it's not enough. We can't wait until November to organize, speak out, hold our elected officials accountable on the issues that we care about. One group that's doing that on gun violence all across the country right now is March for Our Lives. And we are very lucky to be joined tonight by two of the lead organizers for this Saturday's March for Our Lives rally here in Los Angeles. Please welcome Shadi Amazadeh and Anna Pham. Hello, everybody. We're the Los Angeles organizers for the March for Our Lives March this Saturday.

Thank you for having us on your pod to talk about the upcoming March for Our Lives in D.C., L.A., and across the country. This Saturday, we are marching again because our lives are being cut short and our elected officials are failing us because they are choosing the gun lobby over saving our lives. It is completely outrageous and demoralizing that in this age and time, we have yet to pass common sense solutions to the gun violence epidemic in our legislature. This responsibility falls solely on the shoulders of our legislatures. Since our last march, we've been burying our peers, our siblings, our parents, our neighbors, and our community members. We battled this epidemic with strongly worded, meaningless statements, thoughts, and prayers. I'm a 15-year-old high school student, and just last week I was studying for my permit test where we were taught that the leading cause of deaths in children were car accidents but since 2020

it's been mass shootings there were over 50,000 gun death related issues in 2020 this year alone there has been over 200 mass shootings this year alone that's more than the days that we've been having this year. 200, we have had less days than that. To live another day, we do not have any choices. This is why we march. This march is not about celebrity concerts or TV productions. It's about rage, a fight for our lives. When we march, we demand action, actual, tangible legislatures led by students and teachers

who are somehow experts on how to barricade a door or how to make a makeshift tourniquet. Our simple message is legislatures must have the courage to stand up against the powerful gun lobby and protect the people that they were elected to serve. Our demands are simple. Raise the gun possession age to 21 years old. Ban assault rifles and high-capacity magazines, invest in care-based school threat prevention systems by investing in social workers and school psychologists.

These policies are based in fact, they are based in common sense, and they are popular. The voters of tomorrow have been living in haunted fear for will they leave school in a casket or on a bus? in a casket or on a bus. The voters of tomorrow will put in gun-sentenced candidates into office who will listen to our demands and fight for our lives. We are marching again because we know that our lawmakers will listen.

After the first March of Our Lives in 2018, following the tragedy in Parkland, over 150 life-saving laws were passed across the country. So we ask you to join us this Saturday, June 11th, at Los Angeles, D.C., New York, Boston, and 400 cities across this great nation. To find a march near you, text MARCH to 954-954. And for all of you in the crowd or listening in at home here in LA, we urge you to come march with us this Saturday at City Hall South Lawn at 12 to 3 p.m. and wear blue to show your support. For more information and details, check out our Instagram

and Twitter at MFOLLA22. Thank you and we'll see you there. Thank you, Anna. Thank you, Shadi. When we come back, Tommy talks to White House National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan. I am thrilled to invite to the stage Joe Biden's National Security Advisor and my friend, Jake Sullivan. Buddy, great to see you. You got your mic? Welcome to Los Angeles.

Thanks for having me. And I apologize in advance, I guess not in advance, because it's been going on a couple of days, for the traffic. I'm sorry about that uh i'm glad you owned up to that early jake um so you're in town look uh jake's a national security advisor i was the guy under the guy under the guy who would have worked for him like seven levels deep so they're you're in town for the summit of the americas um summits are near and dear to my heart. You get to see convention centers. You get a new lanyard. You get branded pens. This summit in particular brings together the hemisphere.

So like Canada to Argentina, right? Basically. Two questions about the summit for you. And this first one will sound like a softball, but if you get it wrong, these people will storm the stage and take you out. What is like the elevator pitch for all the LA residents in the audience tonight

for why you guys are snarling up all of downtown, this ungodly traffic? What is the benefit to them to America? That's a softball? Yes. So first, I have to say, Tommy, I was reflecting backstage before coming out.

I believe that I was a guest on your very first episode of pod. Save the world. Oh my God. Yeah, that's true. I was watching this unfold tonight and I feel like I'm personally responsible for all of it. I think that's right.

Yeah. You're a seed investor. Yeah, exactly. So you're right about the lanyards, the dinners, the pins, the mags that you got, you know, the metal detectors you have to walk through, all the things that you see, and the set piece events that all of these summits basically have as cookie cutters, whether you're in Asia or Europe or the Americas. But I will say that behind the scenes, and I mean this sincerely,

real work is actually getting done. President Biden today, just as an example, met with the Prime Minister of Canada, the President of Brazil, the President of Chile, and the 14 leaders of the Caribbean nations. And kind of to put it simply, they nerded out. With the prime minister of Canada, it was about critical mineral supply chains so that we don't have to rely on China to make electric vehicle batteries. I like that. The president of Brazil, it was how can the United States put real skin in the game, billions of dollars, to help countries like Brazil preserve the Amazon so that it remains a carbon sink for the world. With the president of Chile, it was about how the energy crisis

that is partly sparked by a war 10,000 miles away in Ukraine is hurting working people on the southern tip of South America and how that is a common challenge we all face and what we can do about it. And then with the 14 countries of the Caribbean, it was an extended conversation about how these countries uniquely are facing a challenge coming out of COVID-19 because they import nearly all their food and they import all their fuel. And I don't have to tell all of you that food and fuel prices are up everywhere and it's hitting these countries hard. And they wanted to know not what's the United States going to do for us, but what is a common action plan we can have so that everyone in the Americas does better. And, you know, that's just a sample of the kinds of conversations that are occurring,

and we will tomorrow be able to tally up true action items on each of these areas, on health, climate, food, economic growth, and a historic migration crisis facing our region that is not just affecting the United States, but every country in this region. So maybe that was a long elevator ride, but we are staying in a really tall hotel town. So I guess. Does that work for you guys? You're going to storm the stage? I think I like it. So these summits, when you're bringing together a hemisphere, there's going to be countries you agree with, you disagree with.

President Biden decided not to invite the governments of Cuba, Venezuela, and Nicaragua to the summit. That led the president of Mexico to boycott, to send his foreign minister instead, and accuse the United States of interventionism. And really, it drums, this really terrible history that the United States has of well before president Biden's time, but of intervention in Latin America countries. And I guess my question is just, can you help me understand why

it's not preferable just to say, to invite, you know, president Maduro of Venezuela or to invite President Maduro of Venezuela or to invite the Cubans and tell them to their faces where we disagree, rather than disinvite them and deal with this creating this sort of inter-OAS controversy that, at least so far in the coverage, kind of distracts from the substance of the work you just kind of laid out for us. Sure. And look, there's a diversity of opinions across the hemisphere on this question. Some countries wanted us to invite those leaders, some countries did not. And there's a diversity of opinions within our country on it. And actually, that's a great thing about democracy is we can have that. And actually today, in the plenary session, the president of Argentina, the president of Belize got up

and said, with President Biden sitting there, we disagree with your decision. You know, we don't think that's right. President Biden told them later, you know, that's what makes democracy such a powerful thing, is we can have disagreements, we can debate these points out, and none of us are going to end up in jail. And the challenge that we faced on the question of Cuba in particular, Venezuela is a different case because there's actually a divide in the hemisphere over who is recognized as the legitimate government of Venezuela. some substantive steps to try to ease the burden on the people of Cuba, to increase the ability of family members in the United States to send remittances to Cuba, to allow people to fly not just to Havana but to other cities, and to establish a situation in which we would provide 20,000 visas at our embassy in Havana for Cubans to be able to come to the United States,

restarting a program that was suspended under the previous president. But the Summit of the Americas, going all the way back to 2001, when the Inter-American Democratic Charter was adopted by the whole region, has always been about setting out a vision of the hemisphere as democratic, as a set of democratic countries. And actually, the Americas are remarkably democratic. There are very few outliers. But those countries are outliers. And the president ultimately concluded that it did not make sense

to bring countries who fundamentally didn't agree with the basic vision and agenda of the summit. Other countries felt differently. And Mexico was one of those. The president of Mexico obviously didn't come, but he did send his foreign minister, and Mexico was signing on the dotted line on a declaration on migration and protection that will be a far-reaching hemispheric effort to deal with this crisis, on an effort by the major food producers of this hemisphere, and we have some of the biggest food producers in the world, to increase the food supply so that we can bring prices down everywhere,

especially for those countries facing hunger. And finally, President Lopez Obrador, every time he talked about it, and this gets to your point about the history, he always said, every day he goes out and does a press conference, he says, I disagree with President Biden, but I respect President Biden. And I respect President Biden because President Biden views the countries of this region as equals, as sovereign, as partners. And President López Obrador will be coming to Washington to meet with President Biden in July to carry the work forward. So yes, we have a disagreement on the particular question of participation, but actually we have a great shared agenda with Mexico. President Biden and President Lopez Obrador have a very strong relationship, and I think that will be on display when he comes to Washington in a few weeks' time.

Okay. I imagine that one of the big topics in all these meetings is the ongoing war in Ukraine. And I'll be honest, like for me personally, when the war started and, you know, you feel so helpless when you're outside of government having, you know, not that I was, could have done anything about it when I was in government, but, you know, I was watching this unfold. And I, even during the pandemic, like I've never felt more anxious. I've never felt like we as a planet were closer to potential nuclear annihilation. And I think President Biden and the national security team deserves an enormous amount of credit for the way the United States has responded, for the way President Biden has rallied the world in support of Ukraine. But I was hoping, you know, you could just kind of take us back to those early days in late February,

maybe earlier for you. You're the National Security Advisor. You see all the most sensitive intelligence that the United States collects. There must have been some point where you were sitting in a meeting, you had this aha moment, like Vladimir Putin is going to not just invade the Donbass, the eastern part of Ukraine, but try to take over the entire country. And you're the guy in the room, chairing the meeting about the potential start of World War Three. Like, what was what was that like? Can you tell us like, can you take us inside the room? So it wasn't good. I will tell you that.

And actually, it wasn't in February. It was back in October, actually. In October... You guys are cheering for October? What the fuck was that? It's a good month. Yeah, Intel. Actually, the intelligence community deserves just an enormous amount of credit

because their ability to identify the risk factors and the intent of Vladimir Putin and the Russian Federation to brutally invade their neighbor months before it happened is a quite remarkable thing. And they had high confidence that this invasion was going to occur in the early part of 2022 back in October. And so we began to meet at the Secretary of State, Secretary of Defense, the Director of National Intelligence, the Director of the CIA, our Ambassador to the United Nations. I brought them together on a regular cadence through that month, including meetings in the Situation Room

and then frequently in the Oval Office with the President to talk about what we were going to do about it. And basically, our strategy involved three pieces. One was to rally our allies and partners to come up with a clear message to the Russians that if they went forward with this, they would pay a heavy economic price, we would reinforce and fortify NATO, and we would provide the Ukrainians with the means to be able to defend themselves against the Russian onslaught. But we knew that even sending that warning message to the Russians

may not deter Vladimir Putin, because the intelligence community was pretty confident that he had pretty much made up his mind. He was going to do this. And so we made the decision that we weren't going to let him just proceed through November, December, and January, building up those battalions on the border, and then racing down the highway to Kiev. We were going to call him out. We were going to present to the world declassified information to say, here's what he's going to do, here's how he's going to do it, and here's roughly when he's going to do it, to rob him of the element of surprise, but even more importantly, to deny him the ability to say it was the Ukrainians who started it,

or I had no choice because we were able to demonstrate months in advance that this was Putin's war of choice. He made this decision and we believe that that helped create the kind of galvanized international response that has supported the Ukrainians. Although at the end of the day, I think we can all agree, it's really the Ukrainians who deserve the credit for what they have done to defeat the Russians in Kyiv and to fight for their freedom and independence.

Yeah, no, listen, Ukraine, the fight that they have put up has been extraordinary. The leadership Zelensky has shown has been extraordinary. But, like, my job was literally working at the intersection of, like, reporter inquiries and classified information and watching you guys declassify all these troop movements in real time and put all this information, I was like, you know, amazing, frankly, that you could move that quickly because the apparatus of government

does not always move quickly. The other thing that it's clear is that President Biden wants to support Ukraine, but not escalate the conflict. And it feels like that's a bit of a moving target, right? Like for a while there was this debate about, well, should the U. And it feels like that's a bit of a moving target, right? Like for a while, there was this debate about, well, should the US facilitate the transfer of MiG-29 fighters from NATO countries to Ukraine? That was viewed as escalatory. And then it wasn't. More recently, there was a discussion about whether to send these MLRS rocket system, these more long range rocket systems to Ukraine. Seemed like President Biden didn't want to do it. Then he did. Again, it's an evolving situation. Obviously, your thinking is evolving. But can you just sort of

help us understand, like, what does it mean to not escalate this war to a point that, I don't know, makes Putin, I guess, respond against us in some sort of way? Yeah. And look, there's not a mathematical formula. You can't just punch a given decision into a calculator and come out with a clear answer. This is judgment. And you got to use your best judgment. And that's what President Biden is trying to do every day, taking the inputs from his national security team, taking the inputs from his allies, and taking the inputs from President Zelensky and the Ukrainians. And he's trying to accomplish two things at once. One, ensure that at the end of this,

there is a free, independent, sovereign, fiercely proud Ukraine that has the means to repel future Russian aggression. And two, avoid World War III. And we believe we can accomplish both those things, but it means that you do need to attend to this line between getting Ukraine what it needs to achieve Objective 1 without tipping over into the possibility of Objective 2,

where Russia believes it has no choice but to respond against the NATO country, against the United States directly. And so these multiple launch rocket systems, the MLRS, that's the gun, okay? And then the question is, what kind of bullet do you provide to the gun? And what President Biden concluded

was that it made sense to provide these munitions that actually give the Ukrainians a significant advantage on the battlefield. They can range roughly 80 kilometers, 50 miles. But he said, I'm not going to provide the longest range munitions that can range 300 kilometers because those systems could strike deep inside of Russia. And that's just a fundamentally different kind of strategic system. Now, is there some manual or book off the shelf you can pull and say, okay, you know, how to avoid what's the right line? No, it's judgment. It's judgment, not just based on how do we avoid escalation, but judgment based on these two

objectives. How do we get the Ukrainians what we need without putting ourselves in a position where we may be launching a massive world war with a nuclear-armed superpower? And we believe that giving them this new, very sophisticated, very effective system will give them the means they need to carry this fight forward without tipping over that line.

But as you said, it's a moving target, not because necessarily our judgment is changing every day, but because facts on the ground on the battlefield are changing every day. So in the early days of the conflict, as the Russians were massing troops north of Kiev and trying to take Kiev and a big city like Kharkiv, it was really the javelin anti-tank systems that were so potent at stopping the advance of these armored tank columns and helping the Ukrainians win those massive battles and stop Putin from being able to take over this country. As the war shifted to the east, it's more of an artillery fight. And so Ukraine needs more artillery. And so part of our thinking is not just about from week to week, you know, what can the traffic bear?

It's from week to week, what do the Ukrainians need and what can we move rapidly to the front? And that's how we do our best to think through this. And when I say we we i mean a combination of the military the intelligence community and ultimately these are decisions a president has to make a commander-in-chief has to make and i for one am very grateful we have somebody in that job who's got judgment and also conviction that we need to stand up and help the ukrainians win this fight um last question for you on this i mean i also just sort of worry about the fact that there there's a bit of an asymmetry to this fight strategically because it does feel like vladimir putin has pushed all his chips in

the table it's not just that he wants to win the war it's that his entire existence as a strong man and a strong leader is now tied up in this effort. And I don't know if he loses, he get pushed out, he get off, like God knows what would happen. And so he is playing this long game seemingly embedding that Western resolve will weaken because gas prices go up, food prices go up, and I think historically we've all seen, you know, that makes for tough politics for leaders who are trying to do something difficult in the face of, you know, sometimes right-wing nationalists who try to exploit anger over those issues when a leader is trying to do the right thing. So how are you guys thinking about maintaining this effort and keeping the West, this alliance you guys have built together in the long run? I think it's such a great question, and it actually relies on the American people continuing to stay invested in this effort, because it matters for the people of Ukraine, and that's reason enough, but it matters for us too.

And I believe that we will and we can. And I'll start with an observation, which is Vladimir Putin did not expect the reaction he got in the first place. He miscalculated at the outset. President Biden the other day said that he was betting on the Finlandization of NATO when he got the NATOization of Finland. He essentially thought that the West would not be unified, that the Ukrainians would lay down their arms, that he could exploit cracks and divisions and essentially, in a few days time, take over an entire country. That was a bad miscalculation. I think equally, he is miscalculating about our staying power. And let me give you two examples for why I think that, and I'm not just giving happy talk. The first is, on a massively bipartisan basis, the Congress

approved $40 billion in support of Ukraine. And that is a sufficient sum for us to be able to sustain this effort for months and months. meaning that, and that's already been done. That's in the bank and can now be played out over the course of 2022 into 2023. So we've already put the investment in and we will be able to carry it forward. Second, just a few days ago, not weeks or months ago, the Europeans approved their sixth package of sanctions, which included a wind down to ultimately to a ban on the purchase of Russian oil borne by ships into the European Union. That was a decision that European governments made now, not a while ago. And that should give Putin a lot of pause about whether Western resolve or unity is going to flag. And when we made our announcement that we were going

to send these precision rocket systems to Ukraine, we were immediately followed by the UK and other countries who have stepped up with additional commitments as well. So there's a lot at stake here. And we now are in this for as long as it takes to defend the Ukrainians. And every week that goes by, I think it's increasingly dawning on the Russians that they are not just simply going to be able to wait us out and wear us down. But we collectively have to show that we're prepared to stick with it. And for that, it can't just be the officials in government making the case. We have to bring the public along as well, which means making the case and means all of you guys making the case to your friends and neighbors about why this will continue to matter, even when it's not the top story in the news every day.

And just given the outpouring of support, I believe that deeply embedded in the American people is the view that we need to stand up for freedom and for independence and for the sovereignty of nations and against brutal aggression by dictators. And I don't think that's going away anytime soon. It does feel like the world understands that this is this is bigger than just one fight in ukraine this is um autocracy against democracy uh jake unless for some insane reason you want to stick around for a potentially career-ending game uh that's all i got for you jake sullivan thank you so much for joining thanks guys we appreciate it love it come on out guys. We appreciate it.

Love it. Come on out. Welcome Guy Branum. In honor of Pride Month, we here at Ponce of America would like to celebrate the rich tapestry of human sexuality and gender identity while imagining a world where everyone can live as their true selves. A day we'll know we've reached when there are no more closets. Every gay and queer and trans person can live a life of joy without fear. And Jon Favreau wears a shirt that could conceivably be called something other than a muted color.

I wore a red shirt just for this. Yeah, red my ass. But we don't live in that world yet. So tonight we're going to celebrate Pride the old-fashioned way by pitting straights against the rest of us in a game we're calling Rainbows vs. Boat Shoes. Or Gay vs. Straight.

Yes, that's right. On one side we have my no-homo co-bros, Tommy, John, and Dan. On the other, we've got the future liberals want. Guy and Travelle. And one LGBTQ audience member of our choosing. We have a producer in the audience. Who's out there?

Is Haley out there? Haley's out there. If you are, you've got to be on the flag. If you're on the flag, you can play. If not, you can't. That's how it goes. And like, not like really, not just when you're drunk. Somebody raise your hand.

When do we want to come on stage and play the game? We've got some people out there. Give me a lesbian who knows sports or just a super fun bisexual. There we go. Give it up for her, y'all. Coming up on stage. How many shows go from Ukraine to this? None.

Just the one. Just the one. Hi, what's your name? Kersi. Kersi? Yeah. First of all, it's great to see youersi. Kersi? Yeah. First of all, it's great to see you. Hi.

This is the first time you've come on stage. It is exciting. You did it. I did it. Kersi. Kersi and I go way back. You've been around a long time. You've shouted at me from many an audience.

You guys, I have to say, for those of you listening at home, Kersi's wearing a little yellow sundress that pops, so I'm not super confident about our ability to answer questions about the hockey finals. She's got a long purse, though. Excuse me? I'm sorry, I'm sorry.

She's going to bring a real energy to this thing. Listen, it's showbiz, you gotta face the audience. Cheat out, cheat out, all right. All right, thank you for joining us. All right, here's how it goes. Team Homo, I'll be asking you trivia questions about straight culture.

Team Straight, you'll face a tough LGBTQ and A. Okay. And we'll see who comes out on top. And who's on the bottom. Nothing wrong with being on the bottom, okay? Let's get ready. Here we go. All right, let's start with you guys.

And you can just work this out yourself. Here we go. All right, let's start with, let's start with, you guys, you can just work this out yourself. Here we go. Your first question. What actress mentioned in the new Hulu rom-com Fire Island won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress at the 1993 Oscars? Don't help them.

I watched the fucking movie, too. I don't know. I don't know. It was announced by Jack Palance. And that's not on the card. That's just knowing it. I have no idea. Can I call Louis?

You can't call a gay. It's my cousin Vinny. She was up against Judy Davis, Vanessa Redgrave. All right, all right, all right. Marissa Tomei. It's Marissa Tome All right, all right, all right. Marissa Tomei. Oh, it's Marissa Tomei.

You got it, kind of. Good job, Dan. All right. My queers. What do the initials IPA stand for? India Pale Ale. Wow. You got it.

Or, I fucking, spelled with a P-H, am not going to drink that. It's, I don't understand it. It's, they're so bitter. I don't get, I don't understand your palate. All right. All right, boys.

You must name either all the Golden Girls or the gay character who was in the pilot. Rose, Blanche. Sonia. Sonia. Oh, my God. Balki. Where's the buzzer?

Sonia, Balki, Rachel, Monica, Alfred. Dorothy. Dorothy. Yeah, Rachel, Monica, Dorothy. Yeah, we're missing the mom. It's Sophia. We'll give it to you. Also, on the pilot, there was a gay character named Coco, who you never heard of again. I think Coco was like a chef, right? He was a houseboy and he made them enchiladas.

Okay. All right, next up. Who won the Super... This is hard with the cards. Who won the Super? This is hard with the cards. Who won the Super Bowl in 2019? Come on. Kersi. So Rams was last year.

Okay. Okay. The previous year was some stupid Boston team. Yeah. Wow. Wow. You got it. You got it.

We're giving it to you. You got it. Oh, she's got it. Well, that's it. You did it. Patriots. Patriots. You got it you got it we're giving it to you you got it oh she's got it well that's it you did it Patriots Patriots you got it

oh okay y'all are so great at this alright boys what sitcom featured the first ever lesbian wedding on television

uh Ellen Ellen is it Ellen no Ellen? Ellen? Is it Ellen? No. It's friends. It's Ross' ex-wife. Oh, yeah.

That's right. That's right. All right. Carol and Susan, they broke boundaries for us. boundaries for us. Ryan Reynolds and Blake Lively met on the set of what 2011 superhero movie? Oh, is this

the Green Lantern? Yes. You got it. You're good at this. Thank you. The one he made fun of in Deadpool. Yes. Right. References. Alright, this is gonna be audiovisual. Who is this a photo of?

Come on. You know it. You know it. Come on, guys. This is easy. Katie Lang? What? Is it Katie Lang? It's not Katie Lang. It's a different lesbian. It's Shane from The L Word. Just shouting out lesbians.

Lesbian haircut. Just going for the gold. Haven't any of you ever seen a lesbian be horny before? All lesbians look alike to Tommy. I've never felt so close to being canceled in my life. This is terrifying. You're fine. It was a good, it was a reasonable guess.

And he did it with such trepidation. All right. In the 1990s, Tom Hanks won two consecutive Oscars for Best Actor. What were those films? Forrest Gump and Philadelphia. Wow. Good job. Kiersey, you got it.

Nice. You guys, all right. This is easy. This is easy. We'll see. Come on, Dan. All right, we'll see. Which performance did Liza Minnelli receive her Academy Award for Best Actress in 1973?

Is it Cabaret? And just to clarify, it's Liza with a Z, not Lisa with a S. Sure, go for it. Is it Cabaret? Yes! Yes, Dan. Yes, Dan. Proud of you, Dan.

Which of the following catastrophes was not caused by a gender reveal party? Wildfire, car explosion, deadly metal shrapnel from a pipe bomb, fatal cannon blast, or small plane crash. Okay, so the wildfire was one. The metal shrapnel was another one. Okay. Let's see. I gotta tell you, Kiersey's been training to come up on stage and take over a show for years. This is her moment.

The plane. Can you give us the options again? Wildfire, car explosion, deadly metal shrapnel from pipe bomb, fatal cannon blast, or small plane crash. I'm going to say it's plane or cannon. Yeah. No, cannon is what a lot of people like to use. Okay, okay.

I'm going to need an answer. So are we going to... Plane. Plane? We're locking in plane. They all happened. It was a trick question. Brutal.

That's homophobic. You didn't get in a trick question. Yeah, welcome to the community. They have it easier. I thought we were the future the liberals want to see. What's going on? You're going to have to work for it. What about solidarity?

What about it? Boys, what is the chemical name for poppers? I don't know. Alcohol? It's amyl nitrate. It's amyl nitrate. It's amyl nitrate. Sometimes you just need to clean your VCR, Tommy. All right.

Please listen to the following lyrics and name the song. You've got your ball. You've got your chain. Tied to me tight, tie me up again. Who's got their claws in you, my friend? They know it. They fucking know it. Look at them.

You want to do something funny as they think about the answer? I was at lunch with my boys the other day and I realized they were having a conversation. I just interrupted. They were not just wearing similar sunglasses. You have identical sunglasses. It's very... Oh, okay. Cut that. just wearing similar sunglasses. You have identical sunglasses. It's very... Cut that. It didn't work. I'm going to need an answer.

Leave it in. I'm going to let them answer. What's the answer? Crash into me. Dave Matthews. Hell yeah. Right there. You know what? Final question. Final question. All right. You know what? Final question. Final question.

This is interesting. It's a crossover. It could have gone to either team. What NFL team just welcomed Justine Lindsay, the league's first openly transgender cheerleader? Is it that them? Are you sure? Is it the Panthers? Wow, they stole it from you. I'm going to give you one last one. This is for all the marbles. What actress who has appeared in movies like Bridesmaids, Pitch Perfect, and most recently Senior Year just came out today on Instagram with a photo of her girlfriend? Bridesmaids, Pitch Perfect, and most recently, Senior Year, just came out today on Instagram with a photo of her girlfriend.

Bridesmaids. Rebel Wilson. You got it. Nice, Dan. I saw her trending today. That is our game. I didn't click it. I got to say, I may be biased.

I'm going to give it to the LGBT community. You lose. We win. That's our game. Thank you to Guy Branum for joining for the game. That's our show for tonight. Thank you, Travelle Anderson, Guy Branum, Jake Sullivan. March for our lives.

Go to votesaveamerica.com slash midtermmadness. Thank you, Los Angeles. Pod Save America is a Crooked Media production. The executive producer is Michael Martinez. Our senior producer is Andy Gardner-Bernstein. Our producer is Haley News, and Olivia Martinez is our associate producer. It's mixed and edited by Andrew Chadwick. Kyle Seglin and Charlotte Landis sound engineer the show.

Thanks to Tanya Sominator, Sandy Gerard, Hallie Kiefer, Ari Schwartz, Andy Taft, and Justine Howe for production support. And to our digital team, Elijah Cohn, Phoebe Bradford, Milo Kim, and Amelia Montuth. Our episodes are uploaded as videos at youtube.com slash crooked media. I'm out.