Pod Save America - TRUMP CURSES KNICKS

Episode Date: June 9, 2026

President Trump, days after storming out of a Meet the Press interview, returns to New York City to attend Game 3 of the NBA Finals. Jon, Tommy, and Lovett discuss how New Yorkers are reacting to the president's visit, discuss the latest from Trump's wars, including the outbreak of more violence between Iran, Israel, and Lebanon, and debunk MAGA's new, unfounded claims about voter fraud in California. Then, Roger Bennett, host of Men in Blazers, joins Tommy to preview the World Cup and discuss how the president may insert himself into that event, too.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, episode title, and episode date.

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Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm John Favre. I'm John Lovett. Tommy Vitor. On today's show, we'll talk about the biggest outbreak of violence in the Middle East since the so-called ceasefire went into effect. The growing split between Trump and Netanyahu. Why Trump ripped off his mic and stormed out of a meet-the-press interview.

His new conspiracy about voter fraud here in California and what that could mean for November. Scott Pelly going public with his allegations against Barry Weiss and Trump's decision to attend game three of the NBA finals at Madison Square Garden. Then Tommy talks to Roger Bennett of Men and Blazers about the World Cup kicking off on Thursday and the implications for global politics.

Before we start, if you don't like listening to podcast ads, subscribe to Cricket Media and become a friend of the pod because you get ad-free episodes of all your favorite cricket pods. Plus, you get to support pro-democracy. independent media. Scott Pelley hasn't accused us of injecting any, any bias.

Yet. Yet. Into any of his reporting. But once he starts, Eric Cricket, hopefully we'll keep the bias out of his reporters. We don't have time to inject bias

to the Scott Pelley's reporting. We're too busy injecting and bias into everything we do. There you go. That's what I was trying to get on. Thank you. That's perfect. Let's put that right in.

And you also get access to all of our great substacks. You get our subscriber-only shows like Polarcoaster with Dan Pfeiffer and lots of other fun parks. So consider subscribing. All right, happy 100-day anniversary to the war that was supposed to be over in just a few weeks. Here's where things stand with Iran in the Middle East as of this recording. Over the weekend, the U.S. and Iran were shooting drones and missiles at each other after oil tankers tried to pass through the Strait of Hormuz

without the IRGC's permission. Then the newly negotiated ceasefire between Israel and Lebanon fell apart when Israel bombed Beirut after claiming that Hezbollah targeted them first. Iran responded by launching missiles at Israel for the first time since the April ceasefire. Trump then told Axios that he would warn Netanyahu, quote, not to retaliate and told the financial times that he, quote, calls the shots. Netanyahu doesn't call the shots. Then Netanyahu essentially said, yes, I do call the shots and struck Iran. So for now, both sides seem to have de-escalated. And on Monday morning, Trump posted that final peace negotiations are, quote, subject to ignorance or stupidity getting in its.

way. The president was asked about the war in a pre-recorded meet the press interview that ran on Sunday. Here's some of what he said as it rained heavily in the background. Is the United States at war with Iran? Well, they've been largely decapitated, and I call it a military exercise, because people would rather have it called that. It's not a big war for us. How long are you willing to give Iran to make a deal? How much longer you've been talking for quite some time? Well, I wouldn't say that. Well, you really haven't. Again, you were in Vietnam for 19 years. You were in Iraq for many years.

Gas is up. Diesel is up. It's all coming down as soon as the war's over. Well, 70% of farmers say they can't afford fertilizer. The farmers are doing very well. One of your consistent campaign promises was no new wars, going all the way back to 2015. Did you break that promise to the American people? No.

No. changed because you existed no more. It's so loud. Because I didn't guarantee no war. Didn't guarantee no war. The rain on this interview, it's pouring. It's pouring rain. They have to stop for periods of time.

I can't imagine anything more unpleasant than sitting in front of a tractor for five minutes while you wait for the rain to quiet down in between questions about fertilizer prices. Just hammering on a tin roof. And I know they had the John Deere tractors like strategically placed, but those are the Hesbola flag colors, by the way. Feel free to Google it. Those yellow and green, just like that. You and Hassan are a big fans of that play.

Here's that, so as Trump said, of course, what promise, I didn't make any promise about no new wars. And here's a not-so-fast montage put together by Decoding Fox News. Oh, we can't vote for him. He's going to start a word. No, I used my personality that we didn't have to have wars. I was the first president in decades who started no new wars. Who started no new wars. We don't need the wars

Foreign lands Countries you've never heard of Countries that don't even want us there We will expel the war mongers From our government Look at me I'm the one that kept us at a war I'm gonna keep you out of wars

I kept you out of wars We had no wars with Donald Trump You're not gonna have a war with me And you're not gonna have a third world war with me That I can tell you The war monger's a third world war I think a third world war Not a third world war

Oh thank you Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, look. And you're like, excuse me, Mr. President, developing nation war? Yeah. Very dated Cold War terminology. It's a global South war.

Yeah, we're not aligned with the Soviets anymore. I don't know why I decided to go on that tangent. Do you think he's just convinced himself that Iran doesn't count as a real war? Well, it's the alternative. He's not telling the truth. Yeah, like, I do think he's trying to make us believe this. Like, no, the real wars are the ones where you send troops overseas and they're deployed on the ground and they occupy a country. And by the way, Vietnam was 19.

years. Has it been 19 years, folks? No, this is a little excursion, as he calls it, when we all think he means incursion still, right? Yeah. So I do think that's like their attempt at selling this. It's pretty tough, though, given the outside's economic costs, given the closure of the Strait of Hermuz. Yeah, there's just, you know, there's a big space between no war and Vietnam, right? It's like, wow, we're so grateful you didn't launch another Vietnam. Well, we, that's not the standard. It would be worse if this war had been going on as long as the Vietnam War. There's also something, he's done it before, but he is so glib when he talks about people who died. He's like, oh, there's not a big war. It's not a big conflict. You lost thousands

in these other conflicts. We've only lost 13. And he adds a perfunctory and any death is unacceptable. But to hear, like, an American president refer to the deaths as being minimal in this way as if, like, that is acceptable or that makes it okay. It's like, it's just, it's, it's, it's still jarring. Yeah, and it's not just the fuel prices either. Um, like fertilizer prices. It's, it's actually hitting farmers pretty hard. His only, his only real message for farmers is like, uh, just wait till it's over. Right.

It'll get better. It'll get so much better. Just wait until it's over. By the way, that, that's also, of course, not true, right? Like, prices aren't going to suddenly drop if there's an agreement. And maybe there's some like immediate effect, but like the ramifications of the closure of the straight of her moves are going to last for a very long time. So, Tommy, what did you make of the Wall Street Journal report on how Trump failed to reign

in Netanyahu over these latest strike? The New York Times had kind of the opposite take, which is that the eventual halt of the fighting on Monday left Netanyahu appearing as beholden to Trump as ever. So I think the context people to understand is that the Israelis also have an election coming up. It will probably be sometime between now and October 27th is when it will get scheduled. And so for Trump, we know he has a midterm. A bad result will make his life complicated because of investigations and Democrats being in power. But for Netanyahu staying in power is existential because that could be the only way he stays out of jail because there's all. these corruption allegations and investigations. But politically, Americans and Israelis feel very

differently about the war. Americans are like, this is dumb. Why are we doing this? We heard that super cut of him saying there would be no wars. They're like, end it. Gas prices are high. End it. The Israelis feel like this is not going well. We have not won. Netanyahu looks weak. And then Yahu is actually getting attacked from the left and from the right for not finishing the war. And so he's in a tough place politically. And so Iran firing ballistic missiles directly at Israel because of something Israel did in Lebanon exacerbates that problem for Netanyahu further. So now Netanyahu is in a very tough political situation. He wants the Trump peace talks to fail, but he can't be completely overt in his meddling with those peace talks. He doesn't want to piss

Trump off and then lose his political support and the military support. And so he also can't look like he's being fully controlled by Trump. Like when Trump calls the F team, is like, I own this bitch, you know, like that's a tough place for him to be politically. And he also doesn't want to look like he's going to let Iran fire missiles and me, Mr. Security be being at Yahoo without responding. So it was just, he's in a very tough place. It sounds like they navigated it better on Sunday than they did in the last call where I guess Trump was like, hey man, you're a fucking asshole. You'd be in jail, if not for me. But, you know, this, the divergent interests are making this more and more complicated every day. Did you see one, one US.

official told Axios, they described the call between Trump and Netanyahu as, quote, polite, while a second U.S. official noted that nobody shouted. So that's the one. There we go. That is the standard. Yeah, it is, it is difficult for, it makes diplomacy a little bit harder when Trump makes all of the subtext text all the time. Yeah. Right. Yeah. Well, as a rule, when someone says, I call the shots around here, that's rarely said from a position of strength. You don't usually have to say. If people know, people, if you're calling the shots, you don't have to say it. You're just in the midst of calling the shots. Like as he's been saying, he holds all the cards.

I hold all the cards in this war and I call all the shots. Well, he's saying he calls all the shots and a call to the reporter before he calls the other guy who's the head of state. Stop shooting. Get the sequencing wrong, sir. Bebe said, I thought this was captured the situation. Israel has a full right to self-defense and we are exercising it. I say this with appreciation of respect for my good conversations with President Trump. And so he just does the praise piece.

He does whatever he wants and maybe he's being limited in some ways and not in others. But if the U.S. cannot constrain Israel from escalating in Lebanon, how can there be a deal between Iran and the U.S. in which Israel at any moment can break the ceasefire? And so like any ways in which the U.S. cannot constrain Israel is proof that a deal will not be upheld by our side. And so we're just in this place where everyone's testing each other. And if the idea of success is getting Benjamin Netanyahu to only bomb outside of Beirut and not Beirut proper, and that's Donald Trump exerting his power.

Like I don't know how that ends with Iran having confidence that we can maintain a ceasefire. This is the rub. Iran is, I think, very successfully made a peace deal contingent on the war ending on all the fronts. So in Iran itself, but also in Lebanon and southern Lebanon, whereas the Israelis are like, nah, these are different conflicts with different timelines. and we want to keep prosecuting this fight against Hezbollah because people in northern Israel are still under threat from drone attacks. And I think that's going to, again, come into conflict here. And from the other side, right, Iran has an interest in making this a larger conflict in which they can use the Hezbollah,

Israel conflict as a, like a part of their negotiation. And so they can prolong it there and then walk away from the table saying they're blaming Israel, right? Like, everybody is using the leverage that they have. Reportedly the argument that Trump made to Netanyahu, too, was don't retaliate because I, I think I'm a few days away from a deal. And then if we don't get the deal, then maybe I'll lead the strikes next time with you. So he really does. That's another one where like I think he genuinely believes, or at least his team keeps leading him on. Like, we're so close.

We're on the one yard line. We're so close to a deal. And it just never actually happens. Yeah. I mean, I just, I'll believe it when I see it. And I think, and yeah, I was going to hate the deal that's on the table reportedly. We don't have to go through the details, but it's a lot of sanctions relief and unfrozen assets. And so I, I just.

Yeah, again, it seems like they're in very different pages here, BB and Trump. Well, even if it's this like mini deal where it's just reopening the straight and you don't even get into a ton of sanctions relief somehow, that doesn't really do anything about Israel and Lebanon. No, or solve the nuclear issue. Yeah, of course. So meanwhile, as the ceasefire was teetering, Pete Heggseth was in Europe to mark the 82nd anniversary of D-Day, where he insulted our European allies with a speech that included lines like this. Sadly, today, different European beaches are stormed by different dangerous ideologies. Beaches in Spain and Italy and Greece and Bulgaria, boats and men arrive. When will European capitals do something about that invasion?

This is one of my favorite analogies I've ever seen in the history of speech writing because in that analogy, he is he is putting current European leaders they are the Nazis right and the the migrant caravans or boats that's D-Day and so the what why is you in your analogy you're making the you're making the Germans the Nazis again well he definitely wanted to twist it so that it's like different dangerous ideologies around the continent but then also wanted to compare the boats landing with the boats landing it didn't it didn't work on a number of levels yeah no need to pick just one, but yeah. Yeah, the good guys were in the boat storming the beaches, and now

the dangerous ideologies are storming the beaches. So it's like, sir, did the dangerous ideologies raise the flag at Iwo Jima? Because I feel you've got this whole thing backwards. Well, I listen to the whole speech, and it's so bad, it's obviously, we can get into the actual substance of going, going to Normandy on D-Day

to pick a fight for some reason. But he also makes this point. It's always in this sort of like, the kind of like, whatever, Christian nationalism, Western ideology thing that he's always doing, but He's like, you know, we defended Western values here at D-Day or something to that effect. Guys, do you remember who the sides were in Europe? It was West on West violence.

You know, it's like, you know what I mean? It's just stupid. It's just stupid. It's also just like when you get underneath the bad analogies and Pete Egg Seth not being the best speaker. Like, the fact that, you know, replacement, the great replacement theory, which once used to be like this far right extremist thing that we talked. about once in a while. Now it's like the U.S. Secretary of Defense goes to Europe and it's like the official position of the U.S. government that the problem with mass migration, we're not even going to pretend it's border security or its job competition or it's like, you know, governments

having to spend too much money to house migrants or anything like that. No, it's just it's dangerous ideologies. It is people who come ashore, most of them women and children, some of them dead. He says men. He says men. Yeah, so it has to say men. because they're so desperate and leave their countries. And this represents a dangerous evil ideology in the eyes of the U.S. government. And what you said, Christian nationalism, the Pope, the first American Pope, is going to spend July 4th on one of those islands, Lampedusa, where migrants come ashore, which he's doing because the last Pope also would do that all the time.

And so he's doing it in honor of Pope Francis. And this is like, you know, Pete Hakesf is talking about this is like evil. Migrants are as dangerous to Europe today as Americans were. to the nothing. That's the, that's the analogy. He says in the speech that, that, uh, what was being defended on D-Day was the Western tradition of freedom as if like, like, again, it's just sort of going back to Christian nationalism and a sort of whole like Western ideology, but like, what are you talking about? Like, we were on, it was a Western, it was West on West violence. It doesn't make any sense. Yeah, they're also like, there seemed to be two criticisms in the speech. He, he, he, part of it's

a criticism of like, defense spending or lack of defense spending in Europe and kind of the typical free, you're been, rewriting on the U.S. and NATO argument that we hear. And then there was this criticism of European immigration policy and European countries letting in migrants, many of whom were escaping wars, by the way, in some cases, war started by the United States. Either way, it's just a wildly inappropriate place to be such a dickhead. Like usually. Usually these are just celebrations of the few remaining veterans and the people we've lost in the war. It's also like an example of how the free world came together to defeat fascism. Meanwhile, like Pete Hegsef and Trump and the Pentagon are allowing

the Ukrainians to just kind of dangle in the wind in their effort to fight back against Vladimir Putin. So it's like, I don't know, just the whole thing felt so inappropriate. How many time have Republicans told us like that's not the forum to have a policy dispute, right? Like a memorial is not where you talk about gun control or like actual efforts to stop gun violence. And he's just going there and yelling at people for 13 minutes in this weird speech. Long way from, long way from Reagan's Ponda Hawk speech. Yeah, no kidding. I was thinking about that.

He was thinking about that speech when he was trying to do this. Yeah, it's also like, you have Vance weighing in on like a horrible death in the UK. He's just traveling all the way to Normandy to weigh in. Immigration is a domestic issue. Like you're talking about a domestic policy issue. He also at the, in Tommy's point, says like, no, you know, in World War II, like there was, we really put ourselves on the line for each other. It wasn't just slogans, summits, and communicate.

It was like, yeah, man, it was. World War II. Yeah. Like, we were at war. You did, you know, you had to actually fight everybody. Like in peace, right? And you would work with your allies, presumably having some kind of conversations via whatever means you'd want.

It's just very like stupid, like stupid guy. Like it is. It's just stupid guy. Hey. No slogan. There wasn't just slogans. Like, like, yeah, I got to go there and tell. You know, I don't, for me, World War II, it wasn't just slogans.

Like, yeah, man. Did you catch how it started? The most offensive line, maybe, was the very first line, was thank you, Ambassador Kushner. Oh, I didn't catch that. Jared Kushner's corrupt dad. Oh, my gosh. He was our ambassador to France. Jose?

Is he France? Isn't that depressing? Yeah. I forgot about that. Soccerad Blas. Good stuff. Well, happy D-Day. Pots Dave America is brought to you by ORA Frames.

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especially if there is a grandkid that they want to see and see constantly, especially there's a new pet in your life or you go on a great trip. It's just a really cool way to give someone who you photos of you that rotate. It's not just, you know, one frame. It's a series of photos that keep you fresh in their heart and in their mind and in their stories according to this fun copy about storytelling. Named number one by wirecutter. You can save now by visiting oraframes.com. For a limited time, listeners can get $35 off select frames with the code crooked. That's A-U-R-A-Frames.com. promo code crooked. Support the show by mentioning us at checkout, terms and conditions apply. POTS of America is brought you by BILTS. We can all agree that housing

is expensive. Rent, mortgage. It doesn't matter which one you're paying. It stings every month, but Bill can make it feel a little better. But here's how it works. Built started out rewarding members on their rent. As of 2026, Bill members can also earn points on mortgage payments too. Every housing payment earns you points you can help use with top travel partners like United and Hyatt, or you can use your points toward Lyft rides, Amazon purchases, and so much, more. You can take fitness classes. You can get gift cards at 120 brands. You can use it on Amazon. You can use it for Lyft. There's so many ways to use your built points. But here's the most underrated part. Built members also get access to a neighborhood concierge. It can make restaurant

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was when the president ripped off his mic and stormed off set. Did he stomp on the mic? A lot of people were saying that he threw on the ground and stopped. We can all watch it. It's unclear. It started with some tough questions from Kristen Welker about the insurrectionist slush fund, which led to Trump repeating his favorite conspiracies about January 6th. in the 2020 election, and then things just devolved from there.

The whole sequence lasted about six minutes, which we won't play in full, but here are the highlights. I don't know what's going to happen with the weaponization fund. I love the idea. They sent people to jail who did nothing wrong. Just to be very clear, there's no evidence of what you're saying. But, I mean, I think about Todd Blanche. The election was rigged. It was a dirty election.

And it's happening again right now in California. You've never presented evidence. It's happening right now in California. Right now it's looking look at what's happening. Where's the evidence to that? It's four days and they aren't even close to coming up with... You know why they're doing that? Because they're cheating on the election.

There's, what, do you have evidence to support that? All I have to do is look. You're either crooked or you're stupid. You play right into their hands with this crap. Your elections are crooked and you're crooked and meet the press is crooked. And so is ABC and CBS and CNN. But Mr. President... You're one-sided crooked net.

works right let's call it quits because i've had enough thank you darling have a good time mr president let's please i traveled all the way to wisconsin i've sat in the rain i know i travel all the way to an hour on and off in the rain and i've given you enough time you ought to straighten out your press because you know what mr president a country can never be great travel with a dishonest we traveled all the way to wisconsin for this interview i can't tell he did it on purpose i think he accidentally crunched it okay reminds me why not Everything else was on purpose but that. When I went to, when I'm into Michigan and interview Bernie and then like about 12 minutes in, he's like this.

That was a tough. Remember that awesome? Wrap it up. That was a gut punch. That was a good punch. You're either crooked or you're stupid. Actually, that's a great slogan for our subscriber push from now. Yeah.

Please consider subscribing a friend of the pod because you're either crooked or you're stupid. Prickett.com slash friends. That was, he was very mad there. He really wrote like, you're crooked. He was like, the part of the podcast. I'm going to put the whole goddamn system on trial. You're crooked, they're crooked. CNN, NBC, ABC.

Is there anyone else left? Schwarzenegger was worse, an apprentice than I was. He yells at Kristen Welker like she's the election. Yeah, she doesn't go. My elections. But when they came back, I watched the meet the press version. And when Welker comes back after the interview, she said, I spoke to the president again and he said he'd happily come on and get into the future.

So he called her. So it's just, it's all a show with him. He loves her. Also, like, she's such a nice, calm. measured person. The idea that you would flip out on Kristen Welker, like that is so funny. He's such a baby. He flipped out because she said, do you have the evidence? Where's the evidence? It's like, in his mind, it's just like, well, that's what my people told me. And I saw it on the TV and I saw it in the truths that I reposted, that I re-truthed. And so he has no fucking

ideas. All you have to do is look. If everyone would just look at what I looked at, you'd know that it was crooked. You're asking for evidence? You know I don't have that. Fuck you. I've got to make it up on television. You know that. so mad about the rain as if she's making it rain. He also did the, because it was too long, we didn't play it, but he did the whole thing again on where on January 6th, the FBI agents, the criminal, was standing outside, sending people in to the capital. It's like, you were fucking president, dog.

They only pleaded guilty because they were threatened with jail time. What are you talking about? They're on video beating up cops. Everyone has knocked down this dumb conspiracy that the FBI somehow set up the January 6 rioters. The FBI that was under the FBI that was under the FBI that was under the under the control of Donald Trump on the slush fund. We'll start there. Then we can get to the fraud in California. We talked last episode about Todd Blanche telling Congress that the administration would not be moving forward with the idea, even though Trump says still he loves it. And then Senate

Republicans blocked the bipartisan attempts to actually ban the slush fund just in case Trump changes his mind. Now the House is going to give it a go. Democrat Tom Swazi and Republican Brian Fitzpatrick will launch a discharge petition this week to force a vote on their bill to ban the slush fund. Two questions. You think the vulnerable Republicans who voted to kill the fund have successfully neutralized their political risk? I think that was Collins, Hustead and Dan Sullivan all up for reelection. But then they voted for the final bill. And do you think Trump will actually just let this thing die or is this not the last we've heard of it? So he also says to Well, at some point

he still likes the fund but you have to get it approved and if it didn't get approved I'd be disappointed so that's where he's at now approved he didn't claim to need it approved in the first place so now he's hiding behind the idea of it being approved in some way so he's sort of leaving his options open I think to let it go or do it in some

other fashion I think the it's very clear that they did not appreciate how big of a political problem it would be to launch this thing like Todd Blanche clearly thought he was This was going to be doing what he Trump wanted. He got him the nomination to be attorney general. And then it just, the whole thing blew up.

Yeah, to me, he, he sounds like a man who is not ashamed by the fund or worried about the politics. It sounds like he thinks he's owed this. Genuinely thinks he has owed this money. He deserves this money, just like he has owed the money from CBS because of that lawsuit or the bribes from the tech companies to build his ballroom. And God damn it, he's going to get it. And that's why, to me, the political risk for all the vulnerable members,

does not go away because I don't think he's going to drop it. And I think it's going to be an ongoing issue. And just like to be, to be having this conversation is so politically damaging. Like, this man is trying to extort us taxpayers for $1.8 billion to pay off people who beat up cops. That is crazy. This is the the taxpayer-funded transition surgery for prisoners issue of, from, from 2024 in the 26 midterms. Like, I have not seen a poll yet about this, but like throw in a poll, $1.8 billion from the taxpayers to pay out people who were convicted criminals on camera trying to murder cops. That's what we're doing. That's where taxpayer money is going at a time of inflation and high gas prices. And it's like I can't. And also for like Susan Collins and

John Hustead and Dan Sullivan, they voted for the bill. They voted for the, like they tried to, you know, vote for the provision that would block it. But they went to. that failed. They gave the green light to the whole bill that went forward and they didn't do anything to stop it. They could have voted again because you know who did vote against the final bill? Lisa Murkowski. And she's the only Republican who did. And the rest of them just said, fuck it, I'm just going to vote for the bill anyway. It is the sort of like even on the merits. This is the core of the problem of someone like Susan Collins or these Republicans who try to once in a while stake out an anti-Trump view. But for the most part vote with the caucus, which is

they are part of enabling Donald Trump. And the only reason we got to the point where this fund could be proposed is because Donald Trump believes that he has a Republican caucus in his pocket and he is right. And for all their kind of hemming and high, all the concerns Susan Collins has shown, she is one of the 50 enablers of Donald Trump time and time again. And you can go to the podium and give these statements. But at the end of the day, you support a Senate majority in the Senate. You support Donald Trump being able to do whatever he wants without any kind of accountability. So let's talk about the fraud claims from Trump in that meet the press interview, which again, started with his usual bullshit about 2020, but also included some fresh material on last

week's California primaries, where the votes are still being counted. A reminder that everyone here in California gets a ballot in the mail, which you can return by mail or drop off in person. And as long as you get it postmarked by election day and it arrives within seven days, it does get counted. That process means the count is very slow and big changes can happen late, especially in an election like this, where a lot of voters, especially Democrats, were undecided until the very end. And that is, of course, what is happening right now in the L.A. M. M.errhaerroman has now overtaken Spencer Pratt in the count. And it appears she will make the runoff and face Karen Bass in November. That's what some organizations are projecting. AP hasn't gone

with it yet, but it's definitely trending that way. This led to many Trump posts, the most recent as of this recording being, quote, not possible for Spencer Pratt to have lost the L.A. runoffs after the big lead he had. Third World Nation, rigged elections. Now they'll be working on a great guy, Steve Hilton. Hilton is the Trump-indorce Republican in the governor's race, who's currently sitting in the second general election slot, though Tom Steyer is gaining on him. Unclear if Steyer will actually catch him.

And plenty of Magadip Shits are following Trump's lead on this. Here's just a sample. I'm not saying it's rigged. I'm saying it stinks to high heaven, and everybody knows that. California is playing around with us. But what evidence is there to prove that there was his raped? I don't, some of these efforts are so diabolical and so far upstream that is impossible to prove. But I think everybody knows instinctively something is wrong here.

So people can just dig through garbage cans, find ballots and send them in apparently forever after an election is over. It's not okay. It's got to come to a man. Really? Smart guy. He acts dumb. He's smart. That's what Randy Fine looks like.

Randy Fine. Randy Fine. Harvard. Twice. What? Let me check it. I'm going to check the facts. Check the facts.

Check the fact. I like you just threw in twice there. Randy Fine, Randy Fine, Harvard. Undergrad and grad. What was his, I want to know what his graduate degree is. Harvard, Harvard University.

The Kennedy School. The MBA. Wow. MBA. What's the business school? There we go. There we go. Smart guy.

He's a good time. I mean, look, a lot of people get into Harvard, but he's smart guy. A lot of people don't get in. So that's the cool thing about Harvard. So before we even get to the fraud part, thoughts on nithia overtaking pratt it's a bad day for karen bass they thought they could have a a nice little uh uh runoff where basically uh she got to run against rick caruso with a head injury and

instead instead instead she's going to face somebody that has a hot that actually like you know karen bass uh is unpopular nithia i think a lot of people don't know nithia but she has a positive approval rating among people who do know her it doesn't surprise me that a lot of the kind of hyper-engaged L.A. voter who didn't want to vote for the governor's race to the last possible minute were a bunch of Nithia Rahman voters that were paying really close attention. But I do think it's very good for Los Angeles because it means we now get a runoff with real stakes about what kind of democratic leadership we want, as opposed to what we would have had, which is six months of fear mongering around Spencer Brett. Yeah, just to be clear, established from Democrats in California are rigging the election to make it harder for the incumbent mayor to win the mayoral here in Los Angeles, but also rigging it. So the statewide race will include a Republican so that Steve Hilton has a chance to become governor. It's because we know what's up here in Los Angeles. That makes sense. That makes sense. You get a love his point. You know, head injuries is like waxed by a big crystal. And now it's a real race. Like Karen Bass is a

weak incumbent because of her handling of the fires, homelessness, cost of living, like anger and incumbents generally. And Spencer Pratt was was dominating the battle for attention. for super online people. If you're a Twitter power user, if you're super politically engaged, Spencer Pratt was everywhere because our algorithms were feeding us his AI slop crap and, you know, just felt like he was all over. And that's a small slice of the electorate, it turns out, because the LA Times did a poll right before the election where they modeled the actual electorate. And that poll looks like it was pretty much spot on at this point. And so what actually happened is what I think that political professionals always assumed would happen, which is,

is the MAGA adjacent candidate, Spencer Pratt, was never going to do very well in Los Angeles in a county where 15% of registered voters are Republican, and Trump is 55 points underwater. And Pratt was aligned with Trump. Like that, of course that was what's going to happen here. In fact, Spencer Pratt's campaign was nothing special at all. And like, you know, I think you could look at the media tactics and say there's things for other candidates to learn about how to grab attention. But yeah, the LA Times poll that you mentioned, Tommy, it was May 28th, so like a couple of weeks before the election.

And it was Bass 26, Rahman 25, Pratt 22. Didn't get as much attention because it sort of went against the prevailing narrative of like the super online set, which is journalists and all of us and people like that. Yeah, all of us for sure. And then, but today, it's right now it's Bass 34, Ramen 27, Pratt 26. and you know, you could see sort of Pratt going even lower and maybe Bass going a little bit lower as the final boat comes in, but we'll see. And it turns out that Spencer Pratt is probably going to finish

almost where Donald Trump finished in 2024 in this city. And now that's a bigger electorate, so it's not exactly apples to apples. But he also, he did much worse than Caruso did. Caruso spent more money, but also Spencer Pratt raised more than Karen Bass or Nithia spent more, had crazy amount of attention, and basically performed like a standard-issue Republican in Los Angeles, absolutely no better at all. Imagine if, like, Joe Biden had given an interview saying that, like,

Amy McGrath's loss is because of fraud in Kentucky, because everybody loves Amy McGrath, and Amy McGrath is doing incredible stuff out there. Look, there are people that, like, you know, they are captivating to the kind of people that are watching really closely that are hyper-partisan, but then voters in Illinois, who I think are really frustrated with Karen Bass, really frustrated with Democrats, they would, and for all we know, look, we don't know, right, if Nithia Rahman weren't in the race, like how many anti-incumbent votes might have gone

to Spencer Pratt. Like, I think it's a, I think it's a little bit more than just the kind of, he got the kind of standard Republican vote. You know, we don't know how many votes for Raman are sort of Democrats who are just anti-incumbent, and maybe they could have been Spencer Pratt voters, right, because they just did not want to vote for Karen Bass, but regardless, as much as people in this city are really frustrated with Democratic leadership, they're not going to vote for someone aligned with Trump who was going around saying crazy shit about the city. He ran a horrible campaign, and he actually became

more MAGA the closer it got to election day. Like, he's, I think we talked about this, maybe off Mike or on Mike, I can't remember anymore, but he spent the weekend before the election in New York on Fox and Friends. He was not Gutfeld, too. Calling for Nithia and Karen Bass to be jailed and then talking about how people were raping dogs in Skid Row. Like, that's how he, that's how he ended the race. He became more of like a megalomaniac at the end, or at least openly. He didn't try at all to distance himself from Republicans at all.

Like, Rick Caruso ran a race where he was at least like, I'm going to listen to both sides. Like, he tried to be as nonpartisan as possible, which is probably why he ended up doing better. that Spencer Pratt, but Spencer Pratt actually got more magasseeming the closer you got to election day. So anyone was like, oh, it was a brilliant campaign, this and that's like, no, it wasn't. He had the possibility of maybe running a campaign where he had this like angry populist message and he sort of tapped into the frustration with the government, but he just fucking blew it as the, as the race got closer. Yeah, and I should say, like, obviously I've been very insulting to Spencer Pratt.

And there's a, like, he lost his house. There's a lot of anger about the way the fires were managed, but he just didn't run that campaign. And I do think there's like a kind of insular conversation that happened. If you look at the map of where Spencer Pratt vote came from, there's this kind of ring of like wealthier places around the city that, that like are people that are very online. I think very kind of like Bill Maher, Barry Weiss world kind of coded at least like just sort of tapped into that world who are really frustrated with Democrats who think the Democrats have gone crazy and moved too far left. Right. And there's just not that that that's that is a big pool of people on the internet. And it's a big pool of people who, yeah, on the internet and just who have like outsized influence and louder megaphones than other people because it wasn't, I will say, it wasn't purely an online phenomenon and that like we all know people and we were in circles where someone's like, oh, I've talked to some Democrats who were voting for Spencer Pratt. And now I would always ask, I'm like, are you, are they Democrats who voted for Karen Bass last time? Or are they Caruso voters who were now Pratt voters? And you didn't find too many Bass Pratt voters out there.

Right. There was a genuine. frustration with karen bass i personally felt that we talked about this on the show her management of the city around the fires i thought was really really bad and i think for spencer pratt having his house burned down uh understandably he was channeling some legitimate and righteous rage about all things la and the fires um if rick caruso had won again i think there's a very good chance he could have done well and made the runoff maybe one outright yeah because he had a track record he was like i built the grove and and spencer pratt's like i coined the term spidey and maybe leaked a tape about LC.

Yeah. Both for me. Like, he's self-evidently not qualified for the job. So, I mean, like, this is what was so frustrating I think about the boomlet about the guy was it was just like kind of like TMG adjacent Twitter algorithm pumped bullshit and hype. Yeah. Backed by nothing.

Well, and to your point, love it about the map. It's analogous to, for those of you listening from D.C. or have been to D.C., like how people in Northwest D.C. and Northwest D.C. think, like, that's the whole city. and there's actually three other quadrants in D.C. where a ton of fucking people live. They're just not as loud or as privileged as everyone in the Northwest. And that, I think, is what happened in L.A. too. It's like, this is a big, big city.

And all those places that voted for Bass, especially in southern and eastern L.A. And Nithia as well, like, they're just not, Nithia's areas are definitely wealthier for sure. But there's just an outsized influence and loudness you get from. people in the West Side that doesn't actually represent most of the way. So on the fraud allegations, how seriously do you guys take those allegations from Trump and other Republicans as a potential harbinger of things to come in November or future elections, I guess?

I mean, Trump's going to say that any election he or Republicans did not win was stolen, right? It's a heads-eye win tells you lose setup. I think this was kind of the perfect storm. these here, this Spencer boomlet, this expectation that just built and built and built that he was some great candidate and going to win. Then there's the California voting process and how slow it is. We'll talk about that in a second. And then, you know, this just, it wasn't like a big election night with a lot of other things to talk about. It was a lot of people focusing on this and the slow counting. And so I think what I found personally so annoying about this is how much information

you can find about the process if you try to find it. Like I got in a little exchange with Megan McCain about this on Sunday. I was bored on a flight. She's a unpleasant person who doesn't apparently want to educate herself. But like you can go reporters, the counting process is live streamed. Reporters can and do go to the processing center. The general public can and do go to observe the counting if you want to. There are representatives from the campaigns observing the counting. Like the problems are well documented. L.A. County is the largest election jurisdiction in the country. There are more registered voters in this county

than 41 states have statewide. I know. 10 million people in LA County. People don't understand this. It's really big. It's really big here, everyone. Come visit. And in California, most of us vote by mail.

It's like 80 or 90% of California voters use the ballot that gets mailed to your house compared to 15% in Texas. And I love that because our ballot is really long and complicated. And there's a lot of stuff you got to Google and it takes hours. I'm glad I could do that at home. And so like you mentioned, vote by mail ballots, if they're postmarked on election day, received within seven days, they get counted.

The signature matching process can take a lot of time. Again, that's the thing Republicans like it. I was going to say, yeah. I think you guys like the signature matching process. That's called voter verification. And if there's an issue with your signature, there's time to cure it and fix it, that can take time. It takes time to open the ballots, check the signatures. Like, what we should do is put more money, more time, more resources, more people, more machines, throw it at this problem, try to speed it up a little bit.

that would be helpful, but like, we have a lot of people here. This is how we vote. Yeah, I mean, we have a lot of people, but the scale shouldn't be a factor in how quickly we count the ballots, right? Like, Texas can count the faster for other reasons. I'm saying that there are, I think there are ways in which we can keep postmarked by election day. We keep all the kind of pro-voter policies that have, and it could be done.

It should be faster. It'd be much faster. Now, I do think one part of this is a lot of people held their ballots because they were waiting, they were being strategic about the governor's race, or maybe they just weren't and just actually didn't feel inspired by their choices, whatever, people really helped onto their ballots. I think the two things should happen. One, going into November in California, I think we all really need to view it as kind of

a civic responsibility to get our ballots in sooner, right? I think we can all help by having more ballot in. And then two, so California now counties have to have to count most of the votes within 13 days or they have to notify their provisional ballots and exceptions, but they have to count within 13 days. But with some more resources, it should be possible that on election night, they've counted all the ballots they've already received and can put those numbers up. And then kind of the counts can be happening quicker. And that is a resource question. You have, you have counties where they're still taking, you know, it's days and days and days after they're

getting ballots that they can ultimately get to counting them. They have limited hours. They have limited space. Like all of this could be resolved. And, you know, Governor Newsom has talked about this, about wanting the ballots to be faster. I just don't appreciate. when the Secretary of State of California is like we want to be, it's accuracy and not speed. I wish there was more acknowledgement that the process could be faster, what the resources would be required because it's a huge problem. And look, there's nothing you can do to account for the fact that these people are going to accuse us of fraud. But I do think we should be able to count our ballots faster even at this size, right? I agree. Look, that's why I said. No, I know. More time, more money,

more resources. Like, we should count faster. It's, it sucks. It's frustrating. It's embarrassing. What I just have no time for is the people who don't spend one second trying to find good information. they spread the meme that they got forwarded by their aunt on Facebook. And like, they're like people kicking up the quote from Trump. It's like he doesn't know a goddamn thing about what's happening. There's no. Also, let's be clear here. The reason we all want it counted faster is because we know that if it's not being counted fast enough,

then Republicans now cry fraud in the election. There's no civic governmental reason for it to be counted faster. It would be nice. We're all fucking impatient people and just want results really fast. But like, now look, to your point, love it, there are other states with mostly mailing ballots where you can postmark by Election Day, Washington State, Colorado, et cetera. And they're all faster than us. Now they are smaller states. I do think the biggest problem in California is we leave it to the counties still.

And so like Los Angeles, actually, Los Angeles County was still posting updates over the weekend. A lot of counties, just no one works on the weekend to count the ballots. They don't have enough staff. They don't post anything on the weekends. And there's just not enough machinery. So I think there is no excuse for the state legislature, which is controlled by Democrats. And there's a Democratic governor to pass more funding for staff or resources for a faster signature verification process, which you could probably do as well. You could probably limit the window for curing your ballot if the signature doesn't match.

Because you have like 20 days, I think, to cure your ballot at this point, which is it's pretty long. Right. So there's definitely things you can do on the margin to make it faster by by making it a whole state thing instead of county. Yeah. And yes, it is to answer totally bullshit allegations of fraud. But also we're the fourth, fifth largest economy on earth. Why are we having so much trouble doing some that other places can do faster than us? I do think that that is like it is about good government too. Yeah. Yeah. Positive America is brought to you by Hymns. E.D. is way more. and then most guys think millions of guys deal with it at some point. That's exactly why Hymns offers a straightforward way to handle it. Hymns connects you with licensed healthcare providers online,

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Cricket and use the code Crooked at checkout for 15% off. All right. So Alex and I talked on Friday about the mess at 60 minutes and Scott Pelley's decision to sound the alarm about what he says is conservative bias at CBS News under Barry Weiss, which led to Pelley's firing. He then sat down with the New York Times for a conversation with Lulu Garcia-Navaro at the interview, which published over the weekend, where he elaborated on his claims for the first time.

Let's take a listen. About four hours after our deadline, Barry Weiss sends an email to my boss, Tanya Simon. Two of the things in the email include, can we make the protesters look more violent? Now, I'm paraphrasing. I don't have the quote, but that's what was communicated to me. And the other thing was Renee Goods car. You need to describe her as driving toward the officer. There was a thumb on the scale for the president's version of events that I felt was a level of political influence that I had never seen in 37 years at CBS News.

Did you guys listen to the whole interview and what do you think? Yeah, I watched the whole thing. The thing that jumped out to me was Pellie makes, he talks about the bias and pushing on these stories. And CBS gave a comment to the Times basically saying, like, there was a back and forth, not everything that was requested, ended up in the final piece, whatever. So they're saying, look, we had a back and forth about it. But let's assume that there is some bias.

The point that Pelley makes is just what I take from his broader interview. and the story here is that it's not just about the bias, it's about the incompetence of the whole operation, that they just have not communicated well. Now, I think some of those have been motivated reasoning, right? Because then he then also refuses to meet. It sounds like he did refuse to meet with them for a time as well, right? So like tempers were clearly high.

But like you do get the sense. Like he makes the point that Nick Bilton, who is a friend of mine, was reading from his phone in one of the meetings. And clearly like that was making Peli get mad in the, moment, right? And like, so some of this is just people that have been accused of being brought in to be pro-Trump, to have biased, to help Ellison gets deals done, and then, like, sort of ham-fissively firing people, trying to kind of have editorial opinions, it confirming people's worst expectations, and it kind of spiraling out of control. Yeah, but look, I thought what we just watched there

were some pretty damning allegations that, you know, Barry Weiss is just interfering with segments, not just in a political way, but like in a way that was not factual. Like make it look like Renee Goods driving at the cop pretty clearly was not with your own eyes. I also was taken by just how incompetent. He described the new team as being like entire episodes of 60 Minutes almost didn't make air. That seems bad. They couldn't get Tony Ducopal a visa to cover the president's trip to China. Also a pretty big deal.

Pretty bad. Pelly also overtly uses the words. He accuses CBS of paying a multi-billion dollar bribe to President Trump when they settled the lawsuit around the 16 minutes edit of Kamala Harris's interview. And so, look, like, you know, I don't know, Barry Weiss. Some people say she's lovely and charming. Some people think she's, you know, the devil. Like, right, the truth is obviously somewhere in between.

I've met Nick Bilton before. It seems like a nice guy, good author, smart screenwriter. Neither of them has any TV experience and seemingly have no business overseeing the most successful TV news show at this network. I mean, Barry Weiss is the editor-in-chief of, of CBS TV, CBS News, but Nick Bilton's never worked in TV and he's getting put in charge of 60 minutes, which is by every measure of success, the ratings were up 9%. They make nearly $70 million in ad revenue in 2025.

Like it's not a thing that's broken, needs fixing, which is a lot of Pelley's point. And I think ultimately, like, Weiss and Bilton were brought in as part of a corrupt project to change CBS News to make it okay for President Trump in. some way to grease the paramount skydance merger or whatever merger they want to do in the future. That's what I think Pelly thinks happened here. And there were times in this interview where it can seem a little pompous and sound like self-righteous and it's very emotional, right? Like Pelley seems to compare himself to like veterans in combat at one point, which is a little

odd. Refers to 60 Minutes as his spouse being murdered. Yeah. So it's very emotional. But like clearly this guy who loves his job, never wanted to do anything else, never wanted to leave. seemingly didn't think he'd get fired even when he like lit his new boss on fire

in front of the entire group but it's worth to listen I think he also I think gets most emotional when he's talking about Tanya Simon and some of the other people who've been fired and who have been treated poorly which I think is telling I actually think that if you took Trump out of the equation

I think Barry Weiss still would have sent that email those emails about Renee Good because this could be happening. She might not think to herself, I am doing Donald Trump's bidding. But the, if anyone has experienced the free press, read the free press, or trafficked in any of the circles of the anti-anty-Trump Republicans who are always making excuses for Trump, but they think that they're more like moral and normal and sane. It's the only people who haven't lost their minds. That's like, to me, it's like the only people that haven't gone crazy. Right. Like if that was like, and we saw this split in the conservative movement

between the Renee Good killing and the Alex Preddy killing, and that some of them who tried to push this narrative that Renee Good was driving at the cops and stuff like that, they kind of broke off when it was Alex Preddy and it was even more obvious and they were like, okay, this one is bad, you know? So it actually made sense to me that Barry Weiss would do this because, and I think this is probably indicative of what happened at CBS

and why 60 Minutes and the people of 60 Minutes were so angry is I think Barry Weiss came in, and I, having seen Nick Bilton's tweets in commentary here and there. I think he's someone who's like, okay, the libs have gone crazy, too. They both get in there and they're thinking, like, this is another evidence of liberal media that we got to fix. And I'm sure the staff at 60 minutes and the reporters there are like, you know what? We take our jobs very fucking seriously and do really good reporting and fact check it a lot. And we don't consider ourselves like part of like the liberal media and bias. And so I think

there was that probably that clash between ideologies. There's, I think, like a revealing point where at some point Barry Wyss says some version, if you're not biased, why does the country, why does the country think you're biased, right? Which is an article of faith. They're like, well, what's the evidence for that, right? And so, look, like, Scott Pelly in that clip is paraphrasing an email he didn't see, right?

Like, that is like, I don't know what the exact text of it is. I don't know how they're, I am sure it was trying to push it sort of more kind of in a way that was sort of like more favorable to the Trump version of events, but the non-liberal version of events. Yeah, it was the entire right-wing media. ecosystem version of events. But the other thing that's strange about this interview, right, is like he attacks,

I mean, he wants Barry Weiss fire, right? He, but he also has a lot of like nice words to say about Ellison, which is really strange, right? And what I took from this interview is like, he's like, oh, we were excited when Allison came to the newsroom. He greeted us. He called me, sir, right? Like, there's this way in which what I was wondering when I was watching the interview,

is this somebody who was trying to get Barry Weiss shit canned and then someone who can go back to CBS and he's saying to he's saying to ellison hey i'm not a problem if barry weiss isn't there right you're good barry weiss is i'm not your problem barry wice is your problem because now i'm talking about how great you were when you came and she's the one that's got to go um so i i thought that was sort of like because if barry wice is a part of some uh ellison project to kind of uh grease the skids uh for a deal right it would be it would be ellison at fault too but that's not how pellet talks about No, what he says about David Ellison is this, like, he's pissed at Sherry Redstone for cutting a deal with Trump and paying the bribe to make the lawsuit go away.

The lawsuit was obviously bullshit. And I think he views that as unforgivable than it permanently damaged 60 minutes. And so he's like, look, a new guy came in, had some money, had some political swat. Like, we're all good there. Like, if you want to support our project here and you've got the balls to stand up to people, I'm there with you. It could be strategic and then he's trying to divide the two of them. But like, you know, I found that interesting too.

pretty notable and maybe believable. But also it's like he's not dealing with David Ellison. He's dealing with Barry Weiss. You know, like you can be nice to the boss's boss who when they greet you is like, hi sir, nice to meet you. And then like Barry Weiss is the one who's murdering 60 minutes. Right. Right.

And then also Nick Bilton, who she just sent in with and didn't even go to the meeting herself and just made him deal with that all. Yeah. Look, I stand by with Nick. Look, you go to that first meeting and think, all right, I'm going to kiss everybody's ass and get her back, get her back on the side. You're like, oh, fuck. This guy is mad. Could you imagine?

I'm just like trying to imagine, too. Like, you're just your aunt. You're at your first day at work. And Scott Pelly, one of the most famous journalists in the world is like you're murdering the most beautiful thing that any of us has ever seen. Round of applause. Do you think someone's holding up the tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, it's unbelievable. It's unbelievable. I just don't think that, like, how can you expect anything else when you have obviously.

been following along what Barry Weiss has been doing. And the firing just happened, right? Yeah, of course. Like, it's not like, it's not like he got to the meeting and all of a sudden someone's like, excuse me, Nick Bilden, they just fired a bunch of the staff. Again, like I met Nick a couple times. He's always seemed nice. But he did a series of interviews with media journalists where he just could not have

sounded more pompous and insulting. And like, I know this is going to be easy. I know everything. You know, like, I'm going to be the one like uploading the video to the satellite truck. It's like, okay, buddy. It's the Barry Weiss free press salon party circuit. It's the exact kind of language.

There's just a whole set of them. Yeah. Look, the point that Pelley made in that conversation is like, how could you take a job like this, given the circumstances, right? And that does mean whoever is going to run 60 minutes if it wants to prove something to these journalists has a lot of work to do, right? And like the, I'm like used Leslie Stahl and some of the other people are staying, right? And like, I don't know what the, what the future of this thing looks like, but I do think that a world where 60 minutes gets to kind of continue to exist and there's, and maybe this continues to like boil over into the public. And that's, I don't know. Like, if you're taking the job, right, and you've never had TV experience, you're doing it after all these firings and you walk in expecting to be given the benefit out. It's just like not what's going to happen, right? And like, Barry Weiss doesn't have TV experience. Nick doesn't have TV experience. You're taking over like one of the most important jobs in all of television. They're not qualified. for the job. They're just not. And it's not mean or insulting to say that. Like, you never worked in TV. You are not qualified for this job. And taking it is ridiculous. And what do you think it's going to happen? Give me a break. Just the last 10 years have been just a rash of people who are like wealthy and powerful and influential thinking that because they're good at one thing, they can be good at other things. It's a real fucking problem that we have in this country right now. Just talk to any of the tech pros. Or Donald Trump.

Yeah, exactly. We're Donald Trump. One last new story to get to here. We are recording on Monday afternoon, California time. Shortly after we leave the studio, Trump will depart his golf club in New Jersey from Midtown Manhattan, where he will attend game three of the NBA finals at Madison Square Garden, which will bring traffic to a standstill, require ticket holders to arrive hours early for security checks, and force the cancellation of the watch party outside MSG for people who don't have tickets, which is just about everyone. So how are people feeling about the decision? Quote, of all the selfish, narcissistic things Trump has done,

attending MSG to see the Knicks play in person Monday night is the absolute worst. these are the sentiments of none other than Anne Coulter. But the feeling also seems pretty widespread. Let's listen. Since when Trump be at Knicks games, now all of a sudden we're winning, he want to be here. If the Knicks lose tonight, I blame Trump. I don't want Trump at the game. I don't want no new people at the game.

He's coming to game three of the finals, and I don't want him there. It has everything to do with him disrupting and contributing at the same time to the Chaos. If it causes the New York Knicks to win to lose the night, I'm blaming him. I'm blaming the president of the United States. Of course, everyone probably recognizes Stephen A there. Before Stephen A was Mace. That was Mace. Stephen A guest on this show. Stephen A in a bright pink suit in a bright pink tie, ranting about Donald Trump going to a next game.

That's what I want out of sports media. That is perfection. You know, Trump is expected to be to booed, to be booed. food, probably. They better boo the shit. Also, there's going to be an unfavorable split screen with actual Nix fan, Zoran Mamdani, who coughed up $1,000 for a standing room only ticket. So that's going to be an interesting thing.

Mumdani also decided to throw free watch parties in Bryant Park and, I think, two other locations as well, because the area around MSG is closed down. What do you guys think Trump's doing this? I mean, he knows the power of live professional sports, and that's the only kind of monocultural events we really have left. That's why he goes to a lot of games. Usually at the NFL, I went to the Super Bowl.

Do you think the SEC championship? He went to a college football championship. Did he go to NASCAR? Did he go to NASCAR? Yeah, I think he's been to NASCAR. You know, so usually he's more welcome in those, you know, sort of southern NFL spaces. I don't think he will be here.

I mean, he's also buddies with James Dolan, I think, the owner of the next, who's a terrible guy who, like, he surveils people who, like, are mean to him at games. Always pals with the owners. Yeah. Not a real player guy. Yeah. No, but like Roger Bennett and I talk about this in the interview.

I mean, you guys remember last year Trump went to the FIFA club championship in the U.S. And he was supposed to walk up with Gianni and Patino, the head of FIFA, hand the trophy to the Chelsea players and then walk off the stage so they could celebrate. And he just stood there and jumped with them and like celebrate with him. So he makes it about himself because he loves the limelight. He loves every spotlight and he will attempt to co-op this one too. Yeah, he doesn't give a shit about anyone by him. Like, we know this. When you have to decide whether the president of the United States is going to attend an event like that, the biggest consideration.

Well, first of all, you talk to service and be like, okay, what does the security have to look like? And you need to listen to Secret Service, especially Donald Trump, he's been, you know, survived multiple assassinate in nation attempts now, right? But then when the service tells you what it's going to require security-wise, and they tell you that, well, as a consequence, it's going to inconvenience quite a few Americans. then sometimes the president's like, well, do I really want to piss off that many people by doing this? Is it really that important if my going means a whole bunch of others? And then you say, well, maybe not.

Maybe it's not that important for me to go. Trump would never say that. Yeah, I think he wants to go to the game. He just goes to go to the game. He wants to sit there. He wants to be booed by New Yorkers. He wants to, he wants to like be the center of attention. And he doesn't care.

There's be two hour waits outside. They had to barricade whole parts of Midtown Manhattan to make this possible to cancel the watch. He doesn't give a fuck. I mean, arguably worse is when he always wants to, like, if there's a natural disaster somewhere and he's got to go be on the scene immediately, even when local officials are like, please, we're trying to clean up the disaster here. And we can't have a presidential visit because it's too much mess and security right now and just come later. He's like, I don't give a fuck. He also thinks he's a New Yorker and that New York likes him and they do not.

Well, he's because he's also like shit all over it when he left. Yeah, he's like, he was like, he was like, he was like, fuck New York. Fuck that. It's become trash now. Yeah. I don't think he's going to love the split screen. I hope whoever is on the ones and twos, it just go, Mondani, cheers like crazy, Trump booze. Go back and forth. Give us a couple back and forth. And because Mondani's so talented, he's going to be, he's going to be so nice about it, too. Like, he's not going to try to, you know, jab Trump at all.

No, they're going to have, they're going to have a shot of Donald Trump being booed while Mamadne is like going to be nice. It's going to be, I hope we get that. There's also like only that. A bunch of cool celebrities who always go to games like Timothy Chalamee and Tracy Morgan and Ben Stiller who will be like, on the wood with the people, like, join the game and Trump will be up hiding at a luxury box, like kind of lurking from behind, hoping he doesn't get booed. We can't say courtside. No, it would be great if you tried, walk down there.

People were retweeting some old tweets from Josh Hart today, Knicks player, just like shitting all over Trump. Like, he's not a, I don't think he's been loved by the Knicks. No, we also remember, like, Trump very specifically, I think yelled at or was me to the LeBron James. Oh, yeah. Shut up and dribble. It's all the shut up and dribble guy.

It's also like basketball, it's so much smaller, it's so much closer. They're just like right there. Like, it's going to be part of the game that Trump is at this game. Yeah, I mean, look, Fox News and Trump, they love to tell athletes, especially black athletes, to not have political opinions. But if you like Trump, then you are allowed to have a political opinion. You can come to the White House.

Maybe you can participate in an ultimate fighting championship event on the South Lawn, right? That's how this works. Yeah. Sadly, no John at that one. Yeah, Favre didn't make the cut. It's a real bummer. So close. So close.

It would have been very funny. It would have been very funny. I think what would have happened is you, would have shown up at the place where you get the van to the go to the thing and someone would like clock your face and be like, oh no, that's not the one. I had thought that, but like 4,000 people on the South Lawn, it's a lot of people to really be like doing the face sheet because it's not, if it was inside the White House, it'd be like, yeah, no way. But I don't know. I think there was, I think once you're at that point, nobody knows. Random people like, celebrities are showing up all

the time. You never know part of some Trump drug deal. Suddenly I'm walking him, taking my seat right next to Vince Fawn and, hey, buddy. He's like, what are you doing here? Loved you in swingers. Loved you and swingers. It's going to be so hot and so miserable out there. I was looking at the weather for this because there's like a chance of thunderstorms now, too. And it's 91 and maybe thunderstorms there. 91 degrees, like humid bugs everywhere, awful people all around you.

Imagine having to fight in that. Yeah. And then they get- Dana White said, too. He was like, it's not the ideal. It's not the ideal environment to have a UFC fight. Imagine they're like, we got to pull it down because of lightning. They don't want to pull it down because of lighting.

Then all of a sudden, you have basically a biblical event. It hits that. Just a metal thing. Listen. All things are possible. Can't wait to check it out. All right. When we come back, Tommy's conversation with Roger Bennett of Men and Blazers.

Today's show is sponsored by Strawberry.Me. Think about your career. Close your eyes. Maybe it looks good on paper, but does something feel a bit off? Sometimes. Maybe you're stuck. Maybe you're burned out. Maybe you're ready to move up to that next level.

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your personality, and your professional background. These aren't random internet gurus selling their advice. Coaches on the platform average 16 or more years of experience across 900 companies and 37 industries that have been leaders, founders, and executives themselves. it's not just a single conversation. You have one-on-one video call with your coach, build a personalized plan together, and stay connected between sessions when real-life challenges arise. Most people hit a meaningful milestone within four to six sessions, whether that's landing a new

role, getting unstuck, building confidence, or finally taking action on something they've been putting off for too many years. Visit strawberry.com.me and start with the coaching trial today. Tell them Potsave America sent you and get 50% off your first session. That's strawberry. dot me, tell them Potsave America sent you for 50% off your first session. My guest today is the co-creator and longtime host of the smash hit Men in Blazers podcast, the Men and Blazers Media Network, really. He's a New York Times bestselling author whose most recent book is called We Are the World Cup.

Buy It Now. It's also an international man of mystery and a sex symbol. Roger Bennett. How you doing, buddy? I was good until he just said that, Tommy. It's so lovely to see you. You look amazing, man. You too.

Long time, no see. I'm thrilled to talk to you know because, boy, there's a lot going on. There's a lot of football, a lot of soccer in the world. For anyone who wants to learn more about the World Cup, you still have time. And I cannot recommend enough. We are the World Cup. You'll learn about the highs, the lows, the agony, the more agony, through Roger's eyes, right? I mean, I wrote the book.

If you have had the memories of the World Cup, it will reignite them. I hope you can relive them again as powerfully as you did the first time. and if you're a newcomer planning to watch the World Cup, it will give you the depths, the nuances to understand and feel all of it. Eduardo Galliano, the Uruguayan poet once wrote football is a pleasure that hurts. And we're about to experience all of it. Weeks and weeks of it, and I literally cannot wait. I love the World Cup.

This is going to be so much fun. And so before we ruin this conversation with a little bit of politics at the end, let's just talk soccer. So starting with Team U.S. I know they are hardly favorites to win the tournament, but, you know, interest has gone up. Expectations go up every year for Team USA. Who should we be watching? And what's a good result do you think for Team USA this year?

Oh, winning it, Tommy. I know a sound to many of your new listeners that I'm from England, but I love America so profoundly in like a way I like to believe slips me somewhere between Bruce Springsteen and Kenny Powers. So I adore this team. I first came over here in 1994 ahead of the last time the Men's World Cup was here. It was meant to turn America immediately into a football-loving nation. It's taking a lot longer. But the United States and the Economist was just found to have soccer be the third most popular sport in the world, which is mind-blowing.

Amazing. Because I write in my book that before the 94 World Cup, Tommy, a similar study found out soccer was 67's most favorite sport and tractor-pulling. I crap you not was 66. Where are you now tractor pulling? So to some degree, the winner of the World Cup from a US perspective will be the massive fan base that it leaves behind. We've always joked on our show. Saka is America's sport of the future as it has been since 1972.

Like it's perpetually the next big thing. I think this World Cup will cement it and normalise football in our sporting reality. But from an actual competitive POV, this is the American. talented group of individuals we've ever had. But the crazy thing is, you know, our women, kick ass, take names, win things. Our men in the whole history of our nation, going right back to George Washington, who I like to believe would have loved the football. We've won one knockout game in World Cup history,

which is shocking for a nation like ours that invented animal-style burgers in and out and, you know, the cronet, put, you know, human beings on the moon, democracy. all those things. So I'd say if we can win two knockout games, which we stand a good chance of in this very bloated, big gulp, massive World Cup, it would be an incredible result. In that this World Cup is going to be big,

whether the US do well or not, but the US boys will write their narrative into it, which is critical. Is Christian Polisic the one we're watching most? Or what other names do we be looking at? Christian Policic is, if you're a football fan, you'll know. He's jokingly called the LeBron James of Severs.

soccer. He's from Hershey, Pennsylvania. He was the prince that was promised. He broke through into this team when he was 17. He is probably the most talented outfield player we've ever had in terms of his accomplishments in European football. He's a very sensitive human being. He needs to love and be loved. I just went on first tape with Stephen A. Smith and compared him to Trey Young as a player that can do unbelievable things. If he feels great, Stephen A. Smith slapped me down. Went mad. That's a terrible comparison, he said. And then went off on Trey Young for a long, long period of time.

But I'll stand by it. And then there's so many remarkable human beings. I really do root for this team as individuals. It's a beautiful man, Chris Richards, son of Alabama, Birmingham, Alabama, SEC country, Roll Tide, who must have been a big fish on every playing field he was in in Alabama, then went over as a teen to one of the greatest teams in the world. by Munich suddenly became a tiny fish in an enormous trout form, kind of lost all of his confidence, got complete cultural dislocation,

but has been able to tenaciously to resummon his presence as a defender, kind of like a lockdown cornerback now in the Premier League, he's won things, still a sweet, soft, soulful, wonderful human being. I mean, there's many, many players like him that I root for, one touch, one goal, one moment. The commercial upside for this World Cup to become the face of this team, to have a TikTok that goes viral

because of something beautiful that you do. It's a diverse team. I think they're a great face of our nation. They're led by a manager, an Argentinian, Maricio Pocetino, who's like a globally revered manager. He's either going to lift us up. Like, you know, a basketball coach,

going to Iona State and taking them, what's that guy? Petino? Yeah, yeah. He'll have a Petino it, take us up to his standard. We'll Bill Belichick and just suddenly be chasing after floundering on the floor at North Carolina. Dump us for a 20-year-old in Syria or something like that. Is that the plan? Go to Milan.

Yeah, that's exactly right. You can't wait to leave in many ways. But we will go as he goes. If he, you know, if he does his thing and raises us up, joy can be ours. We could be just lolloping around on the floor chasing after a cheeseburger in Hasselhoffian fashion. It could be, it could be great, it could be darkness. We do not know. We don't know.

And we only have until, you know, three days to find out. Yeah, well, all hope ahead of us. All right, let's talk about the big dogs, some of the best teams, some of the best players that you're watching. I've heard France, Spain, UK mentioned a lot. like any sleepers? The UK or London. London? England.

Well, that would be amazing. Tommy, can you imagine if it was cities? Oh my God. That would be cool. The World Cup of cities, that's actually for the future. They can get far more than 48 teams in it. It would be amazing. Come on, Sarajevo.

England. Scotland are also in it. God bless. They're coming over here with a very different goal than everybody else. Their goal is to just drink Boston and Miami dry in the first two weeks of the tournament. and I think they'll probably do it. The Tartan Army. I think America, one of the joys of this tournament

that I hope we get to talk about is the world coming to terms with the United States. You're seeing it now all over social media. German fans going to a Waffle House for the first time having their mind blown. You know, going to eat lemon pepper wet. What is this? And also American sports fans seeing global football culture,

many of them for the first time seeing 60, 17, you know, seeing thousands of Dutch lands march down the streets of Kansas City before a game in their orange-clad shirt bouncing to the left and the right behind a large bus. No one quite knows why. It's just what they do. It's going to be

quite ecstatic. So Scotland, Englander, I mean, England are fascinating. I mean, they used to have an empire. Then they lost that. They used to have a monarchy, not doing so well nowadays. They had Downton Abbey

no longer on the air. So what they have is football and they invented it so they think they should win. They've won once 1966 which is like 1066 in the English school kids' imagination and since then they've always believed

with great surety they're going to win very quickly crapping the bed shattering a nation's heart. They're like Charlie Brown running at a football with Lucy holding. Apart from this time round

they're pretty bloody good Tommy so it is quite fascinating to think of a England winning the World Cup in America when it's the 250th anniversary of independence is mind melding. So we think we're going to say by to some great players this tournament. Lionel Messi

we assume it's his last tournament, although people said that in 2018 and 2022. Cristiano Ronaldo will say goodbye to him, buy to all of his abs. Maybe. Although he's like mostly, I think he's the football player most likely to go like Ted Williams and putting his head in the cryogenic chamber. Just freeze it up. Yeah.

Freeze those abs. Yeah. Is there a next up? So those two, they're not just the biggest stars in soccer. They are some of the biggest celebrities on the planet, most famous people on the planet. Is there anyone you're watching that can fill their shoes? Any stars that are going to transcend this tournament, we hope? The stars, young stars, and it is it that there's this aged, I mean, deeply aged.

We're talking about, like, footballing LeBron age. I mean, Ronaldo is, I mean, it's like 41. Lerno Messi, late 30s. This is, or should be, their last dance. And then there's a slew of teens coming through. Nature abhors a vacuum. So this football, a Spanish wonder child, 18 years old, Laminia Mall, who's already won massive tournaments.

You know, he's almost, if he wins the World Cup, with Spain having won one one he's won already you'll be like Alexander the Great you know tearing up because there is no more world left to conquer so Earl in Harlan a young Norwegian who is

other than Shaquille O'Neal entering the NBA and just breaking backboards shattering them you know gaming game out I've never seen anyone score goals it's like as if Dolph Lundrum was a football player if AI

created just some kind of Norse demigod. He's bringing Norway over. So there is that battle. And again, because it's here, Tommy, in the United States, this commercial hotbed of sports, all of these footballers, and I'm spring to a slew of the great footballers in the world, they're all looking at the United States market

knowing one deep run, one set of ecstatic moments, the financial payoff for this World Cup commercially to kind of be one. what Pele was to previous generation, the face of the game in the United States. There's the sporting competition, but there's also the commercial competition to be that footballer.

They all think they can, you know, be the next Pele. They don't quite know that David Beckham's already won the World Cup. That man is in almost every single commercial and is not giving up his hold on our imagination anytime soon. But they're also incredible stories that will fill the World Cup up, like Haiti, tiny team for whom, you know, just qualifying is everything.

The political chaos that's unspooled over there, which has impacted football, you know, the football stadium. Their trading centre was set fire to by insurgent gangs in Porter Prince. The fact that they've even qualified is remarkable. They had to play all their games on neighbouring Kurosau. Their footballers, you know, brought from all over in the Haitian diaspora. Just taking the field for them is going to be just a joyous geopolitical moment where the word Haiti is seen in a joyous spotlight, a wonderful spotlight so desperately needed.

And it could be one of the most powerful storylines in the opening round. Yeah, that's exciting to watch. So, you know, you touched on this, Raj. The scale of this tournament is just like unlike anything we've seen before. It's happening in three different countries. I think there's 16 host cities. there's 48 teams. I think at some point in the tournament,

there's going to be six games a day. How the hell are you going to pace yourself here, buddy? What are you going to do to get through to this? Yeah, I mean, I feel like I was laughing with you. I already feel like I'm halfway through, but it's not kicked off yet. It is epic in scope, three nations hosting for the first time. Canada, the United States, Mexico.

When it was given, 2018, it was talked about as a unified, almost the NAFTA World Cup. Obviously, the realities have changed. It feels almost like three parallel track World Cups. But what drives me in any World Cup is the narrative, is the story, is the human wonder. The scale of it is epic. I think it's projected to revenue-wise, reported $80 billion will be made,

which apparently is the GDP of B. Belarus, but I'm sure you knew that, Tommy. That's really the first thing that went into your head. It's like, Belarus, yeah. You know, it's really a human ecstasy. 200 million people watch the Super Bowl. We think of that as the ultimate in the United States. Five billion people watch the World Cup.

What is the World Cup? And this is what I wrote in my book. It's like a global eclipse that emanates from the game, sweeps the entire world instantaneously and holds it in its thrall. for 39 straight days. And so that's the magic of it, the energizing magic. What keeps me going is a sense that when these games go on, we're watching human beings live out under the crucible of pressure,

human decision-making. What separates good players from the truly greatest decisions they make under those pressures, there's going to be heroes whose names we don't even know who are going to reveal themselves. and within seconds of some kind of kung fu fighting-esque goal, their name is going to be bled out by millions of children in schoolyards across the globe. There's going to be heroes who will fall in tragedy, comic ways.

We're going to watch the greatest telenovela. And the thing I'm most excited about Tommy is, I don't know if you've noticed, it's a very dark world. We're living in a time of challenge. I hope. I hope when this kicks, off. You know, when Lionel Messi takes the field, all of the darkness kind of is smothered. It's almost like the rational is replaced by the emotional. And it's that sense of global unity,

obviously an illusion, obviously fleeting. But knowing that you're making memories, profound memories, it's like the theory of my book. I'd say 87% of my most important memories are located in World Cups, the cross-generational memories with my dad, my mum, my grandpa, my children. It's the same for me. millions around the world, that conscious act of memory making that you're sharing with the planet is really what drives me onward. I think we've all earned that release, that that reprieve from reality and that moment just come together and enjoy it. Just to ruin this whole thing with politics, though, I mean, President Trump understands the scale of the stage, right? He's got this

preternatural understanding for the role that sports plays and culture. As we talk today, I think he's preparing to fly up to New York for the Knicks game. Do we know, like, does he deliver remarks at any of these events? Is he going to attend games? Like, what do we know about his participation? Not a lot yet, but football is. I mean, I talked about the number of people watching. It is the last global megaphone that is audible across the entire planet. There's nothing like it. There's nothing like a World Cup. Even Salt Bay inserted himself into the final season. That's how massive it is. That's my favorite. Yeah, God bless. I mean, still got me talking about it. years later.

And so ultimately, politicians of all stripes are drawn to football and have been since the very beginning. 1934, Second World Cup was held in Italy by Mussolini who wanted to present Italy to the world, subsidised foreign travel to Italy

for the tournament. The detail I love most about this story is that he made sure the tickets were intricate paper cuts so that fans would go home afterwards. I crap you're not, Tommy, and be like, these are the tickets in Italy look one advanced country it is

so from the very beginning the roots of the tournament have always had a geopolitical reality when two teams take the field the nation's history the nation's politics the nation's culture takes the field alongside and that's what gives it it's epic power

everything matters it's not you know I love American sports when my Chicago Bears play you know the LA Rams it's a big game. It's exciting. I know the narrative. But when Germany plays England, the levels of history, you know, I think was it Emerson who said it contains multitudes, the World Cup contains

multitudes and every politician knows that. And President Trump has embraced football. There was a tournament here last almost a dry run called the Club World Cup. He presented the trophy right at the end. The ritual of trophy presenting in football is that whoever gives it, it's often ahead of state, we'll hand the trophy over to the sweaty footballers on a podium and then step out of the way so that they can lift it up and smoke comes off and confetti blows up and then the footballers bounce up and down waving their arms like this, which is the standard football guy dance.

Chelsea Football Club won. He hands the trophy over and then stands in the midst of them. And the football is a confused. They don't quite know what to do. There's a standard way of doing this. And then in the end, they're just like sod it. And they did it with him in the midst of it. It's a remarkable image.

The smoke goes off. The confetti blows up. Some of them are dancing. Some of them are looking at the present. He knew exactly. what he was doing. He knew that was the photo moment that would go around the world and that he'd become front and center.

So the World Cup contains that power times a million. 2018 Putin ran the World Cup and was very front and center. 2020, it was in Qatar, first game. You and I watched. They had the Qatari leader

sitting right by the Saudi Arabian Mohammed bin Salman. I believe this is your expertise, not mine, but the The two of them had had frosty relations before that. To see them unite was deeply like a symbol. I think one was even wearing the scar for the other country. So there's a story on the field.

There's always the story off it and the optics. The soft power, the hard power is written all over this tournament every time it occurs. You know, President Trump is both head of state and also famously won the FIFA Peace Prize. So maybe he could invite the new Iranian side. Supreme Leader to the US to sit next to him at a game and we could have another moment like the one you just described. I'm just pitching ideas. Yeah, I mean, well, we're pitching ideas. I think it should be a FIFA music award like a Grammy for like Kid Rock or Vanilla Ice. I would say you will watch this World Cup with a split lens and who is invited and where they

sit is for you and Pod Save the World is going to be, you know, I'd say a sport. in itself, but it's not a sport. That gives it a sense of a lack of meaning. But that narrative will be enormous. In macro ways, and in microways, we just had Wagner the Oscar nominated actor.

Pablo Escobar from Narcos Come on a show. He's football mad. And he talked with an amazing passion about how Brazil Brazil wears a yellow shirt. It's iconic. You know, it's synonymous with a beautiful style of football

that kind of coincides with the advent of colour television and he talked about how when Bolsonaro was president he co-opted the Brazilian shirt and that shirt became a symbol of his regime and Wagner talked about how this

World Cup in a post-Belsenero realm is a chance to reclaim it. So the narratives within this thing, if you're a football fan you know it's the rinaldo the messy that portugal the france the spain but if you're a pod save the world fan you know the world cup is is is all of that and more yeah so there's always sort of like issues and anxieties going into these world cups sometimes it's political sometimes it's you know security or logistics this year people were talking

about potential ice presidents at games there are questions about travel restrictions or visas more recently you know there's a lot of discussion about ticket prices Has any of that deterred attendance, as far as you can tell? Is the world still coming to the US for these games in Mexico and Canada? Yeah, the narrative of any World Cup is decided afterwards. And this one in the run-up has been about safety fears, but not just in the United States, in Mexico, the drug cartel violence, the global tensions, the travel restrictions.

Well, one of the reasons I love football, is that more than any other sport, it holds up a mirror to the world that surrounds it. I've always loved that. It's always one of my definitive moments in life, not just in football, is 1986, England, played Argentina. Diego Maradonna, his Argentina, one of the greatest to ever play the game,

just a street urchin turned. You know, kid of gold, they call him Pibbe de Oro, in the shadow of the Falklands War. And England, they were our heroes, and Argentina destroyed them. One goal, Tiny Edel Diego punched it in in the era before video referees. He punched it in over a six-foot two goalkeeper, used his hand, and immediately went asked,

did you punch that in? He came up brilliantly with his own. marketing. He said it was a little bit the head of Diego and a little bit the hand of God. And then when we were reeling in agony as an English nation, he picked the ball up deep in his own half and then just ran through the entire team single-handedly. Every hero, he eviscerated all of them and then just rolled the ball home, which kind of echoed the first score. I did that cheated because I could, but I also could have destroyed you single-handedly if I wanted to and I just did. That goal was an agony. And as an English human being, it kind of

kind of put us all in our place, showed us where we were in the global food chain. But now it's actually the poster that a photograph I have in my office on my wall signed by him. It makes you feel things. It makes you feel alive. That agony is like one of my proudest agonies. It's an honour to have that agony. So everything is always geopolitical. The run up to any World Cup in the modern period is always a human darkness.

the South African World Cup 2010. The whole reporting going in was how everybody was going to be, you know, carjacked. There was an epidemic. Just the violence was going to destroy the thing. The electricity belt was not enough to power the state. It was a disaster. Why is Africa hosting this? It turned out to be one of the most significant World Cups of my lifetime, Nelson Mandela,

Africa presenting it to the world in majestic fashion. Same with Brazil, 2014. violence, rioting, social unrest in 2013. You know, the people rose up around games, marched on the stadium. Every stadium I was in, there were riots demonstrations for social justice, for education, not football. It's meant to be a disaster. And then once a ball is kicked on me, cognitive dissonance kicks in. I'm not sure this is a good thing or a bad thing, to be honest, but it's what happens.

Once Lionel Messi takes the field, you know, all the storyline just falls away and we kind of become mesmerized by that global eclipse thing. So it is a lot of global tension. It is a mirror to the world. The world is understandably challenging. But again, once that opening whistle goes, the past World Cups, everyone has gone from fear and darkness and catastrophizing to a sense of, albeit fleeting sense of wonder. Yeah. Well, I cannot wait for it to start.

But again, the book is, we are the World Cup. pick up a copy now. And then Raj, if listeners want to just hear more from you throughout the World Cup, where should they look? What can they find? Tommy, we're headed to you tomorrow. We're going to L.A. We have a bus in the style of John Madden, a big orange bus. We're driving it across country. Can't tell if this is the greatest idea we've ever had or the worst. We'll find out starting in L.A. We're going up to Seattle, coming back to L.A. We're doing, and then going across the country through Texas, to Atlanta. We're going to be doing it. college game days before the biggest game,

starting with the United States. We're going to be on Santa Monica Pier on that first US game on the 12th with Rob Mack, and then we're going up to Seattle, where we've got John Green, the greatest novelist, I think everyone would agree. Old Skittles,

your man, the greatest Seahawk of all time. It's going to be joining us and more and then back to L.A. and then we're going across. And I will say, as we go across, this is a wild time Tommy many sports fans in America will be turned on to football for the first time

America loves a circus they love an excuse to daytime drink they love mass desire to cut work which is approved for 39 days but I will say seeing these fans and there will be thousands of fans coming in there have been travel bands you know there are

some teams who have no fans able to get visas because of the modern reality they've been caught up in that issue so like Haiti, Iran, Senegal, Ivory Coast but there are thousands and thousands of fans coming and this moment for 39 days for the world to shine a spotlight on not just LA, San Francisco, Seattle

but cities like Houston which are you know about to be um beloved when the world finds lemon pepper wet in atlanta when when there's that you know at 20,000 argentinians running around kansas city tasting and arthur bryans and slaps and going oh my god we've been doing barbecue all wrong there all this time um that to me um is i hope how america can be a winner for 39 days showing a face of ourselves which is meaningful and warm and welcoming. I'm filled with a kind of joy I want so from a far from Liverpool. Oh, it's going to be beautiful. I can't wait for much of Europeans to try Dunkin' Donuts

when we make it to Boston for the first time. Raj, great to see you. Great to talk with you. Good luck with this tournament, buddy. I'm excited to watch through your eyes. I see you in LA, beautiful. See you too. I'm really, really excited to be of your courage. That's our show for today. Thanks to Roger Bennett for coming on. Alex and I will be back with a new show on Friday. Bye, everyone. Pots of America is a Cricket Media production. Our show is Produced by Austin Fisher, Saul Rubin, McKenna Roberts, and Ferris Safari with Reed Echirlin, Elijah Cohn, and Adrian Hill. Our team includes Matt DeGroate, Ben Hethcote, Jordan Cantor, Charlotte Landis,

Carol Pelaviv, David Tolls, Mia Kelman, Ryan Young, and Naomi Single. Our staff is proudly unionized with the Writers Guild of America East.