Pod Save America - Trump Loses the Gerrymander War

Episode Date: April 24, 2026

Virginia voters approve a new congressional map that could net Democrats four seats, dealing what might be the decisive blow to Republicans in the redistricting war — but Republican groups have a huge advantage in money raised. How worried should we be? Donald Trump claims the military has "total control" of the Strait of Hormuz right as Iran seizes two more ships. A series of new approval polls show the president hitting new lows, Kash Patel crashes out when asked about his alleged on-the-job drinking, and a top DHS official is placed on leave over a "sugar daddy" scandal. Then, The Atlantic's Mark Leibovich sits down with Jon and Dan to talk about the messy California gubernatorial primary and this weekend's White House Correspondents' Dinner.

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There's no safe like SimplySafe. Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm John Favro. I'm Dan Fifer. Look at us. We're here in D.C. Back where it all started. Back where it all started.

Beautiful city. Beautiful city. They haven't started work on the arch yet. No. Did you check out the bar room? I was just when we were landing. I was excited to see that the monument was still standing. I didn't know. That's good.

Yeah, the Lincoln Memorial painted Maga Red. Yeah, right. So everything looks normal so far. All right. On today's show, we're going to talk about the latest developments in our new Forever War and why it could take six more months to open the Strait of Hormuz, even after the war ends. We'll also cover Democrats big win in Virginia in the state of the redistricting wars, which Republicans are starting to regret.

We'll check in on our boy Cash Patel, who can't quite shake the J. Edgar Boozer allegations. Just a top-notch, top-10 all-time positive market title. I was saying I don't know who came up with it. They're all on the line, so someone knows, but we're not with them. Lovett saying it was him. It's definitely not love it. That's all I care about. And why the biggest national security threat that we face may be sugar datties.

then our friend Mark Leibovic of the Atlantic joins us here in studio to talk about the California governor's race in this town's Super Bowl the White House Correspondence Dinner this weekend why we're here we couldn't stay away and with Trump in attendance for the first time as president and the first time since 2011 what happened in 2011

we're not going to get into that again if you're listening to this show and you don't know the story of 2011 then you have not paid attention CrookedCon is coming back, Dan, right here in this city. Washington, D.C., November 5th through 7th. It's going to be right after the midterms. Is it being held in the ballroom? Maybe, maybe.

Yeah, we're scoping it out if it's done by then. We're going to have more panels, more speakers, more opportunities to connect with people who care about politics. And plus, there's going to be live tapings of Love It or Leave It, Potsave America, and strict scrutiny. So head to crookedcon.com. sign up for updates, including ticket release dates, line-up announcements, and a lot more. Also, huge news for campaigns, candidates, and anyone who wants to be super smart about politics, take it away. Yes, we Dan. Thank you, John. So for years, we've heard from candidates, staffers, organizers that they

are forced to turn to Pod Save America for political strategy and messaging guidance because they They can't afford a pollster, a consultant. They're not getting support from the National Party. And obviously it's very flattering that they listen to us for advice, but it also, it's like a pretty shameful indictment of how the whole system works. The fact that the people who need the most help get the least help, the fact that the best public consultants, the best pollsters only work for the candidates who have the most money, who tend to be the candidates need the least help.

So to try to fill that gap, I'm launching a brand new product called MessageBox Pro. This is a consulting subscription service for people who work at all levels. of politics, whether you're running for office, you're working for a campaign, you work for a politician, you're just organizing to defeat MAG and protect democracy in your community. Subscribers get weekly strategy memos for me, polling guidance, data-driven insights, and advice on how to get your message out in this crazy media environment. For more information, go to messageboxpro.com. You can sign up there. The first 250 people who sign up, get lock in a special founding member price forever.

www. www. messageboxpro.com. This is a project I'm very excited about. Is there a co-host discount? No. Just wondering.

I'm kind of interested. Maybe I can comp you. All co-hosts will be copped. Okay, good, good. Well, that's exciting. Everyone check it out. You get to have weekly strategy memos from Dan. Wow.

I mean, that's pretty great. It's a pretty exciting product, Dan. I'm really excited you're doing this. We've been talking about this for a while, so I'm glad you got it off the ground. Messageboxpro.com. You can also go to the notorious yesweet, crooked.com slash yes we did. That's another option. But that's also to donate to your future races.

No, no, no, no. Okay. All right, let's get to the news and what seems to be a stalemate, an award that's been going on for seven weeks and counting. Quick reminder, it's now been 43 days since Trump first declared victory in Iran. Now we are on week seven. and counting. So we're recording this

mid-afternoon East Coast time on Thursday a little earlier than usual and Trump is about to do an event in the Oval Office where he may take questions. Our producers are monitoring the situation.

Reid, you're just going to give us a wave. Just a big wave. It's going to throw his sweet green bowl at us. It's got to be big news though. Big news. All right, but for now, Trump extended the ceasefire on Tuesday

didn't put a new deadline on it. And it's unclear if we still have a ceasefire because then Iran's seized two ships in the straight of four moves, and the U.S. has seized a couple tankers, including on Thursday a tanker of Iranian oil. And there's still no word on whether there will be another round of negotiations. J.D. Vance just sitting at the airport waiting to get the call so he can jump on a plane. Trump is still posting through it. This is all just today, claiming that, quote, we have total control of the straight, which we obviously don't, as evidenced

in part by his next post, that he's ordering the Navy to, quote, shoot and kill any boat laying mines there, which he claims is already happening, but wants it to continue at a quote, tripled up level. That's technical speak. Reacts. Yeah, tripled up level. He also shared two posts from warmonger Mark Teeson, yeah, my predecessor at the White House that suggested he should kill the Iranians who don't want to deal. So he said there's a couple factions. There's the want to deal faction and the don't want a deal faction and Teeson said he should kill all the Iranians who don't want to deal, but also the Trump doesn't need a deal. So there's a few problems there. Meanwhile, this is all

after the Pentagon reportedly told Congress in a classified briefing, this is from the Washington Post, that it could take six months to clear the straight from the date the war ends. So if the war ends tomorrow, we're looking at six months until the strait is open again and global energy supplies, go back to normal and the price of gas comes down and oil and all the other and the supply shock and all the other problems that have befallen the global economy because of this. So it looks like the administration is trying to spin the ceasefire extension as a temporary act of mercy. They're saying on background three to five days to quote, allow the Iranians to get their

shit together. This is what they told Axios. And Trump keeps threatening that huge strikes will resume. How eager do you think? he actually is to restart this war. Well, he's given, I think it is now five deadlines with threats. A lot of deadlines. And at every single one of them, he's extended the deadline without getting a single thing he wanted.

So I'm getting the sense that he does not want to restart this war. But he really wants the straight to be open and the war to be over and it to be seen as an unalloyed American victory. But all of this is an impossible task. One tough circle to square. Yes, it is an impossible circle to square. So we are stuck in this place. And every day that we, that where we're still in the steelmate, because really steel made is not a term you want to use with a war in the Middle East. No.

I've been there before. Every day that the stillmate continues is makes it worse for the U.S. and the global economy. The oil shock gets worse. The shortage gets worse. I think, you know, if you read what people like sort of experts in the oil industry say is that the markets, the political conversation is dramatically. underestimating how bad this is and what the what the medium term consequences are like Europe has headed towards a potential jet fuel shortage yeah a gonza canceled like 20,000 short flights already it's really bad yeah it's very very bad with very very real implications for

for people's daily lives not just gas prices but every single part of their life the strength of the economy overall inflation the cost of food and from the as we put it on from the day you end the war you have six months till you can get to some think hopefully resembling normalcy and begin to unwind all of this. And we have no idea when that day's that day one will be. And per usual, Trump is making his problems worse because he has made it clear to the Iranians and the world that he's horny for a deal, which the Iranians know, which is why they're going to make it harder for him to get a good deal that he can feel confident about, which he also needs to avoid seeming weak because he can't seem weak.

So it's just, and you can tell that like the Iranians are sort of showing a little more confidence and the way they're posting and talking about this. And also they're like the clear like the IRGC is in charge and the hardliners. And there's a long New York Times piece today about the new Ayatollah. And he is apparently still very injured and very ill. But like it's like the way they described how Iran's being governed right now is that like it's a board of directors and and the new Ayatollah is the chairman of the board but all the generals and all the IRGC people have almost just as much of a say or certainly more of a say than they did when his father was in charge um so that's probably not good for world peace or getting a deal yeah it's just there there are such different

incentive structures here all the IRGC cares about is staying in power and they have they can they can wait it up Because they are a repressive, awful regime, they don't care how much pain they inflict on their own people. And it's not like they have elections coming up. Yeah, there is no one sitting at IRGCA headquarters worried about the generic ballot right now. Right. And they know that Donald Trump just wants out, both because he's worried about the politics and because he has no attention span. And it's just not clear what he could do to change the calculus here because all he can do is bomb more things. What we all have to hope is that they end up doing a deal.

that's probably better for the Iranians and we would have hoped and Trump pretends that it's some great deal and tries to take credit for it, but at least it ends the war. That to me is now the best possible outcome because there is no outcome where we get a great deal.

No, I mean, the fundamental challenges here is anyone dumb enough to start this war is too dumb to get out of it. Yeah, yeah, that's about where we are right now. You see that Pete Higsef fired the Secretary of the Navy, which is an interesting thing to do here in the middle of the biggest naval blockade operation in decades.

Another heroic background quote to Axios, quote, he didn't understand he wasn't the boss. His job is to follow orders given, not follow the orders he think should be given. The only wars that Pete Heggseth can win are bureaucratic ones. Yes. Doesn't seem great that they're losing the Secretary of the Navy. It seems like this guy went to because he was having trouble with Hegseth and fighting with Hegseth. And part of it was based on, you know, Higsef wants to like eliminate the woke army, the DEI agenda.

And so he was trying to make sure he looked at every application for a possible job and make and scrubbed social media to make sure there were no signs of woke or DEI anywhere in the resume or in the social media. So it doesn't seem like that's a, that's a good thing. There's a lot of people now, I feel like at upper levels of the Pentagon who have been let go again in the middle of a war. Yeah, we keep getting rid of people who know what they're doing and replacing them with people who don't.

Senate Democrats brought up a war powers vote on Wednesday. Republicans voted it down now for the fifth time this year. What else can or should Democrats be doing? It seems like they're just going to keep bringing these votes up. And it seems like each time they are getting like more Republicans who are at least considering voting for the war powers resolution. And the time limits up in terms of even if you don't have, even if you don't think that the war powers resolution does anything, the president can only be at war. for a certain number of days, and that's the time limits coming up there. And so now they're trying to figure out a way to get around that.

Yeah, I'm always torn on the war of powers resolution thing as a tactic here, because one thing we've known for some of the polling we've seen is that people are very, very against this war. They don't understand why we're in it. They hate the costs of it. They think it's stupid. The least effective argument is the process one. Yeah. But morally, constitutionally, from a governor's perspective, the process one is very important.

like that is a case that should be made. And even if we were to pass it, Trump, we're not going to pass it with a veto-proof majority. Right. So it sort of is what it is. And so we have to think about using these votes to put as many Republicans on the record as for Trump's illegal war as possible. I have noticed that all the talk about the supplemental war funding has kind of died down. Remember, it was going to be $200 billion. And then someone said maybe it's closer to $100 billion that the White House is going to ask for.

but I don't see that that legislation getting fast-tracked anytime soon, do you? I just don't know what the immediate urgency is. What we'll push this is, it's very, very, when the Pentagon wants something, the Pentagon is very, very good at ensuring that everyone knows they want it. And so if they actually, like Trump and Russ Vote have made a mockery of all sort of budgeting laws, so they could be robbing from all sorts of places to avoid this, but at some point they're going to need that money and they're going to have to go to Congress for it.

And then that becomes the most important, most politically salient vote people will take on this war. I would bet their calculation is he's trying to get a deal. He's trying to get us out of this. Let's just try to wait to ask for the funding until the war is over. And then we can say it has nothing to do with the war. The war is over. This is just to refill our munitions, which are running low.

And now there's reporting from Alex Warden, the Wall Street Journal that munitions are so low that if we ever had to go to war with, say, China, that we wouldn't be able to have enough munitions. Yeah, I mean, the risk to that strategy is the later you wait, the closer you put it to the election, right? We're in late April now. Congress is going to take, like, the last thing, the worst possible scenario for Republicans

is they have to deal with this in September right before the election. Yeah, as gas prices are like over $5 a gallon at that point. Pod Save America is brought you by Aura Frames, looking to upgrade your Mother's Day gift beyond the usual flowers. Look no further than ARA frames. Look, look, you can do the obvious thing and get flowers, which are fine. They're nice. But they obviously die. You know, and then that's garbage. Or you can get something that lasts forever. It has family photos in it and Aura Frame, free unlimited storage. You can add as many photos and videos as you want. You can preload photos before it chips. You keep adding from anywhere, anytime. You can personalize your gift. You can add a message before it arrives.

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redraw the state's congressional maps, which will likely net Dems and other four seats in the Commonwealth and hold 10 of the 11 congressional seats there. It is now going to be a 10-1 split in Virginia, Democrats and Republicans. Trump said the election was rigged, obviously, called on the courts to fix this travesty of justice. That was his quote. And of course, indeed, a Republican circuit judge in Virginia blocked the results on Wednesday, which was expected. This judge had blocked the referendum earlier. And Attorney General Jay Jones vowed to appeal. Now Virginia's Supreme Court will decide Republicans and right-wing media join Trump in bitching about the results. And Democrats aren't feeling too guilty. Here's Jesse Waters, Jessica Tarlov, and AOC.

You guys have been gerrymandering for quite some time. You're very good at it. Trump tried his hand at it. Did it in Texas. Got some good results in that you guys have just been running the table. Can you stop? Can you slow down? No. All gas, no breaks. What do you make a Republican saying that Virginia is you guys getting? Oh, wow, wow, wow. First of all, what do you think about the Republican complaining? If you could expand on wham, wah, wah. I mean, because I saw it from like a lot of Republican strategists who I think know better.

Many of them live in Virginia, as many Republican strategists and Democratic strategists do in Northern Virginia. But they are very upset. And when you say, well, Texas started it. They're like, well, no Democrats started it first before Texas and other cycles. And in New York, they did it in 2020 and all this fucking. Bullshit. Yeah. Okay.

So what is it the Republicans love to say? Fuck around and find out. Because that's exactly what happened here. But let's just. That's what the keym Jeffrey said. Do you say that? And he actually said fuck. Did he?

Yeah. That's very authentic. Good for him. Very authentic. Here's, uh, honestly good for it. We should, Hakeem Jeffries. Hakeem Jeffries gets a lot of credit here. He crushed it.

He absolutely. Republicans started this redictionary during war. He, Democrats could have crawled into the feet of position. Gavin Newsom stepped up. Hakeem Jeffries stepped up. And he did work. He like went to these states, went to these legislatures, pushed people. Like, it was a lot of behind the scenes work, but he did work.

Virginia would not have happened without Hakeem Jeffries, for sure. So he gets a ton of credit here. But let's just be clear about this. In 2021, there was. a vote to ban gerrymandering. Every single Democrat voted for it. Every single Republican voted against it. One party supports a national ban on germany because it's the only way to do this is a national ban.

One party supports it's the Democrats. One party opposes it's the Republicans. But they don't like here as they started a dumb fight and they lost it. Yeah, I just think we should be consistent in the positions we hold on reform that sort of reforms corrupt. and rigged system and gives people more of a voice and like yeah we're for ending gerrymandering everywhere and if the republicans don't like the bill uh from 2021 that would end partisan gerrymandering for whatever reason because some of them have some problems with the way it's then tell us what you want to give us a bill that would and then maybe we can negotiate on it

but i feel the same thing with money in politics and citizens united and oh democrats are spending money too no we want to overturn citizens united we want to get rid of money in politics do you also then let's do it. Like, I think that there should be term limits and maybe age limits for members of Congress and Supreme Court justices. Great. Let's do it. I think we should get rid of the filibuster. And everyone's like, oh, well, now the Republicans, would you be pissed if the filibuster wasn't there? Yeah, I would be annoyed that they could, they maybe could pass a few more things. But like, I believe the filibuster is bad. And so I believe that it is bad no matter what. Like, I just think that maybe Republicans could be consistent for once on the reforms they support and when they support.

I mean, there's two things there. One, there's consistent. The other one is whether Democrats should be required to unilatively disarm when things remain legal. If we're trying to change the law. Of course not. Yes. That is an absurd fucking position. I do think in a different era and maybe even the first Trump era, Democrats would not have responded as aggressively to this. Because we do believe your mandering is wrong. We would have thought that not everyone. I don't think you and I would have thought that. But I think many in the party would have thought that it is dirty pool. Two wrongs don't make a right. We should not do it. And the fact that we did, turns that Democrats have learned a lesson, finally, of the Trump area, which is if you are going to take on fascism, you have to be willing to fight fire with fire. You have to use everything Democrats are doing is legal. It is a maximum use of allowable political power. The way to fix unfair rules is to fix the rules, not just sit there and let your ass get beat. Yeah. So last year, Abigail Spanberger in Virginia beat her opponent by 15 points. The referendum passed by three. It's a 12-point swing. Why do you think it was so close?

A couple reasons here. One, so the most obvious comparison point is the California measure that passed in November. That passed by about 30 points. This is three points. California is more democratic than Virginia, but it's not 10 times more democratic than Right. And if it passed by 30 points, isn't it like a D plus 20 state usually? Yeah. And Kamala Harris won Virginia by 5.8 points. But some reasons why it was closer. One, this was a very Republican turnout was quite good. It was actually as the big 2021 levels.

When we lost. Yeah. When we lost, yep, when Glenn Yonkin was elected. the Republicans did mount a very good campaign here. They actually used Barack Obama in their ads. Both sides use Obama in their ads. The no side used Obama, footage of Obama talking about what Germanering was bad in their ads. And then the yes side used more recent footage of Obama saying past this amendment. It's smarter than no side. And they spent real money, less money than the yes side.

The other issue here that made it closer was independence. So independence in the last Washington Post poll that was a couple weeks before the election had independence at plus 10 on the no side, which is a huge swing from Sandberg, who won them by more than 20 points in 2025. And that kind of makes sense because if you're an independent who is upset with Trump, maybe you voted for Yonkin in 2021, maybe you voted for Spanberg in 2025, probably Trump in 24. and you're mad at Trump, you see this a process-oriented anti-pro-gerimandering amendment is something that you can still vote against. Yeah, and I don't know how the vote broke down in any of the individual districts, but I also think it is very understandable if you're an independent or if you're a Republican and you're deciding whether to come on vote or not or vote.

Like, if you're in a district that's going to get gerrymandered, and so you no longer really have a say and you're a member of Congress or you're not going to ever get a Republican, I can see why you vote against it. Yeah. This is why gerrymandering in general is bad, and they shouldn't have sent us down this path. And interesting, the one group that blew the doors off, and it's probably why Democrats won was Asian American voters. Yeah, and black Americans, too.

I saw both Asian and the Asian vote and the black vote were quite high. Yeah. Because, again, especially black voters, like, know what it is to be gerrymander. Yeah. But let's talk about what the redistricting war. Trump started with Texas, Hethraught. When you add up all the states now that have redrawn their maps, Democrats are, as of this moment, plus one in the overall count. The only state left is Florida, where the legislature has a special session scheduled for next week.

But it's actually unclear if DeSantis changing the maps will net Republicans any additional seats. And some in the party are already feeling what Axi is described. is quote, buyers were morse. You bet. It's a bummer, huh? When asked if the redistricting effort was worth it, the chair of the NRCC, whose job it is to keep Republicans'

House majority, told Axios, quote, it's not for me to say, because really, it wasn't my decision. In California independent, Kevin Kiley, who was a Republican, and now caucuses with the Republican still, told Axios, quote,

I wish none of this had happened. Well, shit. Kevin's got he lost his seat. Yeah, exactly. Did we win redistricting? Yes. I mean, yes, we won redistricting. You know, when Florida is done, it could come out that we are a seat or two behind.

Florida is interesting because DeSantis could redraw the maps. One, just worth noting that partisan gerrymandering in Florida is illegal. According to the Constitution, no less. So he's going to need to. So it seems like a hurdle? It is a hurdle. I would say the legal reasoning of the Florida. Supreme Court is nalienleable.

There are a lot of Eileen cannons on that thing. Yeah. And so there's there's some thought that they're going to find a way to twist this twist the illegal pretzel enough to get it done. But even if you draw it, right? So DesaSantis is under pressure to do what Newsom did. Because DeSantis wants to run for president in 2028 potentially. This is his chance to like read to show himself to be, you know, an important Republican player. But if he drew, experts who look at this think that anything, more than adding two Republican seats puts them at real risk of what you call a dummy mander, which is where you draw the districts in a way that in a bad year, you lose a bunch of seats. So even, I think, even if DeSantis were to do it, he's going to get two seats at max. So we end up minus one for the whole thing. And what I think in the sense that we won, I'm not sure anyone's going to do this again. Right.

In mid-year, right? Obviously, we're going to have to do this again after the 2030 census in every state. But I think Democrats sent a message to Republicans that if you try to do this, we will do it too. And you're not going to get that much. It's not going to be worth the juice won't be worth the squeeze. Saw a longtime Florida Republican consultant talking to Politico. He ran the numbers and that person ran the numbers and concluded the new map could net Republican zero seats for the reasons you talked about. So because right now they hold a 20 to 8 edge.

And because basically there's nowhere left to cram Democrats without a. exposing safe Republicans to incumbent. So it's going to be really hard even if the Supreme Court doesn't, even if the Supreme Court allows it. The other thing that we've been waiting for is this Supreme Court case that could upend the map in the Voting Rights Act and basically say that all majority and minority districts can be redrawn, which would cost Democrats a bunch of seat. But I do think as of now, it's like too late. It's too late for it to matter in 2026. apparently because two southern states, which is where it would heavily affect, it affects southern states more than anyone, two southern states have already held primaries,

and candidate filing deadlines have passed in every state but Florida. So even if the Supreme Court says it matters for this election, like they just can't. It would be mass chaos if they were to try to make it in place. For the states that already has held primaries, you can't do anything. I guess the legislature could go try to change a filing deadline by passing. Yeah, they'd have to pass new laws to basically do emergency elections to do it. You have new filing deadlines. People have to get signatures for those petitions. Then you'd have to have a primary. Then the general election of members seems. And you have to draw the districts at some point in that too.

So seems fine for 2026. It is a problem and it seems like the decision will be bad. But a problem for another day. Enjoy that majority while we have it. For the next two years. The redistricting fiask, only adds to the Republicans' midterm woes. Trump and the party continue to hit new lows in polling. Both the AP and ARG had Trump's approval at 33% and 32% respectively, so that's fun. As Sarah Longwell says, that's the Bush line right there. Cook Political Report released a new poll on Thursday, finding that just in swing districts

that Trump won in 2024 by an average of two points, Democrats now hold a six-point advantage on the generic congressional ballot. So that's pretty big. And in a new Fox poll, voters gave Democrats the edge of Republicans on inflation and the economy for the first time since 2010. I think that's a six point spread in the generic ballot as well. How much hopium are you huffing these days? I'm not really a hopper per se. I know.

That's why I'm asking. I think that the political environment looks about as good as we ever possibly could have hoped for Democrats right now. And the poll that everyone should really be paying attention to is the Cook Political Report poll of 36. The 36 districts that will decide the House, all of the toss-up, lean Republican, lean Democratic districts. And that was the one that was the, that I, okay, that's six point. And in that one, Democrats have big, double-digit advantages on lowering prices and on the economy, which is something that is, that has changed. Trump's unpopular, Republican bases divided. Like, we have the opportunity before us as we get, we'll get to this conversation.

There are some hurdles to maximizing that opportunity. But this has the potential to be a 1994-2006-2018-style election for Democrats where it's a massive rebuke to the president, incumbent president, and the party in his party. And we've been talking about the House, but the headline of Nate Cohen's newsletter earlier this week was why a Democratic Senate once unthinkable is now a real possibility. What did you make of Nate's reasoning?

Because he's not someone who just... No, he is not. A hopper. Flies off the handle and just starts making predictions. You know, we've made this case, I made this case on Polarcoaster multiple times. And we've talked about a little bit here. But it, like once again, as we've said, it is a tall order to get the Senate because you have to win two of four states that Trump won by double digits. In addition to winning, holding all of our ones we have in winning men in North Carolina.

And but the advantages we have are we have good candidates. Very, very good candidates in three of those four. The four state is Iowa, which has it out of its primary yet. So you have Mary Poltova in Alaska, top-notch candidate, Sherrod Brown in Ohio, top-notch candidate, James Hilaricoe in Texas, top-notch candidate. And there's some view. Roy Cooper in North Carolina. And Roy Cooper in North Carolina.

And then Maine. It's not one of the four. Maine's not a race. Anyone's where I talk about on this podcast. So, you know, it's an under the radar race. And the Democrats are overperforming in special elections by a margin. that would deliver, it puts all those states in play, right? We got to win those. We need plus 10, plus 11 environment to win those states. And we're seeing that's the sort of environment we're in

right now. And then you can add some additional points to that because you have candidates who are going to perform better than a generic Democrat. Yeah, the paragraph in Nate's piece that really stuck out to me was, I was talking about Sherrod and Mary Paltola. It says in Ohio, Mr. Brown lost by 3.6 points in 2024. Ms. Peltola lost by around. two points in Alaska. Today, the Democrats are faring about eight points better on the generic congressional ballot than they did in the 2024 combined U.S. congressional popular vote. Or put another way, Mr. Brown and Ms. Peltola probably would have won re-election in 2024 if those contests had been held in this political environment. So that's pretty big. Eschalon did a set of polls in the Senate

states. Eschelon, really good pollster run by Republicans, Patrick Gafini and Kristen Solta-Sultes-Anderson. they have Osoff up 5144 in Georgia in Maine they have Platner up on Collins 5145

they have mills up by a narrower 4846 that's that main Senate race yeah again I'm just holding my tongue on that

in Iowa they have Zach Walls a two point lead and Josh Turrick a one point lead so they do have a tiny lead inside the margin area

in Iowa and then the only tough one there is in Ohio they have share it down 5145. And there's been a few Ohio polls that have been kind of troubling lately,

but we'll see. So speaking of Patrick Ruffini, who literally wrote the book on the so-called realignment that delivered Trump to the White House in 24, he tweeted a few days before the Virginia election that if the referendum passed by around a five-point margin,

of course, passed by three, it meant Republicans, quote, have some fight in them and can quote, hold down Dem seat gains in the House and keep the Senate. What did you make of his case? It's not crazy. So, like, his original point here is Democrats tout every time we overperform.

And so he's going to go around and tout the one time we underperform. So, you know, sporting, I guess. The, what I think is, and I want to stipulate that a process-oriented ballot measure is very different than a candidate race where the candidate, it's hard to hold. the no on redistricting measure accountable for why you're angry at Trump. Yeah. And just to your point about ballot measures, let us not forget all the abortion ballot measures in deep red states that made us excited that maybe we were going to win their states.

Or minimum wage ballot. And they did not. Exactly. We do not. The 25 point congressional overperformance in Georgia from three weeks ago or whatever it was is a better indicator than this. Also, it is certainly not evidence of an improving political environment. Trump's actually doing worse than he was before. The generic ballot is getting bigger, not smaller.

And so I think it's a bit of a vacuum. What I think is true is that what Republicans effectively did here is they nationalize that election. And when you nationalize an election, that gives them the chance to turn out more of their voters. Because we are winning both through massive Democratic turnout, persuasion, and diminish Republican turnout. They're not going to drive down our turnout.

They're probably not going to do a lot. of persuasion. But the one thing they can do is dry if they're turn on up. And that is a difference between us winning a bunch of Trump plus 12 seats and us not winning Trump plus 12 seats. Yeah. And the other point I found compelling about Patrick's argument is he basically said in all these special elections that we've had so far, Republicans really haven't been able to sort of up the stakes and make voters feel like there's a lot at stake in this election. And in Virginia, they were able to do that because they made it seem like, you know, you could lose your your voice in your district forever.

And so once you get closer to the actual midterms and everything's nationalized, as you said, and the stakes are higher and they're spending, you know, all the money they have, which we're about to talk about, then you could get a closer environment than you've had in some of these special elections, which I do think is possible.

Republicans are going to get their shit together and some of my shipper farm. That is going to happen. It always does. The, I don't, they're not going to get Trump level turnout. They're not going to get the turnout they want, but they're going to get better.

turn out that they've been getting in some of these special elections, and that is going to hold, that is not enough to save the House. It may be enough to save the Senate, but it's not enough to save the House, but it could hold down margins. The difference between Democrats picking up 15 seats and 25 seats. This podcast is sponsored by Squarespace. Squarespace is the all-in-one website platform designed to elevate your online presence and drive your success. Squarespace provides all the tools you need to promote and get paid for your services in one platform, whether you offer consultations, events or other experiences, Squarespace can help you grow your business. Squarespace offers a complete library,

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to connect to you with the support you need. BetterHelp therapists work according to a strict code of conduct and are fully licensed in the U.S. BetterHelp does the initial matching work for you so you can focus on your therapy goals. A short questionnaire helps identify your needs and preferences and their 12 plus years of experience and industry leading match fulfillment rate means they typically get it right the first time. If you aren't happy with your match, switch to a different therapist at any time for their tailored wrecks. With over 30,000 therapists, BetterHelp is the world's largest online therapy platform having served over 6 million people globally, and it works with an average of 4.9 out of 5 for a live session based on over 1.7 million client

reviews. You need therapy. You might not think you do, but you do. You do. It always helps to talk to someone, even if you feel like you're doing great. You go talk to someone, you realize, oh, now I feel even better. We're therapy, boys. We can vote for that right here. When life feels overwhelming therapy can help sign up and get 10% off at BetterHelp.com slash PSA. That's better. H-E-L-P.com ESA. The New York Times reported this week that Republican Party political committees and allied groups currently have a massive $600 million financial advantage over the Democrats and their political committees and allied groups.

The DNC's total cash is actually negative $4.5 million, which seems less than ideal. What do you make of the overall disparity there? I would say one of the funniest things I've read in a long time is there was a, a political reporter was passing along. I think was passing along some of the spin from Democrats. And one of the spin from some of the Democrats about this was, well, we had all this money in 2024 and we lost anyway. So let's try running it back with no money.

That's right. In 2024, we had a candidate and we lost. Let's try no candidate. That's good thinking. Here's what I'd say. It is bad when the DNC has not. negative money. Okay, that is bad. It is not as consequential as I think people on the internet think. The DNC is not intimately involved in funding house races or Senate races. That is the D-Triple C and the

DSCC. They have less money in the Republican counterparts, but that's a much narrower gap. And then where Republicans are truly crushing us is in Super PAC and nonprofit money, in dark money. And that's not even counting all of the hundreds of million dollars in the AI and Cryptosupert PACs, which are mostly going to help Republicans. But where Democrats are crushing us, our candidates are raising a lot more money than their candidates. And here's why that matters, because every dollar in political fundraising is not equal.

By law, television stations have to sell TV ads to campaigns run by candidates, the actual candidates and what is called the lowest unit rate. They have to do that. What the going rate is is what the charge a candidate. They gouged the living shit out super PACs. So Super PACs in the last 60 days before an election are paying two, three, four times the amount of the campaign. So let's take North Carolina, right, where Roy Cooper's raised a gazillion dollars. Let's say the Republicans plus Michael Watley's Republican nominee have $80 million.

That's equivalent to $20 million to, you know, $20 or $30 million of Ray Cooper's money. And so, like, it is bad. We should have more money. It is bad that we are being outraised like this. But give money to campaigns because those dollars go further. So you can do by going to FOSAVMERC. And we'll tell you the best place to give your money to send your money. Don't want to be wasting any of it.

Seems like Trump is responding to the grim political outlook with his tried and true method of firing people. So he's reportedly considering forcing out more members of his cabinet. Laurie Chavez-Daramer, the Labor Secretary resigned this week in scandal following Christine Noem and Pam Bondi. There's some speculation that Howard, I almost just said Nutlick. You can say that. Yeah, but it's just, it's natural now. Was he going to sue you? No, I guess maybe. But maybe Nutlick could be next or possibly Cash Patel, who's again not having the easiest time. Tulsie Gabbard too could be. Oh, I saw Tulsa Gabbard, yeah. Cash is having trouble rebutting the Atlantic story that did lead to his new

nickname, J. Edgar Poosier. Here's Patel and his boss, acting AG, Todd Blanche, responding to questions about the Atlantic story at a DOJ press conference on Tuesday. Let's play the clip. Can you say definitively that you have not been intoxicated or absent during your tenure as FBI director? I can say unequivocally that I never listen to the fake news mafia. I'm like an everyday American who loves his country, loves the sport of hockey, and champions my friends when they raise a gold medal and invite me in to celebrate. I've never been intoxicated on the job. Obviously, you've read the Atlantic Arpoon

that's now a subject of a defamation lawsuit probably. I absolutely did not read that article. You're being extraordinarily rude, and I know maybe that's part of your profession, but please just stop. Your lawsuit contends that you were not able to log into the system. What did you think after you were unable to log into the system?

Let's have a survey. How many of you people believe that's true? It was never said, it never happened, I was never locked out of my systems. Anybody who says... Your lawsuit says the opposite. Your lawsuit says the opposite. That's the key line from the reporter at the end.

Meanwhile, the Times reported on Tuesday that the FBI began investigating one of the New York Times reporters, Elizabeth Williamson, after she broke the story last month that Patel has had as assigned FBI SWAT teams to protect his girlfriend and drive her to her concerts because she is a country music sensation. and even a hair appointment. Patel is now denying that the FBI investigated, even though the Bureau basically confirmed to the times that they had looked into Williamson's, quote, methods. How hard is Cash Patel crushing it right now? What do you think of that press conference?

Oh, man. He's so uncomfortable in every situation. Yeah. He's just trying too hard at all times. Just an average everyday American who loves hockey. the lawsuit is helpful if you read the lawsuit because it does detail every allegation that is bad in the Atlantic piece and one helpful page just puts them all down one through four was the Atlantic article so long you couldn't get through it you know it basically gave you the summary of it right in the lawsuit and did essentially admit that the story about not being able to log into his email or his system was true do you think do you think Trump gets rid of cash I don't know it's like even more than Bondi and Christy Noem, I think that this would be seen as an

admission of failure on Trump's part. And who's the other, yeah, it just, I don't, I mean. I mean, first of all, Trump's, you know, had never had a drink. He doesn't drink. And so I think he doesn't like the idea that someone is like running around drunk in the FBI. And not because he like, I think it, this is all through the prism of like, it makes Trump look bad, right? This is not about, he doesn't care about like the safety and security of the country.

And also what Trump. Trump wants his revenge on his enemies. And I mean, look, that that press conference was about indictments they brought against the Southern Poverty Law Center for, it seems like crazy charges. But so I think Trump's annoyed with that. So we'll see. I don't know. I would have said, I said this on Tuesday show, but I would have said no, he'll keep him if it was before Bondi and Nome. But now that he's got those two out, I feel like he's got a taste of like, oh, I fire someone.

It's a story for a day. and then we move on. So would you, I know we don't predict on this show, but if you were on some sort of prediction market platform, would you put any of your hard-earned coin on the idea that Cash Patel will not be in this role on Thanksgiving?

Yes. You think he'll be gone by Thanksgiving. Yeah. I think they'll, yeah, because he definitely post midterms. But you think, not definitely, but I feel good about saying. Like if you told me by 4th of July, I'd be like, yeah.

So you think post midterms, but definitely before the end of the year? I think so. I would put money on that. Okay. I don't know how much money, but I put money on it. Speaking of money and staff behaving badly, it is our solemn duty to discuss the case of Julia Varvaro, the 29-year-old who was serving as Deputy Assistant Secretary for Counterterrorism at the Department of Homeland Security.

Don't worry about it. That's not a big job. According to a former romantic partner who filed a formal, complain against Varvaro. She is actively on dating sites where, quote, sugar daddies agree to fund the lifestyles of younger women, including one called Seeking, where she offered, quote, mutually beneficial relationships, according to the Daily Mail. The whistleblower slash X said he'd spend $40,000.

Not betting that on cash leaving. On gifts and travel for Varro over the course of their three-month relationship, and he thinks she's under financial stress that constitutes a national security risk. It seems like the government agreed because she was placed on administrative leave after the story came out. As you know, Dan, our producers are constantly urging us not to kink shame on the show

even though I continue to stress that kinks that constitute a national security threat do not count and traditionally have been frowned upon at the highest levels of the federal government. What if threat of national security is your kink? Well, then... And what do you do there? I don't know.

As the producer's... Yeah, no. If people want to go on wherever this is to get some sugar daddies, that's fine. If you want to be a sugar daddy, that's fine. If you want to be a sugar daddy, that's fine. If you want to be a sugar daddy, that's fine. John Fafro, April 23rd, 2026. Just, you know, just when you have a government job, especially one that involves counterterrorism at Homeland Security, I don't know. You want to put yourself in a position of being blackmailed. I have to admit to that when we were slacking about this, yesterday was on my plane. I did not know about this. story. It was all news to me. Then I went to my computer and I was about to type in sugar daddy politics. And I thought better of it. There's, there's a lot of pictures of this guy, of the, the sugar daddy with her that the daily mail has published to everyone else. And there's, there's one right as we started recording, of course, of course our old friend Travis Helwig,

who used to work here, sent it to me. And it's just, it's just the sugar daddy saying next to her with a little sign that says, she's horny. Again. fine. But if your deputy secretary for counterterrorism at the Department of Homeland Security, maybe less fine. Counterpoint. On the scale of corruption in this administration, this is fucking quaint. Well, it's not corruption necessarily.

It's just, it's a risk. It's also a corruption risk. Oh, I guess, yeah. But it's all, but the reason that a normal FBI cares about all of this, the reason they all did interviews with all of us before our security clearance, stuff like that, The idea is that if you have lied to the FBI or you have secrets that you haven't revealed or some foreign actor or someone can blackmail you and say, if you don't do this for me, I will reveal publicly what I know about you that you go on this website, whatever, then you are more likely to do the thing that the foreign government or actor wants you to do. That's the whole, that's the whole reason. Anyway, that's that, Dan.

Sugar Daddy's for dessert. Sugar Daddy's for dessert. That's what we got for today. All right. When we come back, we will talk to the Atlantic's Mark Leibovic about the shit show in California. Pod Save America is brought you by Zbiotics pre-alcohol. Let's face it. After a night with drinks, I don't bounce back the next day like I used to.

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And I don't go anywhere without my Zibiotics or else I will pay for it the next day and be mad at myself. From the fairways in Augusta to the first pitch of baseball season and the start of festival circuits. Wow. What a life people are leading. April is a sprint of outdoor celebrations. Don't let her up next day.

Keep you on the sidelines, drink pre-alcohol to stay ahead of the game and make the most of every sunny Saturday. Go to Zbiotics.com slash crooked to learn more and get 15% off your first door. or when you use Crooked at checkout, Zbiotics is backed with 100% money-back guarantee, so if you're not satisfied for any reason, they'll refund your money, no questions asked. Remember to head to Zbiotics.com slash crooked and use the code Crooked at checkout for 15% off. Mark Leibovic, welcome to the pod. Great to be back with you guys.

Good to see here in D.C. Thanks for letting us back in the town you rule, Washington, D.C. Yeah. Mayor of D.C., they call them. That's me. Yep. You know all these parties I'm blacklisted from? I'm not even invited anymore.

Really? Oh, man. Yeah, you were blacklisted? from ours until we just... I know. It was just like... That was unintentional, unfortunately. It would be more...

It's fine. It's all right. Just don't make... Well, I won't say it. I won't say it. So you visited our fair state to report on what you and Mike Murphy lovingly referred to as the stupid circus,

aka the California governor's race. Well, I guess I guess I kind of echoed him. Yeah. Which I love. The stupid circus is. Mechanism. I think that's a good mechanism. Take the quote and echo from it.

Yeah. You start the piece at a little league game with Eric Swalwell, which you note, quote, felt consistent with the wholesome image that the campaign had been straining to project of late for reasons that would become clear soon enough. It made me laugh out loud. Did you get any bad vibes from your conversation with him? I got bad vibes from everything I had heard about him going into the conversation. This was one of those things where I'd spent the whole week just sort of touching as many bases as I could. And Swalwell basically lives here. I don't know where he's.

he lives now, but he lives in D.C. You know, back in the quaint days when he was getting heat for like not really living, spending that much time in California and that was like a scandal for him. He was, you know, he's here a lot. His kids are here, his wife is here. Oh, here in D.C.?

Here in D.C. Yeah, yeah. He lived, I mean, he'd put it up place on Capitol Hill, so, or at least he used to. So, um, don't know where he is now. But he is, uh, look, I'd heard everything. It was, it was starting to perk up on social media, but that was kind of commensurate with whatever momentum he had. Because there was definitely some movement to him, and Trump did him a huge favor.

Well, I guess the Patel did him a huge favor by releasing these sort of like completely ridiculous 10-year-old file that found no wrongdoing. So, you know, a great way to get elected statewide in California is to be a big target of Donald Trump. And, you know, Adam Schiff proved that and Newsom. I mean, well, he certainly got Prop 50 probably over the finish line. So I thought so, but I was thinking, you know, how far does this have to go before? I mean, do I ask, do I bring this up at the end or do I wait for another conversation? But, you know, there is. There was no other conversation.

Well, there wasn't. I mean, literally three days later, the implosion happened. But, I mean, you guys know, there's a big gap between stuff that everyone talks about and reportable, actionable stuff. And to the eternal credit to the San Francisco Chronicle first. later CNN. I mean, they nailed it down and looks like it was kind of tip of the iceberg. So, I mean, I definitely caught, I knew the reputation. I mean, he was, he's a perfectly, he can present. I mean, he's a thoughtful-ish guy. I mean, he's kind of Adam Schiff light in some ways, except without, with all the personal baggage. But, so, yeah, and I knew something was coming. And they were clearly very self-conscious about it. It was like, and he was going over the top about his kids' Little League thing. I mean, he didn't, you know, understandably wanted to keep his kids out of it, but it was a whole dad thing.

He brought his wife along. She seemed very nice. So it was a little over the top. In all of your reporting, like for people who aren't from California, haven't been paying attention to the race, like, why is this the field? It's a great question. I mean, you know, the short answer is Kamala Harris, Alex Padilla, who apparently, everyone wanted to run. I'm not sure I'd buy that. I think there's a little bit of revisionist history there, but they're big names. They would have, if not cleared the field, definitely

would have, you know, probably guaranteed 25%. Certainly Kamala would have, maybe a little more. And George Clooney lives in France, as you know. Yeah, and, you know, Newsom's term limited. I mean, there are, I mean, there are quite a few, I think, quite talented Congress, members of Congress from the delegation, I think, you know, a couple of mayors. But, But again, there's not, I mean, there's not like a giant in the race. And I don't know if Kamala would have been that person, but there wasn't. So when you have just the math of seven Democrats splitting their vote seven ways, two Republicans who are complete unknowns.

And, you know, I wouldn't think on elect, I wouldn't think that electable in California under regular circumstances. They're just splitting their vote two ways. You know, this is the math issue. So the Republicans, for anyone who doesn't know, there's a runoff system, jungle primary, top two finishers in the June 2nd primary, regardless of the party, go on to the November election. And in a lot of the polls, the top two finishers have been Steve Hilton and Chad Bianco,

the sheriff of Riverside County, just basically two Republicans that no one's heard of, but they could get there in November and there can be no Democrat in the ballot. California is interesting because it's such a big state that it's almost impossible for anyone to be known in it. And we've just had this situation where our last three governors were, Gavin Newsom, who was quite famous when he eventually won because of gay marriage, Jerry Brown, who had been governor before. It was a national figure and run for president.

And Arnold Schwarzenegger before that. And if you are a member of Congress, you cannot, it's so expensive to run for governor there. You just, it's almost impossible for anyone to raise, unless you're a member of Congress in a national profile, which Swaball sort of had. It's impossible to raise the money to run there. And you just have possible to get name ID because we have a million media markets and no one can become famous. And so I even, I think Padilla, who was a statewide elected official before he became center, even if he had run, he still would have fit into this mix because he's no more well known than Javier Bacera, who had been Attorney General and HHS Secretary. That just made me think, not to get us off on a tangent, but like, don't you think that's the future or where we are now of national politics at the presidential level to? Like it just seems like if you go back the nominees of each party who the president ended up being for the last 10, 15 years, just.

the way the attention economy works now. If you are not famous, it is very hard to become famous out of nowhere in national politics in a national level. You have to be someone who is a master at attention. Right. Like Pete Buttigieg is the example, someone who became famous. He's the one example. So every other candidate in the 2020 Democratic primary finish an order of name ID at the outset other than Pete Buttigieg. No, but there's a wild card here, which is relevant to this race, which is Tom Steyer, who basically became known, you know, got actually actually. on the debate stages in 2020. It was actually, you know, he finished seventh in New Hampshire in, I think, sixth in Iowa or something like that. He finished third in South Carolina, I think.

Did he really? He danced with juvenile on stage at the end. That's what people remember about that. Yes. I mean, actually, no one really remembers that Joe Biden was rescued in South Carolina. It's only, it was only that. No, so Tom Steyer, I mean, he basically, he's spent $140 million so far in this race. I mean, it's really quite something. I mean, his strategy is spend as much money as possible, put as many ads out there as possible, and take the most liberal position possible, and maybe that gets you home. I mean, Swalwell was known, but that's because of MSNBC and CNN. I mean, it was, and hearings, right? So, but that's all nationalized political news and very

Trump-centric. Bacera, he's one person, like, surprisingly absent in your piece? Is that, did they, did they not give you an interview? You know, so that was just, I mean, when I wrote it a week ago, he was nowhere. And I kind of had to make, I mean, I had, you know, 2,500 words. I took about 4,000. And it's still, there's a lot to explain. There are a lot of characters. And Bacera seemed kind of back in the pack. And a lot of it's just logistical. I mean, I was out there to cover this debate. The debate was canceled. I had 72 hours. I basically could only stick around Southern California. He was in Northern California. So, I mean, there's sometimes not a lot of rhyme or reason. He also might just not have wanted to talk to me.

Steyer and Porter didn't. Did he, what did you hear about? What did you hear about? What did you hear about? Not much. I mean, he, I mean, I really did. I'm trying to figure out, um, he's had the, the surge is real with Bacera. Like he's, it's now been a number of polls where he's either in Tide for first or right

after that and that the money has followed. And I'm just like, what, what happened? Yeah. Well, I mean, the number is thinned. I mean, I mean, Betty Yee, who was at 1%, she dropped out too. So I mean, that's a number. But I mean, I mean, well, I mean, all dropped. And there was a sense for at least a couple days that Steyer was just going to be,

okay, he's going to inherit the wind here. And I think there was an immediate backlash. And a lot of people I talked to were just instantly just offended by that. Just, and part of it is just sort of like the basic American ideal that it has hostility towards buying an election, which is basically what this is. And also the guy doesn't particularly present all that well. And I think Bacera, if he ever got a first look, got a first and a half look or something like that. And he's quite credentialed. I mean, he was in the Biden administration. He was the AG in California. He's out there. But there was a debate last night. I don't know how well he did. What did you guys think of the debate from what you saw? Dan, what did you think? I saw highlights of the

debate and then I watched parts of it on 3xp this morning in my one hour to do this. I, if Becerra had delivered a great performance, he could have essentially locked up a spot here. I think. think, but he did not. And so it leaves the, I think you leave the debate still wondering who the candidate is who could actually solidify in this field. Yeah. Because people were really hoping it was going to be Bacera. You know, and California races are largely funded by interest groups, the California teachers,

the environmental folks, trial lawyers. And they would rally around him. Well, they could. They're looking for someone to rally around because Swallow had a lot of these labor endorsements. Some of one of them has gone to Steyer since then. But he could have seen. the momentum and I'm not sure he did. Also not sure how many people watched any of it. So it's hard to say. I thought Matt Mayhan was aggressive in a way that like he needs to get attention, right? And so I

thought he did he did ball there. Steyer took a lot of incoming, which I was surprised, I guess, because he's the front, still kind of the front runner. And so it was a lot of like people attacking Steyer. Sarah didn't seem like, I thought Bouser and Katie Porter both kind of quiet in the debate. Like they didn't have a lot of big moments. Yeah, Porter was a little better than I think, I mean, I don't know, I don't think anyone, I don't know if people are going to give her a second look. She kind of stalled. I mean, she, like Swalwell had a bit of a national profile. It was very effective kind of anti-Trump Democrat during the first term and didn't get a lot of traction. I mean, there were some pretty nasty viral videos about her that she caused. I mean,

one of sort of sort of jumping down the throat of staff, but just yelling at a staff member, yelling at a reporter, a couple other things. So some reputational issues. told you he wouldn't endorse unless it's a break glass moment. What's your read from talking to him, both his relative absence in this race and his seemingly inevitable 2028 campaign? Or his preference. His preference. His preference.

I would say, okay, I have some, I think, some informed wisdom on that. I mean, I think he is as underwhelmed as a lot of other people are. A lot of other Democrats are about this field. I think he hasn't been that shy about it privately. Even he told you that I think the field is interesting. Yeah. This has a great personality. Yeah, exactly.

Yeah, you know what? I'm not. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. So there's that. I mean, apparently, I mean, he, I think, was looking to have some kind of a Sarah breakout. I don't think he has issues. I think he's fine with Bacera.

He doesn't like Mahan. I think he has reservations. about Porter. I think he has reservations about Steyer. And for a lot of reasons, but I think that he was really looking for a reason to have someone like Becerra sort of like make his decision for him. So we'll see. I don't know though. I mean, I think he would love to. A real process of elimination pick. Yeah, it's not. I mean, unfortunately, you know, Newsom, I mean, he's not always the most decisive guy in the world, but I do think that his indecision here is quite, or his,

his hesitation here is sincere and I think it's reflective of a larger ambivalence among Democrats. He did endorseing the lieutenant governor's race this week. He did. He did. So he can't do it. It is allowed. And he has experience as a lieutenant governor. So it's your favorite weekend of the year? It is.

Your Super Bowl. The White House corresponds to it. Marty Grow the whole thing. I guess the only thing different about this year is Trump's going to be there at the dinner for the first time since. 2011 first time as president yeah um that'll be interesting what do you think though has anything changed is it has the dinner regained any of its splendor from years ago when are you getting but i will i haven't been invited to that so here's the thing okay full disclosure um i've known you guys a long time i'm i'm 60 years old now okay i'm i'm spring chicken in congress

look great thanks i feel great 20 years younger the median democrat that's true yeah i'd be I'm not too young for the Senate. I don't, I mean, I will do a Saturday night. First of all, now that I'm not at the New York Times anymore, I can go to the dinner. The Atlantic has, I think, two tables. Oh, yeah, I was going to ask about the way. They asked, and I went last year, I think I went the year before. They asked if I wanted to go, and I wasn't sure I was allowed to say no, but I tried,

and they accepted my answer. Although I will say, I don't know if this is mystique or luster or intrigue or whatever, but from a pure voyeuristic point of view. I mean, I think Trump almost certainly has something planned. I mean, I think like the gracious. Like a mass arrester. No, but some like a really. Red Wendick.

No, I mean, it would not surprise me at all if he was just intentionally antagonistic prepared something not the least bit clever, not the least bit funny, not the least bit gracious. I mean, to think about all the opportunities he's had to play that game. I mean, starting with the Al Smith dinner and when he was with Hillary in 2016. And I don't think he would have accepted this. Well, I mean, I think part of him just think, sorry, what a spectacle. I'll be in the middle of it.

You know, who knows how many opportunities I'll have to be this. It'll be different. But I'd be shocked if he didn't have something antagonistic planned. And, I mean, the media's not organized. I don't know what they're going to do. But it's, but it'll be kind of a reality show, which is what he does. And I mean, I don't think there's like a great august and, you know, beyond reproach tradition of the White House Correspondents dinner that could be lost and that he could soil like he soiled other institutions around Washington. But I do think that, I mean, there could be some friction there that will be worth watching.

And I'm kind of glad enough to be there for it. Don't you think it's going to be a problem when his plan runs headlong into those First Amendment pins that the reporters are there? That'll do it, man. So when I was, can I tell the story? Now you have to. So I was, when I went to college, in the 80s, I graduated college in the 80s, University of Michigan, they wanted to give an honorary degree to Nelson Mandela. And there was some regent or some rule of the Michigan regents or something.

He couldn't be, if you can't be there in person to receive your honorary degree, you can't get your honorary degree. Nelson Mandela had an excuse. we all know what that was at the time. And there was an alternative, you know, those of us who were protesting that wore like a big button and I wore, you can see on my graduation gown, or my thing, it was a Nelson Mandela button.

So that was my protest there. Okay. You can tell that story. I thought you were going to say you accepted the award on his behalf. I thought that's right. Wouldn't that been fun? Liberal reporter comes out pro-Mandella. Yeah, right?

You know what? You'd be surprised. Resistance. No, so. What do you think about, I mean, Trump has the, you know, has investigated reporters, has trashed the press, has stomped over the First Amendment, his Secretary of Defense, who is a guest of the Paramount Corporation, has kicked the reporters out of the Pentagon. What do you, like, talk to me about how the press

sees things about going to that dinner in that context? I think it's, well, I think it's uncomfortable at best. I mean, look, I mean, the Atlantic is still going. And, I mean, I assume. You guys have been invited to some signal chain, so it's okay. That's right. I mean, everyone in the group chat gets to get the table. No. I mean, look, look, just, I mean, this week, I mean, like Sarah Kirkpatrick, my colleague, I mean, she wrote this Cash Patel story.

They served us, I mean, they're filed lawsuit two days ago. Which, I mean, there's, that's a little bit standard. I mean, like, nasty story. It's a constitutional response. A constitutional response. Yes, correct. But I don't see how many. I mean, I don't know a lot of journal.

who are excited about it, any more than they would normally be. Now, there's sort of like a sport around. You have to sort of, you know, roll your eyes at the whole thing. It's like, oh, I'm above it, but my bosses are making it. And, I mean, you can also get a lot of work done. I mean, if you're one-stop shopping and you want to talk to people and stuff. But, no, but, I mean, I think the dissonance between what Trump talks about, what the administration is done and what the dinner is supposed to stand for kind of is pretty

obvious. I mean, well, would that be highlighted when the Wall Street Journal gets the reward for their Epstein letter story? That'll be an interesting scene, right? I mean, I do wonder about it. I mean, I was actually, I still think there's a non-zero chance that he could pull out. Yeah. But who knows? 250 journalists, Dan Rather, Sam Donaldson, signed an open letter, demanding that the White House Correspondents Association used the podium to condemn Trump by name and toast the First Amendment. You think there's any chance they do that? I was going to say something snarky, but I would say no. I don't think there's a chance.

Yeah, like, it's funny because the first time I'm like, well, that's not going to happen. But I'm like, what? Why should I? I could imagine a condemnation that is not so harsh and unfair that it, like, I could imagine doing it in a thoughtful way. Yeah, I can see that. But I don't, I mean. Who's the president of the correspondence? Yeah.

Well, actually, it's Donald Trump. No, Marco Rubio is now the Yeah, so much response. I mean, the whole thing is, it's always been bizarre. It's more bizarre now. The best argument that the media organizations can make is the money goes to pay for scholarships for young journalists. Scholarships, yep.

There are other ways to raise money for journalists of scholarships and don't involve a toast to a president who disbanded the White House press pool, maybe, but. Yeah, the toast to the president of the United States and is always, I mean, I don't care who the president is. It just strikes me as distasteful. Yeah, the whole thing, even like... The toast is crazy.

Imagining the toast tonight, tomorrow, whenever it is Saturday night, it's crazy. It is one thing to be there with him, which is like, you can debate that enough. But the actual toast is just, what are we doing? There are two reasons to go. I mean, one, the comedians can be good. No comedian is sure that, right? Mentalist. It's a mentalist.

Forget that. The Manisfier's mentalist, apparently. And there are certain moments when presidents can, you know, with good timing. I mean, the guy you worked for can do well. I don't think Biden's talks were terribly good. Bush had his moments, I thought. Clinton had his moments. I don't know.

I mean, but those days are long gone. Last question for you. This town came out in 2013. If you were writing the 2026 edition, what's the opening scene? Who's the central character? Opening scene? Oh man, you put me on the spot. Can you want me do it for you?

Yeah, please. You're at Butterworths. No, that story's been done. You know, I thought I texted you about one. There was a funeral. There was another funeral. I mean, there have been a lot of funeral. I mean.

Because you opened this town as people know that way. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, here's the thing. Oh, there was a funeral. Wasn't it Carter's? Was you a Carter's funeral? I've done a lot of. Okay, so here's the thing.

Since that book came out. Or Cheney. The New York Times, I did do a Chaney piece. And I've been assigned a number of pieces. I remember one of the last pieces I did for the New York Times. I was kind of playing out the string cleaning out my desk. And Elizabeth Bue Miller, my boss walked over to him and said, hey, you know Bob Dole died. And the funerals at the Kennedy Center, or not the Kennedy Center at the National Cathedral on Friday, you got to cover it.

So, I mean, there were several moments like that where I was kind of became the funeral guy. That was during COVID, too. I remember, like, and it was a huge deal. What a fun beat. wear a mask because you are in a cathedral, you are packed with elderly people, you know, signs everywhere, wear a mask, wear a mask, D.C. rules, the whole thing. And I remember looking, I was sitting in the press area right above where the Senate was seated, where most, a lot of the sitting senators were, every single one of them was wearing a mask except for Ted Cruz, who was being

completely ostentatious about it. And, you know, we're talking elderly people, you know, There was no vaccine yet, you know, right across the way. And, I mean, it was a church. I mean, just the whole thing. And, you know, he probably got a shout out for it. Anyway, there, the problem that, I mean, Tim Russard, that was a thing, though. I mean, the critique, which seems very quaint now, was that there was this one world, one Washington, you know, overly chummy world between the media and the money people and the lobbyists and the former people and the elected officials in the White House and Congress. That was what was insidious at the time, which, of course, in retrospect, seems like a comedy of matters.

Manners. I mean, the fact that Trent Lott and John Bro, a Democrat and a Republican, a Republican and a Democrat would go into business together and make money. I mean, that was like a scandal. And, I mean, again, it's almost, I'm not embarrassed by it, but it just gives you a sense of how much time has passed. And the second book was suck up culture, but it was really around Trump. Trump. Yeah. And that would be.

The second term does feel different. I mean, I do think, okay, so I think that it's kind of running on two tracks now. It's suck up culture around Trump, which is orders of magnitude worse now. I mean, it's just, it's gone beyond cult level. It's parody. But there's also, so my book was called Thank You for Your Servitude. I don't know if I can talk about this, but I will anyway. Jacob Weisberg has a book coming out called Profiles and Cowardous, which I read like a part of it.

And it's a similar way. There's a lot of that. I mean, it's sort of of a piece to that. I don't know. I mean, I do think that it's hard to think of like what the one, what the merger of MAGA and sort of normy politics as we know it, whether, you know, independence, Democrats, some Republicans. Yeah.

I mean, my sense, like, I've been gone from the city for 10 years now, but my sense is there is just less of the stuff. that was at the center of your book, which is basically this idea that everyone you know, cosplayed rivals during the day and then they went to the same cocktail parties at night and all hung out

and it was the like one party circuit. And doesn't seem like that's necessarily still the case in the same way. Yeah, I don't see how it could. I honestly don't. I mean, I just have people who,

I mean, I mean, you've all lived here. I mean, it was actually possible to have bipartisan friendships for, Yeah.

It's hard. Like, I mean, the MAGA just like it's a whole different dimension and they don't seem to want to have much to do with mainstream journalists, mainstream Democrats, you know, people who have been critical of President Trump and vice versa. Democratic institutions. Yeah. I mean, again, I mean, I always thought that and other presidents have tried variations on this, but I mean, blowing off the White House correspondence dinner would have been a great move for any

president, not just when Trump's hard, Trump started doing it. I mean, I thought, you know, Obama, Bush, whoever would have gotten, you know, would have gotten credit for it in some way. It might have been some grudging, you know, how dear. People would have complained, but they would have walked into your office. How disrespectful to the First Amendment? Yeah, that would have been terrible. Yeah. Anyway, no, but, but so, I mean, so, but yeah, so Trump was obviously, he wasn't onto something, But I mean, he just sort of, he just trashed the whatever polite society existed here that was probably too cozy for its own good. But now he's trying to just run it because he went to the alfalfa. Didn't he go the alfalfa dinner?

He did. Yeah. He did. Which makes the White House Correspondents dinner look like a buffalo wild wings. That's pretty, that's a good line. No, I've never actually been to the alfalfa dinner. I staffed Obama at it once. Really?

I ate Burger King in the back room why he spoke. because they didn't have food for the staff. So Reggie and Marvin and I had to go to Burger King to eat. That's perfect. Yeah, you probably had the best time of anyone. Yeah. So, Mark Vibovich.

Thank you so much. Thanks, guys. Well, we'll come to our party. We'll toast you. We'll do a toast to the First Amendment specifically to Mark. Yeah.

Bring your First Amendment pins. Oh, I totally will. Yeah. Actually, you know what, though? There'll be like a kitty for us to like put money in for the scholarships, right? Yes, yes, of course.

The Pots Save America Scholarships. For young podcasters. Young podcasters. Just start now. All right. Thanks, Leibovich. Buy the tight t-shirts. Thanks to Mark Leibovic for coming on.

Tommy will be back with an interview with Sarah Longwell on Sunday's PSA. And then Tommy and Love it and I will be back with a new episode in your feet on Tuesday. Bye, everyone. If you want to listen to Pod Save America ad free and get access to exclusive podcasts, go to cricket.com slash friends to subscribe on Supercast, substack, YouTube, or Apple Podcast. Also, please consider leaving. us a review that helps boost this episode and everything we do here at Cricket. Pod Save America is a Cricket Media production.

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