Pod Save America - Trump Returns to the Scene of the Crime

Episode Date: June 14, 2024

Trump returns to the Capitol for the first time since January 6th and receives a hero’s welcome from House and Senate Republicans—where he calls Milwaukee a “horrible city,” refers to the Justice Department as “dirty bastards,” and complains about Taylor Swift not endorsing him. Meanwhile, the same Republicans attempting to overturn Trump’s conviction are instead trying to prosecute Attorney General Merrick Garland. Plus, SCOTUS affirms legal access to abortion medication, Biden takes voters’ cost of living concerns head on, and Trump tries to woo CEOs with more tax cuts. 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. 

Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Jon Favreau. I'm Dan Pfeiffer. On today's show, the Supreme Court decides that abortion medication can remain legal in certain states for now, as Senate Republicans block a bill that would protect IVF. House Republicans plot ways to overturn Donald Trump's conviction and try to prosecute Merrick Garland. And the Biden campaign takes voters' cost-of-living concerns head-on, while the Trump campaign tries to woo CEOs with more tax cuts. But first, on Thursday, the world's most famous convicted criminal returned to the scene of

another one of his alleged crimes. It was Trump's first trip to the U.S. Capitol since he urged a mob of violent extremists to prevent the certification of the election he lost. And boy, did he get a hero's welcome from many of the same House and Senate Republicans who fled for their lives on January 6th. And at the time, many blamed Donald Trump. But even though they've decided to forgive and forget, the Biden campaign wanted to make sure the rest of us don't. Here's the ad they released timed Trump's visit. On January 6th, Donald Trump lit a fire in this country. 140 officers were injured. The siege lasted for seven hours. Stoking the flames of division and hate. Now he's pouring gasoline. They were unbelievable patriots. Pledging to pardon the extremists who tried

to overthrow our government. We will give them pardons. Inciting them to try again. There is nothing more sacred than our democracy. But Donald Trump's ready to burn it all down. I'm Joe Biden, and I approve this message. What a good time to plug our book, Democracy or Else, which is on sale. You can preorder it right now. It'll be released a week from Tuesday. I mean, I guess that counts as an organic plug, I guess.

Look, I came into the recording, the book was on the table, which I guess is just a not-so-subtle push from everyone on the marketing team to start pitching the book. But anyway, we'll get back to that. I want to get to that ad. Can we just take a second to talk about how unbelievably nuts it is that this man was just welcomed back to the Capitol by the people he nearly got killed by Capitol. He didn't that was in the January 6th hearings. And they're all huddled, Kevin McCarthy, Steve Scalise, Nancy Pelosi, and they're on the phone begging Donald Trump to send help, to send the National Guard to save their lives from a murderous horde that Donald Trump set there. And he refused to do so. And it's not just that they

led him back on the premises. It's that they welcomed him with open arms. They applauded him. They sang him happy birthday. They cheered him. It is just like one of the most intense cases of Stockholm syndrome ever documented. It is wild. It's just so, it's so pathetic. I just can't imagine. I can't imagine being like that with any person, let alone someone who almost got me killed. It's delusional in the sense that they've convinced themselves that didn't happen. Certainly, there are some senators, I'm sure McConnell, they're faking it. They're begrudgingly allowing this to happen because this is what the voters want or whatever else.

But these people in the House, for sure, nope. It's just they have wiped it from their minds. And they are just like, it's all been rewritten and that Donald Trump wasn't involved. And there was an FBI plan. And it was whatever conspiracy they have. They're not faking it. I think they legitimately believe that he is their hero and that he did not try to murder them. Ask Mike Pence. Yeah. So the Biden campaign has said they want voters to be thinking about January 6th when they cast their ballot in November. Do you think there will be more of these ads running everywhere the closer we get to November? Yeah, I assume so. Like they ran this ad today because Trump was going to the Capitol.

There'd be a ton of coverage of Trump going to Capitol Hill. We would all talk about it. Very clever. It worked, right? We are doing it. Mission accomplished. Well, you know, because every social media share or news coverage airing of your ad is free, right? So that's what you want, right? You don't have to pay for everyone. You want to get some free ones. So got some free ones here. You're welcome Biden campaign. What's interesting to me is I think that this will ramp up at the end. I do, certainly for the segment of voters that Sarah Longland and I spent a lot of time talking about on Wednesday's pod, these former Republicans, two-time Trump voters, Trump-Biden voters who are very uncomfortable with Donald Trump, specifically because of January 6th, you want that in their mind. And the question is, how are you going to make that breakthrough at the end? Because it's going to have to be more than just ads. There's going to have to be a full bore, surround sound

style campaign to bring people back into that moment, to remember what they were thinking on that day, that day when most Republicans, hardcore Republicans turned away from Trump on that day for a brief fleeting period of time, but they did. And can you get people back there through high-profile events, surrogates, ads? Could you take out a 30-minute spot, right? Or have a 30-minute YouTube documentary? You really sort of need your version of the Michael Moore Iraq War documentary that ran in 2004. You need something like need your version of the Michael Moore Iraq war documentary that ran 2004. You need something like that to bring people into that moment. It's going to be more than just some digital and television spots, although you should run those and they will run

those. I mean, I do think, I imagine in debate prep, they will be talking about a moment in the debate, probably in this debate coming up and then maybe even more likely in the one in September, where Biden brings it up. Because I think Donald Trump talking about January 6th is not going to be his best moment. I don't know. I'm just guessing. Not in the prediction business, but we'll see. But I do think that the messengers, you could imagine some of the police officers that were injured, who have already spoken out about this. And have been traveling the country. Right. Michael Fennel. Right, right. Yep. so you can imagine that or like a cassidy hudgenson right people who testified in the at the january 6th hearing so i you know i do think that'll get ramped up and i

think you're right primary audience is certainly the voters that uh that sarah's talking about the two-time trump voters who are now sick of trump. I also think, you know, we've heard Biden mention January 6th now at the NAACP event where he said, does anyone doubt if these were, if the protesters were black, that Donald Trump wouldn't have sent in the National Guard to put them down, which he, you know, refused to send any help at all. So I think that, like, there is, for some voters, I think voters who are tuned out, voters who maybe aren't too happy with Joe Biden, who aren't sure if they're going to vote, I think reminding them of the kind of, not just like, hey, this happened

January 6th, but this is the kind of violence that Donald Trump has incited. This is the kind of chaos that he has incited. And why would you think that he's not going to do that again? Yeah. In general, you probably want to try to focus people on the fact that one of the two people running for president tried to violently overthrow the government four years ago. Just, you know, just something that you want to file away when you head into the voting booth. There's something you want to think about. So Trump met privately with all the House Republicans, then all the Senate Republicans. There were no reporters in either meeting, but there were plenty of sources leaking to reporters who were in the meeting.

So here's a rundown of what happened. Trump called Milwaukee the swing state city that's hosting the Republican convention, a quote, horrible city. He referred to the Justice Department as dirty bastards. He complained about Taylor Swift not endorsing him. He said Nancy Pelosi's daughter once told him that if things had been different, he and Nancy would be perfect together. And he once again praised one of his favorite make-believe friends. Apparently, the former president made reference to Hannibal Lecter and said, nice guy, quote, he even had a friend over for dinner. So we've seen Trump out on the campaign trail praising Hannibal Lecter.

Apparently, he did it again this morning. Not sure we fully understand the context of that. What fucking world do we live in, Dan? What is happening? I mean, the scariest part is CNN report. Like he did mention Hannibal Lecter again, the guy who's the Republican nominee for president and a convicted felon. Once again, talking about Hannibal Lecter for no discernible reason.

Stay tuned for more contacts. We're calling our sources to see what he's talking about. As opposed to just like so much of Trump coverage should just be someone yelling like, what the fuck is all they possibly can into a microphone. Instead, it's just like not entirely sure what that meant there, but I'm sure there was, there was a reason why he mentioned a fictional serial killer

in a meeting with congressional Republicans. Now that he's been doing frequently for some reason? I don't know. What do you think about the Milwaukee thing? This has sparked, I think every elected Democrat from Wisconsin has now tweeted about it. I think the mayor has already said something about it. Did a press conference.

The mayor did a press conference. There's a press conference already. This is, we're recording this Thursday by like, like an hour after it was tweeted that Trump said that. It was just, it's full blown, probably billboards coming up everywhere. It's going to be great. I love it because it just is a reminder that with like, as much as everything's changed, the media is disintegrated. Trump's insane is that there's still just like some old school

politics that happens. Politician says something bad about a swing state. You just dust off the playbook, you leap into action. You get the mayor out there, you get Congress people. I'm sure they're getting small business. There's going to be an ad on Milwaukee radio by the end of the day. There's going to be a bunch of small business people and veterans from Milwaukee talking about just, I love it. It's great. Hammer them for it. Is it going to really matter that much? Probably not. But can you make it slightly uncomfortable for a few minutes? Can you just as a way to throw some grist in the mill during the Republican convention in Milwaukee? Absolutely. It's funny that all these Republicans from Wisconsin and other Republicans who were in the meeting, the stories are all different. Like some of them are like, he never said that. I don't know

what you're talking about. That's completely false. And that other said, oh, he did say that, but he was referring to the fact that the crime rate is so high in Milwaukee. So he was talking about the crime. And then someone else was like, oh, no, he was talking about how they stole the election in Milwaukee in 2020. It's like, none of this is making it better, you dipshits. Just stop talking. But this is how Trump views cities in America now, right? He knows that cities are full of Democrats and Democrats don't like them. And so every city has to be a hellhole that's crime-ridden and dirty. He says it about DC. He says it about Chicago, Milwaukee.

It doesn't matter if it's a swing state city or not. He just, every urban area where there are Democratic voters that do not like him, he wants to turn the rest of the country against. And by the way, this is part of his plan that he wants to send the National Guard into the cities. He wants to invoke the Insurrection Act

and send the army into these cities to fight crime and to deport immigrants. And he wants to have police do mandatory stop and frisk. Like this is his agenda. This is how he actually feels about cities. So it is funny and a traditional politics thing, but it's also the guy deeply hates cities right now. Yeah. And it is the Fox News view of

urban America, right? Like that's how he knows about cities, right? It is that it's how it's portrayed. And it has, yes, it is amusing in this weird context, but it has some knock-on effects down the line that about policy and Trump's actions that it could be very damaging to the people who live in those cities, regardless of what he called them. Yep. So according to the media outlet Notice, one source in the room said that Trump's speech was, quote, like talking to your drunk uncle at the family reunion. Finally, some honesty. But let's hear what Republicans said in public about the meeting. He was funny. He was joking around constantly with everyone. He was really sweet to me. He saw me in there and he was like,

hello, Marjorie. He's always so sweet and recognizes me. He said very complimentary things about all of us. We had sustained applause. He said, I'm doing a very good job. I mean, we're grateful for that. And you know what Trump meetings are like. He's electric. He's got an incredible fastball. And I think that was just exciting after all he'd been through, how strong this man is. This is an outstanding group of people. I'm with them a thousand percent. There was me a thousand percent. We agree just about on everything. And if there isn't, we work it it out i like marjorie taylor green being like he recognized me he said hello he right yeah no shit he recognized you um so judging from that uh north korean propaganda clip uh it seems like trump doesn't have to uh worry too much about

support from republicans in congress what do you think was the purpose of these meetings i know they're traditional like the nominee goes to cap Hill, meets with the members of the giant gaping hole that is his self-esteem. He knows they're going to applaud him. He knows they're going to love him. They're going to sing him happy birthday. He wants to be there. He was in town anyway for this business roundtable event where he's meeting with CEOs. So you might as well swing by there, have Marjorie Taylor Greene and others throw some adulation your way, get to kind of lord your dominance over people like Mitch McConnell and some other senators you hate. It seems like a real win-win for him. I don't think there was, it didn't sound like there was

a lot of message coronation going on there in any way, shape, or form. Well, we're going to talk about abortion in a bit, but he did tell them all like, hey, chill out, go with the message. We left it to the states. You know, that's that's the winning message. So he did a little bit of that. It does seem like from all the coverage overall, he's playing really nice with Republicans, even the Republicans who he's fought with in the past. He met with Mitch McConnell. And by all accounts, they had like a cordial meeting with Mitch McConnell and he endorsed Larry Hogan for Senate after Larry Hogan told people

to respect the verdict and Trump's senior advisor, Chris LaCivita, like tweeted at Larry Hogan that his campaign is over, but Trump today said he was endorsing Larry Hogan, which by the way was an endorsement

that then Larry Hogan said he's not really accepting. He's like, yeah, I'm not endorsing Donald Trump. I'm not voting for him. Sounds like he really wants to win this thing, huh? Yeah, they all do. They all want to win. And it's very clear. It's clear in how they're acting. It's clear how now they're coordinating. It's clear in the candidates they're nominating, right? Sam Brown, Tim Sheehy. These are not great candidates, but they're not Dr. Oz and

Hershel Walker either, right? They have, they have lost enough time to look at the Senate level that they are being very ruthlessly strategic about who their candidates are. And Trump has, you know, I don't think these people are political geniuses, but he has people around him who are steering him towards being smarter about this, like endorsing Larry Hogan.

Like that's an, I'm sure Mitch McConnell asked him to do it. It's an easy yes. And he wants that Senate seat, right? and he's been convinced he has a chance and it is it's also true that nothing focuses the mind like the chance of spending the rest of your life in prison so it's you know just gonna say this is why everyone's like well you know it's Trump and Trump I'm sure people around Trump have told him these kinds of things for years. And it's just like in one ear out the other. And he immediately goes back to his undisciplined, crazy self. But which he's, as we heard from the meeting, he's still still there.

Right. But like when it comes to political decisions and political moves, he really is. He's he's he's more disciplined than he's been because you're right. He wants to keep his ass out of jail. Which is like you 2016 right like ultimately trump wins or loses what's the difference in his life one is he becomes president united states and he's got to do a lot of theoretically do a lot of work or he just goes back to playing golf every day 20 has to keep doing the hard job or goes back to playing golf every day now it's get back in the white house or go to prison right it's not get back in the white house and go back to playing golf, right? And so, yeah, that's obviously going to focus your mind, right? The stakes are incredibly high for him in a way they've never really been before. He's really always had in all his businesses and all his politics in all his life, he's had a giant, probably gold-plated safety net underneath him, and now he does not.

Which is, again, why the message about Trump's only doing this for himself and he only cares about himself and he's only running for himself and he's only going to fight for himself in the White House. Just it works so well because it happens to be true and truer than ever before. He's always been for himself. But now you know this is the only fucking thing he's thinking about. Right. He's not thinking about anything else he does. Any other policy. Anything else. Anything else he does, any other policy, anything else?

I did see some testing that showed the post-conviction that one of the most compelling messages about Trump is that he is running to stay out of prison. Yeah, I've heard that. And that has become more intense after the conviction. So, not sure they discussed this in the meeting, but Trump apparently called Mike Johnson after the guilty verdict and told him that Johnson needed to help Trump overturn the conviction and or defund special counsel Jack Smith's investigations. And sure enough, there's been some movement on a bill that would allow presidents charged in state courts to move those cases to federal courts what a coincidence just a what if there's a scenario where there's a state court and there's an ex-president and let's say

he was uh caught i don't know trying to overturn an election uh falsify business records to to deceive voters. You know, I don't know. Let's say there was something like that. What if we move those to federal court? And then what if that guy won? And what could that person do if they were in federal court, if the case were in federal court?

Would they have any recourse to avoid going to prison? Are we just, it just is happening by coincidence that that's also the court whereby the president could pardon himself? I just think, like, even if this passed the House, it's obviously not going anywhere else. And it's not even clear that it'll pass the House. There's, you know, a few Republicans were quoted in Politico being like, I don't know, we're talking about the Democrats weaponizing the Justice Department, we're going to do this. It does seem like a bill that's like only designed to make Donald Trump happy. But I don't know if it's the best politics for them beyond getting in with Trump

or beyond making Trump happy and making Fox News viewers happy. Why do this? You said it, to make Trump happy. That's it. That's it. I think it's another argument for Democrats to make, that they're just in Congress,

the Republicans in Congress, instead of doing anything to help you, trying to overturn trump's conviction they tried to overturn the election form when he lost that and now they're trying to overturn the conviction this is this is what the republicans in congress are for this is what they do that that is exactly right like this they're focused on themselves and donald trump and we're focused on you right it's it is a very simple message and at the same time as they're trying to overturn Trump's conviction, they are also trying to prosecute Joe Biden's Attorney General Merrick Garland. You may wonder what for? Well, they voted to hold Garland in contempt of Congress because

he hasn't turned over the audio of Special Counsel Robert Herr's interview with Biden about Biden's handling of classified documents. Congress does have the full transcript, of course, but the allegation now is apparently that Biden or Garland or the deep state or some combo of all of them edited the transcript to leave out the damaging parts, which it seems like they did a pretty shitty job editing the transcript because the one that we saw seemed damaging enough. So it feels like they missed a few edits, missed a few deletions in the transcript. What is this? They're just looking for the audio so they can have another news cycle and run ads, right?

Yeah, it's ads. It's really hard to put a written transcript in an ad. It's very easy to take audio and put it in an ad. And so they're pushing, for it. I am sure there are legitimate, substantive law enforcement, executive privilege, separation of powers reasons not to return this over. But with my political hack hat on of where I am in the White House, I would be screaming that we find a reason not to release this. Because we know from the transcript that there are moments that are not awesome, right? Which is what happened to anyone under the age of you talk for five hours straight.

Of course. Just as we're recording this, there is this clip going around of the president at a parachutist ceremony, and it's been very deceptively edited with a narrow view. So it looks like Joe Biden is just like wandering off into the distance by himself when he's actually going to speak to another person. That person is just out of frame. Fox News is doing it. The right's all doing it. So just imagine what would happen if five or however many hours of audio of the president came out, what would be done with that? It's not just the magazine repacks and Trump would put in ads. Think of all of the TikTok videos that would be deceptively cut from this. It would be a disaster, right?

In very unfair way. Also, it's a win-win for them either way, because now they're going to treat it like, oh, the tapes, release the tapes because they know they're not going to get it, right? And so they're holding Garland in contempt. They know that's not going to go anywhere because basically they're holding him in contempt. So what happens is it's a criminal referral to the Justice Department. Who runs the Justice Department? Merrick Garland.

I don't think Merrick. I know Merrick Garland's a straight shooter. I know he's no politics, Merrick Garland, but I don't think he's going to be like, ah, unfortunately, I do have to prosecute myself. You know what? I wouldn't put it past Merrick Garland, who is annoyingly straight shooter to a point like Bill Barr to investigate Merrick Garland. Oh, my God. Please don't. Don't do that. Don't do that, Merrick Garland, who is annoyingly straight shooter, to appoint Bill Barr to investigate Merrick Garland. Oh my god, please don't. Don't do that. Don't do that, Merrick Garland. I know you're a listener. I know you're a big fan. But yeah, so

what they want, this will be like a Hunter's laptop thing, you know? We gotta have the tapes. If only they released the tapes, then we would see that the Biden crime family would be, you know, all the crimes would be uncovered and blah, blah, blah. It's fucking ridiculous. I don't think the tapes, to be honest, would be that bad, but there would just be they would be used in malicious ways. Yeah, 100 percent. So Trump also spent some time on

Thursday meeting with leaders from the Business Roundtable, which is just a bunch of CEOs and shareholders of big companies. You get your Jamie Diamonds, your Tim Cooks. Biden is in Italy for the G7 summit. So his White House chief of staff, Jeff Zients, went instead. The meetings were closed to the press, but the Biden campaign did jump on the opportunity to use the occasion to pick a fight on the economy. They dropped another new ad called No One in English and Spanish. Let's listen. called No One in English and Spanish. Let's listen.

When I was a young man, my family left our hometown so dad could find a decent job. I know what it's like to struggle. I know many American families are fighting every day to get by. That's why no one, especially a billionaire like Donald Trump, will stop me from fighting

the lower cost for food and rent, because hardworking families deserve a chance to get ahead. Now that's an economic message. There we go. What do you think? Love it. Love every part of it. I think it is. It understands so much about economic messaging that has sort of eluded the very circular navel-gazing conversation that we had participated in about how Democrats talk about the economy. Feel the pain, Bidenomics, Biden boom, all of that. Seems like we won, Dan. Seems like it was good that we got in that conversation. We have emerged victorious. Once again, our tweets made a difference.

People tell you not, don't post, don't listen. Now, I think the important part about this is it understands that the best economic message against Trump is that he is a rich person for other rich people. Voters believe that, right? There is polling. We've talked about this poll many times. Blueprint, the Democratic research firm, looked at Trump's biggest vulnerabilities, like voters' biggest concerns with Trump. And

Trump giving tax cuts to rich people like himself, Bray is high up there, particularly with working class and non-college educated voters. Very powerful. The voters were losing. It also understands that Democrats focus so much in our economic investing discussion around policy. What are we going to do? What are they going to do? And that's not really what this is about. that Democrats focus so much in our economic investing discussion around policy, right? What are we going to do? What are they going to do? And that's not really what this is about. All economic discussions in a campaign, and frankly, all policy discussion in a campaign, ultimately are not about what's in the white paper. It's about whether you're giving voters a sense of if you're going to fight for them or not, right? That is the core question in the election. And Trump is winning on that question right now,

but he's winning by a lot smaller margin than he is on the broader question of who do you trust in the economy. And so this is a soft underbelly for Biden to go after. And being seen as someone who fights also goes right at other core concerns around age and energy and capacity, right? Because it shows these fighters, like this is exactly what they should be doing. I love it. I want to see more of it. It's gradually released today. I hope it is a theme that runs through their advertising around the economy for the rest of time. Well, I noticed that they have made the turn, not just with this ad, but in their statement, both from the campaign and the White House about the inflation report this week. And so inflation came down. It's declining.

You know, it's a good inflation report. But I think we have both criticized this in the past. Instead of doing a statement that's like, inflation came down because we have the greatest economy ever and unemployment is low and doing all the statistics that are objectively true about the economy. Instead of doing that, which I think doesn't land well with people who are

clearly not feeling the recovery yet in their own lives because cost of living is still too high for them either because you know they actually feel that and it's true in their lives or whatever the narrative is it's a dumb argument who cares it's not it's it's not working with people people are not feeling it and so now they have really pivoted to talking about people are struggling. I'm going to fight for you. He is not. He is the billionaire. I am the guy from Scranton.

I am going to fight hard. And that's what you can, by the way, for proof points in that argument, you can start talking about your accomplishments over the last four years within that context. You know that I'm going to fight for you and I'm going to be on your side because I've already done X, Y, and Z. And if you give me another four years, I'm going to finish the job by doing these other things, right? So like that, I think, and I think he can also, I would bet that in, and they've started to do this as well, but I bet in the next couple of months, he will also have like corporate villains and not just Donald Trump, right? That it's like these companies that are price gouging some of them were at the ceo the business roundtable today where you know donald trump was like give me a give me campaign donations and i'll cut your taxes that's what he that's what

he uh reportedly told all the ceos is like lower taxes and lower regulations but you just got to donate to my campaign uh he already did that with the oil companies he told them he's that with the oil companies is like, give me give me cut me a big check and I'll make sure that you get a whole bunch of tax breaks and subsidies for the oil companies. So I think this is like a very powerful message. And it's how I mean, I would imagine, again, that as they're thinking about the debate, they're probably circling one moment where Biden can really drive home that Trump is going to fight for rich people and Biden is going to fight for everyone else. Yeah. And the fact that Trump, one of the things that Trump told the CEOs was that he was going to further lower the corporate tax rate if he was elected, right? It's not just extending it, but he would make it even lower, right? That is just incredibly unpopular. It's incredibly powerful. It's what you're going to do. I think you're exactly right. Let's pick some corporate villains, right? Like I hate the term shrinkflation. Like, I don't think it's a one that should come out of the president's mouth.

If I hear about the fucking Snickers one more time. But that is a real thing you hear people talk about, right? Have you seen the TikTok video of the Chipotle CEO trying to justify that their portions haven't gotten smaller, right? It's like that. It is a thing you hear from people all the time, particularly parents who pack kids lunches, right?. It's very real. And so talking about that price gouging, that Trump's going to reward these people with more tax cuts, they're just going to go to higher CEO pay, more money in the pockets of wealthy investors. There's just such a rich vein to tap here. And I very much hope and expect that's what they'll do in the debate too.

and expect that's what they'll do in the debate too. Also, he didn't say this at the business roundtable, but reportedly Trump told Republicans, House Republicans in that meeting, he floated an all-tariff policy that would lead, he said, to completely getting rid of the income tax. So it sounds wonky. What is that all about, tariff policy?

That is, he already has said he wants, he wants to put a tax on every single thing that is imported into this country. That's not like, you know, the Chinese made cars, right? Like, you know, Biden's doing some stuff like that too. That is every item that even has a part in it that's made somewhere else. He wants to slap a tax on that. And then he wants to get rid of the income tax. So the income tax is paid mostly by really rich people.

And so the rich people in this country now would have to pay no tax. 40% of people in this country pay no federal income tax because they don't make enough money to do it. Or they pay negative because they get like a tax credit. So those people would suddenly have a huge tax bill because they'd be paying the higher prices for all of these goods that are now going to be taxed more under Donald Trump's all tariff policy. While rich people don't have to pay any fucking income tax at all. We'll have more money and the extra price increases won't bother them at all. It's wild. Not to front run a forthcoming message box post, but the Trump economic agenda is so easy, right? It's higher prices for you, lower taxes for the rich and corporations, like over and over

again, over and over again. He wants them to pay less. He wants you to pay more. There we go. That's it. And he wants himself to pay less and he wants himself to stay out of jail. He wants him. It's just, a lot it's just there's a good there's a good message here dan there's a good message we just gotta get we just gotta start repeating it and make making sure it breaks through to all the people who aren't paying any attention right now Thursdays in June are Supreme Court opinion days. And while, as of this recording, we still haven't had a ruling on Trump's presidential immunity claim, we did get a long-anticipated opinion in the case FDA versus Hippocratic Alliance.

This is the case challenging the FDA's approval of mifepristone, the main drug used in medication abortion. Good news is that the court unanimously held the Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine, which is basically a consortium of anti-abortion medical professionals, did not have standing to bring the case in the first place, which is what legal experts expected to happen. So abortion medication will remain legal in the states where abortion is legal. But there will almost certainly be other legal challenges to abortion medication from some of these same groups, from other groups, from Republican attorneys general and red states. And they may have more standing than this group. And so we could, you know, the Supreme Court did

not rule on the merits here. It just said that they didn't have standing to bring the case. So there will almost certainly be other legal challenges. And if Trump wins, he'll still be able to try to take executive actions or change regulations that could restrict access to abortion medication nationwide, even in states where abortion is legal. So that's the Supreme Court decision. Meanwhile, Republicans in the Senate on the same day blocked a bill that would protect access to IVF. Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowski were the only Republicans that voted with all the Democrats to protect IVF. That was the same voting coalition that voted to protect contraception. All the rest of the Republicans, if we remember, voted to block a bill that would protect access

to contraception. Now they have voted to block a bill that would protect access to IVF. This comes after the Southern Baptist Convention, which represents the largest Protestant denomination in the United States, voted to oppose IVF on Wednesday. So it certainly seems like conservatives, anti-abortion activists, they are not taking Dobbs as a win. They want a national abortion ban. They want to ban abortion medication. And they're going after contraception and IVF. So I guess it's good that the court did what legal experts expected it to do in this case.

But it seems like the fight is far from over, right? Yeah, they punted, right? They want to take this question up. This was just a very imperfect vehicle for doing so. We saw them do it on abortion. They waited for Dobbs. They took a pass on a whole bunch of other poorly written state laws or with plaintiffs with questionable standing and waited for a law where they can make the decision. and waited for a law where they can make the decision. And they could have written in their opinions. They could have said something about the Comstock Act that would have sent a warning sign to a future Trump administration that they can't use the Comstock Act to ban the nationwide distribution of these drugs. But they did, right? They left it. We don't know what's going to happen here. We must remain vigilant. This issue remains a live issue. And I think it's for Democrats.

The point here is to make that it's going to require a President Joe Biden to protect access to these sorts of drugs, protect access to these sorts of reproductive freedoms. Yeah. And I think it is very much on Democrats to keep the issue front and center, not just talking about abortion generally, but making sure people know, especially people in states where abortion remains legal, that Donald Trump and a Republican Congress will do everything in their power to restrict access to abortion, despite whatever they're saying now. And they will have that ability if they get into power. 170,000 people traveled out of state since Dobbs to get an abortion. 170,000. There was also a poll. Gallup asked this question, and there are a record high percentage of voters who told Gallup that they are single-issue abortion voters in this election, and three-fourths of those are pro-choice voters. Which is a dramatic shift from pre-Dobbs. Right. The consensus always was is that we were

sort of at parity between pro-choice and anti-choice, but the anti-choice voters were much more motivated to turn out, to volunteer, to vote. And so Dobbs has created a fundamental shift in the political firmament more than anything in decades, is my guess. One other thing just on the importance of doing these votes, you sort of wonder, I'm sure a person listening is like, this vote was never going to pass. Why are we taking the time to do this? And it's one, these are ads that can be run later on. That's partially why I do this. But something Sarah said to me in Wednesday's pod that I think is just really worth honing in on, which is when she gets a group of people together and she asks them what issues they care about, abortion doesn't come up.

Doesn't matter the group. Could be two-time Trump voters, could be disaffected Biden voters. Abortion rarely is brought up. But when you bring abortion up, people get very intense, very focused, very angry about Dobbs. And so what the message to Democrats there is, is you have to keep bringing it up. You have to keep it front of mind, which is why this number is no longer true, but why as of a few months ago, 90% of the ads the Biden campaign had run mentioned abortion, right? And so everything you can do, right? Senate votes, press conferences, ads, talking about it, talking about the convention, bringing it up in the debate, like that's going to be a really important moment. It's one where Biden's going to have to be very comfortable doing it,

doing it proudly and aggressively. Every opportunity to bring it up is critically important because voters have to know. Think about Arizona, where you're going to have an initiative on the ballot. If voting for Trump and voting to protect abortion rights, you're canceling your votes out in that state. If Trump and voting to protect abortion rights, you're canceling your votes out in that state, right? If you really want to protect abortion rights, you've got to vote for Joe Biden. I mean, we talked about how Republicans and Trump clearly want to win. They are clearly trying to muddy the waters on this issue. Republicans in Congress, even as they voted against this bill to protect IVF, you know, they put out a statement saying that they all support IVF. They have an alternative bill that they say is protecting IVF.

They also had like an alternative bill that they said is protecting contraception. So you can imagine they're going to be running ads. They're going to be out on the trail saying, yeah, of course we support contraception. Of course we support IVF. Of course we support exceptions for rape and incest and life and health of the mother. And we just want this issue to go to the states and it's Democrats who are extreme. How do you think that has been? Do you think that's been effective so far? Do you think, does it worry you that message? I mean, it worries me more than them just continuing to light themselves on fire, which is what they did from the day after Dobbs passed through yesterday, basically. But voters are not dumb, right?

They understand what's at stake here. They understand how, you know, they're saying that it's Republicans in these states who were passing these extreme bans. They understand that it's a Republican-led Supreme Court that overturned it. So we have to push back on it, be aggressive, call them out on it, force their hand. But they have yet to find any words that undo the damage done by Dobbs politically. 15-week ban, 12-week ban, leave it to the states. None of those have as of yet proven to be some sort of salve for the political wound that was Dobbs.

Yeah. Before we go, quick thing on debates. We do have a- Two weeks from today. Two, oh, wow. I just got nervous about that. And I'm not even Joe Biden or on his campaign. So there was a report in Axios today that Biden's going to have to leave most of his

debate prep to the week before because of his busy schedule. He is right now on his second debate prep to the week before because of his busy schedule he is right now on his second europe trip of the week dan what you would have never let this happen in the white house two two trips to two foreign trips in the middle of a campaign i mean he obviously the the d-day uh normandy trip was a big trip. It was a, he used it to, you know, for speech defending democracies. That was important. And I guess wisely, they didn't want him to stay in Europe

for the G7 because then he would have been in Europe this whole week or the whole last week too. I don't know what day it is. So he went back, he came back to the US. Now he's back in Italy for the G7.

And then he's flying here to Los Angeles for this fundraiser with Obama on this weekend. I mean, the poor... You know what's not close to Italy? He's got a debate. Los Angeles. Right? I know. I mean, I frankly thought he should have stayed in Europe

and gone to see the Phillies play in London, which would have been a phenomenal OTR, because they were, the Phillies and the Mets were playing in London over the weekend. That would have been nice. That would have been good. But yeah, it's the look. The Biden team picked this debate time. Yeah, they picked June. They obviously knew they had these foreign trips on there. So I am incredibly confident that expectations management from both candidates aside that when they pick June, they had already blocked out what would be the times in which

you would prep. Now, having said all of that, and you know this better than anyone else, prepping an incumbent president for a debate is brutal. And it's not just that the president has had everyone in the room stand up every time they've walked in for the last four years, which makes you less willing to be told to be pithier by some whippersnappers. But it's also just have so much on your mind, right? It's just like you're dealing with so much stuff like you would in debate prep, the president would go from a meeting where intelligence reps would tell him about the most serious threats to the US homeland and then go into a meeting to practice one liners with Mitt Romney like that is like it's hard to be focused like that in a way

that you don't have to worry about in a campaign in the same way. This is just a preview of coming attractions. But if you are a subscriber, if you're a Friends of the Pod subscriber, which you can subscribe to at cricket.com slash friends,

the next episode of Inside 2024 is me and Ben Rhodes, who were two of those whippersnappers in debate prep in 2012. Didn't we do a bang up job? But you were both equally in charge of that first debate, right? Yeah. They finally brought in everyone else after that first debate.

Smart. The second debate. Yeah. No. And we tell all the stories about what it was like in 2012 prepping Obama. I went back. I mean, I had forgotten some of the stuff until I was like prepping for the episode, but there's some good stories

and some stories that were tough to tell again. But yeah, no, I think, and then on the Trump side of it, the Trump campaign told Axios they're planning zero prep, zero prep. Here's the quote from Jason Miller. Trump does not, quote, need to be programmed by staff.

And he will demonstrate, quote, elite stamina like he does at rallies. They're just not they're not playing the expectations game. What are they doing? I mean, it doesn't there are you can't set expectations for Trump. Yeah, that's true. He said somewhere else today that he's going to he might throw the debate. He might just lose the debate on purpose. So maybe he's trying to set up. The only expectation they said is just that if Trump quote unquote wins the debate, Trump wins. And if Biden wins the debate, it's because Biden was on drugs, right? That's the choice they're setting up.

But what they have done is if like, if Joe Biden, as long as Joe Biden doesn't forget his name or poop his pants on stage, it's going to be a win. Boy, I hope so. I mean, that's how they're setting the bar in the Trump campaign. I mean, it's the State of the Union thing all over again, where they have just set it so low that the president can clearly, just being himself on a normal day will clear that bar. But you got to clear it. It's a very different, in the State of the Union, Biden's being compared against the caricature of himself. Here, he's being compared in a debate, the caricature of himself and Trump at the same time. And it's obviously a more complex enterprise than the speech. I do think that a week and a half for debate prep, which is what he'll get, is enough. One thing we learned with Obama is you don't want to fill the candidate's head with

too much info oh yeah too many briefings like like a big like obama was walking around with like a big binder this thick i hated that for those of you who aren't audio only it's a it's a thick binder it's the point he's making binder yeah not full of women uh i was like should i make that joke would anyone anyone remember that? I physically couldn't avoid doing it. It was just too much in his head, right? I would give Biden just a couple moments that they want to get out in that debate. Make sure if it's January 6th, then who's for you on the economy and something else, whatever it may be.

Just have those. Get the style down. Here's how you should approach Trump. Here's how you should handle when he lies here's how you should handle when he yells at you about this and then just like sort of let him go it i mean it's going to be nerve wracking but fascinating because it's not you know obama had to learn all this stuff about bim rami like he didn't know it before i read it biden has already prepped for two debates with trump yeah that's interesting yeah that's another reason why you probably only need a week and a half and don't need to be. You can be flying all around

from Europe to LA. What he's doing now. Poor guy. Alright, well that's our show for today. And by the way, Democracy or Else, look at this book. Look at this beautiful hardcover book. Here's the deal. I saw that on Amazon. You know who's ahead of us on the list?

The political humor list? Bill Maher. Come on. Come on. We don't want Bill Maher ahead of us. That's ridiculous. All I would say is, I'm not going to use any numbers here, but I have been told by the marketing department that the pitch that I did for this book on Wednesday delivered a

very large number of pre-orders. And I don't think we should let that stand. You should at least beat that number. Well, then Tommy jumped in to say, well, he's like, I did a pitch on Pod Save the World. So how do we know the numbers aren't due to the Pod Save the World pitch? Because the purchases came from America. We don't know that. Maybe if you're abroad, we'd also love you to buy Democracy or Else.

Anyway, go pre-order Democracy. Remember, all the proceeds go to Vote Save America, so you'll be helping actually save democracy. We don't just think you're going to save democracy by reading the book, though that will help too. There's lots of great advice in here. It's from very smart people who aren't just us. It's also really funny.

And there's some illustrations too. The pictures are great. Great pictures, yeah. Just illustrations. Illustrations. For nothing else. Don't worry about it. No pictures are great great the great pictures yeah just illustrations illustrations no no they don't worry about you no photos just illustrations no photos just illustrations anyway democracy or else go pre-order now also from pride month help us hit our 100 000 fundraising goal in support of organizations fighting in states where conservatives are banning gender affirming care and targeting trans youth because they're nasty little freaks who won't stop infringing on our most intimate personal freedoms.

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