Pod Save America - Trump Wants You To Stop Talking About Epstein

Episode Date: July 15, 2025

MAGA’s Epstein revolt keeps growing — and despite Donald Trump’s pleas, it doesn’t look like it’s going away anytime soon. Elected officials get their first look inside “Alligator Alcatraz” and report seeing “disturbing, vile conditions.” Trump reverses his stance on Ukraine, issuing Putin a 50-day ultimatum. Favreau and Tommy break down the Jeffrey Epstein drama that erupted at the Turning Point USA Summit over the weekend; Trump’s new tariff threats against Russia, the European Union, and Brazil; and a new court ruling that could upend ICE operations in Los Angeles. They also discuss the timing of Biden’s New York Times autopen interview and J.D. Vance’s weekend trip to Disneyland, which featured an embarrassing video of the vice president attempting to run.

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monitoring plan and get your first month free. That's simply safe dot com slash crooked. There's no safe like Simply Safe. Welcome to Plot Save America, I'm Jon Favreau. I'm Tommy Uthor. Jon Lovett is still on vacation. You pray love. 2.0. He has missed some good stuff.

He's gonna be so pissed when he realizes. I wonder if he's doing a news blackout. He, you know, that's the kind of thing that he would do. Well, Tim Miller did a week-long news blackout. I wasn't able to do that, ever. I know. During the Epstein week, which is very funny. Tim, Dan, love it.

All on vacation during this breaking news. Anyway, there's some other things we're gonna talk about today. We got a Trump flip-flop on Ukraine, more tariff threats, Biden's interview with the New York Times on his auto-pen pardons, some good news and some horrifying news on deportations, and JD Vance getting booed at the happiest place on Earth. But, of course, we will start with Epstein.

If you had told me a week ago, when you and I first did this on last Tuesday's pod, that we would be leading the show with it today, a week later, I would not have believed you. You would have been psyched. But here we are. The president dropped a post on Truth Social over the weekend that has only made his fans angrier.

He wrote, quote, what's going on with my boys and in some cases, gals. So weird. Phrasing is so weird. They're all going after attorney general, Pam Bondi, who is doing a fantastic job. Trump went on to accuse anyone who has questions about his administration's decision, not to release the Epstein files, quote, selfish people who are trying to hurt him, quote, over a guy who never dies. the Epstein files, quote, selfish people who were trying to hurt him, quote, over a guy who never dies, Jeffrey Epstein.

He also said that the real authors. Pretty sure he's dead. That's kind of the controversy. I think, well, I actually know, I thought that was a clever line actually. It's like he's dead, but he never dies. He lives on. Yeah, because we're still talking about him. That's sort of how I took it.

Anyway, that's just a small, small thing. Trump also said that the real authors of the Epstein files are none other than Hillary Clinton. Yeah, because we're still talking about him. That's sort of how I took it. Anyway, that's just a small thing. Trump also said that the real authors of the Epstein files are none other than Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, and Joe Biden. Incredible. I think Comey was in there too, Brennan. Sure.

All the deep state faves. All the hits. Trump's post broke records for the amount of replies it got, fortunately for him, and just about all of them were negative. Meanwhile, there is wagons circling and finger pointing at the Justice Department. Deputy FBI Director Dan Bongino took a mental health day on Friday. They called it a mental health day after getting in a fight at the White

House with Pam Bondi. CNN reports that Trump is apparently furious with Bongino and it's still unclear whether he'll resign this week, though CNN also reports that he's in a better head space this week. So I guess the mental health day worked. Laura Loomer, who incredibly first broke the Bongino news, is also calling for a special counsel now to investigate everything. And MAGA's biggest stars,

many of whom spoke at the Turning Point USA summit over the weekend, are very publicly expressing their anger towards the White House in a way I don't think we've ever heard. Let's listen. In the most polite way, I'm like, give us the Epstein list now. It's a baseline question that every US citizen has a right to an answer on.

What the hell was this? I hope that President Trump will fix this by firing Pam Blondie. Who would you guys prefer, Bon Gino or Bonnie? Bon Gino. Okay, 7,000 to zero. They want Dan. How many of you are satisfied, you can clap,

satisfied with the results of the Epstein investigation? Clap. Satisfied with the results of the Epstein investigation. Clap. Oh. Oh. So, so it was Laura Ingraham, Charlie Kirk, Tucker Carlson. Who else do we hear in there? I think, I think, um, Benny Johnson was in there.

Benny Bannon was there. The whole crew. Warren Cunningham, Tucker. Would you say this is the biggest MAGA revolt Trump has ever faced? Why do you think this has become such a big deal and it has such staying power? It's definitely the biggest MAGA revolt.

Also, I guess credit to Turning Point USA for having all those conversations. Surprised. It's a little surprising, right? Yeah. I guess they kind of know where their base is and they can't just ignore them. Sort of the theme of the whole conference.

Yeah. I was trying to think about other things that were as unpopular or if they came close. Obviously the COVID policies were not popular, like Fauci, generally, masks, vaccines. Anything he said that was nice about immigrants, like the Dreamers, led to a reaction from some quarters of the MAGA movement.

Yeah. And there were some other dust-ups. Remember when he, in 2019, he talked about pulling out of Syria, and then that pissed off the neocons, and then they said, oh, just kidding, we flip-flopped, and then that pissed off like Tucker Carlson. Like, there were a few moments.

The Iran stuff briefly. Yeah, the Freedom Caucus doesn't like the spending from time to time, but nothing has united the entire MAGA coalition like this. It is the traditional Fox News Republicans, it's the right-wing kind of media influencer class, it's the TPUSAs, the Tucker Carlson's, the Charlie Kirk, the Steve Bannons.

And then it's like the far right loony French. It's Alex Jones. They're all furious. They're all equally furious. And I think it's big deal for a lot of reasons. First of all, I think some of them genuinely believe there's an evil cabal of liberals harming children and that they're being protected by the government

and they want Trump to do something about it. There are some that think the Epstein list includes all the people they hate the most, namely Bill Clinton. I think Benny Johnson, who for those who don't know, lucky you, he's a multi-time plagiarist who got a job at TPUSA now. He outlined a four-part plan for how Trump could fix his political problem

that includes quote, drag in Bill Clinton for questioning, a step four, right? So you can tell what he cares about. And then I think others just smell bullshit and they feel insulted and Pam Bondy going from saying, oh, the files are on my desk, I'm reviewing them to there are no files to Obama wrote them is just absurd.

Yeah, Trump sort of like central belief or at least the belief he encouraged people to have for the last decade is that there is like a deeply corrupt establishment in politics or at least the belief he encouraged people to have for the last decade is that there is like a, a deeply corrupt establishment in politics that like takes care of itself, screws everyone else. Right? The Epstein case is like a prime example of that.

The worst example. And his, his promise when he ran both times, three times, I guess, was, you know, you elect me and I will expose and destroy this corrupt establishment. Yeah, drain the swamp. And now, not only is he not exposing or releasing more of the Epstein files, but I think what's really pissed them off

is he's saying, if you have questions about it, fuck you. Yeah, shut up. Like you're a selfish asshole. And then, like, and then he's insulting people's intelligence by saying that Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, so I guess like Candace Owens today was like, I don't think I'll ever forgive Donald Trump for making me defend Barack Obama.

That's pretty good, Candace. But like, I don't know. I think that's a pretty foundational, like, because it's the first time where they're like, Like, I don't know, I think that's a pretty foundational, because it's the first time where they're like, oh, he's lying, like he's lying to me. He's lying, Jeffrey Epstein died in 2019. From probably golfing somewhere. Yeah, and some of his lies they don't care about,

because they're like, oh, I know he's sort of lying. Right. You know, like, I think you're right, like for a good chunk of the MAGA base, maybe they don't think that there's a cabal of pedophile Democrats running the world, right? But they do think that there's a lot of sleaziness in government and that people are covering a lot of shit up

because he led them to believe that. And now he's saying, no, no, no, no, no, it's fine. And he also said, I alone can fix it. And now he's clearly just refusing to follow through on his promise. I also think, imagine if he, the way he handled this was, look, obviously there's a lot of files, but we gotta protect these victims.

And you know, there's just, there's nothing else there. We thought there was something else there. I looked through it all, just remember, look, there's nothing else there. And just like left at that, people would still be pissed, but I think the way he's handled it is so much worse. The rollout has been baffling. You had Pam Bondi saying she was reviewing the files, the files are on my desk, I think that was in February. She invited all those influencers

to the White House, she handed them binders that said Epstein files part one or phase one, and they all looked like fools. They were all humiliated when they held them up and did photo ops. Dancing around like fucking idiots. Yeah, and then they had Dan Bongino, the Deputy Director of the FBI, and Cash Patel, the Director of the FBI, do this kind of slow rollout where they started doing interviews where they said,

no, actually, Jeffrey Epstein did kill himself. And then all of a sudden, there's this exclusive report in Axios on a Sunday after July 4th weekend with this two-page memo that's like, basically, if you keep asking questions, you're part of the problem. And they released this so-called tape on a Sunday after July 4th weekend with this two page memo that's like basically if you keep asking questions, you're part of the problem. And they released this so-called tape proving Epstein killed himself that's missing a minute

and was exported into like Adobe Premiere or whatever editing software. And like everything about the rollout and execution has been a disaster. Also I hadn't, like I looked again at the original statement that the justice department put out, which of course was like unsigned by anyone. The words they used is there's no incriminating client list. Which is like three, it's like, okay, that's very specific.

Right. Right. Like maybe there's a client list, but it's not incriminating. Maybe it's not a list, maybe it's files. Like it's just, it was a little too specific to write that. Yeah. I guess you can't say there's no client list because he had a job, right? He was like a financial something advisor to these creeps. Yeah, and we both I think have been, has started it like, oh, it's funny that all these conspiracy minded people are now

pissed off and everything. But then like maybe we've gone a little bit down the rabbit hole. So last summer, so this has been floating around today, Max Tanney at Semaphore reported that Fox News edited an interview with Trump to remove part of his answer on whether he'd declassify the Epstein files. What viewers saw on Fox was Trump saying, yeah, I would.

But the full answer, which only appeared later, is now going viral. Here it is. Would you declassify the Epstein files? Yeah. Yeah, I would. All right. Yes, I would. I think that less so, because, you know, you don't know. You don't want to affect people's lives if it's phony stuff in there,

because there's a lot of phony stuff with that whole world. But I think I would, or at least I'd... Do you think that would restore trust? Help restore trust? Yeah, I don't know about Epstein so much as I do the others. Certainly about the way he died, it would be interesting to find out what happened there because that was a weird situation and the cameras didn't happen to be working, et cetera, et cetera.

But you had to go a long way toward that one. It'd be interesting. Now, first of all, first of all, Donald Trump has assured us that a media outlet editing a candidate's answer in the heat of a campaign constitutes the biggest election hoax in history. Indeed. The biggest media scandal in history. So I imagine a lawsuit against Fox and a

settlement is forthcoming, right? I'm not really kidding. Like Kamala Harris should sue them just for fun. That's a good idea. Right? Why not? Kamala Harris should sue them just for fun. That's a good idea. Right? Why not? Kamala Harris should sue. There's precedent.

Yeah. And that was, and of course the interviewer there was Rachel Campos Duffy, uh, who was married to the transportation secretary, Sean Duffy. NASA administrator. NASA administrator, former real world road rules cohost and they met, they met there. So, um, that's, that's what's happening there.

But yeah, like just Trump answering there, but like there's some stuff, there's some stuff, we don't want any fake stuff ruining people's reputations. Yes, the Fox edit is wild. I'd never seen the juxtaposition of the long and the short version until recently. That said, I had noticed that his Epstein answers were always way less enthusiastic.

When he's asked about the 9-11 files, he's like, yeah, of course we'll put them out. The JFK stuff, he answers, no problem. With Epstein, there's always hesitation. I remember this from the Lex Friedman podcast. This was during the 2024 campaign. Lex says, quote, there's a moment where you had some hesitation about Epstein releasing

some of the documents on Epstein. Why the hesitation? Donald Trump says, I don't think, I'm not involved. I never went to his island, fortunately, but a lot of people did. I think they do a little back and forth, so a little bit later, Lex Friedman says, it's just very strange for a lot of people

that the list of clients that went to the island has not been made public. Trump says, it's very interesting, isn't it? It probably will be, by the way, probably. If you're able to, Lex is like, if you're able to release it, will you? And he says, yeah, I'd certainly take a look at it. Now, Kennedy's interesting because that's so many years ago.

They do that for danger bubble. He like pivots right to Kennedy. And then he was also like, and oh, at least with, on Fox he was like, and certainly the January 6th files. Certainly I'll get those out there. I think Trump is genuinely concerned that his name is in the files somewhere. Not necessarily as like a client on a client list.

And, you know, he seems more sure that he's, oh, I didn't go to the island, right? But like, why bring up the island? Right? So he knows that he's like, he's not on the client list. He didn't go to the island. But he gets, because now he's been through a criminal trial and a few other charges, and he's like, he's not on the client list. He didn't go to the island, but he gets, because now he's been through a criminal trial

and a few other charges and he's seen indictments, he gets that sometimes your name is mentioned in an indictment or in court records. And even if you, you know, even if you're not charged, even if you're not a co-conspirator, or sometimes because of hearsay. And so like he, I think because he was friends with Jeffrey Epstein for so long,

because he hung out with him a lot, because he's been on his plane, he thinks he's in there somewhere. Yeah, and we know this also, Bill O'Reilly talked to Trump about Epstein recently. I think this was back in March, Bill O'Reilly's quote was, I talked to Trump man to man, eye to eye

on St. Patrick's Day about this. That's very uncomfortable. And he said there are a lot of names associated with Epstein that had nothing to do with Epstein's conduct. And he's concerned that if those names get out, those people will be destroyed. So at a bare minimum, he thinks a bunch of his friends are in those records somewhere and maybe him.

Look, I'm with you. Look, I used to think the conspiracy was hiding in plain sight. Jeffrey Epstein was a rich, powerful scumbag who used his money and his connections to get away with horrific, horrific crimes. I just sort of assumed that was the whole thing. But the way Trump has handled this,

has metastasized this conspiracy in so many different ways, it's kind of hard to keep track of it. At first I thought it's either Trump or friends that he's worried about, but then I thought to myself, when has Trump ever been concerned about his friends? No, they were buddies for decades. And what friends does he have? This is why I think he's worried about his name.

He's never been worried about anyone else, even if he doesn't even fucking care about his family. Yeah, they knew each other for like 20 years. I mean, they hung out in New York, they hung out in Florida, there's video of them, there's Jeffrey Epstein saying... Hanging out at Mar-a-Lago. Hanging out at Mar-a-Lago, like og out in New York, they hung out in Florida. There's video of them. There's Jeffrey Epstein saying. Hanging out at Mar-a-Lago. Hanging out at Mar-a-Lago, like, ogling women on camera.

There's a, there's a 2017 quote of, uh, Jeffrey Epstein and Michael Wolff where Epstein says he was his closest friend. There was a report that Trump considered pardoning Ghislaine Maxwell in his first term. Like, there's a lot of smoke here. There was a report that Trump said at one point, like, oh, Jeffrey likes girls and he likes them young. Verbatim quote, I think he said it's like New York Magazine.

Yes. Great guy, loves beautiful women. Likes them really young though, it was like really creepy. Yeah, so, you know, I think he's got a legitimate concern here. Oh, here we go. I've known Jeff for 15 years, terrific guy. He's a lot of fun to be with. It is even said that he likes beautiful women

as much as I do, and many of them are on the younger side. No doubt about it. I mean. What more do we need? What more do we need? Well, this is what I was saying, is like, this stuff's all out there, so like, what else is in the files?

Right. Can't be worse than that. All right, so we're now at the point of, in a typical Trump scandal, where, you know, for a week everyone freaks out and kind of says what they actually believe, but now, you know, for a week everyone freaks out and kind of says what they actually believe. But now, you know, word has gone out to MAGA media and influencers that it is time to shut the fuck up

and talk about something else. Charlie Kirk, who Trump reportedly asked to tone it down in a phone call over the weekend, said on Monday, quote, I'm done talking about Epstein for the time being. I'm gonna trust my friends in the administration. Fox News didn't have a single mention of Epstein as of noon on Monday.

And you know, the DOJ and FBI are saying that everyone's getting along swimmingly now. There's a, you know, this new CNN report that maybe Bongino's, he's better now and he's reconsidering, quitting, do you think this will work? No, although I think CNN reported that Noand, senior at DOJ had talked to Dan Bongino since Wednesday. So we're kind of just like-

But he's back at work today apparently. Well, we're like yada, yada, yada-ing the part where the deputy FBI director is just not doing his job. He just quiet quit. He just quiet quit. I think Trump can silence parts of like the MAGA, like professional class. The biggest sick of fans.

Right, like Charlie Kirk is the perfect example. Like TPUSA needs access to Trump officials. It's this symbiotic relationship. I think Charlie will try to like calm the storm to preserve his relationship. But I just don't think that that is gonna work on the rank and file and on the base. And I think that's actually really dangerous for Trump,

for MAGA, for Charlie Kirk, for the country. Because Charlie Kirk's competition is not like the lame kind of centrist traditional Republicans. It's Nick Fuentes and guys to the far, far right. Nick Fuentes is out there saying, Trump's a joke. MAGA is dead. It's over.

This statement that he put out the other day is ridiculous. And I can't remember if I talked to you about this or if it was Ben on Pod Save the World. One night, because I'm just a sicko, I watched a two hour and 40 minute debate on Infowars hosted by Alex Jones between Dinesh D'Souza and Nick Fuentes.

We have talked. On Iran. And look, I was doing my own research and Nick Buntas is a bad dude. Like he's like genuine like questions of the Holocaust, like real like neo-Nazi shit. But my takeaway from it was it was a really substantive debate.

It did not get ugly. Alex Jones kept jumping in because he wanted them to like fight each other more viciously. It was like, and what I came away. You thought they were just making some good points. What I came away thinking was, uh, Fuentes is dangerous, right?

Like if you can, if you can present as reasonable in that context for that long in a debate with someone who is, you know, like Dinesh D'Souza, I don't respect him. I don't think he's like an honest person, but he's like a professional debater. I think you could convince a lot of people to follow you, and that your other neo-Nazi views are maybe,

they seem less French. I had that concern today, seeing what Laura Loomer's been up to. Which is, she's using her connections in Mago World to actually break news. And so then, people take her a little more seriously because she's breaking news, which is valuable to media outlets and people like us who talk about the news. Right.

And then now that she's taken seriously and like people go to her for quotes, she can espouse all of her hateful, crazy views. Yeah. I, I kind of like struggle with sometimes I'm like, should I be retweeting these people? Cause I want to make sure reporters all see that there is this like tumult within the MAGA movement. I'm like, and it's not like I'm like platforming her.

It's like, should I just be promoting these people generally? And then I remember Laura Loomer got the head of the NSA fired. So like, horses out of the barn here. She's a mover and shaker. She's like, got some influence. I do think, you know, he can get Charlie Kirk back on board. And I think Fox will be like, the people at Fox will be like the first

to get back on board, right? Right. But. They'll be like, who are we dating? I can see the news cycle moving on because it just does and he'll do other things and say other things. But this is one of those things that goes like

back underground into the swamps of the internet and it just keeps circulating. Totally. And the Nick Fontes of the world and Laura Lubler, like there's people who are still gonna be pissed about this for a long time. it just keeps circulating. And the Nick Fontes of the world and Laura Lubin, like there's people who are still gonna be pissed about this for a long time. And next time Trump pisses his base off with something,

this will get brought up. Yes, and conspiracy theories like this that are kind of like blobs with no boundaries and amorphous, they just evolved to like envelop current events. Like I think I mentioned to you how I saw some kind of conservatives influencers saying that the DOJ memo that went out about Epstein in the first place was time for Bibi Netanyahu's visit, because they all

think that Epstein was like a Mossad asset. And it's just going to be like shit like that, like over and over and over. Or Naftali Bennett, like, having to respond today, former prime minister of Israel, be like, he's not Mossad, I promise. He has no ties to Israeli intelligence. Okay. Okay, okay.

Did you see Lara Trump on Benny Johnson's show? Lara Trump said, there needs to be more transparency. I think that will happen. I know this is important to the president. He's going to want to set things right. I believe there will be more coming in anything they're able to release.

They will try to get out. They hear it and understand it. What did you make it? I'm interested in that. Interesting, I mean, like the basic demand that seems like it would satisfy someone like Megyn Kelly is let me sit down with Pam Bondi, Cash Patel and Dan Bongino for a two hour interview

where I get to ask anything I want. Like putting those three in front of a Trump sort of sycophantic journalist, it makes a lot of sense. Why wouldn't you do that? I also think that they are not necessarily above putting out fake information or information that is real but just not the full story. Like I was sort of, not to give them any ideas,

but I've been wondering why they don't just like, if there's stuff they're worried about, you know, not release that and then just give some chum to everyone on other issues I think they could definitely do that my my guess for why a smart but evil person involved in these conversations would think that's risky is that I think a lot of people have probably seen these files that are kind of in the professional yeah they're in the FBI like New York office or you know they worked on the 2008 case down in Florida, right?

And there's just a lot of ways it could leak. Yeah, that's true. Dan Bongino, how does he stay in the job? He takes the mental health day, he's been doing these podcasts, and now he's just gonna be like, no, no, no, I'm okay? Just for people who don't know, take a second, Google Dan Bongino.

His head looks like Minecraft. He looks so jacked, he's like a roided up dude. He was a twin. I think there were two secret service agents. Remember? He was like on Obama's detail for a long guy. Yeah, that's where they wrote the Epstein files together. Right.

And then Dan ran for office three different times unsuccessfully, but pivoted to being a very successful podcaster. But he has a crazy temper and anger management problem. And there's this clip of him screaming at this reporter named Mark Caputo, who now works at Axios that Caputo published shortly after it happened, where he's just like losing his mind. But to your question, like the only way Bongino can stay in the job is because ultimately in the Trump world there is one boss and his name is Donald Trump and no one else's opinion matters because like Trump like the

The deputy director job. It's not Senate confirmed There's not a lot of accountability like Trump announced the pick of both Patel and Bongino But there's reporting that Patel actually chose Dan to be his deputy and did so after he told I think it was like the retired FBI Association that he would pick a Dan to be his deputy and did so after he told, I think it was like the retired FBI association that he would pick a career FBI officer to serve in that job. Because what usually happens. Literally every time.

I was gonna say, it never not happened. Yeah, so he lied to them. But like technically, Dan Bongino reports to DOJ. He reports to Pam Bondi and he apparently screamed at his boss in the White House. You could also see a situation where Bondino stays in the job for now and then tries to just like leave in a couple months because of something else,

or at least tries to claim that it was for some other reason. Ambassador to Liechtenstein. More mental health days. Democrats in Congress like Ro Khanna and Mark Veazey of Texas want to force a vote on legislation that would require DOJ to release all the files? What do you think?

I like it. Roe's trying to attach his amendment to this cryptocurrency bill that's sailing through the House. So I think it'll get voted down because they'll claim it's non-germane to the underlying legislation, as if that has prevented them from doing this in the past. But I think as many bad votes for Republicans on this issue is good.

I support the other proposals as well. I think like the obvious caveats, right? You don't want to release anything that would put out information about the victims and harm them. You don't want to do anything that would help Ghislaine Maxwell get her case thrown out on appeal. So did you, I didn't realize this until today. Apparently DOJ has until today, July 14th, to respond to her appeal.

Because she wants to go up to the Supreme Court. And the Trump Solicitor General has delayed their response to her demands twice. I also saw that she, like sources say she's willing to offer more testimony about this. To the Congress. To the Congress. To Congress. Let's fire up the Zoom.

This is why I like the vote thing too, is because either Mike Johnson tries to block the vote, and which is gonna just piss off the base even more, or he allows the vote. And I think that thing passes, because there's enough Republicans, House Republicans who are pissed about this, that you could see it passing.

And then you could imagine DOJ stonewalling, and just saying like, fuck you, we're not releasing it. Like, I don't care what Congress says, but at the very least, I think they get pressure to like have cash, Bongino, Bondi come to the Hill to testify. Like that, that has to be coming. Well, those guys will, I mean, I think statutorily will have to go to the Hill at some point, right?

There's the yearly threat assessment hearing or there's like general routine committee oversight hearing. So they're gonna be up on the Hill at some point anyway. And Democrats in those settings should ask about nothing but this over and over and over again. And ideally, like a Democrat should reach out to some crazy Republican who's pissed about this and sort of like coordinate questions on this

and just be like on this issue, let's kind of work together. No doubt, but like Gulley-Maxwell, she is arguing that the 2008 non-prosecution agreement that was given to Jeffrey Epstein included all of her associates and should have prevented her prosecution in this latest case.

So that she's trying to get that to go to the Supreme Court. You have to imagine her lawyer is also trying to get some sort of appeal as politically untenable as that would be. And maybe once it is confirmed that that will not be happening, hence the delays, she decides to speak her truth to some journalists somewhere.

Just wait until Trump hardens her on his way out the door and also just fucks JD Vance's campaign. Absolutely. That's an ending I can say. Couldn't have it, it would've been a nicer guy. ["Sugar Spoon"] Pod Save America is brought to you by Magic Spoon. Magic Spoon makes- Hey, old friends.

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deliver and is now doing the thing he criticized Putin's invasion of Ukraine on Monday the president announced that the United States would resume sending weapons including the Patriot air defense missile systems to Ukraine except rather than provide the weapons directly to Ukraine, the U.S. will sell the weapons to NATO countries, who will then provide them to Ukraine. So we're basically back to the Biden administration's policy, except with a few more steps in the middle. Trump also threatened Russia with 100% tariffs if a peace deal isn't reached in the next 50 days, a deadline I'm sure will hold. Here's Trump in the O oval answering some questions about the announcement How far are you willing to go if Putin were to escalate?

Send more bombs in the coming days. Don't ask me a question like that. How far I Want to get the war settled, you know, we want to defend our country, but you know, ultimately Having a strong Europe is a very good thing. How did you tell Putin this was coming? I speak to him a lot about getting this thing done. And I always hang up and say, well, that was a nice phone call. And then missiles are launched into Kiev or some other city. And I said, strange.

And after that happens three or four times, you say the talk doesn't mean anything. He's, I don't want to say he's an assassin, but he's a tough guy. It's been proven over the years. He's fooled a lot of people. He fooled Bush. He fooled a lot of people. He fooled Clinton, Bush, Obama, Biden.

He didn't fool me. Oh, he didn't fool you, huh? Sure, it seems like he did. Which is why now you're... Changing. Now you're changing. Pretty significant reversal in Trump's stance on Ukraine, right?

Yeah, also like, he always sounds like he just Googled Ukraine for the first time when he talks about this, or like Googled Putin for the first time. I didn't know this guy was such a dick. Some people say he was KGB. Yeah, you know, when I first, like my views on this have been evolving

throughout the day, it's obviously a massive tonal shift. How many weeks ago was it? Months ago where we just had the Oval meeting with Zelensky where Trump and Vance were screaming at him? Yeah, basically beat him up. Punched him in the Oval. Now it's like, well, I don't know. Thank you.

It's not totally clear to me how much of a substantive shift it is quite yet. So like the messaging has gone from, as you said, it's gone from like I'll end the war in 24 hours to I'll dick around for six months and then solve it in 50 days. But if you think back to the 2022 messaging, like right after the full scale invasion,

he said he wouldn't call it illegal. And he called Putin genius and called it savvy. Remember that? Oh my God, I forgot about that. I know, it's like shocking. What do you think about? And then the, the, the campaign messaging on this was kind of predicated on accusing Biden of starting world war three, especially when

the Biden administration let Ukraine hit targets with our long range missile systems that were inside Russia. But then in February, there's that Oval Office meeting. You're talking about, there was that weird moment where he said, Putin went through hell with me.

Remember that talking about the Mueller probe. Yeah. And so like the tone today, it's like, it seems like Putin has just humiliated him and humiliated him and the first lady has given him shit about it. And yeah, that was part of it.

Yeah. I don't think that was in this, in the clip that we just played, but he's like, yeah. And I, I get up the phone with Putin and I go, I go home and I say, it was a nice call. And then Melania is like, well, he just bombed another city. Good for Melania. like, well, he just bombed another city. Good for Melania.

Yeah. Good on you, Melania. But yeah, so in the last few weeks, there was this weird announcement from the Pentagon where they said, weapons shipments to Ukraine were paused. And then Trump reversed the pause. And now he's saying, OK, we're going to send more weapons. We're going to do it through NATO.

And also, after 50 days, I'll put in 100% secondary sanctions on these other countries that do business with Russia. But none of this has happened yet. So we'll see. Like one expert I talked to today said, he thinks this is basically the Europeans sending Ukraine weapon systems, and we'll agree to backfill them

by selling them the stuff back to the euros. Now that's not nothing because like, the Europeans can get Ukraine stuff fast and they probably wouldn't send the high end systems like the Patriot missile defense batteries if they didn't have a guarantee that they would get replaced because it's like very long lead times. And the head of NATO, Mark Rutte, who's in the

meeting with Biden said, we're talking about air defense, missiles, and ammunition. So it does sound like it's not just defensive capabilities, but it's just like, I'll believe it when I see it. And also the guy coordinating it is Matt Whitaker. Remember him? Oh my gosh.

Yeah. Remember this? Wasn't he in a, uh, was he an attorney general at one point? He was the acting attorney general. Right. Yeah. I know.

Acting attorney general from November, 2018 to February, 2019, who was famous because he was on the board of a company that sold the Big Dick toilet. The Big Dick toilet guy. It was a masculine toilet. Matt Whitaker, Big Dick toilet. So if you were a well endowed man, and traditional toilets just didn't have the space between seat to water that you needed to stay dry,

he had you covered. Although I think the company was- Who among us has not needed a Big Dick toilet? Listen, yeah. I think the company was. Who among us has not needed a big dick toilet? Listen, yeah. I think the company was ultimately shut down by the FTC because it was a scam. Oh, surprise, that's crazy, that's crazy. Well, hopefully we're selling just weapons

and not the big dick toilets to. I mean, maybe they need them. For sure. Pretty palsy. Fuck. I kind of feel like Trump was reverse reverse polarized against Putin or he was like, he was negatively polarized against Putin because of the Mueller probe. Right.

Yeah. And so it was like, they're coming after me for Putin. So now I'm going to defend Putin because I like Putin. Yeah. And also he's a tough guy and he loves dictators, right? So like Trump loves strong men, loves authoritarian and he's mad at the Democrats because he thinks they invented a Russia hoax, even though Russia was trying to help him win. And so, and so, and so, and so, and so, and so, and so, and so, and so, and so, and so, He's a strong man, he loves authoritarians. And he's mad at the Democrats because he thinks they invented a Russia hoax, even though Russia was trying to help him win.

They didn't intervene, yes. Yeah. And so, and then over the years, now that he's talking with this war, he's like, oh, this guy's kind of a dick. This guy sucks. Yeah, he didn't fool me. He fooled Obama and he fooled Bush

and he fooled all the other ones, but he hasn't fooled me. He's kind of a dick. It is weird strategically for Putin, because he would get off the phone with Trump. They talked on July 3rd, and then July 4th, he launches the most missiles and drones he's ever launched at Ukraine.

And they're not hitting military targets, they're just hitting high-rise buildings in Kiev. And for a long time, if you were in the capital, you were relatively safe compared to the east of the country because of the Patriot systems, but they're just running out of interceptor missiles. And Russia can also sort of overwhelm them if they fire enough of these shitty Iranian drones

in addition to ballistic missiles. So like tons of innocent people are getting killed. I mean, it's possible that their aging authoritarian also acts on impulse and is not necessarily playing 3D chess. Yeah, that's well said and is a prick. And ultimately his kind of, his mission is not just taking territory in Ukraine.

It's kind of like undercutting the entire American system and NATO and our values and the idea that democracy is better. Yeah, and I think that there is part of Trump that doesn't like to see a lot of war, not necessarily because he believes in peace and he cares about people all over the world, but because he knows that war is messy

and that it looks bad. Yeah. Right, this is like how, I think this is how he feels about Gaza and how he felt about people all over the world, but because he knows that war is messy and that it looks bad. Yeah. Right, this is like how, I think this is how he feels about Gaza and how he felt about Iran. Like anything I can do to just get wars over, to just like get all the mess off the screens because people don't like war, I think he probably thinks like that. I agree with that.

I mean, his latest thing is trying to take credit for all these kind of ceasefire deals and peace agreements and say he like deserves a Nobel Peace Prize. Dying for that peace prize. Yeah, like there was an agreement between Congo and Rwanda that like has of ceasefire deals and peace agreements and say he deserves a Nobel Peace Prize. Dying for that peace prize. Yeah, there was an agreement between Congo and Rwanda that has a ceasefire and a conflict there.

But the devil's in the details. And when you look at the substance of the deal, it's basically just another mineral extraction deal for the US for these rare earths. And the main militant group, the M23D, was not a party to it and have not said they would agree to it. So it's like, when you dig one inch below the surface, it's all bullshit.

But I agree with you, like he doesn't, I do think there's a part of him that is genuinely think, like knows politically war is bad. Yes, exactly. He's trying to pull US troops back from abroad, whether it's Europe or Syria or whatever. He knows it's bad politics. I just say, when I was listening to you guys

on Pod Save the World the other week, and I hadn't heard the clip of when BB tells Trump that he is nominating him for the Nobel Peace Prize and then Trump says, that means so much, especially coming from you. I was listening in public and I laughed so hard, people were looking at me. It's like, this man,

just bombed Iran. It's like. Indicted by the. Indicted by the ICC, indicted war criminal has killed at least 55,000 people. I'm not even gonna. No, it's just so absurd. Like you literally can't believe it.

Like there's literally, and by the way, the Nobel committee is like five academics. Yeah, five random Norwegians. They're not like political actors. Which by the way, crazy way to decide a peace prize anyway, but like that's neither here nor there. It's true, yeah. Yeah, it random Norwegians. They're not like political actors. Which by the way, crazy way to decide a peace prize anyway, but like that's neither here nor there. It's true, yeah. Yeah, it's wild.

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will face 30% tariffs starting August 1. The Europeans are like, we were negotiating. I don't know what the hell happened. This is after a week where Trump just sent a bunch of letters to different countries and informing them of the tax rate we'll be imposing on ourselves when buying their products, including a 50% tariff on Brazil that's because Trump is mad at them for putting fellow coup attempter Jair Bolsonaro on trial. Whether or not Trump actually goes through with all of this,

always a mystery. The tariffs we're currently paying are already higher than they've been in a hundred years. Here's what Trump said in the Oval Office on Monday about all of this. The letters are their deals, but we're also willing to do more deals if they're willing to talk, unless we're not, because the letters are deals, but they're not deals, they're letters. Does that make sense to you? Yes, Schrodinger's deal, like, wow, it's just such nonsense.

I mean, nice that people just followed up, like, sir, what the fuck were you talking about just then? It's such a ridiculous fucking thing that we all have to pretend is serious, or that just because this is, this is the president of the United States. But it's like, he's sending these letters that are basically truth social posts on White House letterhead to countries informing them that we will be levying a tax again on ourselves for all of their products. And he's just.

When you put it that way. And he's just, and then there's no rhyme or reason. What's his face? Kevin Hassett, his economic advisor was on TV. And John Karl of ABC was asking him, he's like, so why is he doing all this? I thought there were going to be deals. And he's like, well, look, he thinks this is,

you know, this is good for the United States and United States has been ripped off and this is how he has the authority to do this. It's because of a, it's a national security emergency that we're being ripped off and we need to have these supply chains in the United States. And then John's like, okay, well then what about Brazil? Because he said that was just because of Bolsonaro

and the trial. And he's like, like I said, like most countries, most countries, it's overall, it's about fairness. And he's like, but that said, like most countries, most countries, it's overall, it's about fairness. And he's like, but that has nothing to do with anything. Just to hammer home your point about the seriousness of these letters, like the one to the president of Bosnia, Herzegovina misgendered the president. So not a good start.

But yeah, I think I'm glad you brought up the Brazil example because that one to me, I think kind of like epitomizes the absurdity of the whole process. Because the initial Liberation Day tariffs were just based on the US trade deficit with all these countries, right? Like Trump thinks trade deficits are bad. If we buy more stuff from a country, then we sell to them.

We're getting ripped off, and we're mad about that, and we're angry. But the United States hasn't had a trade deficit with Brazil since 2007. We did the current, the USTR, the United States Trade Representative website, right now, today, says we did 92 billion in trade with Brazil in 2024,

that the US trade surplus with Brazil is $7.4 billion. But like you said, we're gonna slap a 50% tariff on Brazil because the former right-wing president is being prosecuted for trying to overthrow the current democratically elected government? We have a free trade deal passed by Congress in place with South Korea. Free trade, that means no tariffs, no tax on imports, exports, going either way.

And he's slapping a tariff on South Korea. Why? We don't know. Just imagine you're them. You're like, -"What do I do with this?" -"What do we do?" What do we do with it? And again, you justify these tariffs by claiming, under this law, AIPA, that there is a national security emergency that necessitates this tariff. So the national security emergency in the case of Brazil is that we don't like how Brazilian courts are prosecuting a case?

So here's my question. We are heading towards a situation where we might not have like liberation day level tariffs, but pretty close in most of these countries now, if we're doing 50% in Brazil and 30% in the EU and all this kind of shit. So like the markets are pretty calm. What do you think's going on there? Yeah, they're just like ripping lines of taco. Like they just, they don't think like, I think, they think Trump likes the leverage of tariffs. I think he likes getting to announce stuff.

I think he likes looking like he's taking action, but they don't think he's really going to do it. I think the, I think the economic and political damage is longer term. Like, so just like one more quick thing on, on the Brazil piece, like the thing we all agree on in Washington, right, is that China is the real threat. So one thing China buys from us in huge numbers is soybeans.

We're talking like $15, $17 billion per year. But after the 2018 US-China trade war, China started looking at Brazil for soybeans. Since then, that relationship has only increased. So in practice, our chair of policy has hurt farmers in the US while driving China closer to the biggest country in South America. What are we doing?

What is the point of this? It really is he likes having the power. When he was saying that line in April and May about, I can charge what I want, we're the world's store. We set the prices. He likes the idea that he is, at least in his mind, running the world and that United States, because we're the biggest economy in the world,

we have leverage over these other countries and can treat them however we want. Though he's still not understanding that again, we are paying these taxes and American companies are either eating the tariffs or passing them on in terms and, and, and for higher prices for consumers or passing them on in terms of, for higher prices for consumers. And because this hasn't hit yet,

because the tariffs, the cost of the tariffs really haven't factored into the economic numbers that we're getting just yet, but they will. They will eventually. Especially if he goes through with this August 1st deadline, which who knows. And then, you know, then what he's gonna be left with is of course saying, this has nothing to do with the tariffs.

It's Jerome Powell's fault. He should be cutting interest rates. Exactly, exactly. And I think the markets are hoping that'll happen. They don't want Jerome Powell fired, but they do want a rate cut. And the kind of signal to the world is the way you get a deal is you wait until

Eric Trump visits and then you announce a 1.5 billion dollar luxury golf and residential development project like Vietnam did. Yes. And then things work out. Yeah it definitely I mean there's there's the personal corruption there's the I want them to change a policy on X Y or Z he's like pissed at the EU over some of their digital laws that then you know like he's just it's It's a total shakedown, and he just wants to be in control. But at some point, if he keeps backing off the threats, these countries are going to be like,

why would I negotiate? Who the fuck cares? This guy just keeps backing off. So it's not even a good negotiating stance from Donald Trump's perspective. Right. And a lot of these countries are better positioned now to respond than they were in the

first Trump term. For example, in 2024, the EU put in place a mechanism that would allow them to respond to coercive economic behavior. And they did this because of Trump's tariffs and because of shit that China was pulling on various countries. If you recognize the existence of Taiwan, for example, and you're like Lithuania, like a tiny little country, they'll just hammer you. So now they have this way of kind of end running the WTO process to leverage their own kind of retaliatory economic policies if we fuck with them. And so like it's kind of a ticking time bomb. Yeah, well we'll see what happens August 1st. So in the midst of Trump's

worst news cycle in recent memory, guess who popped his head up to give Fox News something else to talk about? Elmo. That also is true. Google it. Yeah, yeah, someone hacked Elmo's account. It's really, it's troubling.

Wild. No, no, it's Joe Biden, a man who always has the most exquisite timing. The former president decided that now is the perfect time to finally address Republicans' investigation Joe Biden, a man who always has the most exquisite timing. The former president decided that now is the perfect time to finally address Republicans' investigation into his administration's use of the AutoPen. So he granted a rare interview with the New York Times

where he said that he, quote, "'made every decision,' end quote, "'about his widespread pardons and clemency, "'and that the only reason the AutoPen was used "'to execute them was because,' quote, "'there was a lot of them, which is standard practice at the White House when signing hundreds of documents. The interview was part of a larger times investigation

into Biden's use of the AutoPen, which also found that Biden approved clemency actions for groups of people rather than individuals, another common White House practice. What'd you think of Biden's decision to do the interview and more importantly, the substance of what he said about the pardons and the auto pen? I'm not ready to not be mad about the timing quite yet.

Okay, reading the story, it seemed like someone leaked the Times a bunch of emails, right? That they somehow got about the decision making process within the Biden White House and they probably went to the Biden team and was like, we're going to run something on this with or without your comment. And so Joe Biden jumped on the phone with them. But like. And Nira had testified. Nira Tanden.

Nira Tanden had testified about AutoPen, right? So it was out in, that was like two weeks ago. I can't remember. But anyway, it's been out there, right? Like the AutoPen stuff. So the Biden's folks who don't like him to do any interviews with anyone just decided, OK, I guess you can jump in on this. Yeah.

Does no one just say, hey, you know what, guys, it seems like Trump's having the worst week or two of his political career since January 6th at least. Maybe we just punt on this or we tell the times we'll take care of you down the road. Like the timing was so insanely fucking unhelpful. So frustrating. we'll take care of you down the road. Like, the timing was so insanely fucking unhelpful. So frustrating. It's like, um, do you see in that, the, um, Tyler Pager's new book and Josh Dawsey

about the 2024 election, um, they called Biden for an interview because they got his, like, Tyler got a hold of his cell, and then they, they called him and got him to talk a little bit. And then, um, then Biden's staff was so mad that they changed his cell number. They called him and he was like, Biden's like, uh, I'm getting on a plane.

He's like, chill, yell, yell choo choo. Do the, do the whistle noise. Yeah, it was crazy. It was so funny that they changed his number and they screamed to these reporters. So who knows how the decision was made? Okay, sorry, I, we'll get back to the substance. I mean, like, there's a couple of different buckets

of issues, like we, we've expressed frustration in, on past episodes about the Biden's pardons of his own family and the messages sent and how it made Democrats look like hypocrites and how they were like kind of some, you know, perceived enemies of Trump who got pardons, but not others. And it seemed unfair, but that's kind of like a separate bucket, right? Like we don't need to revisit that unless you want to.

Um, but the, the allegation here is the Republicans are making is that he was essentially brain dead and that he doesn't know who he pardoned and that his rogue staff was really running the country. And I just, I just think that's ridiculous. Well, and let's be clear the pardons that they care about, right? The part they care about is Hunter, Liz Cheney, the preemptive pardons for the January 6th people. Like, yeah, they're pissed about those because they wanna go after those people.

Yes, and so it's clearly an effort to undo like clemency decisions about Trump's political enemies. Frankly, the fact that Republicans are doing this kind of validates what Joe Biden did in the first place. Yes. Right? But you know, you're also seeing Republicans like try to make a big deal out of this idea that Biden signed off on categories of people to pardon and not every individual. And that is dumb. I've not personally talked to someone who handled the pardon process, but I think it's pretty standard to say,

I'm reducing the sentences of nonviolent marijuana offenders through this time period. You're not going to have Joe Biden read through a list of names of people he's never heard of before and like check them off. Yeah, nor sign every single document for all those. That is the perfect case for an auto pen. Yes, right. When you have like a thousand, let's say, low level offenders that you're pardoning.

Yeah, of course. Yes, now the kicker on the New York Times story was that Hunter's pardon was the only one that Joe Biden signed with his own hand during that kind of period. That was not the best detail, I guess, would be my take. Wanna make sure that one you do by hand, for sure.

Yeah. That'll take care of, that's a tough one. I do hope, like, are reporters digging into how often and in like kind of what use cases Trump uses the auto pen. It's been reported that he has used it like all the time. Yeah. Not like, but like as every single president. Right.

Does use an auto pen. It's such a weird scale to like those of us who've been in government. Like forget it even about before we got to the White House, like in the Senate office with Obama, there was an auto pen. There was every like they all use auto pens. Yes. There's a ton of shit to sign. There's constituent mail. There's everything like no politician has the time

to fucking sit there and sign everything, especially if you're the president of the United States. Yeah. It's absurd. It's not like 1953. We're not like, banks aren't comparing signature records on your checks. Like I draw a fucking circle on the receipt thing. Yeah.

One squiggly line is John Favreau. Yeah, it's so stupid. And listeners will probably be like, okay, you're bullying. This is the presidency we're talking about. Again, like you're doing like millions of executive orders and all these like Trump. The difference between Trump, I guess, and previous presidents is that he views every executive order or document he signs as a press event And so he does it in front of the cameras this time around. Yeah, right this time around but not last time, right?

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He heard someone else yell, I'm a U.S. citizen. Sure enough, the Miami Herald reported that over 250 people being held at the facility have no criminal record. There's about 900 people right now, 250 with no criminal record. I think there was another 250 to 300 who have, who their criminal record is like traffic violations, lower level crimes. And then a third that are who the Department of Homeland Security and ICE and Florida officials say they're going after the worst of the worst people with violent crimes.

So one lawyer said her client is a dreamer with legal status, could not believe when she heard the news that her client was an alligator Alcatraz because she's like this person is a DACA recipient, they have legal status, been here for years and years and years. Shocked that they ended up there. Other lawyers said they can't get access to their clients and when they call, they get like a run around and no one is like telling them how to talk to their clients. Family members say their loved ones report power outages, sweltering hot conditions,

broken toilets, feces all over the place, worms in the food, trouble getting medication, not being able to take showers. Awful. I don't know what has your reaction been to the reports coming out of this place from now elected officials, lawyers, journalists, family members? Yeah, I mean, it is awful, but it's also not surprising. I think they built Alligator Alcatraz in like eight days. And like you said, I mean, 250 people out of 700 have no criminal conviction or charges.

These are not the worst of the worst. Look, Trump was kind of goofing around when he talked about how you have to learn to run in a zigzag if you escape from alligator Alcatraz cause alligators are going to eat you. But like we are talking about like killing people who did nothing wrong.

Cause I feel like maybe overstay a visa or, you know, at worst or American citizens who got, who got wrongly swept up. I mean, it's just, this is a facility. It's not a, it's not a facility. It's tents and trailers. Um, it's people in cages that look like dog kennels. You go five days without showering, there's

toilets are overflowing. Like it's in the Florida Everglades. Can you imagine what it is like on July 14th? So hot, swampy, like there's mosquitoes everywhere. It sounds like hell on earth. I saw that, you know, our pal, Jesse Waters in the five, they were like making fun of the complaints about mosquitoes. They're like,

oh no, mosquitoes are biting. Google this. There's reporters, like local reporters, television reporters in Florida who've been just near the facility, right? Like not even inside. And they can't even speak in their, uh, in their live hits because the mosquitoes are in their mouth. And then this reporter's like, he's like, he's wearing this, um, this hood and this heavy jacket. And he's like, you're probably wondering why I'm wearing this heavy jacket and this, in this hood

in 90 degree weather here. It's because I can't walk without getting just eaten alive by mosquitoes. And that's just the mosquitoes. That then there's the worms in the food and the feces in the toilets that aren't working and the showers that aren't working, the power outages. I mean, it is fucking disgusting. Debbie Warsom and Schultz, she was one of the lawmakers who went, she was like, look, there's another immigration detention

center in Miami-Dade that like the people being held there can walk from building to building. They're like allowed to go outside. There's like better meals. It's like, it's not like this has, this is not like what detention centers from building to building. They're allowed to go outside. There's better meals. It's not like this has, this is not like what detention centers are supposed to be. It doesn't need to be this way. What happens when there's a storm or a hurricane? It's crazy.

The lawyers can't get in touch with these people. You're just getting lost in this system that is Kafka-esque by design. And this is the ghost of Christmas future. Kristi Noem says she's in touch with five Republican governors about building facilities like this. This is what we should expect will be done with the billions and billions of dollars in ICE funding that was just passed by Congress.

And by the way, I'm not seeing a lot of coverage of plans to triple resources for the immigration court system or hire a bunch of immigration judges to actually speed up the process. It's just like the plan is to build the shittiest prisons in the world, get a bunch of private prison companies paid in the process and then let people rot. Well, and so here's what a lot of these immigration lawyers

are concerned about and this is what they think they're doing, which is make the condition so horrible that they are forcing people who go there to agree to self-deport or to give up their asylum claims, because you can like sign a document and say like, all right, I'm out. And then that's how they just get people out. So that's how they clear the backlog instead of

actually hiring more judges to hear these people's asylum claims. They're just putting them in horrible conditions to force them out of the country. Stephen Miller also like went on Fox and encouraged other red States like Katsunomas to build their own. And of course, if you're a red state

and you're like some politicians, like fucking the attorney general in Florida, whose brainchild this was, Uthmeyer, you get attention, right? Like you do this, you become a star, it helps your political career. And so of course other red states are gonna do this. And the other challenge now is,

this is in a legal gray area because it is when ICE and DHS are called for comment about this shit, they're like, well, we're not running this. This is the state of Florida. And so ICE is like, oh, there's no federal oversight, even though they're getting federal money from the, they're gonna be able to get reimbursed

and get more federal money from the bill. So they get federal money to do this, but then the federal government and ICE gets to say, we don't know, we don't know what's going on there. And that's why some of these lawyers can't even get access to their clients. I think this has kind of always been part of kind of the big picture plan

was to almost build a parallel process. Yep, extra judicial. Just sort of outside of the traditional immigration structures and laws and processes that demand accountability or have a little bit of oversight and just do shit like this. Yeah. There was also some deportation news here in California

over the weekend. On Friday, a federal judge in Los Angeles temporarily blocked federal agents from using racial profiling to carry out indiscriminate immigration arrests in California. The judge found that a person's race, language, job, or location does not constitute, quote, reasonable suspicion and therefore violates the Fourth Amendment, which protects people

against unreasonable search and seizure. The judge also issued a separate ruling that bars the federal government from restricting attorney access at Los Angeles deportation facilities. Stephen Miller took the news in stride by accusing the judge of waging an insurrection against the United States. Real, real chill. But JD Vance apparently thinks that Southern California is still safe enough for a family vacation.

He spent the weekend here at Disneyland, where he was booed by other people at the park, mostly over deportations. In fairness to JD though, in fairness to JD though, he did gift all of us this incredibly entertaining video of him attempting to run. Do you think that was his first time running? Did he have weights in his shoes?

Do you think that was his first time running? Did he have weights in his shoes? I can't wait till he issues some, like, 2,000-word, outraged, self-righteous tweet about, I was going to check on my child. Yeah, well, he could have got to the kid faster if he didn't run like that. It's also, you know, I think our friend Peter Hamby

has long clocked the JD. Just has a really weird kind of walk motion. It's sort of like a hand forward kind of. And also anytime the guy is out of a suit, it's like, what is he? His, his, his fashion sense. Yeah. Very troubling. Yeah.

I think you, you said he dresses like he's going to a club in 2008, but in like Orlando. That is exactly right. That is exactly right. That is exactly right. He fucking sucks. That guy is so annoying. He's such a hypocritical prick. Like, you know what? Like, as a general matter, do I think it's, I don't know.

Like, it'll probably just make him dig in further. I don't care. Yeah, like. Let's make fun of him. He got booed at Disneyland. Newsome tweeted, like, oh, I hope you're, hope you're enjoying your vacation. The families you're ripping apart aren't. And then like Stephen Miller went in on Newsome

and was like, Oh, the governor of California thinks the only way you can staff Disneyland is with mass migration. She's like, what? And then, and then JD Vance, you know, responded to Newsome and just said, thanks. He's such a loser. I mean, in the White House Communications Director

said something really horrible and personal about Gavin Newsom, just like shocking. But yeah, look, I don't know. He's such an asshole. I'm glad, first of all, shout out to Gavin's, we're talking to him tomorrow for his podcast. I don't know if we're supposed to announce that or not, but we just did.

And, but I would say this to his face, because I really believe it. His team's social media presence and like aggressiveness and punching has been very fun to watch. The last six months or so? Yeah, it's been great. It's like they're really going after it.

And it's not like the sometimes cheesy, cringy DNC version. It's like they're doing some funny stuff. Yeah, it's not corny. It's not, yeah, no, it's just fun. They're some funny stuff. Yeah, it's not corny. It's not Yeah, no, it's just not they're just taking also Democrats have gotten better I'll say that the Democrats account has gotten better over the last couple well, they're just taking a page from Trump's book, right? They're being a little inflammatory. They're getting attention They're picking fights like all the things it takes to go viral

I thought you know Dan Pfeiffer's conversation Dan Pfeiffer tan's conversation with Mark Cuban about all of this I thought was really smart over the weekend. Very smart. What do you make of the immigration rulings we got and Miller's response? Like it is, you know, I took it as some good news, but of course, you know, they're gonna appeal it. So who knows? Yeah, I mean, I just think what people,

like we live in LA and I think what people need to understand about what this, what ICE is doing is just terrorizing communities all across California, especially in Los Angeles. Like the parks near my house are empty because, you know, there used to be lots of Latino families there. And like, they're not, a lot of them were citizens. A lot of them were, you know, had green cards,

but now people are just scared to go out in public because there might be an ICE raid. And I think maybe this is popular with like 20% of the country, but like normie Republicans even are saying, this is not what I voted for. Like Joe Rogan, Theo Vaughn, Andrew Schultz, we voted to get criminals out of the country, not people who have been here for 20 years who are working really hard.

You, for fun, like to listen to debates that Alex Jones has, moderates with Nick Fuentes. In my spare time, yesterday on Sunday, beautiful day out, I sat outside and I listened to Dasha Burns' interview with Tom Homan on the Playbook podcast. That's mean to you, why'd you do that? I don't know, because I was like, what is Tom Homan?

And he's such a fucking liar. His whole response to her about all this was, there is no profiling. What happens is we're going after the worst of the worst. We have lists of people that we're going after. And if while we're going after those people, we happen to see other immigrants who are here without status, who are undocumented, of course,

we're going to scoop them up too, but we're not intentionally going after people who aren't the worst of the worst. We're starting with the worst of the worst. And I'm like that it's just like, it's not true. Like local officials don't believe that's true. The courts don't believe that's true. The videos that people are seeing with their

own fucking eyes don't believe that's true. When ICE officers are like, Oh, I got a lot today. I hit the, I hit the number today. Trump's really, Trump's really driving us. Stephen Miller's really driving us on how to get these deportations. It's like, what the fuck are you talking about, man? This is entirely happening because Stephen Miller

shouted at people at ICE and told them they need to get rid of more migrants. I don't understand it. Look, this is Stephen Miller's project. It's the only thing he's passionate about, so I understand why the administration is doing it. Politically, I actually think it's stupid. I don't think anyone really wants this.

I think Trump could be going to the border saying, I closed it down, what a great success I am, and then just slowly methodically actually get out criminals without collapsing industries and chasing people through fields at farms in California. I'm gonna racially profile for a second, and I'm gonna say that Tom Homan is a thug who's like a wannabe, like Tony Soprano

community theater impersonator. Have you seen him? Whenever he goes to a, does a little press conference, he walks out and he pops out his sleeve and he starts twisting his pinkie ring. He's a big tough guy. He is. And he, listening to him yesterday, I was like,

oh, he really believes, he like, he has internalized all of this stuff. Yeah, they all believe it. You know, he really thinks like, you don't know what I've seen in my career and some of the violence and that whatever. It's like, I'm sure, I'm sure there are some undocumented immigrants here, just like there are American citizens who've committed horrible fucking crimes and should be held accountable.

100%. But like, that is not what we're all seeing on these videos. It just, it just doesn't justify doing anything. One last thing, wasn't sure where to put this, but Trump also posted the following on Saturday morning, bright and early, quote, because of the fact that Rosie O'Donnell is not in the best interests of our great country, I am giving serious consideration to taking away her citizenship.

She is a threat to humanity and should remain in the wonderful country of Ireland if they want her. Is that how citizenship works, Tommy? You lose your citizenship if the president doesn't like you? Imagine you're Rosie O'Donnell. In 2006, you pick a fight with Donald Trump on The View.

Now this guy is the president. And he's like- It's like that Domino meme. Yeah. You criticize his handling of that year's Miss USA patch it and all of a sudden this man's trying to strip your citizenship. Like, there's something that's funny about,

it's almost like OG Trump, right? Like this was his original kind of bit, was like picking fights with her and being just a prick. But like, it is fascism, to just strip citizenship from people. It's funny and crazy, but it is, underlying it is a very dangerous project that they are engaged in.

And you know, the announcement the other week that they are, I think you and Lovett talked about it on the pod, kicking up the denaturalization process. Now, denaturalization, even if you try to denaturalize someone, you can only denaturalize someone who was an immigrant and became a citizen here. This is like, oh, this is an American citizen

who was born here and now he's just trying to denaturalize Rosie O'Donnell and whether he's joking or not, he's at least putting out there that I'm the president and I get to decide who is a citizen and who isn't. And I think he called it a threat to humanity, which means I'm gonna kill you as far as I can tell. I mean, also she moved to Ireland in part

because she is a non-binary child and I think has a completely justified concern about this administration's policies in the way that they are not just trying to target her child legally, but also constantly demagogue these kids in the cruelest way possible. Like the President of the United States is the meanest bully possible,

and he's like punches down at like kids, at like trans athletes in high school. And I don't think this is just a Trump thing. Like we know it's Stephen Miller, I think JD, like this project where the federal government gets to define who is an American and who isn't, right? Like for a long time, Trumpy people and Republicans have tried to say like, oh, we're patriotic, you're not whatever.

But this project, which is actually like, we get to decide who's a citizen and who should stay and who should leave. So this was sort of went unnoticed, but JD Vance, he gave a speech at the Claremont Institute on July 5th out here, right? Very conservative think tank. Super right wing.

And in that speech, and I guess because it was like a day after July 4th, this was on his mind, he said, and I saw this at Talking Points Memo reported on this, he said, identifying America just with agreeing with the principles, let's say, of the Declaration of Independence, that's a definition that would include hundreds of millions, maybe billions of foreign citizens who agree with the principles of the declaration. But conceiving American citizenship purely as an idea would reject a lot of people that the ADL, the Anti-Defamation League, would label as domestic extremists,

even though those very Americans had their ancestors fight in the Civil War. So this is J.D. Vance now saying the idea that we're all created equal, everyone's endowed by their creator with certain inalienable rights, that the idea, America is an idea, and he alluded to this in his convention speech too, the whole America is an idea and its principles and like everyone who wants to believe in American ideals has a chance to become a citizen, they don't like this. And you're seeing this a lot more now that they're like, oh the Declaration of Independence and the whole thing that we're all created equal, this is not, this is not what America is supposed to be. America is blood and soil and your ancestors.

And just because your relatives were Confederates and stuff like that, just because they didn't believe in equality, that doesn't mean that they don't have a right to this land. I mean, it's an extremely dangerous idea that has been circulating on the far far right for a while now, and now is being given voice

by the Vice President of the United States, the President who's threatening to fucking revoke Rosie O'Donnell's citizenship, and Stephen Miller, who's been doing this project his whole life. And they're all into this, like, goofball, Curtis Yardin who believes we need to return to a monarchy, because that'll end well. Yeah, I mean, they've been doing this kind of, um,

revisionist history project for a while. I mean, remember after the 1619 project came out from New York Times, they lost their minds and they created this thing called the 1776 Commission, which put forward a more patriotic view of history, America's founding. And it is North Korea shit. Every government, every country tells its own story.

I don't mean to overstate it, but the blood and It is North Korea shit. You know, like every government, every country tells its own story. I don't mean to overstate it, but you know, blood and soil nationalism is a dangerous, dangerous game. And it is the center of the authoritarian project, right? That they have in this country, and then other countries too, which is like, you know, there's racism, there's xenophobia,

there's sexism, there's all of it, but at the core, it's if you're on our team and you're loyal to us, you can stay. If you're not, if you challenge us, you have to go. Yeah, and also if you look like us, you're welcome. And if you don't, you gotta leave, even if you have legal status. I mean, look at all the TPS designations.

Like, you know, we're sending people from Haiti back to their country and saying it's safe, but saying it's unsafe for white farmers in South Africa. So they're welcome to this country as refugees. Yeah, so keep running JD Vance. Yeah, he's the worst. He's the worst. There's a new poll out today.

They did a Republican primary poll for 2028, Echelon did. And he's running away with it right now. Way, way out there from Rondesant. Which you can kind of- That's all name ID. It's just name ID, but like crush Rondesantos. Which you can kinda- That's all name ID. Name ID, but like crush Rondesantos. What if Don Jr. will take him on? Or Eric went to the FT and like floated

that he thought he might run for president someday or his family is another political president. Good for you, Eric. Good for you, best of luck. All right, one quick note before we go. Last week, Vote Save America launched a brand new pilot program to recruit candidates in Arizona, North Carolina, and Texas.

We're talking school board, city council, state legislature. These are local races that first of all, a lot of them, there's not a Democratic candidate. And so you can't win if you don't run. So we need to fill those slots with Democratic candidates. And this is the way to win local and state races to like build long-term Democratic power, especially in these purple states. And we're kicking things, first of all, we have been overwhelmed with the response.

It's amazing. Like you and I, we never thought, like our team at Vote Save America conceived of this and they've done such a great job, but I didn't think the response would be this great. It's been wild. It's extraordinary. And it tells you there's a lot of amazing people

who listen to this show, who have just done a lot and gotten really politically engaged over the years and are excited to take that next step and thank you for considering that. There's room for more. There's room for a lot more. Way more. We need to run a Democrat in every race at every level because that's how you build power at the local level and that's how you build a bench for the party for the long term and kind of groom the next generation of leaders.

And VSA is doing a live call this Wednesday, July 16th to sort of kick things off and I guess you're joining. I'll be there, I can't wait. Perfect. So if you've even thought about running or even if you haven't, but now you're interested, this is where to start, sign up for the kickoff call and learn more at votesaveamerica.com slash run,

paid for by Vote Save America. You can learn more at votesaveamerica.com slash run. Paid for by Vote Save America. You can learn more at votesaveamerica.com. And this ad has not been authorized by any candidate or candidates committee. All right, that is our show for today. Dan's back from vacation and he and I will be back in your feed on Friday. See you then. If you want to listen to Pod Save America ad free or get access to our subscriber discord and exclusive podcasts, listen to Pod Save America ad free or get access to our subscriber discord and exclusive podcasts, consider joining our Friends of the Pod community at crooked.com slash friends or subscribe on Apple podcasts directly from the Pod Save America feed. Also, please consider leaving us a review to help boost this episode and everything we do here at Crooked. Pod Save America is a Crooked media production. Our producers are David Toledo, Emma Illick-Frank, and Saul

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