Pod Save America - Trump Works the FIFA Refs

Episode Date: July 7, 2026

After FIFA unexpectedly overturns the red card handed to U.S. star Folarin Balogun, Donald Trump confirms that he personally called FIFA's president and asked him to "review" the penalty. Tommy and Lovett react to Trump's meddling and discuss how it mirrors his relationship with European powers as the president heads to Turkey for a NATO summit. Then, they check in on Democrats' attempts to take back the Senate — discussing terrible new allegations against Graham Platner and Mallory McMorrow's decision to drop out of the Michigan Senate race — before turning to the contrasting ways Zohran Mamdani and Trump supporters celebrated America's 250th in New York and Washington, DC.For a transcript of this episode, please email [e-mail].

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As Americans, we're constantly grappling with a fundamental question. Do we settle for the world as it is, or do we strive to create the world as it should be? Our answers tend to ebb and flow through the decades. But once, just after a war that nearly tore us apart, we came as close as we've come to answering it. And it's a story worth a closer look. I'm Michelle Obama, and I'm proud to announce Higher Ground's new podcast, Reconstruction, The Unfinished Promise, guided by best-selling author Malcolm Gladwell, and featuring my husband, Barack Obama. This limited series uncovers the untold stories of reconstruction, what they mean for us today,

and how our past can shape the future we choose to build. Reconstruction, the Unfinished Promise, is available now. on Audible or wherever you get your podcast. Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm John Levin. I'm Tommy Vitor. John is taking some much needed time off to tweet with his family. On today's show, Donald Trump is working the refs at the World Cup before heading to a NATO summit in Turkey.

We've got two big developments in the Democratic Senate primaries and Maine-Grant Platiner faces serious and disturbing allegations of sexual assault in Michigan. Mallory McMorrow drops out making that one a two-way race. We also look at the conservative freak out over a patriotic speech by New York Mayor Zohan Mamdani, and we asked the question the mainstream media is afraid to ask, is Mitch McConnell alive currently? I've been wondering that, too. Depends on which Twitter you read.

Yeah. I mean, it's an important question. It is. It is. All right, let's get to the news, starting with the World Cup last week when the U.S. played Bosnia and Herzegovina, star forward Flo Balegan, got a red card for stepping on a defender's ankle. I said Bosnia and Herzegovina because I remember that that's how it was said in the 90s when

Bill Clinton was a bombing from the skies. That was during that era. I remember that from when I was a kid. Remember that NATO? But I remember that NATO. But now I'm being told it's Bosnia and Herzegovina. It's tough. Under FIFA rules, when a player gets a red card, they have to leave the game.

Their team has to finish the match with only 10 players. And the player who got the red card has to sit out the next game. But we found out on Sunday afternoon that FIFA was suspending that second part of the punishment for Baligan after a call from Trump to FIFA president, Jani Infantino. Now, in a long, Twitter post on Monday, Infantino said the decision had been made by the association's independent judicial body, but declined to give any specifics. Then again, this is the guy who awarded Trump the first ever FIFA Peace Prize last December. Whatever happened on the call, it seems unlikely that Trump's deep knowledge of the sport

changed any minds. I think the referee's call was horrible. And nobody talks about that. They talk about the red card like it's fine. Nobody talks to the referee's decision to red card. I didn't know what the hell of red card was when I found out. you got to be kidding. This guy just hands up. Okay, your best player is not going to play next week or in the next game. I said, wow, that's a lot of power. That's terrible. So, yes, I asked for a review

by FIFA. I had nothing to do with the decision. What I did have to do is I said, I think that it should be reviewed because I watched the play. And he didn't do anything wrong. Okay. So the red card seems pretty wrong, but so does Trump's meddling. What do you think? Yeah, I'm no, I'm no ref, but the red card seems like it was bullshit. A lot of people I follow talk about this stuff all the time. I think it was at worst, the yellow card. Lino Messi did something very similar in a different game in the World Cup, didn't get carded at all. It also seems like they use the video review improperly. So on like a karmic level, this is the right outcome, like Flo Balegan deserves to play. He's an incredible player. what makes it like head spinning is all the reporting after the red card was that there was no way to review this right right so we all were like oh man we're just we're screwed here and then apparently it turns out like the president could just call the head of FIFA his old buddy and so I am like I have a lot of feelings about this I'm annoyed that the conversation about this team and their success because they're awesome they're so good is now kind of like is tainted by this bullshit um I think uh it is obviously bad like well for the Trump point of view, like, it's not necessarily bad for him to advocate on behalf of his country, right?

Like, you can imagine another president doing this in a way that just seemed less corrupt. Like, Kier-Starmer apparently weighed in on the start time of the England-Mexico game because he was worried about that. So I think, like, mostly this is just really, really bad for FIFA. It's par for the course for them because they're a terrible corrupt organization. In 2015, a bunch of people were indicted on like $150 million in bribes and kickbacks related to the World Cup. The former head of FIFA set bladder was banned from soccer. He's now on Twitter criticizing this decision. So that's when it's getting a little weird.

But like it's just impossible to separate this decision from the very longstanding, very weird, very corrupt relationship between Trump and Johnny Infantino. Trump's a corrupt person. We know that his like one speed when he wants something is brute force. So we don't know what happened any of these calls. But we know that he got the outcome that he wanted. Yeah. So a lot of the coverage has been around the call itself. But this was a there was a.

A shocking amount of administrative focus on the red card in a very short period of time. Andrew Giuliani, who's Rudy Giuliani's son, was appointed to lead some kind of World Cup task force. He apparently, according to Politico, has been talking to Trump several times a week about the World Cup. You have Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnik, who was at the game saying... Sitting next to infant, you know. Oh, sitting next to him. I didn't realize he was sitting right next to him. saying that he was offering White House lawyers to assist the U.S. team and trying to fight this. There was other threats from the U.S. team and from the administration behind the scenes

run other ways they could challenge this rule and through other kinds of means that, I guess, the pressure mounted. And then there was this call on top of it. Yeah, on the one hand, it does feel like another story where you have the president, he's focused on the biggest fireworks, the ballroom, the reflecting pool, the statues, the arches, all that. He's focused on sports, not on the actual substance of the job and the things that people want him to pay attention to. But I had the same feeling as you, which is of all the ways in which Trump could be a bully, bullying to have an advantage removed from Belgium at the expense of a corrupt group of

European chauvinist is like not that big of a sin. No, no, it's not. And like, for what it's worth, the New York Post had this reporting that U.S. soccer was already preparing to fight the decision. They were especially focused on the VAR system, the video review system, and that it was improperly used to make this call. And they were preparing to appeal to something called the Court of Arbitration for Sport. I don't know what that is, but apparently it would have taken the decision out of FIFA's hands. So maybe they acted to preempt that.

So there's a chance here that Trump is taking credit for something that was already in motion, which is something presidents get to do, good or bad. All that said, Belgium has a right to be pissed off. other teams have a right to be pissed off. They want one clear set of rules. They never get it from FIFA. Imagine, though, if this was the 2018 World Cup in Russia, Putin lobs in a call to FIFA to overturn some ruling, we'd all be like ripping our hair out and screaming about injustice and

corruption and oligarchy. FIFA's made similar exceptions, including one for Cristiano Ronaldo to make sure he didn't miss a game in the tournament. So I think just like the way to ultimately understand FIFA is it's basically a criminal organization that just cares about money. And like the way to understand Infantino is he just sucks up to the most powerful person he needs at all time. So I think everyone, of course, assumes that he viewed this as doing a favor for Trump, even if it hurt his reputation. Yeah, it's like I can see, like you can imagine Obama at a press conference getting a question.

Like, that was bullshit, man. Like that sucks. And then. And but you this is where having independent trustworthy organizations is important, right? Because sure, an American leader should put pressure for the American team. but you need to trust that the other side of it will not let that influence the decisions, but you can't trust that here.

You also can't trust that Trump is not abusing his relationships and his financial entanglements with Infantino and all the rest. So anyway, Trump made soccer about him somehow. For what it's worth, we're recording this at like 3 o'clock on Monday, Pacific time, so two hours before the game.

So we don't know the outcome right now. We'll find out. I'm excited to watch. And I just want, I watch Angel City. All right, I am a season ticket holder. So I'm not, I am like getting into soccer. Have you been watching these games? You know, here's one of my problem is with the way that we, because you have it on and I see you getting into it.

I find that with soccer, I either want to watch the whole game or I want to see highlights at the end, but I have trouble dipping in and out because for me it's about like the way, like, you can watch a team. And even if I didn't understand this until I started watching soccer, that even if a goal isn't scored during an entire half, you're still like understanding the way the teams are going up against each other. And I feel like it's hard to get that when you're just looking up for your computer. Yeah, I have to say this has been. one of the best World Cups I've ever seen. Every game has been like down to the wire and exciting. There's been all these late goals. There's been like late goals called back, incredible header. Some of the best goals I've ever seen like Cabo Verde goal to tie it up the second time and overtime against Argentina was like one of the most incredible shots ever. So just like the storylines, the gameplay itself, the big players delivering in big moments has just been incredible. And that's why it was like particularly annoying to all of a sudden have to talk about Trump again because it was just a reprieve from him. He like interestingly, despite the Cup being in the United States, well, it's Canada and Mexico too. He just, like, hadn't made himself a part of it. He will at the end he'll give out the trophy to the winner with Infantino. But, like, he'd kind of stayed away from it. And now it's just like him again.

And some of the worst, like, concerns about what would happen with people traveling to the U.S. haven't. I mean, we haven't seen that much of like what we, the worst possible, like people being stopped, being unable to come to the games. You did have this little moment with the Iranian team protest in the U.S., which I thought was in Mexico when they did it, but I thought it was like particularly moving. Yeah, we were real dicks to the Iranians for no good reason. Like, we wouldn't let them stay in the United States and make them, like, fly back and forth from Mexico to games. There were some issues with, like, one of the African refs was denied entry into the country for some, like, vetting reason that seems like mostly bullshit. But the level of anxiety going into the World Cup

was way higher than kind of the reality. Yeah, in fact, it's like the opposite. It's like all these foreigners coming to America kind of nervous and feeling like they love it and like going to Waffle House for the first time and making viral videos. And it's. And it's just, It's just been like this fun, like joyful melting of cultures. We have beautiful cultures combining in the U.S. Meanwhile, Trump is heading to Turkey for the annual NATO summit. And Trump intervening with one of his reputedly corrupt pals to remove what would have been an advantage for Belgium. Seems like a pretty good metaphor for European frustrations with American hegemony. There will be a lot of discussion of defense spending and of ending the war in Ukraine, Russia.

Russia was striking at civilian targets in Kiev this week. And Ukraine is actually less able to defend itself in part because of a shortage of interceptor missiles, made worse by Trump's war in Iran. What are you watching for in this summit and what are you hoping for out of it? Yeah, I mean, you got at the top line, which is like the signs that the divide between the U.S. and Europe are widening or narrowing. Trump is still furious about the lack of support from Europe when it came to the war with Iran and Europeans are still rightly furious that we started a war with Iran and made, you know, it harmed them in the process.

So we could see more discussion about whether the Trump administration is going to pull US troops out of Europe to punish countries like Spain that oppose the war. Remember, like, at some point, Pete Hegseth was floating that we're going to like pull troops out of Poland. Then Trump heard about it. He got mad. So it's like been all over the place. Rubio was mad about that too. Yeah, Rubio apparently spiked it as well. And like kind of the best like, you know, there's competing worldviews out there. There's like, it's time to move on from America worldview that you're hearing from Mark Carney in Canada. And then Mark Ruta, the NATO Secretary General is more of the ass kisser, like keep Trump on sides guy. So the other thing Trump loves to do with these

NATO summits is browbeat these countries about defense spending. He's now demanding that countries spend 5% of GDP on defense by 2035. Now, before him, Obama, Bush, others were critical of NATO countries for not spending enough, but they wanted to get to like 2%. Five or 10 is 5% is absurd. That said, it's like a fake target because 3.5 of the 5% goes to military spending and then 1.5% is defined as security-related investments. And that could mean like roads, bridges, cybersecurity. So I will I for the record I wanted to talk about NATO I did I know and in part because So last year this was the summit where Mark Ruta who's the secretary general of NATO This is where he called Trump daddy I think it was a low moment for him. It was not great and it came to represent

Like the Ruta strategy which is you just suck up to him in in public and you do your best to mitigate the damage in private But in the year since that summit you have Trump threatening tariffs over Greenland you have the war in Iran the administration has proposed and actually enacted some troop drawdowns or threatening more. And then six months ago, that's when Mark Carney gives this speech laying out, I think for the first time in a really, I think, in a way that felt like a legitimate alternative. All right, the sucking up approach while trying in private to persuade him doesn't seem to be working. There was a really deeply reported story in the Wall Street Journal about the European view of America.

And there was a lot in there. but the experience of Europeans coming to the U.S. beseeching Trump to defend Ukraine, him seeming to agree, and then an hour-long conversation with Putin wipes the fucking thing clean. And so we're at this moment where there does seem to be a real possibility of Europe actually viewing this is not a Trump problem,

but an America problem. Yeah, it's really, it's troubling. Look, on the Ukraine piece, I mean, Trump is going to meet with Zelenskyy. We'll see what comes out of that. Zelensky's wish list is like, I want to be able to manufacture Patriot missile interceptors in my country. It feels like a win-win. The Ukrainians have done all this really important stuff with drone technology and using that to, using drones to intercept drones. You're not spending like $3 million on an interceptor missile to take down a $30,000 Shahed drone. So there's areas of coordination there. Like hopefully trouble just do no harm when it comes to Zolenski, not pull back support, intelligence support for them. Hopefully we'll like recommit to a serious peace process and stop whatever this joke is that's being led by Steve Wickoff and Jared Kushner and the Russian oligarch of the day that's seemingly just about dealmaking for those guys. There's also this whole like subplot in NATO about Turkey and whether Erdogan is a reliable partner, whether the U.S. should sell Turkey F-35. The Israelis really don't want that to happen.

And then there's just like the petty shit like Kier Starmor and Trump don't really get along. It was Starmers last NATO. Georgia Maloney and Trump, the Italian leader, Prime Minister, there was a back and forth where he claimed she wanted a picture with him and she was like, what the fuck are you talking about? So we'll see. I mean, it's just this could be nothing or it could be him just picking a fight with a bunch of euros. There's a way we're just sick of it. That just seems like they're sick of it. And because the root of thing, right, is, hey, guys, he's demanding 5%. You can count a bridge. Just shut up and say you're doing it. Right. It's by 2035. It's never going to happen. He's really long gone. Just say you're going to meet the commitment, put forward some way of proving it. Right.

And then he wants the flattery in public. He wants the great headline. And we can slow roll it and deal with it after he's gone. But there seems to be a shift in which they're just no longer willing to play along as much as they were before. And in that Wall Street Journal report, there was that Europeans are also removing American tech from their systems. They're urging civil servants to no longer use Microsoft Teams or office. They're spending hundreds of billions of dollars to try to boost Europe's own. private space firms, AI companies, and data centers. And it seems like I was interested in this

part because it seems as though Trump's his bravado, his bullying, it is predicated on America being indispensable and it's too hard to shift away from us. Yeah. But that is only true if they treat it as if it is true. Yeah. Yeah, it's true. I mean, I think they're kind of waking up to how many different ways they're reliant on the U.S. Like the NATO piece is obvious. Like the U.S. is what, like 70% of NATO, right? If the U.S. pulls out of that, if we refuse to on the Article 5 commitment within NATO, NATO kind of falls apart. So that's been in anxiety for a while. I think they're also concerned about their reliance on like the big ticket weapon systems. Like you're seeing quotes being like, is there a kill switch in the F35 if we buy those? And I hope

there is. I just turn them off. I still love this country and I hope there is. But also like recently we've seen this completely incoherent approach to AI models like the mythos model from anthropic. One day, the administration just cuts it off to any foreign partner, then a couple weeks later, they turned it back on. And I think these European countries understand that, like, this tech is going to get embedded to everything they do, their economy, weapon systems, everything. And they have no AI industry. And I think they're worried about that. And they're trying to, like, scramble to catch up a little bit. And then I would imagine they're looking at us replacing NASA with, like, Elon Musk and kind of worried that their ability to launch stuff into space going forward runs

through that guy. Right. Like it's just like two mercurial people. You're relying on the U.S. for defense. You can't trust them anymore. You're relying on Elon Musk to provide access to Starlink. He is capricious about that. And then on the other side of it, right? And then they see Mark Carney, right? And Canada is even more dependent on the U.S. than the Europeans are. And he's sort of charting this other path. But it's not just that if NATO would go away and then they would be in trouble. NATO would go away and then they would have to spend not 5% but 10%, 15%. They'd have to have a real defense, which currently we subsidize. Well, what's so funny about this is like basically NATO exists to deter a Russian invasion.

And then, but Trump sort of doesn't seem to care about Russia invading other countries. So why are we spending all this time browbeating European countries to increase their defense spending to 5%? If he fundamentally doesn't really care about the existence of the organization, that's like the internal incoherence of this whole thing. It's just like he feels like we're getting ripped off and he likes to yell at them and that's become his, his schick. Right.

It does seem like that's the resistance, right? Because they made the commitment last year. I don't know, they all did, but almost all of the countries didn't make the commitment. Spain refused, right? They didn't get to five percent. And now this is a meeting about proving they're going to do it. And there's never a day at which they've successfully assuaged Trump and now we can get to the work of rebuilding the alliance. In the years since they made those commitments, that's when he threatened to put tariffs on because of Greenland. Yeah. And if you're the UK, I mean, like, you have this demand from Trump to increase defense spending. There clearly is a need for them to improve modernize and beef up their military. But they're also like their economy has been bumping along kind of stagnant. for a decade. So they have all these pressing economic domestic concerns, too. And you just get pulled between the two. And then, you know, Mark, you know, Trump just decides to bully you every once at a while. And like, Mark Carney gave a great speech in Davos talking about this sort of

post-American world. I think the challenge is like, okay, in practice, can he really cobble together this alliance of middle powers to really push back on the U.S. and become another power center? It just remains to be seen. And just every dollar is not the same dollar. It is not good for the U.S. and it's quite costly for Europe to have to build redundant capabilities to the United States. That is instead of the U.S., I mean, it is, Donald Trump does not care about our national interests, but it is better for us as a country if they are buying, if whatever, 2% of their spending involves purchasing a lot of our support versus 4% of their spending being independent. Well, and that's sort of the rub in a lot of this is like when Trump is demanding they spend

5% of GDP on defense spending, most of that money is going to get shoveled overseas to U.S. defense contractors to Raytheon and stuff. And it's like a terrible economic investment for the leaders of these countries. It's not really a return on that dollar. It's not flowing through their economy. It's just going over to the U.S. because Donald Trump wants it. So we'll keep an eye on, you know, let's see if NATO's around by next episode. Potsave America is brought you by Article. Article makes it effortless to build a home that lasts without the boutique markup. Their curated collections of mid-century coastal and scandy furniture are designed to mix and match perfectly so you can create a cohesive designer look that

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against Graham Platner. The Wall Street Journal reported at the end of May that Platner had been sexting with women who weren't his wife just months before launching his campaign. Platner had then told a private meeting of anxious Democratic senators that despite the rumors. There were no other shoes to drop. Then on June 4th, five days before the primary, the New York Times published a story in which women who had dated Platner talked about a bunch of troubling incidents and dynamics. Plattner then won the primary, handily. Then on Monday, shortly before we sat down to record this, Politico published a story in which one of the women in that Times story, Jenny Rassikov, a Democrat, gave more details about her experiences with Platner. She said

that in 2021, he showed up at her house, drunk without being invited, went in, forced her to have sex with him against her will. She told political that she withheld those details because she did not want to be known as a rape victim moments after the story published. The Platterner campaign posted a response video. Here is what Plattner said. I wanted to directly address the troubling, serious, and false allegations against me. Any accusation of non-consensual behavior is categorically false. Regardless of the inaccuracy of the reporting, but mindful of the political reality, it will inflict. We are taking the time to reflect on the best path forward for the state that I love, the people that I love, the movement I belong to, and the goal of defeating Susan Collins. So just so people know, if he withdraws by July 13th, he can be replaced on the ballot. Tommy, what was your reaction to the story?

The allegations in the story are really bad and troubling. They seem credible. They're backed up by documentation. And so obviously the impact politically. is not just what's in the story. It's this cumulative impact of a series of articles and allegations about him. And the feeling that he just has not been fully transparent and honest about some of the allegations like you mentioned. I mean, there was this meeting in Washington a while ago where these questions were put to him directly. And the answer, I think it sounds like it was just no. And now there's all this reporting. So I think my takeaway from that video was that he's going to drop out of the race. I think he has to drop out of the race. Like you said, if he dropped by the 13th, the main Democratic Party will choose a replacement by July 27th.

I have no idea who they're going to choose. I'm very worried now about the prospect of winning this seat. If the party can get its act together, we ultimately could be in a stronger place politically than we would be with Plattenor and all this baggage if these stories had come out later. I think the challenge is going to be, you had all these voters who turned out and voted for Grand Platiner

despite the Reddit posts, despite the tattoos in, you know, story and all the other scandals, they were turning out to signal that they wanted something different and that they were angry at the establishment. And I don't know who in Maine can, like, speak to that anger, but also has been vetted by the party and has been through the political process. Because like, look, as much as Janet Mills's supporters deserve to be angry and deserve the I told you so, as they're saying today, the problem was that Maine voters were not supporting her. They didn't want to vote for her.

And so this wasn't like some online vibes issue. It was like what the electorate was saying in the state where it matters. So I think I don't know where they go from here. And she suspended her campaign before any votes were cast, right? So there wasn't an alternative in the primary. Yeah, he has to end the campaign so that we have a chance of defeating Susan Collins. I think the story is horrible. I find it, you know, starting from when you,

interviewed him about the tattoo. He has not always been transparent about it. That has become increasingly true that his denials have just not been backed up by what came next even here in the story, which is deeply reported, backed up by contemporaneous evidence and previous conversations. It can it comports with what he said, which is that he was drinking a lot. And the story describes it as being drunk, potentially not remembering it the next day. And so then we have a video of him categorically denying something, which it doesn't seem he's really in a position to deny. So he has to withdraw to give us a chance. And what I took away from watching this video from reading this story is it is clear that

this is somebody that has not maybe even been honest with himself about what was going on in the dark phases of his life. Yeah. But that is not for us to deal with in a Senate race that will determine the control of his Yeah. I look, obviously a big lesson here is that vetting is really important. And some of the vetting gets done by campaigns themselves. And then ultimately it will be done by the media if the campaigns don't figure that part out. But like we should be clear about what kind of stuff comes up in

vetting. Like the Reddit posts should come up in vetting. Like online accounts that should come up in vetting. I've never heard of a campaign like kind of calling exes to sort of suss out stories like this, right? I mean, I think what happens is campaigns have conversations with the candidate. They ask them a series of questions. If the candidate is not candid back to them, then they're in a very difficult position. And like, when I interviewed Platner about his Reddit posts and the tattoo, like I was not aware of any of these allegations. None of this was public yet, just for the record, because I would have asked. I still don't think there's evidence that he intended to get a Nazi tattoo on purpose or that he had like Nazi leanings. In fact, I think the Reddit

archive like shows the opposite. But like like you just said, like I have come to believe over time and over learning more information that he just wasn't being honest about when he learned that what what the tattoo was or what it looked like. And I don't know if he was being honest with himself or the campaign about it. And so I think like the question is like, what do you do with that information? What's the lesson here? I hope it's not that we don't try to run people from outside of politics because I think like that's a good thing. I want people who weren't just like raised in a political system to run for office. I think it's good to have new perspectives.

Also, there have clearly been vetting problems within the party too. Like Eric Swalwell who's in Congress for a decade, there were horrifying allegations that came out about him. He was in leadership. He was like close with Pelosi. Right. So like he was an establishment favorite who had some horrible allegations in his past. But yeah, I mean, like it's, it's horrible. It's awful.

It's really sad. A lot of people believed in him, believed in this campaign. I know they're going to feel devastated. by this. A lot of people would be really angry. There's going to be a lot of anxiety about our ability to win this seat. And, you know, hopefully that Maine Democrats can pick someone good to replace him quickly and get this righted. Yeah, there's going to be a lot of, I think, people sort of doing their kind of factional kind of point scoring about it too and fine. People can have at it. There were people who felt like this was not a person that should have been trusted with a Senate

nomination because of the Reddit post, because of the tattoo that this was enough to say, we should be looking in another direction. That has turned out to be true. But what has consistently been, I think, the way in which people talk past each other in these inter-party debates is, you view Graham Platiner is unacceptable. Voters seem to find the establishment candidates even less acceptable. And there was a way to defeat Graham Platiner with a viable alternative, and that wasn't presented during the race. And, uh, that doesn't mean criticism of Graham Platner wasn't completely and totally justified. That doesn't mean there's anything wrong with supporting Janet Mills.

But now we have to figure out how to find that person who can represent the party in the Senate race because the stakes remain control of the Senate. Yeah. Look, I think ultimately I just don't get the sense that Janet Mills really wanted to run. Yeah. And she was like pushed and pushed and kind of dragged into it. And it came through, you know? And like she didn't seem like she wanted the campaign.

I understand that. there was also this insurgent candidacy happening. And she just, yeah, it's just, the whole situation is just terrible. Even after the June 4th story, she said, I am still technically on the ballot but didn't reactivate the campaign. So, you know, it's a terrible situation. And the story is horrible. And my thoughts go to, like, I think of that person who finally felt like they didn't

get their story out the first time the story ran. They felt they had to come forward and tell it an even more gruesome detail. And that is terrible and a brave thing to do. and I still hope we win that fucking seat. Yeah. Pod Save America is brought to you by Tommy John. Summer can be rough on the body. Public transport is a sauna.

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In other campaign news over the weekend, Michigan State Senator Mallory McMorrow ended her primary campaign for U.S. Senate, creating a two-way race between Abdul El-S. Ayad and Congresswoman Haley Stevens. McMorrow is seen as a rising star in the party, but she failed to gain traction in the race and had been stuck in single digits in recent polling. Stevens has the backing of Chuck Schumer, the DSCC, and APAC is positioning herself as the electable moderate. To date, though, she's running behind El Sayed, a progressive and former crooked host and a friend of ours who's generating big crowds and enthusiasm by running against

the establishment, supporting Medicare for all, and opposing military aid to Israel. Malory was trying to position herself between Haley Stevens and Abdul. Why do you think that didn't ultimately work? Yeah, just to be clear, I also, I'm biased. Like Abdul's a friend. He did a show on her network. I'm a donor to his campaign, so I just want to put that all out there. I think Mallory started as a long shot. She was known online because of like viral speeches a few years ago, but I think statewide she had very low name ID, and that's a real challenge. And I think you also had a duel as the like very clear Bernie Sanders endorsed progressive favorite. And then you had Haley Stevens with the Schumer support, the institutional support, and the tens of millions of dollars

and outside money that comes with it. I think 32 million has been spent on her behalf so far. And then Mallory was a lot of trying to figure out, like, what is my middle path where I cobble off some votes from the more progressives by being more electable and some from the establishment? And it just never quite worked. And then I think she made sort of what turned out to be a fatal error by attacking Abdul for campaigning with Hassan Piker, which made progressives think that she was not

credible or viable. and then I think it got Abdul more attention than he had gotten in a very long time and it just sort of like started this slow attrition and support. And so I think... So also lumped her in with Haley. Yeah.

It made her seem more like the establishment, which was sort of played into the Abdul message. So I just think like she ultimately never could really find a clear lane. Yeah, there was some also I would just say a fair amount of like hostility towards Mallory McMorrow online. And it reminded me a little about

of when it was Bernie versus Elizabeth Warren toward the end of that primary and it was like, oh, you know, we have our person and so you're a threat to our candidate and it was sort of pretty hostile towards McMorrow. So, yeah, now the question is, I think, what happens to, there weren't that many McMurro voters by the end, but there are still a lot of undecided people.

And Haley is going to be making an electability argument against Abdul. Some of that will be around him being on the left. I think some of it will be subtly or not so subtly about him, his identity. What do you think? Yeah, look, I think there's there's sort of this assumption that Mallory's votes are just going to go to Haley. I think that's wrong. Like, I've heard from people who've seen a lot of polling that Mallory's votes are very much split. It's not an obvious boon to Haley Stevens. We'll probably see another poll soon. We'll have a better sense. But like the old theory of politics was the progressive lane was like, 35, maybe 40%, you know, that was sort of the ceiling.

And then the rest of the votes would go to more established kind of moderate, normie Dems. This cycle, though, we're seeing the total rejection of the establishment on the left and on the right. We're also seeing progressive candidates all over the country in York, Colorado, lots of places, do really, really well. And that would seem to benefit Abdul. There are questions about Haley's abilities as a messenger.

There are, you know, foreign policy and, Support for Israel and APAC has been more of an animating issue than we've seen in a very, very long time. And I think that speaks to an dual strength. So those would be all arguments for why he could benefit or do well coming out of this move from Mallory. But we don't know. I mean, like there's a ton of money getting spent for Haley. She's a better known quantity in the state. And then as you said, I think there will be a lot of talk about electability, fear of losing this seat,

the strength of their opponent. And you're right, like a lot of that will be code for Abdul's a Muslim guy. But we'll just see what message resonates with voters. I mean, this primary is in August. I bet a lot of folks still aren't paying attention. So there is time. But it's going to be seen as like a huge proxy for a lot of the issues in the party about left, right, Israel, Gaza that we'll talk about in a second. Yeah, we've been saying for a while now that there is this realignment on Israel. and it seems to be happening very quickly during this primary. John and Dan talked on the show Friday about Kamal Harris reaching out to Zoran and AOC and the leaders of the Uncommitted Movement in Michigan as she prepares her potential 2028 run on

Wednesday. Another potential 2028 candidate, Rahm Emanuel, the son of an Israeli independence fighter and a career moderate will give a speech in Tel Aviv, essentially threatening an end to American support for Israel unless there are major changes. Here's how Abdul talked about the issue recently. This is a moral Roar Shock test. If you can't identify the systematic murder of tens of thousands of kids as a genocide, and then you want to say that you're a fighter for human rights and dignity,

that's just hypocrisy. So I just think that if you can't call the most heinous violation of human rights what it is, it's hard for me to believe that you're going to go and fight the Trump administration or fight the pharma CEOs or fight the health insurance CEOs who are making. my life unlivable. I do think he's describing like the actual dynamic of a sort of among a lot of Democratic voters that this issue has become a kind of shibleth for a willingness to take on the establishment, the willing to take hard political positions.

But at the same time, his choice of words there is interesting, right? Because a Roershack test is something in which you see what reflects your view of it. Good point. Yeah. And that the thing itself is a way of eliciting what your view might be. And I do think that's happening here, too. It's partly why I'm interested in what Rahm ultimately says, because I think Abdul is describing the reality of how this debate is unfolding.

But that is in part because Joe Biden and Kamala Harris left such a massive hole, both in terms of the policy and any kind of larger framework or message. or story about what a progressive defense of support for Israel might be. Yeah, I mean, I think that for a lot of progressive voters in the U.S., especially young people, it's kind of just like a threshold question about your credibility. If you can't look at what's happening in Gaza and say that's wrong and say we shouldn't be funding a genocide or sending more weapon systems with a blank check over to Israel, then they don't believe you on anything else.

I think the ROM speech is particularly interesting to me. I'm going to talk to him next week on POTS of the World because Netanyahu has an election in October at the latest. I think he's going over there in part to kind of stir some shit up and signal to voters in advance of that election. Like, hey, it's time to move on from Netanyahu. This guy is bad news. He does not.

He's not serving interest. He's not going to help you in Washington anymore. We'll see if that works. I do think like looking, thinking back to the Biden kind of era, Gaza's fights. I think there was a suggestion for a while that the campus activists were performative. You know, the people out protesting like they just, that was their thing of the month, right? And I didn't think that was true then, and I don't think it's true now. And I think that your views, again, on Gaza, I've just become like a proxy for this much bigger threshold

question about whether people believe you. And frankly, things have gotten worse since then because we had the war with Iran. And all that, um, all that Trump has, you know, done to make things worse there. And so, you know, that's where it's like all getting swept up. And so I do think this is going to continue to be a huge issue in Democratic primaries in this cycle, but also in 28. Yeah, this is where I do think, like, the ways in which I think, pro-Israel Democrats or historically pro-Israel Democrats have been, I think, really caught flat-footed and surprised by the level of intensity and importance that this issue has now taken. And you have seen a lot of those Democrats shift, right? You had Bernie and Chris Murphy putting out,

putting up resolutions about cutting off military, offensive military aid to Israel, and the number of Democrats being willing to support that ticking up. But in the absence, I think, of a clear articulation of a view on Israel that is reflective of, concedes the substance of the, I think, valid moral critique of U.S. support for Israel, especially, military support for Israel and its conduct of the war in Gaza. But that talks about a position on settlements, that talks about a position on the future of Gaza, two-state solution, whether or not that is still something that is plausible, what it looks like to actually fight for something like that, what it looks like to hold Israel accountable, right? Like, it is true what Abdul says in that video, that if you can't call what Israel has done

in Gaza a genocide, then you are failing this moral test. But there are no politicians right now saying something like, I believe Israel's conduct of the war is horrific. I think that they've committed ethnic cleansing. There are genocide. members of that administration. I will leave the definition of genocide to others, but I'll tell you, we will make sure that the West Bank is safe for Palestinians, and we will remove settlements as part of any deal. We will hold off any funding for Israel until it has withdrawn to the borders, right? Like, there is a full-throated pro-Palestinian position that acknowledges Israel's right to exist and defend itself that I think could reflect the values of

Duel's talking about it. But right now it just doesn't exist. There's no one, no one really espousing that position that I'm here. Yeah, I think what what is broken recently is for a long time, they were kind of like political and policy orthodoxies that were just kind of abided by in Washington. You know, it's like there was, there was seen as most politicians did not stray much beyond, you know, sort of like the 40-yard lines of this debate. And then when Gaza started, like a bunch of people just started asking why? Why are we giving, you know, to their credit, like places like J Street and other groups were asking these questions earlier, but like people are just sort of wondering, why are we giving this country 3.3 billion a year in military support and then a bunch of additional

funding after that? Why are we partnering with Bibi Netanyahu to launch this crazy war with Iran when it doesn't seem to serve our interests? Why are we, why does the U.S. Congress welcome in ICC indicted war criminals like Netanyahu and other, you know, Israeli political and military leaders? And yet we're having this big, dumb, fucking fight for a month about Hassan Pikers, you know, Twitter, the Twitch stream. And why is a Democratic administration, two of them, supporting a government in which their leader comes to the U.S. and insults us and basically does politics for the Republican Party? And you have APAC as an organization that has become completely sort of politicized and sort of attacking Democrats who don't hue exactly to their line. Yeah, I mean, APAC primarily has started sort of intervening in democratic primaries, attacking the more progressive candidate about issues that have nothing to do with Israel,

and that's rubbing people the wrong way. And I think there's a broader sort of waking up to the fact that at this moment, the two-state solution is just not realistic in any way. And I think a lot of times when politicians talk about, well, we need peace talks and two states living side by side and blah, blah, like, it's just a way of like punting the question and having anything to say that they all know is complete bullshit because the West Bank is getting chopped up every single day by more settlement construction. And, you know, after October 7th, neither side is any faith in the process, nor do they necessarily support a two-state solution

anymore. That's all true and real. I think where what the, like, my only advice to like the more progressive candidates and people on the left is I do think one thing that has gotten lost from the conversation is like any sense of empathy in a lot of these answers about the trauma that Israelis felt on October 7th or that Jews in America feel and fear they feel about anti-Semitism. And I think we just need that needs to be more a part of the conversation as we recalibrate these much harder policy issues. Yeah. Well, I would say acknowledging that is not a concession to is not admitting to something, right? Like compassion towards Israelis, is not to take anything away from

Benjamin Nahu's evil conduct of the war. And as much as a two-state solution seems like something you just say to get out of the question, it's not like a one-state solution is very appealing. Not great answers. Either.

So it really is like a, you know, it's been a morass for a very, very long time. Like you have to do both. Like, of course, I have enormous empathy for people in Gaza, the suffering, the Palestinian people, like having empathy for the Israelis who are hurt or killed or kidnapped that day or the people who were scared by the events of October side of it like they're not mutually exclusive we can do both and I think it's just it's gotten a

little bit lost from the debate and I'll just also say too like from the other side of it like you can go back to Rabin describing the importance of a peace process in part because you would get to the point we're at now where people would stop being willing to accept a two state solution right and start demanding a one state solution that that you know you when people criticize mom donnie right because he gets the question like do you support the right of a Jewish state to exist and I support a state for equal rights to exist. Those circles can be squared. There can be a state with equal rights that has a Jewish majority, but that requires a Palestinian state, which requires a U.S. that is willing to put an extraordinary amount of pressure on Israel to remove settlements

from the West Bank and make a two-state solution possible, because the alternative, which is increasingly what people are demanding, is one in which there is no longer a Jewish state in a region which there are a lot of Muslim states. Or, you know, a state that is a de facto apartheid state with different laws for different people, different religions, which is also unacceptable. Yeah. Pod Save America is brought you by Sleep Me. When was the last time you went to bed before midnight without scrolling? Doom scrolling, the latest news cycle keeps your brain buzzing and worse, it raises your core body temperature. The body that's too warm cannot fall into a deep restorative sleep. You're not just mentally exhausted. Your body never actually recovered from the day. The fix is simple.

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s.eep.m.m.m. slash crooked, free shipping, free returns, and a 30-night trial. So you can test it out, dream big, and wake up better. The headlines will still be there in the morning. You might as well wake up ready for them. Speaking of shifting and amorphous borders, we haven't discussed on the show. But Mitch McConnell has been absent from the Senate since he was hospitalized in mid-June. His staff and others have tried to downplant on July 1st, according to dispatch audio,

reviewed by ABC News and other outlets. A person at Mitch McConnell's address was discovered unconscious and a cardiac arrest and EMTs perform CPR. This has led to rampant speculation that McConnell is somewhere in the twilight realm between life and death where he will be held. And this is what the, I think the conspiracy is, where he will be held until August 3rd, because after August 3rd, the November election would be for the next term as opposed to for the remainder of McConnell's term.

And Thomas Massey, who is obviously a free agent, could run for the Senate. So goes the conspiracy theory. Would you care to recklessly speculate? Man, I don't know. This wasn't really on my radar screen until today. But then I'm seeing there was a reporter named Desiree Townsend who was quote tweeting Laura Loomer. So Laura Loomer for folks who don't know is this crazy far right activist who back in the day

once chained herself to the offices of the Twitter building in New York. because they like can't like like like they got rid of her account or something or I don't know I think I think a gay guy was there I don't know yeah something like something like she was like a fringe lunatic but now she is very close to Donald Trump there's all these reports about how she'll walk into the oval office with a list of names of administration officials and get them all fired including like high level people I think she got like the head of the NSA fired right so Laura Lumer is someone who has a lot of access at the white house she tweeted a couple hours of ago today, high level source close to the White House tells me Mitch McConnell is officially brain dead. He's not coming back. Now, that is obviously crass phrasing, but I don't normally believe her, but I do believe that someone close to the White House would tell her that. And then a journalist who apparently had like reported out or broke the story of Mitch McConnell's initial cardiac issues confirmed what she said. So there's just all this churn. And it's not coming from like the kind of resistance left. It's coming from the far right spaces about

McConnell's health. And there's just no transparency. And then his wife is in China for some reason. Yeah, she was on a trip on very soon after this had happened, which was a little bit strange. So, yeah. But I will say, as far as ways for Mitch McConnell to go out, holding on to power, even in the face of grim death, even in the face of the ultimate end, it's as he shuffles off this mortal coil, it's the way to do it. It's how he'd want to go. It's how it is.

It is how he'd want to go. He'd want to go in some sort of nefarious plot in which he has kept alive to fuck Thomas Mass. I think that's exactly what he would want. And as much as I don't approve of it, I approve of it. He died with what he loves. Yeah, he died with his boots on. Yeah.

We don't know is the answer. We don't know. We don't know if you're alive or dead. Can I tell you something? When I worked for Hillary Clinton, when speaking of the issue we were previously talking about, Ariel Sharon had fallen into a coma. Remember, he was a prime minister,

a hawkish prime minister of Israel. He fell into a coma. And I had to write this statement announcing that he had passed because we thought he was going to die at any moment. And it was going to be a statement from Bill and Hillary Clinton together. And we went back and forth

and then it went over to Bill Clinton's office and it came back. And the last line of it said, and Ariel Sharon died with his boots on. Not a phrase I would have used that. Just what he wanted to, because he was still serving as in it, right?

when he fell into the coma, he's working. And then Ariel Sharon was in a coma for weeks, months, maybe longer? Was it years? He was in a coma for a very, very long time. And we would have this internal debate being like, how long after you've fallen into a coma are you no longer dying with your boots on? Oh, yeah. You know what I'm saying?

Do you just leave the boots on the whole time? Right, because he didn't die with his boots on because that was, he may have fell down. He got into a coma with his boots on, but we can't keep this sentence in. This was weeks. Yeah, you'd probably be more comfortable with the boots off. The boots are off. Yeah. The boots are off.

Walking. Speaking of being old, America turned 250 this week. And Trump got to hold his big Freedom 250 rally, the culmination of months of meticulous planning. There was dangerous heat, lightning, pandemonium, enough smoke to cause a code red air quality alert. And then on the morning of the 4th of July, a white nationalist group called Patriot Front, featuring around 400 masked men carrying Confederate flags and chanting reclaim America, march to the capital. Good news, they decided to be climate conscious and take public transit. Bad news. These Uber mentioned, should have taken Uber because the master race couldn't master the Metro. Here's how it went.

Just giving a minute and drive and get out of line. Go back to the line. Get out of the car from saying right there. Here, who needs a cord? Right there. Yeah, there's a great photo circulating of these guys in their masks on the train. And this woman just sitting there being like, what the fuck is going on here? So these guys just they couldn't figure out how to use the Metro?

I think that they were trying to use one person was trying to swipe them in. But I wonder if they got a bit. flummox by the fact that you have to I think tap in and tap out I don't know that's still the case in DC I believe it is I think that's a good question must have been confused by the tap in tap out that's the situation there so that was Trump's July 4th a fireworks display that seemed like the Capitol was being nuked and that filled the entire region with smoke gave a pretty uninspired speech a lot of the there was a lot of people fishing out detritus from the sad reflecting

pool, which has, I think, been through enough. Yeah, it really has. And I think that closes the chapter on the 250th birthday America deserved for putting this man in charge. Yeah. It was just the whole thing was just such a sloppy mess and a bummer. Yeah. You have people passing out. You got like, I mean, again, Trump couldn't have predicted the weather. It's not his fault that it was 105 degrees. But what is dangerously hot outside, the thing you do is you cancel your speech. Yes. You don't have your supporters line up for hours and hours and hours. And then you don't put Secret Service in the situation

where they're clearing out the national mall because of dangerous thunder and lightning. And the supporters are like accusing them of some sort of conspiracy theory to steal from his big day. And the whole thing was just selfish and stupid and sloppy and half-assed. And it could have been really cool.

And it's just a bummer. It is. Now, various Democrats had their own July 4th counter programming, including Zoranamani, who gave a great speech just before the holiday, that caused a bunch of conservatives to lose their mind. Here's a few moments from the speech, which Mamdani delivered from a desk used by George Washington and with naturalized U.S. citizens all around him.

Ours is a nation working each day towards the perfection in which it was conceived. A nation striving each day to better itself. Therein lies the work of America. The striving, the bettering, the reaching towards perfection. What a privilege each of us has. has to live in a nation that every one of its inhabitants can shape? What a responsibility each of us possesses? To prove ourselves worthy of all those who came before? What power each of us holds? To bring America ever closer to the greatness so many have seen when they looked upon these shores.

The greatness that for 250 years has been America. What a kami fuck. So I saw the reaction before I saw the speech? What did you think? You're like, oh, God, what do you say? And you watch it and you're like, oh, that's incredibly patriotic. Look, it was a very Obama message, so no surprise that I liked it. Like being patriotic and optimistic, talking about America's flaws, but in a hopeful way. I mean, it's a very, it's a tough needle to thread for a politician, especially if you're brown or black. And you saw it in the reaction where you had all these people accusing Zora Mamdani of attacking his country or, you know, being critical of it. It's like, guys, Trump literally says, we were a dead country until I came back.

You know, his view of America is, unless he's in charge, it's dead, it's irredeemable, it's American carnage, we're making America great again. So it's just like this very frustrating, endless, stupid conversation about what it means to be patriotic. But I think, like, I thought it was a great speech. It was interesting that he decided to step up and do it because they had to know that this was going to be the reaction. But I imagine that it was just very important to him in this moment where Trump was trying to repeal birthright citizenship and all these kind of like pillars of what makes us a country that is great, that he wanted to be like to voice the alternative view. Yeah. Like when I saw, I was like, oh, that's so interesting.

He makes interesting. He's going to do something. He's going to make a news making speech around July 4th. And he's doing it because the podium is open. When the podium's up, he's taking it. Yeah. Like it's just it's open. Exactly.

And I thought like I was like, there was a, I think Bill Ackman and a bunch of people were saying, oh, he's even sitting at the desk wrong, right? Yeah, what was that all that? Because the desk has drawers on both sides. And so they saw him sitting on the side where, and they said, oh, this dummy doesn't have to sit at a desk. And it really captured to me like just the,

the, first of all, the assumption that everyone but them is stupid. Right. And that there were so many conservatives jumping in to say that the speech was dark and hateful that like, how dare this person? person, but some of them saying, how dare this immigrant who's only been a citizen for eight years, criticize my country? Fuck you.

But they didn't want to listen, right? Because it's a beautiful and patriotic speech. And he's very, like, you know, he did the same thing with that speech around the Nix winning, where he's just, you know what? Like, I'm going to, there's a moment. My job as a leader is to make the most of moments as they come. And he's just so good at that. I think it drives him a little bit crazy. Yeah, especially people like Bill Ackman, where, um,

He's making an economic argument and going right at people like Bill Ackman. I think the line was like the powerful think America is an arena of supremacy and the rest of us should be grateful for being allowed to visit. And he said how small they are, how weak. And I saw a tweet from Elon Musk from over the last couple of days where someone was telling him that he essentially saying you should oppose universal suffrage and Elon said, I have wised up. So we've got this trillionaire oligarch suddenly. coming out against all of our having the right to vote. So it felt important and timely because basically he was trying to say the powerful try to divide us to turn us against each other. And we can't let them do that. We need to come together and like fight for the working class

and acknowledge America's flaws, but then continue to talk about how to make it great and greater. So it was it was nice to hear. Yeah. And I enjoyed the freak out over it, especially from people that I don't think they consumed it. I don't think. I think they just started going at it and assumed it was something that they wouldn't like. And like Fox News calls, it was a dark and anti-American, unpatriotic.

How about it, guys? It's just sort of a slop for the audience that you know won't see it either. Exactly. But not us. This is a slot for people who read the articles. And you can support pro-democracy media by becoming a friend of the pod.

Go to cricket.com slash friends. you help us build independent media that gets good information in front of more people. You get ad-free episodes. You get subscriber-only shows like Only Friends, where we really let loose. You get Dan's show, Policcoaster. You get a bunch of great newsletters, get a bunch of breaking news content without ads. It helps what we're building here. So please, please, please.

If you're not a subscriber yet, become a friend of the pod. And support Tommy. Thank you. And that's our show. Thanks for joining Dan and Alex Wagner. We'll be back with a new episode on Friday. See you then. Pods of America is a crooked media production.

Our show is produced by Austin Fisher, Saul Rubin, McKenna Roberts, and Ferris Safari, with Reed Jirlin, Elijah Cohn, and Adrian Hill. Our team includes Matt DeGroate, Ben Hethcote, Jordan Cantor, Charlotte Landis, Carol Pellevieve, David Tolls, Mia Kelman, Ryan Young, and Naomi Single. Our staff is proudly unionized

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