Pod Save America - Trump's Epstein Doodle Grosser than Expected

Episode Date: September 9, 2025

House Democrats get ahold of the infamous birthday letter Trump sent to Jeffrey Epstein and release it to the public. Turns out it's more disturbing than we imagined. Jon, Lovett, and Tommy react to the doodle and talk through the week's latest, including the administration renaming the Department of Defense the Department of War, a massive ICE raid on a Hyundai plant in Georgia, and the emerging debate over whether Democrats should shut the government down when funding expires at the end of the month. Then, Rep. Mikie Sherrill, the Democratic candidate for governor in New Jersey, stops by the studio to talk to Tommy about reversing the inroads Trump made in the state in 2024—and why New Jerseyans are weird about pumping their own gas. Get tickets to CROOKED CON November 6-7 in Washington, D.C at http://crookedcon.com

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to claim 50% off a new system. That's simplysafe.com slash crooked. There's no safe like SimplySafe. From the BBC, listen to the global story. Every weekday, Asma Khalid and Tristan Redmond help you understand where the world and America meet at a time of rapidly changing world order. Covering the essential news stories

from the best international newsroom, the global story is available on BBC.com or wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome to Potsave America. I'm John Favarra. I'm John Lovett. On today's show, we're going to talk about the Supreme Court giving ICE the green light to detain U.S. citizens who look like they might be here legally. Trump's new Department of War, which seems to be itching for one in Venezuela,

whether Democrats should fund Trump's government, the release of Trump's birthday doodle to Epstein that he claimed didn't exist, Democratic midterm strategy and the latest episode of Maga Fight Club. Then you'll hear Tommy's interview with the Democratic nominee for Governor of New Jersey, Mikey Sherrill, who stopped by the studio to talk about one of the biggest races of 2025. But let's start with how the president kicked off the weekend by posting a meme where he appeared to declare war on Chicago. That's where we are.

Having already deployed the U.S. military to Los Angeles and D.C., which Trump has declared a crime-free safe zone, despite three people getting shot over Labor Day weekend. He's been hinting that Chicago is next, and ICE agents have been staging at a naval base outside the city. Then on Saturday, Trump posted a meme titled, Shyocalypse Now, with an AI-generated image of him wearing aviators

as attack helicopters descend on a Chicago. skyline in flames also kind of looks like he's farting fire in the meme does you guys notice that maybe that was just me yeah I mean he's supposed to be Colonel Kilgore from Apocalypse now it's sort of him crouching on the beach right right

but the unfortunate I didn't think about that until flames his face is vaguely Robert Duval like in the picture it has emerged the faces he's lost the swollen hands and the cancels on that I don't think it's supposed to be him you know right right right um big cancals

is Alex Jones still us in great detail. Did you guys watch that segment, Alex Jones talking? He said that Trump's cancals were the size of Alex Jones's neck. And Alex Jones was like, my neck's like 19 inches. So it's fantastic. Anyway, got to get compression socks. You got to get compression sucks. Anyway, back to the terrifying declaration of war against America's third largest city. So the caption reads, I love the smell of deportations in the morning. Chicago about to find out why it's called the Department of War, followed by not one, not two, but three helicopter emojis.

Yes. The Department of War is, as a Friday. I felt like the newscopter version of a helicopter. You know what I mean? You work with what you got. I'm a patchy. Take it up with Tim Cook. Sorry, you're right.

The Department of War is as a Friday. Nobel Peace Prize hopeful Donald Trump's new name for the Department of Defense. We're going to get to that in a minute. Trump was asked whether he had in fact declared war on Chicago. Here's what he said. When you say that, darling, that's fake news. Why do you do the Department of Defense? Listen. Be quiet. Listen. You don't listen. You never listen. That's why you're second race. We're not going to war. We're going to clean up our cities.

We could solve Chicago very quickly, but we're going to make a decision as to where we go over the next day or two. No war. No war. Just that's why we call the Department of War and that's how Chicago is going to find out because I posted this meme, but no war. That's such a condescending way to talk to a reporter. It's just hard to get over it. I know. I know. White House told Jonathan LeMeyer at the Atlantic that this entire debate about troop deployments in cities has put Democrats on the defensive and that Trump wants crime to be a central issue in the midterms. What do you guys think?

I believe it. Yeah, I mean, the Harrington from CNN did a piece today on Trump's approval rating. The headline takeaway is Trump's been underwater and his approval for 181 days in a row, which is not great. But if you look at his approval on issues, the best issue is crime at negative two. And then when you get down to economy and trade,

it's negative 14 and negative 17 respectively. So I think they think this is a better narrative, better footing for them politically than the economy where unemployment is ticking up. Inflation is getting worse. US health insurers are raising insurance premiums by the most in 15 years. You guys see that?

Nice little reports sprinkled in. Massive, massive increase. Yeah, up to 18% for people buying on the exchanges in 2026. Sorry, it will be 75% if we'll talk about this at some point, but if the subsidies go away, which they're expiring. Yeah, sorry, the cost of company health insurance is about 6.5% increase on average. government exchanges 18%. Anyway, but yes, I do think like they want to talk about crime.

They're calling this Operation Midway Blitz. You got to see that? I didn't see that, but they've named it. Well, you know, the Boston one is Operation Patriot 2.0. I don't know what Patriot 1.0 is. The team? No idea. Yeah, maybe. Drake may out of this. Patriots. Continue. Any, what do you think? Why do you look terrified? I didn't know what the, oh, you're saying the sports team. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. We also have Patriots Day in Massachusetts. It's a state holiday, not a federal one. Yeah.

Is it when you guys celebrate fighting the desegregation of the schools, or is that a different holiday? Different holiday. This is the one of the founding of the country. This is the birthplace of liberty. This is the day when Weddie Boulter through that cocktail into the Kennedy House. Honor that day, you freaks. What? Fucking Monson.

Sorry. What's happening on Limey Bollger? Anything good ever? No, actually, I... Honestly, what a place you're from? Yeah, I know. It's the Boston in New York. I can face that.

All right. Move on. Keep going. Keep going. Charlie Gasperino over. Love it, what do you think about this? What do I think about this? So Tommy pointed out that it is his best issue.

He's only underwater by two. This is a spin about the fact that they're on defensive politically going into the midterms. And there was this, the whole premise of the piece, not from the from LeMeyer, but from the Trump. People are in 2018, Trump was too conciliatory. All right. He was too bipartisan. He was too kind. And so now we really need to go on offense, which is, which is, you go like, I'm sorry.

Like, I know we all are like goldfish. The lesson he took from 2018 was that he reached across the aisle too much. Right. And I was like, I was like trying to, you know, you like, I was like allowing myself even for a moment to be gaslit by that. And it's like, well, I remember him calling us mobs saying we were going to turn America into Venezuela, blaming us for the migrant caravans. Crazy man sent a pipe bomb to the, to the Obamas and a couple other Democrats. I remember and he thought that was kind of cool. Caravans. Remember the caravans coming in 18?

He did do that event with Van Jones, though. So maybe that was the problem. problem. First type act. Oh, I do remember. I do remember that now. Yeah. Yeah. So that was an important moment. But the point being like, okay, they want to put Democrats on defense because of this. And Republicans, like CBS just had a new poll that found that Republicans understand that this is what they're meant to do because they said what's the most important issue. And it's immigration, the border and crime, right? But that's not true of what other voters are telling people. But then you look even on like who is in favor of National Guard deployments to cities. Not most

Americans. Most people don't support it. And it's also very geographic because geography is very partisan. And so what are we talking about here? Who is this popular among? It's a popular among people who are consuming information about the cities that they do not live in and support the policing of by National Guard because of what they're receiving about the cities from Fox News, other television, from the algorithm, whatever. But then if you ask people, do you support having National Guard deployments to your city? Even more people say no. So this is sort of a like it is a it is a it is a very popular thing amongst republicans it is not popular among independence it's not popular certainly among the democrats who live in the cities where these

deployments would take place so even on this i don't i don't see it as an issue we should certainly act like we're on defense it's the same uh issue we had with immigration after he became president again uh which is pollsters were just asking about immigration writ large and getting people's approval or disapproval of him on that issue and then it turned out after a couple months of mass deportations and rounding up people and throwing them in vans that if you asked how's Trump doing on the border, he gets really good ratings or some of his best ratings on any issue. If you ask, how's he doing on deportations? He's way underwater, right? So it doesn't surprise me that if you ask people, who's better on crime, Donald Trump or

those, you know, those weakling Democrats, people are going to be like, yeah, Trump. Trump's better on crime. He's tough on crime. But now that we're breaking out, the troop deployments, the National Guard in the street, he's going to be a little less popular in that. But it is all very, it's very war on terror to me, which is like, we can do whatever we want, detain whoever we want, arrest whoever we want, provide no evidence, provide no due process, but if you complain, you're just soft on crime like the rest of the Democrats. Yeah. That's where we are now.

So the latest example of Trump trying to make crime an issue is this video that is all over right-wing media of a horrific stabbing that took place on a light rail train in North Carolina back in August. A young Ukrainian refugee was killed, and it looks like the suspect has a long list of past convictions for crimes like armed robbery. I'm not sure why this is Democrats' fault, but we got Trump is weighing in on it. He's blaming Roy Cooper, who's now running for Senate in North Carolina. You know, everyone in right-wing media is saying, why isn't the real media covering this? Or why is it the mainstream media covering this? And of course, they also didn't cover it back in August 22nd when it happened that much. It was a local news story until I guess

the video got out and was amplified by Elon Musk and all the rest of them. What do you guys think about this one? I mean, the video is horrifying, right? It's getting attacked for no reason by a stranger on a train that is a nightmare and that, you know, it's especially awful to know this woman escaped the war in Ukraine to come here and have this happen, right? So this guy should go to jail for life. Given his rap sheet, I do think it's appropriate to sort of ask questions about why he was on the streets in the first place. Like Donald Trump is talking about this because this is exactly the kind of video in imagery he wants to use to justify trip deployments or whatever crime policy. And also because Roy Cooper is going to be the Democratic candidate in a really

important Senate race. And they're saying that Cooper did something that might have led to this person's release, although it seems completely made up. And there's no connection. There's obviously a racial component. You know, this is a black man stabbing a pretty blonde woman as Trump himself notes he talks about her appearance in his statement, right? But like in the term of this meta point about coverage like actually generally speaking like stories like this are the kinds of stories they get the most attention in american media and the idea that there's some liberal media bias against stories about the grisly murder of a pretty blonde woman is crazy right like that's we we cover these things for months at a time so this is just trump exploiting a horrible incident

for a political game yeah it sort of has half of what they're looking for in a story right because It does have a person, you know, a black person attacking a white person. But it, but it's a, the, the person who was attacked is an immigrant, uh, or, or someone who was escaping Ukraine, a refugee. And so it, it, by the way, Trump might have had, uh, deported, uh, because he's, you know, uh, considering removing protections from Ukrainian refugees who are here. And so like they're, they're, they're kind of making, trying to make it an issue just about crime or, or, or, or something to that effect. But. like the reason stories be it's a terrible story it's an awful story but the reason stories gain national attention or at least that's why they should gain national attention is because it represents some deeper policy failure it represents some larger issue that we're all confronting uh and now they can make some kind of argument that this is like the the the represents the kind of whatever the the decadent left's inability to tackle crime or some that's what trump needs to do in our cities whatever story they can try to tell but that's the reason this wasn't a national news story

It's a, it's a terrible, terrible, terrible crime. The worst crime that this guy served time for was armed robbery, served a sentence, long time ago was released. The mother tried to get him to be involuntarily admitted to a mental institution because she thought he was a danger. Like, they didn't do that or they let him out. Whoever did that, that's a big problem, right? Yeah. And don't know why, but like it seems like this person should not have been out. the streets. Hopefully now this person goes to jail for a very, very long time. But like,

the Roy Cooper, they are really stretching on this. Like, Roy Cooper signed some executive order that basically was sort of toothless, like reimagined public called for reimagination. There was a racial profiling task force that sought to reduce systemic racism. Yeah. And then a few months later, this guy got out. It had nothing to do with it. Nothing to do with it. There wasn't a politician who pardoned a bunch of people who later committed or were convicted of sexually assaulting a child, violent assault, robbery, aggravated DUI and reckless homicide. But that was Donald Trump. That was just some of the crimes that the pardoned January 6th rioters went on to commit. Now, that is a direct connection from his, he pardoned them,

then they went to commit crimes. This one is someone didn't keep this person getting the mental health help that they needed or keep them behind bars or whatever it may have been. And this is why the meta media coverage is so stupid. Because if a Democrat did what Trump did with these January 6th, can you imagine criminals and they reoffended like they did, it would be all they talked about. And instead we're pretending that somehow this is unfair and that all the media talked about was Daniel Penny, who was the guy who strangled the person on the New York subway. But that was because that was like a big vigilante justice case that was novel and it happened in a New York subway and the media is all there and they are biased towards covering things in New York. And so like

this whole, it's just by the way, frustrating. It would be. fair. If we worked for a Democratic politician who pardoned someone who had been convicted of assaulting a police officer and then for no reason, they let them out and then they went and sexually assaulted a child, I'd be like, yeah, bad. Big problem. That's bad. That person shouldn't be in office anymore. Yeah. Don't care if it's a Democrat. And everybody universally sees this as a horror, right? And like, and if there were mistakes that allowed this person to be free that could have prevented this from happening. That needs to be

remedied. That's not something anybody would disagree with. Stories gain national prominence and coverage for days or weeks because of controversy, disagreement, some question that needs to be answered. This is just a horrible, horrible thing. And because there is an image of a black

man looming over a white woman, it has sort of taken off on Elon's internet, and from the rest, it's everywhere else. We've talked about how Trump's crackdown is less about violent crime and more about helping ICE round up immigrants, most of whom have no record of committing any kind of crimes in this country. ICE also got some help on this from the Supreme Court this morning, which lifted a lower

court's restraining order that had stopped ICE agents here in L.A. from detaining people based solely on factors like their race, their skin color, or what job they're doing, or what language they speak. Justice Kavanaugh basically said, no big deal if ICE finds out someone is a citizen or here legally, quote, they promptly let the individual go. That's what the officers do. Yeah. In her dissent, Justice Sotomayor said, that's bullshit. One of the U.S. citizens in this case that Justice Kavanaugh and the other justices in the majority heard was thrown against the fence with his arm twisted behind his back, a U.S. citizen. The other U.S. citizen was taken from his job to a warehouse for questioning. What do you guys make of the decision and the implications? Kavanaugh putting that line in there that promptly let the individual go. It's just such like trolling. You know, like he knows damn well. There's so many examples of the Americans. American citizens or people with visas or TPS who get swept up into ice systems and then detained for days, if not weeks.

We've heard about it a thousand times. And he just decided to ignore that fact. I do think in the near term, this is going to make racial profiling worse. You're going to see more ice raids at home depots and, you know, job sites and stuff and all the things Trump keeps sporadically telling us he will not do anymore because his business buddies call them up and say, hey, you're killing my construction business or whatever. But this case is almost certainly going to go back to the Ninth Circuit and then get ruled on again and then almost certainly go back to the Supreme.

court again. So it's not the end of it. It seems like they tip their hand. Right. It's a really bad sign that Kavanaugh jumped in to make this argument that the lower court overstepped, not for any procedural grounds, but for the substantive argument that he makes here. And just practically speaking, the temporary restraining order had restricted the administration's conduct. When there was that truck, the Penske truck that opened up and a bunch of guys jumped out, that was novel and newsworthy because it was a violation of the order. But overall, the number of people that ICE was able to arrest had gone down because of the order. The Kavanaugh language is so bloodless. And you just think about how much empathy this court has had for the rights of

a football coach who was fired for praying on the field or a student who feels that they were unable to gain admission because affirmative action. And then it is just this, well, you just, you just clean it up. You just clean up the mistake like it's a parking ticket or some sort of misfile document. And it ignores what happens when people just touch the criminal justice system during an ice rate. So this woman, Andrea Veles, the Guardian reported on this example, one example. She's a citizen. She's born in Los Angeles. She happened to be downtown when a bunch of guys jumped out of an SUV in gaiters or grabbing vendors. She gets picked up. She's thrown an SUV. She gets out and runs the LAPD because she doesn't know who these people

are. She trusts them because they're in uniform. They pick her up again. They throw her in the back of an SUV. She's described as an alleged citizen. She's then brought to a jail where she's held for days and then charged with assault because one of the officers claimed that at some point she had extended her arm and he had been unable to stop himself from running into it. She's four foot 11. Okay. Okay. Two days she spent in jail, right, before she's charged.

Her lawyers then request the body cam footage. Two weeks later, they dropped the charges, right? And so according to Kavanaugh, this is an example of a job well done or the system working. Meanwhile, she had this incredibly traumatic experience. She's afraid now to go downtown because she's afraid that they could grab her. her again. Her life has been altered by this. She was held in jail because of this. She almost was charged with assault because of this. Fortunately, they dropped it. But, like, that's just one story of all these people that are going to just be impacted in some way. Remember, there was

that story. And these stories continue long after they leave the news. There was that, that kid who stepped in because he saw just a guy he knew from work being arrested. He gets accused of assault. They dropped that. They lowered to a different charge. Meanwhile, he lost his job at Walmart, right? They questioned whether or not he was a citizen. Like, it's just, it's wrecking people's lives. I did that video for socials, but that woman in Massachusetts, mother, three daughters saw her get ripped away at the airport. She was gone for, like, two weeks, shipped to Maine, shipped to a bunch of different detention centers. She's now, like, not well.

She's sobbing every day because they, they, they, we talked about this on the show. That they, like, threw out of the van in the rain by the Burlington Mall in Massachusetts. It's like, it's just happening all the time. And it's like, it's one thing. I'm like, did, first I was like, did K. Kavanaugh, does he just only consume right-wing media? Is he just lying? But then, as Sotomayor said, the two plaintiffs in the case were U.S. citizens. And then he says later, he goes, he goes, well, to the extent that excessive force has been used, the Fourth Amendment prohibits such action

and remedies should be available in federal court. He's like, but we're not talking about excessive force right here. And Noah Feldman points out in Bloomberg, too, that it is rightly seen as this is going to allow racial profiling in Los Angeles and all over the country. But he said, also the way that the ruling is written, it means that they can do this to anyone, anyone. They can make up any kind of category of people that the government, because reasonable suspicion is a very low standard. And so, you know, he was like, and it's weird that we're, he's like, we're talking about it because it's immigrants. And so we're like, oh, well, if you speak Spanish and if you're, you know, your last name, whatever, he goes, but it would be plainfully unlawful for the government to stop all young

black men in high crime neighborhoods, or for that matter, all Patagonia-clad white guys on Wall Street in a suite for insider training. But, That is now what the Supreme Court has set out. So anyone walking around, they can stop you and be like, well, we have reasonable suspicion based on blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, and that's it. And then until you prove that you're a citizen, not until they check it, but until you prove it, then you can be held. And they often won't let people provide proof of citizenship. Right. There's an example in one of the, I think it was the AP story today where the guy gave his ID to these cops or the ICE agents.

They held onto it for 20 minutes before letting him go and then kept his ID. Yeah. Yeah. And even before you get to like broader ways in which this could be abused, is the advice, is the advice everyone needs to carry their papers? Are we at the phase of the Trump government takeover where like you have to carry papers with you, a classic sign of, of an authoritarian state that you need to have a piece of, you have your documentation with you because at any time you could be stopped. And if you don't have your papers, if you can't prove your citizen or or have valid immigration status, you could be held. for hours or days. Do you know your parents' number? Do you know your sister's number? Do you know your friend's number to go into your apartment and go find the documentation?

Because if you don't, and it's the weekend, you may be here for a while. Yeah. It's fucking outrageous. One of the more surprising immigration stories over the last few days was the federal raid on a Hyundai battery plant in Georgia, where agents detained 475 people, the majority of whom are workers from South Korea. Trump was asked about this on Sunday. Here's the really detailed cogent explanation he gave.

If you don't have people in this country right now that know about batteries, maybe we should help them along and let some people come in and train our people. But it's going to be very interesting what comes out. I think we may have learned something because when they come here and there's nobody that can do what they're supposed to be doing and they bring people. Those people can also teach our people. You know, it's complicated stuff. And something very interesting could come out of that. He's such a fucking idiot. You're saying other people who aren't Americans may have skills that could be useful to Americans and America?

And maybe we should bring them here for a bit? The reason we're not bringing them here is because your administration has a cap on H-1B visas that are used for this kind of specialized work in training. That's what those people, these Koreans didn't have, which is why they were arrested for misusing a visa and are now being deported. Which you told the duffices at the All In podcast that you were 100% for. It's just, it's like, it's so infuriating. I mean, yeah. Tommy, you were saying this morning that this is now like a. a full-fledged international incident.

Yeah, it's a huge thing. Like, first of all, just roll back the tape. Like, under Biden and then Trump, South Korea was asked to invest hundreds of billions of dollars in the U.S. And they did so. This battery plant in Georgia is part of that. And it's supposed to be exactly what Trump wants.

It's the way you buy yourself out of some, you know, 40% tariff or whatever. And then these arrests happened. And these, like, they don't just arrest these people and, like, quietly send them home. They shackled them, hand to waist to toe and released a, like, hype video of it. And that video just exploded across Korea.

And the media and the opposition political parties went insane, understandably, because this is a huge insult to these individuals, to the country, to this like U.S. South Korea alliance. It's supposed to be rock solid. And all of these companies and political leaders are wondering, like, what is the deal we cut with this guy? Right? I thought we were supposed to invest and get not a favor, but like get treated decently. And so what was it last month? I think the Korean president was in the Oval Office talking to Trump. And now. Now it's just viewed as this gigantic betrayal. And I think this kind of thing, like, it doesn't go away. So, like, this will bear out over time and really harm the U.S. Korean relationship. Did you see one of the politicians in South Korea said they should start looking at Americans who were teaching on visas over in South Korea and, like, maybe, you know, send them back home? It's like, I get that. I mean, we have 28,500 troops sitting in South Korea. There's a lot of reasons not to be dickets.

Yeah, the shackling of these people as if they were like some like sort of danger, they're there working in a battery plant. We sought these deals, these partnerships to have these battery facilities. Some American companies were part of them, in part because it allowed them to hire people outside of their unions, right? That's how some of these people come in to do these jobs. The other part of this too is when Trump is speaking here, it's just one of those moments where you see him remembering a meeting he was in or he was explained some complication of. this, right? Because he's aware that this is an international incident and he's aware that they want these plans to succeed and that this looks bad, right? So he's trying to make some reference to how we really need these jobs. Like, we're not trying to shut down these plans. This is

important. This is good. We've got to get other people. But like he has no familiarity with the context or H1Bs. He can't retain any of this information. So it was a good example of that. It's a new industry, right? This is this new like EV battery industry. It's specialized work. Of course you need people to come in and train you into how to create the factory that will then employ all these people, but like his administration is the one making it harder for these companies to do that. And he just doesn't even understand anything. No substance. Or the idea that maybe this is not zero sum, maybe maybe the bringing in South Koreans to help teach Americans how to make batteries and then giving them the privilege of living here as well can benefit Americans and South Koreans

and our whole economy. And it's always the workers too who are the ones who get shackled and carted off, right? Like at the meatpacking plants or all these other places. It's like, it's amazing how it's a crime being inflicted on the company. Right. This episode is sponsored by BetterHelp. BetterHelp has been helping people find solutions to their problems for over 10 years and have a 4.9 rating out of 1.7 million client session reviews. BetterHelp therapists work according to a strict code of conduct and are fully licensed in the U.S. BetterHelp does the initial matching work for you so you can focus on your therapy goals.

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That's BetterH-E-L-P-L-P-C-S-A. So let's talk about the Peace President's new Department of War, which is what the Defense Department used to be called prior to 1949. Trump signed an executive order on Friday to rename the department, which you can't actually do without an act of Congress. So the EO just says it's a, quote, secondary title. This did not stop Pete Hegeseth from changing his Twitter handle. from atsec deaf to at sec war. He also shot a video of the nameplate being changed on his office door. Defense.gov now takes you to war.gov, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.

What do we think of the rebrand, guys? I don't care. I find myself not caring. I see people being like, I can't believe he's doing this. I find it all pretty confusing because even as he lectured and talked down to that reporter, he doesn't want to be a war president. He constantly talks about how he's ending wars, but yet war seems tougher than defense.

Like, the whole thing is garbled and nonsense. It's really fundamentally not the name of the Department of Defense, which it continues to be. It is a nickname. So he can call whatever he wants. Like, I have trouble getting spun up about this. Yeah, I mean, the National Security Act of 1947 and the Amendment in 49 that changed the name.

That was not just a rebrand. That was like a fundamental restructuring of the way we do defense in national security. It put the Army and the Navy and the Air Force under the SACDF and then it created the NSC, Security Council and it created the CIA. So that was a substantial change in our history. This is just, you're right, it's just a nickname. They don't really even change the name to the Department of Defense. So I'm with you, like, I don't give a shit. I do find it just confusing,

though. It's like he is going for this peacemtle. He is sending the U.S. military into American cities. Why do this rename now? I guess they just think it sounds cool. I wonder if he started from the War on Chicago meme and then worked backwards to make that work by saying now you know what the Department of War is all about. Clearly they love calling it the Department of War because they want to be bellicose and tough and the whole thing about peace is just that the way that you get to peace

is by being big and strong and tough and kicking the shit out of everyone else and being able to bomb everyone else into submission. They think Vietnam went well for us? Do you think you've seen Apocalypse now? Does he know that it's an anti-war movie? Yeah, no.

They would say, well, that was because that was because of the department name change. Right. Things worked better when it was a department of women. Right, right, right. So the Trump administration did decide to take the Pentagon's new name out for a spin by deploying eight warships to the Caribbean and then killing 11 people on a speedboat who were suspected of trafficking drugs from Venezuela to Trinidad.

The administration didn't bother to provide any kind of legal rationale for the killing, though J.D. Vance did get into a Twitter fight with a Krasenstein brother over the whole thing. The vice president tweeted that, quote, killing cartel members who poison our fellow citizens is the highest and best use of our military, to which the Krasenstein brother, I'm not sure which one, responded that killing another country's civilians without due process is called a war crime, to which

Vance replied, I don't give a shit what you call it, and then I guess he took the rest of the Saturday off. Here's what Trump said about whether he's planning more military strikes against a country we haven't declared war against. What are you going to find out? I'll tell you what, whenever he says you're going to find out, that's a yes.

Yeah, for sure. Thoughts on a preemptive war of choice against Venezuela, Tom? I mean, it is, when you look at like kind of the hardware they're sending down to the Caribbean, it's eight Navy destroyers, apparently a nuclear sub is on the way. I've read that in I think Newsweek or CNN. 10 F-35 fighter jets were just moved to Puerto Rico as part of whatever this new war is. And again, you don't need a sub. You don't need an F-35 stealth fighter jet, fifth-generation fighter jet,

to take out a boat full of drugs. like this would be something you would do with a helicopter or a drone. It's unnerving. And so I find it unnerving. Nicholas Maduro, the president of Venezuela, but it's quite unnerving. He thinks it's the threat of an invasion. He's talking about deploying this kind of hybrid militia.

He's constructed of, I think, 4.5 million people all over to the country in case they are invaded. And other leaders in the Caribbean are all freaked out too. They're kind of like, you know, what's happening here? Trump, you know, remember he was, we were threatening to retake the Panama Canal like two weeks ago, right? So this is not. This is odd for them. Look, I have felt since the campaign that there was a lot of momentum towards militarizing the war on drugs. Remember, they talked about it all the time on the campaign trail. The polling is surprisingly good for some pieces of this plan. I fear that Trump is going to love looking decisive in the press coverage and releasing these snuff videos of boats blowing up. And before long, we're going to be hitting sites in Mexico or Venezuela or Ecuador or not just international. waters. And, you know, a lot of sources told CNN that the strike was the beginning of an effort that could include regime change. So it's pretty scary stuff. And like, look, none of this is going to reduce the demand for drugs in the U.S. It seems unlikely to me that blowing up drug boats

is going to do more to stop the flow of drugs than interdicting them would. But I guess we'll see. But right, we're just doing summary executions of drug runners now. That's what we're doing? What are we think is going to happen with destabilized regimes and people who are, you know, desperate? are they going to go? Is that going to reduce the, is that going to reduce the push towards our border? A nice regime channel on toppling of the manure government in Venezuela. Yeah, that will send a lot of people north. They've, they've offered no explanation for why they couldn't just interdict the boat, right? Why couldn't they just interdict the boat? Men with guns, jump on the boat, say, give me all your drugs and you're all coming with me, arrest them. Yeah. Because we were

aware of where the boat was. That's how we killed everyone on board. And look, like, we just, like, to your point about the warranter earlier like we just watch this language come to mean whatever they want and you just describe the people on this boat as narco-terrorist i don't know what that term means i know what it means in the context of like the the brutality of living amongst drug cartels in in uh mexico or south american country i don't know what it means in this context because i i don't i don't think it's the the fucking kingpins on the speedboat no running the drugs uh between between countries it's and so you're You're blowing up people that are part of a of a serious crime that we have a huge problem in trying to address. But but like these are the people that deserve to die.

And like, and like, and they just say like, well, they're narco terrorists. So yeah, they can, they can die. We can kill them and kill them from above. And they just, they lay this process where like, we get to designate you a terrorist if you're part of Trent Aragua. Then we do a secret directive that says the military can kill these terrorists who are part of these gangs. Maduro is connected to the gang. So you just like, you create this daisy chain of legal justification. or authority in air quotes, and then you just start killing people?

Yeah, no, it's as simple as we think this person's bad. They did something horrible that you think is horrible because you think drug trafficking is bad and bad people are bad. And so we kill them. And so if you think that it's bad that we killed them, then you must love drug traffickers, right? And we can't believe a word that they say, right?

You know, at first, when the New York Times wrote about this, we talked about this on the last episode, there was an official who used to work on sort of in the government, in our government on narco trafficking and said like, that doesn't seem right. That usually that's probably a boat full of migrants and maybe not. And then there was actual reporting from the town in Venezuela where it left. And it's like, no, this is probably a drug boat.

But it's like they already designated Andrei Romero Hernandez as Trend de Aragua and shipped him off to Seacot to be tortured, even though he was clearly not Trenda Aragua. So how are we supposed to believe our government now when they tell us who's a narco terrorist that they just murdered? This is the Rodrigo Duterte, Philippine's model of death penalty for drug dealers, which Trump has long pined after and talked often talked about. Did you see that what I think was Rand Paul posted in response? I thought was like, like kind of heartfelt and from his libertarian side that I thought was like exactly right.

Yeah. Oh, this is the highest use of our military, extra judicial killings? J.D., I don't give a shit, Vance says killing people he accuses of a crime is the highest and best use of the military. Then he goes, did he ever read to kill a mockingbird? Yeah. Jump to Harper Lee so fast. But he's right. Like, did you ever wonder what might happen if you accuse, if he, the accused were

immediately executed without trial of representation? Like, yeah, it seems like a problem. And I forgot what the White House tweeted to Rand, but it was something like, you pussy. Jesus. I didn't see their response. Like, as usual. Oh, yeah, oh, they just, they went nuclear on Rand Paul. Well, Rand Paul did recently create an entire media cycle about getting disinvited from a picnic.

Yeah, that is, Joe Hall. He totally couldn't come to the congressional picnic. It's a fair point. A complicated guy. Good points. Sometimes. I remember I went that leaf thing. Remember when he got in a fight over leaves?

Yeah, I'm not getting to that. I never found that what happened. No, no, no, never. No one never knows. All right. It's been a while since we've talked about Congress, once a, once known as a co-equal branch. A word that never made sense. Yeah, that is.

That code did nothing. They're back in the news. They're back in the news only because they must soon fulfill one of their only remaining duties. Funding the federal government. Money runs out on October 1st, which means a shutdown is. officially looming. The shutdown is looming. We got a loomer. The question is, will Chuck Schumer's Senate Democrats provide enough votes to fund the government like they did back in March, or will they use their leverage to demand concessions from Trump and the Republicans? Stay tuned.

Ezra Klein wrote an essay in the New York Times over the weekend where he said this, quote, I'm not going to tell you I am absolutely sure Democrat should shut the government down. I'm not. At the same time, joining Republicans to fund this government is worse than failing at opposition. It's complicity. Democratic leaders have had six months to come up with a plan. If there's a better plan than a shutdown, great. But if the plan is still nothing, then Democrats need new leaders. Thoughts. If you shut down the government, it's really hard to insider trade and make money off the stock market. I thought he had a serious joke face gone. That's good. That's good to deliver. How are you going to do high frequency trade if you shut

down the government? No, like I read Ezra's piece. I'm like, I read Ezra's piece. I'm 100% with him on the description of the problem, the description of the moment, the idea that we can't do business as usual, that we can't legitimize this lawless administration, then it's like, what's the plan? You know what I mean? Like, we're going to break out of prison. What's the plan? Because, like, what is our demand? What is the end game? What do we want? What's the political plan to work backwards from there? I truly have no idea. And, like, I just, part of what he says, he's like, I think the shutdown would focus the attention of the media on kind of like the merits of what's happening. I don't have a lot of faith in that, having been through some shutdowns, like, I think they tend to report on it as a

fight. I also don't think we have great messengers who would be leading that fight. I'm not, like, if we're doing a UFC match on the White House lawn, it's Chuck Schumer versus Trump in terms of, you know, getting the media's attention. I don't think we're winning that one. So, like, I'm with them, but I still think we have some work to do. Yeah, like, I get to the end of the argument, and I think, man, this is a great argument for having a time machine and going back six months and figuring out an argument we'd slowly be making up until this moment for why we should walk away. Like, Chris Murphy's been out there. And this was in the original reporting about him being the kind of lone vote against compromise in the committee. And I went and pulled it because

it stuck with me at the time. And he said, every single day, there's new evidence that our democracy is failing. Every time that we go along with these appropriation bills, we're putting a bipartisan veneer on the endorsement of an illegal process that ultimately is part of a campaign to destroy our democracy. That is true. That is a good point. true statement. It's a good point. And, you know, we went through this debate. Sometimes I wonder if, like, that's all you need. Yeah, it could be. That's the, that's the, that's the, that's the, that's the only explanation. And I, and I find that, like, I get to the end of this, and I feel the same uncertainty, and I worry too about the people that are meant to be our leaders through

any kind of shutdown. And I think, okay, that makes the, the right decision uncertain from a strategic standpoint. But the moral argument is simple and clear. And if we don't know the right strategy, if not positive, but what the right thing to do is from a, from a tactical standpoint, shouldn't we rest on what is obviously the truth about the circumstance? Yeah. So I find myself agreeing with everything you said, Tommy, about like, the challenges with this. Of course, we don't have better messengers, unfortunately. I don't think there's a good plan to do something that we could declare victory over. I don't know how you get out of it once you get into it. And I do think it's an, as Ezra puts it, an intentional event. I don't think

it's, I think you're right that like it's attentional for a while. Like a week. And then who knows. Now, when, when parks are closed and people aren't getting their checks, then maybe the attention comes and who knows if it's, if it's good or bad, and that depends on the messengers, right? Then I'm trying to play out like another step after that. So like, what are the, what are the downsides of the shutdown, right? So the Democratic Party has the lowest approval rating and since we've all been alive. And so I don't know how much lower we can get. We'll show you, pal. Yeah, I was going to say, but it's sort of like what Trump always likes to say is what do you got to lose, right? Macrons at 15%. Right. And so we briefly contributed to a government shutdown in 2018, which

as we're not, he doesn't talk about us, but he talks about the 2018 shutdown over a week over the Dreamers. Remember we at the Waffle House? We had all this now. Those of you who've been with us all this time, you'll remember it. And it didn't work. It was a failure. government shut down and then it was embarrassing the democrats did usual thing which is like yeah we'll kind of shut it down but now we're nervous so we'll open it back up and um you know it was a loss for the democrats but we kicked ass in the midterms it was fine and that was closer to the midterms than this one is right so i'm trying to figure out what it's like we have not taken a lot of risk as a party uh in the second trump term and we have not done any big moves and i'm not sure how

to get out of this one and i'm not sure that we could declare victory but I do wonder if now is the time to start throwing a few more things at the wall to see if they stick. I don't know. But I feel the same. I don't feel like spitting fire at the people that would disagree either. And part of the problem is what the Democratic message should be. And in a shutdown, right, what are we going for? What are we fighting for?

Where do we think there's any chance of us eking out a claim of victory for the shutdown, actual practical results? I'm not sure. But part of the problem is that it's not just that we don't think our leaders are going to be up for that fight on the White House law. part of it is that like our leadership doesn't have the same kind of like constituency that Donald Trump has. And I, I really have like keep coming back to this, which is like I think of all the people that don't just like Donald Trump but love Donald Trump and that are really kind of just enthusiastic engaged supporters of Donald Trump and his project. And then I think of Democrats.

I think of how few Democrats have any kind of basis support like that. I know AOC does. I know Bernie Sanders does. I know Barack Obama did. I know Mom, Don. Johnny is building that, right? But then I look at the leadership of the party. And I know there are people that support them. I know there are people that are frustrated by any kind of criticism of them. We hear about from them all the time. Right. But is there a sizable group of people that love and are ready to fight for Chuck Schumer and Akeem Jeffries and the leadership of the Democratic Party? No. No. And that's partially their fault. It's not all their fault. It's a collective failure to build a kind of collective story that gets people excited to be those kinds of messengers, which you need, especially online, in any kind of a shutdown. Even just even shy of. love them or support them, like have faith in them that they understand the moment. Because remember the last time we all got very mad at Chuck Schumer about this. He did like a, I think it was a New York Times interview with, um, and I think he sort of like was again doing that thing where they talked about how the fever was going to break among Republicans and you don't know what I say to my colleagues behind the scenes. And you hear that stuff and you just like, no man, I don't think that's going to

happen. And also to your risk averse point. I mean, I do think like you are sending a signal to the Democratic base when Zora and Mamdani wins the Democratic primary in New York for the mayoral race, and you will not endorse him. Why? Because your donors are telling you not to? What's happening here? What possible reason could there be for... Because we holding out hope for Andrew Cuomo. For Andrew Cuomo, right. And it's like, yeah, man, so you're right. There are reasons that are unfair that people don't have faith in them or aren't excited about them. And there's some reasons that are quite fair that people do not have faith that are not excited by the year. I think most of the reasons are quite fair. And by the way, with that, too, it's like, I don't even know that it's as logical as, oh, I'm hearing from my donors. I think it is a fear of some segment of the, of the people that elect him in New York, right? It's like a kind of an instinct against anyone who's outside of like a core Democratic center-left message that they just feel unsure about and are afraid of the consequences of getting mine.

We have talked before about how one of the big problems is that Democrats sometimes act like this is an emergency and Trump's dictators, you know, consolidating authoritarian power. And then sometimes it's like, everything's fine today and whatever. Dan just wrote a message box about this, I think, last week, which was like the dividing line is, and with Democrats is, do you believe we're an emergency or not? If they're all in for this, the one thing that's saying we're not going to fund this government because this is what he's doing. and, you know, he's placed an illegal tax on every American with a tariff. He's using our tax dollars to occupy our cities with our own military. He's using our tax dollars to create a secret police force that's rounding people up, right? And you could say that and be like, we're not funding, like basically what Murphy said,

and we're not doing this, and this is an emergency, and we're going to start acting, and we're going to not start, but we're going to act like it's an emergency, you know? and I could see that the challenge there is all 47 Senate Democrats and all however many in the House have to go along with that and every governor and you can't have some being like

yeah well now I want to know what you guys think about this one of these suggestions is and you can see the Democrats some Democratic strategist pollsters senators coalescing around this is all right let's shut it down but let's make the fight about

extending the ACA subsidies because health care is the best issue the best polling issue And if we have a fight about, yeah, the reason we're shutting the government down is because they're going to, if they get their way, everyone's premiums are going to go out. Now, for sure, great polling issue. I'm sure we're on the right side of that. Is that what do you guys think about that as the reason to shut down the government? I just think on the merits, we're doing a good thing for the American people on the political, hackish political view of it.

We're bailing him out. We're helping him avoid something bad that would happen that he probably would have gotten blamed for. Oh, you're saying, like, if we win on that, it's really, yeah, that's a good. Yeah, it has the feeling of, you know, we found our best testing message is we don't, Americans don't want troops in our streets. Americans want more affordable health care, right? And that line polls well. But haven't we, have we not like learned anything from a decade of losing while having the winning argument and the best message and the right policies and the winning polling story over and over and over and over again? Isn't there something missing here? And this one is kind of an edge More of an edge case because that's a great thing to fight for That's a great thing that we should fight for And it's actually something where we could win

In fact, if we do the shutdown I think that should be part of the message Of course. Of course. But should it be the only message? I worry about it too. I do. It just feels inauthentic. It feels fake. It just feels like you looked for something

That felt safe that everybody could get behind. I said this to someone this morning But I can see the end of this now. Chuck Schumer and Hakeem Jeffries declaring victory at a press conference for getting an 18-month extension on ACA subsidies that are smaller than they were before

and means tested while in the background ICE is just throwing more people into a van That sounds right Yeah that's and there's the troops too The troops are in the background too And they're like, we did it! There's a picture and Trump

and Trump posts AI of himself having a Schumer on a leash like the Gimp in Pulp Fiction But you know what? But you know what? Then we get the message testing out And everyone's like, boom, Democrats won on this one, guys. Republicans are now 30 points underwater on health care.

So march off to the midterms. It's bleak. It's bleak. Yes, it's popular. I get it. And you are right. It is the actual right thing to do for people to fight for ACA subsidies. But there's a lot of other risks out there.

And this government, if we think it's an illegal government and that's authoritarian takeover and all that stuff, then fucking act like it. We're not going to get credit from the people we need to get credit from. Like, yeah. I know. I know. It's tough. POTS of America is brought to you by ArmRA. Why are elite athletes, business moguls, and high performers using Armour Colostrum?

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offer for our audience. Receive 30% off your first subscription order. Go to armer.com slash cricket or enter cricket to get 30% off your first subscription order. That's A-R-M-R-A-D-com slash cricket. One thing we could shut the government down over, the Epstein files. Okay, good pivot. Because as we know, this is all a distraction from the Epstein files. On Monday, not long before we got into the studio, the House Oversight Committee Democrats said they'd gotten a hold. See, who said Democrats can't do anything?

They got a hold of the famed Epstein birthday book and other files from the Epstein estate. Shortly after that, they posted the image of FBI informant Donald Trump's now famous letter to Epstein with the figure of the naked woman drawn over it. Deputy White House Chief of Staff Taylor Budwich immediately tweeted that the signature shown in the letter isn't Trump's, even though it looks nearly identical to all the other times he signed personal notes

with just his first name. Separately, Epstein survivor Lisa Phillips told our what-a-day newsletter that the Epstein list that she and her fellow survivors are compiling will include 30 to 50 names of Epstein associates, though she stressed that in a bunch of cases, they don't know whether the people they're naming knew about the abuse going on or whether they were just billionaires who hung around a lot. What do you guys make of the infamous doodle and the chances that Trump can just make the scandal go away by saying that it's just a hoax, just fake, that's it. It's a gross doodle. It looks like an under, let's not called a woman. It looks like an underage girl. There's no

arms also. There's a debate about whether the signature is intended to be pubic hair or not. That's gross. The fact that we're having this conversation is gross. Also, I don't know if you guys saw this. The Wall Street Journal also now has a photo of some. someone holding up a poster board-sized check for $22,500, which has been mocked up to appear that it was sent from Trump to Epstein. Beneath it, there's a handwritten caption that says, Jeffrey showing early talents with money plus women sells fully depreciated name of a person that's been redacted to Donald Trump for $22,500.

So that was a funny joke. Mocked up check of Trump selling him a woman. I didn't see that one yet. I'm learning that from you now. It is disgusting. Yeah, they also, they also, the journal also compared to the handwriting, of course, to other letters that he signed. And it's all the same and all the fucking asshole MAGA influencers and media types and everyone on Fox probably now in the White House, they're all showing signatures of Donald Trump with his full first name and last name, which of course look different than letters that he signs with just his first name and say, we got him, we got him. This is so, this is so assinine that the idea that they're going to, that they're going to claim that the signature doesn't match in their ports of forgery.

So you're saying that the Wall Street Journal in cahoots with God knows who went into this giant scheme to pretend Donald Trump wrote the letter for a decade and a half. No, no, they're saying that 20 years ago, Donald Trump, that someone planted this in the birthday book thinking that maybe someday Donald Trump would become president and this would become a problem for him. And so this extraordinary act of sabotage, which has been going on for so long, that no one involved in this scheme had the wherewithal to go look up the way Donald Trump signs his name. in personal letters. Like, so they did everything except that last tiny little step. I do appreciate that the Wall Street Journal is really trolling Trump

by showing that the way he signed his name personally to Hillary Clinton, Epstein, and George Conway, which I fucking love. Beautifully done. Chef's Kiss. I'll tell you, what's on the media,

in the MAGA media front, though, what's happening here is the MAGA influencers for hire, the ones you can buy and sell, the Charlie Kirk's, the Benny Johnson's, they are going along with, this spin, right? The more extreme, the most extreme MAGA media people are not buying it.

The Candace Owens's, the Nick Fuentes's, they are saying, this is bullshit guys, this is crazy, they think you're stupid, you're idiots, and MAGA is over. Let's move on to the next thing. And that, there's going to be second and third order effects to that, too, because those, like, neo-Nazi, anti-Semitic voices are going to be seen as credible or more credible than the kind of even more mainstream mega types. Johnson before back back when Mike Johnson for a brief day decided to tell everyone that Donald Trump was actually an FBI informant on the on the whole Epstein affair before he sort of you know clean that up today Benny Johnson said you know what the the what Mike Johnson

said it's just proving that the real hero in this whole story is Donald Trump called him the undisputed hero in the Epstein saga thank you undisputed hero he's the undisputed hero we've all been saying it yeah he's what is it what is it what is it like to say something like that and then turn the computer off and go live a part of your day and they maybe lay down at night and stare up at the ceiling what is that like i hope that he at least turns to everyone like in his close circle and laughs and was like did you think they bought that like i hope that he's at least aware of it i think he's living a very inauthentic life in many ways unfortunately yeah yeah well that was a good one so i don't know i mean for for a while i was like

is the obscene thing going to go away but like we've got uh after the survivors press conference and after this, the birthday letter has come back and the oversight committee, Jim Comer has been like sort of going along with some of this. Like I don't know. I think he's... I also think

sometimes Republicans underestimate how much how much Democrats care about other Democrats because I feel like one of the looming threats is that they're going to like well they're going to bring in Bill Clinton and I don't think anyone gives a fuck. Nope. Do it. Right. They're going to like it's oh no you're not

not our precious billionaires like they're going to go after the people are going to go after like great if you were involved in fucking epstein shadiness fuck you If you were abusing children, yeah, go to jail. Who cares? Go to jail. And so I guess the threat is that they're going to be, like, going after Democrats, too, in these hearings. Because that's how they think about politics and polarization, right? It's our team. We must defend our team. And by the way, speaking of the Epstein list, one of the things, I don't know if you guys talked about this last week, but Thomas Massey talked about the list that Lisa Phillips and these survivors might generate

and saying that because they might be afraid to release it because they could be sued, that Massey and Marley-Taylor-Taylor-Green, both of whom we always liked. She spoke about that press conference, too. Yeah, could potentially just read the names on the House floor. they're protected. And Thomas Massey, he doesn't give a fuck. No, no. Well, you got a bunch of mega billionaires raising like, I think $2 million at this point for Super PACs to run against him. And he's like, I don't care. Whatever. Yeah, no, I do think there's an open question of how much attention will this get? Because Fox News is never going to touch it, right? The Benny Johnson's the world,

the Charlie Karks, they've all shown that they're now on Team Trump. They don't care what's said. I think there will be these fringe people that are out there talking about. There will also be like the comedian space. Like Tim Dillon, right? We'll be hammering this. He's kind of like a Trump friendly comedy kind of hard to pin down views guy i wonder if rogan will pick this up like hopefully a few of a few of them they'll be like the scales have fallen off my eyes donald trump is a liar he was absolutely 100% apart of whatever i've seen was doing we know this now can i just do one more thing before we move off this uh everyone on the internet is dunking on jd vance's tweet well deserved uh when the wall street journal first broke the story about the letter

of the birthday wish whatever you're fucking calling it he wrote forgive my language but this story is complete and utter bullshit the Wall Street Journal should be ashamed

for publishing it where is this letter would you be shocked to learn they never showed it before publishing it does anyone honestly believe

this sounds like Donald Trump it's so he's such a he's so fucking smug and condescending even when he is

so wrong all the time it's really also the like would you believe that we didn't show us the letter. Like, it's smoggin also just, he does play on, he just has so little respect for the people that support Donald Trump, right? Because no, a journalist doesn't provide you,

they, I'm sure they got a detailed readout of the letter, all the details you could ever need to comment, of course, but he's saying they didn't show us the letter. But then there's the part of it where it's so fucking stupid. Like, we talked, we did a video about this earlier, and it's like, do you not believe that the future will be as real as the past? Like, we're going to move forward through time, JD, and eventually this will come to pass that, of course, the Wall Street Journal owned by Rupert Murdoch is not making it up. He's learned from Trump

that you only have to get through the day, but he doesn't have Trump's skill at doing it. Correct. He's just not as skilled to fucking tell. He's a doof. I also, like, look, they are trying to sell him as the Naga era parent and that he will be the next up for the president, right? And there was all this

reporting early on, like, is he a uniquely influential vice president? He's going and giving these speeches, trolling all of Europe, and he's doing this, And now we know that Donald Trump does not respect him. They're like, you're going to be my human shield in the press on this Epstein thing. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I didn't do it. It's a fake fucking letter.

Yeah, go say whatever. Gets gunned down on Twitter all day today. Trump has no respect for him. He won't have him live for him. They didn't give a shit. You go do your long tweet threads to all of your former friends in the establishment that you used to hang out with. Give me 800 words like Curtis Jarvin. See if you can piss them off with your long tweets.

Good luck, J.D. have fun of Disneyland All right Let's talk about Democrats in the midterms I got on in the bathroom So badly I'm gonna die Oh wow

One or two Wow Two two two He says one everybody John and I are just gonna vamp And see how this goes Oh my gosh Oh

He just broke the Kamala whiskey Love it's broken The Kamala whiskey everyone Oh that's a bad Well it can't get worse Maybe it was number two I wonder if he'd been taking crazy He'd whip the door open to

a loud laugh down the hall we got to bedlam here at Crooked Media HQ Oh it's the fucking clock Oh love it broke a clock Oh love it broke the clock I'm assuming we're recording all this I'm going to release it later

Yeah yeah of course This is going in the episode Love it had to shit so bad that he He ran from the office Like I've never seen him run That fast ever 4.05 PM Shattered a clock

here. Shattered a clock in the studio. I suppose we could do the red zone part with Adam. He's not going to contribute to that. Yeah, that's true. Let's go. It's got two sections to go. You know, you got to go. You got to go. I do. We've all been there. I've been there for sure.

I have breaking news. We have a second JD Vance Epstein tweet has hit the timeline. The Democrats don't care about Epstein. They don't even care about his victims. That's why they were silent about it for years. The only thing they care about is concocting another fake scandal like Russiagate to smear President Trump with law. lies. No one is falling for this. P.S. That's J.D. Vance quote tweeting Caroline Levitt trying to pretend that the Wall Street Journal birthday card story was false. So rather than admit he is a

shameless liar, J.D. Vance is digging in. Lovett, how was your dump? So it was just a fantastic number one. Thank you, Tommy. I'm not ashamed of, listen, everybody poops. Sometimes you got to go. Everyone got to go. What I do? You smash the clock. You slammed it. You whipped open the door so hard. You've been lifting too many weights, man. Lay off the creed team. For two reasons. I just, I can't believe this was painted as a shit. There's no way to not offensively say I didn't take a shit just now. I hope it wasn't painted as a shit in the bathroom.

Do you remember when, uh, do you remember we got that all-cuff email that said, um, FYI, they've closed the men rooms because they have to jet clean the whole pump plumbing system. Mm-hmm. It's tough. That's tough. Should we do the rest of the show? Yeah, let's do it.

We're recording. All right, let's talk about Democrats in the midterms. Annie Carney at the Times had an interesting roundup of the blue-collar candidates running in some of the most competitive districts and how they're resonating with voters by talking about how much Republicans are screwing over working-class people like them. Right on cue, Michigan Senate candidate Mallory McMorrow got some social media buzz over the weekend with a video that railed about corporate greed, pegged to week one of the NFL season. Football is back. And seven hours of commercial-free football. Woffer, whopper, whopper.

is not. This is just the latest example of corporate greed ruining the things we love. Because it's not just commercials on TV. It's also your grocery store run. Or chicken wings are going to cost you $19. Do you think ad-supported NFL Red Zone is the new Cracker Barrel rebrand?

What do you think? I like it. I like that ad. Also, Graham Platner sent a candidate from Maine tweeted about Red Zone. For those I don't know, Red Zone is supposed to be seven hours of commercial free football. That is the promise of Red Zone.

Now, ESPN, they acquire the property, and they're jamming in what they claim will be a few minutes of commercials, but we should not believe them. But also, it's a station you pay for. Imagine if all of a sudden Game of Throne at commercials? I'm trying to... I mean, it's probably coming. The whole enterprise is failing. You pay for it. You pay for it and you get ads. You pay for a premium, and then all of a sudden get ads.

Red Zone is like not cheap. No, it's expensive. It's very expensive. And so I think her talking about Red Zone and making this anti-corporate message with it as the newsbag is really, really smart. it's yeah like I didn't understand that I was confused about the whole football thing because I saw oh no no more seven hours of football and I was like you people have been getting seven hours commercial free of football god what a society they've built for the people that like sports it's it's almost too much it's like it's too frenetic yeah yeah I think it was I think it was a good ad I think

that there's like I mean here's the thing it doesn't we're setting a low bar here with the Democratic candidates and Mallory McMorra has always been great at just speaking like a normal human. Our buddy Abdul who's also running that race. Also, all his stuff looks just like, it doesn't look as polished as your typical ad that drives you nuts because you've heard a million times before. He's doing a good job of that. A bunch of other, Graham Platner is doing a bunch of a good job of that. A lot of candidates running. I think the, it's been shorthanded as working class, but it's also just like being a normal human being, you know. And I think there's some Democratic candidates who maybe or not the choice of the DSEC or the D-Triple-C

who are maybe out of necessity, maybe out of just the fact that because they're normal human beings who haven't been in politics that long are figuring this out this time, so I think it's a great thing. Grand Platner sounds like the name a smore would take if it became a person and needed to come up with a name super quick.

Okay. I like the ad. I do like the ad. I sometimes think like when we're our bar is so low and we're so desperate for people just that sound like people. And then they do. And it sounds like a person like talking about something that might bother some people and like, okay, great. But then you think like, okay, corporate greed, that's the problem. And then I think, what is the Democrats view collectively? Like, what's our party's position on how we're going to take on corporate greed? And like I'm sure there's a bunch of like interesting policy proposals and and white papers out there. But like the other side of it to me is the like, I don't know, like, the like fighting the enemy and making more clear who the enemy is and what you're going to make. And what and what and why corporations need to be afraid of. of us. Yeah, I think that's fair. I think it's fair to say there's not like a clear white paper on sort of like how you deal with the oligarchy, right? But I do think more like what's

happening in the cycle is you've got this deliberate effort to run candidates who are mechanics or veterans or oyster farmers. And they just they look and they sound and they are working class people. And I just think like your average voter learns two minutes worth of information about someone before they vote for them. And if you look credible and like look like you will fight for them, and they believe it, they believe it from your bio, you're more likely to get their vote than like a lawyer or, you know, a rich guy. Yeah, you have a lot of lawyers. And, you know, I'm sure a lot of good, there are a lot of good lawyers out there. A lot of good lawyers are going to be good candidates, but we've got a lot of lawyers at their credit party. Yes. Too many. Also,

James Telerico, who I believe you interviewed, love it. That's right. Up and coming Texas State rep is expected to announce on Tuesday that he's jumping into the Senate primary. So it's him and Colin Alrad who was just here as well um what why do you what do you guys think is his theory of the case against a more established guy like Colin Alrod I have no idea I'm waiting to find out I really do I was like I think huh that's interesting got a taste of that got a taste of that national press going up there to Illinois once another hit yeah I'm not really sure either I mean like I think you know he did well in Rogan people were it was interesting to hear a democrat talk about faith in that way it felt sort of unique although you know we've heard Democrats do that before

just not in a little while, but I don't know. I mean, I think in some recent polling, it looks like maybe he's behind Allred, although it's not clear who did that polling, if it's credible, right? It was like 500 voters in Texas, which is a lot of people in it, so who knows? I think it's an interesting test case in, um, attentional strategy, which is like, like Texas is, you know, a huge fucking state to run statewide in. And, uh, you know, he, Con Allred has run statewide before. James Hilariko has not.

And so I'm sure his name ID is not quite as high. Now, he did Rogan, huge audience, he's getting national attention. So does the, can he get the attention necessary to run into state like Texas and get known in a state like Texas against someone like Allred who has already run once in Texas and who presumably has been running for a little while

and has a larger fundraising network? I don't know, it's gonna be interesting to see. Right, and the attention towards what end? Like, why are you, why are you so, all red's running why are you so why are you so uh pulled into the race what what needs does he not meet that you do like you know you can imagine him he'll try to run more of an an outsider uh strategy than all red and maybe like take on the i'm going to fight more take on the system more because all red is more um you know and this is true when he was in congress too is more of like a work with

the other side kind of guy um but we'll see we'll see we'll see all right before we get to to tommy's mikey charl interview we do have to talk about the trump cabinet secretary most likely to beat the ever living shit out of one of his colleagues of course talking about scott besant what a surprise yeah that that pink housed fairy is going to be the one of you're a homophobic is that why that's that's what you think that's why yes surprised yes we're we're a we're a sensitive guy it's a big guy okay i i would only be surprised because he's like 63 and an economist but a a cursory google search suggests that's a that Bessent is between 6-2 and 6-3. Big guy. And that Pulte is only 5-8, but also inexplicably 37, although he looks, if you told me he was 50, I would have believed it. Wait, I'm sorry. Like the fact that it was just fucking 37? Stephen Miller's, what, 38th birthday, too, was the other day?

Like, these people look so fucking old. That's just some ages you. Yeah. Also, the New York Post. Did you see they did a story of sort of a poll, informal poll of whiteout staffers to see who they'd want to win in a fight between the two of them? Oh, we should, I didn't even set up that was about Pulte. Sorry. I'm just saying people are listening and they, unless you read political playbook and everything Rachel Bade writes.

But anyway, so there's a story about Besson, nearly coming to blows with White House Chief Mortgage Fraud Investigator Bill Pulte at a dinner last week. Rachel Bade sets up the story in a way that will make you want to scream into a pillow. The Wednesday evening event was supposed to be one. We're talking about a fist of cups. Yeah. The Wednesday evening event was supposed to be one of celebration. It was both the much-anticipated inaugural dinner at executive branch

The ultra-exclusive Georgetown Club Created by and for Trump World's Uber Rich And a birthday party For MAGA-friendly podcaster Chimath Palapitaya It's the worst It's like the worst It's like the worst couple sentences

I've read in a long time Your punishment for being a part of this crowd Is hanging out with this crowd Oh, it's about that way What if that's your Russian doll night You know what I mean? It's fucking sucks Key party at executive branch

During cocktail hour Besant accused Pulte of badmouthing him to Trump He then told Pulte he was going to quote Punch him in his fucking face Then after the club's owner intervened Besant told Pulte He wanted to take things outside So he could quote

Fucking beat his ass Again fisticuffs Right yeah no Those kind of fisticuffs Anyway incredibly This isn't the first time that Besson has gotten in a fight with another administration official. If you guys remember, back in April,

Axios's Mark Caputo reported that Besson and Elon Musk got into a, quote, heated shouting match at the White House. I think we had more details that got even worse than that. Yeah, no, there was a shoving. Yeah. But I think it was Elon shoved Besson, and then that's when Elon had to leave. But Besson, and now maybe he made another threat where he said, I'm going to fucking beat your ass or whatever.

Sure. What do you guys think about this? Well, so the New York Post asked White House staffers who they'd want to win, Here's a quote from the story that I think was representative. The general consensus in the White House is that Scott would have beat that little midget's ass and everyone would have paid big money to watch it happen. One person close to the president's inner circle told me.

So apparently... Does that person work at Treasury? They are... I honestly sound like Steve Bannon. Another official said that Besson actually has a surprisingly big con. But he's not bragging about it. Just gives him a confidence. He's a grower, not a show.

I think Bannon's a palti guy. I don't know. I don't know either. It's a good question. The other thing, too, is this dinner, I was trying to think. The dinner took place at a table for, I think it said, 30, like, it was a very long, a very long table. And I was thinking about how to call this the night of the long tables. Yeah, you've been working, workshop on that one.

And I never cracked it. Since our night name call. Never cracked. And you know what? Since our name call. You only had a good seven hours. Well, I had to find out about what's going on with that. A lot of news

A lot of real news You get a soft lunch on a call with five people And then if it doesn't work there You just go for the full audience Yeah, that's right That's right I was good The I was going to say

Just in defense of Scott Bessence Being a gay guy That wants to fight people There are two paths for the gay boy And one of them is to become Soft and Meek and Hyde in theater Right

But there is the path of the tough gay guy Right Who's like I'll You know I'll take on any of you You know I'm Scott Besson, damn it?

Yeah, Bill Pulte. I think it's also possible. So the piece goes on. They've been fighting these two for quite a while now. It's over, you know, Bill Pulte when he's not, you know, investigating the president's enemies for mortgage fraud that his own family has committed as well. He is trying to, like, reorganize Fannie and Freddie, and he's the, you know, he's the federal housing guy.

And there's some, like, turf battles over this. And also he wants Jerome, he was the one who sent the letter to Trump. saying that he should fire Jerome Powell and drafted the letter for him. And Besson's like, that's fucking crazy. It's going to screw up the markets. Everyone's going to go nuts. And so they've fought about this before. I think that Bessent probably has learned how to really appeal to Trump, how to work Trump.

And the best way is to look like you're a fucking tough guy. And he knows, like, I'm gay cabinet secretary. And for Trump, I need to play against type and be as tough as possible. I wouldn't be surprised if Bessent was very happy leaking this whole story. It's a good point. It does make you wonder if third term. He's just slapping the shit out of people in the Oval Office. You don't get foreign Trump role by being sub-DOM, you know?

No, that's right. That's right. Fannie or Freddie. Maybe he's going to be at the UFC fight on the White House lawn that Trump's organizing. I saw someone. What's the undercard? He'll be the undercard. Oh, that's a good point.

He beat the shit out of Bill Pulte and the undercard. Do you guys remember when they were like a week or two of news cycles about Elon Musk threatening to fight Mark Zuckerberg? Remember when we did that? And they were like, in the Coliseum. Simpler times. Didn't Zuckerberg say yes? Yeah, he was really leaning into it

because he had been like doing karate training Yeah Thought it was cool And it is cool And it is cool And it is cool Yeah

Brown belt Some yellow belt Making statues of his wife On the lawn Well you know He does the karate And then everybody gets a little juice And a little

little crustless peanut butter and jelly And then back to coating And he dresses up His Benson Boone And sings to his wife Bring me my stylist I need another I need more street wear

Yeah That guy Yeah that he burns the the report on how meta's sex bots are targeting teens or whatever unbelievable you know what I'm really happy we transitioned the Bessent

fight into just shit on Mark Zuckerberg for a little while maybe Besson will go beat his ass you know you see the clip from last week where Trump's like Mark how much are you going to invest in the US and Zuckerberg is like what do you want me to say 600 billion then he's

What do you want me to say? He said the six hundred and then he said was that the number you want to say I don't know what number you want to say with that right number sure was that right number? It's like hot mic is so it's the worst This is it

This is our empire That's who's dining at the executive club With Chamath Chimoth Happy birthday Chimoth Yeah Want to make sure he had a great birthday What was the tweet about his penis

Chimoth remember that one You judge a lot about it You can judge a person by their friends Amen That's what I say Amen All right when we come back You'll hear Tommy's conversation

With Congresswoman Mikey Cheryl But her campaign for governor Again I'm sure right now She's thinking great choice Another seamless transit Did you ask you about the pizza like I asked you? I didn't know how to pivot to that because I'd never eaten it.

All right. I did ask her about filling up our own gas tank in New Jersey and why we can't do that. Because you can get hurt. Begant get hurt in New Jersey. One quick thing before we get to that interview. You guys have all heard us talking about how excited we are for CrookedCon in November.

Crookedcon.com. I can say it now. It's going to be a day to join some of the smartest organizers and least annoying politicians in America to strategize debate and commiserate about where we go from here. also be drinking. We'll be kicking off the event on Thursday, November 6th, with a live Pod Save America show at the Warner Theater. Then on Friday, November 7th, we'll be hosting a full

day of conversations, panels, workshops, and live pods at the wharf with all of our favorite National Guard members. Have you guys thought about that at all? I only thought about it when a couple of our, when I did an AMA on the Discord and a couple of people were like, are you guys, how are you guys feeling about the security there and doing it in D.C.? And I was like, I haven't really thought about that. It's going to be fine. Marketing's going to make us cut this, but the wharf turns into the largest-sized detention of the facility in the East Coast.

Cook-Con, once you enter, you cannot exit. Leave it in, Jordan. Anyway, the announcement that I'm supposed to be reading is that we're really excited to share the lineup of folks joining us. Who we'll be locked up with. Yeah, this is who you get to. Endless Q's a day. This is who you're going to Seacot with. Ready?

Hassan Piker. No surprise there. Fad Shakur. Sarah Longwell, Brian Tyler Cohen, Jessica Tarloff, Senator Ruben Gallego, Governor Andy Bashir,

Representative Sarah McBride, Representative Janelle Bynum, Ben Wickler, and lots more. It's exciting. Great group. More names to come. More names to come, guys. Very exciting.

We'll be there too, of course, along with Dan and Ben Rhodes, and Aaron and Alyssa from Hysteria, and we'll close out the day with strict scrutiny live. And by popular demand, we just added more tickets because you guys just kept buying the tickets

so fast. Now we're adding more tickets. it's especially with that lineup and who knows whoever's coming next you know it's funny that it's funny that just it's funny that just like a shout to our marketing team that uh puts hasan piker first on virtually every of course of course and i'm you know great he's like it's like the senators and governors the 2028 hopefuls they go at the end of the list yeah that's right we got hasan piker first anyway see the full lineup and buy your tickets before they sell out at Cricketcon.

Ah, you fucked up. Tommy, you want to try? Jesus. All right. You're out for one straight pulse. You're out. Cricketcon.com. That's right.

Cricketcon.com. That's right. Potsave America is brought to you by ZipRecruiter. Hiring. Boy, it's tough. A lot of resumes. Takes time. Takes time.

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Four out of five employers who post on ZipRecruiter get a quality candidate within the first day. And if you go to ZipRecruiter.com slash crooked right now, you can try it for free. Again, that ZipRecruiter.com slash crooked, ZipRecruiter is the smartest way to hire. Joining me today in studio is New Jersey gubernatorial candidate, Mikey Sherrill. Congressman, great to see you. Welcome to the pod. Yeah, well, this is fantastic. I'm a long-time listener first time.

Yeah, a person on the pod. Oh, no. The listeners can hold me accountable for all the wrong takes, all the bad language, all the things we get wrong here. Oh, I'm from New Jersey. I'm going to hold you so accountable for bad language. You're good with that. Well, we did just spend 10 minutes talking about potty training, so, you know, our headspace. right. I have a two-year-old who's doing potty training right now. So a lot of folks are watching the

New Jersey gubernatorial race because it's important, but it's also a bellwether. On the one hand, you know, the party out of power tends to do well in an off year or midterm elections. On the other hand, New Jersey Democrats have held the governor's seat for two terms. And Trump gained a lot of ground in 2024. Why do you think Trump's margins improve so much from 2020 to 2024? What does that say about the Democratic Party and what we were getting wrong? And how are you guys feeling about the state of your race? So I think we just see election after election after election being a change election. And I would say that's because voters want to be heard and they're not feeling heard in any way. And so I think the 10 point swing to the right in New Jersey is largely because

as people in New Jersey were saying, I can't afford anything. My costs are bad. inflation is bad, home prices are bad, groceries are expensive, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. The response from Democrats, in many cases, was largely the economy is good. We had a soft landing. Right. And I don't know what the flip of a soft landing is, but, you know, right? And so, yeah, and it's hard. Look, I have served this country almost my entire life like you.

I got into public service young. I was 18 when I went to the Naval Academy and then served. for almost 10 years. So I cared deeply about democracy. It's central to so much of what I do, but if I'm coming at you with democracy and you're coming at me with, I'm about to lose my house and I'm not sure how I'm feeding my kids, that's not going to go well. Right? And we, shame on us, really. Yeah, it was a little disconnected from the reality. Over the weekend, President Trump posted this image on social media. I'm sure you saw it. It was him as Colonel Kilgore from Apocalypse it's now. There's helicopters flying over Chicago. There's text that says,

Chicago about to find out why it's called Department of War. And I love the smell of deportations in the morning. Obviously, he posted this to get a reaction from Democrats, outraged liberals on social media, et cetera. But at the same time, like, I think threatening to wage war in an American city with the U.S. military is a big deal. What was your reaction to, like, Apocalypse Don in this post over the weekend? And how do you think Democrats should handle these threats to deploy the National Guard to U.S. cities in the name of fighting crime? Well, my first thought was that guy never served. And so good old Corporal Bonespurs should probably not be, you know, acting as if he's a tough guy when he had, I don't know how

many deferments. And I also agree with you, you know, as countries across the world are holding major meetings and symposiums without the United States and looking to work around the United States. And we're losing power daily. And so instead of making sure that we have a full-throated response to how we move forward on so many of the key issues, whether it's AI or energy prices or trade, instead he's looking to wage war on one of his own cities, that's really beyond the pale, but kind of par for the course on how destructive this administration is. And I think you're right. A lot of it is very dire, but a lot of it's also performative to sort of be saying, like, look over here. I'm going to put these troops on the streets. Don't pay attention to the

fact that my tariff program is driving up costs everywhere and that this bill I forced Congress to pass, and look, I'm not crying a river for Republicans in Congress who lacked courage, but force this bill through that is going to raise costs on everyone. Don't pay any attention that. So as I'm running, and it's really, as you sort of laid out, a kind of extraordinary race in New Jersey right now. This is the only race that's really been going on super competitively for almost a year now. We had a really competitive primary, and now we're into the competitive general. And I'll tell you what I think is, you know, what I can tell you from listening to thousands and thousands of people across New Jersey is people are really upset about the cost

of living. And they are upset now with Trump because he promised to drive costs down. We've already talked about why they're upset with Democrats. And so it's oddly the least partisan race I've run. I started running in 2018. So I usually go to diners and especially if I'm in a red area of the state, you know, I'll go of, oh, I'm Mikey Cheryl. I'm running for, you know, previously Congress now, governor. And people say, oh, I support Trump or I'm a Republican, kind of get away. Now they look at me and they say, how are you going to lower my cost? And I think it's because at this time, they're looking for leadership on the issues that are key to them. And I think this presents a real opportunity for Democrats right now.

So what you're saying is all you're hearing, despite all these kind of national stories and trends, are just cost to living, cost of living, cost of living. I mean, similar to the Mamdani race in New York, where the media narrative was kind of like acted as if he was, you know, trying to get elected prime minister of Israel. But it was really like he was focusing on housing costs, free bus, et cetera. You're sort of hearing the same sort of things. It's both. It's, you know, there's been a lot of people saying, oh, well, this bill that he passed that's

going to raise health care costs and energy. cost and higher education costs, etc. Are people really aware that that's coming? And A, yes, but B, it almost doesn't matter because these tariffs are hitting people hard. And so to give you a sense of that, because maybe some people, you know, you hear from economists, oh, this is about to happen. And you kind of think, well, it's happened months ago. What's going on? So what I always find interesting is if the economists are saying something, and then people on the ground are saying the same thing, if you have that connection. And so economists are saying, oh, this is about to hit in the holiday season. And now I'm going, you know, I was talking to a coffee store owner, this

guy Chuck who was telling me, look, I used to buy this huge burlap sack of coffee beans for $2.50. Now because, and this is sort of how he put it, because Trump got in some fight with that guy in Brazil, now I have to pay six feet. $50 to $7. I didn't change my prices because reprinting menus was expensive, reprinting the signs was expensive, but I think it's here to stay. So I just emailed all my customers and costs are going to go out. So just got to eat it. Yeah, and the fight with the guy in Brazil is over the Brazilian government wanting to prosecute someone who did his own January 6th and tried to stage a coup that included killing senior political leaders and a judge. So that's why we're tariffing,

Brazil. And just to add insult to injury, the only place we grow coffee beans is Hawaii, and that's not nearly enough for the market. So it's not as if there's some industry here that we're somehow protecting. It's, it's horrible that he's punishing the nation for that, and it's horrible that he's just raising costs on everyone at a time when they're already feeling the stress of it. Yeah, including healthcare premium sugar. to go up. The other thing we're seeing, though, is in addition to like these National Guard deployments and threats, we're seeing major ICE and CBP deployments to, especially cities and states run by Democrats. I know that the Department of Defense gave immigration agencies the

approval to use a New Jersey military base to detain between, I think, 1,000 to 3,000 migrants. I think it would make it the largest immigrant detention hub on the East Coast. And then Newark Mayor Ross Baraka was arrested outside a immigration detention facility back in May, I believe. What was your reaction to this growing ice presence in your state and DOD signing off on the use of military assets for immigration detention operations like that? So as I mentioned, I'm a Navy veteran. I now sit on the House Armed Services Committee. And I can tell you, I've been incredibly opposed to this for so many reasons, not the least of which is it's moving resources away from our troops to support a mission that we should not have

on our basis. And the military should not be involved in this night. Even, you know, I heard from one military member who said, I'm about to deploy. And I said to him, oh, I'm sorry because I know he has some young kids. He goes, I'm kind of relieved because I don't want to run concentration camps here at home. Right? I mean, that's horrible. And so we're seeing this push to really undermine a lot of the rules here. And it's really chilling to me, because as I mentioned with my background, I watched in Trump's first administration as he tried to again and again and again co-opt a private militia for himself. And he tried initially during the Black Lives Matter protest to utilize the U.S. military. Remember, and he was always calling generals my generals, as if they were, you know, solely serving

him, not the Constitution. And constantly trying to undermine the military. And I thought it was odd at the time because the worst time for his numbers was when he was attacking John McCain. I thought that was an odd thing to do. But in hindsight, I think he was again and again trying to undermine the prestige of the military because it was the one organization that people trusted and that stood against him. And so if you recall, the troops got all the way to Fort Belvoir, but they stayed out under pressure from General Millie, and I think Mark Esper was sucked up at the time, and really pushing back.

And so then he had troops all over the mall. all guarding the monuments. And we didn't know, they were in camis, but they had no insignia. They had masks on. It was during COVID. And they wouldn't say where they came from. They wouldn't answer any questions. And we think maybe DOC, Department of Corrections, but it was a little bit unclear. So again and again, trying to co-opt these militias. And then finally January 6th, his private militia. So he still had to leave office, I would say unwillingly, and then came back into office and one of the very first things he does is start to fire admirals and generals. He fired Siku Brown, who was the chairman of the Joint Chiefs. He fired Lisa Frank Ketty, who is the

chief of naval operations. When I said to Pete Higgseth, I think he did it because he was black and she was a woman. He didn't deny it. I think it's pretty clear. Very specifically. Very specifically. Seeky Brown filmed one video about being a black man in America after Black Glass Matter. And I think that led him to being fired. He fired the head of special ops. And part of the understanding was that that's because he suggested that women, if they could compete, should be able to be Navy SEALs. We've had multiple three-star admirals fired who are women and then others across the board who express anything. I've heard from DHS officials that there is a loyalty test. I've heard some people quitting because they aren't

taking, you know, they aren't going to do a loyalty to Trump instead of the Constitution. So again and again, And you see him trying to both weaken the U.S. military and then strengthen ice. And now we're putting more money into immigration enforcement than we are to the United States Marine Corps. And you're seeing the commercials. A lot of people around my way out in New Jersey see them on the football games. There's a lot of ICE recruiting commercials. And they're very aggressive. And so you're seeing him really try to have this.

I think it's really dangerous, which is why governors. need to really stand in the breach and demand accountability and understand who these people are on the streets. And that's why in Congress, I'm on legislation to make sure that you have to identify yourself, that you can't go around masked with no insignia, unmarked cars. And then on the streets, I think the courts are where some of the battle is. But you also have to be very careful with your own state police force. So I was talking to someone who said, he was a former police officer, He said he was just chatting with one of his friends, who's currently a police officer, who spoke to an ICE agent. The guy came up to him and demanded something.

He goes, show me a badge. I don't know who you are. And he goes, I don't have to show you who I am. I'm with ice. And he said, yeah, you do. And he goes, well, I'm taking you to jail. And the guy goes, well, I'm taking you to jail. And we'll sort it out there.

But, I mean, this is the kind of lawlessness that's going on. And it really, and a lot of our police officers are coming forward saying, this is making. our streets less safe. Yeah. And this is not our mission. That's tough in Jersey. You have to watch a Jets game and see an ICE ad. That's like a double whammy.

You know what I mean? Sorry, I look at the issues. All right. This interview is over. My team sucks. Another issue I saw in New Jersey is last week because there's another Meitzel's case popped up in New Jersey. I think it brings the states total to 10 this year.

This is happening as the HHS secretary, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. He's gutting the CDC. Florida, I think, is doing away with all vaccine mandates. I don't know if you saw this interview, the Florida health administrator, whatever his name was, did with Jake Tapper over the weekend on CNN. But it was clearly they had done absolutely no research or modeling about the impact of these changes before they put them in place. How worried are you about a potential measles outbreak in New Jersey? And as governor, how would you manage this erosion of trust we've seen in public health since COVID, basically? I'm incredibly concerned, not the least of which, because I have four.

kids and I'm a mom, but also because New Jersey is the most densely populated state in the nation, because we're about to go into the winter months where all of the diseases become much more transmitted because of being indoors. And so it is a really dangerous scenario, especially for our state, really unique in the country, our state with winter and a densely populate, you know, a dense population, a very international population. We have the airport. We have 95 going through. I mean, we have train stations. We have everyone in and out. And so without vaccines, our state could become very dangerous, especially for kids and for seniors. And so when you look back at the numbers of kids who died of what are now preventable diseases

before vaccination, she'll look at two, three million kids. When you look at the babies who've already died from whooping cough, which totally, if you have hurt immunity, preventable. Like, babies can't get the vaccine, which is why we make sure others have it to protect them. So across the country, we are seeing this threat coming back. I mean, you know, I'm almost just waiting to hear about cases here of polio and stuff because of this movement going on and this surge in listening. to RFK Jr. who seems to get a lot of his information, and I wish this was just a snarky comment, but I think this is true on TikTok and with influencers online. I was talking to one

doctor who said, he was saying all this weird mitochondria stuff, and she's like, what the heck is this? I don't even think he knows what mitochondria is. They were showing some mitochondria damage on their faces. Of course, we've all spotted that in a while We've all noticed. We've noticed. So I just, to think that that's the person then who's not just the head of HHS, but actually making these huge decisions that could impact the nation, which is why governors, again, are so important. Because actually, there are coalitions now. And in the Northeast, we have some of the best research and development into health and medicine. And so working in the Northeast, you know, New Jersey's been called the medicine chest of the world.

So really working as governor to make sure that we're still putting out credible information, that we're still getting vaccines to people, still manufacturing those vaccines, is something that I'm going to work with other governors in the Northeast like Mara Healy, who's doing just that right now, to make sure that citizens in New Jersey are safe. As you see, I mean, just real nitwits across the country. making decisions based off of zero information or, at best, something they saw online. Yeah, the Instagram comments. Yeah, I don't know if, look, I have a one-year-old and two-year-old. When I see reports of like a measles outbreak, I start to think to myself, do I have to move up my own kids' vaccine schedule, right?

Like, these are the conversations we're having in our own houses is terrifying. Well, there's breakthrough cases. So, you know, you want to get to 95 plus percent vaccines, I think, for herd immunity. if I remember correctly, I am not a doctor, so I don't, you know, I use medical experts to discuss these things with. But I think it's north of 95% for herd immunity so that you don't, you know, so that you can keep people safe because even with vaccines, you have some breakthrough cases and stuff like that, putting everyone in danger, which is why we traditionally have demanded. If you're going into schools with little kids, you have vaccines so everyone doesn't get sick and die.

And I don't think that's too much for the community to demand that your kids safe going to school. Did you watch his hearing in the Senate last week? I did not. In addition to just the horrible words coming out of his mouth, he was wheezing in this very unhealthy seeming way. He had a very like Jersey Shore vibe like Snooky J-Wow, like the super intense spray tan and juice head.

Take a look. There's some good clips on Twitter. You'll enjoy it. Another Jersey question. Alina Haba, Trump's former personal attorney, she was briefly appointed to the acting U.S. attorney in New Jersey before a judge ruled her appointment unlawful. You were a federal prosecutor. What did you make of that mess and what it, like, what impact it could have on the integrity of federal prosecutions in your state? That's my old office.

And I have to tell you, I worked there for several years. I knew a lot of the different lawyers and the head of the public corruption office who I'd worked with, Quite a few years, you know, we'd eat lunch together occasionally or I'd seem out. The minute I started running for office would not even talk to me. Just out of fear that there was an association? No, because he prosecuted public officials. And so he was like, look, I don't want impropriety. I don't want the appearance of impropriety.

I don't want anyone to think that I have some relationship with you and that that is impairing my judgment. I mean, that is what a high ethical standard he held. Right. Like I would walk into a room at some U.S. Attorney Gathering, and he would walk out of the room or he would like see me and start you know marching the other way um but that's kind of the level of of integrity that that many people in that office demanded of themselves and certainly others and so to think now that not only is that certainly not happening but she says that she is going to use the office to turn new jersey red i think was the comment that she is actually

blatantly political she has she has now said she's going to prosecute the governor the attorney General of New Jersey. She's prosecuting a sitting member of Congress who was doing her oversight duty. She actually had the mayor arrested and said she was going to charge him until the tapes came out, which she had, and showed that he was innocent. And so she couldn't. So then she went after the Congresswoman. And at every turn, she's making these threats. And it's, you know, it's a very Trumpian move. He was in Atlantic City going bankrupt all the time and leaving everyone holding the bag and threatening court cases and stuff because it's very expensive to go to court and hire lawyers. So it's not as if, oh, you're just innocent. So you go to court and you're like,

I'm innocent. So leave me alone. And you're like, okay. No, it's tons of money to hire lawyers and to do this. And then you're living under this, especially in these times when you don't think things are fair. So several defendants have brought cases saying, look, you can't even prosecute me because she's not even there legally. So that's going through the court system. But it is, It is, again, I think this total co-opting of power at every level as quickly as possible that Trump's trying to do and taking all these levers of power to quell dissent, to punish anyone who speaks out against this, and find any means you can to shut down any ability to create a different path forward. Yeah. I'm kind of waiting on Bob Menendez to go full Rob Blagojevich and kind of go for that pardon. you think we should we I think he's already made suggestions you know like you said stuff like Trump is right yes so yes yeah no no gold bars in your closet house anywhere oh god no okay

we can't even keep water after Superstorm Sandy like we had like these things of water and my kids just drink them all so yeah gold bars would be really beyond us speaking of corruption do you agree with President Trump that we should reopen the bridge gate investigation into Chris Christie he tweeted this the other day No, we've already had that investigation. I mean, we've, you know, it's, I, I, I, I deeply believe in investigations into wrongdoing, but to use investigations, to go after people that you don't like or that have said things you don't like is really, really troubling to me. And to, to use the criminal justice system like that, I think is, again, a way. that you quell dissent. And in these times, it's really dangerous. Yeah, basically, I think he was mad about an ABC news interview.

Christy did in this case. Was that? Which one? Trump was mad. He was tweeting about John Carl's bad haircut and something Chris Christie said. And then he said, let's reopen the investigation. So it wasn't the CDC stuff or something different? I don't even know what it was anymore.

It was just Trump watching TV and tweeting. Like we do at like the NFL games, he just sort of foils away. So you were a helicopter pilot, right, in the U.S. Navy. Was it the H3C King? Yes, yes, it was. Okay. Some helicopter questions. Is it harder to learn to fly a helicopter than to fly a plane?

First question. Depends on the weather conditions. Helicopters are, I think, much more susceptible to high winds and changes in humidity and it changes the power dynamics of it. What's the like timeline for like getting, learning the process for getting approved to fly on your own? Now you're testing my memory. So everybody in the Navy, not in the Army, but everyone in the Navy learns to fly fixed wing. And so you go through pre-flight school and then you go through flight school primary.

I think that takes about six months. And then you go through helicopter school, which is maybe another four to six months. And then you go off into the replacement air group, the reg, and your squadron. And you do that for that's a lot shorter. And then you kind of go right into your squadron. And my reg was kind of co-located with the squadron. So it's like a couple of year process? Yeah, yeah.

You could probably speed it up if you were churning people out a lot more quickly. But at the time I did it, it was probably about one and a half, two years. Okay. That's less than I would have thought. So if I were sitting in a sea king at the sticks, right? There's a meteor coming at Los Angeles. Could you talk me through how to get that thing off the ground or am I just, am I dead? Oh, if it was running, I could get it off the ground.

Really? Yeah. You should like press this button, do that. Well, there's a checklist. So we'd get all the, we'd have to get all the circuit breakers in the right place and stuff like that. But flying it itself, like lifting up and flying it. It looks really hard. I've seen my primary experience.

If you were doing it, I would be right. the controls to protect my own safety here, but yes, but I could. Because we used to watch the Navy men and women like take off and land on the South Lawn. And that was just some high-stakes shit, I guess, because you're like coming in on the South Lawn and you're turning and you're doing it in front of the President of the United States and all these assembled people. And it just looked. It was very cool. Yeah. And that was the helicopter I flew.

Oh, really? So Marine One is the H-3. Okay. Yeah. So that's the model. And they were always stealing our parts. Why? Stuff would break. It was, yeah, well, because it was the, it was an older helicopter, so there weren't as many parts through the supply chain.

And so they had the top priorities, you can imagine. So we were constantly, you know, getting parts grabbed from the supply chain. Is that like a jet engine? It's so loud. Yeah. Because Donald Trump likes to do his press avails in front of the helicopter while it's on. I'm sure you've noticed this. And it's like insanely loud. It's insanely loud.

So it's, but it's a great, great helicopter. and one of my favorite things about it is it has a boat hole. So when you're in the military, you have to, if you're flying over water, which if you're in the Navy, you're flying over water. So you have to go through the helicopter dunker, which is this like total torture hazing situation where you strap yourself into this thing, get blindfolded by the fourth round, get dropped into a tank of water, flipped upside down, and then you have to swim out. Yes. And I mean, I've been a swimmer my entire life, but it is just. I hated it. I hated it. I did. So then after that traumatic experience, I never wanted to go down over water in a helicopter, as you can imagine. No one does. But at least I always took comfort in the fact that my

helicopter had a boathole. So you could actually land on the water. Oh, would it float? Yeah. Yeah. That's cool. Yeah, I thought so. I was really pleased. It's good to know. Last question for you. If you're elected governor, will I be able to pump my own gas in the state of New Jersey? Or is that just going to still be a thing you guys do. That is really, you know, that is, that is a fight right now going on. But that is something that is beloved by New Jerseyans. Why? Well, because if you have like four kids and they're all having a huge fight and you just need gas really quickly and you don't want to get out of the car because you don't know what's going to happen, you just like to pull up and be like gas and you can just be in the piece of your car, you know, with the doors and windows closed.

yelling at your kids. What if you desperately need to escape your kids for just 30 seconds? Then you might want to pump your own gas. Yeah, you might want to cross the line. We just tried to Pennsylvania. Yeah, exactly. Okay. Congressman Mikey Cheryl, thank you so much for being here. I appreciate it and good luck in your race. And how can people help you out if they want to get involved? Thank you for asking. I was told by my team I could not come home. I could hear them sighing behind me. Please go to www.machiecheryl.com slash volunteer. We can use all the support we can get this is a huge race, and it is one of only two statewide races going on in the nation right now, New Jersey and Virginia. I think this will set the table for all of next year's races

as I think we really develop the engagement that we need to see on the ground. Right now, it's been hard. People are feeling exhausted. If we build events, they'll come, but we have to build them, and that takes a lot of money and people on the ground and efforts. So please donate, please come knock on doors or get involved on the phones and the texting. So thanks so much. It's a big race, very, very important, not just for the people in New Jersey, but also to send a message that we're still in this. Democrats, we're fighting. We're trying. And we can win in the midterms as well. So please get involved if you can. I really, really appreciate it. Thanks so much. Thank you for being here. Thanks. That's our show for today. Dan and I will be back with the new show on Friday. Talk to everybody then. If you want to listen to Pod Save America, ad-free, and get access to exclusive podcasts, go to cricket.com slash friends to subscribe on Supercast, Substack, YouTube, or Apple Podcasts.

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