Pod Save America - Trump's Justices Turn On Him

Episode Date: April 22, 2025

The Supreme Court hits pause on Alien Enemies Act deportations—for now—and some MAGA diehards advocate for Trump to simply ignore the court. Pete Hegseth stars in the Signalgate sequel, reportedly using his personal phone to share top secret information with his wife, brother, and lawyer—with more bombshell reports to come, according to a former Pentagon spokesman. Jon, Lovett, and Tommy discuss the latest on Trump's deportation agenda, whether Hegseth's days as Defense Secretary are numbered, the accidental email that reportedly set off the Trump administration's war with Harvard, and the untimely passing of Pope Francis. Strict Scrutiny's Leah Litman joins Lovett to break down the Supreme Court's emergency order and the administration's efforts to evade the rule of law.

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Welcome to Pod Save America I'm Jon Favreau. I'm Jon Lovett. I'm Tommy Vitor. On today's show, we're going to cover the Supreme Court's stopping Alien Enemy Act deportations for now and bring in strict scrutiny's Leah Lippmann to tell us what it all means. We'll also talk about Pete Hegseth's second signal chat scandal and the mutiny against him from within the Pentagon, how the White House started its war with Harvard by mistake, and the passing of Pope Francis who held on just long enough to dunk on JD Vance. But let's start with the biggest news from the

weekend which is that the Supreme Court has inched even closer to a full-blown confrontation with the Trump administration over their use of the Alien Enemies Act to deprive people of any due process before disappearing them to prison in El Salvador. The court issued a highly unusual emergency ruling in the middle of the night that specifically ordered the administration to halt their plans to deport a group of Venezuelans,

at least temporarily. Only justices Thomas and Alito dissented. In just a bit, you're gonna hear Lovett's quick interview with our pal, Leah Lippman from Strict Scrutiny about what the ruling means and what's next. Before we get to that, the three of us haven't had a chance to talk since Maryland Senator Chris Van Hollen

returned from El Salvador after his last minute surprise meeting with Kilmire Obrego Garcia, who had been transferred out of Seacat to a new prison. Bukele and the Trump White House, of course, attacked Van Hollen for meeting with Obrego Garcia. Salvadoran officials even placed two fake margaritas in front of them to make it seem like everyone's having

a good time down there. When Van Hollen returned home. Two margaritas, I'm gonna open the jail, all right. Huh? You got one laugh and a lot of stunned faces. I don't know that song. It's okay. I thought we'd go with like a wasting away in Margaritaville.

No? Nope. No? Okay. When Van Hollen returned home, he did all the Sunday shows. Here he is patiently answering questions from Fox News anchor, Shannon Bream, that might've caused me to burst a blood vessel. Did you ask him if he has any association with MS-13? I didn't ask him directly

because he's answered that question repeatedly as his lawyers have. My purpose in going there was to number one See if he was alive see if he was healthy take his story Do you worry though that you are sticking your neck out for somebody who maybe down the line is proven to be connected to? Ms. 13. I want to be very clear. I'm not vouching for the man I'm vouching for the man's rights. Who did pay for this trip? This was an officially cleared congressional trip.

So taxpayer dollars. Yes, like every other trip. Like the trip Kristi Noem took with her fashion show before CICOT. Nice. Also two Republican congressmen now? We paid for Kilmar Obrego Garcia's trip too. Yeah, $6 million a year.

And lodging, so shut up. So shut up. It was really hard to watch the whole interview. Very frustrating. Chris Van Hollen, patience of a saint there. He's doing a good job. You guys have reactions to the meeting and the aftermath. The Trump folks seem to think this is a winning issue for them and that people will believe

that the story is about Democrats trying to bring an MS-13 foreign terrorist back home. I think Van Hollen did a good job of making it about bigger principles. Like, he did exactly what I want Democrats to do in this moment, which is he stepped up, he flew down to El Salvador, he took personal political risk,

knowing Bukele would try to humiliate him, which he did with this, it wasn't even a good margarita stunt, it was like a cherry or something. No one's drinking margaritas with cherries. What are you doing, dude? Yeah, it was in a water glass. It was strange.

It was foolish. And then he knew, obviously, that Republicans would attack him as a fan of gang members. And sure enough, the White House photoshopped a photo of Van Hollen with gang tattoos all over his face and stuff. So it was just childish nonsense. But Van Hollen used what little leverage he had

as US Senator to get the only results we've seen outside of a courtroom, which was to get access to Ibrigo Garcia. And I also think, you know, he's someone who's shown a lot of courage on a bunch of issues lately on Gaza, a whole bunch of other, a host of other things. And I think that's what we want from someone like him

in a safe seat like Maryland to do, like put your neck out there. You guys have any thoughts on like why Bukele allowed the visit last minute? These are all educated guesses because we don't know for sure, but. There was a not at all veiled threat that not allowing that access

was a violation of international law and could lead to cuts to future US assistance, right? Except it would have to be cuts to future US assistance under a different regime I was surprised that he got the meeting because it's like he's bending to pressure Ben Holland Was staying to try to get the meeting It all feels very like I think even the margaritas point to Trump and Buckeye are doing this on the fly and figuring out what they're doing on the fly. What is the message that putting like two margar,

like it's so fucking stupid. But the whole point of CICOT is that it's a fucking hell hole that you brag about. The reason Kristi Noem and these Congress, members of Congress took tourist photos in front of these prisoners is to send a message about how fucking terrible it is. So what exactly is the point of the margaritas?

It's not terrible, he's actually on a vacation down there. I thought that's the opposite. The opposite. The troll, that's the point. He likes to troll the left. He's on Twitter all the time. He's super online. So he's saying, oh, you're calling me a despid

and a dictator and that we're torturing this man. Here he is having a margarita. Yeah, he has risen. He made some jokes. And here he is enjoying a margarita. His Twitter bio used to say, world's coolest dictator. Like he just loved to be a troll like this. Right, so then the meeting is a troll showing that he's fine.

That's why the margaritas are there. You know what? It doesn't need to make sense. Yeah, you can't think about it too much. Well, that's my point, like why did he get the meeting? It's just like all of right wing politics right now. Right, it's just, it's just fascist jazz and they were just, they thought,

oh, let's give him the meeting, we'll make a joke at it. We'll show that he's fine, we'll turn it to our advantage. Yeah, that's bukele. And then I think the Trump White House is just like, they're going all in on the message. Democrats love MS-13. No other facts can penetrate this message. The idea that we just want people to have due process,

that the Trump administration already admitted in court multiple times that they made an error. They haven't given any justification for why we're jailing people in a foreign prison, perhaps for the rest of their lives. None of that matters at all. Also they can't, I mean, we'll get to it, but they also just have to either did like kind of

quickly glide over or outright ignore the fact that these aren't just Democrats expressing these concerns. It's Reagan appointees, it's three Trump appointees to the Supreme Court. Yeah. And also just, I wanna point out that another story that was I think broke late last week. So Trump invoking the Alien Enemies Act requires him to claim that Trendy Aragua is invading the US at the behest of the Maduro regime in Venezuela.

Most legal experts believe like that kind of linkage is necessary for a Alien Enemies Act declaration. Both the New York Times and the Washington Post reported that the National Intelligence Council, which is like the board that brings together the consensus opinion of the 18 component intelligence agencies, have determined that the Venezuelan government does not, they're not directing Tren de Iruagua, they're not directing an invasion of the United States. So that undercuts Trump's public statements and the already shaky legal basis for the entire Alien Enemies Act invocation.

Yeah, and a reminder, the Supreme Court has not ruled on the constitutionality of Trump invoking the Alien Enemies Act, so that could come back to bite them in the ass. And again, there's no legal justification and nothing in the Alien Enemies Act that says you're not just able to deport people under the Alien Enemies Act, you're able to send them to a foreign prison and pay a foreign country to jail them. There's no justification for that anywhere. As a judge in the appeals court noted, Nazis were treated better under the Alien Enemies Act. But just your question on the politics, because right, Democrats are supposed to be doing some kind of cost of living week or something to that effect.

It's cost of living action week. Cost of living action, no, cost. Action, cost of, we're doing, we're taking all the, I'm not sure what it is. Sounds like it's a cola plan. Now, dear listener, you won't know this existed, because you didn't get the briefing on all the news that you get when you work on Pod Save America

because it's not gonna break through because this is what the news is. And I was thinking about our conversation with Sarah McBride and the way in which Democrats have kind of allowed themselves or boxed themselves in on immigration over the years to the point where you're not supposed to be talking about due process, but also you're not supposed to be talking about

border security, right? All of these were unacceptable as the bounds of what we were allowed to discuss got smaller and smaller. And there's this sort of consultant-driven, poll-driven, best-sentence message testing idea that what you really need to be doing is figuring out the message that works with the broadest group of people, but also you should be using that message all the time. So you need to be trying to win everybody over a little bit all the time, which in an environment like this means for the most part, winning nobody over all the time. Even issue like this, a lot of people may not be following it closely. It probably isn't the most

important issue for the vast majority of people that voted in the presidential election. Maybe more people who voted in the midterm might care about this. But there are millions of people that are highly engaged that do care about this a lot. If you're just being cynical, if you're just being crass, you can spend every day talking about the economy in the hopes of persuading everybody a little bit inch by inch until the midterms, I guess, even though we have no idea what the contours of that debate will look like two years from now. And I'm sure in October of next year,

we'll be talking about the economy constantly, the who knows what the main debate will be about. But right now, this is the most important way we can respond to the Trump administration. And there are millions of people who want to believe Democrats are credible agents on their behalf. And you have an opportunity to build that credibility with people that are desperate

for people to show some leadership, to show that they understand and really mean it when they say Trump is a threat to democracy. And so, yes, I get that there are, you know, you guys talked about it Friday, Newsom saying it's a distraction and there are people that think we should only be focused on tariffs in the economy. But right now you can build a lot of trust with a group of people that will be your most important messengers a year from now.

And just on cynical terms, I think that that's worth it. Well, I mean, this is not a politically unpopular but courageous and morally right thing to do. It's also politically popular. Like all the polling that's coming out so far unpopular but courageous and morally right thing to do is also politically popular. All the polling that's coming out so far is very clear that most people think we should not send people to a foreign prison without a trial. I have not seen a single poll yet that has argued otherwise.

There are some polls that people are saying, oh, well, Trump's overall favorability on immigration is still the strongest issue. Yes, when you just scratch one inch beneath that surface, all the polling says otherwise. Yeah, I think that's true, but look. But I'm saying that's important because that's why these consultants, the consultant brain is especially dumb on this one.

It's like trying to figure out why Bukele put the margaritas on the table. Yeah, I think like the fair, the more generous argument is to say, sure, sure, but over time, you're creating the impression that you're soft. I don't agree with this. I'm just saying over time, if Democrats pick this fight,

what is your memory of this fight? It is not Democrats fighting for border security or fighting to lower costs. It's Democrats fighting for a more generous immigration system and fighting for an undocumented or a legal immigrant who applied for asylum, what have you. I don't agree with that argument, but we're making this salient for people.

And I think that is still worth doing because I think years of trying to build a little bit of credibility with everyone all the time has left us with a lack of credibility with just about everyone. So apparently the list of MS-13 Trendy Aragwa enthusiasts has grown to now include John Roberts, Brett Kavanaugh, Amy Coney Barrett, Neil Gorsuch, who joined the liberal justices in a late-night emergency

ruling over the weekend that blocked the deportation of a group of Venezuelans in North Texas under the Alien Enemies Act. The court ruled so quickly that the lower courts hadn't yet ruled, the Justice Department hadn't yet responded to the challenge, and Sam Alito hadn't yet finished his dissent, which is very rare that the court releases an opinion without the dissent, if the dissent is still being written. Were you guys surprised these geezers work so late? I was.

I assume they're alerted, but then their clerks do most of the work? Yeah, I think it was the... It's a good question for our Stricts Green panel. Yeah, we talked about what it meant that Alito's a good question for our strict screen. Yeah, ask Leah next time. Yeah, we talked about why, what it meant that Alito's hadn't yet dotted his T's and crossed his eyes when it went out with Leah. Well, the important point here is that the government

claimed or tried to claim that it didn't have any imminent plans to deport the immigrants and the courts ruling when it came, as fast as it came, showed that clearly they do not believe them. At least seven justices did not, were not willing to trust the government and take their word for it. Wild stuff and also a bit complicated, so love it.

Talk to Leah about this ruling and Judge Boesberg's contempt finding. Here's the interview with Leah. Joining us now, professor of law at the University of Michigan, co-host of Strict Scrutiny, Zingerman's Delia Ficcianato, and the author of the upcoming book, Lawless, How the Supreme Court Runs on Conservative Grievance, Fringe Theories, and Bad Vibes, available for pre-order now, out May 13th. Leah Libman, welcome back. Thanks for having me. I want to just say, Leah, that I am at an advantage

because I've already read the book. So you know everything. I have been prepared. Why even have me on? I have been prepared. Well, you know, a book can do many things, but it can't keep up with the daily news cycle. But it does prepare you for this moment. So I really do urge everyone listening to this

to pause this podcast and put in a pre-order. Let's get this thing on the bestseller list. That's one thing we can do. Thanks, Comet. To fight back against the freaks. It will make Sam Alito very mad if this makes a bestseller list. And he keeps up with his Google alerts.

Oh yeah, he hates read the internet. So a lot of developments over the last few days. There was an extraordinary ruling by Judge Harvey Wilkinson in the Abrego Garcia case on Thursday. On Friday, an appeals court paused Judge James Boasberg's plan to begin contempt proceedings against the Trump administration over their failure to turn around deportation flights to El Salvador.

And then on Saturday, in a 7-2 ruling, the Supreme Court temporarily blocked the deportations of any Venezuelans held in northern Texas under the Alien Enemies Act. Judge Samuel Alito issued a pissy little dissent to which Justice Clarence Thomas joined. Let's take each piece of this. First of all, what is the status of the Boasberg contempt proceedings? That is on hold because the two to one DC circuit panel, two Trump appointees in the majority, paused the contempt order, which basically prevents Judge Boasberg

from moving forward. And he had asked the government to submit declarations or to purge their contempt by bringing back everyone from the El Salvadoran prison that the government had wrongfully sent there. So that is just on hold until further action by the DC circuit. Is that a, like, there are so many strange and extraordinary things happening. How, on the list of, obviously it's not high on our list because of what else is happening, but

this is a strange order, right? Because Boasberg didn't hold anybody in contempt. He was just beginning the process to try to gather information. It is, as we say on strict scrutiny, just total fuck shit, right? Like you are not ordinarily supposed to be able to appeal a ruling that does nothing, that is not final, that leaves additional things to be determined. And Judge Boasberg, as you note, didn't hold anyone in contempt, and he held out the possibility that he would never hold anyone in contempt so long as the government returned people from El Salvador. So I don't know what the F, the DC Circuit panel thought that they were pausing, but obviously the prospect of holding the Trump administration accountable under the law was just too galling for them to note, and they had to take a pause over that one. So as you've noted on Strict, Trump has a lot of power here.

First of all, Boasberg might one way in the past, a judge might try to enforce contempt is by referring it to the Department of Justice that's run by a Trump stooge. Boasberg can actually appoint a prosecutor himself, right? But even then the president would have pardon power power so could shut it down at any moment. This is, look, we're far from here, but it is a question that I had. When Trump pardoned Joe Arpaio, the contempt was concluded, right? If the administration takes no steps to right this wrong of these deportations that Judge Boesberg ordered stopped before

they had even reached El Salvador and Trump pardons anyone connected to it, the crime would be ongoing. It would be a pardon of a bank robber while they're inside of the vaults. So presumably contempt would just begin again because the president, though the pardon power is incredible, can't pardon people in the future. That's true, although the president can issue a preemptive pardon, you know, here before any criminal prosecution would begin. And it's possible and I think even likely that in the event the president did that, I don't really see the federal courts then trying to go back

and say, well, even though he basically pardoned the offense up until this state, that offense has continued. I think there would be difficult questions about whether it is indeed a new offense. And my guess is the federal court would probably stand down in that situation. So let's talk about what the courts are willing to do. Is there a reason to have some tiny kernel of relief, if not hope hope that seven members of the court, including three justices appointed by President Trump, stepped in to halt deportations

under the Alien Enemies Act? Short answer, yes. You know, I think at minimum it evinces a sense that the seven justices in the majority aren't willing to take the Trump administration at their word because, of course, the Trump administration was saying, well, we're giving these guys reasonable time and reasonable notice to file their challenges

when obviously they weren't. And the administration has basically been thumbing their nose at the Supreme Court's directive and Judge Sinise's order to bring back Mr. Abrego Garcia. And so I think the Supreme Court looked at all of that and realized, look, the prospect of the government shunting these people off to El Salvador and then never bringing them back is so real

and the harm is so profound. We need to order a halt until we figure out what is going on and whether the administration is indeed providing the individuals with the notice that we said was required in our previous decision. So you're reading into what would have driven the order, but the order doesn't, it's not detailed. We actually, we got more information in Alito's dissent than we got in the order.

But is there any other way to read this than as the seven justices looking at their previous ruling requiring reasonable time and being concerned that it's not being followed? No, one is that's basically the point in Justice Alito's dissent. He says, we should assume that the Trump administration is going to comply with our previous order directing them to provide reasonable time and notice.

And he faults the seven justices who halted the deportations for not doing so. And I just want to kind of pause on the irony that the Supreme Court basically did in this case what they faulted Judge Boasberg for doing previously, namely halt on a wholesale basis a bunch of deportations rather than requiring every individual to challenge their deportation themselves. And I think that underscores what we were talking about,

which is the Supreme Court realized the error of their ways, that there actually needs to be this wholesale pause. Because if there isn't, the government is just shuttling people around between jurisdictions trying to find some court somewhere that will allow them to expel these people without due process. So Alito writes this short but very mad dissent and reading it, I don't, it's very, it's very technical actually, but it seems to be if you it's very, it's very technical actually, but it seems to be if you step back,

what he's saying is nothing extraordinary is happening to require this extraordinary response. Yeah, so he basically faults the court for not adhering to their normal process. And the things he points out the court did were, one, to grant this pause in deportations before waiting to hear the government's response is one thing.

Second is the Supreme Court acted by halting the deportations before waiting for the US Court of Appeals, the intermediary court between the trial court and the Supreme Court, to act on the request to halt the deportations. And so those are two kind of abnormal procedural moves the seven justices made that Justice Alito says, what reason is there to do that?

But the reality is, of course, we're not dealing with ordinary circumstances. So, right, like you need to adapt in those circumstances where again, it looks like the administration is trying to evade any prospect of judicial review by just quickly expelling individuals without any prospect of judicial oversight. He sort of plays dumb, like, why would we do this? Why would we do this?

But seven of his colleagues have decided it was urgent. And there's two aspects of it that I wanted to hear your take on. One is they put out the order before Alito had written his dissent. They thought this was such an emergency that they put out the statements freezing the deportations without the attached dissent. Have you seen that ever before of the dissent coming later? That has happened before. It happens in some courts of appeals and it does sometimes happen in the Supreme Court.

It's exceptionally unusual. And honestly, a part of me read into this the idea that not only do the seven justices think that the Trump administration might be acting in bad faith, maybe they think Sam Alito is too, because if he sat on his dissent and just didn't release it until it was too late, until after the administration had expelled the many individuals to El Salvador, then they would be facing the situation once again where they're trying to order the administration to return people from El Salvador. And so a part of me wondered if that is what was happening and maybe that's why he's so mad, although he's usually mad. There was, he is usually mad. There was another part of this too, which you also talked about on

the most recent episode of Strict, which is there's a kind of jurisdictional issue that happens with members of the Supreme Court for a case like this. And in this case, it would have gone to Alito alone first. And in that case, normally Alito would have had the chance to rule or refer it to the full court, but it seems like maybe that didn't happen here. Yeah. So there's an odd wording in the order, which just noted there's an application that is pending before the court. The usual wording is the application was presented to Justice Alito and referred by him to the court. That's not what the order said. And so that, too, lends itself to some speculation of, was Sam Alito just sitting on this application,

not referring it to all of the members of the court, again, in order to buy the administration time? And we don't know whether that did indeed happen. I'd just like to note to any member of the Supreme Court that I am on signal if you want to accidentally add me to your group chat and let me know what's going on. But that too is a possibility that the seven justices were just concerned. He was trying to run out the clock.

On the other side of the conservative legal spectrum, you have Judge Harvey Wilkinson, who wrote a beautiful and extraordinary ruling around these deportations. And I'm wondering what, you know, it's been a few days since it came out. Is there any part of it that has stuck out with you? Any impression that it's left?

I think it was an incredibly powerful writing. I especially appreciated his call to other judges and to the executive branch to insist that the executive branch abide by the law. And I thought that was especially pointed because many of the Supreme Court's actions to date have looked like attempts to avoid confrontations with the Trump administration

and to avoid really holding their feet to the fire and them accountable to the law, maybe out of concern that they just wouldn't abide by the court's order, but that's an unsustainable state of affairs. You can't just give the administration the green light and not do anything because you think they will disobey a court order.

You're in effect, like allowing them to violate the law if that's what you do. And so I really appreciated Judge Wilkinson coming down hard on that point and really writing, I think, for the Republican appointees on the Supreme Court. Leo Littman, thank you so much. We'll be right back. Thank you. Pod Save America is brought to you by Article.

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That's article.com slash crooked for $50 off your first purchase of $100 or more. All right. So if you're wondering how MAGA types are taking the news of the Supreme Court's intervention, Georgia Congressman Mike Collins retweeted the New York Post headline about the order with the words, let them enforce it. A Trump official named Paul Ingrassia, who's the White House liaison to the Department of Homeland Security, posted on Truth Social that the court, quote, including three members appointed by President Trump no less, is, quote, infected with a parasitical ideology

and has, quote, absolutely no understanding of law and its proper function and role. The CEO of The Federalist said, quote, absolutely no understanding of law and its proper function and role. The CEO of The Federalist said, quote, if the Supreme Court is going to ignore the law and the constitution, then the president is obligated to ignore the Supreme Court and put it in its place. And MAGA radio host, Jesse Kelly wrote, quote, ignore the Supreme Court, arrest anyone

who tries to enforce this, dissolve the Supreme Court entirely if they push. Nevertheless, as lawyers were arguing to halt removals in court, ICE buses in Texas carrying detainees were seen turning around. Totally normal reactions from MAGA World. How are you guys feeling about all this?

On one hand, seven-two ruling, we like that. On the other, the calls from Trump's base to defy the court and by extension the constitution seem to be getting louder and more numerous. Or melt them in acid, it sounds like. Yeah, the head of the federal has posted after that missive, when we're done deporting illegals,

it's time to start deporting rogue judges. Cool, cool, cool. Also if you're using the word parasitical, you're just trying too hard, in my opinion. Yeah, it's like you're like the White House liaison to Homeland Security. It's not like you gotta, you gotta get some attention there.

It's just an intellectual treat to you. It was like a, it's like intellectual, right? It was just this sort of like treatise about why seven justices, including the three Donald Trump appointed are not just wrong, but they have to be captured by liberal ideology. Yeah, they must be evil. Because there's no other way to make sense

of why they would do this. Disagree. Yeah. It's interesting, just these people that you've picked out, a lot of them have sounded like, these are the fringe that are now in more, either in the government or just louder voices that reflect a bigger part of the base.

These are people that have talked this way and thought this way for a long time. But for the first time, there's a genuine possibility that the president, that the people that work for the president might actually listen to these cranks, these sort of authoritarian right wing fucking cranks. And it is really, really scary. I also think it's important to note

that before this ruling, Trump was planning to openly defy the Supreme Court by deporting these men without giving them due process that was ordered by the Supreme Court. And they were given a piece of paper in English only, told to sign it and then load it on buses. And thank God the Supreme Court was working weekends this week or else these men

would almost certainly be in El Salvador right now. God bless the ACLU, by the way, for these lawyers like sprinting through courtrooms and filing emergency injunctions and doing everything they can to protect these people. I understand why there's been so much focus on Abrego Garcia, because that is the one case where the government admitted in court multiple times

that it was an error. But when you really dig into a lot of these folks who are getting deported under Alien Enemies Act to El Salvador, you know, the administration's putting out, like, here are six people and all of the most horrible things they've ever done that we're sending there. It's like, OK, fine. There was like 200-something that have been sent there. And, you know, The New York Times did a story on this

about what led to the late night ruling and sort of the scramble by the ACLU. And they said, one of the men, last name Prieto said, quote, there had been no order for his deportation and that his immigration documents were in order. He said, I have American children. They brought me here and I'm innocent. They arrested me without any warrant for nothing.

For nothing they brought me here. Like'm innocent, they arrested me without any warrant for nothing, for nothing they brought me here. Like, and then, you know, they mentioned this story Tommy told about the guy who was forced to sign, you know. There's another guy who had TPS, so the ice broke into his house and was about to deport him. They held him for a couple months. We've talked about Andre, the Venezuelan makeup artist. We've talked, and there's just so many stories like that

that it's, and some of these people have even less of a connection than, you know, Garcia was alleged to have and, you know, by some random cop somewhere. The other sort of line of reasoning from some of these far right people is, well, if we can't, if we can't deport people, well, we don't have a country anymore.

And first of all, Donald Trump can deport people. He has his will. He's allowed to deport a lot of people. Tens of thousands every month so far. The other part of this is, why is he deporting people to a foreign gulag? That's, I'd say- They never wanted, they never, no one, no one on Fox,

none of these people will grapple with the fucking gulag part of this. None of them will defend it. They act like, well, we just dropped them off in El Salvador, and suddenly they ended up in the jail there. Which is just not what happened. We're paying them to house them. And that's what makes, I think, and I talked about this a bit with Leah, like, sort of the legal aspects of it, but it is extraordinary that the Supreme Court has done this because they're basically acknowledging the urgency of it, that doing it in the middle of the night, that doing it before Alito could finish his own dissent,

they are acknowledging that by the logic of the Supreme Court, which Wilkinson talked about in his ruling last week, that if they deport someone in error to this prison, they can't get them back. And the Supreme Court, which already said people have a right to a certain amount of time to respond, is clearly saying here, this is so urgent, this is so dangerous, we got to shut this all down right now until we've had more time to examine what the Trump administration is doing. And we can't take what the Trump administration says at face value.

We cannot believe them when they say that, oh, there aren't going to be any flights this weekend or they're not aware of any flights this weekend, that the lawyers that are speaking to the court on behalf of the Trump administration either are not telling the truth or don't have all the facts themselves. What's confusing about this is politically speaking, there seems to be a much easier,

much smarter path for Donald Trump, which is to say that the border's locked down, take the win there, and then slowly, methodically, deport people. I mean, the proximate reason why they are deporting Venezuelans to El Salvador is because Venezuela won't take back Venezuelans.

But that doesn't mean that it has to happen tomorrow or the next day. And I assume that they're shredding the Constitution because this is Stephen Miller's passion project. Donald Trump cares a lot about it, too. There's an element of their base that loves it. But I do think there's probably a deterrent effect for others who might come here

if they see the United States being just unbelievably cruel to everyone no matter what. But politically speaking, I do think there is some risk that people are gonna say, why are you doing this? Why are you so focused on this stuff? Why are we not allowing people a day in court? Like that doesn't seem that hard. Like JD Vance's fucking Twitter op-ed screed

about how sometimes it's inconvenient to allow for due process or it costs too much or it takes too many resources. Like, I don't think anyone believes that. Well, like, it's true that there is a large backlog of immigration cases because we don't have enough immigration judges and we just, our system has been broken for a long time.

There's a way to fix that, which is pass legislation that funds more immigration judges and we just, our system has been broken for a long time. There's a way to fix that, which is pass legislation that funds more immigration judges. Oh, by the way, that was the legislation that Joe Biden, Democrats in Congress and a bunch of conservative Republicans tried to pass and then Donald Trump killed it because he wanted the issue, right? So that tells you a lot about if they're really interested in actually solving the backlog of immigration cases. Also, there's way to, there's plenty of ways to expedite deportations if you need to. If there's a public safety threat, you can. There's a million different ways to deport people.

They've done it before. Joe Biden's done it. They're doing it now since they became president. Barack Obama did it. George W. Bush did it. It's complete bullshit, this whole, like, if we cannot throw people in the gulag, we don't have a country anymore. Right, if we can't, we're not gonna deport millions of people

a hundred at a time on an airplane to a foreign jail. Even all of this is still a sideshow. There are millions and millions of people in this country who are undocumented. They came here to work. They came here to work because we built a system of second-class citizenship for people who can get to this country, they can be employed.

There are people that have wanted to do things like e-verify, which would require employers to make sure someone is a citizen before they are hired. There are lots of stuff. I think undocumented people, I think we should have a path to citizenship. I'm not saying that these are good ideas. There are lots of steps you could take to address undocumented immigrants. They have chosen to target people who have received temporary protected status,

asylum seekers, right? Like they are choosing this because first of all, I think they like the politics better. And second of all, it doesn't make a lot of their biggest, wealthiest donors angry when it cracks down on the people that work for agribusiness, when it cracks down on the people

that work for construction companies, when it cracks down on the people that work for agribusiness, when it cracks down on the people that work for construction companies, when it cracks down on the people that make our economy go. Yeah. So like you said, this is not just about, um, our break, oh Garcia, it's not just about other immigrants who came here illegally. So far more than a thousand foreign students

have had their visas canceled, including many who aren't political activists, haven't even publicly shared their political views. Uh, we're also seeing more horror stories about the government throwing people behind bars for doing nothing wrong. We learned on Friday that Jose Hermosillo, an American citizen from New Mexico, was arrested by Border Patrol while on a walk during a visit to Arizona and was then detained in an ICE facility for 10 days, 10 days until his family was able to prove his citizenship and get him out. We also learned that in mid-March, two teenage girls from Germany were detained at the Honolulu airport

after saying that they hadn't booked accommodations for their entire five-week stay in Hawaii. They were held overnight in what they said were appalling conditions and then deported to Tokyo. DHS says they were kicked out because they said they told CPB agents that they planned to work while traveling, which they didn't have the right visa for, but the students say that when they were pressed on this, they simply told the agents that they sometimes do freelance jobs online for customers back in Germany. Feels like this probably isn't helping the huge drop-off in tourism to the to the U.S.? I mean, in 2023, international visitors spent roughly $225 billion in the US.

So if a big chunk of that goes away, that's gonna be not a tiny hit to GDP. And it will have the potential to decimate specific communities that are tourism destinations. And like, we're already seeing this with Canada, because this precipitated immigration questions. This was about Trump threatening to annex the country. Canadian car trips to the US are down 32% last month

compared to March 2024. Air travel is down 13% year over year, and airline bookings are down 70%. And so if you sort of like extrapolate that out, if people around the world are like, I can't go to the United States, they're gonna fuck with me or treat me horribly or God knows.

Like Goldman Sachs said, there's a worst case scenario where the US could lose $90 billion in revenue this year from a decrease in tourism and people just choosing not to buy American stuff. I saw a couple of people pointing out that we're supposed to have an Olympics here in a couple of years. We're supposed to have the World Cup here.

And other countries are issuing travel warnings to the United States, like our allies or former allies. And the soccer, the World Cup, it's supposed to be a pan North American games. So if we're still fighting with the Canadians and fighting with the Mexicans, it's not gonna be good. Be like when Carter didn't let the Americans go to Russia. the Mexicans, it's not gonna be good. It'd be like when Carter didn't let the Americans

go to Russia, you know? Yeah. Multiple US citizens now have gotten these random emails, letters from ICE, from the CPB saying, you have to leave the country now. And maybe they were in error, maybe they weren't. Another US citizen was detained in Miami for a while. Four students at Case Western Reserve

were told their visas were revoked and that they needed to leave and then they had to go to court and the government was like, oh, maybe we screwed up, we're not sure. The judge was like so angry. He was like, this is Kafkaesque. I can't believe it. He's like, the government's telling me they

don't even know if these people are here legally or not, you can't even tell me this, the government counsel, but you just arrested them. And the other thing that I think was happening here is these agents, whether they're ICE agents or CPB agents, like, they're starting to, they're lying. And I'm not, I don't want to impugn all of them, right? But like the, the Hermosillo,

the guy who was detained in Arizona, like he was arrested in Tucson. The agent says he was actually in Nogales, which is an hour south of Tucson, and that's where they picked him up. So we know he was lying about that. So the rest Nogales, which is an hour south of Tucson, and that's where they picked him up. So we know he was lying about that. So the rest of the lie, which is like, oh, he told them he was here unlawfully,

and that's why they detained him, which is now what fucking DHS is saying. Trisha McLaughlin, the spokeswoman for the Department of Homeland Security, tweeted that this 19-year-old American citizen walked up to a border patrol agent and said, hey, I entered illegally from Mexico. They offered up this information and she tweets this

thinking that this is a credible story in any way doesn't think that maybe fact check it. People that happens all the time, you go, you get caught by a federal agent. You're like, I'm here illegally. I came from Mexico. It's like the fact throughout all of this, right? We've been saying like this could come

for us citizens, right? And like the fact that the government is willing not just to do this without due process, not just to repair it when a judge orders it, but that the spokesperson for the Department of Homeland Security is actively lying about this case is, here it is, this is an American citizen who was picked up, they are clearly lying, she is just passing along

this fucking lie. And what if he had been on a plane to El Salvador? The kid was in jail for 10 days before they sorted things out. The government couldn't call the government to figure out if he was a citizen for 10 days? This is where it's like the kind of intellectualizing that like JD Vance and others are doing

to defend this behavior. It's just so ridiculous and so just so false on its face. Like, let's say every single sentence about what you're trying to do is true. Why wouldn't you want to fix mistakes? Why would you want to lie about Americans? Why wouldn't you want to get it right? Even on your own fucking terms,

why wouldn't you want to get it right? Because they want, I think it was like what Tommy was saying. I think they just want to scare the shit out of people, you know? And I also think they have a one million deportee quota that Stephen Miller is pushing them to meet over the course of their year. Minnesota, look, last week, there's a guy from Indonesia who's here on a student visa

working at a hospital in Minnesota. His student visa was revoked four days before his arrest, but he wasn't told, he wasn't notified that the visa was revoked. And so then they just arrested him because he overstayed the visa for four days before his arrest, but he wasn't told, he wasn't notified that the visa was revoked. And so then they just arrested him because he overstayed the visa for four days after not telling him. They asked why, he doesn't understand, he has an eight month old daughter, American wife citizen, doesn't understand, has been here since 2015, came legally. And they said, oh, he's a threat to public safety. So then they looked into his background. In 2022, he pled to a

misdemeanor for spray painting graffiti on a bridge. And then the big one, he was charged with unlawful assembly over a protest around George Floyd's murder that was later dismissed. Not violent, not nothing, no property destruction, no nothing, just showing up there. And so I do think that on student visa stuff, they're starting with the with the Gaza stuff, but they're just going after and they're doing this with like AI too. They're looking through anyone who's here on a student visa. If you've ever had any run-ins with the law that aren't political or if you've ever shown up at any kind of political protest anywhere, that's how they're targeting people now. It's gross.

Not January 6th. Right. Yeah, of course. Pod Save America is brought to you by Rocket Money. Tariffs are trending. What does that actually mean for your wallet? Oh man, they are trending. With all the tariff headlines lately, you might be wondering, how does this affect me? Higher tariffs can mean higher prices on goods from groceries to gadgets. Let Rocket Money help you stay one step ahead and keep more money in your pocket.

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so they know who sent you. Don't wait, download the Rocket Money app today and tell them you heard about them from our show. One sign that the deportation stories are starting to break through in a way that the White House can't be too happy about is that they're losing Joe Rogan. Here he is talking about it on his show. The problem with things that are going in a radical direction is then there's an overcorrection.

So the overcorrection is lack of due process. The overcorrection is like, round them all up, ship them to jail. That's like some things that you say when you're not thinking things through like what do you do about all the criminals take them all fucking send them to El Salvador yeah what about due process no fuck that well here's the problem with fuck that what if you are an enemy of let's not say any current president let's pretend we got a new president totally new guy in 2028. And this is a common practice now of just rounding up gang members with no due process and shipping them to El Salvador.

You're a gang member. No, I'm not, prove it. What? I gotta go to court. No, no due process. Joe Rogan making a lot of sense. Yeah, it's also like to back to where we started. Like, do you wanna do like,

this is breaking through for people. Do you wanna be seen as fighting, as having a genuine moral conviction during this moment? Or do you wanna be out there saying it's a distraction and that we really need to be talking about the cost of living? There are people watching to see what people stand for right now.

Yeah. I think Rogan weighing in on this really is meaningful. I mean, it also just reflects the reality that there are like, we hear the MAGA dead ender crazies that you read out, like they get quoted, they get picked up in the media. But most normies are like, of course I believe in due process.

Of course you should have a day in court. The idea of like hurting an innocent person, you can empathize with that easily. And it's offensive to you. So it's great to hear Rogan talking about this to his audience. I hope he keeps doing it. I also think it reflects the reality that Trump is good

as an opposition leader, but he fucking sucks at governing. Yeah, and to your point, there's also this like, well, the Trump White House thinks they're winning the issue because they love talking about this. One reason they might be talking about it so much is because they're worried that the narrative is going to get away from them and that they're going to lose the argument. And that's why they have to lie about might be talking about it so much is because they're worried that the narrative is gonna get away from them and that they're gonna lose the argument.

And that's why they have to lie about everything and talk about it nonstop. And that's why like Stephen Miller is screaming. Which by the way, did you hear the strict scrutiny hosts call him Pee-wee German? Amazing, amazing. Pee-wee German was great. Amazing, Pee-wee German.

Well, one of the reasons they wanna be talking about this is the markets are tanking, people are angry about the tariffs, the cost of living is going up, not down, his approval on the economy is as low as it's ever been since he's been president last term, this term. So they have a real big problem on their hands. But I also think they're I think that they are genuinely there is a concern that they're going to lose the narrative here. And right before we recorded, I don't know if you guys saw that Trump posted

about the court and the 7-2 decision. And it was a very uncharacteristic Trump truth, because he was like, I have great respect for the court. But even the Supreme Court, I have great respect for, are now saying that I can't deport Venezuelans, or anyone, back to their country, even if they're violent, and I don't like that, and blah, blah, blah. But he's like,

at least Alito understood. Well, that's what he's... Look, they're all... I don't like that and blah, blah, blah. But he's like, at least Alito understood. Well, that's what he's, look, they're all, they're fucking all hyper, all the people that are around Donald Trump are like super online and reading all the same stuff we're talking about. What Trump has been doing is saying,

Pam, we gotta figure out what the law is, gotta follow the law. I have great respect for the Supreme Court while they kind of play this sort of, this game of breaking, kind of breaking, directly breaking the orders. I do think you kind of get back to this sort of this game of breaking, kind of breaking, directly breaking the orders. I do think you kind of get back to this sort of, like the Pope died and there's this apocryphal,

maybe it's apocryphal, Stalin quote of like, oh, how many divisions does the Pope have? And you see a lot, you see Joe Rogan, but you also see a lot of, I think, respected conservative people talking about the importance of following the Supreme Court. I think the Wilkinson opinion matters. I think the intellectual conversation on the right does still impossibly matter.

I remember when Kennedy, Senator from Louisiana, was doing a hearing, he said, the one rule is you got to tell me you're not going to break a court order. You got to follow court orders, right? That's what Schumer has been banking on. I don't know, but it does feel like they at least in the White House are not completely sure that they will get away with outright breaking right now a Supreme Court order. Yeah, which is why I think you have Stephen Miller just like lying about the decision. Although, you did have JD Vance said many times before he became vice president,

he did the whole Andrew Jackson quote. You know, the Supreme, the Chief Justice has made his ruling, now let him enforce it. So that's where he is. Other big news from the weekend, the Times reported on Sunday night that a second Signal Group chat has hit the Pentagon. Whoa.

Jesus. So I did a video on this yesterday, Elijah recommended that as the title and we decided not to. Oh, don't So I did a video on this yesterday. Elijah recommended that as the title, and we decided not to. I like that you read it out. You know. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth reportedly shared those same Houthi war plans

in a chat called Defense Team Huddle, made up of 13 people, including Hegseth's Fox News producer wife and his brother, who's now one of his advisors. A couple hours after the Signal story posted, newly resigned Pentagon spokesman, John Ulyot published a Politico piece describing quote, a full blown meltdown inside the Pentagon, which he called the month from hell

before citing rumors of more bombshell stories to come. Jesus, what's left? And predicting that Hegseth will be out soon. Literal bombshell stories. He did make sure to say of Hegseth, I value his friendship and we accomplished a lot together. Tell me about the friendships you don't value. I know, it's a little confusing.

Predictably, democratic lawmakers are back to calling on Hegseth to resign and so is at least one Republican member of Congress, Don Bacon of Nebraska, who happens to be a former Air Force general. He said that if the signal report is true, it's quote, totally unacceptable and that Hegseth is quote, acting like he's above the law.

And that shows an amateur person. Today NPR reported that the White House has already begun the search for his replacement, but Caroline Levitt quickly shut that down as fake news. Still the work of the nation must go on and both Hegseth and his boss, Donald Trump, were at the White House Easter egg roll on Monday, where they both commented on the situation

as a jazz combo played in the background. Pete's doing a great job. Everybody's happy with him. We have the highest recruitment numbers I think they've had in 28 years. No, he's doing a great job. It's just fake news. It just bring up stories.

You know, what a big surprise that a bunch of, a few leakers get fired and suddenly a bunch of hit pieces come out from the same media that peddled the Russia hoax. And as they peddle those lies, no one ever calls them on. See, this is what the media does. They take anonymous sources from disgruntled former employees and then they try to slash and burn people

and ruin their reputations. Not gonna work with me. Anonymous sources like the guy who was your spokesman until he quit and published an op-ed about it under his own name. There's nothing better than like statements of grave national importance made next to a giant bunny. There was several today.

There were several today. Trump issued his statement about the death of Pope Francis standing next to the fucking Easter bunny. The real hero of Easter. It's odd. And these are the people that are saying, it's not important, but these are the people saying that we need to trust them on random deportations.

But they can't figure out a way to get Donald Trump to speak to the cameras about the death of the Pope, probably the one time Trump will ever get to talk about the death of the Pope as president, without the Easter Bunny standing next to him. That is fucking insane. Well, he's going to the funeral with Melania and he's looking forward to being there.

Exclusion. He meant the food. He just wants some good pasta. Tommy, anything new and interesting in terms of the details that Hegseth shared here in both Signal and I thought the op-ed from Politico was wild, but why don't you? I mean, it sounds like he was sharing the same basic information, like the F-18s are going to bomb this target at this time. It's a classic to share the same joke in multiple group chats.

Yeah, that is true. So you have the same information. Yeah, I mean the difference here is the first Signal Gate group chat was started by Mike Waltz, a national security advisor, and that was a group of people with whom one should discuss whether or not to bomb Yemen. This was a group started by Hegseth himself,

and it was created on his personal phone, which is a very, very big no-no. I mean, I think, like, there's probably half dozen Intel agencies that have tried to, you know, break that phone, a few probably have succeeded, and he's just sharing classified information on it. Do you think he uses a really great password manager on his private phone, Pete Hexeth?

Do you think Pete Hexeth has got state of the art? Absolutely, absolutely. He was a box news anchor three months ago. Weekend. Can we talk about the chaos in the Pentagon that this guy wrote about who used to be spokesman? Like it sounds, they're trying to brush it off as like a few anonymous sources,

but it seems like there's like a mutiny going on in there. Well, what's weird about this is they've already purged like the Biden era professional people. C.Q. Prown, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs, out. Lisa Franchetti, who was the director of the Navy, out. And they're slowly starting to replace them. But the people we're talking about, Hegseth firing here, or they're getting pushed out

in this leak investigation or whatever, are his guys. Like Dan Caldwell, the dude who was his senior advisor, he was his friend of over a decade, they worked together at that nonprofit. He was the point of contact on that original Mike Waltz signal gate, being like, if I can't be around to talk about this issue, Dan is my proxy, and now they're forcing these guys out. So Hexeth is missing, now he no longer has

his senior advisor as chief of staff, as deputy chief of staff, and I think there's some other officials that have been pushed out. So it just sounds like it's chaos over there. I mean, the spokesman says it's chaos. And it is the Defense Department that he's running the US military. Well, it's almost as if when people noted before

that he'd run two tiny nonprofits. Poorly. Poorly, couldn't do it. Had a bunch of public intoxication, chaos, missing money, all kinds of problems in running these groups. When people say- Salt allegations. He wasn't up for the job of running these organs,

the biggest bureaucracy in the federal government, there might've been some fucking truth to it. And that now, you can spin your way to it, you can bully a bunch of Republican senators into going along with this, but now he has the job and it's a real job and he can't do it. And like, you know, shit could go down. Like we don't know what's happening behind the scenes.

We don't know what debates are, you know, might scare us if we were aware of them. But you had C.K. Brown, the chairman of the joint chief got pushed out. The new guy, Dan Cain was just confirmed. Like the other day, Raising Cain. And he had been retired for like a year, so he's like kinda getting back up to speed.

And also there is this battle in Republican foreign policy between the more isolationist wing of the MAGA world and the more traditional neocon hawkish types. You're seeing it really play out in this debate over the Iran nuclear talks that are happening, that Steve Wyckoff, the actual Secretary of State, not make-a-wish Secretary of State Marco Rubio.

So, I mean, it's just interesting, like that's kind of the backdrop, is these guys are still figuring out what they believe and what they're gonna do, and now the Pentagon was just purged. And it does feel like we're once again in a situation where maybe if this didn't break in the news and was all over the place that Donald Trump

might like quietly get rid of him. But of course, you gotta dig in. Everyone starts, now who knows? Because like there was a room, you know, the NPR had that one source that said they're looking for someone new and then everyone fake news to death, you know, but. But the problem with being a bunch of liars

is we can't take it seriously, nobody knows. And by the way, Donald. He could be out by the time we are done recording this. Donald Trump has said, I know, but, but Donald Trump. But the problem with being a bunch of liars is we can't take it seriously. Nobody knows. And by the way, Donald. He could be out by the time we are done recording this. Donald Trump has said, I'm sticking with, Donald Trump has said about people he fired within days, if not hours, I'm not firing this person. That's true. So we will see.

But this, Donald Trump does not like, this reflects very poorly on him. It looks fucking bad. He's getting nothing for it. Terrible press. I mean, well, what he's got, yeah, what he needs is if he was gonna replace him, he's gotta find someone else who can get confirmed, who will be absolutely loyal to Donald Trump

over the Constitution, the military, and anyone else. Yeah, you mean, that clip of Hex F was so unconvincing. He's like shouting at a C-Span camera, he's pointing to his own children, kind of like using them as a shield for the media in that moment. And he just had the look and the feel of a man he's pointing to his own children, kind of like using them as a shield from the media in that moment. And he just had the look and the feel of a man

who is in so far over his head and he does not know how to get out of it. I'm excited for him. It seems like a bad dream. It seems like a bad dream. You're at the Easter egg roll, there's a bunny next to you, Donald Trump is next to you, you're being asked about these terrible mistakes

that you made. I will, the one- And you've got your spokesman out there being like, oh, there's so much worse stories are gonna drop this week. And I say that as a friend. That's very real housewives, by the way. As a friend, Pete, I'm telling you, you're a piece of shit.

But the other, yeah, the one, the other side of it is that the more Pete Hegseth is under siege, the more loyal he'll have to be to Donald Trump, right? The more weak. Which Donald Trump love, it's mob boss. Mob boss mentality. So it is, there is that aspect of it, of like, can he hold on, get to the other side

of a new cycle, and still be there at Trump's largesse? Just to be crystal clear, if any uniformed member of the military did what Hegseth did with Signal, they would be fired if not court-martialed. Any normal administration would fire him on the spot and refer to DOJ for prosecution. And the fact that we're even talking about this,

there's also reports that Pete Hegseth was bringing his wife to his meetings with like the NATO counterpart. Like these are defense minister to defense minister talks. Imagine if you need a Fox News producer there at all times. Get you some good content. We're just in our Wednesday Pod Save America meeting and then you're like, oh, Hannah's going to sit in to be here. Well, we're not discussing classified info. But I'm saying even without that, we'd be like, oh, Hannah's gonna sit in to be here. Well, we're not discussing classified info.

But I'm saying even without that, we'd be like, that's weird. If Hannah was like bomb Poland, yeah, we'd have a real problem. Yeah. POD Save America is brought to you by ZipRecruiter. According to a recent ZipRecruiter survey, 76% of employers plan to expand headcount for 2025.

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Speaking of chaos, in the category of serious news that's also funny, the Times reported on Friday that Trump's war on Harvard started by accident. The original letter demanding concessions received by the university a week before apparently was sent without proper authorization at the White House. At the time, Harvard was engaged in what it thought were productive talks with administration lawyers from the White House's anti-Semitism task force, which is how they're laundering their attacks on academic freedom and free speech. Harvard was expecting a letter from the task force with some details about their concerns.

What they got instead was the nuclear option, an email from one of the task force lawyers making a whole host of crazy demands, including federal oversight of admissions and hirings, eradication of all diversity efforts, and the disbanding of pro-Palestinian groups. Some of the anonymous leakers who talked to the Times said the guy who sent the letter did so prematurely, others said he'd meant to send it around internally for review. Ugh, hate when that happens. Anyway, it caused Harvard to publicly reject the demands

the following Monday. As we discussed last week, the administration then froze more than $2 billion in funds, threatened Harvard's tax exempt status, and threatened to shut down its ability to enroll any foreign students whatsoever. The Wall Street Journal reports that, of course, doubling down again, the administration is now planning

to pull another $1 billion in research funding. So administration admits they sent Arbrego Garcia to El Salvador in error, but then they refused to correct the mistake and then they dig in even further. They accidentally sent a crazy letter to Harvard, then they refused to correct the mistake and they dig in even further.

You guys notice a pattern here? So what is strange about this is, it took a few days for us to find out that the administration is claiming this as a mistake, but if it was an actual mistake, they would have known instantly, and yet they spent a week freezing the funds, then adding this new threat to tax exempt status.

So they went forward as if it wasn't a mistake, fine. The problem with the claim that this is somehow a mistake, it would imply that these demands are materially different than the demands they put on Columbia when they're really not, right? That like these- The federal oversight of admissions and hires? The set of it, that Columbia,

I don't know exactly what Columbia ended up conceding to, but those were part of the demands on Columbia, up to and including a new provost oversee a specific department, right? Like the demands that Columbia agreed to, which is why it was so pathetic that Columbia caved, basically in the same way this does, made Trump dean. They're different, they're different.

But like, I think it's hard to claim that these are so much more extreme than what Columbia had already agreed to. I thought they were much worse, but- I think some of them are worse. Some of them aren't the same. They treated them differently. But like, I think Donald Trump basically demanding a private university hire a specific

fucking administrative official is crazy, right? Demanding that Columbia take greater control over student groups is crazy. Like these are, maybe these demands are different, but this is exactly the plan, including them then threatening the funding after. So like, all right, maybe this was sent in error, maybe it was sent too quickly, but like I partly wonder if this is cleanup

because the blowback was so much worse than they expected and all the other schools jumped in behind Harvard after Harvard went forward. But it does sound like the sourcing on the story is the administration sent a letter in error and then someone from the administration called Harvard to be like, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. Right.

Delete that, delete that, delete that. Yeah. Yeah. So it's confusing. I mean, we should also be clear that the grant money that's getting cut off to Harvard, it's not going to like caviar for the kids. It's mostly like research for medical, you know,

cancer research, Alzheimer's research, like cutting edge scientific research. This is stuff that benefits all of us. Well, and it's a contract. It's a government contract. The government pays our best institutions to help do medical research, scientific research to benefit the country.

That's the whole deal. Anyone else notice that one of the lawyers that Harvard hired to deal with this is Robert Herr? Sure did. Coming back for the new season. Do we, hey, hey, Robert Herr, listen, you know, there's a lot of things were said last year. 2024 was an interesting time and you know, we can look back on it.

I don't think we should look back. I think we should just move forward. Robert Herr getting hired by them is interesting. Clearly like a, you know, very conservative lawyer, well thought of, you know, worked at DOJ for a long time. Though as a choice to make Donald Trump happy is an odd one because he did not prosecute Joe Biden. Right, yeah, we remember he wasn't a hero

on the other side either. No, they hated him too. Yeah, well, whatever. He called him old, cool, but didn't prosecute him. Which we found at the time to be ridiculous. Thank you. There's so much about this in Jake Tapper's book that I can't talk about yet,

because there's still an embargo, but conversation for a month from now. Yeah, exactly. All right, before we go, we're recording this on Easter Monday, less than a day after the passing of Pope Francis. Francis took a visit from JD Vance on Sunday morning. Whew, talk about your last day.

And apparently that was enough to put the ailing pontiff over the edge after allowing himself to be photographed shaking Vance's hand, the Holy Father then blessed the crowd of tens of thousands in St. Peter's Square and had one of his deputies read what would be his final Easter address in which he implicitly blasted Vance and Trump to crying, quote, how much contempt is stirred up at times towards the vulnerable, the marginalized, and migrants, and saying, quote, I appeal to all those in positions of political responsibility in our world not to yield to the logic of fear. He also reiterated calls for a ceasefire in Gaza and a return of all the hostages and

for an end to the war in Ukraine. A day earlier, Vance had a longer meeting with the Pope's number two cardinal, and the Holy See's readout of that meeting mentioned quote, an exchange of opinions on quote, migrants, refugees and prisoners. That topic was not in JD Vance's readout of the meeting. The Pope in the past had called Trump's immigration policies quote, a disgrace and not Christian legend.

What did you guys think about the Vance interaction? We're all gonna make the same joke because we deserve this, but there's gotta be a little piece of them who thinks, did I kill them? Did I kill them? Right, like that would cross my mind. I think anytime spent with JD Vance does kill the vibe. I think anytime spent with JD Vance does kill the vibe.

My mother went on, it was, we didn't call it this, but it was not to their faces, but it was a farewell tour to visit some of her oldest relatives before they died. And we had a great uncle, Jerry, and just before he died, my mother brought him a blueberry muffin and he ate the whole thing and he'd never been so happy.

He was dead in 48 hours. It's crazy, poor friend. I will say, I loved this pope. Jesuit, first Jesuit pope. I remember when Benedict stepped down, and Francis was picked, and I was like, a Jesuit from South America? Who was like, all about social justice?

I'm like, is this real? Is the church gonna make him now, now that he's gonna be Pope, is he not gonna be like that? And he ended up being every bit the person he was when he was in South America. Yeah, I'll always call him Ratzinger, but yeah, after. Ratzinger, yeah, he was a tough one.

I'm just like very much hoping that we don't go back to that. And I don't know that anyone can fill the shoes of Pope Francis, but- Still need a woke pope. It's time for a woke pope. We also need one world leader insulated from politics who is willing to speak about compassion and empathy and justice in a way that JD Vance's of the world and the right will probably shit on that person, but at least they can do so with some sense of moral authority.

Yeah, look, I'm Episcopalian, so I'm a lazy Catholic, and I'll be honest. I don't love the Catholic Church as an institution. I don't feel like it's always been a force for good in this world, especially some of their social views. But I think, like, Benedict, Karl Ratzinger was like, he was kind of, he had that Opus Dei vibe,

that was when that Dan Brown book was really big. He had those expensive red shoes. Right, he was like a kind of scary guy. And then Francis came along and a lot of what made people love him was his tone. He couldn't fully moderate the church's anti-LGBT views, but he could be decent when he talked about them. As you mentioned, he cared about poverty,

he cared about refugees, he cared about migration, he cared about climate change. He was a huge critic of all wars, including the war in Ukraine. He helped facilitate the Cuba normalization deal between the US, the Obama administration, and the Cuban government. So he used his office to bring about change

and facilitate good works. And he was from the global South, and I think brought that perspective to the job of understanding the horrors of colonization and when great powers act in ways that are brutal and selfish. And I don't know, I think we will miss him on the global stage.

This guy, a guy who washed the feet of AIDS patients back when it was not a very popular thing to do. Yeah, like there was that moment a couple of weeks ago where JD Vance was talking about what the golden rule means and seems to have not fully understood it. No. And there was, again, I'm so Jewish,

but there was always just something beautiful about a pope that even an institution that, yes, does not acknowledge the rights of LGBT people, that does not allow women to be priests, that he gave voice to the beautiful parts of Christian values, like the parts that everyone ought to appreciate. And that is so absent from American politics so much of the time. There is such a vicious and cruel version of Christianity represented to be the one true path. And then you had this Pope, this undeniable Pope, right? Moments before he dies telling JD Vance in not so many words to fuck off before he dies. But also, you know, the other thing he did was some people thought that he was going to snub

JD Vance. That was the first thing because JD Vance got the number two, uh, the day before. And then Pope Francis was like, I'll meet with him. It's the vice president of the United States. I will meet with him. I will criticize the people, but like, because I show compassion to everyone, I'm also going to meet the vice president, which was nice. Yes, and there's something that I think like our, you know, as we think about what it means to build a big, small D democratic movement, there's something beautiful in that,

in that he, that what he is fighting for applies to everyone, even the people that disagree, even the people that are getting it wrong, even the people that are horrible, and that we are fighting for that here, right? We are fighting to build a democratic movement because we believe in democracy for everybody. There's some, I tweeted it so you can see it on X, but there's this beautiful video of a young kid, I don't know, he's like five, six years old, eight years old.

He had just like lost his father and he was so nervous to ask Pope Francis a question and he goes up to him and Pope Francis like whispered in my ear, he whispers it in his ear, he goes and sits down and the Pope said, his father is an atheist even though he baptized his three children, he wants to know if his father's gonna go to heaven and he gives this whole speech about how he's like the God that I believe in has a father's heart and a father's heart would never want to keep his children too far away and it it was like a really, like, because the Catholic Church I grew up in, you go to church and they'd, you know, like my mother was Greek Orthodox and they'd be like,

if you are not Catholic, do not come up for communion. Sit in the bench. I was gonna say, Ratzinger's like, sorry kid, he's burning. No, it is. It's like, you know, and it's just, being able to do that in an institution that's hard to change is laudable.

Remember when the pope called gay people froggguccinos though that was funny. Fragguccinos. You know Fragguccinos. I love everybody even the fragguccinos and he's like you can't say fragguccinos. All right I'm gonna say it one more time. Fragguccinos. It was a real real Bidenism. It was awesome. I will say next Pope you're right there's we're gonna have all the speculation of who it may be. It was awesome. I will say next pope, right?

We're gonna have all the speculation of who it may be. There's a lot of choices out there. There's one who is the, who would be like the first Asian pope from the Philippines and he like spoke out a lot against Duterte. Probably doing horse race. Right? Yeah.

And he would be like. Where is he with the swing? Where is he with the swing cardinals? Well, Tommy, I'm good. And so he's like the furthest left I think you'd go. But then there's, the only one that really scares me is there's one from fucking Hungry who Orban likes and conservatives all like.

It takes time. And he thinks that they need to like pull back the whole trip, so that would be bad. And then there's a bunch of other like sort of centrist left to center types. Listen, it's all gonna come down to turnout. I see. I see.

Conclate, conclate. Best movie of last year. I haven't seen it. I haven't seen it either turnout. I see. I see. Kong Clay, Kong Clay. Best movie of last year. I haven't seen it. I haven't seen it either. Now I'm gonna watch it. I'll watch it before this thing. I'm gonna watch it. You're the real deal.

Like Tommy's a very religious person, that's why I made him godfather to my child. God and I, we're gonna check. Not the Hebrew fag. Charlie's. Got a good Christian on that. Yeah, good and religious. He's got a Jewish godmother that. Yeah, good religious. He's got a Jewish godmother.

That's true. Tess is his godmother. When's the last time Tommy saw the inside of a Bible? Give me a break. Give me a break. You going a lot of Sunday mass? Who you seeing there? Make a lot of friends at church?

Give me a fucking break. I'm fully full. I'm glad you pivoted this back to you. Fucking Pontifex over here. There's no Pope, I'm free. pivoted this back to you. Fucking Pontifex over here. There's no Pope, I'm free. It's really beautiful. Okay, before we go, one quick housekeeping note. LGBTQ people are under attack,

and this year Pride is more than an excuse for Lovett to talk over us a lot in June. What a segue! It's life or death. Wow, that didn't really come out as serious as it should have. So grab a join or die T-shirt or sticker from the Crooked store. This design is a nod to the famous historical political cartoon,

but we updated it to meet the moment and stand for LGBTQ resistance. Love it, anything you wanna add to that? It's a great, Zevi, our designer, did an amazing job. Listen, if you go to any government website right now, they're trying to get the T separated from the LGB, and we gotta make sure we keep the Ts with the LGB Ts because otherwise they're gonna,

we'll be S out of L, you know what I mean? And then. That's a shirt. Yeah, that's pretty good. That's pretty good. Get that on the shirt. And by the way, that reminds me, because Sarah McBride said this,

listen, if you haven't and you're like, oh, the Sunday interviews, who knows? The Sunday interview with Sarah McBride was like maybe my favorite conversation I've had with a politician and I can't remember how long. Both of us were like really enjoying listening. I feel like there were several moments where either one of us could have cried. Seriously, I think I was just like staring at her at one point. Just like, wow, this is amazing. How do we have a politician like this? Anyway, check it out. That's our show for today. Dan and I will be back with a new show on Friday, and we will be live from DC.

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Reid Cherlin is our executive editor, and Adrian Hill is our executive producer. Our producers are David Toledo and Saul Rubin. Our associate producer is Farah Safari. Reed Cherlin is our executive editor, and Adrian Hill is our executive producer. The show is mixed and edited by Andrew Chadwick. Jordan Cantor is our sound engineer with audio support from Kyle Seglen and Charlotte Landis. Madeline Herringer is our head of news and programming. Matt DeGroote is our head of production.

Naomi Sengel is our executive assistant. Thanks to our digital team, Elijah Cohn, Hayley Jones, Ben Hefcoat, Mia Kelman, Molly Lobel, Kirill Pellavive, and David Tolles. Our production staff is proudly unionized with the Writers Guild of America East.