Pod Save America - Trump's Petro-Fascist Sugar Daddies

Episode Date: May 16, 2025

On his tour of the Middle East, Trump lavishes praise on dictators—as they deposit bribes in his pocket. Republicans, in between defending Trump's jet grift, finalize more details of their "big beautiful bill," which, in addition to gutting Medicaid, now aims to cut food assistance, funding for Planned Parenthood, and Biden's clean energy tax credits. The Supreme Court hears arguments on two important, intertwined questions: whether Trump's executive order to end birthright citizenship is constitutional (it's not), and whether federal judges below the Supreme Court can issue nationwide injunctions. Jon and Dan react to the Solicitor General's clueless argument before the justices and new polling on Trump's "inoculation" against corruption attacks, and offer Democrats some advice on how to talk about the GOP's tax cuts. Then Jon sits down with long-time friend of the pod Beto O'Rourke to talk about Donald Trump, Joe Biden, and Beto's future in the Lone Star State. For a closed-captioned version of this episode, click here. For a transcript of this episode, please email [e-mail] and include the name of the podcast. 

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Go to wildalaskan.com slash crooked for $35 off your first box of premium wild caught seafood. That's wildalaskan.com slash crooked for $35 off your first order. Thanks to Wild Alaskan Company for sponsoring this episode. Welcome to Pod Save America, I'm Jon Favreau. I'm Dan Pfeiffer. On today's show, we'll talk about Trump's love affair with Middle Eastern autocrats We'll cover the latest with his big beautiful bill

Which is getting worse by the day and turning into a bit of a clusterfuck for Republicans The Supreme Court also heard oral arguments Thursday over Trump's attempt to end the constitutional right to citizenship for people born in America We'll dive into how the justices reacted. And then later you'll hear my conversation with our pal Beto O'Rourke, who stopped by the studio here in Los Angeles to talk about Texas politics, the Democratic Party, Donald Trump, Joe Biden, and lots more. It's great to see Beto. That's awesome. Yeah. He's given a commencement at USC Law School tomorrow. So, he stopped by here to say hi, which is great.

But first, the president is still fluffing Arab dictators for cash and bribes. Just wrapping up a tour of the Gulf states that blended jaw-dropping corruption with the side of foreign policy. Trump not only declined to address the fact that his petro-fascist sugar daddies in Saudi Arabia and Qatar have funded terrorist groups, murdered journalists, and brutally repressed women and gays.

He showered them with the kind of praise he rarely gives anyone but himself. Let's listen Like the crown prince a lot. I've known him a long time in Saudi Arabia and the Amir is Fantastic and we're going to another country in a little while UAE to fantastic man Fantastic leader we are gonna protect this country is very special place With a special royal family and they're gonna be protected by the United States of America. I do I like them a lot. I like them too much that's why we give so much you know too much I like you too much.

As a construction person I'm seeing perfect marble. This is what they call perfecto. What they call perfecto. He likes MBS, the guy who ordered journalists murdered with the bone saw, Jamal Khashoggi. He likes him too much, Dan, too much. It's kind of getting steamy in there. Little awkward, little awkward. How inspired are you by Trump's loyalty to American values, liberal values around the world?

It's like everyone has a type, right? And Trump's type is very clearly hereditary monarchs with large reserves of cash when you give him planes, golf courses and crypto deals. So he is like in his element right now. I mean, it's obviously disgusting and funny in a weird, gross, sad sad gallows humor sort of way. But if you kind of like step back and we talk about this a little bit after the

incident with Zelensky and the Oval Office, the hugging of dictators, JD Vance's speech at the beginning of the administration of the Munich security conference, wherever he was when he did that. But it just, it is just worth recognizing that like we are now the bad guys the Munich Security Conference, wherever he was when he did that. But it is just worth recognizing that we are now the bad guys, that the things that we always, the United States always had a set of values that we stood for, that we pushed for.

And we were not perfect in those. Barack Obama went to Saudi Arabia, he wasn't, you know, Bill Clinton did, everyone else did. But Trump just does not even have the pretense of pretending we care about the things we've always cared about. What he celebrates, what he, he celebrates authoritarian, he sees weakness in democracy and that is a very disturbing place for the American president to be. Especially wealthy autocrats who can shower him with not just praise, but planes, money, business deals for his family.

I mean, you know, maybe Brussels should have given to Donald Trump a new jet and we'd be, we'd have better relations with the European Union. Maybe the Canadians should have thrown in some Trump towers and Trump golf courses and he wouldn't be threatening to annex them as the 51st state. Right. You know, this is how he operates.

You give him praise, you give him money, you give him gifts, and he's gonna treat you and your country well. He's going to make sure that the policy of the United States is favorable to your government so long as you take care of Trump. He is obviously a transactional ecliptocrat, that is very true, but there is just this certain level of respected admiration he has for true dictators that he does not, even

if Mark Kearney gave him a whole bunch of free stuff, he would never view someone subject to the will of the people as impressive as someone who has crushed the will of the people. Yes, that's why Kim Jong-un he praises, Duterte and the Philippines, Bolsonaro, Putin, just name your autocrat. So hanging over all this of course is the issue of the jet, which is such an obvious grift that more MAGA types are

breaking with Trump on it. We talked about Laura Loomer on Tuesday's pod. She is now the conscience of MAGA. But there has also been criticism from your Ben Shapiro's, your Mark Levin's, your Eric Erickson's. There's also a growing number of Republicans in Congress who are saying they want to look into the details before letting this deal happen, unclear what that entails. That's what details they want to know about. You know, you're like, oh, this person's on the Armed Services Committee. I'm like, okay, so what is it? Is it legislation that's going to come up before them? Are they going to block a funding bill because of the budget? We'll see. But none of that criticism is stopping the most committed cult members from doing their thing. Let's listen.

Mr. Speaker, you are very critical of President Biden and his family's foreign business dealings. You supported an impeachment inquiry as a result of it. Are you equally concerned about President Trump's family's business dealings? The reason that many people refer to the Bidens as the Biden crime family is because they were doing all this stuff behind curtains, but in the back rooms. They were trying to conceal it and they repeatedly lied about it. Whatever the President Trump is doing is out in the open. They're not trying to conceal anything.

But Mr. Speaker, the investment in the meme coin... I don't know anything about the meme coin thing. I don't know. I can just tell you that, I mean that President Trump has had nothing to hide. He's very upfront about it. I have zero issue with it. You have zero issue with it? Do you think it raises ethics concerns or national security concerns?

You've been to New York and saw the Statue of Liberty. That was a gift too. He's going to take the plane and then you guys are going to do nothing about it and the press is going to ride on it and then if you win in the midterms, you're gonna impeach them. So what? I mean, maybe the most honest answer there from our pal, Jesse Waters. Your pal, Jesse Waters.

My pal, Jesse Waters. My good friend, Jesse Waters. Before that, that was Oklahoma Senator Mark Wayne Mullen making the apt comparison to the gift we received from France of the Statue of Liberty, which of course, after receiving the gift and after leaving office, Grover Cleveland just flew it all around the world.

Yes, yes, a personal gift. A personal gift. People now visit it in Grover Cleveland's ancestral home. That's how you see the Statue of Liberty, yes. People don't know this about the Statue of Liberty, but it actually belongs to the Grover Cleveland Presidential Foundation. When you pay to take the tour,

that money goes directly into Grover Cleveland's pocket. His dead pocket, yes. Which way do you think the party ends up on this one, Dan? Kind of feel like Jesse Waters nailed it. This is exactly where it's gonna be. A few people will express some mild concerns, but in the end, these people are not gonna break with Donald Trump over a free plane.

Like that's, I don't, if they did, what would happen? He still gets to take the plane. There's nothing they can do. There are Donald Trump scandals and crises that Republicans are just willing to defend from the jump. There's a small sliver of Donald Trump scandals like this one that they're not willing to defend from the jump,

but all of them are willing to just wait it out knowing that our memories are almost, that every day is memento for the American people. We just wake up forgetting anything that happened, nevermind the last year, two years, basically in the last new cycle. And if you just wait long enough, it's gonna sound ridiculous to bring up the jet

three months from now, when there's so much other business to go on. We're just looking forward. We're just doing other stuff now. I have a lot of things to say here, but my first question is what percentage of our listeners do you think recall the 20 year old film Memento? How about, uh, I guess 51st dates is also in that

category. I guess that probably. Yeah. I mean, there are a lot of, I mean, Chris Nolan has really, he's come a long way since that, uh, that small film in the early two thousands, but. Yeah. Anyway, remember Sammy Jancus? It's usually a way to think about politics. Isn the early 2000s, but. Yeah, anyway.

Remember Sammy Jenkins? It's usually a way to think about politics. Isn't that what he had tattooed on his head, on his mirror, whatever it was? Yes. Wow, see, I don't even remember that. I love the movie. Anyway, yeah, you had other comments.

My other thing is Mike Johnson's response is insane. His logic, like he does not seem to be a super sharp guy or like a deep, he's not a deep thinker, I think is what I would take away from Mike Johnson's brief time on the public stage. But his logic is that Joe Biden's crimes, which there's no evidence of to be very clear, that Joe Biden's, because Joe Biden tried to conceal

his fake crimes, that's bad. But because Donald Trump commits his crimes in public, that's okay. I mean, they are, you know, look between Jesse Waters and Mike Johnson there, they're coalescing around an argument that corruption is a virtue for this president and for America. This is a new America now, right?

We, you know, you can storm the Capitol, you can try to steal an election. Uh, you can lock people up without due process and you can slap a bunch of tariffs on people because you want to run world trade because you want everyone to come to you and make some deals. You can accept planes and as long as it's out in the open, what are you going to do about it? Democrats? Oh, you're going to impeach them? Then what's going to happen? Yeah, that's. I mean, this is like, they are making the argument

for a system that is very much not democracy. They're not just saying, oh, no, no, no, no, this is a democracy. They're just like, no, no, no, this whole system where there's laws and due process and ethics for people in power and, no, forget that. This is much better. What they're actually doing is they're pointing out

the massive loopholes in our democracy that Trump is exploiting, which is correct. Trump can commit these crimes and Democrats could impeach him, but because of who the Republican party is and the high threshold for conviction, there's nothing he can do for which he would be convicted. At the end of the day, the only thing that keeps the system

truly working as it was intended is if you have a president with some modicum of shame, some sense of patriotism or duty. It's because Trump has none of those things. He can just run right through the giant loopholes in the middle of our democracy. Yeah, the Supreme Court and the Republican Congress has given him immunity.

And that just leaves the voters to vote out Republicans and MAGA Republicans particularly from now until, I don't know when, 26, 28 and beyond, till we get them all out of office. Till the 50th anniversary of Memento. Sorry, I'm very punchy today. And Pod Save America. Yeah, I'm sure we'll still be doing this. We're still doing it.

Yeah, right. You see that Christy Noem wants a new jet too, by the way. She wants a, Washington Post says the DHS is gonna use $50 million from the Coast Guard budget to get her a brand spanking new Gulfstream 5 to help her fly between those photo ops in Seacat and wherever else we're sending people in style. Look, if you have to be doing cosplay

at an ice raid in LA, and then you have to be in El Salvador for torture porn the next morning, you're not gonna get their commercial. So you need a private jet for that. So it makes complete sense. You think you're gonna fly fucking Coach? Yeah.

Come on now, not Kristy Noem. Not in your fatigues. You just. You know how hard it is to get that prop assault rifle in the overhead compartment? No, of course not. She's got fatigues, someone's gonna do hair and makeup on the way.

You get the glam squad. A lot that goes in. A lot happening. Someone's got the glam squad, yeah. She's gotta get some like, a machine gun. There's just a lot going on. You can't take that through TSA. Everyone's gonna want a free plane now.

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set and mattress protector with any Lux or Elite mattress order. This offer is exclusive for Pod Save America listeners. That's helixsleep.com slash crooked for 27% offsite wide plus free bedding bundle, sheet set and mattress protector with any Lux or Elite mattress order. Helixsleep.com slash Cricut. All right, unfortunately Axios did feel the need to rain on our parade this week by reporting that the corruption message isn't yet breaking through with key voters, according to some focus groups conducted by polar coaster guest Molly Murphy, a Democratic pollster at Impact Research. The gist is that while generic

politicians are vulnerable to corruption critiques, Trump still has some quote inoculation on the issue because of quote doge and his long-standing anti-DC rhetoric. The voters in the group also view Democrats as weak. What was your takeaway from that piece and those findings? It seems pretty consistent with other research. I've not read the whole memo, but it seems consistent with other research I've seen and research we saw in 2020 in the run up to the general election when one of the findings from a lot of the Democratic National Committee actually was that the corruption message was not our most effective attack on Trump. And in some ways that's about Trump in the sense that he's this rich guy, people think maybe he can't be bought or he's so corrupt.

They're willing to like accept the level of corruption with him that they may not with other politicians. And some people will read this focus, this memo and other similar research and say, well, that means we should not talk about corruption. And I think that's a huge mistake. I think that is sort of one dimensional thinking. It is checkers not chess.

Because ultimately, the reason why we have to make this case is because the politics is no longer operates on the left right axis. We talked about this before. It operates on the inside or outside our access. They change status quo axis, change status quo access. And the problem for Democrats is we are still seen as the defenders of the broken status quo, even with Trump in office,

which is why as Trump's numbers go down, ours don't go up. And so we have to do something to make ourselves be credible agents of change. And one way to do that is to run against corruption. Now, if we want to be credible messengers for corruption, because I actually think what this memo and others show is not the, it says more about the messenger than the message itself,

and that we are not seen as strong enough to stand up, and we're not seen as outsider or reformer enough to be credible messengers on corruption. And that is a very fair critique of our party. When Biden was in office, we did nothing of, we did very little on corruption. We defended instead of banning members of Congress trading stocks.

We're not unable to do a lot on like dark money in politics because of the voting rights bill collapse or all of those things. And we should be like, I think one of the things the democratic party should do is have a reform agenda, starting with banning members of Congress and trading stocks, but a whole host of other things that gets right at the corruption and influence happening

in Trump's administration. And this is the path we used back in 2006, but I think we absolutely have to do this. Cause if we don't, if all we do is just vomit up like anti-inflation tariff talking points for the next two years, we may do fine in this next election. That's not gonna be because our message was great,

just because we just happen to be the other guy when people are pissed at the people at the incumbents. But if we want to strengthen the brand of the party to the point where we can actually build the governing majority, we have to regain some of the reformer personality and credentials we had when Obama was president. I think one simple thing the party could do,

stop taking pack and lobbyist money. Yeah. The corporate pack and lobbyist money. Just stop doing that right now. That was the policy of the party from the day Barack Obama became the nominee until he left office. And we have backslid on that in very bad ways. I totally agree with the need for a reform agenda.

I also am, I think we gotta stop testing messages in complete isolation here and not as part of a larger story. I think if you showed people clips of Trump talking about why he deserves the plane, along with clips where he's like, you don't need that many dolls, you don't need that many pencils, and inflation's great, everything's down,

gas prices down, everything's wonderful. I think telling a story about Donald Trump as corrupt, which I agree, most people know he's corrupt or assume he's corrupt, because most people think most politicians are corrupt, but talking about his corruption in the context of how out of touch he is with the concerns of the people he said he was going to fight for, I think is much more damning. And I think you want to tell a story about a bunch of people who are running the government

to enrich themselves while everyone else gets fucked over. And like people have to, as sad as it is, I think some people are willing to let it fly that some government officials are gonna get rich based on their positions, so long as they're also doing work to help people, you know, afford their groceries. And if they don't see that, so I do agree with you, like if it's just tariffs or it's just reform,

like I don't think, I don't think just spitting out a list of messages that test well is gonna work. I think you have to tell a story about Donald Trump. And then, like you said, Democrats have to tell a story about like what they would do differently, not just on economic policy, but also on making sure that government's not corrupt. And the story, I always wrestled with the story thing

because yes, you need a story, obviously. Like that is the core of what we've always believed in politics. Communicating that story is just so fucking hard right now. Right? Like just to have the space. Now, if you are, it's hard to do in the opposition. If you are the nominee in a race

and you have the combination of the press attention you get, the social following you have and the paid advertising, like together you can do it. But it's like Democrats telling that story right now, it's like a hard thing to break through, to tell something holistically, right? Like it is hard. I'm not arguing against it, I'm just saying like,

that I'm just stipulating that as a real challenge. I think it's a challenge for some of these Democrats, but I don't know how hard it is to like go out and give a, you don't even have to give a long speech. You can do like a two minute video on that. I just think that we are, that it's, people are so caught up in, what is the corruption message

and what's the right line that tests well? And just like, just talk about what's happening. Just talk about what's happening and how fucked up it is. Yeah, yeah. I guess I'm getting at the point that telling the story is possible. Getting people to hear the story is harder than it's ever been.

That is true. That is true. This is just a side note, as I said, I'm punchy today related to you. You should give a speech is that sitting in my message box drafts folder for like three months now is my take that politicians should stop giving speeches. Just, just.

Damn you. I mean, you're out of the, you stop writing them. Why do these people keep giving them? I think that, I still think there's a place for speeches because I think there's a place for storytelling because I think storytelling works better than anything. If I ever finish this thing, then you and I, well, you know what we'll do?

We'll debate it on the pod. Great. Yes. Perfect. All right. Well, I look forward to it. So yeah, I do think Trump's orgy of corruption might look even worse to all the voters he's about to fuck over with his big, beautiful tax cut for the rich, which will cause millions of people

to lose their health care while somehow still adding trillions of dollars to the deficit. Here's where things stand on the bill and the House right now. We are of course recording this Thursday afternoon. We got Medicaid cuts that will lead to at least eight million people losing their coverage, millions of others who will pay a lot more

for their healthcare, higher co-pays, work requirements for people who are either already working or people who have disabilities or caring for children or students so they can't work. They've also included a massive cut to food assistance that gives low income Americans, mostly children, about six bucks a day so they don't go hungry.

That's where they decided to get $300 million of savings from that. They want to defund Planned Parenthood and repeal most of the clean energy tax credits that Biden passed. And all of this is so that people making over $1 million can get an average tax cut of $90,000. So that business owners who make over $10 million a year

can take a million dollar tax deduction on average. And so that wealthy couples worth over $30 million can pass on a tax-free inheritance because if you can't give your kids $40 million inheritance without some taxes on it, what are you even doing? Why are you giving them anything? Isn't this America? You should be able to, 35 million, 40 million, 45 million,

you should pass on that to your kids tax-free, no taxes on it, because those kids deserve as much money as they could possibly have. 40 million dollars, tax-free, unfucking real. The Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump Jr. Memorial Tax Act. And even, and the size of these tax cuts and just how they're showering the just ultra mega rich with more money is partly why even with all those cuts

to people's healthcare, to food assistance, to everything else, the bill is still gonna add a few trillion dollars to the deficit. And perversely, that's why some Republicans in Congress are threatening to tank the bill because it is adding too much to the deficit because it's not cutting enough. So that's what's happening right now.

It's disgusting, it's infuriating. It's also somehow not extreme enough for these Republicans. The last I checked, you know, Mike Johnson had a big meeting today with the warring factions of the Republican Congress. You had the hardliners who it's not going far enough. The moderates who already have already taken some votes that people in their districts might not be so happy about.

You have the SALT caucus. I don't even know if we wanna get into SALT. The salties? The salties, that's what they called. These are the people very concerned about the state and local deduction for their taxes, which Trump put a cap on. And now they want to remove the cap because

it hits people in blue states. The hardest, but of course the people in the salty caucus for Republicans are the Republican house members who do represent blue states. There may be another warring factor in that I can't think of right now, but apparently, um, people left the meeting and they were Members were texting Jake Sherman. We're fucked. I think they said we're cooked. We're cooked and they might delay the vote now

But you know by the time you're hearing this Friday morning or Friday afternoon, it could all change So I'm just telling you where we are right now Dan. What do you think about the politics driving this negotiation right now? I mean it is it the whole thing speaks to the utter incoherence of the Republican policy agenda in the era of Donald Trump. Like there is not a consistent view. Like under, I'm over-simplifying here, but like under Reagan, there was a simple principle,

to support Reagan was to agree to lower taxes, smaller government, right? And then a bunch of other stuff. But like that was the economic principles. That extended for a long time. Then you get to the Mitt Romney, Paul Ryan Republicans, and we are going to cut social security Medicare and gut Medicaid. That was our principle. They don't really stand for anything right now. It's a sort of a very dissonant, incoherent group of coalition really coming together. And so you have the super far right, essentially tea party years,

the freedom caucus who want no government. If a Democrat was president, they would want to burst through the debt ceiling, default their nihilists. And then you have a group of sort of Republican leadership, corporate types who want as big a tax cuts as possible for the rich. Like that is where they are. That's sort of the corporatist wing. And then you have people with very specific political concerns worried about

losing their own seats. Right? And so all of these things, they're not all rowing in the same way. This is not a, this is not, and sometimes you would be in a situation like we were trying to pass the Affordable Care Act. The general view was everyone in the same way. This is not, and sometimes you'd be in a situation, like we were trying to pass the Affordable Care Act. The general view was everyone in the Democratic party believed in some form of universal healthcare. We had disagreements about how we got there, but the priority was shared. Here, there is no agreement

about what we're trying to accomplish. Are we trying to cut taxes? Yes, we're trying to cut tax primarily for rich people, working class people. Rich people probably, but some people feel differently. Is our goal to cut Medicaid or not cut Medicaid? Are we trying to reduce the deficit or only increase it by two trillion dollars so we can give the tax cuts to the rich?

Like when the entire organizing principle of the party is one man's personality, it makes legislating on big policy agenda very hard, especially when that man has no coherent policy views, because there's no shared set of principles that you're going for. Yeah. How would you compare that to the way that

build back better went on the democratic side? Well, build back better, like all these legislative processes are messy. The Obamacare process was incredibly messy. The challenge for the build back better process was two people, right? It was 10% of the Senate caucus. And I do think it was,

I think what's happening just with polarization in general and the fact that no one can pass anything with the filibuster anymore. And so everyone needs to pass these. Basically democratic administrations get one reconciliation bill to jam all their priorities in. And with the Democrats, it had been built up over four years

that like we had a lot of different priorities. And with the Democrats, you know, it had been built up over four years that, like, we had a lot of different priorities. And I guess I would argue that having so many priorities is one of the reasons it was such a long, drawn-out process to build back better. Because it's like when Joe Manchin said, oh, you have to cut some spending, do you want to cut it from the child care tax credit?

Do you want to do climate? Do you want to do this? And they ended up with prioritizing climate and, you know, drug prices and infrastructure, I guess. But I think if we, if you had had Joe Manchin, you would have got, you could have gotten the bill done six months earlier, eight months earlier. Exactly.

But you had the bigger point here is, Congress can't really function unless they use the budget reconciliation process, which adds a whole bunch of complications to how you do things. It was harder for Democrats, because we were trying to fit a lot of things that were not specific,

but you're assuming taxes and entitlement cuts or Medicaid cuts, whatever else like that, is very much in the original framework of what a bunch of ex-exilations is. Once you're starting to do, climb is other things, not, I mean, it's permissible and it's fine. It's just a little more complicated

because of a set of pretty esoteric Senate rules. So you mentioned, uh, the members, the Republican members who are concerned about their, uh, their political careers and the races that they have to run in 2026, a lot of those Republicans have already taken votes to deeply cut Medicaid. And I think it would be good if people, uh, kept up the pressure on

these members. These are people like Marionette Miller Meeks from Iowa City, who won by less than a thousand votes last year. Gabe Evans from the Denver suburbs, who won by just more than 2,000 votes. There's plenty of other members like that who are sitting in seats where they only won by a couple thousand votes, either they're in districts where Kamala Harris won or districts that Trump won by not that much. And so, you know, if you wanna call, if you're in these districts or you wanna put pressure on these folks,

you can head to votesaveamerica.com and they'll make it really easy for you. Anything else you think people can do, Dan? Yeah, I mean, ultimately the goal here is to convince not just these individual members, but the Republican leadership in Trump that the bill is currently constructed is akin to handing your majority to Hakeem Jeffries.

As they have to feel the political pressure. And to do that, you have to make your voice heard. And there are a few ways to do that. And I know some of these sound kind of trite in this sort of era of cynicism we're in, but calling your member, calling a member of Congress, especially if you were in that district, matters. Because at the, you and I have worked on the Hill.

The end of every week, the member, the senior staff, the chief of staff, they get a list of, they get a report on call and email traffic. How many calls they got, how much more it is than usual, what it was about and what the sentiment was. So if you blow up their phones, it is the best way to have them know that people are upset about this.

Even if they think it's like not their like their core base or as much of Democrats, it just, it tells them like these members are not doing polling right now. The only way they get to see what public opinion is, is through that call report. So call. Second thing is go to protests, right? Go to, you know, if go to protest,

if there's a town hall, your members, Republican members crazy enough to have a town hall, go to that one. If if there's a town hall, if your Republican member is crazy enough to have a town hall, go to that one. If they are not having town halls and they're like Tim Walls or Ro Khanna or Bernie O.C. Beto, if there are Democrats coming to your, Chris Murphy, Maxwell Frost, all these people, if they're coming to a district to do it,

go to their town hall, let people see that. And then the other thing, and I wrote a message box a few days ago about this, where listing all these different things you can do, but one of the most important ones is like, we say this all the time, I say this all the time, is talk to the people in your life about it. Most people have no idea, not a clue, that the Republicans in Congress want to kick people

off of healthcare to pay for a tax cut for rich people. And they're only gonna know that if you tell them. And I included in my, in this message box newsletter from Tuesday, a very handy communications guide that I got from our friends at Navigator Research about how to talk about it in a way that's most persuasive based on all the research. So if you wanna check that out,

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That's B-O-M-B-A-S.com slash crooked, code crooked at checkout. I don't know if you saw the Washington Post piece. code CROCKET at checkout. I don't know if you saw the Washington Post piece. This is on the tariff issue. I did. That one of the reasons that apparently Trump backed off a little bit on the tariffs is that Suzy Wiles, as chief of staff, and Scott Besson,

the treasury secretary, told them that it was going to really hit the Trump base hard. The working class, blue collar Trump base hard the working-class blue-collar Trump base is gonna get hurt is getting hurt by these tariffs And then we saw the news today that even though Trump has backed off a little maybe not enough because Walmart The Walmart CEO got on an earnings call Thursday and said that they're probably gonna raise prices Because of what the tariffs have done already What did you make of that post story?

Wait till Donald Trump finds out who's on Medicaid. I know, I suppose that was my first thought. Yes, yes, yes. When he finds, I know in the public imagination dating back years and years, decades, the idea is it's a bunch of people of color in urban areas, right? This is basically, this is the equivalent

of Ronald Reagan's welfare queen, racist bullshit. But the reality is it's a quarter of Americans are on it and it is working class Americans brought across the country and a lot in rural areas. Like these are a lot of Trump voters are gonna lose their healthcare or have to pay more or not be able to, their kids will get kicked off healthcare. People will not be able to pay for long-term care

in nursing homes if this happens. Secondly, it's also, it's just, this is kind of like what we talked about at the beginning about Trump's, you know, how like the dangerous sort of cruelty of Trump's rhetoric, we sort of, it sort of gets dumbed down because we're kind of so used to it now. Once again, here's the president of all of the United States who only cares about people who vote for him. Right, this is the same logic he's used in granting disaster assistance. That is unprecedented.

Well, I guess maybe with the possible exception of Richard Nixon throughout our history, presidents, Republican and Democrat, the idea is you're president of all people. When Americans need you, whether they voted for you or your opponent, you help them. And to only make policy decisions based on people that you perceive to be your political supporters,

while everyone else can just rot in hell, it's disgusting and it's unprecedented. And it's very easy for this stuff to get normalized, but it's worth, I think as his story did a good job of doing is pointing out the danger of that approach to governing. I also think there's a good chance that all the people around Donald Trump are telling him,

oh no, people aren't gonna lose their health insurance because of what we're doing in Medicare. We're just doing some work requirements and making sure that there's no fraud and abuse. MAGA voters work, all of them work. Yeah, this is crazy. The 47% are on the other side. This is just Democrats and the commie CBO,

the radical Marxist CBO just lying about all this. Don't forget woke Walmart there. Right, woke Walmart, right. Which is why I do think like, you know, then you've got some parts of, some wing of the party now, the so-called populist wing of the party, you know, the Josh Hollies and even the Steve Bannons and those kind of people who are like, no, no, no, we just shouldn't cut Medicaid and this is cutting Medicaid.

I think lifting those voices up is important, just at least on this issue, and then just making a lot of noise that this is going to lead to a lot of people losing their healthcare so that it is loud enough that it gets through to Republicans and maybe to Trump and, you know, they pare it back because it's gonna be, I mean, the CBO, I think, when they tried to, when Trump in 2017 tried to repeal the Affordable Care Act, I think they said like 17 million people would lose their health insurance.

This is like, you have the 9 million for Medicaid, 8.6 million for Medicaid, and then you have another four or five million because they don't want to renew the subsidies that people get to help buy insurance on the exchanges for the Affordable Care Act. You also have a bunch of other people who are on Medicare and Medicaid and might lose Medicaid even though Medicaid fills in gaps in Medicare insurance for low income seniors. And those people won't be counted as losing their health care, but they may lose their

health care because it's really important that they have Medicaid fill in those gaps. So it's just it's like a ton of pain that could follow from this. And the bill probably will get worse if they if they end up passing it because they're already saying like the work requirements wouldn't kick in until 2029 or something. And I think Steve Scalise was like, oh, no, no, we're going to rewrite the bill so that they're earlier to try to get some of the hardliners on board. So as they try to get these hardliners to vote yes, the bill's only gonna get worse and hurt more people.

That is the history of Republican legislation in the last decade really is, more than the last decade, two decades, it always moves right. It never moves left to get passage. The moderates are forced to fold to appease the heartliners. And that's what will happen here.

Last thing on the agenda here, big case before the Supreme Court on Thursday. The justices heard oral arguments on two really big intertwined questions. The first is whether Donald Trump's day one executive order attempting to end birthright citizenship is constitutional. And the second stemming from the circumstances around that is whether federal judges below the Supreme Court can issue nationwide injunctions.

That is, whether a single federal judge can freeze a given policy from the administration across the country, which is what happened after the birthright citizenship EO was signed. It would be pretty surprising if the court didn't uphold birthright citizenship in the end since it's spelled out clearly in the 14th Amendment. And it didn't seem like any justices at least were openly entertaining the ending birthright citizenship based on that EO. But of course, we don't know. Some could just be quiet. They didn't really talk about the case on the merits, the birthright citizenship on the merits all that much. During the oral arguments, they spent most of the time on the argument over nationwide injunctions. That said, it did seem clear that Solicitor General John Sauer didn't have great answers

on some of the big questions about birthright citizenship and injunctions. Let's listen. On the day after it goes into effect, it's just a very practical question how this is going to work. What do hospitals do with a newborn? What do states do with a newborn? I don't think they do anything different. What the executive order says in section two is that federal officials do not accept documents that have the wrong designation of citizenship from people who are subject to the executive order. How are they going to know that? The states can continue to, the federal officials will have to figure that out.

How? So you can imagine a number of ways that the federal officials could. Such as? Such as they could require a showing of documentation showing legal presence in the country. For a temporary visitor, for example, they could see whether they're on a B-1 visa, which would exclude kind of the birthright citizenship in that country.

For all the newborns, is that how it's gonna work? Again, we don't know. This week, the Second Circuit holds that the executive order is unconstitutional, and then what do you do the next day or the next week? Generally, we follow those. So you're still saying generally? Yes. So that was still saying generally. Yes.

So that was Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett two justices nominated by Donald J. Trump. What'd you make of the arguments and how the justices responded? The arguments around birthright citizenship were ridiculous. I mean, it even, it does feel like even Trump's attorneys were just sort of Trojan horsing this, using this case. They know they're going to lose this case. Trump doesn't know that because he was truthing up a storm in the middle of the night from the Middle East about

why birthright citizenship is bad. But it seems like his attorneys are using this as a way to take on the issue of temporary restraining orders, right? In nationwide injunctions, which has been a huge problem for Trump because he keeps violating laws and constitutions and processes and the above and all of this stuff. And those arguments were interesting because like there's obviously a governing challenge if any judge anywhere can just stop you from doing anything

and people go forum shopping, they go looking for the right Trump judge or the right not Trump judge. You know, we saw this a lot when Biden was president. Like people, they went, people go forum shopping and it just, we even saw this. There was less of this when we were in the White House, but there was a fair amount.

And it's very hard to govern if one judge anywhere can just stop the implementation of a policy for some period of time and then an appeals court undoes it, then another, and then maybe he goes to the Supreme Court and you're back in your back end to hold. And so how they figure that out I think is interesting. There seems to be a general consensus among the justice, at least in the parts that I read, that this is a challenge. What is the solution is an open question. Is it creating some sort of guidance for the courts on how to do it, limiting the kinds of things that can be the sorts of issues,

the sort of limiting it to major constitutional issues that affect lots of people. There was some talk in there about, could you make it specific to the people in that district? But that seems impossible to implement on- With birthright citizenship. Or yeah, birthright citizenship. Obviously, for everything.

But think about the Miffit per Stone case. We're going to say it only can't be in this federal court district, but everywhere else it's fine. That seems like very hard to implement. So I know far from an expert here, know very little about it. But it does seem like there's gonna be, if anything comes of this case,

it will be related to the use of nationwide injunctions in some way, shape or form. Yeah, I think the most simplistic way to think about it is you're trying to balance out the threat of a rogue president with the threat of a rogue judge. Yeah, that's the same way to think about it. And you always wanna like put the shoe on the other foot, right, and imagine if it's a democratic president,

and like you said, conservative activists go form shopping, find some crazy right-wing Trumpy judge, blocks a Democratic president's policy, and now it's blocked across the country, and now we have to wait for the Supreme Court. But then there's a problem that, if you have an out-of-control president like Donald Trump, who wants to just smash the constitution and break laws

and a judge is trying to stop them, then what you're gonna have to wait and say, no, no, you can't have a nationwide injunction. This crazy policy is gonna go through while we wait for this issue to go through all the courts, right? So it is a tough challenge, I think. Think about it in the context of the flights

to Libya we talked about. Yes, yes. So it's like a judge in Texas stops them, you just move the detainees to somewhere else and fly them from there, right? Like there are issues of imminent concern that have to be addressed right away. It can only be addressed

with some sort of nationwide injunction. And so hopefully that that, like it's obviously being, abuse is not the right word. It prevents complications to governing, but to just throw the baby out with the bathwater, I think would be quite problematic. It would really give even more power to the executive, which we, one thing we've seen the last 120,

30, 40 days, whatever it is. Not a great idea. They don't need any more power. Yeah. All right, when we come back, you'll hear my interview with Beto O'Rourke about the long game in Texas and whether he's jumping back into politics there.

Before we do that, I just interviewed Hassan Piker this week about getting detained and questioned by Trump's CPB agents in Chicago and Trump's general crackdown on free speech. It's a great interview, horrifying, but also great. You can watch the interview on Pod Save America's YouTube channel right now, and you'll find tons of other YouTube exclusives

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like Brian Tyler Cohen, the Bullwork, others. Thank you, end of pitch. Excellent pitch, Dan, excellent pitch. Pod Save America is brought to you by Mint Mobile. Summer's just around the corner and the folks at Mint Mobile have a hot take. Getting a summer bod is out and getting your savings bod is in. This spring and summer, we want skimpy wireless bills and fat wallets. I like that. And with premium wireless plans for just 15 bucks a month,

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That's mintmobile.com slash crooked. Upfront payment of $45 for three-month, five-gigabyte plan required, equivalent to $15 a month. New customer offer for first three months only, then full price plan options available. Taxes and fees extra. See Mint Mobile for details. Beto O'Rourke, good to see you, my friend. Thank you for having me over. What have you been up to?

What's keeping you busy these days? We're still running this group called Powered by People in Texas that you and your viewers and many others have been so helpful in supporting. Basically, we're registering likely Democrats where we can find them typically on college campuses. And something that we've innovated around that I'm really excited about is after we register people, we stay in touch with them. So we'll say, you know, can I get your cell phone number? I'm going to help you through the voter ID process, which is incredibly complicated in the state of

Texas. I'm going to give you a heads up when early voting starts. I know you care about women making their own choices about their own bodies or raising the minimum wage or these other issues that we just talked about. I'm going to tell you who the candidates are that

reflect your values when they're on the ballot. So it's really labor intensive. We, we become these voting Sherpas for, uh, people in Texas that is, it's a state that's harder to vote in and harder to register in than any other. So that's a long-term power building project. We're doing that.

And then in meeting the moment and the urgency of this crisis that we're in as a country, I'm holding these town halls all over Texas. And we just had one in Amarillo. We're about to have one in, uh, East Dallas County, Wichita Falls, Mansfield, did one with Tim Walls in, in Fort Bend, just outside of Houston. And I've got to tell you on a, on a personal

level, it just feels so good to be with people and, and to know you're not alone and, and to realize other people are seeing and feeling exactly what you're seeing and feeling. And it may be even better to listen and learn from people who are going through things that I'll never experience, but the ways in which this administration is hitting them or hurting them.

Something you can make up. I'm in Amarillo and this woman comes up to me at the end of the town hall and she said, I'm a 30 year owner of a toy store here in Amarillo. I think it's called unique toys. We were struck by lightning place burned down and I'm trying to rebuild this place. And I'm now also negotiating is it 145% tariffs? Is it 30% tariffs? I would love to buy American made toys.

They don't exist. 90% of the production in the world comes out of China. And I'm going to have to close this shop. I'm going to have to look for another line of business. I'm going to have to fire my employees. And I don't know if she's a Republican or a Democrat. This is a county that voted for Trump 80% in the last election. But it takes these stories out of the headlines or the aggregate data.

And now I've met this woman who's going through this hell because of this president, and then I can go share her story to other people so they don't feel as alone and they realize there are other people out there like me, not just in Austin or Dallas or New York or LA, but in Amarillo, Texas too. What was the, I know that personally you just love being around people. It gives you energy. It inspires you. What was the genesis of the idea to get back out there again?

And like, what are you hoping that these town halls can do for people and just do for this moment? I need to do something. Yeah. I'm going to go fucking crazy if I stay at home, if I'm just reading the news or scrolling through Twitter or trying to do this at distance. So I know just personally, I'm going to feel better. So I know just personally, I'm going to feel better. And I've learned that, you know, when we went to the Wichita Falls town hall in Wichita County, again, 72% for Trump in the last election. What's wild is the look of surprise on people's faces, not to see me, but to see,

you know, 449 of their neighbors, many of them complete strangers. Again, we never screened for partisanship. We don't know who voted for whom in the last election. And their ability to hear and listen to one another and out of that, to go take action. I'll give you an example. We're in Wichita Falls and somebody stands up and says, I'm going to hold a protest tomorrow, Sunday in Sanger, Texas. Anybody live near Sanger, you join me tomorrow. There are going to be more people at that protest. In Amarillo, a woman said, you know, I live in a neighboring town, Canyon, Texas.

My 12-year-old daughter with disabilities, when they cut the Individuals with Disabilities Act, which Trump is going to do, when they slash Title I funding, when you add to that the vouchers that Governor Abbott has imposed that take millions, almost a billion dollars out of our public schools. What's going to happen to my kid? She's going to get warehoused somewhere. Like we used to do with people with disabilities before.

Who's going to fight with me? And so I said, can you tell me when the Canyon independent school district board of trustees meets next Monday at 7 PM? Okay, everyone, if you live anywhere in your Canyon, Texas, you have this lady's back Monday. And so I need to follow up with her to see how that school board meeting went. But there's real power in people coming together. It's not as some fear, an empty gesture or virtue signaling or, God, I feel great after doing that, but did it really change anything? It absolutely does. It gives us encouragement. It gives us faith. It stokes

the optimism and hope that we need to then take action to go register people to vote or run for office or support that candidate or for my fellow Texans who've had their hearts broken one election cycle after another to hold off despair and actually take a chance and vote in this next one in 2026. So there's real good that comes out of this. I'm going to just keep doing it because it's better than nothing. And it's better than waiting for somebody else to step up. What are the issues that come up in these town halls from people? What are like the most common issues, and what issues come up that are missing from the national debate that we're not talking about enough?

Something that's so interesting to me about going to these places that Democrats have almost always, well, at least for the last 30, 40 years, written off like Wichita County, is you hear some of what you would expect. A veteran stands up and says, well, Beto, can you tell me how cutting 83,000 positions at the VA,

most of those positions held by veterans, by the way, how that's going to help me with my service connected disability claim or my six month wait time to see a behavioral health specialist. That's an important question. A woman who stands up and asks about cuts to Medicaid in a state that is the least insured already in the union.

But then what perhaps you don't expect is the young mother to stand up and say, what are you doing about due process and the fact that they just sent this guy to this hell hole torture chamber prison in El Salvador and he had an order to protect him from deportation. They did it anyhow. And then she goes on to make the point, look, they come for these people that we don't want to stand El Salvador and he had an order to protect him from deportation. They did it anyhow.

And then she goes on to make the point, look, they come for these people that we don't want to stand next to right now. Do you want to stand next to the alleged terrorist gang member Thug with the tattoos on his neck? Uh, but if you don't stand next to him and, and stand up for the constitution rule of law and due process, well, they're going to come for the next vulnerable population after that. And then pretty soon it's going to be us. And she was saying this prior to all of us learning that we're now actually deporting US citizen children, some of whom have stage four cancer and are leaving this country without their medications.

So, our temptation sometimes to write whole sections of the country off or, or to write people off based on who they voted for last time is so dead wrong. And the only way you really learn that is by showing up and meeting people where they are. And I think what's missing right now from leadership and opposition to Trump and leadership that wants to

replace him with something better is more of this, more showing up for people. what's missing right now from leadership and opposition to Trump and leadership that wants to replace him with something better is more of this more showing up for people and, and showing up everywhere, fighting on every front, every one of the 254 counties, every one of the 50 states. We were just in Tuscaloosa with Doug Jones, the students at university of Alabama, many were pissed that Trump was imposing himself on their graduation.

He announced he was going to give the commencement address, though he had not been invited. Typical Trump, he's going to overshadow and try to outshine their achievement and their day of celebration. So they invited a few of us to come down and speak. And what I thought was so cool about it is no one from the DNC gave them marching orders. No one said, you should do this. Their state is not supposed to matter to our party. There's zero investment that I can discern in places like Alabama, but they know that they matter and they want to be heard. And so they're going to get it done. 1500 people showed up at this public park on that day.

And it was just, it was fantastic. It was absolutely beautiful. And out of that, you know, I stayed afterwards and folks were like, you know what, I think I'm going to run for office. I'm probably going to lose, but if I run and somebody follows me or I run again next time, ultimately we're going to get there and maybe the DNC will come to, to help us out, but I'm not going to hold my breath. I'm going to do what I can with what I have, where I am. I think that's the spirit of the moment. And those who want to lead better get with it.

How are you feeling about this constitutional crisis that we seem to find ourselves in right now? The solace I can take in this moment is that we've been through this before. In 249 years into this deal, there's this great speech that I know you're super familiar with. Johnson gives it eight days after Bloody Sunday.

I think it's March 15th, 1965. And he's putting John Lewis and those 600 marchers in the pantheon of great Americans who've answered the call at these moments of truth. So he says, as it was at Lexington and Concord a hundred years ago at that courthouse in Appomattox. And I've always wondered why he didn't add, on the beaches of Normandy in 44,

where Americans were bravely fighting off fascism to defend democracy at home. He says, here is John Lewis in 1965, willing to give his life so that this country can fulfill its promise to itself and to the world. It's just one of the most beautiful moments in American history that the power flowed not from the president on down, but from 24 year old John Lewis on up to, to the white house.

And so. And Lyndon Johnson adopts, we shall overcome and says it for the first time, which is came up from the civil rights movement. Absolutely. You probably know this story too, of prior to that, Andrew Young and Dr. King are meeting with Johnson, this is the end of 64. And they're like, great job on civil rights, Mr. President. Now we'd like to vote.

And Johnson at the end of the meeting says, I'd love to help you, but I just don't have the power. And King turns to Young as they're leaving and he says, we gotta go out there and get this guy some power. And I just love that conception of America, government of, by, and for the people. The power always, when it really works, flows up.

And so, yes, Trump has a concentration of political power in his hands. Elon Musk and the other oligarchs, concentration of economic power. The billionaire masters of algorithm and influence, they've got some cultural power in their hands. But this great Lincoln line, public sentiment is everything. That's what Lewis was shaping and catalyzing in 1965 and countless others before and after him, my faith is in the American people and that we are gonna come through. And though it's just anecdote that meeting in Tuscaloosa with those

students was so damn inspiring. I needed to see that. The country needs to see that. And then one last example, John, you remember in 18 when Trump was imposing this family separation policy and people were just spontaneously rising up against it. It's unjust, it's immoral. How in the hell can this be happening in our name? And those protests culminated in one that we were a part of in Tornillo, Texas. It's this small town in the lower valley of El Paso County. And this government contractor had constructed this tent city that was

housing all of these separated kids. And we put out the call, many of us, you know, days before and a thousand people show up, folks drove down from Alaska, uh, people flew in from Massachusetts and folks came in from other parts of Texas. And we wanted to make sure those kids knew that we knew they were there. And we also wanted to bear witness and testify to the rest of the country, hey, this is happening and we gotta do something about it. That's on June 18th, June 20th, Trump rescinds family separation. He could be moved and he will be moved

by public sentiment. So yeah, the constitutional crisis, the undermining of the rule of law, it has never been more dire, certainly in our lives, but my faith is in the American people rising up and stopping this, certainly I hope in 2026, but we should not wait until that year. We have to do everything we can right now in this moment. We can move him and we can move the politics of this country, but it's gonna take everybody

doing everything they can. Yeah, and I think what makes it so much more difficult in 2025 is, well, there's a lot of factors, but I do think that the media environment and the information environment just beyond the media environment is so much different. I think a lot about the civil rights movement and even that moment. And you know, when John Lewis was on that bridge and was beaten within an inch of his life, that led the news on the three major channels that millions and millions and millions of Americans watched. We all watched the same thing. You had to pick between three channels and it went to most of the country. And I don't know of anything now that breaks through good news or bad news, politics or not, to the entire country of moments like the Super Bowl.

Like, we just don't have these these moments anymore. And so, you know, public opinion, while it's turned against Trump, you know, I keep thinking about 2024 and everyone who paid attention to the news, voted for Kamala Harris, and people who got their news from social media, Donald Trump won them by a bit. And then people who didn't get any news at all,

who don't pay attention much to the news, he won them by a lot. And I wonder how we break through to people in the same way, who might feel the same way we do if they learn about what's happening, but either because they're exhausted or because everything seems too bleak or just because they're living busy lives are not closely paying attention to what's happening. Yeah. So this is the great opportunity for the Democratic Party to step up. And this is where we're completely failing the

country right now. So three of the last seven or eight town halls I've had have all been in Ronnie Jackson's district. He's a far right congressman in Texas. So I mentioned Amarillo. Doctor I've dealt with before. Doctor. Amarillo, Denton, um, and, and Wichita Falls.

Um, you know, in, in Amarillo, they're talking about the fact that they had to turn around 13 trucks, 18 wheelers full of food for their food bank because Trump cut the USDA supplemental that was passed under Biden. People are going to go hungry in Amarillo. They're shutting down three of the public schools in the Amarillo ISD because of cuts to Title I

and what's happening at the state level. Up in Dalhart, Texas, further north, they care about their local schools, they care about unions because it's a big rail hub, and they care about immigration, and they want more immigrants because they're an agricultural community. And no matter what they pay there

to anybody born in Dalhart, Texas, they're not taking the jobs. If we cannot figure out immigration better than what Trump is doing right now, that town will wither and die on the vine. There is no Democrat, no Democrat on the ballot making the other side of the argument on issues that we should absolutely fucking own every single day. And so if we continue to concentrate the presidential election in seven battleground states and, and leave Alabama and Texas to their own devices, if in Texas, we only focus on the top of the ticket against John Cornyn or, or Ken Paxson, which is important, but neglect the state house races or the U S congressional races, like the one against Ronnie Jackson, we're going to keep

getting this and we can never blame the people in Amarillo for either voting for Ronnie Jackson because he has no opponent or does not voting at all because they don't really have a choice. And so I recognize John that, that just saying this, that the proposition is extraordinarily expensive and it will

force us to use muscles that we have not employed since, you know, Lyndon Johnson was, was crisscrossing the state. But, but if, if we don't become a truly national party and, and a party that can talk and listen to people, I think more importantly, in rural Texas, as well as, as urban Texas, then we will be consigned to irrelevancy and, and we will fuck up this moment.

And, and this, this is, And this is in that litany that Johnson described, as it was in Lexington and Concord all the way up to Selma, so it is today in 2025. And we have got to come through because if we don't, I think you really do lose the last best hope of earth. I think this thing is gone. And the outright corruption and criminality and total disregard for the law that we're seeing from Donald Trump himself and from those around him leads me to believe that they think this thing is already gone, that they're not gonna face accountability or voters or free and fair elections. And I don't think that that's the wrong logic for them to employ given where we are and given how feckless so far and

weak the opposition has been. So I sure hope that those who have the positions of power within our party, the money, the titles, the influence, will follow the lead of those students in Tuscaloosa, of the people that we're listening to in Amarillo, and get after it and fight, and dispense with this false choice of, do we need to be more progressive or more centrist and moderate? It's just, are we gonna fight, or are we gonna surrender?

And if we fail to fight, this thing's over. Oftentimes it is a false choice on the ideological spectrum, just partly because voters have, as you know, very complicated views, and they can hold a view on one issue that's quite liberal and quite progressive and a view on another issue that's conservative. Obviously we can't take power, especially in the Senate,

without winning states like Texas. I mean, I think to win the Senate in 26, Maine, North Carolina, Ohio, Texas, like we'd need to win a lot of really tough states. And, you know, part of it is showing up. Part of it is, and people in the party will make this argument, especially people who look at the data, who've run these races, who've talked to these voters, that Democrats have positions as a national party

that don't always line up with voters in some of these righter states. And the question is, do you moderate your views? Do you say, no, these are my views and you don't have to agree with me on everything, but maybe we agree on this. Like, how do you navigate the fact that there just really are right of center voters

on a whole host of issues in some of these states that we absolutely have to win to take back power. Yeah. You know, I just don't know, just to be honest in my ignorance, just how much those policy positions and your place on the political spectrum really matter. For some of the reasons you set up earlier, the lack of information that many voters have,

not because they're dumb or uninterested, but because we don't have common facts that we share. They're delivered on three broadcast news channels or one daily newspaper or the evening paper if, if you lived in a town like El Paso 40 years ago that, that had both. Um, and, and so folks are getting information, you know, culturally or anecdotally or incidentally if, if they're getting it at all. And I further agree with your point that people are complex. They voted for Obama and they voted for Trump and they're not inconsistent. It's not hypocritical for them.

Each man was speaking to them in that moment where they really needed to see that change that Obama was promising, that change that, that Trump was, was heralding. And, and to further make my point, look at the shit that Trump is doing. Like what, what poll tests would return the results like you need to advocate invading Greenland or taking on, you know, Canada as a 51st state or your HHS secretary after two kids have died of measles in a country that hadn't lost

a child to that virus in 20 years is saying you shouldn't take medical advice from him or just take more vitamin A or just, or just tough it out. Deeply unpopular stuff that that woman who owns the, the toy store in Amarillo, she's absolutely getting screwed by this guy and his, and his total ineptitude.

What he does have, what he does have is what seems and appears and is sold to people as the courage of his convictions. No one's cooking this stuff up for him. The shit that's coming out of his mouth is the shit that was generated in his brain. And there's something in today's overly controlled, sanitized corporate politics that's just really exciting about someone who speaks their mind. It just almost never ever happens. Like we can name the people on one hand, I think Bernie Sanders is that way. Um, I think AOC has that going for her.

I mean, there's some people who really, who really stand out. Um, and so I guess from everything I just said, have the courage of your convictions. Uh, I think strength appeals people to people far more than policy precision or your 10-point plan or just how far you've moderated your views to anticipate where they're going to be in November of 2026. When I was running for Senate in 2018,

and we got so close to Ted Cruz and perhaps more importantly, helped 12 insurgent Democrats defeat 12 incumbent Republicans in the state house. Colin Allred defeats Pete Sessions, Lizzie Pannell Fletcher wins in Southeast Texas. It was transformative for the state. That was not one on policy.

They were like, this guy fucking shows up everywhere. He's working his ass off. He listens to me, whether I'm wearing a Trump hat or a Hillary hat, He just does not care. He's going to fight for me. He knows where I live. He understands what's happening here in Sweetwater or Roscoe or Dallas for that matter. Nobody's written off. Nobody's taken for granted. So, of course, I'm biased based on experience, but I think that is the path forward. So, whatever you believe, whatever you feel,

let it show, let it come through in real, honest to God, human terms, and I guarantee you, you're gonna have a better chance of connecting with that voter than using the message tested, approved line that came out of DC or Austin for that matter. You know, people want to connect with people, so be a person. What could

elected Democrats be doing better right now, either in Congress or in the states? You know, the, so plenty of exceptions to this, and Bernie's a great exception. He's just getting out there and he's being with people. Tim Walz getting out there, being with people. AOC, lots of, Chris Murphy, I just saw, Ro Khanna, a lot of really, really great leaders right now, you know, to, to show the other side of the party, you know, Chuck Schumer saying, well, we just got to wait till this guy's approval numbers go below 40.

We did it before and we're going to do it again. So we'll kind of rope a dope him. We'll vote for this CR, which essentially gave, you know, Trump and Musk a free hand with our tax dollars to do whatever they wished with them at this moment of constitutional crisis. That certainly cannot be the answer. And unfortunately, I think it appears and who

knows what's in their heads. There are too many Democrats who are waiting and watching to find out, you know, which way the wind is going to blow. Like what, what is the message of this moment? And I can sympathize with those Democrats who don't want to hold a town hall because they're, they're asking themselves, well, what, what do I say?

What's, what's the answer? What's the silver bullet? People want the message and I don't know what it is. You can be forgiven for not knowing what it is. I mean, this is a historical unprecedented. We've never seen this before, but all the more reason for you to be with the people that you purportedly serve and represent and listen to them. They're gonna have the answer. They're gonna have the message. I

guarantee you. Listen to them, not the consultants, not the pollsters, not the data scientists. Those folks are important too, but really more at the margins than anywhere else. So, and that's what I'm hearing from folks. You know, one of the questions I get, no matter where I travel in the state or outside of the state is where's the democratic party? Where are people? What the hell are you guys going to do? Who's fighting for me right now? You know, it's, you know this because you're

an expert in messaging. The message is we fight for you, but the trick is you can't say that. You have to show that. Yeah. You can't say. A lot of reading the stage directions from Democrats. Yeah.

I don't know if you've come across any of the excerpts from Jake Tapper and, uh, Alex Thompson's new book, Original Sin, which is about Biden, his decision to run again, sort of decline and age related issues. I'm thinking about it because you were just mentioning, you know, Democrats have to listen to people. Clearly, the Biden folks were not listening

to a whole bunch of voters, not just Democratic voters, but voters all across the country for a long time who didn't want them to run. And then, you know, post-debate, trying to tell people that what they were seeing with their eyes wasn't real. To what extent do you think Democratic politicians and party officials have a credibility issue to fix with voters due in part to everything that went on in 24? Just to be clear, Biden should not have run again.

And to be even more clear, he failed this country in the most important job that he had. And in fact, the entire rationale for his presidency, the first time and the rationale he tried to sell us on for his attempt to run for reelection. Only I can stop Donald Trump. And he failed to do that. And it's not just you and me, but our kids and grandkids

and the generations that follow that might have to pay the price for this. We might very well lose, you know, the greatest country that this world has ever known. And, and it might be in part because of the decision that Biden and those around him made to run for, for reelection instead of having an open primary where the greatest talent that

the democratic party can muster could be on that stage to have a competition of ideas and track record and vision and really excite not just Democrats, but the people of this country who did want change. I mean, if anything was clear coming out of 2024, they wanted change. And to literally run the oldest guy who many people accurately to your point said, I just don't think he is capable of doing this. And I know that I saw the Congresswoman and the Congressman on CNN saying these running circles around us in the briefing rooms behind closed

doors, it just, it doesn't add up with what I'm seeing with my own lying eyes. Um, I think that credibility problem is going to persist up until when Democrats say we fucked up and we made a terrible mistake and it didn't just hurt our ability to win election in a political campaign. It deeply and gravely and perhaps we'll see deeply and gravely and perhaps we'll see irrevocably harmed this country. Um, and so, uh, you know, you and many others got out there and told the truth and I don't think you

did it in a crass or brazen or mean way. I think you said, Hey, maybe we should have this conversation and, and we're absolutely trashed for doing it. Um, you know, others, I think saw that were concerned, but worried that, you know, Biden's already out there. He's going, am I going to hurt him and his chances and our ability to defeat Trump?

If I further weaken him, I was definitely hearing stuff like that. I, I supported, uh, you know, folks who were behind the uncommitted movement in Michigan, not because I wanted to hurt Biden or Kamala Harris, but because I was, I just couldn't stand what was happening in Gaza. I didn't like America's complicity in that. I knew President Biden had the power to do something. And here were people speaking to the civil rights and voting rights movement who were peacefully, democratically, non-violently protesting

to get the president's attention, to give him the power to do the right thing. And when I spoke on behalf of those who were doing that in Michigan, and in the same breath saying, I wanna defeat Donald Trump, and if Biden is our nominee, we should vote for him. The attacks were, you're undermining the president,

you're weakening him in front of this election, why don't you just shut up and stand with him? And if we're the world's greatest democracy, you never shut up and stand with anybody when they're wrong. And you always have to speak the truth. So grateful to you and others who did do that. I wish more of us had done more at that time. But the last thing that we can do is fail to learn from that and not be honest about Chuck Schumer right now, not be honest about other Democratic leaders who are failing us in this moment. The time to be polite and kind and respectful is over. Democrats, it seems, care far too much about being right and being polite than being in power. Republicans under Trump care about power and nothing else,

not the constitution, not the rule of law, not being nice to one another. We don't have to be so immoral or illegal or corrupt, but I think we have to be far more ruthless and real about power or we'll never have it again. Yeah. And you know, whenever we talk about it now, people are like, Oh, wait, you're still picking

on Joe Biden and let's just move forward. And you see a lot of democratic politicians are like, let's move forward. And it's not only about Biden. I do think our party, you know, we just talked about how reading polls too closely is bad. You get poll tested messages and all that shit, but knowing where the public is. And trying to at least meet them where they are on issues.

I do think it's important. I think is an issue that our party has had over the last several years. And it's not just with Biden's age. It was like, hey, the economy is great and look at all the statistics and people are feeling the price increases. It's much worse in England and Europe. It's not so bad here in America. Here's the comparative example that you need to pay attention to. And you've lived this being on the border, which is like, oh, immigration is just an issue that Trump uses to win elections and that people couldn't possibly be upset by you know, more migrants coming over the border than any time before.

And look, you can imagine that people are still want to be generous and want to have more immigration in this country, but are worried that when you have, you know, so many migrants coming across the border in a community and it's stretching the public services in that community that people are going to be upset by that, you know? And I just think that we have to do a better job, like really finding out where people are. And even if we disagree with their policy solutions

or we disagree with their positions solutions or we disagree with their positions, like figuring out a way to make sure that they feel seen and heard. Absolutely. You know, I spent a lot of time on the border in, well, for forever. I live there, but going to other border communities like Eagle Pass in, in Maverick

County, this is where Abbott has, um, put these, these border buoys that are in the river that have razor wire. It's just like medieval torture death device that has led to far too many migrants losing their lives, mothers and young children. That's obviously the wrong way to do it. But when I listen to people in Maverick County, they're like, where's the president?

Where is the party? Like Beto, would you be okay if at 2 a.m. 20 people are walking through your backyard? You don't know who they are or where they came from or what they might do to you and your family. Is that cool with you? No, I wouldn't like that either. It sounds like you have a real problem here. Well then where the hell are you guys? Quit telling us that everything is okay or that we're managing this through the asylum process or we just need to get comprehensive immigration reform done. So vote for me in the next election until we have a majority.

And they know that we had a majority in both houses and a Democrat in the White House in 2009 and the same in 2021. And I don't begrudge Obama or Biden for the priorities they chose instead of immigration. They were both very, very, very important, but that's not lost on the voter. You guys talk a good game. You never fix this shit. So I may not like walls and family separation and kids in cages and all the other crazy shit that Trump does, but if he's the only guy offering change and taking us seriously and showing up and visiting the border, okay, I guess I'm going to vote

for him. So should not be a surprise to us that we lost so many voters in Maverick County and the Rio Grande Valley and El Paso, Texas, my hometown, you know, El Paso, Texas, which saw a Trump-inspired shooter come and murder 23 people and said he was coming to repel the invasion of Hispanics who were taking over our country. Trump still won more voters in 2024 than he did in 2020 or 2016. So you're absolutely right. We got to listen to people and we can't tell them not to trust their lying eyes on price increases on a border that is out of control. Or one of the things I learned as somebody who often talks about democracy is, I know

what I'm talking about when I talk about democracy. It's the right to vote and to freely and fairly choose a person who represents you and my love of this country and 249 years of history and are we really going to fucking blow it? But for someone for whom this country has not been working, they're making $7.25 an hour or they're a young person who has heard us talk about school shootings and more than two years after you valed nothing has changed or you name it, it's not working out for them in their lives. Are you the Democrats defending everything as it exists? These institutions, including quote unquote democracy. Um, so people still want change. I know that from, from visiting all these communities, Democrats better offer it.

And, and to your point, it better reflect what they are hearing in these town hall meetings, let the people define the message. It doesn't mean you change your core convictions or what you believe. It just means that you reflect those people that you want to serve. And the only way you're gonna do that is by showing up. And man, it is hard.

Texas is a big state. You know, it took me two years to cover 254 counties. But if you're serious about winning places like that, I think it's the only way to do it. In Texas, you mentioned your 2018 race. You came so close. From 2018 to 2024, the state seemed like it moved to the right,

seemed like it was moving to the left, and then it moved back to the right. Where do you think the situation stands right now? And how big of a reach do you think the Senate race is in 2026 for Democrats? You know, I mentioned some of those transformative changes that took place in 2018, including at the local level.

You know, Houston, Texas, most diverse city in the country, 17 black women in that year one election to judicial positions. That was not lost on Republicans in power in the state legislature and in the governor's mansion. They almost immediately began changing the voting laws to make it harder and harder for people to cast a ballot, closing hundreds of polling places, almost all of them in the fastest growing black and brown districts, changing the rules on mail and voting. So when I ran for governor in 2022 during the primary, 13% of the ballots cast by mail in the wake of the deadliest pandemic this country has ever seen, 13% were rejected. 13 out of every hundred, that's a banana republic.

That's not a modern democracy. Guess what happens when 13 out of every hundred ballots are rejected? People stop voting come November. Nine million registered voters in Texas with Uvalde and the most obscene abortion ban in America and a power failure in the energy capital of the world that killed 700 Texans didn't vote. It's not that they didn't care. It's not that they don't love this democracy.

It's just that they didn't think that this thing worked anymore. So I'm kind of laying the groundwork for the answer. It is a very challenging environment, exacerbated by the ratio of what Republicans can spend. I raised 80 million in the governor's race, a record for a gubernatorial candidate on the Democratic side. Greg Abbott spent 130 million plus what Dan

Patrick, plus what Ken Paxton, plus what every other statewide elected Republican, plus the independent expenditures that come in. So, you know, this party cannot be won by the people of Texas alone. We are doing a mighty job with what we have, but we need the party and the country as a whole to see its future in our state and to invest appropriately. In 2032, which will be on us before we know it, and to invest appropriately. In 2032, which will be honest before we know it, Texas will likely have 44 electoral college votes

as population continues to move from other parts of the country to our state. You, the Democratic nominee, could win every one of the blue wall states in that year and you will still lose the White House if you cannot pick up Texas. So investing now is important for whoever the nominee is against Ken Paxton or John Cornyn,

but it's also important to continue to build the infrastructure, the bench and the wherewithal to win elections down the road, especially when the only path to the White House is going to run through Texas. What are the chances that the nominee against Ken Paxton or John Cornyn is you? I don't know. I really like what I'm doing right now.

It's nice not to be a candidate, to be at these town hall meetings and not say, you know, at the end of it, now I need you to vote for me or sign up for my campaign, but really to hold this conversation and for everyone to listen to one another and then with Powered by People, our group, to recruit volunteers, to do the voter registration

and voter organizing and voter turnout work. But I'm also not afraid of serving as a candidate, but I only want to do it if it's the right thing to do, if it's right for the people of Texas, if it's the best way for us to win political power and then to be able to deliver on that. And that's a question I can't answer right now. Perhaps as I continue to travel the state, I'll know more, but we don't suffer from a lack of talent in the state. And we've got extraordinary leaders in and out of office right now.

So I'm not too concerned about that. And the filing deadline is not until December. So we've got a lot of time. Time. Yeah. What's the most important lesson you've learned from running all those races in Texas that maybe surprised you that you didn't think about before? Well, you know, you got to show up.

Yeah. And we did it in 2017 when we first ran. We had a Snowballs Chance. And no one had ever heard of me. And Ted Cruz was the runner up against Donald Trump for the Republican presidential primary. had more money than God. Name recognition was at 100%. I couldn't get a professional political person in Texas to return my phone call. Seriously.

I mean, I can't tell you how many messages I left. It was just a lost cause and everyone was also dispirited because Trump had just won in 16. The few folks who did call me back said, hey, I'm out of gas. I gave it all for Hillary. I just, I can't do another heartbreaker. So I'm sorry. We turned a necessity, you know, no money, no name ID, no path into a virtue. And, and that, that begat the 254 county campaign. I learned so much as a candidate.

I grew so much as a, as a human being. We got so close and John, as a human being, we got so close. And John, some part of me still thinks we won. I, on the eve of that thing, I just felt it. I, I am a, I'm not the kind of person who, who counts my chickens before their, their hatch. I just, I just knew it. And, and it was one of the hardest calls I've ever

made to call Senator Cruz on election night and, and to concede. And, and it was one of the hardest calls I've ever made to call Senator Cruz on election night and, and to concede to him, but it was the, the right thing to do. You know, he and Trump and others might, might learn something from that. But showing up is what got us there. And, and being honest with people, again, virtue out of a necessity, no money to poll test or to focus group or to get pointers from a consultant. You just, you had to listen from people, learn from them, reflect that back on the campaign trail. And there was a real magic in that. And it is how I won my election for Congress in the first place, it's how I won my election for city council. So all those lessons hold true. But I think when we're talking about

power and being honest with ourselves and actually winning and not just feeling good about the way that we run, it cannot just be a Colonel Red or a Beto O'Rourke or a Wendy Davis, just to pick three of the last statewide nominees. You need a full ticket for every position statewide. You need every state house seat contested because those votes will flow up just as the same way that

they flow down. You need County commissioners and justices of the peace. You really need to be doing this everywhere all at once. And, and I really believe if we do that in Texas, we're going to win those positions up and down the ballot and, and who knows what will happen in 2026, but given the crises that you and I just discussed

that are hitting people in Texas, probably harder than almost any other part of the country, there is an opening. And if it's Ken Paxton, twice indicted recently under FBI investigation, impeached by Republican majority state house in the state of Texas, he's wildly popular with the most extreme element of the Republican party and not a whole bunch else golden opportunity, but we have to hit on all cylinders in every County, on every position of the ballot. So I learned that from the races that I have run and lost, you can't just have one person out there.

You can't have a few people out there. It's got to be everyone everywhere in every County. Beto, as always, your energy and optimism You can't just have one person out there. You can't have a few people out there. It's got to be everyone, everywhere in every county. Beto, as always, your energy and optimism is infectious. I am so grateful that you're out there doing the hard work of registering voters and going to all those town halls. Wish there were more Betos and more states. Thanks for stopping by.

It's great talking to you. Thank you. That's our show for today. Thanks to Beto for coming in. Tommy will be back on Sunday with a special episode looking at why we get so many spam fundraising texts and what we can do about it without sabotaging ActBlue and the other platforms our party relies on. Talk about news that actually matters. Check that out, have a good weekend, and we'll have another regular episode

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