Pod Save America - Trump's Veepstakes Begin

Episode Date: April 2, 2024

Conservatives celebrate Easter Sunday with a meltdown after Biden acknowledges Trans Day of Visibility. Trump kicks off his “Apprentice”-style veepstakes with a list of possible contenders that includes Kristi Noem, JD Vance and Marco Rubio. Wall Street billionaires come to Trump’s rescue as his campaign scrambles for cash and his Truth Social stock tanks. Trump continues his streak of attacking and threatening his political opponents and their families. Joe Biden drops a new ad reaching out to Nikki Haley voters, and new RNC Chair Lara Trump drops a certified banger.MORE INFOTour dates & cities: crooked.com/eventsSupport abortion freedom & shop Crooked’s new No Trespassing Collection: crooked.com/store 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.

Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Jon Favreau. I'm Tommy Vitor. Lovett is, of course, a devout Christian, so he's taken one more day to fully celebrate Easter. And then he will have risen. Maybe that worked. Yeah, I think it worked. All right, so on today's show, Trump's apprentice-style veepstakes has begun. Wall Street billionaires are coming to his rescue.

His truth social stock is tanking. Lost a billion dollars today. And he continues to attack and threaten his political opponents and their families uh meanwhile joe biden reaches out to nikki haley voters and move over beyonce because rnc chair lara trump has dropped a banger yeah she is but first i hope all who celebrate had a happy Easter because the most online partisan Republicans certainly did not. Everyone from Trump and Mike Johnson on down was outraged, outraged that Joe Biden issued a proclamation on Transgender Day of Visibility, as he has for the last four years without controversy.

But the reason Republicans had a fit this year is because Transgender Day of Visibility, a fit this year is because Transgender Day of Visibility, which has been March 31st for the last 15 years, happened to fall on Easter Sunday. And the idea that a devout Catholic like Biden would dare to tell a group of Americans who've been targeted by hate and discrimination that they're loved and included on Easter of all days was too much for the anti-trans community. To celebrate the day of trans visibility in and of itself is an affront to Christianity, but it's also a random day created by a random person out of Michigan in the same way that I could declare March 30th is the day of Lisa. Well, recognize it another day, not on Easter Sunday. It's an affront to the Bible. Well, this is a clear effort and a coordinated effort to remove God from our society and to replace God with false gods.

And in this instance, it's the trans community. False gods? Why do we replace God with a trans god? I didn't know we did that. Yeah. So I wasn't too surprised that this became a thing on the right. No. I didn't expect the magnitude of the freakout. What did you make of the war on Easter? I just it's so manufactured. And we're so used to

this manufactured outrage. We're probably kind of numb to it, but it is exhausting and relentless. And it's just Republicans are able to do this in part because they have the media infrastructure to amplify it and they kick it up. And then, you know, because Fox covers it, you get a bunch more Republicans who put out statements and then it becomes a bigger thing. And the utterly phony nature of this faux outrage was best embodied by Caitlyn Jenner, who on March 31st, 2017, tweeted hashtag trans day of visibility. There's no better visibility than with sisters by my side as a photo of Caitlyn with some of her friends. And then this weekend tweeted, I am absolutely disgusted that Joe Biden has declared the most holy of holy days, a self-proclaimed devout Catholic as transgender day of visibility. The only thing you should be declaring on this day is he all caps is risen. So I don't know, I guess Caitlyn Jenner is fine with people saying she doesn't deserve to exist uh on certain days but you know you we've seen this a million times in the obama years the main street media then covers the controversy that's get kicked up by fox news and here we are

it it broke through in such a way and so quickly that it like got to all the normies in my life me too it's a that's why i was like okay i get this like in 2015 16 2012 it could be like a a couple segments on a fox show a couple fox hosts a right-wing radio the fact that we had the fucking speaker of the house donald trump not really surprised there and like republican governors republican congressmen like it was everywhere it's so and it's so fucking phony and you know it's phony because now that they've all been corrected because they were all wrong because joe biden didn't pick the day and the day just happened to fall on easter because these people don't know how fucking calendar works or they're all supposed to be devout christians but they don't get that easter sunday means that it's a different date

every year that it's been around for 15 years, that Biden has, you know, proclaimed it, has issued a proclamation for the last four years. They're still doing it. They were still doing it today. They're just like, they didn't, they didn't back down even a hint because it's just phony. No one's mad at Christ for resurrecting on Transvisibility Day. You know what I mean? Why don't you ever hear that? What did you make of the fact that the Trump statement drew a distinction between Catholics and Christians? I'm no Huguenot, but that, you know, that had my spidey senses. I know.

I heard people saying that it is a, like, it's a historic sort of slight from Protestants to Catholics. I think they did it because Trump was very annoyed after the last election that he didn't get more of the Catholic vote. Partly, and I think that's partly because Biden won back some white working class voters and Biden's Catholic, right? And so I think that they are targeting, they really want the Catholic vote. And so they thought they would go after Catholics, but specifically, even though it doesn't make any sense. But it's seen as a slight on Catholics. It's a suggestion that you're not really a Christian, you're a Catholic, you're an other thing, right? Well, it says Christians and Catholics. To the millions of Catholics and Christians.

But I mean, Christians should encompass Catholics. It of course does. One would think. It of course does. But what really annoys me about this too, like this isn't some policy debate about, you know, gender affirming care or high school sports. It is simply just recognizing trans people a nice message of love

and inclusion and it's like how does that how does that hurt you right like even if you think being trans isn't compatible with christianity which i would say is bullshit like how does it affect you to have this fucking statement it's just childish i mean I think that it got to the normies in people's lives, I think, because there was the first round of stories on the made up controversy suggested that Joe Biden chose this day. He chose Easter Sunday and they didn't have the context of this. It's always been the 31st. And that's been the case for 15 years. And with all lies like that took a lot of time to catch up to people who are reading about the story or maybe never will. Yeah, that's right. Were you also enraged that the white house easter egg contest doesn't allow for submissions that include religious symbols which has apparently been the

case for the last 45 years i had to read about this one five times to try to get it and i still don't think i do so so the white house works with the American Egg Board to put on the Easter Egg Roll, which is an event on the South Lawn on Easter Sunday. My only experience of the Easter Egg Roll was one year I got my cousin Jeremy tickets, and he went with his daughters. And then I asked if he wanted to go again next year, and he was like, nah, we're good.

It is very crowded. I think it was very crowded. A lot of screaming kids sweating on a lawn so whatever but i guess yeah they don't allow religious egg designs they haven't since 1976 was gerald ford doing i guess but i guess my reaction was who cares but also why not if some little goober wants to make an egg with a crucifixion on it like have at it i don't get it either because there was a it's the same language they've used for 45 years and it's like no offensive symbols no partisan symbols and also no overtly religious symbols i imagine it's some kind of like you know civil rights liberties

language where separation church and state and all that kind of stuff like but you know like like if you want to come to the easter egg roll with a big picture of jesus on your shirt great just don't put it on the fucking egg. So anyway, that's what's going on with Joe Biden on Easter. Here's a fun CNN chyron that was blaring across the television screen yesterday. Trump spends Easter Sunday posting on social media about, quote,

people that I completely and totally despise. He went on a real tirade on his fake Twitter his his fake twitter he also posted about uh quote the crucifixion of donald trump that's of course it's on appropriate that's appropriate for easter as we speak and he posted two pieces that call trump quote a miracle sent and chosen by god himself sure so my opinion is that those easter messages would weird out more normie voters than the current president saying nice things to trans people. But what do you think? loop of Trump because this happens all the time. We get outraged. I think his followers kind of find it ironic and funny, I guess. Some of the white Christian evangelicals probably believe more than we'd like to admit that he is some flawed vehicle from Christ. They do. Now, obviously Trump likes this response because this is essentially a format he uses. I googled

a random holiday just to see if there was a good example. John, this is I Googled Trump Veterans Day comments. This is from Veterans Day speech last year. We pledge to you that we will root out the communist, Marxist, fascist and the radical left thugs that live like vermin within the confines of our country that lie and steal and cheat on elections. I think we actually covered that. Was that Christmas? No, that was Veterans Day. Oh, Veterans Day.

Sorry, sorry, sorry. So I don't know. There are probably a lot I think we actually covered that. Was that Christmas? No, that was Veterans Day. Oh, Veterans Day. Sorry, sorry, sorry. So I don't know. There are probably a lot of voters. We know from polling. There are voters who hate this side of him. They hate the tweets and the cruelty. But I don't know. I think the normies don't like this.

Normies don't like it. I don't think they'll hear about it. Exactly. That's the thing is I think we need to like, I mean, just the idea or, and by the way, there's a lot of normies normie voters who are religious who are christians or catholic or or whatever and they don't think that they're

not trump supporters they don't think that he is some god they don't think he is like jesus no probably not and when he compares himself to jesus then spends Easter just attacking random people and never mentions Jesus. Uh, they probably think that's weird. They probably think that's fucking, if they, if they heard about it, they would think that's fucking weird. Yeah, it is weird. I think though the religious in our, the, look, the evangelical Christians have been all in on Trump and the kind of normie voter religious folks. I don't know. They don't talk about it too much. So it hasn't got a lot of blowback. The thing I do wonder about is we used to talk about how people wanted politics to be boring again.

And that Joe Biden was kind of the answer there. I wonder if that was a lie. I wonder if we all got hooked on the like weird Trump fentanyl of the vicious shit talking, you know, just like jarringly different than what we're used to that people kind of miss this stuff that's my my fear yeah i think we we like it meaning we the highly politically engaged people who like follow this stuff all the time and i mean we obviously hate trump and are doing everything we can to avoid him being elected. But I do think there is a very online or very, like, attentive to politics type of person who sees all this and is just like, you know, this is like every day and we're all caught up in it. I think that most people, first of all, I think it's what you said. They're not paying attention to this. Most will never see this.

Most people will never hear about this controversy. Though, if I was the Biden people, I don't know. never hear about this controversy though if i was the biden people i i don't know i i do some targeted advertising about uh trump the fake religious asshole who's always talking about how he's persecuted because it does fit back into the overall message about him that he only fucking cares about himself one of the posts said that trump posted this from a from a supporter said it's ironic that christ walked through his greatest persecution the very week they are trying to steal your property from you. Jesus Christ dying for mankind's sins is much like Trump's inability to post half a billion dollars bond because he committed business fraud and was held liable for it. Do you remember when Trump was asked by a reporter who shall not be named what his favorite Bible passage was.

And he was like, Corinthians 2 or something. He just got it completely wrong. It was clear he'd never read a single Bible passage. I saw this. Remember that McKay Coppins Atlantic piece in 2016? And the headline is Trump secretly mocks his Christian supporters. It's all he knows. It's all out there and they never care. Yep, they never care. He does their bidding on abortion. Yeah. Meanwhile, Joe Biden's message on Easter. Easter reminds us of the power of hope and the promise of Christ's resurrection.

As we gather with loved ones, we remember Jesus's sacrifice. There's Joe Biden. There you go. In other Trump news, his search for a running mate to replace the guy his mob almost hung is reportedly getting serious. Lots of interest in this job. Don't know why. Politico says the campaign is currently busy vetting a list that includes the following candidates. Tim Scott, J.D. Vance,

Katie Britt, Marco Rubio, South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem, North Dakota Governor Doug Burgum, all the Dakotas, Arkansas Governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders, Florida Representative Byron Donnells, and Tulsi Gabbard, former representative from Hawaii, former Democrat turned crazy person. And here's a dark horse from convicted felon Roger Stone. Got a name? You know who I'd like? I just thought of this last night. Devin Nunes, 20-year member of Congress, former chairman of the House Intelligence Committee,

someone Donald Trump is very close to and trusts entirely, Hispanic, a former farmer before he went to Congress. I think he'd be an excellent choice. Not Hispanic. I think he's Portuguese. He's not he's portuguese not hispanic very different currently running truth social uh a big huge scam so that's a great choice funny uh all right so we have been waiting patiently and responsibly for the republican primary to end before engaging in silly and ultimately pointless vp speculation now we get to let her rip let's go all right here's a few questions who on that list do you think gives trump the biggest political benefit okay uh

let's see what you think about this one and by the way the quote was the bible means a lot to me but i don't want to get into specifics honestly great answer if you don't know that's the funniest thing it's a great what's a bible passage that means a lot to you i don't want to get into specifics i don't want to spoil it i don't want to get into specifics. I don't want to spoil it. I don't want to spoil it. What are the people who haven't read it? You got to read it yourself. It's truly the funniest thing ever. Okay.

What do you think about this? On paper, I kind of think the most valuable pick could be Tulsi Gabbard. What? Yeah. No way. Stick with me. Stick with me. Give it to me.

Give it to me. Okay. Because if you pick a Democrat, that is the most surprising thing he could do it is the biggest tent argument right it's like she's still a democrat no but she was one okay you can say former elected democrat yeah and you know so you could make that argument that like i'm you can't call me too partisan he picked a democrat for his vp right so it's a big tent thing and then also uh trump knows that republicans are struggling with women uh especially after the dobbs decision and you could see Tulsi as an asset there.

Now, that's on paper. In practice, she's really weird. So there is that. She's really weird and just gotten weirder, steadily weirder over time. Remember the messages to Putin, like to camera? Yeah, she's got a little, she's a little too, little too Putin-friendly.

Just very weird. She wouldn't do the very, like the RFK Jr. type. Anti-war, anti-establishment, anti-populist. She would go there. She's in the military. So I could, yeah. You know what? You sort of make a good case.

Call me Roger Stone. You make a better case than I expected for Tulsi Gabbard. Who's your number one? Tim Scott. Okay. I think for political benefit,abbard. Who's your number one? Tim Scott. Okay. I think, I think for political benefit, I, I, he's the one I worry about because I think he could create a permission structure for disengaged black voters, especially black men, young black men who don't like either candidate

and the permission structure will allow them to back Trump because, and these, these are, by the way, these would be voters who do not pay close attention to politics are not partisan democrats consider themselves moderate who by the way are the if we're to the extent that democrats um have an an issue with black voters it is those black voters that that the party's worried about that have been drifting away from the party and i think tim scott again if you haven't paid attention to the primary he's young he's seemingly genial like. And I think that Trump, I could see the campaign wanting that. And I could also, Kellyanne Conway made a pitch for him in a New York Times op-ed. So that's the one that I kind of worry about. Counterpoint to weird. That's why I think that Trump might not want him. vibes there i mean i think byron donalds is similar you can imagine the campaign wanting an african-american vp to help reach out to black voters he does create that similar permission

structure but also a cnn had a recent report about how much byron donalds used to shit on trump on facebook yeah including comparing the birther attacks to being a 9-11 truther so you do think that one might sting a bit and also how many people are they going to have move out of florida for donald trump because he's also from florida like just like rubio this gets you my favorite option which is you get rubio to move out of florida and then you don't pick him oh my god that's so funny the constitution you can't both be from the same state you get him to move where can we have a jersey we get him to move to jersey and you just don't pick them just kidding jersey that's such a great idea georgia georgia yeah right um any others any other favorites you like

in terms of like helping him politically i honestly don't think i mean there is the like he picks a woman so that helps him politically i don't know it depends i think it very much depends on who he picks like i don't know how well christy gnome wears after a while she's like selling veneers you know that's why is she doing teeth ads i don't know out of state i don't i don't think sarah huckabee sanders gets you much no right what if doug bergham writes a big check that that well that's i guess that could would help him politically a big check yeah that's that's a possibility katie britt i wonder like right now she's super mockable because of the State of the Union response. People who know her were sort of surprised how bad she was.

So I wonder if she could possibly fix that over time. Yeah. And now her expectations are low. But I think, honestly, I think most of these people are like a, just a net neutral. Like I don't think they help or hurt politically. Though I do, like I said, I do worry about Tim Scott a little bit. Well, with Katie Britt, there's a non-zero chance that she crawls through your TV

and kills you like the girl in the ring. I know. It's like, can she shake that? Can she shake that weird? I don't know. I don't know. But in terms of the negatives generally, I mean, I do think the downside to Britt,

Kristi Noem, Byron Donalds, Tulsi, and to probably a lesser extent, J.D. Vance, is that they are just less well-known. And so you have more of an opportunity to define them. You probably remember this. Actually, you guys might have all been at the convention. When McCain picked Palin, we were sitting around at Obama HQ, literally Googling her name and learning about her for the first time and also finding brutal opposition research hits on her in real time. And she's obviously like a singularly terrible pick. But there was a bit of this with Pence, too, because people didn't really know him that well

outside of D.C. And they were digging up his old columns, like attacking Mulan or whatever. And, you know, there was there was a lot of space there to define them nationally. Well, and Pence turned out to be just a nothing burger. Yeah. Right. Like didn't help him, didn't hurt him, was just there. Just around. Which is until he almost wasn't, which is exactly what Donald Trump wants. Right. Like he doesn't want anyone to outshine him. He just wants someone to be loyal, sit next to him and crowd, like maybe Gabbard, if she goes sideways. She's got the sideways potential. Not an obvious one, but I do think the lesser known ones create the most risk for you. I think that Rubio, and this is the Byron Donald's problem too. I think like playing clip after clip of Marco Rubio saying what he said about Donald Trump as he's the running mate is a problem. Yeah, that would not go well. I don't think it would. It would not wear well. I don't think it would.

It would not wear well. All right. Who do you think would be the worst slash scariest president if Trump gets the hamburger from heaven and this VP becomes president? So setting aside the Katie Britt crawl through your TV like the girl from the ring thing, J.D. Vance, I think to me. That's awesome. That was mine too.

You probably read the long Politico piece I did. I didn't know. You're a better reader than I think to me, that's awesome. That was mine. Yeah. You probably read the long political piece. I did. I didn't know you're a better reader than I am. Well, lucky you then, John, I get to tell you about it. Um, I, what it told me was that he is more sincerely committed to the America first, uh, white Christian nationalist project that we're seeing out of the heritage foundation and these other think tanks than I thought. And maybe it's a different project than Trump. Um, and it made my hair stand on end and worry about him. The question with him has always been like, is he the JD Vance from, uh, his book that seemed more reasonable, which I read at the time. I thought it was pretty good. And I know you're not allowed to say that anymore. And no, no, I did in Twitter circles, but, um,

it was interesting and it seems like an effort to better understand people's problems and solve them. I think he was wrong about all his solutions. But the J.D. Vance that we've all gotten to know since is scary and isolationist in bad ways and just a bad person and a demagogue. And I actually don't think he is bullshitting us. I think he has been radicalized. I agree. And I think he's pretty smart, certainly smarter than Trump. I kind of think he's like what people thought DeSantis might be, but like the real deal. Smarter DeSantis.

So I do. I worry about him a lot. All right. Now getting inside Trump's mind, which is always fun. Who do you think he wants and who do you think the campaign wants? I think the campaign wants Scott, maybe Rubio. They want someone to help with certain demographics. That'd be my guess.

I mean, listen, if you're Donald Trump and you're picking like a roll dog and someone that you've got to have around all the time, I think he probably wants JD. They seem like there's kind of a buddy-buddy thing going on. I think Don Jr. is friends with JD V vance which trump won't totally hold against him but you know it's out there so i could see them being buddies and there also seems to be a genuine friendship relationship with christy gnome that i don't totally understand also you know trump's presentation person right central casting yes look at this attractive woman that i have as my running man he feels like that about men, too.

You have to look good to be around Trump. To fly Air Force One, you have to be smoking hot. You have to look like Tom Cruise, but better. Even though that has not worked out for him with some of the people that he has had around him. But that is what he says that shit a lot. No, all the generals are out of central casting. Yes. Yeah, he does it when he's like, they're manly and they're tough and they're big muscles, you know.

So Trump has also been cozying up to some Wall Street billionaires. If Doug Burgum doesn't come through with the check, both as potential Treasury secretaries and donors to his cash strapped campaign. He's got a fundraiser in Palm Beach this weekend on Saturday that his campaign claims will raise thirty three million dollars, which would break Biden's record of twenty25 million from last week's event with Obama and Clinton. Trump's is being co-hosted by billionaire hedge fund manager John Paulson, who famously got rich off the subprime mortgage crisis and is now reportedly a candidate for treasury secretary. There's also a bunch of rich people going who at one time or another said they were done with Trump. One donor told the Wall Street Journal, quote, there are a lot of Wall Street people who tried everything else and are in the

process of coming back to the party and Trump. Oh, well, they didn't they didn't like the attempted coup and insurrection. But, you know, it's really bad. A higher marginal tax rate. That was Melania, right? That quote. Yeah. So let me channel my inner Ben LeBolt for a second, White House communications director. If I were a reporter covering the Trump campaign, I would probably wait to see some receipts before I reported that it was going to raise $33 million at an event. It's possible, but the Biden fundraiser with Obama, Bill Clinton, Stephen Colbert at Radio City, but the Biden fundraiser with Obama, Bill Clinton, Stephen Colbert at Radio City,

a venue that seats like 5,000 people, raised $25 million. And that was unheard of. I couldn't believe it when I saw those numbers. So again, this event with Trump could raise $33 million. The reason is because of a bunch of Supreme Court rulings that did away with donation caps. And now if you're a Democrat, you can be asked to write a check for $929,600 to the joint fundraising committee that goes to the Biden campaign, the DNC, Democratic state parties. That's before you get the super PAC. So basically, God help you if you're a rich Democrat and Jeffrey Katzenberg has your number. That's going to be bad. That call is coming. So who knows? Maybe they can find 40 billionaires to write like an eight hundred thousand dollar sum i check to the trump victory fund but i doubt it i just i know it shouldn't be surprising but these fucking

billionaires coming back to trump who were like yeah no more after january 6th you know they all wrote their little missives and maybe it was on twitter or maybe it was on their email list to their rich friends. Never again. No more Trump. And now they're only back because they only give a shit about themselves and their money. And that's who they're going to. They're just like Trump, right?

And they're going to take care of rich people if they get back to the White House. And he gets back to the White House and they play a role in it. And it's all a scam. These people all think that Trump voters are fucking rubes. They have no respect for them. They just don't care. It's just like how Trump feels about the evangelical Christians, feels the same way about his other voters.

It's just, he just wants rich friends around. That's all he wants. We love the rubes. You can imagine saying that at an event. I mean, we dealt with this same stuff in the Obama years. We had a bunch of Wall Street types support Obama because they thought he was inspiring. They were ready to move on from the Bush years.

And then they got really sad because during the financial crisis, there was rhetoric coming out of the Democratic Party in the White House that was anti-Wall Street. That's right, listeners. You might be surprised to learn that the big thing that we dealt with in that first year was people angry at Obama because he was too tough on Wall Street. Because their feelings were all hurt because, I don't know, they almost ruined the global in that first year was people angry at obama because he was too tough on wall street because their feelings their feelings were all hurt because i don't know they almost ruined the global economy and we had to remind them that you know this administration is the reason there aren't people

with pitchforks in your office right now but anyway we didn't want to like give them more bonuses that paid for by the fucking taxpayers yeah but you know look i think the challenge is always going to be that at the end of the day, these donations are investments for Republicans because they pay off a bunch of Republicans now and they cut their taxes later. Yeah. If you're supporting a Democrat, you're probably going to get your taxes increased if it can get through Congress, which, you know, will be difficult. But and that's what these people really care about. Honestly, that's what like Elon Musk cares about. That's what like fucking elon musk cares about that's what david saxe cares about that's what all these people they just taxes regulate they feel you know they feel attacked because all they do is just like sit on twitter sit on social media and have their brains poisoned by the internet and then they're worried that someone's coming for their money yeah yeah i think the richer you get the more paranoid you get two quick things on fundraising that i just

wanted to flag did you see that today Trump sent an April Fool's fundraising email with the subject line, I'm suspending my campaign? I did see that. And then at the bottom, he said, just April Fool's, just kidding.

I will never surrender. I will never surrender. Easy, buddy. But Josh Dossey from Washington Post had a great story about how Republicans are having a hard time

with small dollar fundraising because they just abuse their donors and their lists with messages like that. Yeah. And I guess they talked to the, the story talked about how, uh,

just say Democrats in glass houses. Oh, well listen, if you guys, if, if I texting stop is my kink, it's all I do. I complained about it.

All my friends complain about Hannah was complaining about the other day. It's awful. Um, the story talked about how they've been trying to diversify away from only Trump messaging. Cause that was doing the best, but they were like doing it too often. But they've been struggling. And it said, quote, one such message, the sweepstakes to meet Pence raised less than $500, according to people familiar with the 2022 sweepstakes.

So again, whose message was that to meet Pence? It was a donor email where you could you could win a sweepstakes or meet mike pence and it raised 500 bucks i'll tell you a message about mike pence that would have raised some money i know it would be a hang out with mike pinch but not yeah yeah a little different yeah tweak it so it does seem like trump really needs all this money did you see that he lost a billion dollars today uh monday after shares of his uh fake media company dropped by 20%. So yeah, DJT, the stock, ended the day down 21%. Which, I don't know, I guess they filed some paperwork that showed they lost $58 million. So that's not good.

Yeah, that's not good. In one year, yeah, in 2023, $15 million. Yeah, and they generated $4.1 million in revenue, which is not great. But I mean, it was surprising to me to see it drop 20% because, again, this is not a financially viable company at the moment. They're not trading on fundamentals. I'm not Apple. There's no price to equity.

It's a meme stock. And so, I don't know. I think we're all just waiting to see if Trump gets permission to dump shares early from his board. I know, but I wonder, I saw something that if he, even if they vote to let him dump his shares early, they could be, like that could be an SEC violation because they're not, they don't have the interest of the drop was due to like in that filing, the company accountants warned that the losses are so severe that they quote, raise substantial doubt about the company's ability to continue. Yeah, well, so the point of the SPAC merger is they SPAC, they merged with that DWAC company, and they should now have access to $300 million because of that merger to run and grow the thing. But, you. But it sounds like they're

burning through that pretty fast. DJT is also the most heavily shorted stock, I think, in the entire stock market right now. So a lot of investors are betting it will go down. But yeah, the value of the Trump shares went from $6 billion last week to $3.7 billion today. So that's a tough week. That said, it could all go back up. It's not trading on fundamentals. It's momentum and FOMO, like a meme stock, like the crypto. Is this going to like follow the polls? Do we think?

I think so. I mean, I think ultimately this is a bet on him. Yeah. You know, but until then, like, you know,

there's all these shit coins and, you know, cryptocurrencies, like the Pepe coins got a $3 billion market cap. Like there's, there are people who like to buy this stuff. It's grift all the way down. All right. So after a two week break from campaigning, Trump is in Wisconsin and Michigan this week where his campaign says he'll give remarks on, quote, Biden's border bloodbath.

Just owning the bloodbath. Biden's border bloodbath. Just owning the bloodbath. Biden's border bloodbath. It's a lot of B's. A lot of B's. This comes after Trump posted a video last weekend that includes an image of Joe Biden hogtied in the back of a pickup truck and several posts where he attacks the daughter of Judge Juan Marchand, shares her name and picture and says that her father should be removed from the hush money case because she apparently runs a consulting firm that apparently sometimes works with Democrats. Alvin Bragg, the district attorney, responded by asking the judge for a broader gag order. There's already one in place on Trump that also protects the judge and his family. So certainly not the first time any of this has happened. Obviously worries people like us.

Do you think it resonates or breaks through with most voters? The Biden campaign today actually held a press conference and they had some ahead of this trip by Trump to Wisconsin and Michigan. And they had some, a couple police officers who served on January 6th sort of talking about Trump's threats of violence, how he incites violence and sort of the effects that it had. Yeah, I think that strategy is smart. I think if you can, if you treat it as a one-off, it probably won't work, especially the image of Biden hogtied on a truck. I mean, that's sort of like, I don't know, some weirdos truck.

It's kind of truck nuts adjacent. I don't know that people... The whole thing's weird. It's just odd, right? The attack on the family of a judge is wild. And I do think it's just worth pausing for a second that Trump, just to explain what's happening, Trump is attacking the adult daughter of a New York Supreme Court judge and saying her political affiliations mean her father can't be fair and impartial. Meanwhile, the classified documents case in Florida is being overseen by Aileen Cannon,

who Trump literally appointed to the job. And by the way, if these things get appealed up to the the supreme court there'll be three more trump appointees there just waiting to bail him out so that we're like we're already in such a dumb place the fact that we're debating this and calling it sort of rigged and unfair to him as opposed to him literally being before a judge who he gave the job to is absurd on its face. But I do think on the violence point, like one off, people will probably just not see it or pay attention to it. But making it a broader story that ties back to Jan 6, I do think that's real. I do too. And I think it's important for, again, like there's people who are tuned into politics like us. And then there's people who aren't which is most voters and there's also a for people who think that trump bears just some responsibility for january 6th which is like a

good chunk of voters they think you know they think he was bad but they don't quite think it was all his fault right and not necessarily trump supporters either just like sort of undecided moderate and in the middle of voters i think for them the most effective arguments is like what Trump will do if he gets a second term that could incite violence. So releasing a bunch of people from prison who were convicted by a jury of their peers for beating the shit out of police officers on January 6th. I think people not like that. The fact that he and his advisors have talked about invoking the Insurrection Act so that he deploys the U.S. military against fucking protesters. That seems scary. Like the fact that he said police officers should be able to shoot suspected shoplifters on the spot when they walk out of a store.

Like those are the things that I think are, those are more powerful arguments just because, A, he said them and promised them or whatever else. And people can say, oh God, if he becomes president, that that kind of world could we could be living in that kind of world. Yeah, it's certainly the case that it's weird and wrong to tweet out a photo of your political opponent being hogtied and taken somewhere for to do bad things to them. It is part of a broader pattern of him, I think, normalizing political violence and celebrating it. I mean, I've forgotten about the comments about shooting shoplifters, but it also reminded me of when he was speaking before a bunch of police and he talked about how he encouraged them to rough

suspects up when they shove them in the car and stuff. And now he's got a policy to match that for the second term. He wants to indemnify all police officers in the whole country, which is gonna be hard to do as a federal law, but like same thing, he wants mandatory stop and frisk in every community in the country and he's going to cut federal funding to any locality that doesn't have mandatory stop and frisk. Deportation raids,

they're going to go into cities and have like, again, armed soldiers and agents of the state knocking on people's doors, raiding workplaces and checking for people's papers to see if they're actual citizens. Like all that stuff has like is more likely to cause violence than any kind of image. Yeah. And listen, I think obviously people saw the police brutality spill out into the public space and around George Floyd's murder. And, you know, I think a lot of those things go way too far.

Yeah. And actually, if you explain to an average voter that you want stop and frisk in every community, they would think that's crazy. Because look, a lot of this is racist. And it's a lot of people who don't live in big cities like New York and LA being like, those people in those cities, read people of color, need different laws to keep the city safe than I do in my community in Ohio or wherever it is. He does have a big advantage on crime and immigration, but that's a bridge too far. Yeah. And I think what you said, like the Biden campaign using, you know, this controversy to then do a press conference with police officers, like taking it back to January 6th, I think is very smart because I think that really resonates

with people. It can't just be like Twitter outreach bait. Yeah. So Biden campaign is also stepping up its outreach to Republicans, especially Nikki Haley voters who aren't yet sure if they'll support Trump in November. The campaign is out with a new digital ad that Biden tweeted with the message Nikki Haley voters, Donald Trump doesn't want your vote. I want to be clear.

There's a place for you in my campaign. And here's the ad. Bird brain. I call a bird brain. She's gone haywire. There aren't that many never Trumpers anymore. How do you bring these Nikki Haley voters back into the town? I'm not sure we need too many.

So seems like a smart move to me. I'm interested to hear what you think. Our pal Jonathan Martin has a piece out in Politico where he argues that Biden himself hasn't done enough outreach to Republican politicians who've said they don't want to support Trump. People like Haley, Chris Christie, Mike Pence, Larry Hogan, et cetera. What do you think's going on there? I think the ad's smart. I think we need to build the biggest, broadest coalition possible, again, from never Trump to, I guess, from maybe Trump to DSA left. And I think criticizing outreach to any one of those communities is stupid. And I think we need to learn from the left and other countries to figure out how to build big coalitions.

In terms of the Jonathan Martin piece, it was interesting. It surprised me. Me too. Larry Hogan is the one exception in there because he's running for Senate in Maryland and kind of winning at the moment. Right. Although I was wondering if in Jay Mart's piece, the point was like, maybe he should have reached out to Larry Hogan before he jumped into the Senate race. That's possible. That's possible. But at the end of the day, I mean, these guys have big egos. They need some love and some

coaxing to your side. And if you think about it just in terms of psychological terms, I mean, if you're a Chris Christie, your entire life is built around your identity as a Republican elected official, your friends, your donors, your coworkers. Right. Like you need to feel some sort of pull and love from the other side that you'll be welcomed. And we're not necessarily very good at that in the Democratic Party. We love to just shit on people and never let them be forgiven for their past political sins. Right. And then we have debates about whether it's like morally right or wrong to do that. Put that aside.

It's just about politics. Do we want to win the election or not? I'm not saying yet, right? I'm not saying that you buy your children biographies of these people and treat them like a mentor. Just like, let's get their votes. Let's get their endorsements.

You don't have to nominate them for the Profile in Courage Award. And you know what? Chris Christie is an effective messenger and he's someone who is very close with Trump and can attack him in personal ways and get in his head and reach a certain subset of voters. So I don't know.

Mike Pence, maybe not the best use of time. I'm not sure I'd be having Joe Biden call Mike Pence, but I don't know. Who cares? Give him a call. What does it hurt? It's probably the first time his phone would ring in like a year and a half.

So I was really wondering like what's going on there. And there's only two explanations I can think of. One, it was just too early and like they're going to get to it and they're just starting to like start the campaign now. So maybe that was it,

even though I think right now it was not too early at this stage in April. But then the second one is like, are they worried about progressive blowback if it leaks that he was calling all these people?

But again, the campaign put out the ad reaching out for Haley voters. So they can't be too worried about that. And as Jay Mart says in the piece, like Biden of all people, he's still telling fucking stories about, you know, Strom Thurmond. Like he loves reaching out to Republicans. So I'm confused. Yeah.

My read on the current Gaza policy is not a ton of concern about lefty blowback from people like me. Listen, I think if you're mad that Joe Biden called Chris Christie, you probably should worry about other things. Also, I think if you're mad about that, find me a person who was going to vote for Joe Biden and then said, no, no, no, no, he called Mitt Romney and Chris Christie, I'm out. Find me that person. I think it would be worth calling Mitt Romney, it'd be worth calling Chris Christie,

it'd be worth, I don't know, I guess lobbing a call to mike but send him an email send pence an email and again no one's saying you have to like just give them a policy win right you don't you're not giving them anything this is not a negotiation it's uh it's a it's a political touch to see if they'll come to your side yeah i mean mark esper uh the defense trump's defense secretary who uh you know said a couple weeks ago that Trump was like, hey, can't we have the military shoot the protesters, the George Floyd protesters? So that's him. Over the weekend, he said, there's no way I'll vote for Trump. But every day Trump does something crazy. The door to voting for Biden opens a little more. And that's the exact kind

of person. Exactly. That we need. And that person is in a lonely place, right? Because they're just they're bucking their party. He was run out of town by trump trump criticized him personally they called him yes per they made fun of him they mocked him when he was defense secretary because he never should have had the job he's a joke right the lobbyist yeah um but uh yeah now he needs a little love from the top and uh maybe he'll do an ad for you that's that's all we're looking for here we're just looking for some ads uh all right. Before we go, we save the best for last, Tommy. New RNC co-chair slash aspiring pop star, Lara Trump, released a new single on Friday called Anything Is Possible, of which her career trajectory is certainly living proof. Here's a sample of the sure to be chart topping banger.

Talking to that little girl. Riding on the Pegasus, tell her everything's gonna be alright. So don't think, just jump, you can't give up, know that anything is possible what is the pegasus sol made that clip too long yeah it's really long immortal winged horse okay i can't ever look that is i didn't think i'd have like third-hand embarrassment for someone like larry trump but i genuinely do. Her Don't Back Down cover. First of all, you can't cover like an iconic Tom Petty song when you have no talent. That's what you should get. That should be the last thing you cover. I sent that other Lara Trump song we just heard to my friend Ryan, who you know well, lives in LA here. He went to Berkeley, played at a bunch of really big bands. He runs

studio sessions for huge artists. He mixes. He's a tremendous musician. He went to Berkeley, played at a bunch of really big bands. He runs studio sessions for huge artists. He mixes. He's a tremendous musician. He's a musical genius. He does scores, TV and film. Now,

he was so offended by the production quality. Oh, interesting. He was like, the auto-tunes. He sounds like a nasal robot. She does sound like a nasal, yeah.

The engineering upset him and I think he was just so mad because he knows, like, if you're rich, pay someone to make you sound good. She didn't even do that. Fucking horrific. So not to be outdone, the DNC responded with their own self-described summer party anthem about Lara Trump and the RNC called Parties Fallen Down. Let's listen. Okay. Laura, Laura, can't you see? The leadership's sinking from your feet. Okay.

How many times have you listened to each song since Friday? Have you had that on repeat? Laura, I can't do it. More or less than Cowboy Carter. It hurts me. Did the DNC one, was it just AI generated? I think it was. I have a lot of questions about the DNC one,

which is like, was it AI generated? How long did it take to put that together i hope the answer is 10 minutes i think it was probably not a lot of time yeah and it also is fine look everyone knows this music is formulaic and that song will probably be playing at like ultra in miami next year or something but um yeah i kind of like them trolling her the more time lara trump spends in the studio, the less time she's fundraising or whatever. I don't know what she'll be doing.

I mean, all the money. What's amazing about this? This really is like banana republic shit. Trump installs his daughter-in-law at the RNC. She greenlights this fundraising waterfall where all the checks that come in to the Trump fundraising committee first go to his PAC that does legal defense she purges the entire committee staff she's asking people if they're election deniers before they can get hired yeah you have to you have to say the sky is red before

you can get a job you probably have to say her song is fucking awesome yeah you do now all that said trump could still win it's 50 50 so i don't know what that says about us. I just had an idea. What? I think that you and our pal Brian Tyler Cohen should do Liberal Tears where you draft worst political songs. Oh, that's good. Like the Hillary in the House song. That's a great song. Why would you ever say that?

Well, I'm saying that maybe, oh, I guess you guys always do the worst kind of thing. Because it's a beautiful song, Hillary in the House. What about the Obama Girl, remember? That was tough. I'm saying that maybe, oh, I guess you guys always do the worst kind of thing. Because it's a beautiful song, Hillary and the House. What about the Obama girl, remember? That was tough. There's Mitt Romney singing Who Let the Dogs Out. I mean, there's a, right?

Mitt Romney. I think this is a whole episode. Mitt Romney just stumbling into a photo with like four or five younger black males. And the only thing he could think to say was who let the dogs out. It was so horribly, horribly embarrassing. There's a rich history of these. Will.

I am. Oh yeah. Well, I am turned our, turned our speech into a song. Not ours, pal. Yours.

Bunch of, bunch of celebs were in that. What was it? The 2008 was weird times. Yeah. Better times, better times, but weird times. The,

the, the cringe was embraced and it was mainstream and it didn't feel like cringe in the moment. It felt a little more hopeful. This felt pretty cringe. Although I had, our staff was cringing about the parties falling down. I had not listened to that,

but I had also not listened to the Larry Trump thing. The parties falling down is like, ha ha, cringe, whatever. The Larry Trump thing is like, I don't think I can listen to it again. Her range is like half an octave. I did it for this pod and I did it once before this pod and I don't think I can ever do it again. Her range is like half an octave. I did it for this pod, and I did it once before this pod, and I don't think I can ever do it again. She's singing from up

within her nose, it sounds like. Just so nasal. Anyway, I wish her all the best. Alright, few quick housekeeping notes before we go. If you haven't heard yet, we're hitting the road. Pods of America's hitting the road this summer for the Democracy or Else tour. If you're in Brooklyn, Boston, Madison, Phoenix, Philly, or Ann Arbor,

or coming to your city vip tickets include a signed copy of our book democracy or else how to save america in 10 easy steps and more exclusive merch and you know what we finished signing all the copies oh it took like hours so many copies check out pod save america plus love it or leave it tour dates at cricket.com slash events also uh we we were mentioning this outreach to Haley voters. Well, if you want some actual facts behind it on the polling, Dan Pfeiffer's got you covered. In the latest episode of Polar Coaster, he talks to guest Alyssa Cass about the Haley voters that could absolutely swing the election. I just listened to the episode this morning.

It's fantastic. Take a look. But to get access to this series and other subscriber exclusives, you got to head to crooked.com slash friends. The woman in the house, the White House. Hillary in the White House. Hillary in the house. Hey, hey. Hillary in the White House.

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Plus, if you're as opinionated as we are, consider dropping us a review. Pod Save America is a Crooked Media production. Our show is produced by Olivia Martinez and David Toledo. Our associate producers are Saul Rubin and Farrah Safari. Kira Wakim is our senior producer. Reid Cherlin is our executive producer. The show is mixed and edited by Andrew Chadwick. Jordan Cantor is our sound engineer Thank you. Elijah Cohn, Haley Jones, Mia Kelman, David Tolles, Kiril Pallaviv, and Molly Lobel.