Pod Save America - Well ... he's back.

Episode Date: January 21, 2025

And so it begins—again. In front of an audience of adoring billionaires, Donald Trump takes the oath of office, delivers a speech promising a return to American greatness, and vows to make drastic changes to federal policy on immigration, gender identity, energy, and more. Meanwhile, Joe Biden ends his presidency with preemptive pardons for Liz Cheney, Anthony Fauci, and members of his immediate family. Jon, Lovett, Tommy, and Dan react to Trump's big speech, his planned executive orders, and Biden's final moves. Then they offer their thoughts on how we can all survive the next four years with our sanity intact. 

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I'm Jon Lovett. Tommy Vitor. I'm Dan Pfeiffer. We did it, guys. We did it. It's Monday afternoon, East Coast time, and in the words of Florida Congressman Byron Donalds, Daddy's home. The lame-duck presidency of our oldest and first criminally convicted chief executive has begun.

Its former president, Donald J. Trump, just became current President Donald J. Trump during a ceremony held in the very place the mob he incited four years ago tried to overturn the election he lost. What a country. Tommy, Lovett, and I are here at the Sirius XM studios in snowy New York. Dan is joining us remotely from rebel-held San Francisco. Obviously lots to go through here, but let's just start with the speech. The inaugural address was moved inside the Capitol building because of extreme cold, and maybe as a result of that, the whole thing felt a little bit more like a State of the

Union address than a traditional inaugural. Let's listen to some of the clips. My recent election is a mandate to completely and totally reverse a horrible betrayal and all of these many betrayals that have taken place and to give the people back their faith, their wealth, their democracy, and indeed their freedom. From this moment on America's decline is over. January 20th, 2025 is Liberation Day. As we gather today, our government confronts a crisis of trust. For many years, a radical and corrupt establishment

has extracted power and wealth from our citizens while the pillars of our society lay broken. Many people thought it was impossible for me to stage such a historic political comeback, but as you see today, here I am, the American people have spoken. Here I am, the American people have spoken. Can't argue with that.

Dan, let's start with you. Thoughts on the speech? I mean, it's just the whole thing was so surreal, right? As you pointed out in your opening, you have Donald Trump standing in the Capitol, the building that four years ago he incited a mob to try to assault. He delivers this speech, which in some ways

feels like the State of the Union. He's in the Capitol. It also felt like a State of the Union in the sense that it was a laundry list of policy ideas sort of woven together in a very incoherent fashion. And you take the words, if you just read the transcript of the speech, it reads like the words of a fascist dictator, but delivered with the energy and cadence of a middle manager at a sales conference, like just very low energy.

And we would soon learn why, because then he would go give a second speech moments later, where he just did the full shtick, all the things he wanted to say, did the whole Trump routine. This was the speech for the aides who told him to be disciplined, I guess, but not a great speech. Love it. What'd you think as a speechwriter yourself? Oh, well, yeah, as a speechwriter yourself?

Oh, well, yeah, as a speechwriter, I was disappointed. So there was a moment when, before Trump even got up there, when Franklin Graham got up there to give, I don't know what it's technically called, invocation, convocation, and he said the last four years have been very dark, which is just not what you would typically say

in a moment like this, especially since Joe Biden is sitting right behind him. That woke him up. It did. And you had- Just kidding. It did. No, he was up.

He was up. He was focused. But it's very, look, like the inaugural address is meant to be, I mean, he like kind of tilts at it being this unifying event. But first of all, this is a speech taking place in a weekend of political rallies and was immediately politicized by the reverend

meant to be doing a kind of religious invocation. And so he gave basically a version of a stump speech. And yes, it was the stump speech version when he takes out all the stuff that they begged him to take out, which they successfully got him to take out, which he does later. But it was still a stump speech,

still a deeply political and small speech for inauguration. Tommy. January 20th, 2025 is Liberation Day. It's just a giant Bill Pullman ripoff from Independence Day. Yeah, no aliens. How dare you, first of all. It's funny also that Dan criticized Trump for being too wonky, too policy focused.

Didn't expect that. I sort of had some reaction. It was sort of remarkable in how unremarkable it was. Like my memory of the 2017 inaugural address is all that one line about American carnage. And then I rewatched that speech after I watched the 2025 version. And it's actually amazing how similar the two speeches are.

We're gonna make America great again. We're gonna protect our borders, some hand waving about unity. He updates this one with new more modern grievances like the judicial system being weaponized, the battle against inflation and the need to invade Panama. But there's like verbatim lines at the top.

Like in 2017, he said, for too long, a small group in our nation's capital have reaped the rewards of government while the people have borne the cost. 2025, for many years, a radical and corrupt establishment has extracted power and wealth from our citizens while the pillars of our society lay broken and seemingly in complete disrepair.

So it was just kind of stump-like, the same thing. I did note, though,, for all Joe Biden's attempts in efforts to be a decent person and have a dignified transfer of power, Trump still took a dump on his entire presidency and existence right next to him. So that was kind of him, cordial of him. Gracious, gracious.

It does feel like this speech, as much as I didn't care for the content that much of the speech, I kind of like the trend overall of getting away from the sweeping rhetoric of an inaugural address that's meant for the history books and just getting right to business. He didn't quite do that completely.

Half of it was the Stephen Miller sort of cliched fascism, I'll call it. That's the sort of Stephen Miller style. It's like- Proud Boys Crossing the Delaware. It's a fascistic rhetoric that's not like we've all heard before and it's not a lot of creativity behind it.

It's just sort of lame. And then it just got like very specific very quickly. But to me, that's like a little more modern, you know? Like the next democratic president, I'd like them just to get to business, just little more modern. You know, like the next Democratic president, I'd like them just to get to business, just talk about what they're gonna do for the country. Yeah, what I was really feeling when I was watching him speak is,

oh, eight years ago when Trump addressed the country, he did it really kind of unsure of what it meant to be president and what rules he had to respect and what rules he didn't, what customs he believed in and had value and which customs he didn't. And now I believed in and had value in which customs he didn't. And now I do think he like these speeches that are for everybody, he just doesn't give a fuck

about them. He doesn't care what the media says. He doesn't care how they're covered. He doesn't really see much of the value of it. Donald Trump gave two speeches. He gave his inaugural and then he went to this overflow. His speech at the overflow where he really let rip was over 30, right?

That was the real Donald Trump. This is the Donald Trump he has to do once in a while for the squares. Not for nothing. It was also the most like self-involved, self-referential inaugural of all time, maybe. I think that beats his first, but I don't know, Tommy, you just listened to the first one again,

so you tell me if I'm wrong, but like talks about the assassination attempt, fine. But then, you know, it is my hope that our recent presidential election will be remembered as the greatest and most consequential election in the history of our country. First inaugural to reference swing states.

And it's like they tried to take, they tried to, yeah, he starts talking about swing states, his election results, they tried to take away my freedom and my life, again, he's confound, you know, conflates him breaking the law and then people trying to investigate him with a assassin that had apparently no political leanings really,

that just tried to take his life. So it's very, you know, he's focused on what's important, which is him. He said he's on a mission from God to save America. You know, you think, yeah, so there's a, so you wanted to say there's a dose of humility. Yes, yes, exactly. No, I thought so. The speech wasn't's a dose of humility. Yes, yes, exactly. No, I thought so.

Speech wasn't the only component of the weekend's big celebration. He also did a big victory rally at Capital One Arena on Sunday. That also served as the overflow room for most people to watch the address, unless you were a member of the incoming cabinet, leadership in Congress, former president,

and of course, a billionaire tech founder or CEO. Those are the people who got, they got the good seats. Trump swung by the overflow room afterwards to say hi, signed some executive orders. We're going to talk about that. We're going to talk about the 33-minute speech he gave to the overflow room, which is longer than the 29-minute inaugural address, which also, by the way, I guess is the longest inaugural address since Roosevelt in the modern era,

which is wild. There were also a lot of balls, big parties, Snoop performed, Peter Thiel held a ball, Mark Zuckerberg held a party, CEO of TikTok had a party. What do you guys think of this, the weekend in general, and sort of the optics of the event, the vibes, the vibes in Washington this weekend.

Anyone have any thoughts? I mean, I think moving all the events inside and only doing things with tech CEOs and billionaire donors while the mega faithful have nothing to do or go to some giant arena where they get ignored, that's kind of a perfect metaphor for how I imagine this whole thing is gonna go. And look, if history is any good,

you wanna keep those folks busy, especially in DC. That's true, well, there were proud boys marching through the streets today. Idol hands, devil's playground. But I mean, I do think this is why you're seeing like the Steve Bannon fight against Elon Musk and the tech oligarchs, because they're worried that their populism is erasing

the minute the votes were counted, and they're not wrong. Yeah, it's the, this weekend is the, you know, he's about to take office, it's his final chance to do open corruption before he's actually president so that the corruption he can do while president begins. But it felt like the end of any kind of pretense that he's not going to just be openly corrupt and basically sell access to

the white house, to these people. I mean, that's what this weekend was. It was a big sale. And I was thinking like, like, oh, like maybe he's, maybe he's sort of empathetic to people who, like waiters and servers who work for tips because he's gonna be the first president that does work for tips.

Which I think is some, that is exciting. You know, don't forget to tip your president. Which is I think the motto of this weekend. That's right. He does, he just wants, he wants to tip your president. Which is I think the motto of this weekend. That's right. He just wants to be a host. Yeah. That's it. He loves it.

It's just the tip presidency. Yeah, that's right. Okay. It's just the tip presidency. Sure. Okay. Pod titles. Workshopping that.

It's Dan's idea. Workshopping that. One other notable moment to that end in the speech. He referenced the fires in Los Angeles at one point apparently he's going to Los Angeles on Friday and you know he brought up the fires he also brought up Hurricane Helene because he wanted to basically show that leadership that's not him is incompetent and all that kind of stuff but he also said this when he was talking about the fires or more

recently Los Angeles where we're watching fires still tragically burn. From weeks ago without even a token of defense, they're raging through the houses and communities, even affecting some of the wealthiest and most powerful individuals in our country, some of whom are sitting here right now. They don't have a home any longer. That's interesting. That is interesting. Who was he talking about that lost a home that was on the dais?

I did not know that natural disasters could harm rich people. I mean, that is his point. That's exactly what he said. Legitimate shock that the rich and powerful could be affected by something like this. Yeah, it is. I mean, I guess it's somewhat reassuring to know

that we have oligarchs in Los Angeles, because at least that means we'll have to get some, some protection from the federal government if we need it. Yeah, someone's summer house in Malibu probably got hit. I don't know. Oh, I don't think we're getting protection from, I don't think, I think they're gonna hire their own protection.

No, that's right. But yeah, it was just sort of- It was a weird line. Well, it was just a reminder, like, what did it- That's interesting, also just, it was a conspiracy. It sounds like, oh, maybe someone started it to target them. Like that was my takeaway in the moment.

What I took away from it was there's some rich person there who may have lost their house, which is terrible. And this is how Donald Trump governs. Someone nearby him told him this story and now he is recounting it. And the- He literally thinks it's interesting. And there-

And there- Maybe we're reading too much. He just thinks it's interesting. And whether it's- Some rich- Maybe we're reading too much. He just thinks it's interesting. And whether it's- Because the rich people lost their homes. Flipping on TikTok or any other policies that are gonna come out of this administration, they're gonna run through a gauntlet

of rich people talking to Donald Trump directly about them casually in the places Donald Trump hangs out with his biggest backers. And that's what I took from this. He also said that in the overflow speech that maybe Nancy Pelosi wanted January 6th to happen. And that's why she turned down the 10,000 troops he says he offered and noted that she's guilty as hell.

So that was said in the Capitol where the insurrection happened four years ago. Maybe she was guilty of a crime. To be clear, not just like morally guilty, guilty, so called it a criminal offense. We're gonna get to the overflow room speech at the end. It's a good one. So speech is pretty light on foreign policy. Trump welcomed the Israel-Gaza ceasefire deal, said the usual stuff about defending our own borders instead of other countries' borders and blah, blah, blah. Nothing new there. But he also made what sounded like

some conflicting promises. Let's listen. My proudest legacy will be that of a peacemaker and unifier. That's what I want to be, a peacemaker and a unifier. A short time from now, we are going to be changing the name of the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America. China is operating the Panama Canal and we didn't give it to China, we gave it to Panama and we're taking it back. Tommy, is China operating the Panama Canal? No, the Panama Canal Authority, it's a semi-autonomous government entity controlled by Panama operates the canal. There are, there are ports and infrastructure getting built by the Chinese on either side of the canal. Panama is one of the countries that signed a deal with China for the Belt and Road

Initiative. So maybe he's referring to that, but there were a lot of factual errors in this part of the speech. He says the United States lost 38,000 lives in the building of the Panama Canal. Most of the deaths happened during the French construction portion. Such a good fact check. in the building of the Panama Canal. Most of the deaths happened during the French construction portion. Such a good fact check. They quit on, but also, well, also the people who did the work were from the Caribbean. They were not American citizens.

They were people who were basically indentured servants doing this work. Several thousand Americans died, but it's not 38,000. Yeah, not 38,000, not even close. So I guess. I'm for this. I think we should take the Panama Canal back. You want it back?

By force. Let's hope it doesn't come to that. But that's not really up to us. Why do you want it back? We built it. And then Jimmy Carter, may his memory be a blessing, just gives it back because of some protests. We're taking it back.

What if France takes the Statue of Liberty back? They can try. What are they gonna do? What are they gonna do? Do a lot of eggs go through the Panama Canal? I'm just wondering, are they gonna do? What are they gonna do? Do a lot of eggs go through the Panama Canal? I'm just wondering, is that gonna help? The price of eggs? The price of eggs?

Is that how we're lowering inflation? I guess so. Speed more things through the Panama Canal? A huge chunk of American shipping goes through the Panama Canal. It has gotten more expensive, but that's mostly because of drought. People usually attribute to climate change, not China.

Listen, Donald Trump is pretty clear about this. He is very comfortable with the Chinese government controlling the brains of America's young people, but not the canal. Do you see the TikTok CEO sitting next to Tulsi Gabbard, the future director of national intelligence? What a country. What a country.

What a time. Dan, what do you think, just from a public opinion perspective, how do you think, you think the country is clamoring for a new name for the Gulf of Mexico? He also said he's gonna mount mount it's gonna be Mount McKinley again. It was Denali Mount Denali for a while. We're saying Mount McKinley again. We're saying Mount McKinley again. We're saying Merry Christmas again. We're saying Gulf

of America for the first time. We're seizing Panama, hopefully not by force if necessary. But we're not ruling it out. But we're not ruling it out. Greenland. Greenland got the shaft in this speech. Didn't hear anything about Greenland. Nothing about the 51st state either, Justin Trudeau, outgoing prime minister.

Dan, what do you think? Is this what people wanted when they voted in November? Well, fortunately for us, John, we have polling that shows that 57% of Americans oppose Donald Trump using coercion, either military or economic, to seize the Panama Canal back. So Trump and Love it on the wrong side of that one. Similar numbers on Greenland. American people are not interested in Greenland or the Panama Canal. I heard a talk once about Greenland

and how the harsh and unforgiving climate there, obviously, it isn't green and I hope someone tells Trump that soon. But that the person in this sort of Danish accent said describing the mile high glaciers and the impossible conditions. And it was asked what would happen if someone invaded Greenland?

And he said, if someone were to invade Greenland, we'd immediately rescue them. Another kind of foreign policy Jason won is he's gonna designate drug cartels as foreign terrorist organizations. I'm just very interested to see what that means in practice because there's lots of reporting about connections between the Mexican government and the cartels,

elected officials or the Mexican military and these cartels. I wanna know, are they gonna get tagged with providing material support? Are we gonna go back to the campaign rhetoric where we all were talking about using the US military to bomb Mexico, bomb the cartel drug manufacturing facilities? Well, it sounds like they're already gonna be

down in Panama, so kind of a pincer move. That's right. I mean, I guess my, like, we'll talk about this later, but my modus operandi for Trump 2.0 is to take it all literally And assume he's gonna do these things So if we're gonna call them terrorists presumably then you kill the terrorists because that's usually what you do with terrorists If you're an American government, so stay tuned. I would just say Tommy This is the entire plot line of special ops lioness season 2 and doesn't it does that well?

That a video game or a TV show? That is, it's on Paramount Plus, Taylor Sheridan show. Okay. For the makers of Yellowstone. It's also, it's also adjacent to. Elite Tommy Vitor just watching his Prestige TV. Sorry.

Well Dan's. Joy Severance you elite prick. We're watching, Dan and I are watching Yellowstone. What was it, was it Lioness 2? What was it called? Special, Special Island. It is also the plot of Clear and Present Danger. That's a great movie.

Which is a movie where the whole plot revolves around once the American people find out, they'll be held to pay, which is a simpler time. Paz de America is brought to you by Artikl. Artikl believes in delightful design for every home, and thanks to their online-only model, they have some really delightful prices too. Their curated assortment of mid-century modern, coastal, industrial, Scandi, and boho designs makes furniture shopping simple. Artikl's team of designers are all about finding the perfect balance between style, quality and price.

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Articl's offering our listeners $50 off your first purchase of $100 or more. To claim, visit article.com slash Cricut and the discount will be automatically applied at checkout. That's article.com slash crooked for $50 off your first purchase of $100 or more. Tommy, just to put in a button on the whole Panama thing, how does this work? What are the options here outside of military force? He tries to levy tariffs on Panama, economic pressure, I don't understand. I think that Greenland, he really does want the territory. I think with Panama, he's probably just trying

to get a better deal or better rate. But as far as I can, I looked into this a couple weeks ago when he started talking about it again, I think that they are charging us the same rate as everyone else, this HCP, the Panama Canal Authority. And there is a company based in Hong Kong that won a bid to control some aspect of shipping and they charge everybody.

I think this is all kind of a bullshit way of describing what is ultimately a commercial debate, right? I think the big, big picture on this is Trump's brain was frozen in the 70s and he remembers when Reagan used to attack Jimmy Carter over the Panama Canal all the time, and it was a huge political issue. And he's just bringing it back. Yeah.

And there was, there was a mention of manifest destiny in the speech. Again, that was about, uh, we're going to Mars. Elon was very excited behind him. We're going to Mars, we're taking Greenland, we're taking Panama. You can tell that he is serious about, all right, I'm a lame duck president, what's my legacy gonna be? I want a name.

I've named buildings Trump my whole life and I wanna name large land masses Trump and take them over for America. That's, it seems like that's a vibe that he's quite serious about. And I think it's the kind of thing where like a studio during pilot season, he's gonna throw a couple pitches out there and hope one becomes a hit.

Much like Lioness. Yeah, much like Lioness season two. Tommy, what's the process for renaming the Gulf of Mexico? I don't know, I think Lovett was Googling this for the first time during the speech. Don't tell people how the magic happened. Yeah.

As I said to that professor on the phone beforehand, it seems like he can unilaterally name things, but other countries don't have to recognize them. He can just order the federal government's maps and so forth to identify the Gulf of Mexico as the Gulf of America. But that doesn't mean other countries are gonna suddenly print Gulf of America. Well, and what was- Well, then they'll be pretty sorry once they're invaded.

Right, right. Well, when we were laughing, what did Claudia Sheinbaum, the new president of Mexico, threaten to call the United States, like greater Mexico or something? Mexico America, Mexican America, something like that, yeah. A little nationalism meeting nationalism.

Good for her. Trump did spend a lot of the speech laying out his plans for signing a slew of long rumored executive orders, which he described this way. Today, I will sign a series of historic executive orders. With these actions, we will begin the complete restoration of America and the revolution of common sense. It's all about common sense. I think Biden chuckled at that one, the common sense, which good for him he should.

So here are just a few of the ones he talked about and the ones that have been reported. Some he has already signed, some he's in the process of signing, hard to tell. 11 executive orders on the border alone, including ending birthright citizenship for the kids of undocumented immigrants, reinstating the remain in Mexico policy, laying the groundwork to send troops to the border. As Tommy mentioned, designated drug cartels as foreign terrorist organizations and also invoking the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 to expedite the removal of foreign born criminals. That's immigration. He also is going to sign an executive order, quote, declaring that there are only two genders

aiming to end trans protections and the idea of gender identity within any kind of federal government, office, service, et cetera. So, for example, passports will only be two genders. He'll also require the prisoners in the federal system be housed according to their sex at birth. It'd be declaring a national energy emergency, whatever that means, in order to expedite more drilling and fossil fuel production and ending the electric vehicle

mandate that wasn't really a thing that he says is killing America. He's signing an EO, creating the Department of Government Efficiency, or as we've all come to know and love it as DOGE, which by the way, Vivek Ramaswamy, he's out at Doge because he's running for governor of Ohio, good luck Ohio. That's why he's out, yeah. Yeah, or just think about how bad your fucking personality has to be. That you are co-lead of something with Elon Musk

and everyone's like, one of these guys has to go and it's you, Vivek. Well, Little X was like, can you please stop carrying Vivek around on your shoulders? That's my job. That's my spot. That's my spot. So they got him a governorship. I think he's just ambitious and wanted to be elected.

He's dying to be an elected politician. There's been a ton of leaks out of the Doge people that this guy was trying to, they don't like him. But they don't like Vivek. He was also B-teamed the whole time. Yeah, and also he was telling, yeah. Well, I'm sure the people of Ohio- He was also begging DeWine to make him the Senator.

Yeah, that didn't work out either. Ending all- Allegedly. Ending all federal government DEI initiatives, including in the senator. Yeah that didn't work out either. Ending all federal government DEI initiatives, including in the military. There was also an order saying in order to bring down inflation, it's a whole of government approach to bringing down inflation because that's how it works. You just have to sign an EO and then the inflation comes down. Inflation is quivering in its boots. Inflation is quivering in its boots. What do we know about what here is real? What's new?

What's impactful? What's just for show? Uh, what do you think Dan? I mean, much of the immigration stuff is real. Like there are really horrible stories you're hearing right now from people who had, uh, appointments with CBP, people who are seeking us out, had appointments for 1 PM today, we had them canceled at 1201. The app that the Biden administration set up

so that people could set up their appointments, they shut that down at 1201 today. The birthright citizenship is potentially fake, but maybe not. I mean, most legal scholars believe you cannot, the constitution's pretty clear on this, and you cannot declare it, but the Trump administration can start thinking about it

in that way and up until it gets, goes through the court system, the people can be affected by it. A lot of this stuff is all, as you point out, it's just, it's like Trump creates his fake reality and then he creates a series of fake solutions to solve the fake problems from the fake reality, like the electric vehicle mandate, just declaring the government will stop censorship,

will stop censoring things, all of that is really fake. But the immigration ones, I think are quite real. Trump says it's liberation day. And then you look at this swath of EOs, and yes, there's sort of these fake censorship ones. But for the most part, there's nothing you weren't free to do yesterday that you're free to do today.

There's nothing, I love to see the list of things that Trump MAGA people would like to be free to do that they're not currently able to do under the yoke of Joe Biden. And so really what Liberation Day- You can buy a Trump shit coin and a Melania shit coin. Right, but those are for sale before Trump even took office. But it's more that like, well, what does it really mean?

What does Liberation Day mean? It means you get to watch on television all the people Trump has said are your enemies finally get their due. It's sort of a, it's like, nothing good is happening to you, nothing better is happening for you. You're not free to do anything different.

It's that Trump is targeting the enemies he's promised he was gonna target, and that gives you a wonderful, I guess, liberated feeling. Yeah, you could have saved a lot of time by just signing one EO on liberal tears. Just to watch the Libs cry. Can't spell liberation day without Lib. That's right. That's right.

You can't. Can't spell a lot of things. Yeah, I don't, I mean, like the Doge thing, I know they're trying to do like shock and awe, like a ton of executive orders. A lot of the birthright citizenship, even conservative legal scholars don't think this stands a chance. It's ridiculous. Look, it's ridiculous. It's ridiculous.

The 14th Amendment is very clear. And the only reason we're even entertaining it is because the Supreme Court has lost its mind, but it is a ridiculous, it is completely, blitheringly obvious that this does not make sense, that birthright citizenship is not something the president can eliminate with a stroke of a pen.

The 14th Amendment is crystal clear. Yeah, I mean, who knows? Because it's the Supreme Court. They can always surprise you. But I'm watching more like what do we get three votes for this? Do we get two votes for this? Do we get one vote for this? Like, I don't think Roberts goes with this. I don't think Barrett and Kavanaugh go with this, but Alito, Gorsuch and Thomas, you never know. And who knows? Maybe, maybe we also, we also thought this on the fucking criminal immunity case and got surprised there, so who knows, but it seems this one is pretty clear.

Kavanaugh was there today and was looking rough. I think he and Hegseth had a night. That's a joke. That's a joke. It could have been a night of just dancing. Revelry, fell asleep. For sure. They might have danced a joke. That's a joke. It could have been a night of just dancing. Revelry, fell asleep. We might have danced a lot.

Trump did not mention the TikTok ban in his speech, but he previously said he would sign an executive order delaying enforcement of the law, banning it in the US. This after TikTok users spent the weekend with access only to messages from the app praising President Trump, even though he wasn't president yet, for his valiant efforts to save the service.

Trump truthed, saved TikTok. Of course, he was once for the ban. Now he's trying to save it. Then TikTok's now back for people. It's all in limbo right now. But basically the law says you, it gives the president the authority to delay the implementation of the ban by 60 or 90 days, if there is a potential deal in the offing. Um, it doesn't seem like there is a potential deal, but it seems like they're just going with us anyway. The Biden administration had said in

their final days, we're not going to enforce the law. So TikTok can, can remain operational. Which is a cool, by the way, cool. Right. TikTok can remain operational. Which is a cool, by the way, cool. Right. And then TikTok being like, well, we don't want Biden to say that we can be operational and not get people's attention.

So we're going to do a stunt and shut down. And it worked, of course, because everyone then got everyone's attention, everyone at TikTok who hadn't been paying attention about that. What do we think about this, Trump being the savior of TikTok? Dan, I know you wrote a box on this. Yeah, I mean, I don't think this is going to be the thing that defines his presidency, but he played, put us, we can talk about the national security concerns, we can talk about

the dangers of TikTok, but from pure politics, he played it exactly right. And I do think the Democrats fumbled- And so did TikTok and the many Republican and Democratic lobbyists they hired that have been working full time for them. I mean, it's really not that complicated that if you are, we're doing pure politics here, that if you're going to take something of tremendous value from 6 in 10 voters under 30, and then you never talk about why that should happen from the moment you pass the law in the dark of night

until the day it disappears. No one ever made the case for it. Biden could have tried to make a public show, as Trump did in the first administration, of trying to facilitate a deal. It's like they all passed this thing. They passed it without really thinking about it. They didn't sell it.

They didn't make a case for it. And Trump understood right away, I mean, for entirely cynical, ridiculous reasons, we understood the politics of it. Because at the time, a lot of these Democrats voted for it and then Republicans too, because your choice was anger the youths or look soft on China. And they defaulted to what was always theoretically better politics being tough on China. And there's just a real difference between taking something that matters a lot to a group of people. Like you and I use this example

with you on Friday. For voters of a certain age, taking away TikTok is like taking away cable TV from us in our twenties. Like it just disappears one day. And that is all, taking something away from someone is always gonna be worse politics

than generically being tough or soft on another country in a way that doesn't really affect people. And so, I mean, from a political perspective, Trump did very well here. This is, he got a, the, probably the most expensive free ad in American history to have a, you know, push notifications out to 170 million Americans first begging you to save the app

and then crediting you for saving it all within a 12 hour period. It's like. Yeah, profoundly frustrating 24 hours. I mean, I thought Dan's piece on this in Messagebox, his newsletter, which you all should subscribe to. Thank you, Tom. It was excellent. There was lots of less thoughtful commentary on Twitter

about how once again, Dems suck in Republicans rule because we give to Trump this political win. And I just wish, and while that is true, the politics of this did not end well for Joe Biden or the Democratic party. I wish people were pointing out though, that the vote in the house to ban was 360 to 58. So like 186 Republicans voted for banning TikTok

or divesting TikTok. It was 79, 18 in the Senate. So you had 31 Republicans in the Senate. So this is a overwhelming bipartisan decision. The reason they did it was national security concerns, which they've done an absolutely terrible job explaining to anyone. So no one understands why this happened.

But I also think part of the story of how Trump went from wanting to ban TikTok and trying to do it on his way out the door to getting to saving TikTok is also that he met with a big donor named Jeff Yass or Jeff Yas, who said something to him that led him to flip-flop on this issue. And I think Jeff Yass owns 15% of ByteDance, the parent company of TikTok.

So there was a big money angle here. And then, TikTok wasn't shut down. They shut themselves down preemptively so they could put up this little, please save us Mr. Trump that they shouted from their tall tower. And then they gave him the win and they're like, oh, Mr. Trump saved us shouted from their tall tower and then they gave him the win and they're like, oh, Mr. Trump saved us

to suck up to the incoming administration. So it was just like, it was so obviously a stunt and people were like, the commentary on Twitter in particular was just so fucking credulous. I think that they, I don't even think it's, I mean, I'm sure there could be a money angle to it, but like, I'm sure Kellyanne Conway like talked to Donald Trump and was like,

hey, one of the reasons you won is because of TikTok and they love you on TikTok now and TikTok's a great place to get your message out. And he's like, really? What's a TikTok? And they're like, well, here it is. And he's like, you know what? Sure, yeah, I'm into it now.

Right? Probably, but Jeff Yas bought like a ton of shares of Truth Social at the time and like put a bunch of money into the Trump team's pocket. I think it could be a why not both situation. I mean, it really is to me is like, just as Joe Biden goes out the door, it's like just these three big problems.

One of them being like the reason they did this was never communicated, and Joe Biden could never communicate it, they never made the case, they passed it too quickly. It was always these kind of vague invocations of national security without explaining why then the same spyware was fine in the hands of Americans. It was sort of baffling.

It's a perfect example of institutional failure. Yes, yes. It's everything. It's like we're Democrats, and this is what, it's Democrats and Republicans, and Donald Trump doesn't care what the fuck people think about Republicans either. You know, like we're Democrats, you know, and this is what it's Democrats and Republicans and Donald Trump doesn't care what the fuck people think about Republicans either, you know, like you're right that like the the lefties on Twitter who are mad that about the work against the ban, right, or like blaming Democrats because they love blaming Democrats for everything and Democrats

get blame here. I also think that like it is Republicans fault Trump doesn't care if it's a bunch of Republicans going to the bus too because because he is separate from the mass in Washington. But for the mass in Washington, the establishment in Washington that tried to work together in a bipartisan way to do the right thing, it's just the same story of the last however many years, which is we know it's right, it is the right thing,

and they could be right, right? Like I'm persuaded that there's some national security threats here too, right? But we don't need to tell you. They never explained it. Just trust us, trust us. No one trusts them, but trust us. And they made a big show of like declassifying all this information around the Ukraine,

Russian invasion of Ukraine. So why not do that again here? You know, like there's a way to put information into people's hands. So that's one. So then you have two, you know, Donald Trump teaches all these Republicans that you don't need to have shame,

that you can live without shame. And they embrace it. And it is amazing how few guardrails there are once the shame guardrail was gone. Now, this moment is everybody outside of politics learning that lesson for themselves. All these tech companies and these guys realizing, wait, if I just kiss his ass,

I get a bad op-ed in the Washington Post and then I get everything I want, I don't care about the Washington Post, I don't care what the elite says anymore. There, all I have to do is ignore it or pretend it doesn't bother me. He's got the power, they don't have the power. They can't hurt me with their words.

And so there was a time when people had a certain amount of dignity where you might not, if you lead a company, go into a room full of people that work for you and say, put up a little supplicating message that says Donald Trump has a huge penis and how beautiful it is. And then we'll say that we saw it ourselves and then he'll be happy.

Because- You're doing the Pornhub case? Yeah, boy, we have very different TikTok algorithms because that's not the message I got. But like that TikTok is willing to put up a ridiculous message like this and say, thank you, Mr. Trump. Like we used to make fun of like this and say, thank you, Mr. Trump. Like we used to make fun of the people

that said, thank you, Mr. Trump. Now the biggest leaders in the American economy are doing it. Who I'm sure did not come up with the idea on their own, which is not a really brilliant idea to come up with. But again, they have had a Republican and Democratic consultants lobbyists. They're all- Of course.

Everyone in Washington is on TikTok's payroll. They hired them all and it is the easiest fucking money to make to go in there and be like, hey, I got an idea. Just say thank you, Donald Trump. And so then the third piece of it though, the third piece of it, which is I think about like the difference between what it is like

to be a Democrat online versus a Republican online is when Democrats do something bad or Republicans criticize Democrats, when they achieve something, when Democrats achieve something, Republicans attack Democrats. When a bipartisan bill like this happens, right? The online left attacks Democrats

and it's not, oh, this is actually Donald Trump. There's no one making that argument. It's a bunch of people declaring, this is why Democrats are terrible. This is why Democrats are terrible. And I agree they're terrible. But if we want to, like, I agree with all of that. But like so much of the time that you see these two things side by side, which is how

do Republicans get away with this stuff? Right? How do they do it? How do they do it? And then you look at our media and it's a bunch of people that are much more interested in being part of the discourse of strategy than actually doing the attacking, right? There's a lot of people saying, oh, Donald Trump's going to get credit for this, as opposed to a bunch of people saying Donald Trump doesn't deserve credit for it and here's why, right?

We don't have, there's like, Republicans have so many more soldiers in the social media wars than we do. We have analysts and we have observers. And like, if you want to talk about how Donald Trump managed to change politics so much over the last eight years and how things are possible now that weren't possible before, it was that slow and steady work of those people making acceptable things that weren't acceptable. We just don't have those people.

Fixed bayonets, love it. Yeah, so on the internet, social. And there's that, look. I think the- I will, I'm ready. Digitally. There's actually a Steve Bannon thing, he always says, we're fixed bayonets, we're going after this thing. I don't know the lingo. But I'm also somewhat like, I'm ready, digitally. There's actually a Steve Bannon thing, he always says, we're fixing bayonets,

we're going after this thing. I don't know the lingo. But I'm also somewhat like, I'm in complete agreement with Dan's message box that the politics are what they are for Democrats, and also I'm for the ban. I think the ban is a good idea. I think that having the CCP control

one of the largest media platforms that 170 million people in the United States are on, that is like melting their fucking brains, our brains, I'll include myself there too, just to not, I don't want to offend the youth. We're all part of it again. I think it's bad. I mean, by law, ByteDance has to provide the Chinese Communist Party with whatever it wants, basically.

And you know, the broader context is the Chinese have hacked into basically every single telecom company in the United States. We've been unable, the United States government's been unable to get them out. We've learned over time that this op that's called Salt Typhoon, they've managed to get audio and text messages of calls from Donald Trump, J.D. Vance, senior political official.

So there's this ongoing hacking war happening. And the idea that the Chinese national security state wouldn't use TikTok when it's on all our phones. Everyone just read the Supreme Court opinion, the nine zero Supreme Court opinion. ByteDance is collecting the content of private messages on TikTok. It is also collecting the email and contact info of anyone in your contacts if you're using TikTok, their emails too.

So now the Chinese government, when they want to, can have the names, location data, like what you're buying, email of every single American. So like, again, maybe you're fine with that, but it's also a legitimate concern to address. Right, but this to me is, so I, this is the problem, right? And all of that would be okay if it were in the hands of an American.

And to me, like, what I take away from this- We're a nation, that's why we have borders. Right, but if we're talking about it, yes, it is worse when China does it. Right, I'm just saying. But we have accepted an incredible level of invasion by these companies, which also should not be allowed. What I, like, we went through a cycle of this

with Facebook in 2016 and then, and then Elon Musk's Twitter and how that's changed and misinformation on TikTok. And whether it's Mark Zuckerberg or Elon Musk or the Russians or the Chinese communist, what all these people have learned is that like, if you throw a bunch of throwing stars and numchucks and bayonets and knives

into the center of a digital circle, Americans will pick them up and kill each other with them. And that to me is still the problem, right? And so like, whether people go from TikTok to fucking Reels, like I don't like that this, like the law- Yeah, we have a bigger problem. The law remains the law, right? Donald Trump's allowed to extend it,

but they have to put it in other people's hands. But like the problem of misinformation and the way in which these technologies are fucking terrible for us continues. And by the way, you know, no one has Joe Biden to kick around anymore. And the people who are now most opposed to Trump saving TikTok, Tom Cotton,

Republican Senator has already posted, Mike Johnson on Meet the Press was very like, we're gonna try to, you know, the law is the law. Like, I do think he's gonna have, at least, at the beginning, like always, some Republican pushback on this. Yeah, Trump wants to force a sale to someone more supportive of him, like Elon Musk.

I think the critics of this ban are right to point out comments from senior US government officials where they said that like real momentum behind TikTok's ban came when there was tons of pro-Palestinian content on there about Gaza. And I do think that was sort of bizarre. So US government officials were making that argument. But anyway.

Yeah, how about people do try something, make the case for why it should be banned. Just like talk and like declassify or put, make public some of these actual arguments that have clearly scared members of Congress behind the scenes that we are still not seeing. And again, Katandu Brown Jackson and Sam Alito agreed. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

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Trump's inaugural address this one in honor of Martin Luther King it's Martin Luther King day happy Martin Luther King. It's Martin Luther King Day. Happy Martin Luther King Day everyone This week. I will also end the government policy of trying to Socially engineer race and gender into every aspect of public and private life We will forge a society that is colorblind and merit-based. Merit-based. Did you see all the billionaires clapping behind him? They're ready.

They're ready for this merit-based future. Yeah. Do you think it was merit-based that they got those seats? That's how, and how Lara Trump became head of the Republican National Committee. Merit-based. And how Jared Kushner became an advisor at the White House. Did you see that the billionaires got the second row behind Trump and then the cabinet gets the third row

behind Trump. It's in a row of declining influence. That's exactly right. The Republican governors were in the overflow. Yeah, when Donald Trump went to the overflow, he started talking about Texas and somebody shouted, he's here, he's here, he's in the room with you now. It's merit-based now, guys.

One thing you should remember about the second Trump term. Speaking of merit-based, I alluded to this earlier, but Trump did launch a Trump coin over the weekend, and then Melania launched a Melania coin. Like Kennedy and Jackie O'Gee. Does anyone want to explain these meme coins, what they are, why they're a scam, what's going on? You're buying nothing.

You are technically buying a digital playing card, but it's not supposed to be viewed as a security or an investment or a donation to Trump. It's you're buying nothing because you like the thing, but people buy and sell and trade these things because they know with some of these meme coins, also called shit coins, you can see huge rips to the upside where there's like Dogecoin and all of a sudden

Elon Musk likes it and you can see people pile in. Can you talk about what rips to the upside means? You can see the value go way up and if you bought a million of them for one cent and it goes to a dollar, you make a ton of money. So that's what seems to have happened here. There, a company connected to Trump owns 80% of these Trump coins.

They also get a fee on the sale of these coins. I saw a guy named Connor Grogan, who's a director of Coinbase, estimated on Saturday that Trump's team had made 58 million in fees from all of the Trump coin sales. So Trump, they launched this Trump coin, Trump promotes it on True Social,

the thing goes to the moon, and then they launched the Melania coin, and it seems like a bunch of people saw that happen, and maybe they sold their Trump coin to buy Melania coin. Maybe they sold- Got to have one of each, people saw that happen and maybe they sold their Trump coin to buy Melania coin. They just sold. Well, maybe you sold the Trump coin because you're like, oh no,

they're gonna launch a thousand of these things. The value is gonna go down. Whatever happens, people just started selling like crazy and the price just collapsed and it's called a rug pull and the kind of like the coin world. So I don't know, we'll find out. Who loses out here? Cause it seems like a pyramid scheme.

All the schmoes who buy late lose out and all the people who own it early win. This is the hock to a coinification of the presidency. And normally you might see like regulators investigating what happened here, maybe law enforcement gets involved. You think Trump's gonna have his DOJ dig into what happened? No, we're all crypto friendly now. The SEC or the FTC?

This is the, the war against crypto is over. And he's now gonna write the regulations for how crypto is regulated. So this is the new world folks. I really want 10 years from now, someone to have to explain what the sentence, the hawk tuification of the Trump presidency means. Well during the next financial crisis, which is caused by a crypto meltdown that has infected the entire economy and banking system, we'll be able to look back on that in this moment.

Couple years ago, AOC's campaign president being like, and would you believe how many Melania's eggs cost? You know what I did enjoy though? There's all these crypto bros online who are self-described huge Trump supporters. And they're like, this is stupid. Why did he do this? This is gonna sully our reputation as an industry.

And this isn't, and one crypto lobbyist was quoted as saying like, this is not gonna help our reputation as hucksters and scammers. And now people are gonna think that we're just a bunch of fraudsters because Trump did this. And I was a big Trump supporter, but this is really disappointing that he's doing this.

I think credit, good for those people. Like there are arguments you can make for the utility of Bitcoin or the blockchain or other of these technologies. There's no utility to a meme coin or a shit coin. It's just for shits and giggles. And for the president of the United States to launch this thing the day before he's inaugurated

and then someone pull the rug on everybody who got in late, like he's harming his own people who might've bought in. No, I say good for them because you're right, you can make arguments in favor of it, but to trust that Donald Trump, as if he just like, just emerged out of nowhere, like, oh yeah, this guy has our best interest. This guy's gonna put the proper guard rails

on the agents. I think what you should take from what I think we take away from those quotes though, like, oh yeah, this guy has our best interest. This guy's gonna put the proper guard rails on the agents. What you should take from what I think we take away from those quotes though, was just how egregious this was. This was like shockingly irresponsible, borderline illegal. Well, and look, where did all that money, right? Where does that 50 million in the pockets

of this entity come from? Or the people who bought in a too high a value before it collapsed, like where does that money come from? Like it may be, a lot of it may be from MAGA supporters, people that don't know any better and are just sort of following the trends. People, you know, you can't count an honest man. People who think they're gonna get one over

and try to get in early and fall prey to this. But this is also a vehicle for all kinds of corruption that we may not be able to see. We have no idea who's buying this. We have no idea who's sending 30 million or $50 million to Donald Trump via this kind of- Foreign actors, foreign adversaries, they can all just sort of curry favor

with the president of the United States now. It's just easier. I mean, they could before because it's Donald Trump, but this is just sort of an easier way to do it. All right, let's talk about the outgoing president, Joe Biden. Here's how we greeted Donald Trump at the White House before the inaugural ceremony.

Welcome home. Welcome home. Welcome home. Welcome home. Okay, that's a tough one. I thought like a simple hello would have sufficed. I don't think you need to like punch him in the face or anything or be mean. I think he could have just been like, hello.

Do you think it's the same mattress? No. You think they'd get a new mattress in there? I bet they go with the Don Lux. You think it's a Don Lux? Oh, very good. Always think of the get a new mattress in there? I bet they'd go with the Don Lux. You think it's a Don Lux? Oh, very good. See, I always think under the sponsors. Yeah, that's good.

They have to call it out. They have a new elite collection. Maybe they went for that. I bet if Donald Trump gave Helix a shout out, they'd send him a free one. Biden also made some last minute moves. He issued preemptive pardons for Liz Cheney, members of the January 6th committee,

the staff, Benny Thompson, Anthony Fauci, Mark Milley, General Mark Milley, and then his entire family. So his brothers, sister, in-laws, the whole Biden crime family. No, Dan pointedly did not get one. Pardons said I'm basically my son, Dan Pfeiffer, from Delaware.

Everyone from Delaware got a pardon. Pelosi didn't get one. Pelosi didn't get one because they're not speaking. She's getting a different something from Donald Trump. Biden made sure that too. What'd you guys think of the last minute pardons? I liked the ones for the people that tried to protect democracy.

I'm confused by the ones for his family members. There are people that I didn't even know they were on Donald Trump's radar. I think Cash Patel is gonna find out some about these people existing via these pardons. What did you think Dan? Well, I mean, there has been, one of his brothers has been a target for a long time

and it's been a target from Trump, a target of the Republicans, a target of the Republican Congress. So I think if you're doing that, I guess you're doing the whole family to make next year's Thanksgiving less awkward. Do you think it was in a stocking or something? How do you get these out?

I mean. Stocking stuff hurt? It was one of those things that you pull it and it gender reveal. Yeah. The preemptive pardons fine. Right. I mean, I think it's weird he didn't do Jack Smith.

I know why, I know why he didn't do Merrick Garland. Maybe he shouldn't have prosecuted Biden's son. Right. yep. But like a lot, or just like everyone who was involved in investigating Donald Trump, Judge Marshawn. Cassidy Hutchinson, did she get one? No. That's a good question.

I don't think so. I don't think the witnesses did. They said some of the, they did for the Capitol police officers that testified. Right. So I don't know about Cassidy. I mean, I would like to be, I would love a little more specificity

if I were her. Yeah, yeah, that's very true. I think the people who got it know. Like there are names out there, I think, with them. Yeah, but people in DOJ, people like Alvin Bragg or Tish James, like all those people. I mean, I guess you have to draw a line somewhere. He should have put something up by the auditorium

like everyone's finding out if they made cheer squad. Oh, yeah, and if your name's not on there, you're just like. Yeah, what do you open the thing? It's like, ugh, commutation, come on. Yeah, partying's so much better. But like, back to Cassie Hutchinson, I mean, I don't know her, she's been on the show,

she was a witness, she was someone that Republicans accuse of committing perjury before the committee, and also someone who was at the lowest level, right? She was an assistant in the White House, has no resources, is not going to be able to hire like the fanciest lawyers out there. So I would be a little nervous if I were. I will just say because. And Trump called her out at his overflow speech. Yeah, he did. He went after basically by name. I will just say though that when he did the hunter pardon, I said then that if he does the preemptive pardons, it will at least put the

hunter pardon in a, in a better light. I still disagree with it, but I am good for Joe Biden. I think the preemptive pardons, it is sad that he has to do preemptive pardons for a bunch of people who committed no crimes. But when you have a person who just became president who literally almost every day of his campaign threatened to prosecute people for no reason because he was mad that he was being investigated

for his lawbreaking, then I probably would have done the same thing. Oh, apps like. And good for Joe Biden for doing it. It's an umbrella. Better to have it not need it than need it not have it. It clearly annoyed Donald Trump and we'll get to that speech,

but Donald Trump is pissed about these pardons. Yeah, it is just sort of a strange list and it is funny to also throw in your whole family. It's funny to do the Hunter one in advance. I mean, just as the other thing is like, they released him at like 1158, like as his final act was to release Leonard Peltier from prison to pardon.

Also good. Pardon Jerry Lundgren, a who was in prison for, who's a Kentucky politician who's in prison for campaign finance violations and his whole family. Like it just, it doing it like in the sort of dark of night like that just makes it seem worse. You know, just do it, do it all. And this is, it's, it's the same thing with the hunter Biden partner.

It's just like, do them and defend them. Make the case for them. Every personal political decisions Joe Biden makes, he tends to make only with his family and like one or two aides, and then just roll it out right away. And it creates a political nightmare. Right. I mean, this is the, Clearly the family influence has its fingerprints all over this one.

Right, there's all this reporting about how he decided to run for reelection without really running it by staff. There's reporting that the Hunter pardon was made in concert with like a family meeting, and then they kind of rolled it out weeks and weeks ago, and then did the rest of them this week. So yeah, I mean, I think the timing, the communications plan wasn't really there

for a lot of these. I do think it's gonna really hurt Joe Biden's reelection chances, but the- Well, I mean, it hurt like how he was talked about for months, but he could have put Hunter in this last batch and buried it all. I guess there was kind of the question and the issue of sentencing,

the complicated things timing-wise. I guess. I know, and I still don't get that because it's like, say Hunter was sentenced, then the still the pardon is the pardon or the commutation is the commutation. The Leonard Pellisier one is interesting though. He's a Native American activist

who's been in jail since 1977 for allegedly murdering two FBI agents, but it's been very controversial. And I think people have been trying to get him released for years and years and years now. Amnesty International called him a political prisoner, et cetera. And I think he's not completely free.

I think he's now on a home confinement and moved him to home confinement. I'm glad Fauci got one. Yeah. Our boy Fauci can rest easy. Yeah, but also there's this presumption of guilt. And you see shitty people like Rand Paul tweeting about how now we know Fauci is guilty

for his actions during the pandemic. And maybe that, maybe who cares? I don't care about that. The only reason this matters is Chip Roy was out of the gate saying, okay, well now that they're all pardoned, we can haul them all before Congress

and they can't take the fifth. And so either they tell us the truth or they lie and then we can get them on perjury. Well, look, the part, the joke, we can't stop the fact that they've taken over the government. We can't stop them from abusing their offices on a going forward basis.

And we can't stop them from in bad faith interpreting this however they want. But I think I would rather have a pardon in my hand and Rand Paul yelling at me than neither, I think. You know what else we can't do? Fake declare a new amendment to the Constitution. No, no, no, no, Jonathan. You go outside and you say,

I declare the Equal Rights Amendment as the law of the land. This happened on Friday, Biden declared that the Equal Rights Amendment to the Constitution was now the law of the land, even though basically no one else agrees. Love it, you wanna unpack this one for us? So, the Equal Rights Amendment, the original draft had a deadline, I believe, of 1977.

It was extended to 1982. It was passed by almost enough states to become a Constitution Amendment. It was won away. Then in the years that followed, several states rescinded their ratification and then Virginia became- No take backs on amendments.

No take backs. And then Virginia became the 37th state to ratify the ERA. And there was a movement to say that Congress setting a deadline is not constitutional because the constitution doesn't make any provision for deadlines for ratification of amendments. And therefore that part of the amendment doesn't matter. And the national archivist, who is somehow

for whatever reason, very important in this process, should declare it part of the constitution. They said no. Well, but she prints all the pocket constitutions, so. Right, yeah. And the big ones. And the big ones. And the big ones. She's got all of them, all sizes. Yeah, yeah, yeah, you can do, you get all the pocket constitutions. So. Right. Yeah. And the big ones. And the big ones. And the big ones.

She's got all of them, all sizes. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You can do, you get all this. Yeah. You just do a PDF. But Biden could have ordered her to do it and he did not. Well, right. He could have ordered her to do it. It was not clear then.

It was not clear what happens after that. And it would then end up before the Supreme Court. And the Supreme Court has in the past ruled on these kinds. The court has found that setting deadlines is a reasonable thing to do under the constitution at the heavy right to do it. It does like, to me, like what I was comparing it to is like, okay, so Joe Biden is doing this kind of

vaguely extra legal thing on his way out the door. And Donald Trump is doing this extra legal thing coming into the door of declaring that undocumented, the children of undocumented immigrants are not citizens. And it's just, I feel like we're like, Joe Biden is the institution guy. And there's a bunch of critiques of Joe Biden from the left saying he defends the institution,

but he should use his power and he should go further. And then he does something like this. And it's like, he does it and the archivist says no, and then he's out of office and it's fucking dead. And it just felt like a strange, I don't know, like kind of a statement of principle or a fuck you out the door, it didn't lead to anything, it was purely ceremonial, it was very strange.

The substantive case for trying to weigh in on this, let's say, would be that the supporters of the view that the amendment has been ratified say that the president putting his weight behind it lends some credence to the legal case should it go before the courts, right? Now, fine, but in that case, maybe Joe Biden goes up and gives a statement that says like,

I don't know if I can do this, I believe it is, and actually explains this. What made it sort of mocked, what led to it being mocked is, you know, just like a graphic that he tweeted that is like, I declare the amendment is the law of the land. I declare bankruptcy. Once again, the way they went about it

was just sort of like, what? Yeah, it was very typical. It's like enough to please the groups who have been pushing very hard for the White House to do this, but not enough to actually go all the way. Let's say he had ordered the archivist to do it and the archivist had printed a bunch of new constitutions

with more amendments before you go out the door. One, those would be worth a lot of money when it's eventually struck down. That'd be cool. But it's just like, but then it's just pure symbolism, right? And with no, also with no other communications plan around it. No communications plan around it.

No explanation for like why they did it, why they couldn't do it, what was going on, just nothing. Right, or by all the alternative, by the way, he's right at the other door, he orders the National Archivist to print, to do it. The archivist is like, no. And then where are we? And again, this is not just like beating up on Joe Biden

as he goes out the door, that this was a weird thing to do. It's like, this is a good lesson for the future for Democrats. Don't do shit like that. Don't just declare stuff. Symbolism, performance of stuff. It just doesn't matter. What matters is explaining to people

why you can do something and then actually getting the power to do it. Whether it's the pardons, whether it's TikTok, whether it's this, we have paid, so last time I'm gonna say it for a while, we have paid so dearly for having an empty bully pulpit for a long time. And that is the sad end to the Joe Biden presidency,

despite a lot of good that he did. Well- Poor Phyllis Shafley. You should, everyone should listen to Strict Scrutiny this week. They go deeper on this, it was very interesting. Yes, you should, because always listen to Strict Treatment.

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plus two free dream pillows with mattress purchase. Helixsleep.com slash crooked. Speaking to someone who really knows how to command the bully pulpit, Donald Trump, even though he gave the longest inaugural address in modern history, decided he was not done yet, went to the overflow room and spoke to that crowd in Emancipation Hall, 33 minutes, and basically it was like, it was the director's cut from the inaugural address all the things he wanted to say it was the drunk dvd commentary exactly all the things he wanted to say uh but couldn't say in the speech uh let's listen and between jd and melania

and anybody else that her please sir it's such a beautiful unifying speech, please sir, don't say these things. I was going to talk about the J6 hostages, but you'll be happy because you know it's action, not words that count. And I was going to talk about the things that Joe did today with the pardons of people that were very, very guilty of very bad crimes. Why are we doing Millie Hughes pardoned? What he said? Terrible what he said. Why are we helping some of the people?

Why are we helping Liz Cheney? I mean, Liz Cheney is a disaster. She's a crying lunatic and crying, crying Adam Kinzinger. He's a super cry. I never saw the guy not crying. He's always crying. And I think this was a better speech than the one I made up, Stan.

I think this was better, JD. It's not wrong. It certainly was a truer speech to who Trump is. This is, that's sort of the moment I think we all, we all heard this was going on. We're like, this is, this is the next four years. This is, that's sort of the moment I think we all heard this was going on, we're like, this is the next four years. This is what we're in for. Yeah, it's the rally speech, one after the other.

Did you catch that Dan? Did you catch the overflow speech? I did, and it's exactly, you described it right. It is the director's cut. It's just, I mean, it's just like, sometimes I can never stop looking at these things from the perspective of a communications staffer, but you do this whole speech. This is your message.

You have, I mean, it's poorly written, but someone did write it and you have it out there and you've decided these are the things you're gonna do. And then he just calls Nancy Pelosi a criminal and talks about and calls Liz Cheney a crying psychopath minutes after your speech is over. It's just, it's like a truly wild choice. I also, everyone should go watch this

just to see the look on JD Vance's face at the top where he starts talking about all the things he didn't want them. He looks like so pained and kind of constipated and Speaker Johnson is like twitching and looking around and staring into the middle distance. It's nice. Well, part of it also, like this was supposed

to be 10 minutes. And so, you know, it's a little bit like, they're like, okay, so Trump's gonna give a little toast to say thank you to all the people in the overflow because we couldn't do this outside. And then we'll go do the parade and whatever other, and the heinous executive order ceremonies and all the other things we've got,

big plans for the day. And so they're just standing behind him. They wouldn't have stood behind him if he was gonna speak for 30 minutes. So part of it is sort of like, can I shuffle to the day. And so they're just standing behind him. They wouldn't have stood behind him if he was gonna speak for 30 minutes. So part of it is sort of like, can I shuffle to the fucking side here? I'm standing right behind him. He's supposed to be a greeting.

He's doing a tight 15 on how the border wall was gonna be made of cement, but there's acid that goes through cement. And I didn't think it was gonna be pretty. I thought it was gonna be ugly. There's Greg Abbott. There's this guy, there's that guy. And they're standing behind him.

And Melania and her big goofy fucking hat is just hiding her eyes and looking down. And it's the so pissed the whole time. And then Trump starts talking about how her feet hurt and how she wanted to go home, but he made her come here, it's so weird. Yeah, but it was like to Dan's point about the communications piece of it,

he basically, you know, takes us all behind the scenes because he gets up there and he says, these are the parts I really wanted to say, but they told me I couldn't say today that I should save it for tomorrow, but I'm not gonna save it for tomorrow. I'm gonna do it right here, right now. And-

And you know what? He was right. Doesn't matter. Well, that's his thing. He said, he said, I don't think it's gonna affect the coverage because the coverage of my main speech is already out there and it's looking pretty good,

but maybe I'll get in trouble. Well, you know what? It will affect some of the coverage. We're gonna talk about it. MSNBC is probably flipping out about it. New York Times will mention it, right? And then it won't fucking matter because most people that voted for him

don't pay any attention to any of those media sources. And so it's like, they just pay attention to Donald Trump what Donald Trump says. So if he wants to do his fucking tight 33 on his stump speech revised one last time. You know, that's what he's here for four years for. Right, and I assume all the headlines, even the mainstream headlines,

that'll be slowly that people will catch and see disburses are things like America's decline or over America's golden age. They are the headlines that Donald Trump would want it to be. And by the way, that's not a criticism of them. When the president gives an inaugural, the headline should be the headline line from the speech.

That is what it should be. So of course he's free to fucking do this. And by the way, all of his biggest fans are gonna see this. They're all gonna see, don't worry, the real Trump is still there. We're gonna get exactly what we want from this guy. Yeah.

Just to end, Dan, you wrote a message box on Monday today, this morning. Is it Monday? Today is Monday, yes. We're recording this on Monday, as you all know, because we're talking about the inaugural, about how to survive the Trump presidency. What are some highlights?'re talking about the inaugural, about how to survive the Trump presidency. What are some highlights?

What are some tips for everyone on how to survive the Trump presidency? And then we can ask Tommy and Lovett what they think too. I'll do a few, and then for all of them, subscribe. But, in all seriousness, I think there are just a few things I would, is there are gonna be, after today, 1,460 more days of the Trump presidency.

And we gotta get through all of them, right? And we've gotta try to get through them with our faculties intact. And so just a couple of things that I've been thinking about is one, yes, Trump won a really big victory. Like he won, as he pointed out, in his inaugural address, he won all the swing states.

The country did move to the right. He did win the popular vote. But he also only won the presidency by about 100,000 votes in three states. And that's just worth keeping in mind, not to tell ourselves some story about how we don't have to make huge changes as a democratic party, we absolutely do, but just that victory is that much,

is much closer than it appears right at this moment. Just like keep that in mind. Second, and I think this is a lesson we've all learned from the Trump years now, is we don't have to follow him down every rabbit hole, right? He wants our attention 24 seven. He wants to just flood the zone with shit all the time. And our attention is our greatest resource.

And we can decide how we, when we give it to Trump. We don't have to give it to him all the time. We can just depict between the things that actually matter, the way he's making a real impact and the things that's just so much annoying to distract us. And so I think it's a very important thing. It's not something I'm gonna try to do

with the newsletter thing. It's not something we can do with this podcast. It's trying to help people separate the signal from the noise, understand what matters. I think the most important thing is we're all angry. We are anxious. We are worried. And the best thing to do, and that's always been true,

ever since Trump was first elected, is to channel that into action. And people should go to vote safe America to figure out ways to do that. But just, I want to keep people like a North star for this, which is right now the Republicans have one of the narrowest house majorities in history. You have a bunch of Republicans who are existing

in very, very purple districts. The voting patterns in the Trump era suggest we have a phenomenal chance to take the House back. And if we take the House back, Donald Trump will never pass another law that does not have a Keem Jeffries okay. We will have the ability to investigate Donald Trump, we have the ability to hold hearings, to issue subpoenas, and we can do that, and that is of just, we have to get through these two years focused and working on taking the House back, and if we do that, Trump will still be president, he can still do really bad things,

but we will have so much more power and ability to limit what he does, limit the damage he does, and expose him for who he is. All right, I like that. Anyone else? Watch what he does, not what he says, and focus on those midterms. He said that in his speech.

He said, actions matter, words more than words. Here we go. I think that was right. Yeah, he's a strong silent type, this one. Yeah, I have just two thoughts. One is, things change less than you think in a year and more than you think in five years. And I think today to me was like a reminder of that.

We wonder like, how did we get to a place where corruption doesn't matter? Like, how did we get to a place where Donald Trump can abuse the office in this way? Well, it took time. It took a slow degradation of basic values of the Republican party being slowly and steadily co-opted but it did change and it changed a lot.

But it did it in a matter of just a few years and we shouldn't be so cynical or apathetic or resigned to believe that it can't change just as much in the other direction in another couple of years. We have to slowly work towards that in all the ways we can. And that's a very big goal.

And then that's a hard goal and it's hard to think about. And then when you get anxious or bored or frustrated or mad about thinking about that big problem, you can focus on the very concrete of just winning the house. Yeah. I think, you know, it's taken me 43 years to do this, but I don't doom about the future as much anymore

because not because there's nothing to doom about, but because nothing we can do. Worrying about it is not gonna change it. So really trying to take the Trump presidency one day at a time and focusing on what we can control and what we can't. And also recognizing that to Dan's point, he won by 100,000 plus votes in all the swing states.

And we should also recognize though, why he won. And it seems like the, not the Trump fans, but the additional people that got him over the I got him over the hill that got him over you know they got him close to 50% and one on the swing states they were pissed about the cost of living and they didn't think that the Democratic Party gave enough of a shit about them and you know right now price of eggs, $4.15 price of eggs, mortgage rate is 7%, gas is $3 a gallon. So we're just going to check back in on those because we'll let's just take Donald Trump at

his words. Let's look, we've tried resistance politics. Let's try normal politics. Normal politics is he made a bunch of promises, big promises that he was going to do is going to fix the country. We're not going to be in decline. Everything's going to be great. It's going to be in decline, everything's gonna be great. If it's gonna be affordable, prices are gonna fall, you're gonna be doing great. Okay, if that happens, good for Donald Trump. But if it doesn't happen, we should point it out. We should point it out along the way when he breaks his promises

or when he declines to fulfill them. Yeah, there's a moment in the speech where he says that the country is unifying behind my agenda. It is not. That is wish casting, that is hopeful thinking. But the policies that are deeply unpopular a week ago remain deeply unpopular today. No, the country doesn't want giant tax cuts for the rich.

No, it doesn't want a president who's focused on bathroom policies and ridiculous right wing grievances over their basic day-to-day concerns. And we'll be here with you guys the whole time. We're not going anywhere, so stick with us. And our friends at Vote Save America are going to be here. You can sign up at Vote Save America to figure out how to get involved. We're giving everyone a break for a little bit, but you know what?

There's going to be 2025 elections in Virginia and New Jersey. Then there's going to be the midterms before you know it, so it's going to be busy again. And also, you know, we'll be here on Pod Save America and all of our other pods and you can sign up at Friends of the Pod to be a subscriber. And we have a great community and everyone is good to each other and shares their ideas. And we want to hear from you guys as well because the Democratic Party has a lot of work to do.

We are at rock bottom. Let's hope, let's hope. And as Dan said- Well at least we're still a party. For a party for sure. Maybe not the country, but for the party, we're pretty much at rock bottom. So it's gonna take everyone to figure out

how the hell to get us out of this. And as Dan said in his message box, gotta support progressive media. We gotta have some alternative to this. Yeah. All right everyone, Dan and I will be back with a new episode on Friday, and we will see you then. Bye, everyone.

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