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Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Jon Favreau. I'm Dan Pfeiffer. I'm Tommy Vitor. Dan, nice to have you in LA. It's great to be here. Dan's here for today's pod. He's doing the Wednesday pod with Adisu. Doing the Thursday pod with you. Yeah. It's a big Dan week. All right.
On today's show, President Biden makes his pitch to black voters and talks Gaza during a pair of speeches at Morehouse College and the NAACP in Detroit. Justice Alito and his wife flew a stop the steal symbol outside their house right after January 6th. That's cool. And Rudy Giuliani celebrated his 80th birthday by getting served and serving coffee.
How do you like that? We'll get into it later. But first, the prosecution rests in the people versus Donald Trump. The defense and DA finished up with Michael Cohen on Monday and two witnesses that the defense called that I still can't understand why they called them. And Justice Mershon said we should expect the trial to wrap up this week with closing arguments next Tuesday after the Memorial Day holiday.
Trump did his usual pretrial whining outside the courtroom where he lamented the fact that his felony charges are preventing him from campaigning in two primary contests that took place months ago. Let's listen. And we go on day after day and I tell Iowa, I'm sorry, I won't be able to make it. I tell New Hampshire, sorry, I won't be able to make it. I'm sitting in an icebox all day.
I'll admit I usually find the imagine if Joe Biden did that brand of outrage a touch over-torqued at times. But imagine if Joe Biden did that. That one was pretty...
That one was pretty... Iowa New Hampshire was pretty crazy to say. Yeah, he does get confused about this election a lot. He thinks he's running against Obama a lot. He thinks he's still in the primary. He's going to early states. He thinks he won 2020. Maybe he's letting us know that their internal polling on Ohio is not superb. In Iowa? God damn it. Maybe I shouldn't run for president. Yeah, you are...
Senior moment, Dan. It happens. Yeah, it was sort of a wild day in court on Monday. Can we just harp for one second on the double standard here? Because if Joe Biden had done that,
We would be on day five of Democratic Panic. Yeah. There would be several New York Times columns about why Joe Biden needs to drop out right now. Yeah. Political Playbook would do a long Q&A with a neuroscientist. That's right. And it is not...
The media is the coverage is not why Joe Biden is not winning this race, but that's not why he's winning people read newspapers. So bad newspaper coverage is not his problem, but still do a better job. People. It's just, it's a ridiculous double standard. It would, if we worked in the white house, it would drive us in sane. Yeah.
Yeah, Fox News would get like a Neuralink on one of its reporters, maybe. Those little Elon Musk. There was a lot of screaming after the trial as well. He may have like violated his gag order again because he was talking about the defense's witness, his witness, who's this guy, Robert Costello, who's Rudy's ex-lawyer. Sure. Who they put up on the stand to say that Michael Cohen was a liar. And then the guy's like rolling his eyes and sighing and saying, Jesus, and all this kind of stuff. And the judge was so pissed that he cleared the courtroom.
And Trump is like, how could they have treated him like that? He's a good man. He's a good lawyer. He's like screaming after court and he's doing the whole thing. It's going to be an interesting...
Interesting week or two on how this thing wraps up. I listened to all the legal experts. I listened to Norm Eisen. I listened to the other pods on other networks that we won't name. I have no idea how this is going to go. Do these jurors really not know that Michael Cohen's a liar? I feel like Michael Cohen told them he's a liar. How much is this going to matter? I just want to get all of the legal eagles in a room together and give them a real...
in expectation setting. Because every one of them is like, the cases come in great, locked down, I haven't seen a single crack. I cannot possibly imagine that anything could go wrong. It's like, people? Yeah, that's right. I mean, the defense at the end of Monday tried to ask the judge to throw the whole case out.
because there's no evidence that Trump had any criminal intent. This was the question I asked Norm last week. And then the prosecution's like, there doesn't need to be evidence that he had intent. He caused the falsification of the business records. Politico had a good piece on this, how Trump seems to constantly demand things from his lawyers that they know are bad legal strategies. He's constantly asking for his lawyers to demand a mistrial, even though they know there's no basis for one and it makes everyone involved look stupid. Yes. Yeah, you can tell there's a lot of that lawyering going on in this trial.
So contrary to what he said, Trump has made quite a few campaign appearances recently. He was in Minnesota and at the NRA convention in Dallas over the weekend where he once again said just a bunch of crazy shit that makes it really hard to believe the race is tied.
Here's the sample. But I want to just start off by saying hello, Minnesota. This is a great state. We're going to win this state. I thought we won it in 2016. I thought we won it in, I know we won it in 2020. I just want to debate this guy, but you know, and I'm going to, I'm going to demand a drug test too, by the way. I am. No, I really am. FDR, 16 years, almost 16 years. He was four term.
I don't know, are we gonna be considered three term or two term? You tell me, Ronnie, what do you think? In my second term, we will roll back every Biden attack on the Second Amendment. The attacks are fast and furious starting the minute that Crooked Joe shuffles his way out of the White House. And honestly, there's been no president since Abraham Lincoln, and perhaps in a certain way, including Abraham Lincoln,
But there's been no president since Abraham Lincoln that has done more for the black individual in this country than President Donald J. Trump. There's been nobody, not even close. In a certain way, what way is it including Abraham Lincoln? Only we can have follow-up questions. I know. So that's all from just two speeches. And I wanted to play that because I think it highlights a challenge that Trump's opponents have always faced, continue to face, which is this.
The guy gives you so many targets to choose from. Like, how do you decide what to hit? Just in that lying about the election again, floating a third term, which is the headline that Politico went with promising to let dangerous people buy guns again, which is what he said at the NRA convention and barely got any coverage at all. What do you think, Dan? I think one, yeah,
All those we've talked about all those crazy things previous times. We've definitely podcast about the Abraham Lincoln thing in the past. It's not even the first time we've had to do that. Yeah. And the third term thing we've talked about that many times. Yeah, that's true. But and lying about the election is just that is that's just his. Oh, he opens his mouth. It's like a little crazier to say it about a state that Joe Biden won by like seven points. I think nine points in 2020. That one wasn't close. I mean, you don't know how big that steel that was stolen was. Yeah, that's true. But in this case, it is.
The most obvious and important point to make is the gun safety stuff. You have to look really hard to find something more unpopular than repealing the gun safety laws that are already on the books to make it easier for people and for the very specific audiences that Joe Biden has struggled with, particularly young voters. In that Snapchat social sphere poll that was done a few weeks ago about voters under 30, when they asked young people what they were most stressed about,
Inflation, number one, 72%, I think it was. Number three, right behind healthcare costs, was gun violence. So for young players, you have Donald Trump saying he is going to make it easier for dangerous people to buy guns. And we already have gun safety laws that are so porous in this country. You're going to make them more porous? You're going to undo the only gun safety law that's been passed in the last decade?
20 years. I think this is something that it is a dereliction of duty for this not to be a bigger deal in the press coverage. And I also think that talking in an election where voters are this cynical, we're going to have more success talking about the things that Donald Trump will take away from people than the things we might be able to give them because they don't believe for good reason that Congress is going to be able to do something big. But here, you think things are bad now? He's going to make them worse.
Yeah, I should think of like a systemic way to think about this. And I think you want to filter out the rage bait. There's lots of stuff he says that is designed to trigger the libs and rally the base by triggering us. And when we focus on that, I think it's to our detriment. Similarly, when you see, you know, some random MAGA candidate put out a video on Twitter, you know, like the woman jogging in the bulletproof vest yelling about gay people like she tweeted that because she hopes someone like me will quote tweet it and share it. So we want to avoid that.
Did you? I did not. I did retweet Jason Kander quote tweeting it. So I broke my own rule. Yeah, that's okay. I'll allow it. Dan always says screenshot your enemies, quote tweet your friends. I would also, I think I would avoid things that feel backward looking. Like I think people don't like the 2020 lies. They don't like January 6th, but I think you want to talk about the future, which does get you to the guns point again. And also the Harvard poll, Harvard youth poll also had, I think,
67% of Democrats were very concerned about guns, 51% of independents. So I would definitely focus on that because it gets to the stakes of the next election and not just the records. And by the way, that whole NRA speech was out there. He was bragging about deeming gun and ammunition sellers as critical infrastructure during COVID so that they could stay open, which I did not remember. I don't remember that either. But it seems like an insane abuse of
of whatever process they had in place to try to keep us safe in service of helping out the NRA. My general rule is we got to go after him on what he'll do, not what he said. And particularly when it relates to new information for voters. And this is...
You said first gun reform bill that passed in, you know, 20, 30 years and overwhelmingly bipartisan. Was it a great bill? Was it? No. I mean, like it wasn't the best. Didn't do enough. Did it do enough? No, it did not do enough. But what he's talking about here and repealing it, like red flag laws to remove weapons from people deemed a threat to themselves and others. The bill also prevents people convicted from domestic abuse from owning a gun.
So we're going to repeal that. Background checks on 18 to 21 year olds. Going to let 18 year olds buy assault weapons without a background check, right? And then the gun show loophole, right? Which President Biden finally closed and means that like there's just, it basically stops gun trafficking without background checks from, you know, gun shows and online dealers and all the other kind of stuff. That is just, it's that's so, that's going to be so unpopular repealing. Yeah, I mean, each of those provisions generally have north of 60% and often north of 70% support.
You mentioned that the press has got to cover it. Also, like Democrats got to drive this stuff, too, you know, because there was like a lot of back and forth on the debate challenge. Right. Or the drug tests for the debate thing that we saw a lot of back and forth on that. A lot of back and forth on like I didn't even play this clip, but there was the weird thing where he paused. He like froze during one of the speeches and prompter broke and he's tried to like fix the prompter and he's like joking about the prompter, which actually seems sort of funny. Yeah.
Yeah.
One is you adhere to the old way of doing business, like a macro communications model, where you're going to have one story, you're going to try to drive that story, and you're going to pick moments from your opponent that undergird that story. But if you're going to do that, you have to be consistent on what those moments are, right? It can't be straightforward.
strong man dictator today, feeble fall asleep in the courtroom guy five minutes later. And you within the NRA speech, people were within the official democratic universe were simultaneously complaining that he was going to be a strong man who served three terms and he can't stand on a podium. Yeah.
And that is a problem. It doesn't fit. I know. It's a fundamental problem. Now, the other way to do this is to decide that in a world where only decided voters consume mass media, that you think differently and you pick the pieces.
And then you work backwards from your audience, right? Like who are our target audience? What do they care about? We need to get young voters. For young voters, the most important part of this speech is the gun safety stuff, right? For a different segment of the audience, you might pick that. And then you would use sort of trusted messengers to deliver that. But we're like living in both worlds and we are, it is...
just times a flat circle. It's the same. It's 2016. It's 2020 all over again. And it's just either pick one thing, pick it, pick a lane and stick in it or decide that you're not going to even worry about sort of what your mass messages and just have target your audience with targeted messages. You don't think it should be like Biden holding a selfie stick being like, I just pissed in a cup. What about you, Don?
Your move, Donnie. Honestly, it's like, just imagine talking. I'll keep that one to myself. I think that's great. I think he's just, just imagine talking to someone on the doors or on the phone who's like wavering about voting for Biden. Would you be like, well, I just got to tell you, did you,
Trump had a speech the other day. He was fooling around with the teleprompter. He yelled at the lighting guy. Yeah, and he asked for a drug test. He'd be like, what are you talking about? No, it's the most insider stuff. He'd be like, no, actually, the domestic abuser down the street who doesn't have the gun, like, yeah, he wants to give him a gun. And this is annoying and hard because, like, Political Playbook clearly spent, like, three days emailing the Biden team asking for a response on the drug team, and they finally responded. And so you have to deal with a press corps that isn't focused on the big things you want to talk about, but that's, you know, part of the challenge. It's another complication.
The election is less than 100 days away. Oof. Wow. That might sound scary, but it also means you still have 100 days to donate and volunteer your ass off. And whether you're falling out of a coconut tree or anxiously clinging to one, now is the time to volunteer, donate, and canvas your ass off.
Go to crooked.com slash store to get your kit.
Meanwhile, we also had a couple weekend speeches from Joe Biden, a normal president who's a bit old and not very popular, but has done a bunch of stuff he promised and wants four more years to finish the job. The president gave the commencement at Morehouse College in Atlanta, which is historically black and all male. He also spoke at an NAACP event in Detroit. In both speeches, he acknowledged black Americans' frustrations and laid out the pretty clear choice in the election. It's natural to wonder if democracy you hear about actually works for you. What is democracy?
If black men are being killed in the street, what is democracy? Betrayal of broken promises still leave black communities behind. What is democracy? You have to be 10 times better than anyone else to get a fair shot. Most of all, what does it mean? As you've heard before, to be a black man who loves his country, even if it doesn't love him back in equal measure. What did you guys think of the Morehouse speech?
That section made me think of a conversation I had with Terrence Woodbury on this pod a few weeks back where he talked about how important it was to make voters the hero of the story and talk to them about their agency and their power if they turn out to make things better. But also to recognize in that same breath, especially for voters of color, that you can't just talk about protecting democracy because a lot of people don't feel like it has worked for them. You have to talk about fixing it, restoring it, improving it.
And it seemed like Biden heard that messaging or heard that tweak and spoke to it a bit there. Yeah, I think that's exactly right. I think it got to, I found it interesting because it revealed, I think, how Biden is himself thinking about what is the core challenge of his campaign strategy, which is
in a time of historic cynicism, particularly among core elements of your coalition, how do you run on a platform of saving our current political system? And so trying to understand people's frustrations with it, to acknowledge those frustrations and then explain why we still need to fight for democracy is, that is the circle they have to square in order to be able to succeed
with the strategy in which they're running right now. Yeah, I thought it was really smart and honest and just to acknowledge that not only black voters, but a lot of people just don't feel like democracy is working for him. And then he sort of ended by saying, my commitment to you is to show you that democracy is still the way. I think that he could tease that thread out further in the months to come. I find myself wishing he would do that a little more on the economy
You know, just really acknowledging people's frustrations with how things have gone and what he's going to do in another four years to like make life better for people. And instead of just doing the accomplishments list. I mean, you two know this better than anybody. I mean, commencements are so tricky because you have this national message you're trying to deliver, but you have to speak to the people in that room.
Because it's a huge day for them and for their families. And I did think, you know, it was interesting. I was listening this morning and I guess, you know, having just had a second kid, it kind of hit me all over again. Hearing President Biden talk about loss in his life and losing his kids, it hit me very differently. And talking about how you persevere through that, through faith and community and empathy. And he singled out the parents of the graduates.
in particular and talked about how proud they should be to help make getting all those graduates there. I thought it was a nice moment. And then also just speaking to how brutally hard the last four years have been for all these kids. I mean, coming through the pandemic, going through the George Floyd protests, just like the generally toxic,
political climate. I don't know if it resonated. The press coverage suggested that most of the applause came from alumni and not necessarily students. But it was interesting to see President Biden try to connect with this generation a quarter of his age, even if it didn't work. Yeah, the personal stuff
really landed with me the same way. And like, I've heard him tell those stories before. He really, I haven't heard him talk about it in that much detail in a while when he lost his first wife, when he lost his daughter, when, when Bo and Hunter were almost killed in that crash as well. And then later when he talks about basically Bo, when he was dying of cancer on his deathbed, making Biden promise that he wouldn't give up and he would stay in public service. It does make you realize like, this is why he's,
doing this, you know? Our old friend David Axelrod often has talked about this before where in your first campaign you run in your bio and then you win and you think everyone, when you run for re-election you assume everyone has known your bio because you talked about it was in A Billion Dollars in Vaz, you talked about it in every stump speech for two years. But...
People don't remember it. Like they lose touch with that part of the story. And I think it's really important for Biden to continue to do it because it is truly who he is. If you've ever spent any time around Joe Biden, that is so clearly the loss he has suffered defines how he thinks about the world, how he relates to people. But it's also...
evidence of his strength and his toughness, that he went through all of that and persevered and gets up every day and still does his job and still fights for some of the other families. And in an election where strength is really driving a lot of the political conversation about how a lot of voters are thinking about who they're picking, that is Trump's huge advantage. And it is a way to narrow it, to talk about
how he went through those experiences as evidence of his personal strength. Right. And I think that's just really important. And he, he does it so well. And like we, I hope and imagine we will see at some point in this more bio ads, which I know seems crazy because he has been, uh,
on the public stage for 50 years. He was our vice president for eight years, our president for four years. But we have to remind people of that story because they thought about it in 2020, they haven't thought about it since. Well, and it's also not just a bio story for the sake of telling your bio. It's the bio story as your motivation for your presidency and for why you're in public service, which I think is important. To your point about strength too, he also was very interesting. I thought he took on sort of like the fake notion of strength.
And he said, you know, extremist forces who peddle toxic caricature of what being a man is about. Tough talk, abusing power, bigotry. Being a man is about the strength of respect and dignity, showing up because it's too late if you have to ask, standing up to the abuse of power. So really, you know, both a contrast between
an indirect contrast with Trump because he didn't say his name. But, you know, he's talking to an audience of young men, young black men. And we have talked about before how, you know, over the years, young black men, young Latino men, young white men, too, have sort of been drifting away from the Democratic Party because some of them are sort of taken with this sort of false caricature of what being a man is really about. And I think it was really good that he took that on. One best articulated by NFL kickers.
as of late they're really teaching us how to be yeah right toxically male um that point you made about uh president biden recounting his deathbed conversation with beau biden that was new information to me too and it was really interesting i mean i knew like obviously his book is called promise me dad and his need for him to stay in the fight but it did make me think because
There's clearly some lingering frustration in 2016 between President Biden and President Obama for not encouraging him to run. And whenever I thought about that conversation, I would sort of think to myself,
If I had a friend who just lost a child, the last thing in the world I would tell them to do is run for office because it's just like agonizingly awful. But it's clear that the way President Biden viewed it was as a promise he made to his own son to continue this fight and be in politics. And just it helped me understand better sort of where he was coming from on all this. And I think it answers the question like.
he's 81 years old. Why is he doing this again? Why didn't he step aside? And I think, A, he really does believe that he's the best person to be Donald Trump and continue to serve as president. And B, he just really wants to stay in the fight, partly, I think, because of the promise he made to Beau. Now, is that right? Will it work? We don't know. That's what the whole election is. But it does answer that question. It helps you understand it. Yeah. There were reportedly a handful of students
who turned their backs on Biden during his speech to silently protest his Gaza policy. And the president actually talked about the war in his remarks. Let's listen. I want to say this very clearly. I support peaceful, nonviolent protests. Your voices should be heard. And I promise you, I hear them. What's happening in Gaza and Israel is heartbreaking. Hamas is vicious attack on Israel, killing innocent lives and holding people hostage. It's a humanitarian crisis in Gaza.
That's why I've called for an immediate ceasefire. An immediate ceasefire to stop the fighting. Bring the hostages home. This is one of the hardest, most complicated problems in the world, and there's nothing easy about it. I know it angers and frustrates many of you, including my family. But most of all, I know it breaks your heart. It breaks mine as well. Leadership is about fighting through the most intractable problems. It's about challenging anger, frustration, and heartbreak to find a solution.
It's about doing what you believe is right, even when it's hard and lonely. So I thought it was indicative of the challenge Biden has on Gaza that he said all that just a day before he called the International Criminal Court's application for an arrest warrant against Bibi Netanyahu outrageous. It just seems like he's he's trying now to thread the needle in a way that is making no one happy. What did you make of his comments?
Yeah, I mean, I think that's right. I mean, also, it seems to confirm some previous reporting that Jill Biden in particular is very concerned about what's happening in Gaza. Yeah, I was bet he was. I was maybe his grandkids, too. I'm sure all of the above. Yeah, I do think it speaks to the fact that when it comes to Gaza, Biden has a lot of power. But at the end of the day, he can't force either side to do what he wants. I mean, they've spent an enormous amount of time trying to broker
a ceasefire agreement. Bill Burns, the CIA director, has been over there constantly trying to work with the parties, work with Qatar and the Egyptians and Hamas and Israel to bring together some kind of deal. But Biden can't make Hamas work.
release the hostages and take the deal. And he can't force Netanyahu to accept a ceasefire. He can pressure both sides as much as he can. And I'm, you know, in the camp where I've wanted to see the administration do more to pressure the Israelis to protect civilians and to offer a deal that would lead to a ceasefire. But Netanyahu has got his own political incentives and
And we've seen he likes to pick fights with the US. So I think what you also heard there from Biden is he's alluding to the fact that the longer term challenges that will come after the war is over are even harder. His team has been working really hard on trying to get a normalization agreement between the Saudis and the Israelis that they think will lead to a path to a Palestinian state. Consider me very skeptical that that's going to happen.
that's going to happen, that Netanyahu is going to agree with anything that would lead to a two-state solution. But look, I don't know what they know. I'm not part of these conversations. And that's clearly what he's alluding to here. Yeah. I mean, your point about, you know, like you can't just pick up the phone and make a call. I mean, that sort of was like driven home to me with a couple of days ago, Netanyahu's a defense minister. Gallant, yeah.
basically said like i'm leaving the coalition if uh if there's no plan right i'm gonna leave bb's government you know uh the the wartime coalition that he's got put together and netanyahu's just like yeah fuck off he also gave him a three-week deadline three he's like you got three weeks to fix this and then yeah i was like yeah i'll do i'll take one day to respond i don't really care and it's just like if netanyahu's not even going to respond to domestic pressure at home political pressure it's like you know obviously
you know, we've talked about it before and advocated like Biden has been able to pressure BB into, you know, letting more aid in. And of course he like withheld the 2000 pound bombs for, you know, the, to, to try to stave off an invasion of Rafa. And he's had like, you know, mixed success on some of those things, but getting him to just end the whole war is, is a pretty hard thing to do. Yeah.
Yeah, look, I mean, Israel is a sovereign country. Netanyahu is a leader who's going to make decisions based on what he thinks in the security interests of Israel, but also in his own political interests. And Netanyahu is far more concerned about the far right wing in Israel and members of his coalition that have said,
overtly, that if he doesn't invade Rafah, they will pull out, they will topple the government. And then you could see a process that leads to Netanyahu getting prosecuted and being unable to save himself from that prosecution. I'm not saying that any of those are good reasons to continue war. I think they're deeply immoral and wrong. And I would love to see the administration do more things like withholding the delivery of 2,000-pound bombs, which...
should never be used in an urban environment like Gaza in the first place, let alone Rafah. But, you know, there's limits to the power. Are you saying that a corrupt autocratic leader would go to extreme immoral lengths to avoid criminal prosecution? That's exactly right. That's exactly right. I hope that shit didn't happen here. And like, I think the ICC needs to
call balls and strikes. And if they see someone they think is committed war crimes, they should prosecute that person. But I think what you're hearing from the administration is concerned that at a time when they're seeing fractures within the governing coalition in Israel and hope that would create political pressure on Netanyahu, that this ICC process might actually bring the coalition back together and, and give, um, uh,
you know, put some wind in Netanyahu's back politically. I don't know if that's the right analysis, but that's, you know, what the reporting says about how they're thinking about this. Just two quick things on the speech. One,
I think it is really important that the president of the United States stood up for peaceful protests as a core American value and part of our democracy, particularly at a time in which the person he's running against is demonizing protesters, threatening to deport protesters for just expressing First Amendment rights. So I think that was an important thing to do. One Republican just introduced a bill in the House for anyone who is convicted of trespassing or disorderly conduct at these protests, any college kids, to send them to Gaza.
Can I think of an event in our recent history where a bunch of people trespassed on perhaps the second branch of government? Yeah. They're in a choir now. Where are they going? They're just choir singers. Just so hypocritical. The other thing just looking at it, just listening to Biden's speech here is it's just a reminder that communications cannot solve a policy problem. And the policy problem here and the political problem, frankly, is that
What has become defined as success politically for Biden is almost entirely outside of his control.
Right. This is the, I can't, Tommy, you can speak better to the flaws from a policy perspective in the hug Netanyahu approach. But in the hug Netanyahu approach is you still need Netanyahu to do what you need done. And he is an untrustworthy, corrupt individual. And so, yes, he can call for us. He's going to do all these things. But you either are going to have to radically change U.S. policy towards Israel in a way in which has never been done before.
Or have Netanyahu be a person who is not Bibi Netanyahu and do something totally different. Or you're going to end up right where you are, which is in a situation where you are pleasing no one and angering everyone. Yeah. I mean, look, I don't like how Joe Biden has handled Gaza. I think it's based on like a, it was fundamentally based on a misguided view of Netanyahu and what he'd do. But he's,
But hearing him talk about like leadership is about fighting through intractable problems. It's about doing what you believe is right, even when it's hard and lonely. You can tell that he is genuinely wrestling with this, with this decision, with all the decisions he's made and how and how just hard it's been to like figure out a way to actually end this war. You know? Yeah. And that's what it is. If you want to end it.
you have to get BB to end it. You can't just say, end it and have it end. And that is, I'm sure that is what like everyone who's ever worked in government deals with this expectations mismatch between what they, the power they believe their leaders to have and,
and the power of their leaders actually have to accomplish things and how that process works. Yeah. I mean, I do think they should have put pressure on the Israeli government earlier and been harder about it. I mean, banning delivery of 2,000 pound knobs is such a no brainer that Bob Gates, George W. Bush's defense secretary, then our defense secretary, said it was obviously the right thing to do. Right. And, but then you'll see how Netanyahu reacts to this. And he's like, I will, we will fight alone if we have to. And he knows damn well that
the Israelis are getting all kinds of military and intelligence support from the United States. They're not fighting alone, right? They're not getting a shipment of 3,500, 2,000-pound bombs. Give me a fucking break that that's going to mean you're fighting alone. But yes, at the end of the day, you are dealing with an actor on the other end who frankly wants your opponent to win the election, and you have to approach them accordingly, and it can't be outsourcing your messaging or strategy to that person. Yeah, and again, none of it...
is satisfying from a communications or political perspective. You say that you're not going to send the 2000 pound bombs. And then another deal happens the week after with like a billion dollars in weapons that are going to Israel, but they're not going to go for a couple of years. But like, does anyone, does anyone like, well, it's incoherent.
I mean, it's an incoherent policy. Like, let's just call it what it is. Right. And it's just, it's a hard one to explain when it's an incoherent policy. And then you have a bunch of Democrats voting in support of a bill that basically says the U.S. can never condition any military assistance to Israel. So, I mean, that's ridiculous. It's not to excuse any of it, but it's fucking brutal.
The election is less than 100 days away. Oof. Wow. That might sound scary, but it also means you still have 100 days to donate and volunteer your ass off. And whether you're falling out of a coconut tree or anxiously clinging to one, now is the time to volunteer, donate, and canvas your ass off.
Canvassing is an especially great way to make a difference to get the word out about important candidates and valid initiatives where you live. Sign up to Canvas at votesaveamerica.com and then head to the Crooked store to pick up a canvassing kit. This is all the essentials for a day of door knocking, including a clipboard, pens, band-aids, a tote bag, and more. Get one to motivate yourself to canvas more or send them to your friends in swing states. Matching clipboards are the new matching friendship bracelets. Go to crooked.com slash store to get your kit.
So if you need a reminder of why you should still vote for Biden, even if you're unhappy with him, here it is. The New York Times reports that in the days after January 6th, Trump supporters flew upside down flags outside their homes as a symbol of solidarity with the Stop the Steal movement. And according to photographs and interviews with neighbors, one of those homes belonged to none other than Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito.
Alito responded by giving an interview to who else Fox News where he blamed the whole thing on his wife Martha Ann and said that she only did it after getting in a fight with a neighbor who posted a fuck Trump sign near a school bus stop. Legal reporter Chris Geidner also reported a couple days after that Alito dumped his Bud Light stock last summer after the company was targeted by right wing activists for featuring a trans person in an advertisement.
When a neighbor calls you and your preferred candidate names, like, you know, you have no choice but to publicly support extremists who wanted to overturn the last free and fair election, right? That's just the way things are. It's natural. Did you guys know that the upside down flag meant this stop the steal thing? I did not know. I did not. Quick.
The question is, how did Martha Alito know it? Well, that's the thing, right? That suggests that she is a terminally online freak in some weird MAGA spaces. Exactly. Like Jeannie Thomas. Because I saw some people tweeting like, oh, you know, if you Google upside down flags up the steel and you take out the results from this story, like it doesn't have a lot of, there's not a lot of news stories about that.
But the New York Times report is like, yeah, it was on social media. It was on chat boards. People were posting stuff online. What is her 4chan username? You have to be really in deep, which clearly Martha Ann Alito and probably Sam Alito are. That's a real founding father's name right there. Martha Ann Alito. Is that real? What is going on with the wives of the Supreme Court justices?
Real housewives of January 6th? Well, shout out to Justice Alito for blaming his wife. Again, that's what a real man does, as we learned from Harrison Bucker. Again, though, as Strict Scrutiny pointed out in their excellent podcast on this today, at no point in their statement do they deny that Alito knew this was a stop the steal flag or stop the steal symbol by flying upside down, or do they deny that that was their intention? Yeah, that's a good point. I mean, it's insane. And it's worth noting that
At this exact moment, when that upside down flag was flying on their house, the Supreme Court was still making decisions about which election related court cases to take up, let alone right now, all the election related cases before Donald Trump. Sam Alito's family. And Sam Alito was on the losing side of one of those. Sam Alito's family flew in pro-insurrection flag. And right now, Sam Alito is part of a group of people who are making it so Donald Trump may not face legal accountability for crimes emanating from said insurrection.
It is wild. And the Supreme Court Code of Ethics specifically says you cannot engage in political activity or make political statements. Full stop. I mean, and then the Bud Light thing, that might seem like a, but it's like, what, what do you do? And he also, and then he dumped the Bud Light stock and then he bought Coors Light stock. Well, and again, he also, I mean, for those who don't remember this, this was a cause picked up by the vicious libs of TikTok account. Mm-hmm.
And basically the sort of TikTok on this, thanks to Chris Geidner over at Lawdork, was on August 13, libs of TikTok posted their most vicious post about Dylan Mulvaney. And the next day is when Alito sold his Bud Light stock and bought the core stock. So again, the information ecosystem there is very right-wing and weird. But you see this with a lot of these online.
older establishment Republicans, like even Bill Barr, right? Who then he had, he briefly had a dalliance with the resistance, but he's back. But these are, you know, these are, you know,
well educated, well read. You imagine him just like pouring over the federal papers, but he's not. He's watching the fucking five. You see the story in the New York Times, like put out a statement, if anything, a bullshit. He does an interview with Fox. It is so on the fucking nose. The only media outlet I could possibly trust. And this is after Ginny Thomas is like texting with Mark Meadows on January 6th.
Shout out to that neighbor for documenting it, though. Whoever took a picture of that illegal flag, thank you. And you know what? Great reporting from the New York Times. Yeah. Great. The lead of that story is fucking pulled away. Jody Cantor did a great, great job on that piece. So, Dan, you wrote a great message box on this issue titled Why Dems Should Run Against the MAGA Supreme Court. What's your argument? Well, I mean, everyone who's listening to this is obviously subscribed and read it. But for the rare few of you who haven't, I will summarize it for you.
In this election, right, we are in a situation where the voters that Joe Biden needs, like the path to winning is actually pretty clear.
is you look at the New York Times-Siena poll, and there are all these people who are supporting Ruben Gallego for Senate in Arizona, Jackie Rosen for Senate in Nevada, Bob Casey in Pennsylvania, Tammy Baldwin in Wisconsin, but they are either voting for Donald Trump or a third-party candidate, most likely RFK Jr. at the top of the ticket. These are the voters we need, right? For some reason, they support Democrats, they support Democratic policies, but for some reason, they've soured on Joe Biden. So we have to convince them that it is a mistake to throw away their vote at the top of the ticket.
I would struggle to come up with a better reason than the Supreme Court. Like, just think about the stakes here, right? Ultimately, to get this people, we have to make this election bigger than a contest between two unpopular old men, which I think is a very unfair characterization of Joe Biden. But that's how voters are seeing it, right? And so we have to make it bigger. And think about the stakes of the Supreme Court.
If Donald Trump wins, he will almost certainly get two more appointments. By the end of Trump's term, second term where he to win, Alito will be or Thomas will be 82. Alito will be 78. They're definitely retiring. They're definitely retiring. Trump wins again. And it could be just KBJ like holding down the fort. Justice Sotomayor will be 72 at the end of Trump's term. So he will definitely get two appointments. If he has two appointments, that means he will have appointed five Supreme Court justices.
all of whom will be around or below the age of 60 when he leaves office. That is a MAGA court majority that will rule for decades. We can win the next however many presidential elections and absent something significant,
Sort of extraordinary happening Trump's fingerprints will be all over the Supreme Court And so I think we should make this a big issue and we know this works because in 2016 that vacant Justice Scalia seat that McConnell held open was one reason you heard this on a lot of focus groups in post-election surveys that Republicans who did not like Trump at the last minute
were willing to hold their nose and vote for Trump because they cared about the Supreme Court. So I think we can do that in reverse. So we should talk about the corruption of the court. We should argue about it. We should talk about the stakes. We've got to make it matter to people. Talk about
A court that has our freedoms at risk, a court that overturned Roe v. Wade, a court that's going to look at things like contraception, marriage equality, a court that under Roberts has almost never, ever ruled against the corporation. Yeah. Right? Gutting workers' rights. We make it matter, people. And one way that we can also do this to ties in with the corruption is to run on and argue for a code of conduct for the Supreme Court, which it does not have one.
for rules for financial closure, which they don't really have, and actual accountability for violating those rules. Because these are lifetime points. Like I'm personally a supporter of expansion. I'm personally a supporter of term limits. That is not something that we're going to be able to get done right now. So focus on something that has a huge, real chance of passing if we have the House and the Senate and a Democratic president to sign it.
and is incredibly popular even with Republicans. So I think we should talk about it. Sometimes I just think we have to try to get this election to something bigger, and the Supreme Court is about as big as it gets. And by the way, Trump knows what's going on here and is ready to nominate a bunch of really young judges. In fact, he just said that at the NRA event in Dallas. Let's listen. Then I called up my people and I said, I have a guy from New York who's an incredible lawyer, he's got the right temperament, he'd be a really...
Great judge. Good sir. How old is he? I said he's 69, sir. So he's gonna be there for two, three, four years. We like people when they're 30, so they're there for 50 years or 40 years.
And as soon as they said that, I realized, yeah, they're exactly right. So, like we said, Thomas and Alito, if he wins, are retiring. They'll get replaced with, you know, 40-year-old. And then it will still be 6'3". If Sotomayor has to retire, either for health reasons or other reasons, then it's a 7'2 majority. And John Roberts, in that majority, would be the only one over 60 years old.
And what counts as a lib. And what counts as a lib, yeah. And just so people know, that means for the next 20, 30, 40 years...
Even if we elect a Democratic president, a Democratic Congress, the court would strike down any laws they pass to protect abortion access, limit climate pollution, protect voting rights, reduce gun violence, limit the power of corporations, limit the influence of money in politics. And it's like, it's just, that's it. That's 20 or 30 years. And like, if you, if you think that like consigning yourself and your children and your children's children to that future is worth,
not voting for Joe Biden because you're upset with him over inflation or Gaza or any other issue, then like you absolutely have the right to make that choice. But you should know that that is a choice that you are making and you are contributing to that. Just to put some math on this, there's a study used to use all the time when Brett Kavanaugh is the age of Ruth Bader Ginsburg was when she died. My daughter will be in her mid 30s.
She turns six on Thursday. That's how long. Republicans historically have done a great job of helping their voters understand why this matters so much and we have not. Do you think that's almost entirely been because it's a abortion related sort of conservative religious message from their side and therefore is our path forward?
to doing the same, just making it about abortion access? Yeah, I think that that's a huge part of it. I mean, Roe is what galvanized Republicans around the court, and Dobbs is what is galvanizing Democrats around the court. But what we have to do, and we did a great job of that in 2022, and abortion remains a top issue for huge swaths of voters, but we know from the polling that
The electorate could be 40% larger in 2024 than it was in 2022. And among that 40%, abortion is a less salient issue for them. Just because they are less, they are not necessarily more conservative on the issue than the population at large. They're just as pro-abortion access as everyone else, but they're less politically engaged, less thinking about it. And there's that, I think it's 17% of voters in the airtime Santa poll who blame Joe Biden for the overturning of the problem. I know, I know.
And these are people that we can go get and you can raise that sentence, but you have to talk about it, right? It has to be top of the issue. And that's why, like, even that list of issues, I think you've got to, like, any issue you care about, almost any issue you care about, is going to be something that the Supreme Court could strike down from a Democratic president, take an executive action, Democratic Congress passing a law. I mean, it's just, and again, it's not like a bunch of John Roberts who is no moderate, but is at least like...
Not as crazy as... Oh, you mean the John Roberts who right now is helping Donald Trump avoid prosecution for trying to overthrow the government on January 6th? You know what? No upside down flag in front of his house. So there you go. That's what we're dealing with right now. So yeah, it is... I do think that you have to make it... You have to...
So it takes a little doing because you have to educate people on like, this is what the Supreme Court can do. And these are the laws that could strike down. But I totally agree that it's an important issue to run on and we should make it a big deal. And this one Joe Biden has been hesitant to run on in the past because he's such a court institutionalist from his time at the Judiciary Committee. It's why he has been very hesitant on criticizing the court.
very hesitant on pushing for coming out in support of like code of ethics and those sorts of things. Certainly on, you know, more aggressive notions like expansion and term limits, but it would be as a little bit out of his previous practice to talk about it more, but I certainly hope he does. Well, it's like, he doesn't even have to talk about expansion in court. No, no, no. That's why I picked the code of conduct. Cause I think that is a place where we all agree. Even the code of conduct aside, all he has to say is like, yeah,
you elect me, I'm going to replace these judges with more progressive judges. Look what I've done to the federal court already. Like he has a record here. Look what I did with Katonji Brown Jackson. You elect Trump. We're fucked. I think the, I think the corruption message that,
I don't think Joe Biden is going to call the court corrupt. And I understand, I understand his natural instinct did not do that, but I think the rest of us can and should, you know, and you know, Sheldon Whitehouse and others who are very smart on these issues have done it. But I think that's an important part of the message is he gets at that sort of anti-establishment anti-corruption message that is powerful. It's a way for us to do that. It was. And also I think Biden isn't the only one who sometimes feels like he's speaking from a, um, about a bygone era in terms of the judicial system. I mean, Senator Dick Durbin, uh,
You very recently talked about reinstating the blue slip system, which allows the delegation, the Senate delegation from a state to basically veto certain judicial nominees. And that's the dumbest idea I've ever heard. Why would we consider bringing back the blue slip process? Why would we give Republicans an opportunity to just veto?
veto left and right Joe Biden's judicial nominees. Like we gotta, we gotta balance out the courts here. I'm just gonna tell you this right now that if Donald Trump wins the White House and the Republicans take the Senate, I'm gonna be wearing a bring back the blue slip t-shirt. Yeah, and he will find you and beat you up. I'm gonna be like, restore the nerves that crooked.com slash store. And by the way, filibuster? The filibuster's
The filibuster's kind of awesome. I love the filibuster. The difference there is they'll laugh in your face and do it. Right. All right. Before we go, we here at Pod Save America just want to wish a happy 80th birthday to Rudy Giuliani, who received the best gift of all from an unexpected guest at his big Palm Springs party Friday night, a criminal indictment for trying to overturn the 2020 election in Arizona. The New York Post reported that when Giuliani was served towards the end of his party, guests were screaming and crying.
How did they find him? You may be wondering. Well, it may have had something to do with the tweet Giuliani posted from the party from the party with a picture of him surrounded by a bunch of young women in which he taunted the Arizona attorney general by writing in the tweet. If Arizona authorities can't find me by tomorrow morning, they must dismiss the indictment.
I heard that dumb as fucking criminals. I read somewhere that the person who served him can be seen in the background of the clip singing him happy birthday. That's amazing. I mean, that's if you were at a party, it's what you should do. I don't feel bad for Rudy Giuliani and I never will. I did read all about this and think I pray to God that if I'm lucky enough to make it to 80 years old, I spend my birthday with my family and my friends and not on like a drunk live stream with agit prop white nationalist people.
alt-right Santa Claus, Steve Bannon, which is the saddest scene ever. And I hope you're not getting served. Well, yeah. There's that too. I'd rather go to jail than hang out with Steve Bannon on my birthday, I think. That's a choice you may have. That is a choice. It's a choice we all might have, though. And in case you guys were worried about Rudy living out the rest of his life as a penniless convict, not to fear. He's got a brand new business venture.
You guys might want to invest in. Let's listen. You all know I stand by the truth. And if I put my name on something, I truly believe in it. Today, I'm thrilled to introduce you to something I'm incredibly proud of. My own brand of organic specialty coffee, Rudy Coffee. Believe me when I say it's the best coffee you'll ever try. It's smooth, rich, chocolatey, and gentle on your stomach. It's so good, I even recommend drinking it black.
Now look, who are we to judge selling cricket coffee here? But I don't know if we've ever sold it as well as we've sold it. I mean, not even close. He put his heart in it. It goes on, by the way, for like 30, 40 seconds, this video. It's very sad. I'm surprised you didn't call it Ground Zero Coffee. Or like Twin Tower Coffee.
Ground Zero was a great fun. Come on. You lost me at Twin Tower Coffee. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Ground Zero? Stick with the Ground Zero. Okay, Rudy, we're here for you. That's good. I would like to have been in the original marketing meeting and they were like, here's what we need. We need people who believe the election was stolen. Yeah.
but also like their coffee organic and also have gut problems. I was just going to say, yeah, it's the gut problems. It's the classic gut problem ad, which again, we read plenty of here. Um, nine 11 coffee. Oh, I'm sorry. I'm the one dining out on nine 11. Not Rudy Giuliani. Come on.
I kept trying to come up with a January 6th coffee pun, but I couldn't do it. I know. It's tough to think of it on the spot. Capital Grounds? Capital Grounds. Ooh, that's pretty good, dude. Wow, Capital Grounds. I like that. If you guys have a name for Rudy Giuliani's coffee brand, please send them in. We'd love to hear them. Tweet them at us.
So anyway, that's Rudy Giuliani. He's broke. He's maybe going to jail, but he's still selling coffee. Shout out to our buddy Mike Gottlieb, who helped to win the case against him. That's right. That's right. It's going to be getting to share. His clients are going to be getting to share that Rudy coffee profit. That's exactly right. Gottlieb is the lawyer that won the defamation case, our good pal from the White House days.
All right. One last thing before we go. We've teamed up with the branch for a great new limited series, Killing Justice. It's hosted by our friend Ravi Gupta, and it's a story about an Indian judge who died under mysterious circumstances, how his family started questioning the official story, and India's hyper-polarized politics in this increasingly critical moment. You can listen to the Killing Justice trailer now on Apple Podcasts or Spotify, and don't miss the two-episode premiere on May 27th.
For ad-free episodes, join the Friends of the Pod community at crooked.com slash friends. All right, that's all we got for today. Dan, glad you could make it. Fun to be here. It's great to have you fill in for Lovett, who we all miss and we hope is coming back at some point. Maybe. I think you said you pray Lovett last week? Yeah. I like that. I'm glad that you caught that. I've been working on that one for a while. Anyway. All right, we'll be back on Wednesday with a brand new episode. Bye, guys. Bye, everyone.
If you want to get ad-free episodes, exclusive content, and more, consider joining our Friends of the Pod subscription community at crooked.com slash friends. And if you're already doom-scrolling, don't forget to follow us at Pod Save America on Instagram, Twitter, and YouTube for access to full episodes, bonus content, and more. Plus, if you're as opinionated as we are, consider dropping us a review.
Thank you.
Writing support by Hallie Kiefer. Madeline Herringer is our head of news and programming. Matt DeGroat is our head of production. Andy Taft is our executive assistant. Thanks to our digital team, Elijah Cohn, Haley Jones, Mia Kelman, David Toles, Kiril Pallaviv, and Molly Lobel.
