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- [00:00]
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- [01:36]
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- [01:55]
Newt Gingrich
On this episode of NICH World. There is so much news coming from the White House every single day, it's almost hard to keep up with it all. For my guest, that is his job. I'm really pleased to welcome my guest, Christian Dajtok. He is a White House reporter for the Washington Examiner. In fact, we're talking to him from the White House, where he's currently doing his job. He previously covered the White House, Congress and campaigns for the Daily Caller. Christian, welcome and thank you for joining me on Newts World.
- [02:36]
Christian Dajtok
No problem. Speaker Gingrich, happy to join you today.
- [02:39]
Newt Gingrich
Well, I'm curious because you've been right at the heart of the action. You've been covering the White House for several years. How has the White House press pool changed in recent weeks under the Trump administration?
- [02:49]
Christian Dajtok
Well it's certainly been an adventurous first seven weeks or so in office for President Trump. And like you mentioned, there have been major changes in the briefing room. First and foremost, we saw the Associated Press get booted from the White House Correspondents Association's press pool. That was, of course, because they refused to call the Gulf of America as the Gulf of America, instead referring to it as the Gulf of Mexico, the name it's had for hundreds of years before President Trump signed that executive order. But a few weeks after that, Caroline Levitt, the new press secretary, announced that the White House itself will be taking over management of that pool. Previously WHCA, or WCA as we call it here in Washington, D.C. that stands for the White House Correspondence Association. And they've administered the pool for roughly 100 years or so. You know, they had been allowed to determine its own membership and therefore essentially gatekeep the 30 some odd news outlets that were allowed into the in town pool. Now, under Levitt's direction, the White House will be managing that pool and no one is kicked out. But they're adding dozens, if not hundreds of new outlets who previously were not credentialed into what they're calling a new media seat. And new media can take a variety of different forms. It could be print outlets, it could be television, podcasts, radio, what have you. So there is a little bit of tension right now, not only between the White House and the press corps, which I would argue is essential to a healthy democracy, a little bit of an adversarial relationship to make sure that everyone is doing their jobs properly. There's also tension again between some of those legacy media outlets, whether they are television or smaller publications like my own magazine and some of these new faces, because it's not just necessarily access to the president which is at stake here. For those of you outside of D.C. the briefing room is actually an incredibly small space. The room where the briefings actually happen is larger than the workspaces themselves, the desks or the bays, or the radio booths where we spend the majority of our day. So just circling back on what was sort of a long winded answer, Speaker Gingrich. It's been a tumultuous time. There's been a lot of changes. And I think there's probably going to be even more updates on this front as new voices join and as the White House sort of grapples with the realities of trying to administer this pool.
- [05:27]
Newt Gingrich
I think it would help our listeners, Christian, if you could sort of share with them the different kinds of pools. The Traveling pools, et cetera, and how they get organized, of course.
- [05:37]
Christian Dajtok
So there are three main pools that cover the President's daily movements. The first is the in town pool, and that's responsible for going into the Oval Office when invited, or going into the Roosevelt Room, going into these spaces, which because of the reality of physics, not every single reporter on campus that day can get into and quite literally fit while the President is delivering remarks or meeting with leaders or other stakeholders. The next pool is the domestic travel pool, and it's exactly what it sounds like whenever the President is traveling across the country, whether for a little R and R or to go do an official event, there is a smaller pool of around 13 outlets which do travel. We fly on Air Force One, and don't worry folks at home, we reimburse and pay our way so your taxpayer dollars aren't going to nice seats for us. And then the third pool is the foreign travel pool, which just like the domestic travel pool, they fly along with the President. Sometimes, depending on how big of a trip it is, we need a secondary plane to fit everyone on board. And again, you follow the President and his daily movements so that outlets who cannot make that trip can get an accurate view into what is actually happening at these meetings and therefore communicate to voters their readership, their viewership, exactly what is happening on these trips. It's an essential part of Newskeeping here in D.C. because ultimately that's what we do. We provide a utility to voters so that they can keep checks and tabs on the government and make sure they're operating not only in the way they say they are operating, but delivering on those promises to voters across the country.
- [07:25]
Newt Gingrich
From your perspective, were there problems with the White House Correspondents Association? I mean, obviously most of the traditional media has been consistently anti Trump, but did that really show up in any practical way or was that something that did not affect it?
- [07:41]
Christian Dajtok
You know, it depends on who you ask, I think. And just for your viewers information, you know, I've been a member of the WHCA since 2019. My outlet was a member even before I joined. I think there is sort of a disconnect with the actual authority that WHCA has in that room. Again, whether that is sort of maintaining the seat chart for the briefings or again, allotting out desks and whatnot for people to work in, There's a disparity between that and then the practicalities of having to interface with the White House to try and keep all these things together. And, you know, during President Biden's term in office, we saw a severe lack of access, not just for conservative outlets or smaller outlets, but even for what some people might consider to be left leaning outlets, outlets like NBC News or even Politico, there really was no access to the President or his senior staff. Now, that was a conscious choice by the Biden White House to sort of keep him out of the spotlight as much as possible. So there have been problems with the whca, but I will say I don't believe there was never a real exclusion problem in terms of outlets or individual reporters being allowed onto the White House grounds or gaining membership to whca. It's more of a behind the scenes beltway type of thing on the boring administrative sides. And I do think again, just in terms of the monumental undertaking that the White House has thrust upon themselves, there are hundreds of outlets in this pool. So when you're talking about the 30 people who actually follow the President around on a daily basis or travel with the President on Air Force One, there's sort of a disconnect between what we're actually doing here and what folks at home and cities or, you know, rural areas across the country think we're doing. So perception is very important. Optics are very important. And I think that was probably one of the greatest problems with how WHCA operated and not communicating what we are all actually doing on a daily basis to the American public. But internally, it did seem like we were pretty unified heading into the second Trump administration. And we had the benefit of understanding not only how this president operates, but how some of his senior aides might have interfaced with the media and give transparency on important issues to everyday Americans?
- [10:15]
Newt Gingrich
You had mentioned in passing the difference, but what's it like to suddenly have a president who's giving random press conferences all day long compared to Biden who was hidden virtually all the time?
- [10:28]
Christian Dajtok
You know, depending on the day, I'd say it's a great thing. Sometimes if I'm at the end of the week and running on very little sleep, I might say, come on, you know, Don, can we maybe save this one for Monday? So it's a blessing and a curse. But I think ultimately, again, whether you're a fan of this president and his policies or not, the American people deserve a window into government. And so having a president like Donald Trump who is willing to speak to the press on basically a daily basis, on the whole, that is a huge positive and certainly a big improvement compared to President Biden, who for all of his faults, I do think we can all now say effectively that his messaging strategy was not the right one because Donald Trump is in the Oval Office now and Joe Biden is somewhere in Delaware.
- [11:16]
Newt Gingrich
It was sort of ironic the amount of effort the Democrats put into talking about democracy while they refused to hold press conferences, and the degree to which Trump is just in the Jeffersonian sense, being very democratic, small D, basically randomly answering all sorts of people. I've never seen anything quite like it, frankly.
- [11:35]
Christian Dajtok
I don't need to explain this to you. You've had your own illustrious career here in D.C. and that's just sort of the nature of the political beast. A candidate will say whatever they think gives them the best advantage over their opponent. And in this case, the Biden team clearly thought framing President Trump as a threat to democracy or an undoing of the Constitution that would earn them points with voters. And it clearly it did not. I mean, it looked like the election was much more a referendum on the economy and the current and still ongoing inflation than it was about President Trump's actions on January 6th or anything that led to his impeachment surrounding Ukraine. So that was a major miscalculation by Democrats. I'm not super surprised to hear them use that type of messaging during the campaign last year.
- [12:34]
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- [13:34]
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- [14:20]
Christian Dajtok
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- [14:25]
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- [14:39]
Newt Gingrich
Probably the most innovative single thing Trump's done so far is the Department of Government Efficiency and bringing in the richest man in the world and Elon Musk to sort of add drive and energy and toughness to the system. What's your take on the whole notion of the Department of Government Efficiency?
- [14:59]
Christian Dajtok
My take is complex. I think if you ask folks on either side of the aisle, there's pretty clear consensus that the federal government has grown too bloated and we could use a lot more oversight when it comes to how we spend taxpayer money. I mean, just look at Bill Clinton, who balanced the budget in the 90s and he cut I don't have the numbers directly in front of me, but hundreds if not thousands of federal employees in an effort to get our budget back under control. So there is consensus in wanting to address this issue. I do think Doge, in their initial rollout of how they took this project on, has made some mistakes. And if you look at Elon Musk's track record, it looks an awful lot like how he handled any of the businesses that he has purchased or that he has launched on his own. He's used to dealing with a significantly smaller shop than the federal government. I think there's something like 2.4 million civilian federal employees. That was before Doge began firing some of these employees, and they also cover a significantly wider range of issues than, let's say Twitter, formerly known as X, was responsible for. Right. So there's a lot of moving parts here and Mr. Musk's general approach, which appeared to be come in, break everything, and then rebuild from the ground up, I don't think necessarily worked as well with the federal government as it would have, say, a tech startup. Now, there are a lot of positive developments. I'm happy to see that Doge and Musk will be auditing the Pentagon alongside Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth. I think they could have sort of foregone a lot of this criticism, at least on the left, had they led with the Pentagon. I mean, it's our biggest budget line item. And again, there's consensus on trying to reduce American defense spending that's gone back for decades. I mean, I'm not that old. I'm coming up on 34 years old. The bulk of my memory is post 9 11, and for as long as I can remember, even throughout President Bush's wars and campaigns in the Middle east, there was a pretty conscious voice from the mid-2000s on saying, hey, we need to limit this. So again, I think from a strategy standpoint, they have made some errors. But generally, this emphasis that Doge has placed on firing employees, identifying waste, fraud, abuse, bloat, whatever you want to call it, shows that the Trump administration is very serious about this issue. It wasn't just lip service in the campaign. And I'm a little shocked at some of the surprise we're seeing because, you know, the Trump administration telegraphed this for the last at least two years since Donald Trump announced his 2024 campaign right after the 2022 midterms. I don't think people should be shocked by what Doge is trying to do it. But like the President said last Wednesday or Thursday, you know, Mr. Musk could be using a scalpel, but instead he's trying to go in with a chainsaw right now. So if they hone their approach, I see positive headlines for Doge in the coming days and weeks. But as it stands right now, I do think they need to amend their methods to some degree.
- [18:12]
Newt Gingrich
Yeah, I was surprised, I guess. There was a Associated Press analysis that went through indicated that a lot of the claim savings, in fact didn't occur.
- [18:23]
Christian Dajtok
So this is what I'm talking about. There have been some discrepancies. Doge, again, because they have sort of streamlined the workforce that they are employing, they don't necessarily have all of the career bureaucrats who could assist with putting together a website monitoring all this money that they've identified. And so on their quote unquote wall of receipts, which Doge is updating daily and adding to and taking things away from, there have been some mistakes made. Part of that is because of faulty data that they have gathered from the federal government itself. Part of that, though, is because I think Elon Musk and his team are prioritizing speed over anything else right now. And again, when you're dealing in a fast moving tech based startup world, speed is king. But this is the United States of America and you're auditing essentially the entire federal government. I think accuracy should be more important than speed. Look, Doge is set to expire sometime in 2026. Of course, Elon Musk is on a special government employee contract, but he could be extended. So they have time right now. They have four full years to come in and fully root out all of these sources of financial corruption or waste, whatever you want to quantify it as. And I do think they are losing goodwill with the American public with every single error that they post up there. It might sound like I'm being too harsh, but, again, this is what everyone signed up for when they joined the Trump administration. They know there's going to be media criticism, but that, again, on the other side of this conversation, I think we're forgetting about the American voters here. And people want to see their taxpayer dollars put to good use. They want to see the president that they voted for, carrying out the agenda he laid out on the campaign trail. And so, therefore, I do really want to see Mr. Musk try and scale back some of the speed, scale back some of his, I guess, adversarial confrontations with other members of the Trump administration, be they the Cabinet or otherwise, and work together, because ultimately, if there is severe political blowback to all of this, let's just say, hypothetically, Democrats win the White House in 2028, they have a majority in Congress, they're going to be able to undo a lot of the work that the Trump administration has done if they don't do it in a way which is, one, foolproof and two, proves to the American public that, yes, again, you might not have voted for Donald Trump, but you cannot deny that what he is doing is good for the government and for voters moving into the future, no matter who is in the White House or which party is in control here in Washington.
- [21:10]
Newt Gingrich
I tend to agree. I think that they've got to get more accuracy. And I think that the style that Musk developed brilliantly at places like SpaceX and Tesla do not work when you're trying to move a system this big and this complicated. But the sense of urgency and aggressiveness probably is vital to getting anything done, because, you know, the system's designed to avoid change. We just got a poll back at the America's New Majority Project, where by a pretty significant margin, the American people, I think it was like 55, 38. The American people would rather make mistakes and move fast than have the whole thing bogged down and not change anything. So it's a mixed bag right now. Let me ask you about another mixed bag, which is this whole fight with Canada, which has had, I think, in the short run, it has brought the Liberal Party back from looking like it was going to lose by a disaster. Now, I think they're basically tied with the Conservative Party. How do you read the whole Canadian US Situation?
- [22:11]
Christian Dajtok
I view the US Canada situation right now much in the same way that I view a hockey game. I mean, really, there are blows being thrown on both sides. You might have fans in the stands booing whichever anthem they don't appreciate. But I mean, I do think one thing is clear and that this tariff specifically on Canada and Mexico, which the White House will say is not necessarily about trade, but is more about addressing immigration and fentanyl trade here in the United States. This is having a severe negative impact politically for the Trump administration up north. Again, if you look at the polling, Pierre Poliev and the Conservatives were slated to win a landslide in the federal elections this coming October. Of course, Justin Trudeau resigned in January and he was just replaced by Mark Carney over the weekend. And now, again, because of this sort of renewed sense of nationalism that the tariff war has fostered among Canadian voters, the Liberals, like you mentioned, are neck and neck with the Conservatives again. It's a crazy swing. And they now, in some polls, have their first lead over the conservatives since 2021. I'm not so sure this will hold through October when those Canadian elections take place. But I think just sort of the wonky implementation of these tariffs with President Trump signaling one thing publicly and then carving out some exemptions, this has fostered like real resentment of America with one of our closest allies. There are, I think, our second biggest trade partner. They've fought in every single war over the last century that the United States has taken part in alongside of us. It's a pretty seismic shift in the paradigm in how North America operates. I mean, let's not forget 2019. Donald Trump throws out NAFTA and brings USMCA into being on all fronts. You know, this was a good idea. It's pushing more free trade. It's trying to incentivize some of this cross border manufacturing to maybe come settle in the United States. And all parties involved, including here in the United States, they didn't get exactly what they asked for. So you can make the argument that it wasn't unfairly tilted towards the United States. You flash forward six years and now USMCA is basically being thrown out, directly out the window. I'm just not really sure what exactly the President thinks he can get out of Canada and Mexico, beyond the concessions they've already made to address border crossings, which again have dropped significantly from the historic highs of the Biden administration to double digit border crossings, I want to say in January. It's an interesting dynamic. I'm not so sure Mark Carney will necessarily publicly continue the same line that Justin Trudeau did against Trump, and that might sort of ease some of the resentment among Canadian voters. But as it stands right now, the Canadian Liberals are by far the biggest beneficiaries of this trade war, not necessarily US Manufacturing and production.
- [25:37]
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- [26:37]
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- [27:07]
Christian Dajtok
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- [27:12]
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- [27:16]
Christian Dajtok
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- [27:19]
Newt Gingrich
More.
- [27:19]
Christian Dajtok
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- [27:27]
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- [27:30]
Christian Dajtok
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- [27:43]
Newt Gingrich
How do you interpret the entire strategy on tariffs?
- [27:49]
Christian Dajtok
That's an interesting question. I wish I had an economics degree because as a dumb Young reporter I feel very ill versed to address this, but let me lay it out as I understand it. The driving force behind Donald Trump's tariff agenda lies with a man named Peter Navarro. He's currently the senior counselor to the president for manufacturing and trade. He worked in the first Trump administration and was a professor at Stanford for many years before that. He's looking at the global economy as it falls out of the 1990s, when we started to see a lot of businesses go overseas to China specifically. And he's saying what we've been doing for the past 30 to 40 years is hurting Americans at home. So these tariffs are meant to, one, offset U.S. trade deficits with our top trading partners, and two, sort of reforge the global economy to put the United States back at the center of it as a production capital, not necessarily just as a consumption capital. But we want to be making things here in America. We've heard about this for two administrations, two consecutive administrations now, before President Trump's second term in office, we want to make things in America, especially things that the federal government is purchasing. So when it comes to the reciprocity of this entire agenda, I think this is a good development. And I say we, I mean, the United States of America and the Trump administration, they're not going to be putting punitive tariffs, trying to squeeze trade away from some of these other countries. They're just trying to offset the same things that other countries charge the United States to export to those countries. So they say, oh, if you charge us 10% on automobiles, we're going to do the same to you. It's meant to lower all of these barrier taxes and make sure that, again, there's a free flow of goods across the entire global community. I think the reciprocal tariff agenda is a much more thought out and a better implemented plan than these threats that we've seen regarding Canada or Mexico or China on fentanyl. Again, it's early days. We're going to get additional implementation next month. And then again, the implementation of the 25% tariffs on steel and aluminum. The markets will react. We'll hear more from economists. I think this leg of the second Trump terms economic platform is one that they will stick with. It's up to the other countries, really to decide if they want to play ball or not, or if they want to go back to the old system, which again, saw the United States suffer the most.
- [30:28]
Newt Gingrich
From your perspective, have you been surprised by just the sheer scale of what they're doing?
- [30:36]
Christian Dajtok
I certainly am surprised by the scale on Tariffs. I'm surprised on the scale of just about everything, because if you go back and you actually track what President Trump was saying he was going to do on day one in office, I don't know if you can get a notebook that has enough pages in it to keep track of everything. And he didn't do everything on day one. But they're pretty quickly working down this itemized list and addressing virtually every issue they can think of. I mean, again, the economy is one, immigration is one. There's some of these culture war issues which really mobilized his base even back in the 2016 campaign that he has addressed via executive order. I think the biggest outstanding issue is going to be up to Congress to get his tax cuts vehicle through the House and the Senate. And then after that, who knows what's going to come. So it feels like it's been a fire hose, which the media is trying to cover up for the last nearly two months now. And again, I say we shouldn't have been surprised because this isn't our first rodeo with Donald Trump. But I think even some folks in the White House are a little surprised by how much they've taken on in these early days.
- [31:46]
Newt Gingrich
Yeah. And I think it's interesting to see if they can sustain it. But my hunch is they can, because if you look at the Cabinet he's appointed, these are all really strong personalities.
- [31:57]
Christian Dajtok
Yeah, without a doubt. Across the board. I think, personally, my favorite pick so far has got to be Brooke Rollins at usda, because we don't talk about agriculture and food prices a lot. Well, I guess we might in the days following Biden inflation and whatnot. But she is someone who is truly a policy expert. I mean, she was there. She was the director of the Domestic Policy Council during Trump's first term in office. And she's really sort of hit the ground running. She was in the mid tier in terms of confirmations the second time around. She wasn't during the first two weeks or anything like that, like the national security team was. But when you look at what's happening right now in terms of inflated egg prices following the bird flu epidemic, which the country has been grappling with, she had a concrete plan. They came out and they said, we're going to subsidize the purchase of chickens and eggs from overseas to supplement our dwindled population right now. And it's like, oh, okay, again, even if you don't agree with this president on the issues and you are raising the topic of elevated egg prices, that's a real answer there. And it didn't take weeks and months to get it. It happened in pretty rapid succession. And I could give you examples from a number of other agencies. But it does seem like the team that is in place right now is unified around the mission that this White House is trying to achieve. And they're going to be working double time, triple time, overtime to make sure that they deliver on that.
- [33:28]
Newt Gingrich
I'm very close to Brooke, and I can't imagine anybody better at agriculture. She was the statewide 4H president in Texas in high school. She actually majored in agricultural economics at Texas A and M. Her family has a ranch. I mean, she founded the Texas Public Policy Foundation. So she has a pretty intimate knowledge about issues in general. And I agree with you. I think she's very striking as somebody who can get things done. But I look at that whole Cabinet and virtually everybody there is very strong. You compare them to Biden's Cabinet, and there's just no comparison in terms of what they've achieved in the real world.
- [34:07]
Christian Dajtok
There is a lot you can say about what this Cabinet has done in the private sphere versus President Biden's Cabinet, which did seem to be primarily career bureaucrats. And I think that's just sort of the nature of the beast these days. There is significant appetite again on both sides of the aisle for people who come from outside of government coming in and taking control of a system which everyone, regardless of your political ideology, feels pretty confident that things have gotten out of hand. So it's a very stark contrast. Like you mentioned, who knows how long each of these secretaries stay on. Of course, turnover is a reality for any presidential administration. I do think it's kind of funny also, you know, we heard a lot from Vice President Kamala Harris about how she pledged to reach across the aisle and put a Republican in her Cabinet, which, for the record, used to not be an outlandish thing to say. I mean, we used to have bipartisanship within presidential administrations not too long ago, but now Donald Trump has a former Democrat running HHS and Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. So things certainly seem to come full circle, and I'm interested to see what this team can achieve and how long they will stick together.
- [35:29]
Newt Gingrich
His Director of National Intelligence was a Democratic candidate for president.
- [35:33]
Christian Dajtok
I almost forgot about Tulsi Gabbard. Yeah.
- [35:36]
Newt Gingrich
You know, it's clear to me that you really are paying close attention. Of course, the White House now has got to be one of the most intense places for a reporter to be covering. It's a lifetime education for you. And I really want to thank you for joining me. Our listeners can read your reporting@washingtonexaminer.com and I think after listening to this they'll realize that you write from a real depth of knowledge. That's very, very impressive.
- [36:02]
Christian Dajtok
Well, I appreciate that, Speaker Gingrich. I was happy to join you today.
- [36:08]
Newt Gingrich
Thank you to my guest Christian Dajtok. You can get a link to his reporting on our show page@newtsworld.com Newtsworld is produced by Gingrich360 and iHeartMedia. Our executive producers Garnesey Sloan. Our researcher is Rachel Peterson. The artwork for the show was created by Steve Pendley. Special thanks to the team at Gingrich360. If you've been enjoying Newts World, I hope you'll go to Apple Podcasts and both rate us with five stars and give us a review so others can learn what it's all about. Right now, listeners of Newtsworld can sign up for my three free weekly columns at Gingrich360.com Newsletter I'm Newt Gingrich. This is Newtworld.
- [36:58]
Christian Dajtok
Foreign.
- [37:04]
Dutch Vet Service Advertiser
Pets so time with our pets is extra precious. That's why we started Dutch. Dutch provides 247 access to licensed vets with unlimited virtual visits and follow ups for up to five pets. You can message a vet at any time and schedule a video visit the same day. Our vets can even prescribe medication for many ailments and shipping is always free. With Dutch, you'll get more time with your pets and year round peace of mind when it comes to their vet care.
- [37:33]
Announcer
You know that big bargain detergent jug is 80% water, right? It doesn't clean as well. 80% water. I thought I was getting a better deal because it's so big. If you want a better clean, Tide pods are only 12% water. The rest is pure concentrated cleaning ingredients. Oh, let me make an announcement.
- [37:50]
Christian Dajtok
Attention shoppers.
- [37:52]
Announcer
If you want a real deal, try Tide Pods. Stop paying for watered down detergents. Pay for clean. If it's got to be clean, it's got to be Tide Pods. Water Content Based on the leading bargain liquid detergent. This is an I Heart podcast.