TRUMP CURSES KNICKS

Summary

POD SAVE AMERICA: “TRUMP CURSES KNICKS” – June 9, 2026

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Episode Overview

This episode, hosted by Jon Favreau, Jon Lovett, Dan Pfeiffer, and Tommy Vietor, dives into a tumultuous week in world and domestic politics, focusing on the escalating crisis in the Middle East, the splintering Trump-Netanyahu relationship, Trump’s explosive Meet the Press interview, the ongoing California voter fraud conspiracies, and the impact of Trump attending Game 3 of the NBA Finals at Madison Square Garden. The episode ends with Tommy’s interview with Roger Bennett about the World Cup and its political reverberations.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Middle East: Ceasefire Collapse and US-Iran-Israel Tensions

Timestamps: 03:40–13:24

• The hosts recap the collapse of the ceasefire between Israel and Lebanon and Iran’s direct missile response after Israel bombed Beirut.
• Trump told Axios he would warn Netanyahu “not to retaliate,” claiming, “I call the shots. Netanyahu doesn’t.”
• Netanyahu countered, asserting Israel’s right to self-defense and “calling the shots” himself.
• Trump’s recent claim: “final peace negotiations are subject to ignorance or stupidity getting in its way.”
• Discussion on Trump’s shifting narrative regarding war promises—denying he ever said “no new wars”—contrasts with a supercut of past speeches promising exactly that.
  Quote: “I was the first president in decades who started no new wars.” (Trump, 05:35)
• Analysis of the political dilemmas facing both Trump and Netanyahu as each faces upcoming elections and unique pressures.
• Netanyahu is in a precarious position: wants to look strong domestically but cannot alienate Trump or appear a puppet.
• Iran leverages the conflict, tying a potential peace deal to cessation of fighting across all fronts, exploiting Israel’s domestic instability.

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2. Pete Hegseth’s D-Day Speech and Right-Wing Rhetoric

Timestamps: 13:24–17:51

• Pete Hegseth, at D-Day commemorations in Europe, compares modern migrants to WWII invaders, invoking “dangerous ideologies” storming European beaches.
• Hosts mock the analogy, emphasizing the lack of historical sense and its embrace of “great replacement” theory.
• Discussion of how what was once far-right rhetoric is now standard US government talking point.
• The segment highlights how Republicans use inappropriate forums—such as memorial events—to push divisive policy, contrasting this with past GOP complaints about “politicizing tragedy.”
• Quote (Lovett): “Usually cemeteries are just celebrations of the few remaining veterans and the people we’ve lost in the war. It’s also like... the free world came together to defeat fascism.” (17:24)

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3. Trump’s Meet the Press Meltdown

Timestamps: 21:41–25:00

• Trump storms out of a Meet the Press interview, ripping off his mic after a barrage of questions about January 6th, election fraud, and the “weaponization fund.”
• He lashes out at Kristen Welker: Quote: “You’re either crooked or you’re stupid. You play right into their hands...” (22:46)
• When asked for evidence of election fraud: “All I have to do is look.” (22:46)
• The hosts dissect Trump’s inability to process basic fact-checks, his emotional volatility, and the performative nature of such tantrums.
• After the walkout, Welker reveals Trump called later, saying he’d “happily come on again.” The hosts note: it’s all for show.
• Notable moment: Jon Lovett jokes about using “You’re either crooked or you’re stupid” as a subscriber pitch. (23:44)

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4. The “Insurrectionist Slush Fund” and Congressional Politics

Timestamps: 25:00–29:21

• Trump’s support for the controversial $1.8 billion fund for January 6th defendants and political allies becomes a political headache for Republicans.
• Senate Republicans block bipartisan attempts to ban the fund, but the House takes up a discharge petition.
• Dan Pfeiffer underscores: “He thinks he’s owed this money. The political risk for all the vulnerable members does not go away... he’s trying to extort U.S. taxpayers for $1.8 billion to pay off people who beat up cops. That’s crazy.” (27:46)

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5. California Vote Counting, LA Mayor's Race, and Fraud Conspiracies

Timestamps: 29:21–46:21

• Trump and right-wing media allege fraud in slow California ballot counts post-primary, specifically in the LA mayor’s race.
• The reality: California’s large electorate and “vote by mail” law, where ballots postmarked by Election Day are counted up to seven days later, means results come slowly—but transparently and with multiple layers of verification.
• Hosts break down the “bad day” for Karen Bass as Nithya Rahman overtakes Spencer Pratt, dispelling the notion of an establishment-rigged process.
  Quote: “Before we even get to the fraud part, thoughts on Nithya overtaking Pratt... It’s a bad day for Karen Bass... Instead, she’s going to face somebody that has a positive approval rating.” (31:54)
• They reflect on the “online” versus real electorate, noting how Twitter and media hype don’t always translate to actual votes (Pratt flamed out like a “standard issue Republican”).
• Discussion on the need for faster counting, with calls for more resources and administrative improvements to avoid fueling baseless fraud claims, but stress: California’s process works—slow but accurate.
  Quote (Lovett): “The reason we all want it counted faster is because we know that if it’s not being counted fast enough, then Republicans now cry fraud... there is no excuse for the state legislature... not to pass more funding for staff or resources for a faster signature verification process.” (44:40)

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6. CBS News, Scott Pelley, and the “Conservative Bias” Controversy

Timestamps: 49:07–60:22

• Scott Pelley goes public alleging that Bari Weiss and her new CBS team pushed conservative bias at 60 Minutes, including directives to “make the protesters look more violent.”
• Pelley calls the leadership incompetent, citing editorial interference and operational blunders (“entire episodes almost didn’t make air!”).
• The hosts debate Weiss’s qualifications and the wisdom of hiring those with no TV news experience for legacy institutions.
• Quote (Pfeiffer): “They’re not qualified for the job. It’s not mean or insulting—it’s just true.” (60:10)

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7. Trump Attending the Knicks Game: “Trump Curses Knicks”

Timestamps: 60:30–66:25

• Trump’s decision to attend Game 3 of the NBA Finals is widely panned, even by Ann Coulter: “Of all the selfish, narcissistic things Trump has done, attending MSG to see the Knicks... is the absolute worst.”
• Vox pop segment includes Knicks fans dreading Trump’s presence, superstitiously blaming him if the team loses.
• Analysis: Trump relishes the limelight—doesn't care about upending life for everyday fans or causing public chaos.
• Observations on Trump’s outsider status at NBA events (“He thinks he’s a New Yorker. They do not like him.”), and anticipation of him getting booed in contrast with real fans/celebrities.
• Quote: “He wants to go to the game, he wants to sit there, he wants to be booed by New Yorkers. He wants to be the center of attention and he doesn’t care.” (64:20)

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Interview: Roger Bennett (Men in Blazers) on the World Cup

Timestamps: 69:35–97:55

• Tommy Vietor interviews Roger Bennett about the upcoming World Cup, the growth of soccer in America, the intersection of sports and politics, and the unique cultural moments the tournament creates.
• The US men’s team is “the most talented group of individuals we’ve ever had,” but a good result would be reaching the later knockout rounds.
• Discussion of global politics intersecting with soccer, including arrangements for heads of state, the prospect of Trump inserting himself into World Cup trophy ceremonies as he did at the Club World Cup, and how host nations (e.g., Mussolini’s Italy, Putin’s Russia, Qatar, Brazil) use the event for geopolitical signaling.
  • Quote (Bennett): “Football is the last global megaphone that is audible across the entire planet. There’s nothing like a World Cup.” (85:21)
• Reflection on how narratives change once the tournament begins—no matter the pre-tournament anxiety, euphoria tends to take over.
• Roger describes the Men in Blazers tour across the country during the cup, spotlighting how international fans will discover American culture and how soccer can “hold up a mirror to the world.”

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• Trump, discussing war: “It's not a big war for us.” (04:02)
• Fauvreau on Trump’s “I call the shots” bravado: “That’s rarely said from a position of strength.” (10:33)
• Pete Hegseth’s speech conflating WWII and migration: “Guys, do you remember who the sides were in Europe? It was west on west violence.” (15:18)
• On vote fraud claims: “All I have to do is look. You’re either crooked or you’re stupid.” (Trump, 22:46)
• Dan Pfeiffer on the insurrectionist fund: “This is... trying to extort U.S. taxpayers for $1.8 billion to pay off people who beat up cops. That is crazy.” (27:46)
• Lovett, with withering sarcasm: “It's just very, like, stupid guy... It's just stupid guy, no, slow.” (18:37)
• Roger Bennett: “The World Cup contains multitudes. Everything matters.” (85:45)

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Conclusion

This episode of Pod Save America offers a sharp, irreverent, but thorough look at a news cycle dominated by Trump’s international and domestic spectacle, the continuous weaponization of culture and institutions, and the intersection of sports and politics on a global stage. The hosts’ commentary and expert interviews provide context, humor, and a strong sense of what’s at stake in both the near-term news and the momentous events coming this summer.

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Transcript

[A]

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[B]

Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Jon Favreau.

[A]

I'm Jon Lovett.

[B]

Tommy Guetor on today's show we'll talk about the biggest outbreak of violence in the Middle east since the so called ceasefire went into effect. The growing split between Trump and Netanyahu. Why Trump ripped off his mic and stormed out of a Meet the Press interview. His new conspiracy about voter fraud here in California and what that could mean for November. Scott Pelley going public with his allegations against Barry Weiss and Trump's decision to attend Game 3 of the NBA Finals at Madison Square Garden. Then Tommy talks to Roger Bennett of Men and Blazers about the World cup kicking off on Thursday and the implications for global politics. Before we start, if you don't like listening to podcast ads, subscribe to Crooked Media and become a friend of the Pod because you get ad free episodes of all your favorite Crooked pods. Plus you get to support pro democracy independent media. Scott Pelley hasn't accused us of injecting any bias yet yet into any of his reporting. But once he starts Gary crooked, hopefully we'll keep the bias out of his reporting.

[A]

We don't have time to inject bias into Scott Pelley's reporting. We're too busy injecting bias into everything we do.

[B]

There you go.

[A]

That's what I was trying to get at.

[B]

Thank you. That's perfect. Let's put that right in. Yeah. And you also get access to all of our great substacks. You get our subscriber only shows like Polar Coaster with Dan Pfeiffer and lots of other fun perks. So consider subscribing. All right. Happy 100 day anniversary to the war that was supposed to be over in just a few weeks. Here's where things stand with Iran and the Middle east as of this recording. Over the weekend, the US And Iran were shooting drones and missiles at each other after oil tankers tried to pass through the Strait of Hormuz without the IRGC's permission. Then the newly negotiated ceasefire between Israel and Lebanon fell apart when Israel bombed Beirut after claiming that Hezbollah targeted Iran responded by launching missiles at Israel for the first time since the April ceasefire. Trump then told Axios that he would warn Netanyahu, quote, not to retaliate and told the Financial Times that he, quote, calls the shots. Netanyahu doesn't call the shots. Then Netanyahu essentially said, yes, I do call the shots, and struck Iran. So for now, both sides seem to have de escalated. And on Monday morning, Trump posted that final peace negotiations are, quote, subject to ignorance or stupidity getting in its way. The president was asked about the war in a pre recorded Meet the Press interview that ran on Sunday. Here's some of what he said as it rained heavily in the background.

[A]

Is the United States at war with Iran?

[C]

Well, they've been largely decapitated and I call it a military exercise because people would rather have it called that. It's not a big war for us.

[D]

How long are you willing to give Iran to make a deal?

[C]

How much longer?

[D]

You've been talking for quite some time.

[C]

Well, you really haven't. You again. You were in Vietnam for 19 years. You were in Iraq for many years. Gas is up, diesel is up. It's all coming down as soon as the war's over. 70% of farmers say they can't afford fertilizer. Your fathers are doing very well. One of your concerns, consistent campaign promises, was no new wars going all the way back to 2015.

[A]

Did you break that Promise to the American people.

[D]

What changed?

[A]

Because you insisted.

[C]

No,

[E]

I didn't. Guarantee no war.

[B]

And guarantee no war.

[A]

The rain on this interview, it's pouring rain. They have to stop for periods of time. I can't imagine anything more unpleasant than sitting in front of a tractor for five minutes while you wait for the rain to quiet down in between questions about fertilizer prices.

[D]

Hammering on a tin roof. And I know they had the John Deere tractors, like, strategically placed, but those are the Hezbollah flag colors, by the way. Feel free to Google it. Those yellow and green, just like that.

[B]

So you and Hasan are big fans of that flag. So as Trump said, of course. What promise? I didn't make any promise about no new wars. And here's a not so fast montage put together by decoding Fox News.

[C]

Oh, we can't vote for him. He's going to start a war. No, I used my personality that we didn't have to have wars. I was the first president in decades who started no new wars. Who started no new wars. We don't need the wars. Foreign lands, countries you've never heard of, countries that don't even want us there. We will expel the war mongers from our government. Look at me. I'm the one that kept us out of war. I'm going to keep you out of wars. I kept you out of wars. We had no wars with Donald Trump. You're not going to have a war with me and you're not going to have a third world war with me. That I can tell you.

[B]

The war mongers, It's a third world war, I think.

[A]

I think a third world war, not

[D]

a third world war. You thought like, I mean, look, and

[B]

you're like, Excuse me, Mr. President. Developing nation war.

[A]

Yeah.

[D]

Very dated Cold War terminology.

[B]

It's a global south war.

[D]

Yeah. We're not aligned with the Soviets anymore.

[B]

I don't know why I decided to go on that tangent. Do you think he's just convinced himself that Iran doesn't count as a real war?

[A]

What's the alternative? He's not telling the truth.

[D]

Yeah, Like, I do think he's trying to make us believe this.

[A]

Like.

[D]

No, the real wars are the ones where you send troops overseas and they're deployed on the ground and they occupy a country. And by the way, Vietnam was 19 years. Has it been 19 years, folks? No, this is the little excursion, as he calls it, when we all think he means incursion still. Right?

[B]

Yeah.

[D]

So I do think that's like their attempt at selling this. It's pretty tough, though, given the outside's economic costs, given the closure of the Strait of Hormuz.

[A]

Yeah, there's just, you know, there's a big space between no war and Vietnam. Right. It's like, wow, we're so grateful you didn't launch another Vietnam. Well, that's not the standard. It'd be worse if this war had been going on as long as the Vietnam War. There's also something, he's done it before, but he is so glib when he talks about people who died. He's like, oh, this is not a big war. It's not a big conflict. You lost thousands in these other conflicts. We've only lost 13. And he adds a perfunctory and any death is unacceptable. But to hear, like an American president refer to the deaths as being minimal in this way, as if, like, that is acceptable or, or that makes it okay. It's like, it's just, it's, it's, it's still jarring.

[E]

Yeah.

[B]

And it's not just the fuel prices either, like fertilizer prices. It's actually hitting farmers pretty hard. His own, his only real message for farmers is like, just wait till it's over.

[D]

Right. It'll get better.

[B]

Things will get so much better. Just wait till it's over.

[A]

By the way, that, that's also, of course, not true. Right. Like, prices aren't going to suddenly drop if there's an agreement. And maybe there's some, like, im. But, like, the ramifications of the closure of the Strait of Hormuz are going to last for a very long time.

[B]

So, Tommy, what did you make of the Wall Street Journal report on how Trump failed to rein in Netanyahu over these latest strikes? The New York Times had kind of the opposite take, which is that the eventual halt to the fighting on Monday left Netanyahu appearing as beholden to Trump as ever.

[D]

So I think the context people need to understand is that the Israelis also have an election coming up. It will probably be sometime between now and October 27th is when it will get scheduled. And so for Trump, we know he has a midterm, A bad result will make his life complicated because of investigations and Democrats being in power. But for Netanyahu, staying in power is existential because that could be the only way he stays out of jail because there's all these corruption allegations and investigations. And so. But politically, Americans and Israelis feel very differently about the war. Americans are like, this is dumb. Why are we doing this? We heard that supercut of him saying there would be no wars. They're like, end it. Gas prices are high, end it. The Israelis feel like this is not going well. We have not won. Netanyahu looks weak. And Netanyahu is actually getting attacked from the left and from the right for not finishing the war. And so he's in a tough place politically. And so Iran firing ballistic missiles directly at Israel because of something Israel did in Lebanon exacerbates that problem for Netanyahu further. So now Netanyahu is in a very tough political situation. He wants the Trump peace talks to fail, but he can't be completely overt in his meddling with those peace talks because he doesn't want to piss Trump off and then lose his political support and the military support. And so he also can't look like he's being fully controlled by Trump. Like when Trump calls the FT and is like, I own this bitch, you know, like, that's a tough place for him to be politically. And he also doesn't want to look like he's going to let Iran fire missiles at me. Mr. Security Bibi Netanyahu without responding. So it was just, he's in a very tough place. It sounds like they navigated it better on Sunday than they did in the last call where I guess Trump was like, hey man, you're a fucking asshole. You'd be in jail if not for me. But you know, the divergent interests are making this more and more complicated every day.

[B]

Did you see? One US Official told Axios they described the call between Trump and Netanyahu as, quote, polite, while a second US Official noted that nobody shouted. So that's a win.

[D]

There we go.

[B]

That is the standard. Yeah, it is difficult for it makes diplomacy a little bit harder when Trump makes all of the subtext text all the time.

[D]

Yeah, right.

[A]

Yeah. Well, as a rule, when someone says I call the shots around here, that's rarely said From a position of strength. You don't usually have to say if people know people. If you're calling the shots, you don't have to say it. You're just in the midst of calling the shots.

[B]

Like as he's been saying, he holds all the cards. I hold all the cards in this war and I call all the shots.

[D]

Well, also he's saying he calls all the shots in a call to the reporter before he calls the other guy who's the head, stop shooting. Get the sequencing wrong. Sir.

[A]

Bibi said, I thought this was captured the situation. Israel has a full right to self defense and we are exercising it. I say this with appreciation and respect for my good conversations with President Trump. And so he just does the praise piece, but then he does whatever he wants. And maybe he's being limited in some ways and not in others. But if the US Cannot constrain Israel from escalating in Lebanon, how can there be a deal between Iran and the US in which Israel at any moment can break the ceasefire? And so, like, any ways in which the US Cannot constrain Israel is proof that a deal will not be upheld by our side. And so we're just in this place where everyone's testing each other. And like, if the idea of success is getting Benjamin Netanyahu to only bomb outside of Beirut and not Beirut proper, and that's Donald Trump exerting his power, I don't know how that ends with Iran having confidence that we can maintain a ceasefire.

[D]

This is the rub. Iran has, I think, very successfully made a peace deal contingent on the war ending on all the fronts. So in Iran itself, but also in Lebanon and southern Lebanon. Whereas the Israelis are like, nah, these are different conflicts with different timelines. And we want to keep prosecuting this fight against Hezbollah because people in northern Israel are still under threat from drone attacks. And I think that's going to, again, come to conflict here and from the other side. Right.

[A]

Iran has an interest in making this a larger conflict in which they can use the, the Hezbollah, Israel conflict as a, as like a negotiation and so they can prolong it there and then walk away from the table saying they're blaming Israel. Right. Like, everybody is using the leverage that they have.

[B]

Reportedly. The argument that Trump made to Netanyahu too, was, don't retaliate, because I think I'm a few days away from a deal. And then if we don't get the deal, then maybe, maybe I'll lead the strikes next time with you. So he really does. That's another one where, like, I think he genuinely believes, or at least his team keeps leading him on. Like, we're so close. We're on the one yard line, we're so close to a deal and it just never actually happens.

[D]

Yeah, I mean, I just, I'll believe it when I see it. And I think Netanyahu is going to hate the deal that's on the table. Reportedly, we don't have to go through all the details, but it's a lot of sanctions relief and unfrozen assets. And so, yeah, again, it seems like they're in very different pages here, Bibi and Trump.

[B]

Well, even if it's this, like, Mini deal where it's just reopening the Strait and you don't even get into a ton of sanctions relief. Somehow that doesn't really do anything about Israel and Lebanon.

[D]

No. Or solve the nuclear issue. Yeah, of course.

[B]

So meanwhile, as the. As the ceasefire was teetering, Pete Hegseth was in Europe to mark the 82nd anniversary of D Day, where he insulted our European allies with a speech that included lines like this.

[A]

Sadly, today, different European beaches are stormed by different dangerous ideologies. Beaches in Spain, in Italy and Greece and Bulgaria, boats and men arrive. When will European capitals do something about that invasion? This is one of my favorite analogies I've ever seen in the history of speech writing. Because in that analogy, he is putting current European leaders, they are the Nazis and the migrant caravans or boats. That's D Day. And so what. Why is you. In your analogy, you're making the. You're making the Germans the Nazis again?

[B]

Well, he definitely wanted to twist it so that it's like different dangerous ideologies around the continent, but then also wanted to compare the boats landing with the boat's landing.

[D]

It didn't.

[B]

It didn't work on a number of levels. Yeah, no need to pick just one. But yeah, yeah, the good guys were

[D]

in the boat storming the beaches, and now the dangerous ideologies are storming the beaches. So it's like, sir, did the dangerous ideologies raise the flag at Iwo Jima? Because I feel like you've got this whole thing backwards.

[A]

Well, I listen to the whole speech and it's so bad. It's. Obviously we can get into the actual substance of. Of going. Going to. Going to Normandy on D Day to. To pick a fight for some reason. But he also makes this point. It's always in this sort of like the kind of like whatever Christian nationalism, Western ideology thing that he's always doing, but he's like, you know, we defended Western values that here at D Day or something to that effect. Guys, do you remember who the sides were in Europe? It was west on west violence. You know, it's like, you know what I mean? It's just stupid. It's just stupid.

[B]

It's also just like when you get underneath the bad analogies and Pete Hagseth not being the best speaker, like the fact that, you know, replacement. The great replacement theory, which once used to be like this far right extremist thing that we talk about once in a while now, it's like the US Secretary of Defense goes to Europe and it's like the official position of the US Government that the problem with mass migration. We're not even gonna pretend it's border security or it's job competition or it's like, you know, governments having to spend too much money to house migrants or anything like that. No, it's just. It's dangerous ideologies. It is people who come ashore, most of them women and children, some of them dead because they're just men. Yeah. Because they're so desperate and leaving their countries. And this represents. Represents a dangerous, evil ideology in the eyes of the U.S. government. And you said Christian nationalism. The Pope, the first American Pope, is going to spend July 4th on one of those islands, Lampedusa, where migrants come ashore, which he's doing, because the last pope also would do that all the time. And so he's doing it in honor of Pope Francis. And this is like, you know, Pete Hegseth is talking about. This is like, evil.

[A]

Migrants are as dangerous to Europe today as Americans were to the Nazis.

[D]

That's the.

[A]

That's the analogy. He says in the speech that. That what was being defended on D Day was the Western tradition of freedom. As if, like, again, it's just sort of going back to Christian nationalism and a sort of whole, like, Western ideology. But, like, what are you talking about? Like, we weren't. There was a Western. It was west on west. Violence doesn't make any sense.

[D]

Yeah. They're also like. There seem to be two criticisms in the speech.

[A]

He he.

[D]

Part of it is a criticism of, like, dysfunctional defense spending or lack of defense spending in Europe and have the typical free. You've been free riding on the US And NATO argument that we hear. And then there was this criticism of European immigration policy and European countries letting in migrants, many of whom were escaping wars, by the way. In some cases, war started by the United States. Either way, it's just a wildly inappropriate place to be such a dickhead.

[A]

Like, usually cemetery usually.

[D]

These are just celebrations of the few remaining veterans and the people we've. We've lost in the war. It's also like, an example of how the free world came together to defeat fascism. Meanwhile, like, Pete Hegseth and Trump and the Pentagon are allowing the Ukrainians to just kind of dangle in the wind in their effort to fight back against Vladimir Putin. So it's like, I don't know. Just the whole thing felt so inappropriate. How many times have Republicans told us, like, that's not the forum to have a policy dispute.

[B]

Right.

[D]

Like, a memorial is not where you talk about gun control. Or like, actual efforts to stop gun violence. And he's just going there and yelling at people for 13 minutes in this weird speech.

[B]

A long way from Reagan's Punda Hawk speech.

[D]

Yeah, no kidding.

[A]

Well, you know, I was thinking about that. That's. He was thinking about that speech when he was trying to do this. Yeah. It's also like, you know, you have Vance weighing in on, like, a horrible death in the UK it's you. He's just traveling all the way to Normandy to weigh in. Like, immigration is a domestic issue. Like, you're talking about a domestic policy issue. He also, at the. In the. Tommy's point says, like, no, you know, In World War II, like, there was. We really put ourselves on the line for each other. It wasn't just slogans, summits, and communiques. Like, yeah, man, it was World War II. Yeah. Like, we there. It wasn't up. We were at war.

[D]

You do.

[A]

You know, you had to actually fight everybody, like, in peace. Right. And you would work with your allies, presumably having some kind of conversations via whatever means you'd want. It's just very, like, stupid. Like, stupid guy. Like, it is just. It's just stupid guy. No, slow.

[D]

There wasn't just slow day speech, right? Yeah.

[A]

It's like, yeah, I got to go there. Tell you, you know, I don't. For me, World War II was just slogans. Yeah, man.

[D]

Did you catch how it started?

[B]

The.

[D]

The most offensive line maybe was. The very first line was, thank you, Ambassador Kushner.

[A]

Oh, I didn't catch.

[D]

Jared Kushner, corrupt dad.

[B]

Oh, my God.

[D]

Who's our ambassador to France?

[B]

Oh, is that. Is he France?

[D]

Isn't that depressing?

[B]

Yeah, I forgot about that.

[A]

Sakura.

[B]

Good stuff. Well, happy, happy D day.

[D]

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[A]

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[B]

All right, so the most viral moment from Trump's Meet the Press interview was when the president ripped off his mic and so stormed off set.

[D]

Did he stomp on the mic? A lot of people are saying that he threw on the ground and stomped on the mic.

[B]

We can all. We'll watch in a second.

[A]

It's unclear.

[B]

It started with some some tough questions from Kristen Welker about the insurrectionist slush fund, which led to Trump repeating his favorite conspiracies about January 6th and the 2020 election. And then things just devolved from there. The whole sequence lasted about six minutes, which we won't play in full, but, but here are the highlights.

[C]

I don't know what's going to happen with the weaponization fund. I love the idea. They sent people to jail who did nothing. Just to be very clear, there's no evidence of what you're saying. But Todd Bland, the election was rigged. It was a dirty election. And it's happening again right now in California. Happening right now in California right now. It's. Look at, look at what's happening to that. It's four days and they aren't even close to coming up. You know why they're doing that? Because they're cheating on the election. There's.

[D]

What, do you have evidence to support?

[C]

All I have to do is look. You're either crooked or you're stupid. You play right into their hands with this guy. Your elections are crooked and you're Mr. President and so is ABC and CBS and CNN, your one sided crooked network. So let's call it quits because I've had enough. Thank you, darling. Have a good day.

[E]

Mr. President, let's please.

[C]

I traveled all the way to Wisconsin. I've sat in the rain with you.

[A]

I know.

[C]

I've sat in the rain with you for an hour, on and off in the rain. And I've given you enough time. You ought to straighten out your press because you know what? A country can never be great with a dishonest.

[E]

Listen.

[C]

We traveled all the way to Wisconsin for this interview.

[A]

I can't tell if he did it on purpose.

[B]

I think he accidentally crunched it.

[D]

Okay.

[B]

Reminds me of when everything else was on purpose.

[D]

But that, but like when I went

[A]

to, when I went to Michigan and interviewed Bernie and then like about 12 minutes in, he's like this. That was a tough.

[C]

Remember that, Austin.

[A]

Wrap it up. That was a, that was a, that was a gut punch.

[B]

You're either crooked or you're stupid. Actually, that's a great slogan for our subscriber push. From now, please consider subscribing in front of the pod because you're either crooked or you're stupid.com/friends. That was, he was very mad there.

[A]

He really wrote like, you're crooked. He was, he was like the part of things. I'm going to put the whole goddamn system on trial. You're crooked, they're crooked.

[B]

Cnn, NBC, abc. Is there anyone else left?

[A]

Schwarzenegger was worse at Apprentice than I was.

[D]

Yells at Kristen Welker like she's the Electric Y Elections.

[A]

But.

[D]

But did you get.

[A]

When they came back, I watched the.

[D]

The.

[A]

The Meet the Press version, and when Welker comes back after the interview, she said, I spoke to the President again, and he said he'd happily come on again into the future. So he called her. So it's just. It's all. It's all a show.

[D]

He loves her also. Like, she's such a nice, calm, measured person. The idea that you would flip out on Kristen Welker like, that is so funny, you know, such a baby.

[E]

He.

[B]

He. He flipped out because she said, do you have the evidence? Where's the evidence?

[D]

It's like.

[B]

And his. In his mind, it's just like, well, that's what my people told me. And I saw it on the tv, and I saw it in the. In the truths that I. That I reposted, that I retruthed. And so he has no fucking idea. All you have to do is look. If everyone would just look at what I looked at, you'd know that it was crooked.

[A]

I think it's a. You're asking for evidence. You know, I don't have that.

[D]

Fuck you.

[A]

I'm making it up on television.

[D]

You know that. So mad about the rain. As if she's making it rain.

[B]

He also did the. Because it was too long, we didn't play it. But he did the whole thing again on where on January 6, the FBI agents, the crooked FBI, was standing outside sending people in to the. To. To the Capitol. It's like you were fucking president, dog.

[A]

They only pleaded guilty because they were threatened with jail time.

[B]

What are you talking about? They're on video beating up cops.

[D]

Yeah. Everyone has knocked down this dumb conspiracy that the FBI somehow set up. The January six rioters.

[B]

The FBI that was under the control of Donald Trump on the slush fund. We'll start there, then we can get to the fraud in California. We talked last episode about Todd Blanche telling Congress that the administration would not be moving forward with the idea, even though Trump says still he loves it. And then Senate Republicans blocked the bipartisan attempts to actually ban the slush fund just in case Trump changes his mind. Now the House is gonna give it a go. Democrat Tom Suozzi and Republican Brian Fitzpatrick will launch a discharge petition this week to force a vote on their bill to ban the slush fund. Two questions. You think the vulnerable Republicans who voted to kill the fund have successfully neutralized their political risk. I think that was Collins, Husted and Dan Sullivan all up for reelection, but then they voted for the final bill. And do you think Trump will actually just let this thing die or is this not the last we've heard of it?

[A]

So he also says to Welker at some point he still likes the fund, but you have to get it approved. And if it didn't get approved, I'd be disappointed. So that's where he's at now, approved. They didn't.

[B]

He doesn't know what that means.

[A]

He didn't claim to need it approved in the first place. So now he's hiding behind the idea of it being approved in some way. So he's sort of leaving his options open, I think, to let it go or do it in some other fashion. I think the like, it's very clear that they did not appreciate how big of a political problem it would be to launch this thing. Like Todd Blanche clearly thought he was, this was going to be, he was doing what he, Trump wanted, got him the nomination to be Attorney General and then it just, the whole thing blew up.

[D]

Yeah, to me he sounds like a man who is not ashamed by the fund or worried about the politics. It sounds like he thinks he's owed this, genuinely thinks he is owed this money. He deserves this money. Just like he is owed the money from CBS because of that lawsuit or the bribes from the tech companies to build his ballroom. And God damn it, he's going to get it. And that's why to me, the political risk for all the vulnerable members does not go away. Because I don't think he's going to drop it. And I think it's going to be an ongoing issue. And just like to be, to be having this conversation is so politically damaging. Like this man is trying to extort U.S. taxpayers for $1.8 billion to pay off people who beat up cops. That is crazy.

[B]

This is the, the taxpayer funded transition surgery for prisoners issue of, from, from 2024 in the 2026 midterms. Like, I have not seen a poll yet about this. But like throw In a poll, $1.8 billion from the taxpayers to pay out people who were convicted criminals on camera trying to murder cops. That's, that's what we're doing. That's where taxpayer money is going at a time of inflation and high gas prices. But it's like I can't and it's great. And also for like Susan Collins and John Husted and Dan Sullivan, they voted for the Bill, they voted for the like, they tried to, you know, vote for the provision that would block it, but then when that failed, they gave the green light to the whole bill that went forward and they didn't do anything to stop it. They could have voted again. Cause you know who did vote against the final bill? Lisa Murkowski. And she's the only Republican who did. And the rest of them just said, fuck it, I'm just gonna vote for the bill anyway.

[A]

It is the sort of like even on the merits, like this is the core of the problem of someone like Susan Collins or these Republicans who try to once in a while stake out an anti Trump view, but for the most part vote with the caucus, which is they are part of enabling Donald Trump. And the only reason we got to the point where this fund could be proposed is because Donald Trump believes that he has the Republican caucus in his pocket and he is right. And for all their kind of hemming and hawing and all the concern Susan Collins has shown, she is One of the 50 enablers of Donald Trump time and time again. And you can go to the podium and give these statements, but at the end of the day, you support a Senate majority in the Senate, you support Donald Trump being able to do whatever he wants without any kind of accountability.

[B]

So let's talk about the fraud claims from Trump in that Meet the Press interview, which again started with his usual bullshit about 2020, but also included some fresh material on last week's California primaries where the votes are still being counted. A reminder that everyone here in California gets a ballot in the mail which you can return by mail or drop off in person. And as long as you get it postmarked by election Day and it arrives within seven days, it does get counted. That process means the count is very slow and big changes can happen late, especially in an election like this where a lot of voters, especially Democrats, were undecided until the very end. And that is of course what is happening right now in the LA mayors race. Nithya Rahman has now overtaken Spencer Pratt and the count and it appears she will make the runoff and face Karen Bass in November. That's what some organizations are projecting. AP hasn't gone with it yet, but it's definitely trending that way. This led to many Trump posts. The most recent as of this recording being quote, not possible for Spencer Pratt to have lost the LA runoffs after the big lead he had. Third World Nation rigged elections. Now they'll be working on a great guy, Steve Hilton. Hilton is the Trump endorsed Republican in the governor's race who's currently sitting in the second general election slot, though Tom Steyer is gaining on him. Unclear if Steyer will actually catch him. And plenty of MAGA dipshits are following Trump's lead on this. Here's just a sample.

[E]

I'm not saying it's rigged.

[A]

I'm saying it stinks to high heaven. And everybody knows that California is playing around with this, but what evidence is

[C]

there to prove that there was a rig?

[A]

I don't. Some of these efforts are so diabolical

[B]

and so far upstream, it is impossible to prove. But I think everybody knows instinctively something is wrong here.

[A]

So people can just dig through garbage

[D]

cans, find ballots and send them in, apparently forever after an election is over. It's not okay.

[B]

It's gotta come to an end.

[E]

Really. Smart guy.

[A]

He acts dumb. He's smart.

[D]

That's what Randy Fine looks like.

[A]

Randy Fine. Randy Fine, Harvard. Went to Harvard twice.

[E]

What?

[A]

Let me check it. I'm gonna check the facts.

[D]

Check the facts.

[B]

You just threw in twice there.

[A]

Randy Fine, Harvard undergrad and grad.

[B]

What was his. What? I want to know what his graduate degree is.

[A]

Harvard. Harvard University. Ba mba. Wow.

[B]

Mba. It was the business school.

[A]

There we go. There we go. B school.

[D]

Sounds like a good time.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

I mean, look, a lot of people get into Harvard, but he's smart. A lot of people don't get it. So that's the cool thing about Harvard.

[B]

So, before we even get to the fraud part, thoughts on Nithya overtaking Pratt.

[A]

It's a bad day for Karen Bass. They thought they could have a nice little runoff where basically she got to run against Rick Caruso with a head injury and instead. And instead she's going to face somebody that has a. That actually like, you know, Karen Bass is unpopular. Nithya. I think a lot of people don't know Nithya, but she has a positive approval rating among people who do know her. It doesn't surprise me that a lot of, a lot of the kind of hyper engaged LA voter who didn't want to vote for the governor's race to the last possible minute were a bunch of Nithya Rahman voters that were paying really close attention. But I do think it's very good for Los Angeles because it means we now get a runoff where with real stakes about what kind of Democratic leadership we want as opposed to what we would have had, which is six months of fear mongering on Spencer Pratt.

[D]

Yeah. Just to be clear, establishment Democrats in California are rigging the election to make it harder for the incumbent mayor to win the mayoral here in Los Angeles, but also rigging it so the statewide race will include a Republican so that Steve Hilton has a chance to become governor.

[B]

It's because we know what's up here in Los Angeles.

[D]

That makes sense. That makes Sense to get 11's point. You know, head injuries is waxed by a big crystal in the head. Like, now it's a real race. Like, Karen Bass is a weak incumbent because of her handling of the fires, homelessness, cost of living, like, anger at incumbents generally. And Spencer Pratt was dominating the battle for attention for super online people. If you're a Twitter power user, if you're super politically engaged, Spencer Pratt was everywhere because our algorithms were feeding us his AI slop crap and, you know, just felt like he was all over. And that's a small slice of the electorate, it turns out, because the LA Times did a poll right before the election where they modeled the actual electorate, and that poll looks like it was pretty much spot on at this point. Yeah. And so what actually happened is what I think that political professionals always assumed would happen, which is the MAGA adjacent candidate, Spencer Pratt, was never going to do very well in Los Angeles in a County where 15% of registered voters are Republican and Trump is 55 points underwater. And Pratt was aligned with Trump, of course, that was what's gonna happen here.

[B]

In fact, Spencer Pratt's campaign was nothing special at all. And like, you know, I think you could look at the media tactics and say there's things for other candidates to learn about how to grab attention. But, yeah, the LA Times poll that you mentioned, Tommy, it was May 28, so, like a couple weeks before the election, and it was Bass, 26, Rahman, 25, Prat, 22, didn't get as much attention because it sort of went against the prevailing narrative of, like, the super online set, which is journalists and all of us and people like that. Yeah, all of us for sure. And then. But today it's. Right now it's Bast, 34, Rahman, 27, Pratt, 26. And, you know, you could see sort of Pratt going even lower and maybe Bass going a little bit lower as the final vote comes in, but we'll see. And it turns out that Spencer Pratt is probably going to finish almost where Donald Trump finished in 2024 in this city. And now that's a bigger electorate. So, like, you can't. It's not exactly apples to apples, but he also, he did much worse than Caruso did. Caruso spent more Money. But also Spencer Pratt raised more than Karen Bass or Nithya, spent more, had crazy amount of attention and basically performed like a standard issue Republican in Los Angeles. Absolutely no better at all.

[A]

Imagine if like Joe Biden had given an interview saying that like Amy McGrath's loss is because of fraud in Kentucky. Because Everybody loves Amy McGrath and Amy Grath is doing incredible stuff out there. Look, there are people that like, you know, they are, they're captivating to the kind of people that are watching really closely, that are hyper partisan. But then voters in LA who I think are really frustrated with Karen Bass, really frustrated with Democrats. They would. And for all we know, look, we don't know, right? If Nithya Rahman weren't in the race, like how many anti incumbent votes might have gone to Spencer? Like, I think it's a, I think it's a little bit more than just the kind of. He got the kind of standard Republican vote. You know, we don't know how many votes for Rahman are sort of Democrats who are just anti incumbent and maybe they could have been Spencer Pratt voters, right? Because they just did not wanna vote for Karen Bass. But regardless, as much as people in this city are really frustrated with Democratic leadership, they're not gonna vote for someone aligned with Trump who was going around saying crazy shit about the city.

[B]

He ran a horrible campaign and he actually became more MAGA the closer it got to election day. I think we talked about this maybe off mic or on mic, I can't remember anymore. But he spent the weekend before the election in New York on Fox and Friends. He was on Gutfeld too, calling for Nithya and Karen Bass to be jailed and then talking about how were raping dogs in skid row. Like that's how he, that's how he ended the race. He became more of like a megalomaniac at the end, or at least openly. He didn't try at all to distance himself from Republicans at all. Like Rick Caruso ran a race where he was at least like, I'm gonna listen to both sides. Like he tried to be as nonpartisan as possible, which is probably why he ended up doing better than Spencer Pratt. But Spencer Pratt actually got more magazine the closer he got to election day. So anyone who was like, oh, it was a brilliant campaign, this. And that's the like, like, no, it wasn't. He had the possibility of maybe running a campaign where he had this like angry populist message and he sort of tapped into the frustration with the government, but he just fucking blew it as The. As the race got closer.

[A]

Yeah. And I should say, like, obviously I've been very insulting to Spencer Pratt and there's a. There like he lost his house. There's a lot of anger about the way the fires were managed, but he just didn't run that campaign. And I do think there's like a kind of insular conversation that happened. If you look at the map of where Spencer Pratt vote came. Came from, there's this kind of ring of like wealthier places around the city that, that, that like, are people that are very online, I think, very kind of like Bill Maher, Barry Weiss world kind of coded at least like, like just sort of tapped into that world who are really frustrated with Democrats who think the Democrats have gone crazy and moved too far left. Right. And there's just not that. That's. That is a big pool of people on the Internet.

[D]

Right.

[B]

And it's a big pool of people who. Yeah. On the Internet and just. Who have like outsized influence and louder megaphones than other people. Because it wasn't. I will say it wasn't purely an online phenomenon in that like, we all know people and we were in circles where someone's like, oh, I've talked to some Democrats who were voting for Spencer Pratt. Now I would always ask them, like, are they Democrats who voted for Karen Bass last time or are they Caruso voters who are now Pratt voters? And you didn't find too many Bass Pratt voters out there.

[D]

Right. There was a genuine frustration with Karen Bass. I personally felt it. We talked about this on the show. Her management of the city around the fire, as I thought, was really, really bad. And I think for Spencer Pratt having his house burned down, understandably he was channeling some legitimate and righteous rage about all things LA and the fires. If Rick Caruso had won again, I think there's a very good chance he could have done well and made a runoff, maybe one outright because he had a track record. He was like, I built the grove. And Spencer Pratt's like, I coined the term Spidey and maybe leaked a sex tape about lc.

[B]

Yeah, it's both for me.

[D]

Like he's self evidently not qualified for the job. So I mean, like, this is what was so frustrating. I think about the boom lit about the guy was it was just like kind of like TMG adjacent Twitter algorithm pumped bullshit and hype backed by nothing.

[B]

Well, and to your point, love it about the map. It's analogous to, for those of you listening from D.C. or who've been to D.C. like how people in Northwest D.C. and Northwest D.C. think like that's the whole city. And there's actually three other quadrants in D.C. where a ton of fucking people live.

[A]

Ye.

[B]

They're just not as loud or as privileged as everyone in the Northwest. And that I think is what happened in LA too. This is a big, big city. And all those places that voted for Bass, especially in southern and eastern LA and Nithya as well, they're just not Nithya's areas are definitely wealthier for sure, but it's just an outsized influence and loudness you get from people on the west side that doesn't actually represent most of la. So on the fraud allegations, how seriously do you guys take those allegations from Trump and other Republicans as a potential harbinger of things to come in November or future elections, I guess.

[D]

I mean, Trump's going to say that any election he or Republicans did not win was stolen, right? It's a heads I win, tails you lose setup. I think this was kind of the perfect storm because you had the Spencer Boomlet, this expectation that just built and built and built that he was some great candidate and going to win. Then there's the California voting process and how slow it is. We'll talk about that in a second. And then, you know, this just, it wasn't like a big election night with a lot of other things to talk about. It was a lot of people focusing on this and the slow counting. And so I think what, what I found personally so annoying about this is how much information you can find about the process if you try to find it. Like I got in a little Exchange with Megan McCain about this on Sunday. I was bored on a flight. She's a unpleasant person who doesn't apparently want to educate herself. But like, you can go reporters. The counting process is live streamed. Reporters can and do go to the processing center. The general public can and do go to observe the counting if you want to. There are representatives from the campaigns observing the counting. Like the problems are well documented. Louisiana county is the largest election jurisdiction in the country. There are more registered voters in this county than 41 states have statewide.

[B]

I know 10 million people in LA county, people don't understand this. It's really big people.

[D]

It's really big here. Everyone come visit and, and in California, most of us vote by mail. It's like 80 or 90% of California voters use the valve that gets mailed to your house compared to 15 in Texas. And I love that because our ballot is really long and complicated and there's A lot of stuff you got to Google and it takes hours. And like, I'm glad I could do that at home. And so look, like you mentioned, vote by mail ballots. If they're postmarked on election day, received within seven days, they get counted. The signature matching process can take a lot of time. Again, that's a thing Republicans like I

[B]

was going to say.

[D]

Yeah, I think you guys like the signature matching process. That's called voter verification. And if there's an issue with your signature, there's time to cure it and fix it. That can take time. Takes time to open the ballots, check the signatures. Like, what we should do is put more money, more time, more resources, more people, more machines, throw it at this problem, try to speed it up a little bit. That would be helpful. But like, we have a lot of people here. This is how we vote.

[A]

Yeah, I mean, we have a lot of people, but the scale shouldn't be a factor in how quickly we count the ballots. Right. Like Texas can count the faster for other reasons. I'm saying that there, I think there's, there are ways in which we can keep postmark by election day. We keep all the kind of pro voter policies that I have. And it could be done.

[D]

It should be faster.

[A]

It'd be much faster. Now I do think one part of this is a lot of people held their ballots because they were waiting, they were being strategic about the governor's race or maybe they just, just weren't and just actually didn't feel inspired by their choices. Whatever, people really held onto their ballots. I think that two things should happen. One, going into November in California, I think we all really need to view it as kind of a civic responsibility to get our ballots in sooner. Right. Like, I think we can all help by having more ballots in. And then two, so California now, counties have to have to count the most of the votes within 13 days or they have to notify there's provisional ballots and exceptions, but they have to count within 13 days. But with some more resources, it should be possible that on election night they've counted all the ballots they've already received and can put those numbers up and then kind of the counts can be happening quicker. And that is a resource question. You have, you have counties where they're still taking, you know, it's days and days and days after they're getting ballots that they can ultimately get to counting them. They have limited hours, they have limited space, like all of this could be resolved. And you know, Governor Newsom has, Gavin Newsom has talked about this, about wanting the ballots to be faster. I just don't appreciate when the Secretary of State of California is like, we want to be. It's. It's accuracy, not speed. I wish there was more acknowledgement that the process could be faster, what the resources would be required, because it's a huge problem. And look, there's nothing you can do to account for the fact that these people are going to accuse us of fraud. But I do think we should be able to count our ballots faster, even at this size. Right.

[D]

I agree. Look, that's why I said no. I know you time, more money, more resources. Like, we should count faster. It's. It sucks. It's frustrating. It's embarrassing. What I just have no time for is the people who don't spend one second trying to find good information. They spread the meme that they got forwarded by their aunt on Facebook. And people kicking up the quote from Trump. It's like he doesn't know a goddamn thing about what's happening.

[A]

There's no.

[B]

Also, let's be clear here. The reason we all want it counted faster is because we know that if it's not being counted fast enough, then Republicans now cry fraud in the election. There's no. There's no civic, governmental reason for it to be counted faster. It would be nice. We're all fucking impatient people and just want results really fast. But, like, now, look to your point, Lovett. There are other states with mostly mail in ballots where you can postmark by election day. Washington State, Colorado, et cetera. And they're all faster than us now. They are smaller states. I do think the biggest problem with California is we leave it to the counties still. And so, like Los Angeles, actually, Los Angeles county was still posting updates over the weekend. A lot of counties, just. No one works on the weekend to count the ballots. They don't have enough staff. They don't post anything on the weekends. And there's just not enough machinery. So I think there is no excuse for the state legislature, which is controlled by Democrats and there's a Democratic governor, to pass more funding for staff or resources for a faster signature verification process, which you could probably do as well. You could probably limit the window for curing your ballot if the signature doesn't match, because it's very. It's a. You have like 20 days, I think, to cure your ballot at this point, which is. It's. It's pretty long. Right? So there's. There's definitely things you can do on the margin to make it faster by by making it a whole state thing instead of county by county.

[A]

Yeah. And yes, it is to answer totally bullshit allegations of fraud. But also. So we're the fourth fifth largest economy on earth. Why? Why are we having so much trouble doing something that other places can do faster than us? Like I do think that that is like it is. It's about good government too.

[B]

Yeah.

[E]

Yeah.

[D]

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[D]

Yep.

[A]

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[D]

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[A]

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[D]

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[A]

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[B]

All right. So Alex and I talked on Friday about the mess at 60 minutes and Scott Pelly's decision to sound the alarm about what he says is conservative bias at CBS News under Bari Weiss, which led to Pelly's firing. He then sat down with the New York Times for a conversation with Lulu Garcia Navarro at the interview, which published over the weekend, where he elaborated on his claims for the first time. Let's take a listen.

[D]

Listen. About four hours after our deadline, Barry Weiss sends an email to my boss, Tanya Simon. Two of the things in the email include can we make the protesters look more violent? Now, I'm paraphrasing. I don't have the quote, but that's what was communicated to me. And the other thing was Renee Goode's car. You need to describe her as driving toward the officer. There was a thumb on the scale for the president's version of events that I felt was a level of political influence that I had never seen in 37 years at CBS News.

[B]

Did you guys listen to the whole interview and what'd you think?

[A]

Yeah, I watched the whole thing. The thing that jumped out to me was Peli makes he talks about the bias and pushing on these stories. And CBS gave a comment to the Times basically saying there was a back and forth. Not everything that was requested ended up in the final piece. Whatever. So they're saying, look, we had a back and forth about it, but let's assume that there is some bias. The point that Peli makes is just what I take from his broader interview. And the story here is that it's not just about the bias. It's about the incompetence of the whole operation that they just have not communicated well. Now, I think some of this has been motivated reasoning. Right. Because then he then also refuses to meet. It sounds like he did refuse to meet with them for a time as well. Right. So tempers were clearly high. But like, you do get the sense, like he makes the point that Nick Bilton, who is a friend of mine, was in, was reading from his phone in one of the meetings and clearly like that was making Pelly get mad in the moment. Right. And like, so some of this is just people that have been accused of being brought in to be pro Trump to have bias to help Ellison get deals done and then like sort of ham fistedly firing people, trying to kind of have editorial opinions, it confirming people's worst expectations and it kind of of spiraling out of control.

[D]

Yeah, look, I thought what we just watched there were some pretty damning allegations that, you know, Barry Weiss is just interfering with segments not just in a political way, but like in a way that was not factual. Like, make it look like Renee Good's driving at the cops pretty clearly was not with your own eyes. I also was taken by just how incompetent he described the new team as being. Like entire episodes of 60 Minutes almost didn't make air. That seems bad. They couldn't get Tony Dukopol a visa to cover the President's trip to China. Also pretty big deal. Pretty bad. Pelly also overtly uses the words. He accuses CBS of paying a multi billion dollar bribe to President Trump when they settled the lawsuit around the 60 Minutes edit of Kamala Harris's interview. And so look like, I, you know, I don't know Barry Weiss. Some people say she's lovely and charming. Some people think she's, you know, the devil. Like. Right. The truth is obviously somewhere in between. I've met Nick Bilton before. Seems like a nice guy, good author, smart screenwriter. Neither of them has any TV experience and seemingly have no business overseeing the most successful TV news show at this network. I mean, Barry Weiss is the editor in chief of CBS TV, CBS News. But Nick Bilton's never worked in TV and he's getting put in charge of 60 Minutes, which is by every measure of success. The ratings are up 9%. They make nearly $70 million in ad revenue in 2025. Like it's not a thing that's broke and needs fixing, which is a lot of Pelly's point. And I think ultimately, like Weiss and Bilton were brought in as part of a corrupt project to change CBS News to make it okay for President Trump in some way to grease the Paramount Skydance merger or whatever merger they want to do in the future. That's what I think, think Pelli thinks happened here. And there were times in this interview where it can seem a little pompous and sound like self righteous. And it's very emotional.

[B]

Right.

[D]

Like Pelly seems to compare himself to like a veterans in combat at one point, which is a little odd, refers

[A]

to 60 Minutes as his spouse being murdered.

[D]

Yeah. So he's very emotional. But like, clearly this guy who loves his job, never wanted to do anything else, never wanted to leave, didn't seemingly didn't think he'd get fired even when he like lit his new boss on fire in front of the entire group. But it's worth the listen.

[B]

I think he also, I think gets most emotional when he's talking about Tanya Simon and some of the other people who've been fired and who have been treated poorly, which I think is telling. I actually think that if you took Trump out of the equation, I think Bari Weiss still would have sent that email, those emails about Renee Goode, because this could be happening. She might not think to herself, I am doing Donald Trump's bidding. But if anyone has experienced the free press, read the free press or trafficked in any of the circles of the anti, anti Trump Republicans who are always making excuses for Trump, but they think that they're more like moral and normal and sane.

[A]

It's the only people who haven't lost their minds that's like, sorry to me, it's like the only people that haven't gone crazy.

[B]

Right. Like, if that was like. And we saw this split in the conservative movement between the Renee Goode killing and the Alex Preddy killing and that some of them who tried to push this narrative that Renee Goode was driving at the cops and stuff like that, they kind of broke off when it was Alex Preddy and it was even more obvious and they were like, okay, this one is bad. So it actually made sense to me that Barry Weiss would do this because. And I think this is probably indicative of what happened at CBS and why 60 Minutes and the people at 60 Minutes were so angry is I think Bari Weiss came in And I, I, having seen Nick Bilton's tweets and commentary here and there, I think he's someone who's like, okay, the libs have gone crazy too. They both get in there and they're thinking like, this is another evidence of liberal media that we gotta fix. And I'm sure the staff at 60 Minutes and the reporters there are like, you know what? We take our jobs very fucking seriously and do really good reporting and fact check it a lot. And we don't consider ourselves part of the liberal media and bias. And so I think there was that probably that clash.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Ideologies.

[A]

There's, I think, like a revealing point where at some point Barry Weiss says some version. If you're not biased, why does the country. Why do people. Why does, why does the country think you're biased? Right? Which is an article of faith. They're like, well, what's the evidence for that? Right? And so look like Scott Pelley in that clip is paraphrasing an email he didn't see. Right? Like, that is like, I don't know what the exact text of it is. I don't know how they're. I am sure it was trying to push it sort of more kind of in a way that was sort of like more favorable to the Trump version of events, but the non liberal version of events.

[B]

Yeah, it was the, it was the entire right wing media ecosystem version of events.

[A]

But the other thing that's strange about this interview, right, is like he attacked. I mean, he wants Barry Weiss fired. Right? He. But he also has a lot of like, nice words to say about Ellison, which is really strange. Right? And, and what I took from this interview is like, he's like, oh, we were excited when Ellison came to the newsroom. He greeted us. He called me sir. Right? Like there's this way in which. What I was wondering when I was watching the interview is this somebody who is trying to get Barry Weiss shit canned and then someone who can go back to cbs and he's saying to Ellison, hey, I'm not a problem if Bari Weiss isn't there. Right? You're good. Bari Weiss is. I'm not your problem. Bari Weiss is your problem. Because now I'm talking about how great you were when you came and she's the one that's gotta go. So I thought that was sort of like, because if Bari Weiss is part of some Ellison project to kind of grease the skids for a deal, right. It would be Ellison at fault too. But that's not how Pelly Talks about it.

[D]

No, what he says about David Ellison is this. Like, he's pissed at Sherry Redstone for cutting a deal with Trump and paying the bribe to make the lawsuit go away. The lawsuit was obviously. And I think he views that as unforgivable. Then it permanently damaged 60 minutes. And so he's like, look, new guy came in, had some money, had some political swat. Like, we're all good there. Like, if you want to support our project here and you've got the balls to stand up to people, I'm there with you.

[A]

It did.

[D]

You know, it could be strategic. And then he's trying to divide the two of them. But, like, you know, I found that interesting, too, and pretty notable and maybe believable, but I don't know.

[B]

But also, it's a. Like, he's not dealing with David Ellison. He's dealing with Bari Weiss. You know, like, you can be nice to the boss's boss, who, when they greet you, is like, hi, sir, nice to meet you. And then, like, Barry Weiss is the one who's murdering 60 Minutes.

[A]

Right, right. Ellison.

[B]

And then also Bilton, who she just sent in with and didn't even go to the meeting herself and just made him deal with it all.

[A]

Yeah, look, I stand by with Nick. Look, you go to that first meeting, you think, all right, I'm gonna kiss everybody's ass and get every back. Get her back on site and like,

[D]

oh, fuck, this guy is mad.

[A]

Could you imagine? I'm just, like, trying to imagine, too. Like, you're just. You're at your first day at work, and Scott Pelley, one of the most famous journalists in the world, is like, you're murdering the most beautiful thing that any of us has ever seen. Round of applause.

[B]

Do you think someone's holding up the

[D]

tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick in the background?

[A]

Yeah.

[E]

It's unbelievable.

[B]

I just don't think that, like. Like, how can you expect anything else when you have obviously been following along what Barry Weiss has been doing? And the firings just happened. Right?

[C]

Yes, of course.

[B]

Like, it's not like. It's not like he got to the meeting, and all of a sudden someone's like, excuse me, Nick Bilden. They just fired a bunch of the staff.

[D]

Nick again. Like, I met Nick a couple times. He's always seemed nice, but he did a series of interviews with media journalists where he just could not have sounded more pompous and insulting. And, like, I know this is going to be easy. I know everything, you know, ain't like, I'm gonna Be the one. Like, uploading the video to the satellite truck is like, okay, buddy.

[B]

Well, like, it's the Barry Weiss Free Press salon party circuit. It's the exact kind of language. It's. It's. There's just a whole set of them.

[A]

Yeah. Look, the point that Pelly made in that conversation is, like, how could you take a job like this given the circumstances? Right? And that does mean whoever is going to run 60 minutes if he wants to prove something to these journalists has a lot of work to do. Right? Right. And, like, the. The fact I'm, like, used. Lesley Stahl and some of the other people are staying. Right? And, like, I don't know what the. What the. The future of this thing looks like, but I do think that a world in. Where 60 Minutes gets to kind of continue to exist and there's. And maybe this continues to, like, boil over into the public and I don't know, like, if you're taking the job, right, and you've never had TV experience, you're doing it after all these firings, and you walk in expecting to be given the benefit of doubt. It's just, like, not what's gonna happen. Right. And, like, Barry Weiss doesn't have TV experience. Nick doesn't have TV experience. You're taking over, like, one of the most important jobs in all of television.

[D]

They're not qualified for the job. They're just not. And it's not mean or insulting to say that, like, you never worked in tv, you are not qualified for this job, and taking it is ridiculous. And what do you think is going to happen?

[A]

Give me a break.

[B]

The last 10 years have been just a rash of people who are, like, wealthy and powerful and influential, thinking that because they're good at one thing, they can be good at other things.

[D]

Exactly.

[B]

It's a real fucking problem that we have in this country. Country right now. Just talk to any of the tech pros. Or Donald Trump. Yeah, exactly. Or Donald Trump. One last new story to get to. Here we are recording on Monday afternoon, California time. Shortly after we leave the studio, Trump will depart his golf club in New Jersey from Midtown Manhattan, where he will attend Game 3 of the NBA Finals at Madison Square Garden, which will bring traffic to a standstill, require ticket holders to arrive hours early for security checks, and force the cancellation of the watch party outside MSG for people who don't have tickets, which is just about everyone. So how are people feeling about the decision, quote, of all the selfish, narcissistic things Trump has done, attending msg, to see The Knicks play in person Monday night is the absolute worst. These are the sentiments of none other than Ann Coulter. But the feeling also seems pretty widespread. Let's listen.

[A]

Since when Trump be at Knicks games? Now all of a sudden we're winning.

[B]

He want to be here. If the Knicks lose tonight, I blame Trump.

[D]

I don't want Trump at the game.

[B]

I don't want no new people at the game.

[E]

He's coming to Game 3 of the

[C]

Finals and I don't want him there. It has everything to do with him disrupting and contributing at the same time to the chaos.

[A]

If it causes the New York Knicks

[C]

to win, to lose tonight, I'm blaming him. I'm blaming the President, United States.

[B]

Of course, everyone probably recognizes Stephen A. There before Stephen A. Was Mace. That was Mace.

[D]

Stephen A guest on this show. Stephen A. In a bright pink suit, in a bright pink tie, ranting about Donald Trump going to the next game. That's what I want out of sports media. That is perfection.

[B]

You know, Trump is expected to be to booed, to be booed. Probably they better boo the show. Also, there's gonna be an unfavorable split screen with actual Knicks fan Zoran Mamdani, who coughed up 1000 bucks for a standing room only ticket. So that's gonna be an interesting thing. Mamdani also decided to throw free watch parties in Bryant park and I think two other locations as well because the area around MSG is closed down. Why do you guys think Trump's doing this?

[D]

I mean, he knows the power of live professional sports, and that's the only kind of monocultural events we really have left. That's why he goes to a lot of games usually at the NFL. He went to the Super Bowl. Do you have the SEC championship? What's up? Like, went to a college football championship.

[A]

You go to nascar? Did he go to nascar?

[D]

Yeah, I think he's been to nascar. You know, so usually he's more welcome in those, you know, sort of southern NFL spaces. I, I don't think he will be here. I mean, he's also buddies with James Dolan, I think the owner of the Knicks, who's a terrible guy who, like,

[B]

I was gonna say he's surveils people

[D]

who, like, are mean to him at games.

[B]

Always pals with the owners. Yeah, not, not a real player guy.

[D]

Yeah, no, but like, look, Roger Bennett and I talk about this in the interview. I mean, guys, remember last year, Trump went to the, the FIFA club championship in the US and he was supposed to walk up with Johnny Infantino, the. The head of FIFA, hand the trophy to the Chelsea players and then walk off the stage so they could celebrate. And he just stood there and jumped with them and, like, celebrated with them. So he, he makes it about himself because he loves the limelight, he loves every spotlight, and he will attempt to co opt this one, too.

[B]

Yeah, he doesn't give a shit about anyone but himself. Like, we know this. When, when, when you have to decide whether the President United States is going to attend an event like that, the biggest consideration. Well, first of all, you talk to service and be like, okay, what does the security have to look like? And you need to listen to Secret Service and especially Donald Trump. He's been, you know, survived multiple assassin detonation attempts now, right? Yeah. But then when the service tells you what it's going to require, security wise, and they tell you that, well, as a consequence, it's going to, you know, inconvenience quite a few Americans. Then sometimes the president's like, well, do I really want to piss off that many people by doing this? Is it really that important if my going means a whole bunch of other. And then you say, well, maybe not. Maybe it's not that important for me to go? Trump would never say that.

[A]

Yeah, I think he wants to go to the game. He doesn't give a fuck. He wants to go to the game. He wants to sit there. He wants to be booed by New Yorkers. He wants to, like, be the center of attention and he doesn't care. There's gonna be two hour waits outside that barricade, whole parts of midtown Manhattan to make this possible, to cancel the Washington give a fuck.

[B]

I mean, arguably worse is when he always wants to, like, if there's a natural disaster somewhere and he's got to go beyond the scene immediately, even when local officials are like, please, we're trying to clean up the disaster here. And we, we can't have a presidential visit because it's too much mess and security right now and just come later. He's like, I don't give a.

[D]

He also. He thinks he's a New Yorker and that New York likes him and they do not.

[B]

Well, he's. Because he's also like, all over it when he left. Yeah, he's like, New York, that I'm. It's become trash now.

[A]

Yeah, I don't think he's gonna love the split screen. I hope whoever is on the ones and twos is just go. Mandani cheers like crazy. Trump boos go back and forth. Give us A couple back and forth.

[B]

And because Mamdani is so talented, he's gonna be. He's gonna be so nice about it, too. Like, he's not gonna try to, you know, jab Trump at all.

[A]

No, they're gonna. They're gonna have. They're gonna have a shot of Donald Trump being booed while Mamdani's, like, gonna be nice. It's gonna be. That's. I hope we get that. There's also only that a bunch of

[D]

cool celebrities who always go to games, like Timothee Chalamet and Tracy Mor, who will be, like, on the wood with the people, like, enjoying the game. And Trump will be up hiding in a luxury box, like, kind of lurking from behind, hoping he doesn't get booed.

[A]

We can't say courtside.

[D]

No. It would be great if he tried walk down there.

[B]

People were retweeting some old tweets from Josh Hart today. Nick Splayer just, like, shitting all over Trump. Like, he's not a. I don't think he's beloved by the Knicks.

[E]

No.

[D]

We also remember, like, Trump very specifically, I think, yelled at or was me the LeBron James.

[B]

Did he tell him to shut up and dribble.

[A]

Shut up and dribble.

[B]

Guys.

[A]

Guy. It's also like basketball. It's so much smaller. It's so much closer. They're just, like, right there. Like, it's going to be part of the game that Trump is at this game.

[D]

Yeah. I mean, look, Fox News and Trump, they love to tell athletes, especially black athletes, to not have political opinions. But if you like Trump, then you are allowed to have a political opinion. You can come to the White House. Maybe you can participate in an Ultimate Fighting Championship event on the South Lawn.

[A]

Right.

[D]

That's how this works.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Sadly not. No, Jon, at that one.

[D]

Yeah. Favreau didn't make the cut.

[B]

Just.

[D]

It's a real bummer.

[A]

So close. I really. That was so close.

[D]

It would have been very funny.

[B]

It would have been very funny.

[D]

I think what would have happened is you would have shown up at the place where you get the van to go to the thing, and someone would, like, clock your face and be like, oh, no, that's not.

[B]

I had thought that, but, like, 4,000 people on the South Lawn, it's a lot of people to really be, like, doing the face sheet. Because if it was inside the White House, it'd be like, yeah, no way. But I don't know.

[A]

I think. I think there was. I think if once you're at that point Nobody knows. Random people, like celebrities are showing up all the time. You never know what part of some Trump drug dealers deal.

[B]

Suddenly I'm walking, I'm taking my seat right next to Vince Vaughn, and hey, buddy. He's like, what are you doing? Loved you in Swingers.

[D]

Loved you in Swingers. It's gonna be so hot and so miserable out there.

[B]

It's also, I was looking at the weather for this because there's like a. Like a chance of thunderstorms now, too. And it's 91 and maybe thunderstorms.

[D]

91 degrees. Like humid. Bugs everywhere. Awful people all around. You imagine having to fight in that. Yeah, yeah.

[A]

And then they. They get.

[B]

Dana White said, too. He was like, it's not the ideal. It's not the ideal environment to have a UFC fight.

[A]

Imagine they're like, we got to pull it down because of lightning. They don't want to pull it down because of lightning. Then all of a sudden you have basically a biblical event.

[D]

It hits that.

[A]

Just a metal thing. Listen. Anyway, all things are possible.

[B]

Can't wait to check it out. All right, when we come back, Tommy's conversation with Roger Bennett of Men in Blue.

[D]

Today's show is sponsored by Strawberry Me. Think about your career. Close your eyes. Maybe it looks good on paper, but does something feel a bit off sometimes? Maybe you're stuck. Maybe you're burned out. Maybe you're ready to move up to that next level. Or maybe you just want clarity on what's next. That's where a mentor comes in, or a coach, or just someone to help you figure out that path. Path to the next rung up on your journey. That's where today's sponsor, Strawberry Me, comes in. Strawberry Me matches you with a real career coach, carefully selected based on your goals, your personality, and your professional background. These aren't random Internet gurus selling their advice. Coaches on the platform average 16 or more years of experience across 900 companies in 37 industries and have been leaders, founders, and executives themselves. And it's not just a single conversation. You have one on one video call with your coach, build a personalized plan together and stay connected between sessions. When real life challenges arise, most people hit a meaningful milestone within four to six sessions, whether that's landing a new role, getting unstuck, building confidence, or finally taking action on something they've been putting off for too many years. Visit Strawberry Me and start with a coaching trial today. Tell them Pod Save America sent you and get 50% off your first session. That's Strawberry Me. Tell them Pod Save America sent YOU for 50% off off your first session. My guest today is the co creator and longtime host of the smash hit Men in Blazers podcast, the Men in Blazers Media Network. Really? He's a New York Times bestselling author whose most recent book is called We Are the World Cup. Buy it now. He's also an international man of mystery and a sex symbol. Roger Bennett. How you doing, buddy?

[E]

What's good? Until you just said that. Tommy, it's so lovely to see you. That you're looking. You look amazing, man.

[D]

You too. Long time no see. I'm thrilled to talk to you now because, boy, there's a lot going on. There's a lot of football, a lot of soccer in the world. For anyone who wants to learn more about the World cup, you still have time and I cannot recommend enough. We are the World Cup. You'll learn about the highs, the lows, the agony. The more agony through Roger's eyes, right?

[E]

I mean, I wrote the book. If you have had the memories of the World cup, it will reignite them. I hope you can relive them again as powerfully as you did the film First Time. And if you're a newcomer planning to watch the World cup, it will give you the depths, the nuances to understand and feel all of it. Eduardo Galliano, the Uruguayan poet, once wrote, football is a pleasure that hurts. And we're about to experience all of

[D]

it, weeks and weeks of it. And I literally cannot wait. I love the World Cup. This is going to be so much fun. And so before we ruin this conversation with a little bit of politics at the end, let's just talk soccer. So starting with Team usa I know they are hardly favorites to win the tournament, but, you know, interest has gone up, expectations go up every year for Team usa. Who should we be watching and what's a good result, do you think, for Team USA this year?

[E]

Oh, winning it, Tommy. I know I sound to many of your new listeners that I am from England, but I'm love America so profoundly in like a way I like to believe slips me somewhere between Bruce Springsteen and Kenny Powers. So I adore this team. I first came over here in 1994 ahead of the last time the men's World cup was here. It was meant to turn America immediately into a football loving nation. It's taken a lot longer, but the United States and the economists were just found to have soccer be the third most popular sport in the world, which is mind blowing amazing because I write in my book that before the 94 World Cup, Tommy. A similar study found out soccer was 67th most favorite sport and tractor pulling, I crap you not, was 66. Where are you now? Tractor pulling. So to some degree the winner of the World cup from a US perspective will be the massive fan base that it, that it leaves behind. We've always joked on our shows soccer is America's sport of the future, as it has been since 1972. Like it's perpetually the next big thing. I think this World cup will, will cement it, normalize football in our sporting reality. But from a actual competitive pov, this is the most talented group of individuals we've ever had. But the crazy thing is, you know, our women kick ass, take names, win things. Our men in the whole history of our nation, going right back to George Washington, who I like to believe would have loved the football. Football. We've won one knockout game in World cup history, which is shocking for a nation like ours, that invented animal style burgers in and out and you know, the Corona, put, you know, human beings on the moon, democracy, all those things. So I'd say if we can win two knockout games, which we stand a good chance of in this very bloated big gulp massive World cup, it would be an incredible result in that this World cup is going to be big whether the US do well or not. But the US boys will write their narrative into it, which is critical.

[D]

Is Christian Pulisic the one we're watching most or what other names should we be looking at?

[E]

Christian Pulisic is. If you're a football fan, you'll know he's jokingly called the LeBron James of soccer. He's from Hershey, Pennsylvania. He was the prince that was promised. He broke through into this team when he was 17. He is probably the most talented outfield player we've ever had in terms of his accomplishments in European football. He's a very sensitive human being. He needs to love and be loved. I just went on first take with Stephen A. Smith and compared him to Trey Young as a player that can do unbelievable things if he feels great. Stephen A. Smith slapped me down, went mad. That's a terrible comparison, he said and then went off from Trey Young from for a long, long period of time. But I'll stand by it. And then there's so many remarkable human beings. I really do root for this team as individuals. There's a beautiful man, Chris Richards, son of Alabama, Birmingham, Alabama, SEC Country Roll Tide, who must have been a big fish on every playing field. He was in in Alabama, then went over As a teen to one of the greatest teams in the world. Bayern Munich suddenly became. Became a tiny fish in an enormous trout form. Kind of lost all of his confidence, got complete cultural dislocation, but has been able tenaciously to re summon his presence as a defender. Kind of like a lockdown cornerback. Now in the Premier League, he's won things. Still a sweet, soft, soulful, wonderful human being. I mean, there's many, many players like him that I root for. The one touch, one goal, one moment. The commercial upside for this World cup, to become the face of this team, to have a TikTok that goes viral because of something beautiful that you do, it's a diverse team. I think they're a great face of our nation. They're led by a manager, an Argentinian Mauricio Pochettino, who's like a globally revered manager. He's either going to lift us up like a basketball coach, going to. To Iona State and taking them. What's that guy? Yeah, yeah, he'll have a patino it take us up to his standard, or he'll Bill Belichick it and. And just suddenly be, you know, chasing after floundering on the floor at North Carolina and we've only got a couple

[D]

of years old in Syria or something like that.

[C]

Is that the plan?

[D]

Go to Milan?

[E]

Yeah, that's exactly right. You can't wait to leave. In many ways, yeah. But we will go as he goes. If he. If he does his thing and raises us up, joy can be ours. We could be just lolloping around on the floor chasing after a cheeseburger in Hasselhoffian fashion. It could be great. It could be darkness. We do not know. We only have until three days to find out.

[D]

Yeah, well, all hope ahead of us. All right, let's talk about the big dogs. Some of the best teams, some of the best players that you're watching. I've heard France, Spain, the UK mentioned a lot. Like any sleepers, the UK or London, England.

[E]

England. Well, that would be amazing. Tommy, can you imagine if it was cities?

[B]

Oh, my God, that would be cool.

[E]

The World cup of cities. That's actually for the future. Then they can get far more than 48 teams in. It would be amazing. Come on. Sarajevo, England, Scotland are also in it. God bless. They're coming over here with a very different goal than everybody else. Their goal is to just drink Boston and Miami dry in the first two weeks of the tournament. And I think they'll probably do it. The tartan army, I think America, one of the joys of this tournament that I hope we get to talk about is the world coming to terms with the United States. You're seeing it now all over social media. German fans going to a Waffle House for the first time, having their mind blown, you know, going to lemon pepper wet. What is this? And also American sports fans seeing global football culture, many of them for the first time seeing 60, 70, you know, seeing thousands of Dutch fans march down the streets of Kansas City before a game in their orange clad shirt, bouncing to the left and the right behind a large bus. No one quite knows why, it's just what they do. It's going to be quite ecstatic. So Scotland, England, I mean England are fascinating. I mean they used to have an empire, then they lost that. They used to have a monarchy not doing so well nowadays. They had Downton Abbey no longer on the air. So what they have is football and they invented it. So they think they should win. They've won once. 1966, which is like 1066 in the English school kids imagination. And since then they've always believed with great surety they're gonna win very quickly. Crapping the bed, shattering a nation's heart. They're like Charlie Brown running at a football with Lucy holding. Apart from this time round, they're pretty bloody good, Tommy. So it is quite fascinating to think of a England winning the World cup in America when it's the 250th anniversary of independence is mind melding.

[D]

So we think we're going to say bye to some great players this, this tournament. Lionel Messi, it's probably, we assume it's his last tournament, although people said that in 2018 and 2022, Cristiano Ronaldo will say goodbye to him. Bye to all of his abs maybe.

[E]

Although he's like mostly I think he's the football player most likely to go like Ted Williams and putting his head in the cryogenic chamber.

[D]

Just freeze it up. Freeze those abs. Save them for later. Is there a next up like so those two, they're not just the biggest stars in soccer, they are some of the biggest celebrities on the planet, the most famous people on the planet. Is there anyone you're watching that can fill their shoes? Any stars that are going to transcend this tournament?

[E]

We hope the stars, young stars. And there is a, there's this aged, I mean deeply aged we're talking about like footballing LeBron age. I mean Ronaldo is, I mean it's is like 41, Lionel Messi, late 30s. This is or should be their Last dance. And then there's a slew of teens coming through. Nature abhors a vacuum. So does football. A Spanish wonder child, 18 years old, Lamina Marle, who's already won massive tournaments. You know, he's almost. If he wins the World cup with Spain having won what he's won already, he'll be like Alexander the Great, you know, know, tearing up because there is no more world left to conquer. So the Erlin Harlan, a young Norwegian who is, other than Shaquille o', Neal, entering the NBA and just breaking backboards, shattering them, you know, game in, game out. I've never seen anyone score goals. It's like as if Dolph Lundrum was a football player. If AI created just a. Some kind of Norse demigod, he's bringing Norway over. So there is that battle. And again, because it's here, Tommy, in the United States, this commercial hotbed of sports, all of these footballers, I'm swinging to a slew of the. The great footballers in the world. They're all looking at the United States market, knowing one deep run, one, you know, a set of ecstatic moments. The financial payoff for this World cup commercially to kind of be what Pele was to previous generation, the face of the game in the United States. There's the sporting competition, but there's also the commercial competition to be that footballer. They all think they can, you know, be the next Palais. They don't quite know that David Beckham's already won the World Cup. That man is in almost every single commercial and is not giving up his hold on our imagination anytime soon. But there are also incredible stories that will fill the World cup up, like Haiti, this tiny team for whom, you know, just qualifying is everything. The political chaos that's unspooled over there which has impacted football. You know, the football stadium, their trading center was. Was set fire to by insurgent gangs in Port au Prince. Prince. The fact that they've even qualified is remarkable. They had to play all their games on neighboring Curacao. Their footballers, you know, brought from all over in the Haitian diaspora. Just taking the field for them is going to be just a joyous geopolitical moment where the word Haiti is seen in a joyous spotlight, a wonderful spotlight so desperately need did. And it could be one of the most powerful story lines in the opening round.

[D]

Yeah, that's exciting to watch. So, you know, you got. You touched on this, Raj.

[B]

Like the.

[D]

The scale of this tournament is just like unlike anything we've seen before. It's happening in three different countries. I think there's 16 host cities, there's 48 teams. I think at some point in the tournament, there's going to be six games a day. How the hell are you going to pace yourself here, buddy? What are you going to do to, like, get through this?

[E]

Yeah, I mean, I feel like I was laughing with you. I already feel like I'm halfway through. But it's not kicked off yet. It is epic in scope. Three nations hosting for the first time. Canada, the United States, Mexico. When it was given 2018, it was talked about as a unified, almost the NAFTA World Cup. Obviously, the realities have changed. It feels almost like three parallel track world Cups. But what drives me in any World cup is the narrative is the story is the. The human wonder. The scale of it is epic. You know, I think it's projected to revenue wise reported $80 billion will be made, which apparently is the GDP of Belarus. But I'm sure you knew that, Tommy. That's really the first thing that went into your head. Yeah, you know, it's, it. It's really a human ecstasy. 200 million people watch the Super Bowl. We think of that as the ultimate in the United States. Five billion people watch the World Cup. What is the World Cup? And this is what I wrote in my book. It's like a global eclipse that emanates from the game, sweeps the entire world instantaneously and holds it in its thrall for 39 straight days. And so that's the magic of it, the energizing magic. What keeps me going is a sense that when these games go on, we're watching human beings live out under the crucible of pressure, you know, human decision making. What separates good players from the truly great is the decisions they make under those pressures. There's going to be heroes whose names we don't even know who are going to reveal themselves. And within seconds of some kind of Kung Fu Fighting esque goal, their name is going to be blared out by millions of children in schoolyards across the globe. You know, there's going to be heroes who will fall in tragic comic ways. We're going to watch the greatest telenovela. And the thing I'm most excited about, Tommy, is, I don't know if you've noticed, it's a very dark world. We're living in a time of challenge. I hope, I hope when this kicks off, you know, when Lionel Messi takes the field, all of the darkness kind of is smothered. It's almost like the rational is replaced by the emotional, and it's that sense of global unity, obviously an illusion, obviously fleeting. But knowing that you're making memories, profound memories. It's like the theory of my book. Most of. I'd say 87% of my most important memories are located in wool cups, the cross generational memories with my dad, my mum, my grandpa, my children. It's the same for millions around the world. That conscious act of memory making that you're sharing with the planet is really what drives me onwards.

[D]

I think we've all earned that release, that reprieve from reality and that moment. Just come together and enjoy it. Just to ruin this whole thing with politics, though. I mean, President Trump understands the scale of the stage, right? He's got this preternatural understanding for the role that sports plays in culture. As we talk today, I think he's preparing to fly up to New York for the Knicks game. Do we know? Like, does he deliver remarks at any of these events? Is he going to attend games? Like, what do we know about his participation?

[E]

Not a lot yet, but football is. I mean, I talked about the number of people watching. It is the last global megaphone that is audible across the entire planet. There's nothing like it. There's nothing like a World cup up. Even Salt Bay inserted himself into the final season. That's how massive it is.

[D]

That's my favorite.

[E]

Yeah. God bless. I mean, still got me talking about it four years later. And so ultimately, politicians of all stripes are drawn to football and have been since the very beginning. 1934 Second World cup was held in Italy by Mussolini, who wanted to present Italy to the world, subsidize foreign travel to Italy for the tournament. The detail I love most about this story is that he made sure the tickets were intricate paper cuts so that fans would go home afterwards. I crap you not, Tommy, and be like, these are the tickets in Italy. Look what an advanced country it is. So from the very beginning, the roots of the tournament have always had a geopolitical reality. When two teams take the field, their nation's history, their nation's politics, their nation's culture takes a field alongside them. That's what. What gives it its epic power. Everything matters. It's not, you know, I love American sports. When my Chicago Bears play, you know, the LA Rams, it's a big game, it's exciting. I know the narrative. But when Germany plays England, the levels of history, you know, I think. Was it Emerson who said it contains multitudes? The World cup contains multitudes, and every politician knows that, you know, and President Trump has embraced football. There was a tournament here last, almost a dry run, called the Club World Cup. He presented the trophy right at the end. The. The route that the ritual of trophy presenting in football is that whoever gives it, it's often ahead of state, will hand the trophy over to the, you know, the sweaty footballers on a podium and then step out of the way so that they can lift it up and smoke comes off and confetti blows up. And then the footballers bounce up and down, waving their arms like this, which is the standard football guy dance. Chelsea Football Club 1. He hands the trophy over and then stands in the midst of them. And the football is. Are confused. They don't quite know what to do. There's a standard way of doing this. And then in the end, they just, like, saw that they did it with him in the midst of it. It's a remarkable image. You know, the smoke goes off, the confetti blows up. Some of them are dancing, some of them are looking at the present. He knew exactly what he was doing. He knew that was the photo moment that would go around the world and that he'd become front and center. So the World cup contains that power. Power times a million. 2018, Putin ran the World cup and was very front and center. 2022, it was in Qatar, first game you and I watched, they had the Qatari leader sitting right by the Saudi Arabian Mohammed bin Salman. I believe this is your expertise, not mine. But the two of them had had frosty relations before that. To see them unite was deeply like a symbol. I think one was even wearing the scarf for the other country. So there's a story on the field, there's always the story off it. And the optics, the soft power, the hard power is written all over this tournament every time it occurs.

[D]

You know, President Trump is both head of state and also famously won the FIFA Peace Prize, so maybe he could invite the new Iranian Supreme Leader to the US to sit next to him at a game and we could have another moment. Moment like the one you just described. I'm just pitching ideas.

[E]

Yeah, I mean, while we're pitching ideas, I think this should be a FIFA Music Award, like a Grammy for, like, Kid Rock or Vanilla Ice. I. I would say you will watch this World cup with a split lens, and who is invited and where they sit is for you. And Pod Save the World is a. Is going to be, you know, I'd say a sport in itself, but it's not a sport that gives it a sense of a lack of meaning, but that Narrative will be enormous in macro ways and in microwaves. We just had Wagner Moura, the Oscar nominated actor, Pablo Escobar from Norcos, come on our show is football mad. And he talked with an amazing passion about how Brazil, Brazil wears a yellow shirt. It's iconic. You know, it's synonymous with a beautiful style of football that kind of coincides with the advent of color television. And he talked about how when Bolsonaro was president, he co opted the Brazilian shirt and that shirt became a symbol of his regime. And Wagner Moore talked about how this World cup in a post Bolsonaro realm is a chance to you reclaim it. So the narratives within this thing, if you're a football fan, you know, it's the Ronaldo, the Messi, the Portugal, the France, the Spain. But if you're a pod save the world fan, you know, the World cup is, is all of that and more.

[D]

Yeah, so there's always sort of like issues and anxieties going into these World Cups. Sometimes it's political, sometimes it's, you know, security or logistics. This year people were talking about potential ice presence at games. There are questions about travel restrictions or visas. More recently, you know, there's a lot of discussion about ticket prices. Has any of that deterred attendance? As far as you can tell, is the world still coming to the US for these games in Mexico and Canada?

[E]

You know, the narrative of any World cup is decided afterwards. And this one in the run up is, has been about safety, fair. But not just in the United States. In Mexico, the, you know, the drug cartel violence, the, the global tensions, the travel restrictions. Look, one of the reasons I love football is that more than any other sport, it holds up a mirror to the world that surrounds it. I've always loved that. It's always one of my definitive moments in life. Not just in football is 1986, England played Argentina. Diego Maradona, his Argentina, one of the greatest to ever play the game. Just a pick, just a street urchin turned, you know, kid of gold. They called him Oro in the shadow of the Falklands War. And England, they were our heroes, and Argentina destroyed them. One goal. Tiny little Diego punched it in. In the era before, before video referees, he punched it in over a 6 foot 2 goalkeeper, used his hand and immediately when asked, did you, did you punch that in? He came up brilliantly with his own marketing. He said it was a little bit the head of Diego and a little bit the hand of God. And then when we were reeling in agony as an English nation, he picked the ball up deep in his own half and then just ran through the entire team single handedly. Every hero, he eviscerated all of them and then just rolled the ball home, which kind of echoed the first goal. I did that, cheated because I could, but I also could have destroyed you single handedly if I wanted to. And I just did. That goal was an agony. And as an English human being, it kind of put us all in our place, showed us where we were in the. In the global food chain. But now it's actually the post that a photograph I have in my office on my wall, signed by Him.

[B]

Him.

[E]

It makes you feel things, it makes you feel alive. That agony is like one of my proudest agonies. It's an honor to have that agony. So everything is always geopolitical. The run up to any World cup in the modern period is always a human darkness. At the South African World Cup 2010, the whole reporting going in was how everybody was going to be, you know, carjacking, there was an epidemic. Just the violence was going to destroy the thing. The electricity belt was not enough to power the stage disaster. Why is Africa hosting this? It turned out to be one of the most significant World Cups of my lifetime. Nelson Mandela, Africa, presenting it to the world in majestic fashion. Same with Brazil 2014, the violence, rioting, social unrest. In 2030, you know, the people rose up around games, marched on the stadia, every state, every stadium I was in, there were riots, demonstrations for social justice, for education, not football. It was meant to be a disaster. And then once a ball is kicked, Tommy, cognitive dissonance kicks in. I'm not sure this is a good thing or a bad thing, to be honest, but it's what happens once Lionel Messi takes the field. You know, all the storyline just falls away and we kind of become mesmerized by that global eclipse thing. So it is a lot of global tension. It is a mirror to the world. The world is understandably challenging. But again, once that opening whistle goes the past World Cups, everyone has gone from fear and darkness and catastrophizing to a sense of, albeit fleeting sense of wonder.

[D]

Yeah, well, I cannot wait for it to start. But again, the book is we are the World cup. So pick up a copy now and then. Raj, if listeners want to just hear more from you throughout the World cup, where should they look?

[E]

Where can they find Tommy, we're headed to you tomorrow. We're going to la. We have a bus in the style of John Madden, a big orange bus. We're driving it across country. Can't tell if this is the greatest idea we've ever had or the worst, we'll find out. Starting in la, we're going up to Seattle, coming back to la, we're doing and then going across the country through Texas to Atlanta. We're going to be doing college game days before the biggest game starting with the United States. We're going to be on Santa Monica Pier on that first US game on the 12th with Rob Mack. And then we're going up to Seattle where we've got John Green, the great, the greatest novelist. I think everyone would agree. Old Skittles, your man, the greatest Seahawk of all time. Time. He's going to be joining us and more. And then back to la and then we're going across. And I will say as we go across, this is a wild time, Tommy. Many sports fans in America will be turned on to football for the first time. America loves a circus. They love an excuse to daytime drink. They love, you know, mass desire to cut work which is approved for 39 days. But I will say seeing these fans and there will be thousands of fans coming in. There have been travel bans. You know, there are some teams who have no fans able to get visas because of the modern reality they've been caught up in in that issue. So like Haiti, Iran, Senegal, Ivory coast. But there are thousands and thousands of fans coming. And this moment for 39 days for the world to shine a spotlight on. Not just la, San Francisco, Seattle, but cities like Houston which are about to be beloved. When the world finds lemon pepper wet in Atlanta, when there's 20,000 Argentinians running around Kansas City tasting Arthur Bryant's slaps and going, oh my God, we've been doing barbecue all wrong all this time. Time. That to me is a hope. How America can be a winner for 39 days. Showing a face of ourselves which is meaningful and warm and welcoming and filled with a kind of joy I once saw from afar from Liverpool.

[D]

Oh, it's going to be beautiful. I can't wait for a bunch of Europeans to try Dunkin Donuts when they get to Boston for the first time. Raj, great to see you. Great to talk with you. Good luck with this tournament, buddy. I'm excited to watch through your eyes.

[E]

I'll see you in la, beautiful. I'm really, really excited to be of your courage.

[B]

That's our show for today. Thanks to Roger Bennett for coming on. Alex and I will be back with a new show on Friday. Bye everyone. Pod Save America is a crooked media production. Our show is produced by Austin Fisher, Saul Rubin, McKenna Roberts and Farah Safari, with Reed Cherlin, Elijah Cohn and Adrian Hill. Our team includes Matt de Groat, Ben Hethcote, Jordan Cantor, Charlotte Landis, Carol Pel Aviv, David Tolles, Mia Ken, Ryan Young and Naomi Singel. Our staff is proudly unionized with the Writers Guild of America East.