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- [00:00]
Jon Favreau
Today's presenting sponsor is Simplisafe Home Security. As a POD Save America listener, you know as well as us the dark chapter we're stepping into. Oh, we're there. We're in it. It's been a long chapter.
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Jon Lovett
Yeah, we're in the chapter.
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Jon Favreau
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- [01:25]
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- [02:45]
Jon Favreau
Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Jon Favreau.
- [02:47]
Jon Lovett
I'm Jon Lovett.
- [02:47]
Tommy Vietor
Tommy Guit.
- [02:48]
Jon Favreau
On today's show, millions of Epstein files have finally been released. So we're gonna talk about why the revelations are just as bad, if not worse than you thought. We also have some stunning new corrupt dates to talk about the status of Trump's so called de escalation in Minnesota, his arrest of Don Lemon and other journalists slash protestors. And some good news, a surprise Democratic special election win in a deep red part of Texas. And then Tommy talks to musician Bobby Polito about why he decided to jump into politics and run for Congress in Texas. Just a ton of news to talk about, as there always is. Which is one reason you should consider becoming a subscriber.
- [03:23]
Tommy Vietor
Mm, good call.
- [03:24]
Jon Favreau
Every week on our subscriber only pods and our growing number of substack newsletters, we're going deeper on all the biggest stories and cover the big stories we didn't get a chance to cover here on Pod Save America. We just added a new bi weekly subscriber only episode of Pod Save America called Pod Save America. Only Friends, perfect name. We have a.
- [03:44]
Tommy Vietor
It's for buys weekly.
- [03:45]
Jon Favreau
It's for buys weekly. Yeah. Only Friends.
- [03:48]
Jon Lovett
Buys weekly, bi weekly, Only Friends.
- [03:50]
Jon Favreau
And if you don't, and if you don't like listening to things, if you still like reading things, we also have a new weekly Pod Save America newsletter called Open Tabs. You also as a subscriber would get free ad free episodes of all your favorite crooked pods, plus bonus content like Pod Save the World Q and A with Tommy and Ben.
- [04:07]
Tommy Vietor
Wow, we're still doing that. I'm just kidding. It's actually very fun to do.
- [04:10]
Jon Favreau
Haven't listened.
- [04:10]
Tommy Vietor
We get super intense questions. I don't think I know how to listen to the Q and A. But mostly just please subscribe because it's the most helpful thing you'd possibly do for us as a company trying to grow here in the independent, progressive media world.
- [04:20]
Jon Favreau
So yeah, if you, if you like supporting independent pro democracy media, this is a subscription for you. If you don't, we won't, you know, then go somewhere else.
- [04:28]
Jon Lovett
But we'll keep listening for free.
- [04:31]
Jon Favreau
But it would mean a lot to all of us here. Crooked if you considered subscribing@crooked.com friends. All right, let's start with the Justice Department's congressionally mandated, though very delayed, release of another 3 million pages of Epstein related documents, which were dumped online from Friday afternoon in a fairly haphazard manner. So much so that the documents accidentally included dozens of nude photos of victims and in some cases, full names and other information that could be used to identify them. The biggest takeaway, though, was that a bunch of very rich, famous and powerful people were close to Epstein. You may even call it a cabal, and seem to know both who they were dealing with and in some cases, what he was up to. People like Elon Musk, Richard Branson, Peter Thiel, Sergey Brin, Bill Gates, Prince Andrew, and of course, Donald Trump, whose name appears more than 5,000 times in different contexts. Here's what Trump had to say for himself on Monday in the Oval.
- [05:24]
Donald Trump
The problem is that it's turning out to be the Democrats that were with and conspired with Epstein. They were working together to try and help me lose the election. And frankly, the doj, I think, should just say we have other things to do because that whole thing has turned out, I mean, other than Bill Clinton and, you know, Bill Gates and lots of people that have. There are a lot of questions about it, but nothing on me. When Epstein was alive, like 10 years ago, nobody cared about it.
- [05:53]
Jon Favreau
Yeah. Who?
- [05:54]
Tommy Vietor
Busy.
- [05:55]
Bobby Pulido
Too busy.
- [05:55]
Jon Favreau
Whoever cared about Epstein before Trump was president? Anyway, let's, let's, let's listen.
- [06:00]
Bobby Pulido
On day one, roll out the black book.
- [06:02]
Jon Lovett
And not just that, on day one, roll out all of the text messaging.
- [06:06]
Tommy Vietor
Communications we were told were deleted.
- [06:08]
Jon Favreau
We need to release the f scene list. That, that is an important thing. Just a couple of libs there.
- [06:12]
Tommy Vietor
Yeah, classic.
- [06:13]
Jon Favreau
Obviously, 3 million pages, a lot to get through, but I know you guys have both gotten through about 95, 97% of them. What jumped out at you in the, in the files. Tommy, you want to go first?
- [06:25]
Jon Lovett
Sure.
- [06:25]
Tommy Vietor
I mean, look, I just want to start by saying I'm completely red pilled on this stuff. I like, I thought Jeffrey Epstein was a scummy guy who did bad things and then used connections to avoid accountability. I like the web of connections that this man actually has. The clear evidence of trafficking that's in these files is stunning. It's like, like QAnon was right. They just looked the wrong direction. You know what I mean? It's like, it's mind boggling. So Kash Patel, there's another clip for him when he was saying he testifies before Congress that there's no evidence that Epstein trafficked other women to other individuals. Like, he should be held in contempt just for that. Things that jumped out at me. Steve Bannon is all over the Epstein files. They are really good friends. Bannon is helping him rehab his image. They're working on projects together. Like, it's. He's helping him. Epstein's helping Bannon fund his stuff.
- [07:15]
Bobby Pulido
That.
- [07:16]
Tommy Vietor
That's a lot more we should learn there. You mentioned the Trump piece. I mean, It's. He's in 5300 files. There's 38,000 references to Trump. Some of those are duplicative, but like, he's everywhere. And in this clip, it's like we've finally gotten the files and now Trump is saying, like, who even cares about this guy? It's been a long time. He's ready to move on. And there's one email where Epstein specifically talks about whether to call Trump about Virginia Giuffre.
- [07:39]
Jon Favreau
Yeah, that was one.
- [07:41]
Tommy Vietor
An Epstein victim who wrote a book about her experience who died by suicide recently. We need to learn more about that. Elon Musk is a scumbag. He has a social relationship with Epstein. He clearly knows what's going on. He says, like, I want to go to your island for the wildest party. Now, we don't know if he ever went there, but he is all over these files. There's multiple NFL owners in these things.
- [08:01]
Jon Favreau
Steve Tisch, pretty much, pretty Tisch, pretty tight.
- [08:03]
Tommy Vietor
Giants owner, worst defender. I don't know how he survives this. Jeffrey Epstein got permanently banned from Xbox Live. Did you guys catch this one?
- [08:10]
Jon Lovett
Yeah, I've heard about that. Again, it's one of those things where in our kind of postmodern, post truth world, is that unbelievable and true or unbelievable and false?
- [08:18]
Tommy Vietor
It's true. I think a lot of people thought it was because he was talking shit to teenagers on Fortnite. And it might be a new thing we learned about him. I think it's cause he's registered as a sex offender. I was also just stunned by how truly global the scandal is. Like, the crown princess of Norway was buddies with Epstein in the UK. They got Peter Mendelssohn, who recently was the UK's ambassador to the US, gave Jeffrey Epstein a heads up on the government's response to the EU debt crisis before it happened.
- [08:48]
Jon Favreau
I guess he resigned.
- [08:49]
Tommy Vietor
Market sensitive information. He resigned. Ehud Barack is all over these files. There's audio of Jeffrey Epstein telling Ehud Barak about Palantir for the first time.
- [08:56]
Jon Favreau
So it's just Slovakia's prime ministers Security advisor just resigned as well.
- [09:02]
Tommy Vietor
Great, another one.
- [09:03]
Jon Favreau
So, like you could do a whole episode of Pilot Save the World on this.
- [09:05]
Tommy Vietor
And we're, Ben and I are going to do this tomorrow. But like, the, the just scope of it is amazing. Just last thing, look, like you said, love it. Like, it's just the fake news problem is so exacerbated in a situation like this because you have 3 million files dumped onto the Internet. There's stuff all over Twitter. You have no idea what's real and what is fake. It's so easy to slip something fake into, you know, the kind of social media ecosystem right now. It's just really terrible.
- [09:29]
Jon Lovett
Yeah. So there's all the kind of like, who's in it? What, what does it mean? And, and, and we don't know. Right. There's a reason, traditionally you don't just release millions and millions of files that were kind of part of different aspects of an investigation without context. And without context. And, and by the way, like, you know, everyone was clamoring for why, you know, for DOJ to release these documents and why they had missed the deadline. And I actually see why that took them this long and probably should have honestly taken them longer because there's tons of mistakes throughout this. If you just do a keyword search, you will find an email where the names are redacted every place except one. But if you missed one, well, didn't matter that you redacted the other ones. There's all kinds of other names of people unrelated to this that are inside of here with personal information.
- [10:11]
Jon Favreau
The other challenge is, by the way, in the names. And this is like, you know, why Trump's name is in there so many times it appears that someone sent Jeffrey Epstein, like news clips regularly.
- [10:20]
Jon Lovett
Exactly, yeah.
- [10:21]
Jon Favreau
So there are so many names in the FC files that are just part of the news clips that he received, which is tough.
- [10:28]
Jon Lovett
But then like, you do see this and it's too many people for cabal, John. I think it's, it's fully fledged a ring, this ring of elites. And it's why, like, why around this man, what was the pull that this man had? And I do genuinely believe, like a lot of the men connected through this were not necessarily directly involved in sex crimes, though he was a registered sex offender who had a terrible and well known reputation. So these people are all despicable for getting this close to him. But, but he had these connections. He could get things done. He could get you to a country club, he could connect people from here. And where did that Power came from. And that power came from for some subset of these people. He was a vehicle for access to women, girls, and to a kind of, like, licentiousness that was appealing to them, for them to step out of their lives. In 2010, Peggy Segal, who is a publicist, was helping Epstein regain entry into society. And she was telling him, I. I have no idea what the reaction will be to your reentry into society, but take it slow and stay quiet. Your friends are there for you, and at least the house is drop dead gorgeous. Every fag decorator with an immediate interest in Israel Charming will be begging for a look. This was about him bringing together military people and intellectuals and scientists to have these dinners. And he did it. And you know what? It fucking worked. So Peter Attia, who is a doctor that was recently, like, a longevity guy.
- [11:50]
Jon Favreau
Who was recently brought extremely popular book.
- [11:52]
Jon Lovett
Extremely popular book, actually. Like, you know, I. I didn' know that he was in the fucking Epstein files. Like, I've seen clips from him. I was like, oh, that's interesting. How real is this guy? And then I saw an interview where he was like, proudly referring to the second derivative as if it was a scientific term. And I was like, I'm skeptical. I'm skeptical. You're trying to seem smart in a way that I'm not trusting. He had to put out a statement today explaining how he was in these emails with Epstein even after he was a registered sex offender. And he said everything about him seemed excessive and exclusive, including the fact that he lived in the largest home in all of Manhattan, owned a Boeing 727, and hosted parties with the most powerful and prominent leaders in business and politics. In retrospect, the presence and credibility ability of such venerable people in different orbits led me to make assumptions about him that clouded my judgment in ways it shouldn't have.
- [12:34]
Jon Favreau
I thought. The other thing interesting about that statement too, is he basically says, like, so obviously I knew that he had had a. A prostitution charge, right? But because it was like he served a year and it was like, you know, maybe it was a prostitution charge and he didn't know the age of the girl and he was soliciting process, you know, and then it's what you just said, which is that knowledge combined with, well, he's famous and rich and has all these connections and everyone else who's rich and powerful likes him, so he can't be that bad. It really, like, shines a light on just how fucking, like, corrupt and broken and gross the system is. That like, the entire Culture around him can make someone think like, I'm not gonna do my due diligence on this guy because, you know, it must have just been a little mishap.
- [13:21]
Jon Lovett
Yeah. If people from the fucking Aspen. If people I met at the Aspen Ideas Festival would jump off a brid, why wouldn't I?
- [13:28]
Jon Favreau
Exactly.
- [13:29]
Jon Lovett
And so he kind of is able to get his reputation back. And by the way, it was a strategy to only have that be what was publicly known about the charges. And now in this release you find that Acosta, when he was the prosecutor, had a whole bevy of other potential charges involving crimes and abuse and rape of girls.
- [13:47]
Jon Favreau
The draft indictment that's in here of the 30 of 32 counts from the Southern district of Florida, that also includes three co conspirators. The draft, that was never because he got the sweetheart deal from a. Costa, so it never went forward. But that to me is a very fascinating document.
- [14:03]
Tommy Vietor
That deal remains kind of like the original sin of the second act of Jeffrey Epstein. If that deal is just, is about reality, about what he really did, the scope of it, I mean, I think there's no way this guy gets back into the world. But I do think he did exactly what you said, which be like, look, yes, I solicited a prostitute, one of them was 17 or something like that. And these guys were like, just bought it.
- [14:23]
Jon Favreau
Yep.
- [14:23]
Jon Lovett
I also just a lot of how we've been looking at the scandal has been around who's involved with it. Right. And like, what, what, what, what did these big name people do and what didn't they do? I think that's important and I think we still don't have all the answers and we should be fighting to get more answers. But when you dig into it, you also just find these little like artifacts of how he was actually manipulating his situation, including the girls and women that were involved. And you can't. Again, there are these little kind of, I don't know, snippets, these sort of disintegrated, like disentangled little bits of information you can't fully understand. But you see these sort of vicious back and forths with people whose names you don't know where he's saying things like, you had an apartment, you had money, you had an agreement, many agreement promises, you broke them all. You were acting like a spoiled child who thinks the world owes them a living. Sleeping all day, not helping, not dancing. There are these little bits of the evil at the very core of it. And you see the emails he wrote to himself, little ideas, little Things that came to him. And at the core of this whole enterprise was this disgusting man, this like vicious monster that had built all these like kind of layers around him to seem respectable. And like the, the fact that even now we still don't really totally understand a lot of what actually happened because it's now being released in this haphazard and confusing way where you don't know what's real and you don't know what's not. We are going to like I still think there's there that whether it's the Democrats in Congress, whether it's a Democratic presidential candidate calling for some kind of hearing and investigation, like we need to have like public hearings about this, about how this, like to just to get the truth about it, including getting the participants in it force them to speak in front of the country about what happened. Because I still think we're going to live in this sort of like semi true kind of understanding because of the way they release these documents.
- [16:21]
Jon Favreau
To that point. The Epstein law that passed says that the DOJ needs to turn over their internal memos, deliberations, notes on who they charged. Why, why didn't they make certain charging decisions? They have not done that yet. So they are just in violation of the law still by not doing that. And usually the Department of Justice would never turn over those notes. But that's what the law that Donald Trump signed into law and Congress just passed said. So I do think that can shine a light on some of this because also to your point about Kash Patel, like, I can't tell clearly it was dishonest what he said in front of Congress. But I don't know if you've seen anything in any of the emails I haven't that show that like clearly there were other men who trafficked underage women with Jeffrey Epstein. Like I don't think any of the emails cash.
- [17:08]
Tommy Vietor
Patel says there's no evidence. None. If there were, I would bring the case yesterday that he Epstein trafficked to other individuals. It seems like the Steve Tisch case seems like that's exactly what happened. Now maybe they were of age, but did we investigate that? Right?
- [17:19]
Jon Favreau
I don't know.
- [17:20]
Tommy Vietor
I mean it seems like there's a lot of smoke here, but we'll find out. I mean it's clear like the FBI like fell down on the job here. They just didn't do what they should do.
- [17:26]
Jon Favreau
It seems like there's three levels of Epstein connections here that you see in these emails. The first level is new. Epstein was friendly with him and was Just in the social circles and thought he was a great guy, you know. Then there was New Epstein friendly with him and was discussing like girls with him in like they were fucking objects in the. In the most grossest sort of man. And then there were like the Tish stuff, which is like, yes, I have girls for you, basically, which is like helping him find. Yeah, and they were. Yeah. And. And Trump in here, by the way, is through some uncorroborated allegations, but like including some witness interviews with the FBI and other things is like somewhere in between the discussing girls in a. In a gross lewd manner and potentially like around him when there were girls being, you know, Trump is saved because.
- [18:14]
Tommy Vietor
He does not use email.
- [18:15]
Jon Favreau
Yes.
- [18:16]
Tommy Vietor
Like, if we had audio of Donald Trump's conversation with the Jeffrey Epstein, I bet Jaws would be on the floor and we wouldn't believe it. The other sort of process thing. Love it. I'm glad you brought this up. That I'm seeing a lot out there is like, Joe Biden could have released all of this. Why didn't he? You fell down on the job. It's like, actually, no, this is not how the Department of Justice is supposed to work. And I think we're seeing that play out. Like, it's awful. Like, I hope there's accountability for the abused. I hope that people did bad things, go to jail. But like, Jesus Christ, like, releasing all these victims names, the images, the, like the random people, like, this is. This is actually not good. And like, no, you don't want Joe Biden to be digging through DOJ files to try to destroy his political opponents. Guys like, this is. There should be a bigger principle here.
- [18:59]
Jon Lovett
Yeah. I asked like, the process of the redacting and not redacting. Are they being. Are they just haphazard and like injudicious? Are they being kind of making choices with what names are showing or not showing at times. I have no idea. Also doing this in these giant, rare, rare, huge dumps of information when inside of it, you know, is personal and like information about victims of crime. So some of this is just the incompetence in the way it's being executed. But I do, I actually one thing I would just. When I was looking through it, I really struck like I was over the weekend, just the kind of, the, the wash of comments about it, the way we were learning about it, random people posting things, you didn't know what it was. True. And like, all of it kind of, some of it sort of silly and then all of it relating to monstrous crimes.
- [19:47]
Jon Favreau
Some of it was fake on Twitter. A lot of it was fake.
- [19:49]
Jon Lovett
I really, the sort of terror it was, it really gave us like a sick feeling just about where we're at and how like the, the. Because we're doj, you can't rely on them. You can't trust them.
- [20:00]
Tommy Vietor
The, the.
- [20:01]
Jon Lovett
The social media has been kind of taken over by Elon and others in a way that makes it impossible to know what's true or not true. And, and this all feeds like, even the fact that we're in this mess is like, of like getting the information this way is a product of our kind of conspiratorial mindset. And yet I'm glad for the most, like, I do think that this was necessary. I think like what that, that Kana and Massey were able to get this through was like ultimately the right thing to do given what we're learning. Like, we would never know any of this. And I'm glad that we do, for.
- [20:30]
Tommy Vietor
The most part, good for them that they, that they wrote this law and did it the right way and got every member of Congress but one to vote for it. I just like the people are saying, like Joe Biden should have unilaterally taken this step through his doj. It's like it's a lot of collateral damage there. I think we don't think. True.
- [20:44]
Jon Favreau
Yeah, for sure.
- [20:55]
Adrian
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- [22:08]
Jon Favreau
Positive America is brought to you by ZipRecruiter listeners. Think back to a first date where you were really interested in someone. You probably asked them important questions like what are you looking for? Or what are your deal breakers?
- [22:20]
Jon Lovett
When do you graduate.
- [22:24]
Bobby Pulido
So you could.
- [22:25]
Jon Favreau
Get a better idea of whether or not this is the right person for you. Well, the same goes if you're a hiring you definitely want to address key questions first to see if someone could be right for your role. That's why you need ZipRecruiter when you post your job, ZipRecruiter suggests screening questions to help you hone in on top candidates faster, and today you can try it for free@ziprecruiter.com Crooked ZipRecruiter's matching technology immediately finds qualified candidates that check all your boxes. ZipRecruiter recommends screening questions you can easily add to get the highest quality applicants. Want to see who's recently active? ZipRecruiter's filters can show you no wonder ZipRecruiter is the number one rated hiring site based on G2. Ask key questions and hire faster with ZipRecruiter, four out of five employers who post on ZipRecruiter get a quality candidate within the first day. Try it for free at ziprecruiter.com crooked that's ziprecruiter.com crooked meet your match on ZipRecruiter in case the Epstein revelations didn't make you mad enough, we also got more news over the weekend about Trump's mind blowing, absolutely shameless corruption. The Wall Street Journal reported that just days before Trump was inaugurated, an Abu Dhabi royal known as the Spy Sheik, who's the United Arab Emirates National Security Advisor and runs the country's sovereign wealth fund, bought a 49% stake in World Liberty Financial, the Trump family's crypto venture, for $500 million with an upfront payment of $187 million. Going right to quote Trump family entities. In a complete coincidence, the Trump administration Then gave the spy sheik what the UAE had long wanted but hadn't been able to get access to when Biden was president. Half a million of America's most advanced AI chips. I guess the Emiratis just really believed in Eric Trump's business plan and his crypto expertise, huh? Is that what we think?
- [24:07]
Tommy Vietor
Yeah, for a company that was, I don't think they had a product at the time. And the 49% stake that they purchased actually didn't get you access to the future revenue on the only thing they were selling at that moment. So, yeah, no, definitely that's what happened.
- [24:19]
Jon Favreau
First of all, I just want to.
- [24:20]
Tommy Vietor
Say, shout out to the Wall Street Journal for getting this scoop. Like, thank God liberal billionaire Rupert Murdoch is using his power for good. Right? While all these other, you know, right wing assholes like Jeff Bezos just turtle and buy Melania documentaries.
- [24:33]
Jon Favreau
I mean, so by the way, before.
- [24:35]
Tommy Vietor
This story, what we knew about this UAE AI chips deal was that an Emirati backed investment fund called MGX, the last, last spring made a $2 billion investment into a crypto company called Binance. And they did it using the Trump family's stablecoin, their new cryptocurrency, USD1, which is from World Liberty Financial, the same company. So that came out of nowhere. It instantly made USD 1 one of the most highly circulated stablecoins in existence and then reportedly makes the Trump family $80 million a year in passive income. Then right after that, the Trump agrees to provide the UAE with these chips. So we already knew that there was like a totally corrupt drug deal, but this report is even crazier. Like, like they just bought this company outright. There was no disclosure. $187 million goes to the Trump family. Another tranche of the money goes to Steve Witkoff's son, who remember, like, as this is all happening, Steve Wyckoff is named the kind of like emissary for everything. He's going around the world. He goes to a crypto conference in the uae and then two weeks later, the contracts to make this purchase just magically appear. And so it just, this confirms what we know, which is that Trump and Steve Wyckoff, they're running around the globe, they're talking to autocrats and they are steering money into their family's pot. And like Jared Kushner has gotten a bunch of money from the Emiratis. We also know the Emiratis were pushing Trump to pardon the Binance CEO, this guy CZ. That obviously will help your $2 billion investment. If you know that company gets right with regulators in the U.S. so it's like, what do you fucking do with this? This is you move the President is what you do. It's corruption like nothing we've ever seen in this country. And it's like a one day story.
- [26:13]
Jon Favreau
Well, and it is a great example of why impeachment is the only remedy. Because John Roberts and his court would say that the lifting. Yeah, giving them the chips was official business, which it was. Right. But obviously we know that there is a personal stake there. And so what Roberts and the court would say in that opinion is, well, impeachment is the remedy. If you think it was. If it was a conflict and the Republicans are just like, no, no, no, it's totally fine for your family to take half a, half a billion dollars and then to like literally sell America out by. And, and one of the reasons, by the way, they didn't want to give the UAE these like very advanced AI chips, aside from the fact that it's a foreign government. But weren't they concerned, wasn't there a concern that they were doing deals with China?
- [26:59]
Tommy Vietor
They're super tight. The sheik's company in particular, it's called G42, was supposed to get 1/5 of the 500,000 of these Nvidia chips. They're super tight with a bunch of Chinese companies, including one called Huawei, which provides like telecom infrastructure. And the United States has spent decades telling other countries to get Huawei the fuck out of their countries, places like the UK because there's concern that you could do create like backdoor infrastructure to spy on them. Which is why there was concern in the Biden administration about selling these chips to the Emiratis. And by the way, these are not, these are like the Blackwell series chips, like the best of the best Nvidia chips that no other countries can really get. Unless you're like a super close ally and partner of the US And.
- [27:37]
Jon Favreau
Yeah, or, or own almost half of World Liberty Financial.
- [27:41]
Tommy Vietor
Greece. The right guy.
- [27:42]
Jon Lovett
Yeah. It's also, there's something struck, it struck me that it was the. Right before the inaugural, right. That before he'd even taken office for a second time, time he had already decided that he was going to be the most corrupt president in American history. And even saying that is an understatement, really. He was going to be as corrupt as the most corrupt autocrats in the history of the modern world. That he was already going to be a Putin level corrupt figure. And like what would happen in a normal time in a functioning civil Society. Yes, of course, there'd be impeachment hearings and his removal.
- [28:17]
Jon Favreau
But.
- [28:17]
Jon Lovett
But even maybe before that, there would be a Department of justice investigation. There would be congressional hearings, there would be outrage that would continue. That would be bipartisan. There would be Republicans going up to the White House to say that it's time to step down because the country can't survive having a president this corrupt. Those are the normal things that you could imagine happening, how this would have worked. Even into previous Republican administrations. We've never had anything this bad. And when I was a kid, I would obviously struggle with deadlines, and if I would hit a deadline, but if I missed it, I would never. Just simply would never do the work. Right. If I had a paper due on a Monday and I missed the Monday, it was like it never happened. Weeks, months, it would be a disaster.
- [28:52]
Tommy Vietor
I would do that, too.
- [28:53]
Jon Lovett
Because once you're through the. Once you're on the other side of the stake, what's the point? And I do feel like with. That's where we're at with the Republicans. They've sort of. They have their one, impeachment is the mechanism or any kind of accountability. And because that is impossible, we are kind of through that. And now Trump can do anything. Anything. There's nothing they can't look past because they've looked past so much already. And like, we talked about this all the time. It's so gobsmacking. It's so crazy. He should be impeached and removed. That is obvious. That's what should happen, but it can't. And so we sort of live in this world where there's no accountability yet.
- [29:27]
Jon Favreau
It's also. It's just like, you can't write something this outrageously corrupt. Like, you can't make something like this up. It's like a Middle Eastern autocrat who also maybe does deal with the Chinese government for, like, an American asset that has, like, incredible national security implications that you're selling out for half a billion dollars for the president. Like, what?
- [29:50]
Adrian
It's just, yeah, those chips are how.
- [29:52]
Jon Lovett
We make pictures of women with six boobs. We can't have the Chinese get control of that technology. Next thing you know, it'll be saying things.
- [29:59]
Jon Favreau
That's the problem.
- [30:00]
Jon Lovett
Terrible, mediocre writing.
- [30:03]
Tommy Vietor
I mean, the thing is, the Emiratis, like, they have a bit of a DC Halo because they throw a lot of money around to think tanks. They hire a lot of former generals to come give speeches or consult for their military. They have an ambassador who's been around For a long time, hosts a lot of events at Cafe Milano. You know, a bit of a man about town, but this is also a country that has been funding the other side of a absolutely devastating civil war in Sudan for the better part of two years. They're funding this group called the RSF that is leading to the worst humanitarian catastrophe on the planet right now. So I do think it's just worth thinking about, like, the foreign policy of the people that Trump did this deal with, because it is really gross when you kind of get past the bullshit and the glitterati fucking, you know, appetizer course at Cafe Milano and see what's actually happening.
- [30:51]
Jon Favreau
I don't know the foreign policy of any of the governments he's done deals with that he likes. That is a good foreign policy.
- [30:59]
Tommy Vietor
Any good bribes. Who's he?
- [31:00]
Jon Favreau
Yeah, who's he doing deals with around the world and for governments that they're not either, you know, repressing their own people or others or causing conflict.
- [31:08]
Tommy Vietor
He has a type, doesn't he?
- [31:09]
Jon Lovett
The tensions are with the Canada and NATO and the like. The connection to me between the Epstein story and this is like these people are buying their credibility with their conferences and their, you know, and comedy festivals in Saudi Arabia. All the people that Trump is doing dealers with, they're sort of investing in the kind of appearance of polite society to lend them credibility. And it works. People make the trip, they take the money, and they use their wealth to kind of hide the monstrousness.
- [31:42]
Jon Favreau
Yeah, I don't know if you guys saw that. Trump's also looking to steal another $10 billion from us. The American taxpayers earned it. President is suing the IRS for $10 billion with a B in damages over the leaking of his tax returns in 2019 and 2020. You might remember he's also suing the Justice Department for $230 million in damages. Seems like small potatoes now over the investigations that led to multiple grand juries indicting Trump on multiple criminal charges. And since the DOJ now does whatever Trump tells him to do, you can imagine that they may settle this case favorably for the president. Trump basically acknowledged the conflict on Saturday night when he was talking to reporters, though he seemed to just find the whole thing rather amusing. Take a listen.
- [32:26]
Donald Trump
You know, I have to work out some kind of a settlement. I'm supposed to work out a settlement with myself. I think what we'll do is do something for charity. You know, we're thinking about doing something for charity where I'll give money to charity. We can make it A substantial amount. Nobody would care because it's going to go to numerous very good charities.
- [32:45]
Jon Lovett
So he's going to steal $10 billion from the federal government and claim he's going to give it to charity? That's what he's saying right now.
- [32:50]
Tommy Vietor
But do the press conference on it in black tie. Yeah, because that's, that's, that's fitting.
- [32:53]
Jon Favreau
I think he was just kind of. He was, yeah, he was at the Alfalfa dinner Saturday night, which is a bunch of, you know, elites just fucking cracking jokes. Yeah, yeah, Cracking jokes.
- [33:02]
Tommy Vietor
Monopoly.
- [33:03]
Jon Lovett
How many people in that building were in the fucking.
- [33:05]
Jon Favreau
Fucking. That's crazy. I realize that it's. The corruption isn't quite as. Maybe it's not as brazen or as big of a deal, like globally as the UAE thing that we just talked about, but just taking $10 billion from the treasury for yourself, it's just lazy. It's, I mean, that I talk about like things that I think that would piss Americans off, like more. I mean, yes, 10 billion. You know what, you know how much a one year extension of the Affordable Care act subsidies cost? $30 billion. That is a third of the extension that they said that we apparently cannot afford. 20 million people are seeing their premiums go up and yet he wants to pay $10 billion out of the treasury to himself just so he can promise to give it to many good charities.
- [33:44]
Tommy Vietor
Could have hired more ICE guys with this.
- [33:46]
Jon Lovett
That's that. Yeah. Many other, many other possibilities. The President, United States is filing frivolous lawsuits against the United States so he.
- [33:55]
Jon Favreau
Can use his position to settle them favorably.
- [33:58]
Jon Lovett
It's again, just, he should be impeached.
- [34:01]
Bobby Pulido
And removed from office.
- [34:03]
Jon Lovett
We're just watching it unfold. When I was watching all this, the Epstein files and all the involvement of all these people inside the Trump administration, we didn't talk about. Lutnik's in there. A lot of people are in there. And then you look at the UAE case, this lawsuit, there was a. CBS got their hands on a memo and if you saw this, of the Capitol, the insurrection prosecutors wrote a memo to congressional leaders.
- [34:28]
Adrian
Do you see this?
- [34:29]
Jon Lovett
Where they recommended what Congress can do? Because DOJ will obviously not do anything to investigate the immigration abuses, to investigate ICE and detention center abuses and other things. And they laid out all these things that Congress could do, which would be about preserving records in the case of inevitable prosecutions in the future. And the point they made is there are FBI agents and federal prosecutors who have left because they're disgusted with the politicization and sort of the capture of these bureaus that would be available to do these kinds of investigations. And whether it's as part of the midterms or whether it's a part of a kind of a presidential campaign, I do think talking about how Democrats are going to declare war on corruption and put a real program of like, I think it should be PrimeTime hearings, a 911 Commission like law that kind of says, here's how we're going to investigate this abuses of the power in power, the capture of the Department of Justice, the theft by the president, the corrupt acts by the president, and create like a kind of framework for how we're going to be treating this like a really big deal in the future, whether it's in 20, whether it's while Trump is in office or after. And as part of that, bringing on prosecutors, bringing on law enforcement to help kind of lead a true kind of credible investigation through Congress, I think is what we're doing.
- [35:45]
Jon Favreau
I think Bob Mueller's up, too.
- [35:46]
Jon Lovett
Yeah, let's get that guy out of the fucking mothballs. Him and Garland can team up and it'll be a won't they or won't.
- [35:55]
Tommy Vietor
They, like a hundred years, they'll go up a case.
- [35:58]
Jon Lovett
Yeah.
- [35:59]
Tommy Vietor
You mentioned Howard Lutnick. We should just mention he said he'd cut Jeffrey Epstein off in 2005. He told a really detailed story about how he and his wife walked into the house, saw a massage table, thought it was gross, never spoke to him again. Turns out he went to the island in 2012. So good job, Mr. Letnick. I do enjoy Trump suing the IRS for these documents getting disclosed as he's having his handpicked goon Bill Pulte, use his authority at the Federal Housing Authority to dig through mortgages and try to prosecute people that Trump doesn't like. That is kind of chef's kiss. Like, in some sense, in the narrow sense. Trump has a case in this instance because you can sue the government for breaches of privacy when it comes to IRS data. Of course he should have released his taxes when he ran for office. Of course, 20 billion is a absurd amount, apparently. He's saying the $10 billion figure is a $1,000 per disclosure level that's specified in the law, multiplied by an estimate of the number of times that Trump's tax information was published or broadcast. That's how they did the math that got them to the clean 10 billion. Beloved. I was trying to think, like, similar to your point about Congress, like, doing this just suggests you've given up on political considerations in any way, because nothing could be more popular than suing for $10 billion or suing the taxpayers for $10 billion. And being on both sides of the transaction, he just clearly is so greedy that he does not care.
- [37:16]
Jon Favreau
Yes, I think he doesn't care. And I think, you know, this is like, they feel like they're throwing so much stuff at us every single day. I mean, this was like Bannon, you know, at the beginning, it was like, oh, you do three horrible things a day. And the first two, you know, they can only. People can only pay attention to one, and the other two go under the radar. Right. And I do think you're right. Like Lovett, Democrats should make a huge deal of this. I think the challenge with the hearings and the investigations is the country most people want. What's on their mind most of all is like, what are you gonna do for me? How are you gonna help me? And, like, you know, do I want a bunch of. I would just be like, we're getting all your money back. He stole a bunch of money from the country from you. He's. And he tried to sell out a bunch of the country as well. And we're getting it all back. We're getting your money back for you.
- [38:02]
Jon Lovett
I think that's good. I think that's good.
- [38:03]
Jon Favreau
We're going through the couch cushions and all the people who've gotten hurt, too. You're gonna be able to. That the government is hurt under Donald Trump because he broke the law. We're gonna make you right as well.
- [38:13]
Jon Lovett
Yeah, I think that's right. I think you'd have to tie it back to the ways in which this was ultimately about pursuing his own interest at the expense of the country. I do think any broad investigation into Trump corruption will ultimately lead to tariff decisions and the higher cost people paid. But. And then I. And I do think you'd have to then, like, really make it clear that it's about not just sort of looking back, but about the reforms you would need. Right. Because you would. And you know what? Some of this is not gonna be, like, top polling message. I think there'll be popular programs, but, no, not everything we're gonna have to do to fix our democracy is gonna be able to tie back to affordability, but, like, we gotta figure out some kind of return to independent counsel. There are reasons that was allowed to expire, but, man, what a different world we'd be living in right now if three judges could appoint an independent counsel to investigate crimes by the president. Now, they're val. I don't know if the Supreme Court, which is now believed that the president is above the law and the unitary executive, like, I don't know what happens now. Would it be it was held up in a, by like the vast majority of judges last time it was in front of the Supreme Court. Would that happen again? I don't know. But constitutional amendments around the pardon power, stepping up, congressional oversight of the administration, like a lot of steps that we should be talking about that are forward looking about preventing this kind of thing from happening again and attacking the ways in which Trump abused his office.
- [39:31]
Bobby Pulido
Office.
- [39:31]
Jon Lovett
One other just, you know, talking about inherent contempt is too late when the person who you're trying to get is already not reporting. I would like to start hearing congressional leaders start talking about the fact that whatever we do to investigate the Trump administration, that they will use, if necessary, inherent contempt to arrest and detain people who do not participate. That we need to, like Congress needs to start asserting it's, it's Article one, it's, it's first on the list. They need to start reasserting their authority and make clear that they will, if necessary, enforce subpoenas and hold people in contempt and make them testify.
- [40:06]
Jon Favreau
Yeah. And then it'll be Congress's goons versus the federal government's goons facing off.
- [40:14]
Jon Lovett
Yeah. And look, I don't know what. I just, I feel like we can't play chicken with them. And I just, we have to. And by the way, like, do I worry about that power being the hands of Republicans? Of course I do. Of course I do. But we have to assume that we can use the power effectively and make a case to the American people if we are able to win the Congress.
- [40:31]
Jon Favreau
Tommy, to your point of Trump not caring about the politics, he talked more this weekend about the gigantic new commemorative ark. Arch.
- [40:41]
Jon Lovett
Arch. It would be an arch.
- [40:42]
Bobby Pulido
Arch.
- [40:42]
Jon Favreau
Right.
- [40:42]
Jon Lovett
I think an arc would be a.
- [40:43]
Jon Favreau
Box arc, would be a golden arch. I'm thinking of the arch we've got. The golden arch. That's a French word. Yeah. So it's a new arch he's constructing on the Virginia side of the Potomac. The Washington Post reported over the weekend that the latest plan is for the monument to be 250ft tall. Of course, that's for America's 250th anniversary. Of course. Happy birthday, America.
- [41:04]
Jon Lovett
That's tall. That's a big arch.
- [41:06]
Jon Favreau
It's 150ft taller than the Lincoln Memorial, only 40ft smaller than the Capitol, the U.S. capitol. The Lincoln Memorial will Sit in the shadow of the Trump Arch. Fucking imagine. What an eyesore.
- [41:24]
Tommy Vietor
The one in St. Louis is 630ft tall.
- [41:27]
Jon Favreau
That's.
- [41:28]
Tommy Vietor
This one sounds kind of lame.
- [41:30]
Jon Lovett
Is this a good place to say that? I also think they fucked up the World War II memorial.
- [41:34]
Jon Favreau
Okay. No, it's not. It's not the place for this.
- [41:36]
Jon Lovett
I just think they didn't. I just think, like, it's. You know what? It's too fucking literal.
- [41:40]
Jon Favreau
Okay, yeah, you're one of the. Yeah, here we are just living through this emergency. But let's go back and talk about that. He also announced that he's gonna be closing the Kennedy center, whose board he now controls for two years, for a complete renovation. Who knows? Maybe it has to do with the fact that no one wants to perform there anymore. So he's like, no, no one's coming here. You know what? Then it's closed. That's it. It's done.
- [42:02]
Bobby Pulido
We can't.
- [42:03]
Jon Lovett
Yeah, my birthday party is canceled.
- [42:05]
Jon Favreau
Right? Exactly. One Kennedy center event that did still take place last week, the world premiere of Melania, the documentary. Great box office numbers. You guys see that?
- [42:15]
Tommy Vietor
I had fun. I thought it was pretty entertaining.
- [42:17]
Jon Favreau
I saw it twice, I gotta say, on the arch.
- [42:20]
Tommy Vietor
It doesn't bother me because next Democrat's gonna shut this stupid thing down, right?
- [42:24]
Jon Lovett
We can't.
- [42:25]
Jon Favreau
This is not gonna get built. It's built by then. We're bulldoze a whole arch.
- [42:27]
Tommy Vietor
I don't. How fast can you build a fucking giant arch? I have no idea.
- [42:30]
Jon Favreau
That's a good point.
- [42:30]
Tommy Vietor
Maybe it's.
- [42:31]
Jon Favreau
I would have to go up, especially one that's. I'm sorry. Taller than the Lincoln Memorial. We're making it bigger than Lincoln Memorial. Come on. This is crazy.
- [42:38]
Tommy Vietor
Matches his ego.
- [42:39]
Jon Lovett
I care less about Trump building arches that we can perhaps tear down or stop if they don't get finished. Obviously, he says he's gonna finish everything in a snap of. I don't know how the East Wing. The East Wing ballroom's going, but it seems to be slower than originally predicted. I am worried about the Kennedy center in the grand scheme of. Trump abuses. If he fucks up the Kennedy center, it's a building. We'll be okay. But they have this obsession with neoclassical architecture. Architecture that evokes the Greeks and the Romans and the sort of classic forms, and it's sort of a vaguely fascist mindse. But the Kennedy center is a beautiful place that I'm sure they don't appreciate. And then he's talked about wanting to build a Bigger entertainment complex. Have you seen this? In one of his posts, he said not only we're going to renovate the Kennedy center, we're going to build a bigger and more beautiful entertainment complex. And like that's a beautiful building.
- [43:28]
Jon Favreau
Like UFC cage match files.
- [43:31]
Jon Lovett
Yeah. And so I worry about them fudgeing that up because it's harder to fix.
- [43:34]
Jon Favreau
Oh, you worry about it? You don't think they're going to nail it? Well, I just think.
- [43:38]
Jon Lovett
Yeah, I don't think, I don't think. I don't think that the text, when.
- [43:41]
Jon Favreau
I see that colony, a little too rococo for me. When I see what they did to the, the east wing colony, I can't.
- [43:47]
Jon Lovett
Imagine, you know, because, you know, as they said in bdb, it's not baroque. Don't fix it. You know what I'm saying? No, you know, he's gonna up the Kennedy center for sure. I do prefer him focusing on architecture than. Yeah, no destruction of democracy.
- [44:02]
Jon Favreau
He should be. Yeah. If he woke up every day for the next three years and just focused on the arch, I want to see him blueprints, hard hats, like nothing else.
- [44:09]
Jon Lovett
Ribbon cuttings, anything like that is cool. Great. I agree, I agree.
- [44:13]
Jon Favreau
Melania. Biggest grossing documentary in a decade.
- [44:17]
Tommy Vietor
Highest for the non music domestic doc.
- [44:20]
Jon Favreau
Yeah, I was going to say they're very like couched because Taylor Swift's Aristor doc opened up at like, you know, 10 times that. But also, also when you spend 7, when you spend $75 million, 40 for the DOC, 35 on the marketing and you make back 8 million in the opening.
- [44:35]
Tommy Vietor
You don't make that. No, you net 3.5 because half goes to the theaters. I mean. Yeah, all it took was 35 million in marketing and relentless promotion from the most famous person in the world and current president Donald Trump to get, you know, it sounds like a bunch of old people in Trump areas went inside.
- [44:51]
Jon Favreau
Women over. Women over 55 were like 70% of the audience.
- [44:54]
Tommy Vietor
And they also, you know, those people got to say we're sticking it to like liberal Hollywood because people had started making fun of expected to be a low open.
- [45:02]
Jon Favreau
So we feel stuck.
- [45:03]
Tommy Vietor
Trump fans parting with their money to please him. No longer a surprise to me. I just, it's a bribe.
- [45:09]
Jon Lovett
I found it just so like all the. There was a couple people that all like they pride themselves on being kind of free speech warriors, sort of like tech Bros Finance guys praising the 8 million saying gotcha libs. And it's like I get that you didn't like wokeness because you thought it was about the feelings of people that you're not fans of, but your entire operation here seems to be at the feelings of Donald Trump because you seem to be involved in business. Is 75 million for a movie that.
- [45:37]
Adrian
Makes 8 good business or is that.
- [45:39]
Jon Lovett
A bribe in every fucking theater?
- [45:41]
Jon Favreau
It is funny because none of them are saying like, wow, what a great doc. And like our first lady is wonderful because they only care about being able to own the libs.
- [45:48]
Tommy Vietor
With the documentary, I'm pretty sure Melania had final cut. I mean she was like an EP on the project.
- [45:54]
Jon Favreau
Yes, she did.
- [45:54]
Tommy Vietor
It would all apparently look staged.
- [45:56]
Jon Favreau
Of course she did.
- [45:57]
Tommy Vietor
The spend coincided with Amazon firing 16,000 people this year, 14,000 more last year. The thing but for Jeff Bezos, again, like, what is the point of having fuck you money if you never say fuck you? What are you doing, man?
- [46:10]
Jon Favreau
I mean, he does say it to the Amazon workers all the time. Actually, big fuck you to the Washington Post as well. He's saying a lot of fuck yous.
- [46:17]
Tommy Vietor
Yeah, well, I guess it's just not.
- [46:18]
Jon Favreau
To anyone powerful to all society.
- [46:20]
Tommy Vietor
When we all got to see the Brett Ratner photos spill out of the Epstein files, the director of Melania was all in the press this weekend for another reason too.
- [46:28]
Jon Favreau
Another one, another one.
- [46:29]
Jon Lovett
Part of the cabal was welcoming. Was it Pete Hexa today when there's sort of a big, big kind of welcoming, he's sort of welcoming for what? Just, I think he was getting a visit to, I don't know, wherever he sends up those penis rockets, I think, but I'm not sure. Check the facts on that. But yeah, there's sort of a despicable lack of kind of moral courage on the part of our wealthiest elites. Something that has come up several times during this program. Foreign.
- [47:05]
Adrian
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Adrian
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- [50:14]
Adrian
Said.
- [50:15]
Jon Favreau
Back to your post on ICE protests. What did you mean when you said people will suffer an equal or greater.
- [50:20]
Donald Trump
Consequence if they do anything bad to our people? They will be, they will have to suffer. I'm sorry. They will get taken care of in at least an equal way. You know, you see it the way they treat our people. And I said, you're allowed. If somebody does that, you can do something back. You're not going to stand there and take it.
- [50:41]
Jon Favreau
You know, I think they already know.
- [50:43]
Tommy Vietor
That that's not how the justice system works.
- [50:44]
Jon Favreau
Yeah, they did, they did murder two people in public. So I do, I think they know that they can do whatever they want.
- [50:49]
Jon Lovett
I think you think of the original.
- [50:51]
Tommy Vietor
Yeah, that's the original eye for an eye feel.
- [50:53]
Jon Lovett
That's like, you know, that's justice.
- [50:54]
Adrian
Classic.
- [50:55]
Tommy Vietor
Yeah.
- [50:58]
Jon Favreau
Old Testament justice, literally.
- [51:01]
Tommy Vietor
Another book he has not read, but yes.
- [51:04]
Jon Favreau
How you guys feeling about the de escalation? Are we de escalating?
- [51:07]
Tommy Vietor
I interpret everything through the prism of Donald Trump. Trump, his personal reaction to seeing things on cable TV that he does not like. To the extent there are changes, it is to discourage that from happening again. Hopefully there's, it creates improvements on the margins for communities affected. But I just, I have no hope for the underlying policy as long as Trump and Stephen Miller running the show. Unfortunately, yeah, we have.
- [51:30]
Jon Lovett
Homan said there will be a reduction in forces. There's an objective way to know if they are pulling back and that's getting some of these people out of, of Minneapolis. And regardless, like I do think whatever they were planning to do after Minneapolis, I have to think that what has happened there and then Twin Cities has changed what was going to happen next. Right.
- [51:49]
Jon Favreau
Because I mean, they did cancel Maine.
- [51:51]
Jon Lovett
They canceled Maine.
- [51:52]
Jon Favreau
They need that Senate seat. Even though they all hate Susan Collins.
- [51:54]
Jon Lovett
And so Susan cancel Susan Collins got a, got a, got that word from Gnome that they were going to pull out of which they called, by the way. It was called Catch of the day. Yeah, disgusting. But, but whether there were rumors about them going to Philly and other places. We don't know, but it does seem like it has at least whatever Trump says in the moment, as Tommy said, it's like they are react. They are at least aware that they need to change the images on screen.
- [52:17]
Jon Favreau
Also, Christy Noem just announced body cams. Everyone's gonna get body cams. It's a good thing they're trying to get ahead of this now that the. They've negotiated an extra two weeks over DHS funding. And one of the, you know, one of the demands was body cams. Look, on the body cams thing, I'm like, great, fine. But we have a lot of these. We have a lot of this violence, killing and all kinds of other lawlessness by Ice on Video. And it doesn't seem to be working all that well since we barely got an investigation into Alex Preddy's death and the federal government has refused to open an investigation into Renee Goode's death.
- [52:56]
Tommy Vietor
Death.
- [52:56]
Jon Favreau
So not great. But, yeah, I mean, I think to me, this is like, keep up the pressure. Right? Because they are. They are not going to do any of this on their own. When you do pressure them and you do make a big deal out of this, you do start getting some improvements on the margins, and you can't let up, because if you let up, they will just go right back to doing what they do. And, you know, all the pressure in the world is still not going to solve the problem, but at least it's going to make some improvement.
- [53:25]
Jon Lovett
Yeah, I also would say that body cams are also on when would be on in places where people no longer have their phones. Right. There'll be a lot. And so. And there was a report out of the Twin Cities about somebody that was brought to a hospital. He had terrible injuries to his face and injuries to his brain, like multiple fractures. And the federal agents claimed he had run into a wall. All the nurses and health providers denied that, didn't think that. Well, or at least felt that seemed not credible, including someone else. They had not kept their stories straight. And so we just have no idea what's going on behind closed doors. A lot of reports about what's happening in these detention facilities that are awful. And so body cams.
- [54:15]
Tommy Vietor
Well, in the body cams, you need mandatory activation of the body cameras. You need some sort of, like, clear rules around retention of the footage and access to it. So, like, there's a lot of ways to kind of just slap a body cam on someone to mean nothing. I think that the results are mixed regardless, but at least there's transparency. Hopefully, if done right, well, to your.
- [54:34]
Jon Lovett
Point, like the no amount of reform. No, no, no protections will work if law. If the federal agents know that their bosses will protect him even when they break the law, which is why you have them lying. And what you can't trust what's coming out of ice, you can't trust Gnome. So. So yeah, the main problem is. Well, one major problem, regardless of what we get through law, is the fact that their leadership will defend these people even if they commit terrible crimes against people.
- [55:02]
Jon Favreau
One piece of good news out of Minnesota is that 5 year old Liam Conejo Ramos and his father Adrian are back home with their mother and brother after a federal judge ordered them to be immediately released from a Texas detention facility. In a scathing ruling that accused the government of cruelty, lawlessness and traumatizing children. Texas Congressman Joaquin Castro, who had visited Liam and Adrian last week, personally accompanied them home. Unfortunately, Liam's case is in no way isolated. The New York Times reports over the weekend that at least 3,800 children under 18, including 20 infants, were arrested and detained by federal agents last year. Since March of last year, more than 1700 children have been stuck in detention centers. What'd you guys make of the judge's ruling and whether all of this might help help other children who are being detained under just horrific conditions right now?
- [55:51]
Tommy Vietor
I mean I, I think all of us felt like this is one of the more sickening stories you've seen in a while. Locals say ICE tried to use this kid as a bait. DHS was like attacking his father repeatedly. He's a pending asylum claim. It sounds like these people are trying to come to the country the right way. Like Liam is out, thank God, because of a massive outcry and because of attention to his case. Like shout out to Congressman Castro that that's incredible what he did. Like exactly how you should be using your power in this moment to draw attention to issues and also get change at the margins. But we can't replicate that in all these cases. And there's horror stories of people in detention, of ICE or CBP detention in places all across the country. It's so fucked up that they were picked up in Minnesota, they take them to Texas, then they've been releasing people in Texas who have no connections there. How the hell are you supposed to get back home? You're just a migrant, you have no money, you have no connections, you don't know anyone there. Maybe you don't have your phone. So I don't know. I'm glad to see this little kid is out God knows what trauma will stick with him for life.
- [56:52]
Jon Favreau
I mean, when Congressman Castro visited last week, his report after visiting to everyone was that Liam was depressed. He was sleeping the whole time he was there. He was sick. And now we find out that the Dilley Immigration center in Texas where Liam was being held, there's now a measles outbreak there. So it's real. HHS and DHS really working together to fuck up the country on this one.
- [57:16]
Jon Lovett
Yeah. When Trump did family separation, they never successfully reunited with hundreds of families, lots of kids with their families. A lot of the stories you're hearing are from citizens whose spouses are non citizens and they're safely in the country. They can call lawyers, they can get help, but there are people that have no connections once they're picked up, and they are just in the system silent. We have no idea what's going on with them. And we know that they're making mistakes, that they're losing track of people that are not able to keep the records. I mean, they're standing up a mass deportation program as quickly as they can with a bunch of incompetent doofs on the ones and twos. So it's just an absolutely. It's a mix of kind of cruelty and like, the malevolence of it combined with just a gross incompetence across the board, knowing that they will. That as long as the Republicans are in power, they will never face accountability for it.
- [58:05]
Jon Favreau
I don't know if you guys caught the Star Tribune story about the conditions inside the federal detention center in Minneapolis. I think it's Whippold. I think you guys visited. Right? But there are reports of one meal a day, overflowing toilets, denial of medical care, cells so crowded that people had to take turns lying down because there was enough room for everyone to sleep. And, you know, the Trump administration continues to try to. To ban lawmakers from surprise visits to detention centers. A judge, once again, just blocked that policy. Judges keep saying no. The law says that they can go whenever they want. They're members of Congress. And the Trump administration just pretends it's not the law because for what we were saying earlier, right, like, there's no. No cameras inside there. Right. No one's filming with their phones. There's no body cam. So we don't know what's happening in the detention centers. They're also buying up new warehouses all across the country because they want to, like, build more of these detention centers. They're treating people like absolute fucking dog shit in. I mean, I think 32 people died in ICE custody last year, 17 in Customs and Border Patrol custody. And in January alone of this year, six people have already died.
- [59:07]
Jon Lovett
There was that other case where the administration was claiming it was suicide, but the evidence suggests it might not be a suicide. And.
- [59:12]
Jon Favreau
No. The coroner, the autopsy.
- [59:16]
Jon Lovett
Autopsy, yeah, that it wasn't a suicide. So, like, we're just. We're not getting the truth out of these places. They want the notice because, you know, it's like a Jesus come and look busy situation. Like, they want to have a chance to. To be ready for any inspections. And I just would wonder if, like, to people that would defend the administration on this. What if Cheesecake Factory announced that they'd only allow health inspections with a week notice? Do you think that you would want to go eat there?
- [59:37]
Tommy Vietor
No. And corporations are making a lot of money. I mean, the Financial Times reported that companies including Palantir and Deloitte have collectively made more than $22 billion in contracts at the heart of the Ice Crackdown.
- [59:48]
Jon Favreau
So I think, like you said, Castro going like, more Democrats should visit these detention centers. I think that's a good. It is a good use of your power right now. So we haven't had a chance to talk about Trump's DOJ arresting Don Lemon on Friday, along with another independent journalist named Georgia Fort and several activists, all of whom were charged in connection with the January 18 anti ice protest at a Minnesota church. You'll remember that both a magistrate judge and a federal judge refused to sign off on the government's initial attempt to get an arrest warrant for Lemon and his producer with a federal judge ruling, quote, there is no evidence that those two engaged in any criminal behavior or conspired to do so. But here we are. How big of a deal is this when the.
- [60:29]
Jon Lovett
The Department of Justice is arresting people for doing journalism using a kind of specious application of a law because the. The Attorney general is a tool of the president, and regardless of whether the case is upheld, just trying to get a good news cycle to stay in his good graces. Like we are in. In such a dangerous place. Pam Bondi is so. Is just such an empty vessel. What a complete morally vacuum. It's just an empty, empty shell of a human being. And so you just look at what Pam Bondi's willing to do, and I just don't think there's a bottom. I think she's worried about public embarrassment. I think she's worried about what Trump thinks. I think she's worried about bad headlines, but she has no ethical compunctions Nothing will stop her from being so just.
- [61:16]
Jon Favreau
Like her friend and colleague Kristi Noem.
- [61:19]
Jon Lovett
Pete Hegseth and Stephen Miller and all.
- [61:22]
Jon Favreau
Yeah, they'.
- [61:22]
Tommy Vietor
That's why you pick a bunch of middling, incompetent fucking mediocrity is to run your agencies. I think it's a huge deal. Don Lemon might get out. He, A judge might toss this case. It's an obvious First Amendment violation, but the process is the punishment. It's scary, it's expensive, it's intimidating, and it's not happening in a vacuum. The feds raided a Washington Post reporter's house recently. They took her devices. The Pentagon is forcing its press corps to basically try to try to get them to sign rules that said they'd run stories by them before reporting. He's suing half the press corps, or he's intimidating people to make better coverage. I mean, now the TikTok US operations are owned by a bunch of Trump lackeys. Like, the state of the free press in this country is going in a bad direction.
- [62:05]
Jon Favreau
The indictment is ridiculous, too, because it's like, you know, basically what they have to prove because they're charging the Face act, which says that you. It was originally for abortion clinics, for processing outside abortion clinics, but it's also for churches as well. Right. Like, you can't. And it says it makes it a crime to use force, threats, or physical obstruction to intentionally interfere with anyone seeking to exercise their right of religious freedom at a house of worship or to intentionally damage the property. Right. And so it's not trespassing. Right. Like you have a trespassing case if you say, okay, this is a private church, People came into the church. We told them to leave, they wouldn't leave. Trespassing. That's not what they're charging here. They're charging the Face Act. Right. And so to make that stick, you have to. You can't say that Don Lemon just came into the church with the protesters. You have to say that Don Lemon was threatening and obstructing and all this kind of stuff. And so they have these. The indictment reads like. And then he just starts. Starts, like peppering the pastor with questions, threateningly with the questions.
- [62:59]
Jon Lovett
If he, like, menacingly puts his hand out.
- [63:01]
Jon Favreau
And the right is, you know, I saw Scott Jennings tweeted this, but he was like, oh, so Democrats position now is that if you are holding your phone up and filming something, that you can break any law, because then you just call yourself a journalist. It's like, no.
- [63:14]
Tommy Vietor
Oh, come on, man.
- [63:15]
Jon Favreau
That Is they were like, he shouldn't have just. He shouldn't have charged into the church. And it's like, again, there's like a. There's lesser charges and there's lesser things to do to someone who walk into a church who is clearly interviewing the pastor, the other officials, everyone say that, like, he was physically obstructing and threatening them.
- [63:33]
Jon Lovett
It's such a ridiculous defense, because if Pam Bondi had not charged Don Lemon with this, it wouldn't be like he was on the outside being like, pam Bondi should charge him with this. It would never have occurred to anyone a million years.
- [63:42]
Jon Favreau
Well, and the other thing is, how many ridiculous. How many departments of Justice. Right. When a magistrate judge refuse to issue the criminal warrant and then it gets kicked up to a federal judge, first of all, what Department of Justice would say, oh, the magistrate judge said, no criminal, no arrest warrant. We really want to get this person. So we're gonna go up and we're gonna appeal it. So then they appeal it to a federal judge, and the federal judge is like, no, there's no evidence for this whatsoever. And then the Department of Justice is like, fuck that federal judge. We're going to a grand jury where we know we can get an indictment much easier because the defense doesn't have to offer any kind of evidence whatsoever.
- [64:16]
Tommy Vietor
You're not there for. You're not even president.
- [64:17]
Jon Favreau
There's no judge there at all. So we'll go that route. Like, that is the authoritarian nature of what they're doing. Right? Like continuing to look for ways to arrest Don Lemon even after multiple judges and federal prosecutors have quit over this, too. There's another eight federal prosecutors, by the way, who just broke before we recorded, who were in the Minnesota office who are quitting as well.
- [64:37]
Jon Lovett
It's the core. It's the core distinction. You find a crime. Crime, and then you look for the person who perpetrated it.
- [64:42]
Jon Favreau
Yeah.
- [64:43]
Jon Lovett
You don't find a person and then look for the crime that they committed. They are doing. That is what they do. That is Pam Bondi's main role. I think it might have something to do with why the DOJ is having to recruit on Twitter now, because they. Everywhere, every time they try to do one of these things, a bunch of people quit. And they are trying to figure out how to replace career and seasoned professional prosecutors with bozo goons from the.
- [65:01]
Jon Favreau
If you. If you're a blue check, who's ever posted Pepe the Frog, come. Come join the Department of Justice. We need you.
- [65:07]
Jon Lovett
And by the way, Explicitly saying, if you support President Trump.
- [65:10]
Jon Favreau
Yeah.
- [65:11]
Jon Lovett
And our crime agenda, anti crime agenda.
- [65:13]
Tommy Vietor
Well, really, I had to write the.
- [65:16]
Jon Lovett
First time, but yeah, like just absolutely going.
- [65:18]
Jon Favreau
Not to be outdone by Pam Bondi, Tulsi Gabbard is also out there trying to score points with Trump in the MAGA media world. Last week, Dan and I talked about the FBI raid on the Fulton county elections office in Georgia, where a photo showed Tulsi talking on the phone in a baseball cap. Like a.
- [65:33]
Jon Lovett
It's really ominous.
- [65:34]
Tommy Vietor
Yeah, real ominous.
- [65:35]
Jon Lovett
Seeing the head of the head of National Intelligence.
- [65:37]
Tommy Vietor
It's like you're trying to be kind of trying to hide, but you're not doing a very good job of it. Spy chief, like, baseball hat. Just stay out of the picture. It's not that hard.
- [65:45]
Jon Favreau
So now we know. The New York Times reports on Monday that the day after the raid, Tulsi facilitated a call between some of those same FBI agents and Donald Trump himself. They got a direct line right to the President. The call was short, according to a U.S. official who, quote, compared the conversation to a pep rally or a coach giving an encouraging halftime speech to his players. Isn't that wonderful? This is not the. It's not the only Gabbard story in the news, though. The Wall Street Journal reported on Monday that a U.S. intelligence official has filed a whistleblower complaint alleging wrongdoing on Gabbard's part that is supposedly so highly classified that the complaint is kept locked in a safe. And it allegedly implicates another federal agency as well, who would like to take a stab at what the hell Tulsi Gabbard has been up to.
- [66:30]
Tommy Vietor
Sure, I'd love to. So I think the key to understanding what Tulsi is doing up to in both these cases is, is if you think back to last year, March of 2025, Tulsi testifies for Congress and she says Iran has not decided to get a nuclear weapon. A few months later, Trump decides he wants to bomb anyway. He's asked about her comments and he says, I don't care what she thinks. A couple days later, she revises her views so that the intelligence case matches Donald Trump's opinion. It's best practices in the retail world. Fast forward to January 1, 2026, first day of this year. Tulsi posts a photo of herself on the beach in Hawaii doing yoga.
- [67:03]
Jon Favreau
Yoga.
- [67:03]
Tommy Vietor
And then two days later, the United States invades Venezuela. She was completely cut out of the planning of that operation. I think she's seen that she is like on the outs With Trump, doesn't want to get fired.
- [67:13]
Jon Lovett
Not much of a warrior post.
- [67:14]
Tommy Vietor
Yeah, she's hemorrhage. She's hemorrhaged her policy principle. She was an anti regime change person. Right. That was her big thing. She served in Iraq, didn't want regime change wars, hence supporting Trump. Fine with those now. So now she's like, whatever. I do think there's a deep state. I'm fine being like the fraud czar. That the IG Report thing is. Is crazy. I think, like, my total speculation guess is that there is some intelligence that implicates someone close to Trump. Like a hypothetical one is you could imagine a whistleblower talking about Jared Kushner who doesn't have a clearance, not part of the government getting access to intelligence information or sharing intelligence information with foreign officials, or Steve Wyckoff for flying around the world and negotiating with Vladimir Putin on WhatsApp or whatever the hell he's doing. And, like, the reason it could be so sensitive is maybe we learned about this through collection on the other countries. And it's so sensitive. I'm making all this up. Like, this is just purely hypothetical, but it's really weird.
- [68:11]
Jon Favreau
It's really weird.
- [68:12]
Tommy Vietor
And she has an obligation when there is a whistleblower complaint like this to brief it to Congress. And I think two weeks after receiving it, and they haven't done that. And that's a huge breach.
- [68:23]
Jon Lovett
Yeah. It's not an avocado. It's not like they're waiting for it to ripen. It's not like the information in the that safe is getting less inconvenient for them. And what's strange in the story is you see that they're kind of trying to figure out a way around sharing some of it they were flirting with, talking about executive privilege and other ways of getting out of sharing all of it with Congress. But the sort of the lamentation like, we don't know what to do with this thing.
- [68:48]
Tommy Vietor
Follow the law. Right.
- [68:49]
Jon Lovett
Show it to Congress.
- [68:49]
Tommy Vietor
You don't have a choice.
- [68:51]
Jon Favreau
Also, just not for nothing, but the President of the United States talking through the intelligence director directly to the FBI agents who participated in a raid on a county elections office in which the president himself has been implicated in a crime way back a couple seasons ago. Right. That he's now trying to cover up or do whatever.
- [69:17]
Tommy Vietor
Imagine Avril Haines, Joe Biden's dni, being at the Mar A Lago Ray, tossing her phone on speaker, and Joey gives an attaboy to the troops there, you know, raiding Melania's underwear drawer or wherever.
- [69:27]
Jon Favreau
The fuck they are. Not even, like, not even going to get Alex Jones Fever dream. Right. They're just going right over the whole chain of command and the FBI just. Right. It's just the agents on the ground. Trump wants to. Because he's a, he's like, it's like a coach during halftime.
- [69:39]
Jon Lovett
Yeah, it's wishful thinking. Yeah, it's wishful thinking to think this is part of a cover up. I think this is sort of a drumming up of something new and fake. Yeah, this is about this. I think this is about future election theft, not past election theft.
- [69:49]
Jon Favreau
Well, it's both, because for him, he wants to. We got to set the record straight about 2020 and we got to make some arrests. So then we go. Then we can go to the future too.
- [69:57]
Jon Lovett
Yeah, you're right.
- [69:57]
Tommy Vietor
He said something today to Dan Bongino, who was until recently the deputy director of the FBI about federalizing elections in 15 of the crooked states or something like that. So, yeah, he's got it on the mind.
- [70:09]
Jon Lovett
Yeah, he's been on that beat. He's been on that beat. So, yeah, they will take whatever they found. They will use it to claim that this is the reason they need some pretext for some, some, some takeover.
- [70:19]
Tommy Vietor
He said we should take over the voting in at least 15 places. The Republicans ought to nationalize the voting because we have states that are so crooked.
- [70:25]
Jon Lovett
Well, the worse the polling gets, I think the more animated this project becomes.
- [70:29]
Jon Favreau
They have good reason to worry because on Saturday, Democrats flipped a Trump +17 state Senate seat in Texas, winning it by roughly 14 points. That is a 31 point swing. The Democratic candidate, Taylor Remitt, a union president and Air Force veteran, defeated the Trump backed candidate, Lee Wambsgands.
- [70:48]
Jon Lovett
I know, I saw any relation. I was like, I saw the name Wambsgands. I was like, how is that even possible? That was a made up comedy name.
- [70:55]
Jon Favreau
Yeah, the Dutch name.
- [70:58]
Tommy Vietor
Yeah.
- [70:58]
Jon Favreau
It was a runoff for the 9th district around Fort Worth. Again, this is a state Senate district, but about a million people in that district. So big district. The day before and the day of the election, Trump had posted to Truth Social in support of Wambsgans, giving her his cherished endorsement and calling her phenomenal and a quote, true MAGA warrior. But here's how Trump reacted to her loss on Sunday.
- [71:20]
Jon Lovett
Democrat won the special election in an.
- [71:23]
Adrian
Area that you had won by 17 points. What is your reaction to that?
- [71:26]
Tommy Vietor
I don't know.
- [71:27]
Donald Trump
I didn't hear about it. Somebody ran where In Texas special election.
- [71:31]
Jon Lovett
For legislators, the ninth state Senate seat.
- [71:33]
Donald Trump
I'm not involved in that. That's a local Texas race. You mean I won by 17 and the. This person lost. Things like that happen.
- [71:44]
Jon Lovett
It's true.
- [71:44]
Jon Favreau
They do happen.
- [71:45]
Tommy Vietor
Things do happen.
- [71:46]
Jon Favreau
Might happen a lot more. What do you guys think about the. A lot of hype around this Overhyped, underhyped. What do you think?
- [71:52]
Jon Lovett
I think. Well, I saw people making a Senate map where if this, if we see if we have a.
- [71:56]
Jon Favreau
Did they.
- [71:56]
Jon Lovett
Yeah, Senate map where if there's a swing of 31 points or roughly 31 points, it would mean Democrats would be able to get to 59 or more, get to 60 Senate.
- [72:05]
Jon Favreau
So I mean, straightforward from here.
- [72:07]
Jon Lovett
Fun to think about. Look, look, whatever the implications of a specific special election at a moment of just absolute kind of Trump doldrums and sort of dissatisfaction in the country. And like, the question I had about it was though, like, is there really something happening with like between Alex Preddy, the anti second Amendment stuff, the turn against ice, the lack of focus on affordability, the endless headlines about Trump taking over the Kennedy center and building arches. Like, is there something deeper happening? Is there an actual sort of weakness in his. Not base of support, but whatever the two columns over, is that real and could it be lasting? Is this a low watermark or is it the beginning of a real unraveling? I just don't think we know.
- [72:51]
Tommy Vietor
Yeah, I was thrilled to see Tom Wambsgan's in Death by Lightning, which I watched one episode of.
- [72:56]
Jon Favreau
Isn't it great?
- [72:57]
Adrian
It's about the president.
- [72:58]
Jon Lovett
Kenny.
- [72:58]
Tommy Vietor
Quite good. Yeah.
- [72:59]
Jon Favreau
Garfield.
- [73:00]
Adrian
But really was the doctors.
- [73:01]
Jon Lovett
The doctors digging around in there. The doctors dug. Doctors dug around in there.
- [73:07]
Tommy Vietor
I talked to Bobby Polito about this, Rick, in the interview today. First of all, everyone check it out. He's really cool. He was in town to go to the Grammys because he was Grammy nominated.
- [73:15]
Jon Lovett
That's where the traffic lights.
- [73:15]
Jon Favreau
Be careful. That's where they get you. Don Lemon, let's ask Don Lemon about.
- [73:18]
Tommy Vietor
That very interesting guy. Not your traditional congressional candidate, but like, you know, I was talking to him about his district and you know, the gerrymander that's happened in Texas and whether he thinks that Republicans may have over, over torqued it. And he feels pretty optimistic that they have over assumed their ongoing support with Latino voters in particular. And, you know, this, you know, state Senate seat is one little indication of that. But there might be a broader set of numbers coming our way.
- [73:47]
Jon Favreau
At least three of the five seats that they Squeezed out of there in the, in their gerrymander I think could be at risk.
- [73:53]
Jon Lovett
Now I was, listen, I wanted to.
- [73:55]
Adrian
Say that they've over gerrymandered.
- [73:57]
Jon Lovett
Then I was told that that was.
- [73:58]
Adrian
Wishful thinking and now it's back to not being just wishful thinking. There was a consensus. There was a.
- [74:06]
Jon Favreau
Was it nimby Twitter?
- [74:07]
Jon Lovett
Not Nimby Twitter. Don't get me started on nimby Twitter. Unbelievable what's happening with nimby Twitter here in Los Angeles. But the point I was making is only that I think, are we back into saying that they may have over gerrymandered, that it's back to being possible because it was seen as Pollyanna for a while. That's all I'm saying it was.
- [74:26]
Tommy Vietor
You were so right so early.
- [74:29]
Jon Lovett
I didn't know. I'm not saying I knew to your.
- [74:31]
Jon Favreau
Point about something deeper happening. So this was a right runoff this election. The first election was in November. So the same district and all the Republican candidates combined versus the Democratic candidates combined. It was GOP plus five. So that was good enough for Democrats. That was plus five in a Trump 17 plus 17 district. And this was then 14 points. So there was another like 20 point swing just between November and, and what is it, February?
- [75:02]
Tommy Vietor
And the Republican had way more money outspent.
- [75:06]
Jon Favreau
And so now turnout was low, right? Turnout was about probably a third of what, seven people. Yeah, right now. So it was about 100,000 voters. It's about a third of what you'll get. Maybe people in Texas who know this kind of stuff estimate for the midterms about a third of what you'll get and you know, lower for a special. But it wasn't low. And then like highly concentrated Democrat it was because about 50% plus of the voters were Republican primary voters. So that means that the Democrat won by a lot of Republicans or a lot of independents especially. And some Republicans deciding to change their votes, which is huge.
- [75:43]
Tommy Vietor
Well, luckily today in the Texas Senate race everything seems copacetic. Everyone involved in that primary. God, look, I think no one is posting videos.
- [75:52]
Jon Favreau
I think it's important to take random tiktoks and then decide that they're gospel.
- [75:55]
Tommy Vietor
For those who don't know, we're talking about. There seems to be some sort of beef between James Talariki, go, the former candidate in the race, I don't know.
- [76:02]
Jon Favreau
And Colin Allred and Colin, who we really like.
- [76:05]
Tommy Vietor
He's been on the show. Cool guy. I don't know what's happening down there. I wish they would Just pick up the phone, talk on the phone.
- [76:10]
Jon Favreau
Yeah. One thing we should do is win the Texas Senate race. And so that's just. That's just something everyone should be thinking about. That would be.
- [76:16]
Tommy Vietor
I love to.
- [76:16]
Jon Favreau
Or at least try. Try. Right. We should not try to win. Maybe. Maybe not throw the race before it happens. That's one thing that we should think about.
- [76:23]
Jon Lovett
I don't know.
- [76:24]
Jon Favreau
I don't know. It's just. Just a thought. We do need it. We do need it.
- [76:27]
Tommy Vietor
We do like to win that one.
- [76:28]
Jon Lovett
Oh, my God.
- [76:29]
Jon Favreau
It was just a new Texas. We need to get those electoral votes someday, too.
- [76:33]
Tommy Vietor
Also, one day.
- [76:34]
Jon Lovett
One day those Texas electoral votes are going to come along.
- [76:36]
Jon Favreau
Yeah.
- [76:37]
Jon Lovett
Everybody losing with the football.
- [76:38]
Jon Favreau
And if they don't, there won't be a Democratic president.
- [76:40]
Jon Lovett
Hey, hey, hey. There won't be, even if. Either way. So.
- [76:44]
Jon Favreau
Just saying there's a downs.
- [76:45]
Jon Lovett
Don't blame Texas.
- [76:47]
Tommy Vietor
Speaking of Democratic presidents, as we were recording, Bill and Hillary Clinton agreed to testify in the House Oversight Committee's investigation into Jeffrey Epstein.
- [76:53]
Jon Favreau
I heard that. I heard they. They rejected them.
- [76:56]
Jon Lovett
Now they don't want them.
- [76:57]
Jon Favreau
Yeah, they still want to. They want to go forward with contempt.
- [77:00]
Jon Lovett
It's like, hey, guys, take a win.
- [77:04]
Tommy Vietor
Can you see?
- [77:04]
Jon Lovett
You belong together.
- [77:06]
Tommy Vietor
Yeah.
- [77:06]
Jon Lovett
It's like, also, by the way, James Comer, listen, I know it sounds like I'm a partisan Democrat and I am, but, like, how would some fucking inherent contempt feel right now, huh? Put a little pep in your step, huh? James Comer.
- [77:16]
Jon Favreau
I'm sure that's where they were headed.
- [77:17]
Jon Lovett
A couple sergeant arms.
- [77:18]
Jon Favreau
I'm sure that's what they. I'm sure. Maybe that's why they're rejecting it.
- [77:20]
Jon Lovett
Honestly, I don't arrest him no matter what.
- [77:22]
Jon Favreau
They're going to show up at the hearing at the schedule time and the schedule room, and they're still going to arrest.
- [77:26]
Jon Lovett
I don't like the cut of your jib. Arrest them.
- [77:28]
Tommy Vietor
And then Trump's going to do a conference call with. With the whole room.
- [77:31]
Jon Favreau
Yeah. Until. Don't. Kelsey's going to be there anyway. When we come back, we will have Tommy's interview with congressional candidate Bobby Polito.
- [77:47]
Adrian
This podcast is sponsored by Strawberry Me.
- [77:50]
Jon Lovett
Let me ask you something. You think LeBron, Patrick, Mahomes or Serena got to the goat status by guess?
- [77:55]
Adrian
No.
- [77:56]
Tommy Vietor
No coaching.
- [77:57]
Jon Lovett
They had coaching and some talent and a lot of talent. You know, there's an interesting. There's an interesting paradox. I don't know if you call it a paradox, but there's a statistical thing that emerges that confuses people about the interplay between training and talent when you look at high high performance athletes. Because when you pull out the high performance athletes and you do the. The comparison between training and talent, it looks as though the training is not helpful. But it's only a kind of statistical anomaly that naturally emerges from when you look at high talented people in a way that I'm not gonna spend any.
- [78:28]
Adrian
More time on because this is an.
- [78:30]
Jon Lovett
Ad for coaching Strawberry me. Strawberry Me.
- [78:34]
Tommy Vietor
Who does Patrick Mahomes play for?
- [78:35]
Adrian
Quick.
- [78:38]
Tommy Vietor
Keep it in.
- [78:39]
Jon Lovett
I don't know.
- [78:40]
Tommy Vietor
Chiefs.
- [78:40]
Jon Lovett
Chiefs? Yeah, Chiefs.
- [78:42]
Tommy Vietor
His teammate dates Taylor Swift.
- [78:44]
Jon Lovett
I know about that. I know about Travis and the brother.
- [78:47]
Adrian
They have a good relationship.
- [78:49]
Jon Lovett
But Strawberry me.
- [78:50]
Adrian
My. My favorite coach is Coach Kerr because he was on PODC America.
- [78:54]
Jon Lovett
Dan interviewed him once, remember?
- [78:55]
Tommy Vietor
No, that was Steve Kerr.
- [78:57]
Jon Favreau
Wait, who's.
- [78:57]
Jon Lovett
Who'd I say?
- [78:59]
Tommy Vietor
I thought you meant Coach K. Oh.
- [79:00]
Jon Favreau
No, the Duke guy. He's right.
- [79:03]
Bobby Pulido
Coach Kerr is Coach Kerr.
- [79:06]
Jon Lovett
Sorry. Okay, sure. I thought you meant Coach K. Who's Coach K?
- [79:10]
Tommy Vietor
Yeah, Duke guy.
- [79:11]
Jon Favreau
CA is a huge lib.
- [79:13]
Tommy Vietor
He's a huge lib. Sorry, I. You know what? I. I wrongly fact checked you.
- [79:16]
Adrian
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Jon Lovett
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Adrian
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Jon Lovett
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- [79:39]
Adrian
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- [79:41]
Jon Lovett
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Adrian
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- [80:45]
Tommy Vietor
He's a Latin Grammy winner and a Tejano music icon, currently running for Congress in Texas's 15th district. Welcome to Pod Save America. Bobby Polito, great to see you in person.
- [80:55]
Bobby Pulido
Thank. Yes, in person. Yes, we were. Most people don't know what Tejano is, so if you're white or black and not Hispanic, you're like, what is that? Well, yeah, it's kind of like Silver Selena. So I tell everybody it's what Selena did.
- [81:08]
Jon Favreau
I want to hear a lot more.
- [81:10]
Tommy Vietor
About, about the music piece of this because you're. You're in town because you went to the Grammys last night in person in Los Angeles, right?
- [81:18]
Bobby Pulido
Correct. I was nominated.
- [81:19]
Tommy Vietor
How'd it go?
- [81:20]
Bobby Pulido
I lost.
- [81:21]
Tommy Vietor
I'm sorry.
- [81:22]
Bobby Pulido
It happens.
- [81:22]
Tommy Vietor
Is that okay? Is it just. Is it a thrill to be nominated?
- [81:25]
Bobby Pulido
I've lost more than I've won, that's for sure. And I think most have. I mean, you saw most of these people, you see, you see like Lady Gaga going against Justin Bieber and other titans. Only one wins.
- [81:37]
Tommy Vietor
Right, right.
- [81:38]
Bobby Pulido
And so, so it's, it's a very hard award to win.
- [81:41]
Tommy Vietor
Do the competitive juices flow when you, when you're up there?
- [81:45]
Bobby Pulido
You know what? I won two Latin Grammys. Latin Grammys, which is a little. Not the American Grammy. And it's really more pressure when they expect you to win than when you're not expecting to win.
- [81:56]
Tommy Vietor
Right, right.
- [81:57]
Bobby Pulido
Because like, if you're not expected to.
- [81:59]
Tommy Vietor
Win, like, who cares?
- [81:59]
Bobby Pulido
Who cares? I wasn't supposed to win anyway.
- [82:01]
Jon Lovett
Right.
- [82:02]
Bobby Pulido
Yeah, but if you're supposed to win and you.
- [82:04]
Tommy Vietor
Yeah, that's true. Yeah. Yeah. There's no expectations. Like you, you know, don't write a speech, you have a couple too many drinks, then you have a good time when you get up there and you know, kind of see, okay, it's work.
- [82:15]
Jon Lovett
You were.
- [82:15]
Tommy Vietor
We were chatting on the way in.
- [82:16]
Bobby Pulido
Yeah.
- [82:17]
Tommy Vietor
You were telling me that no matter what the event is, it's work. But like. Okay, so I didn't watch last night because I was dealing with a three year old and a one year old.
- [82:26]
Jon Lovett
Okay.
- [82:28]
Tommy Vietor
I'm like a sporadic award show watcher. The ones where there. It's lots of long speeches. Yeah, that seems very boring to me. But the Grammys, it's like a really cool, interesting concert every time.
- [82:40]
Bobby Pulido
It was a good show. I liked it. I'm an old school guy. So I like. I like the older artists. I don't really know the. The younger artists.
- [82:48]
Jon Favreau
Right.
- [82:49]
Bobby Pulido
So I really like. See Lady Gaga. I thought she was great, you know, Bruno Mars, I thought that was great at, you know, Post Malone singing with the. With Slash and like. That's cool.
- [83:00]
Jon Favreau
That is cool.
- [83:01]
Bobby Pulido
Yeah, that's. That's cool.
- [83:02]
Tommy Vietor
They do a good job, like, m. Mixing, matching.
- [83:04]
Bobby Pulido
Yeah, Yeah.
- [83:05]
Tommy Vietor
I hate that feeling, though, when all of a sudden you don't know what the kids are listening to.
- [83:09]
Jon Favreau
I feel like my brain, the older.
- [83:10]
Tommy Vietor
I get is kind of like, hardening. It's like getting new music in there until stick. I guess if you see someone in. In concert, like, that's when you create an experience. I think that creates that, like, memory that.
- [83:21]
Bobby Pulido
But, you know, there's so much talent, man. They're all talented. There's no slouches, is there? Everybody's good.
- [83:26]
Tommy Vietor
Yeah. And they work their asses off that also, too.
- [83:29]
Jon Lovett
Yeah.
- [83:29]
Tommy Vietor
A lot of. A lot of bloody fingertips on the guitar over. Yeah.
- [83:32]
Bobby Pulido
Lots of hours of practice and stuff. But people don't realize, like, how. How hard it is to walk and to be in an award ceremony with your wife.
- [83:41]
Jon Favreau
Why is that?
- [83:42]
Bobby Pulido
Because she's got to wear high heels. Because that's what they say. That looks good. But she's got to walk like 10,000 miles right. That day.
- [83:48]
Tommy Vietor
Yeah.
- [83:48]
Bobby Pulido
And she's complaining and she's in pain, and I would be.
- [83:52]
Jon Lovett
I would.
- [83:52]
Bobby Pulido
I mean, it's work.
- [83:54]
Jon Favreau
Did you wear boots?
- [83:55]
Bobby Pulido
I wore boots and a hat and all leather.
- [83:57]
Jon Favreau
Okay.
- [83:58]
Bobby Pulido
Like the S and M version of the cowboy.
- [84:02]
Jon Favreau
Which.
- [84:02]
Tommy Vietor
That is exactly what we need, I think, to win a congressional seat in Texas. All right, let's talk some politics. So a Democrat just won a major special election victory in Texas over the weekend. They flipped a Texas Senate district that Trump won by 17 points in 2024. And I think this was against, like, a much better funded opponent. Right. On the Republican side.
- [84:23]
Bobby Pulido
Yes. Correct.
- [84:23]
Tommy Vietor
What do you think happened in, like, is it irresponsible to read tea leaves and try to divine what this says about 2026?
- [84:30]
Bobby Pulido
I think a little bit of both.
- [84:31]
Rocket Money Sponsor
Okay.
- [84:32]
Bobby Pulido
There is a. It's good news. Yeah, it really is, because, I mean, Trump won my district by 17.9 points.
- [84:39]
Tommy Vietor
Oh, interesting.
- [84:40]
Jon Favreau
Wow.
- [84:40]
Bobby Pulido
Right? So don't think for a minute I wasn't looking at this and going like, okay, I want to see how this goes.
- [84:44]
Tommy Vietor
You're like, here's that 0.9.
- [84:45]
Bobby Pulido
I did not expect. Expect him to win by 14 points. I thought he may eek it out. This is a big deal. And then if you look in the Hispanic districts, he overperformed Kamala by 40 to 50 points.
- [85:01]
Jon Favreau
What?
- [85:02]
Tommy Vietor
40 to 50?
- [85:03]
Bobby Pulido
Yes.
- [85:04]
Tommy Vietor
Wow.
- [85:04]
Bobby Pulido
Yes. So. So in then the Fort Worth areas. Oh, so. So this is. It was very surprising. I was very surprised, shocked, and very encouraged. And I'm not surprised, to be honest with you, from what I'm seeing on the ground, even where I am.
- [85:20]
Tommy Vietor
Well, so let's talk about that. So you're running for the 15th district. For those who, you know, don't have a map ready in their brain, it's like, it's as far south as you can get in Texas.
- [85:30]
Bobby Pulido
Texas.
- [85:31]
Tommy Vietor
Right on the border. And then it goes. Shoots up and then kind of east of San Antonio. Is that the new map?
- [85:35]
Bobby Pulido
That's correct. Okay, gerrymandered it.
- [85:37]
Tommy Vietor
Yeah, we'll. We'll talk about that.
- [85:38]
Bobby Pulido
Right.
- [85:39]
Tommy Vietor
So Wikipedia tells me the district is 80% Latino.
- [85:42]
Jon Lovett
Is that right?
- [85:42]
Bobby Pulido
Right.
- [85:42]
Jon Lovett
Yep.
- [85:42]
Tommy Vietor
Okay, thank you, Wikipedia. You got parts of the Rio Grande Valley where Democrats got crushed in 24, right? No, no, you're touching.
- [85:53]
Bobby Pulido
There's the. Yeah, there's a caveat.
- [85:55]
Jon Favreau
Right.
- [85:55]
Tommy Vietor
Okay, tell me the caveat.
- [85:56]
Bobby Pulido
Well, they. They gerrymandered it to make it seem like South Texas was red. But in our. Our elected representative right now, Monica De La Cruz has never won the Valley.
- [86:05]
Tommy Vietor
Okay.
- [86:05]
Bobby Pulido
She's never won South Texas. Even with the Trump wave, she lost.
- [86:10]
Jon Favreau
Oh, right.
- [86:10]
Tommy Vietor
Okay, Right.
- [86:11]
Bobby Pulido
So. So where she did is she picks up the margins up in the north Northern and just blows it out like 80, 20. And that gave her the win.
- [86:18]
Tommy Vietor
Okay, well, so, but just on the South Texas piece, there was that big swing, right?
- [86:22]
Bobby Pulido
There was.
- [86:23]
Tommy Vietor
To Trump.
- [86:23]
Bobby Pulido
There was a. There was a huge swing.
- [86:25]
Tommy Vietor
Why do you think that was like, what happened?
- [86:28]
Bobby Pulido
I think the candidate didn't resonate with him. And I think, I hate to play into our own stereotypes as Hispanics, but I think since I'm a Hispanic, I'm Latino, I can, I can do it.
- [86:37]
Tommy Vietor
Say whatever you want.
- [86:38]
Bobby Pulido
If there's, if there's a stereotype that's. That fits us is we're very aspirational people. Right. The reason why a lot of Latinos come to the United States is for a chance to work and actually make it right. I think, I think if you think most about Hispanics are hardworking, very family oriented, and they come from normally from countries that if you work really hard, you get nowhere. Nobody wants to come over here and work really hard and get nowhere. And that's where we are right now. So a lot of people in the Hispanic community were saying, like, we voted for Trump because we thought I could work hard and actually do something. So it's economic, is a big thing. And then you tack on this, the cruelty that's going on right now, the fear with the raids and things like that, that is also affecting the economy, then there's a huge, huge backlash against them.
- [87:29]
Tommy Vietor
Yeah, I think you're making important points here, which is like, I think for someone who's a political obsessive like me, I think of Trump the candidate, but a lot of people still think of the businessman, that' reality show, the millionaire, the billionaire. You want to be rich, right? I want to be rich.
- [87:42]
Bobby Pulido
Give me some of that.
- [87:43]
Tommy Vietor
Yeah. When you're doing town halls, like what, what are you hearing about? And then secondarily, like, what's the conversation about border security and immigration policy like today as compared to maybe a year ago?
- [87:56]
Bobby Pulido
I think it depends. I've already visited all 11 counties. I'm not even in my primary yet.
- [88:01]
Tommy Vietor
So you're working, you're out there.
- [88:02]
Bobby Pulido
Been busting my butt, man. I, I, my wife is the best person in the world. Because when you retail campaign, it's the most time consuming type of campaigning. You're actually grassroots on the ground, meeting voters. That's what we're doing, taking their questions. And, and look, it depends because in the Rio Grande Valley, immigration is a big deal because we're in a community where 35 or 40% of the people speak Spanish. And when you say, see that the, that, that the administration is racial profiling also based on language, that's a problem.
- [88:37]
Tommy Vietor
Yeah.
- [88:38]
Bobby Pulido
In a community with a lot of people speak Spanish and yeah, you know, so it, it affects our businesses. We do, we get a lot of, we, we've always historically depended a lot of tourism from Mexico. And right now tourists don't feel welcome. And so they're not coming and spending their money like they should. You know, especially the dollar keeps declining. It's been bad. The pesos should be really good. They should be coming in droves.
- [89:00]
Tommy Vietor
Right.
- [89:01]
Bobby Pulido
And so the economy is not doing well and, and there's going to be a big backlash about it.
- [89:05]
Tommy Vietor
Well, the good news is we also pissed off the Canadians, so they're also not visiting.
- [89:09]
Bobby Pulido
Not just the Canadian. We pissed off every ally we've ever had.
- [89:12]
Tommy Vietor
We're working on pissing off most of NATO.
- [89:14]
Jon Favreau
Right.
- [89:15]
Bobby Pulido
The European Union.
- [89:16]
Tommy Vietor
Not a lot of flights from Greenland these days, I'm guessing.
- [89:18]
Bobby Pulido
No, I don't think so.
- [89:19]
Tommy Vietor
Like, yeah, Well, I do want to ask you about, like, the economics of these, these, this ICE crackdown because, I mean, you know, I'm reading articles about kids who haven't gone to school in a month.
- [89:31]
Jon Lovett
That's right.
- [89:31]
Tommy Vietor
Families who can't go to a job site. I know someone here in LA whose husband was picked up and detained for hours when he was trying to work construction jobs.
- [89:40]
Bobby Pulido
That's right.
- [89:41]
Tommy Vietor
And then, you know, he, he just like didn't have his papers on him, but then he didn't go to work that day.
- [89:45]
Jon Favreau
Right.
- [89:45]
Tommy Vietor
And it flipped out everyone around him.
- [89:47]
Bobby Pulido
That's right.
- [89:47]
Tommy Vietor
So it's like, what are you seeing in terms of the economic.
- [89:50]
Bobby Pulido
Oh, that's a huge, huge deal. I mean, look, the builder community right now is struggling big time. Think about it like this, right? We talked about the aspirational nature, who we are. We're always trying to work. So a lot of these construction owners of these construction companies, this is their first generation where they're actually making money. Because before them, Right. They, they were busy trying to do the work.
- [90:12]
Tommy Vietor
Right, right.
- [90:13]
Bobby Pulido
And. Or their parents were and they wanted them to now get out of that.
- [90:16]
Jon Lovett
That.
- [90:17]
Bobby Pulido
And so now when they're already starting to get there, they don't have a workforce.
- [90:22]
Tommy Vietor
Yeah.
- [90:22]
Bobby Pulido
And.
- [90:23]
Tommy Vietor
And what do you do about that?
- [90:24]
Jon Favreau
I mean.
- [90:24]
Bobby Pulido
Well, that's the problem. Right. And. And they get really angry because people say, just hire American labor. It's like, I'm putting ads out. Nobody wants to work those jobs or they don't know how to work those jobs.
- [90:34]
Tommy Vietor
Right.
- [90:34]
Bobby Pulido
So what do you do? What? Once business slows and construction slows it, construction is. Houses get more expensive. Expensive. Right. And then realtors get mad because they don't have enough things to sell. And so it's just a domino effect, business wise, which historically the Chamber of Commerce vote tends to lean Republican. And right now they're very angry about this because it hasn't. And us as Democrats, Tommy, haven't been, we haven't been really good salesmen of ourselves on economics. When you go, just look at our economic history.
- [91:07]
Jon Favreau
History.
- [91:08]
Bobby Pulido
Democrats have always been better on the economy.
- [91:10]
Tommy Vietor
Right.
- [91:11]
Bobby Pulido
Historically, I mean, we've always been better and we just don't sell ourselves that way. And people think, Republicans, oh, successful businessman, and they're better for the economy. And that's just not true.
- [91:21]
Tommy Vietor
Yeah, I wonder why that is. It's just sort of a cut. Taxes, you know, equals good business in people's minds. I'm wondering like, sort of where this disconnect comes from.
- [91:29]
Bobby Pulido
You know, what that equals deficits.
- [91:31]
Tommy Vietor
Yeah.
- [91:31]
Bobby Pulido
That's what. We're in debt.
- [91:32]
Tommy Vietor
Right, Right. Yeah. Our kids. Kids will be.
- [91:35]
Bobby Pulido
That's exactly right. And it's because of Republicans, to be honest with you.
- [91:38]
Tommy Vietor
Well, look, I agree with you on the. Joe Biden, he handled inflation, I think, better than a lot of countries did, but it wasn't good enough.
- [91:46]
Jon Lovett
Correct. For.
- [91:47]
Bobby Pulido
Correct.
- [91:47]
Tommy Vietor
Correct.
- [91:48]
Bobby Pulido
Well, we printed a lot of money.
- [91:49]
Jon Lovett
Yeah.
- [91:49]
Jon Favreau
Yeah, we printed a lot of money.
- [91:51]
Tommy Vietor
But also, you know, I think immigration was also a big driver of votes against Biden.
- [91:55]
Bobby Pulido
Absolutely.
- [91:55]
Tommy Vietor
Cycle. And, you know, look, I'm not a. I'm not a fan of Governor Abbott, as you would might.
- [92:00]
Bobby Pulido
Me neither.
- [92:00]
Tommy Vietor
Texas Governor. We agree he seems like not the nicest guy, but I think politically, spe speaking, he did have an enormous impact on the. The national debate about immigration through this sort of sustained busing of individuals. And so, like, early on, I think people probably remember Ron DeSantis flies a bunch of people to Martha's Vineyard. It was so obviously a stunt and so obviously shitty that there was a backlash. But the busing was just relentless. And again, like, treating someone like a political prop or pawn, I think is, like, morally wrong.
- [92:32]
Jon Lovett
Agreed.
- [92:33]
Tommy Vietor
But there's another piece of this that's like, well, okay, why do just border communities need to shoulder the economic and kind of social burden of having a bunch of people in their communities? I'm just wondering if you could, like, talk about how people you knew felt at the end of the Biden days and how that conversation has changed.
- [92:53]
Bobby Pulido
I think what it was, is, is there was a disappointment that for three years, he didn't. Didn't go there and didn't address the problem. In year four, actually, James Lankford had a deal negotiated. Right. That Trump eventually killed because he wanted to win.
- [93:11]
Tommy Vietor
Right.
- [93:11]
Bobby Pulido
And so we didn't really do a good enough job educating people on how they themselves also had a hand in this. But it took too long. So you got to understand in South Texas, there's a lot of Border Patrol agents. Agents, and they vote, and so do their families. And they felt. I mean, I have friends and family in Border Patrol, and they felt that they had been. They didn't sign up for, necessarily for processing people, because that's what it was becoming with the asylum, with the asylum seekers. They're like, I signed up to. To patrol the border, not to be processing people.
- [93:48]
Adrian
Right.
- [93:48]
Bobby Pulido
Because that's all they were doing was just processing. And then the people would fly, fly to wherever they wanted to fly. And that created a lot of resentment. It really Did. And, and, and I don't want to ever sound like inhumane about that, because that's people's spirit. They always want to. To look for a better life. That's. That's natural. That's a part of what our ancestors would have done for us, so. But it took four years for him to sign an executive order, which in year four, that immigration slowed down, considering considerably because of. He addressed it. Which just took too long.
- [94:22]
Tommy Vietor
Yeah, it took way too long. No, but I think you're making an important point, which is like, I think it's important to, to hear from people like you who, like, live in these communities and. No friends and just understand how complicated things are. Right. Like, yes, you have a bunch of friends in border patrol.
- [94:34]
Bobby Pulido
I do.
- [94:34]
Tommy Vietor
They're good people. They are. They're not trying to harm anyone. And also, like, look, we're all horrified by what's happening with ice. The, the video of the murder of Alex Preddy by Two Studios. Terrible guys. Horrifying.
- [94:47]
Jon Favreau
Right?
- [94:47]
Bobby Pulido
Horrifying.
- [94:48]
Tommy Vietor
And then ProPublica just published their names. It seems like the two men are Latino, and they end up killing a. A white protester, which I think is just the perfect example of like, the scrambled racial politics of all of this. Right. Because these guys are, like, at a organization that is recruiting people with white nationalist imagery run by Stephen Miller, who is an out and out racist. And it's just like, nothing is what you'd expect. Respect. And I think we all need to get comfortable with the complexity.
- [95:17]
Bobby Pulido
You know, I, I agree, Tommy, but I also don't feel like. I feel like we're putting a lot of emphasis on ICE and not emphasis on this administration. Right. People, like, right now, ICE is the boogeyman. Last night at the Grammys, everybody was out. ICE out and f. Ice and it's. ICE has always existed. Right. And whatever you want to call it, we need a force to get rid of bad actors. Actors in our country that are criminals and bad people. That, that, that you need that you can't not have that. But I think when we, when we just make a focus about ice, we take off the, the focus on this administration that's actually using them in that. Correct. In that manner.
- [95:59]
Adrian
Right.
- [96:00]
Tommy Vietor
The political decisions driving.
- [96:01]
Bobby Pulido
That's what, that's the problem. Right. It's when they tell them and they go berate them in the White House and say, get me 3,000 people. Right now you're forcing them to be overly aggressive to meet quota numbers.
- [96:13]
Tommy Vietor
Yeah.
- [96:13]
Bobby Pulido
That's very different than saying how they campaigned we're going to go get out the bad people. That's is not what they're doing.
- [96:19]
Tommy Vietor
That's absolutely right.
- [96:20]
Bobby Pulido
And, and, and so, so there, those are two separate things where you say, hey, go get out the bad people. Nobody's going to tell you you can't do that. But when you're deporting gardeners and grandmas, right, and then you go in and you, and you're violating constitutional rights, rights, you know, Fourth Amendment, just like crazy. This is, this is not who we are. We can't be that. And we have to call the administration out on it because it's easy. They're going to just go, well, it's ISIS fault. Yeah, that's the boogeyman. No, it's you. Yeah, right. It's Stephen Miller. It's Donald Trump. It's the people that are enabling them. That's who has to be called out. And we can't give him a pass.
- [97:02]
Tommy Vietor
So it doesn't sound like you're in the kind of abolish ICE camp of the solution this problem.
- [97:07]
Bobby Pulido
Look, it's been branded really poorly now. I don't know. It's a bad, it's got, you know, you give love a bad name. You give ICE a bad name. Well, they did, but, but you got to have some type of, of administrative arm to get rid of the bad people that I'm, I'm for that. I don't think anybody's going to disagree with that. Right, because there are bad people in every, in every walk of life. But the way they're doing, doing it, I, I think that's where it's, where it's bad. And, and I'll tell you, look, last night was a room of, of people in the industry. Right? And artists, we're emotional, man. We put, we pour our heart out in the music.
- [97:47]
Adrian
Right.
- [97:47]
Bobby Pulido
And so we are probably more emotional than most, but most Americans especially, and I live, I live in a rural district. People aren't exactly that emotional. They're more. Okay, make, make, let's reason with this. Let, let's find some common sense solutions to this.
- [98:02]
Tommy Vietor
Yeah.
- [98:03]
Bobby Pulido
And, and, and I, I, I want to caution, you know, because I kind of, I'm, I come from both worlds. I live in a rural area and I, I'm in, in an industry that's very, very much emotional. And, and we kind of have a blend of, of it and say like, yeah, I, I don't think abolishing is, is is the right word. I know that's the, to it because of what we're seeing and it's tragic and I hate it. I hate it as much as, believe me, with every fiber of my soul. But we have to be smart on how to point them out and let people know why we got here. And we got here because we were sold a bill of goods and we voted for the wrong person. Not we. I did not vote for that. What I'm saying as a, as a.
- [98:44]
Tommy Vietor
Community, as a country.
- [98:45]
Bobby Pulido
Yeah, as a country.
- [98:46]
Tommy Vietor
No, I agree with you. Look, I obviously Trump and Stephen Miller, the drivers of this, I, I, I, I think where I kind of personally live land is blaming ICE is almost too simplistic. Like I do like CBP obviously has been a huge problem here. There needs reforms there. You need reforms of ice. I also think the Department of Homeland Security is a complete and total fucking disaster. We created it after 9, 11 in this like climate of fear and we made securitized all these functions that maybe would be better in the Department of Justice or other places. So there's a broader rethinking that needs to happen. But it's probably bigger than just ice.
- [99:17]
Bobby Pulido
My view, I agree it is. I mean you see the Secretary of Homeland Defense, it's, it looks like it's Halloween. Every time she comes out, she got a different outfit. You know, cosplaying is different things. I just don't see like that's not, it's ridiculous.
- [99:31]
Tommy Vietor
Yeah.
- [99:32]
Bobby Pulido
It's not serious.
- [99:32]
Tommy Vietor
It's not a, not a, not a great run organization. Let me ask you about Texas doing this mid decade redistricting. The conversation in Washington is often like, how does this impact the balance of power? Right. The number of seats are Democrats, Republicans. How do human beings in Texas feel about having this forced on them? Do they know? Do they care?
- [99:52]
Bobby Pulido
A lot of people don't even know. It's, it's, it's amazing how many people have no idea. I still to this day ask people, people in the Rio Grande Valley tell me, hey, am I in your district now? They know there was a change, but they didn't really know. Like a lot of people didn't know what was going on. I sure as hell did.
- [100:10]
Jon Favreau
Yeah.
- [100:11]
Bobby Pulido
When, when I was keeping an eye on it when they were doing this. And, and I'll tell you Tommy, like from my perspective, I, I looked at this and went, they're assuming they're going to win those five seats. And they're also assuming that they're going to keep everything that they have. And from my perspective I'm like, no you're not, Not If I have something to say about it.
- [100:30]
Tommy Vietor
You think this is a mistake? Do you think they, they kind of. There's, like, the dummy mander right where you.
- [100:34]
Bobby Pulido
Oh, absolutely.
- [100:35]
Adrian
Oh.
- [100:36]
Bobby Pulido
Oh, yeah. Look, I was a political science major in college, and so.
- [100:40]
Jon Lovett
So I.
- [100:42]
Bobby Pulido
The nerd in me comes out sometimes, right. I try to keep it suppressed.
- [100:45]
Tommy Vietor
You're in the right place, man.
- [100:46]
Bobby Pulido
I try to keep it suppressed.
- [100:47]
Adrian
Right.
- [100:47]
Bobby Pulido
But you look at it and you say, okay, Everybody went on 2024 Trump numbers, which is what they did. But we went on. We went and researched 2022 numbers, which is a Biden midterm which favors Republicans, and the opposite party is in power. And there's a candidate named Rochelle Garza from Brownsville, Texas, that ran against Ken Patrick Jaxon for attorney general. She lost my district by less than one point. That's not that red.
- [101:17]
Tommy Vietor
No, no, That's a little red. Yeah.
- [101:19]
Bobby Pulido
Right. Now, I looked at that and I went, oh. So on one hand, I was really mad if they were doing. But if I could be honest, like, from my personal perspective, I went, well, I don't hate it because 65% of the district now. Now is new.
- [101:36]
Jon Lovett
Huh?
- [101:36]
Bobby Pulido
To her, to the incumbent. So she doesn't have the name ID in that district, if that makes any sense.
- [101:44]
Tommy Vietor
No, it makes total sense.
- [101:45]
Jon Favreau
So.
- [101:45]
Bobby Pulido
So, like, I'm a South Texas musician.
- [101:47]
Jon Lovett
I.
- [101:48]
Bobby Pulido
Right. Our music is very cultural to our people. You know, in our quinceaneras and barbecues. My music, and music of my father, too, has been historically present. We've been there forever, whatever. So we've toured those areas. We have friends. We have. We have. We have friends, right? We. We know the people. And when I saw this and I went, oh, you're giving me Bville, Texas, a Tejano town. Well, you're. They're looking at it going, well, they voted 75% Republican. And I'm going, yeah, but there are people.
- [102:20]
Tommy Vietor
Yeah. They see numbers, you see human beings.
- [102:22]
Bobby Pulido
That's exactly right. That's exactly right.
- [102:25]
Tommy Vietor
Okay, so your stat, Jeff, how often are they trying to get you to sing at events, play music? How many events turn into concerts, man?
- [102:33]
Bobby Pulido
You know what? When we go do a ranch hall, we sing them a couple of songs, okay? I go take their questions, we feed them.
- [102:43]
Tommy Vietor
You get a guitar in hand.
- [102:44]
Bobby Pulido
What do we, what do we do? No, I, I, I take a band.
- [102:46]
Jon Lovett
Okay?
- [102:46]
Tommy Vietor
The whole band.
- [102:47]
Bobby Pulido
Not a whole band. It's kind of like an acoustic set, right? It's an acoustic set. So while they're eating food, they're hearing our Music. Yeah, not my music, but our type of music. And then I go speak, I take their questions, I answer all their questions, which I might add, my. The person that we want to take down and defeat, Monica De La Cruz has never done a town hall. She's never answered her constituents questions.
- [103:11]
Tommy Vietor
How do you do that? I don't like. You hear that sometimes about members of Congress and it's like, did she just move to D.C. and she never comes back?
- [103:17]
Jon Lovett
How is that possible?
- [103:18]
Bobby Pulido
She goes and they hide her and they, and they protect her because they don't want her to expose herself. So they're trying to play her safe. They're hiding her. So what I'm saying is I'm going to be the opposite. I'm going to go everywhere, take some questions and take questions from you. Bring them on.
- [103:32]
Tommy Vietor
Play some bangers.
- [103:33]
Bobby Pulido
Yeah, play some bangers. We finished.
- [103:35]
Tommy Vietor
We.
- [103:35]
Bobby Pulido
We close with that and man, it went. Everybody's happy.
- [103:38]
Tommy Vietor
Do you do covers ever or just your stuff?
- [103:40]
Bobby Pulido
Do my stuff.
- [103:41]
Jon Favreau
That's fun.
- [103:42]
Adrian
God.
- [103:42]
Bobby Pulido
Yeah.
- [103:42]
Tommy Vietor
I like. Sometimes we get to do live podcast and it's really cool and we've gone out in front of big audiences and it's exciting and I love doing it and I get to be with my friends. But every single time I walk out on the stage, I think to myself, God, I wish I was doing something cooler for the next hour and a half. Like I had a real talent and I was playing music or I was funny, I was doing a stand up set. No, but you know what, it's.
- [104:05]
Bobby Pulido
Perspective is everything, right?
- [104:06]
Jon Favreau
It's.
- [104:07]
Bobby Pulido
I always took my approach to music. It's work, it's a job job.
- [104:11]
Tommy Vietor
How, how so I know you mentioned your father was a.
- [104:14]
Bobby Pulido
My father's a legend.
- [104:16]
Tommy Vietor
Legendary musician, just like Hank Williams.
- [104:17]
Bobby Pulido
Hank Williams Jr.
- [104:18]
Tommy Vietor
But yeah, well, so.
- [104:19]
Bobby Pulido
But not racist. No, I'm just kidding.
- [104:21]
Jon Lovett
Like.
- [104:23]
Bobby Pulido
But you know what I mean, like the cultural thing.
- [104:25]
Tommy Vietor
Hey look, I get it.
- [104:26]
Bobby Pulido
Yeah.
- [104:26]
Tommy Vietor
There's a lot of legends in Texas. We got some Willie Nelson, THC drinks in the office right now. So when you're growing up, your father's being as big as he was in, in the business, did that make you want to play music? To what? Make you walk away?
- [104:39]
Bobby Pulido
No, I was, I was a Texas boy stater in high school. I went to boy state. That, that's like a whole government. Like, I was a history buff. I loved government, I love politics. And that's why I became a political science major. I got an academic scholarship to go to St. Mary's University in San Antonio. And so I did not want to be a singer. That was not in the plans.
- [105:00]
Tommy Vietor
My God. So you're walking on that stage thinking, God, I wish I could do a podcast right right now. This is like, grass is always.
- [105:05]
Bobby Pulido
That was my first love. Like, I was. But I was not. Like, once I had success in music, I recorded a song with my dad. That's what did it. Right. So I got two labels. It. It really went really high. And. And it hit. And I had two labels in a bidding war. I ended up negotiating my contract and renegotiating my father's contract. In that same negotiation, I got him 100% raise.
- [105:28]
Tommy Vietor
Hell, yeah.
- [105:29]
Bobby Pulido
Yeah. And. And so I ended up trying music. I said, dad, I'm going to try it out and see what happens. And that ended up turned into a platinum record. And then I've been at it 30 years.
- [105:39]
Tommy Vietor
That's incredible.
- [105:40]
Bobby Pulido
And so my music's kind of gone. My life has gone full circle, and I'm like, you know what? I'm tired of what I'm seeing right now. I'm just a guy with an opinion. I want to be somebody with. My opinion matters. And my. I want to be a voice for my people. And yes, I would. It would be. I taking a huge pay cut from what I'm doing right now, but it's worth it. My. My life has to mean more than just music, in my opinion. And. And I haven't seen. I've been really frustrated with the way things have been going with our political discourse, and I. I do think that I have a different perspective of. Of where I come from. And. And. And I got nothing to lose. I really want to. I really want to represent my people.
- [106:25]
Tommy Vietor
That's exciting. Well, so where. If folks want to help out, contribute, where do they go?
- [106:30]
Bobby Pulido
They can go from Bobby Pulido for Texas. My district is 11 counties, and we're not a very. We're very poor, actually. My district's very poor, so we kind of have to go fundraise out of the district. Not my. My d. I'm not going to say poor. I misspoke. My district is broke. And I say that because our. Our spirit down there is we don't consider ourselves poor. We consider ourselves broke.
- [106:56]
Tommy Vietor
Temporary.
- [106:57]
Bobby Pulido
Because tomorrow we're going to make it.
- [106:58]
Tommy Vietor
Yep. Yeah.
- [106:59]
Bobby Pulido
Right. And so we're very aspirational, but we've been. We've been. She has, like, $2 million in her war chest, and I have a primary, and so we need to fundraise aggressively. But I feel very, very Confident that we're going to win and we're going to flip this district.
- [107:15]
Tommy Vietor
I think it's exciting. I think it's inspiring when people come from non traditional walks of life and run for office. Like why do we. Not everyone needs to be of lot a lawyer.
- [107:24]
Jon Favreau
You know what I mean?
- [107:25]
Tommy Vietor
Like it's great when people from, from the entertainment industry run who have a different kind of cultural connection.
- [107:29]
Bobby Pulido
There's not many entertainers though.
- [107:30]
Tommy Vietor
Have you seen this guy, Bobby Wine running in Uganda? Check him out. He's like incredible massive music star running against an absolute.
- [107:37]
Bobby Pulido
But I'm talking about our country. I know that's like not normal.
- [107:41]
Tommy Vietor
No, it's not.
- [107:41]
Bobby Pulido
It's like completely.
- [107:43]
Tommy Vietor
Well, because I think people are turned off because people are worried that the minute you jump into politics you're going to polarize half your audience and maybe they won't listen to you anymore and won't buy records and it scares people.
- [107:52]
Bobby Pulido
But how scared that.
- [107:53]
Tommy Vietor
Yeah, you don't seem polarizing you.
- [107:55]
Bobby Pulido
I am not a polarizing guy, but I'll fight. Don't, don't, don't, don't. Don't confuse the niceties for fight.
- [108:02]
Jon Lovett
I'm not.
- [108:02]
Tommy Vietor
I haven't gotten to fight in for 20 years. So don't worry. Yeah, but it didn't end well for me. I had a giant swollen ear and it sucked.
- [108:08]
Bobby Pulido
Yeah, I've been, I've had my fair share of bar fights but, but, but I'm a Texas boy, right. You can expect that. But look, I'll fight for, for the people and that's the bottom line. It's this is, there's our health care down there is, is, is a mess, man. She voted to cut Medicaid, Medicare, snap, like all the things that our district that ours really depends on. She voted to cut. And so you have to fight for what's right. Our health care system is, is in shambles. I go get my health care in Mexico.
- [108:40]
Jon Favreau
Really?
- [108:41]
Bobby Pulido
Yes. Cheaper, easier or why listen musicians, all the musician community. We don't work for school districts or other things like that where you can pull it right ins health insurance is through the roof.
- [108:53]
Tommy Vietor
It's.
- [108:54]
Bobby Pulido
It got more expensive now with this ACA subsidies that expired. So we're on the border. But how many people that are not on the border are struggling right now? It's just ridiculous. I mean we really have to get in there and the biggest problem we're going to face is going to corruption because they have their claws in these politicians.
- [109:14]
Tommy Vietor
Yes. And good.
- [109:16]
Bobby Pulido
And you know somebody has to go there and just call them out for it.
- [109:20]
Tommy Vietor
I love it. I love it. Well, the website again is Bobby Polito for texas.com. great to meet you.
- [109:26]
Bobby Pulido
Thank you for running.
- [109:26]
Tommy Vietor
Thanks for coming in. And, you know, next Grammys, you're gonna win one and then. But also you're gonna be a member elected officials. So no new music.
- [109:35]
Bobby Pulido
Music. No Grammys.
- [109:36]
Tommy Vietor
No new music. What if you get inspired? One day you're sitting in your office and you're like, you write like a track.
- [109:42]
Jon Favreau
Johnson.
- [109:43]
Bobby Pulido
Songwriting is therapy.
- [109:44]
Tommy Vietor
It is.
- [109:45]
Jon Lovett
It is.
- [109:45]
Bobby Pulido
Yes, it is.
- [109:46]
Tommy Vietor
Well, thank you for coming.
- [109:47]
Bobby Pulido
Thank you, Tommy. Appreciate it.
- [109:53]
Jon Favreau
That's our show for today. Thanks to Bobby Polito for coming on. Also, quick reminder, some tickets left. Not many, but some tickets left for our upcoming shows in New Zealand and Australia. Australia. Wow. Next week, guys.
- [110:04]
Bobby Pulido
Next week.
- [110:04]
Jon Favreau
Next week we're gonna be in Australia, New Zealand. We're in Auckland on February 11, Melbourne on February 13, Brisbane on February 14, and Sydney on February 16. Grab your tickets@qriket.com events. Hope to see some of you out there. And in the meantime, Dan and I will be back with a new show on Friday. If you want to listen to Pod Save America ad free and get access to exclusive podcasts, go to qriket.com friends to subscribe on Supercast, Substack, YouTube or Apple podcast podcasts. Also, please consider leaving us a review that helps boost this episode and everything we do here at Crooked. Pod Save America is a crooked media production. Our producers are David Toledo, Emma Ilic Frank, and Saul Rubin. Our associate producer is Farah Safari. Austin Fisher is our senior producer. Reed Churlin is our executive editor. Adrienne Hill is our head of news and politics. The show is mixed and edited by Andrew Chadwick. Jordan Kanter is our sound engineer with audio support for from Kyle Seglin and Charlotte Landis. Matt de Groat is our head of production. Naomi Sengel is our executive assistant. Thanks to our digital team, Elijah Cohn, Hayley Jones, Ben Hefcoat, Mia Kelman, Kiril Pelaviev, David Toles, and Ryan Young. Our production staff is proudly unionized with the Writers Guild of America, EAS.