Tommy Vitor (3:41)

What we've learned in the last few weeks is that the executive branch has a tremendous amount of authority to deport people under current law, including ways that seem capricious and cruel.

Jon Favreau (3:52)

Right.

Tommy Vitor (3:52)

We've all been talking about the Immigration Nationality act of 1952. That's what Marco Rubio used to declare that Mahmoud Khalil, the Columbia student, was a threat to the United States and have ICE pick him up. But what they're trying to do here with the Alien Enemies act is far scarier to me, which is create a process that is essentially outside of all existing immigration law and procedures. I was talking to a very smart immigration expert who compares, compared it to what Trump did with Title 42 during the pandemic, which was basically you just expel people from the country. You didn't give them a case to talk to an immigration judge or have any due process. You just said that because of this old, you know, health related authority, everyone's just immediately out. And so if the courts uphold what Trump is doing here with the Alien Enemies act, you could see something similar happen, which is the administration can just say that any Venezuelan man over the age of 16 who isn't a citizen or legal resident, they can just say, okay, you're actually a member of trend. You're kicked out of the country. And that could include people with visas or people here under temporary protected status. And just like a play that out in your head for a second, you're a Venezuelan kid. You grew up in a neighborhood in Venezuela with a Lot of gangs. You fled them because they threatened to harm you. You tried to get asylum in the US and you later get picked up by the US and deported back to Venezuela because you sort of had associations with gangs because of where you are from and get sent back to the place where. Where you are threatened in the first place. I mean, it is really dark, authoritarian, scary stuff.

Jon Favreau (5:28)

I mean, I would go a step further than that and say, even if you're not Venezuelan, like, I think this should terrify every single person in the.

Jon Lovett (5:34)

Oh, absolutely.

Tommy Vitor (5:35)

I'm just talking about the current year.

Jon Favreau (5:36)

Oh, no, no, no. But I'm saying the reason why I think everyone should be terrified by this, I think when you first hear about it, your reaction, total understandable reaction is, oh, this is like a. This gang is a violent gang. They've done horrific things. Of course we don't want these people in our country. Right, Absolutely.

Tommy Vitor (5:52)

No doubt.

Jon Favreau (5:53)

But if they are going outside the legal system here and there's no hearings and no judges and no opportunity for evidence, like an ICE agent can come to your door, say you're a citizen, they don't let you prove you're a citizen. You can't contact a lawyer, they take you away. You don't get a hearing, you don't see a judge, no one knows where you are. You end up in El Salvador. The government claims you're a member of a domestic terrorist organization. A lawyer for one of the deported migrants, she posted a thread on Twitter and she said her client fled Venezuela, sought asylum in the US ICE submitted photos of his tattoos as evidence that he's Trend Aragua. That was before Trump signed the Alien Enemies Act. So that's when we were still doing hearings. But then he signs it. So the attorney for the migrant planned to introduce evidence at trial that he's not actually a member of Trend Aragua had a whole bunch of evidence of why he's not said. He's, you know, an LGBT guy who was in the arts in Venezuela and had the tattoo, meant something else, whatever. Never got the chance to do this because there was no hearing. Disappeared from the online detainee locator. The lawyer couldn't contact him, was deported. Now no one can find this person. This person is in a. And you should talk a little bit, Tommy, about the prison in El Salvador, because it is just a huge, huge prison and the conditions there are very bad.

Tommy Vitor (7:14)

Yeah, we're talking about massive 40,000 person super prisons. I mean, so Naya Bukele is the president of Venezuela. He is a dictator. He's very popular because he made El Salvador much safer. The way he did that, though, was through mass incarceration. They put 2% of the population of the country in jail, and many of them were arrested after Bukele declared something called a state of exception, which was there was this horrible spate of gang violence. In 2022, they declared a state of exception, which suspended due process rights, constitutional rights. And so what happened was Bukele sent his thugs into towns, they swept up all men of a certain age, threw them in jail without any evidence, and just declared that they were somehow associated with a gang. And human rights groups have documented torture, execution, horrific things in these massive prisons. And the United States is now going to pay Naya Bukele's government, I think, $6 million to take more people and throw them into this nightmare of a system and in so doing, further prop up the Bukele dictatorship. And to your point, earlier, like, Bukele literally mocked our courts, literally mocked our system of justice, and the Trump administration's response was to laugh along with him. And you need this, like, fascist hype video out of the whole thing.

Jon Lovett (8:29)

Well, come back to the video. Like people like Tucker Carlson have been holding up El Salvador as a model. The far right has been holding up El Salvador as a model. The reason Trump is doing this is because a, these are people who are. The people Trump claims to be targeting are the kind of people that the Republicans. The Republicans view as indefensible. You don't want to be caught defending Venezuelan gang members who are here in this country illegally. And, baby, they want to hold up El Salvador as an example of what happens when you really bring the hammer down if you really want to address crime. So they're gonna start by eating away a due process for undocumented immigrants, visa holders, and then green card holders, and ultimately citizens. You know, you talked about the Marco Rubio example. Marco Rubio is claiming, I have broad powers. I have broad discretion. Look at what the law says. You gotta go in front of a judge and prove that a student protest a year ago is a current threat to the United States. Right. You can't just claim it. You have to go in front of a judge and prove it. That's what they're afraid of doing. Or when they do it, that's what they're trying to ignore.

Jon Favreau (9:30)

Also, like, to the extent that there are criminals in the United States, undocumented criminals, violent criminals, the reason they are here is not because the government is losing in court. These are not even traditional courts. These are immigration courts. And so the standard by which you can deport someone is much lower. And the president, the president already has broad, broad powers to deport people in this country. The government could have very easily apprehended, detained, deported these migrants by bringing them before an immigration judge and providing evidence that they are who the government says they are. You could easily do that. There is no public safety rationale for doing what they did. You could keep people safe, keep these people detained, and then deport them without doing it this way. And the problem with doing it this way again is we are basically just taking the Trump administration's word for it that these are all members of the Venezuelan gang. We're just taking their word for it with no, no judges saying anything.

Jon Lovett (10:28)

And by the way, like, even on their own terms, look, we may get to the point where these judges are going to rule and the Trump. And we are so far down the fascist path that they're going to just ignore those rulings and ignore the rulings and the judgments that come after that. But a lot of these people are going to have claims in our courts for being abused, for being mistreated, for being denied their rights. The same thing is happening more broadly with dosh. There's a lot of people who are being unlawfully fired, unlawfully removed from their jobs. Their First Amendment rights are being. Normally they come up with some pretense for why they're kicking people out of the country. They're just outright saying, we're doing it based on their expression and these people are going to have claims in the future. So Doge is going to cost the country money. These, these are like, if you do it, if, if you follow the rules, even in their own terms, right. They would be able to deport a lot of these people without having to claim they have some extrajudicial, extra legal authority to do so.

Tommy Vitor (11:21)

Just a little bit of media criticism. I think people are doing a good job covering this, but I've seen a lot of stories just state as fact that the people deported were Venezuelan gang members when there's just absolutely no evidence of it. So literally no evidence. None has been presented.

Jon Favreau (11:33)

And this is, but, but one of you said it, this is the whole strategy of the Trumps immigration policy this time around, Right. Which is to try to hold up the most indefensible examples. And then, by the way, this is happening not just with the Venezuelan gang, this is happening now. There's a whole bunch of these cases popping up. There's a New Hampshire man who has A valid green card from Germany. He's just a German citizen violently interrogated at Logan Airport, stripped naked, put in a cold shower, denied access to his medication, food, water, all because he had a misdemeanor charge for marijuana possession from 2015, which had since been dismissed. Mother of five from Milwaukee who has lived here in the United States since she was eight months old. She was deported to Laos where she's never been. And now she is stranded in a house surrounded by military guards, again because of a marijuana related conviction. There was also a kidney transplant specialist and a professor at Brown Medical School with a valid visa who was deported back to Lebanon because she had attended at the funeral of the Hezbollah leader who she said she's not into politics but is a spiritual leader. I don't know if you want to explain more about that.

Tommy Vitor (12:42)

That's a weird move.

Jon Lovett (12:43)

Great.

Jon Favreau (12:43)

Yeah. I don't know.

Jon Lovett (12:44)

Yeah, sort of.

Tommy Vitor (12:45)

I'm not a big Hassan Mizrala fan myself.

Jon Lovett (12:48)

Sort of a, sort of a, I'd say a weird way to spend your break.

Tommy Vitor (12:52)

I'm not in favor of deporting her, but, you know, wouldn't attend.

Jon Favreau (12:56)

Here's the problem with that one is like, you can take away her visa if you want for attending that funeral. Again, you can argue if that's fair or not. But the judge said no, I want a hearing first. They said no, the plane already left and that was that.

Jon Lovett (13:10)

But even that one too, they're, they're, they're claiming, oh, like, yeah, you had rule, but we couldn't get it to the, it was, it was too late, the plane was already going. And it's like, it's, it's very, by the way, one thing that's just happening right now, and I just, it's worth saying, like, we'll talk about it, but like, they just are trying stuff, right? Because they don't care about the rules, they don't care about the law. And what happens, the people that do care about the rules, that do care about the law are left scrambling to figure out even what the facts are. Right. So did the Trump administration know when this person was on the plane that they were already under order to not allow them to leave? We don't totally know. It seems like they probably did. I'm not totally sure because what's happening is they don't care, Right. They're just moving on to the next thing. They're pulling this all over the place. And the people that care about the rules, that care about the facts are left kind of crawling behind trying to sort through what's going on. You know, did Joe Biden sign this with an autopen? What was the cause of the, you know, like, all these, like, all of these ways in which Trump is stretching his authority, they really are also stretching our ability kind of collectively to keep up with what he's doing.

Tommy Vitor (14:09)

Very much so. With this German green card holder was detained at Logan Airport. Like, whether or not he had some missed a hearing and his green card should have been revoked, his treatment was indefensible. I mean, they tortured him. This guy was just tortured. And I think what's happening in practice is you have a lot of green card holders who are scared to death about whether they should travel. Like, should I travel internationally? Should I live in the country? Well, in some cases, yes. I mean, there are capricious, like, awful sects of ice. And apparently this person I was talking to is saying that the CBP office at Logan is a bit notorious, and people were not that surprised that it happened there. But I think, you know, what you could imagine happening is Trump came in pledging mass deportation. Things are going slower than he thought. And in a weird way, the people who have tried to go through the process, tried to get green cards, had visas, are easier to pick up because they're less nervous, and they're willing to travel and they're willing to, like, leave the country and come back. And now those people are getting swept up and they're scared to death.

Jon Favreau (15:06)

Brown University has since told all their international students, like, don't travel, you know, and, like, look, I remember when Trump won again, and I talked to some people who are legal residents, but not citizens who were very like, should we be worried? And I was like, oh, no. Like, if you have. If you're a legal resident, if you have a green card, if you have a visa, like that, that's not who they're going after. They're going after undocumented immigrants. I don't think that's true anymore. Again, there's 17 million people in this country who are legal residents, but not citizens who have gone through the whole process. And I think that what the Trump administration has been doing right now is like saying that none of those people are safe and they are, you know, by the way, they are within the laws. Give the administration enough power to take away a green card or visa. But again, through a hearing, they didn't give the hearing to, you know, the woman from Brown. They didn't give a hearing to any of these people that went to El Salvador. And then The White House now is going back and forth on whether they actually defied a court order or not. Attorney General Pam Bondi put out a statement accusing the judge who tried to turn the plane around of siding with the terrorists over the safety of the American people. Terrorists. That's what the Attorney General said. The White House press secretary, Caroline Levitt said the federal judges, quote, have no jurisdiction over these deportations. And here's how border czar Tom Homan reacted on Fox News.

Hakeem Jeffries (16:26)

I wake up every morning loving my.

Jon Favreau (16:28)

Job because I work for the greatest.

Hakeem Jeffries (16:29)

President in the history of my life.

Jon Favreau (16:30)

We're not stopping.

Hakeem Jeffries (16:32)

I don't care what the judges think. I don't care what the left thinks. We're coming.

Jon Favreau (16:35)

It seems like the administration's response amounts to, we didn't ignore the courts, but the courts have no right to stop us.

Jon Lovett (16:42)

Well, also, it's like, what does he mean there? Right? The courts can't stop us, as in, what we're doing is legal. Right? The courts can't stop us because the courts don't have jurisdiction. The courts can't stop us because we're ignore their rulings where we don't believe we have to follow them or there's no way to stop us if. If we don't. I think part of this is like, it's worth separating out. There's where they're taking the law, the letter of the law, and using it in. In novel or kind of aggressive ways that haven't been used before, the ways in which they're just breaking the law. Right? But fundamentally, like, this is about intent, right? Like, there was a lot, A lot of what we have in our immigration system, a lot of. A lot of people who have skirted the law or ignored the brokenness of the system. But there was an understanding on green card holders that, like, yeah, there are certain. Everyone knows that they are not citizens. And there are ways in which they can lose their right to be in this country. But for the most part, if you had a green card in this country, no, you can't be on a jury. No, you can't vote, you can't run for office. But other than that, you can work, you can apply for jobs, you're protected by the First Amendment, you're living here on the path to becoming a citizen, and we all collectively respected that. If you were born here, right, Even if your parents weren't from here, you had the protections of citizenship. And what they are trying to do is slowly undermine that basic assumption. Right? Like my. My friend has their. Their they have relatives from the Middle east that are here on a green card and they were going to go home to this because they have life there and they're only here part of the year and they're just like, no, they're going to have to stay. They're afraid because they're afraid that if they go to the airport, they're going to touch that system. Right. That system that, that nobody has any confidence in. I think they're right. And that's already happened. We're already through. Whatever the legal justification, whatever the case is, where they're going to follow the law or not follow the law, it is no longer. You can no longer trust that the government will respect that you have a green card.

Tommy Vitor (18:25)

Yeah, I mean, I don't, I don't know what advice to give people, but I understand the fear and I empathize with the fear. And also Tom Homan, I think, specifically threatened Boston as part of their attempt to intimidate so called sanctuary cities. It also seems like there could be a bit of a split on policy in the White House. Like there's part of the White House that doesn't want to completely give the finger to the lower courts because they know that can piss off the Supreme Court. And therefore they're making these legalistic arguments, oh, we're in compliance with the law. Because technically speaking, if you look at the timeline of the flights, we were over international waters when the written order came down. And this is just a good faith agreement of whether a verbal order came to this, carries the same force as a written one, blah, blah, blah.

Jon Lovett (19:05)

Right.

Tommy Vitor (19:05)

And then there's another part of the White House, probably like the Stephen Miller wing, that's like, fuck this, let's get to the Supreme Court, let's have this fight. And what we want is a ruling that says lower courts cannot issue nationwide injunctions anymore. And then they are off to the races. And that is scary. And it seems like Pam Bondi is in the Stephen Miller camp. Otherwise it's hard to understand why you'd call a judge a terrorist sympathizer. Because that's pretty crazy if you care about what like judges in the legal process thinks of you.

Jon Favreau (19:32)

Or they're trying to get a case to the Supreme Court that is the best possible case for them in front of the Supreme Court. Right. Because there's varying degrees of this. So at the hearing today we're recording this Monday afternoon, Judge Boasberg, who is the judge involved in the Venezuelan gang case, basically said to the government, to the doj like, isn't the better course to just return the planes to the US and then figure out what to do? And if you don't like my order, you can challenge my order and it can either be amended or changed or whatever else. By the way, the doj, before the hearing or during the hearing, tried to have him removed from the case. They asked the D.C. circuit to have him removed from the case. And then the judge asked the government details about the flights, how many flights left, when did they leave? And the DOJ response was, those are operational issues and I am not at liberty to provide information. So the judge was like so exasperated at the end of the hearing, he said, I want a written, like, I want information immediately. I want you to tell me information about all this. And so I'm guessing that that's gonna get. Now take, you know, appealed up the chain.

Jon Lovett (20:33)

Two other, two other moments from what that judge said is one, he said, I'm sorry, are the words I say out loud less impactful to you? Do you have to follow them? Because I didn't write it down. And the lawyer, to their, I guess credit or detriment, said, I'm not willing to say what our position is on that quite yet, cuz I feel like I'm over my skis. And then the other part of it.

Jon Favreau (20:51)

Which is happening by the way, to some of these lawyers, and you're seeing this in some of these cases, in some of the Doge cases too, the judge is getting like exasperated at the government. And the government's like, I'm just trying to do my job here.

Tommy Vitor (21:00)

They have a different standard. What you can say in a courtroom. Caroline Levitt at the White House briefing I think would made exactly that point, which is that a verbal order is different than a written order, which I.

Jon Lovett (21:08)

Would just surprise a lot of judges who treat their courtroom like a place where they are fucking God. And the other, the other part of it is, and I is just the lawyer saying, well, we were over international waters. And so the judge is like, I'm sorry, can you explain that to me? Does the President have extreme other powers over international waters? And they were like, oh, we're not prepared to.

Jon Favreau (21:27)

Yeah, can the President just put a bunch of people on a plane, put them over international waters and then have them executed? That's the new thing now also you.

Tommy Vitor (21:34)

Can track all these flights, like all of this, the specific timelines for when these planes took off and landed have been published in a number of news outlets. Like, I'm not sure what the play is here. By the government lawyer that they think they can hide this data from the judge.

Jon Favreau (21:47)

So last thing before we move off this, I saw a lot of MAGA pundits on social media, like CNN's Scott Jennings, gloating that Trump has once again goaded Democrats into taking the losing side of an 8020 issue. You guys think that's right?

Jon Lovett (22:01)

Look, I think more, I'm like, so I guess due process is a 2080 issue now. That's probably a big fucking problem for us. Right? Like, they're just sort of, this is indefensible. It is indefensible to not put this before a judge. If you believe in sort of the, the basic tenets of the American judicial system of the Constitution. You understand that? Yeah, of course. You have the right to deport members of a dangerous Venezuelan gang back to where they come from. Fine. But you have to go through a judge, you have to go through the courts. They don't want to make the argument that the President is a dictator. So they're like, this is, this is the Hill you're going to die on. And it's like, well, you know, what if we, maybe we'd like to live on it? Maybe we'll go up top of the Hill and see if we can survive up here.

Tommy Vitor (22:41)

Yeah, I actually think Scott Jennings, well, he's an insufferable idiot. Anyone who's watching CNN knows that. But I don't think he's right here because that's a question of framing. Like I think the Democratic Party's position should be, of course we should deport terrorists and murderers, full stop. But there has to be a legal process to make those determinations and creating a system where any White House can just say, you're a terrorist, you're a terrorist, you're a gang member, and then deport you. That's un American. And this is not like an unfamiliar argument because our country has lost its mind. Before it was called the war on terrorist, before that it was called the Red Scare, and efforts to, you know, prevent people with so called communist ties or sympathies from coming back to the United States. So I think, like it's, it's an argument we have to make. And I feel far better about the due process argument than holding up some specific scary individual that did something awful. Which is what the White House is going to do.

Jon Favreau (23:31)

Yeah, you know what they're going to do? A bunch of polls. You can show me all the polls with. Do you support deporting violent criminals? Do you support deporting Gang members, blah, blah. And it's gonna be an 80, 20, 90, 10 issue. Whatever. I support that too. Right. Let me write the poll question. Like, any of us could write a poll question that would get a different result, right? Which is like, do you support the US Government rounding up people and jailing them in foreign countries without a hearing? I bet that's an 80, 20 issue. I bet that's a 9010 issue.

Jon Lovett (23:58)

The other. Yeah, the other part of it is, too, is, you know, they're just deporting criminal aliens. And I do think they are relying on the fact that when most Americans imagine. They imagine people who don't speak English, they imagine people who look like immigrants. Right. They're not picturing a Norman Rockwell painting. Right. There's a lot of American citizens that don't look like a Norman Rockwell painting.

Jon Favreau (24:21)

That's why I mentioned the German guy. The German citizen who looks just like Tommy.

Jon Lovett (24:25)

And by the way, there's a lot. You're deporting people.

Tommy Vitor (24:27)

Nine.

Jon Lovett (24:30)

Sleeper cell. But the. But like, there are a lot of people that voted for Donald Trump that don't look like a Norman Rockwell painting that didn't think this would apply to them. There've been stories already. We were like, wait a second. When he said he was gonna go after undocumented people, I didn't think they would come for my wife.

Jon Favreau (24:46)

My husband. Yeah. Trump voter again. I think he was also in Wisconsin, and he's marrying a woman who was going through the process to get legalized. Like, literally, like, had the papers going through the whole process, and then they just took her away. And that's it.

Tommy Vitor (25:00)

There was a great piece in Politico, I believe, about the Immigration Nationality act of 1952, which is the law that's currently being used to expel Mahmoud Khalil for alleged Hamas sympathies or whatever, anti Semitism. And if you look at the history of how that law came to be and whom it was written by, it was written by a senator named Pat McCarran, who was just a virulent anti Semite. And the law was used to keep Jews out of the United States even after the Holocaust. So it's just a good reminder that the history of these kind of tactics and legal strategies will come back to bite everybody in the ass and you should not support them.

Jon Lovett (25:35)

And even despite. Despite all that, we got a Senate minority leader that everybody hates.

Jon Favreau (25:49)

Pod Save America is brought to you by Uplift. Desk muscles are vital for movement. That is true.

Tommy Vitor (25:55)

That's factual.

Jon Favreau (25:56)

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Tommy Vitor (26:17)

How's your calf pump?

Jon Favreau (26:18)

Yeah, I mean, here's the thing. I think Tommy was gonna get calf implants, right?

Tommy Vitor (26:22)

I did in the 90s and got rid of them.

Jon Favreau (26:25)

Instead we both got uplift desks.

Tommy Vitor (26:27)

Well, we had a triple uplift desk set up now in the, in the C suite.

Jon Favreau (26:32)

Is that.

Tommy Vitor (26:32)

What do we call our office, our disgusting little office here at Cricket Media.

Jon Favreau (26:36)

All three of us are in the same office.

Tommy Vitor (26:37)

I will say you've taken to the uplift desk, to the standing desk like a fish to water.

Jon Favreau (26:41)

I mean, well, the thing is, you're a big fan. I walked in one day and Tommy and Lovett had the uplift desk and I didn't and I made a huge mistake. Started with fomo. I didn't respond to an email in time, so it got an uplift desk and now I'm the one who stands the most. You love it, but you can, you know, they go up and down. You just hit a little button and you go up and then when you get a little tired, you go down and you sit. It's great.

Tommy Vitor (27:02)

And our listener stand to lose increased blood flow and all these other health benefits if they don't get enough of this.

Jon Favreau (27:08)

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Tommy Vitor (27:31)

They're very nice. Yeah.

Jon Favreau (27:32)

Standing aside cup holder. I was never a standing desk person and I am such a convert now. So if you also have looked at standing desk and you're like, eh, I don't know if that's for me. Give it a whirl.

Tommy Vitor (27:43)

Next up, treadmill desk for you.

Jon Favreau (27:46)

Make this year yours by going to upliftdesk.com crooked and use our code CROOKED to get four free accessories, free same day shipping, free returns and an industry leading 15 year warranty that covers your entire desk and an extra discount off your entire order. That's U P l I f T-E-S-K.com Crooked for a special offer and it's only available at our link start 2025 right stand, move. Thrive with uplift desk. Lest you think Trump is only going after immigrants, consider his late Sunday night truth Social post where the President declared that the preemptive pardons Joe Biden gave to the members of the House Select January 6th Committee are quote, void, vacant and of no further force or effect because of the fact that they were done by auto pen. Joe Biden did not sign them, but more importantly, he did not know anything about them, end quote.

Jon Lovett (28:40)

I'm glad that more importantly is there. To be honest, that's gonna actually be quite important later, I think.

Jon Favreau (28:43)

Trump went on to say that the J6 committee members are now, quote, subject to investigation at the highest level, end quote. Those claims followed a vengeful speech delivered at the Department of Justice on Friday. Here's a clip.

Jon Lovett (28:55)

The American people have given us a.

Jon Favreau (28:57)

Mandate and just a far reaching investigation is what they are demanding into the corruption of our system. And that's exactly, I'm sure what Pam and Cash and everyone else mentioned here and not mentioned is going to be doing. We will expel the rogue actors and.

Jon Lovett (29:14)

Corrupt forces from our government.

Jon Favreau (29:16)

It's going to be legendary. And I believe that CNN and MSD, DNC, who literally write 97.6% bad about.

Jon Lovett (29:26)

Me are political arms of the Democrat Party. And in my opinion, they're really corrupt and they're illegal.

Jon Favreau (29:33)

What they do is illegal. 97.6% very specific. Let's start with the pardons. What do you guys think? Did Trump figure out a way to prosecute Liz Cheney by discovering the classic auto pen loophole in the President's pardon power?

Jon Lovett (29:45)

Because they. First of all, I first saw, you know, Trump posted something on one of his various platforms that had the three previous presidents. And it showed his portrait from 2017, then showed a picture of an auto pen, and then it showed Trump in 2025. And when I saw that, I really saw, I saw it, I went, huh? Joe Biden was so old, it was an auto pen that was president.

Jon Favreau (30:06)

And I was like, that's what I thought too.

Jon Lovett (30:07)

And I saw that and I thought, ugh, you know, I want to laugh at this, but I bet this portends something fucking awful. You know, I really did. I was like, what is this gonna be about? And sure enough, and sure enough the next day it was that Joe Biden used the auto pen to sign these pardons and didn't know about them. And therefore they are void, which ultimately will not stand up as long as somebody can get Joe Biden in front of a fucking camera or microphone in the next couple of days.

Jon Favreau (30:33)

I saw he tweeted about St. Patrick's Day today.

Jon Lovett (30:35)

So great. Hoping history rhyme. But the. The real issue is what this is gonna do is force a bunch of people who receive lawful, legitimate pardons to defend themselves in court. This is about wasting the time and scaring a bunch of people that Donald Trump considers enemies.

Tommy Vitor (30:52)

There's an OLC opinion sitting on justice.gov from 2005 that says the President doesn't actually have to sign a bill for it to become law. They can instead direct a subordinate to, quote, affix the President's signature to such a bill, for example, by auto pen. Couldn't be more clear. U.S. government Thomas Jefferson given.

Jon Favreau (31:12)

Because you know who asked for that opinion? George W. Bush asked his DOJ for that and it has remained ever since. 2005.

Hakeem Jeffries (31:18)

Yeah.

Tommy Vitor (31:18)

Apparently, according to something I was reading, Thomas Jefferson used something called a polygraph, an auto pen like device as far back as 1804. You can visit it if you go to Monticello. And the idea that these pardons were done in secret when they were like the biggest story in the US political media at the time. So Biden didn't know about them. It's like self evidently stupid. And he's on camera talking about them and no one knows what Biden did or didn't sign. Like the point of a signature is it looks the same.

Jon Lovett (31:45)

Well, that's why we also, by the way, they've been claiming, oh, if you look, all the signatures are identical, therefore they're from an auto. But actually it turns out that the way these things are uploaded into the Library of Congress, it may automatically put the auto pen version of the signature in the signature position. So we actually, we don't even know. Right. They're assuming because. Because I believe Trump and somebody in the Trump White House saw that the Heritage foundation has something called the Oversight Project that pulled up all the signatures. They did a kind of red string kind of. It's all the same.

Tommy Vitor (32:13)

They're just chum in the water for the MAGA media.

Jon Favreau (32:15)

The National Archives came out and said that the digitized version of official documents in the archives use the same image of the President's signature, regardless of who's in office. So at the beginning of every term, they get a digitized version of the President's signature. And the archives that you go online to see, they put that on every single document, whether that's the actual signature or not. So they're just looking at the wrong thing. And also there's plenty of Photos of Biden signing laws by hand, in person, executive orders, laws, the whole thing.

Jon Lovett (32:44)

There is a controversy about this. Remember Obama? Yeah, Obama when he was in Europe and they used an auto pen to sign a law.

Tommy Vitor (32:49)

An extension of the Patriot act, unfortunately.

Jon Favreau (32:51)

Yeah, I remember that.

Tommy Vitor (32:52)

Yeah.

Jon Lovett (32:53)

And I remember at the time, just to be honest, I was like, I kind of want the president to get that, to get, to get his hands on that pen for laws. I do think that, like the. This is all obviously ridiculous. Now. Everybody, everybody took that memo as being correct. Presidents can affix their signature, by the way. Like, there's nothing magical if a president uses a pen or president, like, let's say president uses a pen or president uses a device that has a pen, still signing the fucking document. But, you know, I would like Joe Biden to.

Tommy Vitor (33:23)

Why are we using signatures at all? It's 2025.

Jon Favreau (33:26)

Now that we've dug into the calligraphy. Just like zooming out on this DOJ speech, this thing it does, you know, Trump said, america's success will be my retribution. It feels like that might not be the case.

Jon Lovett (33:37)

It seems like that was a little in joke for them. Yeah. Just to be clear, like, yes, we are focused again that Donald Trump introduces the auto pen thing and everyone's like, well, who did sign it? How did they send it? You have to kind of chase all these things down. But if they didn't have the auto pen nonsense, they'd find some other fig leaf to go after these people, some way outside of the pardon to go after Donald Trump's enemy. This speech was a speech about targeting all of these people, regardless of what their pardon says. And by the way, they won't.

Jon Favreau (34:04)

Presidents don't give political speeches at the Department of Justice. Presidents don't give many speeches at all at the Department of Justice. I think Obama went at the very end of his term. But you don't give a speech at the DOJ that's about like targeting your enemies, unless you're trying to send a signal.

Tommy Vitor (34:19)

This is one of those moments where if any other president in history had done this, it would be a five alarm fire. It would be the only thing anyone is talking about because it is incredibly dangerous and frightening sign that Trump is primarily motivated by the desire to punish his enemies. And it's not just this speech. He's doing this in the context of having a completely pliant Attorney General named Pam Bondi who pays fealty to him. We got Cash Patel and Dan Bongino now installed at the FBI. The Wall Street Journal reported that Patel was trying to get a direct line into the Oval Office so he could talk to Trump more easily. The deputy FBI director is a right wing podcaster with anger management problems. Trump's floating Aileen Cannon talking about her. She's gonna be on the Supreme Court soon. We're threatening the media as all these corporations are preemptively caving and cutting settlements with Trump to pay him off so that their corporate mergers can go through like things are dark.

Jon Favreau (35:17)

Well, you know what? That's a good segue to the Democrats.

Tommy Vitor (35:21)

Nice.

Jon Lovett (35:21)

Oh, yeah, the Democrats.

Tommy Vitor (35:23)

I didn't mean to segue there.

Jon Favreau (35:24)

Absolutely crushing it, guys. So after Dan and I last SPOKE On Thursday, 10 Senate Democrats, led by Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, voted to break the filibuster and allow Republicans to pass their six month spending bill to keep the government open. Schumer's decision to let the bill pass came after a week where just about every Senate Democrat voiced opposition to the legislation, which boosts defense spending and makes cuts to programs like Head Start community health centers. And after nearly every House Democrat had voted against it. All but one. In fact, as you might imagine, the backlash has been fierce. It's come from elected and non elected Democrats across the ideological spectrum. Moderates, progressives, the whole group, including Democratic leaders like Hakeem Jeffries and Nancy Pelosi. And it's mostly been directed towards Schumer. We've been going back and forth here for weeks on the right shutdown strategy. Dan has written several message boxes about it, which is why, you know, it's both important and tricky. So we thought, just as an exercise, just as an intellectual exercise for all you listeners, we'd kick off the conversation about this by presenting the best argument in favor of what Schumer did and the best argument against what Schumer did. And then we can all get into how we really feel and where we ultimately come down. So Tommy's going to take the pro Schumer argument. Lovett's gonna take the anti Schumer argument. I'm gonna play moderator and give each of you guys follow ups. And again, a disclaimer for anyone who wasn't paying attention or may see these clips out of context on the Internet. These roles were assigned in advance and do not necessarily reflect the views of the people making the argument. It's funny.

Tommy Vitor (37:08)

You think that will help? We'll just cut that.

Jon Favreau (37:11)

Tommy, take us away.

Tommy Vitor (37:12)

Pro Schumer.

Jon Favreau (37:13)

Why are you so happy with Chuck Schumer?

Tommy Vitor (37:15)

Here's the pro Schumer Strawman, which is the big pict. Realistically speaking, Chuck Schumer's choice was vote for this bill or force what could likely be an indefinite government shutdown. Now, during a shutdown, what would happen is Trump would get to unilaterally decide what staff is essential or not essential. He could furlough people and essentially de facto fire them. So if you think Doge is bad, this is Doge on steroids. And we know that the Doge gang liked this because the Wired reported that Elon Musk wanted a shutdown for exactly this reason, to supercharge Doge. Now, if we had a shutdown, what would have happened was there would be huge cuts to services people need, like veterans benefits. Republicans in Congress would then get to force a bunch of very politically difficult votes on reopening some parts of the government, but not others. You need Democrats to hang together on all of those. And voters would almost certainly blame Democrats for this whole disaster until they finally caved. So this would have ended up being like Ted Cruz's disastrous government shutdown temper tamper in 2013, which did real harm to the Republican Party. And in this case, it was even worse, because at least, at least Ted Cruz had, like, a point. He was trying to get rid of Obamacare. Democrats hadn't decided on a clear policy goal or outcome or message. And so what ultimately happened is Democrats vote for a bill that is basically a continuation of the government funding for another six months. There are some cuts, like you said, but they're not drastic. And the alternative was letting people who want to destroy the government destroy it a lot faster. And for those who say Chuck Schumer screwed up the messaging by saying he was for a filibuster before voting to keep the government open, his public posture had to be that he would shut down the government. Because in cards, sometimes you gotta bluff even when you know you're gonna fold or else you don't have any leverage there. So what people are really mad about is not what Chuck Schumer did or even this votes. It's the fact that Democrats have no power. And going forward, the worst thing we can do is convince our base that we've got magical powers to fight Republicans that we don't actually have, and that the. What the problem is is the. The will is lacking, not the leverage, because then we could get into an endless cycle of shutdowns like Republicans once did.

Jon Lovett (39:24)

So here's the problem, and I think you are, I think that is accurately characterizing the argument that we heard in favor of voting for this. But I think embedded in that argument, like, I didn't understand why voting for the CR was so wrong until I heard these arguments in favor of it. And the argument you heard from Chuck Schumer is basically there is no off ramp, that there could be a prolonged shutdown that lasts between six and eight months and it will allow Trump and Doge to accelerate the lawless cuts that they're already making. It is a way for Trump and Musk to kind of complete their Doge agenda without the protection of the courts, without the protection of Congress deciding how the money is spent. And to me, the problem with that is it basically it shows two things. It says, one, Republicans do not need to negotiate with Democrats because they know that Democrats are so afraid of the consequences of a shutdown that they will vote for something even though they had no say in what it was. Right. What you're talking about, the reason Chuck Schumer was bluffing is that he was hoping that there would be some resolution of a bipartisan process. There wasn't. That came to nothing. So what they were hoping, right? They were, as they were observers hoping that the Republican only bill wouldn't be able to get through the House. That ended up not being the case. And that something would come of these bipartisan negotiations that was not the case. And so what happened? Democrats had to choose at the end of this process between basically voting for a bill that was negotiated without them, for which they got nothing. Right? They had demands. I mean, I don't think they were clear about them, but they had demands, right? First of all, clean cr, which this wasn't, right? This increased defense spending and cut a bunch of programs, cut funding for DC and that they do that Congress does something to reassert its supremacy over spending in this country, right? Over the basic constitutional principle that Congress controls the purse. And what Republicans were counting on was that Democrats would cave and that they were so afraid of Elon Musk and Donald Trump that they wouldn't be willing to endure a shutdown. Why is it that Chuck Schumer is afraid a shutdown could last six months? It's because he believes that Republicans will not care about the consequences and he believes Republicans will not worry about the political fallout of those consequences. So they don't care about hurting people and they don't think they'll pay any price, even though the polls. I don't disagree with you, Tommy, that over time Republicans might be able to successfully blame Democrats. But at the outset of this fight, Republicans who control the Senate, control the House control, the White House were the ones voters were more likely to blame. They were more likely to blame Trump and Republicans than they were to blame the Democrats. Stepping all the way back. The fundamental challenge of fighting Democratic backsliding is Donald Trump has the power of lawlessness and he has the power of institutions. In this case, what Chuck Schumer is explicitly saying is my fear of the way Donald Trump abuses his power in this arena actually makes him even more powerful, gives him even more leverage in the legitimate institutional arena where he has constitutional authority that is incredibly dangerous. There's an opening scene in the movie Lethal Weapon where a man is threatening to jump off of a building and Mel Gibson is trying to negotiate out of it. And he realizes there's no way to do it. He has to throw his handcuffs on the guy and jump with him and aim him toward a soft landing. That the only way to fight someone that is crazier than you, that cares about the consequences less than you, is to show that you're a little bit crazy, too. And until we figure out how to, like Republicans, count on Democrats to be responsible, and until we are willing to show that we can take some pain, that we're, that we're as tough as they are, that they don't get to count on us to protect them from their own decisions, we will constantly, constantly lose these fights.

Tommy Vitor (42:58)

Some evil South Africans in Lethal Weapon, too.

Jon Lovett (43:01)

They are diplomatic immunity.

Hakeem Jeffries (43:07)

Foreign.

Jon Favreau (43:12)

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Tommy Vitor (43:47)

Everything's fine.

Jon Favreau (43:48)

90% off your first week. It's like a free therapy session. Give it a whirl. Therapy's helpful. You get and talk to someone and you know, maybe a little less anxiety, maybe a little less stress. With over 30,000 therapists, BetterHelp is the world's largest online therapy platform, having served over 5 million people globally. It's convenient, too. You can join a session with the click of a button, helping you fit therapy into Your busy life plus switch therapists at any time. Your well being is worth it. For a limited time, visit betterhelp.com PSA to get 90% off your first week. That's BetterHelp. H-E-L-P.com PSA I have been thinking about this a lot because when the election first happened and we knew there was going to be a government funding fight after it was punted the first time in like December or whatever, I was like, this is it. This is the only leverage Democrats are going to have because we're not able to stop reconciliation, right? Because they have the votes. We're not going to be able to stop everything else. We're going to have to rely on the courts. And this is it. This is the big one. So obviously we have to use our leverage here. And yet the arguments that Tommy was making, I've been thinking about because I'm like, all right, let's, let's say that Schumer says, let's go for it, let's shut this thing down. What is the ultimate goal of a shutdown? And then what makes us think that Trump will cave to any kind of public pressure or sort of political pressure at this point? When he. We just spent quite a bit talking about how he is defying court orders, rounding up people and sending them to El Salvador and all the other shit that he's done and all the stuff that Doge has done. And I think that I would bet that there's a pretty good chance that Trump and Elon. And Elon is excited, like about the shutdown, that they supercharge everything, they start firing a bunch of people, they keep a whole bunch of agencies closed where there is potential for political pain in some agencies, they send out payments and they keep those agencies running and they keep those people on staff. And then all the other stuff that Democrats want, they just shut down indefinitely. And legally, then you have much less leverage in court, because during a shutdown, the executive branch basically has all the power and can do whatever they want, which is what Donald Trump and Elon Musk really want. And so then I don't know what makes them actually open the government again. And by the way, Democrats at that point could say, all right, we're gonna cave, we'll open the government again. Because 800,000 people are without pay right now. Probably half of them are working, which is what happened in the last shutdown. There was 400,000 working without pay and 400,000 that just weren't working and still didn't get paid. And so Democrats try to cave. And then Republicans could say, no, we actually, you can't decide that the government's back open. We decide when the government's back open. And now, now Donald Trump just sort of runs the government now. So I think about that and then I'm like, but to your point, Lovett, like, okay, are we in an emergency or are we not in an emergency? And if we're in an emergency, then maybe we think, okay, that's all gonna happen, what I just laid out. And that they don't want to open the government again, but we have to do something to grab people's attention and grab the country's attention and say, like, this is an emergency and this person is seizing control of the government and destroying democracy. And then that's the only way to do it. But we should be clear eyed that I do not, I would not expect Republicans to cave very easily or maybe at all if we went into a shutdown.

Jon Lovett (47:24)

But that, but seem to me, and I, and I want to also say that, like, we live in the luxury of the timeline when Chuck Schumer did this. Right? And for a lot of. And for. It is probably the easiest politics to say Chuck Schumer was wrong hundred percent. To be a fighting Democrat and say Chuck Schumer sold us out. I would have gone all the way.

Jon Favreau (47:44)

Like, I would love, I would love to have just been able to come on and just say that and that's it.

Jon Lovett (47:48)

Right?

Jon Favreau (47:48)

Like that, that I still think that's where I probably come down. But I don't, I just don't think it's as easy.

Jon Lovett (47:53)

But I don't, and I don't think it's as easy. But where I finally land is like all of the arguments to me against. Right. Like are basically arguments that we're already in some kind of a dictatorship. Right. That either democratic accountability is not possible, that not enough people care about having a functioning federal government on everything from Veterans affairs to T, or that the law is so weak and the courts are so weak and Congress so weak that Donald Trump will be able to do whatever he wants during a shutdown, however long it lasts. Like, all of these are arguments for saying, well, hold on a second, so then we just turn over. That's the only option we have if we are signaling to Republicans that they, that, that we are so afraid of the consequences of what happens during a shutdown because we don't trust the American people to figure out who's responsible. We don't trust the American people to care enough to take their country back. That, like, basically, we've kind of given up. We've given up the game. And by the way, even if that is what we were afraid of, even if we were completely correct in that fear, all of that, I'm not sure that's the right message that Chuck Schumer should have been saying, right? That, like, just admitting that, like, I'm sorry, Trump is too powerful. He's going to do too much damage. Therefore, we're just going to capitulate and roll, and we're never going to make a clear set of demands, and we're not going to make those demands. Our vote contingent on those demands.

Tommy Vitor (49:06)

Yeah. So, like, what I really. I mean, my honest opinion here is there's no good options by the time we got to last week. But Chuck Schumer and Hakeem Jeffries created a huge expectations management problem. Like, I'm looking at a Politico story with a photo of the two of them with the headline, democrats are serious about a shutdown. And they also had a lack of strategy. We didn't know what we wanted. We didn't have a core demand. We didn't have a legislative imperative or a thing we were fighting for.

Jon Favreau (49:31)

This is where they totally deserve the blame.

Jon Lovett (49:32)

I think they deserve the blame.

Tommy Vitor (49:34)

And also, we have a responsibility, Gene. We care about government. We believe it does good things and helps people, which means Republicans know we will always fold. And if not now, well, then we're certainly not gonna vote against the debt ceiling increase. And so what I found particularly frustrating was Schumer's New York Times interview where he suggested that Republicans will eventually come around.

Jon Favreau (49:55)

Should we play a clip of that? Yeah, let's play a clip of that. Do Democrats have an authenticity problem?

Jon Lovett (50:01)

I don't think we have an authenticity problem. We have a real direction now. I feel good about it. And when he went below 40% in the polls, the Republican legislators started working with us. We're gonna keep at it, keep at it, keep at it until he goes below 40. When it happens, I am hopeful that our Republican colleagues will resume working with us.

Hakeem Jeffries (50:21)

And I talk to them.

Jon Favreau (50:22)

You know, I've covered a lot of countries going through Democratic backsliding, and I've.

Jon Lovett (50:28)

Seen how often opposition parties fail to recognize until it's too late that they might have been made irrelevant.

Jon Favreau (50:38)

And I wonder if you think that.

Jon Lovett (50:39)

The Democratic Party might be making that mistake. No, I think we're fighting very hard on every front. And initially we've had some successes, but we gotta keep at It. And we gotta be open to new suggestions and ways to do it. But I think what we're doing is working so far. I just want to note for the producers of the interview, that music queue was fucked up. All right? It came in way too early. It was way too soft. It was weird. I paused to rewound it. I thought there was something wrong. I was in my kitchen. I thought there was, like, an alarm. Yeah.

Tommy Vitor (51:07)

I almost threw my phone out of the window of an Uber as I was riding home from the airport. Yeah, I mean that, if that's our strategy, is hoping the Republicans come around. We are. We are done. So and so, again, like, I don't know that this is a good strategy, but here's an alternative which is basically an accelerationist approach, which is Doge is going to destroy the government in the long term. So let's speed it up. Let's shut down the government. Let's do it at a time when the markets are freaking out about tariffs. It's maximize the impact, maximize the pain. That's a totally irresponsible, destructive thing to do. But maybe a 20% drop in the S&P, 30% drop in the S and P wakes people the fuck up and leads to a political course correction by Trump. I actually, I do think he cares about headlines and markets and what business people say to him. And I don't know, I think the markets were, like, flat today. But, like, I think you could feel some weakness for a minute.

Jon Favreau (51:55)

I think part of the challenge, too, is maybe the biggest that I've been thinking about is Democrats didn't know what to ask for, and we've all kind of allied at this. When I say we, I don't just mean the three of us, like, everyone, because everyone's like, well, there's a lot of things we could have asked for, but it's like, no, no, let's go through them. Right? Because it's what we're saying. It's not. We could ask for a clean cr. Right? Dan and I talked about this a little bit, and then you go around and say, no, no, no, we will only keep the government open if you reverse the cuts to. I guess it's community health centers and Head Start, which are popular things. But in the context of all we're talking about, right. This is like the end of democracy. Everything Trump's doing seems a little small. Right? The DC cuts, there's like a billion dollars from the DC budget is horrible. That's already getting fixed. It looks like the House is now they're saying the House is likely to take that up. The Senate has already did a standalone vote to fix that and to restore the D.C. budget cuts. So once that's gone, and then I saw Dan say this, that there was like a. It basically Congress now can't even vote on the tariffs on Trump's tariffs, but it's like, they weren't going to do that anyway. It's a Republican controlled Congress. They were going to let him do whatever the fuck he wanted on tariffs. So that doesn't really make it for me. And then there was the, oh, we should ask for guardrails around Doge. And I never really got that either because it's like Elon Musk is. And Doge right now is all over the place, illegally cutting government. And now you're going to say, here's another law that you can break by putting some Doge handcuffs on it. So I don't know that anything, any of the specifics we're asking for would have worked. Unless I've come back to the accelerationist argument. Unless. Or you're just saying, like, no, no, no, it's not about anything. It's about the fact that since he has taken office in this second term, he has broken the law, he has taken our tax dollars and done whatever he want with them. We did not vote for this. Half the country didn't vote for this. We're not being represented in this government. He's breaking the law, he's trampling on our rights. He is destroying, like, cancer research and health care and all, and then just make it a huge fight about everything. Like, that's the only thing I can think of, because I do think making a shutdown about a specific issue here or there is just not really gonna work. I also think you could imagine two scenarios that are completely different that would have been better than where we're at. One scenario is Hakeem Jeffries and Chuck Schumer early on say, you know what, like weeks ago, maybe months ago, said Elon Musk right now and Donald Trump, they want nothing more than a government shutdown, and we're not gonna give it to him. So we're just gonna pass, we're gonna keep the government funded and we're just gonna keep fighting whatever. Right? I don't think people would have loved that.

Tommy Vitor (54:20)

It wouldn't be his head spin.

Jon Favreau (54:21)

Right? Or they could have joined together in the same press conference months ago and said, you know what? Watching what Elon Musk is doing right now, watching what Donald Trump's doing right now, Democrats are not gonna give one vote ever to fund a government that is doing this kind of damage to the country. And again, prepped everyone in advance. The head spinning shit was the worst.

Jon Lovett (54:39)

The other. So I think this too. Yes. I don't even think you need to go that far.

Tommy Vitor (54:44)

Right.

Jon Lovett (54:44)

You say, like, we will support funding the government, the whole government. That means restoring the Social Security offices. You make a whole list of the things. Right. And the Democratic goal right now isn't to prevent short term pain. It's just not. The stakes are too high. We're not getting to the end of this with a lot of terrible pain. Like we are not getting out of what is a fascistic right wing authoritarian government and a pliant Republican congressman without a lot of pain. It's coming one way or the other. And so the goal is to preserve these institutions. Right now, one of our great challenges is waking people up to the threat. We had an opportunity to wake people up to the threat. And it says something about the politics of this moment that a lot of Republicans, even when they're trying to be at their most craven, say we would rather a fight over reconciliation where we're powerless than a fight over the CR where we actually have power. And I just like, if that is what we're saying, that we would rather just kind of be yelling passengers, because I think that's going to put us in a better position for 2026. I think that's pretty dangerous, especially when there's no guarantee we're going to get another reconciliation. There may be another CR fight down the road. We may like, we don't know what the future holds.

Jon Favreau (55:47)

So. Well, I mean, this is. We should talk about moving forward. So there's a couple things moving forward. There is what happens to Chuck Schumer, his position. There is what happens in the next time we're here, the next funding fight, which is the end of September. And then there's the debt ceiling, which we don't know how that's going to come because they could either try to do the debt ceiling in reconciliation, which means they wouldn't need Democrats, or if they can't get the Freedom Caucus to agree to that, they would need Democrats for a standalone vote on the debt ceiling. I should just say, by the way, because we haven't covered this, the hope that Democrats wouldn't be in this position that we were just in because the hardline Republicans in the House wouldn't pass a CR was always a little crazy to me because we are in this Scenario where people do whatever Donald Trump says and the idea. And like, yes, the hardliners have caused trouble before, but that's when Joe Biden was president.

Jon Lovett (56:39)

Well, also by the way. And by the way, okay, I hope that, too. I hope the hard choice isn't coming.

Tommy Vitor (56:44)

Right.

Jon Lovett (56:45)

But let's assume it is.

Jon Favreau (56:46)

I know, let's assume it is. But. So let's start with Schumer, right? Like, what do you got? Do you think, do we think his position as leader is safe and should it be?

Tommy Vitor (56:55)

I mean, judging by the commentary you've heard from his Senate colleagues so far, it does seem like he's safe. I don't like to make predictions regardless. Like, we're not a perfect Senate minority leader away from success. Like, I don't think he handled this well. I actually think he handled it quite badly. But there have been other situations he handled well. He got a lot of legislation passed in the past. He's done some good things. There were moments in the New York Times interview that made me cringe really hard when he was talking about inviting influencers to the State of the Union and getting reports about social media impressions that he didn't really understand. But he reads them and you're like, okay, it's good that he's outsourcing that to like, Brian Schatz and Chris Murphy and Cory Booker and younger members. We need more of that. We need more, you know, younger members out, like being the lead messengers. But they did not have a strategy. And I, and I think that's inexcusable for a leader.

Jon Lovett (57:46)

Yeah. I also, like, I didn't realize that Chuck Schumer was about to supposedly go on a book tour. Right. That this was a vote that was going to lead into his book tour on his anti Semitism book, which is now put on hold. And there's just a, it's just a little business as usual. Like, I'm like, they are, they are unilaterally dismantling federal agencies. We are in a crisis. By the way, even if you say they fucked up by not having a message leading all the way up until 48 hours before the vote, there's a lot that could have happened in that 48 hours. They could have taken a stand. They could have, they could have held the floor for Social Security offices saying, we are, we are, we are filibustering this vote and we're going to make you all stay here all night and all day tomorrow because we don't think it's right that seniors can't get a hold of their Social Security officials. And we don't want to. And we don't want to shut down. We don't want this, but, like, this is wrong.

Jon Favreau (58:35)

I'll also say, I think the. The House Democrats are genuinely outraged at the Senate Democrats. You have every right to be. And I say this not to either absolve Chuck Schumer or to blame other Senate Democrats, but this was more of a group decision than it appears in a lot of the coverage. And you can tell that by the votes. And who broke. Like, the people who voted with Schumer were people in leadership and people who are retiring and don't have to face the anger of voters. And some of the. Some of the members who were in the toughest states and the purple states who have to face another election like, they came out in opposition to the bill, but, like, they didn't really want to shut down. And I think it was more of a group thing. And I only say that because as people start talking about, oh, should we have another leader? I think one of the reasons that you're hearing from Senate Democrats who voted a different way than Schumer, that they still respect him is because they know that they all fought about this, but they all kind of decided to jump together.

Jon Lovett (59:33)

But I do think that points like, they all came to a decision, let's say most of them came to a decision that this was the right thing to do, even though the politics were kind of shitty. But part of the reason the politics were shitty is that nobody really made a good argument for any of this.

Tommy Vitor (59:45)

Did not set ourselves up for success.

Jon Favreau (59:47)

I also think, like, they just. They can't. They've got to be honest with us. Like, part of this is they meet behind closed doors. They're like, oh, God, we know that the base is going to be angry with us, but we also know that a shutdown is bad. So we gotta go out there and get on our. Do our videos where we say this is a horrible cr. And then suddenly we can just. And then Chuck will take all the bullets for us, you know, And I, like, I get the strategy there, but if you don't want the backlash that's happening right now, just talk to us all like we're adults and be honest with us and be transparent about what's happening, because people could still be disappointed. But it will be a lot better than what people are feeling now, which is that they were like, they were hiding the ball the whole time.

Jon Lovett (60:25)

I found that when there was all these. When they were putting out these videos that were like, this is a terrible CR and we're voting no. It's like, well, okay.

Jon Favreau (60:32)

On cloture, it fooled me for a while. I had this. I was writing the script when I was going with Dan that I'm like, it looks like we're heading for a shutdown. And then Schumer came out and I was like, oh, it was all bullshit.

Jon Lovett (60:42)

And, and it just feels like, like, I'm sorry. Like the videos about cloture versus that is not for the gen. That is for the 500,000. Who are the people that. That like, like the five, you know, that is.

Jon Favreau (60:54)

That's for the freaks.

Jon Lovett (60:54)

When we were, when we were, when we were coming up in politics, boys, there was something called the Note. Remember the notes? And there was something called the. What was it called? The Gang of 500. Remember that? And the Note would always.

Jon Favreau (61:04)

Mark Halpern fan.

Jon Lovett (61:05)

I'm just. But I know, I know. But they would talk about the gang of 500, that, that basically politics was this insular discussion amongst these 500 people that all made the decisions or like got the. They were the ones that mattered. And obviously now we've moved beyond that. But like, I do think now there is this hyper engaged group of 500,000 that are the people that are going to understand what's happening, really paying close attention. And I feel like they're.

Jon Favreau (61:28)

We're all a pain in the ass too, for sure. And like, it is a real bitch to govern where 500,000 people are always on your ass.

Jon Lovett (61:35)

There's a lot of yelling about everything. Yeah, a lot of shit.

Jon Favreau (61:38)

I get that completely.

Jon Lovett (61:39)

It's tough. But like, I would like just, I just think like, as an experiment, like to, you know, talk about it in front of us the way you talked about it behind closed doors. I think people can fucking handle it.

Tommy Vitor (61:49)

Yeah, look, I agree with that. I do think the challenge was probably that they were bluffing a little bit in trying to get this other track going, trying to get a one month CR extension, trying to help Patty Murray negotiate, whatever. With Republicans, we just all have to assume that no Republican is going to work with a Democrat for a very long time. There's a long profile in Politico. People should read about John Thune, who sounds like a pretty decent guy who has just kind of caved at every step along the way to Donald Trump and changed who he is pretty fundamentally.

Jon Favreau (62:19)

Well, I do think now that we know the end of September is coming up for a. Where we're going to be in this position again. Maybe they should figure it out now, start and maybe make some, you know, decide now and talk about now what the strategy is going to be and whether they're going to. Because, look, I'm sure Republicans right now are like, oh, they're going to fold again. So maybe they come out right now and say, guess what? We're not voting on this again. We're not voting to fund the government again.

Jon Lovett (62:42)

The other part of this, too is.

Jon Favreau (62:43)

And the debt ceiling, I don't even wanna start on that.

Jon Lovett (62:46)

We keep discovering we're further down the kind of the authoritarian track every single time. Every single time. If Democrats knew how bad things were right now in September, October of last year, the election would have felt different. People would have talked about it differently then. Imagine where we will be in a year. Right. Like the point that the Times reporter made about. By the time you realize you've done this authoritarian slide, you realize you're irrelevant. We are headed in that direction. It's happening. It's happening right in front of our eyes. And six months from now, I don't know how much power Congress is going to have as Donald Trump is slowly dismantling the government and ignoring court orders, but I don't want us to look back and wish we had fought harder now.

Tommy Vitor (63:37)

Real quick, just saw the tweet that Donald Trump has pulled Secret Service details from Hunter Biden and Ashley Biden. So something to know, effective immediately. Apparently it even says Hunter Biden. It mentioned that Hunter Biden is currently vacationing in South Africa. So he's pulling his secret surface detail while telling the world that Hunter is abroad. Seems pretty dark.

Jon Favreau (63:57)

Don't they pull Secret Service from president's kids after they're out of office?

Jon Lovett (64:01)

I think there's some, there's some. I think there's like a grace period.

Jon Favreau (64:04)

I think we're not going to get out of this without some kind of like, mass mobilization.

Jon Lovett (64:08)

Yeah.

Jon Favreau (64:08)

And I think, you know, we. I saw a quick preview of Dan's conversation with Hakeem Jeffries and he sort of talked about people protesting peacefully. Of course. But I do think, and you know, as Democrats think about their strategy going forward, like, they need to ask people to, like, get involved too. Right. It's not just them. Like, we, we can't, we're not going to, we're not going to get out of this with. Even if they're great press conferences in front of buildings and just. And the best videos that go so viral, like, we're not getting out of this with that. Right. And I do Think if you're going to build a move like, this is why I like the town halls. I like this idea. If you're going to build a movement and a real opposition, like, you need more people than just elected Democrats anyway.

Jon Lovett (64:47)

And by the way, that also I think does argue for the more accelerationist position, which is the base of your party. The people that you need to knock on doors to be forget even knock on doors. The people that you count on, the people that are gonna march with you, they're the people clamoring for more fight. They are. And they'll be the ones that'll talk to their friends and neighbors. Like, they are gonna be the ones having these arguments in their homes, with their colleagues, with their friends, with their family, and they're begging you to fight harder. And like, I agree, like, I have this, like, I don't even know whether it's something to hope for or worry about. But, like, I do see this. We are heading towards millions of people having to be in the streets. That to me, is one of the ways that this all comes to a head. And sometimes I worry about how soon that will be and then sometimes I worry that people aren't going to show up. And I think what is a Democratic politics that slowly builds the momentum for that kind of a mass mobilization. And it is certainly not approving this CR the way that they did.

Jon Favreau (65:43)

And I think that's why you gotta fight on every front. And I get that. We all know the polls, right? I get that, like protecting Medicare and Social Security are the most popular things. But, you know, when the government is now rounding up people and then deporting them without a hearing, I realize that immigration's not our best issue. And right now it's his best approval, Right? If any issue, it's immigration. But that's also because people aren't making noise about what's really happening and they're not just, you know, deporting the worst criminals. Right? Like, you gotta move, your numbers can move. And we have to fight on every issue that's gonna get people organized and out into the streets. You just have to. All right. To continue the conversation about the follow up from the government shutdown, Dan sat down with Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries on Monday morning. We're gonna get to that. Before we do, some quick news from crooked media. First, two episodes from Cricket's New Year's podcast, Shadow Kingdom, God's Banker are out. Now. This is the type of true crime drama you actually want to hear. It starts in the summer of 1982, when the Vatican's top money man was found dead. His death was ruled a suicide, but the evidence tells a different story. Journalist Nicolo Magnoni is following a new lead that could finally answer the question, who killed God's Banker? Listen to the first two episodes of Shadow Kingdom God's Banker right now, wherever you get your podcasts. Or better yet, join our Friends of the Pod community to binge all the episodes today@cricket.com friends or on the Shadow Kingdom Apple Podcasts feed Also. Love it. I hear something cool's happening in dc.

Jon Lovett (67:08)

Yes we are. For once, we are coming back to the Lincoln Theater in D.C. on Thursday, April 24, the weekend of White House Correspondence Dinner. We're have a pretty exciting show lined up. More about the guests coming soon, but those tickets are going to go on sale for Friends of the Pod first. Starting I think today when you're hearing this.

Jon Favreau (67:25)

Yeah, Tuesday, March 18, 12:00pm Eastern the.

Jon Lovett (67:27)

Pre sale is for Friends of the Pod. You can get that if you're a subscriber. That's where you can get the code. It'll be in the Discord. It'll be on terminal online and if not on Wednesday, the general sale will start.

Jon Favreau (67:36)

As always, go to qriket.com friends to join. Become a Friend of the Pod and you can get tickets for Love it or Leave it starting on Wednesday at Qriket.com events when we come back, Hakeem Jeffries Pod Save America is brought to you by Bombas. What if I told you the most important part of your spring cleaning routine is your sock drawer? Yep, you heard that right. It's time to ditch any mismatched tired pairs and refresh your collection with some fresh Bombus. Ready to unlock your new running hobby? Bombus engineers blister, fighting, sweat wicking athletic socks that will help you go from that first mile to a whole marathon. No thank you. To the marathon, not the socks. Looking for a nice pair to wear to a wedding? Brambas dress socks are made for loafers, heels and all your other fancy shoes because you gotta stay comfy on that dance floor. And for all your other spring cleaning chores, Bombas has the cushioned arch hugging pairs that'll keep you comfy while you spruce up the house and walk the dog and do whatever else you do on a normal day. Best part of all this? For every comfy pair you purchase, Bombas donates another comfy pair to someone facing homelessness. Last time I did this ad with Lovett, he took off his shoe, held up his feet. And there were Bombas socks on it. You don't have to do that.

Tommy Vitor (68:54)

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I mean, I walked right out of the studio. You Bombas socks are great. I actually need some.

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Dan Pfeiffer (69:34)

Joining us today is House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries. Leader Jeffries, welcome to Pot Save America.

Hakeem Jeffries (69:39)

Great to be with you.

Dan Pfeiffer (69:40)

Okay, I want to start, as you can imagine, with the budget vote that happened this Friday. House Democrats almost unanimously voted against the bill. A handful of Senate Democrats, including Leader Schumer, voted for the bill. This was obvious. It seemed to be, at least from the press conference you got. Your leadership gave afterwards to be a point of contention between the House and the Senate. I understand that you, according to some reports that you and Senator Schumer met in Brooklyn yesterday, is that report correct. And what can you tell us about the status of the relationship and the conversation you guys had?

Hakeem Jeffries (70:11)

That's correct. We had an opportunity to meet yesterday. It was a very good meeting where we talked about how we move forward. House Democrats and Senate Democrats working together to strongly oppose the extreme things that Donald Trump and his administration are trying to jam down the throats of the American people. In particular, our immediate focus is going to be on pushing back aggressively against the Republican efforts to enact the largest Medicaid cut in American history. That, of course, will hurt children and families and women and people with disabilities. And certainly it will devastate older Americans in nursing homes all across America. On Tuesday, House Democrats are holding a Medicaid day of Action. We'll have town halls and site visits and rallies and roundtables all across America, in blue states, purple states, and red states to lay out our defense of the healthcare of the American people and contrast that with what Republicans are trying to do in taking away Medicaid and ending it as we know it in this country.

Dan Pfeiffer (71:26)

I don't want to keep looking backwards and I don't want to harp on things that have happened. But I think it's somewhat instructive for the fights to come. Heading into that budget fight. Did you and Senator Schumer have a plan about how this was going to go and he changed the plan or was there not an agreement headed into the vote?

Hakeem Jeffries (71:40)

Our view as House Democrats was that we were not going to support any partisan Republican spending bill that visited devastating cuts on families, on veterans, and on everyday Americans across the country, including older Americans who rely upon a variety of different health care programs that they've earned as a result of their work throughout their journey in this country. And so once the partisan Republican spending bill was released, we as House Democrats made the decision that we were going to strongly oppose it, whip hard against it and do everything that we could to stop it in the House of Representatives, because substantively it was not something that we could ever support. In addition, we came to the conclusion that one of the problems with the spending bill was that it could open the door by providing a possible blank check to Donald Trump, Elon Musk and the purveyors of the Extreme Project 2025 agenda and give them a blank check to continue to devastate the American people. Now, we were in agreement that the best alternative was a four week spending agreement that would allow for continued discussions led by the top Democrat on the Appropriations Committee in the House, Rosa delaura on our side and Patty Murray on the Senate Democratic side, to try to see if we can actually arrived at a place where there was an actual permanent spending agreement that met the needs of the American people in terms of their health, their safety, our national security and our economic well being. And so the Senate Democrats met with each other, based on the public timeline, of course, on Wednesday. And the position that was articulated on Wednesday was that the votes don't exist in order to break the filibuster related to the partisan Republican spending bill that was on Wednesday and on Thursday. Obviously there was a change in position amongst some.

Dan Pfeiffer (74:04)

Now, six months from now, this you're going to be right back in the same situation. I assume, and you correct me if I'm wrong, that ideally you would use that period of time to get to get to some sort of permanent spending agreement that you could agree to. Senator Schumer could agree to. Everyone would agree to. Now, the history, as you know better than I, of the House Republicans coming to a budget agreement is not great. How are you sort of thinking about the coming budget fight and how you're preparing for that?

Hakeem Jeffries (74:31)

Well, there's sort of what's in front of us in the immediate term, stopping the Republican budget that is designed to really accomplish two things. Enact the largest Medicaid cut in American history in order to fund massive tax cuts for Republican MAGA billionaire donors and wealthy and well off and well connected corporations. I mean, it is a toxic scheme that the Republicans are trying to visit upon the American people and we've got to stop it and work hard against it with everything that we have. And that of course includes House Democrats, Senate Democrats, Governors whose states will be devastated, and of course, advocacy groups and concerned citizens. Now we have the Republicans on the run, in my view, on three the economy, health care and taxes. And we have to continue over the next several weeks and next several months, press our advantage in those three areas. Donald Trump and Republicans last year promised to lower the high cost of living and create an affordable economy. We as Democrats believe that the cost of living for far too many Americans is too high. And there are too many people who are struggling to live paycheck to paycheck in this country of every race, in every region. And that's unacceptable in the wealthiest country in the history of the world. Now, instead of costs going down under Donald Trump and complete control of government that the Republicans now have, it's going up, inflation is going up. What's going down is the stock market. What's going down is consumer confidence. What's going down are the retirement savings accounts of everyday Americans. And it's all because, despite these promises made by Donald Trump and Republicans to focus on the cost of living, they're doing the exact opposite. Not a single bill has been introduced with respect to lowering costs. Not a single administrative action and not a single executive order issued by Donald Trump. Instead, they're focused on this budget scheme, the GOP tax scam, to enact massive tax cuts for their billionaire donors. We have to press our advantage on that issue, the economy, which also relates to their efforts to cut health care, which also relates to their efforts to pass these massive tax cuts, all of which are unpopular with the American people. And in the context of the end of the fiscal year, which as you pointed out, will approach on September 30, I think we just have to be very clear from the outset, we are not going to support a partisan Republican spending bill, period. Full stop.

Dan Pfeiffer (77:34)

So ultimately, because the House Republican, because of the process, the state of the power in Congress and the process the Republicans are going to use, Democrats don't have the votes. And so to stop the, you know, the tax scam, whatever you want to Call it the effort to cut Medicaid to pay for these tax cuts. I take it that your plan here is just to raise public awareness to the point that it becomes politically toxic for the Republicans.

Hakeem Jeffries (77:56)

I think that is an important objective. But substantively, we can't give up the fight as it relates to actually trying to stop this budget from ever becoming law. And if we take a step back. When Donald Trump took office in 2017, he had lost the popular vote, but there were 241 Republicans in the House of Representatives and only 194 Democrats. This time around, he won the popular vote, but at the Moment There are 218 Republicans. And when we're at full strength, there will be 215 Democrats. Now, in the prior term, their chief objective was to repeal the Affordable Care Act. And as you recall, the Affordable Care act wasn't even popular at the time. They had a 241 vote majority. And because of public sentiment initially in the House and then finally with John McCain joining Democrats in the Senate, we were able to stop them from repealing the Affordable Care Act. Now things are a bit different in this particular instance. They are much more cult like in their behavior this time around, but their margins are also much narrower. This is the smallest majority that any party has had since the Great Depression. And because we are on the right side of these issues, the economy, health care, taxes, and making sure that the wealthy, the well off and the well connected pay their fair share. That's our position. Pay your fair share. They don't need a tax cut. Elon Musk doesn't need a tax cut. I think we have to substantively try to make our case to the American people and do everything we can to stop them. But as you point out, to the extent that they ram the budget through the Congress, either in the House or the Senate, sign it into law, just like the GOP tax scam that they passed in 2017 was unpopular and helped to cost them the majority, the same thing could happen this time around.

Dan Pfeiffer (80:07)

Yeah, I couldn't agree more. I sort of meant in the view that if you can make it unpopular, you can make it so that enough of the Republicans who may be in these purple districts or the handful of them are in the districts that Kamala Harris won, would not vote for it because the margins are so narrow. So it's sort of both at the same time. One of the ways in which you're trying to stop it is to raise awareness so people understand the political consequences of voting for it. I want to shift Gears here for a second. Over the weekend, the Trump administration appears to have defied at least one and maybe two court orders involving their mass deportation efforts. This has sort of been the nightmare scenario that, you know, where the Trump administration starts just telling courts, we don't care what you have to say. Telling judge, we don't care what you have to say. This is what sort of, when we talk about what a constitutional crisis could look like under this president, it would be something like this. What's your reaction to what's happening and how dire do you think the situation is right now?

Hakeem Jeffries (81:00)

Thank you for raising this issue. It's been one of the conversations that we've had both internally, in the context of our Rapid Response and Litigation working group that we stood up a few weeks ago, led by Congressman Joe Negus, the assistant Democratic leader, and co chaired by Jamie Raskin, a brilliant lawyer, brilliant constitutional scholar. And we've charged them with coming up with a forceful response to the possibility that the Trump administration would skirt and or outwardly defy court orders. And to make sure that we are in close coordination with a lot of the democracy reform groups that have been litigating these cases, to make sure that there is both a judicial strategy that's important, but also a public strategy. And as we've seen in other democracies across the country, across the world, I should say, when you actually start to see defiance of court orders, then the public uproar has to be intense, immediate, and impactful. In terms of the forcefulness by which the disagreement is communicated around the constitutional issues, that's nonviolent, of course, but it also requires a significant presence to make it clear that this is unacceptable, that we are a nation anchored in the rule of law. And we expect that the president and we expect that his administration will comply with the law at all times, particularly when there are court orders. And to the extent that that does not occur, that the public outcry has to reflect the manner of the constitutional crisis that such defiance would provoke.

Dan Pfeiffer (83:10)

You guys were kind enough to invite me to your House retreat in Virginia last week. Both in the program you guys put together, the folks you invited, the conversations I had with your members, it seemed like you guys were really trying, and I've been to a bunch of these over the years, but it seems like you were really trying to legitimately wrestle with some of the lessons of 2024, how politics have changed, how media has changed. Can you just tell me a little bit what that process is like and what you guys have learned thus far?

Hakeem Jeffries (83:35)

Yeah, you know, it was really strong few days together where we were able to look back and look forward at the same time. I think it's important for us to look back so that we can draw lessons from what happened in November of 2024, figure out why some of those things happen and how do we put Democrats in the best possible position moving forward. We have an all important midterm election next year laying the foundation to end this national nightmare that Donald Trump is visiting upon the American people and bring the American dream to life for everyone. So, you know, there's the substance of it. Okay. Why were we unable to connect with certain Americans on issues largely, I think around the economy and the high cost of living and the view amongst many working classes Americans throughout the country that Donald Trump was better positioned on the economy to turn things around than Democrat. We can never allow that to happen again when at the end of the day, really authentic to us as Democrats. We want to make life better for everyone across the country. That's who we are. And the fact that there was a disconnect in that regard is deeply troubling. And we've got to figure out how we regain the narrative on the economy and on driving down the high cost of living and other issues like, of course, securing the border while defending dreamers and farm workers and keeping law abiding immigrant families together, and of course, making sure that the American people are clear that we want to keep them safe. I grew up in central Brooklyn in late 80s, early 90s, things were dangerous. I understand that the American people want safety in every community. And, you know, Democrats need to make it clear that we're strong in those areas. It's Donald Trump and the Republicans who have become the party of lawlessness and disorder, particularly as it relates to pardoning violent felons who brutally beat police officers and then unleashing these people all across the country to make communities less safe. So we have to make clear that we are connected with the American people on these core issues. And then of course, make sure that we are communicating through new media platforms like this Pod Safe America. All of you, the network do a tremendous job. And one of the clear lessons for us is that you have legacy media and that will still have a role to play. But so many everyday Americans actually get their news through the new forms of media. And whether that's social media or podcasts, YouTube shows, messaging apps, chat groups, we have to be present in those spaces, authentically communicating with the American people. And we have launched a massive effort to do just that.

Jon Lovett (86:47)

Leader Jeffries.

Dan Pfeiffer (86:48)

Thank you so much for joining us and good luck out there. Hope to talk to you again soon.

Hakeem Jeffries (86:51)

Much.

Jon Favreau (86:56)

Thanks to Hakeem Jeffries for joining us today. Everyone have a great day and we will be back in your feed with a new episode on Friday.

Jon Lovett (87:04)

And tell us what you thought of the new studio setup.

Jon Favreau (87:07)

Mmm, look at this.

Jon Lovett (87:08)

We moved some things around.

Tommy Vitor (87:09)

Quite a housekeeping riddle there. My God. Yeah, it'll be embedded within the secret show on this mcirk.com friends if you.

Jon Favreau (87:18)

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