AOC vs. Bezos

Summary

Pod Save America – "AOC vs. Bezos" (May 12, 2026)

Overview

In this lively episode, the Pod Save America crew—Jon Favreau, Jon Lovett, and Tommy Vietor—dig into a week's worth of political turbulence. They analyze the deteriorating ceasefire between the U.S. and Iran, mock the Trump administration's chaotic foreign and domestic policy ideas, provide sharp commentary on redistricting battles, and unpack Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez's (AOC) pointed remarks about billionaires—especially in light of a critical Washington Post editorial. The crew closes with trademark humor, riffing on reality TV cabinet secretaries and the intersection of politics and celebrity.

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Key Discussion Points and Insights

1. Iran Ceasefire on "Life Support"

Timestamps: [02:23] – [18:35]

• Trump’s Ceasefire Negotiations: Trump’s latest ceasefire proposal with Iran has crumbled, with Iran demanding reparations and control over the Strait of Hormuz. Trump dismisses Iran’s letter as "a piece of garbage" ([06:29]) and claims to have "the best plan ever," despite not reading the full memo.
• Analysis of U.S.-Iran Stalemate: The hosts argue that Trump's maximalist demands, Iran’s strong bargaining position, and both sides’ intransigence make a deal nearly impossible. Tommy Vietor breaks it down:

  "We send over our maximalist position and then we just get mad and walk away. That’s not how negotiations work." ([10:19])

• Strategic Loss: They reference Robert Kagan’s Atlantic piece suggesting the U.S. is facing a historically unprecedented defeat in Iran, even more significant than Pearl Harbor ([10:39]–[11:37]).
• Potential Outcomes: Options include restarting war, maintaining a costly blockade, or declaring a hollow victory—none are good. Iran is highly unlikely to relinquish control of the Strait of Hormuz.
• Economic and Security Fallout: Tommy warns that escalation could involve the Houthis in Yemen, leading to greater regional chaos and skyrocketing oil prices ([15:00]).

2. Trump’s Domestic Chaos: Gas Tax, Reflecting Pool, and Ballrooms

Timestamps: [21:53] – [27:42]

• Gas Tax Suspension: Trump floats suspending the federal gas tax—a move dismissed as a "gimmick" that offers little relief but jeopardizes needed infrastructure funding ([21:53]–[23:39]).
• Reflecting Pool & White House Ballrooms: Trump’s administration pushes costly and corrupt public projects, including repainting the Lincoln Memorial reflecting pool with a no-bid contract and building a tax-funded, billionaire-ballroom in the White House.

  “It’s the worst of all worlds for Trump, but best of all worlds for us in the politics.” ([27:05])

• Critique of Corruption: The hosts highlight the blend of private donations, corporate influence, and taxpayer burden in these lavish vanity projects.

3. Absurd Proposals: Venezuela as 51st State

Timestamps: [29:30] – [32:19]

• Trump considers making Venezuela the 51st U.S. state due to its oil wealth. The hosts ridicule the impracticality, hypocrisy (given Trump’s anti-immigrant positions), and disregard for international law.

  “You also need, I mean, I know that we don't care about international law or the UN anymore, but it's a flagrant violation of international law.” ([30:37])

• They reference polling that Venezuelan gratitude for Trump plummeted quickly, mocking the shallow understanding and motivation behind Trump’s suggestion.

4. U.S.–China Diplomacy: Billionaires Abroad

Timestamps: [35:50] – [39:18]

• Trump’s trip to China includes Elon Musk and Tim Cook. The hosts question Cook’s continued association with Trump and discuss speculative diplomatic horse-trading—will China help reopen the Strait of Hormuz in exchange for concessions on Taiwan?
• Tommy notes Trump’s willingness to "trade away Taiwan in a heartbeat for a good trade deal" ([37:38]).
• Brief discussion of U.S.–China cooperation on AI safety, with cautious optimism about communication channels.

5. Redistricting Mess in Virginia and Beyond

Timestamps: [39:46] – [52:38]

• Virginia Supreme Court Overturns Maps: The state court’s decision is expected to benefit Republicans but may also backfire by energizing Black voters and making competitive districts, per Jonathan Martin and Amy Walter.
• Democratic Opportunities and Strategic Risks: Even with new gerrymandered maps, Democrats can keep the House by winning the popular vote by 4% ([42:44]). The hosts urge focus on turnout, not just legal maneuvering.

  “We ought to be able to beat that 4%... we should focus on that.” – Jon Lovett ([42:44])

• State-Level Power: The hosts discuss the urgent need to win back state legislatures to counteract entrenched GOP power.

6. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez vs. Billionaires & the Washington Post

Timestamps: [54:28] – [61:48]

• AOC’s Interview with David Axelrod: She artfully dodges 2028 Presidential bidding speculation by pivoting to systemic ambitions:

  "They assume that my ambition is positional... My ambition is way bigger than that. My ambition is to change this country." – AOC ([55:33]–[55:48])

• Washington Post Editorial Flap: The hosts lampoon Jeff Bezos’s paper defending billionaires against AOC's critique, with Lovett noting:

  "It is absurd that Jeff Bezos’s paper is writing a defense of billionaires." ([57:19])

• Philosophy of Wealth: The debate on whether billionaires can exist without exploitation is reframed as a structural policy issue, not just personal morality.

  “What are the policy considerations here? What are we going to... put into place to make sure that the system is more fair?” – Jon Favreau ([60:53])

7. Reality TV Politics: Sean Duffy's Family Road Trip

Timestamps: [62:30] – [67:34]

• Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy, with wife Rachel Campos Duffy (of Real World and Fox News fame), stars in a "wholesome" family road trip series—funded by sponsors with DOT business and possibly taxpayer dollars.
• The hosts mock the hypocrisy, referencing Campos Duffy’s previous criticism of Pete Buttigieg’s parental leave:

  “You know who fucking wouldn’t stop talking about Pete Buttigieg... Rachel Campos Duffy. Now you’re gonna go do this?” – Jon Favreau ([65:06])

• The segment closes with the crew lampooning Duffy’s reality TV background and the stunt’s lack of substance.

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Notable Quotes and Moments

• “I have the best plan ever. I have a plan. You know what? It is a very simple plan... Iran cannot have a nuclear weapon.” – Donald Trump ([06:29])
• “Trump is a drunk guy at the bar who's been lifting a lot. We decided to pick a fight with the crazy guy who has cauliflower ear, and that guy is kicking the shit out of him.” – Tommy Vietor ([18:01])
• “It’s the worst of all worlds for Trump, but best of all worlds for us in the politics.” – Jon Favreau ([27:05])
• “They assume that my ambition is positional... My ambition is to change this country.” – Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez ([55:33]–[55:48])
• “It is absurd that Jeff Bezos’s paper is writing a defense of billionaires.” – Jon Lovett ([57:19])
• “You know who fucking wouldn’t stop talking about Pete Buttigieg... Rachel Campos Duffy. Now you’re gonna go do this?” – Jon Favreau ([65:06])

---

Segment Timestamps

• Iran Ceasefire and Trump’s “Plan”: [02:23] – [18:35]
• Domestic Political Theater (Gas Tax, Ballrooms): [21:53] – [27:42]
• Venezuela Statehood Ridicule: [29:30] – [32:19]
• China Visit & Taiwan Geopolitics: [35:50] – [39:18]
• Redistricting Disasters and Opportunities: [39:46] – [52:38]
• AOC/Billionaires/2028 Speculation: [54:28] – [61:48]
• Sean Duffy’s Reality TV Road Trip: [62:30] – [67:34]

---

Tone & Takeaways

The hosts combine biting humor, exasperation, and hard-edged political analysis. They openly mock the Trump administration’s bluster and self-dealing, echoing progressive frustration and skepticism. The team underscores the need for strategic focus in the Democratic Party, the urgency of state-level politics, and the importance of systemic policy change over symbolic fights about the morality of individual billionaires. The episode is rich in quotable moments and offers listeners a crucial, contextualized dissection of the week’s political circus—leaving no vanity project or petty hypocrisy unscathed.

Transcript

[Jon Favreau]

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[Jon Lovett]

I drive my bus in a busy city. That's why road safety is so important to me. I know that I must slow down and be extra careful when I make a wide turn. Buses need more room than cars. Everyone can help keep our roads safe. Next time you're driving, remember to give buses plenty of plenty of time and space to finish turning before driving ahead. Let's all plan to share the road safely. Learn how at www.sharetherodesafely.gov.

[Jon Favreau]

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

[Jon Lovett]

I'm Jon Lovett.

[Tommy Vietor]

I'm Tommy Guitor.

[Jon Favreau]

On today's show, Trump says the ceasefire with Iran is on, quote, life support. We'll talk about why and what comes next as he heads off to China. We'll also talk about his new plan to make Venezuela our 51st state.

[Tommy Vietor]

That's a perfect plan.

[Jon Favreau]

Perfect plan. The fallout from the Virginia Supreme Court's decision to throw out the Democrats. New maps. AOC taking on Jeff Bezos and what she might run for in 2028. And Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy and his wife, Rachel Campos. Duffy getting back to their roots with a new reality television show. Yeah. Exciting.

[Jon Lovett]

Great.

[Jon Favreau]

Quick note before we start. If you're a friend of the POD subscriber, which if you aren't, you should be, you can now buy tickets for this year's Crooked Con special presale just for subscribers.

[Jon Lovett]

Damn right. Just for you.

[Jon Favreau]

May 12th. That is today when you're listening. But if you're not a subscriber because you hate pro democracy independent media and you love listening to podcast ads, you can still buy Crooked Con tickets. But you'll have to wait till next week. Starting on May 19, you might get

[Tommy Vietor]

a job at CBS.

[Jon Favreau]

You might get a job at CBS. You might get to someday interview Bibi Netanyahu.

[Tommy Vietor]

Netanyahu, say, sir, why are you so great?

[Jon Favreau]

Yeah. That's the only.

[Tommy Vietor]

Why is your leadership so impressive?

[Jon Favreau]

There's definitely a limited range of questions you can ask Netanyahu if you get the job at CBS versus if you interview him here at Pod Save America, which I don't think is going to happen anytime soon.

[Tommy Vietor]

Rhodes has got an ask in.

[Jon Lovett]

I think we get Netanyahu before or after we get Biden,

[Jon Favreau]

maybe.

[Tommy Vietor]

Actuarial question.

[Jon Favreau]

Anyway, either way, CricketCon is going to be a big, fun party. Right after the midterms November 5th through 7th, Dan yelled at me for saying big fun party because he thought that was, like, jinxing the midterms. I'm like, it's still going to be a big fun party. Even if we, we're going to still have a party, we're still going to live.

[Tommy Vietor]

Yeah. I mean, you know, what choice do we have?

[Jon Favreau]

Gallows humor is still humor.

[Jon Lovett]

June in 2017.

[Jon Favreau]

I did.

[Jon Lovett]

I did. And we don't connect.

[Jon Favreau]

And when Trump won. And when Trump won, I remember telling Emily there might not be a wedding now.

[Tommy Vietor]

Yeah.

[Jon Lovett]

And she's like, related reasons,

[Jon Favreau]

Will she listen? Who knows?

[Jon Lovett]

That did take you in through this.

[Tommy Vietor]

Hannah Won't tell her. Hannah won't tell her about that joke.

[Jon Lovett]

Don't worry about that. No. Put this under a comment of Emily's Instagram.

[Jon Favreau]

You know someone's going to, you know someone's going to send this to her. Yeah, I'm going to send this to her.

[Tommy Vietor]

I know. I hate the snitch tag.

[Jon Favreau]

It's going to turn up at your wedding is what it's going to turn up. Anyway, you should go subscribe.

[Tommy Vietor]

What am I talking about?

[Jon Favreau]

Become a friend of the PI subscriber. No ads for any of your favorite podcasts at Crooked and you get to support Crooked media and you get subscriber only shows and you get all of our substack newsletters. And by the way, you can start buying a ticket for for CrookedCon right now. They're going fast. Go get it. November 5th through 7th Washington D.C. it's crookedcon.com and you can become a [e-mail] friends all right. It appears that last week's siren emojis about the US and Iran closing in on a one page memo to end the war have given way to this week's siren emojis about Trump possibly resuming military action in Iran. Live by the siren emoji, die by the siren emoji.

[Tommy Vietor]

Are we talking about reporters?

[Jon Favreau]

I mean that's, that's who usually gives them. Well actually no reporters do now. Also just random influencers and accounts that steal the report give you any accurate information whatsoever.

[Jon Lovett]

It lends credibility. It does and it starts with Drudge. The sirens are judge. It doesn't. The siren doesn't make sense as a news break.

[Jon Favreau]

Then reporters started doing it and then just random influencer just you know, trying to gather information that's not in any way that just shows up in your for you algorithm.

[Jon Lovett]

People with names like Joey Bloomberg. Bloomberg is reporting it.

[Tommy Vietor]

It's like I collapsed the market for like five years.

[Jon Favreau]

It is all caps. Any. Um, anyway, all of this comes after Trump rejected Iran's response to the one page memo. They kept kept telling it was one page. It's the right length of the all on one page. Anyway, rejected. Which Iran waited 10 days to send and included demands for U.S. reparations and permanent Iranian control over the Strait of Hormuz. Trump called that quote totally unacceptable and inappropriate before elaborating on his initial reaction in the Oval on Monday.

[Donald Trump]

I would say the ceasefire is on massive life support where the doctor walks in and says sir, your loved one has approximately a 1% chance of living. It's unbelievably weak, I would say. I would call it the weakest right now after reading a piece of garbage they sent us. I didn't even finish reading it. It was just unacceptable. You know, a lot of people said, well, does he have a plan? Yeah, of course I do. I have the best plan ever. I have a plan. You know what? It is a very simple plan. I don't know why you don't say it like it is. Iran cannot have a nuclear weapon ready to allow the removal of all their enriched. Yeah, yeah. Well, they did two days ago.

[Tommy Vietor]

They didn't.

[Donald Trump]

Okay, they did two days ago. They said, you're going to have to take it. We were going to go with them and. But they changed their mind because they didn't put it in the bank. I've had to deal with them four or five times. They change their mind. They're very dishonorable people.

[Tommy Vietor]

The leadership, exhausting.

[Jon Favreau]

Who would have thunk it? He's learning a lot of lessons over and over and over again. Maybe not learning them.

[Tommy Vietor]

It drives me crazy when he says, I have a plan. Iran cannot have a nuclear weapon. No, that's a goal.

[Jon Favreau]

Yeah.

[Tommy Vietor]

That's what you want.

[Jon Favreau]

What a plan.

[Tommy Vietor]

The plan is how you get to that.

[Jon Lovett]

Yeah, right. That's a destination.

[Tommy Vietor]

That's a din.

[Jon Lovett]

You need a. We need a route.

[Tommy Vietor]

You need a journey.

[Jon Favreau]

So far as we start week 11 of the war, it doesn't seem like that plan is bearing fruit.

[Tommy Vietor]

It's also funny that he didn't read the whole one page memo.

[Jon Lovett]

Yeah. Finish well. Yeah. Get to the bottom of the thing. Maybe there's some good stuff at the bottom. What if there's some pictures?

[Jon Favreau]

Tommy, why do you think the latest deal fell apart? And what other options does Trump have at this point?

[Tommy Vietor]

I mean, it just. All the details weren't public, but I think that the US sent over a bunch of hardline nuclear demands and the Iranians were like, nah, we just want you to stop blockading the straight of Hormuz and give us all this shit. And that's our take. And so now we're back. So all the options are bad. I mean, he can restart the war, which is extremely unlikely to lead to regime change, but will certainly lead to economic chaos in the region. He can keep the blockade going and hope that the economic pain breaks the Iranian regime before it breaks the global economy. I don't think that's going to work either. And then he can find a way to declare victory and slink away, which seems like the Most likely option. But Iran will probably control the Strait of Hormuz. In that case.

[Jon Favreau]

I'm very interested in his, how he keeps talking about the leaders in all these different ways. First, he likes the new leaders because they're better than the old leaders. They killed all the old leaders. Then he also does sometimes we don't know who the leaders are. And then this one was, they're awful, they're dishonorable people, they're lunatics.

[Jon Lovett]

Yeah. It's also, we've been through so many rounds of reporting in which Trump felt we were on the precipice of a deal and then the talks fall apart. But if you take out the spinning coming from the administration, is it possible that really they've just been far apart the whole time? Because the Venn diagram of, on one side you have Trump requiring a deal that is better than the jcpoa, the Obama deal, because he said that deal was the worst deal ever made. On the other side, you have Iran in a stronger position than when the war began, wanting a better deal than that, including consequences to the US Reparations for the cost of the war and the power it's gained from having control of the Strai or Hormuz. Those circles don't overlap. So what are we doing here?

[Tommy Vietor]

Yeah, exactly.

[Jon Lovett]

We just, we keep. And then the reporting is so credulous and so it feels like we're having this up or down, up and down roller coaster, but really we're just dealing with the like, kind of strategic, like reality of this stupid fucking war. Yeah, it sounds, bums me out personally.

[Jon Favreau]

Same. Well, it also sounds like, and you know, they said that they, in all these plans and proposals that Iran keeps sending back or responding to, sounds like they just want to keep control of the Strait of Hormuz.

[Tommy Vietor]

No doubt.

[Jon Favreau]

And why wouldn't.

[Tommy Vietor]

Or they want sanctions relief or they want one or the other. They need a financial lifeline.

[Jon Lovett]

Right.

[Tommy Vietor]

But it's also like they're, they're sending over their maximalist position. We send over our maximalist position and then we just get mad and walk away. That's not how negotiations work. Get in a room, hash it out, give a little on each side, maybe we can come to some conclusion. But they're just like, they're not even trying. Trump's like, I didn't read the one page memo all the way to the bottom.

[Jon Favreau]

Bob Kagan, the hawkish neocon Iraq war supporting Bob Kagan. That one just wrote a piece in the Atlantic.

[Tommy Vietor]

To me, I'm not close enough to Call him Bob.

[Jon Lovett]

I just, I call him Robert.

[Tommy Vietor]

Bobby.

[Jon Favreau]

Bobby. He just wrote a piece in the Atlantic titled Checkmate in Iran that starts. It's hard to think of a time when the United States suffered a total defeat in the conflict, a setback so decisive that the strategic loss could be neither repaired nor ignored. He then ticks through every conflict since Pearl harbor and basically makes the case that Trump's fuck up in Iran will be more consequential than all of them. What'd you guys think?

[Jon Lovett]

I just want to. Just before we get into details of you, the neocon high dudgeon of the 2000s, I still do not miss, like, look, this is a very big blunder. I think it is a little, it's a little premature to be saying it's worse than Pearl Harbor.

[Jon Favreau]

Oh, see, I thought Pearl harbor was actually one of the easier ones. Because Pearl harbor, because Pearl harbor, his thing was like, we came back and we, we won that one pretty decisively.

[Jon Lovett]

Sure, in hindsight, it looks pretty good. But a year or so after Pearl harbor, things were pretty up in the air.

[Jon Favreau]

I think we're gonna go to Iraq. Cuz that one was. He was like. And then we left. Then eventually we left Iraq stable, more stable. And I'm like, oh, did we yada,

[Jon Lovett]

yada, out of there for Iraq?

[Tommy Vietor]

That was my big note too. Like, I want to build the biggest tent possible. But his idea that Iraq was mitigated by like a strategic change and then all's well that ends well because, like, that Saddam's not there now. Yeah, that was a little much for me.

[Jon Lovett]

But this is all like throat clearing around what was truly a bracing and just dismal read on the situation, including laying out just how few options Trump has. Because part of the reason he called off military strikes, wanted a ceasefire, is because of the leverage Iran had when it was striking oil and gas infrastructure in the region, how he can try to declare victory. But that still leaves the strait of war moves, how, like, all the options that Trump has are terrible.

[Tommy Vietor]

Yeah, they're all terrible. And also the Israelis have also just been crystal clear that they don't think the war is over. I mean, if you watch Netanyahu in 60 minutes, he said as much. There's also the war in Lebanon. If you want a weaker ceasefire, I could point you to one. The one in Lebanon where they're bombing each other all the time and there's constant fighting, like daily. There's casualties all the time. Yeah. So I agree with this assessment that the Iranians are not going to give up the straight or Hormuz unless they get sanctions really for something like really big for it. And that we look weak and we look kind of feckless and unreliable.

[Jon Lovett]

It's also like the gall of Trump saying these people are dishonorable. You used previous talks as a smokescreen to bomb the leadership. You have ripped up the previous agreement and you may not have liked it, but it was negotiated in good faith by the United States, which you can, you know, which whose authority came from Obama to you. So you've kind of undermined our credibility there. They have no confidence that Trump won't change his mind in a couple months and resume bombing if they accept a deal. They have no confidence that Israel won't bomb Iran if it views it in its interest, even if there is a deal. So just like the, the, the kind of, the, the, the, the kind of, the way in which we're like, stuck in this morass because Trump went into this so have cocked is just, it's, it's, it's just sort of gruesome. And it's. When you step back and look at

[Jon Favreau]

it, I think there were times in this conflict where people said, oh, you know, I remember thinking this at one point. He could end up just going back to, like, Obama's Iran deal, right, and then call it a victory. But it's going to be like Iran, like, oh, you know, you all criticized Obama for this. I think it's pretty clear now that there's no way he gets a deal that's better or even the same as the Iran deal. It's going to be worse. Because when the Iran deal was made, Iran didn't control the Strait of Hormuz. No doubt. Like, this piece made me think about the, like, not the, I knew about the strategic importance of the strait, but just from Iran's perspective. Now they've got the control, even they get some sanctions relief. They're going to have to get a lot more sanctions relief and a lot when they're calling it reparations or whatever than they ever were before because they got the strait. They have full control over it now. Maybe they go for a deal where they charge some tolls, maybe they share control with other, you know, Gulf nations. But it seems like the scenario now where Iran willingly signed some kind of a deal where they fully give up the Strait of Hormuz and it goes back to being like an international waterway, seems very slim.

[Tommy Vietor]

There's no chance they just got this incredible toy and they're going to play with it. For as long as they want, until it breaks or someone takes it away. There's just no chance. Also, it could get worse. Like, if Trump decides to go back to war, the economic cost could be just a resumption of what we've seen. But also, the Houthi rebels could get involved. They're in Yemen. They could start firing at ships in the Red Sea. They should. Could choke off. You know, the Saudis have been sending a lot of their oil and gas that they can't get out through the Strait of Hormuz west through a pipeline, and then it'll get out through the Red Sea or through the Suez Canal. If the Houthis get involved and they choke off those access points too, like, prices could hit $300 a barrel. It's a disaster. And also, by the way, we're not even talking about the reason we're in. We're there, which is the nuclear material, the 900 pounds of highly enriched uranium. Sometimes it's dust, sometimes it's. The dust you're talking about critical to get out of it is still sitting in Iran. And also, all of that material was enriched after Trump pulled out of the jcpoa. So it's a problem he created and now is probably not gonna solve.

[Jon Favreau]

I like the scenario that he mentioned where they were all, we were gonna go in together with the Iranians, like just a group field trip to go to dig under the rubble and to find all the nuclear dust together.

[Tommy Vietor]

I'd go.

[Jon Favreau]

I thought that was a real. That's a show I'd watch. I also like. And so this is around giving up the straight, like through some negotiation. Then there's the other option of trying to take it by force. But that, that requires like, you know, U.S. navy ships potentially getting fired on and around small boats firing on other ships, too. And, and then Kagan points out in this piece, too, even if they're not firing on the ships, they can retaliate against Gulf energy infrastructure like they did however many weeks ago, before the ceasefire. So, like, they have plenty of options. Iran. And clearly they are fine taking a whole bunch of punishment because, you know, as the Trump administration likes to point out, they don't give a shit about their own people. They kill protesters, all that kind of stuff. They surely are not going to care if they're going to inflict a ton of economic pain on their country. It's not like they care a lot about their people. So, yeah, they're going to have, they're going to have the appetite for a lot of Pain. Yeah.

[Jon Lovett]

That's the part that's sort of, like, chilling about where we're at, because we're in this sort of stalemate in which Trump looks like a loser. He can try to declare victory, but there'll still be the ongoing cost of us having kind of shown our might and Iran remaining in power and now controlling the Strait of Hormuz. Or there's escalation, and we've already done. We've already launched a massive campaign against Iran and the regime held together. What escalation looks like, how far they'd have to go, because the next. The next escalation is toward the regime collapsing. And that's a combination of economic pressure to. To squeeze them. That's more an intense military action and like it all. And while that is happening in. Even if it were to happen relatively quickly, you're still talking about Iran unloading whatever it is it's willing to do in the Gulf. And so just. They are terrible options in front of America's worst person.

[Tommy Vietor]

And this was totally like, Trump is a drunk guy at the bar who's been lifting a lot. We decided to pick a fight with the crazy guy who has cauliflower ear, and that guy is kicking the shit out of him and is willing to go a lot further to win this fight than Donald Trump is and take a lot more pain, and it's not going to end well.

[Jon Lovett]

Yeah. And by the way, you also killed his father, I guess, and there's no gold toilet for him. Like, it is. Like, there was something someone said once a long time ago, which is, like, if someone is willing to fight you, it means they have less to lose. Yep. And I don't think Trump ever learned that because I don't think there's been a real fight.

[Tommy Vietor]

No.

[Jon Lovett]

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[Jon Favreau]

Listen, you have so much hair there, I can't even see your face.

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[Jon Favreau]

Red light therapy, yes.

[Jon Lovett]

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[Jon Favreau]

Pod Save America is brought to you by Rocket Money. What ridiculous subscription did you discover you were paying for? Any embarrassing doubles? Yeah, a ton of them. All the time. There's a lot. There was a time where I was trying to find like a, like a good workout app that gives you some workouts to do.

[Jon Lovett]

Yeah.

[Jon Favreau]

And then you like sign up and you subscribe and then suddenly it's like, there's three workout apps I never use. What am I doing?

[Jon Lovett]

I was paying for all these different things. At some point I was paying for one of them twice.

[Jon Favreau]

Ridiculous. Rocket Money allows you to track subscriptions and cancel them within the app with just a few taps. In fact, Rocket Money has saved users over $880 million in canceled subscriptions. You can categorize automatic transactions across your accounts and customize categories with tags to help shed light on your spending patterns, set budgets and savings goals. Rocket Money users who create a financial goal in the app save over $70 on average within the first 30 days. Get personalized insights and regular reports on your spending habits. You can even receive real time alerts for large transactions, upcoming bills, and low balances. Consolidate your checking, savings, loans and investment accounts into a single dashboard to give you a clear picture of your you can even set automated savings with adjustable amounts and frequency. Just set it and forget it to grow toward your goals. Rocket Money is a personal finance app that helps find and cancel unwanted subscriptions, monitors your spending, and helps lower your bills so you can grow your savings. Let Rocket Money help you reach your financial goals faster. [e-mail] Crooked that's RocketMoney.com Cricket RocketMoney.com Crooked Good news, though, for all you drivers wondering if we're ever going to see $3 a gallon gas again. Trump said Monday he's considering suspending the federal gas tax.

[Tommy Vietor]

Do it.

[Jon Favreau]

Which is currently about 18 cents a gallon for gasoline and 24 cents a gallon for diesel. President said he'd suspend the tax for as long as it takes, which seems like not that long if you believe Kevin Hassett, which of course you should, who just said oil prices will drop quickly before the midterms once, quote, the gusher opens. Where is the gusher?

[Jon Lovett]

I guess in the straight Chuck Schumer's office now. They'd heard about the gas tax bill. He excites him. Sorry. Just because he loves, you know, does the press conference.

[Jon Favreau]

No. Yeah, for sure. For sure. Suspending the gas tax. Good idea or great idea?

[Tommy Vietor]

Yeah. Suspend the gas tax. Release all the Strategic Petroleum reserve, get rid of all the sanctions on Iran and maybe Russia while you're at it. Just go nuts. Prices will stay high, but now we won't be able to pay for highways or mass transit. It's a great idea. Let's do it.

[Jon Lovett]

Yeah, we already can't pay for those things anyway. And over the last sort of half century, more and more of our roads are paid for without the gas. The gas stats is supplemental, but we still pay for it ourselves. I mean, having a gas tax is a good idea. The politics of suspending it are great. Just do it.

[Jon Favreau]

This is said like someone who was on Hillary Clinton's primary campaign in 2008.

[Jon Lovett]

I don't even remember.

[Jon Favreau]

We were forced to, you guys. Yeah, I had to think about that too, because it was like the mandate fight. Who was? No, you guys. When we did the Indiana and North Carolina primaries, Hillary was saying we should suspend the the Gas tax. And, and Obama was saying that's just a, that's just a gimmick and it's bad and we shouldn't do it. And it's just, it's not really going to affect your prices that much.

[Tommy Vietor]

That when John McCain sent tire gauges

[Jon Favreau]

to us and that's something different.

[Jon Lovett]

That was, that was when, that was

[Tommy Vietor]

when we were going to solve.

[Jon Lovett]

That was when we were making, we wanted people to check. He just suggested people check their tires and they're like, you fucking piece of shit. We like running on these soft tires. Cushy. It's cushy. We're not going to fill up my tires. Communist bastard. But the, yeah, look, the point is

[Jon Favreau]

it doesn't, it doesn't actually bring down the price.

[Jon Lovett]

No, it's. What is it, 18, 20, 16 to 18 cents a gallon and then some. A little bit more for diesel. I mean it's a bigger deal for truck drivers. Commercial like, it does make a big difference for people like that.

[Jon Favreau]

But it's also ridiculous that Trump said he would do this. Can't do without Congress. There's some bipartisan legislation that was floating around. It might get a little more lift now that he said it, but he can't do it on its. On his own. Or I guess he, he's not supposed to do it on its own. On his own. Who knows? He can try anyway. And yeah, of course it robs the government of, you know, revenue it can't afford to lose because we have a lot of big ticket items that we need to pay for, like bombing Iran and building a ballroom and now apparently painting the Lincoln Memorial reflecting pool American flag blue, which along with some other repairs is apparently going to cost $13.1 million. According to David Fahrenholt at the Times. This is an, apparently it's an 88% jump in the cost of what it's going to take to repaint the reflecting pool. And you know why it jumped so high? Because Donald Trump decided to give a no bid contract to the guy who did all his pools at Bedminster, which is Rudy Giuliani.

[Tommy Vietor]

Hope he feels better.

[Jon Lovett]

It's all they're trying to sue it to stop it. It was funny. The guy that was suing, he's like, we just look, it's a process thing, but also we just think they chose a bad color, which, you know, they did. You know, it's gonna be the tackiest fucking thing in the world.

[Jon Favreau]

It's the tackiest blue.

[Jon Lovett]

Like, come on, it doesn't need to look Like a goddamn, like, Splash Mountain thing. Like just kinda.

[Tommy Vietor]

The best blue is North Carolina. Carolina blue. Let's just do that. Unc colors.

[Jon Favreau]

That'd be pretty bright in the reflecting pool.

[Tommy Vietor]

I don't know. I'm just making this up. Why did Kevin Hassett always. He looks like Dennis the Menace just took down the biggest nitrous balloon you've ever seen. Then he just spouts like economic bullshit on cnc.

[Jon Favreau]

It's like he spouts the balloons. He's the best Democr. Yeah, he's the best.

[Jon Lovett]

More. Get him out there.

[Jon Favreau]

$13 million for the reflecting pool. They're voting on the ballroom this week. Remember, that's a billion dollars that they want to add in security.

[Tommy Vietor]

That's a lot of security.

[Jon Favreau]

Did you see what.

[Tommy Vietor]

What are we doing to that?

[Jon Favreau]

Speaking of. Speaking of, your boy Chuck Schumer, he coined a new term for Republicans because the ballroom.

[Jon Lovett]

Did you see what it was? Oh, I didn't.

[Tommy Vietor]

No.

[Jon Favreau]

Ballroom Republicans. He's calling them ball. He's calling the party ballroom Republicans. It's not. I know. It's one of those. I'm like. It's a. It's definitely, definitely not using a scalpel there. More of a. More of a sledgehammer. But maybe he. He throws out ballroom Republicans and then everyone. It's like a signal. And everyone says it in a better way, but everyone knows what the message is.

[Jon Lovett]

Because he shots me at this point last week that because this billion dollars is in the budget, they're all gonna have to vote on it. And I think that's great. It's a yes or no on the fucking ballroom.

[Tommy Vietor]

Terrific.

[Jon Lovett]

Terrific.

[Jon Favreau]

The idea that they're saying, oh, it's security. Security. Secret Service needs it. Well, would they need it if they didn't have the fucking ballroom? Probably not.

[Jon Lovett]

Hey, but it's like you knocked down the east wing and you got to rebuild it. Did you? Did you not? Was it a different America in which there wasn't security? When you knocked down a building, that

[Jon Favreau]

line item in the budget, when you were doing up the budget for the new ballroom, you knew what the thing

[Jon Lovett]

was going to fucking cost. It's like it now. It's like every fucking now it's like a football stadium where, you know, these donors are going to go to the big unveiling because they're the ones responsible. But the vast majority of the cost of the taxpayers. Because building the. If the actual kind of construction is 300 million, but securing the facility is a billion dollars. Costs that were inevitable and required in order to ever use it. It's a taxpayer ballroom, just 100%.

[Jon Favreau]

Just trying to add it up here we got, there's the ballroom, there's the Trump Kennedy center, there's the arch. We haven't even started building the archetype.

[Tommy Vietor]

Well, get going.

[Jon Favreau]

We got the. And now the reflecting pool. They are also that, that UFC fight that's going to, that's going to take some doing to put up that and take it down on the White House lawn. Now, some of this is like privately funded landscaping. It is, of course, the, it's the, it's the worst of all worlds for Trump, but best of all worlds for us in the politics. But it's like some of it's being funded by major donors, corporate donors who now get special access to Trump because of their donation. And then the rest is the taxpayers foot the bill. So it's like a good mix of shady influence of corporate allies of Trump and just, you know, good old fashioned, just, you know, corruption.

[Tommy Vietor]

The reflecting pool brought to you by Raytheon. So when you're reflecting on your life, you like to think about the drones.

[Jon Lovett]

Like, hey, we got. Really. The reflecting pool wasn't a problem.

[Tommy Vietor]

No.

[Jon Lovett]

I'm open to the possibility that they could use a ballroom. I don't think it would have been my priority. Right. But the reflecting pool was just doing its thing. It was just, it's not the wrong color. It looks great. It's classic. I do think, listen, I've said this before, no offense to Steven Spielberg. I think that, that World War II memorial.

[Jon Favreau]

Oh, yeah, you've.

[Jon Lovett]

My, this is my position, which I think is I don't want, I don't want it. I don't know, the final design.

[Tommy Vietor]

Trickle down ballroom.

[Jon Favreau]

Steven Spielberg design.

[Jon Lovett]

No, he was part of the class because it was part of the post. Saving Private Ryan. Tom. It was in the, it was part. He was, helped raise money for it. He was kind of a big booster of it. I don't know exactly what his direct involvement is. Not the designer of it, but he was a big face of getting it done.

[Jon Favreau]

So Democrat takes over. We're going to bulldoze the ballroom. Yeah, bulldoze the World War II memorial.

[Jon Lovett]

No, no, no, no. I don't want that.

[Tommy Vietor]

Listen, you want your name.

[Jon Favreau]

Paint the reflecting. What are we painting? The reflecting pool.

[Tommy Vietor]

Is that where Jenny and Forrest Gump reunited? Was that in the reflecting pool?

[Jon Favreau]

Yes, it is.

[Jon Lovett]

It is.

[Tommy Vietor]

Don't mess with that landmark look.

[Jon Lovett]

Painting the reflecting pool, kind of undoing that, that's an easy one.

[Jon Favreau]

Also all the gold on the White

[Jon Lovett]

House, that's coming off.

[Jon Favreau]

That's easy. The writing on the outside of the oval, that's like cursive gold writing, oval, this way.

[Jon Lovett]

Why do you think this house needs a fucking name tag? We all, you. Everyone knows what it is. That's the whole idea of it.

[Tommy Vietor]

It'd be funny if they did a big gold like in this house, we believe.

[Jon Favreau]

Kind of like the Mar a lago, a bonpond, umbrellas, the yellow umbrellas. Those are all gone.

[Tommy Vietor]

Those drive me. It looks just like Mar a Lago. Yeah, that's the silly color.

[Jon Favreau]

It's a long list. Well, if suspending the gas tax doesn't work and the, and the gusher of oil doesn't open, Trump does have one other.

[Tommy Vietor]

Stop saying gusher.

[Jon Favreau]

Gusher, gusher, gusher.

[Tommy Vietor]

You. Yeah, it's a snack.

[Jon Favreau]

Gusher. It is a snack. Yes, Tommy. Trump does have one other trick up his sleeve. President told Fox on Monday that he is, quote, seriously considering making Venezuela the 51st US state because there's, quote, $40 trillion in oil there and quote, Venezuela loves Trump.

[Tommy Vietor]

Isn't this the MAGA fever dream? Isn't he president because Joe Biden let in too many people from Venezuelan prisons? Where is Stephen Miller on this one? I don't understand.

[Jon Lovett]

Like, I'm pretty sure every person in a Venezuelan prison would become an American, right? He would make, he would actually make an unprecedented number of Venezuelan prisoners.

[Tommy Vietor]

Quite an amnesty.

[Jon Lovett]

Every person in the asylum, the worst people in Venezuel as well. We'll all become Americans.

[Jon Favreau]

It's a good question. But I wonder if, just to play this out, if this administration, Stephen Miller, would make sure that they are second class citizens who have to stay in Venezuela. We know how they treat the citizens of Puerto Rico.

[Tommy Vietor]

Right. They're a little Maduro's advocate here.

[Jon Lovett]

Well, they're not. But they're not a member. They're not there. They don't have state. This is 51st state.

[Jon Favreau]

Well, it doesn't matter if Trump. You need Congress.

[Jon Lovett]

Exactly. It doesn't matter who's considering it. Oh, you're considering it. So am I.

[Jon Favreau]

You also need, I mean, I know that we don't care about international law or the UN anymore, but it's a flagrant violation of international law. The people of Venezuela would have to, of course, vote on this.

[Jon Lovett]

It won't be a flagrant violation of an international law if the Venezuelans don't choose to do it.

[Jon Favreau]

That's what I'm saying.

[Tommy Vietor]

Yeah.

[Jon Lovett]

Presumably you'd have to have some sort of vote on it.

[Jon Favreau]

That's right.

[Jon Lovett]

Which would be lawful.

[Jon Favreau]

That's quite a presumption.

[Jon Lovett]

Also, boy. Creates a bunch of new, interesting borders that presumably would also need walls for Mexico to pay for, I guess.

[Jon Favreau]

Yeah, yeah. Also, he said that they love Trump. And I did look at some polling on this. It was in the Miami Herald, actually, a couple of weeks ago. They did a big poll in Venezuela in January. 92% of Venezuelans said they felt grateful to Trump for capturing Maduro. That was like, a couple days after the capture. And a few weeks ago, it's down to 47%. 89% of Venezuelans reject Trump's continued backing of Rodriguez, and 78% think the country's on the wrong track under her.

[Tommy Vietor]

Honestly.

[Jon Lovett]

Honestly, him losing support for deposing Maduro that quickly, it's actually very American to me. It's like, wow, what have you done for me lately?

[Tommy Vietor]

I'm 100% sure that we've now officially thought about this longer and deeper than Donald Trump has, but certainly there's an easier way to just steal all their oil than to make them another state.

[Jon Lovett]

Yeah.

[Tommy Vietor]

That's the end game, by the way.

[Jon Favreau]

Aren't we doing that now already?

[Tommy Vietor]

The oil's not just like. It's like, in the Amazon. It's, like, very hard to access, actually. It's a real pain.

[Jon Favreau]

I know. I. We. I was flirting with not talking about this at all, but we saw what happened with Greenland. There's. There's, you know, NATO had exercises, military exercises in Greenland, so we got pretty close on that one.

[Tommy Vietor]

Raphael Lemkin just wanted to shout at us about international law over here. Look at Mall Clooney over there.

[Jon Favreau]

I didn't get the first.

[Jon Lovett]

Yeah, say that shit for Ben.

[Jon Favreau]

Take it to the world. O. Yeah, please. Okay.

[Jon Lovett]

Pod Save America is brought to you by Helix. Sleep is so important. A good night's rest sets you up for a great day. I've had all kinds of sleep issues over the years. Brain can't stop. You know, I had a dream last night, in the middle of the night that I had signed a contract that obligated me to an unlimited expense over a real estate deal involving apartment buildings. I woke up in a panic. You know, I sometimes think nightmares get a bad rap if you have a really good dream and you wake up. It's not true. You have a nightmare and then you wake up.

[Jon Favreau]

That wasn't real.

[Jon Lovett]

Yeah, that wasn't real. That's a nice feeling.

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That's what I've Been telling Charlie.

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Also.

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Charlie also does and we just got Teddy a big boy bed and guess what it is.

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It's a Helix. Another Helix in the house.

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[Jon Favreau]

Helixsleep.com Crooked Positive America is brought to you by CookUnity. You know how I feel about cookienity. We're huge fans. In fact I, I put my order in just yesterday for next week and I was all excited because there was some new meals that I can get and had it last night, had it all last week. It's just great. CookUnity is the first chef led meal delivery service that makes your meals in small batches inside local micro kitchens across the US not factories. So every dish arrives with the kind of freshness you'd get at the restaurant itself. Meals from Michelin starred chefs, James Beard winners and Food network stars. In fact, when you're picking some of the meals, there's a little, there's sometimes a little sign at the top that says James Beard winner. And then you know that that's pretty good.

[Jon Lovett]

Yeah, that's how you know.

[Jon Favreau]

But also there's different users rating it too.

[Jon Lovett]

Yeah, I like the rating. I use the ratings.

[Jon Favreau]

I do the ratings too much. Oh, it's getting a four, five. Yeah, absolutely.

[Jon Lovett]

But I've been using it for a while so now I have like a bunch that are just my favorites that I make sure I have like one of every week. They have a moussaka thing that is fucking excellent.

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Moussaka is great. They have A lot of bowls that are very good, too. Some rice in the bowl. They got some salad bowls. Cook Unity works with some of the best chefs in the country to bring creative, delicious meals to your door. There are hundreds of dishes to choose from and the menu is updated constantly. Over 10 different dietary preferences. High protein, low sodium, GLP, one pescatarian, gluten free and more. Over 25 global cuisines. Mediterranean, Korean, Thai, Mexican, Italian, and more. Taste what happens when real award winning chefs make fresh, small batched meals just for you? Go to cookunity.com crooked or enter crooked before checkout to get 50% off your first order. That's 50% off your first order by using code crooked or going to cookunity.com crooked all right, so Trump staying on this subject. Trump's about to spend some quality time this week with fellow imperialist Xi Jinping when he takes his first trip to China since 2017. Naturally, Trump will be rolling a few billionaires deep. Elon Musk and Tim Cook are joining, among others, probably because of their diplomatic skills.

[Tommy Vietor]

Can we pause on that? Hey, Tim, you're resigning. You don't have to do this anymore. Tim Cook.

[Jon Favreau]

You know what? Mike's Donald Trump.

[Jon Lovett]

I think he's.

[Jon Favreau]

I really do. I think anyone who thought Tim Cook was just like, do I think Tim

[Tommy Vietor]

Cook's just a. I figured he just liked fucking screens.

[Jon Favreau]

No, fuck Tim Cook.

[Tommy Vietor]

He sucks.

[Jon Favreau]

Wow.

[Tommy Vietor]

Hope your iPhone.

[Jon Lovett]

All right.

[Tommy Vietor]

Well, hope your Apple carries. Yeah. All right.

[Jon Lovett]

See you. Pride, Tim.

[Tommy Vietor]

I guess.

[Jon Favreau]

Okay. Anyway, so Tommy, an Asian diplomat in D.C. told Politico they're worried that China might offer to help reopen the Strait in exchange for American concessions on Taiwan. Which I'm sure if Trump read that would be, like, good idea. How big of a deal would that be? How concerned are you?

[Tommy Vietor]

I mean, first of all, I'm just skeptical that China could actually force Iran to reopen the Strait and kind of go back to the before times. Because if you're like, China buys 90% of Iran's oil, but still, if you're around, you're thinking, look, we got a couple of. A couple million worth of Bitcoin. Out of every boat that goes by, we find a new buyer for that oil. I don't know. I'm skeptical. I asked a China expert friend about this quote in Politico, and his take was it would likely be more like, how can you expect me to help you with Estrado Hormuz and not sell my Iranian friends any more weapons when you're selling weapons to the Taiwanese and giving them diplomatic cover. That could certainly happen. And Trump, I think, basically said today that Taiwan arms sales are up for negotiation, which is a huge deviation from traditional foreign policy, where that's just not a thing that is discussed with the Chinese. It's, you know, congressionally mandated law, so.

[Jon Lovett]

Which he signed, like. Right. Yeah.

[Tommy Vietor]

Well, this is an interesting thing is, like, I've always assumed Trump could give a shit about Taiwan. He cares. Insofar as losing access to their semiconductors would be an economic calamity. Right.

[Jon Lovett]

And it would be historic. It would be historic.

[Tommy Vietor]

Ego.

[Jon Lovett]

Ego wound.

[Tommy Vietor]

Yeah, but like, he doesn't give a shit about freedom, democracy, human rights, religious freedom, hating communism, all the traditional, like, things that once animated Republicans on this. So I assume he would trade away Taiwan in a heartbeat for a good trade deal. But even, But Xi Jinping, like, he doesn't need Trump to be. To make some historic shift, even rhetorically. Like, I think if he gets what he, if he hears what he wants to hear behind the scenes, that's more than enough. Like, yeah, you do what you got to do. I'm not going to go after you. I mean, so we'll see. Like all that said, the Trump administration has greenlit huge arms sales packages to Taiwan. Now, the, the rub here is that those haven't been delivered yet. They're like 20 billion behind in the delivery of those weapons. But, like, people like Marco Rubio is making sure that the packages get authorized.

[Jon Lovett]

So I don't know.

[Jon Favreau]

And then they're going to be talking about AI a lot as well. Apparently. It seems like a, A good outcome on AI Seems like it could be. There's reports that they may open a channel of communication to make sure that, like, Cold War style with like, nuclear weapons, like, make sure there's.

[Tommy Vietor]

She gives them a chat bot.

[Jon Favreau]

This is me. I talk like you want those two

[Tommy Vietor]

going deep on AI.

[Jon Favreau]

No shit. But I would, I would like our country cooperating with China on, on making sure that we are keeping the line open on AI when it gets kind of scary.

[Jon Lovett]

Yeah, I talked to Bernie about it. Was it last week. Feels like time flies. But like there's obviously a space between, like, hamstringing whatever advantage we think we have and allowing sort of unfettered development. Like there clearly would be some kind of. There's a way to have an agreement about some kind of limits to prevent sort of catastrophic outcomes with AI and like, that seems like exactly what we would want them to be working towards. And they said they were going to talk about it.

[Jon Favreau]

So I do think that's generally sure they'll end that place.

[Tommy Vietor]

There's not AI, the nukes, the nuclear decision making process. No AI on that.

[Jon Favreau]

And they have, they have, they have both agreed so far. Split that off. But there's a lot more.

[Tommy Vietor]

Lock that down.

[Jon Favreau]

Plenty of other problems that could end the world. You know, bioweapons and the rest of it. All right. We haven't had a chance to talk about the shitty news we got on Friday about Virginia, where the state Supreme Court overturned the referendum that voters just passed to create new congressional maps ahead of the midterms. Tommy and Dan covered the news when it broke on the PSA YouTube channel.

[Tommy Vietor]

I have to say we crushed it.

[Jon Favreau]

That's why you should go subscribe for free.

[Tommy Vietor]

Subscribe to potsdam America on YouTube.

[Jon Favreau]

Free.

[Tommy Vietor]

If you want to see Dan looking spicy on a Friday.

[Jon Favreau]

Okay.

[Tommy Vietor]

He does most of the YouTubes. He pops the top.

[Jon Favreau]

Oh, he does. Topless YouTube. Is that Friday? Yep, for Friday.

[Jon Lovett]

And then under the table camera. That's for. That's for the subscribers for the subs.

[Jon Favreau]

Talk about a polar coaster.

[Tommy Vietor]

You're a dom. You want to be a sub.

[Jon Favreau]

Nice.

[Jon Lovett]

Anyways, nobody put this in the comments on message box. That's the only way Dan will know this happened. Every shovey. Be fucking cool. Fucking narcs.

[Jon Favreau]

Anyway, what was I going to say? Oh, yeah. There's been some more developments on the potential redistricting fallout in Virginia and other states ahead of the midterms. Here's Glass Half Empty. Nate Cohn, of course, calculated that Republicans could now lose the popular vote by more than two points and still keep control of the House. Then there's Glass Half Full. Jonathan Martin is out with the column, arguing that Republicans still might lose many of the newly drawn districts, which by definition will be more competitive. Amy Walter at Cook Political basically said the same thing. I think you guys probably talked about that on Friday. I think she thinks that when all is said and done, the realistic gain is probably like five seats. In a good scenario, yeah, they could

[Tommy Vietor]

net like 11 or 12, but probably won't.

[Jon Favreau]

And that's because of the Democrats still winning those tough districts, not because they would still get to redraw the them. And J Mart argues that they're handing Democrats a generational opportunity to mobilize outraged black voters. Case in point, Republican Representative Ralph Norman said on Monday about the state's lone Democratic congressman, Jim Clyburn, who's one of the longest serving black members in the House. Quote, I like him personally, but he does not represent the rest of South Carolina. Well, that's, you know, that is part of the point of representing one district in a state as you represent some people in the state and not all the people in the state. How are you guys processing the news generally and specifically on the question of whether this is all as bad as people think? And on that point, some breaking news. While we were recording this, the US Supreme Court did rule they lifted the injunction on Alabama that they had in place before now allowing them to pursue their new maps.

[Jon Lovett]

Shocking.

[Tommy Vietor]

See those dickheads? They voted forward their new map proposal in the middle of a tornado warning. They just kept going. They're supposed to evacuate. They're like, no, no, no. Stripping away black people's voting rights is more important to us.

[Jon Favreau]

So what do you guys think? How bad?

[Jon Lovett]

So, seen a couple different numbers, but basically, even with these new maps, if we have, you know, if we win by, let's say, 4%, right. Nationally, the House margin is 4%, then we still win the House.

[Jon Favreau]

I get that's an important one. Just to put an exclamation point on that, because that was if Louisiana, Alabama, and South Carolina all go, which now seems like we are definitely headed toward that scenario. And they say if we won the popular vote by 4 In that scenario, Democrats still win the House.

[Jon Lovett]

Right. And so I'm all for doing, like, a round of worry and recrimination, but I would say that in this political environment, the deeper. The deeper problem would be not having confidence that against a president with this approval rating, with both kind of on the politics and on the policy, has been as bad a president as you could ever imagine, as destructive a force as you can ever imagine, enabled directly by Republicans who deserve to be held responsible for this president's misadventures, we ought to be able to beat that 4%. And we should focus on that. Because if we do that, then not only do we overcome their advantages in the gerrymander, we can win those Virginia seats that on the old map. And we can actually prove that some of their maps were drawn too aggressively and make them more nervous the next time they look at doing this to redraw the maps. Because the Republican incumbents will start to think, oh, if there's even a slight wave, I could lose my seat.

[Jon Favreau]

Yeah, I mean. I mean, Democrats won the house popular vote by 8 in 2018. So if we're thinking and hoping and expecting this cycle to be better than even 2018, then we should have no problem in the House. And look, if we're not winning by 8. If we're only winning by 4, then something else went wrong.

[Jon Lovett]

Exactly.

[Jon Favreau]

More than redistricting. Like you said, if after all this, Democrats win by four or five or six in this kind of year and so do worse than we did in

[Tommy Vietor]

2018, maybe they like the ballroom.

[Jon Favreau]

Maybe they like the ballroom. Maybe they like the ballroom. Maybe they like $5 gas.

[Jon Lovett]

Yeah.

[Jon Favreau]

Even people are like upstart. So much money left over after they filled up their tank.

[Jon Lovett]

Yeah. People hate it. They hate having all the options with what to do with the money. But yeah, and I would also say if also this does galvanize people and we are able to win the House, suddenly we have people showing up in these Senate races that might not have otherwise. And all it sort of of, you know, Republicans can be hoisted by their own petards.

[Jon Favreau]

Yeah. Nate Cohn points out the challenge is the median district, House district now in the country, will have voted for Trump by five and a half points.

[Tommy Vietor]

Sweet.

[Jon Favreau]

So that means to win back the majority, you're winning a lot of, not all, but you have to win some significant amount of seats that, you know, Trump won by five, five and a half.

[Tommy Vietor]

Look, it's.

[Jon Lovett]

Which we've already been doing in every.

[Tommy Vietor]

The swings from, from 24 to these specials have been like, on average, I think 13 points. You know, these are baseball. Democrats are already more motivated. Hopefully they will all learn about this, be angry about it, be even more motivated to turn out. And the good thing about Trump is he just, things are as bad as they've ever been for him politically. And he's like, give me a shovel, I'm not done digging. Billion dollar ballroom, $1.5 trillion Pentagon budget. Let me drive my stupid car on a fountain. For some reason, he's just like wasting his time on stupid shit.

[Jon Favreau]

And look, the bigger long term problem here that will outlast Trump is the concentrated power of the state legislatures in red states, which, because they have gerrymandered their state legislative districts in such a crazy fashion, and in many cases like in North Carolina, know that if the full state elects a Democrat as governor, which happens in places like North Carolina, Wisconsin, then the state legislature, which never has to worry about competitive elections or Republicans losing just takes all the power away from the government. So, like, at some point, whatever project 2029, whatever long term thing we're doing, like, we have to figure out a way to win back power in some of these state legislatures, in some of these Southern states and other heavily Republican states that have gerrymandered themselves on a state level, forget about the federal level, into such a place. And we know from the Constitution, Right. That it endows state legislatures with a lot of power when it comes with elections.

[Tommy Vietor]

Certain inalienable rights like life.

[Jon Favreau]

Like that. Yeah, but that is. And on that note, if Democrats do control Virginia, I don't know if you guys saw the mini news cycle about Virginia Democrats considering whether to.

[Tommy Vietor]

It was a mini news cycle.

[Jon Favreau]

Yeah, it's over. It's like a mini war we talked about this morning. It's already over. Anyway, they were considering whether to change the retirement age for state Supreme Court justices. So to bring it down in order to get rid of all the state Supreme Court justices on the Virginia Supreme Court and appoint new ones in time to change the maps and then have the new Democratically appointed and Democratic Party appointed state, Democrat, state supreme Court justices approve the new maps and in time for the midterms, first of all.

[Jon Lovett]

Well, first they'd have to get a bunch of new. They'd have to replace those justices because they've been retired by the government at the age of, I think in decrepit 54.

[Tommy Vietor]

54. I mean, first of all, shout out for creative. Points for creativity.

[Jon Favreau]

Points for creativity.

[Tommy Vietor]

Local news. Some local news outlet in Virginia floated this idea and all of a sudden we're talking, talking about it.

[Jon Lovett]

Real dog did another thing says a golden retriever can't be speaker of the House situation.

[Tommy Vietor]

It is without a doubt, undemocratic, terrible precedent. The kind of thing that voters would absolutely despise in this climate. Absolutely would do it 100% appropriate.

[Jon Favreau]

You know, the governor of Louisiana is just talking about on TV how he's like throwing out ballots and he's like, it's not my fault, Supreme Court's fault. You did cancel an election.

[Tommy Vietor]

Do we really think Abigail Spanberger, Governor Spanberger, would have wanted to, you know, kind of hemorrhage all the political capital she'd built up with independent Republican voters doing this early on, I think. I doubt it. I bet she has other things she wants to.

[Jon Favreau]

Did you see Greg Sargent's piece in the New Republic on this when it, when it. The reason they're not doing it. So May 12, which is the day you're listening to this, that is the deadline set by the Department of Elections for having congressional maps in the system in time for early voting in June ahead of the August primary. So they couldn't pass the law to lower the retirement age, to get rid of all the judges, to appoint all the new judges, to retrain the maps, to send it back to court. Because the technology. Because. Because the technology is so old, it takes a of lot of time to input new districts into the computers. The computers.

[Jon Lovett]

If we lose, are we putting like.

[Jon Favreau]

Are we putting the maps? Like, are we like.

[Jon Lovett]

Yeah. Is it punch cards? Like, I don't know what we're doing? Like, how big is it? Is it a room? Does it overheat? Like, I don't understand.

[Tommy Vietor]

Can you Claude.

[Jon Lovett]

But the idea that we could potentially lose the House because the.

[Jon Favreau]

Claude, can you help In Virginia, the

[Jon Lovett]

computers if called upon Virginia, the Virginia government's computers are too slow to be a democracy. That's where the potential.

[Tommy Vietor]

Did Greg Sargent just call an old person by accident? Like a Luddite who doesn't know?

[Jon Favreau]

I think it was like the guy that runs the state Senate. Oh, that's.

[Jon Lovett]

He was the one that was saying the deadline. Yeah, I think. No, no, he got a real guy on the phone. No, I don't think. I don't think. I don't think Greg Sergeant got got by like AI or anything. He was talking to a real person. But that guy was like, hey, listen, it was gruff.

[Jon Favreau]

Yeah.

[Jon Lovett]

Love the idea. It was. Love the idea. Love your idea. Yeah. I mean, look, my, my take on it was okay.

[Jon Favreau]

Drawing bikinis on all the state legislature,

[Jon Lovett]

on all the districts. All the districts have just magnificent, magnificent yabos. The.

[Tommy Vietor]

Look at these cannons.

[Jon Lovett]

Look at these.

[Jon Favreau]

It's just, just so we.

[Jon Lovett]

Yeah.

[Jon Favreau]

Virginia State Senate Majority Leader Scott Servant.

[Tommy Vietor]

Yeah, I just meant was he old and doesn't know computers?

[Jon Favreau]

That's fair. But I did want to.

[Jon Lovett]

I'm calling him the Jim Comey of Virginia. No, I don't. I don't think that's fair. No, look, the thing about it is 86 that idea.

[Jon Favreau]

He's the one who picked up the phone.

[Jon Lovett]

Yeah. Never. Don't make that.

[Jon Favreau]

Could have been spinning hamburger. She didn't pick up the phone.

[Jon Lovett]

Yeah, well, smart.

[Jon Favreau]

That's why she's governor.

[Jon Lovett]

Yeah, I'm not taking that call. Oh, the crazy. I will get rid of all the judges because the democracy. To save democracy. I've gotten rid of all the judges. They're worse than us. Everybody get behind me or go. Come on.

[Jon Favreau]

Gavin Newsom's breathing down her neck.

[Jon Lovett]

Yeah, Gavin Newsom. We could have had. We could have.

[Jon Favreau]

I'd put him on a raft and send them off to fucking Hawaii.

[Jon Lovett]

That. That, that fucking institutional fucking fag. We could have had all democratic districts. All Democratic districts. What kind of coward was he?

[Jon Favreau]

Why is Gavin Newsom such a coward?

[Jon Lovett]

Yeah.

[Jon Favreau]

Put that out there.

[Tommy Vietor]

No, but, but just kidding.

[Jon Lovett]

But the governor, if you told me right now that we, that there's no time issue, we don't know what the future holds, we can still win the House. We should fight to win the House. Yes, this made it harder, but the idea that like if you, if we knew like with, with, with certainty that our only path to, to having some check on Trump was doing this was

[Jon Favreau]

updating the machines with. Updating the machines with Tim Cook's software update.

[Jon Lovett]

Updating the fucking updating he's not going

[Jon Favreau]

to give me now.

[Jon Lovett]

Updating to SIER 18.2 so we can upload the map so the new judges that are young and vital, just the 32 year old new Democratic judges could approve the map. I'd be like, okay, I get it, maybe it's worth the risk second year. But everything can get worse. And look, I, I believe Republicans are leading us down all these escalatory paths all along the way, every step of the way. But this would be a new one and it would be on us.

[Jon Favreau]

Yeah. Expanding course Democrats is any. It is clear that any state where Democrats have control either of the governorship or the governorship and ideally the state legislature, if we do not act to maximize the number of seats that we win between now and 28 because this cycle has clearly already passed.

[Jon Lovett]

Which Virginia will have a chance to do.

[Jon Favreau]

Right. Which Virginia will have to do if you decide to take a pass on that. Yeah. Then you're fucked. But like I expect New York, Virginia and Colorado better get in the act. Minnesota can I believe Wisconsin can. Maryland can squeeze out another one at Illinois.

[Tommy Vietor]

But J.B. pritzker probably won't be bulldozing the courthouses. You know, I'm guessing that's not gonna be right.

[Jon Favreau]

You know, the problem is the Virginia state constitution Commonwealth that gives, you know, the legislature the authority to appoint the judges and gives them certain terms so that you get a bunch of republic. I mean it's actually probably fair for democracies. It'd be great for the country.

[Jon Lovett]

But they can expand from 7 to 11. Se is you need actually like a big a super majority in the legislature I think to present prevent exact this exact same.

[Jon Favreau]

Sounds like a good model for America actually.

[Jon Lovett]

Right.

[Tommy Vietor]

Yeah.

[Jon Lovett]

Yeah.

[Tommy Vietor]

One would think.

[Jon Favreau]

But again we have to do things as a country.

[Jon Lovett]

Yeah.

[Jon Favreau]

And not as individual states, which is why you need to eliminate gerrymandering as a country back in this court or

[Tommy Vietor]

what can you say?

[Jon Lovett]

The U.S. constitution does not require any specifics on expanding the number of justices on the Supreme Court. And that is just a custom. And I'm. Now, are we. Have we ever. Did the Biden administration ever finish that report? Whether we should do. Where, where are we on where we're in that report.

[Jon Favreau]

Yeah. You know, I think they did it. It's on Merrick Garland's to do list. Yeah.

[Tommy Vietor]

Okay.

[Jon Favreau]

Yeah.

[Jon Lovett]

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[Jon Favreau]

All right. Anyway, why worry about 2026 when we can speculate about 2028? Nice. AOC made some news over the weekend when she sat down with our pal David Axelrod at the University of Chicago Institute of Politics. Boy, was there an event that was just designed for us. Yeah, Axe at the IOP with interviewing aoc. Good times.

[Tommy Vietor]

We reviewed the IOP tape. I'll tell you all about it. No. Yeah.

[Jon Favreau]

Pretty good 2017 joke where she provided the terminally online among us, plenty of content to engage with as people have been over the last couple days. There was one response in particular she gave to the age old question of whether she's planning on running for president or Senate in 2028. We should talk about in which she answered by pivoting to a Washington Post editorial last week, going after her for saying that it's impossible to become a billionaire without breaking rules and abusing workers or paying them not what they're worth. Take a listen. It was very clear this was a veiled threat.

[Jon Lovett]

Right.

[Jon Favreau]

So the elite saying, if you want this job, you just stepped out of line. They assume that my ambition is positional.

[Jon Lovett]

They assume that my ambition is a title or a seat.

[Jon Favreau]

And. And my ambition is way bigger than that. My ambition is to change this country.

[Jon Lovett]

Presidents come and go, Senate, House seats, elected officials come and go. But single payer healthcare is forever,

[Jon Favreau]

a living wage is forever, workers rights are

[Jon Lovett]

forever, women's rights, all of that.

[Jon Favreau]

Wish this president would come and go a little faster.

[Tommy Vietor]

Yeah.

[Jon Favreau]

What'd you guys think? I thought it was a. In terms of non answers to questions about are you gonna run for president? That's one of the better words. Yeah.

[Jon Lovett]

I went to the crowd, to a guy named Chuck Schumer who was like, answer the question.

[Tommy Vietor]

Yeah. We've all heard a million politicians duck that question. And usually it's some version of like, I'm not thinking about that right now. My priorities are on the state of Virginia or my calendar. You had to like, she made it bigger. She made it about what she wanted to do, the people she wanted to help. I thought that was. That was nice. It was well done. Now, the nitpicking response that we kind of hinted at is legislative accomplishments are more durable, but not. They're not forever. The Supreme Court overturned Roe versus Wade, but I think that's a little too literal. We all know.

[Jon Favreau]

I feel like we would have written the line forever and then like the policy nerds or the lawyers would have been like, more durable is more accurate. Which is correct. It would have been more accurate to say that.

[Jon Lovett]

Yeah, almost.

[Jon Favreau]

Aca's still hanging on.

[Jon Lovett]

Nearly. Yeah, yeah. By the skin of its teeth.

[Jon Favreau]

That's right. Knock on wood. I did think it was completely wild to have a Washington Post editorial, not a column, but an entire editorial from the ED board owned by Jeff Bezos being like, hey, stop picking on billionaires.

[Jon Lovett]

It's so Funny. Well, he's like, I'm gonna read you the editorial board so that it focuses on free markets and not attacking success. And it's like, promises made, promises kept, I guess. I don't know what that editorial board would do.

[Tommy Vietor]

Yeah, I watched the whole thing, though. I'd never heard her talk about the specific experience of going from candidate to overnight celebrity. That was a really interesting story. And how just, like, head spinning and insane that was. And then the part about why did you hear the story about why she didn't go to med school? Like, her dad got sick, passed away, actually, and her mom started working on these jobs. I mean, it's not just like the. The bartending story that makes her feel like more of a human being than any other politician. It's the very recent past and economic hardships. Yet I don't know, it's just a very compelling event. It was worth watching the full hour, I think.

[Jon Favreau]

Yeah. I will say that the whole conversation about should billionaires exist? To me, is not the most productive use of time on either side of the debate. Because it's like, here's the thing about billionaires. I just want to make sure that they are taxed appropriately. I want to make sure that they can't use their influence and power to change the laws and have a bigger megaphone than everyone else in the country just because they're rich. But it seems like an academic dorm room debate to be like, should they exist? Should they not exist? If they exist, does that mean that they broke the law or not broke the law? I don't know why we need to be debating that in the first place.

[Jon Lovett]

I feel like it's. I was thinking there was something about the online debate that was very frustrating to me because there's a lot of people talking past.

[Jon Favreau]

There's a few aspects of the online debate that we can get into, but we can start with the billionaires. 1.

[Jon Lovett]

And I was trying to figure out what was bugging me about it. And it is, I think, because you end up in this conversation in which the terms are moral and fuzzy, terms like earned, legitimate, deserved. And those are because Moral language. And I actually think the debate over the kind of morality of who can amass vast sums of wealth and how they do it is not like. I don't think it's. I think it's more than academic. I think the way we have it is academic. But what was interesting to me is the response, like, it is absurd that Jeff Bezos's paper is writing a defense of billionaires. And what's interesting about the defense is they always land on celebrities like Taylor Swift and Seinfeld and people, likable people. Well, likable people and people that like, you know, nobody had a pee in a bottle for Taylor Swift to write the music, right. Like nobody had to sew sneakers with their little hands, right?

[Jon Favreau]

So like they see that documentary about

[Jon Lovett]

the era store, how many children were working those gears.

[Jon Favreau]

It seems like she had to pee in a few bottles.

[Jon Lovett]

Maybe she did.

[Tommy Vietor]

Scooter Braun pissed himself a couple times.

[Jon Favreau]

That girl. Girl.

[Jon Lovett]

But like, but then so it's like, oh, because they really earned it. And what the kind of underlying defense of it is like, well, Taylor Swift, by dint of talent, without exploitation, created more than a billion dollars worth of value. And like, I think I, I largely agree with that. But where I kind of what they are talking past the deeper argument, which is a system in which one person can accrue all that wealth. Like even Taylor Swift, like, she's protected by intellectual property laws. She's been able to take her vehicles on the roads and all the rest. And it's not about like, like the, the righteousness or the morality. To me, like, that's just not what I care about. I think it matters a lot in politics. It's like a system in which those benefits accrue so much is both wrong on the front end and the back end. The incentive structure and power structure of the economy and then the tax structure on the back end. And so whether billionaires should or should not exist, if a lot of them do, it is because the. Something is fundamentally broken in the system and they have the ability to exploit that wealth. Wealth that has kind of also wrecked our politics. And like, that to me is what makes it worth having.

[Jon Favreau]

Yeah. And, and for me that brings us to like, all right, so what are the policy considerations here? What are we going to, what rules and laws are we going to put into place to make sure that the system is more fair?

[Tommy Vietor]

How do we tax wealth?

[Jon Favreau]

How do we tax wealth? And it goes into regulations and lobbying and all that and all the corruption stuff as well. Right, There's a, there's all that. But, and I also think, I think about Ruben Gallego and what he would always say after the 2024 election is that Democrats with Latino voters failed the big ass truck test and that people in this country want to be rich, working class people want to be rich. And do they all want to be billionaires or do they think they can be billionaires? No, but they want to be wealthy. And what they just want is to have a fair playing field. Whatever you want to call it, whatever cliche you want to bring out. But people want to make a lot of money and they also want to make sure that people who are, who are absurdly rich, like, pay their fair share in taxes and don't have more power and influence than everyone else.

[Jon Lovett]

Yeah, but I think, like, Democrats end up focusing on the tax side of it and not as much on like the deeper kind of like structures that mean individuals, like whether they have, whether they have a union or not, whether they have other protections, like, let's say non competes and things like that. All of which, like, kind of mean and as like more like all the productivity gains are sort of going up to the top, which means the individual has less negotiating and bargaining power than they used to. And their dollar doesn't go as far because of all of our failures across, like housing and all the rest. And to me, like, those are the questions that I think Democrats struggle the most to answer. We have the least compelling answer on, like, upriver from the taxes.

[Jon Favreau]

One last thing we have to talk about. Gas prices may be 450 a gallon, but Transportation Secretary and Road Rules All Stars veteran Sean Duffy really wants you to get out and take a road trip. So much so that he and his wife and nine children have been apparently doing their own road trip over the last several months, which they've documented in a Ghazi documentary series premiering soon on YouTube. Duffy's wife, Fox News host and fellow Real World and Road Rule star Rachel Campos Duffy. That's where they met. Described the project as really wholesome, good family stuff. That's an antidote to the, quote, pornhub world we're living in.

[Tommy Vietor]

The fuck kind of road trip did she go on?

[Jon Favreau]

Well, she was on Real World. Real. I can never say. Real World Road Rules Challenge.

[Tommy Vietor]

Yeah, it's a tough harvester.

[Jon Favreau]

Yeah. Anyway, here's a, here's, Here's a clip.

[Donald Trump]

What a beautiful family.

[Jon Lovett]

Hi, guys. Can I say hi to Mr. President?

[Tommy Vietor]

Can I say hi to the President?

[Safeway/Albertsons Announcer]

Trump, we're inviting you along with our family on the great American road trip.

[Jon Lovett]

The Duffys, they've got tons of kids.

[Jon Favreau]

I think they have like 11 kids.

[Jon Lovett]

Nine, nine, 11 something.

[Jon Favreau]

Is there a difference?

[Jon Lovett]

Before Kid Rock became Kid Rock.

[Jon Favreau]

You're traveling over the country.

[Jon Lovett]

You're.

[Jon Favreau]

Oh, yeah.

[Jon Lovett]

Basically an Aerostar van. Dad's Real World house. If I never lived in this house, none of you would be here.

[Jon Favreau]

Was that. That looks so boring. Was that antidote to pornhub or. No.

[Tommy Vietor]

Well, I mean, you got a lot of kids, so something's working, right? That's a. That's so many. First of all, you can't road trip with nine kids. What are we driving? Is it a school bus? Cause that looked like a little car. So we're just leaving them behind.

[Jon Favreau]

Also bullshit.

[Tommy Vietor]

That they're really driving around the country. They're flying places and then driving around and filming it, right? We assume, yes.

[Jon Lovett]

You think the moon landing was fake?

[Donald Trump]

No.

[Jon Favreau]

You might be wondering who paid for this massive boondoggle 501C4 called the Great American Road Trip, Inc. Which says it fully funds its own efforts to celebrate and share America's story. And whose sponsors happen to be industries with business in front of the Department of Transportation. So that's how. And the department later confirmed that taxpayer dollars paid for the secretary's travel to a bunch of the stops, but not his family's. And the whole thing is official business anyway because he's the Transportation Secretary and he was doing some transportation there.

[Tommy Vietor]

I guess your job is driving, right? Dude, remember when the planes were all crashing and like Sean Duffy was the guy who's gonna fix it? I just watched a guy get hit on the Runway in Denver the other day.

[Jon Favreau]

I don't know.

[Tommy Vietor]

Maybe don't road trip around so much.

[Jon Favreau]

Look, you know, first of all, this would bug me less if a. They didn't have a bunch of sponsors who have business in front of the Department of Transportation. That's.

[Jon Lovett]

And if they were Democrats, right, John?

[Jon Favreau]

Well, no, I was going to say. I was actually going to say classic.

[Jon Lovett]

You know.

[Jon Favreau]

You know who fucking wouldn't stop talking about Pete Buttigieg? Criticizing Pete and Chastain.

[Tommy Vietor]

Rachel Campos Duffy.

[Jon Favreau]

Rachel Campos Duffy. When they spent two months. When Pete took two months paternity leave because the twins were in the nicu.

[Tommy Vietor]

Yeah, they were.

[Jon Favreau]

And she criticized them for that. And so it's like, okay, and now. Now you're gonna go do this?

[Tommy Vietor]

It's crazy to film a seven month reality show.

[Jon Favreau]

They said that he like popped in for a day here and. A day, sure. But it's like, whatever. If he wants to do it on his days off. It's not. None of these people are doing a good job anyway in the cabinet. It's all a grift.

[Jon Lovett]

I would say. Yeah. He's one guy where it's like, dude, like, you got like real legitimate, ongoing, like management problems at your department.

[Jon Favreau]

Yeah. And if. And if Butt Rocket Duffy can't fix It. Who can. You know, that's what his nickname was in the. In the real world.

[Tommy Vietor]

But Rocket, why was it that?

[Jon Favreau]

Because he would run around the house streaking and mooning people. There's.

[Tommy Vietor]

There's the rocket. I remember he did a front moon, I think too out of window in one of the episodes. But on the show Cyrus.

[Jon Favreau]

Rachel. Rachel was. Yeah, Rachel Campos is.

[Tommy Vietor]

Boston's a pretty good series.

[Jon Lovett]

There's so much. Begrudge him his youth.

[Tommy Vietor]

I don't either. There's too much reality tv.

[Jon Favreau]

Butt Rocket's a great name, but Rocket

[Tommy Vietor]

sure trump Sean Duffy. Spencer Pratt torturing us in the mayoral race here. Like all these annoying reality people are just popping back up and ruining the 2026.

[Jon Lovett]

Sean Duffy. I defended you as one of the lesser offenses in terms of actual cabinet performance so far. And that remains the case. This is tough. I. I also look as a rule, like if someone's producing their own reality show, it's just more boring. That's just how it goes. You got the only reality shows like, oh, it's wholesome. Like, what would you think? That's why people go to BravoCon. No. They want to watch these bitches throw shit, you know, and get into.

[Tommy Vietor]

He was also a lumberjack. Yeah, we're going to chop some wood. That part of the board. Nothing.

[Jon Lovett]

He was a lumberjack.

[Tommy Vietor]

Oh, yeah. Wow.

[Jon Lovett]

I didn't know that that was a

[Tommy Vietor]

part of the real world Boston thing.

[Jon Favreau]

Yeah, that's right. That was his shtick. That and Butt Rocket.

[Tommy Vietor]

I don't remember Butt Rocket.

[Jon Favreau]

I'll send you the video. I thought that was an old joke. That was gonna be like, I've said it too many times.

[Tommy Vietor]

Also flagging that he was briefly NASA administrator. You guys remember that? Yeah. Wanted to keep the job.

[Jon Lovett]

Let's get some other rockets up there. You know, he's got the expertise. He has a history of. He's worked with. He's worked with all kinds of rockets.

[Jon Favreau]

Anyway. Is that it? That's it. That's our show for today, everyone.

[Tommy Vietor]

Yeah, it is.

[Jon Favreau]

It was a good one. Was it? It was a gusher of a show. Dan and I are gonna be back with a new show on Friday if you wanna check that out.

[Jon Lovett]

I think we started. This is a new ending. This is a new end segment of Pod Save America. I wanna apologize for calling Gavin do some awoke. I wanna apologize for suggesting that removing the gas tax would cause Chuck Schumer to come. I think I regret saying that or implying it now. I regret saying it.

[Donald Trump]

It.

[Jon Favreau]

Oh, it was ass rocket. Sorry.

[Tommy Vietor]

Oh, well, not that same thing.

[Jon Favreau]

I was just being family friendly. Pickup.

[Jon Lovett]

Uh huh. Took his rocket.

[Jon Favreau]

Unlike me.

[Jon Lovett]

Took his rocket. Yeah, real rump. A real rump rocket. That's something different. Speaking of Tim Cook going to China.

[Jon Favreau]

What?

[Tommy Vietor]

Oh man.

[Jon Lovett]

End the show. We're out. Credit

[Jon Favreau]

pod Save America is a crooked media production. Our show is produced by Austin Fisher, Saul Rubin, McKenna Roberts and Farah Safari with Reed Churlin, Elijah Cohn and Adrian Hill. Our team includes Matt de Groat, Ben Hethcoat, Jordan Kantor, Charlotte Landis, Kirill Pelavie, David Towles, Mia Kellman, Ryan Young and Naomi Singel. Our staff is proudly unionized with the Writers Guild of America East.

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