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- [00:00]
Jon Favreau
Pod Save America is brought to you by Simplisafe Home Security. Is your smart home actually smart or is it just needy? Your fridge needs a filter, your printer is offline and your doorbell is pinging you because a leaf blew across the porch. It's just noise. And when it comes to your home security, you don't need more notifications. You need a security solution you can rely on to act. Traditional security systems only act after someone has already broken in that's too late. Simplisafe's Active Guard Outdoor protection can help prevent break ins before they happen. While other security companies lock you in, Simplisafe comes with no long term contract. They earn your trust every day by keeping you safe and satisfied. They're so confident in the protection they provide safety, they'll even back it with an anti theft guarantee. SimpleLife protects over 4 million people. They have 20 years of experience in home security. They were just named best home security system of 2026 by U.S. news World Report. And they've been named the best customer service in home security. With industry leading customer satisfaction scores. I'm one of those satisfied Simplisafe customers. I set up a SimpliSafe easy to do and you can customize it and then set it up yourself. They'll help you if you want, but you can do it yourself. And then the app is really great. The customer support was really reliable. It gives you peace of mind. And right now our listeners get 50% off their new SimpliSafe system at simplisafe.com crook. That's simplisafe.com crooked. There's no safe like Simplisafe. Right now. We are living through some of the most tumultuous political times our country has ever known. I'm David Remnick, and each week on the New Yorker Radio Hour, I'll try to make sense of what's happening alongside politicians and thinkers like Cory Booker, Nancy Pelosi, Liz Cheney, Tim Waltz, Ketanji Brown Jackson, Newt Gingrich, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Charlamagne, the God, and so many more. That's all in the New Yorker Radio Hour. Wherever you listen to podcasts,
- [01:41]
Host of Runaway Country
the country feels like it's falling apart right before our eyes and the people inside it are being silenced. So we're going to East 26th street and Nicollet Avenue, which is where Alex Preddy was executed by ICE and Border Patrol. That is not a headline. That is a human life and it is all happening right now. Do you worry about your own safety being involved in all this, yes, but
- [02:09]
Vrbo Advertiser
it doesn't really feel like there's another option, you know.
- [02:13]
Immigration Rights Activist
And of course they use a 5 year old child as bait. And of course they're doing all these horrible bad things because they don't know what they're doing. They've been told that they're going to get rid of the worst of the worst, then they have absolute immunity. And they've been told that in nothing they do will they ever be held accountable for.
- [02:34]
Host of Runaway Country
On my show, Runaway country, we go where the headlines hit home, from communities under threat to the people fighting to be heard. New episodes of Runaway country drop every Thursday. Subscribe wherever you get your podcasts or watch on YouTube.
- [02:51]
Vrbo Advertiser
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- [03:39]
Jon Favreau
Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Jon Favreau.
- [03:41]
Dan Pfeiffer
Dan I'm Dan Pfeiffer.
- [03:42]
Jon Favreau
On today's show, we're gonna talk about reports that Trump is getting bored with the war. Even as the military is preparing for a possible ground invasion of Iran. More Republicans in Congress are speaking out against the war. Gas prices keep going up and the polls are looking bleak for the president and his party. We'll get into all that as well. Plus the latest with the DHS shutdown that's causing huge lines at American airports. Finally, we'll talk about the shit show of a governor's race here in California where Democrats may be screwing ourselves into electing a Republican. Also, beyond this show, we continue to cover all the developments around the war in Iran, Donald Trump's presidency and everything else. So please consider subscribing if you haven't already, so you don't miss out on anything. Friend of the Pod subscribers get our new extra episode of Pod Save America called Pod Save America. Only friends love it and I did it this week, so there's one in the feed right now if you subscribe. Other subscriber only shows like Polar Coaster with Dan Pfeiffer, the guy that's right here with me.
- [04:38]
Dan Pfeiffer
That's me virtually.
- [04:40]
Jon Favreau
But you didn't do one this week because you. No, we do it every other week.
- [04:43]
Dan Pfeiffer
Yeah. So we're doing well. We have one next week.
- [04:45]
Jon Favreau
Well Boy, we're going to do some polar coasting in this episode, but to hear more, you got to subscribe and listen to. You can get Polar Coaster with Dan. You also get access to all of our excellent substack newsletter like Pod Save America, Open tabs ad free episodes of all your favorite crooked pods. And you get to feel good about supporting one of the few independent, pro democracy media outlets left in Trump's America. Head to crooked.com friends and subscribe today.
- [05:10]
Dan Pfeiffer
Did you get to 50,000 last week?
- [05:12]
Jon Favreau
We're almost to 50,000. Like, any moment, okay, could happen. It could be right now. Who knows? All right, but you know what?
- [05:19]
Dan Pfeiffer
Will there be a ding when it hits there?
- [05:20]
Jon Favreau
Yeah, we haven't figured out what we're going to do once we hit 50,000. Like, we were going to promise that someone does something. Tommy said that maybe he would put up, put a picture of his feet online on Wikipedia.
- [05:30]
Dan Pfeiffer
Did subscriber numbers go down after that?
- [05:32]
Jon Favreau
Yeah, I was gonna say someone suggested that, like, maybe, maybe if we get hit to 50, hit 50,000, Elijah will stay on parental leave, which I feel like is unfair to Elijah.
- [05:41]
Dan Pfeiffer
I will unsubscribe myself to keep that from. We need that man back.
- [05:44]
Jon Favreau
I know. I agree.
- [05:46]
Dan Pfeiffer
He subscribed 12 times to try to get you there.
- [05:50]
Jon Favreau
Probably. Anyway, there'll be some kind of a prize. So, you know, it could be for you, be the 50,000 subscriber. Who knows. All right, let's get to the news. The President has now deployed nearly 7,000American troops to the Middle east, some of whom may or may not be fighting on the ground in Iran by the time you hear this, we are recording on Thursday afternoon. But even as Axios reports that Pete Hegseth is developing options for a, quote, final blow that could involve a new massive bombing campaign and ground invasion, Trump just said that he's pausing, quote, energy plant destruction from for another 10 days per Iranian government request, because he says talks are ongoing and going well. He then he called into the five on Fox and Friends, which is something that happens. Still waiting for him to call in here, but, you know, but when he called into the five, he said, you know, they asked me for seven, and I said, I'll give you 10. I feel like the entire thing could be made up, but we can get into that either way. The Wall Street Journal reports that Trump is, he's ready for this thing to be over, and he's apparently been telling people that, quote, the war was distracting from his other priorities and that, quote, he's ready to shift to his next big challenge, Though Trump didn't say what that might be. Fortunately, we did get a sense of what those other priorities and challenges might be during a cabinet meeting on Thursday where he talked about Iran and so much else. Let's listen.
- [07:19]
Donald Trump
I read a story today that I'm desperate to make a deal.
- [07:22]
Dan Pfeiffer
I'm not.
- [07:22]
Donald Trump
I don't. I'm the opposite of desperate. I don't care. We don't need the hormone strain. We don't need it. We don't need it at all. We don't. We have so much oil. Our country is not affected by this. Frankly, I thought the oil prices would go up more and I thought the stock market would go down more. Hasn't been nearly as severe as I thought. This ballroom is going to be something so beautiful for the city. It's no secret. The military wanted it more than anybody. We're building an arc, a triumphal arc, which will be incredible for the city. Incredible. We're fixing up the. What was the Kennedy Center. I was honored when the board changed the name a little bit. I'm a gold person. It's all real stuff. You can't imitate it. Someday they'll discover a paint that will look like gold, and the guy's going to be the richest man in the world. See this pen right here? This pen is an interesting exam. It's the same thing. So this pen is very inexpensive, but it writes well. I like it. They can't have the pen the way it was. You know what it is? I don't want to give too much publicity, but they do treat me well. Sharpie. I don't want a stupid person being president.
- [08:31]
Jon Favreau
Hear, hear, sir. Hear, hear. I mean, that went on for hours this morning. It's a cabinet meeting in the middle of a war. Marines, other troops headed to the Middle east could be a ground invasion any moment now. Oil's prices off the charts. Stock market had its worst day since the Iran war began today, and we got that this morning. Does seem like he's a little bored, Dan, with this massive war that he continues to claim he's already won. What do you think's going on behind the scenes? And what do you think of that journal story?
- [09:11]
Dan Pfeiffer
What is going on behind the scenes? You know, every once in a while in the Simpsons, they go to the inside of Homer's brain, and it's just like tumbleweeds or like a hamster on a wheel. I kind of feel like that's what is going on behind the scenes. That story in The Wall Street Journal is so disturbing because it just like, the takeaway is that Trump just simply doesn't have the attention span for the war he started. And when you read the story, he's like a passive observer of the war. It's like he's told aids. He wants it to end soon.
- [09:41]
Jon Favreau
Well, it's another episode of the Trump show, and he feels like the episode has run its course and it's time for a new episode because otherwise he's gonna lose the audience.
- [09:52]
Dan Pfeiffer
But he's the commander in chief. He started the war. What's his plan to end it? What's he doing? What is actually happening? There's just. He really just gave an order, a war started, and he's kind of, just kind of weighing in periodically from the sidelines, like the peanut gallery, and it's embarrassing.
- [10:10]
Jon Favreau
Yeah. I've been trying to piece together, as I'm sure you have and everyone else over the last 48, 72 hours, what actually is happening, because you can't really trust Donald Trump to tell the truth. Can't really trust the Iranians to tell the truth. It seems as though that there are some countries that want to act as mediators, and they've been trading messages between lower level US Officials and Iranian officials, and they want to put together actual negotiations where in person. But no one has decided that they want to do that yet. The Iranians, they are very cautious about trusting Donald Trump.
- [10:55]
Dan Pfeiffer
I wonder why.
- [10:56]
Jon Favreau
Exactly. Because they think he's just talking about negotiations so he can pull off another sneak attack on Iran, as he has done now many times before. And the Israelis have also done so. Iran is preparing for some kind of an invasion. It does seem like we could get, you know, the Marines and the other troops they sent over to the Middle east could arrive any minute now. The original deadline for Trump deciding to do a war crime and blow up all their power plants was Friday night. And so there is some thought that maybe Friday or Saturday there's some kind of invasion or attack. Axios, as they. They reported on the final blow. There's four options. Three of them involve invading Carg island and other islands in order to secure the Strait of Hormuz. One option is just seizing ships with Iranian oil stopping them. So it is Trump's out there saying that there are negotiations, it's happening. It doesn't seem like that's true. It seems like the Iranians are open to negotiations, but again, can't trust Trump, so they don't know what to do.
- [12:04]
Dan Pfeiffer
But who in Iran? Right. They've been.
- [12:06]
Jon Favreau
There's that too. Yeah.
- [12:07]
Dan Pfeiffer
Well, like Trump for a while was the leader of parliament. He was wanted to talk to, but it's unclear if that person has any power. And as soon as Trump called that person, he called them hot or a really hot option.
- [12:18]
Jon Favreau
Hot option.
- [12:18]
Dan Pfeiffer
Hot option. That probably wasn't good for that person standing in the country and with the Republican Guard, the irgc, who actually runs the country. And there really is something. The President is just lying all the time. He lied about why we went to war repeatedly. He is lying about how the war is going. It appears he's making up negotiations of some kind or at least he's dramatically overstating what's happening in order to manipulate the market.
- [12:51]
Jon Favreau
That's the most generous interpretation. Is that.
- [12:53]
Dan Pfeiffer
Yeah, I mean, is it possible that there are people in the country of Iran who are talking to people in other countries and then those people are talking to people in our country? That is probably happening in some way, shape or form. Whether any of those people have the authority to actually cut a deal or there is actual progress. We have seen publicly traded or publicly talked about conditions. The Iranians had some, the United States, a 15 point plan, whatever else. But the President's making it seem like there is a group of Iranians and a group of Americans in some sort of mythical Yalta having a conversation about the future of this war. And that's clearly not happening. And the Iranians don't trust them. We don't trust them. We know not to trust the Iranians. It's all, it's very. And you're doing this in a country of which there are no American reporters on the ground of consequence, maybe there's a handful and there's no domestic reporting in that country to tell us what's happening. And so we really just have no idea what's happening.
- [13:50]
Jon Favreau
Meanwhile, 4 million people in Iran and Lebanon have been displaced so far. Tens of thousands have already left those countries as refugees, some to Turkey, some to other countries. Thousands are dead, including American soldiers. And basically oil prices continue to rise. And the Strait of Hormuz has not opened up anymore. Trump talked about getting eight ships through that Iran gave as a gift. No one really knows what the fuck he's talking about there.
- [14:25]
Dan Pfeiffer
That's another example. It's like what is happening? He made it seem like it's a grand diplomatic justice gesture to show that they were serious people can't really tell what he's talking about. There's evidence of two ships going through, but that seems to be the sorts of ships that Iran was letting through already. So it's just.
- [14:40]
Jon Favreau
And again, the worst of the oil crisis hasn't hit yet because there are still tankers that took off before the war began. And so we're still relying on some supplies that were already out there. And once those are gone, then it starts getting really bad. And again, it's also not just oil, but it's fertilizer and it's other critical supplies that don't just matter to us in the, in the United States, but to countries all over the world. They're declaring, like, a, an emergency in the Philippines because they don't have energy. India's running into all kinds of problems. And like, the idea that this isn't going to come back and bite us in the ass is fanciful because it is a global economy. And what happens to, to other big countries with economies is going to matter to us as well. And meanwhile, Trump's out there saying, we don't need the strait. We don't need the strait. We don't need the strait. Why are you sending, like, a couple thousand troops over there to potentially invade various islands to open up the strait? Like, we don't need the strait. What are you talking about?
- [15:40]
Dan Pfeiffer
And if the strait being closed doesn't affect us, why are our gas prices up more than a dollar? Why are they about to hit an average of $4 nationally any day now? Or why are diesel prices near their highest level in recent memory? And the diesel prices thing is very important because how do you think things get delivered in this country on trucks that run diesel? Why is jet fuel gotten so expensive that United airlines is cutting 5% of its flights and airline prices are up for anyone who would like to fly right now during a time of travel chaos? So it absolutely affects us. And he's just lying about it. And the lies about what's happening at home are annoying, but we all can see the reality of it. Like, he's not tricking. If someone wants to believe that things are fine because they love Trump so much, that's fine. That's their choice. But he's not tricking anyone that the street reform moves not affecting us. The lies that really matter are the lies about what's going to actually happen in this war where we can't see the real truth.
- [16:34]
Jon Favreau
Yeah. And the lies that other countries have to parse. Right. Because they have to make decisions, too, that are life and death decisions that could impact the global economy and millions of people everywhere. So my guess on this pushing back the deadline Thing is, the deadline's just going to keep getting pushed back. He's not going to destroy all of Iran's power plants because, as they said, they would then destroy energy infrastructure across the Middle east, and that would send prices soaring everywhere and cause even more destruction and more instability and more chaos and more violence. So I think he's just not doing that, and he's just going to keep kicking the can down the road on that. There's also, like, this is the kind of shit he does. Negotiations are going as the Iranians. Guess this is the kind of shit he does. You know, the negotiations are going well, and I'm going to give you another 10 days just because I'm nice. And then he goes and does a massive invasion or a bombing campaign or whatever he might do. So I do think we could be on the cusp of that as well, because you never know. One other line in the Wall Street Journal story that actually made me laugh out loud when I read it, even though it's not that funny, is, quote, some allies are hopeful Trump can pivot to. To ousting the communist regime in Cuba. Great pivot, Great pivot. Let's. Let's pivot to regime change in a country closer to home. Maybe that would be. That's a. That's a good thing to do. While close advisors want him to focus on the most pressing issue facing voters, concerns about the cost of living, which have been exacerbated by the war. Yeah, no shit.
- [18:02]
Dan Pfeiffer
I saw someone point out on Twitter, I think you shared this, that Trump found the one thing you could possibly do to raise both gas prices and mortgage rates at the same time.
- [18:11]
Jon Favreau
Incredible. Incredible. And I just love them all weighing the option. Like, what should we do next? Should we focus on costs, affordability, the reason we won the election? Nah, let's go invade Cuba.
- [18:23]
Dan Pfeiffer
Look, if you're struggling in a war, you gotta get off the mat, fight another war.
- [18:26]
Jon Favreau
Yeah. Cuba. Yeah.
- [18:27]
Dan Pfeiffer
Back on the war horse, Donald Trump,
- [18:28]
Jon Favreau
he's gonna do Cuba to distract from Iran, to distract from the Epstein files.
- [18:33]
Dan Pfeiffer
Well, no, no. Venezuela. You're distracting from Venezuela, which is also then distracting from the Epstein files, which is distracting from the pee tape, which
- [18:41]
Jon Favreau
is which Trump now says all of it is distracting from his other priorities, which are pens, ballrooms, arcs. What else?
- [18:50]
Dan Pfeiffer
Marble armrests. The Trump Kennedy Center.
- [18:52]
Jon Favreau
Marble arm. Center. Yeah. He's also. See, he's going to be putting his name on the dollar bill now.
- [18:57]
Dan Pfeiffer
Yes, yes.
- [18:58]
Jon Favreau
Treasury is going to start putting his signature on the dollar bill. That's the new one.
- [19:02]
Dan Pfeiffer
Right.
- [19:02]
Jon Favreau
Just amazing. Amazing stuff we got here in America. One reason Trump may genuinely believe he's already won this war, the blow dried dipshit he put in charge of fighting. It says shit like this, like at the Cabinet meeting today.
- [19:17]
Pete Hegseth
It's the same old tired playbook TDS in your DNA. You wouldn't know it if you listen to the dishonest, hate Trump media. My message to the media is get it right. This actually isn't something new to me. May be a young guy, Mr. President, but I'm not a rookie in this realm. In 2007. In 2007, I helped lead the surge, the public fight for the Iraq surge. Stood and watched people stand in the Senate and declare the war is lost before it even started. Who was that? It was Harry Reid. That was the Democrats and the media working hand in glove. Back then it was three years into a war. Now we're three weeks into an operation. But see, unlike Iraq, this isn't a tie. This is not parody. This is not chaos. This is success. Pure American success.
- [20:07]
Jon Favreau
The Iraq War, famously a tie.
- [20:10]
Dan Pfeiffer
This is a dated reference.
- [20:11]
Jon Favreau
Everyone went home with a little something.
- [20:14]
Dan Pfeiffer
I really feel like whoever used to write the no fear T shirts back in the day writes Pete Hexith's speeches.
- [20:23]
Jon Favreau
Pure uncut American success.
- [20:27]
Dan Pfeiffer
We negotiate with bombs.
- [20:29]
Jon Favreau
TDS in your DNA with some STDs. And like, what is he. He keeps using that line. He sucks. Jesus Christ.
- [20:39]
Dan Pfeiffer
I'm shocked. The weekend anchor at Fox in charge of the Pentagon thing hasn't worked out swimmingly.
- [20:44]
Jon Favreau
It's just like, I'm no rookie. Remember Iraq? Yeah. I was the guy that sold the surge. Took three years to have that war be a fucking disaster. This one. Just three weeks.
- [20:56]
Dan Pfeiffer
Yes. Did you see, I think Zata reported this, that around the Pentagon they're calling him dumb McNamara.
- [21:02]
Jon Favreau
I thought it was the Iranians calling him that.
- [21:04]
Dan Pfeiffer
Oh, I thought it was the Pentagon.
- [21:06]
Jon Favreau
Maybe. Who knows? Who knows? It could be both. It's a good name. I think we could workshop it.
- [21:11]
Dan Pfeiffer
As Lovett pointed out, Don Dumsfeld was sitting right there for the taking.
- [21:19]
Jon Favreau
Don Dumsfeld. All right, well, there's a title for this episode. Did you see the NBC News story that Hegseth's folks have been putting together a daily morning highlight reel for Trump of, quote, stuff blowing up in Iran. I don't know, it seems like maybe the President's not getting a full picture of what's happening. If he's just getting the. Just getting the highlight reel. I was. It's like the. He's just, like, watching NFL red zone for the Iran war.
- [21:44]
Dan Pfeiffer
Except the red zone actually would include the bad stuff. It's even worse than that. I mean, he's just getting. He gets his Diet Coke and a snuff film to start the day.
- [21:57]
Jon Favreau
And the story is amazing because he's like, why is the media reporting what I see? I just see the bombs just blowing things up and everything's going great.
- [22:05]
Dan Pfeiffer
It does. There's something bigger here, which is the reason they do this, is because it makes them happy. And if they tell him bad news, he yells at them and they don't want to get yelled at. So we're making decisions around war and military excursions the same way parents treat a hangry toddler.
- [22:26]
Jon Favreau
Right.
- [22:27]
Dan Pfeiffer
They don't. They are so afraid he's going to lose his shit and have a meltdown that they just tell him what he wants here, which is a very bad way to raise a child. And it's a worse way to run a government.
- [22:34]
Jon Favreau
It is. Yeah. I try not to. I try not to give them their way too much.
- [22:38]
Dan Pfeiffer
I mean, it's hard not to sometimes,
- [22:40]
Jon Favreau
but it's hard not to. But you know what? If they had their finger on the button and could launch a nuclear war or send thousands of troops to the Middle east, then maybe I would. Maybe I would be a little tougher on them, you know?
- [22:50]
Dan Pfeiffer
Yeah.
- [22:51]
Jon Favreau
But apparently no one can do that with Donald Trump. I don't even know. Like, does Pete Hegseth even know things are going bad as well? Like, what is happening?
- [22:58]
Dan Pfeiffer
I mean, I guess he gets briefed. He must. I don't. I mean, here's the thing. From his perspective, we're blowing up all the things we're supposed to be blowing up.
- [23:06]
Jon Favreau
And that's the only language he understands anyway.
- [23:09]
Dan Pfeiffer
Because we negotiate with bombs and those.
- [23:10]
Jon Favreau
Because we negotiate with bombs and we've got our hand on the. Our hand on the throttle, as he was saying the other day in the Oval Office. Yeah. So I guess they really are judging success in this war by the amount of destruction we cause, which is a
- [23:24]
Dan Pfeiffer
strategy that worked great in Vietnam.
- [23:35]
Jon Favreau
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- [26:38]
let's talk about how bad the politics of Iran are getting.
- [26:41]
Dan Pfeiffer
Let's pivot to some good news for
- [26:43]
Jon Favreau
Trump and the Republicans who will be on the ballot this fall. A bunch of them just got classified briefings from the Pentagon about the war, and some of them do not seem happy. Mike Rogers, chairman of the Armed Services Committee, said senior officials failed to provide basic details about the scope and direction of the military campaign. That's according to the New York Times. Roger Wicker, chair of the Armed Services over in the Senate, said he could see why Rogers would say that. He wouldn't go quite beyond that. He was let me just say I could see why he said that. And here's a surprising MAGA voice of reason. Who was in those briefings?
- [27:17]
Vrbo Advertiser
Nancy Mace, what was it about today's briefing that you found so concerned in terms of the idea of the United States possibly putting troops on the ground in Iran?
- [27:30]
Erin Ryan
I gotta be careful about what I say because it was in a SCIF and it was a classified setting. But there was frustration that reverberated throughout based on the information that we were receiving. And I I'm MAGA Mace. I am a conservative foreign Republican and I support President Trump. I think he's done an excellent job. But when we're talking about troops on the ground, that is a different stage in an operation or in a war that has a significantly greater gravity than any other thing that we've talked about.
- [28:01]
Jon Favreau
I mean, reading between the lines with what May said and what some of these other Republicans are telling reporters about these briefings, it sure seems like they were briefed that there are going to be some kind of ground troops on the ground in Iran soon Whether it's on Carg island or wherever the fuck it is, and didn't have a lot of details beyond that because they all seem pretty freaked out.
- [28:23]
Dan Pfeiffer
Yeah, it seems quite bad. It makes sense because I'm sure they got to, for the first time, ask questions about, like, what's the plan? What are we doing? What do we know? How do we get out of this? And there are no good answers to those questions.
- [28:34]
Jon Favreau
So Nancy Mace is running for governor of South Carolina, which I forgot until that interview in a crowded primary. Obviously, she's Nancy Mace and usually unwell. But what does her answer tell you about the politics there in some of these races?
- [28:49]
Dan Pfeiffer
You know, it's interesting because if you look at the polling, which we're going to dig into in a minute, but there is, among Republican base voters, MAGA voters, there is a high level of support for what President Trump is doing in Iraq. Will there be a high level support for $200 billion for that? That's an open question. So she's not actually doing. She's not capturing something that you feel right now, but South Carolina is a state with a very high military and veterans population. She's maybe thinking ahead about where things might be a week from now, two weeks from now, three weeks from now, a few months from now, about where people are going to be. But, like, I think I'm not gonna give Nancy Mace credit for being, like, sincere here, but it does seem like she went to the briefing wanting to support Trump and came out believing maybe not that Trump is wrong here, but that he's being poorly served by the people who are running this war.
- [29:43]
Jon Favreau
Yeah, I mean, none of them can do the most obvious thing, which is to criticize Donald Trump because he is the big boy at 80 years old who has decided to fight this war and is the decision maker. But they are too afra, so they can't do that. So they all try to, like, blame someone else or talk around it. But you can tell the people who are in, you know, who have to run for office or who are in tough races or even the people who've just, like, been there a while and think this is, and have been through other wars are starting to think this is a little bit crazy, because it is.
- [30:18]
Dan Pfeiffer
You can't think it's not crazy if you have any amount of sanity in your life. You can't think it's not crazy because it's fucking bananas. It makes no sense what we're doing. No one can answer a question about it. There is no explanation. We're a month into it. There is no strategy, there is no objective, there is no end game. The gas prices are going up. Like if you are spent your entire life fantasizing and possibly prurient ways about a war with Iran, like Lindsey Graham, like, this is very exciting. If you're just someone who hasn't thought about this for two seconds, is just getting your news from the Fox News propaganda channel on the war, then maybe you think things are going fine. But if you actually think about it for a second, it's insane.
- [30:59]
Jon Favreau
It was also telling how like Marco, how Marco Rubio and J.D. vance spoke about it at the cabinet meeting. We could have played clips forever, but we didn't really have the time. But like Rubio, all he could say, continued to say is like the people running Iran are religious lunatics. They're religious lunatics. Like, that's all he can say because he's like, okay, here's something that's true. So I can keep saying that J.D. vance went on something about like, you know, some of these, some of these guys, they walk in to, to a store with a, with a vest on, with, with, with bombs in the vest and they blow it up and imagine if it was nuclear, imagine if the bombs were bigger. Like it made no fudgeing sense. He's talking about like random suicide bombers. Was he talking about them here in the Middle East? He doesn't even know like he's way that guy is like, does not want to be any part of this. Although apparently he might be leading negotiations. It is interesting to watch both of those two, who may have political futures beyond this, try as hard as they can to avoid talking about this war.
- [31:59]
Dan Pfeiffer
Yeah, Rubio's was, which I saw, I only saw clips of J.D. vance, but Rubio, he basically has tried to define success as what's already happened. So no matter what happens next, no matter who's in charge, no matter what deal is struck, no matter when the strait opens or not, Iran was dangerous. There are dangerous people in charge. Those people are now dead. We are safer because of it. That is his. He's trying to. That's not how the world works. That's not what's actually happening. But that's the case he's trying to make and I think in his mind anything that happens after that is Pete Hickset's fault.
- [32:34]
Jon Favreau
Yeah, that is true. It feels like Trump's getting ready to do that too since he basically has like said a couple times this week Pete wanted the war. Pete doesn't want the war to end. It was Pete's idea to do the war and now he's really sad that we're going to have to end it. So yeah, they are preparing to. Pete's going to be doing his next briefing from under the bus. So all these Republicans are clearly seeing the same polls the rest of us are. People are pissed at this point, mostly because of the war's economic impact. Mortgage rates increased for the third straight week are now at a five month high. Gas is now at an average of 398 a gallon expected to keep climbing. A new forecast on Thursday said inflation is headed back up this year. And all of this is why Trump's approval rating is already hitting record lows for his second term, now under 40%, according to three new polls out this week from Quinnipiac, AP and Reuters. A new Fox poll has his disapproval at 59%, the highest in either of his terms, with half of those strongly disapproving polls. Even worse on his handling of Iran, where he's underwater 36 to 64. What a week. Not to have an episode of Polar Coaster. But for those of you who don't yet get the message box, which you should be subscribers, which crooked.com yeswedan go subscribe to the message box. But here you're just gonna give us all a free preview maybe of what you said in the message box today.
- [33:53]
Dan Pfeiffer
I will so Trump's position is even worse than people think it is. Like, as you point out, his approval rating is lower than it has ever he is under 40 in three polls this week. As Laksha Jane in the argument points out, Trump is not just unpopular, he's more unpopular than any modern president at this point in the presidency, including Donald Trump in his first term.
- [34:13]
Jon Favreau
It's tough.
- [34:14]
Dan Pfeiffer
He is underwater on every single issue, his entire political strength. The reason he's been able to survive every other problem period of political turmoil in his career has been because of people trusted him. On the economy, that is over. He is 20 points underwater on the economy, 30 points underwater on inflation. In a couple of these polls, Trump's economic approval rating is now lower than Joe Biden's was at any point in Joe Biden's presidency. Wow. And then there's another point here which I think does not get enough attention. I hit on this in the message box is it had always been true since Trump came down the escalator that yes, Trump drove intense opposition among Democrats. He also drove intense support among Republicans. And so Trump being on the ballot or Trump being out there campaigning, yes, it would drive up Democrats, but it helped Republicans because it would drive up Republican turnout, too. That is not true anymore. In Nate Summer's polling model, the number of Americans who strongly disapprove of Trump is two times the number of Americans who strongly approve of Trump. Republicans like Trump. They don't love him anymore. And you can see that in the generic ballot, right in the CNN poll last month. I think you guys might have mentioned this on Tuesday, but the number of Democrats who are highly interested in the election or motivated to vote is much higher than number of Republicans. And when you just ask among those who are highly interested in the election how they're going to vote in 2026, the generic ballot expands from 5 points to 16 points. I mean, this is the makings of an absolute 1994, 2018, 2006 style political disaster. And I left 2010 out for a reason. I can explain if you're interested, but it is like the conditions are there for just an absolute disaster for Trump and the Republicans this fall.
- [36:03]
Jon Favreau
Why'd you leave 2010 out?
- [36:05]
Dan Pfeiffer
Because 2010, I think, is different, because Obama was much, much more popular than either any of these other presidents were at that point. And you had 10% unemployment. But the thing that really hurt Democrats was that we had had two consecutive wave elections. And so there was this huge number of seats that were in enemy territory, that the wave receded in 2010, and they all got left behind. But yes, but if you want to compare to 2010, Trump's numbers are abysmal compared to Obama's at that point.
- [36:39]
Jon Favreau
I keep seeing these polls and look, it's lovely. It's the best part of my day to see polls where Trump's under 40. But, you know, the election is with other Republicans on the ballot. It's the midterm election coming in November. And, you know, the generic ballot, like you said, it's been. It's. So the average, the Democratic lead on the generic ballot right now is five and a half points in Nate Silver's average. That said, this week, the individual polls have sort of been all over the map. There's been a big range. So just this week it was Democrats plus 11 plus 10, plus 8 plus 8. There's Quinnipiac polls, Global Strategy Group, Emerson, and then you had, like, Reuters where Trump's approval is very, very low. YouGov Morning Consult that only has Democrats up, like between 2 and 4 points in those polls. So it could be much bigger than five and a half at this point. It is notable, of course, that in all these polls, the approval rating of the Democratic Party is still in the shitter. Now, the Republicans aren't more popular either, but like maybe like a point or two more popular than the Democrats in these polls. But Democrats and the Republicans are sitting at like 30, 35% favorability in a lot of these polls. Now among independents, Democrats are slightly more popular than, than Republicans, which you know, is probably good for the midterms. And of course, some of that Democratic weakness is just Democratic voters being pissed at the party but still going to vote Democrat. But I do wonder, as you look towards the midterms, like, do Democrats need to start making more of a case against the Republican Party in general and not just Donald Trump? Or do you think that they're just so tied to Donald Trump that it's easy to. If Trump's approval is way down, then people are just not going to vote for Republicans.
- [38:22]
Dan Pfeiffer
History would say that in the midterms, making it about Trump is sufficient is enough. There is like, the way I would think about this is a two step process. Voters leave one side and you have to persuade them to come over to your side. Step one has happened. Step two has not yet happened. There are opportunities for that to happen. There are things we're going to have to do. The Democratic approval rating, as you point out, is abysmal. Also, if you compare Republican versus Democrat trust on the issues, yes, Trump is 30 points underwater, but we're on inflation. But we're essentially tied. Generic Democrats tied with a generic Republican on inflation. And in some of these House races are sort of a generic Democrat versus a generic Republican. We're going to have to continue to make that case. That individual Democrat is going to have to show why they are better than a generic Democrat on inflation or cost of living and a whole host of other issues. And so there's a lot of work to do. The way I would put it is this is a historic opportunity for the party, like the political storm clouds have aligned as such that we have a shot to have a very, very big election. We have work to do to get there. That includes improving the party brand. It includes our candidates running good races. It includes having enough money to be able to compete in some of these. Trump plus 10 Trump plus 12 Trump plus 13 seats that are on the cusp of possibly tipping. If we do everything right, it means being able to compete aggressively in all these expansion Senate states like Ohio, Texas, Iowa, Alaska, maybe even Florida. There are a lot of ways that we can stumble on the way to the altar here, but the Opportunity is there as we sit here today. And if this work continues, if oil prices and gas prices continue to go up, the opportunity is going to get even bigger.
- [40:05]
Jon Favreau
And again, this is not just about 2026, but it is about setting the table for 2028, because for every extra House seat and especially Senate seat, Democrats win this time around, it's going to help our chances of having a majority if we get a Republican president in 2028 and then can actually pass it. And that means. And I think the Senate map is. It's instructive here, right? Which is like, it used to be that we're like, oh, maybe we're close in te. Wouldn't it be cool if we won Alaska? But it's like, no, no, no. Now, Texas, Alaska, Ohio, Iowa, we need two of those four and North Carolina and Maine and to hold Michigan and New Hampshire in order to win. And Ossoff in Georgia. Sorry. To have a Senate majority to take the Senate back, and then the map doesn't get a whole lot easier in 2028. There's not a lot of pickup opportunities in 28 for Democrats either. So then you'd have to, like, hold more seats in tough states and maybe, I guess, wait, Ron Johnson's up in Wisconsin then in 28, and McCormick is up. And McCormick in Pennsylvania. Yes.
- [41:10]
Dan Pfeiffer
No, no, no, that's not true. Sorry. Fetterman's up. Fetterman's up.
- [41:12]
Jon Favreau
Fetterman's up.
- [41:14]
Dan Pfeiffer
But, like, this is a little bit of bad luck, is you would have almost wanted. Yes, we have all the. Like, maybe this year we have a shot at some of these Senate seats we would not have in a different year. Also, we have a bunch of Democrats in tough seats who we'd like to have up in a great year like this. You know, it's like, Joe Manchin was able to cruise to reelection in 2018. It would have been great if we could have reelect, you know, Ruben Gallego or Mark Kelly or Raphael Warnock or Tammy Baldman. You know, just. It's not the best year to have this happen, but the opportunity is there. And your point is, if you. If we do not pick up a significant number of sentences, even if we don't get to 51, the next Democratic president in 2029 is not going to have a governing majority to start with.
- [41:59]
Jon Favreau
And again, just, like, want to get this in people's minds, too, you might think, okay, well, Trump's out. Democratic president, A Democratic president without a congressional majority passing a bunch of executive actions, not gonna fly because we have this Supreme Court. We've seen what happens. And everyone's just gonna get incredibly cranky for good reason, at that Democratic president. And then we're gonna lose the majority. Then we're probably gonna lose, you know what I'm saying? So, really is important, you know, go to vote Save America, because we're focused on giving you stuff to do to help take back the House. But there's also Senate races. There's plenty for everyone to do. But you're right, it could be a historic opportunity because of the political environment in 2026. And we need to put the fucking foot on the gas. That's right. To pick up every single seat possible. And that's gonna require not just Trump fucking things up, but Democrats getting their shit together. Pod Save America is brought to you by stamps.com, it's staggering that to this very day, many small business owners are still making post office runs or are stuck with expensive postage meter leases.
- [43:10]
We're staggered. We're staggered by this falling over.
- [43:14]
Staggering. It's 2026. Enough.
- [43:18]
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- [43:55]
yeah. When we were sending out merch.
- [43:56]
Yeah. Back in 2017, we were just starting out before it was even cool. Yeah, actually, it was pretty cool then, too.
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- [44:04]
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- [44:35]
Erin Ryan
quick question. Are you politically engaged and spiritually exhausted
- [44:40]
Alyssa Mastromonaco
if you said yes to both? Welcome home. I'm Erin Ryan.
- [44:43]
Erin Ryan
And I'm Alyssa Mastromonaco.
- [44:45]
Alyssa Mastromonaco
And we're the hosts of Hysteria, the podcast for women who care about democracy, culture, and not losing their minds in the process.
- [44:51]
Erin Ryan
We break down the news, call out the nonsense, and spotlight the women actually fighting back on Capitol Hill, in classrooms and everywhere. The stakes are high.
- [45:00]
Alyssa Mastromonaco
It's sharp, honest analysis featuring women's voices with humor and zero hand hold.
- [45:06]
Erin Ryan
Listen to Hysteria wherever you get your podcasts and watch full episodes on YouTube.
- [45:12]
Vrbo Advertiser
At Vrbo, we understand that even the best of plans sometimes need a little support. So we plan for the plot twists. Every booking is automatically backed by our VRBO Care guarantee, giving you confidence from the very start. Whenever you need help, it's ready before your stay, through the moments in between and after your trip. Because a great trip starts with peace of mind and maybe a good playlist, but we've got the peace of mind part covered.
- [45:43]
Jon Favreau
In case you're not a fan of the polls, we also have some new election results that should scare the shit out of Republicans. In Florida, Democrats flipped two state legislature seats on Tuesday, a state Senate seat in Tampa, and a House district that Trump won by 11 in 2024 that just happens to include the President's home in Mar? A Lago, where Trump himself voted on Tuesday, along with Melania and Barron. Now, you might be wondering how they voted since this is what Trump said earlier this week.
- [46:11]
Donald Trump
I hate mail in ballots because basically it's a way of cheating.
- [46:17]
Jon Favreau
Hates them. Hates them. Let's hear how he answered a question about this at the cabinet meeting.
- [46:21]
Donald Trump
You may not use the mail in ballot, you probably said. Yeah, I did.
- [46:24]
Jon Favreau
Why did.
- [46:24]
Donald Trump
You know what? Because I'm President of the United States, I felt I should be here instead of being in the beautiful sunshine taking.
- [46:31]
Jon Favreau
You were in Palm beach, sir, the last few weekends.
- [46:33]
Donald Trump
That's right. And I. Yeah. And I decided that I was going to vote by mail in ballot because I couldn't be there because I had a lot of different things. But you know, we have exceptions for mail in ballots. You do that?
- [46:43]
Jon Favreau
Oh, yeah. So, okay, so you had a lot of different things. So you used mail in voting because it was more convenient? Is that what you're saying? Okay, cool.
- [46:50]
Dan Pfeiffer
You know, look, it's unique to a president to have to work on election day and maybe not be able to go to get off work to go to the polls. And so those people who can't get off work to go to the polls, should be able to mail in their ballot.
- [47:03]
Jon Favreau
Mm. Mm.
- [47:05]
Dan Pfeiffer
I mean, it's a great. He makes a great case for mail in balloting right there.
- [47:08]
Jon Favreau
He also said, he's like, and we have exceptions. We have exceptions if you're sick, if you're on a business trip. And I'm like, oh, really? These are the. How are you gonna implement those exceptions? You're gonna require a doctor's note from people, an employer's note that they were on a business trip to get their mail in balloting done. What the fuck fuck is he talking about? It's so crazy.
- [47:25]
Dan Pfeiffer
It's so stupid. Because it's also worth remembering his campaign aggressively encouraged mail balloting in 2024.
- [47:33]
Jon Favreau
Yes, of course. Because Republicans know it's good for them. They need mail in balloting as well.
- [47:38]
Dan Pfeiffer
Do you know what state has led the nation in mail in balloting for a very long time? Florida. And you know who it usually benefited for a very long time before COVID Republicans.
- [47:49]
Jon Favreau
Anyway, let's talk about that race that Trump voted in. And obviously he also endorsed the Republican candidate. That didn't help. What do you think of those Florida winds? Is the blue wave going to bury Mar a Lago?
- [48:02]
Dan Pfeiffer
Look, with our current climate policy, eventually,
- [48:04]
Jon Favreau
yes, John, something is.
- [48:06]
Dan Pfeiffer
Yes, yes, a wave will do it
- [48:08]
Jon Favreau
of some kind, electorally or otherwise.
- [48:10]
Dan Pfeiffer
Yes, these are big wins. They are indicative of the political environment. It's about an 11, 12 point swing in the district that has more Lagos, a big swing in the Tampa district where that Democrat was outspent 10 to 1 in the race and still won.
- [48:27]
Jon Favreau
Wow.
- [48:27]
Dan Pfeiffer
And we spent a lot of time in 23 and 24 pointing out that special elections were not perfectly predictive, that it's a very different political environment. We were succeeding in them as Democrats because we had a base of high propensity voters who turn out all the time. Now, two interesting things here. One, yes, there was very good Democratic turnout in these races, but that's not why the Democrats won't. The number of votes received by both the Democrats in these districts dramatically exceeded the number of registered Democrats in the district. And so the only way they could perform that well was to do very well with independents and Republicans. Another thing that our friend Amy Walter of the Cook Political Report has pointed out in a piece today, special elections have been pretty predictive of midterms. So both in 2018, Democrats were winning special elections by about 11 and a half points and they won the national popular vote by nine points. And then in 2022 Republicans were winning special elections by about four points, and Republicans won the popular vote by three points in that election.
- [49:27]
Jon Favreau
You know, I was gonna ask you this because I was looking at the swing in that Mar? A Lago district between the last Republican who won it. Cause Trump won it by 11, but the last Republican won by, I guess, 19.
- [49:38]
Dan Pfeiffer
Yeah.
- [49:39]
Jon Favreau
And I feel like all of these. The swing from 24 in so many of these special elections ends up somewhere between, like, 15 and 20.
- [49:48]
Dan Pfeiffer
Yeah.
- [49:48]
Jon Favreau
And it's just like, it keeps hitting there every time. And I'm like, it's weird because, you know, we're seeing the generic ballot at, you know, five and a half right now, some 10 or whatever. But all these swings from 2024 have been in the. In the high teens.
- [50:02]
Dan Pfeiffer
I think the average of all the special elections since 2025 has been about 12 points. I think that's been the performance above Kamala Harris's number.
- [50:13]
Jon Favreau
Yeah. I feel like in 26, I feel like the last couple months of them have gotten a little. I mean, there's a small sample size, but I feel like they've gotten a little bit.
- [50:20]
Dan Pfeiffer
There have been a couple gigantic ones this month. These things are always very. You got to look at all of them because they're very race specific. Like, you could have a very bad candidate. You look at this. You use the Trump number, not the 20. The previous special House race in that House district with Mar A Lago, because it probably was not particularly competitive because the Democrat didn't run a real race. Right. So you just, you know, so you kind of. You throw them all in there. And it's. It is. It is like a. Right. Now, these special elections look like 2018 in terms of margin.
- [50:49]
Jon Favreau
Wow. Well, that's exciting. Something.
- [50:52]
Dan Pfeiffer
Except for the generic ballot. That's. We have work.
- [50:54]
Jon Favreau
We have work to do, but we got work to do. All right, let's talk about the airports, many of which are currently still a complete mess just as millions of kids and families are traveling for spring break. Security lines are hours long in some places, all because TSA agents haven't been paid in a month. Many have stopped showing up for work. Nearly 500 have quit. Problem hasn't been solved by Trump sending in ICE agents to stand around all day in the airport that hadn't fixed it. But just now. Dan, breaking news.
- [51:20]
Dan Pfeiffer
Oh, wow.
- [51:21]
Jon Favreau
We have breaking news. Trump has his truth. He has. He said that he is instructing the Department of Homeland Security to pay tsa, which apparently he could have done all along, I guess.
- [51:37]
You.
- [51:38]
Dan Pfeiffer
No, I don't think that's how that works.
- [51:41]
Jon Favreau
That's what he. So here. Here we go. I'm gonna get through. I'm gonna just read you that. His statement. There's a lot of.
- [51:46]
Dan Pfeiffer
This is exciting.
- [51:46]
Jon Favreau
Radical left. Radical left. Democrats crying, Chuck Schumer. They've, you know, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Let's see. The Democrats almost destroyed our country. Asylums, blah, blah, blah. You've heard that all before. Okay. Because the Democrats have rec. Created a true national crisis. I am using my authorities under the law to protect our great country as I always do. Therefore, I am going to sign an order instructing the Secretary of Homeland Security, Mark Wayne Mullen. Congrats to you, Senator Mullen, to immediately pay our TSA agents in order to address this emergency situation and to quickly stop the Democrat chaos at the airports. It is not an easy thing to do, but I am going to do it. I want to thank our hardworking TSA agents, blah, blah, blah. And ice, of course. That's it. Thank you for attention to this matter. Djt.
- [52:35]
Dan Pfeiffer
That seems bad.
- [52:37]
Jon Favreau
What? You think it seems bad?
- [52:38]
Dan Pfeiffer
Yeah, I think it seems bad because that says.
- [52:40]
Jon Favreau
Tell me why.
- [52:41]
Dan Pfeiffer
Because that says there's no deal, which means there's no law being passed that sends money to the Department of Homeland Security that they can then take that money and give it to the workers.
- [52:52]
Jon Favreau
We have a response from Chris Murphy. He said the national emergency is that he can't cut a deal, that he's a bad negotiator. I don't think that's grounds for a national emergency. We made progress today. We've been actively talking all day. So the backstory here is Congress has not been able to reach a deal. It seems like one option that has been discussed is basically funding everything in the Department of Homeland Security except for ice. But then also Democrats, even if they do that, still want some reforms for ice. Not as much. I think they'd be willing not to do as many reforms as they originally asked for, but they want more than the White House was going to give them, which is basically nothing. And so that was the sticking point, but I'm not quite sure what the challenge was there. Like, I don't know why you can't just. Because I know Democrats were trying to just fund TSA and Republicans were blocking that. So then why not fund all of DHS and just leave ICE for another negotiation?
- [53:49]
Dan Pfeiffer
The sticking point was, if you want to get nerdy about this, is that if you fund all of DHS except ice, you're still funding CBP and hsi Homeland Security investigations, and they do immigration enforcement. And so they would be proceeding. We'd be paying them to do immigration enforcement absent reforms. And as we remember, it was CBP officers who were involved in the killing of Alex Preddy. It also seems like they were going to get a deal. As our old boss Pete Rouse from Obama World used to say, nothing motivates a senator like the smell of jet fumes. And once John Thune said, well, I guess we're not going to be able to go on recess if we don't fix this. It was pretty sure they're headed for a deal. So Trump has fucked this up. It's not clear how they're going to pay for it. Are they going to take money from ICE and give it to them? Which seems cool, but definitely not legal.
- [54:39]
Jon Favreau
Maybe they'll get some from the big beautiful bill, but you can't do it.
- [54:43]
Dan Pfeiffer
Like, I mean, I'm like, yeah, like, I have to say, nothing matters. But that's definitely not how the power of the purse works. Like, Congress didn't fund them. Like, you can't. Maybe he's getting a rich person to pay them. I don't really know what's happening.
- [54:57]
Jon Favreau
No, no, he's, he's, he's fearing an emergency.
- [55:00]
Dan Pfeiffer
Is the authority under the law.
- [55:02]
Jon Favreau
Under the law, of course. So here's a question, Dan. So the Department of Homeland Security then, is still shut down. No one else in DHS is getting paid. Trump is paying just the TSA workers with some emergency funding that we don't know where it's coming from yet. Why then, for the last two weeks, have Republicans blocked Democrats efforts to simply just fund tsa? Because it's very easy to. They could right now, with a very simple vote in the Senate and the House, just say, okay, we're gonna fund TSA and let's negotiate the rest later so we can fix the airports, which Democrats have been trying to do. Republicans block that. And now Trump's basically doing it anyway with some magic money, as America's favorite
- [55:46]
Dan Pfeiffer
soybean farmer would say. He's jujitsuing you, John.
- [55:52]
Jon Favreau
We're jiu. Jitsuing the Iranians with their own oil.
- [55:55]
Dan Pfeiffer
I honestly have no idea. Like, I get. I don't. I don't even know what to say. It makes no sense. It seems crazy. Maybe it's so crazy it'll work.
- [56:06]
Jon Favreau
Someone pointed out Eric Wasson from Bloomberg. He said Trump did the same likely illegal move to pay troops during the fall shutdown. And it was just too politically toxic to try to stop it in court. So it's illegal, but who's going to court to say don't pay the tax?
- [56:21]
Dan Pfeiffer
Yeah, I mean, that's probably what's happening here.
- [56:24]
Jon Favreau
That is probably what happened.
- [56:25]
Dan Pfeiffer
If I get Amtrak sues, get people back on the trains.
- [56:28]
Jon Favreau
Hey, you know what it's like whether the Republicans finally said yes to the Democrats attempt to fund TSA or Trump just. Just does it with magic money that we can't find. Who, who cares? I guess, I guess, I guess the airports will get fixed. Although it'd be nice to not have those. Nice to have those 500 TSA agents that quit back probably, huh?
- [56:47]
Dan Pfeiffer
Yeah. It seems like things are not going to be perfect anytime soon at the airports.
- [56:51]
Jon Favreau
I also don't understand how this is going to get any kind of a deal now at dhs because what is the, what's the pressure to get a deal now that the airport chaos has fallen.
- [57:02]
Dan Pfeiffer
Yeah, if I was a Coast Guard or FEMA worker, I'd be pretty pissed right now.
- [57:06]
Jon Favreau
Right. Because they all have to get paid. Yeah.
- [57:09]
Dan Pfeiffer
And how much magic money is there, John?
- [57:12]
Jon Favreau
Who knows? Who knows? We're spending. How many billions have we spent in Iran already?
- [57:18]
Dan Pfeiffer
He's just. Scott Bassin's gonna turn on the presses and start printing those Donald Trump bucks. Get the, get those printed for some people.
- [57:26]
Jon Favreau
Yeah, we gotta fucking build the ark too.
- [57:37]
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Dan Pfeiffer
Yeah.
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And then you can, you can. They have like new chefs come in. New, new recipes come in. You're like carne Asada.
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- [59:44]
Erin Ryan
quick question. Are you politically engaged and spiritually exhausted
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Alyssa Mastromonaco
if you said yes to both? Welcome home. I'm Erin Ryan.
- [59:52]
Erin Ryan
And I'm Alyssa Mastromonaco.
- [59:54]
Alyssa Mastromonaco
And we're the hosts of Hysteria, the podcast for women who care about democracy, culture and not losing their minds in the process.
- [60:00]
Erin Ryan
We break down the news, call out the nonsense, and spotlight the women actually fighting back on Capitol Hill, in classrooms and everywhere. The stakes are high.
- [60:09]
Alyssa Mastromonaco
It's sharp, honest analysis featuring women's voices with humor and zero hand hold.
- [60:15]
Erin Ryan
Listen to Hysteria wherever you get your podcasts and watch full episodes on YouTube
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- [60:39]
Jon Favreau
One more thing before we go. On Tuesday, the California Democratic Party released the latest gubernatorial primary poll that shows two Republicans and therefore no Democrats advancing to the November election to succeed Governor Gavin Newsom. There have now been several polls that show a result like this with Republicans in the one and two spots. If you're not familiar, California has a jungle primary system where all candidates, regardless of party, compete in the same primary, with the top two vote getters advancing to the general election. Here in 2026, two Republicans are running in the primary, along with around 10,000 Democratic candidates. I think that's the number. And according to the California Democratic Party's poll, those two Republican candidates, Chad Bianco and Steve Hilton, are polling at around 15%, while no Democrat is polling higher than 10%. So this is a fucking mess. USC had to cancel a debate this week that would have featured the two Republicans and four of the leading Democratic candidates because USC's debate criteria locked out four of the lower polling candidates, who all happened to be either black, Latino or Asian, who pushed back pretty hard until the debate was called off. What'd you make of that? Before we get into the broader issue,
- [61:52]
Dan Pfeiffer
the mistake here is the criteria included not just polling position, but also money. So that led them to include Matt Mahan, the low polling but mayor of San Jose, who also has a lot of money because people like Sergey Brin and a lot of tech people are funding his campaign. And so once you put. I think you could have made a credible argument that you were going to stop at Tom Steyer, Eric Swalwell, Katie Porter. They have been 3, 4 and 5 in the polls and bunched up together for a very long time with a decent sized gap between them and everyone else. But once you included Mahan in there, it seemed like a very. I understand why people would be upset about that. Because you shouldn't be able to get on a debate stage just because Sergey Brin writes a massive check to your super pac.
- [62:36]
Jon Favreau
Yeah, it does seem like that. The criteria was laid out before the debate when they all agreed. So it's not like they made it up as they went. Yes, point taken. But I think the larger challenge is there's a debate on April 1, and I think there's one on April 22. And the Democratic candidates were not included in the USC debate. Javier Becerra, Antonio Villaragoza, Tony Thurmond, who's the superintendent, state superintendent in California, Betty Yee, who's the former state comptroller. They have all made, apparently an informal pact that if not all of them are included in a debate, then none of them will participate in the debate. Which seems like, unwise.
- [63:12]
Dan Pfeiffer
Yeah.
- [63:13]
Jon Favreau
To me, the Next two debates. I think it's a mess because I think Becerra and Viragosa did qualify for the next debate. But I don't know. Are they going to. And I think they accepted. And now are they not gonna go because Yee and Thurmond, who are polling at 1 and 2%, aren't gonna go? I don't know. Broader question, what happens now? Primary's June 2. Ballots are already printed. They will start getting mailed out in early May. What do California Democrats need to do to fix this mess and avoid accidentally electing a Republican governor?
- [63:42]
Dan Pfeiffer
It's a classic collective action problem, John. Everyone's incentive is to keep things exactly as the way they are up until the exact moment where we nominate two Republicans to run for governor in the most Democratic state in the country.
- [63:58]
Jon Favreau
I mean, there have been several polls now, right?
- [64:02]
Dan Pfeiffer
I think we're at 20 polls that all show the same thing, because I think that we just one of the maybe vote Hub or someone who does a polling average. We've just hit the criteria to actually keep an average going, and it's bad for Democrats.
- [64:13]
Jon Favreau
Well, but here's what's important about these polls. So you got the two Republicans who are either in the one or two spot or one or three or whatever else, and then Tom Steyer, Eric Swalwell and Katie Porter are all in, like, double digits in most of these polls. I think a few polls, Maybe Katie's at 8 or, you know, someone else. Like, they slip here and there. But most of them are in, like, double digits in these polls. Then Becerra Viragosa, Thurman, Betty Yee and Matt Mahan are all. None of them have. Have topped 5 in any of these polls. 5%. Many of them are like 1 or 2 or 3. So it's like these candidates are just. They're just going to stay in even though they think. And, like, here's the thing, Matt, man, you're like, okay, well, he's the mayor of San Jose, and so maybe, you know, people don't really know him, although he. Now, he does have a lot of money, so he can get on air. He joined the race late, but put him aside. Becerra has won statewide. He was the Attorney General of California, served in the Biden administration. So clearly he's got name id. Viragosa ran statewide. Mayor of la, ran against Gavin Newsom when Newsom ran. So he ran a statewide campaign. And then Tony Thurman and Betty year at like, 1% anyway. But, like, what? I don't know. If you're Bessar and Viragosa, like, what are you doing? Well, I mean, here's Matt Mahan at this point, like, what are you doing?
- [65:31]
Dan Pfeiffer
Yeah, I mean, it's a great question. I mean, it is. The problem here is that California is basically a 60, 40 state, and the 60 is being divided up like 12 ways and the 40s being divided up two ways. And the math is very bad for Democrats. If that's the case now, there is a big chunk of undecided, and that undecided is mostly Democratic. And so what you have to hope is that when that undecided comes home, it comes to one of the candidates who has an actual chance of winning. Right. If the undecided allocates evenly amongst all 12 candidates or whatever it is, then we stay in this problem. It's also, there's. I wrote in the aforementioned message box a month or so ago, like, now it's not time to panic. I don't think it's time to panic yet. But we're getting close to panic time. And people are going to, like, what's going to have to happen here is people are going to have to think about what's best for the party in the state and not themselves. It's going to include all these candidates who do not have a shot to win. Because if you do not have support now and you do not have money to become known in the most expensive television state in the country, you are not going to win. There is no path to winning. It is. That can't happen. So the best thing you can do is drop out and endorse someone who has a chance to win. So that's failing that. It is incumbent upon everyone who has a platform from Gavin Newsom, Adam Schiff, Alex Padilla, people who talk into microphones, people who post on social media to at some point in the near future say, these are the candidates who have a chance to win. Pick one of them and a vote for anyone else is a vote for a Republican governor of California. This actually went down in a house race or two in like 2018. Yeah, I remember that because this comes up periodically. When you have a lot of Democrats running and two Republicans, you're going to end up in this situation. And we've successfully navigated those. That's easier to do at a House race level than a statewide level. But people are going to have to. We're going to have to say, and it's going to be uncomfortable because the most most, most most likely scenario is those three candidates are going to be Eric Swalwell, Tom Steyer, Katie Porter.
- [67:34]
Jon Favreau
Right. And you know what I was going to say, like, that's it. But it's like, you know, I guess you got, what, another week or two, let's see another couple polls, see if anyone breaks up. But it's like nothing's happening.
- [67:44]
Dan Pfeiffer
It's California is. It is a huge state. It's an expensive state. No one knows who anyone is other than the governor and the senators. These candidates, even though you're right, Becerra was the attorney general and Biden's HHS secretary and a member of Congress for a long time. No one knows very much about him. Same thing. All these other people you're mentioning, Matt Mayen, are state elected officials. They have run statewide and no one knows anything, and they don't have the money to introduce themselves. The system here sucks because of how expensive it is to run ads. And the state's too big to go around and meet everyone. And local media is so hollowed out that you can't even have an incredible earned media communication strategy to get well known because no one sees that shit anymore. And so this is where it is, what it is, and it's going to be uncomfortable. We're going to have to make some tough decisions to ensure that California does not have a Republican governor.
- [68:38]
Jon Favreau
One thing that these Democratic candidates and every other Democratic official in California could all work together or decide together on is to elevate one of those Republican candidates and attack that Republican candidate instead of the other one and to make them a bigger deal. Because I was thinking about this when I was reading Gavin's book and Tommy and I interviewed him, like, he talked about how in his race, it was him and Villaragoza, and he knew that if in the general, he felt good about winning, but it would be a tougher race against a fellow Democrat, Villaragoa, than it would be a Republican. And so he elevated John Cox as this Trumpy Republican, focused all of his advertising, negative advertising, on Cox, and nothing. He barely mentioned Viragosa. And then, sure enough, Cox won second and Viragosa got third. And then Gavin cruised to victory. And obviously, this is a different situation, a different composition of candidates, but I would imagine if they all decided we're going to all go after Steve Hilton, he's the boogeyman. He loves Trump. He's on Fox all the time. And make him the big. The big bad guy, then, like, maybe he gets more Republicans. And then Chad Bianco falls.
- [69:42]
Dan Pfeiffer
Well, I think so in the Cox Newsome Race, I think Cox got 38, got 40%. Right. And so when you add up what, like, I haven't looked at the average, but in general, it seems like Bianca, plus Hilton's getting to like 32.
- [69:58]
Jon Favreau
32. Yeah, yeah.
- [70:00]
Dan Pfeiffer
So you have. What you're probably doing is you're taking that 8% of Republicans who don't know that the poll that the election's happening and putting them towards one of them. It's not clear you're. It's not a zero sum game among two Republicans for. What Newsom was doing, if I recall correctly, is there was one Republican of consequence who had any chance of making it, and he was making sure Republicans knew that this is the person voting for their guy. And so I think it's a slightly different situation if it was because he was just moving one Republican ahead of a Democrat, which is easy to do given the size of the Republican electorate and the fact that most Republicans don't turn out in a primary because there's generally not much for them to vote for. Here it's different because I'm not sure you're gonna lower Bianco. You might just raise Hilton. And we have to say there's no one in charge.
- [70:41]
Jon Favreau
I was gonna say, I wonder if, like Newsom or Kamala Harris at some
- [70:44]
Dan Pfeiffer
point, or Kamala Harris, another person endorses.
- [70:47]
Jon Favreau
Well, that's what I'm saying. Like at some, at some point, I wonder if one of these statewide officials who's popular, I mean, they're probably, you know, these campaigns are doing polls. I'm pretty sure they've tested the power of some of these endorsements. And not like, I think endorsements make a huge deal, but in a situation like this where we're in a, in the narrow range of, you know, 1 percentage points separating some of these candidates, think it can probably make a difference.
- [71:08]
Dan Pfeiffer
Yeah, for sure. I mean, of course they'd all have
- [71:11]
Jon Favreau
to do the same. You know, that's like, like this fudgeing state. You have like Gavin Newsom, like, endorses Eric Swalwell, and then Kamala Harris jumps in and endorses Katie Poor.
- [71:20]
Dan Pfeiffer
Yeah. And then someone comes in and does stire and then we're right back where we were again. Yeah, my fucking mess.
- [71:25]
Jon Favreau
But anyway, yeah, I mean, right now it's one of those three. And I know like, Matt Mahan has like got in the race late, but, you know, he's got a lot of money and he's, you know, spending it on ad, so we'll see. I think maybe like another. Another week or two. See where these candidates are. Maybe. Maybe suddenly everyone will be like, oh, Viragosa, great, we want him back in state government. Or Becerra, I don't know. But, like, I really think we're like a week or two away from just like. No, it's those three candidates and that's it.
- [71:50]
Dan Pfeiffer
Yeah, we're five weeks away from ballots going out, so. Fuck.
- [71:54]
Jon Favreau
All right, well, that's something to look forward to here in California. That's our show for today. Also, a reminder, no Kings is tomorrow. We got another no Kings Day, so make sure you make a plan to get out there. You can go to votesaveamerica.com and you can find out a no Kings location near you. Alex Wagner will be back in the feed on Sunday with a conversation with independent journalist and Trump target Don Lemon. Check it out. Have a good weekend.
- [72:20]
Dan Pfeiffer
Bye, everyone.
- [72:23]
Jon Favreau
If you want to listen to Pod Save America at ad free and get access to exclusive podcasts, go to crooked.com friends to subscribe on Supercast, Substack, YouTube or Apple Podcasts. Also, please consider leaving us a review that helps boost this episode and everything we do here at Crooked. Pod Save America is a Crooked Media production. Our producer is Saul Rubin. Our associate producer is Farah Safari. Austin Fisher is our senior producer. Reed Churlin is our executive editor. Adrian Hill is our head of news and politics. The show is mixed and edited by Andrew Chadwick. Jordan Kanter is our sound engineer with audio support from Kyle Seglin and Charlotte Landis. Matt de Groat is our head of production. Naomi Sengel is our executive assistant. Thanks to our digital team, Elijah Cohn, Hayley Jones, Ben Hefcoat, Mia Kelman, Kirill Pelaviev, David Toles, and Ryan Young. Our production staff is proudly unionized with the Writers Guild of America East.
- [73:23]
Host of Runaway Country
The country feels like it's falling apart right before our eyes and the people inside it are being silenced. So we're going to East 26th street and Nicollet Avenue, which is where Alex Preddy was executed by ICE and Border Patrol. That is not a headline. That is a human life. And it is all happening right now. Do you worry about your own safety being involved in all this? Yes.
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Vrbo Advertiser
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And of course they use a 5 year old child as bait. And of course they're doing all these horrible bad things because they don't know what they're doing. They've been told that they're going to get rid of the worst of the worst, then they have absolute immunity. And they've been told that nothing they do will they ever be held accountable for.
- [74:17]
Host of Runaway Country
On my show, Runaway country, we go where the headlines hit home from communities under threat to the people fighting to be heard. New episodes of Runaway country drop every Thursday. Subscribe wherever you get your podcasts or watch on YouTube.
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