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Jon Favreau
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Jon Favreau
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Ben
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Jon Favreau
Did you use a drill?
Ben
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Jon Favreau
And here you are.
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gets full frontal nudity. But mostly it's a bi weekly subscription exclusive podcast that is basically Pod Save America but behind a paywall, so it's a little bit looser and more fun. And it's love it. And Favreau and me and Pfeiffer and
Jon Favreau
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Jon Favreau
Yeah. Clothes.
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Ben
Support is available 247 with VRBoCare. We're here day or night, ready whenever you need help.
Dan Pfeiffer
Because a great trip starts with the right support.
Jon Favreau
Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Jon Favreau.
Dan Pfeiffer
I'm Dan Pfeiffer.
Jon Favreau
Dan in studio.
Dan Pfeiffer
Middle of spring break right here. Stopped on the way back.
Jon Favreau
I was gonna say people need to know that Dan has been in Disneyland and then I think you're doing Universal and this was like a stop in between. That's how committed you are to the pod.
Dan Pfeiffer
It is our Wally World Spring break. We are here. We had a great time in Disneyland. We saw lots of friends at the POD in Disneyland. All very nice.
Jon Favreau
Incredible.
Dan Pfeiffer
And here we are. I picked a great week to not be able to do anything other than look at wait times on my app.
Jon Favreau
I have to say, Dan, you were gone this week on family vacation. Tommy, it's like it's getting lonely in some of my text chains about the news.
Dan Pfeiffer
Yes.
Jon Favreau
And Ben, only everyone else sleeps normal hours.
Dan Pfeiffer
Yes.
Jon Favreau
Not getting those same responses as fast from Lovett or no.
Dan Pfeiffer
No, no, no. And you never know what time zone Ben is in.
Jon Favreau
No. That's also true. All right, on today's show, Pam Bondi's out and we're gonna talk about why Trump fired her and who might replace her. We're also gonna dig into Trump's primetime address on the war he doesn't seem to, as well as a comment he made in what he thought was a closed door event that could end up in every Democratic ad. This fall. We'll also cover the Supreme Court hearing on Trump's executive order to end birthright citizenship, his new executive order to take control of voting from the states, the possible end of the DHS shutdown, and of course, the moment we all learned what bimbofication is. You know exactly what it is now, right?
Dan Pfeiffer
I learned about it this morning from the Daily Mail, actually from an email from you.
Jon Favreau
Quick reminder, it's a perfect time to remind everyone to please consider becoming a subscriber to crooked media if you haven't already, so that you don't miss out on any of the great content we're putting out for our friends of the Pod. You get more on bimbofication. Subscribers also get a new extra episode of Pod Save America called Pod Save America Only friends other subscriber only shows like Polar Coaster with Dan Pfeiffer. I saw there was a new Polar Coaster episode this week too.
Dan Pfeiffer
There was. We recorded it on Friday. It was a mailbag episode. And the Pod Save America news curse hit Rollercoaster because our one fun question was about Kyle Cook Amanda Batula at Summerhouse and then there were major revelations since then. And Caroline Reston had to come in and record a special addendum to the podcast to address the new news that Amanda Batula and Wes Wilson are dating.
Jon Favreau
You might as well have just said that in a foreign language called pop culture. But now I feel like I should called American. Now I feel like I should start watching. You also get access to all of our excellent substack newsletters 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, proudly pro democracy media outlets left in Trump's America. So head to crooked.com friends and subscribe. All right, Dan, as forgettable as it may have been, the President did just deliver a primetime address to the nation on Wednesday about Operation Epic Fury, the war in Iran he got us into that has now dragged on for more than a month. The 19 minute speech contained no news, no exit strategy, and no coherent rationale or even coherent sentences to explain why 50,000American troops are still deployed in a conflict that has already cost us tens of billions of dollars and sent gas prices through the roof. Other than that fine showing by Donald Trump, here are the highlights.
News Reporter
We're now totally independent of the Middle east and yet we are there to help. We don't have to be there. We don't need their oil. We don't need anything they have. But we're there to help our allies. America has plenty of gas. We have so much gas. The countries of the world that do receive oil through the Hormuz Strait must take care of that passage. They must cherish it. They must grab it and cherish it. They can do it easily. And in any event, when this conflict is over, the strait will open up naturally. It'll just open up naturally. We've done all of it. Their Navy is gone. Their air Force is gone. Their missiles are just about used up or beaten. There's never been anything like it. Militarily. Everyone is talking about It. And tonight, I'm pleased to say that these core strategic objectives are nearing completion. Over the next two to three weeks, we're going to bring them back to the Stone Ages where they belong. In the meantime, discussions are ongoing. If there is no deal, we are going to hit each and every one of their electric generating plants very hard and probably simultaneously. We have not hit their oil, even though that's the easiest target of all. But we could hit it and it would be gone, and there's not a thing they could do about it. The whole world is watching and they just can't believe what they're seeing. They leave it to your imagination, but they can't believe what they're seeing.
Jon Favreau
No, that is, that is very true. Don't know really where to begin. There. Some good highlights.
Dan Pfeiffer
Right? It's. That summarizes it all right there.
Jon Favreau
It'll open naturally, but you got to grab. You got to grab. Grab the straight of Hormuz. I already made the joke in my YouTube react with Ben, so I'm also,
Dan Pfeiffer
we'll bond them to the Stone Age, but negotiations are ongoing.
Jon Favreau
I laughed out loud when I first heard that. I mean, because I think he, he, I think he probably ad libbed a bit of the, the Stone Age thing from his truth, obviously, because he originally said. But I think. And then he says he's in the prompter like, oh, but discussions are ongoing. I guess I'm supposed to talk about diplomacy. So your message box take on the speech is that Trump declared victory but admitted defeat. Say more about that.
Dan Pfeiffer
Sure. So I tried to treat the speech seriously, which was hard.
Jon Favreau
I would say that I did that, too.
Dan Pfeiffer
It was very difficult. But it is the President United States addressing the nation at a time of war and economic chaos. So we should at least try to look at it from that point of seriousness. And so to the extent that Trump's speech had a message or a strategy, I believe it was to say the war was coming to an end and declare victory.
Ben
Right.
Dan Pfeiffer
And he went through. He just said, we saw that in the clip. All of our strategic core, strategic objectives have been met. He went into great detail, what we've destroyed, the navy, the missiles, all of that. But at the end of the day, what he was really saying is this thing's going to wrap up in the next two to three weeks. And when we leave, however we leave, we are going to leave the same Iranian regime in place, although likely more anti American and radicalized than before. Iran will continue to have all of their nuclear material, which we all Basically
Jon Favreau
monitor with, like, Google Maps. Google Satellite.
Dan Pfeiffer
Yeah.
Jon Favreau
Which we can look at it, but
Dan Pfeiffer
we could have done before we bombed them. It's in the same place it was before. They still have it. And now, as a special bonus to Iran for participating in this war, they get to treat the world's most strategic water passageway as a toll road whenever they want. And so he wants this war to be over. He knows this is bad for him politically, knows it's bad for the economy. He's trying to declare victory when what he's actually doing is simply waving the white flag of surrender.
Jon Favreau
I think that's true. And I also. It explains the incoherent, conflicting messages, because he also can't, like, for the Strait of Hormuz. He knows that we need the Strait of Hormuz open. He understands, at least the people around him understand that oil is a commodity. There's a global oil market. Just because we have a bunch of oil doesn't mean that we're not gonna be paying more for it. If there is a disruption in the Strait of Hormuzzi, he can't plead with our allies to help reopen the Strait of Hormuz because then he looks weak. And he already pissed them off anyway by starting the war without consulting them and insulting them basically every single day since. He has clearly decided that a US Military operation to reopen the Strait or to take control of the Strait is too risky. So he's not doing that. But he also knows, like, so he doesn't know what to do. So basically he's gonna say we don't need it. But then he's now negging Europe and other countries to reopen it for us and saying. And, like, making himself sound tough because he can't say the truth, which is we're fucked. We have no idea how to open the Strait of Hormuz, and we're just gonna pretend that some other countries will open it or it'll open fucking naturally, and then we won't have to worry about anything.
Dan Pfeiffer
Yeah, there's just.
Jon Favreau
It's complete. And that's just one example of the many contradictory, conflicting messages in that speech.
Dan Pfeiffer
Well, it's in the conflict is in the part we just mentioned where he will bond them to the Stone Age. But also, we want to have diplomatic negotiations ongoing with their new, you know, president or whoever he has been. He sort of made up in his head who is a good ally.
Jon Favreau
And again, it's like both. Both a threat and a negotiation require you to demand something. Yeah, what are we demanding? Because in that speech, we won. We bombed everything. We don't care about the Strait of Hormuz. We don't care that the nuclear material is still in Iran. We don't care that the regime is still in place, because it's a new regime. According to Donald Trump. We've destroyed their military, so why are we threatening to bomb them into the Stone Age? And why are we continuing to hope that they will make a deal? What is the deal?
Dan Pfeiffer
Yeah, like, he's trying to.
Jon Favreau
Nothing makes sense.
Dan Pfeiffer
Yeah, it's totally illogical. It's complete confusion. He also, by like, it's not even clear who he's speaking to when he says, we don't need this rate of Hormuz. He is saying that to Iran. If he's saying to the American people, then that doesn't really matter because the price of oil is the price of oil.
Jon Favreau
And so as they could see it going up while he was speaking.
Dan Pfeiffer
Yes, yes, that's the price. And that, to me, is actually a critically important part of what this speech says about where Trump is right now, which is he almost didn't just admit defeat on the war, he's admitting defeat on his entire second term here. Because what really powered Trump, he hasn't passed any laws.
Ben
Right.
Jon Favreau
Don't forget the big, beautiful bill.
Dan Pfeiffer
I mean, he hasn't mentioned that in months. I hope he talks about it more on the way to the way of the election.
Jon Favreau
Me, too. Me, too.
Dan Pfeiffer
But he has succeeded in implementing his agenda in this second term through the force of his words. He's threatening, cajoling universities, law firms, media companies. And here you have the President, the President of the United States in a national television address at wartime, trying to send a message to not just the American people, but also the markets. This thing is coming to an end. And they took the exact opposite approach. They did not believe what he was saying. They did not take him seriously. Oil went up, the stock market went down. So if his goal was, I believe, and it's hard to tell, but was to suggest that this is coming to an end so everyone can chill out. And they took. Because of the way he delivered this speech, because the way he's acted erratically over the last several months, not to mention the last several years, they took the opposite approach. The world is tuning him out.
Jon Favreau
Do you think, why did they do this speech? I was wondering. I get that he sounds like an idiot all the time when he's off the cuff and does his thing and he does the weave and he has got all his Crazy tics. But this was a primetime address that he was reading off the prompter. You imagine that some number of people in the White House, perhaps in the State Department, the Defense Department, other agencies, took a look at the speech, and it just was like. I mean, the speech was all over the place. The written, prepared speech was all over the place. What the fuck were they doing?
Dan Pfeiffer
And maybe they're bad at their jobs.
Jon Favreau
Yeah, well, I mean, like, you have.
News Reporter
You have.
Dan Pfeiffer
You do have an erratic, stubborn president who is getting bad information. There was a report today that Susie Wiles has been telling other aides that they are only giving Trump good information about the war, and they're not being honest with him about what's happening militarily or economically. And so that's feeding his mentality. This communications team has no idea how to do serious stuff. If you want to do memes and attack people and, quote, tweet them, that's their game. And that can work in a campaign to a certain extent, but this is, like, serious shit, and they are unserious people, and that is coming. It's so obvious to bear here. And I'm like, why did he do it? The question is, like, what makes him do it? They haven't done it for a month. His approval rating is now under 40% in the Nate Silver model. He is taking on water. He's been dropping for a while since. Basically for a year. Since a year yesterday, which was Liberation Day. But that drop has been steeper since the war started. And so I think they're trying. They're lashing about, trying to find a solution to their political problem. And they actually have. Not really a political problem. They have a substantive problem.
Jon Favreau
Right. And I'm sure they're hearing from. Because, you know, someone was talking to Steve Bannon before the speech, and he wasn't right on this, but he was like, yeah, the message is, we're going to wrap this up. It's over. Like, he's probably hearing from people in his base or his orbit that, like, you got to. You got to communicate that this thing's almost over.
Dan Pfeiffer
Yeah. And we know this from whenever we worked at the White House, whenever there was, like, bad political things.
Jon Favreau
Speech will fix it.
Dan Pfeiffer
Where's the speech?
Jon Favreau
Race speech for the Strait of Hormuz?
Dan Pfeiffer
Remember the. Remember the oil spills, Orville?
Jon Favreau
You know, I was talking to Rhodes about that because I was like, that is a crazy, crazy speech. I'm like, it does remind me of the oil spill speech. But for those of you who are too young or don't remember that 2010, there was an oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico and no one could figure out how to stop the oil spill. The oil just kept coming out into the Gulf of Mexico and, and every cable news channel in the corner of the television, you could just see the oil coming out into the. Spilling out into the Gulf of Mexico all day long, 24 hours a day. And everyone was like, Obama, you should fix it. You're the president. Why haven't you fixed it? And the solution was he will give an Oval Office address about the oil spill. And it sucked.
Dan Pfeiffer
Yeah, it was the worst because somehow
Jon Favreau
we decided that it was like a good time to talk about climate change in that speech.
Dan Pfeiffer
It had to be an Oval Office address. That was how stupid the conversation was. A standing speech in the East Room was insufficient for the moment of the oil spill from a private company.
Jon Favreau
If only I had known, though, that I could have just like farted out a bunch of crazy talking points and that could be.
Ben
That may.
Jon Favreau
But like, it was, it was a speech that was panned, that didn't work out well, but we still worked really hard on it. Yeah, no one worked hard on this one.
Dan Pfeiffer
There's some fascist Jon Favreau over there just angrily reading Politico right now.
Jon Favreau
Back to the real substance of it, because I was trying to think like Donald Trump is sensitive to the market, to what's happening on like, he, he knows that he has a problem with the straight of Hormuz. And I'm guessing that his cockamamie plan here is, or hope is that we walk away from this after a couple of weeks. We say we've bombed everything, everything's great, we've destroyed them. We won so badly. They're begging us for. They're begging us for a deal, but whatever, we're walking away. We don't need them anymore. We don't need the oil. And then he hopes that the Europeans and the Chinese and maybe anyone else, like, cuts their own deals with Iran for the strait, and then that alleviates sort of the crisis around the world. And obviously we don't gotta deal with the Iranians. The Israelis don't. The Israelis are probably still at war with them, but if enough countries do, then, you know, maybe prices are a little high, but he can sort of blah, blah, blah his way past that. I think that's what he's hoping.
Dan Pfeiffer
I think that's a little more chess than he gets credit for. I think that is one approach. That is what could happen here in all the other Countries in the world who are meeting about this and having a conversation without the United States about how to open this up. I think it's a little more like, I'm sure you've done. This is when you have an older child and a younger child, and the younger child wants the toy the older child has. I would always tell Kyla, our daughter, just pretend like you don't want it for two minutes and they'll let it go. Now, the only downside in that theory is I'm pretty sure that Trump was not deeply involved in litigating the disputes of his children.
Jon Favreau
That's good name that.
Dan Pfeiffer
Maybe he saw a nanny do it. I don't know.
Jon Favreau
Yeah, I think that's. Well, that's definitely a dumber theory for Trump because the Iranians are like, Iranians right now have to feel great. The regime. Right. No, I'm saying that the Iranian people.
Dan Pfeiffer
But from a leverage. From a leverage point.
Jon Favreau
From a leverage point. Yeah. A bunch of the leadership got assassinated, but the ones who are still surviving are like, I mean, we can control the strait of moves. The United States is eventually going to give up and run, and they're giving
Dan Pfeiffer
us billions of dollars to sell our oil.
Jon Favreau
Yeah, we've lifted the sanctions, too. So that's something. So that's that. In my humble opinion. Trump gave a much better speech earlier on Wednesday at a White House Easter lunch with evangelical leaders that was somehow livestreamed, even though the event was supposed to be closed to the press and the public. The White House eventually deleted the footage, but not before clips were posted all over the Internet that include such memorable moments as Trump's spiritual advisor comparing him to Jesus Christ. Happy Easter. Trump comparing himself to Jesus Christ, Trump calling all Somali Americans low iq, bad people, and Trump saying that Christians like Israel more than Jews, actually. But somehow none of that was as newsworthy as what the President said about his priorities for America.
News Reporter
The United States can't take care of daycare. That has to be up to a state. We can't take care of daycare. We're a big country. We have 50 states. We have all these other people. We're fighting wars. We can't take care of daycare. You got to let a state take care of daycare. And they should pay for it, too. They should pay. They have to raise their taxes, but they should pay for it. And we could lower our taxes a little bit to them to make up for, but we. It's not possible for us to take care of daycare. Medicaid, Medicare, all these Individual things. They can do it on a state basis. You can't do it on a federal. We have to take care of one thing, military protection. We have to guard the country.
Jon Favreau
I mean, I need to know if you have somehow been able to infiltrate the White House and are now writing talking points for Donald Trump.
Dan Pfeiffer
I would not have done as good a job as that because that is so obviously on the nose. The Democratic argument, it is wild. And a lot of times, like, Trump says things that should end people's political campaigns all the time, like his remarks on a daily basis are more politically damaging or should be more outrageous, more scandalous than Mitt Romney's 47% mark comments that were so critical in the 2012 election. For people who don't remember, Mitt Romney was caught basically blaming 47% of the country for mooching off the government. But one of the theories as to why Trump's comments don't get sufficient, like convers, like drive enough conversation or coverage is because he just says them out loud. They're not secret.
News Reporter
Right.
Dan Pfeiffer
And the press are secret. This is a. Just like the Mitt Romney thing, this is a private videotape that was essentially leaked by the White House, but leaked
Jon Favreau
by their own idiocy.
Dan Pfeiffer
Yes. So it's like we get to see the things Trump is saying behind closed doors to political supporters. And the president says that because we're so busy fighting wars that he started, we can't pay for daycare. States should raise taxes. And he seems to say at the end that we can't afford that. States should do Medicare and Medicaid.
Jon Favreau
Yeah. Throws in Medicare. That was the amazing thing is, like, the daycare is bad enough to throw in Medicaid and Medicare, which is not. I mean, that's a national program. That's a federal program. So he wants to block grant, everything, basically. He wants to give all the. He wants to have, like, all the states fend for themselves. So he's basically telling people, if you want health care or childcare, you're gonna have to pay higher taxes in your state. Because I'm over here, very busy paying for bombs on Iran.
Dan Pfeiffer
Yeah. And other places in the war, too. Like, we don't know what's happened in Cuba. The Venezuela operation probably ran up a pretty big tab.
Jon Favreau
I mean, there's also a Bloomberg story this morning because the budget's coming out. Trump's budget. And the headline for this is Trump Budget to Focus Midterms Messaging on Defense Boost. President Trump is preparing to release a fiscal year 2027 budget plan on Friday that will frame his party's midterm election message around a massive defense buildup partially paid for by cuts to domestic agencies like health and science.
Dan Pfeiffer
John, I've not only been in the president's talking points, I've also been in the OMB documents.
Jon Favreau
What are they doing? Yeah, I don't, I mean, and it's not just him. Like we talked. I don't know if you and I talked about it or I talked about in the other pot. But like the Axios story about the House Republican or the Republicans in Congress are thinking of paying for the military supplemental by cutting $200 billion for Iran by cutting healthcare.
Dan Pfeiffer
Yeah. Also in just not for nothing, Trump didn't Even mention his 20 that he needs Congress to pay for this thing.
Jon Favreau
He did not mention that. We should talk about that because I haven't heard much about that at all. And now we'll talk about it when we get to dhs, but now they're talking about a budget reconciliation bill that just funds ICE. So when are they going to vote on the $200 billion that's supposed to pay for Iran?
Dan Pfeiffer
It's a great question.
Jon Favreau
I mean, who knows? But maybe we're all supposed to pay for it. Maybe it's just going to be higher taxes for everyone.
Dan Pfeiffer
You know who's going to do it? The states.
Jon Favreau
The states, the states. They're going to get rid of their daycare, their health care, their Medicaid, their Medicare because everyone's got to pay for the bombs because we just bombed the biggest bridge in Iran. That's civilian infrastructure. For what reason we don't know. But Trump bragged about it on true
Dan Pfeiffer
no bridges in the Stone Age.
Jon Favreau
No bridges in the Stone Age, that's right. So we got to blow up someone else's bridge. So no money for bridges here.
Dan Pfeiffer
Cool.
Jon Favreau
That's what we're doing. Foreign
Ben
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Jon Favreau
Yeah, I don't want it wicked. I want it. I don't know. Whatever the opposite of wick is, that's where I want it.
Ben
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Crooked Media Host
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Jon Favreau
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Dan Pfeiffer
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Ben
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Jon Favreau
Refresh your wardrobe with quince. Go to quince.com qriket for free shipping and 365 day returns. Now available in Canada too. Go to Q-U-I-N c e.com qriket for free Shipping and 365 day returns. Quince.com Crooked Trump didn't make any news in his Iran speech, but he certainly did the next morning when he announced in a phone call to Fox News as one does that he had just fired Attorney General Pam Bondi. Follow that up with the Truth Social post where he said, quote, we love Pam and she will be transitioning to a much needed and important new job in the private sector to be announced at a date in the near future. Not for nothing, I just find it very funny that, like, he has to announce her private sector jobs. Does she, like, belong to him forever?
Dan Pfeiffer
I think this is because in the Peter Doocy interview with Trump, it seems like Trump told Peter Doocy that she would be getting another job in the administration.
Jon Favreau
Oh, so he had to clear.
Dan Pfeiffer
He had to clear that up. Yeah, because Peter Doocy reported would be in the administration and then he got her transitioning wrong. Yeah.
Jon Favreau
So looks like Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche, President's former defense lawyer, personal lawyer, will now be the acting Attorney General. During Pam's year plus as Attorney General, she distinguished herself by one, weaponizing the DOJ to go after her boss's perceived enemies, two, executing that vision poorly, and three, bungling the release of the Epstein files so badly that it became a massive political liability for the President. That stayed in the news for longer than maybe any other scandal of the Trump era.
Dan Pfeiffer
Oh, for sure. Not even close.
Jon Favreau
Not even close to Russia. But Russia had a lot of twists and turns. This was like, sustained.
Dan Pfeiffer
This lasted longer than Trump's involvement in an armed insurrection that almost murdered members of Congress.
Jon Favreau
Yes, I do remember that.
Dan Pfeiffer
I recall it did vaguely happen not too long before he was elected president again, but it did happen.
Jon Favreau
So I guess my question is, why now on Bondi, I remember when we were in Australia in February, and that's when she did the big hearing where she talked about the dial above 50,000. Since then went below 50,000 and now she's out. So there you go.
Dan Pfeiffer
That's fair. There you go.
Jon Favreau
But I remember talking about, is he gonna fire her now? Whatever. It seems like it's a month and a half later. She hasn't been in the news all that much.
Dan Pfeiffer
Yeah. So I think there are a couple things going on here. First, I think the orderly fascism of Trump's second term has reverted to the chaotic fascism of Trump's first term. He knows things are not going well. He's sort of lashing out all over the place. He's doing sort of crazy things left and right. And I think firing people, that's real first term Trump behavior. So that's one.
Jon Favreau
It's like comfort food.
Dan Pfeiffer
Yeah, exactly. So that's one. It's kind of. It's his blankie. Yes.
Jon Favreau
Because he's going back to his apprentice thing. That's the way he knows, you know.
Dan Pfeiffer
But I think the second thing going on here is that no one pulls a band aid off slower than Donald Trump. And so what he tends to do
Jon Favreau
is, yeah, there've been stories about him thinking about getting rid of her for like a month.
Dan Pfeiffer
And so what happened with Chris Noma is very similar to what happened to Pampani, which is a massive scandal happens. Trump sticks with him through the scandal, takes on all the water of that scandal, waits till the scandal is out of the news, and then fires them. Bringing the scandal back in the news, but getting none of the actual credit for responding to the scandal and holding someone accountable. Like, if Trump had fired Kristi Noem right after the murders of Renee Goode and Alex Pretty and the smearing of
Jon Favreau
them, that would've probably would've gotten a little.
Dan Pfeiffer
He would have seemed responsive to something. He held someone accountable. Instead, he gave him a pat on the back, said he was sticking with him, waited till later and fired him. Same thing with Pambani. I also think the here. The congressional hearing probably helped her. That probably bought her time.
Jon Favreau
No, I saw some detail in one of the stories that he actually thought that she was. He liked that she was combative with the Democrats.
Dan Pfeiffer
Yeah.
Jon Favreau
After all, they were like, oh, is this gonna be the end for Pan Bondi? It's like, no, he liked it.
Dan Pfeiffer
Yeah. She knew she was doing there.
Jon Favreau
I saw. I think the New York Times story said that she spent much of the last day making her case to stay. What a sad. The whole sad, pathetic thing.
Dan Pfeiffer
Just imagine selling every bit of your integrity to Trump.
Jon Favreau
Every bit.
Dan Pfeiffer
Every bit. And then getting fired for not executing on his corruption well enough.
Jon Favreau
Which I think I'd say this in Pam Bondi's defense, by the way. I do not think she failed to execute Donald Trump's agenda at DOJ just because of her own incompetence. I'm not saying that she is competent, but, like, the problem goes beyond anything that Pam Bondi or any of the stooges he installed at DOJ can fix. The problem is the judges and the juries who are like, these cases are crazy. You don't have a case against any of these people. You just hate them.
Dan Pfeiffer
Yes. Like, on that part of that is true. The other thing that happened in the news recently that probably got her in hot water with Trump again was the announcement that the Department of Justice was going to stop prosecutors was going to stop trying the case on the law firms.
Jon Favreau
Oh, yeah.
Dan Pfeiffer
And left all the law firms off the hook who did not agree with the Trump settlement. And then Trump got very mad about that. And then, like, an hour later, they had to announce they were going back in to continue to fight that case.
Jon Favreau
You see the ProPublica story last week, too, that the DOJ has basically, under Bondi and Trump just stopped prosecuting 20,000 criminal cases because they've spent so much time on all of Trump's fucking weird priorities, whether it's, you know, getting his, you know, going after his enemies, all the other bullshit. The DJs. Yeah, immigration stuff. Yeah, that was. That was most of it. Sorry. So it's like. Yeah, they've just, you know, good time to be a criminal. If you're not. If you're not an immigrant.
Dan Pfeiffer
Good time to be a certain type of. Type of criminal.
Jon Favreau
Right? A certain type of. Yeah. White collar criminal, for sure. Yeah. There's some reporting that what finally did Bondi in was an allegation that she tipped off Congressman Eric Swalwell, who's running for governor in Californ, about an FBI investigation concerning him. Now, this is a very old FBI investigation from 2015. Basically, the FBI notified Swalwell that an associate of his might be a suspected Chinese spy. When he was notified, he broke ties with that person, and then the FBI investigated and nothing ever came of it. This was, what, 10 years ago now?
Dan Pfeiffer
I guess they were going to release the files.
Jon Favreau
Yeah, it's clearly. I mean, it's so obviously, oh, he's running for governor. Let's release the files. Maybe there's something in the files that will embarrass him because we couldn't bring a criminal case against him.
Dan Pfeiffer
I find this one hard to believe, because in the story, it says that there's a. I think it's in the Independent. I can't remember, but the story says that a source close to the White House says that Bondi notified Swalwell due to their personal friendship.
Jon Favreau
It's the Daily Mail.
Dan Pfeiffer
The Daily Mail, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Jon Favreau
She's intervening in those matters. The White House wasn't pleased she was intervening due to her personal friendship with Swalwell, the source said. And then it says, it is unclear why Bondi would have intervened, but it is believed that Bondi and Swalwell have a friendly relationship.
Dan Pfeiffer
There is not a chance that someone like Pam Bondi, who would carve out her own soul with a spork for Donald Trump, is going to feel so loyal to Eric Swalwell that she's gonna tip him off on Something like this.
Jon Favreau
I don't know if I believe that one either. And Swalwell, his office put out a statement saying absolutely not. No one tipped us off. No one in the government let us know this was happening at all.
Dan Pfeiffer
And honestly, the best thing that could happen to Eric Swalwell is he runs for Grant in a crowded primary in California, is being targeted by Donald Trump for sure.
Jon Favreau
Yeah. Just ask Senator Adam Schiff how that went for him. I also noticed that the House Democrats are saying she still has to test. She has a scheduled appearance in the House Oversight Committee about Epstein and they're saying she still has to do it.
Dan Pfeiffer
Yeah. And I kind of imagine that Comer will want that too.
Jon Favreau
Yeah.
Dan Pfeiffer
Probably because he had to subpoena her and subpoena her to get her there.
Jon Favreau
So let's talk about Bondi's potential replacement. I've seen reports that Trump wants EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin. I've heard Jeanine Pirro might be an option. I saw a report that some Republican senators want. Mike Lee. God help us. What do you think the chances are that there will be a real confirmation fight for whoever this is in the Senate? And do you have ideas on why he might want any of the people I just named or who it might be?
Dan Pfeiffer
Well, first, let's start with how long a Blanche can serve. Blanche can stay as acting for 210 days.
Jon Favreau
Oh, boy.
Dan Pfeiffer
Now here's what I would say to that. One is I'm not sure who enforces the Vacancies act, but I'm not sure.
Jon Favreau
Sounds like it's probably Todd Blanche.
Ben
Yeah.
Dan Pfeiffer
So I think that he could probably stay longer than that if he wants. And there is actually some legitimate questions about whether that 210 day clock applies to the Attorney General because in the specific language around the Department of justice, that 210day is not in there. But either way, in a normal course of business, he could say for about enacting sexual 210 days. Not really sure why Trump wants Lee Zeldin. Lee Zeldin was a JAG officer in the military during his career, but has never actually worked in traditional prosecution and law enforcement. So he would have very little experience for the job.
Jon Favreau
Cool.
Dan Pfeiffer
So I'm not sure he would be. There's not any.
Jon Favreau
Unlike the deep well of experience he has with the environment.
Dan Pfeiffer
Well, he's hated it for a long time.
Jon Favreau
That's true.
Dan Pfeiffer
Okay, so not really clear. It's not really clear what Trump wants there. It's in all the stories that he has mentioned Lee Zeldin none of the stories say why he's mentioned Lee Zeldin. I'm sure Trump doesn't fully understand. I'm sure it's how he looks.
Jon Favreau
Yeah. Or he probably did. Like, one good thing that stuck in Trump's Adelaide.
Dan Pfeiffer
And that good thing is an interview on Fox News. Mike Lee. I think that is directly related to Republican senators wanting to spend less time with Mike Lee.
Jon Favreau
That's funny.
Dan Pfeiffer
It's a joke I saw from Lovett from earlier YouTube. But the same reason all the Republican senators keep wanting to put Ted Cruz on the Supreme Court.
Jon Favreau
I mean, well, the Mike Lee thing is funny because I just read a story, I don't know, a couple weeks ago that Republican colleagues in the senator, like, pissed at Mike Lee because he's fucking crazy.
Dan Pfeiffer
These two things are exactly related because you know what you have to do when you're in the Senate? You have to have lunch with your colleagues every single week.
Jon Favreau
Yeah. So definitely promote that person to a position of near absolute power as Trump's Attorney General. That's responsible.
Dan Pfeiffer
You know what? It's gonna be a bad person under all scenarios. You might as well stop having lunch with Mike Lee.
Jon Favreau
I mean, in terms of the confirmation fight, like, you got Tillis, who, you know, he's got a very powerful position in this. He's already said, what is he blocking because of the Powell and Jerome Powell investigation?
Dan Pfeiffer
The new Fed chair.
Jon Favreau
The new Fed, Yeah. Oh, there's a new Fed chair. That's what it is. Yeah. And I think he could stand in the way of this. There's, you know, if it's a real crazy person, does Susan Collins want to vote for the crazy person? I think she's an election year.
Dan Pfeiffer
This is a Mark Wayne Mullen.
Jon Favreau
You think so?
Dan Pfeiffer
I think the next. The person who replaces Pam Bondi is going to get the job the same way Pam Bondi got it, which is being somewhat other than the purpose before them. Because the only reason Pam Bondi got confirmed easily is because she's not Matt. And so Mark Wayne Mull, he's had
Jon Favreau
a long line of Attorney General, attorneys General he's been unhappy with. You got your Bill Barrs, your Jeff Sessions. Jeff Sessions. Oh, my gosh, I forgot. That was the original.
Dan Pfeiffer
Yeah. Jeff Sessions to that interim guy to.
Jon Favreau
Do you think it's something that all these people have in common, or is it you?
Dan Pfeiffer
Look, it's bad luck. You know, it happens.
Jon Favreau
Well, that's the thing is, like, I don't. Lee Zeldin's not gonna be able to get the Justice Department to prosecute the people that he wanted Pam Bondi to prosecute that she hasn't been able to prosecute yet.
Dan Pfeiffer
All of this stuff is interesting, but not that significant. Yeah, we talked about this with Kristi Noem and Mark Wayne Mullen. It's probably true that Mark Wayne Mullen is not having an affair with Corey Lewandowski. So that's not gonna be an issue in this situation. But other than that, it's still the same policies.
Jon Favreau
But if that's what it took to get the job, he would.
Dan Pfeiffer
Allegedly.
Jon Favreau
Allegedly.
Dan Pfeiffer
Yes.
Jon Favreau
It's just my opinion. There was a story this morning in the Guardian that Trump might be looking to fire Tulsi Gabbard next. Since we talked about discussing this one, advisors close to Trump told Jennifer Jacobs at CBS that originally that Trump had the idea of moving Bondi to Director of National Intelligence.
Dan Pfeiffer
Maybe this is what Peter Doocy was talking about.
Jon Favreau
But now Trump said he wants to Tulsi Gabbard to stay in that position. And then I think the White House through Stephen Cheung just put out a statement that was like, it's all, it's a lie. Of course we want to keep Tulsi Gabbard.
Dan Pfeiffer
Well, if Stephen Chung said it, but it was more.
Jon Favreau
It was not like the lukewarm Pam Bondi statement from yesterday that like, she is good. She did a good job. This one was more a little punchy.
Dan Pfeiffer
Yeah. I confident that neither Trump nor anyone around him likes Tulsi Gabbard. I just think the job is fake. It's a job created after 9 11. I don't think it really has to matter that much in this situation. So if you just want to ignore the DNI as he is done. She doesn't go to anything. He doesn't meet with her, he doesn't talk to her. We went to war without speaking to her. He invaded Venezuela while she was on a beach.
Jon Favreau
A lot of those post 911 moves really coming back to bite us in the ass now, huh?
Dan Pfeiffer
Yeah. You mean like the Iraq War? Yes.
Jon Favreau
Dhs, dni. Yeah, all of it.
News Reporter
Foreign.
Ben
Save America is brought to you by the Break Fake Rules podcast. If you're a listener of psa, this is a podcast you might enjoy. Hosted by Glenn Galich, CEO of the Stupsky foundation and a rotating cast of co hosts. Break Fake Rules Change Big Giving for Good is about how we give. Specifically when it comes to philanthropy is a challenge to the self imposed rules that shape the flow of money, power and resources in America. Hear conversations with rule breakers and philanthropy, nonprofits, government and more. If you care about how extreme wealth shapes our society and how to fix it, this is the show to listen to. In one recent episode, co hosts Eric Brown, Jamie Allison, Ralph Lewin and Dr. Cameron Roas took the reins for a deep dive into Glenn's new book, Control why Big Giving Falls Short. Their conversation was more than just a review. It was a candid reflection on their own professional journeys and a provocative look at how traditional philanthropy can sometimes fail the very communities it intends to lift up to listen to Break Fake Rules Search for Break Fake Rules in your podcast app. That's Break Fake Rules.
Crooked Media Host
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Jon Favreau
It's where Dan gets naked, where Dan
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Jon Favreau
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Crooked Media Host
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Jon Favreau
So Trump's reverence for for the law and the legal system was on full display this week when he gave himself a literal front row seat to the Supreme Court Hearing on his executive order to end birthright citizenship. The first president ever to attend a session of the high court, presumably to intimidate the justices he recently accused of treason. Not sure it worked. Here are some of the conservative justices peppering Trump's Solicitor General with pretty skeptical questions during oral arguments. Do you think Native Americans today are
Dan Pfeiffer
birthright citizens under your test and under your friend's test?
Crooked Media Host
I think so.
Jon Favreau
I mean, obviously they're granted citizenship by statute.
Dan Pfeiffer
Put aside the statute.
Jon Favreau
You think they're birthright citizens. We're in a new world now, as Justice Alito pointed out, to where 8
Ben
billion people are one plane ride away from having a child who's a U.S. citizen.
News Reporter
Well, it's a new world.
Jon Favreau
It's the same Constitution. Burn.
Dan Pfeiffer
Take that.
Jon Favreau
That's the closest thing you get to a real burn from John Roberts. Were you surprised by anything in the oral arguments?
Dan Pfeiffer
I was surprised that Trump went, yeah,
Jon Favreau
let's start there, let's start there. Like, think about what a fucking bozo, though. I saw that and he's like, this is the worst thing. But I'm like, you know what, Go for it, man. You think these fuckers who have lifetime appointments are gonna be intimidated by the 35% approval? Lame duck, second term president?
Dan Pfeiffer
It probably just. Let's go through the decision making process here, which is we're at war, gas prices are high, people are really mad about the economy, and you decide that your high profile public appearance that day should be to attend a Supreme Court hearing on birthright citizenship that almost every legal expert in the world says you're going to lose.
Jon Favreau
You know what I love about it
Dan Pfeiffer
is just so Chrissy, it could work.
Jon Favreau
No, it's that I bet anything that the person who convinced him to do this, Stephen Miller, is Stephen Miller. And I bet when he walked out of that courtroom, Donald Trump, he probably said to himself, or maybe said it out loud to Stephen Miller, what the fuck did you make me do that for? Because there's no way Donald Trump left thinking that what he did was that was a good idea.
Dan Pfeiffer
Well, he left in the middle, so.
Jon Favreau
Because he probably listened, first of all, he, he probably couldn't understand a lot of the words they were saying, but he was. I bet he could tell it wasn't going well.
Dan Pfeiffer
Yeah, even he could probably figure that out. And then. So that's the political communications aspect of the decision. Let's talk about the legal aspect of the decision to do it. Do you remember when the fate of the Affordable Care act hung in the hands of Justice Anthony Kennedy and Barack Obama used to make a joke all the time how he was going to mow his lawn, wash his car. And then someone, I don't think they heard directly from Kennedy, but they sort of knew Kennedy told Obama to stop making that joke. Because that like being seen as if you were trying to.
Jon Favreau
He made that joke in public all the time.
Dan Pfeiffer
Yeah, yeah, yeah. And so, or at least in enough places, like not just in the office, he was making that events and so enough that it would get back to Kennedy. And so this person who was close to Kennedy told Obama that's a bad idea. Because if it looks like you're trying to unduly influence the court, it's probably gonna push them in the opposite direction. So we stopped making that joke. And that is like a tiny little bit humorous bit of putting your thumb on the scale. Here you have Trump sitting in the front row trying to stare them down. Like when, you know, in a wire reference, like when Avon Barksdale would go to the hearings and just like look at the witnesses, like same thing. And it's obviously not gonna work. It makes the justices look ridiculous. And so if you're sitting on the fence of your justice, so like, am I really gonna go down this pretty ridiculous path? And now it's gonna look not only like I don't understand the law, it looked like I did Trump's bidding cuz he was there.
Jon Favreau
Not gonna work. Not gonna work. Yeah, it doesn't seem like it's gonna go well for them. You know, I think the justices also, especially some of the conservative justices, also asked the ACLU's lawyer some like tough questions as well. But you didn't have to listen to much of it or even be a legal expert to know that it was going badly just of what they're asking for here, right? Like at one point they're like, okay, well you say that the executive order is perspective so that anyone born from here on out, now there's no birthright citizenship. But like, how do you make that work for all the people before? Like, what do you. So now everyone is just gonna have to go prove their citizenship and prove that they were born before. Like, what is this is it is the most unworkable, crazy fucking executive order. And I just can't. I mean, I'm sure you'll get like Alito or Thomas or whatever, but I don't know. Or maybe some partial victory from, from the dissenting judges, I guess. But like, I don't know how anyone looks at that and thinks that like you know, you can just overturn the 14th Amendment.
Dan Pfeiffer
And not for nothing, it's been a while since I've seen polling on this, but when Trump first proposed this last year, it was a 75, 80% opposition to the idea.
Jon Favreau
I mean, as Roberts asked, he's like, so the cases that you're talking about, which is like birth tourism, or what happens if there's an invading army and a child born from a member of the invading army, are they essentially, he's like, strikes me as some quirky examples. It's like, yeah, no, I think that's probably right. So Trump sent out his usual bitchy truth about the court right after he left. But he reserved his angriest reaction for another court when a judge appointed by George W. Bush ruled later in the day that Trump can't start construction on his White House ballroom. His pride and joy, the only thing he cares about. Unless Congress approves it first. The judge said, quote, no statute comes close to giving the President the authority he claims to have. You just say that about anything. Trump presidency. How badly do you want to see Republicans in Congress take that vote?
Dan Pfeiffer
I would love, just love to see them vote on it. They would flee talent to avoid it.
Jon Favreau
Put it in the supplemental. Put it in the 200 billion for Iran. When you're cutting health care, just throw it in that one.
Dan Pfeiffer
I mean, these fucking yahoos who clearly want to be in the minorities so bad, probably would propose cutting ACA funding to pay for the ballroom.
Jon Favreau
I didn't think that the ball. Like, I didn't think that anyone would stop him on the ballroom, but, like, I don't know, I was looking at him like, okay, maybe this could be. I assume he would. This is one court order that he might just ignore. I mean, he already knocked down the East Wing. It's a little bit like putting the toothpaste back on the tube.
Dan Pfeiffer
Yeah. We should maybe respond a little faster here. Courts. I'm not really sure what the remedy is here. Just. We have to leave a hole in the ground.
Jon Favreau
What is the remedy? Yeah, I guess then maybe the remedy is that Congress would have to approve something. They would have to come to some kind of agreement on what they could build in that space besides the fucking eyesore of a. Of a monstrosity that, that we saw in the New York Times last week.
Dan Pfeiffer
Yeah, I don't. I don't know. It's. But just leaving the hole there for a while will be fun.
Jon Favreau
Yeah, that'll be good. And by the way, I'm. I'm now on Board with the. The next Democratic president bulldozing the whole thing.
Dan Pfeiffer
Oh, no, that's. No, no.
Jon Favreau
After we've seen that, after seeing what it looks like in the, in the Times and, like, the stairs to nowhere and the windows that aren't windows and, like, the fact that it's like, three times as big as the actual White House residence. Like, this isn'. Like, oh, Trump did it, but it's a ballroom and it's a good space and whatever else, and it looks fine. Like, let's leave it. Who cares? This is like, what? Come on, it's the White House. You're going to just build, like, a. Another White House, three times as big, stacked onto the side. Except it's, like, super tacky because it's from Donald Trump.
Dan Pfeiffer
I don't. I don't know.
Jon Favreau
Not top of my agenda.
Dan Pfeiffer
Are you going to make it a litmus test for Democratic primary candidates?
Jon Favreau
Yeah, it's like a pack.
Dan Pfeiffer
Yeah.
News Reporter
Yes.
Jon Favreau
You got.
Dan Pfeiffer
You have demolished the ballroom.
Jon Favreau
First and foremost, filibuster.
Dan Pfeiffer
Oh, we could do a crooked questionnaire.
Jon Favreau
That's perfect. That's perfect. We'll send it in with third party,
Dan Pfeiffer
eliminate the filibuster, demolish the ballroom.
Jon Favreau
So Trump's other passion project as of late is making it harder for Americans to vote. And now that the SAVE act isn't passing Congress anytime soon, he did what we all expected, and he just signed an executive order version of the law, which isn't how this works, but nevertheless. The EO directs the Department of Homeland Security to create a list of eligible voters using Social Security data and send each state their list before every federal election. It then directs the Postal Service to send mail in or absentee ballots only to the names on that list. States that don't comply would lose federal funding. Constitution explicitly gives states the power to run their own elections. But at the signing ceremony, Trump seemed pretty confident about this move. Take a listen.
News Reporter
I don't know how it can be challenged. I'll probably challenge it. You may say, find a rogue judge, you get a lot of rogue judges. Judges very bad. Bad people, very bad judges. But that's the only way that can be changed and hopefully we'll win an appeal if it is. But I don't. I don't see how anybody can challenge it. I don't see how they can challenge it.
Jon Favreau
So Oregon and Arizona immediately said they'd be suing. The challenges happened right away as well. A bunch of other groups, Democratic parties, everyone's challenging it. Earlier this year, Trump said Republicans should nationalize and Take over elections. What do you think about this? This did not strike fear into my heart like maybe it should have. But I was just like, this is going to be immediately rejected.
Dan Pfeiffer
Yeah. This doesn't strike fear in my heart as well. It seems pretty clearly in line with all the other things the courts have thrown out that Trump has wanted to do. And my general fear about election interference from Trump is not grand gestures from the White House like nationalized elections, canceling elections, banning mail ballots via executive fiat. It's smaller scale use of ICE or to intimidate voters. Having ICE do patrols in certain precincts. Like if the Texas Senate race is closed, you can see ICE all of a sudden showing up in the Latino precincts of Houston or San Antonio or in the Rio Grande Valley counties and all of the above.
Jon Favreau
I'm worried about them seizing the machines.
Dan Pfeiffer
That's my thing on the back end.
Jon Favreau
I'm worried about most of the back end stuff.
Dan Pfeiffer
Yeah. And the thing that I worry about a lot is, and this usually has to be a very narrow, narrow House majority for it to matter would be the failure to seat a member of Congress over like this is to the extent that this stuff matters, it's all the claims of fraud leads to an environment where they can say that in this close race there's enough clouds that we, the Republican majority, won't seat the one individual who would give Democrats the majority. Yeah, but that's a very black swan event to get to the one seat holding us from the majority.
Jon Favreau
Yeah. I feel like this should be. This will be struck down in short order.
Crooked Media Host
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Ben
I had this great coach once, and when he didn't like the job we were doing, he would just throw a folding chair.
Dan Pfeiffer
Nice.
Ben
And it was Indiana basketball.
Dan Pfeiffer
Yeah. Yeah.
Ben
And it was like, wow. Like, boy, I don't want to have a chair thrown at me.
Crooked Media Host
No.
Ben
I'm gonna do a good job. But there's all kinds of coaching that maybe not the best one.
Crooked Media Host
That's a great mentor. You have some help, you uncover a blind spot or maybe just come to an important realization. That person is really meaningful to you. That that is mentorship that you take with you your entire life and it's truly invaluable. If you want someone like that in your life, go to Strawberry Me Crooked and find out if career coaching is right for you. That's Strawberry Me crooked to get 50% off your first session. Strawberry Me Crooked to get 50% off your 1st session. If you guys like Pod Save America, please consider subscribing to our Friends of the Pod program. So Friends of the POD get lots of stuff. You get more Pod Save America. That includes our new show which is called Pod Save Only Friends.
Jon Favreau
It's where Dan gets naked, where Dan
Crooked Media Host
gets full frontal nudity. But mostly it's a bi weekly subscription exclusive podcast that is basically Pod Save America but behind a paywall so it's a little bit looser and more fun and it's love it. And Favreau and me and Pfeiffer and then other Crooked hosts, we go deeper on the news and cover more stories. You also get Open Tabs, which is a weekly behind the scenes newsletter from the show. Plus you get ad free episodes of your favorite Crooked podcast and all kinds of other stuff. Dan will come to your house and clean it once every quarter.
Jon Favreau
Yeah, clothes.
Crooked Media Host
Dan is very busy.
Jon Favreau
Clothed only.
Crooked Media Host
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this week with digital coupons at Safeway and Albertsons. Get beef rib roast for $7.97 per pound member price with minimum purchase of $50 or more in a single transaction. Exclusions apply. See store for details and Broccoli, cauliflower or russet potatoes are 97 cents per pound. Member price limit 6 pounds plus selected sizes and varieties of Lucerne Butter cheese or Philadelphia cream cheese are $1.97 each member price. Visit safeway or albertsons.com for more deals and ways to save.
Jon Favreau
Quick update on what appears to be a fittingly stupid end to the partial shutdown of Department of Homeland Security that's caused CH at airport security lines. Last time we checked in house Republicans had just rejected the Senate's plan, which passed by unanimous consent to fund all of DHS except immigration enforcement. Then Congress left town for a two week recess and then they were followed around everywhere they went by tmz. Now, just a few days later, House Republican leaders apparently decided to cave, though notice I said House Republican leaders apparently decided to caveat, saying that they'll go along with the Senate's partial funding plan and then try to fund ICE and Customs and Border Patrol with a budget reconciliation bill, which only needs Republican votes, which was, of course, the Senate's plan all along. Only problem is that Congress is still in recess until April 14th. So Trump announced on Thursday that he would, quote, soon sign an order to pay all of the incredible employees the Department of Homeland Security, and not just tsa. Although right before we were recording, I heard that Mike Johnson on a call with his caucus is just facing an uproar. Hardliners, moderates, everyone's just pissed because Mike Johnson called it a crap sandwich before just last week. And now he's saying, I don't know what else we can do.
Dan Pfeiffer
Sometimes you have to eat the crap sandwich. That's part of being in Congress.
Jon Favreau
Yeah, that is true. Do you think that, like, how did they fuck this up so badly?
Dan Pfeiffer
Mike Johnson's the one person in America who could make Kevin McCarthy look like a competent legislator. I mean, Mike Johnson is both dumb and weak.
Jon Favreau
Yeah.
Dan Pfeiffer
Like it's worth. Remember, he's an accidental speaker. He wasn't even particularly high up in leadership or had any real role. He just happened to be a guy so inoffensive that you could get an exhausted majority to vote for him.
Jon Favreau
Yeah.
Dan Pfeiffer
And so you end up with lowest common denominator leadership. And so he listened to the far right, rejected this thing, had no plan for what came next. It was obviously the only way to solve this problem was to do what the Senate did.
Jon Favreau
Yeah.
Dan Pfeiffer
And instead he decided, you know what? I know the Democrats are the ones who shut down the primary. Homeland Security. I know that there are lines everywhere. People are really pissed about it. I am gonna take full ownership of this and then go on recess.
Jon Favreau
I'm wondering now if he can put down the rebellion that he's. Or just like quiet the anger right now. Because again, I don't know how else they would fund DHS if they don't go along.
Dan Pfeiffer
No, there's no other plan. This is it.
Jon Favreau
They're gonna have to do it.
Dan Pfeiffer
They went through all the iterations and.
Jon Favreau
And if they don't do it, they're not. I mean, I think the reason why they. Johnson caved is like, they tried to blame this on the Democrats and were like Senate Republicans who went along with this plan. I think they're having regrets now. I think they're having second thoughts. But, like, there's no way to pin this on the Democrats.
Dan Pfeiffer
Yeah.
Jon Favreau
So they would just own the shutdown.
Dan Pfeiffer
Yeah. The Democrats.
Jon Favreau
I do think the Democrats won the shutdown. Right?
Dan Pfeiffer
Yes. I think it's fair to say Democrats won the political battle over the shutdown.
Jon Favreau
Yeah.
Dan Pfeiffer
What they said from the beginning was one, we're not going to fund ICE unless you do reforms. We will, however, fund the rest of DHS and do that. Do that. Republic said, no, we won't do that. We won't do that. We won't do that. Democrats won that battle. The thing that they have not won are reforms to ice.
Jon Favreau
Right, right. So, like politically, which again is not surprising because, like, you can't. The only way you can reformize is if you have the votes to reform ice. And we don't have a majority in either House. So all we can do is say if you don't make our reforms, then we're not going to vote to fund it. And which is what we did.
Dan Pfeiffer
And what matters in the end here is that we win the majority and therefore have a ton of leverage because a bill can't leave the House without a Speaker, Hakeem Jeffries, allowing it to come to the floor.
Jon Favreau
Yes. We won the House. This is a completely different dynamic, even if it's over the same general issue.
Dan Pfeiffer
Yeah. And I do think just it goes to show both Trump and the Republicans weakness. Just imagine this scenario a year ago.
Jon Favreau
Yeah.
Dan Pfeiffer
Seven months or whatever it is before the election, the Democrats shut down the Department of Homeland Security.
Jon Favreau
Probably because. Probably because I was. And I would have been for it, you know, and you would have been like, you're an idiot. Yeah.
Dan Pfeiffer
Well, then it would have been true. But to defund. Not defund, but to like they shut down Department of Homeland Security over ICE funding. Would have thought that that was the Democrats doing the dumbest thing possible and they end up with the political high ground here. It says a lot about just how the politics have changed.
Jon Favreau
All right. Two final, very important items to discuss. The first is a huge update that I'll just let you hear about from trusted newsman Brett Baier.
Dan Pfeiffer
Kristi Noem is asking for privacy and prayers tonight.
News Reporter
She's said to be devastated by a
Dan Pfeiffer
report alleging her husband has been what
News Reporter
is being called a cross dressing double
Dan Pfeiffer
Life senior national correspondent Rich Edson has details tonight. Good evening, Rich.
Ad/Promo Voice
Good evening, Brett. Daily Mail alleges it obtained hundreds of messages between Brian Noem and three women involved in a site where men cross dress. The Mail posted several of these photos and writes Brian Noem allegedly sent women in the community $25,000 in virtual payments. The publication says Brian Noem did not deny the explicit conversation, but says he never put national security at risk.
News Reporter
All kinds of stories today.
Dan Pfeiffer
I had not watched that clip. I saved it for this. And fuck, that was good.
Jon Favreau
All kinds of stories today. Absolutely. So since the release of the Daily Mail's reporting on Tuesday, at least one performer specializing in sissy sub and. And bimbofication has publicly come forward to claim she was paid $5,000 by Brian. His name is Brian, but it's B R Y O N. I heard Tim Miller calling him Bryon the whole time. And I can't get out of my head over the last two years telling the Daily Beast, quote, there is no way in hell that Kristi Noem didn't know. Per the Daily Beast, Brian Noem wanted the performer specifically to, quote, instruct him to bend over Arch's back. Spank him. You guys didn't need to put all this in and show off what she describes as largest prosthetic breasts she's ever seen on a client. Okay. A lot of different ways we could take this. I've told you before, I would not kink shame you for bimbofication because I know this is a thing for you.
Dan Pfeiffer
A word I learned from you this morning.
Jon Favreau
You didn't know what it was before, right?
Dan Pfeiffer
No, I didn't even.
Jon Favreau
I read the story. I was like, what is this? I don't believe. Is this a thing? I didn't. I had no idea.
Dan Pfeiffer
I knew that there was a cross dressing scandal with Brian Noem via some texts I got because I was not really reading the news.
Jon Favreau
Just not like, not before the story.
Dan Pfeiffer
No, no, no, no, no.
Jon Favreau
Are you the source?
Dan Pfeiffer
Yes, in the last 48 hours or whatever it was. But I did not read any of them.
Jon Favreau
Oh, yeah.
Dan Pfeiffer
And then just when I looked at the outline for this morning, it just had a subtitle line that said bimbofication. And I was like, I didn't know it was the same thing. So I learned about it in real time.
Jon Favreau
I will say my take on this is you're the spouse of a Homeland Security secretary and you're getting into stuff that, if it's public, can embarrass you. Your spouse, black opportunity for Blackmail, Even if it's just like, public embarrassment, like, you're. You just. You can't be doing that stuff, you know? But aside from that, you know, she's the one who. She's the one who put him in this horrible piece. She's been clearly cheating on him. Allegedly.
Dan Pfeiffer
Yes.
Jon Favreau
And we're almost having to drop allegedly at this point. But she, like, for just openly. The whole country knows for years. For years. She was asked about it at a hearing where he was sitting right behind her. So he's dealing with that and now he's dealing with this. So you feel a little bit for Brian.
Dan Pfeiffer
Yeah.
Jon Favreau
But not so much Kristi Noem, because, like, she. I want her to be more embarrassed.
Dan Pfeiffer
Yeah. What about thoughts and prayers? She's the one.
Jon Favreau
She's the one who really sucks.
Dan Pfeiffer
Yeah.
Jon Favreau
She's the one who, like, you know, sent people to a fucking torture chamber in El Salvador and then fucking posed for a picture in front of it.
News Reporter
Yeah.
Dan Pfeiffer
I have some questions about the vetting process at the White House and the FBI and the Senate.
Jon Favreau
Yeah, he's gonna say that.
Dan Pfeiffer
The FBI, I guess they. I don't think they did background checks. I think Trump would not let the FBI do background checks on his nominees because he thought that they were too anti insurrection. I'm not entirely sure. Wow.
Jon Favreau
Trump was asked about it too, which is. I would love to hear someone explaining bimbofication to Trump.
Dan Pfeiffer
So if you're that mole who's posting the live streams, can we get one of those?
Jon Favreau
I would like. Yeah. He was asked briefly about it and he was just like, it is interesting how, like, Kristi Noem and everything. Like, I'm asking for prayers and privacy at this point.
Dan Pfeiffer
Yeah. What about him?
Jon Favreau
Yeah, it's very like, why not all of them just be like, no, we're not responding to the story, like, get away nothing. And just like, leave it at that.
Dan Pfeiffer
This is her chance to bring her Corey Lewandowski alleged relationship to the forefront. Things are going.
Jon Favreau
Maybe it was Lewandowski that pushed this whole thing around.
Dan Pfeiffer
Allegedly. Theoretically. We don't know.
Jon Favreau
That's why I said maybe.
Dan Pfeiffer
Maybe.
Jon Favreau
Anyway, we'll just leave that there. Poor Brian finally
Dan Pfeiffer
title this Podbe Brian song.
Jon Favreau
So you may have seen the viral videos of Kid Rock saluting and clapping on the pool deck of his mansion outside Nashville as two Apache attack helicopters hovered just overhead, apparently attempting some kind of counter programming to the new Kings march happening nearby. Those helicopters appeared to be from Fort Campbell, an Army base over the border in Kentucky. And the army immediately said it would look into it later, announcing that the two crews had been suspended. As the investigation continued, Kid Rock told local reporters, I think they're going to be all right. My buddy's the commander in chief. Of course. Sure enough, Trump got a question about it in the Oval Office. Said he'd take a look because they like Kid Rock. I like Kid Rock. Maybe they were trying to defend him at his mansion in Nashville. A couple hours later, Pete Hegseth posted. Thank you, Kid Rock. U.S. army pilot suspension lifted. No punishment, no investigation. Carry on, Patriots with an American flag emoji. What a fucking asshole.
Dan Pfeiffer
Such a gooberry.
Jon Favreau
I don't know. What do you think of this story? It did not register as a big deal to me until Reid wanted us to cover it. And then I started reading about it. I'm like, yeah, this is really fucked up and crazy. And the fact that it barely registers, including with me, someone who talks about the news all the time just goes to show how down the rabbit hole we are.
Dan Pfeiffer
I would just say, as a piece of advice to Kid Rock, those helicopter pilots all on the right. That and perhaps your response to a rally that suggests that Trump wants to be a king and dictator. Should not be a show of military force.
Jon Favreau
Yeah. Also, what kind of goobers were like, we gotta find Kid Rock. I think his mansion's up here. Let's, like, fly by and maybe. Maybe he'll wave.
Dan Pfeiffer
Is that what the think is that? It was like just. They were just hoping.
Jon Favreau
He was like. It was like a Hollywood star tour.
Dan Pfeiffer
He was on the pool deck. They thought I was hoping he was on the pool deck.
Jon Favreau
Yeah. Like, what if he wasn't there? Were they?
Dan Pfeiffer
But did he know that? Did he know they were coming?
Jon Favreau
That's what I don't know. I'd love to know.
Dan Pfeiffer
You know what, actually, Democratic majority.
Jon Favreau
You think this is a good one?
Dan Pfeiffer
You know what?
Jon Favreau
Gonna send someone to South Dakota. I'm gonna send someone to Nashville and get to the bottom of all this.
Dan Pfeiffer
I did on this South Dakota thing. Did see there was like a clip of the Reason podcast, I think, like, expressing libertarians, expressing some sympathy for Byron Noem on this. And then Dave Weigel quote, tweeted and said it was right. Sympathy that helped fuel Hillary Clinton's run for Senate in 2000. There is an acting governor of South Dakota right now, Larry Roden.
Jon Favreau
Oh, they could not. Oh, wow.
Dan Pfeiffer
Yeah, it's because it's replaced Nome. When Nome.
Jon Favreau
Oh, interesting.
Dan Pfeiffer
So maybe Byron can get his sweet revenge by running for governor.
Jon Favreau
You know what I hope he has another. Another turn of the wheel as, like a MAGA influencer with some, you know, or maybe not. It would be nice if, you know, he, like, came over to the good side. But, you know, like, I hope that Byron found something.
Dan Pfeiffer
I hope he can live his life. The thoughts and prayers for Byron.
Jon Favreau
It is true that I heard some people say this, like, oh, yeah, you can't feel too bad for him because he stayed married to Kristi Noem as she went on this reign of terror as the ice Queen and never said anything as people's rights were being trampled. So there is that with.
Dan Pfeiffer
Yeah, yeah.
Jon Favreau
But, you know, I'm not saying he did show up at the hearing to support his wife. Well, I was, you know, I was gonna say sitting in the cuck chair. I feel bad. The guy's, you know. Yes, whatever, Whatever, whatever. We're done. Kid Rock Bad Byron. Yeah. Okay. That's our show for today. Love will be back in the feed on Sunday with a conversation with Senator Cory Booker. You think he's gonna ask Senator Booker about bimbofication?
Dan Pfeiffer
Given the volume of laughter happening outside the studio as we were recording?
Jon Favreau
Perhaps. Perhaps it was raised.
Dan Pfeiffer
Yes.
Jon Favreau
Well, tune in Sunday to find out. Have a good weekend, everyone.
Dan Pfeiffer
Bye, everyone.
Jon Favreau
If you want to listen to Pod Save America ad free and get access to exclusive podcasts, go to cricket.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, Kyle Seglin and Charlotte Landis. Matt de Groat is our head of production. Naomi Sengel is our executive assistant. Thanks to our digital team, Elijah Cohn, Hayley Jones, Ben Hefcoat, Mia Kelman, Kiril Pelaviev, David Toles, and Ryan Young. Our production staff is proudly unionized with the Writers Guild of America East.
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Jon Favreau
It's where Dan gets naked, where Dan
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gets full frontal nudity. But mostly it's a bi weekly subscription exclusive podcast that is basically Pod Save America but behind a paywall so it's a little bit looser and more fun and it's love it. And Favreau and me and Pfeiffer and then other cricket hosts, we go deeper on the news and cover more stories. You also get Open Tabs, which is a weekly behind the scenes newsletter from the show. Plus you get ad free episodes of your favorite crooked podcasts and all kinds of other stuff. Dan will come to your house and clean it once every quarter.
Jon Favreau
Yeah, clothed Dan is very busy.
Crooked Media Host
Clothed only. But along with just getting great content Becoming a Friend of the Pod Joining our subscription community is the number one thing you can do to help us grow to help independent progressive media. So if you're ever thought about doing it, if you ever wanted more Pod Save America, consider going to crooked.com friends and becoming a Friend of the Pod
Ad/Promo Voice
this week with digital coupons at Safeway and Albertsons. Get beef rib roast for $7.97 per pound. Member price with minimum purchase of $50 or more in a single transaction. Exclusions apply. See Store for details and Broccoli, cauliflower or russet potatoes are 97 cents per pound. Member price limit 6 pounds plus selected sizes and varieties of Lucerne butter cheese or Philadelphia cream cheese are $1.97 each member price. Visit safewayoralbertsons.com for more deals and ways to save.
Jon Favreau
You know what they say.
Dan Pfeiffer
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Jon Favreau
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Pod Save America — “Bondi Gets the Boot”
April 3, 2026
In this episode, Jon Favreau and Dan Pfeiffer dive into another tumultuous week in Trump’s America. The headline story: Attorney General Pam Bondi’s firing—a drama that links together Trump’s ongoing chaos, persistent legal headaches, and the cascading failures of his administration. The hosts break down Trump’s incoherent primetime Iran war address, his unguarded closed-door (but livestreamed) comments about daycare, the Supreme Court showdown over birthright citizenship, new attempts to nationalize voting, updates on the DHS shutdown, and an eyebrow-raising scandal involving Kristi Noem’s husband and “bimbofication.”
Their conversation is sharp, irreverent, and saturated with both informed political insight and their signature cutting humor.