CTRL-F 'Trump' in the Epstein Files

Summary

Pod Save America Episode Summary: "CTRL-F 'Trump' in the Epstein Files"

Release Date: July 25, 2025
Hosts: Jon Favreau, Dan Pfeiffer, Tommy Vietor, and John Lovett

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1. Introduction to the Episode's Main Theme

In this episode of Pod Save America, the hosts delve into the explosive revelations surrounding former President Donald Trump’s connections to Jeffrey Epstein, analyzing the recent developments in the Epstein files and their broader political implications.

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2. Trump and the Epstein Files

Dan Pfeiffer (02:51) opens the discussion by highlighting Trump’s resurfacing headlines regarding his long-term friendship with Jeffrey Epstein. The conversation centers on Trump’s interactions with Attorney General Pam Bondi, who recently briefed him about the Epstein files, confirming that Trump’s name appears among many others in over 300 gigabytes of related material.

Jon Favreau (03:18) references a Wall Street Journal headline revealing that the Justice Department informed Trump about his inclusion in the Epstein files. This revelation was corroborated by multiple sources, including senior administration officials and FBI Director Kash Patel, who privately confirmed Trump’s presence in the files.

Dan Pfeiffer (04:57): "This scandal now, with this revelation, should be treated like Iran-Contra, Watergate, other major political scandals."

The hosts express concern over the potential hypocrisy and deception involved in the handling of the Epstein files, suggesting that key government figures, including the President, Attorney General, and FBI Director, may be conspiring to cover up Trump’s association with Epstein.

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3. Congressional Actions and Subpoenas

Dan Pfeiffer (04:57) emphasizes the gravity of the situation, comparing it to historic political scandals and urging for a thorough investigation. The discussion moves to the Republican Congress's inaction, revealing their reluctance to vote on measures that could shed light on Trump's relationship with Epstein.

Jon Favreau (09:53) notes that despite initial efforts by Republicans to avoid scrutiny by shutting down Congress early, the House Oversight Committee managed to secure a subpoena for the Epstein files and Ghislaine Maxwell, Epstein’s co-conspirator.

Dan Pfeiffer (10:47): "There is such potential corruption, it's such a massive scandal..."

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4. Ghislaine Maxwell and Presidential Pardon Concerns

The hosts discuss the Trump administration’s involvement in setting up a prisoner exchange that led to the release of Ghislaine Maxwell from jail in exchange for Venezuelan immigrants. Dan Pfeiffer (10:48) highlights the dubious nature of this exchange, questioning whether Maxwell, a convicted child sex trafficker, will provide truthful testimony or seek a pardon from Trump.

Jon Favreau (11:27): "What do you think's gonna happen there? She gonna be a straight shooter?"

Dan Pfeiffer (12:44) further criticizes the Trump administration’s handling of the situation, drawing parallels to previous instances where Trump dangled pardons to influence cooperation.

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5. The Epstein Files and Media Coverage

The conversation shifts to the media's role in covering the Epstein files. Dan Pfeiffer (17:44) suggests that Democrats should leverage neutral or independent voices to discuss the scandal effectively, rather than appearing inauthentic through scripted talking points.

Jon Favreau (19:22) concurs, advocating for organic messaging that resonates with the public without seeming manufactured, reinforcing the broader narrative of Trump embodying a corrupt system that protects the elite.

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6. Comparison to Other Political Scandals

Dan Pfeiffer (05:28) draws comparisons between the Epstein scandal and historical political scandals like Watergate and Iran-Contra, emphasizing the need for serious examination and accountability.

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7. The Role of Democrats and Messaging Strategy

Jon Favreau (20:08) and Dan Pfeiffer (20:14) discuss strategic approaches for Democrats to address the Epstein files issue. They emphasize the importance of keeping the scandal in the public eye through credible and relatable sources rather than overtly political statements.

Dan Pfeiffer (21:05): "It's about trying to protect the politically connected and the rich and powerful."

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8. Trump's Interaction with Fed Chair Powell

A significant portion of the episode critiques President Trump’s behavior during his visit to the Federal Reserve headquarters. Jon Favreau (46:16) recounts Trump’s confrontation with Fed Chair Jerome Powell over alleged overspending on Fed renovations, which Powell adeptly corrects on live television.

Dan Pfeiffer (48:58): "Jerome Powell thinks that Donald Trump is the dumbest person who's ever walked the face of the planet."

The hosts mock Trump’s lack of understanding and inappropriate demeanor, using the interaction to further criticize his leadership and decision-making capabilities.

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9. Trump's Immigration Policies and Deportations

The episode transitions to Trump’s immigration policies, spotlighting controversial deportation practices. Jon Favreau (52:13) and Dan Pfeiffer (54:16) discuss the disparity in deportation practices, highlighting cases where dangerous criminals are being released while law-abiding individuals face severe detention and deportation conditions.

Dan Pfeiffer (55:29): "It's very clear what Stephen Miller believes. That is very clear."

The hosts argue that Trump’s immigration stance is less about national security and more about altering America’s demographic composition, underscoring the moral failings of the administration’s policies.

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10. Interview with Senator Mark Warner

In a pivotal segment, Tommy Vietor interviews Senator Mark Warner, Vice Chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, debunking Tulsi Gabbard’s allegations against Barack Obama. Senator Warner emphasizes the bipartisan nature of the Senate Intelligence Committee’s comprehensive investigation, which found no evidence supporting claims of a treasonous conspiracy by Obama.

Senator Mark Warner (66:11): "Bullshit. I mean it's ludicrous."

Warner criticizes Tulsi Gabbard’s actions for undermining the intelligence community’s integrity and fostering distrust among allies by releasing classified information without proper redactions, potentially endangering lives and operational security.

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11. Conclusion

The episode wraps up with a call for accountability and vigilance against misinformation and political manipulation. The hosts reiterate the importance of exposing and addressing the Trump administration’s misconduct while emphasizing the need for Democrats to effectively communicate these issues to the public.

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Notable Quotes with Timestamps

• Dan Pfeiffer (04:57): "This scandal now, with this revelation, should be treated like Iran-Contra, Watergate, other major political scandals."
• Jon Favreau (11:27): "What do you think's gonna happen there? She gonna be a straight shooter?"
• Dan Pfeiffer (21:05): "It's about trying to protect the politically connected and the rich and powerful."
• Senator Mark Warner (66:11): "Bullshit. I mean it's ludicrous."

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Final Thoughts

Pod Save America provides a critical examination of the Trump administration’s handling of the Epstein files, immigration policies, and interactions with key governmental figures. Through insightful analysis and expert interviews, the episode underscores the pressing need for transparency, accountability, and effective political strategy in addressing systemic corruption and safeguarding democratic integrity.

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Note: Advertisements, intros, outros, and non-content segments have been excluded from this summary to focus on the episode's primary discussions and insights.

Transcript

[Dan Pfeiffer]

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[Jon Favreau]

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[Tommy Vietor]

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[Jon Favreau]

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[Tommy Vietor]

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[Jon Favreau]

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

[Unknown Speaker]

I'm.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

I'm Dan Pfeiffer.

[Jon Favreau]

On today's show, we're gonna talk more about the treasonous coup that our old boss almost got away with. If were it not for Tulsi Gavin. Talk about the president arguing with the Fed chair about line items in a renovation project while wearing construction helmets on live television. Also gonna talk about why a man who was serving time in Venezuela for a triple homicide is now somewhere in America thanks to the Trump administration's recent prisoner exchange. And then later, you'll hear Tommy's interview with the top Intel Committee Democrat Mark Warner on the latest Tulsi nonsense and lots more. But first, as much as we all want to talk about the many pressing challenges facing this country, Donald Trump has again made headlines about his decades long friendship with child sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein. You may remember that Last week, Trump got asked what he'd been told by Attorney General Pam Bondi about her review of the Epstein files. Here's what he said.

[Unknown Speaker]

What did she tell you about the review? And specifically, did she tell you at all that your name appeared in the file? No, no, she's, she's given us just a very quick briefing and in terms of the credibility of the different things that they've seen, and I would say that, you know, these files were made up by Comey, they were made up by Obama, they were made up by Biden, you know, and we went through years of that.

[Jon Favreau]

Specifically, did she tell you your name was in the files? No, no, that was last week. And here's the Wall Street Journal headline from this week. Justice Department told Trump in May that his name is among many in the Epstein files. That's right. Pam Bondi told the President that he and, quote, many other high profile figures were named hundreds of other names in the more than 300 gigabytes of Epstein related material they have, but that they felt the files contained, quote, unverified hearsay about Trump and all those other people. The story, which has been independently confirmed now by the New York Times and cnn, among others, was sourced to multiple senior administration officials. Though the Journal specifically cites FBI Director Kash Patel as someone who's been privately telling other government officials that Trump's name is in the file. You always want your FBI director to be the office gossip. That's the person you want to trust with the nation's the top law enforcement official. You know, he's got loose lips. Loose lips sink ships there, Kash Patel. The President seems to know where this is all going. A witness leaked to Playbook the that Trump said in the Oval, they're going to accuse me of some funny business. And that even though he claims he didn't do anything wrong, they're going to fuck me anyways. Delicious. What do you think, Dan? How does this explosive revelation that we all saw coming change the nature of this almost three week old scandal?

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Now, I would hope that this changes how everyone, ourselves included, talks and thinks about this scandal because we've had a lot of fun about with this, we're going to have fun about it on this podcast. I hope there's something amusing about it, but I feel like everyone has been treating this kind of from a perspective of bemusement, like, ah, look at these conspiracy pushing grifters who've been hoisted on their own petard, right? Where the real crime here is hypocrisy and deception, right they said they released the Epstein files, but they didn't do it. And Trump's breaking a campaign promise.

[Unknown Speaker]

Ha.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Take that dog that caught the car. All of that. But I think we do really have to take a step back. And I know this is gonna sound like hyperbole, I know it will. But I truly believe it, that this scandal now, with this revelation, this scandal now, should be treated like Iran Contra, Watergate, other major political scandals. Because what we have here is the President of the United States, the Attorney General, the intelligence community, the FBI director, and the Republican Congress, all part of a conspiracy to cover up information about the President of the United States relationship with America's most notorious child sex trafficker.

[Jon Favreau]

And lying about it.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Right. And he lied to the American people. Either by direct order or by implicit request, the intelligence community, we have intelligence professionals. Like, what's to theoretically be the most. One of the most apolitical parts of the government concocting a bullshit report we're gonna talk about to try to distract people from the political fault of this. We have the Republican Congress shutting down and going home for a month because they are so afraid to vote on a measure that could shed light once again on the President's relationship with America's most notorious child sex trafficker. Like, this really is a giant deal. Like, we need to know what is that hearsay Trump's worried about in the files? What is in there? What do we not know about Trump's relationship? Like what. What other steps have been taken to try to cover this up? Have there been efforts to alter or destroy the records? What other government officials have hid it? Who else has been lied to? Like, this is a big deal, and it should be treated as a big deal in my view.

[Jon Favreau]

Did you hear Mike Johnson say in an interview that we don't know, you know, when we get the documents, the Deep state might have doctored the documents.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Yes, they put your next name in there.

[Jon Favreau]

Yes, that's the next thing.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Because the Deep state Trump has been leading. He has been. This is one of the clues that you and I took as evidence that Trump knew his name was, or at least suspect his name was. The Epstein files was. He kept saying, how are we gonna know they're real? Maybe Comey and Biden and whoever else doctored them to put his name in there. Right.

[Jon Favreau]

So first of all, their initial reaction to the story from Stephen Chung, the communications director at the White House, was, this is another fake Wall Street Journal story. Then the Journal reached out to, and I think the Times first reached out to Bondi and the doj, and they said, well, we just briefed the President on what was in there and we didn't find anything worthy of prosecution or further investigation. Carefully chosen words. That was the next explanation. They also had an explanation that, oh, well, we knew his name was in there because in those binders that Pam Bondi handed out to all the right wing crazies who came to the White House, that started this whole thing. You know, Donald Trump's phone number was in there and everyone knew that. And it's like, okay, okay, well, if Trump's name's in the files and it's just completely benign, why not release it? Why did you have to lie about it? Right. If all that's in the files about Trump is what is publicly known about Trump, which is that he used to party with Jeffrey Epstein and hung out with Jeffrey Epstein, and Jeffrey Epstein went to his first wedding and there's pictures of them together. And we know that he flew on his plane a bunch of times. And if it's just that, that's just verified in the documents, I mean, it's not fun to have that come out. But it's already known, so why cover it up?

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Yeah, I mean, the chain of events here is they were planning to release the files. They were on Pambandi's desk. They released that first tranche that had his name in it. That did not, at that point, they did not say, we're not going to release more, because after that went out, Pam Bondi said, these are on my desk for review. She reviewed them, found something that she thought would be quite embarrassing to the President and they changed their plan. And they've continued to believe that the massive amount of political file they've been getting now for almost three weeks is preferable to whatever they believe is in the files.

[Jon Favreau]

So as you mentioned, Mike Johnson tried to bail him out by literally just like sending everyone home for the summer early. School's out. Everyone get out of here. No vote. They were going to take a vote to try to compel the DOJ to release more information.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Not even compel them, just since you.

[Jon Favreau]

Just said that was the unbinding one.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Right. So you sense of Congress that they would, it would be nice if they released it. And they couldn't even do that.

[Jon Favreau]

And yet. Yeah, and yet his, his gambit sort of failed because the House Oversight Committee found there were enough Republicans on the House Oversight Committee, I believe three voted with all the Democrats to subpoena the Justice Department for the files and they took that vote. Just before they left town. In a move that surprised, I think, just about everyone, the committee also subpoenaed Epstein co conspirator Ghislaine Maxwell to come testify before Congress. Though it seems like Trump's DOJ is trying to get to her first. It's like a fucking mob crime movie. Trump's personal lawyer turned Deputy Attorney General, Todd Blanche, is visiting Maxwell in jail today, Thursday. And she reportedly, according to her brother, has new evidence to share. And wouldn't you know, Dan, she's also reportedly interested in a pardon.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

No, no, no.

[Jon Favreau]

Amazing.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Two totally unrelated things.

[Jon Favreau]

So the co conspirator of the child sex trafficker, who's currently serving 20 years in prison, has probably a lot more to say because she was never interviewed by the Justice Department on any of the Epstein files. And before she can testify to Congress, she gets a visit from the President's former personal lawyer turned Deputy Attorney General, who's going to meet with her first, knowing that she wants a pardon and that his boss, the President, has the power to give that pardon. What do you think's gonna happen there? She gonna be a straight shooter?

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Seems. Seems totally above board. Like, if you can't, if you can't trust a convicted child sex trafficker, who can you trust, honestly? But like you, you've nailed the exact. The problem here, why this is, like, this is such potential corruption, it's such a massive scandal, is that you have Ghislaine Maxwell, a convicted child sex trafficker who wants a pardon, meeting with the justice official who just happens to be, by chance, Donald Trump's personal defense attorney. Okay. And we know that Trump has dangled pardons before. The Mueller report concluded that Trump's public communications about Roger Stone, when Roger Stone was being prosecuted for crimes related to the Russiagate, was consistent with the idea of dangling a pardon to try to interfere with his cooperation. He specifically dangled, he almost explicitly dangled a pardon in front of Paul Manafort when Paul Manafort's plea deal fell apart. There is a report, an unverified report, but a report Nonetheless, that in 2017, Congressman Dana Rohrabacher went to meet with Julian Assange with a pardon promise from Trump. If Assange would say Russia did not hack the election on Trump's behalf. So we have seen this before, right? We don't have any evidence that's what's happening here, but we have very real reason to be suspicious. These people have lost all benefit of the doubt.

[Jon Favreau]

Yeah, I'm waiting for Todd Blanche to come out of that meeting and be like, oh, just found out from Ghislaine Maxwell that Donald Trump, he was actually the one that said, jeffrey, Jeffrey, enough with those girls. I'm gonna report you. Those girls look too young. And you know who else was there and said, I don't care? Bill Clinton. Yes, that's what I'm waiting for.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

And when Obama was on Epstein island, he told them about the pending treason plan.

[Jon Favreau]

Yes, yes, exactly. Yeah, he had it right in his pocket. So I'm sure that Trump and Johnson are just hoping this thing blows over by the time Congress comes back in September. Now that they've escaped early, what do you think?

[Dan Pfeiffer]

It's hard to see how the fundamental political dynamics change here, which is the overwhelming majority of American people want disclosure of the Epstein files. The Republicans in Congress are caught between wanting to be with not just the 80% of Americans who want this, but the part of their base who very strongly wants it and not getting on the wrong side of Trump. Democrats are going to continue to offer this amendment in the House Rules Committee. And if they cannot pass a rule, they cannot pass a bill because it's going to require. If you don't pass a rule, then you have to pass. You need two thirds of the House to pass the bill. So they can barely pass it with 50% of the house. And so I don't see how it fundamentally changes. Like, ultimately they're going to have to pass something or something. There's gonna have to be some promise and disclosure to make this political dynamic change.

[Jon Favreau]

Of course, there's gonna be a million news cycles between now and when the House gets back. And I'm sure we won't be talking about the Epstein scandal. Every pod from now until then, don't be so sure. But who knows? But like, I do think they're all gonna come back. And you're right. Like, it's, I guess Maxwell's gonna testify in August, Right? So they'll come back for, for that testimony. But like, I don't know, I don't see how they get past. I don't see how they keep all the files at this point. Maybe they just decide to. I mean, you know, these people lie, break the law, cheat all the time, so who knows?

[Dan Pfeiffer]

But they can fight the subpoena in court. Like, I mean, the DOJ has a long history of doing that, sometimes for reasons that are legitimate, because their fear that it would, in a legitimate situation, mess up an ongoing investigation. That's obviously not the case here. Eventually they're gonna have to vote. Maybe they vote to compel maybe they. Or they just. Or the Romans are forced to vote a town and. And sort of eat their spinach there.

[Jon Favreau]

Yeah. And again, and we've talked about this before, like, there are good reasons even in this case for the withholding of some information. There's videos of the victims. And also, you know, there's rules about, like, you don't want to release a ton of hearsay about people if they're not incriminated in something. Now, I think you can also make an exception for the current president, United States, that might be implicated in something. So, like, there are good reasons. I'm sure that there are courts to litigate those reasons, but, yeah, they can. Certainly of the. However many 400 gigabytes worth of material, they can probably release a little bit more.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Yeah, they can at least release the parts that mentioned Donald Trump's name.

[Jon Favreau]

Yeah, that'd be one thing. Yeah, that'd be one thing. Particularly if there's. If there's nothing in there that he finds that's incriminating. Right.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

If there's no quote, unquote, funny business, then no funny business. What's the big deal?

[Jon Favreau]

Right. Did you see, by the way, that this old video that's been circulating, Midas Touch tweeted it out from 2010, and it's from the Epstein deposition where he gets asked about partying with Donald Trump.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Not only did I see it, John, I said it to you.

[Jon Favreau]

I can't remember who sent me what anymore. Let's listen.

[Unknown Speaker]

Have you ever had a personal relationship with Donald Trump? What do you mean by personal relationships? Have you socialized with him?

[Jon Favreau]

Yes, sir. Yes, sir.

[Unknown Speaker]

Have you ever socialized with Donald Trump in the presence of females under the age of 18?

[Jon Favreau]

Though I'd like to answer that question.

[Unknown Speaker]

At least today, I'm going to have to assert my 5th, 6th, and 14th amendment rights.

[Jon Favreau]

Sir, have we just. Is there just too much bullshit out there about Donald Trump, too much scandal that we somehow. That this was out there and it was just wasn't a big deal at some point because everyone just assumes that Donald Trump is a fucking predator.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Yeah, I think there is this assumption that, I mean, this is a very, very gross way of looking at the world. But because Donald Trump has survived politically amidst all of the accusations, E. Jean Carroll, the Access Hollywood tape, all the reporting that came out right before the election of the women he had sexually assaulted or sexually involved with, sexual misconduct with, and he survived all of that, then none of this stuff would matter. This video is such an artifact of history. Because if you follow where Midas Touch got it from? It's from a 2016 Daily Wire blog post detailing Donald Trump's long gross associations with Jeffrey Epstein.

[Jon Favreau]

Yeah. Now, Ben Shapiro, fully on board. Fully on board. Let's talk about the politics and what Democrats should do now. Our friends at Data for Progress asked likely voters last week what news story they'd heard and seen the most about recently. The leading answer by a large margin was Epstein. 37% said they'd heard, quote, a lot about the story. That was up from 25% the week before. When asked why they think Trump hasn't released the files, 46% said it's because they contain information that could incriminate him. Given that and a lot of other polling that has not been so good for Trump on the Epstein drama, how do you think Dems should handle this issue over the next few months?

[Dan Pfeiffer]

I think our goal should be to keep the issue in the news as much as possible without putting too much spin on the ball. Right. I've seen other testing which shows that the most effective messaging and the most effective online posts are not Democrats talking about it. It is clips of Republicans or people who previously supported Trump, you know, podcasters, influencers criticizing Trump for this. That's the most effective medium. So when we think about how we like if we are messaging, if you're an elected official and you're thinking about how to use your platforms, that's one way to do it. If we're thinking about it in the context of how all of us are messengers and people in our lives and you're sharing things in your group chat, the better thing to share is the clip of Andrew Schultz talking about this on Flagrant than it is, you know, some Democrat ranting about this on MSNBC or Positive America or anywhere else. Right. It's like you think about someone who is whose motivations are not automatically questioned, even in an issue on this one where they're quite sincere.

[Jon Favreau]

I think it's also just a proof point that's worth bringing up when making other arguments that are also true about Trump, which is, you know, he's lying about this. What else is he lying to you about? He promised transparency on this and is not fulfilling that promise. What other promises has he broken to you? He's protecting elites here. What else is he doing that's protecting elites? Like there's just everything that's bad about Donald Trump that Donald Trump is doing to hurt people, to let people down, to disappoint people, to break the promises he made during the Campaign, like it's all in here in this scandal. And I think as we go on to talk about other issues, reminding people that this happened and that he's lying to them here and he's hiding stuff from them here and he's covering this up is just another good proof point to drive the argument home.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Yeah, you have to do this without sounding like you were created in a talking points lab.

[Jon Favreau]

Yeah, I know. It's already some of them.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

It's already, it's, you know the argument here. Right. These are not the words to use. Right. But the argument, we want to tie this to a broader narrative that Trump is embodies a corrupt political system that protects the politically connected and the rich and powerful. Don't use those words like that because that sounds like it was. I'm sure that that sentence tests fucking phenomenal, but it's not a lot of.

[Jon Favreau]

Press releases right now.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

But like that's the point you want to make, right? Where like think about that way is.

[Jon Favreau]

Just make it like a human. Make it like a human.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

And then like it is connected to tax cuts for rich paid for by cutting Medicaid and food assistance. But how you make that connection should be like a little more natural than trying to jam it into 240 characters, right. For your ex post or whatever else.

[Jon Favreau]

I mean, it just fits in with everything he's done in the last six months. It's like the guy's fucking accepting $400 million jets from the Qataris and forgot about the jet.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

I was going through all the things, I forgot about the jet, the crypto scams.

[Jon Favreau]

We're talking here Thursday, he's off going, he's going to go play fucking golf in his golf course in Scotland this weekend. He's, you know, he gives the big tax cuts to the rich people. He's always around his fucking rich friends. He's jacking up prices on everything that everyone buys from overseas. The inflation's up, prices up. He doesn't give a shit about people, he gives a shit about himself. And if you're rich and you're one of his buddies, he'll protect you. And if not, he won't. And he'll probably go after you for some people.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

I mean, Democrats have been trying to make this point for a decade now because it's so obvious the guy shits on a gold toilet like he is. He's not a man of the people. There's a reason it is broken through here, because one, it's a violation against his own base as opposed to a violation against liberal values. Right. It's too often we, too often we attack Trump through our view of the world. And this is one where he has violated something through his view of the world. And then the other reason is conspiracy theories are the currency of the Internet. Like there's a reason that Jeffrey Epstein's conspiracy theory is such a gigantic deal because it's been living online for years now. And so now you have the combination of a issue that already had a lot of currency online being jacked up, combined with real, like real news breaking from traditional news sources and high levels engagement from across the political spectrum. And so it, it is breaking through to people in a way that a lot of our policy based arguments have not, because they don't reach outside of that political news bubble that we struggle to get out of.

[Jon Favreau]

I also think everyone has always known about Trump, that he is a rich celebrity and has been for a long time. And the reason that a lot of people still like him or view him as like, you know, a hero of the working class is because they've seen him as a traitor to his class. Right. He's a, he goes against the establishment that he used to be part of. Right. And he's taken on that, he's taken on the elites who he knows. And so that has sort of protected him against the fact that he's just shuts in a gold toilet, like you said. But if he's seen as actually, oh no, maybe he is part of that establishment, maybe when push comes to shove, he does protect those elites that he hangs out with because he actually does care about them or doesn't care about them, but he cares about himself and he's just part of that culture. They don't want to think he's part of that culture. But look what he's doing in the Epstein case. Sure looks like he's protecting the establishment. So I do think there's like a story that makes sense to people because it's true.

[Tommy Vietor]

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[Jon Favreau]

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[Tommy Vietor]

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[Jon Favreau]

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[Jon Favreau]

I don't have anything to okay, Use.

[Tommy Vietor]

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[Dan Pfeiffer]

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[Jon Favreau]

Depending on certain loan attributes, your business loan may be issued by Ondeck or Celtic bank on Deck does not land in North Dakota. All loans and amounts subject to lender approval. So Trump, of course, realizes that if he wants to change the subject, he's got to make sure he turns up the crazy to like an 11 or a 12. You can't be just doing your standard issue conspiracies. You really got to turn it up. Which is why he spent all week accusing his predecessor of a crime that's punishable by death. Let's listen.

[Unknown Speaker]

The leader of the gang was President Obama. Barack Hussein Obama. Have you heard of him? This was treason. This was every word you can Think of, and you should mention that every.

[Jon Favreau]

Time they give you a question that's.

[Unknown Speaker]

Not appropriate, just say, oh, by the way, Obama cheated on the election. I have great respect for Tulsi and the documents they found on President Obama. Frankly, it was an Obama thing, but it was the people that worked under him also working with him.

[Jon Favreau]

So many you wouldn't believe the documents they found on Obama. They just, they were, they were his, just his pockets were stuffed with them and they all said treason plan. Step one, step one. Here's how I'm gonna do the coup. You might be wondering what the actual allegation is. Unfortunately, the administration official who cooked it up can't really explain it either. Here's Tulsi Gabbard not answering questions from CBS's Ed O' Keefe about the years old information she's trying to repackage as a new scandal.

[Unknown Speaker]

The Senate Intelligence Committee spent several years looking into this and unanimously agreed in a bipartisan fashion, Secretary of State Rubio was a member of that committee that there was no political interference. There was a years long Justice Department investigation into this as well that also concluded no political interference. So help us from a 50,000 foot level explain. What do you now have?

[Jon Favreau]

I'm not asking you to take my word for it. I'm asking you and the media to conduct honest journalism and the American people to see for yourself. President Obama directed an intelligence community assessment to be created to further this contrived false narrative that ultimately led to a years long coup to try to undermine President Trump's presidency.

[Unknown Speaker]

And it's your belief that those two previous investigations missed that or covered it up?

[Jon Favreau]

I'm telling you to look at the evidence. Look at the evidence and you will know the truth. You think she has looked at the evidence?

[Dan Pfeiffer]

I'm not so sure.

[Jon Favreau]

I don't think she can explain the evidence. I guess the crime is the creation of a false narrative. I didn't know that a false narrative could be a coup, but there wasn't.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Even the creation of a false narrative.

[Jon Favreau]

That's. I know we can get into it. There's like so many, there's so many steps that you have to get to. I mean it's wild. But anyway, Lindsey Graham and John Cornyn, they're also calling for Trump's DOJ to appoint another special counsel to conduct another investigation into Russiagate because apparently the state several investigations conducted by Trump's party and Trump's DOJ in Trump's first term weren't enough. As for Obama, his spokesperson issued a statement that said, quote, out of respect for the office of the presidency, our office does not normally dignify the constant nonsense and misinformation flowing out of this White House with a response. But these claims are outrageous enough to merit one. These bizarre allegations are ridiculous and a weak attempt at distraction. What do you think, Dan? Do you think, do you think they can will this scandal into existence just by repeating treasonous coup and false narrative and manipulated intelligence over and over again?

[Dan Pfeiffer]

I don't think we should call this a scandal. Like, I don't even know what else to call it, like a crock of shit, like it's not a scandal suggests that there was an allegation of something. There was at least credible allegation of something. There is. There is. They can't even explain the allegation. It makes no sense. This is the most easily debunked thing in the world. And the shortest way I would do that is how could it possibly be a scandal when. How could it possibly be that Obama was trying to steal the election from Trump when during the election the FBI was investigating Trump and told no one, but the FBI instead announced an investigation to Hillary Clinton three weeks before the election?

[Jon Favreau]

It's all part of the plan.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Yeah, it's. I mean, it's, it's so stupid. Can they get MAGA media to report on this and talk about it and maybe take some attention away from Epstein there? Sure. Can they get the base who wants to believe everything Trump says to believe this? Yes. Can they make anyone take it seriously? Other than that? I don't think so.

[Jon Favreau]

Yeah, I don't think so either. It's wild. Like, I don't, I mean, I guess I'm not surprised that Tulsi would do this. She doesn't seem like the brightest bulb. And obviously Trump yells treason. It's not the first time Trump has accused Barack Obama of treason. I don't know if anyone remembers. He's been like, he's done it multiple times before, probably won't be the last. He likes to do that when he, you know, that's his card to play when things get really bad. You gotta go right for Obama. I don't think it's the smartest move to accuse the most popular political figure in the country of treason based on a concocted scandal that no one can fucking understand. But, you know, he's trying. It's funny. I was home and Emily was like, what is the whole Obama thing? And I'm like, okay. Well, I go, it's bullshit, you know, and she's like, yeah, but like, what are they trying to say? And I started explaining it, and within 10 seconds she's like, I don't. Fuck. I don't know what you're fucking talking about. I can't just move on.

[Unknown Speaker]

Yeah.

[Jon Favreau]

I mean, and that is what is benefiting them, is that it is you. Once you start. You could. Once you start explaining it for like 10 seconds, it becomes so fucking confusing because you have to go back to season one and you have to have everyone remember what happened with Russiagate and the hacking of the DNC and the WikiLeaks and the disseminating of the emails and all this bullshit. And it's just. And I just to explain this, to talk about it, to try to rebut some of it on Twitter have gone down the rabbit hole. And it is like, it is ptsd, man.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

I mean, just it's worth. When I saw the tweet this morning of John Cornyn from Lindsey Graham saying that he and John Cornyn were calling our special counsel, I was like, oh, this seems like a big deal. And then it took me a minute to remember that they actually appointed a special counsel.

[Jon Favreau]

They already did.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Named John Durham to do this exact thing. And he found he basically affirmed the conclusions of the Senate Intelligence Committee report and what the Obama folks put out and that there was no conspiracy to hurt Trump in any way, shape or form other than some paperwork problems in the Carter Page. And he might totally forgot FISA warrants.

[Jon Favreau]

Well, it's like, Tulsi is like. And there was a meeting then that Obama called in December. And it's like, yeah, everyone knows about that meeting. That was a public meeting, as Ben mentioned on pod Save the World. He wrote about it in his book, this meeting. And then it's like. And in that meeting, he directed his national security team to develop an intelligence assessment that pulled together everything they knew about Russia and. And then manufacture this narrative. And it's like, okay, so then what did they find a month later? Well, a month later, they find that Putin conducted an influence campaign aimed at the election with the goal of undermining faith in the democratic process and hurting Clinton's candidacy and her potential presidency. The dispute is. So no one disputes that part. Right. Even Tulsi is in her stuff now, is not disputing that Putin interfered in the election, which it seemed like she was at first. But when you read the report and now what you're saying, they agree that Putin interfered. Their dispute is that Putin didn't interfere to help Trump. That's the conclusion that the Obama intelligence assessment came to, that they have a problem with, and they think that this conclusion that Putin didn't just interfere in the election, but he interfered with the intent of helping Donald Trump win. That, that, that narrative, which is false, which Obama knew was false, is what I guess led to Trump firing Comey, which is what led to Mueller becoming the special counsel, which is what led to the Mueller investigation, which is what then led to no charges against Donald Trump and his presidency continued on. I honestly don't know. And it's like, you know how we knew that Putin interfered not just to undermine democracy, but because he wanted to help Donald Trump. Cuz he fucking told us. He admitted it later. And also they're like, well, some people in the intel community weren't sure that Putin wanted to interfere to help Donald Trump. And it's like, you know what I had forgotten about until I read Glenn Thrush's excellent piece on the New York Times.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Please tell me this is the end. The New York Times story.

[Jon Favreau]

Yeah, well, dude. Well, it linked to another New York times story from 2019 that I hadn't even read. I was talking to Tommy about apparently the CIA, and this is just a fun spy story, but the CIA decades ago cultivated an asset in Russia that ended up working his way up through the ranks of Russian officials until he was a senior official who regularly saw Putin. And so like we had this guy, we had a CIA agent inside the Kremlin that were seeing Putin regularly. And it was so secret that apparently when Obama was president, and I know this from the New York Times piece, I am not, I didn't know this at the time. I didn't know this until last night, but this was a 2019 New York Times piece that it was so secret, the existence of this source in the Kremlin, that it didn't even appear in Obama's intel briefings, that Brennan sent it to him separately in an envelope just to him to let Obama know what was actually going on because they didn't want anyone else to know. And this was the source that first said, later confirmed by a million other pieces of intelligence which Tulsi leaves out. This was the source that said that, oh yeah, Putin wants to help Trump, he has a preference for Trump. So the idea that some other asshole in the intel community is like, I don't know if we have the evidence. Well, clearly they did. Clearly they did. And by the way, the reason we all know this now is because since we had to have the intelligence assessment out there, all of A sudden, everyone got worried in the CIA that this guy was gonna get found out by Putin because Putin likes to kill people who do that. And so they extracted him from Russia, they brought him back here, and I guess he's here somewhere in the United States. It's very. The American, Stan. I just thought it was a cool side story for all this.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

I don't have a source in the Kremlin, but you know what I mean?

[Jon Favreau]

Yeah, we have none. That was one of the problems. We fucking. We lost our big source in the Kremlin.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

But the piece of evidence I have that Putin wanted to help Trump was.

[Jon Favreau]

That he's telling us later.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Well, that's one clue, if you will. But also, he only hacked Hillary's campaign.

[Jon Favreau]

Well, that was the other statistic.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

That was just like a. Just if you're looking for clues as to.

[Jon Favreau]

Well, no, no, Dan, you see, you gotta go down the rabbit hole. According to Tulsi, the reason he hacked Hillary's campaign is because he decided that Hillary was definitely gonna win, that Trump wasn't, and so he was holding stuff back to undermine Hillary's presidency. There's always another reason. And look, that's possible. He probably did want to undermine her presidency and he might have even thought that she was a shoo in like the rest of us did. But that doesn't mean that he didn't want Trump to win. Yeah, that didn't mean that he didn't try to interfere to help Trump win.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Well, then he would have held the information back till after the election, right?

[Jon Favreau]

Well, he held some back. That's right. But he didn't.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

No, he used it all.

[Jon Favreau]

He didn't. And if we all remember what happened in the summer right before Russia, through WikiLeaks, dumped all of the Clinton emails. Oh, I remember.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Ding, ding, ding, ding, ding.

[Jon Favreau]

Do you remember what happened?

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Trump stand before the world and call on Putin to hack Hillary's email server. Did that happen? Yes, he did specifically call on Russia to do that.

[Jon Favreau]

He said that out loud. Kids, you can Google that. You can look on the YouTubes, you'll find some great clips from 2015, 2016 of Trump saying Russia, if you're listening, I would love you to dump emails. And guess what they did in a short time after they dumped the email that they hacked. It is so funny. And then you get, of course, we watch Fox in our office all day and you get all these people and they're like, yes, but then Obama, they said that he colluded and there was collusion, blah, blah, blah, it's like, no, no, no, no, no. This whole Obama treason coup thing. The intelligence assessment didn't say anything about Trump's relationship or the Trump campaign's relationship with anyone in Russia. There was nothing about collusion. There was nothing about their relationship that just wasn't in the intelligence estimate, which none of these fucking MAGA influencers know because they're too stupid to look at the fucking information. I've had this, like, weird fantasy over the last couple days.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

I'm like, I, I cannot wait to hear what comes next.

[Jon Favreau]

I just want to. I, I am dying to debate one of these people who is taking this seriously. Just anytime, any place. Come on, Pod. Save America. I will go. The only thing I won't do is do like a three minute hit on Fox where like someone just yells over me and then they cut the commercial. But I would sit down on a podcast with Matt Taibbi, any of these Megyn Kelly, any, any of the jokers on Fox, anyone in the administration, I guess, if they want, and talk about this. Because this thing would fall apart in five minutes. Five minutes.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Would you debate 20 Russia conspiracy believing MAGA guys at the same time?

[Jon Favreau]

This is my way of trying to get on. See, Austin's smiling. He's so excited. This is my way of trying to get on Jubilee. And look, I thought I was debating Russiagate. Suddenly I got a bunch of Nazis around me. Anyway, anyway, it's weird because, look, the treasonous coup. We've known about this and Trump says that the evidence is overwhelming, that he's just guilty. It's been happening. It's now been going on for a week. Over a week. They still haven't arrested Obama. What's going on? Where's the arrest? I don't understand. You got the FBI, you got the Department of Justice. Where's the warrants? Oh, the doj. DOJ came up with a strength force. Ooh. Put out a press release. We're developing a strike force. Strike force is gonna look at the evidence.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Okay, guys, I just wanna come back to the fact that you just disclosed that you've been having this fantasy about being on a podcast with Charlie Price.

[Jon Favreau]

I know, I know. I just. It's just so. I guess it's like my, I'm still, I shouldn't be this naive this far into this, but it's just wild watching them be like, they seem genuinely, like, outraged that this is such a scandal and they can't believe this. And I'm like, did you read, did you read the documents? Did you look at it.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

I'm the more cynical of the two of us. Although you're rapidly catching up. But not in this exact moment. But I just want you to know that if you do this, there's not gonna be a point where one of these people just says, you know what, John, you're right.

[Jon Favreau]

I know, I know, I know, Dan. That's why I. That's usually when I move on to the next thing.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Okay.

[Jon Favreau]

Cause then I'm like, it's not gonna. I can say whatever I want, but it's just not gonna work. But we'll see. What do you think of Obama's response? Cause I mean, like, I will say, I'm like, okay, I'm glad. In response, that sort of standard and official like didn't come from him and came from a spokesperson. Because if he speaks about it, I would like him to have some fun with this. I know it's a serious topic, but I think he should have some fun.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

It's not a serious topic.

[Jon Favreau]

Well, that's what I'm saying. Like, I'm sure everyone needs to take it seriously. Cuz, you know, it's like Trump is running the government and law enforcement and there's no more independence. And you know, so it's a real. It's live ammo here. But I don't know. I think that Obama should mock it because it is very mockable.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

I think the best part of the response was the last line, which is. These findings were affirmed in a 2020 report by the bipartisan Senate Intelligence Committee led by then chairman Marco Rubio, who's been so quiet.

[Jon Favreau]

So quiet. Dan, we have not heard a word. This I don't understand. We have not heard a word from Marco Rubio.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Marco Rubio, Secretary of State. Last I checked, right?

[Jon Favreau]

Yeah, last I checked. And National Security Advisors.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Is he also head of the National Archives too?

[Jon Favreau]

And he's the archivist?

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Yeah, the archivist is the best part. But doesn't the State Department do a briefing every single day?

[Jon Favreau]

Yeah, yeah, they were busy at the briefing. Also not answering questions about why the guy convicted of triple homicide in jail in Venezuela is now set free in America. I don't know. I don't know what Tammy Bruce is doing, the spokesperson at those briefings, but certainly not answering questions about whether the Secretary of State stands by the committee report that he led that said Putin did interfere in the election on behalf of Trump.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

There is an entire group of people whose job it is to go to, who are reporters who go to go to work every day at the Department of State When Marco Rubio travels, when he when he gets some time off from his archiving duties, he travels with reporters. I assume at some point he's gonna have to answer this question.

[Jon Favreau]

I'm sure being the archivist, he has access to all of that information.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Do you think he has access to the Epstein files?

[Jon Favreau]

Marco's got it all. He's got it all. It's just sitting there. Anyway, if anyone can find Marco Rubio and ask him the question, get an answer out of him.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

He's just deep in the stacks right now.

[Jon Favreau]

Marco Rubio. If you're listening, you can either answer.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

This question or debate John Favreau on a podcast. Your ch.

[Jon Favreau]

Foreign.

[Tommy Vietor]

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Yeah, they have a nice, they have a nice duffel bag.

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They have like an overnight bag and.

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[Unknown Speaker]

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[Unknown Speaker]

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[Jon Favreau]

Trump always needs villains to blame for his own failures. This is why we're doing the treasonous coup right now. But it's become a lot harder now that he controls everything, so it's hard to find someone else to blame, which is why he's been trying to pin inflation and high prices on Fed Chair Jerome Powell. So we talked the other day about how Trump seems to realize he, he can't fire Powell unless it's for cause. That's what the law says, at least. So his goons have been cooking up this allegation that Powell has spent so much money renovating the Fed building.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

I can't do it with a straight face. It's so absurd.

[Jon Favreau]

Stupidest, all of this, the stupidest scandals, that it might be a crime or at least cause from to fire Powell. So I guess to get attention for this ploy, Trump decided to visit the Fed headquarters today, Thursday, which presidents don't usually do. And it's all under construction. And it was just on before we started recording this. And so there's this live shot of Trump and Jerome Powell and Tim Scott. Cause I guess he's on the relevant committee. And they all got helmets on, they all got construction hats on. And they stopped to talk to reporters and the reporters, who are all sycophants, apparently. I don't think there was a real reporter in the pool. We can get into this.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Apparently not.

[Jon Favreau]

But the first question is like, oh, Mr. President, isn't. Aren't there so many budget problems? And, and hasn't the Fed spent too much money on this renovation project? Blah, blah, blah. And then this is what happens on, on live TV. Let's listen.

[Unknown Speaker]

It looks like it's about 3.1 billion. One up a little bit or a lot. So the 2.7 is now 3.1.

[Jon Favreau]

I'm not aware of that.

[Unknown Speaker]

Yeah, it just came out.

[Jon Favreau]

Yeah, I haven't heard that from anybody. The Fed, you, just that you, you.

[Unknown Speaker]

Just added in a third building is what that is.

[Jon Favreau]

That's a third building.

[Unknown Speaker]

It's a building that's being built.

[Jon Favreau]

No, it was built five years ago. Are there things the chairman can say.

[Unknown Speaker]

To you today that would make you.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Back off some of the earlier criticism?

[Unknown Speaker]

Well, I'd love him to lower interest rates. Other than that, what can I tell you?

[Jon Favreau]

You are Jerome Powell. You are the Chairman of the Federal Reserve. You are responsible for setting the interest Rates for the country, for our monetary policy. And you are in the middle of a construction site arguing with the President, United States over line items in a building. Reno. I just and had to correct him and was, oh, sir, the number that you're saying there, that's a building that's already been built. Trump's like, I don't know, what are you saying? Like, what the fuck?

[Dan Pfeiffer]

It is so stupid. It's like ham handed jawboning of him. And Trump feels like he's in his element because he's at a construction site and he's kind of somewhat incoherently talking about how buildings are built and basements and reverse bathtubs. There's like a lot of discussion in there about this stuff. And the one thing you can take away from this is that Jerome Powell thinks that Donald Trump is the dumbest person who's ever walked the face of the planet. And he cannot hide that sentiment for one second.

[Jon Favreau]

No. And he was, he was through most of it. He's like trying to look up, like, I don't, like he was hoping someone would like extract him from the situation.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Like one of those overpriced beams would fall on his head.

[Jon Favreau]

That was the look on his face, like, what am I, how did I get here? What am I doing here?

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Did he just, I mean, I'm curious about how he ended up there. Did he decide he had to go because Trump was coming? Did Trump invite him and he didn't want to say? No. I mean, I'm glad he was there to correct the record on the random. It was a great thing that Trump had it on a piece of paper in his pocket so that Jerome Powell could then look at it on live television and tell him he's an idiot.

[Jon Favreau]

I know. I was worried for Powell for a minute because I'm like, who knows what this paper says or where Trump got it. If I was Jerome Powell, he presents you with the paper with a random number on it, you're going to be like, I don't know. But clearly Jerome Powell knew that it was. He knew what the money was.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

It's a five year old building. Yes.

[Jon Favreau]

Also to your point about Trump with the construction hat and how he's the fox people as they were cutting to him, arguing with Powell, they're like, and there he is. He is in his elements with that construction hat on. He is a builder, folks. He's been a builder. He's confident there. This is what he does. This is who he is. Now let's listen. So anyway, yeah, so he, you know, in front of the Fed chair, he's yelling about interest rates. He also said, later. So later, at some point, they get back to Trump, they ask him more questions. Powell has left. At this point, Trump says he doesn't think he's going to. He's not going to fire Powell now because he thinks it would be too much. It would be too big of a move, too much turmoil. He says he has two or three other people in mind for the job when Powell's term ends. And then they shouted a couple other questions at him. Of course, they shout a question about Obama's treason. We heard that clip when he said that they found all sorts of documents on Obama in the imaginary search. And not a single question about Donald Trump being in the Epstein files. Not one question.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Dan, Truly insane. Like, I know no one cares about this, but this is the moment when it matters that the White House now picks handpicks, the reporters who travel with the president. Because I don't know who was in this pool. I haven't seen a list, but it appears to be either. It appears to have only been pro Trump reporters. Right. Because we know the wires or services aren't in there anymore because the AP's banned and they just got rid of all the wire services. A way to get around the AP band. We know that the Wall Street Journal is not in there because they've been banned from the press pool for the temerity to report on the president, United States. And so I assume that because all the questions were all friendly and there was, like, a whole bunch of questions about the renovation, like, a lot of them. Like, did you see anything when you walked through, did you see anything that seemed overpriced?

[Jon Favreau]

Did you see any crimes?

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Yeah.

[Jon Favreau]

When you were walking with the chairman, did he happen to commit any crimes while you were walking?

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Like, how the biggest story, as you see, not just like, in politics, but in the country, is Donald Trump being in the Epstein files. He's in front of the press for an extended period of time and no one asked him about it.

[Jon Favreau]

Even I was thinking, even if you had a bunch of, like, MAGA media influencers who have been talking for years about wanting to see the Epstein files, you'd think that maybe one of them would have asked a question about it.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

That no one wants to get kicked out of the pool.

[Jon Favreau]

Well, hope they had a good time. Okay. We got a few developments on Trump's increasingly unpopular deportation regime. Two federal judges ruled on Wednesday that Kilmar, Abrego Garcia must be set free while awaiting trial on questionable, to put it generously, human smuggling charges in Tennessee. And that ICE couldn't just grab him and deport him during that time when he was free waiting trial. DHS spokesperson Trisha McLaughlin called those rulings, quote, lawless and insane before reiterating the government's position that Abrego Garcia will, quote, never walk America's streets again. His attorneys are taking that promise seriously, which is why they supported the government's request to keep their own client locked up for another 30 days. Because under the Trump regime, an immigrant like Abrego Garcia is safer in jail than on the streets where ICE can disappear him. And yet, one person the Trump regime apparently has no problem letting walk the streets is a dual Venezuelan American citizen who had been serving 30 years in prison in Venezuela for committing a brutal triple murder in Spain. This guy was one of the 10 prisoners that the Maduro regime released in Exchange for the 250 or so Venezuelan immigrants. Trump disappeared to an El Salvador prison without due process, where some now say they were tortured and abused for 125 days. Many of them had come to the US legally, had no criminal record, and were accused without evidence of being gang members. Meanwhile, the State Department has so far refused to answer questions on the whereabouts of the triple murderer we traded them for. They've only said through a Rubio statement that he's just, he's somewhere in America right now. That's all we know. So much for getting rid of the worst of the worst, huh, Dan?

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Yeah, I imagine that there is no legal basis to do anything with him other than set him free. He's not convicted of a crime in the United States. But the disparity between how Komar Berger Garcia is treated, how people walking the streets of America are treated by these massed ICE agents, and this individual just uncovers the fundamental lie at the core of Trump's immigration policy, which is it is not about crime. It's not about keeping Americans safe from criminals. It's not about getting the criminals out of here. It's about getting the immigrants out of here. Undocumented, documented, naturalized citizens. It is a, it is very clearly about trying to change the composition of what America is, to make it less diverse. It's like that is what Stephen Miller believes. That is very clear. Because if you, if, if you stand on stage and you say, we're, we're going to get all the gang members and the killers out here and then we just bring killers back while taking people who are law abiding, hard Working people who've been parts of their communities for years and disappearing them through torture prisons and to Somalia and Libya and other places around the world. It makes it very clear what this is about.

[Jon Favreau]

And also how much money, how many agents, how much time is spent going after dreamers and farm workers and people who are here legally and sometimes American citizens that could be directed towards people who have criminal records, people who've committed violent crimes, whether they are undocumented immigrants or even other immigrants or American citizens or whoever. Right. Like there is a opportunity cost to what they are doing in terms of keeping people safe. There was this whole story about how a Customs and Border Patrol officer was shot. I guess they were off duty and it was an undocumented immigrant shot them. And everyone was like, this is Eric Adams fault and Kathy Hochul and the policies of New York. But I was like, well, why was that undocumented immigrant that shot the CPB officer? Why was that person free on the streets? Why didn't she have more resources and more manpower trying to get that person? Oh, because you were shipping people without a criminal record to fucking El Salvador to a prison where they got tortured? Is that why? Because you were like running into farms to grab farm workers and their kids and send them away? Why don't you put resources where they belong and actually going after violent criminals? I don't know. That's an idea. We now are learning more about the torture and abuse in Cecot because of interviews with some of the men detained there that were just published by. There's one story in the Washington Post, one in the Atlantic. They describe being beaten and taunted by guards, denied legal counsel, forced to spend days in a cell known as the island where they were deprived of water and slept on the floor in a nearly pitch black room. Like, you know, we were talking about this this morning before on the show and it's like, I don't. It's a horrific story. There's nothing we can do about it now because it's already in the past. They are still going to ship people to third countries, deport people to third countries. So who knows if there are other sea cots in, if they're going to send people back to seacot or what if that's over? Or they're just going to now do South Sudan or wherever. But like, is there a world where the Trump administration officials responsible for this face accountability?

[Dan Pfeiffer]

I hope. I mean, everyone should read these stories, these accounts, because they are so horrifying. And the idea that our country chooses to send people to these conditions. This is not deporting people and having them end up in those conditions. We are cutting an agreement with a government to ensure that the people that we kick out of our country are tortured. That is a deal that Marco Rubio made and has defended and is proud of. And America does not have the most stellar human rights record, but we should be better than this. I would hope that the people involved in this will be held to account over the course of time, that they will be, you know, be the seen as the immoral villains that they are, that they will be pariahs in public life, that they will spend the rest of their time sort of defending themselves and explaining themselves to their children, their grandchildren, their neighbors, everyone else for what they did in this moment. Do I think they're ever going to face have any sort of accountability that measures up to what they've done here? No, I don't think that the one thing I would say, right, because it is so dark, but I just would. And there's not much solace here, but if you look at the polling, the American people reject this, and they reject it pretty strongly. Donald Trump's immigration approval rating has dropped like, 17 points since March. There was a CBS pull out this weekend that asked people specifically about how Trump was handling deportation facilities, which I think in people's minds includes CCOT. And he's 16 points underwater. Right. There are way too many people in this country who are okay with what is happening. And that should make us question a lot about who we are as a society. But it should make people feel a little tiny bit better that the majority of Americans reject this.

[Jon Favreau]

And I will also say when we started talking about this, when this started happening, there were a number, maybe most elected Democrats and others, Democratic strategists, other people were saying this is. This is another distraction. He wants us to talk about immigration. He's baiting us into this. And I get it. I get what the immigration polling was after the election. I've been critical about, you know, the Biden administration and how we handled immigration in the 2024 election, but I would just say, like, we're heading in, if we head into the midterms, Democrats should talk about this issue, not only because, as you said, it is now the politically smart thing to do. The public is on our side here, fundamentally. That's what polls should tell us, that the public is on our side. But it's also just. It's not just the morally right thing to do, it's the morally right thing to do because it is the foundation of what the country should be about, right? That this is a place where you get due process, where you are not. You are innocent until proven guilty, where you are not tortured, where you're not sent to a place to be tortured. There's one guy in the Atlantic piece from Venezuela, he was like a dj. He came here and he gets caught up by ice, and they're like, oh, you didn't complete your asylum application, and blah, blah, blah. And where would you like to be? We're going to deport you. And he's like, I want to be deported back to Venezuela. Like, my family's back there. And it sucks that I'm being deported, but that's where I want to go. All these people, all the Trump people, all of a sudden, they wanted deportations. You'd think that that's what they wanted, right? Okay, this guy was here. He didn't do it the right way, didn't finish his asylum application. Send him back to Venezuela, put him on a plane. He tells his family he's coming back to Venezuela, put him on a plane, shut the windows. Everything's dark. When the plane lands, he's in El Salvador. That's the first time he knows he's in El Salvador and he's not even in El Salvador. And set free in a country he's never been to and doesn't know he's locked up in this prison and tortured. What is the fucking legal rationale for doing that? I do not understand. I do. It seems illegal. It seems unconstitutional, and the people who perpetrated it should face legal accountability. I just. It's crazy. I just don't. I don't understand. Unfucking real Stephen Miller. Good. Good. Shit. All right. When we come back from the break, you will hear Tommy's conversation with Senator Mark Warner about the Obama accusations and what the intelligence community really found. But one quick thing before we do that. We got a new episode out of our subscription show, Inside 2025. Our friends Kate Shaw, co host of Strict Scrutiny, and Ian Bassin, head of Protect Democracy, former colleagues of ours from the White House talk about what it's really like to work in the White House counsel's office. They're great lawyers. Kate and Ian kept us all out of trouble until now that we'll all face charges of treason. They get into all the challenges government lawyers face and how Trump is shredding norms at the Department of Justice. To hear the full conversation, get bonus content and support progressive media, head to cricket.com friends or subscribe on Apple Podcasts when we come back. Senator Mark Warner, Foreign is brought to.

[Tommy Vietor]

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[Jon Favreau]

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[Dan Pfeiffer]

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[Tommy Vietor]

I'm here with Senator Mark Warner of Virginia as the vice chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee. He's been following Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard's wild claims that Barack Obama is guilty of a, quote, treasonous conspiracy. Senator, thank you. Welcome to the show.

[Unknown Speaker]

Well, thanks, Tommy. Yeah, it's a, it's a wild time, man. It's a wild time.

[Tommy Vietor]

It is very weird. So President Trump is clearly desperate to change the subject from his cover up of the Epstein files to literally anything else. That's why he's pressing the, the treason button. So that's why he accused Obama treason earlier this week. That's why they trotted out Tulsi Gabbard to the White House briefing room to claim that Obama had twisted intelligence information to say that Russia's interference in the 2016 election was designed in part to help Donald Trump win. She claims that this is proof of a treasonous conspiracy. Here's a quick clip from Gabbard's bizarre briefing Wednesday.

[Jon Favreau]

The implications of this are far reaching and have to do with the integrity of our Democratic Republic. It has to do with an outgoing president taking action to manufacture intelligence to undermine and usurp the will of the American, American people in that election and.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Launch what would be a years long.

[Jon Favreau]

Coup against the incoming president, United States Donald Trump.

[Tommy Vietor]

Senator, let's just start big picture. What's your response to Gabbard's claims there?

[Unknown Speaker]

Bullshit. I mean it's ludicrous. Remember Tommy, and you know this, but the Senate Intelligence Committee when I was vice chair, it was run by Republicans. We did a three and a half year investigation. We have people like Tom Cotton on the committee. If there had been any evidence that any of the things that Gabbard just said, you don't think the Republicans would have blown up? We had a bipartisan unanimous report that said, you know what, Russia got into some voter files but didn't mess with the vote count. But clearly they had an influence campaign. Clearly they had a preference. I mean Putin himself acknowledged in 2018.

[Tommy Vietor]

Yeah.

[Unknown Speaker]

And you know, and the irony of this hypocrisy is beyond the word. Just there's this worldwide threat hearing where all the intelligence community once a year public place out in Gabbard's own worldwide threat analysis. It still said Russia still does malign foreign influence, tries to reflect elections and you know, to try to bring out kind of like the greatest hits from the 2020 campaign. As I said, you said it's, it's desperation on trying to, you know, distract people from the Epstein files.

[Tommy Vietor]

Yeah, it's exhausting. I mean it just feels like we've done this over and over again. You know, you mentioned this, this Senate Intelligence Committee report. I mean I was reading it this morning. It's like a thousand pages long. It's comprehensive. It was developed over the course of years. Can you tell me about now Secretary of State and National Security Advisor and seven other jobs. Marco Rubio's role in putting together the Senate of the report. I Believe he was chairman of the committee during the production of some of this work. Right.

[Unknown Speaker]

Well, this had been something that, you know, originally Richard Burr was chairman.

[Tommy Vietor]

Right.

[Unknown Speaker]

He had some issues, so he had to step aside. But what we were, what was so I thought cool about the report was it was so straight down the middle, you know, when people came to get interviewed and we interviewed everybody, you know, they didn't know who was a Democrat, who was a Republican. It was researched extensively. No one has contradicted its conclusions. Clearly, there was a major influence campaign. Russia does this historically. We should not be surprised. The irony again, in many ways was that the Trump intelligence officials at that point in 2018, 2019, 2020, Paul Nakasone, you know, they set up major election monitoring groups. And because of the Trump intelligence community, we were better protected in 2020 than we were in 2016. And now Gabbard trying to bring out this whole line of hits. And Tommy has the thing that I also want to raise. A week ago, she made these accusations based upon a totally partisan, you know, Devin Nunes, the former House chair. That was bad enough. Yesterday she took a report that was so classified that in the first Trump administration, when people threatened to release it, people like Bill Barr threatened to resign because it would reveal sources and methods. And that's kind of the holy grail. We don't want folks who are working with us to get exposed. She dropped this report yesterday without any redactions. I think it surprised the heck out of the CIA because I think they were going through a redaction process. And it just shows that, that, you know, there's no regard, she has no regard for the integrity of the workforce, of the ic. And on top of that, she has no regard for our ability to work with allies around the world because who in the hell is going to work with us? This on top of the signal gate scam. And it just, this is long term damage that you can't just say, oops, we made a mistake.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Yeah.

[Tommy Vietor]

I want to ask you a little bit more about that House intel report that she dumped out yesterday in a minute. But just a little context for listeners like. So one important reform the intelligence community made after the Iraq war debacle was reports no longer just say the CIA believes X or Y, now says how confident they are in that assessment. So a low confidence assessment could be something like, you know, we, we, we have fragmentary or, you know, not fully vetted information. Whereas a high confidence assessment could be something like we believe X foreign leader thinks.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Why?

[Tommy Vietor]

Because the NSA intercepted A phone call where this person said as much. Right. So given that context, like what is the ICs in your level of confidence that Putin directed the 2016 election interference and did so in part because he wanted Trump to win?

[Unknown Speaker]

My confidence is extraordinarily high. I mean, you know, but remember, this should not be a high hurdle. Remember Donald Trump in the campaign saying, gosh, if the Russians have got the WikiLeaks stuff, leak it. If the Russians have got bad stuff on Hillary, leak it. I don't think there was we ever reached a conclusion that there was actual collusion between the two, but the idea that there was an effort and that Putin had a clear choice and had, as you know, Tommy, a long term animosity against Hillary Clinton because she'd actually spoke up for Russian Democratic reforms in the early like 2011, 2012 timeframe. So, and the irony is that factual basis of what we determined, none of my Republican colleagues have said, well, you know, I've now come to the conclusion that's not true.

[Tommy Vietor]

Right. And some of it is just so blaringly obvious. I mean, the gru, Russian intelligence, they hacked the DNC and then they dumped those emails out. Threw a carve out. They hacked a top Clinton named John Podesta. They dumped his emails out too. They gave stuff to WikiLeaks around the access Hollywood tape release to distract from that. I mean, the Senate Intel Committee report found that no single group of Americans were targeted by the IRA's social media campaigns more. That was the Russian sort of group based in St. Petersburg, Russia that did a bunch of, you know, online bots and things. They were targeting African Americans. Obviously those are the heart and soul of the Democratic Party's base. The two top performing intentionally false reports on Facebook were Pope Francis endorsement of Donald Trump for President and WikiLeaks confirmation of Hillary Clinton's sale of weapons to ISIS. I mean, it's like pretty obvious here who they wanted to win based on just that, that, that fact pattern.

[Unknown Speaker]

Remember as well they had a fake Black Lives Matter site. Subsequently they had, you know, there was the one that was kind of, I thought, almost funny. They had a site that said Tennessee Republican Party, but it was just I think 10 and instead of T E N N. And it had more followers than the actual Tennessee Republican Party's official site. So, you know, the GRU's sophisticated. They took advantage of kind of our openness. The fact that this is being re litigated at all at this point and Gabbard is making even more outrageous claims. I Mean, there's never been a Director of National Intelligence that has politicized intelligence product. Again, share with your audience. She actually had her henchmen fire some of the most senior intelligence professionals because they wouldn't bend the knee and change the report about the Venezuelan gang Trendo Agua. Now, these are a bad guy gang, the Maduro government's bad guys. But this notion that they were completely all connected, the IC told truth and then they've hired people and then she's tried to look at all of the personal chat between everybody in the IC trying out. You give up certain privacy protections if you work for the ic, but do you really want your personal chat looked at depending on how loyalty you are to Donald Trump? This has never happened before. She was like on the Charlie Kirk Turning Point convention last Sunday, trashing the workforce. We are in such uncharted grounds with her behavior that, you know, again, I don't think it, her claims got much attention since, you know, subsequently, later in the day it came out that Trump's at least in some of these EPTAN files. We don't know what, not saying it's bad, but it's, but it's, you know, the irony is this is the guy who spent his whole campaign saying we gotta disclose this stuff, and now it seems like he's, you know, trying to hide and obfuscate every way you can.

[Tommy Vietor]

Yeah. The idea of taking all these sort of classified, highly classified, like intra CIA communications where, you know, CIA officers are talking about like named assets and collection techniques and sources and methods, and then creating a database of all of that for Tulsi Gabbard, for the Russians and for the Chinese to directly target. Seems like the dumbest thing I could imagine. It's also worth noting, I mean, I keep, keep bringing this up. Yevgeny Prigozhin, the guy who ran the Wagner Group, this now deceased oligarch, because he decided to drive his tanks at Moscow, which was, you know, a bad idea in Russia. In 2022, he confirmed that Russia interfered in our elections. He said, gentlemen, we have interfered, are interfering and will interfere. He was prosecuted. He was indicted by the Trump administration in 2018. He was sanctioned by Trump's Treasury Department for his connections to this Russian tool farm and Russian interference. So the Trump administration, the first time around certainly thought that Russia was interfering. And there was really no debate over who they preferred in the election. But you mentioned this House Intelligence Committee report.

[Unknown Speaker]

Tommy, could I just add one other thing?

[Tommy Vietor]

Yeah.

[Unknown Speaker]

And this is again, some of the irony. The Trump intelligence officials the head of the nsa, Paul Nakasone, Gina Haspel, at the CIA during that time, you know, they worked very aggressively so that we had a more secure system and in 2020, so. And they knew and fully acknowledged what the Russians had done. And anyone. Do you remember this? Again, a blast from the past. But this guy, Chris Krebs, who ran the Cyber Information Assistance, the Cyber Information Security Agency, literally got fired because he told the truth that our election was secure in 2020. So again, relitigating this now and trying to blame Obama, I thought I could see new lows, but it's pretty wild. But let's go back to the report. Sorry.

[Tommy Vietor]

Yeah, no, I mean, there is this House Intel Committee report. I think it was written by now FBI Director Kash Patel back in what, 2017 or something. What is this report? How does it differ from the Senate report you worked on?

[Unknown Speaker]

Well, what happened was the House Intelligence Committee was the Democrats and Republicans didn't even talk to each other during that time. And there was a guy, Devin Nunes, who was the chair, he now runs one of Trump's business operations. And there was no attempt for any kind of unbiased. They literally went out and cherry picked individual items. The report had no credibility. But what they also did that was so dangerous. And since the report is out, you know, they, they literally with names redacted, but still quotes of information that if you were that GRU or fsb, the Russia's got a variety of intelligence, you could look back and say, well, who would know that conversation? And you could have people's lives in jeopardy. I mean, this is so beyond the pale. And the proof point of that was they tried to release this report at the end of the first Trump administration and everybody pushed back to the point that people threatened to resign. And now with no forewarning or effort to kind of redact and protect those sources and methods, she dropped this like a bomb yesterday. And the amazing thing is, I guess people are so jaded that it's not gotten the attention I thought it would get. I have tried to guilt my Republican colleagues on the Indel Committee. Like, how much more of this stuff are we going to put up with before we say this has nothing to do with partisanship? It has to do with the fact that we've gotta protect the men and women who work for us in the intelligence community and those countries around the world that share info with us.

[Tommy Vietor]

So is your concern that by releasing this report, the FSB or the GRU could target individuals who in the past provided the United States intelligence about Russian government thinking or could go after ongoing operations.

[Unknown Speaker]

I'm not. I actually believe that the reasons for classifications, and I'm gonna talk about that, but I am gonna say, this was such a dangerous report. Trump officials in the first administration threatened to resign if it came out.

[Tommy Vietor]

Fair enough.

[Unknown Speaker]

And I think this is a clear violation of what we call sources and methods. And you can explain that to the audience, which does mean, at the end of the day, yeah. People's lives could be in jail.

[Tommy Vietor]

Yeah. So Tulsi Gabbard. Tulsi, she's an odd duck. Before she got the job, I sincerely believe she was motivated by trying to keep the United States out of wars in the Middle east because of her service in Iraq and her experience there, and also concern about the United States intelligence community being weaponized or politicized. Now, whether that was true or not, I do think it was something she talked about a lot since this time, since getting the job. She's now let Trump ignore her claim that Iran had not decided to get a nuclear weapon and then, you know, contorted her views to fit what Trump wanted to do. And now she's clearly weaponizing the intelligence community to punish Trump's enemies and help distract from the Epstein story. What are the implications of her actions to the ic, but also just like the United States.

[Unknown Speaker]

Yeah. Well, remember, Tom, this is like, imagine you're a senior spy at the CIA. Remember the whole way that Trump came in and those first few weeks, could you imagine if you've been doing that job for 30 years and you suddenly said, we got a new president, and here's the plan. Russia's our friend, and Canada. Canada is the enemy. You go, that's wackadoodle. But that's where they came from. And what happens. We hear almost daily from the intelligence community about morale being low, the number of people that have taken buyouts that you can't replace overnight. And I just really worry as well. The signal gate, the Israelis were saying, we don't want you having that kind of secret information. And yesterday the word came out that Hegsef got the information from a secret document.

[Tommy Vietor]

Obviously surprised at all, Right? Yeah.

[Unknown Speaker]

But it makes people say, I'm going to think twice before I share information. There's no official agreement where countries sign a document that we're going to share intel. It's based on trust. And I've had leaders of some of our biggest allies in the intelligence world say, warner, what's going on? These people getting fired. I worry I have no Evidence of this, Let me be clear. But I worry that we might not get intelligence shared. And now with this dropping of this report yesterday in the business, people's heads are exploding and we will never know that. This is like a unknowable fact, though. If somebody doesn't share with you, you don't know. There's not a way you can trace that. But I have heard huge concerns. That is the kind of thing that say we made a mistake. You still burn trust. And that's ultimately the coin of the realm in intelligence.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Yeah.

[Tommy Vietor]

And they're burning it fast. I mean, to your point, you. The Washington Post reported yesterday that the Defense Department's inspector general now has evidence that the information disseminated by Pete Hegseth in those signal chats, which is a commercial app, it's not appropriate for classified information, was clearly marked as classified. It was a designation called secret no foreign, which is the secret level of classification, and it cannot be shared with foreigners. Hegseth the Pentagon, they've denied this many times, but it was obvious to anyone who's ever worked with the Pentagon or seen sort of like military planning operations that those are always classified at the secret level. Especially if it's prospective. It's happening in the future. What does accountability look like?

[Unknown Speaker]

I just had one thing there too, Tommy.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Yeah.

[Unknown Speaker]

What was wild was. And Gabbard was on that call as well. Gabbard was actually in a foreign country and didn't go to a scif.

[Tommy Vietor]

Amazing.

[Unknown Speaker]

Which is a secure place. You could make a call. But I've challenged her. And Hegseth, you don't believe this was important information, Come down to Norfolk or Virginia Beach. I've done town halls down there. And, you know, 20% of the audience either knew someone or had a family member that was on the USS Truman. The Truman's ported. That's the aircraft carrier that launched the attack against the Houthis and it's home ported in Norfolk. I said, come and explain to those friends and family that this didn't put their loved ones in harm's way. People were, you know, I've seen folks pissed before, but this was a level of anger from people that I think had been traditional, you know, Republican supporters.

[Tommy Vietor]

Yeah. Last question for you. So Tulsi Gabbard, the last question of her little press briefing was she was asked whether she is aware of any connections between Jeffrey Epstein and U.S. intelligence or any foreign intelligence agencies. She said, quote, I haven't seen any evidence or information that reflects that, end quote. That struck me as odd because or odd phrasing, because Tulsi is one of the few people in the world who has access to information that would allow her to say definitively yes or definitively no, especially when it comes to connections to US Intelligence like the CIA. I'm not sure if you've seen this, but it is taken as an article of faith in the kind of MAGA media world that Epstein was running a blackmail operation either for the CIA or more likely for the Mossad, or maybe both. Do you know anything about reporting about potential Epstein ties to US Intelligence or Israeli intelligence?

[Unknown Speaker]

I do not, but I've heard those rumors and you would have thought as the Director of National Intelligence, since she was coming up, she must have known she was going to get asked that question. And you are right, she could ask the question and get a response quicker than I could. And even I'm viewed as Gang of eight, which is supposed to get all the information because that's the speaker and the ranking members and the intel chair and vice chairs. But yeah, it was again, odd in my mind too that she kind of seemed to punt on that.

[Tommy Vietor]

Yeah, very odd. Well, Senator, thank you so much for helping us try to debunk this thing. Like trying to explain to sort of friends and acquaintances why what Trump is saying and what Tulsi is alleging doesn't make sense. Because it's just, it's so absurd. You know, it's like their allegation is like, aha, here's intelligence that says the Russians didn't hack and change vote totals. And then you're like, what? But Obama never said that. The White House, none of us ever said that. No one said that.

[Unknown Speaker]

But the thing, and I know that what kind of gets lost in all this and with the information coming out that Trump is somewhere named and we don't know what that means. But the part that's making me a little crazy is again, this kind of dropping classified information without regard to the consequences, disrespecting the workforce. Thirteen years ago, 14 years ago, I didn't know that much about the intelligence community, but man, I've come to really believe that they are non political patriots. They just want to try to do the right thing. And we know when we try to cook the books, that's how we got into a rock. So I'm going to stay at it and I hope you will as well. But thanks so much for having me on.

[Tommy Vietor]

Thank you so much for joining the show.

[Jon Favreau]

That's our show for today. Thanks to Senator Warner for coming on. If you want to Watch the full interview. It's up on the Pod Save the World YouTube channel. And while you're there, please subscribe, if you haven't already. Also subscribe to the pod save America YouTube channel. We've all been talking about this chart all week of the YouTube channels that saw the fastest growth. Fucking Benny Johnson at the top of the list, exponentially more than the next one. That is absurd. You know, when people search for news and information about politics or news or anything else, we want good information from places like Crooked Media to come up and not places like fucking Benny Johnson and Daily Wire and all the rest. So go subscribe to Pod Save America YouTube channel. Subscribe to Pod Save the World YouTube channel. Subscribe to the offline channel. It'll take you 5 seconds to go do that. And it's free, so please do that. Tommy will be back in the feed on Sunday with CNN media reporter Brian Stelter to talk about Trump's attacks on the media, the Late show getting canceled, and lots more. Talk to everybody soon. Have a good weekend.

[Unknown Speaker]

Bye, everyone.

[Jon Favreau]

If you want to listen to Pod Save America ad free or get access to our subscriber discord and exclusive podcasts, consider joining our Friends of the pod [e-mail] friends or subscribe on Apple Podcasts directly from the Pod Save America feed. Also, please consider leaving us a review to help boost this episode and everything we do here at Crooked. Pod Save America is a Crooked Media production. Our producers are David Toledo, Emma Illich Frank and 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 Groot is our our head of production. Naomi Sengel is our executive assistant. Thanks to our digital team, Elijah Cohn, Hayley Jones, Ben Hefcoat, Mia Kelman, Kiril Pelavie, David Toles and Ryan Young. Our production staff is proudly unionized with the Writers Guild of America East. What does possibility mean to you? Um, that's a hard question. Something that you can strive for. I'm able to do anything I set my mind to. You're confident in yourself and you believe in yourself.

[Tommy Vietor]

Stuff that you could achieve.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

I feel it's Sarah, Anything is possible.

[Jon Favreau]

When you're more confident. Shoes are a huge part of that. They are the most important part of my style. You can, like, express yourself in the right shoes. Anything is possible. Dsw, countless shoes at bragworthy prices.

[Tommy Vietor]

Imagine the possibilities. The world is on the brink. Wars, contentious elections, disinformation spreading at warp.

[Unknown Speaker]

Speed, and Donald Trump at the center.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Of all of it.

[Jon Favreau]

But what does it mean for the rest of us? Every week on Pod Save the World.

[Tommy Vietor]

Tommy Vitor and I cut through the.

[Unknown Speaker]

Noise to explain how global power is shifting. No jargon, no homework, just clear, honest conversations about what's happening and why it matters. From breaking news to long, simmering international conflicts, we dissect it all with critical.

[Jon Favreau]

Analysis and some jokes that will surely.

[Unknown Speaker]

Embarrass our children one day.

[Jon Favreau]

Tune in to Pod Save the World.

[Unknown Speaker]

Every Wednesday, wherever you get your podcasts or catch it on YouTube.