Did Trump Blow It on the Epstein Files?

Summary

Pod Save America – Episode Summary

Episode: Did Trump Blow It on the Epstein Files?

Date: November 18, 2025
Hosts: Jon Favreau, Jon Lovett, Tommy Vietor
Guest Interview: Rep. Ro Khanna

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Overview

This episode centers on the dramatic political shift around the “Epstein files”—the government documents related to Jeffrey Epstein’s criminal activities and connections. With bipartisan momentum, a House bill to mandate the public release of these files surprisingly gained Donald Trump’s endorsement, following days of resistance and political maneuvering. The hosts break down what motivated Trump's sudden flip-flop, the implications for his standing among Republicans, and the broader ramifications for party politics and accountability. Additional topics include the Marjorie Taylor Greene-Trump rift, MAGA schisms over white nationalist platforms, and tactical debates on affordability and healthcare.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Trump’s Flip-Flop on Epstein Files (02:30–11:37)

• The episode opens with the hosts dissecting Trump’s abrupt reversal on the House bill forcing the release of the Epstein files.
• Political Context: Trump had previously pressured Republicans, including personal interventions with figures like Lauren Boebert, to oppose the bill.
• Sunday Night Pivot: Trump switches to encourage Republicans to support the release, posting emphatically that the House Oversight Committee can have whatever they’re “legally entitled to.”
• Host Analysis:
  • Lovett: “He can either be in front of the horses or under them.” (06:07)
  • Favreau: Points out the contradiction of Trump supporting legislation to force him to do something he could do unilaterally.
  • Tommy: Notes possible smokescreens in Trump’s order to investigate Democrats, thereby justifying hiding or redacting certain files.
• Potential Outcomes: Discussion of possible DOJ stonewalling, using ongoing investigations as pretexts, and the reality that Trump's DOJ may simply not comply fully.
• Quote (Lovett): “Trump is not a rational actor…we don’t really know the value of what he’s trying to hide…is it about not wanting to be embarrassed?”

2. Marjorie Taylor Greene’s “Resistance” and Republican Fractures (13:38–24:27)

• Trump and MTG’s Fallout: Trump withdraws support from Marjorie Taylor Greene (MTG), accuses her of constant complaints, and possibly signals support for a primary challenge.
• MTG’s Response: MTG claims the Epstein files controversy and her urging Trump to support release is at the heart of their rift. She posts about political toxicity and apologizes for past rhetoric on CNN.
• MTG on TV:
  • MTG (14:53): “I would like to say humbly, I’m sorry for taking part in the toxic politics. It’s very bad for our country.”
• Hosts’ Debate:
  • Question the sincerity and political calculation behind MTG’s apparent pivot.
  • Lovett: Argues that while there’s genuine change, media should be wary of “strange new respect.”
  • Favreau: “I’m choosing to hope it’s sincere… if it is, perhaps she’s open to hearing the case for supporting other Democratic policies.”
  • Tommy: Suggests attention economy encourages MTG’s new “caring” style; says she’s “sort of out of fucks to give and she’s saying what she thinks.”
• Underlying Theme: MTG’s break is emblematic of wider MAGA jostling and Trump’s slipping grasp over his party.

3. Republican Defections and Lame Duck Trump (25:10–33:47)

• Thomas Massie’s Warning: On ABC, he notes Trump “won’t be around forever” and calls on Republicans to consider future accountability.
  • Massie (25:39): “Donald Trump can protect you in red districts now, but in 2030…he’s not going to be President, and you will have voted to protect pedophiles.”
• Discussion:
  • Trump’s intimidation power waning as Republicans see less risk in breaking ranks and more political risk in being on the wrong side of accountability votes.
  • Lovett: “These guys aren’t long term thinkers. This is a little bit of wishful thinking.”
  • Possibility of further defections if Dems do well in midterms and as Trump’s shelf life as kingmaker ends.
  • Noted incident of Trump making personally cruel attacks on Rep. Massie.

4. Right-Wing Media Feuds & Platforming Extremists (35:21–44:36)

• Discussion about Tucker Carlson’s softball interview with Nick Fuentes (white nationalist), Trump’s noncommittal defense of Tucker, and MAGA’s ongoing flirtation with extremists.
  • Trump (35:40): “If he wants to interview Nick Fuentes, I don’t know much about him, but if he wants to do it, let him.”
  • Hosts express concern over Trump’s unwillingness to repudiate the far right, referencing his behavior after Charlottesville.
  • Tommy: Points out Fuentes’ critique of hypocrisy in MAGA—being okay with extreme Islamophobia but drawing a line at antisemitism.
  • Discussion: What this split means for the future of the right post-Trump, with speculation about Tucker Carlson, JD Vance, and Ted Cruz positioning for 2028.

5. Affordability, Messaging, and Tariffs (44:42–51:08)

• Affordability Week: Trump administration touted elimination of food tariffs in a bid to blunt cost of living criticism.
• Host reactions:
  • Lampooned administration’s hapless economic team for laughable messaging (“quiet time” in the labor market, misleading stats).
  • Tommy: “The best case scenario is that no one sees that [Kevin Hassett interview].”
• Policy Constraints:
  • Tariff dividend checks floated but logistically complicated (need for congressional approval, deficit constraints).
  • Even a one-time payment unlikely to address deep voter anger about persistent inflation and high prices.

6. Healthcare—ACA Subsidies Cliff (53:00–58:11)

• ACA (“Obamacare”) subsidies set to expire; Dems want an extension, GOP floats convoluted healthcare savings account alternative.
• Lovett: Skewers the rushed, unserious whiteboard sessions for GOP health policy—“This is the most college term paper all-nighter bullshit.”
• Tommy: Warns GOP proposal would “send insurance market into a death spiral” and increase the uninsured.
• Favreau: Sees internal contradiction and bad politics—GOP can neither pass their proposal nor defend voting down the subsidies.

7. Viral “Epstein Email” and Internet Culture (58:11–63:45)

• The now-viral “Does Putin have the photo of Trump blowing Bubba?” email from Epstein’s brother and the resulting internet storm.
• Discussion of how satirical memes (“throtus,” AI images, SNL cold open) broke through the news cycle.
• Lovett: Admits he was “a low information voter” on the joke, leading to extended riffing on online political culture.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• Lovett (06:07): “He can either be in front of the horses or under them.” (On Trump’s flip-flop)
• Trump (04:36): “We have nothing to do with Epstein. The Democrats do…All his friends were Democrats…”
• MTG (14:53): “I would like to say humbly, I’m sorry for taking part in the toxic politics. It’s very bad for our country.”
• Thomas Massie (25:39): “Trump can protect you...now, but in 2030...he’s not going to be President and you will have voted to protect pedophiles.”
• Lovett (55:46): “This is the most college term paper all-nighter bullshit. Like, no, you’re not gonna fundamentally fix the healthcare system by rushing through something in six weeks.”
• Tommy (48:30): “The best case is no one sees that interview, first of all…” (Referring to poor economic messaging)
• Jon Favreau (22:13): “She fell into politics and then fell down a rabbit hole with QAnon…and who knows, maybe she’s still at the beginning of her journey out of the rabbit hole.”

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Key Timestamps

• Trump’s Epstein file reversal and implications: 02:30–11:37
• MTG’s Trump rift & rehabilitation attempt: 13:38–24:27
• Republican fractures/defections and Massie’s warning: 25:10–33:47
• MAGA feuds, Fuentes & alt-right platforming: 35:21–44:36
• Trump administration’s economic messaging woes: 44:42–51:08
• Healthcare subsidies cliff and GOP muddling: 53:00–58:11
• Memes, SNL, and the viral “Epstein email”: 58:11–63:45
• Tommy Vietor’s Interview with Rep. Ro Khanna: 66:58–90:10

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Interview Segment: Rep. Ro Khanna on the Epstein Files (66:58–90:10)

Main Points:

• Bipartisan coalition: Ro Khanna and Thomas Massie gathered enough signatures for a discharge petition, forcing a House vote for release of Epstein files.
• Trump’s calculation: Trump “caved and surrendered” because he saw he’d lose a House vote—Khanna: “He saw the writing on the wall.” (68:09)
• Procedural Details: House vote scheduled; Khanna expects swift Senate action as well.
• Potential DOJ stalling: Khanna warns Trump’s “investigations” into Democrats could be pretexts to withhold documents.
• Broader significance: The coalition for release crossed MAGA/progressive lines, reflecting Trump’s loosening grip on the GOP.
• On Trump attacking Massie: “It just was sad...his style has gotten better. She’s dressing well. He was devastated after his wife’s loss...” (Khanna joking about Massie but condemning Trump’s personal cruelty).
• On wider implications: Khanna: “This is a huge blow to [Trump] that you had people willing to sign a discharge petition against his wishes.”
• Foreign policy segment: Khanna criticizes administration escalation toward Venezuela, extrajudicial killings around alleged drug trafficking, and human rights concerns in Saudi policy and Sudan.

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Conclusion

This episode masterfully tracks a week of chaos, contradiction, and cracks within the GOP as Trump’s unique blend of authoritarianism, paranoia, and political calculation runs into the pragmatic self-preservation of congressional Republicans. Through humor and sharp analysis, the hosts lay bare how bipartisan demands for accountability on the Epstein files became a stress test for Trump’s power, with wider spillover into party leadership, style, and substance. The guest interview with Rep. Ro Khanna underscores the rare moment of “strange bedfellows” bipartisanship while warning not to underestimate the capacity for stonewalling or renewed cruelty.

If you missed listening, this summary will bring you up to speed on all key developments and colorful moments.

Transcript

[Jon Favreau]

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[Tommy Vietor]

Has life in Jews in North America changed forever? Consider this. Anti Jewish hatred in supposedly tolerant and diverse Canada is off the charts. Statistically, a Jew in Canada is now nine times more likely to be a victim of a hate crime than a Jew in the United States. How did this happen in a country known for politeness, diversity and social democracy? Is there something wrong with how hate is being measured? Is anti Zionism being misclassified as anti Semitism? Journalist Jesse Brown was targeted by activists in his journalistic community for reporting on anti Semitism and almost lost his company in the fallout. Now he's diving deep into the subject, traveling across Canada and speaking with Jews, anti Zionist activists, high profile public figures, all of whom have seen their lives changed since October 7, 2023. What is happening here is a raw, thorough and honest examination of a welcoming, vibrant society seized by a sudden crisis of hate. Listen to what is Happening here from Canada. Land investigates wherever you get your pod.

[Jon Favreau]

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

[Jon Lovett]

I'm Jon Levitt.

[Tommy Vietor]

Tommy Vitor.

[Jon Favreau]

On today's show, guess what? Trump actually wants to release the Epstein files. Always has. We'll talk about why the change of heart and what happens next. We also love Marjorie Taylor Greene now. Always have.

[Jon Lovett]

Sure.

[Jon Favreau]

We'll get into why she's apologizing for things she said in the past and the lane she's opening for herself as the leader who can bring this divided country together. Not a joke, folks. Not a joke. Also, Trump wades into the Tucker Carlson Nick Fuentes platforming debate. His affordability pivot may involve destroying Obamacare. And finally, we'll unpack the most viral Epstein email yet and why. Love it. Should find it funny.

[Jon Lovett]

Oh, okay.

[Tommy Vietor]

That's the frame straight.

[Jon Lovett]

Can't wait to find out.

[Jon Favreau]

Then you'll hear Tommy's interview with Representative Ro Khanna about his effort to find fight for the release of the Epstein files. But. But let's start with this week's big vote on a bill to force the Justice Department to release the Epstein files, which won a surprise endorsement Sunday night from the dog that didn't bark himself, Donald Trump. Uh, it was one of the more abrupt and dramatic flip flops, even for Trump. Uh, it was just a few days ago that he demanded, quote, no Republican defections and sat Lauren Boebert down in the sit room with Pam Bondi and Cash Patel in an unsuccessful attempt to. To convince her to oppose the release of the Epstein files. As you all know, the discharge petition succeeded, and the House is scheduled to vote on the underlying bill on Tuesday. Maybe as you're listening to this, potentially with a lot of Republican support, if not unanimous Republican support at this point, which is probably why on Sunday night, Trump posted that House Republicans should vote to release the Epstein files and that, quote, the House Oversight Committee can have whatever they're legally entitled to. All caps. I don't care. Trump also mentioned in that post his new order directing the Justice Department to investigate Epstein's ties to Bill Clinton and other Democrats. He then took this messaging out for a spin in the Oval on Monday. When asked whether he would sign the Epstein files bill when and if it comes to his desk. Let's take a listen.

[Tommy Vietor]

Do you want to see that pass the Senate?

[Jon Lovett]

Would you sign that bill if it.

[Tommy Vietor]

Gets to your desk?

[Donald Trump]

I do want to. Here's what I want. We have nothing to do with Epstein. The Democrats do. All of his friends were Democrats you look at this Reid Hoffman. You look at Larry Summers, Bill Clinton. They went to his island all the time. And many others. They're all Democrats. All I want is. I want for people to recognize a great job that I've done on pricing, on affordability, because we brought prices way down, but they're going to way lower. I believe that many of the people that we. Some of the people that we mentioned are being looked at very seriously for their relationship to Jeffrey Epstein. But they were with him all the time. I wasn't. I wasn't at all. And we'll see what happens. What I just don't want Epstein to do is detract from the great success of the Republican Party.

[Tommy Vietor]

Got a little frog in his throat.

[Jon Favreau]

Mm.

[Tommy Vietor]

Maybe a bill.

[Jon Lovett]

Oh, wonder if that'll come up.

[Jon Favreau]

Later, someone asked him why he had a frog in his throat and why he lost his voice. And he said, because he blew his stack at someone over a trade deal.

[Jon Lovett]

Yeah. It's very much John Edwards trying too hard, caring too much.

[Tommy Vietor]

I just care too much. It's my biggest weakness.

[Jon Lovett]

I was yelling too much about America First.

[Tommy Vietor]

That's really funny.

[Jon Favreau]

So what happened there, guys? You know, I know that Republicans were more. Republicans were saying they were gonna vote no and the discharge petition passed, but he knew the math for the last several days. What do you think happened?

[Jon Lovett]

Yeah, I think this parade was gonna happen. He can either be in front of the horses or under them.

[Jon Favreau]

Yep, yep.

[Tommy Vietor]

Train's coming, run over. You get in front of it and you call it a parade, right?

[Jon Lovett]

That's right. The other. The thing that there's a contradiction at the heart of this, which is this is a bill to force him to do something. So it doesn't really make sense to be in favor of this bill. And. And so he's now says he's fine with Congress approving a bill to force him to do something he could do today if he wants to right now.

[Jon Favreau]

And not do on the other side of it.

[Tommy Vietor]

That's the problem.

[Jon Favreau]

I mean, what do you think happens from here now that he's ostensibly in favor of this again? It could, like Troy Nels, who's one of the House Republicans, who just the other day was like, absolutely not, and tweeting like, whatever you need. Donald Trump. Now he's like, oh, I'm a yes. And I think we're. And then some other one was predicting, like, 100% of Republicans now vote for it. Yeah.

[Tommy Vietor]

I mean, I talked to Ro Khanna about this. You'll hear later in the show, I mean, it sounds like Roe thought that he had like 40 or 50 votes. Now it seems like everyone has a free pass to be for this bill. And now we actually might see a vote on it in the Senate, which initially John Thune had said he wouldn't do. And then I guess Donald Trump could veto it. That would make it spicy. But the problem is, I mean, like, we're hearing this kind of curious and half hearted rhetorical support for a thing he could just do tomorrow, as you mentioned there. But I think we all need to worry about the many ways that his goons could prevent the actual release of relevant documents, including especially anything that implicates Trump's. Since we know the FBI did like a control F for Trump with all these documents and has seemingly suppressed those.

[Jon Lovett]

It's confusing. A, Trump is not a rational actor. He's not behaving in a rational way and how he's been handling this. And B, we don't really know the value of what he's trying to hide and what parts of it he's trying to prevent the release of. So one way this goes is sometime in the next few days, either before the House can vote or after, is they promise some kind of release to make the vote moot so that it could die in the Senate. And he's able to claim he's fulfilling whatever the brief is of this law without actually doing it. The other part of this is he's talking about opening up investigations. The the law is very short, but has two parts to it. One is you have to release the information to the public, except for private personal information about victims and anything pertaining to an ongoing investigation. They could use this to use an ongoing investigation to stop a bunch of this from being released. But the other part of the law would release information to Congress and doesn't have that caveat, including a list of names of people involved. But I do think we're at the point where we've gotten a lot of the names. And so now is it about. It's about whatever other details and information and materials are part of whatever we're calling the Epstein files, whatever that may be.

[Jon Favreau]

Yeah, I think the smarter move here would have been to be for this all along and then just stonewall the release or withhold whatever they wanted to withhold. I mean, the core problem in getting the Justice Department to release the Epstein files was never necessarily a vote in Congress. It's the fact that the Justice Department under Donald Trump is deeply corrupt, and so is Donald Trump. So who are we to think that just because there is a vote in Congress to force the administration to do something, that they would just honor their word and release the Epstein files as they are charging people with all kinds of crimes that are just fucking made up.

[Tommy Vietor]

Thomas Massie, the Republican who sponsored this original bill with Ro Khanna, said this could be a smokescreen announcing Trump got on Truth Social. He told Pam Bondi to start investigations into Bill Clinton and all these other Democrats. And that could be the pretext to withhold a bunch of documents.

[Jon Favreau]

We just don't know one more thing on the counter investigation that he ordered into Democrats. What the hell is that? Do they really want us to believe that? So Pam Bondi originally, remember with the binders that she made for the kooks, she gave him the binders and she said, oh, I'm the whatever. And then when everyone found out that there was nothing in there, and then she decided there was not gonna be an investigation, what she really said was, we've done an investigation into all the Epstein files. There's no reason for charging anyone. All it's all over. It's in the past. We're all done. Now they expect us to believe that there's something new to look at between his ties with, on his ties to Democrats that like they didn't know before. So now they're just going to redo the old investigation.

[Tommy Vietor]

And ironically, one of the things that came out in this House Oversight Committee tranche of emails was Jeffrey Epstein saying that Bill Clinton had never been to the island, which undercut Donald Trump's suggestion here.

[Jon Lovett]

Also, Trump is under the impression that Democrats think about Democrats the way Republicans think about Trump. Like we go after, you know, investigating Democrats as part of this would be fine. Yeah, go for it, go for it.

[Jon Favreau]

Yeah, it would be. But it's not. Back to the corrupt point.

[Jon Lovett]

No, no, I'm not. Of course that's not what this is. So the idea that like, oh, no, Bill Clinton's involved is going to stop Democrats from caring. This has never been true. Yes, they're going to use this to go after and smear people. Especially because you've seen some people like Reid Hoffman said, like, release them, release the information.

[Jon Favreau]

Yeah, I mean, the range of what we could get from the Justice Department with regard to this investigation is anything from like made up charges and investigations into or made up charges for Democrats involved somehow or. But like the idea that Donald Trump is ever going to allow his Justice Department to release anything that is incriminating or even in the least embarrassing to him. In the Epstein files strikes me as a bit fanciful, but that's what, that's.

[Jon Lovett]

What I mean about him not being a rational actor. Then why are you going to all this trouble?

[Jon Favreau]

Yeah, I think his original position was stupid.

[Jon Lovett]

Yeah.

[Jon Favreau]

Like, and he's finally belatedly come around to the smarter position.

[Jon Lovett]

Buttonholing Lauren Boebert in the. In the White House, alienating her, losing more Republicans along the way. Like, it doesn't really make sense.

[Jon Favreau]

Yeah. Well, it also speaks to the fact that, like, you know, is he covering up something real or isn't he? And just sort of flailing about because he doesn't like to be embarrassed and he doesn't like any kind of negative attention. Sort of, you know, one for that category because, like, it's possible he was trying to strong arm Boebert and MTG and all the other ones because he just. He just didn't want to lose a vote and he just didn't want to be embarrassed and he just doesn't want any pressure on this and he doesn't want the bad headlines.

[Jon Lovett]

Who knows? Tim? One argument on the other side of this as to why he's right to be afraid of what happens when it gets to the Justice Department. According to this law, even though it is now controlled by stooges and goons. We are seeing leaks about what's happening with Kash Patel. There is information coming out that is not helpful to the regime. It's not a fully controlled Department of Justice or FBI.

[Jon Favreau]

You can go to court, people can go to court. And then I guess another good scenario for Trump is maybe bad things do come out, but like, it drags on and a court process and lawsuits for a long time and they don't have to worry about it for a while. But we'll see. Latest Epstein drama has also led to Trump's biggest MAGA breakup since Elon Marjorie Taylor Greene not getting an invite to any of the White House holiday parties this year, or maybe, maybe ever. On Friday night, Trump announced that he was withdrawing his support of MTG and will potentially back a primary challenge to the Georgia representative because, as he wrote, quote, all I see wacky Marjorie do is complain, complain, complain. Trump claimed MTG was pissed he told her not to run for Senate and angry he wouldn't return her calls anymore. Writing that with so many politicians and world leaders to talk to every day, quote, in an otherwise normal life to lead, I can't take a ranting lunatics call every day an otherwise normal life to lead us.

[Jon Lovett]

Very, very.

[Tommy Vietor]

It's very long.

[Ro Khanna]

I love it.

[Jon Favreau]

Marge countered by posting that it was actually the Epstein files that caused the break with Trump and shared texts she sent him on Friday or urging the president to support the release of the files. She later posted that a result of Trump attacking her, she's been getting death threats and also wrote about how, quote, the political industrial complex tells us to hate each other, fundraises off why we have to hate each other, and pits Americans against each other to the point of violence and nearing civil war. This is also wrong. I believe in the American people more than I believe in any leader or political party. And the American people deserve so much better than how they've been treated by both sides of the aisle. That is from one Marjorie Taylor Greene.

[Tommy Vietor]

The battle helm in the republic behind.

[Jon Lovett]

That, even though slogan in there that was America First, America only, which I actually thought was just like a smart way to summarize what she's doing. Like, I was like, this is just. It's just so interesting. Anyway, go on.

[Jon Favreau]

So Marge went on CNN State of the Union on Sunday morning to elaborate on all this, where she did something almost no one does in politics anymore.

[Tommy Vietor]

Let's listen.

[Jon Lovett]

We have seen these kinds of attacks or criticism from the president at other people. It's not new. And with respect, I haven't heard you speak out about it until it was directed at you, Dana.

[Jon Favreau]

I think that's fair criticism.

[Jon Lovett]

And I would like to say humbly, I'm sorry for taking part in the toxic politics.

[Jon Favreau]

It's very bad for our country. I am going, I am committed, and.

[Jon Lovett]

I've been working on this a lot lately to put down the knives in politics. I really just want to see people.

[Jon Favreau]

Be kind to one another. And we need to figure out a new path forward. What do you guys think about Marjorie Taylor Greene's decision to join the resistance?

[Tommy Vietor]

I mean, I think I believe her when she says she met with Epstein's victims. It moved her. She was moved by those conversations. I mean, she was someone who dabbled famously in QAnon, which was a crazy conspiracy theory. But at its root, it was supposed to be about disclosing a powerful cabal of people that set up a pedophile ring. It turns out that's exactly what Jeffrey Epstein did. I also think that she, she is frustrated by Trump, like, not living up to the MAGA that she thought she was voting for. And that is, you know, it's sort of what you were just the summary like with America only she wants the more isolationist version of MAGA. She has been mad about US support for Ukraine. She's mad about US military to Israel. She's angry about H1B visas, Trump's Argentina bank bailout. She's been talking about that. She's talked about one of the many conservatives mad about Chinese students being allowed to attend Schools in the U.S. regime change wars with Venezuela. She's been pretty consistent there. And at the same time, I also buy Trump's claim that Marjorie Taylor Greene is mad that she didn't get his endorsement in governor's primary or Senate primary or whatever she wants to run for. Like, she feels like she was all in for Trump at his lowest moment and maybe he slighted her. But I mean, like, bigger picture. I tend to think she is sincere. Like, I think she's a random lady in Georgia who found her way into Congress and along the way has mostly said what she thinks, usually for worse for herself. And often that is like, why are we bombing the Houthis? No one in my district knows what a Houthi is. You know, shit like that. But I do think, you know, the. The place in that interview where she, I think, fell short was when Dana started pushing her on her relationship with Nick Fuentes. And she didn't. The apology tour didn't really extend to that, which I thought was notable.

[Jon Lovett]

Yeah. So I take like the America First, America only to be about being in favor of America first, but not a party that is beholden to Trump, which is, I think, what makes it interesting to me. Like, America only, not Trump, just America. So Yair Rosenberg in the Atlantic wrote up some open questions for mtg, and I found it useful, both because they're good questions, but also it was sort of a bracing bit of cold water about all the different ways in which he's embraced some of the most violent fringe ideas in politics. MTG posted this about jfk, and I quote, there was once a great president that the American people loved. He opposed Israel's nuclear program and then he was assassinated. That is from June of this year. That is five months ago. So I am like, that's the thing.

[Tommy Vietor]

You'Ll hear from the Tucker corners of the world too.

[Jon Favreau]

So she does like, anyone look into it.

[Jon Lovett]

So listen, I just asked. Yeah, so, yeah, like, did Israel kill jfk? Honestly, I just learned about this conspiracy theory from mtg, but apparently it's floating around. So, like, I was.

[Jon Favreau]

If you're watching this on YouTube, the algorithm will now feed you some interesting stuff. Cool.

[Tommy Vietor]

Yeah, there's two.

[Jon Lovett]

Two doors before you. But. So like, we talked about this A bit last week. So. So Marjorie Taylor Greene just starts showing up different. She hadn't yet really done the work of acknowledging some of the.

[Jon Favreau]

Is it really her?

[Jon Lovett]

Well, that's the other one thing, right. Could this be a Dave situation? For sure, we don't know. But I do think that like, okay, we just can't be cheap dates. Like we can, we can be open to this. But, but she has a lot of, there's a lot of ways in which we need to understand how she came to this. Like all politicians are a mix of conviction and calculus. Clearly some of this is ego and sort of ambition. I do view this as someone who is a sincere creation of her self selecting media diet from both before she was in Congress and after. But she has been in the public eye and a well known figure with access to a great deal of not just public information, but private information as a member of Congress. And she has held pretty heinous and despicable views into the last few weeks. We don't know what views have changed. So I feel like there's still, I want us to just be avoid what used to be called strange new respect, which is whenever a Republican would start to move towards the middle, suddenly the media would sort of embrace them in their growth. And I want us to be able to see someone like this change, especially because I agree with you, Tommy, that I do think she's a sincere actor, but sort of like there's still more work to do.

[Tommy Vietor]

There's a lot there. Remember when she chased David Hogg around, like called him a crisis actor, I think was part of that conspiracy too.

[Jon Favreau]

I mean, I think there's two parts of every political leader's Persona. There's the policies that you believe, like the political beliefs that you hold. And then there's your style and your rhetoric and how you interact and go on TV and talk about other opponents and other politicians. And I think that on the substance and on the policy, I mean, she says at the beginning of that interview with Dana that like I still support the Trump administration and his agenda. Right. Like she's very honest about that. And so she is someone who has held all these views that we're talking about. And I don't think she's changed on many of those, like you said. So I think she is consistent on that. I think it is clear that we were all exposed to her for the first however many years of her political career as like a bomb thrower and someone who has matched her policy views, which are extreme, with some pretty extreme and nasty rhetoric. And on that she's trying to make a change or at least that's what she's claiming right now in these interviews. And I think you can take, I think if you take the cynical view that her son, that this is like a, that you don't really trust her sudden conversion, I think that's like totally understandable and it may be correct. I'm choosing to hope it's sincere and you know, and that she's open because if it's sincere, then I think perhaps she's open to hearing the case for supporting other Democratic policies and maybe changing her views on some of her more extreme policies or maybe not. But it's like it's nice to hear someone apologize for their, the rhetoric. And like that doesn't change her, her views that I think are, some of them are abhorrent. But I'd rather have someone with abhorrent views who's not out there chasing David Hogg around, being like really nasty, having rhetoric that potentially incites violence, like, good for her for stepping back from the brink if it holds, you know, even.

[Tommy Vietor]

From like a maximally cynical point of view. Like, if attention is everything in politics, she is doing it a smarter way now because it used to be that you could just be a bomb thrower and you say offensive things and you lob crazy accusations. Now everybody's doing that now. Randy Fines out there saying nuke Gaza. So for about pure like attention economy perspective, the smartest thing she can do now is buck her party and go against Trump a bit. Now I still tend to think she's sort of just out of fucks to give and she's saying what she thinks and like, I know she's not going to ever lose. I don't think she's going to lose that primary in her, in her district no matter what.

[Jon Favreau]

So I was thinking like what you said is she's just like a random person who kind of fell into politics. Like she fell into politics and then fell down a rabbit hole with QAnon. And it's like that is the archetype for the kind of person who suddenly one day is like, what is all this? This is a lot, you know, and who knows, maybe she's, maybe she's still at the beginning of her journey out of the rabbit hole. But like, or maybe not. Maybe she dives right back in and maybe it's all cynical. Maybe, you know, who knows?

[Jon Lovett]

Yeah, I also, I do think to, to your point, John, like, the relationship between style, form and function is actually more complicated and we've seen this, by the way, like, you've seen this with people who, Republicans who turned on Trump suddenly have more moderate or even slightly to the left views on policy. We're not like complete logical beings. And I do think something happens when someone sheds a kind of vitriolic style and suddenly sees their opponents as human beings. They start to perhaps hear what they have to say. I think that's a long way from here. But. And by the way, also, like Marjorie Taylor Greene, she was not a. Like, we're back to, like, ah, you know, these kids. Like, she was in her 40s. When she's espousing these views, all that's a way of saying, like, okay, like, these are views she held shallowly, perhaps. But it wasn't just that she was in an information environment. She was choosing to be inside of it and sinking inside of it all. That's a way of saying, like, I, like, want us to. It's like, you have to kind of balance the need for this person to, on this journey, kind of take accountability ability. Because otherwise it won't be sincere. Can't be. Unless she's acknowledging the ways in which she was not a part of the problem she described.

[Jon Favreau]

Yeah, I guess I'm. I guess the only thing I'm getting at is like, there's this tendency to try to figure out whether we should. Like, you are absolved. You were not absolved. Right. And it's like, in. As opposed to that being like, well, now she's. Maybe she's persuadable. Maybe we can maybe.

[Jon Lovett]

Sure.

[Jon Favreau]

Bring her over. Like that, to me, is more important than whether it's like, sincere, not sincere. She did enough. She didn't do enough.

[Tommy Vietor]

Like, you know, she's also been on this journey for a while. I mean, she gave a speech in 2021 apologizing for QAnon, apologizing for some of the things she's done meant she talked about the David Hogg thing. So this has been like, a bit of a journey she's been on. I think she's really, like, she was a random lady who was in a weird place on the Internet, and then she got elected to Congress and she was like, holy shit, I was wrong about a lot of stuff.

[Jon Lovett]

Maybe she's kind of happy. Any word on her features look like, make her look. When the boyfriend. I don't know what's happened with his career now.

[Jon Favreau]

I know that's weird. Suddenly a new opening in the White House press pool. Probably.

[Tommy Vietor]

Yeah. For those who don't know, he is a White House correspondent for One America News American.

[Jon Favreau]

No idea.

[Tommy Vietor]

One of those ones that's just right wing and crazy. But he posted a bunch of photos of them together and he had his shirt off in a lot of them. Yeah, there's a lot of his nips in those photos.

[Jon Favreau]

He seems happy, you know.

[Jon Lovett]

They seem happy.

[Tommy Vietor]

Yeah.

[Jon Favreau]

You know, showed up in Brad Sherman's for you feed. Probably just, that's just now we're, we're going off in another direction.

[Tommy Vietor]

By the way, I was watching Megan Kelly talk about this and she said the real sin for Marjorie Taylor Greene was doing it on cnn. Cuz the one thing you never do.

[Jon Favreau]

Is talk about Donald Trump on cnn. That's the kind of shit that's tribal. That's the kind of shit I'm talking about. Right. Like that is the. Okay, so anyway, all this gets at a much bigger issue, which is the deepening realization among some Republicans that Trump is in fact a lame duck and fairly unpopular. On top of that, Congressman Thomas Massie, the one Republican who's consistently been willing to buck Trump and who co sponsored the Epstein files discharge petition with Roe, laid things out for his colleagues in an appearance on ABC on Sunday Morning.

[Jon Lovett]

I would remind my Republican colleagues who are deciding how to vote. Donald Trump can protect you in red districts right now by giving you an endorsement, but in 2030, he's not going to be the President and you will have voted to protect pedophiles. If you don't vote to release these files and the President can't protect you, then.

[Jon Favreau]

So I think we all probably want Republicans to believe what Massie said is true, that he's a lame duck and you should not have to fear him anymore. To what extent do you guys think they'll listen?

[Tommy Vietor]

I talk about this with Roe too. I mean, Massie is sort of nodding at this bigger problem you mentioned there, which is that Trump's iron grip on Republicans has clearly slipped. We have evidence of that in so far as the Republicans willing to sign this discharge petition before Trump had his change of heart, let's call it that. And you know, I think Massie's just pointing out the obvious fact, like Trump won't be around forever. I still don't think we know how long he's going to be around for. You know, the guy could decide to like sit in Mar a Lago and be kingmaker on the Internet for a decade and endorse in every primary and, you know, attack people for perceived slights and pick sides on issues and still just be a real problem. But I think what Tom Massie realizes and Marjorie Taylor Greene realizes is there's strength in numbers. And the more people that, you know, defections from Trump will beget more defections and, you know, we'll see more courage. So hopefully he's right there and people take it to heart. Like, will there be primaries run on whether or not you voted to release the Epstein files? I'm a little more skeptical of that, but it's a bigger point, I think.

[Jon Lovett]

Yeah, I tend to think these guys aren't long term thinkers. I think this is a little bit of wishful thinking. And more than that, I actually think when he says Trump will be gone, but you will have voted to conceal information and protect pedophiles is less about saying what the future will be and more reminding them what the politics of this vote were. But for Trump, that the politics of this vote, obviously they all want to vote fucking yes on this. And the only reason they wouldn't is because Trump would pose a threat. And so I think it boils down to they'd rather be 30 duck sized Trumps facing one Trump sized duck, you know what I mean? And that it's much less, this is a way of, that is a signal about strength in numbers than it is about some Trumpless future.

[Jon Favreau]

I mean, the one thing that's been true in the Trump era is that when he is on the ballot with other Republicans, he brings a lot of them over the line and his voters come out and it helps a lot of Republicans who are otherwise unpopular. And when he's not on the ballot, they're sort of on their own. And the Republicans have actually been doing quite poorly in the last 10 years when Donald Trump's not on the ballot. And when you think about this like he's never gonna be on the ballot with Republicans again. I think they're starting to finally realize this. It was probably like an understated point when he admitted that he cannot run for a third term. Now we know why he was trying to. One reason he might have been trying to keep that out there, because it did sort of save him from lame duck status. I think his last hurrah here is trying to endorse primary opponents in the upcoming midterms to the extent that that works. And I don't even know if it will.

[Tommy Vietor]

Not so good in 2022.

[Jon Favreau]

Not so good in 2022. And we even have talked about the, the Indiana Republicans because he is like, you know, was threatening them that they better gerrymander their Map mid district in advance of the midterms. And they've basically held strong and told him to fuck off. And, you know, he's like, tweeting all these kinds of primary threats at them, and so far, it's not moving them at all. One of the guys who's a Republican leader in the state legislature was swatted, which is the. It's funny because if. If it was a normal president that didn't. Hasn't acted like an authoritarian and used, like, implicit threats of either losing your job or worse or violence, then we'd be like, it's like George W. Bush in the second term of his presidency when it was just like all the Republicans were just jumping ship and they didn't want anything to do with George W. Bush and that was it. I do think one of the things that keeps people afraid of Trump is that he has this, like, large apparatus in the state, the power of the state, where he, like, goes after people, and it's kind of scary, but, like, I don't know how long that lasts.

[Jon Lovett]

Well, it also, it's. It's a much more potent threat because once you've used it, it's really more about the next fight. Right. Once Trump has called you out and swatted you and done all of this, you faced it. You're on the other side of it now. That is meant to, what, cajole and convince the next state over to do the redistricting? Unless you fall prey to the same attacks. But, you know, he posted something awful about. So Thomas Massie's wife had passed away and he remarried. And Trump posts something just so awful.

[Tommy Vietor]

About, like, passed away last year.

[Jon Lovett]

Yes. And he met and married someone, which is fine.

[Tommy Vietor]

I'm just saying, like, to attack him for his wife dying last year.

[Jon Favreau]

Right.

[Jon Lovett]

But, well, he's attacking him for getting married too quickly, as if there's something shady or despicable about that without knowing the man's life.

[Jon Favreau]

And a bunch of people, Someone attacking him. Someone who revvers the institution of marriage.

[Jon Lovett]

Yeah, absolutely. And so a bunch of people came to Massie's defense in part because I think people view Massey as a sincere operator as well, and also because, first of all, we've done this before. Trump has done this for so long, just doesn't pack the same punch. And so you go after the guy in Indiana. He's now been gone after. He's on the other side of it. Where's your power? What happens?

[Jon Favreau]

Well, just imagine a scenario where we do well in the midterms. Democrats do well, in the midterms and the Republicans who are left in Congress who've kept their jobs now see what just happened to a bunch of other Republicans. And Donald Trump is now really a lame duck president. We're heading into the presidential election in 2028. Then I think you start seeing people jump ship.

[Tommy Vietor]

I hope so. I mean, what he did to Thomas Massie was just so unbelievably cruel. This man's wife of 35 years, they have four kids together, passes away and you attack him on Twitter because he disagrees with you. On a vote to protect pedophiles. Like I think that was probably like scales off moment for a lot of people. Just what a vicious, cruel person he was. I mean, I think like, I hope there's more defections. I do think there's a history in the Republican Party of politicians clinging to the last guy way longer than they should. Like Reagan did it with Nixon, Nixon did it with Goldwater. All because the next person to run for president knows that the base is going to like Trump for a very long time and they're going to want to reach those voters. So we'll see. But you know, it would be nice if they all were just a little bit less afraid of him.

[Jon Favreau]

I mean, I think this is why JD Vance is not going to have the easiest time getting the nomination. He still might, but like he, he's stuck because he can't be critical of Donald Trump. Cause he's the Vice President and so he's gonna have to do the, he's gonna be on the View someday and they're gonna say, is there anything you would have done differently? No, nothing he's gonna say. Nothing comes to mind.

[Jon Lovett]

Nothing comes to mind.

[Jon Favreau]

That's gonna be his thing. So there very well could be a challenger of the populist right style, Tucker Carlson or someone like that to J.D. vance's. Right. It's also just getting ahead of myself.

[Jon Lovett]

I know, but I know there's a funny a week and a half ago, two weeks ago, Trump is threatening a third term. We're kind of in this authoritarian dissent and it is amazing how normal a version of normal politics kind of manages to intercede. It is sort of part of the weakness, the inherent weakness in any sort of effort to accumulate so much power, which is like these are all human beings and their actual differences start to break through. Like democracy has self defense mechanisms built into it and it has been heartening to see. Doesn't mean things aren't dangerous and democracy isn't at risk. But we have some wind in our backs here.

[Jon Favreau]

I know. But you know, you know what's funny? I had that same thought and I've had it since because the elections went well then he's clearly on his heels on the Epstein stuff and affordability. And then over the weekend when I saw like ice arrive in Charlotte and just the brutality and then, you know, more investigations into more Democrats he doesn't like and all this kind of stuff, I'm like, you know, as he becomes more unpopular and as his people, Steven Miller, Jada Vance, all the rest of them feel it slipping away, like they will get more dangerous and they do have a lot of power. And so I do worry about like the next turn of this where they're feeling cornered and then start just, you know, clamping down even harder, blowing up.

[Jon Lovett]

Boats in the Caribbean, potential war with Venezuela, immigration crackdown, the efforts to go after political enemies. And then on the other hand of it, you have the comey investigation potentially falling apart. It's going to be a fucking messy slog. But it's not foretold is all.

[Jon Favreau]

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[Jon Lovett]

A meeting that could have been an email losing interest. Don't let it happen to your money, too. Vanguard's CashPlus account can't help you at work, but we can help with your savings. Find out how much interest you could [e-mail] cashplus offered by Vanguard Marketing Corporation member Finran Sipc.

[Jon Favreau]

Speaking of Republican defections, we also have a new development in the intra maga fight over whether or not Hitler fans are good. We've talked about how this got kicked up after Tucker Carlson invited white nationalist lunatic Nick Fuentes on his show for a softball interview where none of his most vile comments were challenged. Trump got asked about this on Sunday night. Here's what he said.

[Donald Trump]

We've had some great interviews with Tucker Carlson, but you can't tell him who to interview. I mean, if he wants to interview Nick Fuentes, I don't know much about him, but if he wants to do it, get the word out, let him. You know, people have to decide. Ultimately, people have to decide.

[Jon Favreau]

You yourself, I did it with Nick.

[Tommy Vietor]

Fuentes at Mar A Lago a few years ago.

[Jon Favreau]

What role should he play in the conservative movement?

[Ro Khanna]

Well, I didn't know he was coming.

[Donald Trump]

And he was with as, you know, somebody, Kanye meeting people, talking to people, like, for somebody like Tucker, that's what they do. You know, people are controversial. Some are, some aren't. I'm not controversial, so I like it that way.

[Jon Favreau]

This is funny that the last line was just funny.

[Tommy Vietor]

Get the word out was confusing. What did get the word out mean? Get the word out about Tucker interviewing someone?

[Jon Favreau]

I can't tell if it was just like, it's more of like a let people decide. You know, you decide because he's, he's very big on just the interview going out as is and not complaining about it.

[Tommy Vietor]

You know, most of that was, yeah, most of that was a defense of tucker. Frank paging 60 minutes. Most of that was a defense of Tucker Carlson. And I think just an instinctive sense that anything that, like, touches the stove of cancel culture against a conservative is going to be very unpopular among Republicans. Of course, we're always good with canceling Democrats and we always will be. That's the hypocrisy here. I do. I mean, it was weird. I mean, he was never, Trump was also never willing to admit he made a mistake, especially not to report her at a gaggle. So he wasn't going to be like, yeah, I probably shouldn't have dined with that neo Nazi. I do think the way he's telling the story there is sort of how it's been told by Fuentes and others, which is like Kanye west had a dinner with Trump scheduled and then like Nick Fuentes came and maybe Trump didn't know who he was, or maybe he did and he just didn't do anything about it. But it's all just very weird. But the funny thing about that is, like, Fuentes is on Trump right now. He's saying MAGA is dead. He's attacking him over Epstein, he's attacking him on Iran, on Gaza. The list goes on and on. Either Trump doesn't know that, or like J.D. vance, he's too much of a wimp to punch back to anyone to his right.

[Jon Favreau]

And Fuentes, in addition to just being vile and horrible, is quite a troll. And of course Posted thank you, Mr. President In Response to that, even though he's been shitting all over him.

[Jon Lovett]

Yeah. So 2017, there's the Unite the Right rally. Heather Heyer is killed. He goes out there and he says, many sides, very fine people on both sides in between the two statements in which he made those kinds of moral equivocations, he went out to the podium and he said racism is evil and those who cause violence in its name are criminals and thugs, including the kkk, neo Nazis and white supremacists and other hate groups that are repugnant to everything we hold dear as Americans. He did that in part because there was a massive backlash to what he had said at first and he was facing, which feels like from another era, threats of resignation from inside the White House because he was so equivocated so.

[Jon Favreau]

Much in his Committee to Save America was up in arms.

[Jon Lovett]

And a year later, Bob Wood reports that Trump considered this to be the biggest fucking mistake I've made, the worst speech I've ever given because he was conceding. So then he goes out the next day. That's actually when he makes the most famous version of the comet, which is very fine people on both sides. And from that moment, he has really taken this to heart that you, that you kind of, when you oppressed by the media on these far right figures, you don't give an inch. You say you don't know. You say that, you hedge, you're not familiar, but you don't concede and you don't punch these alt right figures. You don't punch to the right, if you want to call it that. And so I think that's what he's just doing here. Again, it's same where he didn't hear the question about David Duke stand Back and stand by. This is what he does, right? He's. He's sending a signal to these kinds of people that he's not gonna take a swipe at them while talking to, like, mainstream reporters.

[Jon Favreau]

I do think the more interesting question here is the staying power of this rift beyond Trump. I know, Tommy, you follow this closely. The impact on J.D. vance, on Tucker, like, where this goes from here. What do you think?

[Tommy Vietor]

I think this debate is about the future of the MAGA movement. This is the whole thing. And at least that's how Nick Fuentes is framing it. And he's saying, maga's dead. America first is the future, and America first is how I define it, which is far more right wing and reactionary and anti Semitic. And basically, Fuentes, like Fuentes is calling out some real Republican hypocrisy, which is that he says, I could walk out on stage or I'll turn on my show tomorrow and say, Islam is a disgrace, we should kill all Muslims, we should banish them from our country, and no one in the Republican Party would bat an eye. Or I could log in and say something really, really racist, and I would face no blowback from the Republican Party. But if I say something that's anti Semitic, I face all this blowback. And so he is observing something that is true about MAGA and what they say about cancel culture, but he's doing it in service of making the entire movement anti Semitic, even more vile, which is. Speaks to how dangerous he is.

[Jon Favreau]

Right, yeah. His point is there shouldn't be an exception that that is. Right.

[Jon Lovett]

He's like, he wants the Islamophobia applied to the Jews.

[Jon Favreau]

Yeah, yeah.

[Tommy Vietor]

He's like, look at Laura Loomer. She's Trump's friend. She's in the White House. Right? Like, she. All these vile things. If you find and replace Islam for Judaism, why does that make me outside the pale? And like, I think that argument has a lot of purchase on the far right, and it's a scary thing.

[Jon Favreau]

It's also wild to me that J.D. vance has still not. So, like, in 2024, in the summer, 2024, J.D. vance was interviewed by Margaret Brennan, asked about Nick Fuentes. That was the only time he's been asked about Nick Fuentes because he had just said something horrible about Usha and he said, oh, he's a total loser. And that was that. But in this latest dustup, has said nothing. And then over the weekend, someone on Twitter I didn't recognize said something about how Tucker Carlson's son, Buckley, I believe works for J.D. vance, is like a top staffer for J.D. vance. And it's like, well, J.D. like, somehow said, well, because of Tucker and it's Tucker's son, and tried to, like, attack J.D. vance via Tucker's son and whatever. And J.D. vance, like, flipped out, did one of his. Like, I'm gonna start doing a whole tweet thread to someone random on Twitter. And it's just wild that he, like, I understand that he came to the defense of his staffer who he likes, but he does all this and still says nothing about Fuentes, nothing about Tucker has just completely just skipped this debate.

[Jon Lovett]

Right. He went. He went looking for a place inside of this story where he could be aggrieved without commenting on the main story itself. There. Pete Buttigieg was asked about Vance in an interview and said, do you think J.D. vance is a fascist? And Pete's answer was awesome. It was something like, I think J.D. vance will be a fascist. If it's useful to be a fascist. If it's useful for him to be something else, he'll be something else. He'll be a Silicon Valley Democrat again if he needs to be. And I do think that just captures the man so perfectly.

[Jon Favreau]

Pete and I talked about this when I interviewed him, and I, like, I'm not sure I agree. I feel like there's a chance that J.D. vance has been. I don't know if he genuinely believes at all, but I think he is now in a place where he justifies to himself that all of these views aren't really as bad as he used to think they are.

[Jon Lovett]

Oh, I.

[Jon Favreau]

Absolutely. I don't think he's going back anytime soon.

[Jon Lovett]

I don't know what going back looks like. Part of being such a political animal is knowing that he can't change back, but. So he's a bit stuck and he can like a great politician. He'll be for what he needs to be for. But I do think that that speaks to a lot of how he got to where he is. And, yeah, I'm sure he has talked himself into it and how he didn't understand the deep intellectual rigor that sits just beneath the surface of maga. Like, I know he seems to have convinced himself of that.

[Jon Favreau]

I think he's also seen that being a class traitor has worked really well for Trump. And In a way, J.D. vance is sort of a class traitor in terms of, like, you know, he was in these elite circles in Silicon Valley and did all this stuff and is trying to say, like, oh, I've Seen the elite in the establishment and let me tell you, they're really bad. Did you see the Axios story on Ted Cruz? Cruz, how he's been. He's been very critical of Tucker and Fuentes and they're framing this as him sort of laying the groundwork for a 2028 primary run against the J.D. vance's of the world. Because he's gonna be the pro Israel calling out anti Semitism candidates in the Republican Party.

[Tommy Vietor]

I would love to see Republican parties defeat the gripers. Ted Cruz cannot be your fighter. Please choose a better fighter.

[Jon Lovett]

He was the last. I agree. But he was the last man standing in 2016. And he actually, up until the moment he said one brave thing at the convention and then gave up on it five seconds later.

[Tommy Vietor]

Counterpoint, he held on. He still takes place in personality and whole vibe.

[Jon Lovett]

I know, I know.

[Jon Favreau]

Good counterpart, strong. Thank you.

[Jon Lovett]

But he was the last one. He made it all the way to the. He made it further than anybody else. Yeah, well, I think that, I think those days, I think it was a different time and a different, different moment for the Pope party.

[Jon Favreau]

Yeah. If I had to bet on where the energy is in the Republican primary, it's. It would be. Not with Ted Cruz. For sure.

[Jon Lovett]

For sure.

[Ro Khanna]

Yeah.

[Jon Favreau]

Honestly, unfortunately, as much as I detest Ted Cruz, I would rather that side win for America here. But the gripers. I worry much more about the Tucker Nick Fuentes segment of this party. Believe it or not, this is supposed to be affordability week at the White House, which seems like one reason they're trying to push Epstein out of the news. Trump's also speaking after we record this on Monday night at a conference on affordability hosted by McDonald's. That should do the trick. Perhaps he'll talk there about his latest attempt to take credit for solving a problem that he caused. The White House announced late last week that Trump's eliminating tariffs on around 200 food items, including staples like beef, coffee, bananas, and orange juice. The problem for Trump's economic advisers is that they're still not allowed to acknowledge either mistakes or reality, especially when it comes to the economy. Here's White House top White House economist Kevin Hassett really struggling through interviews with ABC's John Carl on Sunday morning and CNBC's Joe Kernan on Monday.

[Jon Lovett]

The President claims that Thanksgiving costs are down 25%. I mean, does he know that's not true?

[Ro Khanna]

Well, if you look at Walmart and the few places that put out their prices Thanksgiving.

[Jon Lovett]

Wait a minute, I got to stop.

[Tommy Vietor]

Because the Walmart comparison's like, not.

[Jon Lovett]

I mean, Walmart had a Thanksgiving package last year.

[Tommy Vietor]

They've got a Thanksgiving package this year.

[Jon Lovett]

The one this year contains much less.

[Tommy Vietor]

Than what the one last year took. So that's why the price is less. If you're going to the store to.

[Jon Lovett]

Buy groceries for Thanksgiving, it's going to be more expensive this year.

[Ro Khanna]

I really don't understand where you're going in the sense that Joe Biden gave us. Joe Biden gave us 20%.

[Tommy Vietor]

He's not President Donald Trump's president.

[Jon Lovett]

No.

[Tommy Vietor]

When you keep saying prices are falling, that's not true. And we should.

[Jon Favreau]

I think you should admit that.

[Ro Khanna]

A more precise way to say it, though, Joe, is that purchasing power has gone up.

[Tommy Vietor]

So real wages, that's W divided by.

[Ro Khanna]

P for our technical people in the audience.

[Jon Favreau]

Put him out. Everywhere. Their economic. They have a crack economic team. We got the soybean farmer, Scott Besson out there crushing it. Kevin Hassett. It's wild.

[Jon Lovett]

If you had to choose between. I was thinking about this. If you had to choose one person to go out to defend the administration, would you choose Besant or would you choose Hassett?

[Tommy Vietor]

Oh, best in all day. I think Hassett's got, like, this hapless chipmunk vibe. He's like, always kind of like, trying to laugh his way through being in.

[Jon Favreau]

I do think.

[Jon Lovett]

Yeah, there's a sort of like, kind.

[Jon Favreau]

Of just highlights your out of touch. Give me the question. That was my scuffle.

[Jon Lovett]

Yeah, no, no, it was. And it was really, really good.

[Jon Favreau]

Thank you.

[Tommy Vietor]

Sorry.

[Jon Favreau]

Yeah, I thought it was like he was in the room.

[Jon Lovett]

Right?

[Jon Favreau]

Yeah. But the.

[Jon Lovett]

You see that Hassett in that interview was asked about the labor market being soft, and he thinks. And he said that he thought the labor market was in a bit of quiet time. He said that it was in a quiet time because of AI. And he's like, quiet. Like, be very quiet. The economy is sleeping.

[Jon Favreau]

I. I hate that I'm about to say this, but a more effective messenger would be even Stephen Miller than these guys, because he would just scream and bowl the interviewer over. I'll kill your family. Right. Like, you need. You need at least a fucking America first messenger out there to just, like, do the other side. But like, these, these two, it is. I want them out there all the time. I think they're great.

[Tommy Vietor]

In their defense, it is tough to walk out there, be like, isn't it great we got rid of all these tariffs we put in place.

[Jon Lovett]

Yeah.

[Tommy Vietor]

How awesome is this, everybody?

[Jon Lovett]

I was banging my Head against the wall feel so good when I literally.

[Jon Favreau]

The only option is to scream over the interviewer, which neither of these two are gonna do. So obviously the. I think we'd all agree that they're not crushing the messaging just yet, but the best case scenario for Trump and Republicans is that they alleviate some of the tariff pain, potentially figure out a way to send out some kind of tariff dividend check to people before the midterms, which Trump again floated in the Oval on Monday, and do something on healthcare, which we'll get to in a second, and then I guess hope that people's economic reality eventually catches up with their messaging, that everything's great. But I don't know, I'm just trying to, I'm trying to give them their best. The best case here. But what do you guys think?

[Tommy Vietor]

Yeah, the best case is no one sees that interview, first of all. And then people feel some sort of slight decrease in prices. But I mean, I think inflation is down from the worst kind of like 9% peak of the Biden era, but it's still at around 3%, which is above the Fed's target of 2%.

[Jon Favreau]

And it's quiet time in the labor market.

[Tommy Vietor]

And it's, it's.

[Jon Favreau]

But also like, well, that we make room for the robots. Oh God.

[Tommy Vietor]

But like the, the real price of prices of goods are not going to come down in real terms, so people are not going to feel like there is relief. There's no silver bullet for Trump when it comes to housing, for example, even a 50 year mortgage or a 500 year mortgage are ever going to float. I guess like he could like pull together OPEC and be like, engineer some dip in gas prices, but I don't even think that's real. So at the same time though, he's demanding a Fed rate cut. He's going for this tariff dividend idea, both of which would exacerbate inflation. So I guess the best option is better messaging that shows you care, you hear people, you're fighting for them. But instead the message coming out of Donald Trump's mouth is like, this is all bullshit. Things are fine, stop talking about it.

[Jon Lovett]

Yeah. So first of all, you have to get a tariff dividend check through Congress or at least one would think you'd have to get it through Congress and they could try to come up with some way around that. And so that's some deficit. The only way it makes sense is if it's deficit spending, it's not putting more money in people's pockets. If you're not putting money in people's pockets. If you're just returning the tariffs back to people, you're not lowering the cost of living.

[Jon Favreau]

Also, you'd have to do it through a reconciliation bill next year, which again has to be revenue neutral, has to be deficit neutral on that. So like that's not gonna work.

[Tommy Vietor]

Or you just do it like the east wing, you know. Yeah, send a check.

[Jon Lovett]

Right. But I don't know how you do.

[Tommy Vietor]

It through a Republican house.

[Jon Favreau]

You run the machines, just print the.

[Tommy Vietor]

Money, turn it on.

[Jon Lovett]

They're just, look, I don't know how you get this through a house. Already feels like they were bullied into getting behind the last spending bill. They've put all their money into tax cuts for the wealthy. There's just, there's no way to make it work.

[Jon Favreau]

We're not even talking about the fact that if the Supreme Court rules against him, there is, there's not gonna be a lot of revenue to give out from the tariff though politically that might save him or it might, I don't.

[Jon Lovett]

Know, I mean, maybe it stops some of the pain. But even, let's say you even follow this to its like logical end and he sends some $200 to $500 tariff check to half the country. Does that resolve the fact that people feel like their cost of living has gone up, that they've not been made better off by this? People understand that a one time check doesn't undo what their daily experience is.

[Jon Favreau]

Yeah.

[Tommy Vietor]

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[Laci Mosley]

Poppin Listeners I'm Lacy Mosley, host of the podcast Scam Goddess, the show that's an ode to fraud and all those who practice it. Each week I talk with very special guests about the scammiest scammers of all time. Wanna know about the fake errors? We got em? What about a career con man? We've got them too. Guys that will wine and dine you and then steal all. Oh, you know they are represented because representation matters. I'm joined by guests like Nicole Byer, Ira Madison iii, Conan o', Brien and more. Join the congregation and listen to Scam Goddess wherever you get your podcasts.

[Jon Favreau]

Well, let's talk healthcare just for a minute. On January 1, premiums will go up for 20 million people when the Affordable Care act subsidies expire a few weeks before that. As part of the shutdown deal, Democrats are supposed to get a vote in the Senate on whether or not to extend the ACA subsidies. But instead of just coming out in support or opposition to that extension, Trump and Republicans are reportedly trying to once again come up with an Obamacare replacement, at least for the subsidies. The Washington Post has a good rundown of the various options they're considering, but much of the discussion has focused on some version of paying the subsidies directly to people instead of the insurance companies. Right now, the subsidies go to the insurance companies and the insurance companies are required to pass the savings on to the consumer. This, I guess, would give them to the people, even though it would be in a health savings account and you'd only be able to use the money for out of pocket costs like glasses or dental work and not actual insurance premiums. This is the general idea. Of course, different legislation could change, but this is sort of the Bill Cassidy, the doctor in the Senate from Louisiana, has sort of floated this idea. The problem here, one of the many problems, is it could cause younger, healthier people to just go without health insurance, just take their health savings account money and just walk away. And at that point that would then cause insurance companies to raise premiums on all the older, sicker people who were left buying Affordable Care act plans and who tend to need care the most.

[Jon Lovett]

Yeah, and by the way, a lot of those younger people forego insurance and they become the unlucky subset of the young people that have catastrophic health insurance costs that they can no longer afford. They have to either declare bankruptcy or. And in some way those costs get shifted back onto other insurance payers too. It's a. The last week there was a report from that House Republicans were going to start doing whiteboard sessions where they're going to start doing some brainstorming about what to do to fix Obamacare. This is November. The premiums ostensibly go up on January 1st. This is the most fucking college term paper all nighter bullshit. Like no, you're not gonna fundamentally fix the healthcare system by rushing through something in six weeks. Like, oh, you wanna do health savings accounts? What's your plan for catastrophic? All this is fucking crazy. Like 2008, Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama had basically a year long debate about the exact details of their healthcare plan. Mandates, no mandates, how to do insurance, catastrophic care, all of it, but pre existing conditions that culminates in a year long process to pass a bill. Like they're trying to fucking jam some dumb thing they can think of to get around the fact that people are about to be fucked.

[Tommy Vietor]

Yeah, seems like a bad idea.

[Jon Favreau]

That's crazy.

[Tommy Vietor]

It is very funny that it's not funny. It's not funny in any way. It is amazing that their solution to a very real policy and political problem is to do something that would create the worst case scenario, basically to send the insurance market into a death spiral that could lead to 10 to 20 million more people uninsured, especially crushing older people, working class people, people in rural areas who would have no providers anymore. You would see a wave of bankruptcies. And they're doing this in the face of a policy. If they just Simply extended the ACA tax credits, it would get about 75% approval.

[Jon Favreau]

And I'm still not sure why they're doing or what they hope to achieve here because this is not going to pass. Because I don't think, I don't think it's sort of far right enough for House Republicans, whatever it is. And so I don't know that it's actually going to. I don't know if it's going to pass. I guess they don't. I guess they want an alternative to be able to say, this is why we didn't vote for the Democratic extension of the ACA subsidies. But that also then leaves them again holding the bag when premiums go up and everyone's going to blame them, rightly so. I don't really. I don't really know what they're trying to do here.

[Jon Lovett]

They've painted themselves into the stupidest politics possible, which is they've now. So if they do nothing, the bunch of people lose their health insurance subsidies. But in order to fix that problem, they have to start from the baseline we're at now, which is they have to create some kind of new replacement.

[Jon Favreau]

Subsidy debate we've been having for literally 10 years.

[Jon Lovett]

Right. So had they left. Had they just left the subsidies in place, they could actually have a debate that's, I think, better politics for Republicans, which is how to reform the subsidies in a way that is conservative, which is actually like just to be needlessly generous to these people. They have sincere objections on policy grounds to some of the ways in which Obamacare operates. Like when they talk about health savings accounts. They would prefer a system in which you have health savings accounts for routine care and something more like catastrophic care in other forms, whether insurance risk pools, whatever. It would look like. They have a different idea of what it should look like. Fine. But they have never been able to actually put together a plan that they could all collectively get behind to actually replace Obamacare. So now they're in the worst possible situation, which they have to try to, what, get Republicans to vote for some kind of middle ground between nothing and Obamacare when all of them would. When the freaks would rather just do nothing but the whole system burn? No way. No way.

[Jon Favreau]

Yeah. All right, last thing to cover here. There's so much in the Epstein files that have already been released, and we haven't had time to cover all the salacious and outrageous emails, including one from Epstein's brother Mark, that has really taken the Internet by storm. Luckily for all of us, the Saturday Night Live cold open made an oblique reference to this. Here's James Austin Johnson playing Trump in the White House briefing room.

[Ro Khanna]

I said I kicked Jeffrey up because he was a pedophile, but then I.

[Donald Trump]

Also said I didn't know he did anything wrong.

[Ro Khanna]

So it's kind of hard to square.

[Donald Trump]

That circle until you realize that Trump exists across many timelines.

[Ro Khanna]

It's the Trump multiverse theory. We just happen to be living in the worst possible one. Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to release all of the Epstein files.

[Donald Trump]

This is great.

[Ro Khanna]

Each file will be on sale for the low, low price of $800.

[Jon Lovett]

You know, this is a beautiful one of a.

[Tommy Vietor]

Of kind.

[Donald Trump]

Printed out screenshot in very low res.

[Ro Khanna]

One of the many files mentioning President Trump. I just ordered the one that says, does Putin have the photo of Trump blowing Bubba? We love that. Whatever the hell that means.

[Jon Favreau]

So two things to note here. One is that Mark Epstein has given a statement saying that the Bubba in question is not Bill Clinton, but in fact a private citizen who remains nameless. We don't know who that is. And two, we spent 10 minutes of our production meeting this morning trying to explain this to Lovett that you have somehow missed that this has taken the Internet by storm. This is one of the most viral things that I've seen out of the.

[Tommy Vietor]

He's like, what do you mean? The big beautiful Bill.

[Jon Lovett]

So I. Nice. So I had seen all these jokes about blowjobs and I try, like, it was actually very difficult. I googled, you know, Trump, Bill Clinton blow drive.

[Jon Favreau]

Oh boy, you found some good stuff, right?

[Jon Lovett]

So I search around. I couldn't find the underlying Epstein email that led to all this because I somehow had missed it and then the news had moved beyond me. I was a low information voter when it came to the fact that everybody was joking about Donald Trump blowing Bill Clinton.

[Tommy Vietor]

You didn't see the photo. That was Trump in the I drained the swamp shirt and then Bill Clinton shirt just said swamp.

[Jon Favreau]

You didn't see everyone calling him throtus?

[Jon Lovett]

I saw that. I didn't understand why everybody was doing this. And then everybody was texting me these jokes and I was like, ha ha ha ha.

[Tommy Vietor]

I am part of it.

[Jon Favreau]

New throat coat candidates who blew Bill Clinton received 94.3% of the vote in the 2016 election, the highest for any American election. One of the many.

[Jon Lovett]

I hadn't seen that one.

[Jon Favreau]

Also, I said, here's a tweet. PolitiFact actually had to go put this out. Yeah, PolitiFact. A video showing President Donald Trump patting former President Bill Clinton's crotch was generated with artificial intelligence using a 2000 still photo taken at the US Open where it just appears that his hand is near his crotch. The photographer said Trump didn't grope Clinton.

[Tommy Vietor]

As far as he knows.

[Jon Lovett]

More like us.

[Tommy Vietor]

Open relationship.

[Jon Lovett]

Huh? How about that?

[Tommy Vietor]

That was good. That was good.

[Jon Lovett]

How about that?

[Tommy Vietor]

There is one media soothsayer out there who basically predicted this whole controversy. I asked the team to pull a clip for you guys that John and John have not seen yet. So let's watch.

[Ro Khanna]

There's no video of President Trump sucking a Ding Dong. And so what if there was? That's a lot better than World War Three, Owen.

[Jon Lovett]

That's good.

[Ro Khanna]

I never sucked any ding Dongs, but I'll tell you, if they were going to blackmail me to start World War III about one, I'd say, hey, I sucked a golf ball through a fricking garden hose.

[Jon Lovett]

Didn't you already tell Der Spiegel that.

[Jon Favreau]

There we have it. Didn't you already tell Der Spiegel what a funny.

[Jon Lovett]

Der Spiegel that.

[Ro Khanna]

Of course.

[Jon Lovett]

I guess what he's saying is, in fairness, Alex Jones, he's saying there that had I been. Had I performed a blowjob and it had been secretly recorded as a means of blackmail, I would put the country first.

[Tommy Vietor]

Yeah. I think the context was like bombing Syria or something.

[Jon Favreau]

But, you know, this one really just sort of just broke out of the, like, political junkie.

[Tommy Vietor]

Everyone I know.

[Jon Favreau]

Yeah, like, everyone. Like, it really. It was. It's like one of the bigger things. Okay, what? One of the more. One of the more viral stories, one.

[Jon Lovett]

Of the more extra medium things to burst out of the news cycle, as it were.

[Jon Favreau]

And then Trump today says, I lost my voice because I blew my stack. Just. Do you think so? Do you think they had to explain it to him?

[Tommy Vietor]

I bet they took a pass on this one.

[Jon Favreau]

You think so?

[Jon Lovett]

I think the reason Trump is going.

[Jon Favreau]

To be hard to avoid.

[Jon Lovett]

I think the reason Trump is not posting about south park is everybody goes like this. Everyone just sides. Like, you know what? He doesn't need to know that this ever happened. Yeah.

[Tommy Vietor]

He was doing the hawk to a briefing, not me.

[Jon Favreau]

Oh, yeah, There were a lot of Haktu memes as well. Trump is. Yeah, Trump is the face hawk to a.

[Jon Lovett]

What a time.

[Tommy Vietor]

That was just.

[Jon Favreau]

The tiktoks have been out of control. And AI, it's some good music, too. There's a very weird Hamilton remix.

[Jon Lovett]

What?

[Tommy Vietor]

I haven't seen that.

[Jon Lovett]

Oh, wow.

[Jon Favreau]

Take your shot.

[Jon Lovett]

Is that what it's about? Did I get it?

[Jon Favreau]

No, it's not the shot. It's the one where he's cheating on his. It's that whole. It's that song.

[Jon Lovett]

Ah, yes.

[Jon Favreau]

Remixed. Yeah.

[Jon Lovett]

Beautiful.

[Jon Favreau]

Anyway, good stuff. I felt like it was, you know, like paying attention to it all weekend. I'm like, I think that the Internet needed this. Right. Like, it is. Obviously the underlying story here is horrific. All of the stories of the Trump administration are horrific. There's some funny jokes here that everyone can kind of get behind.

[Tommy Vietor]

We deserve to make fun of the man who is suppressing these files. Yeah, absolutely.

[Jon Favreau]

For sure. For sure.

[Jon Lovett]

Absolutely. Hey, absolutely.

[Jon Favreau]

All right. When we come back from the break, you'll hear Tommy's conversation with Ro Khanna about the big win on the Epstein vote and what the fuck is happening with our military pressure on Venezuela. See another story that's not great, but a few quick announcements before we get to that. I know everyone's still celebrating our wins in the off year election two weeks ago, but we've actually got another one to try to win. We are two weeks out from a special election in Tennessee's 7th district, which includes parts of Nashville and lots of areas to the west of it, to replace Republican Mark Green, who stepped down. This is a Trump +22 district, but we have a chance here and Republicans seem to be getting a little nervous. Despite the fact that it is a Trump +22 district. The Democratic nominee is State Representative Afton Bain and she's great. You can go to votesaveamerica.com to find out how to get involved, whether you live in the district. And if you don't vote, Save America will help you figure out what to tell the people in your life who might live in the district. Would be a huge pickup if we can make it happen, needless to say.

[Jon Lovett]

And the freakout that would follow.

[Tommy Vietor]

Oh, it would be incredible.

[Jon Lovett]

Look, it's gonna be hard, but man, what a beautiful thing that would be.

[Jon Favreau]

Also, strict scrutiny is headed west for live shows in San Francisco on March 6th at the Herbst Theater and in LA on March 7th at the Palace Theater. Get your tickets now at cricket.com events before they sell out. Finally, holiday merch. It's up in the Cricut store right now. Some fan favorites are back in new colors and we have new items as well. Go get started on your shopping [e-mail] store when we come back. Rokana. This episode is sponsored by BetterHelp. This November, Better Help is encouraging everyone to reach out, check in on friends, reconnect with loved ones and remind the people in your life that you're there. And if you could use a little extra Support this season, BetterHelp is there for you. BetterHelp therapists work according to a strict code of conduct and are fully licensed in the US BetterHelp does the initial matching work for you so you can focus on your therapy goals. A short questionnaire helps identify your needs and preferences and their 12 plus years of experience and industry leading. Match fulfillment rate means they typically get it right the first time. If you aren't happy with your match, switch to a different therapist at any time from their tailored wrecks. With over 30,000 therapists, BetterHelp is one of the world's largest online therapy platforms, having served over 5 million people globally. And it works with an average rating of 4.9 out of 5 for a live session based on over 1.7 million client reviews. Therapy is great. You might think you don't need it, but you do. Everyone could use someone to talk to and BetterHelp is great because you don't even have to leave your house. And it's a great way to start therapy and it is very, very helpful. This month, don't wait to reach out. Whether you're checking in on a friend or reaching out to a Therap therapist yourself, BetterHelp makes it easier to take that first step. Our listeners get 10% off their first [e-mail] PSA that's betterhelp.com PSA with stays.

[Laci Mosley]

Under $250 a night, VRBO makes it easy to celebrate sweater weather. Book a cabin with leaf views or a home with a fire pit for nights with friends with stays under $250 a night, find a home for your exact needs. Book [e-mail].

[Tommy Vietor]

My guest today represents California's 17th congressional district, Congressman Khanna Ro. Khanna, welcome back to Pod Save America.

[Ro Khanna]

Thanks. Congrats on the Crooked Con Conference. I'm hoping that becomes a yearly tradition.

[Tommy Vietor]

Me too. And thank you for being there. And thank you for kicking it off with me and Ben Rhodes and Yasmine Ansari talking about foreign policy. It warmed my nerdy little heart. Get to geek out with you guys. But we want to talk domestic politics today, so. So you and Republican Congressman Thomas Massie have spent the last few months gathering signatures on something called a discharge petition, which for listeners unfamiliar with kind of procedural tools in the House, basically is just a way for members like yourself to force a vote on a specific bill or issue. You recently got 218 signatures on a petition that would force a vote on the release of the Epstein files. This despite Donald Trump reportedly whipping Republicans very hard against that. He had meetings in the Situation Room with members of Congress. He was calling them, them, haranguing them. Then on Sunday night, Trump did a total 180. And he said Republicans should support the release of the Epstein files. What did you make of this flip flop? And then what happens next with your, your, your bill?

[Ro Khanna]

Well, he could do math. Thomas Massie and I had over 50 Republicans ready to vote for my underlying bill. I mean, it's a Democratic bill against Donald Trump. And that would have been a colossal embarrassment for him. So instead he caved and he surrendered. And the real heroes, of course, are the survivors. I mean, they've been denied justice for over a decade. I mean, what happened here is just horrific.

[Jon Lovett]

Right?

[Ro Khanna]

I mean, you had Epstein with a, basically a rape island and rich and powerful men who had given all this money to politicians and cavorted with bankers thinking the rules didn't apply to them. And these women were raped as girls or sex trafficked. And over a thousand victims, and for over a decade, nothing has happened. So he realized that we had a coalition that was outraged standing with these survivors. And he saw the writing on the wall.

[Tommy Vietor]

I saw it. So what happens next, procedurally? I mean, will there be a vote? There's some reports that it might be Tuesday. But do you, I mean, is there a chance leadership might decide, okay, now that Trump is for this, we'll put forward our own, our own, like, kind of Republican vehicle. Like, how does this work?

[Ro Khanna]

Yeah, no, I mean, they've folded. They're doing the vote at 3:15 tomorrow. We have a press conference where the survivors are coming in at 10 in the morning in front of the Capitol. And, you know, to break a little bit of news. I've been in touch with Merkley and, and Murkowski's office in the Senate. They expect actually now that this will quickly go through the Senate, which would be enormous. I mean, just last week if you had asked me, I would have said uphill battle both in the House and the Senate. And now it looks like it's going to pass both the House and the Senate, which is a testament to why organizing matters, why survivors speaking out matter, and really why the grassroots mobilization is working.

[Tommy Vietor]

Yeah. And I should say we're recording this Monday at about noon Pacific time. So when Congressman Khanna says vote tomorrow, that means Tuesday. I too, was surprised by the, the change in tone coming out of the Senate. I mean, initially, John Thune, the leader, was saying he didn't think we needed to vote. Now it sounds like there will be one. I mean, I think Donald Trump would still have to sign this bill into law. Right. Is there any chance he might veto it?

[Ro Khanna]

Oh, Donald Trump, nothing is predictable. I mean, two days ago he was unendorsing Marjorie Taylor Greene and threatening every person to who voted for our bill to be unendorsed. And Massey and I were in a panic, wondering whether we would have defections. And then of course, people held. And so Trump saw the numbers. I'D be surprised if he vetoes it. I do think he would sign it. That in itself is going to be a enormous deal of the Congress and the President basically assuming accountability for these survivors, I hope, and I'm going to ask tomorrow at our press conference for him to meet the survivors. I think that's important for them. I know it's important for them and it's important for the country for them to be uplifted. But the challenge after that is to actually get the release of the files. You know, there's some concern that he's initiated these quote unquote investigations and he may use that as an excuse to delay the release of these files. There's a concern about him being selective about the prosecutions. And both Massie and I have said from day one, we don't care if they're Democrats or Republicans implicated, but we want it to be fair and we want to make sure that it's not done through a political partisan lens.

[Tommy Vietor]

Yeah, there's this, there's this belief in the kind of the right wing circles that Democrats don't want the Epstein files released because all of us are trying to cover up for Bill Clinton or something. It's like, absolutely not. If Bill Clinton is in these files, release all of them. I want to see all of it. But you're making the point that Trump, he recently posted this, this message on Truth Social, calling on the Attorney General on Pambondi to investigate Bill Clinton, Reid Hoffman, Larry Summers, a bunch of other Democrats over the weekend. Congressman Massie said these new investigations could be a smokescreen and a way to avoid having to release more documents. Can you explain that a little bit? Like, how could a new investigation impede the release that you're calling for?

[Ro Khanna]

Sure, the Justice Department could say it's currently being investigated and so it would compromise our investigation if we made these documents public. I mean, that would be a smokescreen, as Massey pointed out. But I don't put anything past the Justice Department. And the reality is that at this point we need the information to be public. The, the ability to prosecute people for what happened is unlikely. I mean, we should do it if it really leads to that. But justice has been sitting on this for years. What the survivors want is a public accountability. They don't want people sitting on the boards of companies having buildings named after them, having scholarships being named after them, being given awards when they engage either in the rape of underage girls or in sex trafficking or in the COVID up of this. And they want a public accountability that's what. What the survivors are. Are asking for. And so we are going to continue to push for the full release of these files and not let some partisan investigation be a. An excuse to prevent that.

[Tommy Vietor]

Yeah. Over the weekend, I saw that Trump, he posted this bizarre message on Truth Social where he went after Congressman Massie for getting remarried. He suggested it was like he got Mari married too quickly. And then he said, quote, his wife will soon find out that she's stuck with a loser, end quote. So it's my understanding that Congressman Massie got remarried after his wife passed away last year. This was his, I think, high school sweetheart, who he was married to for 30 years. They had four kids together. What did you make of that message? And have you talked to Congressman Massie about getting attacked on such, like, vicious personal terms like that?

[Ro Khanna]

I have. Look, Thomas Massey has become a friend. I've met his new wife. She's lovely. In fact, I don't think he'll mind my sharing this. We were doing Caitlin Collins together, and she comes up to him and gives him floss and says, massey, get that stuff out of your teeth. And I said, you know, his style has gotten better. She's dressing well. He was devastated after his wife's loss. I know what a difficult time that was for him. I know the conversations he had with his kids, kids, and, you know, it's just disgusting to go after him like that. There used to be a time in Washington where the type of genuine friendship that Massey and I have was more common, where you have vigorous disagreements, like we do on gun policy, like we do on tax policy, like we do on national health insurance. But you respect people's families and humanity, and Trump obviously has no regard for that. And it just was sad. And it's. It's sad because they're going to be going for their honeymoon soon. And I just found the whole thing disgusting.

[Tommy Vietor]

Yeah. I mean, look, I'm used to telling Trump being harsh and just a mean person, but that really across a line in a way that I just hadn't seen before. The innuendo there, the suggestion that Thomas Massie did something. I mean, it was just disgusting. And frankly, like, terrible politics. Like, you're trying to earn this man's vote, you're trying to get him on your side, and you're going after his family, like, what's wrong with him?

[Ro Khanna]

And the thing with Massey. And if you look at how we built this coalition from day one, we never made this about Donald Trump. In fact, Thomas Massie would go out of his way to say, I don't know if there's Trump in the files or not. Like, the point is, this is about getting justice for the survivors. And I go out of my way and say, look, if Donald Trump wants to meet the survivors and release the files, I'll be the first to praise him. So we actually did not make this thing about Trump. It's one of the reasons we were able to get Marjorie Taylor Greene initially and Lauren Boebert and Nancy Mace and get MAGA influencers supporting us. And so for him to take it so personally just shows his pettiness. But I do think it's a broader theme about how Democrats can approach this, which is when we identify with maga's concerns about a corrupt system and say, look, we hear you on some of that and here's how we're going to work, work forward on that, I think we can build trust and effectiveness without making every single thing about Donald Trump. That doesn't mean we don't oppose him where he's wrong, but it means that we can earn the trust of the MAGA base by focusing on the attacks on the system rather than just the attacks on Trump.

[Tommy Vietor]

Yeah, I mean, the interesting partner that you and Congressman Massey have identified in this effort is Marjorie Taylor Greene. She has had this sort of of slow rolling fallout with Donald Trump over the last week or two. Trump is mad at her for siding with you guys for calling for the release of the Epstein files. He's mad at her for suggesting Trump should focus more on cost of living issues. And then Trump, you know, his counterpoint is he says Marjorie Taylor Greene is just mad that Trump wouldn't endorse her campaign or candidacy for governor of Georgia. What do you make of all this? Is this an intrapersonal spatula or is there a chance that Trump could be kind of losing his iron grip on elected Republicans in Washington?

[Ro Khanna]

There's not a chance he is losing his grip on elected leaders in Washington. Look, Tommy, I mean, you work for President Obama. The idea that you would have had 40 Democrats vote for a discharge petition against President Obama on something that he was actively opposing would have been unthinkable. And President Obama didn't use the kind of a authoritarian, strong arm tactics of Donald Trump. So this is a huge blow to him that you had people willing to sign a discharge petition against his wishes, that you had probably near 100 Republicans ready to vote against him for a Democratic bill from a progressive Bay Area Democrat against his wishes. And that's really what has gotten him infuriated that's why Ian endorsed Marjorie Taylor Greene. Now, Marjorie, until recently, would keep saying that she just realized that Trump was out of touch with his base and she was trying to get him to release these files because she understood that this was hurting him. She's trying to get him to focus on affordability because she understands that he's deviated from his message. And she's a smart politician. She sees that he is disconnected from a MAGA base. I think this has elevated her among some of those voters, but it was not personal. Like, do I think she may be upset about Trump in the Georgia race? Maybe. But no one makes a decision that big on risking a president's wrath because of some endorsement in a race. This was a much bigger issue about her feeling that Trump was no longer connected to the base, that she felt he gave him his rise.

[Tommy Vietor]

Yeah, I mean, the other area that really is standing out to me of where Trump seems disconnected from his base is on foreign policy. Again, he ran an America first, not necessarily fully isolationist, but certainly anti regime change wars. But that is exactly what it seems like his administration is setting up in Venezuela right now. So for folks who haven't followed this, we have seen over the last few weeks this massive US Military buildup in the Caribbean. There was a report by CSIS recently That said between 10 and 15% of all deployed US Navy assets are in the Southcom area of responsibility. So Central and South America, those military assets are being used to blow up boats that are alleged to be part of drug trafficking efforts in the Caribbean and in the Pacific. And the administration is also doing all this saber rattling about a regime change operation in Venezuela proper. I mean, to depose Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, who is a bad guy who stole the last election. But still, I mean, this is the kind of thing Trump ran against. Let's just start there. I mean, how concerned are you, Congressman, about the US Launching some sort of invasion or attack on Venezuela? And what do you think the Congress could or should be doing to prevent it?

[Ro Khanna]

I'm very concerned. I mean, Marco Rubio is itching for a regime change war in Venezuela, either through covert means or by actually a kinetic conflict. And he makes no secret about it. The reality is that would entangle the United States in another conflict like we got entangled in Iraq or for 20 years in Afghanistan or in Libya. This is exactly what the American public has been voting against. They've been voting against this from Howard Dean to Barack Obama to Bernie Sanders to Donald Trump. They don't want to these wars and it's not just a sense that we rather focus on our country than bad wars overseas. I think that's actually not giving some of Trump's voters enough credit. When you talk to them, they actually say, yeah, we don't want to be killing people unnecessarily. We don't like it that both people are being killed off of Venezuela. We're the good guys. We don't want that blood on our hands. And there is a kind of moral simplicity to people who are not part of the Beltway. And they're horrified by it. Some of them were horrified with what was going on in Gaza. And that's why Donald Trump, when he ran, kept saying, I'll be for peace and I'm going to bring peace.

[Tommy Vietor]

Just to follow up on that, Congressman, I mean, so the Wall Street Journal reported that there was a classified Justice Department briefing authorizing these strikes on the drug smuggling boats, alleged drug smuggling boats that described fentanyl as a chemical weapons threat. This was reportedly part of a longer briefing to justify these strikes that have now killed more than 80 people. That number might be even higher. It strikes me as crazy for a few reasons. I mean, first of all, fentanyl is not coming from Venezuela. As we've said many times. Fentanyl is chemicals from China are shipped to Mexico and their fentanyl is produced and smuggled into the US but also, second, I mean, like, under international law, under, like the, you know, the Chemical Weapons Convention, that usually is focused on chemical weapons like mustard gas or nerve agents or VX gas or novichok, like chemicals that you would use to kill someone. Not one an addict might voluntarily ingest or someone who needed pain relief might ingest in a hospital setting. What did you make of that report? And just sort of the broader, you know, legal justification in air quotes for these strikes on boats off the coast of Venezuela.

[Ro Khanna]

There is no legal justification. That's why Admiral Mosley resigned. That's why the Colombian president is saying, you've killed fishermen. And we don't have a clear response. You have Republicans who have said that the fentanyl excuse is totally ridiculous. They know it's narcotics that are actually being created. And you've had Republicans who said that in this country, we don't have the capital punishment for narcotics, whatever else you may think. We don't just have a capital punishment. You have due process. And right now, you have in American government, in our names, Tommy. And you're in my names killing people based on who they think is a criminal. I mean, and there was a Republican senator who said to me that he was with the Vice President and with the Secretary of Defense. And it's like a video game for them. They view these people as animals. It should send chills down the spine of any American of what they're doing in our name because at the end of the day, they're not going to say, well, well, you know, Donald Trump was a president Ro Khanna didn't support. They're going to say the Americans are killing our families. And it is, it is outrageous. And I'm telling you, there are Republicans on armed services where I serve who are horrified with what's going on and are starting to push back.

[Tommy Vietor]

I'm glad they're pushing back. I mean, it does just seem like, as you said, extrajudicial murder with no legal authorization, with no clarity that the people that we are bombing are even involved in the drug trade or in any way connected with cartels. They're certainly not high level cartel members. Right. I mean, the, the senior boss of a cartel is not jumping on a boat and driving, you know, thousands of miles to, you know, traffic drugs. The United States. And it is, it seems like the people that are involved in this could have some real legal problems going forward when there is a new administration.

[Ro Khanna]

Absolutely. I mean, I, I, I do think they will have a legal challenge when, when there is a new administration. And I, I think the, the heartening thing to me is seeing some Republicans starting to speak out is, you know, this sense that America should care about human rights, it should care about not killing people overseas. It's not just a left thing. It turns out there are a lot of decent Americans who don't like that, that there are a lot of decent Americans who have been upset with the direction of our foreign policy. And it's been surprising to me when I've spoken out on Venezuela, when I've spoken out on Epstein. You know, I've had people on the right like Rasmussen or others say, you know, that I'm speaking in a way that the MAGA base agrees with on these issues and that should give us hope that we could actually have a moral call to foreign policy. You're not going to win everyone, but that you can build a governing majority in this country around some of these principles. Principles.

[Tommy Vietor]

Yeah, I agree with you. And I also think there is a real growing anger at Donald Trump for not living up to the ideals that he campaigned on. You saw it around the Iran strikes. You're seeing it with Venezuela. If there is this regime change operation I think there's going to be a lot of people in MAGA who said, I did not vote for this. We got to make a big change here. Final question for you. So Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman is at the White House this week. He, look, we could go through all his various human rights challenges, the murder of Jamal Khashoggi, all the reasons that I would prefer this man not be in the White House. But bigger picture, I mean, the. The Trump administration is reportedly considering offering the SAUDIS, like, a NATO, like, Article 5, like, security guarantee. There's also all these reports that the U.S. might sell the Saudis F35 fighter jets, even though the U.S. intelligence community is concerned that the Saudis could pass that technology along to the Chinese. My question on both is just why? Why is either of those steps in the US Interest at all, in your opinion, or if you disagree, it's not.

[Ro Khanna]

But Kushner has all this monetary deal in Saudi Arabia. I mean, he raised almost $2 billion there. The Trump family is connected there. Look, my first, as a young member of Congress, my first real impact was working with Bernie Sanders to pass the War Powers Resolution to stop the refueling of Saudi planes which were bombing Yemen. That was one of the worst humanitarian crises in the world. It was of the order of what happened in Gaza. It was horrific. And you still have nbs who not only presided over the killing of Khashoggi, but who presided over Yemen's mass bombing in charge. Why we would want to give these a government like that weapons, and there's even talk of giving them nuclear technology makes no strategic sense. And by the way, the last thing you would want in the Middle east is to be arming Saudi Arabia and having an arms race with Iran. That is not in any nation's interest in the Middle east or our interests. So I happen to think it's just financial and cultural ties that the Trump family has with Saudi Arabia, and it's not in America's interest.

[Tommy Vietor]

Yeah, agreed. It's just stunning to me. I lied. This is my actual last question, just because I know you actually deeply care about these issues. Speaking of humanitarian disasters, I mean, there is a massacre happening now in Sudan, in the Darfur region, that is being compared to the early days of the Rwandan genocide. It is this group called the rsf, which is one half of a civil war that's been fought in Sudan over the last two and a half years. There's a lot of reporting about how the United Arab Emirates has been feeding arms into this conflict, specifically to the RSF that's making it worse. And it's culminated the last couple weeks in the the takeover by the RSF of this city called El Fuer, where, you know, at the time like250,000 civilians were seeking shelter, basically. And after being under siege for 18 months, it's hard for me to like read about this stuff every week and just see the total kind of lack of action either through the international community or by the U.S. is there anything happening in Congress? Are you hearing anything from the administration that they might do something to try to stop this conflict? Right. I mean, Donald Trump wants the Nobel Prize. He wants all this credit for ending wars. I mean, this seems like a very live war that he could step in and end with one phone call to the Emiratis if he wanted to.

[Ro Khanna]

He really could. I mean, Sarah Jacobs has been very strong on this issue. She has introduced resolutions to stop the UAE from arming that group. And it's not not taking sides in who's right in a civil war. It's simply saying we can't have external countries escalated. Obviously the conflict there is a legacy of colonialism that created these divisions. But what the United States can do now is to say to the uae, stop, don't escalate the situation. And Sarah Jacobs resolution calls for that. It should get a vote in the Congress. But we also should continue to put pressure on Trump. This is something he could stop, especially given his relationship with UAE where he has put data centers and where he has enmeshed with cryptocurrency.

[Tommy Vietor]

Yeah, that's absolutely right. Well, Congressman Khanna, thanks for your work on getting this discharge petition passed, getting the release of these Epstein files and everything else. Really appreciate your time.

[Ro Khanna]

Thank you. Thanks for having me.

[Jon Favreau]

That's our show for today. Thanks to Ro Khan for coming on. We'll be back on Wednesday with more from Crooked Con. My panel on the story Democrats should be telling voters right now with our friend Jen Psaki and Democratic strategist Faz Shakir, Liz Smith, Rebecca Katz and Adam Jennelson. You'll also hear Lovett's conversation with Senator Ruben Gallego. Be sure to check it out. And Dan and I will be back with another episode on Friday. If you want to listen to Pod Save America ad free and get access to exclusive podcasts, go to crooked.com friends to subscribe on Supercast, Substack, YouTube or Apple Podcasts. Also, please consider leaving us a review that helps boost this episode and everything we do here at Cricket. Pod Save America is a crooked media Production. Our producers are David Toledo, Emma Ilik 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. Politics the show is mixed and edited by Andrew Chadwick. Jordan Kanter is our sound engineer, with audio support from Kyle Seglin and Charlotte Landis. Matt de Groat is our head of production. Naomi Sengel is our executive assistant. Thanks to our digital team, Elijah Cohn, Hayley Jones, Ben Hefcoat, Mia Kelman, Kiril Pelaviev, David Toles and Ryan Young. Our production staff is proudly unionized with the Writers Guild of America East.

[Laci Mosley]

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