Hot Zohran Summer

Summary

Pod Save America - Episode: Hot Zohran Summer Release Date: June 27, 2025

Hosts: Jon Favreau, Jon Lovett, Dan Pfeiffer, Tommy Vietor
Guest: Congressman Robert Garcia

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1. Trump Administration’s Military Strike on Iran’s Nuclear Facilities

The episode opens with a heated discussion about the Trump administration's recent military strike on Iran's nuclear facilities. Jon Favreau criticizes President Trump's portrayal of the strike as "the most perfect, successful operation in the history of the United States."

"This is the most perfect strike you've ever seen." – Jon Favreau [02:40]

Tommy Vietor counters by providing historical context to highlight the complexity and scale of military operations:

"There were 5,000 ships in D day, 13,000 planes, 156,000 troops and £600,000 of equipment removed on that day." – Tommy Vietor [02:40]

2. Responses and Assessments of the Strike

The hosts delve into the aftermath of the strike, referencing CNN's report that the damage was less severe than initially portrayed by the administration. President Trump responded aggressively, questioning the credibility of the Defense Department's assessment and attacking CNN's Natasha Bertrand.

"He has ordered an FBI leak investigation. He's limiting access to classified information for Congress." – Jon Favreau [03:14]

Tommy Vietor criticizes the White House's handling of the situation, emphasizing the lack of transparency and accurate information regarding the strike's effectiveness.

"They didn't talk at all about the damage assessments... They do not have an answer to where the highly enriched uranium is." – Tommy Vietor [05:25]

3. Implications for US-Iran Relations and Future Policy

The discussion shifts to the long-term consequences of the strike, questioning its efficacy in halting Iran’s nuclear ambitions. The hosts argue that such strikes may only offer a temporary delay, potentially reducing the likelihood of diplomatic resolutions.

"The chances of resolving that through diplomatic means are, are greatly reduced." – Tommy Vietor [10:43]

Jon Favreau adds that President Trump's approach undermines future negotiations and damages the administration's credibility.

"Why should they? And this is the whole like, no one is suggesting that it was the military or the pilots that didn't successfully obliterated... They made a dumb fucking move by deciding to bomb these sites without letting more diplomacy take hold." – Jon Favreau [11:41]

4. Republican Tax and Healthcare Bill Challenges

The conversation transitions to the Republican efforts to pass a tax and healthcare bill, highlighting significant obstacles posed by the Senate parliamentarian’s ruling. The parliamentarian deemed several provisions of the bill, such as Medicaid cuts and funding for gender-affirming care, as non-compliant with budget rules.

"There are a whole bunch of like really pretty onerous, stupid, cruel things that were in there that get tossed out." – Tommy Vietor [19:06]

Jon Favreau expresses skepticism about the bill's passage, citing internal Republican conflicts and the increasing unlikelihood of meeting the July 4th deadline.

"I don't know, what do you feel like? I mean because just reading the comments from and I realize that most of these people, I realize that the high likelihood is that all these people cave in the end." – Jon Favreau [20:17]

5. Democratic Primary in New York City: Zorhan Mamdani's Victory

A pivotal moment in the episode covers Zorhan Mamdani's surprising win in the New York City Democratic primary for mayor, defeating incumbent Andrew Cuomo by seven points. The hosts discuss the potential impact of his victory on the general election and the Democratic Party.

"Zorin beat the polls and Andrew Cuomo by seven points. Crazy." – Jon Favreau [32:11]

6. Reactions from Republicans and Democrats to Mamdani's Win

The hosts examine the fierce backlash from Republican figures and media towards Mamdani's win, including derogatory remarks and unfounded accusations. They also highlight internal Democratic concerns about the nomination potentially harming the party's national brand.

"I'm old enough to remember when New Yorkers endured 911 instead of voting for it." – Donald Trump Jr. [34:19]

Tommy Vietor mocks the extreme reactions, comparing them to fictional portrayals and emphasizing the over-the-top nature of the criticism.

"I cannot believe that New York is about to elect Adam Sandler, the hairdresser." – Tommy Vietor [34:19]

7. Strategies for Democrats Moving Forward

The discussion shifts to Democratic strategies in light of Mamdani's nomination. The hosts argue for supporting the nominee while addressing internal party divisions and learning from the diverse coalition that powered his campaign.

"He won because he actually had a forward looking agenda. He won because he actually had an agenda that was positive that people felt." – Tommy Vietor [46:06]

Jon Favreau emphasizes the importance of embracing the nominee and building on his successful outreach to diverse voter groups.

"He speaks to New Yorkers. We should get behind him and we should learn from what he's doing in this campaign." – Tommy Vietor [71:18]

8. Conversation with Congressman Robert Garcia

In the latter part of the episode, Congressman Robert Garcia joins the hosts to discuss his recent election as the top Democrat on the oversight committee. Garcia outlines his plans to hold officials accountable, investigate corruption, and push for government reforms.

"We're going to hold Donald Trump accountable in new ways and I'm looking forward to that." – Congressman Garcia [56:08]

He addresses the challenges of balancing rigorous oversight without turning hearings into spectacles and emphasizes a forward-looking agenda focused on government efficiency and reform.

"We're going to lay out a vision for how we actually make government work better for people." – Congressman Garcia [58:40]

Garcia also discusses the devastating impact of current immigration policies, advocating for continued legal battles in courts and public protests to counteract inhumane actions by the Trump administration.

"We are winning some of these cases in the courts... People's reaction, the protesting, the anger, the rising up against these actions also is having an effect." – Congressman Garcia [61:39]

9. Closing Remarks

The episode concludes with a brief mention of upcoming episodes and additional content, reinforcing the show's commitment to in-depth political analysis and discussions.

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Notable Quotes:

• "This is the most perfect strike you've ever seen." – Jon Favreau [02:40]
• "They made a dumb fucking move by deciding to bomb these sites without letting more diplomacy take hold." – Jon Favreau [11:41]
• "I cannot believe that New York is about to elect Adam Sandler, the hairdresser." – Tommy Vietor [34:19]
• "We're going to hold Donald Trump accountable in new ways and I'm looking forward to that." – Congressman Garcia [56:08]

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Conclusion: In this episode of Pod Save America, the hosts provide a critical analysis of the Trump administration's military actions against Iran, the internal struggles within the Republican Party over tax and healthcare legislation, and the contentious Democratic primary in New York City. The conversation with Congressman Robert Garcia highlights ongoing efforts to enforce oversight and pursue government reforms. The episode underscores the polarized nature of contemporary American politics and the challenges facing both major parties in navigating internal and external conflicts.

Transcript

[Jon Lovett]

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[Dan Pfeiffer]

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[Jon Favreau]

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

[Tommy Vietor]

I'm Dan Pfeiffer.

[Jon Favreau]

On today's show, we're gonna talk about the Republican plan to gut people's healthcare, which is running into some roadblocks. We'll cover the absolute meltdown over Zorhan Mandani's big win in New York City on Tuesday. And then later, I chat with California Congressman Robert Garcia about his big win in the race to be the top Democrat on the oversight committee, what fights he plans to pick and what he really thinks about. Stephen Miller, your friend and mine. But let's start with the military strike on Iran's nuclear facilities that Donald Trump wants us to believe was the most perfect, successful operation in the history of The United States. Eat shit. D Day. This is it. This is the most perfect strike you've ever seen.

[Tommy Vietor]

Can I give you some D Day numbers just while we're here, just to put this in perspective and not to demean this very excellent strike that happened. But there were 5,000 ships in D day, 13,000 planes, 156,000 troops and £600,000 of equipment removed on that day.

[Jon Favreau]

Okay, I think you've. I think you've wandered into the wrong podcast. The pod Save the world records on Tuesday.

[Tommy Vietor]

Look, I don't know what podcast I'm on. I thought it was a fact based podcast. Wanted to push back against misinformation from the Trump administration.

[Jon Favreau]

So the President started crashing out about this when CNN broke the news earlier this week that the Defense Department's initial intelligence assessment found that the strike only set back Iran's nuclear program by a few months, that their stockpile of enriched uranium was not destroyed, and that their centrifuges are largely intact. Trump responded by rage, posting 21 times on Wednesday while he was at the NATO summit, I guess in Europe. He also responded by attacking CNN's Natasha Bertrand for breaking the story. He has ordered an FBI leak investigation. He's limiting access to classified information for Congress. And the White House has orchestrated an aggressive PR campaign where Trump officials in the White House and the Cabinet are now saying that actually the intelligence says that the nuclear program was obliterated, that the centrifuges were destroyed, the enriched uranium wasn't moved, the program was set back years, and anyone who says otherwise is basically a lying traitor who hates the troops. Let's listen to Pete Hegseth's early morning presser from today. Are you certain none of that highly enriched uranium was moved?

[Tommy Vietor]

Of course.

[Jon Lovett]

We're watching every single aspect.

[Jennifer Griffin]

But Jennifer, you've been about the worst, the one who misrepresents the most intentionally. How many stories have been written about how hard it is to, I don't know, fly a plane for 36 hours? Has MSNBC done that story as Fox? Have we done the story how hard that is? Have we done it two or three times? Because you cheer against Trump so hard, it's like in your DNA and in your blood to cheer against Trump.

[Jon Favreau]

I haven't heard Pete that mad since he missed last call. No, that's pretty good.

[Tommy Vietor]

I like it. I laughed.

[Jon Favreau]

He was talking there to Jennifer Griffin of Fox News, his former home, where he was the weekend anchor on Fox and Friends, for just asking a very legitimate question. What did you think about Hegseth? What do you think about this whole freakout that the Trump administration and the President are having over the aftermath of the strikes?

[Tommy Vietor]

I mean, the event that Hegseth had with the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff was pitiful. Like, they made everyone go to the Pentagon at 8am for this press conference at no point. And this was a press conference. It was touted by the President, United States, on one of the many truths he sent while sitting in a NATO summit. And yet they didn't talk at all about the damage assessments. Right. As General Kane said, he does not. The military doesn't grade their own homework. So all they did, they didn't push back on the thing. They did not talk about the actual results or success of the mission. They detailed the tremendous difficulty it takes to fly those planes, to successfully launch the missiles or to drop the bombs where they're supposed to be dropped and all of that. But doesn't get at the question everyone had, which is, what, what. What next for Iran's nuclear program? What. Where is the highly enriched uranium? Like, you played that point. He didn't. He was asked the question of where it was. He didn't answer that. They don't know. And that's the big thing. Like, it is very pitiful. And it's, you know, it is how we've seen this. It's the intellectual Zamboni, to use Lovett's phrase of Trump, goes out before there's a single battlefield damage assessment and says, we obliterated the whole thing. And now it turns out that's not the case. And the entire government intelligence apparatus has to run behind Trump and try to make that true, even though it's obviously not true.

[Jon Favreau]

There was one excellent explanation for why they're spinning this so hard from a surprising source. Let's listen. When you have a totalitarian regime, you have to save face. That was Caroline Levitt from today's briefing. She kept up the party line. It's the most successful operation ever. The President has now also threatened to sue the New York Times, which confirmed CNN's reporting. He's gone after Natasha Bertrand of CNN, personally, directly. They're all going after her. So did Caroline Levitz going after the New York Times and New York Times. I was proud to see that they put out a statement that said, there will be no apology, there will be no retraction, There will be nothing. We reported the truth the best we could.

[Tommy Vietor]

But the whole thing is so bizarre because at no point are they saying that this report does not exist or that the way it was characterized as wrong.

[Jon Favreau]

And you know that it exists because they've started a leak investigation and have complained publicly about who leaked it. So they have admitted that the report exists. What they're trying to say now is it was an early assessment and lo and behold, since new assessments have come out, much different now, much different.

[Tommy Vietor]

But they have. Those assessments have not been shared.

[Jon Favreau]

No, of course not. In fact, in fact, they had a closed door classified briefing, I believe, with, you know, Democrats and Republicans in Congress. Today. Chris Murphy walked out of the briefing and he told reporters that he is, quote, still under the belief that we have not obliterated the program. It's certain there's still significant capability and equipment that remain.

[Tommy Vietor]

So in the end, what the report said, it's worth noting, the New York Times and CNN said it was an early assessment in the reporting. I think the headline was early assessment says but we are where we are and all the rest is just fucking noise. And it's a press conference with an audience of one.

[Jon Favreau]

It's just like lying all over the place. And people that you can't trust have lost their credibility all over the place. Because in the original story, even before the early intel assessment that leaked, David Sanger wrote a piece about everything that happened. The strike, the aftermath of the strike, like a day or two after. And that was the piece that had Israeli officials saying that they think that the enriched uranium was moved and all that kind of stuff. And then Barack Ravid, the Axios reporter, said, oh, now Israeli officials telling him that actually they agree with Trump that it was completely obliterated and it's been set back years. But it's like, who can trust Netanyahu and his government now, right?

[Tommy Vietor]

And there was a report today that European countries were given an assessment that seemed very similar to the early one from the United States. All of this is so stupid, it's so dumb, because it's all beyond the point. Like, we're arguing about how far the bombs went down the hole, right? We're not having. And how damaged facilities were, which I guess is somewhat relevant. The bigger question, there are two bigger questions. One is, where is the highly enriched uranium? Right? No one has an answer to that. Seems like a problem. No one is contending it was destroyed, I mean, other than Trump. But like, no one. There's no report saying that. No one seems to know. There's no one explaining why it wasn't moved, because obviously it was moved. But to where? And were we able to destroy it? And the second point here is, even if this was the most, if this really was the perfect strike, the most successful possible version of this mission. All you're doing is delaying Iran's ambitions longer. Maybe it's not a few months, maybe it's a year, maybe it's two years, but you're going to end up in the same. This is why this was an ill fated decision from the very beginning, because you're going to end up back in the place where they are on the cusp of having a nuclear weapon. And now because we took this strike, the chances of resolving that through diplomatic means are, are greatly reduced.

[Jon Favreau]

Yeah, because they, Trump, Trump believed he could bomb them back to the table, which seems unlikely. Or it seems unlikely that if they do come back to the table, they'll have any level of credibility, any level of trust in the Trump administration. And why should they? And this is the whole like, no one is suggesting that it was the military or the pilots that didn't successfully obliterated. They did everything they were told to do. The person who told them to do it made a dumb fucking move by deciding to bomb these sites without letting more diplomacy take hold or having no plan for what happens after the sites were bombed. And also, by the way, blabbing his fucking mouth about the fact that he might bomb them and so they could move the enriched uranium in time, which he did and which the Defense Department told the New York Times on background that, by the way, he was their biggest, he was their biggest OPSEC problem, the President, United States.

[Tommy Vietor]

It's such, this is like the, this is a pre Trump Republican playbook move, which is if you disagree with a military operation, you're anti troop. If you oppose the Iraq war, you are anti troop. And they're doing the same thing here. And it's like, it doesn't wear very well. It was like, I guess a somewhat effective cudgel in the early 2000s, but right now it looks ridiculous.

[Jon Favreau]

Yeah, it's also, they're all. Because Trump has to say everything is perfect and everything was obliterated and it's the greatest operation in history. Imagine if Trump had come out and just said, like, yeah, I think we set back their program for a few years. No one's gonna say, like, actually it was a few months. Like, you might get a little reporting on that. But just say that the mission was successful. We severely, you know, hampered their ability to make a nuclear weapon and now we're gonna do X, Y and Z. But they can't do that because they don't have a plan and because all they want is a short term success to brag about. That's it. That's all they think, that's all. That's how Trump thinks.

[Tommy Vietor]

And Trump can only speak in superlatives. Yes, everything's the greatest, best ever. And now we have a government that has to then go back and try to make all of those things true, which is an impossible and ridiculous and stupid standard.

[Jon Favreau]

Quinnipiac poll came out and apparently only 41% of Americans support the strike. This is after the strike. And 50% opposed, which is actually lower numbers than I thought. I thought that more people would be for it just because it seemed to have gone okay and there's thank God, no US casualties and no wider war yet. But you know, I think people are smarter than they're given credit for and get that this could mean that we're drawn into a larger war, if not now, later.

[Tommy Vietor]

There's been several polls that have come out since the strikes. You have a Reuters poll, you have a CNN poll, you have the Squinipiac poll. And all of them show the same thing, majority opposition to the strikes. Somewhere between 70 and 85% of people concerned that this is going to drive us into a wider war. The CNN poll finds that people think that the result of strikes is that Iran is more likely to build a nuclear weapon than to not do so. I think it's 49% of the CNN poll don't trust Trump to make the right decisions. Here we are so far beyond sort of reflexive post 911 rally around the flag on these things. People have seen this movie before. They know what happens. They know and they know the results. Is nothing good for America.

[Jon Lovett]

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[Jon Favreau]

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[Jon Lovett]

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[Jon Favreau]

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[Robert Garcia]

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[Jon Favreau]

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[Robert Garcia]

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[Jon Favreau]

So Trump had a big event on the White House on Thursday. The point was to sell his big bill of bullshit.

[Tommy Vietor]

Oh, look at you with your new bbbbb.

[Jon Favreau]

I honestly, I just, I just, I've found myself saying it. I hate saying it, as I said earlier today in our meeting. And so bullshit was just the easiest thing to come out of my mouth.

[Tommy Vietor]

I like it.

[Jon Favreau]

I don't know if it'll stick.

[Tommy Vietor]

It's A sticks.

[Jon Favreau]

We should think of other B words though. It's also beleaguered right now. It's a beleaguered bill. Is that a word? Is that a word that really rolls off the tongue?

[Tommy Vietor]

No, it doesn't roll off the tongue, but it is used in the correct context here.

[Jon Favreau]

It is a political coverage. The media likes to use that. Everyone's beleaguered anyway. So he does this event. He stands in front of a backdrop of regular Americans dressed up like the Village People to make it obvious what jobs they have, what they' again tell their stories, why each of them might benefit from the bill. Trump listed off a bunch of things that are in the bill, some things that aren't in the bill. He's talked about no tax on Social Security. That's not in the bill at all. But he promised that in the event today and then he urged Congress to pass it before his July 4 deadline. Seems unlikely cuz here's where we are with this shit burger. You might remember that during the interminable debate over the Biden administration's bbb. Cause everyone has their own bbb. Apparently there was a point in the process where the Senate parliamentarian, who is possibly the most powerful nerd in America, ruled on whether anything in the bill broke the budget rules. And the budget rules are you can only include stuff in a budget bill that primarily impacts the federal budget. And so you can't use a budget bill to change laws. That's cheating. Because if you're changing the laws, you gotta find 60 votes instead of 51. You only need 51 to pass a budget bill. You need 60 votes to pass anything else. So when there's a budget bill, the parliamentarian goes through it and says, no, this doesn't just primarily impact the federal budget. It also changes a law here or changes this or that. So on Thursday, the parliamentarian said that a lot of the changes to Medicaid do not comply with the rules. John Thune, who's in charge of this circus, said, we have contingency plans, end quote. We're plowing forward. But the coverage on this matter includes heavy usage of the word scramble. Everyone is scrambling. Republicans are scrambling right now, scrambling for votes, scrambling to figure out the math, scrambling to figure out whether they can throw more or less people off their health care. What do you think, Dan? How big of a deal is what the parliamentarian is doing to the bill and what are Republicans options?

[Tommy Vietor]

Sure. So let's try to take this in two parts. There's how does the parliamentarian's ruling affect the substance of the bill and how does it affect passage of the bill? So the substance of the bill. There are a whole bunch of like really pretty onerous, stupid, cruel things that were in there that get tossed out. You know, bans on using Medicaid, funding for gender affirming care for trans youth and adults. A bunch of things to make it harder for people to repay their loans or get their student loans forgiveness, some provisions to make it harder for legal immigrants to access benefits, the guarantee to them by law. A bunch of like really bad stuff that gets talked about.

[Jon Favreau]

Mike Lee's thing about selling off public federal lands.

[Tommy Vietor]

Yep.

[Jon Favreau]

Federal lands, yeah, that's out.

[Tommy Vietor]

And then the Medicaid provider tax provision is a, it's a huge deal. It, you know, it would bankrupt rural hospitals, it would force states to cut services, which could lead to hundreds of thousands of people losing coverage over the course of the next several years. It's a, It's a very big deal. And so the bill, the Medicaid provisions of the, of the bill are less bad with that out if now in terms of passage, here's where we are. If the Medicaid provider tax provisions stay out, then they either have to find more even less popular Medicaid cuts or send a bill back to the House with the raises deficit even more, which it may, which compounds the problems they were already having. Cause there are sort of three main buckets of problems between the Senate and the House right now. The first will be the deficit. And if the Medicaid or provider tax is not in their higher deficits, the Chip Roy's of the World of Freedom Caucus people, they get kind of squirrely. The second is the state local tax exemption, the Senate has trimmed that back. The quote unquote salties from New York and California are still, are quite salty if you will.

[Jon Favreau]

Boom.

[Tommy Vietor]

And then the third thing is the Senate delays the repeal of some of the clean energy tax credits from the inflation Reduction act. And the House is very pissed about that. Steve Scalise today came out and said you'd have to go back to where the House was to get it passed. So all of that makes this very tricky path to passing the bill that much trickier on a very short timeline if you really do want to get to Trump's July 4th deadline.

[Jon Favreau]

We've been saying this for a while that it's very tough to reconcile the desire to make these deep cuts to Medicaid and food assistance and other programs and also not add trillions more to the deficit. Like it's just a math problem. I still don't like the worse this is going for them, the more I think, I wonder why they don't just extend the tax cuts and call it a day and just say that we're gonna do everything else next year or some other time, or we're gonna split it into two big bills of bullshit. You know, I don't know, like what do you feel like? I mean because just, just reading the comments from and I realize that most of these people, I realize that the high likelihood is that all these people cave in the end. Whether you're mad about deficits, whether you're mad about the Medicaid cuts, whether you're mad about salt. Like Donald Trump at the end tells you vote for the bill, you vote for the fucking bill. But Marjorie Taylor Greene posted today that she's a no right now. You know, the Chip Roys, the Andy Harris's, all those people in the Freedom caucus, they're like, this is crazy. Bill Cassidy, Senator, Republican Senator, said the Medicaid cuts in the Senate are too much now. And so he wants to go back to the House Medicaid cuts, which were still fucking awful. So I don't. It's definitely not. I can't see it getting done by July 4th, that's for sure.

[Tommy Vietor]

Yeah, I'm skeptical to do that. Cuz at every other recent time where we've thought they can't get this done on a short timeframe, they have gotten it done cuz Trump was able to bully these folks into it. I think when you think about, to answer your question about why don't they just extend the tax cuts and you have to have to put the debt ceiling in there as well. I think it's be hard to get people to vote to extend the debt ceiling without some form of cuts in there. So that becomes a problem unless Democrats have to bail them out on that, which we absolutely should not do. But the other, there's also just a mentality change. Like in our mind, Republicans paid a huge political price in the 2018 midterms because they tried to repeal the Affordable Care Act.

[Jon Favreau]

Yeah.

[Tommy Vietor]

In the Republican mindset and in Trump's mindset, they paid a huge price in the 2018 midterms because they failed to repeal the Affordable Care Act. It was the failure, not the attempt. And so the idea that you like and a simple year extension, two year extension of the tax cuts would be seen as a failure. And so that is a motivate. That is why Thune and others say failure is not an option because they think that would be worse for them because it would. I don't agree with this analysis, but it deflates the base, deflates the donor base, all of that. If you can't get what you promised done, it's literally the only bill they've tried to pass the whole year.

[Jon Favreau]

I mean I do, I do agree that if they fail to pass it, they could get donors and some base voters pissed off. And they also still get the Medicaid ads that they tried to cut Medicaid. So they sort of get the worst of all worlds because everything they proposed is still out there is something that they proposed. So the parliamentarian screws them over in their mind. And one thing is to just figure out a way to make the math work by doing other cuts or tax increases, who knows, or just adding to the deficit or whatever else. But then of course there's already some Republicans who are arguing that you can also either Overrule the parliamentarian, ignore the parliamentarian, get the votes to overrule or fire the parliamentarian. And Thune has already said this is not a good option. So in some key quotes on this from Republicans, one is, how is it that an unelected swamp bureaucrat who was appointed by Harry Reid over a decade ago gets to decide what can and cannot go in President Trump's one big beautiful bill? That was Florida Congressman Greg Stube. There's also this quote, democrats can't let an unelected bureaucrat stand in the way of popular and necessary policies. That was dan Pfeiffer in 2021.

[Tommy Vietor]

All right, thank you, Tim Russert. Throwing my old quotes back against me.

[Jon Favreau]

Honestly, that was a Reed Churlin special.

[Tommy Vietor]

Oh. After I told Reid that I held this position. So I'm sure he's not digging through the message box archives to find that. The context of that quote, which I 100% stand by because I am not someone who clings to norms as America falls into a fascistic, dystopian future, like some of you was during the, you.

[Jon Favreau]

Know, another word for norms is Dan. Democracy.

[Jennifer Griffin]

You.

[Tommy Vietor]

Another word for democracy is to quote a Matt Iglesias is norms in a trench coat. So the context of that quote was when Democrats were trying to pass the Voting Rights act, and we had 50 votes for it, but we did not have the 60 needed for the filibuster to get by the filibuster. And we had two senators who you may remember from that period of time, Kristen Sinnom and Joe Manchin, who would not eliminate the filibuster to pass a voting rights bill. And so I believe then and I believe now that the right thing to do would have been to do everything we possibly could to pass the voting rights bill, because ultimately.

[Jon Favreau]

But that wasn't a, that wasn't a parliamentarian issue.

[Tommy Vietor]

It was a parliamentarian issue because Schumann.

[Jon Favreau]

They were trying to do voting rights in a budget bill.

[Tommy Vietor]

Yes, there was a part, obviously, that doesn't comply. You couldn't do the whole thing. But there was a whole theory you could do. You could do some of it, some of it that way.

[Jon Favreau]

I remember it with minimum wage was the big. That's the one that everyone got mad at cinema because we tried to put a higher minimum wage in the budget bill, which you could argue is like, you know, tangentially related at least to the federal budget. And then they overruled that.

[Tommy Vietor]

I mean, look, obviously to follow Miles Law, like, where you stand depends on where you sit. So right now I'm very pleased with the parliamentarian. But the idea that we are allowing a rule set by Robert Byrd, a Senate rule set by Robert Byrd, not a law. Right. Not a, you know, not something in the Constitution to determine what the majority of the country and the majority of the Senate wants, I think is one of the problems with the Senate writ large.

[Jon Favreau]

I mean, I still think that the filibuster is a problem and it should go even though we're standing where we are right now and Republicans have the Senate. Because I just think that the chances that Democrats ever get 60 Senate seats with the map way it is like, I don't know if we'll see it in our lifetime. No, certainly not in the next several Senate elections. And we're lucky if we get 51. So I think that, you know, if we ever want to do good things again in this country and pass them through legislation, we're going to need to depend on 51 votes and not 60. So. Yeah, I mean, which is by the way, why all this stuff get is getting done in budget bills. Right? Because that's the only kind of bill that you can get 51 votes. The real problem here is the filibuster.

[Tommy Vietor]

Again, it's just, it's a stupid way to run a railroad to not in a polarized world where you can't get, where neither party can really get to 60 cents. Republicans have a better chance than we do, but it's still quite challenging. You just can't solve big problems this way. And the consequence of that is that sometimes it's going to fall where the Republicans have the trifecta and you're going to get really bad policies. I think I personally am of the view that over the long course of time that is a better. I would rather have that risk and be able to do good things when we have it than the country be able to do literally nothing other than pass one budget bill per presidency for the future, 100%.

[Jon Favreau]

And for people who disagree and think we should keep it, I would just ask you just give me the states that will get us to 60 senators. Go through the map. Look at the votes in the last couple elections. Tell me where we get 60 senators from. Just try it. You mentioned the failure's not an option thing. So that came from a closed door meeting and it leaked from a closed door meeting among Republican senators and it was from Mitch McConnell. I was like, where's he been? You know. But what he said was according to Punchbowl, which got word from the meeting, got a Leak from the meeting. He said, I know a lot of. He said, failure's not an option. And then he said, I know a lot of us are hearing from people back home about Medicaid, but they'll get over. I mean, this is. I know we're all having trouble trying to figure out how like the Medicaid stuff can break through and how the bill can break through to people. We got Joni Ernst, she's out there saying, someone's like, oh, people are gonna die. Well, we're all gonna die. We got Mitch McConnell saying people back home who are upset about Medicaid cuts will get over it. Thom Tillis maybe the most vulnerable Republican senator in 2026, I guess Susan Collins too. But he was actually. There's a piece of paper, we have a picture of this. There's a piece of paper he was carrying around to his Republican colleagues that shows how many thousands and thousands of people in North Carolina are gonna lose their Medicaid and lose their healthcare if this goes through.

[Tommy Vietor]

I can't wait to put that in an ad. Yeah, that when he votes for it in the ad.

[Jon Favreau]

Yeah, we do have a picture of that. I really wish we had a recording of Mitch McConnell, but they haven't. I guess Mitch McConnell's person said, Whoa. What he was actually talking about is the people who will get over it are the able bodied people who are getting Medicaid right now who shouldn't be. They'll get over it.

[Tommy Vietor]

Oh, of course. Well, you know, in this era of AI, you could. I'm just saying.

[Jon Favreau]

Anyway, we should be talking about it a lot, that's all.

[Tommy Vietor]

It is helpful that it's Mitch McConnell and not like Mike Crapo. It's like some of the people actually know who is.

[Jon Favreau]

A ready made villain for people.

[Tommy Vietor]

Yes, and I would bet most people think Mitch McConnell's still in charge of the Senate anyway. I'm not sure John Thune has swept the nation yet as a political figure.

[Jon Favreau]

No, he hasn't really left a mark.

[Jon Lovett]

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[Tommy Vietor]

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[Jon Favreau]

All right, let's go to the local news. I don't know if anyone's aware, but a man named Zoran Mamdani won Tuesday's Democratic primary for mayor in New York City. Look, there were some woos in the, in the studio, which is.

[Tommy Vietor]

The studio is in Park Slope, right?

[Jon Favreau]

Yeah, it is. It's Bush, actually.

[Tommy Vietor]

Yes, yes.

[Jon Favreau]

Zorin beat the polls and Andrew Cuomo by seven points. Crazy. What was the, what was the Emerson poll? The Emerson poll had him, like, leading by a few. Maybe. Yeah, a couple. No, no, I didn't see any poll that had 7. 7 points. It was a big enough lead that Cuomo conceded without waiting for the rank choice process to play out. So we, we. That's not, that's not Even the final margin yet from for Zora. And it could be bigger than that when they actually finish rank choice, that rank choice process. So Mamdani now moves on to the general election where he will face incumbent Mayor Eric Adams, who's running as an independent. And we'll have lots of money to spend. Along with perennial Republican candidate Curtis Sliwa. Sliwa. Sliwa. Perennial, but I don't know him. And various no names. There have been just a few takes on Mamdani's win. I don't know if you've heard any. Let's start with Republicans who've really been having a normal one. Gonna read you a few choice. Gonna read you a few choice reactions, dan. Donald Trump Jr. Reposted a tweet that said, quote, I'm old enough to remember when New Yorkers endured 911 instead of voting for it. So that was cool. That's from the president's son. Laura Loomer, proud Islamophobe is what she calls herself, also said Mamdani's win would lead to another 9 11. She just said that Elise Stefanik, who wants to now that she didn't get her dream job at the un, might run for governor of New York. She called him a jihadist terrorist sympathizer. Jihadist, which is. That's really nice. And then Donald Trump himself called Mamdani a, quote, 100% communist lunatic. And of course, the gang over at Fox News, they took up the chorus right away. Let's listen.

[Tommy Vietor]

I cannot believe that New York is about to elect Adam Sandler, the hairdresser.

[Jon Favreau]

As mayor of one of the world's greatest cities.

[Tommy Vietor]

The Democrats have gone so far left, they're socialists now. It's President Trump that's really in the middle, looking at everybody and governing that way. He's going to turn the prisons inside out and he's going to turn Whole Foods into no foods. Unless rich New Yorkers band together, donate a lot of money, and create a.

[Jon Favreau]

Groundswell for a viable alternative to Mamdani.

[Tommy Vietor]

Another great American city is going to.

[Jennifer Griffin]

Swirl down the drain.

[Jon Favreau]

You know what creates a groundswell? Lots of money. Maga. Die hard. Andy Ogles of Tennessee, this is some Sick Shit, is officially calling for the Department of Justice to investigate Mamdani, who was born in Uganda, so that he can be denaturalized and deported on the grounds of material support for terrorism. I don't know, Dan. What is wrong with these people?

[Tommy Vietor]

I mean, something very wrong. This is the least important point possible. But in the Adam Sandler Movie. Don't mess with Zohan. He was an Israeli super spy hairdresser.

[Jon Favreau]

I didn't even know that was a movie, Dan.

[Tommy Vietor]

Yeah, I saw the look on your face.

[Jon Favreau]

I guess I haven't kept up on my Adam Sandler.

[Tommy Vietor]

I think it's from a long time ago catalog. Yes, 2008. You were busy that year.

[Jon Favreau]

Yeah, well, I was working for. Working for another secret Muslim born in Africa. Yes, yes, I guess, I guess not so secret now. So I'm actually like, I'm surprised by the level and breadth of reaction from the right on this. Like I thought that they would be. I mean I thought that they would say some of this shit. But the fact that it has been like non stop for a couple days, I don't know. I guess I can always be shocked by this. I'm not shocked at what the, the sort of, the, the vitriol and the, and the racism and the hatred. That, that doesn't surprise me. Just that they, I guess they're, they don't have anything else to do right now. So they're really all in.

[Tommy Vietor]

Yeah, 100%. This is very much on brand. It's like, I'm sure it, like it drives ratings for them, it makes them happy. And frankly the bigwigs in right wing media based in New York City too, like all these Fox people are living there in the middle of this.

[Jon Favreau]

I don't know how effective this is because it's so over the top and so extreme. And Charlie Kirk and Stephen Miller and Matt Walsh and the rest of them, they're out there saying there's just too many immigrants in New York and there's, New York is full of foreign born. You know, a third of all the citizens in New York now are foreign born. And two thirds of all children in New York City live in a, in the household where one of the parents is foreign born. And we can't have any more third world migration at all. Just being, just, just saying the quiet part out loud that it's not about illegal immigration to them at all. It's about legal immigration. They don't like immigrants in this country. Also, New York City has been about a third foreign born citizens in New York City since at least 2000. It's been almost the exact same margin. And then really since New York City became a city, it was either a little higher than that or a little lower. Like there's just been. No, they want you to think that the country is changing and that there's all these foreign born people in the country. Now and mass migration. And really in a city like New York, it just hasn't changed all that much.

[Tommy Vietor]

Yeah, I mean, well, obviously you remember that the Statue of Liberty went up during the Biden administration. It's like that's when we truly opened the doors.

[Jon Favreau]

That was the gift he took. Yes, unlike the $400 million plane. But it was the same idea.

[Tommy Vietor]

Yes, exactly.

[Jon Favreau]

So the rich Wall street types, they are also very upset.

[Tommy Vietor]

I can imagine.

[Jon Favreau]

Imagine Mamdani they're quoting on cnbc. They're quoting Dark Knight saying, quote, they're taking Wall Streeters and making them walk out onto the ice and the east river and then they fall through. Hedge fund billionaire Bill Ackman wrote one of his trademark 1000 word diatribes on Twitter begging someone to launch a write in campaign. And then he promised to help fund it and said the money will be there. If someone wants to just step up and run a campaign, do a write in thing, then the billionaires will fund it. And then the Times reports that Eric Adams has already met with business and finance leaders to talk about how to stop Mamdani. Nice of these guys to do free campaign ads for Zoran.

[Tommy Vietor]

Yeah, exactly. Billionaires mad at Mandani. It's gonna be huge, huge, huge political problem for him.

[Jon Favreau]

I mean, what do you make of this?

[Tommy Vietor]

This is not surprising. I think the more likely scenario is they get behind Adams. It's easier. He's already. He already has ballot access and we know he can be bought since he both was indicted for bribery and then.

[Jon Favreau]

Just asked the Turks.

[Tommy Vietor]

Yes, but then he traded. Then he was bribed again in exchange for a pardon. So it's like. Or having his charges dropped. I guess. So, yeah, I think they're going to. I think they will get behind him. There will be a full, full New York City freak out about this over the next several weeks.

[Jon Favreau]

Do you think Cuomo gets back in and runs as on some other party's ticket?

[Tommy Vietor]

I mean, he did so poorly. I'm not sure anyone would want him to do that. It wasn't like he got in late and almost got there or started weak and grew strong. He got his ass kicked and was a terrible candidate. So I don't know that. I don't know that people will put more good money after bad. There is an amazing quote from one of the hedge fund guys who gave $250,000 to this pro Cuomo super PAC who's now going to back Mandani. And he said, don't mistake my $250,000 donation for enthusiasm for Andrew Cuomo. We just thought he might win. And this is how you have to play the game with Andrew Cuomo.

[Jon Favreau]

Amazing. Yeah, just amazing. I mean, clearly, you know, the knives are out for Zoron and the Wall street people, the finance people, Republicans, Republicans nationally. We're about to talk about some Democrats are going to just sort of empty the oppo file and really try to raise awareness on some of his positions, past statements, all the rest. I just think, I think a write in campaign is hard to pull off. I think a write in campaign with Adam still in the race then probably doesn't help. You would need to.

[Tommy Vietor]

You need to bribe him to drop out. Yeah.

[Jon Favreau]

Right. Yeah. Which I guess you could do. Yeah. Yeah. So you need to bribe him to drop out and then just have the right in candidate. And Zoran. But like I and Eric Adams, like the guy, they haven't taken a poll lately, but, you know, as of late March, I think his approval rating was sitting around 20%. Like, I just, I suppose it could get to be a closer race, but I don't know how you come. You're an incumbent mayor with a 20% approval rating and you're running in a city where Democratic registration and where, you know, where like Kamala Harris, obviously Trump made up some ground in New York in 2024, but I think Kamala Harris won the city by like what, 30, 40 points?

[Tommy Vietor]

Yeah. I mean, also, let's talk about Eric Adams for a second. He is a incumbent mayor who left the Democratic Party, was indicted for bribery, and then in the state, in the city that Kamala Harris won overwhelmingly, he had the charges dropped for him in exchange for adopting some of Trump's deportation policies.

[Jon Favreau]

Right. Yeah. Yeah.

[Tommy Vietor]

It's not a good profile.

[Jon Favreau]

Yeah. The ICE raids that New Yorkers hate right now are sponsored by Eric Adams because Donald Trump owns him.

[Tommy Vietor]

Yes. Yes. Doesn't seem like anything possible. Yes. Anything like anything's possible in American politics in 2025. But it's not a great starting spot for the Eric Adams for mayor campaign.

[Jon Favreau]

I want to read you some other negative reactions to Mamdani's win. Quote, absolute wrong choice for New York. Serious concerns, profoundly alarmed. Deeply disturbing pattern of unacceptable anti Semitic comments. Alas, those are all from Democrats. The Axios headline says it all. Democratic establishment melts down over Mamdani's win in New York. The concern here, allegedly is that the party's candidate in a 2025 mayoral race could, quote, hurt the party's brand nationally in 2026 and 2028. You wrote a message box on this already. Would you like to tee off here?

[Tommy Vietor]

I'll let you go first if you would like.

[Jon Favreau]

No, you wrote the message box.

[Tommy Vietor]

Okay. All right.

[Jon Favreau]

I'm just a lazy podcaster.

[Tommy Vietor]

You're running a media empire and you're podcasting every 16 seconds. I think that you can draw a straight line between how members of the ossified, sclerotic Democratic establishment have responded to Trump's deportation raids, the bombing of Iran, and Mandani's victory, which is they are governed by a culture of fear. They're so afraid of losing that they're never going to win. It's like we are thinking and we are reverse engineering our strategies and ideas, not by what is best, what the best outcome is. It's how do we minimize the worst outcome. What are Trump and the Republicans going to say about us? So you think about all these Democrats who have refused to endorse Mandani yet maybe they all will eventually. Governor Hochul did a press conference today which was, I think, just awkward and weird and not great.

[Jon Favreau]

Said she wasn't ready yet to endorse him.

[Tommy Vietor]

So let's just think about that for a second here. You have a candidate who you may not agree with on all of the issues, but he sparked a movement of young people, a diverse working class coalition of young people. The exact people leaving our party across the board, the people we have to get back. And you're going to walk away from him for what? So that you can support Eric Adams? He's the Democratic nominee for mayor. What is the alternative here? What are you afraid of? Right, they're afraid of the ads.

[Jon Favreau]

They're afraid of the Republican ads that.

[Tommy Vietor]

Like, look, the ads are coming either way.

[Jon Favreau]

You elected you're supporting this, or like you're standing with this Muslim socialist who is anti Semitic and all the fucking garbage bullshit that they're saying.

[Tommy Vietor]

The idea that they're going to be to use Mandani in ads to destroy Democrats around the country is absurd. It isn't borne out by evidence. Right? I've looked at this before. So in 2014, the Republicans put Nancy Pelosi in All of the Rats, and they did great. In the midterms in 2018, the Republicans put Nancy Pelosi in all of their ads and they got their ass kicked. Nancy Pelosi was in just about the same number of ads. She was actually less popular in 2018 than she was in 2014, and Democrats did great. There was just no connection to that. It's just. It is absurd. Just like there are things, you don't have to embrace his entire agenda. You have to embrace everything he said. Of course not. But what he accomplished in this race, what he speaks about, the future, the hope he's given people, is something that every Democrat should be learning from. I'm infuriated, as you can tell. I am infuriated. I'm speaking calmly, but I am boiling over with rage on the inside because it's so self defeating and stupid. If you wanted to endorse, if you didn't want to back him in the primary, back someone else. I think it's gross to back Cuomo in that scenario. Back Brad Lander or one of the other candidates. Great, go do that. But now he's the nominee. The voters have spoken and they spoke overwhelmingly. He didn't win by some, like, you know where he got like 26% of the vote in a 12 candidate race. He won overwhelmingly. Support him. He is the nominee.

[Jon Favreau]

I'm gonna take it from this perspective. Let's say you're a Democrat with good faith concerns about Mamdani. Like, you're just, you're like, it's not about that. I'm scared about the ads. It's not that. I'm just trying to punch left. I'm genuinely concerned about him. And the concerns really fall into the concerns that would make you not support the Democratic nominee for mayor. If someone asks you again, like most of these, most of these Democrats don't even fucking live in New York. But they're, you know, but, you know, I'm sure they'll get asked, right? And so the concerns fall into two buckets, I think. One is the, you know, globalize the intifada answer and all the charges of antisemitism that come with it, right? So if you're concerned about that, I bet you could call him. I bet you could meet with them, you could talk to him, find out what he really thinks, find out what his beliefs are. Because he has denounced anti Semitism many, many times. Not just in this campaign, but throughout his career. If there's other things that concern you, just, you know, give, give the guy a call. I'm sure he'd, I'm sure he'd be happy to talk to you. And then it's, oh, he's a socialist, right. We're worried about social policy. Steve Ratner tweeted this today, and I believe the tweet was to be like, can you believe these are his policies? For those not paying close attention, here are some of the things Mamdani believes free buses, free child care and pay for childcare workers. Equal to teachers. Free city university tuition, minimum wage of $30 per hour by 2030 rent, freeze on apartments, end of mayoral control of schools. City owned grocery store program, raise corporate individual taxes for high earners. I mean, yeah, like it is very possible to disagree with some of those policies and to even say, like, I share the goal of making sure that more New Yorkers can afford to live, afford to buy a house, afford rent. I don't know if rent control is going to work. Right. Or, or, you know, I think that we need to spend money improving the buses and before we make them free, like there's, there's a whole bunch of ways you can say, yeah, you might differ on some of the policy, but like, those policies are not some fucking like take control of the means of production shit.

[Tommy Vietor]

Also, the grocery store thing is a pilot program with one.

[Jon Favreau]

One for grocery store. And as he said to, you know, I heard about, because I had thought that too. I'm like, people were like, nationalize the grocery stores. And I'm like, what is that? And then I heard him talking to Tim Miller about it and he's like, it's a pilot program. If it works, great. If it doesn't work, we don't do it. And that's why we're trying. One per borough.

[Tommy Vietor]

Yeah. Cause food deserts are a huge problem, so let's try to fix it. Maybe it's not the right solution, but it's a. So at least he's trying.

[Jon Favreau]

Here's the thing, and I said this before, like, the guy could succeed wildly. He could be fine, he could fail as mayor. But like we let a lot of other Democratic politicians run cities, run states, go to Congress, and sometimes they do well, sometimes they do fucking horrible. And then you vote them out of office. Like, I just don't understand why this has to be the biggest fucking deal ever.

[Tommy Vietor]

You know, you mentioned the idea of punching left, right? This idea that you're going to show your independence by attacking people to your ideological flank. The old phrase back in the 60s was hippie punching. Right. And to think that that is a good idea in this environment shows that you fundamentally do not understand politics in the post Trump era. Because we do not exist on a continuum of left and right. It is inside, outside. Which is exactly why Trump can make gains in New York city and a 33 year old Democratic socialist can win the primary against the former governor. Because both of them, they are change, they represent. We can disagree about Trump, but they represent change. They represent a challenge to the establishment. So if you are, this is my advice to Democrats out there who are looking to show their independence because they feel way down by our absolutely dismal party brand right now. Don't punch left, punch up. What people are mad about is the Democratic establishment. If you feel, if you have a problem with your party, they want to see that you are willing to break with your party on that. Not that like just simply attacking people to the left to show you're moderate isn't answering the question the voters are asking. They're asking, are you someone who can take on a broken political system? And you do that by showing that you are not going to be obedient to the party bosses.

[Jon Favreau]

Donald Trump tried to steal the last election when he failed, fomented a violent insurrection against the Capitol. Cops were brutally assaulted. They tried to kill members of Congress and his own vice president. He then wins the election, pardons the people who violently assaulted cops. And what we've had, at least at the beginning of the administration, is some Democrats being like, I'll work with them where it makes sense. I'll vote for some of his nominees where they're good. Now we're like, oh, but if it's the mayor of New York City who wants to give people free buses and rent control and has said that he doesn't know if he's going to police the term, globalize the intifada, even though he doesn't use it, which is admittedly a dumb answer, but for that for him we're gonna say, absolutely not. This is very concerning. I can't do it. But for Donald fucking Trump, be like, well, I'll work with them where I can.

[Tommy Vietor]

If you are more concerned about a Democratic socialist in City hall than a fascist in the White House, you're not living in the right times here, people.

[Jon Favreau]

Even if we're talking about right now, there's this whole debate where it's like, oh, a Democrat called for, for Trump's impeachment and this and that. And it's like, yeah, I get that impeachment is a road to nowhere, cuz we don't have the votes. But like, of course this man should be impeached. If we fucking had the votes, he shouldn't be in office. But like Democrats are like, oh, I don't know, we can't. No one can even say the word impeachment. It's so scary. We don't want to look too extreme. But you know, when it comes to talking about Mamdani they have no problems. No problems whatsoever. And look, it's been a handful. It's been a handful of people so far, but, I mean, the congressional leadership.

[Tommy Vietor]

Of the House and the Senate have yet to endorse the Democratic nominee for mayor from the state in which the city in which they both live and vote.

[Jon Favreau]

Here's the other thing. Like, you're gonna end up endorsing.

[Tommy Vietor]

Of course you are.

[Jon Favreau]

You know where this is going. Hakeem Jeffries and Chuck Schumer aren't gonna spend from now until fucking November just dancing around this. They're not going to end up in a place where they fucking endorse Eric Adams. And so what? What do they think?

[Tommy Vietor]

No one pulls a band aid off more slowly than a Democratic leadership. It's like. Just. Just do it. God.

[Jon Favreau]

Unbelievable. Unbelievable. Okay.

[Tommy Vietor]

This is cathartic.

[Jon Favreau]

It was cathartic, yes.

[Tommy Vietor]

I feel good now.

[Jon Favreau]

I thought that you would tee off and I would be the. I would try to save. Save my anger, but I couldn't do it. All right, when we come back from the break, you'll hear my conversation with California Congressman Robert Garcia. Quick announcement before that. Strict Scrutiny dropped two bonus episodes this week. One on the Supreme Court's Planned Parenthood decision, which was fucking awful, and another on the wave of major rulings that followed. They break down what it means, how these decisions could affect people's lives. So go check out Strict Scrutiny wherever you get your podcasts or watch them on YouTube. When we come back, Robert Garcia.

[Jon Lovett]

Positive America is brought to you by policygenius. There are all kinds of milestones that will make you rethink your priorities. I went to a bar mitzvah over the weekend, and it's like, wow, that.

[Jon Favreau]

Made you rethink your priorities?

[Jon Lovett]

Well, kind of.

[Jon Favreau]

What were the pre bar mitzvah priorities in the post?

[Jon Lovett]

I gotta learn more Hebrew, John. No, I think that's what it was. I guess it just like I remember when that little kid was a baby. Now we're at the age we're starting to. Kids are getting bar mitzvah that I knew as a baby.

[Jon Favreau]

We're getting old.

[Jon Lovett]

We're getting old. You got to be ready for what eventually comes at the end, which is the big sayonara, you know, the long.

[Jon Favreau]

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[Jon Lovett]

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[Jon Favreau]

Congressman Garcia, welcome to pod Save America.

[Jennifer Griffin]

Yeah, happy to be here. Thank you.

[Jon Favreau]

So you're now the top Democrat on the oversight committee. Congrats on winning that big election.

[Jennifer Griffin]

Thank you. Obviously, just very grateful to the caucus. And look, I think obviously the oversight, as you know, is like the heart of what Congress does, which is transparency, investigations, holding the powerful accountable. Obviously, we're going to hold Donald Trump accountable in new ways and I'm looking forward to that. And I think it's good for. It was good for the party and the caucus to expand the tent and bring in some new folks. And I think that's also a good sign for where the party is going and I certainly hope so.

[Jon Favreau]

What power do you have for people who don't know on that committee as the ranking member, the minority party? Obviously Republicans, you know, control Congress and control that committee. And so what, what powers do you have and what do you plan to do with Them, I mean, a couple.

[Jennifer Griffin]

Things I think one is look as ranking member and certainly in the minority, we still have investigative power. So we can still launch investigations. We can still work and try to get legislation done. We can still push back in committees and outside to talk to the American people directly. And I think it's really important that when we have these hearings that we're bringing the fire, that we're being honest and direct with the American public, that we're pushing back on every lie that is told by the far maga. Right. I mean look, you've got Nancy Mace, Marjorie Taylor Greene, Lauren Boebert, Jim Comer. I mean this is kind of the worst of the worst of the liars and the extreme right in Congress. And so we're going to have to push back and communicate the message, a winning message, a message that's kind of forward looking for the country. And then I think also at the same time, I want to build the best and the brightest, not just on the committee and invite new folks to join, but we're going to build a team of oversight staffers. There's already some incredible team members, but we want to bring in even more folks that are committed to this work and they're also going to look at our committee structure that we can communicate more effectively to the American public. We need to be in every single digital space communicating in a way that the American public can understand these investigations, that they're relatable to the American public and that they can see through the lies and deception of James Comer and Donald Trump.

[Jon Favreau]

So on that note, as you pointed out, you got some of the biggest clowns in the Republican Party on that committee, just attention starved clowns. How do you think about balancing the need to push back, as you say, and call out the lies without helping them turn these hearings into a circus. Right. Which is what they want and also turns off some people who are watching.

[Jennifer Griffin]

Yeah, I think there's two pieces of it. I mean look, they're bringing the clown show. We've got Maxwell Frost and Greg Cassar and Jasmine Crockett, Summer Lee and so many others that are going to, I think deliver and communicate broadly to the American public. At the same time, I've told them and I've told the committee team that we're going to build a forward looking agenda. Not only are we going to focus on investigations and we're going to investigate not just Donald Trump, but corporate power that wants to abuse the American public. We're going to take on some of the big issues that are happening right now, whether it's ICE or whether it's big corporations trying to rip off middle class families. We're also going to have a forward looking agenda of government reform. The committee is oversight and government reform and we don't do enough of that. People want to see the federal government be more efficient, be more effective, ensure that we're providing services quicker and faster to constituents. These are all things that are highly popular across the country. And so yes, we need to be the opposition party and have investigations and bring that fire, but we are going to lay out a vision for how we actually make government work better for people. I think it's going to be highly popular and I'm really excited in putting together that plan.

[Jon Favreau]

And it sounds like that's something that Democrats could run on in the midterms 100%.

[Jennifer Griffin]

And I think it's also something, I mean, I kind of pitch myself to the caucus as someone that's done a lot of government reform. I was a big city mayor before I got to Congress just a couple of years ago. And we made government faster, we used technology, we brought in innovation. We weren't afraid of efficiency. Efficiency can't be a word that Republicans co opt to mean the destruction of government or doge or eliminating workers. Efficiency can mean actually making government faster, making employees and the workforce be more attentive and work closer with the public and constituents and using technology to actually make our services work better. So I think all of that is under our jurisdiction and I think it's also could be a forward looking agenda that could absolutely help with the midterms.

[Jon Favreau]

So there's a story today about a Los Angeles family suing the Trump administration because armed federal agents wearing no uniform arrested their 9 year old and 6 year old who has leukemia as they walked out of their asylum hearing with their mother. This is from the story. They were crying in fear. One of the agents lifted up his shirt to display the gun he was carrying and the six year old was so terrified he urinated on himself. No one offered him a change of clothing. They were shipped to Texas and the six year old missed a medical appointment even though his cancer symptoms got worse. These kids were enrolled in LA public schools. I have run out of ways to express how outraged and disgusted I am by Stephen Miller terrorizing communities. And the question I get asked all the time from people is what more can we be doing about this? It feels like we hear these horrible stories and everyone speaks about them, but what more can we be doing? What do you think?

[Jennifer Griffin]

First I Mean, what's happening right now is just, it is so inhumane and gross. And as an immigrant myself who came here as a young kid, it just, it's not the America that, so that so many immigrants come to, to actually be a part of, to fight for, to fight for citizenship. The American dream that immigrants are actually drawn to is being ripped away from people and the inhumanity essentially dehumanizing immigrants so that they're less than human. Is Stephen Miller doing what he loves to do, which is be essentially the biggest piece of shit on in this country? Stephen Miller should be ashamed for the way he is acting. I can't even believe he's from our state, which actually makes me more sick.

[Jon Favreau]

Me too.

[Jennifer Griffin]

And I'll say that what's happening right now is it's not just that story, which is horrific. I mean, it's the data of those Marines that got essentially beat on a street. It's children that are US Citizens being deported, as we know, to other countries without consent. Due process in our Constitution is given to citizens and non citizens. It's, it's all persons. And I don't know what part of all persons that Kristen Noem, Donald Trump and Stephen Miller don't understand. And so what has to happen now, I think you're seeing some of that one is we are winning some of these cases in the courts. And I think that's been a really important vehicle for Democrats. We've got to continue winning in the courts and that's going to continue. And the other piece of it, people's reaction, the protesting, the anger, the rising up against these actions also is having an effect. And you're seeing that. I mean, what's happening in la, which was widely as, you know, mostly peaceful, and yes, there were some incidents of violence, we denounced those, we get that. But widely peaceful, the protests are energizing the population and the public to stand up against us. And we are seeing the impact it's having on the Republicans electorally. I mean, Trump's immigration numbers have never been as low as they are right now, because they're seeing what he wants to do implemented across the country. And so that's going to be really important. And then finally, Democrats in Congress and across the country, we got to fight, we got to continue to fight really hard. It does feel in these last few weeks, last month or so, that there is a shift happening. I really do sense that Democrats people have found their footing, they're being more aggressive, they're getting out in the street more. And so I hope that Wave kind of continues and hopefully we can get stop the worst of the worst from happening and encourage some actually good legislation moving forward.

[Jon Favreau]

Do you plan to conduct investigations from your perch on the oversight committee of ICE and dhs? And do you think that any of these officials would actually show up at the hearings?

[Jennifer Griffin]

One is absolutely. You can take it to the bank. I mean, going after the corruption of what's happening right now at ICE and Homeland Security is going to be a critical piece of our oversight agenda. And even in the minority, we actually have some oversight investigative work coming up here in the next few weeks specific to ice. But certainly that is going to be a big focus of what we do, broadly speaking, of course, when we're able to have subpoena power and actually take over the investigations. One thing I've told people is you can rest assured that if you are right now causing the level of harm that the Stephen Millers of the world are, that the these ICE agents are, that the corruption that's happening to destroy our institutions, you are going to be held accountable. We are not going to forget the harm that you're causing to people and our government. We are going to use the power of subpoena investigations. We're going to ensure transparency, and these folks are going to be held accountable.

[Jon Favreau]

I know you've been working really hard to get answers from the administration on Andre Romero Hernandez, the Venezuelan asylum seeker who they've disappeared to seekot. And I know you were talking about this with Lovett and Tim Miller at the Pride event a couple weeks ago. Any other updates you've gotten on Andre?

[Jennifer Griffin]

You know, no, I'm hopeful that we'll get an update soon. There is a lot happening right now with the case. We're in very close contact with the lawyers and the family and I will tell you that they're some of the most compassionate, smart people are working on this case right now. And I remind everyone that Andre came to our country seeking asylum with an appointment that we gave him. We said, come to this appointment on this day and this time. And then we detain him and then send him to a country he's never been to, to a notorious prison. And as you know, someone that's described as very sweet by his family and so just horrific, the cruelty level. We are of course, in the courts right now on this case. There is some movement and I'm really hoping that the proof of life piece, which is so critical, we're hoping to get that some proof of life here soon. And I'm hoping there'll be some positive developments, which I'm hoping that will be announced soon.

[Jon Favreau]

That would be wonderful. Republicans in Congress right now are still trying to get the votes for their bill to cut taxes for the rich and health care for the rest. Do you think any of your Republican colleagues in the House will actually defy Donald Trump and vote against this bill? And what do Democrats have planned to make noise about this as we get closer to a final vote?

[Jennifer Griffin]

I mean, first, I can't believe that they're doing it. This is like literally insane. The amount of people that are going to lose health care. I mean, millions, 16 million people could lose health care and food assistance. I mean, it's just, it's not, it has nothing to do with anything that Donald Trump or Republicans actually campaigned on. What happened to lowering the costs of groceries and the cost of goods? And if you think about our state alone, right in California, the Republican Californians could actually stop this bill. But, but they are just complete cowards and just bend the knee to whatever Donald Trump wants. These, you know, supposedly moderate members, which are not moderate, they're extremists, are not standing up to Speaker Johnson and the President. Take David Valadao. David Valadao has more people on Medicaid, or we call it Medi Cal here in California, more people on Medicaid than any other member of Congress in the state of California. His, his population of constituents depend on Medicare for their health care, for their livelihood to live, and yet he is going to vote to cut that care. Young Kim here in Southern California likes to talk a good game. She is all in the tank for cutting health care from workers and teachers in her district. And so, you know, we're starting by holding these California Republicans accountable. And there are other Republicans across the country who are now very nervous about the progress of this bill in the Senate. I hope that there's some senators that will do the right thing, but we can stop this if we just had a handful of Republicans who didn't believe in cutting health care for our grandparents.

[Jon Favreau]

Yeah. I want to read you some reactions to Zoran Mandani's winning the Democratic primary for mayor of New York. Quote, absolute wrong choice for New York. Quote, serious concerns, profoundly alarmed, deeply disturbing pattern of unacceptable anti Semitic comments. Those are all from Democrats, many of them your House colleagues. I know you've praised Mamdani's win and said Democrats need to get on board. What would you say in response to your colleagues concerns?

[Jennifer Griffin]

I mean, I don't know anyone that has followed this campaign or that has seen the way he's connected with voters and New Yorkers can see that this is someone that we should be taking lessons from. Let's be first clear. He is a Democratic nominee for mayor and New York York and that. So if you are a Democrat and you believe in building our party, he is our nominee. And I expect that we are going to be on board, not just at the national level, but, but across the country and certainly in New York. The second thing is there's a lot of, I think, rhetoric about folks why he won and people want to attribute foreign policy issues or what's happening in, in the Middle east or other things or he, that, you know, he, that he's from the DSA or he's a socialist. I think that is actually not the centerpiece of why he won. He won because he actually had a forward looking agenda. He had an agenda that was positive that people felt. He's talking about lowering the cost of living, buses and transit, that's free rent stabilization for New Yorkers across all the boroughs. These are widely popular issues with people. And the people are saying, yes, we think those should be Democratic priorities. So we should be listening to the people on the ground that powered this election. And then he took those ideas, a forward looking agenda, and matched it with some of the best political retail skills and communication skills that we've seen in modern campaigning. I mean, his digital program, what he was communicating online was insane. I mean, every time I saw something different and the way he communicating with people and I told folks here in D.C. i said, are you guys seeing this? This is, we're going around, you know, spending 10, $20 million to, for spending on consultants to figure out how we reach voters. I'm like, can we just like listen and watch what this guy is doing? Look, you don't have to agree with all of his positions. And many folks are going to have different positions than Zoran has, whether it's on foreign policy issues, on economic issues. But he is our nominee. He speaks to New Yorkers. We should get behind him and we should learn from what he's doing in this campaign.

[Jon Favreau]

So he last question on this and then I'll let you go. He, you know, certainly expanded the coalition. He brought in new voters. I think he did better with some working and middle class voters than people expected. He still, you know, he lost to Cuomo by 20 points among people making under $50,000. He lost black voters by 20 points. And this is obviously not a Mamdani thing. This has been a pattern for Democrats stretching back to the 2024 election and even earlier than that. But my thought is, okay, here's someone who has populist, progressive economic policies that were the focus of his campaign. He's a fantastic communicator. He's a really skilled politician. He got to go meet tons and tons of voters. If that can't win over working class voters, like, where are your thoughts on what Democrats should do in both the midterms and beyond to win over some of these working class voters who either used to vote Democrat or would certainly benefit from Democratic policies?

[Jennifer Griffin]

I mean, I have this conversation all the time with my colleagues here in Congress and friends. I think there's two pieces. I think one is, look, he did overperform in some of those margins. I mean, you look at some of the black and brown voters in New York, he actually look at the Latino vote. He did better than expected. I'm grateful to that. And he made the effort right, which is really important. The thing about the left, and I think something we've all got to grapple with is yes, class issues and working class issues are key and central and are so important and should be driving policy. But also black and brown voters, especially within the black community, that are the bedrock of our party and our voter issues of racial justice, of racial injustice and of race are central and are important. And to leave some of that conversation off the table, I think is a huge mistake for progressives and folks on the left. And so I think that we have to have an honest conversation, kind of both sides of the family about both are important. And a lot of the folks that I talk to, Latinos, working class Latinos, they feel the system is broken, but they also want the racial injustice to be recognized as part of that broader conversation. So there's a lot of work to do there. We've got some talented people talking about this. I think whether it's Zoran or others across this country, we got to bring all of this together and talk about this divide because it is real and it's gonna be a challenge for us moving forward to win elections.

[Jon Favreau]

Congressman Garcia, great talking to you. Thanks for. Thanks for joining and come back again soon.

[Jennifer Griffin]

Anytime, man.

[Jon Lovett]

Thanks.

[Jon Favreau]

That's our show for today. Dan's gonna be back on Sunday with a conversation with epidemiologist Caitlin Jettalina to talk about RFK Jr and the threat he presents to science and public health. Dan, are you, Maha curious now?

[Tommy Vietor]

No, I'm not Maha curious. I am quite concerned about what they're doing to our vaccines. But I do want to talk to Caitlin about because she has actually met with some of the leaders in the Maha movement about what it is who brought them in many cases from our side to the Maga movement and how we get them back.

[Jon Favreau]

Can't wait to listen to that. All right everyone, have a great weekend and we'll talk to you soon.

[Tommy Vietor]

Bye everyone.

[Jon Favreau]

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[Jennifer Griffin]

Hey, I'm journalist Sam Sanders.

[Tommy Vietor]

I'm Poet Saeed Jones.

[Jon Lovett]

And I'm producer Zach Stafford. And we are the hosts of a.

[Jon Favreau]

Podcast called Vibe Check. On Vibe Check, we talk about everything.

[Jennifer Griffin]

News, culture and entertainment and how it all feels.

[Jon Lovett]

That's right, we talk about any and everything on our show, from real life issues like grief to music and movie critiques. And that barely scratches the surface.

[Tommy Vietor]

Yes indeed, and it doesn't stop there. We have got a lot to say, so join our group chat, come to life, follow and listen to Vibe Check wherever you get your podcasts.

[Robert Garcia]

If you're looking for new ways to get ahead, then you're our kind of person. We're Udemy and we help learners like you upskill in AI productivity, leadership and management, and more. Learn at your own pace from real world experts. You can also prep for certifications that show employers what, you know upskill for the career you [e-mail] now back to your regularly scheduled listening.