How Many Nobel Prizes Can Trump Win?

Summary

Pod Save America: "How Many Nobel Prizes Can Trump Win?"
Release Date: August 1, 2025

In this engaging episode of Pod Save America, hosts Jon Favreau, Dan Pfeiffer, and Tommy Vietor delve into a variety of pressing political issues, ranging from the evolving dynamics within the Democratic Party concerning the Gaza conflict to the Trump administration's controversial policies. The discussion is enriched with insightful commentary, notable quotes, and an in-depth interview with Congressman Jason Crow.

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1. Shifting Democratic Support on Gaza

The episode opens with a significant development in U.S. politics: for the first time, a majority of Senate Democrats voted in favor of Bernie Sanders' proposal to halt the sale of $675 million worth of U.S. bombs and guns to Israel. This marks a notable departure from the longstanding bipartisan support Israel has traditionally received.

Tommy Vietor [04:57]: "These were must-passed bills that always went through with just rubber-stamped approval. The fact that half of the Democratic caucus voted against it is shocking."

Jon Favreau expresses surprise at the bipartisan shift, highlighting the challenge Democrats face in reconciling support for Israel with humanitarian concerns in Gaza.

Jon Favreau [07:24]: "It's really tough. And like, yes, Hamas is a terrorist organization, and you know, Trump's truth about this... We do it with Israel."

This move reflects a broader political realignment within the Democratic Party, signaling increased scrutiny of Israel's military actions and growing empathy for the humanitarian crisis in Gaza.

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2. The Trump Administration's Trade Policies and "Liberation Day"

The hosts discuss President Trump's aggressive trade strategies, particularly his ultimatum regarding tariff rates set for August 1, dubbed "Liberation Day Part 3." Trump's inflexible stance led to a last-minute 90-day extension for Mexico, amidst negotiations that are largely opaque and lacking in detailed commitments.

Tommy Vietor [15:25]: "A lot of people, Maria, talk about Donald Trump for the peace prize, the Nobel Peace Prize. I'm thinking that since he's basically taught the world trade economics, he might be up for the Nobel on economics."

The conversation humorously speculates on whether Trump could win multiple Nobel Prizes, ultimately dismissing the notion.

The trade war's impact is palpable, with looming new tariffs threatening American consumers and businesses alike. The Federal Reserve's decision to maintain interest rates in response to rising inflation further complicates the economic landscape, drawing ire from Trump.

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3. Trump and the Epstein Scandal

A substantial portion of the episode focuses on President Trump's ongoing narrative surrounding his association with Jeffrey Epstein. Trump revisits his past interactions with Epstein, particularly the alarming admission that Epstein "stole" a 16-year-old girl from Trump's Mar-a-Lago spa in 2000.

Donald Trump [31:07]: "The answer is yes. The answer is yes, I should say."

This admission is critical as it contradicts Trump's previous denials and attempts to downplay Epstein's illicit activities. The hosts highlight the inconsistencies in Trump's statements and the broader implications for his credibility.

Jason Crow [34:57]: "Trump is admitting to contemporaneous knowledge of her being stolen by Epstein. What would have been believable is he just found out years later because she eventually sued Epstein and Maxwell."

The discussion underscores the toxic intersection of Trump's personal scandals with his political maneuvers, raising questions about transparency and accountability within his administration.

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4. Republican Moves to Ban Stock Trading by Government Officials

Senator Josh Hawley's bill to prohibit stock trading by members of Congress, the President, and the Vice President has advanced in the Senate, garnering support from Democrats but facing backlash from Republicans. President Trump publicly criticized the bill, labeling Hawley a "second-tier senator" and expressing concerns about potential ramifications for his own financial interests.

Tommy Vietor [27:14]: "What was the point?"

The bill aims to curb conflicts of interest and promote ethical governance, but its passage remains uncertain given the partisan divide and Trump's influence over his allies.

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5. ICE's Controversial Recruitment Campaign

The Trump administration's Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) launched a recruitment drive offering substantial incentives, including paying off student loans and providing a $50,000 signing bonus to attract new agents. This aggressive campaign aims to bolster ICE's workforce to achieve its enforcement targets.

Tommy Vietor [49:26]: "I imagine this will be the best and the brightest."

Jon Favreau and Tommy express concern over the potential implications of such recruitment practices, highlighting issues related to qualification standards and accountability within ICE.

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6. Redistricting Efforts and the Midterm Elections

Republicans in Texas have unveiled a gerrymandered congressional map intended to create five new House districts favoring Trump by strategically packing Democratic voters into urban areas. This move aims to secure additional Republican seats in the upcoming midterm elections. Concurrently, leaders in states like California, Illinois, and New York threaten similar redistricting actions if other states proceed.

Tommy Vietor [57:47]: "It's very challenging."

The hosts discuss the potential backlash and the strategic responses required from Democrats to counteract these attempts to manipulate electoral outcomes through redistricting.

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7. Interview with Congressman Jason Crow

In an insightful interview, Congressman Jason Crow addresses several critical issues:

a. ICE Detention Facilities and Congressional Oversight

Crow recounts his struggles to access ICE detention centers, leading to a lawsuit alleging violations of federal law by ICE officials who denied him entry.

Jason Crow [96:05]: "I led efforts to say, do the analysis, apply the facts to our own laws and standards, and then make the determination."

He emphasizes the need for accountability and transparency in immigration enforcement, criticizing the for-profit detention system operated by companies like GEO Corporation.

b. Redistricting and Candidate Recruitment

Crow discusses the challenges redistricting poses to Democratic candidate recruitment, stressing the importance of quality candidates committed to public service despite personal and political sacrifices.

Jason Crow [75:30]: "It's just kind of the job."

c. Afghanistan War Commission

Highlighting his role in establishing an independent commission to review the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan, Crow advocates for a comprehensive examination of the war’s missteps to prevent future strategic failures.

Jason Crow [81:01]: "We just can't do this again. We can't."

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8. Kamala Harris's Political Future

The hosts briefly touch upon Vice President Kamala Harris's decision not to run for Governor of California, speculating on her potential aspirations for the 2028 presidential race. Harris recently announced a book detailing her brief presidential campaign, signaling possible future ambitions.

Tommy Vietor [63:08]: "I think if she knew she wanted to run for president, there are a lot of moments that have happened over the last six months that she could have used as big words."

The discussion underscores the uncertainty surrounding Harris's political trajectory and the strategic implications for the Democratic Party.

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9. President Trump's Deflection and Media Strategies

Throughout the episode, the hosts critique Trump's ability to manipulate media narratives, particularly his fascination with the Epstein scandal and his convoluted attacks on Russiagate. They highlight Trump's reliance on platforms like Truth Social to disseminate misinformation, undermining his administration's focus on substantive policy issues.

Jon Favreau [37:14]: "We just can't win this midterm."

The conversation reflects a growing frustration with Trump's erratic communication style and its detrimental impact on effective governance.

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10. Upcoming Events and Community Engagement

The episode concludes with announcements about Pod Save America's upcoming events, including the first-ever Crooked Con in Washington, D.C., and a preview of future podcast episodes featuring Congressman Jason Crow.

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Conclusion

This episode of Pod Save America offers a comprehensive analysis of current political developments, emphasizing the shifting alliances within the Democratic Party, the contentious policies of the Trump administration, and the broader implications for upcoming elections. Through thoughtful discussion and expert insights, the hosts provide listeners with a nuanced understanding of the complex political landscape shaping the United States today.

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Notable Quotes:

• Tommy Vietor [04:57]: "These were must-passed bills that always went through with just rubber-stamped approval."

• Jon Favreau [07:24]: "It's really tough... We do it with Israel."

• Tommy Vietor [27:14]: "What was the point?"

• Jason Crow [96:05]: "I led efforts to say, do the analysis, apply the facts to our own laws and standards, and then make the determination."

• Jason Crow [81:01]: "We just can't do this again. We can't."

• Tommy Vietor [57:47]: "It's very challenging."

These quotes encapsulate the critical points of discussion, highlighting the complexities and challenges faced by policymakers and the Democratic Party amidst evolving geopolitical and domestic issues.

Transcript

[Jon Favreau]

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[Dan Pfeiffer]

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[Dan Pfeiffer]

Enjoy.

[Jon Favreau]

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

[Tommy Vietor]

I'm Dan Pfeiffer.

[Jon Favreau]

Packed show today, Dan. Liberation Day Part 3 is upon us and we're officially on Taco Watch.

[Tommy Vietor]

Fuck my life.

[Jon Favreau]

We'll also talk about Trump and Republicans getting mad at Josh Hawley over trying to ban stock trading in Congress and in the White House. Trump volunteering creepy new details about Epstein recruiting girls at Mar A Lago, Stephen Miller's ad campaign for his secret police force Democrats getting ready to fight back on redistricting and Kamala Harris big announcements about the California governor's race in her new book. Then you'll hear Tommy's conversation with Colorado Congressman Jason Crow, who happens to be in charge of recruiting house candidates for 2026. But let's start with some news on the rapidly changing politics around the war in Gaz. On Wednesday night, for the very first time, a majority of Senate Democrats voted for Bernie Sanders proposal to block the sale of $675 million worth of U.S. bombs and guns to Israel. Among the 27 Democrats voting yes were senior establishment types and longtime supporters of Israel like Jeanne Shaheen, Jack Reed, Patty Murray and Dick Durbin, who said, for many of us who have devoted our congressional careers to supporting Israel, it is impossible to really explain or defend what is going on today. Gaza is starving and dying because of the policies of Bibi Netanyahu. There's also growing opposition on the right, from Marjorie Taylor Greene and Thomas Massie in Congress to media types like Tucker Carlson, Steve Bannon and a lot of the younger MAGA influencers. New polling from Gallup shows that just 32% of Americans now support Israel's military action in Gaza. That is an all time low. That includes just 8% of Democrats and 25% of independents. Netanyahu's favorability is at 2952, his worst ever. The Trump administration seems to be getting the message, kind of special. Envoy Steve Witkoff traveled to Jerusalem Friday to meet with Netanyahu, presumably to press him on a ceasefire and to let in more aid. The administration also announced new sanctions on Palestinian political leadership. And Trump did write on Truth Social, quote, the fastest way to end the humanitarian crisis in Gaza is for Hamas to surrender and release the hostages. I'll also note that according to the Associated Press, in just the last 24 hours before this recording, at least 91 Palestinians have been killed and more than 600 have been injured while trying to get food, which is still just trickling into Gaza. Dan, what do you make of the shifting politics on Gaza among elected Democrats?

[Tommy Vietor]

Before I get to that, I just want to say that I thought the conversation that you and Tommy and Lovett had about this on the Tuesday podcast was one of the best ones we've had on this podcast. It was.

[Jon Favreau]

I don't think Twitter agreed, but that's okay.

[Tommy Vietor]

That proves my point. I thought it was just powerful, emotionally resonant. It was smart. You could feel the anguish that you guys felt about what's happening in Gaza to the people there and certainly the children there. And your rage against the way the conversation about this was happening, I just thought it was very powerful. And I just want to say I certainly share your anguish. That is impossible to not think about, impossible to imagine children or anyone dying that way in such a preventable way. And your rage at what is how this conversation is happening, that there are people who can look at starving children with trucks of food not that many miles away and not think that the first thing you do is figure out how to save those children. There is like you guys went through this, but you can debate and have a conversation about what policies got us here, who is responsible for this, what role Hamas plays in certainly stipulating that Hamas is a terrorist organization who committed just atrocities on October 7th and many times. But it is also very clear that Israel can do more to help people. They have the power to do it. And just in watching the conversation, the thing I'd say is there's nothing wrong with holding a US Ally like Israel to a higher standard than Hamas. And that's all that you guys are doing. That's all that the Senate Democrats are doing. On the politics, which does feel very pedantic to talk about in this moment, but on this vote, if you think about the more than a half century of near bipartisan unanimity on Israel, and particularly military support for Israel, these were must passed bills that always went through with just rubber stamped through. So the fact that half of the Democratic caucus voted against it is shocking. But then when you think about what's happening in Israel and you look at the polling that you cited, that 8% of Democrats prove what Israel is doing there, it's shocking that the other half voted for it. And the politics are moving here in one direction. And I think it is because of Netanyahu, it's because of what is happening in Gaza and that there is a place for people to come back if Netanyahu were to go or you saw a different approach from Israel in Gaza or anything else. But right now, I think this is the beginning, not the end of a fundamental shift in politics in the Democratic Party.

[Jon Favreau]

Yeah, I mean, I was personally surprised to see that many Democratic senators vote with Bernie. Pleasantly surprised, particularly in light of the conversation we had just had. And we got a lot of people, obviously I sort of made a half joke about Twitter, but people we know, we're friends with have been talking to us since then and people who are very supportive of Israel. And one thing I've noticed is it really, it is very hard to bridge the two realities that I think some people in good faith believe. And the challenge here is, you know, I remember since the beginning, since right after October 7th, you know, there was, you can't trust the Gaza Health Ministry, because that's Hamas. And so you can't trust the numbers that are there. But it's like, at some point, we've reached a point now where you've got, you know, Israeli Holocaust scholars calling it a genocide, Israeli human rights organizations, so the top organizations calling it a genocide. You've got like, this. This US Green Beret, Purple Heart who fought ISIS and the Taliban, and he's telling his story, but every time someone comes out and tries to offer evidence that this is happening, that there's slaughter, that Israel is not upholding international law, there's always some, like, ready excuse, right? Which is like, oh, well, the Green Beret, he was fired, and so we shouldn't trust him. And, well, that's just the Gaza Health Ministry saying that. And there's always, like, some reason that we're not supposed to trust the reporting what we're seeing with our own eyes on the ground. And I just, like, I guess we could all say that we will only believe the Israeli Defense Forces and the Israeli government, but I don't know why anyone should be satisfied with only believing that. Even though there are plenty of international organizations, Israelis, Israeli press, other reporters, international reporters, humanitarian organizations, the U.N. like, I just. I don't know how many other sources of information we could have before people who just believe that we should continue the course that we're on and give BB Netanyahu a blank check. I don't know how many more sources of information we could have that are more credible before people can say, oh, maybe, maybe what I've been thinking the whole time isn't quite right. Maybe Israel is at fault here, or at least much more at fault than I previously thought. Like, I just, It's. It's really tough. And like, yes, Hamas is a terrorist organization, and you know, Trump's truth about this. Like, you know, Hamas could release the hostage and end this. I read that and I'm like, again, do you think Hamas is, like, reading social media and Hamas is, like, who are, like, trapped in a tunnel somewhere, fucking cowards in a tunnel. Don't give a shit about the Palestinian people, don't give a shit about Israelis, don't give a shit about human life. You think they're going to be like, oh, well, people are calling on us to release the hostages, so I guess we'll End the war now because there's been more pressure. Like, they're a fucking terrorist organization. That's what they do. And so, like, I don't know. I understand that, like, how evil Hamas is. Like, of course I understand that. But we don't fund Hamas. We don't send checks to Hamas. We don't do weapons sales with Hamas. We do it with Israel. And so we have some leverage over Israeli policy as Americans, and it's our tax dollars that are going to a government that is causing this death and causing this starvation. So, I don't know. I don't know. But I do think, like, look, I mean, and you were there for this. I think back a lot to just from the political side of it, the Iraq war. And at the time, how many Democrats were like, sure, we're going to vote for the authorization in Iraq. And. And then everyone regretted their decision later, and now everyone looks back on it, and even the people who were very in favor of the Iraq war were like, oh, yeah, obviously it was a catastrophe. Well, okay, obviously it was a catastrophe. Did we look back and think about what lessons we've learned and are we gonna apply those lessons moving forward? And obviously, you know, there are a million ways these conflicts are different. But I just think from the political side, of course, it is uncomfortable to be called a terrorist sympathizer, to be called weak, to be saying that you don't want to stand up for allies or that you're. You know, and I get that, but, like, you know, I'm. I'm at least I'm proud of the 27 Democrats who were willing to take that vote. And I. All I'll say about the Democrats who voted no is, you know, I hope they get there, and I hope Republicans get there, too, and I hope we can keep persuading them. And this is not. You know, some people are saying, like, is this a litmus test you guys are having now? Are you driving people out of the party? It's not that at all. It's like, this is what I believe should happen, and that's my view. And I also understand that this is a big tent party and it's gonna have people with different views. But I think if our goal is to end the war and our goal is to save lives, then our job is to say what we believe and try to persuade people to think that.

[Tommy Vietor]

Exactly right.

[Jon Favreau]

How do you think Trump sees this? And do you have any hope that pressure from his base that is growing leads him to take a tougher stance.

[Tommy Vietor]

With bibi I worry that Trump obviously does not understand what's happening. He is reacting to as you guys talked about on Tuesday, he's reacting to the images he sees on tv. One day he'll hear from Marjorie Taylor Greene and think they should do one thing and then he'll hear from the, you know, in that poll it is 70 some percent, I think of Republicans who support Israel's actions in Gaza and go the other way no matter what he believes. What I worry about, even if he were to be convinced that the right thing to do for whatever reason, political moral was to pressure Bibi to do something different here, I worry that Bibi is both tougher and smarter than Trump and then it'll take one phone call for him to just fold. And then where Trump will end up is someplace even worse like just finish it faster and get these things off tv.

[Jon Favreau]

Yeah, I worry about that too. He doesn't have, he both doesn't understand the situation and he's not a details guy and he has the attention span of his favorite platform and so he moves on to the next thing. And so unless something's in his face, I worry about that as well. Before we move up this, you should check out the pod save America YouTube channel because Tommy just hosted a debate this week between our friend Mehdi Hassan and Jeremy Benamee of J Street about how Democrats should approach Israel going forward. And it is a great conversation. It's very much worth a watch. So check out the pod save America YouTube channel for that. All right, so this episode is out on Friday, August 1, also known as Trump's self imposed oft delayed deadline to set tariff rates with the rest of the world, also known as Liberation Day Part 3, the Final Reckoning. Trump said on Wednesday that this time he really means it. The deadline will not be extended. No Taco. And then on Thursday, he announced a 90 day extension for Mexico. There's only been a handful of other deals, most of them very light on details. All of them include new permanent taxes of anywhere from 15% to 50%, maybe higher. Who knows when we get the final numbers on the stuff we buy from overseas, paid for by some combination of American companies and American consumers. Those new taxes, along with rising inflation that's been ticking back up again, are why the Fed announced this week that they will not be cutting interest rates, earning Jerome Powell another Trump tirade on Truth Social in which the president called his Fed chair stupid, among other things. Nevertheless, White House trade advisor Peter Navarro believes that starting a global trade war that will lead to Higher prices deserves global recognition. Here he is on Fox.

[Tommy Vietor]

A lot of people, Maria, talk about Donald Trump for the peace prize, the Nobel Peace Prize. I'm thinking that since he's basically taught the world trade economics, he might be up for the Nobel on economics.

[Jon Favreau]

All right, here's the question. Can one person win the Nobel Prize for peace and economics in the same year?

[Tommy Vietor]

Well, John, I did a little research today.

[Jon Favreau]

Good.

[Tommy Vietor]

I wanted to see if it was possible for Trump to win not one, not two, but three Nobel Prizes because I thought he might have a chance at a Nobel Prize for art for his. Oh, for the doodle naked girl pubic.

[Jon Favreau]

Hair signature for the pub. Yeah, yeah.

[Tommy Vietor]

For Jeffrey Epstein, alas, there is no Nobel Prize for visual art. So he will have to settle for these two Nobel Prizes.

[Jon Favreau]

It is incredible that they think he's the one teaching the world about economics as he has being the leader of the wealthiest economy in the world, just dragged the entire rest of the world through this trade war that is just gonna hurt everyone, Us, them. The whole world just gets a little dent in economic growth because of Trump's trade war.

[Tommy Vietor]

Did you see Caroline Levitt's very desperate plea for Trump to get the Nobel Prize today at the briefing?

[Jon Favreau]

No, I missed that.

[Tommy Vietor]

She basically argued that he negotiated a trade deal or a peace deal every month since being president.

[Jon Favreau]

Where was the peace deal? Is it in Gaza? Is it in Ukraine?

[Tommy Vietor]

Well, there's the. He takes a lot of credit for the India, Pakistan situation.

[Jon Favreau]

Oh, yeah, no, I'm sure.

[Tommy Vietor]

Iran, obviously. That's very peaceful.

[Jon Favreau]

Very peaceful there. Yeah. No, he's really bad.

[Tommy Vietor]

It is just so funny that MAGA is turning the Nobel Peace Prize into a participation trophy.

[Jon Favreau]

And how many of them know it's just a couple Norwegians just sitting in Oslo just trying to figure this out. Who are not. I bet they're not maga, but who knows? Who knows?

[Tommy Vietor]

You just don't know these days.

[Jon Favreau]

Let's talk about the Trade War and Liberation Day or whatever the fuck we're calling this once we are past this August 1st deadline and the trade war news recedes from the headlines. How much do you think Democrats should focus on tariffs in the lead up to the midterms next year?

[Tommy Vietor]

Okay. I think we need a narrative and I want to be very clear. I'm about to offer a stage direction. These are not words I want people to say.

[Jon Favreau]

This is what we have to say.

[Tommy Vietor]

This is important. The broader narrative is that Trump, because of Epstein, his crypto scams, his billion dollar free jet, the Golf Courses he's building all over the world. The tax cut for all of his friends is part of the corrupt political system that is raising your costs, making your life harder. He promised you. And then a data point underneath that narrative is costs, Right? There's a poll out on Thursday from the Century foundation which found that 83% of people think that believe that the cost of eating dinner has gone up. And you see that in all the data, people believe prices have gone up because they have gone up, partially because of inflation, partially because of Trump. But Trump promised he was going to reduce your costs, and he hasn't done it. He's made them worse. And even worse than that is that he raised your costs and he cut taxes for the very corporations that are raising your prices. I think that's sort of. It is about cost of living. It's about. That is a data point under a larger argument about Trump as part of a corrupt political system.

[Jon Favreau]

In that same poll, nearly half of Americans are worried about their current ability to pay their rent or mortgage. Nearly 2/3, 64%, worry about their ability to pay an unexpected medical expense if one should arrive. Nearly half of all Americans believe they would have difficulty paying an unexpected $500 bill without borrowing. And notably six in ten believe that after just six months on the job, Trump administration has negatively impacted their cost of living.

[Tommy Vietor]

I'm doing this off the dome because I don't have my notes in front of me, but I'm Pretty sure it's. 24% of Americans spend three hours a day worrying about costs in financial security. I think it's 47%, maybe, who spend at least an hour a day on that.

[Jon Favreau]

Yeah, no, it is. And it was a fascinating poll. Yeah, I think. Yeah, you did. You did. Good job. Good job. You nailed it. Yeah. This was a YouGov poll that the Century foundation helped conduct. I just. I think that almost every day, you know, like, there's this whole debate over Trump's economic plan and the Medicaid cuts, and if they go into effect after the midterms, is that gonna be an issue? Well, like, Bill aside, and I only wanna put it aside for this conversation, obviously we're gonna talk about that from now until the midterms. These cost increases are gonna be hitting all the time. And I think the challenge is to make sure that every time you see a headline about a cost increase, people know. And we can connect the dots for people like Procter and Gamble just announced 2.5% price increase on their products. They have all Procter and Gimbal. Gigantic company that makes a lot of the toiletries we use and cleaner products and everything else. Walmart, Target have already announced increases on school supplies, clothing, baby items, Adidas on clothes and shoes. I mean, it's already happening and people just need to. We just need to remind people every day from. And look, we're going to have a whole bunch of headlines about this because every time a company decides to jack up prices, we're gonna be able to talk about it. And if there's not a headline about it, then when we notice price increases, people should talk about it.

[Tommy Vietor]

I mean, this get like we're gonna go through. This podcast has like nine different topics we have to hit. It's been an insane three days of news.

[Jon Favreau]

Yeah.

[Tommy Vietor]

But one of the things to think about is why I did that sort of narrative at the top is the way you combat the flood the zone strategy or just the insanity of news in the Trump era is you need an overarching narrative that you can fit all the things in. You don't have to, you know, not trying to shoehorn in or get. Try to fit a square peg in a round hole. But you like, as a party, we need to focus. We need to pick a story first and then a message second.

[Jon Favreau]

Yeah. On that note, one more piece of notable economic news. Speaking at a Breitbart event this week, Treasury Secretary Scott Besant said Trump's new Trump accounts enacted in his economic plan, which give every baby born from now until 2028 $1,000 to be invested in index funds, might serve a longtime right wing goal. Let's listen.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

In a way, it is a backdoor.

[Tommy Vietor]

For privatizing Social Security. Oh, whoa, back door, eh?

[Jon Favreau]

What? So the Bush era Hill staffer in me wants Democrats to jump all over this, but what do you think they did? They tried to clean it up. Bessant tried to clean it up. Carolyn Levitt at the briefing tried to clean it up. And she's like, no, no. When he said, he said in addition to Social Security, it's like, what?

[Tommy Vietor]

Nope, he didn't say that.

[Jon Favreau]

That's not what he said. He said privatization and backdoor. It was very, very clear we should.

[Tommy Vietor]

Absolutely jump on this. We remember in 2022, cuts to Social Security and Medicare were a big part of the Democratic message that worked and we should use them again. And I think the cuts to Medicaid make these more believable than even they were back in 2022.

[Jon Favreau]

Yeah. And I think what he was, what he actually meant there was. Yeah, you're gonna have these savings accounts. Eventually they could be retirement accounts and when we someday cut Social Security, this will be fine. This'll be your new Social Security. Because I take him at his word.

[Tommy Vietor]

That he wants to privatize Social Security.

[Jon Favreau]

Of course they do. Of course they do.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

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[Jason Crow]

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[Jon Favreau]

Speaking of investments, it's time for another corruptate corruptdate. I have to say that was better handled than the one on Tuesday. We're getting better at the sting there.

[Tommy Vietor]

It's really, it's only taken us 12 opportunities to do it. And here's the good news. We could probably do a corrupt date every episode until 2029.

[Jon Favreau]

So this one comes courtesy of Senator Josh Hawley, whose bill to ban stock trading by members of Congress, the President and the Vice President advanced in the Senate. Thanks to all the Democrats on the committee voting yes. All of Republicans the except for Hawley voted no. Then one very important Republican voiced his displeasure. Trump raged on Truth Social that the bill would be bad for the country, a win for Democrats. And he called Hawley a, quote, second tier senator.

[Tommy Vietor]

True.

[Jon Favreau]

Hawley then chatted with Trump. It's so funny that Trump just does this on Truth Social, by the way. It doesn't like, call Holly and be like, hey, what the fuck, man? You know, he's just like, he just puts him on blast. Can't even call him first. So anyway, then Hawley talks to Trump on the phone and, and then he told reporters about his conversation with Trump and he said that the President said that he's for the stock trading ban, but he was angry because people had told him the bill would force him to sell Mar? A Lago and divest of all his assets, which isn't true. Only because of a carve out in the bill that exempts Trump from this requirement.

[Tommy Vietor]

But even that part's not true, right? Like he would not have to sell.

[Jon Favreau]

No, no, but you do have to, I think, I think the after, after the Trump administration, the next administration and then future senators and representatives would have to divest of, I think, any kind of equity holdings.

[Tommy Vietor]

Interesting.

[Jon Favreau]

I think that's what I think. So, you know, which is why Ron Johnson, Rick Scott were very upset. They're like, they were saying, you know, this is punishing success and this is going to discourage wealthy people from running for office. What a shame that would be.

[Tommy Vietor]

Oh, no.

[Donald Trump]

Oh, no.

[Jon Favreau]

What do you think about this? Did Trump just need to make sure nothing would interfere with how hard he's working to profit from the presidency?

[Tommy Vietor]

Yeah, I think so. I think he, he believed, apparently incorrectly, that the spigot was about to be turned off for his many, many schemes to profit off the presidency, to make money at taxpayer expense. And he, because he is both corrupt and a moron, he reacted without knowing.

[Jon Favreau]

Was actually in the bill and originally the bill. So originally the bill included the president and vice president. And then they had to do some compromise where they said, okay, we can include the vice president and president, but only if it's not this president and vice president, of course, because like these Republicans in Congress, they're not even protecting themselves in this bill. They just wanted to protect Donald Trump because I guess that's their most important thing.

[Tommy Vietor]

And then they voted against it anyway. So what was the point?

[Jon Favreau]

So, like Mike Johnson has said that he's for this. We'll see. I mean, it advanced out of committee. I guess you could imagine a situation where Thune puts it up for a vote if Hawley's for it and you get a few other Republicans and then it would pass with Democratic and Republican votes. Maybe. I don't know. What do you think the prospects are of this passing?

[Tommy Vietor]

You know, it's a tough no vote, but it really depends on it now. It depends on how much Trump cares now that he knows he's exempted from it. If he does not care, then I think it really could pass. Because if you are a Republican senator who's up this cycle or just someone who has ambition for something in the future, voting to allow yourself to keep doing insider trading, not a great vote.

[Jon Favreau]

Hasn't stopped them before.

[Tommy Vietor]

Well, they've benefited from it not coming up before. That's the thing. They've kept it off the floor, I think for years now.

[Jon Favreau]

It is wild though, you just mentioned some of this. It's like we also learned today, Trump is building a ballroom on the White House. $200 million because he's always wanted a ballroom. He's good at ballrooms, he said. So he wants to build one in the White House. $200 million for that.

[Tommy Vietor]

And it's gonna be privately funded from donors who can have yet another way to buy access with Trump.

[Jon Favreau]

What do you think? Middle Eastern autocrats or tech oligarchs or some combo of both.

[Tommy Vietor]

Why do you have to choose?

[Jon Favreau]

Or oil tycoons.

[Tommy Vietor]

Crypto guys facing indictment. There's a whole list of people, Steelers, whatever. Basically a pardon, silent auction.

[Jon Favreau]

Also, while the Hawley thing was going on, Chris Murphy offered an amendment in the Senate that just said Trump can have his plane, his billion dollar plane that we all have to pay for from Qatar. But he can't take it with him when he leaves office because if we're gonna, the taxpayers are gonna, we're all gonna pay a billion dollars to retrofit this fucking plane from the Qataris. Then guess what? The next future presidents, we should use it for a little while instead of giving it to Donald Trump as a fucking keepsake. All the Republicans voted no. Didn't get a single Republican vote.

[Tommy Vietor]

Amazing. For what, what reason?

[Jon Favreau]

What's the reason?

[Tommy Vietor]

Party favor. When he leaves.

[Jon Favreau]

What? It's unfucking believable. You know what? We can't win this midterm.

[Tommy Vietor]

We actually need a whole separate podcast called Corruptive Date. Corrupt Date. Corrupt Date.

[Jon Favreau]

Corrupt Date. So one thing. Donald Trump inexplicably can't stop talking about Jeffrey Epstein, who he just keeps offering new details about every time he's asked. Trump got a few questions on Air Force One this week about his claim that he kicked Epstein out of Mar A Lago for poaching some of Trump's employees, not because he was a, quote, creep, which is what the White House had originally said. Here's Trump trying to clear all that up.

[Tommy Vietor]

Mr. President, Epstein has a certain reputation, obviously.

[Donald Trump]

Just curious, were some of the workers that were taken from you. Were some of them young women? Were some of them.

[Jon Favreau]

Were some of them young women?

[Donald Trump]

Well, I don't want to say, but everyone knows the people that were taken. And it was. The concept of taking people that work for me is bad, but that sort of been pretty well out there. And the answer is, yes, they were.

[Tommy Vietor]

Yeah.

[Donald Trump]

In the spa. Yeah. People that work in the spa. I have a great spa, one of the best spas in the world at Mar A Lago. And people were taken out of the spa, hired by him. In other words, gone. And other people would come and complain. This guy is taking people from the spa. I didn't know that. And then when I heard about it, I told him, I said, listen, we don't want you taking our people. Whether it was spa or not spa, I don't want up taking people. And he was fine. And then not too long after that, he did it again. And I said, out of here.

[Jason Crow]

Mr. President, did one of those stolen.

[Jon Favreau]

You know, persons that include Virginia Nephre?

[Donald Trump]

I don't know. I think she worked at the spa. I think so. I think that was one of the people. He stole her. And by the way, she had no complaints about us, as you know, none whatsoever.

[Jon Favreau]

Unbelievable. We originally had just a short clip of that, but I really wanted everyone to just hear the whole thing because his answers evolved. First of all, he's like, I shouldn't say. Did he hire young girls? I shouldn't say. I shouldn't say. But everybody. Yes. The answer is yes. The answer is yes, I should say. And, you know, from the. Yes, from the spa, by the way, one of the best spas in the world. Everyone should know. But then, yeah, he stole her Spa. No spa. Don't take it. Just look. Unbelievable. Then he confirms it was Virginia Giuffre. So just a reminder of the timeline here. Virginia Giuffre got a summer job working at the Mar A Lago spa when she was 16. In 2000, Ghislaine Maxwell approached her at the spa and offered her a job with Epstein, who then sexually abused and trafficked her until 2002, the same year, by the way, that Trump was quoted in New York magazine saying that his, quote, good friend Jeffrey Epstein, quote, likes women on the younger side. No doubt about wasn't until at least 2004 and maybe later that Trump kicked Epstein out of Mar A Lago and ended their friendship. Giuffre died by suicide in April, but her family responded to Trump's latest comments with a statement to the Atlantic asking if Trump was aware of of Epstein and Maxwell's criminal actions. He was asked that today, Thursday at an event at the White House and he sort of said no, I don't know, I don't know. Just kind of brushed it off. Feels pretty serious, doesn't it?

[Tommy Vietor]

Yeah. This is a. He admitted that he knew about a 16 year old girl being, quote, unquote, stolen from his spa. After that happened, he remained friends with the guy, praising him in a magazine, talking about how he loves young women for another couple years. And it's just given how close they were in the 90s, the parties they went to, the creepy event with the calendar girls where they brought all these people to Mar A Lago for a party and the only two party attendees were Trump and Epstein, it's just impossible to imagine that he did not have some sense that something sketchy was going on and it did not bother him. He stayed friends with a guy for another four years and that the falling out eventually is not over. The There is no evidence to suggest it's over Epstein taking girls from the spa or anywhere else. The world class spa, obviously. It is believed to be the reason they stopped being friends is a dispute over a Palm beach real estate transaction.

[Jon Favreau]

I have a few questions, maybe I can answer them. One is how did Donald Trump come to know about the employment status of a young girl who worked as a locker room attendant in his spa at Mar A Lago? Is he deep in the HR records details? Kai, he knows that. So first of all, very bizarre that he knew this. Second of all, did he think that was he under the false impression that Jeffrey Epstein owned a competing spa?

[Tommy Vietor]

The Jeffrey Epstein, she was hired to be his personal masseuse.

[Jon Favreau]

Personal masseuse, yeah. And so he didn't. He. So he knew. He knew that a 16 year old was hired from Mar a Lago to be Jeffrey Epstein's personal masseuse. And then he just kind of sat on that and then called Jeffrey Epstein a great guy who likes young women. And then next time he, quote, unquote, stole. We're saying stole now. Like, it's like those are Trump's words. Yes, Right. Next time he did it, that was too far.

[Tommy Vietor]

What is critical here is that Trump is admitting to contemporaneous knowledge of her being stolen by Epstein. What would have been believable is he just found out years later because she eventually sued Epstein and Maxwell and her case got a lot of attention in the news. So he could have learned that and his name comes up in the court filings in that case. So he could have learned. If he were to say, and I learned about this years later, that would be very believable. Just the fact that he's saying, in the year 2000, I knew that Jeffrey Epstein, quote, unquote, stole a 16 year old from my spa. And I told him not to do it again. He says that he knew at the time that he was going after these young girls.

[Jon Favreau]

Right. How could he tell him not to do it again if he found out much later?

[Tommy Vietor]

Exactly, exactly. That is just a huge critical admission on his part because he is a dummy and he can't figure out how to get out of this because he can't stop lying about it, is the thing, because he clearly is so afraid about whatever is in the Epstein files, about something that is out there, whatever it is. I don't know what his fear is. I don't know if it's rational or not. But his behavior is of a man deeply paranoid of the truth getting out.

[Jon Favreau]

It's wild and I don't know where it goes from here. Maxwell's lawyer said she wouldn't testify to Congress now unless she gets full immunity, which the people in Congress were saying they're not going to give her full immunity for that. So now we're not getting testimony. We're probably not getting testimony from her in Congress, which is public. But we still got Todd Blanche, Deputy Attorney General, sat down with her. No one knows what that conversation was like. She's asking for a pardon. I don't know. I don't know where this goes from here.

[Tommy Vietor]

Well, I mean, Trump is going to keep it in the news for sure.

[Jon Favreau]

That's right. All you have to do with that, all you have to do is ask him. He'll give you new information.

[Tommy Vietor]

I mean, there is, as you guys Talked about on Tuesday. There is now documents running around which have all of the early some of the Trump mentions in the Epstein files out there. Will those leak out at some point? Will the infamous birthday letter to Jeffrey Epstein leak out? Will we actually see a potentially Nobel prize winning drawing? There's just a lot more here. There is a lot of threads to pull. And Trump, when the Congress comes back, Democrats will once again push for a vote to compel the release of the Epstein files.

[Jon Favreau]

Yeah. So Trump has had most of his administration working overtime to distract from the Epstein scandal by cooking up a laughably dumb conspiracy about Russia involving Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, all his favorite deep staters. Only problem is the whole thing is so convoluted and confusing that even Trump can't keep up with it. Now here he is answering a question about Cash Patel allegedly finding a trove of documents in a burn bag somewhere in the FBI, Patel reportedly found burn.

[Jason Crow]

Bags of Russia ink materials.

[Jon Favreau]

And we'd love to hear your thoughts on that.

[Tommy Vietor]

He said what burn bags of Russia gate materials?

[Donald Trump]

I don't know. That. I don't know. I don't know what you mean by that statement say bags full of Russia gate burn bag. I thought you said appointed a man named burn bag.

[Tommy Vietor]

Go ahead.

[Donald Trump]

The whole thing is a scam. It's a scam set up by the Democrats and they love talking about it. But I would like to see people exposed that might be bad and we'll see how that all works out. But it's getting to be very old news. You know, if they had anything, they would have done it the week before the election because they were losing by a lot. If they had anything, they would have done it. They control the file, the Democrats control the comey and all this, you know, sleazebags, every one of them that you read about all the time. And I guess they've got some problems now having to do with yet a different scandal, very big one.

[Jon Favreau]

He gets a softball served up to him undoubtedly by some MAGA influencer hack at the White House about Cash Patel, his new deputy now that Dan Bongino has his mental health days, like a deputy Burnbag. So he gets the question to him and what does he do? Write to Epstein.

[Tommy Vietor]

Cannot help himself.

[Jon Favreau]

I was saying this to Lovett. It's like the opposite of the communication strategy advice. Like the central advice, like always go back to home base here when you get the question. Home base is Epstein files.

[Tommy Vietor]

Yes.

[Jon Favreau]

It's like we're cooking up this Russiagate conspiracy for you. Barack Obama's committing treason. You gotta go to that. You gotta go. No, no, no, no. He's gotta go right to Epstein.

[Tommy Vietor]

He cannot help himself. Cause he can't stop thinking about it. Once again, a man deathly afraid of transparency here also.

[Jon Favreau]

I'm not even gonna get. I will not get too deep, I promise. Into the burn bag. The burn bag thing?

[Tommy Vietor]

Yeah.

[Jon Favreau]

Please don't. But basically to believe this, right, which is that there's a whole bunch of documents that were in a burn bag somewhere in the FBI that John Durham, after he conducted an investigation into the origins of the Russia investigation, who. John Durham, appointed by Bill Barr, worked for Donald Trump in the first Trump administration, that John Durham left these incriminating documents that would incriminate Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton and all the rest of them in a burn bag in the FBI, would not burn the documents. Just wanted to leave them there, thinking that after the Biden administration, Trump would return, and then someone from the Trump administration would find the documents and expose the lie.

[Tommy Vietor]

Yeah, seems credible.

[Jon Favreau]

This is what we're supposed to believe. We're supposed to believe. By the way, if you don't know a burn bag is what you have in the White House and other agencies when you want to. When there's classified material, secret material, and you need to get rid of it, you don't want to throw it in the trash, because that's not very safe, because anyone could go picking through the trash. A shredder's not good enough. You put it in a burn bag and they actually go burn it. Right. So I don't know what John Durham was doing. I don't know what Cash Patel's talking about, but I don't really think it's revealing anything new.

[Tommy Vietor]

Well, I think if it was, they would put those documents out.

[Jon Favreau]

Yeah, well, they. They have. They. They have sent something out today. There's some fucking email that John Durham was like, I think it's a fake email because I think the Russians did something with it. But anyway, it's this email that's cooked up that says someone's like, I know that Hillary Clinton's gonna work with the FBI to cook up Russiagate with Trump and. And Russia.

[Tommy Vietor]

Once again, a scandal not announced. An FBI investigation not announced before the election when it would have been very impactful to announce it.

[Jon Favreau]

Yeah.

[Tommy Vietor]

Instead, Hillary Clinton, FBI Director, announced the investigation into Hillary Clinton's emails three weeks before the election.

[Jon Favreau]

Yeah, that was part of their. That was part of their deal. Let's work together to get Trump. But also, I'm going to I'm going to turn on you right before the election and help elect Trump. So I guess the FBI is filled with a bunch of double triple agents. I don't know. It's, it's hard to follow. I know that FOX and MAGA media are all over this story. It doesn't seem to be getting a lot of traction. Barack Obama is still roaming free, has not been arrested yet. What's going on, Dan?

[Tommy Vietor]

It's really interesting. Theoretically MAGA media and Fox are all over this, but they really aren't in a real way.

[Jon Favreau]

Their hearts aren't in it.

[Tommy Vietor]

Their hearts aren't in it. It is not getting attention. It's one of the first times Trump has decided he's in, he is brought to bear all the forces. He literally had the intelligence community cook up a fake document and sent the.

[Jon Favreau]

To accuse his predecessor of treason.

[Tommy Vietor]

Treason punishable by death. He sent Tulsi Gabbard to the White House briefing all these places and he can't get traction. So resonate with him.

[Jon Favreau]

He posted a picture of Obama as OJ Driving the white Bronco with all the police following him, including the bald J.D. vance meme in one of the cars.

[Tommy Vietor]

I mean that's bonus there. I mean there's the AI video of Obama getting arrested in the Oval Office with Trump.

[Jon Favreau]

A classic. Who can forget?

[Tommy Vietor]

There's the people in prison jumpsuits. Right. Of all of our former co workers.

[Jon Favreau]

Shady bunch. Shady bunch, yeah.

[Tommy Vietor]

So if Trump really wants to make something a thing like he can't always break, get the media, the traditional media to cover it. He can't always make it like really break through. But he has in the past been able to get MAGA right wing media to do his bidding. So Resonate, which is an organization that tracks which stories are trending online. They have a subsec newsletter called what's Resonating. And so they looked at this for Wednesday of this week and so they track what neutral accounts are doing, left leaning accounts and right leaning accounts are doing this is across all the platforms. And more right leaning accounts on Wednesday were posting about Sydney Sweeney and Barack Obama. Like it's, it's just not, it's not working there. This is a true fail from the Trump messaging machine.

[Jon Favreau]

What did she do to commit treason? Was she part of the Durham investigation as well?

[Tommy Vietor]

We don't have the time.

[Jon Favreau]

Oh, did she kill Jeffrey Epstein?

[Tommy Vietor]

You know we can't prove she didn't. Yeah, someone should ask her where she was on that night and was she the orange blob spotted in the CBS video.

[Jon Favreau]

No, because we know she's wearing jeans. Good genes too. Good jeans, good genes.

[Tommy Vietor]

I did turn on, I did open up Twitter and it was like trending American Eagle Sydney Sweeney Nazis. I was like, close.

[Jon Favreau]

We talked about it on offline this week.

[Tommy Vietor]

Can't wait to listen.

[Jon Favreau]

And I'm pretty happy about it. Positive America is Brought to you by Chilipad by Sleep Me let's be honest. If your sleep sucks, everything else sucks a little more. You can do all the right things, work out intermittently fast. Meditate with that app you never open. But if you're overheating in a bed like a rotisserie chicken, you're not doing yourself any favors. And get this, most people train harder than they recover. Sleep is when your muscles rebuild, your brain clears out the junk, and your body gets ready for tomorrow's chaos. But it's not just about how long you sleep. It's about how well. And surprise, science tells us temperature plays a big role. That's where Chilipad by Sleep Me comes in. Chilipad is a magical little device that cools your existing mattress so you can stop sleeping hotter than hell. Chilipad isn't just about cooling. It's precision temperature control for better sleep and recovery. Set your ideal temperature anywhere from 55 to 115 degrees. If you're a psycho and get deeper sleep, better recovery and improved sleep scores. Plus, it's smart. Like nerdy smart. You can schedule your bed temp to change while you sleep. Start at room temp, cool it down when you hit deep sleep, then gently warm up to wake up naturally. Already tracking your sleep. This is the part where you stop monitoring your bad sleep and actually start fixing it. And if you've ever had a passive aggressive pillow fight over the thermostat, you know you have good news. Dual zone control. One side cool, one side warm. Peace in the bedroom at last. I've had a Chilipad by Sleep me and boy does it work. And it feels so wonderful to lie down in a cool bed and wake up in a cool bed. Damn right. It's just. It's fantastic. It works. More deep sleep. Actual energy in the morning. It's like coffee but backward because you're doing the real work while you sleep. Visit www.sleep.me crooked to get your Chilipad and save up to $500 with code CROOKED. That's www.sleep S L E E P M E C R O O K E D. Free shipping, free returns and a 30 night trial so you can test it out Dream big and wake up better. Sleep cooler, Recover faster, perform better.

[Andy Richter]

Hi there, it's Andy Richter, and I'm here to tell you about my podcast, the three Questions with Andy Richter. Each week I invite friends, comedians, comedians, actors, and musicians to discuss these three where do you come from, where are you going, and what have you learned? New episodes are out every Tuesday with guests like Julie Bow and Ted Danson, Tig Notaro, Will Arnett, Phoebe Bridgers, and more. You can also tune in for my weekly Andy Richter Call in show episodes, where me and a special guest invite callers to weigh in on topics like dating, disasters, bad teachers, and lots more. Listen to the three Questions with Andy Richter wherever you get your podcasts.

[Jon Favreau]

Lest you think all this conspiracy mongering is causing the White House to take its eye off the ball, fear not. The Trump administration announced this week that they'll pay off your student loans and give you a $50,000 signing bonus if you're willing to mask up and join Stephen Miller's secret police force. ICE has launched a major recruitment campaign called Defend the Homeland to hire the 10,000 additional agents they'll need to hit Miller's goal of 3,000 arrests per day and a million deportations this year. One of the ads features the famous picture of Uncle Sam pointing with the tagline, America has been invaded by criminals and predators. We need you to get them out. So question for you. What kind of qualified rule of law lovers do you think are gonna sign up for this one? You think we're gonna get a great force of just highly qualified Americans who are interested in law enforcement and doing everything by the book to help protect the homeland? Do you think that's what we're gonna get?

[Tommy Vietor]

I would say that over the last six months, Trump, Elon Musk, Stephen Miller have really shown the world the benefits, the stability of government employment. It seems like a very attractive place to work where once you get started, you can build a career there without having someone come in and just fire you for no reason. So I think, I imagine this will be the best and the brightest.

[Jon Favreau]

I mean, this is really as we can joke about, but it's fucking dark. And it's one of the things I worry about the most of everything because ICE has been bad enough in these last six months, ice, which doesn't have anywhere near the standards, hiring standards of local police departments, let alone the FBI, and they don't have the same kind of training, rigorous training that you go through, so you can be pretty unqualified and who knows what kind of political Views. You might have been at. You might have been at the Capitol on January 6th. You might have.

[Tommy Vietor]

That's a plus.

[Jon Favreau]

You might have been part of. We don't know who's doing the background checks, right where. This administration's gonna do a rigorous background check on these people who are now being told that there's an army of illegal migrants that have invaded the country, and they're all the worst of the worst, and they're criminals and child molesters and all this kind. And you know what? You just come to ICE, we'll give you $50,000 signing bonus right off the bat. We'll pay off your student loans. Here's a gun, here's a mask. Go for it.

[Tommy Vietor]

I mean, the authoritarian leading president of the United States building a massive, unaccountable police force loyal to him, that has some historical echoes that we don't really like.

[Jon Favreau]

It's really bad. And I don't even like. I don't know what Democrats even do about this. I do think that's one area where we make it to the midterms. And you launch a lot of investigations into what the Department of Homeland Security is doing and ICE is doing and who they're hiring. And to the extent that we can learn that, you know, between now and the midterms, I think that's important, too, because I think they're going to hire some really bad people. And I think that everything we have been seeing on social media, all the videos we've been seeing of ICE becoming violent, and especially with not just undocumented immigrants, not just people with criminal records, but legal residents, American citizens, protesters. I think it's gonna get much worse.

[Tommy Vietor]

I think Democrats should not be afraid when we have power again to use cutting ICE funding as a point of leverage in negotiations.

[Jon Favreau]

Yes, 100%. Meanwhile, one of Miller's comrades in the war on immigrants and the rule of law, Trump lawyer turned dog, hatchet man Emile Beauvais, got his lifetime appointment to the Third Circuit Court of Appeals. He was confirmed by the Senate this week after lying to Congress, telling DOJ officials that if judges wouldn't let them disappear people to a foreign gulag without due process, they might have to tell the courts to fuck off. Not one, not two, three whistleblowers came forward about this guy. Not libs, not deep staters, not just regular conservatives like Trump people. Trump administration people in DOJ came forward to say that this guy, he doesn't want to follow the law. He didn't want to follow the law when the judge ordered the Plane to be turned around that was going to El Salvador. He also was instrumental in dropping the charges for Eric Adams in exchange for Eric Adams just doing the bidding of the Trump administration. He was instrumental in firing all the prosecutors who prosecuted the January 6th defendants. He did all these things. He has had numerous complaints about him. Even before he was working for Trump as far back as 2018, people saying he was abusive to staff, that he was corrupt, all this kind of shit. And fucking only Lisa Murkowski and Susan Collins voted against him. Thom Tillis, Mitch McConnell, all the rest of them, thumbs up for this guy. Lifetime appointment.

[Tommy Vietor]

In general, over the course of time, presidents get their judicial nominees through. But periodically there are people who are so unqualified, so corrupt, so unfit that members of the president's party will reject them. Just some of them, right? Or the person will not get out of committee and they'll be forced to drop out. This is evidence that the entire confirmation system is a joke in this Republican Party. They do not care about anything other than Trump put that person's name for. They have no respect for themselves. They have no respect for the institution. They have no respect for the judiciary. They have no respect for their constituents. It is just Donald Trump said jump, so we just said, how high? I mean, it's truly embarrassing.

[Jon Favreau]

This one I really don't understand. For people like McConnell and Tillis, who are, who have nothing to lose, they're retiring, they're not even running for office again. And Emile Beauvais is not like, even if it was a Brett Kavanaugh, an Amy Coney Barrett, a Neil Gorsuch, right? You could say, okay, these are nominations where these people are genuinely right wing conservatives and like what they stand for and like their judicial philosophy. And it happens to align with what Trump wants. So that's why they're voting for them, right? Emile Beauvais, he's just a Trump hatchet man, nothing else. He doesn't have judicial philosophy, he doesn't have opinions that he's written, nothing. And it's not like starting off as a federal judge, right? To the Third Circuit Court of Appeals. He could go right from there to the Supreme Court. Just a loyalist to Trump, no judicial philosophy whatsoever. And they're like, thumbs up. It's fucking crazy.

[Tommy Vietor]

Well, it's actually, I think for the two of them, it actually fits with their behavior. Thom Tillis had one moment of courage on Medicaid. He also, the person who introduced Cash Patel at his confirmation hearing, Mitch McNo. One has done more to corrupt the judiciary in American history than Mitch McConnell, man. So this is very much like, I know Mitch McConnell's anti Trump, and we have some people have some hopes that maybe he'll do the right thing periodically, and he theoretically does not have the political pressure of people like a Susan Collins or other Republicans who may be up. But this is very much on brand for Mitch McConnell.

[Jon Favreau]

Let's check in on the Republican attempts to steal the midterm elections. This week, Texas legislators dropped their new gerrymander of the state's congressional map, a proposal that would create five new House districts that Trump won by 10 points or more in 2024. This would potentially hand Republicans the five extra House seats Trump asked for by packing Democratic voters into urban districts and creating a bunch of new seats that wouldn't have an incumbent but be in very red districts that Trump won. Hakeem Jeffries flew to Texas to huddle with state Democrats to see what they can do to fight back. Gavin Newsom said he's ready to push forward with a redraw in California if Texas goes through with it. J.B. pritzker and Kathy Hochul have threatened to do the same in Illinois and New York. Ron DeSantis says he may do the same in Florida, saying the 2020 census was, quote, flawed. Lots of contingencies. Can you walk us through what you think is most likely to happen here?

[Tommy Vietor]

Well, Texas is moving forward. I mean, I think Democrats can and should do everything they possibly can to stop them. When I talked to Congressman Cassar a couple weeks ago, he talked about the importance of it. I've heard Beto talk about the importance of delay. Maybe the members flee, the legislators, Democratic legislators flee the state, so they can't get a quorum. We should try to make this as politically painful for them as possible. But they have the votes to do it, and Trump very much wants them to do it. California, it's complicated, but Gavin Newsom has a plan. I fully expect him to proceed. Illinois, somewhat complicated. New York, very complicated. And New York is limited in what they can do. And it seems, based on some analyses I've seen, that absent everything working the right way, it's unlikely that New York would have new maps in place by 2026. Florida, I imagine, will do whatever. Theirs is also somewhat complicated because of the role the Florida Supreme Court plays. So that may be a little bit of bluster because they were limited in how much they could gerrymander in this last time around. But Democrats are doing the right things, right, like, we need a strategy of mutually assured destruction. They do this we'll do it. Republicans just have more opportunities because they have more states where they control the legislature and the governorship. And there has not been a ballot initiative, constitutional amendment or something else passed that limits the ability of Democrats to do a mid decade redistricting or do something that. A partisan redistricting.

[Jon Favreau]

Yeah.

[Tommy Vietor]

So it's very challenging.

[Jon Favreau]

This is what worries me in the end because it's like, you're right for California. You know, we've talked about this with Newsom. We have to get a ballot initiative holds like a special election. Or he can try to just do it and see what the courts say. Illinois, I think he can do it. Pritzker can do it. But it's gonna be hard to draw, I guess, to squeeze a few more seats out of Illinois. I think that's the case.

[Tommy Vietor]

They went through this in two years ago or whatever. Two years ago, 2021, they went through this.

[Jon Favreau]

Yeah. And the reason you're not hearing about a lot more states is because there just aren't as many states where Democrats have full control over the state legislature and there's more seats to squeeze out and, and are able to do it because of, you know, that there's not some constitutional amendment or law or whatever else or nonpartisan district commission set up that prevents them from doing it. So it's. I am glad Democrats are fighting back too. I do. People should be aware that it's a very hard fight to pick and I'm glad they're doing it. But like, I don't, you know, unclear if it's going to work.

[Tommy Vietor]

Can I just make one point here that I think is this is, I won't say it's optimistic, but Republicans in Texas are making a very big bet that Trump's numbers with Latinos in 2024 is the new norm.

[Jon Favreau]

Yeah.

[Tommy Vietor]

And there is really no evidence to support that. Just I'm going to give you two examples. So nationally in 2024, Democrats won 54% of the Latino vote. In the midterms in 2022, we won 62%. Now here's a stunning number for you in according to exit polls. So take that for what it was. But these are exit polls. In Texas in 2024, Trump won the Latino vote by 11 points. In Texas in 2022, when Beto O' Rourke was losing by 11 points to Greg Abbott, he won the Latino vote by 17 points.

[Jon Favreau]

Oh, wow.

[Tommy Vietor]

And Abbott won because he won the white vote by 33 points. So there is like probably, they've obviously thought about this, but if the Latino vote shifts back to where it was before 2020, Republicans are about to create a bunch of really competitive seats and put themselves in great risk.

[Jon Favreau]

Yeah. I think there's. Of the five new seats, a couple Trump won by 15 or more. But then a couple he only won by 10 or more. Only 10. But if you're talking about numbers like you just did, and they're heavily Latino districts, then who knows?

[Tommy Vietor]

Yeah. And given demographics, the percentage of the district that is Latino is going to grow over time.

[Jon Favreau]

Right.

[Tommy Vietor]

And so they could have real troubles in midterms when the midterm Latino electorate, at least in the limited sample size we have where Trump is president looks very different than when Trump's on the ballot.

[Jon Favreau]

Okay, last thing before we get to Tommy's interview with Jason Crow. Kamala Harris announced this week that she will not be running for governor of California after all. We don't know whether that means she'll be running for president in 2028. Her aides have told reporters that people should not read into her decision on the California governor's race anything about her plans for 2028. But then she also came out with an announcement after that saying that she's going to be devoting her attention to this. Just over a year ago, I launched.

[Tommy Vietor]

My campaign for President of the United States.

[Jon Favreau]

107 days, traveling the country, fighting for our future. The shortest presidential campaign in modern history.

[Tommy Vietor]

Since leaving office, I've spent a lot.

[Jon Favreau]

Of time reflecting on those days, talking with my team, my family, my friends, and pulling my thoughts together. In essence, writing a journal that is this book. 107 days. 107 days. She's got a book. What's your guess on the book? Is this gonna be an interesting book or is it going to be a typical politician book?

[Tommy Vietor]

Well, it was reported that she worked with. I don't know. This has been confirmed. But I. I read this online. A place where nothing's ever wrong, that she worked with Pulitzer prize money novelist Geraldine Brooks on it.

[Jon Favreau]

I read the book.

[Tommy Vietor]

I think this is very interesting. As opposed to your typical. And I do not mean this in a pejorative sense, John, your typical political speechwriter. Ghostwriter, which is how these things usually happen.

[Jon Favreau]

Yeah.

[Tommy Vietor]

So I think that's very interesting.

[Jon Favreau]

And guess what. Those books. Boring.

[Tommy Vietor]

I don't know, like, obviously don't know what she's gonna do next. I would just say this is a take a lot of people have had online. It's like, it was so stupid of her not to run for governor. It's Like, I'm just gonna guess that maybe she doesn't wanna be governor.

[Jon Favreau]

I was like, good for her, was my first reaction, because she has seemed from afar that ever since the election that she does not wanna be governor of California. There were, like, plenty of moments where obviously, we've been in the mix, national news cycle, it's been a big year for California. We've been in Trump's sites over the last six months, and, you know, there's times where, you know, she would put out statements and stuff like that. But I would think, okay, if she wants to be governor, you'd imagine that she'd be out there speaking up about this. And I think, you know, if she has decided, I don't want to be governor of California right now, and I want to write this book and I want to do other things for a while and I want to think about my future, then, like, you know, go for it?

[Tommy Vietor]

I think that's right.

[Jon Favreau]

Do you think that she'll. What do you think she's thinking about 20, 28? Do you think she's genuinely just like, I'll wait and see? Because that could be too. People always think everything's calculated, but she could just be like, all right, I don't know yet.

[Tommy Vietor]

I would say, like, governor, she has done abs, almost nothing, and maybe this, maybe the book will kick it off, but she is not. The people who want to be president. Right. Or at least we believe are going to want to run for president are out there doing things that make it very clear they want to be president.

[Jon Favreau]

Yeah.

[Tommy Vietor]

They're going on the podcast. They're, you know, we've got people traveling to New Hampshire. Right. People traveling to Iowa, New Hampshire, and we don't even know what the map is going to be. And she has been very, very quiet, which is her. Right. Right. She gets to choose what she wants to do. But if she knew she wanted to run for president, there are a lot of moments that have happened over the last six months that she could have used as big words. She is the biggest voice in the party other than President Obama right now. Right. If she went out, maybe even actually. Probably get more attention if she went out and did something right now than Obama, because she has been so quiet since the election. And so I think I get the sense that she's probably genuinely undecided, which is probably good.

[Jon Favreau]

Yeah.

[Tommy Vietor]

Right. It was less than a year ago that she. It was basically a year ago now that she got thrown into this thing that she did not expect to do and then lost and is, like, probably still processing that, which there's plenty of time to do that if she wants to run for president in 2028.

[Jon Favreau]

Yeah, I mean, we're recording this before we got any news about her appearance on Colbert Thursday night.

[Tommy Vietor]

Maybe she announces and this is gonna look stupid.

[Jon Favreau]

I know. Who knows? But so she, you know, kicking off her public appearance with Colbert, and then I think the book comes out in September, so it'll be interesting to see. Like, is the book tour. Is she talking a lot about what happened in the campaign and the book, is she talking about what's happening right now? Some of that will be, of course, dictated by the question she gets.

[Tommy Vietor]

But how interesting is the book?

[Jon Favreau]

Yeah, how interesting. How interesting is the book, how much she says what she has to say? You know, we'll be able. I think we'll be able to read her intentions about the future pretty quickly when she starts talking.

[Jason Crow]

Fair enough.

[Jon Favreau]

Okay. When we get back from the break, you'll hear Tommy's conversation with Congressman Jason Crow. Two things before we get to that, in case you missed it, we're hosting our first ever Crooked Con this November. Crooked Con is a chance to join America's smartest organizers and least annoying politicians to strategize, debate, and commiserate about where we go from here, hopefully up. We'll be in Washington, D.C. november 6th and 7th, starting with a Pod Save America live show at the Warner Theatre on Thursday, November 6th. Then on Friday, November 7th, we'll be at the Wharf. The Wharf.

[Tommy Vietor]

The Wharf.

[Jon Favreau]

Joined by some of the most influential names in politics for a full day of conversations, workshops, and live pods. We're going to be talking about messaging, strategy, organizing. Tickets are on sale now. Head to crookedcon.com for tickets, lineup announcements and more. That's C-R-O-O-K-E-C O N.com we have a limited amount of discounted tickets available. Use code, freedom and content. One word, all caps. That's Freedom and Content. That's your discount code. In the meantime, we got a new episode of Polar Coaster with our own Dan Pfeiffer that just dropped. Dan, what'd you guys talk about this week?

[Tommy Vietor]

This is gonna shock you. John, so glad you're sitting down for this.

[Jon Favreau]

Sydney Sweeney.

[Tommy Vietor]

No, no, we recorded, I think before this really blew up with the Internet, we were talking about Jeffrey Epstein in the latest polling, why it's staying in the news. We got to talk a little bit about the politics around Trump pardoning a convicted sex trafficker's co conspirator in exchange for favorable testimony. And we talked a lot about Roy Cooper announcing he's running for Senate in North Carolina and a little bit about the Senate map sort of look like for 2026.

[Jon Favreau]

Sweet. Tune in everyone and if you're not a subscriber, [e-mail] friends or through Apple Podcasts so you can get Dan's pod. You can get our inside 2025 pod terminally online, all kinds of other benefits. It's great ad free episodes of Pod Save America and Pod Save the World and Offline and Love it or Leave it. Subscribe. Come join us. It's a fun little community. We all chat.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Positive America is brought to you by Rocket Money. A lot of people aren't aware of how much they spend each month. Do you know how many subscriptions you pay for? What about how much you spend on takeout or delivery? It's probably more than you think, but there's an app designed to help you manage your money better, and it's called Rocket Money. Rocket Money is a personal finance app that helps find and cancel your unwanted subscriptions, monitors your spending, and helps lower your bills so you can grow your savings. Their dashboard lays out your total financial picture, including bill due dates and paydays, in a way that's easy to digest. You can even automatically create custom budgets based on your past spending. If you've got a goal you'd like to save for, Rocket Money can analyze your accounts to find the best time each month to put extra money aside, get alerts if your bills increase in price, if there's unusual activity in your accounts, if you're close to going over budget, and even when you're doing a Good job. Rocket Money's 5 million members have saved a total of 500 million in canceled subscriptions, with members saving up to 740 bucks a year when they use all of the app's premium features. I told you, John, how Rocket Money helped me cancel a subscription service, a streaming service, which I won't mention, which I think was international, that we had signed up for in the pandemic to watch like five episodes of a thing and then just forgot existed.

[Jon Favreau]

So, and the great thing about it is you can, you can keep using it again and again. Like I've used it before. I could probably, probably use it again.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Damn right. Cancel your unwanted subscriptions and reach your financial goals faster with Rocket Money. Go to RocketMoney.com Crooked Go today. That's RocketMoney.com Crooked RocketMoney.com Crooked hi there.

[Andy Richter]

It'S Andy Richter and I'm here to tell you about my podcast, the three Questions with Andy Richter. Each week I invite friends, comedians, comedians, actors and musicians to discuss these three where do you come from, where are you going, and what have you learned? New episodes are out every Tuesday with guests like Julie Bowe and Ted Danson, Tig Notaro, Will Arnett, Phoebe Bridgers and more. You can also tune in for my weekly Andy Richter call in show episodes where me and a special guest invite callers to weigh in on topics like dating, disasters, bad teachers, and lots of. Listen to the three Questions with Andy Richter wherever you get your podcasts.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Joining me now in studio, Congressman Jason Crow from Colorado. You are a decorated army veteran, one of the Democrats in charge of recruiting candidates for the midterms. Good luck with that. Great to have you.

[Jason Crow]

Thanks. Good to be here in the land of the cardboard straw. Thanks for having. Thanks for having me.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

How's that treated, L. A?

[Jason Crow]

Well, I mean, they don't taste good. No, but I appreciate the sentiment.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

John Lovett's pretty radicalized against those things.

[Jason Crow]

Yeah, I'm on the path to radicalization against the wooden fork and the plastic and the cardboard straw. It's not awesome.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

There's a corn based one that I think is a little better than the.

[Jason Crow]

Paper, but don't those dissolve and melt with hot liquids?

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Gotta drink it fast, man. Gotta get that thing down.

[Jason Crow]

That's a lot of pressure. I wanna sip it with leisure.

[Jon Favreau]

I don't wanna be forced to drink it for.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

I want like a ticking clock, like a 24 style. Get it done. I just saw that the White House announced plans to construct a $200 million, 90,000 square foot ballroom as part of the east wing of the White House. I guess so we can hold bigger parties. Would you say that's a good use of money or a great use of money?

[Jason Crow]

Yeah, just the best use of money. Probably right after we. After kicking 12 million people off their health care, tripling the budget of ice, opening up camps throughout the country. Now we're gonna do this and we'll just add it onto the pile of the $400 million Qatari jet, which of course, Donald Trump might be a billion likely. Yeah, well, that's after we have to actually retrofit this thing and make it workable for Air Force One so that Donald Trump can then keep it when he leaves the presidency.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

What did you make of this story that the Pentagon might be shifting money from a program to, I believe, refurbish our nuclear missiles or nuclear Stockpile to go towards retrofit or making this plane fit for being Air Force One. It might cost a billion dollars.

[Jason Crow]

Yeah. I mean, they're trying to shift money from a lot of different pots right now. You know, Pete Hegseth has no idea what's going on, right? You asked this man, and he's too busy in his vanity mirror and the new gym that he's built in the Pentagon to really give a crap about what's happening with all this money. But the whole is just, you know, it's really beyond the pale. Right. They are shifting money around for their culture war agendas, for their political grievances, and we're all the ones that suffer.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Yeah, I'm completely derailing my own list of questions. But it was. I mean, I'm sure you, as someone who served in the military, you access to war plans, classified information. Hegseth's suggestion early on that sending, like, the strike package, the coordinates for, like, where the military was going to hit in Yemen to take out the Houthi rebels via signal, that there was not classified information was really remarkable. It's like, I can't imagine him walking around that building and looking at his co workers with a straight face when they all just know he's lying.

[Jason Crow]

Yeah. Yeah, well, he knows he's lying too. That's the biggest thing. And he does so without remorse, with a completely straight face. You know, the man lies with complete ease. Sits in front of Congress and does it. Sits in front of the cameras and does it. And there's no accountability. That's the larger issue here, is that he knows he can do it because there will be no accountability for it.

[Jon Favreau]

Right.

[Jason Crow]

And what's worse is Pete Hegseth and I actually come from similar backgrounds. Right. We were both infantry officers, infantry lieutenants. We led infantry platoons overseas. So presumably we were exposed to the same leadership challenges and the same leadership development. And what I learned when I was in the military is servant leadership is the basis of your leadership. It doesn't matter really what you say. It matters more what you do. The example that you set when I was a paratrooper, you jump out of the plane first, the commander jumps out first, and then the soldiers follow. When food comes, the other soldiers eat first, the junior folks eat first, and then if there's any leftover than you eat right. You suffer the most, and you give the benefits to the people underneath you. That's completely put on its head with this administration. No accountability at the top. Do as I say, not as I do. And it's corrosive to the culture of the entire organization.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

And look, these organizations, they're made up of people. We're all fallible. We all make mistakes and lie sometimes and people get in trouble. But the values that are seen as most important within the military are honesty, candor, accountability, like you just said. And I just wonder what you think the impact is to the rank and file, but also the senior leadership that he works with day to day at the Pentagon. For them to have to look this man in the eye that they just know is completely full of shit.

[Jason Crow]

Well, there's a leadership impact and that's that corrosive message to the culture. You can't be the leader of organization and act like this and not have it impact the ethos of the people that are serving under you. It just does. It has an impact. Right? So that's one. But then there's actually the practical effect operationally of this. The man does not know what he's doing. The majority of his leadership at the Pentagon have resigned in protest to his lack of leadership.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

And he lied about them, right?

[Jason Crow]

He said that they were disgruntled employees and like you hired them six weeks ago. Right. You are disgruntling people at an unbelievable pace. Right. And you can't run an organization of over 2 million people that day in and day out conducts hundreds of extremely risky operations that is dealing with our adversaries around the world that daily are doing things to put our soldiers and Americans at risk. You can't run an organization of that complexity with such cavalier and sloppiness and not eventually have something really bad happen. And that's what I'm worried about the most right now.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Yeah, me too. Okay, so like I said at the top, you are co chair for recruitment of the dccc, the campaign arm for the Democrats. How's it going and how does this. There's a redistricting push happening in Texas, maybe a retaliation in California. There's other states kind of talking about that. How does that impact your job?

[Jason Crow]

Yeah, well, I'm worried about this redistricting, right? I mean, they for a long time are saying the quiet part out loud now. And the Republicans, they just don't care. They're just doing whatever they want to do to consolidate power. And it's certainly going to make our job harder. But our recruitment is going very well. My job, among others is to go out and find those candidates to flip seats. And I always try to explain to folks the task of flipping a seat is a unique political challenge. I Flipped a seat in 2018. I'm the first Democrat ever to hold my seat in Congress. Actually, it was 40 years of Republican seat. And when you're trying to convince people to change their minds, to switch their vote and to go Republican to Democrat in this environment, and it's gotten worse since I was first elected in 18, that is an extremely hard thing to do. So there's no factor that's more important than the quality of the candidate. Oh, yeah, right. I mean, you can have all the time, people are like, who is the main leader of the Democratic Party? What is our slogan? What's our bumper sticker? What's our unifying message? All important things and all things that we have to refine. And I'm happy to talk about that process as well. But in these districts, these 35 targeted seats that we've targeted at this point, what you're trying to do is convince somebody who voted for Donald Trump or who voted for a Republican who supports Donald Trump that changed their vote. What you're getting is a woman or a man who is deeply rooted in that community, who has an independent streak, who's trusted by people, who has a great bio, usually outside of politics, because they're being voted to be a change maker, not to perpetuate the system. So it's not a lot of people with political experience. And that's who we're looking for. That's the tried and tested formula. But it actually takes some work because I'm having to go and sit in front of these folks and be like, I have a great deal for you. I want you to leave your thriving business, make less money.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

They're going to trash your family.

[Jason Crow]

Yeah. Leave your kids half the time, and people are going to say terrible things about you. There's going to be tens of millions of dollars of ads that lie about you. What do you say? Right.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

It's got to be tough.

[Jason Crow]

It's just kind of the job.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Well, I imagine like a college football coach going into a living room. You're like a coach O from lsu. You're trying to recruit him. Is it kind of like that?

[Jason Crow]

It is kind of like that. Right? I mean, but. But first of all, I'm just honest. I'm not trying to feed people bullshit. I'm just not. I'm honest with them because I'm not doing anybody any favors if I'm not honest about how challenging these races and how tough it is to be in politics right now. But the appeal is pretty simple, actually. I say how hard it's going to be. I say how excruciating it's going to be. I talk about the impact on everybody around them, and then I say, you know what? Your country needs you. We right now are at one of the inflection points. There have been just a handful of them that will absolutely determine the future of this country. And none of us wanted to live in this moment. None of us woke up saying, oh, I want to be in a moment of political extremism where what happens is going to determine the course of the country, where the very foundations of our democracy are at risk. No, we didn't ask for it, but we are here and your country needs you. A and B is, I'm not asking for a lifetime commitment. I'm asking for a minimum of a couple of years of your life. And after those couple of years, you say, this is not for you, or if it's not working out, you can go back and do what you're doing. But right now we need you.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

It's a pretty good pitch, I think. So I'll take it. I'm a cornerback. I'm feeling like, be a Democrat or nevermind. So the House went into recess early because Speaker Johnson was so worried about a vote on releasing the Epstein files. Can you help listeners understand how weird that is, what happened? And won't they just have to deal with this problem in like five or six weeks when you get back?

[Jason Crow]

Yeah, I mean, that's exactly what happened, actually, is we, we were supposed to be in session to the end of the week last week. And Johnson knew that there was going to be a vote forced on releasing the files. He knew Republicans were gonna vote for it, there'd be a bipartisan vote and they would lose it. He knew that Donald Trump absolutely do not want these files released. So he sent us home. He literally recessed Congress and sent us home instead of actually holding this vote. Which is pretty telling. I mean, it is crazy. I would like to say, though, that that's surprising, but the things that I have seen in my six years, six and a half years now in Congress, this Congress and prior Congresses, but Republicans in particular do. It's pretty unbelievable stuff.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

I've gone from feeling like the conspiracy was hiding in plain sight with Jeffrey Epstein, that he was a rich, well connected, terrible pedophile, awful human being who uses connections to get away with doing evil things, to over the last month, watching Trump try to shut down conversations about Epstein, to, you know, learning about all the factual discrepancies in the administration's story, the video Missing a minute. Like I'm completely red pilled on this thing now and I'm just like wondering.

[Jason Crow]

Well, watching the mega world's head explode, like, wait a minute, like whose side are we supposed to be on here right now?

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Minecraft head just exploding. How do you make sense of this last month?

[Jason Crow]

Well, let's not. I think it's important that we not lose sight of the actual substance of this. That you had a long time sexual predator that was preying on women and girls and that there have presumably been hundreds of perpetrators and accomplices that have not been brought to justice.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

DOJ said a thousand victims in that memo.

[Jason Crow]

Yeah, hundreds maybe. Over God knows how many accomplices. Right, right, Shocking. So, so that in and of itself should be enough for anybody to say let's release the files and let's have justice. Right. It's never too late to name the names and to call people out. That's really important. That's the most important thing. And then on top of that you have the corruption and yet another cover up by this administration that doesn't wanna be transparent, that's clearly hiding something. I mean, Donald Trump's constant true social posts trying to get us to move on are damn telling.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Yeah, not going so well either.

[Jason Crow]

No, it's not.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

On Wednesday of this week, 27 Senate Democrats voted to cut off weapons shipments to Israel. That is a reaction to the horrific images we've seen recently out of Gaza. You know, starved to death children, emaciated children, just massive crowds of people just desperately trying to get food. And so that vote tally, 27 Democrats voting to cut off weapons to Israel, that was, that's unimaginable. Four or five years ago, like Ben Rhodes and I did this event with J Street in 2019, did a bunch of the presidential candidates, we tried to get them all to commit to conditioning aid if it were to be used, US military aid if it were to be used in the West Bank. And we basically only got like Bernie on board with that. And now, you know, you see this vote, it's obviously not enough. Right? It's not going to stop these weapons shipments. Are you seeing a similar political shift in the House? And how are you thinking about whether we should cut off or condition military aid to Israel around the war?

[Jason Crow]

You know, you can't look at those images and see what's happening not just in the last couple of weeks, but for, you know, a year plus now. The starving children, the sheer desperation of the folks in Gaza, in the settler violence in the west bank, too let's not forget about that and how terrible that is, and that there was just a Palestinian killed a couple of days ago by a settler in the west bank. And say that this is horrible stuff and that it doesn't need to happen. Right. And that's not mutually exclusive from also saying that Hamas is a terrible organization and a terrible terrorist organization and needs to be destroyed. Because I also believe that. Right. But my own experience at war, I went to war three times for this country, three times in Iraq and Afghanistan. And I was in the position of leading troops in combat where there were civilians everywhere, where I had to go after our adversary, the insurgents, but there were civilians all around us. And we constantly had to make decisions about whether to engage or not engage or how to target and to avoid the collateral damage, to avoid killing civilians. And that is why I actually formed. I was one of the founding members of the Protection of Civilians and Conflict Caucus. And I have focused a lot of my efforts on protecting civilians. And that is why I know that it didn't have to be this way. You didn't have to choose between security and going after Hamas and protecting civilians and ensuring that tens of thousands haven't died. There was a better way. And that's why I pushed the administration, Biden administration, to actually just uphold our own standards. Right. Our standards are pretty clear. You know, we have a conventional arms transfer policy. We had something called NSM 20, National Security Memorandum 20, which is the way that we actually enforced the conventional arms transfer policy. And I led efforts to say, do the analysis, apply the facts to our own laws and standards, and then make the determination. They unfortunately never went through that process and did that, because my belief is, let's just apply our own standards like we would to any ally, like we would to ourselves. You know, hold others to the same standards that we hold ourselves to. So, you know, that ship has sailed, or did under the Biden administration. Right now what needs to happen is a massive surge of humanitarian aid to Gaza. The distribution system has failed terribly, terribly in every way. That system needs to be completely revamped. The UN and independent aid organizations need to be put in charge because they know how to do this. And there needs to be a massive surge of aid.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

But I totally agree with that. But I think that there's a concern that there might be this surge of aid and then Netanyahu will continue the war for political purposes, because he has this right wing part of his coalition that has basically said, will dissolve the government if you don't continue the war in perpetuity or adopt the Trump plan, which is the full ethnic cleansing of the Gaza Strip and then the Israelis taking control. So I think there is a hope among a lot of Democrats, like cards on the table, myself included, that this might be a moment where the United States government, hopefully led by the Democratic Party, although I understand that we're not in power anywhere, will try to push Netanyahu to permanently end the war or try to force it. I think a lot of people think that a broad support for cutting off weapons shipments is part of that.

[Jason Crow]

Yeah. Netanyahu is not going to end this on his own. He just won't. As you pointed out, Netanyahu hasn't even pushed hard and done what's necessary to get the release of the hostages. And he has repeatedly throughout history undermined opportunities to achieve peace and to dismantle Hamas. Let's not forget that years ago he was actually the one that helped facilitate and prompt up what became the foundation for Hamas. Right. So he's not going to do that on his own. He's only going to do that if there is external pressure from this administration. And that's why people speaking up, that's why Republicans too. I mean, Donald Trump probably doesn't care that much what we have to say, to be honest with you. But that's why Republicans and others who are starting to wake up to this, some of them are.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Marjorie Taylor Greene referred to it as a genocide. There are people who are pushing votes to cut off aid. And like, I don't agree with her on anything, but I think she has spoken pretty movingly and compellingly about her desire to get out of conflicts overseas randomly.

[Jason Crow]

You know, when you are trying to build a coalition, when you are trying to increase support for something, it's not enough just to like double down on language and on things that people who already agree with you like and agree with. Right. We have to be willing to like broaden our aperture here and pull other people into the coalition who know that this is not going the right way. And this doesn't serve anyone's interests. It doesn't serve Israel's long term interest, doesn't serve the Palestinian interest. And it's certainly not going to deliver a two state solution, not even starting on the path towards a two state solution. And the only way to do that is if we broaden our coalition and pull people in who we may not agree with all the time on all issues, but we have to be willing.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

To do it also. I'm sort of hoping there's going to be a structural change around this issue or just the way that we're thinking about it. Like for example, a lot of Democrats, myself included, Ben Rhodes, who you know well, have said Democrats should stop taking money from aipac. And that is in part because I think their view, their policy on Gaza has been indefensible, but also because you see AIPAC saying some pretty disgraceful things. Like the Twitter account accused Bernie Sanders of blood libel, the 80 year old Jewish man, his family died in the holocaust of blood libel for raising concern about the starvation of civilians in Gaza. Do you think Democrats should stop taking money from aipac?

[Jason Crow]

I think people should be pushed on their policies. Right. You should look hard at what they have said about this issue and whether or not they want to show leadership on the humanitarian crisis, whether they have a track record of pushing for a two state solution and making sure that Palestinians have the right to dignity and a future just like the Israelis do. Right. And that is the ultimate goal and that's where we need to be. And people need to be pressured for that and people need to hear from their constituents on that.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Yeah, I think my concern is AIPAC is doing counter pressure. Right? I mean they are basically endorsing Republicans. They're intervening in Democratic primaries and taking out progressives and it just feels like they're, they're supporting, you know, January 6th truthers. It just seems like that it's an organization that is not, not Democratic in nature right now.

[Jason Crow]

But you know, I, I think that people need to feel pressure from their constituents to do the right thing here and to push back, you know, more than any other organization, regardless of what that organization is. And I don't agree with these organizations a lot and on all issues, but they need to fuel the pressure on the specific crisis that we have right now and they need to be pushed.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Next month is the four year anniversary of the US withdrawal from Afghanistan. I know Republicans have made this push to revisit the final stages of the withdrawal, but that's about it. I think looking back and knowing that you've served in multiple theaters, do you think that we are doing the right kind of accounting of the mistakes we've made since 911 and the war on terror or even asking the right questions?

[Jason Crow]

I think we are undoubtedly going through that process and this is something that a lot of people don't know is that we actually created, I helped create, along with Tammy Duckworth and others, an Afghanistan War commission which has been a multi year process. It's going to wrap up in another year and A half, but is going to do a comprehensive look. It's very similar to the 911 Commission, actually. They are doing a comprehensive look of every facet of this war. They're looking back over the 20 year history, every administration, Republican and Democrat, every Congress, Republican and Democrat, the civilian leadership, the military leadership, and looking at all of the missteps, all of the missed opportunities and what went wrong every step of the way.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Interviews like how does that work? You guys talking to the generals who are in charge of various.

[Jason Crow]

Yeah, well this is an independent congressionally created commission. So it's not members of Congress that are serving.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Sorry, I mean the commission. Right, yeah. The commissioners talking to the guy running.

[Jason Crow]

Rce, they are, they're doing hundreds of interviews. Civilian leadership, military. Military leadership. They're doing hearings around the country. Because ultimately this is something that I feel very passionate about. We spent 20 years, trillions of dollars, thousands of lost lives, tens of thousands of lost Afghan lives, lost credibility and it ended poorly by every metric. So we just can't do this again. We can't. And what we need to know is why did it happen? What were the missed opportunities? And again, I will say this happened under just as many Democratic administrations as Republican ones and just as many Democrat controlled Congresses as Republican ones. And I actually believe one of the biggest problems behind both Iraq and Afghanistan is the fact that Congress gave up its authority. We have stepped out of our congressionally mandated war powers authority and we have written a blank check to administration after administration through these authorizations for use of military force, these AUMFs that basically have allowed president after president to continue military operations in dozens of different countries. Now without any more debate, without any more votes, and largely financed by additional.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Debt, is there any way to require that an AUMF sunsets every year or has to be reauthorized or just something. Because you're right, look in hand up worked for Barack Obama. We surged troops in Afghanistan. That's something that with the benefit of hindsight, I think was a mistake. I think that it's fair to say that the AUMF was stretched and strained beyond all recognition to justify bombing places where it's impossible to argue that Al Qaeda proper. Was there some sort of affiliate group, Right?

[Jason Crow]

These affiliate organizations is the language, right? They name groups in the AUMF and then they're like affiliates because they morph. I mean, the idea behind it is understandable, right? They don't want a group just to change its name and rebrand and not be able to target it. But it has really been abused to spin off and be used in pretty abstract ways. And I actually believe in sunsets. This is actually a key component of this debate. And I'm on that side of the debate that no Congress should be able to debate and then take a vote and then wash its hands of it. Right. There has to be a sunset where both the administration is forced to come back and make the case and Congress has to be held accountable. You have to have more votes and more debate. Because until that happens, where's the pressure? Where's the pressure to end it? Right. And the best way to have accountability is through members of Congress, because we are weekly going home and we're holding town halls and auditoriums and Rotary clubs, and we have to stand in front of people and say, yeah, your taxpayer dollars, your sons and daughters should be going off and fighting this war and conflict, and here's why. And if we can't make that case, then we shouldn't be taking the vote.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Yeah, absolutely. And it's so frustrating. I mean, just seeing how much inertia there is and how much easier it is to bomb a place, start a war, perpetuate a conflict than, you know, get votes on the jcpoa, the Iran nuclear agreement, which was an attempt to solve problems diplomatically. And I'm really glad you guys are doing this review of sort of what happened in Afghanistan, but there's also kind of a just a political problem or incentive structure problem that I don't know how to solve in the United States to try to keep us out of these conflicts.

[Jason Crow]

Well, this is where you're seeing a little bit of a convergence of the right and left, if you will, where people are like, no, why are we going to do another war in the Middle East? Why are we spending trillions of dollars?

[Jon Favreau]

Why?

[Jason Crow]

This is a damn good question. Because our track record is not really good. You just can't point to these and be like, oh, we're having great success here. We're not. And that actually should be pretty telling. And we get pulled into these quagmires. And then on the flip side, Ukraine, which is actually doing its own fighting and is doing a remarkable job, we're not supporting them in the way that we should. So the incentive structures into politics, to your point, are completely out of whack on this.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Yeah, I know. Last Sunday you were denied entry trying to get into an ice detention facility in Aurora. And I think it's a facility you've been visiting repeatedly since what, like, 2019?

[Jason Crow]

Since 2019. Yeah.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

I think you guys filed suit yesterday against the Trump administration, alleging that ICE officials violated federal law by turning you away. Can you just tell us about what happened and what should have happened and where the lawsuit stands?

[Jason Crow]

Yeah. So, I mean, this is something, as you point out, I've been doing for over six years now. So when I first came in as a member of Congress in 2019, this ICE detention center is in my district, in the center of my district, about a mile from where I live. And we immediately started to get reports of disease outbreaks and abuses and problems at this facility. So I literally just showed up. I did an unannounced visit in February of 19 and said, hey, I'm a member of Congress. I'm here to do an inspection. They turned me away. So it took numerous attempts before they finally let me in. My team and I looked at the law and they're like, well, there's no actual law that requires us to have access. So we actually worked with members and we pushed and we passed a law. So we created this law that now says members of Congress have to be provided immediate access to any facility that's run by the DHS that receives congressional funding. So any federal money that flows through DHS, that detains migrants, it doesn't matter whether that's ice, cbp, hhs, those are the three agencies that run facilities of various types. And that it doesn't need to be announced. It can be unannounced visits, because that's actually really important. Oversight, right? You don't want to show up and.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

It'S all spiffied up.

[Jason Crow]

It's all spiffy Lysol and fresh paint and the dog and pony show. You need to get a real look. You need to see what's actually happening. So we passed this law. It's been on the books for years. I've continued to do oversight. I visited this facility at least nine times. My staff has been dozens of times. So I show up a couple of weeks ago and they say, no, who's they? In this case, it was ice.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Like the person who runs the facility or something.

[Jason Crow]

Yeah, well, geo. So this is a privately run detention center and there's no distinction in the law between private and not private. In this case, this is run by the GEO Corporation, which runs all sorts of these facilities around the country. And as a separate issue, I've actually been pushing for years, along with Pramila Jayapal and others, to end the private for profit detention system because it's just gross and perverse that there's a profit motivation to Incarceration and more people, longer is more money. Yeah, I mean you get all these abuses because it's a profit motivated system. Right. And then you see all these companies in lobbying for the expansion of these. It's really just a, a really perverse system. So we've been trying to close these facilities overall, but, you know, notwithstanding. And that's actually another point of disagreement I have with the Biden administration because they issued an order ending private detention centers for federal detention, but they exempted and carved out immigration detention facilities. So we battled them on that. We weren't successful. So these facilities still exist. So I was denied entry, which is a violation, just a straight up very clear violation of the law. So yesterday we filed a lawsuit in.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Federal court and he like, what's the timeframe on that resolving?

[Jon Favreau]

We don't know.

[Jason Crow]

I mean we just filed it yesterday. There's 12 members total, all of whom were denied access to facilities around the country. Cuz this is, you know, a feature, not a bug. My denial was not uncommon, unfortunately. I mean they are, they are denying access, they are impeding oversight, they're obstructing all over the country, repeatedly on a mass scale, actually, not just with visits, but all over site. So we are asserting our rights to try to end this obstruction. And what they say is they've implemented a new policy, they being the Trump administration, that they've implemented a new policy that requires seven days notice for a visit, which of course guts effective oversight.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

It's not the law, right?

[Jason Crow]

Yeah. And it's not the law. They can't just be like, nope, we're gonna do something different, Right? That's not how it works. Congress makes the laws, the President's supposed to follow it. They can't by executive order or fiat or just their opinion, change it.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Well, we wish you the best of luck with that. Congressman Crow, thank you so much for coming in and great to be here.

[Jason Crow]

Thanks Tommy.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Great to have you.

[Jason Crow]

Thanks, appreciate.

[Jon Favreau]

That's our show for today. Thanks to Congressman Jason Crow for coming on. Tommy Lovett and I will be back with a new show on Tuesday.

[Tommy Vietor]

Bye everyone.

[Jon Favreau]

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[Jason Crow]

Hi there.

[Andy Richter]

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