Is JD Vance the Republican Front-Runner?

Summary

Pod Save America: "Is JD Vance the Republican Front-Runner?"

Date: December 30, 2025
Hosts: Jon Favreau, Jon Lovett, Dan Pfeiffer, Tommy Vietor
Main Theme:
A relaxed, wide-ranging, end-of-year mailbag episode with the Pod Save America hosts answering listener questions about the political landscape, 2026 midterms, Trump’s second term, JD Vance's prominence, Democratic Party vision, and their own resolutions for the coming year. The pod keeps its typically wry, self-aware, and conversational tone throughout.

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Episode Overview

This episode serves as a year-end "ask us anything," with the pod’s hosts responding to a lively spectrum of listener questions—ranging from strategic hypotheticals for both parties to pop culture favorites and personal resolutions. The hottest political question centers around JD Vance’s status as a Republican front-runner. Other key threads include evaluating mistakes and surprises from the Trump 2.0 administration, assessing the impact of Biden and Trump’s respective ages, and critiquing the current Democratic bench for 2028. The episode is peppered with the hosts’ mix of humor and incisive, sometimes cynical, takes on American politics.

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Key Discussion Points and Insights

1. Cosplaying Republican Strategists & Messaging for 2026 Midterms

[02:25 – 05:15]

• The hosts jump into the shoes of Republican strategists, brainstorming a counter-message to Democratic attacks on affordability.
• Jon Favreau and Dan Pfeiffer agree that Republicans will lean into negative campaigning, trying to disqualify Democrats as agents for economic change:

  "The goal here is to disqualify Democrats as vehicles for change and as people you would trust to actually lower costs." – Dan Pfeiffer [03:10]

• John Lovett notes Republicans lack policy answers and instead stick to attacking “Biden and Kamala”:

  “You just can’t seem to get Donald Trump to deliver any kind of a self-aware message.” – Tommy Vietor [04:21]

• The segment highlights the hosts’ view that Republicans aren’t interested in or capable of offering substantive economic policies, but will promise interest rate cuts, lower taxes, and tie Democrats to “illegals.”

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2. RFK Jr.'s Lasting Damage as HHS Secretary

[05:40 – 07:19]

• Listeners ask about the reversibility of harm from RFK Jr.'s tenure.
• John Lovett points out lost research investments and generational damage from anti-vaccine policies:

  “RFK killed off…like a half a billion dollar investment into MRNA research. Can’t really fix that." – John Lovett [05:56]

• Tommy Vietor and Jon Favreau discuss brain drain and loss of institutional credibility in public health agencies like HHS.

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3. How Relevant Is Trump’s “Decline”?

[07:33 – 11:23]

• Extensive discussion on whether to focus on Trump’s physical and mental decline.
• John Lovett says it’s “fun to talk about” only because it upsets Trump.
• Tommy Vietor sees it impacting Trump’s stamina and decision-making but views the political payoff as minimal.

  “He’s sort of slowing down, his days are getting shorter…he’s tired, he’s tired, he’s tired.” – Tommy Vietor [08:08]

• Jon Favreau and Dan Pfeiffer agree there’s little political upside to targeting Trump’s fitness now:

  "It really is like Biden revenge is what we're doing..." – Dan Pfeiffer [11:00]

• All concur that holding media accountable for questions about presidential health—regardless of party—is important, but not an urgent campaign tool.

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4. Surprises and Oversights in the Trump 2.0 Administration

[12:01 – 16:20]

• The hosts reflect on what they underestimated or overestimated about Trump’s second term:
  • John Lovett admits he misjudged the level of open corruption.
  • Tommy Vietor cites shock at pardons for January 6th insurrectionists and overt politicization of DOJ.
  • Dan Pfeiffer is most surprised by how quickly major institutions capitulated—corporations, tech companies, even universities, which had once opposed Trump.

  "So much of society was willing to just throw in the towel for their own self-interest." – Dan Pfeiffer [13:45]

  • All agree the U.S. system’s “quiet redundancies” (courts, career bureaucrats) have offered more resistance than expected.

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5. Is JD Vance the GOP Frontrunner? Is He a Better Messenger than Trump?

[19:57 – 22:42]

• A listener expresses dread that JD Vance is a superior messenger to Trump and will be the 2028 nominee.
  • The hosts heartily disagree on both counts:

    “No, he sucks. He’s more disciplined than Trump, but he’s not a better messenger. He’s none of the humor or charm that Donald Trump has…” – John Lovett [20:15] “You can see Trump as a bully you root for. JD Vance is a bully you root against.” – Tommy Vietor [20:27]

• They discuss GOP power structures and confirm: Trump’s ego ensures no surrogate, Vance included, will ever dominate the national message.

  “You think Donald Trump’s gonna let someone else do more of the talking?” – Jon Favreau [21:52]

• On Vance’s actual chances: There is no consensus, but he’s seen as “the most likely” nominee ("what percent, who knows—10%, 20%, 60%?” – Tommy Vietor [21:02]). Both right-wing distrust and lack of charisma are seen as weaknesses.

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6. Democratic Primary Dynamics for 2028 & The “Worst Candidate”

[27:28 – 31:34]

• The hosts are skeptical of the current Democratic bench’s excitement factor, drawing contrasts to Obama’s meteoric rise in 2004–2006.
• On designing a “worst case” primary candidate (for either party):

  “The worst Democratic primary candidate would be a corporate centrist…with the remnants of overly woke language…” – Jon Favreau [31:12]

• Discussion of Democrats’ missing vision: The party “never has a vision” until after a bruising primary, per JB Pritzker in a recent interview.

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7. Down-Ballot and 2026 Outlook: Longshots and Hopeful States

[24:41 – 27:14]

• Dan Pfeiffer notes Alaska (Mary Peltola vs. Dan Sullivan) as a potential upset state due to small electorate and organizing.
• The group is “bullish” on Iowa because of key gubernatorial and Senate races, and the region’s swing from Obama to Trump and possibly back again, driven by agricultural issues.

  “I feel bullish on Iowa as well…I think with combination of Trump being president and the tariffs and everything that's happening, I think it's like the year for Iowa.” – Jon Favreau [26:40]

• Texas remains important, despite slower Democratic progress.

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8. Technology, Social Media & Pod Save America’s Relationship with Twitter

[41:26 – 46:35]

• Listeners push the hosts on still using Twitter/X. They respond candidly:

  "Our job is analyzing politics and the news...all the journalists and politicians are on Twitter and if they weren't, I wouldn't be there.” – Jon Favreau [43:37]

• Most hosts admit Twitter is less pleasant and less useful than ever, but no competing app (like Bluesky) has the user base for real-time news gathering.

  “It is useful. It just is…And it's less useful than it was. And that sucks because of Musk, but. But it's still useful.” – Tommy Vietor [44:28]

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9. Personal Reflections & 2026 Resolutions

[67:23 – 83:40]

• The hosts review their 2025 resolutions (mostly missed) and publicly pledge new ones:
  • Dan Pfeiffer: Double down on improving attention span, post more, and push outside his professional comfort zone.
  • Tommy Vietor: Write longer, more thoughtful pieces; learn more about cooking and host dinner parties.
  • John Lovett: Say yes to more non-work travel and fun; leverage AI skills; connect with more experts.
  • Jon Favreau: Continue “posting,” write more offline essays, and try at least one night a week with no news.
• They reflect on the difficulty and value of honest communication, both on social media and in political work.

  “I just want to be as honest as I can be about all the Democrats running for office, because I think...sometimes I feel like in the past, you're like, I don't want to be too tough because then they'll be mad at me...or I want to be too nice because then people's, you know, well, it [gets criticized].” – Jon Favreau [80:36]

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• "Hypocrisy is like a kind of partial payment on virtue." – Tommy Vietor (on DOJ’s overt politicization) [13:11]
• "Trump is a bully you root for. JD Vance is a bully you root against." – Tommy Vietor [20:27]
• “We’re always like, one step away from, like, absolute fucking disaster ending our careers.” – Dan Pfeiffer (on straying beyond comfort zones) [71:18]
• “Winning that primary is incredible. Like Cuomo is flawed, but like New York is as progressive as it gets. But still he ran a great campaign.” – John Lovett (on Zoran Mamdani) [24:08]

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Fun and Pop Culture Interludes

• Font wars: Times New Roman vs. Calibri vs. Helvetica debate [18:22 – 19:56]
• Lovett gets Sebastian Gorka (or at least a great impression) to do a mock "Trump eulogy" for Tommy Vietor [33:00 – 34:22].
• End-of-year book and TV recommendations: Andre Agassi’s Open, Erik Larson, East of Eden, Task (TV), Pluribus (TV), and a Ken Burns docuseries [51:28 – 58:19].
• Reality TV ambitions: Amazing Race, MILF Manor, Love Island, and more [46:35 – 48:40].
• Lovett’s playful policy proposals: required name tags, 3-year college with a floating “adult year,” and eliminating one chat app per year [59:30 – 64:26].

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• Republican counter-messaging debate: [02:25–05:17]
• RFK Jr. HHS impact: [05:40–07:19]
• Trump’s age/decline as political issue: [07:33–11:23]
• Trump 2.0 surprises and system resilience: [12:01–16:20]
• JD Vance as a “better messenger”/future nominee?: [19:57–22:42]
• Down-ballot surprises in 2026/Iowa & Alaska: [24:41–27:14]
• Democratic candidate excitement/Obama in ‘06: [27:28–29:40]
• "Worst candidate" scenarios: [30:18–31:34]
• Tech & Twitter habits: [41:26–46:35]
• Resolutions & self-critiques: [67:23–83:40]

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Overall Tone:
Candid, irreverent, occasionally self-deprecating but always engaged; the hosts juggle both earnest political analysis and lighthearted inside jokes, with a clear message that they care about Democratic Party direction—while retaining skepticism and a healthy sense of humor.

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For Listeners:
Even if you missed the episode, you’ll come away with a sense of the major political anxieties for Democrats heading into 2026 and 2028, as well as plenty of the pod’s signature banter and rapid-fire wit.

Transcript

[Tommy Vietor]

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[Laci Mosley]

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

[Jon Favreau]

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

[Dan Pfeiffer]

I' love it.

[John Lovett]

I'm Tommy Detour.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

I'm Dan Pfeiffer.

[Jon Favreau]

It's that time of year again when we answer your most burning questions about the year we're wrapping, what's coming next, and all sorts of personal stuff about Lovett. Okay, then we'll be confronted with our New Year's resolutions from last year, as we always are. Love this come clean about how we did, and as always, we're gonna make some new ones. About 20, 26.

[Tommy Vietor]

You bet.

[Jon Favreau]

You guys ready? All right. New Hampshire Avenue asks cosplay Republican strategist for a minute. You're headed into a midterm year. You control all of the government and you shat the bed. And everyone knows it. Dems will run on a simple change affordability message. What's your best possible counter message? We're going to start off by doing some work for Republicans.

[John Lovett]

Do we get to do things or just say things? Because the best counter message is you ditch the tariffs, you extend the ACA subsidies.

[Jon Favreau]

Oh, no.

[John Lovett]

I think you pitch on gas prices being down.

[Jon Favreau]

I think you're your.

[Tommy Vietor]

You go to war with the Republicans.

[Jon Favreau]

You have. Thank you. That's right. It was. I love. That's it.

[John Lovett]

Yep.

[Jon Favreau]

Okay. Dan, you want to go?

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Yeah, sure. Okay. So I've given this a little thought. I find it alarming, but. So my first step is I storm into the Oval Office and I say to Donald Trump and Stephen Miller, your plan to make this election about immigration and crime will not work. It's doomed to fail. No caravans, no crime stats. And it just. It is you. This is an affordability election and we cannot win by trying to change the subject. That cannot happen. Will not work. So as Tommy said, there is a way to do this which would be to actually lower prices, but we're not going to do that because we're Donald Trump and Republicans. That's not how we operate. So instead, the goal here is to disqualify the Democrats as vehicles for change and as people who you would trust to actually lower costs. So you run a hard negative campaign showing Democrats focus on all things other than cost. Use a lot of photos and videos of Biden and Kamala Harris, and you try to associate Democrats, these Democrats, with the economy that people hated just one year ago. And then probably, and this is the most I think you could expect from Trump, and you probably can't even expect. This is. You start, Trump starts saying, we have made progress, we have to make more progress. Give me more time. And that's your plan?

[Jon Favreau]

Yeah.

[John Lovett]

Can't beat that.

[Tommy Vietor]

Yeah. Well, it's funny because sort of you got the negative part. That's what they always do. They just can't seem to get Donald Trump to deliver any kind of a self aware message.

[Jon Favreau]

Yeah, I was thinking the same thing, Dan. Like you want to say Democrats, if you like Democrats, they just want to raise your taxes again, give the money back to Illegals and if they don't get their way, we've seen what they do. They're gonna shut down the government again. It's just gonna be gridlock and they're probably just gonna investigate and impeach Donald Trump the whole time. That's what they're gonna spend the next two years doing. And also they can take your hard earned tax dollars and just give them back to all the illegal immigrants which Donald Trump stopped. And that's why you gotta keep voting for Republicans so that Donald Trump can keep your taxes low and get interest rate down. He'll probably, you know, they'll be promising interest rate cuts, I'm sure. And make sure you're not paying for illegal's healthcare.

[Tommy Vietor]

Yeah, I think you said that cleanly enough that they can grab it.

[Jon Favreau]

Cool, cool, cool, cool. Hoping to see that on the 5:1.

[Tommy Vietor]

Also note, I do want to say, John, that it's cosplaying and you're just, you don't.

[Jon Favreau]

Did I say cosplay? You said coast playing I can't pronounce anything. Cosplay.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

It's cosplay.

[Tommy Vietor]

What a non nerd you are.

[Jon Favreau]

Cosplay. Yeah, cosplay. Cosplay. Obviously I've said it cosplay a million times.

[Tommy Vietor]

I know, sure.

[Jon Favreau]

Stuff happens with me with some words. Me too actually pronounce them 100% correct all the time and then just when.

[Tommy Vietor]

You see it, you say it wrong. I do the same thing.

[Jon Favreau]

Start getting like. Well, it's also cosplay. Republican strategists just start. A sentence is like a. Yeah. Anyway, sorry. Oded Haas asks how much of what RFK Jr is doing is reversible to the country, not to himself.

[John Lovett]

Yeah, I mean a lot of it is in right. I mean RFK killed off like a half a billion dollar investment into MRNA research. Can't really fix that. He killed off a bunch of like long term studies. There's a big measles outbreak in South Carolina, Arizona and Utah. Can't really fix that one. But I mean I think you can like fire all the kooks on like the vaccine advisory panel, roll back some of their dumb recommendations like not giving babies the vaccine against hepatitis B. Like there's some things, but there's some damage here that I think is going to be like generational unfortunately.

[Tommy Vietor]

Yeah, we'll never know the cost. There'll be people that'll be harmed because they'll get measles because they had a preexisting condition, but somebody else didn't and didn't get the vaccine anyway. But I do think in terms of research, it'll be measured in the time it takes for us to make up for the grants that weren't given. Like, scientists are ingenious and eventually they'll get the funding. Like, this research will be done. We just don't know how long he's delayed certain discoveries.

[Jon Favreau]

I worry about the brain drain of, like, the people who left big time. Doctors, medical researchers, scientists, experts that have been there for like, years and years and years at hhs. And, you know, maybe you hire some of those folks back, but I'm sure some of them are thinking, why would I go back into government if this Democratic president just gets thrown out of office in four years and then I get fired again.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Yeah.

[John Lovett]

Also, like, life gets in the way. Like, you, you, you move from Atlanta, you start a new job, you're not just going to go back because Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Is gone.

[Tommy Vietor]

Yeah. By the way, just these are institutions that have incredible international credibility, that have done extraordinary work like that. That is being burned.

[Jon Favreau]

Tom Daschle was right. Asks Dan, was this you?

[Dan Pfeiffer]

I don't even know what Tom was right about in this instance.

[Jon Favreau]

Me neither. Everything. Where do you guys stand on Trump's physical mental decline as a political factor? Who wants to take this one?

[John Lovett]

I mean, I think it's very fun to talk about because it'll Donald Trump off. I think you can easily shame the media into covering his little nappies, little sleepy time in the cabinet meetings. Like it's a political matter. Unless he runs for a third term, it doesn't really matter, you know, and.

[Jon Favreau]

Then in that case, we have bigger problems.

[John Lovett]

Yeah, we got bigger problems. I mean, if he does try to run again, we should certainly focus on the fact that he's old and losing it and weirdly slurring his speech and constitutionally ineligible.

[Tommy Vietor]

Yeah, yeah, I agree with that. What I wonder is the ways in which it's affecting him politically in terms of his inability to wrangle people in Congress, keep people on board. Like the way his aging is hurting him as a second order thing, whether it's losing votes on Epstein, it's posting things about Rob Reiner. Obviously he said crazy things before. But, like, I do think, like, I don't know, he's sort of slowing down, his days are getting shorter. He's saying, you know, even like pardoning all the January 6th people. Part of that was just like he was bored in the meetings. He's like, ah, fuck it. It's too complicated. Like, there's A. He's tired. He's tired, he's tired.

[Jon Favreau]

That's why. That's why he pardoned January 6th.

[Tommy Vietor]

Well, part of what he did say that. That in that he was sick of the meetings where it was hard to draw the line. And I do think there's something about, like, the moments in the meetings where you get fed up, where you're exhausted, where you're getting kind of run down by these people in any direction. Like, there was meetings. Biden had that right. They were just. They would just sort of make a decision and be done.

[Jon Favreau]

That's how the staff at Crooked gets Lovett to do something. Meeting.

[Tommy Vietor]

Ask me before the day winds down at 2:30pm.

[John Lovett]

Think they ever prank him? He, like, falls asleep at the Oval Office. He just, like, put his hand in some warm water and draw a little.

[Tommy Vietor]

Penis on his face and he's like, who draw this enormous penis on my face? This is the most ridiculous giant penis I've ever seen. This is a comically large penis on my bed.

[Jon Favreau]

I will just say. I know, I know. I understand the focus on Donald Trump's mental and physical decline, and I know that it comes from what we just went through with Joe Biden, and I.

[Tommy Vietor]

Think you mean the country turning on a great president.

[Jon Favreau]

Yes. And I think if Donald Trump. Yeah. Was getting ready to run for reelection in a second term, then of course we should be talking about this all the time. I don't really understand the purpose. We're talking about politics, the political purpose of pointing this out all the time and then yelling at the media to cover it, like they covered Joe Biden and all this kind of stuff. Because what is the goal? Is the goal to make Donald Trump less popular in the sense that he's not gonna be on the ballot again? Right. And so are we trying to make. Are we trying to say that. Well, if he's less popular because we hit him on the cognitive decline, then Republicans who are actually on the ballot are gonna somehow be less popular because they stood by Donald Trump and said that he's super strong and has a lot of stamina. I just think there's a lot of other. Lot of other more effective attacks.

[John Lovett]

John really changed his tune on this since he got that book deal with Jake and Fake Thompson, fake Tappers.

[Tommy Vietor]

Yeah. Ghost wrote that book. You did a great job, by the way. They didn't put your name on the COVID Great job.

[John Lovett]

Ghost wrote a Clooney op Ed is where you nailed it.

[Jon Favreau]

Yeah. I just don't understand.

[John Lovett]

I'm in the Same boat.

[Jon Favreau]

I don't understand it. I would say I don't think it's not fair. I'm just like, why am I wasting my breath on. Why are we all wasting our breath on this when there's a good ass time we're trying to win back the House and the Senate and then to elect a Democratic president in 2028.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

I'd separate two things. One is the political merits of focusing on Trump's age, which I agree with everyone is minimal. And it's really. It really is like Biden. Revenge is what we're doing, which is why everyone's yelling at Jake or Alex and like. And I get the sense of unfairness.

[Tommy Vietor]

Which is revenge is a dish best served old.

[Jon Favreau]

That's really good.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Okay, I'm just gonna step right past that. I do think that the media has an obligation to cover the health of presidents, particularly old presidents, whether it's Joe Biden or Donald Trump. And when Trump has weird things like an mri, they should be demanding to know what the MRI is about. And it will. I mean, it will be unfair and.

[Jon Favreau]

Know that they're gonna be lied to because we're lied to about everything that happens.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

And then they should be digging around to see if they can find the truth.

[Tommy Vietor]

Right.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Which I actually believe they probably are. Like, they like news and stories and so they're probably looking for that. But I think that something can be a worthwhile subject of journalistic exploration and accountability but not be a good political message at the same time.

[Jon Favreau]

Yeah, well said. That's why I'm glad that Tom Daschle was right mentioned this is a political factor, which means that Tom Daschle once again was right. Tommy D. Jared asks, are there concerns regarding the Trump 2.0 administration that in hindsight you either under indexed or on or went to doomer on.

[John Lovett]

I think I under indexed on corruption because we didn't know the full.

[Jon Favreau]

That was my opposite for sure.

[John Lovett]

I think I under indexed on understanding that all the focus on immigration meant we were going full Monroe Doctrine and we were going to invade Venezuela and be the emperor of the Western Hemisphere. I was maybe too doomer on the political competence of this White House. I mean, they have like kind of.

[Jon Favreau]

Oh, you thought that they would be more competent.

[John Lovett]

I thought they would be more competent. Like they felt pretty like they were. Like they were rolling in those early days and now a little less so.

[Tommy Vietor]

Yeah. I remain surprised he pardoned all the January 6th insurrectionist. That was, I think, worse than I had imagined. I assumed that there'd be some break lever at least for the most violent people. Not that he wouldn't pardon people that shouldn't be pardoned, but that there would be some political instinct there. And with that I also. We all knew the Department of Justice would be politicized. I am surprised that they're not even pretending that they're not. That they have Pam Bondi out there basically as a vassal for Trump. Like, you know, I don't know how much better hypocrisy would be that they're pretending otherwise. But in some sense, like hypocrisy is like a kind of partial payment on virtue because you're at least acknowledging that there are virtues we used to believe in, but they've completely wiped that away. And I think that was. That came a little faster than I expected.

[Jon Favreau]

Dan, what about you?

[Tommy Vietor]

I think the thing that.

[John Lovett]

Make a joke about it. Not the first time he said that.

[Tommy Vietor]

Nice. Nice.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

I think the thing that I underestimated was how just pliant and gross most of the major institutions in society would be. Sure. Corporations who could make more money from Trump. I expected to be with him, the tech guys, the trillionaires sitting with him. But just universities, law firms, meet the Walt Disney Corporation just left and right, just doing what Trump wants because it's in their interest. When many of those very same institutions were horrified by Trump 1.0, a less bad version of this one. And just like maybe that's incredible naivete on my part, but just that so much of society was willing just to throw in the towel for their own self interest.

[Jon Favreau]

Yeah, I agree with all those. I think the only, the only one that I was maybe too doomer on was. And I hate putting this out there, it's a really tempting fate. But I thought they would have locked up more of their political opponents by now.

[John Lovett]

Huh.

[Jon Favreau]

I thought they would have gone like. Not for lack of trying, I was gonna say. And that is. It is not for lack of trying. But like if you had told me that by the end of year one, they would have only indict. Well, they have failed to basically indict Jim Comey and Tish James and everything else is, you know, in some investigative phase, I would have thought that they would have gone further than that.

[Tommy Vietor]

Yeah.

[Jon Favreau]

And I think it is just because of a combination of the courts standing up to Trump. I think the. There's probably people in DOJ who are still career people.

[John Lovett]

Putting an insurance lawyer in charge of your prosecution.

[Jon Favreau]

Yeah, I was gonna say. And then a whole bunch of fucking idiots that Are there?

[Tommy Vietor]

Yeah. Well, by the way, it's just one place. I think we've all, I think we're all kind of instinctively a bit doomer on is just the, like the, the quiet democratic redundancies that exist that, that don't seem as strong as they are, but are like are, are there and are defense mechanisms that are, they're kicking in. The courts are one. The fact that, that this is not some mass mobilization of authoritarian interests. And so one layer beneath all these people are career people and non loyal people that have, that are, are, are also buoyed by the fact that he's not popular. And I think we all should keep that in mind because it's a dog that doesn't bark.

[Jon Favreau]

But not just the level of corruption, Tommy, but just how open the corruption has been to brazenness is just. Yeah, that is both. It's crazy.

[John Lovett]

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[Laci Mosley]

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

[Jon Favreau]

All right, font guy 81.

[John Lovett]

Maybe that's Marco Rubio. I see they just ditched Calibri because.

[Jon Favreau]

It was too woke. You know what to say. I'm with. I'm with Marco on that one.

[Tommy Vietor]

Sucks.

[Jon Favreau]

Times New Romans. The fuck best calibri is trash.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Times New Roman is a typewriter font. It hurts my eyes every Thursday because I just learned today from Reed Topic on Trumbully Online, which will air before this comes out, that you're the person who dictates that we must use Times New Roman. You're like fucking murder over here.

[Jon Favreau]

I am.

[Tommy Vietor]

So I think that is antiquated and you should kind of be willing to be open to change because it is.

[Jon Favreau]

An old school personal preference.

[Tommy Vietor]

It's a serif font.

[Jon Favreau]

We don't have to agree on the same font.

[Tommy Vietor]

Well, it's not about.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

It's about.

[Tommy Vietor]

Well, we can all use different fonts that we find appealing, but it has a kind of prestige Dom casual. And it's a. Yeah, for sure. It has a prestige and like intellectual rigor because it was used in the past. But sans serif fonts are more readable. They are just more legible. Which is why the time why words switched to Calibri. The problem is Calibri is just an ugly ass sans serif font. And there are better fonts. You know, you don't. Helvetica is the king. And if you're going to come for the king, don't miss.

[Jon Favreau]

So this wasn't a question. Actually, John is just a classical chauvinist.

[John Lovett]

Who loves anything Roman. He dreams about the Roman Empire all the time. You're a Neo.

[Jon Favreau]

I don't even think about the Roman part.

[Tommy Vietor]

Yeah, it is. It is a kind of patriarchal font in a way.

[Jon Favreau]

Bronze Age, bro.

[Tommy Vietor]

It Is a font. It is a font of. Of the white male. And so I think that's sort of. You're enamored of the fonts of.

[Jon Favreau]

This is how I'm. This is how I'm coming out as a white nationalist just because of my times New romance.

[Tommy Vietor]

Yeah, that's right.

[John Lovett]

Making news today.

[Jon Favreau]

Yeah. Anyway, the question from font guy 81 is I hate JD Vance.

[Tommy Vietor]

Oh, that wasn't even the question.

[Jon Favreau]

No, it was. I hate JD Vance, but it's clear that he's a much better messenger than Trump and. And is likely to be the nominee. A lot of assumptions there. Why don't they let him do more of the talking?

[John Lovett]

Reject the premise?

[Jon Favreau]

Okay, yeah, let's go ahead. Tommy.

[John Lovett]

No, he sucks. I mean, he's more disciplined than Trump, but he's not a better messenger. He's none of the humor or charm that Donald Trump has that has made him a successful politician. He's not, like, bad, but he's not better.

[Jon Favreau]

Anyone? Anyone disagree?

[Tommy Vietor]

No, Trump is a Trump. Not to us, but you can see Trump as a bully you root for. J.D. vance is a bully you root against.

[Jon Favreau]

Hard. It's like a Biff also. And is likely to be the nominee. What do we think about that? I think we just love. And I talked to John Hellman for his podcast today, and he is like. He was like, crazy that J.D. vance is gonna be the nominee. I think that there's no way. That guy is so unlike. Yeah. Not crazy, but he was very. He was very down on the idea of JD As.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Did you agree with him or.

[Jon Favreau]

No, we both thought.

[Tommy Vietor]

I do think, like, it's sort of like right now, I don't know what the most likely.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Sure.

[Tommy Vietor]

He's the most likely person to be the nominee. Is that 10%, 20%, 60%? I have no idea. There's just no obvious person who's more likely than him to be it at this moment.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

And you saw. Pull themselves out.

[John Lovett]

Yeah, though that sneaky prick will throw himself back in. I mean, the far right hates JD Vance sometime in part for racist reasons, but also they don't trust him. They don't believe he's, like, credible. They don't think he believes what he says. He's shape shifter.

[Jon Favreau]

I guess we have that in common. Yeah.

[Tommy Vietor]

It's so funny.

[Sebastian Gorka]

It's so funny.

[Tommy Vietor]

It's so funny.

[Jon Favreau]

And our love for Times New Roman.

[Tommy Vietor]

Yeah, it's so funny that Rubio in that article definitively says, if JD Vance is the nominee, I'll be behind him. And I wants It I'll get behind him and I won't run. And it's like, wow, I wonder if Marco Rubio, who in this article is referenced for having completely done an about face on his core political convictions, could find a way out of this. Exactly right. He's said the opposite about every person in that article.

[Jon Favreau]

Precisely to answer Font Guy 81's question of why don't they let him do more of the talking? Have you seen who the president is? Yeah, that's Donald Trump. You think Donald Trump's gonna let someone else do more of the talking? Do you think J.D. vance is fucking stupid? The last guy to have job. Have his job, you know, almost had him hung.

[Tommy Vietor]

When I first. When I first worked in the Senate, I worked for a senator named Jon Corzine from New Jersey. And right before I started, or some point before I started, he did this, one of those roast dinners, and he said this joke about Chuck Schumer, which is sharing a media market with Chuck Schumer is like sharing a banana with a monkey. Take one bite and he throws his feces at you. And it apparently did not go over well with Chuck Schumer. You think it went over pretty poorly, but I always think about that. Why is J.D. vance not taking up more attention? The most dangerous place in that Oval Office is between Donald Trump and those cameras.

[John Lovett]

Yep.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Did you write that joke?

[Tommy Vietor]

I did not. I did not. I really didn't. I would. I did write, you know, Pokemon go, go to the polls.

[Jon Favreau]

Yes, that was you for sure.

[Tommy Vietor]

But this one? No. One of the greatest. Pokemon go to the polls. One of the most memorable lines in politics in the last 10 years. People are like, why did you come up with that stupid line? Why did I come up with it? Why? Do you know what it is? I didn't. Or did I?

[Jon Favreau]

White House mess asks. JB Pritzker said on your show the other day that while he thinks Zoran Mamdani ran a great campaign, he basically only won because he had a deeply flawed opponent. And people shouldn't read too much into it, especially about DSA's popularity. Do you agree what he said?

[John Lovett]

That accurate description of what he.

[Sebastian Gorka]

It's.

[Tommy Vietor]

It's pretty close. And it was an honestly, like, not. It was sort of. He kind of swerved to get there, which I thought was interesting.

[Jon Favreau]

Yeah.

[Tommy Vietor]

My take on it.

[Jon Favreau]

Thanks, White House Mesk, for finding the newsy part of that interview. Nailed it.

[John Lovett]

White House mask.

[Tommy Vietor]

My take on it is the lessons you learn from a race in New York City are about what worked and didn't work. Not in terms of winning or losing, but what resonated with people, what broke through, what made someone exciting, what points to kind of a style of politics that could be effective in this moment. And I just think it goes way too far to say that that the reason Mamdani succeeded is just because Andrew Cuomo was a flawed candidate. I think there are a lot of people that Andrew Cuomo could have beaten. And there's a lot to learn from Mamdani irrespective of picking the worst person to run against.

[John Lovett]

Winning that primary is incredible. Like Cuomo is flawed, but like New York is as progressive as it gets. But still he ran a great campaign. I don't think it says much about DSA nationally. I think it says a lot about like Mamdani being an amazing candidate with a great message and great tactics and charm and talent.

[Tommy Vietor]

Yeah, it would be smarter to learn from Amdani rather than try to dismiss it because of Cuomo, I think.

[Jon Favreau]

Dan, you got anything else to add to that?

[Dan Pfeiffer]

No, I agree with that.

[Jon Favreau]

I don't know if you wanted to take the no. Andrew Cuomo was the reason that he won.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

No. And because Andrew Cuomo beat all the other people other than Zoran Mandani, so.

[Jon Favreau]

That's right. All right. C. Swayer asks, are there any states you think could surprise us in the midterms? Dan, what do you think?

[Dan Pfeiffer]

I think if the Alaska would be the one, like this is obviously a huge long shot, but it's the one race where if Mary Patola gets in the race, which people expect she probably will and runs against Dan Sullivan. She's a member of Congress who serves statewide because there's only one member there. It's a smaller state where you can make a lot of impact with organizing and door to door messaging and stuff like that. So I think I would be shocked if we won any. I'd be pleasantly surprised if we won any of the stretched states like Ohio, Iowa, Texas and Alaska. But I think Alaska gets the least amount of attention and maybe the one that we're most likely to win of those four.

[Jon Favreau]

And this, this follow up I'm, I'm throwing to Iowa native Tommy Vitor. Do you think there's hope for Iowa in 2026?

[John Lovett]

I think we have to have hope for Iowa because that those like that's going to be one of the stretch states like I'm bullish on Iowa this cycle. It was the biggest change in vote like in sort of the swing from Obama in 12 to Trump in 16 was Iowa. But this cycle we've got a big governor's race and a great candidate. And Rob sand, love it. Was just joking about how much I like Rob sand, which I do. There's an open Senate seat. There's at least three highly contested House races. Then there's like some possible down ballot flips, like Secretary of State. But also it doesn't cost as much as like Texas. You know what I mean? You can compete, like, Rob can run a great race for like 30 million. It's not going to be like half a billion. Like the Georgia Senate primary before.

[Tommy Vietor]

Before anseller kind of disintegrated across Des Moines as she expected because her poll was so bad, Trump tried to make it illegal. Like she had inside of that poll, made some predictions about some surprising turns towards Democrats that we have actually also seen. Right?

[John Lovett]

Yeah, they've done. They've overperformed in a bunch of special elections and stuff.

[Jon Favreau]

Yeah. I feel bullish on Iowa as well. I think long term it is incredibly important to compete in Texas despite the cost because, like, if you're looking at larger trends, like we need Texas and Texas is probably moving more slowly towards us, and then Iowa, it was. It's hard with, like, you have a very older population and rural population in Iowa. Right. And so I think it's that that's tougher. But I think this, I think with combination of Trump being president and the tariffs and everything that's happening, I think it's like the year for Iowa.

[John Lovett]

That's what the farmers are getting killed. Like, all the soybean farmers are in Iowa and Illinois and their crops are getting decimated. Their entire businesses are going away like people are pissed.

[Jon Favreau]

Yeah. Gen Z. Boomer asks.

[Tommy Vietor]

That's a good name, huh? Good name.

[Jon Favreau]

I've heard Favreau say on other podcasts that no one in the current dent field gets him super excited. When did Obama start to get serious national attention as a potential 2008 candidate?

[John Lovett]

The minute his 2004 DNC speech ended.

[Jon Favreau]

Yeah. Think about it this way, in terms of the cycle that we're in now. So this would be if at the 2024 convention in Chicago, a speaker, someone spoke there, gave the keynote address, who just like lit the place on fire and got national attention for that speech back in July. And then Kamala loses, this person wins a Senate seat and is now giving speeches all over the country and generating a whole bunch of buzz by now for sure. And so is that happening?

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Can I dispute that?

[Jon Favreau]

Sure.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Well, you and Tom.

[Jon Favreau]

Here comes Evan Bae's guy.

[Tommy Vietor]

No, no, here comes Dasha was right.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

At one point in Hillary Clinton hq, they were like, holy fuck, where'd this Obama guy come from?

[Tommy Vietor]

That's. Well, I do remember there was a lot of weight hanging on this flimsy wire hanger that said he promised not to run. You know, that was still in the window where that was happening. And so it was like he wasn't running that part of what. Like that was like he was able to kind of be free of that while he was in those first two years in the Senate. I don't remember when it started becoming real that not only was he running, but he was like a real thing threat. But I assure you it was later than it should have been.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

So watching this from having worked for Evan Bayh, who was thinking of running for president, and talking to a lot of people who worked for Obama, like Pete Rouse and Robert Gibbs at this time, and Steve Hildebrand, who were heckling me for working for Evan Bayh instead of Barack Obama. It really was the fall of 2006 when he was out campaigning for everyone, getting massive crowds, going to Tennessee, going to Montana, going all these places that no Democrat rather go, getting these massive crowds. And Audacity of Hope came out.

[Jon Favreau]

And he was getting out in October of 26.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Yeah, these huge.

[Jon Favreau]

I mean, October of six.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Yeah, of six. And then he went on Meet the Press right after that, right after the election, and changed his mind and said he was reconsidering it. But it like, everyone loved Obama. Huge generators have attention. But it was the fall of 2006 where like, oh, there's a true phenomenon happening here and maybe now's the moment. And Evan Bai went to New Hampshire the same time that Barack Obama did, and he dropped out of the race two days later.

[John Lovett]

Tough.

[Jon Favreau]

Anyway, that's. That's the timeline. 2028, White Knuckler asks. If you were in a lab and could Design the worst 2028 primary candidate possible, what would they sound like? What policies would they prioritize?

[Tommy Vietor]

The worst.

[John Lovett]

Can I be mean on the Republican side? I think it would be the Romney Ryan ticket.

[Jon Favreau]

Oh, I didn't even think.

[Tommy Vietor]

You just thought of only Democrats.

[Jon Favreau]

I was thinking of only Democrats.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

So was I. Yeah.

[Jon Favreau]

Yeah.

[John Lovett]

Well, there we go. I'll fill this space. So you guys are up.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Well, I mean, this is sort of an obvious question, which is like, the worst Republican primary candidate would sound like aoc and the worst Democratic primary candidate would sound like aoc.

[John Lovett]

I think it's gotta be a feasible, like, Kind of version. Like, I think it would be like corporate, you know, anti populist Republicans in the mold of what the Republican Party used to be.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Yeah. And I think for a Democrat, it would be a corporate centrist. Kyrsten Sinema, like, establishment politician.

[Jon Favreau]

Okay, yes. Corporate centrist economic positions mixed with the remnants of, like, overly woke language. You know, like someone who's like, yeah.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

But we're in the primary here, but.

[Jon Favreau]

I want public private partnerships to leverage more jobs. And also, I'm gonna start with the land acknowledgement.

[Tommy Vietor]

Yeah, I think that would go over pretty poorly.

[Jon Favreau]

That, to me, is the worst combo. Love it.

[Tommy Vietor]

Yeah. It's a funny question because it's sort of like, what's the worst movie of the year? Well, it's a movie so bad you never saw it. The. I do think, like, we need. There's a kind of. We're all like, there's a kind of tie for worst right now. And it is a kind of certain old school corporate political speaking. I don't mean corporate like in the policies, but just in the language and the rhetoric that we've got to move past. And, you know, one thing I talked to Pritzker about as well was just, why does it feel like. Why. Why do so many people feel as though Democrats don't have a vision? And his point was only. Well, Democrats never have a vision. They have a primary and they pick one person. And that vision becomes the vision of the party and the comedy and Biden kind of holding that space and not using it. And then Kamala having to step in with the very limited time. And also, to be honest, just not being someone who. I think we just doesn't have a particularly well known worldview or ideology that kind of guides what we think she would do as president. So she becomes a kind of consensus that of the Democratic politics we already had. There's just this big open space for someone to come along and just sound different.

[Jon Favreau]

When I was president of Goldman Sachs, my deputy was Latinx. That's the. That's the.

[John Lovett]

That's all.

[Jon Favreau]

That's the Johnny Horse.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Very you. This is your nightmare candidate right here.

[Jon Favreau]

Oh, I'm just. That is. You go. Go test them out. Erickson. Kiva asks, how do you think Trump would eulogize you on truth Social media?

[John Lovett]

What do you got, guys?

[Jon Favreau]

God.

[Tommy Vietor]

Fun to think about. I hope he does. I hope he does. Although I actually. I take that back. I hope he does.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

I'd like to outlive Trump. That's how. My bingo card.

[John Lovett]

I actually reached out to a friend. And Mr. Trump actually did it for me. So let's roll that tape, please.

[Jon Favreau]

Is this gonna be Ryan's voice again?

[John Lovett]

Promise you, no.

[Sebastian Gorka]

Some guy named Tommy died today. Tommy Vitor. Sloppy Tommy. What a loser. What a nobody. He worked for Barack Hussein Obama. That's when he peaked. I heard Obama had little Tommy carry the pallets of cash to Iran. I heard Sloppy Tommy gave Ukraine blankets when I delivered the javelins.

[John Lovett]

True, toothless.

[Sebastian Gorka]

Two bit Tommy blamed Benghazi on a YouTube video. YouTube can't kill you, Tommy. Your career has been dead for years now. He has a podcast. Wow, how original. Something white guy with a podcast. Stop the presses. Talkie talkie. Tommy, the problem is no one is listening. He probably died of Trump derangement syndrome. They call it tds, but we'll never know because no one cares that you're gone, Tommy.

[Tommy Vietor]

Wow, that was really good.

[Jon Favreau]

That was amazing.

[John Lovett]

Tough ending there.

[Tommy Vietor]

That was really good.

[John Lovett]

Thank you, Seb Gorka, for lining that up.

[Jon Favreau]

Seb Gorka is who you got to do that, huh?

[John Lovett]

He's my guy.

[Jon Favreau]

That was fantastic. I think that's it. I don't think anyone else needs to go.

[Tommy Vietor]

That was really good.

[Jon Favreau]

Perfect. Wow, thank you, AI.

[Tommy Vietor]

I really like that. And we all love AI. Really good.

[Jon Favreau]

Really good. Play that at your funeral.

[Tommy Vietor]

Hey, Tommy, why don't you take that cup of water and just pour it on the ground?

[Jon Favreau]

Oh, my God. Back to the worst primary candidate. There's another one.

[John Lovett]

That whole water thing is like, just made up.

[Jon Favreau]

Not true. Electricity cost. Very true. Water.

[Tommy Vietor]

It's not totally not true, but it's.

[John Lovett]

Not like everything we do, like a cost or in terms of there's water consumption. Like you buy a pair of jeans, that's like a year's worth of air.

[Tommy Vietor]

Well, it just matters where the. Where the matters where you're putting the servers, where the water comes from. You know, there's limited water in different water in water table, so. But yes, it's for the most part just for the facts.

[Jon Favreau]

You know, Niles.

[Tommy Vietor]

No, let's get into the AI thing.

[Jon Favreau]

Niles asks you. This is an interesting one. You have the opportunity to replace one Trump cabinet member, but you have to do the job for the rest of the Trump term and be loyal to Trump. Who do you choose to replace? This is this. The tricky thing of this is like, what is being loyal to Trump mean in this role? Like, you just do what he says. You have to just do what you think he'd want you to do, or do you have to like, like if he gives you an order, you have to do it. Well, I assume the latter.

[Tommy Vietor]

It's a question a lot of people have asked themselves and then failed.

[Jon Favreau]

Right.

[Tommy Vietor]

Well, because it's sort of like, can you do a version? Another way of asking that question is, is there a version of doing this job where you feel you could do good for the country without pissing him off so thoroughly that you're ejecting.

[Jon Favreau]

Right, right, right.

[Tommy Vietor]

Which is, I think, what the question.

[Jon Favreau]

Yeah, that's sort of where I took it to.

[John Lovett]

I kind of think the easy answer is RFK Jr.

[Jon Favreau]

Yes, that was my right.

[John Lovett]

Because you could just like Trump thinks RFK is kind of crazy and he just thinks it's like politically beneficial and you could walk back a ton of shit and Trump would never even read the memo about it.

[Jon Favreau]

Hey, I just looked under the microscope and aspirin doesn't cause autism anymore.

[John Lovett]

There we go. Tylenol spice.

[Tommy Vietor]

Mr. Trump, good news. You fixed the vaccines. They all work now. You did that. You did that. We, we checked them out.

[Jon Favreau]

We took some of your DNA from your blood sample, we put them in the vaccines and now everyone's living to 100 and everybody's you.

[Tommy Vietor]

You're everybody. And maybe if you so in a way you should care about them.

[Jon Favreau]

Good job.

[Tommy Vietor]

They're you, you're them.

[John Lovett]

Yeah, he hates his kids too. Who would you be, Dan?

[Dan Pfeiffer]

I think that's the right choice.

[Jon Favreau]

You're not a Brooke Rollins guy.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

No, not Brooke Rollins. I guess maybe you could be Scott Bessant. I mean, punch people.

[John Lovett]

Yeah, you have to beat up everybody.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Like you can't do. Like taking Pete Hegseth off the board would be very good, but you're gonna have to do.

[Jon Favreau]

You're blowing up oats.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Same with Pam Bundy, obviously. Same with Kristi Noem. I don't think you can convince them.

[John Lovett]

Those are the worst.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

So I'm trying to think of the most impactful.

[Jon Favreau]

You're working closely with Corey Lewandowski.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Closely in every way.

[John Lovett]

Dan. I think you could pull out Marco Rubio, cuz he is also kind of like executing on his own plan for regime change in Venezuela because he thinks it will help topple the Cuban government. And I think if you stop doing that, Trump would be like, all right, cool.

[Tommy Vietor]

He doesn't really.

[Jon Favreau]

Yeah, I thought about that too. Although a little high profile. It's gonna be harder to do things without him.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Yeah, well, like if you cared passionately about, I mean, you want it to be education because you've already just eliminated the Department of Education. So that seems like not a great place to go.

[Tommy Vietor]

You know what weakest cabinet?

[Dan Pfeiffer]

The answer is Sean Duffy.

[Jon Favreau]

Sean Duffy.

[Tommy Vietor]

You think the answer is Sean Duffy.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

I think that you could go a long way to just bring a small measure of competence to air travel in the United States. And I don't think Trump cares about a lot of the stuff that he's doing.

[Jon Favreau]

That's true, actually. That's just making. Literally making the trades.

[John Lovett]

Right?

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Yeah.

[Jon Favreau]

Okay. That's a good one.

[Tommy Vietor]

I think it's rfk. I think it's rfk.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

RFK is the first choice for sure. For sure. I don't dispute that.

[Jon Favreau]

We'll get to lots more of your questions after the break, but a quick reminder before we get to that. We're headed to New Zealand and Australia in February. If you've ever wondered how grumpy Dan gets after a Trans Pacific flight, this is your chance. Pod Save America. The Pod Save America, hopefully just visiting, tour lands in Auckland, New Zealand on the 11th, and then three cities in Australia after that. Melbourne on the 13th, Brisbane on the 14th, and Sydney on the 16th. If you're a listener in New Zealand or Australia, we'd really love to see you at these shows. Head to crooked.comevents to get your tickets. When we come back, more questions.

[Tommy Vietor]

It's always so. It's always so jarring to see Dan in his travel juicy couture velour tracksuit.

[John Lovett]

Yeah, he looks good though.

[Tommy Vietor]

Yeah, it's always so. It's like, oh, that's his look. That's his flight look. Pod Save America is brought to you by Cook Unity. The new year is a time where you get to do a reset. That's right. You get to do a resolution. Yeah, everybody. All the teams are at zero. Zero, you know what they say? And Cook Unity brings restaurant level flavor to your fresh start with chef designed dishes that balance nourishment, creativity and everyday luxury. Choose your own path with new meal collections like Fiber Maxing. Mood Boosting. Better for sleep and protein Forward. I want a fiber max. I want a mood boost, then I don't need sleep. CookUnity is also launching Chef's Table Lunar Feast Drop, a limited two week collaboration where chefs celebrate Lunar New Year with symbolic fortune filled dishes and behind the scenes storytelling.

[John Lovett]

They got a really good barbecue chicken. It's like a gooey Mac and cheese side barbecue chicken. Delicious comfort food, fills you up, feeds a bunch of people. You will love it.

[Tommy Vietor]

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[Jon Favreau]

Yeah.

[Tommy Vietor]

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[Laci Mosley]

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

[Jon Favreau]

Lil Monsteramara asks how granular is your audience? Demo information. Curious. Who else in Canada is listening?

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Just you. You're the one, Lil.

[John Lovett]

I know where you live, what you're doing right now. You look great. No, we have podcast data. Shit, YouTube data is interesting. Get like demographics and stuff.

[Tommy Vietor]

But we know how many people in Canada are.

[John Lovett]

Yeah, we have like. We basically know like your. The IP address where you're kind of, kind of located, like city or town, whatever.

[Jon Favreau]

But 3% of the audience is Canada. I took a look, but that's all. That's about all we know.

[Tommy Vietor]

But 3% have an enormous audience.

[Jon Favreau]

I can't even remember.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

It's a small piece of a giant fucking pie, I'll tell you that.

[Tommy Vietor]

That's right.

[Jon Favreau]

I wonder around. 3% is UK too. And then it gets.

[John Lovett]

Yeah, it's like the English speaking. I wonder if it was bigger before our country started threatening to annex their country.

[Jon Favreau]

That would be a good. Yeah, let's get someone to.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

It should be higher.

[John Lovett]

Well, they're just mad. Like, they're genuinely really pissed.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

What do we do? We're on the right side. We're on the pro. We live here. When I went Justin Trudeau on your.

[Tommy Vietor]

Podcast, when I went to the Montreal Comedy Festival, when I was going through customs, there was a French speaking person in the case, you know, spoke with a French accent. And she said, where. Where are you coming from? And I said, the U.S. and she said, how long are you staying? And I said, don't worry, not long. And I'm sorry. And she laughed and said, we know it is not you. We know. We know.

[Jon Favreau]

Hope Australia and New Zealand say that to me.

[John Lovett]

I know. Me too.

[Jon Favreau]

Dr. Michael A. Urban and a whole lot of other Blue sky users ask, why are the pod boys stewing their brains in the Nazi cesspool that is Twitter? What is the actual point?

[Tommy Vietor]

You call it stewing a brain. I call it building up a resistance, building up my immune system.

[John Lovett]

I'm literally just getting like articles. That's all I'm doing. And honestly, like, no offense, Dr. Urban, I will never go to Blue Sky. I have no interest. If I wanted to have horrific intra Democratic party left fights all day long, close our office door, Teleport back to 2016 and live in that fucking hellscape, I just, I never will do it. No offense.

[Jon Favreau]

Our job is analyzing politics and the news and what's happening in politics. And that is happening still. All the journalists and politicians are on Twitter and if they weren't, I wouldn't be there. It is also like, I'm sure it is a Nazi cesspool. My. I don't. My experience on Twitter is not just like scrolling and seeing Nazi shit all the time.

[Tommy Vietor]

Yeah, I click away from them.

[Jon Favreau]

I just don't see. I guess I'm fault because I'm following who I follow.

[John Lovett]

Got a lot of Fuentes clips.

[Jon Favreau]

Well, yeah, there's the point. Well, that. But that's part of our job also, like knowing what that fucker saying. And so it's like, I got my. I got my news column. I got my pundit column. I got my clips column of what's, what's. So it's just like I'm there for. For that kind of shit.

[Tommy Vietor]

You have a curious.

[Jon Favreau]

I post something once in a while.

[Tommy Vietor]

John's got the Matrix source.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

You post something once in a while. I do once in a while, once in a while.

[Tommy Vietor]

And a while can be any length of time.

[John Lovett]

In a sense.

[Tommy Vietor]

But. But yeah, I think the bigger problem is not that Blue sky is a better place and Twitter is a worse place because there's more Nazis than there are. It's that collectively just. It's the stewing in the kind of anger and antipathy and like different kind of negativities that I do think is genuinely bad for me. And I go through bouts of. I post much less than I ever did and it's actually rare that I post and I am trying to use it less, but it is just. It is useful. It just is. And it's less useful than it was. And that sucks because of musk, but. But it's still useful.

[Jon Favreau]

I know a lot of the focus on when the discussion is bluesky is the tenor of the conversation there, and it's mostly liberal of that. But I tried bluesky for a while and my biggest problem is because the user base is so small. They had this chart the other a couple weeks ago and it showed that at the bottom of the chart of all social media apps is bluesky and Truth Social. The user base is just tiny, tiny, tiny. And if you're looking for news there, it just doesn't update as fast because it's just not. There's not as many people on it and so it's just not. It's not as reliable for late breaking news happening every second.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

It's just, yeah, there's this. The change to how Twitter operates for the average person, not the people who are premium users who have the equivalent of what used to be tweetdeck, where you can curate your own feed, has become a terrible way to follow news because even now your following tab is algorithmically based and no longer chronological.

[John Lovett]

You can adjust that.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

There's a very complicated. But that being the default now that's.

[Jon Favreau]

Annoying for politics, that's terrible, by the way.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

It's horrible for sports. Like if you're scrolling because you'll just get stuff from like five hours before or the first quarter of a year.

[Jon Favreau]

It's annoying.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

It's made it much harder to follow news. But you can if you have a premium account, which we have without being paid for because of follower size. Just for people wondering if we're giving Elon our money, you can set up a feed that feels much more like old Twitter, where you're only seeing the people that you want to see in the order in which they tweet, which is a much better experience for following news and politics.

[Jon Favreau]

Yes. Josephine, with two Canadian flag emojis, asks, would John Lovett consider being on any other reality TV shows, perhaps the Amazing Race.

[Tommy Vietor]

Yes, I would like to.

[Jon Favreau]

Okay, which ones?

[Tommy Vietor]

Well, I'd like to. I'd like to be on more than a couple, you know, a couple hours is my goal. Amazing Race, it seems like it's a, it's a, it's a, A lot of international travel and economy for me. But the, But I, but, you know, there, you know, I also slept on a floor in the beach, so I can do that.

[Jon Favreau]

You rough it all the time.

[Tommy Vietor]

But I like, I liked my short turn and in on Survivor. Didn't go the way I wanted, but I had. I would like it. It's a fun. I don't know what it is, but there's something about the, like kind of participating in that kind of charged environment where you're not in charge. Like, I like there's something really. I don't know, I really find it interesting. I like the competitive one. So Amazing Race, something like that.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Traders, you have to go on Traders, like that is the most likely place for you. You would be great at it. It would be so much fun for all of us. We have to. I don't know who's in charge of traders. We have to make this happen.

[Tommy Vietor]

Yeah, we got to get that peacock on the phone.

[John Lovett]

I got a couple of pitches for you. Okay. What about MILF Manor show where middle aged women dated each other's sons?

[Tommy Vietor]

Sure. I mean, I guess I could hand out towels or something.

[John Lovett]

Yep. What about the Swan from 2004 where.

[Tommy Vietor]

I get a full makeover, where I get a facial surgery from Dr. Terry Dubrow?

[Jon Favreau]

Contestants underwent multiple plastic surgeries and weren't.

[John Lovett]

Allowed to see mirrors.

[Tommy Vietor]

Yep, I watched that when it aired. I actually interviewed Dr. Terry Debrow about that very program and the ways in which it was seen as a horror and the downfall of civilization. But, yeah, do that too.

[John Lovett]

Why not celebrity boxing?

[Jon Favreau]

You know?

[Tommy Vietor]

You know what? Boxing has never made sense to me because as a workout, it's asymmetrical. You're always facing one way. Oh, interesting. And I never liked that. I never liked that. They never turned the other side. Not for me. No. Thank you.

[John Lovett]

Last one, Flavor of love.

[Tommy Vietor]

Sure. Okay. Yeah.

[John Lovett]

So there's got to be a producer.

[Jon Favreau]

Love Island.

[John Lovett]

Love island, yeah.

[Tommy Vietor]

Another show I go first on, I suppose.

[John Lovett]

Can they.

[Tommy Vietor]

Can they somehow send me home before they've clicked? They're like, oh, welcome to Love Island. You're already not here. That's so weird. It actually, you know that Love Island, I believe, is down the beach. From the Ponderosa. So when I was in the Ponderosa, hiding from you guys, pretending I was still competing, we. I remember we were driving by and I think we like, like we were dropped. We drove by where Love island was actually being taped, I believe at the.

[Jon Favreau]

Same time, be more. Seymour asks. Love it. 8 Little Hanukkah presents or one big one? You must choose.

[Tommy Vietor]

I would say one big Hanukkah present. One big Hanukkah present. I think that's great. You know, like as a kid, the eight. It really. The other thing too is for. I think for most of the kids that get eight presents, the first seven or six are just little tiny gelt or like coins or socks or something really small. And then you get the one big one, you know, you're like, come on, be something that you have to plug in. You know, something with a controller.

[Jon Favreau]

It is. I was on the way to school this morning. Charlie asked me. He was like, so. Because they had a Hanukkah celebration, there's a Christmas celebration today. And he's like, so what's the deal with Hanukkah? What happens there? And I'm like, well, eight nights, eight presents, one each night. And all of a sudden he's like.

[John Lovett]

Mmm, that's a good pitch.

[Jon Favreau]

He's like, and you were just telling me that Christmas is eight nights away and I was complaining that I have to wait that long. And he was like, I could see him like, he's like, oh, can I do both?

[Tommy Vietor]

And mom's Jewish, I guess.

[Jon Favreau]

Jill H. Asks for the parents. Do you do timeouts? Why or why not?

[John Lovett]

Not yet. They're just too young.

[Jon Favreau]

Just a belt for now. Yeah, I know.

[John Lovett]

I take his car keys away. Take the car keys away from my 18 month old.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Dan, no, we don't do timeouts. We do consequences that we try to make be associated with whatever punishment fits the crime. Yeah, whatever the infection is. Right. Which, when they're littler, is easier. Where it's like you throw the whole.

[Tommy Vietor]

Pack, smoke the whole carton.

[Jon Favreau]

No. No timeouts with us yet.

[Tommy Vietor]

Hey, where's parenting culture right now on discipline? Are we still in the gentle parenting age or people.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

There's a backlash of gentle parenting happening.

[Tommy Vietor]

Okay.

[John Lovett]

Yeah, I think so too.

[Jon Favreau]

I don't know. I just try to talk it out so far. So far it's working. We'll see. Wait till Teddy's two now. So who knows? All right, Lauren, JS1 asks, what's the best book you read this year? Does anyone have an answer? That's not abundance.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

I was waiting for you to say that.

[Tommy Vietor]

I didn't.

[John Lovett]

Yeah, you know what? I just read randomly, so I was, like, going to bed at night. I read, like, 1929, which was excellent.

[Tommy Vietor]

Great book.

[John Lovett]

But it's, like, it's not. Not anxiety inducing to imagine. Like, he draws a lot of great parallels between the stock market crash in 1929, the economy today. So it's not like it's not the most relaxing kind of narrative. And I.

[Jon Favreau]

And I sort of.

[John Lovett]

It occurred to me. I mean, Hannah pointed out to me, she was like, you're constantly reading, like, horrible, like, depressing things. So I was like, okay. I Googled, like, best book about sports, and I got a few options, and one was open, which is Andre Agassiz's biography.

[Tommy Vietor]

Oh, yeah.

[John Lovett]

Which is, like, super well regarded, so I'd never, like, read it or heard of it. So I just did the thing where you can download the first chapter and read it. It is fantastic. It is so good. It's so interesting. He's such a thoughtful guy. He's super honest about, like, taking crystal meth and, like, playing tennis with a hairpiece and marriage falling apart and hating. He fucking hated tennis.

[Jon Favreau]

Hated it, really.

[John Lovett]

As a small child, one of those dads who literally chose their house in Las Vegas based on where he had the space to build a tennis court and then force his kid to hit balls all day long. And he made him a star. Like, one of the best ever, but fucking miserable. And it's an unbelievable book.

[Tommy Vietor]

The hairpiece story is so interesting because as a kid, I remember I played tennis as a kid, and I was terrible. But Andre Agassi was so cool.

[Jon Favreau]

So cool.

[Tommy Vietor]

He was so cool because of the hair. And it turns out that the hair was fucking fake. He was terrified at all the time. It made him a worse player because he was worried that his hairpiece would fall off while he was playing, like, at Wimbledon. Like, a shocking thing to learn.

[John Lovett]

He also would play in jean shorts.

[Jon Favreau]

You remember that?

[Tommy Vietor]

So cool.

[Jon Favreau]

Oh, yeah.

[John Lovett]

He was treated as, like, a punk. He was just like, I don't know. He's like, I want to wear what I want to wear.

[Jon Favreau]

All right. Great book.

[John Lovett]

Highly recommended.

[Tommy Vietor]

So we started a book club at Crooked this year, and I wanted to do this. And my only sort of rule for what book we chose was that it'd be fiction and it would be not of this era, whatever that means. And our first and so far our only book we've done is east of Eden, which I'd never read. And I know is a classic, but was riveting and I absolutely loved it. And then I've been reading the Erik Larson books and I read. And I think I talked about this. Last year I read the Demon of Unrest, about the civil War, the rise of the coming of the Civil War, which is incredible. I'm reading Dead Wake, which is about the sinking of Constitution. It is fucking awesome. It is riveting. Riveting. I just read Devil in the White City too, which I also recommend, but I'm gonna read. Listen, I know I'm done talking about Kazuo Ishiguro. That's last year's business. Now it's all about Eric Larson.

[Jon Favreau]

You did one pod today.

[Tommy Vietor]

Yeah, I did talk about Ishiguro in a different pod. I did with John. Poor John.

[John Lovett]

Have you read in the Garden of the Beasts?

[Tommy Vietor]

No, that's next.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

That is great too.

[John Lovett]

So good.

[Tommy Vietor]

That's next. I wanted a Nazi break. Yeah, yeah, I'm on a Nazi break. Am I reading?

[Jon Favreau]

Understood.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

You're in the wrong business.

[Jon Favreau]

Don't we all?

[John Lovett]

Yeah, no kidding. In my life.

[Jon Favreau]

Dan, you're a reader.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

I think the book, my favorite book this year is probably what We can know by Ian McEwan, which is a very much not a book I would normally like other than I like Ian McEwan, which is a story about like, set in the future, like in a post nuclear accident climate disaster where there's a guy who's researching about a dinner party. He's an academic who's trying to find out who's researching about a dinner party that happened in our current time right now, where a very famous poet who wrote a poem that then got lost to history. And it's about how he sort of takes place in this time and that time. And it's how he wants to find out the secret why that poem was lost. History. It's great book. Ian McEwen, who wrote Atonement, is a great writer and it was bizarre. I almost didn't read it because the description seemed so unlike something I would normally like. But it was excellent.

[Tommy Vietor]

I'm gonna read it as well, in part because, Dan, one thing that people were saying was interesting about it is that in part it is about how much information we create right now and what it will be like for future historians to try to understand the past. Not because things are hard to know, but because everything is knowable.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Right. Like, so as he's doing this, he has access to all of their texts and like, location data from their phone about, like, who walked where, what day, what they were texting each other all the emails they sent. And so it is like, it's too much information. And it's almost alarming to think, not that people are gonna be doing history on us per se, but like, what someone could know years from now about like in sort of first person information from a time period. It's very interesting.

[Jon Favreau]

Wow. As you know, I don't read how many times I was on a tear. I can't remember a single, like fiction book that I read this year actually, because I. It was all books for offline.

[John Lovett]

One a fun one. Hail Mary by Andy Weir, I think.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Is the guy who.

[Tommy Vietor]

Is such a. And you should read it before the movie comes out.

[John Lovett]

Yeah.

[Jon Favreau]

Okay.

[Tommy Vietor]

It's a blast.

[Jon Favreau]

Hail Mary Project.

[Tommy Vietor]

Hail Mary project.

[Jon Favreau]

Hail Mary.

[John Lovett]

It's really fun. I won't even tell you what it's.

[Tommy Vietor]

Don't tell you. You just gotta read it.

[Jon Favreau]

Great. I need a book.

[Tommy Vietor]

So good.

[Jon Favreau]

What a blast. Okay. Amphistaff asks, what's been your favorite new TV series or season of an existing show this year?

[John Lovett]

I just have not watched anything.

[Jon Favreau]

Pluribus.

[Tommy Vietor]

Pluribus.

[Jon Favreau]

So into Pluribus.

[Tommy Vietor]

I'm loving Pluribus.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Haven't seen it yet.

[Jon Favreau]

Oh, you watch it, guys.

[Tommy Vietor]

Everybody's watching Pluribus.

[Jon Favreau]

I would say it's hard to describe too, because also, like, you don't want to give away either.

[Tommy Vietor]

Just go into it. Just. Yes. Yeah.

[John Lovett]

Most of our viewing is just like visual Xanax. It's like great British baking shows from like six years ago, you know, right to bed.

[Jon Favreau]

I know.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

I think my favorite show this year was Task.

[Jon Favreau]

I heard that was good.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

It was so good. I mean, it is like. So I would say it's not a good. It's not. The. It's not. Does not serve the same purpose as great British baking show. It is not relaxing, but it is like very emotional, very exciting. It's truly a great show. It's been a long time since there was a show that I thought about so much afterwards, like this one. And then I've watched a bunch of hunting wives, A lot of hunting wives. It was very entertaining. There's been a bunch of shows that are super entertaining and kind of good. And the Beast in Me, we just watched All Her Fault, which we were just talking to you and Emily about the other night.

[Tommy Vietor]

That's about the 2020 reaction.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

The 2016.

[Tommy Vietor]

Oh, 2016.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Oh, boy.

[Tommy Vietor]

It jumps back and forth.

[John Lovett]

2024, you're thinking.

[Tommy Vietor]

Yeah. What did I say?

[Jon Favreau]

You said 2020.

[Tommy Vietor]

Oh, fuck, no. Oh, you know what I meant. The joke worked. All right. I'm watching Secret Lives of Mormon Wives, which got turned onto. And it is very entertaining. Very. It's ridiculous, but what a blast.

[Jon Favreau]

Death by Lightning was great.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

I'm excited to watch that.

[Jon Favreau]

It's really good.

[John Lovett]

I gotta watch some stuff.

[Jon Favreau]

I am one episode in to the Ken Burns American Revolution.

[John Lovett]

Oh, catch you in 2020.

[Jon Favreau]

Well, I was so surprised that I'm like, all right, yeah, let's get into this. And I see how many episodes. And I started the first episode. I'm like, just. Each episode is quite long.

[John Lovett]

I remember my cousin.

[Jon Favreau]

But it's fascinating.

[John Lovett]

Growing up, had the Civil War VHS collection, and it was like 12 tapes.

[Jon Favreau]

You know, I feel like the. This is the same thing.

[Tommy Vietor]

I just struggle with documentaries about a time before audio and video, because I'm just like, okay, why don't you guys type this up and then I'll fucking read it? I'm sorry. That's how it goes.

[Jon Favreau]

Ken Burns does a good job.

[Tommy Vietor]

I'm sure he does. This is not fair, but I'm saying.

[Jon Favreau]

Yeah, no, it's fair. All right. Lovett added some hypotheticals.

[Tommy Vietor]

Yeah.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Okay.

[Jon Favreau]

These are. I guess this is just like. Do you agree or disagree?

[Tommy Vietor]

Yeah, they're sort of. Just sort of thought originally I was going to have more kind of classic, like, you can only you have the fins of a fish, but the head of a lion. And I couldn't come up with anything that was good. And so I just did. Did other pitches.

[Jon Favreau]

That's the first one is everyone should wear a name tag all the time with their first name on it.

[John Lovett]

Yes.

[Jon Favreau]

Like, it should be seen as rude and standoffish to not have a name tag on.

[John Lovett]

Yes, yes, yes. I will pound the table for this one. Because I end up. People say names and they go. And then I feel awkward talking to them. And so you feel more standoffish, you engage with people less because you feel like a bad person because you don't remember their name. And if you could just look down.

[Tommy Vietor]

I'll go one further. I'll go one fucking further.

[Jon Favreau]

Tattoo it to your forehead.

[Tommy Vietor]

Everyone should have a little name tag in the world. Both for what Tommy's talking about, people that you named, you forgotten, but also just in the world remembering that every person has a first name. Every car while you're driving, it should have the first name of the driver just kind of in front so that you see the person in the other car, not as an enemy who's in your way but Jeff or Donna. And then it's like it's hard to hold your horn down at Donna hasn't.

[Jon Favreau]

Worked for social media.

[Tommy Vietor]

Good point.

[John Lovett]

Docs are in cheap though.

[Tommy Vietor]

The worst people are anonymous, but there's plenty except for the people with their names, which are even worse. So yeah, I take your point. You know, no bad ideas in a brainstorm.

[Jon Favreau]

I'm. I think it's a good idea. I'm with you, Tommy. I just can't. And it's, it's also people that you.

[John Lovett]

It's always a kid thinks, yeah and then.

[Tommy Vietor]

But you can make a little jewelry. You can make it your own. It's special. It's the same way that now not having a phone is seen. Seen as obtuse and strange when before you didn't have to have one. It would just be like a cultural thing. No law or anything but just like, oh, you don't wear a name tag. I guess you don't want people to talk to you weird. You bad person. Get that name tag on and then there'll people on the Internet being like actually neurodivergence they don't want to wear. And I'm not saying you have to wear a name tag. Now I'm gonna fight about ableism. What did I do? Yeah, it's just an idea. I'm sorry, I take it back.

[John Lovett]

Your comment about tags made me think of the best movie of 2025, which is Coroner to the Stars, which was about toe tags. Dr. Thomas Noguchi, the former LA County Chief Medical coroner.

[Jon Favreau]

Fantastic documentary, highly recommended.

[Tommy Vietor]

Wow.

[Jon Favreau]

Ben Heathcote right there. Check it out. Okay. Every four year college degree should be divided into three years and one floating year that is only available after age 40. Oh, love it. I'm in.

[John Lovett]

This is great.

[Jon Favreau]

These are great ideas that I want, I want this to happen and I.

[Tommy Vietor]

Want you to know.

[Jon Favreau]

And I'm going next year because I did.

[Tommy Vietor]

Seriously, I will say because I. This, this I can.

[Jon Favreau]

I go to a new school. You can go, yeah, well, we'll just try it out.

[Tommy Vietor]

I actually was gaming it out because what I was thinking and I was like getting into the actual policy mechanics of it and because you'd say like, well, how are you going to pay for it? Well, you were already going to pay for a four year degree and if you pay for your fourth year of college and then go into the workforce, it's no worse economically than having just been in college for that year. And so ostensibly you would pay for the year in advance and then that money Is in some kind of endowment growing to help you afford the year you get when you're over 40. Like I was actually, I think there's an actual way to do it. It's almost like everybody gets a kind of sabbatical pay for it and that. Yeah, I have a pay. I have a fucking pay for. And so better. That's better than Republicans in Congress, you know, on the OBB. And then when you turn 40, it's like it's customary at some point you get your sabbatical and then maybe people skip a midlife crisis and their midlife crisis, they go and learn cooking back at the school or somewhere near the. You know, you have to go to the same college. Big.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

I think you should have to go to the same college. I think that makes it a more interesting thought experiment.

[Tommy Vietor]

Okay.

[John Lovett]

Yeah.

[Tommy Vietor]

But so now. So now people with families got to go back to Holy Cross. Yeah. Okay.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Well, no, you leave your family.

[Tommy Vietor]

Oh, you leave your family for a year. So you want. So this is now a kind of a Rum Springer kind of. People get to escape their lives for a year. In my mind, it was just, you.

[Jon Favreau]

Get, am I going to spring break again?

[Tommy Vietor]

Yeah, spring break. It's because in my mind it's like I. I do feel like. Oh, like I. There were so many things I didn't learn or didn't think I cared about.

[Jon Favreau]

Now I was thinking about this purely in social, fun terms.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Yeah. That I can see the wheels turning in John's eyes. He's just like back in the bar at the frat house or whatever. And love. It's like, what theoretical math class could I take?

[Tommy Vietor]

I was 100% focused on like, like, like maybe I would do physics. That's. I did not think about socializing for a second.

[Jon Favreau]

This time. I'm going to Florida or Arizona. Yeah.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Yeah. It's like now you have. Now you have a little more money so you can go on a better spring break. You're not like nine people to a hotel room.

[Jon Favreau]

Yeah.

[John Lovett]

The founders at South Padre Island.

[Jon Favreau]

Max in the grill.

[Tommy Vietor]

Like I would like to do, maybe do, like kind of update my statistics. You know, get back into it.

[John Lovett]

I do think about all the books I didn't read and think, wish I'd just read those.

[Jon Favreau]

There you go. Every year we do a nationwide ranked choice vote on the top apps with chat functions, WhatsApp, email, Slack, et cetera. And one is eliminated.

[John Lovett]

Oh, yes.

[Tommy Vietor]

That's all. Just one ghost.

[John Lovett]

Great idea.

[Tommy Vietor]

One goes.

[John Lovett]

Yes, because we just keep stacking them up and they have to check them all.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

And once you're eliminated, you're out for good.

[Tommy Vietor]

Yeah, you're out for fucking good. The app is deleted. I mean, a lot of their success is kind of a network effect of having been picked up and taken up by others. Right. The only reason Slack managed to get in is because they figured out that they could take over a business at a time. Otherwise they would have faced the hurdle that the fact that we don't need another way to fucking communicate. One more. I'm gonna throw in one more just fine. Which is double the number of people in Congress.

[Jon Favreau]

Okay?

[Tommy Vietor]

Not only that, double the number in.

[John Lovett]

The House to shrink the districts because.

[Tommy Vietor]

The districts are now kind of in this in between. We have the same. Had the same number of member, number of members for a country of much fewer people. And it now defeats the purpose of having a local representative. And all this talk about gerrymandering, in part, it's like, well, what should a district be? Well, all districts are kind of pretty varied now because they take in so many different people. They're much bigger than they used to be. So much smaller districts would mean you'd have. You'd know your congressperson. There just be. It's just more democracy. And I actually think Democrats could make that part of a platform. We want more democracy. We want members of Congress to have fewer people they report to in the House.

[Jon Favreau]

And they'd get so much more done with all that. More people.

[John Lovett]

Double the randy Fines. There's some merit to this.

[Jon Favreau]

I like this idea. Think about that. I'm gonna like this idea.

[John Lovett]

There's also like a. Probably a really good argument for paying them way more. Like I think Singapore. You make like a million dollars a year if you're a represent elected official. You just couldn't get a, you know, higher quality person.

[Jon Favreau]

Yeah.

[John Lovett]

Today's episode is sponsored by Strawberry Me. You know that feeling, that nagging sense that something in your life isn't working? Maybe it's your job. Maybe it doesn't excite you anymore. Maybe it's your routine. Every day feels the same. Maybe it's your goals. They always seem out of reach. Instead of making a change, you tell yourself, eh, figure it out later. Stop waiting. Start making progress. With Strawberry Me. Coaching Strawberry Me isn't therapy. It's not just advice. It's a success strategy for your future that helps you set clear goals, build a real roadmap and follow through. Because let's be honest, knowing what to do and doing it are two very different things. Strawberry Me matches You with a certified coach who helps you tackle career changes and big life decisions. If you're stuck, this is how you move forward. Look, maybe you come from a community of friends and family that's a little too supportive. You need a kick in the ass.

[Tommy Vietor]

Yeah, maybe. Maybe that's right.

[John Lovett]

Maybe everyone around you is really mean to you all the time. Not easy medium to just support you. Strawberry Me has got you covered either way. Go to Strawberry Me crooked and get 50% off your first coaching session. That's Strawberry Me Crooked.

[Laci Mosley]

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

[Jon Favreau]

Okay, let's go to our resolutions reminder. We're gonna play each of our 2025 resolutions first and then we'll give each of us a chance to explain ourselves and then we can all offer up our resolutions for 2026. Who wants to go first?

[Tommy Vietor]

Dan, you go first.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Sure, why not?

[John Lovett]

What do you got, dan?

[Jon Favreau]

Let's play dance.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

1. I am gonna make another run at my attention span and the thing I've started doing since election, which has caused me to miss many of John's best Twitter fights, is to put my phone away before I put my kids to bed and not look at it for the rest of the night. I want to take up yoga in 2025. I started doing some this year.

[John Lovett]

How'd that go?

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Well, I was one for two.

[John Lovett]

Yeah.

[Tommy Vietor]

How's your. How's your asanas? How's your. How's our.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

I would say the yoga went much better than my attention span. Yeah.

[Tommy Vietor]

So that is a shock. The other way around. Yeah.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

No, the attention span, like I. This is like a. I've been wrestling with this for a year now. I'm like, I'm very concerned about the impact of like short form video on my brain. But I really used to, as I said there would put my phone away when we put the kids to bed and not look at it again until right before bed just to make sure that nothing was on fire or anything that has failed. The phone is back, but I have done yoga not every week, but maybe on average every two weeks for the last year. So I feel pretty good about that.

[Tommy Vietor]

Dan, will you do a tree pose with me right now?

[Dan Pfeiffer]

No, I will not. That's for the Premier subscribers.

[John Lovett]

You can see, you can see.

[Tommy Vietor]

I want everyone in the room.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

And.

[Jon Favreau]

You can see only dance, no tree pose.

[Tommy Vietor]

I don't believe this resolution until I see a tree pose. All right, I'll go next.

[Jon Favreau]

Oh, oh, no.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Yeah, Wait, sorry.

[Tommy Vietor]

What's your resolution?

[Dan Pfeiffer]

All of ours.

[Tommy Vietor]

Then we're do.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Are we doing.

[Jon Favreau]

No, we do one at a time.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

So I do my New Year's Resolute for next year.

[John Lovett]

Let's hear it.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Okay, so I will continue for the third year in a row to work on my attention span. So I have three this year because I figure if the more I have, the better chance that I have succeeding at least once. The second, which runs completely diametrically opposed to the other one, is one I'm stealing from my friend John Favre from 2024, which is. I'm going to post more.

[Jon Favreau]

Okay. You're also liking it.

[John Lovett]

Unbelievable.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

I think I really have, like, love. I said I still use Twitter way too much. I look at it too much. But I do see that I have stopped posting. I've stopped promoting our stuff, promoting my stuff, putting our point of view in the world. And it is a tool in which we can, even in the smallest way possible, influence things. And I sort of come to hate it. I've hate the responses to it. I hate the criticism from our side, the other side. I hate the feeling of it. But I think I have to suck that up and just do it, because it's part of what we do. Content. This is what we do. So you have to do it. So I have to toughen up there.

[John Lovett]

Post and mute.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

I feel like that's kind of weak. You got to swim in there. Fuck, yeah.

[Tommy Vietor]

I agree.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

If you're going to put it out there, you got to live with the consequences, I think.

[Tommy Vietor]

Yeah, it's like, don't cook if you're not willing to do the dishes. That's stolen valor.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

And so the third one is one that is harder to hold me accountable for, which is both probably a feature and a bug. But I've been thinking a lot about how in my life, and this is true of all of us, that for a long time in our careers, we were always in positions where we had jobs that were Harder than maybe we should have at the time or above our station in life and sort of live with the discomfort of pushing ourselves all the time. And I feel now that we've done this podcast for a long time, I've done messagebox for five years now. And I kind of know what I'm good at and I know what I'm not good at. And I feel like I've become very good at avoiding the things I'm not good at. And so I do, heading into 2026, want to push myself to be a little less comfortable in what I do, to sort of lean into things that I know are not my favorite things to do or I'm not as good at and try to do more of them and challenge myself more than just keep doing the thing that I know how to do, if that makes sense. Because that was for my whole life before, because I left the White House, was always in a position of like, not that I want to live like this again, but where it's like, we're always like, one step away from, like, absolute fucking disaster ending our careers. And, like, living with that. I don't live with that stress, but I want to find something from between there and, like, pure comfort, if that makes sense.

[Tommy Vietor]

Yeah, it's funny. There's like a. I think of, like, there's like a natural trajectory which is like, when you're younger, if you feel comfortable, you don't necessarily feel safe because you want to be on to the next thing, right. And so you. You achieve some level of understanding of what you're doing and then there must be something wrong. You have to go find the next thing. That's what I was like anyway, where, like, oh, I, like, had written a comedy, now I gotta write a drama. I'd been a speechwriter, now I'd be a comedy writer. And I think the motivation was very defensive and not based in what, like, it wasn't a well made decision. It was more about feeling like, if I'm. I don't wanna be part of any club that would have me as a member. And what's funny is I do think then you go through a phase of then thinking, oh, no, the goal is to be comfortable in what you're doing. And then you get older and it's like, no, that's actually a recipe for allowing yourself to be incurious and to be stuck in your ways and to kind of lose the plasticity of your brain.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Very well said.

[Tommy Vietor]

I feel the same way.

[John Lovett]

Cobra pose.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

He's low. Cobra low.

[Jon Favreau]

Cobra Right on low, Cobra.

[Tommy Vietor]

I want to. My one small resolution is I want to try to figure out if I can do it if I'm too old to do a dragon squat. That's right. You all heard it. Put me on record Googling that.

[Jon Favreau]

Careful.

[Tommy Vietor]

I only look at jagged spots in my incognito window.

[John Lovett]

Love it.

[Jon Favreau]

You want to go next?

[Tommy Vietor]

I can go next. Let's see what I said last year. We are coming to the end of the year where we made a lot of shows and we did a ton of content and there's a lot happening. And I want to try next year to do a little bit less, a little bit better.

[John Lovett]

Nope.

[Tommy Vietor]

Absolutely not.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Absolutely not.

[Tommy Vietor]

It's funny. I think I.

[Jon Favreau]

A little bit less. A little bit. Oh, okay. Yeah.

[John Lovett]

Quality over quantity.

[Tommy Vietor]

Yeah. I feel like I did a little bit more the same. I don't think I did anything worse.

[John Lovett]

You added like an entire series.

[Tommy Vietor]

Yeah, I think we did more. I did more.

[John Lovett]

And a ton of YouTube shit.

[Tommy Vietor]

I did more. We did a lot. We did a lot more. I do think what I will say one way I do think I upheld this is we really have tried to make the love it or leave it monologue, something we focus on and not just have it be a run of jokes, but try to figure out what we're saying about the week. So I think there's been a little. I brought a little bit. Being a little bit more deliberate to some of what we've been doing, which I think. And by the way, even thinking about how we do interviews, I think we've all like kind of stepped back and tried to think about, like how to make. How to be. I guess really what I want to be is more deliberate. And I think I'm trying. I think that in fairness. So my resolutions. So I don't wanna post more, but I do want to write more. And I have not been using Twitter that much, but especially in really kind of tense moments. Maybe for myself, maybe. Cause I think it has some value. I'm not sure. I've been writing against the type of the medium. So like, Twitter is for just thrown off takes. And I've been writing these long Bill Ackman. Bill Ackman length things at times. Bill Ackman line things. But I. And people make fun of them. I don't really care. But like, I just think as a place to be thoughtful and do what is not natural for the medium, which is kind of lay out fully what I'm thinking. Why somebody. What somebody said without attacking them bothered me. I Still do the dunking when I get on there sometimes, whatever. But I've been actually enjoying that kind of writing. And so I. What I want to do is find a place. Maybe it's our sub. Find a way to write that way. Maybe on substack and then post some of it on social media. But I want to be a little bit more deliberate of laying things out, especially because I find I forget until I do it. Oh. When you actually sit down and really write down something, you actually clarify your own thinking in a way that carries through. And it's just a muscle that I used to work more and I think it makes me better and I want to get back to doing it. That's one. And then two. I have really gotten into cooking and baking and I want to be more deliberate and methodical about it and I want to learn more and actually not and like, really kind of learn technique and be able to work cook without recipes. I want to host more dinner parties where I'm cooking things. I want to, like, really build up my skills because I like it. It's actually really. You can't be on your phone. And that is my second resolution.

[Jon Favreau]

Great.

[John Lovett]

Am I up? Okay.

[Jon Favreau]

All right.

[John Lovett]

I'll listen to this pain. I hate my voice. I want to talk to more people off air experts. I want to get good at using AI tools. I tried to use ChatGPT to write me a list of resolutions and I failed. Finally. I've been reading a book about mindfulness meditation, but I haven't been doing it. I think it'd be good to do it. It's good for you. I did the experts thing.

[Jon Favreau]

Yeah.

[John Lovett]

AI tools.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

I don't know.

[Tommy Vietor]

I just. You just did it.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

You just proved it.

[Jon Favreau]

I did.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Earlier in this podcast.

[Jon Favreau]

I did it.

[John Lovett]

3:45 today. Sign up for a new AI service. Pay them a bunch of money to make one thing that I'll probably need Rocket Ronnie to unsubscribe me. Mindfulness. No, not even close. Not even a little bit. Not even once. I don't think so.

[Jon Favreau]

Those hats, by the way, those were our survivor hats.

[John Lovett]

Oh.

[Tommy Vietor]

That's why we were tribe has spoken hats. What a year.

[John Lovett]

So my resolution is this is going to be a year saying yes, not to work to things that are fun. So it's like, I think I vary our.

[Tommy Vietor]

Our.

[John Lovett]

Our work schedules are very regimented for me. It's Monday, Tuesday, intense. Prep, record, prep, record. And it makes you, like, feel hard to do and it makes me not travel. I want to travel more and say yes. To trips and get out of the office and do things and go places.

[Jon Favreau]

Love that for you.

[John Lovett]

Yeah. I mean, my friend invited me to go on the trip to London for like a weekend, basically. And normally I would say no, but I'm gonna go because I'm like, no, we're gonna do this. The Australia thing we said. You always said yes to.

[Tommy Vietor]

It's like I was genuinely shocked when we got a yes.

[John Lovett]

Being away from my kids for that.

[Jon Favreau]

Long is like, Tommy's always the hardest yes to get.

[John Lovett]

You know, I have a 3 year old and a 18 month old and, you know, came out of a pandemic, like sort of an anxiety inducing thing to go to a new continent and be away from your kids for that long. I was like, you know what? Just do it.

[Tommy Vietor]

So I'm excited for Tommy, reading between the lines. He's gonna try ketamine, open his marriage. Things sound pretty exciting. So big year for Tommy. Tommy is saying yes.

[John Lovett]

So many jokes I wanna make that get me in more trouble.

[Jon Favreau]

All right. All right, let's go. My resolution this year, this one I'm gonna. I'm gonna nail.

[Tommy Vietor]

We know.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

I cannot wait.

[Tommy Vietor]

I know this. We know.

[Jon Favreau]

More posting.

[Tommy Vietor]

Yeah, okay.

[Jon Favreau]

I'm good. I'm more posting.

[John Lovett]

More Twitter fights.

[Tommy Vietor]

Yeah.

[John Lovett]

Yeah. You know, you did it.

[Tommy Vietor]

You nailed it. Honestly, I've never seen. I will tell you something. I will admit something. I thought that resolution was so stupid.

[Jon Favreau]

I know.

[Tommy Vietor]

And I. So bad for you. And it's still, by the way, it might have been bad for you, but it wasn't stupid. You had. You really were on to something.

[Jon Favreau]

I will say, though, for next year, very similar to you. And it's not just writing more, but I was doing a few of these essays for offline at the beginning, and I found it. I used to hate writing until it was done. You write and then you go through this horrible process and then it's done. You're like, oh, great, it's done. But for some reason, the offline essays I've enjoyed because it really does help me just put down on paper, on a screen what I'm thinking. It helps me clarify my thinking. And I stopped caring about. I'm like, do they do well?

[Tommy Vietor]

Do they?

[Jon Favreau]

People like them. I don't care. I'm just gonna do it and it's gonna make me feel good. And it's helping me spend less time doing the takes on Twitter by, like, getting everything down. It's almost like you get it out of your system.

[John Lovett]

So I like that you always get a Thoughtful, charitable response from the Internet and also friends.

[Jon Favreau]

Yeah, well, the Internet, you know, I don't really care about Twitter. I don't see the replies there. Once in a while, I dip into the discord. Love you, Discord. But, yeah, no, I think that's fun. And I'm also gonna try one night a week, like, just no news. Just go home. And if I'm gonna use the phone, it's like, we'll carry the burden.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Yeah.

[Jon Favreau]

But I have to find the night.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Sundays and Wednesdays.

[Tommy Vietor]

Yeah. Well, then who will take the watch? Who will. Who will guard the wall on Wednesdays?

[John Lovett]

Brian Stelzer alone.

[Tommy Vietor]

Are you reading the news every single night in the evening?

[Jon Favreau]

Yeah. Well, I mean.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

I mean, he's never not reading the news. He's never not reading the news.

[Jon Favreau]

Never not reading. I'm scrolling here and there. It's not like I'm sitting for a full news, you know, I'm opening tabs. Yeah. Yeah.

[John Lovett]

Huh.

[Jon Favreau]

Yeah, but it's just. It's too often. It's just got like, just at least. This is like a baby step thing. Just one night. It's that one night for you.

[Tommy Vietor]

You should do that.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Can I weigh in on your posting?

[John Lovett]

Sure.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Your posting resolution last year, because I think it is, as Levitt said, ridiculous. But you did it well. But I think the truth of it is not the volume of the posting. Like, what you really resolved to do was that you were going to say what you believed and you're not going to care what anyone else said.

[Jon Favreau]

Yeah.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Which I think is very admirable. And you really.

[Jon Favreau]

It's funny, Dan, because my final resolution for next year, because I thought about that.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Well, you already did this one.

[Jon Favreau]

Yeah.

[Tommy Vietor]

Oh, no.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

You're gonna start caring again.

[Jon Favreau]

No, no, no. I was like, we are. We are heading into a midterm season. There's gonna be Democratic primaries, and then we're gonna, you know, then it's gonna be talking about the Democratic presidential primary in 2028. And I feel like I wanna be. Not like I, but like, very open and honest about both criticism of Democratic candidates, but in a way that is constructive. I wanna, like, think about the criticism so that it's not just like, you suck and you can't do anything about it, but, like, okay, what would I do? Right. And so be constructive that way. And if I really like something, someone did, say it and be honest about it and not feel like if I say, everyone's gonna be like, oh, you're in the tank for so and so, you know, because it's like, I just want to be as honest as I can be about all the Democrats running for office, because I think that is. Sometimes I feel like in the past, you're like, I don't want to be too tough because then they'll be mad at me. Or I want to be too nice because then people's, you know, well, it.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Was brutal last time. It sucked last time in 2017, I was thinking about that everyone was mad at us all the time for being too. Like, everyone thought we were in the tank for this candidate. Like, at the same time, there were people were like, the pod bros are all for Bernie. And then it would be all the Bernie people would be like, the pod bros suck. And I like, this goes to mind about being more uncomfortable is one of it is being willing, being less reticent about taking on criticism for things I say right. Or write or like, being willing.

[Jon Favreau]

And it's just sort of like taking people along with my, like, stream of consciousness thoughts about candidates that can sometimes change too, you know? And it's like, I liked that speech. I didn't really like that. I thought that was good. I didn't think that was that great. Here's why. You know, that kind of stuff.

[Tommy Vietor]

It's funny because, like, for me, part of what I want to do, part of the reason I want to write a little bit more and step back a little bit more is I actually think, like, I sometimes, like, I'm like, I lose sight of why, like, like, what, what. What is my value? And like, what. What is it that I offer? And I actually think, like, you know, I am like, my actual, like, political analysis. Like, I much rather step back and like, think about something in a way that maybe is a little off kilter. Maybe it's not turns out to be wrong. But, like, I just would like to bring a little bit of more weirdness, which means really a little bit more of, like, things that are not currently kind of necessarily exactly what people are saying or talking about, you know, because I just want to, like, step outside of the scrum because I think I do a little better outside of the scrum. That's part of what I'm trying to do.

[Jon Favreau]

JDB Pritzker, can you do a dragon squat?

[Tommy Vietor]

Yeah. Did you look up what a dragon squat is?

[John Lovett]

I did.

[Tommy Vietor]

It looks really hard. It's really hard. Dan, do Pilates with me next year.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Should we do it at a solid.

[Tommy Vietor]

Core, make that your resolution? Yeah.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Do Pilates.

[Tommy Vietor]

Yeah.

[Jon Favreau]

Film it behind the paywall.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

That was almost why truly online today was the solid core feud.

[Tommy Vietor]

Oh yeah, and it would have. I'm up to date.

[Jon Favreau]

All right guys, that's our show for today. Happy New Year to everyone. Don't forget to take your zebiotics On Friday. We'll be dropping a special episode of our subscriber only show inside 2025 into this feed. It's Lovett's conversation with legendary and reclusive Democratic strategist Philippe Rinus.

[John Lovett]

I love that.

[Jon Favreau]

What'd you guys talk about?

[Tommy Vietor]

So Philippe played Donald Trump both in the Hillary Clinton debate prep and the Kamala Harris debate prep didn't get called on by Joe Biden cuz Joe Biden said don't worry, I got this. But he really went full method and he's just an insightful person about how you deal with someone like Trump. That's I think, partly why he had the kind of skill set to be Trump. And it was a great conversation. Genuinely one of my favorite conversations in the world.

[Jon Favreau]

Awesome. Check it out. And then we'll be back with a new show on Tuesday, January 6th. Bye everyone.

[Tommy Vietor]

We'll be wild.

[Jon Favreau]

If you want to listen to Pod Save America ad free and get access to exclusive podcasts, go to cricket.com friends to subscribe on Supercast, Substack, YouTube or Apple Podcasts. Also, please consider leaving us a review that helps boost this episode and everything we do here at Crooked. Pod Save America is a crooked media production. Our producers are David Toledo, Emma Ilick Frank and Saul Rubin. Our associate producer is Farah Safari. Austin Fisher is our senior senior producer. Reed Churlin is our executive editor. Adrian Hill is our head of news and politics. The show is mixed and edited by Andrew Chadwick. Jordan Kanter is our sound engineer with audio support from Kyle Seglin and Charlotte Landis. Matt de Groat is our head of production. Naomi Sengel is our executive assistant. Thanks to our digital team, Elijah Cohn, Hayley Jones, Ben Hefcoat, Mia Kelman, Carol Pelaviev, David Toles and Ryan Young. Our production staff is proudly unionized with the writers. Guilt of America East.

[Laci Mosley]

What's poppin listeners? I'm Lacey Mosley, host of the podcast Scam Goddess. The show that's an ode to fraud and all those who practice it. Each week I talk with very special guests about the scammiest scammers of all time. Wanna know about the fake errors? We got em? What about a career con man? We've got them too. Guys that will wine and dine you and then steal all your coins. Oh, you know they are represented. Cause representation matters. I'm joined by guests like Nicole Byer, Ira Madison iii, Conan o', Brien, and more. Join the congregation and listen to Scam Goddess wherever you get your podcasts. DSW's semi annual sale is fast. Take 50% off all clearance shoes in.

[Tommy Vietor]

Stores for a limited time.

[Laci Mosley]

Literally every single clearance item at your designer shoe warehouse store is on sale right now. Sneakers, boots, dress shoes. If they're on the clearance racks, they're 50% off. So what are you waiting for? Don't sleep on these savings. Get to DSW asap. It's haul or nothing, people. Shop the DSW Semi Annual Sale today.