LIVE(ish) from the Obama Presidential Center

Summary

Pod Save America: LIVE(ish) from the Obama Presidential Center

Date: June 19, 2026
Hosts: Jon Favreau, Jon Lovett, Dan Pfeiffer, Tommy Vietor
Location: Obama Presidential Center, Chicago

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Episode Overview

This celebratory live episode was recorded at the opening of the Obama Presidential Center in Chicago, marking a historic moment for the city, the former president’s legacy, and the nation. The hosts—Jon Favreau, Jon Lovett, Dan Pfeiffer, and Tommy Vietor—reflect on the significance and emotional weight of the Center, share insights about the Obama years, and discuss the enduring challenges facing American democracy. The episode includes powerful clips and commentary from President Barack Obama and Michelle Obama’s speeches, critiques the current political climate, and offers sharp, often humorous debates on recent political developments, including the new Iran deal, J.D. Vance’s media tour, Trump’s Reflecting Pool debacle, and more.

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Inside the Obama Presidential Center

Hosts’ Reactions to the Center and Museum

• The hosts marvel at the building and its exhibits, sharing emotional memories and reflecting on their place in history.

  • Dan Pfeiffer: “It’s really…very powerful. To walk through it and see from the beginning of the campaign through the White House, the good moments, the bad moments. But it’s…It’s very, very powerful.” (03:23)
  • Jon Lovett: On seeing his own role evolve through the exhibits: “As you move up through the floors, I become more and more excited to be a part of it.” (03:43)

• The Center’s mission is discussed as more than a monument; it’s meant to be a living, interactive, inspiring space.

  • Tommy Vietor: “The museum’s amazing. Everyone should come check it out...you can shoot hoops, and we’re literally in a library where you can take out a book or you could hang out, do a picnic.” (04:55)
  • Encounters with former colleagues and prominent figures, like Admiral McRaven and Joshua DuBois, evoke nostalgia and underscore the Center’s role as a hub for the Obama network.

Emphasis on Citizen Action and Ongoing Change

• The museum intentionally begins not with Obama’s story but with pivotal moments in American civic life—civil rights, suffrage, labor movements—emphasizing the ongoing necessity of collective action.
  • Dan Pfeiffer: “Every time it’s been bad and we have dealt with it, it is because regular people came together, they started organizing, they started working, they started voting, and they brought change.” (10:53)

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The Obama Legacy: Inspiration and Limitations

Nostalgia, Hope, and Durability of Change

• The hosts reflect on widespread nostalgia for the Obama era and discuss its limitations, asking why progressive change wasn’t sustained after 2016.

  • Jon Lovett: “This museum is opening at a time in which Trump is part of the speeches...What are the ways in which this was not made durable after?” (09:39)

• Obama and Michelle’s answer, as interpreted by the hosts: progress is not linear, backsliding is part of American history, and the work of democracy and justice is never done.

  • Jon Favreau: “The answer is...it’s not ever going to be durable. That is the whole point of not just America, but human nature, that we’re always going to have these moments...So everyone has to just get to work, right? And everyone has to just keep going and...don’t give into cynicism.” (10:08)

Patriotism, Agency, and Civic Responsibility

• The group notes how Obama’s brand of “unabashed” patriotism and adult-to-adult appeal sets him apart.

  • Tommy Vietor: “He is unabashedly patriotic and talks about his love for the country. And that doesn’t mean he hides the imperfections...I think people want that...” (16:20)

• Hope is reframed as a choice and a form of agency for Americans facing troubling times.

  • Jon Favreau (echoing Michelle Obama): “Hope is a choice...Yes, you can decide that things are going to be bad...Or you can decide...I’m going to stop complaining and try and, like, put my shoulder to the wheel...” (14:00)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

Barack Obama’s Speech (22:32)

• “The exhibits in the center are not meant to evoke nostalgia for some gauzy, bygone era, some unattainable past that we can dream about and say, oh, we miss you, Barack...They’re meant to remind us of who we can be, to remind us of what’s possible so we can forge ahead clear eyed and confident and do the work that still needs to be done.”
  —Barack Obama [Clip starting at 22:29]

Michelle Obama’s Speech (28:16)

• “No one, and I mean no one, has the right to sit in judgment of who’s American enough.”
  —Michelle Obama [29:18]

• The hosts recount openly weeping at her deeply personal speech honoring her husband and the emotional cost of his presidency, especially as the first Black president.

  • Dan Pfeiffer: “Anyone who worked with him or worked from the very beginning knew the historic nature of his candidacy and the different set of rules that are applied to him than any candidate...He refused to complain about it.” (35:02)

Reflection on Obama’s Character

• Tommy Vietor: “The thing, upon a long time of reflection, that I’ve come to realize was the best part about working for him is that...he had a core belief about whatever it was. And that was from a good place. That was from a sense of decency and...about doing the right thing.” (32:58)
• Jon Favreau: “For eight years he walked on ice and never fell.” (33:45, quoting Ta-Nehisi Coates)

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Key Discussion Points & Segment Timestamps

Obama’s & Michelle’s Legacy, Challenges of Progress (02:59–30:00)

• Revisiting the campaign’s idealism vs. the hard truths of political backsliding (08:47, 09:39)
• The museum as a “pep talk for America”—not mere nostalgia, but a challenge to the next generation [22:29–23:55]
• Distinction between Obama-era hope and the present reality, including Trump’s impact and the movement’s limitations

Analysis of the Trump Era & the Broken Promise of Civic Virtue (15:19–18:39)

• Impact of Trump’s divisiveness and embrace of America’s worst instincts; contrast with Obama’s corrective vision
  • Jon Lovett: “What is Trump’s skill as a politician? And he can really make people’s worst qualities just truer about them.” (15:19)
• The lost opportunity for unity and patriotism at America’s 250th, and the continual lowering of standards (17:41)

Takeaways for Today’s Democrats (40:01)

• Dan Pfeiffer’s “Message Box”: What Democrats can learn from Obama’s approach:
  • Embrace of patriotism
  • Willingness to address the “thing” everyone’s talking about, even the tough topics
  • Focus messaging on values and stories, not just policy slogans [41:06]
  • Pfeiffer: “Politics and messaging is a storytelling exercise. It’s not a slogan, it’s not a sound bite, it’s not a tweet.” (41:06)

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News Roundup & Rapid-Fire Commentary

The New Iran Deal (“MOU of Versailles”) (42:56–51:50)

• Trump’s surprising, controversial peace agreement with Iran, signed at Versailles, draws skepticism from both the left and right.
  • Jon Favreau: “Having read the MoU this morning...did we get anything from this?” (48:49)
  • Tommy Vietor: “He just gave up both [military action and sanctions] in advance of the 60 days of talks over the nuclear program.” (49:13)
• The hosts highlight Republican hypocrisy and the political fallout for figures like J.D. Vance and Marco Rubio.

J.D. Vance’s Book Tour & Media Strategy (54:33–59:13)

• Vance answers tough questions on The View, attempting to balance Trump loyalty with a softer public image, but the hosts unanimously judge him as lacking charisma and failing to defend Trump convincingly.
  • Tommy Vietor: “He also just cannot help but sound like a whiny little bitch who thinks he is the victim of everything.” (56:44)
  • Dan Pfeiffer: “Defending Donald Trump is an impossible task...you cannot do that and remain any sort of dignity.” (57:16)

The Reflecting Pool Debacle: Metaphor for Trumpism (59:39–63:38)

• Trump’s botched attempt to “restore” the Reflecting Pool—ending in a colorful algae mess—becomes a metaphor for his administration’s penchant for attention-grabbing fixes that ignore deeper problems.
  • Tommy Vietor: “I regret to say that I read a long Washington Post article about this...all this like drainage and filtration infrastructure that they didn’t actually choose to fix. And that’s the core problem. They just painted it.” (62:02)
  • Jon Favreau: “Donald Trump does something cheap and easy that he thinks is a magic solution. It’s not. And then he pretends it is anyway.” (63:33)

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Notable Emotional and Humorous Highlights

• Host banter throughout: Playful ribbing about their own books in the library, their minor place in history, and tidbits like Tommy’s Outlook “bag of assholes” prank (05:47).
• Personal resonance: All hosts describe moments of open weeping during Michelle Obama’s speech and how it resonated with their own experiences in the administration (29:37–31:24).
• Running jokes: Lovett’s skepticism toward nostalgia and hope, everyone dismissing J.D. Vance, and the ongoing saga of the Painted Reflecting Pool.

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Closing Notes

The episode is a testament to the enduring relevance of the Obama legacy and the difficult, sometimes Sisyphean nature of defending American democracy in the face of setbacks. The hosts advocate for continued civic engagement, authenticity in leadership, and finding actionable hope.

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For New Listeners

This summary captures the heart, energy, and directness of the episode, preserving its memorable quotes, emotional arcs, and sharp political insights. If you want to revisit key themes—like histories of progress and backlash, the importance of perseverance, democratic storytelling, and the need for hope—the episode is a rich resource.

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Key Timestamps:

• [03:23] – Entering the Obama Center, first impressions
• [08:47–12:31] – Discussion of nostalgia, hope, and the center’s mission
• [14:00–18:39] – On agency, patriotism, and Trump-era politics
• [22:29–23:55] – Barack Obama’s speech: not nostalgia, but a call to action
• [28:16–31:24] – Michelle Obama’s speech and emotional reactions
• [40:01–42:25] – Dan Pfeiffer’s “What Democrats Can Learn from Obama”
• [42:56–51:50] – Analysis and takedown of the new Iran deal
• [54:33–59:13] – J.D. Vance on The View and political branding
• [59:39–63:38] – The Reflecting Pool mess as metaphor for Trump’s approach

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Memorable closing sentiment:
“We started very inspiring. We ended up with algae in the pool. So it’s a tale for our times.”
—Jon Favreau (64:43)

Transcript

[Jon Favreau]

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[Jon Lovett]

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[Jon Favreau]

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[Dan Pfeiffer]

I'm Dan Pfeiffer.

[Jon Lovett]

I'm Jon Levitt.

[Jon Favreau]

Tommy Vitor. We are coming to you from the Obama Presidential center in Chicago. I think this is the first ever podcast recorded from the Obama Presidential Center. I just made that up.

[Tommy Vietor]

Yeah, but I think it was reading library.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

I mean it opened today so that's what I'm saying.

[Jon Favreau]

It opened today, so I think that we.

[Tommy Vietor]

Yeah, yeah.

[Jon Lovett]

How are you?

[Tommy Vietor]

That's my.

[Jon Lovett]

Nice. Really good. And it's really good. Thank you.

[Jon Favreau]

This is the presidential. Presidential reading room in the branch of the Chicago Public Library. I don't see our book. Yeah. What should probably donate children's.

[Tommy Vietor]

Do we see Dan's books anywhere?

[Dan Pfeiffer]

I've heard rumors that our books are in here, but I can't.

[Tommy Vietor]

Oh, I see Life of PI. Anyway, we'll come back to this.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

I see what it takes. Oh, I see my book right there.

[Jon Favreau]

Oh, we saw Dan's book.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Two over from what it takes.

[Jon Favreau]

Now, if you're just listening on the audio, I know this is riveting, us looking around at the books.

[Jon Lovett]

Hey, let's stop navel gazing about the books. Start navel gazing about the event.

[Jon Favreau]

So we just came from the event and we just toured the museum for the first time. Are we calling it museum? The Center.

[Tommy Vietor]

The center. The Center Library.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Yeah.

[Jon Favreau]

I think it's the Obama Presidential center is the official name. And we just took a little tour. What'd you guys think? Not of the event, of what we just saw on all the floors. Dan.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

It's. I mean, obviously very emotional for us to walk through it and see from the beginning of the campaign through the White House, the good moments, the bad moments. But it's. I mean, it's really. It's very, very powerful.

[Jon Lovett]

Yeah.

[Jon Favreau]

Love it. How did you feel about what you tried so hard to stop from happening?

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Yeah, I mean, look, I think so poorly tried.

[Jon Lovett]

I think that the beginning of the museum, about the ways in which I couldn't prevent this from happening. And as you move up through the floors, I become more and more excited to be a part of it.

[Jon Favreau]

Every time we went by an exhibit and wanted to, like, take a picture there, Lovett would say, like, no, no, no. This is stolen valor. I can't do it.

[Jon Lovett]

Yeah.

[Jon Favreau]

Before.

[Jon Lovett]

Yeah. As you get into the administration, then I feel like I can celebrate. But when it's, you know, the sign seal delivered speech in New Hampshire, I feel like. Well, I was kind of on the other side of that.

[Jon Favreau]

But it was weird when you just

[Dan Pfeiffer]

started yelling about caucus rules. That was strange.

[Jon Lovett]

Yeah.

[Jon Favreau]

Super delegates are.

[Jon Lovett]

They're legitimate. The super del. Part of the process. Respect the process. But it's strange to see something set up. It's great to experience it for us, but it isn't really set up for us. It's set up to kind of take people through something they might not know about. And it is set up for a longer timeline. It's set up for people to experience over a very long time. And it is interesting to see things you experience written in just such a declarative past tense. Like, this is what happened. This was the history of this world.

[Jon Favreau]

Right?

[Tommy Vietor]

It's history now.

[Jon Lovett]

It's history. And it's so old.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Our jobs are in a museum.

[Jon Favreau]

Yeah, that is true. Tommy, what'd you think?

[Tommy Vietor]

I mean, the museum's amazing. Everyone should come check it out. I mean, Michelle Obama talked about how they wanted it to be interactive. So there's lots of exhibits and speeches and stories of individual people, but you can shoot hoops, and we're literally in a library where you can take out a book or you could hang out, do a picnic. I think the thing that's been amazing for me in Emotional is just all the people we've gotten to just run into. It's like, when I go back to D.C. you run into a lot of people, and a lot of the time you. You don't want to run into them here. I've run into a lot of people, and every time it's like, I'm so excited to see this person. It's a blast from the past. Like, Hannah and I were dealing with a snafu on our bracelets to get in, and we ended up in a 10 minute line behind Admiral McRaven. And I was like, oh, Hannah, this is the guy who did the bin Laden operation. Like, that's a conversation you don't have every day.

[Jon Lovett]

His bracelet was also incor.

[Jon Favreau]

He was not allowed into the event.

[Tommy Vietor]

Unfortunately, our friend Joshua Dubois, who's like, we've known forever, who used to play pranks in the office and one time changed it. So my outlook, every time I wrote the word the, it autocorrected to bag of assholes. He gave the prayer and invocation.

[Jon Favreau]

I just want to say that when Tommy realized this, he didn't think it was a prank. And Tommy's just typing emails and he's like, we're in the Senate office at the time, it's 2006. And he's like, every time I write an email, all of a sudden it just says bag of assholes. It's like, I don't.

[Tommy Vietor]

I'm sure that I'm almost positive I didn't write bag of in this.

[Jon Lovett]

How are you not more sure? It's like when that reporter thought that she was hacked because she had spilled water on her space bar. Yes.

[Jon Favreau]

It was the first story I thought of and I'm like, and now he's the pastor at this event.

[Tommy Vietor]

Josh walked up to me last night and said, what's up, you bag of assholes? Anyway, Eddie Vedder was here. He did a musical number with some 13 and 14 year old kids. They composed it, they put it together, they played it in front of four presidents of the United States. Like the whole thing has just been. It's very cool and inspiring and a home game for us.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

The other thing about the museum, just that I think is really noteworthy is it is about like how people can learn from what Obama did, what people on Obama did, and do similar things going forward. Like the whole idea is to inspire people to take their community, their country, their lives in their own hands and try to bring change. Like, that's the entire thing from top to bottom at every place of. This is about like the core principle.

[Jon Favreau]

Yeah, he's a very young ex president, as he mentioned today. Not that young, but young enough. And also started as a community organizer here in Chicago. And so I do think that like they were very, you know, the intention of the whole museum or in the whole center from the beginning was that it wasn't just like somewhere where you could walk around and see exhibits or just like a traditional presidential library, but that it would be a place, be a community center where like people can go, be inspired to, you know, run for office or help their community or. And so I really think they achieved that. I love the museum. I mean, I went. I first gamed Tuesday with Emily and the kids, brought Charlie and Teddy and they lasted a couple hours before Teddy had a. Had a meltdown when he tried to eat the fake apple in the fake Oval Office.

[Tommy Vietor]

Didn't go well.

[Jon Favreau]

Couldn't eat it. Wanted a real apple. Cried a lot. We left. But before that, I do think that the campaign. There's a whole level dedicated to the campaign and it tells the whole story of the campaign from beginning to end. And the last panel after you watch the video is Park. And the way they tell the Grant park story is through newscasts from all over the world announcing that he won. And it just like interviews people in Africa and people in Europe and people in Selma and just talking about what it meant to them. And I was just watching that and I'm like, oh, yeah, see, this is a great country and we can, like, this is. We complain about it a lot and there's a lot of bad things going on right now. But I'm like, this is a great. This is a great country.

[Jon Lovett]

We'll talk about the speeches more. But I was just thinking about nostalgia walking through the museum and there's a poll that came out the other day that said, which of the previous presidents do you think did the best job? And Obama is the leading president of people who have a positive view of him in hindsight. And you walk around this museum and it has this hopeful view of the country about the relationship between organizing community and democracy, civic responsibility, empathy, and, you know, the old fashioned civic virtues. And I did find myself thinking, walking around, okay, this was and is persuasive to people. And I'm, I'm leaving thinking, okay, but let's be honest. This, we're, oh, this museum is opening at a time in which like Trump is part of the speeches. It is part of this event that people are aware of what's happening in the country. And like, what are the ways in which this was not made durable after.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Right.

[Jon Lovett]

What are the ways in which either this vision of the country wasn't as persuasive as we hoped it would be, or we did not uphold it and use it to make the best case possible to prevent Trump from winning not once, but twice. And that was also on my mind because I'm not a nostalgic person by nature. And so I was sort of stuck on that and think, I was trying to challenge myself to think, okay, this obviously is a vision that I respect and appreciate. What are the ways in which it wasn't able to fully bring more people along after Obama was gone?

[Jon Favreau]

It's funny, that was what was stuck in my head before coming here. I was thinking about it a lot. And then having I spent today listening to President Obama and Michelle and going through the center. I think that the answer is, at least their answer is that it's not ever going to be durable. Like, that is the whole point of not just America, but human nature, that we're always going to have these moments where people's, we talk about better angels, people's worst angels take over and progress doesn't happen in a street straight line. And so I think their answer is everyone has to just get to work, right? And everyone has to just keep going and keep and like, and don't give into like, cynicism and don't, you know, and don't give up.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

And the first part of the museum doesn't actually start with the Obama stories. It actually starts with the key moments in history. They're like the one we're in right now where bad things are happening. You know, whether it or there are real problems in the country that brings. We have the civil rights movement, the suffrage movement, all of that stuff, the labor movement and the. I think the answer to that is it's like, at every point, that always going to be good. And. But every time it's been bad and we have dealt with it, it is because regular people came together, they started organizing, they started working, they started voting, and they brought change. And that we can. I think, the true message of that so we can do that again. And they didn't write that, like, obviously, this museum was not made for the Trump era.

[Jon Lovett]

Yeah.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Because it's going to be around for 100, 200 years after that. But I think, and this is always core in what I'm talking about, it's in the Selma speech that adorns the building itself, is that we are always going to have moments like these, and we're going to have to come together to get out of them. And so maybe a few years from now, things will look much more like they did in 2008.

[Jon Favreau]

Maybe they'll look like 2016 again. Who knows?

[Jon Lovett]

Well, yeah, I think it's the idea that. Yes. That is that you step back and say, all right, this is the path of progress. Two steps forward, one step back. There are times where people give in to their fears and their whatever, their smallness. But part of the work of getting out of it is not just stepping back and saying, we will come together

[Dan Pfeiffer]

and figure it out.

[Jon Lovett]

It's like, what happened? Right. Like, what were the ways in which this vision of America seemed to some people to be either like, false or hollow in some way or, you know, not able to be replicated by the candidates that follow.

[Tommy Vietor]

Two things. One, back to Teddy.

[Jon Favreau]

It's really cool.

[Tommy Vietor]

And a thing people probably didn't know that you could walk into the Oval Office and there was a bowl of apples on the coffee table between the two couches, and people would just take them and eat them. And actually, the actual bowl that was on Barack Obama's coffee table for eight years is now in this museum because our friend Ferriell just had it at her house and now it's here. That's, I think, a fun little anecdote people don't know. And two, on the speeches, I mean, I literally was just talking to Josh Shapiro, governor of Pennsylvania. No big deal. Watch your feet, guys. And as I'm talking to Josh, Hannah comes up. She's like, can we go some food like this? Come on.

[Jon Lovett]

Come.

[Tommy Vietor]

Anyway, he and I were talking about,

[Jon Lovett]

like, whether Jewish energy.

[Tommy Vietor]

He and I were Talking about whether, you know, we watched the speech and felt like the reaction to the speech part of the conversation. Like, do we think what he was saying is still real? Like, that there are. That people really do want decency and to bring people together and a politics that just delivers for them. Because it's so easy to see the social media part of politics and the owning each other and the viciousness from Trump and the moments I feel myself falling into being a shittier person online and just, like, dunking on people on Twitter. And honestly, my reaction to Barack Obama's speech was it made me want to be a better person.

[Jon Favreau]

Yes.

[Tommy Vietor]

And it made me want to be more like him and more like civically engaged and to pay more attention to the messages we're hearing out of people like Shapiro and James Tallarico that are asking us to kind of get back to that brand of politics.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

I 1000% believe that the winning 2028 candidate will be someone who offers a version of that message to turn the page on this era of division, of terribleness for something better. It won't be exactly the same as Obama's message. The world has changed. Everyone's. You know, we have a lot of calluses and scar tissue over the last decade, but something. Something that is more like that than the liberal inverse of Trump.

[Jon Favreau]

It's funny, I think just the nature of the trip, and we've been doing a whole bunch of things last couple of days that I haven't really been on my phone as much. And then where we were sitting, Dan and I were, like, really trying to get service, and then trying to, like, figure out how to get on the WI Fi, and it just wasn't happening. And so, like, I have seen no takes of any of the speeches. Didn't know nothing what was happening. And it really, like, I sat there, like, good, I don't want to know what all the takes are out there of what this event is. And, like, letting all the cynicism creep back in, because I felt like you. I'm like, it does make me want to be a better person. And Michelle. And we'll talk about her speech in a second, but she had this riff in the speech where she talks about how hope is a choice. And, you know, it can just sound hokey when you just hear it like that. But I think what she meant is, like, yes, you can decide that things are going to be bad or that, you know, it's not worth trying or that. Or you can decide like, yeah, things could still be bad, but I'm actually just going to stop complaining and try and, like, put my shoulder to the wheel and see if I can make a difference.

[Jon Lovett]

Yeah. I do think that part of the guy, you know, what is. What is Trump's skill as a politician? And he can really make people's worst qualities just truer about them. He just has the ability to make something bad. We have good parts and bad parts in us. I mean, the other day I was. I was like, you can. We go to a tour show in Detroit and we say, is anyone here from Michigan? And someone raises their hand and says, they're safe, they're from Ohio. The whole crowd, like, booze them like fucking crazy. There's an ice agent in every heart.

[Tommy Vietor]

There is, but.

[Jon Lovett]

So there's this. What I liked about that part of Michelle speech specifically is choosing Trump takes your agency. And we do not have to ignore people's culpability, the harm of that choice, the fact that they could have made a different one. Right. We should hold people responsible and treat them like adults. And I think one thing that Barack Obama does as a politician is he tries to treat people like adults and a politics that treats people like adults.

[Tommy Vietor]

The other thing he does that I think we as a party are sometimes missing is he is unabashedly patriotic.

[Jon Favreau]

Yes.

[Tommy Vietor]

And talks about his love for the country. And that doesn't mean he hides the imperfections of the country. He is the living embodiment of the worst stains in our history. But he is patriotic and he talks about the love of the country. And I think people want that and they want to be part of a movement that is patriotic. And I was reminded of this when we went to the. I went to the USA Paraguay soccer game the other day and, like, just being with thousands of people chanting usa, usa. And like, loving their country and cheering for the players and like, the fact that a bunch of them are immigrants. Right? And one was like, literally, like his mother, like the Ben Shapiro's out there calling him an anchor baby. Right? And this guy scored two goals. Like it. Just getting back to that brand of politics is so important.

[Jon Favreau]

I talked to Jerusalem Dempsys about this for offline this week, and she was saying there's this. I haven't seen it, but there's this whole discourse online around the World cup where all of these people are coming to America and then they're like, posting America's really great. And people are so nice going to Waffle House because of everything that they hear about Trump. They thought coming here would be this dark dystopian and they're like, this is a wonderful country. And I thought about that walking through the center, too, and I was like. And this has been my feeling the last two days here. I'm like, this is a fucking great country. Like, it is a great country. And just because Trump is president and we don't like what's happening doesn't mean that we should say, oh, this country sucks now. It doesn't.

[Tommy Vietor]

Don't let them take this from you.

[Jon Lovett]

Yeah, it's the. Yeah, I think, like, holding just the. Like, this is not who we are. Well, you know, Trump is who we are, but also what. Obama is who we are, too. The. The part where in the speech, when he started, he talked about the 250th anniversary. And it just was a small moment for me of just like we're. There's so much noise around trump politicizing the 250th birthday and the. The UFC fight on the lawn and the Trump rally on the National Mall and the reflecting pool and all the rest. And that's a terrible price. Just that this is what he's doing with his. With this moment, but also the opportunity cost of just like, what it would have been like to have literally any other person in that job who just had some modicum of patriotism or respect for the country to understand how to make it a genuinely uniting moment. And the fact that he doesn't even have a shred of it.

[Jon Favreau]

I know I'm a.

[Jon Lovett]

It's like it's.

[Jon Favreau]

Could have been a Republican president. Like, I wouldn't have been happy about that, but, like, could have been a Republican president that brought the country together on America's 250th easily.

[Jon Lovett]

I have no doubt that George W. Bush's 250th America thing would have annoyed me in certain respects, for sure.

[Tommy Vietor]

But.

[Jon Lovett]

But there. But, like, you look like.

[Jon Favreau]

But there would have been really nice moments, and we've been like, okay, I feel good.

[Tommy Vietor]

It was nice also.

[Jon Lovett]

It's such a mission.

[Jon Favreau]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Tommy Vietor]

When Obama gave a shout out to, he was like, John McCain loved this country. Like I did. Like Mitt Romney did. You know, there was a nice bipartisan spirit to it that wasn't, I thought, corny and yeah, cliche. Positive. America is. Brought to you by bombas. Summer has arrived. Longer days, outdoor adventures, and more reasons to move as the weather warms up. Upgrade your go to footwear with everyday essentials from Bombas. Bombas are cushioned where you need it. Sweat, wicking and they don't slide around so you're not constantly adjusting your socks. Step into warmer weather with the Bombas Friday slides. Made from ultra lightweight waterproof EVA material, these sandals deliver incredible comfort without sacrificing support. They're perfect to just slip on and go, whether you're running errands, lounging outdoors, or just want something comfy and casual to wear. I think I've said this before on the show. I threw out a bunch of disgusting old socks with holes that wouldn't stay up and were just terrible. And I bought a bunch of Bombas and I have not looked back since.

[Jon Favreau]

I love bombas.

[Tommy Vietor]

You know what? The no shows are great. You know how like the no show socks, which I know the Gen Zs are not into these days?

[Jon Favreau]

Yeah. Well, you know what? I am.

[Tommy Vietor]

You look stupid in your high socks. You know the no shows, they all always fall down. The Bombas had these like three little like kind of rings on the back that keep them up. They never ever fall down.

[Jon Favreau]

They. They fall down and they're thin enough that they get the holes easily. Bombas, not so much.

[Tommy Vietor]

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[Jon Favreau]

So don't do that.

[Tommy Vietor]

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[Jon Favreau]

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[Tommy Vietor]

Forget it.

[Jon Favreau]

Said it, forget it.

[Tommy Vietor]

Just happens forever.

[Jon Favreau]

Exactly.

[Tommy Vietor]

Never. You're never going to. You're never going to time the markets people. You're never going to find the bottom. Just start investing now, keep going, forget you're even doing it and you'll be like, whoa. And hope I saved a lot of money.

[Jon Favreau]

Trump, you know, figures out a deal to end the Iran war.

[Tommy Vietor]

Yeah, that'd be good.

[Jon Favreau]

Sign up now and Acorns will boost your new account with a $5 bonus. Investment Join the over 14 million all time customers who have already and invested over $27 billion with Acorns. Head to acorns.com crooked or download the Acorns app to get started. Paid non client endorsement compensation provides incentive to positively promote Acorns tier 2 compensation provided potential subject to various factors such as customers, accounts, age and investment settings does not include Acorns fees. Results do not predict or represent the performance of any ACORNS portfolio investment Results will vary. Investing involves risk. Acorns Advisors LLC and SEC registered investment advisor view important [e-mail] Crooked Speaking of that, I think we do have a clip from Obama's speech that we can play and then react to. How are you? That's it. Tommy did it. Tommy has the clip.

[Jon Lovett]

The exhibits in the center are not

[Tommy Vietor]

meant to evoke nostalgia for some gauzy,

[Jon Lovett]

bygone era, some unattainable past that we can dream about and say, oh, we miss you, Barack.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

They're meant, they're meant to remind us

[Jon Lovett]

of who we can be, to remind

[Dan Pfeiffer]

us of what's possible so we can

[Jon Lovett]

forge ahead clear eyed and confident and

[Jon Favreau]

do the work that still needs to be done. I wanted to play that clip because I think he had done a few interviews before today where I think he got questions from reporters that were in the vein of like, isn't this nostalgia? Or isn't this like a long lost era and doesn't it feel like a different reality because of what we're dealing with right now? And he actually wanted to respond to that in the speech. And I think in a way it's the mission of the whole center, which we were just talking about. And I think they're very sensitive to the idea that this is either a monument to them or about the accomplishments of the administration or about some gauzy past and what it is supposed to be is basically like a pep talk for America.

[Jon Lovett]

Yeah.

[Jon Favreau]

Which today was, I think, a badly needed one.

[Tommy Vietor]

But, yeah, look, I think a lot of people are frustrated that he's not more engaged with kind of like the politics of the day to day. And I think we've even at times expressed, like, wishing he was just talking about things, but he talked about the Twin Cities and the way they stood up to ice and came together as a community. I thought that was clearly about this moment. He talked about government is more than one that divvies up the spoils, that punishes enemies, that keeps those that are different from them in their place.

[Jon Favreau]

Shot at George W. Bush, he's like,

[Tommy Vietor]

I do not believe how that's how the story of America ends. Like. Like, we'll talk about Michelle's speech in a minute, which is a little more directed at the Trump administration. But I thought Obama was very much commenting on the politics of trumpet today.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

I would just say criticizing museum for being too nostalgic is just idiotic.

[Jon Favreau]

Fair point.

[Jon Lovett]

This museum looks backwards. Which way does your museum face?

[Jon Favreau]

I think this all started with. I think it was at a New York Times Peter Baker. It was the Peter Baker. Yes. And it was like. And I think. I mean, I get why reporters would write that. Right. Because we are living in this reality. And then you step in here and you're like, okay, is this just a pining for the past kind of thing? Sure. And I think, you know what they're. What they're really trying to say. And this goes to your point about how people complain like, Obama's not more involved in politics. And what Obama always says is like, I don't want to be out there forever because I want the next generation of progressive leaders to be out there and to, like, have their moment.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

And maybe this will be the election cycle that happens.

[Jon Favreau]

The point of the center and the

[Tommy Vietor]

point of the vote and Lucy with the football.

[Jon Favreau]

The point of the center, the point of the foundation especially, is to. Is to train and inspire young leaders here and all over the world. And I think that is. It finally makes sense to me now because, like, it is nice when Obama goes out there and he's great on the campaign trail and he gives great speeches and he motivates people, and that's important to have in Democratic politics. But we do need leaders who are not Obama and who take the spotlight in the next 10 years, 20 years.

[Jon Lovett]

Yeah. Also, I don't. I agree with all that. But also, it's okay to be nostalgic I'm not like, nostalgia doesn't do it for me. In the same way, I'm not really like a hope person. I'm more of an anger and rage person. But I understand its value in the same way that Trump appeals to.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

You're more of an experienced person.

[Jon Lovett]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And in small doses, and best in

[Jon Favreau]

small doses, and especially when experience plus strength.

[Jon Lovett]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, right, right. And obviously, as I've said, change equals one divided by. No, wait, strength plus equals change. So change divided by strength plus experience equals one. But, but back to the museum. It's okay to be nostalgic, right? Like, yes, this was a moment where people were really hopeful and a lot of really good was. A lot of good was done. A lot of things weren't finished. But people believed in the mission, they cared about it, they fought to make it happen, and they elected him twice. And it led to really good things. That nostalgia is a good thing to feel. And there's a way in which too,

[Jon Favreau]

especially if it inspires you to ask, yes, right. It's good to feel, but it's also good to like, be like, oh, well, then I'm gonna go do something.

[Jon Lovett]

And that there's a whole. And there's a lot of people who are very, very hyper engaged in politics. It applies to a lot of people that are partisan. It applies to a lot of people that are non partisan journalists that, that they see that is inherently naive. That there's something inherently naive about having that warm and good feeling about politics in any way that it's cringe. Right.

[Jon Favreau]

Like, it applies to us sometimes. I've gotten, I've been in those moments all the time.

[Jon Lovett]

But, but like, but I had this moment when I was watching. I think it was, there was a moment where Bono was singing Michelle Maibel and boy, I have a photo. I'm cringing. I got a photo of Tommy just cringe, Just a full body cringe. And I get. And like, but why do we cringe? And I think it's sometimes because we're uncomfortable with a display of care or like a direction that we might agree with, but take something too far in a way that feels syrupy or saccharine in some way.

[Jon Favreau]

And you were wondering, is he hitting on her?

[Tommy Vietor]

Yeah, that was.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Well, I mean, Obama did say, leave my wife. Don't judge my wife.

[Jon Favreau]

Yeah, but it was a lot to your point.

[Tommy Vietor]

Like the 2020 election. Like, you know, it was a thing you'd hear online that people were like,

[Jon Favreau]

oh, oh, we're just gonna Vote our

[Jon Lovett]

way out of this problem.

[Tommy Vietor]

It's like.

[Jon Favreau]

Well, yeah, yeah, actually, that's the whole thing. That's democracy. I mean, that's not the only thing you're gonna do. But at some point, you do have to vote. Otherwise, if you don't do it, a

[Jon Lovett]

lot of the other stuff you're gonna try isn't gonna do much.

[Jon Favreau]

Right. Right. Well, otherwise it's not a democracy. And then we're the other system that we say that we're against.

[Jon Lovett]

Right.

[Jon Favreau]

So you do have to have a vote at some point. So let's talk about Michelle's speech. Let's just listen to a clip because then we can. Then we can comment on it.

[Jon Lovett]

The native kids showing us that resilience

[Dan Pfeiffer]

and pride can never be stolen.

[Jon Lovett]

The four H'ers and FFA members with calluses on their hands from feeding livestock. The immigrants proving what it truly means

[Jon Favreau]

to be a dreamer.

[Tommy Vietor]

These folks,

[Jon Favreau]

these folks aren't Americans, too.

[Tommy Vietor]

They are America. They are the beating heart of this country.

[Jon Lovett]

They are us, and we are them.

[Jon Favreau]

Deep down in our hearts and souls, we all know right from wrong.

[Tommy Vietor]

We know selflessness from greed, righteousness from injustice, justice.

[Jon Favreau]

All of us. All of us are created equal.

[Jon Lovett]

That each of us is a child of God with inerrant value.

[Tommy Vietor]

And no one, and I mean no

[Dan Pfeiffer]

one, has the right to sit in

[Jon Favreau]

judgment of who's American enough. So I will say I got, like, a little misty when I saw the Grant park panel at the center, but the first time this whole week that I actually just, like, cried was during her speech.

[Tommy Vietor]

Oh, yeah, for sure. I saw the sine language.

[Jon Favreau]

Language interpreter wiping tears. I did, too. I did, too. It was a fantastic speech. Listen, it's almost cliche to say it, that Michelle Obama always knocks it out of the park, but it really was this thing.

[Tommy Vietor]

I thought Obama's speech was really good. I can't remember the last time I didn't see her just knock the COVID off the ball. I'm trying to think of a bad Michelle Obama.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

They're not.

[Jon Favreau]

The part that also was really moving was she says at the beginning, I'm gonna do what, you know, what Brock won't want me to do and just, like, brag about him. And she talks about how he carried himself in the eight years as president. And that's what really did it for me, too.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

I lost it at that point.

[Tommy Vietor]

I see him crying, though.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

It is what she said about him is what that we know. But just like, he is such, like, a decent human, like, just truly to his core, decent, like he's flawed, like he's a human, but he's a decent human. I think all the time about like the one thing, and this is like at the core of what Michelle was saying. But he used to think all the time about how every, like I'd be in meetings with Obama where it'd just be like people who he saw a lot, he'd be pretty grumpy, right? Like, shit is bad going on. But then someone would come in the room who'd be like, I'd be. Had a younger staff briefing on something or someone coming in for a visit. And he instantly knew that, that interaction with him, maybe that's the only time they'll ever be depressed in their life, was going to be matter, life changing, life changing for them. And he would, no matter how shitty the day was, he would pull it together and just treat that person with the utmost respect and make that like a special moment. And that is that to me is always summed up who he is. And it was really just powerful to hear Michelle talk about it that way.

[Jon Lovett]

I always thought that there was an irony in the Obama campaign being about change and that, that carrying him all the way to the nomination. But ultimately he is able to defeat John McCain because in the weeks of the financial crisis, what actually carried him all the way to the presidency, which was not a quality that I think was necessary for his rise until then, was a kind of preternatural evenness, reliability, consistency, trustworthiness, a calm that was sort of in his bones that infused everything that he did and it gave people the assurance unspoken that they could take a chance on him. When John McCain was supposed to be the more senior and seasoned person, but had seemed erratic in the lead up to the election. And when people would say things like with Mitch, Michelle referenced that, oh, he wasn't qualified, he wasn't this, it was that. It's like, why is he qualified? Well, look at what he is. Look at how he is modeling what it means to be a senator and a candidate in a way that say, Sarah Palin, right, who would, could claim a similar, whatever experience in the public, in elected office that didn't have the same effect. And now we are all these years later and it just stands in contrast to what Trump is and the fact that there were so many Republicans who spent eight years denigrating as a person pretending he was some threat or some, some, some alien or some, some, some evil and socialist sort of extreme force, when of course, the whole time he was this even Keeled, center left, consensus building, reliable figure which now in hindsight, the country like terribly misses.

[Tommy Vietor]

Yeah, I think when I just like think about why I was lucky to work for him, like, yeah, he was cool. Yes, he was a great communicator and speaker one. But the thing upon, like a long time of reflection that I've come to realize was the best part about working for him is that on literally anything you could go to him. And he had a core belief about whatever it was. And that was from a good place. That was from a sense of decency and like, yes, politics are part of everything, but it was about doing the right thing. And like, you just never doubted that or like, like their motivation of their family. And it's just like I'm contrast that to like you walk in the Oval Office now and they're fucking day trading on the war with Iran. You know, it's just insane where we've gotten.

[Jon Favreau]

One of my favorite lines about Obama ever is that Ta Nehisi Coates line at the beginning of that long piece about him at the end of the administration, which was for eight years he walked on ice and never fell. And it was about race and how he handled race and being the first black president. But I also think it's about so much more than that. Is that the job of president and the job of him being president and being the first black president, as Michelle also mentioned today, it requires so much care and thoughtfulness and balance of so many different competing interests and competing desires within yourself and trying to channel your emotions and trying to suppress some emotions. And I feel like Michelle's speech was that line, that Ta Nehisi Coates line. And I think that's why it was so affecting, because I was like, you know, I think we all get that having been in politics, like, we all do that, we've all done that throughout our time in politics is you realize that so much of the job is constant thinking about, like, what is the right balance of this and that and how do I not piss this person off and how do I persuade this person? And like so much care goes into it. And the fact that he was able to do that and get through eight years still intact is just like, you

[Dan Pfeiffer]

know, it's inspiring, I think, the being the first black president, like what Michelle said. Anyone who worked with him or worked from the very beginning knew the historic nature of his candidacy and the different set of rules that are applied to him than any candidate. And it's the same way different set of rules are applied to Women candidates.

[Jon Favreau]

And he refused to complain about it.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

He refused to complain about it. And he could. And Michelle, like, that was subtext of everything that we always talked about. But Michelle made a text, Right. And said very clear that he, for eight years, could not make a mistake. He could not slip up. He cannot lose his temper. He cannot lash out. He could not send an angry tweet. He had to bear the expectations and the pressure of being the first black president, because how he did it was going to dictate if and when we had a second black president. Right.

[Tommy Vietor]

For example, literally just pointing out that Trayvon Martin looked like what his son

[Jon Favreau]

would look like if he had a. Yeah, she said that today.

[Tommy Vietor]

And I was like, yeah, she leaned in.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Yeah. And I think that.

[Tommy Vietor]

I think she got some stuff off her chest today, which I liked.

[Jon Favreau]

Yeah, she always does.

[Jon Lovett]

Yeah.

[Jon Favreau]

Like, it was great. It was.

[Jon Lovett]

It was.

[Jon Favreau]

We should talk. Yeah, we should talk about, like, the. The sort of the. The backdrop of all of this. Invisible in the backdrop and sometimes not very visible, is Trump.

[Jon Lovett]

Yeah.

[Jon Favreau]

And how they all kind of. How they both handled that today.

[Jon Lovett]

Yeah, well, yeah, the. The. I. It's funny, I felt the same way at the convention, too, that when Michelle's speeches, there's like an edge and a kind of darkness to them that I'm like, oh. I'm like. I'm always caught off guard by it. I'm like, oh, like, she's pissed a little bit. Like she's gonna say some things that she's feeling about what's going on right now. And it always works, because I do think, like, she taps. It's a very. You know, it matches what he does. Is there compliments what he does. Because she has this. She understands how to use that feeling people have. That's all we're living through the Trump era. We're always a little bit mad. We're always a little bit upset. It's always there. It is a cloud over our society. And she just. Without saying the name, she just said, you know what? That's a part of today. And it makes me upset, too, because. Not just because of what's happening right now, but because of what the other standard that was applied to Barack Obama, when I saw what kind of a man he was.

[Tommy Vietor]

And the thing that I think will probably get clicky is he actually won a Peace Prize.

[Jon Favreau]

Right.

[Tommy Vietor]

That was like a fun shot of Trump. The thing that I thought to your point, Lovett, about the darkness was failing to see the humanity in others puts us on a slippery slope. When she's talking about immigration, right? She's like talking about this slide to fascism in her remarks.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

I can't remember who said this, but someone said about Michelle after her convention speech in 2024 that she is your friend who just tells you like it is, does not beat around the bush, just tells you exactly what you need to hear. And her speech is always just reflect. Like there's no, like there's a way to make those points that are so subtle that like maybe or you get it but you've basically wasted a bunch of words. She just says it always. And it's what makes it so powerful.

[Jon Favreau]

I always roll my eyes when people are like, michelle Obama should run for president because we obviously know she's never going to run for anything because she despises politics. But again, today, like halfway through the speech, I know as I was crying and then Emily was also crying next to me, she was like, I mean maybe she should run for something. Like, are we crazy? Or was this.

[Tommy Vietor]

I had the same thought. Then I slapped myself.

[Jon Favreau]

We can want it all. We want. She's not gonna do it. But like, but I, she just, she really. She can command a stage.

[Tommy Vietor]

By the way, we're in a working building. There's some. You might hear some background noise. Positive America is brought to you by stamps.com. we could all use a few more hours, even minutes in the day for ourselves. Skip your trip to the post office and save some precious time with stamps.com. with stamps.com you can print postage and shipping labels from your computer or phone 247 with up to 90% off UPS, USPS, FedEx and more. There's no lines, there's no trips, there's no waiting. Get everything done in minutes. Even schedule free pickups so that letter carrier, they come right to you. How about that? Whether you're sending letters, contracts, important legal documents or packages, stamps.com makes mailing simple for businesses of all sizes, including multi location offices. You can even send certified mail with proof of delivery right from your desk. We love stamps.com. we've been using stamps.com for a very long time.

[Jon Favreau]

Since we founded Crooked, we founded the

[Tommy Vietor]

company, we've been shipping stuff, we've been sending merch, sending important business things. Who doesn't love stamps? It's a way you send stuff. It's how you stamp approval. We got tramp stamps.

[Jon Favreau]

Tommy's got damps.

[Tommy Vietor]

Briefly, said Mike Pence for president. True story.

[Jon Favreau]

Awkward.

[Tommy Vietor]

Anyway, if mailing is taking more time and more money than it should, try stamps.com for free for four weeks and get a welcome kit. Go to stamps.com PSA to get this offer today. That's stamps.com/psa. Stamps.com/psa. Taxes and fees apply.

[Jon Favreau]

One more thing before we move on. Dan, you had a message box today in honor of today.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

I did.

[Jon Favreau]

About what Democrats can learn from Barack Obama, which I thought would be a nice, nice way to end this section.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Well, look, I think, you know, Obama sets every, every election cycle. He goes out, he goes on the trail and everyone says, like, why can't more Democrats talk like this? And Obama's obviously, as we all know and everyone is a generationally talented communicator. And so just telling people to be more like Obama is like not helpful advice. It's like, be more like Michael Jordan, like dunk more. Yeah, but I think there are like a few things that any communicator can take from him. And I'll just give you a couple. One is like in Tommy, you mentioned this, is that there is this inherent patriotism in everything he says, like he owns it. He will not let Republicans take patriotism. He is not. He will, you know, and often does talk about all the flaws of this country, but makes the point about what a special place is. You heard that today. The other one is that he, you know, and I remember this early on the administration, we were going to do a YouTube town hall which was like very innovative at the time, which was just a town hall that streamed on the Internet. And But YouTube was hosting and we

[Jon Favreau]

were taking, we're doing YouTube podcast and

[Dan Pfeiffer]

they were taking questions over the, over I guess in YouTube comments, I can remember. But the number one topic by far was legalization of marijuana. And so we went in to say like, this is number one question, but you don't, like, we don't have to take it. And he's like, you always have to talk. He's like, well, if it's the number one question, we're going to talk about it. Because he, like, he will always say it's like you always have to talk about the thing, right? The elephant in the room. You cannot avoid it. Just take it head on, you know. And then the last thing I think is really powerful is we talk all the time about like how Democrats need a better affordability message, economic message, all this. And what Obama always understood is, is that the discussion of the economy is not really about policy. It's not about how many times you say affordability. It's not whether you say bottom up or middle out. It is a say neither. It's a story about values, about who you're fighting for and who you're fighting against. And, like, that is the frame to bring to all of this. And this is, like, ultimately, I think the biggest thing to take from Obama over the whole time is that politics and messaging is a storytelling exercise. It's not a slogan, it's not a sound bite, it's not a tweet. It is an overall narrative about the country, about why you are the person who should be elected, why the other side should not be elected, and fitting things into those stories.

[Jon Favreau]

What do you have to say about this moment that we're in right now and the country and where you want to take us? What do you have to say about it? And everything has to flow from there. Message flows from there. Policy flows from there. That's where you have to start. And Michelle, Ian, Barack Obama had something to say today, and people can have something completely different to say, but you, you still need to run for president having something to say about this moment that is beyond just Donald Trump and what policies you want to enact when you're president. Okay, let's get to some news before we leave, because I guess news has been happening.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

We've not had access to it, but we hear it's happening.

[Jon Favreau]

We got the text of the Iran deal, apparently the MoU, and boy, is it a stinker.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Tommy, was the Treaty of Versailles an mou?

[Tommy Vietor]

That's a good question.

[Jon Lovett]

Yeah.

[Jon Favreau]

So we have a Treaty of Versailles. He signed it in Versailles with Macron,

[Dan Pfeiffer]

which is an insane choice.

[Jon Lovett]

Wait a second.

[Tommy Vietor]

Didn't they auto pen it?

[Jon Lovett]

I'm sorry, I'm learning this in real time. You're telling me they signed this piece of paper in literal Versailles?

[Tommy Vietor]

Yeah, dude. He stayed an extra day just to go have dinner in Versailles.

[Jon Favreau]

And it's not even like it's real gold. And it wasn't even the signing ceremony. It was just like he decided to just sign it in Versailles.

[Jon Lovett]

That's crazy. Yeah.

[Jon Favreau]

And it's like, wow. It's like the 20th crazy thing about the. About. About the text, which was the administration. An administration official read all the text of the mou.

[Tommy Vietor]

You couldn't just copy paste because Bloomberg

[Jon Favreau]

got it and then CNN got it, I think. But then the administration, Stephen Chung was like, they're just wrong. That's not the text.

[Tommy Vietor]

And like, I got it from the president of Iran's Twitter.

[Jon Favreau]

And the real one ended up being like, a couple words were different, but not by any. Not anything significant. So the Memorandum of Understanding, the mou, the Treaty of Versailles.

[Tommy Vietor]

The MOU of Versailles, yeah. We got episode titled MOU of Versailles. Right.

[Jon Favreau]

The memo calls for the suspension of the naval blockade of Iran's ports and for Iran to use its best efforts to allow traffic through the Strait of Hormuz without tolls. Try your best for 60 days. It calls for a permanent end to war in Israel and Lebanon. Iran is allowed to resume exporting oil, will get access to a $300 billion redevelopment and reconstruction fund. The MOU creates a six day window for negotiations over Iran's nuclear program. And in the meantime, Iran reaffirms its long standing commitment not to procure or develop nukes. So it's not playing super well. No, you got your Bill Cassidy's, John Cornyn's, all the people who feel liberated now that Trump has defeated them, they have been voicing some, some criticism. Other Republicans are just sort of hiding.

[Jon Lovett]

So funny these guys he threw off a mountain and then while you're rolling down towards your demise, a cliff. Yeah, I never liked you.

[Jon Favreau]

The hawk, the Iran hawks are very mad. You've probably. Oh yeah, you probably consumed a lot

[Tommy Vietor]

more Mark Levin content.

[Jon Favreau]

Those Ben Shapiro's tears in there that.

[Tommy Vietor]

I've been watching some Ben clips. I might have downloaded a commentary podcast from John Pot.

[Jon Lovett]

Horace. Tommy's got the Daily Wire open in an incognito window.

[Jon Favreau]

Here's we think we have a clip of Trump talking about the MOU of Versailles in France.

[Tommy Vietor]

And it's a memorandum of understanding. If it doesn't get done in 60 days, that's all right. We go back to bombing. Unlike Barack Hussein Obama who sent Iran pallets of cash and any relief they receive under this deal they'll have to get based on merit and it won't be from us. We don't have to give them anything. But some people may want to invest. I said, well, what am I going to do? I'm going to let Saudi Arabia have missiles. But they can't have them. Yes, sir. Missiles aren't the problem. Missiles are. They hurt a little location, but they don't blow up the planet. And in all fairness to Bibi, Netanyahu happens to be a good man, gets a little excited sometimes. We have a little dispute over Lebanon. I say you can do a little softer touch, Bibi. You don't have to knock down a building every time somebody walks up into it. That's from Hezbollah.

[Jon Favreau]

Yeah, that's true.

[Jon Lovett]

That was that, that. I'm sorry, that guy and the other one too is like, well, every time,

[Jon Favreau]

the best, best case, the other line

[Jon Lovett]

was you shoot a couple of missiles down, they don't hurt you by the desert, you're knocking down a building in Beirut. It was like imagine the, the Democrats, a Democrat said the shit that we brought down on these people. And I'm sorry, no, just the idea. The number of times these fucking anti JCPOA people were like, this doesn't even address ballistic missiles. Ballistic missiles, ballistic missile for proxies.

[Jon Favreau]

Rubio said it a million times at the beginning of this is a, this

[Jon Lovett]

is why the deal, you're going to give them money, but they're not addressing the core problem of the ballistic missiles and the, and Hezbollah and their proxies. And then Trump gives up completely and $300 billion is what, twice, three times, four times as much as what was ever contemplated. But also by the Iran deal, they

[Tommy Vietor]

got an immediate license to sell oil and gas. So they're gonna be making money off of that then they're clearly planning to, you know, they call it fees, but it's, they're gonna be toll ships in the straight of Hormuz. Iran's gonna make so much money off of this. I mean look like big picture, the best outcome is the war being over. So I'm happy the original sin here is this war starting. And the best thing that come out of this is that the fucking Lindsey Graham foundation for the Defense of Democracies neocon hawk worldview is smothered to death.

[Jon Lovett]

Right?

[Tommy Vietor]

And that Trump hates these people and that he runs them out of D.C. but they cleaned his clock in this deal. And then just hearing him just on this ballistic missile thing, clearly like the reason you would go to the core national security priority with Iran is preventing them from getting a nuclear weapon. Right? Like non proliferation is a good thing generally. I think the way you do that is through negotiations, not bombing them. We did, you know, fuck up a lot of their infrastructure, but whatever, they can rebuild that. But to hear Trump from going from these maximalist positions to being like, eh, who cares about the nuclear dust? We got eyes on it, maybe we'll get it out, maybe we won't, it's like head spinning. And then on the ballistic missiles, like, remember when Rubio went up to Capitol Hill and he did that press conference where he blamed Israel and then ran away and didn't talk to the press for two months. The core argument they were making there is that Iran was on the cusp of having a ballistic missile arsenal that would make their nuclear weapons program like Impregnable. And that we couldn't go after.

[Jon Favreau]

Oh, right, I forgot.

[Jon Lovett]

Right.

[Tommy Vietor]

And now Trump is like, eh, who gives a fuck? They can have some ballistic missiles. It's no big deal.

[Jon Lovett]

If the Saudi Arabia Rubio also is this. Our goal is to stop them from their ability to project power in the region. Ballistic missiles is how you project power. It is the definition of their power in the region.

[Jon Favreau]

Having read the MoU this morning, the text, I was like, did we get anything from this?

[Jon Lovett]

No.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

The strait. The theoretical opening of the strait for 60 days.

[Jon Favreau]

The theoretical opening of the strait that Iran and Oman are going to jointly control and can charge fees whenever they want. And before the war, the strait used to be open and controlled by no one because it was international waters. Right. And there were no tolls. So, like, I don't think we got anything.

[Tommy Vietor]

And the theory of the case on the nuclear negotiations is that your leverage is military action and sanctions. And he just gave up both of those in advance of the 60 days of talks over the nuclear program.

[Jon Favreau]

And he says, like, oh, we can just go back to bombing them. But you won't. Iran knows that as we get closer to the midterms, he's not going to go back to bombing them. They and he shouldn't go back to bombing.

[Tommy Vietor]

They're not going to get bombed out of, you know, their nuclear. Know how.

[Jon Lovett]

We just unleashed a bombing campaign for weeks. It cost us tens of billions of dollars and the end result is an unconditional surrender in Versailles. So I don't know what additional bombs are going to do for anybody. The other thing is, I don't know if you're going to go to it, but you had Vance sort of brushing back the Iran hawks and specifically referring to pro Israel Iran hawks, saying Trump is the only leader on earth that is sympathetic to Israel's point of view and we're the leader of the world's superpower, which for Vance. I'm glad Vance said that. Right. Like, look at what. For all these people that claim to be so pro Israel, right. That have been. That have turned AIPAC into this partisan weapon, that have alienated Democrats, that have, that have turned Israel into pariah state. Do you feel good about where Israel's at now? Alone in the world, beholden on Donald Trump, a guy that does not give a fuck what happens, who could turn on a dime. Do you think this was a long term great play? Now the Democratic Party is opposed to the Netanyahu government. Israel has never been more unpopular in its entire history. It's never been more isolated. You guys feel good about where you landed after all this while calling everybody out there anti Semites and anti Israel. You think the people that might have been saying that Benjamin Netanyahu was terrible for Israel might have had a fucking point rather than calling us all, what, self hating Jews? Like, anyway, that's a little point I wanted to make about that.

[Tommy Vietor]

Just very quickly, like I want Democrats to just stand up and support the JCPOA and say that it was better. Stop all the fucking throat clearing about its flaws and what was omitted. The JCPOA is better than what Trump may eventually get here. Because with the JCPOA, Iran shipped out 97% of its stockpile. It was out of the country and went to Russia. In this case, they're talking about down blending it to making it less usable for nuclear weapons in the JCPOA that went through the UN Security Council. Right. So this was that sanctions into the backing of all their closest allies, like the P5 plus one, et cetera. This will have none of that. And now this $300 billion slush fund, like, what are we doing here? All these Gulf countries are now getting told they're on the hook to rebuild Iran when Iran was firing ballistic missiles at them.

[Jon Favreau]

Can we talk about before we move on to this, you mentioned J.D. vance. I want to sort of ask a hacky political question, which is I read in Playbook this morning, I think that a lot of J.D. vance's like, you know, opponents or detractors are trying to hang this deal around his neck and say it's J.D. vance's deal. And there's people from J.D. vance's office that basically pushed back and said those people obviously can't read a poll because this war was very unpopular. And the idea that this is going to be bad for JD Vance to be associated with this deal, this treaty is crazy because people don't want war anyway. And so it's not going to be a real political risk for him at all. What do you guys make of that? Because I think it brings up the question of how this war and how it ended sort of plays out politically or whether it even does. Whether it has a lasting political impact as we head towards the midterms and

[Dan Pfeiffer]

beyond that, I think the. On like a substantive political level, no one is going to remember the war by the time that voting happens in, in November and well, not, not in this November. I think the question is about J.D. vance's presidency. So by the time we get. Yeah, I think the war will matter. This November in a couple ways we can talk about when it comes to the Republican primary or the general election of 2020. Vance in that many I think anyone's going to remember it. I think the damage of the war to J.D. vance is I think it has ensured that Donald Trump will be a very unpopular president. When J.D. vance is possibly trying to be the third term of that very unpopular president, I think that is bad for him.

[Jon Lovett]

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[Jon Favreau]

Speaking of ants, he's been on a book tour about his conversion.

[Tommy Vietor]

Tough timing, man.

[Jon Favreau]

Tough timing. Yeah, it's really. This ruined the tour. He went to the View, went into the lion's den on the View.

[Tommy Vietor]

They did a great job.

[Jon Favreau]

I haven't watched any of those are really good.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

You're learning for the first time.

[Jon Favreau]

Yeah. This clip will be my first experience with JD on the View, so let's take a look.

[Tommy Vietor]

Everybody knows that Americans are struggling. What is he spending all this money for?

[Jon Lovett]

Well, I got to defend the president

[Tommy Vietor]

on the hoax point. What the President said is the idea that Republicans cause the affordability problem is a hoax. He just said he loves the inflation.

[Jon Favreau]

What he said, Anna, what he said

[Tommy Vietor]

is that he loves the fact that the inflation is going to come down when this war is over.

[Jon Lovett]

That's.

[Tommy Vietor]

That's what he said.

[Jon Lovett]

That wasn't a direct.

[Tommy Vietor]

Wait, are you his Interpreter. Or are you his vice president? I believe as a Christian, I can tell you why it's important to have borders. I get that there are laws, there are resources.

[Jon Lovett]

I get all that things. It's much harder to explain when I

[Tommy Vietor]

see someone dragged out of a house or wrongly taken to a thing that isn't a violent criminal.

[Jon Lovett]

That is. That is.

[Tommy Vietor]

It's a little more nuanced as a

[Jon Lovett]

parent, to try to say when someone's

[Tommy Vietor]

referred to as vermin or scum when I teach them in school, about people

[Jon Lovett]

that have done that before. But this is different. It's very hard as a parent and a Christian, to say both things.

[Tommy Vietor]

I would urge you, as a Christian

[Jon Lovett]

and as a father, to visit those

[Tommy Vietor]

detention centers where the children are being held. So you guys have thrown a lot at me, and I see we got 30 seconds left here. But let me say, number one, sounds

[Jon Favreau]

like that went well. What'd you guys think? I was so great. Anyone watch more of it?

[Tommy Vietor]

I watched a bunch of it. They did a great job. And what they did that I think we heard there was. The questions weren't like, from a shitty liberal perspective, it was like, as a Christian, as a human being, how can you as a parent, like, see what's happening at the Dilley Detention center and be okay with that? And I think J.D. vance, credit to him, I guess, for going there, right? That's. He's clearly trying to make an argument that he's the kind of candidate that can build bridges and reach new voters by going on the View, Right? Like, that's like a thing you tell people you did. He answered the questions, but I don't think he did a good job. And he also just cannot help but sound like a whiny little bitch who thinks he is the victim of a. Everything.

[Jon Lovett]

Yeah. He also says Democrats are terrible. At one point, I feel like it's just. It's just not possible to be. It's not possible to fairly answer questions, defend Donald Trump and Bill Day, and sort of be tilting at any kind of broader sort of nonpartisan coalition. Like, it's just that those things. There's no talent on earth that could both defend Donald Trump and pretend to be some kind of broader, more appealing figure. It's just not. Can't be done. And so I don't think he could do it, but I don't think. I think there are people that are far more talented than J.D. vance that would make it look a little bit easier.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

He's just so bad.

[Tommy Vietor]

He's terrible.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Like, in Those answers, like, he thinks he's being smart by basically just gaslighting about what it is Trump actually said. And he just doesn't like, there's a way, like, defending Donald Trump is an impossible task. It just, you cannot do that and remain any sort of dignity or seriousness as a human being. You just can't. But there's ways to do it with

[Tommy Vietor]

more charm, more humorous.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Yeah, he just has. He just has no. He just has no charisma.

[Jon Lovett]

Yeah.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

And, you know, and I think, I think he goes on the View and I think he was. I think in his mind, maybe he wants to show that he can go to this other place. I also think he wants to show that he can go own the libs. Remember he went on Blue sky for like a hot minute to like take people off.

[Jon Favreau]

Well, the. You just referenced a little bit that he calls Democrats terrible people. So he did that to Meg Kelly later. It was, I think it was Gutfeld at night. You're right, because I saw that clip and I realized that, yeah, his whole play was, I'll go on the View and then they'll beat me up and then I'll go to the right wing outlets and I'll be like, oh, I survived the View. And they were such assholes and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. But he go, he does this thing

[Tommy Vietor]

where they didn't even beat him up, though. They were like, very substantive.

[Jon Favreau]

The way he said that too. It was such a. He's like. And the thing about Democrats that I don't like, it's not the policies necessarily. It's that they're terrible people. Right. And they're not grateful to the country. He did the grateful thing.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Well, the thing that's even worse than that is it's a. He couldn't stop himself. He started by saying, like, like the thing that bothers me about Democrats is it's not what, it's not their policies. It's not this. It's that they're not. I think the grateful thing, I think in this context, what he was trying to awkwardly do was that, like to try to suggest we run down America. But he knew he was on Fox. We couldn't just say that. So he had to say, it also bothers me that some of them are terrible people. Like, that's like an aside.

[Jon Favreau]

It wasn't even some. It was just, they're terrible people. Terrible people. And I was like that. That is a wild thing. Like, does he think that he can just. I mean, I know he's going to run in A primary here. But does he realize that kind of undermines the whole softening your image effort? He's crazy.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

He has no deafness. He has no deafness.

[Jon Favreau]

I really.

[Tommy Vietor]

He was on a book tour. It is crazy that Marco Rubio has just gone into witness protection. He's the National Security Advisor and the Secretary of State. Has he done a single interview about the surrender?

[Jon Favreau]

There's a picture of him over Trump when Trump's signing the treaty in Versailles. And he looks like.

[Tommy Vietor]

Did you guys watch him behind Trump in the press conference? Like, shifting back and forth, like, dead eyed. He looked like he'd taken like 6,000 Pro V and hadn't slept in a month. Like, just looked miserable.

[Jon Favreau]

Well, before we go, I do think we should talk about briefly, the reflecting pool. I guess that's a. That's the thing in the news now, because the reflecting pool. So let me get this straight. Please correct me if I've got the

[Dan Pfeiffer]

fact this is important to me because I've been on vacation for two weeks. So in. In my la, trying to avoid learning something, this is the thing that I know very little about. So I'm excited to learn in a very loving fashion.

[Tommy Vietor]

Explain it to Dan.

[Jon Favreau]

Here's what I think. Obviously, Trump decided to paint the reflecting pool. He did the American flag blue. Then they refolded.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

What was it? How do you describe the paint?

[Jon Favreau]

It was like thick, rubbery. Rubbery.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Rubbery, rubbery.

[Jon Favreau]

Throbbing. And then he. So they painted it, they filled it up again, and then it quickly turned green because of algae. And so then there was a green reflecting pool after spending however much he spent to make it blue. And then they just quickly had parks people or interior people or whatever run over there and start dumping hydrogen peroxide or chloride or whatever.

[Jon Lovett]

Hydrogen peroxide?

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Yeah.

[Jon Favreau]

Into the. Just dumping it into the reflecting pool. As if, like, this reflecting pool is quite large, as Donald Trump showed us on his chart. And just like doing a couple buckets was not really going to do anything. And then they had like algae scoopers

[Jon Lovett]

in there getting the algae off the bottom.

[Jon Favreau]

And then the Department of Interior this morning decided to post a series of tweets that was like, it's back. And they have a picture of the water is blue again, which I think is just a fake picture. And they said, and the algae is gone from the. The algae is now just at the bottom of the reflecting pool. Just like the Iranian Navy.

[Jon Lovett]

Yeah,

[Dan Pfeiffer]

all such troll.

[Jon Lovett]

They're like the Department of Interior, which in a previous era might have posted a picture of, say, Zion national park, boy, check out Zion National Park. We think everybody's gonna love it. They're like, you fucking cuck, this thing is blue now.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

It's crazy.

[Tommy Vietor]

So let's.

[Jon Lovett]

They drain the pool. They painted it a darker color but a bluer color. Whatever, okay. They claimed because, oh, you know, Obama and Biden, they didn't have the stuff to fix the replay. Couldn't get that, Couldn't get it done. But as we all complained about for years, it was a big thing we really cared about. So they're going to do it, they're going to fix it. And then the algae comes back. Why? Well, maybe because Donald Trump isn't magic and because it is an 8 acre short fucking swamp painted black in the middle of one of the like in the middle of a swamp and there's algae.

[Jon Favreau]

And so maybe, maybe the paint color American Flag Blue doesn't have magical properties that can rid of algae.

[Tommy Vietor]

I regret to say that I read a long Washington Post article about this because there's all this like drainage and filtration infrastructure that they didn't actually choose to fix. And that's the core problem. They just painted it.

[Jon Lovett]

So the other part of this too

[Jon Favreau]

is perfect metaphor for the entire fucking administration.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

So I. Failure to drain the swamp, if you will.

[Jon Lovett]

Yeah, so of course the algae comes back. Now the Interior Department then puts out a statement saying, actually this is residual algae. And it's like, hey, it's not spontaneous. Hey, we don't believe in spontaneous creation of life anymore. We're not Lamarckians or whatever it was. Who are the fucking people?

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Oh, that's evolving quickly.

[Jon Lovett]

Who's the ones that thought the maggots became the. That maggots spontaneously arisen? Yes. Yes. Thank you, Reid.

[Tommy Vietor]

How do you know this, Reid?

[Jon Lovett]

Because we didn't have sports.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

I'm sorry to you.

[Jon Lovett]

Nobody invited us to flip cups. So we learned about these things.

[Jon Favreau]

But so

[Jon Lovett]

yeah, it's always residual algae. That's where the algae fucking comes from. Now they did. Now hydrogen peroxide can shock a pool. However, the percent a pool, the kind they were using, the 12%, that's for a hot tub. This is a 7 million gallon tank. You would need some nerd.

[Tommy Vietor]

Did the math.

[Jon Lovett]

5,000 to 7,000 gallons of this stuff and that's just to get it clean for a week. And then they're like, well, the new nano rubber tubes are going to work and it's like there is runoff because this is a park in the middle of a city that there's like from the Potomac and all the rest. So the algae is just gonna keep coming back. And it is a great metaphor for Donald Trump thinking, for people thinking. The only problem has been that our leaders were stupid or didn't care, didn't break enough rules.

[Jon Favreau]

Donald Trump does something cheap and easy that he thinks is a magic solution. It's not. And then he pretends it is anyway.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

And Newsflash, Donald Trump Jr. Now owns a hydrogen peroxide company.

[Tommy Vietor]

Did you guys see like the Newsmax guy who was down at the reflecting pool doing interviews suggesting that the Democrats had like, sabotaged it?

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Yes.

[Jon Lovett]

Oh, sabotage is everywhere. Everyone thinks we've been pouring phosphates, we've been fertilizing the fuck.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Yes.

[Tommy Vietor]

And then Jesse Waters sent his like, baby dork goon down there to be like, well, at least our president cared enough to fix it and try. Like, what are we doing here?

[Jon Favreau]

The Washington Post did report, by the way, that the ballroom that there's. They found invoice to a contractor that for like $600 million and that half of it was going to be taxpayer money. And so they've been lying the whole time. And then notice reported, I believe, that they found out that OMB has been moving money from the Secret Service budget into doing because they couldn't get it passed through Congress to. So. So it is. Look, we are paying for the ballroom after all.

[Tommy Vietor]

Well, famously Secret Service has had a great run recently, so they had some more resources.

[Jon Favreau]

They had some loose change. So that's happened. Anyway, we started that money by a

[Jon Lovett]

couple pairs of binoculars.

[Jon Favreau]

Voice. Well, we started. Very inspiring. We ended up with algae in the pool. So it's a tale for our times. This has been fun, guys. Everyone, everyone have a great weekend. That's our show for today. Alex Wagner will be back in the feed on Sunday with a conversation with historian and substack titan Heather Cox Richardson.

[Tommy Vietor]

And thanks to the Obama Library for letting us in here.

[Jon Favreau]

Yeah, seriously.

[Jon Lovett]

Now let's go find our book somewhere positive.

[Jon Favreau]

America is a crooked media production. Our show is produced by Austin Fisher, Saul Rubin McKenna, Rob Roberts and Farah Safari, with Reed Churlin, Elijah Cohn and Adrian Hill. Our team includes Matt de Groat, Ben Hefcoat, Jordan Kanter, Charlotte Landis, Kirill Pel Aviv, David Towles, Mia Kellman, Ryan Young and Naomi Singel. Our staff is proudly unionized with the Writers Guild of America East.