Jon Lovett (2:17)

Love It, Love it or Leave it is going to two days a week. There's too much news and we have to cover too quickly. So we're gonna get more episodes out more quickly and we're gonna be shooting it in a studio with a live studio audience for the first time. We have a bunch of amazing guests lined up, including Melissa Etheridge, Ron Funches, Beck Bennett, Kyle Mooney, Ginger Midge and more. We're doing a show as part of the Netflix. It's a joke festival, too. If you're in LA, come see our new studio@crooked.com events.

Jon Favreau (2:41)

Awesome. And also, as you may have heard on the Friday show or on Love it or Leave It, Crooked Con is coming back. We got three days of events right after the midterms November 5th through the 7th in Washington, D.C. there's going to be live shows, tons of panels, new ways to connect with other political sickos like us. Head to crookedcon.com and sign up for updates, including ticket release dates, lineup announcements, and a lot more. All right, so as you all know by now, on Saturday night, a gunman charged the entrance to the White House Correspondence dinner and shot an officer before being subdued and taken into custody. He's now been charged with attempting to assassinate the president. Trump and other senior officials were rushed out of the dinner by the Secret Service while other attendees hid under the tables. The rest of the dinner was canceled and then the president held a briefing at the White House right after, where he talked about unity and was somewhat complimentary toward the media. By the time he sat down for an interview with Norah O' Donnell of 60 Minutes. The next day, however, that changed.

Donald Trump (3:40)

I was looking forward to making a speech. It would have been a lot different. I said, I can't make that speec. I was going to do a pretty

Katie Porter (3:48)

tell me rip roaring.

Donald Trump (3:50)

I won't go into the total details, but no, I was going to hit people really hard with humor. It's not so much the press, it's the press plus the Democrats because they're almost one and the same. It's like the craziest thing. I do think that the hate speech of the Democrats, much more so, is very dangerous. I really think it's very dangerous for the country. The reason you have people like that is you have people doing no kings. I'm not a king. What I am, if I was a king, I wouldn't be dealing with you.

Katie Porter (4:16)

He also wrote this. I am no longer willing to permit a pedophile, rapist and traitor to coat my hands with his crimes. What's your reaction?

Donald Trump (4:25)

Well, I was waiting for you to read that because I knew you would because you're, you're, you're horrible people. I'm, I'm not a rapist. I didn't rape anybody.

Katie Porter (4:34)

Oh, you think he was referring to you?

Donald Trump (4:36)

Excuse me, I'm not a pedophile. You read that crap from some sick person. Your friends on the other side of the plate are the ones that were involved with, let's say, Epstein or other things. I'm not any of those things, Mr. President. I was never. Excuse me, you shouldn't be reading that on 60 Minutes. You're a disgrace. But go ahead. Let's finish the interview.

Jon Favreau (5:00)

Okay, some fun friends on the other side of the plate. First off, anyone general reactions to what happened and how Trump is talking about it?

Tommy Vietor (5:10)

I mean, for the billionth time, political violence is bad. It is bad and not the way to solve problems in this country. And it's a crass political matter. It does seem like it's always backfiring. It does seem like the most likely outcome from this incident is Donald Trump gets a little rally around the flag effect. And I think he would probably agree that that's probably what's going to happen, because you don't scramble to pull together a 60 Minutes interview last minute unless you think it's beneficial for you to talk about this stuff. So thank God no one was killed. Thank God that, you know, our political debates are frayed, but they're holding. That won't always be the case. It sucks that Donald Trump is now blaming Democrats for this. It sucks that they're once again, you know, making this about political rhetoric or jokes or criticism. And we're not talking about, you know, the combination of mental health problems and guns or access to guns, feels like that would be more worthwhile conversation if we want to curtail violence in this country. But here we are now we're in this stupid defensive crouch for a while because of this bad faith attack about political rhetoric always gains currency and becomes the conversation.

Jon Lovett (6:12)

Yeah, yeah. But I was in the air, flying back to LA and the WI fi was down. And so by the time I landed, this was already about building the ballroom and it was already about, like, funding dhs. It moved beyond just condemning political violence and having that be a unifying thing, to be honest. Like, I really like Norah o' Donnell and I understand why she read that. And I obviously don't think Trump's response is correct, but I do think when you're reading the text from someone who tried to kill the President to the President, you are sharing something that you are only sharing because someone attempted to do terrible political violence. And there's a delicate balance to me between understanding the motivations of people that would do this and trying to understand what the underlying conditions are in our politics, in our society, in our rhetoric that might be contributing to it without elevating the specific motivations of any one person, unless it was directly incited by someone in our political system. Because the reality is, what unites mass shooters, people trying to do political violence, sometimes they have ordinary beliefs, sometimes they have unhinged, crazy beliefs. But what unites them is this desire to take control, go out in a blaze of glory. It is a contagious idea online. That is what we are grappling with. And the less we make it about the specific political fights we were already having, I think the better.

Jon Favreau (7:33)

Yeah, one thing that has changed, I think, in assassination attempts and even violence like this that we've seen is since the advent of the Internet and especially social media, like, you have seen a lot more of these people be radicalized online. And, you know, someone ended up finding the shooters Twitter account and then he moved over to Blue sky, so they found his Blue sky account. And it is just a bunch of crazy shit. And the difference between that shooter and anyone else is, like Tommy said, he's probably had a mental break and there's easy access to guns. But, yeah, political violence is always wrong. And the idea that you are somehow a hero, you can solve any fucking problem with violence is crazy and it's counterproductive and it never works, and it only makes more problems. And anyone who thinks that political violence is somehow okay or justified, if the person that you're committing it against is more powerful or more evil or whatever, it's just wrong and it's stupid. I was thinking about when it happened too, the people. I think this is one of those situations where the people outside of the Hilton, Washington Hilton, probably knew that everything was okay more quickly than a lot of the people inside the Hilton. Part of that's because. And we've been there before, there's fucking no service in that ballroom. The WI fi is always bad. And I think if you were the president or one of the people who was rushed out, you probably knew that the shooter had been taken down was okay. But if you were one of the 2,500 attendees there and you were under the table, that had to be pretty fucking scary before, like, for a little while at least. Before you knew that the shooter was subdued. And so that was like one of my first, my first thoughts.

Jon Lovett (9:20)

Plus, by the time the chicken came out, had to be just. Absolutely. Just bone. Just room temperature.

Tommy Vietor (9:23)

Starving. Yeah. Cold chicken salad. I do. I, I think what Trump said to Nor o' Donnell response was weird. But if someone tried to shoot me and then their words are read to me that I was a pedophile, rapist and a traitor, I'd be pretty pissed off too. It is like, it's an interesting journalistic question of when you read a manifesto like that and why and to his face like that. If it's antagonistic on perfect. I'm not trying to like, nitpick her, but yeah, I'd be pissed too.

Jon Lovett (9:48)

We again, because it gets sort of put through the lens of politics and it is a different thing than a mass shooting. There's all these different motivations. But I do think the more we see people that are being radicalized online, they have access to guns, they may have a mental break. They do see a lot of crazy shit on their phones and on their screens. Like, the more we think of this as kind of one big contagion that we're dealing with, there's a lot of ways to deal with it. One of them is mental health. One of them is addressing like, where and how people are radicalizing. Another one of them is the guns. But one lesson we've learned, whether it's in mass shootings or in suicide being contagious, it is that you have to be really careful how you share and talk about the motivations and the methods that these people use. And that is delicate. Right. Because it is of journalistic value and that getting his responses of journalistic value, it's not an easy call. But I think if you take it outside of, of this, I think you start to see it more as part of a broader pattern.

Jon Favreau (10:43)

Yeah. I wonder if he had, if the shooter had named Trump in the manifesto, if she would have asked that same question because then she would have gotten the name. I don't know. It isn't.

Tommy Vietor (10:52)

But like, who else could he have? Like, that was her being like, oh, you think that was you?

Jon Favreau (10:56)

Of course he's. Oh, that part. Yeah, for sure. But it was funny because she did ask a question before that that was like, why do you think people are trying to hurt. This is the third time. I'm glad you're okay. But like, why do you think people are trying to hurt you? You probably could have just asked that, I guess, and not done the but anyway, there's been a lot of reporting already about the security protocols at the event and how they seem to have been lower than at other comparable events. What did you guys make of those stories and the security in general, how it went both this time and in general, the security of those events in general?

Tommy Vietor (11:28)

I think the Secret Service is far more of a mess and a disaster than its public image would suggest. And that's been the case for a long time. But I think in this instance, the Secret Service protection is about protecting the President and other designated protectees. And from that perspective, I would argue that this system works, worked basically. I mean, they will review their protocols, they will maybe decide to create like a bigger perimeter, put the metal detectors further out in the future. But Trump was never really in danger. Some criticisms that are worth considering are like this guy certainly found and exploited a flaw in their planning by staying at the hotel. Maybe Secret Service needs to think harder about the totality of senior officials in a room and then adjust. But like the dude sprinted at a security checkpoint, got off one shot, maybe got what, a couple dozen feet within it and then was taken out. And he never got close to Trump and he never really got close to more official. So you can always have more security. The uncomfortable reality, I think, is that someone who's willing to die is always going to be able to do some really bad stuff. If this guy had done what he did 30 minutes earlier, it probably would have been a lot worse. But like, you know, ultimately I think the process worked the way it was supposed to, largely.

Jon Favreau (12:42)

Yeah. So people know what it's like there. It's where they got him. He was running towards probably the escalators that would have gone down one flight and then you would have had the doors into the ballroom because the dinner had started. Once it started, those doors to the ballroom were closed and they were guarded. So even if the shooter had gotten past that security checkpoint and hadn't been shot, there was would have gone downstairs, would have faced another. Several Secret Service agents would have had to get through the doors at that point. There would have been other services. You know, the trucks were up on

Tommy Vietor (13:13)

a raised stage, they can pull him backstage.

Jon Favreau (13:15)

But in general, I think the Hilton is a, is a bad location for this. And I think part of it is because the guests in the hotel should never have been able to get close to the ballroom if you're not part of the event or the pre dinner receptions. Right. Like a lot of other people could have been hurt beside from the President who was I Think well protected and like. Like you said, Tommy, about the senior. All the senior officials in one place. Like, what if someone had brought explosives? Right? Like this. I mean, this there's. I don't want to go into all the different things that could have gone wrong, but if you were a guest at the hotel, even if you weren't that guy with those weapons, if you had, like, worse weapons or something, but you were still a guest, you could have probably done a lot more damage.

Jon Lovett (13:51)

I don't agree with that. I like, what, that suddenly, because this one crazy person ran at the door, there should be things to learn. But, like, maybe they have to do something different with guests, change the protocols in a certain way. But then all of a sudden, this. This location is possible for a dinner that's been happening there for four decades?

Jon Favreau (14:09)

Well, service said that. Service was saying to people on the record that like. Or on background at least that, you know, we now have a convention center in D.C. that is much easier to protect there. They can still hold the same number of people. They've never liked the Hilton. They said it's always an uphill challenge. You're always working against stuff.

Jon Lovett (14:25)

And like, the president was also shot outside that building, right? And they've still been doing the dinner there. I'm sure that maybe there's better places to do it, but the point I'm making is only in the. We have been taking our fucking shoes off at the airport because of one crazy guy for. For 10 years. We can't have liquids in our suitcase because of one crazy guy. In the wake of things like this, there is this always effort. Like, there must be. Like, I hope they fix their protocols and learn things from this. But the answer to some security breach by one random person can't constantly be that the perimeter gets bigger, the security gets more The. Our government becomes more militarized. Fewer of our officials can be together. I know.

Jon Favreau (14:58)

I'm not saying that.

Jon Lovett (14:59)

I know you're not saying that. But I do think that is the. That is the reaction. The second something like this happens, there's an effort to, like, there's gotta be something we can do to make the whole system safer. And maybe there is, maybe there's not. But we live in a democracy, and if somebody is gonna try something like this, they got it. They can be stopped. This person was stopped. The system hopefully worked.

Tommy Vietor (15:17)

But, like, I think what's been revealed over the last year or two is that Secret Service is pretty bad at its job. Like Butler. There was a guy in a raised position with a rifle with a scope aimed at the President and shot him in the. Like, it's insane.

Jon Lovett (15:30)

Yeah.

Tommy Vietor (15:30)

There wasn't like, more changes in turnover. And I think it's the totality of the events that lead me to question Secret Service. Even if I think this incident was, like, not right, really an issue, there's a.

Jon Favreau (15:40)

There's a lot of space between, like, we must live in a militarized society. And there's, you know, what are we. We're just going to keep adding more, you know, protection and people. It's like, then just maybe expand the perimeter a little bit, get a better place, have make. Make sure that Secret Service isn't up more, you know, like, there's little things you can do for sure.

Jon Lovett (16:00)

Agree.

Jon Favreau (16:00)

Right. You can't, you can't solve it, but you can improve a little stuff.

Jon Lovett (16:03)

Fair. Fair enough.

Jon Favreau (16:13)

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Tommy Vietor (16:24)

Yeah.

Jon Favreau (16:24)

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Host/Announcer (17:33)

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Jon Favreau (18:08)

How excited are you to reconnect with hope?

Tommy Vietor (18:11)

Honestly, pretty excited at this point. It's been gone for a while.

Host/Announcer (18:15)

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Jon Favreau (18:20)

We love the Obama Foundation.

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Jon Favreau (18:42)

Let's go through some of the reactions to the shooting, starting with what I think might be the strangest. Just hours after it happened, Trump, the acting attorney general and dozens of pro Trump influencers essentially made the argument that the best way to stop a bad guy with a gun is with a rich guy with a ballroom. The government is now asking the court to dismiss a lawsuit filed by preservationists to block the President's 400 million doll ballroom because they say it's essential to, quote, ensure the safety and security of the President for decades to come and prevent future assassination attempts on the President at the Washington Hilton. Who would like to point out some of the issues with this line of reasoning?

Tommy Vietor (19:19)

I just like this is so dumb that I kind of can't believe that this is how they're harnessing an assassination attempt for political gain.

Jon Favreau (19:26)

Like I know. So it was hard to believe.

Tommy Vietor (19:28)

Why? Why did the mindless MAGA influencers jump up? Like is the argument that the President will never leave the White House again? Just do events at this one ballroom? What about is every event in the future going to be de facto government hosted or government sponsored? What about when president attend the states to do campaign events and rallies and fundraisers? It's like it's ridiculous. There's foreign trips, there's overseas speeches. Like, even on like the narrow point of like the, the Hilton and the White House Correspondents association, they would absolutely refuse to host a, a press association speech at the White House on government property. So it was not even solving that.

Jon Favreau (20:05)

Donald Trump gets to control the invites. It's not his fucking event.

Tommy Vietor (20:08)

It's crazy.

Jon Favreau (20:08)

And then now, so it's like basically every. Yeah, I was taking it from the other point, which is that like, yeah, so now every time the President does an event in D.C. the President's like, no, I just don't leave my house. You have to come to me because I have this. This. Also, the White House has been breached plenty of times, either by intruders who jump over the fence or by the Salahis in 2009.

Jon Lovett (20:28)

Also, we live in a free society. Even when the Secret Service is talking about the Hilton Ballroom, like, there's always. The safest place the President could be is to never leave the White House again. But you do. And you figure out, you do the best you can. You try to secure places, you figure out compromises so that the President can go where he or she needs to go, host campaign events, do OTRs where they stop at random places because they don't think anybody knows. There's all kinds of steps and layers of security that are about the balance between the President being in a fortress and us being in a democracy. No, the answer to the Hilton Ballroom, being kind of stalked by one fucking asshole is not that the President only hosts from this point on game night only at his house.

Tommy Vietor (21:11)

It's just bunkers.

Jon Lovett (21:12)

It's ridiculous.

Jon Favreau (21:13)

Also, like, build your fucking ballroom if you want, man. Just do it legally. That's all we're saying.

Tommy Vietor (21:17)

Lindsey Graham's putting forward a bill to fucking fund it with taxpayer dollars then.

Jon Favreau (21:22)

Unbelievable, right? Like, if you want to, don't see

Jon Lovett (21:24)

him at the Grinder party.

Jon Favreau (21:28)

Ran out of alcohol. But it's another problem. But here's the thing. No one is like the ballroom problem is that he decided to bulldoze the East Wing without going through any kind of process. If you want to build your ballroom, do it legally. Like, go through the proper channels, you know, David Fahrenholz, the Times just had a piece today or a couple of days ago that the they gave. The Trump administration basically is building this thing with a secret no bid contract after inflating its value by three times. And the government is paying also not just fucking private donors. So, like, there's, there's a lot of problems. That's not just like, oh, no one will let him build anything it's like you just don't want you to build it illegally.

Jon Lovett (22:08)

Yeah, I don't want to build it at all, but. Yeah, no, legally, right?

Jon Favreau (22:12)

Legally would be bad. He has the power to do. And it's legal. Then he can do it. We can all come up, complain about it.

Jon Lovett (22:16)

Right, But. But the ballroom doesn't become less illegal because this horrible thing happened at the Hills.

Katie Porter (22:21)

Exactly.

Jon Favreau (22:21)

Exactly right. Republicans are also using the shooting to blame Democrats for not funding dhs, which oversees the Secret Service, whose employees won't be able to get paid after this week because they've been getting paid through Trump's executive order that only has so much money attached to it. Only issue there is that Democrats and Republicans in the Senate did already unanimously pass a bill to fund DHS a few weeks ago. It's the House that hasn't done anything with it because they're mad about ICE funding. You guys think that attack will fly? They're all doing this today.

Jon Lovett (22:50)

They're blaming Senate Republicans, Senate Republicans and Senate Democrats have a bill. They sent it over. And by the way, we're in the midst of what's supposed to be a process by which they pass that specific bill because they have another vehicle for the ICE funding. I think they just don't trust each other enough or they don't. They can't seem to get their shit together.

Jon Favreau (23:06)

The group be funded right now. People are getting paid right now.

Jon Lovett (23:10)

And by the way, on a path to. As much as we tried to stop it, Republicans in the House and Senate with 50 votes in the Senate funding ICE anyway. So there is no real excuse for this other than House Republicans can't get

Tommy Vietor (23:22)

their shit together again. In moments of scariness and tragedy, you got to pick your one cynical way you're trying to exploit the thing. You can't start with the ballroom and then go to Jimmy Kimmel and now you swerve back to DHS funding. I would have started at DHS funding and just hit that and tried to get a vote on it and got some funding, whether, you know it's on the merits or not. But no, this is like the entire conversation is about political rhetoric, not DHS funding.

Jon Lovett (23:45)

But they have. But this is the problem. They do have the votes. They're the reason the only. Like there's no other. The only path to funding DHS is through a vote in the House. That is the next thing. There's nothing on the table in the Senate. That's. It doesn't make any sense. I get blaming Jimmy Kimmel.

Jon Favreau (24:01)

Yeah, that's where we should have started that. Let's talk about that.

Tommy Vietor (24:03)

That guy's.

Jon Favreau (24:05)

Once it became clear from the shooter's manifesto and social media presence that he was motivated by opposition to Trump, the focus of the right wing reaction moved from the ballroom to the rhetoric on the left. Ballroom, actually, it's kind of died down now.

Tommy Vietor (24:18)

Right.

Jon Favreau (24:18)

We've moved past the ballroom now. Now we're big into the rhetoric on the left.

Tommy Vietor (24:22)

The ballroom blitz is over.

Guest/Correspondent (24:23)

Yeah.

Jon Favreau (24:23)

Just to give you a flavor of how understated the criticism has been, Senator Rick Scott of Florida said, quote, democrats want President Trump and Republicans murdered all across this country. Just normal. The latest round of this discourse reached its inevitable climax on Monday morning when Melania Trump tweeted out a condemnation of, quote, hateful and violent rhetoric from Jimmy Kimmel, apparently a reference to a joke made last Thursday night, days before the dinner, where Kimmel delivered a mock address to an imagined correspondence dinner. Here's what the joke, which no one had been talking about until after the dinner, sounded like in context.

Jimmy Kimmel (25:00)

I do have to ask, though, why do you hate windmills so much? Is it because they can still get turned on by being blown? Marco knows what I'm talking about. He's been there. But I do want to praise the potus. Look at how far you've come. Thirty years ago, you were just some rich guy on Jeffrey Epstein's private jet out of Teterboro. But you worked hard, you stayed friends, you shared some wonderful secrets, and because of that, you were able to fly on that plane seven more times. Dreams really do come true. Our first lady Melania is. Look at Melania. So beautiful. Mrs. Trump, you have a glow like an expectant widow. You know, Melania's birthday is on Sunday. That's right. She's planning to celebrate at home the same way she always does, looking out a window and whispering, what have I done?

Jon Favreau (25:52)

So shortly after Melania posted, her husband jumped in, referring to the sketch as a, quote, call to violence. That was pretty clear. That's, quote, beyond the pale. And demanding that Kimmel be fired. You guys think that Trump's latest attempt to fire Kimmel for a joke is gonna work this time?

Jon Lovett (26:07)

So the joke is that Melania doesn't like her husband and that he's quite old.

Jon Favreau (26:12)

Yeah. Andrew Egger at the Bulwark. He was like the trophy wife who won't be crushed when her rich old husband kicks the bucket. Trope is older than dirt. And I was like, yeah, that's sort of what it was.

Jon Lovett (26:21)

But I also think there's another line in there that is what really bothered her because there's a joke in there about Epstein introducing a lot I've seen in there to Trump. And it just like, man, you're taking another run at canceling Jimmy Kimmel. Like, dude, open the fucking straight of Hormuz. You know what I mean? Like, what are you doing here?

Tommy Vietor (26:40)

Cancel Hominy. Yeah. So Kimmel, just for more context, Kimmel did the fake speech because there was no comedian this year because Trump is scared of comedy or jokes about himself. So they had owes. The mentalist. Yeah, the mentalist, whatever he was doing.

Jon Favreau (26:51)

Big whiff. Yeah.

Tommy Vietor (26:53)

Didn't call this shot on this one.

Jon Favreau (26:54)

Well, he.

Jon Lovett (26:55)

He doesn't predict the future. He can read your mind in real time. That's not really on him.

Tommy Vietor (26:59)

Yeah, he's not.

Jon Lovett (27:00)

He's not a future.

Jon Favreau (27:01)

Like, there's a guest in room, right?

Jon Lovett (27:03)

That's true. I guess he could have read that guy's mind.

Tommy Vietor (27:05)

But just like, again, this is. It's all just so bad faith. It's like self evidently bad. A few weeks ago, Trump tweeted that he was glad that Bob Mueller was dead because, quote, he can no longer hurt innocent people. That feels tonally off. And Trump has made a similar joke to what Kimmel just said there. Like, last December, he did an event for members of Congress. Steve Scalise was there. Trump talked about going to visit Steve Scalise in the hospital after Scalise was shot. He said, steve, I want you to know your wife was crying her eyes out, which means she really loves you. And then he goes, I know many wives that wouldn't be crying literally the same joke, same borsch.

Jon Lovett (27:38)

Bell got him.

Tommy Vietor (27:39)

Like you got Hardy Har. You got him secretly hates the husband. And so, like, okay, you're really offended by this. But again, like, I. If I'm Kimmel, I'm a little worried because your fate is determined by some executive that maybe is working on a merger in Disney or some shit and, like, decides at some point that you're not worth it.

Jon Favreau (27:58)

You know who gets to complain about that joke is anyone who is complaining about it after he made it before the dinner. Like, if you. No one, no one raised any objections afterwards. And remember, Donald Trump was still. There were still two attempted assassinations when he made the joke. So it's not like anyone drew a connection because probably because the two assassination attempts were like 600 days before he made the joke, but, like, no one said anything when he made it. And someone just, you know, someone Found the clip after the thing picked up and were like, all right, a thing to be angry about. Let's do it. Let's go.

Jon Lovett (28:29)

Yeah, there's a, There's a real. In the wake of these things, there's this like, nobody. The Internet, we've all like, we're such a kind of navel gazing and kind of like, we have such like an immaturity about us that, like, we're not allowed to have any kind of uncomfortable feeling, like this is just bad or that it's more pleasant to be mad than to be scared or to be upset, whatever it is. And so people just go casting about for the thing to kind of make them feel the normal feeling they feel in politics, which is just antipathy towards their political opponents.

Jon Favreau (29:00)

I just, like, we went through this, of course, when Charlie Kirk was assassinated and they all did the. We have to take the temperature down and the left's violent rhetoric, stuff like that. And let's say at that point, you wanted to give them. Because, okay, maybe they've all. Maybe they want to bring the rhetoric down too. Right? And maybe, maybe this is a good faith. Just bear with me. Maybe this is like a good faith objection here. And they're going to, they're going to really try. After that, the president called for members of Congress to be tried for treason, put to death. Amplified calls for their execution. Literally said they should be hung. This was over the video of the illegal orders video. Remember, George Washington would have hung them. Celebrates the deaths of Rob Reiner and Bob Mueller. Stephen Miller told ICE agents they have full immunity to do whatever they want. Two of them, a couple of them killed two Americans. Then the administration, multiple people in the administration, smeared them knowingly false, charged that they were domestic terrorists. And then Donald Trump said, threatened to annihilate an entire civilization.

Tommy Vietor (30:04)

And also, even at Charlie Kirk's own funeral, Erica Kirk, like a, like, forgave his enemy, the shooter. And Trump was like, I don't. I hate my opponents. I hate my enemies.

Jon Favreau (30:12)

It's just, it's like, you know, what.

Tommy Vietor (30:14)

Effort to take their tone. Rhetoric down.

Jon Favreau (30:16)

And just, just the rhetoric either. Like, he pardons violent criminals.

Tommy Vietor (30:20)

He.

Jon Favreau (30:20)

He posts snuff videos of blowing up boats of fishermen, fucking blew up a school in Iran. Has not even apologized or anything about that. I mean, it's just like the president and his party and the administration have done and continue to do awful, evil, monstrous things that has led to like countless death and sufferings. And we get to say that. We also get to say that they should be removed from power through purely peaceful and legal means. Like, you can say both those things. We have the right to say the first thing. We have an obligation to say the second thing. Both those things can live together.

Jon Lovett (30:51)

Yeah, like, fundamentally, political violence is wrong. And it's wrong because it doesn't just silence the person that they're trying to kill. It silences the entire society. It silences democracy. It is an authoritarian act, even for. Even when people claim they're doing it for whatever their justifications may be, it's an authoritarian act. And by the same token, the motivations of one shooter cannot be a way to silence the people who may share those views, because it's not their fault that some random asshole on the Internet decided to take a shot at the President. It's especially galling to have them claiming that the left is responsible for all of this rhetoric when they. I remember when it's hard to take

Jon Favreau (31:27)

it serious this time around, I was like, I can't even take it seriously for a second because you people are so fucking phony. After the Charlie Kirk thing, after everything you did since then, like, it's so phony.

Jon Lovett (31:37)

I remember when Donald Trump was First running in 2016, I remember seeing this speech live, and he said, hillary wants to essentially abolish the Second Amendment and if she gets to pick her judges, nothing you can do, folks. Although the Second Amendment people, maybe there is. I don't know. And because this was new and we were young and naive, I remember being so fucking, like, gutted to see this person say that and see how many people apologized for it, said it wasn't what he meant, made all kinds of excuses for him. You can draw a straight line to him from that all the way to the insurrection. And I feel like we have. We have been to this. We have been consistent. Political violence is abhorrent and wrong. It is wrong on the right, it is wrong on the left. It is stupid when people think it is justified. It is embarrassing and wrong when people apologize for it or try to justify it or become anthropologists for it. And it is wrong when the President of the United States especially, is someone who has encouraged political violence for years. And the fact that there are a lot of Republicans who would like to point the finger at fucking Chris Murphy or whoever else for telling the truth about Donald Trump but can't look in their own house is part of why we got here.

Jon Favreau (32:43)

Just like just one person on the right I would take seriously if they said, you know what? Like, there's some pretty bad rhetoric coming out of Donald Trump's mouth in this administration. And Donald Trump has been pretty bad on some of this. And also there's some incendiary rhetoric on

Tommy Vietor (32:57)

the left as well.

Jon Favreau (32:58)

And I think we should, you know, even if one person said that I would maybe take them seriously, but none of them even try, none of them even address the fact that Donald Trump says any of that shit. So whatever. Mike Johnson sort of just gave up the game today. I don't know if you saw that quote in his interview today on Fox when he was talking about this. And then he said, I hope voters remember this in the fall. You've got to keep the grownups in charge. And that's the Republicans, basically. I don't want to put this, hey, we're doing this because we think maybe this can help us win the midterms.

Jon Lovett (33:23)

Got it.

Jon Favreau (33:23)

So I just want you to know

Jon Lovett (33:24)

I definitely hope the the assassin loses his congressional race.

Host/Announcer (33:27)

Yeah, me too.

Jon Favreau (33:37)

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Host/Announcer (34:47)

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Tommy Vietor (35:04)

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Jon Favreau (35:57)

One reaction that was notable, if unfortunately not surprising, was the absolute explosion of conspiracy theories about, quote, what really happened. Our DC correspondent, a crooked Matt Berg, got a hold of data showing that there were 450,000 Twitter posts containing the words conspiracy, hoax, staged or false flag in the 24 hours after the shooting, which is almost as many as right after Butler. Is this just the new normal? And why do you guys think so many people want to entertain the notion that this may have somehow been staged?

Tommy Vietor (36:27)

I think it's the old normal too. I mean, there's something in America's DNA that just makes us distrustful of government and concentrated power and prone to believe in conspiracy theories. I think it is a feature, not a bug, of American life. The founders of our country believed in conspiracy theories about British plots to do things. There was Masonic temples. The Catholic conspiracy theories were around forever. And also like, those are coming back on top of, yeah, they're coming back. The US government has given people ample reason to question official narratives, from the JFK assassination to the lies about Vietnam to cointelpro to the Iraq war. And then more recently, you have QAnon, which is obviously bullshit and crazy and has a thousand offshoots that are insane. But the Jeffrey Epstein scandal I think made people feel like, huh, maybe they weren't so wrong. And so you take that American DNA, you sprinkle on some social media algorithms and some news outlets that make money off this stuff and are like seeding it all. And it just feels inevitable. And so I think on a human level, a conspiracy theory makes you feel like you have a unified theory to explain why bad things happen. That isn't the world is chaotic and out of our control, and that's just the way it is. And it just makes you feel like, oh, that's the One thing, okay. Like now I have, I have some sort of control over this when you really don't.

Jon Favreau (37:52)

Yeah. And I was thinking it's like instead of trying to, to frame it as either I should believe conspiracy theories or I shouldn't or I should trust the government, I shouldn't just take like each one as it is. It's like I'm just trying to think about staging this fake assassination attempt. Like, how does it work? What is the. And also like, what is the benefit here? Like, he gets a five point bump in the polls that goes away in a few weeks and the judge in the ballroom case feels bad and then dismisses the lawsuit. And that's worth risking his own life and the lives of the people around him. I just, I'm not sure the juice is worth the squeeze on this one. On the staging, the attempt also, I'm not sure quite how you do it. The guy's from California. He's been posting things about opposition to Trump for like a couple years now. That's a long. I was going to say that's a long. That's a long game. It's a long game.

Jon Lovett (38:44)

Yeah, man. The, the, like, I think everything Tommy said is right, but as with everything else, like, people are more isolated. They are like that. The out. When you start seeing one conspiracy theory, you start to see others and it just feeds that worldview and there's not enough natural kind of checks against it, whether it's people seeing the news on their television just happen upon it and people having tighter social circles, people having more friends. So I just think there is this conspiratorial kind of the Internet is conspiratorial. Social media is fundamentally conspiratorial. It's why it rewards the right more than it does the left. It feeds a kind of anger and an animosity and a loneliness and a paranoia and a sense that everything is happening to you and that you have no place in it.

Tommy Vietor (39:25)

Sarah Longwell and I were talking about this on the Sunday pod we did with like, people are now in focus groups saying, well, I'm a big conspiracy person. It's not like a thing you're ashamed of or like, you know, kind of like walking on eggshells around. It's like, oh, people, I love conspiracy theories. It's like part of their identity.

Jon Favreau (39:40)

Now then I guess I would just say for folks who believe that on this one, think about it this way. And a couple other people have made this point. So it's not new. But Donald Trump, would he have Rather the night gone, how it did, or would he rather have gotten to give his speech where he had the press captive for a full hour and was going to just tear into them so that everyone could hear and make all those jokes? You know, like, he was really excited to do what he was excited to do.

Tommy Vietor (40:07)

This outcome is probably more beneficial.

Jon Favreau (40:08)

Well, he wants to. He's. He's excited about it. He wants to. He wants to reschedule it for 30 days so we can go give this speech.

Tommy Vietor (40:15)

Yell at him again.

Jon Favreau (40:15)

Yeah, I just. I think. I don't know if this is the. This is the best outcome. Before we move on, we should address the other incident of attempted political violence in D.C. on Saturday night, at an after party hosted by Substack, independent journalists Michael Tracy and Jim Acosta got into some kind of a shouting match about Miami Herald reporter Julie K. Brown, whose reporting broke open the Epstein scandal. Speaking of conspiracies. Not Julie Brown, but the Epstein scandal. Afterward, Tracy tweeted, quote, jim Acosta threatened to fight me tonight at the substack party. To which Acosta replied, that's because you are trash. Tracy then posted maybe one of the greatest tweets of all time. Quote, still have no idea whatever went on with Trump tonight. Just know Jim at Acosta threw a fucking hissy fit. Jim, meet me in front of the Hampton Inn. Then he posted a picture of the Hampton Inn. First, the address of the Hampton Inn.

Tommy Vietor (41:10)

No, first the address, including the area code and the country.

Jon Lovett (41:14)

Oh, good.

Tommy Vietor (41:15)

Then he followed up with a photo of the facade.

Jon Favreau (41:18)

And then the caption was, jim, I'm literally waiting for you right now, you piece of shit.

Jon Lovett (41:24)

So then Julie K. Brown posted that Jim Acosta was a total gentleman.

Jon Favreau (41:28)

Yes. So it does sound like. I mean, Michael Tracy sounds like he's a piece of shit.

Tommy Vietor (41:33)

So Julie Brown, she said that Michael Tracy, she's like, tweeted criticism of him before she said he was. She asked or wondered aloud on Twitter if he was paid to harass and smear Epstein's survivor. So I think he asked her about that. But Tracy has also attacked her reporting and accused her of fabricating quotes. So a lot of, like, the underlying dispute is about the reliability of claims made by some of the victims, especially Virginia Giuffre. So I don't. God knows what they were talking about. But Julie Brown says that Tracy was harassing her. Jim Acosta steps in to try to get him to calm down, and that led to what I think are some of the funniest tweets in the history of Twitter, like Mimi in Ohio style. I'm waiting for you outside the Hampton Inn is so funny to me.

Jon Favreau (42:16)

Yeah, also like, on that everyone, everything else is so serious going on. Like, it's just, just a constant, relentless. I don't know what's going on with Trump tonight, but you are trash. You pussy. Meet me in front of the Hampton.

Tommy Vietor (42:31)

And then, then later, Olivia Giuliani, who's like a 23 year old woman political activist, she feels like, hey, since you like picking on women so much, why don't you pick on me next time? And Michael Tracy responded to her, okay, let's do it. You want to meet up somewhere tonight? Like, he was trying to fight her. So now this guy's threatening to beat up this Gen Z woman. Then he later said, who are you sending in your stead at? Olivia Giuliana, I would have loved to give you the nice beatdown you requested. No holds barred.

Jon Favreau (42:58)

Do you think he's still at the Hampton Inn right now, just waiting for anyone to show up who might have a substack or any. He's just waiting for an influencer to walk by, you know, kick their ass?

Jon Lovett (43:07)

I will say, I used to be.

Jon Favreau (43:10)

We're like, oh, how do, how do people get radicalized and do crazy things? I don't know.

Jon Lovett (43:14)

Yeah, we gotta follow the, figure out how do we get Tracy, how to get Tracy off the Hampton Inn pipeline. But yeah, like, I remember when we, like we were working on dinner back in the day, it was like, it's a little bit weird. Like, all the press is there. It feels a little too chummy. Like, you know, it feels like is politics just a show? And now all these years later, it's like, you know what? It had its problems, but like, there was something good about people being able to be in one space. But then I think, you know what we were really missing? That, like 1960s, 70s, 80s, coked out people who don't have an Internet, so the only time they finally get to fight each other is in person. And there's like, Gore Vidal's getting slugged in the face. Norman Mailer's there making a little quip like that. Come on, let's get back to that.

Jon Favreau (43:54)

But again, it does sound like the in person portion of this fight seemed much more boring than what we got online. So even, even that, like, it seems like there was a little altercation in person, but the Hamptons don't want to fight anybody, right? Because it's like, but this, this, no one would be talking about this without the Beautiful Hampton in posting.

Jon Lovett (44:13)

Yeah. I also think it's worth saying the fact that. Yes. Like, what a confrontation. It seems like, based on what everyone was saying, that Tracy wouldn't let Julie K. Brown walk away from him. So he's basically kind of yelling at a woman at a party about the Epstein files.

Tommy Vietor (44:29)

Yeah.

Jon Favreau (44:30)

Wild.

Tommy Vietor (44:31)

Also, you guys don't want to fight anybody. Best case, you win the fight and then you go to jail. Worst case, you lose the fight and then you're severely injured. None of you just stop it. Stop pretending you're fighting anybody. Fighting is not cool. You're adults.

Jon Lovett (44:45)

Movies make punches seem like movies. And punches, I think, give people a bad impression of punches.

Tommy Vietor (44:51)

Yes. What will happen is you'll throw one punch, then you'll grapple and then you'll be exhausted and you'll fall on the floor and the cops will arrest you.

Jon Favreau (44:57)

Yeah.

Tommy Vietor (44:58)

Have fun.

Jon Favreau (44:59)

All right. Well, there are other things happening in the world, believe it or not, as Trump's interviewers over the weekend tried to remind the president. Here's his answer to Fox News Jackie Heinrich in a phone interview about why he called off Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner's trip to Pakistan for a new round of Iran talks. And where things stand right now, we're

Guest/Correspondent (45:16)

not doing this anymore. We have all the cards. If they want to talk, they can come to us or they can call us. You know, there is a telephone. We have nice secure lines. We've wiped out, largely wiped out the opposition. If we ever had to keep going, would wipe them out very quickly. The rest of it, the remainder, and I hope we don't have to do that, but it may be possible that we do. You know, they have no cohesion. They have no, their leadership is very, very strange. Sometimes you don't have any idea who the hell you're dealing with.

Jon Favreau (45:47)

So in a separate interview with Fox, Marco Rubio echoed that last point, saying, quote, unfortunately, the hardliners with an apocalyptic vision of the future have the ultimate power in that country. Seeming to indicate that the new ayatollah and his loyalists are stopping the more moderate bloc from offering any concessions on Iran's nuclear program. The state of play right now, American officials say, is that Iran is offering to reopen the Strait of Hormuz in exchange for an end to our blockade of their ports and punting the issue of Iran's nuclear dust that was known as the more than 900 pounds of highly enriched uranium to a later date. German Chancellor Frederick Mertz said on Monday that Iran is, quote, humiliating the United States with how it's approached the negotiations. Tough to disagree. Tommy, where does this leave us?

Tommy Vietor (46:29)

Friedrich Mertz. Yeah, this makes me triggered on a lot of levels. Back in the day, we would talk about how there were politics in Iran and diversity of opinion, and moderates and, and hardliners and Republicans would be like, you're so naive. They all chant, death to America. They all hate you. And now it's like Rubio's whining about the hardliners killing off hopes of a nuclear deal with the moderates. Like, yeah, buddy, well, maybe because Trump pulled out of the JCPOA in 2018, and then you started bombing them with the Israelis, and you bombed them during talks, and then you killed the Supreme Leader and then you killed Ali Larjani, who was one of the negotiators. And now the irgc, the military, is going to grabbing more power, just like literally everyone predicted. So now it sounds like we're left trying to negotiate a deal that is just about a strait of Hormuz, which is now closed, but was open before the war started. And all the nuclear issues are unresolved. The 900 pounds of highly enriched uranium is just sitting there. The Iranian military has lots of ballistic missiles. They're repairing the launchers that they use to fire them. And the US Is, like, kind of relatively protected from the economic fallout. Like, our gas has gone up, but not a lot of. But, you know, factories are shutting down in Asia. Luhansa canceled 20,000 flights because of fuel shortages this summer. Yet countries rationing energy. And if this keeps going, there's going to be recessions in Asia, Europe, the Gulf. You could see higher food prices down the road in Africa, if not shortages. So, like, yes, this is humiliating for the U.S. as Mertz says. Not just, though, because J.D. vance is sitting on a tarback in Islamabad, but because Trump has started a war and he has no ability to end it. We're losing it.

Jon Favreau (48:07)

I noticed in reading some of the pieces about this that the US or the Trump administration officials and Trump himself have not yet rejected this plan from Iran on opening the Strait of Hormuz and ending the blockade and then kicking the nuclear negotiations down the road. And I was starting to wonder, I could see an outcome, knowing Trump, where they make that deal. He opens the. Opens the straight and then says, and we got our eyes on the nuclear dust anyway, and we're gonna try anything with that dust.

Jon Lovett (48:39)

They don't even know what's gonna happen.

Jon Favreau (48:40)

And we got all the cards, and we're gonna negotiate real strongly later. And you know what? We've destroyed the regime. Regime change. We've destroyed all their missiles. Not true. We've done all this stuff and we're gonna. And now they made a big deal cause the blockade hurt them so much they couldn't deal anymore. And now we control the strait and the straits open and we won.

Jon Lovett (48:57)

That's a lesson from Donald Trump for German Chancellor Friedrich Mertz, which is no one can humiliate you without your consent.

Tommy Vietor (49:04)

It is, yeah, I think he's going to try to walk away from this thing.

Jon Favreau (49:07)

Yeah, I could see that happening. Although I guess also part of the deal was that Iran was like if the Strait of Hormuz opens in this deal, they're still going to charge the

Tommy Vietor (49:16)

tolls open for them. Means you go on the route we tell you to go and you pay us a fee which so it's actually

Jon Favreau (49:20)

worse than it was before.

Tommy Vietor (49:22)

Everything will be worse than it was before. They will more revenue to rebuild all their nuclear infrastructure and all their military infrastructure. And by the way, like there's some reports today that Iran retains two thirds of its air force. The bulk of its even that like it, you know, it's just a mess.

Jon Favreau (49:36)

Even that was all right. When we come back, love it. Talks to California gubernatorial candidate Katie Porter. Pod Save America is brought to you by himss. ED is way more common than most guys think. Millions of guys deal with it at some point. And that's exactly why HIMSS offers a straightforward way to handle it. HIMSS connects you with licensed healthcare providers online, giving you simple access to legitimate ED treatment options from home. No awkward appointments, no pharmacy lines. Just complete a simple online intake and a provider will review your information to determine if treatment is right for you. If prescribed, your treatment ships directly to your door in discreet packaging that includes sildenafil, also known as generic for vitamin viagra. Available through hims at up to 95% less than the brand named version. And if that option isn't right for you, there are additional treatment options available so you can find what works best for your body. It's straightforward, transparent and designed to make getting care feel easy. To get simple online access to personalized affordable care for ED, weight loss and more, visit hims.com crooked that's hims.com crooked for your free online visit hims.com crooked prescription required. See website for details and important safety information. Sildenafil is the generic version of Viagra. Viagra is a registered trademark of Viatra Specialty llc, llc. HIMSS is not affiliated with or Endorsed by Beatrice.

Jon Lovett (51:00)

She is a former member of Congress from Orange county and a candidate for governor. The real single mom of Orange County, Katie Porter. Welcome back to the show.

Katie Porter (51:07)

Great to be back.

Jon Lovett (51:08)

So I want you to know something. I'm an undecided voter, so this is an interview, but I'm also a constituent. First of all, what have you learned on the campaign trail that it's surprised you so far?

Katie Porter (51:20)

I would say how just kind of demoralized people are about politics. The biggest opponent in this race, and there's been a lot of speculation about who's going to win and who's winning and who's not winning. Actually, the biggest opponent in this race has been apathy. Until a couple weeks ago, people would stop me and say, like, you're running for governor, you're great. But, like, I like Gavin. And I would be like, hey, guess what? Like, I'm not running against Gavin. Gavin's term limited. Even now, I think people feel like they look toward politics. What they often see is what's coming out of Washington, and that is upsetting. And so then they don't want to think about politics at all. But from the standpoint of a Californian, this is a huge decision for our state. And so one of the things I think that surprised me is having someone who's been in a swing district year after, you know, every two years, swing district, like voters statewide are not as tuned in to. We need to make decisions. It's okay to vet and choose among candidates. And so I've been a little surprised. In Orange county, everyone was like, I don't know, it's you or the. I'm not sure like it's you or the Republicans. Persuade me. And at statewide, it feels a little bit more like, tell me what to do. And I think, like, we need to flex our political muscles and look at candidates and listen to them and think about what the moment calls for and make choices. And I think Californians are a little bit out of practice at that.

Jon Lovett (52:45)

Yeah, it feels like there's two big reasons. One is Trump sucks up all the oxygen. And the other is the problems that are California based are actually not brought about by Republicans. As a Democratic state with a Democratic legislator, we've had a Democratic governor. Our cities are run by Democrats. So let's talk about each part of it. Let's start with Trump. Governor Newsom told Mark Leibowitz that he would encourage his successor to meet with Trump and build a relationship because it starts out interpersonal and that Trump might really want that relationship. To stick it to Newsom. What do you think about that? Would you head to D.C. take one of those smiling pictures like Mamdani and Karen Bass?

Katie Porter (53:27)

Well, I would definitely head to D.C. and one of the things I would head there for is not just Trump, but to meet with a congressional delegate, because I saw this when I was in Congress. Our state government, whether that's the governor or the legislature in California, needs a much tighter partnership with our congressional delegation because our biggest problems here, like housing, are not the biggest priorities of our congressional delegation. That's a mismatch. So definitely go to D.C. in terms of Trump, like, I think you always start out. I knocked on a lot of doors in Huntington beach, and I would approach Trump the same way I approached a Huntington beach voter. Hi, I'm Katie Porter. And see where it goes from there, because if you can have a productive relationship. I don't. I'm not real confident it's going to last, given what Trump's doing. But I took Governor Newsom's advice here to be get a positive thing going for as long as you possibly can, and maybe we can make some progress on things like aid for fire victims that we have been waiting too long on. That said, it's pretty likely that Trump is going to hurt Californians, and you are going to have to be ready to punch back.

Jon Lovett (54:27)

So there's been a few different approaches by different Democratic governors. You have Newsom, I think, has been the most publicly pugnacious. You have Pritzker, that has, I think, done similarly, but also, I think had a. A lawsuit and kind of focusing a bit more on the courts. You've had others that, like Gretchen Whitmer, that have at least publicly tried to be more conciliatory. Is there a model that you think looks the best, that works the best?

Katie Porter (54:54)

I don't think you can have an answer to that because you have a president whose main characteristic is wild unpredictability. So I think most of us get up every day and be like, what are we getting today? So I think you can't know for sure. But I will say my time in Congress, I think I really showed all of the ability to have all of those different responses. So there were Republican members of the delegation, like Doug Lamolfa, who passed away not long ago, that I did two bills with Doug and passed them through the House. There were other Republicans, Darrell Issa, like, I just can't get along with that guy, and I don't want to. Don't feel bad about that. Just can't. Can't find that, can't find that opening space. So I think you have to kind of be willing to adapt to what Trump is throwing at you because it's, I think it's gonna, we see him changing on the, on the minute.

Jon Lovett (55:43)

So let's talk about some of your proposals you pitched. Getting rid of income taxes for California is making up to $100,000. Now, for reasons that people outside of California may not know, we have a proposition system. Property taxes are limited in a way the governor can't change. And what that's meant is because we have progressive taxes here year to year, there's huge swings in how much revenue the state has. Boom and bust, boom and bust. Wouldn't narrowing the tax base make that problem much worse?

Katie Porter (56:14)

The opposite, actually. I think so. First, let's talk about progressive taxes. We have progressive income taxes in California, but we actually, because of Prop 13, have absolutely not progressive property tax. In fact, if you buy something and then it appreciates wildly, you get the same benefit as somebody who buys something and it stays flat. So we, we're not progressive there. But more importantly, what I'm really interested in is the fact that we do not have a progressive corporate tax. If you're a corporation in California and you make a dollar in hard earned profit, you pay 8.84% on that dollar. If you're a corporation and you make $500 million in profit, you pay 8.84%. So we could actually adjust that just slightly and actually provide some tax relief for those really corporations that are struggling. Some are big, some are small, but they're struggling. And in the most profitable years, we could say to corporations, you had a banger of a year, you're going to pay just a little bit more. Because that's what we say to Californians. You got a big bonus, you got more income, you're going to pay a little bit more. So that's the first thing. The second thing is almost all of the volatility in our revenue system comes from the tippy tippy top. It comes from capital gains, not from variation in the income.

Jon Lovett (57:32)

But the, the reliable part is the income part. There's gonna be, we, you will have, the taxes will be applying more.

Katie Porter (57:38)

So we get over $100 million in income tax every year. The people paying under $100,000 generate about 8 billion of that. So it's not a huge, huge fraction. And I think we can safely say we are gonna have corporations that make a profit every year. I mean, I've pretty much never seen all Corporations lose money. And so I think that's about it. But the bigger reason to do it is, look, there's. Everybody's talking about affordability, to which I say, welcome. This has really been my life's work. Families in bankruptcy, people victims of predatory lending, families facing foreclosure, pharmaceutical prices. All of the work I've done my whole career. But a lot of what I see candidates doing, not just in this race, but across the country, is describing the problem to voters. Voters know they are already having trouble making ends meet. So affordability might be like a new talking point for some politicians, but it's been in people's lives for a long time. And the second thing is pointing the finger at everybody else for affordability. It's the fault of pharma, it's the fault of fossil fuel, it's the fault of. Now, look, if you've seen me with or without a whiteboard, you know I'm all about holding those people to account. But government also can take a big step to give people more money. And so if we think it takes $100,000 to have to support a family in California, if we think that's what it takes, then government can give people more of their money and be part of solving that affordability crisis.

Jon Lovett (59:07)

Right, but aren't we just downstream of the problem? Like, California had an income tax when we were always an expensive state, but when the state was more affordable. As of right now, if we keep on this trajectory, housing's getting more expensive, schools getting more expensive. I know you have policies for all of that, but the reason California is unaffordable is not because we have a broad tax base in which everybody pays into the system. It's because California has a whole bunch of other problems, some caused by the state, that are long. That hit long before you get to the tax code. Aren't we. Are we like, kind of just sort of. Well, shit, California is way too expensive. Nobody likes taxes. Let's get rid of taxes.

Katie Porter (59:44)

I don't think that's right. I think we're. And I think we're actually agreeing here, which is that it's not one or the other. You. The biggest problem Californians have is the cost of housing. That is the biggest slice of virtually everyone's budget. That's why housing has been my number one issue, not only in this race for more than a year, but in the Senate race. I'm focusing on child care cost. Why? Because if housing isn't your biggest expense, it's probably because you've got little Kids and you've got childcare. I'm focusing on college tuition. That's a really big piece. So you can't nibble around the edges of affordability. But look, we are also facing population loss. We are not retaining our own working age people. Our state is kind of demographically aging pretty rapidly. If you look at the 10 cities in the United States that have the most, that are most aging most rapidly, like six or seven of them are in California. And there are big cities. So we do need to say to people who are coming out of college, who are coming out of apprenticeship programs, who are like, like five years, 10 years on the job, stay here, stay here, because we're gonna let you. And they're often earlier in their earnings. They're often those below 100,000 people. They've got a lot of student loan debt. They've got a lot of childcare expense. They're the ones who are suffering on housing. Right. So it's not an either or. I think it's an all of the above. But I do think it's really important for government to own directly some of what we put on families. If you're making $50,000 a year in California and when you're a mom, a single mom with a kid, let me go back to my JP Morgan Chase Jamie Dimon example from the whiteboard from years ago. You need every penny. And so the state should do that, should help you have what it takes to live. And so it's not to take away from all those other problems. It's just to say, like, we need all of the above and we need to really get out California's reputation as a place that supports the next generation of workers, the next generation of Californians come here for a better future.

Jon Lovett (61:43)

If you got every proposal you have put forward through, would the California state government be collecting more revenue or less revenue?

Katie Porter (61:51)

So on the free two free years of college, which is one of my proposals, so we have two free years at community college under Gavin Newsom. Big shout out to him on that. I think it's someone who's a parent of a 17 year old with a lot of B minuses. Transformative, okay. To know that I have that option for my kid. So I would do two tuition free years at a csu, a UC or a Cal Poly and then no taxes on families earning less than 100,000. Those two I can make up and have leftover with a little touch up from 8.84 to maybe nine and a half or ten on the best. The most Profitable years on our corporations. The child care is a little different. The child care is going to be something that is bigger. It's longer term. It's probably going to come through a mix of tax revenue. It could be a small payroll tax, it could be partly through corporation taxes. But let me be clear, free child care is not something I'm doing for kids. It's not something I'm even doing for parents or grandparents who are trying, tired of being the free childcare. Childcare grows our economy and that's what California needs.

Jon Lovett (62:55)

Yeah, well, that's the reason I asked. That is, look, I love California and you can tax the fuck out of me, I'm happy to pay it. I'm not leaving. I like that.

Katie Porter (63:02)

You and Tom Steyer.

Jon Lovett (63:03)

Yeah, me and.

Katie Porter (63:03)

Yeah, or apparently not because he said, he said me not paying tax, me paying more taxes is not the solution.

Jon Lovett (63:09)

So, so here's the. Right, but here's the problem, right? Because the politics of this are good old fashioned. People don't like taxes and they don't like billionaires. But right now, California, we collect more per person than every state besides New York. We have the highest tax, top marginal rate of any state, highest gas tax, it's $10 every time people fill up their tank. We have the worst roads in the country, highest sales tax in the country. We're losing population to places like Texas. If you look at that, you'd say, you know what, this state doesn't have a revenue problem. And that may be kind of something that doesn't play well with certain parts of the Democratic base. But the reality is what we have is a deeper structural issue with how our government is run and where the money is going. And that to me is what we need the next governor to focus on. And to be honest, watching that debate, the two Republicans who would be a fucking disaster seem more excited about that and more energized about that than the Democrats.

Katie Porter (63:59)

So let me tell you where I got. Because I think, you know, I'm known as a straight shooter. So let me be really straight with everyone.

Jon Lovett (64:04)

Hit me.

Katie Porter (64:05)

Do you know where I got the idea of knowing no California state income taxes on people earning less than $100,000?

Jon Lovett (64:13)

Where'd you get it?

Katie Porter (64:14)

Steve Hilton. So the reason I tell you that is, I mean, I think Steve's got crazy pants ideas coming out of his mouth most of the time, but I'm looking for good ideas. And the fact that Steve said it, I thought about what that would have meant for me early in my career. I thought about the person who's working as a cashier at my Albertsons and what it would mean for them to not feel like they're paying in to a state that right now they don't feel like they're getting what they need out of. So I also think that's part of it is like, you're saying you have to be willing to look at spending. You have to make spending decisions, period. Like, and we have been sort of. When Gavin Newsom ran in 2018, and really, he gave me so much help on the campaign trail, he came to campaign for me, but look, it was a different moment. And he basically said, we'll have this, we'll have that, we'll have X, we'll have Y, we'll have Q. You can have a free pony. Like, everybody can have everything. That's not where we are right now. So I am absolutely willing to make tough decisions. One of the things I've said is, for example, on homelessness, we've got to put more money into prevention. Why? Because homelessness prevention programs take about $6,000 to prevent someone from losing a home. Permanent supportive housing after someone's been on the streets for six months, that's $850,000. So I'm absolutely looking at where do we need to shift our spending to give taxpayers more bang for a buck. When I ran in Orange County, I don't think I've ever seen Orange County Republicans more mad at me than when I had lawn signs that said Katie Porter, Taxpayer Advocate. Because they're like, you can't be a taxpayer advocate, you're a Democrat. But we should all be taxpayer advocates. People should feel like they're getting bang for their buck. And Democrats should own that and lean into that. And it doesn't mean you're taking services away from people. It's the contrary. You're saying, is this spending actually doing what we want it to? And so if it's not, we got to redirect it to somewhere it is.

Jon Lovett (66:14)

So let's talk about how we like our roads, California roads. They are the worst roads in the country. We also have the highest gas tax in the country. We spend 2.5 times per mile than the average state. What do you think explains that? What would you do to fix that? Like, let's. I wanna talk about the reform aspect of what we need the next governor to do.

Katie Porter (66:33)

So I did not support the gas tax in 2018. And so as we hear everybody sort of say, like, this is all Democrats fault, it's like, I didn't support that gas tax. And the reason I didn't support it back in 2018, that extra 12 cents was it's deeply regressive. It hurts low income people who have to make long commutes with older cars. You know, I got the 2010 Sienna. It's not getting good mileage. So I don't. I think we have to be careful about doubling down on that approach. This is a question of what do you do with your general fund? What are your priorities? California roads also have improved in many parts of California. I don't think that people in Los Angeles feel like they've improved, no. But I will tell you, my roads in Orange county are great. And we've seen lots of projects and lots of improvements.

Guest/Correspondent (67:22)

So.

Katie Porter (67:23)

So there's also, like, it's a. It's a big state. We've got a lot of places that are doing things that are different. And so I think one of the things I also bring to the race is like, I'm not running to be the governor of Los Angeles or the governor of the Bay Area. Orange County's the sixth most populous county in the United States. San Diego county is the fifth most populous county in the United States. And these places get treated like political backwater. So to Californians in every part and pocket of the state, you've got to look everywhere. And when you have one city that's not getting it done on any given issue, sometimes it's the city and you've got to think about how to have those conversations and figure out what's going wrong there.

Jon Lovett (68:01)

On education, again, another area where California is spending a ton per pupil, there's been improvement over the years. It's not a totally bad story, but we're clearly still not getting the value we should be in our system. Part of that is we have again, a very convoluted bureaucratic system. Governor Newsom in January put forward a set of reforms that have been on the table for literally decades. The Board of Education and the Department of Education are separate and go up to different places. This is a proposal that would have more authority and accountability flow up to the governor. Do you support that proposal?

Katie Porter (68:37)

I definitely support figuring out sort of having one place where the buck stops.

Jon Lovett (68:41)

But why don't you want it to stop with you?

Katie Porter (68:43)

Why don't I?

Jon Lovett (68:43)

Yeah, let's have it stop with the governor.

Katie Porter (68:45)

So I don't have any problem with it stopping from me, but I do think that the governor needs to decide if they're going to do this. And this may be a decision the next governor doesn't get to make. Right. Because Newsom's made the proposal. We'll see if it gets through, is the governor has to set more steady educational policy. This is one argument for it being with the governor, because one of the things we see with educational policy being diffused through those different agencies you mentioned, plus the legislature. Right. Plus the governor, is we change educational policy every two years. So, and I've seen this as a public school parent, first it's two years of phonics, then it's, never mind it's coming core math, then it's, never mind it's remedial this, then never mind it's textbook reform, then never mind it's class size. One of the things I want to do as governor is decide what we're going to try for eight years and then really decide at the outset how do we measure this. And I think states that have made progress on education have done that. I think there's a lot to be said about looking at the state level at where do we lose people and we can never get them back. So if you're not reading fluently by age 7 or 8, we never get you there. That's just about brain development. If you don't make that jump from Algebra one to Algebra two, you are not going to have any of those. Stem, engineering, even a lot of the building trades careers are not going to be open to you. And that's a place where the state could really concentrate its resources. We change things up with the local control funding formula several years ago. What we haven't done is go back and seen whether it's worked or not.

Jon Lovett (70:17)

So. But isn't this an easy one? Like, what is the reason to not just say, hell yeah, it's stupid how we do it. I don't want to have all the accountability diffused. Like, we have a bunch of laws in California that distribute responsibility haphazardly. It's true in our city. We have this ridiculous city and county. It's true in our. I want a governor who's gonna be like, I need this authority because I have a limited amount of time. Like, these are great reforms. I'd go further. Like, I don't. I don't understand the hedge.

Katie Porter (70:44)

No, it's. It's just a matter of saying to yourself, like, you have to realize that when the governor takes all that, you are still dealing with every county board of education. That's not something you're eliminating. You are not dealing with the school. Local school boards. They still have A lot of authority. So I just want to be very clear. You can, and I think probably should consolidate it all at the state level with the governor. But let me be very clear, what happens in local school boards, much less what happens in every classroom, that is also in the mix. So if the governor had a stronger authority, you have one entity to do that negotiation. I think that's probably a good reform.

Jon Lovett (71:21)

So there remains a chance right now that Democrats are going to be shut out of the general election because of our jungle primary system. So that we just had this debate, it was you and three of your opponents on the Democratic side and two Republicans. Should the other Democrats who didn't qualify for that debate drop out?

Katie Porter (71:40)

Well, look, the ballot is set. We have 62 people on the ballot. 62. And I just want to remind everyone that's not totally uncommon for California for governor's races. When Newsom ran in 18, there were dozens and dozens of people on the ballot then, too, there's always the person whose name is like IP Freely.

Jon Lovett (71:56)

Right.

Katie Porter (71:56)

Who has to be on the ballot.

Jon Lovett (71:58)

Some good ideas.

Katie Porter (72:00)

Yeah. I think everybody is starting to consolidate. I think we see this typically happen right around the time ballots go out. I think it is important for groups that are hosting events, whether it's a forum, whether it's a debate. Don't platform people. If you're concerned about this problem, if you're concerned that we're going to end up with too many Republicans, don't put the candidate with 1% on stage. Like, let's act like grownups about this. And so. But I also think that there's been a push to. And we saw this with Eric Swalwell. There was a huge push that everyone but Eric should drop out. Aren't we glad we didn't do that?

Jon Lovett (72:39)

Yeah, that would have been a real botch.

Katie Porter (72:41)

So I do think, you know, when we ran in 18, we had Newsom, we had Villa Garrosa, this is Villa Governor Part 2 run. We had Villa Garrosa, we had John Chung, and we had a lesser polling candidate, Delaney Easton. But this worker, we had three pretty high polling candidates, maybe a fourth one hanging out there, and that worked out just fine. So do we want to have eight candidates all duking out on the Democratic side? I don't think so. Should we have three or four? So people have some choice or two or three? Yes, I think we should.

Jon Lovett (73:11)

So let's talk about the other people in the race. Why would you be a better governor than Javier Becerra?

Katie Porter (73:16)

Yeah, so I have shown a Willingness to go toe to toe with corporate America and a willingness to shake up the status quo. Like you just said this yourself, John, the status quo isn't so hot. You started this with a litany of things about California that are frustrating. Javier Becerra first entered office when I was in, like, middle school or high school. And I'm, you know, I'm 52. Like, I've had Botox a couple of times and people keep telling me on social media I need it again. I don't disagree.

Jon Lovett (73:43)

No, no, you need your face. That's. Your face is your instrument.

Katie Porter (73:46)

So I think, you know, we need someone. We're in a moment of California where more of the same is not going to cut it. We need to change. We need to recognize that we can't just pat on ourselves on the back and say, we're California, we're the biggest. We gotta say to ourselves what's holding us back from being better. And so I think that taking on the status quo, being willing to do things a little differently, not just going along to get along, I think that's an important quality right now. I also think I'm someone who has came into politics because of Donald Trump. So, like Abigail Spinberger, like Mikey Sherrill, like Deb Haaland, like this whole next batch of governors that we have and are electing. These are my classmates, these are my generational peers in terms of when we came into politics. And we have a different vision of how state should, should work together than I think we have traditionally seen. And so I think that's really important. And then the other thing I would say is I'm rolling out real policies, so I am rolling out concrete things that people can count on. And so things like two years of college. Nobody's confused about what two free years of college means. Housing, number one priority, been our biggest problem. I think that's different than what we've seen in terms of all get er done. I think people need a different level of specificity and they need to know that you have led with a different level of accountability. So when I was questioning the CDC director early, early in the COVID pandemic, and I asked him, will you make COVID testing free? I wasn't content when he said, yeah, I'll work on it. I said, will you today make COVID testing free? And he did. And people got it. And I think that is the willingness to kind of reimagine government accountability that I think this moment calls for.

Jon Lovett (75:32)

And so, and then same question on Steyer, but My, you know, a lot of the knock on Steyer, which I think is a very reasonable thing to knock him on, is when in his, you know, he put his wealth into things like private prisons and detention centers. And I think that's gross, and he's had to explain that. But I'm curious, just as a governor, why do you think you would be a better governor? Not based on what happened before, but going forward, why would you do a better job than Tom Starr?

Katie Porter (75:55)

Yeah. Let me tell a story about being in a caucus meeting full of Democrats, and they were talking about gas prices, and they were like, you know, gas prices, they're high. This is true, by the way. This is years ago, a couple years ago, gas prices, they're high. And everybody got in line and wanted to talk about gas prices. And I raised my hand and I said, you know what? I want to talk about grocery prices, because that is the number one thing that has been going up really rapidly. Like, I am seeing boxes of cereal for $10. I am seeing eggs. I am seeing seeing bacon. I am seeing blueberries that are eight bucks. This people were like, wow, who knew, John? I knew because I pushed the shopping cart. In my family, as a single parent, I'm parenting three kids who are 13, 17, and 20, so basically three teenagers, God help me. I really think about, what's it going to mean for them if we don't bring down the cost of housing? What is it going to mean for them if we don't bravely tackle AI with all respect to Tom, his kids are going to be set. They're trust fund kids. And it's a different context. So when we talk about, like, kitchen table economic issues and you hear politicians say that we should talk more about kitchen table economic issues, that stuff happens every night at my kitchen table. And so I think that it's as much a question about are you really awake and attuned to what it's like for California families in a way that I just don't think a billionaire can be.

Jon Lovett (77:29)

So you've been asked to explain for years old videos where you lost your temper too many times, and I don't want to do that, but I had this feeling when I was watching you in the debate, and what I thought was, where's that energy from? Katie Porter telling someone, get the fuck out of her shot? Like, you think Tom Steyer is buying this race? He put $120 million in just to get his name up there. You've been fighting this on the street. You think Javier Becerra Did a terrible job at hhs. You think he's super vague, has no idea what he's doing and won't be able to get anything done. That's what I think. You think. But I think there's, like, a part of you that is, like, I don't know where. I know where is that part of that. And I worry that, like, you've been hit with this attack and you should treat people well. And I believe you do. Or you've apologized for this in the past. But, like, sometimes I'm like, I don't want to direct it at your staff in the room. And I don't think this person deserves to be yelled at. But I would like to see the get out of my fucking shot energy on the campaign trail. And I wonder if you feel that tension as a woman, as a candidate.

Katie Porter (78:34)

I mean, look, there is. California's never elected a woman governor. Governor. Let's just put it out there. And the last time Democrats had a woman nominee, do you know, little trivia, live trivia, I don't know, 1994.

Jon Lovett (78:50)

Oh, wow.

Katie Porter (78:50)

I was a sophomore in college, and a lot of voters weren't born at that point.

Jon Lovett (78:56)

It was Diane Feinstein's granddaughter, I believe

Katie Porter (78:58)

it was Kathleen Brown. It was Kathleen Brown. And the sister of the governor. The daughter of the governor. So there is real. People have a hard time believing something they haven't seen. I have a new appreciation in this race for what it means to go first. And a lot of my life, I wasn't necessarily a first. I wasn't the first woman even elected to represent my district in Orange County. I was the first Democrat in a long time, but I beat a woman to get there. In the Senate race, I was running with Barbara Lee, right? An iconic woman. And so the dynamics were, were, I think the gender dynamic and the discussion was different. I also think people are really sad that we have Donald Trump as president and are trying to assign kind of why that might be and how to understand that. You're seeing that pop up in discussions of who the 2028 nominee should be. But nobody should make any mistakes. Like, I'm tough as hell, and that hasn't changed. And I'm running my campaign and taking on policy issues that are tough. We just had a back and forth about taxes in which you ask tough questions. And I explain to you why I think you're wrong. I'm running my campaign, not taking corporate money. Believe you me, in a state like California where, quote, that can't be done, quote, I'm showing that it can be done. And I'm willing to be tough and say that I don't think our next governor should be bought and paid for by Chevron or be funding their campaign with fossil fuel money.

Jon Lovett (80:24)

That was a crazy quote by Becerra, by the way, about how do you need Chevron? Who needs Chevron? Do I need Chevron? Do you need Chevron?

Katie Porter (80:30)

Javier Becerra should not need Chevron. Just to be clear. Like, we right now need gas for cars in California. But no politician needs to be bought and paid for. That's a choice that every one of us makes. And I've made a different choice. And I think that is one of the reasons Californians can trust me. Back to kind of the debate stage. Look like every debate has its own ebb and flow. The more candidates you have on stage, the harder it is. I think I was the only one who punched hard at Chad Bianco for telling California to get over racism. And I said, without mincing any words, racism is not something you get over. Racism is something you fight. And you, Mr. Bianco, are unfit to lead a state that's diverse as California. What you're saying to black and brown Californians, to immigrant Californians is unacceptable. But this is also a moment where people wanna know you're tough, but they also wanna feel like they can trust you. And I think you're always having to balance that. And so you're gonna see that. Our first TV ads, they have me, they're up on air, they have me with the whiteboard warrior. I'm taking these people to task. Dimon Trump's appointees, Ben Carson. And then you're gonna see some ads that are more about, like, what we just talked about. Like, here I am a mom, don't want my kid to live on my couch. And frankly, like, staring that down with these three teenagers, are they ever going to be able to live on their own? And so I think you always want to have a balance on that, but I don't think I've changed. I think it's just like when you're doing an oversight hearing, you're there to do some oversight that stings. In a debate, you're trying to show people different kinds of sides of you, you all in a one hour format. And we've also got more debates to come, so make no mistake, like people who are not being truthful and not taking accountability for their own mistakes. As you said, I've taken accountability for yelling at that staffer four years ago, five years ago, and that's appropriate. But that doesn't mean that Javier Becerra shouldn't have to take accountability for losing 80,000 unaccompanied children. He should. And I'll hold him to that account.

Jon Lovett (82:40)

Last question. You said you were watching Heated Rivalry ever on a plane. It's a tough show to watch on a plane.

Katie Porter (82:48)

Not on my plane. Worse. Worse than on a plane. I was sitting there. I was on episode two, and my two teenagers come home 13 and 17. And Betsy walks in and she's 13, and she says, clock it. Because she's apparently, unbeknownst to me, watched, he did Rivalry and loved it. Okay, so. And Paul says to me, who's 17, why do you have to watch porn in the living room? Right? And then we had an interesting discussion about, would you feel like this if this was porn? If this were heterosexual sex? An interesting discussion, but, like, I am enjoying it. I have one episode to go, and actually, I wanted to ask you something. Can I ask you one thing? You can love this book. So I want to pitch something. I am not a paid influencer.

Jon Lovett (83:31)

This is awesome. Yeah.

Katie Porter (83:32)

I am not a paid influencer.

Jon Lovett (83:33)

Woodworking. Woodworking.

Katie Porter (83:35)

Did you guys publish this book?

Jon Lovett (83:36)

Yes, we did.

Katie Porter (83:37)

Okay. So I didn't know that until yesterday that you guys had a publishing house. Everybody who is interested in understanding what it's like to be a trans person and where different trans people can be in their journey and how people can help them and hurt them. Love this book. Woodworking. Not being paid by crooked media, but just telling everybody. This is my library copy. Highly recommend.

Jon Lovett (84:01)

Wow. Shout out to woodworking.

Katie Porter (84:03)

And I have, like, 30 pages left, so don't blow it.

Jon Lovett (84:06)

I'm not gonna. No spoilers. No spoilers. Well, Katie Porter, good luck on the campaign trail. Thanks for talking to me. Really great seeing you.

Katie Porter (84:13)

Thank you.

Jon Favreau (84:19)

That's our show for today. Thanks to Katie Porter for coming on. I'll be gone for Friday's show, but Dan and our buddy Alex Wagner will be back with a new show on Friday. If you want to listen to Pod Save America ad free and get access to exclusive podcasts, go to qriket.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 program production. Our producer is Saul Rubin. Our associate producer is Farah Safari. Austin Fisher is our senior producer. Reed Churlin is our executive editor. Adrian Hill is our head of news and politics. 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 Tolles, and Ryan Young, our production staff is proudly unionized with the Writers Guild of America East.