Rachel Maddow on Surviving Trump 2.0

Summary

Pod Save America Episode: Rachel Maddow on Surviving Trump 2.0
Release Date: January 26, 2025
Host/Author: Crooked Media
Episode Length: Approximately 63 minutes

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Introduction and Guest Overview (02:37 - 06:27)

Jon Favreau opens the episode by welcoming listeners to the inaugural Sunday show of 2025, establishing a bi-weekly format aimed at fostering thoughtful discussions away from the incessant churn of breaking news. The initial guest is Rachel Maddow, host of MSNBC’s "The Rachel Maddow Show," who has returned to anchor five nights a week during Donald Trump’s second administration.

Jon Favreau highlights Rachel's unique ability to "crystallize things in a way that no one else does," setting the stage for an in-depth conversation about the political landscape shaped by Trump's return to the White House. The hosts express enthusiasm for Rachel's participation, acknowledging the challenging week characterized by significant developments under Trump's leadership.

Trump’s Pardon of January 6th Rioters (06:27 - 16:22)

The discussion swiftly moves to Donald Trump’s controversial decision to pardon supporters convicted of violent crimes related to the January 6th Capitol riot. Tommy Vietor questions the ramifications of these pardons, emphasizing the normalization of political violence in America:

Tommy Vietor (04:33): "By pardoning not some of the rioters, but all of them, political violence in this country just became mainstream."

Dan Pfeiffer elaborates on the strategic chaos introduced by Trump’s actions, noting the difficulty it poses for Republicans who publicly disapprove but remain constrained by party loyalty:

Dan Pfeiffer (14:21): "Sometimes shame and embarrassment can make public officials who are otherwise behaving in ways that are weak and wrong to find their spine and to change their minds."

The hosts critique Republican leaders like Mike Johnson and JD Vance for their inability to effectively defend or justify the pardons, highlighting a growing internal conflict within the party.

Impact on the Republican Party and Democratic Strategy (16:22 - 28:08)

Dan Pfeiffer discusses the broader implications of Trump's actions on the Republican Party, pointing out the internal divisions and the potential for political downfall due to the inability to maintain a unified stance. He emphasizes the importance of public officials acknowledging the wrongness of Trump’s decisions to mitigate long-term damage.

Jon Favreau seeks Rachel Maddow’s insights on how the Democratic Party can navigate these turbulent times. Dan Pfeiffer suggests that Democrats need to exploit the fractures within the Republican Party, focusing on its inability to present a cohesive policy agenda:

Dan Pfeiffer (54:08): "When you're in opposition from that position, I think the obvious thing to do is to stick a wedge in every awkward division among the party that has consolidated power."

Authoritarian Tendencies and Threats to Democracy (28:08 - 43:59)

The conversation deepens into the authoritarian tendencies observed in Trump's second term. Dan Pfeiffer draws parallels between current U.S. actions and those seen in other authoritarian regimes, such as Turkey and Hungary, highlighting the use of government power to terrorize opposition and the deployment of paramilitary forces to suppress dissent:

Dan Pfeiffer (23:29): "We have these executive orders that direct people within the Justice Department... to terrorize the opposition and previous administration."

He warns of Trump's attempts to dismantle international institutions like the World Health Organization and NATO, framing these moves as efforts to undermine the post-World War II liberal order. Jon Favreau echoes these concerns, questioning Trump's commitment to national security amidst his aggressive foreign policy stances on Greenland and Panama.

Media Strategy and Public Engagement (44:02 - 52:14)

The hosts explore the challenges faced by the media in maintaining public trust and effectively communicating the threats posed by Trump’s administration. Dan Pfeiffer emphasizes the need for a free and independent press, cautioning against the fragmentation of media into echo chambers that fail to reach a broader audience.

Jon Favreau expresses frustration over the limited reach of political discourse beyond dedicated listeners, pondering strategies to engage a more significant portion of the American populace. Dan Pfeiffer advocates for leveraging platforms like YouTube and TikTok to broaden the dissemination of informative content, ensuring that accurate information counters misinformation effectively.

Sustaining Activism and Personal Well-being (52:14 - 57:29)

The conversation shifts to personal strategies for maintaining mental well-being amidst political turmoil. Dan Pfeiffer shares his practices of compartmentalization, setting specific times for engaging with the news, and prioritizing outdoor activities and family time to preserve sanity:

Dan Pfeiffer (56:21): "It's important to read fiction. It's important to exercise. It's important to spend time outdoors and with animals and family and loved ones."

Jon Favreau echoes the necessity of balancing professional responsibilities with personal life, highlighting strategies like disconnecting during family time to avoid burnout.

Future Outlook and Democratic Resilience (57:29 - 63:22)

In the concluding segments, Dan Pfeiffer outlines a roadmap for the Democratic Party to counteract the anti-democratic factions within the Republican Party. He stresses the importance of being excellent opposition by exploiting internal divisions and maintaining moral high ground:

Dan Pfeiffer (54:58): "There are hugely incompatible forces at work within the MAGA universe, literally even between the president and vice president. And so let's start there."

Jon Favreau emphasizes the critical need for the Democratic Party to adapt and strengthen its strategies to protect and preserve democratic institutions. Dan Pfeiffer reinforces this by calling for unity within the press and public support for independent journalism as bulwarks against authoritarianism.

Towards the end, the hosts offer practical advice for listeners to stay informed, engage in community-building, and support democratic initiatives to ensure resilience against emerging threats.

Notable Quotes with Timestamps

• Tommy Vietor (04:33): "Political violence in this country just became mainstream."

• Dan Pfeiffer (14:21): "Sometimes shame and embarrassment can make public officials... change their minds."

• Dan Pfeiffer (23:29): "We are trying to do as best as we can to cover Trump’s second term."

• Dan Pfeiffer (54:08): "The obvious thing to do is to stick a wedge in every awkward division among the party that has consolidated power."

• Dan Pfeiffer (56:21): "It's important to read fiction. It's important to exercise. It's important to spend time outdoors and with animals and family and loved ones."

Conclusions

The episode delves deep into the complexities of surviving and countering the authoritarian impulses of Donald Trump’s second administration. Rachel Maddow and the Pod Save America hosts provide a comprehensive analysis of the political maneuvers, internal party conflicts, and media challenges that define this tumultuous period. They underscore the imperative for the Democratic Party to unite, for media outlets to remain independent and proactive, and for individuals to maintain personal resilience amidst ongoing political upheaval.

Listeners are encouraged to stay engaged, support democratic institutions, and adopt personal strategies to navigate the psychological strains of living through such a divisive era. The episode serves as both a critical analysis and a call to action for preserving democratic values in the face of significant challenges.

Transcript

[Rachel Maddow]

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[Jon Favreau]

All loans in amount subject to lender approval.

[Tommy Vietor]

This show is sponsored by BetterHelp. What do you want your 2025 story to be? A romantic comedy. Oh, that's nice. Sad for Emily, I suppose.

[Jon Favreau]

Oh, is she starring in it?

[Tommy Vietor]

Oh, I see.

[Jon Favreau]

Yeah.

[Tommy Vietor]

Well, you're more in the sitcom phase, the rom com phase that leads into the sitcom phase. We don't have a rom com for people who've been married seven years. You can try it.

[Jon Favreau]

That's a new twist on the rom com.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Okay, sure.

[Tommy Vietor]

Every January brings you 3, 365 blank pages waiting to be filled in 2025. Maybe you're ready for a plot twist.

[Jon Favreau]

Or maybe there's a part of your.

[Tommy Vietor]

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[Rachel Maddow]

Are passed, executive orders are signed, and presidencies are defined. And for Donald Trump's first 100 days, Rachel Maddow is on Ms. Five nights a week.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Now is the time, so we're gonna do it, providing her unique insight and.

[Rachel Maddow]

Analysis during this critical time.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

How do we strategically align ourselves to this moment of information? This moment of transition in our country.

[Rachel Maddow]

The Rachel Maddow show, weeknights at 9pm Eastern on MSN.

[Jon Favreau]

Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Jon Favreau. So this is our first Sunday show of the new year. We are going to be doing one of these every other Sunday for 2025. Exciting. On each of these shows, we're going to talk to someone really smart in politics or media. And the idea is to sort of step away from the churn and the breaking news and to have interesting, thoughtful conversations about the big ideas and forces and trends shaping the news, shaping politics that we are all scrambling to digest every day. As I'm sure all of you are as well, I am thrilled that our first Sunday guest is Rachel Maddow, host of the Rachel Maddow show on MSNBC. Rachel is back to anchoring the 9pm hour every weeknight for the first hundred days of the second Trump administration. They somehow got her to come back and do five nights a week. Poor Rachel. But lucky us, on day three of the administration on Wednesday, I sat down with Rachel here at the Sirius XM studios in New York across from MSNBC's offices at 30 Rock. No doubt by the time you're hearing this on Sunday, a ton of crazy new shit will have happened. But already by Wednesday, things were feeling not great, pretty surreal. Here's a sampling of some of what's happened this week.

[Tommy Vietor]

Do you intend to continue selling products that benefit yourself personally while you're president?

[Donald Trump]

Well, I don't know if it benefited. I don't know where it is. I don't know much about it other than I launched it. I heard it was very successful. I haven't checked it. Where is it today?

[Tommy Vietor]

You made a lot of money, sir.

[Donald Trump]

How much?

[Rachel Maddow]

Several billion dollars.

[Tommy Vietor]

It seems like in the last several days.

[Donald Trump]

Several billion. That's peanuts for these guys.

[Tommy Vietor]

By pardoning not some of the rioters, but all of them, political violence in this country just became mainstream. It is now a fact of life in America.

[Donald Trump]

This was a political hoax. And you know what? Those people, and I'm not saying in every single case, but there was a lot of patriotism with those people.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

There are gay, lesbian and transgender children in Democratic, Republican and independent families, some who fear for their lives. She should never be allowed to preach the message of Jesus in her life because she's not even talking about Jesus. This is why no one's going to these. Yeah. This is why these denominations are dying. Well, that's just, you know, Elon's thing to grab your heart with One hand and then shoot it out in the sky.

[Jon Favreau]

You know, you're just, you're asking for it. You're asking for it.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Maybe he's just not very well coordinated.

[Rachel Maddow]

I don't know.

[Donald Trump]

FEMA is going to be a whole big discussion very shortly because I'd rather see the states take care of their own problem.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

A lot of my friends on the other side of the aisle are sitting by idly while Donald Trump proposes by executive order to destroy Section 1 of the 14th Amendment, which establishes that everybody born in the United States is a citizen of the United States. That's the difference in leadership style. So masculinity is back. How many genders are there, Tommy? How many genders are there, Tommy?

[Jon Favreau]

The honest answer, Jesse. I don't care. I'm a libertarian. I don't care. You can be what you want to be.

[Donald Trump]

I won youth by 36 points. Now, maybe that's because I went on TikTok. I don't know.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

These people are disgusting. They say that they're for women. Turns out MAGA and conservatives are the feminists now. We are the ones like Donald Trump who are protecting women and children. They're not doing it.

[Jon Favreau]

I wanted to talk to Rachel for this first Sunday show not just because, like us, it's her job to cover this day in and day out, but because as listeners of this show know really well, she thinks about things and talks about things and crystallizes things in a way that no one else does. Here's my conversation with Rachel Maddow. Rachel Maddow, welcome back to Pod Save America.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Hi John, nice to see you.

[Jon Favreau]

You too.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

I used to work here.

[Jon Favreau]

Yeah, we're in SiriusXM in New York City.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

I forgot about that. And I was thinking, oh, I remember where this address is ringing a bell. And then I got out of the elevator and I thought, ah, this is where I did my gay love song call in late night show.

[Jon Favreau]

Really.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

As a fill in host. I wasn't the main host.

[Jon Favreau]

You get a lot of callers.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Oh, yeah, yes, all men. That was weird. But yeah, it was, that was a little, a little known like sort of grace note on my resume.

[Jon Favreau]

Most requested songs.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

It was, it was a lot of disco.

[Jon Favreau]

A lot of disco.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

See, I thought it was love songs. And so it was. The Collins were going to be like heart to heart, like oh, he left me and I want to win him back and everything. But it was really like love songs like I remember we met at the club and play that, you know, you.

[Jon Favreau]

Know, Diana Ross, whatever that Works, too.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Yeah.

[Jon Favreau]

Thank you so much for taking the time during an especially busy week for you. Now that they have pulled you back in, into doing five nights a week for Trump's first hundred days, I'm happy to do it. This is our inaugural Sunday show. The idea is to have a weekly conversation with smart people in politics and media. Lets us sort of step back from the breaking news coverage, focus on the big picture. Love to start with how you are processing the return of Donald Trump. I think we've all learned in the Trump era that it's possible to be shocked even when we aren't surprised. There's a difference between fully expecting what will happen and then experiencing it as it happens. So what's been going through your mind this week?

[Dan Pfeiffer]

I feel like, oh, yeah, that's what these muscles are for. This is what we train for. You know, being back five days a week is its own experience. For me, it's been a few years since I've been doing Monday to Friday shows, and so that's got its whole. Its own vibe and its own feeling. But there is a cadence to the Trump chaos news cycle, or a lack of cadence, rather. The 24 hours a day turning on a dime, internal incoherence, shocking for shock value, shocking for incompetence. All of that stuff is just kind of flooding back in terms of how to do it. And you can despair over that because the first Trump term was, broadly speaking, bad times for America. But I also think, well, you know what? We know a little bit about how to cover this. We know a little bit about what to expect. We know a little bit about what he's like. And so it is our responsibility and our privilege to cover it as best as we possibly can. And I know how to do that. And I'm here. I'm ready to go. Put me in, coach. I'm ready to play.

[Jon Favreau]

I feel the same way. From the perspective of, like, me covering politics and talking about it on Pod Save America. Has there been a moment where it's, like, hit you personally, where you're just watching it and you're like, oh, yeah, we're gonna be doing this for four more years now.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

You know what it was? It was the. In the flurry of first couple days of actions, there was the stuff about water in California that. And Trump started sort of elaborating on it. There was an executive action about it, but then he also started talking about it, about how we need. We need to turn the valve.

[Jon Favreau]

Yeah. There is a valve in Northern California that if you Just turn it. We will get water in Los Angeles.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

He thinks, I think that north is also up, and that up there's a water tower, like it's a New York building. And if you just turn the valve, then down gets the water. And in the campaign, you might remember him riffing a lot on the difficulty of washing his hair and how many times he has to flush the toilet to make what's in the toilet go down the toilet. And I was realizing, like, oh, we're gonna get the plumbing stuff again.

[Jon Favreau]

Yeah, playing the hits.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

It's one thing to think about the truly radical designs he has for the country and for the democracy, but it's another thing just to remember, like, the personal pathology that's gonna be played out out loud ad nauseam and just repeated until other Republicans start articulating it as a value too.

[Jon Favreau]

Right.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

And that the reminder of the nonsense of it, the human nonsense of it was. Is a visceral thing for me also. I also think, like, wow, how could history have been different had he been able to realize his dream of being a plumber? Maybe. Maybe we as a country wouldn't be going through all this stuff.

[Jon Favreau]

Yeah, he was a plumber. Hug from dad, something like that. We're recording this on Wednesday, so who knows what else will happen over the next few days. I haven't been able to get past him pardoning supporters of his who were convicted of violent crime on January 6th because of the message it sends to other Trump supporters who also wanna commit political violence. Because only around 20% of Americans support the pardons and because somehow it's not the only thing or even the main thing that everyone's talking about. Why do you think that is and what has your thoughts been on the pardons?

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Well, the flood, the zone idea is real, and we not only lived through that before, but they articulate that strategically. People like Steve Bannon and Stephen Miller and others, they don't want us to be able to focus on any one bad nominee because there are so many bad nominees. They don't want us to be able to focus on any one outrageous action or policy because there are so many outrageous actions, policies. And that's a. That's a strategy. And so that's part of the reason why we find it hard to focus. I do think that the pardons thing is going to be something that they regret, and I think it's going to be something for which they have to pay a political cost, because we've already seen it just in the immediate aftermath of the pardons. That just about every Republican elected official who is asked about it has to say. I haven't seen the details. Yeah, I haven't. Tommy Tuberville. I haven't watched the videos of the police being assaulted, so therefore I can't comment on it. But of course, anybody who assaults police officers shouldn't be pardoned. Seeing Republican elected officials, including the speaker of the House, Mike Johnson, including all of these Republican senators who now have to, for example, vote on Trump nominees, seeing them unable to articulate a justification for it, seeing them uncomfortable, wanting not to be asked about it, knowing that it is indefensible, and nevertheless being asked to defend it, that is constructive. Yeah, because Trump may have his own. I don't know what's going on inside his head, and I don't know exactly what he wants in the world, and I don't like to think about his brain, so I don't. But I do know a little bit about how politics works. And I do know that while he may want to be a one man, sort of tyrannical monarch style ruler, he for now exists in a democracy that has other elements of authority and governance. And to the extent that Republicans are personally repulsed by what he's doing and asked about it constantly and can't defend it and essentially are being forced into a corner where they either have to hide from questions or say they disagree with him, that's probably good in terms of slowing down the worst things he wants to do. And I think it's a good sign that so many Republicans had a terrible, terrible first full day of Trump's second term.

[Jon Favreau]

It's wild because I thought your monologue about this and about sort of the use of shame as a tool for elected Republicans who have to defend this was wonderful.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

From time to time, we enter into a period where people in public office very frequently do lots of terrible things. What turns them around, what stops them from doing terrible things, what makes them correct course and start doing the right thing instead. One thing that sometimes works is shame and embarrassment. Being confronted with the wrongness of what they are doing, feeling shame or embarrassment, or at least the possibility of public rebuke, and the awkwardness of being unable to explain their actions in a way that satisfies anyone. Sometimes you can't turn public officials around, but sometimes you can. Sometimes that sort of thing can cause public officials who are otherwise behaving in ways that are weak and wrong to find their spine and to change their minds.

[Jon Favreau]

I noticed right before we started recording today, Mike Johnson got up and was asked about the pardons. And he said, well, look, it's Donald Trump. He has the authority. And all along the case has been that people who protest peacefully shouldn't be punished and then announced that they're going to investigate Joe Biden's pardons without even commenting on the people who are convicted of violence.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

And it's the. And. And then it's incumbent upon anybody who next encounters him to ask him the follow up questions.

[Jon Favreau]

Right.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

So, like, the peaceful protest is not something that has been criminalized in this country, in this environment around January 6th. January 6th was not a peaceful protest. Among the people who Donald Trump deliberately pardoned, even though he had the option not to, were people who explicitly pled guilty to not too peacefully protesting, but rather to attacking police officers and trying to kill them with baseball bats and two by fours. So, I mean, it just, it just means that this should follow Mike Johnson around like a smell.

[Jon Favreau]

Yeah. Apparently, according to reporting from Axios, and notice JD Vance saying on the Sunday shows before Donald Trump was inaugurated that obviously we shouldn't pardon people who committed violence. It was the response to that that finally led Trump to say, apparently, according to a source, according to Axios, fuck it, let's let them all out. Because the Trump base people were mad that JD Vance thought that they were gonna go one by one. So that was basically a trial balloon.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Yeah. And think about what that means for the dynamic between Trump and J.D. vance in the same way with the Matt Gaetz nomination. Right. I mean, they nominated somebody for Attorney General, reportedly at the behest of Boris, who they later said were shaking people down for bribes in order for him to suggest. To suggest them to the President as potential appointees. I don't know, maybe somebody should follow up on that. But reportedly, at the behest of Boris Epstein, they named a guy who was actively under investigation for statutory rape, drug use and prostitution to be Attorney General of the United States. And you can question Donald Trump's judgment in doing that. Sure. That's a discussion. What's in Trump's head? What are his aims? Fine. I'm politically more interested in the fact that they then had the Vice President elect, JD Vance personally grab Matt Gaetz by the arm and walk him into the offices of all of these Republican Senators who they then leveraged into endorsing Matt Gaetz for Attorney General and saying yes, they would vote for him. Give Matt a chance to have humiliated J.D. vance that way and cost those Republican senators forever. Those Republican senators will have it on their record that they thought Matt Gaetz was a great choice for attorney general before they then pulled him and wasted all that political capital. That's just political malpractice within the Republican Party and between the president and vice president. And if that's how they're going to act, they should pay for it politically and they should be asked about that stuff constantly. J.D. vance has been now twice publicly humiliated on core issues that he purports to be principled on. Law and Order with Matt Gaetz and the pardons thing where he said anybody who attacked a police officer or was violent shouldn't be pardoned, and then they were. He should be asked about that every time he pops his head above ground.

[Jon Favreau]

Sean Hannity did this event last night where he's interviewing Mike Johnson, but he's got all the other Republican House members sitting there, and he basically talks to them like they're kindergarteners. And he was like, now, you all know you're not gonna get everything you want out of these bills in the first year. Could you imagine you doing a show where you're, like, interviewing Hakeem Jeffries and then all the other House Democrats are there and you're just, like, wagging your finger at them and telling them, like, this is what you can expect.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

This is what you can expect. And if you have a problem, take it up with Daddy.

[Jon Favreau]

I just think they've all decided to, like, become supplicants to Donald. Like, they don't. I don't know that I hope that shame works, but I don't know if there's any of them left that have. That have shame.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

I think being a. A supplicant and doing this sort of. Dear Leader. Yes, sir. Whatever you say, sir. Yes. I'm going to turn in my mother. Yes. Two plus two equals five. Yes. Matt Gaetz is a good attorney general choice. Yes. People who, who hit police officers with baseball bats should be sprung from prison. Yes. The January 6th defense attorney should be the U.S. attorney, the acting U.S. attorney in the District of D.C. all of these things are humiliations to every Republican who lines up with them. And there's no such thing as humiliation for Donald Trump. He doesn't, I think, experience shame or embarrassment. And again, I don't. I don't care to investigate why, but other Republicans do. And Donald Trump isn't going to live forever. And the MAGA movement is maybe at its apex right now, but it won't be forever. All of these guys are gonna have to run for something, and they're all gonna have to look at themselves in the mirror. And they all have, you know, mothers, many of them children, and they have to live with themselves. And I do think that I'm not counting on human decency, but I am counting on human embarrassment and shame and awkwardness, difficulty of answering questions about these things, to be a moderating force in terms of what he can get from his own party. And I think what he can get from his own party for the foreseeable future is going to be the only de facto limiting constraint in terms of what he can get away with. This episode is brought to you by Progressive Commercial Insurance Business owners meet Progressive Insurance. They make it easy to get discounts on commercial auto insurance and find coverages to grow with your business. Quote in as little as 7 [e-mail] Progressive Casualty Insurance Company coverage provided and serviced by affiliated and third party insurers. Discounts and coverage selections not available in all states or situations.

[Tommy Vietor]

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[Jon Favreau]

You'Re a student of history, especially as it relates to authoritarian movements in other countries and in our own. If you're listening. You haven't already? You should go listen to Rachel's podcast Ultra or read prequel, both of which tell the story of a fascist movement in 1930s America. Excellent. Both excellent.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Thank you.

[Jon Favreau]

What are you seeing right now that feels like history is repeating itself? What feels new? And any lessons from all your research that could be useful to us right now?

[Dan Pfeiffer]

The thing that feels new in modern America, like in the past century, I'd say in the United States, that is something that we do see in other countries. And this is something where even contemporary other countries, I think, offer a good lesson in terms of what this means is the attempt to integrate loyalty, lawless, paramilitary force with the state. So we have these executive orders that direct people within the Justice Department and the intelligence agencies and even like the SEC and the FTC to investigate past actions by those agencies, basically to see if there's anything that they can use as a pretext to bring prosecutions against government officials and former Biden administration officials. Like, that's the use of the government to essentially terrorize the opposition and to terrorize the previous administration. At the same time, you've also got, you know, flinging open the doors of the federal penitentiary and letting out over 200 people who were actively incarcerated for federal crimes, most of which involved violence on January 6th. And you've got pro maga members of Congress like Lauren Boebert offering to give them guided tours of the Capitol now that they're out. I highlighted on the show on Tuesday night one of those guys who, she was offering a tour of the Capitol flashing the white power sign behind her while she was saying it. The, the, the, those sort of twin threats that we're going to use the government to destroy opposition, but we're also going to use lawless, loyal, paramilitary, immunized force to physically menace people and to create an environment in the civic space that makes regular people afraid to enter, regular people afraid to participate. That is something that we've seen in lots of other authoritarian countries. We've seen that, for example, in, in Turkey, in modern times, we've seen that a little bit in Hungary. We've seen that in some other. We've seen it in the Philippines. Seeing that in the United States, those things happening at once feels new. And it's worth remembering that paramilitary violence and militias are illegal in every state in the country. And even if they are going to be immunized federally, this may be a place for state law enforcement.

[Jon Favreau]

Yeah, I'm interested in how you're thinking about covering Trump 2.0 I saw you say that. You're trying to follow a watch what he does, not what he says mantra, which we're trying to do on this show as well. It's hard. It's hard to know when he's being serious, when he's trolling. It's hard to know what matters, what matters less. It's hard to know where to focus people's attention. How are you thinking about navigating all that?

[Dan Pfeiffer]

How are you thinking about it?

[Jon Favreau]

I'm still working it out. Right now. I'm trying to focus on what? The effects of his policies on people. Because I'm thinking, just from a political perspective, that we need to persuade people that maybe people who voted for Trump for the first time or people who didn't vote at all, that what he promised is not gonna happen. Right. He's not gonna make their lives better. And I don't think that just means sort of kitchen table issues, though. It does. I think it also means making sure people know that now there are these violent criminals who are convicted of assaulting police officers out on the streets, and that's what he's doing, too. So I think that I'm trying to do less of what was the salute that Elon Musk gave, right? Because it's like, okay, who wins that fight? We can have that debate, and then maybe everyone in the country can say, oh, yeah, no, it was a bad salute. And then what happens? We didn't vanquish Elon Musk. He's still around, right? He still bought his speech now, and his position in government.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

He's got a label on it, but he's still doing all the things he does.

[Jon Favreau]

He gets to do all the things he does. So I'm trying to focus on what actually affects people that Donald Trump is doing and making sure that we're clear about it and also making sure that I'm trying not to make. I feel like if you turn the dial, the outrage dial, to 11 all the time, then it sort of numbs people. And then when something's really serious, they'll be like, ah, you said that before, and you know, it didn't come true.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

How does that apply to, like, the Greenland and Panama stuff? Like, how are you thinking about that?

[Jon Favreau]

I'm thinking that he seems pretty serious about Panama. I mean, you put something in an inaugural address, and he seems pretty serious about Greenland, too. So I think you gotta watch it. Like, I don't subscribe to. That's just a distraction. And we can't talk about Greenland and Panama, especially because it involves. Potentially. Involves military force.

[Tommy Vietor]

Right.

[Jon Favreau]

Anything that involves, like, again, this is affecting people's lives. Right. People in the military here, people at home, our safety, our security, the alliances that we have. Like, that does affect people. I would love to talk about it.

[Tommy Vietor]

And cover it in a way that.

[Jon Favreau]

People can say, all right, this is how it matters to me.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Yeah.

[Jon Favreau]

But I don't think you can just wave it away as a distraction.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

The thing that is interesting about it to me is that it is invented out of whole cloth for the purpose of this Trump term.

[Jon Favreau]

Yes.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Like, there was no pressure on the issue of Panama that anybody was agitating about. There was no, I mean, yeah, like, competition for the Arctic. Sure. Like, that's, you know, Russia has a lot of icebreakers. Okay. Like, yeah, I've been covering that for 15 years.

[Jon Favreau]

Yeah.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

But this is something. This is a place they've decided to plant a flag and to put a lot of rhetorical energy to put it in the inaugural, as you say. And I feel like it's a. It's like a good test case for us to figure out the doing versus saying line. One of the things that's interesting now that he's president is that, you know, Panama's response was to go to the UN and to lodge a complaint with the United nations, saying, hey, one of the rules here of us all in the United nations is we're not supposed to threaten and menace other countries. He's doing that. He said in his inaugural, we're taking it. And when asked ahead of his inaugural, will you rule out military force? He said, no, I won't. Well, that actually we actually aren't supposed to do that within the United Nations. He probably knows that. That's probably part of this. Similarly with Greenland, there's a lot of, I think, very like, elementary level understanding about what it means to be in NATO, which is that if any NATO country gets menaced or attacked, all the other NATO countries are treaty bound to defend them and respond to that. Very little discussion, though, about what happens when one NATO country threatens another. That's not a thing that we usually have. But we really can't do that within NATO. And threatening to take Greenland is threatening, and to do so potentially via military force is threatening to make war on our NATO ally, Denmark. So it seems to me that maybe the important thing here is, you know, why did Trump have one of his executive orders be taking us out of the World Health Organization?

[Jon Favreau]

Yeah, that just sort of slipped by yesterday.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Yeah, it's because he doesn't want us to be in any organizations of any kind that represent the post World War II international legal order. So take us out of the World Health Organization, thereby effectively probably collapsing the World Health Organization. Really screw up NATO by threatening war on a NATO ally, potentially forcing the question of whether or not the United States is rightfully within NATO, within the United nations, start menacing another. I mean, Panama does not have a military.

[Jon Favreau]

Yeah.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

So US proposing military force against Panama isn't actually even threatening a war, it's just threatening an invasion. But it does so in a way that is already calling question as to whether or not we are a member in good standing of the United Nations. So if all of this is about blowing up not just our international standing, but blowing up the post war international order and all of the international institutions that we bolster that make up the post World War II international landscape, well, then maybe these things have some logic. And it's also, it also means that Trump's second term in office will be the greatest pinnacle of achievement of Vladimir Putin, who more than anything wants to destroy the post war liberal order and have a supposedly multipolar world where big countries just take what they want.

[Jon Favreau]

Yeah. And that's again, back to. That's something that people should care about. Or. Because if the, you know, at a time when we have Putin and China and Iran and North Korea cooperating more, it is a dangerous world for us to stand alone.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Or are we gonna stand with them?

[Jon Favreau]

Yeah. And it's a question that Americans should. Should get the answer to from Donald Trump. Right. Like, this is a dangerous time. What are you planning to do to keep us safe? Is it just to take Greenland and Panama? Is that gonna keep us safe?

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Are we gonna be an Axis power now?

[Jon Favreau]

Are we the bad guys this time?

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Because if it's, if it's China, Russia, Iran and North Korea, which is the Axis, that's like, for example, waging war in Ukraine right now. And that's the model that Trump likes in terms of how countries should not be constrained in how they behave. Is he proposing that? You know, he talks about his love letters from Kim Jong Un. He says, I know I said that I would end the Russia, Ukraine war in 24 hours within one day of me being elected, let alone sworn in. But he actually said, but I need to talk to Putin in order to see how that's going to go. I mean, the way that he's easing up all of his big talk on China, everything that he had threatened against China, all of a sudden, China's good. China doesn't have to worry about anything. I mean, we'll see how it goes with Iran. Apparently, the last warning that the Biden administration gave to Trump's incoming national security team before they walked out of the White House was, watch out, Iran wants to kill U.S. government officials and former U.S. government officials.

[Jon Favreau]

Yeah.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Whereupon Trump immediately withdrew the Secret Service protection detail from John Bolton, which had been put in place because of the Iranian hitman who tried to kill him. The axis powers, to the extent that there is one, are the people and the entities that Trump is acting most inexplicably positive toward. And if we're going to join that kind of an axis, I don't think that's the way Americans think of ourselves.

[Rachel Maddow]

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[Dan Pfeiffer]

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[Tommy Vietor]

Pod Save America is brought to you by stamps.com you know, we've used stamps.com here since we started this thing, which was about seven years ago, right around this time. Pod Save America. The first inauguration.

[Jon Favreau]

20.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

20.

[Tommy Vietor]

18. No, no, 28 years ago. Oh, yeah, yeah, seven years ago. Seven and seven is 24.

[Jon Favreau]

It's now 25.

[Tommy Vietor]

Yeah, I forgot the year changed. Yeah, it really changed on us. Anyway, We've been using stamps.com for a long time. That's all you need to know.

[Jon Favreau]

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[Jon Favreau]

When you look back at how you covered the first four years of Trump, anything you would have done differently?

[Dan Pfeiffer]

I would have hydrated more systematically. I would have.

[Jon Favreau]

That's good, that's fair.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Rather than relying on individual little paper cups of water that I filled up and then drank while coming back from the water cooler. Yeah, I would have taken, Honestly, I would have taken better care of myself. I do think that that chaotic cadence of there being no normal day of, you know, the president, what is it, he sleeps in until 10 or 11 in the morning and then watches some TV and rolls in around noon and then just pounds Diet Cokes until 4 in the morning and makes up policy based on whoever he last spoke to and posts it on his social media. I mean, that environment for people who are trying to, you know, cover the most important country in the world is, and its workings is trying, it's physically trying. And so we, I think we need to, we need to do more tag team relay stuff. We need to take better care of ourselves. We need to, as you say, sort of calibrate to understand what the biggest threats are and what's just gross.

[Jon Favreau]

Yeah, that is hard. I mean, I struggle with. And I heard this from people during the course of the campaign, people I know who were like, look, I don't love Trump, but we survived in the first Trump term. And everyone, you know, everyone was hair on fire and saying it was gonna be the end of democracy. And here we are, we survived. There were bad things that happened. You know, there were some bad things that happened. January, these are people who like, January 6th. Awful. He's a bad person. But like, how bad can it be? We survived the first time.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Wow.

[Jon Favreau]

I know. And it's hard because I'm trying to, like, I'm trying to figure out how to calibrate, like, because I do think that this time, this time it's actually much more serious. And I'm like, I think the threat is much more dangerous.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Yes.

[Jon Favreau]

Than it was in the first term. And it doesn't seem like most. Well, clearly, because they voted for him, but it doesn't seem like most people in the country believe that.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Yeah. I think there is a bias toward thinking that the institutions that we have are durable and that they'll always exist. And that no work had to happen to get them, and they'll defend themselves. But just look at elections. You know, one of the things that Pam Bondi talked about after the Matt Gaetz Attorney General nomination fell apart, and Pam Bondi got in there. One of the things that is expected from the Justice Department under Bondi is that they're going to do some sort of examination of the 2020 election because of this predicate lie that the election was somehow stolen from him. Now, I don't think that's just for Trump's ego, and I don't think that's because he's embarrassed that he hasn't ever provided any evidence that demonstrated that the 2020 election was stolen. And he wants to show that evidence because he wants to be, you know, wants everybody to know he's not a liar. I don't think that's what's motivating that. Yeah, I think what's motivating that is an effort to try to make elections seem suspect, dangerous, wrong, and something that we shouldn't depend on in the future. And it's really, really, really important that we have a 2026 midterm.

[Jon Favreau]

Yeah.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

It's also very important that we have a 2028 presidential election. But I don't think in 2025, you assign your Justice Department to proclaim the falsity of a previous election because you're interested in holding normal elections going forward. You do that in order to discredit elections as a system in this country so that we don't have anymore. And maybe that sounds like hair on fire. Maybe that sounds like I'm being alarmist because we did, in fact, just have an election. But I don't think we should assume that that threat is resolved. I really don't think it is. And I think if you watch what he's doing, you can see the real danger there.

[Jon Favreau]

I mean, you can just tell yourself a story, put out a hypothetical about how this could work. Right. Which is we have the 2026 midterms, and Democrats maybe take back the House. We get to 2028. Let's say Democrat wins in 2028, and Donald Trump's still in the White House and he's leaving, or he's supposed to leave, and he says, no, J.D. vance actually won. This was fraud, and now he controls the whole government. And he has lessons that he's learned from failing to stay in power forcefully in 2020. And, you know, when you say, oh, this could lead to the end of democracy, people are like, oh, you're exaggerating. But like what I just laid out, couldn't we see that happening? Do we see Donald Trump now that he already did that once? Do we see him just saying, oh no, J.D. vance lost, he's a loser, that's fine, I'll let the next Democrat in.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Right.

[Jon Favreau]

And maybe I'll stay or maybe, maybe I'll stay until we settle this. Yeah, there was some fraud.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Prop me up in the corner, I'll be fine.

[Jon Favreau]

There was some fraud. And I know the Constitution says, but you know what, it's inside instability right now. I'll leave eventually, but I'm just gonna stay for a little bit. It could happen like that.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

And there's other, I mean, there's other factors at work here. I mean, what are the other constituent parts of democracy that we need to be worried about? One of them is the fourth estate. We need to worry about having an actually free press and not having state tv. And the press is under incredible pressure from without, but also demonstrating all of the wrong instincts, I think broadly speaking in terms of supplicating themselves to the new power in Washington. And that is something that is not a fait accompli. It's not done. It's an iterative process. I think the public should react to that. I think that people should vote with their feet and people should support independent and free spirited press that isn't cowed and that isn't afraid and that isn't intimidated. But that is something that we need to fight for too. And public opinion and public behavior there really matters. It's not a done deal. All of this stuff is. Nothing's inevitable. All of this stuff is live. I mean, one of the wild cards here is, and this is something that's been surprising to me. You know, I think one of the sort of caustic and maybe slightly mean spirited observations that was also true about the first Trump term is that while every president after a term looks about 25 years older than he did at the start of his term, that didn't really happen to Trump. Like at the end of his four years, he kind of looked the same.

[Jon Favreau]

Still looks the same.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

And maybe that happens when you only roll in in the middle of the afternoon. Maybe that says something about his work ethic as president. But as he is now sworn in for his second term, he looks old and unfit and frail and he is the oldest person ever to take the oath of office as president. And we've obviously just been through a version of this with President Biden and his age issue being so determinative in terms of what happened in the last electoral cycle. But Trump doesn't look good. And, you know, J.D. vance is like 15 and ready to go. But that is gonna, that, that those dynamics, I think, are gonna be a real wild card in terms of what happens between these two men, between what happens in terms of how together Trump is. You don't, you don't get to age infinitely and poorly without it ultimately affecting the way that you behave and speak. His second inaugural address, for whatever you can say about its content, was also delivered in a low slurring, mumble, Real.

[Jon Favreau]

Workman like, but also kind of. Well, he hates giving speeches that like, that are written for him because he just wants to be a host and just do his thing. His real speech was the speech he gave after that was like a 33 minute speech to the Republicans where he just got to do all of his stuff.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

He got to do all of his stuff. But it was also very poorly done.

[Jon Favreau]

Yeah, well, I mean, that's just, he doesn't care. He's not an orator. He's just trying to like, you know, he's just doing his show. He's a host.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

He's never been like a, you know, he's not Churchill. Right. That's never happened. But he's also not himself. He's also just not as good as he was even a couple of years ago, even at the start of the campaign. And to see him physically decline, if he's gonna fall apart mentally and, or physically in this term, that's really going to be a wild moment within this crazy and humiliated Magafied Trump Republican supplicant party.

[Jon Favreau]

Yeah, I'm sure they'll handle it. Well, yeah, you were talking about the press and obviously Trump's suing everyone now. Poor Ann Seltzer in the Des Moines Register and ABC settled. Are you afraid? Do you worry?

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Oh, I'm not afraid, but I do expect that they'll be, you know, that Elon Musk and all of the other, you know, who, who paid Rudy's settlement with the Ruby Freeman and Seamus. I'm assuming that all of the, the money people who are doing Trump's bidding in order to get their own interests catered to by the US Government. I'm assuming that they will all fund a gazillion defamation lawsuits that are designed to ruin not only individual critics in the press and individual reporters, but also whole news organizations. I am hopeful that news organizations writ large will understand this as a threat to them all and they will band together and make sure that there aren't, for example, meaningful attacks on the Sullivan decision that defends the freedom of the press in terms of libel and defamation protections. So I'm not afraid. I am eyes wide open and expecting that the courts will be used to try to destroy the press. But again, I think the public should have something to say about that when it happens. And I think that again, there should be some unity within the news business to recognize that we are all in this together. It's not that they're gonna they're gonna protect their favorites.

[Rachel Maddow]

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[Tommy Vietor]

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[Jon Favreau]

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[Jon Favreau]

There's a larger challenge with media that I think about a lot, which is that most Americans aren't paying attention to anything we say and aren't following much news at all. Right?

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Right.

[Jon Favreau]

And you know, Kamala Harris does really well among people who don't just tune into MSNBC and Pod Save America but.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Just follow the news right in any venue.

[Jon Favreau]

Right in any venue. Trump did well with people who Don' Follow the news or who follow some news on social media. Right. And those people care a lot more about cost of living, safety of their communities than they do the threat Trump poses to democracy.

[Tommy Vietor]

Right.

[Jon Favreau]

They feel like that's sort of esoteric and it makes me wonder if we're all just like sitting here talking to ourselves and to an audience that's already been convinced and I wonder how we break out of that so that more Americans know what's going on.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

What do you, what do you, what do you think? I mean, it sounds like you're, it sounds like you're worried that we are just talking to ourselves.

[Jon Favreau]

I am, Yeah, I am. And I just, I think that, I mean, a lot of this is the way technology has changed the way that we talk and communicate and interact. And if this is all going to be done on social media, I don't know. I mean, it's one of the reasons I'm still hanging around on X, because, like, you know, I don't love it. Not a great platform. Was never a great platform. Now it's a really bad platform.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Yeah.

[Jon Favreau]

But, you know, there's a part of me that I'm like, oh, we're all gonna go to Blue sky and then we're all just gonna talk to each other on Blue sky, and then we're gonna talk to each other on Pod Save America and we're gonna talk to each other on msnbc. And it's like, we all got it. I mean, maybe we're like, are we coming up with a plan altogether? Like, how are we gonna get outside that bubble? And I don't know. I don't know. But I think that, like, that is maybe the central challenge that the Democratic Party faces from a political perspective, but also the media faces, traditional media faces, from a perspective of getting people to trust the information that they're getting and making sure that the information gets out there.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Right. I also think that it's one thing to think about it from a sort of 30,000 foot, like, academic, structural perspective. It's another thing to think about it in terms of like, what are you, John, going to do every day?

[Jon Favreau]

Yeah.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

What are your skills? What are you going to expend calories on today? And you do what you can. I mean, I'm very happy that MSNBC is actually very highly performing on TikTok and on YouTube. We're among the most sort of volume wise, we're among the most widely viewed news organizations on both of those platforms. That's good. During the transition, I did a series of segments on that were for YouTube only, that weren't for TV, that were looking at the backgrounds of a number of the Trump nominees. Those got huge traffic on YouTube. I was really happy for that. I am bluesky and smbc.com bluesky and encourage you to be there because maybe right now it feels like bluesky is people who already listen to Pod Save America talking to each other about what they saw on msnbc. But if it gets bigger, it won't all be that.

[Jon Favreau]

Yeah, well, community is important too. Building community is also important.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

And when you're on an iterative social media platform, meaning it's a place where you don't just receive stuff, you, you interact with people and that's an important part of what you're doing there. I think it's important to not be in a place where the interaction is rigged to favor MAGA outcomes. And that's explicitly happening at Twitter. And I think there's a reason that everybody has jumped ship from threads, which was a Twitter knockoff that terrible seemed like it might be better, but now it's essentially going through the same process that Twitter went through because Mark Zuckerberg's politics have also followed Elon Musk's down that particular hole. So if you're in an iterative environment where your interactions are going to be, are going to be gamed in order to favor Donald Trump and Elon Musk's desired outcomes, like don't do that, don't, don't provide, don't spend your one precious life providing free content to those gentlemen.

[Jon Favreau]

Do you ever think about like going into the lion's den, going on some of these other right leaning shows, some of these other right leaning podcasts, not necessarily like go on Hannity and have a debate kind of thing, but like the Joe Rogans of the world. That's shorthand for all of those. Because I don't want to get into another debate about Joe Rogan. But do you ever think about that? That's one way to start. How do you think about persuading people?

[Dan Pfeiffer]

I mean, what I do is talk about the news. So I read all day and do reporting and fact checking, research and then try to observe what's happening in the world, try to make some sense of it, try to present it truthfully and explain what's important about it and why it matters and what might happen next. And I'm doing that instead of one day a week on msnbc, I'm now doing that five days a week on msnbc. And I'll do that for the whole first hundred days. I'm trying to do as much of that as I can on social media as well. I'm trying to keep the pots that I've got boiling, boiling in terms of my next podcast and my next book and the other. There's a scripted TV show and three different movies and a documentary that I'm doing interviews for right now and trying to do all that stuff. And I just feel like, you know what? I'm gonna wake up every day and do my thing. I'm gonna do my thing and I'm gonna do it in a way that I'm proud of and that I hope is persuasive. And I can't make people who don't want to hear it from me want to hear it from me. But if you are persuaded to hear from me, I hope that I'm always speaking in a way that is fair and persuasive. And you can take it to the bank in terms of its factual spine.

[Jon Favreau]

You're a. I know you're not a Democratic strategist, you're a commentator, but you are a close observer of democratic politics.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Excellent caveat. That was very well done.

[Jon Favreau]

Also someone who is very studied in how pro democracy movements and parties have succeeded in the past. When you look at the Democratic Party right now, what do you think it has to change going forward in order to defeat or at least marginalize the anti democratic faction in this country? And so it really isn't a question beyond just the Democratic Party, though, that is, we have two parties and that's the party right now. That is the pro democracy party. But what do you think needs to be different?

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Well, I mean, I think that there isn't much magic to it. You have to be excellent opposition. The Republican Party under Trump has consolidated power in Washington in all three branches of government. Undoubtedly, it's a very narrow margin in the House. It's not that huge a margin in the Senate, but they've got everything. Therefore, when you're in opposition from that position, I think the obvious thing to do is to stick a wedge in every awkward division among the party that has consolidated power. I mean, the. There's. There's hugely incompatible forces at work within the MAGA universe, literally even between the president and vice president. And so let's start there.

[Jon Favreau]

The tech billionaires and the base of the party.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Yeah. So I mean, and yes, on H1B visas. Right. Should we have immigration controlled by corporations for that purpose in the way that we have or not? Yeah, on that Stuff, but on everything. I mean they can't even decide what they're going to do about salt, about the state and local taxes deduction. They're at a trillion dollar impasse within their party on that issue alone. Okay, let's start there. You do have the palpable self loathing, humiliation and escape hunting fear of every Republican senator who was asked about the pardons of those violent felons. Yeah, you do have, I think legit law and order minded Republicans in elected office, including some of whom, some of whom had to run for their lives on January 6th. One of their number, an elected Republican in the House of Representatives is offering guided tours of the scene of the crime of January 6th to some of the people who were there with baseball bats and two by fours beating police officers and threatening to kill members of Congress not that long ago. So that's a divide there. You think about that.

[Jon Favreau]

You either think that's cool or you don't.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Yeah. And that party, the ruling power in Washington, which is, that's it. I mean they are in complete control. They own everything that happens.

[Jon Favreau]

Yeah, I think that's the thing.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

They've got those divides among themselves and just go with those hammer and tongs and make them figure out who they are. And I think that the American people's not gonna, are not going to like it, but just I don't think there's more magic to it than that right now.

[Jon Favreau]

Yeah, we've talked a lot about what we're doing. What's one habit or tip that you'd give to anyone for maintaining their sanity through these next four years? And we started off you saying that maybe, you know, hydrate better, take better care of yourself. Is there anything you do? I mean you're working all the time, so I can't imagine what do you do? I gotta figure that out. I mean, I'm playing with my kids now. You know, I have a 4 year old and a 1 year old.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

So that's a full time job.

[Jon Favreau]

It is a full time job. I'm better now about when I'm with them to like I put the phone in another room and I'm like, I don't need to, I can't do the news all weekend long.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Yeah.

[Jon Favreau]

You know, so I'm trying to do that, but I don't know, I think.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

That'S, I mean again, not magic, but that's real and you can tell day to day. That has an effect on you. Yeah, I, I believe in compartmentalization. Absolutely.

[Jon Favreau]

That's cool.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Just do it. I mean, you and everybody has to calibrate it differently. Right. If you're caring for an elderly parent and also caring for your kids and working full time and trying to do something at school like that, you're already compartmentalizing in order to get to a meal once a day. I mean, so everybody has different levels and sort of different imperatives about how they need to do that. But I think as a principle, that's good. There are. There should be certain times of day when you are not doing things that you are otherwise doing in other parts of the day. And so for me, that means, you know, starting looking at the news at a specific time and trying to stop looking at the news at a specific time. It means spending time outdoors. I'm a person who likes being outdoors when it's cold. I ice fish is my. Is my winter recreation of choice. And so far, it's been an excellent ice season. And so I try to just make myself do that conveniently. There is no cell surface anywhere. There's also available ice fishing, at least where I live. That's fin, which is really good. I mean, all that stuff matters to me. For me personally, it's important to read fiction. It's important to exercise. It's important to spend time outdoors and with animals and family and loved ones. So it's just.

[Jon Favreau]

That's great. That's good advice.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Yeah. Take vitamins. Drink a lot of water. Drink less. It's okay. You'll be all right.

[Jon Favreau]

Rachel Maddow, thank you so much for joining Pod Save America. And we are so glad you're back. Me too.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Me too.

[Jon Favreau]

I know you tried. You tried to escape. You just couldn't do it.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

I will escape again on April 30, which makes it very doable.

[Jon Favreau]

I will believe you. I believe you. Thanks, John. Take care.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Appreciate it.

[Jon Favreau]

That's our show for today. But two things before we go. So the next four years are obviously gonna be a challenging, disorienting time, to say the least. We just want you to know that crooked will be here to help you distill what truly matters, to understand what's at stake, figure out what we can do to make a difference. Best way to support what we do. If you're wondering, you can subscribe to Friends of the pod. You will gain access to ad free episodes, our very engaged, very wonderful discord community and our exclusive shows. All of it will be supporting crooked media and our mission. Plus, you can also now listen to episodes of Pod Save America and POD Save the world Ad Free. You don't have to listen to us drone on about ads. You can get them ad free when you subscribe to Friends of the Pod through Apple Podcasts. If you're listening on Apple Podcasts, simply open the app and tap the subscribe button directly from the Pod Save America or Pod Save the World feed and you'll start your seven day free trial. Think of it as the easiest political decision you'll make all year. No debates, no filibusters, no crazy Trump shit. Just subscribe to some sweet, sweet content. Also, please make sure you're supporting Vote Save America. Over the next couple months, Vote Save America will be creating opportunities for you to recharge, find community and also take steps to protect the people who are most at risk from a second Trump term. And then as the elections come, both in 2025 and the midterms and beyond, there will be a ton of opportunities for you to be active and help out and see what we can all do together to stop Trump and his agenda. So go to votesaveamerica.com and sign up for their email list to learn more. This message has been paid for by Vote Save America. You can learn [e-mail] and this ad has not been authorized by any candidate or candidates committee. Thank you to Rachel Maddow for coming on and Tommy Lovett and I will be back in the feed on Tuesday. Talk to you then.

[Tommy Vietor]

If you want to listen to Pod Save America ad free or get access to our subscriber discord and exclusive podcasts, consider joining our Friends of the pod [e-mail] friends or subscribe on Apple Podcasts directly from the Pod Save America feed. Also, be sure to follow Pod Save America on TikTok, Instagram, Twitter, and YouTube for full episodes, bonus content, and more. And before you hit that next button, you can help boost this episode by leaving us a review and by sharing it with friends and family.

[Jon Favreau]

Pod Save America is a crooked media production.

[Tommy Vietor]

Our producers are David Toledo and Saul Rubin. Our associate producer is Farah Safari. Reed Churlin is our Executive editor and Adrian Hill is our executive producer.

[Jon Favreau]

The show is mixed and edited by Andrew Chadwick.

[Tommy Vietor]

Jordan Kantor is our Sound engineer, with audio support from Kyle Seglin and Charlotte Landis. Madeline Herringer is our head of News and programming.

[Jon Favreau]

Matt De Groat is our head of production. Naomi Sengel is our Executive assistant. Thanks to our digital team Elijah Cohn.

[Tommy Vietor]

Hayley Jones, Phoebe Bradford, Joseph Dutra, Ben Hefcoat, Mia Kelman, Molly Lobel, Kiril Pelaviev, and David Toles Our production staff is proudly unionized with the Writers Guild of America eas.

[Rachel Maddow]

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[Dan Pfeiffer]

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[Jon Favreau]

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[Dan Pfeiffer]

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[Tommy Vietor]

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[Jon Favreau]

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[Tommy Vietor]

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