RFK Jr. Decapitates the CDC

Summary

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Pod Save America – Detailed Episode Summary

Episode Title: RFK Jr. Decapitates the CDC
Date: August 29, 2025
Hosts: Jon Favreau, Jon Lovett, Dan Pfeiffer
Special Appearance: Andy Richter (read ads/comedy drop-ins)
Main Theme:
This episode delivers a candid, urgent breakdown of the extraordinary shake-up at the CDC engineered by RFK Jr., explores its catastrophic risks to public health, unpacks the right’s response to mass shootings, critiques the political spectacle of Trump’s new martial politics, and turns a critical eye on the Democratic Party’s stumbles and strategies.

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RFK Jr. Purges CDC Leadership and Shifts Vaccine Policy

Key Discussion Points

• The Shake-up:

  • RFK Jr. has, with Trump’s support, ousted the CDC director and four top officials, replacing them with vaccine skeptics and conspiracy theorists.
    • Direct quote from the CDC official’s resignation:

    "I am unable to serve in an environment that treats CDC as a tool to generate policies and materials that do not reflect scientific reality and are designed to hurt rather than to improve the public's health." (09:11, attributed by Lovett)

  • New FDA rules (pushed by Kennedy’s wing) now limit COVID-19 vaccine access only to those over 65 or with at least one health condition. Other vaccines—including RSV, Hep B, and measles—may soon be restricted pending a CDC panel stacked with anti-vaccine members.
  • The CDC director, Susan Monarz, resisted firing staff and caving to anti-vax demands; after refusing to resign, Trump personally fired her, and top officials were escorted out by security.

• Expert Reactions and Danger Assessment:

  • The panel lays out the historic gravity:
    • Career scientists who long formed the backbone of American public health have been removed, leaving "anti-scientists running public health infrastructure."
    • Dan Pfeiffer:

      "The people who don't trust the government now run the government and are undermining vaccine policies from there." (08:08)

    • Jon Lovett notes even former Trump COVID response leaders and surgeon generals are sounding alarms.
    • Dismantling of basic pandemic monitoring, foodborne illness tracking, and vaccine safety threatens both routine care and emergency response readiness.

• Practical Fallout and Legal Limbo:

  • Lovett explains that, under new rules, most people won’t get access to COVID vaccines—even if their doctors want to provide it—since off-label use could lead to malpractice suits (11:07).
  • Retail providers (CVS, Walmart) will refuse vaccines to those who don’t meet narrow criteria.
  • “It’s not even approved yet by the CDC panel—essentially a panel of kooks. If approved, finding a shot off-market will be hard and legally risky.” (10:10–12:58)

• Political and Scientific Legitimacy Collapse:

  • The new acting CDC lead is a Peter Thiel adviser who tweeted, “Is Omicron the best vaccine? Remember, CDC can redefine the word vaccine at will.” (13:25)
  • Pfeiffer: "They explicitly reject the science because it's science." (09:47)

Notable Quotes

• Jon Lovett:

  "This is quite a negative and potentially catastrophic step for the country." – Quoting Adm. Brett Giroir, former Trump admin COVID coordinator (08:51)

• Dan Pfeiffer:

  "...it's incredibly, incredibly dangerous." (08:34)

• Jon Lovett:

  "This is just about the availability of vaccines that have been tested, that have saved millions of lives, and people just saying, I think I wanna choose that. It's safe, it's going to protect me, and I'd like to choose it. And basically, Kennedy and HHS and CDC ... are gonna say, no, you can't." (12:31)

• Dan Pfeiffer:

  "Our public health infrastructure is run by anti-scientists." (10:10)

Timestamps:
03:38 CDC shakeup begins
06:30 RFK Jr.’s Fox & Friends response
08:08 Impact on public health explained
11:07 Real-world vaccine access impacts

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Right-Wing Rhetoric About Mass Shooting in Minneapolis

Key Discussion Points

• Blaming SSRIs and Trans Identity:

  • RFK Jr. responds to a church shooting by vowing to investigate antidepressants’ (SSRIs) supposed role in violence—a claim further parroted by JD Vance and others, despite no evidence.
  • The right-wing media and GOP pivot to blaming the shooter’s trans identity, spinning culture war narratives instead of addressing guns.
    • Dan Pfeiffer:

    "It is much easier to buy an assault rifle than it is to get access to antidepressants." (14:49)

  • Shooter’s background is mixed and complex—but right-wing figures seize selectively on details that fit their narratives.

• Critique of Republican Gaslighting:

  • Both hosts are frank about the cynicism and dishonesty:

    "They’re trying so hard to gaslight away from the most obvious fucking fact in the world, which is: it is too easy to get guns in this country. It's that simple." – Dan Pfeiffer (17:26)

  • The hosts call out the emotional burden on parents and citizens, the cyclical and hollow public debate, and the GOP’s refusal to own the true consequences of their Second Amendment stance.

Notable Quotes

• Jon Lovett:

  "You fucking cowards just say we want people to have guns, and that's it. … But instead they have to make up all these other fucking excuses and targets for people, which is just... disgusting." (18:55)

Timestamps:
14:15 RFK Jr. on SSRIs
16:44 GOP turns shootings into culture war
17:26 Critique of Republican strategy

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Trump’s Martial Posture: “Occupying” Cities, Calling Himself a Dictator

Key Discussion Points

• Martial Law Rhetoric and Deployments:

  • Trump is openly mulling troop deployments to Chicago after occupying D.C., with praise and encouragement from his inner circle. Discusses sending ICE "strike teams" and federalizing police functions.
  • Local mayors convene to share strategies; mixed polling shows apparent public unease toward federal occupations, despite initial support for military “assistance.”
  • D.C. residents and grand juries push back, refusing to indict protestors.

• Cabinet Meeting Sycophancy:

  • The hosts share a clipped, surreal compilation from the latest Trump Cabinet meeting, mocking the unctuous, performative praise lavished on the president (30:00–32:01).

• Explicit Dictatorship Lean:

  • Trump muses:

  "So the line is that I'm a dictator, but I stopped crime. So a lot of people say, if that's the case, I'd rather have a dictator." (33:20)

  • The hosts are alarmed by Trump’s explicit frame: “If the country’s in danger, I can do whatever I want.”

• Fascism Warnings:

  • Pfeiffer lays it out:

  "This is textbook fascism. ... They fake a threat. They seize power to protect people from that fake threat, and they never give it back." (35:50)

Discussion Points & Polling Insights

• Public opinion is complicated; Americans consistently overestimate crime rates due to media coverage and irrational risk perception (42:00–44:00).
• The intrusion of federal power is likely to turn public opinion as visible costs/abuses accumulate.
• The hosts recommend Democrats frame federal occupation as a dangerous, wasteful political stunt and lean into the undemocratic nature of Trump’s approach.

Notable Quotes

• Dan Pfeiffer:

  "You cannot be someone who is a member of the opposition party ... and then say I am just going to stay silent on the military occupation of one American city, possibly spreading to others because it doesn't poll well." (46:30)

Timestamps:
33:20 Trump fantasizes about dictatorship
35:50 Fascism warning
37:49 Polling; city occupation details
42:00–44:00 On public perceptions of crime

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Democratic Party Disarray: Summer Meeting, Gaza, Messaging, and Strategy

Key Discussion Points

• Summer Meeting in Minneapolis:

  • The DNC’s “wildly successful, universally praised” (sarcastic) summer meeting becomes an object of media mockery.
  • Event included extended land acknowledgments, competing Gaza resolutions, internal polling presentations, and a new “fight song,” all live-streamed with less-than-inspiring optics.
    • Democratic operative Adam Jentleson:

    "It would probably be better for the party as a whole if the DNC just turned the lights off and padlocked the building for the next two years." (52:17)

  • Despite organizing wins (a special election victory in Iowa), the event is described as embarrassing and out of step with the gravity of the moment.

• Crisis of Message and Leadership:

  • Discussion of DNC as a largely powerless, bank-like institution emblematic of the party’s woes but unable to solve them (53:58).
  • Both hosts advocate for bringing bold, authentic emotion to the moment—less “costume” performance and more real leadership.
    • Jon Lovett:

    "There should be more Democrats sounding like [Gavin Newsom]." (59:32)

    • Dan Pfeiffer:

    "There is a fundamental divide... People who think Trump is an existential threat to democracy ... and a lot of people who think Trump is very, very bad but survivable." (60:27)
    "The DNC is an embodiment of the party's larger problems." (56:55)

• Internal Divisions and Gaza Debate:

  • Two competing resolutions on Gaza: one for arms embargo (progressive), one more moderate (supported by Ken Martin). Ultimately, the issue was referred to a task force.
  • Polling now shows the majority (including Democrats and independents) oppose continued arms sales to Israel—party leadership remains behind public sentiment.
  • Hosts draw Iraq War parallels: elites are slow to catch up to the base, and will look inauthentic if they turn only after the issue is safe.
    • Dan Pfeiffer:

    "There are people who know what the right thing to do is, but because of an outdated view of politics, are afraid to do it." (70:30)

• Mini-Convention Proposal:

  • Discussion around proposal for a midterm “mini-convention” to showcase candidates. Hosts are skeptical that Democrats could execute it with the needed discipline and star power.

Notable Quotes

• Jon Lovett:

  "Find what's making you upset and what's really bothering you and where you think the country should go. And go say that more and be less ca... be less cautious." (59:32) "We're mad at the party, as we have every right to be right now, then you just create this. You're pleasing no one with anything you do." (59:17)

Timestamps:
51:07 DNC summer meeting begins
54:16 Critique of public optics
56:55 DNC problems as a symbol
59:32 Gavin Newsom’s approach vs. cautious Democrats
67:44 Gaza resolutions

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Ending Moments: The DNC “Fight Song” and Taylor Swift Engagement

Key Moments

• DNC Fight Song Fun:
  • ActBlue circulated a new “fight song” (“DEMS we rise, stronger together...”) that gets lampooned for its hackneyed lyrics.

    "The thing that is so funny about this ... is the use of the term stronger together which is the failure of every Democratic messaging process ever." (76:38)

• Taylor Swift, Culture Wars, and Charlie Kirk:
  • Charlie Kirk reacts to Taylor Swift’s engagement by urging her to “submit to your husband, Taylor. You're not in charge,” prompting incredulous laughter.
    • Lovett:

    "Fucking Taylor Swift is, like, worth more money than a million Charlie Kirks put together..." (80:30)

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Overall Tone & Style

The episode is frank, irreverent, frustrated, and at moments laugh-out-loud funny—but unflinching in its warnings about the current political moment. Jon Favreau, Jon Lovett, and Dan Pfeiffer mix sharp policy analysis with cutting humor and a palpable sense of political emergency.

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Key Episode Timestamps

| Timestamp | Segment/Event | |------------|---------------------------------------------------| | 03:38 | Start of CDC shake-up segment | | 06:30 | RFK Jr. reacts on Fox & Friends | | 08:08 | Dan Pfeiffer unpacks risks to public health | | 12:31 | Lovett explains fallout of vaccine restrictions | | 14:15 | Right blames SSRIs for shootings | | 17:26 | Republicans deflect on mass shootings, guns | | 33:20 | Trump’s dictatorship comments | | 35:50 | Trump’s martial rhetoric analyzed as fascism | | 42:00 | Public perceptions of crime dissected | | 51:07 | DNC summer meeting criticism begins | | 56:55 | DNC as emblem of Democratic woes | | 67:44 | Gaza resolution debate examined | | 75:59 | DNC “fight song” lampooned | | 78:02 | Taylor Swift engagement, Kirk’s misogyny called out|

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Memorable Quotes Recap

• "It's incredibly, incredibly dangerous." – Dan Pfeiffer (08:34)
• "The people who don’t trust the government now run the government…" – Dan Pfeiffer (08:08)
• "You fucking cowards, just say we want people to have guns." – Jon Lovett (18:55)
• "This is textbook fascism… They fake a threat. They seize power… and never give it back." – Dan Pfeiffer (35:50)
• "There should be more Democrats sounding like [Gavin Newsom]." – Jon Lovett (59:32)

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Conclusion
This episode is an urgent, wide-ranging, and ruthlessly critical digest of the new attacks on American public health and democracy—combining insidery humor, in-the-weeds analysis, brilliant polling and historical context, and clear calls for bolder Democratic opposition. The hosts do not hide their alarm, anger, or exasperation—and offer a guide for listeners on what matters, what’s at risk, and why action is so urgently needed.

Transcript

[Jon Favreau]

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[Jon Lovett]

Poor Ari.

[Jon Favreau]

No, no, Ari's. Ari's fucking even hotter. Because when you're in bed, normally you're warmer than the room. And so 84 is actually like, keeps you at like a kind of like a nice warm but not too hot temperature in the bed.

[Jon Lovett]

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[Jon Favreau]

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[Jon Lovett]

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[Jon Favreau]

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[Jon Lovett]

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[Dan Pfeiffer]

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[Jon Favreau]

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[Jon Lovett]

Can pillow fights be passive? Aggress seems pretty aggressive. Yeah. What's the passive part?

[Jon Favreau]

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[Jon Lovett]

In the face with a pillow?

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[Dan Pfeiffer]

Okay.

[Jon Favreau]

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[Andy Richter]

Lifetime has movies, movies as unpredictable as life itself.

[Jon Lovett]

Have you told him? Have I told him what?

[Dan Pfeiffer]

That we love each other.

[Jon Lovett]

This is insane. Lifetime has new movies. Movies every Saturday at 8. This is bigger than I thought.

[Andy Richter]

Movies that surprise you better than you imagined and keep you on the edge of your seat. Don't you go there.

[Jon Lovett]

Too late for that. Lifetime has movies as unpredictable as life itself.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

That's a big deal.

[Andy Richter]

New movies every Saturday at 8.

[Jon Lovett]

Only on Lifetime. Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Jon Favreau.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

I'm Dan Pfeiffer.

[Jon Lovett]

Right here in studio.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Nothing like the clouds of our public health infrastructure. Bring me the office.

[Jon Lovett]

So good to have you in Los Angeles.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Great to be here, John.

[Jon Lovett]

So we got a lot to talk about today. As usual, Trump's telling Americans he can do whatever he wants. As he gets ready to send troops to Chicago. He's telling us again, people want a dictator. But it turns out people may not love their cities being occupied by their military, at least according to new polls. So we're going to talk about that. We'll also talk about how Democrats should handle this issue. Speaking of Dems, we'll talk about the party's wildly successful, universally praised summer meeting in Minneapolis. Wow, that's exciting. The possibility for a midterm convention. That's right. And Gavin Newsom's concerns about 2028. Not about him, but let's start with the CDC news. Hope no one was counting on easy access to vaccines or credible medical information anytime soon because RFK Jr has decapitated the leadership of the CDC like it was one of his dead whale carcasses. Here's what we know so far. Things are moving fast on this story. Earlier this week, Kennedy announced that the new MAHA FDA chose to limit the authorization of this year's COVID vaccine. You're now only eligible if you're over 65 or have at least one underlying health condition. The CDC vaccine panel, which Kennedy stacked with anti vax kooks, still has to approve that FDA recommendation, which they're scheduled to consider at their meeting in September. They also plan at that meeting to consider whether to keep authorizing vaccines for diseases like RSV Hepatitis B and measles. Kennedy after this, then met with CDC Director Susan Monarz, who was just confirmed by the Republican Senate last month, and asked for her resignation over what he said was insubordination over vaccine policy. She refused. He then said she could only stay if she fired senior CDC officials and agreed to accept whatever recommendations his anti vax kook panel comes up with. Dr. Minarez again refused. She then called Republican Senator Bill Cassidy, a doctor, who in turn called RFK Jr and then this enraged Kennedy that she had told Cassidy and he called and he then demanded that the CDC director resign. She refused again and then Trump fired her. Four top CDC officials left as well and were literally escorted out of the building by armed security. The officials were the CDC's chief medical officer, the doctor in charge of public health data, the doctor in charge of vaccine safety, and the doctor in charge of vaccine recommendations, who posted quite a resignation letter on Twitter, which reads in part, quote, I am unable to serve in an environment that treats CDC as a tool to generate policies and materials that do not reflect scientific reality and are designed to hurt rather than to improve the public's health. Cool stuff. RFK Jr went on Fox and Friends Thursday morning to talk about the shakeup. Take a listen. What's your reaction to people that are.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Getting a little worried the agency is.

[Andy Richter]

In trouble and we need to fix.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

It, and we are fixing it.

[Jon Lovett]

And it may be that some people.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Should not be working there anymore?

[Jon Lovett]

Yeah, he sounds like he's fixing it. I have seen doctors and public health experts all over social media struggling to convey just how serious and dangerous all of this has been. I know you've recently interviewed a few of those experts for the podcast. What do you think? What are your takes on everything that's happened here?

[Dan Pfeiffer]

So, you know, in the recent weeks, as RFK Jr. Has been sort of gutting our public health infrastructure, has been undermining vaccine policy. I talked to the health care writer of Tul Gawande, Caitlin Jettalina, who is a leading epidemiologist and writes a very prominent substack, and Dr. Michael Osterholm, who runs a vaccine center, University of Minnesota. And in each one of those conversations, I raise the question with them about what does this mean for the actual safety and efficacy and availability of the vaccines that we care about. And at each point they all said to me, the reason you can remain confident even with these kooks around, as alarming as it is. And no one was saying not to be alarmed, but it's that there were still, real serious career scientists staffing the CDC and the FDA. Oops, that is no longer the case. Like RFK Jr. And Donald Trump have gutted our health infrastructure. They've gutted the agency that monitors pandemics abroad. They've gutted the agency that deals with the availability, efficacy and safety of vaccines. They have gutted the agency that is tracking foodborne illness across the United States. We are so much less safer than we ever possibly could be because of these decisions. And what it really does, and I think this is a really alarming thing here, is there is a real risk of a sort of deadly spiral on vaccines because the people who don't trust the government now run the government and are undermining vaccine policies from there. So then the people who do trust the government have very real questions about can we trust this group of kooks to ensure that we're getting safe vaccines? And you can see just a complete undermining of the vaccine system that has kept us safe for generations in this country because of the work, because we. Trump picked, and the Republican Senate confirmed a anti vaccine conspiracy theorists to be in charge of our vaccine supply. It's incredibly, incredibly dangerous.

[Jon Lovett]

Quote, I think this is quite a negative and potentially catastrophic step for the country. That's Admiral Brett Giror, who's a physician who helped lead the response to the coronavirus pandemic during Trump's first term.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

We remember him from the briefings, and.

[Jon Lovett]

He advised Kennedy during the latest transition. So this is not some liberal kook. And this is. And Jerome Adams, who was the Surgeon General for the first term, he's been criticizing this. I mean, it is, it is not like, you know, a group of liberals and Democrats on Twitter. This is. People are very, very alarmed. Like you said, what happens if there's an Ebola outbreak right now? What happened? Like bioweapons, the next pandemic, like, we just forget about whether they're kooks or not. None of them have the experience. And these were some of the best, most trusted officials who had served both Republican and Democratic administrations, including some in Trump's administration over the last couple decades. And now the CDC doesn't have that expertise anymore.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

It's not just that they question the science. It's they explicitly reject the science because it's science. Because if you were to actually listen to the science, to actually take a moment to listen to the people who know what they're talking about, to look at the research, it just eviscerates their entire position on vaccines. And so now, basically, we have our public health infrastructure is run by anti scientists.

[Jon Lovett]

Yeah. And just so people understand what limiting the authorization for a vaccine like COVID 19 actually means, so they say, okay, you can get it if you're over 65. It's authorized for people over 65 and for people with one comorbidity, one underlying health condition. So of course it has not been approved yet by this CDC panel as well. FDA already did this. Kooks over there now. And now we're waiting for the CDC kooks in September to approve this too. If it is approved. That means if you or I wanted to get the COVID vaccine, we could try to ask our doctor. But a lot of doctors know that if they prescribe something that is off market, which this would be, if it's not authorized for people like us, then they could be open to litigation, to lawsuits, to malpractice suits. And so, you know, some doctors will probably say, sure, I'll still do it anyway, because these people are fucking crazy.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

But.

[Jon Lovett]

But others won't. And another thing, a lot of people, most people get these vaccines at Walmart, cvs, places like that. They're not gonna administer them to people who aren't over 65 or have one underlying health condition. So you really have a lot of people who just don't get this vaccine. And this is the COVID 19 vaccine. The fact that they're gonna look at and reconsider measles, hepatitis, I mean, it's like really fucking scary.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Well, at least measles hasn't been in the news recently.

[Jon Lovett]

I mean, did you see the guy that was in charge of vaccine recommendations? I read some of his resignation letter. He also said in that letter, it's clear that he's never once the senior leadership. He and his team have never once had the opportunity to brief Kennedy. And it's clear that Kennedy is only listening to outside groups.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Yeah, like this is my point. Like he, Kennedy's position is absurd. The scientific consensus around vaccines is so strong that it is impossible. It is like being he is like an anti gravity or flat earth person. Like, you can't have a conversation about it because you can't withstand one minute of scrutiny. So instead of testing, like being an actual public service official and actually abiding by what he said he would do in his confirmation, what Kennedy is doing. He's avoiding having the conversation so he doesn't have to test, he doesn't have to try to defend his position if people actually know the answers, because he will fail in a second.

[Jon Lovett]

And again, this is like, you know, going back to the pandemic. This isn't about, like, vaccine mandates and you're forced to get this or that. This is just about the availability of vaccines that have been tested that have saved millions of lives. And people just saying, I think I wanna choose that. It's safe, it's going to protect me, and I'd like to choose it. And basically, Kennedy and HHS and CDC and the government right now are gonna say, no, you can't. You can't. Unless you can find it off market somewhere.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Yeah, they know better than your doctor.

[Jon Lovett]

Kennedy tried to fire Manara's. He couldn't. Trump had to do it. So Trump. The White House said today that Trump hasn't commented on this yet, at least as of this recording. We're Thursday afternoon. But Caroline Levitt at the briefing said that Trump fired her. And this guy, Jim o', Neill, who was a Kennedy adviser, is now going to be, you know, the head of the CDC temporarily until they can find a permanent replacement. This guy was a Peter Thiel advisor.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Cool.

[Jon Lovett]

And here's what he thinks of vaccines. In January of 22, he tweeted, Is Omicron the best vaccine? Remember, CDC can redefine the word vaccine at will. So his suggestion was, if you get Omicron, that's the best kind of vaccine.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

It's gonna be really interesting to know whether they actually put up another person for this job. Yeah, I suspect they're not. I suspect they're just gonna run through whatever it is. 180 days of acting appointments until the midterms or.

[Jon Lovett]

So, unfortunately. Kennedy was also asked about the horrific mass shooting at a church in Minneapolis this week, which took the lives of two children. I say unfortunately, because it gave him a chance to say this. We're launching studies on the potential contribution of some of the SSRI drugs and.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Some of the other psychologists, psychiatric drugs.

[Andy Richter]

That might be contributing to violence.

[Jon Lovett]

So this is the new line. JD Vance also echoed that in a speech later on Thursday. This is the idea that SSRIs treat people for depression, for anxiety. And the idea here is kids are taking these, young people are taking these, and it's contributing to mental illness. Even though they're prescribed to help mental illness, it's contributing to mental illness, and that's causing mass shootings.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

I would just note that in the United States of America, it is much easier to buy an assault rifle than it is to get access to antidepressants.

[Jon Lovett]

I mean, this is what they do, though, because there's this whole this whole debate around SSRIs, right? And you know, they have some downsides, some side effects, especially for people under 25, which is why the FDA has like a warning on them. And doctors tend to monitor people, especially young people who are on them closely for the first couple weeks to make sure everything's okay. After that, the record is excellent. It has helped millions and millions of people who are on these drugs. There is zero evidence that it contributes to mental illness or violence at all. There are some, you know, there are some side effects. People get off them too quickly. You have to watch that. So, you know, do it with a doctor. But the idea now that we are going to blame mass shootings on antidepressants, it's just like. And this is just one response to the horrific shooting in Minneapolis by the Republicans. They have turned this whole thing into a culture war. The shooter, 23 years old, took their own life. It appears that the shooter was trans. So they're of course blaming the fact that the shooter was trans on this, on the shooting. It's said that the shooter in one video had like killed Donald Trump on the guns. And so they're saying, oh, it was like an anti Trump trans person that did it. The shooter also had anti Semitic, racist, anti Latino, all kinds of other slurs written on the weapons. The shooter worshiped other mass shooters, like the Christchurch right wing shooter and other like extreme right wing shooters, Timothy McVeigh, all this other kind of stuff. So clearly the person is just disturbed in a whole bunch of different ways that don't fit into a fucking political box either way, which is typically the case with. Which is why you don't make every shooting about politics. And this is all they can talk about now.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

I mean, I've been in your office all day today, which means I've been watching more Fox News than I've watched in months. And the chyron all day is trans shooter.

[Jon Lovett]

When talking about this and trans violence. This is their new thing, that all the mass shooters are trans now, which is just fucking horseshit.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

The dialogue on this, frankly the entire dialogue on it is so depressingly tedious, particularly after school shootings where it's just like. It's so detached from the reality and it's like, what the right is doing. I'll get to that in a second, is absolutely gross and horrendous. But the whole conversation always happens is that everyone runs and tries to find out is this person Republican or Democrat, are they pro Trump or anti Trump. And then we're going to make our whole case on that. And I think that is so detached from.

[Jon Lovett]

From.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

That's really a problem with the political class. It's very detached from, I think, how real people feel about this. I think about this all the time. But just my daughter's elementary school is less than a mile from my house. So every time I'm home during the school day and I hear a siren, my immediate instinct is that the worst thing might be happening. Right?

[Jon Lovett]

Yeah.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

And I think that's how every parent feels. So you think that every time you drop your kid off at school, no matter where you live, big city, small town, it can happen anywhere. And what. And so just. And I think the response, everyone's response, the failure to be able to do anything about this, even though this is obviously the Republicans fault, that we have not been able to deal with guns in this country, is one reason why people are so detached and depressed about politics. Because it's like, here's this thing that's happening that I worry about every single day that is only happens here in the United States. And we can't do anything of consequence about it. It's very frustrating on the right. What is happening here is the way they respond to these shootings, whether it is turning to a culture war, making about trans, making about SSRIs or whatever it is betrays the weakness of their position that they're trying so hard to gaslight away from the most obvious fucking fact in the world, which is it is too easy to get guns in this country. It's that simple. Because that's why it happens here. It doesn't happen in all the other countries. We are not a country that has. We don't have more mental illness than the rest of the world. We don't have.

[Jon Lovett]

Other countries have trans people. Other countries have mental illness. Other countries have all the other shit.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

The difference here is that you can walk into a store and you can walk out with a gun that same.

[Jon Lovett]

Day, and it's like, you know what, you fucking cowards just say we want people to have guns, and that's it. And we know that everyone having guns means there's gonna be a bunch of mass shootings, people are gonna die. But more important for our people to have guns to, you know, I guess defend themselves, to keep themselves armed in case there's government overreach.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Oops.

[Jon Lovett]

Yeah, wouldn't want that. Right? And that's it. But instead they have to make up all these other fucking excuses and targets for people, which is just. It's disgusting.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

The logical Consequence of the Republican position here is that their strict reading of the Second Amendment means that they are willing to live with tragedies like this. That is a price they believe is worth paying for treating the Second Amendment the way they treat it. Not the way it's been treated for most of the history of the United States, but the way it has been treated by Republicans in this moment, by the Supreme Court over the last 15 years.

[Jon Lovett]

And they will not own up to it. Right.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Just admit it.

[Jon Lovett]

The other thing is this debate has moved very quickly from, you know, a year ago during the campaign, when it was, let's talk about the participation of trans people in sports, especially young, young children. It's moved from that to now. I mean, and there was always this contingent on the right. But now it's. Now it's like the Republican Party position, basically, which is being trans is just a mental illness and that it's not real. Not even like it's. It's moved. So it's not even like, should we have gender affirming care, which age this. No. And now it's just like kids who are allowed to be trans, the parents are doing them a disservice, the schools are doing them a disservice, and now they're going to get mental illness and now they're going to kill people. This is what they're saying. It's just. It's fucking like it's. And honestly, by the way, that is not where the polling is. Like, we've talked a lot of this is. This is another thing where, you know, we've talked about immigration after the election, where the polling was and where it is now on every one of these issues, these culture issues that, you know, the consensus after the election is that, you know, Donald Trump, you know, part of the reason he won was because of this. He has now gone so far to the other extreme and everyone in his party has, that he is not in line with the polling on most of the shit.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Right?

[Jon Lovett]

You can have debates about trans participation in sports and you can look at the polling and be like, oh, we got some work to do. But the idea that, like, trans people shouldn't exist, that's not a majority position by any fucking stretch of the imagination.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

And the way the Republicans have handled this and the way they've handled trans issues since Trump's been elected is the argument for why Democrats cannot back off on defending the rights, dignity, and the humanity of trans people. Yes, like you can. We can debate sports participation, you can debate the other issues, but you cannot back away on this because you had the President of the United States, you have members of one of our political parties demagoguing some of the most vulnerable people in our society and treating them as less than human. And it is our responsibility, it's our moral imperative to stand up for them. And I think that, that this is beyond politics. But as you point out, doing that treating humans as humans, to let people live their lives is good politics.

[Jon Lovett]

And again, like, in a normal world, like you said, everyone who has children, people who don't have children would just be saying, okay, two children were murdered praying in church and a whole bunch of others were injured. And what can we do as a society about how to make sure that doesn't happen? That's it. Without doing all this bullshit, you know, and one way is maybe, maybe we can limit the availability of guns. People still haven't the right to have guns, but maybe we can do something to limit the availability of guns or to make sure we do background checks or to make sure they don't get in the hands of people who are mentally ill or make sure they don't get into the hands of people who've already committed crimes. Maybe. So unbelievably, all these statements from RFK aren't even his most upsetting of the week. We're back to rfk. This didn't get a ton of attention for some reason, but at a Cabinet meeting on Tuesday, Kennedy gave the following update to Trump.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Finding interventions, certain interventions now that are clearly almost certainly causing autism, and we're.

[Jon Lovett]

Going to be able to address those in September. So again, he's referencing September. That's the meeting where they're going to reconsider some of the authorizations on these other vaccines. Kennedy has previously said for a long time that he thinks there's a link between vaccines and autism. There is no link. No science, no evidence has ever shown any kind of link there. Trump has also flirted with this idea as far back as many Times. Yeah, like 2014, I think Bill Cassidy, the Republican senator, who's again, supposed to be a doctor and was, you know, very concerned about RFK's nomination, but then, you know, voted yes anyway because he just wanted to give him a chance. He has now called for the CDC vaccine panel meeting to be postponed because of, quote, serious allegations that have been made about the meeting agenda, membership and lack of scientific process. And he said that if it goes forward, quote, any recommendations made should be rejected as lacking legitimacy. Would have been nice if he had weighed in on the lunatics on the panel and Kennedy by just voting no on his nomination. But here we are. What, if anything, do you think Democrats in Congress and maybe Bill Cassidy can do here?

[Dan Pfeiffer]

I think to make this work, you would need to build a bipartisan coalition of senators, potentially members of Congress as well, who want to fix the situation at the CDC or improve the situation and hold RFK Jr. Accountable. And so you could do this in a couple of ways. You could, like they control the power of the purse. Like in whatever government funding bill we're going to discuss, there could be some specific funding, like restrictions or guidelines around how they can spend their money. You could demand in exchange for funds, more transparency, regular briefings and hearings. You could, in negotiations, if you had a majority there, or you had a true bipartisan coalition, you could try to force new members on the committee or a revamping of the committee to get more legitimate scientists on there. But the question you ask, the question, what can Democrats do? Democrats can do very little because we have no power. And we're not in a world where there is a specific HHS appropriations bill moving through Congress because the appropriations process is broken. So this would have to be something that took place in the larger government funding discussion.

[Jon Lovett]

You could shut down the government over this.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Yeah. Or you could.

[Jon Lovett]

Or if a deal, one of many things.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Or if a deal was being done, you could write it into the deal. But it's just easier when you have a specific bill for specific agencies where you have more leverage. The power of the purse is more important than when or more powerful. You have more leverage in that moment than if you're doing the whole thing. But you really need Republicans here to go along. And maybe Cassidy will do it, maybe there are some others who will. But you need, you need more than just Cassidy. And maybe like Collins, Murkowski, and I don't know how Mitch McConnell's feeling about vaccines today.

[Jon Lovett]

Yeah, I mean, I guess what Democrats can do then is make it a big enough issue and keep the drumbeat going so that when we get to the government funding fight, this is one of the things that becomes a sticking point in the funding. I mean, you know, we'll talk about this, I'm sure, in the coming weeks as we get closer to the funding fight. But we are now piling up a bunch of very big problems, crises in this government that are making it, I think, easier for Democrats to say, look, we're going to fund this kind of fucking health agency. We're going to fund this ICE agency, we're going to fund These fucking, this, this tariff policy, like, we're getting close to that.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

I think it's hard to overstate how far out of the mainstream RFK Jr and Trump are on vaccines. Yeah, like extremely.

[Jon Lovett]

Just public health in general at this point, because it's definitely vaccines, but it's also, I mean, pandemic preparedness, Ebola, all the stuff that we talked about.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Polling on the coronavirus vaccine is very polarized on partisanship. But on all the other vaccines, we are at like 90% trust either. So, like, they are in the far, far, far minority here. And so I think whether it's through the government funding fight, whether it's through yelling and screaming about this, like, actually drawing attention to this is important because you want this to feel so messy for Trump, who I think is like, he is vaccine skeptic and tag it like agnostic. Sort of like, he sort of tried when RFK Jr. Came aboard to like push back on the idea of this. Like, you want to make this really messy for the Republicans in the Senate, the House and the Trump White House.

[Jon Lovett]

Yeah, it was the, maybe the most successful initiative of his first term.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Yeah, I mean, he's Operation Warp Speed. He's a vaxer. He was getting boosted all the time. He's over 65. He'll probably get his Covid booster.

[Jon Lovett]

We say a lot that this like, you know, dem should talk about this and make noise about this. You know, name your issue. But I do think on this one, this is people's health getting their kids vaccinated, making sure that their, their family has good medical care, can, can follow good med, entrust credible medical information coming from the government that's, that's important to people. That is one, that is one that I think resonates with people and that they're going to experience in their daily lives.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

I mean, every parent at the beginning of the school year is certifying their kids vaccines. Yeah, right. Like, it's something that is very much in your life on a very frequent basis.

[Jon Lovett]

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[Dan Pfeiffer]

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[Jon Lovett]

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[Jon Lovett]

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[Jon Lovett]

So we've all become used to the ritualistic Trump fluffing at Cabinet meetings now. Must have been some real tendinitis after the 1.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

I don't want to get explicit, but where's the tendonitis?

[Jon Lovett]

Where do you think it is, Dan?

[Dan Pfeiffer]

That's a good answer.

[Jon Lovett]

Three and a half hours. Three and a half hours of Trump fluffing in the last Cabinet meeting. This week we have an excellent compilation that our producers put together. Let's listen. Mr. President, I invite you to see your big, beautiful face on a banner in front of the Department of Labor because you are really the transformational president of the American worker, along with the American flag and President Roosevelt. And there's only one thing I wish.

[Jon Favreau]

For that that noble committee finally gets its act together and realizes that you are the single finest candidate since the.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Noble piece this Nobel Award was ever talked about. And you, sir, are restoring trust to government. I do believe we're in a revolution.

[Jon Favreau]

1776 was the first one.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

1863 or so with Abraham Lincoln was the second.

[Jon Lovett]

This is the third with Donald Trump leading the way.

[Jon Favreau]

And we are saving America.

[Jon Lovett]

How do these people, like, how did they keep a straight face? I mean, they don't believe that?

[Dan Pfeiffer]

I assume not, but I'm not so sure anymore. I think people can convince themselves of Some really crazy shit.

[Jon Lovett]

I want to believe that before the cabinet meeting, before he walks in, they're all doing a bit with each other, and they're having a fun competition. Like, okay, who can be the most embarrassing? We know that Marco Rubio's got jokes, right? That's what we've heard on the Katie Miller podcast. So maybe Marco Rubio is sort of organizing, and maybe it's like a pool.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

I don't think so. I think that they were too afraid of getting caught doing that and then being kicked out of the club.

[Jon Lovett]

Three and a half hours, Dan. Three and a half hours. Like, Fox cut away. Cause we were watching it and, like. And I had been in a meeting, and I came back and I was looking on Twitter, and I still see Aaron Rupar and Acyn sending clips around from the cabinet meeting. I'm like, it's been three hours. What is happening? Yeah, it's no substance. No substance at the meeting. Just total fluffing.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Like, I love my parents, but I don't think I could in public talk about them in the same way.

[Jon Lovett]

Like, this is our. This is how our cabinet meetings went, right?

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Yes. It's very similar. Barack Obama would lose his mind if anyone was ever that obsequious in his presence.

[Jon Lovett]

And I know everyone's like, oh, you know, everyone loved Obama, blah, blah, as a cult. But, like, he got extremely uncomfortable in cabinet meetings when it seemed like people were just in any meeting, any meeting. But also, you know, in the cabinet meetings, the pool comes in. Right. And so in the pool, then you have like, a sort of a fake cabinet meeting while the press is there and everyone gives, like, little reports. Actually, we didn't. We had, like, one person give a. Like, each new meeting, there would be, like, a different cabinet member giving a quick report, and then Obama would say something, and then the.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

There'd be an agenda, the press would.

[Jon Lovett]

Leave, and there'd be a real agenda.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Usually the press would just be there for Obama's opening remarks. Yeah. And then they would leave. And then. So here's the thing. You do a fake meeting for the press. They need to do a real meeting. They never did the real meeting. In this case, they just did the fake meeting for three and a half hours.

[Jon Lovett]

Yeah. Even the real meeting is not like.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

I mean, it's kind of fake.

[Jon Lovett]

It's kind of fake. Right. But. And we say that we were. We were on the outside of the cabin.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

We were definitely on the outside.

[Jon Lovett]

There's a. There's the people around the table, and there's Chairs all around, and you had.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

To give up your phone. And that was fucking brutal.

[Jon Lovett]

Yes. Because it's like I wasn't talking, that's for sure.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

You speed through the SBA presentation here.

[Jon Lovett]

It's going to anyways, nothing like this. So Trump's cabinet giving him the Kim Jong Un treatment. It's clearly going to his head because here he is musing about himself as a dictator for the third time in the last few weeks.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

So the line is that I'm a dictator, but I stopped crime. So a lot of people say, you know, if that's the case, I'd rather have a dictator.

[Jon Lovett]

If he stops crime, he could be whatever he wants.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Not that I don't have the right to do anything I want to do.

[Jon Lovett]

I'm the person, President of the United.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

States, if I think our country's in.

[Jon Lovett]

Danger, and it is in danger in these cities. The statements and the sentiment are, of course, not new by now. You know, I mean, I think it was very early on in the administration, he tweeted that, you know, he who saves his country cannot violate any law. The Napoleon quote, or at least the quote that's attributed to Napoleon, he seems to be saying it a lot more frequently these days. The White House, I think, told. I think it was Politico. Oh, he's just doing it to knock down all those silly dictator accusations. He's just taking it on because it's so ridiculous. Is that what's happening?

[Dan Pfeiffer]

He seems to really enjoy the dictator part of the job, like it is his favorite part. He's not really digging into the substance of policy issues. And he really likes sending the military places, having parades in his favor, being feted by his cabinet member for three and a half hours. And he will say, I'm not really a dictator, but there's no enthusiasm in that part. All the enthusiasm is in the look at all the things I can do. I'm a dictator. So, yeah, I think he's like, we know this is what he values in leadership. These are the people around the world he admires. It's not the Democrats, it's the dictators. So it shouldn't be surprising what's really dangerous here.

[Jon Lovett]

And we're going to talk about the occupied D.C. maybe soon to be occupied Chicago, and sort of the politics around crime. But what drives me nuts about the whole debate around crime or immigration is what he's saying there, which is, I can do whatever I want if the country's in danger. Right. Same with the tweet. He who saves his country Violates no law. What he is setting up there is whatever happens, whatever I decide to do, all I have to say is that there's an emergency in the country, that we are in danger, whether in danger from immigrants, from protesters, from Democrats. I don't know. We didn't even play this clip. I forgot about it. Stephen Miller was on Fox earlier this week. He literally said, the Democratic Party isn't a party. It is a domestic extremist group. That's what Stephen Miller said. They are setting it up so that they can do whatever they'd like with the military, with their secret police force to anyone in the country and say it is because there's an emergency, because the country's at risk.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

I mean, this is textbook fascism. This is how fascist regimes happen. They fake a threat. They seize power to protect people from that fake threat, and they never give it back.

[Jon Lovett]

And it's just like. And we're gonna look back on it and be like, well, at the time, he just said it was about fighting crime and people want crime to go down. Or he said it was about immigration and people were really upset about the border. How could it have been about this? Some of those protesters turned violent. Of course we wanted to bring in the troops. So those comments were. Were part of a longer rant about sending troops to Chicago. Why it's so offensive to him that J.B. pritzker won't ask him to do it before he does it anyway, which it seems like he will after he posted about Chicago on Thursday and said, quote, the people are desperate for me to all caps. Stop the crime, something that Democrats aren't capable of doing. All caps. Stay tuned. Exclamation, exclamation, exclamation. President DJT again, the Gavin tweets are the ones that are. That are silly, right? Those are the ones that are. The administration has also asked for Naval Station Great Lakes, which is just north of the city Chicago, to offer logistical support for what Kristi Noem is calling an ICE strike team that is on its way to Chicago. Meanwhile, in occupied D.C. armed troops are still patrolling the streets. The federal government has seized control of Union Station. So that's cool. Mayor Muriel Bowser got criticism from the D.C. council after saying she, quote, greatly appreciates the surge of officers and believes that crime is going down, though she did also say that the masked ICE agents are unhelpful and that the National Guard presence is unnecessary. The New York Times reports that Cleveland Mayor Justin Bibb hosted a call with other big city mayors to talk strategy around Trump's deployment, where he urged a, quote, serious on safety, serious on cost messaging strategy. The big undercurrent in the Times story is Democrats worrying about appearing soft on crime because of their opposition to the president's military occupations of major American cities.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Kill me, right?

[Jon Lovett]

Like, you say the sentence and you're like, maybe we don't want to be soft down crime. Polls are mixed on this. So there was a new AP poll that shows that 55% of Americans support the use of the military and guard in assisting local police. Trump was not attached to this. It was not asked as a, do you support what's happening right now? But in that same poll, 55% oppose the federal government taking control of local police. On the other hand, voters in a new Quinnipiac poll this week oppose Trump's DC deployment by 56 to 41. And a new Reuters poll has just 36% of Americans approving of Trump's takeover, while 46% oppose. Polls also show that DC residents fucking hate it. Which is also evident by the fact that the Justice Department has now failed to get multiple indictments from multiple grand juries in D.C. for charges involving alleged assaults on federal officers, including sandwich guy.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Sandwich guy got off.

[Jon Lovett]

They didn't get sandwich guy. He's gonna. Well, he's gonna get charged with a misdemeanor because they couldn't even get a fucking grand jury to indict the guy.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Really? Bringing lie to the idea you can get a grand jury to indict a ham sandwich?

[Jon Lovett]

Dan, it's there. It just came to you. It just came to you.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

I mean, should we take a moment right now, speaking of great sandwich jokes, to point out what's soon to be available in the crooked store?

[Jon Lovett]

Thanks, Dan.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

I mean, I was shocked and disappointed by this, but you tell us.

[Jon Lovett]

Well, Lovett had the idea of having a T shirt with a sandwich on it, and underneath a sandwich it says hero, which is a name for a sandwich.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

It was pointed out by Sol, our producer.

[Jon Lovett]

Yeah. It took us all a minute to get it.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

He got there.

[Jon Lovett]

He did get it. They also wanted us to wear it during.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

It was sitting on the back of my chair and I was like, no.

[Jon Lovett]

I'm like, we're going to end up on Fox anyway. I don't need to be wearing that shirt while we do.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

That's right. Wait till we get to the Democratic section, then we'll be on Fox.

[Jon Lovett]

That's where we really shine. I do think there's something to be said for all jokes about the sandwich guy aside. It is extremely rare for grand juries not to indict.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Oh, yeah, they do. I go for it. I have the stat that's winner on Twitter, which I don't know why this is dated to 2010. But in 2010, there were 163,000 federal prosecutions, and they failed to get an indictment in 11 of them. So that's a 99.993% success rate.

[Jon Lovett]

Because I am. Because I'm not a lawyer. Didn't go to law school. Not like Lovett. And took the LSATs and got a high score. I looked this up the other day, not about this, but way back when, it seemed like all of our colleagues might be getting indicted for the Russiagate hoax. And I was like, why do grand juries turn back indictments, like, so, so many times? And I didn't realize, like, in many cases, there's no judge there. There's no defense attorney. It's just the prosecutor. The prosecutor has. They run the evidence or they present the evidence, and they also instruct the grand jury on what the law is. So they have enormous power here with really no sort of dissenting opposing argument.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Yeah. The point of it is to prove to a jury that you have probable cause for the charge, right?

[Jon Lovett]

Yeah. And the standard is obviously much, much lower. So the fact that they couldn't get that. It does tell you that people in D.C. might be getting D.C. extremely Democratic city, But I tell you, people are getting pretty radical against the military takeover.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Isn't he on video throwing the sandwich?

[Jon Lovett]

Yeah, I think that. I think the. The reason is he was throwing the sandwich.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

It's not a felony.

[Jon Lovett]

Of course. You can't be throwing fucking sandwiches at police officers or federal officials. But misdemeanor, which is what he's getting charged with and not a felony, which is the way the law is supposed to work. Back to crime. What's your sense of where public opinion is on this? We have talked about. I don't know if you and I have had the conversation about the DC takeover. We've had it privately, obviously, a million times, but I don't think we've had it on. Mike, please correct us.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

We literally might have done it last week.

[Jon Lovett]

You can all correct us. Yeah, I don't know, but what do you think?

[Dan Pfeiffer]

I mean, I think it's worth just acknowledging that the politics of crime are complicated. So in 2024, 2/3 of Americans told Gallup that crime was up over the previous year, crime was down. And this is not a new phenomenon. TikTok broke our brains Sort of situation. In every year since the year 2000, a majority of Americans have thought crime has gone up. Most years crime went down. And it's because there's a couple of reasons for this. One is the news. This is a worse problem now in social media. But for the beginning, as long as there's been television, the news has led with crime. So if there is one murder in your community, it will be on the news for like six weeks at a time. Right? So it never gives you an accurate, you know, the news covers the bumps, not the road. The second is people. The polling also shows that people are very think of crime as a serious problem, even when statistically they have no reason to be very worried about crime. But people's fears are not rational conversation you and I have about flying all the time, where it's like you just.

[Jon Lovett]

I thought you were going to say flying too. And also a conversation we had about inflation. Right. This is a different subject. But like, you can't be like, oh, the statistic, the economy is doing great. And someone's like, well, actually, it's fucking expensive groceries.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

What I'm saying, when someone's scared of something, you can't like telling them that they're more likely to die from a piano falling on their head than whatever they're worried about. Like, this is ongoing frustration of Barack Obama's because remember, everyone was worried that ISIS was gonna come to their mall and attack them. And it's like the odds of that are so small and you have all these other ways in which you could die. You're at risk every time you get a car. Much more at risk when you get a car accident. So people's fears are irrational. And Republicans have a strength on crime. Right? Trump, he had a one point advantage on crime in a poll that happened in 2024. But every other issue, he's underwater. This is an issue where he is not underwater. Although there has only been limited polling on crime up until very recently. So you hear that in Denver, people are like, avoid his trap, don't fall in his trap. He wants you to talk about crime instead of tariffs. Well, the president invades a US City, the United States Capitol, with armed military, it's kind of hard not to talk about. So you should probably find the best way to talk about it. My view of it is that you can't make it about crime. You can't say, I have just told you the facts, that crime has actually gone down. And it's gone down a lot in D.C. it's one of the largest drops in violent crime in history, year over year. But telling people that is not basically your best play here, because then it does sound like you are minimizing crime. I think you should make this be about the fact that this is a stunt. It's a giant waste of taxpayer resources, and it's happening against the wishes of the local officials and most importantly, the local police.

[Jon Lovett]

Yeah, it's tough because if someone thinks that the presence of troops and extra cops and everything else is about, okay, well, there's more cops on the beat. And so that seems good. Cause most people think more cops means it's gonna be safer. Especially if I saw. And it's not just about Bill Clinton.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Ran on that promise.

[Jon Lovett]

Right. And it's also not just about people. Okay, well, you could say, like, how many people have actually experienced a crime? It's not just about experiencing a crime, though. It is about that, but it's just about, like, public disorder. Right. Like, if you.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Incidents.

[Jon Lovett]

Yeah. If you see. If you're on a subway, if you're on a street corner, you see someone screaming and yelling at someone, like, you're like, okay, this is kind of scary. Right. And so it's about more than that. But if you think that, like, that ICE is about deporting the worst of the worst, and you think about. And you think that extra cops is about bringing down crime, then you're gonna say, well, this all seems fine to me. But if you're walking around the city and suddenly they are tasing delivery drivers and people in masks and hauling them off and throwing them in a van, and you're seeing all these troops armed just in your city, day after. Maybe. Maybe a couple days, it's no big deal. Maybe a couple weeks, it's no big deal. But, like, day after day after day, and then you're gonna be like, I don't know. Is this really about crime? Cause this seems pretty. And to your point about the stunt, I think everyone who saw the National Guard troops just picking up trash in D.C. because there was nothing really else for them to do, they probably don't think, oh, this is scary. But they probably think, yeah, this is maybe a little bit of a waste here.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

That's what I think. The right argument here. So the hard part is like, yes, if you live in the city, you experience the disorder to the extent it exists. If you live in a city and you have to get someone at Walgreens or Duane Reade or CVS to let you get deodorant every single time because they're so worried about shoplifters. That contributes to how people feel about public safety. But most people don't live in cities or a lot of people don't live in cities. And so they're not seeing the National Guard, they're also not experiencing the crime. Now people who don't live in cities are actually oftentimes more afraid of crime.

[Jon Lovett]

People live in the cities because they watch the local news, which is about the city that they live near.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

I mean, there was a time in which people were so afraid of crime that they wouldn't put sports arenas in cities.

[Jon Lovett]

Right.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

They would put them in the suburbs because they thought people from suburbs wouldn't go in the cities because they were so afraid. And so I just think that the argument that Democrats should ignore this is not a real argument because it's not possible to ignore it. You cannot be someone who is a member of the opposition party who has taken an oath to the Constitution and then say I am just going to stay silent on the military occupation of one American city possibly spreading to others because it doesn't poll well. So you would just have to figure out how to talk about it. And I do think the way to do it is to sort of ally the crime trap and try to treat it as a stunt that's a waste of taxpayer resources that runs against the advice. It's not what people in the city or the people who run the city or the people who protect the city actually want.

[Jon Lovett]

Also, people don't want crime. But I bet if you ask them, do you want a situation where there are these masked agents setting up vehicle checkpoints, asking for people's papers who look like they might be undocumented immigrants who have brown skin or in some cases just anyone and they're stopping the cars and they're saying, where's your papers? I don't think people like that throw that in a poll. Cuz I don't think that's how people want to live in this country. So I do think it's like it's about framing it in a way. And by the way, that was happening in Tennessee, it happened in D.C. on 14th Street. I just don't think people want to live like that either.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

And there's a. This is incredibly dangerous. There is a moment, as you guys talked about on Tuesday. The National Guard is now carrying weapons in D.C. for no reason, no reason that has been articulated. But at some point something bad is going to happen. Something, Ken, state level is going to happen. And that could be the sort of thing that fundamentally changes the fabric of this country, both in how the public reacts to it and how Trump uses it.

[Jon Favreau]

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[Jon Lovett]

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[Andy Richter]

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

[Jon Lovett]

All right, Speaking of the Democratic Party trying to figure out what to do about our descent into fascism. Boy, did they nail it at their at the annual summer meeting in Minneapolis this week. So this event had land acknowledgements, competing Gaza resolutions, worries about fundraising, polling, presentations that advise ditching the phrase tough on crime for serious about safety, even a proposal for a new fight song, which we will get to in a bit. No surprise that the coverage of the event, which was for some reason livestreamed, focused almost entirely on the party's internal conflicts with a heavy dose of mockery. To be fair, the party did have some wins. Democrats flipped a state Senate seat in Iowa this week with a 20 point over performance, and the DNC had invested in the organizing around that race, so they took some credit for that. But overall, the consensus seemed to be that the meeting wasn't exactly Democrats putting the party's best foot forward. Afterwards, Democratic operative Adam Jennelson told the Bulwarks, Lauren Egan, quote, it would probably be better for the party as a whole if the DNC just turned the lights off and padlocked the building for the next two years. What do you think?

[Dan Pfeiffer]

I think the whole thing is maybe a microcosm of all of our problems, which is you have in Iowa this great win, right? We know we do well in special elections. We're actually in 2025, we're doing about five to six points better in special elections than we were doing in 2017. So I think that there is evidence that underneath the challenges we're having at the party establishment level that people are doing the work and winning races. And that's very important.

[Jon Lovett]

You see that turnout was 55% of the 2022 midterms in that district. That's high for a special election the summer of 2020 25.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

So like that. That is the positive part here. It is the establishment of the party, which is embodied by the DNC, which is a collection of whatever it is 400 some party chairs, party committee people. Just like the absolute establishment of the establishment that is still struggling to reckon with the moment we are in. Right. Both. I mean, I will stipulate I've been in politics a long time. The DNC has been a shit show almost for the entire time of my career. And particularly when we're not.

[Jon Lovett]

It exists to be a punching bag and a shit show.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Like when you have the White House. The DNC is a political arm of the White House, and it usually is neither. You don't really ever really hear from. Raises money. It organizes, it does what the White House wants. When you're in opposition, it becomes the vessel for everyone's anger about the party, even though it has so little power and so little influence. Yeah, like, everyone thinks the DNC makes messaging decisions, picks candidates, can fix presidential elections and all these things. And it's really. It's basically in a presidential election, it's a bank account for the nominee with some organizing on the side.

[Jon Lovett]

Here's my big criticism of the whole event. Why did they live stream it? Why did they just. If you're gonna have a meeting and you're gonna have polling presentations and you're gonna do the whole thing and just talk about shit, like, just don't. I mean, you can have. I guess you have press there. I don't know. Like, they can have just. They can just have a fucking meeting.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

I mean, it's open press.

[Jon Lovett]

Like, I get that some parts are open press.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

I'm sure they've been live streaming it for 100 years, like, since livestreaming was available.

[Jon Lovett]

Well, then if you're gonna live stream it, do we need to start with the land acknowledgement? Is that something that. Have we not learned our lesson? First of all, and it's not like the land acknowledgement. Like, do we think the land acknowledgments do anything? Do we give back the land? Like, we probably should do. We go do. Maybe people should go do something to help indigenous Americans in the country instead of just acknowledging the fact that hundreds of years ago something horrific happened on that land. I don't know.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

It's.

[Jon Lovett]

What are we doing?

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Like, it's very hard to think about what we should do as a party and reverse engineer it from what is gonna make it Fox and Friends. Like, I don't want us to do that. But there does need to be a little more savvy about the whole picture that is painted. Right?

[Jon Lovett]

Just to touch.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Just a little touch more savvy. Like what? Like, what is the story you're telling with this. There is a world in which you could use this to, like, we have a bunch of exciting candidates, like, really exciting candidates. We've had, to the credit of the Senate and House, we've recruited a bunch of great candidates to run the Sherrod Browns. Roy Cooper's a bunch of really interesting people running for House veterans, former, like, fired federal government scientists and people working in the VA and all this. You could highlight those people. We're winning races instead of doing that. Instead, the dnc, which has no real say in a lot of these issues, I know we're going to get to the Gaza resolution in a second, is putting itself in the middle of it. And I think one challenge here is. I don't know what the answer is, but there was a. Ken Martin won the DNC race. He was the most insider of insider candidates. Right. He was the chair of the association of Democratic Party Chairs. He'd been a party chair for a long time. He'd been a very successful party chair to his credit. But he won the race because he had relationships with all the other party chairs, which is a huge part of the voting bloc. But it was a continuation of what the DNC had been. I know he's trying to make changes, but after 2024, you probably needed someone who was going to come in a little bit like Howard Dean did when he won the dnc, who was going to knock it over and start from the beginning. And so we're kind of. We're not making any real wholesale changes. We're just kind of making cosmetic changes around the edge, and it's not working. But, like, publicly, like, I mean, we did. Yeah, that's the thing.

[Jon Lovett]

And it's the public aspect that's the tough part. Right. Because I think that Ken Martin would say, and did say to me when I interviewed him, it's like, you know, he's been investing and organizing, doing all this stuff, and, you know, that's why they took credit for the Iowa thing and good for them. And he is an organizer at heart. There is a larger problem with the DNC and just the party in general that, like, Martin is not going to be able to fix. Yes.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

The DNC is an embodiment of the party's larger problems.

[Jon Lovett]

Yes. And it doesn't seem like they really dug into those that much or at least made a lot of progress, you know, projecting an image of the party that has learned anything from the last defeat.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Right. I think that's the bigger thing, is you can't Expect the DNC to solve the problem. You can't expect them at the August 2025 annual summer meeting. I guess it is to have figured everything else out. But there was probably a way to be a little more deliberate in the public presentation of what the party was doing.

[Jon Lovett]

For example, I'm just thinking of this now, like, so that that candidate who just won in Iowa, invite that person to come speak there. Some of the recruits that we have that are exciting candidates in some of these swing districts, invite them to come.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

I bet they wouldn't come. That's the problem. This is the problem. We're gonna get to this, the other convention idea going on. But one of the challenges is if you're Roy Cooper or Sherrod Brown, you.

[Jon Lovett]

Don'T want to be.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

You would never go there.

[Jon Lovett]

You don't have that.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Yeah.

[Jon Lovett]

You don't have the taint of the DNC meeting on you. Yeah, that makes sense. While all this was going on, Gavin Newsom did a big live interview with Politico where he did not mince words. I think we have some tape. This guy doesn't believe in free, fair elections.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

He could.

[Jon Lovett]

He tried to wreck this country. Were you there? January 6th? Tried to light democracy on fire. He dialed for 11. Almost 12,000 votes.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Now he's doing it in plain sight.

[Jon Lovett]

And people say, oh, it's just Trump being Trump. You think he's joking about 2028. You think when he brings foreign leaders.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

To the Oval Office and he goes.

[Jon Lovett]

To the White House store. Have you seen this anyone? Is it just me? And he shows them the 2028 hats.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

He's not being serious. Wake up.

[Jon Lovett]

You will lose your country. I mean, that's one way to do it.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Yeah.

[Jon Lovett]

Right. Now, I caught a couple lines from Ken Martin's speech, and he was doing the we gotta fight fire with fire thing, and he was trying to be tough like Gavin, but again, that's one person in a whole meeting that gets.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

It's not that the people there don't wanna fight.

[Jon Lovett]

No, it's not that. It's just. It looks too.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

I kind of. We're hammering on them, and I'm not trying to defend them in any way, shape or form, but there was no way this was gonna go well, right? There was just absolutely no way.

[Jon Lovett]

Because there's ways. It could have gone better.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

It could have gone better, but it's just Democrats are mad at Democrats right now. So it's one that, like, if you have a great meeting and the Republicans are gonna shit on it, no matter what the meeting is. But if Democrats are mad at the party, as they have every right to be right now, then you just create this. You're pleasing no one with anything you do.

[Jon Lovett]

I do think and wish very much that more Democrats would find their own inner Gavin Newsom. And what I mean by that is not just do exactly what he's doing and then try to do the tweets that his office is doing and then say the same things that he's like, find what's making you upset and what's really bothering you and where you think the country should go. And go say that more and be less ca. I mean, we've talked about this. But be less cautious. And again, I'm not even saying that, you know, Gavin Newsom's gonna be our best nominee. Right. Like, I'm not. I'm just saying in this moment, in the summer of 2025, there should be more Democrats sounding like that.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

I think the. I wrote about this in my newsletter, the Message Box, this week. But there is a fundamental divide. The Democratic Party, and we have divides on every issue. Like, as I wrote, we're divided over Ezra Klein's book writings. Okay. Like, we can't.

[Jon Lovett]

We're about to talk about Gaza.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

So, yeah, yeah, like, so we're divided on everything. But I really do believe the big fundamental divide in the party, and Alyssa Slotkin has talked about this a lot, which is people who think Trump is an existential threat to democracy, which Gavin Newsom does, and a lot of people who think that Trump is very, very bad but survivable, that our goal here is to just make it to 2026 and then make it to 2028. And that if you are in the Gavin Newsom camp, you need to think outside the box. You have to be willing to embrace high risk strategies that push the envelopes, are willing to run over norms or previously held positions. And if you're in the latter camp, where I think Chuck Schumer is, I think Richard Whitmer is, you just think very differently. And I think more people should be in the Gavin Newsom camp. I am in the Gavin Newsom camp, but I really found that to be the way to understand how people think about things. Because the DNC meeting is, even if people use the public rhetoric that sounds a version of what Gavin Newsom says, the way that they keep doing things the same way suggests that they are in the this is bad but survivable camp. Yes.

[Jon Lovett]

And I'll give you an example of why this is not ideological necessarily, or Even old versus young or even. Are you gonna go hard at Trump or not? Bernie Sanders. Bernie Sanders has been acting now for several years like he believes that we're in an existential emergency. He hits Donald Trump whenever he can, but he also has his Bernie thing right. He believes that the oligarchy is the problem. And he's very economically populous. He's been consistent about this for his whole career. But he's out there pulling huge crowds, probably the most popular politician in the party, and he's acting like this is an existential threat, Right? Completely. Could not be more different than Gavin Newsom in a whole bunch of different ways.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

It is interesting. I can do a whole podcast on this. But Bernie Sanders, I am interpreting this, but believes that Donald Trump is the symptom of the larger problem he's been talking about for years, which is the oligarchy, an unfair economy, a rigged economy. And Newsom, who I think doesn't necessarily disagree with Bernie on some of the things about the economy, thinks Trump is the problem.

[Jon Lovett]

And like Alissa Slotkin, right, who you just mentioned, you know, former, former CIA, she's in that camp, too. So it's like it's all kinds of people, but. And then, and then the people I really worry about, I'm just gonna name. I'm not gonna name names here, but.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

No, please do.

[Jon Lovett]

Well, because I can't. I can't even think all of them. But the people who I think believe we're in an existential crisis but do not sound like it. You know, like some people have thought about it and are like, I think this is survivable, and I'm just going to act that way. There's some people who, they just don't. They can't get themselves there. You know, they can't get emotional, and I don't want emotional, but, like, they don't. They don't have the passion, they don't have the fire in the belly, and they're just sort of, you know, very. Just analytically talking about it. I'm like, what are you doing?

[Dan Pfeiffer]

I think it's the poverty of imagination.

[Jon Lovett]

Yes.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

I think it is very, very hard. I think this is. You guys talked about why everyone's shrugging about what's going on. I think it's very, very hard to imagine what is happening to America, actually happening here, because it was impossible to imagine just a year ago. The idea that you would have a politicized law enforcement agencies that would be prosecuting people's political opponents, that you would have military marching in the streets that seemed. The idea that democracy could crumble, we believed it could last forever. We believed that for a very long time now and certainly believe that the only thing that could stop it would be a foreign power and not something internal. And so I think for a lot of politicians, particularly ones who've been around a long time, there are exceptions like Bernie. It just cannot fathom this is actually happening and are unable to think about it in real. Talk about it in real ways, think about it in real ways, and then embrace the solutions that are proportionate to the threat.

[Jon Lovett]

Yeah, that's well said. And there's just a lot of. There's a lot of trying, like, almost like trying on a costume.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Well, that's. That's the fake bullshit, right?

[Jon Lovett]

It's the fake bullshit you get a lot. I. I've said this before. Like, a lot more of them are swearing. Like, they think if they swear a little bit, they drop a few fucks, then suddenly everyone's gonna be, oh, they're tough.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Now, I'm for the swearing. I think it's fine.

[Jon Lovett]

I'm only for the swearing. If you swear. Normally, if this is how you talk, you know, unfortunately, this is how. I wish I swore less on this, but, like, this is how we talk, you know, and if that's how you really talk, then like, go do it. But some of, some of them drop it mid conversation. You're just like, where'd that come from?

[Dan Pfeiffer]

I've never met a politician who didn't swear a lot. I would say never once in my life.

[Jon Lovett]

Yeah.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

So again, maybe Drew Lieberman would be the exception.

[Jon Lovett]

I like the Gavin tweets, but like, find your own thing.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Oh, yeah, that's just.

[Jon Lovett]

Don't do your Gavin tweets.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

The people doing the other Democrats doing the Gavin tweets is embarrassing. You need your own shtick. Just.

[Jon Lovett]

Yeah, figure out your own shtick, that's all.

[Jon Favreau]

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[Andy Richter]

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

[Jon Lovett]

So, as I mentioned, the DNC also we got off topic. DNC also debated two competing resolutions about how to respond to the the war in Gaza, with one resolution calling for a complete arms embargo and the other supported by Ken Martin, calling for a more moderate middle course. After a lot of debate, Martin ended up pulling his resolution and kicking the issue down to a task force of stakeholders. Okay, again, don't want to beat up on the meeting here, but maybe this is a chance to talk about in general. You think the party can get its shit together this before 2026?

[Dan Pfeiffer]

It is the question of whether the party will be able to catch up to public opinion, not just in the within the Democratic base, but within the entire country around military offensive, military aid to Israel during what's happening in Gaza. Yeah, that's the question. Also, side note, we don't need committees doing resolutions. Like what is the DNC resolution going to do?

[Jon Lovett]

I know, I know.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

It's like we can have a larger discussion about the party platform in the presidential election year. There's some real questions about how useful that is, but that at least has some. You're putting on paper what theoretically the nominee believes in. So then you can hold them accountable to that point. But the mid year, like just the opinion of the Democratic Party is this like, is that. I don't know that. Like, I think there was a real effort that should be done to try to move the other half, the Democratic caucus, to be where we think they should be on this vote. I don't think a DNC resolution is meaningful in that task.

[Jon Lovett]

And I will say, because I'm not going to make the moral case for this again and especially because the people in the other side of the party who are still singing the same tune about Israel, you know, they'll say, oh, I get that this is emotional but you know, we get to seem like we're on the side of Israel. That's where the American people are. That's not where the American people are. Look at the polls. If you think that that's where they are. Those are old polls. And it's not just Democrats. First of all, that Quinnipiac poll, like if you ask what if Democrats, if you ask just Democrats if they believe that we should end weapons sales to Israel, it is like was like 70%. I mean it was overwhelming. But the overall number, including independents and of course Republicans are still for it. But like the overall number I think was like, I don't know, it was like 56, 57 for ending weapon sales. Like it's a majority opinion now.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

And when you ask people who, if they approve of how Israel's conducting the war in Gaza, the numbers are even more devastating.

[Jon Lovett]

People if, who they sympathize with more, the Israelis or the Palestinians. It's now the Palestinians, which is also a huge shift from October 7th. I mean, and the reason I'm just bringing up the polling is not because that's how I think we should talk about it, but to those people in the Democratic Party who think this is a polling issue, it is not.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

I think that there is a lot of parallels in terms of the politics when we talk about the politics with Iraq. With Iraq.

[Jon Lovett]

I know I've Heard the same thing.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

There are people who know what the right thing to do is, but because of an outdated view of politics, are afraid to do it. And those people, especially if they're running for president, are eventually going to get to where they have. Where everyone else is. But you're going to be late.

[Jon Lovett]

Yeah. And you're going to be inauthentic.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

You're going to seem fake, because it is.

[Jon Lovett]

You know, I mean, I'm sure there's some people are going to be like, wow, of course you could have this conversion where you're like, wow, I fucked up and this is horrible. And Netanyahu clearly is never going to end this war and just wants to fucking bulldoze Gaza and doesn't give a shit what happens to people and whatever else. Yeah, you come around to that. But a lot of people are just going to. They're going to look exactly like what it is, which is, oh, this is where the base is and I want to win. And so I'm going to now pretend this whole time that I was actually.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

There were moments to do, like, obviously, incredibly great credit to the people who were very critical when the Democrats were very critical and Biden was president. Like. Like, that is the right thing to do, but not easy to do it against your president, particularly in a. In an election year. But with Trump as president and with the. The way things have changed, particularly with the famine in Gaza, the moment is. Was months ago. And so that is an actual change of facts on the ground that could cause you to change your opinion. But the more you wait, the more you're going to look like you're playing politics here.

[Jon Lovett]

Yeah. See, Jake Sullivan, Biden's former National Security advisor, was talking to our pal Tim Miller on the Bulwark podcast and said that he's advised Democrats that they should oppose weapon sales. Like, that's Jake.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Yeah.

[Jon Lovett]

Who was in the Biden administration.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

It was the person in charge of implementing the Hug Bibi strategy.

[Jon Lovett]

So, like, if you're. What are you doing? If you're. You know, I just don't understand. So Axios reported on Wednesday that senior Democratic officials now want to host a mini convention ahead of the 2026 midterms. I'm now laughing at this because of the conversation.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Yes.

[Jon Lovett]

Where they can showcase candidates and emerging party leaders not to be out down the next morning, Trump posted that the Republican Party might host a convention of their own before the midterms. That, to me, was the only evidence that maybe this is a good idea. What do you think?

[Dan Pfeiffer]

In Theory. I understand the idea is that Democrats need opportunities to get attention. And having another convention, particularly if you did a big one. Right. Like, you're not filling the. Where did we go to the convention? Where was that?

[Jon Lovett]

Chicago.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Chicago. You're not filling the United States.

[Jon Lovett]

It's okay. We all want to forget it.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

I know we went to Milwaukee for a week. I know we went to Chicago for a week.

[Jon Lovett]

We're still waiting for Taylor Swift to come out on stage.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Just getting Leon Panetta.

[Jon Lovett]

Leon Panetta instead. Yeah.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

So the idea of doing a big event and having good speakers, and you'd have to get, like, Kamala Harris would speak there, and maybe you'd get Barack Obama. Like, you would need to draw real attention to get real people to do it. Like, that is intriguing.

[Jon Lovett]

Joe Biden, your face is so worth it.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

That's an option. It's an option. I mean, I actually would say that. I'm sure that the people who would attend the Democratic Convention would be very exciting. You and I were in the audience for his speech in Chicago, apparently, which is where that was.

[Jon Lovett]

Let's keep going.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

But it does. I'm not sure we could execute it in the right way. It would be my concern. Like, I understand the idea in theory, but if you do it and then you just have another giant fight over a Gaza resolution or the other thing you would see is the most prominent Senate candidates don't show up because they don't want to be there for it. So it's like you're doing this convention and Sherrod Brown doesn't come, Roy Cooper doesn't come, and Graham Platner, if he's the nominee and Maine doesn't come, and maybe Jon Ossoff is busy that week, then it's embarrassing for the party.

[Jon Lovett]

Yeah. Because then you're getting. It's like a speech from Chuck Schumer, speech from Hakeem Jeffries, and then now we're looking for more people to fill the speech roles. And it's like, quick, where's Kerry Washington? And. And where's all the. Where's all the select. It's just like, I. I don't. I don't. It gives me the.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Yeah, I understand.

[Jon Lovett]

At first, I was like, you know what we need? We need to get attention. This is my first instinct was like, oh, yeah, a good idea to get attention. And then having watched the summer meeting and talk about this, I'm like, I just. I think the execution is quite difficult.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

The Rollings are definitely going to do this.

[Jon Lovett]

Yeah. Because Trump will then we're going to. Trump probably did it to goad us into doing it.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

No, no, he wants like he wants to do it because he wants another party celebrating him. But. Well, and I think it's to his advantage.

[Jon Lovett]

Yeah. Because I think his big issue for the midterms is the people who turned out for him don't turn out for Republican candidates. And so if he can attach himself to the midterms in people's minds, then he can tell everyone, hey, get out, get out. From me. Forget about these candidates.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

It's a double edged sword for sure. But he's probably gonna get all the downsides of the anti Trump fervor anyway. So a moment where he could keep like high profile moment where he could communicate to his voters that this is the people who didn't turn out to turn out for this is probably to his advantage. So if he does it, then we'll probably have to do it.

[Jon Lovett]

Or one place we could just do it is Crooked Con.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Oh, is there a place for you?

[Jon Lovett]

Did you know we're having a. I'm aware. Have you heard?

[Dan Pfeiffer]

I'm aware.

[Jon Lovett]

November 6th and 7th.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Is there a website you can go to?

[Jon Lovett]

Yes. Crookedcon.com. i got it. I get it.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Was that an intentional tongue twister?

[Jon Lovett]

I don't know.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Was a prank from the marketing team on you?

[Jon Lovett]

Yes. I think most things are all right. Dan. As promised. Just to close up the meeting section, it did include a fight song, which no DNC meeting is complete without. Semaphore's Dave Weigel reported that someone from Act Blue not only shared the song, but recommended that the party adopt it and in multiple sessions put the lyrics up on a presentation so the attendees could sing along.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Did they incessantly text it to everyone?

[Jon Lovett]

I apologize for doing this, but I do need you to read the lyrics.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

I can't redo it. I do this off the dome. I don't have a laptop, so you'll have to do it. Fuck.

[Jon Lovett]

D E M S we rise Stronger together Blue skies lift your voice we're bold and true Onward Democrats we shine blue.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

The thing that is so funny about this, other than the fact that someone thought we needed a fight song.

[Jon Lovett]

Yes. And that it has a blue sky reference.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Yes.

[Jon Lovett]

Little on the nose.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

It's the use of the term stronger together which is the failure of every Democratic messaging process ever. No matter how bad it is, no matter how many yahoos are involved, it ends up with some version of Stronger Together.

[Jon Lovett]

Everything is perfect about it. The only thing I am disappointed in is that we can't hear it. Is there a melody it goes to? That's what I want to know. I asked Dave Weigel on Twitter, but he does not respond.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

If there are any.

[Jon Lovett]

If anyone has the person from Act Blue, I don't know who it was, but whoever can give us a melody to this. I just. I want to be singing it, you know, because I want to practice for this midterm convention and Crooked Con and whatever else you heard it here first.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

That if someone can find the melody for this, Jon Favreau will sing it solo. Can you play it on the piano?

[Jon Lovett]

I will learn to play on the piano. It will become our new theme song to Pod Save America.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

That's ridiculous. I think you should perform it at. You should perform it at cricketcon. Cricketcon. Or the wedding birthday celebration, whatever, of whichever vote Save American Volunteer knocks the most doors.

[Jon Lovett]

Oh, that's a good one.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Jon Favreau will come to your gathering.

[Jon Lovett]

This is now. This is now.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

If that is not up on bothsavamerica.com by the time this episode comes out on Friday morning, it's a failure of the political team.

[Jon Lovett]

Come up with the melody, everyone. All right, last thing before we go. We have to talk about one more piece of news. Taylor Swift's engagement to Travis Kelce.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

This is the first time hearing of this.

[Jon Lovett]

I was in a meeting. I was off my phone for an hour. I come back outside, there's like 40 texts on my. Most of them from my wife.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

I was gonna say in all of.

[Jon Lovett]

The text chains I'm on with her and other Taylor Swift fans. It was wild.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

You know what I was doing when this came out?

[Jon Lovett]

What?

[Dan Pfeiffer]

I was talking to Caroline Reston on Polar Coaster and no one interrupted the.

[Jon Lovett]

Show to tell her about Hunting Wives.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

We were talking about Hunting Wives at.

[Jon Lovett]

The time, which I hate watched. And now can't wait for the second season.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

If you want to hear my.

[Jon Lovett]

That's how I hate watched.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

If you want to hear my take on Hunting Wives, subscribe. Become a friend of the pod cricket.com friends.

[Jon Lovett]

There you go. Anyway, most of the world offered their congratulations. A nice little moment here in our broader descent into fascism. Even Donald Trump was gracious about it. But then Charlie Kirk. You know Charlie Kirk?

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Familiar vaguely with him.

[Jon Lovett]

He recently called us a group of low T complainers and whiners.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Oh, I thought that he's just referring to the Tuesday pod.

[Jon Lovett]

It's true. He had this advice for the happy couple. Maybe one of the reasons why Taylor Swift has been so just kind of annoyingly. Liberal over the last couple of years is that she's not yet married and she doesn't have children. Taylor Swift might go from a cat lady to a J.D. vance supporter, and I think we should celebrate that. It's a great chance for Taylor Swift now to get married and have a ton of children. You can certainly afford it, Taylor. This is something that I hope will make Taylor Swift more conservative, engage in reality more, and get outside of the abstract clouds. Reject feminism. Submit to your husband, Taylor. You're not in charge. What a. What a lucky woman who got to submit to that penis with a hairpiece. That is a. She is. She is one lucky lady. She taught. You know, there's clips of Charlie Kirk's wife talking about how I love submitting to Charlie.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Oh, wow.

[Jon Lovett]

Yeah.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

You are deep in the Internet.

[Jon Lovett]

I mean, that's why I get straight fives on terminally online all the time. So that's interesting, huh?

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Yeah.

[Jon Lovett]

It seems like he was purposely trolling. Is that what the is that?

[Dan Pfeiffer]

No, I think that's his legitimate, sincere belief.

[Jon Lovett]

Yeah, he does think, like, birth control makes women crazy. He said that before. I mean, he's a real. He's a real piece of work.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Yeah, he's not great.

[Jon Lovett]

He's a real piece of work.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Just the kind of person you want being a close advisor to the President of the United States.

[Jon Lovett]

So it's like fucking Taylor Swift is, like, worth more money than a million Charlie Kirks put together. And probably more people go to one of her shows than have ever listened to Charlie Kirk.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

I'd say that's possible.

[Jon Lovett]

It's just like, what? Okay, man, good luck. Good luck again. Lucky lady married to Charlie Kirk. All right, new Crooked Merch just dropped. Check out crooked.comstore to see the latest. Who knows? Who knows? Maybe you'll find the hero T shirts.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

And they release the Epstein Files doormat.

[Jon Lovett]

There may be an Epstein Files doormat in there as well. Again, got to go to the design meetings. More.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

More at once.

[Jon Lovett]

That's where love it is right now. Probably also a reminder that you can now stream ad free video with a paid subscription to Cricket. Enjoy Pod Save America. Pod Save the world. Love it or leave it. And offline and exclusive shows like Inside 2025 and Polar Coaster with Mr. Dan Pfeiffer. No interruptions, just the content you actually came for ad free video is available now on Supercast substack and YouTube. Visit cricket.com friends to learn more. That's our show for today. We'll be back on Tuesday with a special episode for Labor Day, which will be marking our thousandth episode.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Wow.

[Jon Lovett]

I know. That's a little behind the scenes. That's why Dan's here, guys. It's bringing down for the thousandth episode.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

It's a very, very, very important moment.

[Jon Lovett]

Big deal. That's what we're celebrating. I guess we're going to be answering lots of great listener questions for the occasion. So check it out and everyone have a great holiday weekend. If you want to listen to Pod Save America ad free and get access to exclusive podcasts, go to cricket.com friends to subscribe on Supercast, Substack, YouTube or Apple Podcasts. Also, please consider leaving us a review that helps boost this episode and everything we do here at Crooked Pod Save America is a crooked media production. Our producers are David Toledo, Emma Illich Frank and Saul Rubin. Our associate producer is Farah Safari. Austin Fisher is our senior producer. Reed Churlin is our Executive editor. Adrienne Hill is our head of news and politics. The show is mixed and edited by Andrew Chadwick. Jordan Kanter is our sound engineer, with audio support from Kyle Seglin and Charlotte Landis. Matt de Groat is our head of production. Naomi Sengel is our executive assistant. Thanks to our digital team, Elijah Cohn, Hayley Jones, Ben Hefcoat, Mia Kelman, Kiril Pelaviev, David Toles, and Ryan Young. Our production staff is proudly unionized with the Writers Guild of America East.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Hi.

[Andy Richter]

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

[Jon Favreau]

Did you know 39% of teen drivers.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Admit to texting while driving?

[Jon Favreau]

Even scarier, those who text are more likely to speed and run red lights. Shockingly, 94% know it's dangerous, but do it anyway. As a parent, you can't always be in the car, but you can stay connected to their safety with greenlight. Infinity's driving reports monitor their driving habits, see if they're using their phone, speeding and more. These reports provide real data for meaningful conversations about safety. Plus, with weekly updates, you can track.

[Jon Lovett]

Their progress over time.

[Jon Favreau]

Help keep your teen safe. Sign up for Greenlight [e-mail] podcast.