The Audacity of Pope

Summary

Pod Save America – Detailed Episode Summary

Episode: "The Audacity of Pope" (April 14, 2026)

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Episode Overview

This episode breaks down a week of wild political news, with the Pod Save America crew (Jon Favreau, Jon Lovett, Tommy Vietor) offering insight and sharp commentary on:

• The failed Iran negotiations and Trump’s hurriedly announced naval blockade of Iranian ports
• Trump’s public feud with Pope Leo, including blasphemous AI-generated images of himself as Jesus
• The sexual assault allegations that ended Eric Swalwell’s California governor campaign and his congressional career
• Surging hopes for Democrats in key Senate races
• Jon Lovett’s in-depth interview with LA City Council member Nithya Raman, now mayoral candidate, challenging the status quo in Los Angeles

Throughout, the hosts’ signature mix of policy analysis, media critique, and biting humor is on full display.

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Key Segments & Discussion Points

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1. Iran Negotiations and Strait of Hormuz Blockade (03:20–22:57)

• JD Vance’s Diplomatic Failure:
  Vance, acting as Trump’s envoy, attempts face-to-face talks in Islamabad with Iranian negotiators. Talks fail spectacularly, leading Trump to order a U.S. naval blockade of all Iranian ports.

  • Favreau:
    "The bad news is the talks failed insofar as it's not good news if your plane flies almost all the way to your destination and then crashes just at that mountain at the end." (04:56)

• Trump and Team's Strange Priorities:
  While the crisis unfolds, Trump and key advisors (including Marco Rubio and the Secretary of State) are spotted ringside at a Miami UFC fight. Tommy highlights the optics as "ridiculous" (06:04).

• Details of the Blockade:
  Tommy lays out the logistical and geopolitical headaches: 15 US warships, commercial risk, Iranian-laid naval mines that they've now "lost contact" with, and the risk of escalation or ambiguous directives leading to disaster (13:36–16:57).

• Sanctions, Oil, and Global Impact:
  The blockade aims to choke Iranian oil exports, but also risks spiking global oil prices and hurting Americans at the pump. Iran has contingency plans, but the U.S. failed to refill the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, showing poor foresight.

  • Tommy:
    "It's going to be a big problem. And the argument that why are we spending X billions on bombs to drop on schools in Iran when we could be spending it on anything else here pulls through the roof and everyone's going to be able to use that." (62:05)

• Political Fallout for Trump:
  Trump’s approval is "in a straight line down" (21:54), with analyst consensus that gas prices could have a 2011-style effect on the administration’s political standing.

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2. Trump’s Holy War: Pope Leo, AI Jesus, and the Religious Right (27:05–42:28)

• Background:
  Pope Leo publicly condemns Trump's war in Iran and harsh immigration policies. The feud escalates after a “60 Minutes” segment where U.S. cardinals are bluntly critical of Trump's moral leadership.

  • Quote:
    “Pope Leo is weak on crime is a sentence that I will think about. I was shocked, but I also couldn’t stop laughing…” – Favreau (29:05)

• Trump's Retort:
  Trump attacks the Pope online, warns him to "get his act together," and posts an AI image of himself as Jesus. When pressed, Trump laughably claims the image was "me as a doctor" (32:35).

• JD Vance Reaction:
  Vance downplays the spat as “not newsworthy” and insists Trump was “just joking.” He also bizarrely suggests the Vatican should “stick to matters of morality,” not geopolitics (33:36–34:07).

• Implications for U.S. Catholics:
  The hosts discuss how 20% of Americans are Catholic, making this fight politically costly. The right’s historic focus on “personal morality” (abortion, sexuality) vs. the Pope’s focus on peace, dignity, and compassion lays bare a deeper ideological rift (35:04).

• Broader Consequences:
  Even usually loyal far-right media (e.g., Tucker Carlson) are openly questioning Trump’s mental stability and religious blasphemy (37:35).

  • Favreau:
    “For most Catholics, when you start attacking the Pope like that, and then you put yourself as AI Jesus, that is a pretty... punch. It's pretty blasphemous.” (40:47)

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3. Eric Swalwell's Implosion and the California Governor’s Race (46:23–58:39)

The Allegations and Fallout

• Swalwell Out:
  Four women, including a former staffer, accuse Swalwell of sexual assault/misconduct, prompting a criminal investigation and his resignation from both the gubernatorial race and Congress.
  • Tommy:
    “Hire a criminal defense attorney, because there’s a damn good chance that guy gets prosecuted and could see jail time.” (46:36)
  • Lovett:
    “It’s hard to get into the mind of somebody that would have this in their past and think that they could run for governor.” (47:05)

The Gubernatorial Primary Shakeup

• Democratic Field:
  Jon, Tommy, and Lovett analyze the likely showdown between Tom Steyer and Katie Porter, the demise of worries over a "lockout" scenario, and the challenges for Matt Mahan and other lower-polling candidates.
  • Lovett:
    “It does seem like it’s a moment for Katie Porter to spend some money and try to figure out how to bump herself up.” (57:40)

Ethics and Congressional Scandals

• The broader House ethics environment is flagged as a mess, with other resignations and possible expulsions (Tony Gonzalez, Sheila Cherfilis-McCormick, Corey Mills) discussed in the scandal’s wake.
  • Lovett:
    “There’s something so ugly about like, oh, we have to do it in pairs cuz we’re only gonna enforce our ethics in a bipartisan way.” (51:57)

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4. Democrats’ Senate Hopes: Gas Prices and Political Shifts (58:39–62:28)

• Cook Political Report Moves:
  North Carolina and Georgia now "Lean Dem;" Ohio and Iowa newly competitive. Hosts debate how rising gas prices and inflation, thanks to Middle East instability, could reshape November.

  • Jon Favreau:
    “Voters historically are more sensitive to price increases than even job losses, and nothing is more sensitive than gas.” (25:08)

• Caveats:
  Despite the good news, analysts warn Dems "need four" seats and the path remains tough, especially with Texas still "lean Republican" (60:56).

  • Lovett:
    “If it’s five or six dollars a gallon, suddenly the Senate is not just in play, but we have a real, real chance of taking it.” (59:29)

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5. Politics, Media, and Culture Roundup (62:51–66:33)

• Trudeau at Coachella:
  Laughs all around as a viral photo shows Canadian PM Justin Trudeau, age 54, at Coachella in a backwards hat with pop star Katy Perry—while posting about Hungarian politics.
  • Lovett (wryly):
    "He's crushing it. He's dating a pop star at Coachella. We're fucking here. He's crushing it." (64:55)

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6. Jon Lovett Interviews Nithya Raman: "LA’s Dysfunction Is a Political Choice" (68:37–103:24)

Raman’s Case Against the Status Quo

• Why She's Running:
  Raman, originally a Karen Bass supporter, explains her frustration with the city’s lack of urgency, fiscal mismanagement, and resistance to pro-housing reforms.

  • Raman:
    "The idea of having a mayoral election where we weren't even talking about the fact that LA is struggling right now, that a lot of people feel like it's moving in the wrong direction ... made me absolutely crazy." (69:14)

• Fiscal Dysfunction:
  LA’s “basket case” status is traced to massive police union contracts and politically motivated spending (e.g. $6B convention center expansion).

  • Raman:
    "We signed an enormous contract with them that everybody at City Hall knew would lead to hundreds of millions of dollars of shortfall. And yet we signed it anyway because the mayor and many other City hall leaders ... knew that the police union is the major player in local elections." (71:26)

• The Housing Crisis:
  Deep dive on restrictive zoning, bureaucratic delay, and failures in pro-growth policy (e.g. misapplied mansion tax). Raman advocates for increased density, transit-oriented development, and sweeping permitting reform.

  • Raman:
    "We have to build a city where saying yes is the goal of our housing processes, not the opposite." (82:11)

• Fixing LA’s Core Problems:
  From homelessness (criticizing the inefficiency and cost of the "Inside Safe" hotel program) to crime, public services, and film industry decline—Raman’s refrain is focused, data-driven governance.

  • Raman:
    “My goal is to ensure that every resident of Los Angeles feels like the government is working for them and that they can palpably feel the positive presence of government in their lives.” (94:00)

• Political Obstacles:
  The city's entrenched interests, including labor and nonprofit alliances, resist even obvious reforms. Raman sees this as partly ideological (refusing to heed evidence) and driven by patronage politics (85:44–87:30).

• MacArthur Park as Metaphor:
  Raman outlines a pragmatic, humane yet clear-eyed approach to encampments and public safety: combine shelters, mental health interventions, and (when necessary) policing, but "with time and urgency" (90:49–92:45).

• Film Industry and Civic Culture:
  She calls for more aggressive city advocacy and bureaucratic reform to retain film and TV jobs.

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Memorable Quotes (with Timestamps & Attribution)

• "It’s not good news if your plane flies almost all the way to your destination and then crashes just at that mountain at the end."
  — Jon Favreau (04:56)

• "If it doesn’t happen, I’m blaming JD Vance. If it does happen, I’m taking full credit."
  — Donald Trump, as quoted by Jon Favreau (10:09)

• "Pope Leo is weak on crime is a sentence that I will think about. I was shocked, but I also couldn't stop laughing..."
  — Jon Favreau (29:05)

• “Well, it wasn't depicted [as Jesus Christ], it was me..."
  — Donald Trump (32:35)

• "For most Catholics, when you start attacking the Pope like that, and then you put yourself as AI Jesus, that is a pretty... punch. It's pretty blasphemous."
  — Jon Favreau (40:47)

• "It does seem like it’s a moment for Katie Porter to spend some money and try to figure out how to bump herself up."
  — Jon Lovett (57:40)

• "My goal is to ensure that every resident of Los Angeles feels like the government is working for them and that they can palpably feel the positive presence of government in their lives."
  — Nithya Raman (94:00)

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Notable and Humorous Exchanges

• “If you told, just, you kind of shake someone awake in 2011 and you’re like, Donald Trump’s gonna be president, he’s pretending he’s Jesus, and accepting McDonald’s delivery at the Oval Office while talking about blockading the Strait of Hormuz… that’s a joke, that’s a 30 Rock…”
  — Lovett (13:12)

• "He's dating a pop star at Coachella. We're fucking here. He's crushing it."
  — Lovett on Justin Trudeau (64:55)

• “How many books about himself is that guy gonna write?”
  — Tommy Vietor on J.D. Vance (42:56)

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Timestamps for Major Segments

• JD Vance/Iran/Trump Blockade: 03:18–22:57
• Trump vs. Pope Leo / AI Jesus: 27:05–42:28
• Swalwell News & CA Governor’s Race: 46:23–58:39
• Senate Shifts / Gas Price Politics: 58:39–62:28
• Trudeau at Coachella, Political Culture: 62:51–66:33
• Interview: Nithya Raman for LA Mayor: 68:37–103:24

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Final Thoughts

This high-energy episode captures the absurdity, stakes, and human consequences of American politics in 2026 with Pod Save America’s trademark mix of snark, outrage, and hard-earned policy wisdom. Whether unpacking a potential global crisis, mocking the latest Trump spectacle, or examining local leadership failures, it’s essential, unvarnished commentary for anyone trying to make sense of this era.

Transcript

[Jon Favreau]

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[Jon Lovett]

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[Jon Favreau]

We've partnered with SimpliSafe to offer an exclusive discount to our listeners. Right now you can get 50% off your new system by visiting simplisafe.com crooked that's half [e-mail] cricket. There's no safe or like SimpliSafe. Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Jon Favreau.

[Jon Lovett]

I'm Jon Lovett.

[Tommy Vietor]

I'm Tommy Detour.

[Jon Favreau]

On today's show, we'll talk about JD Vance's global face plant. From Budapest to Islamabad. Trump's new ploy to reopen the Strait of Hormuz by blockading it, his new war with the Holy Father and his blasphemous depiction of himself as an AI Jesus. How's that for a sentence?

[Jon Lovett]

Fucking, what a stupid era.

[Jon Favreau]

Then we'll get into the big news in the California governor's race as horrific sexual assault allegations end Eric Swalwell's campaign and his time in Congress. We'll Also talk about the latest encouraging sign for Democrats Senate hopes. Gotta throw some good news in there right then Lovett sits down with our pal Nithya Raman, the LA City Council member who launched a last minute surprise challenge to Karen Bass about why she's running for mayor on a very yimby platform. How's that?

[Jon Lovett]

Yeah.

[Jon Favreau]

Quick reminder, please consider becoming a crooked media subscriber if you haven't already, so that you don't miss out on any of the great content we're putting out there for our friends at the pod. Subscribers get our new extra episode of Pod Save America called Pod Save America Only friends, Other subscriber only shows like Polar Coaster with Dan Pfeiffer, access to all of our excellent substack newsletters like Pod Save America, open tabs ad free episodes of all your favorite crooked pods and you get to feel good about supporting one of the few independent, proudly pro democracy media outlets left in Trump's America. That's us.

[Jon Lovett]

That's us.

[Jon Favreau]

That's us, guys. So head on over to crooked.com friends and subscribe. We're past 50,000 now and so just want to thank all you guys for who signed up in the last couple weeks to put us over the top there. Now we're gonna. Now we gotta get to 100.

[Jon Lovett]

Yeah, let's go. Let's pick up the pace here.

[Jon Favreau]

Let's pick up the pace. All right, let's get to the news. J.D. vance and his New York real estate duo did such a bang up job negotiating with the Iranians in Islamabad this weekend that Trump has ordered a naval blockade of all Iranian ports in the Strait of Hormuz and might resume military strikes. According to the Wall street journal, the 21 hours of direct talks between the US and Iran broke down over some minor stuff like the fate of Iran's nuclear program, control of the Strait of Hormuz, nothing big. Vance, who is just absolutely crushing his audition as future world leader, sandwiched a quick statement about the failure of the talks. In between stumping for Hungarian loser Viktor Orban and watching silently as the moral and spiritual leader of his church was insulted and attacked by his boss, the President. Here's Vance in Islamabad. We've had a number of substantive discussions with the Iranians. That's the good news. The bad news is that we have not reached an agreement. And I think that's bad news for Iran much more than it's bad news for the United States of America. It's quite a good news, bad news there.

[Tommy Vietor]

He tried that again on Fox today he was like, everyone's talking about what went badly, but not what went well.

[Jon Lovett]

Right.

[Jon Favreau]

The thing is, I don't know how far he was like, he was like, you know, no one's talking about how. It's the first time I think since the Iranian regime took power that we sat down for face to face talks. It's like, yeah, why did that happen? Because you bombed the shit out of them. And now they're holding the global economy hostage.

[Jon Lovett]

And also just, it's, it's not good news if you've had talks. And then the bad news is that the talks failed insofar as it's not good news if your plane flies almost all the way to your destination and

[Jon Favreau]

then crashes just that mountain at the end.

[Jon Lovett]

Right.

[Tommy Vietor]

Inputs, outputs, how.

[Jon Lovett]

Other than that, how is the play

[Jon Favreau]

kind of situation anyway? Well, well, well. Vance was in Islamabad trying to negotiate and failing. Donald Trump was monitoring the situation with his Secretary of State and other important figures. Let's take a look.

[Donald Trump]

So good. Looking to be a fighter. You are s fighter. Thank you, man.

[Jon Favreau]

Thank you, S. So there's Donald Trump in Miami hitting on UFC fighters.

[Tommy Vietor]

It goes on. He tells that guy he's hot like two or three times.

[Jon Lovett]

He is hot. I'm glad he's confident. I see a kind of non toxic version of masculinity on display. A man can admire another man being attractive without resorting to, you know, sexual innuendo. That's how I feel. That's how I feel about it. In the middle of a high stakes

[Tommy Vietor]

negotiation over the future of the oily wrestling match.

[Jon Favreau]

One thing for Donald Trump to be there, which is bad enough, but we don't expect much of Donald Trump. Very weird that the Secretary of State

[Tommy Vietor]

and National Security advisor.

[Jon Favreau]

And national security advisor. And I realize he's from Florida, but like just this, hanging out with. Hanging out with Trump in Miami at a UFC fight, you don't get anything better to do. Marco.

[Tommy Vietor]

It's ridiculous. Why isn't Rubio a part of these talks? Why isn't he leading the talks?

[Jon Favreau]

Probably because he wants to stay out of it.

[Tommy Vietor]

Too much Islamabad news. He's like, yeah, things are going from Islamabad to Islama.

[Jon Lovett]

Worse.

[Jon Favreau]

He's like, remember, I'm the guy who.

[Tommy Vietor]

Governor Duro, the famous closer, Marco Rubio.

[Jon Favreau]

I did that other war. So Trump claimed Monday morning that actually the Iranians just asked for another round of negotiations. So who knows? Vance didn't seem quite as forward leaning on that during the Fox interview as Trump did. But why do you guys Think JD Vance, the closer, as he's known to no one, couldn't get it done in Islamabad.

[Tommy Vietor]

Tommy, three problems as far as I can tell. One, both sides seem to think, or at least say they are winning. Two, trust. And then three, just major substantive differences, especially the straight or Hormuz and Iran's nuclear program. I think in terms of like the who's winning question, obviously the US is winning every military battle, as we often do, but we are losing the broader economic war and the Iranians know that they can just kind of wait it out and continue to increase the economic pressure. And then on trust, I mean the U.S. we don't trust the Iranians, but the Iranians don't trust Trump for good reason. He pulled out of the jcpoa and then we and Israel have bombed them the last time we've been having talks. So there's not a lot of goodwill.

[Jon Favreau]

Literally kills the people that we talk

[Tommy Vietor]

to sometimes literally kill the negotiators. Often that's not cool.

[Jon Lovett]

And use negotiation as a pretext to

[Tommy Vietor]

do a surprise to do more bombing.

[Jon Favreau]

Yeah.

[Tommy Vietor]

And then the substance, like Trump wants the straight Hormuz open. The Iranians want to de facto control it and charge a fee. And then the nuclear program, the US position was reportedly end all nuclear enrichment, dismantle enrichment facilities and hand over the highly enriched uranium stockpile. And taking that position going into the talks was doomed to fail because Iran has repeatedly rejected those, those positions and asserted their right to peaceful civilian nuclear enrichment. It sounds like they might have proposed a middle ground. That was a 20 year halt on enrichment activities, which is interesting because we were always told the JCPOA was really awful because there was a 10 year sunset. Now they proposed a 20 year sunset, but obviously.

[Jon Favreau]

So if they took it, they could say, well, we doubled the Obama deal.

[Tommy Vietor]

Exactly. But the Iranians, we've all seen their 10 point wish list. It's like control the Strait of Hormuz, sanctions relief, get the US bases, close them down in the Middle East. So I think the Iranians think Trump's going to get bored of this. He's going to taco, he's going to give up. And meanwhile the Iranians are like, we literally have nowhere else to go. So see you next time.

[Jon Favreau]

Love it. Trump did say, right as the negotiations were about to happen, the Iranians don't seem to realize they have no cards other than a short term extortion of the world by using international waterways. The only reason they are alive today is to negotiate. Regardless of what happens, we win. We've totally defeated that country. Do you think that set the negotiations up for success?

[Jon Lovett]

Like, I was struggling with this, just like watching all this unfold. Like, okay, so Vance is going to Islamabad for high stakes negotiations. Oh, no, the negotiations have fallen apart and now we're doing a blockade. But wait, the negotiations are back on and it's all in. Like, we're allowing like Trump's attention span to like, describe what's happening and like, oh, you didn't resolve this intractable situation in 21 hours. Of course you didn't. Oh, people have walked away, but then are gonna maybe re approach the negotiating table. Like, that's how these laws.

[Tommy Vietor]

Subaru dealer.

[Jon Lovett]

Right.

[Tommy Vietor]

Like two years, 18 to 20 months.

[Donald Trump]

Right.

[Tommy Vietor]

You're not ask.

[Jon Lovett]

Right. You're not trying to get to like a clean like lease terms where you roll it all in on the front end. Like, it's a complicated negotiation. There should be kind of complexities that take time to unwind. Like, oh, it's a stalemate. Wait, we're back on. And now we're blockading. Like, I don't know, like, who knows what the actual strategic logic is of a blockade. But if anything, it just shows that clearly they feel as though they need a deal that's better than what Obama got out of Iran. But because we fought a war, we have created all these conditions that require us to give on all these other things. They have to be in some way compensated or the consequences of the war have to be dealt with. And so what do you have to do to get to a better deal? You have to find some other place to ratchet up to pressure and make it harder for Iran to walk away from a deal. It all just, to me seems like maybe it'll work, but it's an admission against interest.

[Jon Favreau]

The New York Times helpfully reminded us of what Trump said during one of those Easter events a couple weeks ago about J.D. vance going. He said, if it doesn't Happen, I'm blaming J.D. vance. If it does happen, I'm taking full credit.

[Tommy Vietor]

Honestly, like, that's where he's great.

[Jon Favreau]

I know.

[Jon Lovett]

I completely look, as I say to the team at love it or leave it, I cannot fail. I can only be failed. And I kind of respect that ethos.

[Jon Favreau]

From Trump, a double fail, though, from JD Vance after. After his little rally in Budapest.

[Tommy Vietor]

Yeah, it did so well.

[Jon Favreau]

And he said that on Fox News. He was like, look, we can read polls. We didn't think that Victor was going to run away with it. He's on a first name basis with them. He's like, but, you know, sometimes you just do what's right, which is stumping for an authoritarian in Eastern Europe.

[Tommy Vietor]

Kleptocrat in Eastern Europe. Also remember a couple of weeks ago when I think it was Scott Besson said we're jujitsuing Iran by lifting sanctions on them to increase a lot of supply. Now we're blockading the Strait ourselves.

[Jon Favreau]

Well, let's talk about the blockade. Trump announced it shortly after Vance's bad news announcement, which the military then had to explain is not a blockade of all ships entering or leaving the Strait of Hormuz, as Trump initially said, but a blockade of Iranian ports. Trump also said that other countries would be joining us, but once again, that hasn't happened yet either. Though Israel approves. Tons of questions about what all of this actually means. Thumbs up from Israel was like two bbs. Even Israel's like, are they helping with the blockade? No. But they're like, go for it. We like it. Keir Starmer's like, we're not getting dry.

[Tommy Vietor]

Cheer you on.

[Jon Favreau]

Tons of questions about what all this actually means, which Trump attempted to answer on Monday morning in the most natural setting, a press event where a self described doordash grandma knocked on the door of the Oval to Deliver the President McDonald's. Here's how it went.

[Donald Trump]

Do you think that men should play in women's sports?

[Jon Lovett]

I really don't have an opinion on that.

[Donald Trump]

You don't? I'll bet you do.

[Nithya Raman]

I'm here about tax on tips.

[Donald Trump]

Yeah.

[Jon Favreau]

You say pizza.

[Donald Trump]

Well, you're really nice. Would you like to do a little news conference with me? With these people? These are not the nicest people. They're not nice like you. You know that, right?

[Nithya Raman]

I'll do whatever you ask me to do, sir.

[Donald Trump]

Iran will not have a nuclear weapon and we're going to get the dust back. We'll get it back. Either we'll get it back from them or we'll take it.

[Jon Lovett]

Is it your anticipation, Mr. President, that other countries will assist in this effort to blockade Iran and those.

[Donald Trump]

Yeah. Other countries are going to also.

[Jon Lovett]

Which country, sir?

[Donald Trump]

We don't need other countries, frankly, because

[Nithya Raman]

you're correct from before still stand.

[Donald Trump]

Yeah, I don't want to comment on that, but it won't be pleasant for them. Let me put it that way.

[Jon Favreau]

Worst delivery ever. Can you imagine? Like, hey, sir, here's your McDonald's. What do you think about men playing women's sports?

[Jon Lovett]

He's like, I don't know, but can you just. I Have to take a picture of this in front of the door. So I don't really want to, I don't want to talk about. But I do need to take a picture of this just for the app to get this through.

[Jon Favreau]

The app.

[Tommy Vietor]

Is it a press conference?

[Jon Lovett]

Fuck. This guy won't.

[Tommy Vietor]

Doordash Grandma is sorry. I'm sorry. Like it's a very dystopian kind of sad concept. This poor woman being just like forced to do deliveries. I don't know, maybe she enjoys it, hopefully. But it made me sad. The whole thing made me sad.

[Jon Lovett]

If you told just you, you sort of shake someone awake in 2011 and you're like, Donald Trump's gonna be president, he's pretending he's Jesus. And accepting McDonald's delivery at the Oval Office while talking about blockading the Strait of Hormuz. Like, what are. That's a joke. That's a 30 roc. The fuck you talking.

[Jon Favreau]

No one believes that that's not possible. Well, so what is happening with the, with this, with the Strait of Horror moves right now in this naval blockade? Anything getting through what's happening?

[Tommy Vietor]

So it sounds like where the US is going to blockade all Iranian ports and then Iranian linked ships, not just flagged ships, but ones that U.S. intel says are Iranian ships. I think ships going to non Iranian ports will not be stopped. So basically the way this works is there's like 15 US warships in place. The US Abraham Lincoln is the aircraft carrier that's kind of like the base of operations. They have these Navy amphibious assault ships that will deal with interdictions and boarding along with helicopter assets. And then you got the big ass guided missile destroyers which will like, you know, block things and push them in one direction or the other and also do missile defense because they have all the missile defense systems on them. Then there's some sort of like minesweeping and mine hunting operations that'll happen. And so the question I have is, is the US going to be providing escorts to all the friendly ships? Because the average, the average number of ships through the strait before this was 130 a day. That's a lot of ships, that's a lot of escorts. And this is risky even during the ceasefire because like there's apparently the Iranians have lost contact with all their sea based landmines. Not landmines, they're naval mines that are in the street of Hormuz. They can't account for.

[Jon Favreau]

We don't know where we put them.

[Tommy Vietor]

You don't know where they put them. You never know.

[Jon Favreau]

We kind of did it under pressure.

[Tommy Vietor]

Yeah. When some IRGC guy might fire off a rocket or a drone. But if the conflict restarts, like, I don't really see how this works because, like, it's not just about the US Being able to defend the ships. It's commercial shipping owners and captains being willing to go through the strait while they're getting fired at.

[Jon Lovett]

Yeah. So you have also Trump threatening to blow up ships. The way that they've blown up ships in the drug ships in Venezuela, that's obviously indefensible in war crimes, but those are at least ostensibly. Or their claim is that they're talking about ships that have drugs on them. This is just about commercial vessels that they're now threatening to blow up as well. Then on top of that, I think

[Jon Favreau]

the threat was for, like, because the Iranian navy has been destroyed, according to the president, but that, like, if ships are going through, like, small, they're smaller ships, or their drones could still launch attacks.

[Jon Lovett]

Yes.

[Jon Favreau]

They're multiple. So those are the ships that they want.

[Jon Lovett]

Well, there are multiple. I mean, he said multiple things. That's one thing he said. He was talking about the small attack ships. He also made a separate point about going after any ships that try to violate the blockade, which I. Look, I hope that I have. No, he's. He's completely unclear, and the military has been clarifying it. We have no idea what he fucking means. We don't know how this is going to be implemented. I hope that that's what he means. But it's not clear that if a ship is not listening to a.

[Tommy Vietor]

Kill everybody.

[Jon Lovett]

Right. Like, who knows? And then the other part of it is, are we now saying that. That we're going to have the US Military board ships that may be hostile? Like, this is also something that sets up a possibility of a whole bunch of horrible contingencies. Troops being grabbed, people getting hurt, people dying in accidents. Because boarding a ship in the fucking sea that doesn't want to be boarded is a complicated endeavor. Like, who knows where this is going? It's all like. It all puts him in a position, if he wants to escalate and resume bombing and claim it's because of some incident that took place on the seas. Like, it's just a. It's a dangerous thing to be pursuing without really understanding why we're doing it.

[Jon Favreau]

Yeah, he's known to be a bit imprecise in his language. The military said it was what. The latter thing you said, which is that for the blockade, it's about them stopping and trying to board any vessel, of course, that does raise the question, like, what does it, what happens when it's a Chinese vessel that's trying to bring oil to Iran or an Indian vessel, like, what?

[Tommy Vietor]

And the Chinese said, we're coming right off contracts and we're going to go get that oil. And by the way, like, the problem is once you start operating the Strait of Hormuz, it's 21 miles at its, like, sort of the narrowest choke point. But the Iranians can fire missiles and drones from, like, anywhere along their coast. And your reaction time to respond to that with missile defense is nothing. So this is getting real risky.

[Jon Favreau]

And just so people understand, like, the purpose of the blockade, because I don't know if I explained it by having a blockade of all Iranian ports. The idea is Iran, like, has to get, get its oil exported out to people who are buying it through all of its ports. And if it can't do that, then Iran's going to lose, like, billions and billions of dollars. And that is, and obviously that is how they get most of their money.

[Tommy Vietor]

It's like half their, I think oil and gas revenue is through the straits.

[Jon Favreau]

It's through the straits. And if so, if you're blocking all the Iranian ports, they can't get anything in, can't get anything out. And that's how it also, by the way, like, it could continue to squeeze the Iranian economy, but it's also going to raise oil prices everywhere else because the, you know, the rest of the world and the oil prices around the rest of the world depend on Iranian oil to some extent. So in the, in the short term, it's also going to raise oil prices for everyone else as well as squeezing Iran itself. And the question is, like, will, can the Iranians take the pain more than the rest of the world and us here in the United States, who are very sensitive to higher gas prices.

[Jon Lovett]

And so far they've shown. Yes. What are you trying to get out of a deal that Iran is not currently willing to give you, but that they will give you after two to three to four to five weeks of pressure from a blockade? And, like, we just don't know. Maybe that is known to them. Maybe they have some sense of what they're trying to achieve. But nothing public has made clear what the point of this pressure is other than just to get to some sort of a deal, I guess.

[Jon Favreau]

Yeah, it seems like their idea is squeeze the Iranian economy even more so that either suddenly there is a popular uprising, because now we're not bombing them anymore. And people are upset. Right. It's crazy. And that, and so this will, and then the leadership will say, okay, let's just make the deal and let's give up, let's give up the dust and, and make the promises and give them what they want on, on nukes and I guess reopen the strait and then maybe lift economic sanctions for the Iranians as well. And that's, that's the, that's the JD Vance, Donald Trump view of this.

[Tommy Vietor]

The dust is what he gave Justin Trudeau before he went off to Burning man or Sorry, Coachella. So you hear J.D.

[Jon Favreau]

vance say he's talking about the, the nuclear material on Brett Bear and he knows, of course, that it's called enriched uranium. Like, he understands all this, but he has to go, as some people call it dust. One person, one person calls it dust, you fucking idiot.

[Tommy Vietor]

This whole idea that right there is a question like, what does a blockade do? It could, I guess it chokes off the ability to have revenue to run the government. But yeah, the idea that people are going to rise up again, like the IRGC has all the weapons, the besieged militia has all the weapons. The Iranian people have nothing. Well, the other. And you've been bombing them.

[Jon Favreau]

It's an Israelite history of blockades, as it usually hurts the people more than it hurts the regime that it's directed towards.

[Jon Lovett]

I would also say also just. And on top of that, I do think on some level it is about making the pain, making the pain felt outside of Iran, too, to make other people feel as though they were kind of dragged into this conflict.

[Tommy Vietor]

Of course, they certainly not pressure them or something.

[Jon Lovett]

Yeah.

[Jon Favreau]

Spokesman for Iran responded to the blockade on Monday by calling it an attack on the global economy and asking is it ever worthwhile to cut off one's nose to spite one's face? Trump doesn't seem too bothered by it. He's a fan of cutting off his nose to spite his face. Here he is talking to Maria Bartiromo on Sunday morning.

[Tommy Vietor]

So a lot of people in Mar a Lago.

[Jon Favreau]

Yeah.

[Tommy Vietor]

You know what I'm saying?

[Jon Lovett]

That's called.

[Jon Favreau]

Yeah.

[Jon Lovett]

They have a doctor that does that. He charges like 100 grand. You come out, they cut up your nose, they spike your face and you're done. Little filler.

[Tommy Vietor]

A lot of derm.

[Jon Favreau]

Lotus. A lot of spited faces.

[Tommy Vietor]

Spitted.

[Jon Favreau]

Spit it. Anyway, let's play the clip. Do you believe the price of oil and gas will be lower before the midterm elections?

[Donald Trump]

I hope so. I mean, I think so. It could be. It could be. Or the same. Or maybe a little bit higher.

[Jon Lovett]

So funny.

[Jon Favreau]

That is a full range.

[Jon Lovett]

At some point. Did someone tell Maria Bartiromo, hey, you know, we can attach a lav to your shirt and you can speak naturally. She's no, no boom across the room. And I'll keep shouting at it for no fucking reason. You have a mic on your shirt. You don't have to shout. It's crazy.

[Jon Favreau]

She's like a real boomer with just the TV on constantly when you walk into the house.

[Jon Lovett]

I also just like the idea that the Iranian regime is posting these sort of like Confucius like, sayings about revenge. Like lowering their head and saying, before embarking on a campaign of revenge, dig two graves. It's more than I can take from these people.

[Tommy Vietor]

I will say that along with some Lego movies.

[Jon Lovett]

Yeah, they got us with the Lego Movie. Got us.

[Jon Favreau]

That was tough.

[Tommy Vietor]

That was tough for sure.

[Jon Favreau]

Great lyrics.

[Tommy Vietor]

I was talking to someone today who works in an organization that does a ton of polling and research on Trump and US Politics, whatever, and they have consistently, on a weekly basis. And he said, this is the first time Trump's approval has moved significantly in years. Literally, it was like, as we've all seen public polls, rock solid at like 43% approval always right. It like moved a little around Butler, moved a little around Alex Preddy shooting. Now it is in a straight line that is going down. And it looks like Joe Biden's approval a month after the Afghanistan withdrawal, which we all remember essentially ended his presidency. And so maybe it'll come back, but it just seems like the, the energy shock is just getting started. Oil prices are back up. And Trump seems to think, as you said earlier, he seems to think that he's like, ah, whatever, we drill our own oil, you know, we'll be fine here. It's a global market. And then the Financial Times today had a report out where it said that US Crude exports will be up about a third this month and demand from Asia is also increasing. So that's going to put upward pressure on all the prices here. It's like it's going to hurt.

[Jon Favreau]

It also already hurt. It has not. Like, the real pain hasn't hit yet, unfortunately. And all of the energy analysts keep saying this, and we're getting very close to that point where it's like, you can look at the oil futures all you want, but, like, the actual physical manifestation of the oil futures is about to hit. And I remember when we were in the White House, David Plouffe would always say gas prices are a hit to the entire enterprise.

[Tommy Vietor]

Yep.

[Jon Favreau]

Like the whole thing could collapse, like the whole political project could collapse on gas prices. And that's when they went up like, I don't know, a dime, five cents here and there. This is, I mean, you know, the, the parliament Speaker Gallobaoff, that negotiated with J.D. vance, he said, soon you'll be nostalgic for four to five dollars gas, as he's been saying.

[Tommy Vietor]

Also on the Iranian point, I know someone I was talking to today reminded me that Iran prepared for this by taking a bunch of oil and placed it in tankers outside of the Strait of Hormuz. They have something like 130 million barrels kind of sitting in anchor in various places. So at current prices, that is $18 billion. So that's a nice little cushion for them.

[Jon Favreau]

You know what's funny about that is that they prepared for this. But the United States, which is the one that launched the war on its own timetable, its own decision making, did not refill the Strategic Petroleum Reserve ahead of Trump.

[Tommy Vietor]

Launches only 16% full.

[Jon Lovett]

It's almost as if Bibi and Pete Hegseth persuaded Trump that this would be faster and easier than it actually was. Yeah, we were watching Vance right before we came in here and he said, look, obviously gas prices being up is bad, but we had such a low benchmark. We were doing so good. And it's not nearly as bad as it was under Biden. And it is true, there was a moment during the Biden administration where gas prices shot up to higher than they are now. I think $5 on average, higher in more expensive places. And that I think actually was the rising of prices, including gas prices into the Afghan withdrawal that probably were the one, two punch that kept Biden below in the low approval for the rest of his presidency. But right now, today, gas prices are higher than they ever were after that peak right now. And there's no hope that they're going to, or at least we don't expect them to go down between now and the election. So it's just not true.

[Jon Favreau]

Voters historically more sensitive to price increases than they are even to job losses. And within the realm of price increases, there's nothing that people are more sensitive to than gas.

[Tommy Vietor]

And they have eyeballs and they see them everywhere they are. Posted.

[Jon Lovett]

POD Save America is brought to you by Uplift Desk. You know, John, Tommy and I share an office and we all switched to Uplift Desk. And I'll be honest, I was skeptical. I thought, are we going to use this up, standing up, sitting down. It seems so silly. It's not. It's great. We genuinely love it. We use it all the time. We're always in and out of the up and down and up and down. But you know, look, if you're going to be working at a desk, you're going to be sitting still. And sure, we're getting up and running into the studio and going to meetings, but there's plenty of time where we're just all, you know, cranking away, grinding in the content minds at our desks and being able to just say like, you know what, I'm standing up or you know what, I just ate lunch, I'm sitting back down. They're great. It just, it's really a nice thing

[Jon Favreau]

to be able to look nice too.

[Jon Lovett]

Yeah. And you can just, it's so. It really becomes a nice part of working at your desk. And once you have it, you won't want to ever work anymore any other way. You can assemble it in minutes. No stress, no mess. The new Flex mounted cable manager comes with every desk to keep cords hidden and tidy. So check out the new uplift V3 standing desk which helps you move more and get more done. They've upgraded everything the speed, stability, ergonomics and design. There's a lot of customization options with the most extensive range of desktop styles and accessories in the industry. We already covered how much we love it. Transform your workspace and unlock your full potential with the new Uplift V3 standing desk. Go to upliftdesk.com PSA and use our code PSA to get four free accessories, free same day shipping, free returns and an industry leading 15 year warranty that covers your entire desk plus an extra discount off your entire order. That's U p L I F-T-E-S-K.com PSA for this exclusive order. It's only available through our link.

[Jon Favreau]

Pod Save America is brought to you by the Working Forests Initiative. The Working Forests Initiative is a cross industry coalition promoting the role of working forests in driving economic growth and climate resilience. The backbone of the the WFI's sustainability efforts is a diverse team of working forest professionals. From timberland owners to hiring managers and accountants, GIS analysts mapping the future of our canopy and biologists protecting local wildlife. These experts ensure our working forests remain healthy and resilient. These are the stewards ensuring America's forests thrive for generations to come. The foundational principle of Working Forest Professionals is simple. Always plant more trees than are harvested. Planting is what makes Working forests Sustainable and sustainable. Working forests are how WFI cultivates healthy ecosystems that reduce wildfire risk, protect biodiversity, and provide sustainable solutions for the future. The coalition of working forest professionals does more than manage land. They cultivate a resilient, sustainable legacy. By championing these practices today, the WFI ensures America's forests remain a vibrant resource for our economy and a vital sanctuary for our environment for generations to come. So Trump was also asked, with Doordash Grandma by his side, whether he regretted the holy war he's decided to launch against the the Catholic Church, the world's largest Christian denomination that includes more than 50 million Americans. The background here is that Pope Leo has been speaking out with increasing frequency about the church's opposition to Trump's brutal treatment of immigrants and his war of choice in Iran, which reportedly led to a meeting where a Pentagon official allegedly berated the Pope's outgoing ambassador to the US always a good thing. It also led to a 60 minute segment Sunday night where the three most powerful American cardinals who were close with the American Pope, spoke bluntly about the Church's issues with Trump on war and immigration. The president was watching 60 Minutes because right afterwards, he posted a lengthy tirade that read, in part, quote, pope Leo is weak on crime is a sentence that I will think about. It was like, I was shocked, but I also couldn't stop laughing thinking about it.

[Tommy Vietor]

Me too. It's like they're on some debate stage in Iowa and he's like, you are soft on crime. You are soft on nukes. Also David Axelrod, Poplio Wheaton.

[Jon Favreau]

Weak on crime, weak on nuclear weapons. And. And wrong for America.

[Tommy Vietor]

And friends with David Axelrod. That was.

[Jon Lovett]

Your friends with David Axelrod mentioned my name.

[Jon Favreau]

Yeah. I just talked to AX today about Stuff is Wild. Yeah, I was trying to be with the Pope and then suddenly it's a,

[Jon Lovett]

like a, you know, a rabbi and a rabbi and a priest walk into a bar in Chicago, you know, have you ever had. You ever had ham? No. Have you ever had sex? No. Oh, you got to try ham.

[Jon Favreau]

You know, I did ask Axe if he brought. If he brought the pope. Manny's as like, an interfaith offering.

[Jon Lovett]

Oh, that's nice.

[Jon Favreau]

But I guess they didn't.

[Tommy Vietor]

What'd he say?

[Jon Favreau]

They didn't meet in Chicago. Lame. Anyway, Trump also warned the Holy Father to, quote, get his act together.

[Tommy Vietor]

Okay.

[Jon Favreau]

And he took credit for Leo's selection as the Supreme Pontiff of the Universal Church. That is Trump's doing. But for good measure, Trump also posted an AI image of Himself as Jesus healing the sick.

[Jon Lovett]

Truly. Like, did you just say like. No, but yes, he really did.

[Jon Favreau]

It's. I mean, I would love to just. We should have done a whole. We could do like a whole video on just going through the actual.

[Tommy Vietor]

The images.

[Jon Favreau]

The actual image. Because it is. It's an AI slop image for sure.

[Tommy Vietor]

There's a lot in there.

[Jon Favreau]

There's a lot in there. There's a lot of confusing things in there. But what you really need to know, Trump, Jesus healing a sick man in bed who could pass for Joe Biden or Jeffrey Epstein could also maybe. Yeah, maybe even more. Jeffrey Epstein.

[Jon Lovett]

Epstein. I thought it was Jeffrey Epstein. I just. Look a divorce slob.

[Jon Favreau]

Also looks like there's like a demon behind him. And maybe some GI Joes.

[Tommy Vietor]

I thought I saw a Ninja Turtle maybe.

[Jon Favreau]

Yeah, a ninja, definitely. Anyway, so the pontiff was asked about all of this on Sunday night. Here's what he said. I have no fear. Neither the Trump administration nor speaking out loudly about the message in the gospel. And that's what I believe. I am called to do what the church is called to do. Blessed are the peacemakers. I do not look at my role as being political or politician. I don't want to get into a debate with him. I don't think that the message of the gospel is meant to be abused in the way that some people are doing. Too many innocent people. Refill. And I think someone has to stand up and say there's a better way to do this. The Pope was also asked directly about the post and he did say that Truth Social was an ironic name for the platform.

[Tommy Vietor]

Not wrong.

[Jon Lovett]

I love just a Pope in just Chicago English. It's so strange.

[Jon Favreau]

First American Pope. Truly American.

[Jon Lovett]

Yeah.

[Tommy Vietor]

Do we think he flies business?

[Jon Lovett]

I was about to say what kind of. Oh, he cares about the least among us. What's he flying?

[Tommy Vietor]

It's a nice looking plane.

[Jon Lovett]

What's he flying? Just kidding.

[Jon Favreau]

Marxist woke Marxist Pope.

[Jon Lovett]

Pope sit next to Hasan piker in

[Tommy Vietor]

Delta 1 and Bernie.

[Jon Favreau]

Bernie and AOC right behind him. Here's what Trump had to say for himself when he was with Doordash Grandma,

[Tommy Vietor]

which is what he calls Melania.

[Donald Trump]

I think he's very weak on crime and other things. So I'm not. I mean, he went public. I'm just responding to Pope Leo. There's nothing to apologize for. He's wrong. The other thing is he didn't like what we're doing with respect to Iran.

[Nithya Raman]

Did you post that picture of yourself depicted as Jesus Christ?

[Donald Trump]

Well, it wasn't depicted it was me. I did post it and I thought it was me as a doctor and had to do with Red Cross. As a Red Cross worker there, which we support. I just heard about it and I said, how did they come up with that? It's supposed to be me as a doctor making people better. And I do make people better. I make people a lot better.

[Tommy Vietor]

That's such a funny lie.

[Jon Favreau]

So many doctors, just a health care provider dressed as Jesus.

[Jon Lovett]

Humble.

[Jon Favreau]

It's one of those lies. I'm like, why? Why does anyone even spend time on it? Anyone with eyes knows that it's even J.D. j.D. Vance was asked about it when we were watching Fox just now. What, what a couple answers from him on this. First of all, he said the whole thing was not newsworthy. The President of the United States picks a very public fight attacking the Pope, the Bishop of Rome, as weak on crime and weak on nuclear and warns him to get his act together. JD Vance says it wasn't newsworthy. He said that of the AI Jesus, Trump was just joking. So it wasn't meant to be a doctor.

[Jon Lovett]

According to J.D.

[Jon Favreau]

vance, he was joking. And people don't get Trump's sense of humor. And it's good that he posts his own stuff on social media and that it doesn't go through a filter of, you know, press assistants and people who work for him and everything else, because it's good that he speaks directly to people.

[Jon Lovett]

He also said that the Vatican should stick to matters of morality.

[Jon Favreau]

Yeah. Not like, not the war, not the

[Jon Lovett]

policies of the most powerful nation on earth as it retains the war. Which is, I guess you mean, like what? Like just no divorces in the rhythm method. Like it's just basically all that they want. That's what they want.

[Jon Favreau]

So revealing that he said that. And I was, I was like, I think about this even before he said that. Is is too. To JD Vance and to a lot of the right wing Catholics and especially evangelical Christians in this country, issues of morality are issues of personal morality. And so that is why for so long they have been focused on abortion and sexual orientation. And what Pope Leo and Pope Francis before him have revealed is that the core of Catholic social teaching is about matters of war and peace, is about preferential option for the poor, is about treating immigrants with dignity and respect and valuing life. And I think that is all more explicitly mentioned in the Bible and the New Testament and from Jesus mouth than anything related to abortion or sexual orientation or any of the other personal morality issues that have become political in The United States.

[Tommy Vietor]

Look, it's Thomas Aquinas over here.

[Jon Lovett]

Look at this guy.

[Tommy Vietor]

Yeah. Thomas Aquinas knows what he's talking about. The I'm like, yeah.

[Jon Favreau]

AI bad.

[Jon Lovett]

Yeah.

[Tommy Vietor]

The I'm Protestant.

[Jon Lovett]

Not since Henry VIII has a divorced slob. Felt like the Pope. The Pope had overstepped his bound. But at least he didn't. At least, at least Henry VIII didn't bury Anne Boleyn on a golf course. You know what I'm saying?

[Jon Favreau]

What do you think? Smart fight to pick, Let me tell you. We've talked about. We talk about Trump picking fight with Muslims, which he has. Obviously there was the whole Muslim ban also in the United States. He's viciously attacked Muslims in the United States. He has talked about dual loyalty and has said plenty of anti Semitic things about Jews in the United States. There's 20% of the country are Catholic in the United States of America. Is it that much? Yes. Wow. There's did not know that. And over 50 million Catholics in the United States. There's a lot of Catholics.

[Tommy Vietor]

There's a lot of Catholics. It does. Politically, this feels worse. I mean, remember, this is not his first big flight fight with a Pope. Remember he tweeted about Pope Francis if and when the Vatican is attacked by ISIS, which as everyone knows is ISIS's ultimate trophy.

[Jon Favreau]

Oh, my God.

[Tommy Vietor]

I can promise you that the Pope would have only wished and prayed that Donald Trump would have been president because this would not have happened. Remember that one I forgot about? That's a wild one. This one feels bad though, politically. Like, first of all, it's like mood music. Like, things are a little rocky for Trump, especially with his far right followers. Like, I don't know if you and Dan covered the op ed length screed attacking Megyn Kelly, Tucker Carlson, Candace Owens, Alex Jones from last week.

[Jon Favreau]

I read it aloud.

[Tommy Vietor]

Yeah. So Trump's biggest supporters are not in the mood to defend him. And it also comes right after the. The Easter tweet where he offended a lot more Christians by tweeting close the fucking straight and plays Praise Allah on Easter.

[Jon Favreau]

Yeah. He offended Christians and Muslims in one

[Tommy Vietor]

tweet all over the. I started a little holy war there and then, you know, it is an American Pope. It's just like, what are you doing, dude?

[Jon Lovett]

Yeah, he posted a picture of himself as the Pope in May of last year. And I do think that, like, he's said he's done moments like you said with Francis. He's done this before. I actually think he's just doing it At a time in which he actually no longer seems kind of tough and blustery, but it just seems sort of sweaty. And so he's getting attacked from, like, people that would previously have never said a word about something like this and would have done what Vance did and say, oh, he was just kidding around. That's our president, that's our big boy. But instead they're actually saying what they think about it.

[Tommy Vietor]

Yeah. If you guys listen to the full 45 minute Tucker Carlson monologue attacking the Easter tweet that led into a broader Iran critique, it actually started by pointing out that Trump did not put his hand on the Bible when he was sworn into office.

[Jon Favreau]

I hadn't realized that.

[Tommy Vietor]

I didn't realize that either.

[Jon Favreau]

I kinda missed that.

[Tommy Vietor]

And it really, it built to an argument basically that Trump thinks he's God and thinks he has godlike powers and that that is wrong and evil. And it's also, it's kind of like kicking up a debate again about whether Trump is mentally well. I mean, he was asked this at a press event the other day. Like, people, hey, sir, people think you're crazy.

[Jon Favreau]

What do you think? Yeah, and my view on that is he's been like this forever.

[Tommy Vietor]

Yeah, Yeah.

[Jon Lovett]

I just, I listen, it didn't make sense when I saw it as a kid, but as I get older, stupid is as stupid does.

[Jon Favreau]

You know, I think he, I think watching the 60 Minute segment is what, obviously that is what set him off. And there's been reports like this, but it is worth watching, everyone. Nora o' Donnell does a pretty great job talking to the three cardinals, the Archbishop of Washington, Chicago and New York. And I mean, they, they accuse the White House of gamification, of warfare, calling the administration's videos the, the snuff videos. Sickening quote, where Cardinal Kubich, we're dehumanizing the victims of war by turning the suffering of people and the killing of children and our own soldiers in their entertainment. Cardinal Tobin called ICE a lawless organizations. They hide their identities to terrify people. I mean, it was just, it went on and on and on. And I think that for Trump, when he hears that, he's like, oh, this is a personal attack. And I get to hit back just like anything else. But it's like what they are revealing is that it's not just Trump's own personal morality, but like his entire political agenda is incompatible with not just Christianity and Catholic social teaching, but like most of the world's major religions, because it is, like, based in, like, because they are Based in empathy and compassion and grace and.

[Jon Lovett]

And banning abortion, which he kind of already gave them. So we're on the other side. He gave him a pretty big win, and now they're turning on him.

[Tommy Vietor]

The side note, not as important. Interesting that 60 Minutes aired that piece, given all the concern that Barry Weiss would be spiking anything kind of critical of Trump. So, I guess, good that made it through.

[Jon Lovett]

And Free Price broke the story. Yes, they broke the story about them saying that they're going to get the papacy back to Avignon.

[Tommy Vietor]

Yeah. So, like, on the politics of this, I mean, I don't know if it'll do lasting damage. Like, a lot of Catholics might be like, yeah, it was weird he deleted it, but he overturned Roe versus Wade. So, like, we're good. But it is interesting, I think, that once again, the anger and the criticism falls into the character values bucket. This isn't like, he didn't give us the tax credit or let us, like, be mean to the, you know, the cake artist who won't make an lgbt, like, wedding cake or whatever. It was like. Like, there's people on Truth Social saying, this is desecration. Trump is the Antichrist. Trump thinks he's God.

[Jon Favreau]

I've heard from people who, like, they have mag relatives who are like, this was it. They were done. This was because the extremely political types who like their first issue even more than their Catholicism is abortion, is one thing, like you were saying. But I think for most Catholics, when you start attacking the Pope like that, and then you put yourself as AI Jesus, like, that is a pretty. It's pretty punch. It's pretty blasphemous.

[Jon Lovett]

Yeah.

[Jon Favreau]

You know, and it is. It's very Trump, too, because with Islam and Judaism, like, there's, like, Catholicism has a head of the Church, and so there is someone. There is, like, a person who can be a threat to Donald Trump, who is a moral leader around the world. He's not used to that. He's used to just being like, see that politician? Like, they're just as bad as everyone else. We're all the same. We're all bad. And so it's.

[Jon Lovett]

He look not the first leader. Also, just to think that, like, oh, what could the Pope do? He doesn't have any armies or anything. I do wonder if maybe Trump could maybe go on the road to Canossa and then walk all the way to the castle and then take his shoes off and then beat on the doors for a few days until the Pope lets him in, and then he can apologize and then The Pope would absolve him, and then he could go back to leading the Holy Roman Empire. Yeah, that's a good idea. Empire. What about that?

[Jon Favreau]

I think that's a good idea. That's really good. Did you see the other interesting thing before we move off on the CBS, on the 60 Minutes thing is that the Pope has decided to spend the fourth of July in Lampedusa, which is the Italian island where tens of thousands of migrants have landed on their way to Europe. And, you know, Nora asked if that was symbolic, and they're like, yeah, of course.

[Jon Lovett]

No, no, they have great spritzes there.

[Jon Favreau]

It's the island.

[Jon Lovett]

It's beautiful because it's on the coast, it's on the water. The rudder's really soft on that side of the island.

[Tommy Vietor]

Your hair doesn't get cursed.

[Jon Favreau]

And it's like, what a contrast with, you know, Donald Trump celebrating July 4th with what he's gonna do at the

[Tommy Vietor]

bacchanal of, like, literal violence, like, UFC matches.

[Jon Favreau]

And he's meanwhile welcoming migrants to the shore, which is what, you know, as one of the cardinals said, which is what the Statue of Liberty is supposed to represent.

[Jon Lovett]

Also tough for Vance's I Became Catholic book tour.

[Jon Favreau]

Yeah, Big time. Yeah. My. Like I said, my road. What does it call, like, the road home or. So it's taking the long road back to Catholicism.

[Jon Lovett]

So I only know about Catholicism up to the Reformation. That's where the end of my mem. Of AP European history cuts off.

[Jon Favreau]

It's gonna really ruin the book tour for J.D. vance. It's. What is it called?

[Jon Lovett]

Communion.

[Jon Favreau]

Road to the Communion. Finding my way back to faith. He found his way back.

[Tommy Vietor]

How many books about himself is that guy gonna write?

[Jon Favreau]

Jesus Christ, that's too many already.

[Jon Lovett]

V. Pod Save America is brought to you by Mill. I never thought I'd be excited about food scraps.

[Tommy Vietor]

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[Jon Lovett]

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[Jon Favreau]

Chickens.

[Jon Lovett]

Try meal free for 90 days and get $75 [e-mail] crooked and use code crooked that's $75 [e-mail] Crooked and use the code crooked

[Jon Favreau]

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[Tommy Vietor]

Yeah, I mean, it was shocking. I mean, I think there were a lot of rumors about Eric Swalwell kind of being one of the younger members of Congress who would go to bars, get too drunk, hang out with staffers, maybe fraternize with them in inappropriate ways, but nothing. I had never heard anything like this.

[Jon Favreau]

No.

[Tommy Vietor]

So I read that CNN story, and I thought, he should drop out of the race, he should resign from Congress, then he should hire a criminal defense attorney, because there's a damn good chance that guy gets prosecuted and could see jail time. And then shortly after, the Manhattan District Attorney announced an investigation, so. So, you know, it's horrible. I'm glad the Democratic Party moved quickly to push him out. It's a nice. It's a contrast with how the Republicans operate and the Tony Gonzalez to Trump to many in between. But it was despicable.

[Jon Lovett]

Yeah, it was. At first, Swalwell was issuing these denials that sort of referenced to mistakes in judgment, but that, oh, he'd never done NDAs and had never been members of staff, and then those were, I think, disproven, or at least there was reporting that showed that those weren't true. So then those statements sort of of change. Hard to get into the mind of somebody that would have this in their past and think that they could run for governor. Because you can't even say, oh, he. Because it's like, this is not like. I don't know what stories people tell themselves, but he's not the first person to have terrible skeletons in their closet and still believe that they could do whatever they want and keep rising and

[Jon Favreau]

be brazenly ambitious and right up till the end, like the video he recorded, reportedly at some billionaire donor's home in Beverly Hills. Like, his staff wasn't around where he refused to drop out and said he was gonna stay in it. It's like the woman who came forward on this, she. If you read the CNN story, in the San Francisco Chronicle story, she has text messages to a friend saying that she was sexually assaulted by Eric Spalwell, saying exactly what happened. Like, right after it happened in 2024, she had told multiple family members, her partner at the time. And then you have three other Women having similar. Saying similar things. The woman who alleges the sexual assault also, like, got tested for. Had a pregnancy test and tested for STDs and had the person at the lab sent her a note that said, like, you're a survivor. Hang in there. I mean, just like, there's. There's so much. A lot of evidence, a lot of robbery. And to, like, read that story as Eric Swalwell and to, like, see the other ones and just be like, I'm going to film a video. Being like, fuck it. I'm. I'm hanging in here. And then his. His lawyer gave this insane attacking the victims interview with Alex Michaelson on cnn. And Alex did a great job, but it was just, like, it was so hard to watch because he just was, like, sitting there not giving any answers on anything. It's like, why did you even go on tv? Sociopathic.

[Jon Lovett]

We've seen, like, a lot. I also. There's a story I think people tell themselves that, oh, like, I've been. You know, I've. Look, I've stepped outside of my marriage and I've had. Been unfaithful, but I've never done anything like. Like, I've never been hurt anybody. I've never really. I mean, it's always consensual. Always consensual. And then these stories come out, whether it's, you know, we've seen over and over the powerful men that they truly like cannot either they are in denial themselves or just lie in perpetuity, but they cannot accept that what they've done is not just been unfaithful, but actually been, like, you know, sexually assaulted to people.

[Jon Favreau]

Yeah. And there was a story in. I think it was the Times about, you know, it's indicative. Like, this whole thing was indicative of how. What a shit show the California governor's race has been. And people were, like, clamoring to get behind some kind of candidate because Kamala didn't run and Padilla didn't run. And so Swalwell comes, and then they're all like, okay, this is our guy. This is our guy.

[Tommy Vietor]

Just starting.

[Jon Favreau]

There are rumors. Some of the rumors like, that you were just saying, Tommy, that, like, you know, maybe he'd been inappropriate.

[Donald Trump]

And.

[Jon Favreau]

And people kept going to him and saying, like, any truth to this? And they said that his denials and his categorical denials, even in private, like, one on one before endorsements, were, like, so intense that they were like, okay, I guess he's saying, absolutely not. Nothing's gonna come out. You know, Mag, has been after me for a while. Wouldn't they have surfaced this already?

[Tommy Vietor]

Like, well, there was also this thing where, you know, there was a report that Kash Patel was gonna put the eye of Sauron from the FBI on Swalwell and like inappropriately release investigative files. So I think there was. Because there was also, I think legitimate concern that maybe like the Trump administration was going to use the power of the government in some inappropriate way to target him. Which. Right. Like, I think led to maybe more second chances for him. But then also I was thinking back to that weird video he released with his wife where they're like walking in Santa Monica and it's like his wife like endorses his candidacy and we're like, like, what is this? What is the context? And it's just like so clear that that was front running these controversies. By the way, as we were recording CNN and some others reporting that in battle, GOP Rep. Tony Gonzalez announces he's stepping down from Congress. So it's another absolute scumbag on the Republican side.

[Jon Favreau]

Yeah. So people know, like the Swalwell thing brought up these other House members who they all thought that they maybe would try to expel together. So there was Swalwell, Gonzalez, who had had an affair with the staffer, who later committed suicide. Democrat Sheila Terfilis McCormick, who the House Ethics Committee found guilty of stealing Covid relief funds for her campaign. Republican Corey Mills, who's under investigation for committing campaign fraud and sexual misconduct and domestic violence.

[Tommy Vietor]

That guy is awful.

[Jon Favreau]

And so now Swalwell has resigned. Gonzalez has said he's going to resign or retire tomorrow. And so now I don't know if the vote will go forward on Terphyllis, McCormick and Mills or the whole and will get dropped. But wow. Says a lot about the House just to cook.

[Tommy Vietor]

Yeah.

[Jon Favreau]

What do we do? It's like, oh, someone did something bad. Let's get them all together, let's expel them all.

[Jon Lovett]

Yeah, there's such a. Because like Santos was basically the first person expelled since what, like reconstruction. And with that it was like, oh, well, it's so obvious that you should have this person removed. Because it's just so brazen and there's so many examples. But the idea, there's something so like, look, I'm glad Swalwell's resigning. All these other people should be resigned and expelled. But there's something so ugly about like, oh, we have to do it in pairs cuz we're only gonna enforce our ethics in a bipartisan way. Which tells you that actually what you need is some kind of a standard or process at the end of which there's a way in which you say, all right, this standard has been met. We will vote to expel. That won't be kind of abused or politicized or ignored by either side.

[Jon Favreau]

Yeah. And it is why. I get why when sometimes people face these expulsion votes, they say, like, well, we need either the House Ethics Committee to have completed an investigation and find the person guilty through the House Ethics Committee, or, like, an actual criminal conviction outside.

[Jon Lovett]

It's some kind of legal determination.

[Jon Favreau]

Right. Because you do want that. Because otherwise, then everyone's gonna start saying, oh, you did this. You did this. Expelled. Right.

[Tommy Vietor]

Like, evidentiary standards.

[Jon Lovett]

And by the way, like, I'm glad, too, that there was, like, genuine reporting that dug in, like, because there were, like, random posts on social media like, oh, Swalwell's a creep. And someone's like, this is just a hit piece. This is by the opponents, and it's impossible to know. We're just trying. We don't know.

[Jon Favreau]

You can't go by that.

[Jon Lovett]

Right.

[Jon Favreau]

And thankfully, these women came forward.

[Jon Lovett]

Yeah. So it sort of, like, was a combination of people kind of drumming this up online, including people sort of outside of traditional journalism, and then it getting kind of a. Kind of journalistic outlets sort of putting in the resources to go and kind of run these things down, which ultimately, I think is why it was able to successfully make the story break through and get him to resign.

[Jon Favreau]

So let's talk about what happens now in the California governor's race. We can do, you know, J.D. vance, good news, bad news. Bad news is this bad news is that guy. Good news is I feel like the lockout fears are over at this point.

[Tommy Vietor]

I don't know, kind of revived them. We can get to that.

[Jon Favreau]

But.

[Tommy Vietor]

Yeah.

[Jon Favreau]

Well, let's talk about it, because I think now that Trump has. Trump has jumped in to endorse Steve Hilton. Swalwell's out. So now you have California's roughly 60, 40 state Democrats, Republicans. So you have two Republicans splitting the 40, but one endorsed by Donald Trump. And then now you have Tom Steyer, Katie Porter, and then I guess Matt Mahan is the mayor of San Jose, Javier Becerra, former AG and Biden administration cabinet member, and Antonio Villaragosa, former mayor of la, sort of of vying for, you know, the third spot. What do you guys think?

[Tommy Vietor]

So most of the people I've talked to in the California political world since the swallow news think that this race will go down to. On the Democratic side, Steyer versus Katie Porter. Katie Porter's campaign has said, I think the Politico today that they in their internal polls, they get half of Swalwell's vote. Steyer's team, I think, said they get a quarter of Swalwell's vote. So we'll see. The problem for Katie Porter is no matter how much she raises or how hard she campaigns, in the next couple weeks, like, it's going to be impossible to match the 120 million that Steyer has already spent. And the problem for Steyer is he spent 120 million and he's still kind of stuck in this sheet.

[Jon Lovett]

He was spending millions attacking Swalwell, which at this point means he has set. That money was just wasted.

[Tommy Vietor]

Yeah. And so the most of the candidates, as you said, are polling significantly lower than those two. The X factor seems to be Matt Mahan, who may get like a ton of money from a bunch of tech industry billionaires already has, may get a ton more and maybe that'll move the needle. The problem for him is that, like, California is so big. We have what, 10 media markets. They're all expensive. Even spending 20 million is like not going to get you that much. So, you know, that's the assumption of where this will session. Now, the good news for all of us is everyone's in the field right now with polls like campaigns, media organizations, PACs. Hopefully we'll get some new data. I think the scary scenario is a situation where you have Mahan, Porter and Steyer all splitting the Dem vote. Then you could see a Steve Hilton Chad Bianco lockout scenario. It is very unlikely. It is more likely, I think, that the Democratic Party comes in or the DGA comes in and elevates Steve Hilton further in some way to ensure that it's a Republican Democrat general election. But we'll see.

[Jon Favreau]

Yeah. And the reason that it seems unlikely that there's going to be a lockout now is if you've got. So Becerra, Viragosa and Mahan have like maybe in one or two polls, one of them has hit five. No one's gotten more than five. Right. So say you generously give all the candidates who aren't porter and Steyer 15%. That still is 45% between Steyer and Porter and divided by two is as long as they're over 20, neither Chad Bianco or Steve Hilton is getting over 20% because it's 40% of the voters are Republicans in California.

[Jon Lovett]

Yeah. The argument for this kind of all redounding to Porter is Steyer has spent whatever it is, over $100 million. He's gotten to wherever he's gotten. He's gotten billions of impressions and he's sort of stuck where he is. Katie Porter hasn't really spent anything. She spent very little on ads. And I hope that this would be an opportunity to go spend that money. And so before you even get to where the voters go, like, where does Swalwell money go? Doesn't make sense for it to go to Tom Steyer. He's a fucking billionaire.

[Jon Favreau]

So like, where's Matt Mahan?

[Jon Lovett]

Maybe, maybe, but. Or like some of them. Some of them. But like.

[Jon Favreau]

Cause he's. Matt Mahan is like very like a lot of the tech focused people, you know, so he's got a lot of money to rank on that campaign. Now again, he's got some similar issue with Steyer. He's jumped in the race later, but a lot of money spent and still sitting around 4 or 5%.

[Jon Lovett]

I feel like. I don't know, maybe we'll see. But the idea that there's a bunch of people that were behind Eric Swalwell are now suddenly going to go to them were kind of like they're not going to go to the other traditional Dem in the race. I don't know. We'll see. But it does seem like it's a moment for Katie Porter to spend some money and try to figure out how to kind of bump herself up. I'm sure she's been waiting because she's so outgunned by Steyer.

[Jon Favreau]

It's also at some point in this environment where attention matters most and people barely watch ads, like I do think finding a moment to capture attention is more important in some ways than as Tom Steyer has found out, and then spending a whole bunch of money. And it's a challenge in a statewide race, especially a state as big as California, because you have a huge state, so you have a huge fucking audience. But everyone's talking about national politics all the time. And we have a couple big debates coming up. And do we think California voters are all going to be tuning into those debates? You'd hope so, but I don't know.

[Jon Lovett]

There's going to be a forum tomorrow night, which will be the first time I think they've all been together and to comment on Swalwell. And I do think that will be a newsmaking thing and we'll see something come out of there.

[Jon Favreau]

Luckily, there's lots of better news for Democrats to focus on. On Monday, the Cook Political Report shifted its outlook for several key Senate races in Democrats direction. North Carolina and Georgia. This is wild. From toss up to lean Democrat. Ohio from lean Republican to toss up. And Nebraska from solid Republican to lean Republican. In Iowa, a survey commissioned by a Democratic group gave Iowa State Auditor Rob sand an eight point lead in the governor's race, while the same poll has Republicans holding only a narrow lead in the Senate race, where there are two strong Democrats in a tough primary. Over in Alaska, Mary Peltola raised almost $9 million in the first three months of the year, quadruple the amount raised by Republican incumbent Dan Sullivan, probably the most money ever raised in that state. Do you guys think the Democrats chance of taking back the Senate has been underrated? I feel like it might have been underrated by now.

[Tommy Vietor]

It might have been underrated, yeah.

[Jon Lovett]

I'm just sort of picturing an ayatollah coming to the microphone the day after the election and saying, we didn't set out to change the American regime, but the regime did change. It's interesting to think about. Yeah. I don't know if it's underrated other than it was rated correctly. And then we launched a war and gas prices are through the roof and now it needs to be rated according to what's happened. It's been overtaken by events like it was maybe a toss up when gas was $3 a gallon. If it's five or six dollars a gallon, suddenly the Senate is not just in play, but like we have a real, real chance of taking it.

[Tommy Vietor]

Yeah, I mean, I've long felt pretty optimistic about North Carolina and Georgia just because, like, those are great candidates in states that are genuinely swingy. Ohio and Iowa, tough states. In 2024, I think Trump won Ohio by 11 points, won Iowa by 13 points. Some big headwinds, but Ohio, we had Sherrod Brown. It's probably the best candidate we could ask for. He's to win the primary, but he's

[Jon Favreau]

going to win the primary.

[Tommy Vietor]

And then in Iowa, we will not have a candidate until June 2nd. I interviewed Josh Turek a couple weeks ago. Folks want to listen to that. We're out to Zach Wallace to try to get him on soon, too. But Iowa Democrats have a really strong candidate at the top of the ticket and Rob sand, who is reportedly up eight points. Randy Feenstra's his opponent. He's not that popular, got a lot of baggage. And between like high gas prices, high fertilizer prices, and then tariffs, Trump has done everything he can to piss off farmers and fuck over Iowa's. Economy. So there's just like, there's just a lot of, you know, tailwinds for these candidates.

[Jon Favreau]

We should know that Cook in the same breath is moving those races. Also still doesn't think the Democrats are favored to win the Senate because they basically think we'll pick up one to three. We need four. And so there must be counting Maine, North Carolina and then either Ohio or Alaska or Iowa and not two of the three. Now we also I think Texas is a good chance, too, but they don't rate Texas as I think Texas is still lean Republican in their ranking, if I'm remembering correctly.

[Jon Lovett]

I would also like to see part of this, too. Who does gas prices hit? Obviously, geographically it's going to hit states where people are driving a longer distance or driving bigger cars. I would bet if you looked at who are the kinds of people that were kind of soft Trump voters and are now open to voting for a Democrat. It's going to be people that they're not driving teslas, they're driving SUVs. And they find Democrats talking about these issues pretty annoying, but they're pretty fucking pissed about how expensive gas is because we went to war in Iran.

[Jon Favreau]

Yeah. And it's not just gas. It'll be supply shortages and the cost of other. I mean, inflation is still a problem.

[Tommy Vietor]

So it's going to be a big problem. And the argument that why are we spending X billions on bombs to drop on schools in Iran when we could be spending it on anything else here pulls through the roof and everyone's going to be able to use that.

[Jon Lovett]

Right. Like, wait till we find out how much this blockade is going to cost us a day.

[Tommy Vietor]

Billions.

[Jon Favreau]

Trump was. Trump, right before the election in Hungary was promising, like, economic help for Hungary if they elect Viktor Orban, which he's

[Jon Lovett]

done so many times. Like, remember the beef, the Argentinian beef?

[Tommy Vietor]

Offer Artinian bailout. Like, he keeps doing that same brazen election interference. Then J.D. vance goes over there and it's like the bureaucrats in Brussels tried to interfere in your election. I won't. But also vote for Viktor Orban. But I'm not here to say like, what are you doing, you absolute loser?

[Jon Favreau]

It's insane.

[Jon Lovett]

He wasn't doing it to win. He was doing it because they're friends.

[Jon Favreau]

That's right.

[Jon Lovett]

He was doing it to help a friend. All right, if you don't love JD Vance at his Viktor Orban, you don't deserve him.

[Tommy Vietor]

The most corrupt person ever after Orban.

[Jon Favreau]

Finally, before we get to Lovett's Interview with Nithya Raman. One more quick item for you. While plenty of political leaders from liberal democracies all over the world posted statements celebrating Viktor Orban's defeat over the weekend, one in particular caught our eye from former Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. Not because of what he posted, but where he seemingly posted it from coachella, where the 54 year old was spotted in a backwards hat with girlfriend Katy Perry in a series of viral photos which drew this comment from Twitter user hedeparted. Rat quote, when you're faded and need to squint one eye to type, but you're trying to tweet about Hungarian politics. Do we. Do we have the picture there? There it is.

[Jon Lovett]

This picture is enraging. This picture is enraging to me. He looks so vital, young and happy.

[Tommy Vietor]

He looks.

[Jon Lovett]

He looks half his age.

[Jon Favreau]

Look. Maybe there's hope for 54, I guess.

[Jon Lovett]

I just like, for me, all Coachella is. Is a great weekend where the traffic is less in LA and like, there's the former Prime Minister just living his best fucking life.

[Jon Favreau]

I like that. There's like also a video that's come up too, on the screen.

[Tommy Vietor]

Yeah. And he's like, what are you doing? What are you doing? What are you doing? What are you doing? I was talking to a Canadian friend today who said Trudeau is getting shit in Canada.

[Jon Lovett]

I have friends in Canada too. Do you have friends in Canada? Lots of friends in Canada. Yeah.

[Donald Trump]

Go on.

[Tommy Vietor]

Your ex or something up there? Girl from the camp.

[Jon Lovett]

Because he pushed. Promising from Canada.

[Tommy Vietor]

He pushed for a plastic cup band in Canada. And as you can see there, he's got a red solo cup.

[Jon Favreau]

That's why he was getting shit.

[Tommy Vietor]

That's one of the reasons. People are also making fun of him for wearing like relaxed clothes. Would you expect him to be in like a blue.

[Jon Favreau]

Yeah, like a suit.

[Tommy Vietor]

What are we talking about here?

[Jon Favreau]

I do like the backwards hat, enjoying some Chinese food.

[Tommy Vietor]

And yeah, I guess I like Trudeau. He was on Pod Save the World. Check out Pod Save the World. Subscribe anywhere you get your podcast. I guess my advice to him would be like, post about Coachella or post about the Hungarian elections. Don't do both.

[Jon Lovett]

I'm sorry. And you think he needs your advice?

[Tommy Vietor]

Yes, absolutely does.

[Jon Lovett]

He is dating a pop star at Coachella. We're fucking here. He's crushing it.

[Jon Favreau]

He's living his life. He's living his divorce dad life.

[Jon Lovett]

He's doing great. He's posting about Viktor Orban throwing back a ketamine lozenge.

[Jon Favreau]

He's crushing is a very relatable situation. We've all been there. Oh, no, we gotta do some. Some work. We're looking at Twitter. Here we are in a fun time.

[Jon Lovett]

Drafted a convention speech from Vegas, done it all.

[Tommy Vietor]

Was he just there to see Bieber or is that just a coincidence? A lot of the reporting connected them because they're both Canadian.

[Jon Favreau]

I mean, she's there, so I'm sure she was just there to see everyone and get all the. You know, she's Katy Perry.

[Jon Lovett]

She is Katy Perry. Yeah.

[Tommy Vietor]

Imagine you're tripping balls waiting for a porta potty. Justin, you're like Justin Trudeau.

[Jon Lovett]

I bet he has artist passes. I bet he has the good passes.

[Tommy Vietor]

Oh, definitely. But he still gotta pee.

[Jon Lovett]

He's gotta pee. You got. And that's the thing. We all gotta pee.

[Tommy Vietor]

Bernie was at Coachella last year, right? But he spoke. Remember that?

[Jon Lovett]

Yeah, yeah, it was. I think it was. He opened for Skrillex. That's. That's the right. God, my references are getting so old.

[Jon Favreau]

Wow.

[Tommy Vietor]

So old.

[Jon Favreau]

Nice. Goodbye.

[Tommy Vietor]

He's a Bare Naked Ladies.

[Jon Favreau]

We'll be seeing you at 54. Who is a fuel.

[Jon Lovett]

Who was there? Not Wilkins.

[Jon Favreau]

Ari. Wheezing was wheezy.

[Jon Lovett]

Yeah.

[Jon Favreau]

Hey, buddy.

[Tommy Vietor]

Old man. Stage coaches down the road.

[Jon Favreau]

No, no, that's next weekend.

[Donald Trump]

They actually.

[Jon Lovett]

She actually started out with a band called no Doubt.

[Jon Favreau]

All right.

[Tommy Vietor]

It looked fun. I wish I was there.

[Jon Favreau]

Yeah. We're just jealous, that's for sure.

[Tommy Vietor]

Quite very. Yes, for sure.

[Jon Favreau]

Anyway, when we come back. Love it. Talks to Nithya Raman about her race for LA mayor.

[Jon Lovett]

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[Jon Lovett]

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[Nithya Raman]

Thank you so much for having me.

[Jon Lovett]

We have a lot to get through. I'm gonna go pretty quickly. I also do wanna disclose that I've been a supporter of yours for a long time. But I was really excited to see you jump in the race. Not just because you're you, but because I thought Los Angeles deserved a big, contentious, hard fought mayoral campaign. And we were about to not have one.

[Nithya Raman]

Yes. Yes.

[Jon Lovett]

You had endorsed Karen Bass for mayor.

[Nithya Raman]

Yes.

[Jon Lovett]

She was a political ally of yours. Then literally in the hours before the noon deadline, you decided to run. What happened in the month between endorsing your former political ally and deciding to run against her?

[Nithya Raman]

Well, the endorsement request had come months prior, so I just wanna be very clear about that. It wasn't like an overnight change of heart. But I will say that I had been getting really frustrated with, with the way that things had been going in the city and in the way that things had been going in city hall on so many of the issues that I really cared about on housing and housing production and the cost of housing, the extraordinary cost of housing here in Los Angeles. I felt like the city was actually fighting against state mandates to build housing. The city was fighting affordable housing. And we didn't have any clear direction or urgency around the issue at all. On issues like homelessness, where people were demanding accountability, that is possible, absolutely possible, to deliver things that I have actually made progress on in my own district and in my limited way as the chair of the committee, we were just not doing on a system wide level and we didn't feel any urgency around it. And I feel like that lack of urgency was everywhere in every issue that I cared about. And I kept trying to push back against it and kept hitting a wall. And I think I got increasingly frustrated. And I'm not a traditional politician in that this is what I want to be doing for the rest of my life. I actually didn't even really think that I would ever run for office, but I really care about Los Angeles. And the idea, exactly like you said, of having a mayoral election where we weren't even talking about the fact that LA is struggling right now, that a lot of people feel like it's moving in the wrong direction, that the City hall needs to be doing things differently in order to address our biggest problems, that we weren't even going to have that conversation. I mean, it made me crazy. It made me absolutely crazy. And so finally, in the last couple of days, I seriously considered running and then on the very last day, threw my hat in the ring.

[Jon Lovett]

So let's talk about what's wrong with Los Angeles, which would be too long of a conversation to have, but stepping back. The city of LA has a budget of around $14 billion. Yet we can't fix sidewalks, repave streets, we don't plant trees, we can't replace the bulbs in our street lamps. Why, in the richest state in the country, in the fourth largest economy in the world, is Los Angeles such a basket case?

[Nithya Raman]

You know, I think a lot of it has to do with really poor fiscal management. Here at the city, we are making decisions that undermine our capacity to be able to deliver basic essential services for our residents. And I think that's a shame because it is. Again, it's completely possible to do it. We last year had a billion dollar budget deficit that definitely had some kind of impacts from the fires the year prior and from or a few months prior and from heightened liability claims that are impacting a lot of municipalities across the country. But the biggest issue was that we signed unsustainably large contracts beginning with the Police union, which is one of the biggest players in local politics. We signed an enormous contract with them that everybody at City hall knew would lead to hundreds of millions of dollars of shortfall. And yet we signed it anyway because the mayor and many other City hall leaders. I voted against it. Many other City hall leaders knew that the police union is the major player in local elections. They're the biggest funders of, of independent expenditure committees, of campaign funding here in la. And so we signed that contract. We knew that we would be hundreds of millions of dollars in the hole as a result. And then exactly as everyone knew, we ended last year with a billion dollar budget deficit and 1,600 layoffs on the table. And because that happened, we are now in a situation where we have 30,000 streetlights off across the city of Los Angeles and an average repair time of a year to fix a streetlight. We haven't paved a single mile of street this entire fiscal year because we don't have the money. We're filling fewer potholes because we have the trucks to fill potholes, but we can't pay for the drivers to fill potholes. We are doing everything worse than we could, and now we're going back to residents and asking them to pay more in order to deliver these essential services.

[Jon Lovett]

So you would, if you were to become mayor, you would inherit these contracts. How do you fix it? How do we dig ourselves out of this hole? And how do you do it when it's not just the mayor that's kind of making these decisions, but also the City Council and other people that feel beholden to these groups, even if they're supportive of making sure public employees receive good benefits and good paying.

[Nithya Raman]

100%. 100%. And I think you can offer, I think we can have a vision for Los Angeles where we are paying public sector employees what they deserve, giving them raises to be able to live in this city that is so extraordinarily expensive, but also negotiate adequately in order to make sure that we're also delivering basic services. And that inability to negotiate, that's what we're losing in a system which is so insular here in la, where the people who are really constituents of City hall politics are a very small group, as opposed to all of the residents of the city of Los Angeles for whom the decisions being made in City hall really matter.

[Jon Lovett]

Can you talk about what happened with the convention center? So I think this is a good example. There was a proposal to expand the convention center. If you just tell people what happened, how much it's Going to cost and what happened there?

[Nithya Raman]

Yeah, so there's been a proposal being kicked around for actually a decade to expand the convention center. We have a convention center in downtown la. It is pretty old, it's smaller than other convention centers. And there's been kind of a discussion to see whether we should expand it and brighten it up. Suddenly, just a few months after we had a billion dollar budget deficit, the convention center was back on the table. And by this time the costs had ballooned significantly. Now, the cost of that rebuilding that convention center with debt service were going to be close to $6 billion. $6 billion. That would mean that we were going to be paying out $100 million annually out of our general fund. Those are our discretionary dollars that we use for providing basic services here in la, everything from public safety to streetlights. And that proposal was pushed through very, very quickly. Despite the fact that we are in a fiscal crisis, despite the fact that we have the Olympics coming up, despite the fact that local and economic headwinds are very, very uncertain here in Los Angeles, because a small cluster of downtown businesses who fund local elections really wanted to push it forward. And for me, you know, I represent a district right now that is very vocal about their views. It's a relatively, it's, you know, one of the relatively wealthier districts. And they know how to get in touch with City hall when they care. I didn't hear from any of my constituents saying that they wanted this project to move forward. That's very unusual for big decisions in front of the city.

[Jon Lovett]

How long would the project take too? Like, how many years would it take to build this convention center?

[Nithya Raman]

It's going to take a couple of years. And what is interesting about it is that we actually have Olympics events that are scheduled to happen at the convention center. And so in order to make sure that the Olympics events are happening, what we have to do is to move the project forward until it gets to Olympics readiness. It won't be done by the time the Olympics are happening, but we need to get to Olympics readiness and then we're going to kind of put walls around the remaining parts of the conventions that are there still under construction. Then we're going to have the events there, and then afterwards we'll finish the project.

[Jon Lovett]

And that's going to cost $6 billion.

[Nithya Raman]

With debt service?

[Jon Lovett]

Yes, with debts, including all the costs, plus the borrowing and all the rest is going to cost the city $6 billion. And how long would it take us to make back that $6 billion?

[Nithya Raman]

I mean, we are going to be paying the debt for that for the next 30 years, and the revenues will never cover the costs. I mean, this is terrific.

[Jon Lovett]

Love that for us. All right, sorry. So how does it get to the point where a small group of people, Democrats or, you know, left associated people, are all coming together to make these decisions? Not Republicans that are causing these problems. It's not Donald Trump. It's. This is a problem generated by. The only thing between us and solving these problems is Democrats.

[Nithya Raman]

Right.

[Jon Lovett]

And so for, like, people that maybe aren't from Los Angeles and see this, like. Like, what have you learned being in the city council about what it takes to get a group of people that are maybe ideologically aligned to care about just the basics of good governing?

[Nithya Raman]

You know, I don't know the answer to that, to be honest with you, because that is not what we have right now here in Los Angeles. So I don't know what the solution for actually caring about good governance is, except that I think it is absolutely necessary at this moment to me here to live in the city, to think about the fact that I have to look my constituents in the face and say to them, you trust me, I'm gonna address really complex issues like affordability. I'm gonna address really complex issues like homelessness, but I can't fix your streetlight for a year. And just trust me, I got this. That felt unacceptable to me. That felt like an absurd situation to be in with my constituents. And that is really what had. What pushed me into running. And, you know, at this time, I had actually been so frustrated with the way that things were going that I had started to lose hope in how things could get better here in Los Angeles. And I think in the context of a federal environment where I feel relatively helpless and hopeless as well, feeling that locally has also been really, really, you know, frustrating. But I will say that since I started the campaign and since I've been going out and talking to communities about these decisions and talking about how the city can do better, how we can achieve all of the goals that we want to set out to achieve, if we're honest with our constituents, if we're open, if we're transparent, and if we really work towards good outcomes, I really do feel like people are excited by that message. People are getting enthusiastic. People are organizing their own meetings so that they. I can meet their friends. Like, it is a message that is getting a lot of positive reception, which is really exciting.

[Jon Lovett]

So let's talk about one of the key challenges for la, which is housing. I actually interviewed Zoran Mamdani about this when he was running in New York, that he had actually evolved as somebody that was associated with the dsa, the socialists, Democratic socialists. That he had come to see the importance of not just like rent control and measures to control the cost of housing, public housing, but also market rate housing. I think you've had a similar evolution. Can you talk about what is standing in the way right now of Los Angeles building enough housing supply to meet the need?

[Nithya Raman]

Yeah, I mean, I think I definitely had that same movement. I was very focused on affordable housing when I first started my first race. Building more affordable housing, building more shelter, making sure that we were building kind of what people talked about needing here in la. But as I was in office and I started getting calls from constituents who were struggling with their rents, I realized these were often people who would never qualify for affordable housing, but they had no choice but to live in a unit with a terrible landlord in terrible conditions because there was simply nothing else available to them. Here in Los Angeles and LA is a city where there has been an active anti housing movement that has shaped our local politics for decades. In the 80s there was an anti Manhattanization movement that down zoned, that reduced the capacity to build more housing along every major boulevard and thoroughfare, that reduced capacity to build multifamily housing across the entire city. Leading to what estimates, what is an estimated shortfall of something like 500,000 units here in the city of Los Angeles right now. But I think we can actually fix it. There are ways in which the city of Los Angeles can build more. A huge change would be getting the city out of the way, rezoning so that we actually have capacity to build more housing, building more density, particularly near our major transit corridors, building more gentle density like duplexes and triplexes, even in some single family neighborhoods that can be more walkable, that are near transit. I think that's a key change that we need to make. We need to get the city out of the way. We have enormous red tape standing between an application for a new housing unit coming in and when it is actually approved. And our timelines for approving housing are double, even triple what other jurisdictions are, which leads to significantly less housing being produced and by the way, more expensive housing being produced. Because the longer you have to sit and wait for your permits to come, the more expensive that housing becomes ultimately.

[Jon Lovett]

And the fewer projects that get started because the people building those projects know they have to be able to make money on the end when there's going to be a Huge delay.

[Nithya Raman]

Yeah. I also wanted to say that we really have a culture in city, in City hall, where delay and denial are kind of rewarded and saying yes is not. And I think we have to completely flip that around. We have to build a city where saying yes is the goal of our housing processes, not the opposite. And that is a culture shift that has to happen at every level of the bureaucracy. It has to be enabled and undergirded by technology that allows cooperation between departments, and it has to be rewarded at the highest levels of government. And that's really what I think needs to happen.

[Jon Lovett]

Yeah, like after the fires in the Palisades, in Altadena, there was this sense even from the mayor that, like, we're going to make this process faster. We're going to make it work better. Of the 4,100 that have applied for permits rebuild, fewer than half have been approved. Only 34 homes have been built. So even when there is an impetus, even when there seems to be an understanding that we need to move faster, it's not happening. Is that a technical problem of the rules? Is that leadership? Is that the mayor not like what's happening?

[Nithya Raman]

Well, I think it is leadership. I think it is a. I think the mayor here in the city of Los Angeles has, while it is a weaker mayor system than in other places, we. The mayor has the capacity to hire and fire every department head. And that means that the mayor has the capacity to determine the priorities of every department. They're getting motions and legislative efforts from the council members to push them in a thousand different directions. The mayor is the one that departments respond to. And so it is up to the mayor to set housing production and permitting timelines as a priority. She can set deadlines for by when these things have to happen. You can appoint leadership that is responsive to those goals. You can create metrics through which you can hold department heads accountable. And if they meet those goals, you can reward them. And if they don't meet those goals, you should replace them. That is not happening here in the city of Los Angeles at all, across all of the departments that are involved in the housing production process. Also, we haven't had a deputy mayor of housing for almost two years. In a city where the cost of housing and housing production and rebuilding are key issues for this city. We need a deputy mayor for housing, but, you know, that position has been left empty for, I think, an inexcusably long time.

[Jon Lovett]

So we're in this crisis in housing. We've lost 54,000 people in the county now Los Angeles Passed something that's called ula. It's the mansion tax as people would know it. And I actually supported the mansion tax because I thought, okay, like, I don't think it was. It was written in a stupid way by people who seem honestly, like, mathematically illiterate. But it had put a tax on houses over 5 million and then a bigger tax on houses, I believe, over 10 million. And I thought, all things considered, better to have it than not have it. I didn't understand when I voted for it, honestly, that it also applied to multifamily housing, because that was so. It wouldn't even have occurred to me that it would do something so fucking stupid. Truly, I feel stupid that I voted for it. I would have voted to next. No, you tried to fix it and you say, hey, we'll keep the mansion tax, but we won't apply this to new multifamily housing because all the evidence says that multifamily housing is being stopped. And this is counterproductive. And yet the council doesn't do it.

[Nithya Raman]

Right.

[Jon Lovett]

What is the. Like, it was enraging. I am mad sitting here. It doesn't. What is the logic of it? How do you, how, how do you show up with these people and not like, what. What is stopping them from doing? I'm like sputtering to a stop. So fucking stupid. Why didn't they support what you were trying to do?

[Nithya Raman]

Well, I mean, I think because people, a. People don't believe the evidence. So there's there. I mean, I, I was very convinced by the evidence. There were real differences in LA City versus LA County, LA. County is producing more housing, we're producing less. San Diego, which is facing the same macroeconomic conditions that we are, is actually increasing permits while LA has seen a 25% drop in permits. I mean, to me, the evidence was very clear that this was impacting multifamily housing production. I think there's two things that are happening here that are preventing more robust action from being taken on issues that are obviously addressing housing production. One is that there is significant pushback from, again, those same kind of insider groups that have huge sway in City hall, both the ULA coalition that I worked with very closely to try and negotiate a pathway forward. I was talking to them for many, many months to say, because I too was a supporter of ula, I really value the money that it provides to the city for rent relief and other things. And so I worked very closely with them to say, hey, can we craft an exemption that allows for this much needed housing? To be built here. Ultimately, we just were not able to come to an agreement on what that would look like. And I got extremely frustrated because, to me, this is the single most important issue that is, you know, hampering our future resiliency, that is making Los Angeles into a place of less opportunity. Secondly, I think both labor groups that funded the effort also were not on board with making any changes. And so with nonprofits and with labor groups that had supported the effort not making any changes, without a real push from the mayor and from other leadership to really move this forward, this effort died. It is now going through a committee process, but I'm not sure what is going to come come from it.

[Jon Lovett]

So I think more than half the council had already endorsed Karen Bass before you decided to run. They've, I think, all stuck with their endorsements, but I assume behind the scenes, others on the council are as frustrated as you are. You happen to have also been somebody that endorsed Karen Bass but was unhappy. Are you hearing from them privately that they actually want you to win, but they're afraid to say so publicly?

[Nithya Raman]

Well, I. Look, I don't want to betray my private conversations. I still have relationships with people on the council that I'm working with. And, you know, whatever happens in this election, either outcome, I will need to work with them going forward as well. But I will say that I interact with a lot of local political figures here, not just people on the council, but across the entire region. And I think there have been a lot of questions about the lack of leadership on issues. And I think that's the most perplexing thing here in. In la, which I think Angelenos can feel on the streets, which is just like a. There's a rudderlessness, there's just a lack of pushing, there's a lack of urgency on the things that I feel really urgent about and that I think residents of the city feel really urgent about. There's a lack of just. Just kind of being out there and fighting. Like Angelenos need a fighter. At a moment when things feel really bleak here, and to not have that fighter in City hall, to not have that person really articulating a vision of how things could change, whether it's on the cost of housing, whether it's on our transit and safety infrastructure for our streets, whether it's on homelessness, whether it's on ice, whatever it is, we are just missing that kind of. That leadership here in the city. And this is an incredible place. This is an incredible place. It deserves that kind of leadership. It deserves that kind of vision, it deserves someone pushing with all of their might to push it in the right direction. And I just, I know I felt that absence. And I don't think I'm the only one. I really don't.

[Jon Lovett]

So I want to ask you about MacArthur Park. There's a beautiful park in the middle of the city.

[Nithya Raman]

Yeah.

[Jon Lovett]

If you go there right now, if we drove there right now, it's the middle of the day, you would see basically like an open air drug market. And the mayor and the police, they set up chain link fences on the sidewalks around the park. They're blocking off. They're not cordoning anything in. They are. It's hard to believe that this is the solution. They have built boxes of chain link fence to close the sidewalk so that people do not use those spaces to sell drugs. This was touted as a temporary solution. Years it has been devolving. There was a plan for like about $27 million to try to beautify the park over a long period of time. You're the mayor of Los Angeles. How long does it take until MacArthur park is a place that's safe for families? Is it a. I don't. I personally, like, look, I can be told why I'm wrong, but the idea that it's a six month problem, as opposed to a one month problem, two week problem, to really kind of make the place safe again. Like, what, what would you do and how long do you think it takes. Yeah, with real attention to make a place like that reflective of the kind of city we think Los Angeles should be?

[Nithya Raman]

Yeah, I think, I think it would take six months to a year to change it, because I think it takes repeated engagement and presence in that location to address longstanding issues. And I think you have to address both the homelessness crisis that is on the streets, you have to address the mental health issues that are out there, and you have to address very obvious criminal activity that's happening there, drug dealing and other kinds of things for which you need police presence there, dealing with really ugly issues that are out there that require their attention, investigation and arrest. And I think if you do both of those things, if you are really, again, robustly engaged, pushing with all your might on that issue, I do think that you can make some real improvements there. We have had, in Council District 4, where I've been engaged, we don't have anything that resembles that scale of crisis, but we did have very large encampments, Very, very large encampments. 30, 40 people that were there when I first got elected. And Each of those, addressing each of those took that kind of effort. We were able to offer shelter services, housing, and really push on the system to be able to address issues. There were cases where we had to work a much longer time to address people who had severe mental health issues, who, you know, despite repeated engagement, even arrests that. That came about from their own behavior, would end up right back in the same place. That requires engaging with the Department of Mental Health. That requires engaging with mental health clinicians. It takes time. But again, with time and effort, progress can happen. And I think the key, the missing link here, the thing that I keep articulating over and over again, is that you have to put in the time and the urgency and the leadership and the focus on these things that can actually push things in the right direction. And it has to be successful, sustained over time.

[Jon Lovett]

Yeah. Because what I'm hearing too, is a lot of this is pushing back, even at times on your own constituencies, whether it's a public employees union or maybe advocates for the unhoused Gavin Newsom. It's almost taken as a given in some quarters that Gavin Newsom was performatively cruel in the way that he wanted to clear encampments. But at the same time, I imagine most, even Democrats in California would say, oh, that's what I want. I want someone who's going to be aggressive about doing that is part of the job of mayor, making decisions that are humane, that are reflective of our values as progressives. But at the same time, sometimes the advocates are going to be out there protesting. If you do need to clear an encampment, or sometimes you are going to have to go against a labor union, even if you. You broadly support unions.

[Nithya Raman]

I think that for me, like on the issue of encampments or the issue of homelessness, overall, to me, I think it is. And actually, let me take a step back, whether whatever issue that we're talking about here, here in the city of Los Angeles, I think the issue for me, as a person who is deeply progressive, as someone who believes in the power of government to do good things and to make our lives better, my goal is to ensure that you, as a resident of Los Angeles and every resident of Los Angeles, feels like the government is working for them and that they can palpably feel the positive presence of government in their lives. And I think you have to do what it takes in order to deliver those results. On homelessness, I happen to believe that for the. For kind of the encampments that I've dealt with in my district, housing, shelter, Services focused work has been what has reduced homelessness significantly in, you know, street homelessness significantly in my district at almost every encampment that we've worked in. And that is the work that I would be doing is create that system of sustained effort to generate results on reducing street homelessness, on addressing mental health issues, on making our streets safer, cleaner, brighter, fixing street lights, whatever it is you have to push on these issues. And I think that that is really. I think for me, my governing principle as a. As an elected representative and as someone who is a very proud progressive is like, I want people to feel like the government is working for them.

[Jon Lovett]

When you were on the council, you supported what would become Mayor Bass signature policy to address homelessness. It was a $300 million program to get people off the streets. The city spent about $259,000 per person, housed 40% of the participants. More than 2,000 people ended up back on the streets. What went wrong with that program and what does it tell you about how you do it differently?

[Nithya Raman]

So initially I thought the kind of the emergency response of the Inside Safe program was necessary for la. We had a. We. I also supported declaring a state of emergency on homelessness. I think street homelessness is a crisis. It is an emergency, and we should respond to it at that scale. And the kind of effort that it was where you again, you. It was renting hotel and motel rooms and using those as shelter to go to encampments and get. Offer that shelter and then moving an entire encampment off the streets. That's called encampment resolution. It's not unique to Inside Safe. It's something that I've done in my district. In fact, we did it years before the mayor came into office. We've done it in Venice. It's been pioneered across the city and it's very effective by really focusing encampment by encampment and offering real shelter to people that we're able to actually move people indoors and then clear those encampments, and then those areas stay clear because you've actually addressed the reason why people are on the street in the first place. So to me, that kind of an encampment resolution focused response is really important. The issue becomes when the intervention that you're using is enormously expensive and you're not doing the work to ensure that you are making it into a fiscally sustainable response. So Inside Safe motel rooms cost an average of over $80,000 per person or per room per person per year, and people are staying in them for an average of A year. And sometimes they're costing as much as $100,000 per person per year. That is an enormously expensive intervention that I think was appropriate as an emergency intervention, but needs to be made into a real fiscally sustainable system that actually can respond to the crisis on our streets with the dollars that we have, because this is not sustainable. And so to me, I want to build that system. I've actually in the city, generated data about the performance of our homelessness investments for the first time working with Lassa, that shows us where beds are vacant, where our permanent supportive housing units are available. And through that work, I've actually brought people into these beds, filled every bed, filled every unit. We need to be building a system which is cost less per person, but is actually working better at actually bringing people indoors, filling every bed, filling every resource, and then doing the work when they're in those units and those shelter beds, to get them the case management, they need to transition to whatever is their next step, whether it's reunification with family, whether it is moving into a permanent supportive housing unit, whether it is coming into self sufficiency, getting a job, being able to actually live independently. These are all things that the system can do. But you have to design that system. You need to make sure that there is leadership there and resources to create that system, to make sure that people are moving through it into safety and to permanent housing appropriately. But that kind of work is not happening right now, despite. Despite pushing within the city to create oversight, to create responsibility here.

[Jon Lovett]

All right, couple final questions. Look, I realize that as mayor of la, the Middle east has very little to do with your portfolio. But you've been hit from the left for not speaking out enough about Gaza. You also would be running to be the mayor of a city with a very big Jewish population that is deeply concerned about the way in which anti Zionism bleeds into anti Semitism. What do you view, like, your role is in speaking about this issue? And what do you think people in Los Angeles should know about how you feel about it?

[Nithya Raman]

Well, you know, I have spoken about, spoken up about the issue in the past. I called for a ceasefire, introduced a ceasefire resolution in City Council. I've called what's happening there, which is incredibly horrific, to witness what's happening in Gaza. I've called it a genocide. And, you know, I've been deeply disturbed by what I have seen at the same time in my role as city council member and what I imagine in my role as mayor would be the impacts on people here and kind of the Knock on effects from what's happening in the Middle East, I think have to be also the focus of our work here in the city. So in my district, we've had increases in really horrifying incidents of antisemitism and Islamophobia. And I've had to respond to both of those. And as mayor, I would need to do more of that. I would need to ensure that the city is a place where people are able to express their political opinions freely, where people are able to express their First Amendment rights, but that they are not victims of anti Semitism and Islamophobia. And when those happen, we have to speak up about it. We have to make sure that this is a place that's safe for everyone.

[Jon Lovett]

I wanna talk about the film industry briefly. There's so much to talk about.

[Nithya Raman]

I know.

[Jon Lovett]

So LA, we had only 19,000 on location film and TV production days. That's a 16% decrease from 2024. That's the lowest number of production days ever recorded outside of COVID What would you do as mayor to bring production jobs back to this city that Mayor Bass hasn't been able to do?

[Nithya Raman]

Yeah, you know, one of the big things that I think we need to be doing is making it easier to film here. And there have been some efforts that are making their way through the council around kind of reducing restrictions on how production happens, on reducing costs for production, how improving how film LA works. These have been moving, I think, all too slowly.

[Jon Lovett]

Yeah.

[Nithya Raman]

There's no reason why through executive directive, these fixes can't be made immediately and that the bureaucracy that's standing in the way of people producing here, actually making films here cannot be eased more quickly by a mayor who is deeply focused on this issue. But I think there's more that can be done. You know, last year we had a conversation about a tax credit that increased. You know, I wanted to see more advocacy from our mayor for a tax credit that would have no cap and that would be guaranteed a decade into the future. Right. That's the kind of system that studios are looking for as they're thinking about where to invest. And LA should be the loudest advocate. The leadership of LA should be the loudest advocate for the kind of tax credit system that other states are putting into place and actually getting production moving there. Like in New Jersey, we should be advocating for that same system here. Okay. Sacramento may not listen, but the leadership of Los Angeles should be fighting as hard as they can to make sure that that tax credit system has put into place. I would also Say that, you know, I think we need to be really engaging with studios. We need to be engaging with companies that are headquartered here and saying to them, what do we need to do to make sure that you're shooting here? What do we need to do to make sure that we are having production stay here? How can we make sure that this industry, which is so central to Los Angeles, so central to Los Angeles, stays in Los Angeles? How can we make sure that the incredible talent that we have across the can work here, A place that they move to to build their dreams to work in the film industry? I think that's the kind of engagement that I want to see. I haven't been seeing that kind of engagement happening, and that's what I would want to do if I were mayor.

[Jon Lovett]

Oh, and then can you reopen the arc light?

[Nithya Raman]

Oh, I don't know if I can. I would love to figure out why it's closed for so long.

[Jon Lovett]

What's going on at the arc light now?

[Jon Favreau]

I know.

[Jon Lovett]

It's nuts.

[Nithya Raman]

Yeah. Let's go talk to that property owner.

[Jon Lovett]

Okay. All right. Made some progress today.

[Nithya Raman]

Yeah. All right.

[Jon Lovett]

Thank you, Nithya raman. Thank you so much for being here. Good luck in your race. I hope we get the arclight open. All right, we're done. Thank you.

[Nithya Raman]

Thank you.

[Jon Favreau]

That's our show for today. Thanks to nithya raman for coming on. Dan and I will be back with a new show on Friday. If you want to listen to pod save america ad free and get access to exclusive podcasts, go to crooked.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 producer is saul rubin. Our associate producer is farah safari. Austin fisher is our senior producer. Reed churlin is our executive editor. Adrian hill is our head of news and politics. Jordan kantor is our sound engineer with audio support. 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, Haley 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.