The Gospel According to Trump

Summary

Pod Save America: “The Gospel According to Trump”

Date: April 17, 2026
Hosts: Jon Favreau, Dan Pfeiffer, Tommy Vietor
Guest: Peggy Flanagan (Minnesota Lt. Governor, Senate candidate)

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Episode Overview

This episode sharply dissects the ever-escalating “holy war” between Trump and the Catholic Church following Trump’s feud with Pope Leo, explores the political and theological absurdities surrounding the administration’s messaging, and covers the broader fallout—including the Iran conflict, inflation woes, and chaotic Republican politics. It culminates with a detailed, heartfelt interview with Peggy Flanagan, Minnesota’s Lt. Governor and U.S. Senate candidate, focusing on Minnesota’s political landscape and her vision for Democratic reform.

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Key Segments & Insights

1. Trump’s “Holy War” With the Pope and Catholic Church

[02:00 – 17:41]

• Escalating Feud:
  Trump reignites tensions with Pope Leo, accusing him of being "weak on crime" and "better get his act together," leading to an unprecedented MAGA clash with the Vatican.

• J.D. Vance’s Controversial Comments:

  • J.D. Vance, now Vice President and recent Catholic convert, “Catholic-splains” to the Pope about theology and the Just War doctrine, which the hosts savagely mock.
  • “It’s just Catholic explaining to the Pope.” – Jon Favreau [05:30]
  • “He just became a Catholic like five minutes ago.” – Jon Favreau [06:05]

• U.S. Catholic Bishops Response:
  The bishops rebuke Vance, clarifying Just War and the Pope’s authority:

  • “When Pope Leo speaks as supreme pastor… he is not merely offering opinions on theology. He is preaching the gospel and exercising his ministry as the Vicar of Christ.” [08:29]

• Political Stupidity Highlighted:

  • “There are so many ways for JD Vance to address this, and he chose the absolute worst one.” – Dan Pfeiffer [05:37]
  • “You look like an asshole.” – Dan Pfeiffer [07:39]

• Strategic Analysis:
  The hosts argue attacking the Pope is suicidal politics, especially with so many Catholic swing voters in key states.

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2. Religious Imagery and the Iran War

[09:35 – 15:45]

• Media & War Rhetoric:
  Pete Hegseth, Defense Secretary, invokes wild biblical allegories on Fox News:

  • “Our press are just like these Pharisees. Your politically motivated animus for President Trump nearly completely blinds you from the brilliance of our American warriors…” [10:23]

• Trump as Jesus Figure:
  Hosts lampoon the increasingly messianic tone, with comparisons made between Trump, Jesus, and the Iran war.

  • “Trump is Jesus. Trump bombing Iran is healing the sick.” – Jon Favreau/Dan Pfeiffer [11:04 – 11:10]

• Dangers of Christian Nationalist Rhetoric:
  Dan warns weaponizing Christian language to frame U.S. wars feeds anti-American propaganda and makes conflict with Muslim countries more volatile.

  • “It feeds the suggestion that… this is a religious war… a tool that was used during post 9/11, the Iraq war by Al Qaeda, to recruit people against the United States. It’s so stupid to think that way.” – Dan Pfeiffer [12:39]

• Pope’s Counter-message:
  Pope Leo, from Cameroon, rebukes the instrumentalization of religion for war:

  • "Blessed are the peacemakers, but woe to those who manipulate religion in the very name of God for their military, economic, or political gain." [13:38]

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3. Political Fallout: Trump Versus the Catholic Vote

[17:13 – 24:32]

• Key Voting Bloc:
  The Catholic vote, increasingly right-leaning since Obama, is spotlighted as pivotal in states like PA, MI, WI, and AZ. The hosts debate whether the Pope feud will move voters:

  • “Catholic vote is very powerful in this country, and particularly powerful in the states that decide the presidency.” – Dan Pfeiffer [21:56]

• Margins Matter:
  “Even if a tiny fraction of Catholics in the states I mentioned turned on Trump for this, that has real implications for House races in those states, Senate races in those states, like the Michigan Senate race, for instance, and 2028 if it stays that way.” – Dan Pfeiffer [24:06]

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4. Culture War Absurdity: Pulp Fiction Prayer

[24:53 – 26:24]

• Pete Hegseth Recites “Ezekiel” from Pulp Fiction:
  A viral Pentagon moment as the Defense Secretary recites a fake Bible verse (actually Quentin Tarantino’s Pulp Fiction script).
  • “Well, it’s important to point out that that’s not a real verse.” – Dan Pfeiffer [25:34]
  • “You think Pete Hegseth skipped that theology class? Was it before noon?” [26:13]
    The hosts roast the increasingly surreal blend of pop culture and state religion.

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5. Iran War Stalemate and Trump’s Spin

[30:23 – 38:26]

• Diplomacy-by-Gaslight:
  Trump gives contradictory, incoherent answers on ceasefire negotiations, playing down the war and economic consequences.

  • “He wants this war to be over. He wants the Strait of Hormuz open… without admitting defeat, like he wants a win of some kind.” – Dan Pfeiffer [32:25]
  • “We have very little leverage… and at some point you recognize that… Iran could start messing with other waterways…” – Dan Pfeiffer [32:41]

• Damage Done:
  The hosts compare the war’s political effect to Katrina for Bush or Covid for Trump:

  • “This is what everyone warned about with Trump. It’s what Katrina was to Bush politically.” – Dan Pfeiffer [34:33]

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6. Midterms, Gas Prices, and Trump’s Economic Messaging

[38:26 – 43:17]

• Trump Flailing on Affordability:
  Trump’s attempts to brag about “no tax on tips” and low gas prices fall flat:

  • “Gas prices are high. That sucks. But it is a sacrifice we all have to make to prevent Iran from posing an existential threat.” – Dan Pfeiffer [40:19–40:31]

• Messaging Failures:

  • “He is psychologically incapable of delivering what would be the most effective economic message. He just can’t do it.” – Dan Pfeiffer [41:11]
  • “Instead of talking about it as, hey, we made a down payment and we helped you out a little bit... all he can do is be like, and I solved everything and everyone’s rich now and gas prices aren’t bad and the fake news media is telling you your life’s bad, but everything’s great.” – Jon Favreau [43:17]

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7. Republican Panic & Political Prognosis

[44:03 – 46:45]

• Trump’s Midterm Hand-waving:
  “I asked people that are deep into the psychological world. I said, why is it that a voter votes for the opposite party even when you have a good president?” – Donald Trump [44:07]
  The hosts lampoon Trump’s misunderstanding of public opinion and the panic among House Republicans.

• Strategic Analysis:
  “Even if Trump was executing his political and message strategy perfectly, the Republicans would still be kind of fucked here. [...] But Trump is doing nothing to help them.” – Dan Pfeiffer [45:27–46:13]

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8. Lessons from Hungary’s Opposition Victory

[48:04 – 57:13]

• Viktor Orban’s Ouster:
  The hosts celebrate the defeat of Hungarian autocrat Orban, emphasizing that resistance and accountability are essential post-Trump.

  • “You simply cannot turn the other cheek to fascism. [...] There’s going to be a massive project to dig out root and branch all of the corruption and the corrupt that Trump has put in our government and to hold them accountable.” – Dan Pfeiffer [50:44]

• Hard Lessons for Democrats:
  Some Democrats will want to “look forward”; others will press for accountability. The hosts advocate for a blitz of anti-corruption reforms if Democrats retake power.

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9. RFK Jr. Oddities & Health Policy Critique

[57:13 – 61:01]

• Raccoon Penis Scandal:
  Bizarre headlines from a new RFK Jr. biography become podcast “dessert,” ridiculing the new Health Secretary’s odd behavior and failed testimony.

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Guest Interview: Peggy Flanagan, Minnesota Lt. Gov & Senate Candidate

[62:38 – 97:09]

Flanagan on Democratic Backbone & Senate Reform

• Not Afraid of a Fight:
  “People are sick and tired of Democrats fighting from a defensive crouch or governing by sternly worded letter.” [63:29]

  • Calls for Democrats to show up, lead protests, and use all tools to fight the Trump agenda.

• Schumer Leadership:

  • “I feel the same way about Chuck Schumer that he feels about me. Uncommitted.” [65:28]
  • Advocates for a progressive Senate leader from the ‘Fight Club’ caucus (Warren, Sanders, Van Hollen, etc.).

• Age and Representation:

  • “We don’t have enough moms with kids under the age 18 serving in the Senate. There’s only four, and boy, can you tell.” [67:04]
  • Celebrates the importance of diversity, especially as the potential first Native American woman Senator.

• Post-Trump Reforms:

  • “There has to be some kind of reckoning… the biggest thing we need to do is make sure you can’t get rich off of serving in public office.” [70:02]
  • Wants strict accountability, criminal charges for Trump’s team, and significant Supreme Court reforms.

• Campaign Finance:

  • “Corporate PACs and billionaires are running the show in Washington… a fantastic reason why we shouldn’t take that money.” [73:47]
  • Contrasts herself with her primary opponent, saying she’s not beholden to corporate or AIPAC money.

On Policy, Poverty, and the Minnesota ICE Occupation

• ICE Occupation’s Trauma:
  Shares moving stories about the deep emotional and economic damage done by the federal ICE/CBP raids across Minnesota, especially to children and immigrant communities.

  • “There are going to be some children in our state who have an ACE score… simply because there were federal agents in their neighborhood.” [84:26]
  • “This is unforgivable. What the federal government laid at our doorstep, they have to repair and heal and restore.” [85:50]

• Fighting Fraud/Right Wing Narratives:
  Flanagan calls out GOP attempts to smear social programs using fraud cases, while vowing strong oversight and public accountability.

• Personal Story and Social Safety Net:
  Moving description of her family’s reliance on social programs:

  • “I’m alive because of those programs. All of those investments helped to lift my family towards the middle class. And now I get to pay that forward and pay it back in service.” [91:06–92:08]

• Paul Wellstone Legacy:
  Flanagan credits Wellstone’s mentorship and grassroots organizing as formative; celebrates organizing “the Wellstone way”—meeting people where they are, crafting policy with real communities in mind.

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Notable Quotes & Moments (with Timestamps)

• Jon Favreau: “He just became a Catholic like five minutes ago.” [06:05]
• Dan Pfeiffer: “The audience, in Pete Hegseth’s mind, is Donald Trump and no one else.” [12:03]
• Pope Leo: "Blessed are the peacemakers, but woe to those who manipulate religion in the ... name of God for their own military, economic or political gain." [13:38]
• Dan Pfeiffer: “This is what everyone warned about with Trump. It’s what Katrina was to Bush politically, which was we knew the guy was kind of a knucklehead.” [34:33]
• Peggy Flanagan: “People are sick and tired of Democrats fighting from a defensive crouch or governing by sternly worded letter.” [63:29]
• Peggy Flanagan, on social safety net: “I’m alive because of those programs. And when I think about, you know, my mom...she went back to school and was able to do so because of the childcare assistance program.” [91:06]
• Peggy Flanagan, on J.D. Vance: “If the Pope was mad at me...I would die. If my own priest was mad at me, I would feel just—or disappointed in me. Like, that would be the worst.” [90:31]

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Episode Structure

• The hosts mix rapid-fire comedic commentary with substantive analysis of theological debates, war politics, and the ways in which culture-war distractions are deployed to offer cover for real policy failures.
• The extended Peggy Flanagan interview offers a vivid contrast: ground-level empathy, progressive reform proposals, and lessons from actual community organizing.

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For First-Time Listeners

This episode is rich in political satire, inside-baseball analysis, and heartfelt progressive advocacy. It’s equally useful for understanding how Trump’s chaotic approach affects both domestic and international politics, and for hearing how a new generation of Democrats—like Peggy Flanagan—are pushing to reform their party and country from the ground up.

Transcript

[Jon Favreau]

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[Peggy Flanagan]

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[Jon Favreau]

Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Jon Favreau.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

I'm Dan Pfeiffer.

[Jon Favreau]

On today's show, the holy war rolls on. Trump is still fighting with the Pope. J.D. vance is lecturing the Holy Father about theology. And Pete Hegseth is leading the troops in prayer using a fake Bible quote from Pulp Fiction. We'll get into all of that, as well as the latest with Trump's other war in Iran, which according to Trump is either over or just getting started. Sometimes in the same sentence. Uh, we'll talk about Republicans in Congress hitting the panic button on the, quote, nonsense coming out of Trump's mouth and RFK Jr. S trip to Capitol Hill where TMZ asked him about a newly surfaced diary entry in which he writes about cutting the penis off of a dead raccoon to, quote, study it later.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

That's what she said, I guess. I don't know.

[Jon Favreau]

Then Minnesota Lieutenant Governor Peggy Flanagan, one of the Democrats in the primary for the open Senate seat there, talks with Tommy about the race and dealing with the ice occupation of her state. Quick reminder before we start, please consider becoming a crooked media subscriber if you haven't already so that you don't miss out on any of the fresh, fresh content we're putting out just for Friends of 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. How's the new episode? What'd you guys talk about this week?

[Dan Pfeiffer]

We talked about the impact of Eric Swala's campaign imploding on the California governor's race and whether Democrats are still at risk of getting locked out of the top two spots.

[Jon Favreau]

And I guess the answer is, maybe

[Dan Pfeiffer]

the answer is there ain't.

[Jon Favreau]

I mean, everyone's gotta subscribe and tune into Polar Coaster.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

But yeah, yeah, I mean, let's not, let's not give the milk away for free here.

[Jon Favreau]

I will say, and you know, I'm willing to do this. I was very, I was very forward leaning on Tuesday's POD being like, no, I had read the message box and I think that the math is it's, I think now that Swalwell dropped out and Trump endorsed Steve Hilton, we're okay now. And Tommy's like, I don't know, I talked to some people and they're still a little worried. And I was like, hmm. And now I think Tommy was right.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

No, I think, look, this is not the topic of this pod, but I think that we, there's, there's still a risk. Of course, I think the risk is dramatically less than it was.

[Jon Favreau]

You do think it's prior to both

[Dan Pfeiffer]

the Trump endorsement of Steve Hilton and Eric Swalwell dropping up.

[Jon Favreau]

And I will not ask you why, because everyone's gotta go subscribe to Friends of the Pod so you can go listen to Polar Coaster, and all of our other good stuff. You also get 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 an independent, pro democracy media outlet. What more could you ask for? Head to crooked.com friends and subscribe. All right, Dan, let's get to the news. The MAGA attack on the Catholic Church has somehow intensified since President Trump called the Holy Father weak on crime and warned the first American Pontiff that he better, quote, get his act together. Our deeply Christian speaker of the House and Catholic Vice President, faced with a choice between God and Trump, did exactly what you imagined they'd do.

[Crooked Media Producer]

I think that it's important in the

[Jon Favreau]

same way that it's important for the Vice President United States to be careful when I talk about matters of public policy. I think it's very, very important for the Pope to be careful when he talks about matters of theology.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

I think he said several days back

[Jon Favreau]

that something about those who engage in war, you know, that Jesus doesn't hear their prayers or something. You know, it is a very well settled matter of Christian theology. There's something called the just war doctrine.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

There's a time to every purpose under his.

[Jon Favreau]

It's just Catholic explaining to the Pope.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

I mean, there's just so much to say about this.

[Jon Favreau]

So much to say.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

The absolute arrogance of J.D. vance to lecture the Pope on when it is appropriate to talk about theology and to have the audacity to compare the importance of his words as the mostly powerless Vice President United States, whose job is to attend funerals to the Pope is nuts. It's just, it's absolutely. There are so many ways to just like there were so many ways for JD Vance to address this, and he chose the absolute worst one.

[Jon Favreau]

He just became a Catholic like five minutes ago.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

John, does he have a book coming out?

[Jon Favreau]

Yes, he does have a book coming out.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

What is that book about?

[Jon Favreau]

Maybe this is probably gonna do wonders for his book sales. I guess. That book is about his conversion to Catholicism, which did happen seven years ago. The Pope, who is really just the direct descendant, really, from Jesus Christ himself and Peter, the first Pope of the Church in Catholic doctrine. You know what he says? That's sort of been church doctrine for a couple thousand years. Couple thousand since the calendar changed over from B.C. to A.D. that's how long the Pope's going. And J.D. vance has about seven years and a fucking book under his belt. So that's what he went on to Say. Cause the full quote was crazy. We didn't have time for it all in the clip. But he said, and I think that one of these issues here and is that there has been, if you're going to opine on matters of theology, you've got to be careful. You've got to make sure it's anchored in the truth. And that's one of the things that I try to do. And it's certainly something I would expect from the clergy, whether they're Catholic or Protestant. This is the tell, by the way, that he is a new Catholic because you don't just refer to the Pope as part of the clergy. He's the Pontiff, he's the Holy Father, he is the, he's the Bishop of Rome.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

It's like there is the theological incorrectness in what he's saying and then there's just the political stupidity of it all.

[Jon Favreau]

Yes.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

It's like you look like an asshole.

[Jon Favreau]

And then there's if you were telling

[Dan Pfeiffer]

the Pope when they can talk about theology, you just sound insane.

[Jon Favreau]

Before we move on from Vance, because I know there's a lot more to talk about. The U.S. catholic bishops did release a statement in response to Vance. And first of all, they talk about just war theory. This is also a response to Mike Johnson, I guess, who's decided to riff on just war theory. And they said a constant tenet of the thousand year old just war theory is that a nation can only legitimately take up the sword in self defense once all peace efforts have failed. It must be a defense against another who actively wages war, which is what the Holy Father actually said. Quote, he does not listen to the prayers of those who wage war. And then this was the best line. When Pope Leo speaks as supreme pastor of the universal Church, he is not merely offering opinions on theology. He is preaching the gospel and exercising his ministry as the Vicar of Christ.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

And like, look, it's been a long time since I have delved into my Jesuit education, but Mike Johnson doesn't even understand just war theory because there's two parts of it. There is the just war and why you go to war, which is what the bishops are about there. And then there is justice in how you conduct the war. And that's exactly what the Pope is talking about here. Because the President of the United States threatened regardless of what the original reason for going to war was. Even if there was a just reason for going to war. It is not a just war if one of the possible mechanisms for winning that war is the genocide of a country of 92 million people. You're going to wipe an entire country, all the civilians, all the women, the children, the families, everyone else off the face of the planet in service of trying to win that war. That is not a just war. And that is why the Pope spoke out

[Jon Favreau]

and someone shouted at J.D. vance at that event. Jesus doesn't support genocide. And J.D. vance did allow because he is a caring, thoughtful man. He said, oh, no. Yes, I agree. Jesus is not for genocide. So thank you. Thank you, teacher. Not to be outdone by his colleagues, holy warrior Pete Hegseth, who often sounds like he turned a little too much water into wine before his public appearances, he compared the media's coverage of the Iran war Thursday morning to a Jewish religious sect that persecuted Jesus. Let's listen.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Jesus entered a synagogue and healed a man with a withered hand. The Pharisees came to watch, but their hearts were hardened.

[Crooked Media Producer]

Even though they witnessed a literal miracle, it didn't matter.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

They were only there to explain away the goodness in pursuit of their agenda. Our press are just like these Pharisees.

[Crooked Media Producer]

Your politically motivated animus for President Trump

[Dan Pfeiffer]

nearly completely blinds you from the brilliance of our American warriors.

[Jon Favreau]

It doesn't even make sense as an analogy, as blasphemous as it is. Like, so our military is Jesus in this scenario, and the Iran war is Trump.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

No, no. Trump is Jesus.

[Jon Favreau]

Trump is. Trump is Jesus.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Trump is Jesus. Because they.

[Jon Favreau]

And Trump bombing Iran is healing the sick.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Yes, yes, yes. And because they hate Jesus so much, they can't recognize, I. E. Hate Trump. They cannot recognize the brilliance of our troops.

[Jon Favreau]

Yes. Yeah. And the Pharisees.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

I don't know where the troops fit into this. I guess they're the healing.

[Jon Favreau]

Who knows? Who knows? I wouldn't. I wouldn't think too hard on it.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

None of the press coverage is against the troops.

[Jon Favreau]

No, of course it's not. Press coverage is just covering a war. Covering a war. That is stupid.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

No one is even suggesting that the military has not done a very good job of executing the goals that were given to them. They just think the war is stupid and the goals were stupid.

[Jon Favreau]

Yeah, yeah. What would be, like, Jesus healing person in the temple? Would it be when we blew up a school in southern Iran and killed a couple hundred children? Is that analogous to the story of the Pharisees and Jesus?

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Yeah, it's just like, what is he doing? And there's just this other element of this, which is this is like, now we're getting into Ben, Tommy, Nerd, Dom. But the audience for this, in Pete Hegset's mind, is Donald Trump and no one else.

[Jon Favreau]

Right.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

But the audience when the Secretary of Defense speaks during a war is not just the American public, it's the world. And when you're at war with a Muslim nation to constantly be using religious, Christian, religious imagery to do it,

[Crooked Media Producer]

that

[Dan Pfeiffer]

is so counterproductive because it feeds the suggestion that can be weaponized against the United States that this is a religious war, it's a war on Islam, which is a tool that was used during post 9 11, the Iraq war by Al Qaeda, ISIS, others to recruit people against the United States. It's so stupid to think that way.

[Jon Favreau]

We blew by just using religious imagery a long time ago. He said today, he specifically said, we are fighting this war in the name of Jesus Christ. Yes, Everything you said is true. Also, if you don't expect to get pushback from the Pope and the Catholic Church when you say that you are fighting a war in the name of Jesus Christ. This isn't like, God bless our troops. God keep our troops safe. It's nothing like that. It is like we are fighting a war in the name of Jesus Christ. Which, of course, the Pope is like, wait a minute. No, that's a no. No. That's just a no. No. Always.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

I have a say on that.

[Jon Favreau]

Yeah. Remember the Crusades? That was bad. We don't want to go back to that. So, anyway, Pope Leo, who was in Cameroon on Thursday, delivered some remarks that may or may not have been a response to all this. You can decide for yourself. Jesus told us, blessed are the peacemakers, but woe to those who manipulate religion in the very name of God for their own military, economic or political gain, dragging that which is sacred into darkness and filth. Okay, then. Good for Pope Leo. Trump was asked Thursday morning about the church's statement that Pope Leo isn't expressing his opinion, he's preaching the gospel. To which the President responded, quote, I'm all about the gospel.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

That's what everyone says about him. Mr. Gospel.

[Jon Favreau]

He also said, quote, I have nothing against the Pope. His brother is Maga all the way. And then when he was asked whether he'd meet with the Pope to patch things up, he said, quote, I don't think it's necessary. Day five of MAGA versus the Holy See. What do you think, Dan?

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Doesn't seem to be going well for MAGA in this case. Maybe my take. I mean, let's not forget that what actually started this was the Department of Defense meeting with the Vatican to threaten them with military Military response for opposing the war in Iran.

[Jon Favreau]

Yeah, subtly.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

So this is not just like a bunch of tweets. This was a direct threat, which is possibly the most insane thing that's happened in all of the Trump years.

[Jon Favreau]

Yeah. Probably the most insane thing that's ever happened in the history of the relationship between the Catholic Church and the US Government.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I don't know what. I don't know if my historical knowledge would suggest that, but, yeah, probably.

[Jon Favreau]

I mean, it's pretty. It's wild.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

But also just the political idiocy of saying, you know what? I got high gas prices, I got this war going on, people. My approval rating's under 40 now. You know what would be a really good move for me? Let's pick a fight with the American Pope from Chicago. It's just like, what? Like, it's so stupid.

[Jon Favreau]

And like Pope Leo not backing down. He continued to say in that speech, in Cameroon, the world is being ravaged by a handful of tyrants, yet it is held together by a multitude of supportive brothers and sisters. And the masters of war pretend not to know that it only takes a moment to destroy. Yet often a lifetime is not enough to rebuild. It's pretty direct. And it's also, look, Trump, Trump today in that when he was being asked questions, you could tell that someone, like, someone tried to walk him back a little. Cause he's like, I'm not fighting with the Pope. The Pope said, Iran can have a nuclear weapon. That's the only. I just disagreed with him. First of all, the Pope didn't say that at all, but you could tell he was like, maybe wanting to back down. But throughout the week, I mean, he called up an Italian newspaper to yell about Giorgia Meloni, the Italian prime minister, because she defended the Pope, who resides in the Vatican, which is in Italy. And so he called her unacceptable and said, implied she was cowardly. Said, I thought she was brave, but I was wrong. So he pissed off his former, now former right wing ally, the prime minister of Italy. On Wednesday, the Miami Herald reported that the Trump administration abruptly canceled an $11 million contract with Catholic Charities in Miami to shelter and care for migrant children who come to the US with no parents. We must punish the migrant children because Trump said that Pope Leo was weak on crime. And Pope Leo said, no, I'm not. I'm the Pope.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

I mean, I know you guys talk about this on Tuesday, but I have been laughing nonstop about Pope Leo weak on crime. Just like, what does he think? There's some silent majority who Wants law and order Pope. Like, what are we doing?

[Jon Favreau]

Pope Leo's weak on crime, weak on nuclear. He's

[Dan Pfeiffer]

so fucking stupid.

[Jon Favreau]

He's. He's for they. Them. Yeah. Jesus. Jesus and the Holy Spirit. I'm for you. Then.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Someone should make a. A Trump attack ad on the Pope.

[Jon Favreau]

I mean, it's just. It's waiting there. I would love for someone to do that. I mean, we talked about AI Jesus on Tuesday's pod. There was another AI image of Trump, of Jesus with his arm around Trump. Tucker Carlson said it looked like he was caressing Trump. Tucker Carlson, by the way, Tommy and I talked about this on YouTube. You should go check it out. Subscribe to our YouTube channel. But Tucker gave this monologue where he basically. Not basically, he did compare Donald Trump to the Antichrist by reading passages from the Bible about what the Antichrist would look like if he came. And sure enough, it was a little more similar than I thought it would be, actually, when I first listened to it. There was also an Axios story that sort of got to the bottom of how the original AI Jesus meme came to be. Did you read the story, Dan?

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Is this the Bill Pulte one?

[Jon Favreau]

Yep, yep. Bill Pulte.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Every terrible thing that Trump does starts with Bill Pulte, who, if you don't know, is the head of mortgages, basically.

[Jon Favreau]

Yeah. He's supposed to be the Federal Housing Authority. Fannie Freddie Mortgages.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

And that's his fhfa.

[Jon Favreau]

Fhfa, right. That's his official title. What he's been doing. Well, what he's been doing is fucking up everything. But he's been trying to prosecute Trump's perceived enemies for mortgage fraud, unsuccessfully. He's been pissing off Scott Besant, who has gotten in fights with him and almost kicked the shit out of him. And apparently he was with Donald Trump in Mar a Lago. And here's what Axios reports. At some point, Pulte brought the image to Trump's attention of AI Jesus. The meme. The advisors told Axios it's not clear whether he just displayed the rendering on his phone or actually sent it to the president. Quote, everyone thought it was a joke, one of the advisors said. And then, in a smart, brevity way, Axios writes, the intrigue adding to. Adding to the strangeness of the AI generated image Trump posted late Sunday was that it included a mysterious horned creature in the heavens that some interpreted as a demon, though art experts cautioned against reading too much into AI slop. But the original image of Trump as Christ like healer didn't include the horned creature. So the meme had been floating around the Internet for quite some time. But when Trump posted it, the horned creature appeared.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

So let's dig into this, lending credence

[Jon Favreau]

to Tucker's belief that perhaps Trump really is the Antichrist.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

So do you think that Bill Pulte just gave Trump a newer version of that meme, or the White House altered it, or at some point Satan himself got involved?

[Jon Favreau]

Honestly, none of those possibilities would surprise me.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Yes. In fact, the most likely one, maybe the last one.

[Jon Favreau]

Well, I was gonna say the one that involves the White House doctoring an image itself and trying to figure out how to like that actually strikes me as the least plausible because that takes too much work and talent. So I don't think that's it. But who knows? Who knows? It's hard to say. How do you think Catholic Trump voters feel about this, Dan? Because I will say I would have thought not. They wouldn't be too happy about it. Just so people know, Catholic vote Obama won American Catholics 54, 45 in 2008. Since then, Catholics have steadily moved. Right. Trump won them 55, 43 in 2024. And then I saw something rather alarming today when I read JVL's the Triad at the Bulwark, as I always do, and he said that he's on Sarah Longwell's focus group pod this weekend, and he's like, oh, I don't want to give too much away, but basically he said that it was a lot of Catholics who voted for Trump, like Trump voter Trump supporting Catholics. And they took Trump's side in Trump versus Pope Leo.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Let's lay the groundwork first, which is there are in Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin and Arizona, more than a quarter of the electorate is Catholic. In the three blue wall states, there's about five and a half million Catholics. If 300,000 of those switch their votes in 2024, Kamala Harris will be president today. So the Catholic vote is very powerful in this country, and it's particularly powerful in the the states that decide the presidency. And it's worth noting that a huge swath of Catholics in this country are Latino, which partially explains the big shift, because Catholics were basically tied in 2020 with Biden. Then they moved dramatically in Trump's way in 2024. That's mostly white Catholics, but also a lot of it is Latinos moving in Trump's direction. Makes sense, but it's also worth noting that people's political identity is often preeminent on these things, which is why you had a bunch of Catholics who voted for Obama despite him being pro choice, despite putting contraceptive care in the Affordable Care act, changing position in 2012 to being for same sex marriage, all of those things. So, like it's, you would not expect a triple voting Trump Catholic to all of a sudden change their mind because of this fight.

[Jon Favreau]

Yeah, that's true.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Now, having said all of that, I think this is a problem for Trump beyond just Catholics. The dumb Trump fights that we've been living with for 10 years just hit different when gas is $4 a gallon and when people are upset about everything else, if the economy's humming and prices are low, people put up with a lot of idiocy from their president. When things are not going great, they're just like this goes in there with the ballroom, the Iran war, all the other things he's doing other than solving my problem. So I put it the following this is bad for Trump politically. Even if a tiny fraction of Catholics in the states I mentioned turned on Trump for this, that has real implications for House races in those states, Senate races in those states, like the Michigan Senate race, for instance, and 2028 if it stays that way.

[Jon Favreau]

I also think if you're a Trump supporter who is either against or unsure of this war, and you were also sort of horrified by his threat to eradicate a civilization overnight, and then Pope Leo speaks and you're like, yeah, that's how I feel, and I'm a Catholic. And then Trump attacks Pope Leo. I think that's an added sort of push in another direction for you as a Catholic. So you're right. This stuff is on the margins, as everything is. One more thing before we leave our holy war section Pete Hegseth, who is clearly well versed in Scripture, delivered a stirring prayer to soldiers at a Pentagon worship service this week, an excerpt of which the Internet has helpfully spliced together with a monologue that may be familiar to you. Let's listen.

[Crooked Media Producer]

Blessed is he who, in the name

[Dan Pfeiffer]

of camaraderie and duty, shepherd the lost through the valley of darkness.

[Jon Favreau]

Blessed is he who, in the name of charity and goodwill, shepherds the weak

[Dan Pfeiffer]

through the valley of darkness. For he is truly his brother's keeper and the finder of lost.

[Jon Favreau]

For he is truly his brother's keeper

[Dan Pfeiffer]

and the finder of lost children. And I will strike down upon thee with great vengeance and furious anger those who attempt to capture and destroy my brother.

[Jon Favreau]

And I will strike down upon thee

[Dan Pfeiffer]

with great vengeance and furious anger those

[Jon Favreau]

who attempt to poison and destroy my brothers. This guy's crushing it, huh?

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Well, it's important to point out that that's not a real verse.

[Jon Favreau]

No, it's based on a real verse. But it is. When you look at the real verse versus Samuel L. Jackson's monologue in Pulp Fiction written by Quentin Tarantino, it is quite different. Yeah, yeah.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Quentin Tarantino took it from a samurai movie, I believe, which is originally where this comes from. I learned this in college because I was in college. This movie came out. I'm old, I know, but we were in. Because I went to Jesuit University. We were in theology. And so it pointed out that this was not the exact right version of this line from Scripture.

[Jon Favreau]

You think Pete Hegseth skipped that class? That theology class, Whatever college he went

[Dan Pfeiffer]

to, Was it before noon?

[Jon Favreau]

Enough said. Enough said. Anyway, that's our defense secretary right there. Just sending the troops into battle with that. So. Good stuff.

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[Jon Favreau]

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[Crooked Media Producer]

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[Jon Favreau]

Literally, I was going to. I pulled up my order, checking it out. Italian beef ragu with zucchini noodles.

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[Jon Favreau]

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I got the Italian chicken rollatini, the grilled chicken salad, the Middle Eastern chicken, Thai panang curry.

[Jon Favreau]

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[Dan Pfeiffer]

Who has the dust?

[Jon Favreau]

Dust. The two sides are looking at a short term agreement before the ceasefire expires on Tuesday that would allow for more traffic to get through the Strait of Hormuz in exchange potentially for on freezing some Iranian assets. In better news, however, Israel has agreed to a 10 day ceasefire in Lebanon, which had just went into effect right as we started recording. So hopefully that holds. Trump was asked about all of this Thursday morning and gave his usual set of confusing and somewhat contradictory answers. Let's listen. Extending the ceasefire with Iran.

[Crooked Media Producer]

With who?

[Dan Pfeiffer]

With Iran.

[Donald Trump]

We're doing very well, I can tell you. Maybe it'll happen before that. I'm not sure it needs to be extended. Iran wants to make a deal and we're dealing very nicely with them. They've agreed to give us back the nuclear dust. That's way underground. The blockade has been incredible. It's been, it's held. They're not doing any business. They're unable to do any business because of the blockade. Everything is gone, including their leaders. Now they have a new set of leaders and we find them very real, reasonable.

[Jon Favreau]

There's no deal fighter resume, no deal fighting will resume. 10,000 more American troops are headed to the region right now on top of the 50,000 already there. So, like, it is really, I, I found it more difficult today to figure out what the hell is going on than even most days because you get all this reporting that, like, they gave up on the big deal, now they're trying to get a smaller deal and a ceasefire because the ceasefire expires on Tuesday. And then Trump's out there being like, we're close, we're close to a big deal. And I think I'll fly to Pakistan, to Islamabad, if there's a deal. And talks could resume this weekend. And you're like, well, doesn't someone have to get on a plane to Pakistan if talks are resuming this weekend? Like, I have no idea what's going on. But do you think from a political standpoint at least that Trump is succeeding in pretending that we've already won this thing just to try to get it out of the headlines or at least stop it from being a major topic in the midterms, which obviously it still will be if gas prices are high. But what do you think?

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Yeah. So let's talk about what Trump's actually trying to do here, other than just vomit upwards. That make no sense to the extent there Is a strategy. It is. He wants this war to be over. He wants the Strait of Hormuz open, and he wants to do that.

[Jon Favreau]

Nuclear dust.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

He wants to do that without admitting defeat, like he wants a win of some kind. And getting the dust would be a win, you know, getting some sort of agreement now. They clearly are. And he wants to keep sounding optimistic because that's the best way to keep the markets on board. The stock market, not the oil market. The oil market doesn't really give a shit. What Trump says it really matters is what's going to happen over the medium term and the long term here. But he's just trying to manage the stock market. The problem is, is that all of that runs into reality at some point. And at some point you recognize that we have very little leverage in these discussions. They control the strait. We are unwilling or unable to do the things it would take to open the strait. Iran could also start messing with other waterways. Like all of a sudden the Houthis getting involved in the Red Sea. And then we have huge problems. And so all. But none of that matters in the end. I think we want to get to the political part of this, which is, I think the most damage, long term damage has already been done to Trump, which is he is a guy who said he wasn't going to start wars and now he started war. So that's part one of the damage. The second part is there's always a moment in these presidents where voters have real questions, but they swallowed those questions when they voted for him. And one is that Trump's kind of a nut and he's erratic, he's rash, he doesn't really pay attention to what's going on. And the. And we skated through without that being a huge problem in his first term until the pandemic hit. And then here, like this is what everyone warned about with Trump. It's a little bit like, this is what Katrina, this, the ren War, is to Trump what Katrina was to Bush politically, which was we knew the guy was kind of a knucklehead. Right. And here's what. Here it is. We see the cost of it. You're seeing the cost of it here.

[Jon Favreau]

The COVID was like that too.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Yeah, Covid was. Except people did not blame Trump for Covid. That was like, we see that. Right. And people who really paid attention see the mistakes they made with the public never held Trump accountable for Covid, which is why he almost won reelection because of it.

[Jon Favreau]

Yeah, I think the public definitely didn't hold him responsible for the economic impacts of COVID I think that the way he handled that first year up until the November of 2020, I think it probably hurt him.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

I mean, it's why he lost. That's what he lost. But it's on the. Like, he still lost by whatever it was, 50,000 votes.

[Jon Favreau]

So not enough.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

You know, whether gas prices come down or not, prices are going to be higher than they were before. Any hope of some sort of economic miracle before the midterms that would put some wind in the sails of Republicans. That is gone now. That just simply cannot happen. Because if you. If gas prices, as far as anyone can tell, are not going to be lower than they were when he started this war, even if they're not at $4 a gallon. Come nove.

[Jon Favreau]

Yeah, I was trying to think. I'm like. Because if the Iranians decide that even though they control the Strait of Hormuz, that their economy's been badly damaged, their infrastructure's been damaged, would they want to make a deal? The only kind of deal I could see them making ends up looking a lot like the Obama's Iran deal, the JCPOA. Right. They're already talking about, you know, that the US is saying, okay, maybe we'll do 20 years of no nuclear activity, and then Iran says five, and then if they end up at 10, 10 is exactly what the Obama's Iraq deal is. And you could imagine some kind of a deal that Trump decides to present as like, the greatest deal on Earth. And then when you look into the details, it is, like, strikingly similar to the 2015 JCPOA. In which case, you know, I think that, like, I guess that he'll take that as a win and act like it's the greatest deal, and then he should get the Nobel Peace Prize. But then it sort of begs the question, well, Obama got that through diplomacy, and you got that through upending the global economy and killing a bunch of people and depleting a lot of our munitions and sending our military into battle and losing 13American lives, 15American lives.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

I do not think the public will give him one ounce of credit.

[Jon Favreau]

Yeah, no, I don't think. I think he'll take the credit, but I don't think the public will either. But it'll be like, you know, I think the Republicans who are sort of wavering, they'll all get back on side, and then we'll be on off to the next.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

You think the voters or the Republican elites?

[Jon Favreau]

I think Republican elites. And then I think Republican voters, who were mostly on board anyway, But I think that the ones he lost. We'll see. We'll see.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Yeah. I mean, he really is only lost four points in overall approval rating since this war started. So even getting even, if we were to get every single one of those people back, it gets them to back up to 42.

[Jon Favreau]

And I will say this would be the best case scenario for him. Right. And by the way, it's the best case scenario for everyone. Right? Like, if there's a deal that's. That's wonderful, and the straight opens and we've somehow put new restrictions on their nuclear program, like, great. It's. I mean, awful that this happened. But of all the outcomes ahead of us, because if there is no deal, he keeps saying, oh, then the fighting will resume. Hegseth talked about at the briefing today. Yeah, we're still threatening the power plants and the bridges. Like, they can go right back to where we were when it was bridging power plant day and he was threatening war crimes. So that would be fucking awful. But who knows?

[Dan Pfeiffer]

It's like, to what end? Like, that hasn't. Because you can destroy all those things. Like, I mean, Tommy and I talk about this all the time, but what Iran cares about is the people in charge care about staying in power. And they're in power.

[Jon Favreau]

Right.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

And they're not gonna get voted. They are not concerned about the impact of destroyed power plants on the generic ballot. Like, that's not there. They just. They can wait this out forever.

[Jon Favreau]

Yeah. Speaking of the midterms, the Trump affordability tour continues. Took a little break. It's back on now to celebrate tax week. It was tax day this week. Trump went to Las Vegas on Thursday for a tried and true roundtable. Plus remarks promoting his no tax on tips policy and broader tax relief he claims were delivered by the big, beautiful bill. The event happened after we recorded this, but he did take a bunch of questions about affordability on the South Lawn as he left for the trip. Let's take a listen.

[Peggy Flanagan]

How much longer will Americans continue to see these high gas prices?

[Donald Trump]

Well, they're not very high if you look at what they were supposed to be in order to get rid of a nuclear weapon with the danger that entails. So the gas price prices have come down very much over the last three, four days.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

I know.

[Donald Trump]

You know, that's what ABC says. But the fact is that if you look at the stock markets up, everything's doing really well.

[Jon Favreau]

You just can't do it. You can't. Oh, yeah. ABC says that gas prices are high. Okay, sure. ABC says it. Or you could just go to your fucking gas station and look up.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Yeah. The one thing you're not pulling the wool over people's eyes is gas prices. The one thing that is advertised on every highway exit in America.

[Jon Favreau]

And look, everyone knows what gas prices are supposed to be when you try to get rid of nuclear weapons, when you try to fight the nuclear. Everyone.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Is he saying, imagine how high gases prices would be if we had it?

[Jon Favreau]

I think. I think he was. Everything is like, I did better than I was supposed to do that. Like, that's either I did something amazing or if he knows he's in trouble, well, what I did is better than what it was supposed to be. Like, it doesn't make any sense. But he's trying to make the argument that, like, actually the stock market was supposed to be worse and gas prices were supposed to be higher and more people were supposed to be dead. And look, look what I did. It's not so bad. I saved us. The country would be destroyed without me.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

It's like he's walking up to the line of saying, yes, gas prices are high. That sucks. But it is a price, a sacrifice we all have to make to prevent Iran from posing an existential threat to the United States.

[Jon Favreau]

Yeah, but he can't.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Like, that's the honest answer. But he's incapable. I mean, no one would. That's not a deal anyone would sign up for. No, but that. But that.

[Jon Favreau]

Which he knows.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Yeah, but he, like, can't say it. So he has to say, there is this very important thing we're doing. But also, gas prices are very low, and if someone tells you they're not, it's because they're fake news.

[Jon Favreau]

So obviously, Trump has stepped all over his affordability coverage by continuing his fight with God's emissary here on Earth. But question for you. Is it clear that a day of coverage about the big beautiful bill, the tax law, no tax on tips, affordability, bragging about low gas prices would have been better for him?

[Dan Pfeiffer]

This is the line you hear all the time from the Republicans. Right? Whether it's Susie Wiles and James Blair in the White House or the Republicans on Capitol Hill, all the operatives are working on the campaign super taxes. We need Trump to get back to the economic message. I'm just not convinced that that would work for a couple of reasons. One, Trump's incapable. He is psychologically incapable of delivering what would be the most effective economic message. He just can't do it. He cannot say he's what he's doing to lower prices because he can admit the prices are high. Like, that is the fundamental problem there. The second problem is, is that this is not Trump of 2016, Trump of 2020, or even Trump of 2024. This is a man who is 20 points underwater on the economy and 30 points underwater on inflation. He is not a trusted messenger. The efficacy of any message is intrinsically tied to the credibility of the messenger. And so Trump talking about the economy when people thought he was good on the economy was helpful. Trump talking about the economy right now is nothing but noise to most voters because they do not trust him.

[Jon Favreau]

Yeah, and this whole thing about the tax bill and no tax on tips, and Republicans will say, oh, well, this part's popular and that part's popular. But the fact of the matter is, the increase in gas prices, persistent inflation, has completely wiped away any gains anyone received from tax cuts. Middle class tax cuts, to the extent there were middle class tax cuts in the big beautiful bill, like, no tax on tips. And I think there was a story in the New York Times about someone who was like, yeah, I usually get a $350 refund and I got like $1,000 or so this year. But also way fewer people are coming to my business to buy things because it's just, it's tougher out there. And so I don't think he gets any credit for this. And you're right, instead of talking about it as, hey, we made a down payment and we helped you out a little bit, but we need more Republicans in Congress to pass bigger tax relief or to do this, you know, like, he's incapable of doing that. All he can do is be like, and I solved everything and everyone's rich now and gas prices aren't bad and the fake news media is telling you your life's bad, but everything's great. Like, that's the only thing. That's the only speed he has.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

I am just skeptical that when push comes to shove, the major Republican campaigns or The Republican super PACs are going to spend a lot of money touting the big beautiful bill on TV and digital. They're going to spend all of their money trying to attack the Democrats on immigration, crime, cultural issues, et cetera, to try to disqualify them, because that is the only chance they have is that there are enough swing voters, soft Republicans, independents who are skeptical of Democrats, that it might help, you know, tamp down their losses. But this idea that we are one affordability tour away from a Republican resurgence is absurd.

[Jon Favreau]

Trump does seem like he's coming to grips with all of this, with how poorly the midterms are going. Here he is working through it on Wednesday with Maria Bartiromo on Fox Business.

[Peggy Flanagan]

Do you expect the Republicans to lose seats in the House? And what does that mean for your

[Donald Trump]

agenda when somebody gets elected president? That party always loses the midterms. I don't know why. I don't know why. Nobody could explain it. I asked people that are deep into the psychological world. I said, why is it that a voter votes for the opposite party even when you have a good president? I think I had the greatest year, dear.

[Jon Favreau]

Hello, people deep in the psychological world.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Who is this? Right?

[Jon Favreau]

Who?

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Dr. Phil.

[Jon Favreau]

It's Dr. Phil.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

It's definitely Dr. Phil.

[Jon Favreau]

Someone said Dr. Oz to me.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

I think different kind of doctor. But yes.

[Jon Favreau]

Yeah, you're deep in the psychological. Why is it that someone votes against a great president like me?

[Dan Pfeiffer]

There are so many public science polysi professors right now who are like jumping through their phones to try to explain thermostat.

[Jon Favreau]

I was going to say Trump discovers thermostatic public opinion. There it is. There it is. Unsurprisingly, Trump's fellow Republicans are starting to get nervous that Trump isn't exactly locked in, message wise. Here's Tuesday's Politico headline, republicans Worry White House Nonsense is Hurting Midterm Prospects. It also includes a quote from Brian Lanza, who was a senior advisor to Trump's 2024 campaign. He said the road to victory runs through a consistent economic message. Unfortunately, President Trump ignores the roadmap. No shit. Any takeaways from the Politico piece?

[Dan Pfeiffer]

It is interesting that cause you don't see this that often, which is this is kind of a tradition in midterms where the folks on the Hill start to blame the White House this far out. And so all of a sudden you got a lot of very brave Republican operatives unwilling to put their names on things to start saying this is the White House's fault. But they are correct that, look, if Trump was executing his political and message strategy perfectly, the Republicans would still be kind of fucked here. Like it is the set, Trump's second midterm. Prices are high, there's a war in the Middle east. But Trump is doing nothing to help them. And they're just like he's doing nothing strategically to help them. He's not doing a lot tactically to help them. Let's not forget we are now, you know, a month away from the Texas runoff and Trump has not endorsed the chosen candidate of the NRC yet.

[Jon Favreau]

Wild.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

You know, like there are things he could be doing to help and he is not helping and they are unfocused on everything and that hurts them on the margins.

[Jon Favreau]

Right, right.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Like the problem, I mean the real thing, like the nonsense hurts on the margins. Tariffs and a war in Iran. That really hurts. And that's the stuff that really matters here.

[Jon Favreau]

There's a lot of focus on like Trump's going off the cuff again and not on the roadmap. And it's like, well, the war he started and the tariffs and the gas. Yeah, like that's the, it's, it's not a communications problem.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Yeah. It's just he's not even trying to make things better and he makes them worse when he opens his mouth and doesn't seem to care that much about what's going to happen.

[Crooked Media Producer]

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[Jon Favreau]

So with everything going on this week, we haven't had the chance to talk about the big news in Hungary, where autocrat Viktor Orban went down in a landslide after 16 years in power. Despite the last minute rally from key surrogate and Catholic splainer J.D. vance, Orban was defeated by Peter Modhyar, a conservative pro EU former ally who turned against Orban and his party. In 2024, Modhyar campaigned aggressively on battling corruption and dismantling the media and political machine Orban had built. He drove this home in a viral appearance on Pro Orban state television this week, which he said had blacklisted him until now, where he told the Pro Orban presenter that he'll be working to revive independent media and that their work on the network would have made Goebbels and Kim Jong Un quote, lick their lips. This is wild. Like, he, I've been looking at his, his, his Twitter feed and he's just like, it's quite a victory lap here. He's, he, he posted to the Fidesz leaders, that's the Orban's party. I say this, no matter how much you pretend that nothing has happened, we know what you have done to our homeland and to the Hungarian people. Do not doubt for a moment you reap what you sow. He also said that one of the first, he sort of tweeted the picture of him at the appearance on the state television, and he said one of the first measures of his government will be the immediate suspension of the public media's news services until all conditions for impartial and objective journalism are fully restored. And that he'll ensure press freedom, abolish censorship, and eliminate prohibited state subsidies. Then he also, he went to meet with the President of Hungary. The president is more of a ceremonial role than the prime minister there, but this was like an Orban guy. And so he posts a picture of him meeting with the president. And then he said, I have arrived at the palace to meet the President. He's unworthy of representing the unity of the Hungarian nation. He's unfit to serve as the guardian of legality. He is not fit to serve as a moral authority or role model. Following the formation of the new government, he must leave office immediately. And it's just like a picture of the two of them meeting. Like, it's great.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

I love it.

[Jon Favreau]

It made me think about, fantasize about what would happen if a Democrat comes to power in 2028. But I do wonder if you think there's any lessons for the pro democracy coalition in this country on sort of both how to take down a corrupt dictator and also what to do if we win.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

So let's talk about the what to do if we win. Because the victory against Orban was years and years in the making and a resistance that was operating under much worse conditions than we are in the United States. We do not have state controlled media here yet. And one way you can avoid that is by subscribing to, by subscribing to our friends at the [e-mail] friends organic tension. Exactly. Somewhere Elijah will be cheering. I think the lesson for us is in response, which is you simply cannot turn the other cheek to fascism. We learned this lesson. This is essentially what Biden wanted to do. It's what Merrick Garland wanted to do until he was bullied into actually trying to uphold the law by the January 6 hearings in Congress. And there's going to be a massive project to dig out root and branch, all of the corruption and the, and the corrupt that Trump has put in our government and to hold them accountable. And this is going to be hard because Trump is probably going to pardon all of them.

[Jon Favreau]

Yep.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

And so we're going to have to.

[Jon Favreau]

We didn't talk about the Wall Street Journal story from last week, I think, where Trump has reported as a saying in meetings that he's going to pardon everyone who's come within 200ft of the Oval Office that works in the federal government.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Yeah. And that, and it's, it's just putting a pin on that is worth noting that the Supreme Court gave Trump immunity to commit crimes, and then Trump now has now given his staff immunity to help him commit those crimes.

[Jon Favreau]

Yep.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

But we have to, if you can't prosecute those people because of pardons, you have to call them out publicly. There has to be accountability hearings. They have to be named in shame. They have to be removed from their positions. We have to, we have to be tough with the people, with the law firms, the corporations, everyone else. The media companies who essentially engage in legalized bribery to try to win favor with Trump, the ones who are spending money on his ballroom, who are changing the programming at networks in order to appease him. You have, like. And I think those people should know now, and I hope the Democrats talk about this, know now that those consequences are coming. Right. There is at least a 50% chance that a Democrat is going to be president in 2029. And what you do now is something that person is not going to forget.

[Jon Favreau]

My head hurts thinking about the battle to come within the Democratic Party about this, because I would bet you that a lot of the pollsters and the strategists will say, people that we know will say voters just elected ex Democrat to focus on affordability, and that's why they won't. And they have to make sure they bring costs down and they have to be laser like, focus on people's lives and their struggles and Their. And, and we can't be spending all this time on hearings, looking back because then voters are going to say, I elected you to do something to improve my life. And all you're doing now is attacking Trump and Trump officials and looking backwards. And we have to look forward as a party and that's that. So the strategist will say that and then everyone else will yell at them and it'll be a whole. And it might not be even after we win. It'll probably be a fight during the 2028 primary, I bet.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

I don't think it'll be a fight during the primary. I think they're going to be one upping each other. Yeah, like we're like by the third debate, someone's going to be promising like, you know, Tariq will be promising like stoning in the public square, livestreaming of these officials, you know, and look, we know, we know this because there was a lot of pressure on Obama to prosecute the Bush people for torture. And that was a choice that the Obama Department of Justice did not make. And the arguments were exactly that was that people wanted to turn the page. The issue here is that this is not a short term political decision. This is a long term decision related to the preservation of democracy where that if you allow people to understand that raiding our government and breaking laws for the consolidation of power is something that has no consequences and that will happen time again and we will just be ping ponging back and forth between democracy and being on the cusp of fascism every couple of election cycles. And that cannot happen.

[Jon Favreau]

I've thought about this. Here's what I would advise, which is taking a page out of the Trump playbook and Steve Bannon sort of flood the zone strategy. I think you do it all. You do as much as possible in the first couple weeks while you're still in the honeymoon phase. And you've got, I saw that picture of him with the president. It's like you go to the FBI, Cash Patel, you're fucking out, right? Because the FBI director is supposed to have a 10 year term. No way. Obviously, Cash Patel is going to stay there. And Brendan Carr, right, FCC chairman, all these people that are supposedly in the old world had terms that lasted through different presidencies. You got to clear them all out. Basically every Trump appointee, every person Trump hired, I think you got to clear out of the federal government within the first week. And because the whole prosecution thing is like, right, do people get pardons? Then it's like, can states do it? And the Federal government doesn't control the state. So that kind of stuff you gotta just be careful about, I think. And you can't have it be dragging on for two years. But I do think you gotta act fast in that first month to sort of and talk about it as rooting out corruption.

[Tommy Vietor]

Right.

[Jon Favreau]

And like you said, it is probably even more important to do it as substance than to do it as. I mean the substance sends a message, but it's not like, like you just got to actually do the work behind the scenes to like root out like you know, de Trumpify the entire government. And if you're doing it all at once, then that's probably even better because then they'll all bitch about it and scream and it'll be some stories like so and so looking backwards, but then it'll go away after a month or two and then you're off to your agenda.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

My hope is that this is a big part of the Project 2029. It's not just like what who should be our undersecretary of and what our global warming executive orders are. It is like how do we solve this problem and what is the playbook for doing that? And one thing that a Democratic majority in Congress can do is they can use their investigative power to get the information now to have it and be able to hand it to the next Democratic press or the next Democratic Attorney General on day one. If any of these people, you can be prosecuted, do that. But then also for the purposes of rooting the people out, holding them accountable publicly, all the above.

[Jon Favreau]

Yeah. And you gotta have a good like forward looking perspective, anti corruption agenda and put in some, put some reforms in place so that you can show people that this isn't gonna happen again because we're actually gonna put in laws instead of just having norms this time. Last thing before we get to Tommy's interview with Peggy Flanagan. RFK Jr testified in Congress Thursday for the first time this year during a pair of hearings. He's apparently doing seven altogether, where Democrats grilled him on cutting health programs like Medicaid and nutrition for women and infants, his anti vax policies in the midst of a measles outbreak, and according to Representative Linda Sanchez, quote, spending taxpayer dollars to drink milk shirtless in a hot tub with Kid Rock. It is what happened. He did put the video out himself. What he wasn't asked about, however, is a new biography about him written by New York Post reporter Isabel Vincent, which contains the following excerpt from RFK Jr. S private journal written between 1999, 2001, I was standing in front of my parked car on I684 cutting the penis out of a roadkilled raccoon, thinking about how weird some of my family members have turned out to be. Thankfully, even though RFK Jr wasn't pressed on the raccoon penis during his testimony, TMZ's new DC operation was on hand to bring us this. Secretary, what did you do with the raccoon's dead penis? Where is it now? Where's the penis now? Bear cubs, whale carcasses and raccoon penises. Oh, my.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Can I give people a little behind the scenes here?

[Jon Favreau]

Yes.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Before we do our first editorial meeting, we kind of jot out what the contours of the show might be. And we always call the last thing here. That's a little bit of fun. We call it dessert. And all the outline did it said dessert. Colon, raccoon penis, which it could be

[Jon Favreau]

literal for RFK Jr. Yeah, we don't.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

He has refused to answer questions about whether he ate the raccoon penis.

[Jon Favreau]

No, he was apparently going to study it later. This guy is fucking. I can't believe for what exactly. This is our. This is our Health Secretary, Our Health and Human Services Secretary. I was hoping when you had a

[Dan Pfeiffer]

dead raccoon penis in his pocket, I

[Jon Favreau]

know you were traveling or is he

[Dan Pfeiffer]

happy to see you? Is that a dead raccoon penis in your pocket? Are you happy to see me?

[Jon Favreau]

I gotta say, when I. When I woke up and saw that you said dessert for a raccoon penis, I was a little disappointed because I know you were traveling yesterday, and I was hoping that maybe you had. Why would you have missed it? You don't miss anything. But I was hoping that maybe you had missed the story and I could surprise you with raccoon penis.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Yeah, no, I really saw it this morning. So you got. My initial reaction was, oh, look, dessert raccoon penis.

[Jon Favreau]

Anyway, he didn't have a lot of good answers about everything else that he's fucked up as Health and Human Services secretary. Like, why did you cancel pro vaccine messaging public service announcements in the middle of a measles outbreak? And then he tried to say, well, we're doing better than other countries. And then the representative pointed out, no, we're actually not. That the incidence of measles has risen here in the last two years faster than anywhere else on earth. So thank you, RFK Jr. For all that you're doing for health, but I hope you're studying hard. I don't know. Sorry.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Look, look, I didn't even try to look. He has an agenda. His agenda is a dead raccoon penis in every pot.

[Jon Favreau]

Again, dumped the bear cub in the park after a botched attempt to skin it. That's one. Decapitated the whale carcass, cutting off the raccoon penis while thinking to himself, boy, have my family members turned out pretty weird.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Yeah, those are all plot points in a Netflix serial killer documentary.

[Jon Favreau]

Yeah. Well, there you go. All right. When we come back, poor Peggy. Poor Peggy Flanagan. Yes, what an intro. But when we come back, Tommy talks to Lieutenant governor of Minnesota. Peggy FL.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Foreign.

[Jon Favreau]

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[Tommy Vietor]

Nice.

[Jon Favreau]

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[Crooked Media Producer]

Yep.

[Jon Favreau]

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[Tommy Vietor]

My guest today is Lieutenant Governor of Minnesota and running to Phil Senator Tina Smith. U.S. senate seat Peggy Flanagan. Great to meet you.

[Peggy Flanagan]

Thanks so much for having me.

[Jon Favreau]

Great to be here.

[Tommy Vietor]

So you're running in a primary. We've extended an invitation to your opponent, Representative Craig, so we'll double back with listeners when that happens. So I want to start with some, like, national stuff, some Senate specific stuff and then dig into some Minnesota focused questions. If that's cool. A lot of grassroots voters, a lot of Democrats feel like Democrats in Congress are not fighting hard enough against the Trump administration. I'm sure you hear this all the time. The pushback you hear from the House side is like, hey, we have no power. I think the senators would probably say, you know, we just shut down the government for like 40 plus days last year. DHS is shut down now. Maybe that's a lot of fighting back in their book. Where do you stand on this debate? Are they fighting hard enough?

[Peggy Flanagan]

Well, I think, you know, what I'm hearing from folks as we're traveling across the state is that people are sick and tired of Democrats fighting from a defensive crouch or governing by sternly worded letter is something we hear a lot about. And I think, you know, fighting back can take on a lot of different tactics. I think, you know, Senate Democrats leading on the shutdown really mattered. Right. Especially after what we saw in the state of Minnesota with ice, which I'm sure we'll talk about a little bit more. But I also think it means being in the community, listening directly to people about how they are experiencing the Trump administration, what they want you to fight for when you're there, but also using your platform and then getting out into the streets. I think that also matters. Right. We had over 50,000 people marching in downtown Minneapolis to show solidarity, but also to speak up. So there are lots of tools in our toolbox. But I just think people want to know that you're there for them, that you're fighting for them. And especially right now, when we see the influence of corporate PAC money, billionaires who have probably the biggest seat at the table in our politics, I think regular folks just want to be heard and want to know that when Dems come back into power, they are going to throw down on behalf of the American people.

[Tommy Vietor]

Yeah. I definitely want to ask you a lot about the ICE and CBP occupation of lots of Minnesota and how inspiring the response was. But a couple more things. So, you know, another flashpoint I think you hear with the left and center, I mean, a lot of places is whether Chuck Schumer should continue to be the leader of the Democrats, whether Senate Minority Leader or hopefully Senate Majority Leader. Do you support Schumer keeping that job?

[Peggy Flanagan]

I'll say this. I feel the same way about Chuck Schumer that he feels about me. Uncommitted.

[Tommy Vietor]

What does uncommitted mean?

[Jon Favreau]

Because I've heard you say that before.

[Tommy Vietor]

Yeah, I think we should have a vote. Is this Minnesota? Nice saying no this is Minnesota.

[Peggy Flanagan]

Nice. But it's saying, I think we need a progressive champion to lead the Senate Democrats. And I think there's an example of a lot of leaders who are part of the group called the Fight Club. I'm sure you've heard of this group. Right. The number one rule of Fight Club is that we're not supposed to talk about it, but. Right, we're going to talk about it. So that's Senators Warren Smith, Sanders, Heinrich Markey, Merkley and this group and Van Hollen and this group of folks, I think are pushing back and are not part of the Democratic establishment and are really looking for those progressive fighters. I think that's what we need, and I think that's what we're hearing from folks all across the country who are ready, are ready for more. And, you know, so am I.

[Tommy Vietor]

It's interesting to hear you say, you know, focus on sort of the policy argument, because I think the other argument you hear is generational.

[Peggy Flanagan]

Yeah.

[Tommy Vietor]

And there's, I think, ongoing frustration that we had this long, sort of tortured discussion about Joe Biden's age and voters, I think, pretty resoundingly told us he was too old for another term. And yet the lessons learned have not translated to the Senate. Do you think there should be an age limit or term limits for the Senate?

[Peggy Flanagan]

I think what we need are progressive fighters, and I think there are folks of all different ages who can take on that role. But what I'll also say is, is, you know, we don't have enough moms with kids under the age 18 serving in the Senate. There's only four. And boy, can you tell by the kind of, you know, lack of policies that have to do with, you know, paid family medical leave, childcare, making sure that, you know, kids have access to health insurance.

[Tommy Vietor]

They don't know who Ms. Rachel is.

[Peggy Flanagan]

They don't know who Ms. Rachel. Come on, that matters.

[Crooked Media Producer]

Get it together.

[Peggy Flanagan]

I mean, and if you haven't been moved by an episode of Bluey, what are you doing serving in the Senate? No, but I think that that matters, that our elected officials accurately reflect the communities they seek to represent. Right. And so I think it matters that we have more young people who are serving in the Senate. I am not running to make history, but I think it matters that, you know, we can elect the first Native American woman ever to serve in the U.S. senate. That's healthy for democracy. And it's. And I think now, as we're seeing these primary races across the country, that's good for us. It is good for the party. It's good for democracy overall. And having people feel excited and engaged about politics, that's something we should all want right now, especially as we've got Donald Trump in the White House every day. I mean, great. Yeah. Just. Yes. Doing really. And this is my Minnesotan coming out. Really interesting things, right?

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Interesting.

[Tommy Vietor]

Donald's crypto's interesting.

[Peggy Flanagan]

Yeah, that's right. I mean, and I just think it's an exciting time for our party if we choose, right, to lean into that excitement and not, you know, get caught up with the status quo. We are seeing it everywhere, that people are demanding more, they want more, they want folks who understand what it's like, Right. To try to stretch 20 bucks through the end of the month. And frankly, I think if we had more people in the Senate who knew what that was like, we wouldn't have passed this big, ugly bill. So this is our opportunity. And I think we can reinvigorate the U.S. senate and the Democrats who serve there.

[Tommy Vietor]

It could certainly use some invigoration.

[Peggy Flanagan]

Yes.

[Tommy Vietor]

Having worked there after Watergate, after Nixon, there was a wave of government reform. It was just. We didn't just, you know, that scandal didn't just take down the president, but it led to this, like, fundamental reshaping of American politics because people woke up and said, oh, that was bad. Let's not do that again. Do you have a vision for what a post Trump set of reforms could or should look like that the Senate should be hopefully working on right now?

[Peggy Flanagan]

Well, say a couple things. I think there are too many folks who think once Trump's out of office, somehow everything will be okay.

[Tommy Vietor]

Learn that one the hard way, Right?

[Peggy Flanagan]

Absolutely. And we'll go back to sunshine and rainbows. We have to be, I think, very clear about what the consequences need to be for Donald Trump and for folks in his administration. Right. Investigations, criminal charges. What we have been through in Minnesota, there has to be some kind of reckoning. We also have seen as Donald Trump, one of his first moves once he got back into office was getting rid of 17 inspectors general and the very people who police fraud. He has enriched himself. He is enriched, you know, his family. I think, you know, one of the biggest things we need to do is make sure that you can't get rich off of serving in public office.

[Tommy Vietor]

You're not gonna bet on whether we're gonna depose dictators in Venezuela and stuff.

[Peggy Flanagan]

And Kelshi, it's not your thing. It's not my thing. I think, you know, Kelshi is another interesting thing. That exists. And we shouldn't be, we shouldn't be betting on our politics. No, but I would say, you know, holding these folks accountable, making sure that you can't enrich yourself. And then I think we have to look at reforms around the Supreme Court as well. And just people have to trust the government again. And when I think about the opportunity to get in there, I think we will take back the House. I think we have a real opportunity to take back the Senate. And then everyone has to be really clear what their job is. Right. What you gotta be in roll. So what is this senator working on? What is this senator working on? How are we building a base of support for the reforms, for the policies that we wanna, that we wanna move so that once we get a new president in there, God willing, in 2028, thanks for knocking on wood. That we are then ready to go and rebuild. Because what we watched Elon Musk and his Doge Bros do to this government, we have to rebuild and we have to do so with a lot of intention. So it is pushing for the policies that Americans want to be able to afford their lives and making sure that this authoritarianism that is just galloped into the White House and into Washington can never happen again.

[Tommy Vietor]

Yeah. Do you think Democrats should get rid of the filibuster?

[Peggy Flanagan]

Oh, this is the tricky one. Right. Because right now it's pretty helpful. But yes, I do, because there are so many things that have gotten, you know, stopped. Right. Good stuff. Right. And I don't want, you know, Kirsten Sinema or Joe Manchin esque people to be able to, you know, stop progress because they're, you know, bought and paid for by big corporations.

[Tommy Vietor]

Rich McConnell.

[Peggy Flanagan]

Yeah.

[Tommy Vietor]

What about the party saying as a party we're not going to take corporate PAC money, we're not going to take lobbyist money. Is that naive? Is that dooming ourselves to being outspent in every election? Like what kind of campaign finance reforms do you think are appropriate?

[Peggy Flanagan]

I mean, I think the fact that corporate PACs and billionaires are running the show in Washington is a fantastic reason why we shouldn't take that money. I mean, for me personally, I have made that decision in my campaign and I think it really matters mattered a

[Tommy Vietor]

lot for Obama in 07, I think.

[Peggy Flanagan]

Yeah. I mean, really did.

[Tommy Vietor]

It was a differentiator.

[Peggy Flanagan]

Well, because people get it, right? Like people, people understand it. And let me tell you, like I knew the corporations had allowed a lot of power in Washington. It wasn't until I ran for Senate that I actually understood Just how much?

[Tommy Vietor]

And so how did you, what, what, what did you learn in that process that kind of gave you that new window?

[Peggy Flanagan]

I mean, it's just looking at how folks are like, oh, well, that's too much, right? Or when you say, like, I'm for Medicare for all right. People are like, oh, but there's so many folks in, you know, the health insurance industry. And there are people, a librarian in Camby, Minnesota, who's paying a $16,000 deductible and just paid five bucks, or, sorry, 500 bucks for a five minute med check, right? Like that's real. And so I just think that this is the root of why we are where we are, that big corporations, billionaires have their thumb on the scale in our politics in a real way. And what I would say is that I think this is the biggest contrast between myself and my primary opponent, Congresswoman Craig. This is where big oil, crypto, big pharma, APAC is. They're all going to come in to this race. And for me, I can sleep at night because I'm not beholden to anybody but Minnesotans and I have integrity. But we also see in the Democratic Party as a whole, we should be the folks who are fighting to protect the environment, not taking money from big oil. We should be the folks who are anti war, right? Not snuggling up to aipac, who is a okay with this war in Iran and what we see happening in Lebanon and Gaza and the majority of Americans oppose it. And you know, when we see these big corporations and corporate interests who are keeping people who are making incredibly low wage jobs who are struggling, Democrats should be the folks who are fighting against that. Not saying, please contribute to our campaigns because I think, you know, it's. Tommy, what you just said, like, people get it. You know, it's pretty disingenuous to say, you know, I'm gonna, you know, regulate corporate cryptocurrency on one hand and then have your other hand outstretched and be like, but also wink, wink, nudge, nudge. If you could pay for my campaign, that would be great. People are so much smarter than that. And so that, And I think that's coming for us, right? What we saw in the state of Illinois in their primary that they just had, my friend and My sister, fellow lieutenant governor Juliana Stratton, crypto spent $10 million in that race. APAC spent millions, right? And I know that they're gonna come into Minnesota too. But what I also know is that people are starting to understand why this matters, right? I've been endorsed by Ncitizens United in this race. And I think the best way to get big money out of our politics is to demonstrate that you can run powerful grassroots campaigns that you know are about the many and not the money, and you can still win.

[Tommy Vietor]

Do you. You mentioned aipac, and, you know, the big fight in the Democratic Party about US Support for Israel. Does that lead you to feel like we should be cutting off military aid to Israel? For example, I know Bernie Sanders has a bunch of votes this week to try to cut off specific funding of weapons systems. Like, where do you land on that?

[Peggy Flanagan]

Yeah. So if I was in the Senate right now, I'd be joining Senator Sanders in voting in support of those resolutions. And let me tell you that this was a year ago when he introduced the resolutions with regards to offensive weapons sales to Israel. I was asked how I would have voted for that, and I said how I would have voted on it. And I said I would have voted alongside my Senator Tina Smith and Senator Amy Klobuchar in support of it. Because the same values that I have behind making sure that kids can eat breakfast and lunch at school. Right. For free, those are the same values behind supporting those resolutions. The suffering that we have seen is too much.

[Jon Favreau]

Yeah.

[Tommy Vietor]

It's off the charts.

[Peggy Flanagan]

Yeah. If there's tools in our toolbox that we can use, we should use them.

[Tommy Vietor]

Agreed on that point. Turn to Minnesota. So some of Minnesota's neighbors, Iowa and Wisconsin, have drifted. Right. Iowa, pretty far. Right. In the Trump era. Minnesota has not. Why?

[Peggy Flanagan]

I mean, I think we really care about each other. And, you know, we come from the state of Senator Paul Walstone. And everybody knows, Right. The bumper sticker, we all do better when we all do better, which is, you know, a famous quote from Paul. And I think people of all parties believe that in our state, we really care about fairness and looking out for our neighbor. And I think that's what you saw on display in the response to Operation Metro surge. But I really think that that's what it's about, that folks just think you should be able to live a good life, you know, make your own choices and just feel successful.

[Tommy Vietor]

Bottle up whatever you got in the water over there. You mentioned a couple times, I mean, Trump and his cronies have spent a lot of time attacking Minnesota. A shocking amount of time.

[Jon Favreau]

Right.

[Tommy Vietor]

Tim Walls gets targeted all the time. ICE and CBP descended on the state. There's this obsessive focus on Congresswoman Ilhan Omar on the Somali community, allegations of fraud. Did it surprise you? That Minnesota, like, kind of had the eye of Sauron trained on it like this. And, like, what has the impact of those attacks been on people who just live there, like, trying to live their lives?

[Peggy Flanagan]

So I'd say a couple things. One, you know, fraud of any kind is completely unacceptable, right? In Minnesota, if you commit fraud, you're going to be, you know, prosecuted for it. But I also want to say that if this was really about fraud from the Trump administration, they would have said 3,000 forensic accountants and not, you know, 3,000 IC agents. Yeah, exactly. That's right. And so the impact that this has had on our state, I know that, you know, your listeners or your viewers probably watched the news and saw it and were horrified, but what people need to know is that it was so much worse in person. The trauma, the violence, the chaos, the things that people experienced. A couple. I guess I have a couple stories that I'd just like to share with you. Like, my little auntie, who is in her 70s, was forced off the road by ice. They surrounded her vehicle. And she's this cute little grandma. And she rolled down her window, and she's like, hey, fellas, how can I help you? Right? And they said, where are you going? And, you know, she had a. She had a program. She was like, I literally was just leaving a funeral. You know, this is. This is the program from the funeral. And she's like, am I free to go? And they're like, yeah, go ahead. But she has a bumper sticker on her car that says Black Lives Matter. And she's like, I'm pretty sure that was targeted.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

What authority did they have to pull someone over in the first place?

[Peggy Flanagan]

It's crazy, right? And this happened all over the state, right? We go to. I'm Catholic, so it's been a weird week, huh? Weird week for Catholics. But I have to tell you, I've never been more proud to be Catholic in my entire life.

[Tommy Vietor]

It is weird that you're suitcase depicts you as Jesus.

[Peggy Flanagan]

I know your staff thought it was normal. I was like, no, I'm a doctor.

[Jon Favreau]

Yeah.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Yeah, I'm a doctor.

[Tommy Vietor]

Have you heard the theory that he thought. He was told to say it was doctored, but then he said, I'm a doctor.

[Peggy Flanagan]

I believe that theory 100%.

[Tommy Vietor]

I saw it on Twitter, but I buy it.

[Crooked Media Producer]

Absolutely.

[Peggy Flanagan]

Anyway, it's probably true. Yes, but.

[Tommy Vietor]

Run off the road, grandma.

[Peggy Flanagan]

But you also hear stories, right, of individuals who were just stopped in the street simply because of the color of their skin. I'm Ojibwe. I'm Native American. We have a large urban Native population and there are a lot of native folks who are literally wearing their tribal IDs around their neck. I mean, it's outrageous. And the children, right, Liam, Liam Conejo Ramos that the Trump administration detained in Texas, they're now back, but they're now being targeted aggressively for deportation. The children, I talked to a second grade teacher who said the biggest thing I have to figure out every day is how I manage through children who are crying at different times throughout class. Like it's horrific. And we go to a parish in north Minneapolis and we've got a lot of mixed status families there. And church was so empty. And on Christmas there may be 40 people. It's usually hard to get a seat. Right. And so, you know, throughout the occupation, we fed over 350 families that work continues. People are afraid to leave their homes. They've been impacted financially in ways that I don't know if they'll ever recover, you know, and what I can't get over is that there are going to be some children in our state who have an ACE score, an Adverse Childhood Experience score, simply because there were federal agents in their neighborhood. I don't have another word for it, but I am running to avenge Minnesota and bring justice for our people. The drawdown has occurred. ICE still has a presence. They're more insidious now. But this certainly didn't just focus on the Twin cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul. So we were traveling across the state, we had a statewide tour and at multiple events, people's phones went off because they were all right. Part of a group that was doing rapid response, where ICE was at a daycare center, where they were at a construction site or a restaurant. And so I think people are starting to try to get back to normal. But this has changed. This has changed us. And on Palm Sunday, it was packed and there were kids crying and laughing and toys dropping on the floor. And it was like a lot of chaos and it was totally beautiful.

[Tommy Vietor]

Yeah, another good kid.

[Peggy Flanagan]

Chaos. Yeah. Like, it just so folks are coming back. But this is the financial impact of this on our state, the emotional impact, the impact on mental health, the economy, it is unforgivable. And so what the federal government laid at our doorstep. They have to repair and heal and restore.

[Tommy Vietor]

You know, I think you spoke incredibly powerfully to the impossible to quantify emotional impact. I mean, for every story like Liam, there's other stories we all read of, like kids who were just didn't go to school for three Months hiding in their houses, you know, and like, the. How will we ever fix that? You know, like, how will we ever be able to help those kids readjust and not be afraid? You also mentioned the just pure economic impact. I mean, I read that businesses In Minneapolis and St. Paul were reporting $300 million in losses. How do they recover from that? Or how are you guys able to help them recover from that?

[Peggy Flanagan]

You know, I governed under. Under Covid, and we at least had more of a partnership than an adversary and had resources. And now, Right. It's the folks who caused this chaos and violence and killed two Minnesotans. Right, who are supposed to be the ones who are our partners in recovery. I will tell you that we have watched Minnesotans step up in a major way, mutual aid. People who are standing outside of daycares and schools, you know, in their neighborhoods. There's literally people who stand outside of our parish every Sunday just to make sure that we can worship safely. The financial contributions have been incredible. Philanthropy has responded, but it's not enough. And at the state level, there are some things that we can do. I am hopeful that there will be some rental assistance that we'll be able to get past this legislative session. But we have divided government or tie in our house. And so that will be difficult, but the recovery is going to be long. And I think this, again, is one of the reasons why we need folks in Congress and Senate who understand the need for investment in this recovery. We can start by clawing back the $75 billion that was given to ICE to terrorize Minnesotans.

[Tommy Vietor]

It's a good place to start.

[Peggy Flanagan]

Yeah, it's a good place to start.

[Tommy Vietor]

I like that idea, as you know better than than I do. And Minnesota has a reputation, well earned one for being a generous place to live because of all the social services. And as I mentioned now, I mean, the Minnesotans are facing all these accusations of fraud, maybe up to a billion dollars worth of fraud. Republicans are using those allegations, those instances, to try to undercut the entire concept of a welfare state. Right. To suggest that all governments are corrupt and we're wasting your money. And why don't we just give a big tax cut to everybody, hint the billionaires and claw it all back.

[Jon Favreau]

Right.

[Tommy Vietor]

How do you think we can fight back on those kind of attacks and sort of like the kind of governance that you and I believe in for sure?

[Peggy Flanagan]

Well, I'd say a couple things. One, like I said, the fraud is completely unacceptable. I'm a recovering executive director and will tell you of children's Defense fund, Minnesota. So people stealing money from the most vulnerable folks in our state makes me pretty angry. And so, you know, the governor and the legislature have put in place policies to stop fraud, to prevent fraud. And I still have hope that this legislative session, there'll be more that's able to get done. Republicans have voted down several measures, Right. That would be helpful when it came to combating fraud. And so I hope that their better angels will arrive and they will vote in favor of some of these policies,

[Tommy Vietor]

because I think better angels like J.D.

[Peggy Flanagan]

vance, you want him to come our theologian, right? J.D. vance,

[Tommy Vietor]

you've mentioned going to church a few times. What'd you think of J.D. vance saying the Pope shouldn't weigh in on war?

[Peggy Flanagan]

If the Pope was mad at me, and this Pope specifically, I would die. And, like, if my own priest, right. Was mad at me, I would feel like just. Or disappointed in me. Like, that would be the worst.

[Tommy Vietor]

But if disappointed, dad.

[Peggy Flanagan]

If the Pope was mad at me, I would just be like, I'd pack it in. Like, I'd be like, that's it. I gotta go.

[Donald Trump]

Yeah.

[Tommy Vietor]

I mean, we've all accused, I think, J.D. vance of sort of selling his place, political soul to get into Donald Trump's graces and do anything for power, but he's really doubling down here.

[Peggy Flanagan]

But I think, like, speaking of J.D. vance, of someone who grew up on the margins and has completely had his brain sucked out and forgotten where he comes from. Right. This, for me, I think, is also really important for us to talk about why these programs matter. Right. I'm a kid who moved to the community of St. Louis park, where I still live with my family. My mom had a Section 8 housing voucher, and that's how she did it. That's how we paid the rent. Snap, which back in the day we called food stamps, was how we kept food on the table. I was that kid with a different colored lunch ticket. And Medicaid, or what's known as medical assistance in Minnesota, was what kept me alive. I missed a lot of school. I was sometimes in the hospital more than I was out in elementary school. And so I am alive because of those programs. And when I think about, you know, my mom, she worked so hard and she went back to school and was able to do so because of the childcare assistance program. She went back to school. She got her certificate in phlebotomy. She's a professional vampire, as we like to say. And I remember when she walked across the stage and she got her diploma, she was in like a Bright blue cap and gown. And it felt like I was walking across that stage. All of those investments helped to lift my family towards the middle class. And now I get to pay that forward and pay it back in service. That's what we have to talk about. Right? And for children, our seniors, people who don't make enough money to qualify. Right. For, you know, or get healthcare through their employer, we can't forget about people. And that, I think, is what I hope still makes us Minnesotans and still makes us Americans, is that we care about each other and that we're gonna wrap our arms around you when you need help, and then you're gonna pay that back. And that, I think, is one of the things that's just completely missing from this conversation.

[Tommy Vietor]

Just hearing you talk, I hear. I can tell you worked for Paul Wellstone. I mean, odds are you did if you're in Minnesota politics. Right. For those who don't know who Paul Wellstone was, I mean, truly one of the more most inspiring people in political life. When I was sort of like, coming up in politics and working on the Hill, I desperately wanted to work for him. He was killed. Trag. Can you just talk about Paul Wellstone, what he meant to you, like, kind of how he shaped your career in the course of Minnesota politics.

[Peggy Flanagan]

I mean, I exist because of Paul Wellstone. I was literally driving past the Wellstone for Senate office in 2002, my senior year of college at the University of Minnesota, and I was like, you know what? I like Paul Wellstone. Like, I'm just gonna stop.

[Tommy Vietor]

Really. Just popped in.

[Peggy Flanagan]

Just popped in. And a guy named. Now I know is my friend Chris was like, hey, are you here to volunteer? And I was like, oh, I guess. Sure. Okay. And I stuffed envelopes, which isn't really a thing we do anymore, but, yeah, I stuffed envelopes for two hours with, like, complete strangers. And I was like, this is amazing. And I went back every single day. And so I started off doing tasks that just needed to be done, and then ended up leading our urban native organizing work, which, as you know, is how things happen on campaigns. Right.

[Tommy Vietor]

Suddenly you're running the thing.

[Peggy Flanagan]

Exactly.

[Tommy Vietor]

If you're good, here's more work.

[Peggy Flanagan]

That's right. And so, you know, I was so moved by that experience and really just, like, seeing real people and everybody felt like, that's our guy. Right? Paul's our guy. He's our senator. If it's the native community, the Somali community, folks up on the iron range, like, everybody claimed him, and it was because he spent time with people all over the state and really, like, listened to them and met them and cared for them. And that is, you know, when we talk about politics the Wellstone way, right, that's what it's about. It's about making sure that you're meeting people, where you're at, they're at, and that the policies that you push for are directly informed by the people who are most impacted. And I remember this moment when

[Dan Pfeiffer]

after

[Peggy Flanagan]

he had died and Walter Mondale, former vice president, was running in his place and so we had to hand make a bunch of signs and I'd mark her all over my arm and it was like hot in the back room. And it was, you know, and I looked around this the room and it was full of people from all different walks of life. And I was like, oh, this, this is what I'm supposed to do. And I didn't think at the time at all that it meant run for political office. I just thought it meant, like, I'm going to be part of campaigns and organizing work. And then I was taken under the wing of a lot of Wellstone campaign folks and worked at Wellstone Action for almost a decade afterwards, training people, tens of thousands of people across the country to run for political office.

[Tommy Vietor]

That's great. If people want to have their own Wellstone moment working for you, where do they go? How can they do it?

[Peggy Flanagan]

Sure, folks can. Visit Peggy Flanagan.com we'd love to have you on Team Peggy. It's going to take all of us.

[Tommy Vietor]

Well, thank you for coming in. It's great to get to talk to you.

[Peggy Flanagan]

Thanks so much.

[Jon Favreau]

That's our show for today. Thanks to Peggy Flanagan for coming on. Dan will be back in the feed on Sunday with a conversation with David Pakman. Have a good weekend, everybody.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Bye, everyone.

[Jon Favreau]

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