Loading summary
Transcript294 lines
- [00:00]
A
Pod Save America is brought to you by SimpliSafe. No one wants to imagine their home getting broken into, but the scary statistic is that every 26 seconds in the US a family experiences a break in. Scary, yes, but that's why SimpliSafe has worked to make home security more accessible to more American families. John Lovett set up a Simplisafe and boy, is he happy.
- [00:18]
B
Safe as hell.
- [00:19]
A
Safe as hell.
- [00:19]
B
Happy, safe.
- [00:20]
A
Just no one has set it up as well as Lovett. Nope. Nobody crushed it. Not one. Very quick. And now it's. And then you get the app on your phone and so you can sort of run everything from there. With SimpliSafe, there are no long term contracts or hidden cancellation fees. They earn your business by keeping you safe, not by trapping you in a contract. With SimpliSafe, you can customize your system to fit your needs, then ships fast directly to your door. The app guided setup is simple and there's no drilling required, so you can install and arm your system in under an hour. SimpliSafe is more than just a security camera. It's a comprehensive system of sensors, indoor and outdoor cameras, and 247 professional monitoring over over 5 million people value and trust SimpliSafe with their home security every day. Right now, our listeners will get 50% off a new system when you sign up for professional monitoring and your first month is free, just visit simplisafe.com crooked that's half off. @simplisafe.com crooked there's no safe like SimpliSafe. Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Jon Favreau.
- [01:38]
C
I'm Jon Levitt.
- [01:39]
B
Tommy Vitor.
- [01:39]
A
On today's show, we'll talk about the news that Trump appears to be giving up on his $1.8 billion insurrectionist slush fund. He also seems quite uninterested in ending the Iran war, saying he, quote, couldn't care less whether talks were break down. We're also going to talk about Tuesday's big primaries this week in Iowa and here in California, as well as more turbulence in Maine for Graham Platner and more turbulence for J.D. vance and his quest to become Donald Trump's number one boy chosen successor. Uh, then New Jersey Senator Andy Kim talks to me about the horrifying conditions he witnessed at the ICE detention center in Newark where the Senator was pepper sprayed by federal agents. Before we start, you guys see the that CBS's Scott Pelley accused Barry Weiss of murdering 60 Minutes.
- [02:26]
B
That sounds like a really fun meeting to have attended.
- [02:29]
A
It was an all staff meeting convened by Weiss's new handpicked executive producer, Nick Bilton. No Weiss at the meeting.
- [02:38]
C
It's your first day at the office. You're trying to find the bathrooms, you're seeing which way your badge works and where your badge doesn't work. Next thing Scott Pelley's saying, you piece of shit, I will fucking rake your dead corpse over the bones of Don Hewitt.
- [02:51]
A
And obviously Lovett's was hyperbole, but not as much as you might think.
- [02:55]
B
Honestly, it was pretty close.
- [02:56]
A
Yeah, reading Oliver Darcy's status has the whole transcript of the meeting. It was. It was something. Anyway, I just bring that up because if all of you want to support the growth of an independent pro democracy media company that Bari Weiss can't murder, at least not yet, please consider becoming a friend of the Pod subscriber. You get ad free episodes of this show. All your favorite crooked pods subscribe. Subscriber only shows like Polar Coaster with Dan Pfeiffer, our secret extra episode of Pod Save America. And full access to all of our substack newsletters like open tabs. Check it out@crooked.com friends all right, let's get to the news. With the Middle east still a mess and gas prices still high, the President is once again working hard to communicate to the American people how little he cares about these things. Here he is during a hard hitting Fox interview with his daughter in law Lara Trump focused like a laser on his true passion, interior design.
- [03:48]
D
This will be the entrance into the ballroom. The ballroom will be right here. No, the ballroom is a gift to America for me and from Apple and from lots of great people.
- [03:58]
E
How often are you coming out here to check the progress?
- [04:01]
D
A lot. We're going to have the inauguration here. Oh, wow. This stone can last a million years. You know, most people would put brass on top of a piece of wood. It would be called laminated. And then in about two years you'd see the brass falling on the floor. You know, we'll delaminate. This is look, solid breath. Same thing with this. This is all solid, beautiful solid breath action.
- [04:21]
C
It's. It's the pudding. Look, we've suffered a lot under this guy. The putting labels on the rooms, outside
- [04:28]
B
the rooms, Oval Office.
- [04:29]
C
Like we know the whole point of it man, is we know it's a cool room. It's actually a great thing. You don't need to label it.
- [04:35]
B
Did you guys read Ashley Parker's story about Trump as a gay icon in the Atlantic? You will love it.
- [04:40]
A
It's so funny. It's so good they're having the inauguration out there.
- [04:44]
B
No, they're not. By the way, Congress decided I was
- [04:47]
A
going to say, yeah, what the.
- [04:48]
C
I'm sure he means like the balls and some of the, you know, the balls that would happen around the inaugural.
- [04:52]
A
I mean, says him, he's not there anymore.
- [04:55]
B
Right, right.
- [04:56]
C
He won't be. He shouldn't be that involved in the planning of it. You know, one would hope.
- [04:59]
A
Does he just going to stay on as like physical plant Director Chaperone for J.D. you're going home. No. So that was on Fox over the weekend for Fox viewers who wanted just a little more on what the government is doing about this terrible economy. On Sunday morning they get to hear this from top White House economic adviser slash Democratic Party plant Kevin Hassett.
- [05:19]
C
People are spending more on gas, but they're also spending more on everything else, not just groceries, restaurants and so on.
- [05:27]
A
And I think that that's a sign
- [05:28]
C
that you would see when people are
- [05:30]
B
optimistic about, about the future.
- [05:32]
A
Now Tommy, you put this in Slack yesterday, I think on Sunday. And I was like, isn't that the clip from last month when Kevin Hassett said this? And then I had to click on it and realize that he basically said the same thing again but maybe worse this time.
- [05:47]
B
No, they just keep putting MAGA Dennis the Menace on TV to say stupid shit. I mean they just like they could not seem more out of touch if they tried. Spending more on gas and groceries does not suggest that you're optimistic about the future. It suggests that you need gas and groceries and those are non negotiable items. They're not taking out loans to start a business. Like what are you talking about?
- [06:03]
C
It doesn't like, oh, you know, hey man, like most people are just, they're just not really paying that close attention to aggregate consumer spending. Right? Like that matters to you and your morning meeting.
- [06:13]
B
Yes, but then like the Lara Trump interview, I mean Trump clearly wanted to talk about the brass thing he put on the wall. Like he could write Lara Trump's questions for her if he wanted. It's his daughter in law doing the interview. And he like they clearly went out and they pitched this like he just, he wants to tell us, I don't give a shit about anyone or anything about in the world except for myself, my arch. And like he seems annoyed almost that we don't believe him at this point.
- [06:38]
A
It's so funny because we also on Friday's pod covered Bessant in the briefing room when some reporter asked him about like people's savings being low, people dipping into their savings. And he's like, well, according to the economic literature, that could be two things. One, the doomer view that you just took, which is that people aren't confident or they're spending so much because they are confident and that's why they're dipping into their savings.
- [07:01]
C
Yes, people are, people are. People are racking up credit card debt cuz they're betting on themselves.
- [07:07]
B
That's what's going on.
- [07:08]
C
That's what's going on. Just thought of it, Thought of it too late. Phantom of the ballroom. That's what he's sort of aiming for the ball. Something like that.
- [07:14]
B
Sort of.
- [07:15]
C
Imagine I said it earlier.
- [07:16]
B
The university.
- [07:17]
A
Imagine I made this joke earlier.
- [07:18]
B
The University of Michigan's consumer sentiment index is at a record low of 44.8 in May of 2026.
- [07:25]
A
That's lower than Doomers, Covid Doomers.
- [07:28]
B
So the biggest concern, by the way, is cost of living and gas prices.
- [07:32]
A
Yeah, well, you know what the solution is? Turn that frown upside down. All you doomers believe, believe in Donald Trump and his wild look. If a man can do that with brass, imagine what he can do for your savings.
- [07:43]
C
Besson going out there with the $250bill too. Like the whole thing, it is crazy. It is. He wants to lose the midterms.
- [07:51]
B
You see him holding up the story being like, whoever edited this, who did a terrible job. Pissy cadaver.
- [07:56]
C
He looks so. He has such a terrible, like kind of his whole facial expression just like, just. It's so unlikable. Just the holding up the story with the money on it.
- [08:07]
A
So obviously none of this is going too well politically for Trump, but unfortunately for him, even his renovations and corruption are running into some stiff headwinds. On Friday, a federal judge blocked Trump's plan to close the Kennedy center for renovations and also ruled that he can't just rename it for himself. There was a very long truth social post where he was ranting about that, that I have to tell you, I honestly couldn't get through it all. It's just he was very upset, but basically he's like, I'm giving up on the Kennedy Center. That's it. Forget it. It's like, all right, cool.
- [08:36]
E
Yeah.
- [08:37]
C
Hey, man. Yeah, leave her alone.
- [08:41]
A
The same day, another federal judge in Florida reopened Trump's IRS settlement with his own DOJ because of what she called, quote, grievous allegations that the $1.8 billion insurrectionist slush fund was, quote, premised on deception Then another federal judge in Virginia temporarily blocked the trans in or out of the fund while she waits to hear arguments in a lawsuit challenging it. Finally, after all these reports that both Republicans in Congress and White House aides were pushing Trump to just give up on the slush fund altogether, it appears as if he's done just that. Two senior administration officials told Axios that Trump will drop the slush fund, with one saying, quote, it's dead for now. DOJ also posted a statement saying it'll, quote, abide by the court ruling blocking it, even though that block is only temporary. Do you guys, we haven't heard from Trump as of this recording. We got to hear from the big,
- [09:28]
C
we got to hear from the big boy before it's done. It's not done until the big boy speaks.
- [09:31]
B
Yeah.
- [09:31]
A
And even then, who knows?
- [09:32]
C
Even then, right.
- [09:33]
A
But do you think he backs down this easily? And, and I think more importantly, do you guys think this is still a political issue for Republicans?
- [09:39]
C
So for also Senate Republicans actually were pretty bothered by this in a closed door meeting. Of course, John Thune was, was actually out there saying he didn't like this very much, which is impressive for him. Of course, the only thing Senate Republicans could manage to do is quietly oppose it and then bravely leave town. That was their way of protesting it. It was, we're not going to give him more money for immigration that we don't need and we're going to leave town to signal our, our unhappiness with it. I assume and hope that we'll still have votes on it this week. I think there's no given that it's only temporarily on hold and Trump clearly wants to do this. I think Democrats need to get Republicans on record that they would oppose having this kind of a slush fund be legal now or in the future. And so let' them voting on that because even if they're privately saying it, they'll have to publicly do something.
- [10:28]
B
Yeah, the for now bothered me. The for now part of that report bothered me. I'm hopeful that, you know, when you're primaring John Cornyn, you're primary ing Bill Cassidy and when Thom Tillis hates you, all Republicans in the Senate, maybe they will prevent this from ever passing or coming to be. I don't know. I don't know if you guys read the big New York Times piece from over the weekend about how the slush fund came together, but it read like the blueprint for a future RICO case. It was like Boris Epstein on the outside, like coordinating things the Trump kids want immunity for, like all IRS audits for their tax returns in the future. The professional staff at DOJ are either horrified or quitting. And then the White House political staff was just cut out of the process because they probably knew that it was toxic and it's like the most corrupt sounding shit imaginable. And so I don't know, knowing Trump is probably not the end of it.
- [11:14]
A
Yeah, Schumer is going ahead with, or he said he's going ahead with, making sure they have to vote on it and do it. The vote is going to be on. You know, originally, I think the first time we talked about Democrats potentially proposing amendments on this, it was like to restrict the fund or whatever. There was a couple proposals out there to just ban the fund completely, forever. And that's what Schumer's going with, reportedly, he said today. And I think that's great because, like, what Republican now is going to vote against the ban now that Trump has said, or at least the White House has signaled that they're giving up on it? So if Trump doesn't say anything between now and the vote, like, if you're a Republican voting on this, you can either vote against the ban and really fuck yourself in the midterms because now the White House has abandoned it, but now you're on record supporting it, or you can vote for the ban and then the ban becomes law and then it doesn't matter if Trump backs off because now it's against the law.
- [12:09]
C
Well, right.
- [12:10]
A
There's a pretty good position that, oh, Democrats are great.
- [12:12]
C
This is ridiculous. There's no good vote for the Republicans they have in the past chosen. This is a political ploy because there is no fund. So I'm voting against this because Democrats are playing politics. Just giving them an option to be craven. Of course, just giving them.
- [12:26]
B
That's another.
- [12:27]
C
It's another craven. Pat. They're. The Republicans have said this is not necessary or it is too late. Those have been two positions they've taken in the past in trying to stop Trump. The other part of this, too is like, in fairness to Trump, he must be surprised that there's any pushback whatsoever. It sort of, I think, must have caught him off guard that Senate Republicans have found a line because they've tolerated so much brazen corruption, the pardons and all the rest that led to this moment, as even as we're speaking, DOJ is trying to vacate the convictions of the Oath Keepers that Trump only commuted but didn't pardon. So they, they still are kind of Just going full speed ahead without having to worry about the Republicans in Congress.
- [13:06]
B
I love that Mike Pence was on the Sunday shows being like, please don't pay the people that tried to hang me.
- [13:11]
C
Come on.
- [13:11]
B
You know, it's McDonald's.
- [13:13]
C
I watch, I watch.
- [13:13]
B
They tried to hang me. They set up a stocks in a new he.
- [13:16]
C
I watched part of that Mike Pence on, on Meet the Press. I don't know why this doesn't sound like me, but. But it was.
- [13:23]
A
He's served to you by accident.
- [13:25]
C
His book is about. His book is about, like, the need to take on the right wing populist while he's, like, up there just, like, praising Donald Trump and how on so many things, he's doing such a great job. And then he's like, now I do have to say I am a bit critical of his continuing to support the people that tried to kill me, but nobody's perfect. It's unbelievable that he's still out here out there, like, doing this thing.
- [13:45]
A
I think that there's a very small but non zero chance that the other option for Donald Trump is saying, fine, I'll just pocket the cash then. Remember he had that pissy post last week when there was a lot of political blowback on the slush fund, and he was like, I could have just kept the money.
- [14:04]
C
Well, that's why he's annoyed, right? Because he thought, I'm gonna do a $10 billion lawsuit and then I'm actually gonna do something really cool, which is gonna be, like, beloved by all because I'm not gonna keep the money.
- [14:14]
A
I'm. They. It was, like, too clever by half.
- [14:17]
C
Yes, yes. And you can feel that this is the White House staff being annoyed at Todd Blanche for running this drug deal behind their backs.
- [14:26]
B
So good.
- [14:26]
A
Amazing. All right, let's talk about Iran, where Trump can't even seem to get a bad deal, let alone one that would justify the insane amount of money and lives the war has already cost. Military strikes have started again. Iran state media said it was pausing negotiations. Trump told CNBC on Monday morning that he, quote, couldn't care less if the negotiations collapsed, that they, quote, took too much time and started to get very boring. This was after he complained on Truth Social about how negative, quote, chirping about the war from political hacks is making his job tougher and that we should all just sit back and relax because it will all work out well in the end. It always does. Trump then reversed course again and said that talks between the US And Iran were, quote, continuing at A rapid pace
- [15:13]
C
taking too long and getting kind of boring is also what he said. The one and only time he went down on Ivana. Never, never made it. Never gonna make that mistake.
- [15:25]
A
That's a.
- [15:25]
C
Where that came from.
- [15:26]
A
God rest her soul.
- [15:29]
C
On the ninth green. Be a blessing. Sorry.
- [15:32]
B
My goodness.
- [15:33]
C
Occurred to me.
- [15:33]
A
Just catching, catching strays from the grave. Okay, Tommy. We were reliably told by Scott Jennings last Thursday that Trump had reached a deal with Iran that got us, quote, everything we want. What happened? Is it possible that Scott led us astray? Yeah.
- [15:52]
B
Before I get to Jennings, I wanna just read a little more of the transcript of the CNBC interview. Is this what Trump told Eamon Javers from CNBC about the peace talks? I don't care if they're over. Honestly, I really don't care. I couldn't care less if they're over. They're over if they're not. You know, I think they took too much time, frankly. I thought they started to get very boring again. 13 service members dead, hundreds more wounded. Entire global economy is on the brink of collapse. Gas prices are up 50%. So he's bored. It's just hard to wrap your head around a politician saying that, a president saying that, and it not being a career ending moment, kind of like on site. But here we are. Fox News will never air it. This will never have happened in the MAGA media world. Now, Scott Jennings, folks know him from cnn. You know him, you hate him. He's a hack, he's a fool. He mindlessly regurgitates whatever talking points he gets sent from the White House, including blatant disinformation. So I expect nothing better from him. But I do hope that this disaster makes the Axios and some other news outlets that kind of cut and paste whatever some senior administration official told them, whether it's Jared Kushner or the press office or whomever. Just help rethink how you're doing your job. Because I get the journalism is very competitive. I get that reporters are battling for every mini scoop these days. But at best, you look silly. At worst, you are a pawn in oil market manipulations. Right? This happens every Sunday. And then ultimately you're pumping out disinformation to the entire world. Like, remember economies in Southeast Asia, like, have stopped because they have no oil and gas and so on. The question of where do we stand on a deal? I don't know, like one.
- [17:25]
C
The.
- [17:25]
B
The deal was off. The deal was on.
- [17:28]
C
We're.
- [17:28]
B
We're on the cusp of a deal, then we're bombing the Iranians again. Trump just said he talked directly with a Hezbollah representative. You guys see that today? That's new. That's interesting.
- [17:37]
C
And then said, and said that that Hezbollah and Israel, they're cool.
- [17:41]
B
There's a ceasefire in Lebanon now. The Iran talks are proceeding quickly. The Netanyahu was like, no, what are you talking about?
- [17:46]
C
So who knows?
- [17:47]
A
I also, I mean, you tell me, Tommy. But like, I don't think that all the pre spinning of what the deal is going to include from the White House is actually helping the negotiations that much and in fact may be hurting them because every time they get close to a deal then, and Iran's probably thinking, okay, like we're going to do this maybe, you know, and then Trump goes out and is like, we destroyed them. We got the best deal ever. We got everything we ever wanted. And then the Iranians are probably like, well, fuck, no, I'm not going to do this. Now.
- [18:13]
B
Trump is going to have to give on something, whether it's, you know, the duration of the deal, like sanctions relief, unfrozen assets, something. But he refuses to look weak. He doesn't want to look like he gave a JCPOA like agreement to the Iranians. So you're right. I mean, it sounds like his staff are kind of giving. And then he goes out and says, actually no, we're going to take the dust to, we're going to not give him any money. Like all the reports are bullshit. And Iranians. Okay, okay, fuck you then.
- [18:39]
C
Yeah. I feel like there's two things happening. One is what an actual deal will ultimately look like if there is one. And then there's how Trump, how the Trump administration talks about the deal. And then what's reported. I mean, this has been, this has been sort of, the media has been getting led around by Trump from when Vance went to Pakistan because Vance goes to Pakistan. And then within 8 hours, 12 hours, the reports are stalemate. Talk at his at and it talks at an impasse. Talks are falling apart. There haven't really been talks and we've spent the next last several weeks having deal falls apart, verge of a deal, deal falls apart, verge of a deal, when what would be happening in a normal administration is the long grinding negotiation of a complicated deal in which, in which there are gives and takes and, you know, and, and, and puts and whatever. And instead it's the kind of through the Trump prism. And so all these outlets are hearing, I guess from the administration officials from who knows, saying we're on the verge of a deal, they report that out faithfully and then it falls apart the very next day. The reality of there will be, hopefully there will be a deal. It will look something like the jcpoa and then Trump will declare it the best, the best deal in history. Like one hopes that that's what we'll eventually get to. And then this, all this up and down shit will have just been sort of like silly Trump chaos on the way there.
- [19:59]
B
Well, I guess I think what's, what's triggering the hell out of me though is like ultimately like there will be a reporting on that will evaluate the merits of any deal. But that deal could have been gotten without a disastrous war that led to the deaths of thousands of Iranians, of service members, the entire economy. And it's like, I'm not worried about this table losing that context. I am worried about the broader media. Like helping Trump sell a deal by like doing this constant, constant incremental reporting by retweeting, you know, Scott Jennings saying this is a win for the Trump administration, et cetera. It's like, no, this is a disaster no matter what happens next.
- [20:32]
A
Yeah, because the honest thing to report on this, or if you were some kind of conservative pundit, the honest thing to even say is glad it's over now. But that wasn't worth it. And not, not in exactly those words, but like that is the tenor of whatever deal we're going to get, is that like there's no way we came out better than we started.
- [20:50]
C
Right. Because even like just on the, on uranium enrichment, what I saw over the weekend or early today was what was on the table was a 20 year moratorium, which is what up from the 10 year moratorium so that you claimed this was the worst deal in history. Your deal is just a slightly longer timeline on one piece of it with other concessions.
- [21:08]
B
That was their starting position and they worked down to 15 maybe.
- [21:11]
C
So who even, who knows? Who knows? But it's just like obvious like that he is just. There will be a hard. If there's a deal, it will be a deal that isn't some amazing victory for Donald Trump. He'll call it that. He'll get his 24 hours to say that and then we'll live with the consequences of having fought this stupid fucking war. Pod.
- [21:35]
B
Save America is brought to you by article. Article makes it effortless to build a home that lasts without the boutique markup. Their curated collections of mid century coastal and Scandi furniture are designed to mix and match perfectly so you can create a cohesive designer look. That will stand the test of time. We got a bunch of great Article stuff here at the office. We have chairs, we have desks, maybe couches. I mean we've bought so many things from them at this point that I've lost count. It's all super high quality. It looks good, it's comfortable. It all holds up for a very long time. Highly recommend it and Article offers fast, affordable shipping across the US and Canada with options for professional delivery if you prefer. A hands off experience. If you have a question or need help with your design choices, Article's customer care team is available seven days a week offering knowledgeable support and even free interior design services to help you with your home and get it just right. With Article's 30 day satisfaction guarantee, you can shop with confidence knowing that if you're not completely in love with your new furniture, you can easily return it. This peace of mind ensures you can invest in your home without hesitation. Article is offering our listeners $50 off your first purchase of a hundred dollars or more. To claim it, visit article.com crooked and the discount will be automatically applied at checkout. That's article.com crooked for 50 bucks off your first purchase or of $100 or more.
- [22:47]
A
Pod Save America is brought to you by AG1. Summer is for letting things slide a little. That's the point. But there's one easy thing that takes 30 seconds and covers your bases no matter what the season throws at you. One scoop plus eight ounces of water every morning ag1 ag1 is a daily health drink with a multivitamin, pre and probiotics, superfoods and antioxidants. 1 Scoop 8 ounces of water the next gen formula delivers 75 plus ingredients and is designed to support gut health, help fill common nutrient gaps, promote improved nutrient levels over time. Late nights, long weekends, spontaneous plans. Life happens. AG1 helps you keep one thing consistent. High quality nutritional support every single day no matter where you start your morning. You're like an AG1 person.
- [23:31]
B
I'm a scoop a day guy. I am a I'm a big smoothie for breakfast person because it's super fast and easy and you can figure out exactly what goes in it. It's a pain to put a bunch of greens in your smoothie like buy spinach or whatever.
- [23:43]
A
No thank you.
- [23:44]
B
You don't need to do that. You just get AG1. It gets all of the superfoods you need, all the veggies all and whatever that you would have put in by yourself. And it tastes good. I love AG1.
- [23:54]
A
Visit drinkag1.com crooked to get a free morning person hat and free AG1 flavor sampler in your welcome kit with your first AG1 subscription an $82 value. That's drinkag1.com crooked and if I see you in a free morning person hat, I will punch you in the face. As you're listening to this, voters in Iowa and California are voting in some very consequential elections. Let's start with Iowa, where State Representative Josh Turek and State Senator Zach Walz are in a tough primary fight for the state's open Senate seat, which will be hugely important. This one has become yet another meta commentary on Chuck Schumer and the DSCC trying to influence key primaries in this case in favor of Turek. Schumer hasn't publicly endorsed Turek, but his like aligned PAC has contributed. So has Gillibrands. He, you know, it's reported that he was sort of a Schumer recruitment, much to Turek's dismay.
- [24:50]
C
Yeah, he shouldn't endorse Walls.
- [24:53]
A
Tommy, you interviewed both Turek and Walls on the show for people just catching up, what are each of them bringing to the table? What were your general impressions?
- [24:59]
B
Yeah, I mean, so Josh Turek is a, he's a state rep in western Iowa and Council Bluffs. He was born with spina bifida, uses a wheelchair. He's a two time Paralympic gold medal winner in wheelchair basketball. And he's just like his life story is just incredibly gritty, determined guy. Like he got cut from the men's team six times before he actually won the gold medal. He just kept coming back and come back and competing and like there's videos of him. He literally like climbs out of his wheelchair, climbs up the stairs with his hand, drags a wheelchair up after him, and then knocks on doors. Like that's how he goes door to door. So like gritty dude clearly benefiting from being Schumer's pick and an associated $9 million Vote Vets ad buy that has drastically increased his name ID because no one knew who any of these guys were. And then Zach is a member. Zach Wall is a member of the Iowa State Senate. He's from Iowa City. He was Senate Minority leader for a couple years. Our listeners probably saw him speak in 2011, even though they don't remember it or knew it was him at the time. He was a 19 year old. He delivered a speech asking Iowa legislators not to pass a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage and civil unions that went super viral back in what, 2011. And it was a great speech, really powerful speech, like, supercharged his career. So I interviewed him both. I liked him both a lot. Everyone seems to think that Josh is likely to win. A lot of people I know who work in Iowa politics think he is more electable because he's won in more conservative parts of the state. The winner's going to take on Congresswoman Ashley Hinton for Joni Ernste because she's resigning. And no matter who wins, Iowa is like ground zero for politics this next cycle because you got Rob sand, who could be the next governor. You have this open Senate seat, and then there's like three competitive House races, a bunch of other statewide things. So Iowa is absolutely crucial. So this was one we're going to be watching going forward.
- [26:38]
A
I will say that I've been impressed by both of them, by both Josh Turek and Zach Walz. And I know some of these Senate primary fights are particularly intense. And I know this one is, too. I do know, like, I was kind of joking about Josh Turk, probably wishing that Schumer didn't spend some PAC money on him or necessarily recruit him. But I think that I understand why Walls is. You know, Wallace has tried to make this a race about sort of an outsider versus the establishment, as Turek is the establishment. I kind of think that, like, you know, Turek being picked by Chuck Schumer is not quite the same as Turek being part of the establishment or the establishment spending money on him. Like, a lot of the money that's spent on him is vote vets. So it's like it's not. At least for me. It doesn't worry me that he's some establishment pick necessarily. I feel like the case for that isn't as strong as in some of these other cases. But I also, like, you know, Zach Walls was in here, too. I thought he was very compelling as well. So I like both of them. Love it.
- [27:35]
C
Anything? No,
- [27:38]
B
I think, look, there's some races where being seen as like the schumer guy, the D.C. guy, I think has been a real cross to bear. I think that was. That happened in Maine, which we'll talk about in a second. I just don't think it's been that in Iowa as much this time, in part because this vote, that spy has been so big and so significant in helping push pushed Josh forward. Also, he's a known quantity in western Iowa. I think he's never been worked in D.C. yeah. So I think it's harder to lay that on him. But we'll see.
- [28:04]
A
We should also Say that for people wondering, the reason that Vote Vets is spending money on him is not because he's a veteran, but his. His father was in Vietnam and potentially exposed to Agent Orange, and that's why
- [28:15]
B
they think Josh has spina bifida. But also, I think Von Vets is seen as doing humorous political thing here.
- [28:21]
A
Yes, also true. Also true. All right, let's turn to California. The big race, of course, is the jungle primary for govern. We have covered the campaign a lot. In between us, we've interviewed Tom Steyer, Katie Porter, and Matt Mahan. We also reached out over a dozen times to the apparent frontrunner, Javier Becerra. And even though they expressed interest, they unfortunately wouldn't commit to a time. Okay, same question for each of you. Who'd you end up supporting and why? And who else did you like? If this were ranked choice voting, who might you support after that?
- [28:53]
C
Well, my ballot still hasn't been filled down.
- [28:54]
D
Ooh.
- [28:55]
C
So I'm still gettable. I'm still gettable. I'm still gettable. I am gonna vote for Tom Steyer because I would like to see if Becerra, if the polls are to be believed and they've been pretty consistent, Becerra is going to move on. One other will. There's a chance Tom Steyer can be that second person. I would much rather have two Democrats battling it out for the future of the Democratic Party in this state than I would have Becerra versus a Republican who has not passed the threshold question of opposing Donald Trump's election. Lines like that, to me, is a threshold question.
- [29:25]
A
Question.
- [29:25]
C
You can be frustrated with Democrats in this state. You can, you can believe that Democrats have, have, have fucked up in California. But if you can't say that, that, that Donald Trump lost that election, if you can't stand up to him, then that is so fucking dangerous, and he's a nut for that. So that's where I'm at. I also really liked my conversation with Tom Steyer. I think he had good answers for some of the questions about where Democrats have gone wrong in California and some of the criticisms. I also really like Katie Porter, but. But she just hasn't risen to the top of the polls like she was. She kind of slowly fell behind. And I think it sucks because I really like her, but I'm trying to be pragmatic with my vote.
- [30:02]
B
Yeah, I mean, someone, like, if I could wave a magic wand and make someone governor, it would be Katie Porter, but she is down in the polls, and I'm having the Same. I have the same rationale. I want to vote strategically because I think Steyer and Becerra going to a runoff would be great. It would kind of be annoying if we had to deal with, you know, running in Steve Hilton, who's a random British short king, who's, like, deep in the tech community.
- [30:24]
C
I don't think his height's a problem.
- [30:25]
B
But the. I do love that that triggers you of all the, all the criticism. But, like, I also love that Steve Hilton and Chad Bianco are calling on each other to drop out still, even though Hilton is, like, crushing Bianco and Trump has endorsed Hilton. But that's where I was.
- [30:38]
C
Yeah, I would. If I were doing ranked choice, I would be Katie number one, no question. Because that's who I'd vote for. But that's not the world we live in.
- [30:48]
A
I had a real hard time with this, and I voted a couple days ago. California's a big state. It's hard to govern. A lot of problems. I don't really feel. I thought about Becerra, but I don't feel confident giving the top job to someone who's had. He's had 35 years in elected office to prove himself, but has received mainly bad reviews from his colleagues, especially in the one executive job that he's had, which was HHS secretary under Biden. And just an example, I think his housing policy, which was also. He was very late to introduce any kind of housing policy whatsoever until after ballots dropped. And then, even then it was more NIMBY than Steyer or Porter or anything else. And now I hope I'm wrong. And if he wins, then great, maybe he'll be a great governor. But I was like, it prevented me from voting Becerra. Steyer. I'm more confident in Steyer. But even then on the experience question, there is just something. For me, it was the combination of he's never had any experience in elected office or governing anything, and is a billionaire who basically ran for president first flamed out there than spent just the GDP of a small country on this race. And I think he. I like his positions better than Becerra and a lot of the other candidates. But I'm just like, there's just something a little icky to me about it. And I am not as worried if it's Steve Hilton versus Becerra or Steyer because the state's registration is going to take care of itself. And there's just. I just. It's not a concern I have that Steve Hilton's going to become governor. So I just voted for Katie Porter because I like her. And it's like I realized that she has. It is the least strategic thing. It is the least strategic thing I could do. But Katie, to me, is like. Like, I've known her a while. The. The temperament with her staff stuff is obviously, like. It bothered me a lot because, like, we've known her forever, and I actually didn't know that until those stories came up. And not. I also don't think she's gonna win at this point. But I'm like, who do I wanna be governor? She's thought about the job a lot. She has, like, a really well thought out policy platform. She's actually worked on passing legislation and getting things done when she was in Congress. And I feel like she's just, like, done the work for the job more than anyone else.
- [33:06]
C
But if you would rather. Tom. I feel the same way, but I would rather like, as of right now. And I want to talk to Javier Becerra if he's willing. Now, like, I think Javier Becerra has said he wants to come on the show, but he's hoping that he and Hilton get through the other side. Right. And then, of course, we're doing an interview about a Democrat versus a Republican, which is very different than a conversation about a Democrat versus a Democrat. But, but, but as of right now, I think Tom Steyer has answered some of the harder questions better than Javier Becerra. And if Becerra. I'm voting for him. And if I'm. If I'm trying to get the best. Because I believe you. I don't think. I don't think Hilton's gonna be the governor of the state. I want the best person to be the governor of California. And right now, if there's. I want to see. And maybe also Becerra having to beat Tom Steyer would make him a stronger candidate, too. So that's. That's my kind of hope that we can get Tom Steyer through this thing so that we have a better debate and Javier Becerra has to be put through his paces if he is going to.
- [33:50]
A
Yeah, I do feel like as sort of blah as this race has been for governor, I am very open and hopeful that both, like that either Steyer or Becerra will prove me wrong and become a great governor. And you're right. Maybe if it's Becerra and Steyer in a runoff, then there's even more time for them to duke it out and show that they're ready for the job. We also got a mayoral race going on here in la. Love it. Interviewed challenger Nithya Raman for the show, who we all know and I supported Nithya, donated to her. I've known her a long time. We also reached out to Karen Bass, who has come on the show before, but she opted not to come on before the primary. Nithya and Bass are in a close race with reality TV personality turned mayoral candidate Spencer Pratt, a registered Republican, quasi endorsed by Trump, who said, I like him. I hear he's maga. I like him. And Pratt was in New York over the weekend closing the campaign like this.
- [34:46]
D
That even testing your drugs on a dog is the least of the worst of what these demons are doing to these poor animals. They're lighting them on fire, they're raping these dogs, they're abusing them, they're breeding them to the point that they die because they've been so overbred.
- [35:02]
A
Sir, this is a Wendy's.
- [35:05]
B
Yeah. I don't doubt that there's horrible things happen to animals in some of these places, but what is he. It's very weird that he decided to go to New York for several days, I think dropped $34,000 on his hotel rooms and left the state the week before the election.
- [35:18]
C
Yeah, there's billboards all around, or at least I saw. I think I saw at least two in downtown LA of him saying, like, if you're, you know, dogs, vote for Spencer Pratt. So he's trying to make this like the closing thing, that for whatever reason, they think this is something that's going to break through for them. I don't know.
- [35:33]
A
What do you guys think of this race? What do you think of the Spencer.
- [35:35]
C
Apparently Spencer Pratt's already sold the rights to do a reality show. If he, if he becomes the mayor. Here's my, Here's. I think this applies to both the governor's race and to the LA mayor's race, which is when you watch the debates, there is a. And like Steve Hilton Bianco Pet Pratt, they are capturing what is a very real frustration with Democratic governance in this state, with mismanagement, with a kind of fecklessness and lack of emotion and passion for good government and making shit work, work better, work faster, like answer people's concerns. I don't think the answer is that. That these Republicans are offering or that Spencer Pratt are offering are what we need. But the fact that there's an opening speaks to the failure of Democrats, both on policy, but also just as candidates to rise to the. To Meet what is, like, real and deep frustration with people in Los Angeles. These are all Democratic voters for almost all Democratic voters. And they have real, like, anger about. About what they feel is the decline in Los Angeles. Now, I like. I think Nithya cares deeply about the city. I think that she is thinking hard about how to actually address these issues. I think what has been a challenge in both. In that debate, I think with her on the campaign trail, is, you know, when I talked to her, she made this point which had really resonated with me, that, like, there's this feeling when you talk about Karen Basak. Where's the energy? Where's the hunger? Where's, like, the speed? Where's the sense of urgency? Right. That's been. That was about the fires, but everything else. And I wanted to see more of that from Nithya. And to be honest, I feel like, as a candidate, she hasn't shown the same kind of spirit that she's promising to bring if she becomes mayor. But I do think that she has thought a lot about how to address her housing issues. She's thought a lot about what has allowed production to leave Los Angeles. I am voting for Nithya. And my hope is that Bass and Nithya make it out of the primary so that the two of them can go head to head. And then I think that'll be, like, a great contest.
- [37:30]
B
Yeah. So I'm. Full disclosure, I'm a Nithia donor, mostly because your wife asked me to be, but I voted for Nithya, too. The reason I'm mad about the status quo, too. Like, I share a lot of Spencer's rage about the fires, especially the communications issues after the fires or during the fires. I don't think he's the answer to those problems, but I share his anger at the frustration and the problem. It wasn't just that Mayor Bass was out of the country when the fires started, although that was extremely bad and kind of, in my view, was hard to forgive. But it's, I think, hard to overstate how bad the communication was from the city during that period and how scary it was to live here when the sun would go down and the winds would pick up and you'd lie in bed being like, am I endangering my children by sticking around the city? You know, like, that's where people's heads were. And there was just, like, the communication wasn't just bad. Remember that night when there was, like, four mistaken, like, fake AMBER alerts telling people to evacuate when they didn't need to right, like, that shit is unforgivable. So that is why I voted for change. But if we were being honest, like, I do think Nithya has struggled in this race. She has struggled to articulate, like, clearly what she would do. She seems to struggle to connect with voters on the campaign trail. And then the debate was quite bad. Like Spencer Pratt, I think, defined her as like a co incumbent at the debate and she didn't seem like a challenger. And so if she makes the runoff, and I really hope she does, she's got a lot of work to do to get things back on track and to, you know, run a lot harder against whoever her opponent is and take back that kind of like, insurgent, like, I'm not the status quo message.
- [38:54]
A
It has seemed to me like in this race we've ended up with three archetypes of candidates that we see across the country and have for the last decade now, which in Bass you have someone who is very much establishment along with all of the lack of energy that comes with that. And she's kind of just, you know, like, you know, running around bragging that like, we've reduced homelessness by 17% and everyone's like walking around and you can see that you're like, 17% doesn't look like 17%. And is that a big, big number? And has also been more NIMBY on housing, has sort of gutted a lot of the housing reforms or hasn't pursued them, hasn't been a great communicator and, you know, is just kind of in the job and doesn't communicate well or a lot. And then in Nithya you have someone who is like, this is like what I was just saying about Katie Porter, right, who has really thought about these issues, who I think is a wonderful public servant and I think could be a really good public servant, but like, has not met the sort of performance related requirements of a candidate. And it is unfortunate that you can't just be ready to be good at the job and be really smart and into the policy and stuff like that and that you also need to perform. But we've said this a million times on this show forever, like that's what you need. And we also have like a lot of Democrats like that across the country. And then in Pratt you have someone who, when there is democratic governance and a person in power does not fix the problems that an area is facing. It is fairly easy for a right wing populist who's good at getting attention and no one's better at getting attention than a reality TV star to come in and tell everyone, yes, you are pissed. I'm pissed, too. And if you elect me, then you can, like, stick it to the people in charge. Even though his plans are not just cruel, they're just stupid and that he can't do them, they're against the law. Like, he doesn't have the power to do a lot of the shit he's talking about. He's just making a bunch of fucking, you know, empty promises that he's not gonna be able to fulfill if he wins, but no one cares about that. People care about, like, okay, he's angry and I'm angry. And that's an.
- [40:55]
C
It was so cool when Ithia just like, you know what? Fuck it, and drove down and said, I'm going to run for mayor. And that was. It was so exciting because it was like, you know what? She's. Nobody else is stepping up, people. No one. Everyone is frustrated with Karen Bass. There's a collective judgment that Karen Bass just, like, just didn't bring, like, the, The. The energy and, and direction that the city needs, and she's going to jump in and be the one to do it. And I've wanted that same energy in the campaign, but just as been there, like, with Bass, like, you know, she. I. When I talked to her and love it or leave it a couple. It was right before she came out, she. She ran claiming she was not going to be an mb. She put out some housing policies that were pretty good, but then they got watered down through consensus.
- [41:36]
A
Also sounds like what Becerra did.
- [41:37]
C
Right. And then you. And then she comes out against SB79 because that's what the city council is doing. Took her years to put. To put in charge somebody to make someone the czar of filming in la. Right.
- [41:50]
A
Like, she's just no deputy mayor for housing.
- [41:52]
C
And so like that. That to me, and, you know, part of why I think the campaigning does matter and why I think I want to see Nithya be a stronger candidate and stronger campaigner is because in this moment, in, like in the, in our. In politics today, how you campaign, showing that you can do it, that's a big part of what it is to be a mayor. Like, someone who's going to be out there every day, like, hitting the message, someone's going to be, like, making news all the time, showing people what you're doing, showing people what matters. Right. Like, it's not just about the kind of performance. It's not just a show.
- [42:21]
A
Yeah. Now I will Say there's been a ton of commentary on this race and analysis, people talking about it. I have no fucking idea what's gonna happen because God knows what this electorate looks like. I know, it's just. And for people who don't know la, it is 15% registered Republican. Right. And so even if Spencer Pratt in some of these polls is getting like 20%, anywhere between 20 and even as high as 30%, that's still like nowhere. What you'd need to win a general election, certainly, and maybe not even to advance in the primary. Also, the way LA is set up, Santa Monica has its own. Like if you're in Santa Monica or West Hollywood or Beverly Hills or Pasadena, like you're not voting for mayor of la.
- [43:01]
B
A lot of people think they're Pratt voters and then they're gonna get to the polls and figure out that they're not eligible. It's gonna be very.
- [43:06]
C
Because they're in LA county, because they're like.
- [43:08]
A
It could end up. So he could either surprise us and do really well, or it could be this election where just a bunch of people who don't pay attention to politics at all in other parts of LA just like dutifully vote for Karen Bass or Nithya. I don't know. So pretending that I know what's going to happen is just crazy.
- [43:24]
B
It is an interesting window into just sort of the zeitgeist of the electorate. I mean there is a anti incumbent rage across the country right now. But we're in California, a state where there's all democratic governance. And so Spencer Pratt is sort of channeling that in a different direction. It's interesting to see. It's also interesting the way he's kind of exposing the incoherence of the, the MAGA and the MAHA agenda. Like I remember when they were very mad about the COVID vaccine. And now Spencer Pratt is like, I will take all the drug addicts and I will lock them up for five days or whatever and force them into treatment. It's like, oh, okay, well that's different than the freedom agenda that we were talking about under Robert F. Kennedy, but
- [44:00]
C
okay, well they don't. Well, the way it works, it's a freedom for me, not for thee, not for them.
- [44:06]
A
I don't know if you guys are excited or looking into any other races in California, but Michael Tubbs for Lieutenant Governor, Remember, crooked contributor and former crooked guest is running for Lieutenant Governor. Love Michael. And our buddy Jake Levine is running against Brad Sherman, Congressman Brad Sherman in the California 32nd, which is Palisades and upwards towards Encino in that area. It's giving him a good challenge.
- [44:27]
C
And the hope there, right, is that he can keep Sherman because Sherman is well known in that district and is expected to sort of of leave the polls and old. He's old. But if Jake can get it to keep him under 50 and then they can go on to a runoff.
- [44:41]
A
Oh, one other thing for people watching the returns, a lot of Democrats, including John Lovett here, have held onto their ballots till the very end. And California is always notoriously late in counting ballots. And so it's a high probability that this will have a red mirage in the voting as the returns come in. Especially this year. Someone did a, a party breakdown. I think it was Galen druke that in 2022, the final party breakdown was 50% D, 29.5% R. 19.9% other. Right now, the party breakdown and the ballots that have come in and this is like election day, basically, 45.9%, 33.5%, 20.6%. So the so it's already, like, it's off. And so the first ballots that are gonna be counted are the ones that are already in. And so now the electorate could also be more red. But I am already worried about the Spencer Pratt. And who knows, Donald Trump could jump into and be like, we won. And then suddenly, we're being overtaken as the ballots are counted later in the week. So everyone should prepare for that.
- [45:47]
C
One possibility I think is, like, pretty high on the list of possibilities is on election night, you have Becerra. One HILTON two and then a couple days, it goes Becerra Stier. And then all of a sudden, Hilton is saying, I was knocked out by the Democratic machine.
- [46:01]
B
Yeah, the good news is, yeah, that message, I think, will resonate nationally. I think California voters are pretty well conditioned how stupid and long it takes us to count ballots. I wish it was faster. But see, this is why it's faster.
- [46:11]
C
This is like the whole thing. It's like, that's how it is in California. We do it the stupidest way fucking possible. Why, why every other states can count ballots in a couple of days, why does it take here two weeks? Fucking stupid.
- [46:23]
A
I think it's all the mail, right? Because if you can, if you can drop it in a mailbox on June 2nd on the day of the primary, then, like, it takes at least a couple days for the mail to get it.
- [46:31]
C
Yes, but then that is not still long. Still keeps going.
- [46:35]
A
But there's, there's some built in just because of the mail.
- [46:37]
B
Of course.
- [46:37]
A
Of course. You got to get rid of those mail in ballots. Like Trump says.
- [46:40]
B
Thank God we have mail in ballots. Our ballot is very long. It's complicated.
- [46:42]
A
There's lots of things so long.
- [46:44]
B
There's lots of positions you've never heard of. It's very. Thank God for that.
- [46:47]
A
But mail it out.
- [46:56]
B
Positive America is brought to you by ZipRecruiter. According to this copy here, a report by CNBC indicates that almost half of all hiring managers view a candidate's enthusiasm as the single most important element when evaluating them for a position.
- [47:08]
A
I don't want that enthusiasm gap.
- [47:10]
B
Yeah, I guess you don't want them too enthusiastic. You don't want them like breaking into your office. I guess you don't want them falling asleep. Yeah, there's someone climbing like World War Zing into the place. If you need to hire for your business. How can you separate the candidates who are really excited about your opportunity from the ones who are just meh. ZipRecruiter ZipRecruiter has a new feature that quickly lets you see the most interested qualified candidates first so you meet the right people faster. And now you can try it for free@ziprecruiter.com Crooked ZipRecruiter's new feature puts the most interested qualified candidates at the top of your list. ZipRecruiter's smart matching technology connects you with qualified candidates instantly. Candidates can tell you in their own words why they're interested in your job. No wonder ZipRecruiter is the number one rated hiring site based on G2. We've used ZipRecruiter a bunch of times here at Crooked. It has helped us find great applicants fast. It really shrinks down the time that the whole process takes. We found and hired some great people. We highly recommend it. It's just a great experience. Use ZipRecruiter and find enthusiastic talent fast. Four out of five employers who post on ZipRecruiter get quality candidates within the first day. Now you can try it for free at ZipRecruiter.com crooked that's ZipRecruiter.com crooked meet your match on ZipRecruiter.
- [48:25]
A
We also had more news over the weekend in the main Senate race where Graham Platner is likely to win the nomination in next week's primary. Stories in the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal reported that as his campaign began last year, Platner's wife, Amy Gertner, told a campaign staffer that Platner had exchanged sexual messages with several women. And this was after Platner and Gertner were married in late 2023, but that they had stopped before the campaign began, and Platner and Gertner had gone through therapy. The entire situation is very messy. The staffer that Platner's wife told Genevieve McDonald has since left the campaign. And she was the one who originally talked to the Wall Street Journal, and she's talked to the New York Times, and she become a public critic of Platner. Platner said that at least some of what McDonald told the New York Times wasn't true. But both he and his wife, Amy Gertner, and the campaign have all confirmed the existence of the messages. And then Janet Mills, who suspended her campaign in April, said in an interview on Sunday that actually she's still on the ballot. And she also just posted the first tweet from her campaign account since the tweet where she suspended her campaign. And it was a Happy Pride Month tweet.
- [49:36]
C
Well, that's a sort of neither here nor there. I said try.
- [49:39]
B
Try or don't.
- [49:40]
A
Yeah, yeah.
- [49:41]
C
You can't half run for office.
- [49:42]
B
Come on, what are we doing here?
- [49:44]
A
Well, you could make the argument that you kind of half ran in the first place.
- [49:48]
B
Continuation of the status quo.
- [49:49]
A
All right, what do you guys think about this latest development and how it might impact the race?
- [49:53]
B
I mean, I think the. The main risk for Platner is the cumulative impact of these stories and scandals along with the Reddit stuff, because I think Maine voters have shown to be quite willing to give him the benefit of the doubt for the past Reddit posts and accept his explanation that I was in a bad place, this happened in the past. I've grown, I've changed and moved on. I think voters are like, okay, we get that this latest. What are we calling it? Sexting scandal, this stuff was very recent. We're talking 20, 23. And so I think these days, sexual allegations of where it's just infidelity or infidelity adjacent, like, don't tend to be campaign ending. Especially when Amy Gertner said, this is a private matter. We worked through it. I love him, I have a great marriage, et cetera. But I do worry that the cumulative nature of this stuff might make voters think, one, like, is this guy a good guy? And two, what else do we not know about him? And so I think Platner's campaign can weather this. They will likely weather this. I would recommend less criticism of the media for covering the story. I think it's a valid story to cover.
- [51:02]
A
And the New York Times and Wall Street Journal ultimately got the story. Right. Right.
- [51:06]
B
And I would just say, you know, I think you have to own it. You have to own that this was shitty behavior. It was a mistake that we've moved, that the two of them have worked through privately. And then in a few days from now, that's when you sort of pivot to the message about getting back to issues. Cause that's right. That is what voters want to talk about. But there's gonna be a period of time where folks talk about this. Cause it just broke. And I think you can't scold the press for covering a thing that was valid enough that your spouse brought it forward to your campaign staff to talk to them about. So, you know, look, it's fair game, obviously, if Susan Collins was slinging nudes on Snapchat, like, we'd be talking about it. You know what I'm saying?
- [51:41]
A
So by the fall, we might be.
- [51:42]
B
We.
- [51:43]
A
Sorry.
- [51:45]
B
All that said, like, I do think what Platinum.
- [51:47]
A
He's got that hammer and sickle tattoo, too.
- [51:48]
C
Yeah.
- [51:50]
B
Which Genevieve McDonald, the platform former Platner staffer, did here is really shitty on a human level. It's unethical. If I were Amy Gardner, I would be furious. And so, you know, that part of it's pretty gross.
- [52:05]
C
Yeah. If a candidate just had the Reddit stories. I was going through a really tough time in my life, and I posted some heinous shit. It was like. And I regret it, but I've been through a lot of therapy. It had to do with my ptsd, and I'm on the other side of it. You'd be like, like, okay. Like, people grow and they change the tattoo. You'd say, I. This was stupid tattoo. I didn't understand what it meant at the time. I'm covering it up. Okay. Early in my marriage, I was a real. I was in a really shitty place, and I was having these. I was. I don't know what he was doing. Sexting, whatever. But my wife and I have worked through it, and it's a private matter. She's with. We're together because we. We love each other, and. And that's all that should really count. You'd say, okay. I feel like you add them all up together, and then there's all these insinuations that there's more coming, more coming, more coming. You see why people would be concerned. What I find sort of hard to wrap my mind around this is that why do we care about Red Flags. Right. All these are not, what kind of center is he going to be? Is he a good person? Does he have our values? Does he have a good character at root? Or is he a flawed person who's made terrible mistakes, who's trying to become a better person person? Or is the insinuation that all this adds up to evidence that he will be a bad senator who's actually not going to do the things he is claiming he's going to do, that he's going to be a Fetterman. Right. That he's going to disappoint us in some way, that he has, like, fundamental flaws. And I don't know the answer to that. What I'm amazed by is how many kind of active, hyper engaged Democrats online who do shape how we talk about these things claim to know with such certainty about this. Right. Like, they know, they know and they're so shocked that other people don't agree with them. And I, look, I'm not a Maine voter, but a lot of this is, do you think he's a bad person? Do you think that he's going to lose because of these stories, which is just another way of saying you think the voters of Maine will think he's a person of bad character? I don't know, but I just, I find that it's a lot of people kind of fighting over not whether or not Graham Platner is going to do the things he says he's going to do. And is the person he claims to be now more kind of relitigating their arguments and anger kind of at the factions of the party that they're always in dispute with?
- [54:21]
A
Yeah. In thinking about this, I was trying to separate out my personal feelings about this with my political analysis of what it means. And personally, it's like, you know, I think infidelity is a mistake and it shows poor judgment. I also, for me, it's like, it's not a deal breaker if a candidate with past infidelity issues has worked through those with their spouse to their spouse's satisfaction, which is the case here. It's like, still not great. But it's not a deal breaker. If it's a deal breaker for other people, I don't judge that either. Like, you make your own determinations. I think in the, in terms of like the timeline when everything happened, it is very clear to me, I think it's probably clear to everyone now that Graham Platner did not think he was going to be a candidate for office up until the minute he was A candidate for office and lived his life according to accordingly. And probably, you know, other people will say, well, I didn't make mistakes like he did, and I didn't get that kind of tattoo. Correct. Right. Like, he. He lived his life not thinking he would ever be a candidate for public office. And then he ran for office, and then they were like, all right, what's in the past? And all the stuff's coming out, including at the time he decided to run for office, these messages which his wife brought up to the campaign. So again, all of the accusations and all the stories about Platner have been from. About behavior and things he did before he started running for office. Right. And so for me, I think, okay, the whole, like, I've changed and I've grown. It's not about, like, I was a kid and did crazy things. It was. I was never gonna run for office. And now I'm running for office and I'm trying to be your senator. So what kind of senator are you going to be, right, politically? My analysis of this is, you're right, that, like, these things start stacking on top of each other. And I think that the larger issue for people becomes trust. Right? Because. And this is where the. Is more going to come out, or why didn't the campaign, like, first of all, some people are like, why didn't the campaign tell us this if they knew this? I don't think campaigns are necessarily in the business of dumping all of the opposition research they do on their own candidates. Not incredibly personal, painful stuff right into the public. Like, that doesn't usually happen.
- [56:21]
C
Absolutely not on this one. She came. Hey, just so you know, this is something that happened in our past, but we're good. It's not an issue. We're together, we're happy. That is never, of course, they don't come up. That's a private matter.
- [56:30]
A
Right. But I think that. Look, Andrew Kaczynski on the tattoo story, like, whose reporting I trust a lot and is a very good reporter, has the, you know, the story that maybe Platner knew what the tattoo signified sometime after he got up, before he ran. And, you know, Platner's been a little sort of sketchy on explaining that. And now this one, it was like, well, I think that she. She told the, you know, she lied to the Times, and the Times story wasn't right, but it was. So there is this. What I worry about and what I think about if I was them is like, there is a trust issue now that could become a bigger trust issue. And I do think that the campaign and Platinum might think these issues don't matter or they're private or whatever, but he has to now work to build people's trust and keep people's trust between now and November. Because people, even people who like him, are gonna start to question, well, is he telling the full truth about everything? Is there more? Are they transparent? And that to me does bear on what kind of senator you are. So I think the most important thing for them is to go and do the work and earn people's trust and take all the tough questions and give all the explanations you need until people are bored asking the questions.
- [57:42]
B
Yeah, I think you gotta probably be a little more transparent on this one also. I hear what you were saying on how you sort of think about this. I don't think most people though, draw a line when you decided to run to office for kind of like when they judge your decision making or the
- [57:54]
A
morality of those decisions.
- [57:55]
B
I think, I think if like the tattoo is a bridge too far to you, I understand that. I'm not going to tell you otherwise. I mean, what, what I, you know, when I talked to him about this, when we sort of, they showed us the video, the thing that I always stuck with me was he took his shirt off and sang that song at his, was it brother's wedding and his sister in law is Jewish. So like you have to be a real asshole to do that and display that tattoo, kind of knowing full well and being fully cognizant of what it meant at that wedding. That to me was a convincing explanation. But I've read Andrew's reporting too, that maybe there's some questions about the timeline. I think that's a fully, a totally reasonable thing to wonder about. I think the threshold question is, are there other things in this guy's past that suggest he ascribes to Nazi or fascist ideology? And that's where the Reddit archive is actually quite useful. Useful, yes, because what it shows is the exact opposite.
- [58:44]
A
I know, right?
- [58:45]
B
And then that's where I think people kind of refuse to kind of engage with this broader body of factual information that we have when we want to assess what this man believes.
- [58:55]
A
And I will say this is why I personally and people have seen me do this online. But this is why I get more frustrated with people, people's. With people being upset at the, at the tattoo thing more than if you're upset with all the old Reddit stuff and you feel like he's apologized for that, but the apology not accepted, then like, that's your decision. And I. I understand that. If you're upset about this, the sexting scandal, then, like, I understand that. But you're right. The tattoo thing, the guy just posted on Reddit again, like, he was never running for office anonymously has all these things that he said that he's now regretting, that are. Some are offensive. Whatever else, none of them even hinted that he has subscribes to any of this kind of idea.
- [59:38]
B
Sounds like a commie.
- [59:39]
A
And everyone's like, Nazis had. I saw it when we. Yeah, when we were. When you were about to interview him, Tommy, and we saw the video. I was like, what's the problem? It's a skull and crossbones. Now. Everyone now can be like, you didn't know it was a fucking tone cop? No, we knew it was a tone con. It was a. It was a skull and crossbones. And I'm sure maybe if Andrew's story is correct, then at some point someone said to Platner, hey, that skull and crossbones you've got. Did you know that's a Nazi tattoo? And he's probably like, like, well, I've been screened for the army twice, and they screened tattoos for this, and no one ever said anything. And I have a Jewish family. No one ever said anything. So maybe he then Googled it and was like, oh, yeah, it is. But again, was probably like, well, what do I. Like, I'm gonna go cover it up. I'm not. And then he did it.
- [60:15]
B
So clearly something changed. And they're thinking between when I talk to him and a couple days later. Cause when I talked to him, he was like, no, I did this. This was the deal. It was a stupid tattoo. I was an infantryman. I was in Croatia. I was a dumb kid, whatever. And a couple days later, he got it covered up, right? So something occurred to him that, oh, actually, this is a real problem. That I should. But this is where people just sort
- [60:31]
C
of call him a Nazi. And it's like. And then. Then it's like you say, well, hold on a second. Like, no one. You don't have to listen anyone. You don't have to believe anyone. You don't have to take more information in. You don't have to have a nuanced view. You can just call somebody a Nazi if you want. The reason symbols matter is because they're supposed to symbolize something, right? Like, we battle about symbols on social media because it's. That's what the medium is for. It's for taking little tokens of something and drawing a conclusion about it. It's very small space, so we do it with symbols, but the symbol has to mean something. Like, it has to be a red flag of something. Like, do you think he's a Nazi? Of course you don't. Of course you don't. You think maybe think he's a stupid tattoo, Maybe think he didn't care enough about it being a Nazi tattoo. That's a fair argument. Maybe he was pointed out he didn't take it seriously enough. That's okay. All of it's like, just. But, like, can we just have an honest conversation about it rather than, like, it's a no for me because of the tattoo. It's like, okay, that you're free to do that. We're just going to. We're just going to have the rest of the conversation, even if you don't want to have it.
- [61:27]
A
Also, the other thing, and I think ultimately here, this is up to the people of Maine, and this is up to the voters of Maine. And if this whole time he was going down and down and down and down in the polls and people were not buying this, I'm like, okay, then he shouldn't be the nominee. Or even Mill stayed in the race
- [61:45]
C
because she wanted to fight it out.
- [61:47]
A
Well, so even Mills now saying, like, I'm technically still in the race and whatever, like, that's fine if she wants to campaign for the last week and if she's on the ballot, we're gonna be talking about this race on June 9th. If the people of Maine now decide that they want Janet Mills instead of Graham Platner because of this last scandal and everything else, then, like, they should do that.
- [62:04]
C
And then.
- [62:05]
A
Then the national party should get behind Janet Mills and we'll be off to November.
- [62:09]
B
Problem was, she quit.
- [62:10]
A
Right.
- [62:10]
C
Because she saw the writing on the wall.
- [62:12]
B
Because.
- [62:12]
C
Because she. Because she didn't want to go down in her last race, which is fine.
- [62:15]
A
But if Platner gets a ton of votes in the primary and still does really well, then, like, that's what the people of Maine wanted. And they met him and they didn't. You know, it wasn't just online discourse. Like, they met him. So we gotta. We gotta kind of take the lead of the people in Maine.
- [62:28]
C
Yeah. So there's not a. Like a. I know we're all used to losing and being losers, and we talk about a loser mentality. And, like, a loser mentality is like. Like, this is bad. We have to do something else. I'm scared. I don't like, this. This is bad. I'm done with this. We can't do this. We have to do something else. And it's like, guys, he's. If. If there. If there was someone else running, you could have a debate and maybe vote for somebody else. He's right now the only person that's kind of putting up a fight. Fight for this race. If you want to say that Janet Mills should get back in, if you want to say that he should drop out. Whatever. Say what you want. But really what you're saying is, I'm worried he's going to lose.
- [62:57]
A
Well, people are also comparing it to, like, that, well, people pushed Biden out when they thought that Biden did something. But I'm like, but that was the opposite. Because in that scenario, the whole country didn't want Biden, and Biden and his campaign were saying, yes, yes, you will get him no matter what that was. This is a. This is a. This is a flip thing where. Where the voters of Maine are like, no, no, we like him. And then other people are worried about it. You know, it's just a different.
- [63:20]
C
The Biden thing is.
- [63:20]
A
So it could come to that when
- [63:22]
C
people change their minds, when nobody was challenging Biden and Biden was the nominee and it still seemed like there was a chance he could win. That was actually when we. When we would talk about how we were concerned. He wasn't addressing his age issues, but he's going to be the person. So we've got to do everything we can to help him win, because he's the only person that we're going to have. Then he eats shit. In that debate, Joe Biden thought he was having a stroke. Didn't tell us at the time, okay, babe. But, but. But then it was now clear that he could not win. And so it was time to do something in an emergency because it was pragmatic. It was crazy, it was risky, but it was actually pragmatic because it was the only hope of winning the election. Nobody can make that argument right now based on the polls around Grand Platter. They just can't.
- [63:59]
A
Yeah. All right, so that's that. I'm sure we won't talk about that anymore between now and November. One more thing we couldn't resist. Over the weekend, the New York Times published a brutal and hilarious report titled, Is J.D. vance the 2028 frontrunner? Trump has questions. According to the Times, Trump is, quote, not so sure about Vance. Trump has pointed out that Vance's political success has largely depended on Trump's support that Vance takes too many vacations, that Vance opposed the war in Iran, and that Vance, frankly, sometimes doesn't look or act very presidential. We, of course, didn't want to be unfair to jd, so we thought we'd check the tape of some of the moments in question.
- [64:33]
B
Let's.
- [64:34]
D
Let's play JD buds into conversations. What's the matter? I want to have. I want to have that for at least a couple of days. Okay? J.
- [64:47]
E
Okay.
- [64:48]
A
My wife has the right to skydive,
- [64:52]
C
but she doesn't jump out of an
- [64:53]
A
airplane because she and I have an agreement that she's not going to do that. Cuz I don't want my wife jumping out of an airplane. Well, they say it's racist to do anything.
- [65:01]
B
I had a Diet Mountain Dew yesterday and one today. I'm sure they're going to call that racist too.
- [65:05]
A
But what is this? What is. Zach, you're have to help me out with her name here. I lost my page here. Okay. All right. Now you can't boo me. I'm the Vice President, United States.
- [65:24]
B
Oh, she's again.
- [65:25]
C
Great.
- [65:26]
B
Oh my God, that's so funny.
- [65:28]
A
What did you guys think of the story?
- [65:29]
B
I love the story so much. JD Vance is just the gimp from Pulp Fiction. Trump wheels him out, out a little box, humiliates him, puts him back in. The details are so funny. Like the man who spends one third of his time at Mar a lago thinks J.D. vance takes too many vacations. Delicious. I love that Trump thought the, the trophy incident that we just watched there twice was as embarrassing as we all did and that it just exposed JD as just like a phony, non sports fan loser. I love that Susie Wiles took away JD's phone privileges and made him stop texting or tweeting like he's some, you know, like her teenage son got in trouble. That clip of Trump scolding JD for talking in meetings and not acting like some. Like CCP commissar is beautiful. Like they set him up, they went through like his failure tour. It was the Iran talks, the Viktor Orban campaign.
- [66:20]
C
Stop Indiana.
- [66:22]
B
Indiana Republicans trying to jawbone them into redistricting. Failure, failure, failure. He killed Pope Francis. People forget about that. But J.D. vance was so annoying to Pope Francis.
- [66:32]
C
Got us an American Pope, though.
- [66:33]
B
Yeah. He did get us a better pope.
- [66:34]
A
Which. Who he then.
- [66:36]
B
Now he attacks him.
- [66:37]
A
Don't be a.
- [66:39]
C
Shut up. And dribbles.
- [66:40]
A
Yeah.
- [66:41]
B
Like ultimately, like this is a win win for Trump. Right? Because if whoever comes next, if it's JD or Rubio, or whoever. If they win, Trump will say, that's because of me. If they lose, he'll say, can't win without Trump. Right. So he's pumped no matter what. But it is so fun watching him just, just, just fuck with these guys.
- [66:58]
C
One other thing that jumped out too, is the article just states it as a fact that I didn't real. Wouldn't have occurred to me as a fact that Trump is just spending more time with Rubio than He is with J.D. vance. Because Rubio is of course, not just Secretary of State, he's his war buddy, he's national security advisor. And J.D. vance can't ride on the plane with Trump because he's vice President. Vice president. Can't go on Air Force One with the president. Just doesn't happen. And so he's a little bit outside of things. I will say that. Like, like the.
- [67:26]
A
Just J.D. vance, his whole life just having FOMO.
- [67:28]
C
The. Yeah, the, the. Vance probably has more power in the Trump administration than Kamala Harris did in the Biden administration. I would say he is more actively involved. He's in the room for big decisions.
- [67:39]
A
I think they've given him almost as annoying jobs, though.
- [67:42]
C
For sure. For sure. But I think they actually listen when he says stuff.
- [67:45]
B
Not on Iran.
- [67:46]
A
That's true.
- [67:47]
C
Well, yeah, fair enough. But I mean, even though he would, by the end, Vance was saying he was in favor of doing if we're going to go big, go big or go home. So even he tried to stay on the right side of that. But anyway, I think what Trump sees is. What we see is Vance can't help but reveal his nature. He can't help it. He can't help it. He can't go into a donut shop and be normal. He doesn't know how to talk to people because he's putting on a show. But that ambitious little nerd, that
- [68:14]
D
thing
- [68:15]
C
inside of him, it just can't stop from coming out. And it makes everyone, including Trump, uncomfortable. And I love it.
- [68:20]
A
I just want to zoom in again on the social media part with my Twitter Pen pal, JD Vance. This is what the time says. In meetings, Mr. Vance frequently scrolls his phone and he uses social media to fight with his critics. The president frequently posts a truth social, but he does not spend time replying to people online as Mr. Vance does. I just love that they have separated out the kind of poster like reply guy. Trump's out there. He's posting like 30 times a night in the middle of the night. AI slap. He's. Yeah, he's He's a producer. Really? He's just putting it out and Mr. Vance is there just replying to people online.
- [68:56]
B
How dare you, sir?
- [68:57]
A
Susie, W.S. and the other staff have all gotten together to tell him to have an intervention and say that. That the fighting was beneath his office.
- [69:05]
C
The idea that anyone in that building is going to tell anyone what's beneath the office, it's insane.
- [69:10]
A
And yet they do. And yet. I believe it.
- [69:11]
C
I know. I absolutely believe it.
- [69:13]
B
But they made him say it was for Lens.
- [69:15]
A
Yeah, I know, I know. And then he's like. He's like, I liked it so much, I just kept it off my phone.
- [69:19]
C
Giving up for Lent. I love that. I love that.
- [69:22]
A
I took it off my phone finally. You did this weekend.
- [69:24]
C
I'm proud of you.
- [69:25]
A
Yeah, it was the platinum stuff that did it.
- [69:28]
B
I was like, yeah, that discourse is real fun.
- [69:30]
C
I saw it starting blowing up. I was like, I'm just gonna. I'm gonna save my thoughts for Monday.
- [69:34]
A
I was like, I can't have a grand platinum thing. And then. And then two fights going on. Dave Portnoy tweets at me and then Neera with like five tweets. I was like, I'm done.
- [69:44]
C
Yeah, you need like a. It's like the quadrennial quote, quadrennial tweet review where, like, you can't be fight. You have to be able to hold one front and also win on another front at the same time.
- [69:53]
A
I've said this before. I was like, the J.D. vance thing. Yeah, I'll fight with J.D. vance. I'm like, no, not that this is what I did this week. It was not good.
- [69:59]
C
Okay.
- [69:59]
A
Not good.
- [69:59]
B
Yeah, it's not fun.
- [70:00]
C
Nice to admit that.
- [70:01]
A
When we come back, New Jersey Senator Andy Kim will talk to me about the conditions at an ice detention center in Newark where he was also pepper sprayed by federal agents. Pod Save America is brought to you by Quints. If the temperatures heat up during summer, you want pieces that feel lighter and more breathable. Things that are easy but still put together. That's why I keep coming back to quints. They focus on high quality essentials that feel and look amazing. Well made basics, but without the luxury markup. It's that rare balance where everything feels elevated but still effortless. Quint's European linen pants and shirts are the perfect warm weather upgrade to add to your rotation. Starting at just $34, their tees are soft and easy to wear, and their lightweight cotton sweaters are perfect for cooler summer nights. Everything at Quint's is priced 50 to 80% less than similar brands. They work directly with ethical factories and cut out the middlemen. So you're paying for quality, not brand markup. Quint goes way beyond clothing. Custom upholstered sofas, ceramic cookware, premium bedding. It's the kind of brand you end up recommending to everyone for everything. I just got one of the lightweight cotton sweaters.
- [71:08]
B
Nice.
- [71:08]
A
Yeah, because it's good for, you know, it gets a little chillier at night in la, even when it's warm in the day. And so the summer sweater is perfect. Elevate your summer wardrobe. Go to quint.com crooked for free shipping on your order and 365 day returns. Now available in Canada too. That's Q U I n c e.com crooked for free shipping and 365 day returns. Quince.com crooked. Senator Andy Kim, welcome back to Pod Save America.
- [71:38]
E
Yeah, thanks for having me back.
- [71:40]
A
So for anyone who hasn't been following the story, there's a privately run ICE detention center in Newark called Delaney Hall. Around 300 people are being held inside. Some have started a hunger strike over the conditions you tried to visit last Sunday were turned away, got in on Monday, Memorial Day, and then by the end of the day you got pepper sprayed by federal agents. Can you just walk us through that whole experience and what you saw?
- [72:05]
E
Yeah, absolutely. Well, thanks for shining a light on this because this is a problem not just for us in New Jersey, but all over this country. This is a facility that has about 800 right now, several hundred of them participating in a hunger strike and the broader protests. But I was been able to go there a couple times and look, some of the things that I've heard most recently, these are people that are, for instance, a man telling me that he's got stage three lung cancer, doesn't want to be anymore willing to go back to his home country, but not being allowed to do so, not getting the medical care that he needs. You know, there's a pregnant woman there telling me that she's not getting the medical care that she needs as she's gearing up to have a baby. And she's literally looking me in the eye and she's saying like, do I need to be prepared to have a baby here in Delaney Hall? You know, they, she has no movement on her case, you know, no understanding what's happened next in the courts. You know, the woman that was translating this for me turned out to be an 18 year old high school senior who's in there by Herself. I actually talked to her mom outside of Delaney hall and she was worried sick. You can imagine having your daughter, an 18 year old high school senior, in a detention facility by herself. This is a young woman who was telling me all she wanted to do is go to the prom and graduate from high school this year. And so like, when Trump's telling you these are the worst of the worst, telling you that he's going after the violent criminals, I wanted the people across this country to just hear what I'm hearing inside the facility. And sure, they're complaining and raising the concerns about the medical care or the lack of medical care, about the horrible problems where they're having with food. Like, one man ran up to me with a milk carton and showed me what was inside and it was just congealed solid on the inside and it was disgusting. And, you know, they're raising concerns about the extreme heat that they're feeling. And I felt it too, as I'm sweating there in their room. And it wasn't even a particularly hot day. But what they were also flagging is just like the lack of any movement on their cases. I mean, some of them in there for eight months, some of them for over a year not having any movement forward in any credible way. You know, one man ran to the hallway and grabbed a piece of paper off the bulletin board and, you know, showed it to me. And it showed me that like on one day, you know, when courts came back into session after the Memorial Day weekend, on one day on that Tuesday, this one judge had 74 cases before her in, you know, in just one day. And like, you know, like I did the back of the napkin mat, that's like about five minutes per case. I mean, it's a farce of a legal process that's just, you know, keeping them there while these conditions are terrible, not moving anything forward. And who's paying the bill? It's us. It's the taxpayer dollars that are paying GEO Group millions and millions of dollars to run these facilities. So that's at least what I saw inside.
- [75:09]
A
First of all, that is just horrific. And it seems like the delay in hearing these cases is both a function of how many people they are detaining. Clearly not the worst of the worst, but a whole bunch of other immigrants, some of whom I imagine could be here legally as well as just the sort of failure to properly resource the immigration courts with enough judges and to properly resource these facilities. Is that what you took away from it as well?
- [75:44]
E
Yeah, absolutely. I mean, like, look, you Know, some of this is absolutely just, just a lack of investment as they're surging up ICE and CBP through the reconciliation bill. And I'm down here at the Capitol now because they're about to try to push another 60, 70 billion dollars towards the enforcement side. But where is the energy towards the courts? We already had millions of cases of backlog that was going to take a decade or so just to be able to get through. We all know that we need to invest in the courts, that we can have a judicial process that can hopefully take on these cases in a matter of days and weeks rather than years or even longer. And that should, you know, that backlog is what is putting so much strain on our system and is costing us so much. So that's part of it. But like, look, you can't help but think through, I mean, like, this is Geo Group, you know, for those that don't may not be following this. Geo Group is a for profit company that runs this facility, runs 19 other facilities, about 20 facilities around this country in charge of detaining over 20,000 people for ICE. This is a group that is just making money off of this all, they're just printing money off of this all. They're getting paid by the bed by the day. So they're not certainly complaining about this process. And you can't help but think, look, when Tom Holman comes from Geo Group into the White House, they run this process when they just chose, actually today is the first day of the new head of ICE that they just picked and it came again straight from Geo Group. You can't help but think this revolving door of just profiting off of this human misery. You can't help but think this is the point that they are trying to make things so bad for the detainees there, that detainees just give up and sign whatever papers that they want or whatnot. And I felt it there like there was just so little accountability. Like, as you said, I tried to get into the facility on Monday. Earlier in the day I tried to get in. I actually even let them know ahead of time and got approval to be able to go into the facility that day. I show up at the gates and the GEO Group guards are just like, no, like, you're not allowed in.
- [78:03]
A
And you're like, I'm a US Senator and I've had authorization to do this.
- [78:08]
E
I have authorization by law as well as permission to come. I literally had to call Secretary Mark Wayne Mullen. I talked to him and told him, let me inside. I have a right to Be inside. And so finally they let me inside. And I go inside and I talked to the head of GEO Group in the facility. I told him, by the way, your guards just told me that I can't come inside. And he just looked at me, he said, you're a liar. He just literally, to my face, calls me a liar. I mean, like, I give you that not because it was insulting to me, but I give you that because I want you to understand, like, the kinds of dynamics that there are. Like, that situation was very indicative to me of the lack, just a lack of care about any accountability or transparency. Like, they don't feel Geo Group doesn't feel beholden to the American people, certainly doesn't feel beholden to Congress. And that is because of just this dynamic between ICE and groups like GEO Group and CoreCivic and these other companies. They're just in a world and a league of their own. They're just operating off on their own. And because Speaker Johnson and others are just giving them that kind of carte blanche. So they were just in some, you know, in some world of their own and feel nothing, you know, and then. So when I. And then when I came out from that facility and was alerted by my team and the people on the ground that there was now like a standoff of people outside. So not only is there chaos inside. Delaney Old. But now I come out and emerge outside and see that there's a standoff between ICE agents. You know, they have a row of ICE agents that are armed, they have an armored vehicle, and they're just in a standoff with the protesters there. I mean, look, my immediate concern was like, this cannot become Minnesota. We saw what happened to Renee Goode and Alex Pretty. I was terrified that we're gonna see that type of violence and potentially bloodshed in the streets. So I was trying to figure out, like, is there any way to be able to off ramp this? Is there any way we can be able to lower the temperature? And I was talking to the head of ICE outside there, and at some point he just told me, look, we're going to just drive these vehicles, our vehicles out. And I looked across the field there, and I said, you cannot just simply plow your vehicles through a crowd of civilians. Like, you have to try to figure out how we can try to do this without the violence. And look, I was trying to see if there's any arrangement, but again, it shouldn't be just on me. When it comes to de escalation, what role are their officers supposed to play? And that's what I think was so alarming, John, is there was just, at some point, just a feeling of inevitable violence. And it was just so jarring to me. Like the ease with which ICE just went out and drove their vehicles literally through a crowd, just not even putting effort to try to avoid that circumstance. It shouldn't be that easy to have violence in the streets of America. Like, it shouldn't be that easy for federal agents that are. Are supposed to swear the same oath that I swear about protecting and defending the Constitution and supporting the American people to find themselves in a circumstance. So it's just like I saw this unfold, and immediately my instinct was to run into it and try to put myself between the ICE agents and the crowd. I was trying to keep that physical separation because that is where we saw so much of the violence escalate in Minnesota. If I could at least keep them physically separated, you know, perhaps we could avoid the worst. But it was so jarring. It was really scary just to see that type of violence in my state, frankly, anywhere in the country, and to know that this is still could very well be a problem that we see continue in my state and elsewhere.
- [82:30]
A
And so because you put your body in between the protesters and the ICE agents, the federal agents, eventually they started shooting pepper balls. I believe that there's one that struck by your feet and, you know, you inhaled it as well. Secretary Mullen and DHS are saying just a number of things that don't seem to be true and certainly are not. Your account, that there is no hunger strike, that the complaints are about certain inmates not getting or certain people that are being held by the facility not getting their ethnic food of choice, that the conditions aren't bad, that nobody was directly struck by pepper balls. About you, what do you make of just what they're saying about all of this?
- [83:21]
E
Well, first of all, just again, I saw what I saw. I talked to the people. There is a hunger strike going on inside and a larger protest us. And there are certainly people that are not getting basic care. You know, like, again, they're not asking for the moon. They're asking for just a certain baseline of human dignity as we're going, especially as we're again, keeping them there for indefinite amounts of time. I mean, I was in the medical isolation area, and there was a man there in a wheelchair. He hadn't left that room in four months because, like, that facility is just not meant to handle someone with a wheelchair. So they're like, you're stuck in this room now, like you know, and like not able to go, to go and leave. He was like, can I at least be at a hospital? And frankly, look, there was actually someone who was sent to a hospital, a woman that was sent to a hospital for quite a number of days. By the time I got there was like day 12 or 14. The family didn't even know where this woman was. They. Because ICE wouldn't tell her what hospital that she was at because of security concerns. So you can't tell them where your hospital, which hospital you're at. They couldn't tell them the nature of the severity of the problem that she had to be at a hospital. I mean, she was there for like 12 to 14 days. That's a significant amount of time in a hospital. And the family has no idea they can't visit them. And so I asked, what can the family do to learn about this? And literally, like, it breaks my brain thinking about this. Like, ICE looked me in the eye and said, oh, the family can FOIA this information. Just like thinking to myself, like, what their family member could be in some life threatening situation at a hospital and you want them to FOIA this information about their loved one. Like, that's like the, just the craziness of this. So, like when, you know, when Secretary Mullen or others say this, you know, they're just in like damage control mode. They saw what happened in Minnesota when the American people actually saw what was happening. And the American people, they're smart about this. They understand that there are just lines that should not be crossed. And whether that's for American citizens or anybody in this country. And frankly, look, a lot of the people I met with at Delaney hall, they are married to American citizens and parents of kids that are American citizens. You know, that's what I think they're afraid of. They're afraid that the American people will understand and learn the truth about what is happening in our name with our money, but without our say and without our approval. And that's just wrong. And that's what needs to be changed here. We have the capacity to do so. It's just a matter of political will that this administration refuses to put towards this.
- [86:19]
A
I know that Governor Sherrill sent in state police to help set up protest zones and sort of asked demonstrators to lower the temperature. Some of the activists outside Delaney heard that as her policing them instead of the Feds. Where do you come down on some of the tension between trying to conduct oversight, give people a safe space to protest, while also trying to maintain safety in the general area.
- [86:47]
E
Yeah. I mean, first of all, look, I mean, this is chaos that is inherited from ICE that they have been fomenting. And look, they've been threatening to bring many, many more ICE agents to New Jersey, basically threatening a surge similar to Minnesota. So I understand, look, we're going to try to avoid that scenario, but look, there are legitimate concerns at Delaney hall, and as a result, there are legitimate reasons to be able to protest that. And I want to make sure that we are trying to address that. We are allowing that kind of space. I get it. We can't have this unrest continue on. In fact, I'm hearing it from the families of the detainees, saying that it's been preventing them from being able to visit their loved ones, that attorneys are not able to get access because, you know, because of some of the roads have been shut down and other things. So, like, look, like we want to make sure we're not getting in the way and losing sight of what we're really trying to address, which is the detainees and their conditions. But, like, there's got to be a way that we can do this, you know, while we are also making sure that, you know, people have the rights afforded to them in the Constitution, especially for free speech. So, like, I'm trying to work on this, trying to address this. I talked with not only the governor's team, but also, you know, Mayor Baraka from Newark to try to think through, like, what other steps, what other ways can we do this that isn't going to just further inflame, you know, what is already this horrible situation that ICE has thrown our state into. But, you know, it is difficult, but I'm trying my best to be able to push forward in a way that is going to make sure that, again, we're keeping the needs and apply to the detainees front and center here.
- [88:36]
A
As you mentioned, one opportunity to sort of make some change here is the Senate's scheduled to consider this $72 billion budget bill, funding for ICE that would fund ICE through the end of Trump's term. Obviously, it doesn't seem like Democrats have the votes to stop it in the Senate because it would only require 51 votes. But are you and or other Democrats planning to offer any amendments that you think might actually be able to pass with some Republican support that might rein in some of the abuses we're talking about or, you know, make any kind of corrections to some of the things that you saw?
- [89:15]
E
Well, look, here's what I lay out for you. I mean, there are a whole slew of problems that are facing Delaney. And I want people to know like, it's not that Delaney, Delaney is not some bad apple. That is just, we just have to address that. This is a system wide failure and problem. As I said, GeoGroup's got 19 other facilities, CoreCivic and other. I mean now ICE is trying to build these warehouse detention facilities and hopefully we can push back and stop this. But there's a broader problem, systemic, not just in the culture, but just in the broader process. And that's what I'm trying to expose. So there's three things in particular I'm trying to push towards both through the legislation as through other means. First, let's surge some medical support to Delaney and these other facilities. There are clearly people who are not getting the care that they need. And Secretary Mulling can dispute that. But again, it's not what I'm hearing, it's not what I'm seeing. And I just don't see why anyone's gonna stand the way and say let's, let's just try to see. I mean the DHS has a medical unit. You know, we can be able to surge up there in that kind of capacity right away. Like right now they have one doctor for one full time doctor for about 800 detainees. You know that many of them have significant medical concerns. So like that's what I'm trying to do initially, like let's surge up there. Let's have, you know, number two, like let's have like a real investigation into these different claims that are out there, whether it's about the food or the other conditions. And number three, the detainees were very clear with me that it's not just about the conditions, it's about having that movement forward on their cases. So I'm trying to again take what I'm hearing and figure out how to put it in action. I've been talking to Secretary Mullen this week, telling him what I'm hearing on the ground, trying to see what we can move forward because they can do this on their own if they wanted to. Right? Right now they could demand additional doctors, they could demand efforts to be able to surge this and that's what I hope people understand. Geo Group got a nearly billion dollar contract for Delaney Hall. So they could hire more doctors tomorrow, today, but that's going to be less profit for them. They could have better quality food or fix the extreme heat that I'm hearing. But then again that's cutting into their profits. Right? So we can change that. So I have been and will continue to be Pushing for amendments along these lines of just saying, like, let's have a baseline of medical resources available. I hope we can all agree that regardless of the circumstances that someone's in there, like we want to make sure that they're getting some semblance of medical care for key needs. You know, I'm trying to push forward on something that is about de escalation trade. I literally submitted that amendment before I even went back to Delaney hall about how we can ensure that there's de escalation training for ICE and CBP after what we saw in Minnesota. And every single Republican on the Homeland Security Committee voted against my amendment. And then I went back to Delany and saw and experienced what I did. So I'm pushing for it. But again, this is something where we really need the American people to kind of come behind us, us on this. The only times we've seen this administration back down or pull back has been when there is wide public outrage. We saw that with Minnesota. We see that. Actually just today it looks like we're seeing it when the Trump administration seems to be backing off that $1.8 billion slush fund for January 6th rioters. I hope that's true, that they're backing off of that, that. But like, you know, that's what we really need is, is for us to say like, you know, this cannot be what is happening in our country and to be able to try to stop it. And I know, you know, reconciliation and voteramas in the Senate. This is not like must watch tv, like this is not something that's gonna necessarily like, you know, have people tuning in at whatever God out God awful hour in the middle of the night that the Republicans force us to vote on these. But I ask people please, for my stay for our country, please tune in to what is happening. Because what they're trying to do is give upwards of $70 billion more for ICE and CBP. Not only is there no reforms and accountability in there like what Americans have been demanding since Minnesota, but there's not a dollar in there for you to help you with your healthcare. There's not a dollar in there for you to help you with your groceries or for the rising gas prices. There's nothing in it for you. It's just more money that's going straight into geo groups pockets to just continue this lawlessness that we see. This cannot stand. And this is something that we have to do everything we can to let people know and try to push back against this in Congress.
- [94:26]
A
Senator, I know you have to run because you, you're working on this issue. But I just wanted to say thank you for joining us, and thank you for everything you're doing to highlight this issue, including literally putting your body in the way at Delaney. So please let us know how we can help. And thank you again.
- [94:47]
E
Yeah, thanks so much for shining a light on this. It's so important.
- [94:57]
A
Thanks to Andy Kim for coming on. Alex Wagner and I will be back with a new show on Friday. Pod save america is a crooked media production. Our show is produced by austin fisher, saul rubin, mckenna roberts, and farah safari, with reed sherlyn, elijah cohn, and adrian hill. Our team includes matt de groat, ben hethcote, jordan cantor, charlotte landis, kirill pel? Aviv, david towles, mia kellman, ryan young, and naomi sengel. Our staff is pro proudly unionized with the writers guild of america east.