Trump White House Secrets Revealed

Summary

Pod Save America – "Trump White House Secrets Revealed"

Date: December 19, 2025
Hosts: Jon Favreau & Dan Pfeiffer

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Episode Overview

This episode digs into the aftershocks of a bombshell Vanity Fair feature on Trump’s chief of staff, Susie Wiles, who gave a revealing series of interviews about the inner workings of the Trump White House. Jon and Dan break down reactions to these leaks, discuss Trump’s chaotic primetime address, the push for war with Venezuela, controversial executive orders, leadership crises in Congress, and the DNC’s secretive postmortem on the 2024 election. The tone is sharp, irreverent, and deeply critical, consistent with the Pod Save America brand.

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Main Topics & Discussion Breakdown

1. Trump’s Primetime Survivor-Interrupting Address

[03:34 – 12:24]

Key Points

• Trump cut into the "Survivor" finale for a primetime speech, defending his economic record and touting tariffs.
• The hosts ridicule the address as “an angry old man…yelling at us about how the economy is actually great” ([03:25] Favreau).
• Trump’s tone and “festival of narcissism” alienated viewers, offering little news except a military bonus with a kitschy $1,776 themed payout, funded by reprogramming troops’ housing funds.
• Networks criticized for giving Trump undeserved airtime for a speech with no real purpose except political chest-thumping.

Notable Quotes

• “It sounded like an angry old man who’d taken too much Adderall, yelling at us about how the economy is actually great.”—Jon Favreau (03:20)
• “From a strategic point of view, this is an epic disaster... He might as well just go around and stick his thumb in the eye of every persuadable voter in America.”—Dan Pfeiffer (05:33)
• “Rule number one, you don’t give a speech when you have nothing to say. He didn’t have anything to say.”—Jon Favreau (08:46)

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2. Susie Wiles’ Vanity Fair Exposé: “How Does This Happen?”

[13:09 – 32:13]

Key Points

• Wiles gave 11 open interviews to Vanity Fair's Chris Whipple, dropping unvarnished opinions on Trump staff (“J.D. Vance has been a conspiracy theorist for a decade,” “Elon Musk is an avowed ketamine user,” etc.) and White House dysfunction.
• Despite huge embarrassment, Trumpworld instantly defended Wiles—suggesting her value is in never saying “no” to Trump.
• The interview process included a full-day glossy photo shoot; hosts mock the Trump administration hypocrisy for condemning the mainstream press but craving its approval.
• Particularly damning: Wiles’ descriptions of Trump’s vengeful motives, her own role as an “enabler,” the ad hoc approach to major decisions (Ghislaine Maxwell’s prison move), and the flippancy about war plans.

Notable Quotes

• “What an absolutely amusing, enjoyable disaster. How do you do 11 on the record interviews?... This would have failed the test at the end of the first week of press secretary school.”—Dan Pfeiffer (15:04)
• “The idea that they all hate the press is such bullshit…They absolutely thirst for the approval of the mainstream media establishment.”—Dan Pfeiffer (15:43)
• “Susie Wiles herself…basically calling herself an enabler…Her job is not to protect Trump from himself—it’s to let Trump do whatever he wants.”—Dan Pfeiffer (23:16)
• “Each revelation…none of them really make Donald Trump look too bad in Donald Trump’s mind.”—Jon Favreau (28:40)

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3. The Venezuela War Push – Oil, Armadas, and Manufactured Crises

[32:13 – 44:30]

Key Points

• Trump and advisor Stephen Miller are openly pitching U.S. military action to force Venezuela to hand over “oil, land, and…assets”—on pretexts ranging from anti-drug operations to righting ancient wrongs to U.S. oil companies.
• The rationale is dissected and debunked: the oil was nationalized decades ago, any “U.S. rights” are fiction, and there is zero congressional appetite for war (“18% support, 66% oppose” military force, per a poll).
• The shifting targets—from Mexican cartels to Venezuela—are portrayed as arbitrary and deeply unserious.
• Hosts lampoon the “mask off” moment where Trump admits the war premise is simply to help ExxonMobil.

Notable Quotes

• “It is literally invading a country so that ExxonMobil can start pumping again.”—Jon Favreau (36:21)
• “The entire philosophy of the Republican Party over the last decade is just, own the libs at all costs. And I think this is just…like, I don’t feel owned as a lib myself.”—Dan Pfeiffer (78:29)
• “We went to war in Iraq for oil—and even the Bush administration knew not to admit it. Trump’s just like: ‘We’re invading Venezuela for oil.’”—Dan Pfeiffer (37:04)

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4. Executive Orders: Marijuana Reform and Gender-Affirming Care Ban

[46:40 – 51:54]

Key Points

• Trump signs an executive order reclassifying marijuana for research (not legalization), after heavy industry lobbying.
• RFK Jr. issues a more draconian executive order: federal funds to hospitals are cut if they provide gender-affirming care to minors. This move is unlikely to survive legal challenges, but its chilling effect is immediate.
• The discussion frames these moves as transactional (marijuana) or as part of a campaign to “define trans people out of existence” (gender-affirming care).

Notable Quotes

• “It is the cruel and capricious federal government turning its sight on the most vulnerable population possible and bullying them…”—Dan Pfeiffer (50:23)
• “This is a minor step…not full legalization. He cannot do that. It would require Congress.”—Dan Pfeiffer on weed policy (51:54)

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5. House GOP Chaos: Obamacare Subsidies and Discharge Petitions

[53:12 – 61:29]

Key Points

• Trump shows ignorance and indifference toward efforts to extend ACA subsidies.
• Speaker Mike Johnson is losing control of the House; a string of discharge petitions are forcing votes he’s tried to prevent.
• The Democratic strategy under Hakeem Jeffries is credited for leveraging these divisions.
• The hosts dissect the GOP’s self-inflicted strategic mess, highlighting the party’s vulnerability on health care ahead of 2026.

Notable Quotes

• “If you have to answer the question, ‘Have you lost control of the House?’, you’ve lost control of the House.”—Dan Pfeiffer (54:23)
• “The shutdown worked from a political perspective. Healthcare affordability is on the agenda; it was not even being talked about before.”—Dan Pfeiffer (59:19)

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6. DNC’s Election Autopsy: Promises Broken, Lessons Shelved

[64:32 – 74:36]

Key Points

• Despite promises, the DNC decides not to release its in-depth postmortem of the 2024 campaign.
• The decision is slammed as focused on not “messing with momentum” or angering internal factions.
• Jon and Dan criticize the party’s habit of hoarding insights from the grassroots and local campaigns, undermining activist trust, and repeating complacency seen after the 2022 midterms.

Notable Quotes

• “This is an infuriating, stupid, and self-defeating decision because of cowardice and caution and complacency.”—Dan Pfeiffer (71:14)
• “On days like this…I agree, because it seems like…if you’re in the club, you get the report and you get the information. For all you plebs out there, we think this is going to hurt the party, so we don’t want you to have the information.”—Jon Favreau (72:06)

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7. Trump’s Presidential Plaque Capers & The Kennedy Center Farce

[76:16 – 82:53]

Key Points

• Trump spends time penning insult-laden, self-aggrandizing plaques to hang beneath portraits of past presidents on the “Walk of Fame” (e.g., Barack Obama: “one of the most divisive political figures in American history”).
• The board of the Kennedy Center (stacked with Trump loyalists) votes to rename it the Trump Kennedy Center—despite this being legally questionable and broadly mocked.
• The hosts riff on potential Democratic responses if they retake the White House, leaning into the pettiness of these stunts.

Notable Quotes

• “Who is this shit for? Who is that for?”—Jon Favreau on Trump’s presidential plaques (77:24)
• “It is stunning the lengths to which they will go to not work on making people’s lives better.”—Dan Pfeiffer (77:24)
• “I just feel like you’re a pathetic fucking…What are you doing?”—Jon Favreau (78:42)
• “The entire philosophy of the Republican Party over the last decade is just, own the libs at all costs. And I think this is just a—like, I don’t feel owned as a lib myself. Like, I do not care.”—Dan Pfeiffer (78:29)

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Memorable Moments & Banter

• Jon and Dan roast the Trump team’s eagerness for magazine coverage, despite publicly lambasting the media: “They absolutely thirst for the approval of the mainstream media establishment…” ([15:43])
• The hosts delight in the photographer’s brush-off of Stephen Miller:
  “You know, you have a lot of power in the discretion you use to be kind to people.”
  “You know, you do too.” —Stephen Miller & Chris Anderson ([19:32])
• The farce of Trump’s “surround Venezuela with an armada” plans is lampooned as “so fucking stupid…It’s just so confusing for the American people” ([37:02]) and a “mask-off moment.”
• Mockery of the White House’s time spent on trolling décor:
  “Who is this shit for?” ([77:24]) and calls to retaliate by hanging a “mugshot” in the White House.

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Timeline of Important Segments

• [03:34–12:24] — Trump’s primetime address and its fallout
• [13:09–32:13] — Susie Wiles’ Vanity Fair interviews and White House disarray
• [32:13–44:30] — Venezuela war fever and the oil expropriation myth
• [46:40–51:54] — Executive orders on marijuana and gender-affirming care
• [53:12–61:29] — ACA subsidies, House GOP turmoil, and discharge petitions
• [64:32–74:36] — DNC’s refusal to release election autopsy and intra-party frustrations
• [76:16–82:53] — Trump’s plaque trolling, the Kennedy Center fiasco, and pettiness in presidential décor

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Conclusion

In trademark Pod Save America fashion, Favreau and Pfeiffer guide listeners through a week of damning revelations, political self-owns, and the pettiness of the Trump era—using humor, policy expertise, and open exasperation. The main thesis: while the Trump White House indulges in media thirst and stunts, real issues fester, and Democrats risk repeating old mistakes by hiding lessons that need to be learned.

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Transcript

[Jon Favreau]

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[Dan Pfeiffer]

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[Donald Trump]

Good evening, America. Eleven months ago, I inherited a mess and I'm fixing it. We had men playing in women's sports. Transgender for everybody. And our country was laughed at from all over the world, but they're not laughing anymore. Much of this success has been accomplished by tariffs. My favorite word, tariffs. I negotiated directly with the drug companies and foreign nations to slash prices on drugs and pharmaceuticals by as much as 400, 500, and even 600%. One year ago, our country was dead. We were absolutely dead. Our country was ready to fail. Totally failed. Now we we're the hottest country anywhere in the world.

[Jon Favreau]

Needs more Garland.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

It's very festive there at the White House.

[Jon Favreau]

Fucking jungle. So, Marist poll from this week, guess which percentage of Americans have some degree of concern about the impact of tariffs on their financial situation?

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Would it be 2/3 of Americans, John?

[Jon Favreau]

It would be 2/3 of Americans, Dan, as the host of Polar Coaster right here. Go check it out. Subscriber only show cricket.com oh, an organic plug.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

I love it.

[Jon Favreau]

You know, I should have named this as one of my New year's resolutions. Around 60% oppose the tariffs. And he just. It's like the main policy he implemented that is causing people to feel that prices are too high and that they can't afford life. Is the one he keeps bragging about in the speeches where he's supposed to allay people's concerns about affordability.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

He can't help himself. He can't help himself.

[Jon Favreau]

What'd you think of the speech? What'd you think of the speech? He didn't start like an old man on Adderall yelling. But if you could tell by the last couple clips we did, he really picked up some scene there. He was trying to get it done by 20 minutes and God help him, he did.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

I have a lot of thoughts on this, but just from a basic strategic point of view, this is an epic disaster. It serves no purpose. If the goal was to improve his political standing. If it does anything, it does the opposite. Because you just can't tell people. You have 2/3 of Americans who think prices are too high. 2/3 of Americans are unhappy with the direction of country. Two thirds of Americans who are unhappy with the economy, majorities who disapprove of his economic performance, which is now in the 30s in most polls and even lower than in the low 30s when it comes to inflation. You can't tell them that things are good. That it's like just. He might as well just go around and just stick his thumb in the eye of every persuadable voter in America. Cause that's what he's doing. From a strategic point of view, it makes no sense. It is absolute disaster. Poorly delivered. I got a lot of thoughts on the networks giving him the time for this.

[Jon Favreau]

They kind of got snowed, huh? Like, first of all, it's hard, as we know, right? It's hard to get. You've actually asked networks for time. I imagine it is. It's hard to get time from the networks for a primetime speech that interrupts their primetime programming. Particularly the three hour season finale of.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Three hours. Wow.

[Jon Favreau]

Season failure of Survivor. I know.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Imagine if we had to watch Lovett for three hours in that finale.

[Jon Favreau]

I was gonna say that's quite a hypothetical.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

I'd say that.

[Jon Favreau]

But lucky for us, that was about three minutes.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Imagine if we had to watch me in the NBA Finals. Oh, man.

[Jon Favreau]

Yeah. So they don't like to give that up. They especially don't like to give up primetime to presidents when they make purely political speeches and have in fact turned down presidents. President Obama, in fact, for that they deem too political. And this one is like, you know, Joe Biden was a senile old man and he fucked up the country. And you know, it's like, what is he doing?

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Yeah, there was no news. We'll get to the fake news in here in a minute. But there's no real news in the speech. There's no purpose, like to get this time. And this time was obviously much more valuable in the 2000 and tens than it is now. But still, this is during the survivor finale. It's CBS's biggest, I would assume, non sports night of the year. And normally you need to be responding to a national tragedy, declaring war, a major piece of legislation that is passing. Maybe it's very in the first 100 days of your presidency, but it's just a year end wrap up rally speech is not something you would get time for. And even in the past if they gave it to you, they would have given a response time to the other party. Whereas like a Hakeem Jeffries or Alyssa Slack or whatever else could have responded. So they just gave it to him. And that does, I think, speak to the way in which Trump has intimidated major media companies. Right. Like you think CBS in the midst of the, you know, trying to get control of Warner Brothers Discovery is going to turn them down. Do you think the Disney company wants another fight with Trump? So they're going to turn down to abc, Comcast, which is also looking at various mergers. You think they're going to turn them down for NBC? No. This is where Trump has bullied the President. Giving him something they would not have given another president.

[Jon Favreau]

Yeah. And you know, their fault for doing it, but also kind of glad they did. Do it again.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Here's my thing. On a purely principled point of view, it's absurd. They gave it to him. Do it again. Do it tomorrow. Once a week.

[Jon Favreau]

Once a week, Every Wednesday. Let's go back to Trump. Yes, it's the fireside chat of 2026 old Donny Trump. Every once a week he's gonna come, he's gonna yell at us about how good everything is and why we should be mad at Joe Biden if we're not happy and just yell some more. And that's great. And all these people who've tried to tune out Donald Trump and aren't paying too much attention to politics when he jumps into their screen and starts yelling at them, maybe they'll think about that when they go to vote in the midterms. So yeah, rule number one, you don't give a speech when you have nothing to say. You didn't have anything to say. The, the only nugget of news I guess you could call it is he announced that there would be a bonus, a bonus stipend for troops. For all the troops. All of our troops getting a bonus stipend. You know how much that bonus stipend is? $1,776.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

What are the odds of that?

[Jon Favreau]

Get it because, because it's 250th anniversary coming up.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Clever, that guy. He's a marketer.

[Jon Favreau]

I know. First of all, for the average salary that someone in the military makes, that's like a 2 to 3% bonus. So nice bonus, very generous. And then we found out, actually, where's he getting the money from this. Well, he's getting the money from the housing stipend that Congress appropriated for the troops.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Yeah. So he's robbing Peter to pay for.

[Jon Favreau]

Once again, once again, just, you know, once a scammer, always a scammer.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

And that, I mean, that was the only news in the speech. Like Karen Levitt had teased a new policy. I mean, we did think, and we'll get to this later, but like, there all the rumors were, and this goes to the gravity of getting the national time is that if Trump was getting the national time, it probably meant we were going to war with Venezuela. Instead, we were going to war with Joe Biden.

[Jon Favreau]

And the facts, which honestly makes sense from a political perspective for the White House, which is like, do we want to make our insane case for war with Venezuela or should we just do it and have him just lie to people about how good the economy is instead?

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Yeah, except the line, neither are good choices. But just. I really can't emphasize enough how politically negative it is. It's toxic to when people are mad about the economy to tell them that things are great. I said this before. You, and I have watched focus groups where people have literally tried to flip the table over. They're so mad when you give them a message that suggests that they're wrong and things really are good. And he seems, which I think is true, out of touch and delusional with how people actually feel because he really, it's like, it's all Golden Age of America, pat ourselves on the back. More progress than anyone has ever seen before done more than every president ever in the history of time. And no one even, like, other than his, like, true fanboys and like the true MAGA base, no one believes that large. The majority of people who voted for him don't believe it. And so you sound crazy when you say it.

[Jon Favreau]

And, you know, a big part of it is his delusional narcissism. But I think all presidents can find themselves in a bubble once they're in the White House. And, you know, at the end there, that last clip he was talking about, you know, all these foreign leaders come up to me and say, the country's so hot, it's never been better. It's like you know who used to say that? Actually, it's Joe Biden. Remember, he would say, all the foreign leaders tell me that we're doing a great job, that we're coming back and all this kind of stuff. And it's like, yeah, first of all, one of the reasons that the foreign leaders might be telling you that is because they are kissing your ass because you're the American president and so they are telling you nice things. And also they probably have the same frustrations with their people. And so they're all like, they're all defensive foreign leaders all talking to each other like, oh, we're doing so good and look at all the great decisions we're making and why aren't people happier with us?

[Dan Pfeiffer]

It is like Joe Biden would not have given a nationally televised address like this. That would not have happened. But there is similarities in both their economic message and the way they frame their presidency. And even this is, even in the way they frame president. It's less Biden and more the people around Biden who would just would insist on calling him like the greatest president since LBJ or FDR at every time. Which, like you can believe that, but no. And you even, maybe even have some sort of case based on your legislative record if you want to make that case. But that's, that just rings so hollow to voters who are giving you a 41% approval rating at the time. Like, you just, you just sound crazy. You sound absolutely crazy.

[Jon Favreau]

Then more of a show not tell thing, you know.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Yeah, that's a. These are two very core speech writing rules, which is don't give a speech if there's nothing to say. More showing, less telling.

[Jon Favreau]

That's right. So the reporters that were in the room for the speech said that after it was over, Trump turned to Susie Wiles and said some version of, quote, Susie told me I had to give an address to the nation, which is notable for a few reasons. One being that Susie Wiles still has a job and influence with the President after her Vanity Fair Tell all was published this week. In case you have not heard yet, Wiles spoke to writer and historian Chris Whipple on the record knowingly 11 separate times over the last year, which resulted in candid observations like J.D. vance, quote, has been a conspiracy theorist for a decade. Pam Bondi, quote, completely whiffed on the Epstein files. Russ Vogt is an absolute right wing zealot. Elon Musk is an avowed ketamine user. As for her boss, Donald Trump, Weil said that he has an alcoholic's personality admitted that revenge is his motivation for trying to prosecute Tish James and James Comey, that she was aghast at Elon feeding USAID to the wood chipper, that, quote, overzealous Border Patrol agents might be responsible for mistakenly deporting people, and that Trump did in fact, fly on Epstein's plane. Trump and nearly every senior administration official have decided to respond to the piece by defending Wiles in a series of very embarrassing tweets. They also are all blaming Vanity Fair for the crime of printing the words that she said to them, which were also recorded on audio tape. And just for fun, the piece was accompanied by a glossy photo shoot that included some horrifying close ups of Wiles, J.D. vance, Marco, Stephen Miller and Caroline Levitt. Dan, putting your old White House communications director hat on, what did you think watching all this play out?

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Just what an absolutely amusing, enjoyable disaster. Like, how does this happen? How do you do 11 on the record interviews? And just like, I mean, I guess we've seen this people do this before and we've seen Trump aides do this before. This is what brought down Steve Bannon and Scaramucci when they work for Trump, is they begin treating these reporters as something between a confidant and a therapist. And you start having these conversations and it is like, basically, this is the White House chief of staff. There has been nothing but praise for how savvy and smart she is, and she obviously did a good job running that campaign, but she would have failed the test at the end of the first week of press secretary school by the way she handled this interview, which is absolutely embarrassing. The other part about this is, and we can get into the individual revelations and what they mean, but just from a pure communications perspective and just looking at them is the idea that they all hate the press is such bullshit. Susie Wiles obviously is talking to Chris Wilbur because she wants to shape her own legacy as a chief of staff. That's why she would do this. But here you have these people like Stephen Miller and J.D. vance and Marco Ruby who go on the. They, you know, they go on cable or go on Fox and they shit all over the press. And J.D. vance just the other day tweeted about how terrible the mainstream press was. And then they get the fucking glam squad to show up in the White House and do their hair and makeup for a photo shoot for Vanity Fair, a publication that has the word vanity in it. Like, they actually, they, like, they absolutely thirst for the approval of the mainstream media establishment. Stuff that they love to just in a professional wrestling, like, fake way, trash on tv. It's just so revealing about how vacuous the whole shtick is.

[Jon Favreau]

You know how long the photo shoot took?

[Dan Pfeiffer]

I don't. Tell me.

[Jon Favreau]

An entire day for all of them? Yes. So the Wall Street Journal has a sort of details on how this all came together and why she decided to do the interview and the photo shoot and all that photoshoot took an entire day. I'll just read you one. One paragraph from the story. White House officials said there was no Machiavellian master plan by Wilds to participate in the interviews with Vanity Fair writer Chris Whipple. After coming to like Whipple, she agreed to talk to him regularly about what was going on in the White House. Often on the weekend. She told others that it was for a historical project. The conversations weren't minded by a White House press staffer. Yeah, no shit. Wiles told others that she respected Whipple and was upset by the final stories that were published on Tuesday. Unbelievable.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Is this the point at which you and I are required for journalistic purposes to disclose that we participated this very same Vanity Fair photo shoot in 2009?

[Jon Favreau]

We sure did. We sure did, Dan. Didn't take an entire day, though. Probably took an entire day for everyone that they. Because they did the whole. They did like. There's like eight, 10 different pictures or something.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Yeah, they did the cat by department. A bunch of different staffs. They. Yeah, a whole bunch of people. Yeah, but I think it probably took 15 minutes is the full extent of it. I don't think we got hair and makeup either. Which they have the picture.

[Jon Favreau]

Which definitely not. What.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Does not suggest that we did. I'll tell you.

[Jon Favreau]

That had my shaved head and it was me. Me, you, Alyssa and Bobby Gibbs and Ellen Moran. That was our. That was our picture.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Well, no, ours was. Alyssa was.

[Jon Favreau]

Oh, no, we didn't have Alyssa and ours.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

We have Alyssa. Yeah. Alyssa was in with the scheduling people.

[Jon Favreau]

Scheduling. Yeah. No, we did it. Well, we didn't shit out all over Vanity Fair. I think it was like. Right. Was it the first week we were there?

[Dan Pfeiffer]

It was. I think so. We were in the transition headquarters. I think we were transitions.

[Jon Favreau]

Yeah. Yeah. So they also talked to the photographer. Someone interviewed the Chris Anderson.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

This guy was great.

[Jon Favreau]

He pointed out that. Or he revealed, I should say that Caroline Levitt has her own personal groomer that was there. And I don't know if you've seen anyone. Go check it out if you're feeling brave. The close up of Caroline Levitt.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Yeah.

[Jon Favreau]

That's, I mean, look, it looks like there was some lip filler. And which I'm saying this because it was all over the Internet. And Chris Anderson was asked about it in his interview, and he said, well, what can I say? That's the makeup she puts on. Those are the injections she gives herself if they show up in a photo. What do you want me to do?

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Did you see the. I saw this. This is like unverified. Cause I just saw this on Instagram. But the conversation between the photographer and.

[Jon Favreau]

Stephen Miller, I have it right here. Yes.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Okay. Please go ahead, read it.

[Jon Favreau]

Yes, real anecdote. Real anecdote. This is just. It's just fun for us. We deserve this. He said, I'll give you a little anecdote. Stephen Miller was perhaps the most concerned about the portrait session. He asked me, should I smile or not smile? And I said, how would you want to be portrayed? We agreed. We agreed that we would do a bit of both. And then when we were finished, he comes up to me to shake my hand and say goodbye. And he says to me, quote, you know, you have a lot of power in the discretion you use to be kind to people. And I looked at him and I said, you know, you do too.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

That's so good. So good.

[Jon Favreau]

He didn't look great.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

He didn't look good. I mean, like, don't.

[Jon Favreau]

Never does.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Don't put, like, what. What photographer could.

[Jon Favreau]

That's what I'm saying. The guy's only. The guy's only human. Pod Save America is brought to you by hims. Confidence shouldn't be complicated. Through hims, you can skip the guesswork and get access to care that actually fits your lifestyle. All things are possible through HIMS straightforward, stress free, and designed around you. Through HIMS, you can access personalized prescription treatment options for ED, like hard mints and SexRx plus climax control. What if prescribed? Don't get too excited yet. HIMSS offers access to ED treatment options ranging from trusted generics that cost 95% less than brand names to hard mints. If prescribed, you shouldn't have to go out of your way to feel like yourself. HIMSS brings expert care straight to you with 100% online access to personalized treatment plans that put your goals first. This isn't one size fits all care that forgets you in the waiting room. It's your health and goals put first with real medical providers making sure you get what you need to get results. Think of HIMS as your digital front door that gets you back to your old self with simple 100% online access to trusted treatments for ED and more, all in one place. To get simple online access to personalized, affordable care for ED, weight loss and more, visit hims.com crooked that's hims.com crooked for your free online visit hims.com crooked actual price will depend on product and subscription plan. Featured products include compounded drug products which the FDA does not approve or verify for safety, effectiveness or quality. Prescription required. See website for details, restrictions and important safety information. Pods of America is brought to you by ZBiotics Pre alcohol Christmas parties, holiday dinners, late night gift wrapping with a glass of eggnog. It's the season for celebration. Just don't forget the Zebiotics Pre Alcohol or Probiotic drink. Zebiotics Pre Alcohol Probiotic Drink is the world's first genetically engineered probiotic. It was invented by PhD scientists to tackle rough mornings after drinking. Here's how it works. When you drink, alcohol gets converted into a toxic byproduct in the gut. It's a buildup of this byproduct, not dehydration, that's to blame for rough days after drinking. Pre alcohol produces an enzyme to break this byproduct down. Just remember to make pre alcohol your first drink of the night. Drink responsibly and you'll feel your best tomorrow. We just had our cricket holiday party and there was a big box of zebiotics out for everyone. And you know what? Everyone took it and I felt great the next day. In fact, I said that Zebiotics made my parenting possible on Saturday morning. So thank you. Zebiotics make the most of every toast this holiday season. Just don't forget to bring Pre Alcohol along for the ride. Go to zebiotics.com crooked to learn more and get 15% off your first order. When you use cricket at checkout, ZBiotics is backed with 100% money back guarantee, so if you're unsatisfied for any reason, they'll refund your money, no questions asked. Remember to head to zbiotics.com crooked and use the code CROOKED at checkout for 15% off. So of all the Back to the substance of this of all the of all the wiles revelations, what do you think was the most damning?

[Dan Pfeiffer]

So I think there's probably a couple different ways to answer this question in the short term. The way she talked about the political vengeance campaigns, particularly against Letitia James and Jim Comey, if they can ever get indictments in those cases, which is an open question. But she's going to end up in a court filing for that. So there are short term consequences to that or could prevent them from getting an indictment over the long term. I think it's calling J.D. vance, a longtime conspiracy theorist. That's the kind of thing you're going to hear if and when he is the Republican nominee in 2028, just like the White House chief of staff said he was a conspiracy theorist. So I think that's powerful. And then I think the most revelatory one with the most implications for the way the White House runs is just Susie Wiles herself, basically calling herself an enabler, which was, I thought was very revealing about how she viewed her job, which is not to protect Trump from himself, it's to let Trump do whatever he wants. Which helps also explain why these people all defended her. Because I said this to Jen Psaki on MSMC the other night, but it's the same reason why my kids want their grandparents to watch them because there are no rules. So it's like, we gotta keep Susie around because the next guy may try to stop us from doing all this crazy stuff. May not really let the deputy chief of staff try to wage war in Venezuela as one example.

[Jon Favreau]

Also, she's not too savvy a move to do the interview in the first place. But I feel like the interview itself reveals that she might run a good campaign but isn't so savvy when it comes to governing. Because there was a lot of like, oh, and, you know, at first Elon broke up usaid and I was aghast and I couldn't believe it because I thought they do such good work. And then they all convinced me that it was, you know, it was fine, but the process was bad. And oh, were people mistakenly deported? Well, I imagine that must be some overzealous Border patrol agent. But yeah, we should probably double check that. And then, you know, later they're talking about the boats and Venezuelan blowing up the boats and she's saying, oh, that they know that, you know, they know the people on the boats. She's like, you know, you'd be. One of the great untold stories of government is how much the CIA knows about people. Really? Did you just show up?

[Dan Pfeiffer]

It goes to why she was such a poor decision as chief of staff. One, she doesn't fully understand the job. And two, you really need someone who, like, the chief of staff has to be able to do most of the following things, run the White House staff, like be an actual manager of the White House and the bureaucracy. And maybe she can do that or not. I don't know. Has be sort of an expert in Congress. Right. To help the president pass their legislative agenda and. Or be an expert in how the bureaucracy works, like how to use the federal government to enact the President's agenda. She doesn't know how to do any. Or be. Or the last one is maybe being like a very savvy communicator, spokesperson, principal who can represent the president places. She certainly does not do that. Like, she put. She really insists on being behind the scenes and not in photos. So the only thing she does, really, is just tell Trump. Yes. And that is, by definition, a batch of his death.

[Jon Favreau]

The other big one I thought was he asked her about Ghislaine Maxwell being moved to.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

This is another one. Yes.

[Jon Favreau]

From a real prison to Club Fed, this cushy prison that she sits in now. And Whipple asks about that decision. So, yeah, I had no idea. And Donald Trump was. The president was very unhappy about that. Very unhappy. And he's like, well, then who did it? We don't know. But she's like, I can get back to you. I can find out. And she never got back to him on that point. So this means that somewhere, someone made the decision to transfer Ghislaine Maxwell. That person exists in the federal government somewhere. And either this person is going to say, well, I got the order from someone else higher up, or we are led to believe that the White House Chief of staff and the President, United States have no idea how this extremely prominent prisoner was moved to a minimum security prison known as Club Fed.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Well, in defense of Donald Trump, he is a firm believer in the independence of the Justice Department. And you could see he would not even allow someone on his staff to dig into that sort of decision. So, I mean, here's the guy who's fucking firing line prosecutors in the Eastern District of Virginia so he can prosecute specific people. And he's like, well, this is a decision. I don't know. I'm just an observer here. I can't.

[Jon Favreau]

I don't.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

I don't want to. It's not really my job to ask. It's nuts. Like, she. She is either lying or is being willfully ignorant on this question because she doesn't want to know the answer.

[Jon Favreau]

Why do you think they're making such a point of rallying around her?

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Like I said, because I think they want the chief of staff that lets them do whatever they want. I don't mean like, Trump defended her, but in that original, that first, like, as a New York Post interview, I believe he said he hadn't read the story yet, which. So, I mean, they all look ridiculous defending it. They all sat down for the photo shoot. They all did the interview. She said the things she said. They can't even, they don't even have a complaint. The complaint really comes down to the picture. The photos were too, were too, they were too close because they're not. She's not saying. She didn't say those things. She tried it first and then he produced the tapes. She's not saying he violated off the record or anything like that. She's just saying context was left out, which is, you know, it's absurd. I guess they're defending her because they, I don't know, it just, I think.

[Jon Favreau]

If you, if you really look at each revelation, each newsy part of it, none of them really make Donald Trump look too bad in Donald Trump's mind.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Yeah.

[Jon Favreau]

You know what I'm saying? Like, there's nothing she, she's pretty loyal to him in the interviews and to the parts where she says, you know, like, I didn't always agree with him on the January 6th people. Like, he doesn't care about that.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Yeah.

[Jon Favreau]

That she didn't agree with him and he doesn't really care that she called J.D. vance a conspiracy theorist or, or that she's, you know, like, I just don't know if any of the revelations hurt Donald Trump's image of Donald Trump to himself.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Yeah, I think that's right. And a lot was made right away about her saying that he has an alcoholic's personality.

[Jon Favreau]

That's nothing.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

And it did seem quite damaging. And then when you, this is the one place where you actually hear him say that he said that before. And it kind of, it's honestly one of the more self aware things Donald Trump has ever said about himself. Like that one probably doesn't bother him. And so, yeah, I guess from his.

[Jon Favreau]

Perspective, we should say for people who haven't read it, she meant alcoholic's personality in the context of. Cause her father was an alcoholic. And she said alcoholics sometimes, you know, alcoholism sort of magnifies the personality that exists. And also they think that there's nothing they can't do. And Donald Trump is someone who thinks there's nothing he can't do. And of course it's public and she knows and everyone knows that he doesn't drink. And so it's not. I didn't find that as a.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

As bad as it probably doesn't bother him.

[Jon Favreau]

Yeah.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

You just never know where things are going to see if they continue on the political trajectory they're on. This could be the punitive reason why they make a change. Yeah, but in the moment, just. They'd much rather. And they're all. The other thing is, all the president's top aides are all guilty here. They're all in on it. They all have their. This isn't like she was just having these conversations with Chris Whipple privately. They all stood in a room, apparently, for one entire day with foundation and mascara on to get their pictures taken together. So it's kind of hard to throw under the bus when you have all the deputy chiefs of staff, the senior advisor, the Secretary of state, and the vice President all holding the same embarrassing bloody knife.

[Jon Favreau]

So it was news, I believe, that Trump was flying. Flew on Epstein's plane. And I feel like he has been saying that Bill Clinton was on the plane a bunch of times and he's never said he was on the plane. I wonder if he knows that revelation was in the piece. That's one that I could see him being a little annoyed by and saying.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

That they were young, single playboys in Palm beach together.

[Jon Favreau]

Yeah, in his 50s.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Yeah, he was 50.

[Jon Favreau]

Playboy. So slow down. One of the. One of the most. Wouldn't. Wouldn't call us playboys. That's for sure. One of the most damning comments from Wiles in the story was an admission that Trump, quote, wants to keep on blowing boats up until Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, quote, cries uncle. So we are murdering people with cocaine in their boats as a way to overthrow a regime that Trump doesn't like. Pretty stunning, because guess it's not about the drugs. Thought it was about the fentanyl. That's not fentanyl because it's cocaine that was coming to America, to our shores, that were killing 25,000 people with every boat, but apparently not, apparently were murdering people in boats. So that I guess Nicolas Maduro's like, no, I can't traffic drugs anymore, so now I will leave Venezuela.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Doesn't seem like a plan to me.

[Jon Favreau]

Well, if you were looking for another insane rationale for war, Trump posted on Tuesday that Venezuela is, quote, completely surrounded by the largest armada ever assembled in the history of South America, which, will, quote, only get bigger until such time as they return to the United States of America all of the oil, land and other assets that they previously stole from us. The Post said Trump was ordering a, quote, all caps, of course, total and complete blockade of all sanctioned oil tankers going into and out of Venezuela. He then repeated the threat on the tarmac at Joint Base Andrews on Wednesday. Let's listen.

[Donald Trump]

Remember, they took all of our energy rights. They took all of our oil from not that long ago, as you know, they threw our companies out and we want it back. Getting land, oil rights, whatever we had.

[Jon Favreau]

Stephen Miller, who is reportedly the brains behind this entire operation, yet again delivered the fascist GPT version of the rationale for war on Twitter. His tweet said, quote, unquote, American sweat, ingenuity and toil created the oil industry in Venezuela. Its tyrannical expropriation was the largest recorded theft of American wealth and property. What the fuck is he talking about? What are, what are any of them talking about?

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Okay, so I looked into this because why not? And it's just, here's the context, which is Venezuela has some of the largest oral reserves in the world. US companies have been developing oil in Venezuela since 1900 and did for a very long time. And then.

[Jon Favreau]

And other foreign companies, by the way.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Yeah, lots of other people. But yes, all over the world, people, all kinds of foreign countries were had, were pumping oil and exporting it, oftentimes to the United States, but also elsewhere. And then in 1976, Venezuela nationalized their oil industry and took the entire oil industry and put it under one state owned oil company, kicking out all the US Companies over the course of time. There was some backsliding there back and then 15, 20 years ago, further US companies were kicked out, including ExxonMobil. And so now there is this one. All of Venezuela oil is pumped out by this one state owned company. And although they do have some deals with the US company, Chevron, who does some work for them, but it is a nationalized thing. Now the most important thing here is there is no, in international law, the oil is, was, and always will be Venezuela's. The natural resources belong to the country itself. This is a principle in international law that goes back to after the world wars, when we were dealing with the end of colonialism around the world. And when countries kicked out the colonizers, they got to keep the stuff. It didn't matter which country dug the mine or put the rig and the oil rig in the ground. The people in charge of that country, the citizens of that country, the government of that country, they owned the natural resources. And so it is not a legal basis for us to invade Venezuela to take back oil that is Venezuelan.

[Jon Favreau]

I'm almost laughing because I'm just imagining telling the American people that we're going to war in Venezuela to defend the honor of Exxon Mobil and chevron from 50 years ago and all of our brave oil companies. Because it's not really going in there to take the. Even if American companies. First of all, it's so fucking stupid that we have to go down this path and explain this. But even if American companies are allowed back in Venezuela to pump oil. Oil, that oil is not necessarily just going to America. They're American oil companies that sell oil all over the fucking world on the, on the world oil market.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Yes. It's not coming to us. It's most likely not coming to us. It's going elsewhere.

[Jon Favreau]

It is literally, it is literally invading a country so that, so that Exxon Mobil can start pumping again.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Yes, it is. I mean it's so, so fucking stupid. Amazing.

[Jon Favreau]

And then, and then like broadening it to be like in the land. What land? There was no land. Like you're talking about assets. Yeah. Maybe someone leaves like a fucking, an oil derrick there. And it was like, oh, that's, that's Exxon's oil, Derek, from the early 1900s. We're, we're taking that back. But like what land are you talking about, you fucking idiot?

[Dan Pfeiffer]

There is just like such a mask off moment here, which is all throughout the early 2000s, the argument of a lot of liberals was we went to war in Iraq for oil.

[Jon Favreau]

Nobody. And even the Bush administration was the protest sign.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Yeah, right. And even the Bush administration was so scared of even anything that would suggest that they wouldn't even use the oil revenues from Iraq to pay for stuff because they thought that would validate the critique that we were going there for war for oil instead of war for non existent WMDs and democracy. That Trump's just like, we're invading Venezuela. A country that I would bet that large majority of Americans have no idea has oil. So just imagine if Trump had given this speech, the speech that Tucker Carlson other thought he was going to give on Tuesday night. Tuesday night. Tuesday night. And had said we're going to war in Venezuela for oil.

[Jon Favreau]

Wednesday night.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Wednesday night. Today's Thursday. Today's Thursday.

[Jon Favreau]

Today's Thursday.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Was that speech last night?

[Jon Favreau]

You're listening to this on Friday.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

That speech was last night.

[Jon Favreau]

Yes, that's last night.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Fuck. Nothing matters anymore. I've had a sick kid at home. I truly have no idea what, what day it is. Like we could be doing the Tuesday pod now for all. Did Christmas happen? I don't know. But just, it's just, it's so, it's like an unbelievable stupid thing Substantively, and it's insane politically, and it would. It's just so confusing for the American people to even imagine that this could be happening.

[Jon Favreau]

What, you think this is going to be popular with folks? Because I saw the. YouGov has a poll out today, just the most recent. Ask people what they think about using military force to invade Venezuela. 18% support doing so. 1866 percent opposed. Now, in fairness to Donald Trump and the administration, they did not ask, do you support the US Using military force to invade Venezuela so that Exxon Mobil can make more money next year?

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Yeah, that's true. That's true.

[Jon Favreau]

So if you throw that in, it might change the messaging a little bit, might change the support levels.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

It's also funny that Trump's out lying about how low gas prices are at the same time he wants to invade a country for oil. It's like just very.

[Jon Favreau]

Did you see the Post story about how Stephen Miller originally wanted to do these boat strikes, also known as just extrajudicial killings, war crimes, murders on the high sea? He wanted to do it against Mexican cartels. And then when Mexico started taking care of things on their own, he needed a new target. So they just shifted. They just picked Venezuela.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Yeah, it's. The story is truly unbelievable because there's originally what they like. The theory that Stephen Miller has is that if you could break the cartels, then that would lessen the number of migrants coming to the US because one of the things the cartels do is they traffic minor migrants to the US Border. Mexico starts doing the things that we wanted them to do. He did want to use special forces and the CIA to do covert attacks. The Congress and the administration and some people in the administration oppose that. So he couldn't do that. Then Mexico kind of solved the problem to the extent that the problem could be solved. So then he goes looking for somewhere else to attack, picks Venezuela. And the theory then is if you could. I mean, this is so crazy. Picks Venezuela just because he wants a place to attack then. And we do have migrants that come from Venezuela. I don't know why launching war there would help stem the flow of migration. History would suggest. No, but it's just like comedy of errors where he then picks Venezuela, but it's about drugs. But then he hangs out, maybe at the photo shoot, I don't know, with Marco Rubio, who has long wanted to overthrow Maduro because he thinks that would help overthrow Castro in Cuba. And so he. And now he. Now we've transitioned from drugs overthrowing Maduro. Pete, hegseth is like I need a win. So because.

[Jon Favreau]

So maybe former official familiar with Miller's thinking said Pete very much wanted to keep Stephen in his good graces and also the President, which just tells you everything you need to know. And so because this was post Signalgate fallout and Hegseth's like fuck, I need to. Stephen Miller's the guy really running the government and so if he wants to kill some people in boats and my buddy Marco wants to overthrow this dictator, I'm in.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Yeah. And now we're on the cusp of war with Venezuela because three fucking morons got together looking for something to do.

[Jon Favreau]

It's unfucking believable. The execute order, the legal rationale to kill these people on these boats contains targeting instructions that do not require positive identification of any individual, but rather reasonable certainty that adult males are members of or affiliated with a designated terrorist organization. Yeah, you don't want to be too precise when you are murdering people on boats.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

No. And also there's no legal authority to name these organizations. Terror organizations.

[Jon Favreau]

I just wiles admitted to Vanity Fair that Trump would need congressional approval for any land strikes, though Trump forcefully denied that in the Oval on Thursday. Does Congress try to get involved here? It seems like Trump is thinking to himself, well I'm not gonna send troops in. I'm going to lob some missiles. Maduro hopefully leaves. Maybe we can get him out without the missiles. Maybe he's just gonna be scared by the armada. Cuz we use the word armada now. Cause it's like the 1700s I guess. And so he's hoping Maduro leaves. At worst, you know, he does, you know, he bombed Iran, he can bomb and we're, you know, everyone just sort of moved on. Maybe we can bomb Venezuela and that's that. Like I don't. I think he believes this is very low risk.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Oh yeah, I think, I think he is. And he's, he's pretty right that the, that anything. Absent ground troops, the US population has a pretty high tolerance for. Right. If we're just lob drones, missiles, that is. I mean it's terrible this is the case, but it's been true for a very long time. It's when people start getting killed or wounded from your community is when everyone turns as what happened in Iraq when we sent National Guard troops all over Iraq. Absent that, Congress is not going to want to get involved here. There will be a coalition of Democrats and a small handful of Republicans who do not like this, which is probably like Rand Paul, Tom Massey and maybe one Other one. But Congress has no interest in getting involved in something like this. They're not going to try to stop him. He'll file war power reports and feel like he is adhering to the War Powers act, and that'll be that.

[Jon Favreau]

Well, at least there's no history of American wars of choice and regime change coming back to bite us in the ass years later.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Yeah, what could possibly go wrong from starting a. Look, look, if you want to keep the border secure and stop the flow of migrants, I can't think of anything better than turning Venezuela into a failed state.

[Jon Favreau]

Do you think there's no way Trump could pick out Venezuela on a map, right?

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Not a chance.

[Jon Favreau]

Doesn't know the capital.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

I don't think he would be able to answer the question what continent is in?

[Jon Favreau]

That's the next cognitive test map of South America. And he has to point to Venezuela. Then he has to point that. We just make him point to some countries since he. Since the new Pax Americana here is we're going to create an American empire in the Western Hemisphere. Stretches from Greenland to Venezuela.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Oh, geez.

[Jon Favreau]

I mean, it's not really a joke. It's kind of their theory. And I guess he thinks that's what's gonna get the Nobel Committee to call.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Nothing will lock up the Nobel Peace Prize like bombing Venezuela.

[Jon Favreau]

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[Dan Pfeiffer]

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[Jon Favreau]

So Trump made those most recent comments about strikes on Venice at an Oval Office event where he signed an executive order accelerating the reclassification of marijuana from Schedule 1 to Schedule 3, which would allow it to be studied for medical uses. But before you get too excited, Trump made it clear that he has zero plans to legalize marijuana recreationally under federal law anytime soon. Unsurprisingly, this decision came about not because of any change of heart, but because of heavy lobbying from the weed industry, which has poured millions into Trump aligned political groups. In fact, aside from the research, one of the other benefits of this is, I believe, a lot of tax breaks for businesses that sell marijuana. So good for them. Thursday's other executive order came from RFK Jr. This one was much worse, who announced a new set of rules that would cut off Medicaid and Medicare funding to any hospital that provides gender affirming care to children under 18, which would essentially, if it holds up to legal scrutiny, shut down hospitals that refuse to follow the order, since Medicare and Medicaid account for nearly half the money spent on hospitals. And I guess the big question is how likely is it that since he signs a million executive orders a day and many of them are just blatantly not legal, how likely is it that this takes effect and how long until it takes effect?

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Yeah, there's like a, I think it's a 60 day review period, comment period. So there are many months that go through the process of signing the order to actual implement to the actual proffering of the regulation in place. And as you point out, there are a lot of legal questions about whether he has the authority to do this. The courts seem to believe that questions around gender affirming care for minors are to be decided by the state because they've allowed states to ban them, which conversely would suggest that they would allow states to allow it as well. If it's a state, I mean, and.

[Jon Favreau]

It was a very recent decision. It was a 6, 3 decision because Tennessee has a state ban and they upheld Tennessee's state ban. And Roberts wrote in the majority, in part because he's like, we're not, we're not taking a position on the policy itself. We're saying that these are decisions much like they did in Dobbs. These are decisions that should be decided by the people and their elected representatives through the legislative process. So very difficult to square that with now, allowing an executive order that's not even a piece of legislation to supersede blue states that allow this to, that allow gender affirming care for minors in their hospitals.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

I think there would be a question of whether a federal legislation, which the House actually did just pass something similar, but that has no chance in the Senate could do it. But you're relying on basically one line in the Social Security act that gives you to do this and some real questions about what is in the Medicare and Medicaid legislation that would prohibit the federal government getting this involved in healthcare decisions and using Medicare and Medicaid funding as leverage. The example people are using is the Hyde Amendment, which prevents the spending of federal funds for abortion services. But that is an actual law. That's not a regulation.

[Jon Favreau]

And this, by the way, goes. This would go further than Hyde. Yes, because that's like money that's specifically appropriated for Medicaid and Medicare to then go towards abortion care. This is basically saying if you do this, we're not, we're not saying that like, you can't spend Medicaid Medicare money on gender affirming care. We've already said you can't do that. And some hospitals all over the country have already stopped gender affirming care for children because they rely so much on, because they do a lot of Medicaid Medicare funding. This is just like if you're a hospital that gets Medicare and Medicaid funding for any reason, you can't do it, which is all hospitals pretty much, you can't do it, which, and so there.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

This is the, you know, it'll take, probably takes a long time for the court to act. The question is, what do hospitals do in the interim? We've already seen a bunch of hospitals and academic centers shut down their, their clinics, their, you know, their practices here. And this is all part of the larger horrifying Trump project of basically defining trans people out of existence. Right. Whether it's what's on the passport, it's every policy that you have no legal status, no cultural status, we will not recognize you. And it's horrifying. This is a cruel and capricious federal government turning its sight on the most vulnerable population possible and bullying them, essentially.

[Jon Favreau]

Yeah. And especially, I mean, one of the pieces about this, we're talking about kids who are already either transitioned or have already using gender affirming care and are now having to like ration the care that they have worried that it's gonna like run out or be blocked or be eliminated. And so it is just. It's pretty horrifying. On the weed one, what do you make of this? He doesn't seem like he's going to. It doesn't seem like as big of a deal as I thought it was when I first heard. Seems like it's mostly for research. And so it's kind of a. I think it's good. I mean, it started Biden first did this and then it like got. Basically, the process was held up and so it just kind of got held up in bureaucracy and then Trump finally finished it. But it doesn't seem like a big, big deal. But it's a good step in the right direction.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Yeah. It's one of the few things he does, he has done that's not horrifying. So we'll take it. As you point out, this is a minor step. This is not full legalization. He cannot do that. It would require Congress to do that. But the reason I think is you've nailed it. Which is not some epiphany about libertarianism or the potential benefits of cannabis use. It is corruption.

[Jon Favreau]

Right.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

It's just the right people got money in the right people's pockets and therefore Trump did it.

[Jon Favreau]

Yeah. Trump got a bunch of questions at the signing event for the marijuana eo, including whether he wants Congress to do something to extend the expiring ACA subsidies. Here's his non answer. But do you want Congress to extend these ACA subsidies?

[Donald Trump]

Well, I'd like not to be able to do it. I'd like to get right into this and ask Oz this question in particular, but I'd like to see us get right into this. I don't know why we have to extend. This could be done rapidly if the Democrats would come along. We have a problem. The insurance companies own the Democrat Party. They own it.

[Jon Favreau]

I love Dr. Oz walking close to the President like he's about to say something. And then realizing he should run back away also. I don't. What was that answer? I don't think he think he knows much about this policy.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

No, it doesn't seem like it. No.

[Jon Favreau]

I think this is another one where he's not really in the details. The reason that Trump was asked about this is that lo and behold, four House Republicans have signed onto a Democratic discharge petition to force a vote on a clean three year extension of the subsidies, which means the vote will happen, but not until Congress returns in January after the subsidies expire. And it's still unclear what can pass the Senate. John Thune said no on the clean three year extension, but that maybe the Collins proposal for a two year extension with some new income eligibility limits is possible. Who knows? And as we just heard, even if that works out, it's still unclear if Donald Trump signs it or not. Nevertheless, it was a tough week for Mike Johnson, who has now lost so many Republicans to discharge petitions that he got this question from a reporter on Wednesday.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Look, we have the smallest majority in U.S. history. These are not normal times.

[Jon Favreau]

There are proceeds and procedures in the House. I have not lost control of the House.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

That's a sign that you have lost control. If you have to answer that question, you've lost control of the House.

[Jon Favreau]

So funny. So funny. What do you think's going on here? First of all, let's start with Mike Johnson losing control of the House, which he has. This is now. I've lost count of how many discharge petitions. Discharge petitions used to be a thing where you had to be like a real fucking congressional nerd to know what they are. And they rarely if ever did anything. But now, if you have a majority of people in the House sign this discharge petition, then it forces a vote. We recently learned this for the first time with the Epstein files in this season of Trump. And now suddenly Republicans are feeling their oats and there's discharge petitions all over the place that Republicans are signing left and right. And Mike Johnson can't do anything about it because he is trying to keep all of these votes from coming to the floor, but he's failing.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

The narrowest majority thing, excuse does not help at all with the discharge petition.

[Jon Favreau]

Right.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

You're still losing people. That's the point. And so I think there are a couple things going on here. One, said it before I say it again. Mike Johnson's kind of a doofus. He's not up for this task is one. Two, he owes his entire job to Donald Trump. And so he is always protecting Trump's Flank as opposed to his members. His members know that. So they're starting to break from him in various things. And this part is, I guess, a defensive. Where the narrow majority defense works is he's always in danger of losing his job because some conservative Republicans leave him. And so he is optimizing the House's strategy for unity among all of the caucus as he has it today and not trying to protect the vulnerable members. So he has a majority tomorrow. Because if you were doing this for what was best for the 28 House Republicans who are in seats that Trump won by less than 10 points, you would have allowed, you would have passed this thing or passed. Or you would have passed something. You would have given the real thing to vote, not this absurd health savings account, we're going to give you money so you can just buy your own insurance thing that like, I mean, they have, they voted on a health plan that the CBO looked at and said would, would mean less people be insured and health care would be more expensive. Like a truly insane thing. You would have just voted on a two year, a one year extension with, you know, cost. You know, you would have done some things that made it unpalatable. You give them a vote, but he can't do that. And so his members, like Mike Lawler, look at the polls, they see where they are, they see what their district is and they are bolting for safer waters.

[Jon Favreau]

Now, for the first time, especially when I heard that Trump sort of non answer, I started thinking like I could see a scenario where the subsidies get passed, the extension gets passed. When they come back, Trump would have to care. Yeah. Or he, I mean, like the way to. Cause the thing he's not gonna wanna do is say that he like, you know, the Democrats won this one. Right. Like if it goes to the Senate, passes the House, goes to the Senate and you know, they change it so it's only two years and it's got some limits on it. He can say like, you know, I didn't really wanna do this, but whatever. It's like I'm, you know, I think we should replace healthcare. I'm gonna have a great plan, but we'll do the extension for now. And Republicans did some good things in the Senate. I don't know that would be the smart thing to do.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

I think it only happens if Trump tells the Senate to do it because you're not like the Senate majority is such and they really only have one vulnerable incumbent. And so they can have these votes every day until the election. And Susan Collins can keep voting for the extension and they're fine from that perspective. There aren't eight Republicans who need to come over, the Democrats to get whatever. There aren't enough Republicans to do it. So unless Trump were to get in a room and say, if we don't do this, we're gonna lose House majority, figure it out. I know you guys can't do three years. I'm gonna bring everyone in the White House, we're gonna do two, we'll do two years and something. But absent that, it's not gonna happen on its own because the House will not pass anything or they'll pass it and it will go to the Senate and it'll die unless Trump gets involved. And he doesn't seem to even know what it is or to care. You know, he's too busy, like, building ballrooms and doing other dumb shit. So, like, I just. There's not. There's no momentum within Congress absent Trump saying, I need this for the majority.

[Jon Favreau]

Yeah, that's true. That's true. Have to say, though, nice job, Hakeem Jeffries, for shepherding this strategy through the House, because basically some Democrats, one of the problem solvers, were floating around some bipartisan proposals, like a one year extension, a two year extension that then got some Republicans on board. And Hakeem was basically like, no, no, no, no, no, I'm not, I'm not backing that. I'm not having Democrats sign onto those discharge petitions. It's three year or nothing. And the Republicans that had signed on to the one year and two year finally were like, well, I don't like the. I don't like the three year clean extension, but if it's the only game in town, I'm gonna do it.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

And so, yeah, he played his cards very well. And frankly, we can look back at this, at this discharge petition, the fact that everyone is everyone on the Republican side scrambling to come up with a healthcare affordability plan. The shutdown worked from a political perspective.

[Jon Favreau]

It worked.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

It is. Healthcare affordability is on the agenda. It was not even being talked about before. The Republicans are twisted in knots about their inability to do anything. They are like floating Obamacare repeal plans. Trump saying insane things. This is a moment. We talk all the time about how hard it is for Democrats to set the issue agenda in American politics. And they did it with a shutdown. They changed the contours of the race and they made an issue that is better for us near the top of the agenda. And kudos to them and Jeffries. So kudos to all The Democrats, Schumer's included, on how the shutdown was played out. But then on the discharge petition, Jeffries has played his cards very, very well and put the Democrats in a position of maximum leverage here.

[Jon Favreau]

I will also say, I think someone asked Schumer today about whether when government funding expires at the end of January, would they shut the government down again if they don't extend the subsidies? And I think, think he said like, no. And I will just say I get it. Like I don't, I don't. Because if they shut the government down again over this, then the debate becomes about Democrats shutting the government down and the government being shut down and not about the fact that Republicans will not extend the subsidies. And I think that will actually give the Republicans an excuse to not do anything about the subsidies because then they'd be forced into it by the mean old Democrats who we don't want to give a win to. And the only chance that you might get a subs, some kind of extension pass is now the Republicans feeling pressure themselves in their own districts which clearly some of the House members did that signed onto the petition and some of the people in the Senate who proposed, you know, other types of extensions and still doesn't mean it's going to happen. And probably like you said, the chances are, you know, maybe low on this, but I think it's a better chance of happening than if Democrats shut the government down.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Yeah, I think shutting down the government would ensure that there could be. No, nothing would pass because it would negative, negatively polarize everyone against it. And now it becomes you can't give in in the midst of the shutdown. So and it just, and it's just from a purely practical point of view, those members who threw in the towel when they did, they're not signing back up for this again.

[Jon Favreau]

No, no, no, they're not. Okay, lots more when we come back from break. But first a quick reminder. We got the perfect last minute gift for you. A friend of the POD subscription. They'll get access to all the good stuff. You get ad free episodes ad free of all your favorite crooked shows. Exclusive content like Polar Coaster with Dan Pfeiffer. We got some other great shows coming that are gonna be just behind the paywall. Awesome shows, hilarious, entertaining, informative. You're not gonna wanna miss it. So you're gonna wanna subscribe. And also you're helping to support independent media, which we love. Give it to your friends, your family. If you're not a subscriber yet, grab one for yourself. And we'll have a lot more subscription offerings coming in the new year. Head to cricket.com friends now. This episode is sponsored by BetterHelp Rewriting Traditions Therapy. You know, therapy can give you the space to create new, meaningful traditions around this.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

That's true.

[Jon Favreau]

Holiday season.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Maybe a tradition of telling somebody how you feel instead of just sitting there in a kind of broken silence, kind of a silence that's loud, you know?

[Jon Favreau]

Wouldn't that be a wild addition to family tradition?

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Yeah, institute that one. Hey, we're going to try this. And also, I don't know, cookies.

[Jon Favreau]

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[Jon Favreau]

Well, unfortunately, not all Democrats deserve praise this week. Dan, we've talked before about the DNC's much anticipated 2024 postmortem, also known as an autopsy, unless you're talking to DNC chair Ken Martin, who calls it a, quote, after action report. According to NBC News, Martin told reporters after he won the DNC election back in February that he would make the final report public. And he even criticized the party then for not releasing the 2016 postmortem as an example of why he was gonna release the 2024 postmortem if he won the election, which he did. And here he is talking to me about the importance of the report back in August.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

We're finishing our after action review to really dig into this to give people a sense who invested so much time, energy and money over what happened and why we lost $10 billion spent in the ecosystem last year. What we're looking at is the campaign, the party, of course. We're looking at the tactics, the spending, the messaging, the timing, you know, all of it. There are no sacred cows. What we're looking at right now is everything.

[Jon Favreau]

No sacred cows, Dan. Well, on Thursday, the DNC announced that, just kidding, they won't be releasing the report after all. Martin said, quote, here's our North Star. Does this help us win? If the answer is no, it's a distraction from the core mission.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Whoo.

[Jon Favreau]

You want to just. You want to, you want to take it while I just sit here and seethe and then I'll go if you miss anything.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

This is such an infuriating decision on so many levels. One, we should know what happened, especially if you did all the work. And there have been some really good reports that have come out. There was deciding to win. We talked about a bunch way to win. Has a report that came out last week or the week before. Very useful to read. The DNC report wasn't going to settle all the debates in the party, but it would. They have the most access to the funders, the operatives, the donors. This would have been a very, very interview.

[Jon Favreau]

Tons of people.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

I think there were 300 interviews.

[Jon Favreau]

Yeah, Biden camp, Biden campaign, Harris campaign, states, the super pac, people where the money was spent, the polling, all of it they had.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

And so like, very valuable both for like the direction of the party to like tactical things about door knocking and peer to peer texting that be valuable for people running for state legislature or city council. The fact that the two reasons that the DNC is not releasing this report, one said, one unsaid, just are so emblematic of everything that is wrong with the Democratic establishment. The first is we don't want to mess with our momentum. This has been a good year for Democrats. We won in blue states, we've lost by less in red states. We've had Trump's not doing great. But the idea that these victories in an off year when we're supposed to do well suggests that we've solved our problems is just a repeat of the fatal error the Democratic party made in 2022 when we took the results of a midterm that just happened to happen three months after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, where we did better in the Senate than we thought, but still lost the House, and said pat ourselves on the back and said we're going to ask no hard questions, have no difficult conversations about running an unpopular 80 year old for reelection in this political environment. It is, it is pure complacency.

[Jon Favreau]

Fact. And then anytime someone suggested in 2024 that the polling might be making us a little anxious and that, oh, maybe we have some problems and maybe there was a chorus of the same people who would say, oh, you told us there was going to be a red wave. Remember all the pollsters that said there was going to be a red wave in 2022 and there wasn't. Which, first of all, no, people did not say there was going to be a red. And also it wasn't a blue wave. It just wasn't as big a red wave.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

And then the second reason, which is this is the unsaid reason, I think, is the report was obviously going to piss some people off in the coalition, it was going to piss off some donors, it's going to piss off some of the groups, it was going to piss off members of Congress, because any report worth its salt was going to look at how money was spent, it's going to look at our positions on issues. Immigration was going to almost certainly have to dig into the role that Biden's Gaza policy played in this election. And no matter which way the report came down, it was going to piss off one of the two sides of a very contentious thing. And this is a huge problem within our party for a very long time now, which is an unwillingness to anger parts of our coalition or even have difficult conversations with them. We treat our allies as children unable to have an adult conversation about where the party goes. And so we're so afraid of that that we would rather shelve the report. And when you have, when your entire being is to anger no one, offend no one, then you automatically have lowest common denominator, strategic thinking. You can't be good, you can't be Sharp. You can't be incisive because you're just trying to do no harm. You're not taking the fucking Hippocratic oath. You're trying to win. The last point here that I will make is that I think it is very. Even if you look at all of her success in 2025, do you know what the approval rating of the Democrats in Congress is right now? In the most recent quinnipiac poll, we're 55 points underwater. 55 points underwater. The Democratic Party brand still worse than the Republican brand on most issues, including some of the key issues that this election are going to be centered around. The generic ballot average today is 2.9 points, much less than it was at this point in 2017. And it is very possible that we could do not change nothing, do the exact same thing, run the Same playbook in 2026 and win a narrow House majority. Trump is that unpopular. The economy is that infuriating people that we could win. But that's not. We should be thinking much bigger than that. We should be thinking about how to have a bigger majority. We should be thinking about how to win the Senate. And most importantly, we have to recognize that the demographics of this country are changing in a way that is going to make it impossible for the Democratic Party to win the Senate and win a presidential election unless we reshape our coalition. We become more popular with young people, we rebuild our coalition with Latinos. And if all we're thinking about there's this short termism, that is, if we can just win this next election, we can all pat ourselves on the back and be happy without thinking about how to actually think big and think long term, then we are going to be doomed to fail. Here is an infuriated, stupid and self defeating decision because of cowardice and caution and complacency.

[Jon Favreau]

One of the reasons that we do what we do, and especially, you know, whether it's message box with you and polar coaster or wilderness or any of the things we do here at Crooked is I think there's a group of Democratic establishment pollsters, strategists, staffers, officials, many of whom we've worked with, many of whom are very smart, great people, heart in the right place, who do all this research, have all this data, have all this experience, have been on all these campaigns and there's this sort of like hoarding of information that they don't share with the rest of the public, which I think comes from like an old school model of, you know, what happens when there's too much information released and you know, you get bad press forward or whatever else.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

And.

[Jon Favreau]

And then the people that are not providing everyone else with the information that they have are the same people that then yell at and disparage activists and organizers and other volunteers online or elsewhere who are like saying stupid shit or don't get the politics or don't get this. And the reason that they don't get it is because they don't have the same information as the people in the Democratic establishment. And one thing we try to do is to talk to a lot of these people that will talk to us and share polling and share the information with people so that we can like make the audience who wants to also, by the way, volunteer and help on campaigns smarter. So when they're talking to voters, they know what's working and what's not. And just hoarding this information, hiding stuff from people, it's not only like counterproductive, it also feeds the distrust people have of the Democratic Party and they think it's a fucking cabal. And you know what, on days like this, I agree. Cause it seems like they're just, it's like if you're in the club, you get the report and you get the information. For all you plebs out there, we think this is gonna hurt the party. And so we don't want you to have the information, we just want us to have the information.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

The danger here isn't that the DCCC is gonna get insight into the best way to win the election. Right. Or the dscc. Like the value of this is it is the person running the state legislative campaign in Ohio. It is the person running starting a long shot congressional bid in a Trump +15 district that we might be able to win here.

[Jon Favreau]

Yep.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

It is the people who run local indivisible in swing left chapters. It's the people who are, who are thinking of, they may want to run. You know, they're thinking about signing up on the run for something website. Those are the people who would benefit from this information.

[Jon Favreau]

I have talk to House candidates, House candidates that are like, you know, working with the dccc and they're like, oh, we listen to Pod Save America, we read the message box. Because you don't get a lot from the DTrip or the DNC on messaging and what you're supposed to do, you're kind of on your own and those are candidates.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

This is just like to do all of the work and then just shelve the report is just like, it's just, it's an insane choice. If the, if the report sucks and you realize the report sucks, say that right? To say the idea. We did a great job, we have all the answers, but we're going to put them in a secret crypt somewhere because we don't want to upset our momentum from losing a congressional race by 13 points less than we thought.

[Jon Favreau]

It's also, this is a small point, but the idea that the public backlash from a report that is somehow embarrassing or bad or could cause some kind of fight is gonna be worse than the public backlash from keeping a report secret here in the age of the Epstein files, what are we doing that's a good idea? Hey, this report that I've been talking about for the full year, we're keeping it secret, and I'm letting everyone know.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Hakeem. All right, DNC Chair Pam Bondi. What are we doing here? Hakeem Jeffries. You know what? Get us a discharge petition. Let's get this thing out.

[Jon Favreau]

Anyway, look, we've talked to Ken Martin. We reached out. Hopefully he can come on and talk to us about this and we can have a civil argument about it. Cause it really, it pissed me off a lot today. I'm quite more than I expected it would. All right, one last thing before we go. In case you're worried that the President's tireless focus on affordability is taking him away from his true passion, interior design. Fear not, Dan. He's been working on something special that you're sure to find both aesthetically pleasing and hilariously entertaining. You might remember that back in September, Trump added gold framed portraits of all the US Presidents along the White House's west colonnade, which he is now calling, quote, the Presidential Walk of Fame. Again, this is an outdoor walkway now. We're just hanging stuff up on it. The great joke at the time was that Joe Biden's portrait was a photo of an auto pen, which was funny, I would say. Yeah.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Mean offensive, but funny.

[Jon Favreau]

Very offensive, but funny. But apparently there's more where that came from. In the comedy category, Trump has been personally writing out captions to go on engraved plaques below each presidential photo, which he unveiled on Wednesday. The Biden plaque begins, quote, sleepy Joe Biden was by far the worst president in American history. And it goes on from there. Keep in mind some of these plaques. The captions were so long that Trump himself wrote, they needed two plaques to get all the caption. So the Biden one went on for two plaques. Barack Obama's reads, quote, barack Hussein Obama was the first black president, a community organizer, one term Senator from Illinois and one of the most divisive political figures in American history. It also mentions the, quote, unaffordable Care Act. Bill Clinton's says that his wife later, quote, lost the presidency to President Donald J. Trump. Even Ronald Reagan's says that Reagan was, quote, a fan of President Donald J. Trump long before President Trump's historic run for the White House. Time well spent, Mr. President. Who. Who is this shit for? Who is that for?

[Dan Pfeiffer]

I truly have no idea. It is stunning the lengths to which they will go to not work on making people's lives better. Ballrooms. They reading in the Kennedy center after Trump today. Just another thing they did.

[Jon Favreau]

You think he's just, like, sitting there in the Oval, just dictating the caption? He's not writing anything.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Yeah, no, he doesn't type. I don't think he uses a.

[Jon Favreau]

He's got a Sharpie. Former golf caddy turned. Whatever he is now, Dan Scavino. Wasn't he in the. By the way? He wasn't. He was in the photo shoot, too. Yeah. So maybe they. Long day at the photo shoot. They finish up and they're like, we gotta. This is a tough job, the White House. There's no off days. There's no off hours. So we're gonna stay up late, work on these captions for all the presidents. Cause we're only at Millard Fillmore and we gotta get all the way to the end. So then he's just. This is what they're doing. This is what they're doing with their time.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

It's wild.

[Jon Favreau]

So that they can unveil it to reporters in hopes that we get mad, I guess. Barack Obama gets mad, Joe Biden gets mad. And then what? Like what? It's just so stupid.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

It really is. The entire philosophy of the Republican Party over the last decade is just, own the libs at all costs. And I think this is just a. Like, I don't feel owned as a lib myself. Like, I do not care.

[Jon Favreau]

No. I feel, like, embarrassed for the country, which I feel like. I mean, he does a million things every day, so it's not like, on high on my list of things that make me embarrassed for the country. But, you know, it's one of them. It's just. It's so. I don't feel mad. I just feel like you're a pathetic fucking.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

It's pathetic. It's just the whole thing is pathetic.

[Jon Favreau]

It's like, what are you doing? Relatedly, did you see the wonderful news that the board of the Kennedy center, which Is of course made up of hand picked Trump supporters, chaired by Trump himself has taken a vote now. This surprised Trump. He didn't know this was gonna happen.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Not at all.

[Jon Favreau]

Can't believe they did this. And they're renaming it the Trump Kennedy center, even though that is not legal to do because it is named the Kennedy center by law in a statute that was passed by Congress. And so much like the Department of Defense and the Gulf of Mexico, we now have the Trump Kennedy center, which is not really the Trump Kennedy Center. Do you.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Wouldn't it be funny if that was the thing that took him down, the illegal renaming of things. It's like January 6th, the crypto act.

[Jon Favreau]

You know, so, you know, John Roberts says it's okay.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Yeah. Just also, it's interesting that they just didn't go full tilt in his name at the Trump Center.

[Jon Favreau]

Yeah, yeah. They wanted to, I think, I think, because these are. Well, no, I think that somehow makes it more like they think that will troll people more to keep Kennedy in there. It's almost like, it's like, fuck you, Kennedy family, because we're going to remind you that you're still part of it. But now Trump comes first. Who knows? Who knows? Who the fuck?

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Look, are they going to change the signs?

[Jon Favreau]

I guess it's already changed on the website. They changed the website?

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Yeah. I mean, that's not surprising. But like there's, there's a lot of signage at the Kennedy Center.

[Jon Favreau]

Yeah. The other website that changed this week was the fcc, which called itself an independent commission because it is an independent commission. And then when Brendan Carr was getting grilled by Congress and he refused to say that it's independent anymore. He couldn't say that. Then 20 minutes after he said that, boom, independent came off the page.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

I would love to just see the email traffic or text traffic around that where he said it. They're like, to the website, get it.

[Jon Favreau]

To the website, get it down.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

There's still one thing left. Once again, more dumb pointless shit.

[Jon Favreau]

Also, like, Democratic president gets to the White House, God willing. I also feel bad for the people that are gonna have to undo all this because it's gonna be like a first week thing. You're scraping all the plaques off the wall and the sign outside the Oval Office and all the other fucking bullshit. You're taking the. A bonp, the yellow fucking umbrellas off, off the, off the Rose Garden and what else? There's a lot of shit.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Yeah, the ballroom.

[Jon Favreau]

The ballrooms is that, you know, that's a tough one. You can Yeah, I have.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Publicly. I've angered a lot of my Message Back subscribers by publicly arguing that the. We should not tear the ballroom down, but we should definitely rename the Kennedy center and back the Kennedy Center. We should take a lot of the other stuff down for sure.

[Jon Favreau]

Yeah. And then we should figure out some ways to troll Donald Trump if he's still kicking.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

I mean, we could leave his. You know what we do? Keep the Wall of Presidents. Put his mugshot up.

[Jon Favreau]

No, he'll love that. You know what we do? We put up the image of him that's been used on south park this season where he is naked except for his teeny, tiny little penis.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Oh, the micropenis one.

[Jon Favreau]

Mm, that's a good one. Or. And Austin just pointed the picture of him and Jeffrey Epstein. We could put that one up.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Oh, that's another good one.

[Jon Favreau]

Which we. In our office, we look at all the time.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

We can, like, rename federal prisons after Trump. The Trump Epstein prison.

[Jon Favreau]

Oh, that's a good. Yeah.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Rename Rikers or rename the Club Fed where he sent Glenn Maxwell.

[Jon Favreau]

There's a lot of options.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

You know what? When the transition comes, President Newsom Shapiro, aoc, whoever. Call me, this is what I want to work on. Petty shit.

[Jon Favreau]

We will undergo an after action report on this interview. A lot of people come up with some ideas, and we pledge to release it.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

This is a great idea. We're gonna need some content in early 2029.

[Jon Favreau]

All right, Dan, that's our show for today. It's our last show of the year.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

You and me. Yeah.

[Jon Favreau]

Austin. Yeah. Austin's shaking his head. I know, I know.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

This is the last one that you and I know.

[Jon Favreau]

We gotta sign you.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

We've already recorded some other ones that.

[Jon Favreau]

Are coming, but yes, we've recorded 5,000 shows this week so that y' all got plenty of content in your feeds over the two weeks. But for the two of us, Dan, we're off until January.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Wow.

[Jon Favreau]

I know. Exciting. And happy birthday. Happy early birthday. December 24th birthday.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Thank you. Happy birthday to Teddy and.

[Jon Favreau]

Yeah, yeah, Teddy's the 22nd, so Tommy's gonna be back on the feed on Sunday with a conversation with Rahm Emanuel. Speaking of potential 2028 contenders, there's a chief of staff who ran a tight chip, as he'll tell you. And then we'll be back on Tuesday with the 2025 Pundies, which we just recorded yesterday. Very fun. So check that out. And everyone have a wonderful holiday. Merry Christmas, happy New Year, happy Hanukkah, and talk to everybody soon.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Bye everyone.

[Jon Favreau]

If you want to listen to Pod Save America ad free and get access to exclusive podcasts, go to crooked.com friends to subscribe on Supercast, Substack, YouTube or Apple Podcasts. Also, please consider leaving us a review that helps boost this episode and everything we do here at Crooked. Pod Save America is a Crooked Media production. Our producers are David Toledo, Emma Ilick Frank and Saul Rubin. Our Associate producer is Farah Safari. Austin Fisher is our Senior producer. Reed Churlin is our Executive Editor. Adrienne Hill is our head of News and Politics. The show is mixed and and edited by Andrew Chadwick. Jordan Kanter is our Sound engineer with audio support from Kyle Seglin and Charlotte Landis. Matt de Groat is our Head of Production. Naomi Sengel is our Executive Assistant. Thanks to our digital team, Elijah Cohn, Hayley Jones, Ben Hefcoat, Mia Kelman, Carol Pelaviev, David Toles and Ryan Young. Our production staff is proudly unionized with the Writers Guild of America eas. Your new home is now ready Dr. Horton, America's builder has new homes that are ready today with new construction communities.

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