Trump's Secret Epstein Letter Revealed

Summary

Pod Save America Episode Summary: "Trump's Secret Epstein Letter Revealed"
Release Date: July 18, 2025
Hosts: Dan Pfeiffer, Greg Casar, Jon Favreau

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Introduction

In this episode of Pod Save America, hosts Dan Pfeiffer and Greg Casar delve into a multitude of pressing political issues, centering primarily around former President Donald Trump's recent actions and the ongoing controversies surrounding Jeffrey Epstein's files. The discussion navigates through Trump's threats to fire Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell, Republican Congress's aggressive budget cuts, midterm polling challenges, redistricting efforts in Texas, and political maneuvers involving Andrew Cuomo and Eric Adams.

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Trump and the Epstein Files

Trump's Stance and Accusations

The episode kicks off with a heated discussion on Donald Trump's latest claims regarding the mysterious Epstein files. Trump alleges that the files, which were supposed to shed light on Epstein's child sex trafficking operations, are a "hoax" fabricated by prominent Democrats, including Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, and Joe Biden. He discredits supporters who question his narrative, branding them as "stupid" and "weaklings" [05:10].

Congressional Pushback

Republican members of Congress have been obstructing measures aimed at compelling the Department of Justice (DOJ) to release more information from the Epstein files. Notably, Republican Thomas Massie is collaborating with Democrat Ro Khanna to initiate a discharge petition [05:56]. This bipartisan effort indicates a complex landscape where even some Republicans are pushing against the narrative set by Trump.

Potential Implications for Trump’s Support Base

The hosts discuss the potential erosion of trust among Trump's core supporters. Dan Pfeiffer suggests that repeated misinformation may lead to a lasting disillusionment within the MAGA movement, especially if credible evidence against Trump emerges [18:07]. This skepticism is echoed by Greg Casar, who highlights instances where prominent MAGA figures, like Nick Fuentes, openly criticize Trump, signaling fractures within the movement [17:59].

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Republican Congress: Budget Cuts and Policy Shifts

Defunding Public Broadcasting and Foreign Aid

Greg Casar outlines the Republican Congress's plans to pass a bill that would retract approximately $9 billion in appropriated funds. These cuts target critical areas such as foreign aid, which supports impoverished and war-torn regions, as well as public broadcasting networks like NPR and PBS. The reduction in funding is portrayed as a move to curb "woke" content, specifically mentioning beloved children's programs like Sesame Street and Daniel Tiger [49:38].

Impact on Healthcare and Education

The hosts elaborate on how these budget cuts, while significant, are dwarfed by the $4 trillion deficit resulting from previous Republican tax cuts for the wealthy and reductions in Obamacare and Medicaid funding. Dan Pfeiffer references a poll by Tony Fabrizio indicating that generic Republican candidates are trailing Democratic counterparts in key House districts, primarily due to these healthcare policies [50:39].

Medicaid and Public Health

The discussion turns to Missouri Senator Josh Hawley's contradictory stance on Medicaid cuts, where he introduces legislation to undo recent cuts he previously supported. This inconsistency is criticized as indicative of broader issues within the Republican approach to health policy [52:00]. The potential increase in health insurance premiums due to these cuts is highlighted as a significant pain point for voters [51:51].

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Redistricting Efforts in Texas

Trump’s Influence on Redrawing Districts

Donald Trump is pressuring Texas Republicans to hold a special session for redistricting ahead of the usual schedule, aiming to secure an additional five House seats. This move is seen as an attempt to manipulate electoral boundaries to his advantage [56:42].

Democratic Response and Mutual Assured Destruction

Representing the Democratic perspective, Greg Casar and Dan Pfeiffer discuss Governor Gavin Newsom's retaliation strategy, which involves pushing for similar redistricting maneuvers in blue states like California and Florida. The concept of "mutually assured destruction" is introduced, suggesting that partisan redistricting could become a nationwide issue if not addressed cooperatively [71:19].

Legal and Ethical Concerns

The hosts debate the legality and ethical implications of such partisan redistricting, emphasizing that it undermines the Voting Rights Act and democratic principles. Greg Casar underscores the necessity for both parties to adopt independent redistricting commissions to prevent systemic gerrymandering [75:38].

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Andrew Cuomo and Eric Adams: Political Maneuvers

Cuomo’s Independent Run

Former New York Governor Andrew Cuomo announces his intention to run for mayor as an independent candidate after losing the Democratic primary. This surprising move is met with skepticism and mockery by hosts, questioning Cuomo's political strategy and credibility [62:28].

Eric Adams’ Legal Troubles

Mayor Eric Adams faces lawsuits from former police commissioners and officers, accusing him of misconduct and corruption. These legal challenges are highlighted as significant obstacles for Adams in his bid for re-election, further complicating the political landscape [63:35].

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Federal Reserve and Economic Policies

Trump’s Threat to Fire Jerome Powell

A significant portion of the episode focuses on Trump's draft termination letter for Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell. Trump alleges financial misconduct related to the renovation of the Fed's D.C. headquarters as a pretext for removal [36:49]. The hosts discuss the potential catastrophic implications of such an action, including global economic instability and loss of confidence in the US Dollar [37:46].

Legal and Administrative Challenges

The feasibility of Trump's threat is scrutinized, with references to Politico and the Wall Street Journal indicating that the cause provided for firing Powell is baseless. The discussion highlights the potential for increased market volatility and the undermining of the Fed's independence [39:34].

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Political Advertisements and Interludes

Throughout the episode, multiple advertisements are interspersed, promoting products like Article furniture, BetterHelp therapy services, Ondeck's small business loans, ZBiotics pre-alcohol probiotic drinks, and Smalls cat food. These ads are seamlessly integrated into the discussion but are omitted from the summary as per instructions.

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Conclusion and Future Outlook

As the episode wraps up, hosts reiterate the importance of transparency and accountability in government actions, especially concerning ongoing scandals and policy decisions. They emphasize the need for collective action to counteract partisan maneuvers that threaten democratic integrity and public welfare. The conversation concludes with a call to listeners to engage in local governance and support initiatives that promote fair electoral practices and social justice.

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Notable Quotes

• Dan Pfeiffer at [05:10]: "He is on his plane at least seven times, partied with him once."
• Greg Casar at [17:59]: "Nick Fuentes... said, 'Fuck you, you suck. You're fat, you're a joke, you're stupid.'"
• Jon Favreau at [36:49]: "If Trump were to fire Powell, it would fundamentally change how the US Economy is viewed around the world."
• Greg Casar at [71:19]: "Donald Trump doesn't have a plan to win the upcoming midterms. He has a plan to rig the election rules."

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This comprehensive summary captures the essence of the episode, highlighting the critical discussions on Trump's handling of the Epstein files, the Republican Congress's controversial budget cuts, the strategic redistricting in Texas, and the political challenges faced by figures like Andrew Cuomo and Eric Adams. The inclusion of notable quotes provides depth to the hosts' perspectives, offering listeners a clear understanding of the episode's key points.

Transcript

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[Dan Pfeiffer]

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[Greg Casar]

Welcome to pod Save America. Jon Favreau.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

I'm Dan Pfeiffer.

[Greg Casar]

Dan, welcome back.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

God, it's what a week to be gone.

[Greg Casar]

It's been so long. Well then I was gone the week before. It's been like this is the longest we haven't podcast together in a long time.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Here's the thing we're always podcasting. It's just sometimes the microphones are on.

[Greg Casar]

That is. That is very true. Where did you go on vacation?

[Dan Pfeiffer]

I was on a family trip with my parents and my brother, my sister in law, my niece in Hawaii.

[Greg Casar]

There you go.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

It was very nice.

[Greg Casar]

Well, it's good to have you back. We have a packed show for today. We're going to talk about Trump threatening to fire the Fed chair, the Republican Congress going after Big Bird and Daniel Tiger. New midterm polling from Trump's pollster that should scare the hell out of Republicans. The party's attempt to pick up seats in Texas by redrawing the maps. The return of Andrew Cuomo, and then Dan's interview with the chair of the House Progressive Caucus, Texas Congressman Greg Cassar. But we gotta start with the question that's weighing heavily on all Americans as they huddle around their kitchen tables each night. Where are the Epstein files? We had some of this from Shane Gillis hosted the ESPYs this week and this was at the very beginning of his opening monologue.

[Jon Favreau]

Actually, there was supposed to be an.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Epstein joke here, but as it got.

[Greg Casar]

Delet.

[Jon Favreau]

Must have probably deleted itself, right?

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Probably never existed. Actually, let's move on as a country and ignore that. I would say the joke before that was quite funny as well, which was about Trump wanting to stage a UFC fight on the White House lawn and say last time Trump staged a fight in D.C. mike Pence almost died.

[Greg Casar]

People weren't sure if they could laugh at that one as hard. And then I feel like then they got into it and they laughed at the Epstein one pretty hard. Anyway, this is basically Donald Trump's answer too, though his is serious and not a joke. Trump's latest answer is that the Epstein files, he promised to release the files from a child sex trafficking case that Trump's own Department of justice was set to prosecute in 2019 before Epstein died in federal custody. Those files are actually just a big hoax created by none other than Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden. And if you are a supporter of Trump's who still might have some questions about his latest theory on the Epstein files, you are, according to Trump, quote, stupid, a weakling and someone whose support he no longer wants. That's right. According to Trump's latest posts and comments, you are officially excommunicated from the MAGA movement. If you still have any questions about his good old friend, his late friend, Jeffrey Epstein. Man, he's on his plane at least seven times, partied with him Once said that he knows he likes girls and he likes them young. This is all Donald Trump and Jeffrey Epstein. But now, if you have any questions about the promise he made in the campaign to release the files, you are stupid and. And you are not welcome in MAGA anymore. The White House also said on Thursday that the President does not want Pam Bondi to appoint a special prosecutor, even though some of Trump's closest supporters, like Steve Bannon and Laura Loomer have called for one. Republicans in Congress blocked votes all week on measures that would force the DOJ to release more information from the Epstein files. Though Republican Thomas Massie, who Trump has threatened with the primary challenge, is teaming up with Ro Khanna to force a vote in via discharge petition, which is a long and complicated procedure that probably does have enough votes to succeed. Which is also one reason why, as we're recording this and Trump's debating this package of cuts that we'll talk about later, they can't move forward on it because Republicans may attach a measure that may be binding or not binding to vote on whether there should be a release of the Epstein files. Probably because they know Massey has the votes on a discharge petition. And all this is because Donald Trump just keeps making this worse every time he speaks or posts about Epstein. Here's some of what he said in just the last 24 hours. I call it the Epstein hoax. The sad part is it's people that are really doing the Democrats work. They're stupid people. Does that mean that you're effectively disowning.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Any supporters who are now lost a lot of faith in certain people? Yeah, I lost because they got duped by the Democrats in the case of Epstein. Have already looked at it and they are looking at it and I think all they have to do is put out anything credible.

[Greg Casar]

But, you know, that was run by.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

The Biden administration for four years. I can imagine what they put into files, just like they did with the others. I mean, the Steele dossier was a total fake.

[Greg Casar]

So, Dan, there's this MAGA influencer named Luke Radowski who is so shocked by Trump's handling of the Epstein scandal that he posted this to his half a million Twitter followers. What if Donald Trump is being held hostage by a foreign entity and he knows the only way to tell people about this is by being very obvious about it. Is that believable or not believable? He had a poll so far, not believable is winning, but only 55 to 44.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Wow. What do you think the margin of error is in that poll.

[Greg Casar]

What do you think?

[Dan Pfeiffer]

I think that's. That's one theory about what's happening here. The other theory that seems more plausible to me is that Donald Trump either knows or believes strongly that he's mentioned in the Epstein files, and that's why he is acting like a complete lunatic right now.

[Greg Casar]

It is hard to avoid that conclusion. And I have been trying in my mind to think about other possibilities. I also, there's. Oliver Darcy broke this news. There is apparently a Wall Street Journal story in the works with some more. I don't know if it's evidence from the Epstein files or just elsewhere about Trump's relationship with Jeffrey Epstein that Trump is so mad about. He is calling everyone at the Wall Street Journal, including the editor, to try to kill the story. So everyone is. Everyone's excited about that, except Donald Trump, I guess.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

I mean, when you run through the evidence, right, Trump's long relationship with Epstein, his long history of sexual misconduct, his long history of complimenting in very gross ways, young women, certainly young women below age, the fact that he is quoted as talking about, in the quote, you just read, knowing that Jeffrey Epstein liked young girls, that they partied together. And then you get to the point here where they say they're going to release it. Pam Bondi says the client list is on her desk. And then right after that, they're like, sorry, no client list exists. There's nothing here. Turn around, go away. And then the way Trump talks about it, he keeps saying, we'll release anything credible. And then he keeps making these accusations that anything. That there could be some sort of malfeasance on the record. So if perchance, these ever come out through Congress, through subpoena, through leaks, that if Trump's name is in there, that then obviously it's part of some Democratic hoax. And Merrick Garland, who we've known to be very aggressively anti Trump over the years, was in there. Just like writing Trump's name in. Like, the most plausible answer here is that Trump's name is in there, and that's why he's acting this way. I don't know what other reason he would be putting himself through this, acting this way, opposing the special counsel. If there really was no there, there, then this would be one way that his closest allies, people who like him the most, like Steve Bennett and Laura Loomer, want him to do, but he says no to that.

[Greg Casar]

Can I just point out a potential flaw in the president's logic in this latest theory that the Democrats created the Epstein files, or the Democrats Under Biden, I guess, slipped in some files that are incriminating for Trump that aren't real. So to believe this, you would have to believe that the Biden administration, Merrick Garland, like you said, starts throwing in some fake, incriminating news about Donald Trump and the Epstein files during the Biden years, chooses not to release them or leak it in any way. Because I guess they wanted to hold out the possibility that someday, if Donald Trump becomes president again, his Department of Justice would stumble upon the fake files and then put out a statement that in no way claims they're fake.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Yeah, you have identified a flaw. You've said a real flaw.

[Greg Casar]

It is so fucking stupid. This was, and it was like, you know, Obama and Hillary. This is like predating any of this stuff. Right.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Three consecutive presidential elections. We did not use this completely made up smoking gun that we had.

[Greg Casar]

We were playing the long game. You can't be releasing damaging information about Donald Trump while he's running for president a third time. You gotta wait until he's president and then still do nothing.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

You know, as you mentioned, I was on vacation last week when this was all happening. And so I have a lot of pent up takes about this. One of them I would just like to share here is that in the initial when this started coming out and the MAGA folks were getting mad about it, one of the things you saw a lot of even credible people say is obviously there's something bad about Trump in the files. While Joe Biden was President, Merrick Garland was Attorney General. That would have come out. Have any of you people met Merrick Garland? There's nothing more believable than Merrick Garland was just sitting with a giant smoking gun about Donald Trump at the Epstein files in his top desk drawer for four years and would, and maybe this is admirable, I guess not violate the independence of the Justice Department in any way, shape or form. This idea that obviously Merrick Garland and Jo Biden would have put this out is never met. Does not remember how much they love norms. Right. So it's very. That is not. I do not find that to be a compelling answer reason that there is nothing in these files.

[Greg Casar]

Can I, can I throw out one overly generous possibility here of what's really going on?

[Dan Pfeiffer]

You go on the flagrant podcast once and now you're doing Trump defense.

[Greg Casar]

They would not have an overhead.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

No, Joe, they would not. They are leading the. I love what they're doing here.

[Greg Casar]

So I started thinking about this because both the rumors of the Wall Street Journal story and I read a post from. From Ben Wittes, who's been on this podcast at Lawfare. So Ben Wittes, his post is like, hey, everyone, of course, DOJ shouldn't be just dumping a bunch of sensitive information from a case that wasn't tried into the public's hands. And first of all, a lot of the files, a lot of this information is under seal by the courts. And so you would have to get a judge to unseal it. It's not Pam Bondi's decision. It's not the Attorney General's decision to just throw this out there. It would be against the law to release a lot of this information. Other information, as the Trump people have said, would, you know, involve some of these victims. And you don't want to further hurt the victims by just throwing a bunch of information out there. And then there is information about people who have not been charged with anything, people who may have given evidence or testimony against Jeffrey Epstein. And now you're going to just publicly release their testimony. Now we might think, well, if it's about Donald Trump or whatever else, I'm like, yeah, of course, let's get it out there. But as a practice, if you had a Department of justice that was operating on the up and up, which we do not, but if you did, we would not want the Justice Department to just start. If you go give testimony to the Justice Department or you go talk to give evidence to just, like, put everything you said out there. Right. So there's a whole bunch of things now Ben suggests, which I think is a very good suggestion. He's like, you can still get a lot of this information. We have a body called Congress, which can certainly launch an entire investigation. And the Justice Department is supposed to work with. And, you know, obviously Democrats don't have subpoena power now, but if we took back the House, you know, then you could imagine a congressional investigation that gets to the bottom of a lot of this. And then. So you have that right.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Can I respond to that part for a second?

[Greg Casar]

Sure, sure, sure. Yeah.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

That is an explanation for why the Epstein file should not be released. That is not Donald Trump's explanation for why the Epstein file should not be released.

[Greg Casar]

But this is what. This is my second part of it, which is, so say this Wall Street Journal story is true, and George Conway is tweeting out that he heard a rumor that it might be something about, like, a birthday card that. That Trump wrote to Epstein that was overly nice or something. But, like, you can imagine that Donald Trump hates anything that's that causes any kind of reputational damage like this, especially if it's such a big deal that has captured the attention of the entire country. And what if it's just a very sort of gross, like, you're the best. We've had the best times. And it's not, like, incriminating, but it's just deeply embarrassing. And you, and you combine the deeply embarrassing information about Donald Trump that's still not incriminating with the Justice Department thinking, well, we have an excuse, which is we can't release a lot of this information anyway. Now, again, it's one possibility. I don't even think I buy it. But to me, the reason I bring it up is it is the most generous possibility I could imagine about this whole thing. I can't imagine another one. That's, that's, that's, that's more.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

But that he's in there.

[Greg Casar]

Yes. I don't know how he's, I don't know how he's not in there. If he wasn't in there at all and if he felt sure about it, why not just say some version, some Trumpian version of the first thing that I said that Ben witness had posted, which is like, hey, it's against the law. Hands are tied. It's only about victims. There's no other. That's it. And just like, keep repeating that.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Yeah, but he's not doing that, which is the thing. And we know Donald Trump is. I was here. Some friends texted me today, and they said basically, like, why wouldn't he just release it? The guy's been charged. He's on the Access Hollywood tape. There's all these accusations out there. He's sort of a famous, he's a famous adulterer. Why does he care about this?

[Greg Casar]

I got the same question from some of my high school friends.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

But we know he does care about these things because the reason he's a convicted felon is he paid off. He paid a large amount of hush money illegally to Stormy Daniels to try to cover up that affair becoming public. And so this is, this is actually the sort of behavior that Trump engages in when he's worried about reputational damage.

[Greg Casar]

And how do you think about the reputational damage with his base right now with his, like, some of his strongest supporters in maga, media influencers, all that, because, you know, they've gone back and forth. I think there was, everyone was a lot of them, most of them, I would say, were pretty upset at the beginning. Some of them have, you know, gotten back on board with Trump Some of them are still trying to figure it out. You got this from neo Nazi Nick Fuentes, who dined with Donald Trump at Mar a Lago, famously along with Kanye west, right before he launched his third campaign, he said, fuck you, you suck. You're fat, you're a joke, you're stupid, you're not funny. We're gonna look back at MAGA movement as the biggest scam in history. The liberals were right.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Ouch.

[Greg Casar]

Tough. That's a tough one. How do you think about this? Do you think this is long term damage from these folks from the MAGA elite, let's call them?

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Yeah, I do. I do think there is a breaking of the core trust here because what happens, let's say they put something out at some point, either Congress forces them or Trump gives in. These people aren't going to believe them because they feel that Trump has lied to them and lied to them repeatedly. And what I think is just really interesting about this is these, not Nick Fuentes per se, but Megyn Kelly, Steve Bannon, Laura Loomer, Alex Jones, these are media people. These people have an audience. Prior to the Epstein scandal, furor, whatever you want to call this, if you were anti Trump in the right wing media, there was no place for you. You faced a terrible backlash. Places like the Weekly Standard shut down because they were, there was no business in media, in right wing media and being anti Trump, if these media folks were getting blowback from their audience, they would stop. But instead it seems like baseball on their behavior and some metrics, like they're actually getting a boosted engagement. And that says something about where at least the hardcore MAGA base is. And I think even more importantly over the long term is it flips the incentive structure in right wing media, right? Where now you have it, the incentive was to be as pro Trump as possible. That's where the audience was, that's where the engagement was, that's where the money was. There's basically a viable end to be to Trump's right to be an anti Trump MAGA person. And that really will change the discourse because Trump has depended on essentially unanimity from his media allies for the last decade. And if he doesn't have that, that does have real political ramifications beyond just this scandal.

[Greg Casar]

I would say to either be on Trump's right or to just be part of a crowd that is disappointed with Trump for whatever reason. Right. And this is like not uncommon in politics in general, in both parties. Right? You're, you, you support your candidate, you love your candidate, you get your candidate into office, your candidate now has power and then your candidate disappoints you in some number of ways. And the more disappointments, and the more core the disappointments are to why you support them in the first place, the angrier you're going to be. And now he is facing that both with the like, super extreme right, some of the Trump curious manosphere types, some.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Of the podcasts, like the folks, the flagrant podcast, Theo.

[Greg Casar]

Flagrant Theo, you know, Joe Rogan, right? Like those, those types. I think it could leave a mark. I could also. What do you think Republicans in Congress and Republican politicians are thinking right now? Because I could also see with them thinking, you know, we just gotta wait for this, this is just gonna blow over at some point because it is impossible in this information environment to hold people's attention on one thing for too long. And so, you know, if we make some, some noise about possible transparency and where for transparency and maybe we'll vote on some non binding resolution or maybe it'll be binding, but then the DOJ will tell us to go fuck ourselves and at some point people are gonna turn to something else and this will blow over and we just gotta kind of say the right thing now and I think we can just, just hold on tight.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Yeah, I think that's where the Congressional Republicans will be, is they want to try to chart a lane between the audience that very much wants transparency and angering Trump too much. So if they could do some sort of non binding resolution, what they don't, probably don't want is a bunch of votes in a row every time they want to do something for the next 18 months that says that they're against transparency here, they're against releasing the files because that will have some consequences for them because they need that base to turn out right. That's the difference between holding the House and losing the House. So they're gonna try, I think they're gonna try to find some sort of probably unsatisfactory middle ground there.

[Greg Casar]

And what about White House options here? Like, you know, there was, as I mentioned, Laura Loomer, Steve Bannon, others were urging a Pam Bondi to announce a special counsel or Trump to tell Pam Bundy to appoint a special counsel. Caroline Levitt at the White House briefing today said the President does not want that special counsel. And I'm wondering what other options they have at the White House to let the air out of this balloon a little bit. Or maybe they don't care. Maybe they just don't. Maybe they don't want to even try.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

It seems like their strategy is to try to just muscle through to the next crisis. And Trump's been trying to create them. Right. He's trying to prosecute Adam Schiff. He's making announcements about the sweetener's use in Coca Cola. He's trying to find some way to change the subject. He has thus far failed to do that. Special counsel is an option if they wanted to go that route. I don't know that anyone should ever want a special counsel. There was a very famous meeting in the Clinton administration in the middle of the Whitewater crisis where the. I think it was Bernie Nussbaum as White House counsel was in the room. The political advisors like George Stephanopoulos and they had a debate and the political advisors wanted the Clintons to call for an independent counsel. Back when we had independent counsel law and the lawyers were like, that's insane. The Clintons agreed with the political people. They called for independent counsel. That independent counsel was Ken Starr. So it's like the next seven years of their lives were miserable. So maybe you don't want that. You could say, you could announce we're going to one way to do this. I don't know that I want to give communications advice to them, but one thing you could do is announce that you're going to do a review and you're going to release everything you can release in 90 days. Right. Like that's a classic Trump tactic to just kick it down the road. You could just pretend like Aaron Sorkin's in charge and do say, we're gonna do a two hour primetime press conference about it. You could sit and do an interview with.

[Greg Casar]

Certainly not with Trump. You'd need a person to do that interview. Trying to think of who could do it, who could do it. Like maybe you send Marco Rubio out.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Yeah, yeah.

[Greg Casar]

Fellow Floridian Marco Rubio. Yeah. No, I think that they probably just. They probably just don't care. I kind of thought they would. I was a little worried that they would say, okay, special counsel Ed Martin, or in fact, do you know who Lauren Boebert suggested for special counsel to look into this child sex trafficking case?

[Dan Pfeiffer]

I do know the answer is, but is it better for the podcast if.

[Greg Casar]

I pretend like I don't go for it? Go for it.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

It's Matt Gaetz, right?

[Greg Casar]

It's Matt Gaetz. We are almost.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Well, look, if you want someone, Attorney General, the almost Attorney General who may know a thing or two about a Florida based sex trafficking ring.

[Greg Casar]

Yeah, sure.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Allegedly. Allegedly.

[Greg Casar]

Sure. Does yeah, that would be a real troll. That would be a real troll.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

You're getting a subject matter expert there, I guess.

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[Greg Casar]

All right, so no special counsel, but the Justice Department did fire Maureen Comey on Wednesday, an SDNY prosecutor who went after Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell. And yes, if you're Wondering she is related to that Comey. Maureen happens to be James Comey's daughter. What do you make of this? Probably doesn't fix any of Trump's Epstein problems, huh?

[Dan Pfeiffer]

No, it things seems to make them much, much worse. Like if you had a lot of, you have a lot of questions, what's going on here? That all of a sudden, out of the blue, Trump fires the person who prosecuted Epstein, Maxwell and Diddy. The racist question is about Diddy. What do we know about the connections there? I am assuming that this is an idea that has been working its way through the system. There's someone in charge of petty revenge and they finally got around to firing her. They just happened to do it right at the worst possible moment.

[Greg Casar]

Right person for the wrong thing kind of thing.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Yeah, they're just a truly insane thing to do right now.

[Greg Casar]

The theory that the New York Times floated in its New York Times way, which is not directly, but just sort of through their kind of vague language, is she was mentioned in a Politico story last week about not wanting to release some of the information and evidence in the Epstein case for the reasons I mentioned earlier, because victims, sensitive, under seal, all that. And I think the New York Times said she may be getting set up to be a scapegoat by the Trump administration because then they could say, oh, see, she was the one withholding all this evidence. But I was like, the only problem there is now that they've got rid of her, who's, who's holding up the evidence now?

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Could you just imagine if Trump went to the right wing MAGA people and was like, look, I'm trying to do it, but Jim Comey's daughter is stopping me now.

[Greg Casar]

She's finally out, but she took it with her. She took the files with her.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

My assumption here in less New York Times way is that they've been wanting to fire a long time, but they thought it was probably a bad idea to fire her in the middle of the Diddy trial. And so they just waited till that was over and then fired her, which also happened to be in the middle of the Epstein scandal.

[Greg Casar]

You might say that they 86'd her, you know.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Oh, there you go.

[Greg Casar]

The traditional use of that, by the way.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Okay, thank you.

[Greg Casar]

So we're starting to get polling on this Quinnipiac poll taken over the weekend has 63% of voters disapproving of Trump's handling of the Epstein situation. Only 17% approve. When you narrow that to Republicans, 40% approve, but a full 36% disapprove a Reuters poll conducted Tuesday and Wednesday had similar numbers and it has 69% of voters nice. Saying they think government is hiding key details about Epstein. So that's people's views on it. Not great. What's your guess on the salience of this issue for people and particularly Republicans?

[Dan Pfeiffer]

I'm just going to guess that if you ask people what they care about most, cost of living, the economy, jobs, immigration, Epstein is going to fall well below all of those things. But I think that's sort of an overly pedantic way of looking at this issue. What this issue is about is not about the Epstein files per se. It goes to the crux of what has decided the last several elections, which is a question. We live in a perpetual change election and it is who people are dissatisfied and angry about the political system that they view to be corrupt and broken and helping protect rich and elites and the politically connected. And this entire thing is about Trump going from someone who was coming to Washington to break up that corrupt political system to being someone who is now wielding power to protect the very elites, himself included. And so it goes to something much bigger that I think doesn't show up in polls. What we really should be tracking on this is how people feel about Trump as a change agent or an outsider or part of the status quo. We haven't seen that polling yet, or.

[Greg Casar]

I think CNN did ask different qualities and this is sort of not the perfect substitute for that. But cares about people like you. And he's quite low on that.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Yeah, and he's been low on that for a while. That's always been. He lost that to Harris in the election. One notable polling out there is there's a Data for Progress poll that shows that 55% of Republicans who have heard a lot about the Epstein files disapprove of how Trump has handled them. He has a net approval rating among people who have heard some of them and. And a decent appropriate on people who've heard none about them, which is weird to have an opinion on that. But. So there is this argument here that the more attention that this gets, the more people hear about what Trump is doing. The very suspicious circumstances in which he changed his position on releasing the files will hurt him more with Republicans.

[Greg Casar]

One more question before we move on this topic. Maybe for good. Probably not.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

No, we are talking about this next week.

[Greg Casar]

I'm telling you that right now, Democrats, they have jumped all over the issue, which, you know, we urged them to do. And I mean, you did.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

I was on vacation.

[Greg Casar]

But that's right. I did. I did. Me and Tommy did our special Epstein correspondent, Tommy Vitor. So what do you think about. Is he broadcast from Epstein island, essentially? Yeah. I haven't seen him. Anything Democrats have to be careful about, and I ask this only because you can, you can almost feel Republicans, some of the MAGA people starting to get negatively polarized and that like, if the Democrats are having too much fun on this and then I'm going to be now I'm going to flip and I'll be on Trump's side. I haven't seen that happen like completely yet. But there's a, there's a balance there. What do you think about that?

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Yeah, I think the Democrats should talk about this. We want to keep the story in the news. And I use the news in the most in the broadest sense of the news. Not necessarily the New York Times, but the social media conversation. But we shouldn't put too much spin on the ball. We should want transparency. We just want answers. We want the exact same thing Donald Trump said he wanted like six minutes ago. We want to know what's in the files, they should be released and leave it at that. Because there is this risk of polarizing the issue. Right. And where people just revert to their partisan priors if we overdo it. And there's no real advantage in overdoing it because the audience that we are trying to reach here is primarily Republicans. Right. And in this case, actually more hardcore partisan Republicans. And so the best messages to do that is not Democrats. Right? It is. So, like one thing, I wrote a message Mike newsletter about this earlier this week where one of the things I encourage Democrats to do is instead of posting your own social media videos about yourself talking about it, just share the conservative MAGA media fikes. Yeah. The Joe Rogan, Andrew Schultz, all these people, Theo Vaughn, these people who had real influence with some segment of voters, get that content out there, right? That's what we should be sharing. That's more valuable than a witty refrain, a tough tweet, whatever else it is. We should just recognize every messaging strategy begins with understanding your audience. And then the second question always ask yourself is who's the best messenger for that audience? Very often in this particular situation, the best message for that audience is not going to be Democrats themselves. Which doesn't mean we shouldn't talk about it, but how we talk about it matters.

[Greg Casar]

I also think you need to be, you should be honest about how you've always felt about this case. Right. Like it is, it is not really Believable for someone who has never talked about releasing the Epstein files for the last four years to suddenly be like, oh, it's the most important issue to release the Epstein files. What I do think is that Trump's handling of this case is so. Like, it is even surprised me how insulting it is to his own supporters intelligence. And I think he has insulted their intelligence plenty of times over the last decade. But this is like a new level where it is obvious that he is lying when he says that this was created by Obama and Hillary Clinton and Biden and it's a hoax and all that shit. Like it is such an obvious lie that even the, even the biggest Trump supporter is not going to believe, at least privately, if not publicly. And I think getting people to really sit with this idea that this, this guy that you really believed in and voted for many times is lying to you and thinks you're stupid enough to just kind of believe the lie or really doesn't care if his lie is so bad that you don't, that you don't believe it, like he just doesn't give a shit about you. And, you know, as we go on in the next however many years we fucking have to deal with him, it's something to think about. The next time he makes a promise, the next time he tells you something, the next time he doesn't fulfill one of the things he promised he'd do in the campaign. You know, you gotta wonder, is he lying again like he was lying in the Epstein files? So let's talk about more traditional kitchen table issues. We learned this week from the Labor Department that inflation is on the rise again. Prices are on the rise again, biggest jump since January. The culprit is Trump's tariffs, which are starting to hit people. In a hopeful sign that he's willing to change course, when presented with new information, Trump did pledge to back off his trade war. No, just kidding. He didn't do that at all. He threatened to fire the Fed chair, the Fed chair he appointed because Jerome Powell won't cut interest rates and he won't cut interest rates on account of Trump's trade war. On Tuesday night, Trump showed Republicans in Congress a draft termination letter for Powell and asked them whether he should send it. Firing Powell could do significant economic damage and is illegal unless there's actual cause to fire him. Sure enough, Trump told reporters that, quote, he probably wouldn't do it unless Powell, quote, has to leave for fraud, which is a reference to a multi billion dollar renovation of the Fed's D.C. headquarters, which Trump and a lot of his aides and allies are calling fraudulent as a way to have an excuse to fire Powell. How big of a deal do you think this is?

[Dan Pfeiffer]

I mean, it is potentially a massive deal. Like, if Trump were to fire Powell, it would fundamentally change how the US Economy is viewed around the world. Right? Like one of our strength is that the US Dollar is the global reserve currency. It's the currency that is thought to be so safe and so stable that it's what most Federal Reserves in other countries keep to ensure stability in their economies. And so if all of a sudden US Monetary policy is believed to be in the hands of someone who is operating at the whims of an erratic, wannabe authoritarian, that would have massive impact on the global economy is a deeply dangerous situation. And even just like if you watch the Dow Jones average this week, on the date that story came out that he had written that letter, it's like going up, going up drops right down. Trump makes his remarks that he's not going to do it. It goes back again. This is going to have massive, there'll be massive market volatility around this.

[Greg Casar]

I heard our old friend and colleague Jason Furman talking about.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Did you listen to Jason Furman on Derek? I sure did. I went for a walk this morning and that's exactly what I listened to.

[Greg Casar]

And, well, Jason's point, it helped me understand it too. He was like, it's the reason that the Fed is independent. The reason it's important that the Fed is independent and insulated from political pressure is that if you're not insulated from political pressure, you are likely to want to make decisions that help in the short term, or you're tempted to make decisions that help in the short term. So, like, maybe I'll cut interest rates a little bit now because that'll help juice the economy, you know. And if you're completely insulated from political pressure, you can make decisions that might have some issues in the short term, but long term are going to be the best for the economy. So people know, the rest of the world knows that you are making decisions based on what you believe is best for the American economy, which a lot of the rest of the world depends on. And if we're just now thrown in Fed chairs to cater to the whims, the short term whims of, of Donald Trump, who's the most short term thinker we've ever had as president, then we're really fucked. Now, apparently there's a story in Politico that the lawyers in The White House may have convinced Donald Trump not to do this. A, because he'll lose in court, B, because all the economic damage it can do. And they just think that this. This whole, like, let's fire Powell for cause, and the cause is these renovations that have gone over budget, and we don't think he was honest to Congress about how they went over budget is just sort of bullshit. One administration official from the Trump White House said to Politico. Whether or not it's illegal, I don't know, but is it a good thing to point out to damage this guy's image?

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Yeah, that was honest.

[Greg Casar]

That really sums it up, doesn't it?

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Yeah. I mean, I think the Wall Street Journal had a very big story on this, and they came to the same conclusion that there is no there there on this idea that you could use these renovations to get to cause. Right. Because the cause here you can be fired for is essentially malfeasance or failure to fulfill your duties. And the courts have been pretty clear that refusing to cut interest rates at the President's command is neither malfeasance nor failure to fulfill your duty. And that what Trump is really trying to do here is put so much pressure, political pressure, on Powell that he will either resign on his own or. Or cut interest rates earlier to appease Trump.

[Greg Casar]

So, according to the Times, the person who drafted the termination letter was Bill Pult. Pulte, who knows the Trump lackey who is now in charge of the Federal Housing Finance Agency. Pulte has been attacking Powell on Twitter for not lowering rates, which is, you know, what you do as the head of the Federal Housing Finance Agency. He's also been driving the effort to exploit the renovation thing. And get this. He's also the person pushing to investigate Tish James and now Adam Schiff for mortgage fraud. So it seems to me like using one of your top housing appointees to go after your political enemies for phony fraud charges and renovation bullshit is the bigger scandal than maybe splurging on a new Renault.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Yes. It's not in the job description for the head of the FHA to be just a, like an attack dog on Twitter or elsewhere. It's very. It's very strange and actually probably makes you raise questions about what's actually happening at FHA if this is how this guy's spending all of his time.

[Greg Casar]

Yet someone you know in Project 2025 planning clearly looked at housing and was like, oh, this is one way we can go after people. Mortgage fraud. That's pretty. We can play pretty Fast and loose with mortgage fraud. Pulte, just right before we started recording, just tweeted, I am told by very reliable congressional sources that there may be a criminal referral coming from one or more Congress members to the DOJ for Jay Powell's alleged perjury about the two and a half billion dollar building. So now they're just gonna, they're just gonna do a criminal referral.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Cool. Really? Just like this very normal country we live in.

[Greg Casar]

Unfucking believable, but that like it. I mean, this is what they want, right? Did Adam Schiff do anything? No, he didn't do anything wrong. But like now people are like, well, Trump says Adam Schiff's a criminal and Adam Schiff says he didn't do anything. And I don't know. And then the administration official that told Politico, well, we're just trying to damage their reputation. We don't know if it's legal. You know, that's how they win. Another Trump lackey on his way to a lifetime appointment is Emile Beauvais, Trump's former personal lawyer turned top Justice Department official, who told DOJ lawyers they may have to say fuck you to the courts, brokered the deal to drop the prosecution of Eric Adams in exchange for his complete loyalty to Trump, and oversaw the mass firings of DOJ lawyers who worked on January 6th prosecutions. On Thursday, the Senate Judiciary Committee advanced Bovet's nomination to the full Senate on a party line vote after Chairman Chuck Grassley refused to let Democrats debate the whistleblower report on Bove, which led the Democrats to storm out of the hearing. What do you think? Is the, is the fuck you to the courts guy going to get a lifetime seat on the courts?

[Dan Pfeiffer]

I mean, this is the Republican Senate that confirmed Tulsi Gabbard to be the head of the DNI and RFK Jr. To be the head of HHS and a weekend Fox anchor to be head of the Pentagon. So, yeah, it seems like they're probably going to do what Trump wants to hear again, which is just the amount of disregard you have must have for your own duties and your own oath of the Constitution to put this guy on the court of all people, like, because it's not, like if it's not him, it's going to be Zoran Mandani. Like, there's just be another right wing person that Trump would put on there. And so just to have, like, just. They just don't take their job seriously at all. They have no sense of separation of powers, of independence, of advice. And consent. It's just whatever Trump wants they do, no matter how fucking ridiculous it is.

[Greg Casar]

The person I can't figure out is Thom fucking Tillis, who is not running again. Now talked a lot about how free he is to say what he wants and talked about how, you know, if he. The Pete Hegseth thing, he now regrets that vote and he voted for RFK junior Cuz Bill Cassidy told him to just give him a chance and it'd probably be fine. And then also said. And then voted against Ed Martin, crazy Ed Martin. And said then, well, I'm not voting for any nominees that think that January 6th was okay. Well, Emil Beauvais fired all the January 6th prosecutors and did all the pardons. And Tillis is somehow just voting for him. Voting for him out of committee. The guy who told the DOJ Trump officials, like, hey, we may have to say fuck you to the courts who encouraged lying to a judge over the deportations, like, what? What is Thom Tillis doing? What do you have to lose at this point?

[Dan Pfeiffer]

His next job.

[Greg Casar]

Unfucking believable, man.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

There's just like these height. We've seen this before. There's two dynamics that happen with these people. We saw it with Jeff Flake, we've seen it with some other people leaving. Is one, they're starting to wonder what they're going to do next, which usually involves working in some sort of Republican lobbying firm or law firm or trade association. And so you have to find some way to balance your previous independence with doing the party's bidding or. And there's this other terrible. I mean, this is just stupid way to run a government. But there is this high school dynamic of Tom Taylor has to go have lunch with all these people every week and doesn't want to be the asshole every single time. And so he will put a different asshole on the court just so he has someone to sit next to at the lunch table.

[Greg Casar]

So, yeah. So now the guy who put Eric Adams in his pocket, it's the most corrupt fucking deal ever. Is now on a appeals court, going to go up in an appeals court forever. And possibly the Supreme Court if. If Alito or Thomas retire in the next couple years. That's who. That's who we could get on the fucking Supreme Court.

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[Dan Pfeiffer]

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[Greg Casar]

So the Republican Congress is really crushing it. This week they're about to pass a bill that would claw back about $9 billion that Congress already appropriated. Much of it would have gone to help sick, starving people, mostly children, in poor, war torn countries all over the world. The cuts will also defund NPR and PBS because local radio and Sesame street and Daniel Tiger are all too woke for Republicans. But none of these cuts will come close to making a dent in the $4 trillion that Trump and Republicans just added to the deficit because of an economic plan that gives huge tax cuts to the rich while gutting Obamacare and Medicaid, a vote that at least one Republican senator is already regretting. Missouri Senator Josh Hawley has introduced legislation that would undo some of the Medicaid cuts he just voted for two weeks ago. Meanwhile, millions of Americans who buy their own health insurance are about to pay a lot more because of what Trump's bill does to the Affordable Care Act. And those price increases are going to hit this winter. The notices could come as early as this fall. One of Trump's favorite pollsters, Tony Fabrizio, has been circulating a memo that finds generic Republican candidates trailing generic Democratic House candidates by an average of 3 points in the country's most competitive House districts. But Fabrizio says that if Republicans in Congress undo their Obamacare cuts and extend these premium tax credits in the Affordable Care act, the polling shows they would actually lead the Democrats in these districts if they don't extend them and Democrats run on that, polling shows that the Republicans would lose by double digits in these districts. What do you think the chances are that Republicans will try to run on saving Obamacare? Is that something we're going to see?

[Dan Pfeiffer]

I would love to know who paid Tony Fabrizio for this poll, because I.

[Greg Casar]

Just do not that coalition of people who are trying to extend the tax credit. Yeah, there's a couple combination of like left and right or not like, I.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Assume the insurance companies are involved in here somewhere.

[Greg Casar]

Yeah, I think like insurance companies, like, I think patient advocates like it. Right. Doctors probably like it.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

But just this idea that Trump's pollster is just out there pushing for the extension of Obamacare, Obamacare tax credits on his own seems not particularly credible to me. Having said that, I have seen Democratic polling on this which shows that it doesn't ask the exact same questions, but makes it very clear that this is a very powerful issue and that Republicans will pay a price because these premiums will go up next year. This is not like the Medicaid cuts and everything else that they have kicked past the midterms. And so you will. And it's 24 million people, I think, last I checked. And so there's a lot of people in all the country who are going to do it, and Democrats, if we do this right, both in how we handle the one big beautiful bill or one big ugly bill or whatever we want. What are we calling it these days?

[Greg Casar]

And I'm calling it Trump's economic plan because I'm myself to say big beautiful bill or big beautiful betrayal or whatever the fuck the Democrats are saying.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Yeah, it's so hard to say. But the goal here is to make Republicans own health care in America, right? So that every single decision, whether it's a hospital closing, changing in Medicaid, reimbursement rates, premiums, any premium increase anywhere, it has to do with how Republicans have handled this. And so Democrats should absolutely run on it. And I don't think, I don't see Republicans coming to save the day here, but we should make them pay for it for sure.

[Greg Casar]

Yeah. Just on the. There's a headline in the Detroit Free Press that one insurance, big insurance company in Michigan already announced double digit premium increases for next year. And maybe not related directly to what just passed, but double digit premium increases in addition to losing a credit that was helping people pay for those premiums is going to be an even higher price for people to pay. And every single time there's a headline like that, Democrats should fucking scream about it to voters.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

And there are actually people who are on Medicaid today who at some point will not be on Medicaid, will have to buy insurance on the exchanges if they're lucky enough to have insurance at all, and they will pay more because of what the Republicans have done.

[Greg Casar]

Speaking of Medicaid, what do you think about famed Medicaid moderate Josh Hawley's legislation trying to undo the cuts that he just voted for?

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Just get the fuck out of here. I mean, just what are we doing? Like you could have, if you don't like the cuts, you know what you could have done? Vote against the bill. You could have stopped it.

[Greg Casar]

Unbelievable. I do think that some of the comments and moves like this from Hawley and others are really gonna come back to bite them in the, in the midterms. I mean, to your earlier point about the Epstein stuff, you don't even have to have a bunch of Democrats yelling about healthcare. You can just have Republicans like Thom Tillis or Josh Hawley or Susan Collins or Lisa Murkowski talking about how this is going to hurt people. And then you pair that with actual people who are feeling like they're paying a lot more money or lost their health insurance and talking about it. And it's pretty compelling.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

I think there's a great clip of Hawley talking about how bad these cuts are, like six minutes before he ends up saying he's going to vote for him. But like that's something that if you were running a congressional race in Missouri or frankly anywhere else, you could use that, as long as you just label it Republican Senator. Right. You don't have to believe me. Here's what Republican Senator Josh Hawley said. Here's what Republican Senator Tom Tiller said. Here's what Republican Senator Lisa Murkowski said. On and on.

[Greg Casar]

Any thoughts on the 9 billion in cuts to life saving aid for poor kids in Daniel Tiger's neighborhood?

[Dan Pfeiffer]

I will just say that if this cut to PBS means that PBS kids is going to stop making new episodes of Wild Kratz, my kids will storm the capitol like it's January 6th.

[Greg Casar]

Charlie loves wild Krats.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Wild Kratts is, I mean, Wild Kratz is a great show. It has turned my kids, particularly my Jack, my four year old son knows so much about such insane facts about animals. He will walk.

[Greg Casar]

Yeah. Charlie will say to him, I'm like, how did you know that he's got a Wild Kratz, Tony? He's got the Wild Kratts on television.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

I always say, did you learn that in school? No, I learned that on Wild Kratz. He just kept going around telling everyone that the Gila monster lives in the Sonoran Desert wherever he goes. But in a more serious point is to pass these cuts to life saving aid for poor kids and to public broadcasting. A few weeks after you gave a trillion dollars in tax cuts to the top 1% in this country is so gross that it's hard to take. And as it was happening as the Senate was debating this, Lisa Murkowski said that there was a tsunami warning in Alaska as the vote was happening and that in the rural parts of Alaska, the only way people got to hear about the tsunami warning was on the public airwaves. Right. Local public radio. And with these cuts in big cities, they're probably going to be able to make up the difference with fundraising and tote bags and all the other things that PBS and NPR do. But it's going to be rural. Rural parts of the country are gonna lose their radio stations, lose their local TV because of what Republicans did. And to what point it is a drop in the bucket compared to all the money they just sent out the door to rich people.

[Greg Casar]

Yeah. The Republican line now is everyone's got cell phones, everyone's got mobile phones they don't need. No one gets their alerts, their weather alerts from public radio. And then someone was like, only 12% of people do it. I'm like, okay, that's 12% of people who aren't gonna get fucking emergency alerts. What are you talking about? Just use something else. Also, I realize foreign aid does not poll well. I get it. Like there was a story in the Atlantic this week that they're incinerating, incinerating about a million dollars worth of food that we already bought. Taxpayers already spent the money on and was supposed to go again to like starving children in Afghanistan and Pakistan and some war torn countries in some really tough places. And we already bought. Was in a warehouse in Dubai. And now because Marco, because first Elon fucking Musk and now Marco Rubio refused to do anything about it. Now it's expired. Could have fed a million and a half kids. Million and a half kids. And now it's just incinerated. Just wasted food. Wasted food. And now we're cutting. Tim Miller pointed this out. So they're going to cut $100 million from UNICEF. UNICEF like helps kids in life or death situations and cuz we couldn't spend 100 million on that. In the bill, in the economic plan. Tucked in the economic plan that just passed. $300 million for security at Mar A Lago and all of Trump's other homes. $300 million for security for Trump because I guess he can't pay for that. But $100 million we couldn't do just for UNICEF to help starving kids.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Kind of says everything.

[Greg Casar]

That's where we're at right now. Incinerating food and can't even stand help starving kids. Fucking ridiculous. One other way Republicans are trying to improve their midterm chances is by redrawing House districts so they can pick their voters. Their first target is Texas, where Trump and Governor Greg Abbott are pressuring the Republican state legislature to hold a special session on redistricting years ahead of schedule in order to, in Trump's words, pick up five seats. Pick up five house seats. He's also suggested that other states could follow. But in a pleasant surprise, Democrats are fighting fire with fire. Tommy and I sat down with Gavin Newsom this week who broke news right here in this studio about the options he's considering. Let's listen.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

We can do a special session. I can call for one today if I chose to. We can then put something on the ballot and I could call a special election. We can change the constitution with the consent of the voters and I think we will win that. Or you can look at other avenues which we are exploring, which are pathways with the legislature to do urgency clauses with two thirds of the legislature in both of our houses to move forward with legislative redistricting in between. The constitutional construct, which is every census. The Independent Redistricting Commission does new map, but it's silent about what happens in between. So it's a novel legal question and it's being explored.

[Greg Casar]

So not every Democrat is on board. California assembly member Alex Lee, head of the state's Progressive Caucus, said that, quote, trying to save democracy by destroying democracy is dangerous and foolish. Another anonymous Democratic consultant told Politico that the optics would be, quote, horrendous and indefensible. That said, most other Democrats in California and in Washington, D.C. are supportive. What do you think? Is this a close call?

[Dan Pfeiffer]

I don't think it's a close call. I think I wish we lived in a world where we could. Where the Supreme Court thought would rule against partisan gerrymandering as an assault on democracy. They have chosen not to do that. I wish we lived in a world where we could pass a law banning partisan gerrymandering as Democrats tried to do in the John Lewis Voting Rights Act. But we don't. And so the only way that we can stop partisan gerrymandering is through mutually assured destruction. Right. Oh, Texas, you want to do it. California will do it. Florida, you want to do it. New York will want to do it. And that is what we have to do. Because if the idea is Republicans do whatever they want and we will wave the white flag, we were never going to solve these problems because we will never have the majorities necessary to actually pass a law to ban nonpartisan redistricting. If Republicans think that they can come out on the bad end of partisan redistricting nationally, then we can maybe get to the table at some point for them to actually get a deal to actually pass legislation if they think they can always win. If the dice comes up with the right roll at the end of every decade with the census, then they're going to keep doing this. And so we have to fight fire with fire. I don't think it's a close call at all.

[Greg Casar]

Yeah, nonpartisan independent redistricting for everyone or we don't disarm unilaterally. It's very easy because you need. I mean, this is about national House races. This is about national control of the House. So it's not a state by state thing, really, even though that's who is drawing the districts. Right. And so I don't know. Like, I just, I. Yeah, we can be like, oh, you know what's anti democracy? Anti democracy is like the Republicans winning the House back or winning the House again. And we have no check on Donald Trump for all four years while he's in office like that. That, to me, is more anti democracy than trying to fight fire with fire on this one. So. All right, Dan, here. The Wall Street Journal story has published. I'm just reading this now. For the first time, the Wall Street Journal has reviewed a book put together for Jeffrey Epstein's 50th birthday. As part of that book, a letter was submitted by Donald Trump. Trump's letter features a drawing of a naked woman and this text which imagines a conversation between Trump and Epstein. There's a voiceover that says there must be more to life than having everything. The note began Donald Trump. Yes, there is. But I won't tell you what it is. Nor will I, since I also know what it is. We have certain things in common, Jeffrey. Yes, we do, come to think of it. Enigmas never age. Have you noticed that? As a matter of fact, it was clear to me the last time I saw you. A pal is a wonderful thing. Happy birthday. And may every day be another wonderful secret.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Wow.

[Greg Casar]

I mean, what the fuck?

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Huh?

[Greg Casar]

Oh. In an interview. In an interview with the Journal. Oh, no, we should. Everyone hold on. Everyone hold on.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Yes.

[Greg Casar]

In an interview with the Journal on Tuesday evening, Trump denied writing the letter or drawing the picture. This is not me. This is a fake thing. It's a fake Wall Street Journal story. I never wrote a picture in my life. I don't draw pictures of women, he said. It's not my language. It's not my words. I'm gonna sue the Wall Street Journal just like I sued everyone else.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Wow. Did they publish the letter? Is that in here? I want a picture.

[Greg Casar]

I wanna see the picture that is. Oh, yeah. Where is the picture? Here, let's look. Don't worry, we'll put it up if we can. It doesn't look. I'm not seeing a picture in here, which is real disappointing.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Also, good sources from George Conway.

[Greg Casar]

Yeah.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Yeah, he was pretty. He was. He nailed that one. Wow. That is.

[Greg Casar]

That is. That is wild. May every day be another wonderful secret.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

We have certain things in common, Jeffrey. Enigmas never age. Have you noticed?

[Greg Casar]

Enigmas never age.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Hmm. Man, I could really. We could really use a textual analysis of this.

[Greg Casar]

Well, that's what we got for now.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Yeah. I mean, this is great. Thank you to the news gods for putting this out in minute 68 of this podcast or whatever we're on.

[Greg Casar]

Well, and now we can segue seamlessly from that to a couple of other New York fucking bozos.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

That was a Brilliant segue, right on the fly.

[Greg Casar]

We got Andrew Cuomo and Eric Adams. Still today, talk about Andrew. Cuomo announced on Monday that he will give this whole campaign for mayor thing another go by running as an independent candidate in the general election. Cuomo made the announcement in a video that went viral for all the wrong reasons. Let's listen.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Hello, I'm Andrew Cuomo, and unless you've been living under a rock, you probably know that the Democratic primary did not go the way I had hoped. But as my grandfather used to say, when you get knocked down, learn the lesson and pick yourself back up and.

[Greg Casar]

Get in the game. And that is what I'm going to do.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

My opponent, Mr. Mandani, offers slick slogans, but no real solutions. You deserve a mayor with the experience and ideas to make it happen again and the guts to take on anyone.

[Greg Casar]

Who stands in the way. The Republican nominee for mayor, perennial candidate Curtis Sliwa, had a quippy retort to Cuomo's candidacy. Let's take a listen. Andrew Cuomo is a creep. Slapping fannies and killing grannies.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Oh, well done. Well done. Curtis Sliwa.

[Greg Casar]

Slapping fannies and killing grannies. Curtis Sliwa. Sliwa. Sliwa.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Sliwa.

[Greg Casar]

I think Sliwa. Yeah, it sounds like Sliwa. Meanwhile, sitting Mayor Eric Adams, who also intends to run as an independent, has just been sued by his own former police commissioner for running the department as a criminal racket. That follows four similar separate lawsuits from former officers filed last week, accusing Adams of selling promotions, among other things. I don't know, Dan. You think. You think Mamdani has any chance against these powerhouses?

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Just. What? I don't. I mean, just. The Cuomo video is just really. It's a piece of work. It is a.

[Greg Casar]

Now, Dan, you mocked this video on Twitter.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

I did.

[Greg Casar]

And ended up in the New York Post. And a Cuomo campaign staffer consultant hit back hard at you and all of us. I guess we caught some strays. Your co host here, because it says, well, if it's coming from the insular guys of Pod Save America, we must be doing something right. And let me just say thank you for lessons on insularity. Andrew Cuomo's campaign, from a guy who.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Did no interviews, talked to no voters, doesn't seem to want the job he's running for, isn't sure why he's running, doesn't know what to do other than run for office, and has decided to. I mean, let's back up a step just with Andrew Cuomo. He was the Democratic governor of the state. He is a scion to the most famous Democratic family in New York. He gets his ass kicked in the primary. Right.

[Greg Casar]

He didn't lose the Trump family.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Right. He didn't lose a little bit. He wasn't close. There's no, like, allegation of that. It was taken from him. But he's running as an independent to try to take it from the Democrat. I mean, that's a wild thing to do. And it's wild that anyone in the Democratic Party would support him. It's wild that much of the Democratic Party establishment, that all the Democratic Party establishment is not united behind Zoron here. Right. We have a choice of a Democrat, an independent who has been accused of a lot of corruption and malfeasance, a independent who is engaged in some sort of bribe with Trump and a Republican. And we're not going to back Zorin because he is too progressive for you. It's insane. The whole thing's insane.

[Greg Casar]

You support the Democratic nominee if you're a Democratic official.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Yeah.

[Greg Casar]

If you're a voter, you do what the fuck you want. You want to vote over a Republican voter?

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Yeah, you can do that.

[Greg Casar]

But if you're a Democrat, if you are a Democratic official in this party, you support the person who wins the primary. If the person who wins the primary is too conservative for you, you support them. If they're too liberal for you, you support them. That's like. That's. We set the rules. That's what we do.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

I will just do some live reporting here, which is. I had friends who were at the Wu Tang show on Wednesday night in Madison Square Garden. Zoron walks in.

[Greg Casar]

I heard.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Crowd goes bananas.

[Greg Casar]

That's pretty cool, right?

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Yeah, it's very cool. I don't. I don't see the crowd going bananas for Andrew Cuomo anywhere.

[Greg Casar]

You don't think a Wu Tang crowd? Yeah, no, I don't think.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Or any crowd. I mean, the Wu Tang crowd. I hate to say this, because it pains me personally, but maybe not such a young crowd anymore. John, this is our final tour.

[Greg Casar]

Maybe like a Frank Sinatra cover singer, I guess.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

I don't know.

[Greg Casar]

Okay, when we get back from the break, you'll hear Dan's conversation with new Congressional Progressive Caucus Chair Greg Cassar about redistricting in Texas, what House Democrats are planning to do on the Epstein files, and the federal government's response to the heartbreaking floods in his home state of Texas. Two quick things before we get to that. Got some new merch in the crooked store that'll help spread the word that we are not okay with what ICE is doing here in California, if you didn't already know and around the country, you can check out our new friend of immigrants and California Bear flag [e-mail] store. Also, Dan, you're out with a new episode of Polar Coaster. What'd you guys cover?

[Dan Pfeiffer]

We went deep on all the polling. We've seen about Donald Trump and Jeffrey Epstein and talked about why this scandal is really not going anywhere for Trump and could leave some lasting damage. And we also talked about really interesting new polling from Gallup which shows that Donald Trump and Stephen Miller are making America pro immigrant again. It's very, very interesting stuff which shows that Trump may be winning the battle but losing the war on immigration in this country.

[Greg Casar]

Well, if you want to hear that episode, and you should, and submit questions for a future one, head to crooked.com friends or subscribe on Apple Podcasts.

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[Greg Casar]

You're a huge fan.

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[Dan Pfeiffer]

Was caused by gay people. Yeah, I don't think that's Billy Graham. That's not Billy Graham. That's not Billy Graham. That's not Billy Graham. That was another old Roberts of ZBiotics.

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And Pat Robertson maybe.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

I don't know, one of those guys.

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[Dan Pfeiffer]

Joining me now is the new chairman of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, Texas Representative Greg Kassar. Carlos McOsar. Welcome to the pod.

[Jon Favreau]

Thanks so much for having me on, man.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

All right, we got a lot to talk about today. Let's start with redistricting in your home state of Texas. John and I talked about this a little bit earlier on the podcast, but Trump wants Republicans in Texas to redraw your state's congressional map to get them a whole bunch more seats and try to hold on to power in what should be a tough election. What do you think of their plan and what are the consequences?

[Jon Favreau]

Look, Donald Trump doesn't have a plan to win the upcoming midterms. He has a plan to rig the election rules. He knows that kicking over 15 million people off of their health care, giving all these benefits to his billionaire buddies, is deeply unpopular. And so he's trying to figure out how he can completely change the rules of the game in the middle of all this. And he's basically demanding Texas Republicans completely redraw the map, not just nibble around the edges, violate the Voting Rights act in ways we've never seen before and see if he can use that as a roadmap to steal even more districts and even more seats, just all in his quest to hold on to a little bit of power. And what's interesting about this is that it likely puts Republican incumbents in a really risky situation, because you don't just change five Democrat seats, you probably change the entire Texas map. And those Republicans could start having crazy districts that don't make sense. They could represent whole new areas, be vulnerable to Republican primaries, be vulnerable to a Democratic challenger. And so those Republican congressmen have to decide whether in this moment, where it's their own voters on the line, their own necks, their own districts, whether they're gonna stand up for themselves or just be Trump's water boys.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Obviously, we, even though some Republican incumbents could be at more risk, we do wanna stop this plan. Right, and how can that be stopped? House Minority Leader Jeffries urged Texas Democrats to do the quorum bust by leaving the state, something that Texas Democrats have done before. What do you. What, what's the right way to stop this? Right way to fight this?

[Jon Favreau]

There's basically three steps in my mind. First, we need to buy time. And that's why House Democrats in the state of Texas need to be ready to filibuster, to bust quorum, which means if 50 House Democrats leave the building, you shut down the session. They need to be able to march in the streets to buy time so that folks like Governor Gavin Newsom, who's out there speaking out, saying that other states may start reaping what the Republicans sow so that that pressure can start to build up. Republican members of Congress in other states and in Texas, like I said, need to start feeling the pressure as well. And Democrats need to make sure we fully fund campaigns to be ready to take on those Republican incumbents. And we use that to buy time. Then we also need folks to speak up all over the country. This needs to become a national issue because the Voting Rights act as we know it is under threat here. Texas is already racially gerrymandered to hell. If they want to squeeze out five more seats. That means Trump is basically ripping everything up, sending us basically to pre1965 on many of our voting rights laws. So we got to fire up the country, and then if they end up doing it, we've got to make them pay for it. We can't let this work, because then it will just be their playbook every single time.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

How is what they might do violate what remains of the voters Rights act after the Shelby county decision about a decade or so ago.

[Jon Favreau]

Yeah. They got rid of pre clearance, meaning that states that have a history of discrimination now are basically off the hook for that past discrimination and can do stuff like this call session that should be about rebuilding from the flood and instead just do redistricting in a week or two. That's got. We lost so much of that. We lost so much of them now being able to say they can gerrymander in a partisan way, but they're still not allowed under Section 2 to chop up and racially gerrymander such that, say, communities of color can't just be chopped up into five or six districts in a way that completely dilutes their vote at this point. If Trump wants to demand five more districts from the Republicans, then he may be trying to completely do away with that section of the Voting Rights Act. And if he asks the Supreme Court to rubber stamp this Texas map, then that could be essentially what he uses all over the country. This is a five alarm fire in Texas. It's probably, I think, the biggest political story that people haven't heard of. And this five alarm fire could start spreading all across the country.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Have you talked to members of the California delegation? Are they, are they on board with what Governor Newsom is at least floating?

[Jon Favreau]

The members of the California delegation I know are all in on saying that Republicans might just reap what it is that they sow. So I ultimately am going to let you know, folks from other states speak up for themselves. But here's what I'll say. I think I believe in ending gerrymandering across the country, but that means, across the country, I think that states, blue states should say they're going to implement independent commissions when Texas does. You know, I don't think that you get to national ends to gerrymandering by blue states just signing up to do it and red states not having to pay any kind of a cost for continued gerrymandering and diluting the votes of communities of color.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Yeah. It seems like there really are only two options to deal with partisan gerrymander in this country because the Supreme Court has opted out of that fight. Is one.

[Jon Favreau]

To put it politely.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

To put it politely. Yes, that they have. They have. They basically set up this incredibly absurd system where the way to deal with being gerrymandered is to vote even though you lost the power of your vote through gerrymandering. Very. It's very, very effective. But two ways. One is national legislation. Right. Which you got, which folks tried to do during the Biden administration. And then the second way is mutually assured destruction, which is essentially what you're suggesting, which is Texas has to know that if they move, California will move, Florida has to know if they move, New York will move, and so on. And we can't just wave the white flag and let them do it. Right.

[Jon Favreau]

And in the same sort of analogy, in a world of mutually assured destruction, you can eventually do cooperative. You get rid of a nuke, I get rid of a nuke, and eventually you get to nuclear non proliferation, if that's where we want to be. But in my view, we have to stop the growing autocracy and authoritarianism, get back to reasonable Democratic majorities, and then no longer have the kinds of Kyrsten Sinemas and Joe Manchins, who frankly, I think, in my view, put themselves over the future of the country.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

No, absolutely. Okay. We're talking right after the House has passed three big pieces of crypto legislation. One of them is now headed to Trump, two of them are headed to the Senate. You voted against all of them. Can you explain to people what these bills do and why you opposed them?

[Jon Favreau]

Yeah. So I think what folks need to know is that this, these were extremely light touch, in my view, regulation of cryptocurrency. Look, we established laws to protect us from big market crashes like we had in the 1920s. We established those laws after the Great Depression. And of course, they did not foresee cryptocurrency coming. But in my view, there's a lot of lessons to be learned from that. The Biden administration tried to apply some of those laws to cryptocurrency, and the crypto industry and crypto lobbyists sued. The Biden administration didn't want to follow those laws we created after the Great Depression. So we wound up in what is kind of a vacuum where they didn't want to follow those laws and the Trump administration wasn't going to enforce them. So they put forward this kind of light touch regulation. What does that mean for you? If you have cryptocurrency and there's very light regulation, it means somebody could take advantage of you could make a killing telling folks that this thing is worth a ton and then leave you in the dumps, people essentially could get screwed out of their money. I think if there's not strong enough rules and if you don't earn cryptocurrency, that's actually my greater concern with this regulation, light touch regulation, because the AFL CIO came out against these policies because your pension, your retirement funds could get Wrapped up in this. My fear is that five or 10 years from now, these votes and this light touch cryptocurrency regulation could look like credit default swaps in 2008. It could be the vulnerable point that results in people that had nothing to do with this losing their money. And in my view, the reason we wound up with light touch regulation rather than something more thoughtful for this evolving industry is because the cryptocurrency industry bought the president, bought the Republican Party, and took out guys like Sherrod Brown who are trying to get to, I think, kind of the law of the 1920s upgraded to the 2000s kind of environment.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

I mean, a decent number of your Democratic colleagues voted for these bills, is that right?

[Jon Favreau]

That's right. And of course, everybody gets to vote their district and vote their conscience. And I understand their argument that they would rather if the crypto industry doesn't want to follow the 1920s rules, which I think that they should have, because those are the rules in the books that they would at least like them to follow, these minimal rules. I fear that if these minimal rules become the baseline that a lot of people could put their money in this thinking it's safe, thinking it's regulated, and lose it five or ten years down the line. And as somebody here in my mid-30s, I can kind of see five or 10 years down the line coming pretty soon.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Yeah, that's fair enough. There is a sort of a school of thought among some. This has been pushed by fellow Texan Mark Cuban, among others, that one of the things that hurt Kamala Harris in the election, at least with a segment of younger voters, particularly young male voters, was that Biden administration's approach to crypto in the sense that they were not pro regulation, but sort of anti crypto. Right. Do you think that, like, this is an industry that exists? It is. It's developing that, you know, Eve, let's stipulate that these regulations were too light touch. This is not what you want. But is there. Is there a middle ground there you're looking for?

[Jon Favreau]

Yeah, I would want to get to a place where you have good rules for the folks that choose to invest in crypto. I feel like I sit down and talk to actual crypto voters and it's. And there's. We can have a good conversation. I'm concerned that the crypto lobby written bills are a big problem here. But look, frankly, in my view, you know, I was in Nevada during the beginning of the Harris campaign. I traveled all over the state of Texas, and what I Heard I, you know, I almost never, ever from an independent or swing voter, heard that cryptocurrency was their top issue. I heard that paying the rent and making sure that their childcare wasn't so damn expensive and that government actually worked for them and didn't sound so corrupt in both parties. That's what I heard time after time after time. And I think that we just got to stop getting pulled into thinking that sort of the DC Bubble of politics is, you know, what's dominating there. But I also understand that there are millions of people, tens of millions of people that have crypto, and we want to make sure that we're speaking to them as being protected and not just let the industry lobby speak for them.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

The Senate last night or this morning, depending on what time, what time zone you're in, passed a bill cutting, essentially codifying the Doge cuts. It's going to take $9 billion of congressionally appropriated funding for foreign aid and public broadcasting.

[Jon Favreau]

I heard you guys were reporting that they're defunding Daniel Tiger.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

I were very upset about the day, Daniel and Tiger. But my kids are sort of. They've moved into Wild Kratts now, and they're very, very upset that Wild Kratz could be defunded. In the old days, like 10 years ago, there used to be three parties on the Hill, Democrats, Republicans, and appropriators. And the idea that Congress would allow a president to take away money that they appropriated was impossible to imagine. Is there any chance these rescissions get stopped in the House, or are they just gonna greenlight this as they always do?

[Jon Favreau]

Well, the way that we've been able to slow it down so far is by trying to force votes on releasing the Epstein files. Right. That seems to be one of the only places where, you know, these guys just do anything for Donald Trump. And I, I don't know why. Sometimes I get surprised when it's the same thing over and over and over. Never get your.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

You never get your hopes up, right?

[Jon Favreau]

Yeah.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

No one ever made money betting on the independence of these guys.

[Jon Favreau]

It's billionaire bootlicking first. But then before first is Trump ass kissing, you know. And so, yeah, you know, they've got this thing about NPR and Trump is saying he's going to run over the appropriators and they're headed that way. Then we're saying, well, why don't you release the Epstein files while you're at it? And that slowed them down a little bit. But now it sounds like a bunch of the people that have said release the Epstein files a million times, are now like, well, maybe after Trump is gone, they'll just do anything the guy asks. And at the end of the day, I'm a relatively new member of Congress. This is my third year here. I was hoping that you would get here and be able to have more reason debates and figure some stuff out in the back room. But at the end of the day, I just think that for some of these folks, we just have to beat them because there has to be a cost to just being such a bootlicker.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

As we're recording this, the Republican House Rules Committee has been meeting. They're trying to find out. They're all very worked up by the fact that the Democrats keep asking for votes on the release of the Epstein files. They're trying to figure out what to do about that. Is this a Democratic strategy you guys gonna keep doing, keep pushing this?

[Jon Favreau]

I mean, we absolutely should because we've got to, like I said, we've got to show people just how absurd the thing is, right, that Trump and the Republicans went and sold this as one of their top policy platforms and as soon as Trump tells them not to, that they won't. And so I think we've got to make that really clear. And then I think it's also part of making clear to independent voters and for people that this is the issue that they care about that Democrats are willing to say, I want us to show, we're willing to say, look, just because you're really rich and powerful, you don't get off the hook. Because clearly Epstein was interacting with a bunch of really rich and powerful people. And rich and powerful people getting off the hook is something that's really upsetting and that I think as a Democratic Party, we have to say release the Epstein files and you don't get a free pass just because you got a lot of money.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Do you, do you have a theory as to why Trump is, did such a 180 on this?

[Jon Favreau]

I'm getting inside Trump's head or Laura Loomer's head about why she ended up picking it. You know, there's already enough mental health strains in this job, you know.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

All right, all right, so I will free you from the obligation to.

[Jon Favreau]

It's like I, I make sure I go for a run or another workout every morning and I tried to stop getting in Trump and Laura Loomer's heads.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

That's two self care tests. Fair enough. All right, I will let the record show you've passed on the opportunity to irresponsibly speculate about what's in the Epstein files. So we will take that for whatever that's worth. You know, I mean, it would have been great content, but I understand why you did that. Moving on to a much more serious topic, I want to talk briefly about the awful floods in Texas, the administration's response. You've called for the Inspector General of the Department of Homeland Security to do an inspector investigation. What do you see in the response that has you concerned? And is there any chance that Congress will learn any lessons from this in terms of funding for the National Weather Service or other disaster response or climate resilience or whatever else?

[Jon Favreau]

Yes. So, first of all, the devastation is ongoing. There's still over 100 people missing. Search and rescue is ongoing. All these people dying, including these kids, horrific and tragic. And I think part of respecting the dead is making sure that there's accountability and that we ask real hard questions, like why FEMA whistleblowers said that Secretary Christie Noem waited 72 hours to approve search and rescue at the federal level. I mean, you should only have to think about that for 72 seconds, max. So we should be asking those questions. You have severe understaffing at the National Weather Service. We need to know whether that reduction in staffing had an impact in this case. And if, you know, we had one of the chief meteorologists for the Central Texas area vacant. They say they brought some other folks in. Who'd they bring in? How did that go? And if there were two disasters happening at once, and as we know, there was floods in Rideau, so right after this, what would have happened? We've got to ask those questions to respect the dead and to see, you know, how do we protect people in the future? So that's why I authored a letter asking the inspector general to look into this. That's an independent investigation. And I've got some news to break here on your podcast. Not on purpose. As I was putting these AirPods in, my staff mentioned that the Inspector General has confirmed that they're going to launch the investigation. That's part of being on the Oversight Committee. That's one of the pieces of democracy that we still got that we can use. And so there will be an independent investigation into this. I also think that we have to call the question about whether we're going to fully fund FEMA and fully staff the National Weather Service after this. We can't just let this happen, give our thoughts and prayers, and then completely ignore that Elon Musk and Donald Trump have severely cut the staffing at the weather service, which is supposed to anticipate floods and hurricanes and disasters like this, because just a few minutes extra notice, getting to a little bit of higher ground saves lives myself.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

So many of our listeners are just so heartbroken by what's happened in Texas. Just reading the stories about the girls at the camp is so horrifying. Is there anything that our listeners around the country can do to help to contribute to the recovery there?

[Jon Favreau]

Yes, there is the community foundation of the Hill country, which. So you can, maybe the folks here at Pod Save can put that information up in a place that you can get it. They are distributing funds and that is a really important thing because we are just, we have a lot of rebuilding to do. And then something else we can all do is recognize that these disasters are going to get worse and worse, more and more frequent in places like Texas. We've used to hurricanes and floods, but not this often, not this big, not this frequent, plus freezes, plus wildfires all over the country. So making sure that we take care of one another, look out for one another, contribute what you can, even just a few bucks to helping in the Hill country and then keep speaking out because as a community, we can reduce the damage from these sorts of disasters, but we've got to take care of one another. And I think getting involved in local government is a huge way of participating. I'm a former city council member and let me tell you, the decisions are getting made there about putting in the infrastructure to prevent floods and putting in the infrastructure for early warnings or hardening your city against wildfires. So I'm in Congress now, but I also really encourage folks listening to get involved at the local level because you can make a big difference to save lives in the future.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Congressman, thanks so much for joining us. It was a pleasure to talk to you.

[Jon Favreau]

Thanks a bunch, Dan.

[Greg Casar]

That's our show for today. Tommy Lovett and I, he still does this show. He's still a co host. He's back. He'll be back with a new show on Tuesday. Have a great weekend.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Bye, everyone.

[Greg Casar]

If you want to listen to Pod Save America ad free or get access to our subscriber discord and exclusive podcasts, consider joining our friends at the pod [e-mail] friends or subscribe on Apple Podcasts directly from the Pod Save America feed. Also, please consider leaving us a review to help boost this episode and everything we do here at Crooked Pod Save America is a crooked media production. Our producers are doing David Toledo, Emma Ilik, Frank and Saul Rubin. Our associate producer, is Farah Safari. Austin Fisher is our senior producer. Reed Churlin is our executive editor. Adrienne Hill is our head of news and politics. The show is mixed and edited by Andrew Chadwick. Jordan Kanter is our sound engineer, with audio support from Kyle Seglin and Charlotte Landis. Matt de Groat is our head of production. Naomi Sengel is our executive assistant. Thanks to our digital team, Elijah Cohn, Hayley Jones, Ben Hefcote, Mia Kelman, Carol Pelaviev, David Toles and Ryan Young, our production staff is proudly unionized with the Writers Guild of America East. What does possibility mean to you? That's a hard question.

[Jon Favreau]

Something that you can strive for that.

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I'm able to do anything thing I set my mind to.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

You're confident in yourself and you believe in yourself.

[Greg Casar]

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The world is on the brink. Wars, contentious elections, disinformation spreading at warp speed, and Donald Trump at the center.

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But what does it mean for the rest of us? Every week on Pod Save the World, Tommy Vitor and I cut through the noise to explain how global power is shifting. No jargon, no homework, just clear, honest conversations about what's happening and why it matters. From breaking news to long, simmering international conflicts, we dissect it all with critical analysis and some jokes that will surely embarrass our children one day. Tune in to Pod Save the World every Wednesday, wherever you get your podcasts or catch it on YouTube.