War in the Group Chat

Summary

Pod Save America – Episode: "War in the Group Chat" (Released March 25, 2025)

In this episode of Pod Save America, hosted by Jon Favreau, Jon Lovett, Dan Pfeiffer, and Tommy Vietor, the team delves into some of the most alarming political developments of the year. From unauthorized group chats among high-ranking Trump officials to the troubling capitulation of major institutions under the Trump administration, the hosts provide insightful analysis and engage in candid discussions about the state of American politics. The episode also features an in-depth conversation with Kentucky Governor Andy Beshear on strategies for the Democratic Party to regain momentum in red states.

1. Unauthorized Group Chat Among Trump Officials [01:46 – 03:00]

The episode opens with a startling revelation: high-ranking Trump officials inadvertently included Jeffrey Goldberg, editor-in-chief of The Atlantic, in a private Signal group chat titled "Houthi PC Small Group." This chat was ostensibly used for strategizing military actions against the Houthi rebels in Yemen.

Jon Lovett humorously remarks, “It's the funniest person you could possibly include on that group chat too” ([02:01]).

The inclusion of Goldberg, a prominent journalist, raises significant concerns about operational security and the integrity of sensitive communications within the Trump administration.

2. Legal and Corporate Capitulation to Trump Administration [10:15 – 20:23]

The conversation shifts to Paul Weiss, a prestigious law firm that recently struck a controversial deal with the Trump administration. Under pressure from President Trump, Paul Weiss agreed to halt an executive order that aimed to restrict the firm's ability to defend clients against federal government cases. In return, the firm committed to $40 million in pro bono work across issues favored by the Trump administration.

Dan Pfeiffer criticizes the firm's decision, stating, “This is an existential crisis that could easily have destroyed the firm” ([10:15]). Jon Lovett adds, “Trump inventing new authorities that the President has” ([13:24]), highlighting the administration's tendency to create and exploit legal loopholes to undermine opposition.

The hosts further discuss how other law firms like Perkins Coie and Covington & Burling are facing similar threats, illustrating a broader trend of legal institutions capitulating under Trump's pressure.

3. Universities Yielding to Federal Pressure [26:02 – 28:00]

Jon Favreau brings attention to Columbia University’s recent capitulation to Trump’s demands in exchange for $400 million in federal funding. The administration's preconditions included:

• Adopting a definition of anti-Semitism favorable to the administration.
• Hiring 36 new special officers to control campus activities.
• Banning face masks during protests.
• Appointing a senior vice provost to oversee specific academic departments.

Jon Lovett underscores the gravity of the situation: “The federal government is a behemoth. It sends money to all kinds of institutions... It is a bedrock principle that when the federal government writes you a check, that cannot become a cudgel by which they can control your speech” ([23:00]).

The dialogue highlights the alarming extent of federal overreach and the diminishing autonomy of academic institutions.

4. Deportation Policies and Due Process Violations [32:53 – 43:50]

A significant portion of the episode is dedicated to discussing the Trump administration's Alien Enemies Act and its application in deporting individuals deemed as terrorists to El Salvadoran gulags without due process.

Dan Pfeiffer describes a horrifying account from Time, detailing how Venezuelan migrants are subjected to brutal treatment upon deportation, including physical abuse and forced labor.

At [37:59], Jon Lovett questions the justification: “The administration's use of the Alien Enemies Act was 'incredibly troublesome and problematic and concerning'” ([34:19]).

The hosts express bipartisan outrage over the erosion of constitutional protections, emphasizing the gravity of deporting individuals without fair hearings or legal representation.

5. Discussion with Governor Andy Beshear [62:49 – 91:21]

The latter part of the episode features a compelling interview with Kentucky Governor Andy Beshear, who discusses the challenges faced by Democrats in predominantly red states and offers insights into effective party strategies.

Key Topics Discussed:

• Economic Impact of Tariffs: Governor Beshear outlines how Trump’s tariff policies are adversely affecting Kentucky’s economy, particularly devastating industries like bourbon production and automotive parts manufacturing. “These tariffs are gonna impact my people... They’re going to hurt my people” ([63:22]).

• Medicaid and Healthcare: Emphasizing the importance of Medicaid, Beshear explains that half of Kentucky's children are covered, and Medicaid accounts for 70% of long-term care costs in the state. He stresses the need to protect and expand these programs to prevent the collapse of rural healthcare systems.

• Party Unity and Messaging: Beshear advocates for a unified Democratic message focused on tangible issues like jobs, accessible healthcare, and safe infrastructure. He criticizes the party for not effectively communicating its accomplishments. “We’ve got to focus... show it again... have to prove what you’ve done over and over and over” ([82:13]).

• Confronting Hate and Building Common Ground: Addressing the challenge of combating hate while fostering dialogue, Beshear underscores the importance of standing up against intolerance without amplifying hateful voices. “People... have been hurt... Our country is a less safe place... I don’t want to lift up a voice of hate” ([85:34]).

• Future Leadership and Vision: Looking ahead, Beshear expresses hope for Democratic candidates who can bridge divides and focus on the common good. “We need to have people who are doing this for the right reason, that don’t want to leave a broken country to their kids” ([86:55]).

Notable Quotes:

• Governor Beshear: “Make sure that we’re communicating in a real, authentic way to the American people” ([84:55]).

• Dan Pfeiffer: “There is a collective action problem… Because we just have to fight through, we can’t give up on where this country has to get” ([17:45]).

6. The Absurdity of Planning Wars on Signal [47:23 – 58:25]

Returning to the initial story, the hosts analyze the Signal group chat incident, highlighting the incompetence and security lapses among Trump officials. They mockingly suggest that officials are breaking the Presidential Records Act and question the operational security that allowed such sensitive discussions to occur on a public messaging app.

Jon Lovett muses, “Think there's a Putin PC small group” ([58:03]), humorously imagining similar unsecured group chats discussing other international threats.

Key Points:

• Operational Security Failures: The decision to conduct classified meetings on Signal reflects a blatant disregard for secure communication protocols.

• Accidental Inclusion of Journalists: The presence of Jeffrey Goldberg in the chat underscores the dangers of mismanaging communication channels.

• Trump’s Denial: Despite the evidence, Trump publicly denied knowledge of the group chat’s content, exacerbating distrust ([47:05]).

7. Concluding Remarks and Call to Action [91:27 – End]

The episode wraps up with the hosts urging listeners to engage with Democratic initiatives and support upcoming events. They emphasize the importance of collective action in combating authoritarian tendencies and restoring democratic norms.

Jon Lovett invites listeners to join Crooked Media’s Friends of the Pod community for exclusive content and ad-free episodes, encouraging active participation in the political process.

Overall Takeaways

• Erosion of Democratic Institutions: The Trump administration’s actions demonstrate a concerning trend of undermining legal and academic institutions through coercion and blatant disregard for constitutional protections.

• Urgent Need for Democratic Unity: To counteract Republican overreach and restore democratic integrity, a unified and strategic approach within the Democratic Party is essential, focusing on clear, issue-based messaging and grassroots mobilization.

• Importance of Secure Communications: The leaked group chat incident serves as a stark reminder of the critical need for secure communication practices among government officials to prevent unauthorized disclosure of sensitive information.

• Role of Leadership in Crisis: Conversations with Governor Beshear highlight the significance of strong, principled leadership in navigating political crises and fostering a more cohesive and effective Democratic strategy.

This episode of Pod Save America offers a thorough examination of the current political landscape, emphasizing the challenges faced by Democrats and the imperative to defend democratic values against increasing authoritarian pressures.

Transcript

[Jon Favreau]

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[Tommy Vietor]

Feeling stressed? Let's talk about a simple yet powerful way to boost your mental health. Walking April 2 is national walking Day and it's the perfect time to start a new walking routine. The American Heart association says even a brisk walk can reduce stress and improve your mood. So grab a friend, bring a pet, or even take a conference call on the go. Learn more and get heart healthy tips and recipes straight to your [e-mail] MoveMore.

[Jon Favreau]

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

[Jon Lovett]

I'm Jon Levitt.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

I'm Tommy Guitor.

[Jon Favreau]

On today's show, we're gonna talk about one of the most insane stories of the year, which is saying quite a lot. The highest ranking Trump officials used a group chat to make war plans and accidentally included the Atlantic's Jeff Goldberg. Polarity ensues.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

It's the funniest person you could possibly include on that group tape too.

[Jon Lovett]

It's perfect.

[Jon Favreau]

Unless it was a Houthi, that would have been pretty bad too.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Yeah, I wonder if Mike Waltz has any Houthis in his contacts.

[Jon Favreau]

We'll also cover the ongoing enraging legal drama over Trump's new policy of declaring people terrorists and sending them to a foreign gulag without due process. We'll talk about the disturbing trend of legal and academic institutions capitulating to the Trump regime. And then later in the show, you'll hear my conversation with Kentucky Governor Andy Beshear, a potential 20 contender about how Democrats can win in red states and fix the party. But first, the three of us briefly escaped our liberal LA bubbles this weekend. Lovett, you went the farthest. You bet. You went to Wisconsin to campaign for Judge Susan Crawford, who's running to keep the liberal majority on the state Supreme Court against an Elon Musk funded opponent. You saw our pal Ben Wickler. How was it?

[Jon Lovett]

So we had a great time out there. It was really like tons and tons of people came out on a Saturday and Sunday. We did six kickoffs, a couple hundred people over the course of the weekend knocking on doors. It was good to be out there. I know that a lot of people feel a little bit discouraged about what the value is of like getting out there and doing like the phone banking and the texting and the calling, but being out there, it's a reminder that it is valuable for you to be among like minded people who are fighting. You get something from it, you learn something from it. And knocking on doors and just talking to people, a lot of it was just trying to remind people who are already pretty progressive in places like Madison to turn out to vote. Most of them already had, but it was kind of a. It's a reminder that like so much our politics is asymmetrical, right? Like it is totally normal for J.D. vance to go on television and insult liberals and the, and the people that live in cosmopolitan liberal cities. But it's so inconceivable to have that in the other direction.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Right?

[Jon Lovett]

Imagine Elizabeth Warren going on. So it'd be a bunch of fucking trash idiots down there and down there in Alabama, like it's not possible. So we just take a lot of hits and there were so many. There was this woman that really stuck with me. She was an older lady and she was gardening and she's like, they ran out of signs for Judge Crawford. So I made my own and I made some for my neighbors. And I just can't believe what's happening to our country. And I'm just so scared and I'm just so sad and like we've taken a lot of fucking shit and we don't deserve it. And just being out in the world with people who feel the same way was really inspiring. And a lot of people are really pissed about elon Musk dumping $13 million into the race.

[Jon Favreau]

I bet. Did you encounter anyone who's not supporting Susan Crawford because she's not burning enough Teslas?

[Jon Lovett]

So I will tell you the number.

[Jon Favreau]

Of didn't burn enough for her.

[Jon Lovett]

A couple undecided people we met knocking on doors was me and Nina from the Vote Save America team. And one woman was like, I'm really not sure, but I'm kind of on the phone. And we said, all right, we'll be back in 20 minutes. And so we left and came back.

[Jon Favreau]

To talk to us. Sound like that, Like a threat. Like that.

[Jon Lovett]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, you'll vote correctly or you'll hear from us again. But. So we talked her for a while and like, it's amazing how much the Tesla is being lit on fire has broken through for like nonpartisan, non political people. And I remember we just started saying like, well, it's not. We're not. We're not here. We're not in favor of setting Teslas on fire. And Judge Crawford's not going to set any Teslas on fire. We don't really have anything to do with that. But here's what it meant. Here's why it's important for you to vote in this race and why it's a bad thing that Brad Schimmel is fully funded by Elon Musk.

[Jon Favreau]

So all attention is not good attention.

[Jon Lovett]

No, no, no. It really did made me. It did.

[Jon Favreau]

Just a reminder, Dane county, where Democrats get Putin margins.

[Jon Lovett]

I will say though, they're very funny people on the street, that people just are bringing up the Tesla's being l on fire. It's just like fully broken through. And because we talk like Elon Musk is dumping all this money into the state and somebody was like, and they're setting all the Teslas on fire. Which is not something I agree with, but I'm not losing sleep over it.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Jesus Christ.

[Jon Favreau]

Nice. So Tommy and I drove up to Norco, Calif. Or out to Norco, California, I guess.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Yeah, I guess. East.

[Jon Favreau]

East of here to be part of a town hall put on by our friend Ro Khanna. Part of what he's calling his benefits over billionaires tour. Ken Calvert, the Republican congressman who represents the area, he isn't doing town halls. So Roe decided that he would. He went to Bakersfield, then he went to Norco, where we were, and then he went to Anaheim. So he had three events yesterday. What'd you think?

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Couple observations, people. Democrats in that district hate Ken Calvert, hate his guts. He's been around for decades. They can't get rid of him. And they were really grateful to Ro for coming out. I mean, we had a similar experience. You did love it. I mean, I think Roe said the crowd we saw was about A thousand people. It's definitely several hundred. I was expecting, like, 50. And everyone we talked to, whether they're from the 41st district or not, they were scared, they were angry, they were desperate for any guidance on what to do in this moment in any kind of leadership and someplace to channel their energy. And I think the Democratic Party needs to view these events as a huge opportunity because all of us are having the same conversation about how things feel worse this time. And it's scary. And there's no marches, there's no clear sense of activism, and people seem a little more resigned to what's to come. And the reality is there are millions and millions of people who are desperate for someone to help them channel their energies. And I think Ro aoc, Bernie, people that are getting out into the country and doing these town hall meetings and listening, it's going to go a long way. And it's not just the midterms and sprinting towards 2026. It's that you want these Republicans battleground districts to feel vulnerable and to see headlines of like, a thousand people for Ro Khanna in my district. And maybe I shouldn't follow Elon Musk and Donald Trump down every fucking path. So I thought it was great that Roe did it. It was. It was great to have been there and talked to a lot of people. And I'm glad we went.

[Jon Favreau]

And, you know, we talked to a lot of people before the event started, and we were asking them, like, why'd you show up? And the answers were, usually, I just wanted to be around other people because I follow the news on my phone and at home, and it's, like, freaking me out. And it's good to be around people. And the atmosphere just felt good, you know, like, it didn't feel as scary and heavy as it does when we're just sitting here recording and reading the news.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

What did that lady keep saying to us? Action Better than anxiety or something?

[Jon Favreau]

Yeah, actually. Yeah, exactly. And people were like, and I just want to know what the plan is. I'm just here because I want to know what the plan is. And we're like, well, you're going to have to keep waiting for that. Work in progress. People want to do something. I should also say thanks to a lot of the friends of the pod. A lot of friends of the POD showed up. They just heard that it was happening, and then. And then they went. So we love that. We love Ro Khanna for doing it. Like, good for him. I hope every Democrat in Congress goes out and does a bunch of town halls either in your district, in the nearby Republican district, anywhere you can just, it is, it is good to get out and be with people.

[Jon Lovett]

Can I make just one note on the, just on the Wisconsin race, which is a lot of this is about building long term momentum. This is a really short term fight. Voting is through April 1st, this coming Tuesday. So we're in the final week. When you're hearing this, if you know people in Wisconsin that can cast a ballot, make sure, if you have friends in Wisconsin, call them. Make sure they're calling people. You know, one of the arguments that was, I think the most, I felt like the most response to, in this race is, you know, Wisconsin has been on the like, bleeding edge of this fight to preserve democracy. But right now, like all these Republicans that are seeing these, these, these town halls in their district, they're seeing a lot of this energy. They just genuinely don't know in their most cynical, weaselly souls whether or not it is smarter for them to stick with Elon or to buck Elon, vote against a bill that's unpopular and stand with their constituents. And basically, does Elon Musk's money in Wisconsin buy a Supreme Court seat? If it does, they'll say, fuck it, stick with him and I don't have to worry about a primary and he'll protect me in November. But if it doesn't, all of a sudden, they'll start to have more questions. So, like, the stakes in the Wisconsin rate are incredibly important in Wisconsin, but they're very, very big beyond Wisconsin.

[Jon Favreau]

And if you want to get involved either by campaigning in Wisconsin or attending a town hall or a rally near you, tons of helpful information on votesafeamerica.com so check it out. All right, let's get back to all the terrible news out there. Trump, like most authoritarians, has been using the power of the state to weaken and punish any potential opposition. And more of his targets are unfortunately choosing to capitulate instead of fight. Last Friday, the law firm Paul Weiss, not a person I know, as you.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Taught me Friday, not a guy.

[Jon Favreau]

And I had, and I had learned five minutes prior to telling you. So Paul Weiss struck a deal with Trump to stop an executive order designed to cripple the firm's ability to take on clients in cases involving the federal government, even to step into a federal courthouse. The cost? Paul Weiss is committing to $40 million worth of pro bono work across four issues favored by the Trump administration. In an email to colleagues on Sunday, the head of Paul Weiss, Brad Karp, defended the deal by calling the executive order an existential crisis that could easily have destroyed the firm. At least two other law firms, Perkins Coie and Covington and Burling, are also staring down executive orders, but in a sign that appeasement never works, Trump then released a memo Friday night directing Attorney General Pam Bondi and Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem to, quote, seek sanctions against attorneys and law firms who engage in frivolous, unreasonable, and vexatious litigation against the federal government, essentially trying to choke off the inevitable and already numerous suits filed against his legal actions. So this seems absolutely insane. What do you guys make of Brad Karp's explanation for his firm's capitulation?

[Jon Lovett]

It reminds. It's oddly similar to Chuck Schumer's explanation for why they're voting for the cr, which is like, yeah, no, we understand this bet. Still, this. Maybe that's a good reason to fight them. Right. If they're using their levers of power in these sort of unconstitutional, extralegal ways, that maybe you should fight them. But you look at what they actually agreed to do, and it's like $40 million in pro bono. This is a firm that makes $2.6 billion a year. They don't actually spend that money. They just. That's. They assign the value of the time that the lawyers spend on it.

[Jon Favreau]

We should also say that it's not that the Trump administration gets to pick the pro bono cases they just said in these areas, and then Paul always gets to pick the cases, and they're like, veterans, and it's not like, stuff.

[Jon Lovett]

That they might have wanted to do. Anti Semitism. Right. And so there's a version of this where you read it more like the way you read when Mexico or Canada came up with a list of fake things to appease Trump, to get rid the Fentanyl czar. Right. Like, all that stuff. So, like, that's sort of how I read it. But the fact that we're still in a position where a law firm just have the ability to practice. I mean, this is such a fundamental violation of the First Amendment and several other amendments along the way. But, like, they're basically saying that we are going to make it nearly impossible for you to do your job on behalf of your clients, up to and including making it impossible for you to enter federal buildings. If they sued, they surely, you know, they surely would have won. But what you then read is that there are a bunch of litigators inside of Paul Weiss that want to fight this, but a bunch of corporate lawyers inside of Paul Weiss that are saying, even if we fight and even if we win, the corporations we represent, companies like ExxonMobil, will all of a sudden be afraid of having a law firm that is seen as Persona non grata with the White House. So they were looking for some kind of piece of paper that they could sort of use to kind of put this scandal behind them. And it's just yet again, Donald Trump inventing new authorities that the President has. And then those authorities become real because they're not actually challenged.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Vexatious litigation, right? Fun to say.

[Jon Favreau]

Yeah, yeah, I liked it.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

It's a term of art. It's a legal term of art. It means repeatedly filing frivolous, redundant lawsuits with the intention of harassing the other party more than winning them. But fun to say. That was a big takeaway for me. I agree with you. I mean, I think Paul Weiss says 130 million per year in pro bono support already. So I imagine they will just fold the 40 million into that and call it a day. There was some, there was one part that was weird where there seemed to be a disagreement between the White House and what Paul Weiss thinks they agree to, around hiring Paul Weiss. The White House says that Paul Weiss agreed to merit based hiring and not doing anything DEI related. Which is a problem because a firm like Paul Weiss should be able to hire whatever lawyers they want, including people from diverse backgrounds. It's a good thing for them as a practice. But there was also a piece of it where the White House said they agreed to retain some expert in employment practices to review, like audit hiring or something.

[Jon Favreau]

Right.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Which is super weird. Like some outside expert is going to tell them how to hire. That seems bad. So, yeah, the principle is terrible.

[Jon Lovett]

But then it's also like, you know, the attention span of the Donald Trump evil eye is quite short. And it's going to turn to something else. Is there going to be somebody in the bowels of the OEOB that's going to be like, now it's my day to follow up with Paul Weiss to make sure they spent the 40 million here, they spent the 40 million there. Everyone, maybe, maybe. But I get the sense that what everybody's trying to do is just get that evil eye off of them and then they can go back to business as usual. That's what I think they're thinking they're gonna do.

[Jon Favreau]

I agree with that. And I think that's, I think that there's a collective action problem here, which if you, if you look at Brad Karp's letter and we just talked about this. Like, the individual details do not seem as alarming what they had to give up. Right. As sort of the overall headline. The problem is, and I think that the memo Friday night, that's basically for everyone, makes this clear, is these firms would be in a better position to fight this if they did so together. Each individual firm is like, well, you know, if I become the target, I'm going to lose a bunch of clients. This is what Paul Weiss was saying, right. And you mentioned Exxon Mobil. But, like, you know, plenty of regular clients who weren't ExxonMobil were like, no, no, I'm out of here. Because any client that they had with a federal contract, the Trump administration would have pulled the contract if they kept Paul Weiss as the firm. So if you're one of those clients now, you're like, well, I want to keep my federal contracts. Well, I'm not going to like, I like the firm, but I'm not going to do. So you can see where each individual and each individual firm makes a decision that, okay, to save myself from this, I'm going to, you know, I'm not going to give up too much anyway. And this, I was going to do the pro bono work anyway, so it's not a big deal. I'm just going to capitulate. But the problem is Trump smells blood and then they're just going to keep going. And like, if. Now, the problem with what happened on the Friday night memo, if someone wants to sue the federal government for violating their rights or anything else, they're going to have a harder time finding a law firm to do so. If law firms are worried that they will be investigated or punished for bringing a case that Trump just decides he.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Doesn'T like is vexatious. Yeah, I think, well, first mistake was sending Brad Karp to negotiate. You should have sent Paul Weiss the second.

[Jon Favreau]

Where is Paul Weiss?

[Jon Lovett]

Where is Paul Weiss? Guys in hiding.

[Jon Favreau]

But I agree with you.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

I mean, like, in the first term, we all complained about the collective action problem among Republican elected officials and Trump senior staff.

[Jon Lovett]

Right?

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Because they would complain to Maggie Haberman on background, but never quit or, like, put anything on the line. Now, the problem, the collective action problem, is broken containment and is in academia and with CEOs and law firms and the media, and they're all just preemptively caving. And, like, not only did Paul Wei say they were gonna lose clients, but they said that other firms were trying to poach their clients, which, yes, yeah.

[Jon Lovett]

That'S the shitty stuff that's the good stuff.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Yeah, that is shitty. But also, I wanted to say, did you expect a fight with the President to be easy?

[Jon Favreau]

Right.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

We're all gonna like, when you stand on principle, you might lose money, you might lose status, you might get harassed, you might deal with risk and hardship. That's the point. And, like, there is a decent chance that they made things so much worse in the long term, because we do, we really believe that Trump is sated. Do you think if Paul Weiss takes another case against him, he doesn't like that, he'll be like, ah, we had a good meeting with Brad backing Chance, right? See, with Mark Zuckerberg, you can cut $1,000,000 check to the inauguration, you can settle the lawsuit for 25 million and bribe Trump that way. But do you think he's going to side with you over Elon Musk in the next big AI fight? No way, buddy.

[Jon Favreau]

Or like TikTok, right? Which Zuckerberg would rather have banned.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

And now is our moment to establish some guardrails. And everyone is just caving.

[Jon Lovett]

It's awesome.

[Jon Favreau]

Which is why I think that what we all did this weekend and everyone who came out like this is why that's important too. Like, we. We're the only check left here, right? Like the, the institution and especially corporate media outlets, we've talked about that. These law firms, like, they have, you know, they feel like they have responsibility to their employees, to their shareholders. They are businesses. They are trying to make a profit. We would like them all to take on the hard fight and do the right thing. But for some of them, they're just like, look, I'm just trying to live my life and run my business here. And so I think that it is incumbent upon every single person in the country who is scared about this and worried about what's happening to, like, start organizing so that some of these firms and some of these corporations become a little less scared of fighting because there's actually a popular movement behind them.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

G6 ain't gonna gas itself up, buddy.

[Jon Lovett]

Right? Or scared of. Or scared of the backlash when they do the wrong thing. I will just say, like, I think one of the other things this exposes, right, it is a collective action problem. But also, like, at these firms, right, like the head of Paul Weiss, big, big Democrat, right? But whose biggest clients are one of the biggest oil companies on planet Earth. There's kind of always been this sort of dividing line between, like, how corporate lawyers make their money and what these firms actually do and then their good works, right? How they involve Themselves in politics, some of their pro bono cases. And I just, it's, it's nuanced. Right. Because some of the most important cases before the Supreme Court have been by litigators who like, cut their teeth or are at these firms representing clients as part of their ethical pro bono work that they do to pay back God for what they did during the rest of their fucking time. So at the pearly gates, they can explain. And by the way, if you're a corporate lawyer who may one day represent me, I'm especially grateful.

[Jon Favreau]

Didn't realize you were doing this for poverty wages.

[Jon Lovett]

Yeah, get, get them fall license. I'm not saying there's. That's not the point.

[Jon Favreau]

Right.

[Jon Lovett]

I think we don't read ExxonMobile ads, but they do. They sure do. You want to do. We could do ExxonMobil ads, but we say no to those things. We make, we make ethical choices within a, within a complicated and gray system. Anyway, all I'm getting at is these guys are now being put to the test. Of course they're not going to pass this test. That's not why they became corporate lawyers.

[Jon Favreau]

Yeah.

[Jon Lovett]

Yeah.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

I just think that there's an argument just on the, on the merits for the, for their bottom line, long term to fight now and not.

[Jon Favreau]

Well, that. That is a good argument. Yes. Long term, I don't know, maybe like they think that short term this is good for them and maybe they're right individually. But long term, you know, I don't think you want to be in a country like this.

[Jon Lovett]

Well, that's, that's of course the big problem. Right. Like in the long term, it is bad for the American economy to shift from like a, to, to shift into a kind of pay the regime a corruption fee in order to do business. The better, you know, Trump, the more likely you are to get the deal. Like that hasn't been good for the economy of Hungary. But in the short term, they think they can make some money and avoid some of the fallout. And we all collectively will slowly watch as opportunity and, and business go elsewhere because it's just not worth the risk of starting here when the Trump. The Trump. I could come for you at any moment.

[Jon Favreau]

So colleges are becoming a problem too. On Friday, Columbia University ended up giving in to Trump's demands in order to regain $400 million in federal funding. This includes adopting a definition of anti Semitism that satisfies the administration, hiring 36 new special officers that can remove people from campus or arrest them, banning the use of face masks during protests. And appointing a new senior vice provost to oversee the Middle Eastern, South Asian and African Studies department. It's worth noting that in its March 13 letter to the school, the administration called its demands a, quote, precondition for formal negotiations to maintain a, quote, financial relationship with the states government. They're fucking easier on Putin. It's like, so we'll see what comes next for Columbia. Meanwhile, Trump is still threatening the state of Maine. You might remember that back in February, Trump called out Maine Governor Janet Mills for failing to comply with his executive order banning trans athletes from women's sports teams. Mills piped up that she would comply with state and federal law. And then Trump said she'd better fall in line or, quote, you're not going to get any federal funding. Mills replied, see you in court. In response, the Trump administration has launched multiple investigations into the University of Maine system, one of which led to the Department of Agriculture temporarily blocking millions of dollars of federal funding for Maine's farmers and foresters. Then on Saturday, Trump claimed on Truth Social that while the state has apologized, he is now demanding, quote, a full throated apology from the governor herself and a statement that she will never make such an unlawful challenge to the federal government again before this case can be settled. Mills told reporters on Monday, I don't communicate with public officials by tweet or Instagram or social media and said the EO was unconstitutional and the fight isn't about transgender sports. Before hitting Trump for not having an economic plan beyond tariffs, what do you guys make of the college? The college stuff?

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Oh, I mean, my big takeaway was, was the point you made about Trump calling it a precondition for formal negotiations. That is the strategic approach we took to negotiating with the Taliban or the North Koreans or the Iranians.

[Jon Lovett]

Right. You have to meet certain threshold to earn negotiations to the t. Columbia University.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

What are we doing here? I mean, the anti Semitism definition. I'm not entirely sure what anti Semitism definition is going to pass muster with the White House. I assume one that is pretty expansive. And as we've discussed before, that is a problem because a lot of those definitions of anti Semitism, like the IHRA definition, includes a completely legitimate criticism of the Israeli government or Israeli government policy, or suggests that anti Zionism and anti Semitism are the same thing, which they are not. It can have a hugely chilling effect on free speech.

[Jon Favreau]

I'm sure the anti Semitism definition also specifically excludes any anti Semitism that comes from the Trump regime.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Right wingers. Yeah, exactly. And then. But like also just big Picture it is. What are we talking about? This is so heavy handed. Like the White House is dictating whether student protesters at Columbia University are allowed to wear masks. What?

[Jon Lovett]

So, yeah, I mean, just like stepping up the limited government, like this is as brazen and unconstitutional step that Donald Trump has taken since he became president. Look, the federal government is a behemoth. It sends money to all kinds of institutions, hospitals, colleges, private companies for contracts federal. The money goes to a lot of different places. It is a bedrock principle that when the federal government writes you a check, that cannot become a cudgel by which they can control your speech. Now, if the money is for something in specific, they have a lot of say as to how that money is spent. Even then, even then there are restrictions on how the federal money can be used to demand certain speech. Right. There's just a lot of examples. Supreme Court, left, right, center, well founded. What is of course unconstitutional is that because we are giving you money for research over here, that gives us basically a board seat at Columbia to have protest policies where we're inserting our. This is the President of the United States making a administrative decision about how to run a specific department at a, at a private university in New York City. That is beyond the pale. It is obviously something Columbia should have fought. It is. I like the Paul Weiss thing, you know, I expect, I guess not very much from a corporate law firm on this front. And I actually can see the argument for why they did what they did. Even if I think it's wrong. This is ridiculous. Colombia should be fucking ashamed of themselves. They had such an ironclad case about how much of a violation of, of the First Amendment this is. And the fact that they chose to capitulate is such a disgrace. Especially when they are sitting on a 13 point some odd billion endowment when this 400 million, it's a lot of money, but it's less than the amount they receive from just in gifts that go towards paying for school. It's less, it's less certainly than the, the interest that they get on that endowment.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

And the broader context being that Mahmoud Khalil, this Columbia student who was swept up by ICE and disappeared to Louisiana. I mean, there's this unprecedented attack on one of their own students. And I understand that that could create fear, but it seems like it could also be a time to fight for the kids who are enrolled in your institution.

[Jon Favreau]

I saw somewhere someone made the case like Columbia just did what the university wanted to do anyway on some of this stuff, post protests and just felt like okay, then it's a. You know, they can do that, and they can do it under the COVID of Trump doing this. And I also think that to your point about the federal funding, it's $400 million now, a quarter of all of their, like, operate year, annual operating budget is federal funding. And so they could. Trump could have come after more. Right?

[Jon Lovett]

It's basically threatened to do that.

[Jon Favreau]

And I only say this like I think it's a huge mistake that they did this, but it. To me, it is similar to the pole thing in that. In the context of Columbia University deciding what is good for Columbia, right? Which is if we lose $400 million in federal funding and then we lose even more and more and more, like, it is a death blow to the. To the university, right? We're going to lay off professors, raise tuition, all this kind of shit. And yet they had such a good case, like you said, that, like, if. If. If Columbia reached out to Penn, which lost $175 million because of, you know, a trans swimmer who graduated three years ago from Penn, if they had all stood together, every college in the country and was like, hey, fuck you, we're not gonna take it, you know, take direction from the Trump administration. That's more powerful than each one individually thinking that you're gonna save yourself because they're gonna come. They're gonna come back for more. In Colombia, too, Lovett made an important.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Point, which is like, I think UPENN is like, a $22 billion endowment, so you could fill some of these gaps in the short term, and you could probably pay the legal fees to fight here.

[Jon Lovett]

This is where, too, it's like, this is the culmination of, like, the right has been fighting the liberal universities for half a century. More. More. Never in their wildest dreams could they have ever imagined it would be this easy. That in this. That just by threatening funding in an unconstitutional way, all of a sudden, all of these schools will capitulate. And, like, I'm sorry to harp on it, but it's like, because these are the schools that are being basically victimized by the Trump administration. But Donald Trump takes advantage of a lot of weaknesses. He's taking advantage of the fact that people aren't gonna respond as strongly as they should. They're not gonna band together. The firms aren't, the schools aren't. But he takes advantage of something else, which is he is able to see the place where these liberal institutions haven't really lived up to their liberal values all the time, right? And that, like, that that they haven't had their assumptions really tested like this. Like, Columbia is many things. It is a giant institution. It does a ton of amazing research. It has a lot of academic excellence. It also has master's programs that are basically scams that saddle people with. It is like. It is. It's just like it's a bunch of different things, some of which is really good, some of which is, I think, pretty fucking shitty. And because the. The. The left right debate has been basically the right attacking the ideology of these schools, while the left is basically trying to play defense and has been for a very long time. We just haven't talked enough about, like, what is the purpose of higher education? Why are these institutions getting so much money? Why are so many people going into debt, getting degrees from this place, not just undergraduate, but, like, master's in journalism or master's in social work, and never, ever being able to earn enough, Right? Like, why do the schools not reform that? Why do they not address these things? And then you see, like, because these places have not really been living up to their liberal values on the whole. These moments happen. They are tested, and they're just completely caught off guard because they're not passionate. They have no great ideological defense. They don't know why they do have the shit they fucking do. And, like, Donald Trump takes advantage of that weakness. And, like, we collectively need to, like, reassert what we believe are these basic values. And some of it is by not just fighting against the right, but fighting to make sure these institutions actually live up to what they claim to profess to believe in.

[Jon Favreau]

What's to stop the Trump administration from, you know, next year or even a couple months from now being like, you know, we looked at all the social media of all the professors at the different Ivy League colleges or other institutions, and we think that there's too many liberal professors. And unless there's this balance, you're gonna take more federal funding, right? So now it's the protests, but it could be they could do this for anything. It is that we are setting precedents now that are going to come back and bite everyone in the ass later.

[Jon Lovett]

And then it's like, where are the wealthy Columbia graduates, alums, right? Coming out and saying, I'm not giving Colombia one more dime unless they fight this. Right?

[Jon Favreau]

Like, there's some of the. This is. And this is to your point that he. The administration's sort of picking their battles, right? They know a lot of the wealthier donors and clubs, they're mad about the protests, and so they're probably like, I don't like Donald Trump, but good, I'm glad they did this, right? So that this is what they're doing everywhere.

[Jon Lovett]

And so that, like, he is finding that fissure where these liberal institutions are not quite as liberal as they say, right? That's what he's doing with these law firms. That's what he's doing here. And gonna try to.

[Jon Favreau]

I'm gonna try to make it about the worst Venezuelan gang members gonna try to make it about like they're just. This is how they. This is how they're playing it. Pod Save America is brought to you by Rocket Money Missing out on a show that everyone is talking about isn't an option for you. You're constantly signing up for streaming service after streaming service, and then a few months later you realize you've still been paying for the service long after finishing the show. Sounds like you need Rocket Money. They'll find your unwanted subscriptions and even help you cancel them so you never have to worry about them slipping through the crack. Rocket Money is a personal finance app that helps find and cancel your unwanted subscriptions, monitors your spending, and helps lower your bills so you can grow your savings. Rocket Money's dashboard gives you a clear view of your expenses across all of your accounts. The new goals feature automatically saves money for you so you don't have to think about it. Pay off credit card debt, put away money for a house, or just build your savings. Rocket Money makes it easy. Rocket Money will even try to negotiate lower bills for you. They automatically scan your bills to find opportunities to save. Then you can ask them to negotiate for you. They'll deal with customer service so you don't have to. Rocket Money has over 5 million users and has saved a total of $500 million in canceled subscriptions, saving members up to $740 a year. When using all of the app's premium features, cancel your unwanted subscriptions and reach your financial goals faster with Rocket Money. Go to RocketMoney.comCrooked today. That's RocketMoney.comCrooked RocketMoney.comCrooked Feeling stressed?

[Tommy Vietor]

Let's talk about a simple yet powerful way to boost your mental walking. April 2nd is national walking Day, and it's the perfect time to start a new walking routine. The American Heart association says even a brisk walk can reduce stress and improve your mood. So grab a friend, bring a pet, or even take a conference call on the go. Learn more and get heart, healthy tips and recipes straight to your [e-mail] MoveMore.

[Jon Favreau]

Speaking of which one person who isn't yet capitulating? D.C. district Judge James Boasberg, the judge who Trump, Elon and many others have threatened with impeachment for trying to block the administration from sending Venezuelan migrants to be tortured in an El Salvador prison without due process. At a Friday hearing, Boasberg said the administration's use of the Alien Enemies act was, quote, incredibly troublesome and problematic and concerning and said he'd get to the bottom of whether the executive branch was intentionally defying his orders. On Monday afternoon, Boasberg issued a decision refusing to lift the temporary restraining order he put on the administration's use of the law, saying he believes the people deported are likely to win their lawsuit on due process grounds, meaning they were entitled to hearings about whether they are in fact members of Trend Aragua before their removal. The proceedings happen on Monday. It looks like we'll get a ruling maybe Tuesday, maybe later this week. But one fun quote from one of the three judges on the D.C. appeals Court, Judge Patricia Millett, quote, nazis got better treatment under the Alien Enemies act than has happened here. Meanwhile, as far as we know, all these migrants are still sitting in prison in El Salvador. Time had an incredible, horrifying account of their intake, detailing how these guys were being slapped and shoved, head shaved, some of them were sobbing, pleading that they aren't gang members. This to me seems like a five alarm fire. What do you guys think?

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Yeah, I mean, reading that Time report was haunting. It's one of those things you read and it just sticks with you because what is happening to these people is just so profoundly wrong and enraging. And obviously we all want murderers deported. But what is happening is ICE is just sweeping through communities and picking up Venezuelan men and, and deporting them with no due process in most cases, seemingly because they have tattoos. Just do we trust the cultural fluency of ICE agents to determine what tattoos mean? Your back, like that's what we're doing now. And the story of this one man, his name is Andre, he's a makeup artist. He is a legitimate asylum case because he fled the Maduro government in Venezuela. And by the way, Trump just slapped a bunch more sanctions on the Venezuelan economy today. He's going to put more. He's going to sanction other countries that buy Venezuelan oil starting April 2nd. So we're crushing their economy, making it so there's no Venezuelan country to go back to. But also shipping Venezuelan men who try to come here and seek asylum to El Salvador. And the Trump administration sent this man Andriy, he's a makeup artist to rot in hell in this gulag in El Salvador. I think just because he had a couple tattoos on his arm and because naive Bukele is an authoritarian sadist, he allowed this time photographer to witness what happened. And we have this account of Andri weeping and crying for his mother and in the response getting slapped and beaten and thrown to the ground and having his head forcibly shaved. And I just think if you, this.

[Jon Favreau]

Guy had no hearing. No hearing.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

If you hear a story like that and your response is to shrug it off and not think, that could be me, that could be my family, that could be someone I love, I think there is something wrong with you because this should shock your conscience. This is evil. It should not be how the United States of America should act. I know we have fucked up in some of our worst excesses after the war on terror or other dramatic events, but this is so profoundly wrong. It's hard not to throw your phone through the wall when you read about what's happening to these people.

[Jon Lovett]

Yeah. And the other part of this is these were like, all these Republicans are going online and being like, I can't believe this is who Democrats want to defend. And this is who Democrat wants. These, the, these people are in detention. Right. Like they're, they're being sent to a prison, by the way. Not convicted, many of them. Not convicted of crimes. Right. Like, we don't know.

[Jon Favreau]

Or even charged, which the government has admitted in legal filings.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Yes.

[Jon Lovett]

And so now they're in a prison in El Salvador for how long? Right. Like, what are, is it just forever? Is it indefinite? Is it, are they ever, like, it's not their country. They're, they're, they're being kind of, they're just sort of, we keep saying deported, but they've really been rendered. They've really been rendition and there are due process violations there. Even if these are members of a terrible Venezuelan gang, if you haven't been convicted of a crime, why are you in a prison? But the fact that we're not even, we're relying on their word. We have tons of evidence that a bunch of these guys had nothing to do with this gang. And the Trump administration is defending it. You got Tom Homan going out there and saying, well, you know, illegal immigrants who commit crimes in America don't do due process with their victims. And that's the standard we're going to hold ourselves to.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

It's crazy. Yeah. And just a quick reminder, in these prisons, again, human rights expert, I was talking to the people are tortured, they're killed in these prisons. Everyone in these prisons has scabies because there are just rampant infestations. Forced labor, the forced labor. The only silver lining he could offer me is there's less violence than in a lot of American prisons because they essentially starve them and they're too tired to hurt each other. So that is the conditions in these prisons in El Salvador that we are shipping men into.

[Jon Favreau]

One of the most disturbing parts of the story is how MAGA World seems to be dealing with the argument that these people deserve due process. Let's listen.

[Jon Lovett]

I mean, do they have any due process at all? Due process? Where was Lake and Riley's due process? Where were all these young women that were killed and raped by members of tda?

[Jon Favreau]

Where was their due process?

[Jon Lovett]

Well, I also think it's not practical.

[Jon Favreau]

To think that we can do due.

[Jon Lovett]

Process on 8 million people.

[Jon Favreau]

No. If we're gonna give every of these guys a day in court and a lawyer, we can't do it. They don't deserve it.

[Andy Beshear]

Get these people out of our country.

[Jon Favreau]

As fast as we can.

[Andy Beshear]

They're not immigrants. They're illegal aliens.

[Jon Favreau]

You think with the way that the judges have been issuing injunctions, it would be easier or harder to send these Tesla domestic terrorists to a jail in El salvador than these ms.13 or trend a rival guy? Well, I view these people as terrorists just like others.

[Jon Lovett]

These are. When I looked at those showrooms burning. You didn't have that on January 6, I can tell you. You didn't have anything like that on January 6th.

[Jon Favreau]

This. This is why I think it's. It is helpful to remove the specifics of the case if you're not on board with the argument we're making here. And just, like, step back and think about what argument Trump and his administration are making here, right? Which is now the government can round up anyone, send them to a foreign prison without due process, and the justification is, well, that person is an alien enemy. And when you say, okay, prove it, they say, we don't have to just take our word for it. And then you say, oh, well, this person's a citizen. You certainly can't send that person to the El Salvadoran prison. It's like, no, no, no, that person is a domestic terrorist. You say, well, you can't strip anyone. Well, you want a domestic terrorist? Well, why are they domestic terrorists? Oh, well, because they burned a Tesla. Okay? So now if you burned a Tesla, you're labeled a domestic terrorist, and then somehow you could lose your citizenship, and then you can be sent to El Salvador and the whole time, no due process, no trial, nothing to prove. That's where we are.

[Jon Lovett]

The other like obviously they're just, these are dangerous morons, but like these people don't deserve due process. How do you know they're these people?

[Jon Favreau]

Right? It's just. Take our word for it, just even.

[Jon Lovett]

On your own terms. How do you fucking know? The way you know is by having a process. Oh, we can't, it's, it's. We can't possibly. America can't possibly have our legal system, our judicial system isn't possibly up to the task to protect this country while upholding the Constitution. Turns out first time, first time in the history of this country, we just can't do it. We have to give up. We can't get, we can't have a constitution and safe streets. It's just not possible.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

They're trying, I've been watching a lot of Fox. They're trying to hype the threat from Trend Arago or TDA to a post 911 Al Qaeda level. Like this is some massive urgent threat we need to counter. And just to sort of expand out the conversation about the collateral damage from these, these terrorism designations. So if destroying a Tesla is terrorism, if I drive someone to a Tesla protest, am I providing material support for terrorism? If they then damage a Tesla, if I'm part of a peaceful protest at a Tesla facility and then someone I don't know shows up and commits vandalism, will everyone there get prosecuted?

[Jon Favreau]

Well, this is, I mean this, we're.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

All part of the same cause, you.

[Jon Favreau]

Know, now they're doing that. All the Bernie rallies and the AOC and all the town halls, they're all paid protesters. And who's funding the paid protesters? Is it Soros? Is it Act Blue? And is Act Blue connected to foreign terrorism? Like you can see where this is fucking going.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Can Cash Patel and the FBI now spy on people who are suspected Tesla arsonists? Can the government designate evidence of Tesla terrorism as classified in a state secret? So now I can't have access to it. If I am prosecuted under this new made up authority, will people overseas who participate in international Tesla protests be barred from entering the US like these terrorism designations as we all learned after the war on terror or during the war on Terror, open up a massive can of worms for the absolute worst government overreach in excesses. And this is very, very scary that it's happening again.

[Jon Favreau]

Well, and what's different and worse? And one of the judges made this point, asked the Government. This question during the hearing today was like there was no urgent, immediate need to ship these men out of the country, even if they're in Tren Naragua. Like they were being.

[Jon Lovett]

They were intentioned.

[Jon Favreau]

There's no public. Like our prisons are good enough, at least temporarily.

[Jon Lovett]

Yeah, they can hold. They can hold. They're not.

[Jon Favreau]

This wasn't people roaming. It wasn't a choice between. They want you, they want you to think it's a choice between a violent gang member roaming the streets or them being out of the country. And that is just not the fucking case at all.

[Jon Lovett]

I also just like we're so. We're so far down the road here. Terrorism designations. If somebody. Look, they've charged Luigi Mangione with terrorism, right? It's you. Gun. Some gunning somebody down on the street is murder. That's a, that's a crime. You can go to jail for the rest of your life. They add, you know, for political reasons, for sensationalism reasons, they add terrorism charges on top. It's a murky idea. It's always been murky. Adding like these the way terrorism is a crime, Right, because the underlying act is the terrible act, that's the crime. But the idea that we are at a place where we are now saying vandalism is terrorism. Vandalism. This is called vandalism. I don't agree with throwing Molotov cocktails at a, at an empty Tesla, but it's vandalism. It's destruction of property.

[Jon Favreau]

Well, yeah, exactly. Whatever someone does to a Tesla, they should be charged with to the fullest extent of the law. Right? If you break a law, you get charged and you go to court over it. And that's how we should deal with it.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

There's nothing you can do to a Tesla cybertruck that is worse than what it's already done to itself.

[Jon Lovett]

That's true.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

You've seen these things before.

[Jon Favreau]

Hits or you by driving it.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

They're horrendous looking cars, so drive one if you want. But also, this is such a direct extension from the Bush era war on terror, right? Terrorists, we couldn't. US prisons weren't tough enough for these terrorists. We had to send them to Gitmo. We couldn't just prosecute them in Article 3 courts. We're just running this thing back.

[Jon Favreau]

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[Andy Beshear]

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[Jon Favreau]

So now for the now for the real insanity. This one's a little funnier and also terrifying. Somehow the Atlantic's editor in chief Jeffrey Goldberg ended up in a Trump administration group chat on Signal about bombing the Houthi rebels in Yemen. The chat was started by National Security Advisor Mike Waltz and called Houthi PC Small Group. The chat included JD Vance, Pete Hegseth, Marco Rubio, John Ratcliffe, Steve Witkoff, Tulsi Gabbard, Susie Wiles, Stephen Miller and a bunch of other cabinet level folks. I'm not going to go through all the details of this story, but it begins with Goldberg basically assuming he's being punked before proceeding to watch in real time over several days as the group debated in detail in plenty of emojis whether or not to launch strikes against the Houthis, which then happened after the strikes, Walt celebrated with, as you always do after completing a mission, fist emoji, American flag emoji, fire emoji. While Wyckoff offered, quote, two hands praying, a flexed bicep, and two American flags.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

More appropriate, I think.

[Jon Favreau]

At the White House on Monday, Trump told reporters he didn't know anything about the story. But the National Security Council spokesperson ultimately confirmed the Signal chat's authenticity and wrote that it was, quote, demonstration of the deep and thoughtful policy coordination between senior officials. All right, Tommy.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

I never heard anything like this. Yeah. Houthi, PC Small group. Houthis are an Islamist group based in Yemen. They're the ones who've been firing missiles and drones at ships in the red Sea since 2023 in protest of the war in Gaza. We've called them a terrorist group. The Iranians give them some support. PC is Principles Committee. So this is a meeting that's convened by the White House National Security Advisor of all the cabinet level officials who are relevant to national security. So you have the Secretary of Defense, CIA, et cetera. And then small group is usually the designation made for one of those groups when you don't want to invite everybody. You don't want the squishes over at State or USAID to be there. You don't want the tough guys. So you skinny it down.

[Jon Favreau]

Do you want the editor of the.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Atlantic, you call it a small group so you can disinvite a lot of people. So that means it's a really sensitive topic. And in this case, they were talking about literal targets to bomb in Yemen, what ordinance to use, what sequencing to drop them in. And every PC or Principals Committee I've ever been in to in my life is in the Situation Room at the White House because it's all classified. And you're not allowed to bring your phone into these meetings because of espionage concerns, let alone talk about this substance on Signal. But here it seems like they were hosting a Principals Committee meeting. They were hosting a Principals Committee meeting on Signal, which you can't use at all if you're a White House staffer because it doesn't comport with the Presidential Records Act. But again, this is classified information. And one thing that was funny, I didn't realize until just now.

[Jon Favreau]

So it's like a Strike One Operational Security, because it's, it's. That's why you don't communicate on message in they. And they bring up in the, in the chat at one point, like, oh, some more details are about this around your high side email. High side is classified email. Yeah. Which, like, you don't have on your phone, so you have to, like, go to a skiff and do all that kind of stuff. So they just, they, they literally, they did it to get around just, just for, like, convenience, I guess.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Sometimes things happen in the world. Like you saw this in Hillary Clinton's emails, actually. Sometimes things happen in the world and it's Christmas Day and no one's in a skiff and no one's at their high side email. So you're communicating obliquely to manage a crisis. This happened on March 11th through 14th, which is like Tuesday through Friday. Everyone should be sitting at their desk where they could presumably get on the jwex, the top secret email system, and fire off a classified message to each other or walk downstairs into the sit room and have a meeting about this Houthi target they want to bomb. It's insane.

[Jon Lovett]

Yeah. At some point, J.T.

[Jon Favreau]

Vance was in an economic event machine.

[Jon Lovett]

At some point too. Like, things go really off the rails when. So they're all added to this chat. And then at some point, Vance replies with something like, I don't agree with this decision. Just flagging basically some version of that, like, I don't agree. And that's the moment at which, you know, look, we talk a lot about meetings. That should be emails. Right? That was the moment this became an email that should have been a meeting. Because then all of a sudden, they're having a policy debate over signal.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Over signal.

[Jon Lovett]

Now the question I have is, so Marco Rubio is added to this chat that it's not clear what participation Marco Rubio actually had, because I don't see very many messages from him. And. And Jeffrey Goldberg judiciously avoids publishing the actual classified information or the names of the guy at CIA, that active intelligence officer. Active intelligence officer that was added to the fucking chat. But I wonder too, if some of this is like, Marco Rubio, who's a more serious person than Pete Hegseth being like, these fucking jagoffs. I cannot believe they're discussing this.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Well, I don't know. Or he's just irrelevant. I mean, my big takeaway from the kind of the messaging flow and sequencing is it seemed like Stephen Miller is the end all, be all decision maker on this chat about whether they're bombing.

[Jon Lovett]

Yemen or the voice of the President. Right. He sort of comes in, this is what the President said in the meeting. So this is what we're doing.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

It's like, Mike Waltz, you're the national security adviser. You haven't talked to the president.

[Jon Lovett]

J.D.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Vance, you're the VP. You haven't talked to the President.

[Jon Favreau]

I know. I did take that as like a. You know how this is, right? And the most senior levels of the White House, everyone's like, well, I took what the President said to mean this. And then someone else is like, oh, well, I was meeting with the President afterwards and I took what the president meant to say this. So they all try to like, you know, some big.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

In reality, Trump's like, what's a Houthi?

[Jon Favreau]

Well, no, in reality, when they asked Trump later that day at a press availability, he goes, oh, this is the first time hearing of this.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

That was very funny.

[Jon Lovett]

Well, that was just about the threat itself. Right?

[Jon Favreau]

Right.

[Jon Lovett]

Yeah. He was like, I don't know anything about that.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

He was like, I don't like the Atlantic, though. Like, okay, well, your staff does, because they copy him on deliberation.

[Jon Lovett]

Well, that was the part of it that was interesting, which is like. So I guess. Does that mean he was in Waltz's phone? Who's jg?

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Who do you mean to add?

[Jon Lovett]

Who is jg? Who did they think they were adding? Why did nobody notice that that guy never applied? Why did they not need his way?

[Jon Favreau]

So there was either another JG or I was thinking, let's see, JD Vance was on there and there was another Jay on there too, John Ratcliffe, the CIA director. So unless you know how when you're in your phone, you do the. You do one letter and it's someone's name comes up. So maybe it auto populated with Jeff Goldberg and he didn't realize it. I don't know.

[Jon Lovett]

I wonder what a world. I wonder too. Like somebody like. Like when. When that time story came out and we had this sort of blow by blow of that. That closed press cabinet meeting, it's like, well, somebody's leaking this pretty good. Sounds like somebody might even be recording it. And then you see this and it's like somebody's Jeffrey Goldberg is popping up so quick on the fucking thing that you're like accidentally adding him on signal.

[Jon Favreau]

Let's. The JD Vance part is interesting in that. So as you said, love it. He was like flagging. I'm against this. Or at least, at least the timing. Why do we have to. Can we wait a little bit and. But can you talk about why he was against it? And yeah, he.

[Jon Lovett]

J.D.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Vance is being kind of an isolations case against striking The Houthis, which big picture I tend to agree with. But he comes at it by arguing that a much higher percentage of goods come from Europe and are at risk from the Houthis than US Goods through the canal. Through the, yeah, because if you think about the Suez Canal connects the Mediterranean to the Red Sea down to the Indian Ocean, so it links Asia to Europe. And it's just weird that he makes all of this about Europe and European goods, because the bigger argument you usually hear about the Houthis, you know, scaring ships out of the Red Sea is that everyone ends up going around the Horn of Africa and all shipping takes longer and everything is just net, net more expensive for everybody.

[Jon Lovett]

Everybody, yeah. The point he seems to be making is. Well, we're right.

[Jon Favreau]

He seems to make is the Europeans are worse than the Houthis.

[Jon Lovett]

Well, I think, yes, sure. I think it's. No, he's saying, well, if we're arguing that Europe should be responsible for its own defense in Ukraine, it's sort of, it's, it's inconsistent to then have our navy do their bombing for them when we're only getting 3% of the trade, but they amount to what, 40 or some odd percent of it.

[Jon Favreau]

And then Stephen Miller jumps in and he's like, yeah, I mean, if we do this, Europe's going to have to give us something for this.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

How is this about Europe and not Israel? Right. The proximate cause. The reason the Houthis are firing missiles and drones at ships is because they're doing it, they say, in solidarity with the Palestinian cause and because they want the war in Gaza to end or they want humanitarian relief to get into the Gaza Strip. This is clearly an effort to help out Netanyahu because the Houthis are also firing missiles at Israel.

[Jon Lovett]

One of the arguments they make for doing it now is being afraid that if they don't, Israel will do it for them. And so it's like, well, we don't want the, you want something done right. We'd rather have Europe do it. But Europe doesn't seem to have the, the navy for it. So I guess we have to do it. But don't worry, we'll get a deep, we'll get something after for it. We'll get a, we'll get payment for it.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

I was thinking about this. I made a video for the crooked media Instagram about some previous multifaceted mix ups with the wrong people getting cc'd on email chains. Remember when we sent about 30 emails to Lyle Lovett thinking we had Copied John Lovett.

[Jon Favreau]

Yeah.

[Jon Lovett]

Oh, yeah.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

And then he finally replied, oh my.

[Jon Lovett]

Yeah.

[Jon Favreau]

Hey everyone, maybe throw me award winning.

[Jon Lovett]

And also he finds it quite frustrating when people are confused between our two shows and not in like a fun way. Like he gets like a bit mad. Remember that? Yes.

[Jon Favreau]

Look, I've been, I've been, I've been sent notes on the Mandalorian.

[Jon Lovett]

That's right. My favorite.

[Jon Favreau]

I was thinking about when we in 07, when Obama first announced for president, there was some email chain where we were talking about the first couple events of the campaign and we like looped in a reporter.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

There have been several times.

[Jon Favreau]

And the reporter was like on the chain. I think I remember Bill Burton like replying on being like, take the reporter off again. Take the reporter.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Because someone removes them.

[Jon Lovett]

Funny.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Forget. Remember Jen Psaki got in trouble for this. She like like forwarded some opposition research by accident to John McCormick who then I think was at the tribute. We've all done this. We've all AOL IM'd the person we're talking shit about directly instead of talking about them amongst the group, you know, with our friends.

[Jon Favreau]

And fortunately none of us were doing war plans.

[Jon Lovett]

Yeah, it wasn't, it wasn't about killing Al Baghdadi. Yeah, it was about, it was about dinner. But the, yeah, the. I remember one of my favorite all time email fuck ups was. And I actually, I, I don't want to say it was in the Hillary campaign. And you know, the classic is you want to talk shit about someone but they accidentally forward it to that person because that person's on the mind. And someone forwarded an email from someone right back to them and said, I want to kill this fucking bitch. That was brutal. That was brutal. Not as bad as this. Not as bad as this.

[Jon Favreau]

I mean. And so Jeff Goldberg probably can't believe his fortune here. And then he leaves, leaves the group chat. Which is also funny because you get some kind of. At least the person who started the group chat gets a notification if someone left. So can you imagine the feeling in your body when you see Jeff Goldberg left the chat?

[Jon Lovett]

I can like, yeah, I don't know. Do these people have feelings in their bodies? Yeah, maybe not.

[Jon Favreau]

Maybe not.

[Jon Lovett]

I was like a little bit bummed that he left. So he, in the piece he talks about how he just once he couldn't. He wasn't sure if it was real. He thought it wasn't. Then all of a sudden they're bombing Yemen and it's like, well, that's pretty conclusive. And so he now Is seems like.

[Jon Favreau]

More than a coincidence, right?

[Jon Lovett]

So it seems confirmed for him. So then he feels like he has to withdraw himself from the trap, which is a bummer, cuz we're denied the third act, which would have been either somebody catching it or everybody just leaving in about a 15 minute span, which have also been awesome. But I get, I get why he had to take himself out because at a certain point you've confirmed this. You're now like, aware that you're receiving classified, deeply sensitive government information on your, on your private cell phone.

[Jon Favreau]

It would have been awesome if he just responded with a poop emoji and then left the chat.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

I see. I was gonna say he should have recommended some targets and just started like mixing it up, getting involved in the conversation, see if anybody noticed. But yeah, I mean, to those who are, there were some people online who were like, how dare he leave? Why would he do that? I do think in this, you know, legal climate, there is some actual risks to you if you're perceived as they're violating the Espionage Act.

[Jon Favreau]

Also, once the Houthi strike is over, don't they disband Houthi PC small group?

[Dan Pfeiffer]

No, they probably keep this group.

[Jon Favreau]

Do you think there's a whole bunch of PC small groups on signal?

[Dan Pfeiffer]

I bet there are.

[Jon Lovett]

Of course there are.

[Jon Favreau]

Think there's a Putin PC small group.

[Jon Lovett]

That is, I think, like, who do.

[Jon Favreau]

You think's on that one? Peter Baker?

[Dan Pfeiffer]

No, probably like Steve Wykoff. I got there, I'd listen to an hour and six minutes of an hour and a half of Steve Wyckoff talking with Tucker Carlson about their entire foreign policy policy agenda. And I can't wait to listen to the rest after this. But I bet when all these guys are traveling, they are just absolutely breaking the rules and ignoring the Presidential Record act and talking on Signal all day long.

[Jon Lovett]

Well, so we already know that they're breaking the Presidential Record act left, right and center. We already tons of reporting about that. If they are, this is as sensitive a conversation as government officials have. There's. I don't know what could be more sensitive than this. It's a group of government officials, right? This is a group of government officials planning an imminent military operation. Right? That's as sensitive as it gets. That they're doing this on a public platform as opposed to like in the actual protected, secure government facilities is absurd. But it means that. Think about all the, the chats that Jeffrey Goldberg isn't in right across the government. They are all doing this on signal. They're all they're. All they are. The classified part aside, none of them want. Want any of what they're saying in the Presidential. To be captured under the Presidential Record Act. They all want that shit to disappear. These messages, by the way, were set to disappear. I don't know what the timeframe was, but it's pretty short, so I assume he was screenshotting as he went.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Oh, yeah, yeah, big time. Yeah. I mean, and just look. Signal is broadly viewed as kind of the gold standard and the safest communications app because it's open source and it's got really strong encryption. But we don't know. Like, we don't know if the Mossad has broken it or the Chinese or the Russians and assume they have. If they can get access to your device itself, certainly it doesn't matter if. If you know it's encrypted, flying across the transom. If they are on your device somehow, then they have got what you're saying.

[Jon Lovett]

And given Steve Witkoff's fucking guileless, credulous conversation about Vladimir Putin giving Donald Trump a portrait and coming across like a fucking stone cold moron, I do not believe his intern. His. His IT security is state of the art. No fucking way. These guys are. These guys are. These guys are getting a link telling them that they owe money on a toll. They're clicking that link and they're paying that toll.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

I've gotten, like four times the last week.

[Jon Lovett]

Hey, guys.

[Jon Favreau]

So many.

[Jon Lovett]

Nobody is texting you to pay a toll.

[Jon Favreau]

I wasn't going to fall for it or click it, but the first couple of times, I was like, oh, maybe I did blow through the toll. I don't. I want to.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

I know someone who got got.

[Jon Favreau]

Yeah. All right, so that's that.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

So, you know, don't plan wars on Signal.

[Jon Favreau]

Don't plan wars on signal. Do other things on signal. Okay, when we come back from the break, you'll hear my conversation with Governor Andy Beshear. But one quick thing before we do that. Love it or Leave it will be Live in Washington, D.C. for one night only, April 24 at the Lincoln Theater. Love it.

[Jon Lovett]

We have some awesome guests lined up that we haven't announced yet. We're putting the dotting those T's, crossing those I's, but it's going to be a great show. It's mostly now sold, so please jump in crooked.com events to get tickets for that DC show. We're going to be coming to DC because that's the weekend of the correspondence dinner. We always like doing a show around that we also have. There's a Q and A before if you want to buy some of those fancier tickets. You know, get to get to yell at me in person. But it's going to be a great time. Everybody should come.

[Jon Favreau]

Nice. All right, when we come back, Andy Beshear. Pod Save America is brought to you by Fatty 15. Have you heard about C15? It's an essential fatty acid that's naturally found in whole fat dairy products. But over time, our intake of those foods has decreased. Combined with the Natural decline of C15 as we age, many of us aren't getting enough of this important nutrient. Introducing fatty 15C15 supplement. A simple way to replenish your body with this essential fatty acid. Backed by science and supported by studies, C15 helps support cell function and resiliency and can be a valuable part of your long term health strategy. Fatty 15 is vegan, 100% pure and free from flavors, fillers, allergens or preservatives. Best of all, fatty 15 comes in a gorgeous reusable glass bamboo jar and refills are shipped right to your door. So do yourself a Favor, replenish your C15, restore your health and let your cells do the heavy lifting with fatty 15. Fatty 15 is on a mission to optimize your C15 levels to help you live healthier longer. You can get an additional 15% off their 90 day subscription starter kit by going to fatty15.com crooked and using code crooked at checkout.

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[Jon Favreau]

Ipad Governor Andy Beshear. Welcome to Pod Save America.

[Andy Beshear]

Thanks for having me.

[Jon Favreau]

So you are the Democratic governor of a state where around two out of every three voters supported Donald Trump last November. You were first elected towards the end of Trump's first term, so you have more experience than most elected Democrats representing and working with people who support Trump. How are you feeling about his second term so far? And how are the folks you're talking to in Kentucky feeling about It, Yeah.

[Andy Beshear]

I'm very concerned, I'm very concerned with the actions of the president, his administration. I'm worried about the example he's setting for the country and how kids growing up are going to view not just this president, but the presidency itself. His policies are going to specifically hurt my people. Tariff policy is going to hit Kentucky harder than just about anywhere else. You look at what's already happening with bourbon, 95% of the world's bourbon is made in Kentucky. But that's all the bourbon worth drinking.

[Jon Favreau]

Sure is.

[Andy Beshear]

This time it's not just a responsive tariff, say from the EU or from Canada, but Canada's actually removing it entirely from some of the shelves. You look at our auto industry and the fact that we have a company called Martinrea, it's a Canadian company, it's got about 500 employees in Western Kentucky, and its parts go from Canada to Kentucky, to Mexico, back to Kentucky and back to Canada. So these tariffs, a lot of tariffs are gonna impact our state. Our number one export target is Canada. It's about 23% of all of our exports. And this president is picking on an ally and a friend in a way that it's gonna hurt my people. The other thing it's gonna do is raise prices for all Americans. And we need to be talking about it like what it is. It is the Trump tax. So with the tariff, if it goes into effect on Canada, it's going to raise the price of gas. The amount it increases, it is a Trump tax. Mexico tariffs will increase the price of fruits and vegetables. The amount it increases, it is a Trump tax. Tariff on lumber, it's going to make that first home even harder to buy. That extra amount that it costs is the Trump tax. And so we just need to be really clear that these are decisions being made by one individual alone. But the thing that moves people the most right now, that they understand maybe at a level that wasn't understood 10 years ago, is Medicaid. So in Kentucky, how I describe it, is that it covers the people we love the most, our parents and our kids. Half of Kentucky's kids are covered by Medicaid. 70% of our long term care costs are covered by Medicaid. And without Medicaid and expanded Medicaid, rural healthcare ends, that hospital that's in somebody's community closes. And then whether they have private insurance or on Medicaid, they gotta drive two hours just to see the same doctor that used to be in their community. So we are seeing people respond and respond strongly, especially on those threatened cuts.

[Jon Favreau]

Are you hearing from any folks in Kentucky who may have supported Trump, who are now like, what's going on with these tariffs? What's going to happen with my Medicaid?

[Andy Beshear]

So I think the first thing you hear is concern over the health care system. And they may or may not be talking about Medicaid directly, but they recognize that what's being threatened right now could really impact their community. So in many Kentucky communities, the number one employer is the school system, and what they're doing to the Department of Education could impact those jobs. And the second biggest employer is the hospital system, are the clinics. And so you think about how this could gut rural America and jobs. I mean, I see it and I hear about it in each of these communities.

[Jon Favreau]

So obviously his economic policies are inflationary. This is what people are going to feel more than anything else. If you polled people, they're gonna be more concerned about Medicaid, they're gonna be concerned about the tariffs. There's also some pretty, I think, alarming, scary things that he's doing as well. So in the span of just one week, the New York Times reported that Trump administration believes ICE agents can now enter people's homes without a warrant. All they have to do is claim they're looking for Venezuelan gang members. The President himself has called for the impeachment of a Bush appointed federal judge who blocked his administration from jailing people in an El Salvador megaprison without due process. This morning we're speaking Friday afternoon, Trump said that Americans who vandalize Teslas are domestic terrorists who should be sent to that same foreign prison in El Salvador where people have been starved and tortured.

[Andy Beshear]

For vandalizing a Tesla.

[Jon Favreau]

Yes. Yeah, that's the new thing. Now. You're a lawyer, you served as Attorney General. Like, is this a five alarm fire for the country? It feels like that to me. I don't like, you know, alarming people unnecessarily. And I realize that this probably isn't the highest polling issue right now, but it seems pretty scary what he's doing.

[Andy Beshear]

Well, people should be alarmed in the very least that we have a President who apparently does not believe in his oath of office and doesn't value the fact that the Constitution only makes him one branch of government. You know, I look at whether it's the President or Republican members of Congress, they all took an oath to defend the Constitution. Many of them took that oath putting their hand on the Bible, making a promise not just to our country, but in some instances, the Almighty. And look at what they're doing. Now, Republicans in Congress are letting the president violate the very laws they passed and acting like it's not a big deal, being more loyal to their party than their country, being more concerned about how Trump will react than whether they're violating that oath and that promise that they took. And then with the president, it seems like everything is the us versus the them. It's the finding out who is the US and who is the them. And that's bad for America and it's bad for our future. Now we're going to have to post this presidency, find a way to heal, because we cannot be red and blue on every issue, left or right on every issue. We got to get back to right versus wrong instead of right versus left. And I do think that the more that this president does and how he talks, especially about people, is and will make an impact. I mean, take the veterans we're hearing from that serve their country and then go into the civil service with our government. They're being laid off and then told it's their fault because they did a poor job, which is a total lie. You know, that hurts. It hurts them, and everybody sees what's happening.

[Jon Favreau]

You mentioned our children. I have two kids, four and one. The oldest is very aware of Donald Trump. Starting to ask questions here and there.

[Andy Beshear]

Only your and my four year olds would be aware of.

[Jon Favreau]

Yeah, right. Well, I know your kids are older, 15 and 14. How do you talk to them about what's going on in politics in the country right now?

[Andy Beshear]

So at 15 and 14, I've got to give them the space to talk to me about it, to make sure that I'm listening and not just telling. Because it's important that especially at that age and with me as a parent, that they've got the space to know that they're forming their own opinions, but they're concerned, too. My pledge is that we cannot leave a broken country to our kids and ultimately their kids. If this happens on our watch, which it has. Our job is to not only fight to prevent as much harm as we can, but to also repair what is broken or what will be broken.

[Jon Favreau]

There seems to be broad agreement from across the political spectrum. The Democrats need to do a better job of fighting back. Right now, there's less agreement as to how. What are your thoughts on this?

[Andy Beshear]

Well, first, I don't think disagreement in and of itself within a party is a bad thing. Yes, we need a united front, but we're not following just one voice like you hear with Donald Trump. And that's, I think, A more healthy party and a more healthy democracy. What I think we've got to do is focus. I think we earn back the trust of the American people by, yes, standing up for important issues, but showing the American people that we're going to spend 80% of our time on what they're worried about the most. They wake up in the morning worried about their job and whether they can support their family. They're worried about their next doctor's appointment or their kid's doctor's appointment, the roads and bridges they drive, the school they drop their kids off at, and whether they feel safe in their communities. And so while the president claimed he was going to focus on those things, he's done anything but it. He has been obsessed with culture war issues, which means the lane is there for the Democrats to re earn that trust. But I think that we've got to be, again, laser focused so that people see what we talk about and what we work on truly betters their lives. As a Democratic governor, maybe that's a little bit easier for me because Democratic governors, our job is to get it done. And we get dirt on our boots. We get out in our state, people want to see and feel and touch progress to believe it's happening. So in Kentucky, we're building the two biggest battery plants on planet Earth. You can bet I'm going there and I'm showing people what's happening. When we opened the first new hospital in our largest African American community in 150 years, I wanted to be there. You know, it's an important moment, but it also ties the work that you do and the progress that's occurring out there in a much more real way than, say, a signing in the Rose Garden.

[Jon Favreau]

Do you think that a problem for the Biden administration was that they didn't do enough to sell the accomplishments of Biden's presidency? Or do you think that, you know, we've had an affordability crisis for some time and they just didn't do enough to fix the affordability crisis.

[Andy Beshear]

I think President Biden himself would say they should have sold it more, but also that they should have done it faster. Sometimes Democrats can write in too many regulations, too many complications, and it's okay for both Democrats and Republicans to think that government should work better, government should work faster, government should work more efficiently. And we may come at it from different directions, but the goal should be to fix it, not to break it. You know, what Elon Musk is doing is breaking it. You can't fire half the federal workforce. And it still operate. You can't close the Social Security office in an eastern Kentucky community and shut down the call in line and expect someone who lives on that amount alone to travel several hours to see somebody in person. But I think when you hear criticisms of the bead program, it's been two plus years and there's not an inch of fiber in the ground. I know that frustrated President Biden and it should. And so I think as we move forward, Democrats need to be the party of getting things done. Not just focused on that 80% of jobs and healthcare infrastructure, public safety and education, but actually getting the things that need to be done in them done and done quickly.

[Jon Favreau]

I mean, as a governor, you've obviously had a lot of experience with this. Is it mostly a story of regulations getting in the way? Is it special interests? Like what is preventing? When we pass something like the IRA and we want to deploy all of this rural broadband or clean energy, can't get it done fast enough. Same thing with housing. Right. I'm sure you've had housing issues as well. Like what do you think Democrats need to do there?

[Andy Beshear]

Well, the first thing we can't do is require a state to write a thousand page plan and then it be reviewed eight different times by different folks that maybe have never done this before and then turn it around three or four more times. We've got a trust our states and our localities that have a general plan that can then be monitored, but that you get it moving as fast as you can. I mean, people need to feel that impact. And I've always thought that if you can do a project 95% of where you want it to be, but you can do it three times faster than if you did it 100% that more people are helped and impacted during that process.

[Jon Favreau]

Yeah. How do you think Chuck Schumer handled the fight over funding the government?

[Andy Beshear]

I think it was a big challenge, but I think we lost the messaging war before it ever got to Chuck Schumer's desk. I mean, we were talking about a cr. And if we're ever talking, I mean, I can't imagine President Obama ever giving up to the lectern, looking down at his notes and it says he's gonna talk about subsection three of the cr. No. And what it means, this wasn't about Democrats voting or not voting to keep the federal government open. And that's what the message ended up coming out as. It was the Republicans holding the country hostage that they were going to let it shut down if they didn't get enough Votes for Elon Musk to fire more people and making sure that we're winning that messaging war simply by telling the truth, but by doing it in a way where we use common, everyday language, we get rid of a lot of the advocacy speak that's been out there and we communicate like normal human beings to normal human beings. I mean, I keep thinking about words like substance use disorder.

[Jon Favreau]

I even heard that one.

[Andy Beshear]

Everyone I know that's battled addiction calls it addiction because it's difficult and it's deadly. And that word has that meaning, food insecurity. I've never known a family that's hungry to call it food insecurity. Right now we use the term justice involved population. Those are inmates or folks that are in jail. They certainly don't use those terms. So making sure that we're communicating what's happening in a real, authentic way to the American people is really important.

[Jon Favreau]

Look, former speechwriter, no argument for me there, banging this drum for a while. Language aside, would you have supported keeping the government open like Schumer did, or would you have voted against it?

[Andy Beshear]

Well, I think what we had to do in the very beginning was show the American people that this was the Republicans holding the country hostage and they were going to shut it down if Democrats did not meet their demands. And those demands harm people.

[Jon Favreau]

Yeah. In my life, the Democratic Party has never been viewed as less favorably by Americans as it is right now. Why do you think that is and what do you think the party should do going forward to change the brand of the party?

[Andy Beshear]

I think that the national party lost the faith of the American people, that they were focused on them. I'll take the last ad run by President Trump in the campaign. I don't think that the folks that moved after watching that ad were moving because they're anti trans. I think folks that are were already going to vote for Donald Trump. I think what it did is it convinced some people that he was going to focus on prices and the economy and that she was focused on other things. I think what we've got to do in the Democratic Party is both stand up for our beliefs. Listen, I vetoed the nastiest anti trans bill in Kentucky history and I did it in my election year because I don't like bullies and I didn't want people picking on those kids. But at the same time, I was opening a new factory the next day I was working to create that new clinic in a county that doesn't have one. So you didn't have to drive an hour to see A doctor. We opened a road called the Herald of Many, which saves people. People 40 minutes on their commute every day that they can spend with their families. So making sure that it's not an either or, that we can do both of these things, and we can do them if we explain our why, our authentic why. When I vetoed that nasty anti LGBTQ bill, I told people why. And for me, it's my faith. That's my driving why. I believe all children are children of God. That meant that somebody needed to stand up for those children. And I'll never forget, the next day, somebody started walking up to me, and I thought, oh, no, I know what's coming. And they started in a different way. They said, I'm not sure I agree with you. But then the next thing he said was, but I know you're doing what you think is right.

[Jon Favreau]

Yeah.

[Andy Beshear]

And when we talk about our why, we can give people some grace and some space to maybe think about things a little bit differently or to not always have to agree with us, but know that we're still spending 80% of our time doing things that help Democrats, Republicans and Independents to live a safer and more secure life.

[Jon Favreau]

One big challenge here is communicating and communicating in a way that's on our terms. Right. And so you just mentioned that last.

[Andy Beshear]

What you're for and not who you're against.

[Jon Favreau]

Right. Well, you mentioned that last ad. And. And, you know, Kamala Harris, probably most of the money in that campaign was spent on economic ads. And this happens most Democratic campaigns. And then you don't always get to choose what the media focuses on. I was just, like, prepping for this interview and reading up about you. And most of the stories are that you issued the executive order to ban conversion therapy, which is great. It's the right thing to do. The fact that you vetoed that bill, that you're just mentioning the anti LGBTQ bill. And a lot of your. And I know you have this whole economic record, because I looked it up and stuff like that, but those stuff does. That doesn't make headlines. And so most of the stories about you, you would think that, like, that's what. That's the only thing that you were focused on when clearly it's not right. And I wonder if you thought about, as the party, you know, when you're governor of a state, you probably have, like, a little bit more leeway to sort of shape the narrative. And people know you in Kentucky. Right. Because you've been everywhere. You've been all over the state, and you've as you've said, you've had a.

[Andy Beshear]

Lot of they call me Andy, which I love.

[Jon Favreau]

Right. And you've had these natural disasters in the state and so you've gotten to go see people. But nationally, it becomes really tricky to build a brand for a party to stand up where you have to stand up, even if it's unpopular, but to also, like, focus, like to make sure people understand that you're focusing, focusing on cost of living, inflation issues when those don't break through as much. Have you thought about that?

[Andy Beshear]

It takes work. So when I started my reelection campaign, we had had the best three years, two years of economic development in history by far. I mean, we'd already broken in a three and a half year period every record for a governor for private sector investment, for new jobs. And remember, my dad had been governor and he was number two, so I had to call and tell him about it. But when we started and we saw the polling, I was only winning on the economy by 4 points again, more new jobs and more new investment than ever before. And we did some focus groups and what we saw is people just needed to be reminded. You'd say, well, what about those two giant battery plants? And they'd say, I read something about that. And then you'd say, what about the 5,000 jobs? And they said, oh, yes, and the $5.8 billion. And so we can't just assume that people have seen the work. We've got to prove it, we've got to show it again. We got to get that dirt on our boots. By the end of that campaign, our exit polling had us winning on the economy by 30 to 40 points. So it's important to have the record. But you can't have an ego about this thing. You've got to go in and prove what you've done over and over and over. And that discipline, you've seen it in politics, means you might give the same speech every night because somebody needs to hear that message. But it's gotta be about more than you. It's gotta be about the work and the results, and that's how you get it out there.

[Jon Favreau]

You mentioned we need to be talking about what we're for, not just who we're against. Not asking for a laundry list of policies, which I think sometimes is a challenge for Democrats. As we start just talking about policies, what's your best sense of an overall vision for the party that you think would be compelling to folks?

[Andy Beshear]

Yeah, I think it's those core areas. I think we'd say we as a Democratic Party, are gonna be the party of jobs, of accessible healthcare, of safe infrastructure, of good public schools, and of public safety, where it's not just the numbers say you're safe, but you feel safe. And we have to. On that last point, we get caught up in the numbers and in the statistics, but we've got to recognize how people feel. We're the party that believes that mental health is just as important as physical health. But when somebody said, I don't feel safe, we had a lot of members of our party that said, oh, no, you are. Look at all these statistics. And so understanding that we've got to meet Americans where they are, and if the statistics say one thing that people don't, we don't don't feel it, then we got to work twice as hard. We've got to increase public safety that much more.

[Jon Favreau]

You made some news recently when you said that Governor Newsom shouldn't have had Steve Bannon on his podcast. You said, we shouldn't be afraid to talk to and debate just about anyone. But Bannon espouses hatred and anger and even, at some points, violence. And I don't think we should give him oxygen on any platform ever, anywhere. There are quite a few Republicans who espouse the exact same views as Steve Bannon. They appear on his podcast. You probably have a lot of people you represent who listen to Bannon, even like him. Why is it a bad idea to challenge and debate Bannon's views for the benefit of the people who may find them persuasive but are not sure?

[Andy Beshear]

So I don't think there's anything wrong with Gavin, who I know consider us friends, having different voices on and having this discussion back and forth, I think that's important, and he's doing a good thing there. But when somebody stands for hate and intolerance and violence, lifting their voice up or putting it out there in a way to where even more people hear it, I just think is wrong. I don't disagree on Gavin's overall approach on the podcast, but I strenuously disagree with this guest because of his words. People have been hurt, people have been harmed. Our country is a less safe place. People feel less welcome in different areas. And I'll always believe that love is right and hate is wrong, and I just don't want to lift up a voice of hate.

[Jon Favreau]

There's been a lot of speculation that you'd be a top presidential contender in 2028. Obviously, we're far from candidates making announcements of any kind, unless you'd like to make one here, but I'm curious to get your thoughts on what kind of a leader you think the party needs next time. And also you're going to be the head of the DGA, the Democratic Governors association in 2026. What kind of candidates are you hoping for that the party runs?

[Andy Beshear]

So my goal right now is to be the best governor of Kentucky I can be. I love where I'm from, and we made some really great strides for our people, and there's more opportunity in Kentucky right now than ever before, and I'm really proud of that. And I want to finish this job for the people that I love. When I Look at the DGA in 2026, my job is to win as many of these races as I can. We've got 36 across the country, and the more of those races that we win, the bigger the list for 2028 gets. And that's a good thing to have a lot of different leaders who would be out there making their voices heard. But I think we've got to have people that are seeking common ground for the common good and can hopefully lead this country in a direction that brings some healing and brings people back together. I think we're going to desperately need that after this presidency. So someone, again, who's focused on issues that lift everyone up, that make lives better, whether you're a Democrat, a Republican, or an Independent. I mean, a president that can do that for four or for eight years, I think can help us heal because people can see that. And I also think that people feel whiplash right now. They feel rightfully or wrongfully, like the pendulum swung far to the left and now it swung really far to the right. I think they want it to stop swinging. And so I think what we're going to need are candidates that can check their ego and recognize what's necessary for the country and for our states is to have people who are doing this for the right reason, that don't want to leave a broken country to their kids. And that will do the right thing for all Americans and get us beyond this partisanship that we're seeing.

[Jon Favreau]

How do you think about the very difficult challenge of finding common ground in a political environment where you said it yourself earlier, you know, Republicans swore an oath to this country, and some of them right now, including the president, United States are either breaking the laws or testing the limits or throwing out norms or trampling on basic freedoms, and also have an attitude that they don't ever want to work with Democrats. They think Democrats are the enemies they're talking about putting Democrats in jail. And look, I'm a common ground guy. I work for Barack Obama, so I'll always feel like that. But. But, you know, I have to say, the last couple years have got me in a spot where it's like, I know that that's what voters say, that they don't like the division. They want us to come together. I believe that that's what people want in this country. It's really hard to do that when one political party now has been taken over by people who most of them just don't want to do that.

[Andy Beshear]

Well, we got to push through, and we can't give up on where this country has to get. I don't want a country where one party is in charge every X number of years and then does everything they can to punch down at the other. We've just got to get to a better place. And maybe we have to go through what we're going through right now to see how important that is. I wasn't alive during McCarthyism, but there was a point where it broke, and I think people recognized what had happened, and that's not who we are as Americans. And so, listen, I live in a state where I've got a very positive approval rating, and Rand Paul does, too. And so that says that the people of Kentucky expect us to get along. And I will tell you, even during the election year, the temperature was turned down in Kentucky. People weren't arguing with each other over the election. So, yes, they were going to vote a certain way, but hopefully we'd moved beyond some of the toxicity that we'd seen between neighbors.

[Jon Favreau]

How far do you have Kentucky going in your bracket?

[Andy Beshear]

Oh, in my bracket. Oh, all the way.

[Jon Favreau]

All the way.

[Andy Beshear]

Oh, I'm the governor of Kentucky.

[Jon Favreau]

I was gonna say it's three seeds, so it's like, you know, it's plausible, but.

[Andy Beshear]

So when you're.

[Jon Favreau]

Are you gonna be able to watch the game tonight?

[Andy Beshear]

I'm hoping when you're governor of Kentucky, you have two jobs. To root for your in state schools and to root against Duke.

[Jon Favreau]

That's something we can all agree on.

[Andy Beshear]

Some things bring everybody together.

[Jon Favreau]

Governor Andy Beshear, thanks for stopping by and joining Pod Save America.

[Andy Beshear]

Thanks for having me.

[Jon Favreau]

That's our show for today. Thanks to Governor Beshear for coming on. Everyone, check out VSA to see how you can get involved in events near you. Dan and I will be back with a new show in your feed on Friday. Bye, everyone. 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 of the pod [e-mail] friends or subscribe on Apple Podcasts directly from the Pod Save America feed. Also, be sure to follow Pod Save America on TikTok, Instagram, Twitter, and YouTube for full episodes, bonus content, and more. And before you hit that next button, you can help boost this episode by leaving us a review and by sharing it with friends and family. Pod Save America is a crooked media production. Our producers are David Toledo and Saul Rubin. Our associate producer is Farah Safari. Reid Churlin is our executive editor and Adrienne Hill is our executive producer. The show is mixed and edited by Andrew Chadwick. Jordan Kanter is our sound engineer, with audio support from Kyle Seglin and Charlotte Landis. Madeline Herringer is our head of news and programming. Matt de Groat is our head of production. Naomi Sengel is our executive assistant. Thanks to our digital team, Elijah Cohn, Hayley Jones, Ben Hethco Coat, Mia Kelman, Molly Lobel, Kirill Pelaviev and David Toles, our production staff is proudly unionized with the Writers Guild of America east your.

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