Donald Trump (2:50)

My recent election is a mandate to completely and totally reverse a horrible betrayal and all of these many betrayals that have taken place, and to give the people back their faith, their wealth, their democracy, and indeed their freedom. From this moment on, America's Decline is over. January 20, 2025, is Liberation Day. As we gather today, our government confronts a crisis of trust. For many years, a radical and corrupt establishment has extracted power and wealth from our citizens, while the pillars of our society lay broken. Many people thought it was impossible for me to stage such a historic political comeback. But as you see today, Here I am, the American people have spoken.

Jon Favreau (3:52)

Here I am, the American people have spoken. Can't argue with that. Dan, let's start with you thoughts on the speech.

Dan Pfeiffer (3:58)

I mean, it's just the whole thing was so surreal, right? As you pointed out in your opening, you have Donald Trump standing in the Capitol, the building that four years ago he incited a mob to try to assault. He delivers this speech, which in some ways feel like, you say it feels like State of the Union because he's in the Capitol. It also felt like a State of the Union in the sense that it was a laundry list of policy ideas sort of woven together in a very incoherent fashion. And you take the words, if you just read the transcript of the speech, it reads the words of a fascist dictator, but delivered with the energy and cadence of a middle manager at a sales conference. Just very low energy. And which we would soon learn why, because then he would go give a second speech moments later where he just did the full shtick, all the things he wanted to say, did the whole Trump routine. This was the speech for the aides who told him to be disciplined, I guess, but not a great speech.

Jon Favreau (4:56)

Love it. What'd you think as a speechwriter yourself?

Jon Lovett (5:00)

Well, yeah, as a speechwriter, I was disappointed. So there was a moment when, before Trump even got up there, when Franklin Graham got up there to give, I don't know what it's technically called. Invocation. Convocation. And he said the last four years have been very dark, which is just not what you would typically say in a moment like this, especially since the Joe Biden is sitting right behind him.

Jon Favreau (5:25)

That woke him Up.

Jon Lovett (5:26)

It did. And you had.

Jon Favreau (5:28)

Just kidding.

Jon Lovett (5:28)

I don't know. He was up. He was up. He was focused. But it's very look like the inaugural address is meant to be. I mean, he like, kind of tilts at it being this unifying event. But first of all, this is a speech taking place in a weekend of political rallies and was immediately politicized by the reverend, meant to be doing a kind of religious invocation. And so he gave basically a version of his stump speech. And yes, it was the. The stump speech version when he takes out all the stuff that they beg him to take out, which they successfully got him to take out, which he does later. But it was still a stump speech, still a deeply political and small speech for inauguration.

Tommy Vitor (6:12)

Tommy, January 20, 2025, is Liberation Day. Is just a giant Bill Pullman ripoff from Independence Day.

Jon Favreau (6:18)

Yeah. No aliens.

Tommy Vitor (6:19)

How dare you. First of all, it's funny also that Dan criticized Trump for being too wonky, too policy focused. Didn't expect that. I sort of had a similar reaction. It was sort of remarkable in how unremarkable it was. Like my memory of the 2017 inaugural address is all that one line about American carnage. And then I rewatched that speech after I watched the 2025 version, and it's actually amazing how similar the two speeches are. We're gonna make America great again. We're gonna protect our borders. Some hand waving about unity. He updates this one with new, more modern grievances, like the judicial system being weaponized, the battle against inflation, and the need to invade Panama. But there's, like, verbatim lines at the top. Like in 2017, he said, for too long, a small group in our nation's capital have reaped the rewards of government, while the people have borne the cost. 2025. For many years, a radical and corrupt establishment has extracted power and wealth from our citizens, while the pillars of our society lay broken and seemingly in complete disrepair. So it was, you know, just kind of like stump, like the same thing. I did note, though, for all Joe Biden's attempts in efforts to be a decent person and have a dignified transfer of power, Trump still took a dump on his entire presidency in existence right next to him. So that was kind of him.

Jon Favreau (7:35)

Cordial of him. Gracious, gracious. It does feel like this speech. As much as I didn't care for the content that much of the speech, I kind of like the trend overall of getting away from the sweeping rhetoric of an inaugural address that's, like, meant for the history books and Just like getting right to business. He didn't quite do that completely. Like half of it was the Stephen Miller sort of cliched fascism, I'll call it. That's that sort of Stephen Miller style. It's like fish proud boys crossing the Delaware. It's a fascistic rhetoric that's not like we've all heard before. And it's not really a lot of creativity behind it. It's just sort of lame. And then it just got like very specific very quickly. But to me, that's like a little more modern, you know, like next Democratic president. I'd like them just to get to business, just talk about what they're gonna do for the country.

Jon Lovett (8:24)

Yeah. What I was really feeling when I was watching him speak is, oh, eight years ago, when Trump addressed the country, he did it really kind of unsure of what it meant to be president and what rules he had to respect and what rules he didn't, what customs he believed in and had value in, which customs he didn't. And now I do think he like these speeches that are for everybody. He just doesn't give a fuck about them. He doesn't care what the media says, he doesn't care how they're covered. He doesn't really see much of the value of it. Donald Trump gave two speeches, he gave his inaugural and then he went to this overflow. His speech at the overflow where he really let rip was over 30. Right. That was the real Donald Trump. This is the Donald Trump he has to do once in a while for the squares.

Jon Favreau (9:04)

Not for nothing, it was also the most self involved, self referential inaugural of all time. Maybe I think that beats his first, but I don't know. Tommy, you just listened to the first one again. So you tell me if I'm wrong, but talks about the assassination attempt, fine. But then, you know, it is my hope that our recent presidential election will be remembered as the greatest and most consequential election in the history of our country.

Jon Lovett (9:25)

First inaugural reference, swing states.

Jon Favreau (9:27)

And it's like they tried to take. Yeah, he starts talking about swing states, his election results. They tried to take away my freedom and my life again. He conflates him breaking the law and then people trying to investigate him with a assassin that had apparently no political leanings. Really, that just tried to take his life very, you know, he's focused on what's important, which is him.

Dan Pfeiffer (9:51)

He said he's on a mission from God to save America.

Jon Favreau (9:54)

You don't. You think?

Tommy Vitor (9:55)

Yeah.

Jon Favreau (9:55)

So there's a. So you wanted to Say there's a dose of humility.

Dan Pfeiffer (9:57)

Yes, yes, exactly.

Jon Favreau (9:58)

No, I thought so. Speech wasn't the only component of the weekend's big celebration. He also did a big victory rally at Capitol One arena on Sunday that also served as the overflow room for most people to watch the address. Unless you were, you know, member of the incoming cabinet, leadership in Congress, former president, and of course a billionaire tech founder or CEO. Those are the people who got, they got the good seats. Trump swung by the overflow room afterwards to say hi, signed some executive orders. We're gonna talk about that. We're gonna talk about the 33 minute speech he gave to the overflow room, which is longer than the 29 minute inaugural address, which also, by the way, I guess is the longest inaugural address since Roosevelt in the modern era, which is wild. There were also a lot of balls, big parties. Snoop performed. Peter Thiel held a ball. Mark Zuckerberg held a party. CEO of TikTok had a party. What do you guys think of this, the weekend in general and sort of the optics of the event, the vibes, the vibes in Washington this weekend. Anyone have any thoughts?

Tommy Vitor (11:01)

I mean, I think moving all the events inside and only doing things with tech CEOs and billionaire donors while the MAGA faithful nothing to do or go to some giant arena where they get ignored. That's kind of a perfect metaphor for how I imagine this whole thing is going to go.

Jon Favreau (11:14)

And look, if history is any guide, you want to keep those folks busy.

Tommy Vitor (11:17)

In D.C. that's true. Well, there were proud boys marching through the streets.

Jon Lovett (11:20)

Idle hands, devil's playground.

Tommy Vitor (11:23)

But I mean, I do think this is why you're seeing like the Steve Bannon fight against Elon Musk and the tech oligarchs, because they're worried that their populism is erasing the minute the votes were counted. And they're not wrong.

Jon Lovett (11:35)

Yeah, this weekend is the, you know, he's about to take office. It's his final chance to do open corruption before he's actually president, so that the corruption he can do while president begins. But it felt like the end of any kind of pretense that he's not going to just be openly corrupt and basically sell access to the White House to these people. I mean, that's what this weekend was. It was a big sale. And I was thinking like, oh, like maybe he's, maybe he's sort of empathetic to people who, like waiters and servers who work for tips because he's going to be the first president that does work for tips, which I think that is exciting. You know, don't forget to tip your president, which is, I think, the motto of this weekend.

Tommy Vitor (12:19)

That's right.

Jon Favreau (12:22)

He wants to be a host. Yeah, that's it.

Tommy Vitor (12:25)

He loves the tip presidency.

Jon Lovett (12:26)

That's right. Okay.

Jon Favreau (12:27)

He's just. The tip presidency pod title workshop in that workshop. In that. One other notable moment to that end in the speech, he referenced the fires in Los Angeles. At one point, apparently he's going to Los Angeles on Friday and he brought up the fires. He also brought up Hurricane Helene because he wanted to basically show that leadership that's not him is incompetent and all that kind of stuff. But he also said this when he was talking about the fires.

Donald Trump (12:57)

Or more recently, Los Angeles, where we are watching fires still tragically burned from weeks ago without even a token of defense. They're raging through the houses and communities, even affecting some of the wealthiest and most powerful individuals in our country, some of whom are sitting here right now. They don't have a home any longer. That's interesting.

Jon Favreau (13:22)

That is interesting. Who is he talking about that doesn't have that lost a home that was on the dais.

Tommy Vitor (13:27)

I did not know that natural disasters could harm rich people.

Dan Pfeiffer (13:30)

I mean, that is his point.

Tommy Vitor (13:32)

That's exactly what he is.

Dan Pfeiffer (13:33)

He's legitimate shock that the rich and powerful could be affected by something like this.

Jon Lovett (13:38)

Yeah, it is. I mean, I guess it's somewhat reassuring to know that we have oligarchs in Los Angeles because at least that means we'll have to get some. Some protection from the federal government if we need it. Yeah.

Tommy Vitor (13:45)

Someone's summer house in Malibu probably got hit.

Jon Lovett (13:48)

I don't know.

Jon Favreau (13:48)

Oh, I don't think we're getting protection from. I don't think. I think they're going to hire their own protection.

Jon Lovett (13:52)

No, that's right. But yeah, it was just sort of.

Tommy Vitor (13:54)

It was a weird line.

Jon Lovett (13:55)

Well, just a remind.

Jon Favreau (13:56)

Like what it is interesting.

Tommy Vitor (13:57)

Also, it sounded like, oh, maybe someone started it to target them. Like, that was my takeaway in the moment.

Jon Lovett (14:02)

What I took away from it was there's some rich person there who may have lost their house, which is terrible. And we. This is how Donald Trump governs. Someone nearby him told him this story and now he is recounting it and.

Jon Favreau (14:15)

He literally thinks it's interesting.

Jon Lovett (14:17)

And they're. And they're.

Jon Favreau (14:17)

And maybe we're reading too much. He just thinks it's interesting. And whether rich people lost their homes.

Jon Lovett (14:22)

Flipping on TikTok or any other policies that are gonna come out of this administration. They are gonna run through a gauntlet of rich people talking to Donald Trump directly about them, casually in the places Donald Trump hangs out with his biggest backers. And that's what I took from this.

Tommy Vitor (14:37)

He also said that in the overflow speech, that maybe Nancy Pelosi wanted January 6th to happen and that's why she turned down the 10,000 troops he says he offered and noted that she's guilty as hell. So that that was said in the Capitol, where the insurrection happened four years ago.

Dan Pfeiffer (14:53)

Maybe guilty of a crime, just be clear. Not just like morally guilty. Called it a criminal offense.

Jon Favreau (15:00)

We're gonna get to the overflow room speech. Good stuff at the end. It's a good one. So speech is pretty light on foreign policy. Trump welcomed the Israel Gaza ceasefire deal. Said the usual stuff about defending our own borders instead of other countries borders and blah, blah, blah. Nothing new there. But he also made what sounded like some conflicting promises. Let's listen.

Donald Trump (15:21)

My proudest legacy will be that of a peacemaker and unifier. That's what I want to be, a peacemaker and a unifier. A short time from now, we are going to be changing the name of the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America. China is operating the Panama Canal. And we didn't give it to China, we gave it to Panama and we're taking it back.

Jon Favreau (15:47)

Tommy, is China operating the Panama Canal?

Tommy Vitor (15:51)

No, the Panama Canal Authority, it's a semi autonomous government entity controlled by Panama, operates the canal. There are ports and infrastructure getting built by the Chinese on either side of the canal. Panama is one of the countries that signed a deal with China for the Belton Rove initiative. So maybe he's referring to that, but there are a lot of factual errors in this part of the speech. He says the United States lost 38,000 lives in the building of the Panama Canal. Most of the deaths happened during the French construction portion.

Jon Favreau (16:20)

Such a good fact check.

Tommy Vitor (16:21)

They quit on. But also. Well, also the people who did the work were from the Caribbean. They were not American citizens. They were people who were basically indentured servants doing this work.

Jon Lovett (16:31)

Several thousand Americans died, But it's not 38,000.

Tommy Vitor (16:33)

Yeah, not 38,000. Not even close.

Jon Favreau (16:35)

So I guess I'm for this.

Jon Lovett (16:36)

I think we should take the Panama account.

Jon Favreau (16:37)

You want it back by force?

Jon Lovett (16:41)

Let's hope it doesn't come to that. But that's not really up to us.

Jon Favreau (16:44)

Why do you want it back?

Jon Lovett (16:46)

We built it. And then Jimmy Carter, may his memory be a blessing, just gives it back. Because of some protests, we're taking it back.

Jon Favreau (16:53)

What if France takes the Statue of Liberty back?

Jon Lovett (16:55)

They can try. What are they gonna do? What are they gonna do?

Jon Favreau (17:01)

Do a lot of eggs go through the Panama Canal? I'm just wondering, is that the price of eggs? The price of eggs? Is that how we're lowering. Is that how we're lowering inflation?

Tommy Vitor (17:08)

I guess so.

Jon Favreau (17:09)

Feeding more things through the Panama Canal.

Tommy Vitor (17:11)

A huge chunk of American shipping goes through it, has gotten more expensive, but that's mostly because of drought people usually attribute to climate change, not China.

Jon Lovett (17:21)

Listen, Donald Trump is pretty clear about this. He is very comfortable with the Chinese government controlling the brains of America's young people, but not the canal.

Tommy Vitor (17:29)

Do you see the TikTok CEO sitting next to Tulsi Gabbard, the future Director of National Intelligence?

Jon Lovett (17:33)

What a country.

Jon Favreau (17:33)

What a country.

Jon Lovett (17:34)

What a time.

Jon Favreau (17:35)

Dan, what do you think? Just from a public opinion perspective, how do you think. You think the country is clamoring for a new name for the Gulf of Mexico? He also said he's going to Mount. Mount. It's going to be Mount McKinley again. It was Denali. Mount Denali for a while.

Jon Lovett (17:50)

We're saying Mount McKinley again.

Jon Favreau (17:52)

Saying Mount McKinley again. We're saying Merry Christmas again. We're saying Gulf of America for the first time. We're seizing Panama, hopefully not by force if necessary, but.

Tommy Vitor (18:00)

But we're not ruling it out.

Jon Favreau (18:01)

But we're not ruling it out.

Tommy Vitor (18:02)

Greenland.

Jon Favreau (18:03)

Greenland got the shaft in this speech. Didn't mention about Greenland. Nothing about the 51st state either. And just Justin Trudeau, outgoing Prime Minister. Dan, what do you think? Are these all. Is this what people wanted when they voted in November?

Dan Pfeiffer (18:15)

Well, fortunately for us, John, we have polling that shows that 57% of Americans oppose Donald Trump using coercion, either military or economic, to seize the Panama Canal back.

Jon Favreau (18:27)

So Trump and Lovett on the wrong.

Dan Pfeiffer (18:28)

Side of that one, similar numbers on Greenland. American people are not interested in Greenland or the Panama Canal.

Jon Lovett (18:36)

I heard a talk once about Greenland and how the harsh and unforgiving climate there. Obviously it isn't green and I hope someone tells Trump that soon. But that the person in this sort of Danish accent said describing the mile high glaciers and the impossible conditions and was asked what would happen if someone invaded Greenland. And he said if someone were to invade Greenland, we'd immediately rescue them.

Tommy Vitor (19:04)

Another kind of foreign policy, Jason, one is he's gonna designate drug cartels as foreign terrorist organizations. And I'm just very interested to see what that means in practice because there's lots of reporting about connections between the Mexican government and the cartels, elected officials or the Mexican military and these cartels, I want to know, are they going to get tagged with providing material support? Are we going to go back to the campaign rhetoric where we all were talking about using the US Military to bomb Mexico, bomb the cartel drug manufacturing facilities?

Jon Favreau (19:31)

Looks like they're already going to be down in Panama. So kind of a pincer move.

Tommy Vitor (19:34)

That's right. I mean, I guess my like we'll talk about this later, but my move, modus operandi for Trump 2.0 is to take it all literally and assume he's going to do these things. So if we're going to call them terrorists, presumably then you kill the terrorists, because that's usually what you do with terrorists if you're an American government. So stay tuned.

Dan Pfeiffer (19:52)

I would just say, Tommy, this is the entire plot line of Special ops Lioness Season 2 and it doesn't end.

Tommy Vitor (19:58)

Well for any of that Is that a video game?

Jon Lovett (20:00)

Is that a TV show?

Dan Pfeiffer (20:01)

That is. It's on Paramount plus Taylor Sheridan Show.

Jon Lovett (20:03)

Okay for the makers of it's also.

Jon Favreau (20:08)

Tommy Vitor just watching his Prestige tv. Sorry Joy.

Jon Lovett (20:12)

Severance, you elite prick. We're watching Yelp. Dan and I are watching Yellowstone.

Tommy Vitor (20:19)

Was it Lioness too? What was it called?

Dan Pfeiffer (20:21)

Special.

Jon Lovett (20:23)

It is also the plot of Clear and Present Danger. That's a great which is a movie where the whole plot revolves around. Once the American people find out, there'll be hell to pay, which is a simpler time.

Jon Favreau (20:43)

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Tommy Vitor (21:46)

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Jon Favreau (21:51)

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Tommy Vitor (21:53)

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Jon Favreau (22:03)

Tommy, just to put in a button on the whole Panama thing, how does this work? Like is they just. What are the options here? Outside his military force, he like tries to levy tariffs on Panama. Economic pressure. I don't understand.

Tommy Vitor (22:16)

I think that Greenland, he really does want the territory. I think with Panama he's probably just getting, trying to get a better deal or better rate. But as far as I can, I looked into this a couple of weeks ago when he started talking about it again. I think that they are charging us the same rate as everyone else. This acp, the Panama Canal Authority, and.

Jon Lovett (22:34)

There is a company based in Hong Kong that won a bid to control some aspect of shipping and they charge everybody. I think this is all kind of a bullshit way of describing what is ultimately a commercial debate. Right.

Tommy Vitor (22:48)

I think the big, big picture on this is Trump's brain was frozen in the 70s and he remembers when Reagan used to attack Jimmy Carter over the Panama Canal. All. And it was a huge political issue and he's just bringing it back.

Jon Favreau (23:02)

Yeah. And there was, there was a mention of manifest destiny in the speech again that was about we're going to Mars.

Tommy Vitor (23:09)

Sick.

Jon Favreau (23:10)

Elon was very excited behind him. We're going to Mars. We're taking Greenland, we're taking Panama. You can tell that he, he is serious about. All right, I'm a lame duck president. What's my legacy going to be? I want, I want to name. I've named buildings Trump my whole life. Now I want to name large land masses Trump and take them over for America. It seems like that's a vibe that he's quite serious about.

Jon Lovett (23:32)

And I think it's the kind of thing where he's going to keep an eye on a studio during pilot season. He's gonna throw a couple pitches out there and hope one becomes a hit.

Jon Favreau (23:40)

Much like Linus.

Jon Lovett (23:42)

Yeah, much like Linus, Season two.

Dan Pfeiffer (23:44)

Tell me, what's the process for renaming the Gulf of Mexico?

Tommy Vitor (23:48)

I don't know. I think Glovett was Googling this speech.

Jon Favreau (23:52)

Don't tell people how the magic happens.

Jon Lovett (23:56)

As I said to that professor on the phone beforehand it seems like he can unilaterally name things, but other countries don't have to recognize them. He can just order the federal government's maps and so forth to identify the Gulf of Mexico as the Gulf of America. But that doesn't mean other countries are gonna suddenly print Gulf of America.

Tommy Vitor (24:13)

And what was that?

Jon Favreau (24:14)

Well, then they'll be pretty sorry once they're invaded, right?

Tommy Vitor (24:17)

Right. When we were laughing at what did Claudia Sheinbaum, the new president of Mexico, threaten to call the United States, Like Greater Mexico or something?

Jon Lovett (24:24)

Mexico America, Mexican America? Something like that, yeah.

Tommy Vitor (24:27)

Little nationalism meeting. Nationalism.

Jon Favreau (24:28)

Good for her. Trump did spend a lot of the speech laying out his plans for signing a slew of long rumored executive orders, which he described this way.

Donald Trump (24:37)

Today I will sign a series of historic executive orders. With these actions, we will begin the complete restoration of America and the revolution of common sense. It's all about common sense.

Jon Favreau (24:53)

I think Biden chuckled at that one. The common sense which. Good for him. He should. So here are just a few of the ones he talked about and the ones that have been reported. Some he has already signed, some he's in the process of signing hard to tell. 11 executive orders on the border alone, including ending birthright citizenship for the kids of undocumented immigrants, reinstating the Remain in Mexico policy, laying the groundwork to send troops to the border, as Tommy mentioned, designating drug cartels for foreign as foreign terrorist organizations, and also invoking the Alien enemies Act of 1798 to expedite the removal of foreign born criminals. That's immigration. He also is going to sign an executive order quote declaring that there are only two genders, aiming to end trans protections and the idea of gender identity within any kind of federal government office, service, etc. So, for example, passports will only be two genders. He'll also require the prisoners in the federal system be housed according to their sex at birth. He'll be declaring a national energy emergency, whatever that means, in order to expedite more drilling and fossil fuel production and ending the electric vehicle mandate. That wasn't really a thing that he says is killing America. He signing an eo, creating the Department of Government Efficiency, or as we've all come to know and love it as doge, which by the way, Vivek Ramaswamy, he's out at DOGE because he's running for governor of Ohio. Good luck, Ohio.

Tommy Vitor (26:18)

That's why he's out.

Jon Lovett (26:19)

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Just think about how bad your fucking personality has to be that you are co lead of something with Elon Musk. And everyone's like, one of these guys has to go and it's you, Vivek.

Tommy Vitor (26:32)

Well, Little X was like, can you please stop carrying Vivek around on your shoulders?

Jon Lovett (26:35)

Yeah, that's my spot. That's my spot.

Tommy Vitor (26:37)

So they got him a governorship.

Jon Favreau (26:38)

I think he's just ambitious and wanted to be elected. He's dying to be an elected politician.

Jon Lovett (26:42)

There's been a ton of leaks out of the Doge people that this guy.

Tommy Vitor (26:45)

He was also b teamed the whole.

Jon Lovett (26:46)

Yeah, and also he was telling.

Jon Favreau (26:47)

Yeah, well, I'm sure the people.

Jon Lovett (26:48)

He was also begging DeWine to make him the senator.

Jon Favreau (26:50)

Yeah, that didn't work out either. Ending all. Allegedly ending all federal government DEI initiatives, including in the military. There was also an order. He's signing an order to bring down inflation. It's a whole of government approach to bringing down inflation, because that's how it works. You just have to sign an EO and then the inflation comes down.

Tommy Vitor (27:10)

Inflation's quivering in its boots.

Jon Favreau (27:12)

Inflation is quivering in its boots. What do we know about what here is real, what's new, what's impactful, what's just for show? What do you think, Dan?

Dan Pfeiffer (27:22)

I mean, much of the immigration stuff is real. There are really horrible stories you're hearing right now from people who had appointments with CBP, people who are seeking to solve appointments for 1pm today who had them canceled at 12:01. The app that the Biden administration set up so that people could set up their appointments. They shut that down at 12:01 today. The birthright citizenship is potentially fake, but maybe not like. I mean, most legal scholars believe you cannot. The Constitution is pretty clear on this and you cannot declare it, but the Trump administration can start thinking about it in that way. And up until it gets goes through the court system, the people can be affected by it. A lot of this stuff is all, as you point out. It's just. It's like Trump creates this fake reality and then he creates a series of fake solutions to solve the fake problems from the fake reality. Like the electric vehicle mandate, just declaring that government will stop censorship, will stop censoring things. All of that is really fake. But the immigration ones, I think, are quite real.

Jon Lovett (28:17)

Trump says it's Liberation Day, and then you look at this swath of Eos and yes, there's sort of these fake censorship ones, but for the most part, there's nothing you weren't free to do yesterday that you're free to do today. There's nothing. I love to see the list of things that Trump MAGA people would like to be free to do that they're not currently able to do under the yoke of Joe Biden. And so really, what Liberation Day.

Jon Favreau (28:41)

You can buy a Trump shitcoin and a Melania shitcoin.

Jon Lovett (28:44)

Right. But those are for sale before Trump even took office. But it's more that, like, well, what does it really mean? What does Liberation Day mean? It means you get to watch on television all the people Trump has said are your enemies finally get their due. It's sort of a. It's like you're. Nothing good is happening to you. Nothing better is happening for you. You're not free to do anything different. It's that Trump is targeting the enemies he's promised he was gonna target. And that gives you a wonderful, I guess, liberated feeling.

Jon Favreau (29:11)

Yeah. You could have saved a lot of time by just signing one EO on liberal tears. Just. Yeah, just watch the libs cry.

Tommy Vitor (29:17)

Can't spell Liberation Day without lib.

Jon Lovett (29:19)

That's right. That's right. You can't.

Tommy Vitor (29:20)

That's what I'm saying.

Jon Lovett (29:21)

Can't spell a lot of things.

Jon Favreau (29:23)

Yeah, I do. I don't. I mean, like, the Doge thing, I know they're trying to do, like, shock and awe, like, a ton of executive orders, a lot of the birthright citizenship. Even conservative legal scholars don't think this stands a chance.

Jon Lovett (29:37)

Look, it's ridiculous. It's ridiculous.

Jon Favreau (29:39)

The 14th amendment is very clear.

Jon Lovett (29:40)

And the only reason we're even entertaining it is because the Supreme Court has lost its mind. But it is a ridiculous. It is completely blitheringly obvious that this does not make sense, that birthright citizenship is not something the President can eliminate with the stroke of a pen. The 14th amendment is crystal clear.

Jon Favreau (29:55)

Yeah. I mean, who knows? Because it's the Supreme Court. They can always surprise you. But I'm watching more like, what, do we get three votes for this? Do we get two votes for this? Do we get one vote for this? Like, I don't think Roberts goes with this. I don't think Barrett and Kavanaugh go with this. But Alito, Gorsuch, and Thomas, you never know. And who knows? Maybe. Maybe we also thought this on the fucking criminal immunity case and got surprised there. So who knows? But it seems this one is pretty clear.

Tommy Vitor (30:25)

Kavanaugh was there today and was looking rough.

Jon Lovett (30:28)

I think he and Hegseth had a night. That's a joke. That's a joke.

Jon Favreau (30:32)

It could have been a night of just dancing, revelry, fellowship. Might have Danced a lot. Trump did not mention the TikTok ban in his speech, but he previously said he would sign an executive order delaying enforcement of the law banning it in the US this after TikTok users spent the weekend with access only to messages from the app praising President Trump, even though he wasn't president yet for his valiant efforts to save the service. Trump truthed saved TikTok. Of course, he was once for the ban, now he's trying to save it. Then TikTok's now back for people. It's all in limbo right now, but basically the law says it gives the president the authority to delay the implementation of the ban by 60 or 90 days if there is a potential deal in the offing. It doesn't seem like there is a potential deal, but it seems like they're just going with us anyway. The Biden administration had said in their final days, we're not going to enforce the law. So TikTok can remain operational, which is.

Jon Lovett (31:32)

Cool, by the way. Cool, right?

Jon Favreau (31:35)

And then TikTok being like, we don't want Biden to say that we can be operational and not get people's attention, so we're going to do a stunt and shut down. And it worked, of course, because everyone then it got everyone's attention. Everyone at TikTok who hadn't been paying attention about that. What do we think about this? Trump being the savior of TikTok. Dan, I know you wrote a box on this. Yeah.

Dan Pfeiffer (31:56)

I mean, I don't think this is gonna be the thing that defines his presidency, but he played put us. We can talk about national security concerns, we can talk about the dangers of TikTok, but from pure politics, he played it exactly right. And I do think the Democrats fumble.

Jon Favreau (32:11)

And so did TikTok. And the many Republican and Democratic lobbyists they hired have been working full time for them.

Dan Pfeiffer (32:17)

I mean, it's really not that complicated that if you are. We're doing pure politics here, that if you're going to take something of tremendous value from 6 in 10 voters under 30, and then you never talk about why that should happen from the moment you pass the law in the dark of night until the day it disappears. Like no one ever made the case for it. You know, Biden could have tried to make a public show, as Trump did in the first administration of trying to facilitate a deal. It's like they all passed this thing. They passed it without really thinking about it. They didn't sell it, they didn't make a case for it. And Trump understood right away I mean, for entirely cynical, ridiculous reasons. We understood the politics of it because at the time, a lot of these Democrats voted for it, and Republicans too, because your choice was anger the youths or look soft on China, and they defaulted to what was always theoretically better politics being tough on China. And there's just a real difference between taking something that matters a lot to a group of people like you and I use this example with you on Friday. For voters of a certain age, taking away TikTok is like taking away cable TV from us in our 20s. Like it just disappears one day. And that is all. Taking something away from someone's always going to be worse politics than generically being tough or soft on another country in a way that doesn't really affect people. And so, I mean, from a political perspective, Trump did very well here. He got probably the, the most expensive free ad in American history to have push notifications of 170 million Americans first begging you to save the app and then crediting you for saving it all within a 12 hour period.

Tommy Vitor (33:49)

It's like, yeah, profoundly frustrating. 24 hours. I mean, I thought Dan's piece on this in Message Box, his newsletter, which you all should subscribe to, thank you, Tommy. Is excellent. There was lots of less thoughtful commentary on Twitter about how once again, Dems suck and Republicans rule because we gifted Trump this political win. And I just wish. And while that is true, the politics of this did not end well for Joe Biden nor the Democratic Party. I wish people were pointing out, though, that the vote in the House to ban was 360 to 58. So like 186 Republicans voted for banning TikTok or divesting TikTok. It was 7918 in the Senate. So you had 31 Republicans in the Senate. So this is a overwhelming bipartisan decision. The reason they did it was national security concerns, which they've done an absolutely terrible job explaining to anyone. So no one understands why this happened. But I also think part of the story of how Trump went from wanting to ban TikTok and trying to do it on his way out the door to getting to saving TikTok is also that he met with a big donor named Jeff Yass or Jeff Yass, who said something to him that led him to flip flop on this issue. And I think Jeff Yass owns 15% of ByteDance, the parent company of TikTok. So there was a big money angle here. And then, you know, TikTok wasn't shut down. They shut themselves down preemptively so they could Put up this little please save us Mr. Trump that they shouted from their tall tower. And then they gave him the win. And they were like, oh, Mr. Trump saved us to suck up to the incoming administration. So it was just like, it was so obviously a stunt and people were like, the commentary on Twitter in particular was just so fucking credulous.

Jon Favreau (35:27)

I think that they. I don't even think it's. I mean, I'm sure there, there could be a money angle to it. But like, I'm sure Kellyanne Conway like talked to Donald Trump and was like, hey, one of the reasons you won is because of TikTok. And they love you on TikTok now. And TikTok's a great place to get your message out. And he's like, really? What's a TikTok? And they're like, well, here it is. And he's like, you know what? Sure, yeah, I'm into it now, right?

Tommy Vitor (35:48)

Probably. But Jeff Yass bought like a ton of shares of Truth Social at the time and like put a bunch of money into the Trump team's pocket.

Jon Lovett (35:56)

So I think it could be a why not both situation. I mean, my, like, it really is to me is like just the. As Joe Biden goes out the door, it's like just these three big problems. One of them being that like the reason they did this was never communicated and Joe Biden could never communicate it. They never made the case, they passed it too quickly. It was always these kind of vague invocations of, of national security without explaining why. Then the same spyware was fined in the hands of Americans. It was baffling.

Jon Favreau (36:25)

It's a perfect example of institutional failure. Yes, it's everything.

Jon Lovett (36:29)

Yes.

Jon Favreau (36:30)

It's like we're Democrat and this is what it's Democrats and Republicans and Donald Trump doesn't care what the fuck people think about Republicans either. You're right. The lefties on Twitter who are mad about, who are against the ban, right. Are blaming Democrats cuz they love blaming Democrats for everything. And Democrats get blame here. I also think that like, it is Republicans fault. Trump doesn't care if it's a bunch of Republicans go under the bus too, because he is separate from the mass in Washington. But for the mass in Washington, the establishment in Washington that tried to work together in a bipartisan way to do the right thing. It's just the same story over the last however many years, which is we know what's right, it is the right thing. And they could be right, right? Like, I'm persuaded that there's Some national security threats here too. Right. But we don't need to tell you.

Jon Lovett (37:14)

They never trust us.

Jon Favreau (37:14)

Just trust us, trust us. No one trusts them, but trust us.

Tommy Vitor (37:17)

And they made a big show of, like, declassifying all this information around the Ukraine. Russian invasion of Ukraine. So why not do that again here? You know, like, there's a way to put information into people's hands so that.

Jon Lovett (37:27)

So that's one. So then you have two. You know, Donald Trump teaches all these Republicans that you don't need to have shame, that you can live without shame. And they embrace it. And it is amazing how few guardrails there are. Once the shame guardrail was gone. Now this moment is everybody outside of politics learning that lesson for themselves. All these tech companies and these guys realizing, wait, if I just kiss his ass, I get a bad op ed in the Washington Post, and then I get everything I want. I don't care about the Washington Post. I don't care what the elite says anymore. All I have to do is ignore it or pretend it doesn't bother me.

Jon Favreau (38:02)

Because he's got the power. They don't have the power. They can't hurt me with their words.

Jon Lovett (38:07)

And so there was a time when people had a certain amount of dignity where you might not. If you lead a company, go into a room full of people that work for you and say, put up a little supplicating message that says, donald Trump has a huge penis and how beautiful it is. And then we'll say that we saw it ourselves, and then he'll be happy.

Tommy Vitor (38:24)

You're doing a pornhub case.

Donald Trump (38:26)

Yeah, boy.

Dan Pfeiffer (38:26)

We have very different TikTok algorithms because.

Jon Lovett (38:28)

That'S not the message I got. But, like, that TikTok is willing to put up a ridiculous message like this and say, thank you, Mr. Trump. Like, we used to make fun of the people that said, thank you, Mr. Trump. Now the biggest leaders in the American economy are doing it, who I'm sure.

Jon Favreau (38:44)

Did not come up with the idea on their own, which is not a really brilliant idea to come up with. But again, they have had Republican and Democratic consultants, lobbyists. They're all. Everyone in Washington is on TikTok's payroll. They hired them all. And it is the easiest fucking money to make, to go in there and be like, hey, I got an idea. Just say, thank you, Donald Trump.

Jon Lovett (39:04)

And so then the third piece of it, though, the third piece of it, which is, I think about, like, the difference between what it is like to be a Democrat online versus a Republican online, is when Democrats do something bad. Or Republicans criticize Democrats when they. When they achieve something. When Democrats achieve something, Republicans attack Democrats. When a bipartisan bill like this happens, right? The online left attacks Democrats. And it's not, oh, this is actually Donald Trump. There's no one making that argument. It's a bunch of people declaring, this is why Democrats are terrible. This is why Democrats are terrible. And I agree they're terrible. But if we want to, like, I, like, I agree with all of that. But, like, so much of the time that you see these two things side by side, which is, how do Republicans get away with this stuff? Right? How do they do it? How do they do it? And then you look at our media, and it's a bunch of people that are much more interested in being part of the discourse of strategy than actually doing the attacking, right? There's a lot of people saying, ugh, Donald Trump's gonna get credit for this, as opposed to a bunch of people saying, donald Trump doesn't deserve credit for it. And here's why. Right? Like, we don't have. There's like, Republicans have so many more soldiers in the social media wars than we do. We have analysts and we have observers. And. And, like, if you want to talk about how Donald Trump managed to change politics so much over the last eight years and how things are possible now that weren't possible before. It was that slow and steady work of those people making acceptable things that weren't acceptable. We just don't have those people.

Tommy Vitor (40:24)

Fix bayonets. Love it.

Jon Lovett (40:26)

Yeah. So Internet social.

Jon Favreau (40:28)

And there's a look, I will.

Jon Lovett (40:30)

I'm ready digitally.

Tommy Vitor (40:33)

This is actually a Steve Bannon thing. He always says, we're fixing bayonets.

Jon Lovett (40:35)

We're going after this.

Jon Favreau (40:36)

I don't know the lingo, but I'm also somewhat like. I'm in complete agreement with Dan's message box that the politics are what they are for Democrats. And also, I'm for the ban. I think the ban is a good idea. I think that having the CCP control one of the largest media platforms that 170 million people in the United States are on, that is like melting their fucking brains. Our brains. I'll include myself there, too, just to not. I don't want to. I don't want to offend the youth. We're all part of it. Again, I think it's bad.

Tommy Vitor (41:03)

By law, ByteDance has to provide the Chinese Communist Party with whatever it wants, basically. And, you know, the broader context is the Chinese have hacked into basically every single telecom company in the United States, we've been unable. The United States government's been unable to get them out. We've learned over time that this op that's called Salt Typhoon, they've managed to get audio and text messages of calls from Donald Trump, J.D. vance, senior political officials. So there's this ongoing hacking war happening. And the idea that the Chinese national security state wouldn't use TikTok would have been all our phones.

Jon Favreau (41:37)

Everyone just read the Supreme Court opinion. The Nine Zero Supreme Court opinion. ByteDance is collecting the content of private messages on TikTok. It is also collecting the email and contact info of anyone in your contacts if you're using TikTok and their email too. So now the Chinese government, when they want to, can have the names, location data, like what you're buying email of every single American. So, like, again, maybe you're fine with that, but it's also a legitimate concern to address, right?

Jon Lovett (42:10)

But this, to me is so I. This is the problem, right? And all of that would be okay if it were in the hands of an American. And to me, like, the.

Jon Favreau (42:18)

What I take away from this, we're a nation. That's why we have borders, right?

Jon Lovett (42:22)

But if we're talking about it, yes, it is worse when China does it, right?

Jon Favreau (42:26)

I'm just saying.

Jon Lovett (42:26)

But we have accepted an incredible level of invasion by these companies, which also should not be allowed. We went through a cycle of this with Facebook in 2016, and then Elon Musk's Twitter and how that's changed and misinformation on TikTok. And whether it's Mark Zuckerberg or Elon Musk or the Russians or the Chinese Communists, what all these people have learned is that if you throw a bunch of throwing stars and nunchucks and bayonets and knives into the center of a digital circle, Americans will pick them up and kill each other with them. And that, to me, is still the problem, right? And so whether people go from TikTok to fucking reels, I don't like that they.

Jon Favreau (43:11)

This like the bigger problem.

Jon Lovett (43:14)

The law remains the law, right? Donald Trump's allowed to extend it, but they have to put it in other people's hands. But like, the problem of misinformation and the way in which these technologies are fucking terrible for us continues.

Jon Favreau (43:24)

And by the way, you know, no one has Joe Biden to kick around anymore. And the people who are now most opposed to Trump saving TikTok, Tom Cotton, Republican Senator, has already posted. Mike Johnson on Meet the Press was very like, we're gonna try to you know, the law is the law. Like I do think he's gonna have at least at the beginning Republican pushback on that.

Tommy Vitor (43:44)

Yeah, Trump wants to force a sale to someone more supportive of him, like Elon Musk. I think the critics of this ban are right to point out comments from senior US Government officials where they said that like real momentum behind TikTok's ban came when there was tons of pro Palestinian content on there about Gaza. And I do think that was sort of bizarre, stupid argument US Government officials were making that argument.

Jon Lovett (44:07)

But anyway, yeah, how about they, how about people make do try something, make the case for why it should be banned. Just like talk and like declassify or put make public some of these actual arguments that have clearly scared members of Congress behind the scenes that we are still not seeing.

Jon Favreau (44:20)

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Tommy Vitor (46:22)

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Dan Pfeiffer (46:35)

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Jon Favreau (46:40)

One last unintentionally funny clip from Donald Trump's inaugural address. This one in honor of Martin Luther King. It's Martin Luther King Day. Happy Martin Luther King Day, everyone.

Donald Trump (46:51)

This week I will also end the government policy of trying to socially engineer race and gender into every aspect of public and private life. We will forge a society that is colorblind and merit based.

Jon Favreau (47:18)

Merit based. Do you see all the billionaires clapping behind him?

Jon Lovett (47:23)

They're ready. They're ready for this merit based future.

Jon Favreau (47:25)

Yeah. Do you think it was merit based that they got those seats?

Jon Lovett (47:28)

And how Lara Trump became head of the Republican National Committee.

Jon Favreau (47:31)

Merit based.

Jon Lovett (47:32)

And how Jared Kushner became an advisor at the White House.

Jon Favreau (47:35)

You see that the billionaires got the second row behind Trump and then the cabinet gets the third row behind Trump.

Dan Pfeiffer (47:43)

It's in a row of declining influence.

Tommy Vitor (47:45)

That's exactly right.

Dan Pfeiffer (47:47)

The Republican governors were in the overflow.

Jon Favreau (47:50)

Yeah.

Jon Lovett (47:51)

Donald Trump went. When Donald Trump went to the overflow, he started talking about Texas and somebody shouted, he's here, he's here. He's in the room with you. Now.

Jon Favreau (48:01)

It'S merit based. Now, guys, that's one thing you should remember about the second Trump term. Speaking of merit based, I alluded to this earlier, but Trump did launch a Trump coin over the weekend. And then Melania launched a Melania coin.

Tommy Vitor (48:14)

These like Kennedy and Jackie.

Jon Favreau (48:16)

Odin, does anyone want to explain these meme coins, what they are, why they're a scam? What's going on?

Tommy Vitor (48:23)

You're buying nothing. You are, you are technically buying a digital playing card, but it's not supposed to be viewed as a security or an investment or a donation to Trump. It's. You're, you're buying nothing because you like the thing. But people buy and sell and trade these things because they know with some of these meme coins, also called shitcoins, you can see huge rips to the upside, whether it's like dogecoin and all of a sudden Elon Musk likes it and you can See people pile in and the prices.

Jon Favreau (48:47)

Can you talk about what rips to the upside means you can see the.

Tommy Vitor (48:49)

Value go way up. And if you bought a million of them for one cent and it goes to a dollar, you make a ton of money. So that's what seems to have happened here. There a company connected TO Trump owns 80% of these TRUMP coins. They also get a fee on the sale of these coins. I saw a guy named Conor Grogan, who's a director of Coinbase, estimated on Saturday that Trump's team had made 58 million in fees from all of the Trump coin sales. So Trump, they launched this Trump coin, Trump promotes it on True social. The thing goes to the moon. And then they launched the Melania coin. And it seems like a bunch of people saw that happen. And maybe they sold their Trump coin to buy Melania coin. Maybe they have one of each, you know, well, maybe you sold the Trump coin because you're like, oh no, they're going to launch a thousand of these things. The value is going to go down. Whatever happens, people just started selling like crazy and the price just collapsed. And it's called a rug pull and the kind of like the coin world. So I don't know, we'll find out.

Jon Favreau (49:48)

Who loses out here because it seems like a bit of a pyramid scheme.

Tommy Vitor (49:51)

All the schmoes who buy late lose out. All the people who own it early win. This is the hock to a coinification of the presidency. And you know, normally you might see like regulators investigating what happened here. Maybe law enforcement gets involved. You think, you think Trump's gonna have his DOJ dig into what happened?

Jon Favreau (50:08)

No, we're all crypto friendly now. SEC or the ftc, the war against.

Tommy Vitor (50:12)

Crypto is over and he's now gonna write the regulations for how crypto is regulated. So this is the new world, folks.

Dan Pfeiffer (50:18)

I really want, 10 years from now someone to have to explain what the sentence the hawktuification of the Trump presidency means.

Jon Favreau (50:25)

Well, spit on that president during the next financial crisis, which is caused by a crypto meltdown. A crypto meltdown that has infected the entire economy and banking system. We'll be able to look back on that in this moment a couple years from now.

Jon Lovett (50:38)

AOC's campaign being like, would you believe how many Melania's eggs cost?

Jon Favreau (50:45)

You know what? I did enjoy that. There's all these like crypto bros online who are, you know, like self described huge Trump supporters. And they're like, this is stupid. Why did he do this? This is gonna sully Our reputation as an industry. And this doesn't. And one crypto lobbyist was quoted as saying, like. Like, this is not gonna help our reputation as hucksters and scammers. And now people are gonna think that we're just a bunch of fraudsters because Trump did this. And, you know, I was a big Trump supporter, but this is really disappointing that he's doing this.

Tommy Vitor (51:16)

Honestly, I think credit good for those people. Like, there are arguments you can make for the utility of Bitcoin or the blockchain or other these technologies. There's no utility to a meme coin or a shitcoin. It's just for shits and giggles. And for the President of the United States to launch this thing the day before he's inaugurated, and then someone pull the rug on everybody who got in late, like he's harming his. Who might have bought in.

Jon Favreau (51:36)

No, I say good for them. Cause you're right. You can make arguments in favor of it. But to trust that Donald Trump, as if he just, like, just emerged out of nowhere, like, oh, yeah, this guy has our best interest. This guy's gonna put the proper guardrails on the agents.

Tommy Vitor (51:51)

What you should take from what. What I think we take away from those quotes, though, is just how egregious this was. This is, like, shockingly irresponsible, borderline illegal.

Jon Lovett (51:58)

Well, and look, where did all that money, right, where is that 50 million in the pockets of this entity come from? Or the people who bought in at too high a value before it collapsed? Where does that money come from? It may be a lot of it may be from MAGA supporters, people that don't know any better and are just sort of following the trends. People, you know, you can't con an honest man. People who think they're gonna get one over and try to get in early and fall prey to this. But this is also a vehicle for all kinds of corruption that we may not be able to see. We have no idea who's buying this. We have no idea. Sending 30 million or $50 million to.

Jon Favreau (52:29)

Donald Trump via this kind of foreign actors, foreign adversaries. They can all just sort of curry favor with the President of the United Just. It's just easier. I mean, they could before because it's Donald Trump, but this is just sort of an easier way to do it. All right, let's talk about the outgoing president, Joe Biden. Here's how he greeted Donald Trump at the White House before the inaugural ceremony. Welcome home. Welcome home. Okay, that's a tough one. I thought Like a simple, simple hello would have sufficed. I don't think he needs to like punch him in the face or anything. Or mean. I think he could have just been like, hello.

Jon Lovett (53:03)

Do you think it's the same mattress?

Tommy Vitor (53:05)

No.

Jon Lovett (53:06)

You think they get a new mattress in there?

Tommy Vitor (53:08)

I bet they go with the Dawn Lux.

Jon Lovett (53:10)

You think it's a don't Very good. Always thinking of the first one. Yeah, that's good. Call it out. They have a new elite collection. Maybe they went for that. I bet if Donald Trump gave Helix a shout out, they'd send him a free one.

Jon Favreau (53:22)

Biden also made some last minute moves. He issued preemptive pardons for Liz Cheney, members of the January 6 committee, the staff, Benny Thompson, Anthony Fauci, Mark Milley, General Mark Milley, and then his entire family. So his brothers, sister in laws.

Tommy Vitor (53:42)

Dan got one.

Jon Favreau (53:43)

The whole Biden crime family. Dan pointedly said, I'm basically my son.

Tommy Vitor (53:47)

Dan Pfeiffer from Delaware. Everyone from Delaware got a part.

Jon Lovett (53:50)

Pelosi didn't get one. Pelosi didn't get one because they're not speaking.

Jon Favreau (53:54)

She's getting a different something from Donald Trump. Biden made sure that too. What'd you guys think of the last minute pardons?

Jon Lovett (54:01)

I like the ones for the people that tried to protect democracy. I'm confused by the ones for his family members. There are people that I didn't even know they were on Donald Trump's radar. I think Cash Patel's gonna find out some about these people existing via these pardons.

Jon Favreau (54:13)

What did you think, Dan?

Dan Pfeiffer (54:14)

Well, I mean, there has been one of his brothers has been a target for a long time and it's been a target from Trump, a target of Republicans, a target of the Republican Congress. So I think, think if you're doing that, I guess you're doing the whole family to make next year's Thanksgiving less awkward.

Tommy Vitor (54:29)

Do you think it goes in a stocking or something? How do you get these out? Stocking stuffer.

Jon Favreau (54:34)

It was one of those things where you pull it and it's a gender reveal.

Dan Pfeiffer (54:39)

The preemptive pardons. Fine, right? I mean, I think it's weird. He didn't do Jack Smith. I know why he didn't do Merrick Garland. Maybe he shouldn't have prosecuted Biden's son.

Tommy Vitor (54:49)

Right?

Jon Favreau (54:50)

Yeah, but like a lot or just like everyone who was involved in investigating Donald Trump. Judge Marshan Cassidy Hutchinson, did she get one?

Dan Pfeiffer (54:59)

No.

Jon Favreau (54:59)

That's a good question.

Tommy Vitor (55:00)

I don't think so.

Dan Pfeiffer (55:00)

Not the witness or not.

Jon Favreau (55:02)

They said some of the things they. They did for the Capitol Police officers that testified.

Tommy Vitor (55:05)

Right.

Jon Favreau (55:06)

So I don't know about Cassidy.

Tommy Vitor (55:07)

I mean, I would like to be. I would. I would love a little more specificity if I were her.

Jon Favreau (55:11)

Yeah, yeah, that's very true.

Dan Pfeiffer (55:12)

I think the people who got it. No, like, there. There are names out there, I think, with them.

Jon Favreau (55:16)

Yeah. But people in doj, people like Alvin Bragg or, you know, Tish James. Like, all those people. I mean, I guess it would be. You have to draw a line somewhere.

Jon Lovett (55:25)

You know, he should have put something up by the auditorium. Like, everyone's finding out if they made cheer squad.

Dan Pfeiffer (55:31)

Oh, yeah.

Jon Favreau (55:31)

And if your name's not on there, you're just like, yeah, yeah.

Tommy Vitor (55:33)

What do you open the thing? It's like, ugh, commutation. Come on.

Jon Lovett (55:36)

Yeah, pardon's so much better.

Tommy Vitor (55:37)

But like, back to Cassie Hutchinson. I mean, I don't know her. She's been on the show. She was a witness. She was someone that Republicans accused of committing perjury before the committee. And also someone who is at the lowest level. Right. She was an assistant in the White House, has no resources, is not going to be able to hire, like, the fanciest lawyers out there. So I would be a little nervous if I were.

Jon Favreau (56:00)

I will just say because.

Tommy Vitor (56:02)

And Trump called her out at his overflow speech.

Jon Favreau (56:04)

Yeah, he did.

Tommy Vitor (56:05)

He went after. Basically by name.

Jon Favreau (56:07)

I will just say, though, that when he did the Hunter pardon, I said then that if he does the preemptive pardons, it will at least put the Hunter pardon in a better light. I still disagree with it, but I am good for Joe Biden. I think the preemptive pardons. It is sad that he has to do preemptive pardons for a bunch of people who committed no crimes. But when you have a person who just became president who literally almost every day of his campaign threatened to prosecute people for no reason because he was mad that he was being investigated for his law breaking, then I probably would have done the same thing.

Jon Lovett (56:43)

Oh, absurd.

Jon Favreau (56:45)

Good for Joe Biden for doing it.

Jon Lovett (56:47)

It's an umbrella. Better to have it and not need it than need it and not have it. It clearly annoyed Donald Trump. And we'll get to that speech. But Donald Trump is pissed about these pardons. Yeah. It is just of a strange list. And it is funny to also throw in your whole family. It's funny to do the Hunter one in advance.

Dan Pfeiffer (57:04)

I mean, it's just the other thing is, like, they released him at, like, 1158, like, as his final act. Was to release Leonard Peltier from prison to pardon.

Jon Favreau (57:13)

Also good pardon.

Dan Pfeiffer (57:15)

Jerry Lundgren, who was in prison for. Who's a Kentucky politician who's in prison for campaign finance violations, and his whole family doing it in the sort of dark of night like that just makes it seem worse. You know, just do it. Do it all. And this is. It's the same thing with the Hunter Biden pardon. It's just like, do them and defend them. Make the case for them.

Tommy Vitor (57:37)

Every personal political decision Joe Biden makes, he tends to make only with his family in, like, one or two aids, and then just roll it out right away, and it creates a political nightmare.

Jon Lovett (57:46)

Right.

Tommy Vitor (57:46)

I mean, this is the.

Jon Favreau (57:48)

Clearly, the family influence has its fingerprints all over this one.

Tommy Vitor (57:51)

Right, Right. There's all this reporting about how he decided to run for reelection without really running it by staff. There's reporting that the Hunter pardon was made in concert with a family meeting, and then they kind of rolled it out weeks and weeks ago and then did the rest of them this week. So, yeah, I mean, I think the timing, the communications plan wasn't really there for a lot of these.

Jon Lovett (58:12)

I do think it's going to really hurt Joe Biden's reelection chances. But the.

Tommy Vitor (58:16)

It hurt how he was talked about for months. I mean, he could have put Hunter in this last batch and buried it all. I guess there was kind of the questioning issue of sentencing that complicated things, timing wise, I guess.

Jon Favreau (58:28)

I know, I know. And I still don't get that, because it's like, say, Hunter was sentenced, then there's still the pardon's the pardon or the commutation.

Tommy Vitor (58:34)

The Leonard Pelzier one is interesting, though. He's a Native American activist who's been in jail since 1977 for allegedly murdering two FBI agents. But it's been very controversial, and I think people have been trying to get him released for years and years and years now. I mean, Amnesty International called him a. A political prisoner, et cetera, et cetera.

Jon Favreau (58:53)

And I think he's not completely freed. I think he's now on home confinement and moved him to home confinement.

Jon Lovett (58:58)

I'm glad Fauci got one. Yeah, our boy Fauci can rest easy.

Jon Favreau (59:01)

Yeah.

Tommy Vitor (59:01)

But also, like, there's this presumption of guilt, and you see shady people like Rand Paul tweeting about how now we know, you know, Fauci is guilty for his actions during the pandemic, and maybe that maybe. Who cares?

Jon Lovett (59:14)

I don't care about that.

Jon Favreau (59:15)

The only reason this matters is Chip Roy was out of the Gate saying, okay, well, now that they're all pardoned, we can haul them all before Congress and they can't take the Fifth. And so either they tell us the truth or they lie and then we can get them on perjury.

Jon Lovett (59:30)

Well, look, the part, the job, we can't stop the fact that they've taken over the government. We can't stop them from abusing their offices on a going forward basis. And we can't stop them from in bad faith interpreting this however they want. But I think I would rather have a pardon in my hand and Rand Paul yelling at me than neither. I think.

Jon Favreau (59:49)

You know what else we can't do? Fake declare a new amendment to the Constitution.

Jon Lovett (59:55)

Now, Jonathan, you go outside and you say, I declare the Equal Rights Amendment as the law of the land.

Jon Favreau (60:02)

This happened on Friday. Biden declared that the Equal Rights Amendment to the Constitution was now the law of the land, even though basically no one else agrees. Lovett, you want to unpack this one for us?

Jon Lovett (60:12)

So the Equal Rights Amendment, the original draft had a deadline, I believe, of 1977. It was extended to 1990, 1982, it was passed by almost enough states to become a constitutional amendment. It was one away then. In the years that followed, several states rescinded their ratification. And then Virginia became no take backs on amendments. No take backs. And then Virginia became the 37th state to ratify the ERA. And there was a movement to say that Congress setting a deadline is not constitutional because the Constitution doesn't make any provision for deadlines for ratification of amendments. And therefore that part of the amendment doesn't matter. And the national archivist, who is somehow, for whatever reason, very important in this process, should declare it part of the Constitution.

Jon Favreau (61:03)

They said no, she prints all the pocket constitutions, so.

Jon Lovett (61:08)

Right. Yeah. And the big ones.

Jon Favreau (61:10)

And the big ones.

Jon Lovett (61:10)

And the big ones.

Jon Favreau (61:11)

She's got all of them, all sizes.

Jon Lovett (61:12)

Yeah, yeah, yeah, you can do. Get all the. Yeah, you just do a PDF.

Dan Pfeiffer (61:16)

But Biden could have ordered her to do it and he did not.

Jon Lovett (61:19)

Well, right, he could have ordered her to do it. It's not clear then, it's not clear what happens after that. And it would then end up before the Supreme Court. And the Supreme Court has in the past ruled on these kind. The court has found that setting deadlines is a reasonable thing to do under the Constitution at the heavy right to do it. It does like to me, like what I was comparing it to is like, okay, so Joe Biden is doing this kind of vaguely extralegal thing on his Way out the door. And Donald Trump is doing this extra legal thing, coming into the door of declaring that undocumented. The children of undocumented immigrants are not citizens. And it's just. I feel like we're like, you know, Joe Biden is the institution guy. And there's a bunch of critiques of Joe Biden from the left saying he defends the institution, but he should use his power and he should go further. And then he does something like this, and it's like, he does it, and the archivist says no, and then he's out of office and it's fucking dead. And it just felt like a strange, I don't know, like, kind of statement of principle or a fuck you out the door. It didn't lead to anything. It was purely ceremonial. It was very strange.

Jon Favreau (62:23)

The substantive case for trying to weigh in on this, let's say, would be that the supporters of the view that the amendment has been ratified say that the President putting his weight behind it lends some credence to the legal case. Should it go before the courts right now, fine. But in that case, maybe Joe Biden goes up and gives a statement that says, while I don't know if I can do this, I believe it is, and actually explains this. What made it sort of mocked, what led to it being mocked is you know, just like a graphic that he tweeted that is like, I declare the amendment is the law of the land.

Tommy Vitor (63:06)

I declare bankruptcy.

Jon Favreau (63:08)

Once again, the way they went about it was just sort of like, what?

Dan Pfeiffer (63:12)

It was very typical. It's like, enough to please the groups who have been pushing very hard for the White House to do this, but not enough to actually go all the way. Like, let's say he had ordered the archivist to do it. The archivist had printed a bunch of new constitutions with more amendments before you go out the door. One those would be worth a lot of money when it's eventually struck down.

Jon Lovett (63:32)

That'd be cool. But it's like, right? But then it's just.

Dan Pfeiffer (63:35)

It was pure symbolism, right to. And with no. Also with all the communications plan around it.

Jon Favreau (63:40)

No communications, no explanation for, like, why they did it, why they couldn't do it, what was going on. Just nothing, right?

Jon Lovett (63:46)

Or by all the alternative, by the way, he's right at the other door. He orders the national archivist to print, to do it. The archivist is like, no. And then where are we?

Jon Favreau (63:55)

And again, this is not just like beating up on Joe Biden as he goes out the door. That this was a weird thing to do. It's like this is a good lesson for the future for Democrats. Don't do shit like that. Don't just declare stuff. It's symbolism, performance of stuff. Like it just doesn't matter. What matters is explaining to people why you can do something and then actually getting the power to do it.

Jon Lovett (64:19)

Whether it's the pardons, whether it's TikTok, whether it's this. We have paid. It's the last time I'm going to say it for a while. We have paid so dearly for having an empty bully pulpit for a long time. And that is the sad end to the Joe Biden presidency. Despite a lot of good that he did.

Tommy Vitor (64:37)

Well, poor Phyllis Schafly. Everyone should listen to strict scrutiny this week. They go deeper on this. It was very interesting.

Jon Favreau (64:44)

Yes, you should, because always listen to strict scrutiny.

Tommy Vitor (64:50)

Foreign.

Jon Favreau (64:56)

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Jon Lovett (66:09)

Jon Stewart and the Daily show news.

Jon Favreau (66:11)

Team are kicking off 2025 with brand new episodes covering a brand new administration and a not quite While it may.

Jon Lovett (66:18)

Feel like we've all been here before.

Jon Favreau (66:20)

It'S never been covered like this. With Jon Stewart behind the desk Kicking.

Jon Lovett (66:23)

Off every week, Comedy Central's the Daily.

Jon Favreau (66:26)

Show, new tonight at 11 on Comedy.

Tommy Vitor (66:28)

Central and streaming next day on Paramount.

Jon Favreau (66:30)

Plus, speaking of someone who really knows how to command the bully pulpit, Donald Trump, even though he gave the longest inaugural address in modern history, decided he was not done yet, went to the overflow room and spoke to that crowd in Emancipation Hall. 33 minutes. And basically, it was like it was the director's cut from the inaugural address. All the things he wanted to say.

Tommy Vitor (67:01)

It was the drunk DVD commentary.

Jon Favreau (67:03)

Exactly. All the things he wanted to say but couldn't say in the speech. Let's listen.

Donald Trump (67:08)

And between JD And Melania and anybody else that heard. Please, sir, it's such a beautiful unifying speech. Please, sir, don't say these things. I was going to talk about the J6 hostages, but you'll be happy because, you know, it's action, not words that count. And I was going to talk about the things that Joe did today with the pardons of people that were very, very guilty of very bad crimes. Why are we doing. Millie. He was pardoned. What he said. Terrible. What he said. Why are we helping some of the people? Why are we helping Liz Cheney? I mean, Liz Cheney is a disaster. She's a crying lunatic and crying. Crying. Adam Kinzinger, he's a super.

Jon Favreau (67:55)

Crying.

Donald Trump (67:56)

I never saw the guy not crying. He's always crying. And I think this was a better speech than the one I made up here. I think this was better. J.D.

Tommy Vitor (68:07)

He'S not wrong.

Jon Favreau (68:08)

It certainly was a truer speech to who Trump is. That's sort of the moment. I think we all heard this was going on. We're like, this is the next four years. This is what we're in for.

Jon Lovett (68:19)

Yeah.

Tommy Vitor (68:20)

It's a rally speech one after the other.

Jon Favreau (68:23)

Did you catch that, Dan? Did you catch the overflow speech?

Dan Pfeiffer (68:26)

I did. And it's exactly. You described it, right? It is the director's cut. It's just. And this. I mean. I mean, it's just like sometimes I can never stop looking at these things from perspective of a communications staffer. But you do this whole speech. This is your message. You have. I mean, it's poorly written, but someone did write it, and you have it out there, and you've decided these are the things you're going to do. And then he just calls Nancy Pelosi a criminal and talks about and calls Liz Cheney a crying psychopath minutes after your speech is over. It's just. It's like a truly wild choice.

Tommy Vitor (68:58)

I also. Everyone should go watch this Just to see the look on JD Vance's face at the top where he starts talking about all the things he didn't want. He looks so pained and kind of constipated. And Speaker Johnson is twitching and looking around and staring into the middle distance. It's nice.

Jon Lovett (69:16)

Well, part of it also. This was supposed to be 10 minutes. And so it's a little bit like. They're like, okay, so Trump's gonna give a little toast to say thank you to all the people in the overflow. Cause we couldn't do this outside. And then we'll go do the parade and whatever other. And the heinous executive order ceremonies and all the other things. We've got big plans for the day. And so they're just standing behind him. They wouldn't have stood behind him if he was gonna speak for 30 minutes. So part of it is sort of like, can I shuffle to the fucking side here? I'm standing right behind him. He's supposed to be a greeting. He's doing a tight 15 on how the border wall was gonna be made of cement, but there's acid that goes through cement. And I didn't think it was gonna be pretty. I thought it was gonna be ugly. There's Greg Abbott. There's this guy. There's that guy. And they're standing behind him.

Tommy Vitor (69:52)

And Melania in her big, goofy fucking hat is just hiding her eyes and looking down, and it's so pissed the whole time. And then Trump starts talking about how her. And how she wanted to go home, but he made her come here. It's so weird.

Jon Lovett (70:05)

Yeah, but it was like, to Dan's point, about the communications piece of it, he basically takes us all behind the scenes, because he gets up there and he says, these are the parts I really wanted to say, but they told me I couldn't say today that I should save it for tomorrow, but I'm not gonna save it for tomorrow. I'm gonna do it right here, right now.

Jon Favreau (70:22)

And you know what? He was right. Doesn't matter.

Jon Lovett (70:25)

Well, that's his reason. He said, I don't think it's gonna affect the coverage because the coverage of my main speech is already out there, and it's looking pre. But maybe I'll get in trouble.

Jon Favreau (70:33)

Well, you know what? It will affect some of the coverage. We're gonna talk about it. MSNBC is probably flipping out about it. New York Times will mention it, right? And then it won't fucking matter. Because most people that voted for him don't pay any attention to any of those media sources. And so it's like they just pay attention to Donald Trump, what Donald Trump says. So if he wants to do his fucking tight 33 on his stump speech revised one last time, you know, that's what he's here for four years for.

Jon Lovett (70:58)

Right? And I assume all the headlines, even the mainstream headlines that'll be slowly, that people will catch and see disper are things like America's decline are over, America's golden age. They are the headlines that Donald Trump would want it to be. And by the way, that's not a criticism of them. When a president gives an inaugural, the headline should be the headline line from the speech. That is what it should be. So of course he's free to fucking do this. And by the way, all of his biggest fans are gonna see this. They're all gonna see, don't worry, the real Trump is still there. We're get exactly what we want from this guy.

Jon Favreau (71:24)

Yeah, just to end. Dan, you wrote a message box on Monday today, this morning. Is it Monday today? Recording this on Monday, as you all know, cuz we're talking about the inaugural, about how to survive presidency. What are some highlights, what are some tips for everyone on how to survive the Trump presidency? And then we can ask Tommy and Lovett what they think too.

Dan Pfeiffer (71:42)

I'll do a few and then for all of them, subscribe. But in all seriousness, I think there are just a few things I would, you know, I've is there are going to be after today, 1460 more days of the Trump presidency. And we got to get through all of them, right? And we've got to try to get through them by staying think let's get through them with our faculties intact. And so just a couple things that I've been thinking about is one, yes, Trump won a really big victory. Like he won, as he pointed out in his inaugural address, he won all the swing states, the country did move to the right, he did win the popular vote, but he also only won the presidency by about 100,000 votes in three states. And that's just worth keeping in mind not to tell ourselves some story about how we don't have to make huge changes to the Democratic Party. We absolutely do do. But just that victory is much closer than it appears right at this moment. Just like keep that in mind. Second, and I think this is a lesson we've all learned from the Trump years now, is we don't have to follow him down every rabbit hole, right? He wants our attention 24 7. He wants to just flood the Zone with shit all the time. And our attention is our greatest resource, and we can decide how we, what, where, when we give it to Trump, we don't have to give it to him all the time. We can just depict between the things that actually matter, where he's making a real impact, and the things that just so much of noise to distract us. And so I think it's a very important thing. It's not something I'm going to try to do with the newsletter. I think it's something we can do with this podcast, is try to help people separate the signal from the noise, understand what matters. I think the most important thing is we're all angry, we are anxious, we are worried. And the best thing to do, and that's always been true, ever since Trump was first elected, is to channel that into action, and people should go to vote Save America to figure out ways to do that. But just, I want to give people like a North Star for this, which is right now. The Republicans have one of the narrowest House majorities in history. You have a bunch of Republicans who are existing in very, very purple districts. The voting patterns in the Trump era suggest we have a phenomenal chance to take the House back. And if we take the House back, Donald Trump will never pass another law that does not have Hakeem Jeffries. Okay. We will have the ability to investigate Donald Trump. We have the ability to hold hearings, to issue subpoenas, and we can do that. And that is of just. We have to get through these two years focused and working on taking the House back. And if we do that, Trump will still be president. He can still do really bad things, but we will have so much more power and ability to limit what he does, limit the damage he does, and expose him for who he is.

Jon Favreau (74:12)

All right, I like that. Anyone else?

Tommy Vitor (74:15)

Watch what he does, not what he says, and focus on those midterms.

Jon Favreau (74:20)

He said that in his speech. He said, actions matter. Words more than words.

Tommy Vitor (74:24)

There we go.

Jon Favreau (74:24)

You think that was right?

Jon Lovett (74:25)

Yeah. He's a strong, silent type, this one. Yeah. Just two thoughts. One is, things change less than you think in a year and more than you think in five years. And I think today, to me, was like a reminder of that. We wonder, how did we get to a place where corruption doesn't matter? How did we get to a place where Donald Trump can abuse the office in this way? Well, it took time. It took a slow degradation of basic values of the Republican Party being slowly and steadily co opted. But it did change, and it changed a lot, but it did it in a matter of just a few years. And we shouldn't be so cynical or apathetic or resigned to believe that it can't change just as much in the other direction in another couple of years. We have to slowly work towards that in all the ways we can. And that's a very big goal, and that's a hard goal, and it's hard to think about. And then when you get anxious or bored or frustrated or mad about thinking about that big problem, you can focus on the very concrete of just winning the House.

Jon Favreau (75:21)

Yeah, I think it's taken me 43 years to do this, but I don't doom about the future as much anymore. Not because there's nothing to do about, but because nothing we can do, worrying about it is not going to change it. So really trying to take, take the Trump presidency one day at a time and focusing on what we can control and what we can't, and also recognizing that to Dan's point, he won by 100,000 plus votes in all the swing states. And we should also recognize, though, why he won. And it seems like not the Trump fans, but the additional people that got him over the Hill, that got him over, they got him close to 50% and won on the swing state states. They were pissed about the cost of living and they didn't think that the Democratic Party gave enough of a shit about them. And right now, price of eggs, $4.15 price of eggs, the mortgage rate is 7%. Gas is $3 a gallon. So we're just gonna check back in on those because let's just take Donald Trump at his words. We've tried resistance politics. Let's try normal politics. Normal politics is he made a bunch of promises, big promises that he was going to do. He was going to fix the country. We're not going to be in decline. Everything's going to be great. It's going to be affordable. Prices are going to fall. You're going to be doing great. Okay, if that happens, good for Donald Trump. But if it doesn't happen, we should point it out and we should point it out along the way. When he breaks his promises or when he declines to fulfill them.

Jon Lovett (76:48)

Yeah. There's a moment in the speech where he says that the country is unifying behind my agenda. It is not. That is wishcasting. That is hopeful thinking. But the policies that are deeply unpopular a week ago remain deeply unpopular today. No, the country doesn't want giant tax cuts for the rich. No, it doesn't want a president who's focused on bathroom policies and ridiculous right wing grievances over their basic day to day concerns.

Jon Favreau (77:14)

And we'll be here with you guys the whole time. We're not going anywhere, so stick with us. And our friends at Vote Save America are going to be here. You can sign up at Vote Save America to figure out how to get involved. We're giving everyone a break for a little bit. But you know what, there's gonna be 2025 elections in Virginia and New Jersey. Then there's gonna be the midterms before you know it. So we're gonna be, it's gonna be busy again. And also, you know, we'll be here on Pod Save America and all of our other pods. And you can sign up at Friends of the Pod to be a subscriber and we have a great community and everyone is good to each other and shares their ideas and we wanna hear from you guys as well because Democratic Party has a lot of work to do. We are at rock bottom.

Jon Lovett (77:56)

Let's hope. Let's hope. And as Dan said, party for a party for sure.

Jon Favreau (78:00)

But for the party, we're pretty much at rock bottom. So it's gonna take everyone to figure out how the hell to get us out of this.

Jon Lovett (78:06)

And as Dan said in his message box, gotta support progressive media. We gotta have some alternative to this.

Jon Favreau (78:11)

Yeah. All right, everyone. Dan and I will be back with a new episode on Friday and we will see you then. 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 community@cricket.com 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. Reed Churlin is our executive editor and Adrian 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. Madelyn 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, Phoebe Bradford, Joseph Dutra, Ben Hefcoat, Mia Kelman, Molly Lobel, Kiril Pelaviev, and David Toles. Our production staff is proudly unionized with the Writers Guild of America east hey friends, Ted Danson here and I want to let you know about my new podcast podcast. It's called Where Everybody Knows yous Name with me, Ted Danson and Woody Harrelson. Sometimes doing this podcast is a chance for me and my good bud Woody to reconnect after cheers wrapped 30 years ago. Plus, we're introducing each other to the friends we've met since, like Jane Fonda, Conan O'Brien, Eric Andre, Mary Steenburgen, my wife, and Flea from the Red Hot Chili Peppers. And trust me, it's always a great hang when Woody's there, so why wait? Listen to Where Everybody knows your name Wherever you get your podcasts with new McValue at McDonald's, the choice is yours. And the choice with McValue is always more like free four months of the SiriusXM app tap now or go to siriusxm.com mcvalue to claim your free four months of the SiriusXMXM app. And after, treat yourself to a buy one, add one for one dollar deal with McValue or make it a meal with the five dollar meal deal.

Tommy Vitor (80:36)

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