JON FAVREAU Talks Obama, Bin Laden, ICE

Summary

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The Adam Friedland Show

Episode: JON FAVREAU Talks Obama, Bin Laden, ICE
Date: January 22, 2026

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Episode Overview

This episode features a wide-ranging, candid, and frequently comedic discussion between Adam Friedland and Jon Favreau, the former chief speechwriter for Barack Obama and co-host of Pod Save America. They reflect on Favreau's unique journey—backstage at seminal political moments, crafting some of Obama's most memorable speeches, facing moral dilemmas inside the White House, and ultimately transitioning from politics to podcasting and media entrepreneurship. The conversation also takes on institutional failures, personal stories, and uncomfortable realities, all maintained in the show's irreverent, self-deprecating tone.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Jon Favreau: The Other Jon Favreau

• Adam jokes about Jon’s shared name with the famous director/actor [05:46].
• Favreau recounts White House staff confusing him with the "Iron Man" director.
• Quote: "You think I had time to work on Iron Man 2? ...It’s the other Jon Favreau." —Jon Favreau [06:21].
• Ongoing riff on being #2 to more famous names, with references to Justin Bieber vs. Justin Trudeau.

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2. Political Pedigree & Early Influences

• Jon discusses growing up with 'hot parents' and early political memories, like seeing Dukakis (a fellow Greek) run [09:55, 11:05].
• Watching the 1992 presidential debates with his father sparks interest in politics.

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3. Speechwriting Origins – From Kerry to Obama

• Tells the story of working on the 2004 DNC, tasked with removing a line from Obama’s famous “red state/blue state” speech because Kerry wanted to use it [17:56].
  • “So I have to go down the hall to where Obama's practicing the speech for the first time on teleprompter…” —Jon Favreau [19:01].
• Explains young Obama’s first experience reading off a teleprompter—Favreau, as a 21-year-old, has to tell him to change a line [19:19].
• The tension of after-the-fact revelation: Favreau wasn’t recognized by Obama during the Senate job interview. Obama only realizes a year later Favreau was “the kid from Kerry.” [21:57]
  • “He started laughing. He knew it was you at that point. He did.” —Adam Friedland [22:16]
  • “I would have never hired you.” —Barack Obama, as told by Jon Favreau [22:17]

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4. Speechwriting Craft – Influence, Originality & Plagiarism

• Discusses how campaign taglines like “Yes We Can” were recycled, not created ex nihilo [24:37].
  • “We just steal liberally.” —Jon Favreau [25:10].
• On the risk of politicians imitating rhetorical style (e.g. JFK, Obama) and the need to sound authentic [25:23].
• Learning Obama’s voice by editing his books and spending hours one-on-one [26:32].

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5. Inside the White House: Culture, Power & Personalities

• Obama’s management style: not a yeller (“Axelrod wasn’t like that… Rom mostly Rom was like a, Rom was a figure…” [52:18])
• Tensions with Clinton-era staff, Hillary integration as Secretary of State
• Reflections on the vice presidency being an unglamorous, sometimes humiliating gig [53:24].
  • “You’ll be the czar of the impossible thing…” —Adam Friedland

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6. On the Nature of Incrementalism, Idealism & Frustration

• The emotional impact of election night 2008 and using the Ann Nixon Cooper story in Obama’s victory speech [35:03].
• The “letdown” of the early Obama years: economic collapse, lack of prosecutions for Wall Street, and incremental victories [39:40].
• Quote: “Just unsatisfying decision after unsatisfying decision that we had to take or couldn’t do anything about…” —Jon Favreau [41:37]
• Only significant issue he deeply disagreed with: Obama’s delay in supporting gay marriage [43:28].

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7. Bin Laden, the Situation Room, and “Losing Out”

• Adam needles Favreau for not being in the Situation Room for the bin Laden op [00:59:22, 59:07, 59:13].
  • Quote: “I didn’t know it happened until I got the draft remarks…” —Favreau [59:13]
  • “What a loser.” —Adam Friedland
• The atmosphere surrounding the Correspondents’ Dinner and bin Laden raid [59:40–61:09]

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8. Comedy, Satire & Ethical Boundaries

• The ambiguous morality of making figures like Bush appear more harmless (via Will Ferrell, SNL) [23:02].
• Comparing speechwriting to standup—stealing material isn’t off-limits in politics [25:10].
• Adam’s parody: What if Hitler or Cosby were “great performers,” can you separate technique from content? [28:57]
• Accidentally nearly using a Hitler phrase in an Obama speech in Germany—rescued at the last minute [29:30].
  • “That is a Hitler. That’s a Hitler phrase. That’s a Hitler. We lifted a Hitler line.” —Jon Favreau [30:18]

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9. On Immigration, ICE & Government Cruelty

• Discussion of how deportations exploded in Obama’s first term due to enforcement priorities later reined in [76:44, 77:19].
• The shift under Trump, limits of executive power vs. Congressional law-making [77:43].
• Adam draws a historical parallel to how injustices become normalized—invisibility of suffering (Nazi Germany/ICE) [78:14].
  • “Just go from the level of, like, individual human beings…” —Jon Favreau [79:47]

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10. The Democratic Party: Strategy, Message & the Hope/Despair Cycle

• Adam presses Favreau about the party’s lack of vision, overreliance on incrementalism, and fear-based messaging [81:15].
  • “Democrats for a while now have campaigned with a list of policies that poll well and … a sense of fear…” —Jon Favreau [81:15]
• Need for bold moral leadership rather than “poll-tested lines” [81:15–85:04]
• On the “hope vs. optimism” distinction and how hope means active participation, not just faith in outcomes [71:17]
• Recent examples: Zoran Mamdani’s mayoral win as genuine grassroots excitement [70:16].

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Early Obama Years:
  "Just unsatisfying decision after unsatisfying decision that we had to take or couldn’t do anything about because the economy, what was set in motion, that destroyed the economy was already set in motion." —Jon Favreau [41:37]

• On Immigration:
  “There are hundreds, thousands of people in this country, like, many of whom are here legally…snatched away, taken from their families, from their kids, pregnant women who...aren’t getting the food they need. Like, that is happening in this country.” —Jon Favreau [79:47]

• On Political Rhetoric:
  “You just steal liberally.” —Jon Favreau [25:10]

• On Emotional Consequences:
  “If we can’t get background checks at this moment with these people, what are we doing?” —Jon Favreau [56:52]

• On What a Leader Should Do:
  "You have to say what you actually believe." —Jon Favreau [81:15]

• On the Hope/Despair Cycle:
  "It's the hope that kills you." —Adam Friedland [71:05]

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Highlighted Segments With Timestamps

• Red State, Blue State—The DNC 2004 Speech Switcheroo: [17:56–20:41]
• Obama Realizes He’d Hired “the Kid from Kerry”: [21:57–22:21]
• Accidentally Lifting a Hitler Line: [29:30–30:23]
• Peak Election Night 2008, Ann Nixon Cooper Story: [35:03–36:57]
• The Aftermath—Financial Crisis, No Justice for Wall Street: [39:40–41:56]
• On not being in the Situation Room (Bin Laden): [59:01–59:30]
• ICE, Deportations, and Incremental Change: [76:44–79:47]
• Democrats’ Cautiousness and Moral Leadership: [81:15–85:04]

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Tone & Style

Throughout the conversation, Adam Friedland brings irreverence and relentless self-deprecation. The conversation walks the line between serious policy critique, affectionate satire of political and media culture, and raw personal candor. Favreau is game for both the jokes and the gravity, engaging in self-critique and defending incremental progress where necessary.

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Summary Takeaway

Jon Favreau's journey illustrates the strange mix of idealism, disappointment, and perseverance inside modern American politics. Through his stories and reflections, listeners are challenged to consider the tension between doing what’s possible and what’s right, the seduction of small-ball incrementalism, and the need for moral clarity and storytelling courage—especially with so much at stake.

Listeners are left, true to the show’s core, with more questions than answers, but with a sharply drawn picture of the backstage dramas and absurdities that shape the world.

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End of Summary

Transcript

[Adam Friedland]

After the holidays, your brain wants one thing less. Less noise, less clutter, less doing. Pura helps you reset your space with premium smart home fragrance. No complicated routine required. Right now, you can get a free Pura 4 home diffuser. When you subscribe for 12 months, set schedules, adjust intensity, and come home to calm on your terms. This offer won't last. Get your free [e-mail]. Were you in the Situation Room? That was his. That was the moment where he got love from everyone.

[Jon Favreau]

Oh, with the bin Laden operation.

[Adam Friedland]

You were in the Situation.

[Jon Favreau]

No, I was not. Read into that.

[Adam Friedland]

What a loser.

[Jon Favreau]

Loser. No.

[Adam Friedland]

What a loser. Were you outside, like, trying to listen in?

[Jon Favreau]

No. Cause I didn't know it happened until. I didn't know what happened until I got the draft remarks of what he was gonna say. They didn't tell you from Ben.

[Adam Friedland]

Oh, you were a fucking loser, dude.

[Jon Favreau]

Loser. Well, I didn't do any of the. I wasn't the foreign policy national security speechwriter guy.

[Adam Friedland]

That sucks. Yeah. Can you imagine how sick it was? Hillary Clinton saying, this is my playing. I'm calling all the shots here. Shut up, OB. Hello and welcome back to the Adam Friedland Show. It's Adam Friedland, guys. First off, going back on the road this weekend, they added a sixth show, Seattle, Washington. It's at what's it called? Emerald City Comedy Club. Thursday night. There's one extra show. Everything else is sold out. Also, folks, I'll be in Philadelphia, Pennsylvan next month at Helium Comedy Club. Get tickets while you still can. They're gonna sell out quick. And in May, I'll be in Los Angeles, California for the Netflix is a joke fest at the Regent Theater. Presale begins tomorrow or today, if you're watching on the general feed. Right. Tomorrow at noon. Tomorrow, today at noon. Pre sale. I went with the speed this comes out to today, say the date, maybe the 21st presale begins at the 21st of tomorrow, the 21st of January, the month right now at noon. So that was probably earlier today. And the code is Adam. Pacific time. Pacific time. Noon Pacific Time. 3. The code is 3pm the code, Adam. Pacific time. The code is Adam. It's noon Pacific time. And it was already today at noon Pacific time. Also, I'd like to thank our members here on YouTube.com you guys support the show. And if you'd like to support us, you can select join at the top of your page. And if you join at the second or third tiers, you can get your name in the credits of this Fine program. There's also a link in the description of the video below. And there's also a link to a Patreon, if you prefer to use Patreon. Finally, there's merch available. AdamFreedland Show Guys, I'm not only all about money, okay? My guest this week is American political podcaster and speechwriter Jon Favreau. Favreau is known of course, as the host of the political podcast Pod Save America. I never missed an episode. And he was previously employed as the senior speechwriter for Barack Obama, the Obama administration, the White House. What the hell have we done with our lives, huh? Funnily enough, this is not the first time our paths have crossed. What are you gonna say? No, Come on. What? Read it. Funnily enough, this is not the first time our paths have crossed. In 2013, an 18 year old Adam Friedland dropped off a packet of speeches. And at the front desk of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, the reception. I was getting my start writing speeches for the President of the United States seemed like a pretty good first job. Now, of course, I was not hired, but I'd like to share a snippet from one of the speeches that I handed over that day to imagine what life may be like had today's guest taken chance on me. Hello, I'm President. Hello. Hello. Let me. Hello, I'm President Barack Obama and I'm here to talk to you today about a seriously bad problem that's destroying the core of this nation and eating away what makes us great. America is suffering from an epidemic. An epidemic of girls who are cheating on good boyfriends. Good guys who like movies and books more than go to the club. Guys who want to stay in and be romantic instead of wearing revealing clothing. Instead of wearing revealing clothing. Guys who think makeup is the same as lying and prefer a natural look. Guys who hate condoms because the feeling of them is weird. Good guy. These are good men. Honest men who got good grades and know about music and girls need to stop cheating on them and immediately. This is a presidential order. Thanks. And can I just say, being the president is the best job I've ever had. Please enjoy my interview with Jon Favreau, everyone. Give it up for him. That was one of the best ones. Ladies and gentlemen, host upon Save America, former head speechwriter for the Obama White House, Jon Favreau, everyone. God damn it, guys. Joji, you can't pull focus and clap. How's it going?

[Jon Favreau]

Pretty good.

[Adam Friedland]

How's it you have the same name as that guy? That's gotta suck.

[Jon Favreau]

Know what Are you boys with him? It's been. Yeah, I'm not boys with him, but I know him.

[Adam Friedland]

You gotta know him.

[Jon Favreau]

I had been in the White House for two years, and one of our staff, one of my colleagues came up to me, was like, hey, I noticed at the end of Iron Man 2, like, did you work on that movie? And I was like, did I work on that movie? I'm like, you have been with me every day, every hour for the last two years. You think I had time to work on Iron Man 2? I'm like, no, that wasn't me. It's the other Jon Favreau.

[Adam Friedland]

You're making Obama look bad.

[Jon Favreau]

Well, it wasn't him.

[Adam Friedland]

I'm not saying it was Barack Obama. Of course Barack Obama.

[Jon Favreau]

Not Barack Obama. He knew who I was.

[Adam Friedland]

But why would he hire that person? Shouldn't be allowed to drive. They were. Why would they, you know? Well, actually, I had to change my name because there was a guy in show business. Yeah. Already with my name.

[Jon Favreau]

Now you're the most famous. Adam.

[Adam Friedland]

Yeah. There couldn't be a second Malcolm X. You know.

[Jon Favreau]

I first noticed it when he was in Rudy.

[Adam Friedland]

Malcolm X.

[Jon Favreau]

No, Malcolm X was in Rudy.

[Adam Friedland]

No, it was a red.

[Jon Favreau]

No, Jon Favreau was in Rudy. Oh, John Favreau. And I remember seeing the credits, and I was like. I was a kid. Yeah. Yeah.

[Adam Friedland]

And you're like, what the fuck is going on?

[Jon Favreau]

That guy.

[Adam Friedland]

What the f. No, but I mean, you were in the White House, and you're still number two. You think? Were you number one?

[Jon Favreau]

I mean, deep down in here, he's done a lot of great stuff. Yeah, but big stuff.

[Adam Friedland]

If you run.

[Jon Favreau]

It wasn't just. He was like an actor. Now he's like a big director.

[Adam Friedland]

If you run for president, you could be the number one Favreau. You think if you win president, that's.

[Jon Favreau]

What I'd have to do. Yeah, that's right. I have to do.

[Adam Friedland]

Trudeau was the prime minister and he was the number two Justin in Canada. How pathetic is that?

[Jon Favreau]

That's right.

[Adam Friedland]

Yeah.

[Jon Favreau]

Bieber.

[Adam Friedland]

He's still. Bieber's bigger still.

[Jon Favreau]

Yeah. And now he's with Katy Perry. So it's all Trudeau. Yeah.

[Adam Friedland]

What? I miss everything he is.

[Jon Favreau]

That's what I've seen. Yeah.

[Adam Friedland]

Do you ever feel like a plastic bag? Do you remember where you were the first time you heard. Yeah. My friend, actually, he went to college with a guy named Austin Powers.

[Jon Favreau]

How. That's tough.

[Adam Friedland]

How brutal is that?

[Jon Favreau]

That's really.

[Adam Friedland]

Can you imagine the first movie Comes out. He's like, okay, it's six months of this yeah, baby, yeah stuff. He goes to the bank, and people are like, do I make you horny?

[Jon Favreau]

His life has been hell for the rest of his life.

[Adam Friedland]

There's a second one. He's like, oh, there's a sequel. He's like, well, sequels are always bad. He's like, this is the end of this nightmare. His name is Borat. Can you imagine being named Austin Powers? Boy, oh, my God, it would drive me insane. Yeah. If you're. Yeah, my name was Shrek. Doesn't JD Vance have a stage name?

[Jon Favreau]

Isn't JD Vance the stage name?

[Adam Friedland]

It's. I mean, that. Yeah. Is the stage name, Right?

[Jon Favreau]

Well, he's changed his name three times. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I don't even know what the original.

[Adam Friedland]

You can't have a president change the name three times.

[Jon Favreau]

Who knows anymore?

[Adam Friedland]

Or was he a wife guy? Was he like, I'm taking her name?

[Jon Favreau]

No, it was not that.

[Adam Friedland]

No, he wasn't doing that.

[Jon Favreau]

He's definitely not a wife guy.

[Adam Friedland]

Yeah. Yeah. Cause we couldn't vote for that either. Yeah.

[Jon Favreau]

I feel like if I read Hillbilly Elegy, I would know what the name was. But that's only a book that I pretended to have read.

[Adam Friedland]

What was his last name? Knievel. You pretended to read Hillbilly Elegy?

[Jon Favreau]

I pretended. It was like, you buy it? And I'm like. I'm like, I meant to read it to get chicks. Where you say to get chicks. It looks like you're in politics. I'm like, everyone's talking about this book. I should probably read this book.

[Adam Friedland]

Yeah.

[Jon Favreau]

And you, like, read the first chapter, and then you lose time.

[Adam Friedland]

It was every lib parent. They were like, actually, this is why we lost. And now this guy.

[Jon Favreau]

Now we're going to figure it out.

[Adam Friedland]

Yeah.

[Jon Favreau]

And we did.

[Adam Friedland]

Peter to little Very slim. Very smart. Yeah. Okay, J.D. vance, come on the show, but you can never be the president. If you change, go back to your original name. Just David Hitler. We'll cut that. He's a friend. Okay, so wait. I looked at. I've been studying you. I know everything now. You had hot parents.

[Jon Favreau]

I still do. They're still. They're still very much alive.

[Adam Friedland]

They still look good.

[Jon Favreau]

Yeah. They're still hot. They're still hot.

[Adam Friedland]

Parent kid is a thing.

[Jon Favreau]

Hot parent kid. Is it? Yeah.

[Adam Friedland]

They stayed together.

[Jon Favreau]

Yeah.

[Adam Friedland]

Okay, then that's good. They weren't, like, too hot to be married.

[Jon Favreau]

No. They're just hot enough to be together and they live out in California with me now.

[Adam Friedland]

Your dad's kind of big guy.

[Jon Favreau]

Big guy, Jack, big guy. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Adam Friedland]

Did it make you wanna be stronger than him?

[Jon Favreau]

No, not really.

[Adam Friedland]

Do you think you beat your dad up now?

[Jon Favreau]

No, for sure.

[Adam Friedland]

Still, your dad could beat you up.

[Jon Favreau]

He's six' two. So you're making a bobble.

[Adam Friedland]

You're making a bobble like that. You can't hide.

[Jon Favreau]

I don't wanna beat up my dad.

[Adam Friedland]

So he had a man Bee Pambamby son.

[Jon Favreau]

Yeah, for sure. Yeah, Yeah.

[Adam Friedland]

I don't know.

[Jon Favreau]

But he was never disappointed, which is nice.

[Adam Friedland]

Yeah. But deep down.

[Jon Favreau]

Deep down.

[Adam Friedland]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. My dad. My dad knows how to fix a car.

[Jon Favreau]

Oh, yeah. I think mine does.

[Adam Friedland]

Do. We don't.

[Jon Favreau]

I don't know how to fix.

[Adam Friedland]

We know how to write speeches. Phenomenal speech. Yeah. So he's like, my boy's a speech boy.

[Jon Favreau]

My boys.

[Adam Friedland]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. He's like, he wanted you to play football. And you're like, I got it right.

[Jon Favreau]

Never even pushed me for that.

[Adam Friedland]

Did you grow up watching game tape of speeches?

[Jon Favreau]

No, no, no. I didn't grow up in a. Like, my parents like to talk politics. They weren't. I wouldn't say they were political, but they like to talk politics. And I remember. I do remember, like, watching the 92 presidential debates with my dad. That was, like, my. One of my earliest political memories.

[Adam Friedland]

Yeah. I remember my parents being so excited because he was a boomer.

[Jon Favreau]

Yeah.

[Adam Friedland]

And the song was Fleetwood Mac.

[Jon Favreau]

Yeah. That was a big.

[Adam Friedland]

They're like, it's one of us.

[Jon Favreau]

And I remember, actually, I remember the 88 campaign because Mike Dukakis is the Democratic nominee. And my mother's Greek and her maiden name is demarcus, and he was from Lowell, and my mother's from, like, the town, like, Woburn, which is right near Lowell in Massachusetts. And so, like, the fact that he was running for president was, like, the biggest deal ever.

[Adam Friedland]

Really? Oh, yeah.

[Jon Favreau]

A Greek.

[Adam Friedland]

Yeah. Why would the Democrats run a Greek from Massachusetts? They're gonna run Stav next. What are they doing? Wait. Yeah. It's so funny that a picture of a helmet. I mean, he really did look like a bitch ass in that picture.

[Jon Favreau]

Yeah, but that short, too.

[Adam Friedland]

That's the kind of thing that could sway an election. It feels like nowadays. Like, we forgot Trump got shot two days later.

[Jon Favreau]

Like. Yeah.

[Adam Friedland]

And then Joe Biden dropped out two days later.

[Jon Favreau]

Yeah.

[Adam Friedland]

Those are the good news.

[Jon Favreau]

Those are crazy summer.

[Adam Friedland]

Yeah. It sucks that Biden did, like, his first funny thing before he dropped out, which was. He's like. When he's like. He was with Zelensky and he was like, ladies and gentlemen, President Putin. It was like he was like doing the music guest on snl. Ladies and gentlemen, President Putin.

[Jon Favreau]

I remember that press conference. That was a rough one.

[Adam Friedland]

Who is forcing him to do that? The wife?

[Jon Favreau]

No. Him?

[Adam Friedland]

No, it was the wife.

[Jon Favreau]

I think she was encouraging.

[Adam Friedland]

Jill was like, go out there.

[Jon Favreau]

I think they were like, you do you like, we're gonna be with you no matter what you want to do? And it was like, you want. You want some people when you're president, United States around you who will tell you difficult things that you don't want to hear.

[Adam Friedland]

I thought you were gonna say laugh at all your jokes. Did Obama ever tell just a shit joke and if you fake laughed, you definitely.

[Jon Favreau]

Probably.

[Adam Friedland]

Yeah, yeah, it's the president.

[Jon Favreau]

Yeah, I would definitely. I am an easy laugh anyway. But yeah, I'm sure I fake laughed at some of his jokes.

[Adam Friedland]

And you're like, come on, Mr. President, that's not good. That's. That's sexist. You can't say that about women. I shouldn't have shown you Entourage. Do you remember your boss? He said that his favorite show was Entourage.

[Jon Favreau]

Did he say that?

[Adam Friedland]

Yeah. So sick. So sick. That's so us. That's so us.

[Jon Favreau]

That is.

[Adam Friedland]

That's so us, dude. I mean, you were 28 years old in the West Wing of the White House. You watched the show before.

[Jon Favreau]

I did. I was in college. Yes, I watched it then.

[Adam Friedland]

So what's your. You think you're Sam.

[Jon Favreau]

Yeah.

[Adam Friedland]

But you want to be Josh?

[Jon Favreau]

Do I?

[Adam Friedland]

Anti Semite. He's the anti Semite.

[Jon Favreau]

That's what it is.

[Adam Friedland]

You want to be Toby, the coolest guy on the show. Was there a Toby in the squad with you guys?

[Jon Favreau]

Toby was communications director.

[Adam Friedland]

Yeah, but he was a little dark.

[Jon Favreau]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I don't know. All the characters were just amalgam of people in the White House. So it's like Toby was like David Axelrod. Little Toby.

[Adam Friedland]

Uh huh.

[Jon Favreau]

You know, but also like the communications director. I guess Pfeiffer could have been a little Toby.

[Adam Friedland]

So you were like a Donna?

[Jon Favreau]

You're saying I was a Donna?

[Adam Friedland]

You were a Donna. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Did you have. You were the boss of people older than you at 28?

[Jon Favreau]

Let's see. Yeah, yeah, couple. We were pretty young though, as a group. Speechwriters.

[Adam Friedland]

Really?

[Jon Favreau]

Yeah. So I think most of them were my age or younger, but like, Ben Rhodes is a couple years older. Than me. No one's too older. Too much older than me.

[Adam Friedland]

Was there any Harvard Lampoon guys?

[Jon Favreau]

No, we didn't have any Harvard Lampoon.

[Adam Friedland]

That's actually a serious question that I said as a joke.

[Jon Favreau]

But they're everywhere.

[Adam Friedland]

Plausible. Yeah, they're everywhere.

[Jon Favreau]

Yeah. You always run into a fucking Harvard Lampoon guy somewhere.

[Adam Friedland]

Yeah. Do comics get hired for as speechwriters?

[Jon Favreau]

I mean, John Lovett, he was. I guess he was. He did a little comedy.

[Adam Friedland]

John Lovitz.

[Jon Favreau]

John Lovitz. My. My co. Founder. Co host.

[Adam Friedland]

We. What is. You guys bonded over having another guy with your names?

[Jon Favreau]

No, cuz I didn't really, like. I don't know. It took us a while to put together the John Lovett, Jon Lovitz thing. Because he didn't. Because it's not like my name where it's spelled the exact same.

[Adam Friedland]

Like, what are you guys stupid? It's right there. John Love. Haven't you seen Rat Race?

[Jon Favreau]

I have seen Rat Race.

[Adam Friedland]

Were you doing your homework?

[Jon Favreau]

Yeah, but. Yeah, no. So, yeah, Lovett does comedy. He was our funny guy. He was our resident funny speechwriter.

[Adam Friedland]

That's insulting, actually. You guys had real jobs and now you're podcasting and doing comedy.

[Jon Favreau]

Yeah, it's.

[Adam Friedland]

It's. Come on.

[Jon Favreau]

It's pretty.

[Adam Friedland]

When I see NBA players, NBA players doing podcasts, I'm like, I'm doing this because I'm not in the NBA. Just please, you don't want no part of this. This is a hell.

[Jon Favreau]

It's a lot easier than working in the White House. What I do now.

[Adam Friedland]

Yeah, yeah. You're lazy and rich.

[Jon Favreau]

Just gets to talk about politics.

[Adam Friedland]

You went to Holy Cross. You and Bill Simmons roommates. You were in a love triangle with Simmons.

[Jon Favreau]

Yeah. And Clarence Thomas.

[Adam Friedland]

Yeah. Do you think Simmons was power ranking girls at college?

[Jon Favreau]

You'll have to ask him. Zuckerberg was, I think. Yeah.

[Adam Friedland]

That was the move.

[Jon Favreau]

That's how the whole thing started.

[Adam Friedland]

Yeah. He was doing power rankings.

[Jon Favreau]

Yeah.

[Adam Friedland]

I wonder if Zuck and Simmons ever.

[Jon Favreau]

Made it's like Hot or Not. And then like 15 years later, genocide.

[Adam Friedland]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Going back to like comics writing for politicians. You know how, like when our government lets BB just do open mic night to be mean to the president. We just let him go to the government to give a speech and be like, Obama's a.

[Jon Favreau]

Because the Republicans invited him. We didn't. Obama didn't even invite him.

[Adam Friedland]

Yeah, but you're the president. You gotta be like, I'll kill you if you.

[Jon Favreau]

He could have tried that.

[Adam Friedland]

He had a Line where I'm like, it's gotta be. It's Jerry. Jerry's. Jerry's in the writers room for sure. What? He was like, they say gays for Gaza. What about. That's like saying chickens for kfc. That's gotta be a Jerry. That has to be a Jerry. Do you know, can you confirm or deny that Jerry Seinfeld's writing for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu?

[Jon Favreau]

I can do neither.

[Adam Friedland]

Can you call Jerry Seinfeld and ask him?

[Jon Favreau]

I don't know Jerry Seinfeld.

[Adam Friedland]

You know Jerry Seinfeld?

[Jon Favreau]

No.

[Adam Friedland]

You know Jerry Seinfeld. You're a college valedictorian. Right. And then you go into the Kerry campaign shortly thereafter. Okay, you're a speechwriter. You're probably the youngest person in the room a lot of the time, but you were, like, kind of a fly on the wall for history. So, like, what was it like? Like, that arrival of Barack Obama, like.

[Jon Favreau]

Yeah, so I was at the DNC in Boston, and I was a junior speechwriter at that point in the Kerry campaign. I was backstage, and all the speakers would, like, send their speeches to the Kerry campaign team, and so I was supposed to, like, make sure that all the speeches were on message for the Kerry campaign.

[Adam Friedland]

Yeah.

[Jon Favreau]

And then my boss, the head speechwriter at the time, now Congressman Josh, gottheimer from New Jersey. He called me. He was on the road with Kerry, and he was like, hey, there's a line in Barack Obama's speech who's giving the keynote that John Kerry wants to use in his speech. I was like, all right. And he's like, well, they both can't use the same line.

[Adam Friedland]

He stole his bit.

[Jon Favreau]

So he was like. I'm like, what are you talking. What are you telling me for? He's like, you have to get the line out of Obama's speech. I was like, what? So I have to go down the hall to where Obama's practicing the speech for the first time on teleprompter. Wait.

[Adam Friedland]

Go into the practice? I wanted. How did he do that?

[Jon Favreau]

He. How did he.

[Adam Friedland]

How's Barack Obama? Like, I'm about to kill it.

[Jon Favreau]

Yeah.

[Adam Friedland]

Like what?

[Jon Favreau]

Well, he had never.

[Adam Friedland]

Is he in a mirror?

[Jon Favreau]

He had never read off a prompter before, so he had to learn to use a teleprompter because he had never, like, given a prepared speech. He's like a state senator, you know.

[Adam Friedland]

So he was an idiot, too. He was an idiot. So that entire White House.

[Jon Favreau]

80. For sure. For sure. And so he's practicing, and I have to go in. I'm like, 21 at the time. 22 and hot.

[Adam Friedland]

You were a piece of.

[Jon Favreau]

Piece of. So hot. I was so hot.

[Adam Friedland]

I've been looking at pigs, shaved head.

[Jon Favreau]

Like, 10 pounds heavier, buzz cut, kind of yoked.

[Adam Friedland]

Trying to beat your dad up.

[Jon Favreau]

Trying to beat my dad up.

[Adam Friedland]

This summer break, I'm just, like.

[Jon Favreau]

When I'm not on the campaign, I'm just trying to get Jack to beat my dad up. So then I. So I tell him about the line, and he's so mad. Oh, Boba. Yeah, he, like, came up to, like. He's, like, this close to me, and he's, like, looking down. And I think I, like, blacked out for a few seconds. But at that point, this very nice man, David Axelrod, comes up to me, and he was like, hey, son, let's walk outside and we'll rewrite the line together. And so we Axe and I. That's my first introduction to him. We go outside, we rewrite the line, and.

[Adam Friedland]

And do you remember the line?

[Jon Favreau]

Yeah. It's the end of the red state, blue state riff where he says, like, there are no red states. There are no states.

[Adam Friedland]

Sole red state, blue state.

[Jon Favreau]

He wanted to say, there are the United States. All of us pledging allegiance to the red, white, and blue. Oh, and Kerry wanted red, white, and blue. And so instead, Obama changed it to, like, all of us pledging allegiance to the stars and stripes. I think we did.

[Adam Friedland]

So anyway, to the green and yellow of Hezbollah.

[Jon Favreau]

What did you say?

[Adam Friedland]

Hezbollah. Green and yellow.

[Jon Favreau]

That was the alt.

[Adam Friedland]

That was the alt ob.

[Jon Favreau]

And I figured, like, that was it. That was the last time that I would see Obama again. But then when Kerry lost and Obama won the Senate, Robert Gibbs, who was his communications director, had been my boss when I was a press assistant on the Kerry campaign, was like, hey, he needs a speechwriter. Would you be interested. Now that he's in the Senate, would you be interested in just, like, sitting down with him? And I was like, why does he need a speechwriter? He's like, that's what he thinks. He doesn't want a speechwriter either.

[Adam Friedland]

He doesn't speak. The guy he was mean to.

[Jon Favreau]

Yeah, he's like.

[Adam Friedland]

He's like, get that bitch from Kerry.

[Jon Favreau]

Well, so he didn't know it was me. He didn't remember me. So I said, so I sat down with him his first week in the Senate. We have breakfast, and we do the job interview. He's so nice. Great job interview. He was like, where'd you grow up? What's Life. Like, what's. What's your theory of speechwriting? Why do you like.

[Adam Friedland]

What'd you say?

[Jon Favreau]

Theory of speechwriting?

[Adam Friedland]

You had a. Bullshit.

[Jon Favreau]

I was like, I don't have a theory of speech writing, but I talked about his convention speech in 2004 and why I loved it. And then he was like, all right, well, I don't think I need a speechwriter, but Gibbs tells me I do. And you seem nice enough, so let's give this a whirl.

[Adam Friedland]

Whoa.

[Jon Favreau]

And then, like, a year later, we're sitting around reminiscing about the 2004 convention, and Obama's like, remember that little shit who tried to take from the Kerry campaign or tried to get. And I was like, that was me. He's like, I would have never hired you. And he started laughing. He knew it was you at that point. He did.

[Adam Friedland]

Oh, he was doing a bit.

[Jon Favreau]

No, no, no, no. He. He found out at that moment, like, a year later.

[Adam Friedland]

Have you told this story before?

[Jon Favreau]

This is great. I can't remember. I can't remember.

[Adam Friedland]

We got to tell Sorkin. We got to get Sorkin off.

[Jon Favreau]

Yeah.

[Adam Friedland]

Oh, my God. Yeah. For the.

[Jon Favreau]

For the rem. The reboot. How mean was he to you when he found out? He was. No, he was laughing. He just couldn't believe now.

[Adam Friedland]

Now he loves time. You were.

[Jon Favreau]

He was just like.

[Adam Friedland]

You were like, whatever. Fucking state senator. Well, you're a bitch, dude.

[Jon Favreau]

Yeah. It's like, I'm. For the next president, John Kerry.

[Adam Friedland]

Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Here's a serious question, actually, I had floating in my head, and I don't know if you've been asked this before. Did you guys kind of. To what extent was Will Ferrell to blame?

[Jon Favreau]

Why? Because of his George Bush impression.

[Adam Friedland]

Yeah. The funniest guy in the world was playing, like, a war. A war criminal. I mean, I think it's actually, like. There's something I'm not saying. It's the reason John Kerry lost.

[Jon Favreau]

Right.

[Adam Friedland]

You know, it was because of what he did on the damn Swift Boat.

[Jon Favreau]

On the Swift boat.

[Adam Friedland]

We all know about that goddamn Swift boat. And that's what Obama put in his speech. He's like, john Kerry. I heard he was on a Swift boat.

[Jon Favreau]

Oh, yeah, that's right.

[Adam Friedland]

Sorry.

[Jon Favreau]

We did do a campaign.

[Adam Friedland]

Don't tell him I did an impression.

[Jon Favreau]

I promise. I won't. I promise. Bush didn't get really unpopular until 5, 6. 2005. 2006. When Iraq went really south. Yeah.

[Adam Friedland]

Yeah. What happened in that. What happened over there?

[Jon Favreau]

Yeah. Nothing good, but we've learned our lesson, so that's important.

[Adam Friedland]

So you. So then you were working in his Senate office.

[Jon Favreau]

Yes, then I was working in the Senate office. And part of the reason I took that job is, like, my parents wanted me to go to law school. You know, they're like, all right, you're not making. You didn't make any money on the Kerry campaign, and we not supporting you forever. Like, you go. Go to law.

[Adam Friedland]

Shut the fuck up. He's running for president.

[Jon Favreau]

But I was like, well, I'll go work for Barack Obama in the Senate office, because he just got there. He's obviously not gonna run for president in 2008. And so I'll just do a year there, and then once the 08 campaign starts, I'll go to law school, and I'll be done with politics for a little while.

[Adam Friedland]

So you lied to your parents.

[Jon Favreau]

So I lied to my own.

[Adam Friedland]

That was a good lie.

[Jon Favreau]

Yeah, yeah.

[Adam Friedland]

This guy's a total lightweight. It was one speech, and then that was that, really.

[Jon Favreau]

And then he decided to run, and then you dropped.

[Adam Friedland]

Yes, We Can. That's you.

[Jon Favreau]

Yes, we can was in the 2004 Senate race is a. It was a tagline in one of his ads. And then I and the other speechwriters brought it back for the New Hampshire speech the night of the New Hampshire primary in the. In 07.

[Adam Friedland]

Oh, so you copied. Yes. Yes, we can.

[Jon Favreau]

Yeah. Just lifted it from.

[Adam Friedland]

Who copied it from the farm laborers?

[Jon Favreau]

Yes, from. From. From Cesar Chavez.

[Adam Friedland]

Is there, like. Like, in comedy, if you steal a bit, it's like a bad thing? Like, you're like. Is there the concept of that in speech writing?

[Jon Favreau]

No. Yeah. No, you just steal liberally.

[Adam Friedland]

When you. So, like, when you, like, were developing a skill in your job, like, did you watch game tape of people, like, previous speeches?

[Jon Favreau]

I did a little bit of that. I read bold speeches. But I think the key. I think what a lot of politicians do now, which is a mistake, is like, they try to copy, like, the style of a politician in the past who gives a speech, and then it sounds phony because it's like, for a while, you had politicians trying to all copy John F. Kennedy, and now you get that with Obama. Right.

[Adam Friedland]

So it's like Gavin was trying Obama a little bit there.

[Jon Favreau]

Who?

[Adam Friedland]

Gavin Newsom?

[Jon Favreau]

Yeah, a little bit.

[Adam Friedland]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Jon Favreau]

Josh Shapiro sounds a little Barack Obama sometimes.

[Adam Friedland]

Let me be clear.

[Jon Favreau]

Yeah, there's a little. It's that generation of politicians.

[Adam Friedland]

Betoid was kind of ripping it off.

[Jon Favreau]

Beto's a little bit. And so I Did a little bit of that. But mostly I just got to know Obama. Like, he also. He had written, by the time he ran for president, two books. I helped him edit the second book, Audacity of Hope. So he would, like. He wrote that in the Senate office. And so he would come in in the morning. He had been up till like, 3am the night before writing, partying. He'd give the party, give this long chapter, and then I would like it. So it's like I. I became like I was in his head at that point.

[Adam Friedland]

Yeah.

[Jon Favreau]

Like, I knew how he thought I knew how he.

[Adam Friedland]

Yeah. So that's. So Obama invented that shit.

[Jon Favreau]

Invented what?

[Adam Friedland]

Like the Obama. I mean, that was him.

[Jon Favreau]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Adam Friedland]

I thought it was central casting. I thought it was. I thought it was the Illuminati. No, no. So that's. I mean, so then you had to, like, learn the cadence and kind of the rhythm of Obama's speech.

[Jon Favreau]

Yes. And then I would sort of travel with him and make sure that I go to a lot of his speeches. I'd listen to all of his interviews. I would just. Just. And then I would just spend time with him. Like, every time we were about to give a speech, I would just sit down and say, like, what do you want to say? And we would, like, chat for an hour.

[Adam Friedland]

Yeah. About life.

[Jon Favreau]

About life. About politics.

[Adam Friedland]

Did you guys ever watch a movie together?

[Jon Favreau]

I don't think we've watched them. Maybe. I don't think so.

[Adam Friedland]

Really?

[Jon Favreau]

No. They didn't really have a lot of time for movies.

[Adam Friedland]

Yeah. But one day, like, let's kind of just. Let's watch a movie. I do it with these boys.

[Jon Favreau]

You did at one point, start. I, like, have never seen any of the classics movies. And, like, someone. They were talking about on the plane once, and he was like, you've never seen Chinatown? You've never seen. And then he's like, don't come into work Monday unless you've, like, seen some of these classic movies. Like, I'm ordering you to see some of these movies. Sure.

[Adam Friedland]

That's your commander in chief.

[Jon Favreau]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Because he's a movie buff, but.

[Adam Friedland]

So he told you to watch.

[Jon Favreau]

Like, I went home and I watched good movies. It was fine.

[Adam Friedland]

Dude is so sick. Your life is sick.

[Jon Favreau]

It was.

[Adam Friedland]

And you were hot the whole time.

[Jon Favreau]

Debatable.

[Adam Friedland]

Dude, I've been looking at pigs. You gotta go. Okay. Can I tell you guys, I'm gonna be a little Jewish mother here, but with good taste, not bad taste.

[Jon Favreau]

Sure.

[Adam Friedland]

Not going to Banana Republic. And Buy me a shirt. And like, you should go back to the buzz cut.

[Jon Favreau]

You think so?

[Adam Friedland]

Aviators, messenger bag, buzz cut. Aviators. This is way worse. And you got your hair still.

[Jon Favreau]

I do have my hair still.

[Adam Friedland]

Or you went to Turkey. Well, you went with Eric Adams to Turkey.

[Jon Favreau]

I did, yeah.

[Adam Friedland]

The Isan blue. Yeah.

[Jon Favreau]

No, Obama said to me. We were once. He was like, he gave you a style tip? He was like, I'm just saying. He's like, you're like a good looking guy with your hair. I think you could grow it out.

[Adam Friedland]

I think, listen to him.

[Jon Favreau]

He goes, I don't think you need to be.

[Adam Friedland]

We gotta call Obama right now. I don't know. You're talking.

[Jon Favreau]

It was easy. That was why I did it. Because I was so busy and I had never had time to do anything. So I like buzzed my hair myself.

[Adam Friedland]

Let's go back to speech craft. You read a lot of speeches. Can I ask you a question? Sure. And this is not political.

[Jon Favreau]

Okay.

[Adam Friedland]

Like, was Hitler good? Like, I don't know German.

[Jon Favreau]

So I did not spend a lot of time with speeches.

[Adam Friedland]

The chops, like, Bill Cosby was a great comic. I'll say it. Okay. Was Hitler good?

[Jon Favreau]

You know, I just haven't listened to enough of his speeches, I presume. Yeah, yeah. There was. There was some charisma there.

[Adam Friedland]

Did Hitler do like a. Yes. We can't. What was his.

[Jon Favreau]

This is actually.

[Adam Friedland]

Where do you stand in the goat debate?

[Jon Favreau]

Okay, so this is.

[Adam Friedland]

You think Hitler or Martin Luther King. Where are you?

[Jon Favreau]

This is a good.

[Adam Friedland]

You've been a Hitler guy for a while.

[Jon Favreau]

This is a good story. His first, like, foreign trip in the middle of the 2008 campaign, and he goes to Germany. And so Ben Rhodes and I work on the speech and Ben goes on the trip with them. I'm back in Chicago and it's like an hour before the speech. And Ben had the foresight of being like, I'm just going to run it by some Germans just to make sure we're not. There's no, like, tripwires, you know? And we have this phrase at the end of the speech where we say something about like a community of fate or something. I don't know. And Ben's like, yeah, we have a problem.

[Adam Friedland]

That.

[Jon Favreau]

That is a Hitler. That's a Hitler phrase. That's a Hitler. We lifted a Hitler line.

[Adam Friedland]

Yeah, yeah, it was a Hitler bar.

[Jon Favreau]

It was the Hitler bar. And so we changed it. We figured it out and changed it. Like right before the speech, you had Ben ein Berliner. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah.

[Adam Friedland]

Do you think Kennedy was actually that hot?

[Jon Favreau]

Kennedy?

[Adam Friedland]

Yeah.

[Jon Favreau]

People are like, that's pretty good looking guy.

[Adam Friedland]

Obama should be.

[Jon Favreau]

Yeah.

[Adam Friedland]

Obama's that smile.

[Jon Favreau]

Yeah.

[Adam Friedland]

Yeah.

[Jon Favreau]

He's probably hotter.

[Adam Friedland]

Did you write the lines that were like, for a skinny kid with big ears and a funny name?

[Jon Favreau]

That's him.

[Adam Friedland]

Oh, God. I loved what he did when he talked about how he was like, I got a funny name and big ears. That's him.

[Jon Favreau]

That's him. Oh, he loved talking. He loved making fun of his big ears.

[Adam Friedland]

Oh, my God, it's so cute the way he did it. Oh, my God. There was one about what? Lincoln, though, right?

[Jon Favreau]

Lincoln.

[Adam Friedland]

A gangly.

[Jon Favreau]

Oh, yeah, yeah, that's right. Wait, he likes some. He likes Lincoln references. Obama's into Lincoln big time.

[Adam Friedland]

Really? But he's a Republican.

[Jon Favreau]

I love when they say that's why he's bipartisan.

[Adam Friedland]

They say party of Lincoln. Like, they would have been in that fight.

[Jon Favreau]

Yeah, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Adam Friedland]

We just had this primary in New York in this general where a Democrat was being attacked by a Democrat. And it was like, in retrospect, it's Islamophobia. Like, yeah, like, it is like, yeah, Zora Maudani is from the Upper west side. I mean, he's basically Jewish. I mean, like, he's like. He is. You know, and then they were like, this is Osama bin Laden. Right. You were in a pretty vicious primary where your boss was attacked and there were Islamophobic attacks launched, all kinds of attacks, I guess, like, and that candidate became the next candidate for president. Why is there a space for that in the Democratic Party? Like, I mean, if we want to be like, the Republicans are racist.

[Jon Favreau]

Right.

[Adam Friedland]

Like, why is it. Why is this happening in the Democratic party?

[Jon Favreau]

Like, in that 08 primary? It was subtle, right? Yeah. Mark Penn, her chief strategist, had, like, written a memo that was like, we got to talk about how, you know, you're. That you're American and your American roots and that he's not as American. It was like something. I'm paraphrasing. But, yeah, it was pretty bad. It got worse when, obviously in the general, when Sarah Palin did her thing, but.

[Adam Friedland]

What was her thing?

[Jon Favreau]

You know, just being.

[Adam Friedland]

She made that movie.

[Jon Favreau]

She did make that movie. Or that reality show.

[Adam Friedland]

Oh, never mind. I had to talk about that different thing.

[Jon Favreau]

Oh, yeah, that movie. Yeah. That's a good one.

[Adam Friedland]

But I found out it wasn't Sarah Palin. It was Lisa Ann. It's called Nayland Palin. It's a pornography. Was the guy in it. Barack Obama.

[Jon Favreau]

No, I don't think so.

[Adam Friedland]

No. Was it McCain? Who's the guy?

[Jon Favreau]

No, it couldn't have been McCain.

[Adam Friedland]

Was it Putin? Cause she saw him from the house.

[Jon Favreau]

That would have been good.

[Adam Friedland]

That would have been good. If he. Like, across the Bering Strait.

[Jon Favreau]

Let's do a remake.

[Adam Friedland]

If they fell in love. Across the Bering Strait. Yeah. If we just made it just a beautiful story, like. Yeah. And then just hardcore sex. Anyway. Has Barack Obama ever seen. We'll cut that. Okay? Cut that. That's just. Come on, we're having fun. Cut that. You ever hoop with Obama?

[Jon Favreau]

No, they never. They never asked me to hoop. Yeah.

[Adam Friedland]

Yeah.

[Jon Favreau]

But you're telling me. You know what? We were in the. We were. We were in the campaign once, like, at some stop, and they were like, do you want to. Do you want to play tomorrow? And I'm like, no, I don't want to play tomorrow morning. Yeah, I'm hor. I'm gonna be horrible. I'm gonna be in my. I could, like, in your head. I could barely play when I was, like, a freshman in high school, so I can't imagine embarrassing myself and, like, being in my head when I was with the. With the president.

[Adam Friedland]

But you said that. You were saying before the show, I mean, I don't know if this was off the record, but that Obama calls bullshit fouls in pickup guns. People are like, fucking. Come on, dude. Come on. This is a bad line, though. I want to criticize this.

[Jon Favreau]

Sure.

[Adam Friedland]

Our children are going to have to turn off the TV set once in a while and put away the video games and start hitting the books. You wrote that at what, 24 for Obama?

[Jon Favreau]

Yeah.

[Adam Friedland]

What a fucking loser.

[Jon Favreau]

Loser.

[Adam Friedland]

You wrote like, turn off the damn. You wrote, pull up your damn pants.

[Jon Favreau]

Pants. Yeah. He was big on all that.

[Adam Friedland]

He was a pull up your damn pants guy.

[Jon Favreau]

Yeah.

[Adam Friedland]

Where'd he stay? He stole that from Cosby, though.

[Jon Favreau]

He did. One of many. Yeah.

[Adam Friedland]

All right. I went to school in D.C. i remember the night we were talking about this on the phone yesterday. But the night Obama won, it was like. It was incredible.

[Jon Favreau]

My experience from that night, which I'll always remember. So I was working on the speech, like, the couple days before, and I was trying to figure out an ending to the speech if we won. And I seen some story on CNN about how there was, like a three hour line to vote in Atlanta, and there was this woman who waited in line for three hours, and she was 102 years old, and her name is Ann Nixon Cooper.

[Adam Friedland]

And Obama killed her.

[Jon Favreau]

And Obama killed her. And so I was like, oh, this is a great way to end the speech, because I can talk about all the things she saw in the century that she's lived in America and, like, all the progress, like, when she was born, like, she couldn't vote because she was a woman, because she was black. And then you could talk through all the. And so right up the ending, Obama likes it. And then he calls me right before they call the final state, and he's like, all right, I'm gonna give you final edits. Gives me the final edits to the speech. And then my friend Tommy was like, you should probably. We should, like, call in Nixon Cooper and, like, let her know she's gonna be in this speech. So I have our research people find her number. I call her up. This, like, frail woman answers the phone, and I was like, tell her the whole story. And I was like. And he's gonna. He's gonna give the speech soon. And she goes, will it be on television? And I was like, yeah, it'll be on television. She's like, what channel will it be on? And I was like, all the channels. And she's like, I'm so. I'm so happy. I'm so proud, finally. And then right as she said that, they call Ohio and it's the election, and, like, everyone's just cheering, and I'm, like, sitting there talking to Anne Nixon Cooper on the phone for a couple more minutes. It was. It was pretty cool.

[Adam Friedland]

I want to cry right now. I thought she was going to say she voted for McCain.

[Jon Favreau]

And then she was like.

[Adam Friedland]

Anyway, she's like.

[Jon Favreau]

She was like, when he runs again in four years, let me know.

[Adam Friedland]

I'm 102. You think I voted for Obama, you idiot.

[Jon Favreau]

That Muslim, Muslim socialist.

[Adam Friedland]

What is wrong with you? My dad was kind of like that with Bernie. He's like, they won't let us be the president. They'll kill him. He's like, yeah, just like my dad would not. He's like, I'm not voting for him because he's Jewish. Adam. They're not gonna let us. He's like, I agree with pretty much everything he stands for, but, Adam, come on. They let us be Supreme Court. They only let two Catholics. It's kind of. Yeah, it's kind of a proper Protestant country. Think about it.

[Jon Favreau]

Yeah, it is. Yeah.

[Adam Friedland]

Well, Obama was a Muslim, I guess, but. And Trump is Baha'.

[Jon Favreau]

I.

[Adam Friedland]

Love when he talks about how much he loves the Bible. He's like, the Bible is Great. It's like, I know all the parts. Yeah. It's like when LeBron was talking about the autobiography of Malcolm X, he's like. And he was on page one. He's like. It's just how smart he was. You're like, in the middle of history, right? Did your mom still tell you to go to law school that night?

[Jon Favreau]

No. That they were. They let go of the law school.

[Adam Friedland]

They're like, you're. Now you're making 35.

[Jon Favreau]

This is great. You're off to the White House.

[Adam Friedland]

35K. You're the richest guy ever.

[Jon Favreau]

Loser.

[Adam Friedland]

It was like a moment where it's like, America, things could get better. Because I think I remember 9, 11. And then things started getting sad. Maybe shit's gonna be better. And I can't imagine what it was like for you guys.

[Jon Favreau]

We did. There was, like, an echo at the beginning of the speech about how change has come to America.

[Adam Friedland]

That was you.

[Jon Favreau]

Which was intentionally from the Sam Cooke song.

[Adam Friedland]

Oh, I say Hitler.

[Jon Favreau]

From Magana Hitler. Because we thought, like, we needed a good, like, American anthem. But that was also about not just triumphant, but about, like, injustice being, you know.

[Adam Friedland]

Yeah.

[Jon Favreau]

Solved a little bit or at least improved. But even then, I will say, as wonderful as that night was, and it was like, you know, we were all excited because the financial crisis had already begun. We all sort of knew that we were walking into a storm and that, like, we could enjoy. We could enjoy election night, but that, like, this was going to be even harder than we imagined when we started the campaign, because things were getting. Things were pretty bad.

[Adam Friedland]

You should have told me. I mean, that's. It's an interesting thing to bring up because, like, that was. I did feel like, idealism. But, like, I do remember very early on where I was like, they broke the economy, right? There were people that. That ruined people's lives. And I was. I remember going home. I was, like, graduating college, 2009. So, like, the job market was terrible. Like, and I'd go to visit my parents, and there were lights off in our neighborhood. People had been, like, foreclosed on. And I remember, like, I did feel like that idealism kind of was extinguished when, like, they didn't go to jail. And in fact, they got richer. A lot of them.

[Jon Favreau]

Well, so there weren't laws on the books, which is part of the problem, part of the whole reason the crisis happened that you could prosecute some of these people for. I remember there was, like, two Bear Stearns traitors who were prosecuted, got off, and they had a Then there was like a civil suit against them. I remember, like years later they settled that. And one of the reasons we passed or worked to pass Wall street reform, Dodd Frank was both to make sure that that never happened again, but also to put laws in the book so that people couldn't get away with that sh T. And it was. But like, I remember.

[Adam Friedland]

But I. Sorry to cut you off. But like, I do remember that like, Larry Summers was like saying, like, we need evictions to save the banking crisis. You know, like, that was a major influence in the administration. It was like, I was like, f. It's like, why are they letting these guys do that?

[Jon Favreau]

Like, I remember when the. When the assholes that ran AIG were gonna get their bonuses.

[Adam Friedland]

Uh huh.

[Jon Favreau]

And we. I was like, well, obviously we can stop them from getting their bonuses, right?

[Adam Friedland]

Yeah.

[Jon Favreau]

And they were like, no, no, we're gonna have to. He's gonna have to give a statement saying we can't.

[Adam Friedland]

Yeah.

[Jon Favreau]

And I sat down with Larry and I'm like, okay, explain this to me like I'm an idiot.

[Adam Friedland]

And he had a flight. He had a flight.

[Jon Favreau]

Yeah, right. He had a flight to get to the island. And I was like, explain this to me like I'm an idiot, because I was. Who doesn't know anything about the economy? Which I didn't.

[Adam Friedland]

Me either. I don't know anything.

[Jon Favreau]

And I was like, why, why are they getting the phones? Well, it's contract law. And if we take the bonuses and claw them back, it's against the law. And then they could supervise. And I was like, here's the thing. There's people with pitchforks like outside the White House right now for good reason. And like, this is a just. And it's just like indicative of those first couple years where there was just like unsatisfying decision after unsatisfying decision that we had to take or couldn't do anything about because the economy, what was set in motion, that destroyed the economy was already set in motion. So all we could. Now I do think if we went back, we should have done more on housing for sure, because the foreclosures just continued for way too long. And it was much worse than anyone thought at the beginning.

[Adam Friedland]

Did you ever voice like, vigorous, like, opposition to a decision? Because the thing is, you're a speechwriter, right? So you're not like, you kind of were like, Obama was like, what do you think? Did you ever say, what do you think?

[Jon Favreau]

Not really, because I was the 20 something speechwriter.

[Adam Friedland]

Okay. So.

[Jon Favreau]

But I got to See a lot. I got to, I didn't really participate, but I get to see a lot of the policy debates unfold. So because you see that and hear it, you start to realize, okay, well, there's a reason that they're making this unsatisfactory decision. Right. And so you sort of understand it. But people like, the most common question I always get is like, was there anything that you just completely disagreed with? Like you had a political view.

[Adam Friedland]

Right.

[Jon Favreau]

That's what the only one really was. Like, I, you know, he didn't come out for gay marriage until the reelect in 2012, and I was for gay marriage long before that.

[Adam Friedland]

Well, so you get Sharia law.

[Jon Favreau]

I think a lot of us sort of imagined that he was actually for gay marriage, but the politics prevented him.

[Adam Friedland]

He probably said it. He was probably like, I'm for gay marriage.

[Jon Favreau]

He never said it. I think he's, you know, he's also, he's, he's old school in that regard, which is like he's, I think he, it took him a little bit to get there too. I think he got there before he actually said he was for it. But I think that the politics got in the way, if I had to guess. But that was the only issue that I was reading.

[Adam Friedland]

So you never had to write a speech for something that you were opposed to?

[Jon Favreau]

No.

[Adam Friedland]

Yeah.

[Jon Favreau]

No.

[Adam Friedland]

You're never like, gay people shouldn't get married. The speech. Right.

[Jon Favreau]

Because there was, there was for a.

[Adam Friedland]

Gangly kid with big ears. I'm not gay, by the way. By the way, I'm not gay. And that's why I'm. If well being means grounded in your space, start with the easiest switch, the air around you. Pura is a premium smart diffuser that makes home fragrance effortless. Control it from your phone, set it to match your day and breathe out the chaos. For a limited time, get a free Pura plus home diffuser when you subscribe to your favorite fragrances for 12 months. This is restoration, not reinvention. Grab your free [e-mail] Managing your money doesn't have to be a struggle. It's your Monarch is an all in one personal finance tool designed to make your life easier. It brings your entire financial life, budgeting, accounts and investments, net worth and future planning together in one dashboard on your laptop or phone. Start your new year off on the right foot. Financially. Get 50% off your Monarch subscription with the code TAFS. 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Head to livemomentous.com and use the promo code TAFS for up to 35% off your first Order. That's livemomentous.com promo code TAFS. Yeah, I think those first two years, the understanding is that you guys had a rough one, Right. And what, like, did you get yelled at?

[Jon Favreau]

No.

[Adam Friedland]

Rom. You never. You never.

[Jon Favreau]

Oh, Rom did.

[Adam Friedland]

Rom. You got rommed?

[Jon Favreau]

Oh, yeah.

[Adam Friedland]

He seemed a scary guy.

[Jon Favreau]

Yeah. But you know what? He was a scary guy. But I finally realized that when he yells at you, you just yell back at him.

[Adam Friedland]

Really?

[Jon Favreau]

And then it's fine.

[Adam Friedland]

You yell back.

[Jon Favreau]

I finally did. Because he would fuck you. He would once in a while, he would just, like, once in a while, call and win and be like, I this great line for the speech that, like, Carvel sent me or Begalla sent me, you know, And I was like, I'm like, okay, cool, what's the line? And it's a line that sounds like it's from the 90s. And I was like. And then he was like, come on. Like, yelling at me. And then finally I was just like, no.

[Adam Friedland]

And he's missing a finger.

[Jon Favreau]

Rom was a yeller, but we, like, the Obama campaign didn't have, like, yellers. That wasn't like. Axelrod wasn't like that. Plouff wasn't like that. It really was. When we got to the White House, some of the old Clinton era people that came on Rom, mostly Rom was like a. Rom was a figure that was different than the typical Obama.

[Adam Friedland]

Do you think that there was a resentment amongst those Clinton people? Because in D.C. my understanding is that, like, he didn't serve a full term in the Senate. Even Obama, he was like, you know, skipping the line pisses people off.

[Jon Favreau]

Yep.

[Adam Friedland]

And do you think that in the party there was, like, a resentment that kind of lasted?

[Jon Favreau]

I don't know. I think that. All I know is that when Hillary came on as Secretary of State, we were all very skeptical. All of us on the staff level who'd run the campaign. I think her staff was also probably skeptical. I think that Obama and Hillary genuinely developed a good relationship. And so that wasn't much of an issue. Yeah, I think the more. I think the resentment probably came more from Congress. Like, Democrats in Congress did not think, like, they were very happy that Barack Obama was president. They loved him, but they did not think that, like, they owed him everything and had to do whatever he said. Because I think a lot of them thought, well, I've been here for a lot longer than you have.

[Adam Friedland]

Is it true that, like, the vice president is, like, the loser? Like, the total fucking loser? I think that's what my understanding is that you get a vice president, you're fucking. You just abused them. Go figure out this impossible thing. Loser.

[Jon Favreau]

A little bit of that.

[Adam Friedland]

You'll be the czar of the impossible thing.

[Jon Favreau]

No, Biden got to be like, help manage the Recovery Act. That was his first job.

[Adam Friedland]

Why'd you give him a good one?

[Jon Favreau]

He liked it, too. Yeah. I don't know. It was a good.

[Adam Friedland]

No, I think you're lying, dude. You can't have the vice president's head.

[Jon Favreau]

He's probably got a bad job at.

[Adam Friedland]

Telling him the vice president's head can't get too big, right?

[Jon Favreau]

Yeah, no, no. The vice president. It's just tough. Cause it's a job where you don't have any official responsibility. So, like, every new vice president has to, like, make up with the president, what their job is.

[Adam Friedland]

Obama would never be the vice president. Right. Because he's too. He's too. He's got too much sauce. He's gonna give a speech that's too good that John Kerry is gonna want to steal.

[Jon Favreau]

Right, right, right.

[Adam Friedland]

You can't get a guy that's, like, gonna, like, look good.

[Jon Favreau]

Yeah.

[Adam Friedland]

You can't get. You have to get a guy that's, like, you know.

[Jon Favreau]

Well, we thought with Joe Biden, we're like, well. And he's not going to run for president because he's like.

[Adam Friedland]

He ran every time. Did he run every time for president since 88? Yeah.

[Jon Favreau]

No, but he ran. He ran twice.

[Adam Friedland]

Did he skip one?

[Jon Favreau]

Yeah, he did skip. He skipped a couple. He ran in 2008. I think before 2008, he hadn't run since 88.

[Adam Friedland]

He loves running for president. I mean, he loved. He even. Even did it last time, too. He did it last. He loved it so much. He did it last.

[Jon Favreau]

He didn't stop.

[Adam Friedland]

He couldn't stop. He was addicted. Were you guys worried about his addiction to running for president? We were like, we love you.

[Jon Favreau]

The whole country was here for you. Yeah.

[Adam Friedland]

This is an intervention. George Clooney Take it away. Yeah. Like, America felt like there was. It was getting sadder and sadder. And then there was this moment where it was like, what if it's better? Right? And then we saw, you know, a guy that was super young and has, like, left off as super young, who is the first black president. And it was. That's amazing. We got rid of slavery at the shot clock. That was a buzzer beater getting rid of slavery. I mean, like, and in America, like, we, you know, it was like, holy shit. And then we kind of saw them make his life look kind of hell no.

[Jon Favreau]

Yep.

[Adam Friedland]

You know, I mean, there was a real moment where I. That I was. Where like after Sandy Hook. And he's like crying.

[Jon Favreau]

Yeah.

[Adam Friedland]

And he's like, just fucking. Just ban bazookas. Like, please. They're like, babies just died. You had to have seen him, like, fuck. What is the most bummed out? You saw the boy.

[Jon Favreau]

I think then after Sandy Hook, when we tried to pass. Because remember, we tried to pass background checks, like the most basic incremental.

[Adam Friedland]

Just make sure you could imagine Charles Manson.

[Jon Favreau]

Right? So there's a background check bill. This horrific shooting of children just happened.

[Adam Friedland]

It was baby.

[Jon Favreau]

The sponsors of the bill are Joe Manchin and Pat Toomey, conservative Republican from Pennsylvania.

[Adam Friedland]

Yeah.

[Jon Favreau]

So you're like, it's not like a bunch of libs. Right.

[Adam Friedland]

And now Joe Manchin is a soft.

[Jon Favreau]

Woke with those two sponsors and doing the bill and Barack Obama. And the tragedy. No, it just fails. Just don't. We don't get. And then he's like, if we can't. If we can't get background checks at this moment with these people, like, what. What are we doing?

[Adam Friedland]

Did you ever cheer him up? Were you like, can we watch a movie finally?

[Jon Favreau]

He honestly, like, he would cheer us up. Oh, yeah. He was like, he was nice to you. I remember after the. It was in 2012 with the reelect. And he gives us his convention speech. North Carolina. And I thought the speech. We all thought the speech went well. We were all happy. And it got some, like, terrible reviews from a few places. And like Politico is like just saying it's a terrible speech. Bill Clinton gave the better speech at the convention. And we're on Air Force One, like, leaving, going back to D.C. and I'm sitting there and I'm just like reading the Politico piece to him and other people, and I'm just like mad yelling. And he's like, hey. He goes, how do you think I feel?

[Adam Friedland]

I wake up every day you humiliated me.

[Jon Favreau]

I wake up every day knowing that half the country hates me and doesn't want it. Doesn't. Hates everything that I'm doing, doesn't like I'm doing. He's like. And I just. You got to keep going. He's like, this whole job is, like, making sure you listen to people, that you listen to criticism, that you take in all the right information, that you really sit with us. But, like, once you make a decision, you made the decision. You let the chips fall where they may. And if people are angry or people criticize you, you just gotta keep moving. Because otherwise he's like, we're never gonna get anything done, and you're gonna get in your head. He's like. And my job is not to sit here and be upset all the time. And in my head and worried about criticism. My job is to do everything I can do to, like, help the country and make people's lives better. And then it made me feel like an asshole for complaining about a political piece. Dude, why are you complaining? Obama. Grow up, dude.

[Adam Friedland]

Everyone hates him. He's wearing a tan suit and eating a burger with, like, French crap on it.

[Jon Favreau]

Yeah, yeah.

[Adam Friedland]

Those were his scandals.

[Jon Favreau]

Yeah, the tan suit.

[Adam Friedland]

He's eating a gay burger.

[Jon Favreau]

Dijon mustard.

[Adam Friedland]

Yeah, Dijon mustard.

[Jon Favreau]

Forgot about that.

[Adam Friedland]

You fucking like that? That was on the news? Yeah. Were you in the Situation Room? That was his. That was the moment where he got love from everyone.

[Jon Favreau]

Oh, with the bin Laden operation.

[Adam Friedland]

You were in the Situation.

[Jon Favreau]

No, I was not. Read into that.

[Adam Friedland]

What a loser.

[Jon Favreau]

Loser. No.

[Adam Friedland]

What a loser. Were you outside, like, trying to listen in?

[Jon Favreau]

No. Cause I didn't. I didn't know it happened until. I didn't know what happened until I got the draft remarks of what he was gonna say. They didn't tell you from Ben.

[Adam Friedland]

Oh, you were a fucking loser, dude.

[Jon Favreau]

Well, I didn't do any of the. Oh, my God. I wasn't the foreign policy, national security speechwriter guy.

[Adam Friedland]

That sucks.

[Jon Favreau]

Yeah.

[Adam Friedland]

Can you imagine how sick it was? Hillary Clinton saying, this is my play. I'm calling all the shots here. Shut up, Obama, Seal Team Six.

[Jon Favreau]

No, I was. It was the night after the correspondence dinner where he gave a big joke speech and he made fun of Donald Trump. And so we were very focused on that speech. And I remember the day of that speech.

[Adam Friedland]

Oh, he ruined.

[Jon Favreau]

Well, we were like.

[Adam Friedland]

And then he killed bin Laden the next day.

[Jon Favreau]

He was so.

[Adam Friedland]

Oh, my God.

[Jon Favreau]

We're like. We're gonna. So it's like John Levitt, David Axel, and I Were like, all right, we're gonna go into the Oval and just get last minute edits on the. On the correspondent speech. Great. And they're like, oh, he's meeting with some general. The speech is in five hours. We gotta make all the edits. Let us in. You know?

[Adam Friedland]

And so he's talking to Jeff Ross, the Roastmaster General, obviously getting better jokes that your ass. He's talking about Lisa Lampanelli, all of it. The Harvard Lampoon guys.

[Jon Favreau]

They go in there and he's like, chilling, throwing a football around, just in a good mood.

[Adam Friedland]

No. Yeah.

[Jon Favreau]

And then he was like, all right, I like the speech. Everything's great. There's this one line where the joke is about bin Laden. He's like. And I would just make it some other, like, you know, bad guy or Middle Eastern sounding guy, because it was about. Anyway. And so he's like, what about. What about Hosni Mubarak? And I was like, that's a terrible. That's a terrible joke. It's like saying Mussolini, bin Laden is so much. And he's like, trust me, trust me. And the meeting before us was he was on the phone with General McRaven. That was like his last call before the mission.

[Adam Friedland]

Okay, first of all, let's go back. He's bragging. He's doing a wink because he knows that's a better line. Right. Second of all, or maybe he doesn't want to disparage the dead. He's like, I don't want to.

[Jon Favreau]

Is that so possible? What? He's trying to make daiso. He wasn't dead yet.

[Adam Friedland]

The terrorist, Osama bin Laden. What is he. What is he doing?

[Jon Favreau]

He was worried about getting scared.

[Adam Friedland]

He's like, it wouldn't be. It wouldn't be purple of me. It wouldn't be purple of me to disparage. His body's barely cold. I'm going to go in there, he's going to be watching porno, and I'm going to shoot him. He had a lot of pornography, right?

[Jon Favreau]

A lot of pornography, yeah.

[Adam Friedland]

It's pretty cool.

[Jon Favreau]

Yeah.

[Adam Friedland]

I wonder if he had Naylon Palin.

[Jon Favreau]

Yeah. Full circle.

[Adam Friedland]

That was a good call. You got jobs, brother. You got jobs, brother. You left. What year did you leave the White House?

[Jon Favreau]

2013.

[Adam Friedland]

Yeah, I mean, how'd you feel?

[Jon Favreau]

Good.

[Adam Friedland]

Getting out there in that world, you felt like, kind of like I could go like, I'm gonna take on the world.

[Jon Favreau]

I can, like, live life a little bit. Yeah. Take a break.

[Adam Friedland]

Yeah.

[Jon Favreau]

And then I moved out here. Moved out, moved to la. I don't hear.

[Adam Friedland]

Yeah, you try to get in the biz.

[Jon Favreau]

Yeah.

[Adam Friedland]

I thought I was gonna, like, rom. Can your brother. Can I get your brother?

[Jon Favreau]

I did. Well, I. I met. I met with Ari when I went out to la and it was like he was exactly like his brother.

[Adam Friedland]

Yeah. Oh, I thought he was gonna be.

[Jon Favreau]

Like Ari Gold and that too.

[Adam Friedland]

He had a Lloyd.

[Jon Favreau]

I walk into his office and he's like, on a. On a treadmill. On the phone. Walking, treadmill, yelling on the phone. And I was like, is this real? Is this just like a. Like, entourage?

[Adam Friedland]

So you were writing, like, really important speeches for the President of the United States, and then you're writing like, a 30 Rock spec script for your packet, basically. What's wrong with you?

[Jon Favreau]

Well, then we.

[Adam Friedland]

Your mom, your parents should be disappointed. It's a disappointment.

[Jon Favreau]

It was a disappointment.

[Adam Friedland]

I'm gonna be a little bit of a Jewish brother.

[Jon Favreau]

Like, what are you doing? Yeah, well, it didn't go anywhere.

[Adam Friedland]

I have to do this. I have no skills.

[Jon Favreau]

Then we started. Then we started writing speeches. My now co host and co founder Tommy Vitor and I, we started writing speeches for hire. So we did that for a little bit.

[Adam Friedland]

Do you ever get pissed? Cause you're like, it's not like.

[Jon Favreau]

Yes, all the time. That's why I ended up. I couldn't do that job. We did it for like, two.

[Adam Friedland]

Did you write a Zuckerberg? You dropped a Zuckerberg.

[Jon Favreau]

No. No.

[Adam Friedland]

You did. He was like, this is the change that we believe in. For a gangly kid with big ears and a funny name, you're like, what are you doing?

[Jon Favreau]

It was just hard to take. Like, any company that was like, the CEO really needs a speech urgently in a month. And it's so important because, you know, I'm like, this is not that important.

[Adam Friedland]

Would you write a speech for Donald Trump?

[Jon Favreau]

No.

[Adam Friedland]

What if it was like, he gave you $1 million?

[Jon Favreau]

I could. I mean, what about. I could. At this point, I could easily write a speech exactly in his voice.

[Adam Friedland]

Yeah, yeah.

[Jon Favreau]

But I would not do that.

[Adam Friedland]

Arnold Palmer's dick. Yeah, I wish I did a good one. Did we. What was your specs? Your. Your sitcom specs? You did 30 Rock?

[Jon Favreau]

No, it was called. It's called Early States, and it was gonna be about bunch of. Bunch of young people in Iowa. It's supposed to be like a. Like a funnier, more like, you know, raunchier sort of West Wing kind of thing.

[Adam Friedland]

Oh, and they're like, on the campaign trail. Yeah, they're Hooking up.

[Jon Favreau]

Yeah, basically. Yeah.

[Adam Friedland]

And there's a little.

[Jon Favreau]

It's like a veep. Little more veep. Yeah. Before beep. Yeah. All right.

[Adam Friedland]

All right. I wrote a 911 sex of the City spec.

[Jon Favreau]

Was that. Yeah.

[Adam Friedland]

Carrie was upset because, like, that's still in development. No, they're not going to make it because in this political whatever. But, yeah, Carrie. Because Carrie's dating New York City, so she's really sad. But Samantha has to get south of 14th street because she needs to go have sex.

[Jon Favreau]

Yeah.

[Adam Friedland]

And then Steven, Charlotte or Stephen. Stephen Miranda or Trying to spice things up in their relationship. They're not really paying attention to 9 11. And then Charlotte's, like, realizes she's watching TV, that she had sex with Muhammad Atta the night before. What? I think it was a kind of a serious episode. I don't know. I don't know if that's meant to be funny.

[Jon Favreau]

More of a dramedy.

[Adam Friedland]

You found a company, Fenway Strategies.

[Jon Favreau]

Yeah, that was it.

[Adam Friedland]

Yes. What the. What, the Fed? Like a Boston.

[Jon Favreau]

Yeah, Boston guy.

[Adam Friedland]

What were your strategies? Like, you should blind a Vietnamese guy in one eye in a street fight. What were your strategies? Keeping minorities in a neighborhood called Jamaica. That's a little bit on the nose. What were your strategies? Mispronouncing car. Who put that in here? Was it just pure exhaustion leaving the White House? Or, like, is there like a. Do you want to get off the bench? Yeah. You kind of, like, possess a very valuable perspective on things. Do you feel like, perhaps, like, an obligation to. I mean, look at this shit right now. I mean, like, you should. What are you.

[Jon Favreau]

I do. I do feel an obligation. But I think that the reason we started Crooked Media and Pod Save America and all the rest and Vote Save America was because our theory was we need, like, the way people consume news about politics now is broken, and people don't want to participate in politics, and people are unsure of, like, how to persuade people to, you know, vote the way we want them to vote. And so we figured, let's start a media company. And also let's make sure that there's part of the company, which is Vote Save America, that, like, registers people to vote, gets people to organize, gets people to run for office themselves. So right now I feel like that is me doing. Yeah, but look how stupid they are.

[Adam Friedland]

The guys.

[Jon Favreau]

The guys know, the guys in the.

[Adam Friedland]

White House in the. No, just in the. In. In the show. The guys in the league right now are. You're smarter than the guys in the league right now.

[Jon Favreau]

But Know that now we need a good candidate, man. We need a good candidate for 28. Why don't you? Yeah, right.

[Adam Friedland]

Why not?

[Jon Favreau]

Why not?

[Adam Friedland]

You're a good looking guy. You buzz the hair. You get that?

[Jon Favreau]

You think I should buzz the hair?

[Adam Friedland]

You get the aviators, you buzz the hair.

[Jon Favreau]

Put the aviators back on.

[Adam Friedland]

Oh, my God. What would JD Bin Laden do about it? What would he even do? He would have no shot against the buzzcut kid with a gangly ear and whatever with a skinny kid with a huge dick and big ears. Did you ever have to. Did he ever write the huge dick? And you're like, Mr. President, you can't just say that.

[Jon Favreau]

It's show nutell.

[Adam Friedland]

It's. Come on, a skinny kid with big shoe, big feet. You know what, that, we all know what that means. I mean, like, yeah, I guess, like, yeah. Starting a media company, obviously you have access to a lot of people, you know, that's. You have a huge platform now, of course. But like, is there a motivation? Like, is there something inside of you where you're like, I kind of like, especially like seeing so how wackadoo it is now.

[Jon Favreau]

Yeah.

[Adam Friedland]

Where it's like, I could have a direct involvement where I could have like a. You're doing analysis now, right?

[Jon Favreau]

Like, like, I would, I wouldn't shut the door on it, but like, I'm always trying to figure out, like, how am I being of most use? And right now I think I am of better use doing what we're doing. If there was.

[Adam Friedland]

This is a humble thing right now.

[Jon Favreau]

Oh, no, no, no. This is just like, they're dumb guys.

[Adam Friedland]

They're dumb guys. Now.

[Jon Favreau]

There's a ton of, There's a ton of smart people.

[Adam Friedland]

Who's the smartest?

[Jon Favreau]

I don't know.

[Adam Friedland]

Besides Bernie, obviously.

[Jon Favreau]

Bernie. Right. No, there just needs to be. But like, you need a candidate, right? Like, you need a. You can get a movement that's good. You get organizers, you get staffers. You need a candidate who can inspire the country. And I don't right now.

[Adam Friedland]

Yeah, it's probably gonna have to be stop. Or me. I think a lot about your old boss and obviously, you know, I think about him in like Martha's Vineyard, watching tv and like, he's just like, what the. Like, there has to be a small inkling or like fear where it's like, is it my fault? Did I do something? You know? Or like. Right. Like, it's like the world fell apart, like right after.

[Jon Favreau]

Yep.

[Adam Friedland]

Yeah.

[Jon Favreau]

He doesn't think it's his fault. But I think he spends a lot of time thinking about, how do we get out of this? How can I help? And he spends a lot of time talking to a lot of candidates, a lot of people in the party trying to figure out, sort of. But he. I think he also knows that. And he said this. He's like, I. You know, I can't be. They can't be, like, dragging me out on stage forever. Like, there needs to be a new. A new younger leader in the party.

[Adam Friedland]

I was at the election night at Zoran's speech, and I believe that they asked the speechwriter, you know, there were a lot of parallels with Obama's speeches, and that was like, something.

[Jon Favreau]

No, I talked to those guys. They're. They're. They're fantastic.

[Adam Friedland]

That must feel cool. I mean, it does feel like there's a young, handsome, charismatic guy in the.

[Jon Favreau]

Party again when we were.

[Adam Friedland]

And they're calling him a Muslim again. And it's like, wow, we're back.

[Jon Favreau]

Yeah, we were in D.C. a few weeks ago, and a bunch of us from the Obama world get to hang out with a bunch of the Mamdani staff. And it was great. We were like, the old guys, like, reminiscing and so proud of them. And, you know, it's like we're all, like, different parts of the ideological spectrum, but there's. There is a real connection there in the. This was one of the first campaigns we can remember in a while where people were so excited, and it was genuinely grassroots and that. Like, it got people off their couch and off their phones and meeting up and knocking on doors. And yes, it was about Zoron, but it was also about, like, these kids, the young people in, like, a really tough time, actually allowing themselves to be hopeful again.

[Adam Friedland]

It sucks, dude. It sucks because you. It's like. It's like supporting Arsenal. I was talking about it with Zoro. It's the hope that kills you. It is the hope that killed the first time. It was your fault. And then it was when they knifed Bernie twice.

[Jon Favreau]

This is why it's like, hope difference between hope and optimism. Not the first one to say this, but, like, I like hope. Optimism, I don't like, because it's like, optimism is just guessing or hope or saying, like, maybe the future will be better now. And so now we elected Zoran, and, like, he'll either do great or he'll disappoint us, and that's it. But having hope is like, all right, what are we all going to do? If you're living in New York City to help make sure Mamdani is a successful mayor.

[Adam Friedland]

Well, you personally going back to like you and feeling a sense of obligation, like you had a firsthand experience on like a popular grassroots movement that didn't, that had trouble translating into, into legislative success a lot of the time, like you more than anyone I would imagine could impart those lessons, you know, to an administration like that. Maybe you should be like an intern or PA or something.

[Jon Favreau]

I take calls from anyone who wants advice. I'm always happy to offer advice. Yeah, I do a lot of, I do a lot of free work in my time.

[Adam Friedland]

No, you're like, I'm on the phone with Zuckerberg. I can't take his call right now.

[Jon Favreau]

I have to teach him how to buddy mark.

[Adam Friedland]

I guess like at this moment, like there's the Democratic Party kind of, it still hasn't coalesced around like platform agenda. Platform agenda, you know, opposition to. What is that coalition at this point?

[Jon Favreau]

I think back to that first video that Mamdani did in his race when he went to the Bronx and in few neighborhoods and was asking voters who like voted for Trump for the first time. They told him why and he wasn't judgmental. And they talked how it was like, well, it's too expensive. And that's why I did it. I do think that whatever the coalition is for the Democrats, it's going to be like, hey, the purpose of a political party, the purpose of government is to make sure that you can do whatever possible to improve people's lives, improve people's financial well being. And if we, you have to be willing to, first of all, talk to everyone, talk to people who didn't even vote your way. Leave out the possibility that, I mean, hold open the possibility that you can persuade people and that people aren't unreachable just because they voted for Donald Trump and build a coalition of working class people in this country. And we, like the Democrats, will never win an election if we are a coalition of college educated, mostly white people, which is where it's heading towards. And you know, for a while we thought, okay, we're the more diverse coalition. And then we started losing working class Hispanic voters and started losing some rappers, working class black men. You're losing rappers, losing rappers.

[Adam Friedland]

It's not good.

[Jon Favreau]

And so, you know, we're still a diverse coalition, but the way it's going is it's getting more college educated and you just, you know, two thirds of the people in the country don't have a college degree. One third do and so do the math. Like, we're not going to be a majority coalition that way. And so you've got to find a way to reach out and win working class people again. And the way to do that is to. It's really hard because you want to have an agenda that would tangibly improve their lives. But also you have to deliver on that agenda and you have to be able to, like, Zoron is going to have to figure out how to get a big part of his agenda passed or else you're going to get a messy thing, too. It's a messy thing and it's not all going to get done. And so then you've got to figure out like, okay, I mean, we dealt with this with the Affordable Care Act. It's not everything we wanted, it's not everything we needed, but we got 20 million people, health insurance, and we still need to build on it, and now we need to, you know, expand it and all that. But it's hard to say. All right, it's super difficult to pass a piece of legislation this big. We did it. That's great. But now people are still not happy because for good reason, they don't have enough. And so now vote for us again and we'll do the rest. Like, even saying it like, it sounds so piecemeal and incremental. And the reality is that's politics and that's the way the fucking system of government is set up.

[Adam Friedland]

I mean, I think, like, I was obviously a big supporter. I was a big supporter of the Bernie Sanders campaign. But I think one of the advantages is, like, you go to the doctor is a thing that you can understand. Yeah. And it is a tangible exchange of, like, if you vote for me, you go to the doctor. There's a transactional aspect to it. Right, right.

[Jon Favreau]

Like, it is a very simple and I would imagine compelling platform to say everyone in this country should be able to find a job. And if you have a job, you should be able to see a doctor, live somewhere.

[Adam Friedland]

Yeah, yeah.

[Jon Favreau]

And have enough money to raise a family some free time.

[Adam Friedland]

Only if you have a job.

[Jon Favreau]

And if you don't have a job.

[Adam Friedland]

You can't go to the doctor, then.

[Jon Favreau]

You can't go to the doctor. And if you don't have, if there's not a job available to you, then we'll help you as well.

[Adam Friedland]

Is there a feeling amongst members of the administration of regret after seeing what's happening with ICE right now?

[Jon Favreau]

I don't know.

[Adam Friedland]

Because it was, my understanding was a small program in dhs, that was expanded under Obama.

[Jon Favreau]

Yeah, we no longer. Where we f. Ked up was the first couple years. That's where, like, most of the deportations happen. And then by the time I think, like, Obama and the administration got their hands around it, they change the. Because if you're president, you have a lot of latitude there, and so you can sort of change the enforcement priorities. So then you can say, all right, ICE can only go after people who are criminal, like violent criminals, or the most recent arrivals.

[Adam Friedland]

Right.

[Jon Favreau]

And so I think by the time, like, 12, 13, 14 got around to that. But again, you're dealing with this with ice, which is, like, has a mind of its own and got pretty big end of the Bush administration. So those first two years, you saw, like, a ton of deportations.

[Adam Friedland]

And the other expansion was under Bush.

[Jon Favreau]

Bush.

[Adam Friedland]

And then I thought Bush was trying to do the. He was trying to do amnesty, wasn't he?

[Jon Favreau]

And so were we. The president can do a whole bunch of stuff on enforcement and either enforce more, as Trump is doing now, or enforce less, as we did by the end of Obama's second term. But you're never going to actually fix the system unless you change the laws and say, okay, the people who are here who are undocumented, you all get a path to citizenship. You get protection from deportation. And we're not just going to say that you get protection under one president, and then if Donald Trump wins again, you lose it. We're going to write it into law.

[Adam Friedland]

I had Lena Khan on the show, and she was talking about how there's, like, an inquest or, like, some tribunal after World War II in Congress. How does a country become the Nazis? And I'm like, whoa. I was like, they try to learn a lesson. I'm like, that's. I mean, that sounds baffling in this day and age, right? But then in the abstract, I understood kind of what was going on with the detainments, but there are, in effect, concentration camps in America right now. And, like, just go. I've tried to say this before, but I think the most succinct way of saying it is, like, how does a country become Nazis? Like, not every German person became a Nazi or started hating Jews. They just. It was largely invisible. A lot of the time they would see people get snatched, and then they'd go to the office the next day, and, like, they were sent to the East. And I think, like, I can see the Democratic Party sometimes being like, we gotta protect Social Security. You know, Like, I can see them be like, like, we don't have time. This is happening, but, like, what's more important is protecting Social Security. And that is.

[Jon Favreau]

We gotta talk about kitchen table issues.

[Adam Friedland]

That, that is, that is, I think, what's really scary to me right now, actually.

[Jon Favreau]

It. It's scary. It also, it's human beings. It's like what keeps me awake at night. It's infuriating to me. And part of this is like, we've been talking about Germany and all that. You don't even need to do any of the historical parallels because then you get into all these conversations.

[Adam Friedland]

Is it like that?

[Jon Favreau]

Is it not like that? Just go from the level of, like, individual human beings. There are hundreds, thousands of people in this country, like, many of whom are here legally, did everything right, didn't just, like, cross the border illegally. We're here legally. Some of them US Citizens snatched away, taken from their families, from their kids, pregnant women who, like, aren't getting the food they need. Like, that is happening in this country. And all I can think about is, like, you can show me the poll that tells me, well, people don't care as much about immigration. And if you talk more about healthcare and Social Security, that's gonna. I get that. I'm a student of polling. I like polling. I've done it. But you can't tell me that if someone hears the story of the pregnant woman who was snatched from her family and imprisoned for three days with no due process, that that's not going to get them angry. And if it doesn't, then I guess that's our country. But at least we can try to make sure that people know that those are the stories that are happening right now.

[Adam Friedland]

It seems like now is the time when we kind of need to take some lessons, not from just Trump being crazy, but from, like, what led us to this point, 100%. And what is, like, the first most important thing that we should be investigating and. Or what is the biggest lesson we have to take for the Runway that led us here? I mean, because you were there. Eight for the Runway initial time. Like what?

[Jon Favreau]

I think we need leaders in this country who. And you brought this up when you talked about, like, how the policies can sometimes feel small or incremental. But I think that Democrats for a while now have campaigned with a list of policies that poll well and also have campaigned sort of based on a sense of fear that either they're going to lose the election or that the other side is going to win, and the other side is so bad that they can't say anything that would help the other side win, you know, and so everyone is campaigning very cautiously and speaking cautiously and given their poll tested lines and their poll tested lists of policies that work well. And I think one thing that I've learned from the Trump years and from the Obama years is if you want people to pay attention to politics, to be engaged in politics, and to fight for the country that I think we know that we are better. Sorry. If you want people to fight for the country that we believe in, that you have to. You have to do more than that. You have to say what you actually believe.

[Adam Friedland]

Also, sometimes you have to pass the Civil Rights Act.

[Jon Favreau]

You have to pass the Civil Rights.

[Adam Friedland]

Act, and sometimes you might lose the south, like, forever.

[Jon Favreau]

You have to pass the Civil Rights Act. But even think, like, I mean, like, think of what it took to get so.

[Adam Friedland]

I mean, Johnson should be that example. That's what you were reminding me of. It's like, I'm not gonna get reelected, you know, and it's not fair because I killed the guy from before. And like, that is. That is not true. George Bush's dad did that. Okay, but. Okay, no, no, but like, Johnson, you know, he made a massive sacrifice for the party and for his own political career to do something that was right.

[Jon Favreau]

And it took 10 years of people marching in the streets, getting the shit beat out of them dying. And also leaders like Martin Luther King who, like, spoke in a way that was not just political, but, like, spiritual and moral about the country's, like, best ideals that we have never reached, but they're out there. And we need leaders who are gonna speak like that again in, like, moral and spiritual terms about. I mean, look, this. This is a country that, like, was founded on the most radical idea in history, that everyone's created equal.

[Adam Friedland]

Yeah. Not. Not. Wasn't that it?

[Jon Favreau]

And, like, you've gotta have that, like, set of values that you speak about. You got to tell a story about the country, about what it's been at its best, what it is at its worst, and, like, where it needs to go. And you have. And that story has to be told over and over again. And it has to be told with confidence and has to be told without some kind of a fear that people are going to attack you or yell at you over it. And I just think, like, that's the kind of. Those are the kind of leaders we need in the party right now. And I worry that people are thinking too small right now. Not just from a policy perspective, but in a rhetorical perspective. Like, what is the Story you're gonna tell about where this country needs to go and past Trump. We've now dealt with Trump for 10 years. We've all heard about Trump enough. Like, we don't need a whole primary in 2028. That's all about Donald Trump. There was a lot of George Bush when we ran in 2008, but, like, we didn't spend a ton of time in every speech talking about George Bush because everyone was like, george Bush is done. It's been two terms. We know that he fucked up the country, and now we're gonna talk about what's next. And I do hope that as we start getting towards 20, 26, 27, and 28, more Democrats are talking about, like, where they want to take this country.

[Adam Friedland]

Would he like me?

[Jon Favreau]

Obama? What's that?

[Adam Friedland]

Would he like me?

[Jon Favreau]

Yeah, he would like you.

[Adam Friedland]

No, shut up. Like, he likes jokes.

[Jon Favreau]

He does like jokes.

[Adam Friedland]

Yeah. Have you ever told him that Kendrick Lamar isn't that good? You should stop putting it on the list.

[Jon Favreau]

I've never told them that. No.

[Adam Friedland]

I wonder. Yeah. Have you heard Future? Way better. It's the society, the institution. Society. Come on, dude. It's not smart. It's freshman year as a writer. You can admit it's a little bit showing. Not telling or telling, not showing a little bit.

[Jon Favreau]

Yeah, yeah.

[Adam Friedland]

You're just saying the society, the institution, or the societies. You're not. I'm just saying you're not painting. Oh, come on, dude.

[Jon Favreau]

You more of a Drake guy?

[Adam Friedland]

Yeah, me and Obama are. Obama just can't admit it because he's Canadian and he's anti Semitic. Has Obama ever sent you a selfie?

[Jon Favreau]

No, he's never sent me a selfie.

[Adam Friedland]

Have you sent him one? No, you definitely can. You. Why don't you just send him your first. Just say, I realize I never sent you a selfie before. It's crazy.

[Jon Favreau]

Hey, boss.

[Adam Friedland]

You still think he's your boss?

[Jon Favreau]

He's boss for life, you know? Yeah. If he needs something, I'm always, you know, he needs help with something. I was like, sure, yeah, absolutely, sir.

[Adam Friedland]

You, like drop a baby. You're like, what? He's just. Can we. Can we face off Obama? Just real quick. Joji's favorite president is Obama. Joji is a 26 year old boy from Los Angeles, California, and his favorite president is Obama. And he wants to.

[Jon Favreau]

He wants to face down and he's dying.

[Adam Friedland]

He has a terminal illness.

[Jon Favreau]

Shut up.

[Adam Friedland]

Joji's very sick and this is his life.

[Jon Favreau]

All right.

[Adam Friedland]

Thanks a lot, everybody.

[Jon Favreau]

Give it up. Sam.