This is Gavin Newsom - And, This is Pod Save America's Jon Favreau & Tommy Vietor

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00:01:17.300 So what happened to Chappaquiddick?

00:01:19.360 Well, it really depends on who you talk to.

00:01:21.180 There are many versions of what happened in 1969 when a young Ted Kennedy drove a car into a pond.

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00:02:16.560 What's up, guys?

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00:02:49.140 This is Gavin Newsom.

00:03:00.700 And this is Pod Save America's Jon Favreau and Tommy Vitor.

00:03:04.720 When did you guys become crooked, by the way?

00:03:08.140 What the hell is that?

00:03:09.960 We were always crooked.

00:03:10.900 No, seriously, man.

00:03:11.460 Was that a tell?

00:03:12.360 Are you guys trying to tell?

00:03:13.640 I mean, what were you trying to communicate?

00:03:15.560 We named it in 2017 when we started.

00:03:18.180 Yeah.

00:03:18.360 And more people knew Pod Save America than crooked at first.

00:03:21.480 But we thought crooked media, like, it was 2017, so it was the height of Trump just won, resistance,

00:03:28.360 he's calling everyone the crooked media, and all that kind of stuff.

00:03:30.380 We were taking it back.

00:03:30.740 So it was tongue-in-cheek.

00:03:31.660 You were taking it back.

00:03:32.780 You weren't just admitting to something.

00:03:34.340 No.

00:03:34.880 No.

00:03:35.120 No.

00:03:35.620 But then it stuck, and now we don't know what it's going to do.

00:03:37.860 Now it's just here.

00:03:38.840 And so, I mean, but the point is, the point, I mean, this thing has evolved from 2017 in

00:03:44.760 ways that you can act in hindsight, like, of course, we always knew this was our trajectory,

00:03:50.120 our vision, but did you have any, no bullshit, did you have any idea that this thing would

00:03:55.680 be where it is today, and you guys would be so multifaceted, not just with one podcast,

00:04:00.320 multiple podcasts, and books, and tours, everything else?

00:04:03.360 No.

00:04:03.920 Absolutely not.

00:04:04.600 Absolute luck in timing.

00:04:05.880 We, me and Jon Favreau and Lovett, we sat in Jon's kitchen, and we bought, like, a website

00:04:14.580 on medium.com.

00:04:16.180 We tried a bunch of URLs.

00:04:17.720 I love it.

00:04:18.280 We couldn't get, like, crookedmedia.com.

00:04:20.880 We couldn't get crooked.com for a long time.

00:04:23.560 We, like, got in a negotiation with, like, the porn king of Arizona.

00:04:26.420 Yeah, there's some guy that sold porn sites in Arizona that had crooked media, and he

00:04:32.580 wouldn't sell.

00:04:32.680 How much do you remember?

00:04:33.740 He just wouldn't sell.

00:04:34.260 He just wouldn't sell.

00:04:34.860 He was passionate about the projects.

00:04:36.700 So we had to go crooked.com, our website.

00:04:38.960 Yeah, or, like, get crooked media.

00:04:39.960 Anyway, we rolled out, like, a medium website in one show and called it a company, and just

00:04:45.800 did, like, fake it until you make it for a while.

00:04:47.540 We also had no money, and we, I remember we went to the Bank of America and West Hollywood,

00:04:52.980 the three of us, and we were like, we'd like to open up a bank account.

00:04:55.740 And they're like, okay, well, you need to put some money in it.

00:04:58.840 And we're like, oh.

00:05:00.560 So we sat there when we, like, wrote a $25 check or something?

00:05:04.520 Like, like, cash.

00:05:05.300 We had to go.

00:05:06.100 Was that woman's name?

00:05:06.820 Wasn't it, like, Olga or Helga or something?

00:05:08.700 Yeah, she helped us.

00:05:09.820 And that's how we started.

00:05:10.900 No investor money, no nothing.

00:05:12.160 I think John turned to us.

00:05:13.000 He's like, I always sort of thought I'd open a joint account for the first time with my

00:05:16.300 wife.

00:05:16.600 Yeah, exactly.

00:05:17.180 But was it, were you guys drunk one night, and you said, we got some crazy idea, or we're

00:05:22.420 just looking for a job, help wanted?

00:05:24.260 Close.

00:05:25.220 So Tommy and Lovett and I, like, after the White House had talked about how there's not

00:05:30.520 enough progressive media, right?

00:05:32.760 And so we'd have, the three of us had been having that conversation.

00:05:35.320 Then during the 2016 race, Bill Simmons reached out to me, because we'd known each other, we

00:05:42.580 both went to Holy Cross, and he said, so I have this new site called The Ringer.

00:05:47.340 And I want to do something about the 2016 election, because we mostly do sports and

00:05:52.260 culture and stuff, but would you be interested in doing, like, a podcast with us for 2016?

00:05:57.940 And he knew Dan Pfeiffer, too, and he was like, maybe you and Dan can do this podcast.

00:06:01.640 So we started doing it, became popular, and then he's like, I could do two times a week.

00:06:06.780 And then Lovett and Tommy were around, and we said, let's do it.

00:06:11.120 And so then we started doing it at The Ringer.

00:06:13.460 And then when Trump won, we told Bill, like, look, I think we want to build something even

00:06:20.600 bigger than just Pod Save America.

00:06:22.520 And all the time it was called keeping it 1600.

00:06:25.940 We want to do something even bigger.

00:06:28.020 And it's weird to build a progressive media company, like, under the umbrella of The Ringer.

00:06:31.940 So we're going to go on our own.

00:06:33.900 And that's what we did.

00:06:34.860 Wow.

00:06:35.160 And did you, I mean, you guys are still doing early on side gigs and sort of hedging your

00:06:40.300 bet?

00:06:40.700 I lived in San Francisco.

00:06:41.840 I was commuting down, crashing in his guest bedroom the whole time.

00:06:45.360 We had a company together.

00:06:46.920 We had a consulting firm.

00:06:49.740 Consulting.

00:06:50.300 Full-fledged consulting.

00:06:51.860 Fenway Strategies.

00:06:52.480 We did speech writing.

00:06:53.540 Speech writing.

00:06:53.960 So there was speech writing, of course, which is a good gig.

00:06:56.520 But, like, yeah, people in my life, when, you know, look, going to your wife and saying,

00:07:02.940 honey, I want to move to Los Angeles to start a podcast with my friends in my, like, late

00:07:08.500 30s.

00:07:09.040 Like, that's a tough sell, man.

00:07:09.660 Yeah, no, you weren't 20.

00:07:10.980 That's a tough sell.

00:07:11.660 She wasn't totally surprised, though.

00:07:13.740 Not surprised, not sold.

00:07:16.460 Wonderful person, supportive partner, lover.

00:07:19.540 We came along for the ride.

00:07:20.540 That will be a good clip.

00:07:21.420 We'll get that out.

00:07:21.940 Yeah, thank you.

00:07:22.840 I'm serious.

00:07:23.560 We may lead with that.

00:07:24.620 Thank you.

00:07:24.900 Yes.

00:07:25.420 It's nice.

00:07:26.520 But, yeah, I mean, I think, you know, people I love desperately were like, cool, but, you

00:07:30.740 know, you've got, like, a fallback, right?

00:07:33.500 We do.

00:07:34.360 That was it.

00:07:34.840 But you just, you were all in.

00:07:36.320 You just knew it was going to...

00:07:37.380 Yeah, once we started Crooked, we realized that, you know, we had to move off Fenway.

00:07:43.740 And also, I think we both had gotten, you know, we'd done it for three or four years.

00:07:47.200 I think we got sick of writing speeches for, we had some really great clients.

00:07:51.740 You also, like, end up working with a bunch of companies.

00:07:53.420 Well, you do a company.

00:07:54.020 I mentioned corporate stuff, too.

00:07:55.300 Yeah, and that stuff, it's really, it is hard after you've been in politics to get

00:08:00.860 really excited and exercised over some CEO who, like, needs a speech in four weeks.

00:08:08.460 And it's like, it's urgent.

00:08:09.860 And we're like, it's not that urgent.

00:08:11.980 I'll tell you urgent.

00:08:13.200 Fine.

00:08:13.440 State of the union's urgent.

00:08:14.520 Exactly.

00:08:15.120 I also had this sort of weird, I don't know where it came from, ingrained belief that,

00:08:18.900 like, I needed to be an adult now and graduate from politics, the things I did with my friend,

00:08:24.680 and get a real job, right?

00:08:26.260 I don't know why I thought that.

00:08:27.580 And then throughout 2015, I'd wake up at 5 a.m. and, like, just scroll Twitter for an

00:08:33.080 hour and a half or two before doing my job.

00:08:36.420 And I was just, I was obsessed with politics.

00:08:38.100 I could not quit it.

00:08:39.340 It's interesting.

00:08:39.820 And by the way, is Twitter the go-to in terms of just trying to, I mean, and it continues

00:08:44.340 to be, right?

00:08:44.980 I mean, objectively.

00:08:46.080 I've tried to blue sky.

00:08:48.400 I have not.

00:08:48.760 And it's just not, I get why people go there.

00:08:52.640 I just think it's not fast enough.

00:08:54.960 It's not updated enough with the news.

00:08:56.480 There's not enough people there.

00:08:57.320 So where else, I mean, it's interesting, just as you guys prepare for your podcast, and you're

00:09:00.820 just staying on top of everything, and you're, of course, making the news, which is a big

00:09:03.880 part of your, obvious part of your success.

00:09:07.400 Where else, what is your media habit?

00:09:10.320 Are you cable folks, or you go home, turn on Rachel Maddow on Monday, and wonder when she's

00:09:16.140 coming back Tuesday through Friday, or, you know, or, I mean, honestly, what's...

00:09:20.620 I never do cable anymore.

00:09:22.280 I wake up, I read Playbook, I read Axios AM, and then I immediately go to the company Slack,

00:09:30.560 and people are putting news stories in the Slack, and then I'm looking on Twitter, and

00:09:34.640 I try to have about an hour of just reading the news and catching up on everything.

00:09:38.820 First thing in the morning.

00:09:39.280 Go to the New York Times, go to the Washington Post, Politico, and then after I do that, then

00:09:45.120 I try to do other things, but I am constantly scrolling and getting back into the feed.

00:09:50.180 Is that the menu for you, similar?

00:09:51.840 I have similar stuff, but I'm a sicko like you.

00:09:54.200 Like, we only have Fox on in our office, because we kind of like the conservative perspective,

00:09:58.000 but then I like to listen.

00:09:58.840 By the way, I just walked in, and it said, Newsom swearing like a drunken sailor.

00:10:03.200 With Sean Ryan.

00:10:03.600 With Sean Ryan.

00:10:04.400 I literally want to talk about it.

00:10:05.560 Like a drunken sailor.

00:10:06.920 You make a lot of appearances on Fox.

00:10:09.000 We do now.

00:10:10.240 It's real.

00:10:11.120 The more you watch it, you're...

00:10:12.120 You become a character, and you're like, oh, I got a recurring role.

00:10:13.600 It is a character, but you're...

00:10:15.220 So you were actually...

00:10:16.120 So you indulge.

00:10:17.400 You're watching...

00:10:18.060 Yeah, I listen to like...

00:10:19.300 I try to listen to Tucker, especially around the Iran stuff.

00:10:22.200 I listen to a lot of Bannon.

00:10:24.760 I dabbled in some InfoWars recently.

00:10:27.080 You're doing InfoWars.

00:10:28.500 Yeah, I mean...

00:10:29.240 You just can't quit, aren't you?

00:10:30.340 I think it's really even after the bankruptcy.

00:10:32.480 Like, you know, it's weird.

00:10:34.800 It's a weird habit.

00:10:35.100 Is it the Epstein thing that brought you back to the InfoWars?

00:10:37.820 No, it was Iran.

00:10:38.160 Because it's so much fun?

00:10:38.800 It was Iran.

00:10:39.380 It was Iran.

00:10:39.760 Like, watching sort of...

00:10:40.620 Hearing their arguments on things, I think, is really valuable.

00:10:43.520 And also...

00:10:43.800 100%.

00:10:44.220 Like, there's people who you see only clips of, and you kind of...

00:10:47.140 You caricature them, or decide that they're stupid or useless.

00:10:50.880 And then if you see them in their kind of home environment, you realize, like, oh, these

00:10:53.900 are dangerous people.

00:10:55.160 I love that.

00:10:56.100 And who...

00:10:56.480 I mean, by the way, I could not agree with you more on that, in terms of observations.

00:10:59.840 One of the reasons when I started this podcast, we had those guys on.

00:11:03.220 We had Bannon on.

00:11:03.940 We had Kirk on.

00:11:04.760 Because I don't think people were taking them as seriously as they should be taking

00:11:07.900 them.

00:11:08.420 But who do you...

00:11:08.980 When you guys look at that universe, particularly from the conservative or even conspiratorial

00:11:13.580 conservative side, who are the folks that would be in that category as folks that,

00:11:18.180 you know, are weapons for that grievance, that are folks that we should pay a little

00:11:21.820 bit more attention to?

00:11:23.300 I mean, is it...

00:11:23.860 Do you still count Alex Jones in that space, or is it more the Bannon types?

00:11:27.600 Tucker and Bannon are kind of the most...

00:11:30.500 They're just really good at what they do.

00:11:32.980 But, like, look, I got...

00:11:33.720 I think they have the most cohesive ideology, too.

00:11:36.240 And they're just...

00:11:36.880 Like, Tucker Carlson's a very...

00:11:38.740 Look, I don't agree with him on almost anything, but he's very talented at what he does.

00:11:42.580 And he, like, brings in the...

00:11:43.800 Like, I listened to his entire interview with Sean Ryan before I listened to you on Sean's

00:11:48.620 show.

00:11:48.960 Because, like, initially, Tucker was saying some things about Trump, and Sean was saying

00:11:52.940 some things about Trump being corrupt.

00:11:54.160 And I was like, ooh, this is damaging to Trump.

00:11:55.660 This is good.

00:11:56.180 But then I got sucked in.

00:11:57.580 Because Sean Ryan's, like, a Navy SEAL who became a CIA contractor who became a drug

00:12:02.160 runner for cartels in Medellin.

00:12:03.860 I'm like, this is the most interesting fucking guy I've ever heard in my life.

00:12:06.700 By the way, you go in his studio, and if you didn't think that was interesting, you

00:12:10.040 just look at all the memorabilia he has.

00:12:11.900 In the stories, there's a hinge, and he explains what that hinge did and what it represented.

00:12:16.500 And there's machetes, and there's all kinds of other things he's brought back.

00:12:19.920 You got a god of it, huh?

00:12:20.920 And I, by the way, for the record, for the 10 reporters that have already called, have

00:12:26.280 you registered it?

00:12:27.160 First of all, I haven't received it yet.

00:12:28.740 Have you reported it as a gift?

00:12:30.340 I haven't yet received the invoice yet.

00:12:32.780 All of that will be taken care of, just for the record.

00:12:36.220 And then you didn't leave for, like, 15 hours or something?

00:12:39.160 This is the longest interview.

00:12:40.400 Yeah, don't you got one year?

00:12:40.420 Here's our four-hour interviews, right?

00:12:41.800 Four hours.

00:12:42.280 Did you not?

00:12:42.680 Can you leave four hours?

00:12:43.540 Did you pee during this?

00:12:44.700 We had one quick break.

00:12:46.340 Okay.

00:12:46.560 By the way, I got to say about that guy, it's a hell of a resume.

00:12:51.700 There's a decency to him.

00:12:53.100 Oh, he seemed great.

00:12:53.840 I mean, he's, like, he talks about his family.

00:12:56.440 I just, for me, the character is about, I want to talk about your kids, talk about your

00:13:00.180 wife.

00:13:00.640 Yeah.

00:13:01.160 The sense of community contribution.

00:13:04.300 He's a good human being.

00:13:05.720 I was really, I was, he created a sort of safe environment where, you know, I mean,

00:13:10.600 that's where, how else are you going to spend four damn hours going back and forth?

00:13:14.160 I haven't had a four-hour conversation with my wife, my closest friends, my parents in

00:13:19.600 as long as I can remember.

00:13:20.600 Like, four hours.

00:13:21.820 Well, this is only scheduled for three.

00:13:23.880 So I admit I missed the mark as well.

00:13:26.740 I don't know Sean Ryan's politics.

00:13:28.700 I did, like, come away just feeling like he really wanted to connect with you as a human

00:13:32.960 being.

00:13:33.380 And he seemed curious.

00:13:34.880 And I really respected that.

00:13:36.280 There was one very funny moment in the interview where you're doing this, like, thoughtful answer

00:13:40.460 about masculinity in politics, and you sort of do this long thing, and Sean goes, do

00:13:44.720 you know what the number one most searched porn term is?

00:13:47.120 I laughed so hard.

00:13:48.620 I laughed out loud.

00:13:49.800 I texted your staff when I got that, and I was like, wow, didn't realize incest porn was

00:13:54.480 going to come up at hour 2.30.

00:13:57.620 2.30.

00:13:58.720 Hey, guys, legit, you listened.

00:14:00.400 I mean, that was, yeah, that was way deep in.

00:14:03.300 That was.

00:14:04.240 Well, I thought he asked me, well, I don't know, but now we're going to get into the condom

00:14:07.400 conversation, dude, did you sign the condom bill?

00:14:10.120 You were very funny during the condom one, because I could hear, I could see the wheels

00:14:13.820 turning in your mind, because he was like, did you have anything to do with the condom

00:14:16.960 lot?

00:14:17.240 And I was like, I might.

00:14:17.540 And you're thinking, like, is he for it?

00:14:19.320 Is he against it?

00:14:20.360 Like, I can't tell.

00:14:21.500 Plus, I do 2,000 bills a year.

00:14:23.240 I mean, it's been seven years.

00:14:24.380 I mean, I may have done something.

00:14:26.060 Like, should I feel guilty?

00:14:27.740 Am I proud of it?

00:14:28.560 I don't know.

00:14:28.840 And then he was like, no, I think porn is really bad for our kids.

00:14:31.920 And I was like, oh, you're like, okay, okay.

00:14:33.600 Got it, got it.

00:14:34.240 He's on that side of it.

00:14:35.100 Okay.

00:14:35.560 That's fine.

00:14:36.320 You.

00:14:37.600 So, you know, look, it goes to what you guys were trying to solve for back in 2017, that

00:14:43.820 the right at the time, it wasn't even the big podcast, it was probably, or it was, was

00:14:47.740 a not dominantly right-wing radio, right, that you were kind of up against, and so emerging.

00:14:53.460 Who were there, who was sort of the dominant right-wing podcaster in 2017, 18?

00:14:59.120 Or were there any that would really stand out, do you recall?

00:15:01.460 It's funny, it wasn't a, I don't think it was like a big deal back then.

00:15:04.100 And I'm sure, like, Ben Shapiro kind of emerged around that time.

00:15:08.380 Yeah, the Daily Wire time.

00:15:09.100 Daily Caller, Daily Wire.

00:15:10.960 I don't know the dates in my head.

00:15:12.440 Right.

00:15:13.380 But yeah, I think those guys did a really smart thing.

00:15:15.740 The right-wing donors invested earlier and helped them build infrastructure, and they

00:15:19.660 all invested in YouTube early.

00:15:21.680 Yeah.

00:15:22.140 And built shows there and audience there.

00:15:23.840 There's something about the format, which we stumbled into.

00:15:27.800 Like, we didn't plan this.

00:15:29.260 But we had complained to each other, and anyone who would listen, how cable and, like, television

00:15:36.160 interviews just, they force you into soundbites because you only have a five-minute hit.

00:15:41.920 A hundred percent.

00:15:42.380 And so you just don't get to have those conversations.

00:15:44.720 And before, like, at one point, Lovett and Tommy and I pitched a television show that was

00:15:49.740 going to be like Pod Save America on TV before we did the podcast.

00:15:52.800 The podcast.

00:15:53.740 And everyone's like, no.

00:15:55.320 Well, every time we did it.

00:15:56.260 You got an HBO thing out of it.

00:15:57.660 Not even really, yeah.

00:15:57.940 Yeah, that was just our podcast.

00:15:59.320 Yeah.

00:15:59.580 But then it was like, when we tried to pitch that show, it wasn't working partly because

00:16:03.800 we're like, the conversations we want to have are longer than, like, television executives

00:16:09.060 would want to fit into a show.

00:16:11.360 And once we started doing the podcast, we realized, like, oh, you get to have conversations

00:16:15.140 that are more in-depth, nuanced, people are more likely to be themselves the longer

00:16:20.120 you talk to them, and you can sort of make the points you want to make without sounding

00:16:24.440 like a fucking talking point machine.

00:16:26.640 And was YouTube the weapon for you to really scale this?

00:16:29.860 I mean, was it the visual?

00:16:31.160 When did it become more of a visual medium than just online, just voice?

00:16:36.880 There were some, like, inflection points seemingly in podcasting.

00:16:40.560 I think one of them was 2017 when there were a lot of, like, OG podcasters who came along

00:16:47.260 before that time, like Simmons and Marc Maron and lots of folks.

00:16:50.580 But I think there was a lot of growth in 2017, which got us, a lot of people's, like, first

00:16:58.020 podcast was us.

00:16:58.960 We built a big RSS feed.

00:17:01.040 We actually didn't invest enough into YouTube until pretty recently, and that was a mistake

00:17:07.000 and it's a deficit we're trying to build out of.

00:17:09.300 But that just takes reps.

00:17:10.400 I think we didn't even film until the pandemic.

00:17:13.660 You weren't even filming?

00:17:14.720 Yeah, because I remember there's a little, we have, like, a Dan Pfeiffer on the phone

00:17:19.700 and a picture of Dan because Dan's in San Francisco.

00:17:21.940 And so we used to do that because Dan would just be on the phone.

00:17:24.700 It was just a static picture.

00:17:25.400 Yeah.

00:17:25.860 And then in the pandemic, we all started doing Zoom.

00:17:27.920 And then I think after that, we were like, now we're going to do a whole studio and we'll

00:17:30.900 do filming.

00:17:31.520 What do you guys think is the biggest, I mean, if you look back at some of those early podcasts

00:17:35.240 with you guys, what's the biggest change, perceived or otherwise, intentional or just

00:17:40.460 happenstance in terms of how you approach interviews versus how you approached them before?

00:17:45.480 Have you become more or less fill in the blank?

00:17:49.440 What?

00:17:50.940 Argumentative?

00:17:51.980 Passive?

00:17:53.660 Good question.

00:17:54.540 You know what I've been trying to do is approach interviews thinking, what do I actually want

00:18:01.120 to know from this person and not think about it in terms of, like, what is the audience

00:18:07.460 going to need and want and be happy about?

00:18:10.560 And I also think that I'm trying not to interview politicians like they are interviewed on cable,

00:18:18.980 which I think I sort of automatically fell into when we first started doing it because

00:18:22.880 that's the example that you have.

00:18:25.160 And when you interview them like that, they're more likely to just give you the talking point

00:18:30.540 stuff.

00:18:31.240 And when you sit down for a while, then, you know, you get more interesting stuff.

00:18:36.020 You break them down.

00:18:37.380 You break them down.

00:18:37.660 And it's not even like, oh, you finally get news out of them that, like, their staff's

00:18:41.280 going to be pissed about.

00:18:42.080 It's just, you know, like, just listening to you for four hours on Sean Ryan, it was like,

00:18:46.540 I knew I got to learn more about you than I've learned in many other interviews.

00:18:50.900 And, like, not to blow smoke, but I don't think there's a lot of Democrats that could

00:18:57.200 just hang like that for four hours.

00:18:58.740 Like, everyone's like, oh, Democrats go on Rogan.

00:19:00.540 It's like, well, not the wrong Democrat.

00:19:02.540 You know what I mean?

00:19:03.040 Like, that's not going to help our case.

00:19:05.380 But, yeah, I think the question about...

00:19:08.040 Rogan came on that podcast, too, from that first question, which is the last thing I was

00:19:11.780 expecting.

00:19:12.260 That was...

00:19:13.040 Oh, we have an audience question, the first one.

00:19:16.620 I'm like, whoa, okay, I got a gun, and then I got a vaccine question with Rogan, anyway.

00:19:24.780 Rocky start.

00:19:28.820 So, what happened at Chappaquiddick?

00:19:30.780 Well, it really depends on who you talk to.

00:19:32.620 There are many versions of what happened in 1969 when a young Ted Kennedy drove a car into

00:19:38.100 a pond.

00:19:39.120 And left a woman behind to drown.

00:19:41.620 There's a famous headline, I think, in the New York Daily News.

00:19:44.860 It's, Teddy escapes, blonde drowns.

00:19:47.780 And in a strange way, right, that sort of tells you the story really became about Ted's

00:19:53.120 political future, Ted's political hopes.

00:19:55.480 Will Ted become president?

00:19:56.780 Chappaquiddick is a story of a tragic death and how the Kennedy machine took control.

00:20:01.080 And he's not the only Kennedy to survive a scandal.

00:20:04.180 The Kennedys have lived through disgrace, affairs, violence, you name it.

00:20:08.320 So, is there a curse?

00:20:09.320 Every week, we go behind the headlines and beyond the drama of America's royal family.

00:20:14.600 Listen to United States of Kennedy on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your

00:20:20.020 podcasts.

00:20:25.060 American history is full of wise people.

00:20:29.640 What woman said something like, you know, 99.99% of war is diarrhea and 1% is glory.

00:20:35.800 Those founding fathers were gossipy AF, and they love to cut each other down.

00:20:42.080 I'm Bob Crawford, host of American History Hotline, the show where you send us your questions

00:20:47.460 about American history, and I find the answers, including the nuggets of wisdom our history

00:20:53.500 has to offer.

00:20:54.820 Hamilton pauses, and then he says, the greatest man that ever lived was Julius Caesar.

00:20:59.680 And Jefferson writes in his diary, this proves that Hamilton is for a dictator based on corruption.

00:21:07.080 My favorite line was what Neil Armstrong said, it would have been harder to fake it than

00:21:12.140 to do it.

00:21:13.220 Listen to American History Hotline on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your

00:21:19.540 podcasts.

00:21:24.320 Just like great shoes, great books take you places.

00:21:27.580 Through unforgettable love stories, and into conversations with characters you'll never

00:21:32.420 forget.

00:21:33.180 I think any good romance, it gives me this feeling of, like, butterflies.

00:21:37.740 I'm Danielle Robay, and this is Bookmarked by Reese's Book Club, the new podcast from Hello

00:21:42.460 Sunshine and iHeart Podcasts.

00:21:44.540 Every week, I sit down with your favorite book lovers, authors, celebrities, book talkers,

00:21:49.440 and more, to explore the stories that shape us, on the page and off.

00:21:54.040 I've been reading every Reese's Book Club pick, deep-diving book talk theories, and obsessing

00:21:59.260 over book-to-screen casts for years.

00:22:01.300 And now, I get to talk to the people making the magic.

00:22:04.580 So if you've ever fallen in love with a fictional character, or cried at the last chapter, or passed

00:22:09.880 a book to a friend saying, you have to read this, this podcast is for you.

00:22:15.640 Listen to Bookmarked by Reese's Book Club on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever

00:22:20.700 you get your podcasts.

00:22:25.460 Hello, this is Ruthie Rogers, host of Ruthie's Table 4.

00:22:29.100 Ali called me the stray dog because I would always turn up at my mate's house at mealtimes.

00:22:34.360 This week, I'm talking to Bono.

00:22:36.300 All of my ideas about social justice, or rather the lack of it, came from my father, too.

00:22:41.540 People have to have health, housing, and education drilled into me and his values.

00:22:47.080 Listen to Ruthie's Table 4 on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your

00:22:52.600 podcasts.

00:22:55.400 I know a lot of cops, and they get asked all the time, have you ever had to shoot your gun?

00:23:00.620 Sometimes the answer is yes.

00:23:04.700 But there's a company dedicated to a future, where the answer will always be no.

00:23:10.580 Across the country, cops called this taser the revolution.

00:23:14.420 But not everyone was convinced it was that simple.

00:23:17.080 Cops believed everything that taser told them.

00:23:20.300 From Lava for Good and the team that brought you Bone Valley, comes a story about what happened

00:23:24.740 when a multibillion-dollar company dedicated itself to one visionary mission.

00:23:30.520 This is Absolute Season 1, Taser Incorporated.

00:23:35.740 I get right back there, and it's bad.

00:23:39.060 It's really, really, really bad.

00:23:42.740 Listen to new episodes of Absolute Season 1, Taser Incorporated, on the iHeartRadio app,

00:23:48.600 Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

00:23:51.040 Binge Episodes 1, 2, and 3 on May 21st, and Episodes 4, 5, and 6 on June 4th.

00:23:57.140 Ad-free at Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts.

00:24:06.680 No, I do have a bone to pick with you, though, because when you launched—

00:24:10.000 At four hours, you got more than a bone.

00:24:11.680 I mean, I got an entire skeleton.

00:24:13.920 When you launched this show, I had been trying to—I'd been in talks with Steve Bannon

00:24:18.740 because I was trying to book him, and my strategy with this was to try to get Steve on.

00:24:23.200 I do think he's interesting, and I was kind of hoping to drive a wedge

00:24:26.680 between the kind of populist wing and the Elon wing of the party

00:24:29.620 because they were just starting to fight.

00:24:30.900 At the time, it was fun, right?

00:24:31.620 And then you had him on, and I was just like, well, shit.

00:24:34.920 I can't do that now.

00:24:36.100 You know, I'm old news.

00:24:37.120 You're old news?

00:24:37.880 Steve's got a new—

00:24:38.740 Yeah, Steve's just derivative of this Newsome guy up north.

00:24:40.800 Steve's got a new crush.

00:24:42.080 A new crush.

00:24:42.740 You started big with, like, Bannon and Charlie Kirk, and now you're at us.

00:24:48.020 So I don't know what happened.

00:24:49.680 I had Dr. Phil.

00:24:51.280 Yeah, that's good.

00:24:52.680 That's good.

00:24:53.060 Even Newt Gingrich, who I helped run my recall.

00:24:55.880 You need filler guests every once in a while.

00:24:57.300 Yeah, filler guests.

00:24:58.980 So back to that.

00:25:01.020 Just, I mean, when you talk about that, it's serious.

00:25:02.900 I mean, you guys, you've sort of raised the bar, your own expectation, your own excellence.

00:25:07.540 I mean, how do you—I mean, how important are guests to you guys versus just staying current on the news

00:25:13.560 and providing an insight that may not be offered anywhere else because of your own experience?

00:25:18.340 I mean, how stressed are you about getting a Bannon type or getting whoever's—

00:25:23.880 I mean, getting Jeffrey Epstein's cousin on who we'd love to talk about who's really in the list?

00:25:30.460 Booking Epstein would be huge.

00:25:31.880 Yeah, well, it's—

00:25:32.640 By the way, I'm told he's alive.

00:25:35.020 Some say.

00:25:35.800 Some say.

00:25:36.400 Yeah, when in doubt, some say.

00:25:38.300 Yeah, some say.

00:25:39.740 Some say.

00:25:40.660 Many people are saying.

00:25:41.700 Yeah, some say.

00:25:42.320 I would say that we spend the most time on the news portion of the show, which is kind of the first, like, three blocks

00:25:47.520 because that's when you just—it just takes a lot of—for me, it takes a lot of preparation to feel prepared

00:25:53.440 and have something to say and to feel—to reduce my own anxiety about doing something.

00:25:58.800 I just have to, like, work until I feel comfortable.

00:26:00.940 100%.

00:26:01.280 The guest—for, I think, early in the show, we felt the need to go for names or electeds or to check a box in some way,

00:26:11.700 and now it's a little more freewheeling, like, what is interesting to the audience.

00:26:15.640 And also, you know, I think we were very much a democratic safe space, and we still are, and we're trying to think of ways to, like, change it up.

00:26:24.720 You know, like I had Glenn Greenwald on the other day on my foreign policy show, like, not someone that a lot of Democrats love,

00:26:30.600 but has a really interesting perspective on freedom of speech, and we wanted to hear it.

00:26:34.380 Yeah. I had—I talked to Ross Douthat on Offline about his book on religion and, like, the existence of an afterlife,

00:26:42.880 which the—I would say our audience was a little like, what are you doing?

00:26:47.340 But I was like, you know what? I read the book. I found it interesting. I want to talk to him.

00:26:50.780 I also, like—we are always going to be democratic strategists because that was our life in the White House.

00:26:58.040 And so each show I see as, like, balancing a couple different equities.

00:27:03.800 One is I want to make it interesting for people.

00:27:06.240 The other is I want to give people good information and not just bullshit and give them the details that they need.

00:27:13.280 And then I want to make sure we are persuading people, either people who aren't persuaded who are listening

00:27:19.040 or people who are already persuaded who are listening but might be talking to their friends and family.

00:27:24.900 And we sort of want to give them advice on how to convince other people to get involved in politics, to vote for Democrats, right?

00:27:33.420 And so that's part of it, too.

00:27:36.080 And then we also want to be honest so that when, you know, Democrats fuck up or do something that we disagree with,

00:27:43.640 that we can say it and say it respectfully, you know?

00:27:46.320 Yeah. When did you guys—I mean, it's—obviously, we talked—I mean, it's obvious to anyone who listens to you guys,

00:27:52.880 but it's not just a podcast in a traditional sense.

00:27:55.980 You've kind of, to your point, sort of built a movement.

00:27:59.260 The book itself was about democracy. It was about civic engagement.

00:28:02.840 You lead with action, not just complaints and gripes.

00:28:07.640 You talk about what people can do to get mobilized, organized.

00:28:10.240 But one of the things that's really been remarkable to watch is how successful you've been on the road in building out events.

00:28:17.080 Was that always part of the original theory of the case?

00:28:22.280 Was that sort of table stakes in 2017, said, yeah, we'll do this, but we're going to do big events?

00:28:28.040 We didn't think anyone would show up.

00:28:29.180 No. We had this amazing agent named Kevin Shivers, who worked at WME, now is at—how about the name?

00:28:35.860 Casey Wasserman.

00:28:36.320 Sorry. Now is it. We had this amazing agent, Kevin Shivers, at WME, now is with Casey Wasserman,

00:28:40.700 who was like, trust me, let me build this touring thing for you.

00:28:45.600 I promise you it'll work.

00:28:47.040 And we're like, okay, buddy.

00:28:48.500 And the first time we did an event, there were folding chairs,

00:28:54.620 and we didn't realize that we had to end the event, and Lovett had to run off at hour three to go pee.

00:29:01.300 Well, Jay Inslee was on the stage with us.

00:29:02.920 Taking questions about light rail.

00:29:05.880 It was a late night in Seattle.

00:29:07.600 It was a long show.

00:29:08.580 We're definitely talking about the same Jay Inslee.

00:29:10.440 Yeah, yeah.

00:29:11.820 And like, yeah, we slowly evolved and I kind of figured it out.

00:29:14.880 But what we noticed over time is that often the best shows were in red states,

00:29:19.800 because it turned into this little revival.

00:29:21.540 I get it. Totally get it.

00:29:22.960 I was just in South Carolina and did seven, nine events.

00:29:27.300 And every time I'm in a red state, it could be Alabama, Mississippi,

00:29:31.000 I was out there for Biden, specifically going to the red states on his behalf,

00:29:35.380 intentionally not going to the blue states.

00:29:37.600 And the state of mind there is just more of gratitude.

00:29:42.460 Thank you for showing up.

00:29:43.800 Exactly.

00:29:44.200 Thank you for not turning your back.

00:29:45.460 Arkansas was the same way.

00:29:47.540 And so I'm not surprised to hear that.

00:29:49.640 It didn't surprise me even with Bernie on the tour,

00:29:51.620 saying, well, you're part in red rural parts of California or red parts of the states.

00:29:54.640 Of course.

00:29:55.140 I mean, you're going to get that energy.

00:29:57.860 Well, because there's still, you know, 20, 30 percent of those red areas are still Democrats.

00:30:01.920 And those Democrats are starved for someone.

00:30:05.000 But I also think that, I mean, what I've really loved about the touring is just you spend too much time in a studio

00:30:11.280 with just your co-hosts.

00:30:14.280 And you do lose, like, what are people talking about?

00:30:18.540 What's interesting?

00:30:19.280 You don't get that just by, like, looking online and looking on Twitter.

00:30:22.020 That's a good point.

00:30:22.320 And just being around people, like, I get energy from that.

00:30:26.000 And then when we go and do campaign stuff before, like, midterms and we go do, you know,

00:30:31.500 we knock on doors and do canvassing and just, like, getting to meet people and talk to them,

00:30:35.300 it does inspire you because you're like, okay, all is not lost.

00:30:38.920 There's a lot of good people out there who care about this shit.

00:30:41.740 And, you know, they just want to know what to do.

00:30:44.760 And Trump treats it like he treats going to events like he's a comic on the road.

00:30:49.540 He tries out new material.

00:30:50.980 He sees what plays.

00:30:52.280 He comments back to them about how it's playing in real time.

00:30:54.840 And then he, like, he focus groups everything he does in that sense.

00:30:57.940 It's interesting you say that because he, the whole new, he calls me new scum.

00:31:01.800 And he goes, oh, the audience loves it.

00:31:03.340 Audience loves it.

00:31:04.120 And it's just, it's just like, he's, I mean, he says, so it's an applause.

00:31:07.260 So he's like, hey, man, I got to go, you know, you got to go, it's my base.

00:31:11.020 It's my base.

00:31:11.700 Nothing, it's a way of him saying nothing personal.

00:31:13.440 Sure, of course, sure.

00:31:14.080 I'm like, really?

00:31:14.720 Okay, Jesus, man.

00:31:17.000 But it's interesting.

00:31:18.160 I reflect on what you guys are doing, reflect going back to Charlie Kirk and Turning Point,

00:31:23.320 and obviously this weekend, and there was a sort of turning point as it relates to the

00:31:26.940 Epstein stuff.

00:31:27.640 We've danced around that a little bit.

00:31:29.300 And watching Megyn Kelly, who's like, I think, gone full mega.

00:31:32.260 She's always danced around, but is now fully in.

00:31:34.800 And Charlie, and of course, Bannon and the who's who, just teeing off.

00:31:41.100 But before we get into Epstein, I mean, what do you think of what Kirk is doing and how

00:31:45.920 he's doing it?

00:31:46.680 And are there cues, are there lessons, are there concerns, or should be, you know, cautionary

00:31:52.420 flags for Democrats?

00:31:53.480 Should we be doing some similar things, but from the prism of progressive politics?

00:31:57.700 What's your sort of over under on what they've put together?

00:32:01.340 I think it's really smart and strategic.

00:32:04.700 I thought it was interesting, just for present day, I thought it was interesting that they

00:32:09.540 allowed so much space for conversation about Epstein, because, like, Charlie, like, to

00:32:18.000 a large extent, I think, kind of trades his credibility for a seat at the table, right?

00:32:23.640 Like, he will be on Team Trump eventually, but he felt the need to let some air out of

00:32:27.940 that balloon, and it was notable, and not something Democrats always do.

00:32:31.380 I think we sometimes suppress arguments, and we should do more of what they did.

00:32:34.840 It's interesting.

00:32:35.140 I will say, what he's built is super impressive.

00:32:37.540 It did help that he got a ton of, like, big donor and fossil fuel money early on, because

00:32:44.800 they were kind of worried about libs on campus.

00:32:47.600 And I think we need to think about long-term infrastructure and party building like that.

00:32:53.320 I mean, one thing that Charlie Kirk also did that was probably smart is he goes to these

00:32:57.680 campuses and finds libs to debate, and is not afraid to debate.

00:33:02.400 And I think we are, there's enough of us now sort of turning the corner on that in the

00:33:07.780 Democratic Party, but for a long time it was, don't go on Fox, there's no use in debating

00:33:12.640 these people.

00:33:13.780 And I get the reasons for that, but it's also, like, if you can't defend your ideas live in

00:33:23.100 front of another person who you disagree with, and who may be crazy extreme, but you disagree

00:33:28.620 with them, and they've got an audience, and people are paying attention, and if you're

00:33:32.520 one of the, you know, the majority of people who don't pay close attention to politics in

00:33:37.000 this country, then when you hear one person's message, and even if they're filled with lies

00:33:43.360 and all kinds of extreme stuff, and you just hear the other side is just talking about

00:33:46.520 themselves, like, you're just naturally going to say, well, I don't know, at least they're

00:33:50.580 showing up, at least they're debating.

00:33:56.040 So what happened at Chappaquiddick?

00:33:58.020 Well, it really depends on who you talk to.

00:34:00.200 There are many versions of what happened in 1969 when a young Ted Kennedy drove a car into

00:34:05.320 a pond.

00:34:06.240 And left a woman behind to drown.

00:34:09.280 There's a famous headline, I think, in the New York Daily News.

00:34:12.080 It's, Teddy escapes, blonde drowns.

00:34:14.780 And in a strange way, right, that sort of tells you the story really became about Ted's

00:34:20.320 political future, Ted's political hopes.

00:34:22.700 Will Ted become president?

00:34:24.000 Chappaquiddick is a story of a tragic death and how the Kennedy machine took control.

00:34:28.320 And he's not the only Kennedy to survive a scandal.

00:34:31.500 The Kennedys have lived through disgrace, affairs, violence, you name it.

00:34:35.540 So is there a curse?

00:34:36.840 Every week, we go behind the headlines and beyond the drama of America's royal family.

00:34:41.340 Listen to United States of Kennedy on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your

00:34:47.220 podcasts.

00:34:52.160 American history is full of wise people.

00:34:57.000 What woman said something like, you know, 99.99% of war is diarrhea and 1% is gory.

00:35:03.180 Those founding fathers were gossipy AF and they love to cut each other down.

00:35:09.040 I'm Bob Crawford, host of American History Hotline, the show where you send us your questions

00:35:14.660 about American history and I find the answers, including the nuggets of wisdom our history

00:35:20.720 has to offer.

00:35:22.000 Hamilton pauses and then he says, the greatest man that ever lived was Julius Caesar.

00:35:27.480 And Jefferson writes in his diary, this proves that Hamilton is for a dictator based on corruption.

00:35:33.860 My favorite line was what Neil Armstrong said, it would have been harder to fake it than

00:35:39.340 to do it.

00:35:40.440 Listen to American History Hotline on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your

00:35:46.740 podcasts.

00:35:51.360 Just like great shoes, great books take you places.

00:35:55.120 Through unforgettable love stories and into conversations with characters you'll never forget.

00:36:00.060 I think any good romance, it gives me this feeling of like butterflies.

00:36:05.020 I'm Danielle Robay and this is Bookmarked by Reese's Book Club, the new podcast from Hello

00:36:09.660 Sunshine and iHeart Podcasts.

00:36:11.900 Every week I sit down with your favorite book lovers, authors, celebrities, book talkers,

00:36:16.700 and more to explore the stories that shape us on the page and off.

00:36:21.260 I've been reading every Reese's Book Club pick, deep diving book talk theories, and obsessing

00:36:26.480 over book-to-screen casts for years.

00:36:28.500 And now, I get to talk to the people making the magic.

00:36:31.800 So if you've ever fallen in love with a fictional character, or cried at the last chapter, or

00:36:36.700 passed a book to a friend saying, you have to read this, this podcast is for you.

00:36:42.780 Listen to Bookmarked by Reese's Book Club on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever

00:36:47.920 you get your podcasts.

00:36:52.680 Hello, this is Ruthie Rogers, host of Ruthie's Table 4.

00:36:55.980 Ali called me the stray dog because I would always turn up at my mate's house at mealtimes.

00:37:01.640 This week, I'm talking to Bono.

00:37:03.980 All of my ideas about social justice, or rather the lack of it, came from my father too.

00:37:08.760 People have to have health, housing, and education drilled into me and his values.

00:37:14.300 Listen to Ruthie's Table 4 on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your

00:37:19.800 podcasts.

00:37:20.320 I know a lot of cops, and they get asked all the time, have you ever had to shoot your gun?

00:37:29.760 Sometimes the answer is yes.

00:37:31.920 But there's a company dedicated to a future where the answer will always be no.

00:37:37.760 Across the country, cops called this taser the revolution.

00:37:41.220 But not everyone was convinced it was that simple.

00:37:44.300 Cops believed everything that taser told them.

00:37:47.580 From Lava for Good and the team that brought you Bone Valley comes a story about what happened

00:37:51.940 when a multi-billion dollar company dedicated itself to one visionary mission.

00:37:57.820 This is Absolute Season 1, Taser Incorporated.

00:38:01.120 I get right back there, and it's bad.

00:38:06.260 It's really, really, really bad.

00:38:09.840 Listen to new episodes of Absolute Season 1, Taser Incorporated, on the iHeartRadio app,

00:38:15.820 Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

00:38:18.800 Binge episodes 1, 2, and 3 on May 21st, and episodes 4, 5, and 6 on June 4th.

00:38:24.340 Ad-free at Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts.

00:38:31.120 It's interesting to me, too, and we'll circle back circuitously a little bit to Epstein.

00:38:40.960 But I did, when I did that first podcast with Charlie Kirk, first of all, he was gracious

00:38:44.700 enough to come into the studio and do the first one.

00:38:47.460 And I made a comment that got a lot of blowback, including at home, because my son, quite literally,

00:38:52.840 11-year-old, was actually heard the night before and woke me up early to say,

00:38:58.180 are you seriously meeting with Charlie Kirk? I'm not going to school. You're taking me with you.

00:39:02.020 I'm like, I thought it was a joke the night before. I thought he was just playing with me.

00:39:05.440 But it's on his, he doesn't have a, we don't have a phone. He doesn't have any TikTok.

00:39:10.560 It's just the YouTube that's on his school tablet.

00:39:13.940 And it was wired in this space, and here's where I'm going, a space where I started knowing,

00:39:20.480 you know, he starts talking to me about Jordan Peterson. He says, hey, Dad, I don't know,

00:39:24.000 Andrew Tate, you know, I think they were misrepresenting, you know, they're not as bad

00:39:27.640 as you think. You know, Andrew Tate's coming to California. He just said something bad about

00:39:31.540 you. You're going to respond, you know, and, you know, he's got, I mean, and I'm like, what?

00:39:36.220 11-year-old?

00:39:36.960 Yes.

00:39:37.400 Wow.

00:39:37.680 How do you know about Andrew Tate? What's this Jordan Peterson stuff? And why are you,

00:39:41.240 how do you know about Charlie Kirk? And I started talking to his friends, the same thing.

00:39:45.240 And he started getting it through just, frankly, just game stuff. He wanted to watch YouTube games.

00:39:50.720 He started, you know, he's 11. Now he's older, but he's 12. But he's, you know, he's trying to

00:39:55.820 get in shape now. And so it was like body stuff. And this whole, quote unquote, it's overused,

00:40:01.360 or misused, or even mislabeled, but this manosphere. There's sort of space, which then gets to Epstein,

00:40:07.240 gets to these conspiracies, gets to these darker Pizzagate places, and gets to where we are today

00:40:13.180 in our politics. And what's, I mean, you guys, you've been, you've been part of this ecosystem,

00:40:18.500 broadly defined, but what do you make of these subcultures and how serious those algorithms are

00:40:24.520 and what that means to our body politic?

00:40:27.060 I think they're really serious. I mean, like there's schools and school districts, and I think

00:40:31.960 the UK and Australia that developed entire curriculums to combat Andrew Tate. Like it's

00:40:37.840 a real crisis in a lot of places. He's incredibly, I mean, what was it, 2018 or 2019 is the most

00:40:42.920 Googled person in the world or something like that, right? So it's real dangerous. I do think

00:40:46.940 one thing someone pointed out to me that really stuck with me is a lot of the kind of pipeline

00:40:52.800 to conservative influencer spaces are through self-improvement. It's like dating advice,

00:40:57.700 crypto get rich, how to get jacked. And we're like, there's not that pipe wellness. I know

00:41:06.820 you talked a lot about RFK and sort of your relationship with him. And, you know, that's

00:41:10.780 the thing I hear more than anything else from people in California. And also, you know, my

00:41:16.040 wife and I had a bunch of fertility challenges. And then now we have small kids. So there's sort

00:41:21.180 of a pregnancy or small kid algorithmic role, right? That gets you lots of stuff that takes

00:41:28.680 you to anti-vax or takes you to Jordan Peterson saying, you know, women are objects. All right.

00:41:35.540 And it's, it's incredibly dangerous. I think two big trends. One is there's a crisis of trust

00:41:43.180 in this country. And there's, you know, we're probably distrust in almost every institution,

00:41:49.020 government, media, business. And some of that is just the actual, you know, economic statistics,

00:41:57.000 right? And there's inequality and there's a whole bunch of other things around that.

00:42:00.040 And then there is a, a crisis in masculinity. And I think I'm, I'm actually interviewing Ruth Whitman

00:42:07.300 for Offline Tomorrow who wrote Boy Mom. And my wife was reading Boy Mom first and then I read it.

00:42:13.140 And her whole point is that like, she doesn't want to call it toxic masculinity anymore. She says

00:42:18.980 it's impossible masculinity because it's a standard that it's impossible for boys to live up to now

00:42:25.760 because you're either funneled into like, you've got to be super tough and alpha and get strong. Or

00:42:33.800 if you go, but also you're supposed to be tender and you're supposed to be emotionally available to

00:42:39.640 women. But if you do that, then you're not masculine, right? And so you like, like these boys are growing

00:42:44.900 up stuck in between and they're becoming lonely and they have less confidence in themselves and they

00:42:51.300 have less confidence in trying to, you know, talk to girls. And it's easier to stay home and be online

00:42:56.500 by yourself because there's less friction when you don't have to actually build relationships and go

00:43:02.200 through the awkward phases of conversation and making a connection with someone. You can just

00:43:07.260 be home, talk to people online, watch porn online and like be lonely. And it's hurting a lot of young

00:43:14.240 men. It's hurt. It seems to have hurt our party too, because it's been politicized and weaponized a

00:43:20.480 bit against us. Trump was, seemed to be very in tune and in touch with, and back to this notion of

00:43:27.180 manosphere, but around the issue of masculinity and that sort of pushback against quote unquote toxic

00:43:32.340 masculinity and how that was used as a weapon to sort of tear down men. Understandably coming out

00:43:38.540 from Me Too and everything else. But where do you see our party, the Democratic Party? Because

00:43:44.300 you see these trend lines, they're now becoming headlines. It's suicide rates that are off the

00:43:48.920 charts. It's educational attainment where women are dominating over men. The crisis of, you know,

00:43:54.060 not just loneliness, but deaths of despair, overdose rates. I mean, in every category,

00:43:59.220 boys and men are struggling. Where do you see the Democratic Party in relationship to that

00:44:04.260 conversation? It doesn't seem to me an easy conversation for a lot of Democrats, because

00:44:10.080 they still see men in disproportionate positions of power and influence. Men still getting paid more

00:44:15.900 than women. And until that's equalized, they may not necessarily want to have the conversation about

00:44:21.800 what's lying underneath. Yeah. I mean, I think I was it Theo Vaughn or somebody talking about this.

00:44:28.240 He was a comedian sort of in the so-called manosphere. We need a better term for it, right?

00:44:32.320 He's like a very popular comedian and podcaster who was talking maybe with Bernie about the way he and

00:44:40.260 some friends of his community sort of reacted to being told they had that male privilege or white

00:44:45.180 privilege. And he felt like, well, I'm sort of like dead broke. So that may exist in the world.

00:44:48.960 And it's not me. And I think it closed off a conversation rather than opening it. Right.

00:44:53.920 So there's a part of it that's like just messaging and how you talk about these things.

00:44:58.320 I think if you frame it the right way, people will listen to you. But then also, you know,

00:45:03.400 you talked about this with Sean, like Trump is so malleable, like he's for the thing that's

00:45:08.900 happening. Right. So he was against crypto. And then a bunch of you read the New York Times,

00:45:13.360 they had a big piece on how he was lobbying, lobbied. A bunch of them came to him and were like,

00:45:17.000 we can make you a shitload of money and get you a ton of contributions for a super PAC or

00:45:21.780 whatever. And he was like, sign me up. Right. And that is, you know, making him hundreds of

00:45:28.660 millions of dollars, if not billions of dollars. But also there's a lot of men who think of crypto

00:45:34.640 as an opportunity to catch back up in an economy where they feel left behind by economic inequality

00:45:40.860 and all the things that are bad about capitalism. And like, I'm not saying that we should be

00:45:45.440 super for crypto for that reason, because I think a lot of people get scammed and people get hurt.

00:45:50.540 But it's like, how do you not sound like we're like, like, you're going to poke your eye out

00:45:55.560 with that thing to everybody. Right. Like, and we're scolding them.

00:45:58.240 I think the other challenge is we have to do more showing and less telling and just more setting an

00:46:05.600 example for young men, as opposed to like when you see the Republicans and they're like joking

00:46:12.860 around and having fun. And then you have the Democrats and the Democrats are like, we have

00:46:16.380 commissioned a study and we will find the young men in the wild and we will approach them heavily.

00:46:22.820 Do not cancel the young men when you see him in the wild. It's like, it's just really,

00:46:30.640 because it's just like how we are. We analyze everything. And it's like, just fucking be a

00:46:34.880 normal person. Just, just be yourself, you know? But the other big thing that happened is, of course,

00:46:40.380 the pandemic. And you're seeing this in within Gen Z, like there's, there's two Gen Z cohorts now.

00:46:47.140 And the ones who were graduated when the pandemic hit are still pretty democratic, even the men.

00:46:54.680 And the ones who were in high school or in college when the pandemic hit, the gap between how the men

00:47:01.100 voted and the women voted is the biggest of any generation, any other generation. And I said those,

00:47:07.900 and I don't know, I mean, I'm hoping, because I have a five-year-old and a, and a, and it's almost

00:47:12.680 a two-year-old. And I'm hoping that, you know, now that we have a generation below them that

00:47:17.740 didn't grow up in the middle of the pandemic, that it could be a little bit better, but that's still

00:47:23.380 a whole generation of kids who dealt with the pandemic who I think are, and we don't talk about

00:47:28.460 it. I mean, you were talking, we don't, we don't talk about it because no one wants to. No one wants

00:47:31.600 to. Because it's a little PTSD and no one wants to go back to that, but that really fucked people up.

00:47:36.420 Especially in your formative years.

00:47:37.860 How did you guys deal with being at home? You're the governor of a state and you have four kids.

00:47:43.380 Well, I only had four kids. I had 400 protesters and drones overhead and people with bullhorns

00:47:48.620 waking the kids up at night.

00:47:49.980 So that was an extra wrinkle.

00:47:51.080 It's a little extra wrinkle. I mean, I had a little Dutchie who didn't know any better with

00:47:54.920 his Nerf guns going up there and acting like he's a little member of the military and hiding out

00:48:00.260 and looking at people. And I'm like, brother, you're actually going to get shot because someone's

00:48:04.080 going to believe that's a gun. Try and explain that to a six, seven-year-old.

00:48:07.080 Oh my God.

00:48:08.300 And having ways of getting out of the house, we had to sneak out the back for, it seemed

00:48:13.840 like a couple of years. And it ended up with my oldest daughter being homeschooled because

00:48:17.960 of what was happening in the class when we did come back and just getting bullied and hit.

00:48:23.820 So, I mean, it is, look, I think the biggest, I think we have an obligation, we have an obligation

00:48:33.180 to have an honest, thoughtful, reflective analysis, not least of which from a policy perspective,

00:48:43.980 but we have to for our own sanity in terms of our own person. The trauma everybody went through and

00:48:50.640 we're all suppressing that. And people are acting like, oh yeah, it's fine. I don't want to talk

00:48:54.240 about it. No. Yeah. Well, that's good. Okay. Yeah. Learning a lot. I mean, it's just, what?

00:48:58.240 No? Yeah. No, good. It's good. And so, I mean, it's just, people went through, I mean,

00:49:03.340 it was social unrest. It wasn't just a pandemic. It was everything happening on the streets and

00:49:07.900 sidewalks. You talk about the national guard. I had the second largest deployment in U.S. history

00:49:12.240 during that time of a social unrest after George Floyd here in California.

00:49:15.860 And then obviously all the supply chain issues and the inflationary scars and wars and now

00:49:21.800 Trump again. I mean, it's been a hell of a time. So we got to unpack all that. But look,

00:49:27.860 I want to unpack just a few other things with you guys as I've got your time. As we figure

00:49:33.280 out these algorithms, as we figure out how we're all living together, but online, but feeling

00:49:39.980 more and more isolated alone. But I need to understand, was Trump on the Epstein list or

00:49:46.260 not? I need to know from the two of you. Was Trump on the damn list?

00:49:51.160 I think he is worried that he is somewhere in the files. So like, I don't, I don't even

00:49:56.960 know if there's a list. Like, I'm willing to believe that there's just no list. But there's

00:50:01.280 clearly tons and tons of documents that the DOJ has. And he is now, because he's gone through

00:50:08.300 a criminal trial and been charged a couple other times. He knows, and ran the Justice

00:50:12.600 Department once before, he knows that there are plenty of court filings and documents that

00:50:17.240 have all kinds of information in it. And, you know, the standard to put something in an

00:50:21.340 indictment is obviously not the same. So I'm sure he is concerned that, yeah, maybe he's

00:50:26.680 not on a list as a client or whatever, but he's somewhere in there and it could be embarrassing.

00:50:30.840 So he told Pam Bondi, do not release this.

00:50:33.900 Stifle this.

00:50:34.400 That, I don't know.

00:50:35.640 Yeah, well, I don't know.

00:50:36.600 You think Pam Bondi, independent, how in the hell do you not know that? You seriously

00:50:40.720 think Pam decided on her own as an independent source for the AG? Mr. President, I just want

00:50:46.740 to let you know, here's my decision. I won't be reduced to eliminate or provide any fault.

00:50:52.460 Give me a damn break. Come on, man.

00:50:53.820 My theory in this has always been the conspiracy is hiding in plain sight. This guy was a rich,

00:50:57.760 powerful creep with rich, powerful friends. And he used those associations to get this

00:51:02.700 sweetheart deal from Alex Acosta, who was then the U.S. attorney in Florida, became the

00:51:07.260 Secretary of Labor. It included a non-prosecution agreement.

00:51:10.820 Secretary of Labor under Donald Trump.

00:51:12.680 Under Donald Trump.

00:51:13.220 I'm just saying. With Pam Bondi as the AG of Florida, I'm now getting down my own

00:51:17.020 head rabbit hole.

00:51:17.920 I'm just saying.

00:51:18.740 That's a threat. But so now, but you're right. Like, look, I'm like not a very, I'm very

00:51:24.200 not conspiracy minded because having worked in government, you see that-

00:51:29.600 Well, you were suppressing all the UFOs.

00:51:31.200 Well, yeah, that.

00:51:32.300 And also you guys had to write speeches suppressing them.

00:51:34.080 Tommy also did Benghazi.

00:51:35.280 I did Benghazi.

00:51:36.440 Benghazi, Benghazi, Benghazi.

00:51:37.520 But also, no one can keep a secret. You know what I mean? Like, no one, we could fuck

00:51:40.640 up a one car parade in the U.S. government at times. Like, there's no way you can-

00:51:44.840 Well, you kept a secret about chemtrails. Why have you done that for all these years?

00:51:48.260 Well, but to your point, like, there was a document that came out this week because of a House

00:51:52.480 investigation into the JFK assassination, where we learned that the CIA has been lying

00:51:57.300 about having an agent in South Florida who was, like, running this group of anti-Castro

00:52:03.240 students. They've been lying about it for 60 years. They lied about it to the Warren

00:52:07.720 Commission. They lied about it to the House Investigative Committee. They lied it in the

00:52:11.700 90s to a committee on assassinations. And you see stuff like that. And you're like, and

00:52:16.380 also they named the dude who was running those guys in Florida to be the congressional

00:52:20.280 liaison to stifle the investigation in the 70s. And you're like, okay, all right.

00:52:25.500 So Trump is on the list.

00:52:26.400 I get the skepticism.

00:52:27.020 Yeah. And so now-

00:52:28.240 And you guys are lying to us about UFOs. And you had conversations with Obama. Tell the

00:52:33.000 truth.

00:52:33.200 Honestly, UFOs, if there were more to know about UFOs-

00:52:36.880 You must have had conversations with Obama.

00:52:38.600 Obviously, Donald Trump.

00:52:38.800 Tell me you were sitting there. You guys were relaxed. Second term. Everybody won a couple

00:52:43.920 martinis. And you're sitting there. And you go, come on. Come on to the big boss. Tell

00:52:48.540 the truth, man. What have you seen?

00:52:49.720 I had never been that interested in UFOs.

00:52:51.940 I wish I had.

00:52:52.740 If there were more to- Wouldn't Donald Trump have said something? He would not be able

00:52:55.960 to shut his mouth about UFOs. Are you kidding? We would have gotten something from Donald

00:53:00.140 Trump. Like Obama, no. Obama would keep the secret.

00:53:02.820 I don't know if I trust you guys. I really don't know if I trust you guys.

00:53:05.940 But this is, I think, the thing people think out there about classified information, which

00:53:09.420 is if you have a top secret clearance, then you can just go into the secrets library and

00:53:14.500 kind of leaf through. And I don't really think there's a deep state per se, but there

00:53:18.420 are career people, and there's a lot of inertia. And they're not giving goobers like me access

00:53:23.680 to the good stuff.

00:53:24.600 I had top secret clearance. I had never looked at any classified information. I get edits

00:53:30.400 back from the CIA and DOD on speeches, and they would sometimes just cross things out

00:53:35.340 with no explanation.

00:53:36.640 I was like, I guess I just have to take that.

00:53:39.640 What'd they cross out?

00:53:40.480 Tell us, tell us.

00:53:41.740 That's what I remember. I was like, this isn't anything.

00:53:43.660 That's your book.

00:53:44.360 I'm not like revealing ops here.

00:53:46.300 Like, what does that happen?

00:53:47.020 And the cool thing that would happen was there would be a crisis.

00:53:48.960 No, we just do that on signal accounts.

00:53:50.660 Yeah, exactly.

00:53:51.540 And then in a crisis, like something would happen, and you'd go to a meeting, and they'd

00:53:55.320 be like, we know this, this, and this through this means. And you're like, holy shit.

00:53:58.620 Like, we could do some stuff.

00:53:59.820 So that's how it would kind of come out.

00:54:01.000 So what happened at Chappaquiddick? Well, it really depends on who you talk to.

00:54:08.260 There are many versions of what happened in 1969 when a young Ted Kennedy drove a car

00:54:13.480 into a pond.

00:54:14.660 And left a woman behind to drown.

00:54:17.700 There's a famous headline, I think, in the New York Daily News. It's Teddy escapes, blonde

00:54:22.480 drowns. And in a strange way, right, that sort of tells you the story really became about

00:54:28.460 Ted's political future, Ted's political hopes.

00:54:31.000 Will Ted become president?

00:54:32.460 Chappaquiddick is a story of a tragic death and how the Kennedy machine took control.

00:54:36.720 And he's not the only Kennedy to survive a scandal.

00:54:39.920 The Kennedys have lived through disgrace, affairs, violence, you name it. So is there a curse?

00:54:45.260 Every week, we go behind the headlines and beyond the drama of America's royal family.

00:54:50.240 Listen to United States of Kennedy on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

00:54:56.300 American history is full of wise people.

00:55:04.960 What woman said something like, you know, 99.99% of war is diarrhea and 1% is glory.

00:55:11.620 Those founding fathers were gossipy AF. And they love to cut each other down.

00:55:17.480 I'm Bob Crawford, host of American History Hotline, the show where you send us your questions about

00:55:23.420 American history and I find the answers, including the nuggets of wisdom our history has to offer.

00:55:30.520 Hamilton pauses and then he says,

00:55:32.240 The greatest man that ever lived was Julius Caesar.

00:55:36.080 And Jefferson writes in his diary, this proves that Hamilton is for a dictator based on corruption.

00:55:42.720 My favorite line was what Neil Armstrong said.

00:55:45.520 It would have been harder to fake it than to do it.

00:55:48.920 Listen to American History Hotline on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

00:55:55.880 Just like great shoes, great books take you places through unforgettable love stories and into conversations with characters you'll never forget.

00:56:08.800 I think any good romance, it gives me this feeling of like butterflies.

00:56:13.420 I'm Danielle Robay and this is Bookmarked by Reese's Book Club, the new podcast from Hello Sunshine and iHeart Podcasts.

00:56:20.180 Every week I sit down with your favorite book lovers, authors, celebrities, book talkers, and more to explore the stories that shape us, on the page and off.

00:56:29.680 I've been reading every Reese's Book Club pick, deep diving book talk theories, and obsessing over book-to-screen casts for years.

00:56:36.920 And now I get to talk to the people making the magic.

00:56:40.220 So if you've ever fallen in love with a fictional character, or cried at the last chapter, or passed a book to a friend saying,

00:56:46.760 you have to read this. This podcast is for you.

00:56:51.280 Listen to Bookmarked by Reese's Book Club on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

00:57:01.100 Hello, this is Ruthie Rogers, host of Ruthie's Table 4.

00:57:04.780 Ali called me the stray dog because I would always turn up at my mate's house at mealtimes.

00:57:10.000 This week, I'm talking to Bono.

00:57:11.940 All of my ideas about social justice, or rather the lack of it, came from my father too.

00:57:17.180 People have to have health, housing, and education drilled into me and his values.

00:57:22.720 Listen to Ruthie's Table 4 on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

00:57:28.740 I know a lot of cops, and they get asked all the time, have you ever had to shoot your gun?

00:57:38.080 Sometimes the answer is yes.

00:57:40.140 But there's a company dedicated to a future where the answer will always be no.

00:57:46.200 Across the country, cops called this taser the revolution.

00:57:50.040 But not everyone was convinced it was that simple.

00:57:52.620 Cops believed everything that taser told them.

00:57:55.740 From Lava for Good and the team that brought you Bone Valley, comes a story about what happened

00:58:00.380 when a multi-billion dollar company dedicated itself to one visionary mission.

00:58:06.240 This is Absolute Season 1, Taser Incorporated.

00:58:11.260 I get right back there, and it's bad.

00:58:14.700 It's really, really, really bad.

00:58:17.540 Listen to new episodes of Absolute Season 1, Taser Incorporated, on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

00:58:27.240 Binge episodes 1, 2, and 3 on May 21st, and episodes 4, 5, and 6 on June 4th.

00:58:32.760 Ad-free at Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts.

00:58:35.940 All right, so let's talk about what else came out.

00:58:44.400 This morning, Donald Trump, as we do this pod, this morning, Trump allegedly talked to the delegation out of Texas

00:58:51.360 and said, not just some earnestness, I'm saying, find me 12,000 or so votes in Georgia.

00:58:56.580 I need five Republican additional congressional representatives.

00:59:00.860 We need to redistrict Texas.

00:59:02.740 How serious a concern is that for you in terms of the midterms as this guy returns to redistrict?

00:59:08.340 I think it's a serious concern.

00:59:09.980 I think that they also run the risk if they redraw the maps that if there's a big wave,

00:59:16.380 that basically they're asking some Republicans to take on more Democratic voters than some districts.

00:59:22.280 So it could backfire.

00:59:24.220 It's crazy that they're—and the way Trump talked about it when he was asked today,

00:59:28.780 he was like, yeah, it's just picking up five seats.

00:59:31.500 I'm just picking up five seats like he's just grabbing groceries.

00:59:34.200 Like he's calling Raffenburg.

00:59:35.160 Yeah, right.

00:59:35.840 And then he also said he's like, in some other red states, maybe we'll do some in other red states too.

00:59:39.660 Well, maybe we'll do it here in California as well.

00:59:41.400 Well, I was going to ask you about that because—

00:59:43.020 The challenge is this little constitutional problem we've got.

00:59:45.040 That's what I'm going to ask.

00:59:45.760 Yeah, I know.

00:59:46.540 So what do you have to—I know you have a big majority in the legislature there, but what do you do about an amendment?

00:59:52.320 There's creative ideas. We have ideas. We have ideas.

00:59:53.660 I mean, the fact is, I mean, let me ask you this. I actually saw—I'm one of the few Democrats back in the day when we created the Independent Redistricting Commission,

01:00:01.980 which I think personally, I think, should be the case in every state.

01:00:05.300 I agree.

01:00:05.780 This is ridiculous. This gerrymandering is outrageous. I don't like it on either side.

01:00:10.020 And so I supported that. I remember doing that.

01:00:11.920 I was mayor of San Francisco at the time when that initiative went forward.

01:00:14.180 I think under Schwarzenegger, who was promoting at the time, was the governor.

01:00:17.860 And I got a lot of grief from my own party for supporting it, which was interesting.

01:00:20.920 But I think it's the right thing to do.

01:00:23.340 That said, if these guys are playing by a totally different set of rules and democracies in the ballots,

01:00:28.840 which you can start to go down that—it's not even a rabbit hole—and argue may be the case

01:00:34.460 if we're not able to get some system of checks and balances in two years,

01:00:38.260 particularly going into the 2028 election, where they can wire a lot of things from that position of power and influence.

01:00:44.440 Is it right for me to explore?

01:00:46.860 It's a question for you guys.

01:00:47.900 Is it appropriate for the governor of California to explore potential alternatives?

01:00:52.920 It's absolutely appropriate, to the extent that you can find a legal avenue to do it.

01:00:58.820 Yeah. Well, there's that.

01:01:00.160 There's that.

01:01:00.700 I mean, sure.

01:01:01.220 But, I mean, you know, the John Lewis Voting Rights Act, right, that was going to create a national independent redistricting thing.

01:01:10.720 And I think it's either national or not at this point.

01:01:12.680 That's how I am.

01:01:13.420 I am also for it nationally.

01:01:15.300 But we're not—it's just like, you know, the results of Citizens United, right?

01:01:20.860 Which is like, we can't unilaterally disarm in the face of them, you know, exploiting these decisions and these weaknesses in the system.

01:01:29.600 Absolutely. But, like, kind of the, like, stuffy-headed question is—it's not like a moral question, but it's a question of, yes, of course we can't unilaterally disarm.

01:01:42.560 And I agree with you, and I don't think we should.

01:01:44.260 But there is a more nuanced question of, like, what is the upside and value of presenting a message to voters that we're actually better?

01:01:53.060 You know what I mean?

01:01:53.800 And it can be, like, we don't take PAC or lobbyist money.

01:01:57.180 We believe in principle.

01:01:59.740 Like, we wouldn't do this redistricting thing because it's wrong.

01:02:02.660 I'm, like, I'm not agreeing with the things I'm saying right now.

01:02:04.940 I think, like, we have to win, right?

01:02:07.020 You're very persuasive.

01:02:08.040 I mean, I'm feeling very guilty right now.

01:02:10.580 No, but, like, there is a question.

01:02:12.660 Like, we need, like, a reform agenda.

01:02:14.340 What is that agenda?

01:02:14.980 No, I'm with you, man.

01:02:15.540 No, it's the worst part.

01:02:16.340 You don't want to become them.

01:02:17.480 I mean, they win if you become them.

01:02:20.700 And they shouldn't implicate us into their just mischievous and illegal ways or immoral ways.

01:02:27.060 I mean, this is hardly illegal.

01:02:28.820 Now, the question for California in terms of Texas, they have more latitude.

01:02:33.100 In California, it's interesting.

01:02:34.440 You go back, you could do a special election.

01:02:35.800 So we can go back and do that and change the state constitution that created this.

01:02:40.400 We'd have to move immediately.

01:02:41.760 We could do two-thirds of the legislature, do an urgency.

01:02:44.240 I could call it a special election.

01:02:45.900 And then you'd spend hundreds of millions of dollars both sides weaponized.

01:02:48.340 It'd be one of the, you know, it'd be a big sideshow for everything going on.

01:02:51.560 It would absorb a lot of resources, literally and figuratively.

01:02:54.700 Or there are some other theories of the case, and that's what we're also exploring,

01:02:59.580 that as it relates to the Independent Redistricting Commission,

01:03:03.140 it states in the Constitution explicitly that every census, they will do one redistricting.

01:03:08.540 It doesn't say what happens in between.

01:03:10.880 And the legislature is then afforded some latitude in between.

01:03:14.820 And that's a legal theory that a lot of legal scholars have advanced.

01:03:21.680 And full disclosure, we're looking at it.

01:03:25.340 Now, I'm looking at it in the spirit, sort of the Stoics of, you know, not becoming your enemy.

01:03:31.040 Mindful that I'd rather maintain the higher ground.

01:03:34.400 It's a moral authority, not just formal authority.

01:03:36.300 But when I look at the ground that these guys are leveling and core tenets of our democracy,

01:03:43.220 our republic, being literally taken down in real time,

01:03:46.820 I'd be in peril of being judged not to have lived if I don't at least explore an alternative to save our country.

01:03:53.820 That's the way I feel.

01:03:54.540 I know it's a little romantic or a little overstating, bloviating, but I feel that way.

01:03:58.460 I mean, if these guys are literally going to rig, de facto, the outcome in November next year,

01:04:05.380 I can't just sit back passively, can we?

01:04:08.340 Look, I think the way you are framing it and started to frame it as we first started talking about this,

01:04:15.320 which is if you had your way, there'd be independent redistricting all across the country.

01:04:20.760 And that is not the reality we live in right now.

01:04:23.140 And now, before the midterms, they're trying to just pick up five seats.

01:04:27.980 That's just a reality that we're dealing with.

01:04:29.880 And DeSantis is talking about doing it.

01:04:31.640 He says, well, we had an extra one there.

01:04:33.620 We gave up.

01:04:34.640 And they moved first on this.

01:04:37.020 And I think if you were talking to, again, just a normal person who doesn't pay attention to politics closely

01:04:43.240 and asked you about it and you explained it that way, I think people would understand that.

01:04:47.660 I think people would be like, well, yeah, it's politics.

01:04:49.160 It's competitive.

01:04:49.680 And you're not going to be able to just sit down and take it because you didn't want to dirty your hands on it.

01:04:57.240 And you'd be like, look, it's a shitty solution.

01:04:59.560 It's not the way I want to do it.

01:05:01.160 But the alternative is that they just redistrict everywhere they're in control

01:05:05.420 and just steal a bunch of house seats and pick their voters everywhere.

01:05:08.120 And it's not that.

01:05:10.080 It's the consequences of that that are pretty outsized.

01:05:13.120 Jesus, you talk about your two kids, your two kids, my four kids.

01:05:16.840 I mean, this is what kind of world do you want to live in?

01:05:18.800 Do you guys, are you, and forgive me, sort of moving slightly off topic, but is this shock and awe, shock even you?

01:05:27.660 Are you in awe of how much this guy has done in the first six months, the damage he's done, how aggressive he's been?

01:05:35.520 Yeah.

01:05:35.900 I mean, I knew there would be horrible things.

01:05:40.580 I knew that, look, people held up mass deportations now, signs at rallies, right?

01:05:45.320 Like, that part shouldn't have been a surprise.

01:05:48.300 Sweeping up at random, seemingly, Venezuelan men in sending them to a transnational gulag in El Salvador where they're being tortured is shocking.

01:05:59.620 Shocking to me.

01:06:00.840 I think it shocks the conscience.

01:06:02.320 I am constantly testing myself on making sure that I am not trying to exaggerate the threat and cry wolf.

01:06:16.580 Because I do worry that maybe even in the first term, the first Trump term, like, I look back on some of the things that I said then and thought then, and I was like, did we reduce our effectiveness by taking everything to an 11?

01:06:31.540 And now, I really do believe, like, especially around immigration.

01:06:37.400 I mean, that stuff.

01:06:38.100 And look, I was, after this last election, I was out there saying, you know what, we should have taken the border more seriously.

01:06:45.740 And look, we're Obama people from immigration, when Obama would say, we're a nation of laws and a nation of immigrants, and we're going to do deportations, but we're going to try to prioritize recent arrivals, criminals, people with records, and then we're going to try to do something for the people who've been here for decades and are working.

01:07:03.060 And you have to get in line, learn English, pay a fee, all that kind of background check.

01:07:07.880 And I'm like, I think that's where most Americans still are, and the party got away from that.

01:07:12.060 So I was very, but once he took office, and he started doing what he's doing, like, it is worse than anything I ever thought.

01:07:19.800 That sending them to the third countries, especially some of these third countries that are just fucking, like, you know, war-torn, and picking up citizens, picking up, you know, people with legal status.

01:07:31.180 Yeah.

01:07:31.820 It's really scary.

01:07:32.740 On their skin color.

01:07:33.760 Really scary.

01:07:34.400 Or if they're nearby a Home Depot, or they are standing adjacent to a day laborer, or at a car wash.

01:07:40.500 I think, you know, it's just, I just sort of fascinated, because as we stand here today, just back to just sort of this normalization.

01:07:47.560 There are 5,000 U.S. military in the streets that have been deployed by the President of the United States.

01:07:53.300 He hasn't deployed, in this first term, he didn't deploy any troops, ground troops, anywhere in the world.

01:07:57.360 He hasn't deployed any other ground troops in the first six months.

01:08:00.200 He's only deployed them in the United States to the state of California and here in L.A., which just in and of itself is sort of remarkable and sobering to consider and think about.

01:08:08.680 Almost 1,000 U.S. Marines and federalized for 1,000 of the National Guard.

01:08:15.080 And people, quite literally, are being disappeared.

01:08:18.580 And it's not an exaggeration.

01:08:19.880 I mean, I've been with, I was with a 16-year-old kid.

01:08:22.100 Mom and dad disappeared.

01:08:23.840 He didn't even know how to get back in his house.

01:08:25.440 He has no brothers and sisters.

01:08:27.500 You know, he's barely learning how to do his laundry.

01:08:30.160 They just disappeared.

01:08:31.000 20-plus years going to the same fields in Auknard and disappeared.

01:08:36.240 No contact, no consideration for this kid who was born in Ventura County and was still in school while the raid occurred.

01:08:45.800 It's, and how the hell, the other party.

01:08:48.900 I think it was one thing for Trump to advance this.

01:08:52.720 It's another to see Speaker Johnson and these goddamn guys just completely complicit at this moment, you know, as he's sitting here quoting Bible verses.

01:09:01.040 And it's getting, it's getting worse.

01:09:03.300 It's going to get worse because they are not getting the 3,000 arrests a day that they want.

01:09:09.320 And they are also, you know, today, like I saw news that the IRS is going to turn over, you know, a lot of information so that they can figure out who's undocumented.

01:09:17.800 And they're trying to take all the state databases.

01:09:20.720 That's crazy.

01:09:21.380 I mean, all of them, they're coming.

01:09:23.140 I mean, like all, I mean, can you imagine every state that people put, you know, with the confidence the state would never turn it over?

01:09:30.280 Of course, we don't want to.

01:09:32.020 Now being compelled to turn over.

01:09:33.580 So they're going to start cross-referencing all of that.

01:09:35.740 The other challenge I worry about, too, is like I don't, they do this partly because they really want to get rid of all the undocumented immigrants in this country and maybe legal immigrants, too.

01:09:47.800 But they also want to spark a backlash from us.

01:09:50.640 Like they want, they want us to react.

01:09:52.880 They want us to overreact.

01:09:53.840 Yeah.

01:09:54.300 And so when there are people in the streets, even if it's like a couple blocks downtown in L.A., of course they love that.

01:10:01.520 And they want, so I'm also mindful, like I don't want to say anything that's going to, but then I hear them.

01:10:06.740 And like, right before you came in, Stephen Miller was on Fox and he was like, Gavin Newsom and Karen Bass, their rhetoric is, they are literally encouraging people to kill ICE agents.

01:10:19.440 And Will Cain on Fox is just like, I know.

01:10:21.440 Yeah, sure, sure.

01:10:21.980 And I'm like, that is insane to say.

01:10:24.480 That is an insane thing to say.

01:10:25.700 It's insane.

01:10:26.400 It's disgraceful.

01:10:27.460 Like quite the goddamn contrary.

01:10:29.680 Just, yeah.

01:10:30.560 I mean, that's a dangerous.

01:10:31.680 I have empathy for these, these damn, I mean, come on, I've got these, I just think about our National Guard.

01:10:38.520 These are, we had 30, almost 3,000 of these guys that were in your backyard, man, in L.A.

01:10:44.460 And people were coming up.

01:10:45.520 The biggest problem we were having was so many people coming up doing selfies, thanking them for the help during the fires and after the fires and doing the traffic management.

01:10:53.660 These are the same kids that now have been told to put masks on.

01:10:58.720 These are police officers and firefighters.

01:11:02.680 They literally are being taken off the streets.

01:11:05.140 They're paramedics.

01:11:06.020 They're teachers.

01:11:06.740 They're supposed to be teaching summer school.

01:11:09.500 And they're being used as pawns.

01:11:11.600 So, I mean, Stephen Miller, I care about those kids.

01:11:14.740 You don't.

01:11:15.280 You're using them as pawns.

01:11:16.500 That's right.

01:11:16.760 You're using the military as damn pawns.

01:11:18.760 And that's why I've been.

01:11:19.440 I know you get, I know you get this better than anyone, but like, it's so, I heard it in your conversation with Sean Ryan, because he's like, I saw the clips on X and it looked like hell and those Waymos.

01:11:28.000 And like, just explain to people the disconnect from what they saw on social media and the reality of living in Los Angeles.

01:11:34.080 Like, first of all, the city is so scarred from those fires that were six months ago and they were absolutely terrifying.

01:11:42.560 Like, just imagine you're a listener.

01:11:44.040 You're going to bed.

01:11:45.280 You have two little kids and you're like, is my house going to burn?

01:11:48.340 Am I going to be able to drive out of here?

01:11:49.720 Like, those are the thoughts people were having, right?

01:11:51.320 So, six months, whatever, a few months later, these communities in Los Angeles, mostly Latino communities, immigrant communities, are being terrorized by these ICE agents wearing masks, throwing people into unmarked cars, not wearing uniforms.

01:12:06.860 And, like, they're not getting criminals off the street.

01:12:10.100 And my friends are like, oh, well, aren't there horrifying protests?

01:12:12.740 No.

01:12:13.340 No.

01:12:13.920 It's like three blocks downtown.

01:12:15.440 Yeah.

01:12:15.940 It was completely manageable by the LAPD.

01:12:18.560 They've taken care of bigger messes in their fleet.

01:12:20.820 We had 1,600 CHP and LAPD.

01:12:25.540 I mean, 1,600 surrounding a couple square blocks.

01:12:28.960 I mean, it's just, it's Orwellian what these guys are putting out.

01:12:32.200 And I told people, too, like, we, this is why we have, we also have to remember, too, for the guard, for the police, even for some ICE agents, too, right?

01:12:40.000 Like, you can't make them the enemy.

01:12:42.080 No, that's it.

01:12:42.800 Because, first of all, a lot of them probably don't want to be there.

01:12:44.880 Democrats need to be careful about that.

01:12:45.260 That's my point.

01:12:46.080 Yeah, I mean, when we say abolish this or abolish that, I mean, we're still climbing out of the damn defund police stuff.

01:12:52.160 I know.

01:12:52.520 And, you know, even, you know, we've had some well-known Democrats defund ICE back in the day.

01:12:57.300 I mean, just, I hope we're, this is, I mean, that truly is what these guys want right now.

01:13:02.880 And it's just so easy to be like, we need immigration enforcement in this country.

01:13:06.680 Yes.

01:13:06.760 We do.

01:13:07.260 We do.

01:13:07.560 We don't need a fucking secret police that answers to Stephen Miller.

01:13:10.780 The largest private secret police in the world now with the money that's coming in from this big, beautiful betrayal.

01:13:17.860 Wasn't there a California bill that said that they would have to not wear masks?

01:13:21.800 So back to you guys asked that, that very stubborn question about, well, what about the constitution and the law on the issue of redistricting?

01:13:29.760 The question of the constitution of law as it relates to a state's right to enforce or determine the enforcement or demand a prescriptive act of a federal agent, meaning, can we legally enforce the federal rules around masking?

01:13:47.020 And so it's an open-ended question.

01:13:48.360 That said, there is not only a bill, it's being amended this week.

01:13:51.800 It will be on my desk very shortly.

01:13:54.060 And based upon how it reads, we're making a lot of amendments.

01:14:00.120 But how could I not sign that, just if nothing else, to send a message?

01:14:04.500 I mean, no identification, no warrants.

01:14:07.900 I mean, I'm sitting there, you know, I mean, how many states you got people running around concealed carry?

01:14:12.560 I mean, if some masked person came up to me and tries to throw me in the back of a white van, I mean, how in the hell are we not going to have some problems?

01:14:20.060 Which has been happening, right?

01:14:21.300 Like there are people who have impersonated ICE officers who are trying to assault people, rob people.

01:14:26.860 And it will only, and you know, I mean, you know that's going to get worse.

01:14:30.140 And so it's not an unfair question.

01:14:32.060 Look, I understand the doxing.

01:14:33.860 They always go to these exceptions and they try to prove that as a rule.

01:14:38.680 So there's some balance.

01:14:39.800 Anyway, yeah, we're just going to, there's a federal, obviously the way to solve for this, what Cory Booker and a few others, I think Padilla's got a bill with Booker to do it at the federal level.

01:14:49.380 In the absence of that, states are going to have to try to push back and see what we can and test fate in the courts and see what the limits are.

01:14:57.440 And by the way, we've had wild success in the courts.

01:14:59.900 California's sued more than any other state.

01:15:02.140 And we're winning 80 plus percent, or at least the preliminary injunctions and winning some of the early decisions.

01:15:07.460 As we did with the 122 lawsuits we had against Trump 1.0, won the vast majority.

01:15:12.500 So they still, the overreach of this administration still is next level of legendary.

01:15:16.540 So what happened at Chappaquiddick?

01:15:22.100 Well, it really depends on who you talk to.

01:15:23.920 There are many versions of what happened in 1969 when a young Ted Kennedy drove a car into a pond.

01:15:30.340 And left a woman behind to drown.

01:15:33.380 There's a famous headline, I think, in the New York Daily News.

01:15:36.180 It's Teddy escapes, blonde drowns.

01:15:38.860 And in a strange way, right, that sort of tells you the story really became about Ted's political future, Ted's political hopes.

01:15:46.780 Will Ted become president?

01:15:48.080 Chappaquiddick is a story of a tragic death and how the Kennedy machine took control.

01:15:52.400 And he's not the only Kennedy to survive a scandal.

01:15:55.580 The Kennedys have lived through disgrace, affairs, violence, you name it.

01:15:59.640 So is there a curse?

01:16:00.920 Every week we go behind the headlines and beyond the drama of America's royal family.

01:16:05.440 Listen to United States of Kennedy on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

01:16:16.260 American history is full of wise people.

01:16:20.940 What woman said something like, you know, 99.99% of war is diarrhea and 1% is gory.

01:16:27.260 Those founding fathers were gossipy AF and they love to cut each other down.

01:16:33.140 I'm Bob Crawford, host of American History Hotline, the show where you send us your questions about American history and I find the answers, including the nuggets of wisdom our history has to offer.

01:16:46.100 Hamilton pauses and then he says, the greatest man that ever lived was Julius Caesar.

01:16:51.580 And Jefferson writes in his diary, this proves that Hamilton is for a dictator based on corruption.

01:16:57.960 My favorite line was what Neil Armstrong said, it would have been harder to fake it than to do it.

01:17:04.520 Listen to American History Hotline on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

01:17:10.960 Just like great shoes, great books take you places through unforgettable love stories and into conversations with characters you'll never forget.

01:17:24.480 I think any good romance, it gives me this feeling of like butterflies.

01:17:28.720 I'm Danielle Robay and this is Bookmarked by Reese's Book Club, the new podcast from Hello Sunshine and iHeart Podcasts.

01:17:35.980 Every week I sit down with your favorite book lovers, authors, celebrities, book talkers, and more to explore the stories that shape us, on the page and off.

01:17:45.340 I've been reading every Reese's Book Club pick, deep diving book talk theories, and obsessing over book to screen casts for years.

01:17:52.600 And now I get to talk to the people making the magic.

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01:18:06.940 Listen to Bookmarked by Reese's Book Club on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

01:18:16.740 Hello, this is Ruthie Rogers, host of Ruthie's Table Four.

01:18:20.080 Ali called me the stray dog because I would always turn up at my mate's house at mealtimes.

01:18:25.740 This week, I'm talking to Bono.

01:18:28.080 All of my ideas about social justice, or rather the lack of it, came from my father too.

01:18:32.880 People have to have health, housing, and education drilled into me and his values.

01:18:38.400 Listen to Ruthie's Table Four on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

01:18:44.420 I know a lot of cops, and they get asked all the time,

01:18:50.400 have you ever had to shoot your gun?

01:18:53.840 Sometimes the answer is yes.

01:18:55.980 But there's a company dedicated to a future where the answer will always be no.

01:19:01.880 Across the country, cops called this taser the revolution.

01:19:05.720 But not everyone was convinced it was that simple.

01:19:08.400 Cops believed everything that taser told them.

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01:19:21.900 This is Absolute Season 1, Taser Incorporated.

01:19:26.880 I get right back there, and it's bad.

01:19:30.360 It's really, really, really bad.

01:19:33.220 Listen to new episodes of Absolute Season 1, Taser Incorporated,

01:19:38.600 on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

01:19:42.880 Binge episodes 1, 2, and 3 on May 21st, and episodes 4, 5, and 6 on June 4th.

01:19:48.400 Ad-free at Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts.

01:19:51.620 Let me ask you guys this in closing.

01:20:00.380 We were, you, you know, I'm so, it was interesting to hear your former boss a couple days ago

01:20:06.080 at a fundraiser in New Jersey.

01:20:08.980 And he said, you know, Democrats need to step up.

01:20:11.320 I know you guys have been talking about this.

01:20:12.440 And we need to be more aggressive, more assertive.

01:20:15.900 But he also implied, you know, let's not look for the guy or gal on the white horse

01:20:19.340 to come save the day in 2028.

01:20:20.700 Let's get our shit together every day between now and then.

01:20:26.240 And not lose sight of what's right in front of us.

01:20:30.280 Give me your over-under on assessing your former boss's comments,

01:20:34.040 the timing of them, the tonality.

01:20:36.840 Yeah, you're on the spot.

01:20:37.980 Don't give me the political answer.

01:20:39.520 Don't be a politician here.

01:20:40.920 And don't even be a pundit.

01:20:43.080 Tell me personally, what's your sort of sense tonally of where the party is?

01:20:47.720 As a leader of the party, Barack Obama made these comments.

01:20:52.140 Obviously, they've been debated.

01:20:54.500 They resonate with me.

01:20:56.440 How do they resonate with you?

01:20:58.520 Look, I think that what's been heartening in the last few months

01:21:03.440 is the way you've seen individuals step up, different Democrats stepping up, right?

01:21:07.680 Like, a lot of people have said comments to me like, I didn't really like Gavin Newsom,

01:21:13.840 but I like that he's fighting.

01:21:15.000 And I think I might like him now, right?

01:21:16.920 Like, Chris Van Hollen going down to El Salvador, meeting at Brigo Garcia.

01:21:21.020 Like, I didn't know I was a big Chris Van Hollen fan, but now I am, right?

01:21:24.460 So people are stepping up in ways big and small.

01:21:26.860 One thing we're working on here at Crooked Media is we have a pilot program going

01:21:31.220 where we're trying to encourage our audience that live in Arizona, Texas,

01:21:35.720 and North Carolina to run for office at every level.

01:21:39.480 Dog catcher, you know, like school board, everything,

01:21:42.280 because we just don't want any race to go unopposed.

01:21:45.100 I think we've got like a thousand people who've tried to sign up so far.

01:21:48.180 So we're just trying to, like, rally people, have people feel like they have agency

01:21:51.560 and they can do something, especially in this moment.

01:21:53.600 I think Obama's comments are right.

01:21:56.200 I think he's also in a tough spot because a lot of people miss him.

01:22:01.460 They feel like he's been absent.

01:22:03.040 They want him to speak out on more things.

01:22:05.160 I think it was especially complicated for him during the Biden administration

01:22:08.620 because there's a bit of a fraught relationship there.

01:22:11.960 And there were just, you know,

01:22:13.320 some issues that people probably really wanted to hear Obama on, like Gaza.

01:22:17.120 He was just the wrong messenger.

01:22:19.040 Like Joe Biden thinks that he is the Netanyahu whisperer

01:22:24.260 and was not going to listen to anybody else on that.

01:22:26.880 So I do think, like, would I love to see Barack Obama out there more?

01:22:30.340 Yes.

01:22:30.960 I think sometimes us political advisors, us hacks,

01:22:36.080 I'm looking at John, not you,

01:22:37.540 we get in a mindset where it's like you save your powder

01:22:40.760 and you go out two weeks before midterm,

01:22:42.880 and that's how you win an election.

01:22:44.540 And I think what Donald Trump taught us is he did constant care and feeding

01:22:48.920 of this kind of media world, built their audiences,

01:22:52.480 built his profile, built a brand for MAGA and himself,

01:22:57.400 and that was more effective.

01:22:58.900 And we need more of that, like, kind of, you know, 24-7, 365 work.

01:23:03.500 I think there's a few things going on with him.

01:23:06.080 And, you know, one of his comments, I think he said something like,

01:23:09.800 we can't be, it's too much navel gazing.

01:23:12.120 Yeah, navel gazing, yeah.

01:23:13.580 And if you, again, we talked about this earlier,

01:23:16.860 if you look at the news and you look at news about Democrats,

01:23:20.500 it is inevitably Democrats talking about how to win back someone we lost

01:23:24.460 and what do we do and what's the future of the party.

01:23:26.460 So there's a lot of navel gazing, which we always do as a party,

01:23:29.260 especially now that we've lost a second race to Donald Trump.

01:23:33.040 So I think people are not trusting,

01:23:36.760 when I say people, I mean, like, Democratic politicians,

01:23:38.720 a lot of them are not trusting their instincts anymore

01:23:41.000 because you're like, how does Donald Trump won the presidency twice

01:23:44.500 after an insurrection, after, you're right?

01:23:47.000 Like, and so maybe nothing I believed about politics is right, right?

01:23:51.420 So there's a lot, there's extra caution.

01:23:53.960 And so I think he was talking about that.

01:23:55.420 I think he, I know he is, like, extremely concerned about this.

01:24:00.380 I also know that he believes that he has a very big presence

01:24:08.320 and that when he's out there, that a lot of other people don't get oxygen

01:24:12.380 and he feels very strongly that he needs to make way for a new generation.

01:24:17.520 I also think there's, I was president for eight years.

01:24:20.380 I gave you this much of my life and I, like, I can't keep doing this all the time.

01:24:26.100 Like, there's a little bit of that.

01:24:27.500 But I also know that when he gets out there, like, you know, I,

01:24:32.060 Yeah, I, like, worked with him around the, I worked with him around the convention

01:24:34.840 and that was, like, his, he was first, he was back, he was doing the convention speech.

01:24:37.660 And he was, like, he, the more we worked on it, the more he got into it.

01:24:41.080 And he was, like, and now I'm psyched and I'm ready for this speech.

01:24:43.660 This is great and I want to hit the trail.

01:24:45.200 So it's, like, he is still a political animal.

01:24:47.780 But when you, the longer you're out, I think the harder it is to get back in.

01:24:51.480 And I do think there is, I think there's plenty of space between Barack Obama being out there every day in Donald Trump's face,

01:24:58.700 which I don't think is a good idea, and, like, not doing much at all.

01:25:02.660 Like, I think there's a big space in between there.

01:25:04.140 And I think he's just got to figure out, like, how he's going to be the most useful.

01:25:08.160 Because that's how he thinks, right?

01:25:09.260 It's not like, what about my brand or what about this?

01:25:11.600 Like, how can I actually be useful in moving the ball forward?

01:25:15.840 What's actually going to be most effective coming from me?

01:25:17.860 And just because he's, you know, cerebral like that, and I think that's probably what he's trying to figure out.

01:25:22.420 Are you guys just, you're over-under on 16, or excuse, 16, 26?

01:25:27.680 26.

01:25:29.080 Which, I mean, sitting here today, with all you know, the big, beautiful bill, smart, a lot of the provisions don't, I mean, we're going to assert,

01:25:39.120 but we can't prove the impacts necessarily on a lot of them, some very much so, but some will be delayed intentionally.

01:25:47.860 What's your over-under in terms of how we're going to fare?

01:25:51.740 I will say on the bill, Tony Fabrizio, Trump's pollster, had a memo out today.

01:25:57.760 And he found in most of the battleground districts, Republicans running behind.

01:26:01.280 He also tested the extension of the ACA credits and found that it is wildly popular to extend those credits.

01:26:11.820 And that is going to start, people are going to start getting those notices this fall.

01:26:15.520 Right away.

01:26:15.920 That their premiums are going to go out.

01:26:17.140 We're expecting 2 million people to have premium increases on that, just in California alone, 2 million.

01:26:22.160 Wow.

01:26:22.400 And we expect, based upon legitimate, conservative, prior experience, 600,000 people will drop out because they can't afford the premium increases.

01:26:32.160 So just that alone, that's not the 3.4 million in California that we expect would lose under Medicaid or Medi-Cal, separate and above 600,000, just on that alone.

01:26:42.400 So that's interesting.

01:26:43.540 And I appreciate that memo coming out and that being illuminated.

01:26:46.940 And his suggestion is that Republicans should vote to extend the credits.

01:26:50.560 Like, we'll see if they actually do that.

01:26:53.200 Because it's sort of separate and above and above and above.

01:26:54.580 But look, when we passed the Affordable Care Act, we owned everything that went wrong with the health care system.

01:27:00.480 And guess what?

01:27:01.340 Now they passed Trump's health reform.

01:27:03.740 And they gutted Obamacare to give rich people a tax cut, so they own everything that goes wrong with the health care system now.

01:27:09.720 The premiums go up.

01:27:10.820 You're pissed at your insurance company.

01:27:12.400 Your rural hospital closes down.

01:27:14.780 It's all on Trump.

01:27:16.760 And rich people get a tax cut.

01:27:18.220 And by the way, you're paying for more.

01:27:19.940 You're paying more, higher prices because of his dumb fucking tariffs.

01:27:23.340 Right?

01:27:23.440 So I think, I feel good about the midterms, but I also feel like Democrats need to, and I know a lot of strategists don't agree with this, but I think Democrats should talk about what they'll do if they have power again.

01:27:36.320 And now you have to be careful because we went back to the House and Senate.

01:27:39.540 Basically, all we can do is stop harm.

01:27:42.400 You know, like we can send out subpoenas too, but like who knows if they'll even respond to the subpoenas.

01:27:46.060 So like we don't have, we can't overpromise, but I think we can say, look, this is part one of a two-part step, you know, a two-part thing here where we take back the Senate and the House and then hopefully take back the presidency.

01:27:59.140 And then when we do that, this is our ideas.

01:28:02.420 Like this is what we want to do for people.

01:28:04.140 Well, let me end on that because now we're extending this one quick time because on that it's just so interesting.

01:28:08.480 So I had Frank Luntz on my pod and I had Gingrich.

01:28:11.240 And obviously we're going to talk about the contract on America or with America or however you want to phrase it.

01:28:17.080 And it was really interesting.

01:28:18.280 Frank calls balls and strikes about Newt and Newt obviously will toot his own horn.

01:28:23.340 And it's just interesting, the perspectives.

01:28:25.900 But the potency of that at the moment was obviously outsized.

01:28:30.980 The political utility of having an agenda, holding yourselves to account on the agenda, sort of scoring your own progress and having some transparency.

01:28:40.740 It wasn't just that as a document, as a weapon to get into power, but how they actually utilized it.

01:28:47.140 Is that something the Democratic Party should be working on along the lines of what John just said?

01:28:51.960 I mean, we, right now.

01:28:53.880 Yeah.

01:28:54.160 Yes, yes, yes.

01:28:55.240 I think like, like I am, I'm hopeful about 2026.

01:29:01.220 I feel like you kind of have historical trends.

01:29:03.300 And also the thing I'm really watching is just inflation and prices.

01:29:06.820 And like the tariff stuff, it has not bit yet, but none of it makes sense.

01:29:10.780 Like we're putting a 50% tariff on Brazil today because we think Bolsonaro tried to stage a violent coup.

01:29:17.280 Bolsonaro is a national security.

01:29:19.180 She's a, yeah, it's a national security emergency that we're necessitating 50% tariff.

01:29:22.780 Right.

01:29:22.940 So like none of this makes sense.

01:29:24.340 He's not addressing costs.

01:29:25.580 That's what people really care about.

01:29:26.640 And I think that'll bite him in the ass.

01:29:27.820 I hope, I hope, I hope.

01:29:29.320 Healthcare stuff, maybe we'll figure out if we can, we can sell that.

01:29:32.520 But I think Democrats have done a lot of work trying to figure out what went wrong in the last election.

01:29:38.720 Media, podcasts, like, hey, it turns out Biden was old.

01:29:43.640 We haven't done a lot of work.

01:29:44.820 Us too, by the way.

01:29:45.380 We're guilty.

01:29:46.080 Yeah.

01:29:46.480 We've been doing it.

01:29:47.240 Right.

01:29:47.480 But we haven't, but we're, we're not the party.

01:29:49.500 We haven't done a lot of work on ourselves.

01:29:50.920 Like, how do we fix our brand problem?

01:29:53.180 How do we, how do we make the, you didn't like the 27% in March and then the NBC poll?

01:29:58.820 Oh, yeah.

01:29:59.800 Like, how, at least we got 27%.

01:30:02.080 I mean, it could have been 25.

01:30:03.520 It could have been two.

01:30:04.380 Could have been two.

01:30:04.960 How do we become a party that people want to, first of all, movement people want to be a part of that is fun and inspiring and exciting.

01:30:11.580 And also just policy positions that get back to first principles, like anti-war, for working people, ethical, right?

01:30:18.780 Like, what's our reform agenda?

01:30:19.980 And I think, like, whether it's a contract for America or, like, a policy proposal, there's got to be an alternative that you can turn to that isn't just Trump bad.

01:30:29.520 And thinking back to the 2020 primary, how many fucking debates did they go into the minutiae of Medicare for all proposals?

01:30:38.960 Implementation.

01:30:39.620 Implementation.

01:30:40.060 Right.

01:30:40.480 Which is what we do.

01:30:41.240 Like, imagine if instead of, like, arguing about this, we were just like, what's a big goal that people can grab onto, right?

01:30:48.780 Which is, Trump has done that.

01:30:51.000 Momdani did that in New York, right?

01:30:52.300 What if we just said, like, all right, no one ever has to pay over 10% of their income for health care?

01:30:58.220 And we'll, well, we're going to, look, we're going to, it's going to be a mix of credits, government expansion, whatever.

01:31:04.140 We're going to figure it out.

01:31:05.120 That's our goal.

01:31:06.060 Everyone who works should be able to live in a house and never be homeless.

01:31:09.260 That's it.

01:31:09.500 We're going to figure out, we're going to build more houses.

01:31:11.020 We're going to figure out rents.

01:31:12.740 Like, I just think that we, we get into the policy details of, like, how we're going to get it done.

01:31:17.360 And we need to be more, like, here's a big goal that people can grab onto.

01:31:20.620 And, and it's, and it's a good contrast with them.

01:31:24.100 And then just go from there.

01:31:25.580 I love that.

01:31:26.200 And, and, and just to close the loop on this, who does that?

01:31:31.280 I mean, you, you, you say it through the prism of our presidential aspirants and they're all putting out their damn white papers and they're trying to shape the party conversation.

01:31:38.820 You have the sort of DLC version of this and the Bruce Reed folks and from, and we need a version of that 2.0, uh, community opportunity responsibility type agenda that can frame broadly.

01:31:50.060 Those values.

01:31:50.880 And then we come back into them.

01:31:52.260 Uh, is it Nancy Pelosi working with Jeffries?

01:31:54.920 Is it, uh, Ken Martin?

01:31:56.620 Is it state democratic party, uh, parties?

01:31:59.500 Is it, uh, mayor, you know, this or governor that?

01:32:02.480 I mean, who is it?

01:32:03.500 I look, I think, uh, I think California has always led the way.

01:32:07.460 And should continue to do it.

01:32:08.980 For those listening, if you saw this son of a bitch's face, really, really.

01:32:13.300 The future happens here first.

01:32:17.200 America's coming attraction.

01:32:18.500 So I say, we are the laboratory.

01:32:20.960 That's this, well, you know what?

01:32:22.080 On that, we will close.

01:32:24.320 To all you listening from the great state of California, it's been my honor.

01:32:30.520 This was really fun.

01:32:31.240 Thank you for having us on.

01:32:33.000 I like having you on the other side of this, Dan.

01:32:34.760 Honestly, I love it.

01:32:35.920 That's great.

01:32:36.580 Thank you, guys.

01:32:37.340 Just like great shoes, great books take you places through unforgettable love stories

01:32:48.920 and into conversations with characters you'll never forget.

01:32:52.220 I think any good romance, it gives me this feeling of, like, butterflies.

01:32:57.040 I'm Danielle Robay, and this is Bookmarked by Reese's Book Club, the new podcast from

01:33:01.460 Hello Sunshine and iHeart Podcast, where we dive into the stories that shape us, on the

01:33:06.420 page and off.

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01:33:56.460 So, what happened to Chappaquiddick?

01:33:58.460 Well, it really depends on who you talk to.

01:34:00.540 There are many versions of what happened in 1969 when a young Ted Kennedy drove a car into

01:34:05.620 a pond.

01:34:06.320 And left a woman behind to drown.

01:34:09.120 Chappaquiddick is a story of a tragic death and how the Kennedy machine took control.

01:34:14.780 Every week, we go behind the headlines and beyond the drama of America's royal family.

01:34:19.640 Listen to United States of Kennedy on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your

01:34:25.040 podcasts.

01:34:25.680 I'm Bob Crawford, host of American History Hotline, a different type of podcast.

01:34:35.280 You, the listener, ask the questions.

01:34:38.200 Did George Washington really cut down a cherry tree?

01:34:40.540 Were JFK and Marilyn Monroe having an affair?

01:34:42.840 And I find the answers.

01:34:44.520 I'm so glad you asked me this question.

01:34:46.520 This is such a ridiculous story.

01:34:48.100 You can listen to American History Hotline on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or

01:34:54.620 wherever you get your podcasts.

01:34:58.920 What's up, guys?

01:34:59.980 Welcome to the Augusto Papá Podcast, the go-to spot for everything Musica Mexicana.

01:35:04.580 We're proud Mexican-Americans who live and breathe this music.

01:35:07.760 We started this podcast to share and discuss our views of Musica Mexicana.

01:35:11.100 Whether you like to vibe to Peso Pluma, Los Alegres del Barranco, Arel Camacho, or put

01:35:15.480 Ivan Cornejo when you get it in feels, then this podcast is for you.

01:35:18.740 Well, actually, Peso was supposed to be on Chinito's album.

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01:35:29.540 This is an iHeart Podcast.

This is Gavin Newsom - July 16, 2025

And, This is Pod Save America's Jon Favreau & Tommy Vietor

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