Trump's Explosive Diarrhea of the Mouth

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[02:03] you [02:04] *Music* [02:25] Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Jon Favreau. I'm Dan Pfeiffer. On today's show, Donald Trump unloads recycled election conspiracies in an impossible-to-follow primetime address. [02:34] His teleprompter operator was apparently making money betting on his speeches. His media company is selling Wall Street access to his truths. [02:41] And his vice president is demanding taxpayer-funded helicopter rides for his kid's golf lesson. We'll dig into those stories. Plus, D. Vance's attempt to win back Joe Rogan and Pete Hegseth's obsession with... [02:54] with testosterone. Then Alex Wagner talks to Michigan Senate candidate, Abdul El-Sayed about the intense primary in that state.

[03:02] That's heading into the final homestretch. Speaking of Alex... [03:06] Uh, we're always adding new perks for friends of the pod and now subscribers can listen to Alex Wagner's runaway country. [03:12] ad-free. [03:14] Welcome to the ad-free group of pods, Alex Wagner. It's the inner circle, if you will. And to everyone else, if you haven't subscribed already... [03:22] Now you get Alex's pod. [03:24] ad free as well as this one, as well as Pod Save the World and Offline and Love It or Leave It and all your favorite crooked pods.

And you get subscriber only shows like Polar Coaster with this guy that I'm doing the pod with right here, which never had ads. [03:40] which never had ads because it's subscriber only, Pod Save America only friends, and you get to be supporting independent media. So when Donald Trump, you know, screams at Brendan Carr to pull everyone's license, can't do that with us because we don't have a broadcast license. [03:58] Cool. Silver lining. That's what I think. com slash friends if you want to subscribe. All right. Let's get to Trump's big primetime address, which he built.

[04:09] as really big news, really big news. It doesn't get bigger. [04:13] It's so big. [04:15] that we are recording this at 7 m. [04:17] on Thursday night. [04:19] because we wanted to bring you our analysis of this speech, which is why we're here late, because it was so big. [04:27] Just like a table of nine people at CNN. [04:32] Dozens of 2020 election deniers got called to the White House for a top secret preview. Ohio Senator Bernie Moreno said it would be the most important presidential address ever. [04:43] since the Cuban Missile Crisis.

[04:46] and at 9pm Eastern on Thursday night this is what we got though this might be news to you unless you're a Fox or CBS viewer since those are the only networks that carried it live CBS really only did like [04:59] half the speech. And then they sort of gave context around it. But anyway... [05:04] Here's what you missed. [05:11] revealing shocking vulnerabilities in our... [05:14] election infrastructure. This evidence shows that the election system we have dangerously exposes [05:22] and really exposes like levels never thought possible [05:27] to hacking, exploitation and foreign interference.

[05:32] Just as disturbingly this vital information has for many years been covered up and hidden from you. They wanted to just make you sound like your president wasn't so hot when actually your president has done a great job. Recently, we found significant numbers of burn bags, members of the deep state. Very, very famous group of people, many cases. They did not want and they just didn't want it. [06:02] Donald Trump. [06:03] To win in a rare move, NBC and ABC Fake News have both said that they would not cover this speech.

They knew what it was about. They and others in the media are part of a plot. [06:15] They want to continue this fraud for whatever reason. They want to keep it going. Addressing this crisis of election security demands that Congress must pass the Save America Act. [06:28] Wow. So, [06:31] That was something. [06:33] In our meeting before the speech earlier this week, you said it would probably just be a bunch of rambling nothing. [06:41] that no one would pay attention to and think about more than 24, 48 hours afterwards. And I kind of think you nailed it, Dan.

[06:48] Well, I had to get one right eventually. [06:53] Let's get to Trump's actual claims, which honestly... [06:57] I mean, we played that Supercut, but it was hard to follow. And we have followed this stuff for like 10 years. And... [07:05] Also, [07:06] Like before the speech, while we were waiting around in the office to record tonight, I was like going back and reading things about the 2020 election and what had been debunked just so I could prepare for this. And still it was hard to follow. [07:18] That stuff wasn't even really helpful.

You didn't even have – being an expert in – [07:23] the conspiracy theories up to this point. [07:25] Was that helpful? Because these were... [07:27] New-ish conspiracy theories, I guess. Let's go through his actual claims. Starting in 2020, China allegedly acquired... [07:37] 220 million S. voter files and the deep state hid this from Trump. Now, all the documents that the White House released also confirm what the intelligence agencies and the government found back in 2020 when Trump was president. Yeah. [07:55] That not a single vote was changed. And also the voter files, voter information, voter registration information is public in most states.

You can just get the information. So anyone can get it? [08:25] good? Probably not. But Trump tried to make it sound much scarier than it actually was. Our voting machines are vulnerable. [08:35] Didn't really give a lot of evidence for that. That was all recycled. [08:38] stuff that the intelligence agency had said. There's like potential for vulnerabilities in some electronic voting machines, but nothing has happened. And, you know, other nefarious actors and other countries may have been looking at ways to hack into or interfere with voting machines, but no one has done it.

And so there's no news there. [09:07] were flagged to the police and then nothing happened and no votes were changed and no people registered. And I guess it was never prosecuted. And now Trump wants that prosecuted. Yeah. And it's I mean, the thing about that is this this has happened in the past. It actually happened on a race I worked on many, many years ago where people are doing what a registration drive and they just filled out the forms in order to get paid. [09:28] Mm-hmm. [09:29] which is fraud, but it's not voter fraud because the people who got registered – [09:33] If they either don't exist or if they do exist, they don't know they're registered, so they don't vote.

[09:38] Yeah. [09:38] So that's it's an old one. It's been public. It's not that wasn't anything new. DHS apparently found a bunch of noncitizens registered to vote, but didn't find any noncitizens who did vote. Also, it can't really be verified. Who knows what the noncitizens registering to vote are? We haven't seen those documents yet. And then. [09:57] Big one. [09:58] There were some, there was some election meddling. [10:01] there were some votes changed. [10:04] in Venezuela, [10:05] By Nicolas Maduro. Someone's got to get that Maduro guy. That guy should be serving time.

One of the revelations tonight was... [10:12] that Nicolas Maduro medaled in Venezuela's election, and somehow that ended up in... [10:17] Donald Trump's primetime address at a time when we are at war with Iran. The strait is closed. Inflation is high. People are struggling. [10:28] There's wildfire smoke that is making half the cities in the northeast and the Midwest unbreathable. Can't even go outside. You can't eat lettuce. You're not getting explosive diarrhea. Forgot about that. Right. There's lettuce, explosive diarrhea. And yet... [10:44] The president went out tonight to talk about random...

[10:48] recycled voter conspiracy election fraud conspiracy theories and let us know that nicolas maduro meddled in his own elections and that the chinese have access to the voter file data that we do too i mean a couple of just key points here i just want to hone in on first you said it i'm going to say it again it's very important no one has presented any evidence that [11:12] that votes were changed. [11:13] including the Trump administration, this time around. They could not find that. They went digging into the raw intel.

Last time around they did that too. This time around as well. They cannot do it. The second thing here is that China apparently acquired public information. [11:25] Mm hmm. Don't love it, but nothing you can really do about it. We make it public. Next, the idea to the extent that there's allegations, although this is very much a speed by the intelligence community, that China was going to be involved in some sort of misinformation campaign. They're going to try to. [11:40] get involved with like hire journalists or, you know, [11:44] media influencers or build bots or all of that, all of the things that Russia did on Trump's behalf in 2016, to be noted.

No, not a ton of evidence that they actually did it, but that they thought about doing it. But we also know that in every election, foreign people, [11:57] intelligence agencies try to interfere in our elections. Right. Russia tries it. Iran has tried it. [12:02] The Chinese have apparently tried it. Nothing new there. No evidence that actually changed any boats. I think the most important thing here, [12:09] is... [12:11] If there were. [12:12] huge gaps in our election security infrastructure that allowed... [12:18] China to penetrate to do these things. [12:21] that Trump claims they did do.

The person who was in charge at that time should be held accountable. And that person is Donald Trump. No, careful on that, because he got ahead of that tonight by basically saying – [12:31] that everyone, that this was all uncovered. It was all known in 2020, but it was all the deep state, and the deep state hit it for him. So this is like he's going to go after his own. That's my next point. [12:40] His big complaint, where he spent a lot of time here, is that the people who work for him didn't tell him things.

[12:45] It seems like a management problem. And I would also point out that the guy who is the director of national intelligence who would have been overseeing the people who are hiding things from Donald Trump is a man named John Ratcliffe. Is John Ratcliffe in jail? Has he been – [12:58] Has he been shamed out of public life? No. Donald Trump picked him to be his director of the CIA. [13:03] Look, these people, these are not incompetent public servants. These are victims of a deep state plot, Dan. No matter who you're talking about, there's always a deep state operative responsible for pulling the wool over their eyes.

And then also, if you were someone who is deeply concerned about our election security going forward, would you have gutted many of the agencies and eliminated much of the funding that goes towards... [13:29] election security. [13:32] Because that's what Donald Trump and Elon Musk did do. One thing that's funny is, as everyone is reading all, you can go to gov to look at all these docs that they declassified and released. As everyone's looking at the docs, they're not really matching the president's claims in the speech. No, John, stop. His own documents, his own documents.

Sam Stein picked up this one here. [13:54] Docs released by Trump tonight confirm Russia tried to spread claims Biden was engaged in criminal activity vis-a-vis Burisma. [14:02] and that it advanced those narratives with S. officials and planned a high-profile corruption scandal at the peak of the 2020 presidential election. [14:10] campaign, you might remember that that scandal turned out to be the subject of [14:15] of Donald Trump's first impeachment. [14:18] yeah his perfect phone call to zelinski so that stuff's out there now um there was a lot of stuff just about russia [14:26] in the docks that Russia tried to interfere on behalf of Donald Trump.

So they put all that out there, too. [14:34] Fucking idiots, man. Yeah, it's so stupid. And apparently, like, there was an administration official told MSNOW before the speech, because this was a speech that was cooked up, by the way, by... [14:46] John Solomon, the pretend journalist who then has become a special government employee and also Bill Pulte. And an administration official told MSNL flatly that the intelligence doesn't show what Pulte and Solomon claim. Quote, the intelligence just doesn't say what you want it to say. I'm sorry. [15:06] So they just they cooked up some stuff for the president to say in his speech and get all mad and please him, please grandpa, who's getting old and, you know, [15:16] Trumpy and wants to talk about election conspiracies.

And then they just threw that in the speech and then they put out a bunch of docs that don't really say any of that. [15:23] Cool. What a great use of everyone's time. What a great use of everyone's time. What's your level of alarm after listening? Because, you know, on one hand, it's all stupid and they didn't really prove anything and they didn't even make up any good story. They didn't even put out a good lie. On the other hand, it's clear that his intention is to sow doubt. [15:45] among Americans in the sanctity of our elections, and clearly, as sure as the sun comes up, is going to cry foul if Republicans lose the midterms.

[15:59] I mean, this is a man who cried foul at an election he won in 2016. Right. So it's like, you didn't need a speech or declassifying a bunch of documents for that, but sure. I think... [16:09] We should be very vigilant because Donald Trump is going to try to interfere in these elections. [16:15] Like we know that that is obvious. I think he has less power to do so than he believes. And a lot of Democrats fear these elections are run by the states. States decide how they're run, how the votes are counted, how they're certified.

Those things are written in law. The courts to date have been very. [16:30] I'm skeptical of any of these Trump efforts across the board from 2020 all the way through here. [16:36] But he's going to try and we should be vigilant. I am no more worried after this speech than I was before. This was just stupid. I think people thought there was reporting early on that he was just going to declare – [16:46] that John Ossoff and Raphael Warnock were illegitimate senators. I don't know what power he has to do that, or that he would call for the seizing of something or the confiscation of this thing.

He did none of that. He just – [16:59] Vomited a bunch of things that didn't make a lot of sense in a very tired, monotone voice that was felt aggrieved the whole time and then moved. Burn bags. Burn bags. Yeah. I mean, it was we can get into the performance level of this, but it was. [17:15] I mean, I would actually, he may need to talk to Pete Hicks after I get some of that tea. [17:21] Yelling about the burn, I couldn't follow that one either. Something about Obama and burn bags.

We knew about these burn bags was the thing. I was trying to remember this because we've actually talked about it because this is the Cash Patel thing. I think these are the Cash Patel burn bags. It's so hard to keep all these episodes. I know. It's literally our job is to keep these things straight. And we can understand what the fuck he was saying. Like, what would a normal American think of this? [17:45] The FCC threat, the networks who didn't cover my speech, my election fraud speech where I spout conspiracies are now going to lose their license.

They should lose their license. Is that a real threat? [17:58] I mean, I think it's the thing that Trump really would like to see happen, and I'm sure Brendan Carr will – [18:03] tried to do some things. I don't think he really has the ability to do that. Just to make this very clear, it is not unusual for networks not to air speeches. If the topic of the National Televised Address is not sufficiently newsworthy, this happened with Obama. None of the networks covered Obama's 2014 speech about immigration, where he's going to announce immigration and executive action, where there actually was news in it, but they all thought it was too political to cover.

[18:27] In 2022, you remember the Joe Biden speech on democracy that he gave. [18:33] covered that one either because they thought it was too political and newsworthy. This was very political and not newsworthy. And then when you add on top of it, it was funny watching Fox's coverage because Fox is so afraid to... [18:44] of getting another three-quarters of a billion dollar lawsuit like they did in the Dominion suit. And so they were just so – they promoted the speech without ever talking about what was in the speech. And then after the speech, they had to repeatedly say, Fox can't verify these claims.

Like the lawyers were really all up in Bret Baier's ass, which was amusing to watch. So it's not like – [19:04] They can the networks are well within their rights to not cover this. And it's not unusual and it's not a Trump derangement syndrome or anything like that. This is a speech that was not did not merit that level of coverage, even if the things he were going to say were not. [19:18] possibly litigious lies. [19:28] This podcast is sponsored by Squarespace. Squarespace is the all-in-one website platform designed to elevate your online presence and drive your success.

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com slash Crooked. That's com slash Crooked. Meet your match on ZipRecruiter. [21:45] So Republicans had some thoughts on this whole thing before the speech. Politico helpfully captures three different outlooks here. First, the doomers. [21:53] like the anonymous former Trump administration official who said, quote, the people I talk to are scared shitless. This is about what it will do to their midterm chances. Next is the what can I do? I'm just a simple member of Congress cohort represented here by Senator John Kennedy. Quote, when moms and dads lie down to sleep at night and can't, what are they mostly worried about?

I would say cost of living. But he's the president and he can talk about whatever he wants. [22:23] the, quote, revelations in the speech, quote, will be the exact tonic the MAGA grassroots base need to fire them up, to remind them of what they're really fighting for in these crucial November elections. Dan, who's right? [22:35] I don't think Steve Bannon is right. [22:37] Picture this. Is there a group of January Sixers who live in swing districts who are just tapped out on Trump or just waiting for a call to arms to go vote?

[22:50] You know, for Mike Lawler in New York, I don't think so. I think that is Cope from Steve Bannon. [22:56] All the blood has been squeezed from the stone. There is just nothing. There's nothing. Like, what do you I totally agree. Like, I just don't understand how this gets anyone motivated, especially since it's so hard to fucking follow. It's just yeah, it's so stupid. And the bigger political issue here and the reason why that first group of scared shitless people are correct is it's not just the crazy things he said.

It's what he chose to talk about. [23:20] We are in a world where this is an election entirely about affordability. [23:25] Large majorities of people, including Trump voters and people thinking about voting for Republicans in this midterm, think that Trump is not spending enough time focusing on lower people's costs. So what does he do? He has a nationally televised address to talk about. [23:38] Declassified intelligence that's unintelligible about a six-year-old election. [23:43] Yeah. [23:44] Like it's just you're waving a sign that says, I do not care about you. I do not care about your problems.

I care about me and my problems. And that is bad for Republicans. Yeah, I don't think it's going to I don't think it's going to fly. I mean, unless they combine, you know, as we get closer to the election, that he'll probably do a, you know, the communists and socialists are trying to steal the election to take over America. So they can, you know, there can be Sharia law and, you know, they can take all your property. And, you know, it'll be something like that. Like that'll happen. [24:14] of the election, and so that's why you have to be vigilant.

But that wasn't even the gist of this speech. No, no, that wasn't even. This speech was... [24:20] From what I can tell, it was... [24:23] And China tried to steal an election in the past and then a bunch of people in the government didn't tell me about it. [24:30] vote Republican. It's not a good message. [24:35] Yeah, that's about right. All right. Well, that's enough of that. Trump had the added challenge of delivering that speech tonight with a new teleprompter operator. And that's because his former prompter guy, Gabriel Perez, was placed on unpaid leave Thursday morning after it was reported that Perez made more than $100,000 on Calci, placing bets on words that would appear in the president's speeches.

[25:00] He apparently flagged Perez's trades back in March, the same month the White House published a memo warning staffers against trading on prediction markets, and eventually referred his case to the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, which is conducting an investigation. [25:13] Think of how rich [25:15] We could have gotten... [25:16] if Kelsey was around 20 years ago. [25:19] That's your first takeaway on this missed opportunity. I mean, we're talking about a teleprompter and knowing about a speech. Yeah, of course, that's what I'm going to think about. I mean, that was your chance.

Perez, who often makes this is from the ABC story that broke the news. Perez, who often makes final edits to Trump's speeches, including changes from Trump himself. Oh, my God. [25:39] kill a teleprompter operator who was making the final changes to the speech. That's that's terrifying to me. Backed out of bets mid speech when Trump went off script, he was live hedging the athletes. This is very inside baseball. But the thing that was most about this is the teleprompter operator has the rank of deputy assistant to the president. [26:01] I know, I saw you.

Which makes him essentially the diplomatic rank of an ambassador and one of the highest paid people in the White House. Yeah, that's a lot of money. [26:09] Usually, think about it this way. The deputy director of the NEC has that same rank. The deputy communications director may have that rank, doesn't always have that rank. Just very, very high-level people who make huge decisions have the same rank as Trump's favorite teleprompter guy, and that's your taxpayer money going to pay this guy. [26:29] And that wasn't enough for him. [26:30] Because he was making $100,000 extra off CalShe.

I have a question. Why only $100,000? [26:38] Yeah. I mean, this guy, he had all the goods. This guy could have just... Maybe it's just Trump went off script so much that he couldn't... I wonder how many bets did he lose. Also, it's like, talk about the multitasking. You're operating the prompter. You're doing that. You're watching that. But also, now he's going off script. So now you have your phone in your other hand. You're on CalShe. [27:00] bet. [27:01] No, you're not changing the bet. You're changing the speech. Right. The speech.

That's true. Yes. [27:08] Oh, my God. Ahead of tonight's address, Calci Traders, it's just a little fun fact, a side note here, already wagered more than, earlier today, they had already wagered more than $800,000 on whether Trump says words like Hormuz or rigged election. He did an accomplishments topper. Boy, did he. It's about how horrible everything was before he became president, now how wonderful everything is, and go to TrumpRx, and here's your Trump account. [27:31] Three websites. The best part was, this is so funny. He says, and if you want to read the documents, you can go to [27:37]

gov. Again, that's gov. It's like, yeah, you've never heard of that one? I mean, this is very – I mean, obviously he's a boomer, but this is a pre – essentially pre-Google way of doing this, which is people just Google it now. You don't really have to do the website, but you can help yourself. Yeah, that was – his accomplishments list was part – like he likes to show that he's a winner and take care of everything. But you could have told it was also like the consultants and the political people or the Susie Wiles, whoever.

[28:07] talk about this polls well. You've got to talk about this. You've got to talk about this. You can talk about all your election conspiracies as long as you do this list at the top. What was the third website he did? gov, TrumpRx, and I think he did one other one, didn't he? The Trump accounts. Trump accounts for all your kids. Believe it or not, the teleprompter operator, that's just one of three corrupt dates we have for you from the last 48 hours. If only we could ever get that corrupt date sting we've been asking for for years.

Whatever, someday. On Thursday, [28:37] the company that owns Truth Social, announced that it will sell Wall Street banks and investors, quote, "a direct, licensed, real-time feed of the platform's most market-moving truths," including, of course, Donald Trump's. In other words, the president's family company is now charging Wall Street for early-ish access to the market-moving statements of the president, who will then profit. Why don't they just start asking the Treasury, [29:03] to print money for the Trumps. [29:05] I don't know why we're going through all of these schemes and this and that.

Everything's so complicated. Just go to Scott Besson, ask him to start printing money, put it in your pocket, walk away. This is truly... [29:19] one of the most wildly corrupt things that has ever happened. And that's saying a lot. I don't know. That's saying a lot. But just think about this. A truth is a presidential statement. [29:29] We laugh about it because they go out on this stupid fucking platform that no one... [29:33] pays any attention to. It's funny because the platform is so bad and it's such a poor product and badly designed that it's so slow that basically the fix to make it like Twitter is something now that Wall Street has to pay for.

Well, basically, think of it this way. I'm going to dumb this down for people. This would be like if [29:55] Wall Street was paying the president to get a presidential statement before the rest of the people. [30:02] so that they can make... [30:04] instantaneous [30:05] trades off of that information. There's an example, president announces [30:11] a... [30:12] new ceasefire with Iran, you can use that to... [30:16] Buy you all futures. [30:18] He says the end... [30:20] Of the ceasefire, you can sell your oil futures faster than anyone else because you have paid money to the president to get access to that market-moving information before everyone else in this country.

And it's not like it's a pay-to-play thing where it's open to everyone. It's not like Twitter pro versus Twitter or whatever the fuck it is where you can just pay more and now your tweets will come faster. It's only available to banks and investors. Yes. Yes. [30:48] It's basically as you're getting information on your terminal before the public. [30:53] And in this day and age with the way – [30:55] trades are made. [30:57] Five seconds is worth millions and millions of dollars. A second is worth millions of dollars. I was trying to think, is there a law?

Is it just a thing that presidents shouldn't be doing? Is it in that category or is there some kind of regulation? I mean, I don't know. Yeah, it's the abuse of power. I guess, yeah. It's a high crime and a misdemeanor. I was going to say that the core of the problem lies in the fact that the president's market moving statements aren't first released by the White House. [31:27] but by the president on his own private media platform. [31:31] That is the core of the issue. Yes. That it goes out on Truth Social first, and then the federal government, which is supposed to be responsive to the people.

Then they put the truth out a couple seconds after Trump does it on, Trump bleats. There's some obvious things the founders missed. This is one that I understand why they didn't foresee happening. [31:55] Finally, last one. [32:01] included a request to fly his son to a golf lesson aboard Marine 2, that is the VP's military helicopter, which would have cost taxpayers up to $25,000 per hour around that, though the trip was scrapped due to high winds. But such requests have become so common that the vice president's security detail are reportedly now exchanging stickers and challenge coins among themselves that read Bobcat OTR Survivors Club,

[32:31] is an off the record, so it's like a movement that's not planned in advance or that's not announced to the public in advance. Fun update to this, after MS Now broke the story, Vance canceled another planned helicopter ride for his son's golf lesson. [32:46] John, where are his son's golf lessons? Are they in Philadelphia? How can he get that? Oh, they're on the other side of town. You remember when Marine One used to take Malia and Sasha to school every day, right? Yes, yes, yes. That was the thing that happened?

They'd hop on the helicopter? What the fuck? I mean... [33:07] I've said this before, but I worked for a politician once who did something that was so fucking stupid that one of our advisors said that is an A-plus answer to the policy 101 question of how to lose a presidential election. This is that. [33:19] You are getting taxpayer-funded helicopter lessons for your son's golf lessons. [33:24] It's not even like... [33:25] Baseball game, Boy Scouts, charity work. It's fucking golf lessons. [33:30] Boy, are we a long way away from Hillbilly Elegy, huh?

[33:35] Yes. What would Mima and Papa say about this? Up from your bootstraps, right into the helicopter. [33:43] I mean, it is like he is so fucking lucky that that. [33:47] Trip was canceled by the wind. [33:49] But then he just, it was canceled by the wind, but then he planned another one and then canceled another one because of the story. It is. You know, it wasn't like, oh, close call. It was, let's charge ahead. It's stunning. [34:03] In it. And just beyond just a specific one, can you imagine the Secret Service is in charge of the Trump's and the Vance's?

[34:10] Thank you. [34:10] That's their job. [34:12] And out of that, the biggest asshole – [34:15] is D. Vance. Like, you're a more demanding, worse boss than Donald Trump. How fucking high and mighty is D. Vance going to get when someone asks him about this? And what kind... He's going to do some kind of how dare you talk about my children. Like, he's going to [34:32] I imagine that's what we're going to get from him. [34:52] I mean, obviously, I am too. That was in 1958 or something. 1958. [34:58] Like, I learned about the checker speech at some point in life, and it is a piece of information that has now gone out of my head.

[35:13] Pod Save America is brought to you by Willys. How does Willys fit into your routine? I'm going to have some Willys tonight. It's Friday. I'm not leaving the house. I got no plans. Nothing. Willie. Willie. It's you and Willie. It's me. I am spending my night, date night with Willie Nelson at the Vitor household. I'm going to put Willie next to me on the couch, a little bottle. Willie's is a premium THC infused social tonic crafted by the legendary Willie Nelson. It is a low calorie, low sugar alcohol alternative that actually works perfectly.

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[36:10] Willie's unique blend of THC, CBD, CBG, and L-theanine delivers a feeling of calm, clarity, euphoria, and relaxation. One shot of Willie's helps you relax, unwind, and de-stress. Perfect for taking the edge off at the end of a long day. Willie ships directly to your doorstep in 40-plus states and has sold out three times in the first six months with over 300,000 happy customers. [36:40] Like a legend. [36:41] Pod Save America is brought to you by Our Place. Our Place makes beautiful high-performance kitchenware designed to make home cooking simpler and more enjoyable.

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I'm excited to take home. Yeah, it looks really cool. I mean, I don't know. You want to use nonstick, but then you read about it and it makes you feel bad about using nonstick, but the ceramic nonsticks are safe and great. I wouldn't use anything but ceramic nonstick, personally. That's where I'm at. So excited to try it. Make some eggs for the kids over the weekend. It's easy to clean. It's like 10 functions. You can put a lid on it, like [37:37] You know, fry stuff, boil, bake, roast, serve. Like it does everything.

Go in the oven up to 450 degrees. So very excited to try this bad boy out. [37:45] Upgrade your kitchen with Our Place today. Visit com slash crooked and use code crooked for 10% off sitewide. That's F-R-O-M-O-U-R-P-L-A-C-E dot com slash C-R-O-O-K-E-D and use code crooked for 10% off sitewide. With a 100-day trial, you can try it completely risk-free. [38:07] Speaking of D. Vance's travel, he did make the trip to Austin this week to sit down with Joe Rogan for nearly three hours. [38:17] because nothing else is going on. It was pure awkwardness sprinkled with occasional attempts at political maneuvering.

Here are some of the highlights. If people want to say we mishandled the Epstein release, guilty. We did mishandle, especially the communications of it. What do you think should have been done? I think that we should have just dropped everything at the very beginning. So what is going on with Iran where it seems like... [38:39] The president keeps saying that a deal has been reached, negotiations have been successful, and then it all falls apart and we start bombing them again. Yeah, so how long do we have here? We have as much time as you need.

If it was your call, would you have done exactly the same thing? [39:00] publicly that D. was less enthusiastic about it, I think was the exact phrase that he used. I mean, my attitude towards this man, as you know, is the vice president. I'm not a public commentator. Like my job is to give the best advice I can to the president of the United States. Republicans still fundamentally have a cool problem. The thing I couldn't get over Biden is just bad staff work, man. The way that he ate ice cream.

[39:24] I mean, it's like, you know, we could bring some of this stuff up, but it's like they would get him eating ice cream in the most ridiculous, suggestive way imaginable. What? Suggesting what? [39:36] It's very fair. [39:38] What is he thinking about when he sees Joe Biden eating ice cream? Sex. He thinks about sex. He thinks about sex. It's a cardinal rule of this podcast that we do not kink shame. [39:47] We've always believed that. No bullshit. [39:50] No cake shaving. But I would say it's weird. [39:54] The D.

Vance. [39:56] Watch his job. I need ice cream. And he thinks it's suggestive. That's weird. We can we can bring this up. We can bring this up. What are you talking about? He's so awkward. So here's one review from The Daily Wire's Ben Shapiro. I tuned into Joe Rogan yesterday and heard Bernie Sanders economics, Barack Obama's foreign policy and Ro Khanna's conspiracy theories. And then I realized D. Vance was talking. I want a candidate in 2028 who doesn't mirror the Democrats and who can win. Mr. VP, this is not the way.

[40:26] So, [40:27] Vance tried to tiptoe away from Trump on Epstein and Iran. He also did the... [40:33] Jeffrey Epstein had connections to Mossad and the highest levels of intelligence, CIA, Mossad, all that kind of stuff. So do you think it worked? And what does it tell you about how... [40:47] Vance sees the 28 race. [40:51] It did not work. Also, how excited is Ro Khanna to be on that list? [40:56] He definitely tweeted that out. Definitely tweeted that out. Huge win for him. Also sounds like a pretty good candidate to me.

Obama's foreign policy, Bernie's economics, and Ro's take on the Epstein files. Well, I mean, his takes on the Epstein files are pretty good. Yeah, they are good. [41:13] It's not going great for him. [41:14] and [41:15] He is trying to... [41:17] He tiptoed through a minefield, but he is very clumsy, and he's not very good at it. And that is his problem. I'm not here to give D. Vance political advice, but – [41:28] You really have to pick a side. And he's trying to be all things to all people. He's trying to be Trump's most loyal soldier to the MAGA people.

He's trying to be... [41:36] Joe, he's supposed to get it with Joe Rogan about Epstein and he wants to be the anti-war guy. You can't do all those things. [41:43] And even if you could, he's not clever enough to pull it off. Yeah. Maybe some political genius could pull that off, but he is not that. He is not deft enough to do that. He is awkward. He is uncomfortable. He doesn't – he can't really do it. Like even in this – when you watch the – I didn't watch all of this obviously because I have self-respect, but I have watched a lot of the Rogue Advance interview.

Throughout the whole thing, he's trying to like be like, you know, Joe, I get it. You get it. [42:13] Thank you. [42:14] MMA fighter at the White House saying Michelle Obama is a man. Hmm. [42:17] And he thinks Joe Rogan is going to be on his side because what he wants to say to Joe Rogan is these fucking woke liberals trying to cancel jokes. They don't even get comedy. [42:27] You just laugh and move on. And even Drew Morgan was like, I don't know, man. Saying that the White House wasn't a great idea.

It's the White House. I don't know why you'd make that joke. He just can never get there. He just can not do it. He can't read other people. [42:41] Yeah, he's very low EQ for a politician. You can tell with interviews because he doesn't know. He's always uncomfortable with the audience, with the interviewer, because he's trying to read what's going to make them laugh or not or whatever, and he doesn't know. He is a little bit of Al Gore running for president in 2000. [43:02] You're like overthinking everything you're doing and it's, and you can't, and you're missing the connection people.

You see it with crowds too. Well, and the other parallel there is going to be, um, [43:11] like Gore's relationship to Clinton and how Gore tried to separate himself a little bit from Clinton. And that was a hard thing to do. [43:18] Yeah, this is and Bill Clinton is not Donald Trump. And Bill Clinton did not take that well either. He did not. But was also in despite his his scandal at the time, still popular. And Donald Trump is unlikely to be. I don't think Donald Trump's appropriate to be in the 60s like Bill Clinton's was not going to be popular, but also not going to be like, hey,

, if you need to criticize me, don't worry. Go for it. Yeah. Yeah. No, I suspect not. So that's going to be tricky for him. All right. Last thing before we get to Alex's conversation with Abdul. [43:48] extremely busy week in politics, so you could be forgiven if you missed this. [43:51] major announcement. [43:53] from Secretary of War, [43:55] Pete Hegsat. [43:55] Today, I'm authorizing a new screening program for testosterone deficiency. [44:01] for our service members, ensuring you have the right testosterone levels to operate at your absolute best. Because it's well-established science that as we age, [44:12] testosterone levels often naturally drop.

This initiative, it's not about artificial enhancement. [44:18] It's about restoring and optimizing your natural capabilities, protecting your longevity, and [44:25] and ensuring you have the biological foundation [44:27] required to sustain the fight. So if you visit high t department of com, you can get 20% off your next testosterone treatment by using the code Pete at checkout. [44:39] We are like three minutes away from Pete Hegseth offering penis enhancements to service members. [44:53] He's so down some weird rabbit hole born of his own insecurities. I was looking into this because I was weird.

Because you're aging. Because I'm aging. No, my tea is fine. Don't worry. [45:09] That's what everyone says. IT podcaster. Until it's too late. [45:15] I was like, is this just a random Maha thing? And it is. But there was some report a couple years ago, and this was a thing in Congress, [45:23] can sometimes reduce testosterone levels in military. But like, so you take as usual, like a kernel of something, and then you turn it into this, like, all these doctors are like, no, of course you don't. [45:36] you don't screen for this unless someone's having symptoms and then you look at it.

And then also testosterone, like the idea that you're just going to test everyone once a year, testosterone levels like can, can jump just based on the hour of the day and age. And so it's like, it's, it's a weird thing to do. And also if you do have, if you do have lower testosterone, apparently like the first move isn't always just hormonal replacement therapy, which is what Pete says is offering. Like there's some doctor was like, you could just, [46:05] go to bed earlier and drink less because apparently excessive alcohol consumption, um, can reduce testosterone.

So I don't know if that's maybe, [46:13] A little close to home for Pete. Yeah, I think Pete maybe was doing a little of his own research. Thought what was good for his goose was good for the gander. So testosterone testing is now mandatory. [46:24] If you're over 30 in the military, but the flu shot. [46:28] Is optional. Did they bring the flu shot back? It's optional. [46:31] It's optional. Optional. Yeah. Who's to say? [46:34] If you want the flu shot, great. [46:36] If not, whatever. You're getting your tea screened.

It's important on the flu shot because it's not like the largest flu pandemic in world history started at a military base. Wow. [46:47] Just look, it's another reminder that hiring the weekend anchor from Fox News to run the military was – [46:54] A suboptimal choice. [46:56] Gender affirming care. [46:57] We're ruining the military. Referring care for our troops. Great job, Pete. Who would have thunk from Pete Hexham? Well, it comes for them all eventually. All right, Dan. That's all for the news. When we come back... [47:09] Abdul El-Sayed. [47:18] Pod Save America is brought to you by Tommy John.

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Car buying you'll want to tell stories about. Buy your car today on... Carvana! Delivery fees may apply. [49:01] Thank you. [49:05] Hi, everyone. Alex Wagner here. I just wrapped up a great conversation with Michigan Senate candidate Dr. Abdul Al-Sayed. A couple of things I just wanted to know. We were originally going to host a debate with all three Senate candidates, but we ran into last minute scheduling issues. Not surprising. And then Mallory McMorrow dropped out of the race. So with the August 4th primary less than TikTok three weeks away, we decided to proceed with individual [49:33] conversations and interviews.

We have, of course, invited Abdul's opponent, Congresswoman Haley Stevens, to come on the show, and we are hoping that she will say yes. Once again, please come on the show, Congresswoman Haley Stevens. We'd love to have a conversation. Also, as many of you know, Abdul used to host a podcast here on Crooked, and John, John, and Tommy are supporting him in the race and have contributed to his campaign. Dan was supporting Mallory McMorrow. Everybody had a dog in [50:01] I'm Switzerland. I'm neutral territory, which is why I had the pleasure of doing the interview with Abdul.

And you can see I did not pull any punches, nor did he. Not that it was bloody. So with all of that throat clearing and housekeeping out of the way, give it a listen. Here's my conversation with Michigan Senate candidate, Dr. Abdul El-Sayed. Joining me now is Dr. Abdul El-Sayed. I started this conversation offline saying I wanted to call you Doc, [50:31] and thanks for joining me today. [50:32] Honored to be here. As you know, there is a live conversation about whether or not I am actually a doctor, despite having spent a lot of time in grad school earning both a PhD and MD.

So I just prefer Abdul. It's unambiguous. But then even then, people are probably like, but his whole name is Abdurrahman. So I don't know. I don't know. What can we even say? I mean, just casually dropping PhD and doctor in there is something my mother wishes that I could have done. I never will. So thanks for doing the work for both of us. [51:02] know, I, uh, for, for children of immigrants everywhere. Also, all that means is like, I wasted away my twenties and here's the other side of it. Like I'm unemployed and I ask everybody I know for money.

So like, look how that's enough for me. Just trying to get a job here, folks. Okay. I just want to caveat this. I want to timestamp our conversation because we leave in news hurricane hell. We are recording this on Wednesday, uh, when you had a very rare open