1119: MAGA: Defenders of the Epstein Class

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1:16

Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Alex Wagner.

2:37

I'm Ben Rhodes.

2:40

Jon, Jon, Tommy and Dan are in New Zealand on tour and licking their wounds from the Patriots absolutely pathetic performance in the Super Bowl. And so Ben and I are here to hold down the fort and let's be honest, show them up. On today's show, Ghislaine Maxwell again begs President Trump for a pardon. The government inches closer to a partial shutdown over Democrats push to impose some kind of checks on ice, lawlessness and Secretary Robert F. Kennedy's absolutely disgusting super bowl snack lineup. But first, a New York Times report over the weekend offered another look into how Trump and his allies are turning America's 250th birthday into a money making, influence peddling grift to promote right wing policies and inflate the President's very fragile ego. The story highlighted Freedom250 Freedom250, a dubiously legal public private partnership similar to the one that Trump is using to fund his ballroom monstrosity. Freedom 250 is the vehicle the administration is using to stage a UFC fight on the White House lawn. Yes, you heard that correctly. In celebration of, I guess, the signing of the Declaration of Independence. Apparently it also has its hands in the 250 foot tall triumphal arch that Trump is hoping to build right outside of Washington, D.C. the Times reported that Freedom 250 is offering, quote, bespoke packages that promise surprise access to Trump. For a $1 million donation, you can attend a private reception with the president. But for 2.5 million, you can speak at a Fourth of July rally in D.C. because nothing says American independence like Saudi billionaires speaking on the National Mall, right, Ben?

2:43

Yes, that's how I always celebrate, actually, in my house.

4:29

I mean, if MBS isn't there, it's not really the Fourth of July anyway. Freedom250 has also reportedly received at least $10 million in taxpayer money, which they used to build a fleet of quote for freedom trucks that are touring the country throughout the year. These, I guess we'll call them mobile museums, were created in partnership with Prageru, which is a company that pumps out conservative textbooks that celebrate colonialism and downplay the harms of slavery. And also in conjunction with Hillsdale College, which is a conservative liberal arts college that is now at the very center of a movement to dewokify kindergarten through grade 12 education by overhauling curricula and starting charter schools across the country. Here's a little taste of how Freedom 250 is going to be spending more of that donor taxpayer money per their super bowl ad that you might have missed, but that aired on Sunday. Generations ago, ordinary people risked everything to begin it. 250 years later, the work continues because freedom is worth it. This year, America turns 250. Oh, man, I didn't realize. I did not. I actually was maybe had my face too full of ribs. I didn't really realize what I was looking at at that moment, Ben. But do you have a spare $2.5 million to borrow? Because it's always been my dream to open up for MBS on the National Mall.

4:32

I mean, just goosebumps thinking about this sincere and earnest patriotism, Alex. I mean, look, the thing about this is, first of all, like everything else, like the grift is a feature, not a bug, right? If there's anything that can be monetized by Trump in some fashion, he's going to do it. America's 250th anniversary is no different. And, you know, I can expect that the roster of people lining up to write those checks, while they won't include you and me, are going to include people who, you know, are shopping for pardons for their friends, people with business before the federal government, et cetera. Right? So it's for sale. I think the other thing that is kind of grotesque about this is you have to see in the context of it's an election year, right? And so this is all going to be kind of part of one big campaign essentially, that's going to be enormously funded to kind of buttress MAGA at a time when people are souring on it, where every public opinion poll shows, like a precipitous drop right, in support for Trump. Well, he'll try to gin people up with a UFC fight on the South Lawn and a bunch of patriotic displays. But I think the serious part, Alex, that I've been thinking about a lot is that this isn't like a coincidental or secondary part of what's been going on, because what they're trying to do that's actually serious is take full custody of the American story, right? So the 250 years of this country are really just about their story of what that is. Right. Which, let's face it, excludes pretty much non white people, excludes the kind of agitators and activists and people that pointed out inconvenient truths about the United States, whitewashes our past and glorifies Donald Trump as kind of the inheritor of this 250 years of history. Right. And that's deadly serious. Right. I think we should take that very seriously, beyond just the tackiness and grift of it all.

5:54

Yeah. And I think it bears some time. We should spend some time talking about the involvement of Hillsdale College and PRAGERU in all of this, because they are the sort of for profit arm of the whitewashing of America and making it white again. But to just talk about. I think as a public service announcement, we should delineate the difference between America 250, which is the nonpartisan, congressionally run operation to celebrate America's semiquincentennial. I learned I was today years old when I realized that's how you call the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence. The semi quincentennial. That is a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization that encourages Americans to do crazy shit like public service. In honor of the 250th anniversary, Freedom250, which is increasingly like the big sort of organization that the Trump administration is spending most of its capital on, or rather political capital on, and that they're encouraging to be the sort of branding lead in all of this, is the slush fund for Trump's triumphal arc and also a drag race throughout Washington, D.C. which sounds like a really fucking bad. They all sound really, really fucking bad ideas. That in particular sounds like a really fucking bad idea. And I think, just on the grift alone, the idea that, I mean, we should just take a moment, a solemn moment, to look at the degradation of our legacy from a country that would otherwise encourage civic participation and acts of selflessness, to one where the highest office in the land, the person charged with shepherding the Constitution forward and our democracy, is looking at this moment, these 200, 150th anniversary, as an opportunity for personal enrichment and ego fluffing. I mean, it's just so. It's such a sad state of affairs. Why did the universe have to have Trump in office when the 250th anniversary came around? Couldn't it have been someone else?

7:52

Let me try to find a silver lining in this. Right, Alex, if I may, because, yeah, look, the Pay to Play piece is going to be grotesque. The monuments to himself are scary, actually. I mean, they're silly and tacky, but, like, they're going to be real things that they at least try to build. It reminds you of what, like Kim Jong Un does in North Korea to, like, exalt himself. Like, we're kind of at that place, but I think that the opportunity for those of us listening to this podcast probably feel some ambivalence about the upcoming festivities in a way that we wouldn't have if, you know, Barack Obama was president or frankly, any normal person was president. Cuz now it's a little complicated to look at some of these symbols of patriotism. Right. Like the flag is being co opted by Trump. Right. The military flyovers feel a little different when there's like fascism in our streets. You know, it's okay for people to feel a little conflicted about celebrating this 250th birthday, but I think there's an important like debate that we have to be willing to have. Right. And so this is an organic book plug. I have this book that's about the 250 year history of our battle over American identity. And I start with JD Vance, who gave a speech a few months ago in which he talked about what does it mean to be an American. Right. What is American identity? And he said out loud that the Declaration of Independence and its commitment to the sentence all men are created equal is not what it means to be American. That that's too loose a definition because then it could.

9:51

It's an idea.

11:22

Yeah, it's an idea. And we're not an idea. We are blood and soil. Right. We are a herit heritage based nation. Right. Which is, I think, profoundly wrong. And it's a profoundly fucked up reading of American history right now. It's also been a predominant story, but I think what people need to honor and celebrate is the alternative history of the United States, which is people fighting against that idea for 250 years. So not just a history of presidents and monuments. We are a history of activists, of agitators, of the civil rights movement, of the abolition movement, of women's rights movements, of LGBT movements. Right. That we are both of these things at once. And just because Donald Trump is gonna try to ram one version of this down our throats, that's all the more reason, look, people should go out and protest around the fricking UFC fight.

11:23

The semi quincentennial.

12:15

Yes, well, the UFC fight, which by the way is coincidentally on Donald Trump's birthday too, which is a nice touch. Last year we got a military parade, this year we get like a Dana White sponsored UFC fight. Right? So, but I think that's what we all need to take away from this is sure, it sucks to see our institutions co opted like this, but the American story is like the parts of it I like are usually about people who are Standing up to that. And now it's our turn, unfortunately to do it in this particularly grim, what.

12:17

Do you call it, semi quincentennial, say the four time staff? No, I think you're absolutely right that the best way to celebrate the rebellion against tyranny is to rebel against tyranny. Right. I will just say on the level of corruption there, there's, you know, if you look not that hard, you can find a news story every day about the way in which this president is like the biggest grifter we've ever had in office. For example, I think the New York Times was reporting that Trump's bitcoin is largely floated by Binance, which is the crypto exchange that had founded by, I believe is Changpeng Zhao, who's a billionaire mogul who was in jail, who Trump pardoned and now, oops, coincident, 85% of Trump's Bitcoin is held in accounts on Binance, even though the exchange's platform is available only outside the United States. Right. That's happening. And that's clearly corrupt and craven and I'd argue part of what would be a hallmark of kleptocracy. And yet there's not real discussion about it. The difference between that and this is that people see the ballroom, people see the maybe plans for the Arc de Trump, people will see, presumably the drag race, people will see the UFC fight. And all of this is an exercise in the worst, most inflated form of presidential ego, if not outright fascism, like the investment is not in the country, it is in himself. And because these are such public spectacles, I am optimistic that the public pushback in turn will hopefully be more pronounced. Right. It's so awful. It's such an ugly degradation of everything our democracy is supposed to stand for in the way that him just pocketing crypto funds surreptitiously while he sits in the Oval Office or having his lackeys do that is just not as transparent to the American public. That level of corruption, this is the ballroom has not gone over well with the American public. And something tells me an arc to Trump and a drag race and a UFC fight are not what people want on the South Lawn of the White House. You know what I mean?

12:46

Yeah. You and I are old enough to remember the hip hop barbecue that Obama had on the South Lawn of the White House, which spawned the Dan Pfeiffer's favorite Fox News headline, hip Hop Barbecue fails to create jobs. But this UFC fight is not going to create jobs. You know, that's for sure. And look, I think you're right, though. What's grotesque about the corruption is that Trump is actually leveraging, like, the United States for his own interests. So like the, the other glaring example that came out recently, right, was this story that lo and behold, shortly before the inauguration, right, that you had this massive UAE investment in Trump coin. And then lo and behold, Trump lifts all restrictions on American technology going to uae, right? That's him leveraging national power, national assets for his own personal gain. But it's a complicated story, and sometimes a ballroom or a drag race is a helpful way to just have a symbol that captures for people how self interested this is, how grotesque this is, how corrupt this all is. And there's something like, pretty un American too, about a living leader, right? Building monuments and arcs to himself, right? Like this is the kind of thing that we're accustomed to seeing in unitary dictatorial states in other countries, right. And so I think that the challenge is wrapping this whole story up for people. They're not these separate categories, right. We're mad about corruption, and we're mad that he's not doing enough to deal with affordability, and we're mad that. That he's got fascist tendencies. No, it's all one big thing, right? All those things are related. He's not dealing with affordability because he's using the office to enrich himself, which he's doing, fueling an ideology that is fundamentally kind of fascistic and about himself and not the country. Right? It's all one story about Donald Trump caring about himself and his rich friends and not you. And he'll even kind of take custody of the most precious and shared history that we have as Americans to get that done. And, and he'll make use of this kind of infrastructure of right wing, you know, prageru or whatever it is to do. So that shows you this has been building for a long time. They built all this infrastructure. So that's the scale of the challenge we're up against. But the good news is, if you can tell that story, I think a huge majority of Americans are either uncomfortable or outraged by that.

14:44

Yeah. I mean, just on the freedom truck front, I immediately thought of the mitzvah trucks. If you are a New York City resident, you know what I'm talking about. They come out during the Jewish high holidays and they're these really loud trucks run in large part by the Lubovitch sect of Orthodox Jews, meant to convert unsuspecting bystanders on the streets of New York City, uniformly men And I always kind of smirk at these things and think, you're not, are you really? I mean, it's not like a Mr. Softy truck. There's not like a line around the block. And are they effective for those who don't have experience with a mitzvah truck? I wonder how convincing a freedom truck run by Prageru and Hillsdale College really can be. These guys are not known for subtlety, like espousing the way in which slavery was effectively good for black people and climate denialism is like a form of patriotism and the way that colonialism had its benefits, all these things. I think people. It underestimates grossly the intelligence of the American public. But I don't know, Ben, how nefarious do you think these things are?

17:08

Well, you know, I think I won't be hitching a ride on a freedom truck.

18:14

I think you're not a freedom rider.

18:21

Yeah, I'm not. Yeah. That gives a whole new meaning to freedom rider. Right. I think one thing that where we and, you know, Democrats have to have more kind of confidence. Right. Is they've been wearing us down on the culture wars. Right. For decades. Right. And the reality, though, is that that whole mindset behind those freedom trucks and the anti woke stuff and the anti DEI stuff and the whitewashing of history kind of felt to the intended audience, which admittedly is not you and me, Alex, countercultural. You know, it was like suddenly like this kind of blood and soil nationalist, like, racist right wing set of views was fundamentally countercultural. Right. Because it seemed like, you know, they lost the culture wars. But I think part of what people are experiencing in the Trump years is, you know, particularly the second term, is that that's not the counterculture anymore. Like they're in charge, you know, and they are doing to us everything that they said we did to them. They're trying to ram their views down our throats. They're trying to stifle free speech. Right. They're trying to say there's only one version of American history and there's no other version that can even be taught in schools. And ironically, it turned out that their views were projection all along. Right. That they were the ones that are fundamentally kind of against the freedoms that they claim to espouse. Right. So like I said, this kind of core argument about American identity is one I think we shouldn't be shy about having, because as we've seen in Minneapolis, like, that's what it looks like. Right. I mean, on the one side, you got people trying to Ram it down everybody else's throats and they're heavily armed. On the other end. You got people exercising what Americans think of as pretty core freedoms and like that, that, that, that's the, that's what's going on in the whole country right now. And every time I see a freedom truck, like, that's what I'll see.

18:23

Well, yeah, and the whole concept of like a freedom truck being run by Hillsdale College is not like a countercultural, like own the Libs phenomenon. It's like the most sort of, like, it's like an incredibly hands folded in the lap, scoldy kind of version of conservative ideology that does not resonate with, I don't know, Logan Paul. Right. Like they've, they've so far, like at this moment of, of terrorizing black and brown communities, they're all, and, and like insulting Bad Bunny. Right. Making clear their, their just avowed white nationalism and white supremacism. They're sending these trucks out to sort of like seal the deal. And I just think nobody' People see what's happening. They see what the ultimate objective is. And like, you can drive a bus around town as much as you want playing a Trump video. I just don't think that's, I just don't think that's the way you gain conference. And if anything, they should be excusing, they should be offering some explanation as to how they're not white supremacists and going after Bad Bunny at the Super Bowl. And like, it's just like there's no there, there is no argument to be made that this is anything other than white supremacists.

20:17

Yeah. The whole thing feels akin to like a pre taped Kid Rock halftime show set against the Bad Bunny one. Right, Exactly. We can win culture wars, people. We don't necessarily have to hide our heads in the sand about them and repeat dutiful talking points about middle class economics. That's important. But fundamentally, all of this is about what does it mean to be American, what should our government be focused on? And Trump is giving us plenty of arguments for why he is not the answer to those questions.

21:23

Yeah. And I'll just say one thing. I think that we should all learn from Bad Bunny. And I know the super bowl was on Sunday, but his lessons live on through the week to make the argument for a multiracial, inclusive America using Joy as the vehicle is real effective.

21:56

Yeah. Show, don't tell people too. Right.

22:11

Exactly.

22:13

You know, he didn't have to give it. He didn't have to say ice out or something during the super bowl, like it was an affirmative positive thing. And look, this is something again, like, you know, Obama didn't do everything right, you know, but one of the things that he did right is his multiracial case was one of affirmation. It wasn't like America's horrible. We must, you know, acknowledge how horrible it is in order to fix it. That may have been a subtext of progressive politics in this country for a long time, but Obama would say is this country's so great that we've been able to change before and we can do it again. You know, and look at what, you know, the promise is of multiracial democracy. And like the Bad Bunny thing, like it showed that, you know, and it, and I guess apart from people having to listen to Spanish, like, it's hard to find anything else threatening in that presentation.

22:14

I'd way rather be at Bad Bunny's Rum bar than anywhere with Kid Rock. And I'll leave it there.

23:04

Oh my God.

23:09

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23:10

Talking about other places I don't want to find myself the Epstein Files okay on Monday morning.

26:07

So far, so good on that front, Alex, congratulations.

26:12

I feel confident On Monday morning, the lawyer for Ghislaine Maxwell that's of course Ghislaine Maxwell, the Epstein conspirator currently serving 20 years in federal prison. The lawyer said that Maxwell is ready to speak fully and honestly and deliver a complete account that could possibly clear both President Trump and President Clinton of any wrongdoing. Her only condition? Ben President Trump must first grant her clemency points for ballsiness. That offer came during Maxwell's virtual deposition on Monday before the House Oversight Committee, where Ghislaine Maxwell pleaded the fifth over and over again. Now both Democrats and Republicans on the Oversight Committee criticized Maxwell's refusal to answer questions. And Democrats. No, Republicans, immediately condemned Maxwell's offer. Meanwhile, members of Congress are set to get their first look at unredacted versions of the Epstein files this week. Perpetual thorn in the side of the Trump administration. Thomas Massie and Ro Khanna were the first to view the files on Monday afternoon. I read this lawyer says complete exoneration for Trump in Epstein files if Maxwell granted clemency. And I thought, I mean, even for Ghislaine Maxwell, this is pretty. Like, there's not even. What do you call, a quid pro quo. That's just like public extortion. I don't even know like, what was. First of all.

26:16

What do you make.

27:42

Of the offer, Ben?

27:43

Well, you know what's so funny is that, like, the interest of Maxwell and Trump so obviously converge too. Like the quid pro quo is so evidently in both of their interests, you know?

27:45

Right.

27:57

Because, like, she wants out of prison.

27:57

I think he would, although I do think he would face some blowback if he just pardoned Ghislaine Maxwell. I mean, his own people would not be. He would.

27:59

But this is what's been so strange about this whole thing all the time, is that none of what he's tried to do in this account has worked. Right. So nobody believed when Todd Blanche, as personal attorney, become Deputy ag met with Maxwell and said she exonerated Trump, it made it worse. Right. When she was transferred to this kind of country club prison after that meeting with Todd Blanche, it made it worse for Trump. Right. And so his efforts to kind of get himself out of this through the normal, like, obfuscate, find someone to lie on your behalf, like, tell your followers there's nothing to see here. Like, that's not working in this case because of, like, maga's long term commitment to this issue, because of the underlying grotesque nature of the crimes being exposed. And look, I just, I don't think anybody's gonna buy this. You know, I can see why she's trying to make this play, but there's no way that she's credible. Like, why would anyone trust someone who was kind of central to a child sex trafficking ring for this long? And she can try to do what she wants, but I think the other thing that's interesting here is that this kind of combination of Clinton and Trump is interesting to me. Yes.

28:06

Can we talk about that?

29:16

Yes.

29:17

They're not usually part of the same two for one deal.

29:18

Well, I think, again, just to be blunt, Alex, Republicans or Trump at least seem to overstate the extent to which Democrats want to somehow exonerate Biden, Bill Clinton and all this. Right. Do they? Well, they don't. And the way that Trump talks about this, like, recently, like, he had, you know, he had this thing where he said, oh, you feel sorry.

29:20

Oh, Republicans, sorry. I did not mean to react that way. You're saying Republicans overestimate how much Democrats actually want to clear. Clinton's a good name.

29:40

That's right.

29:47

I say good in quotes.

29:47

And so Trump's kind of hugging Bill Clinton. Like, you know, look at what they're doing to both of us. You know, it's unfair, et cetera, et cetera. And I think what he's misreading is that, like, you know, Democrats are not like blind followers of a cult of Bill Clinton in the same way that Trump has had that kind of support in the Republican Party. We're certainly not willing to kind of trade away our concerns about Trump being in these files tens of thousands of times. Right. And clearly being witting based on at least what's come out, you know, the creepy drawing for the birthday book, the creepy back and forth between the Mar A Lago spa and, like, the Epstein Network. Right. Like the fact that Trump believes that we Democrats are willing to kind of put that all aside to defend, you know, Bill Clinton is such a bizarre reading of politics, you know, and the Democratic Party.

29:49

And also, I mean, independent of Bill Clinton's tarnished legacy within the Democratic Party, Democrats genuinely, I believe, for the most part, give a shit about holding to account people in power who are involved in the predation of children. Right. So there's a genuine, like, ethical fiber that still exists, a moral fiber that still exists in a shared fashion inside the Democratic Party. And on that note, I mean, I think it's really important that Democrats be seen, I mean, not even just be seen, that Democrats hold Clinton to account when he and Hillary have to go testify in front of the House, as we expect them to, though they're still negotiating the terms of that Democrats should robustly question him. And we're going to take this opportunity to talk about the relationship between Ghislaine Maxwell and Bill Clinton. The New York Times has some, I think, important reporting about how instrumental Ghisne Maxwell was in the creation of the Clinton Global Initiative. She took part in budget discussions related to the first CGI conference. She talked through challenges about it with Clinton AIDS and the publicist group, which is the company that produced that event. And she arranged to wire $1 million to pay Publicis for its work on the, quote, Clinton project. And then, Ben, there's the most cringy part of all of this. The relationship between Ghislaine Maxwell and longtime Clinton aide Doug Band, who had very flirtatious exchanges that I think our listeners want to hear about.

30:41

Just, I think they need to hear this. I think this is what happens when those guys are in New Zealand, you know? Yeah.

32:10

That's what happens when John, John, Tommy and Dan are gone. When the cat's away, the mice will role play. That's what we're going to do. I'll just read a little excerpt of these emails between Doug Band and Ghislaine Maxwell. And I'll play the part of Ghislaine Maxwell, if you, Ben, will. The role of Doug Band is a role I know you were destined to play.

32:15

Oof. Thanks for that, Alex.

32:32

You can do it. Here we go. Here's Ghislaine Maxwell to Doug Band via email. Booboo, are you around? I'm very ill and require immediate medical attention. I'm suffering from Booboo itis, a very serious condition. Without a booboo fix, the symptoms become very pronounced.

32:33

My boobooitis is also reaching epic proportions. Lots going on, but we'll be in Boo Boo ville the second you arrive.

32:52

They insist they have never. Doug Band insists he has never had relations with that woman. Just kidding. That's what Bill Clinton said. But he does, he does insist that he had no physical relations with Ghislaine Maxwell, which is makes me wonder, what's Boo Boo Itis? And where is Boo Booville? Can you locate it on a map?

33:04

I'm very pleased that I could not identify Boo Booville on a map.

33:21

Alex gives me some hints about future correspondence I might want to have one day. But anyway, everyone's welcome for that. The point is, Ghislaine Maxwell interacted significantly with those in President Clinton's inner circles. There are a lot of questions, and I hope Democrats do not flinch in asking them, because this is very much about the truth. And it's also about keeping the victims centered as well. You know, Ben, you said that Democrats need a few. Figure out a way to tie all of this together. Everything from the corruption and the grift and the slush funds to the Epstein files and the inaction on economic concerns. All of it. Like, is there a rubric under which it all fits? And I was struck by comments from Georgia senator and candidate Jon Ossoff on the campaign trail this weekend. He went viral after he was speaking about both Maga and the Epstein files at a campaign rally in Atlanta. And he coined a new phrase that I think we should be hearing a lot more of in the coming months. Let's listen to Jon Ossoff.

33:24

Now, you remember we were told that MAGA was for working class Americans. You remember that? But this is a government of, by, and for the ultra rich. It is the wealthiest cabinet ever. This is the Epstein class.

34:24

Ruling our country.

34:45

Trump was supposed to to fight for the working class. Instead, he's literally closing rural clinics and hospitals to cut taxes for George Soros and Elon Musk.

34:47

Okay, The Epstein class. I just feel like you hear that and you think rich people, corrupt people, lying people, and Trump's people. And I just think it's a very useful label to affix to all of this. That brings home a lot of the issues altogether. What do you think of it, Ben?

34:56

Yeah, I really liked it. And I think, you know, he, you know, we've seen all these different people trying different formulations, and that one hit and hit for a bunch of reasons, including this one. Let me unpack this. You know, the, the Trump side of the Epstein class, right, is pretty clear, right? Beyond Trump's own predatory behavior, you also have the fact that there are a bunch of fabulously wealthy and unaccountable people on the right who essentially care above all about dismantling the government, kind of creating chaos and profiting off it themselves. Right. And we don't even have to detail chapter and verse what those people do. It's on display every day in our lives. Right. And it's everybody. You know, if you just look in the Epstein files, sure. Like you can find some people on the right. But it's also just kind of the broader milieu, if we will, of the people around Trump, you know, the kind of oligarchs. I think the challenge we have as Democrats that Ossoff offers us a way out of those, though, is the reason the Epstein files are also very damaging to people. A certain kind of person on the center left is that it encompasses a lot of people. Right. And we should say, we don't know. There's a gradation of crimes and misdemeanors in those files. Right. There are men that clearly participated in preying on girls in the absolute worst way. Then there are people that were just kind of cozy with Epstein or part of his network or informally helped him. And we don't have yet to see that they directly participated. But if you look at all those people, I'm just talking about some People, prominent names in there. Right. Some of those people, and CGI is a part of this, were the kind of people that went to Davos or went to the Clinton Global Initiative or went to whatever conference and they kind of talked about fixing globalization and trying to help cure diseases in Africa or, you know, trying to Virtue Signal about, you know, fighting climate change and sustainable development, all these things. But at the same time, they were perpetuating a system that was fundamentally rigged for the wealthy and well connected, and some of them were even flying down to Epstein Island. And it's everything that, you know, people don't like about the kind of globalist elite of which the Democratic Party, you know, has been pretty cozy with over the years. And so what formulation does is it loops together. It's a clean break. It's saying we're not just against the right wing oligarchs or Trump when he does these bad things. We're turning the page on kind of this era of capitalism run amok of powerful people, usually men thinking that they could act without accountability or with impunity, or they could say one thing to Virtue Signal at a conference and then behave a certain way in their private lives on their private planes and private islands. And so this kind of ties it all together, right? Because it's the corruption, it's the inequality, it's the excesses and extreme inequality in our economy all put together into this Epstein class, which by the way, Democrats can say, like, we need to clean house too. Like, you know, we need to leave that behind. If we lose certain political donors, fine, Right. If we don't get invited to certain elite conferences, fine. Like we actually want to fight for different America.

35:14

Yeah. It really emphasizes the filthy part of the filthy rich, right? The Epstein class. And it gives an opportunity, and I don't mean to sound dismissive, but it gives Democrats the opportunity to wear the hair shirt as well and say, like, we have work to do. It's not just Steve Bannon and Donald Trump who are in these files. It's also Larry Summers and Bill Clinton. And we're gonna clean house, as you say, as we should. Because I think it's important to make sure that it doesn't seem partisan. Right. That the anti corruption zeal is nonpartisan.

38:34

Yeah, yeah. Can I offer one other thing, Alex, here on this? I don't normally do this as like listeners to podcast the world know, and I'm willing to be very self critical about things in the Obama years. I only use this as an example of a political message at work which is in 2008 when he was running for president. The thing that resonated was that we wanted to turn the page on the failed politics of the past. And the leading example of that at the time was the Iraq war. But the turn the page frame that Obama used was about not just George Bush taking us to war, but all the Democrats who voted for the Iraq war. Right. Which included Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden and a whole roster of people. Right. And because it was a bipartisan critique, it had more credibility. Right. It was like, well, this guy's not just limiting his concern for corruption or for bad mistakes to the other side. Right. And that's what I think we need to do with this kind of Epstein class point is that because we're willing to include parts of our team in this, we have more credibility to say we actually want to change things.

39:11

Yeah. And I think the Epstein controversy, scandal, saga, whatever you want to call it, is alive in voters minds. Which sort of brings me to what's happening in Europe. Right. Because there it's very much alive and it's very kinetic and it holds a lot of electrical power, if you will. And I tend to think the same is true regardless of what the media coverage of Epstein is in the US But I want to get your thoughts on this and contrast sort of how the British political infrastructure is responding to Epstein files versus how we're responding in America. And it's a good Pod Save the World tease for listeners because everybody should be listening to Pod Save the World like as often as they physically can. Sometimes listen to the same episode twice a week if possible, because you get something new out of each episode. But anyway, over the weekend, Morgan McSweeney, who's Labor Prime Minister Keir Starmer's closest Advisor, resigned. Now, McSweeney had advised Starmer to appoint Peter Mandelson as ambassador to the United States. And it turns out that Mandelson was a close friend of Jeffrey Epstein. He maintained contact with Epstein. And after Epstein's 2008 conviction for soliciting sex from a minor. So this is a quickly moving weather front. But like at various points today, Ben, it looked like maybe the entire labor government could fall over these Mendelssohn revelations. Starmer may have bought himself some more time here. But it is a stunning contrast with what's happened here as these names have come out. Like, the only Republican to say boo about Epstein is Thomas Massie. And that's happening. Well, the President has mentioned is it 38,000 times in the Epstein Files, Steve Bannon is mentioned multiple times. Howard Lutnick is the latest person to make headlines. He's the Commerce Secretary. He's all over the Epstein files. Despite protesting that they had stopped contact much earlier, President Trump's former sidekick Elon Musk is in the Epstein files. Why do you think that the UK acts so much more swiftly on the Epstein stuff and it's so much more of a liability overseas and in the UK than it apparently is here. Is it just they have higher standards? I mean, don't even answer that question. I know they do, but what's the difference?

40:13

Well, I mean, just to illustrate the point, there are two institutions, the British royal family and the British government, right? So you know, the two most powerful institutions in the country that have been absolutely rocked by the presence of two individuals in the Epstein files, right? So famously like Prince Andrew is no longer Prince Andrew. King Charles today said he would support a police investigation into his brother. Right? Mean the guys losing titles and land and whatever the hell they give the worlds over there, like, you know, at a, at a dizzying pace, right?

42:30

Free, free dental care. I don't know.

43:03

Yeah, I'm sure the benefit package is out the 401k. And then Peter Mandelson, who is this kind of labor insider ambassador in the uk, he's all over these files and he's cozy with Epstein and he's sharing like sensitive market based information with him. And it almost brought down Keir Starmer, the Prime Minister of the country, even though Keir Starmer's not even in the files. And Morgan McSweeney, for people who don't follow British politics, I mean, this guy is like the chief political operative and chief of staff for Starmer. Like indispensable to Keir Starmer and his politics of the last few years. Like losing him would be akin to Trump losing Stephen Miller and Susie Wiles.

43:04

We can dream, can't we?

43:44

We can dream. That's what I was trying to do. Now, now, like, why is that? And also, where does this go from here? Right? Because Starmer survived today, but he's weakened. And labor could suffer an election loss in upcoming elections. And then there's a pretext or movement. We'll see what happens. I do think that in British politics, like there has not yet been the same removal of shame as a potential source of accountability. You know, like, I mean, they still feel shame.

43:46

Oh, I see what you're telling me. They still feel shame.

44:15

They can still be shamed. Like Boris Johnson resigned over Covid parties that he was at Right. Like that's unthinkable with Trump. Trump is so removed shame as a source of accountability. They also frankly just have a system where you gotta face the music more. Right. Keir Stormer had to go and do question time. Right. Where the opposition basically yells at you and you have to respond. And he didn't have good answers, including about Morgan McSweeney. Like, Trump never has to face that accountability. In our system, Trump is both the Prime Minister and the king. King, right. Like rolled into one. And frankly, more and more he's the king. So, like, it's depressing to see that there's been more consequences in the UK over two individuals than there has been in the US over not just Trump's presence in these files, but all these other people. However, I think that part of this furor in Europe is going to be the perpetuation and investigation of these files. And this is something people should realize. In the UK and in several other European countries, investigations are being opened into the people in these files, including Americans. Investigations are being open into Epstein's connections to intelligence agencies. Right, yeah. Like they're going to pull these threads even if, like, you know, Republican committees in Congress aren't. Other countries with lots of resources are going to do so, just like in this country. I think journalists will too. So I think the people who are, you know, breathing a sigh of relief that maybe the last dump of these files has happened are sorely mistaken because it has shaken up these other countries and they have the ability to do some of the follow up that is not being done in this country. Yeah.

44:18

If we won't do it, the Polish Prime Minister will. Right?

45:49

Yes.

45:52

I feel like Donald Tusk, who's the Polish Prime Minister, is like, we need a fulsome investigation into Jeffrey Epstein's ties to Russian intelligence. Please and thank you. Right. Like the thing about being in the middle of a cabal of global elites is that when that, that cabal is revealed, the rest of the globe has an interest in getting to the bottom of it. And that's the rub for Donald Trump and his 38,000 mentions.

45:52

And a lot of them would like to see Trump, you know, cut down to size too. Like that's why he hasn't been good.

46:16

For the global community.

46:22

Yeah, yeah. He's been so respectful of those European countries, you know.

46:23

Right.

46:28

It's just like the term wrecking ball, I think, was what was used to describe Trump today by Europeans. And turns out when you go around giving the middle finger to all of Western Europe, there's such a thing as comeuppance. And perhaps he is in line for some of that.

46:28

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46:52

I do want to Talk about other sort of reckonings on the horizon, because over in Congress, back in Washington, D.C. before the drag race that will hit the city streets in some certain amount of time, there is the clock is running on a deal to fund the Department of Homeland Security. Democrats are pushing for immigration enforcement reforms, including upholding use of force guidelines, ending racial profiling, and requiring judicial warrants when agents go onto private property. You know, the kind of normal constitutional stuff that Senate Majority Leader John Thune called unrealistic last week. I wish he would just like go through the Constitution and highlight the parts.

49:05

He thought, yeah, it's the actual law. Unrealistic telling them to follow the law.

49:44

It's just like, I mean, freedom of speech really. Can we really do that? Anyway, on Monday, Thune said that there is, quote, a possibility of a deal, although we are going to see if Democrats are, are on the same page as of this recording. Everyone is very interested in this, but they're gonna have to wait and see what becomes of Trump's personal paramilitary organization, AKA ice. And they're just gonna have to sit tight and watch Jake Sherman's Twitter feed for the red siren emojis. I am interested to know what you think. That's no diss on Jake Sherman. When I see those red siren emojis, something in my deep lizard brain starts pinging. What do you think of their strategy here? With the benefit of hindsight, I am not. I think the shutdown strategy over healthcare premiums obviously did not get us anywhere near a resolution. 22 million Americans, 23 million Americans saw their health insurance premiums skyrocket. We did an awesome episode of this. Awesome in the sense that it's compelling. Not that it was good news on my podcast, Runaway country. Just the, the economic hardship people are facing, the very real choices they have to make about whether they can afford to go to the doctor or send their children to the doctor. That is a real concern across this country and it ties into this issue of affordability because if you don't have money for the doctor, you probably don't have money for bacon. Or if you do have money for bacon, it might be going towards paying for the doctor. Whatever it is, it's an issue of pain. And, and I do think that Democrats in hindsight are probably gonna gain something from their standoff with Republicans over this issue when it comes time for the 2026 midterms. But what do you think about the fight? And it's a smaller fight, cuz it's just DHS funding we're talking about Here. What do you think about this fight over ICE reforms?

49:46

I think that, like, the healthcare thing is illustrative in the fact that they had that fight. They didn't win in restoring the ACA subsidies, but they won in drawing extraordinary attention to it and making it very clear what they were for as against what the Republicans were for. And then ultimately, a bunch of Democratic senators got cold feet and the government reopened. But to fast forward to today, I don't think that they should be shy at all from being just as aggressive about ICE as they were about healthcare. Like, oftentimes it's Democrats, we'd rather talk about health care than ice. I don't think Americans like, like what ICE is doing. The polls indicate that the kinds of reforms that the Democrats are advocating for, like, people not wearing masks, people following the law, like, these are things that, like, are broadly popular. And I would not vote to provide a dollar funding to DHS if all those, like, demands are not met. And if, you know, if that causes some kind of paralysis and shutdown or something, fine, then let the spotlight be on the fact that these people are defending the necessity of having a paramilitary force in this country that is allowed to be masked and detain American citizens without warrants, because that's fundamentally the position that John Thune is taking in support of Kristi Noem and Stephen Miller. Right. Why not have that fight? And it may be that you grind it out for a few weeks and ultimately they wear you down, but then you will have proven, like, just the lengths to which these people will go to perpetuate something that I think most Americans are deeply uncomfortable about. I obviously would go even further. I want to get rid of ice. We can talk about ways that you could do that, but I just don't know why you would fund this. It's Kristi Noem's dhs, for God's sakes. It's what's been going on in Minneapolis. And frankly, I think there's opportunities for Democrats to reach some other voters. Some of the don't tread on me crap that are not comfortable with this either.

51:36

Well, and I was struck by this, and I wrote about it for my substack, how the hell with Alex Wagner, the symmetry and the don't tread on me flags that were both outside of D.C. jail on January 20, 2025, when I was waiting for Trump to pardon January six inmates and that whole crew. And the don't tread on me flags that were outside of the Whipple Detention center in Minneapolis, as I was in Minneapolis, like a week and a half ago, waiting to see what happened to detainees. There is a real sense that this is the jackbooted government thug that has been war, you know, that has been conjured in, you know, conspiracy fantasies at the other end of the snake's tail. And like, I agree with you, I think Democrats could pick up some support from libertarians who look at this and are like, this is not the fucking United States and this has to end. Which brings to mind, you know, how Republicans conduct themselves. There's a DHS oversight hearing on the calendar, I think, slated for Tuesday of this week, and that includes the head of ice, the acting head of ice, Todd Lyons. Now, my expectations for Republicans doing anything in the true fashion of oversight, my expectations are low. I would say the bar is buried deep in the ground near a well. But the guy running this hearing is Andrew Garberino, who is a moderate Republican from the South Shore, Long island, and has been known to take on the GOP at some points. I mean, like, do you think both as a matter of political survival and, I don't know, interest in making sure that this ICE doesn't act unlawfully, we might expect some real questioning from Republicans.

53:30

Yes, but it connects to the previous question, Alex, for this reason, right, it is clear that Trump would like to get this off the headlines, right? So when he finally kind of stepped in and sent Tom Homan to take over for the kind of lunatics that were running the operation in Minneapolis, he didn't change anything fundamentally about how ICE is operating, but it was meant to be this kind of pivot point, meant to kind of show like, let's all move on from talking about this. Cuz frankly, talking about this has not been good for me or my politics. I don't think he sincerely gave a shit about what happened to Alex Preddy or Renee Goode or what's happening in streets of Minneapolis. He just wanted to change the PR random it. And where they're going to try to park this thing is they'll have to continue what ICE is doing because it's so fundamental to Trump and his project, right? But they'll want to kind of park it, like, let's get our funding, keep this thing going, let the occasional moderate republic who's in a tough race say some moderately critical things. And it then looks like, you know, Trump has kind of lowered the temperature on this stuff. And, oh, there might be these GOP guys who are, are like a little bit more reasonable than Stephen Miller is on this. And that's where they want the issue that's all the more reason for Democrats to pick and continue to pick a fight about this. Trump is retreating tactically because he knows this is a loser for him. So keep at it. Keep after the funding, keep after Kristi Noem, keep after the Republican Party.

55:09

Do you hear us, Jean Shaheen? Do you hear us, Jean Shaheen?

56:37

Yes. The Republican Party is not so moderate. It from New York, it's Stephen Miller. Like, that's what it is. And make that your foil here. And by the way, the more you do that, if what you're interested is in substance, which I am, the more you're going to force other Republicans who are nervous about their own races to potentially agree with Democrats on these issues. This is the only way the Democrats have any power whatsoever. In the first two years, the Trump administration is kind of commanding attention, using, like, the minimal leverage of your votes to fund the government and making it as uncomfortable as possible for Republicans, including people you're running against in the House, to continue to stand with Trump and then that either, like, is going to be something that achieves that list of ICE reforms, or it's gonna be something that all those Republicans are gonna have to own heading into the midterm elections, no matter what they say. In some hearing with the head of.

56:40

Ice, as much as we talk about Trump's retreat on this and the fact that he pulled 700 ICE officers out of Minneapolis, we should not lose sight on the way the tactics have changed, but are equally as brutal and pernicious. According to the ap, people have reported that ICE agents are, quote, impersonating construction workers and delivery drivers and in some cases, anti ICE ICE activists. And then there's the just abomination of what's happening inside the judicial system itself, which is less seen, but no less worse. The New York Times is reporting that the lead ICE lawyer in the state of Minnesota just left his job. And he is not the only one looking for the exit signs. Government lawyers like the one John and Dan talked about last week and the court system in general are, it's entirely overwhelmed with immigration cases. For my, my episode for my podcast, Runaway country, we heard about the very specific hell these immigration judges work in and the fact that they're all, many of them are just getting fired with little explanation from the Trump administration. And now the White House, with the blessing of the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, is seeking to sideline immigration judges and just deny migrants bond hearings in order to hold them indefinitely or at least until they can be deported. I mean, it just feels like there's ICE on the outside and then the inside. So they sort of break the will of the public on the outside using anti constitutional, lawless, brutal tactics. And then on the inside, it seems like the design is crush the system, overwhelm it, and otherwise fragment it so it's no longer functioning. And you basically just militarize this part of the judicial system to get people out, regardless of whether they're citizens and. Or whether they actually belong here. What do you think, Ben?

57:33

Yeah, that's absolutely right. And if you actually look at the history, this is actually not even a particularly new tactic. Tactic for the Republicans. So over the course of the last 10 or 15 years, one of the things that Republican majorities constantly did in Congress, particularly around any failure of comprehensive immigration reform, remember those ideas, is that they would pour money into enforcement and then they would starve money for immigration judges. Right. So at the precise time that you. And this is even predating the second Trump term, at the precise time that you are rounding up more people and putting them in detention centers, you are starving the funding for the immigration judges who can adjudicate those cases. And it's ultimately in service of this final endpoint, which is you're kind of completely federalizing the whole thing, and you want to get to a place where you can bypass the judicial system and just deport people. And we saw this test of strength at the beginning, right, when they were deporting people who had not had a hearing or at least trying to do so, and were occasionally stopped by judges. So we have to understand this is the playbook. Playbook to stress and ultimately break the system and assume, like, total executive control. But that's why it's so essential to spotlight this thing, because it is not popular. It is not something that, like, people are comfortable with just getting rid of the rule of law, you know, getting rid of the rule of law for people who could be US Citizens or could be children. Right. And that's why we have to continue to follow the lead of the people in Minneapolis who spotlight these things. We also have to kind of be for fundamental reforms, reforms, knowing that the bigger reforms are unlikely to happen when Trump is president. But I mean, if you look past that, there are things that need to be on the table, like if we actually get a normal Department of Justice again, like getting rid of ICE and moving immigration enforcement back to doj, where actually it's under the rule of law instead of being separate and militarized from it.

59:21

I think a lot of people don't know that. Yes And Ben, you wrote an amazing op ed about this, a very useful one. Enlightening, I should say. I think a lot of people don't understand the bifurcation of the system, that some of the stuff, immigration naturalization is housed at dhs. But then the immigration court judges are all appointed by DOJ and are literally under the purview of the Attorney General, Pam Bondi, who's not exactly known for being, I don't know, the paragon of lady justice, Blind justice. Anyway, I digress. Continue forward, please.

1:01:07

No, but that's the problem is it used to all be a doj, Right? So immigration enforcement was there and the naturalization process was there there. Right. And it was done under the rule of law. Right. And the agency was equally committed to enforcing immigration laws, but also adjudicating citizenship claims and managing that process. I think if you can rebuild doj, put it back there, get rid of ice, but have immigration enforcement, by all means, but have it be done by doj, which is technically supposed to enforce the laws in this country. And there are other reforms Democrats can be talking about. Like, and you've talked a bit about this on Runaway Country, Alex, but these private prisons, right? I mean, you wanna talk about corruption, where we started, you literally have people profiting off of these grotesque detention centers that children are being sent to. Like, we need to get rid of that too. I don't want people profiting off of the detention of children who've been separated from their families. So they're bigger reforms that candidly need to await the end of the Trump administration. I think, though, you can simultaneously have the. The fight on these common sense reforms that are very popular. Spotlight the absolute abuses of power that Trump has engaged in, frankly, reverse the politics of immigration as polling shows it has been shifting over the last few months. And then have a bigger vision for what can replace a system that is so fundamentally broken.

1:01:35

Also, just read your op ed because it lays out a lot of this and it's just like, make it pocket sized and give it out to members of Congress.

1:02:53

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1:04:37

You talk about the detention centers, Ben, and the news we get get out of there. Out of these detention centers is sporadic but almost uniformly awful. We have reports this week that at least two people at an ICE detention center for families have the measles. What do we know about the measles, Ben. It's highly contagious. We also know that immigration attorneys, at least one, has told the Washington Post that his clients at that same facility had not been given measles vaccines or been asked about their vaccination status. And to me, this is like, like the. The mashup of, like, Stephen Miller's grotesque, abusive immigration policies with RFK Jr's grotesque, barbaric, anti scientific, anti vax bent. Like, okay, here you go. Like a terrible overcrowded detention center plus an unvaccinated population. Cool. That's Trump's America.

1:05:37

Yeah, it's just one big, broken, corrupt enterprise. And inevitably it was all gonna converge. And what is more of a sign of convergence than detained immigrant children getting measles? Because of Stephen Miller's racism and Kristi Noem's nihilism and Robert F. Kennedy's fanciful conspiracy theorizing. This is all fundamentally coming together in a way that. We're just over a year into this, Alex, so God knows where we're going to be in a couple years when you add a little Hegseth to the stew. And Howard Lutnick, another Epstein buddy to the stew here, it's not great.

1:06:30

I do have more to say on rfk, and we're going to, I don't know, do we call this an up note? It's a vehicle for me to just talk about the grossness of rfk. Although it does conjure some visuals. And I apologize in advance. You may have thought that trashing Bad Bunny was the most appalling right wing attack on America's Super Bowl. No, the most appalling right wing attack. And I'm gonna call it attack on the Super Bowl. That dubious honor belongs to Health and Human Services Secretary RFK Jr. Who, unfortunately for us, described his Super Bowl Sunday snack lineup to Peter Doocy of Fox News. And this is what it is.

1:07:09

What would you have as a Super bowl snack? You know, I am on a carnivore.

1:07:53

Diet, so I just eat meat and ferments, and I'm very happy with that.

1:07:59

So I'm gonna probably have yogurt and what.

1:08:04

What he just said. First of all, there's a lot to unpack there. He's just gonna have yogurt. Yogurt at the Super Bowl. I also had yogurt at my super bowl party, except it was mixed with onion dip and sour cream and I put potato chips in it. Or I mixed it with blue cheese and sour cream and I dipped my buffalo wings in it. What's more disgusting than creaky ass Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. Eating a bowl of yogurt at the Super Bowl.

1:08:07

First of all, Alex, I never use ferment to apply to a delicacy.

1:08:38

It's a noun, ferment.

1:08:43

It's just not something. Yeah, it's just. I don't know what. It's not something you're ever gonna hear me do. And the second thing I have to say is like, I'm out here in la, transplanted New Yorker, you know, very much miss my hometown. And you know, to me, like, I'm trying to get my head around the kind of, you know, wellness Maha universe. To me, I thought it was like, I don't know, kombucha or like the, the supplements aisle where I don't know what it is that I'm looking at. The powders at like erewhon or something.

1:08:45

Peptides.

1:09:17

I didn't realize it was like, you know, meats that, you know, you. I don't know how. I can't imagine how he prepares his meats. I made chicken wings last night, Alex. I always do chicken wings two ways. So I had teriyaki and buffalo. I mean, sure. And this kind of like unpasteurized, disgusting. I'm just trying to picture the spread.

1:09:18

It's definitely chicken on the raw side. I'm thinking he wants his meat largely undercooked, Cooked, Right?

1:09:42

Exactly.

1:09:47

And ferments, nobody calls them that. Like, you can have kimchi, fine. You can have sauerkraut, you can even have kombucha, high sugar content. But to go around classifying, suggesting to the American public on Fox News, no less, that you consume only meat and ferments is a betrayal of this republic. Can you imagine if Barack Obama had said. I remember when Barack Obama was found to have eaten five almonds and it was like a national crisis. Like, who the fuck is this guy only eating five almonds? He's not a real man. He fucking sucks. What's wrong with him? He's like a. He's too tightly wound. Something's. Something's wrong with his mental attitude. Robert F. Kennedy. Like, he's eating ferments and a bowl of yogurt. If I ever see someone next to me at a Super Bowl, super bowl party eating a bowl of yogurt, after I finish puking into the trash can, I'll leave.

1:09:49

I mean, it is one of those weeks where, you know, when you wrap up the discussion this way, Alex, you're like, all right, we got like a 80 year old narcissist building a ballroom to himself at a time of a cost of living crisis, running interference over his presence in, like, the Epstein files and his connectivity to potentially, like, a child sex trafficker and health secretary, giving our kids measles and, you know, recommending or boasting about his, you know, super bowl diet of ferment and uncooked meats. And I. I mean, if we can't win a debate, like, if. If we. We Democrats and everybody else that doesn't like this can't somehow figure out. Out how to craft political arguments that, you know, are for chicken wings at the super bowl and Alex Wagner's dip and no ballrooms. And, you know, Bad Bunny is holding pedophiles accountable, and Bad Bunny, you know, crushes. And, like, we. We have, like, we're on. We're standing on the right terrain here in this country. Like, we just have to, like, beckon people over here with the message that works. And I don't know whether it's Jon Ossoff or anybody else, but someone's going to put this thing together for us.

1:10:42

My ferment is beer, and I think a lot of other people out there like it, too.

1:12:05

It's quite a good ferment. Yeah.

1:12:09

Ben Rhodes. We're going to leave it there, my friend. I'm sorry to leave everybody with a visual of Robert F. Kennedy eating a bowl of fage or fage or whatever you call it, but sometimes weeks are like that, and I apologize to everybody.

1:12:10

Do you think he blends it? Do you think he puts the meat in the ferment?

1:12:24

I mean, that would almost be like a Middle Eastern delicacy, like a shish kebab and yogurt, but I don't think so.

1:12:28

But something tells me it would not be as tasty as the Middle Eastern preparations.

1:12:33

There's nothing that's happening in RFK Jr. S kitchen that's tasty. I think we can say that quite definitively.

1:12:37

Oh, God.

1:12:43

Jon. Jon and Tommy and Dan are gonna be back with Australian accents later this week. I kind of want to close out the show speaking in an Australian accent, so I'm gonna do one line of this script with my best Australian accent. And. And if it doesn't work, we'll fix it in post. Some quick housekeeping. Love it or leave it is returning to Washington, dc. Did I do it?

1:12:44

That's good. Yeah, keep that. That's. You crushed it.

1:13:09

On April 23rd, John Lovett and DC's Funniest People. Yes. DC has some funny people. Will be live at the Lincoln Theater. Tickets are on sale now. Grab them@crooked.com events. That's our show for today. John, John, Tommy and Dan will be back in your feeds on Friday, live from Melbourne. Given the time change, you should expect that show in your feed a little later than usual. They'll be eating crocodiles and kissing eels in the meantime. See you soon. Thanks, everyone. Good day.

1:13:12

Why didn't they bring you Alex? I mean, with an accent like that?

1:13:41

I'm the Designated Survivor. I'm the Designated Survivor.

1:13:44

If you want to listen to Pod Save America ad free and get get access to exclusive podcasts. Go to crooked.com friends to subscribe on Supercast, Substack, YouTube or Apple Podcasts. Also, please consider leaving us a review that helps boost this episode and everything we do here at Cricket. Pod Save America is a Crooked Media production. Our producer is Saul Rubin. Our associate producer is Farah Safari. Austin Fisher is our senior producer. Reed Churlin is our executive editor. Adrienne Hill is our head of news and politics. The show is mixed and edited by Andrew Chadwick. Jordan Kanter is our sound engineer, with audio support from Kyle Seglin and Charlotte Landis. Matt de Groat is our head of production. Naomi Sengel is our executive assistant. Thanks to our digital team, Elijah Cohn, Hayley Jones, Ben Hefcoat, Mia Kelman, Kirill Pelaviev, David Toles and Ryan Young. Our production staff is proudly unionized with the Writers Guild of America East.

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