1126: The State of the Union Is Long

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Build fast with templates and AI descriptions and photos, inventory and shipping. Sign up for your 1 euro per month trial and start selling today at shopify.nl That's shopify.nl It's time to see what you can accomplish with Shopify by your side Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Jon Favreau. I'm Dan Pfeiffer. I'm Jon Lovett. Tommy Vitor. All right, guys, we are recording this at about 10 p.m. Pacific after enduring a speech that will go down in history as the longest State of the Union ever delivered by a president. One hour and 47 minutes. Congrats to Donald Trump on beating the previous record holder, also Donald Trump. We're going to get into all the gory details, but let's start with some general reactions. What did you guys think? Dan? Speech was a crime Speech was a crime Yeah It was a speech crime It was a rhetorical crime Political crime Really stole people's time Yeah Time crime Time crime Pre-crime Yeah Yeah it was mostly long and forgettable That was kind of my takeaway Like he tried to heighten the drama He did something innovative Instead of recognizing people in the audience Just having them stand up He had them enter the chamber I actually thought that was kind of it That's a great way to get the record If you're trying for the longest speech ever Yeah it's true It's not a bad touch I was genuinely surprised he didn't go harder at the Supreme Court justices. Yeah. Sort of a little discipline there. Yeah. I figured they would. I figured Susie Wiles would keep him on. Yeah. Keep a shot call around on that one. It went so long that we were on Jimmy Kimmel and they had to just do the show while the speech was still going. So we didn't even see the end. And we're better for it. And honestly, we didn't miss anything. Honestly, if we had gone 40 minutes before it ended, we probably wouldn't have missed anything. I don't really get what he was trying to do here other than set the record for the longest speech. Well, so the first 30, 40 minutes was like basically Trump hosting his own award show. There was it was a combo of that. So he's you know, he's he's given out awards to everyone. He's also honoring himself, of course, by just like bragging about the country and the economy and everything like that. Let's let's listen to how the beginning went. People are asking me, please, please, please, Mr. President, we're winning too much. We can't take it anymore. We're not used to winning in our country. Until you came along, we're just always losing, but now we're winning too much. And I say, no, no, no, you're going to win again. You're going to win big. You're going to win bigger than ever. and to prove that point, to prove that point, here with us tonight is a group of winners who just made the entire nation proud. The men's gold medal Olympic hockey team. Come on in. Get him a better microphone. You know, he's complained so many times about his mics at different events, and this is the worst one he's ever had. Anyway, that was a nice moment for the men's hockey team, I think. It was a nice way out of his rambling, we're winning too much thing that he's been doing since 2017, basically. He's brought it back recently. Yeah. Because we're winning again? Yeah. Do you think that was, do you think the winning message is, I mean, that was a sample of it. That was the most ridiculous part before he brought up the hockey team. But that first 15 minutes was just straight, like, everything is amazing. Yeah. The, like, warmed over old lines, like, we're winning so much. people are upset how much we're winning and watching mike johnson and jd vance cackle behind so funny this charming charming man can't can't stop myself from being so entertained was was a bit much because it is still like you know we're a decade into this and it's still an embarrassment to have donald trump up there you know shouting and cavorting with these people and uh using his usual lines to great effect among republicans who can't get enough watching them applaud things that a few years ago that if a Democrat had proposed, they would say it was an attack on the very foundations of the country, et cetera. I mean, the speech is fucking insane. Yeah. It just, any person who knows anything about politics would have said, here's what you're supposed to do. The American people are unhappy. 60% of them think the country was better off when Joe Biden was president. Three quarters of them think the economy sucks. 50% of them think your policies have made their economic situation worse. 50% of them think their prices have gone up under you. 60% of them hate your tariffs. And so what you go in- They don't like your immigration policy. We haven't even gotten to that yet, right? So this is just the beginning, is any speech has to deal with the reality on the ground. And you have to acknowledge that reality and pivot. In no speech, even the State of the Union, changes the trajectory of any presidency. But this is the easiest moment a president has in their presidency, not for the speechwriters. But from a pure communications perspective, It is a fucking layup. You get a guaranteed applause. You get guaranteed coverage. The press covers it straight, no matter how insane the speech is. And it's where presidents have demonstrated the political paper they have to make after when their approval rating is in the high 30s, like Trump says, right? It is when Bill Clinton said the Arabic government's over. It's when Obama sort of pivoted towards like more ardent populism in 2012, sort of in response to Occupy Wall Street and prepare to run against Romney. And he did none of those things. He doubled and tripled down on the exact things that have made him this unpopular. Like, it really is a speech he gave for himself, written by people only trying to please him and trying to do nothing to actually help Republicans on the ballot. I think I would have been surprised, Tommy, if he hadn't done that. Because, like, I couldn't imagine a speech where he was actually like, I'm going to acknowledge people's pain. Well, no, I mean, you got to do it in the most Trumpian way possible. But you could at least dial the rhetoric back. You can't say it's a historic turnaround. You can't spend 90 seconds touting all the prices, saying all these prices have gone down when they have not. Yeah. Right? Like, there is a, like, there's the way a normal, smart person would do the speech, and there's the way Trump would do it. And even in Trumpian terms, he did it worse than I even possibly imagined. Yeah. I mean, he thinks he can shape reality and kind of, like, bend it to his will. And I just, you know, when you're president, I don't think you can do that. People are pissed about prices. They're pissed about the economy. They're pissed about inflation. If you just scream that we're winning, like the Navigator research did dial tests where people, you know, they dial the turn the dial one way if they're happy with what you're saying. Another way, if they're unhappy, they're saying the dials went way down when he started screaming that we're winning. Now, then the hockey team comes out. So I think you forget that moment. There was like some controversy today about the men's hockey team being there. I think we should talk about it for a second, because like we were pretty hot out of the gate criticizing FBI director Cash Patel for like burning money to fly over to the Olympics. and then when trump called the players when they're in the locker room after the game and catch patel like patched them in he made some shitty comment about the women's team being like well if i invite you guys to the white house i have to invite them too which is like weird you know sexist old man humor that's like lame and condescending and also once again shows that he doesn't know shit about sports because the women's hockey team is way better they have historically have won a lot more titles but i've seen a lot of people criticizing the players and i just i think it's unfair because they're representing that the united states like it's inherently a political job they're having this moment. Like politicians will try to use you for political purposes. I don't know their political views. I don't really care. I hope I never know them. But like, I think it's unfair to ask them to not take his call or to reject an invitation to the White House. Like go if you want to go. Don't if you don't. But it's like they're not the bad guys here. It's that douchebag Kash Patel for like crashing their party. Well, I mean, they did. It is their choice to go. I understand going, being invited, and they are in a difficult situation. Anybody representing America right now is in a difficult situation because the country is representing by an embarrassing, cruel maniac. But when you choose to go in the way that they went, it is unavoidable that they were part of a show that Donald Trump put on. They were the punchline to him saying the country was winning. They were used by Donald Trump and they can be okay with that. They can be uncomfortable with that and not be willing or interested in being involved in politics the next day. But as of right now, those men were all used by Donald Trump for political purposes. If they're okay with that, they don't have to say anything. They're free to do whatever they want, but they also could say they could all, it sucks. They don't pick the president, right? Like they make the team, they work their whole lives to make the Olympics. They go to this game, they win the gold medal. They should be celebrated by our country, by our government. Like I get what you're saying. I hear you, but I just think like it sucks that the fucking onus is on them to be decent human beings. Yeah. I think that we, um, it's sometimes hard to realize is that not everyone is political junkies like we are and also feel the urgency of how bad the Donald Trump presidency is, even though most of the country isn't happy with Donald Trump. They aren't necessarily unhappy with him the way we are unhappy with them or anyone who is listening to this is unhappy with them. And I think our job is to make sure that people understand the emergency. But if they don't, because they're hockey players and they've been focusing on hockey for the last couple of years and they're just kids at this point, Like, okay, they went to the way. Right. Credit to the women's team. And like, also, it's awesome. They won. No, they didn't go. So like, that's definitely a different tech. Right. Like, they're, yeah. I mean, I guess it's sort of what is the responsibilities individuals have. I agree it's unfair that they're in that position, but it would be good to hear what people think. Having been used as a tool by Donald Trump, are they happy with that? Are they okay with that? Like, all of us have an obligation, even if it's unfair. I really do feel that way about it. The women's team seem to know that they would rather not go and rather spend the time with Flavor Flav. Yeah. Well, I guess a couple of them. A couple of men didn't go. I'm pretty much on that. Like, if you don't want, don't go, don't go. If you don't want to go, don't go. But like- And don't get criticized. The Olympics are in the United States in 2028. Every single Olympian is going to have this problem. Are they all going to boycott? Like, I just don't think- I don't think they should boycott, but I also find with intending, I just wonder like, are you going to say how you feel now that you been used That all What do you feel about this Tell us I do think it raises though sort of a larger issue about the speech which is it felt like Great segue Well I wasn even going to segue into what we supposed to segue into but I was just just thinking about this. Bringing us back. It does feel like it took place in a different reality. These speeches and his speeches now are still covered like a normal speech. It's like we're clapping, the people in the panel are like, did he do his job and all this kind of stuff? And you're like, OK, he is giving this speech at a time when he is about to launch an illegal war after launching a previous illegal military action paid for in part with legal taxes. The tariffs at the Supreme Court have now invalidated that are also helping pay for. I don't know, a at least I don't know if it's illegal, but at least a lawless paramilitary force that is rampaging through the streets, has killed two Americans. didn't hear anything about that, and has like locked up hundreds of people in basically internment camps. Like this is, and meanwhile, the president's like getting rich the whole time and tried to arrest several of the people sitting in that chamber. Right. Just for, you know, and it is a weird thing to cover this, to talk about this, to analyze this just as a speech. Yeah, it pulls you towards a normalcy that should be very uncomfortable in this moment. Like we were watching on CNN and they're doing this. They were covering it the exact same way they covered Obama's speeches, Biden's speeches, George W. Bush's speeches. Where I was like, who's who's high five the president? Who's getting a selfie with the president? Look at this person who's in a tough election talking to the president. And it's just like I understand. Like, I don't know what else you do. We're doing a little bit right now. This is goes back to this is why I thought about with the hockey team, too, because it's like you're just you make a decision in the moment you go. And like we cover it and we do it and people talk about it on the panel. And it's like we're living the reality that we're living in. By the same token, the conservatives were critical of Americans who were abroad in the part of the Olympics saying that they felt shame or embarrassment while being proud to be American. And of course, why are the Republicans saying that? They're saying that because they want everyone to treat this like normal. Of course. They don't want to feel the shame and guilt that on their hearts they know they should feel for being part of this. Right. Like this is the the watching this all unfold. I think part of what you're getting at is Republicans right now are like uniquely unsuited to like speak to the actual harm that he's doing, the actual pain that people are feeling, A, because Donald Trump simply cannot admit fault. And B, you feel a bunch of people that are all in a bubble of information. Right. Trump is in a bubble. These Republicans in a bubble. They're all applauding each other, celebrating each other. These are people that have inoculated themselves against reality, in part because it is necessary in order to support someone like Donald Trump. Pod Save America is brought to you by Helix. As you guys know, it is February. It is the darkest, gloomiest days of winter, which means you're probably spending a little more time inside. 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Positive America is brought to you by Rocket Money. I had a moment when I had realized I had to get my finances under control. It was when I was in what I call my lost year. and I realized that I had a lot of mail and it was collecting in a garbage bag and that there was some stuff from the IRS in there. But the cool thing was the first letter said I owed that money. The second letter said they were going to take it out of my account. And the third letter said I was all good. Well, sounds like you could use Rocket Money, huh? And probably some therapy at the time. Yeah, well, it's a personal finance app that helps you find and cancel your unwanted subscriptions, monitors your spending, and helps you lower your bills so you can grow your savings. Rocket Money allows you to track subscriptions and cancel them within the app when there's a few taps, saving you time and helping you avoid charges. 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The roaring economy is roaring like never before. Now, the same people in this chamber who voted for those disasters suddenly used the word affordability, a word. They just used it. Somebody gave it to them. They knew their statements were a lie. They knew it. They knew their statements were a dirty, rotten lie. Their policies created the high prices. Our policies are rapidly ending them. We are doing really well. Those prices are plummeting downward. We want homes for people, not for corporations. Corporations are doing just fine. Ray Sal, thank you very much. Good luck with your home. You'll get one soon. Good luck with your home. You'll get one soon. So I noted that the that he talked about, you know, economic accomplishments, made up a bunch of statistics, lies about the economy, all that kind of stuff. The first time he mentioned any kind of economic policy proposal, any action he was going to take or policy he wanted turned into a law was at 9.50 p.m. What do you think? Did he move the needle there on the econ stuff, Dan? No. I mean, he moved it backwards. I hate to harp on it, but this is the perspective I look at is that he's a president with a party controlling both houses of Congress in a midterm. where the economy is the number one issue and he did the exact opposite thing. Anyone on the ballot would want. You just cannot, like we saw this when we worked for Obama. If you go up there and you tell people the economy is great when they know it's not, you are sticking a thumb in their eye. It is why his approval rating sucks right now. Yeah, I will say like he does then, the speech is just a matter of craftsmanship, just terrible. Meanders incredibly long for its own sake. It takes a minute 50 to get to these proposals. But if you do like, I do think like, I imagine when you look at the dials, you will see that the populist economic policies is actually put forward, not letting corporations buy houses so that people can buy them. the kind of what are the Trump accounts, like no tax on tips, no tax on overtime. Like those are all things that I think a more disciplined administration, administration that really did try to do the actual economic populism that we were afraid Trump would do from the beginning, that didn't do the big, beautiful bill that cut taxes for the wealthy and sort of gave everybody else mostly nothing. Like that is the worrying version of Trump to me. But I just think the fact that he can't get there till minute 50 and will not now spend the next two weeks hammering it will go do various events in which he talks about the random things on his mind while posting true socials about Adam Schiff is why it ultimately doesn't matter. I think in this case, they made the same classic mistake that bad political operatives make with polling information all the time was they tested these policies. These policies all tested to the roof. I guarantee it. Democrats, Republicans. People want something to do on, and we should just go through, like something on housing that you mentioned, people want him to do something on prescription drugs. So he's made up a bunch of shit that he's done on prescription drugs that isn't really true and that he isn't going to do. He also talked about he got agreements from AI companies to maybe defray some of the costs of the data centers. Like pay for their own power. The energy sources. To pay for the electricity. Like, yeah. Okay. Good luck. Good luck waiting for your electricity bill to go down on that one. But so, yeah, I'm sure those are the things that I'll pull well. They testify. But this is – policies don't happen in a vacuum. Policies are connected to the person who proposes the policies. And the person who proposes the policy tells you that this is the greatest economy in history. And all your prices have come down. when you know none of those things are true, you're not going to believe he's going to do those things. Yeah. Tommy, our friends at Politico, you know what the big headline is? No. The blaring headline across the top of the page. Don't trigger me right now. It's late. It's, Trump sticks to the script. Republicans needed the president to sell their message to kick off the midterms. They're breathing a sigh of relief. Get the fuck out of here. That can't be real. That cannot be real. Is that real? Trump, and then the headline underneath it, Trump allies relieved he's sticking to the script, but do see warning signs. One Republican strategist, they got on background said, I wish we had more detailed steps to take. Yes, because there are no steps to take. Also, sticking to a shitty script is not something you proud of. That is what it is. He stuck to the script, guys. Who are the authors of that piece? You know what? No one put their name on it. Well, the political lie of no one put their name on, but the actual piece, it's a Dasher Burns. It's a Dasher Burns joint. Okay. I just think we're at the point where it's a good night for Republicans when the president doesn't call for the public execution of members of the Supreme Court were in his presence. Like, that's where the bar is. Honestly, I had the same reaction watching. I was like, oh, he was surprisingly disciplined in that he didn't, like, try to kill Amy Coney Barrett or whatever. Didn't throw his feces at John Roberts. If you walk up there and you read the script to, like, Battlefield Earth or something, like, I don't think it's a win. It's also a script where he says the only way Democrats can win elections is if they cheat Where he points it by the way off script he points it like these people are crazy They ruin the country They destroying the country Yeah we get to that So on the econ stuff he suddenly on board with the stock trading ban and called out Nancy Pelosi And what I thought, I assume they all thought was a really clever move. We do remember when Donald Trump was against the stock trading ban, when Josh Hawley was on board with it and was going to vote with the Democrats. and then Trump posted that Holly was just being a pawn for the Democrats and he was being used by them and he came out against it and now he's- Is that on the stock trading ban? Yeah, he always. Wow, and you know what? Trump was smart. He got Holly to not do it. Then Trump becomes the most corrupt president in history, makes more money than they could ever imagine. Now he's gonna fuck all these Congress people over who are trying to get their beaks wet and he'll get the credit. Perfect, great move by him actually. They should ban stock trading. They should ban buying and selling crypto or owning crypto companies. They should ban Kalshi as a service or betting on Kalshi if you work in the U.S. government in any capacity. Like, great, do it. Like, we've been talking about this for decades now. Also, Trump has control of the House and the Senate. Right. What are we waiting for? It's not Nancy Pelosi's fault. I'm sure all these, yeah, I'm sure all these, like, testable, but, like, nothing's going to happen. And then what's going to happen when the midterms roll around and none of the stuff that Trump talked about tonight actually goes into law or actually happens or makes anyone's lives better? They forget about this tomorrow. On the tariffs, because he mentioned that. He said it was a disappointing decision. He said disappointing a couple of times. You could tell he was close to maybe losing it, but he did. He held it together. It is interesting, I think, on the tariffs that he just, you know, he's going full steam on a tax increase. It's insane. It's insane. As we always know, when you're running in a midterm year and people are upset about the economy and they think the costs are too high, you run on a large tax increase. Yeah, I think the fact that they landed on the word unfortunate, which he like hammers, it's unfortunate, it is unfortunate, it's unfortunate. I feel like that was a victory inside of a room where people were trying to get him to be as mild as possible. I wonder part of this, too, is he's also convinced himself in the interim that they actually couldn't stop him and he's using tariffs like he did before. And it's not like he feels like he was able to put the tariffs back on. And anyway, again, like Republicans being willing to cheer this stuff, although they cheered tariffs less when he's just saying how we're going to make these other countries pay when I think people feel like it is affecting making people. It's incredibly unpopular because people know the costs are going to them. We now have evidence from these tariffs that 96 percent of the costs go to Americans. That is all information people have. So, yeah, he's he's not he's going down with the tariffship for sure. I also think he had a choice to make because he was initially acting like the Supreme Court decision is going to destroy the country and the world. And it was the worst thing that ever happened. But that also he still has all the authority to do all the exact same tariffs and they're going to be even better than before. Now they're in stronger legal funding. You can't really do both of those things. He decided to pick the strength over the weakness because he realized it was fun to bitch about the Supreme Court. But that's not where he wanted to land. I did enjoy the side-by-side shot with Amy Coney Barrett, kind of looking at that sort of frozen face and Trump continuing to go on about how much stronger his legal authority will be. Yeah, I'm sure she practiced that. Trump did spend a lot of tonight talking about immigration, which he still thinks is a winning issue for him. There was a lot of secure border talk, a lot of detailed, gruesome accounts of Americans who've been killed by immigrants. And then it got even darker. We'll balance our budget. The Somali pirates who ransacked Minnesota remind us that there are large parts of the world where bribery, corruption and lawlessness are the norm, not the exception. Importing these cultures through unrestricted immigration and open borders brings those problems right here to the USA. and it is the American people who pay the price and higher medical bills, car insurance rates, rent, taxes, and perhaps most importantly, crime. We will take care of this problem. We're going to take care of this problem. We are not playing games. So, Tommy, it's obviously gross and dishonest, but do you think that even works for him? Yeah, I mean, like, it has become standard issue that there is always a section where he, like, narrates a series of grisly crimes and then they cut to some poor person whose life was just decimated by these actions. And I guess I have TDS, but it's grotesque to me. I also found the unbelievably racist attacks in the Somali community to be grotesque and dehumanizing. And just like you were saying, not meeting the moment of the things people are worried about. He starts the immigration section by saying not a single undocumented person has gotten into the country. So why are you still focused on it? We're all mad about the economy, not this. yeah also um pirates operate on on the water well a little throwback you know right but sort of can't be not really a pirate he saw the movie i i do think dan that he um the way they they constructed the speech was they knew that um to the extent that anyone outside of trump fans and trump supporters were watching the speech they're watching the beginning they're watching like the first 30 minutes, maybe the first hour. And so the first 30 minutes is like the award show where it's hard to at least disagree with him. He's not going to say anything too partisan. He's going to tell a lot of lies, but he's not going to say anything too partisan. Then as it got into like later in the speech, that's when he started the dark immigration stuff, the Democrats. This is like a juice in the base, you know, who's the people who are still hanging on at our. Yeah, I think that presupposes a little more strategy than they brought to the table here, but you are correct in how it was structured and you will. Everyone always starts with the economy. Like that is the standard way of doing it. Normally you get to it like a minute five, not minute 55, but you know, teach their own. I think from a, like one thing from a political perspective is Trump is living in a 2024 reality, not a 2026 reality. He's talking about the border. He's talking about, he's talking about as if people trust him on immigration and are deathly worried about immigration and crime. Now that those things are true anymore, his immigration approval is now as bad as his approval on the economy, which is quite bad. People think, ICE is a threat to American citizens and legal residents. People think ICE has gone too far. And so once again, I know Trump is chemically and psychologically incapable of this, but there is a way to do this that is pretty simple to acknowledge that you don't even have to admit any fault, but that you, that we are like, he could have mentioned the body cams thing, which was their proposal that they did. Did you guys hear him mention ICE at all? I don't see how the, I think he said the word, did he? I don't think he said the word. Yeah, I don't think so either. Which is wild because, I mean, it's certainly an acknowledgement of how unpopular they are, but like you'd think that the way the Trump administration is with everything else, it would have been like the men and women of ICE are, you know, trying to keep us, protect us, and they've faced all kinds of assaults and stuff like that. Did he hit it at all when he was talking about the funding fight and wanting to make sure? No. Doesn't put it at Homeland Security. Homeland Security. Just Homeland Security wider. 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That's Shopify.nl It's time to see what you can accomplish with Shopify by your side Closing in on the hour mark Trump really started to get nasty towards the Democrats in the room Who mostly sat quietly and refused to clap for him Take a listen These people are crazy I'm telling you They're crazy Democrats are destroying our country But we've stopped it just in the nick of time Didn't we? If you agree with this statement, then stand up and show your support. The first duty of the American government is to protect American citizens, not illegal aliens. Isn't that a shame? You should be ashamed of yourself not standing up. You should be ashamed of yourself. They're blocking the removal of these people out of our country, and you should be ashamed of yourself. They are Republicans, MAGA, so excited about that moment. It was clearly planned. It was a setup. They are very proud of themselves. You know, Scott Jennings called it a moment of the night. Stephen Miller tweeted, Democrats declared to the world their searing disdain for and profound disloyalty to the actual citizens of the United States. They refused. It was a moment that chills to the bone, which will live for a thousand years. Live for a thousand years is so funny. A thousand years from now? That was like the second one, too. He did another one that was like long and involved. It was crazy. They really think that like the big they really got it They think they set a trap an incredible trap So clever A master class Who ever done that Delivered a line that you only assume that one side will stand for even though you know that like most people come on Preemptively saying, everyone will stand for this unless they're insane. I mean, this is once again, like a little bit of the like bizarre, surreal normalcy of it, which is back when we would do this, You try to find moments and then you would try to use whatever platform you had to make that be the moment. You just tell the report, this is the moment. This is the moment. This is the moment of the speech. This is the moment you should show. So they try to do that here. Also, this is an idea that was not originally my idea, but I pitched Obama on two separate state of the unions was to do this for raising taxes on the wealthy. Not about the immigrants. No, but to make the Republicans not stand up. We didn't do that? I don't think we ever. I think we should have done that. George W. Bush's move. George W. Bush's move during this, his move was always to say something kind of partisan and then end with something everybody would have to applaud for. So he'd say like, we're gonna deregulate. We're gonna let you cut down some of the trees that we don't need anymore. We're gonna get rid of some of this onerous taxation because America's gonna have the strongest economy in the world that everybody's like, oh, fuck. Stephen Miller also said, this was the most shocking image in the history of the US Congress. He's such a fucking loser. I mean, if you watch the speech or even if you watch clips, it's just so obvious that Trump is trying to goad Democrats into this dumb childish fight. He was not subtle on it. Yeah, and also, like, it's just no longer interesting. Like, the shock value of, like, them screaming back and forth is gone. I don't think anyone really benefits from clips of the president screaming back and forth. Like, I bet Ilhan Omar will benefit in her community. The people she represents will probably like that she's fighting on their behalf, given, like, what he's done in Minnesota. But most voters will watch that and think, like, this is what I don't like about Washington. Yeah, we're saying that she was shouting that as he's making this sort of attack on Democrats for not keeping citizens safe, that her district, two people were killed by ICE. Yeah. Yeah. Border patrol. Also, like everyone's watching those speech. They know that the Democrats haven't been applauding to anything else. Like they don't think it's a fucking theater. So in the alternate universe where our politics never got this stupid, the State of the Union would have largely been about, or at least significantly, about Iran and explaining to the American people what exactly we plan to do with the gigantic fighting force we have amassed in the Middle East. Trump did get to it quite late, pretty briefly. Here's what he said. They've already developed missiles that can threaten Europe and our bases overseas, and they're working to build missiles that will soon reach the United States of America. We are in negotiations with them. They want to make a deal, but we haven't heard those secret words. We will never have a nuclear weapon. Tommy, what was new there? Anything? I mean, that line that they're working on missiles that will soon reach the United States of America jumped out at me. It sounded like bullshit. I got checked out with some experts who have had intel access much more recently than I have. And they said it was wildly implausible, though obviously we don't know what we don't know. But I think it's just him trying to scare the free techs for going to war like Iran. It does that they have a large, diverse array of ballistic and cruise missiles. They can hit a lot of bases in the region. They can't hit Europe. They can hit Israel, for example. And that's why an attack could lead to a scary response. But the idea that they're going to hit the continental U.S. is like is nonsense. The other thing you said that was a lie, though, was this claim that was the secret word, the secret word, no nukes. The the the preamble of the JCPOA the Iran nuclear deal that Obama negotiated with Iran and the Trump pulled out of says quote Iran reaffirms and under no circumstance will Iran ever seek develop or acquire any nuclear weapons That was in the JCPOA that both sides agreed to obviously we don't trust them That's why there was all this verification that went along with that deal But Trump just pretends that didn't happen and he's you know the source of all this problem The the really remarkable thing to me is like we're on the cusp of war. He made no case for it I realize that's because it's wildly unpopular, but that problem doesn't go away if you just start the war without making the case. I mean, I guess it does. I guess. It doesn't change the popularity. We're sleepwalking towards a conflict that nobody wants. Yeah, it solves his problem that people don't want the war that he's about to launch. All right, so after the speech, Virginia Governor Abigail Spanberger gave the Democratic response because we were in the studio with Kimmel while it was happening. We heard good things, which is rare for one of these things. We haven't had the chance to listen yet, so we thought we'd just react to it here for the first time. Do you guys have the clip? The president is planning for new tariffs. Another massive tax hike on you and your family. They have ripped nursing mothers away from their babies. They have sent children, a little boy in a blue bunny hat, children to far off detention centers. And they have killed American citizens in our streets. Our broken immigration system is something to be fixed, not an excuse for unaccountable agents to terrorize our communities. He's enriching himself, his family, his friends. The scale of the corruption is unprecedented. There's the cover up of the Epstein files, the crypto scams, cozying up to foreign princes for airplanes and billionaires for ballrooms. So I'll ask again, is the president working for you? We all know the answer is no. That was great. I was depressed. It was good to hear something. It was good to hear a return to reality. This is what's happening in the country. Yeah, and just also just some good old-fashioned speech writing. You know, just sort of some cogent sentences, that kind of thing. Like the old days. What did you think, Tommy? I mean, you know, hearing my initial reaction was hearing like a moderate, like Abigail Spanberger go that hard at ICE funding really tells you how far the politics have shifted on the issue generally. It was like the kind of thing you would imagine she'd be advised not to touch and now she's just laying into it there. Yeah. I like that she did it in front of a crowd. Yeah. That's good. Yeah. I think responses should only be in front of crowds. Yeah, I think that's right. He's got the crowd. I mean, he's in a great crowd because half the crowd didn't stand up. The other half and a bunch of people just didn't show up at the speech either. But it is nice to have a little energy behind you than to have the like straight direct to camera kind of. Also, they didn't complicate the simple. She just gave a speech at a podium with flags behind her instead of trying to put her in a weird room or a factory floor or all the other dumb things we've done over the years. That is true. No bad idea. Who was it that walked down the steps? Bobby Jindal. Bobby Jindal. And it was like a weird... Remember Rubio reaching across for the water? That was incredible, man. Now he's Secretary of State, could be the next president. Looks like he got the last laugh, huh? President of Venezuela. He's still time for laughing. He's got like three jobs and was the archivist for a while. He's not doing that awesome. I got fired from that. All right, before we go, any kind of closing thoughts? We got an insta-poll from CNN. Uh-huh. Apparently, the percentage who felt very positive about the speech was like the lowest in the last 10 years, I guess. Woo-hoo. So that's something. Of course, those insta-polls, they're always more Republican or more. I mean, people watch the speech tend to be people who are already supportive of the president. So if it's like a Democratic president, this poll's more Democratic. If the Republican president, more Republican. I think it was a CBS poll that came out today that said that only 18% of Democrats were planning on watching the speech. Yeah, it was wild. I think there are a lot of them. That's the time when Democrats lie to the pollsters. I think I heard the CNN poll was like 13 or 14 points more Republican than a typical poll, which is like fine. But still, 38%. And the question is, does any of this matter anymore? No, probably not. I don't think it does at all. I think that by the time you finish listening to this podcast, you'll never think of the speech again. Stealth bombers could be headed to Tehran right now. The great shame of our nation, a historical atrocity that he's in office his approval rating will continue to hover at 38%. Yeah, but I do not, but unlike what someone told Politico, I do not think that he, that sticking to the script gives the Republicans what they need for the midterms. I don't think they got what they needed. That was, that's an insane, stupid case. They need a genie and a lamp that they can rub and ask three wishes to at this point. Yeah, I don't think, and that's it. That's his biggest audience until the midterms. It's just so crazy to be a president. The bar is so low. It's like, he read the words, everybody. you read the words they were bad words they made no sense they didn't they really didn't make anything better but he read them look mostly great work look look they've changed the headline now uh oh what Trump avoided in the State of the Union could haunt him in November but then I know but then the subhead is it's like jazz the President's State of the Union was notable for something his second term has largely lacked restraint oh my come on we'll just when you started screaming the Democrats are crazy I guess that's for sure I would love to just like show this speech to a mid like kind of a typical Republican in 1996. They'd be like, what happened? Was the president injured? Like, what's going on? There were mistakes he avoided making. Trump did not attack the Supreme Court. He did not blitz members of his own party who have criticized him. He avoided rambling, angry digressions from the script. Amazing. But then he avoided no new ideas on housing or health care, two defining issues in the midterm campaign. Yeah. Meme and no mention of the Jeffrey Epstein scandals. I mean, in fairness, yeah, I don't think he was going to go on a stem winder on Epstein. Yeah, a good thing to skip over. I've got some of these files in my pocket. Let me unredact them on live TV. Now that's what a showman would do. Take out the files. Take off the black tape. He didn't blitz members of his own party. Is he the free safety, like, tackling Speaker Johnson? You know what he did not talk about? It was for better or worse. See, someone else wrote this one. Oh, there's a to be sure paragraph. This is, this is, Eli Stokos wrote this one. They changed it. They changed the whole thing. but it's unlikely to change the political trajectory of Trump's second term. In some ways it was nearly indistinguishable from Trump's daily patter in the Oval Office. That's correct. That is correct. Good job, Politico. It is also an accurate description of what happened tonight. Anyway, it's 10.30 at night. We've got to go to bed. We'll see you guys soon. All right, bye everyone. Good night, everyone. If you want to listen to Pod Save America ad-free and get access to exclusive podcasts, go to crooked.com slash 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 Crooked. Pod Save America is a Crooked Media production. Our producer is Saul Rubin. Our associate producer is Farrah Safari. Austin Fisher is our senior producer. Reed Churlin is our executive editor. Adrian Hill is our head of news and politics. The show is mixed and edited by Andrew Chadwick. Jordan Cantor is our sound engineer with audio support from Kyle Seglin and Charlotte Landis. Matt DeGroat is our head of production. Naomi Sengel is our executive assistant. 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