Pod Save America - As LA Burns, Trump Plays Politics

Episode Date: January 10, 2025

Trump and the GOP skip the usual “thoughts and prayers” for victims of the devastating LA fires, and dive straight into blame and conspiracy theories. Jon and Dan debunk misinformation about FEMA and the government response, unpack the political fallout, and share resources to help fire victims. Plus, what’s behind MAGA’s new Manifest Destiny? Is Trump’s legal drama approaching its grand finale? Washington D.C. pauses for a moment while President Jimmy Carter is laid to rest. Finally, Lovett sits down with Connecticut Senator Chris Murphy to talk about Democrats’ game plan to counter the Republican agenda in Congress. Support California wildfire relief with a donation to Vote Save America & Crooked Ideas Action Fund: votesaveamerica.com/relief.

Welcome to Pod Save America, I'm Jon Favre. I'm Dan Pfeiffer. On today's show, we'll get into maybe the last round of Trump legal drama, which includes our convicted felon president-elect possibly being sentenced on Friday. We'll also talk about Trump's MAGA Fest destiny plans to seemingly take over the Western hemisphere

and name more places America. And later, you'll hear Lovett's interview with Connecticut Senator Chris Murphy about what's next for Democrats and how they plan to respond to the Republican agenda in Congress. But first, I am recording this from our studio in Los Angeles where we are currently surrounded by the worst fires the city has ever seen and certainly the costliest in American history. To the west, more than 5,000 homes and other buildings have been lost in Pacific Palisades, a neighborhood by the ocean that has been almost completely destroyed. To the east, around Pasadena, the Eaton fire has destroyed at least another thousand homes. Six people have died, though the death toll is sadly expected to rise.

More than a hundred and eighty thousand are under evacuation orders right now. We are recording this Thursday afternoon and the Santa Ana winds have made it very difficult for firefighters to contain all the fires. The two big fires in Pacific Palisades and the Eaton fire are currently at 0% containment. LA Fire Chief, Kristin Crowley said on Thursday, quote, "'We are absolutely not out of danger yet.'" Been a pretty scary few days here, Dan. I can only imagine. Lot of crooked staff have evacuated.

Lot of people know people who've lost homes, who've lost everything. My closest friend from high school and college, Dan, you know, my friend Josh, he had just moved to the Palisades a couple of months ago, just got settled into a new home with his wife and two young kids, got a new baby. And, uh, he was able to grab his kids and the two

dogs and left and lost everything else. And there are so many people like that. A lot of our friends out here who've grown up in LA, just know countless people who've lost their homes. We have a couple of friends who are in Alta Dena who lost their home, who had just moved in as well. It is, um, it is terrifying. And you know, you've experienced this where you live.

It is terrifying and you've experienced this where you live. There's something about the speed at which these fires sort of come at you and you get the evacuation notice and you see the flames and you have to make the split second decision. Do we go? Do we stay? It is a fucking nightmare, man. It is a nightmare. It's so scary. You know, in 2019, I heard this,

there were fires everywhere or I live in the East Bay of California. And I heard this really, really loud, incredibly loud sound. I looked out the window and it was a low flying, huge plane to drop water on a fire that had just sparked up nearby. And I looked out my window and my new neighbors, cause we just moved into our house a few months ago,

were throwing everything they had into their car and driving away. It ended up being, they contained the fire very, very quickly, but just I grabbed Kyla who was one back then and departed like it's all, I mean, it's so incredibly scary and you just, and we'll get to this, but it's so hard to know what the right decision to make for your family is when you're on the border

of an evacuation, right? You haven't been told to evacuate, but you don't know if you're gonna be next to be told to evacuate. Well, and for those of you listening who don't know LA and LA's geography, the reason that this fire in particular is both so damaging and so shocking is,

I think we in LA are used to, and people have lived here much longer than I have, are used to fires up in the hills, beyond. A couple of years ago, my parents who live in Thousand Oaks, they moved out here a couple of years ago and they showed up at our house at two in the morning after trying to escape a fire in Thousand Oaks. And that's sort of a place that you expect that there may be fires. For the Palisades to be nearly completely destroyed as it has been is unprecedented for, uh, Pasadena, Altadena, places around there.

I mean, it is just, we've never seen anything like this. And last night, Wednesday night, uh, there was a fire broke out in Runyon Canyon. It got close to Hollywood Boulevard. That's when we were like, Emily and I were like, do we leave? Do we pack up the, we packed up the car thinking maybe we should leave, but hoping that it wouldn't get further down.

And fortunately the firefighters were able to put that fire out or at least contain it. Everyone's been dealing with that. The smoke is, uh, you know, the air quality is just horrendous right now. It'll probably be like that for a while. And you know, God bless the firefighters who are unbelievably heroic and have been battling these

fires and not just firefighters from Los Angeles, from all over, they've come from other counties, other states, and they have been working around the clock since Tuesday without sleep to battle these fires in extremely difficult conditions, the winds, Santa Ana winds, which are always an issue here are like, like we've not seen in years and years and years, 70, 80, 90, a hundred mile an hour gusts.

And, uh, you know, it's been, uh, the conditions have been very, very dry. Um, which is, you know, combines to make a real combustible situation that is very, very dangerous. And so we're not out of the woods yet. Unfortunately, we have to talk about the political fight that has already broken out, even though, again, the two big fires are still 0% contained and people are still evacuated and still evacuating.

Our incoming president has responded with half a dozen posts blaming the fires on outgoing president Biden, governor Newsom, and Los Angeles mayor Karen Bass. This is how Newsom responded on Wednesday. People are literally fleeing. People have lost their lives. Kids lost their schools. Families completely torn asunder, churches burned down. This guy wanted to politicize it. I have a lot of thoughts and I know what I wanna say. I won't. I stood next to a president

of the United States of America today, and I was proud to be with Joe Biden. And he had the backs of every single person in this community, didn't play politics, didn't try to divide any of us. So just to dig into the specific accusations here Trump says Biden is leaving him quote no money and FEMA because he wasted it all on the quote green new scam And he accused Newsom of refusing to sign a water restoration

Declaration that supposedly would have allowed more water to flow into California From the north and the reason that Newsom allegedly didn't sign this, what is an imaginary water restoration declaration, is that he quote, wanted to protect an essentially worthless fish called a smelt. Do you have any idea what Trump was referring to with regard to FEMA or smelt gate? I'm embarrassed to say that I do, John.

You do? I do. Well, so let's try to fact check these if you will. But let's start with FEMA because that's the simpler one. It is true that earlier this year, the disaster relief fund at FEMA, which sends out money in situations like this, was depleted.

It was depleted not because of whatever the green news scam is, it was depleted because of Hurricane Helene and other natural disasters. However, that fund is not at zero. It is at $27 billion right now because Congress passed and Joe Biden signed a bill in December to do exactly that. Now it may be the $27 billion is not going to be enough

for what we are dealing with in California, but the reason is that $27 billion and not something more is because Republicans in Congress cut Joe Biden's request. He asked for $40 billion and they cut him down to $27 billion. So the idea that Joe Biden is leaving Trump with a depleted FEMA is just completely factually incorrect. Now onto smelt gate. What Trump is referring to is the historic debates

we have in California about how much water to move from Northern California, where you get water from the Bay, the Delta, the snow melt from the mountains up near Tahoe, and how much to send to the, primarily to the Central Valley for farmers. If you ever drive from Northern California to Southern California, you will go past a whole part of the country

where every farm has a sign yelling at Gavin Newsom asking for more water. The Trump administration and Gavin Newsom had a dispute about how to manage the water. Joe Biden, this is, I think is what triggered Trump. The Biden administration just put in fact a new plan which deals with one of the issues around this is the smelt, which is a fish, which is, and salmon,

which are endangered and threatened species. And so this has been a debate for a long time. Now what's important about this is it has zero to do with the fires in Southern California. Southern California and LA in particular do not get their water from Northern California. They get it from two aqueducts east of LA. one, the Colorado River one on the Arizona California border and the Owens Valley aqueduct east of LA. The California, there have been reports and this is all sparked by reports that some fire hydrants were not having water come out of them during the fire.

That has nothing to do with a shortage of water in Southern California. The reservoirs in Southern California are at or above their historic levels right now. The reason why people were not, some fire hydrants were not putting water out was the tremendous strain on the system from fighting all of these huge fires at the same time.

Like for example, in the Palisades fire, there were prior to the fire, there were three one million gallon tanks of water their position for this, which should have taken care of any normal fire. They needed three times that to get there. And so they could not refill the tanks fast enough to meet the need and that's problem.

So there's a larger question about updates to the system, updates in the infrastructure to make it more prepared for these sorts of things, but it has absolutely zero to do with where Gavin Newsom is sending water in California. Yeah, I mean, look, it is wild. I can't believe we said to do that, it is so stupid. I know, it's wild. But we do, and look, if you're dealing with,

if you've lost your home or you're evacuated somewhere, you're scared and you're wondering like, how could this have happened, right? Like, how could we have not been prepared for this, right? Like, so it is natural to have these questions. It is natural to be upset. I do not think that state and local officials are beyond criticism by any means.

I'm happy to criticize them if they've done something wrong. It is clear that here in California and all across the country, we are not ready for the extreme weather events that are going to happen now because of climate change. And this isn't to say climate change did it and blah blah blah. We've all contributed to climate change. We've all lived on this planet and this country, right? And we are now past the like, oh, climate change is going to

do this. Climate change is doing it, we are dealing with extreme weather events that would happen anyway, but are made worse and more extreme by climate change. That's just a fact. And we have to focus on climate resilience and preparing for disasters like we are seeing right now in Los Angeles. And to the extent that local state and national officials

of either party aren't doing that, they should be criticized for it and we should elect officials who do make sure that we are ready with every means possible to face down disasters like this. But you're right. Um, the Pacific Palisades is there. Those water tanks are used for their, for residential use. They are not for fighting urban fires.

In fact, fighting urban fires is extremely difficult for firefighters to do. They are, especially in LA and California, they're used to fighting like wildfires, but to have a neighborhood like the Palisades burned down, it's much more difficult to fight those fires and the officials in LA were saying a firefight with multiple fire hydrants, drawing water from the system for several hours, let alone 15 hours straight,

is unsustainable to known fact. Fire hydrants have also run dry like that in the case of other wildfires that spread to urban areas, which is the situation, including the 2017 Tubbs fire, the 2024 Mountain fire, and 2023's fire in Maui. And so, you know, the reservoirs in California right now are full. They are well above historical averages. There is no shortage of water in California. And like you said, there was low water pressure because they use so much water. And because there's low water pressure,

it doesn't push, it's harder to push the water uphill and the palisades are on hills. So the water wasn't coming out of the fire hydrants because of that. They went and they fixed the situation, they got the water. But the bigger point here is, like, and I've seen a lot of firefighters say this

on the news and quoted in stories. When you are fighting fires this big with winds this speed, even like fire hoses are just not gonna get it done. And the other big problem, the reason they were relying so much on the reservoirs and the fire hydrants is because they couldn't get any helicopters into the air, right?

Usually you have aerial water supply that can dump water on a fire, which is exactly by the way what happened last night and why they got the Hollywood Hills fire out or at least contained it so quickly. Tuesday night when this was happening, 60, 70, 80 mile an hour wind gusts, I mean, they were diverting planes from Burbank Airport because they couldn't land there

They were sending them to Phoenix even because the winds were so bad And so they couldn't get any planes up in the air to drop water on the fire Which meant that they were using even more water from the hydrants, right? And again, I'm like I know this is a detailed explanation, but like there's just so much misinformation going around and again I know this is a detailed explanation, but like, there's just so much misinformation going around and again, it's, this is not to like defend any official here or there. It's just, people should know exactly what's happening. And there's going to be some things that we don't know the answers to yet,

because that takes time. And I know that we're in the middle of a crisis and everyone wants answers right away, but that's why you have leaders who don't do this kind of shit like Trump's doing right off the bat, as we're still trying to contain this disaster. I mean, it's just, we have another four years of this we're going to deal with. I mean, we dealt with it the last four years, even when he wasn't president. I mean, this is Hurricane Helene all over again. Pots A of America is brought to you by Zbiotics pre-alcohol. Let's face it, after a night with drinks, I don't bounce back the next day like I used

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I got another couple of converts to a Z-biotics. Oh yeah. Emily and I were, uh, were away the other weekend. We were with a couple of friends. They didn't, well again, they didn't believe, really, this, I just drank this and it works. And they drank it and the next day they're like, holy sh**, I can't believe this.

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Zbiotics is backed with a hundred percent money back guarantee. So if you're unsatisfied for any reason, they will refund your money. No questions asked. Remember to head to zbiotics.com slash crooked and use the code crooked at checkout for 15% off. There was also a whole thing going around that Karen Bass has been criticized for budget cuts to the fire department. That was also not true.

And you know, perhaps this initial misinformation was based on just a misunderstanding, but there was there was actually a $53 million increase this year over the previous year in the LA city fire budget. The reason it didn't appear in the original approved budget, which is where some of these stories were based off of, the original approved budget from earlier in the year, was because at the time that budget was approved, the city was still negotiating with the firefighter union

over their salaries, compensation, pay increases. So none of their salary compensation and pay increases appeared in that original budget. It only appeared once the deal was done later in the year. And so lo and behold, instead of a $17 million cut, as it's been reported some places, it was actually a $53 million increase. Now again, you can argue $53 million isn't enough. We should have even more firefighters. We should have an even bigger firefighting budget in a state like California, in a city like LA

that's vulnerable to wildfires like this, which is a totally fair argument if you wanna make it. But the idea that there was a $17 million cut is just not true. Mayor Bass was also criticized because she was part of a delegation sent by President Biden to Ghana for the inauguration of the new president. She left after there were warnings that there could be some pretty severe, uh,

fires and weather conditions. And we knew that the winds were going to be bad. We knew there could be fires and she left. I do think that was a mistake. Um, like again, we didn't know for sure that the fires would break out. No one knew the extent of the fire, but I just think, and look, we've talked about this before in terms of like optics. I actually don't think, I think it's beyond optics. It's beyond politics. Like

when a disaster strikes and you can feel this being in LA right now and trying to figure out when to evacuate, where to evacuate, how, what's real, what's not. What you want more than anything is a leader who is in constant communication all the time with people on whatever channel they can do that. And I think that is more important now in this like very fractured, more than fractured media environment where it's hard to get news from the same place,

it's hard to get reliable from the same place, it's hard to get reliable information from the same place. In that environment you want leaders who over communicate, who are talking all the time, who are there and and like letting you know what's going on, right? And I don't know that, I mean obviously this is, we're talking about Karen Bass now, but in fairness I don't know if a lot of leaders have really figured that out, that we are in this new communication environment

where because of what has happened to the media and social media and everything else, you just have to be out there all the time in a crisis talking constantly. I mean, some leaders did this during the beginning of the pandemic successfully, but I do think that every time there's a crisis, especially if you're a local leader,

you've gotta be there all the time. I mean, obviously he is a very flawed individual, but Governor Cuomo did this very well at the beginning of the pandemic. Governor Newsom also was doing daily briefings that were sort of required, we would stream online just to know what was happening in the early days. I mean, even the Trump administration had Fauci

and those folks out early. Then Trump joined, didn't kind of shat the bed. But you're exactly right. And people may listen to this and say, truly, who gives a shit about a dispute over the California, the Los Angeles city fire budget, and who gives a shit about the smelt and Trump's bullshit? But the reason why it matters is we

have to make real decisions about how we're going to deal with problems like these over the long term to make sure that the next fire is not as bad, to deal with whatever the next thing that happens from climate change is. And you can't do that if you're fixing a bunch of bullshit that's not right. You actually have to have a real conversation, right? You're not going to solve the problem by running the water past the smelter in the Central Valley. You're going to fix the problem. You the water past the smelting in the central valley. You're gonna fix the problem. You're gonna be better prepared the next time because you have better equipment, more water prepositioned.

You have others, you know, better tankers, more water pressure. Like that's the conversation to have, not this other stuff. And when Trump sends us down these fucking rabbit holes, it gets so much harder to get back to the actual issues that matter to help us be better prepared the next time. We just a month ago had a debate that probably very few people in the country were paying attention to,

because the federal government almost shut down. And people were fighting to keep it open to make sure that the disaster relief, the added disaster relief funding that you talked about earlier, was included in the budget and that the government didn't shut down. Because people in North Carolina and on the East Coast who dealt with Hurricane Helene still weren't getting the funding they needed. And it doesn't seem as urgent or important to people after the fact as we're like, oh well, yeah, disaster relief funding, whatever. And then when shit like this happens and people are dealing

with on the local level, they're like, where's all the money? Where did it go? It's like, well, these bigger fights that we have in Congress or people have in state houses or city governments have, like it matters to have enough money so that you can fund emergency response like this and recovery, especially. I mean, there are other reasons that Trump's tweets or truths or whatever the fuck they are matter is because he's about to be president.

The federal government typically provides around 75% of rebuilding costs after a major disaster. And Trump many times just did it during the last campaign, has just threatened to withhold money from California because he's pissed about Gavin Newsom or he's pissed about this Gavin Newsom not listening to him or about the smelt or whatever else. And there were all these stories that people in the Trump administration told

about how he had to be shown that people in Orange County voted for him. How many people voted from Orange County before he released disaster funds to California when he was president the last time. So it's a very scary prospect that, you know, we're going to have other natural disasters. Have them here in California, have them anywhere in the country. And the idea that you're only gonna get money from the federal government to help clean up and recover and to respond if you agree with Trump's politics

or you haven't pissed Trump off lately is insane. I mean, that is, you can hear that in Gavin Newsom's answer in the clip we played earlier in the podcast. Yes. Where he is tempering his, like he clearly is outraged and morally offended and infuriated by what Trump said. He's not gonna say anything about it,

in part because this is not the moment to do that, but also because he knows that he may, his state may not get help if he further angers Trump. And that is a totally fucked up and scary situation for the country that your politics are gonna determine whether you get help, right? It's just very, very scary. I will say one last thing about the information environment

before we move on because like when you're actually in it and you're trying to find information that could help you and your family and your friends, like I just, you know, in the 2010s, you could go on Twitter and one really good use of Twitter back then was it can help, it was probably the best platform, better even than television news for like up to the second information to just help you

in a situation like this, right? And now, went on, you know, go on X the last couple days and it is just like littered with misinformation and conspiracies and people yelling at each other about politics and bullshit. I'm like, I just want to know like where the fire is, what the update is. Thank God there is a an app called Watch Duty, which people have been alerting everyone to here, which actually it's like a, it's a nonprofit and it's someone who runs it that is figuring, like it's constantly updated information

about where the fires are, you know, where the evacuation zones are. It's really, really helpful. Everyone should go download it if you're in California or basically anywhere where there could be fires. But it's wild that we don't have that on X anymore. We don't have it anywhere. We don't have it anywhere.

Well, that's the thing is like, and then you turn on national news and it's, I turned on cable and I'm like, oh, they gotta be covering this, right? And they're talking about, which we're gonna talk about soon, which is like, Trump wants to invade Greenland. Let's talk to the former US ambassador to Denmark.

And I'm like, what about the, you know, and local news has been good. I will say local news here in LA has been good and watch duty is amazing. And then, you know, LA times has done fantastic reporting. They've lifted their paywall during this. And by the way, like they're, you know, they're, they're struggling just like every other media outlet. So like good for them for the reporting they're doing. And they lifted the paywall for this LAist, uh, the Evacuation Guide, Cal Matters, they're all doing fantastic work. But man, the one takeaway from this

is like we are going to face more disasters, more crises. And when people need information in a situation like that is really hard to get with the social media platforms we have right now and even the just media environment we have right now. Well, it just media environment we have right now. Well, it's, I mean, I can talk about this for days. I mean, I sort of wrote a book about it. I was gonna say you wrote a book about it, yeah.

But the problem we have is the distribution mechanism for credible information has been absolutely corrupted. Where the point in the 2010s that you're referring to is when media companies decided that their primary distribution method was not gonna be people coming to their website, it was going to be social media platforms delivering it to people's apps.

So instead of waking up every morning going to New York Times.com, WashingtonPost.com, LA Times.com, you just open up Twitter or Facebook and you got news. And there were moments of that work, right? It was also, there's all kinds of misinformation. You remember like shootings would spread in the first minutes. People were moments of that work, right? It was also, there's all kinds of misinformation. And if you remember, like shootings would spread in the first minutes, people were accused of things

who were totally innocent because they looked like the perpetrator or whatever else. But it was better than where we were before. And what happened is Twitter and Facebook and Metta primarily just decided that they were no longer gonna prioritize giving you credible information. In fact, in Twitter's case, they're gonna give you the exact opposite of that.

That they're going to basically, if you think of sort of the internet and social media as a highway, Musk puts all the merchants of misinformation, the people most likely to spread misinformation and lie and politicize things, puts them in the HOV lane and it just clogs everything up

and you can't see what's happening. And this is the problem, right? This is central to what happened in the election, it's central to democracy, it's central to everything else, which, and this is the thing I think about all the time as it relates to like Crooked, or what I'm trying to do with my Substack newsletter, is how do we get people good information

from credible sources to help them understand what is going, how do you fight back against the confusion that is being sown by Trump and his allies? And that's essential, because that's where they thrive, right? They thrive in the confusion, they thrive in the chaos, and they don't want you to know what's actually happening. Because if people focus on the fact

that this fire was in part because of climate change, maybe we do something about climate change, and it wouldn't be a great idea to have a president and a Congress, or a bunch of climate change deniers. And so that is the thing, which is the thing is like, how can progressives, how can people like us solve the media distribution problem to get people the information they need?

Not just in a crisis, but like in a day-to-day basis. Like how many times, you and I are literally, and I hate saying this, we are professional news consumers. That is what we do. How many times do we get on the morning call for this podcast and we're like, anyone know what Trump's doing this week? And we're like, Google it's like fucking impossible

to find out. There's no, or there's like 17 times of the Biden press conference and you just can't figure it out. And we're- This has gotten worse over the last several years. Like it didn't even used to be like this when we started this company.

No, yeah, no, it has been worse. Since 2020, the undergirding of American media and social media has basically collapsed, right? The internet is, the worldwide web, as you think about it, barely exists. Even when you talk about the local news sites, I was going through all these local news sites today, like trying to find information for this podcast,

I'm clicking all these links. It's like they're crashing your browser with a number of digital ads that are popping up at all times. It's impossible to even read what's happening. Well, it's also, it's like in order for the source to be credible in people's eyes, they have to trust the person, right?

And I do think that, as you were just talking, like progressives have to figure that out. But you know, when people are seen as like partisan Democrats or progressives, like people are gonna maybe trust them less, right? And you know, I was talking about all the bullshit that I've seen mostly from like, you know, the Elon Musk's of the, you know, Elon Musk was spreading that maybe the one problem

with the LA fire department is DEI. And that was somehow related to the fire. Libs of TikTok has been spreading all kinds of bullshit, right? So it's like those kinds of people, but there's some left wing craziness out there too. We've talked about this for the last several, you know, crises, incidents, whatever, over the news topics that we've talked about over the last year now. Um, you know, there's God, I fucking saw, I don't even want to give him the.

Don't do it. Don't do it. I'm not going to do it. I'm not going to do it. I'm not gonna do it, I'm not gonna do it, I'm not gonna do it. Anyway, there's been a few left-wing crazy conspiracies too, even in this fire thing. And so I do think you need credible sources of information

that people are gonna say, okay, even if you believe not what I believe politically, I'm gonna be able to trust you for at least giving me the information and facts that I need. Let me go back and rephrase what I said before. I said, how should progressives try to address this problem? It's better, the better way to say this, how should people in the pro-democracy movement

try to do this, right? It's not ideological. It's if you believe we need, people need access to actual information on what's happening to be able to make more informed choices about their lives and their political choices then We have to find a way to get them accurate information like that. That's right. That is a that is the challenge Speaking of good information if you want to help

People who are dealing with these fires right now people who have accurate who have lost their homes What save America and crooked ideas have put together a fund to support disaster relief efforts. It's going to help on the ground groups that include World Central Kitchen, Los Angeles Regional Food Bank, and a lot more. You can make a donation today at votesaveamerica.com slash relief. That's vote save america.com slash r e l i e f. And we will, of course, continue updating the fund with different organizations and We'll also put the link in the show notes. So if you want to help that would be really fantastic POTS of America is brought to you by lumen

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May have been sentenced for the 34 felony counts of fraud he was convicted of by a jury of his peers. As of this recording, Trump has asked his pals on the Supreme Court to block the sentencing, citing the presidential immunity they've given him, even though he's not yet president. And Judge Marshawn said that Trump won't be getting jail time, so it's not gonna interfere with him becoming president.

In a wildly timed coincidence, the incoming president made what I'm sure was a perfect phone call to Supreme Court Justice Sam Alito just hours before Trump filed the appeal. But don't worry, Alito says he was just recommending one of his former law clerks for a White House job and wasn't even aware of Trump's appeal at the time that they chatted.

Meanwhile, another one of Trump's favorite jurists, Eileen Cannon, remember her? She has blocked special counsel Jack Smith from making public his final report about his two indictments of Donald Trump, the classified documents investigation, and the attempt to overturn the 2020 election. The Department of Justice has already filed an appeal

saying they are happy to just let Congress view the classified documents part of the report, but want the election interference case and that part of the report to be made public. My question for you is, to what extent does any of this matter? Clearly, Trump doesn't want people reminded that he's a convicted felon

who's been charged with committing all kinds of crimes. But since American voters in their great wisdom gave all that a big thumbs up, is this just about, it's important to uphold the rule of law and get the truth out there for people? What do you think? Well, he should be sentenced because he committed these crimes

and he was convicted by a jury of his peers. And so whatever that sentence is, I think it's absurd that there might just sort of give him no punishment at all just because he won an election. I don't know that you wanna just for, I don't think that sentencing the incoming president of the United States to prison is complicated,

I guess I would say, but like give him a fine, right? Make him do community service. Like that'd be cool. Like put on an orange vest and go pick us some trash. I don't know, but you should do that. As for the report, I would say that that is probably the saddest consolation prize in recent history. It's like we were on the cusp of Donald Trump of a huge high profile trial where all the

evidence was laid out, which could have ended in Donald Trump being convicted for conspiracy to violently overthrow the government. Instead we're going to get a report with no power released days before the Biden administration ends. Now, I agree with you that the voters have voted. It seems unlikely it's going to have a huge political impact. It's not going to affect- What impact?

That's it, he's never running again. Never running again. I don't think it's going to change his poll numbers. I don't think it's going to help us win the midterms. I don't think it's going to help us in the Virginia groupings for election coming up. So it's going to, the political impact in the short term, very limited.

I do think it's important for the rule of law, for democracy, for history, right? What do autocrats like Trump- Again, all things that voters clearly care about a lot. Well, let's try to separate ourselves briefly, just let's go against type and briefly separate ourselves from short-term political needs. I'm playing devil's advocate to myself, Dan.

Yes. Okay. Look, the reason why I think it matters and it should be released is autocrats like Trump, they come in and one of the first things they do is try to erase all the evidence of the crimes they committed to get into power. And so you can imagine what's gonna happen to the evidence with Pam Bondi and Kash Patel

to the reports. Or they'll put out something else that will be dishonest or they will cherry pick pieces of evidence that are sitting in the FBI somewhere to proclaim his innocence. And so that report should be put out. And I think it matters for history because there has been this clip of Ben Shapiro

circulating in the last few days, sort of around the January 6th anniversary. It's a clip of Ben Shapiro right after January 6th. And he is despondent. This is, he says this is a terrible thing that's happened in the country. One of the worst things ever happened in the country. The worst thing to happen to America since 9-11.

And like, that's how everyone felt in the moment, even Ben Shapiro. And then we all, we, not you and I, but the country writ large lost our minds and we stopped caring about it. But I would like to believe that one day, if we can make it this far, in history people will look back at that

and think about it like Ben Shapiro and so many others talked about it in that moment. And so putting out the report, I think is important to that. I think the historians will look back at it and will truly, like imagine trying to teach a history class 50 years from now to explain that the outgoing president refused

to give up power and incited a violent mob to attack the United States Congress as they were trying to certify his opponent as the next president of the United States. Then you have to explain the whole part about how he got elected four years later. Is that, that's hard? Yeah, that's what I was gonna say.

That's a tough one. But I think you, like, we'll look back on that as, you know, like a very dark moment in this history. And this is a part of that evidence. And we should put that out before Trump and his goons can do something to try to hide that evidence, destroy that evidence, or put out a bunch of bullshit to confuse the story.

Or by the way, use the lack of evidence to go after January 6th committee. Like if they end up going after Liz Cheney and the J6 committee and Jack Smith and all the other people, you know in courtrooms it could be harder for them to do that with all of this out there in public, you know. So that's probably a good reason to have it out there, too. Here's some Trump news that probably matters more. During a press conference this week, the incoming president made it very clear that he is not joking about his desire to play a real-life game of risk and take over the Panama Canal, Greenland and Canada.

Let's listen. Can you assure the world that as you try to get control of these areas, you are not going to use military or economic coercion? No. Can you tell us a little bit about what your plan is? I can't assure you, you're talking about Panama and Greenland. No, I can't assure you on either of those two. Are you also considering military force to annex and acquire Canada?

No. Economic force. We're going to be changing the name of the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America, which has a beautiful ring that covers a lot of territory. The Gulf of America. What a beautiful name. What a beautiful name. The Gulf of America. Wait till he finds out about New Mexico. New America. There it is. New America. Here's how Trump's planned invasions are playing with his fellow Republicans. This is a brand new Republican congressman from Texas, 30-year-old Brandon Gill.

Just heard of him. I think that the people of Panama, I think that the people of Greenland, I think that the people of Canada, for that matter, should be honored that President Trump wants to bring these territories under the American fold. What kind of feudal lord shit is like, what is happening? It's so stupid. It's all so stupid. Tommy and Ben did a great job covering all the

national security and diplomatic implications on this week's Pod Save the World. So you should take a listen to that. But can we talk a minute about the politics here of our next president taking over Greenland, our neighbors to the North making Canada, the 51st state, the Panama canal. How do you think this craziness might

land with people? Cause I'm afraid of the answer. Well, I would say the caveat to all what I'm about to say is I was only in the dishwasher this morning listening to Pod Save the World as I do. And I'm listening to talk all this stuff, I'm learning about Sudan, all everything.

And I just hear Ben, and I'm not really paying a ton of close attention. And I hear Ben just say, he takes the Greenland thing very seriously. Says it like three times, very seriously. And Ben's not an alarmist. Cause my take before listening to Ben was, who cares? And then I think, I sort of think that should be up until the moment when

Donald Trump either starts talking about sending troops to Panama or rating the social security trust fund for a $50 billion to buy Greenland or whatever Greenland costs. I don't know what the going rate of Greenland is in inflation these days, but that it's not cheap. It's not cheap. Dan. This would be land is very expensive.

Housing is expensive, especially if you don't have to buy a whole new country. That's expensive. I think this is the example of the sort of. Maga marginalia bullshit. We used to follow Trump down the rabbit hole all the time that we should avoid now. Cause until he actually does something here, it's not worth focusing on. Then it's too late.

Well, I mean, I think we're gonna get some warnings. Then we've already invaded Greenland, you know? Then we're sending troops to Toronto and suddenly it's a- I will come- Sorry, it's just economic force with Canada. It's just economic force. I will come on this podcast and apologize

if Trumpet launches a surprise invasion of Greenland. I mean, it's hard to know whether to laugh or not with some of these things. First of all, the Gulf, I will say the Gulf of Mexico to Gulf of America, fucking knock yourself out, idiot. Whatever, that's definitely like chasing down the red. I don't, go ahead, say whatever you want to do. You know what we need more, we need to bring back

Freedom Fries politics right here. Yeah, I was like, go ahead, say whatever you want to do. You know what we need more, we need to bring back freedom fries politics right here. Yeah, I was like, okay, are we gonna rename Europe East America now? What else is, are we just naming everything America? Paris, Texas. Paris. We could go New London, Connecticut. We could go a long way here.

Like, whatever, man, go fine. But just, I do think that there is, you brought this up. When you said rating the social security trust fund to buy Greenland, I do think there's an argument to be made to people. Like, do you really want your tax dollars spent on buying Greenland or buying Canada or buying the Panama Canal? Like, that's what you think. That's what you think you want your money spent on.

We're running a deficit in debt and we got like the Medicare and social security might not make it. We got, so we're gonna spend billions and hundreds of billions of dollars on other countries. Is that what we're gonna do? It's like, you can't not talk about this. He's the president of the United States.

He has the biggest megaphone of anyone, not named Elon Musk in the world. And so he's gonna do it, but how we, like the way, here's how not to talk about it. Like getting all high-dudgeon about the rule, about our ally, what message does this send to our allies at this time? It's the Washington crossing the Delaware tone.

It's like stop, I've got to, no, none of that. The way, I think you've got to take all of this stuff that this insanity at Trump's talk about and put it in the bucket of, for the voters that decided this election for Trump, the ones who were skeptical of him, who switched from Biden to Trump or came out to Trump for the first time,

what they heard from him is, he is going to come to Washington and be laser focused on lowering costs for me and my family. And all the stuff that Trump does that doesn't achieve that goal, we should hold that against him. Right? Yeah. How is picking a fight with Panama

or trying to spend taxpayer dollars to buy Greenland or getting a pissing match with Canada, how is that lowering the cost of gas and groceries and housing for you? Just put it all in that bucket. That's the frame as opposed to you have to give. Are we covering Canadians with social security and our new friends in Greenland?

And is that what's happening by the way? Are they getting taxed? How's this gonna work? I noticed some Democrats too being like, well, he doesn't realize that they'd all be blue states too. It's like, oh, okay, do we really think he's gonna give them voting rights or he's just gonna pull a, like, come on.

We can't get Washington, DC to get representation, voting representation in Congress. I don't know if you listen to all of Pod Save the World, but I guess we only got to the part about the upcoming Canadian election. Doesn't seem great. It's like they're flirting with a very Trump-like fellow right now.

But it's also, I think, important to be honest with people, and I think Ben laid it out well on Pod Save the World, which is this is what aging autocrats, this is what they do, right? Like, this is what nationalism is. Like, literally the definition of nationalism, like America must expand. And so if you're an American, you should be proud

that we are gonna expand our footprint to Greenland and Canada. And oh, you might think we're invading or that people wanna be free and independent. No, no, no, we're gonna go interview some people in Greenland and Canada and Panama who say, oh, we wanna be part of the United States. Just like this idiot, Brandon Gill,

like what an honor that Mr. Trump said that we could be part of the United States. Meanwhile, like 95% of their populations don't wanna become part of the United States, but we're not gonna publish those polls. We're just gonna interview the other people on Fox and Newsmax and OAN and Greenland and Canada

who say how excited they are to be part of the United States of America. And they're gonna whip up this nationalist fervor. I'm like, this is what fucking happens with dictators. Now you're making me more worried about this than I was before, so thank you for that. Yeah, no, this is, I can see it, I can see it all. And so the question is, how do you get to actual implementation of this plan?

Like, I understand the politics from Trump's perspective of trying, this is how he views politics, right? His resting state is dictator cosplay. And so standing astride the world stage and demand using threatening military force and economic sanctions for territorial acquisition, like that is how he views the world. And look, that persona has benefited him politically, right?

That strength benefited him particularly compared to Biden when he was running against Biden. How does he get to implementation of this plan, right? That strength benefited him particularly compared to Biden when he was running against Biden. How does he get to implementation of this plan? Right? How does he actually get Greenland or the Panama Canal? I mean, or Canada, like he may put tariffs on Canada. I don't think the net result of that is gonna be Canada just folding up tent and saying, come to America.

But you can take something seriously and then, but be strategic in how you respond to it. I guess maybe the way you'd say it. I just think, I think it does fit in, in terms of how to talk about it, if he gets serious about it is like you said, that this guy ran for president saying he would take care of Americans, make life more affordable

for Americans and keep us out of wars. And now he wants to take care of Canadians and people in green with Panama. And if not, then maybe send our military, what, what's going on? And now he wants to take care of Canadians and people in Greenland and Panama. And if not, then maybe send our military. What? What's going on? We just want to make things cheaper for Americans.

That's all. That's what we're trying to do here. Why is he trying to spend all our money on Greenland? That's ridiculous. But yeah, none of the, none of the, our alliances are at risk. What would this do to the G20? Yeah. What is it? Is this, this do to the G20? Yeah. What is it?

Is this, this isn't how a NATO member acts. Anyway, one last thing before we go. The funeral for Jimmy Carter, the US's 39th and longest living president was held on Thursday at Washington National Cathedral in DC. Carter passed away before the new year at age 100. President Biden, who was the first sitting Senator

to endorse Carter's bid for the White House back in 1976, delivered the eulogy, which did include what may have been a reference to Trump when he mentioned, quote, the greatest sin of all, the abuse of power. The five remaining living presidents all attended with their spouses, with one notable exception, Michelle Obama, who cited scheduling conflicts that seemed all the more urgent and understandable when footage from the funeral showed that her husband was seated next to Donald and Melania Trump. There were a few clips that showed Obama and Trump talking to each other, even laughing, Barack Obama was laughing at something Donald Trump said, but the most viral clip was George W.

Bush is greeting for Obama, walked by him, did a little belly tap. Tapped his belly. Do you think that's how they usually greet each other? I think that's how George W. Bush greets most people. Just a little belly tap? His general persona in every interaction was either right before or right after cake stand at Fraternity House. He also, there's another clip going around of him smacking.

We're lucky it was that high up then. Yeah, we're lucky. Yes. There's also a clip of him smacking Dan Quayle with a program. Really? Yes. Playfully smacking him.

So I think that's just, it's always, it's always, he's always tailgating at a Texas A&M game at all times. Not what you want during a war after, in or after 9-11, but. So David and Austin, our producers, were both asking me before, what do I think genuinely that Obama and Trump are talking about?

And like, no joke, I kind of think it has to be like president stuff. Maybe like president at a, like maybe they were talking about their own state funerals, you know? Like it has to be the most surface level, what we have in common at a state funeral kind of comment. Like I can't imagine that those two could go

into any other discussion topic, but what do you think? Obama's demeanor during that conversation was my demeanor when I get on an airplane with that and I put my AirPods in before I sit down and you just, you sit next to that guy and he's talking to you and you're trying to be polite. I know and I do give bigger laughs. But also give the signal that I would like to stop

this conversation as soon as humanly possible. And Obama was doing everything he could to be polite and not encourage Trump to keep talking is my take. I'm gonna find this out. I really wanna know. I wanna know what he said. There are those lip readers on TikTok who there's been a bunch of them from the Golden Globes.

So I would like to, I imagine we'll be seeing that from here if it was possible. If there was a camera angle that allows you to see their lips. Yeah, though someone tried that with, when did they just do that recently? With Biden and Obama at- Oh yeah, yeah.

And it was stupid. I like whatever the lip reader said. I knew it wasn't possible, but they were, yeah, they were at, uh, they were in, they were in London for something. I think someone's funeral. We're, we're news people. To our point, how will we ever get this information? Yeah, that's a wild, that's a wild pairing.

Just, just Barack Obama, Donald Trump, just sitting together at Jimmy Carter's funeral while president Biden gives the eulogy on his way out and Donald Trump on his way back in. Whew. Well guess what? I would have had a stiff martini after that. That's for sure.

They're going to be sitting next to each other at events like this for a long time. Until it's one of theirs. I mean. That's, that's dark. That's time. Until it's one of theirs. I mean. That's dark, that's dark. Anyway, on that note. It just had to be a funeral, could be something else too. When we come back, Connecticut Senator Chris Murphy

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just before the holidays, you made this point and I'll summarize it, which is basically Trump is full of shit. He has no interest in governing. It was always infrastructure week. He's at it again with this Elon Vivek government efficiency department, which isn't even a department. and we shouldn't lend these efforts credibility even when we as Democrats need

to be the party of government reform. Can you just lay out what your argument is there? Yeah, I mean, listen, this whole thing is bullshit. I mean, this is this is Rameswamy and Musk, you know, trying to capture government for their own interests. Maybe it's just a TV show, but it is definitely not an honest attempt to try to trim the fat off of government.

It is either just PR or it's part of the kleptocracy in which government is just gonna be turned into an instrument to enrich them. Maybe they cut some car subsidies, but it definitely won't be the ones that go to Elon Musk. But I do think it is true that our party decided over the course of the 2024 election to become the defenders of democracy, and that made it look like we're the defenders of the existing democracy, which nobody likes. So when I came into politics 20 years ago, federal politics, campaign finance reform,

ethics reform, cleaning up government, like that was a top three issue for Democrats. We talked about it all the time. We were really vocal critics of the way the democracy worked. And by the time that Trump came around, that was kind of like six or seven or eight on our list. And so we definitely do have to start elevating our assault on the status quo in democracy and arguing for why we want to get billionaire dollars out, super

pack money out, the revolving door closed, whatever it is we've got to become, we got to sort of recapture our roots, which is the government and democracy reform party. I think we can do that and we attack their attempts at reform as bogus and we'll be in much better position. Right before the election, I talked to Bernie and I was like, well, what do you think we should be doing differently right now? And that was one of the things he talks about.

Like we're not talking enough about money and politics. We're not talking enough about corruption. You have, you know, Joe Biden with an op-ed this week about how we need to remember the insurrection. Democrats were desperately trying to make this case about democracy, but people didn't either care enough or believe it or make it salient enough in their vote. And part of that is about credibility.

Democrats need to make an argument about these kinds of issues. But part of it is message. Part of it is messenger. Do you believe Democrats have the credibility right now to be the party of taking on corporate interests, taking on money in politics? Is it, how can we just do a rebrand? Yeah, no, I do not think we have the requisite credibility today.

And, you know, Joe Biden for all of his strengths was not necessarily the right messenger to open up a new populist critique of the way that the neoliberal economy works. I think he was very sincere in his belief that we should start breaking up corporate power and breaking up monopolies, but he was not practiced in that rhetoric because that's not what he had spent his life working on. But I think there's a bunch of ways that we can solve for this.

We can change the way we recruit candidates. I think I do a pretty good job as a United States Senator, but maybe we should not have as many lawyers and maybe we should have more folks who come straight out of working class or union backgrounds running for office at the local and federal level. I think that would help us build credibility as a party. We can understand how our really good ideas that just sort of toy with the margins of the existing marketplace don't inspire people. I like the fact that we are bulk negotiating through Medicare prescription drug prices, but that really falls cold with a lot of folks.

We should just cap prescription drug prices. We should just say that nobody should pay more than X for these 25 super important drugs. We should just say that your rent can't increase by more than X percentage a year, that credit card fees can't go higher than this number. I think we just need to be engaged in sort of more broadside frontal assaults on the existing marketplace, have bolder economic reform ideas, and maybe think about having a better diversity of candidate backgrounds. First of all, I don't think you should put yourself down. You know that both of us

went to Williams College and we both did the same Oxford program. I didn't know that you did the Oxford program. I did. We both went to Exeter the same year. And I just think that puts us in the perfect position to talk about populism. I think we're I think that's exactly we're exactly right for that. Yeah. I mean, listen, there's there's the Oxford is known as breeding populist revolts, right? That's where it all starts. As we're doing this, you've made this point. Everyone's made this point.

We're out of power. We just don't have any power for the next two years. We are critics on the outside. As we're laying out our own positive agenda, we are going to have, it seems to me, these kind of two tracks, one that's a quote unquote, normal Republican politics track where they're talking about budget reconciliation and trying to cut taxes for the wealthy and doing a border bill. And the other is the kind of even more abnormal unhinged freaks going up for these big and important jobs, head of national intelligence, head of the FBI.

How do you think about these two, of this coming fight, the policy battle in Congress versus fighting these terrible nominations and the threat Donald Trump poses through the Justice Department? You know, it's really funny, just walking over to my office for this interview, I was having that exact conversation with Elizabeth Warren as we were talking about the fact that they are two different Messages right there is there there is a billionaire cabinet being Assembled right now right greater wealth and hundred sixty nine countries

This is the kleptocracy being constructed right in front of our eyes people who are going into these agencies to steal To steal for their friends, but that's a little different argument than the argument against Cash Patel, right? Cash Patel is being put into the FBI in order to destroy our democracy, in order to make people bear a punishment for political dissent. Neither of those things is super popular. If I had to pick, I think it's more important to sort of make people understand that this oligarchy that is being constructed is real and that this fake populism that Trump ran on is indeed illusory. So I think it's probably more important to spend time Talking about the billionaire takeover of government because that is real

That is happening But I I think you've got to be able to walk and chew gum I also think that we should raise as loud as we can What is happening at DOJ and the FBI. And this is where I am a little worried about where our party is. I think we are still giving them more credit than they deserve. I think Democrats don't really believe that some of our colleagues are going to be in jail six months from now.

I don't think they understand how the media is, as we speak, starting to fold under Trump's pressure. And so I would love us to kind of raise the temperature on the threats to democracy. I don't think we're overstating the case, but I think if we're kind of mild and milk toast in the way that we talk about why Kash Patel is nominated or why Pam Bondi is nominated, then that argument falls pretty flat.

Yeah, here's what I was struggling with as I was thinking about this today, which is there's, we need to make an argument about what we stand for, whether or not Republicans are able to confirm these people, right? We need to make an argument of what we stand for, whether or not we're able to stop RFK Jr. or Cash Patel or Pam Bondi or whoever it may be,

Pete Hegseth. But the argument you might make to your Republican colleagues is probably a little bit different, right? Than the argument you would wanna be making to the American people. Can you talk about that? Like right now, like if you're trying to stop Cash Patel from getting the votes to be at FBI,

you're not talking about reaching 200 million Americans, you're talking about reaching three human beings. How do you do that? Yeah, I mean, part of what you're telling Republicans is that this is a jumping off point. If the FBI becomes captured by the White House, if it just becomes an arm, a political arm of the White House, if it just becomes an arm, a political arm of the

White House, there may be no putting that genie back in the bottle, right? There may be a Democrat who comes along and uses it for their own purposes as well. But I think the trouble here is that you have to assume if you beat one of these nominees that somebody better will come along. And what Republicans have been pretty good at over the years is once in a while, opposing a nominee, patting themselves on the back, and then somebody even worse gets nominated

and they wave them through. I think Trump's made the decision that he wants the DOJ and the FBI to be his political persecution agency. And I don't know that Republicans actually have the strength to oppose multiple rounds of nominees. So I am going to try to convince my Republican colleagues, but I am much more focused on making the case to the American public

because I have little confidence that the requisite number of Republicans are gonna actually stand up multiple times, which is what they would have to do, even if they beat Patel or Bondi on the first vote. There's one part of this that I feel like hasn't been getting enough attention, which is you're talking about how your Democratic colleagues

maybe aren't totally honest with themselves or with the situation to understand the threat it may pose to the media, to them, but neither are Republicans, right? Like if you're talking about a House Republican majority that is razor thin, a Senate majority that's pretty thin with a few people that they can lose. It is not outside the realm of possibility

that a weaponized Department of Justice would go beyond Democrats to try to intimidate Republicans too, right? Right, and listen, this is how democracies fall. There are very few instances where a healthy democracy collapses, where there is a before and after moment, right, that the parliament building doesn't burn down in every descent. is that just enough of the political opposition either goes to jail or gets threatened with imprisonment that a lot of regular ordinary Americans just decide to not show up to the protests,

to just stay home to put their energies somewhere else. That the press feels sort of just fragile enough, feels the threat of having their license pulled just serious enough that they shave the edges off the way that they cover the president. And if that's the case, then you won't really notice the moment in which the opposition has become so weak that they can't win another election. That's what happened in Hungary, that's what's happened in Turkey, that's what's happened

in Serbia. They still have elections. There's still an opposition that sort of has the trappings of being real. But the regime always keeps them weak enough that they can never win. And so Republicans will be able to say, well, no, I still see a Democratic party. I still see op-eds criticizing Donald Trump, that this is a healthy democracy, but it's just unhealthy enough that the Trump family never ever loses power. And I think that's really hard for Americans to believe because that just, you know,

we've gone 240 years with two healthy parties, but the playbook is out there for Trump to follow. It's been used a dozen times in other countries and other democracies that are no longer healthy democracies. And that's what I worry about, that Republicans will just be able to look themselves in the mirror and say, you know, the Democratic party is still there, everything's okay.

But that the thing is permanently rigged in their favor. So I wanna talk about the rigging and then I wanna talk about how to unrig it. So Puck reported this week that Amazon will be paying $40 million for the privilege of airing a documentary about Melania Trump, executive produced by Melania Trump. Disney and Paramount apparently also bidders.

Mark Zuckerberg announced this week that Facebook will no longer be doing any fact checking, which is just a capitulation to Donald Trump. Tim Cook of Apple donated a million dollars personally to Trump's inauguration. Are you at all surprised? I'm surprised by how quickly and with such alacrity these people have bentheny.

I mean, I am surprised. But I mean, listen, we're going on 30 years of greed, having become an American virtue, in which there is really no shame involved in ordering your life in a way that just prioritizes getting wealthier and wealthier and wealthier. And so these guys get away with it because people kind of understand that as long as it's a means towards enrichment, you are fulfilling an American value. But it is extraordinary what everybody from Apple to Amazon to Facebook to Comcast to ABC News has done to signal to Trump that we are not going to give you trouble.

And it's because these billionaires and these companies have become so massive and so diversified that government policy really matters to them in terms of what their returns are, in terms of how much money their shareholders make, in terms of how much money the CEOs take home. And broadly, it sort of feels like the country is giving these billionaires a pass because we've just valued enrichment ahead of the common good or ahead of protecting democracy. And that's super sad. That's a relatively new sort of value alignment in this country, new to the last 40 years, but it's part of what will sort of sing

the song of democracy's downfall. Yeah, well, it's a value shift. Partly it's a kind of, I don't know, like an apathy and cynicism, right? Which is, well, that's just how the system works. That's just how the system works. And in a way, Trump preys on people's beliefs about how corrupt the government is in order to institute that very version of a corrupt government. So let's start from the assumption that we are not potentially going to be sliding

towards some kind of autocracy, but we're mid-slide. It's happening. Where are the places right now where we still have purchase, right? Where we, you know, there are still Republicans in closely divided districts that are afraid of losing their house seats. There are still independent media.

We're one small, tiny little part of that constellation. Talk to me about how in this, we arrest this side and start to climb our way up. So I think the most important thing to do is to convince people that we are in the slide, right? Because if people still think this is a potential dissent, then they aren't going to hold anyone, media companies or their elected officials to account for participation in that slide. If they bring charges against Liz Cheney or against Adam Kensinger, that in and of itself

could spell the end of American democracy because that will be a signal to people that there's just too much risk to get involved in politics. And so if that were to happen, we need people to understand that that is a potential death blow. And your elected officials position on that one act, the bringing of charges against a member of the January 6th committee is a red alert moment. And here's where I don't think the party is and the movement is meeting the moment. I agree with you, we are in mid-slide,

but we don't talk like it. And so the only way that we put pressure on Republicans at the state level, at the federal level, to raise their voices, to put pressure on Republicans to stop the slide, the only way that we get media companies to change their tune is to make people understand that the unraveling is happening as we speak. And that's broadly not the way

the Democrats are talking today. the unraveling is happening as we speak. And that's broadly not the way the Democrats are talking today. We're talking as if it's a potential development sometime in the future after January 20th. Part of it does also seem to be like the kind of rhetoric. And I don't wanna just pick on Joe Biden, but he just had, he is, I think, the signal exemplar of it, which is this kind of, I like, for lack of a better term,

like kind of highfalutin language about democracy and institutions and preserving them. Now you've talked about how we have to attack democracy as it currently exists, which is, I think, a provocative way to make the argument you've been making just during our conversation. But what does a full-throated version of this sound like? How does it sound different than how Kamala Harris sounded

in 2024, how Hillary Clinton sounded in 2016? Well, I mean, I think it involves a broadside attack on the power of billionaires in our economy today. And have Democrats been a little reluctant to engage in that critique? Because some of those billionaires are our economy today, and have Democrats been a little reluctant to engage in that critique because some of those billionaires are on our side? Certainly. Is it maybe part of the reason

why we have stopped elevating campaign finance reform, meaning getting private money out of politics in our issue priority? Because we now more than ever rely on some of those really, really rich people to fund our campaigns and Super PACs. Sure. This is, I think, part of what we have to get our arms wrapped around that people want to vote for the party that is going to blow up the current rules of engagement between

the economic elites and government. And right now they don't believe that's the Democratic party. So I think we've got to be able to look at ourselves and decide whether we want to still have our own operations funded in part by that very same set of economic elites. So this is going to seem like a small issue compared to what we've just been discussing. But Senator,

do you know what time the sun will set in New London, Connecticut today? 5 27 4 36 pm Your constituents in New London, Connecticut will be shrouded in darkness by 5 PM. Now I went back and I looked at your record, sir. Yeah.

And you've never been a sponsor of the Sunshine Protection Act. I have not. But I actually have a compromise that I wanna propose to you. Can you just, what is your current position? Can we do it a half, can we do like a half an hour? Half an hour, no, we're not doing a half hour.

That'd be so confusing. No, so are you in favor of making daylight saving time permanent for Connecticut? Just for Connecticut? Well, I mean, everyone else can do it, but just would you like for your constituents to have daylight saving time run through the winter? I didn't, so we passed the Senate years ago, right?

So any of us had the opportunity to block it. I did not. I did not block it because I think on balance, it's probably the right thing for the country. But there is this argument about, you know, kids having to sit out in the freezing cold super early in the morning, which is also not awesome. So I'm for it, but I'm not like enthusiastically for it. I'm not evangelizing on it. I appreciate that. I appreciate that.

Yeah, well, I mean, when school starts too early, where these kids should be sleeping later. Yeah. Right? Okay, I accept that my compromise view is that- You were an evangelist on this? I actually was, and through learning and thinking, I have changed my view. And so my view is now that

every state should not be forced into daylight saving time permanently. That actually what should happen is every right now, every state can choose between either staying on standard time year round, which is something Arizona and Hawaii does, right? Or choosing to do the switch. I'm just saying add a third option, give every state the right to choose permanent daylight saving time if that state so chooses that if Massachusetts and Maine want it and Florida and California want it,

every state can make a decision for themselves. That sounds so confusing. Here's here's what I- It's not. If you're okay, here's my compromise. If you pair it together with the elimination of the penny. I'm in. I'm in. We gotta stop minting these fucking penn'm in I could take I could take we got to stop minting these I guess I could take a look at that Senator Chris Murphy thank you for your time you know we once had a fight about

Connecticut pizza and I have apologized to you in the past about how great Connecticut pizza is I was in a long-term relationship with someone from Connecticut which is how I ate so much Connecticut pizza that relationship has ended and honestly it's the worst part. So, but your relationship with Connecticut pizza has not ended. No, no, that has continued. That has continued.

I know everybody's like, oh, I've been to Connecticut. I've driven through your state, right from Boston to New York. No, stop, take a stop in New Haven. Go to Sally's or Modern or Pete's. There's plenty of options. And your opinion about our state and your willingness to spend a little bit of time

on your way through will be transformed. And that's the beginning, that's how change happens. Senator Chris Murphy, thank you so much for your time. Thanks, man. That's our show for today, we will be back next week. If you live in Los Angeles or the surrounding areas, everyone please stay safe, follow evacuation orders and if you want to donate again, that is vote saveamerica.com slash relief.

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