Pod Save America - The MAGA Plot to Jail Democrats

Episode Date: June 7, 2024

Republican voters are starting to second-guess their support for convicted felon Donald Trump, who’s now threatening to lock up President Biden and other Democrats if he wins. Meanwhile, one of Trump’s most loyal henchmen, Steve Bannon, is finally going to jail. In Normandy, Biden makes the case for democracy with a fist bump at the D-Day anniversary, while Republicans block a bill to protect access to birth control.Grab your tickets for all of the upcoming shows at crooked.com/events now!For a closed-captioned version of this episode, click here. For a transcript of this episode, please email [e-mail] and include the name of the podcast.

Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Jon Favreau. I'm Dan Pfeiffer. On today's show, Donald Trump and his goons are planning to lock up Democrats if they win. One of those goons, Steve Bannon, is finally going to jail. Joe Biden makes the case for democracy at the D-Day anniversary in Normandy. And Republicans block a bill that would protect access to birth control. But first, it has been a week now since a jury unanimously found Donald Trump guilty of committing 34 felonies. This comes after another jury found the Trump organization guilty of 17 felonies,

and two separate juries found Trump liable for sexual abuse and defamation. All unanimous verdicts as well. He's not doing so well with the juries, Dan. That's a lot of jurors. That's a lot of jurors and four different juries just now he's struck out. He's 0-42 jurors. Did you just do some fast

math there? I think so. We'll see if it's right or not. It's definitely not right. Does it have to be a multiple of 12? You know, it's fine. We'll take care of it in post. And we're finally starting to see some evidence that the small slice of persuadable voters who hadn't yet made up their mind about the election

might not want to reward an unrepentant criminal with the job of running the country. The New York Times re-interviewed nearly 2,000 swing state voters who participated in their last poll and found that Trump lost 7% of his voters. 3% said they're now backing Biden. 4% said they're now undecided, taking Trump's previously three-point lead down to one point. The Times also interviewed some of these voters and did a separate focus group of undecided voters, as did our friend Sarah Longwell, all of which we can talk about. But first, what's your take on the post-verdict polling? And more importantly, does it tell you anything about how we should talk about the verdict with undecided voters? Yeah, there are a couple of interesting things from the polls. One,

we should be, even though the numbers are smaller than common sense or common decency would suggest in terms of wanting a convicted felon to be president of the United States, it should be encouraging to everyone that things matter, right? This does actually matter. It matters. 7% of voters is not a lot of voters, but it is more than enough to tip the White House one direction or the other. So in that sense, it's a very big deal.

tip the White House one direction or the other. So in that sense, it's a very big deal. The overall magnitude is not great, but the impact in a race this close is seismic, potentially. Now, if you look across all the polls, one of the main takeaways is that Biden's number doesn't really move. Maybe it goes up a point. A lot of times it stays the same. What is happening is that Trump is losing voters, and most of them are going into the undecided column. right? Undecided in this case could mean maybe they're going to back Trump again. Maybe they're going to back a third-party candidate like RFK Jr. Maybe they're not going to vote at all. That might be the most likely scenario, or they might vote for Biden. Now, Trump losing a voter is a minus one for him, right? It's a net vote gain for Biden. If Biden gets that voter, it's a net two vote gain for Biden. So that is what we want. We want to move them not just to undecided, we want to move them

to pro-Biden. And so my takeaway from this is we have a lot of work to do, right? That there is an opportunity here. It is not going to be realized right immediately because not only are these folks moving to undecided, in the data for progress poll that Tommy and Adisu talked about on Wednesday's podcast, 60% of their identified swing voter universe are not paying close attention to the trial. That is a much larger percentage than the overall electorate. So the voters we need the most are paying the least attention. But what we have seen is when those voters hear about it, it causes them to rethink Trump. That is an argument for Democrats to keep talking about this, to keep hammering it, to keep making it part of the larger argument against

Trump. Yeah. And in the New York Times survey of the 2,000 people they had already polled a couple weeks ago, a sizable share of that group, 16%, said they hadn't heard enough about the verdict to say whether they approved or disapproved. And more than a quarter of those voters paid little or no attention at all to the trial. The other interesting thing is the most likely people to switch their votes away from Trump and also towards Biden, younger voters, non-white voters, disengaged voters, people who haven't been following the news that closely, Biden 2020 voters who had previously said they were voting for Trump, and the double haters. So the voters who said that they disapprove of both Trump and Biden.

So the very voters that Biden had been struggling with in a lot of these polls are the voters who, when they heard about the verdict, tended to have a have second thoughts about voting for Trump, which I thought was very interesting. I also want to dig into sort of why people switched, which, again, the New York Times did interviews with some of these voters that they polled. They also there was another focus group as well. You know me. I love love focus groups. Why do you love focus groups, John? Because I host another podcast called The Wilderness.

You should check out this Sunday. We have another episode of The Wilderness coming. This is going to focus on black voters, persuadable black voters who have not yet decided who they're going to support. So tune in, guys.

Tune in. So some of the reasons people switched. One guy in Nevada said that he actually wants to see if Trump gets jail time or not. And that's really, he's now undecided. He's gone from pro-Trump to undecided. And I think if Trump gets jail time,

he's going to be more likely. This is Kristen Soltis Anderson is a Republican pollster. She wrote a whole piece about this in the New York Times that there's actually a lot of voters who jail time will make the difference for them. So I thought that was interesting. Well, I would fucking hope so. I mean, but my thing is like, why do you need the jail? The conviction seems like it should be

enough. I mean, even if you were like kind of iffy on maybe it was a fair trial, if you care that much about falsifying business records to interfere in election a president in prison seems like kind of a monkey wrench in the works here i think for people who weren't paying attention to the trial or who still haven't paid attention that much jail is a signifier that it is a more serious offense yes oh you get like you know community service or whatever a guy in ge Georgia said, my thing is just go ahead and be honest. We as Americans, we can respect that a lot of people make mistakes. And he said he's very worried that Trump would seek retribution against Democrats, which we're going to talk about. But that is interesting, too. It's sort of why I was I keep calling him an unrepentant

criminal. There are people who you look at Donald Trump and he's just showed he's showed no remorse. He has admitted nothing. He has said that he's made no mistakes it's just like victim victim victim and i think that probably doesn't land well with a lot of people and then there was an interesting there's a woman in pennsylvania who volunteers with people who've been incarcerated you don't want to dig in too much on this woman because they said that she was she was a biden voter who then decided she was going to vote for trump because joe biden allowed roe v. Wade to be overturned and didn't do anything about it. That's right. So just, you know, but she said, if a person who received 34 felony convictions in one day can still run for president, why can my guy not apply for a job at a gas station?

It's not that Trump's guilty. It's the fact that he can still carry on his life without any kind of hurdles. This to me is, I think, maybe the most salient argument for a lot of people. And this goes to Trump trying to say, oh, you know, there's a lot of black Americans who identify with me now

and who are going to vote for me because they've experienced unfairness with the criminal justice system. And he's trying to say that the unfairness in the criminal justice system, which a lot of people will believe it's unfair, that he's trying to make himself be part of that, right, to get sympathy. And I think you have to separate him from most other defendants, most other people who've been convicted, most other people who've gone to jail, because Donald Trump, he plays by a different set of rules from everyone else, right? Like he's just been charged and convicted of 34 felonies. He's got another 54 felony charges that he's awaiting. And he doesn't have, you know, he might not have to go to jail.

He gets to do, he to be a president United States. And most people can't even when they when they leave jail, they can't even vote. They can't get a job. And Donald Trump gets to do whatever he wants because he's Donald Trump. Like, I do think that's a pretty powerful argument. The idea. Well, this is not I'm not sure this is the right public message, but just as a point. Imagine how blatant and stupid a criminal you have to be to be one of the richest, most

politically connected white men in America and still get convicted on 34 felonies in like six seconds. It's just, it's just, it is right there. I think one of the things about how we talk about this is it's not enough just to call him a convicted felon, although I think we should do that because people have not yet paid attention. So we cannot allow this to be memory hold like so many other previous transgressions. But it should not be about saying what kind of person Trump is because that is baked into the cake. They're either going to vote for an asshole or they're not going to vote for a selfish asshole. They know that about him. So you have to spin it forward to make it be about what kind of president Trump will be, right? As evidence of the core part of the argument that Trump is only in this for himself and his presidency is going to be about avoiding further legal accountability, helping himself, and as we will get to soon, seeking revenge on his adversaries. Like it has to be part of that story. And it is like one of the most salient, most resonant data points to prove that story.

But it's one we're gonna have to hammer over and over and over again, because, you know, it was five months ago from Wednesday was the election. And that's all that is an eternity in trying to keep this in front of voters, voters because as all this polling shows the voters that we need most are paying the least attention did you read the uh the focus group of undecided voters in the times that i think they had frank lundstu and pat healy and some other folks yes i did i have a lot to say about how the new york times presents it on their website because it's basically impossible to follow with all the graphics and the sketches and the jumps. Yeah, they're trying to do some multimedia thing that's supposed to be fancy. It doesn't really work as well.

Just give me a transcript. Transcript is definitely go check it out. I highly recommend it. Again, you'll pull your hair out. You'll laugh, but I think you'll walk away fairly hopeful. A lot of those voters were surprised. I thought that was notable by the verdict, right? Like they didn't.

And we saw this in polls prior to the verdict. People did not expect him to be convicted. A lot of people in the focus group mentioned the jury as a reason to support the verdict and why they thought the trial was fair, which is, again, it's important to mention the jury all the time when you're talking to people. A couple people mentioned fear that Donald Trump would enact retribution on people if he becomes president as a reason not to vote for him post-conviction. And then again, there was a guy who said, we're all regular people with regular jobs. If any of us did like one thousandth of what this guy did for being on trial, we would

all have been fired. We'd all have been out on our butts applying for jobs at grocery stores or driving uber or whatnot and that was a guy who was thinking about voting for trump and now he's not going to so again and then there's then there's of course just some funny ones some crazy comments you know uh one person said i want a president who's going to be able to cover up a hundred and thirty thousand dollar bribe to daniels if he can't pull that off, I'm not going to trust him with the nuclear football. So that person is now voting for Biden because Trump is not a good criminal? Yes. Okay. Hey, you know what? We'll take the votes wherever we can get them. Every vote counts the same. Just voters, you know? It's amazing. Wait, before we change this,

have you seen the ad that the Republican voters against Trump did a few months ago where they tried to get jobs working at a shopping mall with Trump's resume? No. This is pre-conviction. It's not like actors. They sent real people in, and they blurted out the faces saying, could I work here if I was convicted, if a court found me guilty, liable for sexual assault

or all of the other things that Trump did. And I think it's a really interesting way to sort of just make it feel real to people, like what the actual impact is in two ways, right? It's just, it seems like to a lot of people, it's political and it's out there and it's New York and all this, but it brings it down to the level of, would you hire a person who had just been convicted of this exact crime to do things like, oh, I don't know, manage the economy for somebody who just was convicted of 34 counts of falsifying business records. And then it gets to the second point you highlighted, which is a normal person couldn't get a job at a mall with this on their record. And Donald Trump gets to be president of the United States and that there is this two-tiered system of justice where rich, powerful people

like Donald Trump are above law. And that's a system he wants to perpetuate, right? Just on stage today in Arizona, he was doing, he brought on stage Sheriff Joe Arpaio, a person convicted of crimes that he pardoned, right? Because he was a political crony of Donald Trump's, right? And so that sort of cronyism, political cronyism and corruption is a helpful argument that can be tied to this as well. Convicted of crimes. Joe Arpaio. Again, everything gets memory hold. He brings Joe Arpaio on stage.

Joe Arpaio up on stage. He kisses him. He says, I don't kiss men, but I'm kissing Joe Arpaio. I guess like happy pride. Did you watch the video? I did watch the video. There was a kiss. The team said, wait, we should play this clip. And I said, well, happy pride. Did you watch the video? I did watch the video. There's a kiss. The team said, wait, we should

play this clip. And I said, well, you know, it's an audio medium, but maybe we should put it on social media. But the point, but the less funny point is, Joe Arpaio bragged that his jails that he ran were concentration camps. He literally said that he was proud that

they were concentration camps. He denied said that he was proud that they were concentration camps. He denied food and medical care to prisoners. He was found by the courts to violate the Eighth Amendment against cruel and unusual punishment. He installed a live video feed camera in the woman's holding cell. I mean, it was torture,

what Joe Arpaio did. He would not just racially profile, he would like lock up people just because they spoke Spanish. And so he suspected that they might be undocumented immigrants, even if they were citizens. And then found guilty of a whole bunch of crimes. And then, of course, pardoned by one convicted felon, pardoned now by another convicted felon, Donald Trump. And he brings him up on stage. That's who Donald Trump is. That's what, that's what we got to, uh, that's what we're working with here.

All right, before we break, um, we are officially less than three weeks away from the publication of our book, democracy or else how to save America in 10 easy steps. June 25th, Dan, we're so close.

It's here. It is here. Big news to our book event in Bostonoston guess who's going to be moderated by dan pfeiffer i would say we got dan only a little offended as you went through that was on the all the emails were everyone you wanted did not uh was not available and then you finally asked the guy who was already staying in the same hotel as you i honestly like i didn't even think about it and then part of it was like we've we just asked you to do so much i'm like why are we asking dan to do this fucking book event it would be like his one night off but i'm happy i'm happy to do it

you guys did many of my book events we appreciate that uh if you're in new york or boston we have jam-packed week of events uh on june 25th alissa will be moderating a melissa master monaco i just uh will be moderating a book launch discussion with me, Lovett, and Tommy at Symphony Space in New York City. On June 26th, we're kicking off the Pod Save America live tour at the Brooklyn Paramount Theater with very special guest host Stacey Abrams. That's exciting. On June 27th at 6 p.m. in Boston, this is the Dan event. We're going to be pre-gaming the Trump-Biden debate with a book chat at First Parish Church. So that's exciting.

Dan's going to have plenty of survivor questions for Lovett that he'll probably not be able to answer. If he's back by then, who knows? And then on June 28th, Pod Save America will be live at the Wilbur Boston for a post-debate show with guest host Mehdi Hassan, followed by a late-night Love It or Leave It with guests Kathleen Turner and Jay Jordan

also at the Wilbur. Wow. That's going to be a busy week. It's a busy week. You can get tickets to all of these events at cricket.com slash events right now. And if you're not in New York or Boston, you can still pre-order your copy of Democracy or Else wherever you get your books. Please go pre-order our book.

We got to get on top of that New York Times bestseller list, Dan. And now, we just got to get on it, really. And now it's crunch time. And I think we're already, maybe we'll beat Kristi Noem. Maybe we'll beat the dog killer. But there's always going to be some kind of right-wing kook that we're trying to beat out on the New York Times bestseller list, on all the bestsellers. So please go order Democracy or Else. And guess what? If you order it, the proceeds are going to Vote Save America. So you're going to be helping

actually save democracy. And then you get a fun book to read with great jokes, great advice, and real smart advice from really smart people like Dan. Look, people, buy the book. Buy it early. You're going to like the book. You're going to like helping Vote Save America. You're going to feel good about beating Kristi Noem and what other right-wing MAGA nut is trying to rig the bestseller list because that's what the right does. They buy books in bulk to get their authors on the bestseller list so that the publishers will then give more book contracts to right-wing nuts to spread mag extremism across the country.

Time for you to rig the book list for democracy. But we're not going to rig it with the Cokes buying a bunch of books en masse. We're going to do it grassroots style. Yes. Grassroots rigging is what we're doing. That's what I like to hear. Alright, as Trump waits to be sentenced for his crimes, he is

of course out there doing everything he can to reassure voters that he's learned his lesson and will of course respect the rule of law. Here's Trump saying a bunch of crazy shit on Hannity Wednesday night. Even Schumer has become like a Palestinian. Chuck Schumer, Jewish, always strong for Israel. He's become like a Palestinian. He said it's an existential threat.

He loves the words existential threat. That global warming is an existential threat. And he doesn't know why. What is it? It's weather. And I'm all for that. You know what? I'm in a certain way, in a very powerful way. I'm an environmentalist. Those that want people to believe that you want retribution, that you will use the system of justice to go after your political enemies. So number one, they're wrong. It has to stop because otherwise we're not going to have a country. Look, when this election is over, based on what they've done, I would have every right to go after them.

Yeah. I threw the first two in just because, A, Trump is so anti-Palestinian that he now uses it as an insult. Because A, Trump is so anti-Palestinian that he now uses it as an insult. He also told donors a couple weeks ago, we didn't even mention this, that if he's elected president, he's going to set back the Palestinian cause 25, 30 years. So no friend of the Palestinians. And of course, once again, we just played a clip earlier this week of him talking about climate change when he said, oh, all it's going to do is give us more beachfront property. Now he's just saying it's just weather. It's just weather.

So that's Trump on that. But I want to talk about the comments he made about revenge. Really, the only question left is, if Trump wins, will he have the desire and the power to prosecute and potentially jail anyone who opposes him? Adam Liptak, the legal reporter for The Times, wrote a pretty alarming piece. to prosecute and potentially jail anyone who opposes him. Adam Liptak, the legal reporter for The Times, wrote a pretty alarming piece I would encourage everyone to read that says Trump would have, quote, immense authority to actually carry out the kinds of legal retribution

he has been promoting. He will be able to tell Justice Department officials to investigate and prosecute his rivals and fire those who refuse. What's your level of alarm on this one? On a scale of 1 to 10, I'm about a 38, I'd say. Yeah. No, this is maybe my, this is like in the top three or top five for me. Where do you think we are on the list?

I mean, here's what, who knows? We're trying not to talk about that here this is how the clip gets pulled and aired on Fox and then we get on the list growth growth go ahead you tell me why you why you're alarmed about it and then I can get into my whole spiel on this

I would just say that I don't really think we'd be targeted, but I was walking through the crooked offices when I was there two weeks ago. And I went to that back part that I don't go to very often for a meeting. And I saw framed is a copy of that chart from the NSC memo that Seb Gorka wrote about the echo chamber that has all of our faces on it, that we were running some sort of program to undermine Donald Trump. Yeah, that's true. And so when, well, at least Seb Gorka won't be back in the administration. Oh, wait, probably. Yes. Yes, he will. Um, I would encourage everyone to go check that out. That was really a real fun moment in history. Um, but the reason like your original question was,

will Donald Trump have the power and desire to do this? Of course. He had the desire to do it last time. There is all the reporting and all the books talked about him wanting to investigate his rivals, right? He spun up the Durham report to try to go after the people investigating him for collusion with Russia. He talked about jailing opponents. Jeff Sessions told investigators, told Mueller's investigators that Trump wanted

him to investigate and prosecute Hillary Clinton. If you remember, Jeff Sessions recused himself. Trump was angry because he and that's what Sessions testified. He wanted him to investigate and prosecute Hillary Clinton. And that's when Sessions replacement Bill Barr had John Durham open up an investigation that eventually led to the Clinton campaign. Reports about him John Durham open up an investigation that eventually led to the Clinton campaign. Reports about him fulminating about the IRS auditing opponents, right? All of these we knew we wanted to do. And the only reason it didn't happen, and it really is sort of by the grace of God, is there were people in power who for as bad as they were, right? Like we're relying on the gravitas and morality of Jeff Sessions preventing it from

happening, right? Jeff Sessions, Bill Barr, John Bol Sessions preventing it from happening, right? Jeff Sessions, Bill Barr, John Bolton, these sorts of people, right? These are not heroes of democracy by any stretch of the imagination, but they did not follow through on Trump's orders. And there was also a sense that the rest of the Republican Party, particularly the folks in Congress, would not go along with this sort of stuff, right? That this was a bridge too far for them. Well, flash forward to 2025 and all of those safeguards are gone. Every person Trump hires will be an extreme loyalist willing to go to the hilt to implement whatever Trump's desires are. And then the reaction within the party to Trump's conviction in these investigations is that retribution against

political opponents is now – that is an accepted Republican Party policy. And one of the most disturbing things was – this was mentioned in the New York Times article from Maggie Haberman, Jonathan Swan, and Charlie Savage, sort of detailing some of these conversations in the party, is this article from John Yoo, a Berkeley law professor who sort of infamously wrote the memos that authorized torture and wiretapping in the Bush administration, making a constitutionalist case for retribution against Trump's political opponents, that the only way to stop political retribution is always that sort of faux intellectual permission structure from the right wing is always what precipitates these things actually happening, right? It creates this aura of legitimacy for people like Marco Rubio, who tweeted his support for such a thing with fire emojis the other day and is always cringe behavior.

And so I think we should be very, very concerned about this because this is very, if Trump wins, the most likely scenario is that he is going to weaponize the power of government in the most ironic way possible, given all the bullshit from Republicans over the last few years to investigate, arrest, and potentially jail his political opponents. for people to understand that, you know, when you hear about Trump wanting to take revenge on his political opponents, you may think like, you know, Joe Biden, Joe Biden's family, Hillary Clinton, Bill Clinton, Barack Obama, like all the Republicans that were disloyal to him, right? All the people he's mad at, all the people he tweets about. And, you know, there's a lot of people are probably, I would say most Americans would be very much against that. Right. But you might think also, well, it's not something that affects my life. And the challenge is that, like, once you start down the road of having an

entire Justice Department filled with crazy right wing prosecutors. Once you clear out the FBI and you have a bunch of like crazy right-wing FBI agents, again, these aren't just like conservative FBI agents, conservative prosecutors. These are like MAGA types. And once you have departments like that, it doesn't have to necessarily just be them going after Trump's political opponents.

It's them going after Trump's political opponents. It's them going after Democrats or anyone that seems like they are favorable towards Democrats. You can imagine political prosecutions against abortion providers in blue states, companies that sell pride merch that have contributed to Democrats, media outlets. Labor unions. Labor unions, right?

It just goes on and on and on and it goes and it starts with trump but whatever trump wants and whatever trump's focused on that's not even going to matter as much as like what all of these other prosecutors and all these other fbi agents want to do and will have the full power of the law behind them and what it does is even if you're not targeted what happens in authoritarian countries what happens when there's autocrats in power is that there's this pervasive culture of fear so that no one wants to speak out. No one wants to do anything. You're constantly afraid that you're going to have a knock on the door because you've pissed off either your local MAGA prosecutor or governor or state legislature or, you know, goes right up the ladder. And that is, once you start down that path, I think it is very, very difficult to come back from that.

And so anyone who thinks like, this is going to be some show trial against, you know, the people that Donald Trump hates personally, and maybe I'm not going to be affected, I don't think you should comfort yourself with that thought. And then there was the question of how do you, like, that is exactly right. That's the substantive argument about why this is dangerous. How do you, for a lot of people,

and this is always when the challenge with Trump stuff is, well, you sound like alarmist lunatics and this didn't happen last time, right? So why should we worry now? And I think you have to explain about why this time is different, which I tried to do earlier. But there is also a point here is we have to want... We're still trying to win... You are raising the alarm for why this is bad for the country. We also have to make voters care enough about it that they will prevent it from happening. We're the only place where we have the true power to stop it, which is at the ballot box this November. And there are a couple of ways, I think, to do that. One is we have to once again fit it into that story about Trump, that this is all about him. A presidency that is about seeking retribution against your political opponents is a presidency that is about helping Donald Trump. And then the

other thing is there is an opportunity cost here. If Donald Trump is spending all of his time trying to go after Alvin Bragg and Hillary Clinton and all sorts of things, that means he's not spending that time trying to lower your costs. He's so busy fighting for himself that he's not fighting for you. And I think that's an important part of trying to explain this and understand why it matters to people. Because even you're going to have to, I think it's hard to get the average person to think that this is somehow going to redound against them, that they will somehow end up on a list or someone they know will get prosecuted, but it can affect their lives because he's not focused on them. And I think that is the probably more believable way for the average voter to

interpret this than the idea that with the very real and true thing that their local prosecutor is going to start prosecuting the local hospital for the local pharmacy that's selling abortion pills or whatever else. I actually think that the issue of abortion, which is going to be one of the very top issues in this election that people very much understand right now is almost a proof point in making this larger argument. And you've talked about this before in framing this election

and framing what Trump and MAGA want to do as sort of taking away people's freedoms, because this falls under that, right? He said it was okay for states to monitor women's pregnancies, right? And what Trump and Republicans in states are doing to restrict access to abortion and to restrict access to care that that mothers need who may have who may be having a miscarriage. I mean, go down the list. We've talked about it before. Like into this bucket of they want to take away your freedoms if you don't agree with everything they agree with. The Biden campaign is going to air an ad on Thursday night during the NBA finals that is about, it's called Flag. It's about freedom and democracy. It doesn't address this specifically, but it is about this election is a battle for

freedom and democracy in American values against this extremist movement that wants to overturn elections, take away your freedoms. And that is like, you will have to build this story into it. But that is the larger frame. I think I think it's a very good spot. And then the other thing is, again, the reason it didn't happen last time is because he didn't have the right people in place. Trump will next time have plenty of administration officials and outside advisors

encouraging him to take revenge. Stephen Miller, who has been floated as Trump's next White House chief of staff, potentially, how fun would that be? Good times, is urging Republican district attorneys openly to start prosecuting Democrats now. As you mentioned, potential vice president Marco Rubio tweeted that it's time to fight fire with flame emoji, flame emoji, flame emoji. And here's MAGA podcaster Tim Pool and self-described Islamophobe Laura Loomer

talking about jailing and executing Democrats. Should Democrats be in jail? No question. When Donald Trump gets elected, should he start locking them up? No question. Should there be lists of Democrats that need to go to jail? 100 percent. Not just jail. They should get the death penalty. You know, we actually used to have the punishment for treason in this country.

Death penalty. A reminder, Trump lets Laura Loomer ride around with him on his plane. It calls her very special. Tried to hire her to work on the campaign until some of his staff found out and they put the kibosh on it last minute. She says she wants to be press secretary in the next Trump White House. Does this seem like information we should get in front of American voters about all these kooks connected to Trump? We just talked about Joe Arpaio. I mean, it's just, I do wonder if at some point, as part of the story that we want to to tell is it's not just Trump in power, but the people around Trump and what they're going to do. Much like, you know, in contrast, some people who are worried that Joe Biden is too old for the job, something that reassures people, and I've heard this in focus groups as well, is that he's got a lot of really good, qualified people around him. And I think you probably want to make the case that Trump does not. Yeah, I think that's right. And you raised the exact point I was going to say, which is

when you hear of people debating Trump versus Biden in focus groups, and they're legitimately trying to process how they're going to make that decision, one of the points almost always in Biden's favor you hear from voters is he surrounds himself with good people, right? It's like serious people. Trump certainly does not. It's the exact opposite. And I think it's like obviously no one's going to know who Laura Loomer or Tim Pool or even Stephen Miller is, right? No actual persuadable voter is going to know that.

But the fact that they are all members of this extremist MAGA movement that supported the big lie that was part of January 6th. That, I think, does matter to people. It's why the MAGA extremist Republican message was so powerful in 2022, is that there is a large swath of voters, and particularly among persuadable voters, who are very concerned about that sort of extremist movement having power in this country. And it's the extremist movement that took away abortion access, all these things. I think that's how we have to do it, is that those are the people who are going to be running the country with Donald Trump. It's not going to be serious people. It's not going to be people who

put the country first. It's going to be people who put Donald Trump first. I would, at the very least, create and probably test a couple ads that include some of the most extreme characters who may reappear in a second Trump term and just use their voice and the things they've said, whether it's Mike Flynn, Stephen Miller, Laura Loomer. I do think that kind of ad could work with some of the college educated independents, Republicans who were maybe Biden voters who are now sort of slipping away a little bit and thinking maybe Trump wasn't so bad. Like you could see in, you know, in some suburbs around big cities in these swing states, you could see ads like that working with with those voters. Yeah, that's interesting. You could just use the like Rick Grinnell is another example. Mike Flynn talking about QAnon. And I mean, it's like there's some crazy shit out there. The Biden campaign frequently when they pull clips that they're going to share on social of Trump supporters, they will often use

the rumored cabinet position of that person, like potential Trump attorney general, so and so was potential rumored Trump secretary of state Rick Grinnell saying X. And I think that's an interesting way of doing that. There's one Trump advisor thirsting for revenge who I saved for last because we found out today that before Steve Bannon can help put any Democrats in jail, he's heading there himself, Dan. A judge ordered Bannon to surrender by July 1st so he can begin serving a four-month sentence after being convicted for contempt of Congress in 2022 when he refused a subpoena to provide documents and testimony to the January 6th committee. Bannon will now be in prison through the election through early November. But then when he gets out, he also has a fraud trial,

separate fraud trial scheduled for later this year. Might have to move because I think he'll be in jail when it's supposed to start in September. What a shame. What a shame. My biggest question, though, is what do you think is going to happen to his podcast, The War Room? Do you think they're going to let Tommy co-host or guest host? I would say that I have no sympathy for Steve Bannon, but a brief, just sort of like a understanding for the people who run The War Room podcast, because what do you do if in the run-up to the elections, one of your posts just disappears for a while?

do if in the run-up to the elections one of your posts just go just disappears for a while right just all of a sudden decides yes thanks thanks to uh thanks to a jury of his peers yes yes i mean is it really that dissimilar steve bannon going to jail donald sorry steve you had the really funny thing is when i was writing my uh my answer says i kept writing trump instead of love it every time I tried to write this joke out. You know what? It's understandable. It's understandable. Yes.

So let me try that again, but we should leave all of this in. Is Steve Bannon going to jail really that different than John Lovett going on Survivor in the middle of the election? No, not really. It's the question you all have to answer for yourself. Yes. Trump had a response to this, Bannon go to jail. And his response is that the January 6th committee, the entire committee should be indicted. Liz Cheney, Adam Kinzinger, Jamie Wright, everyone who was on the committee, indict them.

That's what we got. That's what we got going. Because Steve Bannon, going to jail for the stupidest fucking reason ever, by the way, all he had to do was come testify before a congressional committee, which everyone else does. Everyone else gets to do, but not Steve Bannon. Steve Bannon said no because he wanted to make himself a martyr. So you know what? Now he's in jail for four months. Could have easily avoided it. He's going to complain it's a political prosecution. Could have easily avoided it by just going and answering a few questions. You know what I'd say to Steve Bannon? Mission accomplished. Yeah, no kidding. So just in case you're concerned that Trump and his gang of criminals aren't getting a fair shake from the justice system, fear not. The Supreme Court majority Trump created still, still hasn't ruled on the apparently very

difficult question of whether presidents are allowed to commit crimes, which means that the chance of a verdict in Jack Smith's January 6th case before the election is nearly gone. The all-Republican Georgia Court of Appeals just froze that state's election interference case against Trump until well after the election while they decide whether District Attorney Fannie Willis should be disqualified from the case.

You could say that one is both the Court of Appeals' fault and maybe Fannie Willis' fault as well. And Trump's favorite judge, Eileen Cannon, who he appointed, has frozen the classified documents case in Florida until after the election as well. I'm sure any criminal defendant facing 54 more felony counts would have that kind of luck. Right, Dan? Yeah, it seems totally fair and not at all surprising that a bunch of Republican judges, some of them appointed by Trump, are rigging the system

to ensure he faces no legal accountability before the voters must decide who their next president is. The Supreme Court thing, I just have to say, is un-fucking-conscionable. This is, by every legal expert's judgment,

an open-and-shut case. Open-and-shut. They could have done this in five minutes. I will disagree with that. They have fucked this they could have done this in five minutes i just i i will disagree with that they have fucked this and they have done it like i do think there's like intentional delay here especially among the conservative members but i think that the case raises questions questions by the way that we that could come up again if donald trump wins and he tries to prosecute joe biden right which is what acts of a president during office can be prosecuted and which cannot and how do you

draw the line and where do you draw the line now it should be a pretty fucking easy line for them to draw but i think that's my point when you when you when you listen to the oral arguments they clearly were thinking like they have to they have to create a ruling here that goes just beyond the narrow question and seeks to understand, like, what acts a president can or can't be prosecuted for, which is totally bullshit. And again, they could have taken the case earlier. They could have not let it go through the whole fucking process and just taken it originally when jack smith asked them to take it and skipped over the court of appeals they could have written they could have put all the other fucking decisions aside and written a decision by now it's crazy right that's my point like there there there are so many ways to dispense of this without even wrestling with those questions because you could

do that at a later date right knowing? Knowing that the direct immediate consequence of their delay is that Donald Trump will not face legal accountability, that they are essentially giving him de facto immunity by their delay. They could, I don't know, work into the evening, people, like work a little harder. It's like they could, they are specifically trying to delay this. And now either – this is, I think, just an absolute indictment of John Roberts as Chief Justice. Either he is going along with this plan or he does not have enough control of the court to avoid just further corruption in the court. You have seen trust in the court just plummet under John Roberts' leadership.

Like you have seen trust in the court just plummet under John Roberts' leadership. And if you really, truly care about the court, right, about the institution of the court, which he claims to do so, you would have found a way to resolve this case in some way, shape, or form in a timeline that allowed the trial courts to do their business on Trump. But he did not do that, right? And it's just, it is, it's truly, like, we should be screaming about this. Democrats should be screaming about this, right? This is way more important, although, and certainly related to, which flag Sam Alito flies at his house, right?

Yeah, very much so. And I just, it just, it's infuriating. And we've just sort of accepted it. Just like, another day goes by, another decision day, no opinion released on this case that they could have resolved if they had wanted to, much, much faster. The weird thing is it is pretty,

it's going to be pretty close to, like they're going to have the decision in the next couple of weeks before the end of the term, as they often do. And at that point, like Judge Chuckin will still be able to begin the trial if she wants not until maybe like mid-september like it's at that point it's very tough to get a verdict by election day but then we're in a situation where the final month and

half of the election could be trump on trial for januaryth, and we might not get a verdict until afterwards. So we don't really know how this is going to go. I don't think they're going to succeed. They may not succeed in completely delaying the case until after the election, but certainly it's not going to be very timely at this point. So let's talk about the other president running for a second term who hasn't been charged or convicted of any crimes. That's the low bar, though.

Joe Biden. President is in France right now with other world leaders to commemorate the 80th anniversary of D-Day. He sat down with ABC's David Muir for an interview where he pledged not to pardon his son Hunter if he's convicted. He also said that Trump got a fair trial. He also gave a nice speech on Thursday. Let's hear a clip. And make no mistake, the autocrats of the world are watching closely to see what happens in Ukraine, to see if we let this illegal aggression go unchecked. We cannot let that happen. To surrender to bullies, to bow down to dictators is simply unthinkable.

Were we to do that, it means we'd be forgetting what happened here in these hallowed beaches. Make no mistake, we will not bow down. We will not forget. So Politico reports that Biden aides have been pretty open about their desire to see Biden compared to Ronald Reagan, who delivered the famous Boys of Pondahawk speech at the D-Day anniversary in 1984. One of the better speeches, one of the better presidential speeches, I would say. Why do you think they want that comparison? The New York Times also just wrote a piece about this as well. I think you sent it to me. There was always a tension between the communications department's desire to get

the speech coverage and the speechwriter's desire to manage expectations for said speech. You are a very level-headed guy. You're frankly a pleasure to work with in any environment, White House, media company. But the times when you would get a little heated would be when you felt like we were overselling the speech. And I can imagine this is just really putting a lot of pressure. Oftentimes, you oversell the speech. Well, you know what? Trying to keep your tree from falling in the woods and no one hearing it.

Well, you know what? Trying to keep your tree from falling in the woods and no one hearing it. But it just feels like we're so, even from when we were in the White House, we're like so, the media environment is just so different now. Just the idea, because I said it's like the campaign sees this, this is like a tentpole event for the campaign, this Normandy thing it's like i mean i wish that were so but like we can barely get you know primetime speeches his state of the union which was excellent the news cycle was like a day after that no and like now we're gonna get a normandy

speech is a bit i mean it's just it's tough it like i had some real like white house uh ptsd over this whole thing because there is just in general if you were someone who works who's where domestic political considerations in an election year are part of your job portfolio and the president is headed to france for five days like that drives you insane and then you're always working with the national security folks, always Ben and Tommy, to try to find a way to reverse engineer some domestic thing in there of value, even though the time zone is all fucked up. Your speech is in the middle of the day, or if you're in Asia, it's in the middle of the night. No one ever sees it. We're going to go visit a place where they're offloading cars made in America, or we went to Ireland to do a thing at an Irish pub because there are a lot of Irish voters in Pennsylvania or whatever.

And so you're always trying to do it. I can't imagine this is actually anyone believes this to actually be a tentpole. But I will say there was a CNN story today about how the Biden campaign has hired a specific person to do outreach to Republicans. And I think there may be some synergy there between using the Reagan illusions, the old school, non-isolationist foreign policy views as a way to reach out to some of those never-Trump Republicans that you want to move into your column. So I think that's probably it. But man, these foreign trips are tough for domestic politics.

You want to get off. If you could do those for David Plouffe and I in 2012, if you could do a red-eye and get back in a day, that's what the people working on the campaign would want. I am going to speak on behalf of my fellow speechwriters and try to do them a favor and lower expectations on this. Every president tries to redo the famous Reagan speech when they go to Normandy. Remember, we went twice. We went in 2009.

I wrote that one. And then I think Cody and Ben one in this for the 70th anniversary because that was the big one when obama 14 yeah 2014 yeah so they did that one and every every speechwriter has read the reagan speech again you should go read it it's a fantastic speech it's not like a republican speech it's just a good speech and even because we've all read it, you like start echoing the speech as you're writing and you have to stop yourself because you're like, that sounds too much like Reagan. But then how do you make it different? Because it was like, it was a given speech at a given moment that was fantastic. And it's hard to replicate those. Now, I will say for Biden,

because democracy all over the world, once again, really is at stake, probably more so than at any time since World War II, I would say the context and the setting is better for him to give a really great speech. But, you know, it's just hard. Reagan did it. You know, you could give your great speech somewhere else. That's what I would say. I mean, we talk about the difference. And I'm speaking, by the way. You're going to hear this on Friday, everyone.

You're hearing this on Friday. And that's when Biden gives the big Ponda Hawk speech. He had he gave one on Thursday as well. That was the clip you just heard. But you're right. I think the effort that you mentioned that CNN reported on, that they're reaching out to Republicans, because a lot of these like never Trump Republicans, whether you're Adam Kinzinger, Liz Cheney or whatever, Chris Christie, have talked about how the Biden White House or campaign more likely hasn't really reached out to them. And it's good that that process has begun, I think, because you're going to need a big tent and every last voter to beat Donald Trump.

Finally, and yet another reminder of what's at stake in this election, Donald Trump's Senate loyalists blocked for the second time a bill that would protect access to birth control for all Americans. Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowski were the only Republicans to join Democrats in supporting the bill.

In case you're wondering why there's a need to protect access to birth control, Republican legislatures in Missouri and Idaho are already pushing bills to block Plan B and IUDs, while Republicans in Nevada, Virginia, Arizona, and Wisconsin have also blocked bills that would protect birth control in those states.

Republicans in the Senate gave several reasons for not supporting the bill that include the claim that it would force Catholic schools to hand out condoms to little kids. It would not. That it could be used by a judge to mandate gender change procedures. That was from Marco Rubio. Also not true. And that the bill is unnecessary because there's just no real threat to birth control. What do you think, Dan? No real threat? Well, I'd say politicians are political animals, right?

And the right to contraception polls at like 80%. So if there was no real threat and a poll at 8%, it really kind of makes you wonder why they wouldn't just vote for it. Right. Maybe it's because they don't want to protect contraception and they want to take it away and they want to leave them that out. It's just, I mean, you know what? You can go through plenty of quotes from people. Oh, abortion safe. Roe is safe. It's not going to go away. It's never going to go away. And then Dobbs happens. And if you again, you've got to look at some of these like the real red states, the super red legislatures, states like Idaho, where you're starting to see some interest groups, some activists, some super right-wing legislators, and they're starting with IUDs and plan B because there's, you know, real hardcore anti-abortion advocates believe that

life begins at fertilization. And so that's how they'll start targeting it. And it's just going to go from there. And the fact that Republicans, look, if they, if Republicans are running around saying, this is just fear mongering and, and we actually support birth control and this is crazy. And Democrats are just trying to score political points. Okay. Well then vote for a bill that would protect birth control access. Seems pretty obvious. I mean, Roe was first and Griswold v. Connecticut is second. That's the original decision, which a lot decision which ensured the right to access contraception. The right has been talking about going after that for a long time. In some of the discussion after Dobbs, that was seen as what is next. And so no one should be

surprised if the court is hearing a case about the right to contraception in the first couple years of the Donald Trump presidency. And think about what happens if Donald Trump gets to appoint three new judges, right? Which is a real possibility. Who all think like Clarence Thomas did that we should reconsider Griswold. And also, you know, because Trump can say whatever he wants. Trump's like, oh no, I like birth control. You know, just today, just before he brought Joe Arpaio up on stage for a kiss, he was introduced at the Turning Points USA town hall by Charlie Kirk, the founder of Turning Points USA. Charlie Kirk, who says birth control, quote, screws up female brains and creates a bitterness that leads them to become Democrats.

And then he told people to make sure their loved ones aren't on birth control. He introduced Trump. Trump said he's great. Charlie Kirk also, by the way, said that Martin Luther King Jr. was awful Trump said he's great. Charlie Kirk also, by the way, said that Martin Luther King Jr. was awful and that the Civil Rights Act was a mistake. These are the people around Donald Trump. Where are they going to end up if he's president? Some in the White House, some in the administration, some will be in all of the agencies when he purges all of the non-political appointees in the federal government and replaces them with MAGA loyalists. And of course, some of them will just be his media allies outside. So that's what we got. That's what we got. Hey, everyone, Vote Save America. Check it out. If you haven't signed up,

go sign up. You want to be Team East, Team West. Vote Save America folks will give you plenty of work to do. You can help volunteer. You can talk to voters who are like some of the voters that we have talked about today. Maybe they're undecided now. Maybe they were Trump curious and now the verdict's making them question things, but they're still not ready.

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