Pod Save America - The Trump-Mike Johnson-MTG Love Triangle

Episode Date: April 12, 2024

Joe Biden lays out the choice on the economy. Donald Trump stands by his man Mike Johnson despite Marjorie Taylor Greene's threats to oust him as Speaker. Republicans tell the New York Times they plan to elevate third party candidates like RFK Jr. as a way to help Trump win. And Fox News can’t get enough of Trump’s masterful Chick-fil-A order. 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. PRE-ORDER DEMOCRACY OR ELSE: https://crooked.com/crookedmediareads/MORE INFOTour dates & cities: crooked.com/eventsSupport abortion freedom & shop Crooked’s new No Trespassing Collection: crooked.com/store

Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Jon Favreau. I'm Dan Pfeiffer. On today's show, Donald Trump embraces his embattled MAGA speaker at a bogus election fraud event. Republicans admit to the New York Times that they plan to help third-party candidates as a way to beat Joe Biden. And Trump wows Fox News by ordering Chick-fil-A. But first, voters keep saying their top issue is high prices. And we got an economic report this week that says inflation might be sticking around longer than we hope. New Consumer Price Index data shows prices rising more quickly than expected, driven mostly by the cost of housing and gas.

Donald Trump celebrated the news with a post that reads, Inflation is back and raging. the news with a post that reads, inflation is back and raging. The Fed will never be able to credibly lower interest rates because they want to protect the worst president in the history of the untied states. Untied states President Joe Biden responded to the news in a press event where he also laid out the choice in the election between him and Trump on the economy. Let's take a listen. Well, I do stand by my prediction that before the year is out to be a rate cut. This may delay it a month or so. I'm not sure of that. We don't know what the Fed is going to do for certain. But look, we have dramatically reduced inflation from 9% down to close to 3%. We're in a situation where

we're better situated than we were when we took office, where inflation was skyrocketing. And we have a plan to deal with it, whereas the opposition, my opposition, talks about two things. They just want to cut taxes for the wealthy and raise taxes on other people. So it seems like both Biden and Trump are very focused on what the Fed decides to do between now and November. What's your sense of the politics around these inflation reports and potential rate cuts? Well, John, I'm just going to go out on a limb and say that higher inflation, not great politics. Bad. There you go. Yes. That's why people listen to the ads for this podcast, so they can get analysis like that. Inflation has been coming down. President Biden is right.

They've made real progress. We'd like it to be coming down faster. The lower the prices, the better things are for the president. The rate cut is really – the potential rate cut is really interesting because it's one of the few variables in this campaign between two people who just ran against each other four years ago. It's this one thing that's standing out there, which is if the Fed were to cut rates, that would be a sign that the president has succeeded in slowing inflation to a level where the Fed felt

comfortable doing that. So that's positive news for the president. And then a rate cut would be a boost to the economy, something the market's anticipating. It would lower costs for borrowers, for people who want to make a decent buy a house, buy a car, borrow money to start a business. It would be a validation and it would be good for the president. And the sooner that happens, the longer their time is between the rate cut and the election for the benefits of that boost to help. If the Fed decides not to do that, that will be seen by the markets, by the press, a message amplified by Trump and the Republicans. The president has not succeeded in lowering inflation sufficiently. And the economy, it will remain hard and frustrating and painful to buy a

house, buy a car, borrow money, start a business. And that would be on its face good for Trump. So you see this, I don't really understand Trump's message about why he can't like the economics and financial sense and understand the economy in Trump's truth. There are let alone his spelling are questionable. But from a pure point of view is that a rate cut is good for Biden and is bad for Trump. the Fed is independent. And so there's very little that Biden or Trump can do about this. What Jerome Powell and the Fed decides to do, though, and traditionally presidents are not supposed to pressure the Fed in any way, which is why you heard Biden making more of a prediction of what they might do than yelling at them about what they should do, which is basically what Donald Trump did when he was president. And so, yeah, they just have to wait and see. And originally, I think economists forecasted like three rate cuts between now and November. Now they're thinking one to two. Originally, they were hoping June, July. Now they're thinking maybe September. But yeah, there's both the symbolic effects and I think there's the real effects for people, right?

Mortgage rates are around over 7% right now. If you want to buy a car, if you want to take out a loan, credit card rate, interest rates, it's just they're all very high. I'm wondering what happens when Trump promises to fire Jerome Powell and replace him with someone who will immediately cut interest rates. Yeah. I mean, that is. I mean, that's a. I see that coming. Yes. It would be against norms for sure, but could totally see it. Joe Biden, he won't do anything

about Jerome Powell. Jerome Powell won't cut rates and he's just sitting there letting inflation do it. You put me in there, I'll fire his ass on the first day. Put in someone who's cutting your, cut your interest rates. I mean, well, the president, president Trump did jawbone the Fed, as you pointed out the whole time he was in there, and he is not delivering this truth about the Fed from prison, right? He escaped the consequences of violating said norm. So yeah. So I loved that Biden ended by laying out the choice between him and Trump on the economy. How do you think that message can evolve over the next few months? The story that Joe Biden needs to tell in this election is that Joe Biden will fight for you and your family, and Donald Trump will fight for himself and his rich friends. And taxes is probably the best way to tell that story. You guys talked about this on Tuesday,

I think. Everyone's podcasting all the time now, so at some point in recent memory, you talked about it. But Trump standing in Mar-a-Lago and telling his rich friends at a fundraiser where people paid nearly a million dollars a ticket that he was going to cut their taxes and then those rich goons applauded him. If that moment had been caught on video, it would have been the greatest political gaffe in American history, hands down. It's like Mitt Romney 47% on steroids. It's a thousand times worse than that. It is the Ron Klain, who I know we'll talk about later, once told me, we were working together on a political matter, candidate did something, and when I briefed Ron on what it was, he told me,

that would be an A-plus answer to how to lose a presidential election. What Trump did is, if you were just trying to figure out the best way to not be president, it would be to do exactly that. And that's a story that Biden has to tell, is this is who Trump wants to help. And we've seen in polling that among working class voters of all races, the voters that Biden has been struggling with since 2020, their biggest concern about Trump is he's going to cut taxes for rich people. And you know what? biggest concern about Trump is he's going to cut taxes for rich people. And you know what? Trump's going to do that because next year, at the end of 2025, the $2 trillion tax cut that overwhelmingly benefited corporations and the wealthy is set to expire. Joe Biden will let it expire. Donald Trump

doesn't just want to renew it. He wants to make it more friendly to corporations, make the rate even lower. And framing the economy around that conversation about who Biden's going to fight for and who Trump's going to fight for is the absolute best sort of talent. I thought, you can see Biden is in campaign mode now, right? Jennifer Palmer and I talked about this in the Univision interview, is that he is laser focused on what the best political message is, which is why he, at a press conference with a Japanese prime minister on a question on interest rates, he got to Trump's tax plan. And so he knows that. Yeah. And it's good that you mentioned that because the reason he just didn't say Donald

Trump is because he was in the Rose Garden with the Japanese prime minister. So he said the opposition, but I'm sure he'll sharpen that. So people know, extending the Trump tax cuts would cost $3.5 trillion. And so Donald Trump wants to spend $3.5 trillion on extending a Trump tax cut that will give everyone who makes over a million dollars a $50,000 tax cut. That's what that would mean for people making over a million dollars, $50,000 if you extend the Trump tax cuts. And if you're in the bottom quarter of the income brackets, you would get about $100 as a tax cut. That's what Donald Trump wants to do. That's a plan.

And like you said, that is not like we got to figure out what the makeup of Congress is and all this kind of stuff. Like the tax cuts are expiring, so something has to happen. And if he's president, that's what he wants to do. And then to Biden's reference about he wants to raise taxes on everyone else, that is almost surely a reference to Trump's proposed tariffs, which have not gotten nearly enough coverage because people are like, tariffs, boring, eyes glaze over, right? Trump, first of all, has enormous power as president to slap tariffs on goods, on foreign goods,

without congressional approval. He can just do that. That's a power that presidents have. And he wants to propose 10% across the board tariffs on all imported goods from anywhere. He wants to do 60% tariff on imports from China and 100% tariff on foreign cars. So Center for American Progress crunched the numbers on this. This would mean a $1,500 tax increase for the typical household because of Trump's tariffs. And these are just something he could do on his own. So now imagine an economic plan from the economic genius, Donald Trump, that everyone gives so much credit for in the economy, who wants to give millionaires a $50,000

tax cut and raise your taxes $1,500. And that's just a start. There's a whole bunch of other economic plans that are terrible too. You can see today he posted another video on his fake Twitter saying, Joe Biden's been saying I'm going to terminate the Affordable Care Act and I'm not going to terminate the Affordable Care Act. I'm going to make it better. Of course, Trump did say he would terminate the Affordable Care Act, did say he would repeal it, tried to repeal it when he was president, didn't have a replacement, didn't want to make it better. And now, because he's looking at the polling a lot more on everything in this race, and just like abortion now, you can tell he's scared on ACA and he's trying to walk it back. The tariffs is interesting.

And I will say it has not gotten enough coverage, not for lack of trying by you, because you have been really trying to drive the tariff message and podcast after podcast, but it's a tax increase. It's also going to like send inflation soaring and probably tip us into recession. The messaging on this, I think it's gonna be really interesting. And I haven't seen research on it, but convincing people that a Republican like Donald Trump wants to raise their taxes is challenging. So how you frame it is going to be interesting, right? And the way you would do this, the way we did it with Romney is you say he's basically going to pay for a tax cut by the rich by asking you to pay a little more. That's not

substantively accurate in this one, because it's two separate things. But just I would be interested when Biden starts bringing this up more, I'm going to be interested to listen very carefully to the words he's using is going to be very clearly what they have found in their research to be the best way to make it stick. Yeah, I would like to see some more research on this, too. So one person who had some surprisingly candid thoughts on Biden's economic messaging this week was the president's former chief of staff, our friend Ron Klain. According to audio from an event that Politico obtained, Ron responded to a question from someone about why Biden isn't talking more about infrastructure by saying this, quote, I think the president is out there too much talking about bridges.

Like I tell you, if you go to the grocery store, you go to the grocery store and, you know, eggs and milk are expensive. The fact that there's a fucking bridge is not, and then it was an audible, but you can fill in whatever you want there. He then said that the president is not running for Congress. I think it's kind of a fool's errand. I think that it also doesn't get covered that much because look, it's a fucking bridge

and how interesting is the bridge? It's a little interesting, but it's not a lot interesting. No argument from me there ron i want to know who the i want to know the idiot was who's like why isn't he talking about infrastructure more who was that person i mean do you was it was it pete budaj was it was it barack obama was it barack obama yeah i'm thinking like who are the real infrastructure nerds that i know um so ron later told politico that he's fully aligned with the White House as quote, the president's economic messaging has been more middle class oriented and less

infrastructure centric since the State of the Union. I completely agree with Ron there. I'm sure that's what Ron had been referring to before when he was talking in the Politico event. And ultimately, this is just, you know, chum for the DC press. But I do think it illuminates a larger debate about that. And we've talked about this before, how much Biden should focus on selling his economic accomplishments versus driving the economic contrast between him and Trump. What are your thoughts? I know where I stand. You're with Ron 100%. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I think there's a lot of layers to this debate. Ron is 100% right about the challenge of trying to drive a message to the free press with Bridges, right?

I understand how the White House, I have sat in many meetings trying to figure out what kind of events you're going to do in the White House. And one of the things the press likes is a good visual. And you want a good visual, a bridge. And so that's how you end up in front of bridges a lot. The challenge of it is obviously is the press covers what is going to happen or what is happening in that moment, not what happened in the past. So when you say last year during, I guess, two years now, two years ago, during the bipartisan infrastructure bill, we passed money for this bridge and that money is arriving today in the form of a giant check or whatever. Like that's just not going to drive coverage. So Ron is 100% right about that. I think he's also right

that infrastructure is one of those issues that voters tell pollsters they care about, but it doesn't drive vote choice, right? Like everyone wants better roads, better bridges, better airports. They hate potholes. All of that is true. It is not, I've never seen it be one of those issues that overcomes concerns on other issues, right? Where you're like, well, you know, the cost of milk is really high, but on my trip to the, to buy the expensive milk, I got to cross this bridge, right? It's not like that doesn't really work that way. However, and I, you know, a lot in 2022, we had a lot of conversations about like the Dem about the hashtag Dems deliver message and how elections are about the future, not the past.

And voters don't reelect you because of what you did. They reelect you because of what they think you're going to do for them next. I think it is slightly different for Biden. And I think there is an argument for it. I think this is primarily through paid messaging for the reasons I just said, that he has to lay a foundation of some of the things that he has done. Because all of the polling shows that huge swaths of the electorate, including people who say they're planning on voting for Joe Biden, are completely unaware of a lot of

his record of accomplishment. And there is this simply foundational work that you're going to have to do to build a level of credibility to talk about what you're going to do next because of the things you have done in the past, and also to be able to have a critique against Trump. It's going to be hard to drive that tax message if people think you've done nothing on the economy over the last three years. The best issue in all the polling is taking on big pharma to get Medicare to have lower prescription drugs, $35 cap on insulin. That sort of stuff is that you've had fights, you won those fights against special interests, you accomplish something that lowers costs, which is evidence that you can do and it

gives you credibility to drive that message against Trump. So what I would say is, when he's out there doing events that are designed to reach voters via the press, it's got to have to be something at some level of contrast and conflict, right, that will get it or something buzzy enough to get attention like the student loan announcement you guys talked about on Tuesday. But in the advertising, I do think you want to lay down targeted at Biden 2020 voters what he's done, right? You can do it in contrast to what Trump did not do. Biden did X, Trump did Y, Biden did X, Trump failed to do Y. But I do think there's work, there's educational work that still needs to be done with our voters that will help drive the message later on. I think that's right. I certainly think that paid media is a good way to sort of lay that

foundation you were talking about as accomplishments. I would say that I think like other voices besides Biden's are probably more powerful advocates, right? If you have ads of people who got jobs because of the infrastructure or benefited from any of the initiatives that Biden has enacted over the last several years, I think that's going to be more powerful. I just think that for, I mean, you obviously have to do both. The question is, what's the mix? And I think the balance needs to be way more on the contrast with Trump and what's the agenda going forward than what you've already done. And of course, I'm sure it's all research based if the campaign's thinking about this, but like what you wouldn't want is it to come from,

you know, the bosses feeling annoyed that he's not getting enough credit for everything he did, which is a lot. This is a lot and some great stuff. But like the reality is he has to frame the whole election has to be a choice between him and Donald Trump. Right. That's that's that's the number one task. And so I do feel like you have to drive the economic contrast with Donald Trump every single day. And in a way, you have to relitigate the story of where we've been and where we are and where we need to go, because right now, Donald Trump still has an advantage there. So like, you know, you could imagine Biden saying, look, we've come a long way since Donald Trump mismanaged a pandemic that crashed the economy and sent inflation soaring.

But even though the economy is growing and corporations are making record profits, they won't reduce prices. And guess what? Donald Trump wants to give those corporations that refuse to lower prices another three trillion dollars in tax cuts. And then he wants to make you pay more. And you know what I want to do? I want to keep fighting to keep lowering prices, keep lowering inflation, keep helping you. And like, that's the difference. And by the way, if you send me back to the White House and you give me a bigger Democratic Congress, I'll be able to lower prices even more and I'll be able to lower costs even more. And he won't, you know, like, I think it's just got to be that it's got to sort of tell the whole story.

I think one important, really important point you made there is that the best voices for this are not going to be Biden's voice. There need to be ads with Biden's voice, right? Like that, they ran right out of the State of the Union. People need to see him speaking, driving the message. But the most persuasive ad for the voters who we are losing or that we need to win back or keep in our camp is going to be other people, right? Union leaders, workers, families that benefit. That is going to be true in all of that. All the people who did ads in 2022 and 2023 said that those are the ads that always focus group the best. who did ads in 2022 and 2023 said that those were the ads that always focus group the best. I also think it's probably fair to say that it's probably a mistake to ever run a single ad that's a straight positive. It should probably be all, if you got 30 seconds, 15 on what Biden did, 15 on what Trump would do, didn't do, did wrong, right? You got 60, 30, 30, right? Or even if it's 15, 45. So there needs to be contrast everywhere, but I still think there has to be some, we just have to tell people some things that Biden did to give them permission to come back, right? Because if you think he's done nothing, you're not going to vote

for him again. No, I think other voices do the validation about accomplishments. And I think you want Biden's voice out there showing that he's continuing to fight for working people where Donald Trump will not. And so you have him do the fighting for you message and you have other people do the, and here's what we've already accomplished message. All right, let's talk about what Trump's been up to this week. Our favorite criminal defendant slash Republican nominee is preparing for next week's hush money trial. It is Florida Beach Club, where he's holding an event Friday morning with MAGA Mike Johnson,

the speaker who thinks that Noah brought dinos on the ark. According to USA Today, the two men will talk about legislation to, quote, elevate the issue of non-citizens voting in federal elections, which is not actually an issue since it's against the law. It's a felony, and according to the Right-Wing Heritage Foundation, this has only happened 24 times in the last

20 years. 24 instances of an undocumented immigrant voting in a federal election. That's what we're dealing with here. Because it's a felony, and if you are caught, it's not only a year in jail, but you probably get deported. So either or. You either get deported or you spend a year in jail. The reporting suggests that the real reason for the event

is that Trump wants everyone to know that he's standing by Mike Johnson despite the attempt by human clickbait Marjorie Taylor Greene to oust him as Speaker. Large Marge is big mad that Johnson worked with Democrats to keep the government open, and she's threatened to trigger a motion to vacate if he lets the House vote on Ukraine funding or pass a reauthorization of something known as Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which allows the government to spy on the communications of foreigners outside the United States who might pose a national security threat to America.

Trump also doesn't want that to pass because he thinks this is the part of the law that was used to spy on his campaign in 2016, which isn't true. He's confusing 702 with another part of the surveillance law, which he's also done before. he's also done before he he confused this thing while he was president once before had to issue a follow-up statement ended up signing the Pfizer reauthorization law because he realized that he had fucked up and now a couple years later he's doing it again uh these are the people Dan that we want in charge of our government these are the people speak for yourself John these are the people we want to protect you want I to protect us from national security threats. Mike Johnson, Marjorie Taylor Greene, Donald Trump. They're on top of the ball. Let's start with the Mar-a-Lago event, which will probably have happened by the time you're all hearing this.

So I can see why Johnson wants to be seen with Trump to save his job. Why do you think Trump is throwing Johnson a lifeline here? I think there are two reasons, one strategic, one petty. The strategic reason is, and you've seen some of the reporting on this, is that the Trump campaign is very uncomfortable with the image of the party that the chaos in the Republican House keeps giving. And if we have another speaker debacle and it takes weeks- Framingly smart of them. Yeah, that's exactly right. That is the right political analysis. And so saving him is in Trump's interest. The petty thing is that Trump likes to own people. He likes to have leverage over people. So by making Mike Johnson come down

to Mar-a-Lago and appear at this ridiculous event and bend the knee to Trump, Trump has leverage on him for as long as he needs it, right? Whether it's keeping people in line through this election, he needs them to spin up another cockamamie investigation of someone in the Biden family, they can do that. If Trump wins and Mike Johnson survives long enough to be Speaker of the House under that presidency, he's got leverage on him there. And he wants Mike Johnson to know that he controls his fate, and this will do that. And he wants Mike Johnson to know that he controls his fate, and this will do that. Now, I will also say, I would pay money to hear the conversation between these two mix.

I think it's possible no one has ever had less in common than these two. Mike Pence looks like a frat boy compared to Mike Johnson. You think Mike Johnson is going to try to get Trump to become his accountability partner and use Covenant Eyes, download Covenant Eyes? I don't even know. There are a lot of things I could say here. I don't think I should say any of them. Just move along. Do you think we could get an ad that includes Covenant Eyes by the end of the campaign? I really think that there's a lot of young men that are sort of drifting towards the Republican Party. I think they would find that notable that the Republican Speaker of the House, Donald Trump's new pet,

likes to monitor his son's porn intake. I mean, we know lots of people, John. Do you want to, should we get this done? Well, you know what? I'm podcasting for 80% of my life now. So I just say things on the air and hopefully someone picks it up. Well, I'm only at like 45% right now because I only have- I don't have time to reach out to anyone else. I mean, you're either podcasting, you're just podcasting 24 seven, that is true.

But yeah, I think we can, let's work on this project. I'm sure there was someone who would love to take this on. But you're right. You know that Donald Trump is telling all of his advisors and friends how weird Mike Johnson is. You know he's had that conversation. He's going to make some sort of completely inappropriate comment or joke in front of Mike Johnson just to watch him just get squirm.

Yeah. What are the chances that Mike Johnson goes the way of Kevin McCarthy, Paul Ryan, John Boehner? Mike Johnson goes the way of Kevin McCarthy, Paul Ryan, John Boehner. I mean, if he's going to appear with Trump tomorrow slash today, probably he's in great shape. You think he's safe? I would find it hard to imagine that of all people, I mean, anything is possible. These people are all nuts. But as long as Trump's happy with him, I think he'll probably keep his job. And if Trump tells these people, do not toss him overboard because that will hurt my campaign. We've already seen they're willing to throw

Ukraine and this US border over. So I think they'll save Mike Johnson for him. It does seem like Marjorie Taylor Greene, she's ready to go. And it does seem like Ukraine could get done now that Mike Johnson might put it on the floor. It seems like there's now going to be another vote on FISA on Friday. And if she's angry, like it does not going to take too many people to throw him overboard unless, you know, it seems like if if he does put Ukraine up for a vote, then the Democrats will save him. But if the Democrats save him, I don't I don't I think if the Democrats save him and he remains speaker, I could see him remaining speaker through November. Oh, yeah.

Because Trump doesn't want him to leave and then Republicans don't have another choice and they don't want the headache of going through that bullshit again with 30,000 votes or whatever. But I can't imagine him then at that point staying into 2025. I mean, it's worth noting he seems particularly bad at his job and lost just like sort of a like a sad lost puppy i mean he's basically where am i how did i get here he's basically a person who won a contest to be speaker like a sweepstakes like he has no idea what he's doing it's absolutely absurd uh he's king ralph basically i think it's gonna be the way you put it i mean it just it two things I think are likely to happen if Trump wins. Maybe Trump keeps him.

Who knows? But they'll probably also change the rules the next time around, too, on the motion to vacate. Oh, so that one person can't trigger a motion to vacate. Theoretically, it's possible that the majority could be slightly larger, right? It gets a little bit harder to do that. But there's a lot of people who do not want to, I think, stick with this plan. It's harder to undo in the middle of a session, but they're going to have to, in a new Congress, repass all the rules again. We should talk about the policy here. So Trump and his goons-

Why? Did I falsely even wake up and pot save the world? What happened? I was like, did I did I falsely even wake up and save the world? Like what happened? Sorry, the the policy consequences of this political mess. OK, thank you. Or can we do the political consequences of the policy mess? That's what we started there. So so they don't.

So Trump and his goons, they don't want to help Ukraine because they are huffing Putin's propaganda and they don't want to let the government spy on potential foreign terrorists because they mistakenly think the law was used to spy on Trump. It seems like not a great way to run a railroad. I don't know. What do you think? Yeah, I mean, I think, you know, to the... And do you think that there could be some political hate to be made here? You would hope so, that the absolute rank incompetence of this Republican House would be something that would give the American people pause before they return them to the majority. We have not seen a dramatic shift in the polling through all of this chaos, right? It's just, I mean, the generic ballot is kind of- Yeah, the generic ballot. Well, yeah, the approval of Congress is pretty grim, but it always has been. But yeah, but it's not specific to the Republicans in a way

that is commiserate with what they've actually done here. In 2014, after the Republicans shut down the government to try to repeal the ACA, you saw this dramatic change in approval of the parties in Congress. We haven't seen that as much here. People probably just in the media environment we're in, we can't get people to know what the President of the United States is getting done in their own communities. Getting them to understand the failure to pass the rule of the FISA bill is incredibly challenging. That doesn't mean we can't make that case over the next nine months. People are haven't, that people are not dialed into what is happening in Congress right now. I think it's possible that, and this is where Trump's campaign instincts are correct, that if another speaker got tossed and we had another three-week period

with no speaker and all these votes, now people are more focused on the election, that could have an impact. But on the current trajectory, I'm just not sure. People need to feel the pain of this chaos, and they haven't felt that yet. They avoided a government shutdown. They avoided default in the past. Those are the sort of things where people wake up and see what happens. There's not that sort of cliff or looming tax raise if they don't pass this or something important expiring. It's just embarrassing chaos and opportunity cost. And we have to work a little bit harder. I think we get the public to see that.

Yeah, I do think they provide these examples provide like proof points in the larger story we want to tell about Trump and the Republican Party. It's just another example of them jeopardizing national security for the sake of Trump's deranged grievances and conspiracies. Like, you know, they don't give a shit about preventing World War III with Putin rolling through Europe. They don't give a shit about preventing terrorist attacks against the United States. And look, there are legitimate reasons to want to put stronger protections in place in this Pfizer reauthorization. One of the problems is there's a concern that when the government spies on foreigners' communications, who they believe are

national security threats, that sometimes if those foreigners are communicating with Americans, then American citizens' communications can get swept up. And so they want, some people want more protections. Other people say that it's sort of hard to design these protections. It gets into the weeds. But anyway, that's some of hard to design these protection. It gets into the weeds. But anyway, that's some of the reasons that like some progressive Democrats are worried about FISA. That's not the reason Republicans are worried. Republicans are just like, oh, Donald Trump mistakenly thinks that this is a tool that was used to spy on his campaign.

And we're just going to go all in on believing it. That's it. It's just reflexive idiocy, right? They just, I mean, it's so it's so dumb. There, there is a legitimate policy debate here. That's not what the Republicans are doing. Yeah. Which is usually the case these days. So here's a story I found unsettling. The New York Times reported this week that pro-Trump super PACs and outside groups plan to boost support for RFK Jr. and other third party candidates because Trump and his campaign believe that any vote for a third party candidate is a vote to help Donald Trump. So these groups

plan to elevate RFK as a, quote, champion for choice and also a champion for the environment in order to attract more liberal voters who might not want to support Biden. They want to elevate Green Party candidate Jill Stein and target young people and progressives with ads that tout Biden's record on domestic oil production, which is now at a record high. And they're also thinking about running ads in Dearborn, Michigan, and other heavily Muslim and Arab American areas, thanking Joe Biden for standing with Israel. Very cynical, very cynical. Also potentially very smart. How much does this strategy concern you, Dan? And are you surprised they're admitting it to the New York Times? The strategy does concern me. It's quite concerning. And this is one of the reasons

why we've been so concerned about third party candidates. This is not a new strategy. This is a lot of what some Trump people and the Russians did in 2016. This is why Jared Kushner helped Kanye West get on the ballot in 2020. Oh, yeah. I forgot about that. Wow. Just like what a world where Kanye West ran for president at the urging of the president's son-in-law and it's barely a foot- Completely memory hold it. Yes. I mean, voters-. And it's barely a foot. Completely memory hold it. Yes. I mean, voters. And I do this for a living. Yes.

Voters also clearly didn't care that much either, but he was on the ballot in Wisconsin, I think. Like that's how fucking insane that was. And he didn't do very well for the record. No, he didn't. It is not surprising that they told everyone because one of the true hallmarks of the Trump era is you do all your dirt in public. You announce your crimes. You read everyone in your plans.

You just be as public as humanly possible, as they always are. Of course, they told in the New York Times because they want to seem really smart and they want to raise more money for this. It's the other thing, right? The fact that one of the things this story points out is, and I did not know this, that one of Jill Stein's biggest supporters in 2016 was a major Trump donor. I didn't know that either. Yeah. That would have been. Until I, yeah.

And we talked a lot when, especially when Liz Smith was, who's working on the third party stuff for the DNC, was on the podcast a few weeks ago, that Tim Mellon, who's one of the biggest supporters, donors to Trump's super PAC is that Tim Mellon, who's one of the biggest donors to Trump's super PAC, is also the biggest donor to RFK Jr.'s super PAC. We know what's going on here. But yeah, it's very, very, very concerning, and in part because this is an election where the electorate is very open to such appeals, right? And because of how they feel about the choice they have, about how they feel about both parties, about how they feel about politics generally, is that this is a very target-rich environment for people who want to enact this strategy. Steve Bannon is actually on the record.

Speaking of people who like to do all their dirt in public. And he said, the path to victory here is clearly maximizing the reach of these left-wing alternatives. No Republican knows that oil production under Biden is higher than ever. But Jill Stein's people do. And the college kids are furious about it. Just the most, most cynical thing you could possibly say is that like Trump's out there saying Joe Biden is not producing enough oil, not producing enough American energy. And all the gas prices are high because of that.

When the truth is, all of these people know that oil production is higher than ever. And now they're going to use that as a cudgel for progressives who are upset that oil production is higher than ever. It's just, you know, there's also a couple other interesting parts of the piece that the Trump team polling shows that RFK Jr. pulls more votes from Biden than Trump, which we had suspected and seen in some public polling, but confirmed by the Trump team polling. And it's especially true among Latino voters. Did you see that in Arizona? They have Biden beating Trump among Latino voters in a two-way in Arizona, but when it's the full ballot, then Trump is winning among Latino voters by a good margin. There's a poll of RFK Jr. Latino voters

that's making the rounds in democratic politics right now that is quite, quite, quite scary. Trump, although, is reportedly worried about losing the anti-vaxxers to RFK Jr. and has even floated RFK Jr. to some people as a possible running mate because he said he likes the sound of Trump Kennedy. I know it's fun to talk about this piece and also scary, but I think that the Trump people and Bannon and all the rest of the idiots have given Democrats like a lot of fodder with this piece to strengthen the argument that Liz

and other people are making about these third party candidates, because it's one thing to say, you know, you got to vote for Joe Biden. Don't go third party because we got to stand up to Donald Trump. And it's it's a different thing. And I think it's a little more effective to say Donald Trump, Donald Trump believes that a vote for anyone but Biden is a vote for Donald Trump. Donald Trump wants you to vote third party so he can win. That's what his campaign thinks they can win with. And so every single criticism of Joe Biden, all they need to do is peel votes away from Joe Biden to keep people home, to get people voting for third party candidates. And Donald Trump thinks that's what's going to get him to win. And so I do think that that's helpful. And I wonder if this Trump war,

like, do you think the Democrats can cause any similar mischief with the third party candidates with elevating anyone like Trump is? I mean, it's different, right? Because it's... I mean, I could give you 10 ideas on how to do that right now. Like, absolutely. You think that Biden should praise Trump for making the vaccines, for getting the vaccine, the COVID vaccine? No, I would not do that.

But, I mean, there's nothing illegal about what you're doing here, right? I mean, it doesn't have to be illegal. These guys will probably stumble backwards into crimes, but by, you know, like fake robocalls and stuff like that. But there's, you can very clearly have an effort, which highlights elements of RFK Jr.'s record on vaccines on the border on what he said about January 6, to a certain set of voters, right? You could very clearly find voters. It's pretty easy to find them on Facebook and elsewhere. People who patronize certain anti-vax sites, who follow certain anti-vax influencers and target them with messages about thanking RFK Jr. for standing up

against big pharma when even Trump wanted to push the vaccine, there is no reason why Democrats can't also try to drive some voters into RFK Jr. scam. Now, that is more challenging because as we sit here today, a larger portion of Biden's coalition from 2020 is wandering than Trump's. In that New York Times-Santa poll, I think the numbers are a little extreme. Biden's getting, I think, like 85% of his vote and Trump's getting 97 of his. It's probably, Trump has an advantage, but it's maybe not that large. So there's just more potential disinfected Democrats who can move and having Jill Stein is helpful there. But there's no reason why Democrats should not be trying to peel off Trump supporters and push them into RFK Jr.'s camp. Yeah. And I mean, I was joking about

Biden saying that. But I do think like like footage of Trump, like getting the vaccine, urging people to get the vaccine, talking about that, talking about like basically the the stupid campaign that DeSantis was trying to run against him where he somehow like, you know, like Trump was for shutdowns and standing with Fauci and all that kind of stuff. I do think targeted ads in certain to certain voters who are Trump voters now, but would be maybe RFK Jr. Curious could could be effective. People are going to be pretty mad about this. I'm going to just foreshadow that that we we will be, that these ideas would be fomenting and spreading anti-vax sentiment. So there's probably, there's probably a way to do this

that doesn't tip over into that. No, that's why you don't, you don't, you don't spread it by, you just say, thank you, President Trump. It's just like, just like they want to do with Biden in Israel, in Dearborn, right? You say, thank you, President Trump for standing up for, to the anti-vaxxers and getting the vaccine. You do it that way. Just lots of pictures of Trump with Fauci from those press conferences in the early spring. Yeah. Yeah.

It's not a negative ad. It's a positive ad. It's thanking Donald Trump. And also some of the anti-corporate stuff with RFK Jr. If you haven't, if folks have not listened to it, I highly recommend, I think it's the most recent episode of Sarah Longwell's Focus group podcast, where they did 2020 Trump voters and 2020 Biden voters who are supporting or considering supporting RFK Jr. And it is, it's a very eye opening conversation, but it gives you a roadmap of what is appealing about RFK Jr. Based in large part in ignorance, particularly among democratic voters, that you get there are

the threads you could pull to drive that message. Yeah, that was, I don't know if I've listened to a focus group of voters that have said more factually inaccurate things than in that focus group. And the, the Biden voting chemist who was considering RFK junior, despite him being wrong on all the science. Yeah.

That, that one really caused me to pull my car over. That was, that was unsettling that was unsettling but this is these voters that we're worried about this is going back to our original point here the challenge with these third-party voters is that they are so tuned out from politics from the news, so skeptical of institutions, so distrustful of all politicians that like reaching them and persuading them is going to be, I think, enormously difficult. And I think one of the biggest challenges in the campaign. And ideally, maybe for Biden, maybe some of them just, you know, stay home who are going to vote for Trump or RFK Jr.

But I think the Biden 2020 voters that we're thinking about drifting are the ones that you're going to want to spend most of the time on. And the way you do that is you just shine a huge light on who RFK Jr. is and who wants him to win, who's funding him. This article, that quote from steve bannon just it's sunlight is the best way to deal with rfk i think that's right and i think it's a at first i was like well maybe you want to go after him for individual positions that would piss off certain groups of voters but i do think you've got to go just the overall uh the the strategy here and link him to trump link all these third party candidates to trump trump wants third party candidates to Trump. Trump wants third party candidates to do well so he can win. Because I think that's like if you were trying to convince someone the day before the election

who was thinking of voting third party, you'd do that, right? You'd be like, if you really don't like Trump, then voting third party is a really good way to make him president. Okay, before we go, we got to talk about the biggest story of the week. One that got wall-to-wall coverage on the country's most popular cable channel. Donald Trump's visit to Chick-fil-A in Atlanta on Wednesday, where he put on a true masterclass in retail politics.

Here's Fox News anchor Martha McCallum and guest Clay Travis struggling to contain themselves. You know what, Clay, hold on. We're going to show a little bit from that, from that, from Donald Trump buying everybody milkshakes and chicken at Chick-fil-A. Watch. Can I have 30 milkshakes and also some chicken that we're going to take care of the customers? Is business good? Making a lot of money? Everyone's getting rich, right? The idea that Democrats try to sell that Trump is an awful human being, that he's Adolf Hitler. I don't know that Hitler was regularly buying journalist milkshakes or walking into Chick-fil-A or Dairy Queen like this. I think this is Trump at his best, right? So decisive and strong leader in the Gallup poll, Trump 57, Biden is at 38, although more people think that Biden is likable. He's at 57, Trump at at 37 i guess they weren't at the chick-fil-a oh man 30 milkshakes and chicken dan is this the milkshake election

are there milkshake voters should we is that our subgroup hitler never bought milkshakes for anyone dan not even his fellow nazis he's never no one got a milkshake. Never been to Chick-fil-A, Hitler. Never been to Dairy Queen. That's how you know he's not Hitler. Because if he was Hitler, he wouldn't be buying milkshakes for people. Bad people don't eat ice cream. That's just the... Also, Joe Biden

eats ice cream. Bad. Donald Trump buys milkshakes. Good. I mean, it is just... It just has to be said that for. You look like you're going to burst a blood vessel. It's not even anger. It's just like humor that Fox has been on a mission to take down people who drink through straws and people who eat ice cream as a way to hit Joe Biden.

And now they are praising Donald Trump for buying ice cream. You drink through a straw. It's just like, it's just wow. And without even blinking, no one's like, well, no one's trying to square the circle between the anti straw,

anti Joe Biden, ice cream thing to Donald Trump is not only not Hitler. He's a great, kind, compassionate leader because he buys milkshakes. Just wild. Just amazing. Tommy and I had a conversation about this yesterday when we first saw the clip. And he was like, this is the fundamental difference between right-wing media and Fox News and all of us on the progressive media side is that like could you imagine if joe biden walked as he's done many times walks into a restaurant and like buys everyone lunch and we

just played the clip on pods of american we're like can you believe that is joe biden at his best what are wonderful he is amazing because he bought those people lunch if he does something really kind and like unusually wonderful with some to someone like yeah maybe we talk about it but i i just i don't think any of us could ever get ourselves to that point and like fox news with a straight face it was it was it was like the number one story on Fox all day long. It was like headline after headline after headline. Every host came up and talked about the fucking milkshakes. I mean, I'd say a couple things.

One, maybe we should be doing that. No, we should not. I'm not saying we feel good about ourselves, but just for the overall point of the world, if Joe Biden did something really nice, maybe we should talk about it more often. That's just the thought. You know, I remember from the last campaign uh when joe biden

talked to the kid with the stutter about how he'd had a stutter and it's like you know what that is an unusually just like you don't see that moment often in politics no matter who it is and it shows what a kind like soul joe biden is you know but like i'm sorry. That is Donald Trump at his best buying milkshakes. I mean, it's just, I mean, or just another example that when Biden was in the elevator and that horrendous documentary about the New York times editorial endorsement process,

we know that there was that great moment. Like, like, yes, we should highlight all those things. It does show just like what a, the fact that Donald Trump is such an asshole so often that there's this one moment where he buys ice cream for people and it's like oh my fucking god give him the nobel prize yeah i will say though

it is it's like this campaign and again i know you and jen talked about this on on wednesday too like just because they're better than other trump campaigns doesn't mean they're good but like they are they're reading all the polling correctly. They know what his weaknesses are. They know what his strengths are. They're trying to neutralize the weaknesses. They're trying to play up the strengths. Like, they are, this is a real, it's a real campaign.

It's a real campaign. And if, you know, it's a real campaign despite the candidate that they have. Because he's, you know, on on his best days he's still a uh freaking goober but um but yeah i it's gonna be tough did you read the gabe sherbin piece and venny fair about the trump campaign i mean because i like fanfic yeah sure the major takeaway of it is the reason the campaign is working is that Donald Trump is so embroiled in his criminal trials that he can't focus on. He can't be doing all the dumb shit he was doing before, which is, I mean, I think that's actually probably true. And the prospect of going to prison has focused his mind a little bit, just a little bit, mind you.

But it is wild that somehow being involved in multiple criminal like he's involved in so many criminal trials that he doesn't have time to do dumb as much dumb shit like he was only facing two trials maybe he would uh yeah i mean it's just wild but look i think the takeaway on the campaign thing is i think they are running a totally competent campaign thus far and it is light years better than the ones before but as we stand here today on april 11th the campaign that joe biden is running is light years better than the one trump is running that is that's my take as we sit here but trump i trump will not very much agree with that trump will not lose this

campaign on his own we will have to beat him. His campaign has set a floor. money um but also when he is doing relatively well and thus far in the campaign the story has been like donald trump outperforming expectations and he was leading in the polls for a while and if now that the biden campaign's in gear like donald trump starts slipping in the polls and you're already seeing it um he's gonna turn into the the donald trump we saw the night of the uh new hampshire primary we started losing it on nik Haley, which is I think the Biden campaign very much understands, which is why they're trying to continue to get under his skin. It's not just a voter strategy, but a strategy to have Donald Trump become his famously undisciplined self again. All right. Few quick housekeeping notes before we go.

again. All right. Few quick housekeeping notes before we go. If like us, you're following the news about this horrendous Arizona abortion law and the mess that Donald Trump has gotten himself into with the whole let the states decide thing. Check out this week's episode of Hysteria. Erin and Alyssa are all over the story and all the other GOP attacks on women's health and freedom. Hysteria is fantastic. Follow it wherever you get your podcasts. Also, Aaron is going to be joining Dan and Tommy and me for our upcoming live show right here in L.A. on April 21st at the L.A. Times Festival of Books. Come hang out and stress about the news with us and learn about our new book, Democracy or Else, How to Save America in 10 Easy Steps.

You can learn more and get tickets at crooked.com slash events. What a fun Sunday we'll have. Look, I love books. I love podcasting. I love politics. What more could I ask for? And we get a Dan Pfeiffer appearance right here in LA. What more could you want?

Probably an Aaron Ryan appearance. That's what the public is going to want. But yeah, I will also be there. It's going to be great. All right, everyone, have a great weekend, and we will be back with a new episode on Tuesday. Bye, everyone. If you want to get ad-free episodes, exclusive content, and more,

consider joining our Friends of the Pod subscription community at crooked.com slash friends. And if you're already doom-scrolling, don't forget to follow us at Pod Save America on Instagram, Twitter, and YouTube for access to full episodes, bonus content, and more. Plus, if you're as opinionated as we are, consider dropping us a review. Pod Save America is a Crooked Media production. Our show is produced by Olivia Martinez and David Toledo.

Our associate producers are Saul Rubin and Farrah Safari. Kira Wakim is our senior producer. Reid Cherlin is our executive producer. The show is mixed and edited by Andrew Chadwick. Jordan Cantor is our sound engineer with audio support from Kyle Seglin and Charlotte Landis. Writing support by Hallie Kiefer. Madeline Herringer is our head of news and programming. Matt DeGroat is our head of production. Andy Taft is our executive assistant. Thanks to our digital team, Elijah Cohn, Haley Jones, Mia Kelman, David Toles, Kiril Pelleviv, and Molly Lobel. from the team at Wired about how tech is changing our politics just in time for election season. It's called Wired Politics Lab,

hosted by Wired's senior politics editor, Leah Feiger, and a rotating cast of Wired's political reporters. Each week on Wired Politics Lab, you will be guided through the exciting, challenging, and sometimes entertaining vortex of internet extremism, conspiracies, and disinformation. Expect in-depth analysis and conversations based on facts and research.

Plus, they'll give you information you can actually use to lift the fog of disinformation we find ourselves in today make sure to follow wired politics lab wherever you listen