Pod Save America is a no-bullshit conversation about politics hosted by former Obama aides Jon Favreau, Jon Lovett, Dan Pfeiffer, and Tommy Vietor. It cuts through the noise to break down the week’s news and helps people figure out what matters and how they can help. They’re regularly joined by journalists, activists, politicians, entertainers, and world leaders. You can watch on YouTube or listen to new episodes every Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday.
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In Idaho and Arizona and Florida and places like that. And so spending money on this is is quite smart in my view. Yeah. I also wanna jump in and add that if I think something the Biden administration hasn't been hitting as hard as they should is that if Republicans take the White House, the House, and the Senate, we will get a federal ban. That affects us in California. That affects people in the bluest blue states who think they're safe, who after Dobbs were texting their friends and saying, oh, it's so terrible. What's going to happen over there? No. It's happening here, and there are a lot of races here in California that could determine the balance of the House of Representatives. And I think it is really important for us Californians, maybe some people who didn't vote in the primaries, to think about how important these local elections are. Like, we can determine who take who keeps the house. Yeah. I also think I mean, you you have Republicans out there who are trying to, you know, back away from their positions and and sort of muddy the waters, and they're like, well, there'd never be the votes in the Senate to pass a national abortion ban, and then you have Donald Trump saying, I'm not gonna pass. Even if Democrats keep the house and the Senate or fill up the House and keep the Senate, he could, just through executive action, ban mifepristone, ban abortion medication, which is responsible for, what, like, 2 thirds of 60%. Yeah. In this country. So even just Donald Trump in the White House alone, with no Congress could be bad, let alone what would happen if there's a full Republican congress. I do wonder too, Dan, like, if part of the the reason that they're spending so much now on these abortion ads is to define Trump before he tries to, like, back away from his position, like him saying, oh, oh, I don't like the Arizona ban, and I'm I'm not gonna sign a national ban, and
Out your political views and social media posts, all of which journalists in the courtroom have been reporting. One of the jurors had posted in 2018, quote, Trump invites the Thai boys to the White House and the boys request to return to their cave. That's pretty funny. It's good. Another posted an AI generated video of Trump saying, I'm dumb as fuck. It could have been more creative. And, and one juror who I really identify with, called himself the repost king. We stand a repost king. Right before right before we started recording, there was another juror who had, had a tweet where she said that Trump was racist and she was forced to stand up in court and and read her tweets. And her first her first comment when she's had to read her tweets was, oh, no. Which is like all of us. Right? How relatable is that? I mean, think about it this way. If we don't all do everything we can to defeat Donald Trump, there's a chance we'll all be doing that in court. Oh, yeah. Well, that been reading our tweets. You know what? Those are gonna be short trials, and they're not gonna be looking for a lot of jurors. Alright. Judge Gorka. Mercy, please. Alright. The the jury of Sydney Powell only has rendered a verdict. Alright. Anyway, so all this became a lot less funny when Fox News host Jesse Waters started a conspiracy about the fact that liberal activists were supposedly infiltrating the jury, which Donald Trump then amplified on truth social in what the district attorney is now arguing is a clear violation of his gag order. Let's listen. A nurse from the upper east side with a master's degree. She's not married, has no kids, and lives with her fiance who works in finance. She gets her news from the New York Times, Google, and CNN. She said 2 things that really stuck out. 1, quote, I don't really have an opinion of
He's quick. He's still, he he could swing he could swing him as much as he could take him. But the other thing is that, you know, Trump can't help but to respond to this. Always. You know? Like Takes the bait every time. That's exactly right. Leave the bait for him. Get him off message. Keep him, keep him responding. Look. Economy is the number one issue of every election cycle. But what we have seen is that what voters are saying when they choose the economy as their top issue is different each time. In 2008, you remember, when they were saying economy, what they were really this is at the height of the recession. Right? They were talking about jobs Right. And foreclosure. In 2012, during the height of the Tea Party movement, they were talking about taxes and spending. Well, now when voters are saying economy and, once again, is the number one issue across demographics, across geographics, but what they are really talking about is cost and price. Overwhelmingly, the economic anxiety that that voters are expressing is about the cost of things, cost of health care, cost of education, cost of food, cost of gas. I had someone in focus groups talk to me about after her father died, his Social Security and VA benefits were taxed so much that the cost of dying is too damn high. Right? Yeah. And so, you know, we have this is exactly why we are seeing indicators like lowest unemployment rate, record job creation. None of these things are are changing them or moving the needle because the the challenge is cost. I think that the Biden Harris administration has a a good track record on how they on on the efforts they're doing to reduce cost, things like reducing late fees from $33 to $8, reducing insulin costs, capping the cost of insulin, capping the cost of prescription drugs, and and and increasing Pell grants to reduce the cost of education. But we have to continue to make the economic conversation a cost about cost and price and not just a conversation about jobs and wages. That's such a good point because, you know, people assume economy means the same thing to everybody. No. Of course, it doesn't. It means different things at different points of time and different people. And you're right.
And he had a whole he had a hell operation system. The whole listen. The Notice catch and kill. It was notice catch and kill, and, honestly, I put a gag order order on me because I've thought about this a lot in my past and these issues, all for the best. What else you got, John? Yeah. Anyway, let's talk about how Trump is handling this trial. So far, it seems like he could have used a few more Diet Cokes before Monday's hearing based on reporting from Maggie Haberman. Let's listen. 40 minutes ago, you wrote an observation that that, I was very surprised. Trump appears to be sleeping. His head keeps dropping down and his mouth goes slack. Tell us about that. Well, J. Kee appeared to be asleep and, you know, repeatedly his his head would would fall down. There have been other moments in other trials like the, the E. G. Carroll trial, which was around the corner, in January where he appeared very still and seemed as if he might be sleeping, but then he then he would move. This time, he didn't pay attention to a note that his lawyer Todd Glantz passed him. His jaw kept falling on his chest, and his mouth kept going slack. Now, you know, sometimes people do fall asleep during court proceedings, but it it's notable given the intensity of this morning and a lot of what was being marked. Yeah. That's rather surprising. Can I just I almost wanted to cut this clip right after Jake goes on this long? He's like, Maggie, you just reported that he looked like he was falling asleep. Well, well, yes, Jake. He was falling asleep. I I know. Maggie's so funny and matter of fact on TV. I know. I know. Apparently, apparently, this got back to Trump Yes. During the trial because then as he was walking out, the report another reporter said he was glaring at at Maggie as he walked out. Well, so one thing that Maggie Haberin pointed out in her live, posting about this is that, a Trump aide named Natalie Harp is in the courtroom, and, she's apparently one of Trump's favorites because she has a wireless printer that she uses to print out good news to show him. Oh, she's the one who, like, follows him on a golf cart and does it sometimes. So how do I hire one of those people? What? We got you covered. We got I don't have to read Twitter anymore.
Terminate the Affordable Care Act. I'm gonna make it better. Of course, Trump did say he would terminate the Affordable Care Act, did say repeal it, tried to repeal it when he was president, didn't have a replacement, didn't wanna make it better. And now because he's looking at the polling a lot more on everything, in this race. He 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 got enough coverage, not for lack of trying, by you because you have been really trying to drive the tariff message in podcast after podcast. But It's a tax increase. It it's also gonna, like, send inflation soaring and probably tip us into recession. The messaging on this, I think, is 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 gonna be interesting. Right? Nor and the way you would do this the way we did it with Romney is you say he's gonna he's basically gonna pay for a tax cut by the rich by asking you to pay a little more. That that's not substantively accurate in this one, because it's 2 separate things. But just I I will be interested when Biden starts bringing this up more, I'm gonna be interested to but listen very carefully to the words he's using. It's gonna 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
