Trump: "I've Won Affordability"

0:00Today's presenting sponsor is Simply Safe Home Security. As a PodSafe American listener, you know, as well as us, the dark chapter, we're not just stepping into. We're in the chapter. We're in the chapter. We're in the chapter. But no matter what happens outside your four walls, your homes should always provide a safe sanctuary for your family. Simply safe can help provide peace of mind with proactive protection that helps to stop threats before they even have a chance to break in. I set up a Simply Safe incredibly easy to do. The customer support was great. It provided peace of mind and it was really easy to set up. Traditional security systems only take action after someone has already broken in. That's too late. Simply Safe's active guard outdoor protection can help prevent break-ins before they happen. AI-powered cameras backed up by live professional monitoring agents, monitor your property and detect suspicious activity if someone's lurking around or acting suspiciously. Those agents see and talk to them in real time, activate spotlights and even contact the police all before they have a chance to get inside your home. No long-term contracts or cancellation fees, monitoring plans start affordably at around $1 per day, 60-day satisfaction guarantee to your money back named Best Home Security System by US News and World Report, five years in a row, right number one in customer service among home security providers

1:02by both Newsweek and USA Today. And right now our listeners can get 50% off their new Simply Safe system with professional monitoring and their first month free at simplysafe.com slash crooked, that simplysafe.com slash crooked. There's no safe like Simply Safe. Hey, love it or leave it listeners. It's me, the titular John Love It. Here to tell you that I'm coming back to Washington DC for Love It or Leave It Live at the Lincoln Theater on April 23rd, that's right. Spring in DC is all about cherry blossoms and Love It or Leave It bringing you a stack lineup of guests. That's what makes it America's number one late night gay live comedy political podcast. We're so excited to be back in DC. It's a tradition now that we come around the time of the car response and or even though the car response in a really no longer has comedians. I believe there's gonna be some kind of a magician or a mind-milder. Yes, a magician. Yeah. I'm a mentalist. A mentalist, because I guess Trump wouldn't go. It's also going. Yeah, yeah, that's in there, yeah. There's a man. There's a mental case and then Trump is also going. That's what it is. Tickets won't last long. They're selling pretty fast. So get yours now while you still can

2:02at crooked.com slash events. Very excited for the DC show. Got some big guests. Some pretty exciting maybes. Crooked.com slash events. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Welcome to Puts Hey in America. I'm John Favreau. I'm Dan Fifer. We're back. We're back in the States. We were just visiting. We were just visiting. We made it back. They let us in. They let us in. How are you feeling? So I've been back one day longer than you. And the first day, the first day I got back, I was incredibly tired because I, you know, you do that thing where you live Tuesday twice. Yeah. Off at 2 p.m. Landed 8.45 a.m. on the same day. Yesterday felt pretty good. Today I've been quite tired.

3:02My body is not yet adjusted in the morning. It really thinks it should still be sleeping. I know only sleeping three or four hours on the 14 hour flight home. And then having it be first thing Wednesday morning. Yeah, that's a hard way to go through life. I did sleep from 8 to 5.30 last night, Wednesday night. So I'm hoping that I don't end up like you on the next day. Tomorrow's going to be the tough one. But it was a great, great trip. Thank you to everyone in Australia and New Zealand who came out. The shows were so fun. Thank you to our team who put the trip together and the people back here who held it all together while we were gone and put the podcast out. Seriously. And Sophie, our fearless tour manager, Adrian Reed Austin, who traveled with us and then everyone back here who held down the fort just did an incredible job. So we're really lucky. On today's show, now that we're back, we're going to talk about Trump's board of peace and his plans for war with Iran.

4:03His affordability event in Georgia where he again complained about having to talk about affordability. We'll also get into the messy Texas Senate primary and the dust up over Stephen Colbert's cancelled interview with James Telleriko. And what even the threat of pressure from the FCC might mean for talk shows heading into 2028. And finally, we bid farewell to one of my all-time favorite Trump administration officials, DHS spokesperson, Trish McLaughlin. Quick note before we start, just want to ask everyone to think about becoming a subscriber, becoming a friend of the pod subscriber. We have, I think we have a new polar coaster out this week. It's a subscriber-only show that Dan Pfeiffer hosts. What's on polar coasters? People say it's the best show it crooked puts out. Most people are in my family, but it is true. It's an excellent show. I never miss it. Except so far, I haven't listened to it because it's only been out for 24 hours. I haven't been asleep for most of them. But it's excellent, I hear. It's Grypsen. Do you want to talk about it? Yeah, go ahead. Yeah, it's going to. Go ahead.

5:03We were turning these organic plugs very organic, because we're just doing it off the cuff. We talked about a lot of things, John, but we dug into a shocking new poll that shows that the 2024 election was redone right now, Kamala Harris to beat that on Trump by eight points. How does that sound to you? I guess it sounds pretty good. Well, we can't, we do not have time machine, so we cannot fix this problem, but it does tell us a lot about the political environment, and we're going into the midterms, and some things Democrats should be thinking about, as we try to retake the House of the Senate. So here's the thing. You're going to want to listen to Polar Coaster. You're going to want to listen to our new episode of Pots of America that's now subscriber-only, called Only Friends, Apply. And we also have this growing number of sub-stack newsletters that you can access as well. You're going to get ad-free episodes of Pots of America, Pots of the World offline, all your favorite crooked shows. All you have to do is subscribe to friends of the pot at crooked.com slash friends, and you'll get the confidence to know

6:03that you are supporting independent pro-democracy media. So what are you waiting for? Go subscribe, friends of the pot. All right, let's get to the news. FIFA Peace Prize winner Donald Trump has assembled what the Wall Street Journal says is the, quote, greatest amount of air power in the Middle East since the 2003 invasion of Iraq, as the president inches closer to war with Iran, which would be the seventh military attack against another country in the last year. And what better place to make the case for war than at the Donald J. Trump Institute of Peace, which on Thursday hosted the first real meeting of Donald Trump's Board of Peace, which is a kind of fake UN, made up of corrupt oligarchs, tinpot dictators, human rights abusers, and other global also-rands who were deeply committed to Jared Kushner's vision of turning Gaza into the West Palm Beach of the Middle East. Here's some of what the Board's chair for life, Donald Trump, had to say at the event.

7:03Does everybody like to use it? These are the greatest world leaders. Almost everybody's accepted, and the ones that haven't will be. Some are playing a little cute. It doesn't work. You can't play cute with me. This building was built for peace, and nobody knew what to name it, and then Marco named it after me. I had nothing to do with it. I swear I didn't. I had no idea. They said, there's a surprise coming. I didn't know that surprise. I thought they were going to give me a lot of money, or something, maybe cash. It can always use some extra cash. I want to thank Johnny and FIFA for all of the wonderful things they did, and are doing. They gave me their first peace prize. They gave me a peace prize. I think they saw that I got screwed by Norway, and they said, let's give them a peace prize. Very good. Thank you, Johnny. I appreciate it. You didn't catch that. They were swaying to guns and roses, November rain. Then the president threatened. Any invitee to the board of peace that has not accepted yet.

8:05I guess that includes the Pope, who has not accepted. Then he just talked about the peace prize, the fake peace prize he got from FIFA, and the fake institute of peace that was fake naming for him. He was hoping for cash, but he took that instead. As he always is. As he always is. Also, good news, Dan. Trump generously committed at this event to giving the board $10 billion of our tax dollars, which is both about $10 billion more than I'd like to pay, and wildly unconstitutional. But maybe I'm missing something. Yeah, the whole thing is ridiculous and embarrassing for everyone involved, particularly United States, that we felt the need to pull together an entirely fake thing so that Donald Trump could live out his model U.N. dreams for everyone to say. You mentioned that chairman for life, but I just want to dig in on that. In case you won't miss this, the board of peace is not part of the U.S. government. This is a separate organization.

9:07Donald Trump is the chairman for life. It's in the charter that he states. Whatever years he may have left. Up until he resigns or passes on to the next life to the great model U.N. in the sky. And so that he, if this $10 billion, which if the United States were to give it, I presume Congress would have to send it to when they'd have to authorize this, presuming we still believe in the power of the person of that entirely sure. It is what the Constitution says. If we still abide by that. I would assume that to be the case, but either way, Donald Trump will control that money. As a Democrat, let's say, God willing. That person is not in charge of the board of peace. That person has no say of the $10 billion. We just gave Trump to control. The most the next president can do is appoint the U.S. representative to the board of peace. Who is equal footing with the representative, whatever dictator is also on the board at that point. It is a could not be more ridiculous embarrassing and corrupt. Just remember that they

10:07completely dismantled U.S.A. ID. Now thousands, if not millions, of people around the world. Many of them children will die starvation and disease easily preventable because we apparently didn't have enough money for the small amount we pay in foreign aid. But $10 billion is going to the board of peace. It is ostensibly going to rebuild Gaza. But no actual plans for that. And there's no kind of oversight that can help us check whether that actually happens or not. And the entire Gaza plan that you heard Christian did a PowerPoint on, a few weeks ago or months ago, whatever that was, was basically just like it only dealt with the building of buildings and not all of the very complicated political and governance questions that involve Gaza. And so there is no plan. This is just money that is going into a slush fund for Donald Trump for whatever reason. Shocked that the Pope hasn't said yes yet. Unfortunately for time, John. Unfortunately for peace lovers everywhere,

11:07Trump only briefly touched on the war he may soon launch against Iran, noting only that we'll know the outcome of the ongoing talks with Tehran in the next 10 days or so. And if there's no deal, quote, bad things happen. He did get a question about this on the plane later in the day. Take a listen. Today, on Iran, bad things will happen. Iran doesn't really bad things. What will that be? I'm not going to talk to you about that. Well, if there isn't U.S. No, it's not. Well, we need to make a deal. We're going to get a deal one way or the other. I'm not going to talk to you about that. We're either going to get a deal or it's going to be unfortunate for them. I think it's actually a deal. It's going to be a deadline to make a deal. I would think there'll be enough time, 10, 15 days. Pretty much maximum. Naturally, the president has been making a vigorous case to the American public and to our representatives in Congress.

12:07No, that hasn't been happening at all. Has it? No, there's been no discussion, no national debate, no congressional debate, no presentation of the specific threat that Iran poses the United States. No discussion of how this is in the U.S. interest to do this. What were to come next? Because in the discussion about this and the run-up involving the protests that Iran jumped over repeatedly was that this would be unlike the strikes last year to try to take out the nuclear program. This was to try to take out we were told it was obliterated. Well, there's dust remaining if you remember, dust. And to try to take it out because there's very little evidence that that actually happened because if it did, we'd probably be in a different place right now. Or an attack for regime change in Iran. Which has incredible consequences for the region, for what happens

13:07if Iran becomes a failed state who takes over? If they take out the current regime, if they can try to make it a democracy, what role do U.S. ground troops play in this? Where is the international coalition? Maybe it's just the people who are on the board of peace. We'll get involved in this. It's truly stunning that we could be by the time you listen to this and there's been zero discussion with the American people about what that means or why we're doing it. I mean, the optimistic take here is that Trump frequently uses the threat of military action force concessions to force a deal and that even when he does make good on those threats like he did with the first strike on Iran's nuclear program or most recently in Venezuela with the capture of Maduro, the military action is relatively quick and committed. Unfortunately, I'm not high or jet lagged enough to be that optimistic. What do you think? I saw it right before we recorded in the Wall Street Journal

14:07that it's reported that they are thinking of an initial strike that might be more limited to sort of pave the way for a bigger deal, just like a first course, appetizer strike. That seems to me a scam for decades to get Trump to start this process. Because I think he probably is skeptical of an Iraq-like invasion of Iran. But if they could just start the hostilities maybe they could get what they want. It seems incredibly poorly thought out and this is not Venezuela. Maybe you can attack Iran and you can do some bombing and they will not respond as happened last year. But there are incredible consequences if the regime falls and Iran becomes a failed state. Like what could happen there? What happens to millions of Iranians who flee Iran as refugees? Where do they go? How does that change the world? It's just like this is one of those things that could have huge global implications

15:07for the world, for the region, for the United States, for the global economy. And there's no evidence that this has been thought about and certainly no discussion with the public about it. So it is, it's incredibly, it's insane that we could be on the precipice of war with Iran and it's not even being discussed. And honestly Democrats are not being loud enough about this. I think because we are getting very twisted around the axle of around questions of national security and war and particularly national security war when it involves Iran. And they're afraid of being on the wrong, like they tend to look at this and say what is the best Trump action? And how do we ensure we're not on the wrong side of that? We saw this with all of the caveats and the Hemingon hauling around the strikes last year and I worry that that is happening again. It's just like some people are talking about it but more people should be talking about it. And you know, I'm no expert on this but I do reference what Tommy and Ben

16:07we are friends. But I don't think that you're going to change the regime with just like limited air strikes alone with that sending troops. And I don't think you'd be able to like just send in a quick seal team like they did with Maduro here. So I don't know what their regime change plans are but I don't think it's going to be as neat as anyone might think or even as Trump might think. Also it's a country of 93 million people. It is a huge, huge fucking country. And the idea that we are just like sending over there more forces and military build up than we have any time since Iraq. It's insane. It is insane that this is happening right now. And it's just like one of the many and we're like well see what he does 10 to 15 days he's going to make up his mind. That's what Trump said. And remember from the last time we struck a red. He said he put a, remember he put a delay of a few weeks on it. Yeah. And then he's able to sign the next two weeks and then he struck like two days later.

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18:09That's d-o-s-e-d-a-i-l-y dot-c-o slash Crooked for 35% off your first month subscription. Pots in America is brought to you by Acorns. You know, when I first got out of college, I was like, why would you put money away? Because you want the money. You don't want to put it away. What's going to happen then? You have to just wait. And then someone told me that that was pretty stupid because if you put some money away just a little bit away every once in a while, it'll, uh, you can make money on your money. Yeah. And as I was careening through life with undiagnosed ADHD, I always thought tomorrow would have been the right day to do it. And there were so many tomorrows where you never did it. And it was hard to think about the future as a real time that would exist. So many of us only focus on where our money is today. Acorns is the financial wellness app that cares about where your money's going tomorrow. Acorns is a smart way to give your money a chance to grow. It's easy. You can sign up in minutes and start automatically investing your spare money even if all you've got a spare change. Acorns grows with you,

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20:11but one that the White House and Republicans in Congress keep begging him to focus on affordability. Apparently Susie Wiles and her deputy James Blair convened a big White House strategy session on the midterms earlier in the week. That included a bunch of cabinet secretaries. I'm sure they were all helpful. According to journalist Mark Halpern, who got to read out from someone in the room, Blair quote, acknowledge that Donald Trump will do what he wants to do, say what he wants to say, not be data driven. Everyone else has to stay on message and be driven by the data. In effect, two separate but related campaigns, end quote. Here's how the Trump part of the separate but related strategy sounded today during his visit to Marjorie Taylor Greene's former district in Georgia. And then I have to listen to the fake news, talking about affordability, affordability. You notice what word have you not heard over the last two weeks, affordability? Because I've won. I've won affordability.

21:12I had to go out and talk about it. He won. He won affordability. He later said, we got things that are happening that are as good as what you've heard. I don't know if they can get better, to be honest. He doesn't know if things, it's not, are you better off? Are you better off than you were four years ago? Are you better off than you were last year? Now it's personally, I don't think things could possibly get any better. The way you are living right now is the best possible way you could live in this country. It is the best. Hottest country in the world. Hottest country in the world. What do you think? Good midterm message? You think this was what they landed on? In that midterm strategy session? A lot of thoughts on this. One, when Trump says you haven't heard the word affordability in weeks, he's not talking to voters because he would hear it if he talked to them. But it's also because everyone's been talking about the massive cover-up of his relationship with a child sex trafficker. So what I positive to you, John, is what if the Epstein files were a distraction from inflation?

22:16Possibly. Possibly. I thought about that, had you. It's all a distraction then. It's all a distraction. But the strategy is idiotic and doomed to fail. For two reasons. The first reason is you cannot have the president United States, the person with the largest megaphone and especially a president like Donald Trump, who gets more attention than any president in history, saying something that is not on the talking points and then think the campaign is going to work because Scott Bessett is using the talking points at a press event in Iowa one. Like, it cannot work. You got to have your best soybean farmers out there. Well, I mean, he has a personal connection with soybean farmers, but that in and of itself will not be enough to deal with the fact that Trump is out there saying inflation is solved. Prices are down. What you were seeing in your bank account in your grocery receipts is wrong. Everything is perfect. Oh, and by the way, the Dow is at 50,000. And something you and I know from our time working for a president during a tough economy is literally nothing makes voters angrier than

23:18using the stock market to tell them that the economy is going great. It will cause them to flip over the table on a focus group. It makes them so mad. Like, it is a message designed to lose. And the second problem is their talking points are a strategy that you may remember from the Biden White House's strategy for selling the economy, which is focus on your accomplishments, focus on what you've done. Like in the reporting on that, from Sophia Kai from Politico, she talks about how the big thing they're all supposed to emphasize is their efforts to lower prescription drug costs, which is the exact, literally the exact same thing the Biden White House tried to do. And it's a good accomplishment, especially for the Biden folks, because that was a bigger deal. But at the end of the day, that is not, you can't tell people who are mad about high prices that you lowered their prices. That does not work. You have to make an argument how you are going to do a better job of lowering their prices going forward and the other side is going to raise them. And they can't have that argument because Donald Trump will not let them have that argument because it implies that they have failed to lower prices.

24:18So they have to exist within the reality that he has created. That is a reality that voters do not see. It sounds delusional to them. Yeah, you didn't hear much in the speech today about how he's planning on lowering prices or doing anything to cut costs in the coming months at all. Nothing, nothing about that. No, he spent his, like just thinking about the context for this, is this is happening on a day where he pledged 10 billion dollars to a personal slush fund that's ostensibly going to Gaza. For Jared Kushner to develop condos there, he is talking about a war. Starting a war in the Middle East, it is the exact opposite. And one of the things that this wasn't really in this meeting but that Trump folks have sort of acknowledged on background reporters is in the first year they spent too much time doing foreign policy stuff. And so that's why they have, they have cut the press out of all their foreign leader meetings because those always were dominant.

25:18But on the day of the big affordability event, he's doing his foreign policy slush fund event and threatening a war. It's fucking, we have the dumbest people running this country right now. He also is, his whole thing on tariffs. He talked about tariffs a lot during this speech. He's really tied himself to the tariffs in a way that has surprised even me. So he spent a ton of time in the speech just like ditching about how the Supreme Court has not handed down a ruling on his tariffs yet. And they went to it tomorrow. And they may do it tomorrow. Yeah, by the day. You might be listening to this. But tariffs might be gone by the time it's yours. We're recording this Thursday afternoon as most of you know and so you're probably listening to it Friday. So he's yelling about the Supreme Court and he's saying tariffs are the most important thing in the world at one point. He says, everyone in the country would be bankrupt without these tariffs. Now, he has walked back a good chunk of the tariffs at this point already. In part, I presume because all of his political advisors

26:18and economic advisors are like, hey, these tariffs are fucking killing us. They're probably hurting your polls. They're one of his least popular issues, along with immigration and the cost of living. And they are just an attacks on a bunch of goods that just people are just paying. I think there was just a report that it's about $1,000 a family that people are paying because of the tariffs. And yet, even if the Supreme Court rules them unconstitutional and lets him off the hook, he's just going to double down and try to just put them back on through some other method and then say that they're still important. Like, it's just wild. You got to get, you got to hand it to the guy. He genuinely believes in the tariffs. Genuinely believes in the tariffs. Because he's an idiot. But you're exactly right. Like, our friends had never got to research often do these word clouds where they asked people about either negative information they've heard about Trump or reasons why you disapproved of whatever else. And tariffs is always a giant thing in the middle. And he talks about tariffs more than tariffs are actually in place now. Yeah.

27:18And so what he's done, it was just really impressive. Which he has made his tariffs the reason for all high prices of people's minds. Yeah. Yeah. Which is really impressive. And even American make goods people that have their higher prices. People think it's because the tariffs because he keeps saying tariff, tariff, tariff, where it says it all the time. And it means just really, I have to say it's honestly impressively stupid. So just to, you know, we're having too much fun here, too optimistic. So just to rate on our parade a little bit. One thing I noticed while we were gone last week is that the most recent economic data has been better than expected, job growth in January. It was twice as high as expected. The inflation reading was better. The inflation slowed down a bit. We're not seeing any evidence yet that voters are feeling any differently about the cost of living than they have been. But what do you think about the recent economic news and what do you think Democrats should be planning for? There's not much you can plan here for.

28:18And the economic news has been a little bit all over the map. You sort of get a good jobs number and then you get a bad jobs number and then some revision, downward revision. So the previous number. So it's hard to say what is actually happening. And inflation is down a little bit, but it's we still have inflation. And that is the problem for Trump. And the ultimate problem is he cannot... Look, the economy gets better on the margins. It probably helps them. But the fundamental problem is Donald Trump didn't promise to slow inflation, which is what this report indicated. What Donald Trump promised to do was lower your prices, which he has not done, cannot do, and actually made worse with his tariffs. And so there is not a world where he had a deflationary cycle, which would be quite bad for the economy. Most of the economy goes into recession. And we have a collapse. But voters are not going to see lower prices for food, housing, goods. They may just see a slower rate of increase.

29:18And that's not something I expect Republicans to be rewarded for coming November. Yeah. I think Trump making things worse is the key there, because you know, there's a debate like, oh, when the economy is bad, does the president get too much blame more than the president deserves when the economy is good? Does the president get more credit than the president deserves? Like, how much is just the president presiding over the economy? How much does that really matter? You know? And this is a different situation where the guy literally gave a trillion dollar tax cut to billionaires paid for by health care cuts that made your premiums increase. And then put tariffs on all the shit that you buy, which has made it more expensive. And that doesn't change, right? Like, even if the economy slightly improves, like, the fact that he made life more expensive so that rich people could get a break is just the facts of his first several years in office. And the thing that is

30:19different than with previous presidents is, a majority of voters only a year into his term blame Trump for the current state of the economy. Normally voters should. Normally presidents. But, you know, but normally presidents get years when they inherited. Like, Obama, people were still blaming Bush more than Obama for the state of the economy in 2012 running for election. They understood what happened. People believe correctly that Trump has made problems much, much worse through action in the tariffs in action, because he's focused on so many things other than actual the economy and affordability. And that is the problem for him, which is why marginal improvements in the economy would not help him as much as they would help another president who was not being specifically blamed for things being bad. Well, I mean, like, think of the Obama's first couple years. We know that with the Affordable Care Act, taxes were only increased on the wealthiest Americans, and that through the Recovery Act, everyone else got tax cuts, right?

31:19And still, Obama should do the blame for the job loss that came from the Great Recession and just people's economic well-being, which was not very good. Now imagine, Obama actually raised taxes on everyone, and raised their health care costs all in the first two years, as the economy was already bad. That's basically gasoline on fire. Yeah. Relatedly, Axios had a story on Thursday about how Republican strategists are starting to get nervous about Democrats, bigger than expected wins and special elections over the past few months. One anonymous Republican strategist said, quote, the pattern is clear that the situation is going to be much worse than the election. Republican strategist said, quote, the pattern is clear that there is at least a current 10-point Democratic overperformance from Trump 2024. And it's built on a fired-up Democratic base and a sleepy Republican base. A 10-point Democratic overperformance. Are you as bullish as that Republican is nervous? Yeah, I'm a pretty superstitious guy, John. You got a long way of the election. I don't know. I'm not cocky about this in any way, shape or

32:19form. But, and I do believe that that gap is going to narrow some Republicans will Democrats are going to stay fired up. I'm very confident about that. Republicans will get more fired up as we get closer election. This happens every cycle. And if we're being sort of brutally honest about it, Democrats had a 13-point overperformance in 2025. It's been 10%. Here are some of that has to do with the races that have happened in this short period of time this year. But it's obviously going to narrow. And just to put that in perspective, the final Democratic popular vote margin in the 2018 House races was 8.6%. And we picked up 41 seats. And that one now. The map is different. There's not the really, you're not, Democrats are not picking up 41 seats at an 8.6% popular vote margin. But, you know, at 10 points, certainly the House is very much in good hands. And that said, it is in play. The things that are keeping the Republican base deflated aren't really going to change a ton.

33:19Like, I think their core voters are going to turn out more just because it's an actual mid-term not a special. And our voters are more trained at turnout specials. But the base is divided, right? There is in polling 15% of Trump voters who regret or have concerns about their vote in 2024. You have, in the races we've had before, seven to 10% of Trump voters coming over to vote for Democrats. There are, you know, a quarter to, you know, a fifth to a quarter of Trump voters who are unhappy with the Trumps on the economy. And so those sort of structural problems are not going to change in a dramatic way in the next nine months, I wouldn't imagine. Yeah, what I keep looking at is Trump's approval rating in Ohio, Iowa, Alaska, Texas, which are, you know, we need two of those four states to take back the Senate. And because I think that, like, if Trump's under 50 in those states that are going to change in a dramatic way in the next nine months, I wouldn't imagine. Yeah, what I keep looking at is Trump's approval rating in Ohio, Iowa, Alaska, Texas, and those states

34:20Republican candidate in this polarized era probably not going to get much higher than Trump's approval rating in those states. And so, you know, Trump's sitting at 48 or 49 even in Iowa, in Texas, in Ohio, like, I think those candidates, especially like Sherrod Brown in Ohio, I think they were pretty good, good chance. But I don't know what you think is that. They do. They just have to, it has to be a candidate because there will be people who are unhappy with Trump. But think the Democrat is too far to the left or whatever else. And so, right. Like, the environment is, I would put it this way. The environment is suggestive of a path the Democratic victory of Trump's under 50. It's going to depend on how the campaign is waged and also who the Republican candidate is as well. You know, when we go back and forth in these ads, and I made sure that you were going to do those remedy because you're so honestly excited about that. I genuinely, like, look, edibles or weed. You can be, you can have too much, and like, honestly,

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37:21Wow. Because I want to have more when it runs out. With over 50,000 plus happy customers, and they just restocked, Willie's ships directly to your doorstep in 40-plus states order now at drinkwillies.com and use code cricket for 20% off, and you'll be shipping on orders over $95 and enjoy life in the high country. Hey, love it or leave it listeners. It's me, the titular John Love It. Here to tell you that I'm coming back to Washington, D.C. for Love It or Leave It Live at the Lincoln Theatre on April 23rd. That's right. Spring in D.C. is all about cherry blossoms. And Love It or Leave It bringing you a stack lineup of guests. That's what makes it America's number one late night gay live comedy political podcast. We're so excited to be back in D.C. It's a tradition now that we come around the car. The car is honest and we're really no longer has comedians. That's probably there's going to be some kind of magician or a mind- mind-melader. Yes, a magician. Yeah. I'm a mentalist. A mentalist, because I guess Trump wouldn't go. And Trump's also going. Yeah. That's going to be there. Yeah. There's a mental case

38:21and then Trump is also going. That's what it is. Tickets won't last long. There's someone pretty fast. So get yours now while you still can at Cricket.com slash events. Kruger.com slash events. Speaking of the midterms, one midterm race that's been getting a ton of national attention lately is the Texas Senate race, particularly the Democratic primary between Jasmine Crockett and James Tallerico, whose appearance on Stephen Colbert's show this week caused quite a stir in case you haven't followed this story, here's what happened. On Monday, Colbert told his audience that, quote, we were told in no uncertain terms by our network's lawyers who called us directly that we could not have Tallerico on the broadcast. Apparently, CBS's lawyers were concerned that having Tallerico on might prompt legal action from the FCC based on new guidance that Chairman Brendan Carr issued in January

39:22about the commission's longstanding equal time rule, which requires broadcast, television and radio shows to give candidates equal time if they have their opponent on as a guest. Now, there has always been an exemption, at least as far back, I believe since 2006, for talk shows like Colbert's daytime talk shows, late night talk shows, but in this guidance in January, Carr said that he was considering getting rid of that exemption. And sure enough, the FCC recently launched an enforcement action against ABC and the view for exactly that. The view had Tallerico on, without also having Jasmine Crockett on or their primary opponent on or Ken Paxton or John Corden. Colbert interviewed Tallerico anyway, put the segment on YouTube and told his CBS audience what happened. CBS then put out a statement on Tuesday denying Colbert's version of events, saying the late

40:24show was not, quote, prohibited from airing the interview, only, quote, provided legal guidance. Here's how Colbert responded on his show on Tuesday night and the tough questions Carr got from Laura Ingram on Fox News on Wednesday. Between the monologue I did last night and before I did the second act talking about this issue. I had to go backstage. I got called backstage to get more notes from these lawyers, something that had never, ever happened before. And they told us the language they wanted me to use to describe that equal time exception. And I used that language. So I don't know what this is about. I'm just so surprised that this giant global corporation would not stand up to these bullies. I don't even know what to do with this crap. I'll hold on. Would you go, have gone after them for violating the equal time rule, as Colbert said?

41:26Well, we've said as we've been very clear, is that broadcasters have a unique right and privilege, a license. And one thing they have to do is comply with the equal time rules. But, complying with equal time, would have meant- Why doesn't that have been enforced? Once I'll last time that, it's been enforced. In case you're just listening, the audience cheered when Colbert decided to crumble up the statement from his company's own lawyers and put it in a dog poop bag. Dan, what do you make of all this? What's interesting is how the FCC got onto this, because it's been a well-established principle for a very long time that while news shows are exempt from equal time laws, like if you want to have to interview a candidate or put a president on, that you're not then forced to give exact equal time to their opponent, and they then, for a long time, had exemptions for interview shows, like the talk shows, the view, Colbert. The reason why Brendan Carr has taken this on is, and I had forgotten this, I think my

42:28brain was protecting me from trauma, but in 2024, Trump got very mad that Kamala Harris went on the view when he did not. So his campaign filed a complaint with the FCC, Biden had, the FCC chair was a Biden nominee, he did not act on this, so Brendan Carr and his never-ending quest to appease Trump and be a hero of the MAGA right has decided to take on the view, and now Colbert. And this really does have, I mean, it's ridiculous, it's absurd, it's pretty stupid. It has real implications just for how the 2028 campaign is going to be covered. Like no democratic, if this is the rule, no democratic candidate will be able to go on any broadcast talk show in that campaign, because no talk show is going to agree to do equal interviews with all 27 democratic candidates or whatever. And by the way, Republican candidates, because I saw a lot of people be like, well, this isn't really about like a Republican democratic thing because it was about he needed to give equal time to Jasmine Crockett as well.

43:29Well yes, on Crockett, but also Paxton and Cornyn and Wesley Hunt in the other side of the primary, because if you look at the actual regular law, it just says all of the candidates running for that given office. So it's not just a like primary, it's a lot of candidates that you would have to have on. And the rule is so arbitrary and stupid in its application that John Ossoff, who is running for reelection in Georgia, was on Colbert the next night, but he is not officially filed a statement of candidacy. So he's not officially a candidate yet. So therefore, there is not the CBS's attorneys, the paramount attorneys did not think it triggered the law. And this is an idiotic thing. This is also so stupid because in this day and age, most of what happens in media is outside of the FCC's preview, because the FCC is only in charge of what happens on the actual broadcast networks. Like we think of the view as a cable show, but it errors on ABC in a lot of markets.

44:33So therefore, the FCC has regulation, but anything that happens on podcasts, YouTube shows, cable TV is outside of the purview of the FCC for these purposes. And by the way, Carr has been asked before whether he feels the same way about right wing talk radio and said that right wing talk radio is not a target of the equal time new guidance that he has issued. Yes, it was the changing, like all of right wing radio, all of right wing radio rose out because of a very specific change made by Ronald Reagan's FCC to allow there to be right wing radio and not enforce the equal time on radio stations. It is also just like, my first instinct was, well, the people who screwed Colbert the most were his own lawyers, because like they should have just fought it, because who knows if like Brendan Carr would have done anything anyway, clearly he would have, as he showed Laura Ingram, clearly he did or is doing, is investigating the view for the exact same thing. So the lawyers did have good reason to believe that Carr would act.

45:36Now if it was, if they were lawyers at a company that wasn't hoping the administration wouldn't get involved in say a purchase they wanted to make of say Warner Brothers Discovery, which they're still trying to buy at Paramount Plus, then perhaps the lawyers would have said, fuck Brendan Carr, we'll fight this. Yeah. I mean, the, like we have no evidence, explicit evidence that the Paramount lawyers did this as part as an effort to carry favor with Trump. We do know is the larger patterning practice with Paramount and David Ellison who runs Paramount Skydance in particular is to do things to win favor with Trump to kiss up to him. And there are numerous examples. There is the $16 million that Paramount paid to settle a ridiculous lawsuit around 60 minutes. There is the putting of Barry Weiss over at CBS.

46:37There is David Ellison telling Trump reportedly according to several reports that if he were to get his hands on CNN, which is owned by Warner Brothers Discovery, which Paramount is trying to buy, he would make major changes there with the implication of being Trump up like those changes. And so when something is the entire relationship between Paramount Ellison and the Trump administration is one that reeks of corruption. And therefore, the burden to prove on whether this was done out of legal caution or out of a way to avoid pissing off Trump while you were trying, while one of the selling points, one of the selling points that Paramount is making to the Warner Brothers Discovery shareholders is that they, because of David Ellison and Larry Ellison, who's a big Trump donor in one of the richest spent in the world, one of their close relationships with Trump and the Trump administration means they are more likely to get regulatory approval for the purchase of Warner Brothers Discovery than Netflix, which is run by people who have donated to Democrats in the past. And as for the dispute between Colbert and CBS Paramount and the lawyers over what they

47:41actually said to Colbert because they released a statement basically saying, no, we just gave guidance. We didn't tell him not to air it. Colbert did make the point that the lawyers, as they always do, read every single word of the script and approved it before he said it. And what he said that night was that they told him in no uncertain terms that he could not air the Teller Rico interview. So in case you're wondering if anyone's not telling the truth there, who's not telling the truth? So Colbert's interview with Teller Rico drew millions of views on YouTube, the whole thing backfired as it did with Kimmel, as it always does, millions of views on YouTube. It also helped James Teller Rico quite a bit, netted his campaign over $2 million of fundraising in 24 hours. Understandably, Jasmine Crockett isn't thrilled about any of this, though Colbert did note on Tuesday that she has been a guest on the late show twice. I think the last time was like May of 2025, I looked so not since the race is heated up, but she has been on twice. This has been and is getting to be more of a very messy and negative primary between Teller

48:42Rico and Crockett. The press conference where Crockett responded to the Colbert thing sounded mostly like this. You know, we've all seen the attack ads that have come on behalf of my primary opponent, supposedly wants to get rid of the facts yet, doesn't have anything to say about the negative ads that are darkening my skin and this continual kind of, if she wins, we lose. It's not even undertones right now. It is straight up racist. Early voting is now underway. The primary is March 3rd. Where do you think the race stands right now? The polls have been a little bit all over the map. There were many of them, I feel like. There have not been a ton of them. The most recent ones have had Crockett up a little bit on Teller Rico, but there have been also been some polls showing Teller Rico up. A lot of the polls we've seen are either from groups affiliated with one of the two candidates, either they're super PACs or they're campaigns or from less well known polling outlets. We're not getting like, we have not yet got like a New York Times CN poll or a Wall Street

49:43Journal poll or something that are seen at poll, kind of the polls that we can judge. Luckily from local Texas polls, so it's hard to say. Early voting is through the roof. Over the first couple days of early voting, there have been twice as many votes castes that were over the same period in 2022 and a quarter of all the early votes cast in 2022 have been cast in the first two days of early voting. It seems to be up everywhere. It does also seem to be up particularly high in parts of Jasmine Crockett's district, which may be a positive sign for her, but hard to say in this early stage. It's anyone's guess who's going to win this primary. There's not enough to tell us how it exactly stands. What do you think about how contentious it's gotten as a race? It makes my stomach hurt. It really makes my stomach hurt when I think about the 2028 Democratic presidential primary. I know. In this context, it doesn't have to be this negative. It's been this negative. The Teller Rico super PAC started the negativity by, say, maybe running a very explicit ad

50:43saying that if Crockett wins the primary, we lose the general election. Electability is hanging over this, which is what's going to hang over the 2028 primary. We can talk maybe a little bit about that in a second here, but that conversation is always heated and freighted with a lot of racial engender tropes and a lot of myths about politics and everything. It's quite messy. It's counterproductive and it doesn't. We'll see what happens in some of these other primaries, like Michigan, Illinois, Minnesota, and Maine, whether they get heated like this is they get closer, because all those primaries have a fairly long distance before people actually start voting. This is the first one we were down in the wire and it's gotten nasty quickly. We've obviously had both candidates on the show, even though the FCC can't make us. It's tough, right? We'll see positions are very similar, almost identical, and I think there hasn't been a ton of polling in the race.

51:45Even if there were, I think we both know that figuring out which candidate gives Democrats a better chance of flipping Texas is like, electability is always going to be at least somewhat of a subjective exercise, right, but what do you think about it in this context of this race? Well, so electability is purely theoretical. The only way to prove electability is to win. It's also a very fair question to ask here. We kind of need to win this Senate race, and when you have two candidates who are both very well-liked by Democrats who have her ideologically very similar profiles, I don't blame voters for saying, I like them both, which one is more likely to win. That's what I care about. And selectability is so theoretical. Perhaps the only data point you can bring to bear in such a conversation, and it's a very imperfect one, is does this candidate have a history of winning tough races, winning Republican voters, winning over spring voters, like Andy Beshear, who can come to voters

52:48and say, look at all these Republicans and whatever, Josh Shapiro and Gretchen Whitmer can say, or Rumi Geigo and John Assoff, because they look at these swing states that I have a history of winning. Does that translate to a presidential? Maybe, maybe not, but it's an argument to me. Yeah. In this situation, neither can it has a particularly long documented history of winning over Republican or swing voters, or dramatically outperforming how a typical Democrat, typical Republican would do. Telleriko's first race was in a pretty purple district, T1, narrowly, since then it was like a Trump, it was a Trump district, right, but it was barely Trump did trick, but then it's become, since then it's been a Democratic district and how it's been redrawn, he's won easily, Crockett has represented a very, very Democratic district, she's performed as you would expect the Democrat to do there. And so you can't make that point. So the only thing you can evaluate here is what is their stated strategies for winning the race? And I will stipulate that both of these strategies are overly simplistic, because you kind of have to do both, but it's where if they put their emphasis.

53:50Telleriko has said he is focused on trying to win over Republican voters that he can appeal to folks who voted for Trump, disenchanted with Trump, Republican voters, Crockett has taken a different approach. She has said that her path to victory comes from her ability to excite the Democratic base to turn out people in Texas who have, who are not typical participants in the political process, that she can mobilize voters. Like I said, neither of them have a record of doing either of those things per se. I mean, they have anecdotal examples, but it's not like manifested in their histories. If you ask me which strategy on its face is more likely to succeed, I would tell you Telleriko's strategy. Now whether he can implement that strategy, better than the Crockett can implement hers. I don't know the answer to that. I don't think anyone does, but this is the state that Donald Trump won by double digits. There is no path to victory without winning over a significant slice of people who voted

54:52for Trump, traditionally vote for Republicans. That is just the math of winning in Texas. And he is emphasizing that. And Crockett is emphasizing the opposite. And I think there is not a lot of history that mobilization in and of itself would be sufficient to win in a state like Texas. And that is just the fact that no matter now, I think both of them are being oversimplistic in their approach. I can't imagine that if either of them becomes the nominee, they will not then try to do both. Like, if you win over six percent of Republicans, but you don't turn out the full Democratic base at a high level, you're not going to win. If you turn out the Democratic base, like it's never been turned out before, but you can't win over six versus six to seven or eight percent of Republicans, then you're also going to lose. But I had a long conversation with Caroline about this on Polar Coaster, which you can listen to if you subscribe to Crockett's show and I'm going to write about this in message box. I think the next couple of days are a more deeper analysis of it. But that's sort of my initial takeaway is, if you like, if you want to come at this move of sex and electability, if you like, look, if you like Tyler Rico or you like

55:52Jasmine Crockett, just go vote for that person, right? If that's who you like more, but if you are bringing electability lens to it, then that's sort of how I would frame the analysis of it. I also think you and I have talked about this in the context of, I don't know, every election since we've been doing this, which is this idea that a person who doesn't vote or who has voted in the past, but decides not to vote in some election, is so much different in their politics and political beliefs than someone who sometimes votes for Democrats and sometimes votes for Republicans, is it doesn't really play out like that. Like there is this view, there's this traditional view that I think we had prior to the Trump era, that the voter who stays on the couch, the voter who stays home is like a liberal or progressive and just hasn't been activated by a Democratic candidate who's exciting enough or progressive enough or liberal enough. And that someone who has voted Democrat in the past or hasn't even voted in the past,

56:57but then votes for Donald Trump and votes for Republican is just as a conservative voter and that's it and we've lost them. And the truth is, when you, after an election, when you go interview these voters or even during an election, you talk to them in focus groups, you realize that a lot of these voters who either switch parties or sometimes stay home all together, are just have very complicated views. You could call them maybe moderate, but on some issues, they're quite liberal, on some issues, they could be quite conservative and they just have this real mix of political beliefs. And so it really hasn't panned out that the non voter is just like a liberal sitting home waiting to be activated by an exciting candidate. And I do think what keeps people from voting and keeps people from, unless the obviously voter suppression keeps people from voting, but if you are making up your mind about whether to vote or not and making up your mind about whether to vote for a Democrat or a Republican, what's keeping people from doing so, from casting that ballot is just cynicism in this system and a belief that politics isn't going to really make a difference in their lives.

57:59And a belief that both parties are too similar and that once everyone gets to Washington, all they do is just yell at each other and nothing gets done and the whole thing is hopeless and everyone's corrupt. Like that is the, if there is a typical belief of someone who switches parties or just switches between voting and non voting, it's that political profile. And so I do think that's one thing for people to keep in mind as you think about who you like, not just in this primary, but in other primaries. I will just say for me personally, I have been impressed with James Taylor Rico, like long before he was ever a Senate candidate. And I like that he is running a populist campaign. I like that he doesn't take corporate PAC money. I like that he says the real divide in the country isn't between left and right, but between top and bottom. I think that you and I have talked about this as well, that like a Democrat who can both sort of run against a corrupt system and corrupt special interests and the billionaire class and someone who could also reach out to voters who were disillusioned with the political

59:04system is probably like the best kind of Democrat. And one that we think would have a good chance and I think that that's Taylor Rico. I also like that he he is not making this campaign about himself or about Jasmine Crockett or about Ken Paxton or John Corner or even Donald Trump. He's like trying to make it in some ways bigger than politics itself. He talks about how the most important thing is to love your neighbor. And yes, that very much comes from his faith, but this idea that you should reach out and love your neighbor no matter what they look like, where they come from, what they believe, how they pray. I think that's a pretty good political philosophy for someone who wants to be in government, regardless of where you come from and what race you're running in. And so I do think that Taylor Rico sort of not only will appeal to more people with that philosophy, but it's just a really good philosophy and a public servant. So. I've really you and I talked about this a little bit in the many, many hours we spent together last week. And I've really wrestled with this because I do find the conversations about electability

1:00:06to be exhausting and complicated and freighted with all kinds of racial and gender tropes. And you know, we dealt with like this was such an overhang in 2020 and there was a tax on candidates of color and women candidates in that race that really, you know, affected the entire debate. And also like James Taylor Rico, he I'm not saying he's a message box subscriber, but he's a message box candidate like he is on like, like, that is what I like advocate for and how he's running his campaign. So I obviously like that a lot. I also honestly have really liked Jasmine Crockett because she's like the other end of the message box candidate is the candidate who's out there like knows how to get attention is out there doing things. I really enjoyed interviewing her in DC. And if the net result of this is she's not in Congress. I think that's a loss to the democratic caucus because we just have so few people who can communicate in a modern fashion. So that's why I sort of default to the strategy question like what strategy is the one which

1:01:09approach for winning that I think it's more likely to succeed on its face. We don't whether the candidate is the right can actually execute on that in what is a very hard state to begin with. I don't know. But it's how like it telerico strategy in terms of like voter outreach makes more sense to me as a strategy that can win Texas, but I'll say I've been wrong many times before. So this wouldn't be the first. Yeah. No. I feel bad for being so positive about James Taylor Rico because that probably means he's not going to win. But I will say like I think it is. I think it is. Maybe we should just Alan Dross Crockett right now, so at least we'll pick one we'll get one. Yeah. Who's that third candidate who also wants to get Uncle Bear? Yeah. Good question. I think it is unfortunate that maybe inevitable but unfortunate that race and identity has become such a big issue at least in the online conversation and now I guess in the campaign itself judging by the ads and the candidate statements or at least listening to Crockett right there. And one of the reasons I think it's unfortunate is because when I think of what is appealing to me about Taylor Rico's message and strategy and the way he's approaching the campaign,

1:02:13it reminds me of Barack Obama. It reminds me of AOC. It reminds me of Stacey Abrams in Georgia when she came close to unseeding camp. It reminds me of Ruben Gaiego and Arizona. So I don't think that this is to me at least what is appealing about Taylor Rico has anything to do with identity. And so I just I think that to have this sort of populist style where you're also trying to reach out to bring in voters who haven't always been with the Democratic Party, I don't think that is endemic to any specific identity or area or geography right. Like I think that anyone can do it and I think that people and people of different races in different parts of the country have done it in the past to great success. I think two things about this is one like well could like it would be great if people could lower the temperature over the last two weeks. And obviously if the I look to see if I could find any reporting or comment from the Taylor Rico super back about the accusations about darkening skin, obviously if that's

1:03:16true, that is horrendous and that should be disavowed immediately. But the I think the two things that would help lower the temperature would be the idea that Jasmine Crockett cannot win I think is is an unfair accusation. You can argue that teller going to be more likely to win, but we're also bring a little more humility to know what yeah, we shouldn't be throwing out can't wins for anyone. Yeah. So that's one and two and this isn't coming. I haven't heard Crockett or her campaign say this because of a lot of online supporters this idea that because Tallerico wants to reach out to Republicans, that he is some sort of Federman. He like you heard this about platinum or two that he is like he's going to be like Federman is going to the Senate and he's going to become a Republican in a, you know, a Democrat name only inside of the public. I promise everybody like there is no evidence to suggest that. He has been a very, also if you don't, if you don't get Republican votes, we're never winning the presidency again. We're never winning the Senate again. It's just fucking math people. Come on. Yeah. And so like if we could just like stop with those two accusations and just try to like

1:04:17a good final two weeks or because if Tallerico wins the primary, he's going to need Crockett support to win the general and if Crockett wins the primary, he's going to need Tallerico support to win the general. And so we got to run a primary where we can put this back together again in two weeks. Really great. Hey, love it or leave it listeners. It's me, the titular John love it here to tell you that I'm coming back to Washington DC for love to leave it live at the Lincoln theater on April 23rd. That's right. Spring in DC is all about cherry blossoms and love to leave it bringing you a stack line up of guests. That's what makes it America's number one late night gay live comedy political podcast. We're so excited to be back. DC. It's a tradition now that we come around the time of the car response and even though the car is honest and are really no longer has comedians that I believe there's going to be some kind of a magician or a mind, mind melder. Yes, a magician, yeah, I'm a mentalist, a mentalist, because I guess Trump wouldn't go. It's also going. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

1:05:17Yeah. Yeah. There's a mental case and then and Trump is also going. That's what it is. Tickets won't last long. They're selling pretty fast. So get yours now while you still can at crooked dot com slash events. It's very excited for the DC show. Got some big guests, some pretty exciting, maybe's quicker dot com slash events. One last thing before we go on Tuesday, it was widely reported that Trisha McLaughlin, the Department of Homeland Security's top spokesperson is leaving the Trump administration. McLaughlin was one of the Trump administrations most consistent and ineffective liars, which is quite a feat in that administration. Her accomplishments include justifying the torture of the innocent people our government sent to a torture prison in El Salvador, slandering the two Americans our government killed as, quote, domestic terrorists, and initially blaming an infant's parents for ice nearly killing their baby with tear gas, this was in Chicago. Her husband, a Republican strategist, was also the beneficiary of a $200 million no-bid

1:06:18contract from the agency she works at for an anti-immigration ad campaign. And is it too much to hope that her potential future employers may not want to hire someone who's not just a liar, but an ineffective one at that. Immigration has gone from Trump's best issue to now one of his worst issues. Most Americans don't believe a word, the Department of Homeland Security says, or the government. I think ice has a 20-30% approval rating at this point. Or is she going to end up a Foxpundit or the next White House press secretary? Well, two things. One, there's a lot of failing up in Republican politics, so it's very possible she will end up on Fox, or what is basically big on Fox, which is White House press secretary. But I kind of want to clear out here because you have been yelling about, podcasting about tweeting about Trishman Glockland for a year now. I can't remember were you on the plane? Was it during your day off in Sydney from the beach were you tweeting about this, or was it on the plane? I cannot remember. But I saw the news and I was shocked to get like a extensive Twitter thread from you,

1:07:22celebrating her departure and documenting some of her lies from Australia. I have to be honest, I wasn't even celebrating because, first of all, she might have started planning. It's not like she got fired, she may have started planning to leave in December apparently, so she's just leaving. A likely story from a liar, John. Yeah, that is true. That is true. She did tell the Cincinnati inquirer where she's from. I think she's like moving back to Cincinnati with her family and she didn't say that she can't rule out. I know. I know. And she said that she can't rule out running for office in the future, which if you're running against her, sign me up. But mostly, mostly it just like, it just, it got me angrier because, and look, it's, it is her because she is the face of the administration, but it's like, you know, my, my anger and rage towards Christy Nome, Corey Lewandowski, if I can Greg Bavino, Stephen Miller, as you know, JD Vance. Right. Obviously, Trump, but like all of them over what they have done and what they are continuing

1:08:24to do on immigration is just, it is so intense. Like did you find, I skipped reading this for a while because I knew it would get me both angry and sad, but did you end up reading the pro public of story about all the kids in the Dilly detention center? I did. And I just want you to know, John, I did not put it in our many group chats together for this specific purpose that I felt like you should find it organically and I should wrote whatever you were doing at the moment. I should ruin your day with it. Well, I had found it, but I was like, okay, to what end am I going to read this and just be like so angry and everyone's tweeting about it. Like, I don't need to tweet about it too. There's been enough tweets, but then I was, I, I like caught it like today. Is it just preparing for the pod because there was a story pulled out of it. There was a Miami paper about this nine-year-old girl, Maria Antonia Guerra. And so, wild story, right?

1:09:24She lives in Columbia with her grandmother and her mother lives in New York, I believe. And her mother had overstayed her visa, but then married a U.S. citizen and is applying for a green card. So like, in the application process, everything legal and they had, they had met, right? The daughter and the mother in Florida had to go to Disney World. And so they went to Disney World once in the summer, I think, and they had so much fun at Disney World. They're like, let's go back in October for Halloween and we'll meet there. And so the nine-year-old flies from Columbia where she lives with the grandmother to Miami to meet the mother who's there with her. And when she meets up with the mother instead of like leaving the airport and going to Disney World, going back to Disney World, they're detained by immigration. Don't tell them why they're detained. Don't tell them why that either of them isn't, shouldn't legally be in the country.

1:10:27They are detained in the airport for 42 hours straight. And then they are sent to Dilly in Texas where they were held for four fucking months. This girl was like, everyone's the old woman, the reporter, like, she lives in Columbia. She is a citizen of Columbia. And they still, we just held her in jail for four months. And the reporter who wrote the pro-publica story, which everyone should go read, she like got all these letters. She asked for letters from a lot of the kids who were held in these detention centers. And she writes of this letter. She said, in one letter, decorated with small hand drawn hearts, rainbows and sad faces alongside a sketch of Maria and her mother in government-issued sweatsuits, the girl wrote that she felt like, quote, being here was my fault. I only wanted to be on vacation like a normal family. I'm in jail and I am sad and I fainted two times here inside. When I arrived every night, I cried and now I don't sleep well. I don't eat well. There's no good education. And I miss my best friend, Julietta and my grandmother and my school. I just really want my house. And it's like, you read that and then you read the statement from the Department of Homeland

1:11:32Security about Dilly and the conditions at Dilly. And it just is this fucking anodine statement that says, all detainees are being provided with proper medical care. And all are provided with three meals a day, clean water, clothing bedding showers, soap and toiletries, and that they have certified dietitians evaluate the meals and everything is great. So it's like, you know what, that's your legacy, Trisha McLaughlin, whatever other job you want. That's your legacy. Christine Ohms, Stephen Millers, JD Vances, all the rest of them. They are keeping these children locked up in a detention center in horrible conditions who are getting sick and who are going to have fucking trauma for the rest of their lives for what? For absolutely fucking nothing. It just requires you to be such an empty soulless human to encounter a child in distress and not do everything you possibly can to help that child be in a better situation. Yep. To err on the side of detention, not on the side of what is best for the child, whether

1:12:36this is Liam from Minnesota, whether it is this or what's all the kids in that story, it's just like, I don't even understand how like as a human being, you could approach this situation that way. And they will say, and I know JD Vance said this about Liam, he's like, what are we supposed to do? So if people who are eligible for deportation have children, are you never supposed to deport the child with the parent? I thought we didn't want family separation. I am not saying, I don't think any of us are saying that there are not going to ever be situations where like a horrible thing happens and because a family was here illegally and has to be deported, that the children of that family are also have to be deported and they have to spend some time. We're not saying that. Like exceptions like that, bad things happen and it is not the faults of children, but sometimes they pay the price, like this happens in the world, we're not fucking naive to that. But there is a law in place, right, or at least the court's interpretation of the law, the Flores Act, which says that children are not supposed to spend more than 20 days

1:13:39in detention. The Trump administration has decided that that no longer applies, but they don't care about the fucking Flores decoration, if they can just have people, kids in there for months at a time under these horrific conditions. So no, this is not just, oh, we can't deport anyone who has children. This is like you are locking up children and ruining the lives of children for nothing because you couldn't get your fucking act together because you wanted to perform cruelty, whatever the reason is. I mean, the Leigham example, so perfect one, which is there was a different option which was send him home to his mother. Yeah. But they would rather not admit, they would rather keep a small child in a de facto prison camp that admit they are wrong or do something that suggests weakness. But it's not like being kind of children is not weakness. That's just being a basic fucking human. Proven by the fact that in this case too, with Maria, after four months, suddenly one day, they opened up Dilly and they let out 200 people, including her, just let her

1:14:41out. And how long are these children going to be traumatized? How many of them have had to go through just fucking hell for nothing? But it took them 200 days to hold them in a jail, like almost a year of a child's life in like critical developmental phases. It's fucked these people, man. Fuck these people. Anyway. That's what I'm not. Good bye, Trisha McLaughlin. Yeah, I was just kidding. Not celebrating. I wanted to be a fun lighthearted thing when I said it, but then I read that straight and I'm like, no, I'm just angry. I'm still angry. I would say in the outline, this was referred to as dessert. It's not, no. It's not dessert. Look, we could have done RFK and, uh, who did he do the exercise? Kid Rock. Yeah. We could have done shirtless RFK and Kid Rock. Didn't do that. Well, we couldn't. There are no words at it. It doesn't work in a podcast. That was the problem. We look very seriously at it, but it's just, it's just music and we're in the water and BC. That's another one. I don't know. Let's poop in the water, ever-funny, John. No, I don't think so. We have a small show to take that. It's never funny. Oh, God.

1:15:42Don't, don't, don't jinx it. Anyway, Dan, uh, hopefully next time we meet you and I will be less jet lagged. We will be together on Tuesday. Oh my God. Oh, oh. Talk about it. Yes. All right, everyone. Yeah. Tuesday is going to be the state of the union, but even before that, love it's going to be back in the feed with a new show on Sunday. Lucky him. And lucky you. Lucky you. Yeah. Bye, everyone. Have a good weekend. If you want to listen to Podsave America, add free and get access to exclusive podcasts, go to Cricket.com slash friends to subscribe on supercast, substack, YouTube, or Apple podcasts. Also, please consider leaving us a review that helps boost this episode and everything we do here at Cricket. Podsave America is a crooked media production. Our producer is Saul Rubin. Our associate producer is Ferris Safari. Austin Fisher is our senior producer. Reed Churland is our executive editor. Adrian Hill is our head of news and politics. The show is mixed and edited by Andrew Chadwick. Jordan Cantor is our sound engineer with audio support from Kyle Seglon and Charlotte

1:16:45Landis. Matt DeGroat is our head of production. Naomi Sengel is our executive assistant. Thanks to our digital team, Elijah Cohn, Haley Jones, Ben Heffkoat, Mia Kelman, Carol Pellavive, David Tolls, and Ryan Young. Our production staff is proudly unionized with the writer's Guild of America East. Hey, Lover, leave it listeners. It's me, the titular John Lover. Here to tell you that I'm coming back to Washington, DC for Lover, Leave It Live at the Lincoln Theatre on April 23rd. That's right. Spring in DC is all about cherry blossoms and Lover, leave it bringing you a stack lineup of guests. That's what makes it America's number one late night gay live comedy political podcast. We're so excited to be back in DC. It's a tradition now that we come around the time of the car response and even though the car is honest and really no longer has comedians, I believe there's going to be some kind of a magician or a mind, mind-milder. Yes. A magician. Yeah. A mentalist. A mentalist. Because I guess Trump wouldn't know.

1:17:46Trump's also going. Yeah. Yeah. That's in there. Yeah. There's a mental case and then Trump is also going. That's how it is. Tickets won't last long. They're selling pretty fast. So get yours now while you still can at Krugget.com slash events. Very excited for the DC show. Got some big guests. Pretty exciting, maybe. Krugget.com slash events.