Transcript

The MENTAL Decline of Donald Trump (Your Questions Answered)

From Pod Save America · Episode page · Watch on YouTube

· 1 h 21 min · 17,985 words · 348 timestamped sections

This is the full, timestamped transcript of "The MENTAL Decline of Donald Trump (Your Questions Answered)", an episode of Pod Save America published December 30, 2025 (1 h 21 min, about 17,985 words). It mentions 28 people, works and ideas, including Elvis Dan, Zaran Mandani, Cook Unity, RFK Jr. / RK Jr., Tom Dashel.

What is discussed, and when

  1. – 10:00: Dan Feifer, John Favro, John Lovevet, RFK Jr. / RK Jr.
  2. – 20:00: Zaran Mandani, Tom Dashel
  3. – 30:00: JB Pritzkar, Zaran Mandani
  4. – 40:00: Brook Rollins, Chrissy Gnome, Cory Luendowski, Dr. Michael A. Urban
  5. – 50:00: Eric Larson, Andre Agassi, Dr. Mo Hannah, Dr. Terry Dro
  6. – 1:10:00: Cook Unity
  7. – 1:20:00: Bill Aman, JB Pritzkar, mindfulness meditation, Phipe Rhinus

Notable quotes from "The MENTAL Decline of Donald Trump (Your Questions Answered)"

  • Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm John Favro.
    about John Favro · at
  • So, the my first step is I storm into the Oval Office and I say to Donald Trump and Stephen Miller, your plan to make this election about immigration and crime will not work.…
    about Steven Little Miller · at
  • Anyway, sorry. Oded Hos asks, How much of what RFK Jr. is doing is reversible to the country, not to himself.
    about RFK Jr. / RK Jr. · at
  • Tom Dashel was right asks Dan, was this you?
    about Tom Dashel · at
  • White House mess asks, JB Pritsker said on your show the other day that while he thinks Zoron Mandani ran a great campaign, he basically only won because he had a deeply flawed…
    about Zaran Mandani · at
  • The rhetoric that we've got to move past. And one thing I talked to Pritzkar about as well was just why does it feel like why do so many people feel also Democrats don't have a…
    about JB Pritzkar · at
  • Read and I know is a classic, but was riveting and I absolutely loved it. And then I've been reading the Eric Larson books and I read and I think I talked about this last year.…
    about Eric Larson · at
  • Resolution. Yeah. To everybody, all the teams are at zero. You know what they say? and Cook Unity brings restaurant level flavor to your fresh start with chef designed dishes…
    about Cook Unity · at

Who and what is mentioned in this episode?

People

  • Elvis Dan — Person · 5 mentions
  • Zaran Mandani — Person · 3 mentions · first at
  • RFK Jr. / RK Jr. — Person · 2 mentions · first at
  • Tom Dashel — Person · 2 mentions · first at
  • JB Pritzkar — Person · 2 mentions · first at
  • Eric Larson — Person · 2 mentions · first at
  • John Favro — Person · 1 mention · first at
  • John Lovevet — Person · 1 mention · first at
  • Tommy Evtor — Person · 1 mention · first at
  • Dan Feifer — Person · 1 mention · first at
  • Steven Little Miller — Person · 1 mention · first at
  • Brook Rollins — Person · 1 mention · first at
    I think that's the right choice. I mean the You're not a Brook Rollins guy.
  • Scott Vesset — Person · 1 mention · first at
    No, not Brook Rollins. I guess maybe you could be Scott Vesset.
  • Chrissy Gnome — Person · 1 mention · first at
    But you're going to have to do Same with Pam Bondi obviously. Same with Christy Gnome. I don't think you can.
  • Cory Luendowski — Person · 1 mention · first at
    You're working closely with Cory Luendowski. closely.
  • Justin Trudeau — Person · 1 mention · first at
    We can't decide. When I went to You had Justin Trudeau on your podcast?
  • Dr. Michael A. Urban — Person · 1 mention · first at
    All right. Dr. Michael A. Urban and a whole lot of other blue sky users ask, Why are the pod boys stewing their brains in the Nazi cesspool that is Twitter? What is the actual point?
  • Josephine — Person · 1 mention · first at
    Josephine with two Canadian flag emojis asks, Would John Love it consider being on any other reality TV shows? Perhaps The Amazing Race.
  • Dr. Terry Dro — Person · 1 mention · first at
    Yep. what about The Swan from 2004, where I get a full makeover, where I get a facial surgery from Dr. Terry Dro underwent multiple plastic surgeries and weren't allowed to see mirrors.
  • Dr. Mo Hannah — Person · 1 mention · first at
    It's not the most relaxing kind of narrative. And I sort of it occurred to me, I mean Hannah pointed out to me, she's you're constantly reading like horrible like depressing…
  • Andre Agassi — Person · 1 mention · first at
    Is so interesting because as a kid I remember I played tennis as a kid and I was terrible. But Andre Agassi was so cool and he was so cool because of the hair. And it turns out…
  • Kazo Ishiguru — Person · 1 mention · first at
    Listen, I know I'm I'm done talking about Kazo Ishiguru. That's that's last year's business. Now it's all about Eric Larson.
  • Bill Aman — Person · 1 mention · first at
    Takes and I've been writing these long Bill Aman length things at times Bill Aman length things but I and people make fun of them. I don't really care but like I just like as a place to be thoughtful and do what is not natural.
  • Phipe Rhinus — Person · 1 mention · first at
    Into this feed. It's Love its conversation with legendary and reclusive Democratic strategist Phipe Rhinus.
  • Robert F. Kennedy (RFK) — Person · 1 mention

Companies & orgs

Concepts & topics

Full transcript with timestamps

Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm John Favro. I'm John Lovevet. I'm Tommy Evtor.

I'm Dan Feifer. It's that time of year again uh when we answer your most burning questions about the year. We're wrapping what's coming next and all sorts of personal stuff about Love It.

Okay. Then we'll be uh confronted with our New Year's resolutions from last year as we always are.

Love us. Come clean about how we did. And as always, we're going to make some new ones about 2026.

You bet. You guys ready? Mhm. All right. Uh, New Hampshire Avenue asks. Uh, Coplay Republican strategist for a minute. You're headed into a midterm year. You control all of the government and you shat the bed and everyone knows it. Dems will run on a simple change affordability message. What's your best possible counter message? We're going to start off by doing some work for Republicans. Do we get to do things or just say things? Because the the best counter message is you you ditch the tariffs. You extend the ACA subsidies.

Oh, no. I think you pitch on gas prices being down. I think you're um your You go to war with the Republicans you have.

Thank you. That's why I was I lost. That's it. Yeah. Dan, you want to go? Dan. Yeah, sure. Okay. So, I've given this a little thought. I find it alarming. But so, the my first step is I storm into the Oval Office and I say to Donald Trump and Stephen Miller, your plan to make this election about immigration and crime will not work. It's doomed to fail. No caravans, no crime stats, it just it is you. This is an affordability election and the only we cannot win by trying to change the subject. That cannot happen. Will not work. So, as Tommy said, there is a way to do this, which would be to actually lower prices, but we're not going to do that because we're Donald Trump and Republicans.

That's not how we operate. So, instead, the goal here is to disqualify the Democrats as vehicles for change and and as people who you would trust to actually lower costs. So you run a hard negative campaign showing Democrats focus on all things other than cost. Use a lot of photos and videos of Biden and Kla Harris and you try to associate Democrats, these Democrats with the economy that people hated just one year ago. And then probably and this is the most I think you could expect from Trump and you probably can't even expect this is you start Trump starts saying we have made progress. We have to make more progress. Give me more time. And that's your plan.

Yeah. Can't beat that. Yeah. Well, it's funny because sort of uh that is that that that you got the negative part. That's what they always do. They just can't seem to get Donald Trump to deliver any kind of a a self-aware message.

Yeah. I like I was thinking the same thing, Dan. Like you want to say uh Democrats, if you like Democrats, they just want to raise your taxes again, give the money back to illegals, and if they don't get their way, we've seen what they do. They're going to shut down the government again. It's going to come just going to be gridlock and they're probably just going to investigate and impeach Donald Trump the whole time. That's what they're going to spend the next two years doing and also they can take your hard-earned tax dollars and just give them back to all the illegal immigrants which Donald Trump stopped.

And that's why you got to keep voting for Republicans so that Donald Trump can keep your taxes low and and get interest rate down. He'll probably, you know, they'll be promising interest rate cuts, I'm sure. And uh and and make sure you're not paying for illegals healthcare. Yeah, I think you said that cleanly enough that they can grab it.

Cool, cool, cool, cool. Hoping to see that on the five. Um, all right. Uh, Od Od. Yeah.

One, one. Also note, I do want to say, John, that that it's it's cosplaying and you're just you don't

Did I say cosplay? You said cosplaying. I can't pronounce anything. Cosplay. Just sort of what a non- nerd you are.

Cos Yeah, cosplay. Cosplay. Obvious. I've said it cosplay a million times. That happens with me to some words.

Me, actually. pronounce them 100% correct all the time and then just when you see it, you say it wrong. I do the same thing.

Well, it's also cosplay. Republican stri just start a sentence is like a Yeah. Anyway, sorry. Oded Hos asks, "How much of what RFK Jr. is doing is reversible

to the country, not to himself." I mean, yeah. Uh I mean, a lot of it isn't, right? I mean, RFK killed off like a half a billion dollar investment into mRNA research. Can't really fix that. Uh, I killed off a bunch of like long-term studies. There's a big measles outbreak in South Carolina, Arizona, and Utah. Can't really fix that one. But, um, I mean, I think you can like fire all the cooks on like the VI vaccine advisory panel, roll back some of their dumb recommendations like not giving babies the vaccine against hepatitis B.

Like, there's some things, but there's some damage here. I think it's going to be like generational, unfortunately.

Yeah, we'll never know the cost. Uh there'll be people that'll be harmed because they'll get measles because they had a pre-existing condition, but somebody else didn't and didn't get the vaccine anyway. Uh but I do think in terms of research, it'll be measured in the the time it takes for us to make up for the grants that weren't given. Like scientists are ingenious and eventually they'll get the funding. Like this research will be done. We just don't know how long he's delayed certain discoveries. I worry about the brain drain of like the people who left doctors, medical researchers, scientists, experts that have been there for like years and years and years at HHS. And you know, maybe you hire some of those folks back, but I'm sure some of them are thinking, why would I go back into government if this Democratic president just gets thrown out of office in four years and then I get fired

again? Yeah. Also, like life gets in the way. Like you you you move from Atlanta, you start a new job, like you're not just going to go back because Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is gone.

Yeah. By the way, just these are institutions that have incredible international credibility that have done extraordinary work like that that is being burned. Uh Tom Dashel was right asks Dan, was this you?

I don't even know what Tom Rashel was right about in this instance. Me neither.

Everything. Um where do you guys stand on Trump's physical mental decline as a political factor? Who wants to take this one?

I mean, I think it's very fun to talk about because it'll piss Donald Trump off. I think you can easily shame the media into covering uh his uh little nappies, little sleepy time in the in the cabinet meetings. Like as a political matter, unless he runs for a third term, it doesn't really matter, you know,

and then in that case, we have bigger problems. Yeah, we got bigger problems. I mean, if he does try to run again, um we should certainly focus on the fact that he's old and losing it and weirdly slurring his speech and

constitutionally ineligible. Yeah. Yeah. I like I I agree with that. I what I what I wonder is the ways in which it's affecting him politically in terms of his inability to uh wrangle people in Congress, keep people on board, like the way his aging is hurting him as a second order thing. Like the the whether it's losing votes on uh Epstein, it's posting things about Rob Reiner. Obviously, he's said crazy things before, but like I do think like I don't know, he's sort of slowing down. His days are getting shorter. He's saying, you know, even like pardoning all the January 6 people.

Part of that was just like he was bored in the meetings. He was like, "Ah, it. It's too complicated." Like there's he's tired. He's tired. He's tired.

That's why that's why he pardon January. I Well, part of what he he did say that that in that he was sick of the meetings where it was hard to draw the line. And I do think there's something about like the moments in the meetings where you get fed up, where you're exhausted, where you're getting kind of run down by these people in any direction. Like there was Biden had that, right? They were just that they they would just sort of make a decision and be done. That's how that's how the staff at Crooked Gets Love to do something. Yeah. Meeting.

Ask me before the day winds down at 2:30 p.m. I think they ever prank him. He like falls asleep at the Oval Office. He usually put his hand in some warm water.

Draw a little penis on his face. He's like, "Who draw this enormous penis on my face?" This is the most ridiculous giant penis I've ever seen. There's a comically large penis on my face. I

I will just say I Now, here it comes. I know. I know. I understand. um the uh focus on uh Donald Trump's mental and physical decline

and I know that it comes from what we just went through with Joe Biden. Um and I think

you mean the country turning on a great president. Yes. And I think if uh Donald Trump Yeah. was was getting ready to run for reelection in a second term, then of course we should be talking about this all the time. I don't really understand the purpose the polit we're talking about politics. the political purpose of pointing this out all the time and then yelling at the media to cover it like they covered Joe Biden, all this kind of stuff because what is the goal? Is the goal to make Donald Trump less popular? Uh in the sense that he's not going to be on the ballot again, right? And so are we trying to make are we trying to say that well if he's less popular because we hit him on the cognitive decline, then Republicans who are actually on the ballot are going to somehow be less popular because they stood by Donald Trump and said that he's super strong and has a lot of stamina. I just think there's a lot of other lot of

other uh more effective attacks. John really changed his tune on this since he got that book deal with uh Jake and Alex Thompson.

Fake tapper. Yeah, he goes through the book. You did a great job by the way. Put your name on the cover is where you nailed it.

Yeah. I just I don't I just don't I don't understand it. And it's not because I don't think it's not fair. I'm just like what why am I wasting my breath on why are we all wasting our breath on this when there's a good ass time we're trying to win back the House and the Senate and then to elect a Democratic president in 2028. Those are the

I'd separate two things. One is the political merits of focusing on Trump's age, which I agree with everyone is minimal and it's really it really is like Biden revenge is what we're doing. Um,

and which is why everyone's yelling at Jake or Alex and like and I get the sense of unfairness.

Revenge is a dish best served old. That's really good. I Okay, I'm just going to step right past that. Um, I do I do think that the jur that the media has an obligation to cover the health of presidents, particularly old presidents, whether it's Joe Biden or Donald Trump, and when Trump has weird things like an MRI, they should be demanding to know what the MRI is about. And it will mean it

and know that they're going to be lied to because we're lied to about everything that happens in the government.

And then they should be digging around to see if they can find the truth, which I actually believe they probably are. Like they like news and stories and so they're probably looking for that. But I think that something can be a a worthwhile subject of journalistic exploration and accountability and not and not but not be a good political message at the same time.

Yeah, well said. That's why I'm I'm glad that Tom Dashel was right. Mentioned this is a political factor,

which means that Tom Dashel once again was right. Tommy Jared asks, "Are there concerns regarding the Trump 2.0 administration that in hindsight you either underindexed on or went too doomer?" I I think I underindexed on corruption because we didn't know the full element. I think I underindexed on understanding that all the focus on imig immigration meant we were going full Monroe doctrine and we're going to evade invade Venezuela and be like the emperor of the Western Hemisphere. Um I was maybe too dumer on the political competence of this White House.

I mean they they have like kind of Oh, you thought that they would be more competent?

I thought they would be more competent. like they felt pretty um uh like they were like they were rolling in those early days and now a little less so.

Yeah, I I remain surprised he pardoned all the January 6 insurrectionists. That that was I think worse than I had imagined. I assumed that there'd be some break lever at least for the most violent people. Not that he wouldn't pardon people that shouldn't be pardoned, but that there would be some political instinct there. Um and with that, I also we all knew the Department of Justice would be politicized. I am surprised that they're not even pretending uh that they're not that they have Pam Bondi out there basically as a vassel for Trump. Like, you know, I don't know how much better hypocrisy would be that they're pretending otherwise. But in some sense, like hypocrisy is like a kind of partial payment on virtue because you're at least acknowledging that there are virtues we used to believe in, but they've completely uh wiped that away.

And I think that was that came a little faster than I expected. Dan, what about you?

What? Gonna make a joke about it. Not the first time you said that. Sorry. Nice. Nice.

I think the thing that I underestimated was how just pliant and gross most of the major institutions in society would be.

Same. You know, like sure corporations who could make more money from Trump I expected to be with him like the tech guys, you know, the the trillionaire sitting with him, but just like universities, law firms, meet the Walt Disney Corporation just left and right just doing what Trump wants because it's in their interest. When many of those very same institutions were horrified by Trump 1.0, know a less bad version of this one and just like I mean maybe that's incredible naive on my part but just that so much so much of society was willing just to throw in the towel for their own self-interest.

Yeah, I I agree with all those. I think the only um the only one that I was maybe too doomer on was and I I hate putting this out there. It's really tempting fate but uh I thought they would have locked up more of their political opponents by now.

Huh. I thought they would have gone f like not for lack of trying. I was going to say and that is that it is not for lack of trying but like if you had told me that by the end year end of year one

they would have only well they had failed to basically indict Jim Comey and Tish James and everything else is you know in some investigative phase. I I would have thought that they would have gone further than that.

Yeah. And I think it is just because of a combination of um the courts uh standing up to Trump. I think the uh there's probably people in DOJ who are still uh career people in charge of your prosecution.

Yeah, I was going to say and then a whole bunch of idiots that are there. Yeah. Which by the way, just one place I think we've all I think we're all kind of instinctively a bit doomer is just the like the the quiet democratic redundancies that exist that that don't seem as strong as they are but are like are there and are defense mechanisms that are they're kicking in. The courts are one. the fact that that this is not some mass mobilization of authoritarian interests and so one layer bene beneath all these people or career people and non-loyal people that have that are are also buoied by the fact that he's not popular and I think we all should keep that keep that in mind because it's it's it's an it's uh you know it's a dog that doesn't bark but

not just not just the um the level of corruption Tommy but just how open the corruption has been to brazen

yeah that is both you know the it's It's crazy. Um, all right. Font guy 81. Maybe that's Marco Rubio. See, they just ditched Calibri because it was too woke over at the State Department. You know what?

I have to say I'm with I'm with Marco on that one. sucks. Times New Roman's the best. Calibri is

trash. Times New Roman is a typewriter font. It hurts my eyes every Thursday because I just learned today from Reed because this was a topic on TR online which will air will air before this comes out

that you're the person who dictates that we must use Times New Roman. You're like Marco Rubio over here.

So I I think that is antiquated and you should kind of be willing to be open to change because it is an old school font. It's a Sarah font.

We don't have to agree on the same font. Well, it's not about it's well we we can all use different fonts that we find appealing but it has a kind of prestige casual.

It has a Yeah, for sure. It has a prestige and like intellectual rigor because it was used in the past. But sans sarah fonts are more readable. They are just more legible which is why the t why word switched to calibbri. The problem is calibbri is just an ugly ass sans sarah font and there are better fonts. You know you don't Helvetica is the king and if you're going to come for the king don't miss.

So this wasn't a question actually. John is just a classical chauvinist who loves anything Roman. He dreams about the Roman Empire all the time. and you're a neo about the Roman part.

Yeah, it is um it is a kind of patriarchal font in a way. It is a font. It is a font of of the white male. And so I think that's sort of part of it. You're you're enamored of the fonts of the

This is how I'm This is how I'm I'm coming out as a white nationalist just because of my Times New Roman.

Yeah, that's right. Making news today. Yeah. Anyway, the question from font guy 81 is I hate JD Vance.

Oh, that wasn't even the question. No, I thought it was. I hate JD Vance, but it's clear that he's a much better messenger than Trump and is likely to be the nominee. A lot of assumptions there. Why don't they let him do more of the talking?

Reject the premise. Okay. Yeah, let's Go ahead, Tommy. No, he sucks. I mean, he's more disciplined than Trump, but he's not a better messenger. He's none of the humor or charm that Donald Trump has that has made him a successful politician. He's not like bad, but he's not better. Anyone Anyone disagree?

No. I Trump is a Trump, not to us, but I I you can see Trump as a bully you root for. JD Vance is a bully you're root against.

Hard like a biff. Also and is likely to be the nominee. What do we think about that?

Yeah, we just love and I talked to John Hman for his podcast today and he is like he was like crazy that Jay-Z Vance is gonna be the nominee. I think that there's no way that guy is so unlike

it's crazy. Yeah, not crazy but he was very he was very down on the idea of JD as a nominee.

Did you agree with him or No, we both thought I like B it's sort of like right now I don't know what the most likely Yeah, sure. or he's the most likely person to be the nominee. Is that 10%, 20%, 60%? I have no idea. Just there's just no obvious person who's more likely than him to be it at this moment. The far right,

you saw Marco Rubio pull himself out. Yeah, though that sneaky prick will throw himself back in. I mean, the far right hates JD Vance sometime in in part for racist reasons, but also they don't trust him. They don't believe he's like credible. They don't think he believes what he says. He's shape shifter. I guess we have that in common.

Yeah. It's so it's so funny. It's so funny. and our love for Times New Roman. It's so funny that Rubio in that article definitively says, "If JD Vance is the nominee, I'll be behind him and I won't wants it. I'll get behind him and I won't run." And it's like, wow. I I wonder if J Marco Rubio, who in this article is referenced for having completely done an about face on his core political convictions, could find a way out of this.

Exactly. Right. He's said the opposite about every person in that article. Precisely. To to answer Funky 81's question of why don't they let him do more of the talking, have you seen who the president is, Donald Trump? You think you think Donald Trump's going to let someone else do more of the talking? Do you think JD Vance is stupid? The the last guy to have the job, have his job. Uh, you know, almost had him hung.

When I first when I first worked in uh uh the Senate, I worked for a senator named John Cororsine from New Jersey. And right before I started, or some point before I started, he did this one of those roast dinners, and he said this joke about Chuck Schumer, which is uh sharing a media market with Chuck Schumer is like sharing a banana with a monkey. Take one bite and he throws his feces at you. And it apparently did not go over well with Chuck Schumer. Like it went over pretty poorly. But I always think about that. Why is JD Vance not uh taking up more attention? The most dangerous place in that Oval Office is between Donald Trump and those cameras.

Yep. Yeah. Did you write that joke? I did not. I did not. I really didn't. I would I I did write you know Pokemon Go to the polls. Yes. But this one No.

One of the great Pokemon go to the polls. One of the memorable lines in in politics in the last 10 years. People are like, "Why did you come up with that stupid line? Why did I come up with it? Why do you know what it is?

I I didn't. Or did I? White House mess asks, "JB Pritsker said on your show the other day that while he thinks Zoron Mandani ran a great campaign, he basically only won because he had a deeply flawed opponent and people shouldn't read too much into it, especially about DSA's popularity. Do you agree? What? He said that

is that an accurate description of what it's it's pretty close and it was an honestly like not it was sort of he kind of swerved to get there. uh which I thought was interesting.

Yeah. I my my take on it is Thanks White House Mask for finding the news newsy part of that interview at White House.

Uh my take on it is uh the lessons you learn from a a a race in New York City are about like what worked and didn't work. Not in terms of winning or losing, but like what resonated with people, what broke through, what made someone exciting, what points to kind of a style of politics that could be effective in this moment. And I just think it's goes way too far to say that that the reason Mandani succeeded is just because Andrew Cuomo was a flawed candidate. I think there are a lot of people that Andrew Cuomo could have beaten. And there's a lot to learn from Mandani irrespective of picking the worst person to run against.

Winning that primary is incredible. Like Cuomo is flawed, but like New York is as progressive as it gets, but still he ran a great campaign. Like I don't think it says much about

DSA nationally. I think it's a lot about like Mamani being an amazing candidate with a great message and great tactics and charm and talent.

Yeah, it would be smarter to learn from Mamani rather than try to dismiss it because of Cuomo. I think

Yeah. Dan, you got anything else to add to that? No, I agree with that. And if you wanted to take the No, Andrew Cuomo was the reason that he won.

No. And because Andrew Cuomo beat all the other people other than Zor Mandani. That's right. So

C S Swer asks, "Are there any states you think could surprise us in the midterms?" Dan, what do you think? I think if the Alaska would be the one, like this is obviously a huge long shot, but it's the one race where if Mary Pollah gets in the race, which people expect she probably will, and runs against Dan Sullivan, she's a member of Congress who serves statewide because there's only one member there. It's a um it's a smaller state where you can, you know, make a lot of impact with organizing and door to door messaging and stuff like that. Um, so I think that I would I would be shocked if we won any I'd be pleasantly surprised if we won any of the stretch states like Ohio, Iowa, Texas, and Alaska, but I think Alaska gets the least amount of attention and maybe the one that we're most likely to win of those four.

And uh, this this followup I'm I'm throwing to Iowa native Tommy Vtor. Do you think there's hope for Iowa in 2026?

I think we have to have hope for Iowa because um, that those like that's going to be one of the stretch states. Like I'm bullish on Iowa this cycle. It was the biggest um change in vote like in sort of the swing from Obama in 12 to Trump in 16 was Iowa. But this cycle we've got a big governor's race and a great candidate and Rob Sand love it was just joking about how much I like Rob Sand which I do. Um there's an open Senate seat. There's at least three highly contested House races. Then there's like some possible down ballot flips like Secretary of State, but also it doesn't cost as much as like Texas.

You know what I mean? you can compete like Rob can run a a a great race for like 30 million. It's not going to be like half a billion like the Georgia Senate primary

uh before before Ancelzer um kind of disintegrated across De Mo as she expected because her poll was uh so bad Trump tried to make it illegal. Uh uh like she had in inside of that poll made some predictions about some surprising turns towards Democrats that we have actually also seen, right? like yeah they've done they've overperformed in a bunch of um special elections and stuff.

Yeah. Yeah. I feel bullish on Iowa as well. I think long term it is incredibly important to compete in Texas despite the cost because like if you're looking at larger trends like we need Texas and Texas is probably moving more slowly towards us and then Iowa is just

it was it was also moving back the other direction. It's hard with like you have a very older population and rural population in Iowa, right? And so I think it's that that's tougher. But I think this I think with combination of Trump being president and and the tariffs and everything that's happening, I think it's like the year for Iowa.

That's what the farmers are getting killed. Like all the soybean farmers are in Iowa and Illinois and their their crops are getting decimated. Their entire businesses are going away. Like people are pissed.

Yeah. Uh Jenz Boomer asks, "That's a good name." Huh. Sure. Good name. I've heard Favro say on other podcasts that no one in the current Demp field gets him super excited. When did Obama start to get serious national attention as a potential 2008 candidate?

The minute his 2004 DNC speech ended. Yeah. Think think about it this way in terms of this the cycle that we're in now. So this would be if at the 2024 convention in Chicago um the a speaker uh someone spoke there gave the keynote address who just like lit the place on fire and uh got national attention for that speech back in July and then Kamala loses this person wins a Senate seat and is now giving speeches all over the country and generating a whole bunch of buzz by now for sure. And uh so is that happening?

Can I can I dispute that? Sure. Dispute. Um you come Evan B guy. Yeah. Here comes here comes Dashel was right.

I was going to love that at one point at Hillary Clinton HQ they were like holy where' this Obama guy come from?

I that's well I do remember there was a lot of weight hanging on this flimsy wire hanger that said he promised not to run. You know that was still in the in the window where that was happening. And so it was like he wasn't running that part of what like that was like he was able to kind of be free of that while he was uh in those first two years in the Senate. Uh I don't remember when it started becoming real that not only was he running but he was like a a real threat but I assure you it was later than it should have been. I so watching this from having worked for Evan B who was thinking of running for president um and talking to a lot of people who work for Obama like Pete Rouse and Robert Gibbs at this time who and Steve Hildebrand who were heckling me for working for Evan Bay instead of Barack Obama. It really was the fall of 20 2006 when he was out campaigning for everyone, getting massive crowds, going

to Tennessee, going to Montana, going all these places that no Democrat would rather go getting these massive crowds and Audacity of Hope came out of

I mean October of six. Yeah. Yeah. October of six. And then he went on Meet the Press right after that, right after the election and changed his mind and said he was reconsidering it. But it like everyone loved Obama. He was gener. But it was the fall of 2006. We're like, "Oh, there's a true phenomenon happening here." And maybe now's the moment. And Evan B went to New Hampshire the same time that Barack Obama did, and he dropped out of the race uh two days later. Tough.

Anyway, that's that's the timeline. Uh 2028 White Knuckler asks, "If you were in a lab and could design the worst 2028 primary candidate possible, what would they sound like? What policies would they prioritize

the worst? Can I be mean on the on the Republican side? I think it would be the Romney Ryan ticket.

Oh, I didn't even think you just thought of only Democrats. I was thinking of only Democrats. Yeah.

Yeah. So was I. Yeah. Well, there we go. I'll fill this space. So you guys are up.

Well, I mean, this is sort of an obvious question, which is like the worst Republican primary candidate would sound like AOC and the worst Democratic primary candidate.

I think it's got to be feasible like kind of version. Like I think it would be like corporate, you know, anti-pop populist Republicans in the mold of what the Republican party used to be.

I think for a Democrat it would be a corporate centrist Christian cinema like establishment politician.

Okay. that that yes, corporate centrist um economic positions mixed with um the the remnants of uh like overly woke language, you know, like someone who's like uh I just

we're in the primary here, but I I want uh I want public private partnerships to to leverage uh you know uh more jobs and also I'm going to start with the land acknowledgement. Yeah, I think that would go over pretty poorly.

Yeah, that's that to me is the uh the worst combo. Any love it? Yeah, it's it's a funny question because it's like sort of sort of like like what's the worst movie of the year? Well, it's a movie so bad you never saw it. The I I do think like we need there's a kind of uh uh we're all like there's a kind of tie for worst right now and it is a kind of certain old school corporate political speak. And I don't mean corporate like in the policies, but just in the language and the rhetoric that we've got to move past. And you know, one thing I talked to Pritzkar about as well was just why does it feel like why why do so many people feel also Democrats don't have a vision? And his point was only well Democrats never have a vision. they have a primary and they pick one person and that v vision becomes the vision of the party and the combin and Biden kind of holding that space and not using it and

then Kamla having to step in with the very limited time and also to be honest just not being someone who I think we just doesn't have a particularly well-known worldview or ideology that kind of guides what we think she would do as president. which becomes a kind of consensus that of the democratic politics we already had. There's just this big open space for someone to come along and just sound different.

When I was president of Goldman Sachs, my deputy was Latin X. That's the That's the

That's the person very This is very This is your nightmare can right here. I'm just That is Go test them out. We'll get to lots more of your questions after the break, but a quick reminder before we get to that. We're headed to New Zealand and Australia in February. If you've ever wondered how grumpy Dan gets after a Trans-Pacific flight, this is your chance. Pave America. The Pave of America hopefully just visiting tour lands in Auckland, New Zealand on the 11th and then three cities in Australia after that. Melbourne on the 13th, Brisbane on the 14th, and Sydney on the 16th. If you're a listener in New Zealand or Australia, we'd really love to see you with these shows. Head to crooked.com/events to get your tickets.

When we come back, more questions. It's always so uh it's always so jarring to see Dan in his uh travel juicy couture velour tracksuit.

Uh he looks good though. Yeah, it's always so it's like oh that's his look. That's his flight look.

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Remember, head to zbiotics.com/crooked and use code crooked at checkout for 15% off. Erikson Kea asks, "How do you think Trump would eulogize you on Truth Social?" What do you got, guys? Oh,

God. Fun to think about. I hope he does. I hope he does. Although, I actually I take that back. I hope he doesn't.

I'd like to I'd like to outlive Trump. Yeah, that's what I'm thinking. That's high on my bingo card.

I um I actually reached out to a friend to illustration. Um and uh Mr. Trump actually did it for me. So, let's let's roll that tape, please. Is this going to be Ryan's voice again?

Promise you now. Some guy named Tommy died today. Tommy Veer. Sloppy Tommy. What a loser. What a nobody. He worked for Barack Hussein. Obama. That's when he peaked. I heard Obama had little Tommy carry the pallets of cash to Iran. Oh, that's

I heard sloppy Tommy gave Ukraine blankets when I delivered the javelins. True. Toothless two bit Tommy blamed Benghazi on a YouTube video.

YouTube can't kill you, Tommy. Your career has been dead for years. Now he has a podcast. Wow, how original. A 40-some white guy with a podcast. Stop the presses. Talkie-talkie, Tommy. The problem is no one is listening. He probably died of Trump derangement syndrome. They call it TDS, but we'll never know because no one cares that you're gone, Tommy. Wow, that was really good. That was amazing. Tough ending there.

That was really good. So good. Thank you, Seb Gorka, for lining that up. Really good. Seb Gorka is who you got to do that, huh?

My guy, that was fantastic. I think that's it. I don't think anyone else used to go.

No, that was really good. Perfect. Wow. I'll Thank you, AI. I really like that. And we all love AI.

Really good. Really good. Play that. Hey, Tommy, why don't you take that cup of water and just pour it on the ground?

Oh my god. Back to the worst primary candy. There's another one. That whole water thing is is like just made up.

Not true. Electricity cost. Very true. It's not totally not true, but it's everything weighs like a a cost or in terms of there's water consumption. Like you buy a pair of jeans. That's like a year's worth of air.

Well, it just matters where the where the it matters where you put the the servers where the water comes from that you know there's limited water in different water in water table. So, but yes, it's for the most part

just for the facts. Niles asks, "You, this is an interesting one, you have the opportunity to replace one Trump cabinet member, but you have to do the job for the rest of the Trump term and be loyal to Trump. Who do you choose to replace?" This is this the tricky thing of this is like what does being loyal to Trump mean in this role? Like you just do what he says.

You have to just do what you think he'd want you to do or do you have to like like if he gives you an order, you have to do it? Oh, I assume the latter, but

it's a question a lot of people have asked themselves and then failed, right? Well, because it's sort of like, can you do a version? Another way of asking that question is, is there a version of doing this job where you feel you could do good for the country without pissing him off so thoroughly that you're ejecting, which is I think what the question,

that's sort of where I took it to. I kind of think the easy answer is RFK Jr. Yes, that was my Trump thinks RFK is kind of crazy and he just thinks it's like politically beneficial and you could walk back a ton of and Trump would never even read the memo about it. Hey, I just looked under the microscope and uh aspirin doesn't cause autism anymore.

Mr. Trump, good news. You fixed the vaccines. They all work now. You did that. You did that. We did it. We checked them out.

We took some of your DNA from your blood sample. We put them in the vaccines and now everyone's living to 100, you know,

and everybody's you. You're everybody. And maybe if you So, in a way, you should care about them. Good job. You're them.

Yeah. He hates his kids, too. Who Who would you be, Dan? I think that's the right choice. I mean the

You're not a Brook Rollins guy. No, not Brook Rollins. I guess maybe you could be Scott

Vesset. What do you you get to punch people? Yeah, you do get to I'm trying to like you can't like you can't do like getting Pete taking Pete Hexath off the board would be very good, but you're going to have to do

Same with Pam Bondi obviously. Same with Christy Gnome. I don't think you can. Those are the worst. Yeah.

So I'm trying to think of the most. You're working closely with Cory Luendowski. closely.

Very closely. I mean, in every in every way. Dan, I think you could pull out Marco Rubio because he is also kind of like executing on his own plan for regime change in Venezuela because he thinks it will help topple the Cuban government. And I think if you stop doing that, Trump would be like, "All right,

cool." Yeah, he doesn't really care. Mark is an option. Yeah, I thought about that, too. Although a little highrofile, it's going to be harder to do things without him.

Yeah. You also have to like if you cared passionately about I mean, you don't want it to be education because you've already just eliminated the Department of Education. That seems like not a great place to go.

Weakest cabinet. Weak cabinet. The answer is Shawn Duffy. Shawn Duffy. Do you think the answer Shawn Duffy?

I think that you could go a long way to just bring a small measure of competence to air travel the United States. And I don't think Trump cares about a lot of the stuff.

True actually. That's just making literally making the trains on time. Yeah. This Yeah.

I think it's RFK. I think it's RFK. RFK is a first choice. For sure. For sure. I don't I don't dispute that. Lil Monster Ramara asks, "How granular is your audience demo information? Curious who else in Canada is listening."

Just you. You're the one. Li, I know where you live, what you're doing right now. You look great. No, we have uh podcast data is YouTube data is interesting. Get like demographics and stuff,

but we know how many people in Canada there are. Yeah, we have like we basically know like your the IP address where you're kind of kind of located, like city or town, whatever. But 3% of the audience is Canada.

Huh. I I took a look. But that's that's about all we know. But 3% of an enormous audience.

That's number three%. It's a small piece of a giant pie. I'll tell I wonder around 3% is UK too and then it gets

Yeah. It's like speaking. I wonder if it was bigger before our country started threatening to annex their country.

That would be a good Yeah, let's get someone to because I do think it should be higher since then.

Well, they're just not like they're genuinely really pissed at America. What do we do? We're on the right side. We can't decide. When I went to uh

You had Justin Trudeau on your podcast? When I went to uh the Montreal Comedy Festival when I was going through uh uh customs, there was a French uh speaking person in the g you spoke with a French accent and she said, "Where where you coming from?" And I said, "Uh the US." And she said, "How long are you staying?" And I said, "Don't worry, not long and I'm sorry." And she laughed and he's like, "We know it is not you.

We know we know." Hope hope Australia and New Zealand say that. I know. Me, too.

Um All right. Dr. Michael A. Urban and a whole lot of other blue sky users ask, "Why are the pod boys stewing their brains in the Nazi cesspool that is Twitter? What is the actual point?"

You call it stewing a brain. I call it building up a resistance, building up my immune system.

I'm literally just getting like articles. That's all I'm doing. And honestly, like no offense, Dr. Urban, I will never go to Blue Sky. I have no interest. If I wanted to have horrific intrademocratic party left fights all day long, I

close our office door, teleport back to 2016 and live in that hellscape. I just I never will do it. No offense. Our job is analyzing politics and the news and what's happening in politics. And that is happening still. All the journalists and politicians are on Twitter and if they weren't, I wouldn't be there. It is also like I'm sure it is a Nazi cesspool. My I don't my experience on Twitter is not just like scrolling and seeing Nazi all the time.

Yeah, I click away from that but I just don't see I guess I'm f because I'm following who I follow clips. Well, yeah, there's the funny. Well, that but that's part of our job also, like knowing the what that is saying. And so, it's like I got my I got my news column. I got my pundit column. I got my clips column of what's what's so it's just like I'm I'm I'm there for for that kind of And every once in

a while experience, I post something once. John's got the Matrix source code up on

You post something once in a while. I I do once once in a while. While and a while can be any length of time in a sense. Uh uh but but uh yeah, I think the bigger problem is not that Blue Sky is a better place and Twitter is a worse place because there's more Nazis than there are. It's that collectively just it's the stewing in the the kind of anger and antipathy and like different kind of negativities that I do think is genuinely bad for me and I go through bouts of I post much less than I ever did and it's actually rare that I post and I am trying to use it less but it is just it is useful. It just is and it's less useful than it was and that sucks because of Musk but uh it's still useful.

I know a lot of the focus on when the discussion is blue sky is like the tenor of the conversation there and it's mostly liberal and all that but I I tried blue sky for a while and my biggest problem is because the user base is so small. They have there's a chart the other a couple weeks ago and it showed that like at the bottom of the chart of all social media apps is like Blue Sky and Truth Social. the user base is like just tiny tiny tiny and if you're looking for news there it just doesn't update as fast because it's just not there's not as many people on it and so it's just not it's not as reliable uh for late breaking hap news happening every second it's just doesn't work

yeah there's this the there change to how Twitter operates for the average person not the people who are premium users who have the equivalent of what used to be tweet tech where you can curate your own feed has become a terrible way to follow news Because even now your following tab is algorithmically based and no longer uh chronological.

You can adjust that. I know D. There's a very complicated way to fix it. But that is the def that that being the default now. Like that's annoying for politics by the way.

It's horrible for sports. Yes. Like if you're scrolling because you're just you'll just get stuff from like

5 hours before or the first quarter of a game. It's made it much harder to follow news. But you can if you have a premium account, which we have without being paid for because of follower size. Um, just for people wondering if we're giving Elon our money, you can set up a feed that feels much more like old Twitter where you're only seeing the people that you want to see in the order in which they tweet, which makes is a much better experience for following news and politics.

Yes. Um, okay. Uh, Josephine with two Canadian flag emojis asks, "Would John Love it consider being on any other reality TV shows? Perhaps The Amazing Race."

Yes. I would like to. Okay. Which ones? I Well, I'd like to I'd like to be on one for more than a couple, you know, a couple hours is my goal. Amazing race. Uh it seems like it's a it's a it's a a lot of international travel and economy for me, but the uh uh but you know there, you know, I also slept on a floor in the beach, so I can do that probably.

You rough it all the time. Uh, but uh I I like I liked my my short turn in in on Survivor didn't go the way I wanted, but I I had I would like it was it's a fun I don't know what it is, but there's something about the like kind of participating in that kind of charged environment where you're not in charge. Like I like there's something really I don't know. I really find it interesting. I like the competitive ones. So, Amazing Race, something like that. Why not?

Traders, you have to go on Traders. Like that is the most likely place for you. You would be great at it. It would be so much fun for all of us. Uh, we have to I end on who's in charge of traders, but we have to make this happen.

Yeah, we got to get we got to get uh that get get that peacock on the phone. I got a couple pitches for you.

Uh, okay. What about uh Mil Manor? Uh, a show where middle-aged women dated each other's sons.

Sure. I mean, I guess I could hand out towels or something. Yep. Um, what about The Swan from 2004,

where I get a full makeover, where I get a facial surgery from Dr. Terry Dro underwent multiple plastic surgeries and weren't allowed to see mirrors.

Yep. Uh, I watched that when it aired. Uh, I actually interviewed uh Dr. Terry Dro about that very program and the ways in which it was seen as a horror and downfall of civilization. But yeah, I do that too. Why not?

Uh, celebrity boxing. You know, you know what? Boxing has never made sense to me because as a workout, it's asymmetrical. You're always facing one way and I never like that. I never like that. They never turn the other side. Not for me. No, thank you.

Last one. Flavor of love. Uh, sure. Okay. Yeah. So, there's got to be a producer list.

Love Island. Love Island. Yeah, another show I go home first on, I suppose. Can they Can they somehow send me home before they've clicked, they're like, "Oh, welcome to Love Island. You're already not here." That's so weird. It actually, you know, that Love Island, I believe, is down the beach from the Ponderosa. So, when I was in the Ponderosa hiding from you guys, pretending I was still uh competing, uh we I remember we were driving by and I think we like like we were we drove by where Love Island was actually being taped, I believe, at the same time.

Oof. Be more Seymour asks, "Love it. Eight little Hanukkah presents or one big one? You must choose."

Uh I would say one big Hanukkah present. One big Hanukkah present. I think that's great. I you know like as a kid the eight it really the the other thing too is for I think for most kids that get eight presents the first seven or six are just little tiny guilt or like coins or socks or something really small and then you get the one big one you know you're like come on be something that you have to plug in you know

something with a controller it is I I was on the way to school this morning Charlie asked me he was like so because they had a Hanukkah celebration there Christmas celebration today and he's like so what uh what's the deal with Hanukkah? Like what happens there? And I'm like, well, you know, eight nights, eight presents, one each night. And all of a sudden, he's like, he's like, and you were just telling me that Christmas is eight nights away. And I was complaining that that I have to wait that long. And he was like, I could see him like,

and he's like, oh, oh, can I do both? And mom's Jewish, I guess. Jill H asks, "For the parents, do you do timeouts? Why or why not?

Not yet. They're just too young. Just a just a belt for now. Jesus. Yeah, I know. I take I take his car keys away.

That was good. Take take the car keys away from my 18-month-old Dan. Uh no, we don't do timeouts. We do uh consequences that we try to make be associated with whatever

punishment fits the crime. Yeah. Whatever the infection is, right? Which when they're littleer is easier. It's like,

so smoke the the toy to smoke the whole carton. Uh, no. No timeouts with us yet.

Hey, where's parenting culture right now on on on discipline? Are we still in the gentle parenting age or people back to saying

there's a there's a backlash of gentle parenting happening? Okay. Yeah, I think so, too. I I I don't know. I just try to talk it out.

So far, so far it's working. We'll see. Wait, wait till Teddy's Teddy's two now, so who knows? Um, all right. What? Lauren JS1 asks, "What's the best book you read this year?"

Um, does anyone have an answer that's not abundance? I was I I was waiting for you to say that.

Didn't Yeah. Yeah. You know what I just I just read randomly? So, I was like going to bed at night. I read like 1929, which was excellent. great book, but it's like it's not

it's not not anxietyinducing to imagine like he draws a lot of great parallels between the stock market crash in 1929, the economy today. So, it's not like it's not the most relaxing kind of narrative. And I and I sort of it occurred to me, I mean Hannah pointed out to me, she's like, you're constantly reading like horrible like depressing things. So I was like, "Okay." I googled like best book about sports and I got a few options and one was open, which is Andre Agassy's biography.

Oh, yeah. Um, which is like super well regarded. I'd never like read it or heard of it. So I just did the thing where you can download the first chapter and read it. It is fantastic. It is so good. It's so interesting. He's such a thoughtful guy. He's super honest about like taking crystal meth and like playing tennis with a hairpiece and marriage falling apart and hating. He hated tennis. hated it really from a as a small child. He one of those dads who literally chose their house in Las Vegas

based on where he had the space to build a tennis court and then force his kid to hit balls all day long and he made him a star like the you know one of the best ever but miserable and it's an unbelievable book. The hairpiece story is so interesting because as a kid I remember I played tennis as a kid uh and uh and I was terrible. But uh Andre Agassi was so cool and he was so cool because of the hair. And it turns out that the hair was fake. He was terrified at all the time. It made him a worse player cuz he was worried that his hairpiece would fall off while he was playing.

Like a shocking thing to learn. He also would play in jean shorts. Do you remember that?

So cool. Oh yeah. Remember that he was treated as like a punk. He was just like, I don't know. He's like, I want to wear what I want to wear.

All right. Great book. Highly recommend it. Uh, so we started a a book club at Crooked this year and I wanted to do this and and our my only sort of rule for what not book we chose, was that it would be fiction and it would be not of this era, whatever that means. And our first and so our only book we've done is East of Eden, which I'd never read and I know is a classic, but was riveting and I absolutely loved it. And then I've been reading the Eric Larson books and I I read and I think I talked about this last year. I read uh the demon of unrest about the civil war, the rise of the coming of the civil war which is incredible. I'm reading Dead Wake, which is about the sinking of the lucist

awesome. It is riveting. Riveting. I just read Devil in the White City, too, which I also recommend, but I'm going to read.

Listen, I know I'm I'm done talking about Kazo Ishiguru. That's that's last year's business. Now it's all about Eric Larson.

You did one pod today. Yeah, I did talk about Ishiguru in a different pot I did with John. Poor John.

Have you read In the Garden of uh the beast? No, that's next. That's That is great, too.

So good. That's next. I wanted a Nazi break. Yeah. Yeah. I'm on a Nazi break. Am I reading?

Understood. You're in the wrong. Don't we all? Yeah. Yeah. Okay. In my life. Dan, you're a reader. I think the book, my favorite book this year is probably What We Can Know by Ian Mchuan, which is a very much not a book I would normally like other than I like Ian Mchuan, which is a story about like set in the future like in a post CL like a post-nuclear accident climate disaster where there's a guy who's researching about a dinner part a he's a he's an academic who's trying to find out who's researching about a dinner party that happened in our current time right now for a like a very by with a very famous poet who wrote a poem that then got lost to history and it's about how he sort of it takes place in this time and that time and it's how he finds wants to find out the secret why that poem was lost history it's great book Ian Mchuan who wrote atonement is a great writer um and it was bizarre I almost didn't read it

because the description seems so unlike something I would normally like but it was excellent

there's a I saw I I'm going to read it as well in part because Dan one thing that that people were saying was interesting about it is that in part it is about how much information we create right now and what it will be like for future historians to try to understand the past. Not because things are hard to know, but because everything is knowable,

right? Like so as he's doing this, he he has access to all of their texts and like location data from their phone about like who walked where, what day, what they were texting each other, the all the emails they sent. And so it is like a it's a it's like too much information. And it is almost alarming to think not that people are going to be doing history on us per se, but like what someone could know years from now about like in sort of first person information from a time period. It's very interesting.

Wow. As you know, I don't read. Um you were on you were on a I was I can't remember a a single like fiction book that I read this year actually because I it was all books for offline.

Want one want a fun one? Uh Hail Mary by Andy Weir I think is the guy who wrote That's a great book. Project is such a And you should read it before the movie comes out.

It's a blast. It's a bl Project Hail Mary. Project Hail Mary. It's really fun. I won't even tell you what it's about.

Don't tell it. Great. I need a book. So good. What a blast. Uh, okay. A staff asks, "What's been your favorite new TV series or season of an existing show this year?"

I just have not watched anything. Plurus. Plurus. So into Plurbus. I'm loving Plurabus.

Haven't seen it yet. Oh, you watch it, guys. Everybody's watching Plurabus. It's it's hard it's hard to describe too because also like you don't want to give away e

just go into it go into it without just Yes. Yeah. Most of our viewing is just like visual Xanax. It's like uh great British baking shows from like six years ago, you know, put you right to bed.

I know. Um I like I think my favorite show this year was Task. I heard that was good.

It was so good. I mean it is like so I would say it's not a good it's not the it's not does not serve the same purpose as uh Great British Baking Show. It is not relaxing. Um but it is like very emotional, very exciting. It's like truly truly a great show. Like I it's one of it's been a long time since there was a show that I like thought about so much.

Wow. Afterwards like this one. And then I've watched a bunch of like kind of what's that?

Hunting wives. Hunting like a lot of in the hunting hunting wives. It was very entertaining. Um, there's been a bunch of shows that are like super entertaining and like kind of good and like The Beasted Me. Uh, we just watched All Her Fault, which is uh which we were just talking to you and Emily about.

That's that's about the 2020 election. The 2016 election. Oh, 2016. Oh, both. It's back jumps back and forth. It's kind of jumps back.

We know what season Oh, what did I say? You said 2020. Oh, No. Oh, you know what I meant. The joke worked. All right. it.

I'm watching Secret Lives of Mormon Wives, which uh got turned on to and it is very entertaining. Very It's ridiculous, but what a blast.

Uh Death by Lightning was great. I'm excited to watch that. It's really good. Um

I got to watch some stuff. I I I am one episode in to the Ken Burns American Revolution.

Oh, catch you in 2020. Don't spoil it. Well, I was so surprised that I'm like, "All right, yeah, let's get into this." And I see how many episodes. And I started the first episode. I'm like just each episode is quite long. I

I remember my cousin uh fascinating growing up had the Civil War like VHS collection and it was like

12 tapes, you know? That's the that's I feel like this it's the same thing. I just struggle with documentaries about a time before audio and video because I'm just like, "Okay, why don't you guys type this up and then I'll read it."

I'm sorry. That's how does a good job. I'm sure he does. This is not fair what I'm saying.

Yeah. No, it's it's fair. All right. Um, love it added some hypotheticals. Yeah.

Okay. Uh, these are I guess this is just like do you agree or disagree? Yeah. There's sort of just sort of thought originally I was going to have more kind of classic like you could only have you have the fins of a fish but the head of a lion. And I couldn't come up with anything that was good. And so I just did did other pitches.

So this this the first one is everyone should wear a name tag all the time with their first name on it. Yes. Like it should be seen as rude and standoffish to not have a name tag on.

Yes. Yes. Yes. I will pound the table for this one because I end up uh people say names and they go

and then I feel awkward talking to them and so you feel more standoffish. You engage with people less cuz you feel like a bad person because you don't remember their name. And if you could just look down.

I'll go one further. I'll go one further. Tattoo it to your forehead. Everyone should have a little name tag in the world. Both for what Tommy's talking about. people that you named you forgotten, but also just in the world remembering that every person has a first name. Every car while you're driving it should have the first name of the driver just kind of in front so that you see the person in the other car not as an enemy who's in your way, but Jeff or Donna. And then it's like it's hard to hold your horn down at Donna.

Has it hasn't worked for social media? Good point. Docs are in chief. though the worst people are anonymous but the even but except for the people with their names which are even worse. So yeah, I take your point, you know, no bad ideas in a brainstorm.

I'm I'm I think it's a good idea. I'm with you, Tommy. I just can't. And it's it's also people that you It's always a kid things.

Yeah. And then but you can make a little jewelry. You can make it your own. It's special. It's the same way that now not having a phone is seen seen as obtuse and strange when before you didn't have to have one. It would just be like a cultural thing. No law or anything, but just like, oh, you don't wear a name tag. I guess you don't want people to talk to you. Weird. You bad person. get that name tag on and then the people on the internet being like actually neurode divergence they don't want to wear and I'm not saying you have to wear a name tag now I'm in a fight about abbleism what did I do

it's just an idea I'm sorry I take it back your your comment about tags made me think of the the best movie of 2025 which is coroner to the stars

which was about to tags Dr. Thomas Daguchi, the former LA County Chief Medical Coroner.

Highly recommended. Wow. Ben Heath Coat right there. Check it out. Um, okay. Every four-year college degree should be divided into three years and one floating year that is only available after age 40.

Oh, love it. I'm in. This is great. These are great ideas. Great idea. I want I I want this to happen

and I want you to know and I'm going next year because I did I will say because I this this I

can I go to a new school? You can go. Yeah. Well, we I actually was gaming it out because what I was thinking and I was like getting into the actual policy mechanics of it and because you'd say like, well, how are you going to pay for it? Well, you were already going to pay for a four-year degree. And if you pay for your fourth year of college and then go into the workforce, it's no worse economically than having just been in college for that year. And so ostensibly you would pay for the year in advance and then that money is in some kind of endowment growing to help you afford the year you get when you're over 40. Like I was actually I think there's actually way to do It's almost like everybody gets a kind of sbatical and then yeah, I have a pay I have a pay for and so better that's better than Republicans in Congress, you know, on the OBB and then when you turn 40, it's like it's it's

customary at some point you get your sbatical and then maybe people skip a midlife crisis and their midlife crisis is they go and learn cooking back at the school or somewhere near the you know you have to go to the same college. It's big big big difference.

I think you should have to go to the same college. I think that makes it more interesting thought experiment.

Okay. Yeah. But so now so now people with families got to go back to Holy Cross

back to Worester. Yeah. Okay. Okay. Well, no, you you leave your family. Oh, you leave your family for a year. So, you want So, this is now a kind of a rum spring aer kind of people get to escape their lives for a year. In my mind, it was just you get to go learn. Am

I going to spring break again? Yeah, spring break. It's uh cuz in my mind it's like I I do feel like, oh, like I there were so many things I didn't learn or didn't think I cared about. Now,

I was thinking about this purely in social fun terms. Wow. I could see the wheel turning at John's eyes back at the bar at the frat house or whatever. It's like what theoretical math class could I take? I was 100% focused on like like like maybe I would do physics. That's I did not think about socializing for a second.

This time I'm going to Florida or Arizona. I was like now you have now you have a little more money so you can go on a better spring break. You're not like nine people to a hotel room.

If I was at South Padre Island in the grill like I would like to do maybe do like kind of update my statistics, you know, get back into it.

I do think about all the books I didn't read and think wish I'd just read those.

There you go. Uh, every year we do a nationwide ranked choice vote on the top apps with chat functions, WhatsApp, email, Slack, etc. And one is eliminated.

Oh, yes. That's all. Just one goes. Great idea. One goes. Yes. Cuz we just keep stacking them up and they have to check them all.

It's unbelievable. And once you're eliminated, you're out for good. Yeah. It you're out for good. The app is deleted. I mean, a lot of their success is uh kind of a network effect of having been picked up and taken up by others, right? All right. The only reason Slack managed to get in is because they figured out that they could take over a business at a time. Otherwise, they would have faced the hurdle that uh the fact that we don't need another way to communicate.

Um, one more. I'm going to throw in one more just for fun, which is double the number of people in Congress.

Okay. Not only that, I would say double the number in the House to shrink the districts.

Uh, because the districts are now kind of in this in between. We have the same had the same number of member number of members for a country uh uh of of much fewer people and it now defeats the purpose of having a local representative and all this talk about gerrymandering in part it's like well what should a district be? Well, all districts are kind of pretty um uh varied now because they take in so many different people. They're they're they're much bigger than they used to be. So much smaller districts uh would mean you'd have you know your congressperson there just be it's just more democracy. And I actually think Democrats could like make that part of a platform. We want more democracy. We want members of Congress to have fewer people they report to in the House.

And they'd get so much more done with all that more more people. Double the Randy fines. There's there's some merit to this. I like this idea.

Think about that. I'm going to think about that. I thought about it. There's also like a probably a really good argument for paying them way more. Like I think Singapore you make like a million dollars a year if you're a repres elected official.

You just couldn't get a you know higher quality of person. Yeah. Pod Save America is brought to you by Cook Unity. The new year is a time where you get to do a reset. That's right. You get to you get to you get to do a resolution. Yeah. To everybody, all the teams are at zero zero. You know what they say? Um and Cook Unity brings restaurant level flavor to your fresh start with chef designed dishes that balance nourishment, creativity, and everyday luxury. Choose your own path with new meal collections like fiber maxing, mood boosting, better for sleep, and protein forward. I want to fiber max. I want a mood boost. Then I don't need sleep. Cook Unity is also launching Chef's Table, Lunar Feast Drop, a limited two collaboration where chefs celebrate Lunar New Year with symbolic fortune-filled dishes and behind the scenes storytelling.

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Dan, you go first. Sure, why not? What do you got, Dan? Let's play dance. One, I am going to make another run at my attention span. And the thing I've started doing since election, which has caused me to miss many of John's best Twitter fights, is to put my phone away before I put my kids to bed and not look at it for the rest of the night. I want to take up yoga in 2025. Sorry, did we get some this year?

How'd that go? Hey, Dan. Well, I was one for two. Yeah. How's your How's your asas? How's your uh How's our downward dog?

I would say the yoga went much better than my attention span. Wow. That is a shock. I thought it would have been the other way around. So, you really are doing yoga.

No, the attention span like I this is like a I've been wrestling with this for a year now. Like I'm very concerned about the impact of like short form video on my brain.

Um feel you. But I I used to I really used to, as I said there, would put my phone away when we put the kids to bed and not look at it again until right before bed just to like make sure that nothing was on fire or anything.

That has failed. That is the phone is back. Uh but I have done yoga, you know, not every week, but you know, maybe every, you know, on average every two weeks for the last year. So

Dan, will you do a tree pose with me right now? Namaste. Uh no, no, I will not. Oh, that's only that's for the premier subscriber subscribers.

All right. See you. I I want everyone in this room friends only dance chakra. You can see only dance.

No tree pose. I don't believe this resolution until I see a tree pose. All right.

So I will continue for the third year in a row to work on my attention span. Um so I have three this year cuz I figure the more I have the better chance I have succeeding at least once.

The second which runs completely diametrically opposed to the other one is one I'm stealing from my friend John F from 2024 which is I'm going to post more. Okay. Yeah, now you're all like

Unbelievable. I I think like I really have like love said like I have like I still use Twitter way too much. I look at it too much. But I

I do see that I have stopped posting. I've stopped like promoting our stuff, promoting my stuff, like like putting our point of view in the world. And it is like a tool in which we can even in the smallest way possible like influence things. And I sort of come to hate it. I've hate the responses to it. I hate the criticism from our side, the other side. I hate the feeling of it, but I think I have to like suck that up and just like do it because it's part of what like we do content like this is what we do. So, you kind of have to do it. I also have to toughen up there.

Post and mute. I feel like that's kind of weak. You like you got you got to swim in the

Yeah, I agree. I agree with you guys. If you're gonna if you're going to put it out there, you got to you got to live with the consequences, I think.

Yeah. If you don't Yeah. It's like you don't cook if you're not willing to do the dishes. That's still invalid. And so the third one is is one that is harder to hold me accountable for. Um, which is both probably a feature and a bug. But I've been thinking a lot about how like in my life and this drove of all of us that like for a long time in our careers, we were always like in positions where we were like had jobs that were like harder than maybe we should have at the time or above our station in life and like sort of live with the discomfort of pushing ourselves all the time. And I feel now that we like we've done this podcast for a long time. I've done message box for five years now and like I kind of like know what I'm good at and I know what I'm not good at and I feel like I've become very good at avoiding the things I'm not good at. Um and so like I do like heading into 2026 like want to push myself to be

a little less comfortable in what I do like to like sort of lean into things that I know are not my favorite things to do or I'm not as good at and try to do more of them and like challenge myself more than just like keep doing the thing that like I know how to do if that makes sense. cuz that was like for my whole life before basically I left the White House was always in a position of like not that I want to live like this again but where it's like I we're always like one step away from like absolute disaster in any of our careers and like living with that I don't live with that stress but I want to find something from the from like between there and like pure comfort if that makes sense.

Yeah. It's funny. There's like a um I think of like there's like a natural trajectory which is like when you're younger if you feel comfortable you don't necessarily feel safe because you want to be on to the next thing, right? And so you you achieve some level of understanding of what you're doing and then there must be something wrong. You have to go find the next thing. That's what I was like anyway where like oh I like had written a comedy now I got to write a drama. I'd been a speech writer now to be a comedy writer. And I think the motivation was very defensive and not based in what like it wasn't a well-made decision. It was more about feeling like if I'm I don't want to be part of any club that would have me as a member. And what's funny is I do think then you go through a phase of then thinking, oh no, the goal is to be comfortable in what you're doing. And then you get older and it's like no,

that's actually a recipe for allowing yourself to be incurious and to be stuck in your ways and to kind of lose the plasticity of your brain.

Very well said. So I feel the same way. Cobra post. Low cobra. Low cobra. Right on.

Low cobra. I want to I my one small resolution is I want to try to figure out if I can do a if I'm too old to do a dragon squat.

That's right. You all heard it. Put me on record googling that. Careful. You got to I only I only look at dragon spots in my incognito window.

Um love it. You are I can go next. Let's see what I said. last year. We are coming to the end of a year where we made a lot of shows and we did a ton of content and there's a lot happening and I want to try next year to do a little bit less a little bit better.

Nope. Absolutely not. Absolutely not. Uh it's funny. I think a little bit less a little bit. Okay.

Yeah. Uh quality over quantity. Yeah. Yeah. Uh, I feel like I did a little bit more the same. Like I don't think I did anything more.

You added like an entire series. Yeah, I think we did I did I did more a ton of YouTube

I did more. We did a lot We did a lot more. I don't I I I do think what I will say one way I do think I upheld this is we really have tried to make the love it or leave it monologue something we focus on and not just have it be a run of jokes but try to figure out what we're saying about the week. So I think there's been a little I brought a little bit being a little bit more deliberate to some of what uh we've been doing which I think and and by the way even think about how we do interviews. I think we've all like kind of stepped back and try to think about like how to make how to be I guess really what I want to be is more deliberate and I think I'm trying. I think that in fairness. Uh so my resolutions um so I don't want to post more but I do want to write more and I have not been using Twitter that much but especially in really kind of tense moments maybe for myself maybe because I think it has

some value. I'm not sure. I've been writing against the type of the medium. So like Twitter is for just thrown off takes and I've been writing these long

Bill Bill Aman length things at times Bill Aman length things but I and people make fun of them. I don't really care but like I just like as a place to be thoughtful and do what is not natural for the medium which is kind of lay out fully what I'm thinking why somebody what somebody said without attacking them bothered me. I still do the dunking when I get on there sometimes, whatever. But I've been actually enjoying that kind of writing. And so I what I want to do is find a place, maybe it's our sub, find a way to write that way, maybe on Substack and then post some of it on social media, but I want to be a little bit more deliberate of laying things out. Especially because I find I forget until I do it. Oh, when you actually sit down and really write down something, you actually clarify your own thinking in a way that carries through.

and it's just a muscle that I used to work more and I think it makes me better and I want to get back to doing it. That's one. And then two, um I have really gotten into cooking and I and baking and I want to be more deliberate and methodical about it and I want to learn more and actually not and like really kind of learn technique and be able to cook without recipes. I want to host more dinner parties where I'm cooking things. I want to like really build up my skills because I I like it. It's actually really it's you can't be on your phone and that is my second resolution.

Great. Good one. Uh am I up? Okay. All right. I can go. I'll listen to this pain. I hate my voice so much.

I want to talk to more smart people off air experts. I want to get good at using AI tools.

I tried to use chat GPT to write me a list of resolutions and I failed. Finally, I've been reading a book about mindfulness meditation, but I haven't been doing it. I think it'll be good to do it. It's good for you.

Mhm. Uh I did the experts thing. Yeah. Making some phone calls. Crush that AI tools. I don't know. I just use chat.

You just did it. You just proved it. I did. I did earlier in this podcast. I did at 3:45 today. Sign up for a new AI service. Pay them a bunch of money to make one thing that I'll probably need Rocket Rocket Runny to unsubscribe me. Mindfulness. No, not even close. Not even a little bit. Not even once, I don't think. So,

those hats, by the way, those were our uh the survivor hats. Oh, that's why we tribe has spoken hats.

Tribe has spoken hats that What a year. So my resolution is this is going to be a year of saying yes not to work to things that are fun. So it's like I think I vary our our our work schedules are very regimented for me. It's Monday Tuesday intense prep record prep record and it makes you like feel hard to do Um and it makes me not travel. I want to travel more and say yes to trips and get out of the office and do things and go places.

Love that for you. Yeah, it's fun. I mean, my friend invited me to go on the trip to London for like a weekend basically, and normally I would say no, but I'm going to go because I'm like, "No, we're going to do this." The Australia thing we said y'all said yes to. It's like

I was genuinely shocked when we got a yes. Being away from my kids for that long is like Tommy's always the hardest yes to get. You know, I had a three-year-old and a 18-month-old and, you know, came out of a pandemic. Like, it's sort of an anxietyinducing thing to go to a new continent and be away from your kids for that long. I was like, you know what, just do it.

So, I'm excited for Tom reading between the lines. He's going to try ketamine and open his marriage. Things sound pretty exciting. It's a big year for Tommy. Uh Tommy is saying yes.

So many jokes I want to make that get me in more trouble. All right. All right. Let's let's let's go. My resolution this year. This one I'm going to I'm going to nail.

I cannot wait. More posting. Yeah. Okay. I'm going more posting. More Twitter fights.

Yeah. Yeah. You you nailed it. You did it. You nailed it. Honestly, I've never seen I will tell you something. I will admit something. I thought that resolution was so stupid and I so bad for you and it's still by the way it might have been bad for you but it wasn't stupid.

Uh you had you really were on to something. Uh I will say though for for next year very similar to you like writing and it's not just writing more but I you know I was doing a few of these like essays for offline at the beginning and I found it like I used to hate writing until it was done immed you go through this horrible process and then it's done you're like oh great it's done. Um but for some reason the the offline essays I've enjoyed because it really does help me just like put down on paper on a screen um what I'm thinking. It helps me clarify my thinking and I've like stopped caring about I'm like

do they do well? Do they do people like them? I don't care. Just going to do it and it's going to make me feel good and it's it's helping me spend less time doing the takes on Twitter by like getting everything down. It's almost like you get it out of your system. So I like that. Um

you always get a thoughtful charitable response from the internet and also friends.

Yeah. Well, the internet I you know I don't really care about Twitter. I don't see the I don't see the replies there. Once in a while I dip into the Discord.

Yeah. Yeah. love you, Discord. Uh, but yeah, no, I think that's that's fun. And I'm also going to try um one night a week, like just no news,

just go home and if I'm going to use the phone, it's like we'll carry the burden.

Yeah, I have to find out. Night will be Sundays and Wednesdays. Well, then who will take the watch?

Who will wa who will guard the wall on Wednesdays? Brian Stelter alone. Yeah. Are you reading the news every single night in the evening?

Yeah. Well, I mean I mean like it's never not reading the news. Never not read I'm scrolling here and there. It's not like I'm sitting for a full news, you know?

I'm opening tabs. Yeah. You're Yeah. Huh. Yeah. But it's just it's too often. It's just got like just at least this is like a baby step thing. Just one night. Let's try one night.

I think you should do that. I think you should do that. Can I weigh in on your posting?

Sure. Joy. your posting resolution last year because I think it is as love said ridiculous

and you but you did it well. But I think the truth of it is is not the volume of the posting

like what you what you really resolved to do was that you were going to say what you believed and you're not going to care what anyone else said.

Yeah. It's the motion which I which I think is very admirable and you really you know it's funny because my my final resolution for next year because I thought I thought about that.

Well, you already did this one. Yeah. Well, no. I thought Oh, now you're going to start caring again.

No, no, no. I was like, we are we are heading into uh a midterm season. There's going to be Democratic primaries and then we're going to, you know, then it's going to be talking about the Democratic presidential primary in 2028. And I feel like I want to be not like I but like very open and honest about both um criticism of Democratic candidates, but in a way that is constructive. if I want to like think about the criticism so that it's not just like you suck and you can't do anything about it, but like okay, what would I do? Right? And so be constructive that way. And if I really like something someone did, say it and be honest about it and not feel like if I say everyone's going to be like, "Oh, you're in the tank for so and so." You know, because it's like I just want to be as honest as I can be about all the Democrats running for office. Because I think that sometimes I feel like in the

past you're like, "I don't want to be too tough because then they'll be mad at me or I want to be too nice because then people, you know, so

it was brutal last time. It sucked last time. It sucked. We were everyone was mad at us all the time for being too like everyone thought we were in the tank for this candidate. Like at the same time there were people were like the pod bros are all for Bernie and then it would be all the Bernie people be like the pod bros suck. And I like this goes to mind about being more uncomfortable is one of it is is being willing being less reticent about taking on criticism for the things I say, right? Or right or like

and it's just sort of like like taking people along with my like stream of consciousness thoughts about candidates that can sometimes change too, you know, and it's like I liked that speech. I didn't really like that. I thought that was good. I didn't think that was that great. Here's why. You know, that kind of stuff. It's funny because like for me part of what I want to do, the part of the reason I want to write a little bit more and step back a little bit more is I actually think like I sometimes like I'm like I lose sight of why like like what what is my value and like what what is it that I offer and I actually think like you know I am like my actual like political analysis like I much rather step back and like like think about something in a way that maybe is a little offkilter. Maybe it's not turns out to be wrong, but like I just would like to bring a little bit of more weirdness, which means really a little

bit more of like things that are not currently kind of necessarily exactly what people are saying or talking about, you know, because I just want to like step outside of the scrum because I think I do a little better outside of the scrum. That's part of what I'm trying I'm trying to do.

JB Pritzkar, can you do a dragon squat? Yeah. Did you look up what a dragon squat is?

I did. It looks really hard. It's really hard. Difficult. Dan, do Pilates with me next year.

Make that your resolution. Yeah, do Pilates. Yeah, film it behind the payw wall.

Behind. That was almost my Tally Online today was the solid core feud. Oh, yeah. I'm up and I'm I would I up to date.

All right, guys. That's our show for today. Happy New Year to everyone. Don't forget to take your Ziotics. On Friday, we'll be dropping a special episode of our subscriberonly show, Inside 2025, into this feed. It's Love its conversation with legendary and reclusive Democratic strategist Phipe Rhinus.

I love that. Love it. What did you guys talk about? So Phipe played Donald Trump both in the Hillary Clinton debate prep and the Kla Harris debate prep. Didn't get called on by Joe Biden because Joe Biden said, "Don't worry, I got this." Uh but uh it it was really he really went full method and he's just an insightful person about how you deal with someone like Trump. That's I think partly why he had the kind of um kind of skill set to beat Trump. So, it was a and it was a great conversation. Genuinely, one of my favorite conversations in a while.

Awesome. Check it out. Uh and then we'll be back with a new show on Tuesday, January 6th. Bye, everyone.

We'll be wild. Bye, everyone.

Questions about this episode

What is discussed in "The MENTAL Decline of Donald Trump (Your Questions Answered)"?

In order: 0:00 Dan Feifer, John Favro, John Lovevet, RFK Jr. / RK Jr.; 10:00 Zaran Mandani, Tom Dashel; 20:00 JB Pritzkar, Zaran Mandani; 30:00 Brook Rollins, Chrissy Gnome, Cory Luendowski, Dr. Michael A. Urban; 40:00 Eric Larson, Andre Agassi, Dr. Mo Hannah, Dr. Terry Dro; 1:00:00 Cook Unity; 1:10:00 Bill Aman, JB Pritzkar, mindfulness meditation, Phipe Rhinus.

What is mentioned in this Pod Save America episode?

28 people, works and ideas are mentioned, including Elvis Dan, Zaran Mandani, Cook Unity, RFK Jr. / RK Jr., Tom Dashel, JB Pritzkar. Each one on this page links to its own page with every episode that mentions it.

How long is "The MENTAL Decline of Donald Trump (Your Questions Answered)"?

The episode runs 1 h 21 min; the transcript is about 17,985 words in 348 timestamped sections.

More from Pod Save America

About this transcript: the episode's spoken words as captioned on YouTube, split into timestamped sections. Reclip.Me locates every person, work and idea in the text, keeps the time it is first named, and quotes the words around it verbatim. Last updated January 24, 2026.