Transcript

Trump FAILS MISERABLY In DISASTER Address

From Pod Save America · Episode page · Watch on YouTube

· 1 h 23 min · 16,567 words · 226 timestamped sections

This is the full, timestamped transcript of "Trump FAILS MISERABLY In DISASTER Address", an episode of Pod Save America published December 19, 2025 (1 h 23 min, about 16,567 words). It mentions 38 people, works and ideas, including The White House, Tariff King, Gender affirming care, Kennedy Center, White House Chief of Staff.

What this episode is about

The content critiques a prime-time address by Trump, where he passionately claimed to be fixing the economic mess he inherited and refuted criticisms regarding issues like gender identity in sports. The discussion also covers various political topics, including potential intervention in Venezuela, Trump's executive orders on gender-affirming care, and internal strife within the House over healthcare issues.

Key takeaways

  • Trump's economy tirade: like selling $500 sunglasses to a blindfolded congressional hearing.
  • Two-thirds dislike tariffs; Trump trumpets them. It's like preaching garlic breath at a vampire ball.
  • Prime Time misstep: CBS interrupted Survivor for Trump's surreal economics lecture—ironies don't get richer.
  • The DNC plans to bury its own 2024 autopsy? Is there a funeral for transparency?
  • Executive orders: from gender policies to marijuana, Trump's like an artist splattering paint, hoping critics see a masterpiece.

What is discussed, and when

  1. – 10:00: The White House, crooked.com/friend, Gender affirming care, Polar Coaster
  2. – 20:00: The White House, White House Chief of Staff, Bobby Gibbs
  3. – 30:00: Mint Mobile, I've Had It, The White House, Angie Sullivan
  4. – 40:00: Exxon Mobil, Joint Base Andrews, Mexican cartel
  5. – 50:00: Gender affirming care, Social Security Act, weed industry
  6. – 1:00:00: The White House
  7. – 1:10:00: BetterHelp, Biden campaign, Harris campaign, Message Box
  8. – 1:20:00: Kennedy Center, The White House, Indivisible, Message Box
  9. – 1:23:09: crooked.com/friend, Polar Coaster

Notable quotes from "Trump FAILS MISERABLY In DISASTER Address"

  • Go to war with Venezuela to take their oil. his executive orders banning gender- affirming care for young people and relaxing marijuana restrictions.
    about Gender affirming care · at
  • It's very festive there at the White House.
    about The White House · at
  • Wherever you get your podcast or watch full episodes on YouTube. Pod Save America is brought to you by Mint Mobile. you don't have to let big wireless and your overpriced phone…
    about Mint Mobile · at
  • It is literally It is literally invading a country so that Exxon Mobile can start pumping again.
    about Exxon Mobil · at
  • Ziprecruiter is the smartest way to hire. This episode is sponsored by BetterHelp.
    about BetterHelp · at
  • Have been some really good reports that have come out. There was deciding to win. We talked about a bunch. way to win has a report that came out la last week or the week…
    about Way to Win · at
  • One of the reasons that we do what we do and especially, whether it's message box with you and Polar Coaster or Wilderness or any of the things we do here at Crooked is I think…
    about Message Box · at
  • Imagine they rename the Kennedy Center after Trump today just as another thing they did. You think he's just like sitting there in the oval just dictating the caption? He's not writing anything.
    about Kennedy Center · at

Who and what is mentioned in this episode?

People

  • Bobby Gibbs — Person · 1 mention · first at
    Tell you that had my shaved head and it was me you Alyssa and Bobby Gibbs and Ellen Moran that was our that was our picture well no ours was ours that's right We didn't have Alyssa. Yeah, Alyssa was with the schedule. Yeah.
  • Jennifer Welch — Person · 1 mention · first at
    You're not already a listener and if you like getting fired up about the news, you got to check it out. Jennifer Welch and Angie Sullivan are quite funny and quite hilarious.…
  • Angie Sullivan — Person · 1 mention · first at
    Like getting fired up about the news, you got to check it out. Jennifer Welch and Angie Sullivan are quite funny and quite hilarious. They also land great guests like Barack…
  • Dan Scavino — Person · 1 mention
  • Millard Fillmore — Person · 1 mention

Companies & orgs

  • Kennedy Center — Company · 5 mentions · first at
  • Polar Coaster — Company · 3 mentions · first at
    That's the host of Polar Coaster right here.
  • Exxon Mobil — Company · 2 mentions · first at
  • Way to Win — Company · 2 mentions · first at
  • Message Box — Company · 2 mentions · first at
  • Biden campaign — Company · 1 mention · first at
    300 people. I think there were 300 interviews on the Biden camp Biden campaign, Harris campaign, states, the super PAC people, all where the money was spent, the polling, all of it. They had all of it. And so like very valuable.
  • Harris campaign — Company · 1 mention · first at
    300 people. I think there were 300 interviews on the Biden camp Biden campaign, Harris campaign, states, the super PAC people, all where the money was spent, the polling, all of it. They had all of it. And so like very valuable.
  • Wilderness — Company · 1 mention · first at
    And especially, whether it's message box with you and Polar Coaster or Wilderness or any of the things we do here at Crooked is I think there's a group of Democratic…
  • Indivisible — Company · 1 mention · first at
    Bid in a Trump plus 15 district that we might be able to win here. It is the people who run local indivisible in swing left chapters. It's the people who are thinking of they…
  • Swing Left — Company · 1 mention · first at
    Might be able to win here. It is the people who run local indivisible in swing left chapters. It's the people who are thinking of they may want to run, they're thinking about…
  • CBO — Company · 1 mention
  • Marist Poll — Company · 1 mention
  • Problem Solvers Caucus — Company · 1 mention
  • Quinnipiac Poll — Company · 1 mention

Products & tech

  • ZBiotics Pre-Alcohol — Product · 4 mentions
  • I've Had It — Product · 2 mentions · first at
    If you didn't see the other day while I was in New York, I had the pleasure of going on the I've had it podcast. if you're not already a listener and if you like getting fired…
  • Sharpie — Product · 1 mention · first at
    He doesn't type. I don't think he uses other than a Sharpie.

Concepts & topics

  • Tariff King — Concept · 6 mentions
  • Gender affirming care — Concept · 5 mentions · first at
  • White House Chief of Staff — Concept · 4 mentions · first at
    On today's show we'll talk about the fallout or lack thereof from the 11 extremely candid interviews White House Chief of Staff Susie Wilds did with Vanity Fair. We'll also…
  • Hyde Amendment — Concept · 2 mentions
  • Mexican cartel — Concept · 1 mention · first at
    Extrajudicial killings, war crimes, murders on the high sea. he wanted to do it against Mexican cartels.
  • weed industry — Concept · 1 mention · first at
    This decision came about not because of any change of heart, but because of heavy lobbying from the weed industry, which has poured millions into Trump aligned political…
  • Social Security Act — Concept · 1 mention · first at
    That has no chance in the Senate, could do it, but you're relying on a like basically one line in the Social Security Act that gives you to do this and some real questions…

Places & events

  • The White House — Place · 15 mentions · first at
  • Joint Base Andrews — Place · 1 mention · first at
    Tankers going into and out of Venezuela. He then repeated the threat on the tarmac at Joint Base Andrews on Wednesday. Let's listen.
  • Rose Garden — Place · 1 mention · first at
    You're taking the amp punk the yellow umbrellas off the off the rose garden. And what else?
  • West Colonnade — Place · 1 mention

Sponsors

  • Hims — Sponsor · 6 mentions
  • Mint Mobile — Sponsor · 3 mentions · first at
  • BetterHelp — Sponsor · 3 mentions · first at
  • crooked.com/friend — Sponsor · 2 mentions · first at
    Go check it out. Subscriber only show crooked.com/friend.
  • ZipRecruiter — Sponsor · 1 mention · first at
    Candidate within the first day. Just go to this exclusive web address right now to try ZipRecruiter for free.

Full transcript with timestamps

headsets like I need to Steven Miller's the guy really running the government and so if he wants to kill some people in boats and my buddy Marco wants to overthrow this dictator I'm in

yeah and now we're on the cusp of war with Venezuela because threeing morons got together looking for something to do

welcome to Pod Save America. I'm John Favro. I'm Dan Feifer. On today's show we'll talk about the fallout or lack thereof from the 11 extremely candid interviews White House Chief of Staff Susie Wilds did with Vanity Fair. We'll also cover Trump explicitly making the case that we might go to war with Venezuela to take their oil. Uh his executive orders banning gender- affirming care for young people and relaxing marijuana restrictions. Mike Johnson losing control of the House over Obamacare subsidies. The DNC's plans to bury its 2024 autopsy report.

And Trump's latest home decorating project, personally writing the copy for a new set of presidential plaques designed to troll his predecessors. Lovely, lovely, Dan. Uh, but let's start with Trump's decision to interrupt the Survivor season finale Wednesday with a prime time address that sounded like an angry old man who'd taken too much aderall yelling at us about the how the economy is actually great. And if you don't believe that, it's Joe Biden's fault. Uh, if you had the good sense to skip it, here's a taste of how it went.

Good evening, America. 11 months ago, I inherited a mess and I'm fixing it. We had men playing in women's sports, transgender for everybody, and our country was laughed at from all over the world. But they're not laughing anymore. Much of this success has been accomplished by tariffs. My favorite word, tariffs. I negotiated directly with the drug companies and foreign nations to slash prices on drugs and pharmaceuticals by as much as 400, 500, and even 600%. One year ago, our country was dead. We were absolutely dead. Our country was ready to fail. Totally failed. Now, we're the hottest country anywhere in the world.

Needs more garland. It's very festive there at the White House. A jungle. Um, so Maris poll from this week. Uh, guess which percentage of Americans have some degree of concern about the impact of tariffs on their financial situation?

Would it be two-thirds of Americans, John? It would be twothirds of Americans, Dan. That's the host of Polar Coaster right here.

Go check it out. Subscriber only show crooked.com/friend. Oh, an organic plug. I love it.

You know, it's I should have I should have named this as one of my New Year's resolutions. um around 60% opposed the tariffs and he just it's like the the main policy he implemented that is causing people to feel that prices are too high and that they can't afford life is the one he keeps bragging about in the speeches where he's supposed to allay people's concerns about affordability.

Yeah. He can't help himself. He can't help himself. Um, I mean this speech, Go ahead. Question and then I'll give you my answer.

Yeah. What What What did you think of the speech? What did you think of the speech? It did. He didn't start like an old man on aderall yelling, but if you could tell by the last couple clips we did, he really picked up some scene there. He was trying to get it done by 20 minutes. And God help him, he did.

I got I have a lot of thoughts on this, but just from a basic strategic point of view, this is an epic disaster. It serves no purpose. If the goal was to improve his political standing, it is if it does anything, it does the opposite.

Yeah. because you just can't tell people, you know, you have two-thirds of Americans who think prices are too high, two-thirds of Americans are unhappy with the direction of country, two-thirds of Americans who are unhappy with the economy, you know, majorities who disapprove of his economic performance, which is now in in the 30s in most polls and even lower than in the low 30s when it comes to inflation. You can't tell them that things are good. That is like just he might as well just go around and just stick his thumb in the eye of every persuadable voter in America because that's what he's doing. It it from a strategic point of view, it makes no sense. It is uh absolute disaster.

Poorly delivered. I got a lot of thoughts on the networks giving him the time for this. Uh

they kind of got snowed, huh? What what like first of all, it's hard as we know, right? It's hard to get you mean you you've actually asked networks for time. I imagine uh it is it's hard to get time from the networks for a prime time speech that interrupts their prime time programming. Uh particularly the three-hour season finale of

three hours. Wow. Survivor. I know. I know. Imagine if we had to watch Love It for 3 hours.

I was going to say lucky lucky. It's quite a hypothetical. I'd say that. Lucky for us that was about three minutes.

Imagine if we had to watch me in the NBA finals. Um yeah. So they don't they're not they don't like to give that up. They especially don't like to give up prime time uh to presidents when they make purely political speeches and have in fact turned down

presidents for speechama in fact for that they deem too political and this one is like you know Joe Biden was a scenile old man and he up the country and you know it's like what is he doing?

Yeah. There was no news. We'll get to the fake news in here in a minute but there's no real news in the speech. There's no purpose like to get this time and this time was obviously much more valuable in the 2010s than it is now. Um, but still this is during the Survivor Finale. It's CBS's biggest, I would assume, non-sports night of the year. Um, and normally you need to be responding to a national tragedy, declaring war, like a major piece of legislation that is passing. Maybe it's very like in the first 100 days of your presidency, but it's just a year-end wrap-up rally speech is not something you would get time for. And even in the past if they gave it to you they would have given a response time to the other party whereas like a Hakee Jeff or Alyssa Slack or whatever else could have responded. So they just gave it to him and that does I think speak to the way in which Trump has intimidated major

media companies right like you think you think CBS uh in the midst of the you know trying to get control of Warner Brothers uh Discovery is going to turn them down. Do you think the Disney company wants another fight with Trump so they're going to turn down ABC? Comcast which is also looking at various mergers. You think they're going to turn them down for NBC? No. It's this is what this this is where Trump has bullied the president, giving him something they would not not have given another president.

Yeah. And uh you know their fault for doing it, but also kind of glad they did because

Yeah. Do it again. Like here's my thing. On a purely principled point of view, it's absurd they gave it to him. Do it again. Do it tomorrow. Once a week.

Once a week. Every Wednesday. 20 minutes of Trump. It's the fireside chat of 2026.

Yes. Old Donnie Trump. every once a week he's going to come. He's going to yell at us about how good everything is and and why we should be uh mad at Joe Biden if we're not happy and uh and just, you know, yell some more and that's great. And all these people who don't who've tried to tune out Donald Trump and don't aren't paying too much attention to politics when he jumps into their screen and starts yelling at them,

you know, maybe they'll think about that when they go to vote in the midterms. So, uh yeah, rule number one, you don't give a speech when you have nothing to say. He didn't have anything to say. The the only uh nugget of news, I guess you could call it, is he announced that there would be a bonus a bonus stipen

for troops for all the troops. All of our troops getting a bonus stipen. Do you know how much that bonus stipend is?

$1,776. Get it? What are the odds of that? Get it? Cuz it's 250th anniversary coming up. 1776.

That guy, he's a marketer. I know. Um, first of all, the for the average salary that someone in the military makes, that's like a a 2 to 3% bonus. So, nice bonus, very generous. Um, and then we found out actually where's he getting the money from this? Well, he's getting the money from the housing stipen that Congress appropriated for the troops.

Yeah. So, he's robbing Yes. Once again, just, you know, once a scammer, always a scammer. Uh,

and that I mean that was the only news in the speech like like Carolyn Leuch a new policy. I mean we did think and we'll get to this later but like there all the rumors were and this goes to the gravity of getting the na the national time is that if Trump is getting the national time it probably meant we were going to war with Venezuela. Instead, we were going to war with Joe Biden and the facts,

which honestly makes sense from a political perspective for the White House, which is like, do we want to make our insane case for war with Venezuela or should we just do it and and have him just lie to people about how good the economy is instead?

Yeah. Except the lying to neither are good choices. The but just I really can't emphasize enough how politically negative it is. It's toxic to when people are mad about the economy to tell them that things are great. that like we've I said this before, you and I have watched focus groups where people have literally tried to flip the table over. They're so mad when you give them a message that suggests that they're wrong and things really are good. And he's just he seems, which I think is true, out of touch and delusional with how people actually feel cuz he really it's like it's all golden age of America. Pat ourselves on the back. More progress than anyone has ever seen before. Done more than every president ever in the history of time. And no one even like other than his like true fanboys and like the true MAGA base, no one believes that. Large the majority of people who voted for him don't believe it. And so

you sound crazy when you say it. You know, a big part of it is his delusional narcissism, but I think all presidents um can find themselves in a bubble once they're in the White House. And you know, at the end there, that last clip he was talking about, you know, I all these foreign leaders come up to me and say, "The country is so hot. It's never been better." It's like, you know who used to say that? Actually, it's Joe Biden. remember he would say, "All the foreign leaders tell me that we're doing a great job that we're coming back and all this kind of stuff."

And it's like, "Yeah, first of all, um, one of the reasons that the foreign leaders might be telling you that is because they are kissing your ass because you're the American president. And so they are telling you nice things. And also, they probably have the same frustrations with uh their people. And so they're all like they're all defensive foreign leaders all talking to each other like, "Oh, we're doing so good. And look at all the great decisions we're making. and why aren't people happier with us? It's like

it is like Joe Biden would not have given a nationalally televised address like this. That would not have happened. Um but there is similarities in both their economic message and the way they frame their presidency. And even this is even the way they frame president. It's less Biden and more the people around Biden who would just would insist on calling him like the greatest president since LBJ or FDR at every time which like you can believe that but no and you even maybe even have some sort of case based on your legislative record if you want to make that case but that's that just rings so hollow to voters who are giving you a 41% approval rating at the time like you just you just sound crazy you sound absolutely crazy then

of a show not tell thing you know. Yeah, that's a these are two very core speech writing rules, which is don't give a speech if nothing to say, more showing, less telling.

That's right. Uh, so the reporters that were in the room for the speech said that after it was over, uh, Trump turned to Susie Wilds and said some version of quote, "Susie told me I had to give an address to the nation." Which is notable for a few reasons. Uh, one being that Susie Wilds still has a job and influence with the president after her uh, Vanity Fair tell- all was published this week. Um, in case you have not heard yet, while spoke to writer and historian Chris Whipple on the record, knowingly 11 separate times over the last year, uh, which resulted in candid observations like JD Vance quote has been a conspiracy theorist for a decade.

Pam Bondi quote completely whiffed on the Epstein files. Russ Vote is an quote absolute right-wing zealot. Elon Musk is an quote avowed ketamine user. As for her boss, Donald Trump, while said that he has an alcoholic's personality, admitted that revenge is his motivation for trying to prosecute Tish James and James Comey, that she was a gasast at Elon feeding USAD to the wood chipper, that quote, "Overzee Border Patrol agents might be responsible for mistakenly deporting people, and that Trump did in fact fly on Epstein's plane." Uh Trump and nearly every senior administration official uh have decided to respond to the piece by defending Wilds in in some a series of very embarrassing tweets. Uh they also have were all blaming Vanity Fair um for the crime of printing the words that she said to them um which were also recorded on audio tape. Um, and just for fun, the piece was accompanied by a glossy photo

shoot that included some horrifying close-ups of Wilds, JD Vance, Marco, Steven Miller, and Caroline Levit. Um, Dan, putting your old White House communications director hat on, what what did you think watching all this play out?

Just what an absolutely amusing, enjoyable disaster. Like, how does this happen? They how does she how do you do 11 on there interviews and just like I mean I guess we've seen this people do this before and we've seen Trump aids do this before. This is what brought down Steve Bannon and uh and Scaramucci when they worked for Trump is you is they begin treating these reporters as something between a confidant and a therapist

and you start having these conversations and it's it's a it is like basically this is the White House chief of staff like there's been nothing but praise for how savvy and smart she is and like she obviously did a good job running that campaign but like she like she would have failed the the test at the end of the first week of press secretary school by the way she handled this which is like absolutely embarrassing. The other part about this is and we can get into the individual revelations and what they mean, but just from a pure communications perspective and just looking at them is the idea that they all hate the press is such like here they like Susie Wilds obviously is talking to Chris Bubble because she wants to shape her own legacy as a chief of staff. That's why that's why she would do this. But here you have these people like Stephen Miller and JD Vance and Marco Ruby who go on the they, you

know, they go on cable or go on Fox and they all over the press. And JD Vance just the other day tweeted about how terrible the mainstream press was. And then they get the Glam Squad to show up in the White House and do their hair and makeup for a photo shoot for Vanity Fair, a publication that has the word vanity in it. like that they actually they like they they they absolutely thirst for the approval of the mainstream media establishment stuff that they love to just in a professional wrestling like fake way trash on TV.

It's like it's just so revealing about how vacuous the whole stick is. You know how long the photo shoot took?

I don't tell me. An entire day for all of them. Yes. So, the Wall Street Journal has a um sort of a details on how this all came together and why she decided to do the interview and and the photo shoot and all that. Photo shoot took an entire day. Um I'll just read you one one paragraph from the story. White House officials said there was no Mchavelian master plan by Wilds to participate in the interviews with Vanity Fair writer Chris Whipple. After coming to like Whipple, she agreed to talk to him regularly about what was going on in the White House, often on the weekend. She told others that it was for a historical project. The conversations weren't minded by a White House press staffer.

Yeah, no Um, Wilds told others that she respected Whipple and was upset by the final stories that were published on Tuesday. Unbelievable.

Is this the point at which you and I are required for journalistic purposes to disclose that we participated this very same Vanity Fair photo shoot in 2009?

We sure did. We sure did. Dan didn't take an entire day though. probably took an entire day for everyone that they cuz they did the whole they did like there's like eight 10 different pictures or something and they did like

cabinet they did a bunch of different staffs they yeah a whole bunch of people yeah me you

I think it probably took 15 minutes is the full extent of it I don't think we got hair and makeup either which the picture which

definitely not what does not suggest that we did I'll tell you that had my shaved head and it was uh me me you Alyssa and Bobby Gibbs and Ellen Moran that was our that was our picture

well no ours was ours that's right We didn't have Alyssa. Yeah, Alyssa was with the schedule. Yeah.

Um Yeah. No, we did it. Well, we didn't out all over Vanity Fair. I think it was like right was Was it the first week we were at the White House?

It was trans I think it was. So, we were in the transition headquarters. We were still on the transition.

Yeah. Yeah. Um so, they also talked to the photographer. Uh uh someone interviewed the Chris Anderson.

This guy This guy is great. He's he he he pointed out that um or he revealed I should say that uh Caroline Lever has her own personal groomer that was there. And uh I don't know if you've seen any anyone go check it out if you're if you're feeling brave. The uh the close-up of Caroline Levit.

It looks like it looks like there was some lip filler which um was and I'm I'm saying this because it was all over the internet and Chris Anderson was asked about it in his interview. And he said, "Well, what can I say? That's the makeup she puts on. Those are the injections she gives herself if they show up in a photo. What do you want me to do?"

Did you see that? I saw this. This is like unverified because I just saw this on Instagram, but the conversation between the photographer and Steven Miller.

I have it right here. Yeah. Okay. Please go ahead. Real anecdote. Real anecdote. This is just it's just fun for us. We deserve this. Um

uh he said, "I'll give you a little anecdote. Steven Miller was perhaps the most concerned about the portrait session. He asked me, should I smile or not smile?" And I said, "How would you want to be portrayed?" We agreed. We agreed that we would do a bit of both. And then when we were finished, he comes up to me to shake my hand and say goodbye. And he says to me, quote, "You know, you have a lot of power in the discretion you use to be kind to people." And I looked at him and I said, "You know, you do too."

That's so good. Yeah. So good. He didn't look great. He didn't look right. He I mean, like, don't

he never does, but you know, don't put like what what photographer could. That's what I'm saying. The guy's only the guy's only human. Um, so of all the back to the substance of this, of all the of all the W's revelations, what do you think was the most damic?

So, I think there's probably a couple different ways to answer this question. In the short term, the way she talked about the political vengeance campaigns, particularly against Leticia James and James and Jim Comey, could if they can ever get indictments in those cases, which is an open question, but that like she's going to end up in a court filing for that. So, like there are short-term consequences to that or could prevent them from getting an indictment. Mhm.

Um over the the long term, I think it's calling JD Vance a longtime conspiracy theorist. That's the kind of thing you're going to be you're going to hear if and when he is the Republican nominee in 2028. Um so just like the White House chief of staff said he was a conspiracy theorist. So I think that's powerful. And then I think the most revvelatory one with the most implications for like the way the White House runs is just Susie Wallace herself basically calling herself an enabler which was I thought was very revealing about how she viewed her job which is not to protect Trump from himself it's to let Trump do whatever he wants which helps also explain why these people all defended her because like you know I I said this to Jen Saki on MSNBC the other night but it's the same reason why my kids want my grandparents want their grandparents to watch them because there are no rules.

It's like, you know, we got to keep Susie around because the next guy may try to stop us from doing all this crazy stuff. You're like, may not like really let the deputy chief of staff try to wage war in Venezuela as as one example.

Also, she's like not too savvy a move to do the interview in the first place. No. But I feel like the interview itself reveals that she might run a good campaign, but isn't so savvy when it comes to governing. Um because there was a lot of like oh and you know at first uh Elon uh broke up USA ID and I was a gasast and I couldn't believe it because I thought they do such good work and then they all convinced me that it was you know it was fine but the process was bad and oh what what were people mistakenly deported? Well I imagine that must be some overzealous uh border patrol agent but uh yeah we got to we should probably double check that. And then uh you know later they're talking about the boats and Venezuelan blowing up the boats and and uh she's saying oh that they know that you know they know the people on the boats. She's like you know you'd be one of the great untold stories of government is how much the

CIA knows about people like really did you just show up? What it it's it goes to why she was such a poor decision as chief of staff. one, she doesn't fully understand the job. And two, you really need someone who you like the chief of staff has to be able to do most of the following things. Run the White House staff, like be an actual manager of the White House and the bureaucracy. And maybe she can do that or not, I don't know. Has to be sort of an expert in Congress, right? To help the president pass their legislative agenda and or be an expert in how the bureaucracy works, like how to use the federal government to enact the president's agenda. She doesn't know how to do any or be or the last one is maybe be like a very savvy communicator, spokesperson, principal who can represent the president places. She certainly does not do that. Like she put she like really insists on being behind

the scenes and not in photos. So the only thing she does really is just tell Trump yes. And that's that is by definition a bad bad shape of a staff.

If you didn't see the other day while I was in New York, I had the pleasure of going on the I've had it podcast. Uh if you're not already a listener and if you like getting fired up about the news, you got to check it out. Jennifer Welch and uh Angie Sullivan are quite funny and quite hilarious. They also land great guests like Barack Obama, Bernie Sanders, Kla Harris, and AOC. Um, and now an okay guest, me. New episodes drop every week, so go listen to I've had it wherever you get your podcast or watch full episodes on YouTube. Pod Save America is brought to you by Mint Mobile. You know, you don't have to let big wireless and your overpriced phone bills suck the joy out of the holidays this year. Because right now, all of Mint Mobile's unlimited plans are 50% off. You can get 3, 6, or 12 months of unlimited premium wireless for 15 bucks a month. It's their best deal of the year, and it makes it real easy for you

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Um this this cushy prison that she sits in now and Whipple asks about that decision.

So, oh yeah, I had no idea. And and and Donald Trump was the president was very unhappy about that. Very unhappy. And he's like, "Well, then who who did it? We don't know, but I can." And she's like, "I can I can get back to you. I can find out and she never she never got back to him on that point. So this means that somewhere someone made the decision to transfer Galain Maxwell. that that person exists in the federal government somewhere. And either this person is going to say, "Well, I got the order from someone else higher up or we are led to believe that uh the White House chief of staff and the president of United States have no idea how this extremely prominent prisoner uh was moved to a minimum security prison known as Club FedE."

Well, in defense of Donald Trump, he is a firm believer in the independence of the Justice Department. You could see he see he would not even allow someone on his staff to dig into that sort of decision. So makes I mean here's the guy's firing line prosecutors in the Eastern District of Virginia so they can prosecute specific people and he's like well this is a decision. I don't know. I'm just an observer here. I can't I don't I don't want to it's not really my job to ask. It's it's nuts. Like it she she is either lying or is being willfully ignorant on this question because she doesn't want to know the answer.

Why do you think they're making such a point of uh rallying around her? I like I said because I think they they want the chief of staff. It lets them do whatever they want.

I don't I mean like Trump defended her but in that original that first like it was in New York Post interview I believe he said he hadn't read the story yet. Um which so I mean they all look ridiculous defending it. They all sat down for the photo shoot. They all did the interview. She said the thing she said they can't even they don't even have a complaint. Like the complaint really comes down to the picture the photos were too were too were too close because they're not she's not saying she didn't say those things.

She tried it first and then he produced the tapes. She's not saying he violated off the record or anything like that. Um, she's just saying context was left out, which is, you know, it's absurd. I I guess they're defending her cuz they I don't know. I It's just

I think I think if you if you really look at each revelation, each newsy part of it, none of them really make Donald Trump look too bad in Donald Trump's mind. You know what I'm saying? like there's not she she's pretty loyal to him

um in the interviews and to the parts where she says you know like I didn't always agree with them on the January 6 people like he doesn't care about that

that she didn't agree with him and he doesn't really care that she called JD Vance a conspiracy theorist or um or that she's you know like I I just don't know if any of the revelations hurt Donald Trump's image of Donald Trump to himself.

Yeah, I I think that's right. and he we a lot was made right away about her saying that he has an alcoholics personality.

That's nothing. And like it it did seem quite damaging. And then when you this is the one place where you actually hear him say that he said that before and it kind of it's honestly one of the more self-aware things Donald Trump has ever said about himself. Um yeah,

like that one probably doesn't bother him. And so yeah, I guess we should say for people who haven't read it, she meant alcoholics personality in the context of because her her father was an alcoholic and she said alcoholic sometimes uh you know alcoholism sort of magnifies the personality that exists and also they think that there's nothing they can't do and Donald Trump is someone who thinks there's nothing he can't do and of course it's public and and she knows and everyone knows that he doesn't drink and um so it's not I I didn't find that as a as bad

and it probably doesn't bother him. Yeah, you just never know where things are going to see if they continue on the political trajectory they're on. This could be the puditive reason why they make a change. Um,

but in the moment just they'd much rather and they're all The other thing is all the president's top aids are all guilty here.

They're all in on it. They all have their This isn't like she was just having these conversations with Chris Wel privately. They all stood in a room apparently for one entire day with foundation and mascara on to get their pictures taken together. So, it's kind of hard to throw under the bus when you have all the deputy chiefs of staff, the senior adviser, the secretary of state, and the vice president all holding the same embarrassing bloody knife. So, it was news, I believe, that Trump was flying flew on Epstein's plane. Um, and I feel like he has been saying that Bill Clinton was on the plane a bunch of times and he's never said he was on the plane. I wonder if he knows that revelation was in the piece. That's one that I could see him being a little annoyed by, but

and saying that they were young single playboys in Palm Beach together. Yeah. In his 50s. Yeah.

He was 58. Um, so I think one of one of the most wouldn't wouldn't call us Playboys, that's for sure. Um, no.

One of the most damning comments from Wilds uh in the story was an admission that Trump quote wants to keep on blowing boats up until Venezuelan President Nicholas Maduro quote cries uncle. So we are murdering people with cocaine in their boats as a way to overthrow a regime that Trump doesn't like. Pretty stunning cuz guess it's not about the drugs. Thought it was about the drug. Thought it was about the fentanyl. It's not fentanyl cuz it's cocaine that was uh coming to America to our shores that were killing 25,000 people with every boat. But apparently not.

Apparently we're murdering people in boats so that I guess Nicholas Maduro is like no I can't I can't traffic drugs anymore. So now I will leave uh Venezuela.

Yeah, doesn't seem like a plan to me. Well, if uh if if you were looking for another insane rationale for war, um Trump posted on Tuesday that Venezuela is quote completely surrounded by the largest armada ever assembled in the history of South America, which will quote only get bigger until such time as they return to the United States of America all of the oil, land, and other assets that they previously stole from us. The Post said Trump was ordering a quote, "All caps, of course, total and complete blockade of all sanctioned oil tankers going into and out of Venezuela." He then repeated the threat on the tarmac at Joint Base Andrews on Wednesday. Let's listen.

Remember, they took all of our energy rights. They took all of our oil from not that long ago. As you know, they threw our companies out and we want it back. Getting land, oil rights, whatever we had. Steven Miller, who is reportedly uh the brains behind this entire operation yet again, um delivered the uh fascist GPT version of the rationale for war on Twitter. Uh his tweet said, quote, "American sweat, ingenuity, and toil created the oil industry in Venezuela. Its tyrannical expropriation was the largest recorded theft of American wealth and property."

What the is he talking about? But what are what are any of them talking about? Okay, so I looked into this because why not?

And it's just here's the context which is Venezuela has some of the largest oral reserves in the world.

US companies have been developing and uh oil in Venezuela since 1900 and did for a very long time

and other and other foreign companies by the way. Not Yeah. Yeah. Lots of other people. Yes, all over the world people all kinds of foreign countries were had were pumping oil and exporting it um oftent times to the United States but also elsewhere. And then in 1976, Venezuela uh nationalized their oil industry and took the entire oil industry and put it under one uh state-owned oil company, kicking out all the US companies. over the course of time there was some like backsliding there back and then uh 15 20 years ago you know further US companies were kicked out including Exon Mobile um and so now there is this one all of Venezuela oil is pumped out by one by this one state-owned company and although there are they do have some deals with the US company Chevron who does some some work for them but it is a nationalizing now it's very the most important thing here is there is no In international law, the oil is, was, and

always will be Venezuela's. The natural resources belong to the country itself. This is a principle in national in international law that goes back to after the world wars when we were dealing with the end of colonialism around the world. Um, and when countries kicked out the colonizers, they got to keep the stuff. It didn't matter which country like dug the mine or put the put the the the rig and the oil rig in the ground. the people in charge of that country, the citizens of that country, the government of that country, they own the natural resources. And so it is not a like a legal uh basis for us to invade Venezuela to take back oil that is Venezuelan. I'm almost laughing because I'm just imagining uh telling the American people that we're going to war in Venezuela to defend the honor of Exon Mobile and Chevron and all from 50 years ago and all of our brave oil companies because it's not really going in there to like

take the even if American companies I don't it it's first of all it's so stupid that we have to go down this path and explain this but even if American companies are allowed back in Venezuela to pump oil. That oil is not necessarily just going to America. They're international. They There are American oil companies that sell oil all over the world on the on the world oil market.

Yes. It's not coming to us. It's most likely not coming to us. It's going elsewhere.

It is literally It is literally invading a country so that so that Exxon Mobile can start pumping again.

It is. I mean, it's so so stupid. And like and then and then like broadening it to be like and the land. What land? There was no land. Like you're talking about assets. Yeah. Maybe someone leaves like a an oil Derek there and it was like oh that's that's Exxon's oil Derek from the early 1900s. We're we're taking that back. But like what land are you talking about you idiot?

There is just like such a maskoff moment here which is all throughout the early 2000s the argument of a lot of liberals was we went to war in Iraq for oil. No blood for oil.

And even the Bush administration was the protest sign. Yeah. Right. And and and even the Bush administration was so scared of of even anything that would suggest that they wouldn't even use the oil revenues from Iraq to pay for stuff because they thought that would be that would validate the critique that we were going there for war for oil instead of war for non-existent WMDs and democracy. Um that Trump's just like we're invading Venezuela, a country that I would bet that large majority of Americans have no idea has oil.

So just imagine if like Trump had given this speech on the speech that Tucker Carlson other thought he was going to give on Tuesday night. Tuesday night. Tuesday night and had said we're going to war in Venezuela for oil. Like

Wednesday night Wednesday night. Today's Thursday. Today's Thursday. You're listening to this on Friday.

And that speech was last night. Nothing matters anymore. T like I've had a sick kid at home. I truly have no idea like what what day it is. Like we could be doing the Tuesday pod now for all. Did Christmas happen? I don't know. Um, but just it's just it's so it's like an unbelievably stupid thing substantively and it's insane politically and it would it's just so confusing for the American people to even imagine that this could be happening. What uh you think this is going to be popular with folks because uh I saw the the Yugov has a poll out today, just the most recent uh ask people uh what they think about using military force to invade Venezuela. uh 18% support doing so. 18 66% oppose. Now, in fairness to Donald Trump and the administration, they did not ask, "Do you support the US using military force to invade Venezuela so that Exxon Mobile can make more money next year?"

Yeah, that's true. You know, that's true. So, if you throw that in, it might change might change the messaging a little bit. might change the support levels.

It's also funny that Trump's out lying about how low gas prices are at the same time he wants to invade a country for oil. It's like just very

Did you see the uh post story about how Steven Miller originally wanted to do these boat strikes uh also known as just uh extrajudicial killings, war crimes, murders on the on the high sea. Um he wanted to do it against Mexican cartels. Um and then when uh Mexico started taking care of things on their own, uh he needed a new target. So they just shifted they just picked Venezuela. Yeah. It's the story is truly unbelievable because there's what originally what they like the theory that Stephen Miller has is that if you could break the cartels then that would lessen the number of migrants coming the US because one of the things the cartels do is they traffic minor im migrants to the US border. Mexico starts doing the things that we wanted them to do. He did want to use um like special forces and the CIA to do like covert attacks. The Congress and the administration and some people administration opposed that so he

couldn't do that. Then the Mexico kind of solved the problem to the extent that the problem could be solved. So then he goes looking for somewhere else to attack. Picks Venezuela which is and the theory then is if you could I mean this is so crazy. picks Venezuela just because he wants a place to attack then. Um, and we do have migrants that come from Venezuela. I don't know why launching war there would help stem the flow of migration. History would suggest no, but it's it's this like comedy of errors where he then picks Venezuela, but it's about drugs, but then he like hangs out maybe at the photo shoot, I don't know, with Marco Rubio, who has long wanted to overthrow Maduro because he thinks that would help overthrow Castro in Cuba. And so he and now he now now we've transitioned from drugs to overthrowing Maduro. Pete Hexf is like I need a win. So because yeah former official familiar with

Miller's thinking said Pete very much wanted to keep Stephen in his good graces and also the president which just tells you everything you need to know. And so because because this was post signalgate fallout and he said like I need to Stephen Miller's the guy really running the government and so if he wants to kill some people in boats and my buddy Marco wants to overthrow this dictator I'm in.

Yeah. And now we're on the cusp of war with Venezuela because three morons got together looking for something to do. It's unfucking believable. The execute order um that they uh they have to the legal rationale uh to to kill these people on these boats contains targeting instructions that do not require positive identification of any individual, but rather reasonable certainty that adult males are members of or affiliated with a designated terrorist organization. Yeah, you don't want to be too precise when you are murdering people on boats.

No. And also, there's no legal authority to name these organizations, terror organizations.

I just uh Wilds admitted to Vanity Fair that that Trump would need congressional approval for any land strikes. Uh though Trump forcefully denied that in the OAL on Thursday. Does Congress try to get involved here? Like I it seems like Trump is thinking to himself, well, it's I'm not going to send troops in. I'm going to like lob some missiles. Maduro hopefully leaves. You know, maybe we can get him out without the missiles. Maybe he's just going to be scared by the Armada. Uh cuz we use the word Armada now cuz it's like the 1700s, I guess. Um and so he's hoping Maduro leaves. At worst, you know, he does, you know, he bombed Duran. you can bomb and and we're you know everyone just sort of moved on.

Maybe we can bomb Venezuela and that's that. Like I don't I think he believes this is very low risk.

Oh yeah. I think I think he is and he's pro he's pretty right that the that anything absent ground troops the US population has a pretty high tolerance for

right if we're just lo drones missiles we that is I mean it's terrible that this is the case but it's been true for a very long time. It's when people start getting killed or wounded from your community is when everyone turns as what happened in Iraq when we sent National Guard troops all over Iraq. Absent that, Congress is not going to want to get involved here. Like I mean there will be a coalition of Democrats and a small handful of Republicans who do not like this, which is probably like Rand Paul, Tom Massie, and maybe like one other one. But you know, Congress has no interest in getting in involved in something like this. They're they're not going to try to stop him. will file war power reports and feel like he is adhering to the War Powers Act and that'll be that.

Well, at least there's no history of uh American wars of choice and uh regime change coming back to bite us in the ass years later.

Yeah. What could possibly go wrong from starting a look, look, if you want to keep the border secure and stop the flow of migrants, I can't think of anything better than uh turning Venezuela into a failed state. Do you think there's no way Trump could pick out Venezuela on a map, right?

No, not a chance. Doesn't know the capital. I don't think he would be able to answer the question, what continent is in.

That would be that's the next cognitive test. Map of South America and he has to point to Venezuela. Then he has to point that we just make him point to some country since he since the the the new the new Pax Americana here is um we're going to uh create an American empire in the Western Hemisphere that stretches from Greenland to Venezuela. That's

Oh jeez. I mean, it's it's not really a joke. It's kind of their theory. And I guess he thinks that's what's going to get the the Nobel Committee to call

the Nothing will uh lock up the Nobel Peace Prize like bombing Venezuela. So, uh, Trump made, uh, those most recent comments about strikes on Venezuela at an Oval Office event where he signed an executive order accelerating the reclassification of marijuana from schedule 1 to schedule 3, uh, which would allow it to be studied for medical uses. But, uh, before you get too excited, Trump made it clear that he has zero plans to legalize marijuana recreationally under federal law anytime soon. Unsurprisingly, this this decision came about not because of any change of heart, but because of heavy lobbying from the weed industry, which has poured millions into Trump aligned political groups. In fact, uh aside from the research, one of the other benefits of this is, I believe, a lot of tax breaks for uh businesses that sell marijuana. Um so, good for them. Uh Thursday's other executive order came

from RFK Jr. This one was much worse. uh who announced a new set of rules that would cut off Medicaid and Medicare funding to any hospital that provides gender affirming care to children under 18, which would essentially uh if it if it holds up to legal scrutiny, shut down hospitals that refuse to follow the order since Medicare and Medicaid account for nearly half the money spent on hospitals. Um, and I guess the big question is how likely is it that since he signs a million executive orders a day and many of them are just blatantly not legal, how likely is it that this uh takes effect and how long until it takes effect?

Yeah, I mean that is there is a there's like a I think it's a 60-day review period, comment period. So there there there are many months that go through the process of signing the order to actual imple to the actual like profering of the regulation in place. Um and as you point out, there are a lot of legal questions about whether he has the authority to do this. There courts seem to uh believe that questions around gender firming care for minors are to be decided by the state because they've allowed states to ban them. U which conversely would suggest that they would allow states to allow it as well state decision

and it was a very recent decision. It was a 6-3 decision uh for because Tennessee has a state ban and they upheld Tennessee state ban and Roberts wrote in the majority in part because he's like we're not we're not taking a position on the policy itself. We're saying that these are decisions much like they did in DOS. These are decisions that should be decided by the people and their elected representatives through the legislative process. So very difficult to square that with now allowing a an executive order that's not even a piece of legislation to supersede blue states that allow this to that allow gender affirming care for minors in their hospitals. Yeah, I think there would be a question of whether a federal legislation, which the House actually did just pass something similar, uh but that has no chance in the Senate, um could do it, but you're relying on a like basically one line in the Social

Security Act that gives you to do this and some real questions about what is in the Medicare and Medicaid um leg the Medicare and Medicaid legislation that would prohibit the federal government getting this involved in healthcare decisions and using Medicare and Medicaid funding as leverage. we're like the the example people are using is the hight amendment which prevents the spending of federal funds for u abortion services but that is an actual law that's not a regulation.

Now I think the and this by the way goes this would go further than hide because that's like money that's specifically appropriated for Medicaid and Medicare to then go towards uh abortion care.

This is basically saying um we're not we're not saying that like you can't spend Medicaid and Medicare money on gender affirming care. We've already said you can't do that. Uh and and some hospitals all over the country have already stopped gender affirming care for children because they rely so much on because they do a lot of Medicaid Medicare funding. This is just like if you're a hospital that gets Medicare and Medicaid funding for any reason, which is all hospitals, uh pretty much you can't do it, which

and so there this is the you know it it'll take probably take a long time for the court to act. The question is what do hospitals do in the area? We've already seen a bunch of hospitals uh and academic centers shut down their their clinics, their you know their practices here. And this is all part of the larger horrifying Trump project of basically defining trans people out of existence, right? Whether it's whether it's what's on the passport, it's every policy that you have no legal status, no cultural status, we will not recognize you. Um and it's horrifying. It is just this is the f this is a cruel and capricious federal government turning its sight on the most vulnerable population possible and and bullying them essentially. Yeah.

And especially I mean in one of the pieces about this like we're talking about kids who are already um either transitioned or already using gender affirming care and are now having to like ration the care that they have worried that it's going to like run out or or be blocked or be eliminated. And so it is just it's it has been horrifying.

It's so horrifying. Um on the weed one, uh what do you make of this? Uh he he doesn't seem like he's going to it doesn't seem like as big of a deal as I thought it was when I first heard it. Um it seems like it's mostly for research and so it's kind of a it's I think it's a it's good. I mean, it's it started Biden first did this and then it like got uh basically the process was held up and um so it just kind of got uh held up in the bureaucracy and then you know Trump finally finished it but it uh doesn't seem like a big big deal but it's a good step in the right direction.

Yeah, it's like it's one of the few things he does he has done that's not horrifying. Um so we'll take it. Yeah.

Um you know as you point out this this is a minor step. This is not full legalization. You he cannot do that. It require Congress to do that. Uh, but the reason I think is you've nailed it, which is not

some epiphany about libertarianism or the potential benefits of cannabis use. It is corruption, right? It's just the the right people got money in the right people's pockets and therefore Trump did it.

Uh, Trump got a bunch of questions at the signing event for the marijuana EO, including whether he wants Congress to do something to extend the expiring ACA subsidies. Uh, here's his non-answer.

But do you want Congress to extend these ACA subsidies? I'd like not to be able to do it. I'd like to get right into this and not ask Oz this question in particular, but I'd like to see us get right into this. I don't know why we have to extend. This could be done rapidly if the Democrats would come along. We have a problem. The insurance companies own the Democrat party. They own it.

I love Dr. Oz walking close to the president like he was about to say something and then realizing he should run back away. Also, I don't What was that answer? I'd like He I don't think he think he knows much about this policy.

No, it doesn't seem like it. No. You think this is another one where he's not really in the details? Um, the reason that Trump was asked about this is that lo and behold, four House Republicans have signed onto a Democratic discharge petition to force a vote on a clean three-year extension of the subsidies, which means the vote will happen. Um but not until Congress returns in January after the subsidies expire. And it's still unclear what can pass the Senate. Uh John Thun said no on the clean three-year extension, but that maybe the Collins proposal for a 2-year extension with some new income eligibility limits is possible. Who knows? Um and as we just heard, even if that works out, it's still unclear if Donald Trump signs it or not. Um, nevertheless, it was a tough week for Mike Johnson, uh, who has now lost so many Republicans to discharge petitions that he got this question from a reporter on Wednesday.

We have not lost control because there are me. Look, we have the smallest majority in US history. These are not normal times. There are processes processes and procedures in the house.

I have not lost control of the house. That's a sign that you have lost control. If you have to answer that question, you've lost control of the house.

So funny. So funny. Um, what do you think's going on here? First of all, let's start with Mike Johnson losing control of the House, which he has. This is now I've lost count of how many discharge petitions.

Discharge petitions used to be a thing where you had to be like a real congressional nerd to know what they are and they rarely if ever did anything. Um, but now if you have a majority of people in the House sign this discharge petition, then it forces a vote. We we've recently learned this for the first time with the Epstein files in in this season of Trump. Um and now suddenly Republicans are feeling their oats and they're uh there's discharge petitions all over the place that Republicans are signing left and right and Mike Johnson can't do anything about it because he is trying to keep all of these votes from coming to the floor, but he's failing.

The narrowest majority thing excuse does not help at all with dischar with the discharge petition.

Right. Right. You're still losing people. That's the point. And so I think there are a couple things going on here. One, said it before, I'll say it again, Mike Johnson's kind of a doofus. Like he's just he's he's like he's not up for this task is one. Two, he owes his entire job to Donald Trump. And so he is always protecting Trump's flank

as opposed to his members. His members know that. So they're starting to break from him in various things. And because and this is this part is to guess a defense of where the narrow majority defense works is he's always in danger of losing his job because some conservative Republicans leave him. And so he is optimizing the House's strategy for unity among all of the caucus as he has it today and not trying to protect the vulnerable members so he has a majority tomorrow. Because if you were doing this for what was best for the, you know, 28 House Republicans who are in seats that Trump won by less than 10 points, you would have allow, you would have passed this thing or pass or you would have passed some, you would give them the real thing to vote, not this absurd health savings account. We're going to give you money so you can just buy your own insurance thing that like I mean they have they voted on a health

plan that the CBO looked at and said would mean less people be insured and healthcare would be more expensive. Like a truly insane thing. he would have just voted on a two-year a one-year extension with uh you know cost you would have done some things that made it unpalatable you given them a vote but he can't do that and so his his like his members like Mike Lawler look at the polls they see where they are they see what their district is and they are bolting for safer waters

now for the first time especially when I heard that Trump sort of non-answer I I started thinking like I could see a scenario where the subsidies get passed the extension gets passed when they come back and that

Trump would have to care. Yeah. Or he I mean like the way to because the thing he's not going to want to do is say that he like you know the Democrats won this one, right? Like if it goes to the Senate passes the House, goes to the Senate and you know they change it so it's only two years and it's got some limits on it. He can say like I you know I didn't really want to do this but whatever. It's like I'm you know I I think we should replace healthcare. I'm going to have a great plan but we'll do the extension for now.

And the Republicans did some good things in the Senate. I don't know. That would be the smart thing to do.

I think it only happens if Trump tells the Senate to do it because you're not like the Senate majority is such and they really only have one incumbent, one vulnerable incumbent. And so they can they can have these votes every day until the election and Susan Collins can keep voting for the extension and they're fine from that perspective. There aren't eight Republicans who need to um come over the Democrats to get whatever they don't. There aren't enough Republicans to do it. So unless Trump were to get in a room and say, "We this this if we don't do this, we're going to lose House majority. Figure it out. I know you guys can't do three years. I'm going to bring everyone in the White House. We're going to do two you we'll do two years and something like but absent that it's not going to happen on its own because the House will not pass anything or they'll pass it and it will go to the Senate and it'll die unless

Trump gets involved and he doesn't seem to even know what it is or to care. You know, he's too busy uh like building ballrooms and doing other dumb So like I just there's not there's no momentum within Congress absent Trump saying I need this for the majority.

Yeah, that's true. That's true. Um have to say though, nice job Hakeem Jeff for shephering this strategy through the House because basically some Democrats, one of the problem solvers were floating around some bipartisan proposal that was like a one-year extension, a two-year extension that then got some Republicans on board. And Hakee was basically like, "No, no, no, no. I'm not I'm not backing that. I'm not having Democrats sign on to those uh discharge petitions. It's three-year or nothing. And the Republicans that had signed on to the one-year and two-year finally were like, well, I don't like the I don't like the three-year clean extension, but if it's the only game in town, I'm going to do it. And so, yeah, he played his cards very well here. And I frankly, we can look back at this at this discharge petition, the fact that everyone is sc every on the Republican side scrambling to come up with a healthcare

affordability plan. The shutdown worked from a political perspective. They it is healthc care affordability is on the agenda. It was not even being talked about before. The Republicans are twisted in knots about their inability to do anything. They are like floating Obamacare repeal plans. Trump saying insane things. Like this is a moment we talk all the time about how hard it is for Democrats to set the issue agenda in American politics. And they did it with a shutdown. They changed the the contours of the race and they made an issue that is better for us near the top of the agenda and kudos to them and and I and Jeffre so kudos to all the Democrats Schumers included who on how the shutdown was played out but then on the discharge petition Jeff has played his cards very very well and put the Democrats in a position of maximum leverage here. I will also say I think someone asked Schumer today about

whether when when funding when government funding expires at the end of January, would they shut the government down again if they don't extend the subsidies? And I think he said like no. And I will just say I get it. Like I don't I don't because if they shut the government down again over this then the debate becomes about Democrats shutting the government down and the government being shut down and not about the fact that Republicans will not extend the subsidies. And I think that will actually give the Republicans an excuse to not do anything about the subsidies because then they would be forced into it by the mean old Democrats who we don't want to give a win to. And the only chance that you might get a sub an some kind of extension passed is now the Republicans feeling pressure themselves in their own districts which clearly some of the House members did that signed on to the petition and some of

the people in the Senate uh who proposed you know other types of extensions and still doesn't mean it's going to happen and probably like you said the chances are you know may be low on this but I think it's a better chance of happening than if Democrats shut the government down again. Yeah, I think shutting down the government would ensure that there could be no nothing would pass because it would negative negatively polarize everyone against it and now it becomes you can't give in u in the midst of the shutdown. So, and it just and just from a purely practical point of view, those members who threw in the towel when they did um they're not signing back up for this again.

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That's betterhelphp.com/psa. Um, well, unfortunately, not all Democrats deserve praise this week, Dan. Uh, we've talked before about the DNC's much anticipated 2024 postmortem, also known as an autopsy, unless you're talking to DNC Chair Ken Martin, who calls it a quote after report. Uh, according to NBC News, Martin told reporters after he won the DNC election back in February that he would make the final report public. And he even criticized the party then for not releasing the 2016 postmortem as an example of why he was going to release the 2024 postmortem if he won the election which he did. And here he is talking to me about the importance of the report back in August.

We're finishing our afteraction review to really dig into this to give people a sense who invested so much time, energy, and money what happened and why we lost $10 billion spent in the ecosystem last year. What we're looking at is the campaign, the party. Of course, we're looking at the tactics, the spending, the messaging, the timing, you know, all of it. There are no sacred cows. What we're looking at right now is everything. No sacred cows, Dan. Well, on Thursday, the DNC announced that just kidding, they won't be releasing the report after all. Martin said, quote, "Here's our north star. Does this help us win? If the answer is no, it's a distraction from the core mission.

You want to just you wanna you want to take it while I just sit here and see and then I then I'll go if if if you miss anything.

This is such an infuriating decision on so many levels. One, we should know what happened. Like that is if you especially if you did all the work and like there have been some really good reports that have come out. There was deciding to win. We talked about a bunch. Uh way to win has a report that came out la last week or the week before. Very useful to read. The DNC report wasn't going to settle all the debates in the party but it would this is they have the most access to the funders, the operatives, the donors. Like this would have been a very valuable thing.

Tons of people hundreds 300 people. I think there were 300 interviews on the Biden camp Biden campaign, Harris campaign, states, the the super PAC people, all where the money was spent, the polling, all of it. They had

all of it. And so like very valuable both for like the direction of the party to like tactical things about door knocking and peer-to-peer texting that would be valuable for people running for state legislator or city council. The fact that the two reasons that they that the DNC is not releasing this report, one said, one unsaid, just are so emblematic of everything that is wrong with the Democratic establishment. The first is we don't want to mess with our momentum. Like this has been a good year for Democrats. We won in blue states. We've lost by less in red states. We've had, you know, Trump's not doing great. But the idea that these victories in an off year when we're supposed to do well suggests that we've solved our problems is just a repeat of the fatal error the Democratic party made in 2022 when we took the results of a midterm that just happened to happen 3 months after the Supreme Court

overturned Roie Wade where we did better in the Senate than we thought but still lost the House and said pat ourselves in the back and said we're looking great. We're going to ask no hard questions, have no difficult conversations about running an unpopular 80-year-old for re-election in this political environment.

It is it is pure complacency. And then um anytime someone suggested in 2024 that the polling uh might be making us a little anxious and that oh maybe we have some problems and maybe there there was a chorus of the same people who would say oh you told us there was going to be a red wave. remember all the pollsters that said there was going to be a red wave in 2022 when there wasn't which first of all no people did not say there was going to be a red and also um it wasn't a blue wave it just wasn't as big a red wave.

Yeah. And then the second reason which is this is the unsaid reason I think is the report was obviously going to piss some people off in the coalition. It was going to piss off some donors. It was going to piss off some of the groups. It was going to piss off members of Congress because any report worth its salt was going to look at how money was spent. It's going to look at our positions on issues. Immigration was going to almost certainly have to dig into the role that Biden's Gaza policy played in this election. And no matter which way the report came down, it was going to piss off one of the two sides of a very a very contentious things. And this is a huge problem within our party for a very long time now, which is an unwillingness to anger parts of our coalition or even have difficult conversations with them. We treat our allies as children, unable to have an adult conversation about where the party

goes. And so we're so afraid of that that we would rather shove the report. And when you have when your entire being is to anger no one, offend no one, then you automatically have lowest common denominator strategic thinking. like you can't be good, you can't be sharp, you can't be incisive because you're just trying to do no harm. Like you're not taking the hypocratic oath, you're trying to win. The last point here that I will make and is that I think it is very like even if you look at all of our success in 2025, do you know what the approval rating of the Democrats in Congress is right now in the most recent Quinnipc poll?

Was it 20? We're we're 55 points underwater. 55 points underwater. The Democratic Party brand still worse than the Republican brand on most issues, including some of the key issues that this election are going to be centered around. The generic ballot average today is 2.9 points, much less than it was at this point in 2017. And it is very possible that we could do change nothing, do the exact same thing, run the same playbook in 2026 and win a narrow house majority. Trump is that unpopular, the economy is that infuriating people that we could win.

But that's not we should be thinking much bigger than that. We should be thinking about how to have a bigger majority. We should be thinking about how to win the Senate. And most importantly, we have to recognize that the demographics of this country are changing in a way that is going to make it impossible for the Democratic party to win the Senate and win a presidential election unless we reshape our coalition. We become more popular with young people. we rebuild our coalition with Latinos and if all we're thinking about there's this short termism that is if we can just win this next election and we can all pat ourselves in the back and be happy without thinking about how to actually think big and think long term then we are going to be doomed to fail here. This is it is just is an inferior lady's stupid and self-defeating decision because of cowardice and caution and complacency.

One of the reasons that we do what we do and especially, you know, whether it's message box with you and and Polar Coaster or Wilderness or any of the things we do here at Crooked is I think there's a group of Democratic establishment uh pollsters, strategists, staffers, officials, many of whom we've worked with, many of whom are very smart, great people, heart in the right place, who do all this research, uh, have all this data, have all this experience, have been on all these campaigns, and there's this sort of like hoarding of information that they don't share with the rest of the public, which I think comes from like an old school model of, you know, what happens when there's too much information released and, you know, you get bad press forward or whatever else. And then the people that are not providing everyone else with the information that they have are the same people that then yell at and

disparage activists and organizers and other volunteers online or elsewhere who are like saying stupid or don't get the politics or don't get this. And the reason that they don't get it is because they don't have the same information as the people in the in the Democratic establishment. And one thing we try to do is to talk to a lot of these people that will talk to us and and share polling and share the information with people so that we can like make the audience who wants to also by the way volunteer and help on campaigns smarter when so when they're talking to voters they know what's working and what's not.

and just hoarding this information, hiding stuff from people. It's not only like counterproductive, it's also feeds the distrust people have of the Democratic party and they think it's a cabal. And you know what? On days like this, I agree because it seems like they're just it's like if you're in the club, you get the report and you get the information. For all you plebs out there, we think this is going to hurt the party and so we don't want you to have the information. We just want us to have the information.

The danger here isn't that the DC is going to get insight into the best way to win the election, right? Or the DSC. Like the value of this is it is the person running the state legislative campaign in Ohio. It is the person running starting a longot congressional bid in a Trump plus 15 district that we might be able to win here. It is the people uh who run local indivisible in swing left chapters. It's the people who are who are thinking of they may want to run, you know, they're thinking about signing up on the run for something website. Those are the people who would benefit from this information.

I I have talked to House candidates, House candidates that are like, you know, working with the DLEC and they're like, "Oh, we listen to we listen to Pod Save America. We read the message box because you don't get a lot from from the DRIP or the DNC on messaging and what you're supposed to do. You're kind of on your own and those are candidates." Yeah,

it's just this is just like to do all of the work is and then just shove the report is just like it just it's an insane choice. If the if the report sucks and you realize the report sucks, say that, right? To say the idea, we did a great job, we have all the answers, but we're going to put them in a secret crypt somewhere because we don't want to upset our momentum from losing a congressional race by 13 points less than we thought. It's also, this is a small point, but the idea that the public backlash from a report that is somehow embarrassing or bad or could cause some kind of fight is going to be worse than the public backlash from keeping a report secret here in the age of the Epstein files.

It's like, what are we doing? That's a good idea. Hey, this report that I've been talking about for the for the full year, we're keeping it secret and I'm letting everyone know. Hakee. All right, DNC chair Pam Bondi, what are we doing here? Hakee Jeff, you know what? Get us a discharge petition. Let's get this thing out.

Anyway, look, I we've talked to Ken Martin. I I we reached out. Hopefully, he can like come on and talk to us about this and we can have a have a civil argument about it because it's it's it's it really it pissed me off a lot today.

Yeah. More more than I expected it would. Um, all right. One last thing before we go. In case you're worried that the president's tireless focus on affordability is taking him away from his true passion, interior design, fear not, Dan. Uh he's been working on something special that you're sure to find both aesthetically pleasing and hilariously entertaining. Uh you might remember that back in September, Trump added uh goldframed portraits of all the US presidents along the White House's West Colonade uh which he is now calling quote the presidential walk of fame.

Again, this is an outdoor walkway. Now we're just hanging stuff up on it. Um the great joke at the time was that Joe Biden's portrait was a photo of an auto pen. Um

which was funny, I would say. Yeah. offensive but funny. Very offensive but funny. But apparently there's more where that came from in the in the comedy category. Uh Trump has been personally writing out captions to go on engraved plaques below each presidential photo which he unveiled on Wednesday. The Biden plaque begins, quote, "Sleepy Joe Biden was by far the worst president in American history." And it goes on from there. Keep in mind some of these plaques the captions were so long that Trump himself wrote they needed two plaques to get all the caption. So that the the Biden one went on for two plaques. Um Barack Obama's reads quote Barack Hussein Obama was the first black president, a community organizer, one-term senator from Illinois, and one of the most divisive political figures in American history.

It also mentions the quote unaffordable care act. Bill Clinton's says that his wife later quote lost the presidency to President Donald J. Trump. Even Ronald Reagan's says that Reagan was quote a fan of President Donald J. Trump long before President Trump's historic run for the White House. Time well spent, Mr. President. Who Who is this for? Who is that for?

It is I I've truly have no idea. It is stunning the lengths to which they will go to not work on making people's lives better.

Imagine they rename the Kennedy Center after Trump today just as another thing they did. You think he's just like sitting there in the oval just dictating the caption? He's not writing anything. He's not typing.

He doesn't type. I don't think he uses other than a Sharpie. Former golf caddy turned whatever he is now. Dan Scavenino also by the way. He was in he was in the photo shoot too. Yeah. So maybe they long day at the photo shoot. They finish up and they're like we got to you know it's this is a tough job. The White House is there's no there's no off days. There's no off hours. So, we're going to stay up late, work on these captions for all the presidents cuz we're only at Millard Filillmore and we got to get all the way to the end. So, um so then he's he's just this is what they're doing. This is what they're doing with their time so that so that they can unveil it to reporters in hopes that we get mad. I guess Barack Obama gets mad, Joe Biden gets mad and and then what? Like what what it's just so stupid. It it really is the entire philosophy of the Republican party over the last decade is

just own the libs at all costs. I think this is just a like I don't feel owned as a lid myself like don't I care?

No. I feel sort of I feel like embarrassed for the country which I feel like I mean he does a million things every day that that so it's not like on high on my list of things that make me embarrassed for the country but you know it's one of them.

It's just I don't feel mad. I just feel like you're like you're a pathetic loser.

It's pathetic. It's just the whole thing is pathetic. It's like what are you doing? Um relatedly, did you see the uh the wonderful news that the board of the Kennedy Center, which is of course made up of handpicked Trump supporters, chaired by Trump himself, has taken a vote. Now, this surprised Trump. He didn't know this was going to happen. He was like, I can't believe they did this. and they're renaming it the Trump Kennedy Center even though that is um not legal to do because because it is named the Kennedy Center by law in a statute that was passed by Congress. And so much like the Department of Defense and the Gulf of Mexico, um we now have the uh Trump Kennedy Center, which is not really the Trump Kennedy Center.

Do you wouldn't it be funny if that was a thing that took him down? The illegal renaming of things. It's like

January 6 official games, you know, so you know, John Roberts says it's okay. Yeah. Just also It's interesting that they just didn't go full tilt and just name it the Trump Center.

Yeah. Yeah. They wanted to I think I think because that's Well, no. I think that somehow makes it more uh like they think that will troll people more to keep Kennedy in there. It's almost like it's like you Kennedy family because we're going to remind you that you're still part of it but now Trump comes first. Who knows? Who know who who the knows?

Like are they going to change the signs? I guess it's already changed on the website. They changed the website.

Yeah. I mean that's not surprising but like there's there's a lot of signage at the Kennedy Center.

Yeah. It's a sec the the other website that changed this week was the FCC uh which called itself an independent commission because it is an independent commission. And then when Brendan Carr was getting grilled by Congress and he refused to say that it's independent anymore, you couldn't say that. Then 20 minutes after he said that, boom, independent came off the page.

You just I would love to just see the the email traffic or text traffic around that where he said it, they're like TO THE WEBSITE. GET IT TO THE WEBSITE. GET IT DOWN. THERE'S STILL ONE THING LEFT.

These people once again more dumb pointless Also like Democratic president gets to the White House, God willing. Like, I also feel bad for the people that have to undo all this because it's going to be like a first week thing, you're g you're you're scraping all the the plaques off the wall and the sign outside the Oval Office and all the other You're taking the amp punk the yellow umbrellas uh off off the uh off the rose garden. And what else? There's a lot of bulldozing the ballroom. The ballrooms is that I don't know. That's a tough one. You can you going to bulldoz?

Yeah, I I have publicly I've angered a lot of my message back subscribers by publicly arguing that the we should not tear the ballroom down.

Uh but we should definitely rename the Kennedy Center and back the Kennedy Center. We should take a lot of the other stuff down for sure.

Yeah. And then we should figure out some ways to troll Donald Trump if he's he's still kicking.

I mean, we could we could leave his uh you know what we do? Keep the wall of presence. Put his mug shot up.

No, he'll love that. You know what we do? We put up the um the image of him that's been used on South Park this season where he is naked except for his teeny tiny little penis.

Oh, the micro penis one. Mhm. That's a good one. Or and Austin just pointed the picture of him and Jeffrey Epstein. We could put that one up too.

Oh, that that's another good one. Yeah, which we have here in our office. We look at all the time. Um

rename federal prisons after Trump. The Trump Epstein prison. Oh, that's a good Yeah, rename Rikers. or rename the club Fed recwell.

There's a lot of options. Yeah, this you know what when the transition comes president who Nuome Shapiro AOC whoever call me this is what I want to work on.

We will petty We will undergo an afteraction report on this interview a lot of people come up with some ideas and we pledge to release it. Unlike Ken,

this is this is a great idea. We're going to need some content in early 2029. We got the perfect last minute gift for you. a friend of the pod subscription. They'll get access to all the good stuff. You get ad free episodes adree of all your favorite crooked shows, exclusive content like Polar Coaster with Dan Feifer. We got a whole some other great shows coming that are going to be just behind the payw wall. Awesome shows hilarious entertaining informative. You're not going to want to miss it. So, you're going to want to subscribe. Um and uh and also you're helping to support independent media, which we love. Um, and uh, so give it to your friends, your family. If you're not a subscriber yet, grab one for yourself, and uh, and we'll have a lot more subscription offerings uh, coming in the new year. Head to crooked.com/friend now. All right, Dan. Uh, that's our show for today. It's our last It's our last

show of the year, you and me. Yeah, Austin. Yeah, Austin's shaking his head. I know. I know. Love it.

This is the last one. We've already recorded some other ones that are coming. We've recorded 5,000 shows this week so that you all got plenty of content in your feeds over the two weeks, but for the two of us, Dan, we're we're off until January.

Wow. I know. And happy birthday. Happy early birthday December 24th birthday. Thank you. Happy birthday to Teddy.

And Yeah. Yeah. Teddy's the 22nd. So, uh, Tommy's going to be back in the feed on Sunday with a conversation with Rahm Emanuel. Speaking of potential 2028 contenders, there's there's a there's a chief of staff who ran a tight chip. as he'll tell you. Um and uh and then we'll be back on Tuesday uh with the 2025 pundy's uh which we just recorded yesterday. Very fun. So check that out. And uh everyone have a wonderful holiday, merry Christmas, happy new year, uh happy Hanukkah, and talk to everybody soon. Bye everyone.

Questions about this episode

What is "Trump FAILS MISERABLY In DISASTER Address" about?

The content critiques a prime-time address by Trump, where he passionately claimed to be fixing the economic mess he inherited and refuted criticisms regarding issues like gender identity in sports. The discussion also covers various political topics, including potential intervention in Venezuela, Trump's executive orders on gender-affirming care, and internal strife within the House over…

What is mentioned in this Pod Save America episode?

38 people, works and ideas are mentioned, including The White House, Tariff King, Gender affirming care, Kennedy Center, White House Chief of Staff, ZBiotics Pre-Alcohol. Each one on this page links to its own page with every episode that mentions it.

How long is "Trump FAILS MISERABLY In DISASTER Address"?

The episode runs 1 h 23 min; the transcript is about 16,567 words in 226 timestamped sections.

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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.