Let Them Eat Cheesecake

0:00Today's presenting sponsor is SimpliSafe Home Security. It's almost Halloween and we can't think of anything spookier than a home security system that doesn't trigger alarms until after it's too late and an intruder has already made their way inside. Traditional security systems only alert you during a break-in. SimpliSafe stops threats before they happen. Smart AI cameras monitor for potential threats and notify SimpliSafe's live agents. The agents intervene in under 30 seconds, speaking through the camera to stop an intruder in their tracks and call for urgent 911 dispatch when it's needed most. Our CEO here, Lucinda, she installed a SimpliSafe system at her house. She said the system was ready in a couple

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1:11And we have just added a bunch more great names to the lineup. We got Governor J.B. Pritzker coming. Senator Chris Murphy. And then over from the House side, Ilhan Omar, Robert Garcia, Sarah Jacobs, Jamie Raskin, Sarah McBride. We also have Carlos Eduardo Espina, Simone Sanders, Townsend, Eugene Daniels, David Pakman, Jessica Tarloff, Heather McGee, and then all the other people that we've announced on the website, plus more to come. Great list. Check out the full lineup and get tickets right now at CrookedCon.com. We'd love to see you there. That's CrookedCon.com. Fall and comfort foods go hand in hand. Grandma's mac and cheese, soup and grilled cheese. But how do you create those cozy moments while still maintaining your health goals?

1:51Hero Bread can help. Hero Bread's soft, fluffy, flavorful sliced breads, bagels, tortillas, and hero noodles have only 0 to 5 grams net carbs and up to 19 grams of protein per serving. So go ahead, enjoy some cheesy mac and cheese. Enjoy that stacked sandwich with Hero Bread for lunch. Or start your day with a fully loaded bagel. Because with Hero Bread, there's none of the stiff baked goods you expect from better for you brands. And right now, Hero Bread is offering 10% off your order. Go to hero.co and use code iHeart at checkout. That's H-E-R-O dot C-O, code iHeart. All figures per serving of Hero Bread. See nutrition facts on hero.co for sodium and sugar content. Welcome to Plot Save America. I'm Jon Favreau.

3:04I'm Jon Lovett. I'm Tommy Vitor. On today's show, we got Barack Obama hitting the trail for Democrats, Cheesecake Factory discourse, more ass play from Trump, more anti-Muslim bigotry from Trump, more election meddling from Trump, this time in Alaska, the return of Jeffrey Epstein as a political issue, and the president's longest truth social post ever. Was it? About his breakup with Bill Maher. Was it really the longest ever? CNN counted, according to CNN. Now, they are fake news. I mean, I wouldn't mess with Daniel Dale on this one. So we got lots to talk about today, but first, Crooked Con's coming up right after the midterms, November 5th through 7th. You're going to want to be there because everyone else is going,

3:41and you just don't want to miss out on what happens. There's going to be a lot going on. Our Pod Save America live show is sold out, but there are still a few tickets left for Love It or Leave It and Strict Scrutiny on Friday night. We also just published the official schedule for Saturday, November 7th at CrookedCon.com. There are more than 25 different conversations planned. I'm hosting one on the future of the Democratic brand that includes Chris Van Hollen, Sarah McBride, and Milak Kiros. What about you guys? So I'm doing two panels. I'm doing one with Jerusalem Dempsis and Derek Thompson and Faz Shakir. We're going to talk about why liberalism has become cringe, whether or not it can be saved, whether the challenge from the left means it should be replaced. And we're going to have it. We're going to live out. We're going to pivot left to me a

4:28fun time. Cool. And I'm going to do a panel with a bunch of strategists who are on the 2026 campaigns right now about what worked, what didn't work, what was exciting in those races, what annoyed the fuck out of them in those races. It's gonna be great. Nice. Ben and I are going to do a little, uh action, get ready for that with a focus on what Democrats should do in terms of oversight if we win back Congress. Knock on wood, everyone knock on wood. And then I'm going to host a debate about U.S. policy towards Israel, specifically what the Democrats should be saying and doing. Something light. No tripwires there, guys. Yeah. I'm sure everyone will walk away from that one happy. We also added to our list of attendees who are coming Wes Moore and Mark Kelly.

5:07So we're adding names every day. So check it out, CrookedCon.com. Get your tickets today, and we will see you in D.C. All right, let's get to the news. The midterms are just seven days away. Around 30 million ballots have already been cast. How about that? And the campaigns are in full get-out-the-vote mode, which means it's time for rallies with the best closer you've got for the Democrats. That's this guy. We have never seen a president excel in straight up grifting on your dime like this. As Abdul mentioned, the guys become billions of dollars wealthier in office. Nobody disputes this. How do you do that when you're supposed to be looking out for you? I don't know if you've noticed, but he is very focused on home renovation.

5:59And then there is just gold everywhere. What's up with the gold? I mean, he's got the White House looking like Saddam Hussein opened a cheesecake factory. There's just gold everywhere. I'll tell you, when I saw that line, I loved it. I thought that was great. I just instantly reposted it. That is great. It didn't even occur to me that there would be a backlash or a fake backlash. It didn't occur to me. You know, in the back of my mind, I kind of – I was like there will be a few – I didn't think it would go as far as it did. I thought it would be – like now – so for those who don't know we're talking about, because you don't spend all your life on Twitter, the Cheesecake Factory line there ignited a discourse on Elon Musk's platform. producer and they tried to argue that Obama was being elitist and condescending to real Americans

7:06who apparently believe that the White House should match the aesthetic of their favorite chain restaurant if it were designed by the deceased Iraqi dictator. And of course then because of the algorithm and it just snowballs and now it's on Fox News and then of course Donald Trump got a question about it today on Monday afternoon. Let's hear what he said. For you to say it's a cheesecake factory, that just shows why you were a lousy president. I love that. I love that he was talking directly to Obama in the camera. It really hurt his feelings. It did. He paused that. Pause. He was really hurt. feelings it did really he paused that pause he was really hurt that was a response like why i'm surprised why didn't he take it as a compliment that it

7:50was compared to the cheesecake factory because i thought that's what real that's the top aesthetic for real americans i'll tell you why it didn't occur to me that it would become one of these because i don't you know a lot of these like the maga people are saying like oh it's an insult to real americans in the rest of the country like the MAGA people are saying like, oh, it's an insult to real Americans in the rest of the country and the heartland that love Cheesecake Factory. But I have associated since my childhood, the Cheesecake Factory as the fanciest chain restaurant in the fanciest mall in town. Yes, always. It's the fancy one. Burlington Mall, that's where I'd go to the Cheesecake Factory.

8:21You would go. Chesson Hill, there you go. It's an event. You get your buzzer and you walk around the mall until your buzzer buzzes. And I get the bang, bang chicken and shrimp since I was in high school. Crusted chicken Romano. Extra sauce. Pasta's a little dry otherwise. Can I tell you guys something? What? As a surprise, I wanted to order Cheesecake Factory to have a bunch of apps here. Come on. I did it on DoorDash and then it's right outside the fucking delivery zone, which is crazy because it's at the Grove, which is not that far from us. Again, fancy mall. Yes. Rick Caruso's The Grove. That's where that's that's the closest. Yeah, that's MAGA flyover country. It's close enough to my house.

8:58But when I made the delivery zone in the office, it was, I know, so pissed. And now I really now I need to go because we've been talking about it for two days. I know, I know. And then we were posting about it and I made a joke at my own expense that sort of hurt my own feelings, which I refer to. I know. I was going to respond with another joke. I'm like, he made the joke about himself. I said that I was going to order a cheesy factory to my home, which looks like a gay Saddam Hussein designed a solo house. And I was like, oh my God. I really, I genuinely wrote that. And I was like, oh, John. I thought, I genuinely wrote that. And I was like, ah, John. I thought the solo house thing was worse.

9:28It was mean. I was really mean to myself. I was like, Jesus, you worked hard to make this place look nice. Do you see they said Scott Besant to Cheesecake today for Obama? You're a hundred millionaire, hedge fund manager, like pissy cadaver treasury secretary is like the least relatable guy on earth did you see the clip because the the tweet from besant says oh barack obama i recommend the um uh the cheeseburger spring rolls but in the in the answer scott besant doesn't say anything about any of the food at the cheesecake factory because clearly scott beson has never been to the fucking Cheesecake Factory, and his staff was like, oh, that's what we're going to put in the tweet, because he didn't say it in the answer.

10:10True heroes of the Cheesecake Factory know that you order the egg roll sampler, and you don't know which one is which, and you never find out. And there's four sauces, and there's four spring rolls, and you dip with wild abandon. Also, the buffalo bite's so good. I'm surprised they ran this play, because they seem like such humorless scolds. It's just really lame. And everyone knows Trump has shifted the Overton window when it comes to politics and when it comes to what you can say at events. We're going to talk about another version of it in a minute. But Trump literally said affordability is a hoax perpetrated by the Democrats. They had a great Gatsby-themed costume party at Mar-a-Lago during the government shutdown.

10:47I think on the day snap benefits were suspended. Like the list goes on and on and on. But it's like you don't even have to get past the fact that it's like he wasn't he specifically wasn't making fun of the Cheesecake Factory, let alone people who go to the Cheesecake Factory. He was saying that the aesthetic of the Cheesecake Factory, which, as those who go to the Cheesecake Factory know, and the people who've designed the Cheesecake Factory have said in interviews, is purposely over-the-top and gaudy. That's the whole joke. That's why I didn't understand. And the idea that most people who love the Cheesecake Factory would then say, I want my White House to look like that. I want the people, I want the president to spend time making the White House look like that if Saddam Hussein decided to do that.

11:30When you go to the Cheesecake Factory, and I pointed this out on social media, I am a member of Cheesecake Rewards. I'm part of the family. When you go to Cheesecake Factory, one of the things you do is you sit down and you look around and you go, boy, this place is fucking nuts. Look how crazy it is. Look how big these stupid columns are. It's like you're inside of an Egyptian cake. That's awesome. It's awesome. I love Las Vegas. I like going to casinos. I like the aesthetics of casinos. I like casinos. Don't pretend they're anything other than what they are. There's no irony in the design of a casino, but I don't want the White House to look like a casino. I want the White House to look like a nice place where foreign leaders will come and Boy Scouts and so on.

12:06Did you see that Byron Tao is a reporter now at ProPublica said that his first job in D.C. was a waiter at Cheesecake. And he said he used to see Sasha and Malia Obama there all the time in the Chevy Chase one. I mean, it's. By the way, if I'm going to a mall, I'm getting Panda Express. You get those little meats on a stick. It's way better. Or Bertucci's if you're in Boston. Bertucci's. Scale it a little bit. I think I went bankrupt. Now that's fancy. Sorry, R.I.P. little meats on a stick it's way better or bertucci's if you're in boston there was a line that my father once said when we were driving by the bertucci's on an island which i've actually has come to mind many times in my life he said no one ever goes to bertucci's

12:38there's always a line you know yeah i think about that with helm prices you know? Yeah. I think about that with how prices, you know, my favorite thing about this is just like, clearly none of these fucking like rich pundits on the coast know what the fuck they're talking about or have been to a cheesecake factory. Like Martha McCallum was on Fox. She like, she couldn't even put her heart. She didn't even know what she was talking about. She's like, and one thing about the cheesecake factory thing, it's another clinging to guns and religion moment. And this is why they lost the working class. Enough about this basket of deplorables. How about this basket of shrimp? All these same Fox hosts are at these

13:13Gaudi Mar-a-Lago parties every weekend. Sean Hannity's wedding was just there. It's ridiculous. There's no Cheesecake Factory on the island of Manhattan, and it shows. I didn't know that. Right before we started recording, I noticed a tweet from... I'm just going to read what the person said about Barack Obama in the speech. I wouldn't dismiss what Barack Obama is doing there. Barack Obama may be the most effective Democrat politician of our lifetime. His ability to communicate is really powerful and really dangerous. If we didn't have the 22nd amendment, it wouldn't surprise me if Obama spent the rest of his life in the White House. Wait, wait. Oh. Hmm. I want to say it's someone in the Tucker world or like a Marjorie Taylor Greene type.

13:50Ted Cruz. Whoa. On his podcast today. Huh? Yeah. What? Is that wild? Why? I know. I was like, is this right? I like to have to listen to the whole thing. I don't know. Ted Cruz. There you go. It's a weird day in politics, I guess. It's a very weird day. It's funny because Ted is starting to figure out how to run against Vance. And so he's starting to find his way. Well, he says like an Obama previewed in that speech what the Democrats are going to do, what the plays they're going to run in 2028. Corruption, not Cheesecake Factory, but like corruption and all this kind of stuff. And so he's really like studying it. Well, yeah, Ted, we are. Yeah. You mean the most obvious case against the worst president in history?

14:24Yeah, like the billions in crypto. The billions in corruption. In the land of the blind, you know. Yeah. You mean the most obvious case against the worst president in history? Yeah, like the billions in crypto. In the land of the blind, you know? It's not just the cheesecake factory litmus test where Trump is proving he's a man of the people. He's barnstorming battleground states like Mississippi, Texas, Iowa, Ohio, and Florida this week. That's it. That's the final week with his famed I'm one of you message. Here's how it went over this last weekend. We're making hundreds and hundreds of billions, trillions of dollars. But my people said, please don't mention that, sir, because people are paying a little higher.

15:00We're making money like this country has never made before. So I said, let me say it very gingerly, very softly. Just see the fake headlines. President Trump is talking about all the money they're making while people are suffering at the pump. That'll be the headline. But I said, I don't give a damn. I'm going to say it. We're making a freaking fortune. By the way, I looked at one hell of a beautiful ass before, Nicki Minaj. I've been living with this whole thing about the ass. And believe me, it's of no interest to me other than to say John Huston is one hell of an athlete, okay? So I'm willing to sacrifice. I'd say that about your ass too, Mike, if it gets you a guaranteed. I've been living with this whole thing about the ass.

15:50One of his best lines. The funny thing, have you seen JD trying to riff on ass now? He's been doing it. He's been like, I won't talk about John Husted's ass. I won't talk about it. Not like Trump will. He can't pull it off. In the same way that Trump, look, I don't think Trump should be talking about Nicki Minausted's ass, I won't talk about it. Not like Trump will. He can't pull it off. In the same way that Trump, look, I don't think Trump should be talking about Nicki Minaj's ass, but could you imagine if J.D. Vance said a word about Nicki Minaj's ass? I think he would walk out. Yeah. Also, his voice sounds like kind of like a Fats Domino doing Blueberry Hill thing there. I liked it. But look, the risk of being on my fainting couch, I think we're all used to

16:24Trump being a little politically incorrect. I think that's kind of the appeal for a lot of people. Him saying – this one surprised me a little bit, I think. Him saying to Nicki Minaj, by the way, I looked at one hell of a beautiful ass before. That's hard to miss. And then get up, Nicki. That's a weird thing to do. Well, I mean there's reports now that she may be the next White House press secretary. That's a weird thing to do. Well, I mean, there's reports now that she may be the next White House press secretary. That's a real rumor. And so if you're going to have your White House press secretary, you've got to check out their ass. Parade her. Yeah, you don't become White House press secretary in this administration without walking to the Oval and doing 360.

16:55Yeah, you can't be getting that job without having your ass inspected by the president. Well, John Husted's going to need a job too. That's funny. I will say that I will say he did set himself up. If there was ever going to be a time that Donald Trump could say, Nicki Minaj, I enjoy looking at your butt. Boy, he's done all the legwork. It's as if it was. It was. You know, it was a long play. It's actually it's like, well, he has to hasn't it's like you step back you're like I mean it's strange to see a president just outright complimenting a celebrity's ass and asking her to show the ass to the arena but then again it's kind of what he's been doing with all the men yeah in a way it was misogynist

17:35to not be mentioning a woman right that's fair he's only talking about men's asses the whole time building to a pretty epic no homo there with you said it's all a way of being like and this guy played football and he was good and he thinks building to a pretty epic no homo there. With Houston, it's all a way of being like, and this guy played football and he was good. And he thinks that's like good politics and manly and like kind of effective in Ohio. And Trump's whole like version of politics is like strength versus weakness, right? He's always doing things strongly, like using it as an adverb where it doesn't make sense. It's really like fascist aesthetic kind of thing. Calling very strongly to my counterpart,

18:03that kind of stuff. But yeah, anyway. On the gas prices thing, Trump's obviously been saying shit like this for months. I don't give a damn. We're making a freaking fortune. Does seem like the worst version to be closing with, though. Maybe the political damage from high gas prices can't get any worse for Trump at this point. All baked in. What do you think? Yeah, I think it's the gas prices versus him claiming we're making a fortune on Venezuelan oil. But also then you're like, well, he's also personally making money, right? Like he's talking about the country. He's clearly in that moment talking about the country making money, of course. And there was a separate story today. We didn't say that Trump's, his stocks in oil and gas have been making quite a bit of money. Oh, good for

18:43him. So, you know, I chalk it up to – I think it's a pretty brazen – like nobody's feeling like the country's making lots of money, but I just chalk it up to Trump usual kind of bragging about the economy. I think it's more the part where he goes, oh, the gas prices are up just a little when it's actually like hurting a lot of people, including, you know, at one of these events you'll see like truckers for Trump back there and like those are the people just absolutely getting fucking reamed because of this. Well, also just the way he's doing it and like a mocking voice there. Yeah, that's the problem. Oh, struggling at the pump, which, of course, they're not offended by because they're so upset that the White House doesn't that Barack Obama thinks that the White House shouldn't look like the Cheesecake Factory, that they're not even thinking about the price of gas.

19:22Yeah, the price of gas issue is probably pretty baked in. But I do think like when you're two weeks out, I think things that happen are like exponentially more important than things that happen two months out. And so there will be people who are late deciders who will hear this and be like, what the fuck, man, this sucks. Or there will be candidates who will be doing local TV interviews and will get asked about those comments. They'll have to do the Trump dance and kind of like half defend what he said, but not offend their voters. So like, it's not, it's not a helpful closing message. I'd be really pissed if I was the person campaigning with him. Right. Like I presumably they've now picked a

19:53fight over whether or not the white house has been turned into a cheesecake factory and whether or not the country's making a lot of money, even though gas prices are high. Like I would say Donald Trump being a corrupt, distracted buffoon and the fact that the economy is hurting are probably like the two things they should be talking about the least. If I were to pick the two things, maybe the Iran war one more notch up. Remember that there was a thought like a couple months ago that maybe gas prices would like inch down by the election. I mean, we're a week away now. That's it. It's not happening. People are voting. All the moves, all the things he did, all the, you know, releasing the oil reserves,

20:31the Venezuela stuff, the Russian diesel deal, none of it. The big, interestingly, the main reason prices didn't spike more than they did was the Chinese drastically cut back their purchases of oil. No one really knows why. Probably because they didn't want the global economy to collapse because they export all their stuff. But then they stopped doing that. They started importing more oil. And I think, frankly, I think the Iranians and the Houthis kind of made a play to spike oil prices before the midterms. Well, that's my guess. They nailed it. Like Brent crude is at like 115 today. Well, and I wonder if part of that is getting re-made Brent. Brent freaking Brent and Netanyahu is like apparently in a giant fight with the chief of staff of the IDF over whether or not to bomb the Iranians again.

21:13And they're all everyone assumes it's going to happen after the election. Yeah. I was sort of wondering if that's what was causing today. Yeah. Pod Save America is brought to you by Zbiotics. Thank you. ready to tackle tomorrow. Z-Biotics pre-alcohol probiotic drink is the world's first genetically engineered probiotic. It was engineered by PhD microbiologists to break down acetaldehyde, unwanted byproduct of alcohol metabolism. Make pre-alcohol your first drink of the night. Drink responsibly and enjoy your next day activities. Do you know how Marie Curie died? No. Cancer. Do you know how her husband Pierre Curie died? No. Run over by a horse. Damn, this is a bummer. Make pre-alcohol your first drink of the night.

22:06Drink responsibly. Enjoy your next day activity. ZBiotics has sold more than 14 million bottles and earned the trust of thousands, including us. Thousands. You know what I'm bringing some ZBiotics? Crooked Con. Oh, yeah. We got to bring in a Crooked Con. We are going to have a good-ass time. We're going to have some drinks. And I need to feel my best the next day. That's why I need my ZBiotics. Try it for yourself today. And if you're unsatisfied, they will refund your entire order. No questions asked. Head to zbiotics.com slash crooked code crooked for 15% of your first order. That's zbiotics.com slash crooked code crooked. Pod Save America is brought to you by Helix. It is cozy season, which means everyone is staying in bed

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23:47Trump's also decided to ramp up the anti-Muslim bigotry in the homestretch in a way that's just stunningly grotesque, even for him. In the middle of his Michigan event for Mike Rogers, Trump invited to the stage the father of someone who died on 9-11, one of the people who was on Flight 93. And this guy then compared the election to the horrific terrorist attack on 9-11, one of the people who was on Flight 93. And this guy then compared the election to the horrific terrorist attack on 9-11. He said, quote, What's different this time is the enemy has not come from abroad. The enemy is right here among us, local terrorists. And then he said, Mike Rogers is an American. Abdul has a birth certificate.

24:20A birth certificate doesn't make you an American. Trump decided to be even less subtle about this in his remarks. I'm here to keep a jihadist Muslim Brotherhood member from becoming a United States senator. Any Jewish person that support this guy should be ashamed of themselves, I'll tell you what. If Abdul and the Democrats win, they will open the floodgates and invite hordes of jihadists to our shores, creating a nightmare of violence and terror until you cannot even have a Christmas. Anyone with that record of support for jihadists would be screened and unable to get a seat on an airplane. He would be the only senator that will have to go through a metal detector before he's allowed to go into the Senate. I want him to have a metal detector. Jesus. Mike Rogers was said

25:11nothing at the rally, of course, but was finally forced to answer for this on Meet the Press this weekend. Here's what he said. Do you agree with calling him a violent terrorist? He said the guy said, are you going to answer the question? Hold on. Will you disavow? And he said, yeah, absolutely. I'll answer the question. He never answers the question. Is that up to your standard? No, I don't. I've never called him a terrorist. This election is about me versus Abdul. That's a lie, by the way. Dave Portnoy tweeted a clip of Abdul making a joke about Michigan football and said, this guy really is a terrorist. And Mike Rogers quote tweeted it and said, Portnoy is exactly right. Oh yeah. That is calling him a terrorist buddy.

25:49Like you can't deny that. I like what Trump is doing there. It's racist. It's bigoted. But I also think it's like genuinely putting Abdul's safety and life at risk. Yes. Because that's what I was worried. He calls him an enemy. He calls him a jihadist. He does an event with Todd Beamer, right? Who was the hero of nine 11. But, um, the, the suggestion is that Abdul is like a nine 11 hijacker, That's what I was worried about. violence. And U.S. presidents, they kill enemies. U.S. presidents kill jihadists. Nothing about that is acceptable or backed up by the facts. And like all the Republicans who blamed the Democratic Party and the rhetoric from Democrats after the assassination attempts on Trump and who blamed Democrats for Charlie Kirk's assassination are silent on this, just silent.

26:42So Donald Trump says there that any Jew would be ashamed to vote for Abdul. And there's a debate among Jews in Michigan about whether to vote for Abdul. I just want to be very clear. Jews in Michigan have a moral obligation to support Abdul. They should do it to protect themselves from anti-Semitism and rising hatred in America. And if that sounds confusing to you at all, you should imagine two futures, one in which there is a debate inside the Democratic Party about America's relationship to Israel, military aid for Israel, and anti-Semitism on the left, which is real. That is a big and important debate we could have to try to find places of agreement, a place of consensus. There can be persuasion and argument and hard feelings,

27:23but there can be democracy. On the other, you have this kind of politics on the right, where it is about dominance and hatreds and othering of people. It starts with Muslims. He does it for trans people. He does it for immigrants. He does it for Haitians eating the dogs and the cats. If you think that that doesn't end with Jews, you are out of your fucking minds. A country where this kind of politics is rewarded is a country where Jews are less safe. And anyone who has allowed their own concerns and legitimate concerns about Abdul to cloud that ultimate larger point is missing the big picture here. Jews in America, our safety is based around the idea that there's a society in which we can have arguments and disagreements, but we respect those differences. Trump does not

28:12believe in that. And we need to have a check on Donald Trump in a Democratic Senate. And maybe Abdul is not your cup of tea. Maybe Abdul is going to be a reliable vote against Israel. Fine. We can handle that, but we cannot handle a continued slide to this hateful Authoritarian right it will be dangerous for us Yeah, I would just add that like You know people say well, it's not because he's Muslim It's because of all these ties to the Muslim Brotherhood blah blah blah The latest thing is like apparently Abdul signed this open letter to the new Egyptian president. This is after the Arab Spring, after Hosni Mubarak was overthrown, the dictator there. And this is somehow now evidence according to Mike Rogers, not Donald Trump because Donald Trump doesn't know anything.

28:55He's just like he's a terrorist. But Mike Rogers is trying to do the whole connection thing. And this is what people are hanging on. I've heard this from a few people. Like what about this letter? What about the mother? I hear that he won't answer questions about the Muslim Brotherhood. Like I've heard this from people who are very engaged, smart people who are just like asking questions about this. Yeah, and I don't know if we're going to play that clip, but Mike Rogers gets asked about comments he made about the Muslim Brotherhood, which is basically about trying to find moderating forces within the Muslim Brotherhood that the US could work with. Which again, like ironically, like neither Abdul nor Rogers are saying things that are all that radical at the time.

29:28Because the chronology, as you said, it's like we're at the beginning of the Arab Spring. Mubarak gets tossed in February 2011. There's parliamentary elections. The Muslim Brotherhood does really well. And then the presidential election is in 2012. Mohamed Morsi is the democratically elected president of Egypt. It's a big deal. Interestingly, he's an engineer who went to USC for a bit and then taught at Cal State Northbridge for a few years. So the West is like, OK, maybe we can work with this guy. He brokers – Morsi helped broker a ceasefire in Gaza in 2012. I don't remember that. So he was like immediately seen as this helpful actor on the world stage. But then he made this big power grab.

30:06The economy collapsed. He's deposed in a brutal coup. And the military has been in charge ever since. So the letter Abdul signed was like purge the media, purge the police of the Mubarak regime loyalists because everyone thought that they were going to stage a coup. And that ultimately is what happened. And the quote that Rogers gets read by Welker that he said in like 2012 is again, trying to find someone in Morsi's government to work with to kind of maintain the US-Egypt relationship. So both of them are being like eminently reasonable given the context and the politics of the time. I think Rogers is ultimately probably thrilled to see a military coup happened because then the people of Egypt

30:43have no say in their political future anymore. And all the like Intel and security officials, you know, that the Intel community knew are back in charge. But it's all just like, it's very specious. It's all guilt by association. And then there's Abdul's mom who may or may not have been in the MB at one point, but like they didn't really have a relationship. No, and was doing like charity work for orphans when she was part of this organization you know back in missouri and again he never like lived it just the idea that we are like family members that abdul didn't live with that aren't abdul we're now like he he has to like answer for everything they've ever done or said every tweet they've ever done every letter

31:21he's ever signed even though it says the same thing that most members of congress were saying at the time as well, Democrats and Republicans. It's so fucking absurd. And it is designed just to be like, if you're someone who wants an excuse and someone's like, don't be anti-Muslim, anti-Muslim bigot, don't be Islamophobic. And you say, well, no, no, no, I'm not. It's not because he's Muslim. It's because he's tied to this organization. And so you throw out little crumbs, right? Of like, well, there is this connection. And then you just hope that people aren't, don't know enough about the history or aren't going to research it, that they just say, I don't know, he seems extreme. That's it. That's what

31:53the whole thing is based on. Yeah. And all Italians are mobbed up and all Catholics have dual loyalties. Like this is all very old, that Jews can't be trusted. They're not really Americans, right? This idea that, oh, sure, Abdul has a birth certificate, but he's not a real American. That is the exact same kind of shit that has been directed at Jews and other minority groups for a very, very long time. And people really need to wake up for it. Whatever your concerns are with Abdul, you can talk about them. You can debate them. You can try to persuade him. You can accept or not accept the apologies you've given for statements that I think were wrong and stupid and bad. But to pretend that what this is isn't the greater

32:35threat is, I think, to have your head in the sand and to allow your bad feeling and to become a kind of privilege. In that same interview, Amit, the press, Rogers also had to defend an association that might end up being a lot more politically damaging than any ties to the Muslim Brotherhood. Let's listen. Do you consider yourself to be a MAGA Republican? Listen, I'm going to tell you, this is I get you guys on the national press, but this is a little bit disgusting to me. All you want to do is talk about something else. No, you're on the ground. Are you? I've already answered the question, Kristen. That's just what I want to know. Do you consider yourself to be a Republican? Kristen, let me I'm going to go right back through this. Is a vote for you a vote for the Trump agenda?

33:25I'm apologizing. I'm having some difficulty in my earpiece, but is a vote for you? I'm not sure. I'll tell you what a vote for me is. It's a great day for the state of Michigan. The question I heard is, is Abdul and the Muslim Brotherhood. Great question, Kristen. It's so easy to answer that and not be like a petulant baby. Like I'm a Mike Rogers Republican. So easy. You know what I mean? Like I'm going to vote for the agenda that's going to help the people of Michigan. Like you don't have to be a petulant little baby. Yeah, but here's the thing. Like he's having Trump. He needs the MAGA people to show up and think he's part of the team. He really is in a bind. Yeah, but they're not watching Meet the Press.

33:59Just like the clip will go viral. Don't get baby about it. Yeah, well, he doesn't want Mr. Trump to hear. Yeah, right. Bad for Mr. Trump to hear. Bad for the clip to go around. Pod save America is brought to you by Nutrafol. Sometimes upgrading your wellness routine doesn't require a full overhaul. It's just about narrowing it to one thing you can gradually and sustainably improve. If hair health is something you've been meaning to pay more attention to, now's a great time to make it part of your routine. That's where Nutrafol comes in. Nutrafol is the number one dermatologist recommended hair growth supplement brand, and it's the number one hair growth supplement brand personally used by dermatologists. Because hair health isn't one size fits all, Nutrafol offers different formulas for

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35:10And also there's good stuff in there. Sure. It's, you know, giving me that the mane of a lion, but I think it's also just like a, it's good to take. See thicker, stronger, faster growing hair with less shedding in just three to six months. Now Nutraful is offering our listeners $15 off your first month subscription and free shipping when you visit Nutraful.com and enter promo code crookedOOKED. That's Nutrafol.com, spelled N-U-T-R-A-F-O-L.com, promo code CROOKED for $15 off. Be sure to use our code to support our show. Long play, our docuseries exploring the people and forces shaping the South is back. Newsflash, the South is the new political epicenter of the country. Democrats are way on their heels in this region, but Republicans are

35:50going through their own reckoning in the South too. We're in the final stretch of the midterms and the political map has only gotten more competitive with new states and districts emerging as potential flips. So we thought it was time to get back out on the road and take a closer look at what's actually happening on the ground. I'm Erin Haines, journalist and expert on all things Southern politics. And I'm Jennifer Palmieri, former White House communications director. Tune in on Mondays to Long Play Series on YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts. Fall and comfort foods go hand in hand. Grandma's mac and cheese, soup and grilled cheese. But how do you create those cozy moments while still maintaining your health goals?

36:30Hero Bread can help. Hero Bread's soft, fluffy, flavorful sliced breads, bagels, tortillas, and hero noodles have only 0 to 5 grams net carbs and up to 19 grams of protein per serving. So go ahead, enjoy some cheesy mac and cheese. Enjoy that stacked sandwich with Hero Bread for lunch or start your day with a fully loaded bagel. Because with Hero Bread, there's none of the stiff baked goods you expect from better for you brands. And right now, Hero Bread is offering 10% off your order. Go to Hero.co and use code IHEART at checkout. That's H-E-R-O dot C-O, code IHEART. All figures per serving of Hero Bread. See nutrition facts on Hero.co for sodium and sugar content. So, Abdul and his campaign have been obviously pushing back on these anti-Muslim attacks

37:27for most of the campaign. He did get some help from Obama during the event in Michigan. Let's listen. We have seen this movie before. I starred in it. I've got a long-form birth certificate to prove it. This stuff didn't work on me, not in Michigan. It's not going to work on Abdul. Imagine the power duo of Abdul and Alyssa. You've got a Muslim man, you've got a Jewish woman fighting for you in the United States Senate. That's something, Michigan, you can be proud of. So I thought that was a good way of handling it from Obama. Like, Abdul's campaign, this is the challenge here. Like, obviously, they want to focus closing message on cost of living issues, Rogers being tied to, you know, Donald Trump, MAGA, who's going to be Trump's vote in the Senate.

38:18To what extent do you think they also have to deal with these attacks? Because this is the tension every day in the campaign. You're like, we don't want to have another day on this, but also we're hearing things from, you know, it's like, you got to take it head on. I think you can't just do this as a distraction. I think you sound like you're ducking it. I think we learned this the hard way with Obama. I mean, there was a period of time when there the birther stuff, the questions about whether or not he'd been born in the United States was like, email forwards and seen as a subterranean smear campaign. And we had to take it head on. We like built a, it seems sort of hokey now, but built a website, stopthesmears.com to like fully take on these

38:49charges. And I think Abdul has to speak directly to these attacks. I think Republicans have made the election about Abdul. He would rather it be about Trump and the MAGA agenda and Mike Rogers being a rubber stamp for that. But voters in Michigan are getting inundated with ads and articles and clips about motherhood or whatever it might be. And he used to speak to it because the late deciders are getting this information now and they're paying attention now. And so it's unfair and it's bigoted, but I think that was an effective way to push back from Obama. I think part of it is Abdul like bro-ing out and talking about football and talking about going to Michigan. But Obama is saying they tried this shit on me.

39:27They're going to try to do it to him, but there's nothing radical about universal health care. It's a good pivot. Yeah. Yeah. Clearly, Obama spent a lot of that speech trying to make an argument to get whatever is that subset of black voters in Michigan, some Haley Stevens voters, some Jewish voters, whoever, that just don't feel totally comfortable yet with Abdul to come on board and to make the best to tell the best story about why they should and why they should see themselves as people that should be excited to be part of that, even if right now they're not. And I think what Rogers is doing right this fear mongering does two things for him. One, it is about trying to get some maybe disaffected or unenthusiastic Republicans to show up and to keep some of those Democrats or potential Democratic voters to stay home.

40:12So he gets to do one thing. And that one thing does both of the things that he needs to do. And so Abdul has a bit of a harder job because it requires kind of making two different cases. Yeah. And I think, you know, I saw there was an ad from Abdul over the last couple of weeks where it's just an ad about his faith. And it's a little broader than like answering the specific charges. But I think you're right, Tommy, like they just in the final week when people are looking for information, they're about to go into the voting booth. You kind of need to knock down the specific. Stuff's breaking through. I mean, you got to speak to it. You just can't let it go. Yeah. One more thing on Michigan, you know, a ton of state to knock down the specifics. Stuff's breaking through. I mean, you've got to speak to it. You just can't let it go. Yeah.

40:46One more thing on Michigan. You know, a ton of state Democrats are out there campaigning for Abdul, but there are some notable exceptions. Here's his primary opponent, Haley Stevens, on CNN this weekend. You're still fully behind Abdul El-Sayed? Look, I'm on the Democratic ticket. You know, I can't say that I agree with everything that's gone on. I'm not looking to be front and center right now. I'm looking to be on the team to support, you know, my next governor, Jocelyn Benson. And frankly, these great Democrats who are working their tails off, who are going to make Hakeem Jeffries the first black speaker of the House. You didn't mention Abdul Hussein in that last answer. Well, look, I would just say you would asked me if I'm still on the team.

41:25I'm on the team. So Stevens did endorse Abdul, of course, as soon as the – like right as the primary ended. She said at the time, you know, the time for the disunity is over. She made a strong case against Mike Rogers. I remember like we were all saying right after that primary was over like, wow, very gracious of Haley Stevens. That's like exactly, you know, really like stepping up there. This was kind of a confusing shift in tone from her. Like, I didn't quite get it. What'd you guys make of it? Yeah, it's strange, right? Because she's already endorsed. So a statement like this doesn't make you less for him. It just makes you less helpful, right? Like, okay, you're on the team, but you're just not interested

42:04in being very good as a teammate, right? You're just, you're, you're, I'm on the team, but I'm not like super committed to helping my team win or anything, right? So I like find it strange because if she thinks that's gonna, like if she, if there's some specific thing she wants from Abdul in order to become a better endorser, the time for that has long since passed, right? So there's no strategic benefit to doing this in the week before the campaign. Like she's registering some dissatisfaction with some specific thing she'd like him to do differently. Instead, it's just kind of feeding this idea that there's democratic disunity. And no matter what happens, she will still in the future be very much tagged with being associated with Abdul if that's her concern. So I just – it's of no value and only harm to me.

42:47Yeah. I just don't – I don't understand why like if you don't have – if you knew that – if you don't want to be out there saying, of course, I support Abdul and just because I'm not on the campaign trail doesn't mean I don't support him 100 percent, don't do interviews. Right. Do you want to lose or win? Because if you're going to do an interview – Can you get asked? Unless that was the intention to, to knowing that you were going to be asked to say that, in which case that's not great. Do you want to seem like you want them to win, but actually you want them to lose? Right. She was on CBS and she was asked, are you going to campaign side by side with a duel? And she said, whatever he wants me to do.

43:18It's like, it did something. I wonder if something changed. Yeah, that's right. Like, was there some falling out? Did they not do their politics well enough on the El-Sayed campaign? I don't know. It was odd. Yeah. But I would like, you know. That seemed like the worst of all worlds for him politically. Yeah. And to echo what you said, Levitt, like we're in the final week here and it's like, you know, whatever reservations people have about Abdul, I think we just, if you're a Democrat or an independent or anyone who finds what Trump said there odious and what Rogers has been doing odious, then like, you know, I would urge you to lock in just for the final week and help because I think that whatever reservations you may have,

43:54what they're doing is far, far worse. And I'll be cynical for one second. I don't think what I was saying before was cynical. I sincerely believe it. Let's be cynical. You want to either help him lose or not be needed to help him win? Great. That's helpful. Yeah. I think there's also some people who are like, well, I think we could win the Senate and just lose Michigan. You know, that's no, no, no, no. Like it is very all the possible outcomes. There's a very possible outcome where we come one Michigan Senate seat short of losing the Senate. And then will you feel like happy that you left it blank for Senate? You then will you feel like happy that you left it blank for Senate? You know, that you didn't vote for Rogers, but you left it blank because

44:29you had like, I don't think you'll feel good about that when we're like, you know, nominating a replacement for when Trump is nominating a replacement for fucking Sam Alito in the spring. Have your Senate eat it too, huh? All right. As we get closer to election day, Trump is also trying to use every lever of power at his disposal to screw with the outcome. Just before we recorded this on Monday afternoon, Trump posted that he's offering a $1 million reward for anybody reporting voter fraud in the past elections or the upcoming 2026 midterm election, payable when the person behind the fraud is convicted. First of all, does anyone think they're getting that money? What's the process for submitting

45:06these claims to you, Dave? So now we're doing citizen's arrests? What are we doing? Do we just email Todd Blanche directly? Who's going to vet these things? How do I get paid out? How do you know? Because I'm going to start submitting some ideas if there's a million bucks on the table for me. This is like vigilante shit. We're just asking neighbors to go report on your neighbor who you don't like. Send a tip in to the DOJ that they might be an illegal voter. Can I who you don't like send a tip into to the doj that they might be an illegal voter can i tell you i've had a theory about this which i'll share here uh so there was a point during um the rise of fascism in germany where at some point the

45:38okay yep it's an analogy just everybody fucking deal with it we We're all adults. All right. Where the Gestapo had to tell people, hey, we're getting way too many reports on our neighbors. We can't follow up on all these leads. You all hate all your neighbors. They're all being disloyal. Can you please be more discerning because you're all ratting on each other a little too much and we just don't have the bandwidth to follow up on all these fucking reports. Jesus. with the follow-up on all these fucking reports. And I was thinking about just, like, clearly there is this, they really want people to be reporting on undocumented people, on reporting on their neighbors. And maybe it's happening more than it's being reported,

46:14but so far they just haven't had that kind of groundswell, right? Like, we're just not seeing that as driving deportations. It's not a big part of the story, right? And I sometimes wonder if the kind of social media policing of each other, tattletailing, video each other at fucking Sweet Greens and Pink Berries. And they were mean to me at the airport, all this filming. It's a strange little release valve for whatever that impulse is in our society right now, whatever that feeling is that things are so unfair and I must have justice all the time and report on people. I'm the only one following the rules. And so they try to find this sort of energy, but it's actually being spent with what they would call cancel culture or kind of like each other policing each other with our phones.

46:54And so they don't get that. They don't get the juice from it. That's just my little theory about it. It's so weird. I mean, maybe or they could just be trying to. It's just voter suppression they want people who think they might be seen as you know fraudulently elected because they're a person of color or recent immigrant or whatever just to stay home and not risk it because no one wants to get sent to you know ccot or whatever yeah there's also and i'll tell you from the you can't really tell a lot about the early vote in terms of like who's voting for who but the uh latino turnout uh turnout is breaking some records in Texas already. So I do not think this is necessarily working so far. They also just came out with a bunch of people that they're charging for voting illegally

47:33as non-citizens, right? They're just, they're also just looking for the, even if it's just a few, it's examples that proves their point that there's rampant fraud. Yeah. Positive America is brought to you by the Stateside podcast from The Guardian. Listeners of the show know by now that we're headed to the second annual Crooked Con, November 5th through 7th at Washington, D.C. We have lots of amazing talent joining us, including folks from The Guardian, like Kai Wright and Carter Sherman, will be telling us about their new podcast, Stateside, with Kai and Carter. The Guardian has an incredible legacy of journalistic talent and big thinkers from all over the world. So Kai and Carter will be introducing

48:15some of them to you at CrookedCon. If you want to make sense in the midterms and what happens next, you'll need The Guardian's global progressive reporting. We look forward to seeing you there. Long Play, our docuseries exploring the people and forces shaping the South, need the Guardian's global progressive reporting. We look forward to seeing you there. We're on the final stretch of the midterms, and the political map has only gotten more competitive with new states and districts emerging as potential flips. So we thought it was time to get back out on the road and take a closer look at what's actually happening on the ground. I'm Erin Haines, journalist and expert on all things Southern politics.

48:59And I'm Jennifer Palmieri, former White House communications director. Tune in on Mondays to Long Play series on YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts. Fall and comfort foods go hand in hand. Grandma's mac and cheese, soup and grilled cheese. But how do you create those cozy moments while still maintaining your health goals? Hero Bread can help. Hero Bread's soft, fluffy, flavorful sliced breads, bagels, tortillas, and hero noodles have only 0 to 5 grams net carbs and up to 19 grams of protein per serving. So go ahead, enjoy some cheesy mac and cheese. Enjoy that stacked sandwich with Hero Bread for lunch. Or start your day with a fully loaded bagel. Because with Hero Bread, there's none of the stiff baked goods you expect from better for you brands.

49:46And right now, Hero Bread is offering 10% off your order. Go to hero.co and use code IHEART at checkout. That's H-E-R-O dot C-O, code IHEART. All figures per serving of Hero Bread. See nutrition facts on hero.co for sodium and sugar content. Another thing they're doing is in Alaska, the Justice Department has filed a lawsuit there to prevent the election from being certified on this, someone with Senator Dan Sullivan's name, named Daniel J. Sullivan, will be on the ballot as one of the top four primary vote getters, along with Democrat Mary Paltola. DOJ is arguing that if Senator Dan Sullivan loses because of the votes that may mistakenly go to other Dan Sullivan, the election should not be certified.

50:55And if you're wondering whether the lawsuit is the result of elections experts at DOJ simply following the facts as they see them, here's your answer. Any thoughts on the Alaska lawsuit? Well, I'm the one that said do it. At least let him use the name Senator Dan Sullivan, as opposed to incumbent, because a lot of people don't know what incumbent means. I know you say it's not fair with his name being on the ballot, but how is it illegal? I think it's illegal because it's unfair. If it's not fair with his name being on the ballot, but how is it illegal? I think it's illegal because it's unfair. If it's unfair, you want fairness in voting. Honestly, so insightful from him. It is how he thinks.

51:37Well, things that I think are unfair are, of course, illegal. And if I think it's fair, it's legal. That's it. There's no laws. I'll make a deal right now. If they can say that votes for the wrong Dan Sullivan don't count, then we get to go back and count all those fucking Pat Buchanan votes from 2000 by those old Jews. Rewind the timeline. From the Aldacacas in Palm Beach. And we get to install Al Gore immediately. That's right. We reverse all of this. We all get to go back. We go back. We go back. Yeah, I'm not, I don't think this is, I don't think this is the best legal work of the Trump administration that we're going to cancel the votes of the Dan Sullivan we don't like without it being able to know who voted for who and for what reason after the fact,

52:18because we don't like the outcome. If they would like to get Dan's the wrong, their wrong Dan Sullivan removed, they had their chance to do that. It didn't work. Yeah. I think that's the legal challenge that they face here is that state litigation already addressed the second L. Sullivan's eligibility. And the ballot, as Trump referenced, does identify Dan Sullivan as the incumbent and Daniel J. Sullivan as not the incumbent. Which is a word a lot of people know. More and more these days, I think, know what that word means. So as many who know that the dumb is spelled D-U-M-B. Yeah. Yeah, the Alaska Supreme Court did rule that he could be on the ballot. It's funny, too, because he could just be kind of out there saying,

52:58don't forget to vote for the right Dan Sullivan. This is Donald Trump reminding you to vote for the right Dan Sullivan. And I guess this is, in a, I'm going to get that out there a little bit, but what do you call it when it bounces off the backboard? Bankshot? Bankshot. Nice. That's what that is? Some good news, bad news for the Comey family today. Good news. Thorns and roses. Good news. The court found that Maureen Comey's termination, James Comey's daughter, was unlawful from termination from the DOJ and it violated her rights under the Civil Service Reform Act and they granted reinstatement and back pay. I'm sure she wants to take that job. The bad news, James Comey facing indictment in D.C.

53:46for alleged disclosure of classified information. That is not a repeat headline. You are not hearing an old episode. This is now the third time, apparently, they have tried to, they're indicting James Comey. That's just, it's so fucked up. Is it the same underlying substance or are they saying he disclosed something else that was also classified? Was the first – well, no. The first one was perjury in the – was false statements during the testimony. That's a memo to somebody or whatever. The second one was the seashell threat. Oh, I'm sorry. You're right. I forgot about the big seashell threat. Yeah, John Bolton was the classified info, right? Yeah, sorry. And then this now one, now they finally got him on classified info apparently.

54:22Because they're claiming he corrected a journalist or that they like reached in some way and conveyed something which may have been classified information. Un-fucking-believable. Yeah. And again, I obviously think this is wrong and pernicious and terrible to have the politicization of the Justice Department. But I also think James Comey should die in prison. I don't that's just my feeling i think i think people should only go to prison if they've broken laws i usually agree with that then they should serve the exact sentence yeah no i know that is commensurate with their no i know that that's right i'm telling i know that's what your mind says but in your heart in your heart i in your heart, I don't mean it.

55:05I think it's wrong. I'm just kidding. I think what's happening to James Comey is horrible and what he deserves. I'm just, I don't. Our producers are laughing. I can hear it through the walls, yeah. I can hear Austin laughing. Speaking of Dio. Think about James Comey lying in that cell, his feet dangling off the edge of the cot. He's so tall. A cell for him is worse than it is for the rest of us because he's so big and tall. Disavow. Disavow. Speaking of DOJ funny business, the department's sloppy cover-up of the Epstein file debacle has returned as a midterm issue in the final week. Democrats on the House Judiciary Committee released an unsigned staff report on Monday that, quote, demonstrates that Trump was a, quote, active participant in Epstein's abuse in the 90s,

55:49including new details on a rape allegation. And they also called for a special counsel to investigate Trump's Epstein connection. They also called for a special counsel to investigate Trump's Epstein connection. According to analysis pieces in both The Washington Post and Politico, Democrats have also spent north of $30 million on Epstein-related ads in battleground states. Kind of a sleeper there because I knew there was a few Epstein ads here and there, but there's- I think it's a lot of mentions though. A lot of mentions. Yeah. I don't know. The details in that congressional report are very troubling and should be run down and investigated. I think calling it the Epstein election is a touch overstated is my guess. That's what Playbook called it. Yeah. I mean, the Epstein, I think it's mentioning

56:30Jeffrey Epstein is useful because it's shorthand for how rigged the system is and how elites get protected in Donald Trump's America. It is also shorthand for Trump breaking his promises. It's responsible for a huge rupture between Trump and Republicans and also the kind of Joe Rogan podcast cohort. So Democrats should keep mentioning it. We should keep doing these oversight hearings. But also I think like Trump promised to get to the bottom of what happened and punish the abusers. He lied. Like this would be a good opportunity for Democrats to deliver on a promise to really follow up on this one. I think it's important. Daily had a good episode on this today. Well, they had an episode on just ads, all the ads that were being run and Shane Goldmarker was on. And

57:08it's interesting that a lot of these Epstein ads are running in red states with in some of these very Trumpier districts as a way to kind of depress turnout a little bit. Just like if you're not going to vote for Democrat, at least like aren't you upset with the broken promises of Republicans who promised they would clean up corruption, promised they would do something about Jeffrey Epstein's, the Epstein files, and then absolutely broke that promise. Yeah, it's as if he's methodically, it's as if he like had a board that had the different coalitions that he assembled to become president and wanted to go through and cross them off, right? Like the America First crowd he got with the Iran war, the people genuinely concerned about prices he got with

57:49sort of tariffs and the gas prices and failing to address this. I mean, the one group of people he's kept are the kind of old school Paul Ryan type conservatives because he did do a fair amount of deregulation and tax cutting. He's managed to keep them. And with Epstein, there's this sort of conspiratorial part of the right that was relying on him to kind of expose the deep state. I don't like it is one of many conspiracy theories that are important in that world. I think RFK Jr. is a part of it, too, like kind of an amorphous group of people that believe the government is lying to them all the time and he was going to expose it. And he just played them for fools. That's why Dan Bongino was like in this difficult position of having been someone who said that the conspiracy theories were

58:29real and then couldn't justify it once he was inside the government. So I don't know how much of a difference maker it is, but I think it is one of the reasons he lost people in a way that makes it hard to get them back. Last thing before we go, on Sunday night, when most of us were savoring the last few moments of the weekend, Donald Trump posted a dense 1,300-word essay to Truth Social. Again, record-breaking. On a subject of vital importance to all of us, talk show host Bill Maher. Trump trashed Maher and his show, said Maher's visits to the White House, which he called a, quote, very seductive and beautiful place, were no fun and that Maher was stoned and drunk. And he defended Caroline Levitt's performance on Maher's show last week, which I'm guessing

59:10is where this all came from. It has to be right. Among many other tangents. Trump added at the end, Bill, don't call anymore. That was my that was my favorite part. Bill, don't call anymore. What were your favorite parts, guys? That was wild. Do you think he dictated it to Natalie? Did she have to write down all of that as he like sort of read it aloud? I mean, I'll just, I'm not going to read the whole thing, but can I just read a sentence? Because I don't know how Natalie could have faithfully just written this down or typed this out. This was all one sentence. CNN did another poll at who was the most popular person in the history of the Republican Party. And I won that too with me being at 53%, Ronald Reagan being at 18%, and Abraham Lincoln being at 8%. And these

59:49are CNN polls, people not exactly in love with me. So Bill Maher lied, but he lies about everything. And I believe he lied to me when I asked him with all the applause and laughter he gets after almost everything he says about things that aren't funny or even any good. What laughter machine does he use? That was the line that jumped out at me, the laughter machine. He mentioned the laughter machine three times. Yeah. Turn your laugh machine off. It's a joke when they laugh uncontrollably, even when you say nothing funny. So he's watching Mara every Friday now? What's going on? He looks like hell this time. Bill was drunk and had alcohol in his hand as he walked through the White House. Overall, I thought it was a good meeting. It didn't last four hours. It

1:00:19lasted two hours, maybe less. Everybody was happy. We have the timestamps. I learned nothing. Felt it was a waste of time. I learned nothing. After the first dinner, Bill Maher was friendly. I guess everyone walked away pleased. He gave me a good first show with lots of laughing machine laughter, which is a real term, but it is what it is, and then reverted back to his former self and his old ways. It's translation. I had the dinner. He was nice to me for one episode. Then he was mean again, and I'm going to complain about it. But talk about – Natalie could not have done – I mean there was no proofreading. You would have cleaned it up a little bit. I don't think she cleans it up, man. I think she to complain about it. But talk about, you're like, Natalie could not have done, I mean, there was no proofreading.

1:00:46You would have cleaned it up a little bit. I don't think she cleans it up, man. I think she wants to say true. Pure uncut. Yeah, I think that's what she thinks the gig is. Certainly no one's going to accuse AI of writing his stuff. absolutely not. This is not the Hunter Biden Chronicles. This is raw, uncut, real typing. 1,300 words. Yeah. And it was like, when I first heard about this, I'm like, oh, how much do you have that much to say about Bill Maher? But really, Bill Maher is just like the delivery vehicle for this. He's tangentially part of it, but most of it is just a long ramp. There's a thing about The Apprentice and why it was a great show and how we would have won anyway even without The Apprentice.

1:01:24It sounds like dictation. It does sound like dictation. It sounds like saying something out loud that someone else is typing. He's not typing all this. It sounds like he's lost his fucking mind is what it sounds like. Yeah. It's good stuff. It's great stuff. It's a great closing message. Put it in an ad. The end of, in Abdul's speech, he talked about Trump bragging about the neurology test, which was great. Just like, you know, he was bragging about taking this test. You only give these people, the testy test, which was great. He was bragging about taking this test. He's a doctor. They only give tests when people are in trouble and something's wrong, and they've given it to him multiple times. And saying, well, Mike Rogers knows

1:01:55that this is ridiculous, and he stands by the guy. It was the first time I'd heard somebody tie directly the fact that he's doing the cognitive test with the fact that everyone's pretending he's not losing his mind. Yeah yeah and he's proud of identifying the giraffe which is a tough one to identify i guess is it maybe the least challenging animal to identify i think it's a big horse just what do you think it was yeah just a long neck gives it away i'm just a horse like that sba administrator i'm no genius who's that sba person what's her name what's her name kelly loeffler kelly loeffler yeah yeah she ran for she ran in georgia that's right yeah that's that SBA administrator. I'm no genius. Who's that SBA person? What's her name? What's her name again?

1:02:25Kelly Loeffler. Yeah, yeah. She ran in Georgia. That's right. Because Kelly Loeffler and giraffes, they actually evolved separately. You see those TikTok memes? It's her and Susan Dell. Yes. And then the other woman. Barbara Thornhill. Barbara misspelled Thornhill. They're AI and they're doing some TikTok. It's great. It's great. It's great. Anyway, that's our show for today. If you're itching for updates during this election week, reminder, it's a great time to follow us on YouTube. Or you can just search Breaking News from Pod Save America on Apple Podcasts or Spotify, where we post the audio version of these quick conversations between shows. We're doing all kinds of reactions to the news in between these shows.

1:03:05You've got to check them out on YouTube. We've got a lot of content coming this last week before the election, so check it out. And of course, Dan and I will be back with a new show on Friday. Pod Save America is a Crooked Media production. Our show is produced by Austin Fisher, Saul Rubin, McKenna Roberts, and Michael Goldsmith with Ree Churlin, Elijah Cohn, and Adrian Hill. Our team includes Matt DeGroat, Ben Hefcote, Jordan Cantor, Charlotte Landis, Kenny Moffitt, Adam Lippert, Joseph Dutra, Desmond Taylor, Dan Farrow, David Tolles, Mia Kelman, Ryan Young, and Naomi Single. Our staff is proudly unionized with the Writers Guild of America East. Long Play, our docuseries exploring the people and forces shaping the South, is back.

1:03:42Newsflash, the South is the new political epicenter of the country. Democrats are way on their heels in this region, but Republicans are going through their own reckoning in the South too. We're in the final stretch of the midterms and the political map has only gotten more competitive with new states and districts emerging as potential flips. So we thought it was time to get back out on the road and take a closer look at what's actually happening on the ground. I'm Erin Haines, journalist and expert on all things Southern politics. And I'm Jennifer Palmieri, former White House communications director. Tune in on Mondays to Long Play Series on YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts. Quick break from the case. If there's

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