Biden Secures Temporary Ceasefire, Trump Threatens Obamacare

Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Jon Favreau, I'm Shiesty Felon, Jon Lovett, I'm Tommy Vitor. Welcome back from Thanksgiving guys.

I think the deal was unequivocally a good thing. And frankly, it was probably pretty clear from the beginning that some sort of negotiation was going to be the best way to get back hostages and to get humanitarian aid into Gaza. There's no doubt that President Biden and his team has been working this really hard behind the scenes. There's been lots of talk of the CIA director flying all around the world. President Biden's been on the phone with Netanyahu almost daily, it seems, talking to the emir of Qatar.

Love it.

Yeah, I mean, the two stories that I think that stuck out to me is one, just stories that describe who the hostages were. And it just reminds you that this was. I mean, these are, in some cases, children returning to, like, a completely broken life who watched their parents murdered and then were held in captivity. It's old people who were, you know, have medical needs. And it just in the stories of the hostages you see the depravity of what unfolded. And then, at the same time, you have stories coming out in the last day or two. That report that the level of civilian destruction, death and inhumanity in Gaza is at a pace like unrivaled in this century, a level of.

Yeah, I guess the Biden administration's argument on the hug strategy is, you know? If they had pressed Bibi for a ceasefire earlier, even threatened to withhold aid earlier, then Bibi wouldn't have listened. He would have invaded anyway. And then Biden would have lost a chance to rein him in in the future, because I guess Bibi would have been pissed at Biden for scolding him. But I just don't know.

The laws of war require proportionality in your response. And I think it's very hard to argue that 14,000 people dead in Gaza, half of the Gaza Strip. Being flattened is a proportional response, and which is not to say that some sort of response wasn't warranted. But there's a lot of space between we have to do something and what has happened so far. I think. The other challenge for the Biden team and for the United States is that the entire world thinks that the U.S was fully supportive of and bought in to what has happened so far. And there is still the question of what comes next after this ceasefire expires. Because I assume that Hamas will hold on to a certain number of prisoners, probably military males, like the adult members of the IDF they took, although Hamas considers.

Well, one of the ways he has leverage, and we talked about this last episode, is potentially conditioning. Aid to Israel so that they only get help from the U.

Yeah, I was excited when I heard him say that, but then I watched the Sunday shows. And Jake Sullivan, his national security advisor, pretty firmly walked it back in several different interviews. So I don't think that they're seemingly going to entertain conditioning aid. I think they still think that this like direct, high-level private diplomas youth.

Against Israeli behavior. I mean, I guess it's obviously up to them whether they sign a supplemental, if a supplemental passes, and we'll talk about that. We already talked about how Bernie Sanders put out a statement. And then he also wrote an op-ed over the weekend saying that aid needs to be conditioned. Senator Chris Murphy was asked about this. He's open to the idea as well.

Well, I do think that Murphy to Bernie Sanders gets you sort of the range, like Murphy basically said. We should condition aid to ensure it's used in accordance with international human rights laws. That does seem like the absolute bare minimum that one should do. That's not a criticism of Murphy.

It just seems like that obviously we should do that, and it is also, I think, kind of an affirmation of what is already U.S. law.

Yeah, I believe, right, yeah. In the 2020 primary, Ben Rhodes and I worked with. We did an event with JSTOR where we tried to get all the candidates to agree to. Saying that USAID should not be used to annex the West Bank or otherwise support settlement construction, I think that's another obvious one.

Yeah, there's nothing, I mean, there's nothing. Even in Bernie Sanders list of things that he believes USAID should be conditioned on, there's nothing in that list that is not mainstream U.S. policy, right? Like, there's just. It's just that. Making it a condition is somehow seen as sacrosanct. The point that was striking to me, I think it was the Times made that some that military experts were making is the U.S.

What was the gist of Jake's walk back?

Jake said Yes. President Biden acknowledged the idea of conditioning aid, but said Biden's approach will be this high-level diplomacy behind closed doors. That generate results, getting hostages back, getting more aid in, etc. So he was repeatedly pressed on a follow-up, being like, So does that mean he's for conditioning aid? And Jake ducted in a way that clearly signaled to me that that's not the path they're going down.

The question that I would love Biden and the administration to answer is like, why not? Why wouldn't you condition aid? Like? I realize you like your diplomacy approach, but what is wrong with that? And they're gonna say, Well, Israel needs to defend itself well. If we were only providing funding for the iron dome, which they use for defense, that's one thing, but that's not the only aid that we're sending.

Yeah, the aid request will be far more expensive. It'll include hellfire missiles and all kinds of offensives.

So it's like, why would the Biden administration say no? We're going to send them weapons and hopefully they'll do what I tell them to do, but if not, what are we going to do?

Yeah, it's also what is their that is a publicly if they're publicly their position is we do not want to condition aid because publicly their position is basically what. Tommy was saying that they're going to hug Bibi. But is their value to their being conditions placed on aid that the Biden administration has reluctantly dragged to? As they get to be like, kind of, to continue to maintain their position, that they want to do this diplomatically, they want to do this through back channels. While at the same time, they're facing pressure from at home that's requiring them to push harder.

Right, like, there's, so maybe there won't be a veto threat if there's conditions.

Presumably, if something passes this, I mean, we're going to get to all of it. But, like, the idea of anything passing seems like it was so fucking difficult. Like, Oh, let's add solving Middle East peace on top of Ukraine, on top of the border, so if something passes, Biden's going to sign it.

I think it's probably a pretty sincerely held belief by Biden that that's the wrong path. And it's part, look, let's be honest, it's part politics, part U.s domestic politics. It's also part this weird belief that we need to treat Israel and relations with Israel as this special, singular relationship. Where we can't criticize Bibi Netanyahu in public, and we can't condition aid the way we do for every other country. And it makes absolutely no sense to me, but you know, I'm not in government.

I have seen him do this a couple of times now.

He's running against Biden from the left in a presidential primary, calling on sending u.

Well, I think that makes sense.

Well, he is on the I also heard him say he was on the his foreign policy experience is being on the subcommittee for the Middle East.

I heard him mention the subcommittee.

Well, that is what I mean.

Anyway, anyway, yeah. So, as we mentioned, Congress is also going to attempt to pass the aid to Israel, along with aid to Ukraine and Taiwan. And Republicans say they won't support any of it unless Democrats also agree to more border security funding and new border policies. Some of the proposals being discussed include making it more difficult for migrants to claim asylum, resuming border wall construction, and detaining asylum seekers while their cases are considered.

Long term, it's absolutely critical. I think it's the difference between winning and losing, or the difference between winning and Ukraine. Cutting a deal with the Russians, it is very, very bad for them. I think we're not the only country providing weapons systems to Ukraine, South Korea, the UK, the EU, European countries are providing a lot.

So if they can't get this done, it's pretty likely they lose the war.

I mean, long term, long term, it won't be like an immediate, like, you know, deal getting cut. But I do think it puts them in a terrible position.

So the question is, will Republicans agree to this? Obviously, there's Republican support in the Senate for Ukraine, though that's not uniform in the House. Speaker Johnson was down in Florida today. They asked him about this.

But he wants to condition it on the on the completion of a successful No, not November is what he was saying over the weekend.

And that does, and then then, of course, that has been. His son has to verify it with a very specific process which takes some time, which is there's got to get inspectors.

There's a black light involved.

I felt like this was a Tuesday recording on a Monday.

Well, now we're going to get to talk about immigration and border policy, a lot of Democrats, including progressive Democrats like Vermont Senator Peter Welch.

When does No No November start?

Oh my gosh, it's sorry.

The first, Oh, it's already midnight on the 31st.

Yeah right, Ok guys, it's almost December. Congrats. I guess I'd be, no, not December.

Well, no bad ideas.

Anyway, immigration, we had all kinds of Democrats now saying they're open a tougher border policy. What do you guys think about that?

Well, like, one thing that's been, I think, a little bit strange about this, so just so, just that. Republicans are basically saying, why, why we can't? Why would we send money to defend a country abroad if we're not defending America here at home? That kind of thing?

And then you see that pulls off the charts.

Yes, and then you see Democrats have to take a poll for that one. And you see, like, I think, like Schumer put out a statement, being like, these bastards will do it.

And like he basically said, Republicans are injecting this divisive policy debate into what should be a bipartisan, you know, agreement on sending aid to our allies to stop Putin and Xi. And he said, But we're open, we're open to more borders.

And I get it like, I think, I think probably the politics of that are about, you know, this is ultimately going to be a if there is some kind of a deal, it will be a deal that angers the hard right, which will not accept anything other than the kind of right wing Republican House proposal as a victory. And this was any kind of change to asylum that involves raising the threshold for what asylum seekers have to claim is something that would anger the left and progressives and immigration activists.

I also think it, frankly, shows that Republicans have changed the politics in pretty shrewd ways by busing migrants out of states like Texas to places like New York.

Right, because in August, I was a dumb stunt when it happened.

Well, we thought it was a dumb stunt when it was, you know, the private jet to Martha's Vineyard. But there was a more like, sustained, systematic effort to spread the cost of these policies. Because you had Eric Adams saying in August of this year that 100,000 asylum seekers had arrived in New York City in a little over a year. And that the city had spent $1.45 billion on services, which he said was just fiscally unsustainable.

Let's be clear it was still a morally abhorrent stunt, but it seems like it had the effect that it was intended.

Well, I think it stopped being a stunt. Like I didn't realize, like, I talked to the mayor of Chicago about this when I was in Chicago for love. And relieve it. And the coverage of, you know, the Nantucket flights and the kind of shenanigans around that. Put that aside. There was just a steady stream of buses going from Texas to Chicago, bus after bus after bus. And that, like that, stopped being national news. But nothing that happened to Chicago's National News place could burn to the ground and would be like, Third story in New York. But still, like, it was a. It's something that just continued and became a sustained local big political issue.

I mean, our asylum system, it's just it's not set up for the amount of migration that we're seeing right now at the Southern border. And asylum system is for people with legitimate fear of being persecuted in their home country based on race, religion, political beliefs. It wasn't set up for people fleeing from poverty, it wasn't set up for people fleeing sort of gang violence that we're seeing in Central and South America. Even though people's, you know, asylum requests have been granted for some of those, those issues.

Yeah, I think the current system, I think clearly, is not serving anyone. Well, what's really tough to read when you dig into these negotiations is you keep seeing graphs. Like Democrats used to make protecting the Dreamers a part of any such negotiations and have dropped that provision. And man, that's really terrible policy and hard to swallow, you know, because I think the commitment used to be bipartisan. Remember, Donald Trump wanted to support the Dreamers as well.

I mean, obviously Democrats still want to support the dream, right? I'm just saying, I don't think it's good, I was going to say, though, I think if you're going to, if Democrats are going to have to swallow some of these border restrictions. And again, I think there's some level of increased border funding and changing of asylum policy. That's just right on the merits, but very likely they're going to have to swallow more than they want.

But of course, that's what I'm saying. But what you're reading is they've dropped those revisions in the Senate even.

Yes, were they, were they in the initial? What do you mean? Dropped?

Were they no longer contingent as part of a negotiation to give them something else they want? That seems to have been swapped out for Ukraine funding.

The right, like, it's like, the thing you're getting is Ukraine funding. I mean, I think that's like, what I'm trying to trying to understand is OK. So there was always like, stepping back, there was a broad immigration reform compromise that was always being negotiated. And it's some form of more stringent rules at the border, far greater border security, maybe funding for some kind of a wall or whatever.

Yeah, you are, and that's why you shouldn't give it up.

What's how small this is? It's how small, it's what this is.

But I also don't like the way this has been framed as like carrot and stick. And you know, everyone used to say that, oh, when Obama was president, he only did the border stuff because of pure politics, so he could get the other stuff too. And it's like, no. Like. A sensible, humane immigration system that works would provide a path to citizenship for the 11 million 15 million undocumented immigrants in this country. It would legalize the dreamers.

Well, yeah, the the politics part of what happened is, I think there was. There was a way that Democrats used to talk about immigration. Nation of immigrants, nation of laws, right? And then I do think that during the 2016 primaries, there was this basically kind of a shift to the left and just how we talked about it. Not actually the 2020 primary in the 2020..

God damn it, I know, I know.

But yes, there was a shift in how we talked about it. And then I think the parts, the kind of the harder parts that would inevitably part of any deal, became deemphasized. And then when they come up, they're seen as a capitulation. But yes, of course, a draconian border policy and a set of reforms that do not recognize the humanity and needs of people. Trying to gain access to the United States is not just bad politics, and it's bad for the world. But that doesn't mean every deal that would involve some form of border security is like a massive failure. That there can't be a successful compromise of some kind.

The other thing they need to rethink is the U.

Yeah, and by the way, Trump's entire 2016 campaign and his presidency, his first term, also. Like, put a lot of gas on the fire. To say the least, right? Because when people think about border policy and they think about family separation, or they think about Trump. Telling us that caravans full of terrorists were coming, right?

There's also just the like, I think, even like the Republican statements about this, like they don't want to support additional funding for judges. Anything that would make the process work better. Unless you're also addressing what they describe as the pull right, which is like the draw to the United States. And I think for a long time, that was about the fact that there's no internal enforcement, that this was about people coming and seeking jobs. But on top of that, you have these huge numbers of people seeking asylum or refuge, or just trying to find a way out of these countries that are in crisis.

Speaking of Republicans, let's talk about the 2024 Republican primary and the fierce battle for second place with less than 50 days until the Iowa caucuses. Are Nikki, Haley, Ron DeSantis and their respective Super Pacs spending all their time and money going after the guy who's winning by 40 points? No, they're not, they are going after each other.

Because they're stupid, I don't know. I mean, you keep reading these articles where various interest groups and super Pacs have said that all of the testing they've done on anti-trump ads or messaging have backfired and hurt them. So, but if that's the case, drop out. Why are you still competing?

Did they not learn this lesson from 2016, when all of Trump's challengers started beating each other up? Because they thought that they could take everyone else out and that they could be the last one standing to face Trump. And then because, like, you know, Jeb and Marco and Chris Christie, they all sort of attacked each other and all forgetting some, they all attacked each other. And so then Trump just benefited from it, like, we're just going to do this again now.

On top of that, it's not like these attacks that they're leveling against each other are helping them either. We'll talk about it. But like, DeSantis is having this sort of like this, like civil war inside of a Super PAC, because they're feeling like DeSantis is getting hurt by the fact that he's going after Haley now. Like that, this guy cannot launch an attack on anybody.

That's because that's, that's, that's who Trump is.

Yeah, and it's because of who they are.

Yeah, no. So the DESantis story, which we did not get to talk about because it happened last week when we were all on break. Never Back Down the Super PAC that is essentially running his whole campaign, he's basically outsourced the whole campaign to the Super PAC. And so when Never Back Down is running these ads about Haley in Iowa, they are backfiring and hurting DESantis because the Never Back Down branding is so close to DESantis. Because that's like his whole campaign.

By the way, anybody, anybody is a lifelong friend of Ron DeSantis has to be a fucking. Just one of the worst human beings to have a conversation with. That is that is an incredible response, 10 out of 10..

I think that's the craziest response I've ever heard.

That's so good.

Why don't you come over here and get the stick out of my ass?

I think it's a great response, you stand up, why don't you come over here and get it? I thought it was cool as hell. I think that's a good response.

There's some real sexual tension in that response.

That doesn't make it worse to me.

I didn't know. Get it meant get the stick or just get it, like, get some.

I thought, I think he's referring to the stick.

Oh, I thought, yeah, I thought the stick.

Like, Oh, if I have a stick back here, come to, why don't you come and remove it for me? Yeah, you know, yeah, let's have a fight, let's have a physical fight, let's solve this by fighting.

So what ends up happening is they decide to start so a couple other consultants or confidants, or friends of DESantis, again, some Tallahassee goobers. What's the hardest to believe is that he has this many friends. Yeah, they have decided to set up on second Super Pac called Fight hard, fight long, fight right, fight right, fight right. Yeah, it's called fight right.

It's a bit like when Garth Brooks became Chris Gaines.

When? what? remember? No.

Remember when Garth Brooks put on a mustache? Because basically the other thing, too, is. I was like, reading was like, Wait, there's another. They're funding another PAC. I was like, Where's the money coming from?

He's transferring.

It's coming from, Yeah, never back down.

And so basically, from inside the house.

So they send a million dollars to this new, this new Super PAC, that works for the Super PAC, that works for Ron DESantis, because that's going to that. This is your problem. Hey, there's your problem right there. The Super PAC name is too out there. And then Ken Cuccinelli, who was, you know, fucking asshole from Virginia before he was now running this PAC, sends a letter like, he's on the record.

I want it to be on the record that I disagree with.

What record for history?

Guess what, it's already in the NBC story.

We figured out who leaked it, yeah.

By the way, I was like, this isn't going to be HBO movie. You people are not interesting enough. No, this is the best sentence you've gotten. It's only I'm the only one that likes it.

Also, just again. Jeff Rowe, the chief strategist for the DESantis Super PAC, was Ted Cruz's campaign manager in 2016.

But he's, he is making some money, a lot of money, he also has. They have this, you know, big door knocking operation in Iowa, that again, the Super PAC is running the field organization here. And Jeff Rowe has told people that he believes the group's door knocking push could be worth as much as 10 percentage points on caucus day.

That's the dumbest thing I've ever heard. I cannot overstate how stupid that is. We had the most unbelievable field team and organization Geo TV Organization in Iowa in 2008, and the difference is, by the way, is the the never back down field team. They're hiring them all.

Well, there was, there was the one example of someone was caught on a ring camera. One of these guys that was hired by the PAC. And he was like, If you don't vote for DeSantis, I mean, what did he say? I'm going to give you something funny, I'm going to kick your ass or something, and then he's like, Sorry, I'm pretty stoned.

Yeah, he said he was high, he said he was too high. There was this Times story that quoted Jeff Rowe in May of 2023. Talking about their strategy, he said. Quote. He argued that Mr. Trump had shied away from key fights that motivate the Republican base and on which DESantis had led, including on LGBTQ issues, schools and taking on corporate America.

So this New York, this is New York Times article about Iowa that just ran Sunday, I think. And the whole thing is about, like, Haley and DESantis going after each other, and basically the strategy is everyone's going all in on Iowa, except for Chris Christie. And if Haley can get second in Iowa and beat DESantis, then she goes to New Hampshire, where DESantis is basically like, collapsed. He's pulling in the single digits and she, I guess, beats Trump in New Hampshire.

Desantis we just but just you, you glossed over it. Desantis is now in fifth in New Hampshire. That is fucking devastating.

And so like, if you're desantis and you get second in Iowa somehow, and then you go to New Hampshire and you get like, fifth. I guess he's thinking that the momentum for getting second, yeah, the Iowa, the second place momentum you get in Iowa, just like, carries you up to second in New Hampshire.

People, people in New Hampshire love taking their cues from those from those Iowa rumors.

No, that's right.

Anyway, you go through this whole thing with with Haley and DESantis, and at the end, it says Trump. Campaign officials say their operation has already amassed 50,000 signed cards committing to caucus for him and 1,800 caucus captains. And then? The DESantis campaign said it had more than 30,000 people who committed, and the Haley campaign declined to provide any such data points.

Yeah, so the take home there is, by their own standards, DeSantis says. 20,000 fewer voters in Iowa than Donald Trump. I don't think that's a good setup.

It also said he he visited his 98th Iowa County a week ago after holding around 10 small public events over three days. And then, uh, Trump went to one rally in Fort Dodge, got 2000 people, which is more than all of DESantis's events combined.

I do, I read that, too. I do wonder, like Desantis, Trump has people who travel for him, who go to, you know, out of staters. It's like the you're falling the dead.

It's like the uh, it's like when Mark Penn accused, uh, Barack Obama of bussing in people to the uh, to the Iowa JJ.

Well, I don't think we ever fully got to the bottom of it, I don't know that we fully know exactly what happened.

I mean, we're talking about these early states here, but like, I feel like once we go to the rest of the states. Tommy, you were pointing out that the the rules are getting a little rigged in favor of Trump here.

This is the thing that people have to understand, as we learned in 2008, all of us here. This is ultimately a campaign for more delegates, right? No, it's not just that Haley needs to win in Iowa, she needs to win overwhelmingly in these early states so that she can, I guess, get enough media attention and a bounce. So that people in these all these other future states, where they're not paying any attention right now, will decide that 60 of them currently are supporting Trump. They'll all flip. Because what people need to know is Trump's people have changed the rules to make it easier for him to win.

And like you said, like Republicans already had more winner take all states than Democrats, just do proportional every state. Yeah, and now it's like, now, it's even now, it's supercharged.

Right, and their rule had technically been you couldn't have a winner take all before March 15th, but they created these little thresholds and loopholes to sort of make de facto winner take all. Even though it's, I do think, though, it's over.

So I do think, like, rigged. So whether or not it's winner take all, I think would matter more. If we're talking about, like, what happened in 2016, where you have this like kind of big field that's refusing to narrow. Like, the reality is, whether you know whether Nikki Haley is losing by eight points, 20 points, 30 points, it really doesn't matter. Trump is cruising to the nomination.

Right, because you can't say all right. We're going to take second in Iowa, do better than expected in South Carolina. Then we're going to, you know, collect a lot of delegates on Super Tuesday. And we're going to grind it out and win in the Connecticut primary on April 2nd. Right? Because they've rigged the rules. So that Trump is going to get all of the delegates out of these states, where he's the only Republican candidate anyone has heard of.

And again, once you hit the majority of delegates, primaries over.

I don't, before we even get to, like, where the fuck did this come from? Like he, it seems like someone at his country club mentioned a Wall Street Journal piece or something like this is such a strange bank shot to get to him. Talking about Obamacare and like, So basically, there was a Wall Street Journal piece that misrepresents something. Elizabeth Warren said about Obamacare, to say that Elizabeth Warren finally admits that Obamacare costs money.

My theory of this, this round of Trump running for president, is he's got much better people around him and they're all trying to, like, keep him as disciplined as possible. And so far, it's working. They're like, maybe we'll, just maybe it's good that he's off Twitter, maybe we'll get him back.

And the world is his canvas.

Like, someone, someone got to him and was like, you got to be careful on the abortion stuff. It's really Republicans are losing on abortion. You got to at least pretend moderate. No one got to him on the ACA stuff.

Well, he's on the abortion stuff where his heart is. Yeah, he always has that.

He will try to walk this back, I bet he will try to walk this back and it hopefully won't work.

Very smart of Biden, I think, to come out and do a statement on this. I think Trump will absolutely try to repeal the Affordable Care Act. Why? Because he's a dumb racist who hates Obama and wants to destroy everything Obama ever did. That's my genuine feeling for why he actually cares about this.

And something like 150 million people who depend on health care because they have pre-existing conditions and insurance companies can't discriminate against them because of pre-existing conditions. They will lose that protection, young people will lose the protection of being on their parents health care till they're 26. All the seniors who are now paying less for prescription drugs, thanks to what Joe Biden did in the Inflation Reduction Act, will pay more for prescription drugs because of this now.

Yes, I mean, if they, if Republicans write problems in the White House, and they take the Senate, keep the house, they will certainly try to repeal Obamacare. It is hard to imagine they wouldn't succeed, they almost succeeded last time they.

Just some numbers on this. Twenty two percent of the American people supported Trump's last attempt to get rid of Obamacare in 2017. The current favorability rating for the Affordable Care Act is between 57 and 62 percent, according to Kaiser. And this from a Fox News poll in 2020. They asked people, Would you rather keep the Affordable Care Act or replace it?

If this continues, if, if, if there's a way to keep this as like, central to the election, I can't think of a more damaging thing for Trump. The least popular he ever was as president was when he was trying to repeal, or close to the least, maybe tied for a second, was when he tried to repeal. Obamacare is extremely unpopular, and in terms of what you would be able to talk about, like abortion, democracy and extremism, and Obamacare. Like that would be like, if it is, if it is the third story, that would be very good.

Yeah, and again, I saw, I saw a bunch of people reacting to this news by saying, this seems like a small thing. Like, he's going to end democracy, he's going to end democracy. It's like, yeah, the people, all of us who pay close attention to politics. And maybe some of the people who are saying that have health care that they pay for, they could say that.

Fucking Legend.

Santos is taking this in stride here he is during a Twitter Spaces interview on Friday.

They all act like they are on ivory towers with white pointy hats, and they're untouchable. I mean, within the ranks of the United States Congress, there's felons galore, there's people with all sorts of sheisty backgrounds. And all of a sudden, George Santos is the Mary Magdalene of the United States Congress.

Can we pause real quick? Can we pause real quick? Mary Magdalene of Congress, What is he talking about?

I think he's saying that he's being unfair. You know that Mary Magdalene was cast out?

Yeah, she was cast out.

And but was he friends with Jesus? Did he witness the crucifixion?

I still can't get past. They're on Ivory towers, wearing pointy white hats.

So yeah, I was like, Hey man, that's not what Ivory towers are for, right? Ivory towers are for people that are kind of like naive intellectuals who don't know how the world works. I don't know, and are the pointy hats.

I don't know about that.

First of all, God damn legend. I think I say it again, I say it again.

Yeah, I think it's the first time the words pussy and a privileged resolution were used in the same sentence by someone.

I also just I also like the. It's so jarring when he says pussy, or that's hard even for me to say. Because it's like, because, because it's like, I'm sorry, but like that, that's.

Why not both? I'm both.

I mean, there was a House Ethics Committee investigation report. But this wasn't just conjecture.

So I'm interested in what happens here. An expulsion vote needs two thirds of members to pass, assuming all the Democrats vote to expel him at this point, which I assume they will. Some of the people like Jamie Raskin, who we talked about before, who didn't want to expel him before the ethics committee finished their report, are now saying, like, Yeah, we've had due process. This is what we were asking for.

A very principled position.

Very principled, and I agree with that. Yeah. And so if you get all the Democrats, you still need 70 Republicans now. Santos, in that Twitter space his interview, said I think they're going to vote me out because I can count votes, which seems doubtful.

Yeah, said a liar.

But and then someone asked Mike Johnson about this today, he said. On the resolution, he said It remains to be seen. I've spoken to Congressman Santos at some length over the holiday and talked to him about his options, but we'll have to see. I wonder if Johnson tried to get him to resign on his own.

I imagine those two trying to relate over a coffee that's a buddy coffee.

I love it, I fucking love it. There's the pitch.

Just a drag, queen, grifter and just a weird legal zealot, I love it.

One of them is on OnlyFans, one of them gets in trouble if they go to OnlyFans with his son.

What do you mean? You don't have our AVIS reservation and we have to take that train together. What do you mean? Our phones are dead, all the flights are canceled.

What do you think? What do you think they're going to vote him out?

I think they want this.

I think they want him gone. I mean, I think like, I think that, you know, the only thing that they, the only reason they were keeping him around. And like the McCarthy era, was that. Like they needed every vote, they needed every single vote. And it's true that they go to a special like, you know, it's hard to imagine.

But it's, yeah, it's a more, it's like a Biden district.

They might lose it. Yeah, yeah.

And the we only lost it the first time because everyone fucking fell asleep at the wheel. It was part of that race.

Yeah, it's fucking believable, these guys guys wanting around me like, Yeah, I'm a scientist, too.

I'm getting away with this.

It's fucking believable.

Just, and also by the way, fake. Like the thing that came out of the ethics report, which is like, it's a. It's an amazing. What a scam, what a scam.

So remember when we talk about this?

Yeah, we should talk about this for a second, because, like we at the time, we talked about this and it was really confusing. Or the time we talked about the how, these reports didn't make sense. So one thing that was in some of the disclosures way back when was that he had loaned a tremendous amount of money to the campaign. I think like eighty, five, eighty, some eighty, some eighty thousand dollars.

And then another check for more.

But he started with the 80 and everyone was like, wait, because he's a businessman. But where's this money coming from? Because he also was like, behind on rent or had been had been evicted from an apartment. It was all really confusing. Turns out that was made up.

Thinking that, thinking that no one would check to see that. His eighty thousand dollar loan to his own campaign was only thirty five hundred dollars, which he was right.

He was totally right, he was totally right.

Except the fact that eventually he got got.

Well, those went, those those wax wings could only get you so high, and then they did. they did indeed melt.

But I do wonder what the calculation is for these Republicans, because why do they need him around, right? They're going to lose a seat in the special, probably, they'd probably also lose it in the next election.

The other piece of it, too, is it's like, actually, it's a statement about how weak Kevin McCarthy was. Because why did you need every single Republican vote? You don't have the Senate, so nothing's passing, that's not bipartisan.

But then George Santos saw his Jesus Christ, Kevin McCarthy get crucified, which is why he's Mary Magdalene. But will there be a resurrection? That's the question.

Is that why he's Mary Magdalene?

I don't know, none of us know.

We're all trying to figure this out. Pointy white hats, I don't know.

I don't know what the pointy white hats were either. I do think, like the if if they decide, I can't imagine why. I don't know why. Anybody would vote to keep the New York delegation to get them out of there. There have been two resolutions.

Anyway, good times.

We'll miss you, man.

Well, yeah, we really will. Well, we'll see, we'll see.

Don't cry.

Hey, don't you don't smile? Can it happen? Don't jinx it? We don't know yet.

I don't know, pitched for love or leave it, I bet you come on.

Have you at least had a comedian impersonating?

Oh, yeah, we had a great Oscar, Montoya came on and did an incredible George, and we have to, we have to have him.

I have to bring back John Santos over here, he's a big fan of this guy. Hey, what?

Huh what? huh huh, do you understand?

You're standing.

Oh, i do, i do, i do.

I'm a George Stan, something the kids currently say, but that's why I don't understand.

I know it's hard to tell that you're a George Stan.

Listen, that one needed some more time in the joke of it, Hey, come on, I'm sitting right here with you guys. John's trying to wrap it up.

I'm trying to wrap it up.

It's been a long show, you never back down.

It's been a very long show, is it? We have two quick housekeeping notes before we leave.

Felt felt flu, by the way. Good show, long show.

The most important event of the year is happening on Thursday night. What? It's a live, televised debate between Republican presidential hopeful Ron DeSantis and the man he absolutely isn't running against, Governor Gavin Newsom. Uh, so we will be doing a group thread to cover this debate. Did you guys know you'd have to do a group Thursday night?

Actually, I'm learning about it now, I'm not going to lie to you.

By the way, I think I'm in Phoenix, but I'll, I'll do, I'll do my best to join.

Yeah, three of us, plus Dan, plus the rest of the Crooked crew, we'll all be on Discord. To get access to this and more events like it, make sure you're subscribed to Friends of the Pod. Uh, you can head to Crooked.com Slash Friends to learn more.

Can I have some fun?

Just gonna have some fun out there.

Uh, first question, What channel is it on?

What channel is the Fox? It's Fox, yeah, Sean Hannity.

Right, bummer.

SEAN HaNNITY I have some moderating.

I have some friends in the U.M. Newsom camp and this has created a lot of work for them.

Yeah, I bet.

Well, it's worth it.

I mean, it just seemed like Ron DESantis has a bit more to lose since he is a current presidential candidate.

Great, it's a total waste of time. The whole thing's amazing. Also, the only thing is it's good that he's not, as long as he's not talking to voters, he's not hurting his campaign.

I think when they both agree to it, it made some strategic sense. But now it's just like Desantis is plummeting. He's not in the right states doing it, it's makes, it's crazy.

Anyway, speaking of live events, pod Save America has got two more.

Two more.

You can catch us in El Cajon on December 7th and San Jose on December 13th. We'll be joined by co-host Sam Sanders and Adisu Demessy. Get your tickets at Cricket.com Slash Events now. And that's our show. We did it.