Are Republicans About To Impeach Biden?

Welcome to Potsdave America. I'm Dan Pfeiffer and I'm Alyssa Mastromonaco Alyssa, thank you for joining us again. This is, I think, the third time you filled in during the month of vacations here at Crooked Media.

I love it, it's my insurrection.

The question is, will you be here next week when we do the Zoom?

I mean, I'll do anything, anything you ask of me, Pfeiffer, Anything you ask of me, I'll be there.

Alright, excellent, alright, let's get into it on today's pod. The House Republicans might impeach Joe Biden. The right wing hatches a plan to destroy the federal government. Senator Maziarono talks to Alyssa about the tragic fires in Maui, and we answer some of your questions alright. Despite no evidence, and I literally mean zero evidence, it appears that the House Republicans are about to embark on an impeachment inquiry into Joe Biden. Having something to do with the business dealings of his son Hunter, Here's what Kevin McCarthy had to say to Fox News Maria Bartiromo on Sunday.

Buddy, the SNL skit writes itself. I mean, this is like he's practically hyperventilating in that interview because he's already stressed. This is such a circus. It's like, what do they say? You elect a clown? It doesn't make the place a kingdom, it makes it a circus.

I mean, just so people are clear. The launching of an impeachment inquiry is not does not necessarily mean they are going to impeach Joe Biden. But in the history of the United States, impeachment inquiries have been launched quite rarely. And they almost always end in impeachment. Because these things get a momentum of their own. I mean, this is truly, truly bizarre, and it's particularly bizarre in a world in which Kevin McCarthy has an incredibly narrow majority.

Honestly, I think it's not a bad plan for him. Like, look, every yes, yes, no, hear me out, hear me out. I'm not saying I think it's a good idea. in general, I'm saying here's the deal.

Now to try to explain the substantive logic, and I use the term logic quite loosely here. The argument that McCarthy is making is that if the government were to shut down, Congress would have to stop this impeachment inquiry into Biden. And therefore, if you really care about impeaching Biden, you want to keep the government open right now. A couple of flaws in this plan. One is Kevin McCarthy is essentially the one who determines what Congress can and can't do during a shutdown.

Right, right.

Two, there is a very obvious way here in which the House Freedom Caucus can have their shutdown and eat it too. Because they can start the impeachment inquiry, shut down the government, take a break for three weeks, while the government shut down, come back and continue the impeachment inquiry. So now Kevin McCarthy has the worst of both worlds, which is a government shutdown. Something he thinks is quite unpopular and damaging. And he has this impeachment inquiry, which he has decided, I think incorrectly, to be slightly less politically damaging than shutting down the government. Yeah, so I just like it. Just as a political professional and a human being who believes in rational thinking, this makes me want to scream.

That's what you think, buddy, that's what you think. Kevin McCarthy thinks his only job is to try to keep his job, and that's all he's thinking about right now.

And he doesn't care.

He's like, he's like Jean Valjean in Les Miserables. He just keeps looking at the mirror and saying, One day more, one day more.

That is the first musical theater reference on a Thursday pod to date. So congratulations.

Thank you so much, it's why you brought me here.

But here's the thing. The question, I guess the question is, what is the job Kevin McCarthy cares more about? Is it leader of the Republican Caucus or speaker?

Speaker.

Right, well, then he is choosing incorrectly because polls show that 56 percent. Now a poll came out and we will see more. That, and this poll is done by a Democratic group, so take it with a modicum of salt. But that 56 percent of people think that impeachment of Joe Biden would be a partisan witch hunt or partisan fishing expedition. Whatever the language is, but people don't like it, right? The majority of people don't like it.

Mm hmm.

How is impeaching Joe Biden or wasting taxpayer dollars on this thing, on this completely?

Bogus thing.

How is that going to help him do that? It is so dumb and I do think we ought to stipulate and this is very important. I should have said this earlier and I just got so worked up about this. I went down a path of attacking Kevin McCarthy, which I do sometimes is. I just want to be very clear.

Buddy, buddy, buddy, buddy. Are you under the impression that they're tethered to reality in any way, in any way whatsoever?

Or, of course, not.

Of course not. Or that they're linear thinkers? Well, they, yes.

I think we should hold them to account for not being linear thinkers, I agree, and to think more than one move ahead. There has never been a human being in the history of the planet. With the possible exception of Donald Trump, more likely to fail the Marshmallow Test than Kevin McCarthy. If you said to Kevin McCarthy I can prick your finger today, or I can cut off your arm in six months, he would choose having his arm severed in six months.

Yep.

But this, this tracks, this tracks.

I mean, yeah, yeah, it's on brand.

We don't have to like the brand, right? We don't have to like the brand.

But this is like, they, they, none of them. I'm just going to go out on a limb here. None of them wanted to be in Congress to help people. That's not why they're here.

Other than other than Donald Trump, they want to be there to help Donald Trump.

Oh my God, yes, help Trump.

One interesting wrinkle here is that, in the past, most impeachment inquiries begin with a vote of the full House. To say this is of such a serious nature that we are going to have a vote and to declare that we're going to look into this now. In 2019, Nancy Pelosi, quite deftly, I would think, decided, given the members that she had in vulnerable districts said. We are not going to have a vote of the full house, we're just going to begin, which is procedurally you can do. That made Kevin McCarthy and every Republican quite angry at the time. He called it an abusive process, illegitimate. Blah, blah, blah.

The same way.

The exact same way without a vote of the House.

I mean, they're nothing, if not hypocritical.

Now, do you think that's a good? Should we, like, slam him for some hypocrisy? Are we going to get him that way?

No, of course not. Who cares? They don't care if their shit's devoid of merit, they're fine with it.

I mean, just so we can, because everyone's memories have grown so short in this terrible age we live in. The reason the House impeached Donald Trump was because he was on tape blackmailing the President of Ukraine, Vladimir Zelensky holding.

Not Apples to Apples here.

Now, even if the House launches inquiry, and then Kevin McCarthy somehow gets the requisite number of Republicans to vote to impeach Joe Biden. On all of this bullshit, we know Joe Biden is not going to be convicted and removed from office. Because, as a reminder, it takes two-thirds, a vote of two-thirds of the Senate to make that happen. That did not happen for Trump either time he was impeached. It's not going to happen for Joe Biden here, so I guess he did nothing wrong. But if you're in the White House, how do you view this? Do you view this as a gigantic pain in your ass?

You know, I don't think they welcome it, I don't think it's that bad, I don't know that anybody welcomes it. It's going to be a huge, fucking pain in the ass, you know? It's like, I think that this is a White House that is more than capable of walking and chewing gum.

The reason why this is more of a pain in the ass than the other oversight investigations that have been ongoing for a year and a half now is under the rubric of an impeachment inquiry. Congress has its highest power to investigate its subpoenas. well, we thought at least that its subpoenas would be taken more seriously. A lot of court decisions during the various Trump impeachments probably brought that into question, but there are various officials or people like requests for documents. Emails are more likely to have to be negotiated or acceded to under an impeachment inquiry, potentially, than under the normal. Bullshit that, like Jim Jordan's doing every day to end up on Newsmax or whatever else.

We love Ed.

Yes, we worked with him in the Obama White House, he was very instrumental in helping us respond, although Obama was impeached, but he was the target of one gazillion bullshit. Investigations helped us navigate all of those things. And so they have a very able hand to help them handle this. They have some really smart people doing the comm stuff on this. Beth Lebal, who's the communications director, was the person who handled the response to all of the Republican bullshit in the legal investigation stuff for us as well.

No, they can handle it.

What do you think the politics of this are for Biden? Is it somewhat, even if it's annoying in the short term, is the mere fact of this a little bit of a political gift?

I think a little bit, I think that President Biden is really good at taking on the Republicans when they really sort of piss him off. By just making them seem small and seeming unafraid of them. And I think that that's what he'll do. He will get asked a gazillion questions when he's out campaigning and he'll be like, Yep, I mean, like, look, when you think about it, Donald Trump obfuscates, he denies, he tries to get away with things, and Joe Biden's just going to, like, damn into the torpedo.

You mean, dirt on his shoulder, right?

What did I say, dust?

Yeah.

Did I mess up a rap lyric?

You messed up the Jay-z reference, yes.

Okay, I meant whatever I'm supposed to have said, but I did the brush thing, right. Yes, you did correct, but no, I mean, like, it's. It's hard to say. It's like a net positive, but I think that they will, they will make the best of it, I guess.

Yeah, no one wants to be impeached, no, no one wants to deal with these things. It is it will be supremely annoying. If they the house actually goes through with this. It becomes one of these things that is like, hard to explain generations from now.

You know, for someone who hates polls, you love polls.

I think that they just provide us a little snapshot in time.

Okay, that's good, I just wanted to take a minute.

And so this poll showed that 56 of voters, as I said, thought that this basically was stupid, partisan bullshit. But an 88 of Democrats thought that I would like to speak to the 12 who didn't. But when you look at the 2024 polling today, the race is much closer than you want it to be. And the main reason for that is. Joe Biden is currently underperforming with Democrats and people who voted for him in 2020, and he's getting, in some cases, about 77 of Democrats. I wrote a long piece about this in the message box earlier this week.

Thank you for breaking that down.

Sorry, did I do that in an obnoxious way?

No, it was perfect.

Okay, thank you, thank you. okay. Switching gears for a second here. And speaking of Cockamamie right-wing schemes, the Heritage Foundation-.

Oh, I'm so upset about this.

That's why we had you here. The Right-wing, a right-wing think tank, has put together a 1,000 page plan and plans to recruit thousands of people to come to Washington. To literally destroy the federal government, as we know it, and fire up to 50,000 civil servants. If Donald Trump or some other MAGA-friendly candidate wins in 2024, this is called Project 2025. It sounds very scary, but it's quite confusing. Alyssa, You when you were White House deputy chief of staff, you had many, many responsibilities.

Just know that I'm about to embark on a nerd spiral so you can just sit back. This is first of all these heritage people they call their plan. It's actually packaged as like a coffee table book. Just, I don't know. Think about that for a minute. There's something about that that makes it even more pretentious and annoying. But okay, first, the U.S.

In a Fox News green room.

Even better, it was at the Iowa State Fair. They held their jobs fair at the Iowa State Fair. Because, buddy, bring your turkey leg and beer and come over and learn about working at Treasury.

That's what they want to do.

Their government-in-waiting and buddy, they are putting so much effort into this and it is truly so stressful to me. Because at first, like when you get in the government, you meet the career employees, they might be a little judgy of you. They're like, who are these political whippersnappers?

I mean to put it into, just like some real-world context from our lives. You and I, and I think VAVs was with us, were on the first bus of people who went from Barack Obama's inauguration the moment he becomes president.

I was already there, I had to miss Inauguration. You always forget this. Oh, that's right, you always forget this.

Well, then you can speak to that because you walk in to the White House. And Obama became president during what we now know to have been an active terrorist plot.

Right, yeah, yeah, yeah, big deal.

And the White House feels empty, all the office, the bush people are all gone.

Totally, it is tumbleweed, there's tumbleweed through the hallways, tumbleweed.

You think it's tumbleweed, yes, right in the offices, that we're gonna sit in, right?

Yeah.

The reason Trump could not pull off the things like seizing the voting machines, instituting martial law. Various things he wanted to do with the Justice Department was because there were career employees there who would not sign off on it. Who threatened to resign in mass if he did these things? That's why he had such trouble with the Pentagon, because there were all these career military people who were not gonna do what he wanted. And so they wanna get rid of those people because that is the bulwark against the craziest things that the Republicans wanna do. And then you have to put that in the context of the overall vision of right-wing government. Which is, as Grover Norquist, the Republican anti-tax advocate, once said, is. Shrink it down to the size you can drown it in a bathtub, Mm.

I mean, one of their plans is to give employees at DHS power of law enforcement.

Like?

A whole bunch of people, whole bunch of people, just you know what, you work here, you're now law enforcement, what?

And there's no one to stop them.

There's no one to stop them if they, if they, if Donald Trump wins or that other guy Ramaswamy, they will do this, they will absolutely do this.

It's hard to explain to people, but I think you did an excellent job of explaining why it affects people's lives, right? And that's the thing we're gonna have to do during this campaign for a lot of people.

Yeah.

Okay, Alyssa. Donald Trump, the former president of the United States, with a hurricane hitting his home state of Florida, went on Instagram to offer a message to Floridians. And, frankly, all Americans. Let's take a listen. Wow, wow.

My interview with Tucker Carlson has turned out to be the single most watched video and.

Interview in the history of the world, I guess.

Such a great honor to have participated.

262 million views and counting more than doubling the longtime reigning champ. The Oprah Winfrey interview of Michael Jackson.

So I want to congratulate Tucker and I want to thank everyone.

Thank you very much, Alyssa. Tough hit for Oprah, huh? How do you think she's handling this?

You know what I think she's doing great, you know why? I don't know what other people did, but I went back and watched the Oprah Michael Jackson interview. What a fucking trip.

I had totally forgotten about that.

1993 never felt so fresh.

ALYSSA I decided to put this in the outline two and a half hours ago. In that time, you have interviewed a United States senator, and you watched a 1983 interview with Michael Jackson of Winfrey.

It was incredible, it was incredible. Elizabeth Taylor was there, buddy. You know that when you invite me to do the pod, I was prepped and ready to go by last night, I had nothing but time on my hands this morning.

Are you saying it was not the largest crowd to ever witness an inauguration in history as the-.

Oh, buddy.

As the soon to be Dancing With Stars contestant Sean Spicer said.

I was just like, What is he doing?

He's so pathetic.

He's just so pathetic you have to like. How does Melania even look at him? But also he's always so horny to be with the elites. He had to say Oprah, because secretly he wants Oprah to like him, he wants Oprah to call him up and say good job.

I mean, it is. He has many times over the last seven to eight years mentioned the fact that Oprah used to be nice to him and now she's not.

Yeah, he also invited the Clintons to his wedding, just saying he's had a real journey.

I don't want to play the role of fact checker or something I pointed myself to in last week's pod with Tommy. Okay. But to be clear, when Donald Trump says 262 million people watched his interview, that is not true.

No.

I know I'm sorry. Yeah, it's true. Oprah's record stands the test of time.

With one extra view right over here.

Yes, everyone's going to be shocked to hear this, but Elon Musk is playing a little fast and loose. With the view count on Twitter, what a Twitter view means is really is what we used to call an impression. All it means. It doesn't mean you watched the video, it doesn't mean you started the video.

Also, can I just say I think I'm a better interviewer than Tucker Carlson?

That was like a bad interview. I mean, he's terrible.

That was a bad interview. It's also why people don't have to like, dunk on Trump, like we all hate him, but stop quote tweeting, It's just giving him more views.

Yes, you're giving him. What he wants is your attention, whether he doesn't care if your attention is good or bad, he just wants your attention. But what Trump does by doing this interview is he helps make Tucker Carlson a more influential figure. It gives him more followers, more viewers, bigger part of the conversation.

That was that was well done.

Thank you.

I didn't totally see where it was going right at first, then I was like, Oh, I get what he's doing.

It forced, it made me force people to listen to Donald Trump for 28 seconds. But hopefully, hopefully there's a payoff here, okay?

Or Oprah and Michael Jackson?

That's right, and you got to watch that interview, okay? When we come back, Alyssa talks to Senator Mazie Hirono.

Senator from Hawaii, Mazie Hirono, Welcome to Pod Save America.

Good to be with you always.

Aloha.

Aloha.

We are a few weeks out from the fires that ravaged Maui, specifically in Lahaina and Kula. We see the aftermath of Hurricane Edalia across the south. Mother nature feels very pissed at us right now. I saw that. A recent brush fire, another one albeit brief, caused an evacuation of Lahaina. Are the fires fully contained on the island at this point?

The fires are contained 100, as far as I know in Lahaina, but everyone is ever watchful. You can imagine the fires have been contained as far as I know.

What are the unique challenges of being an island state when it comes to recovering from a disaster like this?

We are also a very tourist dependent state. And when something like this happens and people no longer come to our state, it's going to have a devastating impact on our economy and our ability to recover. That is why the governor and the mayor of Maui County is asking people to help with the economic recovery by continuing to visit. Not Lahaina, but the other parts of Maui, being very sensitive to the fact that there is a lot of grieving and loss being experienced by the people of Maui. But still, the recovery is going to take time and resources, and part of that our tourists who will come in and support the economic recovery of Maui. Again, being very sensitive to what we are going through.

Are there other ways that people traveling to Maui can be conscientious tourists, other than just not going to Lahaina? Are there ways that they can help?

They can certainly go to a website that I've been suggesting people go to, it's called.

And I have been following them as well, senator, and they have been very transparent about how much money they're getting and what they're giving away and to whom. So they have really been doing heroic work.

Yes.

On Maui, there are still 300 people reportedly missing. Several news reports are saying the mayor of Maui was derelict in his duties and didn't call the state for backup. Are you confident that if people made catastrophic mistakes, that they'll be held accountable?

I think that that is all going to reveal itself as we continue to recover. And as you probably know, there are multiple lawsuits. The county has already filed a lawsuit against the electric company. Electric Company will probably countersuit. Then there are private suits going on. So all of that kind of information will reveal itself and there will be a lot of finger pointing, I'm sure. But at the same time, the recovery is going to require time, resources, and really, the recovery should reflect the values and the voices of the people of Lahaina in particular. It is not about, as the president said yesterday, it is not about the federal government or anybody else. Swooping in saying, Here's what you all are going to do, here's what Lahaina is going to look like. No, it's going to be done very much reflecting the values and voices of the people there.

To that point, I think for a lot of folks, it's hard to imagine a drought on an island. But Maui was in fact experiencing a drought, and the fires were largely fed by non-native plants. Something I think it's really important for our listeners to know. Loads of plants were brought onto the island in the late 1700s and 1800s, like guinea grass for purposes, they no longer serve, like feeding cows. Colonists turned from cattle farming to other forms of agriculture, but left these grasses that grow up to six inches in a day.

Of course, there are other areas of Hawaii that are vulnerable. Hawaii has wildfires just like any other state, and the numbers of acres percentage-wise is akin to other states. But, of course, this was the most devastating in loss of life and property in an entire town burned to the ground, a very historic town.

This morning some news broke. You can always count on Oprah to make a splash. This morning news broke that Oprah and the Rock have launched an assistance fund called the People's Fund of Maui. They donated $10 million to kick it off and say every cent will go to the People of Maui, according to the press release, residents 18 and over who live in the affected area and who were displaced by the fires will be eligible to receive $1,200 a month to help through the recovery period.

I'm really glad that private citizens, particularly, I would say, the people of Maui. When I was visiting the shelters, it was very clear all of the people were there volunteering, including high school kids who were volunteering. But this is a joint effort by government. We have to acknowledge we, our country has to acknowledge, I would say, the connection between global warming, climate change and the frequency, and how damaging all of these disasters are. So, hurricanes and flooding and wildfire seas, in my view, and the view of scientists, are connected to global warming. And we need to acknowledge that and as a country, deal with it. And that is why the Inflation Reduction Act has $300 billion to deal with global warming and climate change.

You touched on this a little bit ago. But we have been hearing stories about unsavory developers and real estate agents trolling to buy up land. Do you have confidence that the people in Maui will be provided with the means to keep the land they own and rebuild the homes that may have been destroyed?

I believe that there will be ways that, especially at the county level, there may be a moratorium on building or sales of land. And whether that will be challenged, I'm not sure, but there is a general, I would say, consensus and support. This is no time for people to come flocking in and trying to buy up the land that's in Lahaina. This is not the time for any of that kind of activity to be happening.

Let's talk a little bit more about giving and how people can help. I have focused my giving towards the Maui humane society. I am wearing their t-shirt today. Since in Hawaii, pets are considered part of the Ohana, the family, they're doing incredible work.

If you go to Hawaii Community Foundation, there is a list of all of the organizations. They're trusted organizations that the money that goes into this special fund through the Hawaii Community Organization. Please check through that to see if the Humane Society is among them, or you can probably just go to Humane Society MAUi and scroll through. But make sure that these are legitimate organizations that are accepting these funds.

And we will make sure to link to these organizations in our show notes so people can just click over and support. And also, I just want to say that for me, growing up, we always went to Maui in the winter and our favorite thing was coconut syrup. So I have ordered loads of coconut syrup to help support businesses, so if you are near me, you will be getting coconut syrup soon.

Well, there you go, thank you.

Maisie, thank you, thank you so much for taking the time to talk to us today, Mahalo.

And thank everyone who cares about Hawaii to help our recovery. Mahalo Nui Loa Thanks for the focus. It's going to take a long time for us to recover from something as devastating as this. It's so heartbreaking.

It's so heartbreaking just watching, and I really feel it's terrifying to hear people talk about the conspiracy theories of what they think happened. So I really wanted to get you on today to be able to kind of like.

Yes, we need to push back and focus our energies and what's really going to help. And then that is not about, you know, there's going to be as Kevin McCarthy. He wants to do an investigation and to the federal response. Politicizing this tragedy is not what we need at the moment or any time. Frankly, thank you so much.

Thank you.

Hawaii Community Foundation dot. org.

All right, before we go, Alyssa and I wanted to answer a few questions submitted from the friends of the Pod community on Discord. If you love Pod Save America, if you love Crooked media, if you want more content, you want ad free episodes of Pod Save America. If you just want a. To be part of a community of people who are working together to defeat Mag Republicans and save our democracy. Particularly an online community that Elon Musk is banned from. You should go to Crooked dot com Slash Friends, and you should go to and join the friends of the Pod subscription community. I promise you, if you, if you like what you're listening to here, you will love that. And these questions were submitted by people as part of that community.

Thune right. John Thune. Wouldn't Thune replace him?

There is a battle between three Johns John Thune, John Cornyn, John Brasso, who I swear is a real person.

John Thune Don't tell anyone John Thune's the most handsome, though.

ALYSSA You were speaking to someone who I know spent two years of their life running campaigns against.

I didn't say that he was smart or capable. I don't think any of the three of them are, but he's the most handsome.

Would you say Mitch McConnell was a successful Republican leader in all the ways we hate, but would you say he was successful?

I mean, Yeah, probably.

Would you say he's handsome?

Definitely not.

OK, just some context here for people who may not have seen. Mitch McConnell earlier this year had a bad fall. He was absent from the Senate for weeks. He was very mysterious about what caused the fall or how he was dealing with it. He came back to the Senate during a press availability a month or so ago.

Like at all.

I don't know that anyone could, either.

And I appreciate that you could tell me a little something about the second John. But the reason I said that John Thune should do it because he's the most handsome is because that's all I know about any of the three of them.

John Thune As I mentioned, I worked on two Senate campaigns against him. We won the first one, lost the second one. He is a able politician. I would say he is not a deep thinker, would be a fair way to say it. He certainly was not strategic like McConnell, but he would probably be a better messenger if he were to become the leader of Senate.

I mean, he is utterly un-telegenic.

And he speaks like every McConnell interview. His whole career has been basically like someone reading the almanac of American politics with marbles in their mouth. You just can't understand the words, I mean, you can understand the words. It's in Senate jargon, it's terrible.

Well, as a matter of fact, flags are handled by the Visits Division at the State Department, and they work in coordination with the White House Military Office. When the visit is at the White House, and since MG is very stoked on flags, I will add this little nugget, which is that. The lowering of the flag over the White House is a function of the White House staff Secretary's Office. And they actually draft a proclamation for the president to sign that determines how long the flag will be at half-mast.

Is there a room with the flags?

I mean, they're not kept in a bunker, so there is a room somewhere with flags.

Where are the state flags?

Like the United States of America.

Yeah, the 50 States, because aren't those always put up all the time?

Why are you trying to make me look like an asshole who doesn't know anything? I don't know where the fucking state flags are kept, I'm just kidding, I am fairly confident in saying that they are kept in the White House military office.

OK, that's good, that's a good answer.

Thank you.

All right, Katrina asks. People make fun of the West Wing for its rosy portrayal of an idealistic White House team, but surely you had a few West Wing moments over the years? What's one you remember?

What's one you remember?

Mine's not that rosy, but I'll give it to you anyway because it was quite funny.

Mine's funny, mine's not rosy, mine's just funny, too.

I remember early, early days of White House, we'd only been there, maybe like a month or so. And for those who don't know, on the weekends, White House staff can get when the president is not working. In the West Wing, White House staff can give family friends a private tour of the West Wing. Where you can see the Oval Office behind Ropen Stanchion and the cabinet room and all this other stuff. And they can happen after hours during the week, and on Saturdays and Sundays. And particularly in the early days when a Republican, right after a Republican, had been in the White House for eight years. The White House was packed, particularly because there was so much excitement over Obama being president. The White House was packed with people giving tours and it was like there was like traffic on Saturdays and Sundays, like trying to get to your office, because there were so many people doing tours. And I was stuck walking up the steps from the basement of the West Wing, where you would get coffee and breakfast from the White.

House desk and visit me and visit me.

And visit you, yes, and so I had gone and got breakfast and I was headed up to my office and I was behind a family. Getting a West Wing tour from a staffer and one of the people on the tour says, You know, this looks nothing like the TV show The West Wing, which is true, it does not. But at the exact moment, she said that for reasons that are still hard to explain, around the corner comes Rob Lowe. No, like, just as she says it.

Buddy, that's an amazing story. I actually never knew that, I didn't know that story.

One day, I'll tell the story about when. The entire cast of True Blood was trapped outside of the White House trying to get in a tour on the day that Wadden was killed.

Because everyone was in town for the correspondence dinner.

Yeah, that's right, right, anywho, what's your? what's your Western moment?

Okay, so my story's about the two of us and I bet you won't remember it. But I every time I'm like, a little down in the dumps or something, I will think about this. You and I. It was, I don't know what year it was. But our offices were across from each other, right next to the oval, and, you know, you and I, we would always bop into the other person's office.

That was that was, uh, January 2013 until March of 2014.

So we were across the hall from each other and I'm pretty sure it was. Well, you know how, my feet would always get hot and so I would not have my shoes on in the West wing. When I thought no one was paying attention, so I. I popped over to your office to chat and the door was open. And as I'm standing there, barefoot in your office. Bibi Netanyahu, I'm pretty sure it was Bibi Netanyahu. And POTUS walked by, and POTUS who, like, didn't always stop and be like, this is Alyssa and Dan. Um, stopped and immediately looked in and saw my feet and gave me the face. It's like, Jesus fucking Christ, Alyssa.

Nothing I can do now.

Anyway, it's like, How can you? I don't like that, doesn't? It's like it was the weirdest, funniest thing, and I'll always remember it because you were also quite embarrassed.

I mean, in fairness, it's Barack Obama's fault. He knew all of us when he for many years before he hired us to the to these jobs in the White House.

So no one should have expected anything more from me. Okay, utterly professional, got the job done, but often barefoot.

All right, last question, Jen Woda asks What's the best advice you've given each other?

Okay, so I'm going to go first because Viper has given me two hugely important pieces of advice that I utilize weekly. Okay, so the first one was I was in my office and I was like, real bummed out. And I wish. The reason I love to tell this is because I think that, like people who listen to the pod think of you in a very specific way. And I need them to see this side of you.

I know exactly who you're talking to in those instances, and I feel like I feel like that. I feel like that advice worked well in both cases, it did.

And in life, and so I just, you know, it's been. I don't know how many years we've been friends. But since you gave me that advice, I think think about it routinely.

We've been friends for 16 years. Alyssa Just.

And I look better than when we met.

That is, that is a fact.

Thank you so much, thank you so much. Leaving government does wonders for your skin.

I don't know that I could single out a single piece of advice you gave me, because there is no question in my mind that I would not have.

Cause you're a goldfish survived, cause you're a goldfish.

Like, what is it I'm going to?

It means you have no memory, it means you have no memory.

Because I don't, there's no way I would have made it through the White House. A whole bunch of, like, really challenging periods of my life. Without you there, there's no question about that, but the one most, I mean. And you literally saved my life once by sending me to the hospital, uh, during a medical emergency and getting me top-notch medical care from someone who's now a right-wing. But at the time, the time that that did save my life, um, but the most like, obviously the most impactful and valuable piece of advice you gave me is that you told me to date my wife like I did. You were a full endorsee.

We had to give the people what they want.

I know I don't have to tell you guys this, but everyone needs more Alyssa Mastromonaco in their life. So, be sure to check out her podcast Hysteria, where she and co-host Erin Ryan break down the stories that affect women's lives. Talking about everything from reproductive rights to rom-coms, new episodes drop every Thursday. Make sure to tune into Hysteria wherever you get your podcasts pod. Save America is going back on the road.