Republican Frontrunner Tim Scott?

Welcome to Pod Save America, I'm Jon Favreau.

I'm Tim Scott's advance man Jon Lovett.

I'm Tommy Vitor on today's show. Republicans reject a White House compromise that would save us from default. Tim Scott is officially running, and Ron DeSantis, Chris Christie and Chris Sununu are right behind him. Joe Biden offers new support to Ukraine, while Russia bans Trump's enemies. And new focus groups give us a clue as to how swing voters would treat a Biden-Trump rematch. Then Senator Brian Schatz talks to Lovett about the debt ceiling. And we will cap things off with a look at Ron DESantis attempts to play a human on the campaign trail. But first, if you are sick of scrolling Twitter and you want a quick, smart, funny recap of the day's news, look no further than Crooked Media's Whattaday newsletter.

Yeah, that's 250.

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It snuck up fast, huh?

It sure did. Republicans rejected a White House compromise over the weekend. That would have saved about $1 trillion. By freezing spending for two years, they want steeper cuts for six years to everything that's not defense-related. Plus, they're still gung-ho on pushing more working people into poverty through work requirements.

They love doing that.

Not helping the situation is Donald Trump, who told Republicans on Friday not to make a deal unless they get everything they want. Including, he says in quotes, the kitchen sink, right? Meanwhile, some Democrats in Congress are warning Biden that they may not support the deal he cuts with McCarthy. AOC tweeted that the White House may lose 100 to 150 House Democrats if the cuts are steep enough. So we're recording this.

So that's where we're at.

What do you think, should Biden reject spending cuts deeper than he already offered? Or are we at the point where the risk of default is so dangerous? We just got to, just got to get a deal.

I think he will draw a line and has to, because the goalposts have been changing constantly. And if you don't draw a line at some point, you're going to get another. You know, Hail Mary, last minute change from the Republicans. So I do think he has to draw a line because they're, you know, the latest over the weekend. They're pushing for more draconian work requirements for people receiving food assistance, and they're trying to tell states they have less flexibility in implementing those draconian work requirements. So we'll see.

Yeah, and McCarthy is all over the place. On the one hand, you have him saying that. Their ridiculous bill that they passed through the house was the floor, not the ceiling of what they could demand. Then, right before he goes over to meet with Biden, he says, something like we need to have spending be less than it was last year, which leaves a lot of room to negotiate. So it's like if Biden has to draw some lines. Because if you have someone like McCarthy, who is beholden to sort of the right wing of the party and ultimately not in control, you have to have Biden drawing some kind of a hard line.

Yeah, if you go by what McCarthy and McCarthy's top deputies and Biden and the White House have been telling reporters over the last couple of days. Which, as you guys pointed out, changes like every hour, it does seem like McCarthy is trying to. They're really focused now, not on sort of the extra stuff like the work requirements, the permitting reform. McCarthy says. He's keeping immigration reform out, but again, we'll see what happens with the rest of his caucus. It seems like they're focused on this top line number, right?

Without saying how much.

Without saying how much. So in a perfect world, you could see a deal where it's a little less than it's somewhere in between those two things. The White House offered a freeze. But again, this is all assuming that McCarthy can find enough Republican votes to pass it, and the Democrats can find enough Democratic votes to pass it.

Right?

And he's an incredibly weak speaker and we've known this since it took him 15 votes to get the job. And it must be very frustrating for the Biden team knowing that Speaker McCarthy will likely lose Republican votes, so he's going to need Democratic votes. But there is no pressure on McCarthy to engage with Democrats in the House to try to bring them along and get those votes to pass a deal. It's all on Joe Biden.

And McCarthy wanted it that way because they basically wanted.

Yeah, so McCarthy and Biden come up with the final thing that it has to be, other than, say, a discharge position, which seems far-fetched at this point. And the point that Schatz makes when I talk to him later is we've gone from. We don't negotiate over the debt limit to we are negotiating, but we should make sure it is a deal. We would have ultimately had to get to with Republicans over the budget because they have the House regardless of the debt limit. Threat, Yeah.

And that's.

And the other point that Schatz will make is around continuing resolutions, which is basically when Congress can't come to an agreement on some of these harder budget questions. They just pass what's called a continuing resolution, which is said, do everything you did last year. But at either a little bit more or a little less than current spending, based on past precedent, it would probably be less. Because to get it through the house, you would need to get McCarthy to bring it to the floor.

Ideally, here, you know, I mean, Republicans were first like, we want spending caps for 10 years, now they're saying six years. I mean, if you're Biden in the White House. You're trying to limit the damage for the next two years and then hope that Democrats win in 2024 and reverse the damage.

I mean, 10 years from now, it's AI's problem.

Right, that's right, it's AI's problem, and AI will be in having those seats in Congress.

Yeah, better than some of the non-AI we have now. You know what I'm saying?

Biden said over the weekend he thinks he has the authority to use the 14th Amendment, but that it won't work in time.

Ah damn God, right right. We need it most.

You got to put it in earlier.

More Democrats are pushing him to do it anyway. Some folks are starting to wonder aloud how the party let itself get to this point. Was there a better path Biden could have taken here? And we've been, unfortunately, following this closely.

You know, we again, we talked, we pushed shots on this. When we talked to him in December, there was a lame duck. And there are a lot of people saying, Hey, you realize, in six months, Republicans are going to walk into the Congress with a fucking vest of a vest of default strapped to their chest. And everyone's like, Yeah, yeah, yeah, but that's six months from now, we'll deal with it then.

I mean, I think the votes weren't there, I mean, Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema basically said it much. I think you have a bunch of institutionalists that might have made it hard, maybe you could have negotiated something with them, right? But who knows?

Yeah, on the on the Manchin thing, I went back today to look at his quotes from The Lame Duck, and he was. He didn't completely rule out lifting the debt ceiling in reconciliation in the fall, but he was pretty close, he was like, we should do this in a bipartisan way.

Of course.

Being his bonnet.

And it's very easy now to say, Oh, we should have done this then, and maybe a big kerfuffle would have led to nothing.

It was like punishing your future self. It's like saying, you'll go out to dinner, make a dinner plan two months from now, right?

It's like you couldn't rustle up the rustle up the willpower.

This is Keanu Reeves in speed, saying, Shoot the hostage, except they're aiming at the hostage's head and just gleefully shooting.

Yeah, I think that's right, sure.

Yeah, it's a great movie.

I will say one more thing on the 14th Amendment because I've been talking about this in the last couple of episodes. I didn't understand why the Biden administration doesn't, like, didn't invoke it earlier and then let it let the courts decide before the X date. The problem is, we've been using the phrase, and so is everyone else on the coverage, like invoking the 14th Amendment.

Like, he just runs on the 1600 pen and turns out the White House, he goes. I invoke this, the 14th Amendment.

So it turns out that's not really a thing that what would have to happen is. You'd hit the X date. And then the government would start issuing debt anyway, and then then the courts would decide whether that new debt, issued after the X date is constitutional or not. And then you are again relying on John Roberts, Brett Kavanaugh, Neil Gorsuch as your swing votes, and if they decide that it's not constitutional, then we're all fucked.

Well, it's also, then it's like, then it's like, Ooh, I have a Treasury certificate, that's a cool souvenir that I could put on the wall.

And that's why the markets go haywire, right? So it is. It's tricky anyway. I'm sure they'll figure it out, OK?

There she is.

Rhonda Sanctimonious.

Haven't heard that in a while.

Gotten shorter.

Senator Tim Scott is officially in the race, he announced Monday in his home state of South Carolina. He picked up a key endorsement from the number two Republican in the Senate, John Thune.

He's going to ride John Thune's coattails.

Haven't thought about that guy in a while.

Yeah, he just popped up to give an endorsement that I'm sure it's just a groundswell of support. He did that. Tim Scott just picked up in South Dakota, I guess his team is making the case to reporters that Scott is the party's best messenger, the most consistent conservative in the race, the most broadly appealing to the Republican electorate. And that he has the resources and infrastructure to win. The guy does have twenty two million dollars in his Senate account that he's rolling over to the presidential.

The case, I mean, best Messenger. Sort of like a Reagan remix. It's not bad, you know, you can dance to it, but it's not that great. Most consistently conservative, he's very conservative on policy, extremely conservative, has the resources and infrastructure to win. Twenty two million is nothing compared to what Trump's sitting on the Senate's sitting on money wise and infrastructure wise.

What do you think?

I thought the speech was really good. I think that the people are pulling out the funny moment. He's kind of goofy when they pull out, he shouted into the microphone. The way he announces, like a little bit of a goofy guy. But it was the most compelling and interesting speech a Republican other than Trump has given.

Yeah, I think he gave the best speech, certainly at the Republican Convention in 2020.

Yes, it does seem like it's like.

I think he's more talented than Haley than DeSantis, for sure.

Yes, I think he's making a cleaner, I think, more sophisticated and smarter argument. That actually makes sense. There's a coherence to what he's doing that makes him a legitimate alternative in a way that no one else, not even DESantis, can really offer. You watch it, though. Yes, obviously he's trying to say, hey, we don't need to do grievance politics to a group of people that have become enamored of grievance politics.

It's just one of those. Again, it's too subtle to your point. If you're going to drag the Republican voters out of it, you got to be. What the elephant in the room here is that it's a party enthralled to the fucking cult of personality that is Donald Trump. He has said before he's thankful for Trump's time in office. If you really think that the party is going in the wrong direction in the country because there's too much grievance, stuff like that, then you got to identify the fucking problem, which is the guy that you're running against.

Yeah, he seems like a nice guy, there's these stories about. On his early Senate days, he would go down to goodwill, not tell anyone who it is. Mop the floors, talk to people, do these focus groups. Seems like a nice human being. But he made the same exact deal with the devil on Donald Trump's administration that they all did after he and Haley endorsed Marco Rubio in South Carolina in 2016, and Trump kicked Marco's ass by 10 points. So I think, frankly, the fact that you like the speech, that we all think. He's kind of like an interesting, nice guy is probably why he will not go anywhere.

Well, and I would respect it if he took on Trumpism, right, if he was doing this message. But taking on Trumpism. And the fact that he's trying to have it both ways, which he has with Trump, which he sort of did with the abortion question, too, right? You know, he's trying to do the message, but he's underneath it.

I think that's the test, right? It's like there's two versions of somebody with this kind of, I think, optimistic, hopeful tone in a debate, right? If this ultimately led to a debate. One is, I think, the kind of Obama style of kind of being above it. All in a way that makes someone like Trump or DeSantis look very silly. And then you have the kind of Jeb Bush style which makes you look kind of pummeled right now. There was a very bad sign, I think, for Tim Scott, that one of his aides told I think, maybe Playbook like. We think the contrast is so obvious, we're not even going to have to talk about Donald Trump.

What do you think, a 57-year-old bachelor with no kids?

Yeah, and look, here's the thing Ben Terrace of The Washington Post, who actually had to ask him that question about his Virginia.

Yeah, I think that's cool.

40-something-year-old.

That's cool, look, this country can't have a single president. single people are freaks.

Here's just one last problem, you know, I'm sure you point out that he's at 1 2 in the national polls, his team could say national polls. They don't mean anything. This is all about the early states. Okay, let's try South Carolina, where he's the senator, where he has won two elections, and everyone knows who he is.

Well, he just got in, yeah.

And he's competing as Nikki Haley, another sort of home state darling.

Yeah, he just got in, but it's not a name ID problem with him. In South Carolina, everyone knows who he is, so I think it's going to be tough. So, Ron DESantis is set to launch his campaign Wednesday.

Not sununu.

Yeah, Sununu. Here he comes, rounding out a GOP field that also includes Trump. Scott, Nikki Haley, Asa Hutchinson, Vivek Ramaswamy. I guess Larry Elder is in it, too. What really? Yeah, I was reading it today and I realized I needed to add him, Larry. You guys think this is? Is it Trump's race to lose?

I would like to just share. First of all, the Sununu thing is the dumbest one yet, but I like this. Does Sununu have a chance? And then mentions halfway through that he's pro-choice. No, he doesn't, no.

Well, he's another one who's an extremely popular governor in New Hampshire, and if you look at New Hampshire primary polls, he's not registering too high.

I would just like to read this. This is the most nepo baby paragraph I've ever read in history. As an engineering student at MIT, Sununu dreamed of Hollywood. He wrote a romantic comedy screenplay about a European man falling in love in Boston after a brief stint at NYU's Film school. Where the chess hustlers of Washington Square Park sometimes separated him from his money.

Wow, yeah, interesting profile.

That is, that is Conor Roy shit.

Speaking of New England popular governors, I mean, remember? Charlie Baker, a governor of Massachusetts, was polling at 73 statewide in Massachusetts, but he couldn't win the Republican primary. That's the task that these guys have. You can be the most. 73 is, like, wildly popular governor of the state.

I don't know who knows what will happen. I would say this. My feeling on this is Hutchinson, Nikki, Haley, Sununu, Chris, Christie. These people are jokes, but Dim Scott's not a joke.

Yeah, I just think that they are. All of these candidates now have given Trump, outside of DESantis, exactly what he wanted, which was a big Republican primary field. And the reason, you know, it's what he wanted, is because he's telling us.

He says it.

He welcomed everybody into the field.

Welcomed Tim Scott to the race, said he was a. He's certainly a step up from desanctimonious who's completely unelectable. And then he said, The field's getting loaded up with people fast. He's just he's one of those, he's just telling you what he's thinking. And this is the problem. Is like, Desantis, Scott, Haley, Pence. They're all going to be fighting over the traditional conservatives. The evangelicals. Christie Sununu Hutchinson are going to be fighting over the extremely small anti-trump faction in the party.

They're trying to try to get each other's votes.

16 again.

And then you've got. And then DESantis, who is struggling anyway right now, needs every last one of those other votes, and if they start taking a little bit from DeSantis, it's Trump's.

But it's not 16 again. In the sense that we went through this, it was so inconceivable. People couldn't believe that Trump was happening, that all these people stayed in the field believing that they could potentially be the alternative. I don't know that you can do that this time, polling at 3 in November before the primaries begin, so you could see it now.

People are so delusional.

Do you think these people do the right thing? What are we talking about here?

A lot of them, they don't have enough money to do polling and research, right? And so they're listening to their advisors, telling them you never know what might happen. They're probably meeting people at meet and greets who are like, I'm actually for you, you know? And then they think that's great. Mike Pence What is Mike Pence doing?

What if Mike Pence was hanged on January 6th? And we're all in a kind of simulation. That's his kind of purgatory to make up for his sins, and he keeps rerunning it until he learns to stop being a fucking prick.

It's a groundhog day.

Interesting.

He just keeps waking up.

Yeah, I think if these people stick around until Iowa, it's Trump's nomination. I mean, they all got to start dropping out by then. So, one issue likely to be the subject of fierce debate in both the Republican primary and the general election is America's support for Ukraine. President Biden met with President Zelensky at the G7 in Japan, where he also announced a joint international effort to train Ukrainian pilots on the F-16 fighter aircraft. Meanwhile, Russia claims to have captured the key city of Bakhmut in eastern Ukraine, and also released a list of 500 Americans who were banned from entering Russia.

Seth Meyers looks up from the pool at Sochi.

Why is he in Sochi?

He's on vacation.

Oh, it's Russia. Oh, because it's, yeah, all right, before we get to the list, Tommy. What is the significance of Biden's announcement on the F-16 training?

I think the F-16 announcement is recognition that the White House thinks this war is going to go on for a very long time. Because over the long term, you're going to have a border that you need to defend, and you're going to need a modern air force. The current fighting, and even the sort of long promised but seemingly not started yet. Spring offensive is tanks in open fields in eastern Ukraine and artillery and drones directing these, you know, artillery fire and efforts to cut off supply lines. And so what this does is sort of start the clock on training Ukrainian pilots. It takes about four months to train you up on an F-16. You'll have to pull pilots who are currently flying missions off those missions to do this.

Hadn't there been some concerns about like that, this would be taken as a sign of escalation. Yeah, and then how do you? Why do you think they got over those concerns?

They seem to get over those concerns routinely. You know, I mean, there is, I think, there's a very good faith concern about escalation and provoking Putin and any response that might lead to something like a nuclear response. But this happened with the long range missiles, it's happened now with these F-16s, I think they think it's manageable.

What's with that sanctions list? It seems like quite a cast of characters.

It's a pretty good list, you know? It was missing a few. There's a lot of Trump enemies on that list, but you're missing some key ones, like, Where's Deb Messing?

Where is Deb Messing?

Where's Alyssa Milano?

And also Joe Scarborough's on there. Where's Mika?

Where's Mark Ruffalo?

No Krasensteins.

No Krasensteins.

No Krasensteins are they enemies?

Major Biden sanctioned a pet makes some news.

Where's Louis Smich?

I don't know.

Yikes, is Putin basically doing that to just like troll?

I don't know.

The Biden administration.

It seems like it. There's also a lot of national security nerds on there, so I mean, there's some sort of wonky people. There's a lot of Biden administration officials, like the NSC staff, the White House. I've been with both our friends on there.

Do you guys feel embarrassed that you and Ben Rhodes didn't make it?

Yeah, why aren't you on there?

Well, I think Ben's on it from the last time they sanctioned a bunch of people.

Ben and Dan are still on it.

I mean, I don't think they get taken off it. Are you going to test that proposition? are you going to buy a ticket?

Yeah, I imagine it hasn't been like an exciting vacation destination. No, already.

A lot more painful if you could have a list where those people then had to visit your country. You know what I mean?

Like a mandatory visit.

Mandatory visit list like 20 a year, and you're like, all right, come on over, come to Sochi, you got to be here.

We have some breaking news about the White House meeting is over. SPEAKER McCarthy I think the tone tonight was better than any other time we've had discussions.

Theater criticism, great.

We are excited about the tone. And then the one of the lead negotiators, Republican Representative Patrick McHenry, said, We've had tough meetings. We've had difficult meetings. This meeting was productive. No acrimony.

Okay.

That makes me nervous. That means like the Republicans feel like they're getting something.

Yeah.

So we're really, yeah, great.

Every Democrat on the hill have read that thought.

Buy us dinner first, you know what I'm saying?

All right, finally, we've been talking a lot about the Biden-Trump rematch that's currently our most likely future. So the Washington Post just held a series of focus groups with the kinds of voters who may decide the race. People who cast their ballot for Donald Trump in 2016 and then voted for Joe Biden in 2020, they got 15 Democrats, Independents and Republicans from swing states.

I'll tell you what my first thought was. It was like, nine to 15. can we do it with nine to 15??

Yes, I mean, I was like, crunching the numbers.

I don't know that we can, I think we need a couple more people. You know, I talked to shots about this, too, you know. It's very clear that that age is a big liability, it is a bigger liability than it was in 2020..

It's kind of like, this is Biden's core pitch, right? Like, don't compare me to the almighty, compare me to the alternative. And when these people did, they were much more likely to vote for Joe Biden. I also think, you know, when you combine this with the catalyst research you and Dan talked about on Thursday. That showed in the key swing states, issues like abortion, access and the extremity of GOP. Candidates motivated people and they understood the stakes beyond the individuals on the ballot, so that that makes me hopeful.

Certainly not an election that people are going to be excited about. It could be a very high turnout election, but it's not something people aren't going to be like running to the polls.

I guess you're right to your point. It's a high turnout election. It's because you oppose the other guy.

Negative partisanship. And to that end, if I was the Biden campaign, and I'm sure this is what they're thinking. But like, the best Biden moments over the last couple of years, the speeches about democracy. January 6th the in the middle of the state of the Union. When he started ad-libbing and basically fighting with Republicans over Social Security and Medicare, right? They are moments when Biden has both shown energy and painted the contrast with Republicans. And I think you can solve two birds with one stone there, right? People are a little worried about his age whenever he's feisty and shows some energy, that helps that.

We don't want that.

One more thing about those focus groups that I thought was interesting. They tested DESantis in addition to Trump, and most, the majority of participants also chose Biden over DESantis because they said he was too extreme.

Yeah, that's good.

That's great. Yeah, man, never has someone you know. Only Elon Musk could build a ship that would explode so quickly on the launch pad there.

You know, DESantis really has done it to himself for these voters.

Yeah, and when they brought up their criticisms of Trump were, you know, not surprising. His character is social media use, and they brought up the investigations a bunch, which is also interesting, all right. So when we come back, Senator Brian Schatz talks with Lovett about debt ceiling strategy and lots more.

Joining us now. He's Hawaii Senator, friend of the pod, and the most popular senator in the country, according to a recent poll. Senator Brian Schatz, Glad to have you back.

Nice to be back, nice to see you, John.

Do you walk around like, you know, like a big swinging dick now?

How am I supposed to answer that question? By the way, that reminds me, the one time I went to your live show, it was there were like three female comedians and you. And it was just all dick jokes. And I didn't know what to do.

I'm sorry, I'm sorry that that happened.

I mean, it wasn't all anyway. Let's get back to work.

Speaker McCarthy spoke briefly before going into another meeting with Biden. He didn't say much. We had hopeful signs at the end of the week. Then a Trump truth sent people into a tizzy. Now we're back at the table.

Well, obviously, the President and the Speaker are meeting in the next couple of hours. You know, I'm not going to take too much from the various public statements. I think, you know, sometimes people make grouchy public statements specifically to soften the ground for a compromise. So I'm hopeful that we will land this. And if we land this in a place that unlocks the appropriations process and avoids a government shutdown in the fall, then that's actually all as well.

So it sounds like what you're saying there is that if it does allow you to move into that appropriations process. Are you saying the actual specific lines that are drawn in this specific deal, that they're not as important, that they're not as significant? What are you saying there?

No, I think, look, I think the numbers matter very much. They're called top lines, and they're basically exactly how the appropriations committee determines how much money it has to spend. So once those top line agreements are arrived at on a bipartisan basis, they are binding to the committee. So my criteria is, is this the kind of deal we would have gotten under normal circumstances if these people were not threatening default?

Right, so if what you're saying is a deal in which the thing Democrats get isn't the country not going into financial collapse? What are the places where Democrats are seeing, give, or what do you want to see? What will make this a bipartisan compromise in which what Democrats are extracting from these negotiations go beyond just lifting the debt ceiling?

Well, one of my key priorities is something called parity, and it's a very simple concept, which is you have two categories of discretionary spending, and it's defense and non-defense. And for the last 10 years, in order to sort of keep the peace and do bipartisan appropriations, regardless of who's president, regardless of who runs the legislative branch, we've kept parity. Defense and non-defense have been roughly equal as they go up.

So that was actually what happened in 2011, right? So in 2011, the sequester was basically a kind of a trigger that would cut both discretionary and defense spending. Right? That was sort of the way we could, but we ended up hitting that sequester and doing the cuts, but then didn't. Later, we go back and undo some of the defense cuts.

Yeah, well, we undid the defense cuts and we undid the whole thing overall because it was nonsense. The idea that, like equal pain will bring the parties to the table is not true anymore. Because I do think that this Republican party is uniquely dangerous and doesn't care about governing. And so I don't think we should assume that. If we have a sort of damocles over the Defense Department, and a sort of damocles over, say, the Health and Human Services Department, that that's going to do anything for us. What we have to do is have an arrangement where there's a modest increase in spending or a freeze in spending, subject to inflationary costs. And then we move forward with a budget, because absent a budget agreement, we're going to end up with a freeze anyway, something called a CR. And so we're in a strong negotiating position on one level because we have the executive branch in the control of Democrats and half of the legislature.

But one of the challenges that it works as leverage. Because all the polls show right, that the blame for it would be laid equally at the feet of Democrats and Republicans. So I don't know how we get out of Republicans using it as a cudgel when the media shows them that it works. And we seem to have, in this case, unlearn the lesson from 2011 that we simply don't negotiate over the debt ceiling. But I'm not saying that, saying that we had any other choice. It does seem like, for what, this moment does feel different.

I don't know the answer to that, you know, I've been thinking about that, and whether, you know, I want to substitute my judgment for the presidents here. Because I can imagine that. If you're in the Oval, right, and Janet Yellen and everyone else is coming to tell you, you know. Interest rates won't just go up temporarily, they may go up for 10 years, right? Stock market won't just take a hit, it'll get cut in half.

So when you were last on the show, we talked about this. We talked about how stupid it is to just have this loaded gun sitting on the table every two years. And it just seemed like there wasn't momentum when we had the lame duck, when we could have unloaded this gun to get it done. I asked you about this, you said you didn't have the votes.

We should have, and I think it's becoming a mainstream position among Democrats that we just need to repeal this stupid statute. And whether that ends up happening by virtue of the court's ruling in favor of the administration, should they pursue the 14th Amendment? Or that the next time we have leverage in a situation like this, that we just decide to repeal the statute? I don't know what the pathway forward is, but I do think the political momentum for repealing the debt ceiling is there. Because I think initially people just use a shorthand and say, well, that's a tough vote. Because I'm going to look like I'm repealing the debt forever, or that I'm for endless spending. I think most people who pay attention, they're going to hold you accountable for whatever you decided to spend money on in the appropriations process.

So I want to move on to another topic because the debt ceiling is the most important and most boring thing the country is currently facing.

I was like, I can feel your viewers bleeding off while we were talking about this.

I've got to get them back. So you're leading the charge on banning children under 13 from being able to use social media and requiring parental consent from 13 to 17. You also would ban tech companies from serving minors algorithmically from like sort of algorithmically generated content. It's a bipartisan bill. What are the prospects for it?

Well, I think, first of all, I think, you know, most people nod vigorously when they say when I say a 12 year old and younger should not be on social media. So I don't think that's even a controversial position anymore. 13 through 17 is a little different, right? Because, you know, I talk to staffers of mine who say, Hey, you know, in my teenage years, that's literally how we interacted.

Yeah, I mean, it does seem like there's a lot of evidence, especially around adults, about the harm that being fed this kind of content causes. The impact it's having on politics. But it's less clear in terms of the core issue around kids, which I think has focused people on. Depression, self-harm, suicidal ideation, suicide threats, suicide attempts, more kids dying of suicide. Josh Hawley has a bill that would just ban kids under 16 from being on social media. That's obviously more draconian than what you're proposing, but it does seem like right now, parents are buying the phones.

I'm sort of sympathetic to the view, but I think that there's more evidence. The younger you get, and there are fewer upsides, the younger you get right as you get a little older. You know, my kids can learn fishing or crochet or piano, or there's some cool stuff you can learn from social media.

All right, let's move on to another topic, from the young to the old. Dianne Feinstein is back in the Senate. She's on a lighter schedule, but she did vote to move some stalled nominees out of judiciary. There's been some reporting that you seem to not acknowledge, or possibly not even remember that she had been absent. What do you say to people like me that believe she should resign? And that's that. California deserves to have two full time senators.

Well, the decision to resign is in her possession. And and I think that's the main thing to remember is that this isn't a question of, oh, Chuck Schumer should be tougher or something, right? This is in her possession, where the law operates.

Right?

John Fetterman Mitch McConnell, Right. Like, lots of people have stuff they have to deal with and then come back. And if you have a reasonable level of confidence that the person is going to return to fulfilling their duties, that's a whole different conversation. You know? If they're going to be gone for five years, that doesn't work.

Will you pledge to not seek reelection to the Senate in 2058?

Oh, yes.

OK, just that's everybody. Could we just flag this, just put a card on this, because we're going to forget? But but we got them.

Mid 80s.

Mid 80s, All right, Senator, you're one of the best messengers in the Democratic Party, which is how we preface our hardest questions. Voters aren't thrilled about the prospect of a Biden Trump rematch. There was a focus group out of the Washington Post today that said there was a lot of concerns among swing voters. But once they were presented, the choice between Biden and Trump, I think it was. Nine of 15 broke towards Biden, much more worried about the prospects of a Trump reelection.

I think he's starting to do that. I mean, you know, the White House Correspondents Center. He made a bunch of, I thought, pretty good jokes about his age, and, you know, I was thinking about this. I think Bernie Sanders is 80, nobody talks about his age now.

One last question. We had Hawaiian food at a company-wide lunch last week. It was 10 out of 10 people have been raving about it. People aren't talking about this.

So I just had a poke bowl for lunch right here, and it's almost lunch, but then I had to jump on the Zoom. And I just want to make this point, and I know this isn't the question you asked. You guys are all doing poke bowls wrong.

All right, I mean, I think that's pretty definitive. Senator Brian Shantz, thank you so much. always good to see you keep the economy running, all right.

All right, before we go, we wanted to gear up for Ron DESantis's official campaign launch this week. With some thoughtful analysis about how he's handling what will undoubtedly be his biggest challenge as a candidate. Being a person that other people like. Here's a clip that made the rounds on social media this weekend after he pressed the flesh in New Hampshire.

I'm Tim Hampton.

Okay.

How are you? I'm wonderful.

What's your name? What's your name? I'm Tim.

Okay, okay.

I'm wonderful.

Where do I go? I'll come in here.

There's so much like artifice in politics and you have to be comfortable in these weird situations that are totally fake and manufactured. Where you're in a diner and there's seven people, but 25, you know, news cameras, they're filming you, and he just can't seem to do it.

You don't even have to have so much charisma. Hey, what's your name? Tim? Hey Tim. how are you?

I'm Ron.

Try that.

I'm Ron.

Ask Tim about himself, don't say okay, and then just fucking run away like a weirdo.

It's really funny, we have this incredibly stupid way of picking who our president's going to be. And we get it wrong half the time. It's a multiple choice question with two answers, we get it wrong 50 of the time. But I will say, this process of forcing very tired, hyper ambitious lunatics to go into diners when they're at their most exhausted and nervous and have them interact does reveal something.

How do we know? He's exhausted, He's fine, he's barely even running.

This guy's fucking our age.

No, no, I'm not talking about him, I'm not saying right now that he's over 40. Okay, wait, that's not the point of it.

I love desantis.

This is stupid. No, let me do it again. No, this is much more fun than what you were going to. No, but that doesn't make sense. That wasn't the point I was making.

Yeah, absolutely.

And he is.

It is also wild that Ron Desantis.

He's going to punch someone in the face.

We're contemporaries with this man, yeah.

Yeah, he's only.

He looks older than us.

He looks something.

I don't know what it is, he's 30 years.

Now, in fairness, he did have a much deeper interaction in Iowa with a fan who shared how far they'd traveled just to get a chance to meet him. Let's watch.

Okay, nice. How far is that from here?

Go about an hour to see him. Okay, nice.

He already has his back to him.

And what you can't see there is, he walks away.

So he turned on him as soon as.

He's really already.

Well, and when you hear that about yourself, because undoubtedly he's reading all this criticism or internalizing it in some way, then you get in your own head. And so now you're trying extra hard to be the relatable guy.

This is him trying, this is him trying, okay?

And the current narrative is like, he can't do this stuff, but his wife is his secret weapon, that's why he has her out and stumping, et cetera. So I'm sure he'll get put off by that and feel like, No, I can do it myself. You've also I've heard of candidates who had the opposite problem.

Because he was a student who had to ace the test.

Yeah, more natural.

Yeah, no, Ron DeSantis doesn't have a.

A Trump person said about Tim Scott Tim Scott doesn't have to write likable at the top of his piece of paper, which I think tells you a lot about this.

At least Ron DeSantis isn't running against someone in the primary. Who just has a knack for zeroing in on a person's absolute weakness and exploiting it as much as possible. Destroying, like Donald Trump, is just going to....

It's not like Trump is some great retail politician. He throws toilet paper at people and insults them, and then says he's smarter than everybody in the room and leaves. I think he's pretty good at retail, but he's more charming than this.

He's good at talking to people and making them feel listened to. And I don't know. He slaps backs and hangs out. He has nothing better to do, He hates his family. He's got tons of free time.

Well, it's different, right? Because Trump, Trump, I don't think, is great in Like the diner.

He doesn't do this well.

Because so he knows that, and so he just doesn't do it. And what he does is the performance on the stage and he's really good at that.

He does this shit, too, he like, signs people's stuff and hangs out.

He likes to do the thing of like, he likes to, like, go into a like, a like. He'll go and he likes to go into the diner and then talk to everybody.

He wants to do his, he wants to do his, he wants to do his type five.

Yeah, he wants his five. Yeah, for sure, like when he goes into McDonald's and says, I've eaten everything on this menu.

You're like, Yeah, he has all right. So, finally, it's clear that DeSantis has mastered the subtle subtle art of pandering. Let's listen.

Iowa's like the Florida of the Midwest, they said. But I just want to let you know, after watching all the good stuff you've done in Iowa. It may be that Florida is the Iowa, the Southeast, so we'll see.

What do you think, Tommy? I was going to eat that up, oh my god.

What, what?

That was so torture.

I know, I know it's tough, it's tough.

Okay, I'm say, say it again. Ron DESantis makes people feel like their needs are met, Donald Trump makes people feel like they have no needs. This guy, this guy, this guy, this guy stinks.

His voice is so annoying. Someone wrote him that line, too.

Of course.

He was so proud of it.

He seemed sort of proud, Yeah, delivering that line very, very cringeworthy.

So it's interesting he's been dreaming about running for president for so long, and now he's finally doing it.

Reminds me of a roommate I had back in the day who was going to a little school in Northeast, D.C. called Strayer University. And he would meet women and say, I'm going to the Harvard of Northeast, D.C. But he would always leave out the D.C. part, so he'd say, I'm going to the Strayer. It's the Harvard of the Northeast.

Look, this gives me no pleasure. I mean, this is just we're going to get fucking Donald Trump as a nominee again. I don't want like this sucks, that's the thing I wish.

They can't do it.

And this was an event where this is this Feenstra family picnic thing in Iowa. This was the one where he was sort of graded on a curve and people said he did well.

Oh, it was.

Yeah.

This was the one where, Oh, because.

Flip burgers just glad handling.

Because he went to Des Moines and was like.

No, no, no, that was. This is the first event in Western Iowa. Oh, okay, yeah.

Not that, not the big the big shot at Trump when he went to Des Moines and said, It's sunny outside.

No, no, no, that was a couple of events later.

It was like slam.

Got him.

Man, this guy, this guy's really fizzling. Yeah, well, he's really fizzling.

I'm telling you he's going to learn.

I'm telling you, watch my guy, Tim Scott.

Okay, we're going to watch him.

Just keep an eye out.

You're all in on Tim Scott.

I'm not all in, I'm in, he's my Ted Cruz of this cycle.

You and Mike Murphy of Hacks on tap. Oh, really.

You and Murph, Nice, I'm telling you, just watch it all right, watch it. I'm not saying what's going to happen.

Tommy, do you want to take Vivek Ramaswamy, that guy? Should we do a draft?

He's doing a lot of press.

Should we all draft? we should do a draft.

We'll do a draft.

He didn't lose his virginity, he was 46..

Allegedly.

Allegedly he lost it earlier or didn't lose it at all.

He said to Ben Taras He's not a virgin anymore. I'm just trying not to get sued over here allegedly.

I think he said that to Ben Taras.

Yeah, Ben Taras had to ask him because he said he would not have sex until marriage. And he was, I think, at the time, a 46-year-old single guy.

If there is even a hint that Tim Scott's candidacy might threaten Donald Trump's candidacy, you will see Donald Trump go so fast. From welcome to the race to making fun of the 40-year-old virgin.

It will be relentless. No, I think it'll be worse than that.

Let me read this tweet from Ben Taras Tim Scott will be the first press candidate I've ever asked about the status of his virginity. Initial answer I'm not talking about my sex life with Ben Taras. Then he stood up and said, I have to go potty.

Care to revise?

I don't know.

So maybe there's still time.

Yeah, he just has to meet the right person.

Well, that's a story, that's a campaign trail story.

There you go.

Ultimately, he implied he did not wait until marriage. So that's why I said election.

To be revealed. Thanks to Brian Schatz for joining us. Don't know why you keep coming back on?

Good to see you.

And we'll talk to you all on Thursday. Bye Pod Save America is a crooked media production. The executive producer is Michael Martinez. Our producers are Andy Gardner-Bernstein and Olivia Martinez.