BONUS: Bourbon & Biden (Live from Louisville!)

Welcome to pod Save America, I'm John Shapiro.

I'm perry bacon.

I'm John Lovett.

I'm Tommy Vitor.

I'm Dan Pfeiffer.

We have an outstanding show for you tonight. Your congressman, Morgan McGarvey, is here.

To endorsing.

You know what the Republican Jewish coalition said to Mike Pence after he dropped out? Terrible in such small portions.

How do you guys think this bombshell will change the race?

Dan.

I don't think it'll change the race.

Okay.

Who's going to get the Pence endorsement? the vaunted Pence endorsement?

I think what will likely happen is this 0?

I think Doug Burgum's making a move, all right, let's talk about that's enough of Mike Pence.

That's more time than Mike Pence's campaign deserves.

Let's talk about Mike Pence's spiritual successor, Mike Johnson, the new speaker of the House.

That's not a joke.

Yeah, yeah, no. He fought for tax breaks for a park right here in Kentucky, you guys know.

No.

With the Dinos.

I got to say.

Yeah, you think the Dino....

No, look, we can debate whether or not the dinosaurs were on the Ark. But he was right to fight for those tax breaks, that's right.

All right, so Mike Johnson, he finally sits down for a hard-hitting interview with Sean Hannity. We learned in the interview that Johnson doesn't want to keep the government open unless Republicans get some policy concessions. Though, they're still fighting with each other about what those are. On the menu are massive budget cuts, immigration restrictions, a national ban on mailing abortion pills. Johnson also admitted that he doesn't want to expel George Santos because Republicans can't afford to lose the seat.

Someone asked me today in the media, they said, it's curious, people are curious, what does Mike Johnson think about any issue under the Sun? I said, Well, go pick up a bible off your shelf and read it. That's my worldview.

That's Mike Johnson Perry. What's your early take on the Mike Johnson era?

I mean, just, I know we're trying to keep it light, but when I just. We lost McCarthy and we have a less experienced, dumber, way more radical speaker. In all honesty. I mean, this is a sign of how bad things are this guy. I'll be honest with you, I had not heard much about Mike Johnson two weeks ago and I don't really know. And all I've learned about him is that he is significantly more conservative than McCarthy, who was no moderate. And terrible at the job in a lot of ways.

Also, and yeah, and James Comer just said the other day, too, that he doesn't know if he wants to have another impeachment hearing. And he's the guy that was leading the impeachment charge and Mike Johnson's talking about doing impeachment now.

Because the first one went so well.

Yeah, so he wants a better impeachment trial. Tommy Johnson also said in that Hannity interview that he respects the Supreme Court's decision that legalized same-sex marriage and that he thinks abortion should be left to the states. Even though, of course, he has long supported national bans on both abortion and same-sex marriage, what do you make of his comments to Hannity?

So look, I think he presents well, right? He looks like Harry Potter's older brother, a friendly English teacher who doesn't teach evolution or believe in it. But he seems like kind of a nice guy. But, to Perry's point, he's a super, super conservative lawmaker, he's a white Christian nationalist.

Yeah, well, it's very recently that he sponsored bills on national abortion bans. He refused to vote for codifying gay marriage as legal. He introduced the legislation to make Ron DeSantis Don't-say-Gay law a national law and expand it from schools to public libraries, hospitals, military, anywhere that gets federal funding from the government.

Yeah, I think there are Republicans who got into politics for a bunch of different reasons, a messy coalition. There are Republicans that do the evangelical shtick, the anti-gay shtick. But their mission in life is deregulation and lowering taxes for corporations and rich friends. This person has a genuine motivation based around Christian nationalism. If you go back and look at the speeches he was given when he was running for Congress. If you look at his work as a lawyer before he was a public official, it is all around advocating for these hard-right, socially conservative views.

I do think this brings into sharp relief what a Republican trifecta in 2025 would look like. You have Mike Johnson with these incredibly retrograde views on reproductive freedom, sexual relationships, same-sex marriage, you have Mitch McConnell, who has advocated for a federal abortion ban. WHO, in the early part of the century was one of the leaders in demonizing gay people in order to win the 2004 election. With a bunch of trumped-up bullshit about same-sex marriage. And then you have Donald Trump, possibly in the White House, who we know will go along with all of these things. Because that's what he did the last time he was in office. You can pretend like, Oh, he's this guy from Manhattan. But he immediately did. The ban on trans people serving in the military.

So, Lovett Johnson's first order of business this coming week is dealing with some House Republicans from New York who will force a vote to expel George Santos. He's still in Congress.

I don't think they're a particularly big deal. Mike Johnson has already poured cold water on the Santos one, which is hard for him to do because he barely can get above the table. It's the era of the short King, and I'm loving it.

I was going to say, it's interesting your attack on Mike Johnson is height, that's where you're going. How tall is he?

Actually, I could not find anywhere because he's so unknown. We don't yet have publicly available height information.

Like McHenry.

And as does McHenry, so that's exciting.

I sort of feel like the whole censure thing has gotten a little cheapened. Once they did it to Adam Schiff for basically no reason, now it's like, you're censured. No, you're censured.

Well, the other thing, too, is the tit-for-tat censure thing. I think that there are people. There are even Republicans that don't particularly like Marjorie Taylor Greene, but they're not going to vote to censure Marjorie Taylor Greene. To get back at the Republicans for the Tlaib thing, it's like, Hey, can we all just chill the fuck out? Can you just keep the government open? Once you've kept the government open? You can have a fun day where you just fucking go ham on each other.

It'll be interesting to see how many Republicans vote to expel Santos. I think the swing district Republicans don't want to defend Santos, because who does? He seems like he's validated 97 laws. I think there will be 10, some number of Republicans will vote for that. There is a divide on the Democratic side about what's happening in Gaza.

I do think, though, for both of these, Johnson gives Republicans the talking point, which is we should just let the due process play out and people can hide behind that. Then, on the Marjorie Taylor Greene point, you can just say something along the lines of, Look, I have strong disagreements. But the idea of calling this anything like the insurrection on January 6th. Both sides have given the other side just an easy out to get away from this thing.

If you're a Democrat, you can criticize Rashida Tlaib and not vote for censure. Voting for censure is such a fucking, that's a move. Santos is interesting, because I think Santos. I don't think he'll get two-thirds, but I think he'll get a majority. Because he'll get all the Democrats and, like you said, he'll get a lot of them.

He'll get every Republican in New York, all the New York Republicans, I mean, it was three New York Republicans who introduced it.

They're leading it, yeah.

Yeah, which is interesting.

I think it's a question of when, not if. I think there is a chance that –.

No one likes a shutdown.

You want me to just come over here and say, Mike Johnson's going to solve the problem.

Well, once you get him a phone book to sit on.

I think there is a chance that Mike Johnson could delay this into next year. Republicans are tired, everyone's exhausted. He did propose in his nomination speech before he became the speaker nominee that he was advocating for a short-term extension. So the Republicans could pass appropriations bills so that they theoretically have some negotiating position in a negotiation with the White House and the Senate. They actually passed a couple of those bills in the immediate aftermath of Johnson winning.

Yeah, and all these Republicans, some of the ones that ousted McCarthy in the first place, and some other freedom caucus types. They want these massive cuts, they don't like the bipartisan budget deal that McCarthy struck with Biden.

I guess the question is whether there's any appetite, even among someone like Matt Gaetz, to go through the whole motion to vacate process again.

Yeah.

They might change the threshold, too, to make it harder.

And then also they can kick this can down the road. Because one thing Mike Johnson is promising is that they'll go to rather than these omnibus bills, but they'll go to whatever department-by-department budgeting. The thing that the Republicans in the House claim they want that, actually, Republicans and Democrats have been doing together in the Senate, despite what's been happening in the House. But even then, even if that were to take place, it's sort of the promise of mini-shutdowns, or sort of smaller versions of this fight over and over again.

Another thing you're going to have to contend with, Tommy. The president wants the speaker to pass a $100 billion aid package, most of it for Ukraine, but also for Taiwan, Israel, and some humanitarian aid for the Palestinians. What have you taken from Johnson's comments on those issues?

So the Hannity interview was interesting and sort of a departure from where he's been before. He told Hannity that he basically has written a $14.5 billion bill that would be basically military aid for Israel. And it sounds like that's ready to go, they'll pass that.

Trump gave a speech today where he said that across our southern border with Mexico, there are young, strong Chinese men coming over the border. Buff, buff.

Shredded Chinese men.

Very strong, very young, very buff, very virulent. Coming over the border and I'm like, What?

Love it, can you confirm?

What is it? Every once in a while, a Republican will just kind of look, remember when, what that guy Steve King, was like. They're coming across the border with calves the size of cantaloupes. It's like they can't help but paint a vivid picture of these just sort of rippling muscles.

Last question on Mike Johnson For everyone Perry, Do you think Democrats should make Mike Johnson famous? like should he be a central figure in the 2024 campaign?

You know, I was thinking about this this morning because you all asked me about this. And it's hard to raise the profile of the speaker on some level. Like Pelosi was famous, in part because she was a woman from San Francisco. I don't think that John Boehner was well-known by the average voter. But I think I'm more convinced by what Dan said, which is like, you now have. Johnson does fit the kind of MAGa, ultra-maga, ultra-ultra-maga thing in a way that McCarthy really did. McCarthy at least seemed moderate in his persona on some level, versus Johnson has said every conservative thing possible on every issue, including on the sort of cultural anti-gay.

Just think about this as the most powerful elected Republican in the country wants to ban abortion, ban gay marriage, ban gay sex, does not believe in evolution. All across the board, that is a very people won't fully get that.

He believes in evolution, he just thinks it happened in six days.

Plus all the food they'd have to eat.

And where do they poop?

Well, here's something I've never quite understood.

What kind of dinosaurs were they?

What?

Were they the little ones, the compies?

So, having looked at the actual exhibit?

Were there raptors on the Ark?

They have a whole, there's a whole listen, there's a whole like, you know, what was it called? When they wanted the Earth to be the center of the universe? They had the kind of. They had the different circles to keep complicated circles, to explain the more complicated circles. Because it didn't work. And so they have, like, a complicated philosophy around, not different. Like tyrannosaur nids, like there were dinosaur families that were on the Ark as represented by certain kinds of dinosaurs. Here's what I've never understood.

Dunzo.

You know what I'm saying, like, what did they eat for the first couple weeks? what did the predators eat when they got off the ark for the first couple weeks?

Or years?

It takes years to make new prey.

Also, what happened, what ultimately happened to the dinosaurs in this scenario?

Was it a double-decker ark?

I would just say there's the Lido Deck, the Fiesta deck.

Anyway, I would just run the Mike Johnson, Noah's Ark stuff, that would be my thing.

I like it.

Bring people in with that, then talk about all those positions. All right, when we come back, I'll talk to Kentucky State Senator Karen Burtt.

Well, thank you very much for inviting me, I really appreciate it.

So you first won this seat back in 2020, when the district at the time was much more conservative. You are now just one of seven Democrats in the state Senate.

I think we're down to six.

Are you down to six? okay, six? Do you have any advice for people who are in the red States who are always asking us how they can elect Democrats like you and turn their states a little bluer?

Okay, yeah, I have a lot of advice in that regard. First of all, vote.

Good advice.

Oh, wow, what was Henry like? Henry was a handful.

So Henry came out in 2012, at the age of 14.

Guys, this is a long, long, long story and it depends on the day, it depends on the person, it depends on the situation for the most part. When my child came out at the age of 14, he was the first kid in his school who had ever come out as transgender. The school had never had a child in that position before. And honestly, we had at the time very few, if any, children in his class who were willing to be openly gay either. So he came out to his classmates, to his teachers, a couple weeks later, to me and my husband.

Some of your Republican colleagues have said kind words about Henry, have said they've learned from you. But they keep voting for these anti-trans bills and it seems like their minds aren't changing. But I imagine that there are parents out there who maybe don't know any trans people. And they hear these Republicans saying that all they're doing is trying to protect kids and maybe they aren't sure what to believe. What would you say to those parents?

It's a long story, and it's not actually a very pretty story, It's a story about politics. And I may be a politician at this point, but I never considered myself a politician. I'm a doctor by training and a mother, and that's how I identify.

Mike Johnson worked for them.

Yeah, Mike Johnson is them. That is who we have now elected as speaker of the House. He comes from a right Christian, nationalist ideology that really believes, believes that homosexuality is ungodly and is a sin. But since they were losing politically on gay marriage and homosexuality, and they were losing politically on abortion and a woman's right to choose. But what they found out about five, six years ago was that this issue about trans athletes polled well, it was polling at 70. And so they went with it because they thought this was their winning political issue.

And you hear them say that it's about parents rights. But I know that you introduced an amendment to a bill that was in the legislature where they, you know. If a child wanted to be called by certain pronouns, they said the teacher, the bill would say the teacher doesn't have to call them by those pronouns. And you added an amendment, I believe that said. Well, they do, if the parents say that they agree.

With a note from a healthcare provider that this was important to the child.

And they wouldn't vote.

They wouldn't do that. No, actually, guys. There are good studies, good data that shows if a trans child is affirmed in one setting, either at home, at school, at church, one setting. It can actually decrease their lifetime risk of suicide by up to 70. And what's interesting, what's interesting about this data is that it has to be authority, it has to be school, it has to be work.

Yeah, and your point that Henry and transgender kids everywhere just want to belong, I think is so powerful. Because the right is trying to let people think that if there is this culture that allows kids to identify as transgender and be protected and stuff like that, then kids are just going to choose this.

Henry Craft went on our airways and said twice, I will eliminate transgender from the classroom, like, what does she mean? you're going to take these children? First of all, being transgender guys is not contagious, I promise you, it is not contagious. Nor for the most part, is it something that's a phase?

My last question, Senator Byrd, you've had an unimaginably hard year. You serve in an extremely right-wing legislature, but you are still here and fighting as hard as you can every single day. What keeps you going?

Honestly, what keeps me going, and this is the truth, I believe in the goodness of people I do.

Well, I'm very glad that you're here and still fighting, so thank you and thank you for joining us.

Thank you, Sir State Senator Karen Byrd.

I still think the left hand is the devil's hand.

Lefty, yeah.

And it should have been trained, and, by the way, you should have been forced to use your right hand.

Outrageous, all right back to the news. So before we get to the 2020 election, you guys have a big election here in Kentucky on November 7th, just one week from Tuesday. Your governor, Democrat Andy Beshear, is at least in the polls we've seen, polling ahead of his Republican challenger, Attorney General David Cameron. Oh, yeah.

So I'll start because I used to work at 538, the data website, with a very sort of structural analysis. Which is that. The last four presidents have mostly been unpopular, like Bush is very unpopular. Most of the time. Obama had some moments of popularity, but up and down, Trump very unpopular, Biden pretty unpopular, unfortunately.

We'll keep it quiet.

But that said, he's, you know, Kentucky's a conservative state, but he vetoes abortion laws, he vetoes terrible anti-trans laws. He doesn't do a lot of like punching the left to show how moderate he, he's. Not a Joe people call me about Andy Beshear. I have to tell them this is not a Joe Manchin type. This is a person who believes in the right values and does the right things and has been a governor.

That's great, that's good to know.

I think it's hard to draw conclusions from not-presidential elections, like, for example, we're talking about Ohio. In 2022. The turnout in Ohio was 4.2 million. In 2020 it was almost 6 million. So, like, there's a huge gap.

We just to underscore in Kentucky, I'll be honest with you. When Beshear's staff came out with their abortion ads, I called one of his aides and was like, You realize this is Kentucky, right? What are you thinking? And they said, Basically, the dog has caught the car, so to speak. The Republicans tried to ban every abortion of all time. They've done this for a long time now. They have an abortion ban, and even in Kentucky, the average person does not want no abortion ban in all circumstances. It's been striking to see here how much Beshear has talked about abortion in this campaign and how Cameron is nervous about this issue. He's sort of backtracked into this whole.

We were canvassing today with planned parenthood, and we were shout out them, not us. And we were at doors and we were talking to folks who looked, you know, like, let's be old, older white people who were saying, I've never. Because the folks we were canvassing with from planned parenthood were great. They were going all the way down the ticket and there were two different people said. You know, I've never pulled like straight ticket Democrat before, but this year I have to. And it was clearly because of abortion.

Yeah, and a couple people we talked to, like, knew that Cameron is pretty extreme about abortion. Like that was something that had already registered with them.

And I want to ask, this just came to me. So no bad ideas to brainstorm. But Dan Perry Louisville played Duke today. Okay, they won. The Duke. Fans are known as Cameron Crazies, Cameron Crazy. Is there a thing? There is that something?

Could be people don't like Duke here? Yes, that is, you know, so can we tie him to Duke?

Lovett your thoughts.

I don't know what the fuck you're talking about.

This is working.

I just want you guys to know that. So I went canvassing with Lovett, Tommy and Dan were together and we went up to a house. There was someone watching TV. They didn't want to come to the door, Lovett kept knocking. This guy came to the door. He seemed pretty Republican, yeah, and he told us he's like, I know who I'm voting for, but that's all I'm going to say. And then Lovett did the whole spiel about Cameron and abortion rights, and he said, and he goes, Okay, I'll think about it. And then Lovett's like, I feel like this interaction's not going well. What do you think?

Here's the thing.

It was impressive.

I don't. Well, it's going to happen. You got the lady with the labradoodle, we got a lady with a labradoodle.

Yeah, he did, he did, and that really helped. The Hot Brown conversation helped, all right. Speaking of elections, with just over two months to go until the Iowa caucuses, Joe Biden just got a last-minute primary challenger. Dean Phillips, a 54-year-old Minnesota congressman with a moderate voting record who's worth about $50 million?

I'm Dean Phillips and I'm running for president of the United States of America, and I'm coming to New Hampshire to answer your questions. I love New Hampshire. I spent my summers as a kid in the White Mountains, going to camp, got to canoe the Saco River, learn how to fish, learn how to shoot a gun.

You know?

Same, yeah.

I couldn't learn to love it in Massachusetts, I had to go north.

Who among us didn't learn to love our country at summer camp?

Summer camp.

Like, I just, first of all, if you close your mind and picture gelato Nepo baby, isn't that what you picture?

It's just not a strong.

Well, I just think.

Yeah, that's what it is. Tommy, what did you think of Dean Phillips campaign? Launch, the speech, the ad, the overall message.

The whole vibe? So he did a long interview with the Atlantic where he kind of laid out his theory of the case and why he decided to get in. And there were some things he said in that interview that resonated with me. He's anxiety about Joe Biden's poll numbers, he has concerns about Joe Biden's age. I feel the same way.

He just waited way too long.

You know, if you wanted to run and try to primary the president, you can't do it three months out.

It's very, very hard.

To primary a sitting president in any scenario. But when you give yourself only three months to build a campaign, raise money, get your name ID. From negative. That vest to where he needs to be. It's going to be really hard. Which makes me wonder, like, what is your goal here, sir? Because, again, in this Atlantic article,....

Very respectful of you, Tom.

Sir, I mean, listen, he seems like a nice guy.

In this article.

His campaign manager is apparently a guy named Steve Schmidt. Steve Schmidt worked for George Bush. John McCain joined the Lincoln Project, left the Lincoln Project, quit politics, got back into politics. Now he's doing the Dean Phillips thing. And he said one of his strategic imperatives, or whatever, is to hire content creators in six different time zones. So they can have the Biden campaign reacting at all times and on edge, and it's like, Okay, so you've set up a campaign infrastructure where you got in too late to get on the ballot in Nevada. But your plan is to fuck with Joe Biden's news cycle every single day for the next three months or so?

Maybe.

I don't think that, like the progressive, primary electorate, is hungering for an extremely rich Nepo baby, as Lovett said, who's extremely moderate. But maybe they are, but, you know, I think more likely than anything. It's just sort of. He's kind of like a milquetoast guy who's going to maybe cause some problems in New Hampshire, and that's about it.

I think it's important to dig into the origin story of the Dean Phillips for President campaign, which is laid out in this very extensive article. In The Atlantic, a populist website available all throughout New Hampshire for free.

So.

That's where you go.

To find Democratic primary voters.

You go to the Atlantic.

You talk to Tim Alberta?

So Dean Phillips has been very public about his concerns about Joe Biden and his electability. And not that Joe Biden is too old to do the job, but that Joe Biden is too old to win re-election. It's been his point to date, and at some point in mid-September. Steve Schmidt, current podcast host, DM'd Dean Phillips.

Hey careful.

Don't trust the podcast host, yes.

DM'd Dean Phillips and said, Will you come on my podcast? Dean Phillips did? Afterwards, Steve Schmidt sent him an email that said, All my friends who listen to the podcast said. Something to the effect of this guy has to be president, which definitely happened. And before that conversation was over, Steve Schmidt had a job running Dean Phillips presidential campaign. So I'm suggesting that perhaps not a lot of thought was put into this plan. And we know this because he is on the ballot in New Hampshire, a state that has exactly zero delegates.

Yeah, that's a problem, too, because New Hampshire is still going to go first, even though the DNC decided that South Carolina is going to go first. So they're going to strip New Hampshire of their delegates if they go forward with the primary, which they are. And Dean Phillips is trying to take advantage of that. Because Biden's not going to be on the ballot in New Hampshire, so he's going to try to win New Hampshire. Even though he doesn't get any delegates, and of course, he's not going to get any delegates out of Nevada because he missed the filing deadline for Nevada.

Yeah.

To DM them, yeah.

We have one coming out next.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, no present company accepted, maybe, but also....

Do you know how tall Dean Phillips is?

Honestly, I just think he seems like a generic 5'10".

I like that.

He gives off 5'10 energy.

But you can read the full speech if you're a Playbook subscriber.

You can read the full speech.

And the full speech they released was in.

In the phonetic, yeah.

With the kind of spacing of a speech, first of all, extremely generic, it's an insulting document, it's a cursed text.

Did you love it? I had this urge when I was reading the document.

To like, start editing, Oh my god, to edit, yes.

I was like, Where's track changes? I need to get in here?

This is so fucking bland, you can't. Just what are you doing here? We need to be fed and we need to be free. And it's like, it's a lot of that, it's like the 90's shit.

What subcommittees matter?

I'm just saying, it's not going to move the needle.

Which subcommittee?

Who can remember? But it's just like he then redounds to this electability argument, but it's like, Who are you to make that argument? Why do I have any reason to believe you? Dean Phillips? A person who I googled right after I googled Mike Johnson. And I'm like, Why are you more electable than Joe Biden? He doesn't really have, he doesn't have anything to say. That's actually a cogent, specific argument.

Yeah, Perry, what did you think of the speech? He did? Like, I mean, and Playbook picked this up, and clearly Steve Schmidt told Playbook this. But like he, if you read between the lines, he sort of. He dinged President Biden on inflation, border security, crime, he says. He had a line about We're funding wars, we're, you know, we're funding fighting and more than we are feeding. And he said, We, the new generation will rise not through war, but through peace. Do you think he's leaning into policy contrast?

I don't. I think it's a great example of polls are useful, but it's clear if you look at crime, borders. If you look at what issues is Biden weakest on, it's clear that he looked at those issues. And I'm going to talk about these issues. Dean Phillips is not known as a leading immigration expert on Capitol Hill. It's more than, and his whole campaign is Biden is unelectable.

Yeah.

Well, so.

And I don't think Gretchen Whitmer and Gavin Newsom and all the other governors. Popular governors are not running. Josh Shapiro, of course, are not running. Because someone in the Democratic right, yeah. They have assessed that they either cannot beat Joe Biden, or that they would damage Joe Biden. Or that maybe they'll run down the road and that's going to be better. So, like, they have made that decision.

And what is gelato, other than just like ice cream? With a master's degree, you know that it's always telling you about.

I think it's important to recognize that the Democratic Party does not lack people who want to be president. Who think that they would be better presidents than Joe Biden. Probably. But the reason that Gretchen Whitmer and Josh Shapiro and Gavin Newsom are not running is that Joe Biden is incredibly popular with Democrats. This gets lost. Donald Trump's up by 60 points in the Republican polls.

And Dean Phillips voted with Joe Biden 100 of the time, literally, according to FiveThirtyEight, Perry's former workplace. So it's like, Sir, you know, again?

Look.

I have a vest that zips from the top down and the bottom up.

That's pretty cool.

Like, what we need to do for the middle class.

There we go.

Oh, no.

We need to stop these zippers from the bottom up and the top down, we need a zipper from the middle. The fuck out.

If I were a Democrat getting into the presidential primary right now, I would run hard to the left of Joe Biden. On Gaza or anti-war? I would like pick an issue that I think that could get the progressive left excited and motivated. And giving me money and endorsing me. And Dean Phillips is just pointedly not doing that, so it makes you wonder, what are we doing here? That would definitely.

Tear the party apart.

We have talked a lot about how you manage your polar coaster anxiety in this podcast over the years.

This is extreme.

I'm going to do it, I'm going to do it.

DEan Phillips Knock some doors, buddy, you'll feel better.

Anyway, well, that's Dean Phillips. We'll see if we talk about him again. Who knows, maybe we will, maybe we won't.

He could be a guest on the pod.

He could be a guest on the pod, you know what?

If he is, he's going to like me, not you guys.

Well, yeah, Tommy will be calling him sir the whole time.

Yeah, I guess Tommy's the one that's going to get some of that faggy ice cream.

We'll be right back with Congressman Morgan McGarvey, who I'm sure is going to be thrilled to join us.

I denounce that joke.

I didn't know my parents were here tonight, yeah.

There was no reason to take your shirts off.

So, I'll be honest, I didn't know who Mike Johnson was.

And he's a colleague, you work with him.

Hey, it's okay. He doesn't know who I am either.

I felt that, too.

So no, I'm not on any committees with him. I didn't know him at all, I mean. But look, he represents a very extreme part of their party. I think it's an extreme part of their party. I think it's a dangerous part of their party.

Point of order.

Are these Kentucky socks?

They are Kentucky socks.

Nice, nice.

Those are cool.

They are Kentucky socks and, appropriately for this room, they're blue, which I thought was a good thing to have.

Now we have three kinds of bourbon up here. This is old Forrester 86 proof.

So yeah, definitely try the old Forrester 86 first, and there's a reason for this. First of all, when you're trying bourbon, you want to start with the lower proof and work your way up. If you start with the higher proof, work your way down. Then by the time you get to the last drink, you're like, What is this? is this water?

Glad we did this segment towards the end, this is good.

Now, when you taste bourbon, there's a right way to smell it. Don't dip your nose in it like a wine glass. If you dip your nose in it like a wine glass and take a big whiff of it. You're just going to get a whole bunch of alcohol and burn those nose hairs. You hold it right below, you actually breathe in with your mouth.

Good.

That's good stuff, I like the 86..

It's a great bourbon, you can find it for about 23 bucks. I think Old Forrester 86 is just one of those bourbons that punches above its weight. You can put it on the bar shelf, it can taste at a mid-shelf level at sort of that lower price.

How many members of Congress are in the Bourbon Caucus?

Not enough.

After this week, I'll have more.

I hope it's more. And look, you know, obviously it's a bipartisan group. Andy Barr, the congressman from Lexington, is the co-chair of it with me.

Hey, not for this segment.

Is it the Senate? Included, too? Is Mitch McConnell in it?

The Senate is allowed to be there. They don't come over to our side as much.

They're uppity.

But we've done two bipartisan bourbon tastings since I've been there, now, the last one. We had about 40 members of Congress there from both parties, which is a good number. And I mean, look, there's a lot of dysfunction up there. Henry Clay, I think, is the one who said that bourbon can lubricate the wheels of democracy.

Solid.

We're doing our best.

You have a joke about it, you can question about that later. That's all fucked up now.

Oh.

I was going to say, Was he talking?

No, it's a content issue.

You know what else? I have something else for you? What? Dean Phillips is 5'8"?

Oh.

Honestly, honestly, thank you for telling us.

I'm so confident because I have 5'10 energy.

You know what, I gotta say, it's classic 5'10 guy to be like that guy's 5'8".

That's the reason.

Wow, unbelievable.

It's the same as everybody else's.

All right.

He's flustered people.

The 100 proof is also good, it's also good.

Next question?

Lube us up, Lovett, come on.

Well, now I'm going to skip to a dumb question.

Nothing on the cards for this, huh?

What is happening there?

How many cards do you have?

Got a lot to get through, all right. But as someone who's been vocal about gun violence, what are your thoughts about Speaker Johnson saying that the problem isn't guns, but the human heart? Are you aware of any proposals for human heart reform, and what do you think is so bad about American hearts compared to hearts in other democracies?

Good question.

All of them, no matter what, can buy a gun anytime, anywhere they want to. And you know, the reality is, we've got to have common sense gun reform in this country.

Let's go back to Bourbon.

Kicking it up a notch.

Kicking it up a notch, where's the best place to smell this across the room?

You've already had a glass, just drink it.

This is good stuff, this is good stuff.

To be a bourbon, you actually don't have to be made in Kentucky now all of the good stuff is made here.

Yeah, I was gonna say it doesn't taste like 100 proof.

It's approachable.

It is approachable.

It's like a teacher that turns the chair around and raps at you.

It's 100 proof, but it's actually 5.

That's good.

Have you always known all this shit or do you learn this? For Congress? No, I mean, this is like some deep knowledge of the bourbon.

You know, look, I mean a lot. I think a lot of Kentuckians do know a lot about bourbon.

A lot of people in the crowd, I'm sure I don't, but a lot of people do.

Well, and I was in the state Senate for 10 years before this. And we really do a lot of bourbon bills in the state legislature in Kentucky, as you can imagine. So you learn a fair amount about it there.

Tommy, I can't believe you didn't understand that being co-chair of the Bourbon Caucus comes with real responsibilities.

I apologize.

If I run for president, I'll campaign on that.

That's pretty good, that's pretty good. Now. You've been fighting to the white oak that makes the barrels. Yes, it's what's happening with it.

Yeah, I mean, this is one where you actually see Congress having a little bit of foresight right now, which is good. There's a white oak regeneration Bill, bipartisan bill up right now, and it's a good thing, you know, when you look at white oak again, bourbon has to be made in a white oak barrel.

Now, let's find out about this last one before we get into the.

This is the hottest of the three. Old Forrester is....it was started in 1870. One of the cool things about it is it was put in a glass bottle by George Garvin Brown and then sealed. And so this is at a time when it was before the Bottled and Bond Act.

That's good stuff.

The 120 was not very approachable. I'm sorry.

And so in 1920, when prohibition started. Old Forrester is actually the longest continually sold bourbon under the same name in the same company in the country, and in 1920. They're one of the few companies that got a medicinal license, had a long history of having a good product, got a medicinal license, were able to keep going. This was released as part of one of their series to honor that legacy. And it comes in at 115 proof because during that prohibition era, as medicine, a lot of the bourbon was a higher proof.

You get like a doctor's prescription, they're like framed doctor's prescriptions for like bourbon.

Oh, wow.

Yeah, you could get prescriptions for bourbon.

And you could also take the grease off a carburetor.

Now, when Old Forrester did this, they were.

It's still pretty smooth, it is pretty smooth.

Old forrester, so good.

Now we tried it last, by the way, now go back and try the 86 and see what you think about it. But you know, they released in 1870, which is when it started 1897, 1910 and 1920. And I will tell you, for anybody trying this at home, if you ever had the 1920 and the 1910, just mix half and half. We call it the 1915, and it's a really good bourbon.

Are you allowed to say if you have a favorite bourbon? I want to ask and you can decline to comment. It might be useful for your future.

I drink the fifth, No. I truly don't have a favorite bourbon, and what I tell people all the time is, look at your price points. And so, you know, if you're looking at a little bit more of an inexpensive bourbon, right? I think that that old Forrester 86 is great.

I like that in Louisville, you don't have to know what a gallon of milk costs.

Sure, all right. What's the one thing that really annoyed you about Hillary Clinton?

I'm going to drink on that one, all right. How about this? Who is the last congressperson you'd like to see in the Capitol gym?

Marjorie Taylor Greene.

Next question Who's the first congressperson you'd like to see in the Capitol gym?

First of all, she's really strong, and second of all, I drink.

Boebert.

Boebert.

Because you know what's going on out there with the beetlejuicing.

Better not be any boeberting out there.

Obviously we mean vaping you sickos.

My turn, my turn, all right. Who was your least favorite person in the Obama administration?

Just drink, just drink. They're written to be drunk during.

Yikes, yikes.

Let's see, let's see what we got for you, all right. Who would win in a fight? Marjorie Taylor Greene or Lauren Boebert? And the fighting style is capoeira.

Marjorie Taylor Greene Look, I mean, she's very strong, as you all know, she would win that fight as long as there's no guns allowed.

That's a good caveat.

Was there any part of you that wanted to nominate George Santos as speaker?

Since he's already been speaker, I knew he didn't want the job again.

That's good, that's true, that's true, I like that. You want to hit one of these guys.

It's fine, Tommy.

Oh God, hi.

If Commander Biden bit you in the White House, would you report it or just suffer in silence? Maybe sneaking him a few treats from time to time to earn his affection.

Oh, this is easy, I'd suck it up.

No, I was going to say.

Patch it up and suck it up, all right.