“Karma is my Courthouse.”

Liberals take control of the Wisconsin Supreme Court for the first time in 15 years. Tennessee Republicans try to expel Democratic legislators for exercising their First Amendment rights. And Chicago's mayor-elect Brandon Johnson tells us how he pulled off an upset in a tough race. Then Crooked's own Hallie Kiefer hits us with the most cringeworthy takes from the Trump arraignment.

But first, speaking of Hallie, she hosts an outstanding podcast that is the newest member of the crooked family. It's called Ruined, and it's a show that caters to both horror movie buffs and scaredy-cats. Hallie and her squeamish friend and co-host Allison Leiby unpack a different horror movie every week. From bone-chilling slashers to spine-tingling supernatural flicks. And for those of you like Allison or me, who are too scared to watch, fear not, Hallie will ruin the movie for you. Tune into Ruined every Tuesday for your weekly dose of horror, available on all major podcast platforms.

Do you like horror movies?

The Republican presidential frontrunner rambled through his usual lies about the election. He lost, the multiple investigations he's under and his many personal grievances. Here are some highlights.

I have a Trump-hating judge with a Trump-hating wife and family, whose daughter worked for Kamala Harris and now receives money from the Biden-Harris campaign. And a lot of it. She's doing everything in her power to indict me over an absolutely perfect phone call, even more perfect than the one I made with the President of Ukraine. Remember, I kept saying, That's a perfect call. This lunatic special prosecutor named Jack Smith. I wonder what it?

It's at least where I feel most comfortable, and I don't even know if I use the word good. But so now that we know more about the charges, the case and the political world's reaction.

What I think we can't really know is how this will play out over the long term. Because there is a little bit of like, a water phenomenon. If we spend the next six months, 18 months just talking constantly about Trump's legal challenges, his various indictments, his court dates, the court drawings of him, him sitting at the defendant table. What that will do both to the small sliver of the general electorate that is persuadable. And that group of Republicans that we know actually, at least prior to this, made a majority of people who like Trump, but were open to another candidate. And I think that's you can't really predict that.

I think it will.

It's very dynamic, it could have a real effect, just it'll take a little bit of time, I think.

And it's that we've now been doing this since the Mueller days, since before that, where people whose expertise is in legal matters think a lot about the politics. And I just don't think I agree with you. I just don't think we can know what the political ramifications are. But let's say Trump gets the case thrown out, or he's found not guilty. Yes, he and the entire MAGA establishment are going to scream about exoneration. And this was just another Democrat.

Against me and blah, blah, blah, and the press is going to say, Oh, Trump is emboldened, blah, blah, blah. But like, and just exactly what happened when the Mueller report came out and Bill Barr decided to summarize it before it actually came out? And everyone said the clouds were lifted, remember that?

Oh, Donald Trump is strengthened now, he's going to win re-election. And then what happened? He lost, he lost.

So I just want like everyone should be prepared for the fact that, like Donald Trump, he could be found not guilty. They could throw the case out of court. We might get more indictments, we might not get more indictments, they might lead to guilty verdicts.

They might not, but like, it's just like you said he the guy lost the 2020 election. A second Trump term is absolutely terrifying, but Donald Trump is not political.

That is just a fact. Yeah, yeah, but there is just no way that it is possible that getting.

But it's not going to help him. That is just not how it works. And if he wins this Republican nomination going away, it's not because he got indicted, it's because he was going to win anyway. That's why he was just simply too strong for the collection of Yahoos who decided to run against him.

And it's not, there's not, it's not that complicated, it's just he will win in spite.

And if he gets off, no one freak out, just saying it Now, I'm sure no one will freak out because you said it. I was thinking about it this morning, just imagining the case, get there and everything.

We said that they shouldn't have brought this case. Alvin Bragg ruined everything in the whole election. Now Donald Trump's going to win. I just I cannot. If Twitter still exists, then.

This is one of those times where if we had a always on democratic, progressive advertising effort, you would take parts of that speech and you would show it to. Just like every 60 days between now and the election, you just remind them one time, just like 15 seconds at the top of the YouTube video or something. Just. Everyone should see it because there is no one who is truly persuadable, who saw that speech, who would think that man?

It's like, how many? This is my question, how many non-MAGA voters want to sign up for a campaign? That is basically just a kamikaze mission to avenge Donald Trump? That's the whole campaign now. I know they put out a bunch of policy papers early on because he's trying to outflank DESantis on the right. No one knows about any of that.

That's all getting buried. Now that he's under this is where the indictment might hurt him. Because all he's going to talk about, all he seems able to talk about is himself, his grievances, his problems. That's it. At least in 2016, he was talking about other people's grievances, now he's just talking about his own grievances.

That's all, that's all we got left. It was like a 25 minute rambling speech about himself, his problems. Woe is me, I'm a victim.

That's all he's got. I don't know. It doesn't feel strong like a strong message to me. maybe I'm wrong, but it doesn't feel strong. Trump also said he wants Republicans to defund the FBI and the DOJ.

A lot of MAGA politicians and Fox pundits are openly calling for Republican prosecutors to indict the Bidens, the Clintons, Obama, basically any Democrat. What do you think about that? We talked to Kate and Leah about this Tuesday night, but it certainly seems worrisome. But again, not really a message that will resonate with a lot of folks.

Given the incentives of Republican politics, maybe I hope Kate and Leah are right that the law is very constraining. Here. It's pretty hard to. It's like when. Jim Comer, the Republican head of the oversight committee, said that he had taken calls from prosecutors in Kentucky and some other red state looking for ways to indict the Clintons or Biden. You have to fight actual crimes. I'm not sure what that would be, but it does speak to the dangerous mentality we would have if Trump were to win.

Maybe that's the way to think about it. It's not what are they going to do right now with the rural prosecutor, and wherever it's. How are they going to weaponize law enforcement if they get power again? That's a scary thing.

That's something worth talking about as this election.

I know there's a lot of Merrick, but it is going to be.

It's going to be what Charlie Kirk's going to be the next, It's going to be Boris Epstein, it's going to be Boris Epstein.

I'm laughing now, but it is truly.

Talking about the guardrails being off, man, it's going to be all revenge all the time. That's the whole purpose of a.

Prosecutor Prosecutors say they want Trump to stand trial in January of 2024. The defense. Trump's defense say they want it in spring of 2024. The judge seemed to think, Okay, we'll figure it out later. But how is this going to work in the middle of a campaign?

This? But logistically, Trump, if he is going to win, likely locks up the nomination in the spring because Republican contests are winner. Take all. So you can get to an insurmountable delegate lead pretty quickly. After a bunch of the big states happen, like Texas, if it's happening in May, he is either the nominee or he's lost. That's probably what has happened. Either way, we're scheduling debates, Republicans, not us. We are not hosting a Republican debate. I don't think they would agree.

Although, if we just said the crooked media-.

You think you can see Asa Hutchinson trying to give a speech on his tax cut agenda?

You think they'd say, Oh, no one is above the law, let's let the legal process play out. It's, yeah, it's funny, right? No one could imagine them saying that. Are Democrats missing?

I mean, right now, there is a tsunami of news coverage about this. No one is missing this story and the idea that we're like, why are Democrats not spitting in the ocean right now? Like, who cares? Like, what would a Dick Durbin press conference do to, like, knock this thing over the finish line?

It's now sort of chaos, corruption and criminality, and it's just like, that is the chaos. It's like, add another c, Yeah.

Great alliteration there. It's a real speechwriter trick, if you will, and so like, it should be part of it. Like, Do we need this? We have serious problems.

You really need a president who's dealing with this shit, but I think we should attack. Yeah, it's like, Do you does everyone?

Great, but I.

Hey, I love the bulwark. I know I do too, I do too. I just think they're going to host a podcast.

It's called We Were Wrong. They're debuting in 2025, honestly, I think at this.

I also saw, maybe this is just my own beef. But I saw a lot of liberals complaining that the media is repeating the same mistakes they made in 2016 by devoting so much coverage to Trump and his crimes. And look, I certainly thought the O.J.S coverage of Donald Trump's arraignment was like, beyond parody. You know, the like, let's get him on the highway from Mar-a-Lago to the airplane, let's watch the.

Ridiculous, but I kind of think the coverage is warranted. I don't know what do you think?

This is, of course.

And so, of course, they're going to cover it, people want to watch it, that is going to happen. I think the way in which Democrats and some liberals are freaking out about this is a misunderstanding of how Trump weaponizes attention in the Republican primary. That Donald Trump's monopoly of attention is to his huge advantage, because those people like Trump.

When you widen the aperture to the larger electorate, most of them don't like Trump. And so the more he reminds them that they don't like the things they don't like about him, the worse he does. And I think there's when we go back to 2016. I think a smart political person said this to me the other day, and I think it's really an important insight into how that election went. Trump did not win the 2016 election against Hillary Clinton because he dominated attention.

He lost it because the attention shifted to Hillary at the end, because of Jim Comey and the revelations and the hacked emails. And because the focus was on her, not him. He won, she lost.

If Donald Trump becomes president again, it is extremely important to cover what's happening. Is it again? Is it important to cover his plane ride? No, it is not important to cover his plane ride. But when Donald Trump does something, it is worth covering. Because the Republican Party very well could make him the nominee. He is the front runner, and therefore, like you just said earlier, he's like, you know, 30, 40,000 votes away from becoming president again because of how?

So that's that's why you.

She trounced right-wing judge Dan Kelly by 10 points in a campaign where she was unapologetic in her embrace of abortion rights, fair maps and other progressive values. Huge, Uh, you want to talk about what happens now that the Wisconsin Supreme Court has a liberal majority? We constantly.

Wisconsin is relying on a nearly two centuries old law to ban abortion in the state that is of dubious legal value. And it will. Now. You will have a pro-choice majority on the Supreme Court who will rule on that law. Second, Wisconsin is perhaps the most gerrymandered state in the country.

There's a state that the last two presidential elections has been decided by less than a half of a percent of a vote. Yet the Republicans have a like 60 40 majority in the legislature. And one of the groups that works on gerrymandering said that they are going to file a case the day. She is sworn in to revisit those maps so you could have different state legislative maps, different congressional maps. In Wisconsin in for up for the election in 2024, and then Wisconsin is where much of the shenanigans trying to overturn the election happened.

Efforts to fake voter fraud investigations, fake electors, alternate electors. And Dan Kelly, had he been elected, was someone who participated in the scheme to steal the election for Donald Trump. If he was on the Supreme Court, if there was a MAGA majority on the Supreme Court. The odds that a someone other than the winner of Wisconsin's popular vote got the electoral votes would go way up. And so this is just like some of the really important victories in 2022 we had in secretary of state offices, governor's offices. This. By putting a this majority on this court, we are cutting off yet another way in which the 2024 election could.

I mean, that's how they think.

We're asking. There was a state Senate race in Wisconsin that took place Tuesday night as well. Where, because of these severely gerrymandered maps, a Republican won. And although, you know, it was a severely gerrymandered district and still only won by, like, a point. And so that gives Republicans in the state Senate in Wisconsin a super majority, and there is some concern that with a super majority, they can impeach justice. Protostate. But I think there's some, there's. There's some confusion over whether you need a two thirds majority in both the House and the Senate, the General Assembly and the Senate, or a simple majority in the House of the Senate.

But either way, the Republican state Senate leader said, Absolutely not, we will not be impeaching Janet Protostate. And if they did for some reason, Governor Tony Evers would simply just get to replace the justice. So I, some people were freaked out about that, just putting that to rest so everyone can sleep easy.

We should also say a huge thank you to Vote Save America, the Vote Save America community. You donated $114,000 for voter turnout, and we saw the highest turnout ever. In a spring Supreme Court election in Wisconsin, there was 490 of you who signed up.

And made 50,000 voter contacts, and that's that's including the five to six doors. Love it and I knocked on when we were in Madison. I just wanted to thank you guys for going to Wisconsin. Honestly, I had such a good time.

It was 10 degrees, it was snowing. But I will eat Wisconsin food anytime, and the people of Madison are lovely. what a great town. I knew that it must have been very cold.

The strict scrutiny team also did a show there, thanks to the whole strict scrutiny team and the 900 people who came to our show on a Saturday night in the cold. Including judge protest. So thank you to everyone. Um, there was some anxiety before election day in Wisconsin that Trump's indictment would fuel turnout because of all the pissed off MAGA voters. Why don't you think that happened?

And do you think Trump was a factor at all in this race? Obviously, he endorsed Dan Kelly, and Dan Kelly's last 10 point defeat, double digit defeat. Um, he did not endorse him this time around. uh, probably because Dan Kelly didn't want him to.

And the closer a candidate is on the ideological spectrum towards Trump, the more likely they are to lose. That has been born out time and time again. And so whether he endorsed them or showed up does not matter. It just. It actually shows just how much of a albatross Trump is to his party, that even when he doesn't show up, they still pay a.

Now, in terms of turnout, I think there is a kind of misunderstanding of the Trump base, the Trump voter, by a lot of political analysts. I think there is definitely a group that is highly political engaged, that lives inside the Fox News fever dream, who understood every word of that deranged speech Trump gave. But they vote anyways, they are the equivalent, they're the right wing equivalent of our voters who turn out every time. Trump's political power in this other group of people who did not previously vote, who do not turn out for Republicans not named Trump, who are actually not highly engaged political people like.

They're not watching Tucker Carlson. They may agree with Tucker Carlson on a lot of things, but they're like, adjacent to the fever swamp. And those people are not on truth, social, they're not consuming this. This is not a huge part of their life, and it's not sufficient to motivate them to turn out.

They wrote for Trump, in part because it's a protest vote against an establishment. They don't trust. A whole host of reasons. But it's not necessarily vengeance against Alvin Bragg. And so that's why it probably didn't show up in this election.

But you don't get the turnout that you get from Trump being on the ballot.

One is even for people insulated from the impact of elections because of privilege or race, or economic stature. They had a constitutional right taken away from them or someone in their family by this court. And that's real like they are like, it is engaged a group of people who may not have otherwise engaged in politics, at least in elections like this one. And second, it gave a real world consequence to electing a MAGA extremist.

Like, now, we know the danger. And Celinda Lake had this quote in this Rebecca Traster piece that, in her polling, the country is now 15 more pro-choice post Dobbs than it was before. And so this should be a part of every campaign, should be big. The second lesson is, I wish we could clone Ben Wickler.

He is, but I also sometimes feel like he is such a dynamic force in and of himself. That just telling every party chair to be like Ben Wickler is like, impossible advice, like, you can't actually do that.

A sustainable source of revenue, they can invest and plan over the long term. And money spent early is worth way more than money spent late. And so this is how you win elections like this. Is that when the after 2022 was over, it wasn't like the campaign headquarters emptied, there was no more money coming in. Or is Ben had a recurring set of donors who allowed him to keep organizers on the ground to keep working on this race?

And Democrats have built this gigantic machine, but it's boom or bust, and it's very hard to predict. A big thing in the news happens. Money flows in, late, money flows in. But if you're running a race or building a party, you don't know when that money's coming. So you end up spending most of it on television. Ads of greatly diminishing return.

So if you're a donor or an operative state party chair, try to get your donors to become recurring donors that you can build the.

We don't know how to get out of this. There's Republican, you know, Ben? The volunteers, the organizers in Wisconsin, like, they didn't give up, they found a way. The Supreme Court race was the way in other states it'll be different. But, like, no one should just throw up their hands at gerrymanders and say, well, we can't do anything because of a gerrymander.

And so we're screwed. There's always, there's always a way. I also think that, like between Trumpy extremism and abortion, extremism like the Republican Party, is in some big fucking trouble. We just saw. Like yesterday, Governor Whitmer in Michigan signed a bill killing the like another decades centuries old abortion ban in that state. And you know what? Ron DESantis is about to sign a six week abortion ban in Florida. After, you know, doing the more quote unquote moderate 15 week abortion ban, which isn't moderate at all before that.

And why did Ron DESantis do that? Because he's probably thinking, Oh, well, I have to do. I have to go back to six weeks in order to win this Republican primary. Well, guess what, that's gonna be a real fucking problem for him in a general election. And they're all like this now.

And you're starting to hear in Republican circles and conservative circles that the full out ban on abortion is really hurting them. And they're starting to realize this. I don't think they're going to be able to walk it back at this point. You know, there's Republican legislators in South Carolina proposing that women should get the death penalty if they have an abortion, so clearly the extremism is out there.

But this is a real problem for them. I think in 2024, that, plus the Trumpy election, denial, extremism as well, those two issues, the democracy and abortion, same issues that won Democrats. The 2022 midterms are still very much in play, if not more so for 2024. And I also think to that like, look, Dane County, where Madison is incredible. Turnout, incredible margins, even even better than Biden in 2020, and obviously it's spring election, so it's a different turnout model than you get in a.

Speaking of Tim Miller, I heard him talking about this on the board too. Even if you took away all of Protostate, which is votes in Dane County, she still would have won. And that's mainly because the suburban counties around Milwaukee that usually go heavily Republican. It's usually how Republicans win the state. They're turning much bluer, so we're Republicans barely won them in this race.

And non college voters elsewhere all across the state, are voting less Republican, not giving Republicans the margins they were used to. In this. And part of that is again the abortion issue that we're seeing in these highly educated suburbs and even elsewhere, that's really hurting Republican. All right. So voters may have saved democracy in Wisconsin, but it certainly seen better days in Tennessee.

Last week, thousands of students and parents led a peaceful protest at the Nashville Statehouse to call for action on gun violence. After the horrific school shooting that left six people dead, including three nine year olds. Three Democratic lawmakers led the protesters in a chant on the House floor. And for that? Republicans are now holding a vote today to expel those three Democrats from the state legislature, a resolution that requires a two thirds majority, which Republicans currently have. You know, like, the word authoritarianism gets thrown around a lot these days. But, like, I'm not sure what else to call. Expelling democratically elected representatives from the legislature just for exercising their constitutional rights, do you?

Yeah, I mean.

So this is after Rory Cooper won in 2016 and the state legislature tried to take all of his powers away before he got to be seated in office. Then they did try to do the same thing. Wisconsin, Geneva is doing it everywhere, and so this is which this is likely the first of similar efforts where they, where they can do it.

It's not even that dissimilar to what Kevin McCarthy tried to do, or did do to three Democrats in the House to kick them off their committees. Which was the full extent of his power to do that, he couldn't expel them.

And like, yes, it was rowdy and they spoke out of turmoil. There's ways to like. If they wanted to, it still would have been bullshit to like discipline members do this.

Expelling democratically these people, people of Tennessee sent these people to the legislature, they voted for them, and now they're getting expelled just because Republicans don't like that. They put pressure on them to do something about gun violence when there was a massacre at a school, not just a couple of weeks earlier.

It is totally, it is anti-democratic, it is anti-American, it's it's wild, it is wild.

Free speech warriors over there in the Republican Party, yeah, cancel culture. So people are wondering what will happen here. If they, and again, they could be voting right now, voting by the time you hear this podcast. But if they expel them, there will be special elections.

Those three legislators can run again for their seats and get right back into the into the legislature. So like this is, it is horrific, and it is also just like it doesn't even have, it, doesn't even have an actual outcome that they want. Here. Like these people are just like, there's going to be Democratic legislators who just come back, if not these, and probably these three Democratic lawmakers.

And I'm sure by bigger margins, because they're in heavily Democratic diverse districts, that's another thing. Two of the legislators are Black, one is a woman, and they all represent heavily Democratic diverse areas of Tennessee. And the Republicans in the legislature are now just saying they want to.

Because they don't like what those people said. It is pretty bullshit, and you're right. And the concern now is there's super majorities in other states, and you know, the laws could be different, and the rules could be different in different state legislatures. But like our other Republican, super majority is going to start, you know, expelling Democratic legislators just because they can.

That's where we are now. Yes, Republicans everywhere, just they are just using their power just because they can to silence Democratic voices. It is wild.

After the break, we have Chicago's new mayor elect, Brandon Johnson, who will talk to Dan right after this.

Do you feel a little bit like the dog that caught the car?

Like, this is part of the beneficiary of the movement. But yeah, I mean, it's exhilarating. Certainly it is.

This is certainly proof that we can have a far more robust conversation about what we know works. And we don't have to be afraid of our values, right? So I think what they got wrong is what they typically, in some instances, have attempted to get right. But as a result of that, we have narrowed our conversations and it's limited the amount of people who actually engage. Right? And so because we were actually saying out loud, identifying our pain. People who would have not never, maybe that might be hyperbole, but people who would be reluctant to engage, you know, finally heard what they've been feeling.

And they're like, Yo, I could sign up for that, right? So that type of excitement and energy is something that you can't calculate necessarily in a poll, and that is what I believe pundits may have gotten wrong. The ability to actually speak truth to truth and power to power. And that it would be enough to mobilize people to actually get out and vote and get other people to vote as well.

What impact did education have in this campaign? How did you talk about it, how did you use it as a way to mobilize a broad coalition to win? Well, here in Chicago, mayoral control has.

And because of that type of despair, that has been sort of the prevailing form of governance, people understood that my position aligned with everyday people. My children attend the public schools, I'm a product of public education. And so, of course, my opponent, who essentially embodied the antithesis to our belief of a well-rounded education system in which Democrats can certainly get behind and understand that, you know, we should not have a system where people have to apply for something that is ostensibly free. And then people saw me as a very credible witness to the goals and desires of everyday people.

And then, as a result, we were able to capture, you know, a number of people who understood that. This election was certainly not just a repudiation of the failures of the past, but really an opportunity to build a better, stronger system. In which, no matter where you live in the city, that type of quality of education and expectation can be realized through an office, where the person who was there myself actually believes in it.

And it's not just about how many children you have in a particular room or a building, but it's about what those needs are. And that funding formula has not been embraced here in the city of Chicago. I'm going to embrace that funding formula. Here's what you get, an additional $1 billion, right? And so that was something that distinguished me right away.

The second thing is, I've been talking a lot about treatment over the trauma. And we don't spend enough time really digging into how impactful living in poverty, the impact that that really has on young people. We just expect people to show up every single day, regardless of their lived experiences and their living conditions, and be able to perform at a high function. Without taking into account that we have 20,000 students who are unhoused, the amount of gun violence that happens in places where schools have been closed. And so providing mental health services, making sure that the education system is also providing support for housing and affordable housing.

It's a holistic response to education. Children shouldn't be confined to a bubble sheet. That's the last component. A well-rounded curriculum that includes the trades, but also sports and arts. These are the dynamics that are missing from our education systems across America.

And in Chicago, under my administration, these are the type of investments that I'm going to make to provide an education system that is inclusive. But it is well-rounded as well.

He said that a teacher and a firefighter should not pay the same tax rate as a billionaire. These are fundamental values that we have as Democrats. I'm not sure that we should confine it to the progressive wing of our party.

Republicans, do, you know, defund the police, those sorts of things. I was very interested in your response to those attacks and the policies you put forth. Can you talk a little bit about how you dealt with these sort of very aggressive crime attacks on your record in a city where crime is an issue?

It is up in a lot of areas. So how did you do that? Well, first of all, let me just acknowledge.

I believe it's one of the highest concentration of Black voters or Black residents, not just in the city of Chicago, but around the country. And as beautiful as it is, it has been disinvested in historically over time, and as a result of that disinvestment, there's a real hyper concentration of poverty and isolation. And so, as a result, of course, violence is quite pervasive in the neighborhood. And I've experienced this, on a very personal note, where gunshots break out right outside our front door.

And that level of hopelessness, of course, has spread throughout the entire city of Chicago. What was important in this moment? And I think, to your point about the Republican attacks, that we should not use the attacks from the Republican Party to attack ourselves internally. To me, that's irresponsible, right? Because there was a Republican party that said that President Biden was going to defund the police. The Republican Party said that Governor J..B.

Pritzker was going to defund the police. I believe the Republican Party said that leader Nancy Pelosi would defund the police, right? So we know from whence these attacks come from. So that type of internal wrestling should not be permitted within our group. But to a larger extent, though, what? It demonstrated, though, that we don't have to confine the conversation of public safety around these false choices.

That the only way in which you can have a safe community is, if you're, you know, tough. I put that in quotations, uncried, that this is really about a smart public safety plan. So we talked about what works, so I made a commitment to doing what works.

One, doubling the amount of young people that we hire. There's a direct correlation between youth employment and this needs to be year-round. You know, eliminating violence reduction thing. Two, investing in mental health services, right? There's a direct correlation between providing the mental health support that not just residents of the city of Chicago.

I'm talking about all residents of the city of Chicago. That includes law enforcement that wrestle with trauma as well, making sure that we are providing housing, affordable housing. Now, of course, you know, promoting and training 200 more detectives to solve crime, that was a part of our plan.

Implementing with all expediency the consent decree. That's a part of the plan. Making sure that we are spending resources to actually enforce laws that are on the books, like red flag laws for individuals who are accessing guns.

That have guns, that should not have guns, like all of that was part of the plan, but it's comprehensive, it's not one particular component. It's a strategic presentation that deals not only with the root causes of violence in the city of Chicago or anywhere else in the world. But also deals with the immediacy of being able to solve the crime that does take place. The last thing that I'll say is I appreciate the Los Angeles Times.

They wrote a story a few weeks ago where the LAPD was essentially calling for what I'm calling for here in the city of Chicago. It's an ordinance that's called treatment, not trauma. And what it would do is it would provide mental health first responders to respond to essentially what 40 of the 911 calls consist of, which is mental health crises. And so by doing that, that frees up law enforcement to focus in on the more severe crime. Because here's the last thing.

We know that 60 of the violence that happens in the city of Chicago, it takes place in 6 of the city. We already know where it's going to take place, right? And so having first responders, mental health crisis workers, more EMTs to show up. It provides the smart investment that I believe the city of Chicago has been longing for. And so it's an incredible testament that when you tell the truth, when you speak to the values of the people of Chicago or anywhere else in the country. Give voters a little bit more credit, they know how to make a vote and cast a vote for the dynamics that exist.

But, more importantly, cast a vote for their values because they know those values will prevail. I think that is perfect advice for everyone.

It was my pleasure.

Ruined the podcast for people who love horror movies and for people who are too afraid to watch them. And I get it, that's me. I'm one of those. We live in a horrifying world.

As someone, I could watch a disembowelment all day long. You know what I mean? I have a smile on my face. Some people they can't, and I respect both kinds of people.

So I co-hosted with my co-host, Alison Leiby, who is a scaredy cat as you are. And yeah, give it a listen. If you have any interest in horror but cannot watch it, or if you love it and you want to hear us talk about your favorite horror movies. Amazing everyone, please go check it out.

Well, so I would just want to say congratulations gentlemen, you guys did it okay, you know what? I mean, time to wrap this up.

Positive America got Trump arrested. You guys did it, it was you. And I hope you all treated yourself to an extra glass of athletic drinks this morning, maybe an extra hard-boiled egg as a treat.

I know how you guys like to party. Donald Trump is hypothetically going to see some repercussions for some of his horrible actions months from now. Praying to God that actually happens, and what better to celebrate his demise? I'm sorry he made his downfall because even a silver bullet couldn't stop that guy, unfortunately.

What better way for us to celebrate it than with a game, a game we're calling well, well, well. Looks like everyone's a lawyer now now. I guess that was my take from being on Twitter. It's like, Oh, everyone's a legal expert. All of a sudden, hug news to me.

The way this game works is you tell me who wrote the tweets that I'm going to. I'm going to give you a tweet. You tell me who wrote it about Trump's arraignment and tell me specifically. Was it a legal expert or was it just some fucking guy? And you will receive a bonus point if you can correctly guess the profession of who tweeted it. Wow, okay, so are you ready?

I'm so ready, I'm very excited. Here's the first tweet. Now that the charges are public, everyone can see how weak the case against President Trump really is. Who tweeted this?

A legal expert of some sort, or just some fucking guy?

That feels like just some fucking guy, and what do you think this fucking guy's profession may be? I have a strategy for.

He's a podcast host.

Oh, uh-oh, it hurts. I retract my statement, The greatest job in the world, something that.

A legal expert or just some fucking guy?

Next one, Donald Trump, is Tupac, Donald Trump's biggie Smalls. Was this person who said this a legal expert, or were they just some fucking guy? I feel like you're throwing us a curveball here, and it might be a legal expert.

I will say there is some clarity, apparently, one of his lawyers.

Trump is being prosecuted charged because he paid hush money to a mistress, something it's inconceivable he would have been charged over if he was never a candidate for office. Who said this? A legal expert? Just some fucking guy.

I don't like the prison system, so I don't like this process. Doesn't mean that accountability is not owed. But this is a granddad having a very bad day now. Is this person a legal expert or is it just some fucking guy? This is definitely just some fucking guy, and I want to say, and it is Van Jones.

It is Van Jones, I will say, who do you think is the granddad who's had the very bad day in history? If you were to think of the history of the world, I'd say there's a lot of granddads who have had very bad days. Yeah, yeah, see, most of history are made by granddads who have a very bad day, usually at the end of it.

You know what I mean, I think that's just how it works, you know?

And then finally, so that was our first mini game, and now we're doing a second one. Ooh, bonus round, bonus round. And only because we couldn't figure out how to incorporate them into one game. We didn't want to leave the week without giving a shout out to the OGs.

The resistance lives. You guys have been holding out hope since, oh, November 8th, 2016, and your drunk dreams have finally come true. So feel free to take a victory lap, put on your pussy hat and celebrate with your fellow wine moms or dads. And then it's back to fighting the influx of anti-trans, anti-queer, anti-abortion rights, anti-black, pro-grunt profanity. The right is committed to jamming down our collective throats.

But that's not that's for tomorrow, today is for celebrating. Go have some brunch first, get out of here.

Read you some mouthwatering resistance live tweets from this week? Just taking again, celebrating. And you're going to rank them at a four-tier scale, okay, level. One notorious RBG.

Level two Cheeto and chief number three, Dumbledore's Army. And that was a deep cut from Olivia. Thank you, Olivia.

And then, of course, Level four occupy Democrats. Okay, sitting right on top? Yes, okay.

And then let's let's kick us off. We have, uh, here's the first one. Spare. Some thoughts and prayers for the sad Trumpers out there. The fox has gone bare and a Raymond has me bursting with joy. So there and then sort of like that little coy face, where it's like looking at the side.

Wonderful. How? how is that hitting you? Um, what's the second one again? Um, cheeto and chief.

Because she, she boots on the ground as it were or not on the ground, I don't know, I can't remember the details.

Wow, that's pretty, that's hard to judge, cause it's her. Um, but I feel like the third one is there was Dumbledore's army.

Dumbledore's I feel like at the Dumbledore's Army. She got the pussy grabbed.

This is a totally subjective scale that we're making it up as we go along. But so you're both right, actually, it's like watching a mob boss finally go down.

And this, of course, is from Occupy Democrats themselves.

Honestly, I'm giving them a one on that, they don't even get their own rating on that. They got to come a little bit harder with that. Um, this one is um spanky dumbass coming to a prison near soon. And then, of course, it was Brooklyn dead.

Defiant.

That gets an Occupy Democrats, for sure.

Donald Trump did not get his mugshot taken during his arraignment today. So his scam artist, fundraising minions have created a fake one stamped Not guilty on it and are now selling it on t-shirts for $47. Retreat if you wouldn't even wear that.

Thank you for having me on, thank you for coming on, Hallie, that was a fantastic game, couple games.

Every week, I mean, I think people, I think that honestly, we need another surge. It's going to keep us going until I get December. It was more fun than our last take appreciators, which, thanks to my two other co-hosts, got a little contentious.

I don't know if you guys heard, Okay, listen, it's a little, it's a little contentious on the rating system. This was just fun, loving, great.

Yeah, I was like, Well, the rating system doesn't mean anything. There's more room.

Have a fantastic weekend and we will talk to you next week.

Kyle Seglin and Charlotte Landis sound engineered the show. Thanks to Hallie Kiefer, Ari Schwartz, Sandy Girard, Andy Taft and Justine Howe for production support. And to our digital team, Elijah Cohn, Phoebe Bradford, Milo Kim and Amelia Montu. Our episodes are uploaded as videos at YouTube.com. Slash Pod Save America.