Trump "Proudly" Supports Abortion Bans

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

I'm Jon Lovett.

I'm Tommy Vittor.

On today's show, Donald Trump promises his billionaire donors more tax cuts and whiter immigrants. Joe Biden announces student debt relief for another 23 million people. And finally gives Bibi Netanyahu an ultimatum. And later, Wisconsin Senator Tammy Baldwin stops by the studio to talk through her tough re-election campaign, TikTok, and what actually counts as milk.

Yeah, what does count as milk?

Stay tuned to find out.

Is this a continuation of the Wisconsin trip? I wasn't on? Yeah.

Sure. Yeah. Okay.

Everything happened there. The great milk day.

The best trip we've ever been on. That was an incredible trip.

We'll talk about it. But first, Trump said over the weekend that he'd finally be releasing a statement on abortion that was designed to quote, win elections. That was in his post. And in a video posted on Monday, he again took credit for overturning Roe v. Wade and promised that as president, he'd let states pass even the most extreme abortion bans without any exceptions.

Many people have asked me what my position is on abortion and abortion rights, especially since I was proudly the person responsible for the ending of something that all legal scholars, both sides, wanted and in fact demanded. Roe v. Wade. They wanted it ended. It must be remembered that the Democrats are the radical ones on this position, because they support abortion up to and even beyond the ninth month.

Just beautiful.

Beautiful.

Guys, guys, pretty sick, a little deranged. It's the also just a little all over the place. at the end there. He's, he's clearly was reading some of it from a, from a prompter, and he still couldn't fucking.

read the riffs.

It's the most, it's the most when he has to do something like this, it's the most like a hostage. He sounds, you know, he's, he's deeply uncomfortable.

So Trump had been weighing a 15 or 16 week national ban, but ultimately decided that, whatever that was, it's better politics. What do you guys think? Is he right?

I think so. I think he's trying to muddy up an incredibly extreme, unpopular position on abortion. And he's betting that this video will make someone the right angry, like Mike Pence, his former vice president, who angrily tweeted, I guess, or truth. I don't know what he does anymore. Whatever Pence does, he's mad about this.

What do you think, Levitt?

Yeah, I think that's right. I also think he's banking on the fact that the statement is going to be covered at face value.

Yes.

A, it's going to be covered, as if the position he's taking is a position he will continue to hold. Or B, that you can even accept this characterization of what he's saying, because there's nothing in his statement that actually says, I oppose or I will not sign a national abortion. There's nothing. There's nothing in it that precludes, you know, if he were, if he were to end up signing a national abortion ban, there are people that say he's changing, that. he's going against his word.

You say, if Congress passes a federal ban, will you veto it?

Honestly, he didn't say much new, right? For all the buildup to this, it wasn't much new. So I think it was better politics than him endorsing a 15 or 16 week ban, but I still think better politics isn't necessarily good politics. Like I do not think he has solved his problem at all here. He still hasn't answered, will he sign a national abortion ban?

By the way, it's going to be the same kooks. It's not a big new group of kooks.

Worse kooks.

I would say they'll be, there'll be more and worse kooks, but the same people that helped put together the plan to promote the judges and write the executive actions to do everything they could to restrict or overturn or ban abortion will be the same people that come in next time. You know, they've, the, the heritage foundation had this report, the 2025 project. in it. They talk about how the next conservative administration has to obviously sign a national abortion ban. If they can get it through Congress, but if they can't, yes, they want to go after MIFA Pristone, but there is a part that I went through it and I just looked through all the parts.

Yeah. And then there are the steps, uh, that would land a national abortion ban on his desk. If Donald Trump wins the presidency, it is virtually guaranteed that Republicans will have the Senate. Uh, it is pretty likely that Republicans will have the house. They get the house.

He's going to sign it.

So Biden responded, saying Trump is, uh, responsible more than anyone in America for the cruelty and chaos unleashed by Dobbs. And Biden promised to make the freedom to choose the law of the land if he's elected with a democratic Congress. Here's a clip.

Donald Trump just endorsed every single state ban on reproductive care nationwide. All across the country, women are being turned away from emergency rooms or being forced to travel hundreds of miles or ask a judge just to get the basic care they need. That's Donald Trump's vision for this country. He said it himself. He punished women who seek out the care they need.

Campaign's also out with an absolutely gutting, uh, new ad about a woman from Texas who nearly died twice after she was denied care for a miscarriage because of the state's abortion ban. Um, what did you guys think of the, the Biden campaign response, which has really been a pretty full throated and been happening all day. They've had surrogates out, they've got ads, they've got the president out, they had the vice president out. What do you guys think?

I think they understand that this is one of the most important ways that they're going to defeat Donald Trump, but they're not going to let him get away with this statement. And they're really going to not. And what I think really important about it is I'm not going to let it be reported at face value. They're going to make sure that they're in the story calling him a fucking liar, which he is, but also pointing out all the ways in which he's responsible for Roe being overturned. The ways in which Roe being overturned doesn't just affect people who need abortions, but affects people who need all kinds of medical care.

Yeah. I'm glad that they jumped all over this. I mean, I too was a little disappointed with how credulous the reporting was, uh, at least the first round of it. on this video, I think Biden did a good job of being clear what he would do. I think we need to push back even more on this disgusting claim that Democrats want to kill infants after they're born.

Yeah. And I thought the Biden campaign, just, uh, has been tweeting out, like state by state, some of the most heinous extreme bans. And now Trump owns all of those bands. There is, there's a little bit of like. people trying to convince Democrats, trying to convince people like, this is what Trump would really do.

Including his home state.

Yeah.

Well, I would also say, you know, you, he actually doesn't say health of the mother. He says life of the mother, which there's a lot of reasons a person would need an abortion because of their health. One being that they would like to have children in the future. Right. That this doesn't provide exemption for.

And medication abortion is popular among Republicans. You know, this is like very early, it's an 80, 20 issue. Yeah. It's used in early stages of pregnancy. It's 60% of abortions, medication abortion.

Yeah. And you can, you know, you can debate what he's going to do, what he might do, what he has done, this ban this many weeks. But I think him owning what has already happened proudly, as he said, in the video, and then watching an ad like that from the Biden campaign for most voters, that's how this is going to land this debate.

And by the way, we're going to get another cycle. Like he's going to be asked the next time he does any kind of a mainstream interview,

Hopefully we'll get it on the right wing interviews too. I know Hugh Hewitt doesn't have a spine, but eventually he'll talk to like a, you know, some Christian outlet or something.

You know what he's going to say? He's going to say, I'm going to, before he even gets there, I'm going to bring both sides together. We're going to make everyone very happy.

Yeah. He just lies.

So you would sign up. So you would sign up, man.

We're going to make, we're going to make everyone very happy. Look, you know what I did? I killed Roe versus Wade. Everyone wanted me to anyway.

Yeah.

Anyway, have you seen the eclipse?

Beautiful, beautiful eclipse.

So, uh, Trump also hosted a big fundraiser in Palm beach over the weekend with some of the worst billionaires on the planet. People who profited off of the subprime mortgage crisis, compared higher taxes to the Holocaust and opposed the civil rights act. Just to name a few.

I mean, John, just be careful. Cause for two of those, they could be our billionaires too.

Trump promised the billionaires more tax cuts, said he only wants immigrants from quote nice countries like Denmark and Norway, and accused Joe Biden of pooping on the resolute desk. Did you guys catch that one?

I mean, I didn't catch that one, but I read the story.

You read the story. Yeah. The campaign claims that the event raised $50 million, which would be double what Biden raised in New York the other week. Uh, lots to unpack there. Starting with the money.

Here's how I feel about this. Do I believe they would lie to say it's double? say it's double. Oh, we doubled it. We doubled it.

We will not know for sure until we see the campaign finance reports, but it's possible. So remember they're raising money for the Trump 47 committee, which is a joint fundraising account that goes to the Trump campaign, the RNC state parties and Trump super pack. So that committee can accept a check up to $824,600 per person. So is it possible that they found 60 billionaires like the ones Lovett just described and said, right? The max possible.

There's a lot of low hanging fruit.

I mean, there's a lot of fruit in that room, like super rich people, right? But it's also possible that they're just screwing with the accounting and that a big chunk of what they're reporting was super pack donations, which can take unlimited money from whomever. And uh, and also, by the way, that will end up paying Trump's legal bills. So the Biden campaign thinks that they're reporting a bunch of super pack money and that this is just an apples to oranges comparison with his event in New York.

Can I just say one more thing on this? If they want to lie about raising $50 million from some of the worst billionaires in the country, who he then just promised a whole bunch, like another trillion dollars worth of tax cuts to go for it.

I would gladly see the title of big money campaign.

I don't know why we get into this thing where it's like, Oh, the Biden is 25 million. Oh, it's double. We're more than you. Like, no, no. Raising a lot of money like this is a necessary evil in politics.

I think they were doing the kind of, they did the 25 million number to show like, look at the strength of this thing. We're going to go into it at a time when the polling number, polling, wasn't great. This is just like, we're a Trump double. We double your bad. We double your old shit on desk.

You can certainly imagine Trump reading the $25 million headlines and saying, we need to double this, figure out how to make it happen.

And also, like, you know, it could, it could be donations that have been coming in for a long time.

It could be a bunch of earmarked things for this event.

It seems to me like tax cut for billionaires and, uh, and white immigrants only. isn't the, uh, isn't the message to win over those swing voters, but, uh, maybe some of these voters are cross pressured, uh, by their opposition to Joe Biden shitting in the oval. I don't know. What do you guys think?

LBJ famously, uh, took meetings on the toilet and now it comes to Mohammed and with hustle, culture has gotten pretty bad. So maybe you're just sort of skipping a step here and being even more efficient.

Just reading the words in the New York times, thrown it up, uh, when we asked attendees, uh, they said he was referring to Biden, actually defecating on the desk.

Cause, when I first saw it, I assumed it was fake news, meticulous reporting. I assumed it was fake news. I assumed that people were misreporting a Trump ridiculous statement that he was saying.

You think it was just a Friday news dump?

I did the usual, usual DC bullshit, but, uh, but that, no, what I thought is, I thought it was good that, that he was saying Biden is so old, he's soiling himself at the desk. And he says, I don't even want to touch the desk.

Right.

So it's like, Oh, it's on the desk.

I don't know if he put a lot of thought into it.

Maybe he's just one up. He's just riffing.

He's just riffing.

He's just riffing.

He's just looking for stuff. Yeah. That's the more work.

All right. So, uh, speaking of the president, when he's not pooping in his desk, he was in Wisconsin on Monday where he announced a new plan to provide debt relief to more than 23 million people who are still paying off their student loans. Ever since Republicans in Congress and the Supreme court blocked Biden's earlier plans to provide debt relief, the administration has been able to use its existing legal authority to help more than 4 million Americans. The plan he announced this week would obviously be a much bigger deal, up to 23 million people. Uh, here's the president talking about it.

Today, I'm proud to announce five major actions to continue to relieve student debt for more than 30 million Americans. Since I started my administration, starting this fall, we plan to deliver up to $20,000 in interest relief to over 20 million borrowers and full forgiveness for millions more.

So the question with all these Biden's student debt plans is, can he actually get it done without it getting blocked? And, uh, who does it help? Uh, what do you guys think?

Oh, we can get the checks out before Clarence Thomas gets back from Bora Bora. Just get those checks out. We've got an election to win here.

Hopefully there's no clawback provision.

You know, I remember the first round of this, I said early fall, they think the first time. I, the first time we went through this round of student debt, I remember like reading carefully about, like the, the, re, the rationalizations and all the reasons and the different ways he could like kind of structure the thing. And now I'm just like, fucking, get the checks out. We got to win. I don't care.

And this one's hard because obviously in the first round, president Biden was pushed very hard by progressives to cancel student debt. He was concerned that it might get struck down in the courts, which is why he hesitated for a while. Then he put forward what was actually a more generous plan in a lot of ways. And I think people were expecting, then the court struck it down and then everyone was like, God damn it, Biden.

Yeah. Then some progressives were like, what's wrong with you? You should have just used another law somewhere and found it and blah, blah, blah.

Yeah. I mean, I think, well, maybe that's what he did. So, well, what they've done is, you know, they've, they've tried to some creative approaches that they've, as you said, they think they've provided nearly 150 billion in student debt relief despite the Supreme Court ruling. So they're trying another path. They know they're going to get sued.

And I mean, they did have their lawyers go back and look and see like what could be more feasible to do. Right. So this is a different, this is all. according to the Washington Post. This is a different law.

The other instance, specifically, is if you got convinced to go to a school that lost its accreditation, like one of these junk for profit schools, but you still have a huge debt and no diploma anymore, they will cancel that debt too. Yeah. I mean, it makes a lot of sense.

Yeah. I mean, where I'm at with all this is like, okay, like I think it's great. I think we should be doing everything we can to fulfill the promise of canceling student debt. Go through the law books, find some fucking thing, get the lawyers in there with, I don't know, Mike Rafiche? Probably not.

That works. Pen and a phone. No, no.

I'm literally about the time saying that.

We don't know if the laws are abused.

Come on. That's what, look, that's what like, look, DACA was a way to get around the fact that Congress wouldn't do anything on immigration. These are all ways in which the administration is basically legislating. I'm for it. I think we should do it.

Yeah. I just think there's, I think there's also a lot of gray area in some of these laws that are open to interpretation, right? Like, I don't think it's obvious. Sure.

But like, do I think that, whatever law they're using, was written so that, decades later, the president could go through and wipe away vast swaths of student loan debt? Probably not. I don't care. Go for it. Do it and be legends.

We'll see. We'll see.

What a country.

The president has also been making news on one of his biggest challenges with young and progressive voters, the war in Gaza. Last week, after an Israeli strike killed seven aid workers from Jose Andres's world central kitchen, Biden finally told Netanyahu that if Israel doesn't change course by immediately announcing steps to quote address civilian harm, humanitarian suffering, and the safety of aid workers that quote, we won't be able to support you. That last quote is from an Axios report on the call. Uh, BB responded by finally allowing more humanitarian aid into Gaza, where millions are suffering, many on the verge of famine. Uh, Biden hasn't specified what the consequences will be if Netanyahu doesn't do more.

I hope so. I mean, in the near term, uh, 419 a trucks got into Gaza on Monday, 322 a trucks got in on Sunday. in February. The average per day was 98 trucks.

So there's total since October 7th.

So there's been an impact. That's that increases. Good. Uh, also, it proves that the slowdown in the previous months was the entirely the result of a policy choice made by the Israeli government, not other complications that you saw blamed in the media. Uh, it's also gross that it took the death of seven Western aid workers to get here, but you know, I'm glad we're here.

I do think that the politics at home at here for Biden have changed pretty significantly. you have, I mean, you have, all kinds of people criticizing him for his Gaza policy, including, according to the New York times and other reports. like Jill Biden, Chris Coons, like his wife, has been saying, Joe, this needs to end. So I, and it is, it was amazing. And also just like really frustrating to see that, like he does one call to BB, where he finally gives him an ultimatum and then immediately see the aid truck start going into Gaza.

It was like, well, well then, it was self evidently stupid from the beginning.

And, by the way, also the people that defended the claim that Israel couldn't get aid in for weeks and weeks on end. And then also, by the way, on the other, the second Biden does shows just puts, puts the, puts, like real pressure on Netanyahu. in this call, Republicans immediately put forward a resolution to say that he's being insufficiently pro-Israel.

Right. Yeah. That's good. He's going to deal with that. I mean, I've heard a lot of people like cast out on whether this is a real political problem for Biden.

It's because there is no case. Right. This war is a moral, strategic and political disaster. The morality of it is the death toll, the number of children who've been killed using starvation as a tool of war. But then, strategically, even the Israeli military intelligence services do not believe that you can defeat Hamas entirely.

You know, what really drives me nuts is people who are like, well, no one's calling on Hamas to just release the hostages. Hamas could end this war tomorrow. It's like, of course, Hamas being murderous monsters who use their own people as human shields like that, that doesn't absolve the Israelis or any of us from like our duty to protect people and to like, think about the consequences that you just laid out of carrying on this war. Of course, they're like murderous terrorists. We get that.

Yeah. You can't spend six months running all the civilians into one city and then bomb that city. You just simply can't. There's no... It's not complicated.

The calling on Hamas argument frustrates me so much because everyone is calling on Hamas to release the hostages. They have been since the very beginning. They're holding innocent civilians. Everyone wanted to release the hostages. The US doesn't have diplomatic relations with Hamas.

By the way, he's facing massive protests inside of Israel.

You're starting to see big protests in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem. You're seeing former hostages who have been released calling on him to do more. You're seeing the families of hostages. The real question is how many of these hostages are alive at this point, and I don't say that to blame Netanyahu or the government, but again, the only time hostages have gotten back is through a negotiated temporary ceasefire between the two sides, and I think that's what everyone's been looking for.

You saw Netanyahu today, well, it was Monday, once again said, there's a date for when we're going to go into Rafah. I mean, obviously, he intends to do that, but he's also negotiating.

Yeah, I mean, look, I wonder if he's using that to put political pressure on Hamas, but I don't know. Are they feeling political pressure at this point? We have no read on what they think. Even the negotiations that are happening in Qatar are like with some political operatives that don't even live in the Gaza Strip. most of the time.

Well, I wish it had happened a lot sooner, but I'm really glad that Joe Biden made that call.

Bibi. Netanyahu is a bad guy. Again, there are not great options here for Biden or for the Israelis after October 7th, but Netanyahu is a bad person, a bad leader, and he should not have been given this much rope. Yep.

Before we go to break, I thought we'd just talk about maybe some other quick stories everyone should be paying attention to. I noticed today, first of all, RFK Jr.'s campaign, what a fucking mess.

It's a juggernaut.

What are you talking about? It's a real mess. You're doing great. First, there was something on Friday where he released a full statement about the January 6th rioters, insurrectionists, and basically it was like, I have not examined the evidence in detail. It's always great when you put that out in your statement, even though the evidence is there for all to see.

It was on television.

It was on television. Yeah.

Famously on television. Trump watched it, remember?

But reasonable people tell me there is little evidence of a true insurrection. They observed that the protesters carried no weapons. Then he promised to appoint a special counsel to investigate the prosecutors instead of the people who pleaded guilty or were convicted by a jury of their peers for violently assaulting police officers. Then, when everyone pointed out to RFK Jr. in his campaign that actually they carried a lot of different kinds of weapons, uh, flagpoles, mace, explosives, all that kind of stuff.

So a quiet part out loud, but it doesn't actually make, I can't, how does it make sense? Because, like, I, like the idea that there's Kennedy people out there being like, it's Trump and Kennedy versus Biden. That's great. Keep doing that. But you still have to get electoral votes.

I think they're just, I think what she was saying is like the most important thing is to make sure that Joe Biden doesn't become president. And obviously we'd love if RFK Jr. becomes president, but you know, on the, on the, on the chance that he's not going to be, we'll get Trump.

But there's another guy that hates vaccines up there. Donald Trump. I mean, that's probably the rest of her sentence.

It's a, what a fucking dilettante. It's just like, it's just unbelievable. It's just, it's like, this is blundering oaf running around, making absolutely no sense. For RFK to help Donald Trump by throwing it to Congress, he would have to get an electoral vote.

Yeah. I mean, I'm sure they believe all kinds of crazy things. I'm sure they think.

Is he going to do great in Omaha?

I don't get it. Maybe that's it. Maybe it's all, maybe it's an Omaha play. Yeah.

One other story worth watching. So this is a very weird one. So this is about the Montana Senate race. So there's a Republican named Tim Sheehy, he's running for Senate in Montana against Jon Tester. He's a former Navy SEAL.

He also previously said that he was shot multiple times in Afghanistan.

In his book, he said he was shot multiple times. So who knows where, like, if he was a Democrat, you'd have swift boat veterans, for truth, you know, chasing him out of the state as we speak, because he's a Republican.

First thing that popped into my mind is, who knows, John Kerry, John Kerry. Yes.

Who knows how this will play. Shouldn't have thrown that medal.

But what a weird story.

That is strange. That is strange. Because I think if I shot myself in the arm, I would lie and say it happened in combat, but I wouldn't make up multiple wounds.

You wouldn't make up a lamer story. No, you wouldn't go worse with it.

You wouldn't go worse with it. You'd pay a fine.

Really weird. Shout out Washington Post. Liz Goodwin.

Great story. And also, go donate some money to Jon Tester. He's a great guy. Jon Tester needs to win. Chair, Brian needs to win.

We have Tammy Baldwin on, and this audio just came out that her opponent said about nursing home residents. Well, you only have a five or six month life expectancy. Almost nobody in a nursing home is in a point to vote.

What? What? Oh, that's awesome.

That's awesome. This guy is...

Love Tammy. Love Tammy. All right. A few bits of housekeeping before we get to Senator Baldwin. First, Love It or Leave It will be in Austin, Texas on April 21st.

April 21st.

Where Love. It will be joined by Joyelle, Nicole Johnson, Zach Zucker, the Sklar brothers, and Tim Miller.

And Joe Rogan. Sorry.

No, no. Couldn't get him. Couldn't get him.

And then you're going to DC on April 25th for another great show with Josh Gondelman, Sam Jay, Al Franken, and Mehdi Hassan.

That one's almost sold out.

Wow. It's supposed to be in Austin. And finally, if you're here in LA, Pots of Miracle will be live at the LA Times Festival of Books on April 21st. Hysteria's own Aaron, Ryan, Dan, Tommy, and me, we're going to have a great show.

That's a book burning, right?

That's a book. Yeah, that is a book. burning. We'll be burning.

Well, the tapes will be so hot, those books might burn.

Huh? We'll be burning our books. Yeah. That's sort of like a self-hating thing. You can get tickets for all of those shows.

Be the books you want to burn in the world.

You can get tickets for all those shows at cricket.

As long as you don't ask us any follow-ups. Yeah, of course we did.

Anyway, you'll get access to Polar Coaster, where Dan calms your nerves and freaks you out about the state of the polls. You can also listen to Cricket's most unhinged podcast that will probably get canceled for someday. It's called Terminally Online. Don't you think that'll do it?

What a welcome respite.

It's for subscribers only, and it's where we talk about the craziest shit on the internet that week. Subscribe to Friends of the Pod to listen to our exclusive pods only at cricket.com slash friends. When we come back, Wisconsin Senator Tammy Baldwin.

Joining us today, United States Senator and someone who is so pro-dairy, I took a lactate before she sat down. just in case. It's Senator Tammy Baldwin. Greetings. Good to have you back.

It's great to be back.

The Wisconsin Democratic primary was this past Tuesday, and people, upset with President Biden's Gaza policy, organized a push to vote uninstructed, similar to the uncommitted vote in Michigan. That ended up getting 8.3%. Does that worry you about Biden's path to winning Wisconsin in November?

One of the things I would reflect on that is these were people who voted, and they voted in the Democratic primary. These are people who said, I'm fed up and I'm staying home. They sent a message, and it's a message. I understand. The frustration, the heartbreak that we're seeing.

Let's talk about that. We're meeting here Friday, April 5th. You said in a post that any U.S. aid to our allies must be in line with our values, and we cannot be complicit in Netanyahu's indiscriminate bombing. I should also note that in that tweet, you reiterated that you called for a release to all hostages and your position that Israel has a right to defend itself.

Well, first of all, there are conditions already embedded in U.

limited. So let's talk about the race that you're in. President Trump endorsed your opponent, Eric Laguna Beach Havdi, at an event in Green Bay. He said of you is what Trump said. She's a very weak candidate.

thinking about? There's a lot baked into that question. There is a lot. Let me start with the end of end of that question. We were just talking about the Democratic presidential primary in Wisconsin on Tuesday.

Yeah, no. All right.

Dairy. Dairy. Not oranges. And so this is, you know, a multimillionaire who's self-funding and is simply out of touch with the people that I fight so hard for every day in the Senate.

So he is self-funding and he's already up on the air with millions of dollars.

Four point three so far. Four point three million dollars so far.

But you've been campaigning and working in Wisconsin for such a long time. Are these ads having an impact? How are you trying to blunt the impact of a candidate who is already promising to produce the most expensive race in the history of Wisconsin?

Yeah. So make no mistake, we are a pretty evenly divided state and any Republican, a generic Republican, whatever name you want to put, starts with about 44 percent of the vote. It could be anyone. But that's. that's what kind of state Wisconsin is.

Oh, wow. That's it. That's how you win. That's how you win.

They needed a sugar high to get back out on the roads and keep us all safe.

So it actually was when I started talking about the turnout, what I wanted to get at is you're a lesbian progressive. I think you know that. I do. I do. But you have done, and likely will do better in rural parts of your state than most Democrats could hope to perform.

Yes. And I have some solutions in mind, too. So I'll start by saying Wisconsin has had very gerrymandered maps for our state assembly and state Senate. And what that has led to is that almost all the Democrats in the state legislature come from cities. Some suburban areas.

I hear you on that. There's been a lot of headwinds and a lot of, you know, identity propaganda from the right to kind of turn rural parts of the country against Democrats or kind of inoculate rural parts of the country against Democrats. But it's more than just that, right? Because you see, not just in politically drawn districts, but at the state level, you'll see a state like Kansas protect abortion rights or a state like Utah expand Medicaid. But these are states where a Democratic policy can do well on the ballot.

That's a great question. First of all, I want to almost respond by saying I think we don't understand, as Democrats, how Republicans and conservatives and MAGA types are communicating with one another and defining Democrats. So you might show up at a place and they've been hearing, reading, being exposed to, in many cases, misinformation, disinformation about Democrats. And if you don't understand the way they're communicating, sometimes it's challenging. But what I find and I want to get back to the sort of rural, urban issues is when you show up, you convene, you know, I'm going to keep on hitting on dairy with you.

Let's talk about your opponent a little bit more. So he seems pretty wishy-washy on democracy. There's clearly an effort just for politically. He wants the benefits of being embraced by and embracing Trump, but doesn't want the baggage. Right.

Yeah, so he kissed the ring this this past Tuesday when President, former President Trump, flew to Green Bay, Wisconsin, and shared a stage with him and endorsed him. We now know where Hovde stands with the MAGA agenda. And we also know because he did once before run for U.S. Senate in 2012, and he didn't win the Republican primary. He came shy of defeating Tommy Thompson.

He wants the credit. He takes the credit every time he can.

Right. And then he's saying other things. We have to hold them to their original word. They get in power again. Eric Hovde is going to vote for a national ban on abortion.

So you talk about the stakes. We've lost some. I saw you were in Wisconsin during that race for the Supreme Court seat, which Democrats turned out and were able to win a huge impact on the state. But one of the things that that you said, that Ben Wickler, the head of the Democratic Party in Wisconsin, has said, is that Wisconsin has been a bellwether for what's been happening in this country. And one of the ways that's true is this is an incredibly divided state, a state that has that has Ron Johnson as one of the senators and you as the other.

OK, so just for a quick history snapshot, you know, I have the honor of serving in a Senate seat that was once held at the turn of the last century by fighting Bob La Follette, Sr.

You know, you talked about how you've seen ticket splitting decline. And yet, in an election this close, there are people out there that very well may be either Baldwin Trump voters or Baldwin Biden voters. There probably are going to be Baldwin Trump voters because you're probably going to outperform Joe Biden. What are those? You must meet them.

Yeah. So I can tell you a couple of stories. I remember going to the groundbreaking of county owned rural hospital in Lafayette County. I worked really hard to help them be able to afford to replace their decrepit old hospital with a new state of the art facility and brought home dollars, federal dollars, to help them do that. The one of the county board chair, one of the county board members with the big Trump bumper sticker on his pickup truck and took the microphone at this celebratory event and couldn't stop singing my praises.

Yeah, and you can get some of those people to understand, right, like the, the people that identify with Trump, but who see you as having benefited Wisconsin, you kind of coax them over like,

that's what we're going to try to get them over. I want to run a campaign that is successful and helpful to all Democrats on the ticket from our state assembly and state Senate candidates, who are now sprouting up all over the state. Now that we have a fair map. Yeah. And, you know, up through the top of the ticket.

So I want to ask you about two more things. One is Senate's currently debating this House bill about TikTok. You came out in support of the House version of the bill. The ACLU says that the bill is a violation of the First Amendment. It's also been strange to me, like there may be very valid concerns about TikTok and its effect on privacy and the fact that it has this foreign interest, but it feels as though there's been a lot of kind of classified briefings from members of Congress and senators, but not enough, leveling with the American people about something that they're choosing to use.

Yes. So the answer to the specific question is yes. And, and let me say of the House passed bill, you know, I'm still studying it. I'm likely to support it. I think the goal of divesting it from PRC influence and Chinese ownership is very important for our data security and all sorts of.

Yeah, because it does. it does seem like if the goal was to get TikTok to go from being Chinese owned to American owned, then the then whatever data is being collected is still being collected. We all have kind of resigned. Right now, we have resigned ourselves to just having absolutely no idea. But you're saying you would like to see some kind of larger privacy bill, beyond just focusing on TikTok?

Absolutely. I want to be an educated consumer.

Oh, I don't. I don't want to know what's in the food. I don't want to know what the phone's collecting. I just want to live my life. Don't tell me.

I think that you can just pass up on that information, but I'm going to look at it. All right.

Great. Fine. I think that's fine. Now, speaking of giving consumers information, you've introduced a bill and called on the FDA to make sure non-dairy milks don't get to gallivant around town wearing the milk label that you think the milk label belongs on dairy products, not whatever. they're squeezing out of almonds and soybeans.

Well, we could even do a contest around that. I think almond beverage sounds great.

Almond beverage? Almond juice?

Almond juice. That would be OK. There's. so there's not a statutory definition of beverage or juice. There is a statutory definition of milk.

Of milk.

And it comes from an animal that lactates.

So that's a goat. That counts.

Yes. You can say goat milk.

We can still say goat milk, everybody. And cow milk. But none of this almond milk.

That would be my preference, that the FDA actually enforce the law that they are required to enforce.

I'm kind of with that.

They're declining. They're declining to do so right now, which is very frustrating to my farmers. So so, you know, the use of the name actually has a serious impact on on their business. There's a lot of consumers. Again, you don't need to have knowledge about what you consume if you don't want to.

I'm a little information consumer.

But but what I would say is, you know, there's not. it's not a nutritional equivalence. And if you just like hear that, say, almond milk is is better for you because it's plant based. You know, children need calcium. Babies need nutrients that milk provides.

So, yeah. Wisconsin's culture is not your costume. Almonds. Is that what you're saying?

OK, I was going to say. But, you know, we were just talking about tick tock. I'm not talking about banning almond beverage.

I know I'm saying you are. I just want to label it. I think juice. I think we have to face the fact that, just because it's milk in its appearance, it's just juice because you get it. the same way.

There's some great YouTube videos about of I. I'll let you know the link later.

OK, now the last question, you're gay. We talked about that earlier. Let me ask you this. And you may not have an answer. Muna or boy genius.

I don't have an answer.

OK, I'm a. I'm a Muna girl. What are your thoughts on Renee Rapp?

Oh, gosh. You're going to show how.

No, no, this is what this is. Listen, I think, look, these coastal elites, you know about Renee Rapp, they know about Muna and boy genius, not the hard scrabble milk chugging. You're too busy. You're too busy under a cow doing this to know what Muna is.

I think the answer is yes. And that's really. you're supposed to brief me before this interview.

That is part of the fun. Senator Tammy Baldwin, thank you so much for your time.

Thank you.

What can people do to help in the campaign right now?

Go to Tammy Baldwin dot com. There's all sorts of opportunities there. So obviously people can give, people can volunteer. We've got a toolkit on how people can amplify the message online using all sorts of social media, including tech talk, including tech talk. So, yeah, a lot people can do to help.

All right, Senator, thank you, so much. Thank you.

All right. Are you going to give me the cultural reference?

Let's actually, let's leave this out. Let's OK. OK, so basically, here's what we got. So Muna and Boy Genius are two groups that they're. both have three members.

But they're just. can I tell you that my arrow, it would be Elton John or Queen.

For sure. And what would you have chosen? Elton John. OK, I think, and I think that's fine.

Both of the movies, the biopics, came out like right about the same time. And I found them both very fascinating. But yeah, that's my. you know, in my high school, you know, basketball games. when I'm in the stand, it was, you know, we are the champions, and I brought you so that, you know,

I have Elton John phases and I have Queen phases. I absolutely love both. I will see neither of those movies for very simple reasons. I do not like movies about artists making art. Because it always ends up with somebody going like, what kind of Rhapsody should it be?

Thanks to Tammy Baldwin for joining us today, and we'll have another episode for you on Wednesday. If you want to get ad free episodes, exclusive content and more, consider joining our Friends of the Pod subscription community at crooked.com slash friends. And if you're already doom scrolling, don't forget to follow us at Pod Save America on Instagram, Twitter and YouTube for access to full episodes, bonus content and more. Plus, if you're as opinionated as we are, consider dropping us a review. Pod Save America is a Crooked Media production.