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1:51

Welcome to PODSave America. I'm Jon Favre. I'm

1:53

Jon Lovett. I'm Tommy Ditor. On today's show,

1:55

Little Ronnie Pudding Fingers finally responds

1:58

to Trump's attacks and quietly

1:59

signs a six-week abortion ban in Florida,

2:02

Kevin McCarthy has a new debt-sailing plan that's probably

2:04

dead on arrival. You know, he may not have wanted

2:06

to sign it, but his fingerprints were all over it. Pudding.

2:10

Pudding fingers. The proof. The Democrats'

2:13

Dianne Feinstein problem is not going away,

2:15

and neither are Clarence Thomas' ethics

2:17

scandals. Then we talked to Crooked Zone

2:19

Max Fisher about the epic defamation

2:22

case that's set to begin this week between Fox News

2:25

and Dominion Voting Systems. All

2:27

right, let's get to the news. The Republican

2:29

presidential primary starting to give

2:31

off some 2016 vibes. Donald

2:33

Trump has been attacking Ron DeSantis as

2:36

a grandma-killing establishment

2:38

rhino pedophile for weeks now.

2:40

That tracks you. But it was this

2:43

MAGA Super PAC ad that finally

2:45

prompted DeSantis' ironically-named

2:48

never-back-down Super PAC

2:50

to respond. Ron DeSantis

2:52

loves sticking his fingers where they don't

2:54

belong, and we're not just

2:56

talking about pudding. Here's

3:00

the response from DeSantis World. Donald

3:03

Trump is being attacked by a Democrat prosecutor

3:05

in New York. So why is he

3:07

spending millions attacking the Republican governor

3:09

of Florida? Trump's stealing pages from the

3:11

Biden-Pelosi playbook, repeating

3:14

lies about Social Security. Trump should

3:16

fight Democrats, not lie about Governor DeSantis. What

3:19

happened to Donald Trump? The Super PAC is

3:21

not

3:21

going to be a good thing. The

3:23

President is going to be a good thing. But Governor

3:25

DeSantis, what happened to Donald Trump?

3:28

The Super PAC also ran this online-only

3:30

ad about Trump that was targeted at Republicans

3:33

who attended the NRA convention in Indianapolis

3:35

over the weekend, where Trump spoke, but

3:37

DeSantis did not. Trump promised

3:39

NRA members he'd have their back. But when

3:41

Second Amendment rights came under attack, Trump

3:43

abandoned us. You guys, half of you are so afraid

3:46

of the NRA. I like taking the guns

3:48

early. Take the guns first. Trump cut

3:50

and run like a coward.

3:51

Trump the gun grabber

3:53

doesn't deserve a second chance.

3:56

All right, what do you guys think of these ads?

3:59

Take on the strategy. behind them and

4:01

do you think they're effective? Tommy?

4:03

The pudding thing worked. It's

4:06

weird and gross and funny and memorable, and

4:08

it's getting covered on the

4:10

mainstream media, on social media, and it's

4:12

Trojan horsing in this message about

4:15

cutting Social Security. It was well done. It's

4:17

a good point about the Trojan horsing. I think

4:20

the horse was pretty open. No, but I

4:22

get it because it's like,

4:23

if you just did another Social

4:26

Security Medicare hit, who's going to cover that? Who's going to

4:28

cover that? You got some fun pudding stuff in there? We

4:30

got some weird pudding pops. And then you got a

4:32

really effective message about Social Security Medicare in

4:34

there. A-plus ad. It's an A-plus

4:36

ad, and we were talking about this when it first came out.

4:39

It's a shockingly normal political ad. It

4:41

feels like it could be made by any normal,

4:45

for a Democrat or a Republican. It's just

4:47

a traditional, professional ad. The

4:50

first thing I thought was I'm like, David Plouffe probably

4:53

loves this ad. I can see him. This is like

4:55

a Barack Obama versus John

4:57

McCain ad, Barack Obama versus Mitt Romney

4:59

ad. And there's a Santa's response. When

5:02

you whine about tactics, that to me always

5:04

says you are losing. You're saying, how

5:07

dare Donald Trump attack a Republican?

5:09

Are you just meeting Donald Trump? Did you not watch

5:11

the primary? That's all he does. No Trump voters are upset

5:13

that Trump is attacking another Republican. Also,

5:17

first of all, I do think it gives you a little bit. There's

5:19

a little bit of a hint of where they

5:21

want to go, which is like, there's a little

5:23

bit like he's creepy. He's filthy. Oh,

5:26

DeSantis? Yes, DeSantis. No, no, no. There's

5:29

a little bit of that like, you know. He's a weirdo. He's a weirdo.

5:31

He's a creep. They want to get those

5:33

photos with the teenagers back out there. So

5:35

that's under there a little bit. The DeSantis

5:38

response, I think, gives itself away

5:40

when it ends with what happened to Donald Trump,

5:42

which is kind

5:44

of like saying like, oh, because even the

5:46

DeSantis ad says he used to be fucking

5:48

awesome. You know? Like, you don't

5:50

want your own ad to say like, god, I

5:52

miss that Donald Trump guy. Even the NRA

5:54

ad. Like, maybe there are some hardcore

5:57

NRA fans and guns support on

5:59

that.

5:59

that are upset by that ad, but most

6:02

of the ad was Trump looking tough in

6:04

talking about fighting the NRA, a powerful

6:06

interest group. Like, are you kidding me? It really

6:08

was like, um,

6:09

it was an, the gun one was much worse, I think,

6:11

for DeSantis. First of all, the gun ad, maybe

6:14

who knows how it plays for the wackadoos

6:16

attending an NRA convention, but it showed

6:18

him negotiating for a modest

6:21

gun reforms with Democrats and Republicans

6:24

and we're what, like we're

6:26

seven years into this fucking Trump fiasco

6:28

and you still think you get points by

6:30

showing Trump not caring what interest groups think.

6:33

Like it's, it's wild. To me, it

6:35

speaks like they, their theory of the case here

6:37

is so flawed. Yeah. Um,

6:39

like Republican voters who

6:42

are considering ditching Donald Trump are not

6:44

doing so because they

6:46

think he's not conservative enough

6:48

on issues like guns or

6:51

abortion or because like Tommy

6:53

said, they think he's too mean to other Republicans.

6:56

If they are considering ditching Donald Trump, it's

6:58

because they are worried that he has

7:00

now lost them several elections.

7:03

Right. And for some insane reason,

7:05

DeSantis isn't making an electability argument,

7:08

but by the way, Trump is, Trump

7:10

knows that's a vulnerability and what he's trying to say

7:12

is, hey, all you

7:14

Republican voters who are maybe thinking about

7:16

DeSantis, he's going to be a weak general election

7:18

candidate because he wants to cut Medicare and

7:20

social security and because he's

7:22

also a little weird. Yeah, that's it. Little

7:25

establishment, little too minor, but like

7:28

really vulnerable in a general election against Joe Biden.

7:30

You sure you want to put Ron DeSantis up against Joe Biden? That's

7:32

what Trump's trying to say. It's smart. There's

7:35

a lot of things I think you can get the Republican

7:37

base to believe about Donald Trump, but you're never

7:39

going to get them to believe he's not on their side.

7:42

Like, first of all, everyone's tried that. It has never

7:44

stuck. No. Aside

7:47

from immigration,

7:48

I would argue that Republican voters did not

7:51

back Donald Trump in 2016 in the first

7:53

place because of any specific policy position.

7:55

No, it's all bias. Immigration was a bit, it's vibes. He owns the

7:57

lip cards. He's an asshole and it's also like.

8:00

Like

8:00

the guy doesn't sound like a regular fucking

8:03

politician and guess what, DeSantis does now.

8:05

And this is when DeSantis was doing well when he was fighting

8:07

Disney and yelling at, you know, what

8:10

corporations, what about. Which he's back at again. He's trying to do it again,

8:12

yeah. Yeah, and there's that line

8:14

from Mad Men that I'll paraphrase, which is, it's what I think

8:16

of whenever I see DeSantis and Trump going at

8:18

it, which is DeSantis is

8:20

trying to make Republicans feel as if their needs are met, but

8:23

Donald Trump makes them feel as if they have no needs. And

8:25

it's just over and over again, DeSantis

8:28

gets himself wrapped around the axle because

8:30

he's

8:30

trying to win on points and there's this underlying

8:33

kind of inherent qualities

8:35

that these two guys have. He's not able to get

8:37

past. Electability is the only thing.

8:39

Yeah, and you hear all these Trump people, even the

8:41

ones that they're interviewing now who are like thinking about

8:43

both candidates and they'll say, you know, what about Donald

8:45

Trump? They're like, ah, you know, I wish you wouldn't

8:47

tweet as much and sometimes what he says gets in trouble,

8:49

but I like that he says what's on his mind.

8:52

I trust that. And with DeSantis,

8:54

they don't trust that. Yeah, it's like,

8:56

you want the fun dad that's gonna take you on the roller coaster or

8:59

not? No one's going

9:01

on any roller coasters now. Yeah. It's like,

9:03

shh. But in a drive Disney World out of the state. Go out the roller

9:05

coaster, you can see the state prison he's putting in there. Putting

9:08

dad.

9:09

Yeah, he did make a joke that he was going to maybe put

9:11

a prison in near Disney World just to punish

9:13

them more. DeSantis is also trying to get to the right

9:15

of Trump on the issue of abortion. He signed legislation

9:18

late Thursday night that would ban abortion in the state

9:20

of Florida after six weeks, which is essentially

9:22

a full ban since most abortions occur after

9:24

six weeks and many people don't even

9:26

know they're pregnant. By six weeks, DeSantis

9:29

didn't say a word about the new law at the multiple

9:32

events he held around the country, which tells you

9:34

how much of a winner he thinks the ban is. One

9:36

of DeSantis's billionaire donors, Thomas

9:39

Petterfi, sounds like a

9:41

perfect billionaire donor, told the Financial

9:43

Times that he and a bunch of his friends are now, quote,

9:45

holding our powder dry because of the governor's

9:48

stance on abortion and book banning.

9:51

From a political standpoint, why

9:53

do we think Ron DeSantis did this? He had a 15 week

9:55

ban. This seems like a political

9:58

suicide. The numbers are not even.

9:59

even close. The University of Florida

10:02

did a poll in February that found

10:04

that 75% of Florida residents

10:06

opposed a six-week ban, including 61% of

10:09

Republicans. This is an insane

10:12

idea. It will have huge ramifications

10:14

outside of Florida because Florida

10:17

was unfortunately a place a lot of women had to go

10:19

to get abortion services because other states around

10:21

it had even more draconian bans. The

10:24

only reason the Florida legislature could pass this

10:26

is because the state is so gerrymandered. But this just seems like

10:28

an insane decision, like sort of a kamikaze

10:30

political decision to try to win a primary

10:33

that will have huge ramifications for DeSantis

10:36

and the party in any general election. Somebody

10:39

close to DeSantis said this to the Washington Post,

10:41

abortion is not an issue that motivates him.

10:43

I can tell you that. But it's one of those, what

10:46

choice do we have? And it's like

10:48

he clearly had hoped that the 15-week

10:51

ban would get him to

10:52

the other side of this issue without having

10:55

to pick a fight with

10:57

the evangelical base that wants a total

11:00

ban. But he couldn't come out against

11:02

this. He clearly didn't want to do a six-week ban,

11:05

but felt dragged to it by the right-wing

11:07

members in the Florida legislature.

11:09

And now he has tied himself to this

11:13

evil fucking thing. And he can

11:15

sign it behind closed doors all he wants. It is going to follow

11:17

him for the rest of this campaign.

11:20

Clearly, like you

11:21

guys said, the motivation is to try

11:24

to win this primary. And general election

11:26

will worry about that later. I

11:27

don't even know if it really is going

11:30

to help him in this primary, partly

11:32

because of what we were just talking about with

11:34

the NRA ad too. It's like this

11:37

theory that the evangelical base, they

11:39

just, they really just care about abortion

11:41

and that's it. Like, maybe

11:44

at one point they used to, it's all vibes now.

11:47

They're not backing Donald Trump,

11:49

the guy who's probably paid for multiple abortions

11:51

himself, who's been married multiple times

11:53

because they think he's

11:55

a righteous person. But also,

11:57

like, what are we doing here? Take it from the other side. Let

12:00

me give you the other side. Donald Trump, on

12:02

the issue of abortion, Donald Trump

12:04

is the most successful Republican president

12:07

in a half century. He stacked the court with

12:10

right-wing judges who are anti-abortion. He delivered

12:12

them the majority that got rid of Roe v.

12:14

Wade. You can try to get to

12:16

the right in this politically stupid

12:18

way, but you're not gonna win on that issue.

12:20

It's

12:23

really baffling. There are reports that Trump's

12:25

been telling anti-abortion activists

12:28

that Republicans risk losing big on this

12:30

issue unless they soften the messaging, and

12:33

Trump wants to be emphasizing exceptions

12:35

to bans, and he thinks that all of these total bans

12:37

are bad now, which, by the way, for Trump,

12:40

is very silly, because it's like you just said. He's

12:42

the guy that literally his judges

12:45

are the reason the dobs happened. Well, he's basically

12:47

saying, look, guys, we gotta lie a little bit. Come on, work with me

12:50

here. He's been saying this for

12:50

years. He's been saying this for years. He was, when

12:53

he was first, before he even

12:55

got the majority to do it, he was worried about

12:57

the political implications of this, and kind of has always

12:59

kind of joked about the evangelicals being

13:01

kind of weird to him. He's never got them. They don't

13:03

resonate on the same frequency. I mean, how

13:05

long until Donald Trump starts openly attacking

13:08

DeSantis for the six week ban? You can see it.

13:11

I mean, it's gonna be hypocritical, obviously, but he's

13:13

gonna be too extreme. He's not gonna win the general

13:16

Medicare and Social Security position, his

13:18

abortion position. This guy's a weirdo. It's the

13:20

pudding,

13:20

the pedophilia. I

13:23

don't know. And the

13:25

one piece of this is, I can imagine

13:27

DeSantis thinking, I'm just

13:29

trying to get past this issue, right? If

13:31

he fights this thing that the majority of the caucus

13:33

wants in the legislature, he's

13:35

now in a fight over abortion that makes it more

13:37

salient. He signed this law and now he kind of moved

13:40

past it, even though the politics will trail him. That's the only

13:42

kind of cynical political argument

13:44

you can say. I think you can move past it because he's gonna

13:46

own the ramifications. There's gonna be story after story after

13:48

story of the horrific consequences of this

13:50

law. I think it is crazy

13:53

to me. I've really tried to think of it from his

13:55

point of view, just

13:57

from pure hard politics.

13:59

I think he was smart for not doing this and

14:02

just sort of standing behind a 15 week ban, but

14:04

the more palatable politically at least.

14:07

And there was the

14:09

Republican Senate majority leader who

14:11

is someone who is less conservative on this issue

14:14

was asked why she was getting

14:16

behind this. And she's like, asked Ron DeSantis.

14:19

She basically was like, looking at him to help me get out of this fucking thing. This

14:21

is not like the legislature just like handed

14:23

him something that he's like, oh, now I have to sign it or

14:25

not sign it. Like he runs that legislature. Right.

14:28

He had a choice to make. Whether he wanted to have the

14:30

fight or not. Yes. Believe

14:32

it or not, there are other Republicans in this race. Though

14:34

the potential field shrank by one over

14:36

the weekend as never given inch

14:39

author, Mike Pompeo did in fact give

14:41

several inches when he announced that he won't

14:43

be running for president. A political earthquake

14:46

that upended the GOP primary.

14:48

Other 2024 hopeful seem to have a higher tolerance

14:51

for embarrassment. Mike Pence was booed

14:53

at the NRA convention in his home state

14:55

where he once served as governor. Nikki

14:58

Haley's campaign was caught lying about their fundraising

15:00

totals. They inflated them by about $3

15:02

million because they were double counting a bunch of money.

15:04

Like, oops.

15:05

It was just getting through a news cycle, right? At

15:07

a big GOP donor retreat in Nashville

15:09

over the weekend, governors Chris Sununu and Brian Kemp

15:12

offered some gentle criticism of Trump.

15:14

And then Trump got up there and mocked every

15:16

single candidate's single digit polling. He

15:18

goes, it's actually pretty. He's like, Chris

15:21

Christie, 1%. Wow, phenomenal.

15:24

Nikki Haley, she's working hard. Working

15:26

hard. Now before we get to the rest of the field,

15:28

Tommy, is this Mike Pompeo announcement

15:31

a huge blow to worldos everywhere?

15:34

Thank you, John, for asking. This was

15:36

a tough weekend for me and tens of

15:38

others. Actually,

15:40

I prepared

15:43

something. Okay,

15:45

he folded something up in his pocket. I just

15:47

wanted to. Why would it be separate than his laptop? Ambien and

15:49

Olivia do have their hands over their mouths. I don't

15:52

understand why you'd have to print something. He has a laptop.

15:54

It's an important moment. It's just drama.

15:56

We gather here today to mourn the death

15:58

of Michael Richard Pompeo. presidential

16:01

ambitions. I know that

16:03

some of you traveled from as far away as Santa

16:05

Monica to be here. And I just wanted

16:07

to say thank you, and that it means a lot to me. As

16:10

Neil Young once wrote, Oh my God. My,

16:13

my, hey, hey, parens out of the

16:15

blue, closed parens. It's

16:17

better to burn out

16:18

than it is to rust. The king is gone,

16:21

but he's not forgotten. There's

16:24

not a spot of rust on you, Mike. Once

16:26

described in The New Yorker as a heat-seeking

16:29

missile for Trump's ass, Mike

16:31

Pompeo soared to intercontinental

16:33

political heights. Born in Orange,

16:35

California, it's a Dorothy and Wayne Pompeo. Mike

16:38

met his real daddies, the Koch brothers, after

16:41

moving to Kansas in the mid-90s. From

16:43

there he took on Congress, the deep

16:45

state, the State Department, and the world. It's

16:48

hard to quantify what his absence will mean, John.

16:51

As John Steinbeck said, according

16:53

to brainy quotes,

16:54

it's so much darker when a light goes out than

16:57

it would have been if it had never shown. Mike

16:59

Pompeo, the Cav pack,

17:02

from tweets with no engagement to

17:03

tier two Sunday shows to sparsely

17:06

attended Iowa events,

17:08

you lit the way for dozens and

17:10

we will miss you. Wow,

17:12

that's a beautiful performance. He really captured, he captured

17:14

the tone. Okay. Oh,

17:20

there it is again. You should just, we need

17:23

the, we

17:25

should also layer on the Zimpick jingle. I

17:28

thought, yeah, also, just saying. Did

17:31

he do that with discipline? Wasn't he like the

17:33

first person and maybe only person to blurb

17:35

his own book too? Oh yeah, he did his own book. I

17:38

want to, there was one part at the end,

17:40

thank you Tommy by the way. Thank

17:42

you for giving me this moment. So

17:44

Mike Pompeo, whose

17:47

whole public persona is about

17:49

how sort of

17:50

unstoppable he is, doesn't

17:53

give an inch, decides to give

17:55

all the inches and step out. And he releases

17:57

a full page statement on Twitter about.

17:59

he's doing it. But the end of the statement to

18:02

me captured everything that makes Mike Pompeo, someone

18:04

would just say, they have some worst personality in public

18:06

life. And he ended the statement by saying this, to

18:09

those of you, this announcement disappoints my apologies.

18:11

And to those of you this thrilled know

18:14

that I'm 59 years old, there remain many

18:16

more opportunities for which the timing might be more fitting

18:18

as presidential leadership becomes even more

18:22

necessary. What's the problem with that? It is

18:24

that is an incredible statement.

18:26

Be like, like, it's very

18:29

much like, I'm sorry,

18:29

I can't meet you at the flagpole after school today.

18:32

I have violin practice, but oh, next couple

18:34

of days, we're going to find a time and boy, are we going to fight

18:36

at that flagpole.

18:37

He is really embarrassing. Don't threaten us with

18:40

a good time, Mikey. It's like, but also even

18:42

the end of that statement, like, so you're saying that now

18:44

is not the time for presidential leadership, but,

18:46

but in the future, it might be. It's, it's, it's,

18:49

it's just so arrogant and

18:51

stupid.

18:52

God. May's memory be a blessing.

18:54

I mean, I miss them already. Raises

18:56

a question. We're not going to do, uh,

18:59

predictions here. We're not going to, that's going

19:01

to feel like a little 20, oh, you know,

19:04

so far, do you think any of these

19:07

fucking Yahoo's are showing

19:09

what it takes not even to beat Trump, but to

19:11

like be the new

19:13

Ron DeSantis if for some reason Ron

19:15

DeSantis continues to shit the bet.

19:17

Uh, it's pretty, you know, you could, you would

19:19

say like, all right, obviously none of these other fucking

19:22

jokers, but like you look at someone like Tim Scott

19:24

and say, okay, maybe. And then he gets the most

19:27

obvious question that you could

19:29

possibly be asked about abortion and gives

19:31

a absolute, just a word salad

19:33

in response, though it actually captures,

19:36

I think the problem that has nothing to do with each one of those

19:38

individual. There was a sort of a column, uh,

19:41

looking at like the politics of what Tim Scott

19:43

is supposed to say. And he's supposed to find a place in the

19:45

Venn diagram that will please the evangelical

19:47

base

19:47

without pissing off the vast majority

19:50

of Americans who approach choice. And they don't overlap.

19:52

They just don't overlap. Nor does, nor does

19:55

the Republican base and being hopeful.

19:57

Yeah. That's not what they're looking for. It seems

19:59

like. I feel like the plan right now is once

20:02

again to hope that Donald Trump

20:04

will implode on his own, even

20:07

though

20:08

they all chose to defend him over

20:11

the indictment that might have led to that implosion.

20:14

So even when things come up that might hurt

20:17

Donald Trump, no one is gonna

20:19

take advantage of it or hasn't so far. No

20:21

one wants to exploit it. If you do not go after

20:24

Donald Trump directly and do

20:26

so, and again, I get that most

20:28

of the base to the voters you need loves Donald Trump, so

20:30

you have to be careful on how you do it. But

20:33

the electability argument is

20:35

that is what's on Republican voters' minds.

20:38

They are willing to hear a case about that. Just

20:40

fucking go do it.

20:42

It's a bunch of people throwing

20:44

buckets of water on a house fire, hoping that

20:47

the house burns down. How

20:49

about that? Okay, I like that. I like

20:51

that. Just

20:52

came to me. Ae

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23:55

Let's talk about Congress, which is back

23:58

in session this week. They're back, baby. Didn't

24:00

even know they were gone. Kevin

24:02

McCarthy is still trying to pass a budget through the Republican

24:04

House that raises the debt ceiling. His latest plan

24:07

is a one year extension of the debt

24:09

ceiling to May of 2024, right

24:11

in the middle of campaign, that should be fun. And

24:14

this plan would gut all non-defense,

24:16

non-entitlement spending, repeal student

24:19

loan forgiveness, repeal clean energy tax

24:21

credits that were in the IRA, increase

24:23

fossil fuel production, and institute

24:25

work requirements for Medicaid and food

24:28

assistance.

24:29

What's the thinking behind this plan? What

24:31

are the chances it actually passes? Love it. It's

24:34

funny to say what's the thinking behind the plan.

24:36

It's Kevin McCarthy. He

24:40

is the political equivalent of

24:43

checking your watch while holding a coffee. And,

24:45

you know, as a rule, when Kevin McCarthy

24:47

does something, you

24:53

could ask, if you don't really understand it, it's like,

24:55

is he smart

24:56

or is he stuck?

24:57

And the answer is never that he's smart. And

25:00

in this case, you would wanna say, okay,

25:03

he knows he's in a bind. He made all these promises

25:05

to the base to get the speakership. So he needs

25:07

to go through the motions of putting forward these

25:09

kind of draconian cuts to show that

25:12

this can't pass ultimately on the road to

25:14

what can pass, which is a clean

25:17

increase that is mostly passed with Democrats in the

25:19

House, with some Republicans who jump on board. You would

25:21

like to think that that is what we're heading towards, but

25:25

more likely,

25:26

he is just putting one foot in front of the other

25:28

trying to get through a day beyond that. He's

25:30

just trying to figure out, he has to put something forward so he can blame

25:33

Biden for refusing to negotiate and they haven't released

25:35

a budget yet. I think still, even after

25:37

the speech, the thing that bumped

25:39

me was doing this speech

25:42

at the stock market was an interesting

25:44

choice. Yeah, he spoke, he went to Wall Street today

25:46

and spoke at the stock market. Yeah, a bit

25:48

like an Al-Qaeda member doing a press conference

25:50

on an airplane, you know what I mean? Like check out this thing I'm

25:52

about to crash. I don't know, I see. I

25:56

guarantee you that these CEOs care a

25:59

hell of a lot more.

25:59

about their stock price than

26:02

deficit spending. Look,

26:05

I don't know what the guy's doing. I think, I mean, it's

26:07

what you said, Tommy. He wants to, all

26:09

he's thinking about is I gotta get something through the House, right?

26:11

And so I gotta find a majority of House,

26:14

I gotta find basically all of his House Republicans to

26:16

vote for this plan. And

26:18

that means he needs the Freedom

26:21

Caucus wackos, he needs the

26:23

problem solvers, right? He needs

26:25

everyone, he needs most of the caucus. And

26:27

then if he can pass it, he can say, okay, Joe Biden,

26:30

you told me you'd sit down and negotiate. If I had a plan, I passed

26:32

a plan. If you don't like it, that's fine, but at least sit

26:34

down and negotiate. So then he gets Biden to the negotiating table.

26:36

The question is, can he even get this passed?

26:39

The House, because the way this plan

26:41

is now, it's not the draconian

26:43

balanced budget in 10 years, which they've all given up

26:46

on, or cutting Medicare and Social Security,

26:48

which they seem to have given up on as well. But the cuts

26:50

are deep enough that some moderate Republicans

26:52

are already starting to balk at the plan. Yeah,

26:55

I just, it all is heading to the same

26:57

place, whether it gets killed

26:59

by some House Republicans or it makes it to the Senate

27:02

and gets killed by Republicans there, we're heading

27:04

to a place where at some point this will be,

27:07

the question will become, will Kevin McCarthy

27:09

say, sorry guys, I tried.

27:11

And that is where this has to head, but it doesn't

27:13

seem like he's gonna acknowledge that. I just

27:15

think he's trying to keep the speakership as long as he possibly can.

27:17

But I mean, creating work requirements

27:20

to receive Medicaid and food stamps.

27:23

So if you have cancer, you have to go out

27:25

and get a job,

27:26

and then you can get chemotherapy, that's what we're doing here.

27:28

And then Reuters found that

27:31

most of the spending cuts McCarthy wants

27:33

will hurt states. Trump won in 2020 more than blue

27:35

states. No,

27:38

yeah, both the cuts

27:40

to domestic spending on education and transportation

27:42

would hurt those states and instituting work

27:44

requirements would also hurt those states because the

27:46

vast majority of

27:47

people who are on Medicaid and food assistance are in those states. Yeah,

27:50

I just, you sort of step back from all this.

27:52

It's like, no, this ridiculous,

27:55

these ridiculous cuts are never gonna become law. There's not,

27:58

what, there's probably not 40 votes

27:59

They're dead, Miss Emighan. They're dead. And

28:02

so, okay, well, where are we heading? And it's

28:05

just,

28:05

whatever shenanigans

28:07

McCarthy pulled over the next few months,

28:09

is he gonna bring to the floor something that

28:11

would pass with majority Democratic votes?

28:14

And then lose his bigger ship, yeah. And then lose his bigger ship. But I

28:16

do think if this fails in the House,

28:18

this plan, if he can't even get it through the House,

28:21

ironically, we might get a

28:22

better outcome sooner. Yeah.

28:25

Because he will continue to fucking drag this

28:27

along by, if he

28:30

gets it through the House, he's gonna claim it's a big

28:32

win.

28:32

We're gonna know it's not. The press is

28:35

probably gonna be, oh, McCarthy got it passed. Time

28:37

for Joe to negotiate. We're gonna get a round

28:39

of time for Joe to negotiate. Or it's like now it falls

28:41

to McConnell and, there's just gonna be, yes, sure.

28:44

It is gonna be a bring McCarthy, why don't

28:46

you bring McCarthy to the White House and just sit down and talk

28:48

about the plan? You don't have to accept the plan, you just have to negotiate.

28:51

And Biden's gonna have to say, no, I don't wanna negotiate. It's gotta be a clean

28:53

debt ceiling. And then it's gonna be a whole thing. that

28:55

are like, don't make me vote for this fucking thing. But

28:58

if McCarthy fails now, then I think

29:00

it's right to, then McConnell and Schumer

29:02

have to

29:02

get together and just start figuring something out. And then

29:05

jam through the House. And then force a jam through the House. But someone has to call

29:07

it for a vote on the floor. We have an update

29:09

on 89-year-old Diane Feinstein, who

29:11

Lovett's been trying to shove out of the Senate. Excuse

29:14

me. There's no shoving. No, gentle.

29:18

An invitation. Push. An invitation. An

29:20

invitation. Just sort of a prodding. Prodding.

29:23

Cattle. Chuck Schumer said he

29:25

spoke to the Senator who said she

29:27

hopes to return soon, but he still wants

29:29

to appoint a temporary replacement on the Judiciary

29:31

Committee. Ain't happening.

29:34

First they thought maybe unanimous consent.

29:36

Then Tom Cotton was like, nope, not unanimous

29:38

consent. And then they're like, okay, well, you could do it with 60

29:40

votes if maybe Mitch McConnell will help

29:42

us out. And then all these Republican senators over the course

29:45

of the day were like, what, why would we help Democrats and firm judges?

29:47

Absolutely not. Which, of course, if

29:49

the shoe was on the other foot and this was an old Republican

29:52

senator that they were trying to replace, would we be like,

29:54

oh yeah, Democratic senators. Help out Mitch

29:56

McConnell. Help them pass those courses. Of

29:59

course not. And crazy.

29:59

And yeah, so there's the idea that there would be these 10 Republican

30:02

votes, like everyone from the farthest right

30:04

like cod and all the way to like Susan Collins are like, I'm

30:06

sorry, what are you asking me? Absolutely not. So

30:10

what other options are there now? Love

30:12

it. There's really two options. Uh,

30:14

option number one is that Sine Center Feinstein returns

30:17

to the Senate to participate in

30:19

her vital work, uh, as a representative

30:22

of the most populous state and a member of the

30:24

judiciary committee or she resigns.

30:27

And although you and I were talking about this before

30:29

the pod, if she resides,

30:31

it still might be hard to replace her. It still might

30:33

be hard to replace her on the committee. So basically

30:36

everyone is, there's been a lot of kind of, I think,

30:38

um, now this, this will happen on Twitter and if you notice it,

30:40

people just saying things like Schumer can replace

30:43

it. No. Uh, in

30:45

fact, Schumer does not have the ability to put anyone on a

30:47

committee that requires the Senate to vote. And

30:49

normally that happens without incident at the

30:51

beginning of the Senate. It's very,

30:53

you know, it's very decorous. Everybody gets along,

30:55

uh, but it requires 60 votes or

30:58

unanimous consent, which is ultimately the same thing and

31:00

that have basically

31:01

Republicans get together, decide who's on their committees, Democrats

31:04

get together. And then they all kind of agree. Although

31:06

if you remember, there was a moment at the beginning of

31:09

the last Senate where Mitch McConnell held up

31:11

the vote with a filibuster for a while. I remember we were

31:13

like, this, the committees can't meet. It's going

31:15

to be really important. We've all forgotten about it, but it did happen.

31:18

But, uh, Cornyn today,

31:20

uh, told reporters that

31:23

the temporary replacement thing is out of the question,

31:26

but there's a precedent for Senator resigning

31:29

there being an opening in the normal course of business

31:31

that they would, uh, allow someone to fill

31:33

the seat. Now my concern could

31:35

be assholes if they want it. Well, my concern is

31:37

that we've now had like a two week news cycle that

31:39

began with Dick Durbin saying, Hey, I can't confirm

31:41

judges that is now basically

31:44

made this not about a routine filling of

31:46

an open opening, but a question of will

31:48

Democrats get to confirm more judges? So I worry

31:50

that that is planted up planted a seed

31:52

that is growing in the minds of the fertile minds

31:55

of your Tom's cotton and so forth. If only you

31:56

hadn't started this news cycle. Dick

31:58

Durbin started this news cycle.

31:59

I just helped it along don't blame Durbin

32:02

you always blame Durbin for everything I

32:04

don't know what to do with his power guys. I've

32:06

never felt so power I mean it you know I'm

32:09

eating raw meat and thinking about what other old people I can

32:11

push out of their jobs How about well, yeah,

32:13

it's gonna sit. That's a good idea Perfect segue Tommy,

32:15

perfect segue Oh wait can we do I do want to make one

32:17

more point though about about We were so called in, we

32:20

were flying into the next What other, what else

32:22

you got? What else you got? I just want to make one more

32:24

point about this all right Which

32:28

is because this could happen quickly between pods

32:29

and and I just need to have said this Which

32:34

is this, don't want Dan to take this point.

32:36

Yeah, which is which is this? That's how

32:38

it usually goes Given

32:41

given I'm gonna say it before it ends up in the message

32:43

box. His lipstick God's ears It usually goes the other

32:45

way usually goes message box through

32:47

me to the pot. You know the human chat

32:49

GPT for ad

32:51

jokes to message box But

32:54

but basically

32:55

You know if if it if center

32:58

Feinstein can't return soon And there's and she and

33:00

she does decide to as the LA Times said

33:02

heroically step aside Which I think is a

33:04

nice turn that too then it would be it would be

33:07

nuisance job to fill the seat Newsome

33:09

promise to Joy Reid in March of 2021 that he would

33:11

replace Diane Feinstein

33:14

with a black woman

33:15

Barbara Lee is obviously a black

33:17

woman who is running for the seat

33:20

That would mean that both of if he were to appoint

33:22

Barbara Lee that would mean both Senate seats

33:24

were filled by appointment And now I don't

33:26

think

33:27

given that the campaign's already started I don't think that means

33:29

we don't have a race between Adam Schiff and Katie Porter

33:32

and Barbara Lee But I

33:34

do think it were everyone

33:36

who's paying attention to this I think we all should really

33:39

hope that Gavin Newsome appoints He

33:41

said when he told Joy Reid there are many people

33:43

on his list He should appoint someone if this seat

33:46

opens up that is not

33:48

going to run for the seat So that Democrats

33:50

get the Demig so that we have a chance to Vote

33:53

for a senator so that both of our senators have

33:55

not come from the from an appointment But that one

33:57

of our senators has been chosen by us in an election

33:59

Look, I just want to thank you very much for

34:02

making that point that we discussed

34:04

extensively on Thursday's pod. Yeah, but

34:06

I Did

34:10

you exactly that did they really leave it in

34:17

Wait, what do you mean? Wait, Andy?

34:19

So you just cut it then no, we're

34:21

leaving. No, we're leaving. I got listening

34:23

a Thursday pod. Yeah, I'm making a show

34:26

Thursday

34:27

Check it for me. Let's see we can tighten this

34:29

up. We'll get you a reader Clarence Thomas The

34:31

right-wing justice now plans to amend

34:33

his financial disclosure forms after ProPublica

34:36

on a roll Reported that he failed

34:38

to include a real estate deal

34:41

with sugar daddy Harlan Crow Where

34:43

the Nazi memorabilia buff bought three

34:45

properties from Thomas including a home where the

34:47

justice's mother still lives rent-free The

34:50

Washington Post then reported that Thomas has also erroneously

34:53

claimed income from a defunct real estate firm

34:56

for the last several years though that one may be

34:58

more of a Bookkeeping error, but you know not

35:00

great. So Dick Durbin Coming

35:03

up all the time these days People

35:05

are talking more and more about these days. Yeah, he's

35:07

being recognized more and more Um, he said that

35:09

they'll hold a hearing about Supreme Court

35:12

ethics on the Judiciary Committee But

35:14

some activists are calling on Congress to subpoena

35:16

Thomas to testify can

35:18

they should they

35:20

what do we think? Tommy I mean they

35:22

should give it a shot I do want to just talk about

35:24

this real estate deal for a minute because Harlan

35:26

Crow they buy the house that

35:28

Clarence Thomas's mother still lives in someone

35:30

did the math on how much rent she

35:32

hasn't paid and it's they say Business

35:35

insider suggest that saved her 150 grand.

35:37

So that's interesting. He also bought

35:40

like the whole neighborhood He's gentrifying the whole neighborhood

35:42

and he's he's refurbishing This house

35:44

that Clarence Thomas's mother lives in while

35:47

also saying he wants to turn it into a museum Which

35:50

is a weird museum. Oh, yeah. No, it's all about a

35:52

museum, which is the weird more Nazi

35:54

memorabilia No, no for Clarence Thomas

35:56

Yeah, like a Clarence Thomas Museum, but if you're gonna turn if they

35:58

could be like this is his childhood

35:59

I brought out of places to keep all my Nazi memorabilia.

36:03

If you're gonna like turn a

36:05

childhood home into a museum, you probably

36:08

don't like gut the place and refurbish

36:10

it, right? So it's also not the first time he's

36:12

made some sort of bookkeeping error. He also, Thomas

36:15

failed to disclose his wife's income from

36:17

the Heritage Foundation for years. She

36:19

made $686,000 between 2003 to 2007 and he kept clicking like the box that said no

36:27

on whether she had any non-investment income.

36:30

You know, it's just

36:33

things keep happening to him. He didn't, doesn't

36:35

think these are rules matter or that

36:37

they're important or that he should be held

36:39

to any kind of standard. To your question, John,

36:43

can they subpoena him and should they? They

36:45

can and they should.

36:46

Yeah. That's it. They can and they should. And there's gonna

36:48

be a lot of- They can if Dianne

36:51

Feinstein comes back. We're gonna need every

36:53

vote. We're gonna need every vote. And Sheldon- I

36:55

don't want to be a shingles issue voter, but I do think it's

36:57

really important. Oh my God.

37:00

Can't believe you saved that till now. I forgot.

37:02

I typed it actually. I forgot to say it earlier.

37:05

That's prepped just in case. If I'm

37:08

called, if I'm canceled for it, just know that it was premeditated.

37:10

That's good. Sheldon Whitehouse is pushing the

37:12

Attorney General, Merrick Garland to investigate

37:14

Thomas as well.

37:15

Yeah. I think- Oh yeah. We'll be dead by then. Merrick

37:21

Garland wandering in the Justice Department with his candle

37:23

and his nightgown.

37:25

Slowly moving through the old house. But

37:28

look, there's been a lot of senators saying how there's all

37:30

these kinds- there's so many different people that should be doing

37:33

oversight. Well, they should do it too. They should give it a shot.

37:35

Yeah. Look, I realize there's not going to

37:37

be an extremely satisfying outcome

37:40

to this likely, but just

37:42

from a pure political perspective, like what's

37:45

going to happen? There's this all this corruption

37:47

surrounding this judge. He doesn't

37:49

have a higher approval ratings, nor does the institution

37:51

in which he serves at this point. You drag

37:53

him before the Senate to ask him a bunch of questions.

37:55

Yeah. It's a bad news cycle for two days

37:58

and maybe doesn't go- but what's the harm? What's

38:00

the harm? Even Mitt Romney today was asked about this.

38:02

He said that this story stinks. They're going

38:05

to retaliate. He did. So then you're

38:07

like, oh, now they're going to call justices all the time

38:09

to testify. Great. Drag Elena

38:11

Kagan before the Republicans. She'll collapse circles

38:13

around you, you fucking dummies. So do I.

38:15

What are they going to do? They're going to give great answers. Yeah,

38:18

remember when they were like, we're going to get Hillary Clinton to testify

38:20

all day about Benghazi. She made you look like Dopes. It

38:22

was the best day of the campaign. Right. Yeah.

38:26

Okay. Counterpoint. She

38:28

did say... Oh,

38:29

no, no. No. No,

38:32

no.

38:32

Oh, no, no. No, no. Oh, no. Oh.

38:35

Oh, no. Oh, no. Oh,

38:37

no.

39:03

Yeah,

39:29

I think they're lawyers in drag.

39:32

Six of them are freaks. At least

39:34

one's a criminal. Let's

39:37

do everything we can to have accountability. It's

39:40

the right thing to do. When is John Roberts doing another

39:42

public event? Because someone needs to say to him, hey,

39:45

man, you whine all the time

39:47

about political attacks and the legitimacy

39:49

of the court and don't attack it, blah, blah, blah. You're

39:52

doing more harm to the court's reputation than

39:54

anyone else by letting this flagrant

39:57

corruption go and not saying a word, not

39:59

doing anything.

39:59

I bet his schedule is pretty clear

40:02

right now. I bet he's not,

40:04

well, I don't think he wants to appear at a public event. Get

40:07

that question. Dorks are always talking at some law school about

40:09

something. This is the problem is they're so insulated

40:11

from any kind of reality. This is why

40:13

if you can subpoena him, it's a good thing to subpoena

40:15

him. There's going to be a whole, like, just

40:18

idiotic news cycle. People

40:20

throw in terms like separation of powers

40:23

and overreach and it's already being described

40:25

as a showdown. Just asking you to come answer some

40:27

questions. The idea that, like,

40:30

the idea that, like, the

40:32

laws that Thomas is accused of breaking

40:35

are made by Congress.

40:37

If he is to be impeached, it's going to be impeached by

40:39

Congress. He has got that seat because

40:41

he was confirmed by the Senate. It's not a violation

40:44

of the separation of powers to have a Supreme

40:46

Court justice testify for Congress. We're

40:49

also doing here is we're building support,

40:51

in my mind at least, for term limits. That's

40:54

what I want. Expanding the court, that's a little bit

40:56

of a fantasy right now. It's like the thinking

40:58

we're going to get rid of the electoral college. It's far,

41:00

far, far away. You're probably not on that PJ after

41:02

six years. That's like a 12

41:04

year kind of. Well, he famously said he's like, he's

41:06

been on the court for 30. He's like, I've been friends with Harlan Crow

41:09

for 25 years. Let's

41:12

start by trying to get some term limits on the Supreme Court.

41:15

That's my new thought. Let's see if we can get it. We're

41:17

all going to yell about expanding the court. We're so far

41:19

from that. We're so far from being able to do that having the votes,

41:21

but

41:21

I bet term limits is probably easier and

41:23

I still think it would be pretty effective. Yeah, I think a lot of

41:25

these octogenarian senators are going to be

41:28

big fans of term limits. What

41:30

else you guys talk about on Thursday? Senator, a

41:34

lot of senators just looking at that wet

41:36

bathroom floor, thinking there, but for the grace of God go I.

41:42

All right, when we come back, Tommy

41:44

and I will talk to- Do not DMCA this. It's

41:46

just YouTube. When we come back, Tommy

41:48

and I will talk to crooked contributor Max

41:50

Fisher about the Fox versus

41:53

Dominion trial.

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43:36

The defamation case between Fox News and

43:38

Dominion voting systems is scheduled to kick off

43:41

this week. Though as of right now we're

43:43

recording this on Monday afternoon. A last

43:45

minute settlement is still possible guys.

43:47

Could be in the offering. Could be in the offing. Here

43:50

to talk about the strength of Dominion's lawsuit

43:52

and the many implications of this case is

43:54

cricket's newest contributor Max Fisher. Hey Max. Hey

43:56

pals. What's going on? Thanks

43:58

for having me. Why aren't you in Wilmington? That's

44:00

for all the cool kids. I'm hologramming

44:03

in from Wilmington. Oh, right. That's

44:05

a media reporter. It is wild down here. It is popping off. Some

44:07

very fired up media reporters hanging out down

44:09

in Wilmington for no trial. Case of the century.

44:12

It's a glamorous field. What can I say? So

44:15

there's been reporting that Fox has wanted to settle

44:18

this case for a while now, but

44:20

so far Dominion has refused. What

44:23

do you think might get them to change their

44:25

minds at this late stage? So

44:27

we don't know why Dominion has

44:29

declined to settle. It stands to reason that

44:31

Fox News wants to because they've already settled one separate

44:34

case over 2020 election lies. There

44:38

are two kind of most plausible reasons in my

44:40

mind, although we don't know for sure. One is just that

44:43

Dominion Fox News might just have very different

44:45

reads on the likelihood of the

44:47

suit succeeding because successful

44:49

lawsuits, defamation lawsuits against big media

44:51

companies are really rare because the standard

44:54

is so high for them, which I know we're gonna talk about. So it might

44:56

just be like, there's not a lot of precedent

44:59

to look through to see the likely outcomes. Another

45:01

that I find a little bit more persuasive,

45:04

but it's speculative, is that Dominion

45:06

has a bunch of defamation

45:08

cases out right now related

45:11

to this specific set of lies around the 2020 election.

45:14

And this might partly be about signaling resolve

45:17

to those other defendants that we

45:19

are really willing to go to trial, like watch

45:21

us, so therefore we're not gonna be pushovers

45:23

when it comes to settlement. That's interesting,

45:26

I hadn't thought about that. I have

45:28

been reading about this and what

45:30

struck me is that Dominion seems to

45:33

have a

45:33

pretty strong case on the

45:36

liability front, on the fact that Fox is liable

45:38

for this, but less of a strong case on

45:41

the amount of damages that they asked for,

45:43

which is 1.6 billion. 1.6 billion,

45:46

yeah. And I think the company was

45:48

valued at like $80 million. Right,

45:50

yeah, some of these numbers are a little like

45:53

pulled from thin air. So

45:55

perhaps if this is less about a cause

45:57

for Dominion and more about like,

47:59

media organization. It's always really set

48:02

the United States apart and is considered part

48:04

of its press freedoms that it is so, so

48:06

hard to prove defamation by a media

48:08

organization because you have to prove that they internally

48:10

in their own minds knew they were lying when they did it, which

48:12

is incredibly hard to prove. The actual

48:15

malice standard. The actual malice standard, yeah, exactly.

48:17

And so because of that, there are very, very few

48:20

successful defamation suits against the media, even

48:23

when they get it wrong. And that's seen as an important

48:25

part of the protections for like, you

48:27

can get something wrong and it's not going to blow up your entire

48:30

news agency. I

48:32

think that there is a view among a

48:34

lot of First Amendment lawyers and maybe a lot of

48:36

journalists that that standard

48:39

is a little bit out of sync with how much our

48:41

world has changed in the last 65 years.

48:43

And even

48:46

just the last five or 10 years where extreme

48:48

polarization is so high now and the media

48:51

environment is so kind of Wild

48:53

West because of social media, because you get of all

48:56

these little networks like Newsmax, One American News popping

48:58

up and the stakes of it are so high because

49:00

we've seen that it can lead to insurrection and coups

49:02

that maybe there is a need to

49:05

effectively soften those standards a

49:08

little bit. Now, people bringing these cases aren't saying

49:10

we want to overturn that standard. They're all saying we

49:12

meet that standard set in 1964, but

49:15

any First Amendment lawyer will tell you if

49:17

a good number of these cases could, Dominion is bringing

49:19

a bunch, Smartmatic, another voting machine company is bringing

49:21

a bunch. If a good number of these cases succeed

49:24

because it's set by a Supreme Court

49:26

precedent by law, it will move that standard

49:29

a little bit in practice. And

49:31

maybe that is necessary in an age

49:33

where

49:34

our democracy is at imminent

49:37

risk from disinformation. And

49:39

I think there's also a case for it on

49:42

journalism grounds that if you are

49:44

concerned about the future of journalism

49:46

in this country and faith in journalism

49:49

as an institution, maybe you

49:51

want some harder guardrails to

49:53

come up in the form of

49:56

higher threats of liability because I don't

49:59

like the fact that I'm a political person. that people think

50:01

of the media as a monolith and think of journalism

50:03

as a monolith, but

50:04

they do. And their perception of whether journalism

50:07

as a concept works and can be

50:09

trusted is tied up in how they

50:11

perceive some of the largest actors in the media.

50:13

So you may be one if you care about journalism, people

50:16

to see their consequences for deliberately lying.

50:19

But

50:19

at the same time, I do have

50:22

this reservation

50:24

that cuts a little bit

50:26

the other way where there is this specific

50:29

scenario that I wouldn't say keeps me up at

50:31

night, but I do worry about any world

50:33

where a good number of these cases succeed

50:36

and that standard for bringing a defamation suit

50:39

gets a little fuzzier, which is that it

50:41

would become, I think, a little bit easier

50:44

for companies with big pockets

50:47

to try to bully or coerce news agencies

50:49

into not running or into

50:51

watering down stories that they don't want to

50:54

see run. Even if everybody knows the story, it's true because this

50:56

thing that big companies will do, and they've done it to

50:58

me many times, is when you go

51:00

to them with a story that they don't

51:03

like, they will try

51:05

to extract as much information from

51:07

you as they possibly can about what's going

51:09

to be in the story. And, journalistically, you're compelled

51:11

to at least take that seriously

51:14

because you're supposed to give them an opportunity to comment,

51:16

to respond to things. They will go to your

51:18

editors and try to get as much information as they can

51:20

about the story. They'll go to your bosses' bosses and try to

51:22

get information. And then they will create

51:24

a paper trail of giving you lots

51:27

of

51:28

emails and things in writing

51:30

saying, that thing that you're going to report, that

51:32

is not true. That's false. And

51:35

the thing you've learned very quickly is that- Then they trap

51:37

you into deliberately lying- Exactly.

51:39

Right, right, right. Which would be the actual

51:41

malice. Exactly. And in London, this is a big problem,

51:44

right? You've Russian oligarchs

51:46

bringing completely frivolous lawsuits

51:49

against journalists and basically

51:51

putting them out of business with

51:53

fees for attorneys, et cetera. Right, right.

51:55

And the fear is if The New York

51:57

Times, The Washington Post,

51:59

and a big company- company is creating

52:01

this paper trail and saying, all of these

52:03

things you're going to report are

52:06

not true. Even if you know they're lying,

52:08

if you make some innocent mistake

52:10

along the way, then they can

52:12

hold the threat over you of are they going to bankrupt

52:14

your news agency over this one mistake. There's

52:17

been a lot of talk about this very high standard

52:19

of actual malice, which is either the

52:22

outlet knows the information

52:24

they aired was false or did so with,

52:26

quote, reckless disregard for the truth. That's the

52:29

description of the standard. But in this case, it

52:31

does seem like Dominion might be able to

52:33

meet that very high standard. Like we might not even need

52:35

to move the standard at all just because

52:37

and you see a lot

52:38

of First Amendment lawyers, a lot of media lawyers

52:40

who've like represented media companies in these cases

52:43

before just saying that like,

52:45

I mean, the sheer amount of texts,

52:48

emails, testimony that we've

52:51

already seen in the pretrial period suggests

52:53

that, yeah, Fox did deliberately

52:56

know they were wrong. Like you don't even have to go with the reckless

52:58

disregard for the truth standard, which is

53:01

just the easier one. I mean, they clearly

53:03

knew this. What do we know at

53:05

this stage about the strengths

53:07

and weaknesses of Dominion's

53:09

case? So there's not a like

53:12

email from Rupert Murdoch saying we're

53:14

going to do

53:15

the big lie now and lie about Dominion voting systems,

53:17

but it's, it's pretty close. It's very

53:20

close. You have to do like a little bit of connecting

53:22

the dots. It's not like a 1 million percent slam

53:24

dunk. But basically what you have is

53:26

after the election, you have a bunch of internal

53:29

emails and text messages within Fox News, which we

53:31

have now because they came out in discovery in

53:33

the course of this lawsuit saying we

53:36

know that this Dominion conspiracy

53:38

theory that's out there and Trump's election denial

53:40

generally is false because initially they said we don't

53:42

want to follow him on it. I said, we don't want to go there. And

53:45

they were talking about how they like Sidney

53:47

Powell, who's Trump's lawyer, was pushing the Dominion

53:50

conspiracy about how she's crazy and she doesn't

53:52

have any evidence. And then you see

53:54

that their ratings start to drop and then they

53:57

start making, it's not exactly

53:59

they say let's do this dominion conspiracy

54:02

after all to get viewers back, but you

54:04

see them kind of allow

54:07

themselves to be pulled in to making this choice

54:09

because they have a couple anchors who are a little bit

54:11

rogue and errant. And at first they're concerned about

54:13

that. And then they're saying, well, actually this has a lot of ratings.

54:15

And then they're saying, well, actually we need to bring our viewers

54:18

back. And so I think that it is, it's

54:20

clearly pretty strong, which is why it's

54:23

going to trial in the first place. They can

54:25

prove, you know, each

54:27

step along the way adds up to an intentional

54:30

lie that is responsible for that level

54:32

of damages is going to turn a lot

54:35

on not just were

54:36

they lying because of course they were in the judges basically

54:38

come out and said, I think that they're lying, but

54:41

whether they can prove that the executives at

54:43

the company were

54:45

involved in the lie. Well, and that's key because

54:47

I've seen that now they want to go with

54:50

the defense that Lou

54:52

Dobbs and Maria Bartiromo

54:54

actually believed this. And so it wasn't

54:57

deliberately spreading misinformation. So they

54:59

really believe this and they're just crazy. So we're

55:01

going to throw them under the bus. But

55:03

I think the judge said at one point in

55:05

the pretrial period, like

55:07

it's not about who said it. It's

55:09

about the choice to publish

55:11

and air these lies. And

55:13

that rests with the executives. Right. Or

55:16

it rests, or at least it doesn't. They

55:18

can't push it off on the guests because initially they

55:21

were saying, we're just reporting

55:23

what the president and his allies are saying. These

55:25

are just guests on our show. We're not responsible for the

55:27

lies they tell. And I think what Judge

55:30

Davies was saying is that, no,

55:32

you chose to air that and you knew it was a lie when

55:34

you chose to air it. So that is not

55:36

that you're responsible for that. The

55:38

question is whether Fox

55:40

will be able to, as you say, to

55:42

portray Lou Dobbs and Maria Bartiromo as

55:44

rogue actors. And we know now that they actually tried

55:47

to coerce one of the assistants

55:50

on Maria Bartiromo's show into

55:53

giving false testimony that

55:55

would portray Bartiromo. Seems bad. Right.

55:58

Yeah.

55:59

for Fox case that that assistant

56:02

then came out and sued the network. And

56:04

it does seem like she was also pretty complicit

56:06

in that lie coming out. So she's not the most sympathetic

56:08

figure. But there is a lot of documentation

56:12

that the executives were at the very

56:14

least aware that it was happening and aware

56:16

that it was false and chose not to intervene

56:19

or

56:20

pushed it to happen. Yeah. I

56:22

want to push you on this, this sort of question of democracy play

56:24

a little devil's advocate here because you do hear a lot

56:26

of people say like, well, with the big lie, this

56:28

is bigger. This is about a threat to our democracy. But

56:32

I think a lot of academics in particular would argue

56:34

that press freedom is core to democracy right

56:36

now. And in India, for example, ostensibly

56:39

the world's largest democracy, the leader of the

56:41

biggest opposition party, the Congress Party, was

56:43

just sentenced to two years in prison for

56:45

defamation of Prime Minister Modi.

56:48

Actually, of like three dudes named Modi for

56:50

reasons I'll set aside. That

56:52

seems to be the biggest threat to India's

56:55

democracy, using defamation law to

56:57

throw an opposition leader in jail.

56:59

What do you make of the argument that this case could

57:01

do more harm than good

57:03

to our democracy if it in any way curtails

57:05

press freedom? I think we are balancing

57:09

through these trials, although no

57:12

one in the trial is doing this

57:13

deliberately. We are balancing a really

57:16

tough set of questions about our democracy,

57:18

about how we balance the absolute

57:20

standards of press freedom that we have right now

57:23

against the rising threat of deliberate

57:25

disinformation that clearly subsumed Fox News

57:28

even against the wills of its own hosts and executives

57:30

that they felt compelled to tell these lies that they knew

57:32

were going to these extremes. How

57:35

do you balance those things? How do you balance the

57:38

freedom to get things wrong in the media

57:41

against the clearly rising intentionality

57:44

of lies? And just the fact

57:46

that we are in such a rapidly changing

57:48

political environment where we have so many political

57:50

actors now who are leading the media rather than the other

57:52

way around trying to pull them towards

57:56

election denialism that has clearly

58:00

real gravity and real weight with the audience.

58:02

I mean, it's an irony that these

58:04

big weighty questions of trade-offs

58:08

are being litigated through a question of corporate

58:10

damages for a profit company,

58:12

which like, welcome to the United States of America. Like

58:14

that's where the priorities are. It's not like if you tell lies

58:16

that lead to an insurrection, like we're not gonna see you over

58:19

that, but you know, you lose some profits

58:21

for a company, that's bad. It's

58:23

just like, what do you define as journalism?

58:27

We've talked about Fox a lot

58:29

on this program and they like to think of themselves

58:31

as a media outlet. I think there

58:33

was a time when other journalists would

58:35

think of them as a media outlet that was just conservative.

58:38

I think that time has passed for most, for a lot of people

58:42

who aren't Fox fans or mag people.

58:44

So then like, are you able to

58:46

get away with just

58:49

lying intentionally because

58:51

you call yourself a media outlet? Right. And

58:54

I think that's one of the things to balance

58:56

as well. Yeah, and

58:57

it's degrees too. I think what's fascinating about

59:00

the disclosures that we saw

59:02

of Fox News' internal emails and

59:04

text messages is you actually see them wrestling

59:07

with this question

59:08

in real time because they have reporters,

59:10

they do have obviously a diminishing part of

59:12

the network, they do have reporters who do re-reporting and they

59:15

had a reporter who fact checked,

59:17

I think one of Sidney Powell's press conferences and

59:19

was getting just dragged internally

59:21

within the network because people saw, the host

59:24

saw, the executive saw that that was playing

59:26

into hurting their ratings. Now at the same time, the

59:29

executive- I think Hannity and maybe Tucker

59:31

Carlson said, we need to fire her like right away. Right,

59:34

right. They claimed that she was hurting the stock price,

59:36

which might actually be true. Right.

59:38

Oh yeah, sure was, hopefully.

59:41

And you saw Rupert Murdoch

59:43

initially after the election saying, we're

59:46

not gonna go down election

59:48

misinformation, we're not gonna go around down

59:50

election denial because I think this is bad for the

59:52

country. And then he changed his mind. So

59:55

I don't have any delusions

59:57

that the people at Fox are gonna make the right

59:59

choice because- because of ethical reasons, but

1:00:01

I think there is a question of what are the financial

1:00:04

incentives that are going to push them to do

1:00:06

the right thing. And maybe ultimately the question of what

1:00:09

right-wing media in this country looks like will come down

1:00:11

to are the financial penalties

1:00:14

of lying to the extent that Fox and others lied

1:00:17

going to exceed the financial penalties

1:00:20

of telling the truth, which means that you're going

1:00:22

to lose viewers to YouTube

1:00:24

channels, basically. What do you think it says about

1:00:26

Fox and the larger right-wing media

1:00:29

ecosystem that they

1:00:29

felt the need to chase

1:00:32

these online conspiracies because

1:00:35

they were afraid of losing viewers? So it's so

1:00:37

fascinating because it didn't

1:00:39

look like what I thought it was going to look like. I

1:00:42

really thought that watching

1:00:44

Fox News arrive at this place in real time

1:00:46

in 2020, that it was,

1:00:50

they love Trump, they want to keep Republicans

1:00:52

in power, so they're making a deliberate

1:00:54

top-down choice to broadcast

1:00:56

these conspiracies. And what we know now is

1:00:59

that they did it basically out of fear

1:01:01

and they did it out of this realization that

1:01:03

they had, I mean, you can pinpoint

1:01:05

it almost exactly to like November 12th,

1:01:08

if you look

1:01:10

at the emails and the text messages where

1:01:12

they initially said, we're not going to

1:01:14

do election denial. And

1:01:17

they thought that that decision was

1:01:19

going to be enough to shape the narrative because for 25

1:01:21

years, Fox News has been in charge of what

1:01:23

the right thing is. And they've

1:01:24

had an iron grip on what

1:01:27

are the narratives, what are the facts, who's right,

1:01:29

who's wrong, what are the good policies, bad policies. And

1:01:32

you see them realize that that's not true anymore. And

1:01:34

they no longer have the power to set

1:01:37

that narrative because they can tell people

1:01:39

that Trump lost the election and then they're just

1:01:41

going to go someplace else. And they

1:01:43

are realizing that they now live in a world where

1:01:45

there's always going to be

1:01:47

someone, some social media,

1:01:50

some crazy network, Trump himself,

1:01:52

who will serve the kind of most basic

1:01:55

stream QAnon

1:01:56

parts of the party. And they made the

1:01:58

wrong choice in deciding.

1:01:59

deciding what to do about that, but I think it's a big question

1:02:02

about what choice are they going to make going forward and

1:02:04

hopefully facing at least the threat of

1:02:06

financial penalties will guide them a better

1:02:08

direction. Well, and to Tommy's questions about

1:02:11

sort of the balance between protecting

1:02:13

press freedom and stopping the spread of

1:02:15

disinformation, the fact

1:02:17

that Fox now chases these conspiracies

1:02:20

that are mainly developed online

1:02:23

that then get fed to places like OAN and

1:02:25

Newsmax makes that question even more complicated

1:02:27

because again, what is a media

1:02:29

outlet

1:02:29

if it starts in some 4chan forum and it

1:02:32

spreads around and YouTube and it's like... I would argue though,

1:02:34

they've been doing that for a long time. I mean, what was

1:02:36

the birther

1:02:37

conspiracy if not for like an online thing

1:02:39

that hopped to Fox into other...

1:02:42

That's true. So look, I mean, I think like this is...

1:02:44

The courts are catching up with Fox's

1:02:46

practice for a while here. I think the internet was always

1:02:48

a... Well at least for the last 20

1:02:50

years, however long we've been doing this, I

1:02:52

think the internet was always a source, but

1:02:54

the power, their power to

1:02:57

set the narrative and change it and cut it off,

1:02:59

that has diminished. Oh absolutely. It feels like it's

1:03:02

flipped almost. I mean, like, you know, I think the

1:03:04

big moment was when they

1:03:07

sent Megyn Kelly out to ask Trump a bunch

1:03:09

of tough questions at a debate. He attacked her

1:03:11

in the most vile ways imaginable.

1:03:14

They backed her for a couple of days and

1:03:16

then eventually showed her the door. You know what's funny

1:03:18

is when you just said Megyn Kelly, I

1:03:20

thought you were going to talk about the 2012 election

1:03:22

night. Remember

1:03:24

when Karl Rove and all the Romney people

1:03:27

were like, no, Obama didn't win

1:03:29

yet, this is fine, whatever. And they were... Because

1:03:32

they forgot that black people voted in Milwaukee.

1:03:35

And then Megyn Kelly went over and was like, no, that's

1:03:38

wrong. He... And so like that

1:03:40

was the reverse and Fox was able to... Right, right,

1:03:42

right. They did have that power. Stop the

1:03:44

crazies, but they've long lost that power. I

1:03:46

think you're right, though, that the 2016 election

1:03:48

was like another big version

1:03:50

of this moment or it's like it's what you see with

1:03:53

the Republican establishment. Like 2016, they

1:03:55

hated Trump, tried to stop him, failed,

1:03:58

and then we're like, I guess we'll just embrace it.

1:03:59

no matter where it takes us. Yeah,

1:04:02

get in front of this parade. Yeah. Train

1:04:05

call the parade, yeah. It is clear there are not

1:04:07

a lot of tools to fight

1:04:10

disinformation right now. And

1:04:12

the legal one that we're gonna be witnessing

1:04:15

this week and in the coming weeks is definitely

1:04:18

a different one that we've talked about over the last

1:04:20

several years. And it's not perfect, the standard's

1:04:22

not perfect. But we'll see what

1:04:24

happens. It does feel like, in

1:04:27

my mind it's very of a piece with the Trump,

1:04:30

Stormy Daniels indictment and the many other indictments

1:04:32

where it's like, it's a sideways

1:04:34

way into what I think is like the biggest question

1:04:37

facing this country right now, which is, is

1:04:39

there gonna be accountability for trying to do a coup

1:04:41

and overturn American democracy

1:04:43

two years ago? Because the guy who did it is,

1:04:46

you know, a coin flip away from becoming president

1:04:48

again. Crazy, yeah, although maybe president from a

1:04:50

jail cell. That's true. Either way. Max

1:04:52

Fisher, thanks for joining us in this and

1:04:55

I know you're gonna be following the trial

1:04:57

for these next couple weeks. If

1:04:59

there is a trial, unless we wake up and there's a settlement tomorrow.

1:05:02

Yes, we'll be there.

1:05:04

Joe says it's fun, we're supposed to

1:05:06

do, we're gonna crash in his house, I don't know. Does

1:05:09

Amtrak go there from LA? It's gotta.

1:05:11

I think there's gotta be an out of the stock range. I think you go through Wilmington

1:05:13

on the way to New York, right? That's not true. That would be my

1:05:15

only point of reference. Train through country,

1:05:18

is that a thing? Fly over country?

1:05:21

Give him a second term and we'll have those trains out there.

1:05:24

Dan's gonna yell at us now for making fun of Delaware. Running

1:05:27

for Senate there. All right, Max, thanks for stopping by

1:05:29

and we'll check in with you as the.