# Donald Trump: Ass Man

- **Show:** Pod Save America
- **Published:** 16 Oct 2026
- **Source:** https://audioboom.com/posts/8965578
- **Transcript:** https://podcasts.opennash.com/shows/pod-save-america/donald-trump-ass-man-1b4de6/
- **Provider:** OpenNash Podcasts (machine-generated)

## In brief

The hosts argue that Republicans' own behavior shows they expect a bad midterm. Super PACs (outside groups that raise unlimited money) are pulling out of House and Senate races, Trump's approval is at a record low in a Fox poll, and corruption stories are starting to register with voters. Trump's rallies, they say, are hurting more than helping.

The episode moves from the political terrain to a run of administration embarrassments: Susie Wiles's shaky job status, a rough debut for the new press secretary, Kimberly Guilfoyle's exit, and the dropped execution livestream. Beneath the mockery runs real alarm about the effort to strip Ilhan Omar of her citizenship. The closing Sherrod Brown interview turns to data centers and the Ohio money fight.

## Key insights

1. **Follow Republican money, not the polls** Dan Pfeiffer argues that party strategists have the best data, and they have pulled super PAC money from House races in eight states and from North Carolina's Senate race. He reads that as an admission that the House is lost.
2. **Democrats' small donors stretch further than GOP super PACs** Pfeiffer says candidates get the lowest TV ad rates and Democrats reserved ad time early. In September Republicans outspent Democrats by about 25% but ran only about 9% more ads.
3. **Corruption now ranks alongside prices for voters** A Fox News poll found 88% of voters very or extremely concerned about government corruption, slightly above inflation. The hosts point to the crypto adviser story and the White House ballroom donor list.
4. **The Omar citizenship probe threatens all naturalized citizens** Investigators seized Ilhan Omar's phone and subpoenaed relatives over whether her age was misstated. Jon Favreau says a win is unlikely given the statute of limitations, but the harassment and the idea of illegitimate citizenship is the damage.
5. **Brown ties data centers to a rigged system** Sherrod Brown says Ohio has 225 data centers built or planned. He cites $2.5 billion in tax breaks backed by Jon Husted and higher electric bills, and he wants the tax breaks ended and the billionaire owners to pay the electricity costs.

## Questions this episode answers

### Why do the hosts think Republicans expect to lose the House?

Jon Favreau and Dan Pfeiffer point out that Republican super PACs have pulled money from competitive House races in states like New York, Nevada and Texas. Five senior Republicans also told Politico that keeping the House is likely impossible.

### What is a super PAC and why does hard money matter?

A super PAC is an outside group that can raise unlimited money to influence elections. Dan Pfeiffer says money raised directly by candidates ('hard money') buys TV ads at the lowest rates, so Democrats get more ads per dollar.

### What is the controversy over Ilhan Omar's citizenship?

Federal officials seized her phone and subpoenaed relatives to test whether her age was misstated when her father became a citizen, which could have affected her citizenship. The hosts say it will be very hard to prove and see it as political harassment.

### Why did Trump cancel the planned livestream of the Fort Hood shooter's execution?

After Democrats and some Republicans objected, Trump said on Truth Social that many good people would rather not watch. A Washington Post poll cited by Jon Favreau found about eight in ten Americans opposed it.

### Why are data centers a big issue in Ohio's Senate race?

Sherrod Brown says data centers take farmland and water, raise electric bills, and got big state tax breaks. He ties Jon Husted to them and says he would end the tax breaks and let communities have a say.

## Facts

- **Jon Favreau** [0:03:30]: "All right, eighteen days until the midterms, Dems lead the generic ballot by just over nine points."
- **Donald Trump** [0:04:27]: "Tariffs don't cause inflation, you know what they cause? Wealth."
- **Jon Favreau** [0:07:25]: "Republican super pacs have pulled out of House races that were once thought to be competitive in New York, Nevada, New Jersey, Iowa, Michigan, Ohio, Texas, and Nebraska."
- **Jon Favreau** [0:07:25]: "On the Senate side, super pacs have pulled out of North Carolina and are pouring millions into defending Nebraska, Kansas, and South Carolina."
- **Dan Pfeiffer** [0:10:49]: "a Democrat has not won a Senate seat in since in 94 years"
- **Dan Pfeiffer** [0:13:39]: "even despite all the money, like in the month of September, Republicans outspent Democrats by 25%."
- **Jon Favreau** [0:18:54]: "the latest Fox News poll, which has Trump's approval rating at a record low 36%, lowest ever in a Fox News poll."
- **Jon Favreau** [0:18:54]: "also has 88% of voters saying that they're extremely or very concerned about corruption in government"
- **Jon Favreau** [0:19:20]: "the Wall Street Journal ran a story about White House crypto advisor Bo Hines, uh, who owns a consulting firm that was paid $6 million by a crypto company"
- **Jon Favreau** [0:20:23]: "Biggest donation, $25 million from Nvidia, made three months after Trump decided to let the AI giant sell advanced chips to China over the objections of security experts."
- **Jon Favreau** [0:24:32]: "the president has reportedly been asking friends what they think of his incredibly loyal White House chief of staff, and he has even reportedly started floating potential replacements"
- **Jon Favreau** [0:24:32]: "including the following names Stephen Miller, Steve Whitkoff, Bill Pulte, Kevin McCarthy, and, of course, New York Yankees president Randy Levine."
- **Jon Favreau** [0:29:30]: "former White House political director James Blair, the architect of the redistricting push who left the White House to run the midterm operation from the outside"
- **Jon Favreau** [0:31:43]: "Katie Zacharia took the podium on Tuesday for a 14-minute briefing that included just three questions"
- **Jon Favreau** [0:31:43]: "was asked where she passed the bar, to which she answered, In China."
- **Jon Favreau** [0:39:43]: "confirming for the world that Kimberly Guilfoyle was officially out as ambassador to Greece"
- **Jon Favreau** [0:44:36]: "Trump has officially backed down from Pete Hegseth's plan to livestream the firing squad execution of Fort Hood shooter Nidal Malik Hasan."
- **Jon Favreau** [0:45:05]: "it's eight and ten Americans, according to a brand new Washington Post poll"
- **Jon Favreau** [0:47:05]: "We now know that they seized Omar's phone and that they've subpoenaed her relatives in an effort to try and strip her of US. citizenship and deport her."
- **Jon Favreau** [0:47:35]: "investigators are examining whether her age was deliberately misrepresented to make her eligible for citizenship as a minor"
- **Jon Favreau** [0:50:48]: "there's the statute of limitations on immigration fraud, which is long since passed. Um, her father died in 2020."
- **Jon Favreau** [0:56:46]: "he said again he's not gonna run for president in 2028. But then he also said he he pledged to serve a full term in the Senate."
- **Sherrod Brown** [1:02:12]: "They are spending, they're up to about, we think, 280, 290 million."
- **Sherrod Brown** [1:04:58]: "He got $2.5 billion in tax giveaways from S, from the state, from state taxpayers."
- **Sherrod Brown** [1:05:21]: "there are 225 data centers either built or in the process of being built in Ohio."
- **Sherrod Brown** [1:07:06]: "one of the biggest data centers in the Midwest is there. They're building 280 acres, so just gargantuan."
- **Dan Pfeiffer** [1:12:11]: "President Obama's coming to campaign for you, I believe, in the next couple days here."

## Transcript

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**[0:01:28] Ad read:** Black Friday comes around. Vicord year booked the brand on Shopify. Billion in omzet. This year can you one of them as you now begin? Shopify helps you to start from start to go. So you can still have the dress, the window, the year, your site, and begin with where wait you on. Start your brand before that the late is start free on Shopify dot com. Black Friday comes around. Vicord year booked the brand on Shopify. Billion in omzet.

**[0:02:01] Ad read:** This year can you one of them as you now begin? Shopify helps you to start from start to go. So you can still have the dress, the window, the year, your site, and begin with where wait you on. Start your brand before that the late is start free on Shopify dot com. Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Jon Favreau.

**[0:02:42] Dan Pfeiffer:** I'm Dan Pfeiffer.

**[0:02:43] Jon Favreau:** On today's show, we'll talk about Republicans starting to abandon once competitive races, the speculation that Susie Wiles might soon be out of a job, the fact that Kim Guilfoyle is out of a job. Katie Zacharia's A plus debut as White House press secretary, yet more corruption inside the White House, Trump canceling that live execution, the latest on the Ilhan Omar ordeal, and why JD Vance is definitely not gay. Uh, then you'll hear Dan's conversation with Sherrod Brown about the race to take back the Senate seat in Ohio.

**[0:03:16] Jon Favreau:** Dan, how was it? Are we taking it back?

**[0:03:18] Dan Pfeiffer:** I don't wanna spoil it here, John, so you have to wait till the end of the podcast to listen to the interview.

**[0:03:22] Jon Favreau:** Smart, that's smart. I thought maybe a little tease, little Here's here's tease.

**[0:03:25] Dan Pfeiffer:** the thing I'd say is there ever such a thing as a bad conversation with Sherrod Brown?

**[0:03:28] Jon Favreau:** No, he's the best.

**[0:03:30] Dan Pfeiffer:** The best.

**[0:03:30] Jon Favreau:** Again, like he, he gets credit for my marriage, so that's that's that's a good thing. All right, eighteen days until the midterms, Dems lead the generic ballot by just over nine points. They're ahead by about three points in the closest Senate races. Inflation is still climbing, we learned this week, oil prices are still climbing, but the Republican Party's closer is out there single-handedly trying to turn things around with the focus and discipline for which he is famous.

**[0:03:57] Donald Trump:** They want to mutilate, cut your children. Your son leaves as Jimmy and comes back home in three days as Janet. The rank choice voting where they you go into, I guess, some kind of a test tube or something. I got the highest gay vote of any Republican in history. I think because of the song. My opinion, leakers should be shot. I ate flies. And some of the wild animals you have up here that like that like eating you, cause I'm a freaking genius, that's why.

**[0:04:27] Donald Trump:** Well, you gotta spend the money in the United States. It's called recycling, it's called recirculation, it's called a lot of things. Our country is making more money than it's ever made because of the fact that oil is so high. Tariffs don't cause inflation, you know what they cause? Wealth. I've won my election. I'm here whether we win this or not.

**[0:04:52] Jon Favreau:** That's about it.

**[0:04:52] Dan Pfeiffer:** Yep, sums it up.

**[0:04:53] Jon Favreau:** Most honest, most honest thing he said, his true feelings about the election. I won my election. I'm here whether Republicans win or not.

**[0:05:00] Dan Pfeiffer:** What do you think the point of any of these rallies is?

**[0:05:05] Jon Favreau:** I don't think he knows. I think he's like, why are they making me do all these rallies? They think it'll help. Um, and it's just something to say that they did something, really.

**[0:05:16] Dan Pfeiffer:** I think he wants to do them. It's against the wishes of probably anyone who knows anything about politics, because there's just nothing helpful about them.

**[0:05:23] Jon Favreau:** You don't think saying that he thinks, uh, people who leak information to the press in a country that supposedly reveres and protects the free press, um, saying that they should be shot, you don't think that's helpful. Do you think it's helpful to say that, um, that, uh, it's good that oil prices are high because the country's never been richer. That's not Or, good to say. I oh, or

**[0:05:45] Dan Pfeiffer:** I think that's a bad thing to say.

**[0:05:46] Jon Favreau:** or the tariffs don't cause inflation, they cause wealth.

**[0:05:50] Dan Pfeiffer:** Well, it's just like just think about it this way, right? So who is the voter in these states who will go to the Trump rally but not was otherwise who is not otherwise gonna vote in the midterm election?

**[0:06:01] Jon Favreau:** Oh, yeah, yeah, you don't think he's, you know, you you think these are getting people off the couch I think to the rallies.

**[0:06:05] Dan Pfeiffer:** ten years into the Trump show, we're we're not getting a bunch of like, uh, just random onlookers who just wanna check out the show. It is like the most hardcore fans are gonna vote. So what are the people in the states consuming the clips right, either on the news or on the media, and none of the clips are on message in any way, shape or form.

**[0:06:23] Jon Favreau:** What do you think he thinks rank choice voting is? Where and how do you think he feels like a test tube is involved?

**[0:06:30] Dan Pfeiffer:** I think that he equates science with things he doesn't understand, so he doesn't get it, so therefore it must be science. He thinks of science the way other people think of magic, something beyond the the understanding of a common mind.

**[0:06:44] Jon Favreau:** you put a bunch of you put a bunch of votes in a tube and you pull one out. Is that Yeah, basically, how?

**[0:06:49] Dan Pfeiffer:** I just if he was really trying to win the midterms, look, I'm not worried about him taking my advice on this, trust me. But if he was really trying to win the midterms, he would shut up and just stop not do rallies for sure. for sure, Like, the the best thing he could do would be to fade into the background and let this be a race, a bet between, you know, John Husted and Sherrod Brown, or Mike Rogers and Abdul Sayed.

**[0:07:14] Dan Pfeiffer:** Instead, he's making it about himself, a person who is underwater in every state in the country, who's in the low 40s in states he won by 20 points.

**[0:07:22] Jon Favreau:** has to be the main character every single Yeah, and day.

**[0:07:24] Dan Pfeiffer:** that's not great for Republicans.

**[0:07:25] Jon Favreau:** No, it's not. Uh, we talked on Tuesday about the Republican plan to start quote trimming the map. Uh, and now we have confirmation that it's happening. Republican super pacs have pulled out of House races that were once thought to be competitive in New York, Nevada, New Jersey, Iowa, Michigan, Ohio, Texas, and Nebraska. On the Senate side, super pacs have pulled out of North Carolina and are pouring millions into defending Nebraska, Kansas, and South Carolina. Punchbowl reports that Republican lawmakers in deep red states are approaching super pacs with polls showing them losing, and five senior Republican members of Congress have told Politico that keeping the House is now likely impossible in their view.

**[0:08:06] Jon Favreau:** Uh, I know your latest message box is about this. Uh, why should people view these, uh, spending decisions as maybe an antidote to their anxiety about a a potential, uh, systemic polling?

**[0:08:17] Dan Pfeiffer:** Well, I think if you don't want to follow the polls, you should follow the money. Because these are the people who are tasked with that is their job. They are steeped in data of all kinds voting data, polling data, focus group data, fundraising data. It is their job to maintain the Republican majority within the House and the Senate. And they are acting like it is not just a blue wave, but we are on the cusp of a blue tsunami.

**[0:08:40] Dan Pfeiffer:** Like they have, they like, if you want to read the subtext here, you a couple of main takeaways. One, they admit the House is gone. They have, they have waved the white flag on it, right? They are not they, as you mentioned, they are stop trying. They are no longer trying to beat some of the most vulnerable Democratic incumbents in the country, people like Greg Landsman in Ohio, Tom Suozzi in New York, even Henry Cuellar in Texas, right?

**[0:09:00] Dan Pfeiffer:** They pulled money from Susie Lee's race in Nevada. They are abandoning Republican incumbents like Tom Kane, like the like they, they're abandoning the Republican seat in Nebraska, another one in Iowa, and are moving money to. And this is just fucking sweet irony. The states that they redistricted,

**[0:09:19] Jon Favreau:** It's amazing.

**[0:09:19] Dan Pfeiffer:** right? They it is like the Henry Cuellar seat, which is a state a district that they drew to flip, abandoning that, moving it to another seat they drew to be an automatic Republican flip. They're Mo putting money in Florida, spending $2 million in Florida twenty five, a district that was supposed to be an basically an automatic Republican pickup after the new district, after the new district lines. And then, and I, you know, I mentioned this when we were back in Texas.

**[0:09:41] Dan Pfeiffer:** They are they move money to Alabama too. This was a district that they Alabama just redrew to take Shimari Figure's district and carve it up. And Trump won the won the new version of that district by 14 points. It was a an opportunity district before that, and they're putting money in it right now. They're worried about that district because they drew the district that way. And so that's a huge deal. And then on the Senate side, just it's worth like, we're all we're so focused on all the races and all the money and all the back and forth.

**[0:10:10] Dan Pfeiffer:** But I just think it's worth noting. John Ossoff entered the cycle as the most vulnerable Democratic Democrat in the country. He's in a state that Trump won two of three times, a state Democrats have rarely won before 2020, and they've abandoned it. It's over North Carolina, a state that we've. Democ

**[0:10:26] Jon Favreau:** We haven't won a federal race in North Carolina since two thousand eight and eight, when Barack Obama won the first time,

**[0:10:32] Dan Pfeiffer:** and and Kay Hagan won the Senate race in 2008. And so that's they have no one has won a we have not won a federal statewide race there since 2008. It's over. They've quit. I'm sorry to say that to a Recruiter's finance team, but the Republicans are not running TV ads anymore. It's not just the Super PACs. Michael Watley has currently has no TV reserve for the rest of the time.

**[0:10:49] Dan Pfeiffer:** They're just like, that's it, they're done, and they're putting money in Nebraska and Kansas. Kansas, a state, a Democrat has not won a Senate seat in since in 94 years. Herbert Hoover was president. Donald Trump wasn't even born yet, and then we haven't won a Senate seat since then. So, look, there could be some like just massive error that everyone's polls are wrong. Everyone.

**[0:11:13] Jon Favreau:** Yeah, I was gonna say, if if that's the case, it's not like, ugh, Democrats were too excited and believed all the public polls. It's like, no, it means that Republicans internal polling was completely wrong.

**[0:11:23] Dan Pfeiffer:** Yes, and in previous cycles, when there's been Democratic hopeium, you've heard a lot of Republicans out there. They're, you know, we know the reporters they dish to showing their internal polls showing no, we're not. There Democrats don't really have a shot in this race or that race. You hear none of that this time.

**[0:11:38] Jon Favreau:** No, the best you hear is some of them being like, it's bad out there, but it's not quite as bad as some of the polls are are showing. Which, like, look, if we end up taking the House and then, you know, it's a fifty fifty Senate or a forty nine fifty one Senate, and we lose some of these Senate races by like, point two, point three, point five, a point. Even like it is unfort- let me you say this in the piece, but like, it is unfortunately in line with a polling error that is just a normal polling error and not something weird.

**[0:12:07] Dan Pfeiffer:** yes, even if the polls are perfectly correct within the margin of error. The range of outcomes include Democrats winning all the Senate seats we're talking about and losing all of them. Other than North Carolina and, uh, Georgia, which is crazy enough, yes, that is crazy enough.

**[0:12:21] Jon Favreau:** that those, like, yeah, if we lost North Carolina or Georgia, or we lost the House, that would be shocking. But like anything, any disappointment short of that is not necessarily shocking, it's just disappointing. At this point,

**[0:12:31] Dan Pfeiffer:** would be shocking to the conscience, and it would be terrible, and we're gonna be very upset about it, but it would be statistically not shocking.

**[0:12:38] Jon Favreau:** I will say, I mean, the Republicans have more money than God, they've, like, never had so much money. It is interesting that with all that money, they're still pulling out of some races and M. Let's. I feels like moving money around is something that you do when you have a limited amount of it.

**[0:12:52] Dan Pfeiffer:** Well, so there's a few reasons for this. One is Democrats raise most of their money on the hard side, so that means the candidates raise the money, and so those dollars go much further. Because we talked about before on TV ad rates, the TV stations have to offer them the lowest rate. So that's one, two. Democrats also were very smart and reserved their time early, so they got better rates. Republic, especially because Trump sat on his money for so long, they're now having to pay exorbitant rates for their ads.

**[0:13:19] Dan Pfeiffer:** And just as example of how this works, so James Llorico announced $65 million today. He raised that. So that $65 million they does just for his campaign. The equivalent of that in Super PAC dollars is about 180 something million.

**[0:13:31] Jon Favreau:** hm. So it is close to, like, basically what the Republic I think the Republicans are going to be all in $200 million in Texas.

**[0:13:39] Dan Pfeiffer:** Yes, and so now he does, he can't spend that on TV in the three weeks. Now, some of that money's already been spent. He didn't really cash on hands because that's this report. But um, Democrats are, we're we are still, like I wrote about this in Max Packs too, but there's a really interesting data for ad impact, which shows that even despite all the money, like in the month of September, Republicans outspent Democrats by 25%.

**[0:14:00] Dan Pfeiffer:** But I think they only ran like 9% more ads or something like that. Because of our both our strategy and our, um, and our hard money advantage. The other thing that's interesting is there was a political poll which showed that 25% of people thought that Democrats were running more ads. I saw that Yeah,

**[0:14:19] Jon Favreau:** because they've, they've just they've seen more demo, or they've said they've seen they recall more demo. They've

**[0:14:24] Dan Pfeiffer:** more like that's the big

**[0:14:24] Jon Favreau:** recall more ads.

**[0:14:24] Dan Pfeiffer:** thing is it's ad recall. Like you can run all the ads you want, but if the ad is not memorable enough to be recalled, then there was no point running the ad. So Republicans are ads are more expensive, and it appears that they are worse.

**[0:14:36] Jon Favreau:** Did you s right before we recorded? I'm sure, um, you saw it because I think you put it in the slack. But Trump went off on, um, John Cornyn and Karl Rove, blaming them for a a Ken Paxton loss that hasn't happened yet. It's still, it's still like several weeks out.

**[0:14:54] Dan Pfeiffer:** I mean, he clearly talked to someone in Texas who told him that things were trending in the wrong direction. Um, the two races where Trump is going to take the most blame if Democrats win is Texas because Ken Paxton's the nominee because of Donald Trump, and South Carolina, where Darlene Graham is the nominee because of Trump. Like, it's one thing to appoint Darlene Graham to just fill out the term as some sort of bizarre tribute to Lindsey Graham by putting here's your tribute.

**[0:15:19] Dan Pfeiffer:** We're gonna put an unqualified person in your in your job. But he's the one who convinced her to run for the full term. And if this had been if any of those other mostly lunatic Republicans who, like Ralph Norman or whoever else who were running in the primary, had just gone were the nominee. Now, this would not be a race, but Darlene Graham has made it a race. Which means they're also spending, you know, $5 million there right now that could be spent in some of these other districts.

**[0:15:39] Jon Favreau:** I mean, you could also argue that North Carolina is a Trump problem. Michael Watley was Yeah, that's a a Trump that's, that's another one person.

**[0:15:44] Dan Pfeiffer:** that is, that's absolute. Mike Collins in Georgia Yeah, against Ossoff yes,

**[0:15:47] Jon Favreau:** was a a Trump one too. that's right. That's Well,

**[0:15:49] Dan Pfeiffer:** you know what? We're got got my Thursday after the election day message box drafts going right now.

**[0:15:56] Jon Favreau:** yeah, he's done a lot of a lot Not of great stuff.

**[0:15:58] Dan Pfeiffer:** gonna work for that, yeah.

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**[0:18:54] Jon Favreau:** So we've known for a while that this election would turn on, uh, cost of living concerns. But the latest Fox News poll, which has Trump's approval rating at a record low 36%, lowest ever in a Fox News poll. Um, also has 88% of voters saying that they're extremely or very concerned about corruption in government, which is slightly more than the percentage of voters who said the same about inflation, cost of living, gas prices.

**[0:19:20] Jon Favreau:** Um, and you can see why Trump's corruption, uh, is starting to break through. Uh, just two more stories over the last forty eight hours, I think, uh, the Wall Street Journal ran a story about White House crypto advisor Bo Hines, uh, who owns a consulting firm that was paid $6 million by a crypto company to win favorable positions in the crypto bill that Hines himself was trying to get through Congress, which he did, and then got hired by the crypto company after the bill passed.

**[0:19:52] Dan Pfeiffer:** Don't let the revolving door hit you on the way out.

**[0:19:54] Jon Favreau:** $6 million while he was negotiating, writing the bill, the crypto bill. He, he co-owned this company, he stepped back from operations, but the crypto company was paying the firm $6 million.

**[0:20:08] Dan Pfeiffer:** a random company, not not some like every once in a while, you know, like there's someone who used to work, you know, has some ownership in, like a like a high level, well thought of. This is a random consulting company that they picked entirely because of it appears who the co-owner was.

**[0:20:23] Jon Favreau:** And they got the provisions that they wanted in the bill, and it passed, and then he got a job at that fucking firm. Amazing, uh. Then on Thursday, the Washington Post revealed the full list of White House ballroom donors, several of which quote benefited from regulatory decisions, government contracts, and, in one case, a pardon for a family member. Biggest donation, $25 million from Nvidia, made three months after Trump decided to let the AI giant sell advanced chips to China over the objections of security experts.

**[0:20:55] Jon Favreau:** Mind-boggling,

**[0:20:55] Dan Pfeiffer:** aren't John, hold on. Isn't Trump's view that we should build a data center on every corner and let AI run amok so that we can beat China?

**[0:21:03] Jon Favreau:** right, right? Well, what? Yeah, we're gonna give him a head start, though.

**[0:21:06] Dan Pfeiffer:** That's a that's a. That's only We are, sporty, it's the only sporty thing to do.

**[0:21:10] Jon Favreau:** we are gonna. We do have to beat China, but you know, it's tough. We have to run even faster because we're also giving them the chips they need. So we, so That makes we better hurry sense. up. I guess the bright side here is that corruption is finally registering with voters. What what'd you make of that number popping? Now?

**[0:21:25] Dan Pfeiffer:** it's surprising to see at the top of the list, but it's not surprising to see it so high up the list. You know, we talked about this navigator poll a couple weeks ago, where they asked people the reasons why their costs were high, and government corruption was at the top of the list or near the top of the list. And people, they, they, they see what's going on, they see. It's not just like in their minds, it's not just Trump and the Republicans, they see a government that's corrupt top to bottom.

**[0:21:47] Dan Pfeiffer:** But they can really connect that to why their prices are up, to the fact that they're getting screwed. Cause, you know, it's not just like M, my egg prices are up there. It's because Donald Trump did this cryptic deal. It's just that there are all these fucking people in Washington, DC. Most of them are Republican, most of them have the last name Trump, who are getting filthy rich. I'm getting screwed. They're taking care of themselves, they're not taking care of me, and those two things are connected.

**[0:22:09] Dan Pfeiffer:** And we've seen Jim Kessler of Third Way pointed out, pointed this out to me on Twitter today that in the other in other elections where you've had giant waves, there has been a combination of economic concern and government corruption. Yeah, I You have think that was in 2006, the um, the there are whole like a gazillion scandals, but it ended in the Mark Foley uh scandal, and then, uh, in 2094, was the House Bank, uh, w help drive that too.

**[0:22:32] Dan Pfeiffer:** And so, you know, it's not like these things all come together, and so it's it's very bad, I think, for the party. Who is led by the guy who's touring the country right now, who is deeply corrupt and also raised everyone's prices.

**[0:22:46] Jon Favreau:** yeah. And I can't tell whether it's like just the accumulation of all of these corruption stories, or it's any one in particular that has been that has broken through and been really sticky for voters. But you do hear in a lot of these focus groups now, like even Trump voters who are sort of turning on the president, will bring up that, like, all he does is just he's like, getting rich, you know, like you just. They just kind of know that i it just kind of bleeds through at some point.

**[0:23:12] Dan Pfeiffer:** yeah, I think I think it is the accumulation. And I, you know, honestly, a lot of people don't really give a shit, or they're so cynical that if the economy's going great, they don't really care if the president dips their beak. But when everything's fucked, all the is all the Trump stuff that didn't really bother people as much as we hoped in the first term hit so much harder for him now because people are very, very unhappy with what's going on.

**[0:23:34] Dan Pfeiffer:** So it's not, you know, all the insanity is not funny or charming or whatever else, it's just an example of why things suck. And the same, it's true, the corruption, too.

**[0:23:43] Jon Favreau:** I really do think it's not the worst example of Trump's corruption, but all of the Washington White House renovation shit. That to me is just cause it's it's visual and it's easy to understand, and it's all he fucking talks about. So I kind of think that even more, even though that's not how he got incredibly rich, it was a lot of the crypto shit. Um, but I I think that the White House renovation stuff, just covering everything in gold, building the fucking ballroom, all that's.

**[0:24:13] Jon Favreau:** I think that has really pissed people off.

**[0:24:15] Dan Pfeiffer:** and it's, I'm not even sure. People clock like the quid pro quo of corporate donors to the ballroom, who then get government affairs. It's more that it's a giant fucking vanity project that the guy is building tacky monuments to himself while I can't afford to put gas in my car. Like, people just look at, like, what are you doing?

**[0:24:32] Jon Favreau:** yeah, yeah, uh. Well, if Americans do end up punishing Republicans for all this corruption on election day, they'll only have one person to blame. Susie Wiles Uh, at least that's who Donald Trump might blame, according to Politico this morning. Uh, the president has reportedly been asking friends what they think of his incredibly loyal White House chief of staff, and he has even reportedly started floating potential replacements, including the following names Stephen Miller, Steve Whitkoff, Bill Pulte, Kevin McCarthy, and, of course, New York Yankees president Randy Levine.

**[0:25:11] Dan Pfeiffer:** The last one is so funny. It's like, and I was reading that this morning at the ass crack of dawn. This is like all the other names kind of make sense, and then it's just like a random guy who works for the Yankees.

**[0:25:21] Jon Favreau:** What? Um, Trump says this is all fake news, obviously, but n no one really believes that. Uh, who's your pick?

**[0:25:30] Dan Pfeiffer:** my pick, well, I gotta ask, am I picking who I want, who I think it's gonna be?

**[0:25:35] Jon Favreau:** Oh, okay, uh, I don't really know who I want. It's all garbage.

**[0:25:39] Dan Pfeiffer:** Yeah, none of them. No, absolutely. Yeah, none I mean, honestly, of. I mean, I think she sucks. I think it's ridiculous how much the press gives her makes, you know, gives her all this favorable coverage. But Susie Wallace is probably the best of that of that option of roast gallery.

**[0:25:49] Jon Favreau:** Yeah, no, I don't know Randy Levine. Yeah, that's right, Randy Is it?

**[0:25:53] Dan Pfeiffer:** Levine. That that's a that that's a high variance pick. Could be Yeah, so great, could I don't, I don't the Yankees are know. quite good. I don't really know what his job in the Yankees is. Um,

**[0:26:02] Jon Favreau:** no, I. I definitely hate Stephen Miller the most. I think he's the he's that would probably the most,

**[0:26:07] Dan Pfeiffer:** be the that would be the worst.

**[0:26:08] Jon Favreau:** that would be the worst, the definitely the most dangerous for the country and the world. I would say, let's see who who do we think it would be? Who do you think it would be? It doesn't feel like Stephen Miller is a pick that he wants to go with, not because he's he's like, not that crazy and likes what Stephen Miller does. I think he's a little like he kind of wants someone who's like Steve Whitkoff.

**[0:26:28] Jon Favreau:** Bill Pulte seem more like the universe of people. That is just like some guy who he can hang out with and like a business buddy. And also just like, lets him do whatever the fuck he wants and has no real agenda of their own other than like, what do you want to do today, boss?

**[0:26:44] Dan Pfeiffer:** yeah, I think that's right. I would be surprised if it was Stephen Miller, just because he Trump, I mean, you've heard the things he says about Stephen Miller. He kind of he understands Stephen Miller and Stephen Miller's purpose, and I don't think running the White House is what he thinks Stephen Miller's purpose should be. Um, s, it kinda. There's like a fork in the road here, which is Steve Whitkoff is just like, here's the guy I like hanging out with.

**[0:27:02] Dan Pfeiffer:** He's rich, too, he gets me. He's also kinda down with all of my self-enrichment schemes. We can just hang out together and do that, and I don't really have to do any work. Bill Pulte is someone you'd be like, here. I got two years left and I am going to use every lever of the federal government to exact revenge on as many people as possible. And I kinda wanna stick a middle finger to all all the haters.

**[0:27:21] Dan Pfeiffer:** Bill Pulte is that person.

**[0:27:23] Jon Favreau:** Kevin McCarthy is who he picks if he's purely in the mood to have someone to humiliate for the last two years,

**[0:27:30] Dan Pfeiffer:** Yes, whoever takes this job will be humiliated.

**[0:27:32] Jon Favreau:** which is what, like, you can see him like. He clearly doesn't like Kevin McCarthy, even if he pretends to like Kevin McCarthy. And so spending two years, just like having Kevin McCarthy be the fucking punching bag for all of Washington, including Donald Trump, and trying to humiliate him all the time. It does seem like something Trump would enjoy.

**[0:27:49] Dan Pfeiffer:** that would be good for content, I think. Also, just let's back up a step. Imagine you're Randy Levine this morning. Maybe you sleep in, you know, I'm not sure. Maybe you were up late. I don't even know what the baseball schedule is, whatever else, and you imagine how many text messages you wake up to. And you think, like, did Aaron Judge, like, blow his knee out on the way to the locker room? Is the major something major happening no, I was in baseball

**[0:28:15] Jon Favreau:** I was named in playbook.

**[0:28:16] Dan Pfeiffer:** as a White House chief of staff? Like, I mean, that would, that's basically like, if someone was like, you know what? We're looking for new general managers for the Sixers. We're gonna look at Bob Myers, you know, uh, Sam Presti, Dan Pfeiffer and Jon Favreau. Just like, What? ugh, man,

**[0:28:39] Jon Favreau:** It could happen, it could happen. One other Trump lieutenant who may be f- well, actually, before we move on, do you think that this is TR- like, do you think he'll let go of S Susie Wiles? I kind of don't,

**[0:28:50] Dan Pfeiffer:** I don't. I think he is, he's looking for people to blame for what's going on.

**[0:28:55] Jon Favreau:** and I think that there's And plenty of people to blame. And I also don't think he gives that much of a shit, and I think he there's only one John one. What?

**[0:29:03] Dan Pfeiffer:** person to blame. Oh, yeah, of course, Yeah, yes,

**[0:29:04] Jon Favreau:** but he doesn't know that. Um,

**[0:29:06] Dan Pfeiffer:** well, he does, which is why he's doing this.

**[0:29:08] Jon Favreau:** right, right, right. But like, also, it's like, low, it's he's got two years left. All he wants to do is make money. And like, you know, have the I don't know, like Decorate the White House, and has someone who's loyal to him, which is Susie Wiles, right, and decorate the White House. So, like, it feels feels like there's a plenty of other people he can fire or blame b besides Susie Wiles, but who knows, who knows?

**[0:29:30] Jon Favreau:** Um, one other Trump lieutenant who may be forced to walk the plank, uh, according to Leanne Caldwell at Puck, former White House political director James Blair, the architect of the redistricting push who left the White House to run the midterm operation from the outside. In fairness, um, Blair has been pretty busy earning hundreds of thousands of dollars from a pro-Putin government in the Balkans. Um, so he's been busy doing that, so there's only so many campaigns you can keep track of.

**[0:29:54] Jon Favreau:** Mr. James

**[0:29:54] Dan Pfeiffer:** fair enough.

**[0:29:55] Jon Favreau:** Blair, Um, back in May, he he was the one who told Playbook that his plan for this midterm was to paint Democrats as woke, weak, and way too liberal. He's tried. That's Did he do it?

**[0:30:05] Dan Pfeiffer:** good. That's been the strategy. I I guess we'll guess we'll have to John, have we'll find out in two weeks. I mean, James Blair is a classic example of someone who flew way too close to the sun.

**[0:30:13] Jon Favreau:** yeah, well, he also wasn't like, uh, he was never. He sort of just fell into the job, right? Like he's doesn't have like a long history of being a political Svengali.

**[0:30:22] Dan Pfeiffer:** Yeah, I have no, I truly have no idea. He's just he's this, a guy who began to exist in my life two years ago. And when And

**[0:30:27] Jon Favreau:** he's when he said, woke, weak and way too liberal.

**[0:30:30] Dan Pfeiffer:** yeah, oh, but he was on, I remember he was on the campaign, and then he did a lot of playbook interviews when he was in the White House, a lot of playbook interviews.

**[0:30:39] Jon Favreau:** The thing I don't understand about this whole story is like, what do okay? So you blame it on James Blair. He doesn't work in the White House anymore, so like, what Well, he's do you?

**[0:30:46] Dan Pfeiffer:** running the he's the part of the people who's spending $200 million in Texas. He's also, I mean, I'm sure it's probably Trump's fault that they didn't spend money earlier when it would have made more of a difference, or at least been able to get a slot to buy time. But that's ultimately his job is to figure that out. So well, like, what he

**[0:31:02] Jon Favreau:** happens to him? he can be fired What?

**[0:31:03] Dan Pfeiffer:** from. He's getting all kind he's, I'm sure he's making ungodly amounts of money from all of these super PACs he's working for, so I guess he gets fired from those.

**[0:31:10] Jon Favreau:** Yeah? And and then just makes all of his money from whatever Russian Well, no, if oligarchs just if you're on pay him.

**[0:31:15] Dan Pfeiffer:** the well, if you're on the outs with Trump, then like if you're a middling political operative whose entire benefit to people is that they give money to you. It seems like you're going. They're getting access to Trump, and you no longer have access to Trump, you're gonna end up on Dancing with the Stars like Sean Spicer. speaking of which, uh, We we should talk about bit which what the are we bidding to? Sean Spicer or Dancing with the Stars?

**[0:31:39] Jon Favreau:** we should talk about the brand new White House press secretary.

**[0:31:41] Dan Pfeiffer:** Oh, god damn it, that's a good transition.

**[0:31:43] Jon Favreau:** Yeah, you didn't even know. She's already taken the country by storm. Dan, Uh, Katie Zacharia took the podium on Tuesday for a 14-minute briefing that included just three questions and came after. She struggled to read a lengthy opening statement that was just riddled with multisyllabic words and compound sentences. Uh, afterwards, Zachariah, a minor fixture on right-wing TV who has previously referred to herself as an attorney, was asked where she passed the bar, to which she answered, In China.

**[0:32:17] Jon Favreau:** Turns out, she did not pass the bar in China or anywhere. Uh, but her bigger problem is that her new White House colleagues have already started anonymously knifing her, calling her first briefing quote embarrassing and quote terrible on so many levels, according to texts received by the Daily Mail. Um, one Republican operative just sent emojis of a dumpster fire. Um, Zachariah didn't brief on Wednesday or Thursday, which is odd because that is her job as the White House press secretary.

**[0:32:46] Jon Favreau:** I don't know what else she's doing. Oh, she, I guess she did an interview with, um, Maga influencer on Real America's Voice, where she attempted to explain both her rough first outing and the whole I'm a lawyer but not a lawyer situation. Let's watch.

**[0:32:59] Katie Zacharia:** Typically, Jack briefs are in the afternoon, one pm, one thirty pm, where the press secretary has ample amount of time to have discussed to with all the people necessary. People get all the right information. Columbus Day is when I got the briefing materials, and then Tuesday morning they were completed, and I woke up at three in the morning on Tuesday to prepare with what I had. But they weren't finalized until we didn't finalize everything until about eight am.

**[0:33:27] Katie Zacharia:** And I never, uh, had a full, uh, briefing beforehand. I had already pre-registered to take the bar, and I didn't want to withdraw from that, and we knew we would be moving out to China. And I was obviously incredibly, I know, uh, distracted and overwhelmed and excited for finally being married to someone who I had been long distance from for at least a year. The results are somewhat inconsequential because I knew I wouldn't need the bar in China.

**[0:33:56] Katie Zacharia:** And, um, and we left for shortly thereafter.

**[0:34:00] Jon Favreau:** She did work at a law firm in China, um, although I guess she didn't do actual attorney work. Um, some described the work that she did at the Chinese law firm as, um, what a paid intern would do.

**[0:34:15] Dan Pfeiffer:** I would like to say in that forty five second or so clip, she blamed the following people for her problems, uh, her staff, Christopher Columbus, Hm, the the her hus, her husband. time, her husband Yeah, it's just,

**[0:34:31] Jon Favreau:** is that you like she got it Monday, Columbus Day, Indigenous People's Day, whatever you wanna call it, she got it Monday. Um, and so she had twenty four hours to prepare for the White House briefing. And like, does she know that? Usually, when you do the White House briefing, you don't have that much time to prepare with each successive day, and you sort of just have to be up on the news.

**[0:34:58] Dan Pfeiffer:** like back in the day when the briefing was a serious thing, uh, the process is the assistant press secretary. There's a bunch of staff from all around the the government, and the one around the White House collect all the briefing materials. They get all the guidance on the things, they go through the news, and they produce a brief, a folder, a binder for the press secretary. Press secretary usually has a couple of hours at most to read that and then briefs.

**[0:35:20] Dan Pfeiffer:** And so I don't sh her thir the thirty six hours or twenty four hours, whatever she had seems like excessive. Also, you can't get it in advance because you don't want changes the news.

**[0:35:29] Jon Favreau:** the news. Also, what is she talking about? She took three fucking questions from Breitbart, Fox News, and the Daily Mail. That she she couldn't prepare twenty four hours in advance for her briefing, where she took three questions from three of the most right-wing outlets in America, the world.

**[0:35:51] Dan Pfeiffer:** it was fourteen minutes, and she needs at least two hours per minute for prep, so she didn't have sufficient time. So, be fair,

**[0:35:58] Jon Favreau:** And she's not really a lawyer.

**[0:36:00] Dan Pfeiffer:** no, I mean, the thing like

**[0:36:01] Jon Favreau:** She graduated law school, she, she didn't, she didn't pass the bar.

**[0:36:06] Dan Pfeiffer:** plenty of people who go to law school and never take the bar, so that's not the issue. The issue is that she told the press yesterday that she passed the bar.

**[0:36:12] Jon Favreau:** She also called herself a general counsel at one of her jobs. You definitely can't call yourself general counsel if you're not, in fact, general counsel and haven't passed the bar.

**[0:36:21] Dan Pfeiffer:** yeah, it just it seems like an disturbing pat- like, obviously this is on brand for this position, the Trump administration, but she is lying to the press a lot about some pretty basic things that are actually public records and provable.

**[0:36:32] Jon Favreau:** Hm, now there was one good review, uh, of her first outing. Um, uh, here's the headline Katie Zacharia delivers a powerful inaugural briefing from the White House. Well, you know what They they put out a

**[0:36:47] Dan Pfeiffer:** you do?

**[0:36:47] Jon Favreau:** statement, they put out a whole statement, a whole press statement on that.

**[0:36:50] Dan Pfeiffer:** It's not what you want. I'll tell you that.

**[0:36:54] Jon Favreau:** You know what outlet doesn't have to suffer through 14-minute White House briefings with zero information? Crooked media,

**[0:36:59] Dan Pfeiffer:** You know what? If you people become subscribers, we could

**[0:37:03] Jon Favreau:** we could.

**[0:37:03] Dan Pfeiffer:** that we need someone in that room with Katie Zacharia asking the hard questions.

**[0:37:07] Jon Favreau:** Isn't that what you want? Do you want her to just, you know, whiff questions from Breitbart and Daily Mail, or do you want a crooked media reporter in the briefing room peppering her with questions? If so, subscribe crooked dot com slash friends. You can support what we're doing here at Crooked. It's the best way to support our growing independent pro-democracy media company. Plus, you get ad-free episodes, plus you get a whole bunch of subscriber shows and newsletters.

**[0:37:30] Jon Favreau:** It's great.

**[0:37:31] Dan Pfeiffer:** I'm not authorized to say this, so you cut out the podcast. But I think that if we get one thousand new subscribers by Halloween, we're gonna send Reid to the White House briefing.

**[0:37:41] Jon Favreau:** Reid Oh, that's a good one, Yeah, he's on the right?

**[0:37:44] Dan Pfeiffer:** East. I was gonna say Elijah, but he's got he's further away.

**[0:37:47] Jon Favreau:** I think we should send Elijah and we should make him drive

**[0:37:50] Dan Pfeiffer:** Oh, you know what?

**[0:37:50] Jon Favreau:** from North Carolina.

**[0:37:51] Dan Pfeiffer:** Credit, yeah, credit, you know what?

**[0:37:53] Jon Favreau:** That's his commute every day 2,000 from the White House by Hallo, two briefing room.

**[0:37:55] Dan Pfeiffer:** thousand more subscribers by Halloween.

**[0:37:57] Jon Favreau:** Elijah will, and he will livestream his drive

**[0:38:00] Dan Pfeiffer:** Trickle down White House.

**[0:38:01] Jon Favreau:** yes to the White House. So he can ask Katie Zacharia if she's still there, if she, if she outlasts Garamucci. I did see in Playbook this afternoon, West Wing Playbook, that, like, you know, some of the White House people were like, it was bad, but it wasn't so bad. That, you know, that she probably is gonna hang on for a while. And because she def has defended Trump on TV for so long and he likes her still, you know, that buys her some time to get better.

**[0:38:25] Dan Pfeiffer:** like, were you aware that she was a person who existed before she got this job?

**[0:38:28] Jon Favreau:** No, I'd never heard of her name No, and you watch when I saw her. I've never Fox all seen her before.

**[0:38:31] Dan Pfeiffer:** day long.

**[0:38:32] Jon Favreau:** Yeah, never seen her on Fox. Was she on Fox or was she on one of those like

**[0:38:36] Dan Pfeiffer:** I don't know.

**[0:38:37] Jon Favreau:** like OAN sort of news max The only type?

**[0:38:39] Dan Pfeiffer:** thing I read is that she tried to get a job at GSA, and her vision of the job was that she was gonna be a public-facing spokesperson promoting the ballroom. And GSA wanted her to, um, the General Services Administration, people in charge of government buildings, wanted her to manage the press office there. And that was they couldn't, they couldn't come to an agreement.

**[0:38:59] Jon Favreau:** Did you see the story that when she was in China, her husband that she was so excited about marrying, that she forgot to take the bar? Um, that he was doing business with, uh, a company in North Korea that was on the sanctions list.

**[0:39:11] Dan Pfeiffer:** I did, I did see that. Also, just imagine, I know this is sort of exhausting, but imagine what the world will look like if Jen Psaki had been in a had worked for a Chinese law firm, a Communist Chinese law firm.

**[0:39:30] Jon Favreau:** And Greg was out there doing business with North Korea.

**[0:39:33] Dan Pfeiffer:** Yes, like, like, I mean, Fox News would talk about nothing else, the briefing would be about nothing else. It's just, It's wild. Good, yeah,

**[0:39:43] Jon Favreau:** well, good for her. Uh, one bit of news that, uh, she did make was confirming for the world that Kimberly Guilfoyle was officially out as ambassador to Greece. Immediately letting the air out of maybe the best story of the year and prompting even more reporting about her corrupt dealings and how she spent her final days. Uh, what were your favorite bits? How sad are you? How sad are you that this one's over? Or maybe it's not, maybe we haven't heard the last of Kim Guilfoyle.

**[0:40:08] Dan Pfeiffer:** one of my abiding passions is US. Greece relations, so I'm glad that she's gone. I take this very seriously, so I always, I always have. Um, I think the funniest part in the Wall Street Journal story about her final days is that in there, it reports that she has decorated the embassy full of self-portraits.

**[0:40:23] Jon Favreau:** Did like that.

**[0:40:25] Dan Pfeiffer:** Yeah, I mean, it's not surprising, but it is funny.

**[0:40:29] Jon Favreau:** I like that. Uh, I first of all, I loved Trump's comment about the whole thing, which was she wasn't a member of my family. She, I guess, dated my son a long time ago.

**[0:40:39] Dan Pfeiffer:** I mean, in fairness, uh, she did not get married to Donald Trump Jr. and even if she had, Trump wouldn't have gone to the wedding.

**[0:40:47] Jon Favreau:** Uh, Tommy and I talked about this briefly on on YouTube yesterday, and my guess was that she stays. She doesn't come back here cause she's too embarrassed, and she stays in Greece to marry one of those Greek sugar daddies that she has been doing all kinds of corrupt dealings with. Sure enough, New York Post headline today Kimberly Guilfoyle plans to look quote for a rich European husband after Greek Embassy exit. Nailed it,

**[0:41:16] Dan Pfeiffer:** ugh, man.

**[0:41:18] Jon Favreau:** nailed it. Deeters, Uh, Eric Deeters, who's the, uh, the the Amex guy, the guy that you wanted to pay off with Amex bill? Uh. He also filed a defamation suit, uh, in Kentucky this afternoon, um, against Guilfoyle for, uh, her and her lawyer claiming that, uh, he owed her money and has not fulfilled his obligations, so he's he's suing her. That's cool,

**[0:41:40] Dan Pfeiffer:** Also amusing in that story, I will say, that's good, is that she tried to tell the White House that the all the text messages were AI generated. that's amazing, Yes,

**[0:41:47] Jon Favreau:** just amazing. Um, and then she's like, watching all the coverage from Greece, like nervously, and she apparently reached out to Matthew Boyle, who's the the the Breitbart bureau chief, uh, to try to help lobby the administration on her behalf. She's always hustling, Kim, she's always hustling.

**[0:42:03] Dan Pfeiffer:** so that's that's how she got to where she is.

**[0:42:05] Jon Favreau:** Yeah, so anyway, hopefully, uh, hopefully, hopefully, that's not the last we hear of Kim, because it's just it's too fun, it's I think just a great I think we'll story.

**[0:42:13] Dan Pfeiffer:** probably, the at some point in the next two years, uh, someone's trending online topic will be Kimberly Guilfoyle's big fact. Requiting

**[0:42:20] Jon Favreau:** Yeah, I thought you were gonna say she'll be running for office somewhere, which I wouldn't be surprised either. Pod Save America is brought to you by Sundays. We are what we eat, and believe it or not, so are dogs. A long, healthy, active life starts with clean, real food nutrition every day. That's what Sundays for Dogs is all about. It's human-grade, real food made with eighty plus all-natural meat and nutrient-rich ingredients like kale, ginger, and blueberries.

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**[0:43:47] Co-host:** today's show is brought to you by Into the Mix, a Ben and Jerry's podcast about joy and justice. There are 574 federally recognized Native nations in the United States. And for generations, the only stories told about reservation life has been about what's missing. Kyle Mesteth grew up on the Pine Ridge Reservation and decided to change the story. After losing people he loved, he took the one thing that kept him going skateboarding and built something nobody expected.

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**[0:44:36] Jon Favreau:** So I guess this is what passes for good news these days. But Trump has officially backed down from Pete Hegseth's plan to livestream the firing squad execution of Fort Hood shooter Nidal Malik Hasan. After most Democrats and some Republicans expressed discomfort with that obviously horrific idea, Trump finally shut it down on Truth Social. Writing that while the livestream would have been a quote, strong deterrent for the world, many very good and well-meaning people would rather not watch Hassan die through streaming or through any other visual device.

**[0:45:05] Jon Favreau:** Thanks for being very specific there. Um, as far as who some of those very good and well-meaning people might be, turns out it's eight and ten Americans, according to a brand new Washington Post poll. Did that surprise you? Didn't surprise me.

**[0:45:18] Dan Pfeiffer:** I think the I think the number you you think it surprised you, you think it should be. You thought more people would want to watch it.

**[0:45:23] Jon Favreau:** No, I said it didn't surprise you.

**[0:45:25] Dan Pfeiffer:** yeah, I was, I was, yeah. The surprising part is why is it not nine and ten?

**[0:45:28] Jon Favreau:** Oh, I, I, you know, I mean, ev. They went through every demo demographic group, like Republicans against it, the only demographic group supporting it by like fifty two fifty three percent. MAGA men,

**[0:45:42] Dan Pfeiffer:** Yeah, seems about right. And yeah, which even then,

**[0:45:44] Jon Favreau:** is which is what that's that Pete Hegseth, that is Pete Hegseth's constituency right but even there.

**[0:45:48] Dan Pfeiffer:** then, those guys wanna they, they will tell people they want to watch it, but they're not watching it.

**[0:45:52] Jon Favreau:** Yeah, Pete Hegseth spokesman said that Hegseth and Trump spoke before Trump's announcement, and that the two are, quote, completely aligned, don't sound very aligned.

**[0:46:01] Dan Pfeiffer:** In the they're aligned in the sense that Pete Hegseth wanted to do one thing, and then Trump publicly reversed it. Now they're aligned. Yes,

**[0:46:08] Jon Favreau:** I think this is a, uh, what do you think? A auspicious start for Pete's 2028 campaign.

**[0:46:13] Dan Pfeiffer:** yeah, probably. I think there's been several. The the auspicious start was the decision to go to war with Iran. That was probably the the F- that was the original sin in this.

**[0:46:22] Jon Favreau:** I'm very much on the impeach Pete Hegseth train. If, uh, we take back Congress, I think it's probably, uh, cause I think the I think if we take back Congress. The biggest issue, one of the biggest issues, will be the war that caused the inflation. He's the one who got us into the war. He's also a fucking war criminal, um, and and just a regular criminal, because we weren't at war with the all the boats of, uh, civilians that he blew up, uh, in the fucking Caribbean.

**[0:46:47] Jon Favreau:** So,

**[0:46:48] Dan Pfeiffer:** Yeah, I mean, it has the sa- I agree with you, I'm all for it. Like, I've I have argued on this podcast and my newsletter many places that, as deserving as it is, impeaching Trump is not the best use of our time and energy. Uh, but impeaching Hegseth, I can, I'd be for that. And we have the same problem that I don't think it's gonna result in him being removed.

**[0:47:05] Jon Favreau:** or replaced with someone who's, uh, suddenly, uh, you know, making decisions that we would welcome. So Like Kimberly Guilfoyle, defense sec def Gilfoyle. Um, we also have a more disturbing update about the administration's legal assault on Congresswoman Ilhan Omar. Earlier this week, we talked about federal officials searching Omar's DC. home. We now know that they seized Omar's phone and that they've subpoenaed her relatives in an effort to try and strip her of US. citizenship and deport her.

**[0:47:35] Jon Favreau:** Uh, so, again, as people know, she was 17 when her father became a naturalized citizen. She came here when she was eleven or twelve, 17 at 17, her father became a naturalized citizen. And investigators are examining whether her age was deliberately misrepresented to make her eligible for citizenship as a minor. So if she had been 18, I guess she would have had to apply on her own, but because she was 17, she just automatically got citizenship when her father, uh, was naturalized as a citizen.

**[0:48:05] Jon Favreau:** And so basically they're saying she was actually 18 at the time, and so he said she was 17 when she was really 18. Um, and apparently, investigators examined a similar tip, uh, that they've been they were given during the Biden administration, but never pursued it because of a lack of evidence. Um, most of the reports point out how unusual it is for this sort of step to be taken so close to an election. Um, that's also true, but, uh, what do you what do you make of all this?

**[0:48:30] Jon Favreau:** And the fact that the Trump is doing it now? And do you think he actual they actually believe that they can, uh, strip her of citizenship, that they can win this case or bring this case against her? Or do you think it's just for political show? Either way, it's horrific, but

**[0:48:46] Dan Pfeiffer:** I mean, I think this is such a bigger deal than the attention it's getting. I mean, just

**[0:48:50] Jon Favreau:** me too.

**[0:48:51] Dan Pfeiffer:** the President of the United States has dispatched his politicized Department of Justice to investigate a sitting Congresswoman three weeks before an election for the express purpose of deporting that Congresswoman, stripping their her of her citizenship and sending and deporting her. That is fucking bananas. Bananas. And and whether they they I'm sure they think they can do it, they always think they can do it. They're too fucking stupid to know if they can do it or not, they just go for it.

**[0:49:17] Dan Pfeiffer:** But the fact that they're they're doing it and trying to do it is the scary part.

**[0:49:22] Jon Favreau:** Yeah, uh, the denaturalization stuff, even before, you know, Ilhan Omar's

**[0:49:26] Dan Pfeiffer:** we've been talking about this for a long mentioned, I've time.

**[0:49:27] Jon Favreau:** been, it's, it's the it is the scariest thing potentially in the whole Stephen Miller arsenal of, uh, actions that he's been trying to take. And this, and he has been wanting to do this for a long time. This was a project 2025 thing. He said this before 2024. And, you know, the government brings denaturalization cases like a handful every year, and it's usually for someone who, like, recently became a citizen and knowingly committed fraud to become a citizen.

**[0:49:57] Jon Favreau:** I mean, Stephen Miller wants to go back after basically everyone, every immigrant who is a naturalized citizen of the United States who he doesn't like. And have investigators at DHS or FBI or DOJ or whatever, like, dig through their lives, strip them of citizenship and deport them. And that means that, like no one who is a naturalized citizen of this country, who's an im who's an immigrant at some point, but is now a naturalized citizen, who has their citizenship, is safe from being harassed and investigated by the federal government.

**[0:50:31] Jon Favreau:** If you piss off Stephen Miller and Donald Trump or someone in the Trump administration, I mean, it is, it is the it's, it's fucking awful. And like, it's, you know, anyone, and, you know, Marjorie Taylor Greene said, like, I don't like Ilhan Omar, I never have, but

**[0:50:46] Dan Pfeiffer:** I mean, tried to get her kicked out of like, right, Congress on multiple occasions.

**[0:50:48] Jon Favreau:** but like, this is, this is a crazy thing to do. And, um, you know, if people think this kind of thing stops at Ilhan Omar, absolutely not. It's not worth, and Stephen Miller has basically told us this. So it's, uh, it's not, it's certainly not a one-off. Um, I do think that they're gonna have an incredibly hard time doing. I mean, there's the statute of limitations on immigration fraud, which is long since passed. Um, her father died in 2020.

**[0:51:16] Jon Favreau:** I mean, they would have to prove not just that her father, like, knowingly committed fraud, but that somehow she, at 17 years old, also knowingly committed fraud. And they'd have to have hard evidence of that, and even then they'd have to go through court and prove it in a court of law. So it's like it is a long way from them actually being able to do it. But just the fact that they harassed her, have gone into her house, have taken her phone, are now digging through her life because of this is fucking insane.

**[0:51:42] Dan Pfeiffer:** And spread and using the federal government to spread the idea that one of Trump's political opponents is an illegitimate citizen of the United States. Even if you can't actually take it away, it's the it's the weaponization of that idea that is so dangerous.

**[0:51:55] Jon Favreau:** and it's not just Trump and Stephen Miller on this one, like JD Vance has been saying it too. So

**[0:51:59] Dan Pfeiffer:** yeah, I mean, this is this is a big thing on the right. This is, you know, Stephen Miller, Todd Blanche, all of them are involved here.

**[0:52:05] Jon Favreau:** speaking of JD Vance, um, one last thing before we get to your conversation with Sherrod, uh, Vance went to Texas this week, um, where he showed off his sharp wit and heterosexual orientation.

**[0:52:16] Speaker 9:** Now, before we get started, I love you too, sir, in a totally platonic way, to be clear. Uh, I'm the vice president, not James Carrero. You get it, Dan,

**[0:52:30] Dan Pfeiffer:** No, no, be more specific. you get the What's he saying?

**[0:52:32] Jon Favreau:** joke. Yeah, when someone says I love you, he says, I love you back. But just want to make sure, not in the fucking gay way, like gay James Carrero, who's gay because he said something nice about trans kids once. And so therefore I'm going to, uh, insinuate that he's a pedophile, which I did at the convention, and then because I love to see his web history

**[0:52:55] Dan Pfeiffer:** he did it, he did it again, this event too, he did this event same event, too. And again, yeah,

**[0:52:58] Jon Favreau:** this is all because James Carrero said a nice thing about trans kids once. That's that's where this is coming from. There's there's nothing else there. Um, and so he's using that to then say he's gay now, where this is like a like, if you were, like, in seventh grade, you would be too old for that kind of humor.

**[0:53:16] Dan Pfeiffer:** if you were in seventh grade in 1997, it's just it's so unfunny.

**[0:53:24] Jon Favreau:** it's so that's why, like, I put us like,

**[0:53:27] Dan Pfeiffer:** Put aside how offensive it put, what I was is. Yeah,

**[0:53:29] Jon Favreau:** gonna say, put, yeah, put all that aside. It is the dumbest fucking joke. The guy is like, he's so he he everything he does seems so artificial, forced. It's just like, God, how it's

**[0:53:43] Dan Pfeiffer:** he's just a goober, and he's been it, he's j- I, I guarantee this. He has been made fun of as a gigantic fucking nerd his whole life. And now he has an airplane, armed guards with him, and he thinks he is cool and tough, and he's trying to be a bully now. And he's so bad at it, and it's just it's like there's such little self-awareness and self-confidence, and it's so driven by insecurity. Like to just think that if he just declares how straight he is all the time, like the like, what is he?

**[0:54:14] Jon Favreau:** no homo, no homo.

**[0:54:17] Dan Pfeiffer:** It's just very, it's so embarrassing.

**[0:54:21] Jon Favreau:** Now, if you want to hear a bully who is confident in his sexuality, let's listen to JD Vance's boss in Ohio this week.

**[0:54:30] Donald Trump:** I don't do this with men very often. I started examining his body because I didn't know he was a great athlete. And I looked, and I watched up and down, I looked at his ass, and I looked at the whole.

**[0:54:42] Jon Favreau:** Yeah, the, uh, the piece of ass in question is Jon Husted,

**[0:54:46] Dan Pfeiffer:** Yes, yes. In case you were wondering,

**[0:54:51] Jon Favreau:** Republican Senate candidate from Ohio, and Donald Trump is just checking out his ass. see, Good for him,

**[0:54:58] Dan Pfeiffer:** you know what? More power to him.

**[0:54:59] Jon Favreau:** you know?

**[0:54:59] Dan Pfeiffer:** We're not here to kink shame.

**[0:55:01] Jon Favreau:** I would love, I would love someone to ask JD Vance about Donald Trump's comment, see what he thinks about that.

**[0:55:07] Dan Pfeiffer:** Probably be a little jealous, honestly.

**[0:55:08] Jon Favreau:** Did you see John Ossoff's, uh, Vance comment the other night on, uh, on Chris Hayes? Chris Hayes asked him about, uh, Donald Trump, and he and oh, he asked him about JD Vance, sort of going around just being a dick, which I guess I guess JD Vance's role in the final weeks is just like, go around the country, be a huge fucking dick. Make sure you let everyone know that you don't like dick, just that you are a dick.

**[0:55:30] Jon Favreau:** it's a very important Um, very

**[0:55:31] Dan Pfeiffer:** distinction in American politics. important distinction, yes, Yes,

**[0:55:34] Jon Favreau:** and you know, and so JD Vance thought he was making fun of James Tellerico. He called, uh, Abdul a little weasel who should shut up and be grateful for his country. Uh, yes, that's what he's doing. So anyway, so, uh, Chris asked Ossoff about this the other night, and here's what he said.

**[0:55:51] Speaker 10:** Donald Trump has cemented his legacy in American history as a failure and a disgrace. JD Vance will go down as a footnote in that disgrace.

**[0:56:02] Jon Favreau:** God, God, it's so good. I don't wanna, I don't wanna do the like, you know, I'm, I'm, I'm glazing Ossoff every time he has a clip there, but it's it's look going after JD Vance like that, you got me, you got me.

**[0:56:17] Dan Pfeiffer:** is, I mean, he just the way in which he delivers an insult, and the thing is, is Doesn't break he doesn't character. it like, if you just watch the S, especially the second debate, they're standing so close together. And he is just ripping Mike Collins, a new asshole, over and over again, and it's just with no like, it's really he, you know, I know you're talking about Zach, but he he's is one thing I know he does very well, and this is it, and honestly, I love it in situations like this.

**[0:56:46] Jon Favreau:** Now, the bad news from that debate was, Did you hear him again? I mean, he he said again he's not gonna run for president in 2028. But then he also said he he pledged to serve a full term in the Senate. Is he, is he really? Do you think that's shutting the door on it?

**[0:57:00] Dan Pfeiffer:** He might have to be drafted, John, I think.

**[0:57:03] Jon Favreau:** I will say I I forgot that our old boss had also pledged to serve a full term,

**[0:57:09] Dan Pfeiffer:** Yes, but he he did, but then but he, unlike Ossoff, had two years between winning that term and running for president.

**[0:57:16] Jon Favreau:** right? But then, but then the other side of that is Ossoff has served a full term.

**[0:57:20] Dan Pfeiffer:** He has, yes, maybe.

**[0:57:22] Jon Favreau:** Barack Obama had been a state senator. Honestly, if you parse She's like, Oh,

**[0:57:26] Dan Pfeiffer:** the words, he's saying he's not thinking about running for president, which he probably that, isn't because he's running yeah, that part's for re-election.

**[0:57:31] Jon Favreau:** good. Give you f- that gives you plenty of running And he's room. But like,

**[0:57:33] Dan Pfeiffer:** he said he's gonna, he said he's gonna serve a full term. He did serve a full term, John, just saying. But you remember Obama then went out right after the election, did meet the press and opened the door. hm, we'll see, We'll see.

**[0:57:47] Jon Favreau:** we'll see. All right, when we come back, Dan's conversation with Sherrod Brown. Pod Save America is brought to you by Quince. You know, those pieces in your closet that you find yourself wearing on repeat? The sweater that goes with everything, the perfect pair of pants, or the T-shirt you somehow always reach for first. Those are the pieces that make getting dressed easy, and that's what Quince does best. Quince focuses on high-quality wardrobe staples made with premium materials like 100% Mongolian cashmere, organic cotton and merino wool.

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**[1:00:50] Dan Pfeiffer:** Sherrod Brown, Welcome back to Pod Save America.

**[1:00:52] Sherrod Brown:** good to be on with you guys. Thanks, or with you personally, not you guys. Thank Well, we're you.

**[1:00:56] Dan Pfeiffer:** we're, we're a collective, a royal we, It's always if you will. Yes,

**[1:00:59] Sherrod Brown:** you guys, right?

**[1:00:59] Dan Pfeiffer:** no, no one can tell us apart anyway, You see one, so it's totally fine.

**[1:01:01] Sherrod Brown:** you can't tell them apart, right?

**[1:01:02] Dan Pfeiffer:** That's fine. I got a lot of important things to talk to you about, but you are wearing a Cleveland Guardians sweatshirt. Game three tonight, how you feeling

**[1:01:10] Sherrod Brown:** game three right now, one o'clock. right now? Wow, And they they moved it from six to one because of weather. So we get, so we got we got campaign stuff to do today, but this fit and game three, and it's pretty exciting in Cleveland.

**[1:01:22] Dan Pfeiffer:** okay, that's great.

**[1:01:23] Sherrod Brown:** Yeah, I got, I got seats, I got seats way up in the upper deck in Well, the cheap that's right, seats. So

**[1:01:28] Dan Pfeiffer:** that's right.

**[1:01:28] Sherrod Brown:** people I'll meet a lot of people there that are their tickets aren't that expensive, like regular people in the upper, in the a third of three decks. So,

**[1:01:36] Dan Pfeiffer:** Will will we see your opponent in a luxury box somewhere? Is that possible? Yes, that's right.

**[1:01:41] Sherrod Brown:** if he knows who Cleveland is, I don't Those are know. He's counting on

**[1:01:43] Dan Pfeiffer:** fair enough.

**[1:01:43] Sherrod Brown:** Cleveland. Who knows?

**[1:01:44] Dan Pfeiffer:** A And I'm glad you brought up the baseball game because we love baseball and sports here, but also because my first question to you is about the ungodly amounts of money being spent in Ohio. The Senate Republicans just took out money from North Carolina, Georgia. They're putting more money into your state to try to defeat you. I cannot imagine what it's gonna be like to watch the game today. I imagine every commercial will be about you or Amy Acton or the other side.

**[1:02:08] Dan Pfeiffer:** How are you surviving this sort of unprecedented financial assault?

**[1:02:12] Sherrod Brown:** Yeah, two nights ago, my daughter, who's, uh, in her 40s, was a huge fan. As a kid, we used to take, we used to keep score together. She and Connie and I watched the um, game three, game, game two, game one, and watched the Chicago game, game five. And it's a little unnerving to sit there with your kid, even though she's in her 40s, and watch these nasty lying ads. I mean, it's what they do. They are spending, they're up to about, we think, 280, 290 million.

**[1:02:41] Sherrod Brown:** The crypto data center crowd, same people are up to forty some million now. But there's more of us than there are them, and they're they're talking about stuff that's just not true. Instead of talking about the war, talking about prices, talking about cuts in rural health and cuts in insurance, and cuts in for everybody. I mean, that that's just not working this year, um, because people realize the real problems in our society.

**[1:03:06] Dan Pfeiffer:** the amount of money is so obscene that I live in California and I see ads about you if I watch Ohio State on Saturdays. Because they're running national ads in some of these places just to reach the small slice of voters in Ohio.

**[1:03:20] Sherrod Brown:** Yeah, I, I didn't even know these were national ads. I know that, you know, I know most of our money we re literally 60% of our money we raise ten, twenty five, and I ask people to come to SherrodBrown dot com. That makes a huge difference. Ten, fifteen, twenty bucks, um, that will win this race, cause our contributions are grassroots, theirs are not.

**[1:03:38] Dan Pfeiffer:** You mentioned the crypto PACs, the crypto industry spent a ton of money to defeat you in 2024. They're back, uh, at it this time around. What is it about you? But they're very mad about their their bill going down. You weren't actually in the Senate when the bill went down, but they're still running running ads against you. Like, why are you at the top of their enemies list?

**[1:03:58] Sherrod Brown:** Well, it's two things. One, I've spent my career, uh, taking on Wall Street, taking on big pharma, uh, taking on big oil, um, and been successful in many cases. Uh, and that's one reason. The other reason is Jon Husted is their boy. He's called the fair-haired boy from, um, uh, I'm sorry, the golden boy by first energy executives. And there was 61 million dollar bribe from them to send the Speaker of the House to prison.

**[1:04:23] Sherrod Brown:** Um, he's called the face of data centers, and they are immensely unpopular in both parties. All that money, they they know he's their guy, they know I'm gonna hold them accountable, and I guess it's the perfect storm. So they they spend literally tens and tens of millions of dollars.

**[1:04:39] Dan Pfeiffer:** You know, everyone is talking about data centers now. I see it in campaign ads all across the country. But I think the first time I saw a national politician or a statewide, a statewide politician run an ad about data centers or talk about data centers and something, it was you. Why were you? So how did you end up sort of ahead of the curve on this? And why are data centers such a potent issue in Ohio in particular?

**[1:04:58] Sherrod Brown:** Well, I listen to people. You go, particularly in rural kind of more Trump country, but even suburban areas and cities, you hear about it all the time. And you hear about it, cause it's an example of a rigged system. That, uh, Jon Husted is the guy, as I said, he's the face of data centers, not my words, called that by the media. He got $2.5 billion in tax giveaways from S, from the state, from state taxpayers.

**[1:05:21] Sherrod Brown:** Um, he, they come in, there are 225 data centers either built or in the process of being built in Ohio. Um, they're gobbling up farmland, they're drinking up water. Uh, people have no say in their construction and the land and all that, and then they're gonna pay higher electric bills. We have some of the highest electric bills in the state. So it's a combination of I just listen to people, and Jon Husted is total like he is, he's totally their guy.

**[1:05:49] Sherrod Brown:** I mean, he was a special interest guy in Columbus for insurance companies, uh, for, um, you know, for, for kind of everything. Wall Street. Now he's a special interest guy in Washington, looking out for Jeffrey Epstein. He's got major dollars, uh, way more than any other senator for, um, from the um, Epstein collaborator. Um, he's got a conspirator, he's got money from everybody that is every special interest that you talk about on this show. And so, um, no surprise there.

**[1:06:18] Sherrod Brown:** But it was so clear that people wanted a voice standing up to these data centers, making sure their electric rates didn't go up, making sure these tax giveaways end, and making sure that people had a say in their local communities.

**[1:06:31] Dan Pfeiffer:** Do you have thoughts on if and when you're elected, what a Senate could do to rein in data centers, put some rules of the road to deal with AI even more broadly?

**[1:06:40] Sherrod Brown:** Sure, you put, um, I mean, AI is the next step, and there is no real consensus there. But to start with, uh, you take away tax breaks. You require that the electricity costs are paid by the billionaires, mostly from out of state, and you give local communities more say. Because what, what, you know, one day I was in bowling near Bowling Green, a city state, good state universities there, just south of Toledo, very good flat farmland.

**[1:07:06] Sherrod Brown:** You can almost see Chicago from there. And I was driving at the one of the biggest data centers in the Midwest is there. They're building 280 acres, so just gargantuan. And you drive, you drive from the from the city of Bowling Green out in the country, and you s you see family farms everywhere. All of a sudden, you see these cranes and these trucks, and it's just if you're a farmer and you've had your farm for three or four generations, or you just bought land out there to to live or to farm.

**[1:07:33] Sherrod Brown:** It's just stunning how they have taken over without any input at all from local farmers, local small businesses, local people wanting to live there.

**[1:07:44] Dan Pfeiffer:** you, you're someone who's, you know, been a huge supporter of organized labor throughout your career. Have you gotten pushback from labor unions on your data pres center position, or are you guys sort of coming to Yeah, I, consensus on I haven't that?

**[1:07:53] Sherrod Brown:** for two reasons. One to, they can count on me to make sure whatever jobs there are, they're union, good paying, good benefit jobs. The other thing is clearly these workers, um, don't, they don't, they don't want their electricity prices going up. They want some local control over where these data centers are in their area, and they don't think that Ohio taxpayers should be feeding these very greedy billionaires, uh, that run these companies. So they they are no different from somebody else that's not working on data centers, union or non-union.

**[1:08:28] Sherrod Brown:** And so they they have received very well what I've been saying and doing on data centers.

**[1:08:33] Dan Pfeiffer:** Donald Trump has is a huge part of this campaign. He's been in Ohio campaigning. Uh, Jon Husted, I believe, was at the midterm convention. He's appeared with Trump on the campaign trail. He has tried to kinda sorta not really find some areas of distance. He's kinda talked a little bit about maybe possibly doing s about the Iran war ending. Sort of, if you talk a little about the role that Trump is playing in this election, you know, you are running, I say that Trump won three times by double digits.

**[1:08:56] Dan Pfeiffer:** Um, how's that? How's it different this time than when you were running in twenty four?

**[1:08:59] Sherrod Brown:** Well, it's different because, um, what's happened? They the voters did not vote for this war, Trump voters or not, the voters did not vote for a hundred, uh, fertilizer prices almost doubling, uh, diesel prices doing dramatically up, gas prices, food prices. Voters didn't vote for it. Voters didn't vote for, uh, health care increases on their sub, on their premiums, which caused a hundred six hundred sixty thousand Ohioans dropped their insurance in January and February, and hundreds of thousands more are very fearful of what's going to happen in January, this this January.

**[1:09:33] Sherrod Brown:** Um, you know, Republicans, they voted on the Medicaid cuts in the big, beautiful bill, they put it off till January. Um, voters understand that, and what's already happening in rural hospitals. So, um, the uh, you said, has no answer on any of that. He said his only answer was, he said, we've got to end this war. Two weeks later, he voted, uh, to continue it. He said we've got to protect Medicaid. He told a woman with a a disabled daughter, he told her, looked her in the eye and said, I will never cut Medicaid.

**[1:10:03] Sherrod Brown:** Two weeks later, he voted for the huge Medicaid cuts. So any distance between, I mean, he's, he's, you know, he's been a guy that's done nothing against this war, done nothing to rein in prices in the grocery store, done nothing to, um, protect rural health care, none of those things. And and voters know it, we're making sure they know it. He can run all the ads about nasty stuff and distractions, and but he's got to answer on these issues to everyday Ohioans of of all political stripes on how how he's done nothing to make their lives better, nothing.

**[1:10:35] Dan Pfeiffer:** One of the interesting dynamics I've seen in your race is that this is a very in anti-incumbent change election. Yet I have seen polling that sees that a non-insignificant swath of Ohioans still think you're their senator. Um, have you run into people on the trail who think you're the senator? Who are who are maybe mad about, who think you're getting re-elected or mad at you about, uh, what Congress has has done or not done that you had no part of over the last couple years?

**[1:10:59] Sherrod Brown:** Um, I've heard re reporters have asked me that question. I've heard good, some voters say things like, good. You know, I I think there's going to be buyer's remorse in Ohio. But more importantly, they thank me for the Social Security Fairness Act or the PACT Act named after an Ohio and to protect veterans coming back. The exposure to those gargantuan burn pits in Iraq and Airon in Iraq and Afghanistan, they've they know what we did to save pensions.

**[1:11:23] Sherrod Brown:** So, but voters, it it's clear in this campaign, who's responsible for the war, who's responsible for medic for cuts in health care, who's responsible for these prices, whether it's fertilizer, whether it's gas prices, whether it's, um, fertilizer prices, or whether it's, um, grocery store prices. So they they know who's responsible,

**[1:11:43] Dan Pfeiffer:** I guess anyone who has access to a television is pretty clear about what's going on here. right? There's that Like, Yes, or or it's hard.

**[1:11:50] Sherrod Brown:** online stuff. I mean, our our presence online has been really, really effective. And we're, you know, we and I mean, we raise a lot of money online and we communicate with people really well online. Um, man, I've I've been told by the Democratic Committee that our online work, our digital work, is the best in the country. And whether it's the best or not, it's outstanding. We have superstars running it.

**[1:12:11] Dan Pfeiffer:** that's great. President Obama's coming to campaign for you, I believe, in the next couple days here.

**[1:12:15] Sherrod Brown:** you know him, I hear. Yeah,

**[1:12:15] Dan Pfeiffer:** I, I do, I, I do, I do. Um, he, you know, a lot of people running have in red states have sort of eschewed national Democrats coming to campaign for him. Obama did, uh, he did win Ohio twice. Um, what does he sort of bring to the table? What do you hope to get from that event with him and over the next couple days here?

**[1:12:34] Sherrod Brown:** he brings an excitement to the table, and I think he he's coming because he sees, you know, he sees what I hear and see in Ohio, that that, um, people's lives have gotten worse. And Barack Obama cares a l- he loves this country, cares a lot about this country, and he sees people's lives getting worse. You know, whether it's a farmer, uh, that lost his soybean, uh, export, lost his soybean markets dramatically. He talks to farmers or to small business owners.

**[1:13:01] Sherrod Brown:** I'm he hears them as I do, who have, um, who've seen the the tariffs, uh, undermine their make it so much harder to run a restaurant. He n- we have p particularly small retailers, they aren't pe people that are regular customers now come once a week instead of twice or don't come at all. Uh, President Obama knows all that, and he's got his a good antenna. Um, we talk once in a while. He knows that, um, I need the help, and you know, the I, I guess you compare President Obama coming in to, um, uh, Jon Husted sending a missive out to the tech crowd saying, I need tens of millions of dollars, and I'll I'll make that contrast any

**[1:13:39] Sherrod Brown:** day.

**[1:13:40] Dan Pfeiffer:** Yeah, and I, you know, and I will say also, cause I know him, uh, he also li- he li- he likes Ohio, and he also likes you a lot too. So I'm I'm. He's happy to do anything he possibly can to help you. Well, I All right, last question.

**[1:13:49] Sherrod Brown:** saw saw a lot in twelve and eight, well, it was yes, yes, we ten, twelve, not we were, we not just the were in campaigns, right?

**[1:13:53] Dan Pfeiffer:** yes, yeah, we were in Ohio a lot from, uh, in 2012, a lot. Well, you were in Oh, okay,

**[1:13:58] Sherrod Brown:** Ohio a lot between eight and sixteen, yes, we, too, so that's most most importantly to have the

**[1:14:03] Dan Pfeiffer:** so you're there all the time. She loves Ohio. Okay, uh, last question for you. I'm gonna make this very easy for you. You already did it once, but I just can't emphasize enough to our listeners what the just the amount of money Republicans are pouring in to defeat you. It's it's like nothing we've ever seen in American politics. Um, how if anyone here wants to help out, if they have $5, $10, even more to help you, where can they go do that?

**[1:14:24] Sherrod Brown:** contribute ten, fifteen, twenty bucks, SherrodBrown dot com, or volunt- and volunteer to send postcards or come to the state to do weekend canvassing, whatever. But SherrodBrown dot com, we need the help. It's gonna be, it's it's 280 million now, it'll be another, who knows how many most import, probably the most expensive Senate race in history. And, uh, we can't have, we won't have as much, but we just want enough to compete and we're on track to do that.

**[1:14:50] Sherrod Brown:** And and being with you on on this show really matters, so I appreciate that.

**[1:14:54] Dan Pfeiffer:** Sherrod Brown, thank you so much. Good luck over the next two weeks here, and we'll be rooting for you on election night.

**[1:14:58] Sherrod Brown:** Thanks so much.

**[1:15:00] Jon Favreau:** That's our show for today. Thanks to Sherrod for coming on. Dan, you'll be back on the feed on Sunday with a conversation with Amy Walter of the Cook Political Report, one of the smartest analysts in the game. Uh, what are you guys gonna talk about? It says here, I'm guessing the election.

**[1:15:12] Dan Pfeiffer:** Yeah, I don't I. I meant to take that out of the outline because, like, what the baseball playoffs, yes, come on, people, that's JD Vance's just the script. JD Vance's sexual orientation We, be into I we're not gonna that. talk about that. I wanna promise Okay, that's you that

**[1:15:26] Jon Favreau:** good. Well, everyone should listen because Amy's super smart. And then, um, we will be back in your feed on Tuesday with another Pod Save America.

**[1:15:33] Dan Pfeiffer:** bye everyone.

**[1:15:34] Jon Favreau:** Pod Save America is a crooked media production. Our show is produced by Austin Fisher, Saul Rubin, McKenna Roberts, and Michael Goldsmith, with Reed Cherlin, Elijah Cohn, and Adrian Hill. Our team includes Matt DeGroot, Ben Hefcoat, Jordan Cantor, Charlotte Landis, Kenny Moffett, Adam Lippert, Joseph Dutra, Desmond Taylor, Dan Farrow, David Tols, Mia Kelman, Ryan Young, and Naomi Sengel. Our staff is proudly unionized with the Writers Guild of America East.

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