# Vance Bombs at Brutal Town Hall

- **Show:** Pod Save America
- **Published:** 20 Oct 2026
- **Source:** https://audioboom.com/posts/8966861
- **Transcript:** https://podcasts.opennash.com/shows/pod-save-america/vance-bombs-at-brutal-town-hall-55b883/
- **Provider:** OpenNash Podcasts (machine-generated)

## In brief

With two weeks to the election, the hosts argue that Donald Trump and his allies are closing on corruption, chaos and weakness toward Vladimir Putin rather than on prices. They point to eased Russia sanctions, a murky Kennedy Center money scandal and a press secretary fired after five days. They say Republicans are reaching for distractions, such as the French riots, because the facts at home are bad for them.

The episode moves from the administration's problems to the Democrats' own challenges. The hosts debate how Abdul El-Sayed should answer bad-faith attacks in Michigan, defend Troy Jackson in Maine, and criticize JD Vance's CBS town hall. The closing interview with Paige Cognetti shows the alternative they favor: a mayor who ran against her own party's machine and makes anti-corruption the pitch to Trump voters.

## Key insights

1. **Trump's Russia sanctions waiver undercuts a law he signed** Trump signed an order pulling back tariffs and sanctions that a bipartisan law, named for Lindsey Graham, required. Tommy Vietor says the bill had a built-in loophole letting the president waive sanctions, and that the diesel relief amounts to only about three and a half days of global supply.
2. **The Kennedy Center scandal shows corruption seeping downward** Alina Haba and Rick Grenell are trading accusations over a nearly $6 million promised donation, and a payment from the Congo is somehow part of the story. Lovett argues that when a president profits from office, the people around him treat access as something to sell.
3. **The French riots grew from school and fuel grievances** Tommy Vietor traces them to suburban Paris students facing classrooms with no furniture or power, then public-sector unions and budget anger. The hosts say Republicans are pushing an immigration frame that does not match the facts.
4. **El-Sayed's viral answer shows a tricky balance** A questioner who turned out to be a former Josh Hawley staffer asked him to disavow the Muslim Brotherhood. The hosts agree the question was bigoted but say a slightly less condescending answer would better reach hesitant voters, including some in Michigan's Jewish community.
5. **Cognetti pitches anti-corruption as her winning message** The Scranton mayor ran as an independent against her party's machine, cut the city's debt in half and was upgraded from junk credit to A minus. She now targets Rob Bresnahan's stock trades and the Epstein files, which she says are the top reason Trump voters are switching.

## Questions this episode answers

### Why is Trump easing sanctions on Russia?

The hosts say Trump wants lower gas and diesel prices and is trying to shift blame for them from his Iran war onto Ukraine. Jon Favreau says he doesn't want to anger Putin, whom he thinks could help Iran.

### What is the Kennedy Center scandal about?

Former U.S. attorney Alina Haba says her billionaire husband arranged a deal that included a nearly $6 million donation to the Kennedy Center that never arrived, and she accuses Rick Grenell of diverting it. The White House is investigating, and the hosts say nobody knows where the money went.

### Why was Katie Zacharia fired so quickly?

She lasted five days as White House press secretary after a poor Sean Hannity interview. Tommy Vietor says she was set up to fail and was bad at the job, since she had too little time to prepare.

### Are the riots in France a threat to the United States?

The hosts say no. They link the protests to school conditions, budget cuts and fuel prices, and doubt that U.S. voters will care, since immigration matters less now that Trump has closed the border.

### Who is Paige Cognetti and why does she matter in this race?

She is the mayor of Scranton, Pennsylvania, running for Congress against Republican Rob Bresnahan in a district Trump won by more than eight points in 2024. She is known for running as an independent against her own party's machine after the previous mayor was indicted.

## Facts

- **Jon Favreau** [0:04:47]: "on Friday night, he signed an executive order pulling back the tariffs and sanctions placed on Russia as part of an overwhelmingly bipartisan law named after Lindsey Graham"
- **Tommy Vietor** [0:12:13]: "the full 1.8 million tons is, like, three and a half days of supply"
- **Tommy Vietor** [0:07:19]: "there was a report today that Pete Hegseth is holding up a shipment of Patriot missile interceptors"
- **Jon Favreau** [0:13:21]: "claims that her billionaire Turkish husband arranged a business deal that was supposed to include a nearly $6 million donation to the Kennedy Center, um, that never got there"
- **Jon Favreau** [0:21:01]: "Politico reported on Friday night that the White House chief of staff, Susie Wiles, allegedly helped to set up the Sean Hannity interview that brought Zacharia down."
- **Tommy Vietor** [0:29:20]: "These kids went back to school, and they had classrooms with no furniture and sometimes no power."
- **Tommy Vietor** [0:29:42]: "you have, like, some say half a million, some say 800,000 people hit the streets."
- **Jon Favreau** [0:32:31]: "he posted a a plea to his supporters not to watch his event on Fox, but instead to watch it on RSBN, the right side broadcasting network."
- **Jon Favreau** [0:35:06]: "New Mexico should immediately change its name to New America. We are not Mexico. We are the United States of America."
- **Jon Favreau** [0:36:30]: "trying to tie Abdul to the Muslim Brotherhood based on a fourteen-year-old tweet from Abdul's half-sister, saying their mom was reminiscing about being active with the Muslim Brotherhood as a college student in the early seventies."
- **Jon Favreau** [0:38:09]: "Turns out he was a former Josh Hawley staffer turned Republican operative, posing as a normal person named Tommy."
- **Co-host** [0:57:02]: "Susan Collins said to Politico, I'm not gonna bring up the fact that the mother of his two children is his second cousin."
- **Co-host** [1:09:13]: "Nicole Armour was one of six soldiers killed at a base in Kuwait on March first."
- **Paige Cognetti** [1:15:23]: "I won with 37% of the vote. Um, had our daughter Sloan just two weeks before I became mayor in January 2020."
- **Paige Cognetti** [1:16:11]: "We've been upgraded three times by the S and P. We went from junk credit to A minus, and we have cut our debt in half."
- **Jon Favreau** [1:19:23]: "Bresnahan reported nearly 650 stock trades last year, including sales of Medicaid-related stocks before he voted for Trump's bill"
- **Paige Cognetti** [1:28:57]: "there was 25 billion dollar investment from Blackstone that Rob Bresnahan was only too eager to announce"
- **Paige Cognetti** [1:29:59]: "14% of the land in Archbold, Pennsylvania, would be covered with data centers if all of those projects went through."
- **Paige Cognetti** [1:33:06]: "Breaking the promise on the Epstein files and protecting the perpetrators instead of helping the survivors really weighs on on folks."
- **Jon Favreau** [1:31:51]: "Trump won your district by more than eight points in in 2024."

## Transcript

**[0:00:00] Jon Favreau:** Today's presenting sponsor is SimpliSafe Home Security. The worst part of a break-in isn't what's lost, it's losing your sense of safety at home. SimpliSafe prevents that before it happens. The moment someone sets foot on your property, a live, US-based agent steps in. Unlike traditional systems that only alert you after a break-in is underway, SimpliSafe stops threats before they start. Smart AI cameras monitor for potential threats and notify SimpliSafe's live agents. The agent intervenes in under 30 seconds, speaking through the camera to stop an intruder in their tracks, and calls for urgent 911 dispatch when it's needed most.

**[0:00:33] Jon Favreau:** Our CEO recently got a SimpliSafe system, and, uh, she said that the app is super easy to use. The installation was very easy. She likes that she can arm or disarm the system right from her app on her phone, and she can monitor the cameras from the app also to check in with family or friends as they arrive. Join the more than 6 million people who entrust SimpliSafe with their home security right now. Save 60% off with professional monitoring when you visit SimpliSafe dot com slash crooked.

**[0:00:59] Jon Favreau:** That's SimpliSafe dot com slash crooked. And when you order, please write in Pod Save America in the checkout survey. It lets them know we sent you and really helps to support the show. SimpliSafe, ahead of crime, in real time. Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Jon Favreau.

**[0:01:35] Jon Lovett:** I'm Jon Lovett. Time to get to work.

**[0:01:37] Jon Favreau:** On today's show, we'll talk about Donald Trump closing strong with a pro-Putin, pro-corruption message. So, you bring it home. We got fun new details about the untimely demise of Katie Zacharia's career, uh, some updates on the pivotal Senate races in Maine and Michigan, uh, and JD Vance's latest 2028 audition at a CBS town hall. We'll get into how it went. Then you'll hear my conversation with Mayor Paige Cognetti, who's running to flip a critical House seat in northeastern Pennsylvania.

**[0:02:05] Jon Favreau:** But first, Crooked Con is coming up right after the election, and we have just added a bunch more great names to the lineup. We got Governor JB Pritzker's coming, Senator Chris Murphy, and then over from the House side, Ilhan Omar, Robert Garcia, Sarah Jacobs, Jamie Raskin, Sarah McBride. We also have Carlos Eduardo Espina, uh, Simone Sanders, Townsend, Eugene Daniels, David Pakman, Jessica Tarlov, Heather McGhee, and then all the other people that we've announced on the website, plus more to come.

**[0:02:33] Jon Lovett:** Great list.

**[0:02:34] Jon Favreau:** Anyway, uh, check out the full lineup and get tickets right now at crookedcon dot com. We'd love to see you there. That's crookedcon dot com. All right, let's get to the news. Two weeks to go until election day. That's less than three Zacharias. Um, and Republicans are are just hoping that Donald Trump can give their candidates another week that's as focused and helpful as last week, where the White House message calendar included firing their ambassador to Greece over a corruption scandal, firing their new White House press secretary after five days, uh, over her inability to, uh, read out loud.

**[0:03:08] Jon Favreau:** Cancel- Speak tough, right? Uh, canceling a live-streamed execution, violating a judge's orders by cutting down a bunch of trees to renovate a public golf course. Another wild corruption scandal involving two Trump advisers, the Kennedy Center, a Turkish billionaire, and the Democratic Republic of Congo, and the fact that the president seems to have switched sides again in the Russia-Ukraine war. But it's a new week, and on Monday morning, Trump was at the White House just hammering his affordability message.

**[0:03:37] Jon Lovett:** The prices are coming way down, I'm seeing. Down, down, down. Big improvement from the previous administration. And, uh, if I might that stone is so beautiful. See the cushions? Those beautiful yellow cushions? They're supposed to be a half an inch high. I said, How about 4 inches? Don't they feel nice? They don't make them in 4 inches. I had them specially made 4 inches for everything.

**[0:04:01] Jon Favreau:** What do you think? 4 inches feels nice?

**[0:04:02] Jon Lovett:** Yeah, it's sort of a nice, you know, just a little bit of a little just gives you a little bit of something, you know? Not more than you need. No, certainly not certainly not as much as you could use.

**[0:04:11] Tommy Vietor:** It's it's akin to him salivating over the rock-hard asses of other, uh, the candidates he was seeing out on the road. Like, if you

**[0:04:17] Jon Favreau:** We do.

**[0:04:17] Tommy Vietor:** have a rock-hard ass, you don't need the four He's tried to show six.

**[0:04:19] Jon Lovett:** some of those asses, his four Right, hey, here inches.

**[0:04:21] Tommy Vietor:** here we go.

**[0:04:23] Jon Lovett:** You know?

**[0:04:23] Jon Favreau:** Look, if you think that the ass thing is just something that us libs make fun of here Kept doing on our podcast, made the New York Times headline in the New York Times about Trump, uh, just spending the last couple weeks just talking about men's physical appearance. Finally

**[0:04:37] Tommy Vietor:** a lot of instances.

**[0:04:38] Jon Favreau:** finally made the gray lady.

**[0:04:40] Tommy Vietor:** This is our our ass play president. The great

**[0:04:43] Jon Favreau:** He's an ass man.

**[0:04:43] Jon Lovett:** the gray lady. Yeah, I'm really A term I haven't heard in a while. I like

**[0:04:46] Tommy Vietor:** I don't know, yeah.

**[0:04:47] Jon Favreau:** yeah, it's just the hard copy thrown to my front door today. Um, all right, let's start with Russia-Ukraine, where Trump now appears to be caving to Vladimir Putin. Uh, on Friday night, he signed an executive order pulling back the tariffs and sanctions placed on Russia as part of an overwhelmingly bipartisan law named after Lindsey Graham that Trump himself signed just weeks ago. Uh, you may also remember that Trump recently lifted sanctions on Russian diesel as well, which has, uh, done nothing so far to actually lower the price of diesel in the U.S.

**[0:05:20] Jon Favreau:** He tried to explain all these moves in a Truth Social post on Saturday, uh, saying that he doesn't want to do anything that would drive Russia away from the bargaining table, even though no one knew they were at the bargaining table. Um, but it's pretty clear he's trying to blame the war in Ukraine for the high gas prices that are actually caused by Trump's war in Iran. Uh, he then got asked about this at the White House on Monday as he was leaving for a rally in Kansas.

**[0:05:45] Speaker 10:** But have you agreed to a trilateral meeting with President Zelensky to talk about Ukraine?

**[0:05:50] Donald Trump:** No, but I would, uh, I would do it. Not so much for Ukraine, uh, because Russia, frankly, has been fine on Ukraine.

**[0:05:58] Speaker 10:** Zelensky says you're on the wrong side of history on this one.

**[0:06:01] Donald Trump:** Zelensky said it. Zelensky doesn't know what he's talking about. Zelensky is a man that should have had this war settled a long time ago. If he would have listened to me, he would have made a much better deal a long time ago, and it'd have a million people living from his side.

**[0:06:16] Speaker 10:** The president says you're on the wrong side And to be honest, of

**[0:06:19] Donald Trump:** I don't think I think it's time for somebody else to negotiate on behalf of Ukraine. We've given a lot to Ukraine. They've given nothing to us.

**[0:06:29] Jon Favreau:** Uh, Tommy, can you walk us through what's actually happening here? Uh, and and our best guess right now about what Trump thinks he's He seems trying to achieve here?

**[0:06:37] Tommy Vietor:** he seems a little perturbed there. He's A little very sweaty too. bit.

**[0:06:38] Jon Lovett:** I have to say, a reporter just saying, Hey, Zelensky criticized you in this specific way, is, like, a geopolitically dangerous question I to ask. Like, just specific

**[0:06:46] Jon Favreau:** I know.

**[0:06:46] Jon Lovett:** It's like, I it's nothing wrong to it's not wrong to ask the question, but it's, man, it le it lets him go off in a way that is just, uh uh, ex- escalatory.

**[0:06:56] Tommy Vietor:** Yes, I had the same reaction. Sure, it wasn't It's like

**[0:06:57] Jon Favreau:** from a straight news outlet, so

**[0:06:58] Tommy Vietor:** poke the bear. I so the there's been this flurry of activity on Ukraine. I think it started with this deal deal, which is, you know, basically sent, like, 4 million American dollars to the Russians, uh, got no supply into the market. And at the same time, Trump announced an energy ceasefire between Russia and Ukraine that was news to everyone involved. Um, the structure was, like, entirely tilted to the Russians, and then the Russians violated it right away.

**[0:07:19] Tommy Vietor:** So Zelensky didn't respond to any of that positively as you would expect. He kinda popped off, um, said some things that were a little bit overheated, and now there's a bunch of retaliation seemingly happening. So there was a report today that Pete Hegseth is holding up a shipment of Patriot missile interceptors. So that's the latest thing, um, which are the only way that Ukraine can defend against ballistic missiles. The administration was also messing with Ukraine's Starshield internet access.

**[0:07:44] Tommy Vietor:** That's like Starlink, but it's the government contract side that goes through DOD. And what that did is they throttled the speed at which you could use Starlink, which means the interceptor drones that the Ukrainians used to take out Russian drones, could not operate at the sufficient speeds they needed to to work. Um, so these drones are just raining down on Ukrainian cities. Um, there's been questions about intelligence maybe getting cut off around incoming ballistic missiles. I'm not sure the veracity of that one, but then finally there's the Lindsey Graham legislation piece, which I I it should surprise no one that Trump kind of discarded with that, cause no one thought he was gonna use the authorities he already has to

**[0:08:22] Tommy Vietor:** get tougher on Russia, but he did essentially just stomp on his friend's grave in so by signing this waiver. So, big picture, it's just the latest example of Trump not putting any pressure on Putin to get to the negotiating table. And what they were doing for a while was saying, if you make a peace deal, we'll give you all these incentives. And now it seems like they're even front-loading the incentives to try to get him to make a deal.

**[0:08:44] Tommy Vietor:** Like going to the Europeans and saying, Hey, what if you guys bought Russian natural gas again? Wouldn't that be great? Um, and the Ukrainians are just getting hung out to dry, and, like, Trump is literally helping the Russians kill civilians by cutting off intelligence.

**[0:08:56] Jon Lovett:** Yeah, it's we're saying that doesn't make sense. You want to pressure Russia into a deal, not remove the obstacles and the pain that they Thanks. experienced for refusing to make the deal. Uh,

**[0:09:09] Jon Favreau:** well, he doesn't want to piss Putin off. As he said in the Truth Social in his Truth post, he was like, Well, I don't want to do anything to, uh, they haven't they haven't done much to help Iran so far, so I don't want to, basically, I don't want to fuck with them because I want to cozy up to the murderous dictator that has, uh, you know, killed thousands and thousands and thousands of Ukrainians, uh, civilians, children, all that, because otherwise he will help Iran, uh, where our you know, who we're fighting against, which They're helping is, I

**[0:09:38] Tommy Vietor:** the Iranians, definitely.

**[0:09:39] Jon Favreau:** know. More.

**[0:09:39] Tommy Vietor:** So it totally makes sense.

**[0:09:40] Jon Favreau:** It's crazy.

**[0:09:40] Jon Lovett:** it's also uh, it's very unclear what happened with this energy ceasefire, but, uh, wherever it came from, it seems to have come from purely conversations between the US and Russia, right? Because

**[0:09:52] Tommy Vietor:** I think it was the Putin called the the Putin called Trump. Yeah.

**[0:09:53] Jon Lovett:** to Trump. And so Zelensky, when he was asked about it, he's like, This is the first I'm hearing about it. And so then, uh, it seems to have been a a conversation just between Trump and Putin that he then posts about with Pu- which Putin then immediately violates, and then, of course, Zelensky violates. But then it's cast as this the breakdown of an energy ceasefire, but really was just Putin's whoever know had There never was no idea,

**[0:10:15] Tommy Vietor:** one. There never was a ceasefire, and they never agreed to it.

**[0:10:16] Jon Lovett:** Right, we we just have no idea what that conversation was and why Trump then goes on to post energy ceasefire as a what? Like, is that encouragement?

**[0:10:22] Tommy Vietor:** Well, I think what happened was Putin pitched him on this idea of an energy ceasefire, which is, like, neither side can blow up refineries, but only the Russians have refineries that are getting targeted. The Ukrainians had one, and the Russians bombed it. So he was like, Yeah, it's a great deal for me, the Russians, if you can't, you know, it's just not reciprocal.

**[0:10:38] Jon Favreau:** I'm sure Putin looked at what's happening here in the United States, domestically, politically, and just thought to himself, Well, he doesn't want he wants lower fuel prices, and I could sell him on this this deal. And then maybe I like, Putin's playing him like a fucking fiddle like he has forever.

**[0:10:52] Tommy Vietor:** Putin also knew that the the the deadlines on this Graham bill were about to hit, so he probably called Trump to get ahead of it to offer all these fake incentives to get Trump to issue the waiver that he actually did, which basically got rid of all the mandatory new sanctions that were part of the Graham bill.

**[0:11:07] Jon Lovett:** We're saying also that when the Graham bill was being debated, one of the objections was how much, uh, authority it gave the president to waive sanctions.

**[0:11:15] Jon Favreau:** That is why most of the House Democrats and and some Republicans in the Senate, too, voted against it. Yeah, because there was basically, like, a trap door in the bill that would let Trump do exactly what he just did. So that's where we are

**[0:11:25] Tommy Vietor:** Going good.

**[0:11:25] Jon Favreau:** now. Uh, but it's just like, I mean, it it's trying to guess why Trump is doing what he's doing on Russia. You know? Like, you don't need any sort of conspiracy theories, uh, about, like, Trump being a fucking Russian puppet or all this. It's just the guy has his own parochial personal interests, political interests. He's pissed that the price of gas is high. He knows that he can't blame himself, which is where the responsibility lies because he started the Iran war, and Iran is why the gas prices and the diesel prices are so high.

**[0:11:55] Jon Favreau:** And so if something somewhere in the world could be, uh, potentially making diesel prices higher, like the war in Ukraine, then he's very, very willing to throw anyone under the bus and and have a bunch of civilians die just because, fuck it. If it helps me a little bit politically at home, then that's great.

**[0:12:13] Tommy Vietor:** Well, the amount of diesel we're talking about, too, I mean, like, the full 1.8 million tons is, like, three and a half days of supply. So it's Crazy. like a de minimis amount. But meanwhile, I mean, And that's the kind

**[0:12:22] Jon Lovett:** over several months, right? That was the amount that was, like, for November, December, The the like right? October, November, December.

**[0:12:26] Tommy Vietor:** the the full it was 300,000, then 500,000, then a million later. So 1.8 total is three and a half days of supply of the global supply. So just it does nothing. And then the the broader context is Trump is having these calls with Putin and making these deals as the Russians have really increased attacks on civilians. Like, they blew up a bus station for no reason. And a lot of experts I've talked to think the plan is well, it's been reported everywhere too.

**[0:12:50] Tommy Vietor:** The Russians want to cut off major cities like Kyiv from, uh, heat and electricity supplies. So there's a humanitarian crisis through the winter, um, which will, you know, obviously, like, freeze and it the population into submission. And you could see a place where, um, a lot of, uh, civilians have to flee Ukraine, and they go into Europe ahead of all these major elections and potentially destabilize, you know, other countries and and help lead to the rise of right-wing parties.

**[0:13:15] Tommy Vietor:** So it's just like a very it feels like Putin is playing a very long game here. Um, it's evil, but it's a long game.

**[0:13:21] Jon Favreau:** There's, like, 9 million people displaced so far, uh, Ukraine, and and, like, I think 3 million within Ukraine and 6 million into Europe, which is just, eh, horrifying. Um, so we haven't had the chance to discuss the, um, pay-for-play Kennedy Center scandal, uh, rather complicated story. I will do my best to briefly summarize, and then you guys can jump in. So Trump's former lawyer, former U.S. attorney for New Jersey, uh, Alina Haba, uh, claims that her billionaire Turkish husband arranged a business deal that was supposed to include a nearly $6 million donation to the Kennedy Center, um, that never got there, uh, and is accusing Trump's former Kennedy Center director, Rick Grenell, of diverting the money.

**[0:14:03] Jon Favreau:** Somehow, this also involves a payment from the government of Congo to a Texas defense company that he's connected to, that the billionaire Turkish husband is connected to, um, which, of course, is often how people support the performing arts. Um, then on Monday, Axios reported on an alleged text from Grenell promising Haba's billionaire husband access to Trump, White House staffers, and quote, VIP events. Uh, Grenell is denying he sent the text. The White House is apparently investigating the whole thing, and no one seems to know where the millions of dollars actually went.

**[0:14:36] Jon Favreau:** When asked about Haba and Grenell's competing claims at the White House on Monday, Trump said only, I know they're having a little bit of a feud. Whatever it is, I wish them luck.

**[0:14:46] Tommy Vietor:** What does that mean?

**[0:14:46] Jon Favreau:** What'd I miss? Did I The liquidity miss anything here, guys?

**[0:14:48] Jon Lovett:** I this thing is so hard to disentangle. And by the way, it's unclear, like, okay, if if Hobbs is right, uh, then, uh, Grinnell stole this money, but if Grinnell is right, there's still graft that's going between the two. It's the whole thing is all you can sort of when you look at the whole thing, like, whatever the actual substance of what's going on here, which we can't know cause all these people are fucking liars, like it is.

**[0:15:14] Jon Lovett:** It stinks to high fucking heaven. That's really g- as far as I could get with all this.

**[0:15:19] Tommy Vietor:** Yeah, there's a lot of weird, sort of, like, scandalous, tabloidy stuff happening. We've got Gilfoyles, MX, and all these other scandals. This, to me, is, like, by far the weirdest one of all. Like, just a just a couple facts, like, Alina Haba's husband, this guy, Turhan Milden, he's a 29-year-old Turkish billionaire, but maybe he's 25. We don't really know his real age.

**[0:15:36] Jon Favreau:** He's, like, lying on the lying about his age.

**[0:15:38] Tommy Vietor:** I think it comes from a family business in Turkey, but he has ties to the Maduro regime in Venezuela, including, like, close ties with a Maduro advisor who was released from US prison in a prisoner swap by the Biden administration, uh, and was accused by DOJ of quote, profiting from starving of Venezuelans. So that's who his buddies are. Uh, Milden told Forbes he's in the cement business down in Venezuela. I'm sure that's on the up and up.

**[0:16:01] Tommy Vietor:** Apparently, he's also in the shrimp business. His first marriage was to the daughter of a guy close with President Erdogan in Turkey. That relationship got him connected with the president of the Democratic Republic of Congo, to whom he eventually became an advisor and now has, like, construction and mining interests in the Congo. Who doesn't

**[0:16:18] Jon Favreau:** Love that.

**[0:16:18] Jon Lovett:** have a cement?

**[0:16:19] Tommy Vietor:** Mining interests in the Congo. Like, it's hard to think of a dirtier business. After his first marriage fell apart, he got engaged to a daughter of a top Venezuelan military official. That didn't work out. Then he links up with Haba at the Kennedy Center. So I have no idea what's happening here, but everything about this pat fact pattern screams these are not legitimate businesses. These So are fronts for something else.

**[0:16:39] Jon Favreau:** so what you're saying is he's gonna be our next ambassador to Turkey. This guy, And this guy. Yeah, ice. it's good. Yeah,

**[0:16:45] Tommy Vietor:** Yeah, Scott Pilgrim.

**[0:16:45] Jon Favreau:** I was gonna say, this guy's lined up But, like with some good jobs.

**[0:16:48] Tommy Vietor:** well, so this dude's just bouncing around the world, like linking up with with women connected with powerful politicians, like, it's It must be very

**[0:16:54] Jon Lovett:** very charming. I have you He's a good

**[0:16:55] Tommy Vietor:** seen it?

**[0:16:55] Jon Lovett:** room, you know?

**[0:16:56] Tommy Vietor:** He kinda has, like, a

**[0:16:56] Jon Favreau:** Yeah, I'm sure that's what sad fate it is. I'm

**[0:16:57] Tommy Vietor:** going on. sure that's what Kind of mustache.

**[0:16:58] Jon Favreau:** it is. He's charming.

**[0:16:59] Jon Lovett:** He's got a great ad he's got a great energy. He's got a great energy.

**[0:17:01] Tommy Vietor:** Big cushion.

**[0:17:02] Jon Lovett:** The big yeah.

**[0:17:03] Jon Favreau:** And Rick Grenell's saying that he didn't send this text that says it's from him because he's claiming that the, uh, Kennedy Center was spelled T-R-E instead of T-E-R, and that's, like, because it's the British way of spelling center, it couldn't So have been from him.

**[0:17:14] Jon Lovett:** true. So it's like the Even though, even it's like the it's though like the three fingers from, uh, from, uh, uh, Inglourious Bastards, you know? Like, you know, whatever E- even though it is. Is apparently the text, it these three?

**[0:17:22] Jon Favreau:** the the text shows, like, the picture of him, you know, like every s you have a picture of yourself on the text sometimes, like, it's got his picture on it. So

**[0:17:30] Jon Lovett:** Here, like, you sort of step back also, like, from

**[0:17:32] Jon Favreau:** what what would Rick Grenell do with the money? What is who knows, I guess.

**[0:17:36] Jon Lovett:** Well, it's not Rick's turn to get his beak wet.

**[0:17:38] Tommy Vietor:** Cash it.

**[0:17:38] Jon Lovett:** When's when's it gonna be Rick's time? Uh, I look, I have no it's really very confusing. These are all people you can't trust. It's all very dirty seeming and shady, and all these people are liars. But you step back and and just this is what happens when corruption is tolerated, when the Supreme Court, uh, uh, rules in such a way that the president views himself as above the law when the president is corrupt and making money off of his office.

**[0:18:05] Jon Lovett:** It invites all of this underneath, and it is a cancer, right? Like, corruption is one of the most dangerous things that can happen inside of a democracy. And, like, uh, we are starting to see that all across the government. You see that with Giloil, you see that with what's happening in crypto, you see that in this case. And whatever the specifics of this one event are, we are so far, uh, uh, from normal, we are so far from kind of the the norms of good governance and the fact that people don't profit off.

**[0:18:32] Jon Lovett:** Obviously, they don't intermingle their personal relationships a and the promise of meetings and VI res- VIP receptions. Uh, it is, uh, very bad.

**[0:18:41] Tommy Vietor:** Well, it just if folks are wondering, like, who is Rick Grinnell and what does he have to do with this billionaire? Rick Grinnell was in the first term, he was the acting director of, uh, DNI, the National Intelligence Director. Then in the second term, for a while, he had this weird special envoy to Venezuela role, and he, I think, kind of battled it out with Marco Rubio. Rubio wanted to go the hard line, uh, let's ultimately depose Maduro path, and I think Grinnell was more for rapprochement and talks.

**[0:19:07] Tommy Vietor:** So it makes sense, actually, this Turkish guy with business interests in Venezuela would kind of have a financial relationship with Grinnell, cause Grinnell's the kind of guy who could grease the skids for you down there back in the day before he got kind of deposed and sent to the Kennedy Center and ultimately fired from there.

**[0:19:22] Jon Lovett:** And we just we cou- like, at my m so we don't really know if this money was ever exchanged, what the truth of it is. As far as what's public, there really was still just the $270,000 or so that was actually granted to the Kennedy Center, something to that effect.

**[0:19:35] Jon Favreau:** Yeah, well, it's all the White House is investigating. Which I also, I I will say, like, these are both former advisors now. And, like, some h- like, Alina Haba is no longer the US, eh, the the US attorney from New Jersey. Rick Grenell is nothing right now, cause he left the Kennedy Center. And yet, somehow, both of them, they were, like, running into the Oval Office to complain about To complain to this, which is and daddy.

**[0:19:55] Jon Favreau:** then so Trump being like, I whatever it is, I wish them luck. Like, I kinda I kinda get it from Trump right now because he's like, what what he's probably like, what the fuck am I dealing with this So he told now?

**[0:20:03] Tommy Vietor:** Will Scharf, the former staff secretary, to investigate. That guy's gonna be like, how? Like, what what authority?

**[0:20:08] Jon Lovett:** Yeah, but that's but this is the thing, though, with the blending of the public and private, right? Because Jared Kushner is not a government official. Has just as much legitimacy as these guys, but he's in and out of real meetings. You have people on the outside promising all kinds of things. All of the kind of graft around the pardons are people that are outside the administration making all kinds of promises, right? Because there is no rule of law inside of this White House.

**[0:20:26] Jon Lovett:** It is about relationships. It doesn't matter if your badge works or not.

**[0:20:28] Tommy Vietor:** I just love the idea being like, throw your Kennedy Center donation into the other check. I'll take care of it. Don't worry about it.

**[0:20:34] Jon Lovett:** listen, just send me 1 Venmo, and I'll Venmo the Kennedy Center, and The new I'll Venmo the C the new restaurant.

**[0:20:39] Jon Favreau:** Kennedy Center brought to you by the DRC.

**[0:20:42] Tommy Vietor:** It's crazy. I love that Alita Haba didn't know where the money came from. She's like, Oh, he's stealing from my husband. Then they look at the wire transfer and it's like, This says finance minister of the Congo. What? What are you talking about?

**[0:20:54] Jon Favreau:** So the three of us also haven't had the chance to talk about Katie, uh, Zacharia's record-breaking tenure

**[0:21:01] Tommy Vietor:** She did great.

**[0:21:01] Jon Favreau:** as the shortest-serving White House press secretary. Uh, Politico reported on Friday night that the White House chief of staff, Susie Wiles, allegedly helped to set up the Sean Hannity interview that brought Zacharia down. Uh, two White House sources described it to Politico as, quote, a sanctioned hit, uh, but then, uh, there was another report that actually, Zacharia, um, she she, uh, booked the interview herself. Yeah, I don't

**[0:21:26] Tommy Vietor:** So funny.

**[0:21:27] Jon Lovett:** I don't know. I mean

**[0:21:28] Jon Favreau:** What do you guy what what are your overall thoughts on on on those rumors, or just more broadly, her meteoric rise and fall?

**[0:21:34] Jon Lovett:** is that s there? She was made of cotton candy, right? Like, whether or not somebody threw a bucket of water on her, it rained, you know, like she's gonna get, you know, it's like this was gonna come apart, like, Oh, wow, he's a sanctioned hit. Like, how diabolical. A fourth question? Like, we It was were, like, talking

**[0:21:48] Jon Favreau:** Sean Hannity. about, right? Sean Hannity The sanctioned did a hit was go out and talk. Yeah. She's gonna The interview.

**[0:21:53] Jon Lovett:** what was that gonna happen Monday? More talking.

**[0:21:54] Tommy Vietor:** It w- it was a six minute, forty five second interview. It wasn't like a a hit job. Yeah. I the I think it's a two things can be true situation. She was set up to fail, and she was absolutely terrible at the job to begin with. Like, she, you have to prepare for that job. You have to memorize talking points and policy positions and do murder boards and practice.

**[0:22:13] Jon Favreau:** Know how to read and know how to speak.

**[0:22:14] Tommy Vietor:** Know how to speak extemporaneously and while reading. You have to spend time with the president, you have to spend time with top advisors and, like, kind of understand the thinking. And so the minute you heard, Okay, she got offered the job Friday and then was briefing on Tuesday, you're like, You're done. You're screwed. And so that, like, uh, the the Hannity was a sanctioned hit. Eh, the first question was, How did you think the briefing went?

**[0:22:36] Jon Lovett:** Yeah. It's a bit like, wait, it's a bit like, uh, uh, Katie Couric's, uh, gotcha about Lady Magazines, reading, Wait, wait, wait, Sarah Palin. Yeah, I the the other thing about this is all, like, like, ugh, she's so unprofessional, unlike unlike the incredible, uh, uh, Caroline Levitt, who could lie with aplomb, right? She knew how to stand up there like a professional, right? She would prepare and be ready to go up there and defend the indefensible conduct, the graft and the corruption, and some of the most despicable behavior we've ever seen in the history of this country.

**[0:23:04] Jon Lovett:** Like Yeah, well, a pro.

**[0:23:05] Jon Favreau:** sh- yeah, like a pro, that's why she didn't get fired. That's why Katie's Zacharia's gone.

**[0:23:10] Jon Lovett:** Yeah, and so my point being only I'm sad she got fired. I think we that this is the this is the spokesperson Trump deserves.

**[0:23:16] Tommy Vietor:** The best part of the Hannity thing is when he played her off with music at the end. Just that was just Like, it was the end of a bad it. I've never off speech.

**[0:23:21] Jon Favreau:** heard that on Fox before. It's not like they usually have to cut to something else. It's like, Oh, oh, we're gonna miss the catheter commercial. Um, do we think there's gonna she's gonna be replaced at all? I don't know.

**[0:23:31] Tommy Vietor:** Eventually, probably. I don't know.

**[0:23:33] Jon Favreau:** At least not till after the midterms.

**[0:23:34] Tommy Vietor:** I also I don't think she's leaving the White House. I think she's just getting sh- transitioned to another job. I think

**[0:23:39] Jon Favreau:** To what?

**[0:23:40] Tommy Vietor:** that's the plan.

**[0:23:40] Jon Lovett:** It's the first law. She's she Trump said specifically

**[0:23:42] Jon Favreau:** should be the new Kennedy Center director.

**[0:23:43] Jon Lovett:** that she is gonna be taking another form, uh, because because I think that because Katie Z- The final Katie Z- Zacharia form. obeys the first law of thermodynamics, which cannot be destroyed nor created, it just has to be transmuted into something else.

**[0:23:57] Jon Favreau:** Wow. What a that was just just amazing. An amazing run. Five whole days. One briefing. One briefing, five days. Two interviews. She did Hannity. She did, uh, I think Jack Posobiec or whatever, Uh, so so so a yeah, she much, yeah.

**[0:24:10] Tommy Vietor:** also did Fox and Friends. I think that went quite poorly too.

**[0:24:13] Jon Favreau:** the Fox and friends. Is there I I was a

**[0:24:14] Tommy Vietor:** gonna say I was told by someone who spoke with her that she that when Trump went out to the sticks and repeated the conversation he had with her when he was like, I told her, Are you sure you wanna do this? You should think about something else. She didn't know that meant she had been fired.

**[0:24:28] Jon Lovett:** you didn't read between the lines? Well, cause she Yeah,

**[0:24:29] Jon Favreau:** was she was in the middle of a Wall Street Journal interview. Is that what it was She was when

**[0:24:32] Tommy Vietor:** in an interview with some press, someone came in and was like, Hey, JD needs to see you. JD Vance was

**[0:24:36] Jon Lovett:** which I am I my theory on that was that that is an internal White House sentence they use to get someone It's like a safe out of the room. word. Yes, because because, hey, cause you can't walk it. Knock, knock, knock. Hey, uh, Katie,

**[0:24:47] Jon Favreau:** being the in the good you're being fired fellas there?

**[0:24:49] Jon Lovett:** on television. Right, no, of So you're you're course. being fired on television. As we speak, we'd like you to not find out about that while the Wall Street Journal reporter is in the room. So, JD Vance needs to meet with you is, like, you know,

**[0:24:58] Tommy Vietor:** What wasn't clear is if JD Vance was was handed the dagger by Trump and was like, Finish it. I that's the part I couldn't tell. I

**[0:25:06] Jon Favreau:** Wasn't he in Michigan doing the town hall?

**[0:25:08] Jon Lovett:** that this just doesn't make

**[0:25:09] Tommy Vietor:** Trump or Vance. any sense. Vance,

**[0:25:10] Jon Favreau:** Vance? that's why I that's good, yeah. That

**[0:25:11] Jon Lovett:** why I thought it was would that would a lie.

**[0:25:12] Jon Favreau:** have been even funnier if, like, JD Vance needs to meet with you. He's not even here. And she wouldn't have known Walks cause she's not familiar in with the daily schedule.

**[0:25:18] Jon Lovett:** walks into an office, walks into that room like Joe Pesci thinking she's about to be made.

**[0:25:22] Jon Favreau:** That's what I just said.

**[0:25:23] Jon Lovett:** Oh, did you just say that? Yeah, I said, end oh,

**[0:25:26] Jon Favreau:** a good one.

**[0:25:26] Jon Lovett:** yeah, yeah, yeah. He's like, Wait, no, oh, man, oh man, damn.

**[0:25:30] Jon Favreau:** Oh man. This episode is sponsored by BetterHelp. If you've been sitting on the fence about trying therapy, there's never been a better time to try it with our long-term partner, BetterHelp. Insurance options may now be available nationwide with an average co-pay for eligible members of just $23 per session. Taking care of your mental health doesn't require a life-changing event or a full-blown crisis. Therapy is just as powerful for navigating the smaller, day-to-day roadblocks. A work situation taking up too much mental real estate, a relationship dynamic you can't quite name, or a persistent feeling that you're just not yourself.

**[0:26:09] Jon Favreau:** Therapy's great. You probably don't think you need it, but you do. It helps to talk to someone, and, uh, and you'll feel better afterwards. And what better way to try than from the comfort of your own home, just on your laptop, with a BetterHelp therapist. If you've been waiting to start therapy, BetterHelp works with more than 125 health plan networks, and eligible members have an average co-pay of just $23 per session with insurance.

**[0:26:30] Jon Favreau:** Don't have insurance or don't live in the United States? You can still get 10% off your first month. Visit betterhelp dot com slash PSA to explore your payment options. That's betterhelp dot com slash PSA. Pod Save America is brought to you by Tommy John. Fall is here, which means we're prioritizing comfort at the first sign of a chill in the air. And I don't want to think too hard about what I'm reaching for in my dresser, which is where Tommy John comes in.

**[0:26:53] Jon Favreau:** Underwear is the first layer you put on and one of the last things you think about. That makes comfort especially important for your foundational garments. Tommy John is designed for movement, downtime, and everything in between. First, the fabric is soft, really soft, because if you're wearing underwear all day, it better feel good all day. Breathable, moisture-wicking fabric helps keep sweat from hanging around. So whether you're working out or just having a long day, you stay feeling fresh.

**[0:27:17] Jon Favreau:** Nothing's worse than underwear that won't stay put. Tommy John is designed to stay where it belongs so you can focus on literally anything else. And that's really the goal. Put them on in the morning and forget about them. No adjusting, no thinking about them, just comfort that lasts all day. Love Tommy John. Have worn Tommy John forever, uh, as long as we've been doing this, and it's great. It's super comfortable. I always am, uh, getting new, uh, pairs of Tommy John because I don't want to switch to any other brand.

**[0:27:42] Jon Favreau:** Upgrade your essentials and own your comfort. Go to tommyjohn dot com today and save 25% off your first order with code crooked. That's tommyjohn dot com. Use code crooked at checkout. So Republicans are getting desperate for some kind of, uh, October surprise. It's getting a little late, but they're hoping for one to, like, lift their political prospects in these last few weeks. One news event they're hoping might have some legs are the chaotic riots in France, uh, which, as a reminder, is not part of the US.

**[0:28:10] Jon Favreau:** Um, but the images have been all over right-wing media. Republicans like JD Vance and Ted Cruz have been posting some version of, uh, if Democrats win, something similar will happen here. Uh, Trump's been posting clips of the chaos or or retreating them, whatever the fuck you want to say. On Monday morning, he wrote, The migrants have taken over France. They must close the borders fast. Uh, seems like a stretch to me, but what do you all think?

**[0:28:33] Jon Lovett:** Just, uh, you know, uh, first of all, this the these protest they wanna make this about immigration, but it's just very clearly about, in part, fuel prices, right? Like, if this is coming from the Middle East, it's because of, uh, the price of fuel has more in common with that, uh, yellow vest protest a few years ago than it does with, uh, them trying to act like America's next if we don't, uh, uh, elect Republicans. Um, the other part of it, too, is like, well, you know, uh, uh, the French are ripping up the cobblestones, as an old joke.

**[0:29:04] Jon Lovett:** Uh, it would be helpful if they numbered them so they could put them back before the next time they rip them out again. Like, we don't, you know, the the the French riot every once in a while. They had their revolution, we had ours, we got a constitution, they got Napoleon. Like, we just do things differently, and that's okay. Like, I don't think we're gonna lose our heads every time the French go French go nuts. You know what I'm saying?

**[0:29:20] Tommy Vietor:** Yeah, no, I do, actually. I mean, just, yeah, in terms of the facts, like, these this round of protests started, w- when, like, high schools in the suburbs of Paris. These kids went back to school, and they had classrooms with no furniture and sometimes no power. There were staffing shortages, and they were coming off this brutal heat wave summer, where none of the buildings had air conditioning, so they were just in god-awful conditions. So they start protesting.

**[0:29:42] Tommy Vietor:** Some of the student-led protests get out of control. They're, like, you know, th- smashing up or burning schools. Then I think the public sector unions joined the protests. They started including grievances about the 2027 budget. And then over the weekend, you have, like, some say half a million, some say 800,000 people hit the streets. And at some point, the riot, like, it became a riot in places, and they started smashing shit and, um, burning stuff and just destroying businesses for absolutely no reason.

**[0:30:09] Tommy Vietor:** And so it's not clear why the the protests got out of control. Like, some of the protesters blame the cops for being very heavy-handed. Like, there was, like, a kid who got his hand blown off by, like, a cop's stun grenade, for example, fifteen-year-old. Um, some of the, uh, the Macron government blames the far left. The far left blames the government for not delivering on any of the concerns these kids have. The far right blames immigrants and everybody else.

**[0:30:32] Tommy Vietor:** And so it's a mess, and it's terrible because these kids have, like, totally legitimate grievances about the schools, but also the government is dealing with what is coming close to a debt crisis, where their borrowing costs are going up, they have all these budget constraints, and they're in a very bad place. And Macron is kinda like out to lunch, like, he cares more about, like, Ukraine and Javelin missiles or whatever, you know, like Patriot missile batteries than, like, domestic stuff.

**[0:30:56] Tommy Vietor:** Um, but it's a terrible setup because the French have presidential elections in 2027, and the far right is in the lead currently, and the far left, Jean-Luc Mélenchon, uh, is not, uh, you know, he is also, like, it could be him and and, uh, the far right in a runoff. And I feel like that's a scenario where you

**[0:31:13] Jon Favreau:** Le Pen?

**[0:31:13] Tommy Vietor:** see Marine Le Pen. And so I've, like, to answer your question, I have a hard time believing that voters in the US. care about this because, as you noted at the top, America is not in France. Um, but it is, like, you know, it wasn't just far-right media. Like, I was seeing it everywhere on my feeds over the weekend.

**[0:31:31] Jon Favreau:** Oh, I'm I'm sorry. It's scary, Yeah. I I was seeing it everywhere. It's just that, um, the way they were showing

**[0:31:36] Tommy Vietor:** for sure.

**[0:31:36] Jon Favreau:** it on on is very, you know, immigration-focused. And also, like, you can tell Fox is just doing the thing where they're like, Okay, we got nothing else to say, where Looks like the polls

**[0:31:45] Tommy Vietor:** a care bear.

**[0:31:45] Jon Favreau:** are down. So, uh, let's get some more Abdul. Let's get some Hasan Piker if we can. Is Mamdani doing anything? And then we got some fires in France. Let's do it. And they're Let's do it. go and they're Fires in France.

**[0:31:54] Jon Lovett:** and they're pulling right, they're pulling, like, uh, uh, pro-Palestinian images, right, as as if that is what The book is the undergirding

**[0:32:01] Tommy Vietor:** of Ephesians.

**[0:32:01] Jon Lovett:** the undergirding the the protest across France. When, again, like, it has what is what is driving a lot of this, like, the cost of of diesel is way up in France, the cost of fuel is way up. Like, there is any there's this the a version of the affordability crisis that is in the US. is hitting France very hard, and they take to the streets in a very different way than we do.

**[0:32:19] Tommy Vietor:** Yeah, and I I just think, like, immigration is just less salient now in America because Trump shut the border. And it's like not the thing people are really worried about. They're worried about cost of living, and I think, like, French riots, I don't know. Who am I? Maybe maybe I'm No, I think too

**[0:32:31] Jon Favreau:** it. I think there's I think there's no way. I think they're just trying to reach for anything at this point. Um, now, despite Fox News showing tons of images, uh, from this, uh, Trump is not happy, uh, with the network. Um, he's been, you know, he's he's been going after, like, individual Fox hosts up until now. But on Monday, he posted a a plea to his supporters not to watch his event on Fox, but instead to watch it on RSBN, the right side broadcasting network.

**[0:32:57] Jon Favreau:** I didn't even know that existed. Um, to stream saying,

**[0:33:00] Tommy Vietor:** all this stuff. That's the only reason I know.

**[0:33:01] Jon Favreau:** Uh, he said that Fox is devoting too much time to the Democrats and, quote, trying to be politically correct, which, uh, I don't know. They're always trying to be politically correct over Classic. there. Um, we have Fox on in our office all day, although, you know, we're we we're we just got our office moved around, so we haven't had a TV for two

**[0:33:17] Tommy Vietor:** We'll see.

**[0:33:17] Jon Favreau:** days. So maybe maybe we've missed. Missed it. Missed Maybe they've their turn to gone full

**[0:33:20] Jon Lovett:** the left. Little woke. live. Maybe it's Yeah. like MS Now all Yeah, they got Rachel, over there. they got Yeah, the Chyrons have Rachel. pronouns. Yeah, it's Hannity, it's Hannity and Maddow now. Back, like the old days. Remember when it was Hannity and Colmes? And Yeah.

**[0:33:31] Jon Favreau:** You guys think they're going too easy on Democ- what is he seeing?

**[0:33:33] Tommy Vietor:** What what what made him mad? I don't Usually, there's, like, an inciting know. incident. Like, he was mad at the Abdul Probably probably seeing interview, remember?

**[0:33:38] Jon Favreau:** the poll number. He's probably seeing polls that they're putting out.

**[0:33:41] Tommy Vietor:** But remember, yeah, I bet that's right. I bet there were Fox News polls that were not great for him that had him, like, fl- high thirties. I think he was mad about Jesse Waters interviewing Abdul. Um, I think he gets mad at Jessica Tarlov all the time just for, like, existing. Just existing. Yeah, Yeah, right.

**[0:33:53] Jon Lovett:** she does a good job. Yeah, I mean, I I I it's really a a kind of baffling one. Other than, you know, there have been these moments we've seen it, we've seen it with Waters and some others, where, like, they kinda can't keep up the act all the way right now, cause the facts are so we'll talk about Vance and his struggles. The facts are so bad, they are trying their damnedest, and unfortunately, even just trying to defend Trump, you have to give a little.

**[0:34:16] Jon Lovett:** Otherwise, you have z you what you're saying makes no sense, right? So they acknowledge the problems, they have to acknowledge how bad things are, they have to acknowledge that the war's ongoing before they get to some kinda logic to support this whole operation, and Trump can't countenance that at all.

**[0:34:29] Jon Favreau:** Well, and some of them are doing the, um, I gotta give some advice to the administration through my broadcast stuff now. And so I'm sure that really bothers him as well, because

**[0:34:39] Jon Lovett:** And you gotta teach the controversy. Even some Republicans, right, have come out against, uh, the diesel rule, right? Like, that's gonna be covered, right? You have it's not, it's thune, it's McConnell.

**[0:34:47] Jon Favreau:** yeah, you got some warmongers there that are probably upset that he's not going harder with Iran, or they're probably upset about

**[0:34:53] Jon Lovett:** They're disappointed. the Ukraine Russia stuff, They are upset

**[0:34:54] Tommy Vietor:** about the Russia stuff. Yeah. Yeah, So yeah, that's a good point. Jesse Waters is like, Would I have led with twenty minutes of commentary about John Houston's ass? No. But it was a good speech otherwise.

**[0:35:06] Jon Favreau:** uh, Trump had another interesting post today. Uh, he's sort of, uh, he he floated this once before, but, uh, today, it it really became real. Um, New Mexico should immediately change its name to New America. We are not Mexico. We are the United States of America. The name would add great value and prestige to the state. Home values and incomes would rise, and you would be even prouder while saluting our beautiful American flag. Maybe even the crooked elections that New Mexico is known for would become honest again.

**[0:35:35] Jon Favreau:** So that's what we're doing now.

**[0:35:36] Tommy Vietor:** It's just exhausting.

**[0:35:37] Jon Favreau:** Just he's just ten, you know, fifteen days out, fourteen days out, and he is just flying around on on his way to Kansas, and he's just posting about New Mexico. New America. Sorry.

**[0:35:47] Jon Lovett:** Does that play anywhere?

**[0:35:47] Jon Favreau:** Watch watch out, New England.

**[0:35:49] Tommy Vietor:** Yeah, what do you like?

**[0:35:50] Jon Lovett:** I I I, you know, who knows what's going on Does it play with

**[0:35:53] Jon Favreau:** anywhere? It plays nowhere, I think.

**[0:35:54] Tommy Vietor:** Yeah, I don't know. It plays absolutely I nowhere.

**[0:35:56] Jon Lovett:** he likes what? Drumming up the anger about it. I I don't know. I we're sort of so path me past method to madness at this point. I Yeah, I have no mean, he was up idea.

**[0:36:04] Jon Favreau:** there talking about fucking cushions that he, uh, got made special, uh, in the beautiful stone this morning. So I don't think his head is exactly in the right place.

**[0:36:10] Jon Lovett:** I just think he thinks it's funny.

**[0:36:12] Tommy Vietor:** A lot of things have overlapping names. North Dakota, South Dakota. We don't have to merge them.

**[0:36:17] Jon Lovett:** I would just say also, it's like, Hey, you know, it's called New Mexico and not Mexico because we won. Well, yeah, there's also

**[0:36:24] Jon Favreau:** It was called, it was

**[0:36:24] Tommy Vietor:** North America. also There's South America.

**[0:36:26] Jon Favreau:** it was also called that before it even became a state, so

**[0:36:28] Tommy Vietor:** This fucking guy.

**[0:36:30] Jon Favreau:** um, okay, let's talk about the race for control of the Senate, starting with Michigan, uh, which is closing as ugly as I think most of us expected. Uh, Trump, Mike Rogers, the extended MAGAverse, are trying to tie Abdul to the Muslim Brotherhood based on a fourteen-year-old tweet from Abdul's half-sister, saying their mom was reminiscing about being active with the Muslim Brotherhood as a college student in the early seventies. A time when the group had renounced violence, wasn't designated as a terrorist organization, and more than a decade before Abdul was born, uh, who didn't grow up living with his birth mother or half-sister.

**[0:37:04] Jon Favreau:** Other than that, bombshell. Um, unsurprisingly, CBS News chief Barry Weiss is now very interested in this topic. Uh, she's, uh, according to Semaphore, she's been trying to get her reporters to establish some kind of concrete link. She's going everywhere trying to. Jan Crawford, who's the chief legal, uh, correspondent for CBS News, uh, was tweeting about this, uh, town hall, uh, exchange that we're about to talk about as well. She got in trouble for that. So CBS is really, uh, they're this under Barry Weiss, they're doing a great job.

**[0:37:31] Tommy Vietor:** Barry Weiss seems like the kind of boomer relative that would forward around chain emails in the early 2000s.

**[0:37:36] Jon Favreau:** Well, it does, I mean, according But an assignment to, yeah,

**[0:37:38] Tommy Vietor:** of it.

**[0:37:39] Jon Favreau:** Max Tanny, th- in the semaphore piece is basically, like, yeah, m uh, s they have staffers at CBS being, like, most of her ideas come from, like, right-wing tweets and, like, random

**[0:37:47] Jon Lovett:** Maybe to where is Talarico? Maybe he is at a she she health facility, Yeah, she, yeah, right? Talarico.

**[0:37:51] Tommy Vietor:** Fuck him.

**[0:37:51] Jon Favreau:** she she or she asked people to investigate that as well. Um, all right, so Abdul got a question about all of this, uh, the Muslim Brotherhood stuff at a town hall on Saturday. Um, from what seemed like, w- just he just called himself Tommy, this guy. See, it just seemed like a just seemed like

**[0:38:07] Tommy Vietor:** For that. a Fuck him.

**[0:38:09] Jon Favreau:** Yeah, right. Just seemed like a Michigan voter named Tommy. Turns out he was a former Josh Hawley staffer turned Republican operative, posing as a normal person named Tommy. Um, here's how it went.

**[0:38:17] Speaker 12:** I have one simple question Will you disavow the Muslim Brotherhood?

**[0:38:22] Speaker 9:** But I wanna I wanna ask you the question that you're asking. Why are you asking the question?

**[0:38:26] Speaker 12:** Well, because they're a terrorist group.

**[0:38:29] Speaker 9:** Okay. No, no, but what are you implying? Do do you assume that I wouldn't? Yes. Because Why not?

**[0:38:35] Speaker 12:** I have not heard you disavow them yet.

**[0:38:37] Speaker 9:** Have you disavowed them? I haven't heard you disavow them yet. Do you regret it? We have a constitution. And that constitution guarantees you the right to live by your faith and guarantees me the right to do the same. And the reality of it is this. I'm never gonna tell you what faith you can or can't practice. I want to protect your right to practice your faith as you choose, as a Christian man. The professional is that it seems like you don't want to protect my right to practice as I choose.

**[0:39:12] Speaker 9:** I'm gonna ask you, do you disavow any attempt to read any religious doctrine into the laws of our country? You don't disavow that. So I think it's you who needs to understand the Constitution, not me.

**[0:39:37] Jon Favreau:** And here's Mike Rogers responding when asked about it the next morning on CNN.

**[0:39:41] Donald Trump:** He didn't disavow it. He goes on this word salad trying to get He said he around the fact did, he did say that he can't do he said, it. No, that's not true. Dana, Well, he I I'm listen, you're not, I'm not I don't know

**[0:39:41] Speaker 11:** just I don't know how why the to debate with press is you.

**[0:39:41] Donald Trump:** so eager for hi to protect this Congressman, guy. And I just wanna it is it's

**[0:39:43] Speaker 11:** be factual. an ideology. My I wanna be factual. argument is, is that You said, Yes, or no?

**[0:39:57] Donald Trump:** ideology something we should worry about? I think it is.

**[0:40:00] Jon Favreau:** Just a fucking liar.

**[0:40:01] Tommy Vietor:** Just so annoying that she's, like, kinda hesitant. There's like, no, he specifically said it. It's on tape. We all heard it.

**[0:40:05] Jon Favreau:** I I mean, they all they are all just choosing to ignore it, all the right-wing people. This is one so this is one of those where Abdul's campaign clipped it, sent it around, um, and then also all the right-wing people clipped it and sent it around. So they both uh, both sides thought that they got the better of the other one on this one. Uh, what did you guys think?

**[0:40:23] Tommy Vietor:** It's a political Rorschach test, I think. I mean, like, the people don't like Abdul, first of all, like, they love talking about whether he condemns the Muslim Brotherhood or not. They also think that maybe he looks a little arrogant, a little obnoxious. Um, I think Abdul's fans like it cause he looks like a fighter and he sounds smart. Um, in practice, I think it was, like, probably the most viral interaction for Abdul's campaign, or maybe any of the campaigns that we've seen.

**[0:40:45] Tommy Vietor:** So if we're judging by attention garnered, uh, maybe it was a success, just, like, kind of on that metric. I think we also now know, though, the the context, like, this was clearly a Republican plant. It was a guy who worked for Josh Hawley, and I think the kid's father worked for Bobby Jindal, right? And maybe worked at a pack associated with Jindal. Um, personally speaking, I think I watched that and, like, I could understand Abdul's frustration at these, like, bigoted questions of, like, Do you denounce the Muslim Brotherhood?

**[0:41:13] Tommy Vietor:** Cause your mother, who didn't even raise you, maybe was associated in the seventies? Like, it's an idiotic question. Um, I think that, uh, the answer is, like, smart and thoughtful and an important point about, um, the freedom of religion and not mixing it with politics. And also maybe a little condescending and heated at at points, maybe too sharp. Um, I think there's a dialed down version that is, like, just a little less defensive. It cuts out the part where he's like, Do you know who JFK is, right?

**[0:41:41] Tommy Vietor:** Cause, like, obviously, this kid knows who JFK is. Um, and it's sort of heralded as this learning moment. But, of course, this is real life. This is not the West Wing, you know, it's, like, easy for us to, like, fly spec- him from here. But you don't know what it's like to, like, deal with this shit all day, every day. And essentially, you know, the implication is this guy's suggesting that you're a terrorist, and that this is gonna be the thing the press seizes on.

**[0:42:02] Jon Lovett:** Yeah, I I don't, uh, taking this in and responding immediately and giving an answer, first of all, uh, saying, yes, of course, absolutely. Clearly, he has a he does not want to have to keep saying. There's something about that I'm not gonna question about, like, a feeling of sapping of dignity. You have to continuously say, because I am a Muslim, I have to keep saying I'm not a fucking terrorist, right? Like, that's like, I respect that completely, and I'm not gonna be critical of that.

**[0:42:29] Jon Lovett:** And he manages to turn it into an answer that gets the crowd revved up, right? But what I thought when I saw the answer, what I thought, what I saw the back and forth is, well, like, what's going on underneath this? The Mike Rogers campaign, Republican operatives like this guy, they wanna make people afraid of Abdul. They have a strategy, right? And so what is the divide between, right? In in in Abdul's answer, the divide is between people who are, uh, uh, uh, afraid of Muslims, uh, are are bigoted against Muslims, uh, or or are Islamophobic versus everybody else.

**[0:43:02] Jon Lovett:** Fine. But there's also, uh, another divide, right? Which is Republicans trying to exploit people's concerns and the people he needs to bring over, right? Like, there's w- there's an op-ed today about, uh, uh, uh, people leaving it blank and not v- supporting Abdul. There's clearly, uh, uh, still lingering concerns and resentment in the Jewish community in Michigan, uh, because of quote, cause of hurt people, hurt people, even though he has tried to address that. But that's clearly something that is, like, a deep wound that has not closed, right?

**[0:43:35] Jon Lovett:** And what what he doesn't say in this answer, with a q- without feeling the need to say, like, no, no, sir, thank you for your question. I am not a fucking terrorist is basically that he will be somebody that represents everybody in Michigan, that these are these are designed to make people, uh, afraid, to divide people and to avoid facing, like, to avoid the real issues at stake in this election. This is about stirring up hate, right, and getting people to turn on one another, and that he's not gonna participate in that, right?

**[0:44:06] Jon Lovett:** To try to kind of cleave not just Islamophobia from everybody else, but Republican operatives try to stir this thing up with everybody else, including a subset of people who do still have concerns about Abdul that he does wanna bring back over. You know what I'm saying?

**[0:44:18] Jon Favreau:** Yeah, I think so. Like, sort of what we were talking about the other week, which is, you know, the way Trump does this is, like, he's a jihadist, he's a terrorist. And someone says that to you, you're like, No, fuck you, I'm not a jihad- like, what are you talking about? When someone, you know, i it's it's somewhat smarter for them to throw out the Muslim Brotherhood thing because it's like, this is a new piece of information that people might have no idea what the Muslim Brotherhood is.

**[0:44:43] Jon Favreau:** Sounds pretty scary, doesn't it? Terrorist organization. Maybe you don't know the history of the Muslim Brotherhood. Maybe it's got foreign ties What's that to Egypt.

**[0:44:49] Jon Lovett:** about his mother?

**[0:44:50] Jon Favreau:** And he, you know, his his family, his family's from Egypt. What's that about his mother, right? So you throw it out there. So, to respond to that, as bullshit as it is, and of course, he, like, knocked it down. But you've gotta forget about the asshole asking you the question. You've gotta give the answer as if someone who might have a question about a Muslim Brotherhood tie, um, is not necessarily, like, uh, totally Islamophobic and and like that kid or like Trump or like Mike Rogers, but, like, might have a question.

**[0:45:18] Jon Favreau:** And you don't That's I think that's wanna and you don't want to condescend to that person or be like, No, you're an asshole for asking, right? And I'm not saying he did. I I thought I thought it was a good idea. I thought he could use, like, 20% less condescension in the in Slightly the answer. more empathetic version Well, of that. just stop Now now, I'm not

**[0:45:32] Jon Lovett:** fighting with that guy and speak to the people that are not yes. Now, again, right. Right.

**[0:45:35] Jon Favreau:** I we you can say this from the cheap seats because I am sure when you are f- y- uh, Abdul and you're going around doing this, and there are people who are fucking just calling into question your loyalty to your country that you love. It must fucking infuriate you. And it's not fair that what he has to do in response is to eat shit and just give a nice answer with a smile. But, like, we were there when Barack Obama had to do it, That's a lot of and, you know, Zoran balls.

**[0:46:02] Jon Favreau:** Mamdani had to do it. And, like, unfortunately, there's a double standard, and it's unfair, but you still have to do it to win an election anyway, and it fucking sucks.

**[0:46:08] Jon Lovett:** Well, and the other thing, too, put this answer aside, right? Like, if you look at that, there was this op-ed about sort of the people saying, Oh, we should leave it blank because, uh, uh, we can't support Abdul.

**[0:46:18] Jon Favreau:** Fuck that, by the way.

**[0:46:19] Jon Lovett:** Of course, but there's there's I yes, fuck that. There's a line

**[0:46:23] Jon Favreau:** It just made me so mad. I just

**[0:46:25] Jon Lovett:** but but there was a line in it, right?

**[0:46:26] Jon Favreau:** former chair of the Michigan Democratic Party.

**[0:46:28] Jon Lovett:** And and just, uh, and I don't the argument is bad, uh, and everybody should be supporting Abdul, and it's all just, uh, there that, like, and I've said the version of this before, but, like, it is a privilege to pretend the stakes aren't real. The stakes are real. They belong to us all. If you wanna look away and pretend otherwise and feel pure and good about yourself, it is infuriating when someone on the far left does that.

**[0:46:50] Jon Lovett:** It is infuriating when a centrist does it. Grow the fuck up. Respect face the stakes of what's happening in this country and, uh, accept that you won't always agree and that you will have serious disagreements and problems with people in your coalition. That is your that is, uh, that is what it is, uh, to be dealing with politics in this moment. Fine. Uh, but, like, inside of that op-ed, there was a line, there was something along the lines of, uh, he speaks with great precision about policy, but doesn't bring that same level of specificity to addressing these kinds of concerns.

**[0:47:19] Jon Lovett:** And I think there's just the i i

**[0:47:21] Jon Favreau:** I know, it was just confusing.

**[0:47:22] Jon Lovett:** well, I I understood the point that that that was the point I was taking from that, which is he has such he has such moral clarity when it comes to speaking about health care, right? He has such moral clarity when it comes, uh, to speaking about domestic policy. And there are clearly people that have heard his responses to these questions around anti-semitism, uh, around Hassan, around other questions where they don't feel that same moral clarity. And I've felt a version of that in the past when I've heard Abdul answer these questions.

**[0:47:49] Jon Lovett:** I I support Abdul. I I desperately want Abdul to win this race. Eh, but there is and I think it is in part because he feels this kind of resentment towards these questions and the frustration of having to constantly be accused of having dual loyalties and all that. And I understand that, but clearly, this is a political challenge that he has. And speaking I I to these issues I just I Kinda say what just agree I just

**[0:48:08] Jon Favreau:** on the on the moral clar- oh, I think that if you want to talk about his answers to Hassan, I w- I would agree with you. I don't really think there's moral clarity to whatever. Like, we're we're not gonna get into this Hasan Piker conversation, but I think that's fair criticism. I think well, that's he has spoken different. with incredibly incredible moral clarity about his love of country and pa- like, like, we I mean, we've talked about clips from the primary even, where he gives this, like, rousing patriotic speech, you know, about the country.

**[0:48:35] Jon Favreau:** And I also think the one place where he clearly felt that he had not been, um, like, uh, you know, morally strong enough on anti-semitism, he goes back, he does an apology. He, like, just wrote a very long op-ed to Jewish, uh, Michiganders i in in the paper as well, doing that. So, like, I actually think he has been doing that. I think that the Hasan Piker stuff, he's been a little like, Oh, why did you campaign with him?

**[0:48:57] Jon Favreau:** Whatever. But, Well, I like,

**[0:48:57] Jon Lovett:** well, that that's what this is coming from, right? It's coming from a feeling that, like, he has not brought that same specificity to that question. And maybe that that I don't think that should be dispositive. I don't think it's fair to take that and decide that this person can't be trusted or shouldn't be in the Senate. I find that ridiculous, especially when the stakes are so high. But I'm just I'm just trying to understand where this feeling is coming from.

**[0:49:15] Jon Lovett:** And it's clearly more than just a random Republican operative. Like, he has a like, he has to there there remains, like, a a a real problem. Now you can ascribe ascribe that entirely to Islamophobia. Maybe a good portion of it is that, but there's still something to that.

**[0:49:29] Tommy Vietor:** I think it's because he's a vi- he has a lot of moral clarity on his feelings about the US. relationship towards Israel, and he is unwilling to bend or give an inch on that. And there's a lot of people who want him. There's a question about Jewish safety, that's one, but there's a question. He, like, was pretty honest that he doesn't necessarily think that Israel is is an ally of the United States in this But see, a good moment.

**[0:49:47] Tommy Vietor:** And he is se unwilling to change his mind to to bring someone along politically on that.

**[0:49:55] Jon Lovett:** but see, but this is where I'm not asking him to change his mind on that. But, like, you look at that answer that he gives on that question, right? And and maybe this is slightly different, uh, part of this, but I do think it feeds into this question, right? Like, so when he was talking to Jessica Tarlov, uh, and, uh, uh, Scott Galloway about this, right? And it was about, um, people who are unwilling to call it a genocide, right?

**[0:50:16] Jon Lovett:** At like, in that answer, right? There is a version of saying, Look, I believe strongly that what Israel is doing is a genocide. I understand that there are people who may be appalled by Israel's conduct but disagree, but we can all agree on the the horror of this war, the need for Israel to be held accountable for to change its behavior, for us to stop funding the military, right? Uh, but there are moments have that have happened throughout this debate, where throughout this debate, throughout the campaign, where he doesn't acknowledge that there might be sincere people who disagree, and he and he kind of assumes that they are, uh, either being dishonest or not acknowledging, uh, or or

**[0:50:52] Jon Lovett:** or have a kind of, uh, is that what an indefensible

**[0:50:55] Jon Favreau:** you said to them about that?

**[0:50:56] Jon Lovett:** it was the i there I'm gonna I'm going from memory. There's been a bunch of different moments like this. And again, like, I I, there have been moments where i that he doesn't acknowledge that there are people with a sincere disagreement that aren't, uh, disagreeing, uh, because they're captured by AIPAC or sort of corporate or stooges or whatever. And all of that I think feeds to a into an idea that, like, Oh, he's not someone that I can trust, right?

**[0:51:23] Jon Lovett:** And, like, that remains, I think, a uh, uh, a place where, even if he doesn't give an inch on his moral position, that clearly there are people and maybe that maybe there's nothing that can be done. Maybe that those are people that can never be won over. But I just I just I don't know, but I like, that is what I hear.

**[0:51:39] Tommy Vietor:** yeah, no, maybe maybe there have been answers that have been like that. I've I've heard him do exactly what you wanted. I think people just wanted to take a different policy position. And I think he made a version of the argument you kinda made at the top here, which is, Look, we're not gonna agree on Israel, but we agree on all these other things. So let's come together on those. And that's, you know, a tough thing for people to hear sometimes, and maybe it'll be ineffective.

**[0:51:57] Tommy Vietor:** But I you know, look, I I I think he is far more in line with where the majority of voters are when it comes to U.S. policy towards Israel than, um, a lot of his detractors. And I understand why he's sort of sticking to his guns here.

**[0:52:12] Jon Favreau:** I also think that there's this argument could be made against him fairly in the primary and right after the primary. I think he's done a lot of work since winning the primary on this. And I think to the extent that people are, uh, either they're you're right, they're he's saying it, but they're still not hearing it. Um, and that's like, I don't know what you're gonna do about that. And because he can be, you know, he still has that sort of cocky attitude sometimes.

**[0:52:34] Jon Favreau:** I think that sort of adds to it as well.

**[0:52:36] Tommy Vietor:** It's also a frustration in politics of like, how many times do you need me to say the same thing before I've passed the test? On the left, it's like, how many times do I need to say genocide before I've, like, sufficiently led you to believe that I agree that what's happening is a genocide? On the right, it's like, how many times do you have to mouth the same exact words, uh, about, you know, sort of the the U.S.-Israel partnership or whatever it is, to assuage those?

**[0:53:00] Tommy Vietor:** I I don't know. It seems your job is to not get frustrated in those moments, but you can tell, you know, it occasionally Right, because happens.

**[0:53:05] Jon Favreau:** you wanna have, like, an actual conversation with nuance about it, and you can't because, like you said, you have to say this word or this word.

**[0:53:10] Jon Lovett:** And by the way, like, there's this is not just on this issue, right? Like, we had Katie Porter. Katie Porter, by the end of that campaign, she could not do an interview without being asked about the time she yelled at a staffer, right? And how many different times did she have to apologize? She has to answer for it every time. Look, I'm not saying that there have been plenty of moments where Abdul has had these kinds of heartfelt interactions, but there have been also the plenty of moments where he has been defiant or been, you know, defiant.

**[0:53:30] Jon Lovett:** These issues in such a way that would alienate people that might be willing to support him. And I think that that remains a challenge. It is the the the moral questions, but also the feeling like they are he is not welcoming people into his coalition.

**[0:53:49] Jon Favreau:** Pod Save America is brought to you by Himss. If you're not completely satisfied with your sex life, you don't have to settle. Himss makes it easy to get personalized physician-backed treatment plans designed to enhance your intimacy. Himss combines personalized treatment plans and 100% online process. No office visit, no pharmacy line, no awkward conversations. You just connect with a licensed provider who can determine if treatment is right for you. Not every guy needs the same thing.

**[0:54:12] Jon Favreau:** Some want daily support, so they're ready whenever. Some just want an extra boost when the moment strikes. Himss works with you to find the best option for you. And if a provider decides it's the right fit, your treatment plan is prescribed online and ships discreetly to your door. Ready to build a better sex life? Visit himms dot com slash crooked for a personalized plan for sex, weight loss, and more. That's H-I-M-S dot com slash crooked. Prescription products require an online consultation with a licensed healthcare provider who will determine if a prescription is appropriate.

**[0:54:42] Jon Favreau:** Restrictions apply. Individual results may vary. Based on a survey of Hims customers, see Hims dot com for full details. Pod Save America is brought to you by Built. Here's a question, Are you getting rewarded for paying your rent or mortgage right now? If the answer is no, you need to check out Built. Becoming a Built member means earning points on every housing payment, no matter where you live. Built points can be redeemed for flights, hotels, Lyft rides, Amazon dot com purchases, future housing payments, and much more.

**[0:55:09] Jon Favreau:** They have tons of ways you can redeem your Built points. You can go to fitness classes like SoulCycle or Barry's or Y seven. You can do Amazon dot com. You can get gift cards for like 120 different brands. There are just tons and tons of different ways to use your Built points and get something out of the deal. And Built's new AI neighborhood concierge doesn't just answer questions, it executes tasks. From paying your rent and hailing a lift to booking dinner reservations across 50,000 or more partners, it handles your to-do list while automatically applying your member benefits.

**[0:55:38] Jon Favreau:** What you do is this. First, download the Built app. Then, link any credit card or debit card with the app so purchases at your local spots become even more rewarding. And third, ask the neighborhood concierge in the app pretty much anything, and it'll alert you about exclusive member benefits near your home. Download the Built app and join the membership for where you live at join built dot com slash crooked. That's J-O-I-N-B-I-L-T dot com slash crooked. Use our link so they know we sent you.

**[0:56:08] Jon Favreau:** All right, let's talk about the race in Maine, which, as we've discussed, is another blue state, uh, where, uh, that's given us heartburn as we, uh, get close to the end here. Right now, a lot of the chatter in the national media is about this moment from last Thursday's debate between Troy Jackson and Susan Collins and the candidates' responses. I'm so sorry. I

**[0:56:27] Speaker 13:** I I'm sorry somebody's interrupting. We'll have, uh, our security deal with that.

**[0:56:31] Co-host:** AI data centers are destroying our climate. They are poisoning our water.

**[0:56:37] Speaker 13:** So this is obviously one of Troy's supporters.

**[0:56:40] Speaker 7:** Oh, shut up. I did not. I didn't. I don't even know who that kid.

**[0:56:43] Co-host:** I didn't even know that kid. Um,

**[0:56:49] Jon Favreau:** So if you didn't quite hear that, Jackson said, Oh, shut up. Uh, and now Collins is trying to make this a big deal. Uh, Dana Bash asked Jackson if he'd apologize for that. He said no, that Collins was talking down to him. What do you guys make of this whole thing?

**[0:57:02] Co-host:** my I find this selective media outrage so frustrating and so stupid. Susan Collins said to Politico, I'm not gonna bring up the fact that the mother of his two children is his second cousin. I don't know whether people know that or not.

**[0:57:16] Jon Favreau:** Dude, I was just I was gonna bring that up because I, for some reason, I was listening to some podcast where someone played that exchange again, and I was like, That was she got, she got so little shit for that.

**[0:57:25] Co-host:** She got she got credit from the kind of, like, DC elites being like, Oh, what a clever way to Nope, say something it wasn't fucking disgusting about another funny. human being. And and Dan Abash is asking if, like, he's gonna apologize for saying, Shut up. These are grown adults. Give me a break. We have more Well, you're also, important things to they're trying to tackle.

**[0:57:42] Jon Favreau:** gender it too. Cause, like, if if if he if it was if he was running against if he was running against a guy who said that, he said, Shut up, everyone would've been like, Oh, great, You're not there we go. children. Shut I know, I up is not like know.

**[0:57:50] Co-host:** It's also like he didn't even say it in the he said. He said in that kinda like, Ah, shut Like an up, ah, Ah, Sean he's a grown man. shut

**[0:57:55] Jon Favreau:** Pennant thing. Yeah.

**[0:57:55] Co-host:** up. It's like, Come on, guys. Man. Abdul is getting called a terrorist by his opponent, and we're worried about shut up. Come on.

**[0:58:03] Jon Favreau:** Also, like, she sh- she deserved it. She

**[0:58:06] Co-host:** She lied.

**[0:58:07] Jon Favreau:** right. She and she tried to make everyone think that it was a fucking plant right in the in the debate to try to score some points. And so she thinks she's just gonna be able to get away with that. And Troy Jackson's just supposed to fucking sit there and take it, cause she's Susan fucking Collins, who's been there six terms Is it the five terms.

**[0:58:20] Co-host:** per? Is it the perfect answer in the moment? No. But, like, is it a problem? Is it offensive? Is it gonna, like, d uh, turn off voters? Come on. It's like Donald Trump is a president of the United States. What what are we doing? What are we even talking We're we're we're about? policing a an offhanded an offhanded, very chill, shut up. Like, what, what? So what are we talking about? It's it just Same. it. It is amazing how little of our politics is about what's, like, It's just unserious.

**[0:58:47] Co-host:** the next, the next, whoever could there could be two Supreme Court vacancies. Uh, what are we doing here?

**[0:58:56] Jon Favreau:** All right, let's get to the good stuff. Uh, whether Democrats crush expectations on Tuesday or whether we fall short, we know we have one thing to look forward to. JD Vance, 2028, uh, and the charm offensive has already begun. This weekend, Vance did a CBS town hall in Michigan where he was laser focused on his most urgent campaign message that he is, in fact, a normal human being.

**[0:59:17] Speaker 6:** We have a lot to talk about, so let's get started. Vice President Vance, thank you very much for being here. Good to see you. Thank you for doing this, and thanks to everybody for being here. I will say, Tony, you did me a huge disservice by reminding a crowd of Michiganders that I'm from Ohio, but hopefully hopefully they won't hold it against me. Not only that, we've got a medallion back there, uh, for the Ohio State Buckeyes.

**[0:59:34] Speaker 6:** Oh, wow. Yeah, it might be stolen before the night is over. We just lost the crown. I know. Uh, I'm a law abiding guy. Per outside of speeding, uh, which, luckily, thanks to the Secret Service and the generosity of the American people, I don't drive anymore. Probably good for the insurance rates in southwestern Ohio. There's how old are your kids? Can I ask?

**[0:59:52] Co-host:** Yeah, sure. Um, my youngest is three months and my oldest is twenty one months.

**[0:59:55] Speaker 6:** Oh, wow. What? What's the birthday of your youngest?

**[0:59:59] Co-host:** Uh, his birthday is July eleventh. Oh, wow, okay. So That's a lot. Another one of those wow, July Wow, people. Thank you, wow.

**[1:00:02] Speaker 6:** eighteenth. So that's what, maybe Wow, eight days,

**[1:00:05] Co-host:** Eight days away.

**[1:00:05] Speaker 6:** eight days apart. That's amazing.

**[1:00:06] Co-host:** It's a good thing, isn't it? Are you running I

**[1:00:08] Speaker 6:** for president?

**[1:00:08] Co-host:** hate you. I guess you're not a Michigander.

**[1:00:11] Speaker 6:** No, I, uh, I live in the state of New York. Okay, the Republic of Brooklyn. Um, Vice President JD Vance, thank you very much. The Socialist Republic of Brooklyn. Couple of fucking No comment. Thank you all. comedians. That is just Absolutely. Well, Get those get those Brutal.

**[1:00:27] Jon Favreau:** two a Netflix special.

**[1:00:28] Co-host:** Brutal banter right there. the the the laughing I really might I I've cause Ask his I've never ass, yeah. we talked Ask Tony's ass. we talked about on our call this morning. We're like, Oh, we're gonna talk about the JD Vance, uh, uh, town hall. And so I just turned it on to watch the whole damn thing. And within seconds, I was like, Oh, oh my god. Just from the first moments of it, that kind of horrible feeling you get when you see JD Vance in front of a group of people with that kind of that f- that laugh, that that chuckle.

**[1:00:55] Co-host:** He keeps calling people man. He's like, Hey, Dude, m man. there's a moment where he just Hey, bro. he's like, Look, it, it, it's. It's so outrageous to say, look, the bottom line is sometimes it's just about character. And here's the thing about Mike Rogers. He's a good dude, and it's like you work for Donald Trump, the most despicable human being ever to sit in that office, and and and you're first of all, Mike Rogers is many things.

**[1:01:15] Co-host:** He's not a dude. He's kind of a guy, but he's not a dude.

**[1:01:19] Jon Favreau:** Kind of an old man. He's Yeah, he's not he's bordering

**[1:01:21] Co-host:** a dude.

**[1:01:21] Jon Favreau:** on old man.

**[1:01:22] Co-host:** Mike Rogers is a good dude. I don't think so. I don't know why. He's not a dude.

**[1:01:25] Jon Favreau:** Uh, Vance did try to tackle some of the tougher issues he'll have to have, uh, answers for next year. Uh, it wasn't necessarily more encouraging. Let's let's watch.

**[1:01:32] Speaker 7:** I plan on voting for El-Sayed in this upcoming election, and I wanted to know, why should I vote for Mike Rogers instead?

**[1:01:40] Co-host:** Now I see what Abdul El-Sayed says about the war in Iran. I see he criticizing decisions that the president has made, the military has made, but fundamentally, we are where we are. It's easy to criticize something that happened seven months ago. Congratulations and welcome. After seeing Ice behave like military police, and you recently call H one B visa workers foreign indentured servants, I think Americans are anything but safe. So I'm just curious, why? Why are you scapegoating immigrants for the issues you're supposed to be solving as a vice president?

**[1:02:17] Speaker 7:** I think that our immigration system has to balance It's the fact that obviously it's we have duties of charity to people, it's people who want to come to the United States of America and build it's a better life and For vice to contribute. president. they're not talking about To

**[1:02:28] Co-host:** the system or or the policy, they're talking about the rhetoric, the language, the what they see is dehumanization of immigrants. Sure. And and Tony, I, I, I will tell you that nobody's perfect, certainly not me. The issue that voters see and that gets on their mind, and that I hear when I'm out there, is the president is making a lot of money off of crypto. Uh, his own IRS has barred itself from looking into his tax returns.

**[1:02:53] Co-host:** You have this recent issue with the ambassador to Greece seeming to sell access to the White House. That's why people are concerned. I've seen these media reports, and I have the same reaction I imagine a lot of people in this room have, which it makes me uneasy when I read about my public officials potentially getting wealthy off of my public trust. And I'm telling you that, while, yes, DC. is a corrupt town, Tony, you know this as as well as anybody.

**[1:03:17] Co-host:** Donald Trump, I have not seen a single shred of evidence

**[1:03:19] Speaker 6:** That he participates or sanctions in that corruption. By the way, this guy was a billionaire.

**[1:03:24] Co-host:** Follow up there. That, like, Tony's just like, Okay, next issue. It's like, Uh, how about the fucking selling the crypto business to the Emiratis? Was that an opportunity?

**[1:03:31] Jon Favreau:** It's just like, the that Makes the the

**[1:03:34] Co-host:** me crazy.

**[1:03:34] Jon Favreau:** whole town hall made me realize I'm like, Oh, J. D. Vance's entire plan for 2028 is to pretend that the Trump administration never really happened, and anything that did happen, J. D. Vance had nothing to do with it. Like, it's easy for Abdul El-Sayed to criticize some decision that was made seven Seven months ago, months ago. Who made that decision to attack Iran and send 50,000 troops to the Middle East and jack up gas prices all over the world?

**[1:03:58] Jon Favreau:** And we had. Who did that? You? C- Oh, oh, easy to criticize us now. What are you gonna do about it? The mess that we fucking created.

**[1:04:05] Speaker 7:** It's, uh, it. I also he's not exactly, I would say, the, you know, the most adroit, uh, political figure, but he's in an impossible position. Donald Trump is the most corrupt person to ever inhabit that office, probably most corrupt Democratic leader, uh, in modern history, uh, to say, Oh, like, I've never seen Donald Trump participate in corruption. Well, uh, that's absurd on its face. I mean, he should follow up, but we all know that. That I don't know who's out there.

**[1:04:34] Speaker 7:** Very narrow group of people aren't aware of the fact that everything from the fucking jet

**[1:04:37] Co-host:** There's a There's a lot lot of of people who are not aware. They're like, your job in that moment, do one last topic and follow up a couple times. Be like, Hey, what about this example? what about that example? What about the meme coins? What about the crypto? It's like, like, I, it was a good town hall. They asked some good questions, like credit to CBS. Like, I'm and I not gonna hate thought he on that.

**[1:04:52] Speaker 7:** fol- like, I knew I He missed think you're right.

**[1:04:53] Co-host:** one. The other one on the rhetoric thing, we're talking about the scapegoating language. No one was like, you, you, hey, remember when you said the Haitians were eating dogs and cats?

**[1:04:58] Jon Favreau:** I know the most famous fucking, uh, Like, dehumanizing comment Come on, of anyone over it's, uh, the last, however, many years, other than Donald Trump. He he he just tweeted today or yesterday about France. Western liberals imported the third world into France and other countries in the name of diversity and compassion. Is that part of his, like, imperfect language? He said America has a bit of a Somali problem. A couple months ago, he said that Ilhan Omar should show a little appreciation, or she'd be living in a crap hole.

**[1:05:24] Jon Favreau:** Uh, he didn't say shit, so I guess that's okay. Um, the like, the guy has been used dehumanizing language the entire fucking administration and the twenty four campaign.

**[1:05:32] Co-host:** Yes, but then it's like, Okay, so then, so in this one context, he's not going to be using that language, uh, because he's referring he's talking to somebody where who who is become who is an immigrant. And so he's not going to use that language. But if he is going to be running for president, he is going to be using that language on the stump. So, like, I

**[1:05:51] Jon Favreau:** It does all the time.

**[1:05:52] Co-host:** I, so it's like, I don't really. I like, okay,

**[1:05:54] Jon Favreau:** Oh, I, I agree. I don't think it's gonna, I don't think this is gonna work, but well, I think it's this is what his best

**[1:05:56] Co-host:** I just mean is just play. of, like, okay, like, uh, these things should be like

**[1:06:01] Speaker 6:** In that one, in that moment, it would have been very good for JD Vance to be confronted with his rhetoric. But he is clearly aware of the problem it creates, and then he is going to go out and create more of that problem again, right? Cause most of the con- most of the Republican base wants to hear the fire and brimstone. Most of the country wants him to sound more like this. So that that is, that was my takeaway from this thing, which is he's clearly trying something out.

**[1:06:22] Speaker 6:** He he does some a few times. He goes, Look, I don't agree with Democrats and everything. I don't agree with Republicans on everything. Like, he's trying out this idea that he's an outsider who's always been kind of running against the system. Uh, but then he's confronted with the reality of his his participation in what this administration has done. And he either pretends it doesn't exist, pretends Donald Trump doesn't exist, or lies about it, or, uh, uh, I

**[1:06:41] Co-host:** There's a have no words. bunch of moments like that, like, they they gave him a softball to, like, tee off on tech CEOs. He's like, Oh, yes, they have too much power. How about a follow up about how they're all in the White House all the time, buying access, paying for the ballroom, paying off your boss, donating to the super PACs. Elon Musk was the deputy president for a while. It was just like there were some real opportunities there to press him on stuff in a way that just had not happened in a while, and they just took a pass.

**[1:07:06] Co-host:** It really annoyed me.

**[1:07:07] Jon Favreau:** He he thinks that he's go, he's there's a new media environment where he can basically shield himself from most mainstream outlets. Uh, he probably thought this was gonna be friendlier than it was cause it was CBS. Um, and he's probably thinking that if he runs, he's not gonna have to answer tough questions with follow-ups from many people. He's gonna have to bite the bullet and do it once or twice, you know, here, every, every now and then, right?

**[1:07:29] Jon Favreau:** And then s, yeah, he's gonna scold the press, say the press is unfair, and then he's just gonna assume that people will forget all the shit that he said. And even even when he's on the stump and doing the f- fire and brimstone shit, uh, a and with his crowds, he's probably gonna try to figure out a way to sand down the edges here and there. So whatever, though, like, people, you know, every Democratic researcher or every person is gonna be able to, like, have all the video of all the things he's ever said and just play it nonstop.

**[1:07:55] Co-host:** right, like these things are gonna be made side by side. We're gonna see them in perpetuity. The reality

**[1:07:59] Speaker 6:** Yep, you're right. Like, uh, the first of all, I again, like, I I don't know, like, Tony is Dacoppo is following up with Harder follow up. The questions from the crowd, even from Trump supporters, were pretty hostile. J in the way in which they were kind of generous to him, but being honest about the facts, right? Like,

**[1:08:16] Jon Favreau:** There was a nun there was a nun that asked him about immigration too, and it was brutal. and and Great questions. so and so, and so he Yeah,

**[1:08:21] Co-host:** comes under, he comes under with follow-ups about crypto and all the rest. But, eh, the whole thing is ta- is JD Vance saying crazy and indefensible things or defending the indef- that's, so that's what this event was.

**[1:08:31] Jon Favreau:** yeah, it was. I thought it was brutal, f- or like, as much as he lied and tried to get through it and didn't get the follow-ups that really got him, like, it was brutal for him. I Yeah, as thought,

**[1:08:37] Co-host:** it should be. I mean, the, uh, administration's approval rating is, like, 36%. Like, nothing is going well, like, the tenor of the question should be a little negative.

**[1:08:44] Jon Favreau:** which is also why his his appro- his own personal approval ratings are fucking toilet.

**[1:08:48] Co-host:** because Trump without the charisma. The one moment that went really viral was, uh, JD Vance getting asked about, uh, by a man whose wife was killed in the Iran war. Um, and I just wanted to talk about it because, you know, he, he tries to kind of empathize and connect with the guy. But I think the thing that everyone needs to know about that exchange is he's lying to his face. He's lying to this man, cause he's like, Oh, you know, I don't know about the failures at the base that you're mentioning that might have led to the death of your wife.

**[1:09:13] Co-host:** So I wanna follow up with you after. Um, this stuff has been widely reported, widely reported. So, Nicole Armour was one of six soldiers killed at a base in Kuwait on March first. Um, there were a ton of failures leading up to her death. The Army ignored warnings, uh, about moving, uh, the base to another site that was more secured. There were no air defenses at the base against drones. They were working out of a trailer with a thin metal roof.

**[1:09:39] Co-host:** There was not enough medical support for the wounded. Uh, Iran reportedly tracked them to this small base, and there has been no, uh, accountability publicly about an investigation by DOD or anyone else into what happened here. And so when Vance is like, Oh, I don't know about these failures, I'd like to follow up after

**[1:09:56] Jon Favreau:** He's like, This is the first he's, time I'm hearing about this.

**[1:09:57] Co-host:** he's fucking lying, cause either he didn't read the press or we also know there have been all these reports that his staff is leaking about how JD Vance is calling around to the combatant commanders to get his own battle assessment of, you know, the impact of the war on our bases in the region. He would know about this. He should know about this. He's lying and he's covering up for Pete Hegseth and their failures, and it's disgusting what he did in that moment.

**[1:10:19] Jon Favreau:** It's just he did. He was trying to, like, uh, he he was trying to, like, show empathy. It's, and he was There's no in in

**[1:10:25] Co-host:** good answer.

**[1:10:25] Jon Favreau:** his, in his weird way. But you're right, like, he could have been like, Oh, yeah, I've heard those reports, and blah, blah, blah, but this is the first I've heard of whatever.

**[1:10:32] Co-host:** Well, he, yeah, it's this the the thing about, like, that, uh, that moment, uh, when he's trying to, he's trying to demonstrate, I wanna talk to you on the si- he's kind of performing a version of, like, I'm I'm a a relatable figure, and I'm gonna come talk to you, and I wanna have a private conversation, get to the bottom of this, right? But that's what comes across throughout the entire thing, which is like when he does that joke about, oh, like, the the sports teams, or when he does the thing, like, Oh, you have a kid, I have a kid.

**[1:10:58] Co-host:** Wow, it's it, it Wow, eight that's

**[1:11:01] Jon Favreau:** days, wow.

**[1:11:02] Co-host:** like that. You don't this isn't real. That's not important to you. You don't think about people in this way. That's not how you relate to people. Uh, that's just not who you are. Like, you're just it's not real. None of it feels real. Good luck to him.

**[1:11:15] Jon Favreau:** Good luck to us. We're gonna have to deal with it for the next two years. All right, when we come back, Pennsylvania House candidate Paige Cognetti.

**[1:11:21] Co-host:** Pod Save America is brought to you by Article. Article makes it effortless to build a home that lasts without the boutique markup. Their curated collection of mid-century, coastal and scandi furniture are designed to mix and match perfectly so you can create a cohesive, designer look that will stand the test of time. We have a ton of stuff from Article here at our office. I will say it all showed up really quickly. Uh, it looks great. The chairs are really comfortable, the couches look great.

**[1:11:54] Co-host:** There's a cabinet, uh, that everybody loves, and, like, they're all a lot of them were bought at different times from different parts of the collection, but they work together seamlessly and look great together. And we are just really excited about it. And also the price was way cheaper than most options. And that's because Article offers fast, affordable shipping across the US and Canada, with options for professional assembly if you prefer a hands-off experience. If you have a question or you need help with your design choices, Article's customer care team is available seven days a week, and they offer knowledgeable support and even free interior design services to help you get your home just right.

**[1:12:27] Co-host:** With Article's thirty-day satisfaction guarantee, you can shop with confidence, knowing that if you're not completely in love with your new furniture, you can easily return it. This peace of mind ensures you can invest in your home without hesitation. Article is offering our listeners $50 off your first purchase of $100 or more. To claim it, visit article dot com slash crooked, and the discount will be automatically applied at checkout. That's article dot com slash crooked for $50 off your first purchase of $100 or more.

**[1:12:59] Jon Favreau:** Joining us now is Scranton Mayor Paige Cognetti, who's running for Congress in Pennsylvania's eighth district against Republican incumbent Rob Bresnahan. Uh, Mayor Cognetti, welcome to Pod Save America.

**[1:13:09] Co-host:** Thanks. You don't have to remember his name for very much longer. So Good. I sorry.

**[1:13:12] Jon Favreau:** hope I don't. You so you first got elected mayor of Scranton, uh, running as an independent, uh, and you ran against the local Democratic machine, I think, after the, uh, previous mayor had pled guilty to corruption. Um, your slogan was Page against the machine. Very memorable slogan. Um, what made you decide to take on your own party in that race, and what did you learn from that experience?

**[1:13:37] Co-host:** So back to 2017, actually, I started reading in the the Scranton Times what was happening here. Uh, my husband is from Scranton. I live here. We're choosing to to live here and raise our family here. 2017, I started realizing that there was a lot of corruption, uh, very specifically in the Scranton school district, um, even criminal activity happening. So the auditor general put out this report. Somebody resigned, I stood for an appointment and took, uh, got to work, brought in the attorney general, then Josh Shapiro.

**[1:14:06] Co-host:** There were prosecutions. Um, the really, this, uh, chief financial officer of the Scranton school district was writing false checks to his buddy down the street, this mechanic, like hundreds and hundreds of thousands of dollars that was supposed to go to kids going to his buddy. Uh, so we started looking at corruption throughout the entire Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. I worked for the auditor general in 2019 trying to push out the the graft and the corruption throughout school districts here.

**[1:14:32] Co-host:** When, lo and behold, June of, uh, July 2019, the mayor of Scranton gets indicted for extortion and bribery. A fun scheme where he would not give, uh, developers their permits unless they gave him bags full of $5,000. He put that stuff in his ceiling, as one does, and so finally finally caught up to him in July of 2019. And I was pregnant with our first daughter. Was not a convenient time. I was really enjoying doing the the anti-corruption work at the Auditor General.

**[1:15:00] Paige Cognetti:** Um, but the local Democratic Party went behind closed doors, like, in the wake of this scandal, they go behind closed doors. They pick some guy, he's kind of their next person. The local newspaper essentially writes a story that says, Meet your next mayor, because it's a special election. We have a, you know, two and a half to one Democratic to Republican, um, vote count. So I said, I'm not gonna do this. I'm not gonna raise our kids in a place where this is okay.

**[1:15:23] Paige Cognetti:** I switched to independent. We had a scenario in September of 2019 where the Lackawanna County Democrats were on one side of the courtroom, myself, a few other people that had switched to independence in the Republican Party were on the other. The local Democrats were trying to push us off the ballot. So we stood, we had standing and stayed on the ballot. I won with 37% of the vote. Um, had our daughter Sloan just two weeks before I became mayor in January 2020.

**[1:15:49] Paige Cognetti:** Um, since then, reelected in 2021, reelected in 2025. When we came in, and you can imagine, with a mayor that was extorting contractors, we had we were almost bankrupt. We had $184 million of legal liability hanging over us. We got to work. Since then, we've put in financial controls. We have put together the accounts that we need to for the legacy, uh, benefits that we have to pay.

**[1:16:11] Paige Cognetti:** We've been upgraded three times by the S and P. We went from junk credit to A minus, and we have cut our debt in half. So we are on a really strong financial path, which is a lot to say for a legacy city. You know, place like Scranton's hard. We have a lot of pension benefits that we that we have to do. We have a lot of legacy infrastructure. We've been able to invest in stormwater, invest in our traffic safety, invest in our police.

**[1:16:32] Paige Cognetti:** Over $5 million in police technology. We've added five officers to the force. So it's been a a really awesome experience to be the mayor of Scranton these seven years. Um, and, you know, really, you don't run a city in a partisan way, right? You just you run it for the people. And we have have a great track record, and unfortunately, uh, the the guy that that won in 2024 to represent us in the United States House of Representatives does not have a great track record.

**[1:16:58] Paige Cognetti:** So here we are.

**[1:17:00] Jon Favreau:** now, eh, you've been mayor for seven years, and you've obviously changed a lot about Scranton. You've cleaned up a lot of corruption. Who knew Scranton had a bit of corruption when you started? Uh, what is something, uh, that you've changed about the way your city runs and the way government runs in Scranton that you would try to bring to Washington? Understanding, of course, that it's a different job, very different place, but, like, what are some things you learn that you think, okay, we could use this, uh, in, uh, in Congress?

**[1:17:31] Paige Cognetti:** Obviously, it's a it's a different scale. But when I came in in the wake of the scandal, I knew I had to do things differently. So I didn't take the car from the mayor. There was a mayor car. I gave that to PD. The detectives has it. Um, I have no gas card. I won't take any of those types of perks. That was a that was really important to show people that I was here to lead them.

**[1:17:52] Paige Cognetti:** I don't take any campaign money from any city vendors or any city employees, so there's no that that was so important to me. I remember when I was looking at, you know, running, I saw some of these county commissioners. Most most of their campaign report was county employees, and it was just ridiculous, right? You're literally taking money from your employees for your campaign. That was the kind of stuff that was happening. It's so important to lead in that way.

**[1:18:16] Paige Cognetti:** When I think of DC, I think about our anti-corruption plan. We don't take corporate PAC money. Uh, obviously, we need a stock trading ban. You can't be trading stocks on information the American people don't have. We'll get to that with my opponent. But we have to show people that we care and we're there for them. No one forces you to run for Congress. No one forces you to run for mayor. It's a choice. It is not a choice that is going to get you a beach house and you have you make that choice.

**[1:18:42] Paige Cognetti:** So you have to show people that, and I've been really proud of what we've done. I was could have gotten a pay raise this year. I turned the pay raise down. We have to show people that you can run a government. And right now, we have such a such a lack of respect, even, and definitely a deficit of trust in government. We have to act very, very quickly in the next United States Congress. I'm not the only one with an anti-corruption agenda.

**[1:19:04] Paige Cognetti:** We've been running against the machine forever. Um, and in this race, we started off against corruption, and I'm really glad to see that it's starting to really hit. We're seeing that even some polls corruption is the number one thing that people are worried about. They should be. We are broken. We've got to fix the system, and it starts with the new Congress in January.

**[1:19:23] Jon Favreau:** You mentioned your opponent, um, uh, Bresnahan reported nearly 650 stock trades last year, including sales of Medicaid-related stocks before he voted for Trump's bill, uh, that cuts Medicaid. Uh, he claims a financial advisor made the trades. Heard that one before. Um, he has also supported legislation to ban congressional stock trading. What's your argument about why this is still a problem, and and what would you do to stop this sort of thing happening in Congress that is different than what, uh, Bresnahan has proposed?

**[1:19:55] Paige Cognetti:** So this guy talking about choices. In October of 2024, he puts out an op-ed. He's running, challenging Matt Cartwright, twelve-year incumbent, puts out an op-ed. His word, sickening. It's sickening to make money in Congress on information that the American people don't have. You shouldn't make money on your votes. So he puts that out there, gets elected, and he slides in on the the wave of twenty four, and then gets right to work, literally day trading in Congress.

**[1:20:21] Paige Cognetti:** He was on the the radio with the the conservative radio here, what's actually the talk show. It's a convicted, um, county commissioner. He was stealing money from the Lackawanna County taxpayers, served eight years and now, for some reason, gets ten hours of prime time on the radio every week. But he's on this radio show, says last year, he says, I talked to my financial advisor about upcoming positions. He said it on the radio. We have the audio.

**[1:20:44] Paige Cognetti:** It's out there. So when he you talk about this guy says one thing and does another, he's like, Oh, it's sickening to make money on your votes. He he does, a he says he doesn't talk trade himself. He obviously does. And then you mentioned seven days before he voted for 1 trillion dollar cut in Medicaid, he sold almost $400,000 worth of Medicaid-related stocks and bonds. And seven days before Trump went to Iran the first time, he was buying up missile stocks, buying Lockheed.

**[1:21:11] Paige Cognetti:** It's just remarkable when you put his voting record next to his stock trading record. He tries to to weasel out of it. But the the flimsy piece of paper that the Republicans pushed through at the end of the summer to try to run on, it is ch- full of holes. We need an actual stock ban. Again, there's no reason for a member of Congress to be trading individual stocks. Both parties are guilty of this. We know that the top stock trader in Congress is a Democrat.

**[1:21:35] Paige Cognetti:** We need to do real reforms, and we cannot do it just on stocks. It's gotta be corporate PAC money. I've already had folks that that have gotten to me from, you know, the DC lobbying world, like, Well, you don't really mean it. You're gonna get here and you're gonna take corporate money. I'm like, No, we're not. You have to talk to people. People are so fed up. It is one of those things that people really understand.

**[1:21:56] Paige Cognetti:** They also really want term limits. I can't tell you the applause line when you are in a union hall or at a canvas launch or at a backyard barbecue. When you talk about real term limits, our proposals eighteen years for the Senate, eighteen years for Congress, eighteen years for the Supreme Court. People really want to see change. They want to see that you're there for them and you're not there to build your career and pad your pockets.

**[1:22:17] Jon Favreau:** If Democrats win the House, um, and and you're one of them, um, you know, it will be difficult to pass, uh, any legislation, uh, in in the in the next two years, even if you get Republicans to do it. You've got Donald Trump as president still, but Democrats will have the power to investigate potential corruption and abuses of power from the Trump administration. How big of a priority should that be? Um, because obviously, you have to balance, uh, you know, a lot of people care most about cost of living issues, and I'm sure that's what you've been campaigning on, and Democrats across the country.

**[1:22:53] Jon Favreau:** Um, obviously, it, like I said, it's gonna be tough to pass stuff on that, but, um, how do you balance the need to focus on that with this, you know, uh, the potential issue where if you, uh, do too much investigation and oversight, then voters are like, Well, w- why are they just going after the Trump administration or these companies, and why aren't they doing anything for me?

**[1:23:14] Paige Cognetti:** Right, I think people are really putting corruption and the costs together. So when I think about, like, that first week in Congress, we have to do everything we can to try to end the war in Iran and to try to end the tariffs and have an immediate impact on costs. Also, day one, I have signed onto a letter with other candidates. We do an anti-corruption agenda. We actually show the American people that we are serious about this, and we challenge those that are there now, Republicans and Democrats, to come on board with us.

**[1:23:41] Paige Cognetti:** We cannot keep going this way. The investigations are extraordinarily important. I think about, you know, being on the school board, being at the auditor general's office, digging into those numbers, digging into those contracts. And you, uh, who knows what we'll find? We will, you know, we'll find a lot, but we have to make sure that we're doing it, that we're clear about it, and that it's not really painted as some sort of witch hunt. That's that's a fear I have is getting into office and having it be all about the president.

**[1:24:09] Paige Cognetti:** The president is on his way out. He will be in his final two years. We need to hold him, his agency heads, and the members of Congress accountable for sure. That happens for for any agency, under any president, in any White House, no matter what party. We need to do that, but we need to s show that we're doing that in the name of busting corruption and getting our s feet back under us, not really targeting one particular person.

**[1:24:34] Paige Cognetti:** That is, to me, a recipe for a a failed, um, presidential bid for a Democrat in 2028. So we need to be really, really, uh, diligent on what are the facts, what are the problems that we're seeing. If there is pay to play, let's lay it out for the American people in a way that is clear to them. I think with this current administration, there's a lot of, um, pretty clear clear storylines that are gonna come out.

**[1:24:59] Paige Cognetti:** We need to be sure that we're making that case. We also I think about it as a mayor, like, what are the crosswalks we can paint? What are the street signs we can put up? What are those immediate things that people can feel? We need to make sure that we in those two years, we're doing real things that people understand, and that even though those bills and those pro programs a lot of them will be left at either the foot of the Senate or the foot of 1,600 Pennsylvania, at least we'll have to be able to show of what we can do and how we can make things better when we have more, uh, more power.

**[1:25:28] Paige Cognetti:** I really don't want to see us dwindle, uh, a US. Congress, um, that ha- where, you know, we have the power to do things and have it just go to, um, what the American people think is is wasteful.

**[1:25:40] Jon Favreau:** For an anti-corruption agenda, you've mentioned, obviously, uh, banning stock trading, uh, corporate PAC money, term limits. Is there anything else beyond those provisions that you would want in an anti-corruption agenda?

**[1:25:52] Paige Cognetti:** Yeah, I mean, we talk about the revolving door, the lobbying, right? You can't we don't want people that are planning their run for Congress so that they can get in and become a lobbyist and just and just get get in there and make money for themselves. So that's a big piece of it. And, like, generally auditing the government, I know it sounds kind of silly, but it, you know, we we were, you know, I was at the Obama Treasury Department.

**[1:26:12] Paige Cognetti:** I was, you know, putting together the international affairs budget. It is office by office, line by line. If you dig into the budget, you can find meaningful savings. You can also find, you know, maybe some of the the problems that that might be happening there, the procurement that isn't right. You have to go line by line. You have to truly audit it. Um, we know that there could be so much more digging. We need folks that are willing to do the hard work.

**[1:26:35] Paige Cognetti:** You know, when I think about this work, I think about it like we've done as mayor. You go in and you do the stuff that is not sexy, but it over time really impacts how people feel about themselves and their government. You can do that at the local level. I have faith that we can do that at the federal level if we really, really tackle corruption and have folks in office that are serious about it and serious about being held accountable.

**[1:26:57] Paige Cognetti:** When you're a mayor, you cannot walk out of your house without being accountable. I think part of what you see, for example, in my opponent, is a person who thinks that this is cool. You just get to wear a pin and kind of walk around on being TV. No, you are accountable every single day for the promises you make. This guy has been promising one thing and doing another. I think we need more mayors and county commissioners at in Congress that have had that feeling every single day of walking down the street, going to the grocery store, stopping at the coffee shop, and knowing that they're gonna have a conversation where somebody's gonna ask them a question.

**[1:27:28] Jon Favreau:** I know Bresnahan, um, voted for, so we voted for the Medicaid cuts. Um, he also joined a bipartisan effort to extend Obamacare subsidies. You know, he's gone back and forth on on these health care issues. What's the difference between his health care record and what you would do in Congress and what you want to do going forward on health care?

**[1:27:45] Paige Cognetti:** I mean, we know that the ACA was never perfect. We absolutely have a lot of reforms. There are, you know, the insurance companies have too much power in this conversation. For-profit healthcare has too much power, and there's we see in places like Scranton where, you know, thirty years of the privatization and the mergers in healthcare have caused real problems. We have to make reforms, but we can't do it with $1 1 trillion gutted from the system.

**[1:28:09] Paige Cognetti:** So I think, uh, in those first days, we need to put the floor back under the Medicaid program. Not that there isn't fraud there, I'm sure there's a little fraud here and there, but we already have 9,000 people in these five counties in northeastern Pennsylvania who no longer have healthcare. I've had a bursting ER in the city of Scranton for years. It is getting worse and worse and worse. I hear those reports from our police officers and our firefighters.

**[1:28:31] Paige Cognetti:** We cannot do this work with the system gutted. So we have to do that first and then work to to reform. But, again, we can't do it if the corporations are in charge.

**[1:28:41] Jon Favreau:** Um, data centers, uh, speaking of corporations, have been another big issue in this campaign. Uh, you've said that if these tech companies wanna build in your community, they're gonna have to pay their own way, follow the rules. Are there circumstances where you'd welcome new data centers, and what would the companies have to agree to?

**[1:28:57] Paige Cognetti:** So, Lackawanna County and it's all of northeastern Pennsylvania. We have a lot of energy here. There's the Marcellus shale here. So, and Rob Bresnahan actually invited these companies last year. There was a big, uh, rah rah last summer where the president was talking about Senator McCormick, Rob, Rob Bresnahan, were all saying northeastern Pennsylvania should be a center of the AI build out and the data centers should come here. And there was 25 billion dollar investment from Blackstone that Rob Bresnahan was only too eager to announce, still listed, um, on his official press release page on his website.

**[1:29:30] Paige Cognetti:** Uh, you can go, he can see, uh, how excited he was to invite these data centers here. And now we have dozens and dozens of projects and a bunch of speculative developers that are, you know, really terrorizing these communities. I've sat in so many township buildings, so many different community meetings, hearing these, uh, developers that say they have nondisclosure agreements, they can't tell you who they are, but please give us the zoning privilege of being able to put this, you know, fifty one, basically the size of fifty one Walmarts in your town.

**[1:29:59] Paige Cognetti:** There's a place called Archbold, Pennsylvania. 14% of the land in Archbold, Pennsylvania, would be covered with data centers if all of those projects went through. So you can have some of these, and this is where, you know, you hear a lot. I think there was a knee jerk, you know, especially last spring, like, Okay, moratorium. We're gonna stop them all. That's not the right public policy either, right? You can have situations, there's a decommissioned coal plant in southwest Pennsylvania.

**[1:30:22] Paige Cognetti:** There's a nuclear site in Berwick, Pennsylvania, where Amazon's putting one. You can do that. If the table is set with transparency, you've got the end user tech company, you've got the developer, you've got the municipalities, you've got labor. You can do it. And I've had, you know, mayors tell me that they're proud of the the work that they've been doing when that table is set right. We haven't seen any of that in northeastern Pennsylvania. We've seen some pretty crass stuff.

**[1:30:46] Paige Cognetti:** We've seen one of the center companies offering $10,000 per household, um, if they'll support the the zoning overlay. So they're they're pretty desperate to be here, but it's been it's just been so upsetting for people. People are scared for their health. They're scared for their children's health. This is the kind of place, you know, this is old coal country, right? Big, uh, industry has come before and literally left us with huge piles, you know, buildings of, uh, size of coal and dumps that have been all over scattered through our region.

**[1:31:14] Paige Cognetti:** We had to clean those up as taxpayers. People understand that, they remember that, they don't want that to happen again. So it's a real fight, and I'm really proud, though, of my community and seeing people coming out in a totally nonpartisan way. They are leaving their political stripes at home, just coming in and supporting each other, supporting their way of life, supporting their health. And it's a thing actually in this moment that is giving me hope that we can, uh, sew the quilt back together in America, that we can get through what has been such a horrific decade here and get back to supporting each other.

**[1:31:46] Paige Cognetti:** I think it's possible, and if it has to be data centers that gets us there, then I guess that's what we got.

**[1:31:51] Jon Favreau:** Last question, and I'll let you go. So, Trump won your district by more than eight points in in 2024. You've got a an ad running now featuring a guy who who voted for Trump three times, but says he's voting for you. What's a conversation you've had with a Trump voter that has stuck with you? Um, like, what are what are people who are who are, you know, who supported him but are supporting you now, sort of telling you about why they're why they're changing their vote?

**[1:32:14] Paige Cognetti:** So Bill in that ad actually drove me in an Uber about five years ago, and he showed up at my campaign office opening and he's saying, Hey, you remember me? And I was like, Oh, you're familiar. I think we chatted. He said, Well, I drove you in an Uber, and I didn't know who you were, and you said, after I asked you what you did, you were the mayor, and you were just so down to earth and so great, and you've done such a good job in Scranton.

**[1:32:33] Paige Cognetti:** And, you know, Trump has disappointed me and I'm supporting you. Um,

**[1:32:36] Jon Favreau:** Love that.

**[1:32:36] Paige Cognetti:** he then, yeah, is it he went on then to talk about the Epstein files. That is the number one reason that we learn when we talk to folks that people are shifting away from the decision that they made in 2024. There was a promise there to get justice for these survivors, and that promise has been broken. And it is even more so than the war, which was also a broken promise and also weighs heavily on people's minds.

**[1:33:06] Paige Cognetti:** Breaking the promise on the Epstein files and protecting the perpetrators instead of helping the survivors really weighs on on folks. And I think it's really important that we hold the folks like Rob Bresnahan accountable, who voted three times to block those files. I met with survivors, uh, here in Scranton just a couple of weeks ago. They know that they are not going to get justice with this current Congress, certainly not with the current attorney general. Attorney General Blanche was actually, uh, here in this district just a couple of hours ago, standing alongside, uh, our congressman talking about fentanyl.

**[1:33:39] Paige Cognetti:** I don't imagine that Congressman Bresnahan was holding his feet to the fire about getting justice for those survivors. That remains the number one thing that, um, voters tell us, uh, gives them regret about their vote in 2024.

**[1:33:50] Jon Favreau:** Mayor Paige Cognetti, uh, good luck in the final two weeks. Thank you, uh, for joining Pod Save America, and, uh, we'll be, uh, we'll be rooting for you.

**[1:33:58] Paige Cognetti:** Thank you. And if you want to support us, page for pa dot com, really appreciate you having me on.

**[1:34:02] Jon Favreau:** There you go. Take care. That's our show for today. Thanks to Paige Cognetti for coming on. Dan and I will be back with a new show on Friday. Pod Save America is a crooked media production. Our show is produced by Austin Fisher, Saul Rubin, McKenna Roberts, and Ferris Safari, with Re Chirlan, Elijah Cohn, and Adrian Hill. Our team includes Matt DeGrote, Ben Hefcoat, Jordan Cantor, Charlotte Landis, David Tolls, Mia Kelman, Ryan Young, and Naomi Single. Our staff is proudly unionized with the Writers Guild of America East.