MAGA: Defenders of the Epstein Class

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Welcome to Potsave America.

I'm Alex Lagner.

I am Ben Rhodes.

John, John, Tommy, and Dan are in New Zealand on tour and licking their wounds from the Patriots.

Absolutely pathetic performance in the Super Bowl, and so Ben and I are here to hold down

the floor, and let's be honest, show them up.

On today's show, Galein Maxwell, again, begs President Trump for a pardon, the government

inches closer to a partial shutdown over Democrats pushed to impose some kind of checks on ice

lawlessness, and Secretary Robert F. Kennedy's absolutely disgusting Super Bowl snack lineup.

But first, a New York Times report over the weekend offered another look

into how Trump and his allies are turning America's 250th birthday into a money-making,

influence-pedaling grift to promote right-wing policies and inflate the president's very fragile

ego.

The story highlighted Freedom 250, Freedom 250, a dubiously legal public-private partnership

similar to the one that Trump is using to fund his ballroom monstrosity.

Freedom 250 is the vehicle the administration is using to stage a UFC fight on the White

House lawn.

Yes, you heard that correctly in celebration of, I guess, the signing of the Declaration

of Independence.

Apparently, it also has its hands in the 250-foot tall triumphal arch that Trump is hoping

to build right outside of Washington, D.C.

The Times reported that Freedom 250 is offering, quote, bespoke packages that promise surprise,

access to Trump.

For a $1 million donation, you can attend a private reception with the president.

But for $2.5 million, you can speak at a 4th of July rally in D.C. because nothing says

American independence, like Saudi billionaire speaking on the national mall, right, Ben?

Yes, that's how I always celebrate actually in my house.

I mean, if MBS isn't there, it's not really the Jill 4th of July.

Anyway, Freedom 250 has also reportedly received at least $10 million in taxpayer money,

which they use to build a fleet of, quote, freedom trucks that are touring the country

throughout the year.

These, I guess, will call them mobile museums were created in partnership with Prager You,

which is a company that pumps out conservative textbooks that celebrate colonialism and

downplay the harms of slavery.

And also, in conjunction with Hillsdale College, which is a conservative liberal arts college

that is now at the very center of a movement to de-wokify kindergarten through grade 12

education by overhauling curricula and starting charter schools across the country.

Here's a little taste of how Freedom 250 is going to be spending more of that donor slash

taxpayer money per their Super Bowl ad that you might have missed, but that aired on Sunday.

Oh, man, I didn't realize, I didn't, I actually was maybe had my face to full of ribs.

I didn't really realize what I was looking at at that moment, Ben, but do you have a spare

2.5 million to borrow because it's always been my dream to open up for MBS on the National

Mall?

I mean, just goose bumps thinking about this sincere and earnest patriotism, Alex, I mean,

look, the thing about this is like, first of all, like everything else, like the grift

is a feature, not a bug, right?

If there's anything that can be monetized by Trump in some fashion, he's going to do it.

America's 250th anniversary is no different.

And, you know, I can expect that the roster of people lining up to write those checks while

they won't include you and me are going to include people who are shopping for pardons

for their friends, people with business before the federal government, et cetera, right?

So it's for sale.

I think the other thing that is kind of grotesque about this is you have to see in the context

of it's an election year, right?

And so this is all going to be kind of part of one big campaign, essentially, that's

going to be enormously funded to kind of buttress MAGA at a time when people are sowing

on it, where every public opinion poll shows like a precipitous drop, right, in support

for Trump.

Well, you know, he'll try to gym people up with a UFC fight on the south lawn and a bunch

of patriotic displays.

But I think the serious part, Alex, like that I've been thinking about a lot, is that

this isn't like a coincidental or secondary part of what's been going on, because what

they're trying to do that's actually serious is take full custody of the American story,

right?

So the 250 years of this country are really just about their story of what that is, right?

Let's face it, excludes, you know, pretty much non-white people, excludes the kind of

agitators and activists and people that pointed out inconvenient truths about the United States,

white washes are passed and glorifies Donald Trump as kind of the inheritor of this 250 years

of history, right?

And that's that's deadly serious, right?

I think we should take that that very seriously beyond just the tackiness and grift of it

all.

Yeah, and I think it bears some time, we should spend some time talking about the involvement

of Hillsdale College and Prager U and all of this because they are the sort of for-profit

arm of the whitewashing of America and making it white again.

But to just talk about, I think as a public service announcement, we should, we should

delineate the difference between America 250, which is the non-partisan, congressional

run operation to celebrate America's semi-quinsentennial.

I learned I was today years old when I realized that's how you call the 250th anniversary

of the signing of the Declaration of Independence, the semi-quinsentennial.

That is a non-partisan, non-profit organization that encourages Americans to do crazy shit

like public service in honor of the 250th anniversary, Freedom 250, which is increasingly

like the big sort of organization that the Trump administration is spending most of its

capital on or rather a political capital on and that they're encouraging to be the sort

of branding lead in all of this is the slush fund for Trump's triumphal arc and also a

drag race throughout Washington, D.C., which sounds like a really fucking bad, they all

sound really like really fucking bad ideas that in particular sounds like a really fucking

bad idea.

And I think just on the grift alone, the idea that, I mean, we should just take a moment,

a solid moment to look at the degradation of our legacy from a country that would otherwise

encourage civic participation and acts of selflessness to one where the highest office

in the land, the person charged with shepherding, you know, the constitution forward and our

democracy is looking at this moment, these 250th anniversary as an opportunity for personal

enrichment and ego fluffing.

I mean, it's just, so it's such a sad state of affairs.

Why did the universe have to have Trump in office when the 250th anniversary came around?

Couldn't it have been someone else?

Let me try to find a silver lining in this, right?

Yes, please.

Yes, please.

Because, yeah, look, the pay to play a piece is going to be grotesque.

The monuments to himself are scary, actually.

I mean, they're silly and tacky, but like, they're going to be real things that they

at least try to build.

It reminds you of what, like, Kim Jong-un does in North Korea to like, exalt himself.

Like, we're kind of at that place.

But I think that the opportunity for those of us listening to this podcast probably feel

some ambivalence about the upcoming festivities in a way that we wouldn't have if, you know,

Barack Obama was president or, frankly, any normal person was president, because now it's

a little complicated to look at some of these symbols of patriotism, right?

Like, the flag is being co-opted by Trump, right?

The military flyovers feel a little different when there's, like, fascism in our streets,

you know?

It's okay for people to feel a little conflicted about celebrating this 250th birthday.

But I think there's an important, like, debate that we have to be willing to have, right?

And so this is an organic book plug that I have this book that's about the 250-year history

of our battle over American identity.

And I start with JD Vance, who gave a speech a few months ago in which he talked about

what does it mean to be an American, right?

What is American identity?

And he said, out loud, that the declaration of independence and its commitment to, you

know, the sentence, all men are created equal, is not what it means to be American.

Yeah.

That's too loose a definition because then it could, it's an idea.

It's an idea.

Yeah, it's an idea.

And we are not an idea.

We are blood and soil, right?

We are a heritage-based nation, right?

Which is, I think, profoundly wrong.

And it's a profoundly fucked up reading of American history, right?

Now, it's also been a predominant story.

But I think what people need to honor and celebrate, like, is the alternative history

of the United States, which is people fighting against that idea for 250 years, you know?

Right.

So we're not just a history of presidents and monuments.

We are a history of activists, of agitators, of the civil rights movement, of the abolition

movement, of women's rights movements, of LGBT movements, right?

We are both of these things at once.

And just because Donald Trump is going to try to ram one version of this down our

throats, that's all the more reason.

Look, people should go out and protest around the fricking UFC fight, which, by the way-

This semi-Quincentennial.

Yes.

Well, the UFC fight, which, by the way, is coincidentally on Donald Trump's birthday, too, which is

a nice touch.

Last year, we got a military parade this year, we got, like, a Dana White sponsor-

A blood sport.

Right?

So I think that's what we all need to take away from this is sure it sucks to see our institutions

co-opted like this.

But the American story is, like, the parts that I like are usually about people who are

standing up to that.

And now it's our turn, unfortunately, to do it in this particularly grim-

Quint-

What do you call-

Yeah.

Semi-Quincentennial.

Same-Quincentennial stuff.

Same-Quincentennial stuff.

No, I think you're absolutely right that the best way to celebrate the rebellion against

tyranny is to rebel against tyranny, right?

Yes.

I will just say, on the level of corruption, there's, you know, if you look not that hard,

you can find a new story every day about the way in which this president is, like, the

biggest grifter we've ever had in office.

For example, I think the New York Times was reporting that Trump's Bitcoin is largely

floated by Binance, which is the crypto exchange that had, I found it by, I believe, as Chung

Peng Zhao, who is a billionaire mogul who is in jail, who Trump pardoned.

And now, oops, coincidentally, 85% of Trump's Bitcoin is held in accounts on Binance, even

though the exchange's platform is available only outside the United States, right?

That's happening, and that's clearly corrupt, and Craven, and I'd argue part of what would

be hallmark of kleptocracy.

And yet there's not real discussion about it.

The difference between that and this is that people see the ballroom.

People see the maybe plans for the arc to Trump.

People will see presumably the drag race.

People will see the UFC fight, and all of this is an exercise in the worst, most inflated

form of presidential ego, if not outright fascism, like the investment is not in the country,

it is in himself.

And it, because these are such public spectacles, I am optimistic that the public pushback

in turn will hopefully be more pronounced, right?

It's so awful.

It's such an ugly degradation of everything our democracy is supposed to stand for in

the way that him just pocketing crypto funds surptitiously while he sits in the Oval Office

or having his lackeys do that is just not as transparent to the American public, that

level of corruption.

This is the ballroom is not gone over well with the American public.

And something tells me an arc to Trump and a drag race and a UFC fight are not what

people want on the cell phone of the White House, you know what I mean?

You and I are old enough to remember the hip-hop barbecue that Obama had on the cell phone

of the White House, which spawned the Dan Fightford's favorite Fox News headline, hip-hop barbecue

fails to create jobs.

But this UFC fight is not going to create jobs, you know, that's for sure.

And look, I think you're right there, what's grotesque about the corruption is that Trump

is actually leveraging like the United States for his own interests.

So the other glaring example that came out recently was the story that lo and behold

shortly before the inauguration, that you had this massive UAE investment in Trump coin.

And then lo and behold, Trump lifts off restrictions on American technology going UAE.

That's him leveraging national power, national assets for his own personal gain.

But it's a complicated story.

And sometimes a ballroom or a drag race is a helpful way to just have a symbol that captures

for people how self-interested this is, how grotesque this is, how corrupt this all is.

And there's something like pretty un-American too, about a living leader, building monuments

and arcs to himself.

This is the kind of thing that we're accustomed to seeing in unitary, dictatorial states and

other countries.

And so I think that the challenge is wrapping this whole story out for people.

They're not these separate categories.

We're mad about corruption and we're mad that he's not doing enough to deal with affordability

and we're mad that he's got fascist tendencies.

No, it's all one big thing, right?

All those things are related.

He's not dealing with affordability because he's using office to enrich himself, which he's

doing, but fueling an ideology that is fundamentally kind of fascistic and about himself and not

the country, right?

It's all one story about Donald Trump, caring about himself and his rich friends and not

you.

And he'll even take custody of the most precious and shared history that we have as Americans

to get that done.

And he'll make use of this kind of infrastructure of right wing, Prager U or whatever it is

to do so.

That shows you this has been building for a long time.

They built all this infrastructure.

So that's the scale of the challenge or rep against, but the good news is if you can

tell that story, I think a huge majority of Americans are either uncomfortable or outraged

by that.

Yeah.

I mean, I just, on the Freedom Truck front, I immediately thought of the Mitzvah trucks.

If you are a New York City resident, you know what I'm talking about?

They come out during the Jewish high holidays and there are these really loud trucks run

in large part by the Lubovic sect of Orthodox Jews, meant to convert unsuspecting bystanders

on the streets of New York City uniformly men.

And I always kind of smirk at these things and think, you're not, you really, it's, I

mean, it's like, it's not like a Mr. Softy truck.

There's not like a line around the block.

And are they effective?

For those who don't have experience with the Mitzvah truck, I wonder how convincing a Freedom

truck run by Prager U in Hillsdale College really can be?

These guys are not known for subtlety.

Like espousing the way in which slavery was effectively good for black people and climate

denialism is like a form of patriotism and the way that colonialism had its benefits.

All these things, I think people, our estimates grossly the intelligence of the American

public.

But I don't know Ben, how nefarious do you think these things are?

Well, you know, I think I won't be hitching a ride on a Freedom truck.

I think you're not a Freedom rider.

Yeah, I'm not.

It gives only meaning to Freedom Rider, right?

I think one thing that where we and, you know, Democrats have to have more kind of confidence

right is they've been wearing us down on the culture wars, right, for decades, right?

And the reality though is that that whole mindset behind those Freedom trucks and the anti-woke

stuff and the anti-DI stuff and the whitewashing of history kind of felt to the intended audience,

which admittedly is not you and me Alex, counter-cultural, you know, it was like suddenly,

this kind of blood and soil nationalist like racist right wing set of views was fundamentally

counter-cultural, right, because it seemed like, you know, they lost their culture wars.

But I think part of what people are experiencing in the Trump years is, you know, particularly

the second term is that that's not the counter-cultural anymore, like they're in charge, you know?

And they are doing to us everything that they said we did to them.

They're trying to ram their views down our throats.

They're trying to stifle free speech, right?

They're trying to say there's only one version of American history and there's no other

version that can even be taught in schools.

And, you know, ironically, you know, it's turned out that their views were projection

all along, right, that they were the ones that are fundamentally kind of against the freedoms

that they claim to espouse, right?

So like I said, this kind of core argument about American identity is one I think we shouldn't

be shy about having because as we've seen in Minneapolis, like that's what it looks

like, right?

Yeah.

And on the one side, you got people trying to ram it down, everybody else's throats and

they're heavily armed.

And the other end, you got people exercising what American think of as pretty core freedoms.

And like that, that's what's going on in the whole country right now.

And every time I see a freedom truck, that's what I'll see.

Well, yeah, and the whole concept of like a freedom truck being run by Hillsdale College

is not like a counter-cultural, like own the Libs phenomenon.

It's like the most sort of like, it's like an incredibly hands-folded in the lap, scold

the kind of version of conservative ideology that does not resonate with, I don't know,

Logan Paul, right, like they've so far, like at this moment of terrorizing black and

brown communities, they're all, and like insulting bad bunny, right, making clear they're

just about white nationalism and white supremacism.

They're sending these trucks out to sort of like seal the deal.

And I just think nobody's buying it.

I think people see what's happening.

They see what the ultimate objective is.

And like you can drive a bus around town as much as you want playing a Trump video.

I just don't think that's, I just don't think that's the way you gain converts.

And if anything, they should be excusing.

They should be offering some explanation as to how they're not white supremacists.

And going after bad bunny at the Super Bowl.

Yeah.

It's just like there's no, there is no argument to be made that this is anything other

than white supremacists.

Yeah, the whole thing feels akin to like a pre-taped kid rock half-time show set against

the bad bunny one, right?

Exactly.

We can win culture wars, people.

Like we don't necessarily have to hide our heads in the sand about them and repeat,

you know, beautiful talking points about, you know, middle-class economics.

Like that's important, but fundamentally, all of this is about, like what does it mean

to be American?

What should our government be focused on?

And you know, Trump is giving us plenty of arguments for why he is not the answer to

those questions.

Yeah.

And I'll just say one thing.

I think that we should all learn from bad bunny.

And I know the Super Bowl was on Sunday.

But his lessons live on through the week to do, to make the argument for a multiracial

inclusive America using joy as the vehicle is real effective.

Yes.

Show don't tell.

Exactly.

You know, he didn't have to give it.

You didn't have to say ice out or something, uh, didn't bring the Super Bowl.

Like he was an affirmative, positive thing.

And look, this is something, again, like, you know, Obama didn't do everything right,

you know.

Um, but one of the things that he did right is he's multiracial case was one of affirmation.

It wasn't like America's horrible.

We must, you know, acknowledge how horrible it is in order to fix it.

Um, that may have been a subtext of progressive politics in this country for a long time.

But Obama would say this country is so great that we've been able to change before we

can do it again.

You know, um, and look at what, you know, the promises of multiracial democracy and like

the bad bunny thing, like it, it, it showed that, you know, and it, and, I guess, apart

from people having to listen to Spanish, like it's hard to find anything else threatening

in that presentation.

I'd way rather be at bad bunny's rumbar than anywhere with Kid Rock, and I'll leave it

there.

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Talking about other places I don't want to find myself, the Epstein files.

Okay.

On Monday morning.

So far so good on that front Alex.

Congratulations.

I feel confident.

On Monday morning, the lawyer for Galein Maxwell, that's of course Galein Maxwell, the

Epstein conspirator currently serving 20 years in federal prison.

The lawyer said that Maxwell is ready to speak fully and honestly and deliver a complete

account that could possibly clear both President Trump and President Clinton of any wrongdoing,

her only condition been President Trump must first grant her clemency points for ballsiness

that offer came during Maxwell's virtual deposition on Monday before the House Oversight

Committee where Galein Maxwell pleaded the fifth over and over again.

Now both Democrats and Republicans on the Oversight Committee criticized Maxwell's refusal

to answer questions and Democrats, no Republicans, immediately condemned Maxwell's offer.

Meanwhile members of Congress are set to get their first look at unredacted versions of

the Epstein files this week, perpetual thorn in the side of the Trump administration Thomas

Massey and Rocana were the first to view the files on Monday afternoon.

I read this, lawyer says complete exoneration for Trump in Epstein files if Maxwell granted

clemency and I thought, I mean, even for Galein Maxwell, this is pretty like there's not even,

what do you call a quid pro quo that's just like public extortion?

I don't even know, like what was, first of all, what do you, what do you make, what do you make

of the offer then? Well, you know, what's so funny is that like the interest of Maxwell and Trump,

so obviously converged to like the quid pro quo is so evidently in both of their interests,

you know? Right, right. She wants all to present it. I think he would, yeah.

Although I do think he would face some blowback if he just pardoned Galein Maxwell, I mean,

his old people would not be able to do that. But this is what's been so strange about this whole

thing all the time is that none of what he's tried to do in this account has worked, right?

So nobody believed when Todd Blanche's personal attorney become deputy AG, met with Maxwell and said,

oh, you know, she, she exonerated Trump, like it made it worse, right? When she was transferred to

this kind of country club prison, um, after that meeting with Todd Blanche, it made it worse for

Trump, right? And, and so his efforts to kind of get himself out of this through the normal,

like obfuscate, find someone to lie on your behalf, like tell your followers, there's nothing to see

here. Like that's not working in this case, because of like Naga's long term commitment to this issue,

because of the underlying grotesque nature of the crimes being exposed. Um, and look, I just,

I don't think anybody's gonna buy this, you know, I can see why she's trying to make this play,

but there's no way that she's credible. Like, why would anyone trust someone who was kind of central

to a child sex trafficking ring for this long? Um, and, you know, she can try to do what she wants,

but I think the other thing that's interesting here is that this kind of, you know, combination of

Clinton and Trump is, can we, can we talk about that? Yes. They're not usually a part of the

same two for one deal. Well, I think again, like, just to be blunt, Alex, like Republicans or Trump,

at least seem to overstate the extent to which Democrats, like want to somehow exonerate Bill Clinton

in all this, right? Um, we'll be, they don't. And the way that Trump talks about this, like recently,

like he had, you know, he had the same ways. I feel sorry. Oh, Republicans. Sorry. I did not

mean to react that way. You're saying Republicans over us to me how much Democrats actually want to

clear Clinton's a good name. That's right. Good in quotes. And so Trump's kind of hugging Bill Clinton,

like, you know, um, look at what they're doing to both of us, you know, it's unfair, etc, etc. And

I think what he's misreading is that like, you know, Democrats are not like blind followers of

a cult of Bill Clinton in the same way that, you know, Trump has had that kind of support in the

Republican party. We're certainly not willing to kind of trade away our concerns about Trump being

in these files tens of thousands of times, right? And clearly being waiting based on at least what's

come out, you know, the creepy drawing for the birthday book that the creepy back and forth between

the Mar-Lago spot and like the Epstein network, right? Like the fact that Trump believes that we

Democrats are willing to kind of put that all aside to defend, you know, Bill Clinton is such a bizarre

reading of politics, you know, uh, and, and, and, and also, I mean, independent of Bill Clinton's

tarnished legacy within the Democratic Party, Democrats genuinely, I believe, for the most part,

give a shit about holding to account people in power who are involved in the predation of children,

right? So there's like, there's a genuine like ethical fiber that still exists, some moral fiber

that still exists in a shared fashion inside the Democratic Party. And, and on that note, I mean,

I think it's really important that Democrats be seen, I mean, not even just be seen, that Democrats

hold Clinton to account when he and Hillary have to go testify in front of the House as we expect

them to, though they're still negotiating the terms of that, Democrats should all robustly question

him. And we're going to take this opportunity to talk about the relationship between Glean Maxwell

and Bill Clinton. The New York Times has some, I think, important reporting about how instrumental

Glean Maxwell was in the creation of the Clinton Global Initiative. Um, she took part in budget

discussions related to the first CGI conference. She talked through challenges about it with Clinton

AIDS and the publicist group, which is the company that produced that event. And she arranged to wire

$1 million to pay publicists for its work on the, quote, Clinton project. And then Ben,

there's the, the, the most cringy part of all of this. The relationship between Glean Maxwell

and longtime Clinton aid, Doug Band, who had very flirtatious exchanges that I think our listeners

want to hear about just. I think they need to hear this. I think this is what happens when those

guys are in New Zealand is, you know, yeah. That's what happens when John, John, Tommy, and Dan are gone,

when the cats away, the mice will role play. That's what we're going to do. I'll just read a little

excerpt of these emails between Doug Band and Glean Maxwell. And I'll play the part of Glean Maxwell,

if you Ben will play the role of Doug Band as a, a role I know you were destined to play.

Thanks for that, ox. You can do it. Here we go. Here's Glean Maxwell to Doug Band via email.

Boo Boo, are you around? I'm very ill and require immediate medical attention. I'm suffering from

Boo Booitis, a very serious condition. Without a Boo Boo fix, the symptoms become very pronounced.

My Boo Booitis is also reaching epic proportions. Lots going on, but we'll be in Boo Booville,

the second you arrive. They insist they have never Doug Band insists. He has never had

relations with that woman, just kidding. That's what Bill Clinton said, but he doesn't, he doesn't

insist that he had no physical relations with Glean Maxwell, which makes me wonder what's

Boo Booitis? And where is Boo Booville? Can you locate it on a map? I'm very pleased that I could not

identify Boo Booville on map, Alex. Give me some hints about future correspondence. I might

want to have one, but anyway, everyone's welcome for that. The point is Glean Maxwell interacted

significantly with those in President Clinton's inner circles. There are a lot of questions,

and I hope Democrats do not flinch in asking them because this is very much about the truth,

and it's also about keeping the victim centered as well. Ben, you said that Democrats

figure out a way to tie all of this together, everything from the corruption and the grift and

the slush funds to the Epstein files and the inaction on economic concerns. All of it,

like, is there a rubric under which it all fits? And I was struck by comments from Georgia Senator

and candidate John Assoff on the campaign trail this weekend. He went viral after he was speaking

about both MAGA and Epstein files at a campaign rally in Atlanta. And he coined a new phrase that

I think we should be hearing a lot more of in the coming months. Let's listen to John Assoff.

Now, you remember, we were told that MAGA was for working class Americans. You remember that?

But this is a government of, by and for, the ultra-rich. It is the wealthiest cabinet ever. This is

the Epstein class. Trump was supposed to fight for the working class. Instead, he's literally

closing rural clinics and hospitals to cut taxes for George Soros and Elon Musk.

Okay, the Epstein class. I just feel like you hear that and you think rich people, corrupt people,

lying people, and Trump's people. And I just think it's a very useful label to

fix to all of this that brings home a lot of the issues altogether. What do you think of it then?

Yeah, I really liked it. And I think he, you know, we've seen all these different people

trying different formulations and that one hit. And hit for a bunch of reasons, including this one.

Let me unpack this. You know, the Trump side of the Epstein class is pretty clear. Beyond Trump's

own predatory behavior, you also have the fact that there are a bunch of fabulously wealthy

and unaccountable people on the right who essentially care above all about dismantling the government,

kind of creating chaos and profiting off at themselves, right? And we don't even have to detail

chapter in verse what those people do. It's on display every day in our lives, right? And it's

everybody, you know, if you're just looking at the Epstein files, sure, like you can find some people

on the right, but it's also just kind of the broader milieu, if we will, of the people around Trump,

you know, the kind of oligarchs. I think the challenge we have is Democrats that us off offers

us a way out of though is the reason the Epstein files are also very damaging to people a certain kind

of person on the center left is that it encompasses a lot of people, right? And we should say we don't

know there's a gradation of of crimes and misdemeanors in those files, right? There are men that

clearly participated in praying on girls in the absolute worst way. Then there are people that

were just kind of cozy with Epstein or part of his network or informally helped him. And we

don't have yet to see that they directly participated. But if you look at all those people, and I'm

just talking about some people prominent names in there, right? Some of those people and, you know,

CGI is a part of this, were the kind of people that went to Davos or, you know, went to the

Clean Global Initiative or went to whatever conference. And they kind of talked about the,

fixing globalization and trying to help cure diseases in Africa or, you know,

trying to virtue signal about, you know, fighting climate change and sustainable development,

all these things. But at the same time, they were perpetuating a system that was fundamentally rigged

for the wealthy and well-connected. And some of them were even flying down to Epstein Island.

And it's everything that, you know, people don't like about the kind of globalist elite of which

the Democratic Party, you know, has been pretty cozy with over the years. And so what

OSUS formulation does is it loops together. It's a clean break. It's saying, we're not just against

the right-wing oligarchs or Trump when he does these bad things. We're turning the page on kind of

this era of capitalism run amok, of, you know, powerful people, usually men, thinking that they

could act without accountability or with impunity, or they could say one thing to virtue signal

at a conference and then behave a certain way in their private lives on their private planes and

private islands. And so this kind of ties it all together, right? Because it's the corruption,

it's the inequality, it's the excesses and extreme inequality in our economy all put together

into this Epstein class, which by the way, Democrats can say like, we need to clean house too. Like,

you know, we need to leave that behind. If we lose certain political donors, fine, right?

If we don't get invited to certain elite conferences, fine. Like we actually want to fight

for a different America. Yeah, it's the, it really emphasizes the filthy part of the filthy rich,

right? The Epstein class. And it gives up an opportunity, and I don't mean to sound

dismissive, but it gives Democrats the opportunity to wear the hair shirt as well and say like,

we have work to do. It's not just, you know, Steve Bannon and Donald Trump who are in these files,

it's also Larry Summers and Bill Clinton. And we're going to clean house, as you say, as we should.

Because I think it's important to, you know, make sure that it's not, doesn't seem partisan,

right? That the anti-corruption zeal is nonpartisan. Yeah, yeah. Can I offer one other thing? Alex,

here, like on this, I don't normally do this is like listeners of parts of the world know. And I'm,

you know, willing to be very self-critical about things in the Obama years. I only use this as an

example of a political message at work, which is in 2008 when he was running for president.

The thing that resonated was that we wanted to turn the page on the Phil politics of the past.

And the leading example of that at the time was the Iraq war. But the turn the page frame that Obama

used was about not just George Bush taking us to work, but all the Democrats who voted for the

Iraq war, right, which included Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden and a whole roster of people, right?

And because it was a bipartisan critique, it had more credibility, right? It was like, well,

this guy's not just limiting his concern for corruption or for bad mistakes to the other side,

right? And that's what I think we need to do with this kind of Epstein class point is that because

we're willing to include, you know, parts of our team in this, we have more credibility to say,

we actually want to change things. Yeah. And I think the Epstein controversy scandal,

saga, whatever you want to call it is alive in voters minds, which sort of brings me to what's

happening in Europe, right? Because there it's very much alive and it's very kinetic and it

holds a lot of electrical power, if you will. And I tend to think the same is true regardless

of what the media coverage of Epstein is in the US. But I want to get your thoughts on this

and contrast sort of how the British political infrastructure is responding to Epstein files versus

how we're responding in America. And it's a good pod say of the world tease for listeners,

because everybody should be listening to pod say of the world, like as often as they physically

can sometimes listen to the same episode twice a week if possible, because you get something new

out of each episode. But anyway, over the weekend, Morgan McSweeney, whose labor prime minister

Kierstarmher's closest advisor resigned. Now McSweeney had advised Starmher to appoint Peter

Mandelson as ambassador to the United States. And it turns out that Mandelson was a close friend of

Jeffrey Epstein. He maintained contact with Epstein after Epstein's 2008 conviction for

soliciting sex from a minor. So this is a quickly moving weather front. But like at various

points today, Ben, it looked like maybe the entire labor government could fall over these

medals and revelations. Starmher may have bought himself some more time here. But it is a stunning

contrast with what's happened here as these names have come out. Like the only Republican to say

boo about Epstein is Thomas Massey. And that's happening well. The president has mentioned,

is it 38,000 times in the Epstein files? DeVanon has mentioned multiple times. Howard Blutnik

is the latest person to make headlines. He's the Commerce Secretary. He's all over the Epstein

files, despite protesting that they had stopped contact much earlier. President Trump's former side

Kekeel on musk is in the Epstein files. Why do you think that the UK acts so much more swiftly

on the Epstein stuff? And it's so much more of a liability overseas in the UK than it apparently

is here. Is it just they have higher standards? I mean, don't even answer that question. I know

they do. But what's the difference? Well, I mean, just to illustrate the point, there are two

institutions as a British royal family and the British government. So the two most powerful

institutions in the country that have been absolutely rocked by the presence of two individuals

in the Epstein files. So famously like Prince Andrew is no longer Prince Andrew. King Charles

today said he would support a police investigation into his brother. The guys losing titles and land

and whatever the hell they give the world's over there like, you know, at a dizzying pace.

Free, free dental care, I don't know. Yeah, I'm sure the benefit package is out

the 401k. And then Peter Mandelson, who was this kind of labor insider, Ambassador UK, he's all

over these files and he's cozy with Epstein and he's sharing like sensitive market-based information

with him. And it almost brought down Keir Starmer, the prime minister of the country, even though

Keir Starmer is not even in the files. And Morgan McSweeney, for people, you know,

and followers politics, I mean, this guy is like the chief political operative and chief, you know,

of staff for Starmer, like indispensable to Keir Starmer and his politics of last few years.

Like losing him would be, you know, a kind of Trump, you know, losing like Steven Miller and

Susie Wiles, you know, you know. You are weak and dream, can't we? We can dream. That's what I was

trying to do. Now, like, why is that? And also, where does this go from here? Right? Because Starmer

survived today, but he's weakened and labor could suffer an election loss in, in upcoming elections.

And then there's a, you know, pretext removed. We'll see what happens. I do think that in British

politics, like there has not yet been the same removal of shame as a potential source of accountability.

You know, like, I mean, they still feel ashamed. Oh, why is he what you're telling me? They still

feel ashamed. They can still be ashamed. Like Boards Johnson resigned over COVID parties that he

was in, right? Like that's unthinkable with Trump. Trump has so removed shame as a source of

accountability. They also frankly just have a system where you got to face the music more, right?

Keir Starmer had to go and do question time where the opposition basically yells at you and you

have to respond and he didn't have good answers, including about Morgan McSweeney. Like Trump never

has to face that accountability. In our system, Trump is both the prime minister and the king,

right? Like rolled under one. And frankly, more and more, he's the king.

So like, it's depressing to see that there's been more consequences in the UK over two individuals

than there has been in the US over not just Trump's presence in these files, but all these other people.

However, I think that part of this, uh, furor in Europe is going to be the perpetuation and

investigation of these files. And this is something people should realize in the UK and in several

other European countries, investigations are being opened into the people in these files, including

Americans. Investigations are being opened into Epstein's connections to intelligence agencies,

right? Yeah. Like they're going to pull these threads, even if like, you know, Republican

committees in Congress aren't other countries with lots of resources are going to do so, just like

in this country, I think journalists will too. So I think the people who are, you know, breathing

aside, believe that maybe the last dump of these files has happened are sorely mistaken because

it has shaken up these other countries and they have the ability to do some of the follow-up that

is not being done in this country. Yeah, if we won't do it, the Polish Prime Minister will, right?

Yes. I feel like Donald Tusk, because the Polish Prime Minister is like, uh, we need a

fulsome investigation into Jeffrey Epstein's ties to Russian intelligence, please, and thank you,

right? Yes. Like what the thing about being in the middle of a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a,

a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, global elites is that when that

Kabul is revealed, the rest of the globe has an interest in getting to the bottom of it,

and that's the rub for Donald Trump and his 38,000 mentions. And a lot of them would like to see

Trump, uh, you know, cut down the size, too. Like that's why he hasn't been good for the global

community. Yeah. Yeah. He's been so respectful of those European countries, you know.

They're right. It's just like the term wrecking ball, I think, was what was used to describe Trump

today by Europeans and turns out when you go around giving the middle finger to all of Western

Europe, there's something that such a thing has come up, it's, and perhaps he is in line for some

of that.

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I do want to talk about other sort of reckoning on the horizon because over in Congress,

back in Washington, DC, before the drag race that will hit the city streets in some certain amount

of time, the clock is running on a deal to fund the Department of Homeland Security. Democrats

are pushing for immigration enforcement reforms, including upholding use of four guidelines,

ending racial profiling, and requiring judicial warrants when agents go onto private property,

you know, the kind of normal constitutional stuff that majority leader John Thune called

unrealistic last week. I wish he would just like go through the Constitution and highlight

the parties on real estate. This is like, I'm afraid of them speech, really? Can we really do that?

Anyway, on Monday, Thune said that there is, quote, a possibility of a deal, although we are going

to see if Democrats are on the same page. As of this recording, everyone is very interested in this,

but they're going to have to wait and see what becomes of Trump's personal paramilitary

organization, AK ICE, and they're just going to have to sit tight and watch Jake Sherman's

Twitter feed for the red siren emojis. I am interested to know what you think. That's no

diss on Jake Sherman. When I see those red siren emojis, I, something in my deep lizard brain starts

pinging. What do you think of their strategy here? I like, with the benefit of hindsight, I am not

I think the shutdown strategy over healthcare premiums obviously did not get us anywhere near

a resolution. 22 million Americans, 23 million Americans saw their health insurance premium skyrocket.

We did an awesome episode of this and awesome in the sense that it's compelling, not that it was

good news. On my podcast runaway country, just the economic hardship people are facing, the very

real choices they have to make about whether they can afford to go to the doctor or send their

children to the doctor. That is a real concern across this country and it ties into this issue of

affordability because if you don't have money for the doctor, you probably don't have money for

bacon or if you do have money for bacon, it might be going towards paying for the doctor. Whatever it

is, it's an issue of pain and I do think that Democrats in hindsight are probably getting

gained something from their standoff with Republicans over this issue when it comes time for the

2026 midterms. But what do you think about the fight? And it's a smaller fight because it's

just DHS funding we're talking about here. What do you think about this fight over ice reforms?

I think that like the healthcare thing is illustrative and the fact that

they had that fight, they didn't win in restoring the ACA subsidies, but they won and

drawing extraordinary attention to it and making it very clear what they were for as

against what the Republicans were for. And then ultimately a bunch of Democrats centers got

called feed and the government reopened. But to fast forward to today, I don't think that they

should be shy at all from being just as aggressive about ice as they were about health care.

Like oftentimes it's Democrats that we'd rather talk about health care than ice. I don't think

Americans like what ice is doing. The polls indicate that. The kinds of reforms that the Democrats

are advocating for, like people not wearing masks, people falling the law, like these are things

that are broadly popular. And I would not vote to provide a dollar funding to DHS if all those

like demands are or not met. And if that causes some kind of paralysis and shutdown or something

fine, then let the spotlight be on the fact that these people are defending the necessity

of having a paramilitary force in this country that is allowed to be masked and detained

American citizens without warrants. Because that's fundamentally the position that John Thune

is taking in support of Chrissy Nome and Stephen Miller. Why not have that fight? And it may be that

you grind it out for a few weeks and ultimately they wear you down. But then you will

prove in just the lengths to which these people will go to perpetuate something that I think most

Americans are deeply uncomfortable about. I obviously would go even further. I want to get

rid of ice. We can talk about ways that you could do that. But I just don't know why you would

fund this. It's Chrissy Nome's DHS for God's sakes. It's what's been going on in Minneapolis.

And frankly, I think it's opportunities for Democrats to reach some other voters, some

the don't tread on me crowd that are not comfortable with this either.

Well, and I was struck by this and I wrote about it for my sub-stack How the Hell with Alex

Wagner, the symmetry and the don't tread on me flags that were both outside of DC jail on January

20th, 2025, when I was waiting for Trump to pardon January 6 inmates and that whole crew

and the don't tread on me flags that were outside of the Whipple Detention Center in Minneapolis

as I was in Minneapolis like a week and a half ago waiting to see what happened to detainees.

There is a real sense that this is the jack booted government thug that has been war,

you know, that has been conjured in, you know, conspiracy fantasies at the other end of the

snake's tail. And like I agree with you, I think Democrats could pick up some support from

libertarians who look at this and are like, this is not the fucking United States and this has to

end, which brings to mind, you know, how Republicans conduct themselves. There's a DHS oversight

hearing on the calendar, I think slated for Tuesday of this week. And that includes the head of ice,

the acting head of ice, Todd Lyons. Now, my expectations for Republicans doing anything

in the true fashion of oversight, my expectations are low. I would say the bar is buried deep in

the ground near a well. But the guy running this hearing is Andrew Garberino, who is the

moderate Republican from the South Shore of Long Island and has been known to take on the GOP

at some points. I mean, like do you think both as a matter of political survival and I don't know

interest in making sure that this ice doesn't act unlawfully, we might expect some real questioning

from Republicans? Yes, but it connects to the previous question, Alex, for this reason, right?

It is clear that Trump would like to get this off the headlines, right? So when he finally kind of

stepped in and sent Tom Homan to take over for the kind of lunatics that were running the operation

in Minneapolis, he didn't change anything fundamentally about how ice is operating. But it was meant

to be this kind of pivot point, you know, meant to kind of show, like let's all move on from talking

about this, because frankly, talking about this has not been good for me or my politics. I don't

think he sincerely gave a shit about what happened to Alex Predator Renee Good or what's

happening in streets of Minneapolis. He just wanted to change the PR around it. And where they're

going to try to park this thing is they'll have to continue what ice is doing because it's so

fundamental to Trump and his project, right? But they'll want to kind of park it like let's get our

funding, keep this thing going, let the occasional moderate Republicans in a tough race say some

moderately critical things. And it then looks like, you know, Trump is kind of lower the temperature

on this stuff. And oh, there might be these GOP guys who are like a little bit more reasonable

than, you know, Steven Miller is on this. And that's where they want the issue. That's all the

more reason for Democrats to pick and continue to pick a fight about this. Like Trump is retreating

tactically because he knows this is a loser firm. So keep at it, you know, keep after the funding,

keep after Chrissy Nome, like keep after like the Republican parties. Do you hear us, Jean

Jean? Do you hear us, Jean Jean? Because yes, the Republican party is not some moderate from New

York. It's Steven Miller. Like that's what it is. And make that your foil here, you know? And by

the way, the more you do that, if what you're interested is in substance, which I am, the more you're

going to force other Republicans who are nervous about their own races to potentially agree with

Democrats on these issues. This is the only way to the Democrats of any power whatsoever in the

first two years of the Trump administration is kind of commanding attention using like the

minimal leverage of your votes to fund the government and making it as uncomfortable as possible

for Republicans, including people you're running against in the House, to continue to stand with

Trump. And then that either like is going to be something that achieves that list of ice reforms

or it's going to be something that all those Republicans are going to have to own heading into

the midterm elections no matter what they say in some hearing with the head of ice. As much as we

talk about Trump's retreat on this and the fact that he pulled 700 ice officers out of Minneapolis,

we should not lose sight on, you know, the way the tactics have changed but are equally as brutal

and pernicious. According to the AP, people have reported that ice agents are quote impersonating

construction workers and delivery drivers and in some cases anti-ice activists. And then there's

the just abomination of what's happening inside the judicial system itself, which is less seen

but no less worse. The New York Times is reporting that the lead ice lawyer in the state of Minnesota

just left his job and he is not the only one looking for the exit signs. Government lawyers

like the one John and Dan talked about last week and the court system in general are it's

entirely overwhelmed with immigration cases for my for my podcast runaway country. We heard about

the very specific hell these immigration judges work in and the fact that there are many of them

are just getting fired with little explanation from the Trump administration. And now the White House

with the blessing of the fifth circuit court of appeals is seeking to sideline immigration judges

and just deny migrants bond hearings in order to hold them indefinitely or at least until they

can be deported. I mean, it just feels like there's ice on the outside and then the inside. So they

they sort of break the will of the public on the outside using anti-constitutional lawless

brutal tactics. And then on the inside, it seems like the design is crushed the system

overwhelming and otherwise fragmented. So it's no longer functioning and you basically just

militarize this part of the judicial system to get people out regardless of whether they're

citizens and or whether they actually belong here. What do you think Ben? Yeah, that's that's

absolutely right. And if you actually look at the history, this is actually not even a particularly

new tactic for the Republicans. So over the course of the last 10 or 15 years, one of the things

that Republican majorities constantly did in Congress, particularly around any failure of

comprehensive immigration reform, remember those ideas, is that they would pour money into

enforcement and then they would starve money for immigration judges, right? So at the precise

time that you and this is even predating the second Trump term, at the precise time that you are

rounding up more people and putting them in detention centers, you are starving the funding for

the immigration judges who can adjudicate those cases. And it's ultimately in service of this

final endpoint, which is you're kind of completely federalizing the whole thing and you want to get

to a place where you can bypass the judicial system and just deport people. And we saw this, you

know, test of strength at the beginning, right? When they were deporting people who had not had a hearing

or at least trying to do so and we're occasionally stopped by judges. So like we have to understand

like this is the playbook to stress and ultimately break the system and assume like total executive

control. But that's why it's so essential to spotlight this thing because it is not popular.

It is not something that like people are comfortable with just getting rid of the rule of law,

you know, getting rid of the rule of law for people who could be US citizens or could be children,

right? And that's why we have to continue to follow the lead of the people in Minneapolis who

spotlight these things. We also have to kind of be for fundamental reforms, knowing that, you know,

the bigger reforms are unlikely to happen when Trump is president. But I mean, if you look past that,

like, you know, there are things that need to be on the table, like if we actually get a normal

department of justice again, like getting rid of ICE and moving immigration enforcement back to DOJ,

where actually it's under the rule of law instead of being separate and militarized from it.

I think a lot of people don't know that. Yes. And Ben, you wrote an amazing op-ed about this

very useful one and lightning, I should say. I think a lot of people don't understand the

bifurcation of the system that some of the stuff immigration naturalization is housed at DHS.

But then the immigration court judges are all appointed by DOJ and are literally under the

purview of the attorney general, Pam Bondi, who's not exactly known for being, I don't know,

the paragon of lady justice, blind justice. Anyway, I digress. Continue forward.

No, but that's the problem is it used to all be a DOJ, right? So immigration enforcement was

there and the naturalization process was there, right? And it was done under the rule of law, right?

And the agency was equally committed to enforcing immigration laws, but also a jury-cuditing

citizenship claims and, you know, managing that process. I think if you can rebuild DOJ,

like put it back there, get rid of ICE, but have immigration enforcement by all means,

but have it be done by DOJ, which is technically supposed to enforce the laws in this country.

And there are other reforms Democrats can be talking about. Like, you've talked a bit about

this some runaway country, Alex, but these private prisons, right? I mean, you want to talk about

corruption where we started. You literally have people profiting off of these grotesque detention

centers that, you know, children are being sent to. Like we need to get rid of that too. I don't

want people profiting off of the detention of children who have been separated from their family.

So they're bigger reforms that, you know, candidly need to await the end of the Trump administration.

I think though you can simultaneously have the fight on these common sense reforms that are

very popular, spotlight the absolute abuses of power that Trump has engaged in, frankly,

reverse the politics of immigration as polling shows it has been shifting over the last few months,

and then have a bigger vision for what can replace a system that is so fundamentally broken.

Also, just read your op-ed because it lays out a lot of this and it's just like,

put it, make it pocket-sized and give it down to members of Congress.

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Leave it live at the Lincoln Theater on April 23rd. That's right. Spring and DC is all about

cherry blossoms and love to leave it bringing you a stack lineup of guests. That's what makes it

America's number one late night gay live comedy political podcast. We're so excited to be back

to DC. It's a tradition now that we come around the time of the car response and or even though

the car is honest and are really no longer has comedians. I believe there's going to be some kind of

magician or a mind mind melder. Yes, a magician. Yeah, I'm a mentalist. A mentalist.

Because I guess Trump wouldn't go. It's also going. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's there. Yeah.

There's a mental case and then and Trump is also going. That's right. That's tickets won't last

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Crooked.com slash events.

The sun shining birds are singing and all feels right in the world.

Until the season changes and suddenly you lose your motivation to get out of bed.

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Please visit mentally healthy nation.org to learn more.

You talk about the detention centers Ben and the news we get out of their out of these

detention centers is sporadic but almost uniformly awful. We have reports this week that at least

two people at an ice detention center for families have the measles. What do we know about the

measles Ben? It's highly contagious. We also know that immigration attorneys at least one has

told the Washington Post that his clients at that same facility had not been given measles

vaccines or been asked about their vaccination status. To me, this is the mashup of Steven Miller's

grotesque abusive immigration policies with RFK juniors grotesque barbaric anti-scientific

anti-vax bent. Here you go. A terrible overcrowded detention center plus an unvaccinated population.

Cool. That's Trump's America. Yeah. It's just one big broken crept enterprise and inevitably

it was all going to converge. What is more of a sign of convergence than detained immigrant children

getting measles because of Steven Miller's racism and Christy Nomes nihilism and Robert F. Kennedy's

fanciful conspiracy theorizing. This is all fundamentally coming together in a way that we're not

even we're just over a year into this Alex. So like God knows where we're going to be in a couple

years, you know, when you add a little headset to the stew and Howard Lutnik, another Epstein buddy

to the stew here, it's not great. I do have more to say on RFK and we're going to we're going to

I don't know. Do we call this an up-no? It's a vehicle for me to just talk about the

the grossness of RFK, although it does condor some visuals and I apologize in advance.

Um, you may have thought that trashing bad bunny was the most appalling right wing attack on

America's Super Bowl? No. The most appalling right wing attack and I'm going to call it a

attack on the Super Bowl. That that dubious honor belongs to Health and Human Services Secretary

RFK Jr., who unfortunately for us described his Super Bowl Sunday snack lineup to Peter Ducey

a Fox News and and this is what it is. What would you have as a Super Bowl singer?

I, you know, I am on carnivores. I just eat meat and ferment and I'm very happy with that. So

I'm going to probably have yogurt and what? What he just said first of all, there's a lot to

unpack there. You know, he's just going to have yogurt yogurt at the Super Bowl. I also had yogurt

at my Super Bowl party, except it was mixed with onion dip and sour cream and I put potato chips

in it or I mixed it with blue cheese and sour cream and I dipped my buffalo wings in it. What's more

disgusting than creaky ass Robert F. Kennedy Jr. eating a bowl of yogurt at the Super Bowl?

First of all, Alex, I never use ferment to apply to a delicacy. It's a noun.

Just not something. Yeah, it's just I don't know what it's not something you're ever going to

hear me do. And the second thing I have to say is like I'm out here in LA, transplant in New Yorker,

you know, very much miss my hometown. And, you know, to me, like I'm trying to get my head around

the kind of, you know, wellness, maha universe. To me, I thought it was like, I don't know,

kombucha or like the the supplements aisle. I don't know what it is that I'm looking at the

powders at like Aeroan or something. I didn't realize it was like, you know, meats that you

I don't know how I can't imagine how he prepares his meats. I made chicken wings last night,

Alex. I always do chicken wings two ways. So I tore it off in Buffalo. And this kind of like

un, you know, pasteurized the disgusting. I'm just trying to picture like the spray.

It's definitely chicken on the raw side. I'm thinking he wants his meat largely undercooked, right?

Exactly. And ferments. Nobody calls them that. Like you can have kimchi. Fine, you can have

sauerkraut. You can even have kombucha, high sugar content. But to go around classifying,

suggesting to the American public on Fox News, no less, that you consume only meat and

firmance is a betrayal of this republic. Can you imagine if Barack Obama had said I remember when

Barack Obama was found to have eaten five almonds and it was like a national crisis. Like who the

fuck is this guy only eating five almonds? He's not a real man. He fucking sucks. What's wrong with

him? He's like a, he's too tightly wound. Something's wrong with his mental attitude.

Robert have come, like he's eating firmance and a bowl of yogurt. If I ever see someone next to me

at a super bowl party eating a bowl of yogurt, after I finish puking into the trash can, I'll leave.

I mean, it is one of those weeks where, you know, when you wrap up the discussion this way, Alex,

you're like, all right, we got like a 80-year-old narcissist building a ballroom to himself at a time

of a cost of living crisis, running interference over his presence in like the Epstein files

and his connectivity to potentially like a child sex trafficker and health secretary giving

our kids measles and, you know, recommending or boasting about his, you know, super bowl

diet of ferment and uncooked meats. And I mean, if we can't win a debate, if we, if we,

Democrats and everybody else, it doesn't like this, can't somehow figure out how to craft

political arguments that, you know, are four chicken wings at the super bowl and Alex Wagner's dip

and no ballrooms and, you know, all the pedophiles accountable and bad bunny, you know,

crushes and like we have like, we're on, we're standing on the right terrain here in this country

like we just have to like beckon people over here with a message that works and I don't know whether

it's John Ossoff or anybody else, but someone's going to put this thing together for us.

My ferment is beer and I think a lot of other people out there like it too.

Quite a good ferment, yeah. Ben Rhodes, we're going to leave it there, my friend.

I'm sorry, I leave everybody with a visual of Robert of Kennedy eating a bowl of fash or

faya or whatever you call it, but sometimes weeks are like that. And I apologize to everybody.

Do you think he blends it? Do you think he puts the meat in the ferment?

I mean, that would almost be like a Middle Eastern delicacy, like a shish kebab and yogurt,

but I don't think so. But something tells me would not be as tasty as the Middle Eastern preparations.

There's nothing that's happening in RFK Junior's kitchen that's tasty. I think we can say that

quite definitively. John, John and Tommy and Dan are going to be back with Australian accents

later this week. I kind of want to close out the show speaking in on Australian accent,

so I'm going to do one line of the script with my best Australian accent. And if it doesn't work,

we'll fix it in post. Some quick housekeeping. Love it or leave it is returning to Washington,

DC. Did I do it? That's good. Yeah, keep that. That's crushed it.

On April 23rd, John Love it and DC's funniest people. Yes, DC has some funny people.

We'll be live at the Lincoln Theatre. Tickets are on sale now. Grab them at crooked.com slash events.

That's our show for today. John, John, Tommy and Dan will be back in your feeds on Friday live

from Melbourne. Given the time change, you should expect that show on your feed a little later than

usual. They'll be eating crocodiles and kissing eels in the meantime. See you soon. Thanks,

everyone. Good eye. Why didn't they bring you Alex? I mean, with an accent like that. I'm the

designated survivor. I'm the designated survivor. If you want to listen to Pots of America,

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Hey, love it or leave a listeners. It's me, the titular John Lovett. Here to tell you that I'm

coming back to Washington DC for Love it or leave it live at the Lincoln Theater on April 23rd.

That's right. Spring in DC is all about cherry blossoms and Love it or leave it bringing you a

stack lineup of guests. That's what makes it America's number one late night gay live comedy political

podcast. We're so excited to be back in DC. It's a tradition now that we come around the time

of the car response and or even though the car response center really no longer has comedians.

I believe there's going to be some kind of a magician or a mind-milder. Yes, a magician.

I'm a mentalist. A mentalist because I guess Trump wouldn't go. It's also going.

Yeah. Yeah. That's right there. Yeah. There's a mental case and then Trump is also going.

That's right. That's right. Tickets won't last long.

They're selling pretty fast. So get yours now while you still can at Kruger.com slash

events. Very excited for the DC show. Got some big guests. Some pretty exciting babies.

Kruger.com slash events.