The Worst Way to Spend $200 Billion

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Welcome to Potsade, America. I'm John Favre. I'm Dan Fiverr. On today's show, we're going to talk

about how the war in Iran is turning into a global economic crisis. Why the Pentagon thinks it'll

cost us at least another 200 billion dollars and whether Congress will actually approve that

funding, the senior Trump official who just resigned over the war, the fight over confirming

Trump's next homeland security secretary that involves an actual physical fight, the other actual

physical fight that will take place on the White House lawn this summer, Apex role in this week's

Democratic primaries in Illinois, and then the winner of one of those primaries talks to Dan,

Lieutenant Governor Juliana Stratton, who's on her way to becoming the next Democratic Senator

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Donald Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu started a war in Iran that has now engulfed the Middle East

and triggered a global energy crisis that's quickly becoming a global economic crisis.

On Wednesday, Israel bombed the largest natural gas reserve in the world, which Iran shares with

Qatar, Iran then retaliated with attacks on energy infrastructure across the Middle East,

including a hit on a Qatari natural gas complex that has wiped out a good chunk of its capacity

for several years. Trump claimed Israel acted alone and won't do it again, but also said that if

Iran keeps attacking energy infrastructure, he'll quote massively blow up the rest of their gas

reserve. The president is also reportedly considering sending in ground troops to secure the

straight of Hormuz, which remains closed. On Wednesday night, oil shot passed $118 a barrel.

Gas prices are approaching $4 a gallon. And after a worse than expected inflation report,

the Fed decided to hold interest rates steady. Here's how this is all playing. If you

turn on the TV. Far worse news on prices than expected. Americans have been grappling of course

with surging gas prices. Up 86 cents a gallon since the Iran war began. It's almost the worst

of both worlds. I guess that inflation would come close to describing the situation.

Since the war began, the price of the pump has risen every day this month. I would think that

records could be set. People are already seeing gas prices. Gas prices are up almost a dollar,

near term measures of inflation expectations have risen in recent weeks, likely reflecting the

substantial rise in oil prices caused by the supply disruptions in the Middle East. Tough stuff,

pretty scary. So that's what people are seeing on their screens. And here's the Trump White House

feeling people's pain. Oil prices will go up. The economy will go down a little bit. I feel

it would be worse. Much worse actually. I thought there was a chance it could be much worse. It's not

as much as we've got. We got to focus on getting these gas prices down. The reality is overseas,

they're feeling it far worse than we did. If it were to be extended, it wouldn't really disrupt

the U.S. economy very much at all. It would hurt consumers. And we'd have to think about if that

continued, what we would have to do about that. But that's really the last of our concerns right now.

If you could say something to President Trump, he was going to hear you right now. What would it be?

You're a worthless pile of s**t. And you voted for him how many times?

Three times. That was my bad. Apparently, I'm an idiot.

Love that woman. The best. I can't tell which of those clips is worse.

JD Vance being like, I know you're paying a lot in gas prices, but just think of how high the

gas prices are in Europe right now. At least you're not Europe. Or Kevin Haset being like,

you have the wars extended. It's not going to really hurt anything but consumers.

And we may have to think about that. But really, the last of our concerns right now.

Kevin Haset is possibly the worst spokesperson than any White House has put out. He,

at every opportunity, steps on a break. It is very possible that somewhere there is some

Democratic super back that books him on TV and he just assumes the White House is doing it because

he's so bad. I mean, so is Scott Besson. So is the Treasury Secretary. We could have included

like five Scott Besson clips in here, but we didn't have time. Like the two chief economic

spokespeople for the White House, Kevin Haset and Scott Besson are the most out of touch

fucking doofuses that I've ever seen. Talk for a White House.

They work for a president who spends all of his time during a error of high prices talking

about the gold leaf that he's procuring for the White House.

How affordability is a hoax. And then yeah, we shouldn't let Trump off the hook there.

Just being like, yeah, honestly, I thought it was going to be so much worse. It's not bad.

It's not bad. It's saying that near $4 a gallon gas is not bad is just a historic

gaff. There's so many gaffs. There's so many gaffs. It is all the gaff.

It's the exception. The second Trump administration has been one giant gaff.

But what a painful fucking gaff it's been. Yeah, it's a tough gaff. It seems like the

chances are getting quite low that Iran will be a quick excursion as Trump calls it,

not an incursion, an excursion that just causes short term price hikes. What do you think?

I just, I've thought this for three weeks now. It's calling the war with Iran that has put

us on the cusp of a global energy crisis, a synonym for a pleasure cruise. It's a truly insane

choice. Especially when the center of the war is keeping a body of water closed. Yeah,

you know, you can't do an excursion. The straight-in for moves. Oh my god. I mean, this is such. This

really is the worst case scenario of Trump. When you have a president who has no idea what he's

doing who's incredibly impulsive and is now surrounded by people who only tell him what he wants to

hear. You end up in the situation. And it is like he Trump got so lucky in his first term to

avoid things like this. Maybe it was he had different people around him. Maybe he just didn't have

the confidence to actually push through on these things. But like he this is so fucking stupid.

It is like it's unfathomable. Like there was no point here. Like we're going to talk about some

of the tech later on this show. We're talking about some of the testimony about the various

imminent threats and everything else. But there was no reason to do this. There's no plan for how

it was supposed to go. They didn't think beyond the first bombs. They didn't consider that the

straight-in for moves might be blocked, which every person who's ever studied a war with the

Iran said would happen. And they have no plan to get us out of it. And they're just like bumbling

along the whole way. And it's like it's people like obviously there's been you know,

American troops have died civilians all across them. At least have died. The girl school in Iran

was bombed. Americans are paying a higher price of the pump. There are shocks. It's economy

that can be felt for months. If not longer, even if Trump somehow wraps this thing up in a week,

which seems very hard to have fathom. But the damage to the economy is being done right now. And

for no fucking reason, like it's insane. And and that's an important point because the no

fucking reason part, the no fucking reason part. Yeah. I think there's a because you I've seen

some people compare it to the tariffs, right? And like remember liberation day and in the weeks

after liberation day, we were like why? Like I've never seen a president inflict so much

damage, political damage on himself for no good reason. And you know, it turned out that on some

of the tariffs, Trump eventually backed off. You know, there's the whole fucking taco thing.

And but that situation was one where if he decided to just stop imposing the tariffs or at

least stop imposing certain tariffs, then you know, the economic damage would be reduced, right?

And it would go away a little bit. This is so much different because like you said, if he could,

this whole thing could stop tomorrow, which it's not going to. But if it did, you know, Tracy Alloy

from Bloomberg, they had the great Adlots podcast with Joe Isenthal. She wrote today each successive

day of the Iran conflict now generates months of impact on the global economy. And the longer it

takes the world to adapt to a new reality of reduced Gulf oil flows, the longer and deeper the

pain. So what's happening now is even though gas prices are high right now, the pain in the in the

price increase that's coming from the oil disruption and the gas disruption in the Middle East

has not even worked its way through the economy just yet fully. And you know, oil price experts

told CNBC this week that right now we're very much in the $150 barrel range for like what oil will

hit. He said, but I don't think it's ridiculous at all to suggest $200. And even if the war ends

right now, it'll take a, they think it'll take a long time for prices to come back down. And they

probably won't come down to where they were before the war. And that's not even the whole thing.

It's not even just oil prices. Fertilizer moves through the street. Fertilizer prices impact food

prices. Right now is planning season in much of farm country. And you were making decisions about

what crops the plant and how many acres the plant based on the price of Fertilizer, what can they

afford to do? And so that's going to affect food supply and food prices this fall when harvest

happens. Mortgage rates have gone up for three weeks in a row because of the inflationary impact of

this war, which is going to impact people will into buy houses and sell house affects the housing

market. It freezes capital. And all of these things are having an effect on an economy that was

barely choking along to begin with. And again, like we should talk about sort of options

that Trump has right now to reopen the Strait of Hormuz and sort of end this crisis.

So he's considering sending in ground troops. Although I see that he thinks there's a loophole

where you can get around calling it ground troops if he sends them to the islands around Iran

in the Strait of Hormuz. And so if he has them take Carg Island, which is the island that they

that that Trump bombed last week, where I think Iran exports like 90% of its oil. But the

challenge with that is so you send a bunch of Marines in to take this island. You think Iran is

then going to stop shooting at the Marines or they're going to just allow the Strait of Hormuz to

be reopened because the idea is that if we take the island, then we can use it as a bargaining

chip and that Iran will say, well, no, no, if you we're going to be hurt, if you have the control

of this island where all of our oil is exported from. So we'll reopen the Strait of Hormuz in

exchange for you giving us back the island. Like they're not going to do that. They are fighting for

the survival of their regime at this point. We're like killing off all of their leaders.

They're becoming more radical as you go down the the org chart in the Iranian regime. And

what's to stop and great destroyed a bunch of ballistic missiles. Great destroyed a bunch of

their leadership. What's to stop random IRGC guys from just blowing up boats? You don't need

ballistic missiles to shoot at boats in the Strait of Hormuz. All you need are mines and

smaller guns and drones and all that shit. And then they're just going to keep doing that. Why would

they stop doing that at this point? Because even if Trump decides the war is over, Iran's not going

to think the war is over because Iran's pissed that they've been humiliated like this. And so they're

going to make life miserable in the Strait of Hormuz for people who are trying to pass oil through

there for I don't know how long until they feel like there's a settlement to end the war that

they've negotiated. And even so there's when it comes to using ground, there's three options with

ground troops as I understand it. Short of obviously invading Iran. One is to put them along the

greens along the coast of Iran. This would violate the boots on the ground, loophole to try to take

out to secure the places where they are firing the missiles and launching the attacks. That's one.

The second is to take Carg Island, as you said, which would then be some sort of like

monopoly-esque leverage piece that we would use. By the way, there's a lot of experts too that are like

Iran's been building pipelines. They've been figuring out ways to get their oil out to market without

Carg Island. And so if the Americans took Carg Island, it's not really even going to matter

that much anyway. So there's some thought that might happen. And the third option is to take a bunch

of the islands because Carg Island is where the energy infrastructure is. But you have a bunch of other

islands, most notably one called like QSam or something like that that sort of at the entry point

to the Strait. I really feel like Tommy or Ben here and I'm probably getting this wrong. But

where they where it's just where they launch a lot where they have a lot of their military

equipment, they have a bunch of the missiles and their boats and their ships there. And that these

there are several other islands like some of the islands are completely abandoned and uninhabited.

And some of them are home to highly fortified Iranian naval and military installations. So

that's not an easy thing to do. Either none of these are good options, which is once again

why over the last nearly 50 years we have decided not to go to War of the Rand despite all of our

concerns about the regime. And again, I feel like we're back debating the end of the war in Iraq.

Remember when Iraq became a quagmire and then everyone would say for years and years there's

no military solution to end this war. There must be a political solution. But like that's going

to be the same thing with Iran, right? Like you can't just drop a bunch of fucking bombs, kill a

bunch of their leadership. And then in a country of 90 million people who are now with with the regime

still very much in place more radical, angrier, more vengeful thinking that like somehow they're

just going to, everyone's just going to pack up and go home. It's just, it's even so different

from Iraq. Iran's obviously in much bigger country than Iraq. It's a much more geographically

large population complexity there. But also the original, like for a lot of people in Iraq, one in

Saddam Hussein got. We went into invade to remove Saddam Hussein. And theoretically for a lot of

people is strictly when the, you had a minority, authoritarian representative, the ethnic minority.

And so there was a world in which you could have possibly, if they had not, the Bush administration

enough, fucked it up so bad, you know, begun to build a new, you know, democracy or peaceful society

with the majority population. That is not what's happening in Iran, right? We didn't, we didn't go

into remove the people, the dictator that everyone hated. We decided to bomb the shit out of the

country and radicalize the population against us. I just, I remember reading someone say that

there was a, a lot of people in Iran, there's an entire generation of people in Iran who did not

corrupt hitting America. Yeah. Right. They're not part, they didn't, they weren't around in 1979.

They didn't leave any of that. They didn't, maybe they didn't love us. But their, and in many

principles, not hit America. And then we blew up a girl's school in their country. So like, we're

way worse off in our end with Iran than we were before this war. And the Israelis just bombed their

natural gas reserve. And I think that like, what happened this week with the Israelis hitting

their natural gas reserve, the Iranians retaliating by hitting energy infrastructure all across the

Gulf, but especially that Katari natural gas hub is like, you see how the problem with the like,

they call it like the ladder of escalation, right? And like one side escalates and the other side

then escalates. And there's a lot of miscalculation and miscommunication. And suddenly you've got Trump

saying like, well, this was very bad. And I don't want Israel to do this again. But if Iran

keeps retaliating, then I'll blow up the rest of its natural gas reserve completely, which will

only hurt everything more. Everyone would hurt us more, right? Like, this is what happens. And so

you just like, if nothing else happens and holding hands tomorrow, it's still going to be

incredibly hard to fix this to put this back in the bottle. I don't think you can. I don't know.

I like, how bad do you think the politics on this could get for Trump and the Republicans?

Because right now, it's bad. But like, you know, you're seeing the polls. He's still like

hanging around it, upper 30s, low 40s. I don't know that it is going to, that Trump's

approval rating will change that much. Where might come down a few points as the economic consequences

get worse for people, but Trump has a pretty high floor and is borrowing. The problem for Republicans

here is people do not like this war, right? They, you know, they, and they didn't like the war

before their gas prices started going up. They never understood where we're going into it.

You have polls that show that two-thirds of Americans have seen their gas prices go up in two

weeks. You have six and ten Americans who disapprove of how Trump is handling gas prices.

And the thing that's interesting is you have, the Republicans have not abandoned Trump on this,

but you do have about 17% of Republicans in a recent poll that who disapprove of Trump on a

ran. You have about a quarter of former Trump voters, which includes independence and Democrats,

who disapprove Trump on a ran. But I think the most important number here is that in almost every

poll, the number of Americans who strongly disapprove of this war is two times the number of Americans

who strongly approve of this war. So Trump supporters will say they approve of him for it,

but they're not excited about this. They don't think it's a good idea. They don't like it. It's

reflexive partisanship. And that is very, very bad for turnout in a midterm, right? There is just,

this is not, you know, you think about maybe the Kavanaugh confirmation in 2018, which fired up

both sides. This is not something, or maybe even immigration could fire up both sides. This

does not fire up the Republicans, but it does fire up everyone else and it infuriates independence.

Well, here's something that could make it worse. On top of higher gas prices and higher inflation,

Trump and Pete Hegseth are also asking us to pay another $200 billion for their war,

which is the price tag of the funding request. The Pentagon will soon send to Congress first

reported by the Washington Post and then confirmed by Hegseth during his latest press conference

on Thursday morning, where he once again kicked off his remarks with a series of angry war high

coups. A dishonest and anti-Trump press will stop at nothing. We know this at this point,

to downplay progress, amplify every cost, and call into question every step. Sadly, TDS

is in their DNA. They want President Trump to fail. We hold the cards. We have objectives. Those

objectives are clear. We have allies pursuing objectives as well. And the truth speaks for

itself. Iran's energy rich country could be, should be. Instead, like so many other places driven

by radical ideology, they've spent that money instead of investing in their people.

Yes, that's what's telling it. And they invested in missiles and they invested in launchers

and UAVs. And we are destroying and degrading that, degrading that in historic proportions.

As far as $200 billion, I think that number could move, obviously. It takes money to kill bad guys.

So many other places where government, with driven by radical ideology, invests instead of

in its people, in weapons, and guns, and bombs. Just horrible. I hate that. It seems,

I can't even my finger on it, but it seems familiar in some way, shape or form. TDS is in their DNA.

We have objectives. We hold cards. We read remarks in a weird tone.

Who do you think the press criticism for is for in every one of these press conferences?

Donald Trump. It must be, right? But it's so weak. It is so weak.

They're just so angry every day. They think that they're like, I don't know if they've

just convinced themselves that they're doing great. Things are going well. And so they're just

shocked that anyone would report otherwise. But I mean, clearly they have thin skin and he doesn't

like the press, which is why he kicked most of them out of the briefing room and banned them from

the Pentagon. It doesn't like the press. What, what did he do before this? Was he, was he,

he talked about, he talked about cable news punditry in that briefing today. You like mocked cable

news punditry. The fucking, the Fox weekend understudy, Pete Higgs. Yes. Yes. The guy whose primary

responsibility was to answer the phone if, if Steve Juicy got the flu during the week.

Anyway, once we got through all the war hikers, the, the $200 billion, but he said, I might come

up or down. We'll see. Can you imagine a more unpopular vote than supporting $200 billion for a

war that is currently making a bad economy even worse? No, I cannot. I think it would be, I mean,

we, like we asked this question about the big, beautiful bill. Like, could you imagine a bill

that cut Medicaid and food stamps and then took that money and gave it to a millionaires and

billionaires for tax cuts? Can you imagine something worse than that? Yes, we can, John, a $200 billion

for an agency that has a $1 trillion budget for a war no one wants and is raising a gas price.

That would actually be a worse vote. I thought this was horrific when it was going to be $50 billion.

Yes. Yes. If it, they came in with 15 billion, I would think it would be a bad vote.

In fact, part of me thinks, and I don't know, they're probably not this smart, but part of me

thinks that they, they leaked 200 billion so that they could go down to 100 billion or 50 billion

and be like, see, it's not that bad after all. We compromised. We looked around and we cut some

corners and we felt like we can, we can do it for 50. We don't need 200. I think, I think this

number will come down because I think Congress is not going to want to do to it. I don't think

there are votes for $200 billion, but we can talk about that. I think this is the Pentagon

leaking this ahead of the White House getting the number to try to lock them into 200 billion.

So it's like the military says this is what we need because this is something that the military

is sort of notorious for in their appropriations is to make, like put the number out there

because they think if it comes from the military, it's more likely to be passed before the

White House tries to dumb it down. The White House certainly wouldn't want to be caught reducing

the number. But you can see a role. I just, I think this is a smaller number when it goes to

Congress, just because there's a reality of trying to pass it. But even still, I don't care if

they come down at a hundred. I don't care if they come at 50. This is a horrendous vote. It's

something that every Democrat should vote against. It is voting for this would be insane. In my mind,

insane. Again, the under Donald Trump Congress approved about a trillion dollars for the Pentagon,

trillion dollars. Where did that money go? 200 billion dollars. Again, these are like big numbers,

it's sort of hard to get your head around them. I did this with the 50 billion dollars when we

thought it was going to be 50 billion dollars. Here's what, here's what 200 billion dollars

could do for the government. This is what the government could do with 200 billion dollars.

Could restore Obamacare subsidies for 22 million Americans who just lost their subsidies in Obama

and watching their premiums go up. It could restore those subsidies for six years for 22 million

people. Could eliminate nearly all medical debt in America. All the medical debt that's out there

in America. We could do that instead of 200 billion dollars so we could drop more bombs on Iran.

Community college free for everyone for two decades. Two decades. One point three million

affordable housing units. Food stamps for 42 million Americans for two full years. Free school

lunches for every kid in America for five years. Fully fund WIC, which is women and infant children

program for pregnant mothers and infants. Food assistance and medicine for them for 24 years.

200 billion dollars. Pick one of those things that we could do with 200 billion dollars. But instead

we are using 200 billion dollars to drop more bombs on Iran to intercept missiles from Iran

and to, I don't know what the fuck else we're doing there. Does dissent troops to take car

gauland? Which is not troops on the ground because it's sort of about our troops on the island.

Yes. troops on the ground. I don't know. Like, do you think this will pass Congress?

It's hard right now to see. They'll do it as a reconciliation bill. So they will do it

in the Senate. They'll do it. I think I think I read they were going to try to do this as a

reconciliation bill because I think they can get 60 in the Senate. But I don't. Yeah, they have

to do it, right? I'm trying to think like not saying my knowledge of the bird rule was great at

the time or it was really sustained over the last 15 years. But I'm curious how you would do that.

But is it here or there? Let's just start with the House. If it's a 60 vote threshold and I see

that many Democrats vote for it, I will leave the Democratic Party. That's not John. Let's not

put your entire future in your ability to participate in primaries in the hands of

I can name 10 Democrats who make you nervous right now. And they only need seven. They only need seven.

Okay. Federman. So Federman and six others. Well, it's the people who opened the government.

Yeah. Now, if you really look at that list, I don't that list doesn't go for this because like

Tim Cain, I think, was on that list and Tim Cain's not vote. I mean, I'm really trying to think of

what the arguments that they would make, right? Which is, okay, well, actually, this isn't new

money for Iran. This is money to replenish our munitions and the stuff that we've used in a run

and it's actually over the last five or six or seven years. We've sort of running low on all

these supplies. And because we used a bunch, we now have to refill them because it's about our

defense and for the next war and what if we get attacked and so like, isn't that the arguments

that they would do the argument they will make is we wouldn't have entered this war ourselves.

But we're in it now. We have a lot of our troops who are in harm's way, either in military

installations in the Gulf or, you know, in the Navy, the biggest Armada ever, whatever

I'm called that there. And we have to get the straight-up Hormuz opened and that's going to

take money. So we have to give them. And lives now, apparently. And lives. Yeah, for sure, for sure.

I think that's, we need to, we need to, we need to, we need to send some troops to their death

and we need to spend a lot of money at billions and billions of dollars that we don't have

so that we can reopen the straight-up Hormuz that was only closed because we started a war.

I mean, it is where we are. It's twisted logic, for sure. But, you know, a lot of the people

on the armed services committee and other parts of, you know, are captured by the military on

some of these things. And of course, of course, and of course, if we don't, if they don't vote for

the funding and the funding doesn't go through, you can't bring the troops home. You just must leave

them there in harm's way. That's our men's way. It's stuck there because we'll not be gasp for

votes. We can't just, we can't just get on the boats and come home. We must leave the troops there.

That's what else are we supposed to do? Here's the thing, whether it passes. Is Donald Trump

did not ask for authorization for this war? This is a war. This is not an excursion. It is a war.

Troops have died. It's, I was going to cost $200 million. It is rattled the, it's created a

spiraling conflict in the Middle East. This is a war. We know it's a war because Donald Trump

keeps calling it a war when he doesn't call an excursion. He refers to it as the war. And

as does this defense secretary who keeps saying war is hell a million times. If you fucking briefing.

And so to vote for this is to de facto vote to authorize this war. And no Democrats should do that.

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So we've talked a lot about the magma media stars who turned on Trump over around, but

this week we got the first actual defection from within the administration. Joe Kent Trump's

handpicked director of the National Counterterrorism Center, resigned in a letter where he said that

quote, Iran posed no imminent threat to our nation and that quote, we started this war due to

pressure from Israel and its powerful American lobby. Kent was a very far right,

extremely Trumpy politician before taking this job. He's also a former CIA officer and retired

green beret who served 11 combat tours regardless of who he is. His now former boss,

director of national intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, didn't refute what he said about Iran not

posing an imminent threat during her congressional testimony this week. Here's Kent talking about

why he resigned on Tucker Carlson show and then Gabbard in front of Congress in an exchange

with John Asuf. Iran posed no imminent threat to our nation. How did you reach that conclusion?

I think this is this is key. I mean, this would be more challenging to explain had the Secretary

of State, the President and the Speaker of House, the House not come out and said that we conducted

this attack at this time because the Israelis were about to do so. So that takes away the argument

that there was an imminent threat as in Iran was planning to attack us immediately. That just

simply did not exist. Was it the intelligence community's assessment that nevertheless,

despite this obliteration, there was a quote, imminent nuclear threat posed by the Iranian regime.

Yes or no? It is not the intelligence community's responsibility to determine what is and is not

an imminent threat. Okay. Here's the problem. No, it is precisely. It is precisely your responsibility

to determine what constitutes a threat to the United States. This is the worldwide threats hearing.

That's Tulsi Gabbard who actually sold no war with Iran t-shirts when she was running for president.

That's a Democrat. That's a Democrat.

But what an assuredly she has taken to be the DNI to a Republican president who started a war

with Iran. What do you make of Kent's resignation? We should also say that now Kent is under investigation

for leaking classified information. The FBI, law enforcement sources maintain that the investigation

was opened before he resigned because they clearly don't want it to seem like this is any kind of

retribution. Who knows if they're telling the truth or not. They don't tell the truth about

many things. So it's hard to believe them. When Kent first resigned, there was a bunch of Democrats

who went out and said, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. This guy is an extremist who believes in conspiracy

theories. Do not get on his, get on hit. Don't endorse this. Don't get on his side. Tell me the

person in the Trump administration who could resign in protest over something who would not be an

extremist who believes in conspiracy theories. Name one of them. It's like people take the

fucking win, right? Like he, he's, he's head of counterterrorism resigned because he said the war

was a mistake. There was no eminent threat. And if you listen to the whole Tucker Carlson interview,

there's a lot of wacky stuff in there. There is some way. Well, it's actually, it gets so much

wackier at the end. It starts, it starts off. And I will say Tucker sounds way wackier than

Joe Kent, even though I know, and we look, we covered his race against Marie Glucingham Perez.

Like he is, he's a psycho. Like his, his love is beliefs are crazy. But he, but many of the things

he said in Tucker Carlson's interview, you don't have to believe that Joe Kent is a wonderful

person to believe them. All you have to do is line them up with other facts and other things

that people have said. And one of the most important things he says is one of the reasons

were at war is that the people who have contrary views to the president on many matters, but

particularly the matter of worth Iran is we're not allowed to see the president that those views

were kept from him. That has been one of the big problems with this administration. And this

is actually a change. He said under Operation Midnight Hammer, there was a large debate within

the administration about the pros and cons of doing that. This time that debate did not happen.

And so that, like what he is saying, put aside all of his other crazy views, the argument he is

making here is the right argument about how we got here. And it is notable that someone this high

up in his administration has resigned over it. Like that is a big fucking deal. And we can't be

like so precious about all of his views. Like it really, like I don't want to hammer on this.

But if the, if the idea is that we will accept no whistleblowers who are kind of wacky,

we will accept no whistleblowers to Trump administration. Like from political point

east, that cannot happen. But it's also just like if you want point out the parts of his argument

that you don't like that are wacky, right? Like so, you know, he leans pretty heavily into it's like

the Israel lobby got us into the war and they convinced Trump and clearly he and Tucker believe

that. And this is where their argument falls flat because they can't bring themselves to just admit

that Donald Trump is a fucking moron easily persuaded by anyone he talks to. So yes,

BB Netanyahu and Israeli intelligence may have persuaded Trump to bomb Iran and to join

this war. But also Trump could have been just as easily persuaded by watching a fucking segment on

Hannity with Mark Levin. Yes. Like it doesn't like you, it doesn't, it doesn't matter whether it's

Israel, whether it's Fox, whether it's someone on fucking Twitter, whether it's some

jack off in his administration that persuades him. Like Donald Trump is an easily persuadable moron.

Tucker can't see that or maybe he can't even want to admit it. Same thing with Joe Kent. And so they

do the Israel thing. But like it is clear that BB Netanyahu has wanted to invade Iran and do this

forever. And he was very open about it just the other week instead of wanted to do this for 40 years.

And now the Americans are doing it with me. Look, I mean, Joe can't both in this interview and then

in previous parts of his life has been reported or alleged like really dabbles in anti-Semitic

tropes like that is that is very clear. Put that aside, even if you don't want to have the Israel

discussion, even though as Joe Kent says in that clip, Marco Rubio and Mike Johnson said the same

thing in public as to why we we attacked around that. The point he is saying is there was no threat.

And the decision making process that got us into this war was fucked up and the people at the

sending views were not allowed near the president. So now we're in a bad war. So he has to quit

to have his voice heard because his warning and cautions would not be heard in the administration.

So he had to quit. That is like I'm just so annoyed at all of these especially these former Biden

national security goobers are on here like lecturing us about the dangers of Joe Kent.

Yes, sit down.

Like Iran was not close to getting a nuclear weapon. It did not have ballistic missiles.

They could reach the United States and wouldn't for 10 years and wouldn't for tell you it was not

an imminent threat to the United States or to US interests. And according to Marco Rubio,

the Israelis decided that they were going to strike. And we joined them according to Marco Rubio

because if the Israelis struck, then Iran would retaliate against us. And so we wanted to go first.

Which is that these are just these are just the facts on the table that no one in the administration

has been able to refute, including Tulsi Gabbard under oath in Congress this week.

Just you have to take a step back and think about this for a second, which is we're in a war.

The president states has said repeatedly that he had a feeling that they were about to attack us.

And then in his bones, he's going to he's going to end this war when he's filled in his bones.

But just millions of Americans woke up on a Saturday morning and were like,

we're with Iran. And then the president goes out and tells you the reason we're at

war with Iran is because he thought Iran was about to attack us. That it was an imminent threat.

And now you have two of the highest ranking intelligence officials in the country saying that

is not true. Like that is a scandal of epic proportions. But because Donald Trump's a doofus

and everyone treats it, they grade him like a doofus on a curve, then we don't take that seriously.

But that's the story he's telling the American people. That's what he's telling the American people

why we're at war. And that is being contradicted. And we can't because he just says dumb shit all

the time he shouldn't avoid it being held accountable for lying to the country about why we're in a war.

Yeah. Yeah. Most of the government says dumb shit. That's also crazy. Yeah.

All right. The other big Congress speaking of dumb shit. The other big congressional hearing this

week was about confirming Trump's pick to run the Department of Homeland Security, Mark Wayne Mullen.

The Oklahoma Senator took questions from his colleagues while the department he hopes to lead

remains shut down over Republicans refusal to reform ice. People are waiting hours and airport

security lines right now because so many TSA agents who've been working without pay because of

the shutdown are calling in sick. Democrats keep trying to fund TSA and all of the non-immigration

related parts of DHS. But Republicans keep refusing. And the White House still won't concede to

Democrats demands that ice officers do things like stop wearing masks and obtain judicial warrants

before arresting people. During his confirmation hearing, Mullen wouldn't promise these concessions

either nor did he offer any reassurances that he'd run DHS much differently than Kristi Nome.

But he did spend a good amount of time arguing with fellow Republican Rand Paul about whether he

deserved to have the shit kicked out of him and whether two consenting senators should still be

able to settle their differences with the duel. Tell the world why you believe I deserve to be

assaulted from behind have six ribs broken and a damage lung. Tell me to my face why you think I

deserved it. And while you're at it, explain to the American public why they should trust a man

with anger issues to set the proper example for ice and border patrol agents. You supported

the felonious violent attack on me from behind. I did not say I supported it. I said I understood it.

Is it today your opinion that the caning of Charles Sumner was not only justified but argues still

for resolving our political differences with violence? What I was simply pointing out is some of the

rules that still apply to this body. For instance, Dulling with two consenting adults is still there.

I was pointing out what is still legal for 170 years. There's no precedent for legal dueling.

Even then they fled the country. I'm not going to be the smartest guy in any room I walk into.

What is the primary mission of Homeland Security Investigations? As I said, let's protect the

Homeland, bring peace of mind and secure the confidence of the American people. HSI specifically is

very important because they specialize in dealing with human trafficking, human smuggling,

counterfeit, bang for all things of that nature. I have a lot of friends who have worked for them.

I just want you to know that the whole thing about the dueling and Rand Paul getting attacked from

behind. That was the open of the hearing. That was in just the first few minutes, Dan.

His use of two consenting adults is very fun there because in the viral clip when he tried to

fight the guy from the teamsters, he also used the term two consenting adults. He said,

we're two consenting adults. We can finish this man-to-man and then told him to stand up and go

outside so they could fight outside this hearing room. Yeah, for people who missed that and Rand Paul

brought it up. Mark Greenmillan did it before to hearing threatened to fight Sean O'Brien of the

teamsters physically fight. He said, I'll be sure to take his wedding ring off so I didn't want

to damage it by punching Sean O'Brien in the face. The clip is really worth watching because then

Bernie Sanders is like, sit down. You're here, United States Senator. Bernie's going to break up the

fight. You'll be shocked to learn that Rand Paul voted against Mullins confirmation, but he's

still got voted out of committee because of a yes vote from John Federman. How about that?

That's surprising. It should be surprising. I mean, it's not surprising. It should be fucking

enraging to people. John Federman is like, I called him my friend and I'm glad that

that Donald Trump fired Christy Nome like I called on him to hurt to be fired and I was like,

come on man. He just trolls now. That's what he does. The funny clip was the Rand Paul thing,

but the guy ego thing, which we could have gone and done more of that. He has no idea what a

large segment of the Department of Homeland Security is. It does. He was just bumbling through

that answer. The guy's been in Congress. He's been in the Senate for a couple of years. He's

been in the House for even before that. The guy's been in Congress for many years now. Many years.

And you don't know what the Department of Homeland Security, you don't know the different

functions of the Department of Homeland Security. He's never worked on these issues in any

way she reformed. He went from just being a guy to being like two weeks ago. And now he's

having his earring. Do you think it's time to, first of all, he's probably going to get confirmed,

right? Because Federman, that's my assumption. That's my assumption, yeah.

Great. Wonderful. So now we got Mark Wayne Mullin and maybe he's going to bring back

dueling at DHS. What do you think about whether DHS ever gets opened again and these TSA lines

and the airports and it feels like it's getting to the point where the public's like, what the fuck?

And, you know, I still think it is hard for Republicans to explain why a fight over ice

has to hold up the funding of the rest of the Department, I think. I think obviously there

are some airports where the TSA lines have been, you know, like out the door, just like taking forever

where I've seen footage from Texas, I think Austin at the end of South by Southwest where the line

was like unbelievable and took a incredibly long time. Other airports where that's not happening.

I think that Democrats should take, bring two ideas into this decision-making process.

One is they're really under no political pressure to give in here. No one knows what this fight

is about. They don't know that this is about a Democratic shutdown over ice.

They're probably not able to tell anyone that because Donald Trump launched a war that is

dominating attention. And so when people see long lines, they're more likely to blame the incumbent

party than the Democratic Party in this. I would not feel political pressure to cave here.

I think you also have to be realistic about what you can actually achieve. So is there some real

reforms that you can get that are maybe short of everything you want but are real and make

your rotives people's lives now and then recognize that you're most likely going to have the house

and maybe the Senate next year and have even more leverage to demand even stronger reforms.

So what you don't want to do, I think, is be so stubborn now that you're going to have another

10 months with ice operating without these reforms because you're making the perfect

the enemy of the good. So there's some real things here. The White House wants a deal.

They're sending a red and a punch bowl this afternoon. They're sending another counter

offer back. So they send an offer, the Democrats are injectors sending a counter offer.

There seems to be some momentum to try to get something done here. So like,

set up, what are the things where you think you really absolutely have to have? It won't be

everything. And then prepare for a much bigger battle next year when you control which Bill gets

to the floor of the house. I think that's fair. I think that yeah, the offer that the White House

sent this week was basically like, we'll do all the things that are in the law that we haven't

been doing, which is just bullshit. And so you've got to have, you do have some kind of real

reform there. It is, I think what's what's most difficult is right now, some of the most

egregious things that ice and DHS are doing are not going to be fixed by reforming

ISIS practices. Like, you know, I saw that. I was tweeted about this, but I saw this story this

week that like a man who's been in this country, his whole life. He's a Docker recipient. He was

brought here as a young child. He works. He pays taxes. He's got a family. And he was on his way

to visit his new baby in the ICU. And his wife and ice picked him up and arrested him. And

is now trying to deport him, even though he was a Docker recipient protected by DACA. It was

already applying to renew his DACA status and the Trump administration just decided not to renew it.

Just dragged their feet on it. And so they scooped him up and now they're going to try to

try to deport him. And it's like nothing that Democrats are asking for or nothing that ice,

you know, no reforms to ice right now would change that horrific practice. And so you're right

that like you have to be honest about what you can achieve through these reforms. And I do think

like getting fucking, you know, forcing them to obtain judicial warrants and getting the masks off

are two really important things. But I agree that you have to be honest about what you can

achieve. And but I also think you're right that like the political pressure is not on Democrats

as much as on Republicans right now. Yeah, I think just as I'd say the your motivating

factor should be we have 10 months or so until we are in charge of the house if we win the house,

right? But that's what you're up, you're planning for. What can you do that improves people's

lives and improves the conduct device over the next 10 months that is actually achievable and would

make a difference. And if you can find something that would make a difference and improve the

process, maybe it's just your warrants, maybe something else that be willing to take that now.

Yeah. Before we move on from this, I should also mention that NBC News reported on Thursday that a

year ago, Christine Ohm fuckboy Corey Lewandowski told a legend, a legend, a legend, a legend,

fuckboy. The lawyers got in my ear and said say a legit told a DHS private prison contractor

than in order for his company to win more government contracts, Lewandowski would need to get paid

a success fee, special government employee Corey Lewandowski getting paid a success fee. After the

company declined to pay Lewandowski, the company's federal contracts with DHS shrink because according

to a senior DHS official, talk to NBC, Lewandowski told officials not to award any more contracts

to the company. What do you think? Is that normal to solicit bribes from your private prison

contractor when you're in government? There's not a lot normal going on with sole Corey Lewandowski

thing. Is it normal for the alleged lover of the married, it's part of the Homeland Security

Secretary to become the gatekeeper and the person who made all the decisions? No, is it normal for

a random employee to demand a budget and gun? No. Is it normal for someone to take on a temporary

role that allows them to only work about whatever it is 120 days, then work much longer by going in

the building without swiping their badge, which was in that Wall Street Journal story back then so

that wouldn't count on his days of service. No, not too normal, but it may be normal in the Trump

administration, so that we don't know. And this isn't just like, there's a million things we talk

about that are corrupt and unethical. This is just like illegal. It's just a bribe. It's just

soliciting bribes. And Corey Lewandowski, I mean, this is, I almost like don't want Democrats to

start investigating it now because then Trump gives them the pardon. Just, just hold off.

You might be the one who doesn't get the pardon in the end. I was going to say just, just, just,

well, everyone be quiet about Corey Lewandowski. Let's wait for Trump to leave office and then

then people can jump in.

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

and you see it's a tradition now that we come around the time of the car response and or even though

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

of a magician or a mind-mind-milder. Yes, a magician. I'm a mentalist. A mentalist because I guess

Trump wouldn't know. Trump's also going. Yeah, yeah, that's in there. Yeah, there's a mental case

and then and Trump is also going. That's what it is. Tickets won't last long. They're

selling pretty fast. So get yours now while you still can at crooked dot com slash events. Very

excited for the DC show. Got some big guests. Some pretty exciting babies. Crooked dot com slash events.

All right. Let's talk Democratic politics. We got some primary results on Tuesday in Illinois.

JB Pritzker has chosen candidate Lieutenant Governor Juliana Stratton. We will hear Dan talk

to in a moment. We'll be the Democratic nominee for Senate. But the big story of the night

was the role that pro-Israel advocacy group APAC played in several house primaries

where affiliated super PACs with APAC spent $22 million. At least $7 million of that $22 million

was spent just in the ninth district primary where Evanston Mayor Daniel Biss beat out progressive

activists and longtime crooked contributor, Kat Abigazale. The catch is APAC directed most of their

spending in that race against Biss, even though he has an Israeli mother and his refuse to call

what's happened in Gaza, a genocide. But because he advocated for conditioning aid to Israel,

APAC spent $7 million to defeat him. And they failed. And their candidate in the Illinois seventh

lost as well, though APAC backed House candidates Donna Miller and Melissa Bean won their primary. So

APAC went two and two. In his victory speech, Biss called out the group by name and criticized it

quote, supporting the idea that we can't accept nuance in the U.S. Israel relationship.

Other Democrats outside of Illinois are also reevaluating their relationship with the organization,

Arizona Senator Rubin Gallego, 2028 hopeful, told Politico this week that he wouldn't take any

APAC money and called settler violence in the West Bank, quote, disgusting. What do you make of the

role APAC played in Illinois and just the role they're playing in Democratic primaries overall?

I know you have a great piece about this in the message box today. Today, you came out today.

Today, Thursday, yesterday. Honestly, I read it this morning and I felt like it was already

yesterday. God, it's been a long day anyway. It's great. Today is Jack's fifth birthday,

so we have been at it. It's happy birthday, Jack. Yes, he woke. He woke up at about five,

twenty this morning, which was awesome. He was very excited. But it also woke up at five.

Yesterday, because he thought yesterday was his birthday. So it's been a very busy day in our house.

And if you want that message box or any other ones, you can subscribe for good.com.

So yes, we did. For 20% discount and of organic plug. I think that what happened in the

ninth district of Illinois is just the classic example of how assinine and counterproductive

APAC's political strategy has been because Daniel Biss would have been a potential ally.

Not a ardent supporter of everything APAC stands for, but some of the they can engage with

in good faith. Instead, they spent millions of dollars trying to defeat him. And now they've

created an adversary. And you're seeing that across the board. And with a problem for APAC is

getting going and races, they don't run any ad, now it's important thing to know here is they

don't run any ads about the US's really relationship. Right. They only run ads about other things in

New Jersey when they were trying to defeat Tom Malinowski and accidentally elected the progressive

opponent. Instead, they spent two million dollars attacking him on ice funding.

In this race, when they switched their funding to try to beat Kat, they tried to suppress her

vote at the end to maybe help horrifying their their chosen candidate. They threw a group that

was called like elect Chicago women. They ran ads accusing her of being a fake progressive.

And so they operate in the with the shadowy groups running ads that nothing to do with their

stated purposes and organization to hand pick Democrats. And that has polarized Democrats against

them and hurt their cause. There will be less Democrats in Congress willing to deal with APAC because

of the way they are acting in these primaries. And the thing is is that they refuse to acknowledge

the reality of how Democrats perception and really the country's perception of Israel has

changed. Everyone, there's been a dramatic shift among Democrats who approve of the US's

really relationship of dramatic shift around Americans who, whether they sympathize more with

Israelis or the Palestinians, people attribute that to being a dramatic shift to be primarily

about a shift among Democrats. But it's not. It is, yes, that is true. It is mostly among Democrats.

But even the independence, the number of independence who approve of the US's really

relationship is down 19 points since the aftermath of October 7th. Among Republicans is down 9 points.

And so you can't go in there and try to bludgeon people into 100% support of your agenda.

And like the way that they have operated is like very bad for their cause. It is, you know,

stretching, you know, sort of exploding every loophole in campaign finance. And is essentially

they're operating just in a way that Democrats should have one to have nothing to do with them.

Like it is a, like it's, it is such bad faith cynical politics. And what makes it even

worse is it's bad faith cynical politics that is executed with abjecting competence, which as a

former political operative does bother me as well. Here's the problem with APAC.

APAC wants you to think they are a pro-Jewish organization. They want you to think they are

a pro-Israel organization. In reality, APAC is an organization that promotes Benjamin Netanyahu's

government in Israel. APAC is an organization that supports spending our tax dollars to fund

the Israeli military. With no conditions. With no conditions, APAC is an organization that supports

the around war that we have just spent most of the pod talking about how badly it's going,

how dangerous it is, how many lives it's taken, how much money it's costing. APAC is an organization

that supports Israel fighting in Lebanon, which is starting to look like the war they fought in Gaza,

which has led to thousands and thousands and thousands of civilians dying most of them children.

That is what APAC supports. There's the policies APAC supports. If APAC truly believed that those policies

are popular, then it would spend its considerable resources making the case to voters in support of

those policies. The ads that APAC ran would be about the policies that APAC supports. In the policies,

it demands the people who run for office that it supports also support. APAC doesn't do that. APACs

too scared to run on their policies. APAC will tweet about their policies in the Twitter world,

but when it comes to running ads, when it comes to actually presenting a case to voters, APAC hides

behind random super PAC, shady super PACs, different names, concerned women for Chicago or Illinois,

right, whatever they fucking called themselves and Illinois and New Jersey and they do it all over

the place and they say, oh, other other super PACs do that too. Yeah, sure they do. That doesn't

make them any better. The other ones you do that are primarily the AI industry and the crypto

industry. Yeah, so good. Yeah, so you're okay. You're all the same then. So if you believe in your

policies, then go fucking have that debate, but you don't want to have that debate because you know

your policies are unpopular because you know, if you told a bunch of Americans that you support

using their tax dollars to fund BB Netanyahu's fucking destruction of the Middle East, then they

would tell you to go fuck yourself. That's what APAC is. And they have done this by being like,

if you're against APAC, then your anti-Israel and sometimes your anti-Semitic and your promoting

anti-Semitism and your promoting anti-Israel sentiment and all this bullshit and it is fucking

bullshit because all they do is go around and hide their true intentions and hide behind these

super PACs and just like attack people for, they attack people from the left. They attack candidates

from the left for things that they don't even believe just to try to win these races. It is

pathetic. It is pathetic. And I really hope that like 2028 candidate, like if I were 2028 candidate,

if I were advising a 2028 candidate, I would not, none of them should take a dime from APAC.

Yeah, it would that would be a truly idiotic decision. If you wanted to be president, I say it's

one of the two. And now when you say this, then you get, because we've gotten this before,

then everyone's like, oh, you guys are doing a litmus test and now you're saying that people

who take from APAC shouldn't be in the party. No, be in the fucking party. Run. All you want.

I'm just giving you advice. That's fine. That's just me saying. I'm just giving you advice. Yeah.

I'm not going, I won't support you. Maybe if it's between you and Donald Trump, I'll support you,

but like, if you make it to my race and you're the Democratic nominee, then I will support you.

Yes. Of course. But like, I'm not, I'm not, I'm not supporting, I'm not putting my money behind

a candidate that does that. I just don't want to do that. It's ridiculous. There's the, we're taught

like thousands and thousands of lives are at stake right now. And there's zero self reflection

from APAC about what the Israeli government has done. It's crazy.

All right. Before we get to Dan's interview, we just want to touch on a few stories that show,

Trump's not going to let a little war get in the way of making money literally in this first

instance. On Thursday, Trump's handpicked arts commission voted to approve a commemorative 24

carat gold coin featuring Donald Trump. No, no. We're, oh, yeah, you know this?

I can't, I just want to have assumed it would have been a historic figure of some kind.

Yes. Pioneer and civil rights are a suffragist or some of the other things that Donald Trump

cares about. It's also like Donald Trump himself. We should like put it up on the screen

for people who are watching this, right? Someone just, they did it. It's, it's him with like a,

like a menacing, like, scowl, like holding a desk. It's very fucking weird. It's now going to be a

it's going to be a gold commemorative gold coin that the fucking mint creates or something is that

I don't know how works. But that same day, the same day, today, Thursday, as we're recording this,

Trump posted an image of gold shoes on truth social with the caption, rare Trump sneakers

listed for $180,000 at sneaker con in Riyadh. Hey, Dan, you think they're having a good time at

sneaker con in Riyadh as the ballistic missiles from Iran are flying overhead and hitting their

refineries. You think they're all excited to buy the $180,000 Trump shoes? Glad Trump let us know

about that. There is some person in the middle of this war. Some person who wants to deal with the

government or a partner is going to buy those shoes, put them on and post them Instagrams and start

DMing them to White House officials. And finally, this is from an Axios piece today.

Quote, well, Trump deals with the war in Iran and rising gas prices at home. The president seems

downright giddy. What's he giddy about? The UFC fight. He'll be holding on the White House

lawn this summer, which he told Axios is, quote, the hottest ticket he's ever seen. Why Donald

Trump spoke to Axios about this fight on the South lawn? I assume they called him. He talks to Axios

three to four times a day as far as I can tell. I know. He picks up. He picks up their calls. He

hasn't picked up Tommy's call yet. Trump has apparently been personally fielding ticket requests

for the UFC fight on the South lawn, which will go to people who've donated to his super PAC,

his inaugural, and of course, of course, his ballroom. What do you think, Dan? Where would you like

to begin? Let's start with the UFC. Let's start with the UFC. So Donald Trump is a really

busy guy. He didn't really have the time and energy to dig into the war he started in Iran,

but he is going to spend, I will, we'll into about hours on the friends and family list for the UFC

fight. He's going to, there, there is going to be someone putting them together. We're with a

seating chart and he's like moving people around. He's like, you know, I can't put Jake Paul

in Logan Paul on other sides of the arena. They got to be together. Megan Kelly can't sit next

to Mark Levin. Yes. And he can be in a smaller seat for all the obvious reasons, right?

Corey Lewandowski can't sit next to Christy Knome because the husband's coming. These are like

big problems. Yeah. Big problems. It's going to be hard to do this, but he is the man for the job.

He will do the seating arrangements properly. What a, I can't wait to go.

I've heard they don't want to sit you next to Stephen Miller. Right, of course. Yeah, I mean,

it's going to be a, but they also can't put me next to JD Vance or Megan Kelly.

And Trisha, even though Trisha McLaughlin is never in a spot, it never acknowledged her existence.

They don't want to put you near her either. See, here's a good, here's a good example. I

unfollowed Trisha McLaughlin because you know what? She's gone. Not in the White House anymore.

I don't need to see what Trisha McLaughlin, what lies, Trisha McLaughlin's peddling.

Okay. You know what? Gone from my mind now.

Growth. I like to see that growth here at the end of the podcast.

Finally, Dan, if you're looking for a, if you're in DC, if you happen to be in DC and you're

looking for a place to follow the news, catch a drink and maybe, maybe bet which member of the

Iranian regime, Israel will assassinate next. Look no further than the polymarket bar,

the polymarket bar, which is set to open this Friday in Washington, DC.

The bar is named the situation room and it will essentially be a prediction market sports bar

and on all the screens everywhere, you know, like a sports bar. They got all the games and

all the screens. Well, this has got live Twitter feeds. Explosive if it there. Explosive.

Bloomberg feeds. And of course, polymarket feeds, all the bets that you could imagine.

And flight radar. That's in there too. You attract flights.

A bunch of fucking losers. I assume city. I assume this was a prank.

It's not a prank. It's not every now and it's real.

And you just imagine being like, you know what I would like with my Twitter feed?

A big screen and a picture of beer. Now I can imagine some people thinking that I would like that.

That's actually, are you all the same reconsidering it?

Yeah, that's good. But then I have to hold the phone. Then I can just sit there.

Well, here's the thing. You're in it. I can be drinking.

You're in it for the tweeting. Not the reading of tweets. So that's right.

Yeah, you're like, in there's a world of people who play in the game.

Some people who watch the games of Buffalo Wild Wings are more of a player in the Twitter games.

I just can't think of anything more. I mean, I actually shouldn't say anything because

everything is more dystopian. But I can't think of many things more dystopian than like betting on,

you know, when will the US bomb around next at a bar while you're watching this fucking live

feed of a map and betting with Polymark? I mean, you're just waiting for that OS

I and T tweet to come through with the latest data.

Well, that fucking city. Anyway, I don't miss it.

Let's not besmirch the whole city.

When I meant more in the mark, more in the mark, leave of itch vein of the town.

The town. It's not the town. Yes, the town loves the Polymark at bar.

Also, many of other great bars.

I guess the I guess seen in probably no one goes to anymore because we're old and

that we those bars aren't around anymore.

China. That's what I'm saying. There's a long gone.

There's a new bars. I assume

that don't have large Twitter feeds.

Yeah, no, no, the days of old glory are gone.

That was those were your days of glory. I'll tell you that.

All right, Dan. When we come back,

everyone will hear Dan's interview with Julianna Stratton,

the Democratic nominee for Senate in Illinois.

Today's show is sponsored by strawberry.me. Let me ask you something.

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Hey, love it or leave it listeners. It's me, the titular John Lovett.

Here to tell you that I'm coming back to Washington, D.C.

for love it or leave it live at the Lincoln Theater on April 23rd.

That's right. Spring in D.C. 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 D.C.

It's a tradition now that we come around the time of the car response.

And 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.

Yeah.

I'm a mentalist.

A mentalist, because I guess Trump wouldn't know.

And Trump's also going.

Yeah, yeah, that's right there.

Yeah, there's a mental case and then Trump is also going.

That's what it is. That's what it is.

Tickets won't last long.

They're selling pretty fast.

So get yours now while you still can at crooked.com slash events.

Very excited for the D.C. show.

Got some big guests.

Some pretty exciting babies.

Crooked.com slash events.

Joining me today is

Illinois Lieutenant Governor Julian Astrat who just became the Democratic nominee for Senate

Lieutenant Governor.

Welcome to Potsdam America.

Thank you for having me.

So you were an underdog for most of the race.

You trail some pretty big margins up until the very end.

It was a very exciting night.

How you feeling a couple days after your win?

Well, I'm feeling great certainly on the outside.

The inside might be taking a nap right now.

You know, I'm really excited about the fact that we got our message out.

We always knew that this was a campaign where we wanted to center the voices of the people of

Illinois and I spent time crisscrossing the state.

We certainly were outspent I think by a four to one margin and but we knew that we had a

message that would resonate with voters and we did the work and we came out on top and I'm

very grateful and now I'm going to work for the next eight months to make sure that we can

win this general election in November.

I would say if we don't win the general election in November in Illinois I'm going to be

very concerned but I recognize you don't want to catch your chickens before they're hatched here.

No, you're going to take it seriously.

Right as you should but I don't want our listeners to panic here.

You know, your race interestingly enough I'm sure it felt like to you like I got a ton of

attention but nationally you know less attention some of these other primaries in these you know

states like Maine, Michigan, you know Texas particularly the Texas and Maine where you know we're

trying to figure out like which Democrat is the best one to take to flip this Republican seat.

But so for our listeners who weren't you know who maybe who didn't watch it you said you want

to your message work to tell us what your message was.

Yeah well first of all let me just say to what you just pointed out that I've always said that

even though Illinois is considered a quote unquote safe blue state and this was a safe blue seat

I think that you know it's it was important to get out to voters that it matters who's in the seat.

Especially in the moment that we're living in right now that we can't take anything for granted

and it's not just let's just elect a Democrat we needed someone who was going to fight for the people

and that was what I was hearing from voters across the state that they wanted someone who was going

to go to the mat fighting for them and stand up to this president they were looking for new energy

new voices just new perspectives and people who were going to meet this moment and I think that

it also was it wasn't just about what we were fighting against but what we were fighting for

and so I developed that message of what we I was going to fight for in Washington by listening

to people and not trying to tell people what they should care about but rather take what they

were telling me and craft my messaging around that. I think it's people looked at this race who's

maybe maybe had at least a passing understanding of Illinois politics you know this is an oversimplification

silent myth this but you know you have a potentially slightly more moderate candidate in your

opponent you have you know yourself you ran really as progressive with some very progressive

positions the expectation is that you would crush in Chicago the your opponent would do very

well downstate in the burbs but you actually won 44 or 50 wards talk a little bit about we know

what what lessons you take from that about the ability of a progressive message to work in rural

areas suburban areas ex-urban areas yeah and I do want to point out that we were pleasantly surprised

to see how many downstate counties we also won I mean we got Chicago we did great in some of the

collar counties but also downstate and as the only candidate that is represented the entire state

of Illinois for the last seven years as lieutenant governor I always knew that there were unique

parts of the state each part of the state has its different character different issues that are

important but when I think about the messaging these are things that everybody wants access to

affordable health care which is why I'm fighting for Medicare for all especially at a time that we see

a president and an administration that's stripping millions of people of their health care I'm

fighting to raise wages and I personally want to fight for a $25 minimum wage at the federal level

now I don't see it as minimum I see it as a livable wage because with everything getting so

expensive and we're certainly seeing that it's important that we recognize that $7.25 is not

enough for anyone to take care of themselves let alone a family and even with what we've done in

Illinois it with a $15 an hour minimum wage it's important that we recognize that's only $31,000

a year that's not enough to take care of yourself or your family either so I think we need a livable

wage and I'll tell you one of the things that was really surprising to me on this trail which is

why it's important to think about all of the different diverse communities that this message

resonated with I noticed that too many people think small around what we can accomplish in Washington

and it's oh well that's going to be too hard and I'm not sure what people will think about it

but why should we think that way we should think very big we should have a big vision for what's

possible and fight for it and I think because that was my message people really just thought you

know what she's going to be someone who's going to try to make my life better and they feel like

too many in Washington are you know get there and forget who they represent you talk a little bit

about the role your views on ice and how you talking about it how that played downstate as well

well I've made it very clear that I want to abolish ice you know that here in Illinois and the

city of Chicago and surrounding areas we were you know terrorized quite frankly by operation midway

blitz we saw our neighbors being snatched off the streets by mass agents stuffed into unmarked

vehicles and no due process no warrants and a president who said he was going after the worst

of the worst and that's not what happened we saw tamale vendors and we saw you know being snatched

off the street we saw people working in daycare centers and you know I think this is just an

example of you know why you know I was out there protesting and doing everything that I could

helping students get from school and have safe passage I was on rapid response it was important

to be present and I think one of the things that certainly as Democrats that our party is looking

for is people who are going to be there in community showing up and being leaders not just in an

office somewhere but being amongst the people and that was really important and I can also say that

the trauma of operation midway blitz continues it wasn't just while they were in full force here in

the city of Chicago is surrounding areas and you know our suburban areas and even downstate this

trauma is continuing and Governor Pritzker and I launched what's called the Illinois

Accountability Commission because this president is not always going to be president and we're

going to hold him accountable and we're collecting data and stories and narratives and photos and

videos because we want to make sure that we're capturing what has happened in the harm that he

has caused and we're going to be ready to hope to bring some real accountability and by the way

that's what voters and the people of Illinois want they want this president to be held accountable

what's the vehicle for that accountability is that potential criminal charges down the line?

well yes we want to see anything that will hold them accountable and I've said very clearly even

as it relates to federal agents and what we're looking for when it comes to DHS and this this

funding question I mean I wouldn't vote to fund any agency that I want to see abolished but we

certainly need to make sure that federal agents are held accountable and should be if they've

committed crimes there should be full investigation and they should be prosecuted and we should also

make sure there's no total immunity for these individuals you know people have been killed now

and it's unacceptable it's unacceptable and Democrats need to hold firm

there was obviously a lot of super PAC activity in Illinois both in your race and in the four key

house races you know one group that put a lot of money into the race against you was the crypto

industry I believe they put in several million dollars especially right after you started

to surge in the polls towards the end there talk to me about the role they played your views on

crypto and how you think we should deal with this sort of dark money we're not dark money this sort

of special interest money in politics well I need I'm talk all the time about how I need to fight

for campaign finance finance reform and we need to end citizens united I mean I think I was

I don't want to quote exactly but I believe I was the number one target of the crypto super PAC

and just you know the crypto industry super PACs the number one target this election cycle

number one in the nation and it they came at me with attack ads in the amount of 10 million

dollars plus and I think about that and you know I think it was really important that we made a

statement that when you continue to be the kind of candidate that's going to speak in a way

that's going to resonate with voters when you're going to stand up and talk very you know clearly

about your bold vision we were successful but we need to do more to level the playing field and

allow good candidates to run for office we saw all of this outside money pouring into these

campaigns and I think it's really important when I get there I'm proud to be endorsed by

in citizen united because I'm taking a stance of the kind of campaign finance reform that we

need to see in in this country and it starts number one with ending citizen united what particularly

was it about your record of your policy positions that made the crypto industry come after you

so directly I don't think it was about policy positions in per se and certainly not about crypto

per se but I think it was I made it very clear that I was here to stand up for every day working

people that's what we should be focused on how to make sure people can you know have a little more

money in their pockets how we can make sure that they can have access to health care and how

we're going to stand up to a president who is to me I want to be dictator who does not have the

best interest of the American people at heart and they knew that I was someone that you know this

industry has made Donald Trump rich and they didn't want anybody who was going to stand up to him

or fight back against him or hold him accountable they want to just keep going with business as

usual and by the way that's what I've heard from people that they are so fed up with in Washington

they don't want business as usual they want to see somebody who's going to come in and really

deliver for them and and I think that that's what they didn't want they knew that as a candidate

I was not going to be someone who would go along with the status quo in Washington

the other interest group that played a huge role in this Tuesday's primary is not in your race

per se but in the four house races was APAC you know they they can't spend a lot of money through

sort of shadowy groups to try to you know defeat some candidates like some other candidates

otherwise I recognize that they did not I believe get super involved in your race

just but I know it was a huge topic of discussion in Illinois over the last couple of months here

do you have any takeaways about the role APAC played in the relationship with APAC going forward

for the Democratic Party we now have candidates like Ruben Gaigo and Gavin Newsom who say that they

will not take APAC money going forward or if they were to run for president yeah I I mean again I

think we need to get big money out of politics and that's why as I said before we need to fight

for campaign finance reform we need to do something different I mean we saw millions of dollars

flowing in from so many different sources here in Illinois and and it it impacts you know can

impact as we see as we've seen the outcomes of these elections and so that's something that again

you know I want to make sure that people know who's funding these campaigns that's important

and those are the kinds of things that I'm going to fight for when I get to Washington

anything specific about anything about APAC specifically and how you think about them or

well look I've always made my position clear about what I want to see in general in terms of

you know working towards you know lasting peace in a two-state solution but I think more importantly

you know when it comes to these elections I know they you know I have not accepted any money

from the PAC but I know that in these elections we saw a lot of activity here in Illinois and

again the goal for me is to make sure that we can really level the pelting field allow people

to get out their campaign make their messages heard you know raise from whoever they have to

raise from but the idea of what we've seen just sort of coming in with these different names like

the crypto industry in my race for example you'll see all of these terms I I don't even remember

the exact name like the fair shake pack or something something like that right make even you know

I think people might have it there was one that was like Illinois progressive something you know

yeah crypto industry yeah it's what it it gives people paid for by the progressive whatever

and that's not ex not what it was a lot of these packs were mega aligned packs and so that kind of

thing does not you know it's really meant to sort of give voters it's it's deceptive for voters

that let's just put it that way yeah yeah okay you ran what I think will may end up being the most

memorable ad of this cycle and I'm saying that in March of the cycle with you know about three

billion dollars of ads to come it got a ton of attention some people have pointed that as a pivot

point for in your race when you sort of maybe started to take off for those who don't know the ad

featured a number of Chicagoans saying fuck Trump and ended with Governor Pritzker who had endorsed you

making the case for you talk to me about the decision to run that ad what the reaction was did you

get some blowback from it so it's I'm just very curious about this it was very interesting ad

well we knew we needed to I mean so much noise you know that in any election cycle there's so much

noise and honestly the amount of noise with the chaos that's coming out of Washington DC people

just felt like what do I pay attention to and so we there needed to be a real way to break through

the noise and capture what people were feeling and when I would go around the state I talked about

previously that people were looking for a fighter they want they were frustrated with Washington

really angry at feeling like look at this president and what he's doing and who is standing up to

fight and who's going to go toe to toe with him and the ad just captured it so perfectly in 30 seconds

to just say this is what the American people are feeling this is what Illinoisians are feeling

and that they don't want to just have business as usual for somebody who's a want to be dictator

why are we acting like this is normal it's not and and I think that you know I'm just really proud

that the ad just broke through and what I mostly heard was people saying things like how come

you didn't ask me to be in the ad how come I couldn't be a part of that and I just thought that's

what I knew that it was just really a turning point one of the ways that it was a turning point in

the campaign in the process of making the ad did you at any point consider bleeping the fuck in the

fuck trump part well it was bleaped for for broadcast yeah yeah I think that I'm not sure the bleep

you know quite got all of you know I I support the non bleeping decision but I many

people have asked that the non bleeping group like there's a non bleeping caucus I think and I

think that many people are a part of it when when the ad when you get the ad first came out one of

your supporters in Chicago well that's part of us there's an old friend of mine from the Obama

days texting me the ad to ask my thoughts about it and I my view was I thought it was the right

move for the reasons you just said which was you were getting massively outspent and they're and

just it's hard to get attention anyway and so a very visible viral way of getting attention

in Illinois and it was a very Chicago ad like it felt very first it was a great ad

Coggo Dan Southside it's yeah no I know I know that is it is it is authentic I would say yes

yeah and and I think that one way or the other people were talking about it you know that's

and I'm happy it turned out the way it did yeah well well whether you know whether it's causation

or core or correlation you ran the ad you won we're very excited for you we excited I know you're

not counting your chickens for their hatched you still have a general election coming but we're

very excited to see you in the Senate starting in 2027 Lieutenant Governor Stratton thank you

for joining us on pot save America thanks for having me Dan

that's our show for today Dan will be back in your feed on Sunday with a new episode of pot save

America bye everyone if you want to listen to pot save America ad free and get access to

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America East

Hey love it or leave listeners it's me the titular john love it here to tell you that I'm coming

back to Washington DC for love to 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 line

up 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 DC it's a tradition now that we come around the time of the car

response and or even though the car response in a really no longer has comedians not believe

there's going to be some kind of a magician or a mind mind melder yes a magician yeah my I'm

I'm mentalist a mentalist uh because I guess Trump wouldn't go it's also going yeah yeah yeah

that's right there yeah it'll be there yeah there's there's there's a there's a mental case

and then and Trump is also going there's tickets won't last long there's someone pretty fast

so get yours now while you still can at crooked dot com slash events very excited for the DC show

got some big guests some pretty exciting babies quicker dot com slash events