Trump Returns to the Scene of the Crime

Jon Favreau
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Jon Favreau
Welcome to pod save America. I'm Jon Favreau.

Dan Pfeiffer
I'm Dan Pfeiffer.

Jon Favreau
On today's show, the Supreme Court decides that abortion medication can remain legal in certain certain states for now, as Senate Republicans block a bill that would protect IVF, House Republicans plot ways to overturn Donald Trump's conviction and try to prosecute Merrick Garland. And the Biden campaign takes voters cost of living concerns head on while the Trump campaign tries to woo CEO's with more tax cuts. But first, on Thursday, the world's most famous convicted criminal returned to the scene of another one of his alleged crimes. It was Trumps first trip to the US Capitol since he urged a mob of violent extremists to prevent the certification of the election. He lost. And boy, did he get a heros welcome from many of the same House and Senate Republicans who fled for their lives on January 6. And at the time, many blamed Donald Trump. But even though theyve decided to forgive and forget, the Biden campaign wanted to make sure the rest of us dont. Heres the ad they released timed Trumps visit.

Unidentified Speaker
On January 6, Donald Trump lit a fire in this country.

Jon Favreau
140 officers were injured. The siege lasted for 7 hours, stoking.

Unidentified Speaker
The flames of division and hate. Now he's pouring gasoline. They were unbelievable patriots pledging to pardon the extremists who tried to overthrow our government. We will give them pardons, inciting them to try again, there is nothing more sacred than our democracy. But Donald Trump's ready to burn it all down.

Jon Favreau
I'm Joe Biden and I approve this message. What a good time to plug our book, democracy or else, which is on sale.

You can pre order it right now and it'll be released a week from Tuesday.

Dan Pfeiffer
I guess that counts as an organic plug. I guess.

Jon Favreau
Look, I came into the recording, the book was on the table, which I guess is just a not so subtle push from everyone on the marketing team to start, start pitching the book. But anyway, we'll get back to that. I want to get to that ad. Can we just take a second to talk about how unbelievably nuts it is that this man was just welcomed back to the Capitol by the people he nearly got killed by. Capitol. He didn't actually go in the Capitol, we should say, but he was on Capitol Hill. I mean, that is wild.

Dan Pfeiffer
I was thinking back to the footage from the Pelosi documentary that Nancy Pelosi's daughter made that was in the January 6 hearings. And they're all huddled. Kevin McCarthy, Steve Scalise, Nancy Pelosi, and they're on the phone begging Donald Trump to send help, to send the National Guard to save their lives from a murderous hoard that Donald Trump sent there. And he refused to do so. And it's not just that they, like, led him back on the premises, is that they welcomed him with open arms, they applauded him, they sang him happy birthday, they cheered him. It is just like one of the most intense cases of Stockholm syndrome ever documented. It is wild.

Jon Favreau
It's just so.

It's so pathetic. I just can't imagine. I can't imagine being like that with any person, let alone someone who almost got me killed.

Dan Pfeiffer
It's delusional in the sense that they've convinced themselves that didn't happen.

Certainly. Like, there are some senators, I'm sure McConnell is, they're, like, faking it, right? Like they're begrudgingly allowing this to happen because this is what the voters want or whatever else. But these people in the house, for sure. Nope. It's just they have wiped it from their minds and they are just like. They have. It's all been rewritten and that Donald Trump wasn't involved and there was an FBI plan and it was a, you know, whatever conspiracy they have, just. They're not faking it. I think they legitimately believe that he is their hero and that he did not try to murder them.

Jon Favreau
Ask Mike Pence.

Dan Pfeiffer
Yeah.

Jon Favreau
So the Biden campaign has said they want voters to be thinking about January 6 when they cast their ballot in November. Do you think there will be more of these ads running everywhere the closer we get to November?

Dan Pfeiffer
Speaker one yeah, I assume so. Like, they ran this ad today because Trump was going to the Capitol. There'd be a ton of coverage of Trump going to Capitol Hill. We would all talk about it. Very clever. It worked, right? We are doing it well, you know, because every social media share or news coverage airing of your ad is free. Right? So that's what you want, right? You don't have to pay for everyone. You want to get some free ones. They got some free ones here. You're welcome. BIdEN campaign I, you know, what's interesting to me is I think that this will ramp up at the end. I do, certainly for the segment of voters that Sarah Longlen I spent a lot of time talking about on Wednesday's pod, these former Republicans, two time Trump voters, Trump, Biden voters who are very uncomfortable with Donald Trump specifically because of January 6. You want that in their mind. And the question is, how are you going to make that breakthrough at the end? Right? Because it's going to have to be more than just ads, right? There's going to have to be a full bore, surround sound style campaign to bring people back into that moment, to remember what they were thinking on that day, that day when most Republicans, hardcore Republicans, turned away from Trump on that day for a brief, fleeting period of time. But they did. And can you get people back there through high profile events, surrogates, ads? Could you take out a 30 minutes spot, right. Or have a 30 minutes YouTube documentary? Like you really sort of need your version of the Michael Moore Iraq war documentary that ran 2004.

You need something like that to bring people into that moment to be more than just some digital and television spots, although you should run those and they will run those.

Jon Favreau
I mean, I do think, I imagine in debate prep, they will be talking about a moment in the debate, probably in this debate coming up, and then maybe even more likely in the one in September where Biden brings it up. Because I think Donald Trump talking about January 6 is not going to be his best moment. I don't know. I'm just guessing.

Not in the prediction business, but we'll see. But I do think that the messengers, you could imagine some of the police officers that were injured who have already spoken out about this and have been.

Dan Pfeiffer
Traveling the country, Michael Faye and have.

Jon Favreau
Been traveling every night. Yep. So you can imagine that. Or like a Cassidy Hutchinson right. People who testified in the, at the January 6 hearing. So, you know, I do think that'll get ramped up. And I think you're right. Primary audience is certainly the voters that, that sarah's talking about, the two time Trump voters who are now sick of Trump. I also think, you know, you, we've heard Biden mentioned January 6 now at the NAACP event where he said, does anyone doubt if these were, if the protesters were black, that Donald Trump wouldn't have sent in the National Guard to put them down, which he refused to send any help at all. So I think that there is for some voters and think voters who are tuned out, voters who maybe aren't too happy with Joe Biden, who aren't sure if they're going to vote, I think reminding them of the kind of, not just like, hey, this happened January 6, but this is the kind of violence that Donald Trump has incited. This is the kind of chaos that he has incited. And why would you think that he's not going to do that again?

Dan Pfeiffer
Yeah. In general, you probably want to try to focus people on the fact that one of the two people running for president tried to violently overthrow the government four years ago.

Jon Favreau
Just, you know, just something that you want to, it's a dabbling away when you head into the voting booth. There's something you want to think about. So Trump met privately with all the House Republicans, then all the Senate Republicans. There were no reporters in either meeting, but there were plenty of sources leaking to reporters who were in the meeting. So here is a rundown of what happened. Trump called Milwaukee the swing state city that's hosting the republican convention, a, quote, horrible city. He referred to the Justice Department as dirty bastards. He complained about Taylor Swift not endorsing him. He said Nancy Pelosi's daughter once told him that if things had been different, he and Nancy would be perfect together.

And he once again praised one of his favorite make believe friends.

Dan Pfeiffer
Apparently the former president made reference to Hannibal Lecter and said, nice guy. Quote, he even had a friend over for dinner. So we've seen Trump out on the campaign trail praising Hannibal Lecter. Apparently he did it again this morning. Not sure we fully understand the context of that.

Jon Favreau
What fucking world are we living in, Dan? What is happening?

Dan Pfeiffer
I mean, this scariest part, a CNN.

Jon Favreau
Report, like, he did mention Hannibal Lecter again, the guy who's the republican nominee for president and a convicted felon, once again, talking about Hannibal Lecter for no discernible reason.

Dan Pfeiffer
Stay tuned for more context. We've calling our sources to see what he's talking about, as opposed to just like, so much of Trump coverage should just be someone yelling, like, what the fuck? As I'll say, possibly can, into a microphone instead. It's just like, not entirely sure what that meant there, but I'm sure there was, there was a reason why he mentioned a fictional serial killer in a meeting with congressional Republicans.

Jon Favreau
This is that he's been doing frequently for some reason. I don't know. What do you think about the Milwaukee thing? This is sparked every, I think every elected Democrat from Wisconsin has now tweeted about it. I think, like, the mayor has already said something.

Dan Pfeiffer
Did a press conference.

Jon Favreau
The mayor did a press conference already. This is, we're recording this Thursday by, like, like an hour after it was tweeted that Trump said that it was just, it's full blown, probably billboards coming up everywhere. It's gonna be great.

Dan Pfeiffer
I love it. Cause it just is a reminder that with, like, as much as everything's changed, the media is disintegrated. Trump's insane is that there's still just, like, some old school politics that happens. Politician says something bad about a swing state, you'll just dust off the playbook. You leap into action.

You get the mayor out there, you get congresspeople. I'm sure they're getting small business. There's going to be an ad on Milwaukee radio. By the end of the day. There's going to be much, like, small business people and veterans from Milwaukee talking about just, I love it. It's great hammer for it. Is it going to really matter that much? Probably not. But can you make it slightly uncomfortable for a few minutes? Can you just as a way to, like, throw some grist in the mill during the republican convention? Milwaukee. Absolutely.

Jon Favreau
It's funny that all these Republicans from Wisconsin and other Republicans who were in the meeting, the stories are all different. Like, some of them are like, he never said that. I don't know what you're talking about. That's completely false. And then others said, oh, he did say that. But he was referring to the fact that the crime rate is so high in Milwaukee. So he was talking about the crime, and then someone else was like, oh, no, he was talking about how they stole the election in Milwaukee in 2020. It's like, none of this is making it better. You dipshits just, just stop talking. But, like, this is how Trump views cities in America now, right? Like, he knows that cities are full of Democrats and Democrats don't like him. And so every city has to be a hellhole that's crime ridden and dirty. He says it about DC. He says it about Chicago, Milwaukee. Doesn't matter if it's a swing state city or not. He just says every urban area where there are democratic voters that do not like him. He wants to turn the rest of the country against.

And by the way, this is part of his plan, that he wants to send the National Guard into the cities. He wants to invoke the insurrection act and send the army into these cities to fight crime and to deport immigrants. And he wants to have police do mandatory stop and frisk. Like, this is his agenda. This is how he actually feels about cities. So it is funny and a traditional politics thing, but it's also, the guy deeply hates cities right now.

Dan Pfeiffer
Yeah. And it is the Fox News view of urban America, right? Like, that's how he knows about cities. Right? It is that. It's how it's portrayed. And.

And it has. Yes, it is amusing in this weird context, but it has some knock on effects down the line that about policy and Trump's actions, that it could be very damaging to the people who live in those cities, regardless of what he called them.

Jon Favreau
Yep. So according to the media outlet, notice, one source in the room said that Trump's speech was, quote, like talking to your drunk uncle at the family reunion.

Finally, some honesty. But let's hear what republicans said in public about the meeting.

Dan Pfeiffer
He was funny. He was joking around constantly with everyone.

He was really sweet to me. He saw me in there and he was like, hello, Marjorie.

Jon Favreau
He's always so sweet and recognizes me.

Dan Pfeiffer
He said very complimentary things about all of us.

We had sustained applause. He said, I'm doing a very good job. I mean, we're grateful for that.

Jon Favreau
And you know what Trump meetings are like. He's electric. He's got an incredible fastball.

And I think that was just exciting.

Dan Pfeiffer
After all he'd been through, how strong this man is.

Jon Favreau
This is an outstanding group of people. I'm with them 1000%, me 1000%. We agree just about on everything.

Unidentified Speaker
And if there isn't, we work it out.

Jon Favreau
I like Marjorie Taylor Greene being like, he recognized me.

Dan Pfeiffer
He said hello.

Jon Favreau
Yeah, no shit, he recognized you.

So judging from that north korean propaganda clip, it seems like Trump doesn't have to worry too much about support from Republicans in Congress. What do you think was the purpose of these meetings? I know they're traditional. Like, the nominee goes to Capitol Hill, meets with the members of their party and whatever, but is it like coordinating message and strategy? Is it just Trump telling stories and everyone gets to fawn all over him and tell him how wonderful he is.

Dan Pfeiffer
Yeah, it's the latter. It is just part of a long running, really lifetime effort to fill the giant gaping hole that is his self esteem.

He knows they're going to applaud him. He knows they're going to love him. They're going to send it, sing him happy birthday. He wants to be there. He was in town anyway for this business roundtable event where he's meeting with CEO's. So you might as well swing by there, have Marjorie Taylor Greene and others throw some adulation your way, get to kind of lord your dominance over people like Mitch McConnell and some other senators you hate. It seems like a real win win for him. Is it going to, you know, I don't think, there didn't sound like there was a lot of message coordination going on there in any way, shape or form.

Jon Favreau
Well, he did. We're going to talk about abortion in a bit. But he did tell them all like, hey, chill out. Go with the message. We left it to the States. You know, that's, that's the winning message. So he did a little bit of that. It does seem like from all the coverage overall, he's playing really nice with Republicans, even the Republicans who he's fought with in the past. He met with Mitch McConnell and by all accounts, they had like a cordial meeting with Mitch McConnell. And he endorsed Larry Hogan for Senate after Larry Hogan told people to respect the verdict. And Trump's senior adviser, Chris Lacivita, like, tweeted at Larry Hogan that his campaign is over. But Trump today said he was endorsing Larry Hogan, which, by the way, was an endorsement that then Larry Hogan said he was, he's not really accepting. He's like, yeah, I'm not endorsing Donald Trump. I'm not voting for him. Sounds like he really wants to win this thing, huh?

Dan Pfeiffer
Donald Trump, they all do. They all want to win. And it's very clear. It's clear in how they're acting. It's clear how now they're coordinating. It's clear in the candidates they're nominating. Right? Sam Brown, Tim Sheehy, like, these are not great candidates, but they're not Doctor Oz and Herschel Walker either. Right? This is, they have lost enough time to get the Senate level that they are being very ruthlessly strategic about who their candidates are. And Trump has, you know, I don't think these people are political geniuses, but he has people around him who are steering him towards being smarter about this. Like, endorsing Larry Hogan. Like, that's an, I'm sure Mitch McConnell asked him to do it. It's an easy yes. And he wants that Senate seat. Right. And that he's making it. He has a chance. And it is, it's also true that nothing focuses the mind like the chance of spending the rest of your life in prison.

Jon Favreau
I was just going to say, this is why. Because everyone's like, you know, it's Trump and Trump, I'm sure people around Trump have told him these kinds of things for years, and it's just like, in one ear, out the other, and he immediately goes back to his undisciplined, crazy self, but which he's, as we heard from the meeting, he's still here, but still there. Right. But, like, when it comes to political decisions and political moves, he really is. He's, he's more disciplined than he's been because you're right, he wants to keep his ass out of jail, which is.

Dan Pfeiffer
Like, you think about 2016, right? Like, ultimately Trump wins or loses. What's the difference in his life? One is he becomes president, United States, and he's got to do a lot of, theoretically do a lot of work, or he just goes back to playing golf every day.

20 has to keep doing the hard job or goes back to playing golf every day. Now it's get back in the White House or go to prison. Right. It's not get back in the White House and go back to playing golf. Right. And so, yeah, it's. That's obviously going to focus your mind. Right. The stakes. The stakes are incredibly high for him in a way they've never really been before. He's really always had all his businesses and all his politics all his life, he's had a giant, probably gold plated safety net underneath them, and now he.

Jon Favreau
Does not, which is, again, why the message about Trump's only doing this for himself and he only cares about himself and he's only running for himself and he's only going to fight for himself in the white house. Just, it works so well because it happens to be true and truer than ever before. He's always been for himself. But now, you know, this is the only fucking thing he's thinking about. Right. He's not thinking about anything else he does, any other policy, anything else.

Dan Pfeiffer
I did see some testing that showed the post conviction that one of the most compelling messages about Trump is that he is running to stay out of prison.

Jon Favreau
Yeah.

Dan Pfeiffer
Like. And then that has become more intense after the conviction.

Tommy Vietor
This show is sponsored by Betterhelp. This year has gone so quickly. What is something I'm proud of in 2024? Oh boy, there's so many things I'm proud of. Yeah, I'm proud of.

Oh, I'm proud of the fact that we finished our book. That's right, democracy. Or else how to save America in ten easy steps. It's available for pre order right now. We're trying to get on the New York Times bestseller list. That'll make me proud.

But I've also, I'm sure, had some interior things that made me proud as well. Not just, you know, not just tokens of material and sort of success in the world.

Jon Favreau
Right.

Tommy Vietor
But I couldn't think of one right now.

Jon Favreau
Right? Yeah, sure.

Tommy Vietor
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I got some DSO one in the mail. As you know, as you age, you.

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And sure enough, there's been some movement on a bill that would allow presidents charged in state courts to move those cases to federal courts.

Dan Pfeiffer
What a coincidence.

Jon Favreau
Just what if there's a scenario where there's a state court and there's an ex president and let's say he was caught? I don't know, trying to overturn an election, falsify business records to deceive voters. You know, I don't know. Let's say there was something like that. What if we moved those to federal court? And then what if that guy won?

Dan Pfeiffer
And what could that person do if they were in federal court? If the case were in federal court, would they have any recourse to avoid going to prison?

Or we just, it just happened to be a coincidence that that's also the court whereby the president could pardon himself.

Jon Favreau
I just think, like, even if this passed the house, it's obviously not going anywhere else, and it's not even clear that it'll pass the house. There's, you know, a few Republicans were quoted in Politico being like, I don't know. We're talking about the Democrats weaponizing the Justice Department. We're going to do this. It does seem like a bill that's, like, only designed to make Donald Trump happy. But I don't know if it's the best politics for them beyond getting in with Trump or beyond making Trump happy and, you know, making Fox News viewers happy. Like, why? Why do this?

Dan Pfeiffer
You accept it to make Trump happy.

Jon Favreau
That's it. But it's sort of, I think it's an argument for another argument for Democrats to make, like that they're just in Congress, the Republicans in Congress, instead of doing anything to help you, are trying to overturn Trump's conviction. They tried to overturn the election form when he lost that, and now they're trying to overturn the conviction. This is what the Republicans in Congress are for. This is what they do. That.

Dan Pfeiffer
That is exactly right. Like this, they are focused on themselves and Donald Trump, and we're focused on you. Right. It's, it is a very simple message.

Jon Favreau
And at the same time, as they're trying to overturn Trump's conviction, they are also trying to prosecute Joe Biden's attorney general, Merrick Garland. You may wonder what for. Well, they voted to hold Garland in contempt of Congress because he hasn't turned over the audio of special counsel Robert her's interview with Biden about Biden's handling of classified documents.

Congress does have the full transcript, of course, but the allegation now is apparently that Biden or Garland or the deep state or some combo of all of them edited the transcript to leave out the damaging parts, which it seems like they did a pretty shitty job editing the transcript because the one that we saw seemed damaging enough. So it feels like they missed a few edits, missed a few deletions in the transcript. What, what is this? This is, they just, they're just looking for the audio so they can have another news cycle and run ads, right?

Dan Pfeiffer
Yeah, it's ads. It's really hard to put a written transcript in an ad. It's very easy to take audio and put it in an ad. And so they're pushing aggressively for it. Like I am sure there are legitimate substantive law enforcement, executive privilege, separation of powers, reasons not to return this over. But with my political hack hat on of where I in the White House, I would be screaming that we find a reason not to release this because we know from the transcript that there are moments that are not awesome. Right. And which is, would happen to anyone under the, if you talk for 5 hours straight. Of course, we, you know, just as we're recording this, there is this clip going around of the president at a parachutist ceremony. And it's been very deceptively edited with a narrow view. So it looks like Joe Biden is just like wandering off into the distance by himself when he's actually going to speak to another person. That person's just out of frame. Fox News is doing it. The right's all doing it. So just imagine what would happen if five or whatever many hours of audio of the president came out. What would be done with that? It's not just that the MaGa, super PACs and Trump would put in ads. Think of all of the tick tock videos that would be deceptively cut from this. It would be a disaster. Right. In very unfair way.

Jon Favreau
Also, it's a win win for them either way, because now they're going to treat it like, oh, the tapes, release the tapes, because they know they're not going to get it, right. And so they're holding Garland in contempt. They know that's not going to go anywhere because basically they're holding him in contempt. So what happens is, it's a criminal referral to the Justice Department. Who runs the Justice Department? Merrick Garland. I don't think Merrick, I know Merrick Garland's a straight shooter.

I know he's, I know he's no politics Merrick Garland, but I don't think he's gonna be like, ah, unfortunately, I do have to prosecute myself.

Dan Pfeiffer
You know what, I wouldn't put, put it past Merrick Garland, who is annoyingly straight shooter to a point like Bill Barr, to investigate Merrick Garland.

Jon Favreau
Please don't, don't do that. Don't do that. Merrick Garland, I know you're a listener. I know you're a big fan, but. Yeah, so, but they, what they want, they'll, this will be like a hunter's laptop thing, you know, we gotta have the tapes. If only they release the tapes, then we would see that the Biden crime family would be, you know, all the crimes would be uncovered and blah, blah, blah. It's fucking ridiculous.

Dan Pfeiffer
I don't think the tapes, to be honest, would be that bad, but there would just be, they would be used in malicious ways.

Jon Favreau
Yeah, 100%. So Trump also spent some time on Thursday meeting with leaders from the business roundtable, which is just a bunch of CEO's and shareholders of big companies. You got your Jamie Dimonds, your Tim Cooks. Biden is in Italy for the g seven summit, so his White House chief of staff, Jeff Sainz, went instead. The meetings were closed to the press. But the Biden campaign did jump on the opportunity to use the occasion to pick a fight on the economy. They dropped another new ad called no one in English and Spanish. Let's listen. When I was a young man, my family left our hometown so dad could find a decent job.

I know what it's like to struggle.

I know many american families are fighting every day to get by.

That's why no one, especially a billionaire like Donald Trump, will stop me from fighting the lower cost for food and rent, because hard work and families deserve a chance to get ahead. Now, that's an economic message.

There we go. What do you think?

Dan Pfeiffer
Love it. Love every part of it. I think it is.

It understands so much about economic messaging that has sort of eluded the very circular naval gazing conversation that we had participated in about how Democrats talk about the economy, feel the pain, bidenomics, Biden.

Jon Favreau
Boom, all of that seems like we won, Dan. Seems like it was good that we got in that conversation. We have emerged victorious once again.

Dan Pfeiffer
Our tweets made a difference.

People tell you not don't post, don't listen. Now what it, I think the important part about this is it understands that the best economic message against Trump is that he is for rich, he's a rich person for other rich people. Voters believe that right? There is polling. We've talked about this poll many times. Blueprint, the democratic research firm, looked at Trump's biggest vulnerabilities, like voters biggest concerns with Trump and Trump giving tax cuts to rich people like himself braves high up there, particularly with working class and non college educated voters, very powerful. The voters were losing. It also understands that Democrats focus so much in our economic investing discussion around policy. Right what are we going to do? What are they going to do? And that's not really what this is about.

All economic discussions in a campaign, and frankly, all policy discussion in the campaign ultimately are not about what's in the white paper. It's about whether you're giving voters a sense of if you're going to fight for them or not. Right. That is the core question, any election. And Trump is winning on that question right now, but he's winning by a lot smaller margin than he is on the broader question of who do you trust on the economy? And so this is a soft underbelly for Biden to go after. And being seen as someone who fights also goes right at other core concerns around age and energy and capacity. Right. Because it shows these fighters like, this is exactly what they should be doing.

I love it. I want to see more of it. It's great they released today. I hope it is a theme that runs through their advertising around the economy for the rest of time.

Jon Favreau
Well, I noticed that they have made the turn not just with this ad, but in their statement, both from the campaign and the White House about the inflation report this week. And so inflation came down. It's declining. It's good, good inflation report. But I think we have both criticized this in the past. Instead of doing a statement that's like inflation came down because we have the greatest economy ever and unemployment is low and doing all the statistics that are objectively true about the economy, instead of doing that, which I think doesn't land well with people who are clearly not feeling the recovery yet in their own lives because cost of living is still too high for them either because, you know, they actually feel that and it's true in their lives or whatever the narrative is, it's a dumb argument. Who cares? It's not, it's, it's not working with people. People are not feeling it. And so now they have really pivoted to talking about people are struggling. I'm going to fight for you. He is not, he is the billionaire.

I am, I am the guy from Scranton. I am going to fight hard. I've been, and that's what you can, by the way, is for proof points in that argument. You can start talking about your accomplishments over the last four years within that context. You know that I'm going to fight for you and I'm going to be on your side because I've already done x, Y and z. And if you give me another four years, I'm going to finish the job by doing these other things. Right. So like that, I think, and I think he can also, I would bet that in, and they're, they've started to do this as well. But I'd bet in the next couple of months he will also have like corporate villains and not just Donald Trump, right. That it's like these companies that are price gouging. Some of them were at the CEO, the business roundtable today where, you know, Donald Trump was like, give me a, give me campaign donations and I'll cut your taxes. That's what he reportedly told all the CEO's is like lower taxes and lower regulations. But you just got to donate to my campaign.

He already did that with the oil companies. He told them, he said with the oil companies, he's like, give me, give me, cut me a big check and I'll make sure that you get a whole bunch of tax breaks and subsidies for the oil companies. So I think this is like a very powerful message. And it's how, I mean, I would imagine again, that as they're thinking about the debate, they're probably circling one moment where Biden can really drive home that Trump is going to fight for rich people and Biden is going to fight for everyone else.

Dan Pfeiffer
Yeah. And the fact that Trump, one of the things that Trump told the CEO's was that he was going to further lower the corporate tax rate if he was elected. Right. It's not just extending him, but he would make it even lower. Right. That is just incredibly unpopular. It's incredibly powerful. It's what you're going to do. And I think you're exactly right. Like, let's pick some corporate villains, right? Like, I hate the term shrinkflation. Like, I don't think it's the one that come out of the president's mouth.

Jon Favreau
If I hear about the fucking Snickers one more time, it's not going to.

Dan Pfeiffer
But that, that is a real thing you hear people talk about, right? Have you seen the tick tock video of the Chipotle CEO trying to justify that their portions haven't gotten smaller? Like that? It is a thing you hear from people all the time, particularly parents who pack kids lunches, is very real. And so talking about that price gouging, see that Trump's going to reward these people with more tax cuts. They're just going to go to hire CEO, pay more money in the pockets of wealthy investors. There's just such a rich vain to tap here.

I hope very much hope and expect that's what they'll do in the debate, too.

Jon Favreau
Also, he didn't say this at the business roundtable, but reportedly, Trump told Republicans, House Republicans, in that meeting, he floated an all tariff policy that would lead, he said, to completely getting rid of the income tax.

So it sounds wonky. What is that all about? Tariff policy, that is, he already has said he wants, he wants to put a tax on every single thing that is imported into this country. That's not like, you know, the Chinese made cars, right? Like, you know, Biden's doing some stuff like that, too. That is every, every item that even has a part in it that's made somewhere else. He wants to slap a tax on that and then he wants to get rid of the income tax. So the income tax is paid mostly by really rich people. And so the rich people, rich people in this country now would have to pay no tax. 40% of people in this country pay no federal income tax because they don't make enough money to do it, or they pay negative because they get like a tax credit. So those people would suddenly have a huge tax bill because they'd be paying the higher prices for all of these goods that are now going to be taxed more under Donald Trump's all tariff policy, while rich people don't have to pay any fucking income tax at all, will have more money and the extra price increases won't bother them at all. It's wild.

Dan Pfeiffer
Not to front run a forthcoming message box post, but the Trump economic agenda is so easy, right? It's higher prices for you, lower taxes for the rich, incorporations, like, over and over again, over and over again.

Jon Favreau
He wants them to pay less. He wants you to pay more.

Dan Pfeiffer
There we go.

Jon Favreau
That's it. That's it. And he wants himself to pay less. And he wants himself to stay out of jail. He wants him. It's just, there's a good message here, Dan.

There's a good message.

We just got to start repeating it and making sure it breaks through to all the people who aren't paying any attention right now.

Pod Save America is brought to you by House of the dragon on Max the global phenomenon returns. The HBO original series House of the Dragon is back. As Westeros is on the brink of civil war. After the death of the king, the royal line of succession is called into question, dividing House Targaryen. There are two sides to every story, and all must choose to bend the knee to their king or queen. Don't miss the show. Everyone will be talking about Sunday nights this summer. Season two of House of the Dragon premieres this Sunday at 09:00 p.m. on Max.

Brooke Williamson
As a chef and a restaurant owner, I'm as meticulous about my cookware as I am about my ingredients. That's why I love made in cookware. Each pan they make isn't just designed to perform, it's crafted to last. As a mom, I love that I can trust made in. It's made from the world's finest materials so I can feel good about what I'm feeding my family. I'm chef Brooke Williamson, and I use made in cookware.

Unidentified Speaker
Hey, us cellular customers, I've got good news, so don't hit skip forward just yet. I'm talking about their special customer event, us days. What's us days? It means exclusive offers just for their customers. Just to say thanks. Like $1,200 off any phone plus $300 off any tablet. No, I didn't mean misread that. They must really like y'all. Us days at us cellular. Exclusive offers just for you. Just to say thanks. Right now, us cellular customers get $1,200 off any phone plus $300 off any tablet. Terms apply.

Jon Favreau
Thursdays in June are Supreme Court opinion days. And while as of this recording, we still haven't had a ruling on Trump's presidential immunity claim, we did get a long anticipated opinion in the case. FDA versus Hippocratic alliance. This is the case challenging the FDA's approval of mifepristone, the main drug used in medication abortion. Good news is that the court unanimously held the alliance for Hippocratic Medicine, which is basically a consortium of anti abortion medical professionals, did not have standing to bring the case in the first place, which is what legal experts expected to happen. So abortion medication will remain legal in the states where abortion is legal, but there will almost certainly be other legal challenges to abortion medication from some of these same groups, from other groups, from republican attorneys general and red states. And they may have more standing than this group. And so we could, you know, the Supreme Court did not rule on the merits here. It just said that they didn't have standing to bring the case. So there will almost certainly be other legal challenges. And if Trump wins, he'll still be able to try to take executive actions or change regulations that could restrict access to abortion medication nationwide, even in states where abortion is legal. So that's the Supreme Court decision. Meanwhile, Republicans in the Senate on the same day blocked a bill that would protect access to IVF. Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowski were the only Republicans that voted with all the Democrats to protect IVF.

That was the same voting coalition that voted to protect contraception. All the rest of the Republicans, if we remember, voted to block a bill that would protect access to contraception. Now they have voted to block a bill that would protect access to IVF. This comes after the Southern Baptist Convention, which represents the largest protestant denomination in the United States, voted to oppose IVF on Wednesday.

So it certainly seems like conservatives, anti abortion activists, they are not taking Dobbs as a win. They want a national abortion ban. They want to ban abortion medication, and they're going after contraception and IVF. So I guess it's good that the court did what legal experts expected it to do in this case, but it seems like the fight is far from over. Right?

Dan Pfeiffer
Yeah, they punted. Right?

They want to take this question up. This was just a very imperfect vehicle for doing so. Right? We've seen them do this on, we see them do it. We saw them do it on abortion. Right. They waited for Dobbs. They, they took a pass on a whole bunch of other poorly written state laws or with plaintiffs with questionable standing and waited for a law where they make the decision. And they could have written in their opinions, they could have said something about the Comstock act that would have sent a warning sign to a future Trump administration that they can't use the Comstock act to ban, uh, the nationwide distribution of these drugs. But they didn't. Right. They left it. We don't know what's going to happen here. There is no, like, we must remain vigilant. This issue remains a live issue. And I think it's for democrats. The point here is to make that it's, it's going to require a, a President Joe Biden to protect access to these sorts of drugs, protect access to these sorts of reproductive freedoms.

Jon Favreau
Yeah. And I think it is, it is very much on democrats to keep the issue front and center, not just talking about abortion generally, but making sure people know, especially people in states where abortion remains legal, that Donald Trump and a Republican Congress will do everything in their power to restrict access to abortion, despite whatever they're saying now. And they will have that ability if they get into power. 170,000 people traveled out of state since Dobbs to get an abortion. 170,000. Um, there was also a poll, Gallup asked this question, and there are a record high percentage of voters who told Gallup that they are single issue abortion voters in this election, and three fourths of those are pro choice voters.

Dan Pfeiffer
So, which is a dramatic shift from pre dobs.

Right. The consensus always was, is that there were, we were sort of at parity between pro choice and anti choice. But the anti choice voters were much more motivated to turn out to volunteer to vote. And so Dobbs has created a fundamental shift in the political firmament, more than probably anything in decades, is my guess.

One other thing, just on the importance of doing these votes. So you sort of wonder, I show like, a person listening is like, this vote was never going to pass. Why are we taking the time to do this? And it's one, these are ads that can be run later on, like, especially why I do this. But something Sarah said to me in Wednesday's pod that I think is just really worth honing in on, which is when she gets a group of people together and she asks them what issues they care about. Abortion doesn't come up, doesn't matter. The group could be two time Trump voters, could be disaffected Biden voters. Abortion rarely is, is brought up, but when you bring abortion up, people get very intense, very focused, very angry about dops. And so what the message to democrats there is, is you have to keep bringing it up. You have to keep it front of mind, which is why this number is no longer true, but why, as of a few months ago, 90% of the ads the Biden campaign had run mentioned abortion. Right? Is it? And so everything you can do, right, Senate votes, press conferences, ads, talking about it, talking about the convention, bringing it up in the debate, like, that's really going to be a really important moment. It's one where Biden's going to have to be very comfortable doing it, doing it sort of proudly and aggressively. Just every opportunity to bring it up is critically important because voters have to know. Like think about Arizona, right, where you're going to have a initiative on the ballot, and you can either, if voting for Trump and voting to protect abortion rights, you're canceling your votes out in that state, right?

If you really want to protect abortion rights, you got to vote for Joe Biden.

Jon Favreau
I mean, we talked about how Republicans and Trump clearly want to win. They are clearly trying to muddy the waters on this issue. Republicans in Congress, even as they voted against this bill to protect IVF, you know, they put out a statement saying that they all support IVF. They have an alternative bill that they say is protecting IVF. They also had, like an alternative bill that they said is protecting contraception. So you can imagine they're going to be running ads, they're going to be out on the trail saying, yeah, of course we support contraception. Of course we support IVF. Of course we support exceptions for rape and incest and life and health of the mother. And we just want this issue to go to the states and it's Democrats who are extreme. How do you think that has been? Do you think that's been effective so far? Do you think, does it worry you, that message? Like how, I mean, it worries me.

Dan Pfeiffer
More than them just continuing to light themselves on fire, which is what they did from the day after Dobbs passed through yesterday, basically. But voters are not dumb, right? They, they understand what's at stake here. They understand how, you know, they're saying that it's Republicans in these states who were passing these extreme bands. They understand that it's a Republican led Supreme Court that overturned it. So we have to push back on it, be aggressive, call them out on it, force their hand. But they have yet to find any words, right, that undo the damage done by Dodds jobs politically. Right. 15 week ban, twelve week ban, leave it to the states. None of those have as of yet proven to be some sort of salve for the political wound. That was Tob's.

Jon Favreau
Yeah. Before we go, quick thing on, on debates.

Dan Pfeiffer
We do have a two weeks from today.

Jon Favreau
Oh, wow. I just got nervous about that. And I'm not even on the, I'm not even Joe Biden around his campaign. So there was a report in axios today that, that Biden's going to have to leave most of his debate prep to the week before because of his busy schedule. He is right now on his second Europe trip of the week.

Dan, you would have never let this happen in the White House, toot.

Two trips, two foreign trips in the middle of a campaign. I mean, he, obviously, the D day Normandy trip was a big trip. He used it for speech, defending democracies. That was important. And I guess wisely they didn't want him to stay in Europe for the G seven because then he would have been in Europe this whole week or the whole last week, too. I don't know what day it is. So he came back to the US.

Now he's back in Italy for the G seven and then he's flying here to Los Angeles for this fundraiser with Obama on this weekend. I mean, you know, what's not close to debate?

Dan Pfeiffer
Los Angeles.

I mean, I frankly thought he should have stayed in Europe and gone to see the Phillies play in London, which would have been a phenomenal OTR because they were the Phillies and the Mets were playing in London over the weekend.

Jon Favreau
That would have been nice. That would have been good.

Dan Pfeiffer
But, yeah, it's the look the Biden team picked this debate time. Yeah, they picked June. They obviously knew they had these foreign trips on there. So I am incredibly confident that expectations management's from both candidates aside, that when they pick June, they had already blocked out what would be the times in which you would prep. Now, having said all of that, and you know this better than anyone else, prepping an incumbent president for debate is brutal. And it, it's not just that the president has, has had everyone in the room stand up every time they've walked in for the last four years, which makes you less willing to be told to be pithier by some whippersnappers. But it's also just so much on your mind, right? It's just like you're dealing with so much stuff. Like you would in debate prep, the president would go from a meeting where intelligence reps would tell him about the most serious threats to the us homeland and then go into a meeting to practice one liners with Mitt Romney. Like that is like, it's hard to be focused like that in a way that you don't have to worry about in a campaign. In the same way, this is just.

Jon Favreau
A preview of coming attractions. But if you are a subscriber, if you're a friends of the pod subscriber, which you can subscribe to@cricket.com. friends, the next episode of Inside 2024 is me and Ben Rhodes, who were two of those whippersnappers in debate Prep in 2012. Didn't we do a bang up job?

Dan Pfeiffer
But you were both, you were both equally in charge of that first debate, right?

Jon Favreau
Yes. They finally brought in everyone else after that first debate. Smarter than the second debate. Yeah. No, and we tell all the stories about what it was like in 2012, prepping Obama. I went back, I mean, I had forgotten some of the stuff until I was, like, prepping for the episode. But there's some, some good stories and some stories that were tough to tell again.

But, yeah, no, I think, and then on the Trump side of it, the Trump campaign told axios they're planning zero prep. Zero prep. Here's the quote from Jason Miller. Trump does not, quote, need to be programmed by staff. And he will demonstrate, quote, elite stamina like he does it. Rallies.

They're just not, they're not playing the expectations game. What are they doing?

Dan Pfeiffer
I mean, it doesn't, there are, you can't set expectations for Trump.

Jon Favreau
Yeah, that's true. He said somewhere else today that he's going to, he might throw the debate, he might just lose the debate on purpose. So maybe he's trying to set it up.

Dan Pfeiffer
The only expectation they said is just that if Trump, quote, unquote, wins the debate, Trump wins. And if Biden wins the debate is because Biden was on drugs. Right. That's the choice they're setting up.

Jon Favreau
But what they have done is if, like, if Joe Biden, like, if as long as Joe Biden doesn't, like, forget his name or poop his pants on stage, like, it's going to be a win, boy, I hope so.

I mean, that's how they're setting the bar in the Trump campaign.

Dan Pfeiffer
I mean, it's the State of the union thing all over again, where they have just said it so low that the president can clearly, just being himself on a normal day will clear that bar. But you got to clear it. It's very different in the State of the union. Biden's being compared against the character of himself here. He's being compared in a debate, the character himself and Trump at the same time. And it's obviously a more complex enterprise than, than the speech.

Jon Favreau
I do think that a week and a half for debate prep, which is what he'll get, is enough. One thing we learned with Obama is you don't want to fill the candidate's head with too much info.

Dan Pfeiffer
Oh, yeah.

Jon Favreau
Too many briefings. Like a big, like, Obama was walking around with, like, a big binder this thick.

Dan Pfeiffer
I hated that binder.

Jon Favreau
For those of you who aren't, who are audio only, it's a prince.

Dan Pfeiffer
It's a thick binder as the pornies make it.

Jon Favreau
Thick binder. Yeah. Not full of women.

Dan Pfeiffer
I was like, should I make that joke?

Jon Favreau
Would anyone remember that?

I physically couldn't avoid doing it. It was just too much in his head. Right. There was, like, too many. I would give Biden just like a couple moments that they want to get out in that debate. Like, make sure if it's January 6 and who's for you on the economy and something else, whatever it may be, just have those.

Get the style down. Here's how you should approach Trump. Here's how you should handle when he lies. Here's how you should handle when he yells at you about this and then just like, sort of let him go.

Dan Pfeiffer
It, I mean, it's going to be nerve wracking, but fascinating because it's not. Obama had to learn all this stuff about Mitt Romney. Like, he didn't know it before he read it. Biden has already prepped for two debates with Trump.

Jon Favreau
Yeah, that's, yeah. That's another reason why you probably only need a week and a half and don't need to be. You can be flying all around from Europe to LA, which he's doing now, poor guy. All right, well, that's our show for today.

And by the way, democracy or else, look at this book. Look at this beautiful hardcover book. Here's the deal. I saw that on Amazon. You know who's ahead of us on the list and like the political humor list? Bill Maher. Come on, come on. We don't want Bill Maher ahead of us. That's ridiculous.

Dan Pfeiffer
All I would say is I'm not going to use any numbers here, but I have been told by the marketing department that the pitch that I did for this book on Wednesday delivered a very large number of pre orders and I don't think we should let that stand. Like you should at least beat that number.

Jon Favreau
I was, well, then, then Tommy jumped in to say, well, he's like, I did a pitch on pod save the world. So how do we know the numbers aren't due to the pod save the world pitch?

Dan Pfeiffer
Because they purchase. This came from America.

Jon Favreau
We don't know that.

Maybe that if you're abroad, we'd also love you to buy democracy or else. Anyway, go preorder democracy. Remember, all the proceeds go to vote Save America. So you'll be helping actually save democracy. We don't just think you're going to save democracy by reading the book, though. That will help too.

There's lots of great advice in here. It's from very smart people who aren't just us. It's also really funny and they're great pictures.

Dan Pfeiffer
The pictures are great.

Jon Favreau
The great pictures. Yeah, just illustrations.

Dan Pfeiffer
They don't worry about you. No photos. Just illustrations.

Jon Favreau
No photos. Just illustrations. Democracy or else. Go pre order now. Also for Pride month, help us hit our $100,000 fundraising goal in support of organizations fighting in states where conservatives are banning gender affirming care and targeting trans youth because they're nasty little freaks who won't stop infringing on our most intimate personal freedoms. Currently we are at 7%, so we have quite a ways to go donate directly to the fund or pick up items from our new Pride or else collection and let crooked do it for you with a portion of proceeds going directly to the fund. Learn more@crooked.com Pride alright everyone, have a good weekend and we will see you next week.

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Brooke Williamson
As a chef and a restaurant owner, I'm as meticulous about my cookware as I am about my ingredients. That's why I love made in cookware. Each pan they make isn't just designed to perform, it's crafted to last. As a mom, I love that I can trust made in. It's made from the world's finest materials so I can feel good about what I'm feeding my family. I'm chef Brooke Williamson and I use made in cookware.

Unidentified Speaker
Hey, us cellular customers, I've got good news, so don't hit skip forward just yet. I'm talking about their special customer event, us days. What's us days? It means exclusive offers just for their customers just to say thanks. Like $1,200 off any phone plus $300 off any tablet. No, I didn't misread that. Really? Like y'all, us days at us cellular, exclusive offers just for you. Just to say thanks. Right now, us cellular customers get $1,200 off any phone plus $300 off any tablet. Terms apply.

Trump Returns to the Scene of the Crime

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1: Return to Capitol Hill

2: Biden's Campaign Strategy

3: The Republican Dilemma

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