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Directly on Max or wherever you get your podcasts. - Good to war then. Welcome to Pots of America, I'm Jon Favreau. >> I'm Jon Lovett. >> I'm Tommy Vitor. >> On today's show, politicians in both parties get involved in the battle over the Gaza protests on college campuses. More Republicans who've criticized Trump fall in line. And Kristi Noem is not sorry for murdering puppies. Proud of it. - Puppy, puppy. - Maybe more, we don't know. - Yeah, she got the taste for blood, that's for sure. But first, let's talk about the state of the race. We got Donald Trump, criminal defendant who can't seem to

Stay awake or stop complaining about the temperature of the courtroom. And then we got Joe Biden. He's out there cracking jokes, taking shots at Trump, sitting down with Howard Stern and off the New York Times by not sitting down for an interview with them, though the Times did write a favorable story about Biden's strategy here, noting that the campaign wants the split screens comparison between the two candidates and that the president is very much trying to get under Trump's skin by taunting him and calling him A loser. What do you guys think of that strategy and how it's impacting coverage of the race? Any risks? Tommy? Sure. I would like to note that our office was once very cold and I stand in solidarity with my I think it still goes back and forth a lot. It does go back and forth. It's just, it's, it's, yeah. Impossible.

Own thing. I do think it's kind of a fine line. I think it's good to be funny. It's good to crack jokes. It's good to get in the news. But ultimately Biden's kind of founding ethos was restoring the soul of the nation and being the one who can unite a divided country. So you have to be careful that you don't overstep that. I did talk to some folks on the Biden team who felt like that Times article was a bit overstated. They were like, Ah, we're doing some message events this week, like some things are gonna be rolling out policies in battleground states. Sometimes we're gonna do contrast events where we attack Trump. It's kind of standard was their thought, but. - Yeah, first of all, this is, it was a month ago, though I know a month ago is forever ago, that we first got wind that this was by.

Directed, remember, that like the NBC reported that Biden was wanted to kind of start picking fights to kind of get under Trump's skin, and sort of to immediate effect that Trump started responding almost instantly to every time Biden kind of laid an insult. I like it. I actually will talk about the correspondence dinner later. But I was surprised by some of the places Biden went. Like, he hasn't made those kinds of jokes before. He went a little harder than I expected. Sharp. And I like it. I just I like it. - I think that like trading too many insults can be. Annoying and silly to voters. I also think in this media environment, you really don't have any other choice. Like, he's not gonna be able to reach voters that he needs to reach if he just gives speeches, policy speeches about-- - About the CHIPS Act? - Yeah, with polite contrast, you know? And that's his biggest challenge. That's the campaign's biggest challenge is actually reaching and communicating with voters who--

Who have mostly tuned out of politics, are consuming a lot less political media than they used to, and the Biden campaign gets this. I talked to Rob Flaherty, their deputy campaign manager, energy in the White House on offline this week. Just check it out. And he said the same thing. He said this is all of their thinking about every day is just a lot of people tuned out of politics and how do you break through and actually get them. - And kind of gets asked about this in the Smartless interview, whether this was a deliberate change to mix it up and punch back harder. And his response is basically like, well, we're responding to what Trump is already doing and we're trying to respond with facts, but we can't match. The Trump show, and again, that is another risk with Trump. There's no bottom for Trump. He will say the nastiest things about you and will take it further than you ever can. And so suddenly your Marco Rubio making dick jokes right exactly exactly and you don't want to be that yeah I do also think there's a difference between what you might end up being VP. You know - Shortlist. - You gotta move, you gotta move. I do think there's also a difference between-- - Speaking of the shortlist. - Hey. - Hey-o. - Hey. - Sorry.

I think there's also a difference between how Biden can't, like Biden is now a candidate. He is campaigning and I think that is different than how he is in his official remarks. I also, by the way, expect that Joe Biden will continue to make a certain subset of online libs mad by praising Republicans every chance he possibly gets. I think isolating Trump as worthy of mockery while saying there are many good Republicans, like the kind of rhetoric he's been using in the past is a great way to kind of, I think, make Tommy's point while still trying to get under Trump's skin. - Yeah, Matt Gaetz, fun to party with. - Right, sure. - Don't agree with him politically. - So the media strategy of reaching voters by going around traditional news outlets is something candidates in camp-- Have been doing for more than a decade now, though there has been some recent drama between Biden World and The Times after a Politico piece about how the paper's mad the president won't do an interview with them. We don't have to get into all the drama.

Most of you haven't heard about it. God bless you. - Hopefully you die without knowing about it. - God bless you if you haven't. But from a campaign perspective, how do you guys think about the balance between doing traditional and non-traditional? On media interviews. - First of all, I remember I wanted to play this clip because this reminded me of a story. I couldn't actually find the original story, but we have a clip and this is from 2004. When George W Bush went on Roland Martin's fishing show. Can we play that clip? - Roland at a fishing show? - Different Roland Martin. - Oh. - Oh, little bitty guy. I came out to fish with a fellow who works out here. We caught a bunch of crappie, we filleted them, cooked them, and served dinner to Vicente Fox, the president of Mexico.

What is that? So in 2004, it is George W. Bush appearing on outdoor life television on a fishing channel. And it was part of a story in 2004 about Republican micro-targeting that Republicans... Were going to go find, they were going to go around the traditional media to go find voters and as part of this... It did work. Well, and then he went on ESPN, which was a big deal at the time, and Kerry countered that by throwing out a pitch, which I'm sure went terribly. Remember, Tommy, in the Senate office when Obama went on Monday Night Football? That was fun. I still don't think Bill Clinton should have played the saxophone that one time. And this is such an old debate. The saxophone. You should be right. It was the Boxers or Briefs thing. Remember Bill Clinton and the Boxers or Briefs. I mean doing Howard Stern is like unequivocally smart.

Stern gets 10 million listeners per episode, then they chop it up on YouTube and many, many more people will see it there. It'll live on social media. And it was like more interesting content. It was like about stories about his life and deeper things. I can always tell when something breaks. Through in like the normies in my life, like my college text chain, people were like, Biden on Stern? Biden was good on Stern. And I'm like, wait, we haven't talked about politics here in a while. - Yeah, also like Howard Stern has just sort of, he has left the kind of, he has no footprint in the media because he just, his own ecosystem. He doesn't care that much about like the clips don't really go that far very rarely anyway But you know, it's reaching just a huge audience of people that aren't paying attention

- I don't think doing interviews with like traditional network news television, right? Like that's, I think that's worthwhile because you reach a lot of people. Like print interviews, right? You know, look, if it's maybe a little more useful to the campaign if the outlet in question releases the full transcript of the interview, which they all probably do now, but like, I don't know if you're a candidate, time is like the most precious resource you have on the campaign. And if it's between, a print interview to an outlet like the New York Times that again is mostly Biden voters reading that. I don't know if that's the best use of time versus a whole bunch of other like creative interviews with different outlets that are that people who aren't political junkies are consuming. I feel like I don't I think I agree with that. I only my only. Thought on it is that Biden has a specific challenge. I mean, there's a reason that Trump thinks there's value to pretending.

Joe Biden won't debate him is because it feeds a Republican argument that Joe Biden is not up to debate. Joe Biden has faced obviously a lot of questions around his age and his kind of ability to do the job. And so as long as he is doing enough press in traditional sources to kind of relieve that pressure and demonstrate that he's quite capable of doing interviews, including very Hard-hitting interviews, print, television, I don't think it matters. I think that's a distinction. It's less like traditional versus non-traditional than tough questions versus all softballs for the whole campaign. Right, I mean I think if you have something big that you want to roll out to kind of of an elite audience. Right, if you signed a Middle East peace deal, absolutely. Sit down with the New York Times. Let's get him on Hot Ones. Conan's interview really is at a high bar. Sitting down for a 45 minute interview with the Times or another print publication to just get the shit kicked out of you.

You might as well just be a press conference. I also, NBC in their latest poll today they just ran a story they broke out which candidate is preferred based on news consumption. Biden's biggest advantage over Trump is with voters who get their news from newspapers. 70% or for Biden versus 21% for Trump. And then he also has a big advantage with voters who get their news from network news and from digital websites. His biggest deficit with voters is voters who don't follow political news. Trump leads those voters 53 to 27. And people who get their news from YouTube and Google, it's 5539 Trump, cable 5345, social media 4642, a little closer on those two. The, there's a long story in Politico about this fight between the times and the Biden people, but the part that matters is this weird background quote that said AG.

-Alzberger, the publisher, is mad that Biden hasn't done an interview and therefore is quietly encouraging all his reporters to write meaner stories about Biden's age. And like I read that and my reaction was, Wow, that's a dumb thing to say. - So dumb. - Even on background. But also I kind of doubt that it's true. And I reached out to some former Times people and they were like, that's not how the building works in my experience. Like maybe there's senior editors like passing around notes that the journalists themselves don't hear about, but I doubt it. So I think it was a dumb quote to give. And then it was very weird that the Times. They escalated it by putting out a statement on the record, attacking Joe Biden again. And again, it's like your media outlet, partisan political actors put out statements attacking each other, so don't do that. That's very weird. Very strange. The whole thing was just odd. You'll all share a cell if Trump wins. Yeah. Everybody should be nice to each other. And big picture, like, you know, it's not good for Democrats, I think, to run down the credibility of the media generally. I'm not saying that's what the Biden people were doing, but you know, that there's a lot of that online these days.

Yeah, two things can be true. Like I think the Times is is great and I don't think it's their job to save democracy But I also think that from a campaign perspective when you're figuring out strategy and where your candidates gonna go Like you get to choose which interviews they do and don't do and you got to do it in the way that's smart for your Pain and it's going to make it most successful.

But it's a really small group of people. Biden does a television interview. Mostly people that support him are the people that are gonna see it. Biden does a print interview. Even fewer people that don't support him are going to see it. But I still think there is this effect, right? That like the coverage in these places filters down into the conversations people have. It filters down into how he's covered, how it affects, what ends up on TikTok, what ends up on YouTube, what ends up in people's text change, in people's conversation. What questions Howard Stern asks.

Questions the smartest guys ask, 'cause those guys are paying attention. And so like that kind of like trickle down, I don't totally understand. I don't think anybody fully understands how much of that is still working, because that used to be whatever, like that was always the assumption and now I don't know. - Well, biggest news out of the Howard Stern interview was Biden saying he'd be happy to debate Trump and expects to at some point. This made Trump and his campaign quite happy. Apparently Chris Slessavita, Trump's top aide, was at the correspondent's dinner, handing out business cards with Biden's debate quote from Stern and then on the other side had a Trump quote, which Trump's response to this was, Anywhere, anytime, anyplace. And then it said, Let's set it up.

For the Trump press office, I guess. - Got 'em. - Yeah, sounds like they're pretty eager to debate. Should they be? - Yeah, well, it's funny, we've kind of memory-holed the fact that the last time they debated, Donald Trump had gotten a positive COVID diagnosis three days earlier and nearly gave it to Joe Biden on stage and maybe could have killed him. - Yeah. - It's funny how it sort of-- - Biden killed the debate, Trump almost killed Biden. - I mean, I think, yeah. The interesting thing about this debate is... Normally you have a challenger coming in that has just done a ton of reps because they were in a primary process and they were debating debating debating so they're really like Poised and ready for the fight. And you have an incumbent president who has not been debating and in fact is used to people standing up when they walk into the room. Room and not getting a lot of pushback. This time, Trump skipped all the primary debates, so he's going to be just as rusty as Joe Biden. So the whole thing broadly makes me nervous because the stakes are just going to be through the roof on this debate.

Happens. But again, like much like the State of the Union, the Trump folks are giving Biden an expectations advantage by accusing him of having dementia every day. Just going out on a limb, I don't think the Biden campaign is going to have trouble lowering expectations on this. They're low. They're pretty low. Yeah. That debate, too, even before we knew that Trump was trying to kill Joe Biden, was the worst debate any of us have ever seen. It was a monstrous and disappointing display that. That made everyone quite sad while having really not that much of an impact on the race. So I expect something like that is probably where we're heading. That's the me. That's the media. I don't know where I don't know what I don't know what I don't know what's above or below that. I don't know. Anyway, I do think that the Biden folks have to are going to want to like leave it. To the commission and get out of these, like, potential one-on-one negotiations with the Trump campaign, who are gonna, like, ask for 100 debates, and Trump's gonna start.

Looking for his own favorite moderators and you know, you don't want the whole thing to turn into an episode of The Apprentice. So now there's a commission for this, you send the commission, you do your normal number of debates and that's that because you can tell that Trump is just like chomping at the bit to turn this into a big show where he Yeah, it's a lot of bravado though, but I'm sure then he'll come back around with but these only these moderators are acceptable and it's like Tucker and Sean Hannity and Don Jr. - I think assuming, if you-- I mean, even before you get to it, whatever he wants-- The J6 choir. He knows the show's-- the show's not-- whatever the show-- yeah, sure, he'd want the biggest show possible. But even before that, what he wants is every conversation about what the debates will look like is a story of Trump wanting to debate and him pulling Joe Biden to those debates. And the Biden campaign can't have that either. That's the show, right? That's the show. The debates are three days in October. That show can happen for the next several months. Yeah, until both campaigns agreed that the commission's going to do what they've done for the last however many years. Like that's the only thing the Biden campaign can say.

Like they can't they can't take the bait on this and be like, yeah. Oh, no. Okay. Well, we'll do whatever you want We'll meet you know, of course not. Of course not. But that's just what this is, right? Yeah speaking of the White House course On a center, Joe Biden and SNL's Colin Jost both told, I think, some really funny jokes. Let's listen to a few. Here's some of Biden's. The 2024 election is in full swing. And yes, age is an issue. I'm a grown man running against a six-year-old. The New York Times issued a statement blasting me for active and effectively avoiding independent journalists. Hey, if that's what it takes to get to New York Times to say I'm active and effective, I'm for it. I had a great stretch since the State of the Union. McDonald's had a few tough days lately. You might call it stormy weather.

-What the hell? Eight years ago, you could have written off it was just Trump talk, but no longer. Not after January 6th. I'm sincerely not asking you to take sides, but I'm asking you to rise up to the seriousness of the moment. -Honestly, the what the hell? What the hell is my favorite part of the whole, what the hell? It's the funniest part. It's the funniest part. What the hell is really funny? That is actually though the, I think that's the right way to approach humor for this race. And Biden did this in 2020. I think he did it during that debate at one point. It was just like, shut up. He said something to Trump like, what is this? What's going on? this guy. There is an absurdity around this whole, yeah, that I think that Biden can make fun of. His speeches are so short for these things. That was like 10 minutes. - Yeah. - Yeah, it was very short. It was mostly serious. He does a few jokes at the top and then he gets to the serious part.

- There's like a half dozen jokes and he gets right to it. - Yeah, I like the serious part. I like the praising of Collins. He did a whole nice thing about Colin Jost's family, which I thought was very good for Biden. I liked the, I thought it was a good imposition to the journalists. - The New York Times joke was funny. - Yes. - He could have gotten to snip. And instead he sort of made fun of himself a little bit. I was actually like, I was genuinely surprised by how well that joke did. I really I was actually like the crowd really liked it. And I we've we've sort of, you know, over the years, like I think we've come to learn that that audience is less keyed in than you'd expect a lot of the time. Not on journalism stuff. That room was completely fully aware of the fight. - Well, they read the Politico story and then the responding New York Times statement to the Politico story and then the Puck story about how the Politico story.

Happened with the new yeah they were all right they were ready for that joke I just I was mean I tend to be very sensitive to anything media related yeah that is also yeah that is also true all right here's some of the jokes from Colin Jest I have to admit it's not easy following President Biden. I mean, it's not always easy following what he's saying. Can we just acknowledge how refreshing it is to see a President of the United States That doesn't begin with a bailiff saying all rise. It's also wonderful to be back. I love being in Washington. The last time I was in DC, I left my cocaine at the White House.

Luckily the president was able to put it to good use for his State of the Union. I lost my grandfather this year, as you alluded to, a firefighter, William Kelly. And I swear, Mr. President, this is not an age comparison. You remind me of him. Some of your best qualities remind me of his. And I will say he was 95 and he was still great at stairs. I think it's because he didn't try to run up them. He voted for you, and the reason that he voted for you is because you're a decent man. - Bring that guy on the road. - Yeah, I like that. I really like that. - That was a nice little endorsement. - Yeah, I know there was like, I guess the Times.

Just unhappy with everyone on that day, wrote a piece saying they didn't think he was a success. I thought, I think that he-- - Times with that piece, and then like every Biden White House official wrote back, - Funniest person ever and I'm like, oh, now this is a thing? - It's Biden-Jost 2024. But I thought the, I think that like the first half, like there were good jokes, but they were kind of, it was like, I think it took a while to ramp up, but that second half I thought was just like really I do think if there's any value to that dinner in terms of beseeching the press that the president and then what Colin Jost said. It is that in some small way, I think, like, reminding them that even even the ones that I think don't believe it is their job to save democracy for Joe Biden. Like, reminding them that like, their actual values and morals

Are at stake and they are aware of them, even if they try to push them aside. I just, I appreciate that. Whether it's effective or not, I don't know. I appreciate it. - Yeah, it's not their job to save democracy. It is their job to take this whole thing seriously and not treat it completely as a game all the time. I think that's a fair criticism. - Yeah, it was a nice ending from Colin Jost. It was a bit of an endorsement vibe, which doesn't help the kind of clubby liberal bias in the media sentiment that's out there. - Hey, you know what, I'll take anything at this point. - But big show, I mean, I thought Colin Jost did a pretty good job of being hard on both of them and making fun of both of them, and Biden, to his credit, laughed and took it. - He did. - He left a lot. Two quick housekeeping notes. Some very exciting news from our friends at Strict Scrutiny, Cricket's excellent legal podcast. The show just launched its own YouTube channel. To subscribe, just type Strict Scrutiny into your nearest YouTube search bar and tune in for new episodes every Monday. Also, if you need a break from the political chaos, treat yourself to some completely different political chaos

the UK. Each week Nish Kumar and Coco Khan are joined by politicians and experts to unpack the latest news out of Parliament. New episodes drop every Thursday. Make Where you get your podcasts. This show is brought to you by Zillow. Is sponsored by BetterHelp. Do you tend to compare your life to others? Does social media play a part in that? And you get caught up wishing your life looked like someone else's. You know what, that's not my problem. I don't get the like envy. But you know what I do do? I decide to use social media. I weigh in on things that suck and then terrible people criticize you and you could tell yourself it doesn't matter, but it actually does bother you. Which is why I do let strangers get me mad. I'm just I'm I've just started deleting tweets because I'm like, you know what? I just I don't care. I don't need to let someone.

One attack me all day long for no reason. - You wanna talk about it a little more? - I think this should go deeper, which is why BetterHelp is a sponsor of this show. - Tommy, Tommy, comparison is the thief of joy. - It is. - And it's easy to envy other people's lives. It might look like they have it all together on their Instagram, but in reality, they probably don't. Therapy can help you focus on-- You want instead of what others have so you can start living your best life. If you're thinking of starting therapy, give BetterHelp a try. It's entirely online, designed to be convenient, flexible, and suited to your schedule. Just fill out a brief questionnaire to get matched with a licensed therapist and switch therapists any time for no additional charge. And wants you to choose the latter. - A line that will undoubtedly appear in just a dozen convention speeches. Stop comparing and start focusing with BetterHelp. Visit betterhelp.com/psa today to get 10% off your first month. That's BetterHelp, H-E-L-P.com/p-s-a. PSA. Tamika started her small family hair care business in Madison, Alabama. Actually, we started...

In our garage. Then her hair care line got big on Amazon. When Boldhole took off, we got Go to than ever and giving the whole world a glow up. More than 60% of sales on Amazon come from independent sellers like me. Amazon, every day better. Hello people of Earth. This is Paul Scheer, co-host of the Unspooled podcast. Over the next few months, my co-host Amy Nicholson and I will be breaking down some of our favorite disasters to see if they still hold up in our disaster movie summer.

Talking about Independence Day, Godzilla minus one, 28 days later and more. You're not going to want to miss these conversations. I'm going to tell you Unspooled is where it's at this summer. You can listen to new episodes of Unspooled every Thursday, wherever you get your podcasts. Onto a topic that's uh... Less fun but more important. The college protests over the war in Gaza. After the president of Columbia University testified before Congress and then called the police on April 18th to clear out an encampment of pro-Palestinian protesters that led to more than 100 arrests, dozens of protests and encampments have sprung up at colleges all across the country. Many of the protesters have been peaceful and respectful. Some of the protesters have not.

Schools have allowed the protests to continue. Some have not. There have been more than 800 arrests so far, a mix of students and non-students. Some police have used excessive force to break up the protests. Some colleges have suspended students and threatened expulsion. And now, politicians in both parties are getting involved. President Biden has condemned both, quote, anti-Semitic protests, and quote, those who don't understand what's going on with the Palestinians. The White House also condemned one of the student protest leaders at Columbia who called for Zionists to die and has since been suspended.

-An all-caps truth on Monday that said, Stop the protests now. Easy. Done. Speaker Mike Johnson held an event at Colombia with other House Republicans last week where they called on Biden to send in the National Guard and threatened to pull federal funding from colleges that won't stop the protests. Progressive Democrats like AOC and Jamaal Bowman have visited the protesters in solidarity, while 21 other Democrats just sent a letter to Colombia demanding that they break up the protests, which they are currently trying to do.

To do. Basically, huge mess. Tommy, I thought you and Ben did a great job last week on POD Save the World talking about what's going on with these protests. I would encourage everyone to listen. I thought we could talk a bit about how they're affecting national politics. Here's the latest headline in the Washington Post. Trump GOP sees on campus protests to depict chaos under Biden. What's your take on that? And what do you guys think is the best way for Biden and Democrats to handle all this? I mean, I do think the chaos message from Trump about Biden is a little bit of a mad libs at this point. You know, it's usually it's the border. Sometimes it's just liberal cities generally Just cities being cities. Yeah, so City season. So you know. Somebody, uh, they, uh, somebody stole, uh, Shif's bags out of his car. No. Adam Shif? I saw it, I literally saw it because I watched a Sean Hannity clip. That's the only reason I found out. My feed wouldn't tell me that. - Lock your car, shifty shift. - I think, weird.

I think Trump is right to think that any issue that divides the Democratic Party or suppresses Democratic votes could be beneficial to him. I don't know if that's happening right now. I mean, I suspect a lot of the protesters, at least in the New York schools, aren't necessarily Democrats. A lot of people don't, you know, they don't. Affiliate, not affiliated with the party or they're in the DSA. Certainly they're part of the Democratic coalition that you'd like to see turn out for Joe Biden to defeat Donald Trump. It's also not really clear to me if this issue is broken through to the country more broadly. I think if you're a Fox News consumer, you are probably Probably marinating in this feeling that like campuses are overrun and the Hamas is on the

Colombia or whatever. But I do think Biden has been I think it's right to condemn anti-semitism where it's popping up and what has been egregious but you have to be really really careful I think not to cross the line into abridging free speech which is why you know speaker Johnson going up to Colombia to kind of demagogue what's happening makes me really nervous It's why Democrats sending that letter to the president of Columbia makes me nervous because there is a very fraught debate about what— anti-zionism constitute anti-semitism that we can get into more if we want here. So I think like bigger picture for me from a political perspective What makes me far more nervous is the prospect of this war continuing for months and months and months through the conventions through the election and not campus protests in April from a political sense. Yeah, I mean

- You know, denounce anti-Semitism and violence, defend the right to peacefully protest, point out that all of these Republicans spent years denouncing snowflakes and trigger warnings, but are now cynically inserting themselves into campus. Rules and procedures of private northeastern universities in order to sow chaos and... Shut down speech that they don't like. I'll be pointing that out. And then it's like, Should Columbia students be suspended after two warnings or three? What is the line between anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism? up at the USC commencement? These are important questions for some people. They are not.

Unimportant questions for the Speaker of the House. They're not important questions for national politics. And they are ultimately a distraction and a distraction with purpose. Like it's such a classic, it's so classic us. It's like there is a devastating and awful war taking place in Gaza. I am sure that I disagree with a lot of the larger goals of many, if not most of the students on those campuses, but they have been very successful at drawing attention to what is an urgent international crisis. They have done it with bravery. They've put themselves at risk. They may pay for that risk. It seems like when you put yourself in a position to draw attention by breaking rules, you will also draw attention when those rules are enforced,

ought to be the goal from the very beginning. - Most Democrats agree that there is an urgent need for there to be a ceasefire. Most have said that even if you believe Israel has a right to defend itself, that it is right to be critical about the inhumane way in which Israel has conducted this war. And I think any way in which you can just call out the Republican kind of cynicism on this while being unabashed and asserting your position, denouncing antisemitism, while defending the right to protest, I think is a fine place to be without getting dragged into the muck that these Republicans want to drag us into. - They're so opportunistic on this. It's so cynical. I mean, it's like they don't. They don't believe in free speech, they believe in right-wing free speech. They don't believe in speaking out against anti-semitism, they believe in speaking out against left-wing anti-semitism, right? When it comes from the right... Trump was out there over the weekend, forgot about this. It's called Charlottesville, a little peanut. Weird thing to say.

Sure, sure. to this, but he said it's nothing compared to the kind of hate you have here. Charlotte's film where, you know, literal Nazis, literal Nazis, car was killed, yeah, woman was killed, right? Greg Abbott in Texas, he just sent in police, committed all kinds of excessive violence and excessive force. And he only did it, and he basically said he only did it because he didn't believe in what the protests were. It wasn't about how they were protesting, it's about why they were protesting, right? That's what Greg Abbott did, right? So I think the Republicans are bullshit. I think as a Democrat, you're right. Like, you have to stand up for the right to protest and the right to free speech. And especially, like you said, the most important thing is there is a horrific war in -- Gaza and if you believe that the war should end and you're not getting anywhere right near or posting about it, like yeah, go out and protest, you should, it's good. I do think you also have to speak out against violence, intimidation, threatening behavior. I really think you have to speak out against anti-Semitism just as you have to speak out against any form of religious, ethnic, big.

And I do think that either dismissing or minimizing anti-Semitism, the kind that's been seen and heard in some of these protests, like it isn't just wrong, it detracts from the more urgently important argument about the Israeli government's conduct in Gaza. Because I do think there is this tendency to be like, obviously anti-Semitism is bad, but right? And then you just sort of like pass over it. And when you really look like we don't have to quantify how much what percentage it is or whatever else like it could be just a small group Whatever it is when you see it you call it out. It's bad. It's horrific. It's garbage

- I think the issue, right, I think what happens is-- - And some of it is, and you're right, the anti-Zionism, anti-Semitism line is thin here, but like Jews go back to Poland is like, that's pretty clear. - Clear, clear cut. - But yes, I think the reason, I think what you see, right, is like this desire to say that but is a desire to identify yourself, not just with your own views or the views of the protests you agree with, but with the protests themselves. But like, there's always gonna be, A protest is always going to represent a vast array. Of different views. And again, like, even if you disagree with the vast majority of the larger, like even if you, the proximate cause of these protests is the war in Gaza, but the BDS movement long precedes it and is not just about attacking, right? Like at Yale they're calling for divestment from companies directly profiting off the war, but a lot of these protests are calling for larger divestments that really are meant to attack the legitimacy of Israel itself. A lot of people find that.

A lot of people disagree with that strongly. I disagree with that, right? But I still think you can say they want to do it if that's what they believe That's what they believe where I agree with these protests is that they are doing something brave to call attention to what is the current? Emergency which is doing whatever we can to push the administration and to push for a ceasefire Which is what the actual crisis is. The crisis is not the performance of our feelings or desires or politics in the United States. It is all about a real and... Ongoing struggle and war. - I will say this though, the guy who was the, one of the leaders of the encampment in Colombia, one of the students who was leading the protest. In January, is it a disciplinary meeting where he says, You're lucky I'm not out there murdering Zionists. You're lucky I'm not just killing them. That was in January and then the video got resurfaced by some right-wing asshole, right? Which is how we all know about it. But like what they didn't they didn't feel the need to discipline him then and like

he still was the leader of the movement, like that's just bad, it's just bad. It's not about divestment, like that's all totally legitimate even if you disagree with it, that's bullshit. That shouldn't-- - Yes. And the protest leader. - Well, you need clear rules of the road on policy. These schools need clear rules of the road and policies and they need to enforce them equally, no matter who is the speaker, no matter what the circumstances. Challenge for protest movements and social movements like this is you have a core goal, which is to end the war in Gaza and you have this huge movement of people with different views and differing perspectives and some are more maximalists, some are more scoped. Inevitably the conversation is going to become about the tactics or offensive things being said and the question always is if you're part of this movement, how do you keep the focus on that core goal, which is getting to Permanent ceasefire, getting a negotiated hostage release, and ending the war in Gaza, right? And so I do think, you know, that's incumbent on everyone who's at the protests to make sure you're, you know, whatever.

You're doing is advancing that core goal. But it's also kind of the risk inherent in the broader process. - And it requires incredible discipline. It also requires letting go of the fiction that you can control, like you said, everyone. In the movement, right? Because there's a lot of leaders in there who are probably like, Yeah, of course, this is the right message. This is the best effective tactic. And then you have like a couple people who either... Join from outside or join from the campus who, you know, say something stupid and say something. Horrible and anti-semitic and then that's get like gets lifted up and it sucks. Yeah, I'd say first of all the the flipside of Republicans spending years calling Libs snowflakes then calling for protests to be shut down is Campuses reacting to anti-semitism differently than they react to other kinds of hate and that is I think When you when you have a student saying them something like that and they're not being consequences until it becomes an embarrassing public

Spectacle, I think that tells you something about not having policies that are clearly enforced. But I also think like this is in many ways an unsolvable problem that will be with us. Like I am sure that if we had the kind of social media we have now when there were anti-war protests that again were completely just and in hindsight prescient when George W Bush was invading Iraq we would find despicable views among those protests. We did find Despicable. But now it would be everywhere and it would have been used at, if we had Tik TOK and Instagram. And Twitter and social media that we have now when those protests were going on, it would have been used to delegitimize what was ultimately a righteous protest movement against that war. And like, I don't know what the answer

Is, but like, I always say that this is an interesting one where I think the public opinion, the tide public opinion against the war in Gaza turned long before this these these latest protests and says, I mean, this the the inciting incident for what we're talking about now was this April 18th Columbia University president goes to Congress testifies, has the police come, and then suddenly there are these solidarity protests all over the place. So this is an interesting one, where the public opinion changes first, because I think some of the very brave reporting about what was happening on the ground in Gaza, and that probably, I think, In these protests. Yeah, I mean, look, this is a very familiar problem. In 1968, anti-war movements at Columbia University had people chanting in support of the... Right so there will always be views expressed to protest that we don't agree with I think And by the way, there will always be 20-year-old idiots who deserve the chance to grow as well. Or 80-year-old idiots. Yeah, I think...

What we're seeing though, I think, is the result of a festering problem that no one can figure out how to make go away, which is the war in Gaza. And it's like, I don't know, people are-- When day after day when you're seeing reports of like another hundred and other thousand people died and it feels like the government isn't doing enough to stop this war people are gonna take increasingly drastic action. And also if you feel that way and you see news coverage that's all about like protests and how they're going wrong. It's gonna make you angrier rightly so. Because like here's like we you know, we haven't talked about this yet. But like the the real issue is the war It's not these protests but that but it's gonna this is what this is what happens in politics Well now that all the politicians Are involved it's become a big my initial reaction when reading about the protests was I just felt like okay like credit to the protesters I support you I

goal. I wonder if sit-in on campus is the most effective way to raise awareness about the concern. Like why not go, you know, stay just sit-in in Congress or go to the White House or, you know, that was sort of like my initial instinct. But now because these universities crack down on these kids so hard and the arrests were so brutal and Unnecessary, the protests have spread and it's increasing solidarity and you're seeing more of it. And now it is this nationwide story. So it has been effective. And by the way, in just in terms of what the impact is of the conduct of the war on our politics, you now have people that are horrified by the way they see unfolding in Gaza being drawn into a movement that isn't just about ending this conflict, but about attacking the larger legitimacy of Israel as a state, right? That is, I think, like a dangerous ramification of people rightfully. Seeing this unfold and thinking something has gone terribly wrong and wanting the Biden administration to do more, wanting this to end, feeling like they're helpless or feeling like they wanna have some voice in it.

Hello, it's me. - Me, your oil change light. That last mechanic took three hours. Would you trust him again? - Silence your oil change-iety at Valvoline Instant Oil Change, where we change your oil in about 15 minutes. - Hello, people of Earth. This is Paul Scheer, co-host of the Unspooled Podcast. Over the next few months, my co-host, Amy Nicholson, and I will be breaking down some of our favorite disasters to see if they still hold up in our disaster movie summer. Independence Day, Godzilla minus one, 28 days later and more. You're not gonna wanna miss these conversations. I'm gonna tell you, Unspooled is where it's at this summer. You can listen to new episodes of Unspooled every Thursday, wherever you get your podcasts. .

The best things in life, they come in twos. Two scoops of ice cream, two tacos. And now for a limited time, get our best deal of the year. Buy any phone when you switch to Consumer Cellular and get two months of service free. That's right, the same fast, reliable, nationwide coverage as Big Wireless, now with two months free. Proof the best things in life really do come in twos. Visit ConsumerCellular.com or call 1-888-FREEDOM. Second and third month of monthly based service fee waived for new customers with the purchase of a phone and activation by July 31, 2024. Taxes, fees, and third party charges will apply. See website for additional details. Finally, before we go, quite a few Republican politicians proved over the weekend that their party is just as weird. And cultish as ever. Some beclound themselves when they were asked how they squared their past criticism of Trump with their current support for the guy and one of Trump's potential running mates is making an unusual pitch for

Here's Bill Barr, Lindsey Graham, Mitch McConnell, and a story about Kristi Noem. I actually don't remember him saying executing, but I wouldn't dispute it. The president would lose his temper and say things like that. I doubt he would have actually carried it out. I don't, you know. You're going to vote for someone who is facing 88 criminal counts. Oh, look. The 88 criminal counts a lot of those are and I've said ten of them are accurate The answer the question is yes, I'm supporting I'm supporting the Republican ticket David pecker who ran the National Enquirer's parent company Testified that he paid to catch and kill stories about Trump specifically to help his presidential campaign You don't have any concerns about that

-You know, apparently a lot of people do this -- Arnold Schwarzenegger, Tiger Woods. No, I think the whole thing is a crock. -The issue is, what kind of influence, even if I'd chosen to get involved in the presidency? Election. What kind of influence would I have had? You're one of the most powerful Republicans. I'm the Republican leader of the Senate. What we do here is try to make law. I like us to be in the majority. The running to become former President Trump's pick for Vice President is responding to the over a story in her upcoming memoir. In the book, Noam says she shot and killed her 14 month old puppy named Cricket for bad behavior.

Media personality Laura Loomer saying she can't be VP now you can't shoot your dog and then be VP. *laughter* Hard to argue that. An unapologetic puppy killer. Safe to say she's off the shortlist guys? know what it's like to live on a farm. It's just something. You gotta kill puppies. They're always Ever read Charlotte's Web? That dot, that, most of that book is about killing puppies. Old Yeller? Old Yeller. He got it. It's in the name. I mean what's amazing with this? It's a new yeller. Thank you Sean. Come out because of some like investigative journalist like pouring through her life. She wrote it in her own book That's yeah, that is the amazing part And that's why the whole like you don't know what it's like to live in a farm thing is just that's not that has nothing to do with anything you

about it. By the results that she went and got a goat she hated and shot the goat but missed the first time and had to walk back to her car to get another shotgun shell to shoot the goat again you're not even a good shot is that - You're so suffered a bit. - This is some John Wick shit. - It's really bad. Also, I mean, yeah. - I would say this, it has not been a good week for. Kristi Noem. She had the combination of basically saying that she doesn't believe in exceptions for rape and incest, followed by saying she murdered a puppy for not being good at killing birds one day and then being too good at killing birds the next day that's the other piece of this so the the the the the dog wasn't

On a pheasant hunt. - Wouldn't hunt. - Right, then the next day tried to kill some chickens. Maybe it was trying, you know? - Right, it was confused. - Give it a chance. - Michelle Vick. - Delvick, I did like that. - In the arms of an asshole? I went with that too. - You've been churning out some great content on this, Tommy. In the war between the Dakotas for who's gonna get the nod from Trump, Doug-- Burgum now, North Dakota is just his now-edging-out South Dakota because apparently a Doug is climbing up the list for Trump's shortlist because I guess he's boring, loyal, and absurd. - He's really rich and Trump needs money. - He can write a big check to himself. - Yeah, who would have thought that was coming? - See Gnome, I would not have guessed that. I would not have guessed that. - Say that dog don't hunt. I mean, that dog don't hunt. Dog don't hunt. That dog don't hunt. Okay. Okay. I do think that it's dead, 'cause she murdered it. In a ditch. She didn't kill it. Dead in a ditch.

Construction workers she said to which is the whole story is very weird. Um, the other quotes from those people are Graham Barr Etc. If that is like the kind of Mindless partisanship that people actually hate more than anything in this country. I think it's like yeah Well, you know, I'm supporting the Republican nominee. That's like the closest you get to just like state TV propaganda for sure shit like communist it was just it was It's listening to Bill Barr being like, The answer is I support him. The answer is I support the Republican nominee. And then Mitch McConnell, What kind of influence do I have? I'm only the leader of the Senate. - Who could have impeached? - The Republican leader of the Senate. - Yeah. - Wild. - And then just like Lindsey Graham would be like, I think Tiger Woods fucked somebody once. Nobody's talking about that. You're right, Lindsey, what an important point. - Also Ron DeSantis, remember Ron DeSantis? who said, You know, all these people, if you kiss the ring, then Trump likes you.

Although that it doesn't matter how awful you are as a Republican if you go kiss the ring they like you well He wouldn't kiss the rings kissing met with Donald Trump over the weekend Donald Trump just truth before we started recording He's happy to have Rhonda Santas his endorsement and everything's all good with him. So there goes Ron DeSantis. - Speaking of state TV, I mean, we talked about this a little bit last week. But all the revelations that have come out in the Hush Money trial about the way the Trump orbit worked with the National Enquirer to not just catch and kill stories, but also fabricate in place articles about his rivals is really incredible. Like Ted Cruz has five mistresses. No one would have believed that, but it works, right? It sticks with you. Propaganda like that sticks with you. You have to respond to it. And I just can't even imagine what it would be like to be running a campaign and have like a house media outlet like that. I know. I said this to Dan and he was like, he had a good retort, which is like, uh, Fox.

- I guess they have fucksoos. - Yeah, but not like that. - This is even more direct. This was like, gonna call you up, you're gonna place the story, or like, here, I'll pay you off to kill this bad story. We're glad they're not better at it because I think it is not plausible to believe that there are six people on earth that would fuck Ted Cruz. That is true. But I mean as we learned, you know, Fox does have to be worried about libel, you know, they got sick. And they lost and I mean just manufacturing stuff like this is incredible. Incredible weapon to have. We talked about Joe Biden's comedic chops today. I do want to give Donald Trump his due because on that Bill Barr interview during that Bill Barr interview Kaitlyn Collins also read to him Trump's truth where he accepted Bill Barr's quasi-endorsement. And so this was the truth. Barr has endorsed me for president despite the fact that I called him weak

Slow moving, lethargic, gutless, and lazy. Based on the fact that I greatly appreciate his wholehearted endorsement, I am removing the word lethargic from my statement. Thank you, Bill! - That's really funny. - Right? - That's really funny. - It's just funny. - That's just really funny. - Beating puppies. - And then as she reads that to Barr, and then he's just, he laughs, and he goes, Classic Trump. It... *laughs* Just zero soft respect. Talking about ex- talking about how he wants to execute people. It's the- Overturn the election, I'm in. - It really is just the way these people will give up their dignity for some. Political gain or access or maybe some ability to get some job as a lobbyist. It really is just like, you need therapy. You need to understand what the values and important things in life are. You need to get in touch with those how, but I don't think these people can be saved.

I don't think Lindsey Graham can be saved. I don't think any of these people can be saved. No, they just like being in politics too much. They like the job. They like the power, they like the title, whatever they like being on TV, I don't know. - The people that go-- into politics at a very young age and literally never leave, never get like a couple years in adulthood outside of it to look back like I think I've benefited from having that time for sure like The idea of like having gone, if you go into politics at 17, 18, you know, think about it all through college, go to get your first Like you never ever leave it. Like I think if you're not, I think plenty of people can do great that way, but there are people that like clearly need fucking space from this. - It's also, even if it's not about themselves Deep believer, you know like you can tell Mitch McConnell's like I just love right-wing judges right that's what he loves but it's like that is the danger of like that extreme ideology it's like you like your fucking judges so much that you're sitting there being like, Yeah, well, I hated the guy who tried to overturn the election and almost ended democracy, but look, we're right.

Law's here, I'm in the majority, I wanna get more stuff passed. - I also think it's just your entire existence is built around this one thing, which is your affiliation with the Republican Party. It's all your friends, it's your. Co-workers, it's your entire peer group and over time like in the moment what? *laughter* In the moment these guys all knew what Trump did was wrong because we watch them give speeches about it on the Senate floor or comment in the press at the time. They just get worn down and they give up after years and years that people will be like come on come on side It's just endorse them and they learn from Trump That there is no longer a penalty for shamelessness in the Republican Party. So they can just, you know, do whatever. They do on TV and embarrass themselves and that's that. All right, that is our show for today. We will be back with another episode on Wednesday. Love it, I believe you're hosting. - Yeah, Tim is back. - There's a former Republican who's done the right thing. - I found one, and then we made him do pods with us. - You know what? And it's fun.

On Wednesday. Bye everyone. If you want to get ad-free episodes, exclusive content, and more, consider joining our friends of the pod subscription community at crooked.com/friends. And if you're already doom scrolling, don't forget to follow us at Pod Save America on Instagram, Twitter, and YouTube for access to full episodes, bonus content, and more. Plus, if you're as opinionated as we are, consider dropping us a review. Pod Save America is a Crooked Media production. Our show is produced by Olivia Martinez and David Toledo. Our associate producers are Saul Rubin and Farah Safaree. Kira Joaquin is our senior producer. Reed Churlan is our executive producer. The show is mixed and edited by Andrew Chadwick. Jordan Kanter is our sound engineer, with audio support from Kyle Seglin and Charlotte Landis. Writing support by Hallie Kiefer. Madeline Herringer is our head of news and programming. Matt DeGroat is our Head of Production, Andy Taft is our Executive Assistant. Thanks to our digital team, Elijah Kohn, Haley Jones, Mia Kelman, David Toles, Kirill Palaviv and Molly Lobel.

Hello people of Earth. This is Paul Scheer, co-host of the Unspooled Podcast. Over the next few months, my co-host Amy Nicholson and I will be breaking down some of our favorite disasters to see if they still hold up in our disaster movie summer. Talking about Independence Day, Godzilla minus one, 28 days later and more. You're not going to want to miss these conversations. I tell you, Unspooled is where it's at this summer. You can listen to new episodes of Unspooled every Thursday wherever you get your podcasts.