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Go safe like SimpliSafe. Welcome to Pods Save America, I'm Jon Favreau. I'm Jon Levitt. I'm Tommy Vitor. Welcome back, Tommy. Slow week last week? Who's this walls guy? You know? I'm just kidding. Again, I think to myself, imagine if today was the day that Lovett came back from Survivor. It would have been so funny. There were so many months- There's a new ticket? Who's that? How long was I gone? - Like the end of-- - Does it look like Joe Biden? - Like the end of Planet of the Apes.

It was Earth all along. And the funniest thing we could have done is been like, What are you talking about, man? It was always Harris. She's always been leading, no? On today's show, Donald Trump's meltdown continues. As his campaign scrambles to blunt Kamala Harris' rise in the polls, the Vice President starts to lay out her own policy agenda and a trove of leads. To project 2025 training videos paying an even scarier and yes weirder picture than you might imagine. No safe word in those videos. No safe word. But first the Trump train is off the tracks guys. It is off the tracks. Last week we had a Washington Post story about Been upset and complaining about his campaign. Now Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan have kicked things up a notch with an absolutely delightful piece in the New York Times headlined Inside the Worst Three Weeks of Donald Trump's 2024 Campaign, People Close to Trump's

Trump say that he's in a terrible mood and has taken to calling Harris a bitch and telling donors that Democrats aren't calling him weird. He's not wrong. I'm not weird. He's the one who's weird per usual. Trump's latest breakdown has also been quite public He spent the week calling the polls fake and accusing the Harris campaign of using AI to generate photos of their massive crowds. And then he really unburdened himself during his only campaign event of the week in Montana. Let's listen. Imagine if we didn't have a debate. Why the hell did I debate him? -Cambola is grossly incompetent, and in my opinion, ...has a very low IQ, but we'll find out about her IQ during the debate, okay? Let's find out about her IQ. I think suburban women like me a lot. You know, it's fake stuff. Why wouldn't they? Why wouldn't they?

This woman, Maggot Hagerman, did you ever hear of it? Maggot Hagerman. She's a reporter. If Comrade Waltz and Comrade Harris win this -- This November, the people cheering will be the pink-haired Marxists, the looters, the perverts, the flag burners, Hamas supporters, drug dealers, gun grabbers. Human traffickers. No, we're not. We're very solid people. We're not weird. We're very solid. I wanted to cut it that way, too, because I like that in between calling Kamala Harris low IQ and referring to Maggie Haber-- as maggot hagerman he said I don't know why suburban women don't like me and they love me That was an hour and 40 minute speech, I believe, in Montana. Hour 40, yeah. What do you guys think? Same Trump as ever? Or does he seem a little more off his game than usual? Well, this is-- it's sort of-- yes.

You know, this is Trump. This is Trump when things aren't going well. He is angry, he is frustrated. He obviously has no one to blame. Undisciplined all over the place. But himself. So it is just I mean what you guys never gone through a bad breakup. You know what I mean? He didn't want it to go this way you want to stick it out get some couples therapy But Joe would you know he had other plans it is very funny that he just keeps talking about Joe Biden, not even to attack Joe Biden, but to be so sad that Joe Biden has left the race. I think before we came in here. He's like Joe Biden admitted that was the campaign from the Democrats that forced him out of the race. It's like, well yeah. Yeah.

That was the whole thing? You read the paper? What are you talking about? Yeah, it's like- He admitted it all started with the debate? Well, yeah, obviously. Did he watch the debate? Because we did. Were you there? It's like he fell down pole vaulting. And he's like, Oh, it was the wind, it was this. Oh, he caught his dick on the- No, we can talk about that. Yeah, we can talk about that. Sure. But, uh, it is like also like- Is everyone- needed but uh like oh this is of course what trump would say in his hour and 40 Minute speech in Montana, which is not a state in which he has any threat clearly an event they planned we ago when he was beating Joe Biden and thought to themselves like, we'll help the Senate candidate there beat Tester because he won. You know, he wanted to make sure he had a Republican Senate. Love it, you made this point before I went on vacation. Tim Sheen, sorry, I forgot.

I was like, well, clearly this was like pre shakeup scheduling. Obviously they're going to adjust and start going to smarter places like no, you have to fly over virtually every swing state that he has to win to get to Montana. It's not like he's still in the white house where it actually is tricky to reschedule stuff because you have a rally. Yeah, it's just a he's just a private citizen with He's not campaigning. He's not campaigning. Well, not his plan. Not his plan. That's right. Apparently it's Jeffrey Epstein's plan. Which is, I mean, if we were Republicans, this is all we would talk about from now until election day. He's on Jeff Epstein's plan? Come on. - Right? - Huh? That's true, yeah, he's like, Oh! Yeah. No, you gotta jiggle the handle when you flush. - Okay. - 'Cause he's been on it. - Right, right. Right. But he's also, he's out there, he's talking about Joe Biden. He was like attacking Joe Rogan last week because he thought Joe Rogan endorsed our.

What? So by the way, a story that that only exists probably because he called her. He calls her. Yeah, he called her. I texted Maggie to say, Is Maggot Haberman new? And she said, No, unless you think February of 2022 is new. So I guess we've missed this. - Maggot would know. - She would know. She's the best source on this subject, actually. - She would know that. Called her very angry and Jonathan Swan because he's been telling the story about how he was in a helicopter crash with Willie Brown. Now you know was it just another black elected official from California not even San Francisco. Yep. That's right That's right. Just fully and very mad at them for correcting that so and great Part of the story was he claimed that Willie Brown was saying bad things on this helicopter while it almost crashed about Kamala Harris. What are the odds? Turn down zero. Do I have a story for you that I haven't been telling? What'd you guys make of the time story from for Maggie and Jonathan anything any other nuggets in there? You want to talk about I do appreciate just he is so

angry and so self-destructive that he had an aid Send angry texts to Miriam Adelson, criticizing what that super pack is doing on his behalf. saying it's run by rhinos saying it's run by rhinos and it's like you know it's like look a gift horse in the mouth that's just it's just somebody doing that for you as a favor my friend right Sheldon Adelson's widow who i think the story said the pack was spending 18 million dollars that week on ads on in support of Donald Trump and he sent an angry text also the whole story is basically this dinner with donors yes and so it's clearly a source of bill Ackman was there. Or pal Bill Ackman. For those who don't know Bill Ackman, he's an insufferable, arrogant hedge fund prick

course Donald Trump the day of the assassination attempt because what people needed to hear that day was whether Bill Ackerman endorsed because it was that he's that self-important and this guy he's one of these rich guys who's like just wants a tax cut just wants deregulation just convinced himself that Donald Trump has changed and he can make this about policy and they sit down at this asshole rich guy. And Trump just starts ranting about stop this deal. - Yeah, and someone was like, what are you gonna do to turn the narrative around and lay out your positive vision? And I guess then he just attacked Kamala Harris for a couple minutes and at the end said, I am who I am. He also told the donors that the Democrats have tried to kill him, so he's doing the whole J.D. Vance line that the assassination attempt was somehow Even though there's been no evidence at all. Was there an assassination attempt? There was an assassination attempt, yeah. And he wants everyone to be clear that it has not made him nicer. Yeah, he just made like he wants people to understand that also private poll in Ohio that has

- Under 50% in Ohio, that's real by the way. I've heard it was Bernie Moreno's campaign. - Oh, interesting. - Running against Jared Brown. Yeah. - Oh, I like that a lot. Now, okay, I mean who knows? This is getting too good Also, just like he's under 50 it doesn't say commerce is winning In Ohio. He's not over 50. Yeah. No, if anything, it just feels good for Sharon. It's pretty obvious that Trump hasn't settled on a message about Harris. The campaign seems to be lurching between three different and potentially contradictory attacks. Radical San Francisco liberal, four more years of Biden's failed policies, and a flip flopping fake who can't be trusted. Time story made it sound like they're going with flip flopper. And Trump accused Harris of that in a Truth Social post this morning.

Where he promised that with him, there will be quote, No flipping. No flipping with me. But then hours later, he made his triumphant return to Twitter to post a video titled, Meet San Francisco Radical Kamala Harris. Why do you guys think they can't seem to land on a message here? And which one worries you the most? I do think like two of the three just don't land that hard with Kamala Harris. That like, it's just, I get wanting to like trying to paint her as a radical when she's out there calling herself a prosecutor every day and standing next to Tim Walz, which is just like normal personified, I think doesn't land as well. Also like this idea of painting her as like a candidate of like the administration in the past I think is just Not landing as well because she feels so exciting and new in part because her campaign is only three weeks old So I think that's why you kind of end up landing almost by process of elimination on fake flip-flop

I think the radical liberal and flip-flopper chameleon are mutually exclusive in this context. I think I'll combine them. I think you can combine them because I think what they're trying to say is she's fake and phony in trying to present herself now as more moderate in main street. And the truth about her is that she's a crazy liberal lunatic. So apparently the one of the super PACs just announced they're going to spend 100 million. Dollars in the swing states, $100 million ad buy based on the theme, people will elect a liberal but not a lunatic. Now again, this gets back to your point, which is like, Painting her as a lunatic when everyone is seeing her every day now on the campaign trail and she's just sounding like joyful and reasonable and And moderate sounding like a mainstream, just like a mainstream Democrat. Like it's just, it's a hard one to do, but I understand it is.

Process of elimination. - He's gonna try to say, Look at all the lefty stuff she did in California, look at these 2020 primary positions. Now she's trying to walk away from them. And then you make it a character and a policy attack, which I actually think like the best attacks are a combination like that. I think most voters actually don't really care if you flip flop on positions. If you end up in the right place, you're better off than flip-flopping. Just about to say that. Because the challenge for John Kerry in 2004 was, he was flipping, flopping, and then flipping back to the old positions, like, within the same camp. Campaign, right? On the Iraq war, which was the most salient issue of the entire election. Exactly. If all she has done is that like, yeah, there were some positions I took in the 2019 2020 primaries. And then by the way, I just had four years of working with Joe Biden closely in the White House where we got a lot of bipartisan.

Accomplishments done. We got a lot of sort of mainstream accomplishments done. Here's what we did. I think that that's her best defense on that. And her tenure as vice president makes it difficult to paint her as this radical liberal. I just think back to the 2020 primary and why we're seeing such a better version of Kamala Harris now. And like you look at those moments that the Republicans are elevating. And yes, she's taking left positions that she's now disavowed, but you can also see that she's uncomfortable doing it and doesn't seem like many of them were many Were but so like, you know looking around before they raise their hand looking around for the razor hand Or like should should people be able to vote while they're in prison? Well, it's a conversation Crossing the border traffic ticket. Yes good. Yeah, but they should they should the - Austin Marathon bombers be able to vote in prison, when was the moment? You could see it was just like, I've never been asked this, I don't.

And not thinking what do I think, but more like where am I trying to situate myself right now? And so I do think she just seems more comfortable being this version of herself, which is why I just don't think these attacks land. The other challenge with doing the, Oh, she's just a continuation of Biden's failed policies on, and I think they will zero in on, immigration. And inflation is their criticism of Biden and his policies wasn't never based in ideology. It wasn't like Biden's a crazy liberal and that's why in Is bad or the border is a mess. It's that Biden's weak and old. So because that was their criticism, it's hard now to say, well, we have immigration issues and cost of living issues because they were too liberal. Right. Like it's just a hard thing to do. They've, they really did plan their whole campaign around Biden being old and thus weak. There was a.

Text though that was like Biden is so old and out of it that actually Kamala is in charge in the radical left green new deal ghost of whatever. Like AOC is running the show that but that was a bit of a subtext thing that they never really pushed hard Yeah, it's funny that like even John Kerry right there like there was that you know He had this moment where he said I actually voted for the 87 billion dollars before I voted against it and like tough line Tough line, but the attack on him as a flip-flop really did work with the Kind of senatorial version of him that we got and it kind of fit with like an impression of him that. He had created and that Republicans were spending a lot of money to create over a long period of time. Like, they just don't have time right now to like create the-- To define Kamala Harris as fake or phony so that future moments can be fit into that frame. The other senatorial thing about it was John Kerry spent most of that campaign trying to say, No, no, no, I've been consistent, which is what happens when you're a senator with a longer head.

I can do this. I've seen other people who've been in the Senate a long time instead of what you should say when it happens at the debate or an interview is just like, ah, changed my mind. You know, I've had, I've had, I've had. Over the last four years that about governing the entire country and not just California. Because it got to him. And I just this version, like there's a kind of toughness to the way Kamal has been campaigning that I just she's not gonna let them get to her. What do you guys make of Trump's return to Twitter? - I mean, it's gotta be some sort of quid pro quo with the Elon Musk interview, right? Obviously, I think. You know, I'm sure there are some Trump aides who have been very glad over the last couple years that Trump isn't tweeting out to 88 million people his every thought said there's others who are probably thinking we got 88 million people following this guy and we're not using this tool in the middle of the campaign, right? I mean... To me, the most interesting part of this is what it means for true social in the Trump media and technology group

That is trading on the NASDAQ. It's a publicly traded stock. The last May they announced a quarterly revenue of 773. Thousand dollars in losses of three hundred and twenty eight million dollars. So this is a company that has no actual value. It's not trading on fundamentals. It's a way to bribe him. He owns 60 percent of the company. And I assumed that like, he was staying on Truth Social as like a fig leaf to pretend that there was a Of veneer of value to the DJT stock but I guess sounds like the report their Trump campaign is telling reporters that he's on Twitter for good now well here's my right right now Trump is not on Twitter the Trump campaign is on Twitter. - Yeah, it ain't in yet. Truth social's still getting the good stuff. - Right, it's getting the pure, uncut Trump crazy. - Your La Savita or these people-- - Twitter stepped on. - The ideal version of this is you keep Trump in his little sandbox, ranting and raving on truth social, and that they can use the Trump account on Twitter.

The post on message stuff. I don't know. - He's gonna send one, he's gonna get those mentions. - Well, that's the question. It's literally just like, how does he get access to Twitter? Because he can't post, he writes them down or. -tates them to whoever's in earshot. -To Scavino, yeah. To whoever's been texting, uh, Muriel Maitland. -Yeah. Right. - Right. Send this one. Oh no, no, no. I meant that as a post. Pod Save America is brought to you by Bombas. Sweater weather

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Let's hear how we did. Kind of a man marries somebody named Usha. Clearly he doesn't value his racial identity, his heritage. I mean, this is racist garbage. - Yes, it is. - But this is also a guy that dined with Donald Trump at Mar-a-Lago during this campaign. - Well, and that Donald Trump doesn't know anything about and frankly doesn't care for. - Trump still hasn't given a full-throated denouncement of this guy who is. Said that terrible stuff, but he said I mean he's a white supremacist. Look, President Trump has issued plenty of condemnations on this. The one thing that I like about Donald Trump, John, is that he actually will talk to anybody, but just because he... Talk to somebody doesn't mean you endorse their views. And look, I mean, Donald Trump spent a lot of quality time with my wife.

When he sees her, he gives her a hug, tells her she's beautiful, and jokes around with her a little bit. I'm not at all worried about Donald Trump. Yeah, you should be, pal. That's weird. Like... Quality time. Guess what he was trying to say there is, I don't think Donald Trump endorses Nick Fuentes' horribly racist. Disgusting views of my wife because Donald Trump is nice to my wife And he only had dinner with Nick Fuentes because he didn't know who he was or he Didn't know who he was, but doesn't agree with, he still talks to people he doesn't agree with. Great stuff. Great explanations. Really nailed it. I saw some people say that they thought that Vance did better in these interviews than He's better than a bunch of couch sex means. Right, I mean yeah, better than the worst roll out of a VP candidate in our lifetimes. I...

That was a good roll out. Sarah Cohen was crushing it. That was actually a great roll out. It got worse later. Then Katie Couric got involved. Yeah, Katie Couric got here. The gotcha question of read anything lately? Literally. I'm the only one that can read. Save the country. Save the country. Read anything lately? Fucking change the trajectory of history. But I watched the whole Margaret Brennan-- Face The Nation one and I actually thought it was like a good interview and it was a good interview for Vance Given how bad he's been I was trying to watch it Like what if I hadn't been seeing three to four weeks of just God Forsaken coverage that made this guy seem terrible and you see some of the strengths you would have brought to the ticket like it would - Absolutely, but like he talks about like sort of populist economic issues on child tax credit, on antitrust, on a few other. I'll see things. You also see why like he is this sort of intellectual kind

Of MAGA and how that might have been something that could have been useful to them or that they thought was an advantage. But then you just, he's so off putting even when he's at his best and you think what were the strengths that JD Vance brought to this ticket and if would they have, and you just don't think they would have chosen him if they thought they had to play it safe because he doesn't balance Trump out in terms of his personality. JD Vance is just as much of an asshole but less charisma and he doesn't balance him out on policy. At least Mike Pence had like kind of like this stayed reserved institution. To be a part of. The tack dog when Donald Trump is at the top of the ticket, you need someone that makes him seem safe, makes him seem normal, makes him seem someone you can vote for while sleeping at night. And Vance's doesn't do that even when he's at his best.

In that CBS interview, he had some good moments. Their union messaging is that Harris is pro-trade and pro-green energy policies that will hurt autoworkers, for example. And that kind of approach to-- To peel off union voters I think can be effective in some contexts. He also got pressed on why he wants to end mail order sales of Miffy Pristone because of the Comstock Act. Like really radical stuff. So like he's a mixed bag because he's got some extreme policies that Smart reporters will push him on and then they'll also ask him about, you know, Donald Trump dining with Nazis and also Hedging on whether members of the military in Afghanistan who helped US troops should be allowed into the country because Trump wants to end all asylum. So he's got a tough situation because he has to defend Trump's terrible policies. He said a bunch of weird shit and then he's just not very charismatic. Every time Trump is asked. About picking him Trump says oh he's good for the working man he's good for the working men and women right here the workers like him

I would make an argument, I'm sure that some of Trump's advisers did, who wanted him to be selected, that he has more of the intellectual heft than Donald Trump to sort of dress up the bullshit economic populism that they're peddling. The challenge is, even on that child tax credit answer, it's like, yeah, would it be effective if there was a Republican nominee who was saying, You know what? I do think that we should help people with children. I think that we shouldn't have children in poverty and we should use our tax system to do it. Like, yeah, that would be effective, right? But J.D. Vance and Republicans have been the ones blocking the extension of the child tax credit for the last several years now. You see this on on abortion rights too, right? For the longest time, the right was, oh, we're gonna, you know, if we are gonna do all this to overturn Roe v. Wade, we have to make life easier and

Moms and families. And of course, that part of the agenda never came. He says, oh, I'm against universal childcare, because that only benefits a certain kind of family. But I'm for rewarding all parents. But then push comes to shove, they don't ever actually get it through. They're still part of a party that just doesn't do any of the things that they're pretending they care about on their new economic populism agenda. I want to hear a little fun breaking news that just came through our slack. Apparently, you know, we've all been reading about how the Iranian hackers might've infiltrated the Trump campaign, gotten into somebody's email, et cetera. It turns out it was Roger Stone's email account. No way. So there's gonna be, according to the Washington Post, so there could be some interesting stuff in that. - So they blamed the Iranians, but. Now they think that maybe it was just Roger Stone. - No, no, no, sorry. Roger Stone's email account was the one compromised by the Iranian phishing attack. - Oh, oh. - So you think there's probably gonna be some interesting stuff in there.

The fishing attack that day we saw you across the room and we really liked your vibe. Developing story. - Well, thank you. - So. The Republicans are also getting in on the fun of attacking the new nominee. James Comer, head of the House Oversight Committee, who's spent the last two years trying to investigate and impeach Joe Biden over nothing, told Fox News that his committee will now turn their attention to Kamala Harris and investigate how much money the migrant crisis has cost the government. Think you'll be able to make that a thing? Ah, first of all, I just, it... There have been so many wonderful aspects of, uh... How the dynamic has changed over the last three weeks. But one I just hadn't really thought that much about is the fact that House Republicans have spent the last two years trying to drum up controversies and scandals and impeachment inquiries in order to tar and tarnish Joe. Biden and it was a waste of their fucking time. They did it for nothing. They got to nothing. Biden crime family.

They're gonna sail up in the sunset, hopefully with a couple pardons, which I support. I do. Throw some on. There you guys have been through enough. Take one for the team. Joe, 50 by 50 years of service. Hey, take one for yourself. Yeah, throw a couple part- by the way, put us on the list. You're probably mad at us. Bad time for that. We'll ask about the pardon later. He's not gonna play, he's gonna fucking arrest us. - Lose, lose for us no matter who wins. - Yeah. - Oh boy. - I just think it's also, we've all skipped over just the head spinning aspect of like, we're a congressional oversight committee, and oh, by the way, what we were doing with President Biden. Just to take him down politically. Now we must take down the new nominee politically. So we're going to drop up a fake investigation or just like announcing it. - Yeah. - Just announcing it. - I think the, the truth.

Revealed to me about this committee during the 5,000 Benghazi investigations. They have no time to do anything. Deluxe-peening documents and going to court to try to get them. Also, it's like, look, it's not a corruption... Scandal involving a Ukrainian energy company, it's the border. It's on television. - Yeah, no, people know it's a problem, guys. They're aware. - Let's talk about Kamala Harris and Tim Walz, who are getting such good crowds, polls, fundraising, and media coverage, it's making me nervous. - Don't make me nervous. - No, I know, I know, I know. - Our crosstab king, Nate Cohn, came down from the mountain this weekend to bless us with a new round of New York Times Santa polls that show Harris up 50-46 in each of the three blue wall states of Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania. - Don't believe it for a second. - Where Biden had been tied before the debate and...

Very behind afterwards, a new poll from North Carolina shows the race there may be tied, and the average is closing at the very least, and a huge week of swing state events wrapped up with a rally in Vegas in front of more than 12,000 people. The vice president announced at the event that she would stop taxing income from tips, which is also a relatively new Trump proposal. She'll also reportedly unveil a slew of economic proposals this week before the convention, and Harris has been staking out a position on immigration that's focused on securing the border and offering undocumented immigrants a path to citizenship. She's been saying she'll sign the bipartisan border control bill that Trump had killed. There has been an increasing amount of hand-wringing in the press and from Republicans about Harris not having talked enough about policy yet.

Where do you guys come down on that? I mean like I was talking to someone today Who said in every focus group he's done you hear people saying like I don't know if she understands and people like me, I don't know what she's gonna do for people like me. So whether or not the press is saying, you know, she needs to roll out a bunch of policy, I do think voters wanna hear it 'cause there's this like large information gap. Normally you'd fill that with endless. Boring speeches that no one ever listens to. They have this nice opportunity to kind of fill the space in what, 100 days with shorter, pithier plans and policies. - Make it a topper. - Yeah. So keep it tight. Yeah, keep it tight. Keep it tight. Just for people who are not, you get your stump speech, you give the same stump speech at every single event and all you need to do is insert a couple of a white paper, and then they put it in a press release, you do a conference call in the campaign, you're done.

You're done. You're done. You're done. You're not writing a 4,000 word speech that no one's gonna fucking care about? No, please don't. If you're listening, please don't. But uh, uh, Blueprint, this polling firm, they did a- some testing. They found 71% of voters said their minds are made up about Trump and nothing could change them. 57% said that about Harris, but 20% said their minds could be changed or that they need more information. So I think she's got an opportunity here. But like the least effective criticism is that she needs to do more interviews. Trump's pushing this really hard. Oh, she hasn't talked to a single reporter, blah, blah, blah. The press corps is getting whipped up. And like on some level, yeah, of course she should do interviews, but not. A single voter gives a shit. It's pushing on an open door because the reporters are gonna get it. They know they'll have the media on their side. It's also gonna keep building. want to do is actually what you know you end up having so much pressure on those those first So they draw unnecessary attention. And then the questions also have to become more ferocious 'cause it's like a big, it's a big--

Which is why she's been walking up to the press pool after events when she gets off the plane to like take a few questions And then on last week late last week. We were talking about this on last episode She said she would have her team schedule a sit down by the end of the month. She's The convention coming up, you know, you focus on that. She's on the walls, baby. Right. Can we just go back, though, to this idea that, like, oh, she hasn't been talking about policy. Three weeks old. - I think that's what I was gonna say. - So there's two parts to this. First of all, the campaign is three weeks old. I agree there's a lot of people, like undecided voters, be like, I need to hear more, I need to hear more. There's people that always say they need to hear more and they don't go looking, but fine. Out there they're Americans and we love every one of them but but but what those people really want is like fucking Santa Claus to come to their yeah for sure bag of presents for sure so but but like the idea that there's like people that aren't undecided voters who feel like they're not aware of the kind of administration Kamala Harris would run as if a there wasn't a

second term Biden agenda already being laid out and be a Democratic platform that hasn't already been announced. Like, there's a whole bunch of policies. And she was part of that campaign. Of course. That's the benefit, one of the many benefits of having, like, Kamala Harris and not just a random Democratic nominee who's a governor of a state, who really would, even though it was just three weeks. Like, well, what do you stand for? What do you do? We know what your record was as governor, but like, what are you going to do as president? She signed on to all the Biden policy plans. Like she can separate herself from some of them if she doesn't like them. But like, hopefully several of them. I'd love to see some separation. But I do think it's like, that's why it's like this idea that.

There's some liability because she hasn't been talking about policy I think is ridiculous. It's actually all opportunity. Yes, it's upside. It's all upside to find places of difference to go further where she wants to go further, make news on something where she wants to talk about economic populist policies. And on a lot of policies-- abortion, democracy, climate-- She's out there on that. She's out there. In Venn diagrams. She can make a bunch. In Venn diagrams. In those New York Times polls, the reason that she's leading Trump, her favorability rating is much higher than Biden's was, now higher than Trump's. And Trump's in those polls still at that 46% favorable, which is very high for Trump. But she's even higher. A majority say that she's honest and intelligent, more than say that about Donald Trump on both those,

Kind of change, which is huge, it's closer on that, 50 and 47, has the temperament to be president and that she has a clear vision for the country. Again, that one's sort of lower than the others, which is why I think the policy thing, you know, they'll be focusing on that in the coming weeks. And a majority doesn't think she's too far to the left either so far. Only 44% of likely voters say she's too liberal or progressive compared with 44% who say she's not too far either way. And only 6% who say she isn't progressive enough. You don't want to-- some Democrat said this to Playbook today. I don't know if it was a Harris advisor or some Democratic advisor said, like-- We certainly don't need to be having a fight about details on Medicare for all for the next 100 days I saw it I clocked it and I believe it was a senior congressional aide and the reason I looked it was like hey Wait, stop stop Put that out there. Yeah, dude, shut the fuck up. Throw some salt over your shoulder. Spin around three times and go for a get out of here. She also did better on the economy than Biden was too.

And she's winning on existing in the context of all in which he lived. That yeah, huge advantage there. No, the economy thing is interesting because people still, people have the same views about the economy. They just trust her more than they did Biden because they don't hold her responsible for the bullshit they held. Biden responsible for the last four years, which wasn't really Biden's fault. Well, in the budget it might have been his age. Well, that's what I'm saying. That's where it all comes back to. But it's not that people aren't still upset about affordability and the cost of living. It's just that they are giving her a benefit of doubt that they did not give him. What do you guys make of her copying Trump's no tax on tips proposal? On it is like great do that take that off the table like it's a campaign to win it just fucking win it great and you cannot like that like absolutely embrace it like there's a lot of I think like very like let's be clear not a great we didn't We didn't think it was a great policy when Trump did it. No, I still had a great policy. Yeah, like not a bad policy. Just not a like I think that it is like it is a.

To get more money into the hands of people that could use more money. It has a lot of unintended side effects and it's not a great way to help people that need help. There's other things you could do and other policies you could put in place, higher minimum wage and so forth that would like... More for more in a more fair way. Against the minimum wage, minimum wage increase, and you're proposing a gigantic tax cut for the rich and no tax cut or like a very small tax cut for most other people, yeah, then in totality, your economic proposals are fucking. Well one thing it does right is that like so you have if you have a state like California That's a higher minimum wage in a state like South Carolina with a lower minimum wage And and and more of the income then comes from tips in those places You're basically rewarding states and rewarding employers that pay less. Yeah I mean, I want to just be clear that I come down on

Doing whatever gives her the maximum political advantage in this moment and I don't care about anything else. But on the substance, I do think it comes down to how you implement the idea. Is that employers could push labor costs onto consumers by reducing wages and then encouraging tipping. Ted Cruz policy mind of a generation introduced a bill called the no tax on tips act that did almost nothing for Low income workers, but created a massive loophole that could have allowed, or that could allow hedge fund managers to shift their compensation to a tipping model and thus avoid paying any taxes on it. So like that is the worst case, but I obviously. Wouldn't do that. I mean... No, in fact, one of her campaign officials told NPR, as president, she'd work with Congress to craft a proposal that comes with an income limit and with strict requirements to prevent hedge fund managers and lawyers from structuring their compensation in that way. So they're already saying that her proposal...

Is always different than Trump's. Yeah. And also, at the end of the day, I imagine she tried to couple it with bringing back the child tax credit or expanding the EITC, like a lot of other more targeted policies. I just-- Just winners. Again, I'm for it completely. Do whatever you want. I know it's like a fine po-- I don't care. Do whatever you want. It's fine policy. I don't-- I just think that like-- As a society that like shifts more and more income into tips is one in which like it puts the cost on to customers over employers and it shifts the burden. From the ungenerous to the generous because over the course of a day what's gonna determine the size of your chips is how generous the people who walked in the door are. Someone's pissed about that iPad spinning around when he's buying his diet coke. And it's like, alright, well... You didn't bring anything to my table, I'll stand in here. The fuck? No, I always press the fucking button. I always press the fucking button.

It's on everything now. See you hovering over that 18%. What are you guys hoping to see from her in terms of other economic proposals this week? Pat flipping around. The most politically advantageous things possible. Tax cuts for working families, affordability, I think it's just affordability, affordability, anything that's going to reduce costs for people, that's going to help people. And I think she's going to do that. She's already signaling that. Affordability, middle class economics, and just like a couple. Specific policies either that Biden has already endorsed and people don't, you know, really know of, or maybe a few new things just to make news. But that's, she has two policy issues that she needs to care about. Immigration, which we're about to talk about, and affordability. Like, and with this much time left, I wouldn't think about anything else. She'll talk about abortion, right? But most of that's out there, right? That's something that you talk about. It's not like there's going to be a lot of new policy there because everyone knows.

What the solution is but beyond that it's affordability and immigration That's what that's what voters consistently say that they care about more than anything else The the the White House announced that they're putting out a bunch of kind of consumer protections and I really like that There's a bunch of like air travel consumer protections customer service consumer protections not being canceled on wanted subscriptions - Yeah, you know, coming onto our territory, but also let the private sector do its thing. - Rocket money, the code. - Yeah, but stay in the Discord. But also there was one about the doom loop of customer service and being unable to get a real person. I just think those are like quietly just things that make people seethe and I like when-- - Biden folks has done an amazing job on Johnson & Johnson.

Peace and like, I don't know if people know about it. That's one where you were getting refunds automatically as opposed to getting airline credits or some convoluted other thing like that's a Biden policy that people should know that Biden did. If I see an advisory for a major foreign policy speech, oh my God, I'm going to Shut down the Council on Foreign Relations. Will you? You can do that? We're gonna take away Ben Rhodes' subscription. I was gonna say, you better talk to your co-host. Is he a member of the Council? No. I assume. I was a term member for like six minutes. Whoa! I know, all it meant was I paid fees that I didn't go to anything. Richard Haas over here. Look at this fucking guy. ...fucking guy. Couldn't think of a second foreign policy guy. There's a guy. - Rich and Oprah go over here. - Evo-Dotler-Dollar? - There's a big new over there. - Rest in peace. - Zeebae, God thank you. - I don't know. Uh, sorry. How do you guys feel about her sounding pretty tough on border security?

Oh my god. We talked about that. I think that's what she should do. I think like going out there and saying I was a border state prosecutor, I'm for the executive order to strengthen border security, I am for the bipartisan border bill. We build a secure border on our way to a more generous immigration system. I'm all for it. That's what she should be saying. On this too and also talking about how you know I'm the daughter of immigrants. I think immigration is important but I think people should be rewarded who try to do it the right way like my parents did and we need to see That rewards that. Also, I went after these gangs, I'll go after smugglers, I'll go after human traffickers, you know, that kind of message. Here's her, one of her first ads focused on border security and here's how it ends. As president she will hire thousands more border agents and crack down on fentanyl and human trafficking. Fixing the border is tough, so is Kamala Harris. Great, love it. I've seen some commentators be like, wow, she's combining now being tough on border security with providing

a pathway to citizenship for undocumented immigrants. Like, what a revelation. Does no one remember the Obama era? That is what we owe. How many speeches do we write? I just like, like, we, the Democrats paid politically. And I think the policy paid for For believing that the way you demonstrate that you are pro immigration is by taking a less strong stand on border security. And actually it had the exact opposite effect you would want. You need to do these things to demonstrate that you're serious about the border so that you have the credibility and space to do the most generous immigration reform that you could possibly do, which is what I think our collective goal should be. Like the goal is not to use the border as a gauge for how generous. Our country is our goal should be to do what we can to secure the border So we have the space to have an actual policy that makes sense Pod save America is brought to you by rocket money. Most Americans think they spend about $62 per month

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Stop wasting money on things you don't use. Cancel your unwanted subscriptions by going to rocketmoney.com/crooked. That's rocketmoney.com/crooked. rocketmoney.com/crooked. Okay. Before we leave you, the Magosphere wants all of us to believe that Project 2025 isn't a thing anymore. The top guy stepped down, which the Trump campaign welcomed, mockingly. Trump himself has been trying to disavow the whole project, which hasn't gone that well since there's pictures of him on a private plane that the Washington Post dug up with the top guy. Heritage Foundation's founder, I believe. - Yep, and they were on their way to a Heritage Foundation conference where Trump talked about how great what they're doing is and said that they are quote, Laying the groundwork and detailed plans for exactly what our movement will.

Nice. Kevin Roberts is the head of the urge. Project 2025 is also the gift that keeps on giving for reporters. The latest is a series of training videos obtained by ProPublica and documented. We have two clips. Let's listen to the first. Now, when I think of climate change, I immediately think of population... Troll, don't you? I think you can expect that equity and all of the equity executive orders under Biden will be repealed. That's what gender affirming care is. Not care at all. The noxious tenants. Of critical race theory and gender ideology should be excised from curriculum in every single public school in this country. I always think of population control and I think of climate change. My god. It's uh, it's bad in here.

Stuff it's baddie stuff and it is just sort of interesting just to see like the these are training videos there's i believe 14 hours of them yeah that pro publica has also put up and i was like i want to kind of get into it it's like not that much into it but these are just sort of it is Ideologue to ideologue. It's videos that were made as if nobody was watching. It's just for them and like they're strange kind of practical pragmatic steps that they will take to Undo every executive order on diversity, equity, inclusion, to issue rules to restrict what schools can teach or what happens when a child comes forward and says, hey, I don't feel like a boy. Or whatever they come and tell a teacher and what horrors await if the Trump administration is in power and then just their kind of

Belief that climate change is a hoax to control the population perpetrated by liberals, by the childless cat ladies, and it links to the JD Vance thing, right? JD Vance is the public face of this kind of ideology. I hadn't heard that one before, that this conspiracy that liberals say that if you have kids, having kids is bad for the climate. Like having kids makes the climate... Makes like... Well, there's definitely... There are... Like, I mean, it's a, you know, it's a random... It is true. Randos on the internet have said, I'm not having kids because of climate change. There's that. I've heard that before. But this was basically saying that kids contribute to climate change, to pollution. I think there are, right, that it's unethical to have kids because your kids will contribute to climate change. This is a real thing that's like upheld by like the libs. No, of course not. I'm just saying I hadn't, I hadn't heard that one before. There are very dumb people on the extremes of both sides. I think of this issue. I, I, I did towards saying like the, the.

I mean, this is a 900 page plan. It's got a $22 million budget. So it's a very real thing, even if they're trying to walk away from it. It's policy, it's a 180 playbook, it's personnel. And I guess the training component was these creepy videos. It's very radical stuff, you know, taking control, Trump taking control of all federal agencies and putting in MAGA loyalists, mass deportations, banning Medicaid abortion. 800 pages more of stuff. That said, so very well-funded, very serious, very threatening set of ideas in this whole package. These videos are some of the most unappealing and underwhelming people I've ever had the misfortune of watching. It's the deputy chief of staff at U.S. USAID talking to the deputy press secretary at DASA about like how to avoid

The mainstream media, I don't know, it was pretty bad. Not helping them beat the weird allegations, that's for sure. No. We have another clip where they talk more about implementation. Let's listen. If the next Republican president does not execute a dramatic course correction, there may never be another chance. So if you're not on board with helping implement a dramatic course correction because you're afraid it'll damage your future employment prospects, it'll harm you socially, look, I get it, that's a real danger, it's a real thing, but please, do us all a favor, Favor and sit this one out. Do not let career bureaucrats hinder you from advancing the president. Agenda. Probably better off going down to the canteen, getting a cup of coffee, talking it through, and making the decision as opposed to sending him an email and creating a thread that Accountable.U.S.C. does.

Wes or one of those other groups is going to come back and see. I'm sorry, did he say the canteen? Yeah, the canteen. The canteen. I'm like, I've done this to be like some of the most chilling stuff because it is, they're not going to be able to, you know, if they win and they are going to be rapidly staffing, you know, hundreds of agencies with tens of thousands of people. This is basically trying to weed out the. The Sims get the real diehards in there and to kind of reassure them that when they get into this bureaucracy and they make a bunch of trouble that the Trump administration will have their back, including telling them, hey, if you want to do something That some government weasel is telling you is illegal. Don't write back that they should do it anyway. Walk down the hall. And you know, put your finger in their chest down at the canteen to get that done. And like even the opening, the first that first moment of someone saying, if you're not in favor, like it kind of uses a kind of euphemism for the amount

Of chaos they want to unleash. Say if you're afraid this is going to affect your social standing and your job prospects, that's a reasonable fear maybe this job isn't for you. This is like. Fascistic stuff basically saying like you got to be part of the vanguard to get in there and fuck with the government and It may cost you dearly but it's the right thing to do and if you're not in We don't want you on the team like that's scary stuff the biggest challenge for Democrats with project

25 is voters in a lot of these focus groups, like don't, it sounds so crazy, they don't necessarily believe it. And then they don't necessarily believe that it will actually happen, right? Because they see Trump as like, you know, Trump's crazy in a lot of ways, but they don't think this, a lot of this vibes with him, a lot of these ideas. And so the real challenge I think over the next however many and I think this is a challenge for the Harris Wall's campaign as well, is to make it clear that if Trump wins and JD Vance is in the White House too, like this shit will happen.

Plug and play, you know, plan for the administration for the first 180 days. If Trump wins, there's no other thing that can happen. There is no trend. There's no great transition plan. There's no policies are pulling up the shelves. They don't have a platform. This is it. And this is the Republican. Apparently 29 of the 36 speakers in those videos have worked for Trump in some capacity, either on his transition team in the first term in the administration or now on his reelection. These are his staffers, his donors, these organizations are heritage has been important in Washington since the Reagan. Administration yeah, but it took it took a very Trumpy turn very scary turn over It's also like they're they're gonna they're they're gonna staff the administration with you know thousands of people and then those people will run amok and they will go to the and some of them will pull this off the shelves. You know Donald Trump famous micromanager. Yeah he's good. He doesn't care. He's in here and these people are and the worst ones will get in there and do the most damage they possibly can. One bit of housekeeping before.

Here we go, Dan is out with a new episode of Polar Coaster, taking a look at Tim Walz's impact on the race. He's joined by Democratic pollster, Selinda Lake, who's one of the best in the business, to look at the VP pick and how the Democratic ticket is doing in the key states. Polar Coaster is a subscriber exclusive show, so head on over to crooked.com/friends to get access if you haven't already. Also, you should be following Strix Grutiny. If you're not already. It's fantastic. It's been two years since the Dobbs decision overturning row and in their latest episode, Melissa, Kate and Leah take a look back at everything that's happened since then and what comes next. Look for the episode titled state of the uterus on the strict scrutiny feed. And while you're there, make sure you're subscribed. That is our show for today. I'll be back with a new show for you on Wednesday, and my guest host will be our old pal, David Axelrod. Yeah, we'll talk to you then. If you wanna get ad-free episodes, exclusive content, and more,

... joining our friends of the pod subscription community at cricket.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 a... ... as we are, consider dropping us a review to help boost this episode, or spice up the group chat by sharing it with friends... Family or randos you want in on this conversation. Pod Save America is a Cricket Media production. Our producer is David Toledo. Our associate producers are Saul Rubin and Farah Safaree. Reed Cherlin is our executive editor and Adrian Hill is our executive producer. The show is mixed and edited by Andrew Chadwick. Jordan Cantor is our sound engineer with audio support from Kyle 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 Cohen, Haley Jones, Phoebe Bradford, Joseph Dutra, Ben Hefcoat, and ...Molly Lobel, Kirill Palaviv and David Tolz.