The Gospel According to Trump

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I'll shopify.de/recorded. Welcome to Plotate of America. I'm John Favreau. I'm Dan Fiverr. On today's show, The Holy War rolls on. Trump is still fighting with the Pope. J.D. Vance is lecturing the Holy Father about theology and Pete Higgseth is leading the troops in prayer using a fake Bible quote from Pulp Fiction. We'll get into all of that as well as the latest

with Trump's other war in Iran, which according to Trump is either over or just getting started sometimes in the same sentence. We'll talk about Republicans in Congress hitting the panic button on the quote nonsense coming out of Trump's mouth and RFK juniors trip to Capitol Hill where TMZ asked him about a newly surfaced diary entry in which he writes about cutting the penis

“off of a dead raccoon to quote "study it later." That's what she said. Guess? I don't know.”

Then, Minnesota Lieutenant Governor Peggy Flanagan, one of the Democrats in the primary for the open Senate seat there, talks with Tommy about the race and dealing with the ice occupation of her state. Quick reminder before we start, please consider becoming a crooked media subscriber if you haven't already so that you don't miss out on any of the fresh fresh content. We're putting out just for friends of the pod. Subscribers get our new extra episode of

Pods Av America called Pods Av America Only Friends. Other subscriber only shows like polar coaster with Dan Fiverr. How's the new episode would you guys talk about this week? We talked about the impact of Eric Swallows campaign imploding on the California government's race and whether Democrats are still at risk of getting locked out of the top two spots.

And I guess the answer is maybe. The answer is, they're in.

Hi, everyone's got everyone's going to subscribe into its polar coaster. But yeah, I mean, let's not. I will get the milk away for free here. I will say, and you know, I'm willing to do this. I was very, I was very forward leaning

“on Tuesday's pod being like, "No, I had read the message box and I think that the math”

is, it's, I think now that Swallows dropped out and Trump endorsed Steve Hilton. We're okay now. And time is like, "I don't know. I talked to some people. They still a little worried." And I was like, "Hmm, and now I tell me it was right." No, I think, like, this is not the topic of this pod. But I think that there's a still a risk. Of course, I think the risk is dramatically less than it was.

You do take a prior to both the Trump endorsement of Steve Filton and Eric Swallwell dropping out. And I will not ask you why because everyone's got to go subscribe to the front of the pod so you can go listen to Policoster and all of our other good stuff. You also get access to all of our excellent sub-stack newsletters, like Pods, Save America, OpenTabs, add free episodes of all your favorite crooked pods,

and you get to feel good about supporting an independent pro-democracy media outlet. What, what more could you ask for? Head to crooked.com/friends and subscribe. All right, Dan, let's get to the news. The MAGA attack on the Catholic Church has somehow intensified since President Trump called the Holy Father "We Gone Crime"

and warned the First American Pontiff that he better quote "get his act together."

Our deeply Christian speaker of the House and Catholic Vice President faced with a choice

Think that it's important in the same way that it's important for the Vice President of the United States

“to be careful when I talk about matters of public policy. I think it's very, very important for the”

Pope to be careful when he talks about matters of theology. I think he said several days back that something about those who engage in war, you know, the Jesus doesn't hear their prayers or something. You know, it is a very well-settled matter of a Christian theology. There's something called a just war doctor and there's a time to every purpose under him.

There's just Catholic explaining to the Pope. There's just so much to say about this. But so much to say the absolute arrogance of JD Vance to lecture the Pope on when it is appropriate to talk about theology. Into have the audacity to compare the importance of his words as the mostly powerless Vice President of the United States who

is jobless to attend funerals to the Pope is nuts. It's just it's absolutely, there are so many ways to just like there are so many ways from JD Vance to address this and he chose the absolute worst one. He just became a Catholic like five minutes ago. Does he have a book coming out? Does he have a book coming out? This is probably going to do wonders for his book sales, I guess. That book is about his conversion to Catholicism,

which did happen seven years ago. The Pope who is really just the direct descendant really

from Jesus Christ himself and Peter, the first pope of the church in Catholic doctrine,

what he says, that's sort of been church doctrine for a couple thousand years. Since the calendar

“changed over from BC to AD, that's how long the Pope's going and JD Vance has about seven years”

in a fucking book under his belt. He went on to say, the whole quote was crazy. We had a time for it all on the clip. He said, and I think that one of these issues here is that there has been, if you're going to a pine on matters of theology, you've got to be careful. You've got to make sure it's anchored in the truth and that's one of the things that I try to do and it's certainly something I would expect from the clergy, whether they're Catholic or Protestant.

This is the tell by the way that he is a new Catholic because you don't, you don't just refer to the pope as part of the clergy. He's the, he's the pontiff. He's the holy father. He is the bishop of Rome. It's like there is the theological incorrectness in what he's saying and there's just a political stupidity of it all. Yes. It's like you look like an asshole. And then if you were telling the pope when they can talk about theology, you just, little, you just sound insane.

“Just before we move on from Vance, because I know there's a lot more to talk about,”

the US Catholic bishops did release a statement in response to Vance.

And first of all, they talk about Just War Theory. This is also a response to my Johnson, I guess,

who's decided to riff on Just War Theory. And they said a constant tentative of the thousand-year-old Just War Theory is that a nation can only legitimately take up the sword in self-defense. Once all peace efforts have failed, it must be a defense against another who actively wages war, which is what the Holy Father actually said, quote, he does not listen to the prayers of those who wage war. And then this was the best line. When Pope Leo speaks a supreme pastor of the

Universal Church, he is not merely offering opinions on theology. He is preaching the gospel and exercising his ministry as the vicar of Christ. And like, look, it's been a long time since I have delved into my Jesuit education. But Mike Johnson doesn't even understand Just War Theory. Because there's two parts of it. There is the Just War and why you go to war, which is what the bishops are about there. And then there is Justice and how you conduct the war.

And that's exactly what the Pope is talking about here, because the president states threatened. Regardless of what the original reason for going to war was, even if there was a just reason for going to war, it is not a Just War. If one of the possible mechanisms for

winning that war is the genocide of a country of 19 million people. You're going to wipe

an entire country, all the civilians, all the women, the children, the families, everyone else, off the face of the planet in service of trying to win that war. That is not a Just War. And that is why the Pope spoke out. And someone shouted at JD Vans at that event. Jesus doesn't support genocide. And JD Vans did allow because he is a caring thoughtful man. He said, "Oh no, yes, I agree. Jesus is not for genocide." So thank you. Thank you, teacher.

Not to be outdone by his colleagues. Holy warrior, Pete Higgseth, who often sounds like he

media's coverage of the around war Thursday morning to a Jewish religious sect that persecuted

“Jesus. Let's listen. Jesus entered a synagogue and healed a man with a withered hand.”

The Pharisees came to watch, but their hearts were hardened. Even though they witnessed a literal miracle it didn't matter, they were only there to explain away the goodness in pursuit of their agenda. Our press are just like these Pharisees. You're politically motivated and amiss for President Trump. Nearly completely blinds you from the brilliance of our American warriors. It doesn't even make sense as an analogy. As blasphemous as it is.

Like as is so that our military is Jesus in this scenario and the around war is

not a truth. Trump is Trump is Jesus. Trump is Jesus. Right. And Trump bombing Iran is healing

the sick. Yes. Yes. And because they hate Jesus so much, they can't recognize. Trump, they cannot recognize the brilliance of our troops. Yes. Yeah. And the Pharisees. I don't know where the troops fit into this. I guess they're the healing. Who knows? Who knows? I wouldn't think too hard on it. None of the press coverage is against the troops. No, of course it's not. Yeah. Like the government is just covering a war. Covering a war is stupid. No one is even suggesting

that the military is not done a very good job executing the goals that were given to them. They just think the war is stupid and the goals were stupid. Yeah. Yeah. What would be like what would be like Jesus healing person in the temple? Would it be when we blew up a school in southern Iran and killed a couple hundred children? Is that is that analogous to the story of the Pharisees in Jesus? Yeah. What is he doing? And there's just this other element of this, which is this is

like now we're getting into Bentame Nurdum. But the audience for this in Pete Hicks, that's my name is Donald Trump and no one else. Right. But the audience when the Secretary of Defense speaks during a war is not just the American public. It's the world. And when you're at war with a Muslim nation to constantly be using religious Christian religious imagery to do it, you are that that is so counterproductive because it feeds the suggestion that that can be weaponized

against United States. It this is a religious war. It's a war on Islam, which is a it was just a tool that was used during, you know, it post 9/11, the Iraq War by, you know, Al-Qaeda, ISIS others to recruit people against United States. It's so stupid. Also, we blew by just using religious imagery a long time ago. He said today, he specifically said, we are fighting this war in the name of Jesus Christ. Yes. And everything you said is true. Also, if you don't expect to get push back

from the Pope and the Catholic Church, when you say that you are fighting a war in the name of Jesus Christ, this isn't like God bless our troops. God keep our troops safe. It's nothing like that. It is like we are fighting a war in the name of Jesus Christ, which of course the Pope is like,

wait a minute, no, that's a no, no, that's just a no, no, always. I want to say on that.

“We wouldn't, yeah, they remember the Crusades, that was bad. We don't want to go back to that.”

So anyway, Pope Leo, who is in Cameroon on Thursday delivered summer marks that may or may not have been a response to all this, you can decide for yourself. Jesus told us, blessed are the peacemakers, but wall to those who manipulate religion in the very name of God for their own military economic or political gain, dragging that which is sacred into darkness and filth. Okay then. Good for Paul Leo. Trump was asked Thursday morning about the church's statement that Pope Leo

is an expressing his opinion. He's preaching the gospel to which the president responded, quote, "I'm all about the gospel." So everyone says about him, Mr. Gospel. He also said, quote, "I have nothing against the Pope. His brother is Maga all the way." And then when he was asked whether he'd meet with the Pope to patch things up, he said, quote, "I don't think it's necessary."

“Day five of Maga versus the Holy See. What do you think, Dan?”

This is even going well for Maga. In this case, we might take. Let's not forget that what actually started this was the Department of Defense meeting with the Vatican to threaten them with military response, or opposing the war on around. Yeah, suddenly. So it's not just like a bunch of tweets,

Trump years. Yeah. Probably the most insane thing that's ever happened in the history of the relationship between the Catholic Church and the U.S. government. Yeah, I mean, I don't know if I don't know my historical knowledge is just that, but yeah, probably. I mean, it's pretty, it's wild. And just, but also just the political idiocy of saying, you know what, I got high gas prices. I got this war going on. My approval ratings under 40 now, you know what would be a really good

“move for me? Let's pick a fight with the American Pope from Chicago. This is like, like, what?”

It's so stupid. And like, like, hopefully, oh, not backing down, he had continued to say in that speech in Cameroon. The world is being ravaged by a handful of tyrants, yet it is held together by a multitude of supportive brothers and sisters. The masters of war pretend not to know that it only takes a moment to destroy, yet often a lifetime is not enough to rebuild. It's pretty, pretty direct. And it's also, you look, Trump, Trump today, and that when he was being asked

questions, you could tell that someone like someone tried to walk him back a little, because he's like, I'm not fighting with the Pope. The Pope said, Iran can have a nuclear weapon. That's the only, I just disagreed with them. First of all, the Pope didn't say that at all. But you could tell he was like, maybe wanting to back down. But throughout the week, I mean, he called up an Italian

“newspaper to yell about Georgia Maloney, the Italian Prime Minister, because she defended the Pope,”

who resides in the Vatican, which is in Italy. And so he called her unacceptable and said, it was cowardly. I thought she was brave, but I was wrong about her. So he pissed off his former former right-wing ally, the Prime Minister of Italy, on Wednesday, the Miami-Herald reported that

the Trump administration abruptly canceled an $11 million contract with Catholic charities in Miami

to shelter and care for migrant children who come to the US with no parents. We must punish the migrant children because Trump said that Pope Leo was weak on crime. And Pope Leo said, "No, I'm not I'm the Pope." I mean, I know you guys are going to say Tuesday, but I have been laughing nonstop about the time. Pope Leo, weak on crime. I just like, what does he think? There's some silent majority who wants a wall in order Pope? Like, what do we do? Pope Leo's weak on crime, weak on nuclear. He's

“so fucking stupid. He's for they them. Jesus, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit, I'm for you.”

There's someone should make a Trump attack out on the Pope. I mean, it's just it's waiting there. I would love for somebody to do that. I mean, we talked about AI Jesus on Tuesday's pod. There was another AI image of Trump of Jesus with his arm around Trump. Tucker Carlson said it looked like he was caressing Trump. Tucker Carlson, by the way, time and I talked about this on YouTube. Go check it out,

subscribe to our YouTube channel. But Tucker gave this monologue where he basically, not basically,

he did compare Donald Trump to the Antichrist by reading passages from the Bible about what the Antichrist would look like if he came. And sure enough, it was it was a it was a it was a little more similar than I had then I thought it would be actually when I first when I first listened to it. There was also an axio story that sort of got to the bottom of how the original AI Jesus meme came to be. Did you read the story then? Is this the Bill Pulti one? Mm-hmm. Yep. Yep. It's like every

terrible thing that Trump does starts with Bill Pulti. Yep. Who, if you don't know, is the head of mortgages, basically? Yeah, he's supposed to be the the federal housing authority, Fanny, Freddie, mortgages, and that's FHA. FHA, right? That's his that's his official title. What he's been doing. Well, he's been what he's been doing is fucking up everything, but he's been trying to prosecute Trump's perceived enemies for mortgage fraud unsuccessfully. He's been pissing off Scott

Bessant who has gotten fights with him and almost kicked the shit out of him. And apparently he was

with Donald Trump and Marillago. And here's what Axios reports at some point Pulti brought the

image to Trump's attention of AI Jesus, the meme. The advisors told Axios, it's not clear whether he just displayed the rendering on his phone or actually sent it to the president. Quote, "Every one thought it was a joke one of the advisors said." And then in a smart brevity way, Axios writes the intrigue, adding to adding to the strangeness of the AI generated image Trump posted late Sunday, was that it included a mysterious horned creature in the heavens

that some interpreted as a demon, though art experts cautioned against reading too much into AI

So the meme had been floating around the internet for quite some time, but when Trump posted it,

the horned creature appeared. So, let's dig into this one. Lending credence to Tucker's belief that perhaps Trump really is the answer. So do you think that Bill Pulti just gave Trump the the a newer version of that meme or the White House alternate or at some point Satan himself got

“wrong. Honestly, none of those possibilities would surprise me. Yes, in fact,”

the most likely one, maybe the last one. I'm also going to say, the one that involves the White House doctoring an image itself and trying to figure out how to act like that actually strikes me as the least plausible because that takes too much work in talent. So I don't think that's it, but who knows? Who knows? It's hard to say. How do you think Catholic Trump voters feel about this Dan? Because I would have thought not, they wouldn't be too happy about it. Just a people

known Catholic vote. Obama won American Catholics 5445 and 2008 since then. Catholics have steadily moved right. Trump won them 5543 in 2024. And then I saw something rather alarming today when I read

JVL's the triad at the bowlwork as I always do. And he said that he's on Sarah Longwell's

focus group pod this weekend and he's like, oh, I don't want to give too much away, but basically he said that the it was it was a lot of Catholics who voted for Trump like Trump voter Trump supporting Catholics and they took Trump side in Trump versus Pope Lea. Let's lay the groundwork for sure. There are in Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, in Arizona, more than a quarter of the electorate is Catholic. In the three blue wall states there's about five and a half million

Catholics. If 300,000 of those switched their votes in 2024, Kamala Harris would be present in today. So like this is the Catholic vote is very powerful in this country and it's particularly powerful and the states that decide the presidency. And it's worth noting that a huge swath of Catholics in

this country are Latino, which is partially explains the big ship because Catholics were basically

tied in 2020 with Biden, then they moved dramatically in Trump's way in 2024. That's mostly white Catholics, but also a lot of it is Latino's moving in Trump's direction. Makes sense. But it's also worth noting that people's political identities opt in pre-eminent on these things, which is why you had a bunch of Catholics who voted for Obama despite it him being pro-choice, despite putting contraceptive care in the Affordable Care Act,

change the position in 2012 to being for same-sex marriage, all of those things. So you would not expect a triple voting Trump Catholic to all of a sudden change their mind

“because of this fight. Yeah, that's true. Now having said all of that, I think this is a”

problem for Trump beyond just Catholics. The dumb Trump fights that we would live in for 10 years just hit different when gas is $4 a gallon. And when people are upset about everything, if the economy's humming and prices are low, people will put up a lot of EDC from their president. When things are not going great, they're just like, this goes in there with the ballroom, the Iran war, all the other things he's doing other than solving my problem. So I put it in the

following. This is bad for Trump politically. Even if a tiny fraction of Catholics in the states, I mentioned, turn on Trump for this. That has real implications for house races in those states, Senate races in those states, like the Michigan Senate Race for instance, and in 2020, the states that way. I also think if you're a Trump supporter who is either against or unsure of this war, and you're also sort of horrified by his threat to eradicated civilization overnight.

“And then Pope Leo speaks, and you're like, yeah, that's how I feel. And I'm a Catholic, and then”

Trump attacks Pope Leo. I think that's an added sort of push in another direction for you as a Catholic. So I do, you're right. It's like this stuff is on the margins, as everything is. One more thing before we leave our Holy War section, Pete Higgseth, who is clearly well versed in Scripture, delivered a stirring prayer to soldiers that are Pentagon worship service this week, an excerpt of which the internet has helpedfully splice together with the monologue,

then maybe familiar to you. Let's listen. Blessed is he who in the name of camaraderie and duty shepherd the loss through the valley of darkness. Blessed is he who in the name of charity and good will, shepherd's the weak through the valley of darkness. For he is truly his brothers keeper

furious anger, those who attempt to capture and destroy my brother. And I will strike down upon

the with great vengeance and furious anger, those who attempt to poison and destroy my brothers. It's guys crushing it, huh? Well, it's important to point out that that's not a real verse. It's based on a real verse, but it is when you look at the real verse versus Samuel Well Jackson's monologue and pulp fiction written by Quentin Tarantino, it is quite different. Yeah, it's Quentin

“Tarantino took it from a samurai movie, I believe, which is originally where this comes from.”

I learned this in college because I was in college as maybe came out and I'm old I know, but we were in because I went to Jesuit University, we were in theology. And so I was just pointed out that this was not the exact right version of this line from scripture. You think Pete Higgs

if skipped that class, that theology class? Yeah, whatever college he went to. Was it before noon?

Enough said, enough said. Anyway, that's our defense secretary right there. Just send the troops into battle with that. So good stuff. Pots of America is brought to you by Hims. E.D. is way more common than most guys, thank millions of guys deal with it at some point and that's exactly why Hims offers a straightforward way to handle it. Hims connects you with licensed healthcare providers online, giving you simple

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So the award that the president and the pope are fighting about is still very much unresolved, despite Trump's repeated claims to the contrary. The US is still blockading around

that because the US and Iran are still far apart on minor issues like the fate of Iran's nuclear

program, the two sides of the dust. The two sides are looking at a short term agreement before the ceasefire expires on Tuesday that would allow for more traffic to get through the straight of four moves in exchange potentially for unfreezing some Iranian assets. In better news, however, Israel has agreed to a 10 day ceasefire in Lebanon, which had just went into a fact right as we started recording. So hopefully that holds. Trump was asked about all of this

Thursday morning and gave his usual set of confusing and somewhat contradictory answers. Farewell, I can tell you, maybe it'll happen before that. I'm not sure it needs to be extended. They're not doing any business, they're not able to do any business because of the blockade. Everything is gone, including their leaders. Now they have a new set of leaders, and we find them very reasonable. No deal, fight a resume. No deal, fighting a resume.

10,000 more American troops are headed to the region right now on top of the 50,000 already there. So it is really, I found it more difficult today to figure out what the hell is going on than even most days because you get all this reporting that they gave up on the big deal. Now they're trying to get a smaller deal and a ceasefire because the ceasefire expires on Tuesday and then

“Trump's out there being like, "We're close, we're close to a big deal." And I think I'll fly to”

Pakistan to Islamabad if there's a deal and talks could resume this weekend. You're like, "Well, doesn't someone have to get on a plane to Pakistan at Pax or assuming this weekend?" Like, I have no idea what's going on, but do you think from a political standpoint at least the Trump is succeeding in pretending that we've already won this thing? It just to try to get it out of the headlines or at least stop it from being a major topic in the mid-term,

which obviously it still will be if gas prices are high, but what do you think? Yeah, so let's talk about what Trump's actually trying to do here other than just vomit upwards that make no sense. Like, to the extent there is a strategy, it is he wants this war to be over. He wants the straight-of-war moves open and he wants to do that with the artist. He wants to do that with that meeting defeat.

Like, he wants a wind of some kind and getting the dust, it would be a wind, you know, getting some sort of agreement. Now, they clearly are, and he wants to keep

“sounding optimistic, because that's the best way to keep the markets on board the stock market,”

not the oil market. The oil market doesn't really give a shit what Trump says. It really matters to what's going to happen over the media term in the long term here, but he's just trying to manage the stock market. The problem is is that all of that runs into reality at some point. And at some point, you recognize that we have very little leverage in these discussions.

They control the straight. We are unwilling or unable to do the things that would take to open the straight. Iran can also start messing with other waterways, like all the sort of who these could have involved in the Red Sea, and then we have huge problems. And so all, but none of that matters in the end. I think we want to get to the political part of this, which is, I think the most damage long-term damage has already been done to Trump, which is,

he is a guy who said he wasn't going to start wars and now he started wars. That's part one of

the damage. The second part is, there's always a moment in these presidents where voters have

real questions, but they swallowed those questions when they voted for him. And one is that Trump's kind of a nut, like, and he's erratic. He's rash. He doesn't really pay attention when it's going on. And we skated through without that being a huge problem in his first term until the pandemic hit. And then here, this is what everyone warned about with Trump. It's a little bit like this is what Katrina, this, the Red War is to Trump, what Katrina was to

Bush political, which was, we knew the guy was kind of a knucklehead. And here it is. We see the cost of it. You're seeing the cost of it here. The COVID was like two. Yeah, COVID COVID was except people did not blame Trump for COVID. That was like we see that, right? And people who

really paid attention see the mistakes, they made with a public, never held Trump accountable for

COVID, which is why he almost won the election because of it. Yeah, I think it definitely, I think the public definitely didn't hold him responsible for the economic impacts of COVID. I think that the way he handled that first year up until November of 2020, I think it probably hurt him.

“Anyway, I mean, it's why he lost. That's why he lost. But it's on them, like he's still lost by”

whatever West 50,000 votes, right? Yeah, not enough. You know, whether gas prices come down or not, prices are going to be higher than they were before. Any hope of some sort of economic miracle

that just simply cannot happen. Because if you, if gas prices as far as anyone can tell are not

going to be lower than they were when he started this war, even if they're not at $4 a gallon come to November. Yeah, I was trying to think, I'm like, because, you know, if the Iranians decide that even though they control the straighted formus, that their economy has been badly damaged,

“their infrastructure has been damaged, they've, you know, would they want to make a deal?”

The only kind of deal I could see them making ends up looking a lot like the Obama's around deal, the JCPOA, right? Like that they're already talking about, you know, the U.S. is saying, okay, maybe we'll do 20 years of no nuclear activity. And then Iran says five. And then if they end up at 10, 10 is exactly what the Obama's around deal is. And you could imagine some kind of a deal

that Trump just rides to present as like the greatest deal on earth. And then when you look into the

details, it is like strikingly similar to the 2015 JCPOA, in which case, you know, I think that, like, I guess that he'll take that as a win. And like it's the greatest deal and then he should you get the Nobel Peace Prize, but then it sort of begs the question, well, Obama got that through diplomacy and you got that through upending the global economy and killing a bunch of people and depleting a lot of our munitions and sending our military into battle and losing

13 American lives, 15 American lives. I do not think the public will give him one ounce of credit.

“Yeah, no, I don't think so. I think he'll take the credit, but that they will take it. I don't think”

the public will either. But it'll be like, you know, the, the, I think the Republicans who are sort of wavering and bail all get back on side and then we'll be on to the off to the net. Do you think the voters or the, I think, I think the Republicans, I think we're public and elites and then I think we're public and voters who are mostly on board anyway, but I think that the ones he lost, we'll say, we'll say. Yeah, I mean, it, like he really is only lost four points and overall approval

ratings since we're started. So even getting, even if we were to get every single one of the people back, he gets them to back up to 42. And I will say, this is, this would be the best case scenario for him, right? And by the way, it's the best case scenario for everyone, right? Like if there's a deal, that's, that's wonderful and the straight opens and we've somehow put new restrictions on their nuclear program like great. It's, I mean, awful that this happened,

but of all the outcomes ahead of us because if there is no deal, he keeps saying, oh, then the fighting will resume, Higgs F. talked about at the briefing today. Yeah, well, we still, we'll still threatening the power plants and the bridges, like they can go right back to where we were when it was bridging power plant day and he was threatening more crimes. So that would be fucking awful, but who knows? Just like to what end, like that hasn't, because you can destroy all those things,

like, let me tell me in my talk about this all the time, but what Iran cares about is the people in charge care about staying in power. And they're in power, right, even. And they're not going to get vote, they are not concerned about the impact of destroyed power plants on the generic ballot. You know, like that is not, that's not their, they just, they can wait this out forever. Yeah. Speaking of the midterms, the Trump affordability tour continues.

Took a little break. It's back on now. To celebrate tax week, it was tax day this week. Trump went to Las Vegas on Thursday for a tried and true roundtable, plus remarks, promoting his no tax on tips, policy and broader tax relief. He claims were delivered by the big, beautiful bill. He even happened after we recorded this, but he did take a bunch of questions about affordability on the south lawn as he left for the trip. Let's take a listen.

How much longer will Americans continue to keep these high-dap prices? Well, they're not very high. If you look at what they were supposed to be in order to get rid of a nuclear weapon with the danger that entails. So the gas prices have come down very much over the

“letter three for that. I know, you know, that's what ABC says. But the fact is that if you look”

at the stock market shop, everything is doing really well, he just can't do it. He can't. Oh, yeah. ABC says that gas prices are high. Okay. Sure. ABC says that or you could just go to your fucking gas station. Yeah. The one thing you're not pulling the wool over people's eyes is gas prices. The one thing that is advertised on every highway exit in America. And look, everyone knows what gas prices are supposed to be when you try to get rid of nuclear weapons, when you try to fight the nuclear.

Everybody's he's saying, imagine how high gas prices would be if we, I think I think he's, he, everything is like, I did better than I was supposed to do. That's, like, that's

his, either I did an, something amazing or if he knows he's in trouble. Well, what I did is better

than what it was supposed to be. Like, it doesn't make any sense. But he's, he's trying to make the argument that, like, actually, the stock market was supposed to be worse and gas prices were supposed to be higher and more people were supposed to be dead and look, look what I did. It's, it's not so bad. I saved us. The country would be destroyed without me. It's like he's walking

have to make to prevent Iran from posing an existential threat to United States. Yeah, but he can't.

Like, that's the honest answer, but he's incapable. I mean, no one wouldn't. That's not a, that's not a deal anyone would sign up for. No, but that, but that, but that, you know,

“yeah, but he, like, can't say it. So he has to say, there is this very important thing we're doing,”

but also gas prices are very low. And if someone tells you they're not, it's because they're fake news. So obviously, Trump has stepped all over his affordability coverage by continuing his fight with God's emissary here on earth. But question for you, is it clear that a day of coverage about the big beautiful bill, the tax law, no tax on tips, affordability, racking about low gas prices, would have been better for him. This is the line you hear all the time from the

Republicans, right, whether it's Susie Wiles and James Blair in the White House or the Republicans on Capitol Hill, all the operatives are working on the campaign supervacces. We need Trump to get back to the economic message. I'm just not convinced that that would work for a couple of reasons. One, Trump's incapable. He is psychologically incapable of delivering what would be the most effective economic message. He does can't do it. He cannot say he's, what he's doing

to lower prices because he can't admit the prices are high. Like that is the fundamental problem

there. The second problem is, is that this is not Trump of 2016, Trump of 2020 or even

Trump of 2024. This is a man who is 20 points underwater on the economy and 30 points underwater on inflation. He is not a trusted messenger. The efficacy of any message is intrinsically tied to the credibility of the messenger. And so, Trump talking about the economy when people thought he was a, he was good on the economy was helpful. Trump talking about the economy right now is nothing but noise to most voters because they do not trust him. Yeah, and this whole thing

about the tax bill and no tax on tips and Republicans will say, "Oh, well, this part's popular and that part's popular." But the fact of the matter is, the increase in gas prices, persistent inflation has completely wiped away any gains. Anyone received from tax cuts, middle-class tax cuts to the extent they were middle-class tax cuts in the

“big, beautiful bill like no tax on tips. I think there was a story in the New York Times about”

someone who was like, "Yeah, you know, I usually get a $350 refund and I got like $1,000 or so this year, but also way fewer people are coming to my business to buy things because it's just, it's tougher out there." And so, I don't think he gets any credit for this and you're right. Instead of talking about it as, "Hey, we made a down payment, we helped you out a little bit, but we need more Republicans in Congress to pass bigger tax relief for it to do this," he's incapable of doing that.

All he can do is be like, "And I solved everything, and everyone's rich now, and gas prices aren't bad, and the fake news media is telling you your life's bad, but everything's great." Like that's the only speed he has. I am just skeptical that when push comes the shove, the major Republican campaigns, or the Republicans who are back, so they're going to spend a lot of money touting the big, beautiful bill on TV and digital. They're going to spend all of their money

trying to attack the Democrats on immigration, crime, cultural issues, etc. They're trying to disqualify them because that is the only chance they have is that there are enough swing voters, software Republicans, independence who are skeptical of Democrats that it might help tamp down their losses. But this idea that we are one affordability tour away from Republican resurgence is absurd. Trump does seem like he's coming to grips with all of this,

without poorly the midterms are going. Here he is working through it on Wednesday with Maria Bartaromo on Fox Business. Do you expect Republicans to lose seats in the house? And what does

that mean for your agenda? When somebody gets elected president, that party always loses the midterms.

I don't know why. I don't know why. Nobody could explain it. I ask people that are deep into the psychological world. They said, "Why is it that a voter votes for the opposite party?"

“It's even when you have a good president. I think I had the greatest year.”

Dear, hello people, deep in the psychological world. What is it? It's Dr. Phil. It's Dr. Phil. It's definitely Dr. Phil. It's definitely Dr. Phil. Some of the doctors are asked to me. I've never got a doctor, but yes. Yeah, you're deep in the psychological world. Why is it that someone votes against a great president like me? There are so many public science and polysci professors right now who are

like jumping through their phones to try to swing thermostatically. Trump discovers thermosatic public opinion. There it is. Unsurprisingly, Trump's fellow Republicans are starting the at nervous that Trump isn't exactly locked in, message wise. Here's Tuesday's Politico headline. Republicans worry White House nonsense is hurting midterm prospects. It also includes a quote from Brian Lanza, who was a senior advisor to Trump's 2024 campaign. He said the road to victory

runs through a consistent economic message. Unfortunately, President Trump ignores the road map.

It is interesting that you can't you don't see this that often, which is this is kind of a

“tradition in midterms where the folks on the Hill start to blame the White House this far out.”

And so that you all of a sudden you have got a lot of very brave Republican operatives. I know that with their names on things to start saying this is the White House's fault. But they are correct that look, if Trump is executing his political message strategy perfectly,

their Republicans would still be kind of fucked here. It is the Trump second midterm

prices are high. There's a war in the Middle East. But Trump is doing nothing to help them. And they're just like, he's doing nothing strategically. It helped them. He's not doing a lot tactically to help him. Let's not forget. We are now a month away from the Texas runoff. And Trump has not endorsed the chosen candidate of the NRCA. Wow. They're things he could be doing to help and he is not helping. And they're unfocused on everything. And that has

“got that hurts to them on the margins. Right. Right. Like the problem. I mean, they're the real”

fate. Like the nonsense hurts on the margins. Tariffs and a war in Iran that really hurts. And that's the stuff that really matters here. There's a lot of focus on Trump's going off the cuff again and not on the road map. And it's like, well, the war he started in the tariffs and the gas. Yeah. Like that's the it's it's not a communication problem. Yeah. It's just he's not even trying to make things better. And he's makes them worse when he opens his mouth.

It doesn't seem to care that much. Well, it's going to happen. Pot say of America is brought to you by Dost. Your 20 something self probably wasn't putting too much thought into your cholesterol. It certainly wasn't on my radar a decade ago. Nice. Nice to this at things. It was only a decade ago that I was in my 20s, but sweet of you to say Dost. These days however, keeping an eye on your cholesterol might be a standard part of your grown-up routine. That's

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“in a landslide after 16 years in power. Despite the last-minute rally from key surrogate and”

Catholic splaner J.D. Vance, Orban was defeated by Peter Modiar, a conservative pro-EU former ally who turned against Orban and his party in 2024. Modiar campaigned aggressively on battling corruption and dismantling the media in political machine Orban had built. He drove this home in a viral appearance on a pro-Orban state television this week, which he said had blacklisted him until now, where he told the pro-Orban presenter that he'll be working to revive independent media,

and that their work on the network would have made co-bills in Kim Jong-Un, "Lick their lips." This is wild. He's like, "What, what, what, looking at his, his twitter feed." And he's just like, it's, it's quite a victory lap here. He's, he, he posted to the fides leaders, that's the, the Orban's party. I say this, no matter how much you pretend that nothing has happened, we know what you have done to our homeland and to the Hungarian people do not doubt for a moment,

you reap what you sow. He also said that one of the first, he sort of tweeted the picture of

him at the appearance on the state television, and he said one of the first measures of his government will be the immediate suspension of the public media's news services until all conditions for impartial and objective journalism are fully restored, and that he'll ensure press freedom abolish censorship and eliminate prohibited state subsidies. Then he also, he went to meet with the president of Hungary, the president is more of a ceremonial role than the prime minister there,

but this was like an Orban guy. And so he posted a picture of him meeting with the president,

the unity of the Hungarian nation. He's unfit to serve as the guardian of legality. He's not fit

to serve as a moral authority or role model. Following the formation of the new government, he must leave office immediately. And it's just like a picture of the two of the meeting. Like, it's great, but I love it. It mainly think about fantasize about the, you know, what would happen if a democrat comes to power in 2028. But I do wonder if you think there's any lessons for the pro-democracy coalition in this country on sort of, well, how to take down a corrupt

dictator and also what to do if we went. So let's talk about the what to do if we went. Because the victory against Orban was years and years in the making and a resistance that was operating under, like, much worse conditions that we are the United States. Like, we do not

have state-controlled media here yet. And one way you can avoid that is by subscribing to

Orbanic, by subscribing to our friends of the pod at curtain.com/friends. Organic. Exactly.

“Some of some where Elijah is going to be cheering. I think the lesson for us is in response,”

which is you simply cannot turn the other cheek to fascism. It cannot, and that, like, we learn this lesson. This is essentially what Biden wanted to do. It's what Merrick Garland wanted to do until he was bullied into actually trying to uphold the law by the January 6 hearings in chorus. And there's going to be a massive project to dig out root in branch, all of the corruption and the corrupt, the Trump is put in our government,

and to hold them accountable. And this is going to be hard because Trump is probably going to pardon all of them. Yep. We didn't talk about the Wall Street Journal story from last week, I think, where Trump is reported as saying in meetings that he's going to pardon everyone who's come within 200 feet of the Oval Office that works in the federal government. Yeah. And it's just putting a pit on that is worth noting that the Supreme Court gave Trump immunity to commit crimes,

and the Trump now has now given his staff immunity to help him commit those crimes. Yep.

“But we have to, if you can't prosecute those people because of partisans, you have to call them out”

publicly. There has to be accountability hearings. They have to be named and shame. They have to be removed from their positions. We have to, we have to be tough with the people with the law firms, the corporations, everyone else, the media companies who essentially engage in legalized bribery to try to win favor with Trump the ones who are spending money on his ballroom, who are changing the programming at networks in order to appease them. You have, like, and I think those people should know now.

And I hope the Democrats talk about this. No, now that those consequences are coming, right? There is at least a 50% chance that a Democrat is going to be president in 2021. And what you do now is something that person is not going to forget. My head hurts thinking about the battle to come within the Democratic Party about this because I would bet you that a lot of the pollsters and the strategists will say, people that we know will say, voters just elected ex-democrat

“to to focus on affordability. And that's why they won. And they have to make sure they bring”

costs down and they have to be laser-like focus on people's lives and their struggles and they're and we can't be spending all this time on hearings, looking back because then voters are going to say, I elected you to do something to improve my life and all you're doing now is attacking Trump and Trump officials and looking backwards. And we have to look forward as a party. And that's that's what the strategists will say that. And then everyone else will yell at them and it'll

be a whole thing. And it may not be even after we win. It'll probably be a fight during the 2028 primary. I bet. I don't think it would be a fight during the primary. I think they're going

to be one-up in each other. Yeah, they're like, we're like, we're like, by the third debate,

someone's going to be promising, like, you know, tiring. And we're promising, like, stoning in the public square, live streaming of these officials. You know, I'm like, we know it. We know this because there was a lot of pressure on Obama to prosecute the Bush people for torture. And then that was a choice that Obama and Department of Justice did not make. And the arguments were exactly that was that people wanted to turn the page. The issue here is that this is not a short-term

political decision. This is a long-term decision related to the preservation of democracy. For that if you will, if you allow people to understand that raiding our government and breaking laws for the consolidation of power into is something that has no consequences in that will happen time again. And we will just be ping-ponging back and forth between democracy and being on the customer fascism every couple of other

page out of the Trump playbook and Steve Bannon sort of flood the zone strategy. I think you do

it all. You do as much as possible in, like, the first couple of weeks while you're still in the

honeymoon phase. And you've got, like, I saw that picture of him with the president. It's like, you go to the FBI, cash but tell you you're fucking out, right? Because the FBI director is supposed to have a 10-year term. No way, obviously, cash but tell us going to stay there and blend in car, right, FCC chairman. Like, all these people that are supposedly in the old world had terms that lasted through different presidencies. You've got to clear them all out. Basically,

“every Trump appointee, every person Trump hired, I think you've got to clear out of the federal”

government within, like, the first week. And because the whole prosecution thing is, like, you you know, right, the people get partens, then it's like, can states do it in the federal government doesn't control the states. So, like, that kind of stuff you've got to just be careful about, I think, and you can't have it, you can't have it be dragging on for two years. But I do think

you got to act fast in those first and that, like, first month to sort of, and talk about it as

rooting out corruption, right? And like you said, it is probably even more important to do it as substance than to do it as, I mean, the substance sends a message. But it's not, like, like, you just got to actually do the work behind the scenes to, like, root out, you know, de-trumpify the entire government. And if you're doing it all at once, then that's probably even better, because then they'll all bitch about it and scream and it'll be some stories, like, or it's

“so-and-so-looking backwards. But then it'll go away after a month or two and then you're off to your”

agenda. My hope is that this is a big part of the project, 2029. It's not just, like, who should be our undersecretary of whatever and what our global warming is. I can have orders are. It is, like, how do we solve this problem? And what is the playbook for doing that? And one thing that a democratic majority in Congress can do is they can use their investigative power to get the information now, to have it and be able to hand it to the next democratic press of the next

democratic attorney general on day one. If it is people you can be prosecuted, do that, but then also for the purposes of rooting the people out, holding the accountable publicly all day above. Yeah. And you got to have a good, like, forward-looking perspective, anti-corruption agenda, and put in, put some reforms in place so that you can show people that this isn't going to happen again, because we're actually going to put in laws instead of just having norms this time.

Last thing before we get to Tommy's interview with Peggy Flanagan, our FK Jr. Testified in Congress Thursday for the first time this year. During a pair of hearings, he's apparently doing seven altogether, where Democrats grilled him on cutting health programs, like Medicaid and nutrition for women in infants, his anti-vax policies in the midst of a measles outbreak. And according to Representative Linda Sanchez, quote, "spending taxpayer dollars

to drink milk shirtless in a hot tub with kid rock is what happened." He did he did put the video out himself. What he wasn't asked about, however, is a new biography about him written by New York Post reporter Isabel Vincent, which contains the following excerpt from RFK Jr.'s private journal, written between 1999-2001. quote, "I was standing in front of my parked car on i684, cutting the penis out of a road-killed raccoon, thinking about how weird some of my family

members have turned out to be." Thankfully, even though RFK Jr. wasn't pressed on the raccoon penis during his testimony, TMZ's new DC operation was on hand to bring us this. Where's the penis now? Bearcubs, whale carcasses, and raccoon penises. Oh my! Uh, can I give people a little behind the scenes here? Yes. Before we do our first edits

Romanian, uh, we kind of jot out what the contours of the show might be. And we always call the last

thing here that's a little bit of fun to call dessert. And on the other idea, it's a dessert colon raccoon penis, which is, it could be literal for RFK Jr. Yeah, we don't. He's refused, and answer questions about whether he ate the raccoon penis. No, he's apparently going to study it later. This guy is fucking, I can't for what? Exactly. This is our health secretary, our health and human service secretary. I was caring. I was hoping when you had raccoon penis in his pocket.

“I know you were traveling. I was happy to see you. Is that a dead raccoon penis in your pocket?”

Are you happy to see me? I gotta say, when I woke up in saw that you said dessert for a raccoon penis, I was a little disappointed because I know you were traveling yesterday, and I was hoping that maybe you had, why would you have missed it? You don't miss anything. But I was hoping that maybe you had missed the story, and I could surprise you with raccoon penis. Yeah, no, I really saw this morning. So you got my initial reaction. What's that? Oh, look, dessert. It's a raccoon penis.

as health and human service secretary. Why did you cancel provaxing messaging, public service

announcements in the middle of a measles outbreak? And then he tried to say, well, we're doing better than other countries, and then the representative pointed out, no, we're actually not that the insins of measles has risen here in the last two years faster than anywhere else on Earth. So, thank you, RFK Jr. For all that you're doing for health, but I hope you're, hope you're studying hard. I don't know. I'm sorry. You're, look, look, I didn't even try to, I was, I mean,

we look, he has an agenda. His agenda is a dead raccoon penis in every part. Again, dumps the bear cub in the park after a botched attempt to skin it. That's one. Decapitated the whale carcass, cutting off the raccoon penis, while thinking to himself, boy, have my family members

turned out pretty weird. Yeah, those are all plot points in a Netflix serial killer documentary.

Yeah, well, there you go. All right, when we come back, poor piggy, poor piggy flanagan. Just what, what an intro. But when we come back, Tommy talks to Lieutenant Governor of Minnesota, Peggy Flanagan. Pots of America is brought to big quints. This time a year might make you rethink what's in your closet. You want to move away from clutter and toward high quality pieces. You can

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Videos are also released on Wendys with Shopify. It's possible to have a real help. Let's start with a test yet today for one of your promontal. I'll shopify.org. I guess today is the tenant governor of Minnesota and running to fill

“Senator Tina Smith, U.S. Senate seat. Are you planning and great to meet you?”

Thanks so much for having me here. So you're running in a primary, we've extended invitation to your opponent, Representative Craig. So double back listen when that happens. So I want to start with some like national stuff, some Senate specific stuff, and then dig into some Minnesota focused questions. If that's cool. A lot of grassroots voters, a lot of Democrats feel like Democrats in Congress are not fighting hard enough against the Trump administration.

I'm sure you hear this all the time. The pushback you hear from the house side is like, hey, we have no power. I think the senators will probably say, you know, we just shut down the government for like 40 plus days last year. THS is shut down now. Maybe that's a lot of fighting back in their book. Where do you stand on this debate? Are they fighting hard enough? Well, I think, you know, what I'm hearing from folks is we're traveling across the state is that

people are sick and tired of Democrats fighting from a defensive crouch or governing by

“sternly worded letter is something we hear a lot about. And I think, you know, fighting back”

can take on a lot of different tactics. I think, you know, Senate Democrats leading on the shutdown really mattered, right, especially after what we saw in the state of Minnesota with ICE, which I'm sure we'll talk about a little bit more. But I also think it means being in the community, listening directly to people about how they are experiencing the Trump administration, what they want you to fight for when you're there, but also using your platform and then getting

out into the streets, I think that also matters, right? We had over 50,000 people marching in downtown Minneapolis to show solidarity, but also to speak up. So there are lots of tools in our

for them. And especially right now when we see the influence of corporate PAC money, billionaires

“who have probably the biggest seed at the table in our politics, I think regular folks just want”

to be heard and want to know that when Dems come back into power, they are going to throw down on behalf of the American people. Yeah, I definitely want to ask you a lot about the ICE and CBP occupation of lots of Minnesota and how inspiring the response was. But a couple more things. So, another flash one, I think you hear with the left in Senator, I mean, a lot of places is whether Chuck Schumer could continue to be the leader of the Democrats, whether Senate Minority Leader,

or hopefully Senate Majority Leader, do you support Schumer's keeping that job?

Also this, I feel the same way about Chuck Schumer that he feels about me, uncommitted. What is uncommitted? Have you heard you say that before? Yeah, I think we should have a vote. Is this Minnesota nice saying? No. This is Minnesota nice, but it's saying I think we need a progressive champion to lead the Senate Democrats. And I think there's an example of a lot of leaders who are part of the group called

the Fight Club. I'm sure you've heard of the group right the number one rule of Fight Club is that we're not supposed to talk about it, right? We're going to talk about it. So, that Senator's more insmith, Sanders, Heinrich, Mark E. Markly, and this group in Van Holland. And this group of folks, I think, are pushing back and are not part of the Democratic establishment and are really

“looking for those progressive fighters. I think that's what we need. And I think that's what we're”

hearing from folks all across the country who are ready for more and, you know, it's all my it's extremely hear you say you focus on sort of policy argument because I think the other argument you hear generational. Yeah. And there's I think ongoing frustration that we have this long sort of torture discussion about Joe Biden's age and voters. I think pretty resoundingly told us he was too old for another term and yet the lessons learned have not translated to the Senate.

Do you think there should be an age limit or term limits for the Senate? I think what we need are progressive fighters. And I think there are folks of all different ages who can take on that role. But what I also say is, you know, we don't have enough moms with kids under the age to 18 serving in the Senate. There's only four. And boy, can you tell by the kind of, you know, lack of policies that have to do with, you know, paid family medical leave, child care, making sure that,

you know, kids have access to health insurance. They don't know who Ms. Rachel is. They don't know what's for each other. That matters. Absolutely. I mean, and if you haven't been moved by an episode of

“blue-y, what are you doing serving in the Senate? No, but I think that matters that are elected”

officials accurately reflect the communities they seek to represent, right? And so I think it matters that we have more young people who are serving in the Senate. I am not running to make history,

but I think it matters that, you know, we can elect the first Native American woman ever to serve

in the U.S. Senate. That's healthy for democracy and it's good. And I think now as we're seeing these primary races across the country, that's good for us. It is good for the party. It's good for democracy overall. And having people feel excited and engaged about politics, that's something we should all want right now, especially as we've got Donald Trump in the White House every day. I mean, yeah, just, yes, just doing really, and this is my minister in coming out. Really

interesting things, right? Interesting Donald. Yeah, that's right. I mean, and I just think it's an exciting time for our party if we choose, right? It's a lean into that excitement and not, you know, get caught up with the status quo. We are seeing it everywhere. The people are demanding more. They want more. They want folks who understand what it's like, right, to try to stretch 20 bucks through the end of the month. And frankly, I think if we had more people in the Senate,

who knew what that was like, we won a past this big ugly bill. So this is our opportunity, and I think we can reinvigorate the U.S. on it and the Democrats who serve there.

after Nixon, there was a wave of government reform. We didn't just, you know,

scandal didn't just take down the president, but it led to this like fundamental reshaping of American politics, because people woke up and said, oh, that was bad. Let's not do that again. Do you have a vision for what a post-Trump set of reforms could or should look like that the

“Senate should be, hopefully working on right now? We'll say a couple of things. I think”

there are too many folks who think, oh, once Trump's out of office, somehow everything will be okay. And learn that one the hard way. Right. Absolutely. And we'll go back to, you know, sunshine and rainbows. We have to be, I think, very clear about what the consequences need to be for Donald Trump and for folks in his administration. Right. Investigations, criminal charges, what we have been through in Minnesota, there has to be some kind of reckoning. We also have seen

as Donald Trump, you know, one of his first moves, once he got back in office, it was getting right

of 17 inspectors general, right? And the very people who police fraud, he has enriched himself, he has enriched, you know, his family, I think, you know, one of the biggest things we need to do is make sure that you can't get rich off of serving in public office. You're not going to bet on whether we're going to depose dictators and Venezuela and stuff and calcium. I mean, it's not my

“thing. I think, you know, calcium is another interesting thing that exists. And we shouldn't be,”

we shouldn't be betting on our politics. But I would say, you know, holding these folks accountable making sure that you can't enrich yourself. And then I think we have to look at reforms around the Supreme Court as well. And just people have to trust the government again. And when I think about the opportunity to get in there, I think we will take back the house. I think we have a real opportunity to take back the Senate. And then everyone has to be really clear what their job is, right?

What you got to be in role. So what is this Senator working on? What is this Senator working on? How are we building a base of support for the reforms, for the policies that we want to move? So that once, you know, we get a new president in there, God willing, and 2028, thanks for knocking on wood, that we are then ready to go and rebuild. Because what we watched Elon Musk and, you know, his dojo bros due to this government, we have to rebuild. And we have to do so with

a lot of intention. So it is pushing for the policies that Americans want to be able to afford their lives and making sure that this authoritarianism that is just galloped into the White House and

into Washington can never happen again. Yeah. Do you think Democrats should get rid of the Phil

Buster? Oh, this is the tricky one, right? Because right now it's pretty helpful. But yes,

“I do. Because there are so many things that have gotten, you know, stopped, right? Good stuff, right?”

And I don't want, you know, Kirsten Sinema or Jill Manchin ask people to be able to, you know, stop progress, because they're, you know, bottom paid for by big corporations, right? Yes, McConnell. Yeah. What about the party saying, as a party, we're not going to take corporate pack money, we're not going to take lobbyist money. Is that naive? Is that dooming ourselves to being outspent in every election? Like, what kind of campaign finance reforms do you think are appropriate?

I mean, I think the fact that corporate packs and billionaires are running the show in Washington is a fantastic reason why we shouldn't take that money. I mean, for me personally, I have made that decision in my campaign and I think it really matters. I don't have a lot for Obama, no, 7, I think. Yeah. I mean, really did. But it was a differentiator. Well, because people get it, right? Like, people, people understand it. And let me tell you, like, I knew the corporations

had allowed a lot of power in Washington. It wasn't until I ran for Senate that I actually understood just how much. And so what, what, what, what, what, what did you learn in that process that kind of gave you that new window? I mean, it's just looking at how folks are like, oh, well, that's too much, right? Or when you say, like, I'm for Medicare for all, right? People are like, oh, but there's so many folks in, you know, the health insurance industry. And there are people,

a librarian in Canby, Minnesota, who's paying a $16,000 deductible and just paid five bucks,

I just think that this is a route of why we are where we are that big corporations, billionaires

“have their thumb on the scale and our politics in a real way. And what I would say is that I think”

this is the biggest contrast between myself and my primary opponent, Congresswoman Craig. This is where, you know, big oil, crypto, big pharma, APAC is, you know, they're all going to come in to this race. And for me, I can sleep at night because I'm not a hold-in to anybody, but Minnesota, and I have integrity. But we also see in the Democratic Party as a whole, we should be the folks who are fighting to protect the environment, not taking money from big oil.

We should be the folks who are anti-war, right? Not snuggling up, you know, to APAC, who is

OK with this war and Iran, and what we see happening in Lebanon and Gaza, and the majority of Americans oppose it. And, you know, when we see these big corporations and corporate interests, who are keeping people who are making incredibly low-age jobs who are struggling, Democrats should be the folks who are fighting against that, not saying, please contribute to our campaigns. Because I think, you know, it's time you, you just said, like, people get it, you know, it's

pretty distant genuous to say, you know, I'm going to, you know, regulate corporate, you know, crypto currency on one hand, and then have your other hand out stretched and be like, but also wink-wink-wink-nudge-nudge, if you could pay for my campaign, that would be great. People are so much smarter than that. And so that, you know, and I think that's coming for us, right? What we saw in the state of Illinois and their primary that they, they just had my, my friend and my sister,

fellow Lieutenant Governor, Julianne Stratton, crypto spent $10 million in that race, APAC spent millions,

right? And, you know, I know that they're going to come into to Minnesota too, but what I also know is that people are starting to understand why this matter is right? I've been endorsed by

“and citizens united in this race, and I think the best way to get big money out of our politics”

is to demonstrate that you can run powerful grassroots campaigns that, you know, are about the money and not the money, and you can still win. Do you, you mentioned APAC in, you know, the big fight in the Democratic Party with about US support for Israel? Does that lead you to feel like we should be cutting off military aid to Israel? For example, I know Bernie Sanders is a bunch of votes this week, because trying to cut off specific funding of weapons systems. Like, where do

you land on that? Yeah, so if I was in the Senate right now, I'd be joining Senator Sanders and voting in support of those resolutions. And let me tell you that this was, you know, a year ago when he introduced the resolutions with regards to offensive weapon sales to Israel. I was asked how I would have voted for that, and I said, how I would have voted on it, and I said I would have voted alongside my Senator Tina Smith and Senator Amy Klobuchar in support of it, because the same

values that I have behind making sure that kids can eat breakfast and lunch at school, right, for free is that those are the same values behind, you know, supporting those resolutions. The suffering that we have seen is too much. Yeah, not the chart. Yeah, if there's tools in our toolbox that we can use, we should do some. I agreed on that point. Certainly Minnesota, so some of Minnesota's neighbors, Iowa and Wisconsin have drifted right. Iowa pretty far right in the Trump era.

Minnesota has not. Why? I mean, I think we really care about each other. And, you know, we come from the state of Senator Paul Wallstone and everybody knows, right, the bumper sticker, we all do better when we all do better, which is, you know, a famous quote from Paul. And I think people of all parties believe that in our state. We really care about fairness

“and looking out for our neighbor. And I think that's what you saw on display in the response.”

It's a operation metro surge, but I really think that that's what it's about. That folks just think you should be able to live a good life, you know, make your own choices and just feel successful. You can bottle up whatever you got in the water over there. You mentioned that the Trump in his cronies has spent a lot of time attacking Minnesota.

descended on the state. There's this obsessive focus on Congresswoman Elon Omar on the Somali

“community, allegations of fraud. Did it surprise you that Minnesota, like kind of had the I have”

sore on trained on it like this? And like, what is the impact of those attacks been on people just live there and I can't live their lives? So it's a couple things. One, you know, fraud of any kind is completely unacceptable, right? And Minnesota, do you commit fraud? You're going to be, you know, prosecuted for it. But I also want to say that if this was really about fraud from the Trump administration, they would have said 3,000 forensic accounts. And I said, you know, 3,000. I see a difference. Yeah, exactly.

That's right. And so the impact that this has had on our state, I know that, you know, your listeners are your viewers, probably watch the news and so on and we're horrified. But what people need to know

“is that it was so much worse in person. The trauma, the violence, the chaos, the things that people”

experienced. A couple, I guess I have a couple stories that I just like to share with you, like my little auntie who, you know, is in her 70s, was forced off the road by ice. They surrounded her vehicle and she, she's this cute little grandma, she rolled on her window and she's like, hey, fellas, how can I help you, right? And they said, where are you going? And, you know, she had a, program, she was like, I literally was just leaving a funeral. You know, this is, this is the program

from the funeral. And she's like, am I free to go? And they're like, yeah, go ahead. But she has a bumper sticker on her car that says Black Lives Matter. And she's like, I'm pretty sure that was targeted. What does the order do they have to pull someone on her in the first place? Is that what you see? Right. And this happened all over the states, right? We go to, um, I'm Catholic.

So it's been a weird week. Weird week for Catholics, but I have to tell you, I've never been

more proud to be Catholic in my entire life. It is where the year, the suitcase depicts U.S. Jesus. I know, I thought I was normal. I was like, no, I'm a doctor. Yeah, yeah, I'm a doctor.

“Yeah. Have you heard the theory that he would thought he was told to say it was doctored?”

Or then he said, I'm a doctor. I believe that theory 100 times. I saw it on Twitter, but I absolutely, I think it's probably true. Yes, but run off the road. Yeah. And Grandma, will you also hear stories, right, of individuals who were just stopped in the street, simply because of the color of their skin? I'm, uh, I'm Ojibwe, I'm Native American. We have a large urban native population. And, uh, there are a lot of native folks who are literally wearing their tribal IDs around the

neck. I mean, it's outrageous. And the, the children, right, Liam, Liam Konejo Ramos, that the Trump administration, right, detained in Texas. They're now back, but they're now being targeted

aggressively for deportation. Um, the children, I talked to a second grade teacher who said,

the biggest thing I have to figure out every day is, you know, how I manage through children who are crying at different times throughout class. Like, it's horrific. And we go to a a parish and in North Minneapolis, and we've got a lot of mixed status families there. And church was so empty. And, uh, on Christmas, there may be 40 people. It's usually a hard to, to get a seat, right. And so, you know, throughout that occupation, um, we fed over 350 families, uh, that

work continues. People are afraid to leave their homes. They've been impacted financially in ways that I don't know if they'll ever recover. Um, you know, and what I can't get over is that they're going to be some children in our state who have an A score, an adverse childhood experience score, simply because there were federal agents in their neighborhood. Um, I don't have another word for it, but I am running to avenge Minnesota and bring justice for our people. The drawdown, uh, you know,

just focus on the Twin Cities and Minneapolis in St. Paul, because we were traveling across the state, we had a statewide tour. And at multiple events, people's phones went off because they were all right, part of, uh, a group that was doing rapid response, where ice was at a daycare center,

“where they were at, um, uh, construction site or restaurant. And so I think people are”

starting to try to get back to normal, but this has changed. This has changed us. Um, and on, uh, Palm Sunday, it was packed. And there were kids, crying and laughing and toys dropping on the floor, and it was like a lot of chaos, and it was totally beautiful. Yeah, another good kid can. Yeah, like it just, um, so folks are coming back, but this is, um, the financial impact of the center state, uh, the emotional impact, the impact

on mental health, um, the economy. It is, uh, unforgettable. And so with the federal government related to our doorstep, they have to repair and heal and restore. You know, you think you spoke incredibly powerfully to the, the impossible to quantify emotional impact. I mean, I, I, you know, for every story like Liam, there's other stories that we all read of like kids who are just didn't go to school for three months, hiding in their houses, you know, and like the, the,

how we ever fix that, you know, like how we ever be able to help those kids read just and not be afraid. You also mentioned the just pure economic impact. I mean, I read the businesses in Minneapolis

in St. Paul, we're reporting $300 million in losses. Um, how, how do they recover from that,

or how are they, how are you guys able to help them recover from that? You know, I governed, uh, under under COVID, and uh, we at least had a, uh, more of a partnership than an adversary, um, and had resources, uh, and now, right, it's the, the folks, uh, who caused this chaos in violence and killed two Minnesotans, right, who are supposed to be the ones who are our partners in recovery. I will tell you that we have watched Minnesotans step up in a major way, uh, mutual aid

people who are standing outside of daycares and schools, um, you know, in their neighborhoods, there's literally people who stand outside of our parish every Sunday,

just to make sure that we can worship safely, um, the financial contributions have been incredible,

philanthropy has responded, um, but it's not enough. And at the state level, um, you know, there's, there are some things that we can do. Uh, I am hopeful that there will be some rental assistance, uh, that we'll be able to, to get past this legislative session, uh, but we have divided government or tie and our, and our house, and so, um, that will be difficult. But the recovery is going to be

“long, and I think this again is one of the reasons why, uh, you know, we need folks in Congress,”

and Senate who understand, uh, the need for investment in this recovery, we can start by

clawing back the $75 billion that was given to ICE to terrorized Minnesotans. It's a good point,

because the police are like that. Yeah. I mean, as you know, better than, than I do. Minnesotia has a reputation, well, earned one for being a generous place to live because of all the social services. Um, uh, and as I mentioned now, I mean, the Minnesotans are facing all these accusations of fraud, maybe up to a billion dollars for the fraud. Republicans are using those allegations, those instances, to try to undercut the entire of a concept of a welfare state, right, to suggest that all governments

are corrupt and we're wasting your money and why don't we just give a big tax cut to everybody, hint the billionaires and clawed all back, right? How do you think we can fight back on those kind of

“attacks and sort of like the kind of governance that you and I believe in? For sure. Well, it's a”

couple of things. One, um, you know, like I said, the fraud is completely unacceptable. Um, I'm a recovering executive director and we'll tell you, uh, of Children's Defense Fund Minnesotans, so people stealing money from the most vulnerable folks in our state, um, makes me pretty angry. And so, you know, the governor and the legislature have put in place policies to stop fraud,

that's able to get done. Republicans have voted down several measures, right, that would, um,

be helpful when it came to combating fraud. And so, uh, I hope that their better angels will arrive

“and they will vote in favor of some of these policies because I think that range of like”

JD events. Yeah, I think it's come. Our, our senior lotion, right, JD events. Um, you mentioned going to church for times, you've met, what do you think of JD events saying, um, the Pope shouldn't weigh in on war? If the Pope was mad at me, and this Pope specifically, I would die. And like if my own priest, right, was mad at me, I would feel like just or disappointed in me. Yeah. That would be the worst. But it was pointed out. The Pope was mad at me. I would just be like, and pack it in,

like, I'd be like, that's it. I gotta go. Yeah, I mean, we've, we've all accused, I think JD

events have sort of selling his political soul to get into Donald Trump's graces and do anything for power, but he's really, double in down here. But I think like speaking of JD events, of someone who grew up on the margins and is completely at his brain sucked out and forgotten

“where he comes from, right? This for me, I think is also really important for us to talk about”

why these programs better, right? I'm a kid who, you know, moved to the community of St. Louis Park, where I still live with my family. My mom had a section eight housing voucher, and that's how she did it. That's how we paid the rent. Snap, which back in the day, we called food stamps, was how we kept food on the table. I was that kid with a different colored lunch ticket, and Medicaid, or what's known as medical assistance in Minnesota, was what kept me alive. I missed

a lot of school. I was sometimes in the hospital more than I was out in elementary school, and so I am alive because of those programs. And when I think about, you know, my mom, she worked so hard and she went back to school and was able to do so because of a child care assistance program. She went back to school. She got her certificate and full of bottomy. So she's a professional vampire, as we like to say. And I remember when she walked across the stage,

and she got her diploma. She was in like a bright blue cabin gown, and it felt like I was walking across that stage. All of those investments helped to lift my family towards the middle class,

“and now I get to pay that forward and pay it back in service. That's what we have to talk about,”

right? And for children, our seniors, people who don't make enough money to qualify, right, for, you know, or get health care through their employer, we can't forget about people. And that I think is what I hope still makes us Minnesons and still makes us Americans is that we care about each other and that we're going to wrap our arms around you when you need help. And then you're going to, you're going to pay that back. And that, I think is one of the things

that's just completely missing from this conversation. Just hearing you talk, I hear, I can tell you work for Paul Wellstone. I mean, Odds, are you dead if you're in Minnesota politics, right? For those who don't know, Paul Wellstone was, I mean, truly one of the more most inspiring people in political life when I was sort of like coming up in politics and working on the Hill, I desperately wanted to work for him. He was killed tragically. He used to talk about Paul Wellstone,

what he meant to you, like kind of how he shaped your career in the course of Minnesota politics. I mean, I exist because I Paul Wellstone. I was literally driving past the Wellstone for Senate Office in 2002, my senior year of college at the University of Minnesota. And I was like, you know what? I like Paul Wellstone, like, I'm just going to stop. Really, he's popped in. I popped in. And again, now I know it's my friend Chris. It was like,

"Hey, are you here to volunteer?" And I was like, oh, I guess? Sure. Okay. And I stuffed envelopes, which isn't really a thing we do anymore. But yeah, I stuffed envelopes for two hours with

complete straighters. And I was like, this is amazing. And I went back every single day. And so I

started off doing, you know, tasks that just needed to be done. And then ended up leading our urban native organizing work, which, you know, as you know, as how things happen on campaigns, right? Suddenly you're running the thing. Exactly. Here's more work. That's right.

and who, and everybody felt like, that's our guy, right? Paul's our guy. He's our senator.

If he's the native community, the small community, folks up on the iron range, like everybody claimed him. And it was because he spent time with people all over the state. And really, like, listen to them and met them and cared for them. And that is, you know, when we talk about

“politics the well-stown way, right? That's what it's about. It's about making sure that you're”

meeting people where you're at, they're at, and that the policies that you push for are directly

informed by the people who are most impacted. And I remember this moment when, after he had died, and Walter Mondale, former vice president was running in his place. And so, we were had to hand-make a bunch of signs. And I'd mark her all over my arm and it was like hot in the back room and it was, you know, and I looked around this, the room and I was full of people from all

different walks of life. And I was like, oh, this. This is what I supposed to do. And I didn't think

at the time at all that it meant run for political office. I just thought it meant, like, I'm going to be part of campaigns and organizing work. And then I was taken under the wing of a lot of well-stown campaign folks and worked at well-stown action for almost a decade afterwards, training people, tens of thousands of people across the country, thrown for political office.

“It's great. If people want to have their own well-stown moment working for you, where did it go?”

How can they do it? Sure, folks can visit Peggy Flanagan.com. We'd love to have you on Team Peggy. It's going to take all of us. Well, thank you for coming in. It's great to talk to you. Thanks so much. That's our show for today. Thanks to Peggy Flanagan for coming on. Dan will be back in the feed on Sunday with a conversation with David Pacman.

Have a good weekend, everybody. Bye, everyone.

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