TRUMP CURSES KNICKS

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Why Trump ripped off his mic and stormed out of a meet the press interview? His new conspiracy about voter fraud here in California, and what that could mean for November, Scott Pellie going public with his allegations against Barry Weiss. In Trump's decision to attend Game 3 of the NBA Finals at Madison Square Garden, then Tommy talks to Roger Bennett of Men and Blazers about the World Cup kicking off on Thursday in the implications for global politics.

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Because you get ad free episodes of all your favorite Cricket Pods, plus you get to support pro-democracy independent media. Scott Pellie has an accused of injecting any bias yet into any of his reporting. But once he starts, we deserve Cricket. Hopefully we'll keep the bias out of his reporting. We don't have time to inject bias to the Scott Pellie reporting. We're too busy injecting and bias into everything we do. There you go.

“That's what I was trying to get at. Thank you. That's perfect. Let's put that right in.”

And you also get access to all of our great sub stacks. You get our subscriber-only shows like Policoster with Dan Fyfer and lots of other fun parks. So consider subscribing. All right. Happy 100 day anniversary to the war that was supposed to be over in just a few weeks. Here's where things stand with Iran in the Middle East as of this recording. Over the weekend, the US and Iran were shooting drones and missiles at each other after oil tankers tried to pass through the straight-of-form moves.

Without the IRGC's permission.

Then the newly negotiated ceasefire between Israel and Lebanon on Philippine part when Israel bombed Beirut after claiming that Hezbollah targeted them first.

Iran responded by launching missiles at Israel for the first time since the April ceasefire. Trump then told Axios that he would warn Netanyahu quote, "not to retaliate and told the financial times that he quote calls the shots. Netanyahu doesn't call the shots." Then Netanyahu essentially said, "Yes, I do call the shots and struck Iran." So for now, both sides seem to have de-escalated and on Monday morning Trump posted that final piece negotiations are "subject to ignorance or stupidity getting in its way."

The President was asked about the war in a pre-recorded meet-the-press interview that ran on Sunday. Here's some of what he said as it rained heavily in the background. Is the United States at war with Iran? Well, they've been largely de-capitated and I call it a military exercise because people would rather have it called that. It's not a big war for us.

“How long are you willing to give Iran to make a deal? How much longer?”

You've been talking for quite some time. Well, you really haven't. Again, you were in Vietnam for 19 years. You were in Iraq for many years. Mass is up, diesel is up. It's all coming down as soon as the war is up. Well, 70% of farmers say they can't afford fertilizer.

That's a common thing very well. One of your consistent campaign promises was no new war.

Did you break that promise to the American people?

“What changed? Because you were assisted no longer.”

So what? That's why I didn't guarantee you. Then guarantee no war. The rain on this interview is pouring rain. They have to stop for periods of time.

I can't imagine anything more unpleasant than sitting in front of a tractor for five minutes while you wait for the rain to quiet down in between questions about fertilizer. I'm trying to hammering on a tin roof. And I know they had the John Deer tractors, like strategically placed, but those are the Hezbollah flag colors, by the way.

They're pretty good with it. Yellow and green, just like that. You and his son are a bit fans of that flag. Here's -- so Trump said, of course, what promise I did make any promise about no new wars. And here's a -- here's a not so fast montage put together by decoding Fox News.

Oh, we can't vote for him. He's going to start a word. No, I used my personality that we didn't have to have wars. I was the first president in decades who started -- no new wars. Who started -- no new wars.

We don't need the wars far in lands countries you've never heard of.

Countries that don't even want us there. We will expel the war mongers from our government. Look at me. I'm the one that kept us out of war. I'm going to keep you out of wars.

I kept you out of wars. We had no wars with Donald Trump. You're not going to have a war with me and you're not going to have a third world war with me. That I can tell you. Hmm.

The war mongers. Just a third world war. I think a third world war. Not a third world war. Thank you so much.

I mean, excuse me, Mr. President, it's developing nation war.

We're very dated cold war terminologies.

It's a global south war. We're not aligned with the Soviet anymore. It's a go on that engine.

“Do you think he's convinced himself that Iran doesn't count as a real war?”

What's the alternative? He's not tying the truth? Yeah, I do think he's trying to make us believe this. No, the real wars are the ones where you send troops overseas and they're deployed on the ground and they occupy country.

And by the way, Vietnam was 19 years. Has it been 19 years folks? No, this is a little excursion, as he calls it, when we all think he means incursion still right. Yeah. So I do think that's like they're attempted at selling this.

It's pretty tough though, given the outside economic costs, given the closure of this trade or her move. Yeah, there's just, you know, there's a big space between no war and Vietnam, right? It's like, wow, we're so grateful. You didn't launch another Vietnam. Well, we, that's not the standard.

It would be worse if this war had been going on as long as the Vietnam war. There's also something he's done it before, but he is so glib when he talks about people who died. Oh, there's not a big war. It's not a big conflict. He lost thousands in these other, or other conflicts.

We've only lost 13. And he adds a perfunctory, and any death is unacceptable. But here, like an American president refer to the deaths as being minimal in this way, as if like that is acceptable or that makes it okay. It's, it's, it's still drawing.

Yeah, and it's not just the fuel prices either. It's like fertilizer prices. It's actually hitting farmers pretty hard. His only real message for farmers is like, just wait till it's over. Right.

It'll get better. It'll get so much better. Just wait till it's over. That's also, of course, not true, right? Like prices aren't going to suddenly drop if there's an agreement.

And maybe there's some, like, immediate effect. But like the ramifications of the, the closure of the straightaway moves are going to last for a very long time. So Tommy, what did you make of the Wall Street Journal report on how Trump failed to reign in Netanyahu over these latest strikes? The New York Times had kind of the opposite take, which is that the eventual halt to the fighting on Monday left Netanyahu appearing as beholden to Trump as ever. So I think the, the context people understand is that these realities also have an election coming up.

It will probably be sometime between now and October 27th is when it will get schedule. And so for Trump, we know he has a midterm. A bad result will make his life complicated because of investigations and Democrats being in power.

“But for Netanyahu staying in power is existential because that could be the only way he stays out of jail because there's all these corruption allegations and investigations.”

And so, but politically, Americans and Israelis feel very differently about the war. Americans are like, this is dumb. Why are we doing this? We heard that super cut of him saying there would be no wars. They're like, "End it. Gas prices are high. End it." These really feel like this is not going well.

We have not won Netanyahu looks weak. And Netanyahu is actually getting attacked from the left end from the right for not finishing the war. And so he's in a tough place politically. And so Iran firing ballistic missiles directly at Israel because of something Israel did Lebanon exacerbates that problem for Netanyahu further. So now Netanyahu is in a very tough political situation.

He wants the Trump peace talks to fail, but he can't be completely over in his meddling with those peace talks. He says he want to piss Trump off and then lose his political support and the military support. And so, he also can't look like he's being fully controlled by Trump. Like, when Trump calls the F.T. and is like, "I own this bitch."

And he also doesn't want to look like he's going to let Iran fire missiles in me. Mr. Security B. Netanyahu, without responding. So, it was just, he's in a very tough place. It sounds like they navigated it better on Sunday than they did in the last call. Or I guess Trump was like, "Hey, man, you're a fucking asshole. You be in jail if not for me."

But, you know, this, the version interests are making this more and more complicated every day. Did you see one, one U.S. official told Axiose, they described the call between Trump and Netanyahu as, quote, "Polite."

Well, a second U.S. official noted that nobody shouted.

So, that's this one. There we go. That is the standard. Yeah, it is difficult for, um, uh, it makes diplomacy a little bit harder when Trump makes all of the subtext text all the time. Yeah, right. Yeah, well, as a rule, when someone says, "I call the shots around here." That's rarely said from a position of strength.

You don't usually have to say, if people note, people, if you're calling the shots, you don't have to say it. You're just in the midst of calling the shots. Like, like, as he's like as he's been saying, he holds all the cards. I hold all the cards in this war, and I call all the shots. Well, it also he's saying he calls all the shots and a call to the reporter before he calls the other guy who's saying he's saying.

He's saying, "Stop shooting."

[laughter] Get the sequencing wrong, sir. Maybe he said, uh, I thought this was captured, the situation. Israel has a full right to self-defense, and we are exercising it. I say this with appreciation and respect for my good conversations with President Trump.

And so, he just does the praise piece, but then he does whatever he wants, and maybe he's being limited in some ways and not in others. But if the U.S. cannot constrain Israel from escalating in Lebanon, how can there be a deal between Iran and the U.S. in which Israel at any moment can break the ceasefire? And so, like, any ways in which the U.S. cannot constrain Israel is proof that a deal will not be upheld by our side.

And so, we're just in this place where everyone's testing each other, and, uh,

“the idea of success is getting Benjamin Netanyahu to only bomb outside of Beirut and not Beirut proper.”

And that's Donald Trump exerting his power. I don't know how that ends with Iran having confidence that we can maintain a ceasefire. Yeah, this is the rub. Iran is, I think, very successfully made a peace deal contingent on the war ending on all the fronts. So, in Iran itself, but also in Lebanon and southern Lebanon, where, as the Israelis are like, now, these are different conflicts with different timelines, and we want to keep prosecuting this fight again.

Tesla, because people in northern Israel are still under threat from drone attacks. And I think that's going to, again, come to conflict here. And from the other side, right, Iran has an interest in making this a larger conflict in which they can use the, the Hezbollah, uh, Israel conflict as a, as like a part of their negotiation. And so, they can prolong it there, and then walk away from the table saying they're blaming Israel,

right, like, everybody is using the leverage that they have. Reportedly, the argument that Trump made to Netanyahu, too, was don't retaliate because I think I'm a few days away from a deal. And then if we don't get the deal, then maybe, maybe I'll lead, uh, the strikes next time with you.

“Um, so he really does, that's another one we're like, I think he genuinely believes,”

or at least his team keeps leading him on, like, we're so close.

We're so, we're on the one-yard line. We're so close to a deal, and it just never actually happens.

Yeah, I mean, I just, I'll believe it when I see it, and I think, and yeah, I was going to hate the deal that's on the table reportedly. We, we don't have to go through the details, but it's a lot of sanctions relief and unfrozen assets. And so, yeah, again, it just seems like they're in very different pages here, BB and Trump. Well, even if it's this, like, many deal where it's just reopening the straight, and you don't even get into a ton of sanctions relief somehow. That doesn't really do anything about Israel and Lebanon. No, we're solve the nuclear situation.

Yeah, of course. So meanwhile, as the, as the ceasefire was teetering, Pete Higgseth was in Europe, to mark the 82nd anniversary of D-Day, where he insulted our European allies with a speech that included lines like this. Sadly, today, different European beaches are stormed by different dangerous ideologies. Each is in Spain, in Italy, in Greece, in Bulgaria, boats, and men arrive. When will European capitals do something about that invasion?

This is one of my favorite analogies I've ever seen in the history of speech rating, because in that analogy, he is, he is putting current European leaders. They are the Nazis. And the, the migrant caravans or boats, that's D-Day. And so the, what, why is your, in your analogy,

“you're making the, you're making the Germans the Nazis again?”

Well, he definitely wanted to twist it so that it's like different dangerous ideologies around the continent, but then also wanted to compare the boats landing with the boats landing. It didn't, it didn't work on a number of levels. Yeah, no need to pick just one, but yeah. The, the good guys were in the boats, storming the beaches, and now the dangerous ideologies are storming the beaches.

So it's like, sir, did the dangerous ideologies raise the flag of Eugima?

Well, I, I was in the whole speech, and it's so bad. It's obviously, we can get into the actual substance of, of going, going to, going to Normandy on D-Day to, to pick a fight for some reason, but he also makes his plea.

It's always in this sort of like the kind of like, whatever, Christian nationalism, Western ideology thing that he's always doing,

it's like, you know, we defended Western values that here at D-Day or something to that effect.

“Guys, do you remember who the sites were in Europe?”

It was Weston West violence, you know, it's like, you know, it's just, it's just stupid. It's just stupid. It's also just like, when you get underneath the bad analogies and P-DxF not being the best speaker. Like, the fact that, you know, replacement, the great replacement theory, which once used to be like this far-right extremist thing that we talk about once a mile.

Now it's like the US Secretary of Defense goes to your, and it's like the official position of the US government that, the problem with mass migration, we're not even going to pretend it's border security or it's job competition or it's like, you know, governments haven't spent too much money to house migrants or anything like that. No, it's just, it's dangerous ideologies. It is people who come ashore,

most of them women and children, some of them dead because there's,

because there's, there's men. Yes, there has to be movement. Because they're so desperate, and this is, this represents a dangerous evil ideology in the eyes of the US government. And what you said, Christian nationalism,

“the pope, the first American pope, is going to spend July 4 on one of those islands,”

Lampadusa, where migrants come ashore, which he's doing because the last pope also would do that all the time. And so he's doing it in honor of Pope Francis. And this is like, you know, Pete Hicks, if he's talking about this is like evil. Migrants are as dangerous to Europe today as Americans were to the nothings. That's the analogy.

He says in the speech that that, what was being defended on D.D. was the Western tradition of freedom. As if, like, again, it's just sort of going back to Christian nationalism and it's sort of whole, like, Western ideology. But like, what are you talking about?

Like, we were on, it was a Western, it was Western West violence. It's making sense. Yeah, they're also like, there seem to be two criticisms in the speech. He, he, part of it is a criticism of like defense spending or lack of defense spending in Europe. And kind of the, the typical, you're, you're been free writing on the US and NATO argument that we hear it.

And then there was this criticism of European immigration policy in European countries letting in migrants, many of whom were escaping wars, by the way, some cases were started by the United States. Either way, it's just wildly an appropriated place to be sort of dickhead. Like, usually these are just celebrations of the few remaining veterans and the people we've lost in the war. It's also, like, an example of how the free world came together to defeat fascism.

Meanwhile, like, Pete Hexeth and Trump and the Pentagon are allowing the Ukrainians to just kind of dangle in the wind in their effort to fight back against Vladimir Putin. So it's like, I don't know, just the whole thing felt so inappropriate. And how many time have Republicans told us, like, that's not the forum to have a policy dispute. Right? Like, I'm a memorial.

It's not where you talk about gun control or, like, actual efforts to stop gun violence. And you're just going there and yelling at people for 13 minutes in this weird speech. About a long way from my long way from Reagan's Pondahuck speech. Well, you know, I was thinking about that. That's he was thinking about that speech when he was trying to do this.

Yeah, it's also like, you know, you advance weighing in on, like, a horrible death in the UK. He's just traveling all the way to Normandy to weigh in. Immigration is a domestic issue. Like, you're trying to domestic policy issue. He also, at the, at the, at the Tommy's point, says, like, no, you know, in World War II, like, there was, we really put ourselves in a line for each other.

It wasn't just slogans, summits, and communicates. Yeah, man, it was World War II. It wasn't up, we were at war. You do. You know, you had to actually fight everybody. Like, in peace, right, and you would work with your allergens having some kind of conversations via whatever means you'd want. It's just very, like, stupid, like, stupid guy.

Uh, like, it's just, just stupid guy.

“Uh, no slow, but there wasn't, like, slow backstage speech, right?”

Yeah, it's like, yeah, I got to go there and tell, you know, I don't. For me, World War II was just slogans. The, yeah, man, did you catch how it started? The, the, the most offensive line maybe was the very first line was thank you ambassador Kushner. How I didn't catch her Kushner, Kushner. I didn't catch her.

Oh, my god. He's our ambassador to France. Oh, is he France? Isn't that depressing? Yeah, I forgot about that.

Sound great blown. Good stuff. Well, happy, happy day. America is brought to you by or a frames. Dad's loved to tell stories sometimes more often and for longer durations than they wish they would.

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So they know we sent you. All right. So the most viral moment from Trump's Meet the Press. Interview was when the President ripped off his mic and stormed off set. Did he stomp on the mic? A lot of people were sitting. Did he throw on the ground?

We can all watch it. It's unclear. It started with some tough questions from Kristen Wilker about the insurrection, a slush fund which led to Trump repeating his favorite conspiracies about January 6th and the 2020 election.

And then things just evolved from there. The whole sequence lasted about six minutes, which we won't play in full, but here are the highlights. I don't know what's going to happen with a weaponization fund. I love the idea. They sent people to jail who did nothing wrong.

It just would be very clear. There's no evidence of what you're saying. But what you're all about, Todd Blitz. The election was rigged. It was a dirty election.

And it's happening again right now in California. Now in California. It's happening right now in California. Right now it's looking to look at what's happening in California. It's four days.

And they aren't even close to coming up with that. You know why they're doing that? Because they're cheating on the election. What do you have evidence? To support after-do-is-life.

You read the crooked or your stupid. You play right into their hands with this. Your elections are crooked. And you look for it. You look for it.

At least the presses are crooked. And so is ABC and CBS and CNN. You're one-sided crooked network. Let's call this quiz because I've had it. Thank you, darling.

Have a good time. Please. I travel all the way to Wisconsin. I've checked. I know.

I travel all the way to Wisconsin. I'm honored off in the ring. And I've given you enough time.

“You ought to straighten out your press because you know what?”

A country can never be great.

With a nation. Listen. We travel all the way to Wisconsin. For the country. Okay.

I can tell we did it on purpose. I think he accidentally crunched it. It reminds me of when everything else was on purpose. Fuck that. But when I went to Michigan and interview Bernie.

And then like about 12 minutes in, he's like this. That was a tough memory. That also happened. That was a gut punch. That was a good punch.

That was a good punch. You're either crooked or you're stupid. Actually, that's a great slogan for our viewers. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Please consider subscribing to the pod. Because you're either crooked or you're stupid or you're not con slash friends. That was. He was very mad there.

He really rose like, you're a current. He was like, the part of the, I'm going to put the whole goddamn system on trial. You're a crooked, they're crooked. CNN. NBC ABC.

Is there anyone else? Schwarzenegger was worse. And the apprentice than I was. The yells at Chris and Walker. Like she's the election.

Yeah. Yeah. She's very good. Great elections. But when they came back.

I watched the, the meet the press version. And when Walker comes back after the interview. She said, I spoke to the president again. And he said, he'd happily come on again in the future. So he called her.

So it's just it's all. It's all a show. He loves her. I was like, she's such a nice, calm, measured person. The idea that you would flip out on Chris and Walker.

Like that is so funny. You know what? Such a baby. He flipped out because she said, do you have the evidence? Where's the evidence?

It's like, no.

“And his mind, it's just like, well, that's what my people told me.”

And I saw it on the TV.

That I, that I reposted. That I retreat.

And so he has no fucking ideas.

All you have to do is look.

“If everyone would just look at what I looked at.”

You know that it was crooked. You're asking for evidence? You know I don't have that. Fuck you. I've got to make it up on television.

You know that. So mad about the reign is if she's making her in. He also did the, because it was too long. We didn't play it. But he did the whole thing again on we're on January 6th.

The FBI agents. Yeah. The FBI was standing outside sending people in to the, to the, to the, to the capital. It's like, you were fucking president dog. They only pleaded guilty because they were threatened with jail time.

We're talking about they're on video beating up cops. Yeah. Everyone is knocked down. This dumb conspiracy that the FBI somehow set up the January 6th rioters. The FBI that was under the control of Donald Trump.

On the slush fund. We'll start there. Then we can get to the, the fraud in California. We talked last episode about Todd Blanch telling Congress that the administration would not be moving forward with the idea. Even though Trump says still he loves it.

And then Senate Republicans blocked the bipartisan attempts to actually ban the slush fund just in case Trump changes his mind. Now, the house is going to give it a go. Democrat Tom Swazzy and Republican Brian Fitzpatrick will launch a discharge petition this week to force a vote on their bill to ban the slush fund. Two questions. You think the vulnerable Republicans who voted to kill the fund have successfully neutralized their political risk.

I think that was Collins. Houston and Dan Sullivan. I'll, I'll up for reelection.

“And then, but then they voted for the final bill. And do you think Trump will actually just let this thing die or is this not the last we've heard of it?”

So he also says to welker at some point. He still likes the fund. But you have to get it approved. And if it didn't get approved, I'd be disappointed. So that's where he's at now approved.

They didn't.

He didn't claim to need it approved in the first place.

So now he's hiding behind the idea of it being approved in some way. So he's sort of leaving his options open. I think to let it go or do it in some other fashion. I think the, like, it's very clear that they did not appreciate how big of a political problem would be to launch this thing. Todd, Todd, Todd Blanch clearly thought he was, this was going to be, he was doing what he Trump wanted. Got him the nomination to be attorney general.

And then it just, the whole thing blew up. Yet to me, he, he, he sounds like a man who is not ashamed by the fund or worried about the politics. It sounds like he thinks he's owed this. He deserves this money. He just, like, he is owed the money from CBS because of that lawsuit.

Or the bribes from the tech companies to build his ballroom and goddammit he's going to get it.

“And that's why to me, the political risk for all the vulnerable members does not go away.”

Because I don't think he's going to drop it. And I think it's going to be an ongoing issue. And just like, to be, to be having this conversation is so politically damaging.

Like, this man is trying to extort us taxpayers for $1.8 billion to pay off people who beat up cops.

That is crazy. This is the, the taxpayer funded transition surgery for prisoners issue of, uh, from from from 2024 in the 2026 midterms. Like, I, I have not seen a poll yet about this, but like throw in a poll. Uh, $1.8 billion from the taxpayers to pay out people who were convicted criminals on camera trying to murder cops. That's, that's what we're doing.

That's where taxpayer money is going at a time of inflation and high gas prices. That is like, and it's great. And also for like Susan Collins and John Houston and Dan Sullivan, they voted for the bill. They voted for the, like, they tried to, you know, vote for the provision that would block it. But then when that failed, they gave the green light to the whole bill that went forward.

And they didn't do anything to stop it. They could have voted again. Because you know who did vote against the final bill, Lisa Mercowski. And she's the only Republican who did. And the rest of them just said, "Fuck it.

Go for the bill anyway." It is a sort of, like, even on the merits. Like, this is the core of the problem of someone like Susan Collins or these Republicans who try to once in a while stake out an anti Trump view. But for the most part, but with the caucus, which is, uh, they are part of enabling Donald Trump. And the only reason we got to the point where this fund could be proposed is because Donald Trump believes that he has,

or Republican caucus in his pocket, and he is right. And for all their kind of himming and high, all the concerns Susan Collins has shown. She is one of the, you know, 50 enablers of Donald Trump time and time again. And you can go to the podium and give these statements. But at the end of the day, you support a Senate majority in the Senate.

You support Donald Trump being able to do it every once without any kind of accountability. So let's talk about the fraud claims from Trump and that meet the press interview, which, again, started with his usual bullshit about 2020. But also included some fresh material on last week's California primaries, where the votes are still being counted, a reminder that everyone here in California gets a ballot in the mail,

which you can return by mail or drop off in person. And as long as you get it postmarked by election day and it arrives within seven days,

That process means the county is very slow and big changes can happen late, especially in an election like this where a lot of voters, especially Democrats, were undecided until the very end. And that is, of course, what is happening right now in the LA mayor's race, Nithya Rahman has now overtaken Spencer Pratt in the count. And it appears she will make the runoff and face Karen Bass in November.

“That's what some organizations are projecting.”

AP hasn't gone with it yet, but it's definitely trending that way. This led to many Trump posts, the most recent as of this recording, being quote, "not possible for Spencer Pratt to have lost the LA runoffs after the big lead he had.

Third world nation, rigged elections.

Now they'll be working on a great guy, Steve Hilton. Hilton is the Trump endorsed Republican in the governor's race who's currently sitting in the second general election slot. Though Tom Styer is gaining on him, unclear if Styer will actually catch him. And plenty of mega dipshits are following Trump's lead on this. Here's just a sample.

I'm not saying it's rigged. I'm saying it stinks to high heaven and everybody knows that. California is playing around with us. But what evidence is there to prove that there was a break? Some of these efforts are so diabolical and so far upstream.

It is impossible to prove. But I think everybody knows instinctively something is wrong here. So people can just dig through garbage cans, find ballots, send them in. Apparently forever after an election is over. You know, it's not okay.

No, it's really smart people need to go to the axe down. He's smart. That's it, Randy, fine. Randy, fine. Randy, fine, hardwoods a hardwood twice.

Let me check it. I'm going to check the facts. I'll give you just through in twice. Randy, fine. Randy, fine, hardwood.

Undergrad and grad. What was his, what was it? I don't know where to graduate degree is. I must go to Harvard, Harvard University. What's with the Kennedy B.A.

MBA. Wow. MBA. What's the business school? There we go.

I heard it go. See, school sounds like it's a good time. Yeah. I mean, look, a lot of people get into Harvard. But he's smart.

Not people don't get it. That's the cool thing about Harvard. So before we even get to the fraud part, thoughts on Nithia overtaking Brett. It's a bad day for Karen Bass.

They thought they could have a nice little runoff

where basically she got to run against Rick

Russo with a head injury. And instead, instead, instead. And instead, she's going to face somebody that has a hot, that actually, like, you know, Karen Bass is unpopular.

“Nithia, I think a lot of people don't know Nithia,”

but she has a positive approval rating when people who do know her, it doesn't surprise me. That a lot of the kind of hyper-engaged L.A. voter who didn't want to vote for the governor's race to the last possible minute were a bunch of Nithia

ramen voters that were paying really close attention. But I do think it's very good for Los Angeles because it means we now get a runoff with real stakes about what kind of democratic leaders we want. As opposed to what we would have had,

which is six months of fear-mongering on Spencer Brett. Yeah, just to be clear, establish from Democrats in California are rigging the election to make it harder for the incumbent mayor to win the mayor all here in Los Angeles, but also rigging it.

So the statewide race will include a Republican so that Steve Hilton has a chance to become governor. Because we know what's up here in Los Angeles. Because that makes sense. That makes sense.

Can you get a lot of his point? Critically, you know, I had injuries to say, waxed by a big crystal. And then, like, now it's a real race. Like, Karen Bass is a weak incumbent

because of her handling of the fires, homelessness, cost of living, like anger, and come as generally. And Spencer Pratt was dominating the battle for attention for super online people. If you're a Twitter power user,

if you're super politically engaged, Spencer Pratt was everywhere because our algorithms were feeding us his AI slop crap. And, you know, just felt like he was all over. And that's a small slice of the electorate to turn to.

Because the LA Times did a poll right before the election. The where they modeled the actual electorate. And that poll looks like it was pretty much spot on at this point.

“And so what actually happened is what I think that”

political professionals always assumed would happen,

which is the magga adjacent candidate, Spencer Pratt, was never going to do very well in Los Angeles. In a county where 15% of registered voters are Republican and Trump is 55 points underwater. And Pratt was aligned with Trump.

Like, that, of course, that was what's going to happen here. In fact, Spencer Pratt's campaign was nothing special at all. And, like, you know, I think you could look at the media tactics and say there's, there's things for other candidates to learn about how to grab attention.

But, yeah, the LA Times poll that you mentioned, Tommy. It was May 28th. So, like a couple of weeks before the election. And it was Bass 26, ramen 25, Pratt 22. Didn't get as much attention because it sort of went against the

prevailing narrative of like the super online set, which is journalists and all of us and people all of us. And people all of us with her. And then, but today, it's right now it's Bass 34, ramen 27,

And, you know, you could see sort of Pratt going even lower and maybe bass going a little bit lower as the final vote comes in, but we'll see. And it turns out that Spencer Pratt is probably going to finish almost wear Donald Trump finished in 20, 24 in this city. And now that's a bigger electorate.

So, like, you can't, it's not exactly apples to apples. But he also, he did much worse than Caruso did. Caruso spent more money. But also, Spencer Pratt raised more than Karen Bass or Nithia spent more had crazy amount of attention.

And basically, performed like a standard issue Republican in Los Angeles absolutely no better at all. Imagine if Joe Biden and given interview saying that like Amy McGrath's loss is because of fraud and Kentucky because everybody loves Amy McGrath.

He's doing incredible stuff out there.

There are people that, like, you know, they are, they're captivating to the kind of people that are watching really closely that are hyperpartisan, but then voters and I like,

“who I think are really frustrated with Karen Bass, really”

frustrated with Democrats. And for all we know, we don't know, right, if Nithia Ramen were in in the race, like how many anti incumbent votes might have gone to Spencer Pratt? Like, I think it's a, I think it's a, I think it's a

little bit more than just a kind of, he got the kind of standard Republican vote. You know, we don't know how many votes for Ramen are kind of Democrats who are just anti incumbent and maybe they could have been Spencer Pratt voters, right?

Because they just did not want to vote for Karen Bass, but regardless, as much as people in this city are really frustrated with Democratic leadership, they're not going to vote for someone aligned with Trump who was going around saying

crazy shit about about the city.

He ran a horrible campaign, and he actually became more maga, the closer it got to election day. Like, he's, I think we talked about this, maybe off Mike, or I'm like, I can't remember anymore. But he spent the weekend before the election in New

York on Fox and Friends. He's not gut felt too. Calling for Nithia and Karen Bass to be jailed, and then talking about how people were raping dogs in Skid Row.

“Like, that's how he, that's how he ended the race.”

He became more of like a maybe a maniac at the end, or at least openly. He didn't try at all to distance himself from Republicans. At all. Like, Rick Aruso ran a race where he was at least like,

I'm going to listen to both sides. Like, he tried to be as nonpartisan as possible, which is probably why he ended up doing better. The Spencer Pratt, but Spencer Pratt actually got more maga seeming the closer he got to election day.

So anyone who was like, oh, it was a brilliant campaign. This, and that's like, no, it wasn't. He had the possibility of maybe running a campaign where he had this like, angry, populous message and he sort of tapped into the frustration with the government,

but he just fucking blew it as the, as the race got closer. Yeah, and I should say, like, obviously I've been very insulting to Spencer Pratt, and there's it. Like, he lost his house. There's a lot of anger about the way the fires were managed,

but he just didn't run that campaign. And I do think there's like that kind of insular conversation that happened. If you look at the map of where Spencer Pratt vote came from, there's this kind of ring of like, wealthy or places around the city.

That, that, that, like, our people that are very online, I think very kind of like, Bill Mar, Barry Weiss, world kind of coded at least, like just sort of tapped into that world who are really frustrated with Democrats, who think the Democrats have gone crazy

and moved to far left, right? And there's just not that, that's, that is a big pool of people on the internet, right? And it's a big pool of people who, yeah, on the internet, and just who have like outsized influence and louder megaphones

than other people, because it wasn't, I will say, it wasn't purely an online phenomenon. And that like, we all know people and we were in circles where someone's like, oh, I, I've talked to some Democrats who were voting for Spencer Pratt.

And now I would always ask him like, are you,

are they Democrats who who voted for Karen Bass last time,

“or are they Caruso voters who were now Pratt voters?”

And you didn't find too many Bass Pratt voters out there, right? There was a genuine frustration with Karen Bass. I personally felt it. We talked about this on the show. Her management of the city around the fire,

as I thought, was really, really bad. I think for Spencer Pratt having his house burned down. Understandably, he was channeling some legitimate and righteous rage about all things LA and the fires. If Rick Caruso had won again, I think there's a very good chance

he could have done well and made it run off maybe one out, right? Yeah, because he had a track record. He was like, I built the grove. And Spencer Pratt's like, I coined the term "spitey" and maybe leaked the sex tape about LC.

Yeah, it's just for me. Like, usually the self-evidently not qualified for the job. So I mean, like, this was what was so frustrating. I think about the boom lid about the guy. It was just like, kind of like TMG adjacent,

Twitter, algorithm, pumped bullshit, and hype. Yeah, backed by nothing. Well, until you're pointin' love it about the map. It's analogous to, for those of you listening from DC, or have been to DC.

Like how people in Northwest DC and Northwest DC think, like, that's the whole city. And there's actually three other quadrants in DC, where a ton of people live. Yeah.

And that, I think, is what happened in L.A. too. It's like, this is a big, big city. And all those places that voted for bass, especially in southern and eastern L.A. and Nithia as well.

Like, they're just not at Nithia's areas are definitely wealthier for sure. But there's just an outsized influence and loudness you get from people in the west side that doesn't actually represent most of the way.

So on the fraud allegations, how seriously do you guys take those allegations from Trump and other Republicans as a potential harvinger of things to come in November or future elections, I guess?

I mean, Trump's going to say that any election he or Republicans did not win was stolen. Right? It's heads I went, tells you, Luz, set up.

“I think this was kind of the perfect storm.”

You see, this Spencer boom lit, this expectation that just built in built in built that he was some great candidate and going to win. Then there's the California voting process and how slow it is.

We'll talk about that in a second.

And then this just, it wasn't like a big election night with a lot of other things to talk about. It was a lot of people focusing on this in the slow counting. And so, I think what I found personally so annoying about this is how much information

you can find about the process if you try to find it. I think I got in a little exchange with Megan McCain about this on Sunday. I was bored on a flight.

She's an unpleasant person who doesn't apparently want to educate herself. Like, you could go, the counting process is live streamed. Reporters can and do go to the processing center. The general public can and do go to observe

the counting if you want to. They're representatives from the campaigns observing the counting. Like, the problems are well documented. L.A. County is the largest election jurisdiction

in the country. They're more registered voters. In this county, then 41 states have statewide.

I know 10 million people in L.A. County.

People in our nation are saying this. It's really big people. It's really big here. Everyone, come visit. And in California, most of us vote by mail.

It's like 80 or 90% of California voters use the ballot that gets the mail to your house compared to 15% in Texas. And I love that because our ballot is really long and complicated. There's a lot of stuff you've got to Google.

It takes hours. I'm glad I could do that at home. And so, like you mentioned, vote by mail ballots. If they're postmarked on election day, received it within seven days, they get counted.

The signature matching process can take a lot of time. Again, that's the thing Republicans like I was going to say.

“Yeah, I think you guys like the signature matching process.”

That's called voter verification. And if there's an issue with your signature, there's time to cure it and fix it. That can take time. Takes time to open the ballots, check the signatures.

Like, what we should do is put more money more time more resources, more people, more machines. Throw at this problem. Try to speed it up a little bit. That would be helpful.

But like, we have a lot of people here. This is how we vote. Yeah, I mean, we have a lot of people. But the scale shouldn't be a factor. How quickly we count the ballots, right?

Like, Texas can count the faster for other reasons. I'm saying that there are ways in which we can keep postmarked by election day. We keep all the kind of pro voter policies we have. And it can be done. It should be fast.

It'd be much faster now. I do think one part of this is a lot of people held their ballots because they were waiting. They were being strategic about the governor's race. Or maybe they just weren't.

And just actually didn't feel inspired by their choices. Whatever people really helped them to their ballots. I think the two things should happen. One, going into November in California.

“I think we all really need to view it as kind of a civic responsibility”

to get our ballots in sooner. Right? Like, I think we can all help by having more ballots in. And then, too. So, California now counties have to have to count the most of the votes within 13 days.

Or they have to notify their provisional ballots in exceptions. But they have to count within 13 days. But with some more resources, it should be possible. That on election night, they've counted all the ballots they've already received and can put those numbers up.

And then, kind of, the counts can be happening quicker. And that is a resource question. You have counties where they're still taking, you know, it's days and days and days after they're getting ballots.

They can ultimately get to counting them.

They've limited hours, they've limited space. Like, all of this could be resolved. And, you know, governor Newsom has gotten Newsom has talked about this about wanting the ballots to be faster. I just don't appreciate when the Secretary of State of California is like,

we want to be, it's, it's accuracy not speed. I wish there was more acknowledgment that the process could be faster. What the resources would be required. Because I, I, it's a huge problem. And look, there's nothing you can do to account for the fact that these people

are going to accuse us of fraud. But I, I do think we should be able to count our ballots faster even at this size, right? I agree. Like, I, that's why I said no. I know you're talking more money more resources. Like, we should count faster.

It's, it sucks. It's frustrating. It's embarrassing. What I've said no time for is the people who don't spend one second trying to find good information.

They spread the meme that they got forwarded by their aunt on Facebook and like, like, like, people kicking up the quote from Trump. It's like, he doesn't know a goddamn thing about what's happening. There's no. Also, let's, let's, let's be clear here.

The, the reason we all want to count it faster is because we know that if it's not being counted fast enough,

There's no, there's no civic governmental reason for it to be counted faster.

It would be nice. We're all fucking impatient people and just want results really fast. But like, now look to your point, love it. There are other states with mostly mail-in ballots, where you can post marked by election day.

Washington State, Colorado, etc. And they're all faster than us. Now they are smaller states. I do think the biggest problem of California is we leave it to the counties still.

Yes. And so, like Los Angeles, actually Los Angeles County is still posting updates over the weekend. A lot of counties just, no one works on the weekend to count the ballots.

They don't have enough staff. They don't post anything on the weekends. And there's just not enough machinery.

“So yeah, I think there is no excuse for the state legislature,”

which is controlled by Democrats. And there's a democratic governor to pass more funding for staff or resources for a faster signature verification process, which you could probably be as well. You could probably limit the window for curing your ballot.

If the signature doesn't match because it's very, it's all, you have like 20 days. I think to curing your ballot at this point, which is, it's pretty long, right? So there's definitely things you can do on the margin

to make it faster by making it a whole state thing instead of county by county. Yes, it is to answer totally bullshit allegations of fraud. But also, we're the fourth, fifth largest economy on earth. Why are we having so much trouble doing

some of the other places can do faster than us? I do think that that is like, it's about good government too. Yeah, yeah. Positive America is brought to you by Hems. ED is way more common than most guys think.

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To head to zbiotics.com/cricut. And use the code cricketer checkout for 15% off. All right. So Alex and I talked on Friday about the messy 60 minutes and Scott Perry's decision to sound the alarm about what he says is conservative bias at CBS News under Barry Weiss,

which led to police firing. He then sat down with the New York Times for a conversation with Lou Lugarci and Navarro at the interview, which published over the weekend, where he elaborated on his claims for the first time. Let's take a listen.

About four hours after our deadline. Barry Weiss sends an email to my boss, Tony Simon. Two of the things in the email include, "Can we make the protesters look more violent?"

I don't have the quote. But that's what was communicated to me. And the other thing was Renee Goodscar.

“You need to describe her as driving toward the officer.”

There was a thumb on the scale for the president's version of events that I felt was a level of political influence

that I had never seen in 37 years at CBS News.

Did you guys listen to the whole interview? Yeah, I watched the whole thing. The thing that jumped out to me was peli makes, he talks about the bias and sort of pushing on these stories. And CBS put a gave a comment to the times,

basically saying, "There was a back and forth, not everything that was requested and ended up in the final piece, whatever." So there's saying, look, we had a back and forth about it. But let's assume that there is some bias.

What he makes was just what I take from his broader interview and the story here is that it's not just about the bias, about the incompetence of the whole operation, that they just have not communicated well.

“Now, I think some of this has been motivated reasoning, right?”

Because then the key then also refuses to me. It sounds like he did refuse to meet with them for a time as well. It's like tempers were clearly high. But you do get the sense that he makes the point that Nick built in who is a friend of mine was reading from his phone

and one of the meetings. And clearly like that was making peli get mad in the moment. So some of this is just people that have been accused of being brought in to be pro-Trump to have bias to help Ellison get deals done. And then like sort of hemfissibly firing people,

trying to kind of have editorial opinions. Confirming people's worst expectations. And it kind of spiraling out of control. Yeah, but like I thought what we just watched there was some pretty damning allegations that Barry Weiss is just interfering with segments.

Not just in a political way, but like in a way that was not factual. Like make it look like we're day goods driving at the cop, which is pretty clearly was not with your own eyes. I also was taken by just how incompetent he described the new team as being like entire episodes of 16 minutes almost didn't make air.

That seems bad. They couldn't get Tony decouple of Visa to cover the president's trip to China. Also pretty big deal pretty bad. Kelly also overtly uses the words.

He uses CBS of paying a multi-billion dollar bribe to President Trump when they settle

the lawsuit around the 60 minutes edit of Kamala Harris's interview. And so look like, you know, I don't know Barry Weiss. Some people say she's lovely in charming. Some people think she's, you know, the devil, like right that you're this obviously somewhere between I've met Nick built in before.

Seems like a nice guy, good author, smart screenwriter. Neither of them has any TV experience. And seemingly have no business overseeing the most successful TV news show with this network. I mean, Barry Weiss is the editor and chief of CBS TV, CBS news.

But Nick built this network to TV and he's getting put in charge of 60 minutes, which is by every measure of success. The ratings are up 9%. They make nearly $70 million in ad revenue in 2025. Like it's not a thing that's broken needs fixing, which is a lot of peli's point.

And I think ultimately like Weiss and built in were brought in as part of a corrupt project to change CBS news to make it okay for President Trump in some way to grease the paramount skydance merger or whatever merger they want to do in the future.

“That's what I think peli thinks happened here.”

And there were times in this interview where it can seem a little pompous in the sound like self-righteous, and it's very emotional. Like peli seems to compare himself to like a veterans in combat at one point, which is a little odd. - refers to 60 minutes as a spouse being murdered.

- Yeah, so it's very emotional.

But like clear this guy who loves his job never wanted to do anything else.

Never wanted to leave. Didn't seemingly didn't think he'd get fired. Even when he like lit his new boss on fire in front of the entire group. But it's worth the listen, I think. He also, I think gets most emotional when he's talking about tiny assignment

and some of the other people who've been fired and who have been treated poorly. Which I think is telling. I actually think that if you took Trump out of the equation, I think Barry Weiss still would have sent that email. Those emails about Renee Good because this could be happening.

She might not think to herself, I am doing Donald Trump's bidding. But if anyone has experienced the free press, or, trafficked in any of the circles of the anti-anti-Trump Republicans, who are always making excuses for Trump, but they think that they're more like moral and normal and sane.

- They're all these people who haven't lost their minds. - Yeah, so people that haven't gone crazy. - Right. Like if that was like, we saw this split in the conservative movement

and that some of them who tried to push this narrative

that Renee Good was driving at the cops. It's like that. They broke off when it was Alex Pretty and it was even more obvious. And they were like, okay, this one is bad. So it actually made sense to me that Barry Weiss would do this

“because, and I think this is probably indicative of what happened at CBS”

and why 60 minutes and the people at 60 minutes were so angry is I think Barry Weiss came in. And I haven't seen Nick Bilton's tweets in commentary here and there. I think he's someone who's like, okay, the lips have gone crazy too. They both get in there and they're thinking like,

this is another evidence of liberal media that we got to fix. And I'm sure the staff at 60 minutes and their reporters there are like, you know what? We take our jobs very fucking seriously and do really good reporting in fact. Check it a lot.

And we don't consider ourselves like part of the liberal media and bias. And so I think there was that probably that clash. - Yeah. - That's what ideologies. - There's I think a revealing point where some point Barry Weiss says

some version if you're not biased, why does the country, why does the country think you're biased, right? We just did an article of faith and like what's the evidence for that? And so look, Scott Pellie in that clip is paraphrasing an email he didn't see. Like that is like, I don't know what the exact text of it is.

I don't know how they're, I am sure it was trying to push it sort of more in a way that was sort of like more favorable to the Trump version of events. But the non-liberal version of events. - Yeah, it was the entire right-wing media ecosystem version of events. But the other thing that's strange about this interview, right, is he, I mean,

he wants Barry Weiss fire, right? He, but he also has a lot of like nice words to say about Ellison, which is really strange, right? And what I took from this interview is like, he's like, oh, we were excited when Ellison came to the newsroom.

He greeted us, he called me sur, right? Like there's this way in which what I was wondering when I was watching this interview is this somebody who was trying to get Barry Weiss shit canned. And then someone who can go back to CBS and he's saying to, he's saying to Ellison, hey, I'm not a problem.

If Barry Weiss isn't there, right? You're good. Barry Weiss is, I'm not your problem. Barry Weiss is your problem because now I'm talking about how great you were when you came and she's the one that's got to go. So I thought that was sort of like, because if Barry Weiss is a part of some

Ellison project to kind of grease the skids for a deal, right? It would be, it would be Ellison at fault too, but that's not how Pele talks about it. Well, what he says about Pele, David Ellison is, like he's pissed it to share your red zone for doing a deal with Trump and paying the bribe to make the lawsuit go away and the lawsuit was obviously bullshit.

And I think he views that as unforgivable than it permanently damaged 60 minutes. And so he's like, look, a new guy came in, had some money, had some political

“swat, like, we're all good there, like if you want to support our project here”

and you've got the balls to stand up to people there with you, it could be strategic and then he's trying to divide the two of them. Like, you know, I found that interesting too in pretty notable and maybe believable. But also, it's like, he's not dealing with David Ellison.

He's dealing with Barry Weiss. You know, like, you can be nice to the boss as boss, who when they greet you is like, he's like, hi, sir. Nice to meet you. And then like Barry Weiss is the one who's murdering 60 minutes.

Right. Right. Ellison. And then we're not supposed to be built in. She just sent in with, and didn't even go to the meeting

herself and just made him deal with it. Yeah, I look, I stand by with Nick.

Look, you go to that first meeting.

I think, all right, I'm going to kiss everybody's ass and get every back, get her back on sign and like, oh fuck. This guy is mad. Could you imagine, I'm just like, try to imagine too. Like, you're just your aunt, you're at your first day at work and

Scott Pele, one of the most famous journalists in the world is like, you're murdering the most beautiful thing that any of us has ever seen round of applause. Do you think someone's holding up the ticket? Yeah, I'm unbelievable.

“I just don't think that, like, how can you expect anything else?”

When you have obviously been following along. Yeah. What Barry Weiss has been doing. And the firing just happened, right? Yeah, that's a quarter.

Like, it's not like, it's not like he got to the meeting. And all of a sudden someone's like, excuse me, Nick Bilton. They just fired a bunch of the staff. Again, like, I met Nick a couple times.

He's always seemed nice, but he did a series of interviews with

media journalists where he just could not have sounded more pompous and insulting. And like, I know, this is going to be easy. I know everything. You know, like, I'm going to be the one like uploading the video

to the satellite truck is like, okay, buddy. Well, like, it's the Barry Weiss Free Press Salon Party Circuit. It's the exact kind of language. It's, it's all, there's just a whole set of them. Yeah.

Look, the point that Kelly made in that conversation is, like, how could you take a job like this, given the circumstances, right? And that does mean whoever is going to run 60 minutes if he wants to prove something to these journalists has a lot of work to do, right?

And like, the fact that I'm, like, used to, uh, Leslie Stall and so the other people are staying, right? And like, I don't know what the, what the, the future of this thing looks like, but I do think that a world where 60 minutes gets to kind of continue to exist.

And there's, and maybe this continues to boil over into the public.

Like, if you're taking the job, right?

And you've never had TV experience.

You're doing it after all these firings and you walk in expecting to be given the benefit out. It's just like, not what's going to happen, right? And like, Barry Wise doesn't have TV experience. Nick doesn't have TV experience.

“You're taking over like one of the most important jobs”

in all of television. They're not qualified for the job. They're just not. And it's not mean or insulting to say that. Like, you never worked in TV.

You are not qualified for this job. And taking it is ridiculous. And what do you think is going to happen? Yeah, just to give me a break. Just so the last 10 years have been just a rash of people

who are like wealthy and powerful and influential thinking that because they're good at one thing they can be good at other things. That's a real fucking problem. We haven't this country right now.

Just talk to any of the tech pros. We're talking about you. Exactly. We're Donald Trump. One last news story to get to here.

We are recording on Monday afternoon California time. Shortly after really the studio, Trump will depart his golf club in New Jersey for Midtown Manhattan where he will attend gain three of the NBA finals at Madison Square Garden,

which will bring traffic to a standstill, require ticket holders to arrive hours early for security checks and force the cancellation of the watch party outside MSG for people who don't have tickets, which is just about everyone.

So how are people feeling about the decision? Quote of all the selfish, narcissistic things Trump has done attending MSG to see the next playing person Monday night is the absolute worst.

These are the sentiments of none other than and culture. But the feeling also seems pretty widespread. Let's listen. Since when Trump yet mixed games.

Now all of a sudden we're winning. He want it be here. If the next loose tonight, I blame Trump. I don't want Trump at the game. I don't want no new people at the game.

It's coming to game three of the finals. And I don't want them there. It has everything to do with him. This rupting and contributing at the same time to the chaos.

If it caused the New Yorkness to win to lose tonight, I'm blaming him. I'm blaming the president of the United States. Of course, everyone's probably recognized as Steven A. There.

Before Steven A was Mace. That was Mace. Steven A guest on this show. Steven A in a bright pink suit in a bright pink tie. Ranting about Donald Trump going to the next game.

That's what I want out of sports media. That is perfect. You know, Trump is expected to be to boot. To be boot, probably. They better bootish.

Also, there's going to be an unfavorable split screen with an actual Nick's fan, Zorin Mundani, who coughed up a thousand bucks for a standing room. Only ticket. So that's going to be an interesting thing.

Mundani also decided to throw free watch parties

“in Bryant Park and I think two other locations as well”

because the area around MSG is closed down. What do you guys think Trump's doing this? I mean, he knows the power of my professional sports. And that's the only kind of model cultural events. We really have left.

So I go to a lot of games. Usually it's the NFL. I went to the Super Bowl. I went to do you think the SEC championship. We went to a college football championship.

You know, he's been to NASCAR. Yeah, he's been to NASCAR. He's been to NASCAR. He's been to NASCAR. Usually he's more welcome in those sort of southern NFL spaces.

I don't think he will be here. I mean, he's also buddies with James Dolan. I think the owner of the next move is the terrible guy. Like, he's surveils people who are mean to him at games.

Always pals with the owners.

Yeah. Not a real player guy. Yeah. No, but like Roger Bennett. And I talk about this in the interview.

I mean, you guys remember last year, Trump went to the FIFA club championship in the US. And he was supposed to walk up a Johnny and Latino. The head of FIFA. Hand the trophy to the Chelsea players.

And then walk off the stage. So they could celebrate. And he just stood there and jumped with them and like celebrate with them. So he makes it about himself. Because he loves the limelight.

He loves every spotlight and he will attempt to co-op this one too. Yeah, he doesn't give a shit about anyone by himself. Like, right, we know this. When you have to decide whether the president of the United States is going to attend and event like that.

The biggest consideration. Well, first of all, you talk to a service and be like, okay, what does the security have to look like?

“And you need to listen to Secret Service.”

And especially Donald Trump. He's been, you know, survived multiple assassination attempts now, right? Yeah. But then when the service tells you what it's going to require security wise. And they tell you that, well, as a consequence,

it's going to, you know, inconvenience quite a few Americans. Then sometimes the president's like, well, do I really want to piss off that many people by doing this? Is it really that important? If my going means a whole bunch of them.

And then you say, well, maybe not. Maybe it's not that important for me to go.

But Trump would never say that.

Yeah, I think he wants to go to the game. He wants to go to the game. He wants to sit there. He wants to be bullied by New Yorkers. He wants to, he wants to be the center of attention.

And he doesn't care. There's going to be two hour waits outside that of barricade whole parts of Midtown Manhattan to make this pause by the cancel of Washington. I mean, arguably worse is when he always wants to, like,

if there's a natural disaster somewhere and he's got to go beyond the sea. Immediately, even when local officials are like, please, we're trying to clean up the disaster here. And we can't have a presidential visit because it's too much mass and security right now. And just come later.

He's like, I don't give a fuck. He also thinks he's a New Yorker and that New York likes him.

Well, he's, because he's also, like, shit all over it when you left. Yeah, he's already.

“He was like, "Lurdy, I'm already working on it."”

Yeah, he was like, "Fuck New York." Fuck that. I'm like, "Look, it's, it's, it's, it's become trash now." Yeah. I don't think he's going to love the split screen.

I, I hope whoever is on the ones and two is, it's just go, "Mandani, cheers like crazy. Trump, boost. Go back and forth. He's going to be so nice about it too.

Like, he's not going to try to, you know, jab Trump at all. No, they're, they're going to have, they're going to have a shot of Donald Trump being booed. While I'm Donnie's like, going to be nice. Yeah.

It's going to be, I, that's, I hope we get that. There's also, like, only that.

A bunch of cool celebrities who always go to games, like Timothy Shawlamay,

and Tracy Morgan and Ben Stiller, who will be, like, on the wood with the people, like, enjoying the game. It's probably up hiding in a luxury box, like, kind of lurking from behind, hoping it doesn't get booed. We can't say a court side.

No, it would be great if you tried to walk down there. People were retreating some old tweets from a Josh heart to the next player, just, like, shitting all over Trump, but he's not a, I don't think he's beloved by the mix. No, we also remember, like, Trump very specifically.

“I think yelled at or was me little a bronze James.”

He's on the shuttle. He's on the shuttle. He's on the shuttle. It's also, like, basketball. It's so much smaller.

It's so much closer. They're just, like, right there. Like, it's going to be part of the game. That's Trump is at this game. Yeah, I mean, like, Fox News and Trump, they love to tell.

Athletes, especially black athletes to not have political opinions. But if you like Trump, then you are allowed to have political opinion. You can come to the White House. Maybe you can participate in an ultimate fighting championship event on this offline, right?

That's how this works. Yeah. Sadly not no John at that one. Yeah, if I ever didn't make cut just a real bummer. So close.

That's so good. It would have been very funny. It would have been very funny.

“I think what would have happened is you would have shown up at the place where you”

get the van to the go to the thing. And someone would, like, clock your face and be like, Oh, no. That's not what I want. I thought that, but like, 4,000 people on the Soflon.

It's a lot of people to really be like, doing the face sheet. Because it's not, it was inside the White House. It'd be like, yeah, no way. But I don't know. I think, I think there was, I think once you're at that point,

there's nobody knows. They ran to people, celebrities are showing up all the time. I mean, everybody will put some Trump drug deal. Suddenly, I'm walking and I'm taking my seat right next to Vince Fawn. Yeah, buddy.

He's like, what do you do? Love you and swingers. Love you and swingers. It's going to be so hot and so miserable out there. I was looking at the weather for this because there's like a, like a chance of thunderstorms now too.

And it's 91 and maybe thunderstorms. 91 degrees. Like humid bugs everywhere, awful people all around you. And I don't have to fight in that. Yeah.

And then they, they got a white set too. He was like, it's not the ideal. It's not the ideal environment to have a US. Imagine they're like, we got to pull it down because of lightening. They don't want to pull it down because of lightening.

And all of a sudden, you know, basically a biblical event.

It hits that just out at mental things and any other things are possible. Can't wait to check it out. All right. When we come back, Tommy's conversation with Roger Bennett of Men and Blazers. Today's show is sponsored by strawberry.me.

Think about your career. Close your eyes. Hmm. Maybe it looks good on paper, but does something feel a bit off. Sometimes.

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Visit, strawberry.me and start with the coaching trial today. Tell them, "Party of America sent you, it get 50% off your first session." That's strawberry.me, tell them, "Party of America sent you for 50% off your first session." My guest today is the co-creator and long time post of the smash hits men and blazers podcast. The men and blazers media network, really.

He's a New York Times best-selling author who's most recent book is called "We Are The World Cup" by it now. It's also an international man of mystery and a sex symbol. Roger Bennett, how you doing, buddy?

It's so lovely to see that you look amazing. You too, long time no see.

“I'm thrilled to talk to you now because boy, there's a lot going on.”

There's a lot of football, a lot of soccer in the world. For anyone who wants to learn more about the World Cup, you still have time. And I cannot recommend enough. We are the World Cup. You'll learn about the highs, the lows, the agony, the more agony.

Through Roger's eyes, right? I mean, I wrote the book. If you had the memories of the World Cup,

it will reignite them. I hope you can relive them again as powerful as you did the first time.

And if you're a newcomer, planning to watch the World Cup, it will give you the depths, the nuances, to understand and fail all of it. That, at what they've got the honor, the Uruguay and Poet. It's one straight football, it's a pleasure that hurts. And we're about to experience it all of it.

Weeks and weeks of it, I literally cannot wait. I love the World Cup. This is going to be so much fun. And so before we ruin this conversation with a little bit of politics at the end, let's just talk soccer. So starting with Team USA, I know they are hardly favorites to win the tournament,

but you know, interest has gone up. Expectations go up every year for Team USA. Who should we be watching?

“And what's a good result do you think for Team USA this year?”

Oh, winning it. Tell me, I know a sound to many of you. If you're a new listeners, I am from England, but I am love America super-foundly, and like a way I like to believe slips me somewhere between Bruce Springsteen and Kenny Powers. So I'd do this team.

I first came over here in 1994 ahead of the last time the men's World Cup was here. It was meant to turn America immediately into a football loving nation, thinking a lot longer. But the United States and the Economists was just found to have soccer be the third most popular sport in the world, which is mind-blowing.

Amazing. Except right in my book, but before the 1994 World Cup told me, a similar study found out soccer was 67 most famous sport and tractor pulling. I crap you not, was 66. Where are you now tractor pulling?

So to some degree, the winner of the World Cup for me, US perspective, will be the massive fan base that it leaves behind.

We've always joked on our show.

Sucker is America's sport of the future as it has been since 1972. Like it's perpetually the next big thing.

“I think this World Cup will cement it, normalise, football in our sporting reality.”

But from an actual competitive POV, this is the most talented group of individuals we've ever had. But the crazy thing is, you know, our women kick ass, take names, win things, our men. And the whole history of our nation going right back to George Washington, I would like to believe what I love the football.

We've won one knockout game in World Cup history, which is shocking for a nation like ours that invented animal style burgers in an out. And, you know, the grown-up, you know, human beings on the moon, democracy, all those things. So I'd say if we can win two knockout games, which we stand the good chance of in this very bloated, big, gold, massive World Cup, it would be an incredible result, that in that this World Cup is going to be big, whether the US do well or not. But the US boys will write their narrative into it, which is critical.

It's Christian, Paulus, the one where we're watching most, or what other names we'll be looking at. Christian Policic is, if you're a football fan, you'll know, he's jokingly called the Lebron James of Saka. He's from Hershey, Pennsylvania. He was the prince that was promised he broke through into this team when he was 70.

He is probably the most talented outfield player we've ever had in terms of his accomplishments in European football. He's a very sensitive human being. He needs to love and be loved.

I just went on first take with Steven a Smith and compared him to Tray Young.

It's a player that can do unbelievable things. If he feels great, Steven a Smith slapped me down. That's a double comparison he said. And then went off on Tray Young for a long long period of time. But I'll stand by it.

And then there's so many remarkable human beings. I really do root for this team as individuals. It was a beautiful man. Chris Richards, son of Alabama, Birmingham Alabama, SEC Country, Roll Tide, who must have been a big fish on every playing field he was in in Alabama.

Then went over as a teen to one of the greatest teams in the world by a Munich. Suddenly became a tiny fish in an enormous trout form. Kind of lost all of his confidence. Got complete cultural dislocation. But has been able to naturestly to resummon.

His presence as a defender. Kind of like a lockdown corner back now in the Premier League. He's one things. Still a sweet, soft, soulful, wonderful human being. I mean, there's many, many players like him.

That I've root for.

The commercial upside for this world kept to become the face of this team.

To have a tick-tock that goes viral because of some of the beautiful that you do. It's a diverse team.

“I think they're a great face of our nation.”

They're led by a manager, an Argentinian, Mariccio Pocchitino, who's like a globally-reveered manager. He's either going to lift us up. Like, you know, a basketball coach going to, I own a state and taking them.

What's that guy? Yeah. He's like, "You live a Poutine, it takes up to his standard. I will build Bella check it and just suddenly be chasing after a floundering on the floor at North Carolina." We've got a lot of different points.

There's something like that. There's that football end. Got a Milan. Yeah, that's exactly right. You can't wait to leave him many ways.

But we will go as he goes. If he does his thing and raises us up, joy can be ours. And we could be just loathing around on the floor chasing after a cheeseburger, in Hasselhoffy and fashion. It could be great.

It could be darkness. We do not now. We don't really have until three days to find out. Yeah, we'll all hope ahead of us. All right, let's talk about the big dogs.

Some of the best teams, some of the best players that you're watching. I've heard France, Spain, UK mentioned a lot. Like, any sleepers? The UK? The UK?

Or London? England?

Well, that would be amazing.

Tell me, can you imagine if it was cities? Oh my god. The world cup of cities, that's actually for the future. They can get far more than 48 teams in it. It would be amazing.

Come on, Sarri, you very England. Scotland, they're also in it. God bless. They're coming over here. We're very different goal and everybody else.

Their goal is to just drink Boston and Miami dry in the first two weeks of the tournament. And I think they'll probably do it.

“The tartan army, I think America, one of the joy to this tournament, who we get to talk about,”

is the world coming to terms with the United States. You're seeing it now while they've a social media. German fans going to a waffle house for the first time having their mind below. You know, going to a lemon pepper wet? What is this?

And also American sports fancing global football culture. Many of them for the first time seeing 60, 70. You know, seeing thousands of Dutch fans march down the streets of Kansas City before a game in their orange-clad shirt bouncing to the left and the right behind our large burst. No one quite knows why.

It's just what they do. It's going to be quite ecstatic. So Scotland, Englander. I mean, Englander, fascinating. I mean, they used to have an empire.

Then they lost that. They used to have a monarchy not doing so well nowadays. They are down to Navi, no longer on the air. So what they have is football. And they invented it.

So they think they should win. They've won once, 1966, which is like 10, 66 in the English School Kids imagination.

And since then, they've always believed with great surety.

They're going to win very quickly, crapping the bed, shattering in the nation's heart. They like Charlie Brown running at a football with Lucy holding. Part of this time round. They're pretty bloody good to me. So it is quite fascinating to think of a England winning the World Cup in America when it's

the 250th anniversary of Independence is mind-melding. So we think we're going to say by this some great players, this tournament. Lionel Messi. It's probably. We assume it's his last tournament, although people said that in 2018 in 2022.

Chris Gianno Ronaldo will say goodbye to him by the all of his abs.

“Maybe, he's like mostly, I think he's the football player.”

Most likely, to go like Ted Williams and putting his head in the crowd and Jamie. It just frees it up. Yeah. Yeah. So those two are not just the biggest stars in soccer.

They're some of the biggest celebrities on the planet. Most famous people on the planet. Is there anyone you're watching that can fill their shoes? Any stars that are going to transcend this tournament? So the stars, young stars, and there is a, there's this ageid, I mean, deeply ageid.

We're talking about like footballing LeBron age. I mean, Ronaldo is, I mean, it's like 41 little Messi late 30s. This is, oh, should be their last dance. And then there's a slew of teens coming through. The nature of balls are vacuumed, so this football Spanish won the child.

18 years old, Laminia Mar, who's already won massive tournaments. You know, he's almost, if he wins a World Cup with Spain having won one, he's won already. He'll be like Alexander, the great, you know, tearing up because there is no more world left to conquer. So the early in Holland, a young Norwegian who is other than Shaquille O'Neil, entering the NBA and just breaking back boards,

I've never seen anyone score goals.

It's like as if Dolph Lundrum was a football player, if AI created just a, yeah, some kind of north demigod. He's bringing Norway over. So there is that battle, and again, because it's here to me in the United States, this commercial hotbed of sports. All of these footballers, and we're spring to a slew of the great footballers in the world. They're all looking at the United States market knowing one deep run, one set of ecstatic moments.

The financial payoff for this World Cup commercially to kind of be what Pelle was to previous generation, the face of the game in the United States. There's the sporting competition, but there's also the commercial competition to be that footballer. They all think they can, you know, be the next Pelle, they don't quite know that David Beckham's already won the World Cup. That man is in almost every single commercial, and there's not giving up his hold on our imagination anytime soon.

But they're all same incredible stories that will fill the World Cup up like Haiti, this tiny team for whom, you know, just qualifying is everything.

The political chaos that's unspooled over there, which is impacted football, you know, the football stadium. Their trading centre was set fire to by, in Surgeon Gang's Importer Prince. The fact that they've even qualified is remarkable, they had to play all their games on neighbouring Kurosau. Their footballers, you know, are brought up from all over in the Haitian diaspora. Just taking the field for them is going to be just a joyous geopolitical moment where the word Haiti is seen in a joyous spotlight, a wonderful spotlight to desperately needed.

And it could be one of the most powerful storylines in the opening round. Yeah, that's exciting to watch. So, you know, you've touched on this, Raj, the scale of this tournament is just like, unlike anything we've seen before. It's happening in three different countries.

“I think there's 16 host cities, there's 48 teams.”

I think at some points in the tournament there's going to be six games a day. How the hell are you going to paste yourself here, buddy? What are you going to do to get through this? Yeah, I mean, I feel like I was laughing with the already feel like I'm halfway through, but it's not kicked off yet. It is epic and scope three nations hosting for the first time, Canada, the United States, Mexico.

And when it was given 2018, it was talked about as a unified, it was the NAFTA World Cup. Obviously, the realities have changed, it feels almost like three parallel track World Cups. But what drives me in any World Cup is the narrative, is the story, is the human wonder. The scale of it is epic.

“I think it's projected to revenue-wise reported 80 billion dollars will be made, which apparently is the GDP of Belarus, but I'm sure you knew that.”

Tell me, that's really the first thing that it went into your head.

You know, it's really a human ecstasy 200 million people watch the Super Bowl.

We think of that as the ultimate in the United States. Five billion people watch the World Cup. What is the World Cup? And this is what I wrote in my book. It's like a global eclipse that emanates from the game, sweeps the entire world, instantaneously, and holds it in its role for 39 straight days. And so that's the magic of it, the energizing magic.

What keeps me going is a sense that when these games go on, we're watching human beings live out under the crucible of pressure. You know, human decision-making, what separates good players from the truly greatest decisions they make under those pressures. There's going to be heroes, whose names we don't even know who are going to reveal themselves. And within seconds of some kind of kung-fu fighting escort, their name is going to be blood out by millions of children in school yards across the globe.

There's going to be heroes who will fall in tragedy, comic ways. We're going to watch the greatest Telenovela, and the thing I'm most excited about, Tommy, is I don't know if you've noticed it's a very dark world. We're living in the time of challenge. I hope when this kicks off, when Lionel Messi takes the field, all of the darkness kind of is mothered. It's almost like a derasional is replaced by the emotional.

And it's that sense of global unity, obviously in illusion, obviously fleeting.

“But knowing that you're making memories, profound memories, it's like the theory of my bought most of, I'd say 87% of my most important memories are located in wool cups.”

The jick cross-generational memories with my dad, my grandmother, my children, it's the same for millions around the world.

I think we've all earned that release, that reprieve from reality, and that moment just come together and enjoy it.

“Just to ruin this whole thing with politics though, I mean President Trump understands the scale of the stage, right?”

He's got this predator natural understanding for the role that sports plays in culture, as we talk today, I think he's preparing to fly up to New York for the next game. Do we know, like, does he deliver remarks to any of these events? Is he going to attend games? Like, what do we know about his participation? Not a lot, yeah, but football is, I mean, I took to have the number of people watching. It is the last global megaphone that is audible across the entire planet.

“There's nothing like it, there's nothing like a wool cup, even salt bay inserted himself into the fine of seasons at that massive it is.”

Yeah, go bless, I mean, he's still talking about it four years later. And so, ultimately politicians of all stripes are drawn to football and have been since the very beginning,

1934, Second World Cup was held in Italy by Mussolini, who wanted to present Italy to the world subsidized foreign travel to Italy for the tournament. The detail of most about this story is that he made sure the tickets were intricate paper cuts, so that fans would go home afterwards or crap you're not told me. And be like, these are the tickets in Italy, look when the advanced country it is. So from the very beginning, the roots of the tournament have always had a geopolitical reality when two teams take the field, their nation's history, their nation's politics, their nation's culture takes the field alongside.

“And that's what gives it it's epic power, everything matters, it's not, you know, a love American sport when Mussolini cargo bears play, you know, the L.A. Rams.”

It's a big game, it's exciting, I know the narrative, but when Germany plays England, the levels of history, you know, I think, was it MSNU said it contains multitudes, the World Cup contains multitudes and every politician knows that, you know. And President Trump has embraced football, there was a tournament here last, almost a dry run called the club World Cup. And he presented the trophy right at the end, the the the the ritual of trophy presenting in football is whoever gives it, it's often ahead of state will hand the trophy over to the, you know, the sweaty footballers on a podium and then step out of the way.

So that they can lift it up and smoke comes off and confetti blows up and then the footballers bounce up and down waving their arms like this, which is the standard football guy dance. Chelsea football club won, he hands the trophy over and then stands in the midst of them and then the footballers are confused, they don't quite know what to do. There's a standard way of doing this and then in the end they just like saw that they did it with him in the midst of it. It's a remarkable image. The smoke goes off, the confetti blows up, some of the dancing, some of them are looking at the present, he knew exactly what he was doing, he knew that was the photo row and the world.

He became a friend and centre, so the world cup contains that power, tons of million, you know 2018, Putin ran the world cup and was very friend and centre, 2022 is in Qatar, first game, you and I watched, they had the Khatari leader sitting right by the Saudi Arabian. But the two of them had frosty relations before it, to see them unite was deeply symbol it, like a symbol, one was even wearing the scarf or the other country.

So there's a story on the field, there's always the story of it in the optics, the soft power, the hard power is written all over this tournament every time it occurs.

President Trump is both head of state and also famously won the FIFA Peace Prize, so maybe he could invite the new Ronnie and Supreme Leader to the US to sit next to him at a game and we could have another moment, like the one you just described. And just mention ideas. Yeah, I mean, when we're pitching ideas, I think it should be a FIFA music award, like a Grammy for like Kid Rock or vanilla ice. I would say you will watch this world cup with a split lens and who is invited and where they say it is for you and pod save the world is going to be, you know, I'd say a sport in itself, but it's not a sport, it gives it a sense of a lack of meaning.

But that narrative will be enormous in macro ways.

And he talked about how when Bolsonaro was president, he co-opted the Brazilian shirt and that shirt became a symbol of his regime.

“And Wagner Mora talked about how this world cup in a postball scenario realm is a chance to reclaim it.”

So the narratives, within this thing, if you're football fan, you know, it's the Ronaldo, the Messi, the Portugal, the France, the Spain, but if you're a pod save the world fan, you know, the world cup is, is all of that.

Yeah, so there's always sort of like issues and anxieties going into these world cups. Sometimes it's political sometimes it's, you know, security or logistics.

This year, people were talking about potential ice presidents, the games, the questions about travel restrictions or visas, more recently, you know, there's a lot of discussion about ticket prices.

“Has any of that deterred attendance as far as you can tell, is the world still coming to the US for these games in Mexican Canada?”

You know, the narrative of any world cup is decided afterwards. And this one in the runner has been about safety fears, but not just in the United States, in Mexican, the, you know, the drug cartel violence, the global tensions, the travel restrictions. So one of the reasons I love football is that more than any other sport, it holds up a mirror to the world that surrounds it. I've always loved that. It's always, you know, one of my definitive moments in life, not just in football, is 1986 England played Argentina.

Diego Maradona, his Argentina, one of the greatest to ever play the game, just to pick just a street urchin turned, you know, kid of gold, they call them.

People, people, they're all in the shadow of the foreclans, and England, they were our heroes, and Argentina destroyed them.

“Once a goal, a tiny little Diego punched it in, in the era before, before video referees, he punched it in over a six foot two goalkeeper, used his hand, and immediately when asked, did you have, did you punch that in?”

He came up brilliantly with his own marketing, said it was a little bit the head of Diego, and a little bit the hand of God. And then when we were a reeling in agony as an English nation, he picked the ball up, he deepened his own half, and then just ran through the entire team, single-handedly, every hero, he eviscerated all of them, and then just rolled the ball home, which kind of echoed the first goal.

I did that cheated because I could, but I also could have destroyed you single-handedly if I wanted to, and that just did, that goal was an agony.

And as an English human being, it kind of put us all in our play show, just where we were in the global food chain. But now it's actually the poster, the photograph I have in my office, on my wall, signed by him, it makes you feel things, it makes you feel alive. And the agony is like one of my proudest agony, it's an honour to have that agony. So everything is always geopolitical. The run-up to any World Cup in the modern period is always a human darkness, the South African World Cup 2010. And the whole reporting going in was how everybody was going to be, you know, car jacked, there was an epidemic, just the violence was going to destroy the thing, the electricity, Bell was not enough to power the stairs, disaster, why is Africa hosting this?

It turned out to be one of the most significant World Cup in my lifetime, Nelson Mandela, Africa presenting it to the world in majestic fashion. When we're Brazil, 2014, the violence rioting, social unrest in 2013, the people rose up around games, marched on the stadium, every stadium I was in. There were riots demonstrations for social justice, for education, not football, meant to be a disaster. And then once a ball is kicked on me, cognitive dissonance kicks in, I'm not sure this is a good thing or a bad thing to be honest, but it's what happens. Once the Lionel Messi takes the field, you know, all the storyline just falls away and we kind of become mesmerized by that global eclipse thing.

So it is a lot of global tension, it is a mirror to the world, the world is understandably challenging, but again, once that opening whistle goes, the pass world cups, everyone is gone from fear and darkness and catastrophizing to a sense of albeit fleeting sense of wonder.

Well, we're headed to you tomorrow, we're going to LA, we have a bus in the style of John Madden, a big orange bus, we're driving it across country, can't tell if this is the greatest idea we've ever had or the worst, we'll find out something in LA, we're going up to Seattle, coming back to LA, we're doing, and then going across the country through Texas to Atlanta. We're going to be doing college game days before the biggest game starting with the United States, we're going to be on Santa Monica Pia, on that first U.S. game on the 12th we've robbed back, and then we're going up to Seattle, where we've got John Green, the greatest novelist, I think everyone with the great old Skittles, your man, the greatest sea hawker of all time, it's going to be joining us, and more and then back to LA, and then we're going across.

“We'll say, as we go across, this is a wild time to me, many sports fans in America will be turned on to football for the first time.”

America loves the circus, they love an excuse to date on drink, they love, you know, mass the desire to cut work, which is approved for the 39 days, but I will say, seeing these fans, and it will be thousands of fans coming in, there have been travel bands, you know, there are some teams who have no fans able to get visas because of the modern reality they've been caught up in, in that issue. It's a crazy Iran, Senegal, Ivory Coast, but there are thousands and thousands of fans coming, and this moment, for 39 days, for the world to shine a spotlight on not just LA, San Francisco, Seattle, but you know, cities like Houston, which are, you know, about to be beloved, when the world finds lemon pepper wet in Atlanta.

“Yeah, at 20,000 Argentinians running around Kansas City, tasting Arthur Bryant, slaps and going, "Oh my God, we've been doing barbecue all wrong, they're all this time."”

That, to me, is a hope, how America can be a winner for 39 days showing a face of ourselves, which is meaningful and warm and welcoming and filled with a kind of joy I want sort from a far, from Liverpool.

It's going to be beautiful, I can't wait for much of Europeans to try Dunkin' Donuts when they get to Boston for some time.

“Raj, great to see you, great to talk with you, good luck with this tournament buddy, I'm home and excited to watch through your eyes.”

I'll see you in LA, beautiful, really, really excited to be here.

That's our show for today, thanks to Roger Bennett for coming on, Alex and I will be back with a new show on Friday by everyone.

Pause if America is a crooked media production. Our show is produced by Austin Fisher, Saul Rubin, McKenna Roberts and Ferris Safari with Reed Chirlin, Elijah Cone and Adrian Hill.

Our team includes Matt DeGroat, Ben Hefcoat, Jordan Cantor, Charlotte Landis, Carroll, Pelevi, David Tolz, Mia Kalman, Ryan Young, and Naomi Single. Our staff is probably unionized with the writer's guild of America East.