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Welcome to Save America. I'm John Fabara. I'm John Lovett. I'm Tommy Vietor. Today is the last part of the Trump era. We will talk about the 47th president's final days in office, how he's changed the Republican Party over the last four years, how he's changed America.

And on a brighter note, we'll dive into President elect Joe Biden's ambitious agenda for his first days in office.

Then you'll hear Lovett and me talk about what goes into writing an inaugural address, which we taped for the crooked media smash hit YouTube series Speechwriter's speechwriters, not the one danzon.

Watchout five. I said watch out, Phifer. We're coming.

Yes, it's a different reaction. New YouTube series. New YouTube series. I like the episode where you speechwriter rubber bands on a on a melon of some sort.

I was a really good one. Love it.

Speaking of jokes, how is the show this week? We had a great love it or leave it. I talked to Kara Swisher about social media and regulation under Democrats and talked to her about her conversation with Dominion's CEO and with the parlour CEO, which was two different conversation she had. And then I quizzed Jon Favreau and Tommy Vietor on their tweets over the last four years. And it was a very fun and entertaining experience. Then I told jokes to random people on omegle, which is works really well, except apologies to a few people who I guess didn't put in the right key word and did see strangers penises.

Not what we wanted to know. What?

Well, we gave people a word to put in so that they would only see people who are part of the love it or leave it group. I think that there was some. Wow. Well, but the show was good. Good thing it's a podcast. Also, I don't know that we would we would love to watch tomorrow's inauguration with all of you.

Please join us for our transfer of power, our here.

Speaking of cable, we're getting a verdict. We didn't never want to see.

It's the inauguration. You go. Here we go. That's a transition. All right. It's perfect. Love it. It's the transfer of power. Our group thread starting at 10:00 a.m. Eastern, 7:00 a.m. Pacific. We'll be drinking at 7:00 a.m., of course, before all the inauguration festivities get underway, all your crooked friends will be on the group threaded crooked dotcom inauguration. We can't wait. It's early for people in L.A. to wake up 7:00 a.m..

Let's stop kidding me. That's two hours before 9:00 a.m. L.A., people wake up.

All right, guys, I want to start with a question for both of you. When we recorded our very first positive Save America, just before Trump took office in twenty seventeen, what if I had predicted that he'd be leaving four years later after the death of nearly four hundred thousand Americans, a recession to impeachment's 10 months of not being able to safely leave our homes, and a violent insurrection of Trump supporters that would lead to the country's first transfer of power where twenty five thousand armed troops will be required to keep the peace in Washington, D.C. during the inauguration.

Would you have said, A, you've been following too many resistance Twitter accounts? B, sounds about right. Or C, is that all? Love it.

I'll just be I think it sounds about right. I just, you know, look, we were these were the things we were worried about.

We were worried about him launching an assault on democracy. We said from the beginning, we said from the primaries, the great fear was what would happen if he was in charge during a real national emergency. I mean, that is what we talked about from the very beginning. And by the way, we were pretty well convinced he was a criminal from day one. So, yeah, double impeachment, defeated coup and massive crisis.

He mismanaged to the point of causing a huge number of deaths. Does feel like a sad, a sad reminder that no one was being sensationalistic.

Tommy John, I would say, look, you have to take him seriously and not literally. And he's he's a businessman's acumen to a job that has been, you know, just handed to bureaucrats for decades. And you're going to have moderating forces in there like Jared and Ivanka and Ryan. So I think you guys are all just being a little too alarmist and you give them a chance. OK, he's our derangement syndrome had Trump derangement syndrome.

You've got a case we haven't even gotten to the night where he became president because he I guess he blew up an airfield in Syria. That was what was right. Yeah. Oh, my God. I mean, look, the up until 20, 20, there were so many bad things that he did that people had always worried about, right? There was family separation comes to mind. The Muslim ban. There were just there were numerous Charlottesville, of course.

Yeah. The racism came through. The xenophobia came through in many ways. There are numerous things that could lead him to be one of the worst presidents of all time. But there also would be this debate that popped up every time someone said he was one of the worst presidents of all time, especially some people on the left football. George W. Bush launched a war in Iraq in their own country. Hundreds of thousands have died because of that war.

And that was always a good point.

And then 20, 20 comes around and the pandemic, plus all of the actions of the last few months where he tried to incite an insurrection against the government based on conspiracies about electoral fraud, plus the pandemic plus the recession.

I mean, that that it is basically everything people worried about with Donald Trump save for like starting a nuclear war.

And you know what? I didn't want anybody is that we have 24 hours left. Can you just button it up button and knock on wood to stop a nuclear war that knock on wood.

And there is a big, interesting, somewhat academic debate going on about whether he's a fascist or not or sort of how to define him in the Trump era. And I don't I don't know that answer. I'll leave it to the smarter people. But he is definitely the smallest person to ever inherit the biggest job on the planet. Like four years in. He's still worried about his treatment. He's still aggrieved. It's about press coverage. It's about weekend cable hosts not being nice enough like no one has ever grown into a job less in the history of jobs than Donald Trump in the presidency.

It's just like he's a terrible human being, that's all. It is terrible. I mean, most days he just didn't. Yeah, you just gave up, you know. I mean, and when he when he did the job, he caused great harm and damage to the country. But most of the time, he just didn't even do the job at all. And especially these last couple of months when he was just consumed with himself and winning the election, he cares about no one but himself.

That's the whole theme of the whole fucking Trump era.

He will be the first president since Andrew Johnson in 1869 to skip the inauguration of his successor, another impeached one term president who was a racist after not getting the big military sendoff that he reportedly wanted. The soon to be ex president will instead leave Joint Base Andrews at eight a.m. on Wednesday and fly directly to Mar a Lago, or he will play golf and wallow in grievance. So not not much different from most days of the last four years.

I really liked by the way, there is a there is like there's apparently an email going around trying to get former Trump supporters to try to show up at Andrews Air Force Base at 715 a.m. in freezing cold to like wave him goodbye. Six call time. His second time is six for the seven fifteen when no one's going. And what's and there is so desperate that it said you and five plus ones and it even went to Scaramouch. Got it. Yeah.

Oh, the people that he hates, all the people that like had a bad breakups with Donald Trump, John Kelly, Mooche. Everyone's get, they're trying, they're just trying to build the Christmas card list. None of the Republican leaders are going, Mike Pence isn't going, they're all going to the inauguration instead. All the inauguration activities. No one's not a lot of people are going. And it's just like some staffers are like afraid to be photographed at a Donald Trump farewell ceremony, too, which is.

Yeah, that's that'll be your undoing, you losers. Yeah. Oh, that. Now we can't that's a bridge too far photo on the last day. How how significant do you think it is that Trump is refusing to attend the inauguration? Tommy, I mean, I never want to see his dumb face ever again, but I think it's harmful.

I mean, not every president has attended his successor's inauguration. The traditions have changed over time. Right? They used to, like, ride in a car together from the White House to the inauguration and back. I think Teddy Roosevelt got rid of part of that tradition.

But I do think that one of the most important parts of America is this peaceful transition of power from one president to the next, even when their bitter rivals. And I think that he's slapping that tradition in the face. I think that this departure ceremony and whatever speech he gives could end up emboldening and inflaming all the people we just saw trying to storm the Capitol and overturn the results. So it's not great that half of Republicans seem to think that the party didn't do enough in the first place to back his election lie.

So, you know, it sends a bad message domestically. It sends a bad message abroad. It's just it's the last act of a sad, sad man.

Love it. I'm glad he's not going.

I think the fact that we did not have a peaceful transfer of power because of Trump sent a very bad message about the peaceful transfer of power. He is not a fan of one. He does not represent it. He can't embody it. So get out. And then we have to just make sure we defeat the movement that empowered him. You know, there was that you know, I was kind of I stopped myself for three full days from joining the is Trump a fascist wars of Twitter?

I almost did. I had a couple really good points that I think would really settle that.

But I but I didn't. But I didn't do it. I think, though, that, like, is he a fascist even though he was incompetent? What is fascist? I think the thing that is most frightening and I think it is one of his biggest legacies beyond the mass death and the judges, which I would put at two and three, is that regardless of how successful he was of an authoritarian, regardless of the guardrails that failed or didn't fail or held up in the end, I think what is most chilling is the kind of fascism he engendered in people's hearts that that that it's not just that he didn't believe in the peaceful transfer of power.

He spoke to and encourage and engendered and nurtured and anti-democratic in this movement that will long survive him. So as president, I mean, so regardless of whether he attends or not, the damage is done, he wouldn't be going as a representative of our democracy. He would be going as an antagonist to it.

Well, you know, I saw that Joe Biden said that he was happy he's not attending. I'm personally I don't want to see him anymore either.

I also don't think it's necessarily about, like decorum or tradition or civility or any of that kind of stuff.

Why I wish he went is because he should send a message that Joe Biden won the election. Right. Like the centrality of this lie that the election was stolen from Donald Trump is just perpetuated by the fact that he's not attending the inauguration. It's a wink and a nod again to his supporters that this isn't legitimate. Joe Biden's victory isn't legitimate. And by the way, like there's a whole bunch of people out there plotting to potentially cause more violence around the inauguration.

And now Trump is telling them and don't worry, I'm not going to be there, you know, like I kind of think so. I think he should have gone. You're right. Love it. It's not like it would have undone all of the damage in any way. But at some point, we're going to need to start hearing some apologies from Republicans for saying that the election was stolen when they fucking knew that it wasn't.

All right. So let's talk about what's next for everyone who hitched their wagon to Trump. The family is reportedly following him to Florida, Don Jr. and Kim Guilfoile, Jared and Ivanka, who apparently might want a primary. Marco Rubio in twenty twenty two. They're even letting Tiffany go to Florida looking for a house there, too. Meanwhile, Politico says that a lot of Trump staffers who stuck around until the end of the administration are worried they won't be able to get jobs because of Trump's attempted coup.

Here's one staffer to Politico on background.

Of course, the people who this is hardest on, aside from obviously the people in the capital and the police and the people who are hurt are the people who staked their reputations and their political, financial and career fortunes on defending the president. And he's just made it harder on us.

First of all, I love the parenthetical, aside from, of course, the people who were killed because of the insurrection, I realize it was a little bit harder on them. But think of spare a few tears for the out of work Trump staffers.

Guys, tell me, what do you think about all these Trump staffers who are just so where they're not going to find a job again? How do we make sure that I mean, you should be worried? Yeah, this is a stain on your reputation that is permanent and you have to live with that. But what sucks about this is that the most senior people, the people who enabled him the most, who are the most culpable for where we ended up, will probably be OK.

You mentioned. Ivonka, she thinks she's going to be a senator or something. I'm Marco Rubio. I mean, the arrogance, entitlement of these people who think that they've somehow earned another government job is just staggering to me. But if you if you take Jared Kushner, right, like every six months, there was an article about how big his portfolio was. He was the shadow secretary of state. He was handling us Mexico relations, Middle East peace.

He was going to solve the crisis. Nobody is going to modernize government. That was a fun little moment as he's going to say that with covid. But then he fucked everything up. Right. So basically, what he ended up doing was spending the last few months flying around the Middle East and paying off various countries with US government dollars and programs that were not currently at war with Israel to announce that they weren't at war with Israel as part of these Abrahim accords, whatever.

So I say that context, because I think that will help would be fine. Like he has rich, powerful friends in Saudi Arabia.

The UAE is real and they're going to take care of him financially.

Right.

And so I have more contempts, I think, for some of these people who are quitting two weeks out than the young kids complaining on background to Politico who are who are still gutting it out because all of these people, like if you were a political appointee, you did enormous damage to the country.

You help separate kids from their parents. You lied about the pandemic. You backed a man who who told lies from the first minute he was in office until the very end. And so I don't think the attack on the Capitol was some sort of revelation, like you knew who this guy was. You worked for him in spite of that character. I would never hire you. You're fucking horrible judgment. What are you complaining about? You made your bed.

Now you have to lie in it. Love it. You know, McKay Coppins is a good piece in the Atlantic about how the plan is amnesia here on the part of Republicans that Trump they're just going to pretend that Trump never happened. Yeah, they're going to all try to move on The Wall Street Journal editorial board sort of like kick this off today by saying, like, pay no attention to the man's character and all of his flaws. Think about all the people in the administration who, you know, were responsible for the passage of policies that really all the taxes they cut.

So that's other that's like it's a good example of how the Republican Party is going to try to sort of distance itself from like the uncouth parts of the of the Trump legacy.

Is that possible?

I don't think that's possible. Oh, I think it is possible.

And I think we are going to be really I think that, like, the results are not going to be very satisfying. I think they'll be quite mixed. I mean, I think you'll have people like Sean Spicer in part because they were kind of goober's from the jump ending up like as like, you know, reporting from the briefing room for Newsmax because they couldn't get speaking gigs because nobody wanted to hear what they had to say. I think people like Gary Cohn, who are, I think, better connected and a bit more savvy, have done a good job, clearly, of getting insane editorials drafted at The Wall Street Journal to basically brandish their credentials for speaking gigs board seats.

I have no idea. But I mean, that was a ridiculous I mean, we hear the editorial board would like to point out to these 10 people that we think are good, not bad. They're good. What a strange waste of like what? What is that? What is the goal of that piece to rehabilitate these 10 people? Yeah. And then then it is there is going to be on the impeached, like I was thinking this over the weekend, that is just like the position of Tom Cotton and Lindsey Graham and all of these people is going to be how can you impeach and remove a president from office if he never existed?

You know, like that's going to be there. That's going to be their position and. You know. I think it's obviously dangerous, it's dangerous because of the damage that that this did and their complicity in it, you know, they need to be held responsible.

But it's also have we learned nothing over the past few years like this isn't a conservative movement with some nationalists. The nationalist part of the Republican Party is its establishment. It is its core. It is its base. It runs the show. And they play these games for years with Rush Limbaugh, with your with with the leavens, with now with Tucker, with anybody they want who can help them stir these people up and get them riled up. And then they act like the conservative intelligentsia.

Putting out fucking tax credits for small businesses is what the party is really about. When it's not, it's not. They want blood now. They want blood. I would say there's not even many people left pretending that anymore, that that the party is about fucking deficits and tax cuts and all the rest. That's a small.

Those are like those are like the Mitt Romney's. Those are like the normal people that are saying that left who are like been ostracized by the party at this point. Now they're just pretty open that they don't like democracy very much. Yeah. You know, yeah. There's there's a there's a GOP county GOP chair in Georgia today being like, oh, we got to roll back just about all of these voting expansion laws that they passed so we can win an election.

Again, we weren't even trying to hide it anymore. So Trump will still be tried in the Senate over the next few weeks. But beyond that, hopefully we can stop talking about him, at least for a while. But before we move on, I do want to talk a little bit about his legacy, both how he's changed the Republican Party and how he's changed the country. But you were just touching on this. Let's start with sort of the Republican Party.

Tell me, the final Gallup poll of the Trump presidency found him tied for the lowest approval rating since Eisenhower, but also the highest approval rating among Republicans since Eisenhower.

In what ways has Trump changed this party? I mean, profoundly for the worse? Look, I think all leaders decide, do they want to rally their citizens by appealing to their their the good in them, their better angels? Or are you going go for anger and fear and paranoia? And Trump chose almost exclusively to activate the works in the Republican Party. Right. It started on day one talking about American carnage in his inaugural address, and it continued through yesterday right through the attack on the capital.

And so these strains of rage, he drew out, they weren't new and he wasn't the first to do it. The Republican Party since the 60s has used racism to appeal to white voters, started over. It became more coded over time. Trump made it overt again. I mean, it was birther ism. It was Mexicans are rapists. It was defending Nazis in Charlottesville. He emboldened other racists to follow suit and be overt like he is. I think the Republicans have always been kind of more conspiratorial, like we're conspiratorial country, but the Republicans have that really paranoid streak in them.

It's McCarthyism, the John Birch Society, like the post 9/11, Islamophobia, those, you know, parts of the party have ebbed and flowed in terms of prominence over time. But he made them front and center, right like twenty fifteen. He's doing interviews with Alex Jones. He's blaming George Soros. He's making us scared of migrant caravans and antifa.

And so I think Trump will leave office now. But those bigoted, paranoid factions are now ascended like like you said, Mitt Romney is those those folks are leaving the party. The Q and on Republicans are showing up to Washington and they want power now. And so he's decimated their faith in democracy and elections. And I don't know how the Republican Party fixes this. I don't know if they want to fix it. Right. Like most of the party probably doesn't think there's anything that needs to be fixed.

So, again, like he woke up these really ugly factions. He embraced Kuhnen. He helped it grow. He made white nationalists feel emboldened, militia groups feel emboldened. So this is scary stuff to me. And I think it's by no means over when he leaves office. It's a huge problem for Republicans, but it's a huge problem for all of us as citizens that this is what we're now left with. I mean, it seems like 40 years ago, but after the 2012 election, when Mitt Romney lost, there was an autopsy about what the Republican Party did wrong in the conclusion of the autopsy of why they lost, was that the party needs to embrace sort of trade, free trade and immigration and and the growing diversity of America.

And and that's how they're going to and that's they're going to win. And then instead, they nominated Donald Trump and he won anyway. So I love it.

I guess one of the questions where Tommy was just talking about, which is like, does the Republican Party even want to fix these issues?

Like do can they be successful, as is the party of Trump without Trump at the helm?

I think there's a real I think there's something interesting, right, about what the party decides to say about democracy between that autopsy and what they've said since the attempted coup. Right. The it is true that they were able to win the White House again without following what that kind of approach would dictate. Right. Like appeal to a multicultural growing majority, appeal to people outside the current base. I think that was predicated on the idea that they would want to win a majority of the country and not win the White House with a narrow strip of Electoral College victories in a few swing states.

And then in the wake of the coup and the and the attempt to overturn the election, Republicans were just coming out and saying, if we object to the Electoral College now, we're screwed. The Electoral College is the only way we're going to win the White House ever again, which is another way of saying we don't plan to broaden our base. We don't plan to change at all. So we said this four years ago. If Trump had lost in 2016, that would have been yet another not just popular vote loss, but election loss.

I think that would have caused a real period of soul searching and change. We defeated Trump, we removed him, but they picked up the Republicans, picked up seats in the House. Democrats managed to win the Senate, but Republicans got the biggest turnout that they've ever had. And so, you know, that kind of a split decision, I think, is is putting off the reckoning that I think would otherwise have come. And it puts the stakes at 20, 22, they make them incredibly high.

John, you've talked about this obviously is incredibly high because the Republican majority in the House is a majority that will object to the Electoral College if a Democrat wins and God help us if we lose the Senate. But it also means that they will be rewarded for the worst tendencies in their party, showing them that they no longer can win without Trump, but with the kind of conspiratorial right wing, fascistic, revanchist politics that they have been using is, I think, the only way to ultimately defeat it.

We can't appeal to their shame or their morals. We have to defeat them.

Yeah, and I think there's two ways this could go. I mean, like one interesting example is Arizona, right? So in twenty twenty two, Mark Kelly is up again because it was a special election to fill that seat.

So the most Republicans, most Democrats too, in Arizona believe that the toughest opponent for Mark Kelly would be Doug Ducey, who's the governor of Arizona, the Republican Gov. Doug Ducey's not moderate. He is a conservative. He's a hardcore conservative as a Trump supporter.

But because he has been implementing like public health regulations and restrictions for covid and because he didn't necessarily object to the Electoral College results they're thinking of, the state GOP wants to censure Doug Doocy and instead they want to they might want to run to in the primary to in the Senate primary, like Andy Biggs, one of the crazy conspiracy theorists who actually helped plan the rally that ended up being an attack on the capital against DC in the primary, perhaps to then maybe run him against Mark Kelly instead.

Now, like, if you're Mark Kelly, you'd much rather run against Debix than Doug Ducey. But at the same time, who knows? Because the other part of this is and one of the Republicans was saying this the other day, Ken Buck, he's like, I wouldn't worry too much about losing the suburbs. I think now we are a working class party. And I think the evidence of that is that Donald Trump did expand the base in twenty twenty, even though he did lose, which he did get more votes than he didn't get in 2016.

And he expanded that not only among non college educated white voters, but he even reached into the Latino coalition and brought some Latino voters on board and even a small number of black voters on board, too. And the question is, can the Republicans develop this like working class, noncollege educated coalition to like edge out Democrats and some of these close battlegrounds?

The one thing I would say is fascinating to me about like what these Republican parties have been saying. There's one in Wyoming that was talking about secession.

Like, you know, the Ezra Klein has written about this a fair amount about about like the weakening of the parties, but the strengthening of partisanship. And what's interesting to me is you would think the Republican Party of Arizona would be interested in winning a Senate seat more than, say, you know, putting forward like the most base friendly kind of. Right wing nationalists that they can find, but it does seem as though these parties are now more kind of not trying to lead the base somewhere or try to help them find the best way to win, but are actually just avatars of it because these party structures are so weak and so much is being determined by like small dollars and by what the what the the agitating bloodthirsty groups are pushing them to do.

Yeah, the censuring Cindy McCain out there in Arizona. I look in part, I don't know that's I won't be surprised if they run the fucking Kuhnen Sharmin. The Arizona Republican Party is batshit crazy and they are they are advertising and on Twitter in an effort to grow their reach and following like that's who they are, that this is who they're.

Yeah. And they look the same thing's going to happen in Georgia. Another state that the Republicans lost right to the right wing lunatics in Georgia are going to try to primary camp who I already I used to think was a right wing is. And now there's always someone further. There he is. But it's so sad. There's always someone further to the right than Brian Kemp. Yeah. Raffensperger Gabes all these people, all these Republican characters.

Establishment Republicans rally to Marjorie Taylor Greene to prevent a right wing primary challenge from removing her from her part of the leadership.

Like that's where we're heading towards a little scary. It's yeah, you have to laugh because otherwise it's fucking terrifying.

All right. Finally, we're talking about the Republican Party. Let's talk about the country. Love it.

And what ways to trump change America over the last four years. All right.

And what did he know? What did he what did he get? I think. So let me say what we what we talked about from the beginning, which was, all right, there's policy, there's like institutions and then there's the culture, I think on policy they will point to their success on judges. I think that will be his biggest and most lasting political legacy, that it will have huge and far reaching implications. They're actually not totally known to us because we have to see just how much of Biden's agenda they're successfully able to stymie at the courts.

That is going to be a huge and long lasting problem. It is a it is a grim unfairness that Donald Trump appointed more Supreme Court justices than Barack Obama in eight years. Right. Four years versus eight years. Then you look at the damage done to institutions. That is sorry. Did you did you forget the tax cut? Well, the thing is, yeah, it passed. They did pass a tax cut. That's it. That's his one legislative big legislative accomplishment was a tax.

Yeah. I mean, I guess I guess his I guess his NAFTA renegotiation, too, which was, you know, not much of a difference, but it was something.

And I think we've just gotten sort of used to like. Yeah, you know, Bush passed bigger tax cut, like Republicans passed tax cuts. Right. That's not unique to Donald Trump. If anything, you would call that McConnell's achievement. Obviously, then I think beyond the pandemic, which will be his greatest and most Long-Lasting and destructive effect on people's day to day lives, given how many people have died and how much havoc it's caused in the failed response and the misinformation he promulgated for the entire time that he was in the White House, I think you look at the damage he has done to our culture, as Tommy said, the right wing nationalism he's fomented, the anti-democratic trends he's fomented.

He was more than just a mirror. He was an amplifier. He took these trends and he made them far worse. And he accelerated what Facebook was doing, accelerated what Fox News was doing. And that doesn't go away. And how we grapple with that in the years ahead, I think is going to determine whether or not we can keep this democracy. I agree.

But I think that, like sort of right wing propaganda in this country and, you know, we've talked about the rise of Fox for a long time now. We've also always had sort of the power behind the presidential bully pulpit.

Donald Trump is the first figure to sort of fuse those two things together.

And so now right wing propaganda was coming from the presidential bully pulpit on a daily basis. And I think what that does is he brought out the worst in us.

He made the country vicious, like little little kids chant, build that wall. Like, that's not that's not normal.

It's OK to demonize each other and it's OK to be selfish at each other's expense. That's it. That's that's what he did for the country. And, you know, whether it's fascist or whether it's authoritarian, it's certainly authoritarian. Right. Like, rules don't matter.

Power matters know democracy is for the weak. This is this is the legacy of Trump. And it's not just transforming the Republican Party because we only have two parties in this country. It is it remains a very it remains maybe the existential threat to the country going forward that we now have one of our two political parties that just doesn't really believe in the basics of democracy anymore, that we're not arguing from the same set of facts anymore, that conspiracies and misinformation have taken root in one major political party.

And that's what they stand for.

Like, well, I was thinking, what is the Republican agenda now? They don't you can't even list a policy agenda from that party anymore. If there's nothing.

It's just like walking by that part of it, though, is they are victims of their success. They pass their corporate tax cuts. They did a fair amount of deregulation will be able to undo that. They got their judges through. Right. They made the deal, McConnell, McCarthy, Paul Ryan, even Mitt Romney at the start, they made the deal and they got a lot out of their deal. And now they're going to pretend that they were never a part of it, that really all they cared about that like, no, you traded character for tax cuts.

You traded democracy for for deregulation. You own them both.

There's always more government to dismantle, more tax cuts to give out more regulations Bill. Now, we'll find that out in the next four years. I will say the there is the only the only silver lining of the Trump era is it did remind a lot of people of how fragile democracy is. And it did get a lot of people off the sidelines who hadn't participated in politics before that. And I do think whether we meet this challenge going forward is going to be dependent on whether all those people stay.

And I you know, I think a reinvigorated and refocused lawmakers attention on the need to pass reforms that make democracy easier, make it easier to vote, that gives D.C. statehood, that reduces gerrymandering, reduces the influence of money in politics. Those are very big, long term challenges. But I think the seeds of getting us to Trump were sown in a lot earlier, especially when it comes to dark money flowing through every single political entity in this country.

Yeah, no, you're right, we can't we can't have a multiracial democracy if we have minority rule in this country, which is what Republicans have rigged the system to give themselves. So that's why some of the democracy reforms are so important.

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All right, let's turn to the incoming president, Joe Biden.

On Thursday, he unveiled his one point nine trillion dollar American rescue plan, which is designed to fight the pandemic and the recession. It includes an additional fourteen hundred dollars in recovery rebate checks. Biden's calling them an extra four hundred dollars per week in unemployment benefits through September, three hundred fifty billion dollars in state and local funding and hundreds of billions of more for covid testing. A national vaccination program, reopening schools and colleges, child care, paid leave, rent support and a fifteen dollar minimum wage.

Tommy, what you think of Biden's plan is big. This is big. I mean like this, but double the Recovery Act was in 2009. And, you know, some people might argue that the Recovery Act was was too small. And I will heartily agree with you, but this plan comes on top of the previous three point one dollars trillion that Congress has passed in terms of relief. So this is great.

I like that they're putting big pieces in there like a fifteen dollar minimum wage. Right. Like Marco Rubio is already crying about some of this. But Republicans jam unrelated tax cuts for rich people and do everything they do. So we should do the same. I think it's good that voices in Congress are pushing him to go bigger. Right. Know Bernie Sanders, the chairman of the the Budget Committee, he's going to push hard for even more. That's great.

And he wants to use the the budget reconciliation process to pass. It was 50 votes, so it can't be filibustered.

But look, I mean, it's it is horrifying that it took until a Biden administration for the federal government to own coronavirus testing. Trump pushed it to the states. He gave them no money. He wiped his hands of it and walked away. Biden is taking responsibility. He's owning some of these things. There's tons of money for unemployment insurance. There's the direct payments like I think there's a lot of really good stuff in here that people should be happy about.

Well, what do you think the biggest ticket item cost wise in this are these recovery rebate checks? There are fourteen hundred dollars, not two thousand dollars, because Congress passed a 600 dollar checks a few weeks ago. There's some consternation on the left about this. I don't know what I don't know what you think about this, the recovery rebate checks. Here's what I think.

I think more is better. More is better like it would be, I agree, more is better, but if the original idea was six hundred and then you're going to love it by fourteen hundred or two thousand, if we really don't have a semantic debate as to whether or not that's passing two thousand, like, I'm going to skip that debate if you want to say I'm giving it, I'm just I am not participating.

I'm out, I'm out on that semantic distinction. I'm not saying like, if you think we should push for more bigger checks. Great. Like, let's push for bigger checks. But like, I feel like the debate over the semantics was was sort of lost on me. I mean, man, like, I want bigger checks too. And I also I want bigger direct payments instead of tax credits and other mechanisms that tend to be slower and more complicated to get people money.

But like, it's so frustrating to see people accuse Biden of being dishonest or some people said he's gaslighting because this is a six hundred dollar check plus a fourteen hundred dollar check. That equals two thousand. I mean, clearly, the initial argument was six hundred was insufficient. We should get to two thousand. Now, if you if you want to tell me that some of the messaging around the Georgia runoffs was unclear and that some people thought we were talking about an additional two thousand dollar check, that's fine.

Let's all advocate and organize and work to make it bigger.

But like, I don't understand why people decide to just leap to bad faith and get angry and like accused Biden of of of letting them down before the guys even stepped into office. It's it's very frustrating. It's a big package, like let's pass it. It's frustrating, it's a problem with Twitter. It happened with the CNN story last night, so stupid that Schumer and McConnell are entering into an agreement, power sharing agreement. Right. Which you hear like why is Schumer giving that up?

Or what's really happening is Schumer is majority leader. Democrats are the chairs of every single committee. The committees will be split evenly between Democrats and Republicans. But Democrats still control the floor in the schedule. So they have all the power. They have as much power as you can have with fifty one votes in the Senate.

Absolutely. And everyone who sees the Senate knows that. But people just like jumped on Twitter to be like, oh, Democrats giving up.

It's like there's gonna be plenty of reasons to criticize Democrats. Don't worry.

We'll have plenty of we do it all the time. Don't act like you understand this fucking Senate procedural thing. Like I dialed up some serious report about how it worked back in the early 2000s to try to figure out how this works. Like people there's there's this cottage industry of people that want to say Democrats are bad, know both sides are the same. Both parties are bad. And that is cynicism. That is not a smart analysis or constructive approach to doing things for people, which is why we all got into politics.

I wish I could weigh in, but I did say wasn't myself in this debate, unfortunately. I will say this, I will say this. I was forced to be reminded of Jim Jeffords for a while, how he that was just sort of about him switching sides and all. That's a little trip down memory lane, early Bush administration, No Child Left Behind, but, you know, compassionate conservative pre 9/11. A whole different time. A whole different time.

I will just say one more thing on the checks, the checks debate. So like the covid relief package passes on December twenty seventh with only one week left to go in the Georgia runoff. So most of the Georgia runoffs, everyone is advocating for a two thousand dollar checks. Right.

So there is a bill at the end after the thing passes with the six hundred dollar checks supported by all the most progressive members in the House, AOC, everyone else that said, we want to now increase those six hundred dollar payments to two thousand, we would like an extra fourteen hundred dollars to bring it up to two thousand. They all signed on to the bill and when they did, no one complained about that. Everyone was like, yeah, obviously he only passed six hundred dollars.

Let's get another fourteen hundred and two thousand. It's called the Cash Act. Everyone supported it.

So like what I don't understand. And look, I had a Presley her response to Biden's bill was I think we should have twenty two thousand dollars per month. That's what I believe. I believe. And I was like, you know what? That's a completely legitimate way to it. Not like they lied to us. He was dishonest, just like I want more. And I think it should be a check every month. Like, great, that's the debate we should have.

That's the exact right way to argue even more.

More is better. People are really hurting. I think that's and and the other thing that is remarkable, too, it's like I'm glad we're having this debate and I think progressives should push no matter where the debate lands. Right. That's an important role for them to play. But like men, have we come a long way since 2009? We've got Joe Manchin talking about like multitrillion dollar relief and infrastructure packages, like the center has shifted. We have learned some lessons.

And I think that is a very positive thing.

Well, and also I think we don't want to even though it is the biggest ticket item in Biden's bill, I think we do a disservice by just focusing on the agreements like four hundred dollars extra per week and unemployment benefits, which already get you, you know, 70, 80 percent of the way to your former salary is is a good standard through September.

Extended through September is a huge deal. Right. The state and local government, the three and fifty billion dollars for state and local government is huge. That's going to save so many jobs, a 15 dollar minimum wage.

Think about when 15 dollar minimum wage not that long ago was like the progressive policy position. Now, the Biden folks actually think that they might get some Republican votes on a 15 dollar minimum wage and by the way, like they should now that that's the one thing that might not be able to get done through reconciliation. You might actually have to have a vote and get 60 on a 15 dollar minimum wage.

But, man, I can't imagine a better thing to put in front of the Republicans as one of your first acts, then say, oh, you guys are going to be the fucking working class party. Now you have a working class coalition.

What do you think about a fifteen dollars minimum wage since it gets about sixty five percent support in polls? Great. Make them vote against it. I think that's silly.

Right. I can make one point about the minimum wage to which I think is like actually I found interesting as I was reading about I want to what I was actually thinking about was, all right, getting rid of the filibuster. Manchin, some other Democrats are really opposed to it. You even have people like Bernie Sanders that have expressed reluctance in the past, like there is a reticence about it. Fine. But I'm just looking into the popularity of the minimum wage.

And there's been this, I think, mostly kind of purely kind of rhetorical and almost like like almost emotional conversation about Republicans appealing to the working class. Raising the minimum wage is popular, it is incredibly popular among Democrats, independents, it is divided amongst Republicans. But what's interesting is Republicans who make under forty thousand dollars a year support raising the minimum wage. It is a place where there's a divide inside of Republican politics. And it struck me that if they're going to be pretending to appeal to the working class, even though they're really it's guys with hundred and twenty thousand pickup trucks waving flags, fine.

But but looking for those issues where you can say actually the working class the Republican Party is with us, I think is really important.

And I would love big votes on the minimum wage, like do it until we have to get rid of the filibuster, make that the thing we kill the filibuster on.

Being for popular issues that also divide the other party, like the politics of the time, that's that's just what you do, right? There's also a couple other like some real great provisions in this plan on Obamacare, the Affordable Care Act.

The proposal would do two things. It would make upper middle income Americans newly eligible for premium subsidies on Obamacare marketplaces. This is one of the big deal is that like if you weren't if you if you made too much money but still not enough money to really be able to afford insurance, you didn't get the subsidies on the marketplace and the premiums were still too high. So now there's more subsidies for that and there's going to be higher subsidies for lower income enrollees.

So taken together, this will fulfill the Biden campaign promise of making sure that, like no one in America pays more than eight and a half percent of their income on their health care, which again, it's not Medicare for all. It's not the public option yet. But to do this, to squish this into a system, to sneak this into a bigger relief bill is a that's a great that'll make a difference and hopefully get to millions more people enrolled in sort of sures up the entire system.

There's also one hundred and thirty billion dollars to help reopen schools safely. Again, unconscionable that no money was given to these schools.

Reopening like this is a life changing thing for parents.

If their kids can go back to school, we have to get kids back to school. So, again, there's a lot in this bill that's good. The Biden team has reportedly said they don't want to pass this through budget reconciliation, which would only require 51 votes instead of 60. But they're not ruling it out. Of course. Love it. Why don't you think they started with budget reconciliation here?

I don't know. I don't know either. I don't like I think it's I think they want to get I think it's I think it's them. They want to get caught trying. They want to say, we did not shut the door to Republicans at the beginning of this. We want to find partners. We want to find people who were, you know, Marco Rubio. You say you're for two thousand dollar checks, then come work with us. Someone has said in the past they're for 15 dollar minimum wage.

Come work with us. So they at least want to get caught trying. I think the key is you don't want to waste too much time waiting for these Republican votes. I did see that punch bowl just reported that the House Democrats are just preparing to pass the bill through reconciliate.

I mean, they should maybe also I mean, maybe goes back to the conversation we just had where they want the minimum wage increase to be part of this and they don't think they can get that done through reconciliation. So they're thinking that the biggest, most sweeping bill would have to be passed in the normal fashion. Obviously, it's going to get blocked. Yeah, my advice to them would be start big, go fast, don't waste time trying to convince anybody else.

And no one gives a fuck about bipartisanship right now. People are desperate. They need help, like get it done. Just whatever Joe Manchin wants, again, look, some one of you alluded to this, Joe Manchin gave an interview over the weekend. I thought one of the some of the biggest news was he was like, first of all, he seemed like he was against the two thousand dollar payments. He now wants to make sure they're targeted, but he didn't rule it out.

And then he said he would do two, three, four trillion dollars in infrastructure spending. If you can do a big plan with 51 votes through budget reconciliation. And Joe, Joe Manchin in the Democratic caucus, who's the furthest to the right? The Democratic caucus is on board with four trillion dollars in infrastructure spending. You'll be able to do some pretty good things.

Remarkable. Remarkable. I mean, the big the Big Dig look like really small dig.

That one that one appeared to me is a massol is a card carrying Big Dig then.

So over the weekend, Biden also made clear he's not waiting for Congress to get started on his agenda. Incoming White House Chief of Staff Ron Klain wrote a memo laying out Biden's plan for executive actions in the first 10 days, including rejoining the Paris climate accords, rejoining the World Health Organization, reversing Trump's Muslim ban, halting federal executions, rescinding the ban on transgender individuals serving in the military, protecting dreamers, implementing a massive mandate on federal property and for interstate travel, and extending the pause on federal student loan payments.

He's also reportedly planning to move in on an executive order on the first day to cancel the Keystone pipeline permit. How about that, guys? Tommy, why do you think they're rolling out all of those at once right away?

I you know, I think there is this sort of like old politics view where you would maybe drip out one a day and try to maximize press coverage on it or sort of make sure people knew you had an accomplishment. I like this approach. Go. This is why elections matter. The Senate is going to be a challenging, frustrating place at times. The filibuster might drive us crazy. Some moderates might drive us crazy. These are big, meaningful things that remind people why it mattered that they voted for Joe Biden.

I mean, the the the message that rejoining Paris sends other countries, the message that not banning an entire religion from entering the country sends, it's an enormous deal. And so, you know, I'm not exactly sure on the political calculation, but I think getting this done immediately is the right way to go. And then they can focus on the next thing because like the legislative package is going to take a lot of time and a lot of effort and a lot of arm twisting, whatever you want to call it, love it.

What do you think it reminded me of? We had to raise so many speeches on the Recovery Act at the beginning of the Obama administration, and there was so much in the Recovery Act, so many accomplishments on education, on infrastructure, on clean energy, basically. And I think Rahm had said this before, like an administration's worth of accomplishments rolled up into one bill. And I remember it was really hard writing the speeches, trying to make sure that, like Obama, the administration got credit for all the specific things they did in one bill.

And it's a tough balance because on one hand, like Tommy said, you want sort of the moment of the day a sense of momentum and urgency. Right? Like we are just doing a bunch of shit. We're undoing the damage of the Trump years. We're moving forward on all the things people elected us to do. And the other, like the media environment, can only handle covering so many accomplishments at once. And so I wonder how you balance making sure that you get the administration gets the credit they deserve for doing all this shit?

Absolutely.

I will say, though, it's it's it's it is different than that in the sense that this is undoing a bunch of harm. Right. And there's still plenty of space for a week devoted to an executive order moving climate forward. When you have John Kerry in this new role. There's also, by the way, just I imagine just because it happened so recently, like there are anti LGBTQ policies that have just gone into effect through HHS, that they'll have the opportunity to undo all the way of saying, I think, like get this heinous shit off the books.

And then when you start rolling out further executive actions that move things forward, don't just undo some of this damage. It's not a Trump story. It's a Biden story. It's just the story of what they're doing to make things better. I don't know. I think that's I think that's I think that's ultimately I think it's ultimately great. I also just want to say, like the stopping of the executions, like the Trump administration went on a fucking killing spree.

It's horrible. They want to kill truly evil. And it is absolute like a rushed evil effort to kill more people in a few months. People with special needs in decades, disgraceful. And like it is a it is the fact that it was some of these executions were taking place in the midst of a coup. Right. That they didn't get the attention or the like the press coverage I think they otherwise would have gotten. But, man, it has been it is it there is a the darkness that propelled this administration.

It was evident everywhere. It was everywhere all the time for four years. And I know that it is you know, I like your point, Levit, about undoing the damage versus sort of doing like proactively good things.

I just ran through a list of things.

Each each one of those actions is going to have enormous consequences and do enormous good in people's lives. And like I really do. And look, this is part of why you have a big team to like. Joe Biden should be out there on every single one of those. Right. Like you can have a whole cabinet to fan out. You have a White House team, right? Like, I think you need to be creative with how you sell your agenda.

Right. Like, my view is like pretend it's still a campaign like you should. One thing I wish we did even more when we were in the White House is run everything like we were running a campaign. You know, the only thing is you don't have like a campaign committee to run TV ads for you, but like maybe get outside groups to do that for you. Right. Like, everything you should be doing, you should be trying to sell to different people, reach different audiences and make sure everyone knows what you're doing every day because, you know, they're going to be judged by administration will be judged in twenty, twenty two and then again in twenty, twenty four on like what did you get done for me, especially with people who don't follow much attention to politics.

Right. It's not going to be the ins and outs of what's on Twitter in the debates we follow every day, just like how did my life change over the last two years? What did the administration do? What have I noticed that in a couple of these things are urgent, like the mask mandate, even though it is relatively limited, like that has to happen now. The the the freeze on student loan payments, that has to happen right now.

The moratorium on evictions, that has to happen right now. Some of these things are just like crisis level, urgent matters.

As one of the thing, too, is, is that like some of what we were trying to do when we were talking about the Recovery Act was try to explain to people how these steps would affect them, whether it's investments in infrastructure or some of the tax credits that were a bit harder to see and the checks raising the minimum wage. Some of these changes will be evident immediately to people in their daily lives.

Yeah, and I also think that, again, we're going to have a an impeachment trial sometime over the next few weeks.

And I think the Biden administration is going to want to make sure that people know that they are focused on improving their lives in the here and now and not consumed with impeachment, because I guarantee you that a lot of the media coverage will be consumed with the impeachment trial, which is unavoidable. But at least the Biden folks can show that they're, you know, working on solving the pandemic and not just consuming that either.

So, OK, when we come back, you'll hear let me talk about what goes into writing an inaugural address on speechwriters react.

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Welcome to Speechwriter's React. Joe Biden's inauguration just days away that we take a look back at some past inaugural addresses. Explain what goes into writing. One, take a guess at what Joe Biden might have to say in his first speech as president of the United States. I'm Jon Favreau, former head speechwriter for Barack Obama.

I'm John Lovett. I was a speechwriter to Hillary Clinton and a speechwriter to President Barack Obama when John hired me, despite the efforts by some to prevent that from happening. I'll just say this. I'll just say this. One of the people who tried to stop me from getting that job very prominent in the Biden administration. That's it. That's it. That's all you're getting.

I can't believe Merrick Garland tried to stop you from getting hired. Stakes of an inaugural are probably feel higher than they should.

Some of the most famous presidential lines in history come from inaugurals.

And so my fellow Americans ask not what your country can do for you. Ask what you can do for your country.

There is a certain pressure, I think, to write an inaugural for history.

And you feel that when you start the inaugural process, though my experience is and my advice to future speechwriters who are writing inaugural addresses is to not quite think of it as a speech for history, but think of it as a speech that should be in the moment and of the moment and sort of right for the time and place and moment that you find yourself in.

Let's start off with one of the most famous inaugurals ever. This is FDR first in 1933.

This great nation will endure as it has endured, will revive and will prosper.

So, first of all, let me assert my firm belief that the only thing we have to fear is fear itself. Nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror, which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance. And as a result of our national life, a leadership crisis has met with this understanding and support of the civil says this is essential to victory.

I was struck in the speech by how similar over the decades and centuries, even the structure, the basic structure of a political speech is right. There's a very common structure, which is we have all these challenges as a country. And but don't worry, we have everything we need to beat these challenges. All we have to do is my political agenda. Yeah, that's it. That's every single that's and he does it. He talks about the depression, right?

He takes he takes office in the midst of a Great Depression. He talks about everything that's ailing America. But then he says, well, here's all we have, everything we need to beat this. That's where the line comes from. You know, the only thing we have to fear is fear itself.

I would say probably my favorite political speech ever given is FDR acceptance speech of the Democratic nomination in 1936. That is the speech where he talks about a rendezvous with destiny.

This generation of Americans has a rendezvous with destiny and a speech where he talks about accumulation of economic power as a threat similar to the accumulation of political power.

If the average citizen is guaranteed equal opportunity, a point they must have equal opportunity in the marketplace.

I always go back to it because I think it's one of the clearest, most confident statement of liberal governance, of liberal politics that's ever been given by an American president.

And yeah, you notice like Roosevelt doesn't get up there and say, you know, we're in this depression. Here's here's what led us into this depression and here's the policy agenda that's going to lead us out. But it is the speech is much bigger than policy, much bigger than his agenda. And it is about trying to not just communicate his vision, but lift the nation's spirits, which obviously needed lifting in the in the midst of a depression.

As Biden is thinking about how you address a country in which as of this moment, due to misinformation and propaganda, tens of millions of Americans doubt the basic tenets of how our elections are conducted. We spend a lot of time talking about how you combat misinformation and falsehoods and lies. And I think one lesson from this speech and some of the best inaugurals is sometimes the best answer to a lie is not a fact. It's a deeper truth. And that if you are if you have a shield of basic core values, a basic ideological premise for why you believe what you believe, facts can help you.

But but those truths are, I think, are ultimately more powerful in dispensing with falsehoods and misinformation and propaganda.

Next up, let's take a look at an address I know all too well Barack Obama's first inaugural address in 2009.

Today, I say to you that the challenges we face are real, they are serious, and they are many. They will not be met easily or in a short span of time. But know this America, they will be met. On this day, we gather because we have chosen hope over fear, unity of purpose over conflict and discord. On this day we come to proclaim an end to the petty grievances and false promises, the recriminations and worn out dogmas that for far too long have strangled our politics.

We remain a young nation, but in the words of scripture, the time has come to set aside childish things. The time has come to reaffirm our enduring spirit, to choose our better history, to carry forward that precious gift, that noble idea passed on from generation to generation. The God given promise that all are equal, all are free, and all deserve a chance to pursue their full measure of happiness.

You can hear in this, again, sort of the like how it almost mimics that FDR speech that we listened to at the beginning, whether we did so consciously or not. And I would say not. But like I say to you, the challenges are real, they're serious, and they are many. They will not be met easily or in a short time span. But know this, they will be met like we wanted him to have a line to land on where where people could feel like, yes, we are in the middle of an economic crisis, a great recession.

I remember him telling me, look, we need we won an inaugural that is hopeful, but we also want an inaugural that recognizes how bad everything is right now because we can't just be way up here telling people hope, change. Everything's wonderful like we did for most of the campaign, because now people know we're losing 800000 jobs a month and the banking system is frozen up, you know, and yet so you have to dig deep in a speech like this to like reflect the severity of the times that we're in, but then also try to lift people up from there, much like FDR did in that in that 1933 inaugural by Biden faces a similar crisis set of crises right then as FDR did and as Obama did, they are three presidents taking office after the abysmal failure of a Republican president to address massive crises befalling the country.

This is an extraordinary inaugural in that it is a once in a century pandemic. It is a massive economic crisis. And there is also, for the very first time, a president taking office as the previous president refuses to accept the results. That is extraordinary. You'll have to talk about that. That said, to Joe Biden's great credit, he has been giving a version of this inaugural address since the day he announced his candidacy. He has been talking about the soul of the country.

This this I will be surprised if we are surprised by this inaugural, in part because of the consistency that Joe Biden has shown over the last two years up to and including the likelihood that it ends in the quoting of an Irish poem. Will hope and history rhyme in this inaugural when it has rhymes? So recently, perhaps.

Perhaps this is our moment to make hope and history rhyme.

There's only two parts of the speech. One is like, here's the action we need to take and here's what we need to get done. And the other is and here's how we get it done. We need to, like, work together. Right. I do think now that he has a Senate majority, he's going to want to put a little bit more emphasis on the part where he talks about delivering actual results that are going to solve big challenges and change people's lives, because I think he wants to convey a sense of movement and action in these first 100 days that he can now deliver on because he has more votes than he would have if Mitch was still controlling the Senate.

Basically, this is a speech to Joe Manchin. It's just 15 minutes to Joe Manchin about everything Joe Manchin wants to hear.

He's going to have a couple of anecdotes about West Virginia.

Halfway through the inaugural. He stops and he just says, I'm sorry, I can't I can't keep going. I got Joe Manchin in my field of view and as the most handsome man I've ever seen in my life.

I and Jon Tester, are you forty? I'm going to say, look, I know that I'm seventy seven year old heterosexual man. I want to jump Jon Tester's bones right now.

Is that crazy?

Thanks, everyone. We'll see you tomorrow for a group threat for the inauguration, and thanks for sticking with us for the last four years. For how many pods about Donald Trump?

Too many. Yeah, too many. It was really it was a really long couple of years.

What did he owe Jordan? Over 450 watts. It's never talk about.

No, that's a lot of. Did you see what he tweeted this morning? When does the impeachment trial does suck? I want a clean break from this asshole. It's so frustrating that we have to talk about him, but hopefully he just gets removed.

We were against it the whole time, honestly, said one of those House managers over Jamie Raskin's leading the crew.

Have him go over and say, hey, did you have everyone see what happened? Yeah, see that does it, Mitch. Mitch McConnell was quoted today on the Senate floor saying the president helped incite the mob. Right. OK, convict him. That's it. Remember when the FBI went out? Do you dress like Sasquatch was the presiding officer? Yeah. That was bad.

Yeah. Yeah. We don't need a long trial here. We don't need to be cross examining. Anyone know it's vote. Take a vote. All right. We're done. We'll just going to fade that out at some point.

Party of America is a crooked media production, the executive producer is Michael Martinez, our associate producer is Jordan Waller.

It's mixed and edited by Andrew Chadwick.

Kyle Soglin is our sound engineer, thanks to Tony Snow, Minister, K.D. Lang, Roman Papadimitriou, Caroline Ruston and Justin Howe for production support into our digital team, Alija Konar Melkonian, Elfriede and Milo Kim, who film and upload these episodes as videos every week.