#honestly i think a tommy begins episode would be so fascinating

[eloiseyybish]

If they ever did a Tommy Begins episode (idk if they will, unless they make him a main), it would be the perfect opportunity for them to show us their first official meeting before they got into the Helicopter. Like, we get a bit on his dad and his whole army backstory, maybe a glimpse at him settling into Harbour before the flashbacks end with him meeting Buck.

I imagine it being Chimney (with Buck and Eddie in tow) walking up to Tommy being like,

"Hey, Tommy, thanks so much for this man. So good to see you again, how long has it been?" Etc and then Tommy being like,

"So, who've we got here?" Gesturing to Eddie and (a slightly awestruck) Buck and Eddie immediately puts his hand out and goes,

"Hi, Eddie Diaz. Nice to meet you" with a friendly smile. Tommy shakes his hand and says, "You too, Eddie."

Buck still is just staring at Tommy, and when he notices Tommy looking at him, he clears his throat and goes

"Um...Evan...E-Evan Buckley. Hi.." with a bit of a shy smile as he shakes Tommy's hand. Tommy beams at him and goes,

"Nice to meet you, Evan," and their hands just linger for a second too long, but Chim and Eddie don't notice at all. Buck feels something in that moment but can't explain it at all (which explains the whole meeting someone and clicking with them thing that Buck said in 7x04, because he saw this as a moment where they clicked).

[missnight0wl]

I wasn't going to complain about Agatha All Along finale, but you know what? I will complain. Because it still bothers me, and I still don't really understand…

What exactly was the point of making The Road Billy's creation?

To be clear, "having cool pop culture references and a surprising twist at the end" is not the answer I'm looking for. What it did for the story? Because I honestly feel like it did nothing. In fact, The Road was kinda unnecessary in general.

Let's start with Billy himself. Billy wanted to go to The Road to find Tommy. Did The Road end up helping him with that? No. Sure, he did give Tommy's soul a body, so you can argue it's even more important because it'll allow him to find him. However, it was possible because of Agatha. And here you can argue that Agatha agreed to help Billy because of their bonding on The Road. But I'm just not convinced it couldn't have happened under different circumstances, y'know?

Moving to Alice, here you can say that The Road allowed her to see her generational curse in physical form and therefore break it. But I think what was really important for Alice was that she finally had her coven by her side. That they were like: "Girl, your generational curse SUCKS, but you're not crazy, and we're gonna help you deal with it". Alice said it herself, that she thought the curse was not real, that she was just a screw-up. Now she finally could face it while having support. This, plus Agatha making her realise the truth about Lorna's protection, of course. So, again, did we really NEED The Road for all of this?

Lilia's story was beautiful, and Lilia herself is perfect. But again, it was the coven that was crucial for her. Sure, her path was very closely connected to The Road, but at the same time, I don't feel her story couldn't have been told without it.

Jen's arc was also great, but once more, was The Road really needed to tell that story? Couldn't she catch Agatha's suspicious behaviour under different circumstances and therefore conclude she was the one who'd bound her?

Imagine this. After the ritual in episode 2, the door doesn't show up, but the coven somehow manages to escape the Salem Seven. The thing is that now it's very clear from the beginning that they're after all of them, not just Agatha. Because remember that after they entered  The Road in the show, they commented on the Salem Seven, and they acknowledged that they're after Agatha. Only later it became clear that no, they wanted to get the whole coven. Anyway, the point is that they escaped somehow. Now somebody wants to leave because screw that, but eventually, they all agree that they'll be somewhat safer if they stay together. Billy of course is still fascinated by The Road, so he wants to find out why the ritual failed. The rest decide that if they’re already in this, they might as well try to investigate it. And Agatha still needs to play along because otherwise, she'd have to reveal her scam. If the show went in this direction, would it really have to be significantly different, story-wise? I honestly think it wouldn't.

Don't get me wrong, I love the practical set they had for The Road, the themed trials and whatnot. But I really don't like the implications connected to the fact that it was created by Billy (or rather Billy's mind). And I'm not even talking here about people actually dying. I appreciate that Billy freaked out about this realisation, but I also have to admit that Agatha kinda had a point that she was the one who killed Alice, and Lilia chose to die. It's a bit different with Sharon, but I'll come back to that a little later. The thing is that, in my opinion, what Billy should actually freak out about are all the visions from Jen's trial – which are not addressed at all, for some reason. Because… how are we even supposed to interpret it? I saw people saying that they were also created by Billy's mind since earlier Jen mentioned the rumours about Nicky, and Billy talked with Alice about her mother (hence Agatha's vision of the Darkhold and Alice's of Lorna being unwell). However, Lilia didn't mention her Maestra at all, and Jen said nothing about the mysterious doctor at that point. So, how would Billy create their visions? It has to mean that:

he subconsciously scanned their minds to get the information, or

he "gave" The Road enough power that it became semi-conscious (and therefore it created the visions on its own).

I assume the second option is closer to the writers' intention, but… it's pretty fucked up. Because it means that Billy basically created a sophisticated torture device that uses very personal and intimate information against you. And unlike Wanda – who created her Hex because of OVERWHELMING GRIEF – Billy kinda did it… just because. To be clear, I'm not saying that Billy wasn't under stress, or that he didn't really care about finding Tommy. But you have to admit it wasn't quite the same level of emotions that Wanda felt when she created the Hex. Interestingly, Billy's emotions matter again when he shows his Wiccan powers after Alice's death. But creating a psychological torture device? I guess being scared of the Salem Seven is enough. Well, to be fair, their appearance was scary as fuck, and I'd probably shit myself in that situation. Still, it somehow doesn't feel comparable to Wanda's grief or Billy's own grief later on.

Also, I think the visions become especially problematic when you look at Sharon. Because while it's the only vision we didn't see, the implication was pretty clear that she's reliving the moment when Mr Davis was choking in Wanda's Hex. Something that Billy's mother put her through. In fact, it's basically the last thing she experienced in her life because she passed out right after that. She kinda woke up for a moment when she drank the antidote (I think?), but then she just died. And Billy had to figure out what she saw, more or less, right? Ralph told him what it was like to be trapped in Wanda's Hex.  And mind you, while it was Agatha who dragged her along, it was the wine created by Billy's mind that directly killed her. With all of that in mind, it almost feels weird to me, that it's all summarised with "Who's Sharon?" joke. I know it's Marvel and whatnot, and I actually don't mind this joke in general. It's kinda funny, really. But it does feel different with the reveal that it was Billy all along.

Also, there was this part in The Wrap interview where Jac Schaeffer said:

The road and our show is practical is because Billy Maximoff is a baby witch. And he can’t be creating thousands and thousands of miles of forest. So he created a backdrop, and he created forced perspective, and he created models, and all of the practicality of our sets is because of him, and because of his limitations of physically creating this world underground, underneath Westview.

(The whole thing can be found here.) And I get what she means in this context. Truth be told, it's a pretty damn cool thought. But at the same time, I feel like you can't really say "Oh, he's a baby witch" and "He can create complex devices that will torture you with your most personal fears, without even trying". I mean, I can't be the only one who feels those ideas are kinda contradicting.

Also, speaking of the visions from episode 3 being ignored, I have to point out something else about Jen's trial. All other trials have quite a lot of references to Billy and his room in particular. In Jen's case, though… we pretty much have just that one picture.

And they're not even that similar. I guess the amazing kitchen in the house can also be seen as a reference to Mr Kaplan who apparently loves to cook, but in comparison to other trials, it still feels... underwhelming. Almost like an afterthought. Now, am I saying that it's proof that Billy creating The Road wasn't the original plan for the show? No, I'm not. But I do find it interesting, and the more I think about it, the more episode 3 feels separated from the rest. I know a lot of people also feel that way about episode 1, because it focuses so much on the Darkhold (which basically leads to nowhere). And I do agree with that, too. I dunno, it just seems that there might've been some changes along the way or something.

Honestly, I probably wouldn't talk about all of that, but my issue is that The Road being created by Billy basically adds nothing to the story. Yes, it shows us that Billy is very powerful, but as I pointed out, it's somewhat inconsistent. They could've at least continued the plot of Billy's identity crisis. Remember his question during Lilia's trial: "Am I William or am I Billy?"? I don’t know about you, but to me, it felt like a pretty damn important question. And I really thought that a part of William might still be in Billy. Yes, I know his death in the accident seemed pretty definite with his heartbeat stopping and all, but I still hoped there's something left. Maybe not a soul, but rather an echo of a soul, or memory. It could explain why Billy left everything in his room and just added new things to it. It was not only out of respect, but also because William was never really gone. Also, if you showed me William and then Billy, without the accident scene, I’d totally buy that it's the same character. They're both just��� good geeky eggs. And before the finale, I really thought that the ritual with Agatha might be about joining William Kaplan and Billy Maximoff into one person: Billy Kaplan. Now, the creation of The Road would be a pretty good representation of such an identity crisis. Because it was created with Billy's power, but it was built with things that William loved. And the conclusion of such journey for Billy would be that he's just both, William and Billy. Even Jac's comment becomes quite heartwarming in this context because it could be said that baby witch Billy was just playing with William's toys. On top of that, it could (and should!) lead to the scene where the Kaplans finally learn what really happened. Because they do deserve to know. They're amazing people, and I really don't think it would make them turn against Billy, but they just should know that their son is gone.

But nope, the whole identity crisis was kinda dropped…

That being said, if it was entirely up to me, I'd just say The Road is a real thing. They could even keep all of the references from Billy's room and all. They'd just have to say that there's some kind of mystical connection between WICCAN and The Road. I mean, we know there is a prophecy about the Scarlet Witch in MCU, so why not add another one? Especially that Wiccan's statue was at Wundagore. In fact, it could even still work with Agatha's scam plotline. I see two explanations for that (and they can work together):

Agatha was never able to access The Road because it's accessible only if (future) Wiccan is with you.

Agatha was never able to access The Road because she never cared about gathering the proper coven. Unfortunately for her, this time Lilia forced her to get the proper coven by giving her the list. And jokes on her for trying to cheat again with Sharon because Billy was always meant to be the last member. Also, something caught my attention during the Agatha through the Ages montage. Every time other witches blast Agatha, they use the same colour lighting. I realise that it's just a technical simplification made because it doesn't matter. HOWEVER, when we look at "our" coven, they all use different colours. Agatha obviously has her purple, Alice has orange-y, Billy gets blue, Jen's is pinkish. We don't see much of Lilia, but when Agatha tries to provoke them to blast her in her basement, you can notice that her hands spark with yellow. So, again, I know it's meaningless, but it could be used as an explanation.

Now, what about Nicky in this scenario? Well, I really don't want to erase Nicky creating the song with his mum. I'm not gonna lie, it was touching. But… what if Nicky was showing early signs of divination powers? And by that I don't mean that he knew the song he creates with his mum will eventually open The Road someday etc. But maybe he saw glimpses of The Road in his dreams and that inspired him? The rest could stay all him and Agatha. I don't think it'd take away from it, but I do find it a pretty fun idea, mostly because Agatha seems to be quite sceptical about divination. I mean, she actually says that Tarot is a scam. So, imagine her realising that her little boy could've grown up to be a divination witch. I dunno, it's quite an interesting possibility, in my opinion.

And yes, it'd mean that Agatha accidentally created the ritual to access that real place. Or hell, maybe the song never mattered. I mean, you know how in "Turning Red", Mr Gao says that they have to sing from their hearts during the ritual, but it doesn't matter what? It could work like that!

Anyway, there's one more thing that bothers me. And that is… how the hell Agatha figured out that The Road is Billy's creation? Yes, I know that she knew it's not real, and therefore somebody had to create it, but how she connected it to Billy, exactly? Like, girl… You've been trapped in Wanda's spell for the last three years. Somebody might've physically dug that whole thing under your house as a prank on you, and you wouldn't know it. I realise that Billy's sigil might've made her think of Billy, but… it was more of a lucky guess than a deduction if you ask me. And I really don't like it. Because keep in mind that Agatha didn't see all the things in Billy's room which helped the audience to figure it out in advance. And what bothers me the most is probably the inclusion in the reveal that moment when Billy says: "It's exactly how I imagined it!", to which Agatha replies: "It suits you". Which basically implies that she was suspecting him back then already, as soon as they entered The Road. But like… HOW?? I'm sorry, but if you asked a group of goth teens how they imagine a place called "The Withes' Road", I bet a big part of them would describe a similar image to what we saw at the very beginning of The Road.

I just wish there was something that could give Agatha this idea. But as I said, it feels more like a guess. Like, why she doesn't suspect Rio, for example? I know that Rio most likely knows The Road isn't really, and that Agatha knows that she knows. But there's at least more to support it, in my opinion. I mean, the last time they saw each other, they agreed that Rio would wait until Agatha got her purple back, right? And look at that, how convenient: here's something that IN THEORY can do just that! And why Agatha enters The Road without thinking about it twice? Because of the Salem Seven. And who sent the Salem Seven?

I am very biased about this idea because I actually had a theory that Teen and Rio worked together to get Agatha to The Road – but like I said, there's at least something to support it! And yes, I know Agatha admits she wasn't "sure sure" at first, but at the same time, she doesn't mention any other possibilities. I dunno, it's just… eh. Perhaps it wasn't an afterthought as much as with Jen's trial, but I'd say it's still missing… something.

So, I guess that's it. My main issues with Agatha All Along finale. It's just… underwhelming and quite disappointing. Maybe it's because I genuinely enjoyed the first seven episodes. I really want to appreciate it for what it is, but it still feels more like it was done for the sake of the reveal than because it served an actual purpose.

[iinryer]

If you could come up with the storylines for each Lone Star character (not Owen) for the next season, what would they be?

OH THIS IS A GOOD ONE… (not owen) made me laugh thank you. this didn’t end up being Quite what you asked but here are my hopes for s5!:

marjan is easy: comphet realization to lesbian arc. I don’t even need them to give her a gf i just want them to Address The Closeted Lesbianism they’ve been handing me over the past four seasons. i want salim to come back (in person or in conversation) for the rule of threes and have it force her to reckon with a lot of assumptions she had about herself. im on my hands and knees about it. I’ve been rewatching with a friend recently and i fucking forgot that they have her say a line about how her favorite place to hide as a kid was the closet. remember those new bts photos where she’s basically wearing the lesbian flag as a headscarf. lone star writers room i am IN YOUR WALLS. also i want to meet her sister. i need someone to call her mouse

nancy my beloved… honestly i just really want a nancy begins episode!! i want to know why she became a paramedic, i want to know about her relationship with her sister and if there’s any particular reason it was a soft spot for her during the DNR episode… I don’t have any particular ideas for specific i just want to know more about her!!! actually I’d love her to have to confront Tim’s death a little more directly. they made that whole thing about Owen which is fucking crazy to me, I’d love for the next time TK gets hurt (lol) for it to be something that dredges that up for her.

grace… miss grace i want to see you angry again. no plot line in mind i just like it when she’s pretending she doesn’t get angry or stubborn, she is such a fascinating character study. i love when she’s a contradiction. she and carlos teaming up was one of my favorite things abt s3, i would be so jazzed to see more things of that flavor.

tommy. hm… I don’t think I have any particular storylines for her in mind but I want more of her and grace and judd together because they are so delightful and lovely and best friends. OH ACTUALLY. I want something with tommy and charlie. this baby that was named in honor of the late love of her life. o don’t know what that story would be but there’s something there for sure…

carlos is the same as nancy tbh, I want a real full carlos begins! I want to meet his sisters! I want to see more of the mess that was growing up gay and feeling out of place and trying to be what your dad would want even though he thinks you’re too soft for it. why did he do it anyways! I also would love to see him and his mom being more involved, partially because obviously they had a horrible loss and trauma and she saw it happen but also because I love andrea:) she’s everything 2 me

judd I have been waiting for them to make you captain since SEASON THREE!! i want owen to retire and i want them to expand on the tension we got for the period he was captain!! i want to see how the dynamic changes and how his past issues come up when he’s in charge For Good. i want to see him get emotional about it and i want him to be captain while wyatt is his probie if they put him back on the firefighter track after his recovery :) bc that would be fun conflict and i think everything they did with owen (traumatically lost whole crew, son on your team) would be 100x better with judd

mateo is also a difficult one for specifics. I feel like they’re relatively fair with him? even with the low screentime all the secondary characters are relegated to. I’d be interested in seeing more fallout about his cousin, and I LOVED what they did with him and captain tatum so anything of that flavor of earnestness from him is always so good. maybe he and tatum will be buddies off the clock :)

tk getting hurt in increasingly absurd ways is always a classic that I look forward to them playing into lol

misc: i want to see more big brother wyatt with charlie getting a little older, i want less owen solo-plotlines, more ghost/memory gwyn i love her, carlos with his curls, the vega twins being involved in something maybe? that would be fun and stressful gjfhdhf

EDIT: OH MY GOD I FORGOT PAUL. I ABANDONED MY BOY. ok paul deserves literally any kind of robust plotline. Paul begins for starters, but also so much of his trans plotlines feel a little fumbled. I want a really earnest well done episode that isn’t necessarily About him being trans, but his transness is a factor and it’s handled in a really genuinely good and relatable way. they OWE HIM AND US THAT!! i also would love to see more of the gay kids being in gay spaces :)

[housesitting & snowed in send enrichment to my enclosure]

[freewayshark]

I'm hesitant to ask this question because a lot of people are really weird but you were patient even with the person being really ridiculous and I have been really confused lately.

Why are so many people who were big buddie shippers shifting to be mainly or even only bucktommy now?

I get multishipping, but in the past when people had other ships they liked they didn't shift so drastically. Most people are now changing their users and everything to be bucktommy/tommy and most of the fanfic writers write only bucktommy now.

Is it just because it is new? Or because Buck being bi is such a big thing? I am on the spectrum and don't do change so maybe it's a me thing but it is just surprising and a little confusing why there is so much of a shift. I remember lots of people shipped Buck/Josh and even Buck/Taylor and Buck/Lucy but there wasn't ever so much of a full focus change.

A lot of people also seemed to suddenly start hating on or just not caring about Eddie too which has made me sad, like he only matters in the context of Buddie shipping. That seems to be mostly on Twitter and tiktok though and those groups of fans have always been a little weird.

Anyway this is very long and I understand if you don't want to answer, especially with all the discourse lately.

Hi! Honestly I’m always happy to answer questions like yours where you are genuinely asking a question and not just coming in with accusations and nonsense to start drama

I can really only speak for myself, but I think other people would probably agree with my reasoning, so:

I think a good chunk of it probably is because it’s new, yeah. I love buddie so much and nothing could ever change that, but it is fun to have this new dynamic to work with. For me especially, I’m enjoying writing bucktommy a ton right now, because I haven’t written outside of buddie in, well, years actually because even before I dove in headfirst in 2021 I hadn’t really been writing much of anything. So it’s fun to have new toys to play with.

And honestly, at least as far as my dash and my friends go, I don’t think any of us are only bucktommy shippers now, it’s just getting the major focus right now because it’s new and it’s playing out on our screens. I’m still seeing plenty of new buddie fics, metas, and gifsets coming out amongst the bucktommy

Like, my last fic was bucktommy, and my next one will be too, but I still have lots of buddie fic brewing, and I know I’ll still be coming up with tons of new ideas for them too. But it probably seems like I’ve done a hard shift, because it is only what I’m working on right now. But that’s just temporary, and I’m sure it is with others as well.

As for hating on or not caring about Eddie, that is definitely something I have not seen. I can’t say it isn’t happening, of course, because I only follow around 100 people and rarely venture off my dash, but if you’re seeing it here I would encourage you to curate your dash better, and stay away from twitter and TikTok because those places are cesspools for fandom.

To circle back to why bucktommy is getting this treatment over the other ships you mentioned, again, I can only speak for myself, but it’s because Tommy is such a compelling character. I’m fascinated by the character set up through the begins episodes to now, and I like thinking about him. I’m not saying other characters haven’t been compelling, but they just haven’t grabbed my attention in a way that makes me want to write about them the way he has.

I hope I was able to address all your questions

[cheesybadgers]

I'm re-watching Hen Begins, and firstly, I must confess, just before I embarked on season 7, I had to re-watch the earlier Begins episodes because I didn't clock that we had actually met Tommy before. I think it was in the episode when Chimney calls on him for help I was like "Wait a minute, Tommy as in Buck's bi awakening Tommy????" and bear in mind, I binge-watched seasons 1-7 in less than 2 months, yet I totally forgot about the existence of Tommy in the space of a few weeks. Sure, I remember some of the 118 being racist/misogynistic jerks to Hen and Chimney, but did Tommy stand out as a character enough for me to remember his name and face? I gotta be honest, no he did not. And yes, I had seen plenty of the Buck/Tommy gifs on here by this point (and actually reblogged some of them before I even watched the show). He just didn't register in my memory as anyone of significance.

Secondly, given everything that has gone down in the fandom these last few months and how vitriolic it has become, a part of me wishes the writers had picked an entirely new character for Buck rather than digging up Tommy...for what reason? Like why did such an important character development moment for Buck need to be with someone so controversial?

UNLESS, of course, we were always supposed to bear this in mind and think he wasn't the right fit for Buck...

Remember I was talking about Sex and the City recently? We had to sit and watch Carrie leave all her friends/her job and move her whole life to Paris to live with Aleksandr, who was clearly not the right man for her and it all fell apart within weeks. Everyone always (angrily) talked about how awful Aleksandr was, how he wasn't a good match for Carrie, how Carrie had made a huge mistake and how Big was the one she should be with. Because that was the whole point. Aleksandr was a plot device character used to get Carrie and Big to realise they should be together.

Now, the psychology of what actually has happened in this fandom is truly fascinating, even if it's been pure car crash to witness from the sidelines lol. I think a lot of people got swept up in the queer aspect of Buck/Tommy, in a way they wouldn't have done if Tommy was a female character. They've given more grace to Tommy than past female love interests with more screentime have been afforded and they've projected to fuck and back onto him and his very limited romance with Buck. And tbh that would have all been fine and kinda understandable/normal fandom behaviour if it hadn't descended into upsetting the cast and crew the way it did, and the fandom hadn't turned into a battleground. It also ties in with my theory that fandom in general is disproportionately fixated on only liking canon ships these days. It reminds me of the way the Good Omens fandom has behaved at times, especially since season 2 aired.

But I do wonder if a lot of people also forgot/chose to forget about Tommy's role in the Begins episodes as well, or they only watched season 7 and never bothered catching up with seasons 1-6. Because honestly, the extreme hysteria over his character to the levels it has reached is kind of bizarre to me given how he arrived into the show and how little he was in season 7. Like I said before, I'm the first person to understand falling for a side character (hello 3 year longfic my beloved) or a queer canon relationship, but the way someone with so little screentime has literally blown apart the fandom and made it virtually unusable unless you go on a mass blocking spree??? What the actual hell? How does that even happen for goodness sake?! 😂 Surely this can't have been what the writers intended to happen?? Which leads me to believe Tommy was supposed to be the Aleksandr Petrovsky of the 9-1-1 verse.

I’m finally giving 9-1-1 a go and this show is proper batshit 😂 The whiplash of it switching between the most insane emergencies that happen on such a frequent basis in the same city, you wouldn’t ever want to step out of your house (but even then you’d not be safe)…and Buck trying to get laid every 5 seconds.

I thought the vampires in a certain other show were horny, but they’ve got nothing on Buck (and this is before he discovers men are also an option).

[ladywhaiyvern]

Musings of An Otaku #9- On Thomas Oliver....

Being a fan of Power Rangers since the beginning back in 1993 and watching it religiously till Power Rangers: Wild Force. Then having an on-again and off-again to pretty much now. I pretty much watched a few episodes (out of every incarnation) of the Disney-era, got bored or disgusted by the looks of how they approached it and stopped watching. Had hopes when Saban purchased the rights back from the mouse but found myself once again, doing the same thing. Watch a few episodes out of the current series, get bored or disgusted by once again how they approached the series and stopped. Saban passes the torch to Hasbro and I have not picked up watching a single episode at all. Even going back and watching all the Disney seasons to see if my opinions have changed and tried not to compare them so-much to the original source material. However, this is not what this muse is about. It’s a season by season breakdown. Or an American comparison to the original Sentai. No. 

There’s one Ranger in particular that every single person seems to be fascinated with. Someone that everyone seems to worship the ground that he walks on. He’s somehow the most powerful Ranger that has ever walked upon planet Earth. Everything seems to revolve around him. And it’s not just the fanbase. Lately, it seems like Hasbro can’t get off of Tommy’s dick either. Every piece of nostalgia has to be Tommy, Tommy, Tommy, Tommy. There are a Shit ton of other Rangers out there that deserve the same treatment. He is not an omniscient God 

Now, okay….before I go any further, I am not in any way shape or form dissing Jason David Frank. I love the guy! No, no, no, this is about the character that he portrayed. Unlike some people, I see both JDF and Tommy as two different individuals. Two different people. Like both could reside besides each other in the real world. 

 This is just about Tommy. And NOT the Tommy from the Boom Studios comic series. Cause...oh my god...yes, he is one powerful son of a bitch. No. No. This is just about the television series, Tommy! No alternate universes being thrown in. 

Let’s step back in time for a minute. When Tommy was first introduced into the series and became the evil Green Ranger- I enjoyed the character. I loved the struggle he faced between being good or being evil. Yes, while under Rita’s spell he was pretty powerful but one has to wonder if he wasn’t her power that was enhancing his power and abilities. Any Ranger with the help of an evil witches power can become a pretty strong opponent. 

The entire evil Green Ranger saga ends and Tommy joins the side of good (obviously…). Tommy didn’t single handedly defeat Rita in the end because she was banished to the depths of space in another dumpster by Lord Zedd. Moving into season two, obviously we have Lord Zedd taking over and the entire Green Candle saga starting. When he loses the Green Ranger power, it’s understandable. Things do not last forever. Power can’t last forever. Sad to see him leave the Ranger team but I wasn’t devastated. Yes, it was a complete shocker to see the White Ranger power being created. Awesome, new Ranger, new Power. HOWEVER, I knew Tommy wasn’t up and done completely being a Ranger. I had a slight feeling he was going to come back for that. His story as the Green Ranger may have been finished, but this new chapter was just starting. 

What I did not like though, was when the Power Transfer took place and he just pushed his way into the leader position. He did not even give Rocky a chance. In Ranger-lore the Red Ranger is typically the leader (no matter what character type they possess). Yeah, Rocky may seem a little aloof (and he’s completely different from Jason), but he still should have been given a chance to prove himself in the position. Was it alright for Tommy to just push him aside without allowing that chance? Why was everyone else so chill with this decision? It was kinda a dick move there, Thomas. 

Zeo comes trotting along and almost all the storylines are still focused around Tommy. Granted, yes..he’s finally the Red Ranger. In my eyes, he finally has the mantle to be leader of the group. But still, why was he singled out. I thought the Rangers implored teamwork. I thought to fight evil, they had to fight together- all of them- together. Not this, “Oh! If we just attack Tommy- the others do not matter.” Poor Adam and Rocky were just kinda pushed towards the back burner in this season. And I won’t even get into the strange relationship that seemed to be going on between them. It’s not like Tommy single handedly beat Rita and Zedd. They hightailed it out of dodge when the Machine Empire showed up on their doorstep. Not like he single handedly defeated the Machine Empire either. Shit, the Zeo Rangers did not even destroy the Machine Empire. Zedd and Rita came back to give them their just deserts. 

Shifting into Turbo, we see Thomas once again being given the mantle of Red Ranger. Shocker. By now the Rangers are getting ready to graduate (except you, Justin…). This is obviously foreshadowing things to come and another power transfer. Also noted here is where Tommy mentions that when he graduates, he mentions something about becoming a racecar driver or something to that line. If that is the case, then why the hell did years later he show up with a fucking PHD in Paleontology. I would still LOVE to see the look on Billy’s face for that one! He was the science nerd. IMHO, he should have been the one in that role. But nooooo...his character had to be sent off to an all water planet to never be heard from again. In my eye’s the character of Tommy will never be related in any way shape or form to Science. I honestly saw him opening up a dojo of his own (whether it be on the other side of Angel Grove or some other town). When I think of “Tommy” my mind connects that to martial arts and fitness. In a way, he could have been a mentor to a young team of Rangers (a team that revolved around martial arts and not Dinosaurs). 

But seriously, I digress. Where within the television tropes did he become this all power being that all of fandom and marketdom has to worship?!  Many other Rangers have shown time and again that they have faced similar situations (that he had gone through) and prevailed. What makes him so special? I mean seriously, cut me some slack! ANDROS FUCKING SACRIFICED ZORDON’S LIFE TO SAVE THE UNIVERSE!!!!!!!!!!!! He did not want to swing that Drill Saber and end Zordon's life, but he still did. He may not have been the best leader. He was kind of a pissy asshole (but I loved him anyways and still do). But this isn’t about Andros. Why is all the attention drawn to this one single character though? Not everyone can relate to Tommy, so why is so much emphasis in Ranger history based around him? 

Tommy Oliver is an overrated individual and as the series went on, I became more and more distant away from him. As a character, I only enjoy him in the very early Green Ranger days. I tolerate him from then on. As a leader, yes, I liked Jason. I liked Rocky for his goofy side and he should have been given a chance to prove himself as a leader. In the alternate universe of the comic book series- I absolutely love Tommy. Lord Drakkon, Shattered Grid, pure evil, pure insanity, pure mayhem. Yes! Jason David Frank- is an amazing person, a great actor, he did a good job portraying a character that I love to hate.   

[aion-rsa]

WandaVision Episode 7 Theories Explained

https://ift.tt/eA8V8J

This article contains WandaVision spoilers

After seven painfully short episodes of Marvel’s WandaVision, we’re still none the wiser about how exactly the Westview anomaly was created, and how Vision was brought back to life.

We’ve just been introduced to one potential villain in the form of nosy neighbor Agnes – unveiled as powerful Marvel Comics witch Agatha Harkness – and we’ve seen that Wanda is still far from a malevolent force. She has threatened people who’ve encroached on The Hex, but she hasn’t killed any of them, and we don’t know how aware she is about the true ramifications of her control over the town’s residents.

Meanwhile, we have some lingering Westview mysteries to uncover, and the true identity of “Pietro Maximoff” to contend with.

Here are some of the biggest theories swirling around what the final two episodes of WandaVision might reveal….

The Next Episode

Ah, it’s time to address the mythical tenth episode of WandaVision! We’ve avoided covering this for a while, because it has honestly felt like an additional instalment thrown in at the end of the nine-episode project would probably be consigned to the “unlikely” column, but let’s take a look at it now in the wake of some recent information from Marvel Studios.

Certain sites have noted that a few WandaVision actors have been listed to appear in ten episodes of the series and not nine, but this is easily explainable when you factor in the surprise announcement of Assembled, a new documentary run that will go behind the scenes of various Marvel Disney+ shows. It begins with The Making of WandaVision, which will begin streaming after this first MCU spinoff has concluded.

We think this is all there is to the various rumors of a tenth episode, but fans are still theorizing that it could happen. Ultimately, none of us will be proved right or wrong until WandaVision has finished, so this theory will probably keep doing the rounds for another couple of weeks.

Pinches of Paprika Out of 10: 9

The Parentals

There are still a lot of theories surrounding the nature of WandaVision’s commercials, but the idea that they’re somehow being created from Wanda’s overwhelming grief holds water. They do often seem to address various moments of Wanda’s traumatic past, including the incident in Lagos and her experimental history with Strucker.

But who are the man and woman that we see appearing time and again these ads? A swathe of fans think the answer is quite simple: they are Wanda’s deceased parents, Oleg and Irina Maximoff. But if there’s any truth to the theory that the commercial actors are the Maximoffs, would this eventually be revealed as a quick flashback, or would there be more to it?

i’m still laughing at the nexus side effects ad #WandaVision pic.twitter.com/zWzCB9ezz7

— 🛸 (@declineusername) February 20, 2021

Pinches of Paprika Out of Ten: 7

Testing, Testing

At the climax of episode 7, we found out that iconic Marvel Comics witch Agatha Harkness was responsible for a lot of meddling throughout many of the sitcom scenes in WandaVision. The reveal came complete with an earworm to end all earworms, ‘Agatha All Along’, but there’s a fascinating theory wafting about online that the TV signal itself wasn’t created by either Agatha or Wanda, but Doctor Strange, who was using it via a spell to monitor what was going on inside the Hex anomaly when he found himself unable to penetrate it.

Going further, some fans posit that the commercials are warnings that Strange has attempted to sew inside the broadcast to warn Wanda about the nefarious magicks being used against her inside The Hex by the likes of Agatha. They haven’t managed to get through to Wanda, but have instead played out as skewed variations on his attempt at contacting her through her subconscious.

Is Strange trying to pull Wanda back to reality by telling her what might happen if she doesn’t break the spell?

Dr. Strange watching Wanda mess with the fabric of reality. #WandaVision pic.twitter.com/O3U5ieKuBz

— Sir Pauer (@SirPauer) February 21, 2021

Pinches of Paprika Out of Ten: 7

Bait and Witch

How well does Agatha know Wanda? She certainly knows that Vision is dead, but it does seem like the new witch on the block has vastly underestimated the extent of Wanda’s powers.

If we go back to the episode where Agatha revealed Sparky’s death to Wanda and the twins, you might remember that she seemed genuinely unnerved when Billy and Tommy asked their mom to change the family dog’s grim fate. “You can do that?” she asked Wanda, and appeared lost in thought. Was this the actual moment she knew that Wanda had managed to bring Vision back from the dead inside the confines of The Hex, and that he wasn’t just another illusion?

The main theory surrounding the nature of Agatha’s powers is linked to her ability to plop the X-Men universe’s version of Pietro Maximoff into Westview at a crucial moment, as we saw during her catchy flashback montage.

Wanda definitely knows this incarnation isn’t Pietro, but that doesn’t necessarily mean he isn’t really Evan Peters’ beloved Peter Maximoff, does it? Perhaps Agatha is impressed by Wanda’s rumored resurrection powers because she herself isn’t able to bring people back from the dead. Instead of presenting Wanda with the real Pietro, she had to pull another variation in from the multiverse using The Hex’s rumored Nexus power.

Maybe Agatha is revealing herself to Wanda now because she wants Wanda to bring someone else back to life. Could it be someone who was once close to Agatha, or a villainous presence who will go on to make waves in the MCU? And if this does indeed turn out to be the X-Men version of Peter Maximoff, will he be able to break Agatha’s control over him and continue to be part of the MCU beyond WandaVision?

Her treachery knows no bounds. from WANDAVISION

Pinches of Paprika Out of Ten: 4

Vision Is Toast

Paul Bettany’s Vision has been trouncing about Westview trying to get to the bottom of how and why he’s back from the dead in the past couple of episodes, but the chances of him returning to active duty after all this is over are, to put it mildly, incredibly slim. We’ve already seen that he can’t make it through The Hex without falling to pieces – the magic inside is keeping him alive for now.

Yes, many fans sensed that Vision wasn’t likely to make past the final (final) credits of WandaVision since the show began, but there’s also some pretty solid MCU-based reasoning behind the theory if you take a small step back to the very beginning of Phase 4’s story.

During Spider-Man: Far From Home’s In Memoriam video, hilariously set to the strains of Whitney Houston’s power ballad ‘I Will Always Love You’, Vision is pictured as one of those Avengers who are “gone, but not forgotten” in a “touching tribute” to our fallen heroes.

According to public record, Tony Stark, Natasha Romanoff, Vision (and Cap, who is probably keeping a very low profile in his Old Cap guise) are all very much dead in the Peter Parker-centric blockbuster – which takes place some time after the events of WandaVision. Ergo, vis-a-vis, concordantly, etc, Vision will not spring back to life if and when The Hex breaks down.

So, should we just go ahead and assume we’re in for yet another Paul Bettany death scene? Maybe, but let’s not forget that Bettany has been part of the Marvel Cinematic Universe since its inception in 2008, and he’s already been nixed three times. First as the voice of Tony’s AI, JARVIS, then twice at the end of Avengers: Infinity War. Are they really going to cut him loose for good?

The actor clearly LOVES being part of the MCU. While we may well see the last of Vision in WandaVision, we reckon it’s time for Bettany to undergo another Marvel reincarnation.

Place your bets.

when vision stares into the camera like he's in an episode of the office #WandaVision pic.twitter.com/yCr2iRgTTi

— kathryn hahn fan club ✡︎ ⚢ (@fruitskywalker) February 19, 2021

Pinches of Paprika Out of 10: 3

You Don’t Have the Stones

We’ve yet to see a few moments that crop up in WandaVision’s mid-season trailer, and the most important of these appear to show Wanda in a prison or hospital outfit witnessing the recreation of at least one of the Infinity Stones.

There are plenty of theories that tackle whether Wanda herself is pulling the stone/s back from the atomic level that Thanos reduced them to at the start of Avengers: Endgame, or whether the Mind Stone is specifically is drawn to her since the stone was originally key to unlocking or enhancing her superpowers, but it’s hard to gauge the sequence of events that led to its re-emergence without defining where and when these moments play out in the MCU timeline.

Since WandaVision takes place pretty soon after Endgame, do these images depict Wanda, bruised and exhausted from battling Thanos, in a holding room awaiting treatment? It doesn’t exactly seem like she’s a prisoner here as these aren’t the kind of power-controlling restraints she was subjected to on The Raft in Captain America: Civil War.

The potentially mind-blowing reason we can’t wait to find out how Wanda comes to be in the presence of a reformed Infinity Stone is because her darker hair, ravaged look and outfit here almost exactly match her very first appearance inside a cell in Strucker’s lab at the end of Captain America: The Winter Soldier.

What the hell is going on?!

images of the last two episodes of #WandaVision (a real madness the images of the gems and #TheVision in black and white) | tt: daily.maximoff pic.twitter.com/IxvS6BM3eL

— joan⚝ | wv spoilers (@daily_maximoff) February 21, 2021

Pinches of Paprika Out of Ten: 1

Have you heard any compelling new WandaVision theories? Let us know in the comments.

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The post WandaVision Episode 7 Theories Explained appeared first on Den of Geek.

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[crookedmediatranscripts]

Pod Save America - Episode 77

9.11.2017 “Schumer’s bump”

“Irma portends the effects of climate change, the press heralds Trump as an independent dealmaker, and Bannon goes to war with Republicans. Then Erin Ryan joins Jon, Jon, and Tommy to talk about Hillary Clinton’s new book, What Happened.”

[MUSIC]

00:00:00.1

JF: The presenting sponsor of Pod Save America is –

JF and TV: Blue Apron.

JF: Blue Apron now offers 30 minute meals (meals every week that take 30 minutes [chuckling] or less to cook). In case you didn’t know what 30 –

TV: [Laughing almost hysterically] A parenthetical!

JF: minute meals meant. Designed with your busy schedules in mind and made with same flavor and farm fresh ingredients you know and love.

TV: That’s when you really like something.

JF: Get 30 dollars off your first meal with free shipping by going to blueapron.com/crooked. Blue Apron is a better way to –

JL: We’re gonna go talk to Hillary in the woods.

JF: – cook.

[MUSIC]

00:00:33.5

JF: Welcome to Pod Save America. I’m Jon Favreau.

JL: I’m What Happened.

TV: [Laughing] I’m Tommy Vietor.

JF: [Laughs] Joining us on the pod today, right here in New York City, the Daily Beasts’ Erin Ryan. And later we’ll talk to the host of Crooked Media’s Pod Save the People, DeRay McKesson. Guys, it’s Hillary Clinton Day. We are going to Chappaqua [TV: Laughs] to interview Hillary Clinton.

JL: To the woods. To the woods.

JF: Lovett has been asking for this since the day we began this podcast.

JL: I, well it felt inevitable.

JF: Just begging for it.

JL: Okay, let’s calm down. I didn’t even send one email.

[Laughing]

JF: Alright, we’ll get to this. Few housekeeping items. We still have some tickets left for our tour, go to crooked.com/tour to buy some. And we are adding a live taping of Lovett or Leave It right after Pod Save America in Madison, Wisconsin on October 5th. We’re –

JL: Tickets now.

TV: Huge news.

JF: We’re basically not gonna leave until [JL: laughs] Paul Ryan does.

[Laughing]

JF: On Pod Save the World this week, Tommy talks to a Republican from Texas.

TV: Congressman Will Hurd.

JF: Yeah.

TV: Former CIA officer, served in Afghanistan. Now making laws. I haven’t done the interview yet, so I can’t tell you how it went but –

JF: I bet it’s gonna be –

TV: I’ll let you know about –

JL: Republican in Congress, Tommy?

TV: Tomorrow. Yeah.

JF: He’s real –

JL: Did you say that already?

JF: I did. I did.

JL: I wasn’t listening, I was waiting for my turn to talk.

TV: [Laughs]

JF: That’s- that’s a great summation of what happens here on Pod Save America. Let’s begin with Hurricane Irma. Another massive historic storm. It has thankfully weakened from a category 4 to a category 1 hurricane as it makes its way up the Florida coast. At least four deaths reported in Florida, 27 dead in the Caribbean, and almost six million people in Florida without power. Storm surges and flooding are still a threat all the way up Florida, from Miami to Naples, as far north as Georgia. So, thank god this wasn’t as damaging as it was first predicted to be. But on the heels of Harvey, and with Hurricane Jose not far behind, I wanna talk about the role of climate change. Since not nearly enough people –

JL: Not appropriate.

JF: In the mai- [Laughs]

JL: We’re not allowed to talk about cause and effect –

TV: Not now.

JL: In our politics.

TV: Not today.

JF: So, let us begin there.

JL: We can’t talk about it now, but it’s also important not to talk about it later.

TV: [Laughs]

JL: There’s never a good time.

TV: It’s just divisive.

JF: So, this is what Scott Pruitt, [JL blows a raspberry] who is our administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, has said. That it is not appropriate to talk about climate change. It’s a little bit like when Republicans say, “It’s not the time to talk about gun safety,” after a school shooting–

JL: Exactly!

JF: Now we’re doing this on climate change.

JL: It would be as if after, like 50 people got E. coli from Chipotle, that the head of the FDA was like, “Now is not the time to talk about food safety.”

TV: We eat Chipotle regularly here at Crooked Media.

JF: [Laughing quietly] Yeah.

JL: I love Chipotle! I- honestly it was a-

JF: Just ate it the other day.

JL: It was a boon for me! It was a boon for me because I went right in-

[Laughing]

JL: and they were just giving out-

TV: And there’s no line.

JL: They were giving out burritos left-

JF: Lovett –

JL: and right.

JF: was eating –

TV: New respect for the sneeze guard, though.

[Laughing]

JF: Lovett was eating Taco Bell for breakfast and Chipotle opened down the street. And now he eats some Chipotle.

JL: Yeah.

TV: I think you mean Del Taco. [JL: laughing] There was a piece recently though that the EPA now has a guy, a political staffer, who’s, like sole job is to go through research grants, monitoring them for ‘the double-C word.’ Climate change. They’ve- they’ve turned it into like an epithet-

[Laughing]

TV: Over there at the EPA. I mean they- that’s how, like far from logic and reason we’ve gotten under this administration. It’s just like, head couldn’t be deeper in the sand.

JF: Some sensible Republicans say, the Republican Mayor of Miami disagreed with Pruitt. Said, “If this isn’t climate change, I don’t know what is.” John McCain said something similar when he was asked on Jake Tapper’s show, which is the only Sunday show anywhere that mentioned climate change.

JL: Yeah. Sam Stein pointed out that it’s been two weeks since the Trump administration was asked about climate change.

JF: So, the talking point on the right here, is — well, the first talking point is – climate change is not real. The second talking point is, climate change doesn’t cause bad weather. And they have some meteorologists and they have some peo- and so I wanna dispense with that, because no one is arguing that climate change caused the hurricane. What we’re arguing is that climate change makes bad weather catastrophic. And makes-exacerbates the effects of bad weather-

JL: It makes –

JF: like hurricanes.

JL: It makes bad storms more likely and it makes storms worse. That’s– and that’s just true.

TV: And if sea levels rise in a place like Miami, where storm surge is a huge problem – it’s an even greater problem.

JF: Well, right, and we talked about this with Harvey. Which is, the storm surge was a foot higher in Harvey, in Houston than it would have been because of rising sea levels. And warmer temperatures mean that storms will dump more rain on places. This is ju- these are scientific facts.

JL: Look, you don’t have to listen to us. There’s this person on Twitter named Donald Trump, who has been endlessly fascinated by the severity of these storms. Who cannot get enough of just how unprecedented the storms have been. It’s, it’s obviously, you know. He’s an addled, old racist so he doesn’t really make the connection or he can’t.

JF: I thought he was an independent deal maker.

JL: You know what?

JF: We’re gonna get to that.

JL: We’re gonna get to that. You know what? You know what, Jon? I’m gonna-

JF: I just wanna make sure. I just wanna introduce it early

JL: I’m gonna have a controversial opinion during that section.

JF: Ohhhhh!

TV: Yessss!

JF: Boy!

TV: Controversy!

JL: Controversial position. Probably not.

TV:  This is one, like this is also another unique challenge with Donald Trump because when you’re tweeting something crazy every day, when you’re like kicking around NATO or, you know, like Rosie O’Donnell, whoever it might be [JF: Laughs] is all these things happen under the radar, or off the radar. What’s the metaphor I’m looking for here?

JL: I don’t know.

JF: Under the radar.

JL: Well, I guess you can go under the radar but I guess, suppose you could also be off the radar.

TV: Hm.

JL: You’re either flying low or maybe you’re just not in the range of the, kind of the scope there.

TV: I think we’re technically off the- like all these things are happening at the EPA. Enforcement is lagging or, if not stopping. And it’s exacerbating this problem. I mean-

JF: Yeah.

TV: And there’s no way to get it covered. Because, like we were talking about earlier, two weeks without a mention on the Sunday show. Because when one side has a position where they dig in and you don’t move, the press moves on because it gets boring.

JL: One of the things that sort of protects us a little bit is the fact that Donald Trump is so incompetent. Because the place where he’s been most effective at undermining environmental rules has been at the administrative level in these lower level positions that just don’t get covered. You know-

TV: Right.

JL: the assistant secretaries and all the rest. But because they’ve been so disorganized and bumbling, they haven’t actually been able to do as much damage as they otherwise could have. Even though pulling out of Paris, plus all the rule writing that they’re doing at EPA and through the administration, has been devastating.

TV: Yeah.

JF: What’s truly scary about this is, for a long time it’s you know, ‘Oh, liberals are predicting climate change,’ and conservatives saying it’s never gonna happen. Well, it’s here now and it’s here in a big way. And with storm surges and these hurricanes destroying parts of Houston, parts of Texas, putting Miami underwater, putting, you know Naples is covered in wa- I mean, this is, we now have to do something about this because it’s here. And so now efforts are basically not just focused on mitigation but adaptation. Like, you gotta build sea walls and we’ve gotta have stronger buildings and flood protection and all this kinda shit. And–

TV: Um hm.

JF: That is a huge infrastructure project on its own.

TV: Yes.

JF: And it’s not gonna get done if we can’t focus on this.

JL: Well, one of the things that Trump administration rolled back was rules that accounted for climate change in the building of-

JF: Right.

JL: Of buildings and infrastructure-

JF: It’s not great.

JL: In areas prone to flooding.

TV: Mind-boggling.

JF: Yeah.

TV: And these are all expensive items that are fraught politically, that involve a lot of mind share. I mean the thing that worries me is, like, having gone through some natural disasters you know at the NSC and in the administration, like, there is only so many minutes of the day that your homeland security advisor or that your, your FEMA director can spend like managing each individual crisis. And Harvey’s just beginning. Irma’s not even over yet. God knows what could come next. I mean, it’s gonna take a lot of time and effort for them to fix this and a lot of money.

JF: I thought perhaps the best encapsulation of conservatism in 2017 was Rush Limbaugh-

TV: What a fucking idiot.

JF: Saying that Irma was ‘liberal media hype’ and then promptly evacuating [JL: Laughing] his palm beach home.

JL: [Laughing] Yes.

TV: You know, [Laughing] Alex Jones has sort of dimmed his terrible-ness star. But it’s good to have him back in our cross-hairs because the guy is just a clown.

JF: What did Rush Limbaugh sounds like broadcasting from an undisclosed location?

JL: I don’t know. Well let’s see what Liberal – what would Liberal Rush Limbaugh say about this? [Terrible Liberal Rush Limbaugh voice] Conservative traitors flooding Miami. They’ve set their terrorist climate sites on Miami and Tampa and St. Petersburg and Tallahassee. [TV and JL: Laughing quietly] I’m recording this from deep within NORAD.

[TV and JF laugh louder]

JL: [As Liberal Rush Limbaugh] The only place now safe from the climate disaster.

[All laughing]

JF: Very good.

JL: [Liberal Rush Limbaugh] Conservative traitors!

[Laughing]

JL: [Liberal Rush Limbaugh] Sacrificing your beaches at the almighty altar of the Koch brothers! [TV: laughing hard] The Koch brothers – conservative traitors!

[JF and TV laughing harder than necessary]

JL: [Liberal Rush Limbaugh, but becoming worse] Friends! [Strangled] Oh, god! [Loses Liberal Rush Limbaugh]

[Laughing really very hard]

JL: [Strangled, laughing voice] So stupid.

JF: [Breathless laughing] At the end there, that was like running away.

TV: Yeah, something-

JL: [Liberal Rush Limbaugh again] I have to-

TV: The water-

[Laughing again]

TV: water’s coming.

JF: [Laughing delightedly] Gurgling!

JL: [Liberal Rush Limbaugh] I’m so upset by these changing climates that I must attach yet another fentanyl patch-

[Laughing]

JL: [Liberal Rush Limbaugh] to my haunches.

JF: I was waiting for that. I was gonna let you keep going until you talked about the fentanyl patch.

JL: [Liberal Rush Limbaugh] The only thing changing faster than the rising sea levels is the level of opiate coursing through my bloodstream.

[Laughing too hard. Liberal Rush Limbaugh is terrible]

[Can hear people not Pod Save America boys laughing in the background]

JL: [Liberal Rush Limbaugh] Friends-

JF: That’s [Laughing] that’s Erin Ryan laughing in the background.

[All laughing hard]

TV: Oh, boy.

JF: Okay.

TV: Let’s cut off. Something else.

[Laughing]

JF: I think we- I think we covered that-

TV: I wonder if Hillary will like it when you do that later.

JF: Officially.

[Laughing]

JF: [Slightly sobering up] Okay. Donald Trump has been relatively quiet during this latest storm. That is because he is basking in the glow of his press coverage –

TV: There’s a lot of tv to watch, too, you know.

JF: As of late, you know. I wanna talk about Trump, the independent deal maker. Slew of headlines over the weekend. Here’s Peter Baker of the New York times, quote “In some ways Trump is the first Independent to serve as President in modern times.” Here’s Robert Cost of the Washington Post, quote “In spirit Trump isn’t a Democrat or a Republican, he’s a free-wheeling transactional politician who looks for wins.” The Associated Press, quote “Trump: The Independent.” Now, in fairness to Peter –

JL: [Snorts]

JF: He said that he didn’t in- he didn’t intend independent to mean moderate or centrist. Just that Trump isn’t beholden to the Republican party. Jon, you have a- what you’ve described and previewed for us is a controversial position.

JL: Well, you- you’ve- no..

JF: Oh.

JL: I don’t- I don’t know that’s-

JF: Cause I’m- I mitigated it.

JL: No, you didn’t, not yet. So, here’s what I think- you can tell me if it’s controversial.

JF: Okay.

JL: I don’t wanna- I don’t wanna hype it.

JF: It’s hyped. It’s hyped.

[Laughing]

JL: Donald Trump ran as a Republican, but in many ways he did run an independent campaign. The issues that were central to his campaign – immigration restrictions and anti-trade and just, general nationalism – would have worked also as an independent bid. And it was running against conservative and Republican dogma. I mean, he stood on that stage and says- said, “George Bush led us into war.” You know, he attacked a lot of precepts of the Republican party. And that helped him win a lot of people who were dissatisfied with the Republican party. And that could’ve been a platform he used if he’d run as an independent. That being said, once he was inside of the Republican party as the nominee, he was captured. Because his tax plan was deeply conservative, something Paul Ryan could get behind. The health care bill he’s signed on for is something that obviously Paul Ryan and Mitch McConnell could get behind. So, he did run as an independent, and in many ways, he is an independent. But the policy apparatus he built around himself – by inertia, by who Reince Priebus put him with, by a lot of different forces – ended up making him govern more like a traditional Republican. And it’s actually been something that we’ve talk about a lot, that the great risk of Donald Trump was not that he’d come in- basically you know that we’d have Trump’s temperament and Ted Cruz’s agenda. The more frightening possibility was really that he’d adhere to what Steve Bannon wants, which is a populist agenda that includes big infrastructure proposals, and anti-trade, and anti-immigration, and he really hasn’t done that. So, I was more sympathetic to this version because, only because the first 8 months of this administration, he has so thoroughly governed like a you know, traditional Republican – plus some race- extra verbalized racism and verbalized anti-immigration policy and anti-Muslim policy – that the fact that he could sit down and make this deal with Schumer did feel so strange and such a departure. So, I guess my view of the articles is not that they’re wrong, but that they’re completely overstated. Like, making one non-ideological deal to extend the debt limit by 3 months does not make him the independent he could’ve been.

TV: Right. Right.

JL: That’s all.

JF: So, I’m going to disagree with you. That wasn’t in any way controversial. [Chuckles]

TV: Oooooh!

JL: You know, you know-

JF: Tommy?

JL: Erin, what do you think?

TV: [Laughs]

JL: She just…yeah, whatever. [Erin Ryan laughs in background]

TV: I think this is instructive in that- it’s like a sea change and how Trump is covered versus every other president.

JF: Yeah.

TV: Every other president is lashed to their previous positions and gets the crap beaten out of them if they change or diverge in any way. Donald Trump is constantly handed a blank slate. Axios the other day reported that he is a ‘chance for a reset on race.’ Because he [laughing] was meeting with-

JL: [shocked] Wait. Whaaaaat!?!

TV: because-

JF: [Laughing]

JL: [Still shocked] No!

TV: Yes.

JF: What? You didn’t read this?

TV: It was-

JL: [Scandalized] What are you talking about?

TV: Dude. I’m gonna read it to you. “President Trump’s botched Charlottesville response was the low point of his presidency for some key aides. Now he has a chance for a reset at the same time he’s reveling in the adulation for his surprise deal with Democrats.”

JF: [Laughing] Wait, I wanna say- Lovett’s face-

TV: But-

JF: [Still laughing] He doesn’t know why!

TV: But let me tell you why.

JF: He doesn’t know why!

TV: Let me tell you why-

JL: Oh my god.

TV: The reason was that he was meeting with Tim Scott.

[Laughing so hard]

JF: He has a meeting with a black Republican Senator on his schedule. Thus, the racial reset.

JL: Who wrote that!? Name them.

TV: I don’t know. Axios?

JF: It would be Mike Allen or Jim VandeHei.

JL: [Disappointed] Come on, Mike.

TV: I don’t know.

JF: Right, so I-

JL: Better than that, Mike.

TV: So, I mean I think this is- again, like-

JL: A reset on fucking race? Cause you’re meeting with Tim Scott?

TV: Right.

JF: There was a- Tommy, do you have the line there? Where he compares it to a movie character? It was like-

TV: I do not. I do not.

JF: It was something like, “It’s a classic story line. The bad, evil guy realized everyone hates him so he decides to turn things around by reconciling-”

JL: I just hope this is not the false victory. I hope this- what’s going on right now is false defeat.

TV: Yeah, so, I mean-

JL: I hope we’re not in the turn into three. I’m talking about classic [missing]. Based on the dumb book everybody reads when they move to LA.

TV: [Laughing] Right, Save the Cat’s great.

JF: Worked for us.

TV: Really helped me-

JF: Worked for us.

TV: Really helped me succeed.

JL: [Laughing]

JL: How’d you guys –

[Laughing]

JF: Got a protagonist yet?

JL: Got some nice characters?

TV: What the hell were we talking about?

JL: We were talking about Trump’s pivot on race.

TV: In some ways, this is back to how Trump–

JL: Fucking something or other.

TV: Was covered in the campaign. Because everyone thought that there was this chance, deep inside of him, there was this liberal Manhattan Republican who was moderate on a whole bunch of issues. And like, that is belied by the fact that his entire election was appealing to the hardest, hard right audience he could possibly find.

JF: Right.

TV: And here we are. But just cause he hates Mitch McConnell and Paul Ryan doesn’t mean that like, this is some new day.

JF: So, I agree with Lovett that there was a chance during the campaign that Trump could’ve upset the party and the party structure by going far to the right on the Republican party’s most far right positions on immigration and-

JL: Trade.

JF: Terrorism. And then, yeah, and then on trade and stuff like that. And then tacked more towards Democrats on issues like, he promised to protect Medicare, Social Security, and Medicaid. He at one point talked about raising taxes on hedge fund people.

TV: Um hm.

JF: And he talked about trade protectionism

JL: That’s a good one.

JF: Wherever that falls, yeah. And that’s where- and infrastructure. And this is where Bannon wanted him to go. Bannon wanted him to be this big nationalist. This, you know ethno-nationalist where we kick out immigrants. And then we you know do all this building and infrastructure bullshit.

TV: And tax the rich.

JF: None of that- but the problem is- absolutely none of that has happened since he started governing. And the only thing, the only time he has broken from the Republican party while governing – [emphasized] the only time – is when he made a deal to push a vote on the debt ceiling from 3 months, [TVlaughs] from 18 months to 3 months. He literally shortened the timeline for a vote and those are the articles we got.

TV: There’s nothing liberal about that either. It’s just a stupid deal.

JL: The debt ceiling is incredibly stupid. It’s non-ideologically stupid. I think one, one thing that’s instructive about how all of this went down is, there was- I think a report in Politico about the conversation between Mulvaney and Trump on cutting entitlements. And Trump’s like, “I said I wouldn’t cut Social Security and Medicare and all the rest.” And Mulvaney’s like, “Well what about disability? It’s like welfare.” You know, Mulvaney leaving out the fact that’s its Social Security disability insurance. And Trump’s like, “Yeah, yeah, we can do that.” And so, a lot of this is because of the people around Trump. You know, Bannon’s not wrong about that.

JF: Right.

JL: That a lot of this, a lot of this is because Donald Trump built a Republican apparatus.

JF: Well, this gets to my other point which is, like, so what forms Trump’s views? What is his ideology? He is a dotty old racist, Fox News viewer, and that’s how he gets his information and news. And so, he either gets it from the people he surrounds himself with and his administration, or he gets it from Fox and Friends. And thus, that’s how his views come to be.

JL: I have a question about this-

TV: Not Chuck and Nancy?

JL: I have a question about this. So, all these stories – the AP story, the Post story, the Times story, the Axios story –  whatever’s happened on cable news is a result of those stories setting the narrative, Trump sees that. And he really likes it.

JF: Um hm.

JL: And it’s good. It’s good for the country that Donald Trump sees on the television that him-

JF: It’s good for the country that he’s now watching Morning Joe instead of Fox and Friends?

JL: Yes.

JF: That’s a terrifying thing to say.

JL: But, it was like-

TV: True.

JF: But you’re probably right.

JL: Look, you know we’re on the- we’re on- we are through the looking glass. This is the world.

[Laughing]

JF: It’s all relative. It’s all relative.

JL: Right? And look I don’t, I didn’t decide to move America to fucking Saturn. I tried to stop it. We all did. That’s the point of this book we’ve read,

[Laughing]

JL: “What happened” by Hillary Clinton, available now. And, uh-

[All laughing]

JL: But, because we’re on Saturn where the rules are different and gravity is strange and the earth, and there’s no solid ground beneath us and there are rings instead of moons, I’m asking the question! Should we be glad that the reporters are writing these pieces and if, maybe either subconsciously or consciously saying, “Let’s try to use the press to, to use fucking Pavlovian response to get the, to get the deranged poodle in the Oval office to kind of, whatever, you know, sit and stop shitting in the fucking house.” Like isn’t that a good thing?

JF: Yeah.

TV: I’m with you.

JF: All I’m saying is, we focus-

JL: That was a lot of metaphors, there.

TV: A lot. They were good.

JF: Press focuses too much on characters in a drama and not enough on like-

JL: I always like when you say that, “Characters in a drah-ma.”

TV: “In a drah-ma.”

[Laughing]

JF: And not enough on, like the larger forces here. So, in 3 months we’re gonna have a debate and, about the debt ceiling, about the funding the government, Dreamers, infrastructure, tax reform, whatever it may be. And Trump’s going to have to make, or not make, some actual deals with policy consequences. And then all of the stuff is gonna go to shit. Because if he makes some deal to legalize young undocumented Americans, then great for Chuck and Nancy, great for Democrats, great for America. And he’s gonna get, continue to get that great coverage on Morning Joe and stuff like that. But his pals at Fox and Friends and on the right, they’re not gonna be so happy. Like they’re-

TV: I don’t know that’s true

JL: I don’t know if I agree with you.

JF: They’re happy right now because it’s a deal with no consequences. It’s him as a deal maker but they’re-

JL: They’re not in, they can go, look-

JF: Steve Bannon says it’s gonna start a civil war if he legalizes them.

JL: Eh that’s next year.

[Laughing]

JL: We got December problems, first. But no, but you know, a little bit of like- Paul Ryan kind of being dragged into a deal that legalizes the DACA recipients is not the worst outcome for him either, right? They want this to go, you know, he’s voted against it in the past but it’s not like, it’s not a core belief.

JF: Um hm

JL: It’s a base play. But if Trump comes along with a deal with Democrats and they can claim some kind of victory, I don’t know. I don’t know. We don’t know what’s gonna happen, but I’m not so sure that Fox News won’t go along on the little, on the journey we’re about to go on.

TV: That’s what I, I think that Fox is, like pathetic supplication to Trump is financial and that they will kind of follow his lead. Look at Lou Dobbs’ segment just  [JL: Laughing] shredding Paul Ryan.

JF: Right.

TV: That guy was a Fox Business reporter like, throwing all principle out the window.

JL: You know what, I just hope that there aren’t a lot of businesses watching Fox Business. Because I think they’re getting- I don’t know, I’m worried about their employees.

TV: [Laughing] Their investment advice.

JL: [Laughing] Yeah.

JF: You know, when Bannon talked about a civil war, the supplicants on Fox may be, may be, the people who, you know are on Fox and Friends don’t have much intelligence at all. Sean Hannity’s gonna be there with him ‘til the end, Lou Dobbs, Breitbart-

JL: Sean Hannity’s gonna be buried in Trump’s coffin.

JF: Breitbart will start a war against the administration, against the Dreamers.

TV: Totally!

JL: They’re a bunch of lunatics.

JF: They will.

JL: Yep.

JF: And right now, everyone told them they’re fired cause it’s just a deal about a fucking vote. So, it’s all too early. Okay, when we come back we’ll be talking about Steve Bannon on 60 minutes.

JL: Great job.

JF: With Erin Ryan.

0:21:13.7

[MUSIC]

0:21:19.2

JF: Pod Save America is brought to you by Lyft.

JL: Lyft!

TV: Lyft.

JF: Lyft knows that their drivers are what keep them moving. So they do everything they can to make sure their drivers are happy on every trip. It’s a very simple formula. Happy drivers mean happy passengers. Maybe that’s why 9 out of 10 Lyft drivers get a perfect 5-star rating. You can earn hundreds of dollars a week plus tips-

JL: A little bit of that is some grade inflation on these 5 stars. You know?

TV: [Laughing]

JF: Okay, well if you wanna be stingy with your stars that’s one way to do it.

JL: I just think we sort of changed the way we, you know. Anyway, doesn’t matter.

JF: Let’s go.

TV: [Laughing]

JF: Lyft was the first ride share platform with [starts giggling] tipping built right into the app because getting tipped shouldn’t depend on your passenger having a crumpled bill in their pocket. Or even a neatly folded one. You keep 100% of the tips and they add up fast. Drivers have been paid over 200 million dollars since the feature’s first introduced. And express pay lets you get paid almost instantly!

TV: That’s the second time you said, like “meel-lion” I think.

JF: Did I say- did I say that?

JL: You say “meel-lion” sometimes and you also say “sh-cheme” when you mean “scheme” sometimes.

TV: [Laughing]

JF: Anything else you got?

TV: That’s funny.

JF: Anything else?

TV: “Drah” when you say “drawer.”

JL: You mispronounce “epithet”-

TV: “Room.” “Rum.”

JL: -pretty regularly, too.

JF and TV: [Laughing]

JL: It’s a 50% success rate on that one. Battin’ 500 on “epithet.”

[Laughing]

TV: [Giggling] Tough ad for Jon.

JF: Drivers have been paid [TV and JF: giggling] over 200 [emphasized] mil-lion epithet sh-cheme-

TV: Buckaroos.

JF: Dollars.

JL: Well, yeah that’s how you say it. It’s so weird.

JF: Shhh-cheme.

JL: It’s so weird.

JF: Sch-eme.

JL: You know what it is?

JF: Scheme

JL: It’s because it’s a speechwriter thing.

JF: It’s a scheme.

JL: You do what I do sometimes, which is because you’ve thought about how they sound all the time-

JF: Yeah

JL: You pronounce the [MISSING] word

JF: I know it’s a scheme, guys. It’s a drawer and it’s a room. Lyft has taken the guess work out of pick-ups. The new “amp” device uses color coding to help passengers find their drivers. So join the ride sharing company that believes in treating its people better. Go to Lyft-

JL: The other day you said, “Attorney generals.”

TV: [Starts giggling again]

JF: I did not.

JL: You did

JF: It’s attorneys general. I know that.

JL: I know it is, but you said it wrong.

JF: I think that was Dan.

JL: No!

JF: [Hurried] Go to lyft.com/crooked today and you can get a 500-dollar new driver bonus. That’s lyft.com/crooked. Lyft.com/crooked. Limited time only. Terms apply.

TV: Dan’s getting attacked by his cohosts. He’s getting attacked on Twitter by Ann Coulter. It’s a tough day for Dan.

JL: I will, I will tell you

JF: Ann Coulter, yeah. Ann Coulter attacking Dan on Twitter by defending Harvard. Didn’t know she was a big elitist Harvard defender now.

TV: Well, she is-

JL: I don’t really wanna…I can’t- just…don’t. Engaging with that person is a mistake.

TV: She’s gross.

0:23:23.7

JF: Pod Save America is brought to you by Winc.

JL: Winc!

JF: In these trying times-

JL: They are trying.

JF: It’s more important than ever to have a steady supply of high quality wine. Good, Winc. Good.

TV: Fact.

JL: Trump is President, get Chardonnay drunk after work.

JF: Winc understands this, so they’ve made it their mission to give you access to exceptional wines from around the world. Just go to trywinc.com, spelled “T-R-Y-W-I-N-C” dot com. Take a brief palate profile quiz and Winc will recommend distinct and interesting wines actually customized to your palate, to be shipped directly to your door every month.

JL: Why is it wrong to put ice in wine?

TV: [Chuckling] I don’t know.

JL: It’s so stupid.

JF: Ah! So wrong!

TV: It waters it down, I guess?

JL: But who cares? Like why can’t you- I, why can’t you have-

JF: It’s a gross thing to do.

JL: A nice cold glass of wine?

JF: Well you can chill it if you want.

JL: Ice cold glass.

JF: Winc uses their expertise to pick the best wines for you based on your taste preferences. Winc will even introduce you to new, rare, and custom wines that are-

JL: Order a rosé on ice and all of a sudden, you’re like Fred Flintstone.

TV: [Laughing]

JF: Yep. And the first round is on us because right now Winc is offering listeners 20 dollars off your first order when you go to trywinc.com/crooked. That’s “trywinc”, spelled ‘T-R-Y-W-I-N-C” dot com slash crooked to get 20 dollars off your first order now. Trywinc.com/crooked and use all the fucking ice you want.

JL: I just think the wine people are killing themselves without having, just le,- just stop being so haughty about the whole operation.

JF: Just…crushed, cubed…

JL: “Oh this is an earthen vibe.” Whatever.

TV: [Laughing]

JF: Just, dump…

JL: It’s a drink.

JF: Fill up a tray-

TV: Like a hint of cigar box.

JF: Fill up a tray freeze it up, and just dump it in your glass.

TV: Fresh cranberry?

JL: In “The Sun Also Rises”, Hemingway, he’s drinking wine like it’s, like it’s Gatorade.

TV: Out of leather bladders.

JL: Yeah, like it’s Gatorade.

JF: Order a glass of wine on your next flight, put some ice cubes in it, and let that seat recline allllll the way back.

TV: It’s hard to go populist to elitist so fast with ice in your wine and then “Sun Also Rises”. You’re like Steve Bannon of messaging.

JL: I will not be- do not

JF: You are. You’re Steve Bannon.

TV: You’re Svengali.

JL: Don’t you dare-

JF: Lovett is wearing two shirts right now. You can’t see it.

JL: I am wearing the exact right number of shirts. This is a lovely sweater.

JF: You can’t see it.

JL: I will not be talked to in this way. It’s a sweater I, it’s my Senator sweater. It’s the sweater I wear when I talk to people that aren’t you idiots.

[Laughing]

0:25:24.5

[MUSIC]

0:25:28.6

JF: And we’re back!

JL: And we’re back.

JF: And joining us is Erin Ryan!

Erin Ryan: Hi!

JL: Hey!

TV: Hello!

JF: How’s it going?

ER: It’s good! I was so surprised that you all 3 were here, in New York. I thought I was gonna come in and there was gonna be…a phone situation.

JL: No…

JF: Oh no, we travel in a pack.

ER: Wow.

JF: Of course.

ER: That’s great.

JL: We’re all here

TV: [Chuckling] We’re all here.

ER: Do you guys have, like matching pajamas that you wear when you go to bed in hotels on the road? Do they have your first initial like monogrammed on it?

JL: They won’t do it.

TV: Who told you that?

JF: Um.

JL: They said no.

JF: Hey, Lisa. Take a note next time.

[Laughing]

JF: Okay, so we wanna talk about Steve Bannon on 60 minutes. Did you sit through the entire interview?

ER: No, I saw bits and pieces and I saw a gif of the best moment of the video, which is where part of his face moved independently of the rest of his face [JF: chuckling] but I mostly just kind of read recaps of it.

JF: Yeah, it was um, he made a few different headlines. Let’s start with, he declared war on the Republican establishment and accused Paul Ryan and Mitch McConnell of trying to nullify the 2016 election because they don’t want Trump’s populist economic nationalist agenda to be implemented.

TV: Cool.

JF: Seems fair.

TV: Yeah, I didn’t disagree with that.

JF: Right?

ER: Yeah, I don’t think that’s wrong.

JL: Cool.

JF: [Laughing]. He also said something interesting which is on the first, he said on the first day — he ratted out McConnell. On the first day Mitch McConnell told him, “Enough with the drain the swamp stuff. I can’t hire any good lobbyists” basically.

TV: Yeah.

JL: Man, Mitch McConnell is exactly who we think he is.

JF: It was weird to root for Steve Bannon. But in that moment, I sort of rooted for Steve Bannon.

JL: It’s like alien versus predator.

TV: Can we pause on this for a second, though.

JF: Sure.

TV: Because he is right that the swamp is a business model. [JF: Yeah] And that it’s gonna take generations to drain, or whatever the hell they really wanna do. But Steve Bannon is profiting off it as much as anybody else.

ER: Um hm.

TV: His entire entity that he runs, Breitbart, is funded by a billionaire named Robert Mercer, who is a right-wing lunatic who funds all these other things. Like Steve lives in a house that houses Breitbart News. He is as much a swamp creature as anyone else. He just doesn’t play one on TV.

ER: Um hm.

JL: Then why is he so handsome?

[Laughing]

TV: Cause he wears-

JL: What kind of swamp creature looks like that?

TV: Cause he perfected the polo under a [JL: What?] black shirt under a black blazer look.

JL: I wanna just-

JF: Yeah let’s talk about that.

JL: Let’s just talk about that for one second.

[Laughing]

JL: So, he wears…I- I really was flummoxed by it. So, he wears a button-down shirt under a button-down shirt under a jacket.

TV: All black.

JL: All black. So, I don’t mind the all black. You know Johnny Cash, you know. It’s as if Johnny Cash had a stroke, like halfway getting dressed.

ER: You know what’s interesting is, is Steve Bannon-

JL: And put on an extra shirt by mistake.

ER: Steve Bannon’s actually really skinny and it’s all-

[Laughing]

ER: Shirt weight. That he just, like layers over and over. So, it takes him about 45 minutes every day to like, peel off every single layer of…shirt.

JL: It’s just like…is he cold? Is he kind of …does he always get chilly? But then it’s like, why not wear a sweater over it?

ER: I don’t know.

JL: I mean it’s sort of like the cautionary tale of the…of the middle aged divorced man, you know. Like, how does this happen? I don’t get it and it does-

ER: What happened?

JL: Feel like his, even his-

JF: What happened? [Laughing]

JL: [Laughing] what happened when you got dressed. It feels a little bit like just another “fuck you” from Steve Bannon. Like he’s like, “Fuck them I’m gonna be dressed like a crazy person.”

ER: Yeah, I think that’s true and I also think, but I will say that Steve Bannon’s a little bit of a trailblazer in that I- it feels so nice to be talking about clothes that a man is wearing.

TV: Hm.

ER: Instead of clothes that a woman is wearing. So, like thank you, Steve Bannon, the feminist.

JF: Let’s go after Steve Bannon’s appearance a little bit here.

ER: Yeah, yeah. He’s, I’m feeling very feminist right now. We can make fun of men, too. There you go.

JF: I saw that you tweeted that he should drink more water. That’s…

ER: [Laughing] Yes. Every time I see him I’m like, “Oh my god, how much water have I drank today?” And I go drink some water.

[Boys laugh hysterically]

TV: Megan Amran tweeted that he puts lipstick on his eyeballs.

[Laughing]

TV: Can I say, working in the campaign and working in the White House is like, the worst thing you could possibly do for your health. We all watched Barack Obama age two decades in 8 years. But, I’ve never seen someone look worse for the wear than Steve Bannon.

ER: Yeah.

TV: Like, you- I genuinely, I’m not concerned about him, but his health doesn’t look good.

JF: What do we think about him out there, in general? Like, is he someone who is…successfully spinning a 7-month stint in the White House, where he got fired, as a success? Are we not really buying it? What?

ER: I think you can only have so many demonstrable apparent failures in a row before it stops looking like you’re playing some kind of master chess game and it starts looking like you’re just pretending like you didn’t lose.

JL: Right.

ER: And like, he, I think he’s, he’s kind of running out of time. I think most people haven’t been, I think it’d be fair to not be generous and assume that he’s just a loser. But you know it is possible that he’s got some other tricks up his sleeve. I don’t know.

JF: Um hm.

JL: Yeah, I mean, look, I sort of go back and forth here. You know, he is in many ways, like a classic, sophisticated crank, right? He has a whole bunch of arguments, he had a real career before, but then you listen to what he says and it’s like, “Populism will win the day. The question is if it’s the left wing or right wing and all the rest.” And it’s like, okay, there’s some truth to that all, kind of crank noise. There’s like a kernel of truth in there. But he’s a sophisticated crank elevated because he helped elect a President.

ER: Um hm.

TV: Yeah.

JL: And he did do that.

JF: Yeah.

JL: And what he said was, you know his case for why Trump would win was correct. I mean, he was right.

JF: But like, he is right that the central problem with the Trump administration, which is what we were just talking about, is that they are, he didn’t staff the administration with a bunch of Steve Bannons. He staffed it with some Steve Bannons and then some traditional Republicans and then, like wall street bankers.

TV: Right.

JF: And so, Bannon’s dream on the populist economic side of like, infrastructure and draining the swamp and tax reform and all this bullshit, isn’t getting realized because Gary Cohn and Mitch McConnell and Paul Ryan are there.

JL: Right.

JF: That’s correct, right?

JL: And Mulvaney. I think Mulvaney-

JL: Mulvaney.

JL: Mulvaney has played a big role in all of this because everything that they’ve, he’s basically been a Paul Ryan acolyte inside the administration and it’s made a difference.

TV: I think he’s a Jim Comey, like you’re right that he sounds sophisticated. He quotes President Polk and cites history, right. But like he’s a Jim Comey letter away from leading the most racist, losing campaign in modern history, than the most racist winning campaign in modern history.

JL: That’s true.

TV: I think we can’t remember that. One of the things-

JF: Hillary Clinton would agree with that.

TV: Yes, she would.

JF: In what happened ‘til now.

TV: One thing that is remarkable to me, though is like, again like the sort of totally rejiggering how the press covers these things. The fact that he still gets away with calling, bragging about sexual assault just, “It’s locker room talk.” There’s no follow up on that. “Just locker room talk.” You know, just, it’s just the guy is…disgusting.

ER: Yeah. I agree.

JF: How about the Chris Christie stuff? [Laughing] He was like, “No, the Access Hollywood tape, that was a real test. If you got on the plane afterwards you’re a part of the team. If not, we don’t wanna talk to you anymore.”

JL: Yeah, I mean well [scoffs] true and awful. [Laughing] Right? Seems like that was true. Terrific.

ER: Yeah. You know, it’s awful but it’s also like, another irritating about this whole thing is how, like, I don’t know. It’s like, there’s a whole crew of people in power right now who seem like they’re trying to play guys who are bad guys on TV. They’re like, they’re playacting a version of what they think evil is based on a movie they saw in the 80’s.

TV: Yes.

ER: And it like, doesn’t, it’s really odd because it’s like, it’s really disingenuous. It feels really fake. Have you ever talked to somebody who was, like acting? Or like you’re-

TV: Yeah.

ER: It feels like you’re in a cultural reenactment of, like the bad guys from Revenge of the Nerds.

TV: “I’m a street fighter.”

JL: Are you?

TV: How many fights have you been in lately?

JF: Yeah, he was so excited to call himself a street fighter.

JL: I’m a street fight- you’re a guy that got some Seinfeld money!

[Laughing]

JL: Calm the fuck down! Who the Mercers like because you’re a nut.

TV: And to your Christie point. They were like, “That guy was dead to us. He was off the plane. He was never given an important job.” Chris Christie now leading our opioid task force, by the way.

[Laughing]

TV: Like, we handed him that piece of shit.

JF: No, I love when he rails against elites and he’s like, “limousine liberals and blah, blah.” It’s like, “Hey buddy, you were fucking on Wall Street and Hollywood. That was your career.” Like, who would-?

JF: [Chuckling] You’re as elitist as they come.

JL: Also, Gorka, Bannon, they all do this Obi-Wan thing where they’re like, “Strike me down, I’ll become more powerful than you could possibly imagine.” It’s like, you run a fucking blog for racists.

[Laughing]

TV: It’s a racist zine.

JF: But, as Tommy mentioned, the alliance with Mercer makes him at least somewhat influential and powerful.

TV: It’s capitalism.

JF: And what came out of that interview [JL: That’s right] that I think was most consequential is that Mercer and Bannon are planning primary challenges to Republicans like Dean Heller, Jeff Flake, possibly Bob Corker, possibly-

JL: Dirty Dean Heller?

TV: Dirty Dean.

JF: Possibly Roger Wicker of Mississippi. Currently they’re trying to take down Luther Strange, who I didn’t even know was a Senator.

JL: That fucking liberal- liberal Wicker.

TV: [Laughing]

ER:  You know he’s like a million feet tall and his name is Luther Strange. Like-

JF: I didn’t believe that was a real name of a real Senator.

TV: I didn’t either.

ER: He like, came directly from Hogwarts. He took time off from his teaching position there to, like to be in the Senate. And now he’s getting primaried.

JL: Oh, is he the Defense Against the Dark Arts guy?

ER: Yeah. Again, he’s having a really bad year.

TV: Eighth book.

[Laughing]

TV: Poor Roger Wicker’s like, ‘How did I get on this list? Like, what did I do?”

JL: I’m trying to think of something like tea party puff…puff tea party…

[Laughing]

JL: I don’t have it.

JF: So, I’m struggling with the primary-

TV: [Gasp] Racist puff!

JF: I’m struggling with the primary challenges because in the pre-Trump world, I would say, “Excellent. A bunch of moderate or conservative Republicans [TV: The exact same journey] are being taken down by a bunch of right-wing freaks. That’s good for Democrats. We’re gonna win.” In this world, I don’t know. I don’t know if, like, Roy Moore is the stronger candidate against a Democrat than Luther Strange, whoever he may be. [Laughing] I don’t know if, like, Dean Heller’s challenger is stronger than Dean Heller against whoever we pick, may put up because the argument they’re gonna use against these Republicans they’re trying to knock is, “They’re part of the establishment. They’re part of the swamp. They’re part of the special interests. And you should knock them off for a change.”

ER: I think that’s assuming that the level of energy that existed on election day 2016 is gonna be present in 2018.

JF: That’s a good point.

ER: And among the exact same people. So, like that’s a pretty big gamble to assume that like the Trumpian-like rally attendee, MAGA hat wearing set is going to be as fired up and mad. And I don’t think that’s gonna be the case. [JF: Um hm] I mean, and cause, whatever, polls screw up all the time. But if you take a look at like what people, what media people are consuming now, what political publications, what broadcasts people are watching. Like MSNBC is killing it because people are mad and fired up on the left. Like, just as how when Obama was first in office, Fox News was killing it. It’s a midterm election and that’s a huge gamble. I just can’t that playing out.

TV: Yep.

JF: Yeah, that’s right.

TV: I had the same journey which was like, initially I’m like, “Great. Spend money, bleed these guys dry.” But I have this fear inside me that these more, you know these sort of somewhat moderate individuals — even when they’re cowards like Dean Heller — seeing them go down, like a Jeff Flake going down. I don’t know that that’s a good thing for the institution. I do think it’s back to the moderating of Trump question. Like, is he gonna go all in with the Breitbart crowd and like, primary people? Like he’s been doing in Nevada? Or is he going to get with the program and like support the caucus? I, we just don’t know yet.

ER: I think the Breitbart crowd plays in extremely red districts though. And if Trump likes national headlines that are fawning, he can’t align with that crowd. Because he’s found throughout the first months of his presidency that every time he’s aligned with them, the papers, the TV shows, talk shows, have hated him. And he liked the, he liked the Schumer bump. He liked getting press coverage, so like he’s- That was gross. “Schumer bump.”

[Guys laughing]

JF: Schumer has a Schumer bump from the Schumer bump.

ER: Yeah, right, right.

[Laughing]

ER: Oh, god. No, but he likes that!

JL: [Laughing] That stays in!

JF: That stays in.

JL: That’s staying in. I saw your face, that’s staying the fuck in!

[Laughing hysterically]

ER: Yeah, but he likes good coverage and he-

TV: I think that’s the title

ER: Yeah, he’s- the Schumer bump. [Giggling] I’m so sorry, guys. But he’ll do what he needs to do to impress the audience that he’s in front of at the exact moment. And if he can’t impress the nation with aligning himself with Breitbart, he’s not gonna continue to do it.

TV: True.

JL: Yeah, I mean look, I think that what we’ve seen the past, you know eight months is he’ll do both, right. He’ll bounce around. I think you’re right, he’ll pivot one way, he’ll try to help these people, but he won’t be disciplined enough to follow through. I mean he’s already threatened some of these people with primaries. He basically threatened Dean Heller in front of him. But then following through means making people mad to their faces, which is something he’s never been comfortable doing, which is why the ‘fire guy’ can’t fire someone.

TV: He can’t look Gary Cohn in the eye! Like that’s just discipline.

JL: I feel like there’s, I remember, I feel a little bit like how we’re worried about what’s gonna come out of these primaries the way we did early in the Republican primary where –I remember us talking about this a lot, that it was, you know, “Who do we want to face Hillary in the primary.” And there was Jeb, and Marco, and Cruz and some other, kind of homogenous white faces I’ve mostly forgotten. And then there was Trump.

JF: And Ben Carson.

JL: And Ben Carson. And then I, and I remember us talking about this. That, like, you know, “Who do we want to come out of the process?” And Trump was the wild card. We, there was this back and, there was a feeling like, “Oh, it’ll be great if Trump got that. He’ll implode. But maybe he won’t. We’re not sure. We don’t really know.” But in our minds, we’re like, “But Rubio’s harder than Jeb, and Jeb is harder than Cruz.” Like, that was an easy math to do. So, it’s a little bit like, kind of, different math. Like we don’t really know what comes out of it. But I do think we’re maybe a little bit traumatized and we’re not going to make the exact same mistakes in every single election.

JF: And it still could be another year of the Sharon Engle year. The Todd Aiken legitimate rape guy. The Christine whoever who was the witch or not the witch. Remember they-?

TV: Yeah.

ER: Yeah.

JL: What a year. By the way-

JF: What are your- and they all lost. And they put up those, they put up those crazy candidates and they all lost and Democrats won those races.

JL: Aiken lost because of talking about whatever he, I can’t even remember. What was it called? “Legitimate rape?” And then Donald Trump brags about legitimate sexual assault and he doesn’t get-

JF: And he’s on his way to the White House. Okay, this brings us to Hillary Clinton and her book, “What Happened.” Which we will be interviewing her about in a couple hours. Erin, you read the book.

ER: I sure did.

JF: And you wrote a review already.

ER: I did write a review already. Somehow, I was able to.

JF: That’s amazing because the three of us basically just like finished the book late last night.

JL: Honestly. The three of us getting through a book over the weekend. We’re like, “This tweet is so long.”

[Hysterical laughing]

JL: “I can’t believe how long it’s taking me to read this tweet by Hillary Clinton. I never knew tweets could be this long.”

[Laughing]

ER: Yeah, it’s, it’s-

JF: What’d you think?

ER: I thought, you know, I was of a few minds of it, on it. First of all, it wasn’t a bad book.

JF: No.

JL: No.

ER: Like it’s not bad. There’s parts of it that are like, really funny. In a way that’s kind of deadpan and like, “Oh that’s actually really funny” when she was like writing about her staffers fighting over hot sauce brands and she was kind of dead panning how she goes through her day. It was like actually funny.

JF: When she was talking about the inaugural and she’s like, “I wish was anywhere but here. Bali? Bali sounds good.”

[Laughing]

ER: Yeah.

JF: That was like dead pan.

ER: Also, I liked how she kind of ping-pongs between being like, an aggressively basic suburban woman and like, one of the most intelligent and powerful women, like, love her or hate her, like who’s ever like lived in the modern era. So, it’s like you know, she’d be like, “I love NCIS: Los Angeles. It’s the strongest of the franchise.” Which was [laughing] a horrifying line.

[Guys laughing v hard]

ER: And then she’ll, and then she’ll talk about how she’s got a plan for meeting resistance with steel. Like, with steely resolve and it’s like, “Oh my god, this woman is scary but also, like, super nice and I kinda wanna hug her but she’s also very-” So there’s that. The book is actually a good book. But I think reading it, I was put into a mind space where I was like, “I don’t wanna hear this from you right now.” And like, not that I’ll never wanna hear it from you, but I understand why people are like, kind of resistant to it. And I was thinking this morning that it sort of reminds me of, like, if you had a dog that got hit by a car. And the person who hit your dog came over to your house and explained like, “Look, there was a bee in my car. I’m super allergic to bees and I had to hit the bee otherwise if it would’ve stung me, I would’ve died and it totally wasn’t my fault.” Or, “I got rear ended and that’s why my car hit your dog.” I don’t care. Like my dog is still dead. I don’t wanna look at you right now.

[Laughing]

ER: Like I don’t care if it wasn’t your fault. I don’t care if you, I don’t care if you like have a perfectly good excuse. Like my dog is still dead. And I know that like, I don’t think that it’s even rational to be that angry or like upset with her, but the fact that you know, this is her owning up to the mistakes that led to where we are right now, is kind of- I don’t really wanna be put back in that headspace, just yet. But I’m glad I read it, that being said I think it’s a book that people should read.

JL: Yeah. The, I’ve had a similar reaction. I, especially when she gets to the litigation of why. And she writes this case and it’s like, “Oh, right. you’re-“ It reminded me of when she was in the Benghazi hearing and just she held her own for 11 hours and it was just- you know, I worked for her and that’s the Hillary Clinton you love working for. Because first of all, she comes-. like, staff can make a mistake, she can make wrong choices about the message or all the rest, but you know that she’s gonna show up brilliant and prepared. Like, we’ve been preparing for this interview for the past couple of days and we’re all going in under the assumption that she will be fully and totally prepared for questions and for the direction we’re gonna take it. And that’s part of who she is. And, so you read this litigation of why and the different reasons, and the different causes, and her way of breaking them down and she’s one of the smartest people around. And the thing I was thinking about, too, as I’m reading the book is, all of those qualities became background radiation. The fact that she is incredibly tough, the fact that she is a brilliant person became kind of the for granted part of the election and everything was focused on negatives. And in that she is right so, I found myself having the same feeling as you. Like, I was telling these guys last night, like I pinballed back and forth like, reading this and being like so outraged on her behalf and so sympathetic and also having that same feeling that you had. Which is, I don’t know what to do with this.

ER: Um hm.

JF: It’s a bit traumatic to go through it again. Because she does do such a good job of taking you through the whole experience. In a very candid way, it’s a very candid book. Like, and we’re talking about like, we’ve all read a lot of politicians’ books. Unfortunately. [ JL: Laughs. TV: Yeah] And some of them are, like, “I’m running for office and here’s my blah, blah, blah that my speechwriter and my communications person put on paper.” You know? And then there’s more honest books and this is one of the more candid politician books. Which is good. I would also tell people, like you should read the whole thing and then if you have criticism, like offer all the criticism you want. But the excerpts that have leaked out – and they have leaked out, they haven’t been put out by the Clinton people – don’t really paint an accurate picture of what the whole book is about.

TV: The excerpts give you a unique window into her frustration because she couldn’t have more fully owned this loss in the book. But the fact that she also talks about Comey and how that influenced the election, the fact that she talks about Russia. Like, there will be people that will pluck that out and say she’s making excuses. It’s just, like, hopefully we all could be a little more adult about it and be like, “Yes, they were factors that contributed to this broader event even if she didn’t run perfectly.”

ER: Yeah, I don’t think people are really capable of being adults when it comes to Hillary Clinton, though. Like, people go insane one way or the other. Like whether or not they are crazy about her and love or whether they just are, just hate her.

JL: I’m sorry, Erin, just pause for a second. I just wanna make sure we have the Verrit authentication code on that point.

[Laughing]

ER: Oh, guys, did you see that he’s like a house DJ? He has, like he produced a bunch of, oh my god-

JL: We’re not talking about it.

ER: Okay.

JL: We’re not talking about it.

ER: Anyway, no, I think people, people are like, because like- Jon, what you said, that it, some people experience the election as like a trauma. And revisiting it causes like this extreme reaction one way or the other. And it’s really hard to go back there.

TV: And it’s something we wanna ask her, because the Bernie-Hillary wound that opened in the primary that everyone thought that would heal for the general, did not heal. And it has not healed today. And it is certainly a fair reading, I think, of the Twitter reaction and everything else that this is exacerbating the problem. I think she has every right to tell her story and explain where she’s coming from but like, okay now as a party, how do we fix this? Because we still have this monster in the White House. Our entire message is still just attacking him. Like, what are we? What do we stand for? And like how do we fix this? Because this is a problem.

JF: And we have all experienced how difficult it is talking about it. Like you send out-

TV: Our mentions are dead already.

JF: You send out an errant tweet about the 2016 election and you are-

JL: Batten down the hatches!

JF: Poor Dillon Matthews at Vox tweeted over the weekend, “Does anyone know what she was trying to accomplish with this book?” Now, you can take the tone of that a bunch of different ways. Dillon later said he was actually wondering like, what’s she trying to do? And he’s still replying to his mentions.

JL: I was glad that he said, I was glad he was like, “Guys I’m not gonna apologize for asking what a politician’s motivations are.” Like everybody, but, it speaks to the kind of sensitivity that people have because of all these unfair dynamics that played out in the election. We’re all kind of, like, a dog that needs to be re-assimilated to other dogs.

TV: We’re all partially honest in the same way the book is like, pretty honest but not 100% candid, right.

JF: Well and it’s also, it’s- she lost an election to Trump, right? Which is what makes this whole thing different. And I was on John Kerry’s campaign. I remember the days and weeks and months after that campaign. John Kerry was destroyed. There were Newsweek books about it. And I mean, it was bad. But it wasn’t anything like this. And I sorta saw it coming though, if she was gonna lose. Like, I remember visiting headquarters in Brooklyn to say ‘hi’ to our old friends who are there. And I was talking to Jen Palmieri and talking to Kristina Schake and I was like, you know this was right after she won the primary. And I’m like, “This is gonna be so much pressure for you guys, because in addition to all the other pressure you get on a presidential campaign, it’s Trump. And if you don’t win, if you don’t beat Trump, it’s gonna be that much- like that’s so scary.” And they’re like, “Thanks, thanks, appreciate that.” But they hadn’t really, it hadn’t really hit them yet. You know, like it ultimately hit them but it hadn’t hit them at that point. And it just, it makes it a different context because it’s, he’s so, he was so scary.

ER: Yeah, I mean, and I think additionally you know, the book’s title is “What Happened” but Hillary kind of, at one point says like, “I don’t know why I’m the one that gets treated like this, I’m at a loss. Tell me what you think. Like, I’m at a loss.” And it seems like a lot of the loose ends are still loose.

Boys: Yeah.

ER: She lays out why she did what she did and takes ownership for the things that went wrong, but we’re missing the exact thing that went wrong. You know what I mean? There’s like step one, two, question mark, profit. There’s like a whole bunch of question marks still left in there.

JL: Right. I think that the part she takes responsibility for are the parts least elucidated in the book, right. And the parts that were the outside factors, which she very effectively makes the case mattered most, are laid out and fully and bare. And I think it’s quite reasonable that this book, an attempt to explain from her perspective what she thinks wrong, needs help on the parts that are specific about the failures of the campaign, specific about her failures in the campaign. So, I, you know-

JF: It’s almost because every time she takes responsibility for one of those failures, there also happens to be some mitigating outside factor that has also caused that problem.

JL: Right, right, right.

JF: So, it’s just like, you can, the whole book is a back and forth. “I was at fault, I did this wrong, I did this wrong. But, this also happened.”

JL: But it’s true! And she says this in the book, which I think is quite reasonable. Like, you know, “These things happened. And they’re not an excuse, but they happened. And we need to understand why they happened.” And she’s right about that, you know I think the excerpts that have been pulled out have kind of highlighted that aspect of it.

ER: Um hm.

JL: But, you know. She’s not wrong that we need to talk about that.

ER: Yeah, I also thought as I was reading it, that I was like, “Oh, I’m glad that this is all written down and in one place.” Because I think five years from now, ten years from now, if anybody wants a snapshot into like, this weird time in history, like, this will be a really useful volume for one side of what happened. And like I was thinking, like future college kids will probably get assigned it and like, grumble about it but then actually secretly enjoy reading it because it’s like kind of a fun book.

JL: The book is a metaphor. The book is being treated like and represents the way Hillary Clinton has been treated in the public eye this whole time, which is, incredibly high level of scrutiny. Much of it taken the wrong way. Much of it taken fairly. Flawed, but mostly honest and trying to understand something, but the flaws become exacerbated and the flaws make the honest part harder to talk about.

TV: Sounds like we got a book jacket blurb.

[Everyone laughing way too hard]

ER: We’ll have to add like an accordion to interject.

[Laughing more]

JF: Okay, when we come back we will talk with DeRay McKesson.

00:49:41.3

[MUSIC]

00:49:46.5

JF: Pod Save America is brought to you by Helix.

JL: Helix!

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JL: Um hm.

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JL: I’m sick of my mattress. I really hate it. End of thought.

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JL: I think it’s hurting my back.

JF: Go to helixsleep.com, Lovett.

JL: Or maybe it’s just my thirties.

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JL: I have a question.

JF: Yes.

JL: Do you guys adhere to bed sides in different beds? Like, in hotels and so forth? Or does it break down?

TV: Ye., I do and I think it’s a stupid dynamic.

JL: Where did that- why does happen?

TV: I don’t know, why do we do that? Over time your mattress just sinks on one side but not on the other.

JL: Yeah.

TV: You’re supposed to like, rotate it and all this stupid shit that nobody actually does.

JF: Yeah, I just like my side. That’s all I have to say about it.

JL: But even when you travel? It’s like, you’re in a totally different kind of room.

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JL: [Laughing]

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00:51:26.4

JF: Pod Save America is brought to you by the Cash app!

TV and JL: [in unison] The Cash app.

JF: What do we have to say about the Cash app?

JL: We’re gonna get their new debit card thing where you can personalize it. We’re gonna use it. There’s gonna be money for you – 5 dollars, 5 dollars for hurricane relief. It’s the simplest easiest way to pay people back. We’re not using the other apps anymore. You know, that’s the end of it. That’s all there is to it. The Cash app. The Cash app.

JF: I would like to know why those of you who haven’t downloaded the Cash app yet, have not done so.

JL: Oh, by the way and also-

JF: Please tell us.

TV: Yeah, answer, answer for yourself.

JF: We will-

JL: I appreciate all the people tweeting at us your admonitions to your friends that you’re only paying them back via the Cash app. We like that, we think that’s fun.

JF: We do.

TV: Yeah.

JL: And we like that you CC the advertiser on it, because it lets them know that this shit works.

JF: [Laughing]

TV: You know what else we like that we haven’t done in a while? We also like really like if people accidentally borrow their friend’s phone and they accidentally subscribe them to Pod Save America, then film it and then tweet it at us.

JL: Yeah, we haven’t done that.

TV: It’s not something we are asking you to do. But we think it’s fun. It’s fun.

JL: But if it happens we won’t mind.

JF: And if, while you have the phone, before you send an errant text, you also download the Cash ap.-

TV: Yeah!

JF: Enter the code “PODSAVE” – that’s how you get the 5 dollars, that’s how people in need get the 5 dollars. We wouldn’t mind that, either.

JL: And also, you know add Lovett or Leave It and Pod Save the World because what are you- you have their phone. They seem to be taking a long time in the bathroom, so use the phone.

JF: Maybe, maybe Pod Save the People and With Friends like These.

JL: Yeah, get ’em all. Gotta catch ’em all.

JF: Collect ’em all

JL: Collect ‘em all.

[Laughing]

JF: The Cash app.

JL: The Cash app.

00:52:46.0

JF: Pod Save America is also brought to you by Postmates.

JL: Postmates.

JF: Lovett, you want to continue the thought you started in the Cash app ad?

JL: Honestly it has left me.

JF: Because Postmates and Cash app are really just for us to talk about whatever we want.

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JL: Use it or lose it!

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JL: Correspondent keeps Postmating shrimp quesadillas. And I’m in a contest where I have to log everything I eat. And I keep having to add to the spreadsheet, “I took a giant bite of someone else’s quesadilla.”

TV: Who are you competing with?

JF: I hope you solve, I hope you solve your issue with Matt Lauer. [Laughing]

JL: Spencer Wong. My friend, Spencer.

JF: Cool.

JL: We’re in a competition. It’s a workout and meal thing. It’s not really a competition, it’s more of a collaboration. It’s like the Paris Climate Accord. It’s unenforceable, but the reporting metrics are enough to keep us honest.

TV: Cool.

JF: Postmates! Code ‘CROOKED.’

JL: I may go Trump on the whole thing.

00:54:01.1

[MUSIC]

00:54:04.4

JF: And we’re joined by the host of Crooked Media’s Pod Save the People, DeRay McKesson. DeRay, how’s it going?

DeRay McKesson: It’s good, it’s good. How’re you guys doing? You guys have a big interview coming up.

JF: We have a big interview.

JL: We do. We do.

JF: Do you have anything you wanna ask Hillary? Or you want us to ask Hillary?

DM: Hm. I’m always interested on her about race. So, anything that you ask her about race injustice. You know, she had a lot of stuff in her policy platform that never made the light of day. Like you didn’t hear about it, so I’d be interested to hear about that. And then, what does she think is gonna happen moving forward? Like she’s been an insider for so long. And, you know, she was First Lady and Secretary of State, like what’s her thought about how we organize to respond this administration and just those things.

JF: That’s good. Yeah, we asked people on Twitter and Facebook for questions and I think the most common one we got was, what’s gonna happen moving forward? Don’t try to re-litigate too much of the past. Which I think is probably wise.

JL: Which I probably won’t do, too.

[Laughing]

JF: Lovett’s just gonna ignore. So, DeRay, you were in Houston this weekend, I believe. What were you doing there? How’s everyone doing?

DM: I volunteered at Houston, you know, it’s a city rebuilding. I volunteered at a Harvey relief, which is like an incredible warehouse of volunteers donating stuff and then people who needed stuff in Houston could come and just pick up whatever they needed. So, it was great to be there. And then I came back to New York City and I’m off to Philadelphia, so good to be there. And then, you know on the pod coming up, we talked to Congressman Yarmouth from Kentucky, about the debt ceiling, which I didn’t know very much about. So yeah, it’s been a full week.

JF: We were talking about this earlier on the pod, what are your thoughts about this budget deal?

DM: It’s interesting. I realized how little I knew about sort of the budget making process until, you know, the government started to collapse before our eyes and I was like, “I should learn about this.” So you know, I’m interested in the debt ceiling. And like, you know Trump says we don’t even need a debt ceiling, which some people agree with in some ways. So that’ll be interesting how it plays out. The DACA decision is still fascinating to see if DACA, like immigration reform is actually used as the lever by which people get tax cuts. Cause they’re so like, I’m interested to see how that actually plays out and hopeful that the immigration rights, sort of, space doesn’t get screwed over as a swap for some, like really bad tax deal, you know.

JL: On the other hand, a billionaire DACA recipient would come out pretty well.

DM: [Laughing] Yes.

JF: Well, I’m sort of worried, DeRay, about what they’re gonna trade for legalizing these undocumented young Americans. Which is, like there’s a lot of thought that maybe it’s the wall, right? They’ll get wall funding and some Democrats will say, “Okay, we’ll give you the wall funding if we get DACA recipients legalized.” What- did Yarmouth have a thought on that? Or- what did he say?

DM: You know, he didn’t, we talked about the debt ceiling and sort of the process. We didn’t talk about, in all the people I’ve talked to people haven’t had much comments on what they think, or many comments on what they think the swaps will be. I personally think that the wall is being used as like the shock value that’s gonna open up space for them to do the crazy tax stuff that we’re not even, like we don’t even know. And as you probably have seen is that the ACA repeal is like back on the table in some parts of Congress, so like making sure that people aren’t too fatigued to keep this fight up I think is really important on our end. And I think that, you know, the Trump folks are being really consistently dramatic. That is, like fatiguing people, so.

JF: Yeah.

DM: Yeah, I think that they are gonna really consciously- and did you see that Omarosa is being locked out of the Oval office? That was interesting.

TV: I love that.

JF: We didn’t talk about that.

JL: I think that is terrific.

TV: So funny. I love that she triggers him. That’s like, the accusation from Kelly’s team.

DM: And Lovett, I didn’t know that you, you used to work for Hillary?

JL: I did. I did. I worked for her for three years. I was her speechwriter.

DM: I didn’t know that.

JL: Yeah. After Hillary lost in 2008, Jon hired me at the White House.

DM: So this’ll be like a homecoming of sorts. This interview.

JL: Yeah, yeah, that’s sure.

JF: Lovett gave her all of her funny lines.

JL: For a while.

[Laughing]

JF: DeRay, you’re also, she, you’re mentioned in the book as well and she talks about a very, great meeting that she had with you and Brittany. But again, it’s a question you asked, which is, she talks in the book about like she has all these policies and it was hard for all these policies to break through. And I think one thing we probably wanna ask her is, you know, what did Democrats do- what do we do in the future to make sure that you know everything isn’t just the Trump show? And that a lot of really good policy actually gets out there as message. Which is, you know, I think probably every movement struggles with, right?

DM: Yeah, she was, you know we met her previously before she did a big event in some swing states and she was incredible. Like, very thoughtful, all the right things about the police and race like in ways that people, I hadn’t anticipated she’d be. And you never got to see that, and that was a real- I think that like, the campaign really just made the wrong calculations about, like, not allowing the videotapes of those conferences to be released, or like those meetings to be released. She didn’t do much media with anyone who knew content. She did a lot of culture media.

JF: Hm.

DM: Which is great, but they could’ve said anything about the content or policies and like they just, they weren’t experts on it. So, they wouldn’t have pushed. So, I think that was like a real flaw. And you think about the surrogates. It’s like people, like a lot of people didn’t know who Killer Mike was, but they knew him because of Bernie. Like he was an incredible surrogate. People had no clue who Katrina Pearson was, but Katrina was out there for Trump. It’s like, who was actually a surrogate for Hillary? I don’t know, you know. Like I don’t know who was delivering her message in any media. And I think that they just like played that game wrong.

JF: It’s a good point. I don’t really know. Like, I remember like Karen Finney being on MSNBC a lot for her.

JL: There was no one person who became the face of the campaign on television.

DM: Yeah, Podesta was on one or two times but you know, like who was, even Benghazi, you know? It’s like, the Benghazi story got so far without there being, like, a person being like, “Okay, here’s actually what happened.” It was like, 60 people. It was like, I don’t really know. The right was just so awful about it, the same faces just beating her up over and over and over.

TV: Yeah. And I think that’s also true for the Russia investigation. I mean when they sort of tried to amp up their messaging on the fact that the big story was the fact that Russia was interfering with the election. I think they set out Robbie Mook, who is seen as a political staffer, not a national security expert or someone they sort of credentialed along the way to talk about these specific issues.

JF: Yeah, I mean, you learn in a campaign that message discipline is everything. And you have to be saying the same thing every single day, even when it gets boring. And when you look at the coverage of the race — some of this is the fault of the press — but you know, it was all about her emails and, and the Trump people and the Republicans and the right-wing media hammered emails and corruption every single day for the entire race. And that’s what they got. And I think because Trump offends so many different kinds of people and does so many things wrong and is such a disaster, there’s like 50 targets a day on how you hit Trump. You know?

JL: Yeah, I mean, one thing I was thinking about too, from all this is, we need, it’s almost as if we needed a first part of the sentence to attach what Trump was doing. Like, instead of attacking for what he said about the Khans on its own, like “Trump is a selfish plutocrat, which is why he attacked the Khans.” Or, “Trump is a racist billionaire who doesn’t care about people, which is why he did this.” Like we needed one phrase about Trump that we all said over and over again until it stuck. And he was so erratic and so undisciplined and said so many crazy things, that never happened.

JF: Yeah, and look like this matters for the future cause we’re gonna face this again in 2018 and 2020.

DM: Hopefully he doesn’t last until 2020. Let’s not even speak that way.

JF: [Laughing] Alright I like that. I like that optimism. Alright, DeRay, we’re taking off. We’re gonna head up to Chappaqua now.

JL: We’re going to the woods, DeRay. I got some GORP, I have some kind bars, I have, I have a canteen filled with water, I have bug spray. We’re going to talk to Hillary Clinton.

[Laughing]

DM: Cool, talk to you later.

JF: Everyone go download Pod Save the People this week. DeRay’s talking to John Yarmouth and a lot more. So, DeRay, take care. We’ll talk to you later.

TV: Thanks, DeRay.

DM: Cool, talk to you later.

JF: Bye. Alright, that’s all the time we have for today. We are headed north…to this interview.

TV: I’ve never been in New York City on 9/11.

JF: Yeah.

TV: It was a strange realization. I know a lot of people never move on, but it does feel like the city’s, it feels like we’re in a different place than we were.

JF: I know.

TV: Like, when we were in the White House and we would, such a focus on the attacks and the anniversary.

JF: Every 9/11 in the White House was a big-

TV: I know. I don’t know if that’s a healing, it it’s just culture moving, I don’t know.

JL: I think the 10-year marked the end of marking it every year in the same way as we did before. We still mark it, but it’s different.

JF: Yeah, it’s interesting. Alright, everyone.

JL: Oh, that brought the outro down.

TV: Well, that’s my role here.

JL: Usually the outro’s a chance for comradery. There’s a fun, videogame-like music song that plays right now.

01:02:39.2

[MUSIC starts]

JF: Is there?

JL: Yep. It’s just started

JF: Okay. Well, we’ll talk to you guys later. Don’t forget to download the bonus episode!

JL: Download the bonus episode. It’s gonna be great. Probably.

[Laughing]

JF: Bye, everyone.

TV: Bye

1:03:09.9