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Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Jon Favreau. I'm Jon Lovett. I'm Tommy Vitor. I'm Dan Pfeiffer. Happy holidays, Merry Christmas, and welcome to the pod. We've got all four of us here. On today's show, we're going to answer 2021's last round of mailbag questions, revisit 2020's New Year resolutions, and set some new ones for 2022, and present the second annual Pundi Awards for the absolute worst takes of 2021. Busy show, lots to do. A lot going on here. Very exciting. We'll get to it. When does this come out?
December. Right. A couple days before New Year's. A couple days before New Year's. Great. Andy's nodding. Leave it alone. Thank you, Andy, for being helpful. Yeah. All right. Let's start with some of your questions. We want to do mostly fun questions, but because so many of you have asked about student loans and student debt, we will start there.
Background. In March of 2020, the CARES Act paused all student loan repayments because of the pandemic. Payments were supposed to start again on September 30th, 2021, but Joe Biden extended the pause until January 31st, 2022. But last week, the White House said he's not extending it again, which means people will have to start repaying their loans in February. Separately, Biden still hasn't kept his campaign promise to cancel up to $10,000 in student debt for every borrower. Guys, what gives? What's going on?
I have a theory. You have a theory. Tommy has a theory. I mean, I think judging by Joe Biden's public statements, he thinks he's not a big fan of this proposal, even though he made it. I think he thinks it's overly weighted towards wealthier people who pay for college. I'm not saying that's accurate or the right way to look at it, but I think that's what he thinks. I've also just assumed that he wanted to get Build Back Better done first so that Joe Manchin wouldn't see the price tag on student loan debt relief and like start crying about it and like throw like a tantrum and bangs rattle on the ground in the Senate and then refuse to pass the bill. So I think that's all right on the canceling debt. I want to separate the two. I want to start with the...
pause on the payments? Because you could imagine the White House saying, you know what, the whole idea of pausing the repayments on the debt was about getting people through the pandemic. The pandemic is very much still with us. So instead of ending it at the end of January, we will continue to another three or four or five months. What do you think, Dan? I think there, I am very confused by the politics of this, but there is this tension in their messaging, which is the economy, despite the short-term challenges of inflation, is doing great. Historic job creation, we save the economy. Also, we need these emergency measures at the same time. And I think that that is a place that they have found, I think is a navigable piece of tension, but it is tension within their message.
I think that there's an obvious compromise, which is you continue to suspend payments for everyone except for people who have debt from an MBA because I don't care about them. I think that's a great proposal, honestly. What should happen? I think that they should obviously extend the pause for another couple months. If someone has a good reason. Is there a court ruling that may be made that hard? That you think of the homeowners. Ah, fuck. Yeah, so this is what I'd love to know. Smart people out there because I tried to look this up before the episode. Not at this table. If there is a legal reason for not being able to extend or why the Biden administration thinks they shouldn't extend the pause.
then let me know. But if there's no legal reason that I don't think there is a good substantive reason or political reason, certainly for not extending it. And then when you get to the canceling up to $10,000 in student debt for every borrower, I do think, Tommy, that's probably like, you know, let's give them until the Build Back Better passes on that one. And then once that passes, we don't know what the education department actually, it's supposed to be under review with the education department, whether Biden has the authority. Of course, we don't want them to get into the situation they got in with the housing extension, the eviction moratorium, where...
Biden administration extended the eviction moratorium. Everyone celebrated and the courts were like, absolutely not. Fuck you. And so, you know, it did help some people for a month or so, but didn't give a lot of relief. There's a double whammy here because there are people who both are depending on the continued pause in student loan payments and depend on the expanded child tax credit. Both those things are going away this month. So there's going to be a section of the population is going to get hit with a huge bill in January. Yeah. And my fear about waiting for BBB to pass is my dad used to have this New Yorker cartoon on his fridge where a guy was making plans. And he said, how about never? It's never good for you. And I worry about that dynamic. Classic cartoon. It's a classic.
I do too. And look, a lot of people are angry about this and I totally understand that. And people should keep pushing the Biden administration very hard on this. People should keep making noise about it. Like, I think it's a totally fair criticism and they have not talked a lot about it and they should give people some answers as to why they can't do it or else they should do it. I mean, I think here's the other thing. I think extending the pause won't make him less popular. Right. There's that as well. All right. All right. We will elegantly segue into the fun questions with this transition one. Joshua asks, would you rather go up against one large Kyrsten Sinema or a hundred tiny Joe Manchins?
This is so easy. Oh. Is it? A hundred tiny Joe Manchins because if there's like a tiny thing coming at you, you get to just drop kick them into oblivion. So many. So many. I think people sometimes underestimate just how tiring it would be to take on a hundred small enemies. So like practice. Join a club soccer team for a month or something. I also just think having a conversation with one Joe Manchin clearly has exhausted dozens of Democratic senators. They literally seem completely out of juice. And I don't care how small your Joe Manchin is. The arguments are not going to get worse. You know what I mean? They're not going to get better. They're not going to get worse. There's maybe a slightly higher pitch. You have a pitch for cinema, Dan?
Well, she has, I would say a couple things. One, Joe Manchin's whether large or small or easily distracted. Two, it's just like, yell, no labels conference over there. They would all just leave you alone. Sprinkle some coal. And Kyrsten Sinema has shown such a commitment to her physical fitness that she is willing to miss key Senate votes for it. So that would cause me so concerned. Yeah, you get caught with the thumbs down. You're done. Also, if it's 100 Joe Manchin's, does that mean he has all those votes? Then we'd be in real trouble. Just making one of Kyrsten Sinema's outfits would mean there wouldn't be enough fabric for all the Chico's in the world. You know what I mean?
I think we have now officially exhausted the answer to this fun question. That was for Andy. Jay Friesen asks, as a Starbucks barista, I'm curious to know, what's your everyday coffee order and what's your treat yourself coffee order? Thank you for asking. I'll go first. It's just sort of a classic all-American drink. No big deal. Triple espresso and extra ice with three-pump sugar.
I will read you mine because I have it in front of me right now. It's a Venti Americano, a splash of cream, five pumps of sugar-free vanilla, and two Splenda. It's a Venti. It's a Venti. Are you in the movie Elf? That's disgusting. Some of the worst moments of my life have either been A, early mornings in Penn Station, or B, getting coffee for you and having to fucking say five pumps of skinny vanilla latte out loud. Well, do you want to know my treat yourself? What is it about your masculinity? Because it's disgusting. It's not my masculinity. What is it about makes you comfortable? Why do you go to a gendered place on this question? Can it just be disgusting tasting? How dare you? Why don't you want to say it? Vanilla's delicious. Is it better how bad? Vanilla's delicious.
My treat yourself coffee order is from Dunkin Donuts. It's a large Dunkin with just a French vanilla Dunkin. We don't even need sugar in that. You think sugar-free vanilla syrup in Starbucks is bad? Just wait till you get to French vanilla Dunkin Donuts. That's the good shit. You can smell that shit 100 miles away. It's like benzene. It's gross. What's really pathetic is my treat version of that drink is just one extra pump of sugar-free vanilla. It's so dark. Tommy and Dan. Shout out Jeremy. I mean, I don't really go out to coffee anymore because we...
You guys know why. But back in the day when I was painting houses, the best treat drink was the extra large Dunkin' Ice with like an inch of sugar at the bottom and extra green. Cool. Dan? In a weird way, I only started drinking coffee five years ago. So after I left the White House. Really? Yeah. What were you drinking in the White House in the morning? Well, I was drinking diet soda, which is fucking disgusting. And they've contributed to at least one trip to the hospital. I have no, I only drink basically plain.
black coffee. It's just, it is flavored caffeine. It has no, if I'm treating myself, I'm not doing it with coffee. Alexa asks, thoughts on the succession finale? It was sort of in line with your guesses for who would actually succeed. That's right. Dan and I talked about this on the pod. I mean, first of all, spoiler, spoiler, spoiler, spoiler, spoiler, stop the pod, throw your phone out the window. We're recording pod save the world and Ben's just like, how would you think of the scene when Kendall's floating? He's dead. I was like, ah, very bad.
Who wants to go? Who wants to start? I thought it was exquisite. Oh, wow. Word TV is often exquisite. Yeah, and just searching for one that would really get there. I'll say this. First of all, I loved it. Second, I am glad that there was a bit of a Jeremy Strong discourse before the finale because I have never felt more convicted of, in my view,
that that whole thing was a bunch of bullshit. Jeremy Strong is great. I'm glad he does weird shit like ask for personal props to help him get into character. This town is filled with people who don't give a fuck, who are cynical and are doing it for their paycheck. They're not Jeremy Strong. Jeremy Strong's showing up on days when he's not in the scene to cry at funerals he is not supposed to attend. That fucking rules. Jeremy Strong rules. I want to hear a bad word about him. Oh, he cares too much. Is that our problem as a culture? We need more Jeremy Strongs in Congress. The scene when they were sitting...
The scene would have so many problems. The scene when they're sitting on the ground and he goes from disclosing that he murdered someone to them making fun of it is one of the best moments of TV. I do wonder, okay, we've done several seasons of this now. How do we sustain this show in another season? I'm a little anxious about it on their back. I feel like four seasons you can definitely do. I'm wondering about five because now I think season four is either the kids maintain their alliance that they just started against Logan or that alliance falls apart because they're all assholes within the first couple episodes. But you can see either happening. I will go with these people wherever they want me to go. I will sit with them. There's going to be a whole season where they just go to some sort of like...
retreat, vacation spot, and argue for a week. I don't care, I'm in. The one thing about this season that I was worried about is I love when they just go to rich people places. You know, it's just like, we're going to go to Italy and now we're going to go to Lake Cuomo. I guess it was Lake Cuomo. Now we're going to Switzerland. The season was missing that until the end. I was really happy about that. Dan, go ahead.
Love the show. One thing I give two shits about who eventually takes over the dying right wing cable company. It's not like reading the tea leaves to figure that out. Like they want to keep it on for 20 years. We just get to hang out with these people. And like you said, go to fun places where they make fun of each other. Great. I'm in. When I was working on the newsroom, I said something that made Aaron Sorkin so upset, which was, sir, I want to be the first to inform you that we killed Osama bin Laden. I was like, hey, what if they're on a plane and they have to tell people that Osama bin Laden was killed? But what if you played fix you? No, but I.
We were having some sort of debate about what the show was going to do. And it was like a very high drama debate about what they were going to air on the Jeff Daniels program on their network. And everybody and like it was going to be heated and it was going to be this debate about the future of the news. And I was like, hey, I just want to remind everybody that in this world, what we're talking about here is the opportunity to make a really great episode of Rachel Maddow. So maybe we should just chill out a little bit. That's what this is about. I love Rachel Maddow. But like, let's I don't know how dramatic this music is. You didn't exactly Jeremy Barr that episode. Jeremy Strong. Shit. Fuck. One more television related follow up here from Josephine. How excited is Tommy for season two of Emily in Paris?
Pretend you won't be. I realized I did this to myself. I just want to clarify that I thought the show was, it was like a B, it was a B minus. It entertained me. It didn't challenge me in any way. There are barely conflicts to resolve. So I will probably watch it. I will probably watch it. I will probably watch it. You like the show. It was a pandemic. You like it. You will watch it more. So we just came from a period of outstanding television and I've been out of television to watch. So Emily agreed.
I started Emily in Paris because I had missed it the first time. And Emily's like, okay, I'll watch it again. And we got a couple episodes in and we're like, can't do it. I want to thank the producers of Emily in Paris for sending us all bucket hats, by the way. I really appreciate that. Listen, it's better than the fucking Sex and the City reboot. I mean, that's just... That's an unholy text. It's just absolutely terrible. That show is like someone wished on a genie but broke the rules and brought something back from the dead. You know? It was like, could this get worse than when they went to Abu Dhabi? Sure could. Sure can. Wendy asks, what do you really, really want for Christmas that isn't connected to politics?
Nothing. I'm at the age where I ask for nothing. My wife gave me a laptop bag. I'm happy about it. I probably should buy a new sweatshirt since you see me in the same shit five times a week. What kind of laptop bag?
Is that the one you had yesterday? Yeah. I like that. It's nice. I got Ronan a new bag. I did some recon. It's nice. I did some comparison shopping. Dan, what do you want? Nothing. It's so boring. You hit an age and you just don't ask for things. You know what I ask for is a Kindle because reading books on the iPad doesn't work so well on the distraction front. A lot of other things happen around that. If you want to read more books, you need a Kindle and then some kind of a surgery. New personality. Save your corpus callosum or something.
We'll see if it works. We'll see if it works. Tune in next year. Tune in to next year's mailbag. Libby Lee on Instagram asks, what is a Christmas movie you never get sick of? Die Hard. Christmas Vacation. Christmas Vacation. That's a good one. I know almost every line to National Open's Christmas Vacation. You watched it already? Yeah, I put it on last night. Usually I watch it with my dad and brother who are huge fans as well. Give us some lines. If we could just cut in the audio of Randy Quaid saying the shitter is full of hair, that would be great. Unless we're going to get sued for that. Rebecca asks, what's your favorite holiday memory from the White House?
I guess mine was probably, Obama used to do this staff dinner. Every year was kind of the last day before he would go to Hawaii. And it was always like a really, really nice, wonderful event. But probably the second to last year was in the White House. I took my mom, which was like the greatest thing that ever happened to her. Joe Biden, Delaware, bonded with her over Delaware, talked to her for like 45 consecutive minutes. It was very fun. Oh, that's nice. Yeah.
I didn't get invited to some fucking staff dinner, but the White House threw like a hundred amazing Christmas parties for the plebs. And I invited my mom to one of the pleb fests. And I would say, joking aside, like I think going to any event in the state dining room is like an unbelievably heady, cool experience. And it blew her mind. But then I walked her over through the colonnade to my office in the press office. Then we walked up the Oval Office. We went to Katie Johnson, who's our friend, who was Obama's secretary at the time. Obama hears us out there, calls us into the Oval, takes a picture, hung out with my mom for a minute. And I think one of the things he got, I think, intuitively about the job is that 30 seconds of just...
basic decency to any human being can be one of the coolest moments of their life. And that's what happened there. That's so nice. We have a nice photo of it. I had a sort of embarrassing one, which is when in one of those staff dinners, they always have like a special guest and they had the Rockettes come. And somehow I got in a picture with Alyssa and all of the Rockettes in which I was kicking my leg up, as was Alyssa. Where's that picture? Alyssa has it. Alyssa, tweet it. I think she's posted it on Instagram. It's happened a couple times. It's also me when I shaved my head and was like 10 pounds heavier. It's not great. It's not a great picture. It's your second worst picture. Third? Third. I think it's third. I think we got two ahead. Leave me out of this. That was such a weird dinner because it was Rockettes, Jon Bon Jovi playing Christmas music, and then Will Ferrell reading The Night Before Christmas. Oh, that's right. And he made no jokes.
Straight from the text. Very serious reading. Alexandra asks, favorite Christmas Eve dish and or cocktail? Old fashioned for me. Love an old fashioned around Christmas.
I'm a wine guy. Mostly around the holidays. Food-wise, my mom makes this appetizer where she mixes cream cheese with this sort of curry powder or something and then puts chutney and chopped green onions on top and eat it. My favorite meal before Christmas is cultural appropriation. I was going to say it was pretty waspy, but I guess you're right. Wow. Dan? Cocktail is used to be old-fashioned, but I have transitioned to paper planes. Oh, those are good. Yeah. It's like an offshoot of the old-fashioned.
Yeah, any kind of bourbon-based drink I'm a fan of. Found a picture of Alyssa and Dan. Dan is asleep in the car next to her. It's on the Instagram here, sorry. Good stuff. All right, we got a lot of these. What video game is Love It looking forward to most? That's easy. Early 2022, I believe February. Elden Ring. What's that? From the Twisted Minds of Dark Souls and Bloodborne and George R.R. Martin collaborating together. Miyazaki, George R.R. Martin together.
creating Elden Ring. I cannot wait. It's like you're speaking a different language. I feel very left out. I'm like, Mario 2? Mario 3? What Mario were we on? Here's the thing. If you're hearing this, all right. Is Zelda still kicking? If you're a Soulsborne person, all right, if you understand what I'm talking about, you know how exciting it is. In February of next year, we get a George R.R. Martin Miyazaki collab. You sure he finished it? Cannot keep it. I think this is yet another example of what he's done to procrastinate finishing those books. And you know what? I don't give a fuck about those books anymore. I found out how that story ends and it's just okay. Elden Ring. Yes! Elden Ring. Dark Souls. The games for the true gamers. Charlotte knows what I'm talking about.
Charlotte. You like Soulsports? No one does. They're really hard. Okay. Cool. Stay tuned. Cannot wait. You will not hear from me that again. NHLPA 94. NBA Jam 45. Is that where we're at now? Multiple asks for book recommendations. Dan and Tommy, you guys can take this one. Don't stop. I do read. I do read. All right? Clara and the Sun. Clara and the Sun. You go.
Dan, you go first. Two books. One, Harlem Shuffle by Colson Whitehead and Razorblade Tears by S.A. Cosby. Both are sort of very, very well done crime novels. Is the Colson Whitehead one new? I read, was it Nickel Boys? Yeah, it came out this year. That was very good. Very dark, but very good. I was late on this, but I read The Sympathizer this year, I believe. It's as good as everyone said it was. It takes like 50 pages to get into because there's, whatever. I'm reading Age of Ambition by Evan Osnos about his time living in China. It's very good. I have a couple books that I'm just like constantly slogging through.
A Brief History of Time by Stephen Hawking and then Reaganland by Rick Pearlstein. You guys have heard me talk about Rick before. Basically what happens is I usually just get a little too high before bed and I kind of toggle between whichever book my brain is sort of tuned to. Read about the Reagan era while a little shown. I took an edible and read Nixonland. I think he wasn't very good. That's about all I got. I'm going to read Heather McGee's book that some of us has downloaded. I downloaded some books about AI because I feel like we talk about it and I should know what it is but I haven't read them yet. Wow, good stuff. Knowing my taste and I want to read a book over the next couple of weeks, do you guys have a recommendation for me?
Are you looking for fiction, nonfiction? I'm looking for fiction. I kind of like fiction. I don't need something so heavy. I need something that's a little more fun. Something. Get you into the habit. Somebody said something about AI, and I'm going to bastardize it, but it's something like AI is just a term for the next generation of computing that we don't have yet. Oh, that's not AI. AI is this next thing. Artificial intelligence is the next thing. In the movie Mission Impossible, Ving Rhames is like, I need some of those Pentium 5s, thinking machines. And it's like, Pentium 5s, those are garbage to us. AI is just a word for a computer that's a little better than the computers we have now.
I wonder how true that is. I don't know. Elon Musk might disagree. Clara and the Sun, John. What is it? Clara and the Sun. It's by Ishiguro, who's my favorite author. Beautiful story. It's an easy read. Great. Okay. I'm going to check it out. Thank you. When we come back, we will talk New Year's resolutions.
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Do more at the University of New Brunswick. UNB is a world-class university offering a world-class education. Get personalized support to explore career opportunities, build the skills and confidence employers value, and connect with mentors and future employers. From class registration to career preparation, UNB is where you'll do more. Visit domore.unb.ca to learn how. Hey, everyone. My name is Elijah Cohn, and I've been a producer here at Crooked Media for a decade. I love making our shows with the smart, creative people who work here and hearing from all of you who listen every week.
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All right, let's finish 2021 with the worst takes of the year. And our second annual edition of Pod Save America's Pundi Awards is Crooked Media's chief take officer, Elijah Cohn, says, defend your takes like they're your family, because at the end of the day, your takes are all that you have. All right, let's, who has a nomination for a really bad take for 2021? Who wants to say it? Tommy's chomping at the bit. I got one right here. There's the normal stuff the presidents are required to talk about. Like, oh, the so-and-so of Finland is coming today. Or, I'm going to see you somehow tricked us into announcing our new Asia strategy this week. We've got to talk about that, right? Like, all that other stuff. It has importance in the world, I guess.
Dan Pfeiffer to Asia, you have importance, I guess. What I like about that is also, Tommy to Dan Pfeiffer, I listen to you at 1.5 speed. Of course. You're the psycho if you listen to one. Dan is not pivoting to Asia. There is no Asia strategy for Dan. I stand by that take. America first. Bad take from Dan coming in right under the wire. That was a yesterday take on Pods of America. I'll do two of my own bad takes. Are you ready? Bad take number one. We should just give Joe Manchin whatever he wants.
Just, you know what? He doesn't care about the country. He doesn't care about Democrats winning. He doesn't care about helping people. He has all the fucking leverage. So just give in. I know we're not supposed to negotiate with terrorists, but that's just something you say before you figure out how to get them the money to get your aunt out. You know what I mean? The whole we don't negotiate with terrorists thing is a rule that exists to be broken by people negotiating and paying fucking terrorists. That's right. So what's the bad take? That's some realism right there. That is it. I'm calling it a bad take to protect myself from the internet because it's my take.
It's like, how long are we going to fucking do this? This connects to my second bad take, which is we got to get Build Back Better done because going to voting rights without first doing Build Back Better is like a plan to make sure Republicans win fair and square. Can I build off of that? Sure. Here's a bad take. It's a headline from Nick Kristoff on May 1st, 2021. Joe Biden is electrifying America like FDR.
Now that could end up being true. Incomplete. It was a touch premature. And I think that speaks to an expectations management problem that has become challenging for the administration. Again, I love Joe Biden. I think he's doing well. Dan, do you have a take that you want to... I have a couple of takes. One, anything and everything Chuck Schumer ever said about time. That's good. The man doesn't own a watch, clearly. My other one is, one version of this is from The Guardian, but everyone else did it. How Trump not being on Twitter is cramping his style. Turns out, doesn't need to be on Twitter. Fact, we may want him back on Twitter.
That's a hot take right there. Get Trump back on Twitter. I gotta say, I'm loving the turnaround. Once again, you know, look, I'm glad that Dan Pfeiffer's official position is Vice President Kamala Harris just damaged our political prospects by fighting so hard to get Trump off of Twitter. That's Dan's view. It's not mine. I just respect such an intense and hot take. Wow. I got one. I got one. Politico, March 18th, 2021.
how Ron DeSantis won the pandemic. Oh, of course. Which reads, quote, after 12 months in which he was pilloried as a reckless executive driven more by ideology than science, Florida has fared no worse and in some ways better than many other states. And now here's the Associated Press in September. Just a couple months later, Florida now has the 11th worst per capita death rate among the 50 states with about one in 400 Florida residents dying from COVID. That's how we won the pandemic right there, guys. Last seen passing the Stop Woke Act or whatever the fucking thing he did yesterday. Oh, my God. Also seen leading every poll for the Republican nomination that doesn't include Trump. Yeah, it's tough.
This one's from 2020, but I want to grandfather it in. Sure. There will be no Trump coup. A final pre-election case for understanding the president as a noisy weakling, not a budding autocrat. This is from October 10th, 2020 by Ross Douthat.
Come on, Ross. Come on. Didn't nail that one. I got one similar to that from the LA Times. I'm going to print that out and storm the Times Bureau. This is from early 2021. This is from David Lauter. Trump's sway over Republican Party fades as end of his term nears. A Senate vote against Trump remains uncertain. What is clear is that the events of the last week have done what four previous years could not, break Trump's unquestioned hold over a party that he once conquered but no longer controls. His future now depends on how rapidly his decline accelerates. He has less than a week left. Wish it were true. Wish that one were true. There was a fleeting moment where...
It could have been true. There was that one week. So this isn't a bad take. I don't fault the Jonathan Martin and Maggie Haberman for this. This was a lead of the New York Times in early January after the insurrection.
Senator Mitch McConnell has told associates that he believes President Trump committed impeachable offenses and that he's pleased the Democrats are moving to impeach him, believing it will make it easier to purge him from the party, according to people familiar with his thinking. At the same time, Representative Kevin McCarthy of California has asked other Republicans whether he should call on Mr. Trump to resign in the aftermath of the riot at the Capitol last week, according to three Republican officials. You had McConnell and McCarthy telling people he should be impeached. We're going to call on him to resign. And now look where we are today. It seems as well. I mean, Kevin McCarthy is just as, you know, as much as one of the most despicable and craven and sad figures in all of history. Right. And so, like, he even at that moment.
read his own party wrong. Even he thought at that moment that that argument was true. For one fleeting moment, they actually didn't understand just how authoritarian the base had become, just how lost the base was. Dan, you got any others? Anyone else got any other bad takes they want to? Anything I said that was hopeful. Yeah. Jeez. It's hard. Yeah, I have a personal one that I don't think I said publicly because we're not in the predictions business, but you guys all heard it. I was very sure that we would win Virginia. And the reason that I was sure we were in Virginia is not because I thought Terry McAuliffe was a dynamite candidate, but because I was like, look, this is a plus 10 state. And, you know, the partisan lean of a state and the demographics of a state should tell you like 90 percent of where this state is headed in any given election. And boy, was that fucking wrong. Yeah, I do think one one like or take problem.
on our side is I think, correctly, we have focused on like the assaults on democracy. We're seeing at every level, gerrymandering, vote suppression, all of that is true. But right now, even if those weren't issues, we have another bigger problem, which is we are on track to lose right down the middle, fair and square. Republicans are more popular than Democrats right now. And I think we don't spend enough time worrying about that. No voter restrictions or gerrymandering problem in a statewide election in Virginia. Absolutely not. Yeah, I got one.
Quote, yeah, I've been immunized. That was from Packers quarterback Aaron Rodgers. And what he meant by immunized was like, I don't know, rubbing himself with quartz crystals and like juniper oil or some shit. But then he got really haughty about it and said he was in the crosshairs of the woke mob. But before the final nail gets put in my cancel culture casket, I'd like to set the record straight. And then he went on to lie more.
I guess he's getting his casket ready because he's not vaccinated. And he's now only trailing DeSantis in polls for the 2024 election. Speaking of vaccination bad takes, New York Times editorial board in late September. This is no way to end a pandemic. An entire editorial attacking Biden for proposing boosters for all. Another headline. How the confusing booster shock debacle aligns Biden with Trump's pandemic response. That's Zach Brennan at Endpoint News. And here's the thing. You look at experts in like, you know, Zanep Tufetji and some other people were talking about this. In July.
It was unclear whether boosters were. In July, it was still unclear with the evidence. By September, when Biden announced boosters for all, it was crystal clear. The evidence was crystal clear that boosters for all made sense. And instead, journalists, some journalists at a lot of major publications, including The New York Times, went to find the minority of doctors and scientists that didn't agree and lifted up their voices. Bullshit. I will say this. I am more angry. Those journalists find like there's been a kind of skittishness that's in all of the coverage, especially because, look, we did go through a terrible pandemic. It was the worst case scenario. I get not wanting to be rosy in the event that things don't go as we hope, but I will never forgive.
the way that the members of that FDA panel handled booster shot. Can I write down a resolution? Yeah, let's do it. I want my friend John to go back to having annoyingly detailed knowledge of polling and not of COVID variant incubation periods. I want you to go back to polling. I'm just trying to help. I'm just trying to help. What I meant by that is I want everything to go away. Everyone's fine. No, I appreciate that. I appreciate that. I need to have less of that too. Hopefully the pandemic will end and so I don't have to think about this anymore. Plus or minus three variants. Anyone got anything else? Any note that they want to end on?
I'm just waiting for Omicron to take me. Yeah, I had a Tucker Carlson quote praising Alex Jones, you know, called him a far better guy to reality than journalists at NBC News, Kendall Lanian and Margaret Brennan. But I think that's a self-evidently garbage take. One category of takes that I think will allow me to end on optimistic note is there's a kind of brand of think piece now that's like, we're never going back to normal. I'm never going to take my fucking best off. You're calling it The Atlantic is what you're talking about. Well, there have been several, but that is the most recent. And I have to say, you can take these fucking despairing pieces and just...
shove them deep, deep, deep, deep within your, this is your uplifting clothes, your fucking butts because we're going to go back to normal. I don't care what you people say. You know, like when I talked to Vivek Murthy about this for offline, he was like, look, I cannot tell you when the pandemic is going to end, but I can tell you with confidence that we are going to find ways to live with this virus where you can participate in life, see your family and friends, work, do the things that you love. Like that's going to happen. Yes, but like regular boosters plus this fucking Pfizer pill. Like you see the path out and everyone needs to like get comfortable with the path out and like.
Part of this is also political because, like, man, if the Democratic Party is the party of, like, everybody be careful, the pandemic's not over, like, next summer, like, maybe we don't even need House of Representatives anymore. Jesus, am I at a big pharma retreat? Stop eating nightshades. You guys have to be fine. Nightshades. Ridiculous fucking vaccine propaganda nonsense. Is Pfizer paying you?
No, actually, unfortunately. Scott, is there space for me on this Pfizer board? These people are amazing. Hey, Mike, does this get me a booster faster? What does it get you? I'm like an acupuncturist now. I got three Pfizer's. I'm going to get some Moderna. Moderna. And honestly, I'm not even scared of J&J. Throw some J&J in there. I don't care. What? I'll get a Sinovac. What's the Russian one? Sputnik? None of them work anymore. So it's all Pfizer and Moderna from here on out. I remember when Putin rolled their vaccine out like four months earlier. It's exciting news. I don't think they did trials, guys.
Anyway, does this where we want to end? Happy New Year, everyone. Happy New Year. Happy New Year. I think it was just a little radio they threw in a space just to get ahead of us. Everyone have a very safe and happy New Year. And be careful out there. And we'll talk to you in January. We'll be back. You bet. Bye, everyone.
Pod Save America is a Crooked Media production. The executive producer is Michael Martinez. Our senior producer is Andy Gardner-Bernstein. Our producer is Haley Muse, and Olivia Martinez is our associate producer. It's mixed and edited by Andrew Chadwick. Kyle Seglin is our sound engineer. Thanks to Tanya Sominator, Sandy Gerard, Hallie Kiefer, Madison Hallman, and Justine Howe for production support. And to our digital team, Elijah Cohn, Phoebe Bradford, Milo Kim, and Amelia Montouk. Our episodes are uploaded as videos at youtube.com.
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