Today's presenting sponsor is SimpliSafe Home Security. As a Pod Save America listener, you know, as well as us, the dark chapter, we're not just stepping into. We're in the chapter. We've been fucking wallowing in it. But no matter what happens outside your four walls, your home should always provide a safe sanctuary for your family. SimpliSafe can help provide peace of mind with proactive protection that helps to stop threats before they even have a chance to break in. I set up a SimpliSafe incredibly easy to do. The customer support was great. It provided peace of mind and it was really easy to set up. Traditional security systems only take action after someone has already broken in. That's too late. SimpliSafe's active guard outdoor protection can help prevent break-ins before they happen. AI-powered cameras backed up by live professional monitoring agents monitor your property and detect suspicious activity.
If someone's lurking around or acting suspiciously, those agents see and talk to them in real time, activate spotlights, and even contact the police all before they have a chance to get inside your home. No long-term contracts or cancellation fees. Monitoring plans start affordably at around $1 per day. 60-day satisfaction guarantee to your money back. Named best home security system by U.S. News & World Report five years in a row. Rank number one in customer service among home security providers by both Newsweek and USA Today. And right now, our listeners can get 50% off their new SimpliSafe system with professional monitoring in their first month free at SimpliSafe.com slash crooked. That's SimpliSafe.com slash crooked. There's no safe like SimpliSafe. Welcome to PodSafe America. I'm Jon Favreau. I'm Jon Favreau. We're back. We're back in the States.
We were just visiting. We were just visiting. We made it back. They let us in. They let us in. How are you feeling? So I've been back one day longer than you. And the first day, the day I got back, I was incredibly tired because I, you know, do that thing where you live Tuesday twice, jump off at 2 p.m., land at 8.45 a.m. on the same day. Yesterday felt pretty good. Today I've been quite tired. My body is not yet adjusted. In the morning, it really thinks it should still be sleeping. I know. Only sleeping three or four hours on the 14-hour flight home and then having it be first thing Wednesday morning. It was rough. Yeah, it's a hard way to go through life. I did sleep from 8 to 5.30.
last night, Wednesday night. So I'm hoping that I don't end up like you on the next day. Tomorrow's going to be the tough one, but it was a great, great trip. Thank you to everyone in Australia and New Zealand who came out. The shows were so fun. Thank you to our team who put the trip together and the people back here who held it all together while we were gone and put the podcast out. Seriously. And Sophie, our fearless tour manager, Adrian Reed Austin, who traveled with us and then everyone back here who held down the fort just did an incredible job. So we're really lucky. On today's show.
Now that we're back, we're going to talk about Trump's board of peace and his plans for war with Iran, his affordability event in Georgia, where he again complained about having to talk about affordability. We'll also get into the messy Texas Senate primary and the dust-up over Stephen Colbert's canceled interview with James Tallarico and what even the threat of pressure from the FCC might mean for talk shows heading into 2028. And finally, we bid farewell to one of my all-time favorite Trump administration officials, DHS spokesperson Trish McLaughlin. Quick note before we start, just want to ask everyone to think about becoming a subscriber, becoming a Friend of the Pod subscriber. We have, I think we have a new Polar Coaster out this week. It's a subscriber-only show that Dan Pfeiffer hosts. What's on Polar Coaster? People say it's the best show at Cricket puts out. Most people are my family, but it is true. It's an excellent show. I never miss it, except...
So far, I haven't listened to it because it's only been up for 24 hours and I've been asleep for most of them. But it's excellent, I hear. It's a great episode. Do you want to talk about it? Yeah, go ahead. We were turning these organic logs very organic because we're just doing it off the cuff. We talked about a lot of things, John, but we dug into a shocking new poll that shows that the 2024 election was redone right now. Kamala Harris would beat Donald Trump by eight points. How does that sound to you? I guess it sounds pretty good. Well, we do not have time machines, so we cannot fix this problem. But it does tell us a lot about the political environment. And we're going into the midterms and some things Democrats should be thinking about as we try to retake the House and the Senate.
So here's the thing. You're going to want to listen to Polar Coaster. You're going to want to listen to our new episode of Pod Save America that's now subscriber only called Only Friends, aptly. And we also have this growing number of Substack newsletters that you can access as well. You're going to get ad-free episodes of Pod Save America, Pod Save the World, offline, all your favorite Crooked shows. All you have to do is subscribe to Friends of the Pod at crooked.com slash friends. And you'll get the confidence to know that you are supporting independent pro-democracy media. So what are you waiting for? Go subscribe, Friends of the Pod. All right, let's get to the news. FIFA Peace Prize winner Donald Trump has assembled what the Wall Street Journal says is the, quote, greatest amount of air power in the Middle East since the 2003 invasion of Iraq.
as the president inches closer to war with Iran, which would be the seventh military attack against another country in the last year. And what better place to make the case for war than at the Donald J. Trump Institute of Peace, which on Thursday hosted the first real meeting of Donald Trump's Board of Peace, which is a kind of fake UN made up of corrupt oligarchs, tinpot dictators, human rights abusers, and other global also-orans who are deeply committed to Jared Kushner's vision of turning Gaza into the West Palm Beach of the Middle East. Here's some of what the board's chair for life, Donald Trump, had to say at the event. Does everybody like the music? These are the greatest world leaders. Almost everybody's accepted, and the ones that haven't will be. Some are playing a little cute. It doesn't work. You can't play cute with me. This building was built for peace, and nobody knew what to name it, and then Marco named it after me. I had nothing to do with it. I swear I didn't. I had no idea. They said, there's a surprise coming. I didn't know they were surprised. I thought they were going to give me a lot of money or something, maybe cash. You can always use some extra cash. I want to thank Johnny and FIFA for all of the wonderful things they did and are doing. They gave me their first peace prize. They gave me a peace prize. I think they saw that.
I got screwed by Norway and they said, let's give him a peace prize. I mean, very good. Thank you, Johnny. I appreciate it. In case you didn't catch that, they were swaying to guns and roses, November rain. Then the president threatened.
any invitee to the Board of Peace that has not accepted yet. I guess that includes the Pope who has not accepted. You know, and then he just talked about the Peace Prize, the fake Peace Prize he got from FIFA and the fake Institute of Peace that was fake naming for him that he was hoping for cash. Well, he took that instead. As he always is. As he always is. As he always is. Also, good news, Dan. Trump generously committed at this event to giving the board $10 billion of our tax dollars, which is both about $10 billion more than I'd like to pay and wildly unconstitutional. But maybe I'm missing something.
Yeah, the whole thing is ridiculous and embarrassing for everyone involved, particularly the United States, that we felt the need to pull together an entirely fake thing so that Donald Trump could live out his model UN dreams for everyone to see. And you mentioned that chairman for life, but I just want to dig in on that in case people miss this. The Board of Peace is not part of the US government. This is a separate organization. Donald Trump is the chairman for life. It's in the charter that he stays as chairman. Whatever years he may have left. Up until he resigns or passes on to the next life, to the great model UN in the sky.
And so this $10 billion, which if the United States were to give it, I presume Congress would have to send it to, they'd have to authorize this, presuming we still believe in the power of the purse. I'm not entirely sure. That is what the Constitution says if we still abide by that. I would assume that to be the case. But either way, Donald Trump will control that money. So the next Democratic, the next president is a Democrat, let's say, God willing. That person is not in charge of the Board of Peace. That person has no say of the $10 billion we just gave Trump to control. The most the next president can do is appoint the U.S. representative to the Board of Peace, who has equal footing with the representative of whatever dictator is also on the board at that point. It is a...
Could not be more ridiculous, embarrassing, and corrupt. Just remember that they completely dismantled USAID and now thousands, if not millions of people around the world. Many of them children will die, starvation and disease, easily preventable because we apparently didn't have enough money for the small amount we pay in foreign aid. But $10 billion is going to the Board of Peace. It is ostensibly going to rebuild Gaza, but no actual plans for that. And there's no kind of oversight that can help us check whether that actually happens or not. And the entire Gaza plan that Jared Kushner did a PowerPoint on a few weeks ago or months ago, whenever that was, was basically just like had only dealt with the building of buildings.
and not all of the very complicated political and governance questions that involve Gaza. And so there is no plan. This is just money that is going into a slush fund for Donald Trump for whatever reason. Shocked that the Pope hasn't said yes yet. Unfortunately for peace lovers everywhere, Trump only briefly touched on the war he may soon launch against Iran, noting only that we'll know the outcome of the ongoing talks with Tehran in the next 10 days or so. And if there's no deal, quote, bad things happen. He did get a question about this on the plane later in the day. Take a listen.
I'm not going to talk to you about that. Well, we're going to make a deal or we're going to get a deal one way or the other. I'm not going to talk to you about that, but we're either going to get a deal or it's going to be unfortunate for them. I would think there'll be enough time, 10, 15 days, pretty much maximum. Naturally, the president has been making a vigorous case for war to the American public and our representatives in Congress, right? Oh, no, that hasn't been happening at all, has it? No, there's been no discussion, no national debate, no congressional debate, no presentation of the specific threat that Iran poses to the United States, no discussion of how this is in the U.S. interest to do this, what were to come next, because in the discussion about this in the run-up involving the protests and with Trump's red line that he's let Iran jump over repeatedly.
was that this would be unlike the strikes last year to try to take out the nuclear program. This was- To try to take out, we were told it was obliterated. Well, there's dust remaining, if you remember, dust. And to try to take it out, because there's very little evidence that that actually happened, because if it did, we'd probably be in a different place right now. But that this would be a war or an attack for regime change in Iran.
which has incredible consequences for the region, for what happens if Iran becomes a failed state. Who takes over if they take out the current regime? Are they going to try to make it a democracy? What role do U.S. ground troops play in this? Where is the international coalition? Maybe it's just the people who are on the board of peace will get involved in this. It's truly stunning that we could be, by the time you listen to this, at war with Iran, and there's been zero discussion with the American people about what that means or why we're doing it.
I mean, the optimistic take here is that Trump frequently uses the threat of military action to force concessions, to force a deal. And that even when he does make good on those threats, like he did with the first strike on Iran's nuclear program, or most recently in Venezuela with the capture of Maduro, the military action is relatively quick and limited. Unfortunately, I'm not high or jet lagged enough to be that optimistic. What do you think? I saw right before we recorded in the Wall Street Journal that it's reported that they are thinking of an initial strike that might be more limited to sort of pave the way for a bigger deal, kind of like a first course appetizer strike.
That seems to me a scam by the people who've been trying to go to war with Iran for decades to get Trump to start this process. Because I think he probably is skeptical of an Iraq-like invasion of Iran, but if they could just start the hostilities, maybe they could get what they want. It seems incredibly poorly thought out. And this is not Venezuela, right? Maybe you can attack Iran, you can do some bombing, and they will not respond, as happened last year. But there are incredible consequences if the regime falls and Iran becomes a failed state.
like what could happen there? What happens to millions of Iranians who flee Iran as refugees? Where do they go? How does that change the world? Like, it's just like, this is one of those things that could have huge global implications for the world, for the region, for the United States, for the global economy. And there's no evidence that this has been thought about in any sophisticated way as possible, and certainly no discussion with the public about it. So it's, it is like, it's just, it's incredibly, it's insane that we could be on the precipice of war with Iran and we're just, it's not even being discussed. And honestly, Democrats are not being loud enough about this. I think because we are getting very twisted around the axle.
of around questions of national security and war, and particularly national security of war when it involves Iran. And they're afraid of being on the wrong, like they tend to look at this and say, what is the best case scenario for Trump action? And how do we ensure we're not on the wrong side of that, right? We saw this with all of the caveats and the hemming and hauling around the strikes last year. And I'm worried that that's happening again. It's just like some people are talking about it, but more people should be talking about it. And you know, I'm no expert on this, but- But we are friends with Tommy and Ben. We are friends with Tommy, that's right. But I don't think that you're gonna change the regime with just like limited airstrikes alone without sending troops. I don't think you'd be able to like just send in a quick SEAL team.
like they did with Maduro here. So I don't know what their regime change plans are, but I don't think it's going to be as neat as anyone might think or even as Trump might think. Also, it's a country of 93 million people. It is a huge, huge fucking country. And the idea that we are just like sending over there more forces and military buildup than we have anytime since Iraq, it is insane. It is insane that this is happening right now.
And it's just like one of the many. And we're like, well, we'll see what he does. 10 to 15 days. He's going to make up his mind. That's what Trump said. And remember from the last time we struck a rant, he said he put a delay of a few weeks on it. Yeah. And then he's having to decide the next two weeks. Then he struck like two days later. So that's how you always know it's about to happen.
Longplay, our docuseries exploring the people and forces shaping the South, is back. Newsflash, the South is the new political epicenter of the country. Democrats are way on their heels in this region, but Republicans are going through their own reckoning in the South, too. We're in the final stretch of the midterms, and the political map has only gotten more competitive, with new states and districts emerging as potential flips. So we thought it was time to get back out on the road and take a closer look at what's actually happening on the ground. I'm Erin Haines, journalist and expert on all things Southern politics. And I'm Jennifer Palmieri, former White House Communications Director. Tune in on Mondays to Longplay Series on YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts.
Long Play, our docuseries exploring the people and forces shaping the South, is back. Newsflash, the South is the new political epicenter of the country. Democrats are way on their heels in this region, but Republicans are going through their own reckoning in the South, too. We're in the final stretch of the midterms, and the political map has only gotten more competitive with new states and districts emerging as potential flips. So we thought it was time to get back out on the road and take a closer look at what's actually happening on the ground. I'm Erin Haines, journalist and expert on all things Southern politics. And I'm Jennifer Palmieri, former White House Communications Director. Tune in on Mondays to Long Play series on YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts.
All right. So Trump spent the rest of Thursday in Georgia for a message event on his least favorite issue, but one that the White House and Republicans in Congress keep begging him to focus on affordability. Apparently, Susie Wiles and her deputy, James Blair, convened a big White House strategy session on the midterms earlier in the week that included a bunch of cabinet secretaries. I'm sure they were all helpful. According to journalist Mark Halpern, I've got a readout from someone in the room. Blair, quote, acknowledge that Donald Trump will do what he wants to do, say what he wants to say, not be data driven. Everyone else has to stay on message and be driven by the data. In effect.
two separate but related campaigns, end quote. Here's how the Trump part of the separate but related strategy sounded today during his visit to Marjorie Taylor Greene's former district in Georgia. And then I have to listen to the fake news talking about affordability, affordability. You notice, what word have you not heard over the last two weeks? Affordability. Because I've won. I've won affordability. I had to go out and talk about it. He won. He won affordability. He later said, we got things that are happening that are as good as what you've heard. I don't know if they can get better, to be honest.
He doesn't know if things... It used to be, are you better off than you were four years ago? Are you better off than you were last year? Now it's... Personally, I don't think things could possibly get any better. The way you are living right now is the best possible way you could live in this country. It is the best. Hottest country in the world. Hottest country in the world. What do you think? Good midterm message? You think this is what they landed on in that midterm strategy session? So a lot of thoughts on this. One, when Trump said you haven't heard the word affordability in weeks, he's not talking to voters because he would hear it if he talked to them, but it's also because everyone's been talking about the massive cover-up of his relationship with a child sex trafficker.
So what I posit to you, John, is what if the Epstein files were a distraction from inflation? Possibly, possibly. I thought about that, had you? It's all a distraction, Dan. It's all a distraction. But the strategy is idiotic and doomed to fail for two reasons. The first reason is you cannot have the president of the United States, the person with the largest megaphone, and especially a president like Donald Trump, who gets more attention than any president in history.
saying something that is not on the talking points and then think the campaign is going to work because Scott Bessett is using the talking points at a press event in Iowa 1. Like it cannot work. You got to have your best soybean farmers out there. Well, I mean, he has a personal connection to soybean farmers, but that in and of itself will not be enough to deal with the fact that Trump is out there saying inflation is solved. Prices are down. What you were seeing in your bank account, in your grocery receipts is wrong. Everything is perfect. Oh, and by the way, the Dow is at 50,000. And something you and I know from our time working for a president during a tough economy is literally nothing makes voters angrier than
using the stock market to tell them that the economy is going great. It'll cause them to flip over the table in a focus group. It makes them so mad. It is a message designed to lose. And the second problem is their talking points...
are a strategy that you may remember from the Biden White House strategy for selling the economy, which is focus on your accomplishments, focus on what you've done. Like in the reporting on that from Sophia Kai from Politico, she talks about how the big thing they're all supposed to emphasize is their efforts to lower prescription drug costs, which is literally the exact same thing the Biden White House tried to do. And it's a good accomplishment, especially for the Biden folks, because that was a bigger deal. But at the end of the day, that is not, you can't tell people. who are mad about high prices, that you lower their prices. That does not work. You have to make an argument about how you are going to do a better job of lowering their prices going forward. And the other side is going to raise them. And they can't have that argument because Donald Trump will not let them have that argument because it implies that they have failed to lower prices. So they have to exist within the reality that he has created. That is a reality that voters do not see. It sounds delusional to them. Yeah, you didn't hear much in the speech today about how he's planning on lowering prices or doing anything to cut costs in the coming months at all. Nothing, nothing about that. Just thinking about the context for this is this is happening on a day where he pledged $10 billion.
to a personal slush fund that's ostensibly going to Gaza for Jared Kushner to develop condos there. He is starting a war in the Middle East. It is the exact opposite. And one of the things that this wasn't really in this meeting, but the Trump folks have sort of acknowledged on background reporters is in the first year, they spent too much time doing foreign policy stuff. And so that's why they have cut the press out of all their foreign leader meetings because those always were dominant. But on the day of the big affordability event, he's doing his foreign policy slush fund event and threatening a war. We have the dumbest people running this country right now. He also is, his whole thing on tariffs, he talked about tariffs a lot during the speech. He's really tied himself to the tariffs in a way that has surprised even me. So he spent a ton of time in the speech just like bitching about how the Supreme Court has not.
handed down a ruling on his tariffs yet. And they might do it tomorrow. And they may do it tomorrow. You might be listening to this. The tariffs might be gone. We're recording this Thursday afternoon, as most of you know, until you're probably listening to it Friday. So he's yelling about the Supreme Court, and he's saying tariffs are the most important thing in the world. At one point he says, everyone in the country would be bankrupt without these tariffs. Now, he has walked back a good chunk of the tariffs at this point already. In part, I presume because all of his political advisors and economic advisors are like, hey, these tariffs are fucking killing us. They're really hurting your polls. They're one of his least popular issues, along with immigration and the cost of living. And they are just...
a tax on a bunch of goods that people just pay. I think there was just a report that it's about $1,000 a family that people are paying because of the tariffs. And yet, even if the Supreme Court rules them unconstitutional and lets him off the hook, he's just going to double down and try to just put them back on through some other method and then say that they're still important. Like, it's just wild. You got to hand it to the guy. He genuinely believes in the tariffs. Genuinely believes in the tariffs. Because he's an idiot. But you're exactly right. Like, our friends at Navigator Research often do these word clouds where they ask people about either negative information they've heard about Trump or reasons why you disapprove of whatever else. And tariffs is always a giant thing in the middle.
And he talks about tariffs more than tariffs are actually in place now. Yeah. And so what he's done, which is really impressive, which he has made his tariffs the reason for all high prices in people's minds. Yeah. Yeah. Which is really impressive. And even American-made goods, people have their higher prices. People think it's because of the tariffs because he keeps saying tariff, tariff, tariff is my favorite word. He says it all the time. I mean, it's just really, I have to say it's honestly impressively stupid.
Just to, you know, we're having too much fun here, too optimistic. So just to rain on our parade a little bit. One thing I noticed while we were gone last week is that the most recent economic data has been better than expected. Job growth in January was twice as high as expected. The inflation reading was better. The inflation slowed down a bit. We're not seeing any evidence yet that voters are feeling any differently about the cost of living than they have been. But what do you think about the recent economic news and what do you think Democrats should be planning for?
There's not much you can plan here for. And the economic use has been a little bit all over the map. You sort of get a good jobs number and then you get a bad jobs number and then some revision, downward revisions of the previous number. So it's hard to say what is actually happening. And inflation is down a little bit, but we still have inflation. And that is the problem for Trump. And the ultimate problem is he cannot, look, if the economy gets better on the margins, it probably helps them. But the fundamental problem is Donald Trump didn't promise to slow inflation, which is what this report indicated. What Donald Trump promised to do was to lower your prices, which he has not done.
cannot do, and actually made worse with his tariffs. And so there is not a world unless we hit a deflationary cycle, which would be quite bad for the economy. Unless the economy goes into recession and we have a collapse, but voters are not going to see lower prices for food, housing, goods. They may just see a slower rate of increase. And that's not something I expect Republicans to be rewarded for come November. Yeah, I think Trump making things worse is the key there because...
You know, there's a debate like, oh, when the economy is bad, does the president get too much blame more than the president deserves when the economy is good? Does the president get more credit than the president deserves? Like how much is just the president presiding over the economy? How much does that really matter? You know, and this is a different situation where the guy literally gave a trillion dollar tax cut to billionaires paid for by health care cuts that made your premiums increase and then put tariffs on all the shit that you buy, which has made it more expensive.
And that doesn't change. Right. Like even if the economy slightly improves, like the fact that he made life more expensive so that rich people could get a break is just the facts of his first several years in office. And the thing that is different than with previous presidents is. A majority of voters only a year into his turn blamed Trump for the current state of the economy. Normally voters- They should because he did all the credit for the tariffs. But normally presidents get years when they inherited. Like Obama, people are still blaming Bush more than Obama for the state of the economy in 2012 when running for re-election. They understood what happened. People believe correctly that Trump has made problems much, much worse through action in the tariffs and inaction because he's focused on so many things other than actual the economy and affordability. And that is a problem for him, which is why marginal improvements in the economy would not help him as much as they would help another president who was not being specifically blamed for things being bad.
Well, I mean, like think of Obama's first couple of years. We know that with the Affordable Care Act, taxes were only increased on the wealthiest Americans and that through the Recovery Act, everyone else got tax cuts, right? And still, Obama shouldered the blame for the job loss that came from the Great Recession and just people's economic well-being, which was not very good. Now imagine Obama actually raised taxes on everyone and raised their health care costs all in the first two years as the economy was already bad. That's basically what you have with Donald Trump.
Relatedly, Axios had a story on Thursday about how Republican strategists are starting to get nervous about Democrats' bigger-than-expected wins in special elections over the past few months. One anonymous Republican strategist said, quote, the pattern is clear that there is at least a current 10-point Democratic overperformance from Trump 2024, and it's built on a fired-up Democratic base and a sleepy Republican base. A 10-point Democratic overperformance. Are you as bullish as that Republican is nervous? Yeah, I'm a pretty superstitious guy, John. You got a long way to the election. I'm not cocky about this in any way, shape, or form. And I do believe that...
That gap is going to narrow some. Democrats are going to stay fired up. I'm very confident about that. Republicans will get more fired up as we get close to the election. This happens every cycle. And if we're being sort of brutally honest about it, Democrats had a 13-point overperformance in 2025. It's been 10%. Here, some of that has to do with the races that have happened in this short period of time this year, but it's obviously going to narrow. And just to put that in perspective, the final Democratic popular vote margin in the 2018 House races was 8.6%. And we picked up 41 seats in that one. Now, the map is different. Democrats are not picking up 41 seats at an eight.
0.6% popular vote margin. But at 10 points, certainly the House is very much in good hands and the Senate is in play. The things that are keeping the Republican base deflated aren't really going to change a ton. I think their core voters are going to turn out more just because it's an actual midterm, not a special, and our voters are more trained to turn out specials. But the base is divided. There is, in polling...
15% of Trump voters who regret or have concerns about their vote in 2024. You have, in the races we've had before, 7% to 10% of Trump voters coming over to vote for Democrats. There are, you know, a quarter, you know, a fifth to a quarter of Trump voters who are unhappy with what ISIS is doing. You have large spots of Trump voters who are unhappy with what Trump's on the economy. And so those sort of structural problems are not going to change in a dramatic way in the next nine months, I wouldn't imagine. Yeah, what I keep looking at is Trump's approval rating in Ohio, Iowa, Alaska, Texas, which are, you know, we need two of those four states to take back the Senate.
And because I think that like if Trump's under 50 in those states, Republican candidate in this polarized era, probably not going to get much higher than Trump's approval rating in those states. And so, you know, Trump's sitting at 48 or 49 even in Iowa, in Texas, in Ohio. Like, I think those candidates, especially like Sherrod Brown in Ohio, I think they have a pretty good chance. But I don't know what you think. They do. They just have to. It has to be a candidate who can win over Trump voters because there will be people who are unhappy with Trump. But.
think the Democrat is too far to the left or whatever else. The environment is suggestive of a path to Democratic victory if Trump's under 50. It's going to depend on how the campaign is waged and also who the Republican candidate is as well. Longplay, our docuseries exploring the people and forces shaping the South, is back. Newsflash, the South is the new political epicenter of the country. Democrats are way on their heels in this region, but Republicans are going through their own reckoning in the South, too. We're in the final stretch of the midterms, and the political map has only gotten more competitive, with new states and districts emerging as potential flips. So we thought it was time to get back out on the road and take a closer look at what's actually happening on the ground. I'm Erin Haines, journalist and expert on all things Southern politics. And I'm Jennifer Palmieri, former White House Communications Director. Tune in on Mondays to Longplay Series on YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts.
Longplay, our docuseries exploring the people and forces shaping the South, is back. Newsflash, the South is the new political epicenter of the country. Democrats are way on their heels in this region, but Republicans are going through their own reckoning in the South, too. We're in the final stretch of the midterms, and the political map has only gotten more competitive, with new states and districts emerging as potential flips. So we thought it was time to get back out on the road and take a closer look at what's actually happening on the ground. I'm Erin Haines, journalist and expert on all things Southern politics. And I'm Jennifer Palmieri, former White House Communications Director. Tune in on Mondays to Longplay Series on YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts.
Speaking of the midterms, one midterm race that's been getting a ton of national attention lately is the Texas Senate race, particularly the Democratic primary between Jasmine Crockett and James Tallarico, whose appearance on Stephen Colbert's show this week caused quite a stir. In case you haven't followed the story, here's what happened. On Monday, Colbert told his audience that, quote, we were told in no uncertain terms by our network's lawyers who called us directly that we could not have Tallarico on the broadcast. Apparently, CBS's lawyers were concerned that having Tallarico on might prompt legal action from the FCC based on new guidance that Chairman Brendan Carr issued in January about the commission's longstanding equal time rule, which requires broadcast television and radio shows to give candidates equal time if they have their opponent on as a guest.
Now, there has always been an exemption, at least as far back, I believe, since 2006, for talk shows like Colbert's. Daytime talk shows, late night talk shows. But in this guidance in January, Carr said that he was considering getting rid of that exemption. And sure enough, the FCC recently launched an enforcement action against ABC and The View for exactly that. The View had Tallarico on without also having Jasmine Crockett on or their primary opponent on or Ken Paxton or John Cornyn. Colbert interviewed Tallarico anyway.
put the segment on YouTube, and told his CBS audience what happened. CBS then put out a statement on Tuesday denying Colbert's version of events, saying the late show was not, quote, prohibited from airing the interview, only, quote, provided legal guidance. Here's how Colbert responded on his show on Tuesday night and the tough questions Carr got from Laura Ingram on Fox News on Wednesday. Between the monologue I did last night and before I did the second act talking about this issue, I had to go backstage. I got called backstage to get more notes from these lawyers, something that had never, ever happened before. And they told us the language they wanted me to use to describe that equal time exception. And I used that language. So I don't know what this is about. I'm just so surprised that this giant global corporation would not stand up to these bullies. I don't even know what to do with this crap. Hold on.
Would you have gone after them for violating the equal time rule, as Colbert said? What we've said has been very clear is that broadcasters have a unique right and privilege, a license. And one thing they have to do is comply with the equal time rules. But complying with equal time would have meant... When has that been enforced? When's the last time that's been enforced? In case you're just listening, the audience cheered when Colbert decided to crumble up the statement from his company's own lawyers and put it in a dog poop bag. Dan, what do you make of all this?
What's interesting is how the FCC got onto this, because it's been a well-established principle for a very long time that while news shows are exempt from equal time laws, like if you want to have to interview a candidate or put a president on, that you're not then forced to give exact equal time to their opponent. And they then for a long time had exemptions for interview shows, like the talk shows, The View, Colbert. The reason why Brendan Carr has taken this on is... And I had forgotten this because my brain was protecting me from trauma. But in 2024, Trump got very mad that Kamala Harris went on The View and he did not. So his campaign filed a complaint with the FCC. The FCC chair was a Biden nominee. He did not act on this. So Brennan Carr in his never-ending quest to appease Trump and be a hero of the MAGA right has decided to take on The View and now Colbert. And this really does have... I mean, it's ridiculous. It's absurd. It's pretty stupid. It has real implications just for how the 2028 campaign is going to be covered. Like no Democratic... This is the rule. No Democratic candidate will be able to go on any broadcast talk show in...
that campaign because no talk show was going to agree to air to do equal interviews with all 27 Democratic candidates or whatever. And by the way, Republican candidates. Yes, because I saw a lot of people be like, well, this is really about like a Republican Democratic thing because it was about he needed to give equal time to Jasmine Crockett as well. Well, yes, on Crockett, but also Paxton and Cornyn and Wesley Hunt in the other side of the primary, because if you look at the actual law, it just says all of the candidates running for that given office. So it's not just a like primary. It's a lot of candidates that you would have to have.
And the rule is so arbitrary and stupid in its application that John Ossoff, who is running for reelection in Georgia, was on Colbert the next night, but he has not officially filed a statement of candidacy. So he's not officially a candidate yet. So therefore, CBS's attorneys, the paramount attorneys, did not think it triggered the law. This is an idiotic. This is also so stupid because.
in this day and age, most of what happens in media is outside of the FCC's purview because the FCC is only in charge of what happens on the actual broadcast networks. Like we think of The View as a cable show, but it airs on ABC in a lot of markets. So therefore, the FCC has regulation with anything that happens on podcasts, YouTube shows, cable TV is outside of the purview of the FCC for these purposes. And by the way, Carr has been asked before whether he feels the same way about right-wing talk radio and said that right-wing talk radio is not a target of the equal time new guidance that he has issued. Yes, it was the changing, like all of right-wing radio. All of right-wing radio.
rose up because of a very specific change made by Ronald Reagan's FCC to allow there to be right wing radio and not enforce the equal time on radio stations. It is also just like my first instinct was, well, the people who screwed Colbert the most were his own lawyers because like they should have just fought it because who knows if like Brendan Carr would have done anything anyway. Clearly he would have. Clearly he did or is doing is investigating the view for the exact same thing. So the lawyers did have good reason to believe that Carr would act. Now.
If they were lawyers at a company that wasn't hoping the administration wouldn't get involved in, say, a purchase they wanted to make of, say, Warner Brothers Discovery, which they're still trying to buy, Paramount Plus, then perhaps the lawyers would have said, fuck Brendan Carr, we'll fight this. Yeah. I mean, we have no evidence, explicit evidence that the Paramount lawyers did this as an effort to curry favor with Trump. What we do know is the larger patterning practice with Paramount and David Ellison, who runs Paramount Skydance in particular, is to do things to win favor with Trump, to kiss up to him. And there are numerous examples. There is the $16 million that Paramount paid to settle a ridiculous lawsuit around 60 minutes. There is the putting of Barry Weiss.
over at CBS, there is David Ellison telling Trump reportedly, according to several reports, that if he were to get his hands on CNN, which is owned by Warner Brothers Discovery, which Paramount is trying to buy, he would make major changes there with the implication of being Trump would like those changes. And so when something is, the entire relationship between Paramount, Ellison, and the Trump administration is one that reeks of corruption. And therefore, the burden of proof on whether this was done out of legal caution or out of a way to avoid pissing off Trump while you were trying, well, one of the selling points, one of the selling points that Paramount is making to the Warner Brothers Discovery shareholders is that they, because of David Ellison and Larry Ellison, who's a big Trump donor and one of the richest man in the world, one of their close relationships with Trump and the Trump administration means they are more likely to get regulatory approval for the purchase of Warner Brothers Discovery than Netflix, which is run by people who have donated to Democrats in the past. And as for the dispute between Colbert and CBS, Paramount, the lawyers over what they actually said to Colbert, because they released a statement basically saying, no, we just gave guidance. We didn't tell him not to air it. Colbert did make the point that the lawyers, as they always do.
read every single word of the script and approved it before he said it. And what he said that night was that they told him in no uncertain terms that he could not air the Tellarico interview. So in case you're wondering if anyone's not telling the truth here, who's not telling the truth. So Colbert's interview with Tellarico drew millions of views on YouTube. The whole thing backfired as it...
did with Kimmel, as it always does. Millions of views on YouTube. It also helped James Tallarico quite a bit, netted his campaign over $2 million of fundraising in 24 hours. Understandably, Jasmine Crockett isn't thrilled about any of this, though Colbert did note on Tuesday that she has been a guest on The Late Show twice. I think the last time was like May of 2025, I look, so not since the race is heated up, but she has been on twice. This has been and is getting to be more of a very messy and negative primary between Tallarico and Crockett. The press conference where Crockett responded to the Colbert thing sounded mostly like this. You know, we've all seen the attack ads that have come on behalf of...
My primary opponent supposedly wants to get rid of super facts, yet doesn't have anything to say about the negative ads, the ads that are darkening my skin, and this continual kind of, if she wins, we lose. It's not even undertones right now. It is straight up racist. Early voting is now underway. The primary is March 3rd. Where do you think the race stands right now? The polls have been a little bit all over the map. Not many of them, I feel like. There have been a ton of them. The most recent ones have had...
crock it up a little bit on Tellarico, but there also is a poll show in Tellarico. A lot of the polls we've seen are either from groups affiliated with one of the two candidates, either their super PACs or their campaigns, or from less well-known polling outlets. We have not yet got a New York Times Siena poll or a Wall Street Journal poll or something, or a Siena poll, kind of the polls that we can judge. They're likely from local Texas polls, so it's hard to say. Early voting is through the roof. Over the first couple of days of early voting, there have been twice as many votes cast as they were over the same period in 2022. And a quarter of all the early votes cast in 2022 have been cast in the first few days of early voting. It seems to be up everywhere. It does also seem to be up particularly high in parts of Jasmine Crockett's district, which may be a positive sign for her, but hard to say in this early stage. So it's anyone's guess who's going to win this primary. There's not enough to tell us how it exactly stands. What do you think about how contentious it's gotten as a race? It makes my stomach hurt. It really makes my stomach hurt when I think about the 2028 Democratic presidential primary in this context.
that it doesn't have to be this negative. It's been this negative. The Tallarico Super PAC started the negativity by running a very explicit ad saying that if Crockett wins the primary, we lose the general election. Electability is hanging over this, which is what's going to hang over the 2028 primary. We can talk a little bit about that in a second here. But that conversation is always heated and freighted with a lot of racial and gender tropes and a lot of myths about politics and everything. And so it's quite messy. It's counterproductive. And we'll see what happens in some of these other primaries, like Michigan, Illinois.
Minnesota and Maine, whether they get heated like this as they get closer. All those primaries have a fairly long distance before people actually start voting. Here's the first one we were down to the wire and it's gotten nasty quickly. We've obviously had we've had both candidates on the show, even though the FCC can't make us. And so it's tough, right? Their policy positions are very similar, almost identical. And I think there hasn't been a ton of polling in the race. And even if there were, I think we both know that like figuring out which candidate gives Democrats a better chance of flipping Texas is like electability is always going to be at least somewhat of a subjective.
exercise right but like what do you think about it in this context of this race well so it elected electability is purely theoretical the only way to prove electability is to win yeah um to the it's also a very fair question to ask here we kind of need to win the senate race and when you have two candidates who are both very well liked by democrats who have her ideologically very similar profiles i don't blame voters for saying i like them both which one is more likely to win that's what i care about and since electability is so theoretical So perhaps the only data point you can bring to bear in such a conversation, and it's a very imperfect one, is does this candidate have a history of winning tough races, winning Republican voters, winning over swing voters? You know, like Andy Beshear can come to voters and say, look at all these Republicans and whatever. Josh Shapiro and Gretchen Whitmer can say, or Ruben Gallego and John Osloff can say, look at these swing states that I have a history of winning. Does that translate to a presidential? Maybe, maybe not, but it's an argument to me. In this situation...
Neither candidate has a particularly long documented history of winning over Republican or swing voters or dramatically outperforming how a typical Democrat, typical Republican would do. Tallarico's first race was in a pretty purple district. He won narrowly since then. It was a Trump district, right? Yeah, barely Trump district, but then it's become, since then it's been a Democratic district and how it's been redrawn. He's won easily. Crockett has represented a very, very Democratic district. She's performed as you would expect a Democrat to do there. And so you can't make that point. So the only thing you can evaluate here is what is their stated strategies for winning the race.
And I will stipulate that both of these strategies are overly simplistic because you kind of have to do both. But it's where they put their emphasis. Tallarico has said he's focused on trying to win over Republican voters, that he can appeal to folks who voted for Trump disenchanted with Trump Republican voters. Crockett has taken a different approach. She has said that her path to victory comes from her ability to excite the Democratic base, to turn out people in Texas who are not typical participants in the political process, that she can mobilize voters.
Like I said, neither of them have a record of doing either of those things per se. I mean, there's anecdotal examples, but it's not like manifested in their histories. If you ask me which strategy on its face is more likely to succeed, I would tell you Tallarico's strategy. Now, whether he can implement that strategy better than Kroc can implement hers, I don't know the answer to that. I don't think anyone does. But this is a state that Donald Trump won by double digits. There is no path to victory without winning over a significant slice of people who voted for Trump and traditionally vote for Republicans. That is just the math of winning in Texas. And he is emphasizing that.
And Crockett's emphasizing the opposite. And I think there is not a lot of history that mobilization in and of itself would be sufficient to win in a state like Texas. And that is just the fact of the matter. Now, I think both of them are being oversimplistic in their approach. I can't imagine that if either of them becomes the nominee, they will not then try to do both. Because if you went over 6% of Republicans, but you don't turn out...
the full democratic base at a high level, you're not going to win. If you turn out the democratic base, it's never been turned out before, but you can't win over 6% to 7% or 8% Republicans, then you're also going to lose. But like that's, I had a long conversation with Caroline about this on Polar Coaster, which you can listen to if you subscribe to the show. And I'm going to write about this in message box. I think the next couple of days are a more deeper analysis of it. But that's sort of my initial takeaway is if you like, if you want to come at this from the perspective of electability, if you like, look, if you like Tallarico or you like Jasmine Crockett, just go vote for that person, right? If that's who you like more. But if you are bringing electability lens to it, then that's sort of how I would frame the analysis of it. I also think you and I have talked about this in the context of
I don't know, every election since we've been doing this, which is this idea that a person who doesn't vote or who has voted in the past but decides not to vote in some election is so much different in their politics and political beliefs than someone who sometimes votes for Democrats and sometimes votes for Republicans. It doesn't really play out like that. Like there's this view, there's this traditional view that I think we had. prior to the Trump era, that the voter who stays on the couch, the voter who stays home is like a liberal or progressive and just hasn't been activated by a Democratic candidate who's exciting enough or progressive enough or liberal enough. And that's someone who has voted Democrat in the past or has or hasn't even voted in the past, but then votes for Donald Trump and votes for Republican is just as a conservative voter. And that's it. We've lost them. And the truth is, when you after an election, when you go interview these voters or even during an election, you go talk to them in focus groups, you realize that a lot of these voters who either switch parties or sometimes stay home altogether are.
just have very complicated views. You could call them maybe moderate, but on some issues they're quite liberal. On some issues they could be quite conservative and they just have this real mix of political beliefs. And so it really has it panned out that the non-voter is just like a liberal sitting home waiting to be activated by an excited candidate. And I do think what keeps people from voting and keeps people from, unless obviously voter suppression keeps people from voting, but if you are making up your mind about whether to vote or not and making up your mind about whether to vote for a Democrat or Republican, what's keeping people from doing so, from casting that ballot, is...
just cynicism in this system and a belief that politics isn't going to really make a difference in their lives and a belief that both parties are too similar and that once everyone gets to Washington, all they do is just yell at each other and nothing gets done and the whole thing is hopeless and everyone's corrupt. Like that is the, if there is a typical belief of someone who switches parties or switches between voting and non-voting, it's that political profile. And so I do think that's one thing for people to keep in mind as you think about who you like, not just in this primary, but in other primaries. I will just say for me personally, I have been impressed with James Tyler Rico like long before he was ever a Senate candidate. And I like that he is running.
a populist campaign. I like that he doesn't take corporate PAC money. I like that he says the real divide in the country isn't between left and right, but between top and bottom. I think that you and I have talked about this as well, that like a Democrat who can both sort of run against a corrupt system and corrupt special interests and the billionaire class and someone who could also reach out to voters who are disillusioned with the political system is probably like the best kind of Democrat and one that we think would have a good chance. And I think that that's Tallarico. I also like that he is not making this campaign about himself.
or about Jasmine Crockett, or about Ken Paxton, or John Cornyn, or even Donald Trump. He's trying to make it, in some ways, bigger than politics itself. He talks about how the most important thing is to love your neighbor. And yes, that very much comes from his faith. But this idea that you should reach out and love your neighbor no matter what they look like, where they come from, what they believe, how they pray, I think that's a pretty good political philosophy for someone who wants to be in government, regardless of where you come from and what race you're running in. And so I do think that Tallarico not only will appeal to more people with that philosophy, but it's just a really good philosophy in a public survey.
You and I talked about this a little bit in the many, many hours we spent together last week. And I've really wrestled with this because I do find the conversations about electability to be exhausting and complicated and freighted with all kinds of racial and gender tropes. And this was such an overhang in 2020, and there was attacks on candidates of color and women candidates in that race that really affected the entire debate. And also, James Tallarico, he... I'm not saying he's a message box subscriber, but he's a message box candidate. He is on, it is what I advocate for and how he's running his campaign. So I obviously like that a lot. I also honestly have really liked Jasmine Crockett because she's like the other end of the message box candidate is the candidate who's out there, knows how to get attention, is out there doing things. I really enjoyed interviewing her in DC. And if the net result of this is she's not in Congress, I think that's a loss of the Democratic caucus because we just have so few people who can communicate in a modern fashion. So that's why I sort of default to the strategy question, like what strategy is the one, which approach for winning that I think is more likely to succeed.
on its face. We don't know whether the candidate is the right, can actually execute on that in what is a very hard state to begin with. I don't know, but it's how like Tallarico strategy in terms of like voter outreach makes more sense to me as a strategy that can win Texas. But I'll say I've been wrong many times before. So this wouldn't be the first. Yeah, no, I feel bad for being so positive about James Tallarico because that probably means he's not going to win. But I will say like, I think it is, I think it is unfortunate. Maybe we should just, I'll endorse Crocker right now. So at least we'll pick one, we'll get one. Who's that third candidate who also wants to get on Colbert? Yeah, good question. I think it is unfortunate that, maybe inevitable, but unfortunate that
race and identity has become such a big issue, at least in the online conversation. And now I guess in the campaign itself, judging by the ads and the candidate statements, or at least listening to Crockett right there. And one of the reasons I think it's unfortunate is because when I think of what is appealing to me about Tallarico's message and strategy and the way he's approaching the campaign, it reminds me of Barack Obama. It reminds me of AOC. It reminds me of Stacey Abrams in Georgia when she came close to unseating camp. It reminds me of Ruben Gallego in Arizona. So I don't think that this is, to me at least, what is appealing about Tallarico has anything to do with identity. And so I just, I think that to have this sort of populist
style where you're also trying to reach out to bring in voters who haven't always been with the Democratic Party. I don't think that is endemic to any specific identity or area or geography, right? I think that anyone can do it. And I think that people of different races in different parts of the country have done it in the past to great success. I think two things about this is, one, it would be great if people could lower the temperature over the last two weeks. And obviously, I looked to see if I could find any reporting or comment from the Telluride Super PAC about the accusation about darkening skin. Obviously, if that's true, that is horrendous and that should be disavowed immediately.
But I think the two things that would help lower the temperature would be the idea that Jasmine Crockett cannot win, I think, is an unfair accusation. You can argue that Tallarico may be more likely to win, but we're offering a little more humility to. Yeah, we shouldn't be throwing out can't wins for anyone. Yeah. So that's one. And two, and this isn't coming. I haven't heard Crockett or her campaign say this because a lot of online supporters, this idea that because Tallarico wants to reach out to Republicans.
that he is some sort of Fetterman. You heard this about Plattner too, that he's going to be like Fetterman is going to the Senate and he's going to become a Republican and a Democrat name only and side with the Republicans. There is no evidence to suggest that. He has been a very down the line. If you don't get Republican votes, we're never winning the presidency again. We're never winning the Senate again. It's just fucking math, people. Come on. Yeah. And so if we could just stop with those two accusations and just try to like a good final two weeks here, because if Tallarico wins the primary, he's going to need Crockett's support to win the general. And if Crockett wins the primary, she's going to need Tallarico's support to win the general. And so we got to run a primary where we can put this back together again in two weeks. Totally agree.
Longplay, our docuseries exploring the people and forces shaping the South, is back. News slash, the South is the new political epicenter of the country. Democrats are way on their heels in this region, but Republicans are going through their own reckoning in the South, too. We're in the final stretch of the midterms, and the political map has only gotten more competitive, with new states and districts emerging as potential flips. So we thought it was time to get back out on the road and take a closer look at what's actually happening on the ground. I'm Erin Haines, journalist and expert on all things Southern politics. And I'm Jennifer Palmieri, former White House Communications Director. Tune in on Mondays to Longplay Series on YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts.
One last thing before we go. On Tuesday, it was widely reported that Tricia McLaughlin, the Department of Homeland Security's top spokesperson, is leaving the Trump administration. McLaughlin was one of the Trump administration's most consistent and ineffective liars, which is quite a feat in that administration. Her accomplishments include justifying the torture of the innocent people our government sent to a torture prison in El Salvador, slandering the two Americans our government killed as, quote, domestic terrorists, and initially blaming an infant's parents for ICE nearly killing their baby with tear gas. This was in Chicago. Her husband, a Republican strategist, was also the beneficiary of a $200 million no-bid contract from the agency she works at for an anti-immigration ad campaign.
Dan, is it too much to hope that her potential future employers may not want to hire someone who's not just a liar, but an ineffective one at that? Immigration has gone from Trump's best issue to now one of his worst issues. Most Americans don't believe a word, the Department of Homeland Security says, or the government. I think ICE has a 20-30% approval rating at this point. Or is she going to end up a Fox pundit or the next White House press secretary?
Well, two things. One, there's a lot of failing up in Republican politics, so it's very possible she will end up on Fox or what is basically big on Fox, which is White House press secretary. But I kind of want to clear out here because you have been yelling about, podcasting about, tweeting about Trisha McLaughlin for a year now. I can't remember, were you on the plane? Was it during your day off in Sydney from the beach? Were you tweeting about this or was it on the plane? I cannot remember, but I saw the news and I was shocked to get like a extensive Twitter thread from you celebrating her departure and documenting some of her lies from Australia.
I have to be honest, I wasn't even celebrating because, first of all, she might have started planning. It's not like she got fired. She may have started planning to leave in December, apparently, so she's just leaving. A likely story from a liar, John. Yeah, that is true. That is true. She did tell the Cincinnati Inquirer where she's from. I think she's moving back to Cincinnati with her family. And she did say that she can't rule out. I know, I know. Your wife's from town. I know. And she said that she can't rule out running for office in the future, which, if you're running against her, sign me up. But mostly, it just got me angrier. And look, it's...
It is her because she is the face of the administration. But it's like, you know, my anger and rage towards Kristi Noem, Corey Lewandowski, fucking Greg Bovino, Stephen Miller, as you know, J.D. Vance. Right. Obviously Trump. But like all of them over what they have done and what they are continuing to do on immigration is just it is so intense. Like, did you find I skipped reading this for a while because I knew it would get me both angry and sad. But did you end up reading the ProPublica story about all the kids in Dilley detention center? I did. And I just want you to know, John, I did not put it.
in our many group chats together for the specific purpose that I felt like you should find it organically and I shouldn't, whatever you were doing at the moment, I shouldn't ruin your day with it. Well, I had found it, but I was like, okay, to what end am I going to read this and just be like so angry and everyone's tweeting about it? Like, I don't need to tweet about it too. There's been enough tweets, but then I was, I like caught it like today. Um, is it just preparing for the pod because there was a story pulled out of it. It was in a Miami paper about, um, this nine-year-old girl, Maria Antonia Guerra. And so wild story, right? She lives in Columbia with her grandmother.
And her mother lives in New York, I believe. And her mother had overstayed her visa, but then married a U.S. citizen and is applying for a green card. So like in the application process, everything legal. And they had...
they had met, right, the daughter and the mother in Florida to go to Disney World. And so they went to Disney World once in the summer, I think, and they had so much fun at Disney World. They're like, let's go back in October for Halloween and we'll meet there. And so the nine-year-old flies from Columbia where she lives with the grandmother to Miami to meet the mother who's there with her. And when she meets up with the mother, instead of like leaving the airport and going to Disney World, going back to Disney World, they're detained by immigration. Don't tell them why they're detained. Don't tell them why that either of them isn't.
shouldn't legally be in the country. They are detained in the airport for 42 hours straight, and then they're sent to Dilley in Texas, where they were held for four fucking months. This girl was like, everyone's, oh, well, then deport him. Like, she lives in Colombia. She is a citizen of Colombia. And they still, we just held her in jail for four months. And the reporter who wrote the ProPublica story, which everyone should go read, she got all these letters. She asked for letters from a lot of the kids who were held in these detention centers. And she writes this letter. She said,
In one letter decorated with small hand-drawn hearts, rainbows, and sad faces alongside a sketch of Maria and her mother in government-issued sweatsuits, the girl wrote that she felt like, quote, being here was my fault. I only wanted to be on vacation like a normal family. I'm in jail and I'm sad and I fainted two times here inside. When I arrived every night, I cried and now I don't sleep well. I don't eat well. There's no good education and I miss my best friend, Julieta, and my grandmother and my school. I just really want my house. And it's like, you read that and then you read the...
statement from the Department of Homeland Security about Dilley and the conditions of Dilley. And it just is this fucking anodyne statement that says all detainees are being provided with proper medical care and all are provided with free meals a day, clean water, clothing, bedding, showers, soap and toiletries, and that they have certified dieticians evaluate the meals and everything is great. So it's like, you know what? That's your legacy, Trisha McLaughlin. Whatever other job you want, that's your legacy. Kristi Noem's, Stephen Miller's, J.D. Vance's, all the rest of them. They are keeping these children locked up in a detention center in horrible conditions who are getting sick and who are going to have fucking trauma for the rest of their lives. For what? For absolutely fucking nothing.
It just requires you to be such an empty, soulless human to encounter a child in distress and not do everything you possibly can to help that child be in a better situation. Yep. To err on the side of detention, not on the side of what is best for the child. Whether this is Liam from Minnesota, whether it's this girl, it's all the kids in that story. I don't even understand how, as a human being, you can approach this situation that way.
And they will say, and I know JD Vance said this about Liam. He's like, what are we supposed to do? So if people who are eligible for deportation have children, are you never supposed to deport the child with the parent? I thought we didn't want family separation. I am not saying, I don't think any of us are saying that there are not going to ever be situations where like a horrible thing happens. And because a family was here illegally and has to be deported, that the children of that family are also have to be deported and they have to spend some time. We're not saying that like, like exceptions like that, bad things happen and it is not the fault of children, but sometimes they pay the price. Like this, this happens in the world. We're not fucking naive to that, but.
There is a law in place, right? Or at least the court's interpretation of the law, the Flores Act, which says that children are not supposed to spend more than 20 days in detention. The Trump administration has decided that that no longer applies, that they don't care about the fucking Flores Declaration, that they can just have kids in there for months at a time under these horrific conditions. So no, this is not just, oh, we can't deport anyone who has children. This is like you are locking up children and ruining the lives of children for nothing because you couldn't get your fucking act together because you wanted to perform cruelty, whatever the reason is.
I mean, the Liam example is a perfect one, which is there was a different option, which was send him home to his mother. Yeah. But they would rather not admit, they rather keep a small child in a de facto prison camp than admit they are wrong or do something that suggests weakness. But it's not like being kind to children is not weakness. That's just being a basic fucking human. Proven by the fact that in this case, too, with Maria, after four months, suddenly one day they opened up Dilly and they let out 200 people, including her. She let her out. And like, how long are these children going to be traumatized? How many of them have had to go through just fucking hell for nothing? But it took them 200 days.
to hold them in a jail. That's more than a, like, almost a year of a child's life in, like, critical developmental phases. It's, fuck these people, man. Fuck these people. Anyway, that's why I'm not... Goodbye, Trish McLaughlin. I was like, not celebrating. I want it to be a fun, lighthearted thing when I said it, but then I read that story. I'm like, no, I'm just angry. I'm still angry. I would say in the outline, this was referred to as dessert. It's not, no. This is not dessert, no. Look, we could have done...
RFK and who did he do the exercises? Kid Rock. Yeah, we could have done shirtless RFK and Kid Rock. Didn't do that. Well, we couldn't. There are no words in it. It doesn't work on a podcast. That was the problem. We looked very seriously at it, but it's just music. There's poop in the water in DC. That's another one, but I don't know. Is poop in the water ever funny, John? No, I don't think so. You have some ultra new take baths. It's never funny. Oh God, don't jinx it. Anyway, Dan, hopefully next time we meet, you and I will be less jet lagged. We will be together on Tuesday. Oh my God. Oh, talk about it. Yes. All right, everyone. Yeah, Tuesday is going to be the State of the Union. But even before that.
Lovett's going to be back in the feed with a new show on Sunday. Lucky him. And lucky you. Lucky you. Bye, everyone. Have a good weekend.
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Thanks to our digital team, Elijah Cohn, Haley Jones, Ben Hefcoat, Mia Kelman, Carol Pellaviv, David Tolles, and Ryan Young. Our production staff is proudly unionized with the Writers Guild of America East. Longplay, our docuseries exploring the people and forces shaping the South, is back. Newsflash, the South is the new political epicenter of the country. Democrats are way on their heels in this region, but Republicans are going through their own reckoning in the South, too. We're in the final stretch of the midterms, and the political map has only gotten more competitive, with new states and districts emerging as potential flips. So we thought it was time to get back out on the road and take a closer look at what's actually happening on the ground. I'm Erin Haines, journalist and expert on all things Southern politics. And I'm Jennifer Palmieri, former White House Communications Director. Tune in on Mondays to Longplay Series on YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts.