The Reflecting Pool Controversy

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Over five million people value and trust SimpliSafe with their home security every day. Right now our listeners will get fifty percent off a new system when you sign up for professional monitoring and your first month is free. Just visit Simplaesfe. com slash crooked. That's half off at simplesafe. com slash crooked. There's no safe like simply safe . Looking for your next office, discover WiWorks new real estate platform built for a smarter way to work with forty five million square feet of office space in one hundred and twenty cities across thirty four countries. We've got you covered. For global coworking to custom office solutions, visit wheatwork. com Welcome to Pods of America. I'm John Fabric. I'm Dan Feifer. I'm John Love Tom Pork. We are coming to you from the Obama Presidential Center in Chicago. I think this is the first ever podcast recorded from the Obama Presidential Center. I just made that up. Yeah. Writing library. I mean, it opened today, so that's what I'm saying. It opened today so I think that we how are you? It's my good and it's really good. Thank you. This is the president beautiful presidential reading room in the branch of the Chicago Public Library. I don't see our book. Yeah. She should probably don't want children's section here. Did we see Dan's books anywhere? Danny's known's books? I've heard rumors that our books are in here but I can't help. Oh, I see life of pie. Anyway, we'll come back to this . Let's see what it takes. Oh, I see my book right there. Oh, we saw Dan's books. Two over from what it takes. Now if you're just listening on the audio, I know this is riveting . Yes. Us looking around at the books. Hey, let's hey, let's stop naval gazing about the book, start navig ating about the event. So we just came from the event and we just toured the museum for the first time. We're calling the museum? The center? The center. The center. Library. I think it's the Obama Presidential Center is the official name. And we just we just took a little tour. What'd you guys think? None of the event of the of what we just saw on all the floors Dan . It's, I mean, obviously very emotional for us to walk through it and see from the beginning of the campaign through the White House, the good moments, the bad moments, but it's, I mean, it's really it's very, very powerful. Yeah , love it. How did you feel about what you tried so hard to stop from happening? Yeah, I mean poorly tried yeah I think that the beginning of the museum about the ways in which I couldn't prevent this from happening, as you move up to the floors, I become more and more excited to be a part of it Every time we went by an exhibit and wanted to take a picture there, Love it would say like, no, no, this is stolen Valor. I can't see this before yeah, as you get into the administration, then I feel like I can I can celebrate. But when it's, you know, the sign seal delivered speech in New Hampshire, I feel like, well, I was coming on the other side of that . But it was weird when he just started yelling about caucus rules. That was strange. Yeah. The super delegates are they're legitimate. The super delegates. It's part of the process. Respect the process . But it's strange to see something set up. It's great to experience it for us, but it isn't really set up for us . It's set up to kind of take people through something they might not know about and it is set up for a longer timeline. It's set up for people to experience over a very long time and it is interesting to see things you experience written in just such a declarative past tense. Like this is what happened . This was the history of this. It is history. It's history. We're so old Our job's in a museum . Yeah, that is true. Tommy, what do you think? I mean, the museum's amazing. Everyone should come check it out. I mean, Michelle Obama talked about how they wanted it to be interactive. So there's lots of exhibits and speeches and stories of individual people, but you can shoot hoops and there's a we're literally in a library where you can take out a book or you can hang out and do a picnic. I think the thing that's been amazing for me and emotional is just all the people we've gotten to just run into . It's like when I go back to DC, you run into a lot of people and a lot of the time you don't want to run into them. Here I've run into a lot of people and every time it's like, I'm so excited to see this person. It's a blastast from the p. Like Hannah and I were dealing with a snafu on our bracelets to get in, and we ended up in a ten minute line behind Adiral McRaven. And I was like, Oh, Hannah, this is the guy who did the bin Laden operation that's a conversation they don't have every day. His bracelet was also incorrect. It was he was not allowed into the event. Our friend Joshua Dubois, who's like we've known forever , who used to play pranks in the office and one time changed it. So my outlook, every time I wrote the word the it auto corrected to bag of assholes. He gave the prayer and invitation. I just want to say that when Tommy realized this, he didn't think it was a prank and Tom was just typing emails and he's like we were in the Senate office at the time. It's two thousand six. And he's like, every time I write an email, all of a sudden just says bag of assholes. It's like, I don't I'm sure that's like my bag almost positive. I didn't write bag of assholes in the world. How are you not more sure? It's like when Medor thought that she was hacked because she'd spilled water on her space bar. Yeah, Like it was the first story I thought of and I'm like, and now he's the pastor at this event. Josh walked up to me last night and said, What's up you bag ass es? Anyway, any veter was here. He did a musical number with some thirteen and fourteen year old kids . They composed it, they put it together, they played it in front of four presidents of the United States. It's like the whole thing is just been it's very cool and inspiring and a home game for us. The other thing about the museum just that I think is really noteworthy is it is about like how people can learn from what Obama did, what people were on Obama did and do similar things going forward. Like the whole idea is to inspire people take their community, their country, their lives in their own hands and try to bring change. Like that's the entire thing from top to bottom at every place of this is about like the core principle. Yeah. He's a very young ex ident, as he mentioned today, not that young, but young enough. And started as a community organizer here in Chicago. And so I do think that they were very, you know, the intention of the whole museum or in the whole center from the beginning was that it wasn't just like somewhere we could walk around and see exhibits or just like a traditional presidential library, but it would be a place be a community center where like people can go be inspired to run for office or help their community . And so I really think they achieve that. I love the museum. I mean, I went I first came Tuesday with Emily and the kids, Charlie and Teddy, and they lasted a couple hours before Teddy had a had a meltdown when he tried to eat the fake apple on the fake oval office and didn't go well, didn't eat it, wanted a real apple, yeah, cried a lot. We left in there. But before that, I do think that the campaign there's a whole level dedicated to the campaign and it tells the whole story of the campaign from beginning to end. And the last panel after you watch the video is Grant Park . And the way they tell the Grant Park story is through newscasts from all over the world announcing that he won. And it just like interviews people in like Africa and people in Europe and people in like Selma and just talking about what it meant to them. And I was just watching that and I'm like, oh yeah, see, this is a great country. Like and we can like this is we complain about it a lot and there's a lot of bad things going on right now, but I'm like, this is this is a great country. The , you know, we'll talk about the speeches more, but I was just thinking about nostalgia walking through the museum and this poll that came out the other day that said of the, pre Whichvious presidents do you think was did the best job? And Obama is the leading president of people who have a positive view of him in hindsight . And you walk around this museum and it has this hopeful view of the country about, you know, the relationship between organizing community and democracy, civic responsibility, empathy and the old fashioned civic virtues . And I did find myself thinking walking around, okay , this was and is persuasive to people . And I'm leaving thinking, okay, but let's be honest, this museum is opening at a time in which Trump is part of the speeches. It is part of this event that people are aware of what's happening in the country. And like, what are the ways in which this was not made durable after, right? What are the ways in which either this vision of the country wasn't as persuasive as we hoped it would be or we did not uphold it and use it to make the best case possible to prevent Trump from winning not once but twice. And that was also on my mind because I'm not a nostalgic person by nature. And so I was sort of stuck on that and think I try wasing to like challenge myself to think, okay, this obviously is a vision that I respect and appreciate. What are the ways in which it wasn't able to fully bring more people along after Obama was gone? Funny, that was that was what was stuck in my head before coming here. I was thinking about it a lot and then having I spent day listening to President Obama and Michelle and going through the center . I think that the answer is at least their answer is that it's not ever going to be durable. Like that is the whole point of not just America, but like human nature that like we're always going to have these moments where people talk about better angels, people's worst angels take over and that's and progress doesn't happen in a straight line. And so I think their answer is everyone has to just get to work. Right. And everyone has to just keep going and keep and like and don't give into like cynicism and don't, you know, and don't give up. And the first part of the museum doesn't actually start with the Obama stories. It actually starts with key moments in history. They're like the one we're in right now where bad things are happening, you know, whether it or where there are real problems in the country that's being changed where the civil rights movement, the suffrage movement , all of that stuff, the labor movement . And I think the answer to that is like at every point it's not always going to be good. And every but time it's been bad and we have dealt with it, it is because regular people came together , they started organizing, they started working, they started voting, and they brought change. And that we can I think the true message of that is we can do that again and they didn't write that obviously this museum was not made for the Trump era. Yeah, because it's going to be around for one hundred two hundred years after that. But I think this is like always core in what I'm talking about. It's in the selma speech that adorns the building itself is that we're always going to have moments like these and we're going to have to come together to get out of them. And so maybe a few years from now, things will look much more like they did in two thousand eight and they'll look like twenty sixteen again, who knows? Yeah, yeah, I think it's the idea that yes, that is that you step back and say , this is, this is the path of progress. It's two steps forward. One step back, there are times where you where people give into their fears in their whatever their smallness . But part of the work of getting out of it is not just stepping back and saying we will come together and figure it out. It's like what happened, right? Like what were the ways in which this vision of America seemed to some people to be either false or hollow in some way or not able to be replicated by the candidates if they follow . Two things one , back to Teddy . It's really cool and a thing people probably didn't know that you could walk into the oval office and there was a bowl of apples on the coffee table between the two couches and people would just take them and eat them. And actually the actual bowl that was on Barack Obama's coffee table for eight years is now in this museum because our friend Fariel just had it at her house. Yeah, and now it's here. That's I think a fun little anecdote that people don't know. And two, on the speeches, I mean, I literally was just talking to Josh Shapiro, governor Pennsylvania, no big deal. Fuck you watch for you guys . And as I was talking about , Anna comes up. She's like, Can we go for some food? Like this, come on, come on. Anyway , well, he and I were talking about whether it's Jewish energy to bring . He and I were talking about whether you watched the speech and felt like the reaction to the speech part of the conversation. Like do we think what he was saying is still real? Like that there are that people really do want ency and to bring people together and a politics that just delivers for them because it's so easy to see the social media part of politics and the owning each other and the viciousness from Trump and the moments I feel myself falling into being a shittier person online and like dunking on people on Twitter. And honestly, my reaction to Barack Obama's speech was it made me want to be a better person . And it made me want to be more like him and more like civically engaged and to pay more attention to the messages we're hearing out of people like Shapiro and James Talerico that are asking us to kind of get back to that brand of politics. I one thousand percent believe that the winning twenty twenty eight candidate will be someone who offers a version of that message to turn the page on this era of division of terribleness for something better. Is that it's going to be exactly the same as Obama's message as the world has changed? People, you know, everyone's, you know, we have a lot of calluses and scar tissue over the last decade, but something that is more like that than the liberal inverse of Trump . It's funny. I think just the nature of the trip and we've been doing a whole bunch of things the last couple of days that I haven't really been on my phone as much and then where we were sitting , Dan and I were like really trying to get service and then trying to like figure out how to get on the WiFi and it just wasn't happening. And so I have seen no takes of any of the speeches, didn't know nothing what was happening. And it really like I sat there like good, I don't want to know what all the takes are out there of what this event is and like letting all the cynicism creep back in because I felt like you I'm like, it does make me want to be a better person. And Michelle, and we'll talk about her speech in a second, but she had this riff in the speech where she talked about how hope is a choice. And you know, it can just sound hooky when you just hear it like that. But I think what she meant is like, yes, you can decide things are going to be bad or that you know, it's not worth trying all that. Or you can decide like, yeah, things could still be bad, but I'm actually just going to stop complaining and try and like put my shoulder to the wheel and see if I can make a difference. Yeah, I do think that part of what is what is Trump's skill as a politician and he can really make people's worst qualities just truer about them. He just has the ability to make something bad. We have good parts and bad parts in us. I mean, the other day I was like , you can we go do a tour show in Detroit and say is anyone here from Michigan and someone raises their hand and says they're safe they're from Ohio. The whole crowd booze them like fucking crazy agent in every heart . And but there is but so like there's this what I liked about that part of the Michelle speech specifically is choosing Trump is takes your agency and it is we do not have to ignore people's culpability, the harm of that choice, the fact that they could have made a different one, right? Like remind we should take hold people responsible and treat them like adults. And I think one thing that Barack Obama does as a politician is he tries to treat people like adults and a politics that treats people like adults. The other thing he does that I think we as a party are sometimes missing is he is unabashedly patriotic and talks about his love for the country. And that doesn't mean he hides the imperfections of the country. He is the living embodiment of the worst stains in our history, but he is patriotic and he talks about the love of the country . And I think people want that and they want to be part of a movement that is patriotic. And I was reminded of this when we went to the I went to the USA Paraguay soccer game the other day and like just being with thousands of people chanting USA USA and like loving their country and cheering for the players and like the fact that a bunch of them are immigrants, right? And one was like literally like his mother, like the Ben Shapiro's out there calling him an anchor baby, right? And this guy scored two goals. Like it's just getting back to that brand of politics is so important. I talked to Jerusalem Demstis about this for offline this week and she was saying there's this I haven't seen it, but there's this whole discourse online around the World Cup where all of these people are coming to America and then they're like posting, America's really great and people are so nice on the waffle house because of everything that they hear about Trump, they thought coming here would be this like dark dystopian and they're like, this is a wonderful country. And I thought about that walking through the center too. And I was like, this is and this has been my feeling the last two days here like this is a fucking great country. Like it is a great country. And just because Trump is president and we don't like what's happening doesn't mean that we should say oh this country sucks now. It doesn't. Don't let the take this from you. Yeah Yeah, I think like holding just the like this is not who we are. Well, you know, Trump is who we are, but also what we are too. The part where in the speech where he started he talked about the two hundred fiftieth anniversary, and it just was a small moment for me of just like there's so much noise around Trump politicizing the two hundred fiftieth birthday and the UFC fight on the lawn and the Trump rally on the National Mall and the reflecting pool and all the rest. And that's a terrible price, just that this is what he's doing with this moment, but also the opportunity costs just like what it would have been like to have literally any other person in that job who just had some modicum of patriotism or respect for the country to understand how to make it a genuinely uniting moment and the fact that he doesn't even have a rather than it could be a Republican president. Like I wouldn't have been happy about that, but like could have been a Republican president that brought the country together on America's due fiftieth Easily. I have no doubt that George W. Bush's two hundred fifty America would, have things annoyed me in certain respect s. Sure. like you look like, but there would have been really nice moments and we'd been like, okay, I feel good. It was nice also in the mission. Yeah. Yeah. When Obama gave a shout out to it, he was like, John McCain loved this country like I did, like Mitt Romney did. Yeah, there was a nice bipartisan spirit to it that wasn't I thought corny and cliche . Positive America is brought to you by Bombas. Summer has arrived, longer days, outdoor adventures, and more reasons to move. As the weather warms up, upgrade your go to footwear with everyday essentials from bombas. Bombas are cushioned where you need it. Sweat wicking and they don't slide around so you're not constantly adjusting your socks. Step into warmer weather with the Bombus Friday slides made from ultra, lightweight, waterproof, EVA material. These sandals deliver incredible comfort without sacrificing support. 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Join the over fourteen million all time customers who have already saved and invested over twenty seven billion dollars with acorns, head to acorns. com slash crooked or download the acorns app to get started. Paid nonclient endorsement compensation provides incentive to positively promote acorns, tier two compensation provided, potential subject to various factors such as customers accounts', , age and investment settings, does not include Acorn's fees. Results do not predict or represent the performance of any acorn's portfolio. Investment results will vary, investing involves risk. Acorn's advisors LLC and SEC registered investment advisor, important view disclosures at acorns. com slash crooked . Speaking of that, I think we do have a clip from Obama's speech that we can play and then react to. How are you ? That's it. Tommy is it. Tommy has the clip. The exhibits in the center are not meant to evoke nostalgia for some gausy bygone era , some unattainable past that we can dream about and say, Oh, we miss you Barak They're meant they're meant to remind us of who we can be , to remind us of what's possible so we can forge ahead , clear eyed and confident and do the work that still needs to be done. I wanted to play that clip because I think he had done a few interviews before today where I think he got questions from reporters that were in the vein of like isn't this nostalgia or isn't this like a long lost era? And doesn't it feel like a different reality because of what we're dealing with right now. And he actually wanted to respond to that in the speech . And I think in a way, it's the mission of the whole center, which we were just talking about. And I think they're very sensitive to the idea that this is either a monument to them or about the accomplishments of the administration or about some gauze past. And what it is supposed to be is basically like a pep talk for America? Yeah. I wish today was, I think, a badly needed one, but look, I think a lot of people are frustrated that he's not more engaged with kind of like the politics of the day to day. And I think we've even at Times Express like wishing he was just talking about things, but he talked about the twin cities and the way they stood up to Ice and came together as a community. I thought that was clearly about this moment. Yeah. He talked about government as more than one that divvies up the spoils, that punishes enemies, that keeps those that are different from them in their place. George W. Bush. He's like, I do not believe how that's how the story of America ends. Like we'll talk about Michelle's speech in a minute, which is a little more directed at the Trump administration, but I thought Obama was very much commenting on the politics of Trump at today. I would just say criticizing the museum for being too nostalgic is just idiotic That's how this museum looks backwards. Which way does your museum goes? I think I'll started with I think it was the New York Times Baker, Peter Baker. Yes. And it was like , and I think I mean, I get why reporters would write that, right? Because we are living in this reality, and then you step in here and you're like, okay, is this just a pining for the past kind of thing. And you know, what they're what they're really trying to say and this goes to your point about how people complain like Obama's not more involved in politics. And what Obama always says is like, I don't want to be out there forever because I want the next generation of progressive leaders to be out there and to have their moment. And maybe this could be the election cycle that happens. Right. It's the point of the center and the point of the foundation. And Lucy with the football is the point of the center, the point of the foundation, especially is to is to train and inspire young leaders here and all over the world. And I think that is it finally makes sense to me now because like it is nice when Obama goes out there and he's great on the campaign trail and he gives great speeches and he motivates people and that's important to have in democratic politics. But we do need leaders who are not Obama and who take the spotlight in the next ten years, twenty years. Yeah, also, I don't agree I with all that, but also it's okay to be nostalgic. I'm not like nostalgic doesn't do it for me in the same way. I'm not like a hope person, I'm more of an angrage person. But I understand its value in the way that Trump appeals to. You're more of an experienced person. Yeah . Yeah, in small doses invest in small doses and especially when experience plus strength. Yeah , yeah. Right. And obviously, as I've said, change equals one divided by no way strength experience equals change, so change divided by strength plus experience equals one . But back to the museum . It's okay to be nostalgic, right? Like, yes, this was a moment where people were really hopeful and a lot of really good a lot of good was done. A lot of things weren't finished , but people believed in the mission. They cared about it. They fought to make it happen and they elected him twice and it led to really good things. That nostalgia is a good thing to feel. And there's a way in which to like especially if especially if it inspires you to act. Yes, right. Yeah. It's just it's good to feel , but it's also good to be like, Oh, well, then I'm gonna go do something. And there's a whole and there's a lot of people who are very, very hyper engaged in politics, it applies to a lot of people that are partisan. It applies to a lot of people that are non partisan journalists, that they see that as inherently naive, that there's something inherently naive about having that warm and good feeling about politics in any way that it's cringe, right? Like to us sometimes I've gotten I've been in those moments all the time. But like, but I had this moment when I was watching, I think there was a moment where Bono was singing Michelle My Bell. And boy, I have a potential I'm cringing. I got a photo atom. Just cringe, just a full body cringe. And I get and like, but why do we cringe? And I think it's sometimes because we're uncomfortable with a display of care or a direction that we might agree with, but take something too far in a way that feels syrupy or saccharine in some way. Anyway were wondering, is he hitting on her? Yeah, that was Obama did say my wife Don't leave my wife. But it was a lot of to your point, like the twenty twenty election, like it was a thing you'd hear online that people were like, oh, oh, we're just gonna vote our way out of this problem. It's like, well, yeah, yeah. Actually, we that's the whole thing. That's a democracy. I mean, it's not the only thing you're going to do, but at some point you do have to vote because otherwise if you don't do it, a lot of the stuff you're going to try is going to do much. Right. Right. Or otherwise, it's not a democracy and then we're the other system that we say that we're against . So you do have to have a vote at some point. So let's talk about Michelle's speech . Let's just listen to a clip because then we can comment on it. The native kids showing us that resilience and pride can never be stolen . The four H 's and FFA members with calluses on their hands from feeding livestock , the immigrants proving what it truly means to be a dreamer . These folks , these folks aren't Americans too . They are America . They are the beating heart of this country . They are us and we are them deep down our hearts and souls , we all know right from wrong . We know selflessness from greed , righteousness from injustice all, of us , all of us are created equal that each of us is a child of God with an errant value . And no one , and I mean no one has the right to sit in judgment of who's American enough . So I will say I get like a little misty when I saw the Grand Park panel at the center , but the first time this whole week that I actually just like cried was during her speech. Oh yeah, for sure. I saw the sign language language interpreter wiping tears. I didn't do it. I didn't do it. It was very sweet. It was fantastic speech. Like listen, I mean it's like it's almost cliche to say that Michelle Obama always knocks out the park, but it really was this . I thought Obama's speech was really good. She like, I can't remember the last time I didn't see her just kind of knock the cover off the ball . Yeah try,ing to think of a bad Michelle. There's no no. But she the part that also was really moving was she she says at the beginning, I'm going to do what , you know, what Brock won't want me to do and just like brag about him . And she talks about like how he carried himself in the eight years as president. And that's what really did it for me. Yeah. I lost it at that point. It is him crying . It is like what she said about him is like what we know, but just like he is such like a decent human. Like just truly to his core, decent. Like he's flawed like he's a human, but he's a decent human. I think all the time about like the one thing and this is like at the core of what Michelle was saying, but he's thinking all the time about how every like I'd be in meetings with Obama where it would just be like people who saw a lot. He'd be pretty grumpy, right? Like shit is bad going on. But then someone would come in the room who'd be like a younger staff briefing on something or someone coming in for a visit and he like instantly knew that that interaction with him, maybe that's the only time they'll ever be present in their life was going to be matter Life changing. Life changing for them. And he would matter how shitty the day was , he would pull it together and just like treat that person with the utmost respect and make that like a special moment. That is like that's me he's always like summed up who he is. And it was really just powerful to hear Michelle talk about it that way. I always thought there was an irony in the Obama campaign being about change and that that carrying him all the way to the nomination . But ultimately he was able to defeat John McCain because in the weeks of the financial crisis , what actually carried him all the way to the presidency , which was not a quality that I think was necessary for his rise until then, was a kind of preternatural evenness, reliability, consistency , trustworth iness, a calm that was sort of in his bones that infused everything that he did, and it gave people the assurance, unspoken, that they could take a chance on him when John McCain was supposed to be the more senior and seasoned person but had seemed erratic in the lead up to the election. And when people would say things like which Michelle referenced, oh, he wasn't qualified, it wasn't this . It's like why is he qualified? Well, look at what he is look at how he is modeling what it means to be a senator and a candidate in a way that's say Sarah Palin, right, who could claim a similar or whatever experience in the public in an elected office that didn't have the same effect . And now we're all these years later and it just stands in contrast to what Trump is. And the fact that there were so many Republicans who spent eight years denigrating as a person , pretending he was some threat or some alien or some evil and socialist extreme force when of course the whole time, he was this even keeled, center left consensus building reliable figure, which now in hindsight, the country like terribly misses. Yeah, I think when I just like think about why I was lucky to work for him, like, yeah, he was cool. Yes, he was a great communicator and speaker. But the thing upon like a long time of reflection that I've come to realize was the best part about working for him is that on literally anything, you could go to him and he had a core belief about whatever it was . And that was from a good place . That was from a sense of decency and like yes, politics are a part of everything, but it's about doing the right thing. And you just never doubted that or like their motivation of their family. And it's just like I could contrast that to like you walk in the oval office now and they're fucking day trading on the war with Iran. You know, it's just the insane war we've gotten. One of my favorite lines about Obama ever that Tanahasi Coat's line at the beginning of that long piece about him at the end of the administration, which was for eight years he walked on ice and never fell . And it was about race and how he handled race and being the first black president. But I also think it's about so much more than that is that like the job of president and the job of him being president and being the first black president, as Michelle also mentioned today , it requires so much care and thoughtfulness and like balance of so many different competing interests and competing desires within yourself and trying to channel your emot ions and trying to suppress some emotions. And I feel like Michelle's speech was that line of that Tony Hussey Coke line . And I think that's why it was so affecting because I was like, you know, I think we all get that having been in politics. Like we all do that. We've all done that throughout our time in politics as you realize that so much of the job is constant thinking about what is the right balance of this and that and how do I not piss this person off and how do I persuade this person and like so much care goes into it? And the fact that he was able to do that and get through eight years still intact is just like, you know, it's inspiring. I think the being the first black president , like what Michelle said that we like anyone who worked with him or worked from the very beginning knew the historic nature of his candidacy and the different set of rules are applied to him that any cand itidates and's the same way different set of rules applied to women candidates. And he refused to complain about it. He refused to complain about it. And he couldn't and Michelle like that was subtext of everything that we always talked about. But Michelle made it text , right? And said very clearly that he for eight years could not make a mistake. He could not slip up. He cannot lose his temper. He cannot lash out. He cannot set an angry tweet. He had to bear the expectations and the pressure of being the first black president because how he did it was going to dictate if and when he had a second black president. Yeah, right. For example, literally just pointing out that Trayvon Martin looked like what his son would look like a second . She said that today and I was like, yeah, she leaned in. Yeah. And I think that I think she got some stuff offered sheds today. I liked. Yeah, that's she always does. Yeah. Like it was great. It was my shoulder, yeah, we should talk about the sort of the backdrop of all of this invisible in the backdrop and sometimes not very visible asump Tr and how they all kind of how they both handled that today. Yeah. Well, yeah, the 'm funny. I felt the same way that the convention too that when Michelle's speech is there's like an edge and a kind of darkness to them that I'm like, oh , I'm always caught off guard by it. I'm like, oh, like, she's pissed a little bit. Like, she's going to say things that she's feeling about what's going on right now. And it always works because I do think like, yeah, she taps it's a very it's, you know, it's it matches what he does . Those are compliments what he does because she has this she understands how to use that that feeling people have . That's all we're living through the Trump era. We're always a little bit mad. We're always a little bit upset. It's always there. It is a cloud over our society. And she just without saying the name, she just said, You know what? That's a part of today. And it makes me upset too because not just because of what's happening right now because but because of what the other standard that was applied to Barack Obama when I saw what kind of a man he was . And the thing that I think will probably like get clicky is like, you know, he actually won a peace prize, right? That was a fun shot of Trump. The thing that I thought to your point, love it about the darkness was failing to see the humanity of others puts us on a slippery slope when she was talking about immigration. Yes. Yeah, right. She's like talking about this slide to fascism in her remarks. I can't remember who said this, but someone said about Michelle after her convention speech in twenty twenty four that she is your friend who just tells you like it is, does not beat around the bush, just tells you exactly what you need to hear in her speech is always reflective like there's no like there's a way to make those points that are so subtle that like maybe or you get it, but you've basically wasted a bunch of words of it. She just says it always and it's what makes it so powerful. I always roll my eyes when people are like, Michelle Obama should run for president because we obviously know she's never going to run for anything because she despises politics . But again, today like halfway through the speech, I know as I was crying and then Emily was also crying next to me and she was like, I mean, maybe she should run for something. Are we crazy or was this I had the same thought then I slapped myself. I'm like , We can wanna all we want. She's not gonna do it. But like, but she just really she can command a stage. By the way, we're in a working building. You might hear some background noise . Positive America is brought to you by stamps. com. We could all use a few more hours, even minutes in the day for ourselves. Skip your trip to the post office and save some precious time with stamps. com. With stamps. com, you can print postage and shipping labels from your computer or phone twenty four seven with up to ninety percent off UPS, USPS, FedEx, and more. There's no lines, there's no trips, there's no waiting, get everything done in minutes. You can even schedule free pickups so that letter carrier come right to you. How about that? Whether you're sending letters , contracts, important legal documents or packages, stamps. com makes mailing simple for businesses of all sizes, including multi location offices. You can even send certified mail with proof of delivery right from your desk. We love stamps dot com. We've been using stamps. com for a very long time . We founded Cricut. We found the company. We've been shipping stuff, we've been sending merch, sending important business things. Who doesn't love stamps? It's a way you send stuff. It's how you stamp approval . You got tramp stamps. Tommy's got Tamp Stramps briefly. Said Mike Pence for president. True story awkward . Anyway, if mailing is taking more time and more money than it should, try stamps dot com for free for four weeks and get a welcome kit. Go to stamps dot com slash psa to get this offer today . That's sta mpes dot com slash psa stamps dot com slash psa. Taxes and fees apply . One more thing before we move on to, you had a message box today in honor of today. I did about what Democrats can learn from Barack Obama, which I thought would be a nice nice way to end this section. Well, look, I think you know, Obama sets every election cycle. He goes out, he goes on the trail and everyone says, why can't more Democrats look like this? And Obama's obviously, as we all know, would everyone know it's a generally talented communicator. And so just telling people to be more like Obama's like not helpful advice. It's like be more like Michael Jordan like Dunk more. Yeah , but I think there are like a few things that any communicator can take from him. And I'll just give you a couple. One is like in Tommy you mentioned this is that there is this inherent patriotism in everything he says. Like he owns it. He will not let Republicans take patriotism. He is not he will, you know, and often does talk about all the flaws of this country, but makes the point about what a special place is you heard that today . The other one is that , you know, and I remember this early on the administration, we were going to do a YouTube town hall which was like very innovative at the time, which was just a town hall that streamed on the internet. But YouTube was hosting and we were taking We're doing a YouTube podcast. And they were taking questions over the over , I guess, in YouTube comments . I can remember, but the number one topic by far was legalization of marijuana. And so we went in to say like, this is, number one question, but you don't we don't have to take it. And he's like , you always have to talk about it's like, well, if it's the number one question, we're gonna talk about it. Yeah, talk about the thing. Because he like will always say you always have to talk about the thing, right? The elephant in the room, you cannot avoid it. Just take it head on, you know? And then the last thing I think is really powerful is we talk all the time about how Democrats need a better affordability message, economic message all this. And what Obama always understood is that the discussion of the economy is not really about policy. It's not about how many times you say affordability. It's not whether you say bottom up or middle out. It is a neither it's a story about values , about who you're fighting for and who you're fighting against. And like, that is the frame to bring to all of this. And this is like ultimately, I think the biggest thing to take from Obama over the whole time is that politics and messaging is st aorytelling exercise. It's not a slogan, it's not a soundbite, it's not a tweet. It is an overall narrative the country, about why you are the person who should be elected, why the other side should not be elected, and fitting things into those stories. Yeah, like what do you have to say about this moment that we're in right now and the country and where you want to take us? What do you have to say about it? Yeah. Like and everything has to flow from there. Message flows from there, policy flows from there. Like that's where you have to start. And like, you know, Michelle and Barack Obama has something to say today, right? Yeah. And people can have something completely different to say, but you still need to run for president having something to say about this moment that is beyond just Donald Trump and what policies you want to enact with the president . Okay, let's get to some news before we leave because I guess news has been happening. We have not had access to it, but we hear it We got the text of the Iran deal apparently, the MOU. And boy, is it a stinker? Tommy, was the Treaty of Versailles at MOUS? Yes, Millie. That's a good question. Yeah, so we have a Treaty of Versailles. He signed it in Versailles with Macron . Which is an insane choice. Wait a second. Didn't they auto pen? I'm sorry, I'm learning this in real time. You're telling me they signed this piece of paper in literal Versailles. Yeah, dude, he stayed an extra day just to go out to it or size and it's like it's real gold. And when I was a signing ceremony, it was just like he decided to just sign it in Versailles . That's crazy. Yeah. And it's like the wow. It's like the twentieth crazy thing about the about the text, which is the administration an administration official read all the text of the MOU. We couldn't just copy paste. It was like CNN Bloomberg got it and then CNN got it, I think, but then the administration, Steven Chron was like, They're just wrong. That's not the text. And like, I got it from the president of Iran's Twitter. And the real one ended up being like a couple words were different, but not by any not anything significant. So the memorandum of understanding, the MOU, the Treaty of the MOU of Versailles? Yeah Yeah.. We got episode title . You versa, right? Yeah. The memo calls for the suspension of the naval blockade of Iran's ports and for Iran to use its best efforts to allow traffic through the Strait of Hormuz without told. Try your best for sixty days. It calls for a permanent end to war in Israel and Lebanon . Iran is allowed to resume exporting oil . We'll get access to a three hundred billion dollars redevelopment and reconstruction fund . The MOU creates a six day window for negotiations over Iran's nuclear program. In the meantime, Iran reaffirms its longstanding commitment not to procure and develop nukes . So it's not playing super well . You get your Bill Cassidy's John Cornins, all the people who feel liberated now that Trump has defeated them They have been voicing some criticism. Other Republicans are just sort of hiding . So funny these, guys , he threw off a mountain and then while you're rolling down towards your demise over cliffs. It's bad. Never like dude Iranhawks are very mad. You've probably oh yeah. You probably consumed a lot more of Mark Levin content. Those Benchapier's tears on there that you're watching Ben Clips, I might've downloaded a commentary podcast from John Podhorse. Oh my gosh, Tommy's got the Daily Wire open an incognito window . It's in the mouth, yeah, but yeah that kind of thing. Here's Here's we think we have a clip of Trump talking about the MOU of Versailles in France. Then it's a memorandum of understanding. If it doesn't get done in sixty days, that's all right. We go back to bombing. Unlike Barack Hussein Obama who sent Iran pallets of cash and any relief they receive under this deal , they'll have to get based on merit, and it won't be from us. We don't have to give them anything . But some people may want to invest. I said, Well, what am I going to do? Am I going to let Saudi Arabia have missiles, but they can't have them? Yes, sir. Missiles aren't the problem. Missiles they hurt a little location, but they don't blow up the planet. And in all fairness to Bibi Netanyahu who happens to be a good man gets a little excited sometimes . We have a little dispute over Lebanon. I say, You can do a little softer touch, Peep. You don't have to knock down a building every time somebody walks into it that's from Hezbollah. That's true. That guy there. I'm sorry, that got the other one too. Every kind of the best case. The other line was like shoot a couple missiles down, they don't hurt you at the desert. You're knocking down a building in Beirut. It was like, imagine the imagination of the Democrat. A democratic shit that we brought down on these people. And I'm sorry, no just the idea of that , the number of times these fucking anti JCPOA people were like, this doesn't even address ballistic missiles, ballistic missiles, ballistic missile proxies. This is a million times at the beginning of this. is why This the deal is so shameful. You're going to give them money but they're not addressing the core problem of the ballistic missiles and the and Hezbollah and their proxies. And then Trump gives up completely. And three hundred billion dollars is what twice three times four times as much as it was ever contemplated but also by the Iran deal. They got an immediate license to sell oil and gas. So they're going to be making money off of that. Then they're clearly planning to , you know, they call it fees but it,'s they're going to be toll ships in the strait over Hermes. Iran's gonna make so much money off of this. I mean, look, big picture, the best outcome is the war being over. So like, I'm happy the original sin here is this war starting. And the best thing that come out of this is that the fucking Lindsey Graham Foundation for the Defense of Democracy's Neocon Hawk Worldview is smothered to death, right? And that Trump hates these people and that he runs them out of DC. But they cleaned his clock in this deal. And then just hearing him just on this on this ballistic missile thing, clearly like the reason you go to the core national security priority with Iran is preventing them from getting a nuclear weapon, right? Like non proliferation is a good thing generally. I think the way you do that is through negotiations, not bombing them. We did, you know, fuck up a lot of their infrastructure, but whatever they can rebuild that. But to hear Trump from going from these maximus positions to being like, eh, who cares about the nuclear dust ? We got eyes on it, maybe we'll get it out, maybe we won't. It's like head spinning. And then on the ballistic missiles, like remember when Rubio went up to Capitol Hill and he did that press conference where he blamed Israel and then ran away and didn't talk to the press for two months. The core argument they were making there is that Iran was on the cusp of having a ballistic missile arsenal that would make their nuclear weapons program like impregnable and we couldn't go after. Right. And now Trump is like, eh, who gesiv a fuck? They can have some ballistic missiles. It's no big deal. The Saudi Arabia Saudi. Ruby also is like this, our goal is to stop them from their ability to project power in the region. Ballistic missiles is how you project power. It is the definition of their power in the region. Haven't read the MO U this morning, the text, I was like, did we get anything from this? No, the strait That's the theoretical opening of the strait for sixty. The theoretical opening of the strait that Iran and Oman are going to jointly control and can charge fees whenever they want. And before the war, the strait used to be open and controlled by no one because it was international waters, right? And there were no tolls. So I don't think we got anything. In the theory of the case on nuc thelear negotiations is that your leverage is military action and sanctions. And he just gave up both of those in advance of the sixty days of talks over the nuclear program. And he says like, oh, we can just go back to bombing them, but you won't. Iran knows that as we get closer to the midterms, he's not going to go back to bombing them. They shouldn't go back to bombing them. They're not going to get bombed out of their nuclear know how. We just unleashed a bombing campaign for weeks. It costs us tens of billions of dollars and the end result is an unconditional surrender in Versailles. So I don't know what additional bombs are going to do for anybody. The other thing is I don't know if you're going to go to it, but you had Vance sort of brushing back the Iran Hawks and specifically referring to pro Israel Iran hawks saying Trump is the only leader on earth that is sympathetic to Israel's point of view and we're the leader of the world 's superpower , which for Van, I'm glad Vance said that, right? It's like look at what for all these people that claim to be so pro Israel, right? That have been that that have turned APAC into this partisan weapon that have alienated Democrats that have turned Israel into pariah state. Do you feel good about where Israel's at now alone in the world beholden on Donald Trump, a guy that does not give a fuck what happens who could turn on a dime? That do you think this was a long term great play? Now the Democratic Party is opposed to the Netanyahu government. Israel has never been more unpopular in its entire history. It's never been more isolated. You guys feel good about where you landed after all this. Well, calling everybody out there anti Semites and anti Israel. You think the people that might have been saying that Benj anahu was terrible for Israel might have had a fucking point rather than calling us all what self hating Jews . Like anyway, that's a little point I wanted to make about that. Well it just won't very quickly like I want Democrats to just stand up and support the JCPOA and say that it was better. Stop all the fucking throat clearing about its flaws and what was omitted, the JCPOA is better than what Trump may eventually get here. Because with the JCPOA, Iran shipped out ninety seven percent of its stockpile, was out of the country and went to Russia. In this case, we're talking about down blending it to making it less usable for nuclear weapons. In the JCPOA, that went through the UN Security Council . So this was sanctions and the backing of all their closest allies, like the P five plus one, et cetera. This will have none of that. And now this three hundred billion dollars slush fund, like what are we doing here? All these Gulf countries are now getting told they're on the hook to rebuild Iran when Iran was firing ballistic missiles at them. Can we talk about before we move on to this, you mentioned JD Vance? I want to sort of ask a hacky political question , which is I read in playbook this morning, I think that a lot of JD Vance 's like, you know, opponents or detractors are trying to hang this deal around his neck and say that's JD Vance's deal. And there's people from JD Vance's office that basically pushed back and said those people obviously can't read a poll because this war was very unpopular and the idea that this is going to be bad for JD Vance to be associated with this deal , this treaty is crazy because people don't want war anyway, and so it's not going to be a real political risk for him at all. What do you guys make of that? Because I think it brings up the question of how this war and how it ended sort of plays out politically or whether it even does, whether it has a lasting political impact as we head towards the midterms and beyond that. I think the on like a substantive political level, no one is going to remember the war by the time that voting happens in November not in this November. I think the question is about JD is present . So by the time we yeah, I think the war will matter this November in a couple of ways we can hear about. When it comes to the Republican primary or the general election in twenty twenty, JD Vance and that may I think anyone's going to remember it. I think the damage of the war to JD Vance is I think it has ensured that Donald Trump will be a very unpopular president when JD Vance is possibly trying to be the third term of that very unpopular president. I think that is bad for him . This episode is sponsored by BetterHelp. Not everyone experiences summer as an endless parade of hot dogs, vacations and pool parties. For some people, life's woes don't abate when the temperature climbs and the days get longer. If you've got summertime blues or simply feeling overwhelmed, BetterHelp is there when you need it. With over thirty thousand therapists, BetterHelp is the world's largest online therapy platform, having served over six million people globally. And it works with an average rating of four point nine out of five for a live session based on over one point seven million client reviews. 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For global coworking to custom office solutions, visit wheatwork dot com Speaking of advance, he's been on a book tour about his conversion to tough timing man. Tough timing. Yeah, it's really this ruined the tour. went to the view, went into the Lions Den nis on the view. Great job. I haven't watched any of the questions. They're really good. You're learning for the first time? Yeah, this clip will be my first my first experience with JD on the view. So let's take a look. Everybody knows that Americans are struggling. What is he spending all this money for? Well, I gotta defend the president on the hoax point. What the president said is the idea that Republicans cause the affordability problem is a hoax. He said he loves the inflation . What he said, Anna, what he said is that he loves the fact that the inflation is going to come down when this war is over. That's that's what he said. Interpreter or you his vice president. I believe as a Christian I can tell my kids why it's important to have borders. I get that. There are laws, there are resources. I get all that things. It's much harder to explain when I see someone dragged out of a house or wrongly taken to a thing isn't a violent criminal. It's a little more nuanced as a parent to try to say when someone 's referred to as vermin or scum, when I teach them in school about people that have done that before, but this is different. It's very hard as a parent and a Christian to say both things. I would urge you as a Christian and as a father to visit those detention centers where the children are being held. So you guys are thrown a lot at me and I see we got thirty seconds left here, but let me say number one go long. Sounds like that went well. What did you guys think? Anyone watched more of it? I watched a bunch of it. They did a great job. And what they did that I think we heard there was the questions weren't like from a shitty liberal perspective. It was like, as a Christian, as a human being, how can you as a parent like see what's happening at the Dilly Detention Center and be okay with that. And I think JD Vance credits him, I guess for going there, right? That's he's clearly trying to make an argument that he's the kind of candidate that can build bridges and reach new voters by going on the view, right? Like that's like a thing you tell people you did. He answered the questions, but I don't think he did a good job. And he also just cannot help but sound like a whiny little bitch. He is the victim of everything. Yeah, he also says Democrats are terrible at one point. I don't just it's just not possible to be it's not possible to fairly answer questions, defend Donald Trump and Bill Day and sort of be tilting at any kind of broader sort of a nonpartisan coalition. Like those things, there's no talent on earth that could both defend Donald Trump and pretend to be some kind of broader, more appealing figure. It's just not can't be done. And so I don't think he could do it. But I don't think I think there are people that are far more talented than JD Vance that would make it look a little bit easier. He's just so bad. He's terrible. Like in those answers, like he thinks he's being smart by basically just gaslighting about what it is Trump actually said. And he just doesn't, like, there's a way like defending now Trump is an impossible task. It just you cannot do that and remain any sort of dignity or seriousness as a human being. You just can't . But there's ways to do it with more charm. He sounds hard to humor. Yeah, he just has he has you know, he has no charisma I mean , you know, and I think I think he goes on the view and I think he was not I think in his mind , maybe he wants to show that he can go to those. I also think he wants to show that he can go own the lips. Remember he went on blue sky for like a hot minute to take people off. Well you just referenced Love it that he calls Democrats terrible people. So he did that to Meghan Kelly was later. It was gut feld. You're right. Because I saw that clip and I realized that yeah, his whole play was, I'll go on the view and then they'll beat me up and then I'll go to the right wing outlets and I'll be like, oh, I survived the view and they were such assholes and blah blah blah blah blah but he doesn't they didn't beat them up though. They were like very substantive the way he said that too it was such a he's like and the thing about Democrats don't like it 's not the polic ies necessarily. It's that they're terrible people . And they're not grateful to the country. He did the grateful thing. Well, I think it's even worse than in a he couldn't stop himself. He what he started by saying like, the thing that bothers me about Democrats is not with it it's's not their polic ies. It's not this. It's that they're not I think the grateful thing I think in this context what he was trying to awkwardly do was that like to try to suggest we run down America, but he knew he was on Fox. We couldn't just say that so he had to say, it also bothers me that some of them are terrible people. Like that's he lets take it aside. Wasn't even some. It was just terrible people. Terrible people. And I was like, that is a wild thing to like, does he think that he can just, I mean, I know he's gonna run in a primary here, but does he realize that kind of undermines the whole softening your image effort? He has no deafness. He has no deafness. I really was on a book tour. It is crazy that Marco Rubio has just gone into witness protection. He's the national security advisor and the secretary of state. Has he done a single interview about the surrounding? There's a picture of him over Trump when Trump's signing the treaty in Versailles. Yeah, and he looks like did you guys watch him behind Trump in the press conference shifting back and forth like dead eyed. He looked like he'd taken like six thousand provi and hadn't slept in a month. Like just looked miserable. Before we go, I do think we should talk about briefly the reflecting pool . I guess that's a in the news now because the reflecting pool. So let me get this straight, please correct me if I've got the is important to me because I've been on vacation for two weeks. In my lat trying to avoid learning something, this is the thing that I know very little about. I'm excited to burn.. I very love it fashion Explain it to . Here's what I think . Obviously, Trump decided to paint the reflecting pool. Yes. He did the American flag blue . Then they refused. How did you describe the paint? It was like thick rub rberubbery r rububberber rubber rubbing . And then he so they painted it, they filled it up again and then it quickly turned green because of algae . And so then there's a green reflecting pool after spending however much he spent to make it blue. And then they just quickly had parks people or interior people or whatever run over there and start dumping hydrogen peroxide haps or chloride or whatever hydrogen perhaps yeah into the just dumping it into the reflecting pool as if like this reflecting pool is quite large as Donald Trump showed us on his chart and just like doing a couple buckets was not really going to do anything. And then they had like algae scoopers in there . And they're getting the algae off the bottom. And then the Department of Interior this morning decided to post a series of tweets that was like, It's back and they have a picture of the water is blue again, which I think is just a fake picture. And they said and the algae is gone from the algae is now just at the bottom of the reflecting pool just like the Iranian Navy the Department of Interior such troll there like the Department of Interior, which in a previous era might have posted a pict ure of say Zion National Park. Boy, check out Zion National Park. We think everybody's gonna love it. They're like you fucking cuck bitches and this thing's booing out. It's crazy. let' Sos do here's They drained the pool. They painted a darker color, but a bluer color or whatever. Okay. They claimed because oh, you know, Obama and Biden they didn't have the stuff to fix the replacement. They couldn't get that couldn't get it done. But as we all complained about for years, the big thing we really cared about so they're going to do it. They're going to fix it . And then the algae comes back. Why? Well, maybe because Donald Trump isn't magic because it is an eight acre short fucking swamp painted black in the middle of one of the like in the middle of the of a swamp and there's algae and maybe the paint color American flag blue doesn't have magical properties that God sort of held cheap. I regret to say that I read a long Washington Post article about this because there 's all this like drainage and filtration infrastructure that they didn't actually choose to fix and that's the core problem . Well , painted it. So the other part of this too is a perfect metaphor for the entire fuckin' the other drain the swamp, if you will. Yeah . But of course the algae comes back. Now the interior department then puts out a statement saying actually this is residual algae. And it's like hey , it's not spontaneous we don't believe in spontaneous creation of life anymore. We're not Lamiaransc or whatever it was. Who were the fucking people? Oh, that's evolving quickly. Who's the ones that thought the maggots became the maggots spontaneously arise? Yes, yes. Thank you, Reed. How do you know this Reed? Because we didn't have sports. They invited us to flip cups. So we learned about these things. But so yeah, it's always residual algae. That's where the algae fucking comes from. Now they did hy nowdroxgen peroide can shock a pool. However, the percentage of pools a pool. The kind they were using, the twelve percent, that's for a hot tub. This is a seven million gallon tank . You would need to do the math five thousand thousand to seven thousand gallons of this stuff. And that's just to get it clean for a week. And then they're like, well, the new nano rubber tubes are going to work. And it's like, there is runoff because this is a park in the middle of a city that's like from the potomac and all the rest of the algae is going to keep coming back and it is a great metaphor for Donald Trump thinking for people thinking the only problem has been that our leaders were stupid or didn't care or didn't break enough rules. Donald Trump does something cheap and easy that he thinks is a magic magic solution . It's not, and then he pretends it is anyway. And Newsflash, Donald Trump Jr. now owns a hydrogen peroxide company. Did you guys see like the newsmax guy who is down at the reflecting pool doing interviews suggesting that the Democrats had like sabotaged. Yes. Oh, sabotages everywhere. Everyone thinks we've been pouring phosphates. We've been fertilizing the fuck. Yes. And then Jesse Waters sent his baby dork goon down there to be like, well , at least our president cared enough to fix it and try. Like what are we doing here? The Washington Post report by the way that the ballroom that there's they found an invoice to a contractor that for like six hundred fifty million dollars and that half of it was going to be taxpayer money. And so that they've been lying the whole time. And then notice reported, I believe, that they found out that OMB has been moving money from the Secret Service budget into because they couldn't get it passed through Congress to so it look we are paying for the ballroom after all. Well famously Secret Service has had a great run recently more resources had some loose change so that's happened. Anyway, we started money by a couple pairs of binoculars . Well, we started very inspiring. We ended up with algae in the pool. So it's a tale for our times. This has been fun guys,.